Ostromir Gospel

the oldest dated Russian copy of a Church Slavonic work. It derives its name from the Novgorod voevoda (military governor) and posadnik (highest official) who commissioned the work. It was copied in Rus’ in 1056–57 by the deacon Grigorii from a Bulgarian original. The manuscript is kept in the M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library in Leningrad. It is made of parchment (30 X 35 cm), contains artistic miniatures, and is skillfully decorated. The work is written in Cyrillic, and its language incorporates features of earlier Bulgarian versions and of the Russian language of the 11th century.

An outstanding example of the manuscript art of Kievan Rus’, the Ostromir Gospel is also an extremely valuable source for the history of the South and East Slavic languages, for old Slavic paleography, and for Russian art. It contains weekly Gospel readings, known as the short aprakos. The manuscript was first published by A. Kh. Vostokov in St. Petersburg in 1843; a photographic reprint appeared in 1964 in the series Monumenta linguae slavicae (vol. 1, Wiesbaden). I. K. Savinkov published a photolithographic edition in 1883 and 1889.