The manuscript, which will be discussed in this article, is the oldest among the currently known East Slavic lists of the Ladder and in general one of the oldest extant. It is kept in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library (fund 256, N 198). This collection includes handwritten books from the library of the famous bibliophile, patron of art and lover of antiquities, state Chancellor, Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (1754-1826), also known as the founder of the Slavic circle, whose task was to study and publish the texts of the oldest Slavic manuscripts.

This manuscript contains the text of the Ladder of St. John of Sinai - "a precious book for the monks, and for the laity deeply creative and of much use" (Herman [Osetsky]. St. John of the Ladder and his Ladder of Gradual moral Improvement (St. Petersburg, 1854). There is no date in the text of the book that can be considered an accurate indication of the time of its creation.

In general, the manuscript has been preserved relatively well: the block of the book is not broken, it does not break up. Only on some initial pages of the book is the text erased and some words are almost unreadable. All the pages of the manuscript have been preserved. The lower outer corners of individual pages of the book are frayed and crumbling. The first sheet is cut by some sharp object and the ink on it is faded. Some pages of the book are damaged by a bug. Initials mark the beginning of each "Word" : they occupy a space that is approximately five lines high with line spacing. The handwriting is quite confident, smooth, large and clear. The manuscript is not a luxury one, Bo-

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gato decorated, as evidenced by the relatively low quality of the parchment, as well as the simplicity and modesty of its design.

This manuscript contains "The Life of the Venerable Father John", "The Reply Epistle of John of the Ladder to John of Raifa", the text of 30 "Words of the Ladder", "A Word to the Shepherd".

The first mention of this monument is contained in a private letter of Konstantin Fyodorovich Kalaydovich (Letter of K. F. Kalaydovich to N. P. Rumyantsev dated October 14, 1824 // Correspondence of the State Chancellor Count N. P. Rumyantsev with Moscow scientists. Prev., Approx. and Decree of E. V. Barsova, Moscow, 1882). The work of this famous scientist was of fundamental importance for the scientific development of Slavic Cyrillic paleography. Recall that it was K. F. Kalaydovich who found the "Izbornik Svyatoslav 1073", which in its lexical data is very close to the monuments of the "Preslav Book School", which arose in Bulgaria during the reign of Tsar Simeon. Kalaydovich published excerpts from this monument, and he also has the honor of discovering the oldest manuscript of "Shestodneva", he is also the author of the book "John, Exarch of Bulgaria "(Moscow, 1824). These circumstances, which indicate the scientist's interest in the Preslav cultural and literary tradition, and, in particular, in the activities of the exarch, allow us to suggest that K. F. Kalaydovich may well have consciously and purposefully searched for the manuscripts of the Ladder, the Old Bulgarian translation of which is associated with the activities of the exarch (A. I. Sobolevsky). Ancient Church Slavonic literature and its significance. Kharkiv, 1908). In addition, as it appears from the above-mentioned letter, N. P. Rumyantsev allocated K. F. Kalaydovich a very considerable amount of 300 rubles at that time especially for the purchase of the manuscript of the Ladder.

On October 10, 1824, K. F. Kalaydovich found the manuscript of interest in Moscow from an Old Believer who sells manuscripts, old printed books and other monuments of ancient culture, who asked for 350 rubles for the book. The scientist bought a Ladder and took it to Gomel, where N. P. Rumyantsev was staying at that time. In his letter, K. F. Kalaydovich apologizes to His Lordship for "making an overexposure of 50 rubles, fearing that the book would not fall into the wrong hands."

After receiving the manuscript, Count N. P. Rumyantsev immediately sent it to Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov , a little-known young scientist at that time, one of the members of the Slavist circle founded by the chancellor. Later, V. Kopitar called A. Kh. Vostokov "the luminary of the Russian scientific world" (Kolesov V. V. Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov / / Otechestvennye leksikografi XVIII-XX veka. Moscow, 2000). In his letter, N. P. Rumyantsev asked A. Kh. Vostokov to make a decisive conclusion about the book

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(N. P. Rumyantsev's letter to A. H. Vostokov dated October 28, 1824 // Correspondence of A. Kh. Vostokov in time order with explanatory remarks by I. I. Sreznevsky. Sb. ORYAS. SPb., 1873, Vol. V. Issue 2).

