Editor's Foreword

Abstract

The issue presented to your attention – volume 4, issue 2 of the academic journal Caurus – is a thematic one, dedicated to the history of books, libraries, and reading practices in European and Russian culture of
the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

The concept underlying our publication is based on the idea of the Baltic region as a communicative zone, which for many centuries played a significant role in shaping not only local but also broader European cultural and historical space. One of the key manifestations of cultural contacts in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period was the manuscript and printed book, which became a crucial channel for transmitting intellectual traditions – traditions that were extensively employed, particularly in the realm of education.

As Philippe Ariès once noted, despite regional and temporal variations, the spread of literacy and reading practices was one of the most important factors that transformed people’s understanding of themselves and their relationships with others. However, a clearer grasp of this transformation becomes more possible starting from the turn of the 16^th to 17^th centuries.

It is important to note that the study of medieval and early modern books and book culture is inherently interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of intellectual history, the history of education, bibliography, source studies, paleography, areography, and other related fields. Particular attention in the studies presented in this issue is given to the practical aspects of how books were used. The focus of analysis includes not only textual but also visual information and how it was perceived by readers. The geographical scope of the research spans the territories of Northwestern Russia and the Baltic region, as well as the central areas of the Russian state, with a primary focus on Moscow.

The first two articles of this issue are devoted to the study of particular books – their creation and their circulation within reading communities. A. M. Zakharova (Russian State Library, Moscow), in her article “The history of the circulation of Simeon Polotsky’s sermon collection ‘Spiritual Feast’ (Moscow, 1681): based on materials from Moscow collections”, investigates twenty copies of Simeon Polotsky’s sermons preserved in archives and libraries in Moscow. Through the analysis of sales, donation, and ownership inscriptions found in these copies, the author reconstructs the circle of the book’s owners, which included both secular and clerical figures – some closely connected to Simeon Polotsky himself and to the royal family. The collection was also owned by major monastic centers such as the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, the Novodevichy, Nil Sorsky (Nilo-Stolobensky), and Zaikonospassky monasteries; in later periods, copies were housed in the libraries of secular institutions. The geographical range of the examined books is broad, extending beyond Moscow and central regions of the Russian state to more remote areas, such as the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, Tobolsk, and the Ukrainian town of Hadiach. Some of the copies bear visible traces of use, including “later” reader annotations from the 19^th century. Continuing the study of Spiritual Feast in other library collections will help expand our understanding of the work’s circulation history and better reveal its significance for Russian readers
between the 17^th and 19^th centuries.

The article “The dissertation of Olof Rudbeck the Younger as a baroque work” by A. F. Esono (Russian Pushkin Museum, St. Petersburg) is devoted to the study of one of the notable examples of Swedish book art – “Propagatio Plantarum Botanico-Physica…”, published in Uppsala in 1686. The author of this work was the scholar and engraver Olof Rudbeck the Younger (1660–1740). The 17^th century was a period of economic, political, and cultural flourishing in Swedish history, which found expression in the art of the national Baroque. One vivid example of Baroque culture in print is this small book by Rudbeck, which discusses plants suitable for the Swedish climate. Acting as a Baroque artist crafting a convincing and lifelike work, Rudbeck composed and engraved a complex ensemble that united the achievements of botany, rhetoric, emblematic imagery, and contemporary engraving. A. F. Esono, examining the book’s visual component through the lens of European and Swedish engraving traditions of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, identifies several layers of meaning in the work: scientific, allegorical, and practical. The impact of this Baroque creation relied on the interplay of image and text, visual and verbal elements, enabling 17^th-century readers to gain both knowledge and practical guidance, as well as aesthetic pleasure from engaging with contemporary art.

