Certificate No. 155 (fragment). Translation: “From Polchka (or Polochka)…(you) took (possibly as a wife) a girl from Domaslav, and from me Domaslav took 12 hryvnia. 12 hryvnia arrived. And if you don’t send it, then I will stand (meaning: with you to the court) before the prince and the bishop; then prepare for a big loss...” From the collection of the Historical Museum
USSR postage stamp (1978)
Birch bark certificates- letters and records on birch bark, monuments of writing of Ancient Rus' of the 11th-15th centuries. Birch bark documents are of primary interest as sources on the history of society and the daily life of medieval people, as well as on the history of East Slavic languages. Birch bark writing is also known to a number of other cultures of the world.
Discovery of birch bark letters
The existence of birch bark writing in Rus' was known even before the discovery of letters by archaeologists. At the monastery of St. Sergius of Radonezh “the books themselves are not written on charters, but on berestakh” (Joseph Volotsky). Museums and archives have preserved many late, mainly Old Believer documents, even entire books written on specially processed (layered) birch bark (XVII-XIX centuries). On the banks of the Volga near Saratov, peasants, while digging a silo, in 1930 found a birch bark Golden Horde document from the 14th century. All these manuscripts are written in ink.
The place where birch bark letters of medieval Rus' were first discovered was Veliky Novgorod, where natural conditions, namely the nature of the soil cover, favored their preservation. Here, at the end of the 19th century, fragments of birch bark letters were discovered, stored in the Museum of Novgorod Antiquities, which was opened by local historian and amateur archaeologist V. S. Peredolsky (1833-1907). Unfortunately, Vasily Peredolsky himself, not having the necessary source knowledge, was unable to read the texts on these fragments, and most of his collection was lost back in the 1920s.
The Novgorod archaeological expedition, working since the 1930s under the leadership of A. V. Artsikhovsky, repeatedly found cut sheets of birch bark, as well as writing - pointed metal or bone rods, known as an instrument for writing on wax (however, before the discovery of birch bark letters, the version what exactly they wrote was not prevalent, and they were often described as nails, hairpins, or "unknown objects"). The oldest styles of writing in Novgorod come from the layers of 953-989. Even then, Artsikhovsky had a hypothesis about the possibility of finding letters scratched on birch bark. However, the Great Patriotic War (during which Novgorod was occupied by the Germans) interrupted the work of archaeologists, and they resumed only in the late 1940s.
The same archaeological season brought 9 more birch bark documents, published only in 1953 (at first, the discovery of birch bark documents did not receive proper coverage in the press, which was due to ideological control in Soviet science). The earliest of the first charters dated back to the 12th century.
The discovery showed that, contrary to fears, fragile ink was almost never used when writing letters (only three such letters were found during excavations out of more than a thousand, including a large Moscow letter in 2007); the text was simply scratched on the bark and was easily read.
Already in 1952, the first birch bark letter was found at the Gnezdovo settlement near Smolensk - by an expedition of Moscow University led by D. A. Avdusin (husband of Gaida Avdusina, who worked in Veliky Novgorod). This was followed by discoveries in Pskov - by the expedition of G.P. Grozdilov in 1958, in Vitebsk - during construction work in 1959. In Staraya Russa, the first discovery of a birch bark letter was made in 1966 by an expedition of the Institute of Archeology led by A.F. Medvedev. In Mstislavl (Belarus), the first birch bark letter was discovered by archaeologist L. V. Alekseev in 1980, in Tver the first letter was discovered in 1983. The geography of finds expanded in 1988, when the first birch bark letter was found during the excavations of S. R. Chernov on Red Square in Moscow, and in Zvenigorod Galitsky (Ukraine), during excavations by I.K. Sveshnikov, two letters were discovered (another one next year).
In August 2007, the second and third certificates were found in Moscow. Moreover, ink letter No. 3 with an inventory of property, found in the Tainitsky Garden of the Moscow Kremlin, became in fact the first full-fledged Moscow birch bark document (the previously known letter No. 1 and letter No. 2, found in the same season, are small fragments) and the largest known birch bark document. In Mstislavl (Belarus) in 2014, a second letter was found containing two letters and a princely sign (trident). In Smolensk in 2009, the 16th letter was found (the last letters before that were found in the 1980s). It represents the bottom line of the letter, in which the phrase “the rook has left” is preserved.
On July 21, 2015, the expedition of I.P. Kukushkin found the first birch bark letter in Vologda. In October 2015, an expedition from the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, led by L. A. Belyaev, discovered Moscow birch bark document No. 4 during excavations in Zaryadye.
During the excavations, empty sheets of birch bark were also found - blanks for writing, showing the possibility of finding birch bark letters with text in the future. Sometimes in the media they are also called “birch bark letters”. Such a birch bark leaf from the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries was found in 2010 in Kyiv on Podol (Khoriv Street); The text on it has not yet been identified. In 2007, it was also reported about a “birch bark letter and writing” found in Nizhny Novgorod, no further details about this find subsequently appeared. In 2008, the discovery of a birch bark letter and a bone writing was reported in Busk in the Lviv region. In 2005, a birch bark letter or blank was found on Vezhi Island in the Kostroma Region. In 2013, a birch bark letter was found among the ruins of a residential building of the late 18th century in Staroturukhansk (Novaya Mangazeya), and in 2018 - on the territory of a settlement of the late 16th - early 17th centuries in Berezovo.
