In 1951, apparently as payment for the won war, ancient birch bark letters were found, replacing those already found and destroyed during the revolution. Non-Russian scientists did not dare destroy or hide the new documents in storage. Thus, Russian researchers gained a strong trump card.

Despite the summer heat of 2014 and the alarming reports coming from Ukraine, the editors of the President newspaper do not miss interesting points regarding ancient Russian history and the history of the Russian language.

July 26 marks 63 years since the discovery of ancient Russian birch bark letters - a great monument of Russian linguistic history. In connection with this date, we interviewed a famous linguist, researcher of the ancient period of the Russian language .

– Andrey Alexandrovich, do we know that you have published another monograph? Tell us about her.

- It is called " " On the site a small fragment of text is given, and the publishing house . It is dedicated, as the name suggests, to the study of the appearance of letters, numbers and symbols. I have been working on this book since 2005. Understanding the meaning of ancient symbols is not an easy task. And giving them the correct interpretation is an even more difficult task.

– Then how can a researcher understand that he is on the right path?

– You can understand only by the results of the work. Let me give you an example. In The Book of Ra, I realized that I had achieved the correct decoding of ancient meanings when the whole picture of ancient semantics was fully revealed. And this picture was included in the book.

-What kind of picture is this?

– It is very simple and therefore, with a high probability, correct. All letters are formed from an acrostic poem that describes the ancient astral myth about the origin of the world and man.

– So your book should also touch on the Bible?

- Naturally! It does affect. The “Book of Ra” shows that the Bible is just an alphabet or alphabet, the plot of which was developed very widely by talented authors.

– And this means that there should be analogues in Rus' and other countries?

- Certainly! And they are. I cited them in the book. In Rus' it is a fairy tale called ABC, among the Scandinavians it is a fairy tale called Futhark, among the Turks it is a fairy tale called Altai-Buchai, etc., and among the Semites it is a fairy tale called the Bible. There are similar tales among the ancient Egyptians and many other peoples.

– I wonder how we can research the Russian language of antiquity if we don’t have books?

“There are books, but you just need to go to church to get them.” Of course, these days priests will not give Russian books, but soon, perhaps, the country's leadership will understand that the culture of the Russian people cannot be cut off by Christianity, and then we will receive these books.

– Why are you so sure that they exist?

- Because they exist. This is evident from the works of medieval authors and modern researchers. And, in addition, this follows from the fact of the discovery of birch bark letters. After all, letters indicate that the entire Russian people were literate already at the very beginning of the 11th century. This was when, for example, the French knew neither forks, nor spoons, nor cooking, nor writing, nor reading - this is how the Queen of France, Anna Yaroslavna, described them in her letter.

– It turns out that ill-wishers missed the publication of birch bark documents?

- It turns out that way. For the first time, the traces were destroyed. I’m talking about the time of the revolution, when children on the streets played football with birch bark letters from ruined museums. Then everything was destroyed. And in 1951, when under Stalin there was a sharp and rare rise in everything Russian - apparently, in payment for the won war - then new ancient birch bark letters were found, which non-Russian scientists did not dare to destroy or hide in storage. Now it turns out that Russian researchers have received such a strong trump card.

– Now tell us about the article posted in the Presidential Library and in which you were mentioned?

– Yes, this is really important for my and generally for Russian studies of the Russian language, which is also based on my work, the Presidential Library. B.N. Yeltsin published a dictionary entry “The first birch bark manuscript was discovered in Veliky Novgorod” (link to article - ). Among the small list of literature used is my report “Birch bark letters as a document,” which I made back in 2009. This happened at the Sixth All-Russian Scientific Conference “Archival studies and source studies of Russian history: problems of interaction at the present stage.” The conference took place on June 16–17 at the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, in Moscow.

Maria Vetrova

Birch bark charters as a document

A.A. Tyunyaev, President of the Academy of Basic Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences

From the second half of the 20th century, new written sources began to become available to researchers - birch bark letters. The first birch bark letters were found in 1951 during archaeological excavations in Novgorod. About 1000 letters have already been discovered. Most of them were found in Novgorod, which allows us to consider this ancient Russian city as a kind of center for the spread of this type of writing. The total volume of the birch bark dictionary is more than 3,200 lexical units, which makes it possible to conduct comparative studies of the language of birch bark letters with any language remaining in written sources of a similar period.