Of course, A. Kh. Vostokov appreciated the manuscript sent to him. In a reply letter to Count N. P. Rumyantsev, he congratulates His Lordship on the acquisition of a "precious" book, which will be "the first in antiquity" in the Chancellor's library and the third in antiquity in the Imperial Public Library; only "The Ostromirov Gospel and Gregory the Theologian" is "more ancient" than this book (Letter of A. Kh. Vostokov to N. P. Rumyantsev dated November 22, 1824 (Ibid.). Since that time, the manuscript has been the subject of close attention of the scientist. In a letter to K. F. Kalaydovich, A. Kh. Vostokov wrote:: "The 12th-century Climbing Ladder you purchased for the Chancellor has been keeping me busy for several weeks. I review it, comparing it with other lists of the Count's library, and I learn a great deal from this curious ancient manuscript" (Letter of A. H. Vostokov to K. F. Kalaydovich dated December 19, 1824. In the same place).

Note that in the Chancellor's library in 1842 there were already six lists of The Ladder . A. Kh. Vostokov in his book" Description of Russian and Slavic manuscripts of the Rumyantsev Museum " (St. Petersburg, 1842), as well as in letters addressed to N. P. Rumyantsev and K. F. Kalaydovich, left many interesting and valuable observations on the peculiarities of the language and spelling of the manuscript. Thus, A. Kh. Vostokov became the first researcher of the list, and it is he who owns the first paleographic review of the list and its dating to the XII century.

The two most important questions that paleography is designed to answer are questions about the time and place of the monument's creation. Various entries, marginal notes, late corrections, and additions to the text of the monument that occurred as a result of its existence in a certain territory at a certain time can help you answer these questions.

On the first page of the Ladder are inscribed some not quite clear writing, translated from the so-called "gibberish": "climax is the ladder of the divine sunrise having a degree." Note that it is with these words that the text of the Ladder itself begins in this manuscript. Let's turn to the "encrypted" entry on the first sheet. It is interesting that almost all the spellings in it after its "decoding" are etymologically correct. There are two exceptions: 1) the letters of reduced forms are used only at the end of word forms, and in some words o is written in place of b; 2) in the forms of ser ch and l the letter is used etymologically correctly, and in the form of having in its place it is written E. In addition, in the text of the "original" entry, the original form of the real participle of the present tense of the non-thematic verb have (mena ou-yu

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indicates a Bulgarian protograph or original). We also note that the handwriting of the "encrypted" record is a junior charter that passes into the senior half-charter. These facts give reason to believe that the entry on the first page of the monument is quite late, made no earlier than the XV century.

On the last page of the book there are many notes made in different handwriting. Among them are excerpts from prayers and hymns, individual parts of phrases, words, letters, as well as names arranged in this order: Peter, Christina, Ivan, Simeon, Lavr, Vassian, Siluyan. Next to the first name - Peter, there is a cross, which means memorial records.

A. Kh. Vostokov noticed that many seemingly incoherent entries may belong to one person, who "often repeats the same letters and words for the exercise of his hand" (Correspondence of A. Kh. Vostokov...). At the same time, words from the prince are found twice in excerpts. In the first case, there is even the name of this prince: Yaropolk (from prince from yarpok - with the missing letters l and t above o). " The name of Yaropolk could lead to the discovery when these samples of a pen (or cane) were drawn, if we knew all the princes who bore this name. In the 14th century, I couldn't find a single Yaropolk. Younger than all those mentioned under 1197 and 1214. Yaropolk Yaroslavich, great-grandson of Oleg Svyatoslavich Chernihiv. The others all lived in the XII century and earlier" (Ibid.). However, firstly, the ink in this entry is brighter and fresher than in others, and, secondly, the features of the lettering of the letters z and b indicate that this entry cannot be made earlier than the end of the XIII-beginning of the XIV centuries (the letter z has a large round head and steeply directed forward tail; the mast of the letter B has a strong slope to the right, the loop of the letter is large, swollen and deformed).