Quantity
Birch bark letters have currently been discovered during excavations of the following ancient Russian cities (the number is indicated as of August 24, 2018):
| Velikiy Novgorod | 1113 certificates and 1 birch bark letter-icon |
| Staraya Russa | 49 |
| Torzhok | 19 |
| Smolensk | 16 |
| Pskov | 8 |
| Tver | 5 |
| Moscow | 4 |
| Zvenigorod Galitsky (Ukraine) | 3 |
| Mstislavl (Belarus) | 2 |
| Vitebsk (Belarus) | 1 |
| Old Ryazan | 1 |
| Vologda | 1 |
general characteristics
Birch bark as a writing material became widespread in Rus' no later than the first quarter of the 11th century and fell out of widespread use in the middle of the 15th century due to the spread of paper, which became cheap around this time; ink birch bark manuscripts are also known in a later era (see above). Birch bark was viewed as an ephemeral, low-prestige material for writing, unsuitable for long storage; it was used mainly as material for private correspondence and personal notes, and more important letters and official documents were written, as a rule, on parchment (only their drafts were trusted with birch bark). In letter No. 831, which is a draft complaint official, there is a direct instruction to copy it onto parchment and only then send it to the addressee. Only a few letters, apparently, were kept for a long time: these are two birch bark sheets of enormous size with the inscription literary works(the entire preserved charter from Torzhok No. 17 and the Novgorod charter No. 893, which has come down to us in fragments), found in the ground in an unfolded form, as well as two birch bark books: with a record of prayers (Novgorod charter No. 419) and with the text of a conspiracy against fever (No. 930, sheet from such a book).
Due to these circumstances, birch bark documents discovered by archaeologists are, as a rule, thrown away documents that fell into the ground in a place and at a time when there was no practical need for them. Thus, the finds of archaeologists are not associated with any ancient archive (even in the case when a high concentration of letters is due to the location of some institution or office at a given place - as, for example, at one of the estates of the Trinity excavation site, the so-called estate E, where in the 12th century there was a “mestny” [joint] court of the prince and the mayor).
Old Russian scribes were aware of the functional equivalence between birch bark and Middle Eastern papyrus: for example, in the translation of the Explanatory Apostle, carried out by Maxim the Greek and his Russian collaborators in the 16th century, the expressions were used message from birch bark And birch bark epistoles according to ἐπιστολὰς βυβλίνας ‘messages on papyrus’.
Whole birch bark letters at the time of discovery usually appear as a rolled up birch bark scroll with text scratched out on it. inside bark (less often on both sides). A minority of intact documents are in the ground, unfolded. The text is placed on birch bark in a line, in the vast majority of letters (as well as medieval Slavic manuscripts in general) without division into words.
A significant proportion of the finds are fragments birch bark letters, often damaged after they hit the ground, but even more often destroyed (torn or cut) before they were thrown away. This practice is mentioned in the “Questioning” of Kirik Novgorod of the 12th century, where it is asked whether it is a sin to “walk on the cut letters with your feet.” The purpose of destroying the letters is clear: the addressees of the letters took care that the letter, which had become unnecessary, would not be read by a stranger. Modern researchers find themselves in the role of such an “outsider.” Although considerable experience has been accumulated in the interpretation of fragments of letters, and general character The document can be understood in most cases (only very tiny fragments cannot be interpreted); the presence of dangling letters and gaps often makes it difficult to interpret individual passages.
Dating
The main way of dating birch bark letters is stratigraphic dating (based on the archaeological layer from which the letter was extracted), in which dendrochronology plays an important role (in Novgorod, with a large number of frequently repaired wooden bridges, dating is more accurate than in other cities - usually within 30-40 years).
A certain number of birch bark letters can be dated due to the mention in them of historical persons or events known from the chronicles (for example, in a number of letters there are representatives of six generations of the famous Novgorod family of boyars Mishinich - mayors Bartholomew, Luka, Ontsifor Lukinich, Yuri Ontsiforovich and others). This method usually used in conjunction with and independently supports stratigraphic dating.
IN Lately, with the accumulation of a fund of birch bark letters, the possibility of complex parametric dating of letters became possible based on a number of extrastratigraphic features - primarily paleography, as well as linguistic features and etiquette formulas that have chronological significance. This method, developed by A. A. Zaliznyak, is successfully used for documents that do not have (at all or a fairly narrow) stratigraphic date.
Most birch bark letters are private letters of a business nature (debt collection, trade, household instructions). Closely related to this category are debt lists (which could serve not only as records for oneself, but also as orders to “take so much from such and such”) and collective petitions of peasants to the feudal lord (XIV-XV centuries).
In addition, there are drafts of official acts on birch bark: wills, receipts, bills of sale, court records, etc.
The following types of birch bark letters are relatively rare, but are of particular interest: church texts (prayers, lists of commemorations, orders for icons, teachings), literary and folklore works (spells, school jokes, riddles, instructions on household), notes of an educational nature (alphabet books, warehouses, school exercises, children's drawings and scribbles). The educational notes and drawings of the Novgorod boy Onfim, discovered in 1956, became extremely famous.
