Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

The tale of the Journey of Ioann Novgorodsky to Jerusalem is one of the most interesting literary monuments of Ancient Russia, which connects traditions of writing and oral lore, and shows events connected with Novgorod history. It reflects famous legends and fabulous motives. The plot about a devil who is sealed in a vessel by the sign of cross and performs human will take an important place in compositional structure and is well known in the world literature. There are many manuscripts from different times which present the tale both as a part of Life of Ioann Novgorodsky and out of this context as an individual work. The author introduces into scientific circulation a manuscript of the tale which is included in the Old Believers collection of the mid-XIX century from the Collection of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books of the Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences №17/76. This manuscript represents a stage of the monument writing tradition, which was apparently developed in two ways: as a part of Live of Ioann of Novgorod and as an individual work, which had been written before it was attached to Live of Sanctifier. A new manuscript scroll of the tale has a number of textual differences versus earlier published manuscripts. It contains some mistakes, gaps and wrong interpretations. The manuscript contains some insertions as well. One of them is a large addition at the end of the text, which is derived from Life of Ioann of Novgorod. According to comparative study of involved texts, presence of this fragment brings together the tale manuscript №17/76 with a manuscript of the XVI century published in Great Menaion Reader. However, they also have some different interpretations. Despite the fact that this manuscript has later origin, results of its analysis are important for studying the tale’s literary history, for deeper understanding a character of the text motion and evolution during its handwritten life.