1. Russian birch bark documents of the 11th century

Novgorod was first mentioned in the Novgorod I Chronicle in 859, and from the end of the 10th century. became the second most important center of Kievan Rus.

The geography of finds shows that on the territory of Rus' there are now already 11 cities in which birch bark letters were found: Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Torzhok, Pskov, Smolensk, Vitebsk, Mstislavl, Tver, Moscow, Old Ryazan, Zvenigorod Galitsky.

Here is a list of charters dating back to the 11th century. Novgorod – No. 89 (1075-1100), No. 90 (1050-1075), No. 123 (1050-1075), No. 181 (1050-1075), No. 245 (1075-1100), No. 246 (1025-1050), No. 247 (1025-1050), No. 427 (1075-1100), No. 428 (1075-1100), No. 526 (1050-1075), No. 527 (1050-1075), No. 590 (1075-1100), No. 591 (1025-1050), No. 593 (1050-1075), No. 613 (1050-1075), No. 733 (1075-1100), No. 753 (1050-1075), No. 789 (1075-1100), No. 903 (1075 -1100), No. 905 (1075-1100), No. 906 (1075-1100), No. 908 (1075-1100), No. 909 (1075-1100), No. 910 (1075-1100), No. 911 (1075-1100 ), No. 912 (1050-1075), No. 913 (1050-1075), No. 914 (1050-1075), No. 915 (1050-1075), No. 915-I (1025-1050). Staraya Russa – No. St. R. 13 (1075-1100).

From the above list we see that letters of the 11th century were found only in two cities - in Novgorod and in Staraya Russa. In total - 31 certificates. The earliest date is 1025. The latest is 1100.

From the text of the charters it is clear that 95 percent of the birch bark charters have economic content. Thus, letter No. 245 says: “My cloth is behind you: red, very good - 7 arshins, [such and such - so much, such and such - so much].” And letter No. 246 says: “From Zhirovit to Stoyan. It’s been nine years since you borrowed from me and haven’t sent me money. If you don’t send me four and a half hryvnia, then I’m going to confiscate the goods from the most noble Novgorodian for your guilt. Let's go well."

The names of people found in 11th-century charters are pagan (that is, Russian), not Christian. Although it is known that at baptism people were given Christian names. There are almost no letters with religious texts (see diagram 1), neither Christian nor pagan.

By the beginning of the 11th century, the population of Novgorod corresponded not only with recipients located inside the city, but also with those who were far beyond its borders - in villages and other cities. Villagers from the most remote villages also wrote business orders and simple letters on birch bark.

Graph 1. Number of birch bark documents found in Novgorod:
all in red, of which church texts are in blue. The horizontal axis is years.
Vertical – the number of letters found.
The trend line of Novgorod letters is indicated in black.

From graph 1 it is clear that writing texts on birch bark letters was common for the Rus, the inhabitants of Novgorod, at least since 1025. Church texts, on the contrary, are found rarely.

Outstanding linguist and researcher of Novgorod letters, academician, laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation A.A. Zaliznyak states that “ this ancient writing system was very widespread... This writing was spread throughout Rus'". Already at the very beginning of the 11th century the entire Russian people wrote and read freely – « reading the birch bark letters refuted the existing opinion that in Ancient Rus' only noble people and the clergy were literate. Among the authors and addressees of the letters there are many representatives of the lower strata of the population; in the texts found there is evidence of the practice of teaching writing - alphabets, copybooks, numerical tables, "tests of the pen"". Six-year-old children wrote: “ There is one certificate where, it seems, a certain year is indicated. It was written by a six year old boy". Almost all Russian women wrote: “ Now we know for sure that a significant part of women could both read and write. Letters from the 12th century in general, in a variety of respects, they reflect a society that is freer, with greater development, in particular, of female participation, than a society closer to our time. This fact follows from the birch bark documents quite clearly.". The fact that “ painting of Novgorod 14th century. and Florence 14th century. in terms of female literacy - in favor of Novgorod» .

Counts, " Cyrillic was used by Orthodox Slavs; in Rus' was introduced in the 10th – 11th centuries. in connection with Christianization". However, in the Tale of Bygone Years, a monument from the early 12th century, there is no information about the baptism of Novgorod. The Novgorod Varvarin Monastery was first mentioned in the chronicle in 1138. Consequently, Novgorodians and residents of surrounding villages wrote 100 years before the baptism of this city, and the Novgorodians did not inherit writing from Christians.