Birch bark letters, as a rule, are extremely short, pragmatic, and contain only the most important information; what the author and addressee already know is naturally not mentioned in them. The difficulties of interpretation that modern researchers constantly encounter due to the lack of context are the price to pay for reading “other people’s letters.”
The everyday and personal nature of many birch bark letters from Veliky Novgorod (for example, love letters from humble young people or household notes from wife to husband) indicate a high prevalence of literacy among the population.
Certificates as a historical source
As the most important historical source, birch bark letters were already appreciated by their discoverer A. V. Artsikhovsky. The main monographic works on this topic belong to L. V. Cherepnin and V. L. Yanin.
Specifics of sources
Birch bark documents are both material (archaeological) and written sources; their location is as important a parameter for history as their content. The charters “give names” to the silent finds of archaeologists: instead of the faceless “estate of a noble Novgorodian” or “traces of a wooden canopy,” we can talk about “the estate of the priest-artist Olisey Petrovich, nicknamed Grechin” and about “traces of a canopy over the premises of the local court of the prince and mayor.” . The same name in documents found on neighboring estates, mentions of princes and others statesmen, mentions of significant sums of money, geographical names - all this says a lot about the history of buildings, their owners, about their social status, about their connections with other cities and regions.
Political and social history
Thanks to birch bark letters, the genealogy of the boyar families of ancient Novgorod was studied (compare in particular the studies of V. L. Yanin), and political role some figures, not sufficiently covered in the chronicles (such is Peter-Petrok Mikhalkovich, known to us thanks to the works of A. A. Gippius, a prominent figure in the boyar oligarchy of the 12th century). The certificates tell about land ownership in the Novgorod land, about the economic ties of the Novgorodians with Pskov, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Uglich, Suzdal, Kuchkovo (future Moscow), Polotsk, Kiev, Pereyaslavl, Chernigov, even Siberia (Obdorsk land). Petitions from peasants, bills of sale and wills of the 14th-15th centuries indicate the consolidation of serfdom, the development of judicial bureaucracy and office work (this area in the pre-Mongol period was still practically not delimited from private correspondence). We learn about military conflicts and foreign policy Novgorod, about the collection of tribute from the conquered lands - we learn in a mass of everyday details that do not happen in official documents. A number of primary data are available on the history of the church - the antiquity of some features of the liturgy is attested, there is information about the relationship of clergy members with the residents of the estates they care for, and the mention of Boris and Gleb in the list of saints in a charter of the 3rd quarter of the 11th century almost coincides with the time of their canonization () .
History of everyday life
This source is unique for studying everyday life Ancient Rus'- a topic so popular in medieval studies of the 20th century. Birch bark letters testify to the wide spread of literacy in Ancient Rus', that the townspeople learned the alphabet from childhood and wrote their own letters, that women were also literate; At the same time, in a number of situations (especially in correspondence high-ranking officials) the figure of a scribe who took dictation and then served as a messenger was also appropriate. Family correspondence of Novgorod residents testifies to the high position of a woman who sent instructions to her husband (“orders”), entered into financial relations independently, etc. Novgorod birch bark letters show that a woman could enter into contracts, act as a guarantor, and act in courts on financial matters, to engage in any profitable business, such as a craft or usurious activity.
There is information in the birch bark documents about the diet of the ancient Novgorodians, their clothing, their crafts, as well as about the sphere of human relationships, family and friendly care, hospitality, and conflicts. Thus, letter No. 842 says: “So we sent 16 baskets of honey, and three pots of oil. And on Wednesday, two pigs and sausage” (the first mention of sausage in the entire Slavic world).
Of absolutely exceptional interest is a love letter from a girl of the 11th century (letter No. 752): “I sent to you three times. What kind of evil do you have against me that you didn’t come to me? And I treated you like a brother! But I see you don’t like it. If you cared, you would have escaped from under human eyes and come. Maybe I offended you due to my foolishness, but if you start mocking me, then God will judge you and I am unworthy.”
There are birch bark letters with records of spells and other folklore texts, which allow one to judge the antiquity of folklore monuments.
Birch bark language
Dialectisms
Most birch bark documents from the territory of the Novgorod feudal republic (from Novgorod, Staraya Russa and Torzhok) are written in Old Novgorod dialect, different from the Old Russian language known from traditional monuments in various levels: in phonetics, morphology, and partly also in vocabulary. In a broad sense, the dialect of ancient Pskov (which has a number of its own phonetic features) can also be classified as the Old Novgorod dialect. Individual dialectal Novgorod and Pskov phenomena were known to historians of the Russian language before, but only from occasional inclusions in manuscripts, against the background of the scribe’s general focus on a more prestigious language (Church Slavonic, supra-dialectal Old Russian). In birch bark documents, these phenomena are presented either completely consistently, or (less often) with insignificant influence of the book norm.
Other letters (from Smolensk, Zvenigorod Galitsky, Tver, Vitebsk, Moscow, Vologda) also contain information about the ancient dialect of these regions, however, due to the small amount of material, their linguistic value is still less than that of the Novgorod letters.
