On the problem of the old Russian version of the Slavonic liturgical books (based on the east Slavonic scripts of the great and Holy Friday antiphons of 11th - 14th centuries)

Purpose . The paper deals with one of the early traditions in the Old Church Slavonic literature studied by the East Slavic manuscripts of 11-14th century and known in the scientific literature as “Gimovski”. Based on the analysis of the Slavonic translation of one of the Byzantine hymnographic texts from Pentecostarion and Lent and Pentecost Sticherarium - namely the Great and Holy Friday Antiphons - we tried to find out the origin and the typological characteristics of the certain tradition. Specifically for the translated text it is to be found whether the certain type appeared with the direct use of the Greek origin of the text and where this correction or translation took place. Results. The investigation was performed on the material of six East Slavic manuscripts of Pentecostarion and Lent and Pentecost Sticherarium of 11-14th century from different collections and libraries, studied comparatively with the Greek origin of the text and the South Slavonic scripts of the same period. Five of the manuscripts under investigation preserve similar text of the Antiphons which surely originated from one Slavonic text, while the sixth one - namely the Sinodal Pentecostarion, 11-12th cent., Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (Moscow), collection 381, № 138 - has the text with the certain different Theotokia. However the observed differences didn’t involve the rest of the text of the Antiphons of the certain script. All the manuscripts of the “Gimovski” type contain in the end of each Antiphon two troparia devoted to the Mother of God - Stavrotheotokion and Theotokion. This structure doesn’t respond to the known versions of the Greek origin of the text with only Theotokion in the end of each Antiphon. The comparative analysis of the texts of the certain hymn from the East Slavic manuscripts under investigation with the South Slavonic versions reveals that the same Stavrotheotokia were also used in the certain Serbian and Bulgarian manuscripts. Conclusion . The investigated version of the Old Church Slavonic translation of the hymnographic text of the Great and Holy Friday Antiphons was made from the Greek text with the different structure compared with the known one. This structure includes in the end of each Antiphon before the Theotokion another troparion devoted to the Mother of God - the Stavrotheotokion. This translation has South Slavonic origin which could be proved with the presence of the same Stavrotheotokia in the certain old Serbian and Bulgarian manuscripts. On the contrary with the results obtained on the material of other texts from the “Gimovski” version the Antiphons of the manuscripts under investigation have variations in the composition of Theotokia which probably were added to the initial text later. The analysis of the mechanism of the composition of the certain hymnographic text helps to understand the preferences of the Old Church Slavonic literature and to find out the reasons of the diversity of the hymnographic traditions at the early stages of its history.