2. Writing in Rus' before the 11th century

The situation with the existence of writing in Rus' has not yet been studied, but many facts testify to the existence of a developed writing system among the Rus before the baptism of Rus'. These facts are not denied by modern researchers of this era. Using this writing, the Russian people wrote, read, counted, and told fortunes.

Thus, in the treatise “On Writings,” the Slav Khrabr, who lived at the end of the 9th – beginning of the 10th centuries, wrote: “ After all, before the Slavs did not have books (letters), but, being pagans, they counted and told fortunes with lines and rows" This is also evidenced by V.I. Buganov, linguist L.P. Zhukovskaya and academician B.A. Rybakov. Information about pre-Christian Russian writing was also included in the encyclopedia: “ Some kind of writing may have been used by the Slavs before» .

3. Development of writing in the 9th – 11th centuries

Modern science believes that the Cyrillic alphabet was created in 855 - 863. brothers Cyril and Methodius. “The Cyrillic alphabet is the Byzantine uncial (statutory) alphabet of the 9th century, supplemented by several letters in relation to the sounds of Slavic speech,” while “most of the additions are variants or modifications of the letters of the same Byzantine charter...”.

Meanwhile, also I.I. Sreznevsky argued that the Cyrillic alphabet in the form in which it is found in the most ancient manuscripts of the 11th century, and even more so, the Cyrillic charter, which usually dates back to the 9th century, cannot be considered a modification of the then Greek alphabet. Because the Greeks in the time of Cyril and Methodius no longer used charters (uncials), but cursive writing. From which it follows that “Cyril took the Greek alphabet of earlier times as a model, or that the Cyrillic alphabet was known on Slavic soil long before the adoption of Christianity.” Cyril’s appeal to a type of writing that had long fallen out of use in Greece cannot be explained, unless Cyril did not create the “Cyrillic alphabet”.

The Life of Cyril testifies in favor of the latter version. Arriving in Chersonesos, Cyril “found here the Gospel and the Psalter, written in Russian letters, and he found a man speaking that language, and talked with him, and understood the meaning of this speech, and, comparing it with his language, distinguished the letters vowels and consonants , and, making a prayer to God, soon began to read and expound (them), and many were surprised at him, praising God.”

From this quote we understand that:

1. The Gospel and Psalter before Cyril were written in Russian characters;
2. Kirill did not speak Russian;
3. A certain person taught Kirill to read and write in Russian.

As is known, from the end of the 6th century, the Slavs, supported by the Avar Khaganate and the Bulgarian Khaganate, began to gain a foothold on the Balkan Peninsula, “which in the 7th century. almost entirely populated by Slavic tribes, who formed their principalities here - the so-called Slavinia (in the Peloponnese, Macedonia), the union of the Seven Slavic tribes, the Slavic-Bulgarian state; “Part of the Slavs settled within the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor.”

Thus, by the 9th century, the same Slavic tribes lived in both Byzantium and Macedonia. Their language was part of one areal-linguistic community called “satom”, which includes Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, Albanian and Modern Greek. These languages ​​have developed a number of similar features in phonetics, morphology and syntax. The languages ​​included in the linguistic union have significant commonality in vocabulary and phraseology. Such languages ​​did not require mutual translation.

Nevertheless, for some reason Kirill needed a translation, either from Russian, which he had seen, or from Greek into a certain “Thessalonica dialect of the Macedonian language,” presented as a “Slavic language.”

We find the answer to this question in the following. In Greece, in addition to the traditionally and historically Greek (Slavic) dialects, there was another independent dialect - Alexandrian, which was formed “under the influence of Egyptian and Jewish elements.” It was on it that “the Bible was translated, and many church writers wrote.”

4. Situation analysis

Russian writing existed before Kirill. As members of the same linguistic community (satom), Russian and Greek were similar and did not require translation.

Christianity was created in the 2nd century. in Rome. The Gospels were written in Roman language (Latin). In 395, the Roman Empire collapsed as a result of the invasion of nomadic tribes (Bulgars, Avars, etc.). In the Byzantine Empire during the 6th – 8th centuries. Greek became the official language, and Christian books were translated into it.

Thus, due to the so-called “Great Migration”, the population of the Northern Black Sea region and the Balkans began to consist of two unrelated ethnic groups:

1. autochthonous European Christian peoples (Greeks, Romans, Rus, etc.);
2. alien Mongoloid Turkic-speaking peoples (Bulgars, Avars and other descendants of the Khazar, Turkic and other Khaganates who professed Judaism).

Due to the languages ​​belonging to different language families, communication difficulties arose between the aliens and the autochthons, which required the translation of texts. It was for these Turkic-speaking Slavs that Kirill created a Church Slavonic letter, different from Greek, Roman, and Russian, “... some of the letters of which were taken from the Hebrew square alphabet.” The borrowed letters are not found in birch bark letters of the 11th century, but are found in all Church Slavonic texts. It was these letters that, as a result of reforms in Russia, were completely excluded from the Russian alphabet.

In this regard, the position of the German church (Latin) in relation to Cyril is clear - his books were banned. They were not written in Greek, not in Latin or in Russian, but were translated by Cyril into the Turkic language of the nomadic Slavs. " Both Byzantium and the West had little interest in preaching Christianity among the barbarian tribes of the Slavs» .

Rus' was not a barbaric Slavic power, but was a full-fledged civilized member of the European community, had its own writing - birch bark letters are understandable without translation. And Church Slavonic texts require translation into Russian.

5. Conclusions

1. It is impossible to equate the Russian birch bark writing of the 11th century with the Church Slavonic texts of the same period, since these two writing systems belong to different ethnic groups of people: the birch bark writing was formed by the Russian people, and Church Slavonic - by the Slavic peoples of the Byzantine territories.
2. Researchers of Novgorod and other cities in which birch bark letters were found should more carefully study the issue related to the process of teaching Russian writing in these cities and adjacent villages.

Literacy

Thus, a literate Russian person of the 11th century. knew much of what was available in the writing and book culture of Eastern Europe and Byzantium. The cadres of the first Russian scribes, scribes, and translators were formed in schools that were opened at churches from the time of Vladimir I and Yaroslav the Wise, and later at monasteries. There is a lot of evidence of the widespread development of literacy in Rus' in the 11th-12th centuries. However, it was widespread mainly only in the urban environment, especially among wealthy townspeople, the princely-boyar elite, merchants, and wealthy artisans. In rural areas, in remote, remote places, the population was almost entirely illiterate.

From the 11th century In wealthy families, they began to teach literacy not only to boys, but also to girls. Vladimir Monomakh's sister Yanka, the founder of a convent in Kyiv, created a school there to educate girls.

Thanks to the alphabet, the level of literacy in Ancient Rus' in the 11th-12th centuries. was very tall. And not only among the upper strata of society, but also among ordinary townspeople. This is evidenced, for example, by numerous birch bark letters found by archaeologists in Novgorod. These are personal letters and business records: promissory notes, contracts, orders from the master to his servants (which means the servants knew how to read!) and, finally, student exercises in writing.

There remains one more interesting evidence of the development of literacy in Rus' - the so-called graffiti inscriptions. They were scratched on the walls of churches by those who loved to pour out their souls. Among these inscriptions are reflections on life, complaints, prayers. The famous Vladimir Monomakh, while still a young man, during a church service, lost in a crowd of the same young princes, scrawled “Oh, it’s hard for me” on the wall of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and signed his Christian name “Vasily.”

Birch bark letters

Of exceptional importance was the discovery in 1951 by Professor A.V. Artsikhovsky in Novgorod birch bark documents of the 11th-15th centuries. A whole new world opened up to researchers when studying these letters. Trade transactions, private letters, hasty notes sent by courier, reports on the completion of household work, reports on the campaign, invitations to funerals, riddles, poems and much, much more reveal to us these wonderful documents, again confirming the widespread development of literacy among Russian townspeople.