Spelling and history of the alphabet
In birch bark documents (from all cities) the so-called is used. consumer graphics system, where, in particular, pairs of letters y-o, b-f And e-e can be interchanged (for example, the word horse can be written as kany); The vast majority of letters from the mid-12th to late 14th centuries were written using this system. Before the discovery of birch bark letters, such spelling was known only from some parchment letters and inscriptions, as well as from individual errors in book texts.
Birch bark letters are an important source for studying the origin and development of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Thus, the alphabet (abecedary) is already represented on one of the oldest birch bark documents found - birch bark letter No. 591 (XI century), discovered in 1981, as well as on birch bark letter No. 460 (XII century), found in 1969, are also known birch bark alphabet dating back to the late ancient Russian period. Abecedaries made from birch bark letters reflect various stages in the formation of the Cyrillic alphabet, and they do not directly correspond to the repertoire of letters actually used in texts of the same era.
Literacy of scribes
Due to the specificity of spelling and dialectal features of birch bark letters in the 1970s, despite the fact that already during this period a significant fund of valuable observations on the vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and paleography of birch bark letters had been accumulated (N. A. Meshchersky, R. O. Yakobson, V.I. Borkovsky, L.P. Zhukovskaya), researchers of birch bark letters often interpreted incomprehensible passages as arbitrary mistakes of illiterate scribes (or even foreigners) against the “correct” Old Russian language: this made it possible to interpret controversial sections of the text in almost any way .
The letter has no signs of the Old Novgorod dialect; some not very bright characteristics may indicate that the writer could be a native of Southwestern Rus'Certificate from Zhiznomir to Mikoul. Koupil esi [ you bought; “esi” - connective] robow [ slave] Plaskov [ in Pskov], and now mѧ in that ѧla [ I grabbed it for this] princesses. And now the squad has instructed [ vouched for]. And now they sent to that husband [ person] literate, eli [ If] oh his robe. And now you want to buy a horse, and you can mount a prince on the vaults [ confrontations]. And you are [ If] Yes and no, the crown [ money] those, not єmli [ take it] nothing at all.
Birch bark documents are an important source on the history of the Russian language; from them more accurately than from other medieval manuscripts, often preserved only in lists, it is possible to establish the chronology and degree of prevalence of a particular linguistic phenomenon (for example, the fall of reduced, hardening of sibilants, the evolution of the category of animacy), as well as the etymology and time of appearance of this or that words. The certificates almost directly reflect the living colloquial speech Ancient Rus' and, as a rule, do not bear traces of literary “polishing” of style and book influence in morphology and syntax. There is no material comparable to them in this regard among the traditional book monuments of the Old Russian language.
Of great interest in terms of the history of the language is letter No. 247, the contents of which, together with some other letters, confirm the hypothesis of S. M. Gluskina about the absence of a second palatalization in the Old Novgorod dialect, in contrast to all other languages and dialects of the Slavic world. This assumption has implications for the history of the Old Russian language and the entire Slavic language family as a whole.
Vocabulary
Thus, the discovery of birch bark letters constantly fills gaps in existing dictionaries of the Old Russian language.
Foreign language material
There are several charters written in Church Slavonic, as well as five texts in non-Slavic languages: one each in Karelian (the famous birch bark charter No. 292 with a spell against lightning), Latin, Greek, German - Novgorod charters; in runic Old Norse - Smolensk letter. The latter are important as a source of information about the international relations of ancient Novgorod and Smolensk. In addition to the Old Russian text, charter No. 403 contains a small Russian-Karelian dictionary; it is intended for a tribute collector who already knew a little bit of Karelian. Several charters present foreign-language proper names (of people and places) and rare foreign-language borrowings, primarily Baltic-Finnish, as well as Germanic, Baltic and Turkic.
Publications
Birch bark documents from Novgorod have been published since 1953 in a special series with the general title “Novgorod documents on birch bark from excavations....” To date, 11 volumes have been published. Here are published Novgorod birch bark letters up to No. 915 inclusive, letters from Staraya Russa and Torzhok, as well as some other Novgorod inscriptions (on wooden tags, cylinders, wax tablets).
In the last few years, newly discovered letters (except for small fragments) have been pre-published in the journal “Issues of Linguistics”.
The text and interpretations of the letters were subsequently repeatedly clarified by various researchers: the readings and translations proposed in the first volumes of “Novgorod Letters on Birch Bark...” are often completely outdated. Therefore, it is also necessary to refer to the book by A. A. Zaliznyak “Ancient Novgorod dialect” (M., 1995; 2nd ed., M., 2004), where the text of Novgorod and non-Novgorod birch bark letters is given (except for small fragments and non-Slavic texts) in According to current state ancient Russian studies. The NGB publications (and partly also the book by A. A. Zaliznyak) also include some other texts: 1) inscriptions on wooden “cylinder locks” for tribute collectors’ bags; 2) inscriptions on wooden tags, usually debt tags; 3) analysis of ancient Russian graffiti inscriptions; 4) Novgorod lead letters. All this within ancient Russian culture reveals certain similarities with birch bark letters (or is used as additional linguistic material).
Similar writing in other cultures
Tree bark has most likely been used for many millennia different nations as writing material, on which some important signs for people were originally left in the Mesolithic and Neolithic [ ] . The use of tree bark as a convenient and cheap writing material was widespread in antiquity.
