Ostromir Gospels’ creation began

Ostromir Gospel is the most ancient dated old-Russian extant manuscript. The Gospels was rewritten at the order of eminent Posadnik Ostromir (christened Iosif) in the reign of Kiev prince Izyaslav Yaroslavitch. It was intended as a precious contribution to St. Sophia Cathedral of Novgorod. In the afterward deacon Gregory, the scribe, informs that he started working on the manuscript on October 21, 1056 and completed the work on May 12, 1057.

Ostromir Gospels occupies a particular place in the history of Slavic written language and culture. The modern science does not know any more ancient dated book of East Slavs. The manuscript demonstrates the standards of ancient orthography of the Church Slavonic language that does not appear in the books of later periods. The closeness to the tradition of Saints Cyril and Methodius makes this ancient monument of Slavic written language and culture especially valuable.

Ostromir Gospels numbers 294 pages. It is written on the parchment in so-called uncial hand, in even nice letters. The book is decorated with evangelist portraits in miniature and colored headpieces as well as numerous large initial capitals all of them different. Owing to their beauty and originality of design, arrangement scheme and color gamut, the ornaments and miniatures of Ostromir Gospels are the part of the gold reserve of ancient Russian book art.

In 1720 by decree of Peter I on collecting and copying of ‘historical manuscript books’ the Ostromir Gospels was sent to St.-Petersburg. In 1805 the book was discovered in the cloackroom of Catherine II, and one year later the emperor Alexander I gave it over to the Public library.

In 1843 the first scientific edition of ‘Ostromir Gospels’ appeared. It had been prepared by Vostokov A. H., philologist Slavisist. The text of the Gospels edited by Vostokov is typed exactly in accordance with the original in a special type close to the letters’ forms of the original. The edition of Vostokov is still important from a scientific point of view in spite the fact that it has long become a bibliographic rarity. The facsimile edition of Ostromir Gospels appeared in 1988. It was time for 1000th anniversary of Christianization of Kievan Rus’ and has been the principal security copy of the priceless monument up to the present day.

Lit.: Остромирово евангелие (1056-1057 гг.) [Электронный ресурс] // Российская национальная библиотека. 1998-2016. URL.: http://www.nlr.ru/exib/Gospel/ostr/index.html.

Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:

Остромирово Евангелие 1056-1057 гг. 1057.