A clear indication of the widespread spread of literacy in cities and suburbs are the so-called birch bark letters. In 1951, during archaeological excavations in Novgorod, expedition member Nina Akulova extracted birch bark from the ground with well-preserved letters on it. “I’ve been waiting for this find for twenty years!” - exclaimed the head of the expedition, Professor A.V. Artsikhovsky, who had long assumed that the level of literacy in Rus' at that time should have been reflected in mass writing, which could have been, in the absence of paper in Rus', writing either on wooden tablets, as indicated by foreign evidence, or on birch bark. Since then, hundreds of birch bark letters have been introduced into scientific circulation, indicating that in Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, and other cities of Rus', people loved and knew how to write to each other. The letters include business documents, exchange of information, invitations to visit, and even love correspondence. A certain Mikita wrote to his beloved Ulyana on birch bark “From Mikita to Ulianitsa. Come for me...”

Birch bark is a very convenient material for writing, although it required some preparation. Birch bast was boiled in water to make the bark more elastic, then its rough layers were removed. The birch bark sheet was cut from all sides, giving it a rectangular shape. They wrote on the inside of the bark, squeezing out letters with a special stick - a “writing” - made of bone, metal or wood. One end of the writing was pointed, and the other was made in the form of a spatula with a hole and hung from the belt. The technique of writing on birch bark allowed texts to be preserved in the ground for centuries.

The production of ancient handwritten books was expensive and labor-intensive. The material for them was parchment - specially made leather. The best parchment was made from soft, thin skin of lambs and calves. She was cleared of wool and washed thoroughly. Then they pulled them onto drums, sprinkled them with chalk and cleaned them with pumice. After air drying, the rough edges were cut off from the leather and sanded again with pumice. The tanned leather was cut into rectangular pieces and sewn into notebooks of eight sheets. It is noteworthy that this ancient order of stitching has been preserved to this day.

The stitched notebooks were collected into a book. Depending on the format and number of sheets, one book required from 10 to 30 animal skins - a whole herd! Books were usually written with a quill pen and ink. The king had the privilege of writing with a swan and even a peacock feather. Making writing instruments required a certain skill. The feather was always removed from the left wing of the bird so that the bend would be comfortable for the right writing hand. The feather was degreased by sticking it into hot sand, then the tip. they cut it obliquely, split it and sharpened it with a special penknife. They also scraped out errors in the text.

The ink, unlike the blue and black we are used to, was brown in color, as it was made on the basis of ferrous compounds, or, more simply, rust. Pieces of old iron were dipped into the water, which, rusting, painted it brown. Ancient recipes for making ink have been preserved. In addition to iron, oak or alder bark, cherry glue, kvass, honey and many other substances were used as components, giving the ink the necessary viscosity, color, and stability. Centuries later, this ink has retained its brightness and color strength. The scribe blotted the ink with finely crushed sand, sprinkling it onto a sheet of parchment from a sandbox - a vessel similar to a modern pepper shaker.

Unfortunately, very few ancient books have survived. In total there are about 130 copies of priceless evidence of the 11th-12th centuries. came to us. There were few of them in those days.

Birch bark letters are usually called texts inscribed (scratched) with a pointed bone rod on birch bark - birch bark.

Birch bark is found as a writing material among many peoples of Eurasia and North America. Some Russian Old Believer books are written on specially treated birch bark. However, all the texts on birch bark known until recently were written in ink (sometimes with charcoal) and, apart from the writing material, do not differ in anything from manuscripts written in ink on parchment or paper. And all of them are of relatively late origin (no older than the 15th century).

The discovery of Novgorod birch bark letters introduced the scientific world to an unexpected and amazing phenomenon of ancient Russian culture. Although the traditions of birch bark writing in Ancient Rus' (before the 14th-15th centuries) had been known for a long time, the first Old Russian birch bark letter was found only on July 26, 1951 during excavations in Novgorod under the leadership of the prominent Soviet archaeologist A. V. Artsikhovsky. It is no coincidence that birch bark letters were discovered precisely in Novgorod, one of the most important cultural centers of our Middle Ages: the composition of the local soil favors the long-term preservation of wood materials in it.

With the expansion of archaeological excavations, systematic finds of letters on birch bark followed: in the early 80s. their number exceeded 600. Birch bark letters were also discovered in Smolensk (10 letters), in Staraya Russa near Novgorod (13 letters), Pskov (3 letters), in Vitebsk (one well-preserved letter). It is easy to notice that all the sites of finds are geographically close to Novgorod and had, if not identical, then similar conditions for the preservation of these monuments of ancient writing. Their preservation, of course, was facilitated by the fact that they were scratched, and not written with ink, which should have dissolved over hundreds of years of being in damp earth.

Novgorod birch bark documents date from the 11th century. The overwhelming majority of them are texts of one-time use: these are private letters sent with the opportunity to close people - family members, friends, neighbors or partners in trade matters (for example, with a request to quickly send something, come or somehow help in business ); there are drafts of business papers (which were then, apparently, rewritten on paper or parchment), memorable notes “for oneself” (about debts, about the need to do something); There are texts that belong to students and represent something like rough writing exercises. For example, a whole series of exercises in the alphabet and drawings of the boy Onfim and his friend, who lived in Novgorod in the 13th century, were found. Naturally, after some time, such notes or read letters were thrown away.

Most birch bark letters have been damaged by time, so that often only fragments of the ancient text are readable, but there are also those where the text has been completely preserved. These certificates are the most valuable material for historians: they characterize the private, economic and cultural life of ancient Novgorod as if from the inside, significantly enriching our information about ancient Novgorod.

Their historical and cultural significance is also very great: birch bark letters confirm the long-standing assumption about the widespread spread of literacy in Rus', especially in medieval Novgorod, where the ability to read and write was the property of the most diverse segments of the urban population (including women, who are the authors or recipients of some birch bark letters), and not just the clergy and professional scribes. Medieval Western Europe did not know such widespread literacy.

For linguists, as well as for historians, birch bark letters are a fundamentally new source. Created by people who were not involved in copying ancient books or drawing up official documents, they only partly reflect the norms of church-book spelling and are more closely related to the peculiarities of local pronunciation. At first, however, it seemed that the birch bark letters could only confirm the correctness of previous assumptions about the features of the Old Novgorod dialect, made on the basis of an analysis of “misprints” in books and official documents, and would not provide fundamentally new information that would be unexpected for historians of the Russian language . For example, birch bark letters widely reflect such a striking feature of the ancient Novgorod dialect as “tsokanye” - the presence in the speech of Novgorodians of only one affricate c (which in other ancient Russian dialects corresponded to two affricates - ts and ch) (see Tsokanye): wheat, martens and hotsu, kissing, Gorislavitsa (gen. p.), etc. But this feature of the ancient Novgorod dialect is also reflected in previously known books written in Novgorod (for example, in the Menaions of the 11th century, in the Novgorod Chronicle of the end of the 13th-14th century, etc.), although, of course, not as consistently as in the birch bark documents. This is understandable: they learned to read and write from church books, memorizing prayers and psalms in which the letters q and ch were used “correctly,” therefore the ancient scribes, regardless of the characteristics of their native dialect, tried to write q and ch “according to the rules.” And among the birch bark letters there are those where the rules for using these letters are not violated (the same boy Onfim in his exercises writes letters and syllables with these letters in the sequence in which they are located in the Slavic alphabet: ts-ch, tsa-cha, tse - what). But most of the authors of birch bark letters, making notes “for themselves” or in a hurry to send a note to a loved one, unwittingly violated these rules, using only the letter c or mixing c and ch. This confirms the assumption that there are no two affricates in the local dialect (which also corresponds to its modern condition).

With further, more in-depth study of the language of birch bark letters, it began to be discovered that they reflect such features of ancient Novgorod speech that disappeared over time and are not reflected in traditional sources or are represented in them by involuntary clerical errors that did not allow more or less definite conclusions to be drawn.

An example is the writing representing the fate of the consonants k, g, x, which in Slavic (including Old Russian) languages ​​at that time were impossible before the vowels i and e (ђ). They spoke and wrote pomosi (not help), po bђltsi (not po bђlkђ), grђsi (not sin).

In Novgorod texts, rare examples with spellings that contradict traditional ones have been known for a long time. Thus, a Novgorodian who rewrote the text of the official Menaion in 1096 wrote in the margins his local (non-Christian, absent in church books) name Domka in a form that does not correspond to what is known from other texts of the 11th-12th centuries: Lord, help the servant to its Дъмкб, while according to the laws of the pronunciation of that time (as language historians have always imagined it) and according to the rules of spelling, it should have been: Domtsi. The single spelling Дъмькђ against the background of the general rule was interpreted as a special case of an earlier generalization of the stem (under the influence of Dom'k-a, Dom'k-u, etc.).

However, upon careful study of the oldest birch bark letters (before the 14th century), it turned out that in them such a transfer of purely local words (personal names, names of settlements, terms) not found in church books is common: to Kulotki, on Mestyatka, on Tusk ( type of tax), by belki (local unit of calculation), etc.

Such writings mean that the ancient Novgorod dialect did not know the changes to, g, x into the usual Slavic languages ​​c, z, s (one would expect Kulotshch, v Pudoz, etc.). This is reflected in other positions, including the beginning of the roots, which is found only in birch bark letters: kђli (= tђly, i.e. whole) hђro (= сђро, i.e. gray), as well as вђхо, вђхому (= whole, everything). All these cases show that the combinations кђ, xђ and others in the speech of the Novgorodians did not change combinations with the consonants с, с. It turns out, therefore, that the usual words in parchment and in later Novgorod texts are whole, gray, all - in every way, etc. - this is the result of the loss of the original Novgorod dialect features and the assimilation of all-Russian pronunciation norms in the process of forming a single language of the Old Russian people.

Such facts themselves suggest that further study of birch bark letters, the collection of which continues to grow, promises historians of the Russian language many new interesting discoveries.

At the same time, the birch bark letters contained materials that made it possible to judge from what texts and how the ancient Novgorodians were taught reading and writing (see the drawings of the boy Onfim doing his “homework” on birch bark).

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 and 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 be poorly preserved there. That is why, by the way, discoveries during excavations of parchment letters, also common in ancient Rus', are unlikely. Although parchment (ed. note: author's spelling) is well preserved in the ground, but they wrote on it only with ink" .

Artsikhovsky's expedition opened a new page in the study of Russian history. According to experts, the Novgorod cultural layers preserve about 20 thousand more ancient Russian birch bark documents.

We learned about birch bark letters only half a century ago. Thanks to these monuments of Russian writing, we have the opportunity to recognize the way of life and train of thought of a Russian person who lived a thousand years before us.

Birch bark letters are documents and private messages of the 11th - 15th centuries, where the text was applied to birch bark. The first such artifacts were discovered by a domestic historian in Novgorod in 1951 during an archaeological expedition led by A.V. Artsikhovsky (1902-1978, historian, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences).

By 1970, 464 birch bark letters were found in Novgorod. The text was written on them using a primitive method - scratched out with a sharpened bone or metal pin (writing). The birch bark was pre-processed so that the text would come out clear.

Archaeologists discovered birch bark letters in soil layers where plant remains and ancient debris were preserved. The bulk of the letters are private letters, which touched on everyday and economic issues, described everyday conflicts, and conveyed instructions. Letters of frivolous and half-joking content were also found.

Artsikhovsky pointed to letters of protest from peasants against the masters who complained about their lot, with lists of lordly duties. Monetary documents, some archives, historical records, wills, love letters and other vital information were also applied to birch bark letters.

Artsikhovsky discovered birch bark letters that were addressed to famous people from the Novgorod mayors, as well as their private correspondence with relatives. These documents revealed to our contemporaries the fact that in ancient Rus' literacy was at a higher level than we previously thought. It was studied not only by the boyars and clergy, but also by the lower strata of society. The authors of some birch bark letters were ordinary women.

Many late documents written on birch bark in the 17th - 19th centuries have been preserved in museums and archives; entire books have been found. Russian writer and ethnographer S.V. Maksimov pointed out that he personally saw a birch bark book in the middle of the 19th century among the Old Believers in Mezen (Arkhangelsk region). In 1930, collective farmers on the banks of the Volga near Saratov, while digging a hole, found a birch bark Golden Horde document from the 14th century.

Joseph Volotsky (1440-1515, founder and abbot of the Joseph-Volokolamsk monastery) wrote that he personally saw in the monastery of St. Sergius of Radonezh “the very books were not on the charters of the pisakh, but on the birch bark.”

In July 1951, birch bark document No. 1 was found at the Nerevsky excavation site. It contained a list of some labor duties (land and gifts) in favor of a certain Thomas. The find showed us that ink was almost never used when writing letters. The text on it was simply scribbled on the bark, but was clearly legible. In honor of this find, a holiday is celebrated in Novgorod every year on July 26 - “Birch Bark Letter Day”. The same excavation brought back 9 more documents on birch bark, published here only in 1953 (the discovery of birch bark documents did not receive wide coverage).

WHERE AND HOW MUCH

One of the latest sensations was the discovery in August 2007 of the first birch bark letter in Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow. Moreover, an ink letter with an inventory of property found in the Tainitsky Garden of the Moscow Kremlin became the first full-fledged Moscow birch bark document (the previously known letter No. 1 and the found letter No. 2 are small fragments) and the largest previously known birch bark document.

Birch bark, as a material for writing, became widespread in Rus' in the 11th century and lost its role by the 15th century, since then the spread of affordable paper in Rus' was noted. And birch bark was used as an improvised, but secondary material for writing, educational notes, and for short-term storage reports. It was used mainly by commoners as material for private correspondence and personal records, and state letters and official documents were recorded on parchment.

Birch bark gradually disappeared from state documentation and private life. In one of the surviving birch bark letters (under stamp No. 831), which is a draft complaint to an official, scientists found instructions to rewrite this text on parchment and only then send it to the address. Only a few letters were kept for a long time: these are two birch bark sheets of huge size with a record of literary works (letter from Torzhok No. 17 and letter No. 893), both were found in the ground in an unfolded form, as well as two birch bark books of a small format: prayers are written there (Novgorod letter No. 419) and with the text of a conspiracy for fever (No. 930).

The found birch bark letters ended up in the trash heap; they fell into the ground when there was no practical need for them. This means that the finds of archaeologists are not connected with ancient state and personal archives. Whole birch bark letters at the time of discovery are a rolled up scroll of birch bark with text scratched on the inside of the bark (sometimes on both sides). A minority of intact documents are located in the ground, unfolded. The text was placed on birch bark in a line, in most letters (as well as medieval Slavic manuscripts) without division into words.

A significant proportion of the finds are fragments of birch bark letters, damaged after they fell into the ground, but even more often destroyed (torn or cut) before their disposal. This practice is mentioned in the “Questioning” of Kirik, a Novgorodian of the 12th century, where it is asked whether there is a sin in “walking with one’s feet” according to the letters. The purpose of the destruction of letters is simple: secrecy. Modern researchers now find themselves in the role of an “outsider.” Despite the fact that considerable experience has been accumulated in the interpretation of fragmented letters and the general character of the document can be grasped in most cases, the presence of dangling letters and gaps often complicates the interpretation of individual fragments (both from the linguistic and from the content-historical side).

WHAT OUR ANCESTORS WRITTEN ABOUT

Most birch bark letters are private letters of a business nature. This includes debt lists, owner records, instructions and collective petitions of peasants. Drafts of official acts on birch bark were discovered: 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, jokes, riddles, instructions on housekeeping), educational records (alphabet books, warehouses, school exercises). The educational notes and drawings of a Novgorod boy discovered in 1956 became extremely famous.

Artsikhovsky named birch bark documents as important historical sources. Large monographic works on this topic belong to Russian academicians L.V. Cherepnin and V.L. Yanina.

Birch bark documents are considered material and written sources. The places where they were found are no less important for history than their contents. Instead of the faceless “estate of a venerable Novgorodian,” we learn about the estate of the priest-artist Olisey Petrovich, nicknamed Grechin, and about traces of a canopy over the courthouse of the prince and mayor. The same name in letters found on neighboring estates, mentions of princes and other statesmen, indications of amounts, geographical names. They talk about the history of buildings, their owners, their social status, and connections with other cities.

Thanks to birch bark letters, the genealogy of the boyar families of Novgorod is being studied. The political role of the townspeople, insufficiently covered in the chronicles, is revealed (Peter-Petrok Mikhalkovich, a prominent figure from the boyars of the 12th century). Documents on birch bark tell about land management in Novgorod, about their economic ties with Pskov, Moscow, Polotsk, Suzdal, Kiev, even the Obdorsk land (Siberia). Peasants' petitions, bills of sale and wills from the 14th - 15th centuries testify to the establishment of serfdom there and the development of the judicial bureaucracy. We learn about military conflicts and foreign policy of Rus', about collecting tribute from conquered lands, and discover a lot of everyday details that we would never know. A number of primary data are available on the history of the church, the antiquity of some features of the liturgy is recorded on birch bark, there is information about the relationships of clergy members with residents of neighboring estates, and the mention of Boris and Gleb in the list of saints in the 11th century charter almost coincides with the time of their canonization.