In Latin, the concepts “book” and “lub” are expressed in one word: liber .
The Roman-British analogue of birch bark letters is known - letters on thin wooden tablets (not bark or bast) of the 1st-2nd centuries, found during excavations of the Roman fort Vindolanda in the north of England, the so-called Vindolanda tablets.
During the Great Patriotic War, partisan newspapers and leaflets were sometimes printed on birch bark due to the lack of paper.
see also
Notes
- Poppe N. N. Golden Horde manuscript on birch bark // Soviet oriental studies, 1941, vol. 2. - pp. 81-134.
- Konstantin Shurygin Birch bark literacy
- Yanin V.L. Birch bark mail of centuries
- Kolchin S. A., Yanin V. L. Archeology of Novgorod 50 years // Novgorod collection. 50 years of excavations of Novgorod. - M., 1982. - P. 94.
- The monument was created on the initiative of the relatives of N. F. Akulova with the support of the Administration of Veliky Novgorod and the Novgorod archaeological expedition. The new monument depicts the same letter No. 1 and a short inscription: “With her hands, on July 26, 1951, the first birch bark letter was found.”
- Kudryashov K. Shadow of birch bark // Arguments and facts. - 2011. - No. 31 for August 3. - P. 37.
- In honor of this find, on July 26, an annual holiday is celebrated in Novgorod - “Birch Bark Charter Day”
- Khoroshkevich A. L. Discovery of Novgorod birch bark documents in the historiographical context of the early 50s of the XX century. // Birch bark documents: 50 years of discovery and study. - M.: Indrik, 2003. - P. 24-38. In particular, A. V. Artsikhovsky was previously the object of “anti-cosmopolitan” criticism and was not a party member, and the situation in linguistics was difficult after the 1950 debate. In total, only three news about the discovery of birch bark letters appeared in newspapers, and only one note was dedicated specifically to the letters, and did not list them among other finds. Novgorodskaya Pravda reported the discovery only two months later; the report at the Russian Language Institute remained not reflected in the press. The situation began to change only in 1953.
- Yanin V.L. I sent you birch bark... - 3rd ed. - M.: School “Languages of Russian Culture”, 1998. - P. 413-414.
- Yanin V.L. I sent you birch bark... - P. 414.
On July 26, 1951, a unique birch bark letter was discovered at the Nerevsky excavation site in Veliky Novgorod. This was a long-awaited find! The leader of the expedition, Artemy Vladimirovich Artsikhovsky, dreamed about it for almost 20 years (excavations began in 1932). We had never seen messages on birch bark, but we knew for sure that in Rus' they wrote on birch bark.
In particular, church leader Joseph Volotsky wrote about Sergius of Radonezh: “In the monastery of Blessed Sergius, even the books themselves are not written on charters, but on birch bark.”
On July 26, during excavations at a depth of 2.4 meters, expedition member Nina Akulova noticed a piece of birch bark measuring 13 by 38 centimeters. Observation helped the girl find a needle in a haystack - she took a closer look and made out the scratched letters on the scroll!
Expedition leader A.V. Artsikhovsky: “During excavations, for every several hundred empty birch bark scrolls, there was one written on. The empty scrolls did not differ in any way or almost anything in appearance from letters; they obviously served as floats or were simply thrown away when finishing the logs.”
The scroll was carefully washed in hot water with soda, straightened and pressed between the glasses. Subsequently, historians began to decipher the text. The entry consisted of 13 lines. Scientists analyzed every word and fragment of a phrase and found out that the speech in the manuscript (presumably from the 14th century) was about feudal duties - issues of land and gift (income and quitrent).
From birch bark letter No. 1, found by Artsikhovsky’s expedition: “20 bel dar(s) went from Shadrin (a) village”, “20 bel dar(u) went from Mokhov village.”
The very next day, archaeologists will be lucky to find two more letters - on the fur trade and the preparation of beer. In total, during the 1951 expedition season, scientists discovered nine letters. In addition, they found a writing tool - a curved and pointed bone rod.
It is the scratched letters that have outstanding historical value. Expedition leader A.V. Artsikhovsky: “Before these excavations, only Russian birch bark manuscripts of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries were known. But during this period they wrote on birch bark with ink. Meanwhile, birch bark ... is preserved in the ground in two cases: if it is very dry and if it is very damp. In Novgorod it is damp ", and the ink should not be preserved there well. That is why, by the way, discoveries during excavations of parchment letters, also common in ancient Rus', are unlikely. Although parchment (editor's note: the author's spelling) is well preserved in the ground, they wrote on it only with ink" .
Artsikhovsky's expedition discovered new page in studying national history. According to experts, the Novgorod cultural layers preserve about 20 thousand more ancient Russian birch bark documents.
Even at the beginning of the 20th century, historians considered the population of the ancient Russian principalities as almost entirely illiterate. It was easy to believe this, since at the beginning of the 20th century the bulk of the Russian population could neither read nor write. It was completely impossible to imagine that in the “Dark Ages” anyone other than the prince or the monastic class knew how to read and write. According to everyone, the centers of ancient Russian written culture were monasteries, where sacred texts were copied and chronicles were kept - such islands of light among the ocean of darkness and ignorance. "Nestor the Chronicler" bending over a book in monastic cell, became a symbol of medieval culture, firmly entrenched in the public consciousness.
