Deacon Ivan Feodorov

On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of his death Since Maxim the Greek, “a wondrous and graceful philosopher” (as our antiquity characterizes him), testified that the liturgical books of his time were “corrupted entirely by those who prescribe them, unlearned beings and unskilled in reason and grammatical cunning, and also by the same men who first created the book translation” 1, questions related to Divine services and churches in general became the most pressing issues in Rus', requiring an immediate solution. The Council of the Hundred Heads, convened by the tsar in order to judge “the many different church corrections,” not only does not reject the noted shortcomings in our church liturgical books, but, on the contrary, asserts that “scribes write divine books from incorrect translations, but having written them they do not edit them; inventory after inventory you remain and incomplete and indirect points, and according to those books in the churches of God they honor and sing, and study, and write from them” 2. There was thus an urgent need to pay serious attention to the existing evil and find means to eliminate it. The Council of the Hundred Heads makes it an indispensable duty for “the archpriests and the oldest priest and the elected priest with all the priests in each city in all the holy churches to inspect the sacred books,” 3 i.e., it established something like the current responsible censors, whose duties were not only to monitor the correct copying of church liturgical books, but, to the extent possible, to personally correct these books themselves. It is clear that such a measure did not eliminate evil, but on the contrary gave wide scope to the arbitrariness of various investigators. Consequently, there was an urgent need to find more decisive and effective measures to eliminate the existing evil. The establishment of a printing house, where all church and liturgical books for all of Russia would be printed, under the supervision of knowledgeable persons called to this by the highest authority, was recognized as a powerful remedy against these shortcomings. Back in 1547, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, obviously under the strong influence of the then famous foreign scientist Maxim the Greek, worked hard about it. opening a printing house in Russia for printing church, liturgical and moral edifying books. To this end, he instructed the Saxon Schlitt to recruit various craftsmen abroad for printing in Russia. The king's wish was already close to fulfillment. The necessary craftsmen were recruited and sent by sea to Russia, but the Hansa and the knights of the Livonian Order prevented this matter from being completed. The masters were not allowed into Russia and the tsar’s plans for establishing a printing house in Russia were apparently completely frustrated. This would have happened in all likelihood if an enthusiastic typographer had not come to the aid of the Tsar, as the historian Karamzin 4 characterizes our pioneer printer, a purely Russian man by blood, originally from Moscow, deacon of the St. Nicholas Church, Ivan Feodorov. There is almost no documentary news about the origins of Ivan Feodorov, his upbringing and the first years of his life before his appearance at the printing yard. If anything can be said about him during this time, it can only be based on guesswork. Undoubtedly coming from a spiritual background, Ivan Feodorov, according to a custom already established from time immemorial, was destined by his parents for the clergy, and in accordance with this his initial training proceeded. The program according to which our ancient Russian clergy were trained was neither extensive nor multifaceted. “The fear of God and all decorum, book writing, church singing of the psalms, reading a lot of psalms, cananarchy according to church rite” 5: that’s all that was required of a candidate even for the priesthood. It is clear that the talented young man easily completed the required program, which opened the way for him to an unhindered and entertaining deacon’s place at the Church of St. Nicholas-Gostunsky. Having entered the position, Ivan Feodorov did not withdraw into the close circle of activity that his family and service required of him, but being naturally inquisitive, he began to work on his own self-education and development. The afterwords of the books he printed, undoubtedly written by our first printer, show him to be a great reader of patristic literature and well acquainted with the writers of his time. The works of Maxim the Greek and Prince Andrei Kurbsky were not only well known to him, but in places in his afterwords there are even literal excerpts from their works. However, the quiet, family life of Ivan Feodorov did not last long. God was pleased to call him to a ministry more prominent and useful for the Russian Church. Before he was even 30 years old, his wife died, leaving his baby son Ivan in his arms. The life of the widower Deacon is empty and unattractive in our time; it was even more difficult at the time when our pioneer printer lived. By virtue of the decree of the Vilna Council of 1509 6 , which was later confirmed at the Council of the Hundred Heads 7 , with the death of their wife, deacons were deprived of the right to perform sacred service “and were considered to be a simple child” or went to the “Mnishe rank” and then retained the right to serve. Our pioneer printer had to irrevocably decide his fate by choosing one of the indicated paths. To pronounce the vows of monasticism and take on the “angelic image” was not difficult at that time. Slave monks like Deacon Gostunsky were a very common occurrence. The monastic life was distinguished by extreme licentiousness, freedom and worldly pleasures 8 . But our enthusiastic book printer did not choose her. His ardent, young nature demanded vigorous activity for the benefit of his compatriots. Ivan Feodorov decides to enter the printing house in order to spread the light of true knowledge with printed books and destroy the superstitions and prejudices of his compatriots. Admission to the printing house gave him the right to retain his sacred rank. Subsequently, we often meet widowers of priests and deacons in various positions at the printing house 9. One might think that Ivan Feodorov’s determination to choose this path of life and activity was greatly influenced by the most enlightened man of his time, Maxim the Greek. In addition, in all likelihood, the famous high priest of Moscow, Metropolitan Macarius, who was not unknown to Ivan Feodorov’s abilities, also persuaded him. The joy of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich is understandable when he managed to find such an energetic person as Ivan Feodorov, whom he could fearlessly put at the head of the matter about which he had been fussing for so long. The Tsar ordered the construction (in 1553) of a special house for the printing house, in all likelihood on the same place where it currently exists, i.e. on