[Review]. Pascal A.D. Catalogue of Slavic Manuscripts of Moldavian and Wallachian Origin in the Сollections of Manuscript Department of the RSL. Moscow: Pashkov dom, 2024. Iss. 1. Collection of P.A. Ovchinnikov. 359 p. ISBN 978-5-7510-0884-0

Abstract

In 2024 the first issue of the catalogue of Slavic manuscript books of Moldavian and Wallachian origin stored in Moscow in the Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library was published. The author of the catalogue is a well-known researcher of Slavic-Romanian and Slavic-Moldavian cultural relations, historian and archaeographer Alexander Dmitrievich Pascal. The catalogue presents descriptions of 22 liturgical, theological and other codices and their fragments of the 15th–17th centuries, identified by A.D. Pascal in the manuscript collection of Pyotr Alexeevich Ovchinnikov (1843–1912), an Old Believer merchant who actively collected Slavic literary works. The uniqueness of the catalog and the interest of this work for Slavic studies are determined by the fact that large collections of monuments of Slavic-Moldavian and Slavic-Romanian books in Russia, have not previously been described in detail on a systematic basis. This review examines the composition of the edition, the structure of the descriptions in the catalogue, and the features of some interesting manuscripts. A few aspects of the edition, which, in the reviewer's opinion, are controversial, are pointed out. In addition to detailed analytical descriptions of the codices, the catalogue deserves special attention of readers with illustrations showing samples of medieval scribes' handwriting and manuscript ornamentation. In general, the catalogue of manuscripts prepared by A.D. Pascal is a valuable and interesting scientific publication for scholars of Slavic studies of different specialties (i.e. historians, philologists, art historians), who in the course of their research turn to manuscripts of the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. The review concludes with a wish to continue the next editions of the catalogue of manuscripts both Slavic-Moldavian and Slavic-Romanian origin from the vast collections of the Russian State Library.

Received 1 June 2024

Revised 10 June 2024

Accepted 16 June 2024

For citation: Polonski, D.G., 2024. [Review]. Pascal A.D. Catalogue of Slavic manuscripts of Moldavian and Wallachian origin in the Сollections of manuscript of the RSL. Moscow: Pashkov dom, 2024. Iss. 1. Collection of P.A. Ovchinnikov. 359 p. ISBN 978-5-7510-0884-0. Slavic World in the Third Millennium, 19 (1–2), pp. 185–194. https://doi.org/10.31168/2412-6446.2024.19.1-2.13