The wax was leveled with a spatula and letters were written on it. The oldest Russian book, the 11th-century Psalter, found in July 2000, was just that. A book of three 20x16 cm tablets filled with wax carried the texts of the three Psalms of David. During the restoration, it turned out that the tablets were used repeatedly and, while applying letters, the writing scratched the wood of the base. The tempting idea of Academician Andrei Anatolyevich Zaliznyak to read texts that were previously written on the same wax and preserved traces of letters on the substrate, unfortunately, has not yet been crowned with success.The uniqueness of Novgorod is that almost no medieval city in Europe had commercial quantities of birch bark, high groundwater, or such a well-preserved cultural layer up to nine meters thick. Several years ago, when birch bark letters were exhibited in Sweden, one local newspaper wrote: “When our ancestors carved runes on stone, the Slavs were already writing letters to each other.”
So what did the Slavs write to each other about? A complete set of found birch bark documents with texts and photographs was posted in 2006 on the Internet on the website “Old Russian Birch Bark Letters”.
“Bow from Peter to Marya. I mowed the meadow, and the Ozerichs (residents of the village of Ozera) took the hay from me".
What did Peter ask for? One could assume that the husband asked his wife to call the villagers to arm themselves with pitchforks and run to help in order to return what was taken by force. Still, it’s the Middle Ages, and Faust recht, the law of the fist, seems to reign. However, the medieval peasant asks his wife to do the absolutely incredible:
“Make a copy of the deed of sale and come here so that it is clear where the border of my mowing lies.”.
This one phrase reveals an unexpected picture. A literate peasant has a literate wife who can read and write. They have a deed of sale for the land. Economic disputes are resolved not by fighting, but by analyzing documents. And a copy of the deed of sale (quite possibly a copy on birch bark) is recognized by the parties as the decisive argument. All this somewhat turns our ideas about the “Dark Ages” upside down...
Literacy in Novgorod was taught from childhood, and children's birch bark writings are well known, where the study of writing in warehouses was interspersed with children's drawings. Certificates bearing educational texts are found quite often - Russian alphabets and even natural numbers ( charter 342, 1320s). A Russian-Karelian dictionary was also found ( charter 403, 1360s).
The charters reflect the parallel coexistence of Orthodoxy and other religions and beliefs. Along with Orthodox texts Liturgical records in Latin were found ( charter 488, 1380s), as well as pagan conspiracies such as Karelian language (charter 292, 1240s), and in Russian: “So let your heart and your body and your soul burn with passion for me and for my body and for my face.” (charter 521, 1400s).
Love notes were also found. From them it became clear that the woman in Novgorod was not a downtrodden domestic creature from the times of Domostroy, but a completely free equal partner. The wife often sent “orders” to her husband and conducted financial affairs. In addition, women often chose their own husbands and even aggressively harassed the objects of their passion. By the way, some Western historians declare such published birch bark letters to be fakes, because in Russia in the Middle Ages this could not have happened in principle But letters continue to be found.
Love letter 1100−1120 ( certificate 752): “I sent to you three times. What kind of evil do you have against me that you didn’t come to me this week? And I treated you like a brother! Did I really offend you by sending you? But I see you don’t like it. If you cared, you would have escaped from under human eyes and rushed in. Do you want me to leave you? Even if I offended you through my stupidity, if you start to mock me, then let God and I judge you.”
The reaction of the lover who received this message was peculiar. The letter was cut into pieces with a knife, the pieces were tied into a knot and thrown into a pile of manure.
Later, letters were found at excavations in other cities. The largest letter, more than half a meter long, was found at the excavations of Torzhok, which was previously part of the Novgorod lands. It contained an excerpt from the “Tale of Wisdom” by Cyril of Turov, where the entire list of sins was written out. Such certificates were distributed before Tatar invasion Church authorities declared the appearance of the Tatars to be God’s retribution for our sins, and therefore all sins had to be remembered and diligently atone for. The sins were written on a large sheet of birch bark, which is believed to have been kept under pressure to prevent it from warping. However, apparently, the owner did not have time to atone for all the listed sins; above the intact letter there was a two-meter layer of coals from the fire. The Tatars have arrived
When did they stop writing birch bark letters? When the centuries-old folk tradition teach children to write, write notes and directions, keep business notes? When did the Novgorod people stop being literate? Here opinions differ.Some historians argue that after the annexation of Novgorod to Moscow, they did not stop writing letters at all. It’s just that progress came with the Moscow authorities, and all the townspeople, instead of free birch bark, which is always at hand, began to write on expensive purchased paper, which is no longer preserved in the ground.
There were statements that birch bark letters continued to be written even after the fall of the Novgorod Republic. However, under Catherine II, drainage work was carried out in the city, the upper layers of the cultural layer dried out, and the charters, later than the end of the 15th century, decayed into dust evenly throughout the entire territory of the cultural layer.
There were also opinions that after Ivan III took away their lands from the Novgorodians, the need for any correspondence completely disappeared. It became pointless for city residents to correspond with the managers of their non-existent properties.
Although perhaps those who believe that birch bark letters disappeared along with their authors are right. Here we must remember the eviction of 2,000 Novgorod residents by Ivan III from Novgorod. And the church persecution of Novgorod “heresies” was accompanied by the execution of heretics. And the defeat of Novgorod by the guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible with the destruction of the Novgorod archive. And the later Swedish occupation. And the food crisis and severe famine. Other times and customs came, and the Novgorod lands quickly became empty. Thus, when compiling “watch books” and a population census in 1614, it turned out that the Novgorod lands were practically extinct. The population of Bezhetskaya and Derevskaya Pyatina was 4% and 1.5% of the population in 1500.
Back in 1842, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen remarked: “No one knows how Novgorod lived from Ivan Vasilyevich to St. Petersburg”. Historian Sergei Fedorovich Platonov believed that the time from the oprichnina to the Northern War was a “suffering period” in the history of Novgorod. Which, however, does not fully explain why the inhabitants of the Novgorod lands suddenly stopped writing on birch bark.
However, according to academician Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin, less than 2% of the area of the cultural layer has been excavated in Novgorod. This means that the work on studying birch bark documents is at the very beginning. Perhaps new discoveries will be able to answer this question.
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Did they know about birch bark letters before the discoveries of archaeologists?
They knew. Some ancient Russian authors reported about books written “not on haratiyas (pieces of specially dressed sheep skins), but on birch bark.” In addition, the Old Believer tradition of the 17th-19th centuries was known to copy entire books on layered birch bark.
When was the first letter found?
The Novgorod archaeological expedition led by Artemy Artsikhovsky worked in Novgorod since the 1930s and found, among other things, writing - sharp metal or bone rods with which letters were scratched on birch bark. True, at first the writings were mistaken for nails.
During the fascist occupation, archaeological excavations in Novgorod had to be curtailed; they resumed only towards the end of the 1940s.
Who found the first letter?
Novgorodka Nina Okulova, who came to work part-time on an archaeological expedition during maternity leave. She received a prize of one hundred rubles for her find.
Is the discovery of letters a unique event or are they found often?
Relatively often. Already in the summer of 1951, in addition to letter No. 1, nine more letters were found. Then their number varied from zero to more than a hundred per year, depending on which archaeological layers were studied.
Is it true that birch bark letters are found only in Veliky Novgorod?
No. In addition to Veliky Novgorod, where 1064 letters have already been found, birch bark letters were found in Staraya Russa (45), Torzhok (19), Smolensk (16), Pskov (8), Tver (5), Moscow (3) and other cities.
There are more letters in Novgorod. Did Novgorodians know how to write more often than others?
Completely optional. It’s just that in Novgorod the preservation of letters is favored by the peculiarities of life and soil.
In order for fragile birch bark to survive for several centuries, it must be placed in conditions where it would not be destroyed by water and air. It is no coincidence that most of the documents found were private letters or draft documents - bills of sale, receipts, wills (sometimes previously destroyed - cut into pieces). Apparently, the records that had become unnecessary were simply thrown out into the street, where they fell under a fresh layer of soil and garbage.
An important role in the discovery of letters is played by the preservation of the archaeological layer of the XI-XIII centuries in Novgorod. Unfortunately, after numerous reconstructions over the centuries, not many cities have the same feature.
Who is leading the excavations?
Novgorod archaeological expedition of Moscow State University, as well as expeditions of scientific institutes. Students and schoolchildren are widely involved in the excavations.
Who are the most famous scientists involved in literacy?
Academician Artemy Vladimirovich Artsikhovsky(1902-1978) - the first head of the department of archeology restored at Moscow University (1939), subsequently (1952-1957) - dean of the history faculty, founder and head of the Novgorod archaeological expedition (1932-1962), the first publisher of birch bark documents. Introduced a general course in archeology into the university curriculum, developed general methodology analysis of the cultural layer.
Academician Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin(1929) – head of the Novgorod archaeological expedition (since 1963), head of the Department of Archeology at Moscow State University (since 1978), specialist in ancient Russian numismatics. For the first time he used birch bark letters as a historical source.
He developed a methodology for comprehensive source study, in which analysis is done simultaneously on the basis of written sources, archaeological finds, found coins and seals and art monuments.
He developed in detail the topography, history of veche relations and the monetary system of ancient Novgorod.
Academician Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak(1935) – linguist, since 1982 he has been studying the language of Novgorod letters. He established the features of the Old Novgorod dialect and, in general, the features of the Old Russian language. Known for his lectures on birch bark documents at Moscow State University.
What does the excavation look like?
The excavation is a small one - several hundred square meters the area in which the expedition must study the cultural layer in one summer or over several archaeological seasons.
The main work of the expedition is to gradually, layer by layer, lift the soil from the work site and study everything that is in different layers: foundations of houses, ancient pavements, various objects, etc. different years lost or thrown away by residents.
The peculiarity of the work of archaeologists is based on the fact that in ancient times large-scale excavation work - excavation or, on the contrary, filling of soil - was not carried out, so all traces of life and activity remained right there, under people’s feet.