Nikolskaya Street 10. Pyotr Timofeev Mstislavets, a letter engraver found in Novgorod back in 1556, Vasyuk Nikiforov and master of printed books Marusha Nefediev 11 were given as assistants to Ivan Feodorov. On April 19, 1563, the first page of the first printed book in Russia was typed, and this significant day can be considered the beginning of a new era in the history of the mental movement in Russia. This is how the printing business began. The Tsar followed the work of our masters with keen interest, showing them all kinds of signs of attention and encouraging them with his royal favors. “The blessed Tsar, our first printer testifies, commanded to build a house from his royal treasury, where the printing business was being built and mercilessly gave from his royal treasures by the worker, Nicholas the Wonderworker of Gostunsky, to Deacon Ivan Feodorov, and to Peter Timofeev Mstislavets, for the preparation of the printing business and for their peace, and for the completion of their work.” It is clear that our first printers tried, as far as possible, to justify the tsar’s trust and fully deserve the attention they received. They worked diligently at the printing press, and less than a year had passed since the opening of the printing house, when the first famous book, “The Apostle,” came off the Moscow printing press on March 1, 1564, giving Ivan Feodorov the name “Russian Gutenberg” in history. However, almost to this day, the honor of bearing the name of “Russian Gutenberg” was challenged by Ivan Feodorov by a certain Hans Missenheim or Ivan Bogbinder, a Danish (Copenhagen) native. Sopikov 12, Metropolitan Evgeniy 13, P. Stroev 14 and many other people involved in the history of printing in Russia claimed that Ivan Feodorov and his comrades learned the art of printing from this Hans Bogdinder, and that even the first printed book in Russia was typewritten by Russian masters under his direct supervision. I.M. Snegirev explained the unfair accusation of heresy against our pioneer printers precisely in the sense that they were infected with Protestantism by their teacher 15 . The basis for this conclusion to our researchers was the famous letter in Latin dated May 3, 1552, from the Danish king Christian III 16, who sent the actually mentioned Hans Missenheim to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible with a proposal to accept Protestantism. Missenheim brought with him the Bible and two other books, which contained the essence of the Christian faith according to the new teaching. But the historian Soloviev, and after him the Right Reverend Macarius, proved the complete inconsistency of these opinions and restored the truth in its proper light. “If the tsar had agreed to the royal proposal,” argues Solovyov, then Missenheim, having translated the books he brought into Russian, should have printed them in several copies,” but we do not see this. Printed books with the name Missenheim are completely unknown to bibliographers. Secondly, it is not known, continues Soloviev, how Missenheim was received by John; It is incredible that the tsar entrusted the establishment of a printing house to a person sent explicitly for the purpose of spreading Protestantism” 17. As for Christiane’s letter itself, it most likely, in our opinion, tells us that Hans Missenheim could in no way be the founder of the Moscow printing house. “Be kind enough to immediately admit this servant to you and listen to him,” says the letter occupying us, and after listening, grant him leave as soon as possible and a favorable answer”: which was, without a doubt, exactly fulfilled. In solving the question that interests us, it is best to listen to the answer to it from Ivan Feodorov himself, who gave it in the afterword of the first printed Apostle in Moscow. Sincerity and sincerity, which are the main qualities of the works of our pioneer printer, can serve as sufficient guarantee for the veracity of this answer. Ivan Feodorov himself does not hide the fact that in the study of book printing he was rendered an invaluable service by the Fryazhsky masters and the Venetians in general, or, better said, our pioneer printer does not deny the connection between the first Moscow printed editions and the Fryazhsky-Venetian ones. “He (i.e., Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich) began to think, says Ivan Feodorov in the afterword, how to present printed books in the same way in Greek and in Venice and in Phrygia and in other languages.” Thus, Venetian masters, Venetian first printed editions, the Venetian printing house established at the beginning of the 16th century and Italian printing houses in general - this is the ideal for our first printer. In addition to the direct statement of our first printer that his teachers were the Fryags 19 - Italians, that our first Moscow publications have a direct connection with the publications of their printing houses, the same thing can be seen with your own eyes, so to speak, in the very Moscow first printed publications. The similarity of the ornaments that our book printers used to decorate the books they published is striking. The typographical language, or rather the terminology, was entirely passed down to us from the Italians 20 . Teredorshchik (printer), batyrshchik (printer), tympanum (quadrangular frame at the press), etc. all these are terms taken entirely from Italian printing houses. The first printed Apostle of 1564, despite the fact that this book could be said to be the first breakthrough of our masters in the book business, despite the infant state of the then printing technology, despite the end of the haste with which it was printed, and still serves as a subject of surprise to experts and connoisseurs of printing. The book Apostle, published in Moscow, according to Karamzin, “is the oldest of Russian printed books, worthy of note for the beauty of its letters and paper 21 . Another expert on the art of printing, P. Stroev, gives the following brilliant review of all the publications of our pioneer printers: “comparing these firstborns of Slavic printing with some church books and making a proportional assumption for everything, one might think that then there was a golden age of education 22 . Indeed, the purity, distinctness of the letters and the grace of the vignettes of our “firstborn” of the Moscow printing house involuntarily attract attention and make the work of the “Russian Gutenberg” especially great in our eyes, who in this case was hardly even a wordsmith and puncher. The entire Apostle is printed in semi-statutory alphabet from the 16th century. Lowercase letters are thick and slightly curved and slanted to the right. Uppercase letters are twice as large as lowercase ones, but their upper part is equal to the lowercase ones, and the lower part extends far beyond the line. The lines are even and consist of even letters, some of which are depicted in cinnabar. As in the manuscripts, in the book “Apostle” we find decorations that were imprinted from carved “defensive” (convex) boards. