THE EPISTLE TO NOBLEMAN JOHN ABOUT THE PRINCE’S DEATH: ON THE ATTRIBUTION, ON THE REASON FOR WRITING AND THE TEXT’S USAGE IN THE 16th CENTURY

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Category: Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature: Issue 24
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Abstract:

The Epistle to Nobleman John about the Prince’s Death is the writing by unknown Volokolamsk monk that has kept in two manuscripts not early 1560s. The author addressed to John to talk about his troubles, two deaths of close persons, which also were connected with the monastery in Volok. But the text has kept neither the name of the author, nor the names of dead persons. Some interpretations of the text content have attempted since the middle of the last century, as well as the author has been looked for. Ya.S. Luria, who discovered, published and commented the text, considered Joseph of Volokolamsk has written The Epistle soon after his patron appanage prince Boris of Volokolamsk’s death. Other scholars attempted to argue this hypothesis later. B.M. Kloss found the strong argument to attribute the text to Dositheus Toporkov. This paper is kept studying of the predecessors to interpret the text content and to attribute it. The author finds some proofs for attributing The Epistle to Dositheus. He also guesses the problem of the dead person which were mourned in the text. According to his hypothesis, the first one is Joseph of Volokolamsk and the second one is the Volokolamsk monk Arsenius from the kin of princes Golenin. Author draws on the wide range of sources to prove his hypothesis. The author tries to connect The Epistle content to historical context and to show the history of usage the text in 16th century.
Keywords: literature of Muscovite Russia, epistolary genre, interpretation of the text, Volokolamsk book culture of 16th c., The Epistle to Nobleman John about the Prince’s Death, writings of Dositheus Toporkov, monks of Joseph Volokolamsk monastery.
Author: Alexander A. Kazakov
Information about the author:

Alexander A. Kazakov, PhD in History, Research Fellow, Institute of Russian History of Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ul’yanova St., 19, 117292 Moscow, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8506-3737

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For citation:

Kazakov, A.A. “‘The Epistle to Nobleman John about the Prince’s Death’: on the Attribution, on the Reason for Writing and the Text’s Usage in the 16th Century.” Germenevtika drevnerusskoi literatury [Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature]. Issue 24. Ed.-in-chief O.A. Tufanova, sci. ed. M.V. Kaplun. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2025, pp. 241–274. https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2025-24-241-274 (In Russian)
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/LGTXCZ
UDC: 821.161.1.0
Publication Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2025-24-241-274
Received: 28.01.2025
Approved after reviewing: 03.03.2025
Date of publication: 13.07.2025

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