For example, new house could build on the crowns from the burnt, dismantling the upper charred logs. Once every thirty to forty years in Novgorod, wooden pavements were rebuilt - right on top of the old boards. Now that the dating of these works is well studied, they can be easily dated by the layer of pavement over which the object or letter was found.
The thickness of the cultural layer in some places in Novgorod reaches seven meters. Therefore, a fully excavated excavation is a hole of appropriate depth; in it, archaeologists removed, sifted and studied all the upper layers and reached the mainland - a layer in which there are no longer any traces of human life and activity. The Novgorod continent corresponds to the twenties and thirties of the 10th century.
What did they write about in the letters?
Letters are current business and everyday correspondence. Unlike official papers - princely decrees, chronicles, spiritual literature - the authors of which assumed that their works would live for a long time, letters tell about the everyday and unofficial life of the ancient Russians.
Thanks to the letters, it was possible to study in detail the genealogy of the boyar families of ancient Novgorod (there are many wills among the documents), and to understand the geography of its trade relations (there are bills of sale and receipts). From the letters we learned that women in Ancient Rus' knew how to write and were quite independent (there are letters in which husbands are given orders for housework). Children in Ancient Rus' usually learned to write at the age of ten to thirteen, but sometimes earlier (there are copybooks and just scribbles).
Spiritual writings and prayers occupy a much smaller place in the letters - apparently, it was believed that they had a place in church books, but there were conspiracies.
The most interesting certificates
Certificates 199-210 and 331 are copybooks and drawings of the Novgorod boy Onfim, who lived in the 13th century.
From the letters it is known that Onfim was about seven years old, and he was just learning to write. Part of the letters are the copybooks of Onfim, who studied according to the traditional ancient Russian method - first he wrote out syllables, then small pieces of prayers from the Psalter, and individual formulas of business documents. In his free time during class, Onfim drew - for example, he depicted himself as a warrior.
Certificate 752. Love letter from a girl of the 11th century:
“I sent to you three times. What kind of evil do you have against me that you didn’t come to me this week? And I treated you like a brother! Did I really offend you by sending you? But I see you don’t like it. If you cared, you would have escaped from under human eyes and rushed... do you want me to leave you? Even if I offended you due to my lack of understanding, if you start to mock me, then let God and I judge you.”
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The first Novgorod charter was found on July 26, 1951. Today, almost 65 years later, the scientists’ collection includes more than 1,000 birch barks, the lion’s share of which were found in Veliky Novgorod, the smaller part in Staraya Russa, Torzhok, Pskov and other cities. This geography of finds is explained natural conditions: organic matter is well preserved in moist soil if it does not come into contact with air. Apparently, Novgorod soils are excellent for the “preservation” of medieval written monuments. The first charters known to us date back to the 11th century; one of the earliest, tentatively dated to 1060-1100, looks like this:
Her translation: “Lithuania went to war against the Karelians.” According to the historian and archaeologist V.L. Yanin, this report was written in 1069, during the military campaign of the Polotsk prince Vseslav Borisovich against Novgorod. A birch bark letter can be dated by determining the age of the cultural layer in which it was found. Dendrochronology helps with this: counting the growth rings on the logs from which wooden buildings and road decks were made, the remains of which are at the same level of the cultural layer as the letter. During the Novgorod excavations, dendrochronological tables were compiled, by consulting which it is possible to determine the age of some letters with an accuracy of 10-15 years. Another dating method is paleography: analysis of the linguistic and graphic features of birch bark “letters.” It is thanks to letters that linguists can reconstruct the language spoken by the ancient Novgorodians. The following text, written in the 13th century, presents one of the features of their dialect: “tsokane” - a mixture of C and Ch.
Translation: “From Mikita to Anna. Marry me - I want you [“hotsu” in the original], and you want me; and Ignat Moiseev is a witness to this.” True, as follows from the birch bark of the 12th century, not all residents of ancient Novgorod family life turned out happily:
“From Gostyata to Vasil. What my father gave me and what my relatives gave me in addition is his. And now, having married a new wife, he gives me nothing. By hitting hands [i.e. as a sign of a new engagement], he drove me away and took another as his wife. Come and do me a favor.” The author of the following letter is the boy Onfim, who lived seven and a half centuries ago. He depicted a horseman defeating the enemy, and signed the drawing with the autograph: “Onfime.”
The fifth letter in our selection is a conspiracy against fever (XIV – XV centuries)
Translation: “Saint Sisinius and Sikhail were sitting on the mountains of Sinai, looking at the sea. And there was a noise from heaven, great and terrible. And I saw an angel flying from heaven, Saint Sisinius and Sikhail, wearing handcuffs [parts of armor] of ice, and in his hands holding a flaming weapon. And then the sea became agitated, and seven bare-haired women came out, cursed in appearance; they were captured by the power of the invisible king. And Saint Sisinius and Sikhail said..." - alas, the text breaks off further; the lower half of the birch bark leaf is missing. All included in The selection of letters is united by the writing technique. The letters were scratched with a hard rod - a writer - on the inner, soft side of birch bark. We know of only a couple of birch bark written in ink. The last letters were written in the middle of the 15th century: it was then that birch bark was replaced by paper. When compiling the material, scans, drawings and translations of letters published on the website were used