Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature

1607-6192 2713-2226

IWL RAS

https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2025-24-241-274

Research Article

Articles

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

Kazakov

Alexander A.

old-rus@imli.ru

2025

24 241 274

2026

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.

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