Abstract
This article is dedicated to the March Menaion from the V.M. Undolski Collection (Russian State Library in Moscow, Fund 310, no. 80), previously kept in the library of Putna Monastery. The author proposes a new attribution. The study of the Menaion paper shows it should be dated to the last quarter of the 14th century (the “Three Mountains and a Cross” filigree is very similar to the Piccard filigree no. 156030, dated 1376), which refutes the idea that the manuscript was created during Stephen the Great’s reign (1457−1504). The paleographic analysis of the scribe’s writing leads to the same conclusion: the writing is semi-uncial, a characteristic of Bulgarian manuscripts of the last quarter of the 14th century. Therefore, the previous historiographic opinion (sustained by V.M. Undolski, V.I. Viktorov, A.I. Iatsimirski, Emil Turdeanu, Radu Constantinescu, T.B. Uhova, Valentina Pelin, Virgil Cândea) that the manuscript was created at Putna Monastery in the 15th century proves wrong.
An analysis of the Menaion content has shown that it contains, after the sixth chant of the daily canon, the corresponding verses and readings from the Hagiography in verse (Стишной пролог) of Tarnovo redaction, with certain versions of the text which are fully reproduced in later Slavic copies of Moldavian origin of the March Menaion. This allows for the supposition that the text of the versified Hagiography in the above-mentioned manuscripts originates in the similar text of the Menaion from the V.M. Undolski Collection, which may be their protograph.
The presence of the Menaion within the walls of the Putna Monastery and its fate were mentioned in a discolored cursive inscription written in the Romanian language with Slavic characters on the inside of the upper cover of the binding (on wood board) in the last quarter of the 17th century. The inscription was partially read by the author of this article with the help of UV light.
Keywords
14th century, art, manuscript, March Menaion, Putna Monastery, Stephen the Great