The publication by D. I. Veber and N. V. Salonikov (Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod) is devoted to the reconstruction of the book collection of the protestant pastor Johann Heinrich Grozian, who lived in Dorpat (modern-day Tartu) at the end of the 17^th and beginning of the 18^th century. This collection later became part of the library of Archbishop Theophan (Prokopovich), which in 1742 was incorporated into the library of the Novgorod Theological Seminary. The reconstruction was carried out based on a handwritten inventory of the Novgorod Theological Seminary Library, compiled by V. V. Maikov in 1929/1930 at the State Public Library in Leningrad (modern-day Saint Petersburg). The descriptions of books bearing ownership inscriptions of J. H. Grozian in Maikov’s inventory were clarified and expanded by the authors through the identification of additional books in the holdings of the Russian National Library. As a result, the authors compiled a list of 104 books containing ownership marks of Johann Heinrich Grozian. This list provides a foundation for reconstructing the personal library of the Dorpat pastor and offers valuable material for studying the reading interests of Novgorod seminary students in the 18^th–19^th centuries, who accessed these books through the seminary library.

The article “The Physics course of Ioannikios Likhud at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow: A new manuscript copy” by K. V. Sutorius (Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod) is dedicated to the teaching of “Physics” at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow. Due to the limited availability of sources, the teaching of sections of the philosophical curriculum by the Likhud brothers in Moscow in the early 1690s remains a subject of ongoing scholarly inquiry. Each newly discovered manuscript copy of their “Logic” or “Physics” lectures found in museum or archival collections brings valuable information that helps to address unresolved questions. In this article, the author introduces into scholarly circulation manuscript No. 773 from the collection of the Yaroslavl Museum-Reserve, which contains a student’s notes from Ioannikios Likhud’s course on “Physics.” Until now, scholars had been aware of only one such student fragment from the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library, along with several autograph manuscripts by Ioannikios himself held at the Russian State Library. By studying the Yaroslavl manuscript in comparison with other known copies of “Physics,” K. V. Sutorius raises important questions regarding the possible content of the course, its place within the broader curriculum taught by the Likhud brothers, the time period during which “Physics” may have been taught in Moscow, the bilingual nature of instruction (Latin and Greek), and the method of instruction – whether sequential (first in Latin, then in Greek) or mixed. The study also touches on the composition of the student body who might have attended the course and, by extension, the potential number of manuscript copies that may exist.

The study of manuscript books is continued in the article by D. B. Tereshkina (Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod), titled “All this I copied from the chronicler…: The tale of the miracles of the Novgorod icon of the Sign of the Mother of God in a manuscript from the collection of the Novgorod Museum”. The article presents a full publication of a manuscript recounting the miracles of the Novgorod icon of the Sign of the Mother of God. Although the manuscript dates to 1761, it refers back to an earlier source – a “chronicler” text from the Church of the Sign in Novgorod, likely from the second half of the 17^th century. While the manuscript was introduced into scholarly circulation as early as the 19^th century, its text had not been published until now. The manuscript, a monograph-type compilation, is a valuable source for reconstructing the later history of the miracle cycle associated with the Novgorod Icon of the Sign and for understanding the developments in Novgorod writing culture during the late Middle Ages and early Modern period.

The issue concludes with the article by I. A. Melnikov (Novgorod State United Museum-Reserve, Veliky Novgorod) titled “‘Latin’ relics of Novgorod in the literary tradition of the Vyg Hermitage: On the interpretation of medieval western European art by Old Believers”. The author explores how Old Believers interpreted Novgorod relics of Western European origin – specifically the 12^th-century Magdeburg Gates and the 13^th-century Limoges Gospel covers from the Antoniev Monastery. The scribes of the Vyg community used these medieval Western artworks in their polemics against the official Church reformers (New Ritualists) and followers of Feodosy Vasiliev, who defended the veneration of crosses bearing the “Pilate title” - “ІНЦІ” in Church Slavonic. These polemics preserved a remarkably detailed description of the artifacts, compiled in the first third of the 18^th century as an appendix to Andrey Denisov’s treatise “Collection on the Title on the Cross”. One copy of this work is held in the Novgorod Museum-Reserve. I. A. Melnikov suggests that these relics may have influenced the stance of Novgorod’s supporters of the “Pilate title” inscription on crosses – a position that sparked a long-standing controversy and ultimately hindered the unification of two major priestless Old Believer factions in the 18^th century.

B. Bessudnova, D. I. Veber, N. V. Salonikov