In the second entry we read: from the prince to tiwun yes. In all likelihood, yes-this is the beginning of some proper name (for example, Daniel or David). A. Kh. Vostokov believed that "the person who wrote this was, perhaps, a deacon of some Prince Yaropolk and, trying out his pen or writing stick, naturally chose such words for him as the letters of the prince began: from the prince, etc." (Ibid.).

The history of the monument's existence, in addition to the indicated entries on the first and last pages, should include traces of reader editing, expressed in inscriptions in line spacing above the letters of the ancient text, related to the same time.

A. Kh. Vostokov dated the manuscript to the XII century, without specifying the place of its writing, and limited himself to calling the manuscript "East Slavic" (Vostokov A. Kh. Description of Russian and Slavic manuscripts of the Rumyantsev Museum. St. Petersburg, 1842). A. I. Sobolevsky on-

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he called it one of the sources for the study of the Ancient Kiev dialect, thereby claiming that the manuscript was created by a Kiev scribe, and clarified the dating of A. Kh. Vostokov, considering that the list was created in the first half of the XII century (Sobolevsky A. I. Sources for acquaintance with the Ancient Kiev dialect // Journal of the Ministry of National Education. 1885. N 2; Sobolevsky A. I. How was izhitsa pronounced in ancient Russia after consonants? / Russkiy filologicheskiy vestnik [Russian Philological Bulletin]. Warsaw, 1882. VII).

A fairly detailed linguistic analysis of the text of the manuscript belongs to P. V. Vladimirov (Vladimirov P. V. Fiftieth anniversary of "Thoughts on the History of the Russian Language". Rumyantsevskaya Lestvitsa XII veka, N 198 / / Universitetskie izvestiya. Kiev, 1899. N 2). The researcher found that "from the sheet of 1786 Room was written by a different hand", and also revealed such significant language features of the list as a large number of "Russian forms" with w corresponding to zhd, several full-voiced forms, a rare " Old Slavonic use of b and b with smooth r, l, replaced by a Russian accent sustained in Ladder", hardness w, w, w, h, hardening [r'], cases of using yotirovannyh jus, the transition of e to o after hissing, y and s, a number of spellings with e instead of (and vice versa), with instead of and (and vice versa), "complete absence" of men c and h, zhg and zhd, etc. (Ibid.). Note, however, that this description of the graphic and spelling features of the manuscript contains a number of inaccuracies. So, for example, according to P. V. Vladimirov, in the manuscript " after the consonants w, h, w, s, b is always used, without exception." Meanwhile, the" exceptions " associated with writing b after h and w are found in the manuscript: ser ch'; ch'rnts, nouzhnykh, etc. He also claimed that the translation was "probably made <...> within the Serbo-Croatian language" (Ibid.). This assumption was made by the scientist, who found in the text typical," remarkable", Serbo-Croatian expressions and forms recorded in the dictionaries of Miklosic and Karadzic.

Important observations made by P. V. Vladimirov include the following:: 1) the original Slavic text of the Ladder was Glagolitic: its "remnants were preserved in some characters of the first translator from Glagolitic to Cyrillic", and 2) the manuscript had a "South Russian" origin: "the monument was written within the Volhynian, but without Galician features" (Ibid.).

The compilers of the Consolidated Catalog of Slavic-Russian handwritten books stored in the USSR dated the manuscript to the middle of the XII-beginning of the XIII century (Consolidated catalog of Slavic-Russian handwritten books stored in the USSR (XI-XIII centuries). Moscow, 1984).

The point of view of N. B. Tikhomirov, who in an oral conversation with M. G. Galchenko expressed that this manuscript (let's call it the first) could serve as a proto-graphic source, approaches the opinion of A. H. Vostokov. -

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fom for the second manuscript of the Ladder from the same collection of N. P. Rumyantsev, dated by A. H. Vostokov to the XIII century (Vostokov A. H. Description of Russian and Slavic manuscripts of the Rumyantsev Museum. St. Petersburg, 1842), because on one sheet of a manuscript of the XII century, he found the handwriting of the scribe of the following manuscript (Galchenko M. G. Knizhnaya kul'tura. Book writing. Inscriptions on icons of Ancient Russia: Selected works / Proceedings of the Central Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art named after Andrey Rublev, Moscow, 2001, vol. 1). In the same oral report, N. B. Tikhomirov pointed out to M. G. Galchenko the "traces of the Bulgarian protograph" in the text of the monument described by us.

