From the Greek Verse Synaxarion to the Old Russian Stishnoy Prologue: textual issues

This article aims to demonstrate that the Greek Verse Synaxarion, the foundation of the Slavic Stishnoy Prologue, underwent signifi cant textual modifi cations during its development and use in Russia. The study analyzes 40 copies of the Stishnoy Prologue from the spring half of the year. When transcribing the commemorative section of the Stishnoy Prologue, Old Russian scribes generally sought to preserve tradition, although innovations occasionally appeared in these texts. The most notable textual variations primarily affected the didactic portion of the Stishnoy Prologue, which was largely created by Old Russian scribes. Our fi ndings indicate that these scribes were well-versed in a large body of Byzantine literature and frequently incorporated it to enrich the Stishnoy Prologue with moral teachings, stories, and messages from the Church Fathers. Additionally, they contributed original Old Russian works to the text of the Prologue. The author suggests that the selection of edifying readings serves as the primary criterion for distinguishing different versions of the Stishnoy Prologue. The Prologue copies from the spring half of the year are represented by fi ve variants. Further research into the sources of the didactic content of the Stishnoy Prologue will enable a comparison between its didactic readings and their original texts, shedding light on dynamic processes affecting both the content and language of the texts under study.