L. P. Zhukovskaya studied the artistic design and language features of these manuscripts, but did not agree with their dating by A. Kh. Vostokov. From her point of view, the second one is older than the first one, since the time of creation of the second manuscript is no later than the second half of the XI - first half of the XII century, and the first one was created no earlier than the XIII century (Zhukovskaya L. P. The oldest Ladders of the Rumyantsev collection as a linguistic source of the Russian Middle Ages // Rumyantsev Readings. Moscow, 1994. Part II).

Thus, according to L. P. Zhukovskaya, A. Kh. Vostokov made a mistake in dating these two oldest Slavic Ladders from the library of the Chancellor N. P. Rumyantsev, and this mistake led to a violation of logic in the numbering of lists: it turned out that the older one stands after the younger one. Unfortunately, this point of view of L. P. Zhukovskaya is contained only in her last work, published after the death of the scientist , in the theses dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the library of Count N. P. Rumyantsev, which were to be disclosed in the form of a scientific report at the Rumyantsev readings in April 1994. In addition, this work of L. P. Zhukovskaya is little known, it is published in the internal edition of the Russian State Library, which has a circulation of only 200 copies. In any case, it is now almost impossible to change the numbering of these manuscripts, since both are widely distributed in the form of microfilms, photocopies, etc., and changing the names can lead to great confusion.

This brief review essentially exhausts the literature on the first manuscript. In general, it has been studied by major paleographers and linguists, but it has not been subjected to a detailed systematic survey.

There is a need for a continuous purposeful study of the entire set of graphic phenomena in the text of our monument against the background of similar manuscripts, such as the Galician Gospel (1266-1301), the Parenesis of Ephraim the Syrian (before 1288), the Dobrilov Gospel (1164), the Typographic Gospel (late XII century), the Buchat Gospel (XIII century)., The Life of Sava the Consecrated (XIII c.), the Archivist Ladder (not earlier than 1219 and not later than the third quarter of the XIII c.).

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The Galician Gospel, the Parenesis of Ephraim the Syrian, and the Life of Sava the Sanctified are kept in St. Petersburg at the Russian National Library, the Dobrilov Gospel is kept in Moscow at the Russian State Library (in the same collection of N. P. Rumyantsev), the Typographic Gospel and the Archiv Ladder are kept in Moscow at the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, and the Buchat Gospel is kept in Lviv, in the Museum of Ukrainian Art. Among the listed monuments, the most well-studied are the Galician Gospel (a number of works by O. V. Malkova are devoted to its analysis), the Archivist Ladder (M. G. Galchenko's PhD thesis is devoted to its graphic and spelling features) and the Life of Sava the Consecrated (it was published at the beginning of the last century, the publication of this text and the text itself became the subject of V. V. Vinogradov's analysis in his PhD thesis - for this research in 1919, the 24-year-old scientist received a gold medal from the Council of the Archaeological Institute).

A special place in this series is occupied by the Galician Gospel: it is according to it that many linguistic phenomena of the south-western dialects of the Old Russian language are dated, later reflected in the Ukrainian language (Malkova O. V. Paleographic description of the Galician-Volyn manuscript / / History of the Russian language. Research and Texts, Moscow, 1982).

The studied material suggests that the manuscript we describe was created in the second half of the XII century on the territory occupied by one of the southwestern dialects of the Old Russian language, which later became part of the Ukrainian language. This hypothesis is also based on such linguistic facts characteristic of the Galician-Volhynian dialects of the Old Russian literary language as mena ou-vv (laurskago, ou pechali, paul, vstranivsya, ouselenaya, vvgazhayet...), mena i-y (nirania, otrygnou, samy V. P. mn. ch. instead of sami, stepeny Tv. p. mn. ch. instead of degree...), "new " ( , o n m...).

As it turns out, the oldest Slavic manuscript of the Ladder continues to provide researchers of the history of the Russian language with great opportunities for linguistic analysis.

Severodvinsk

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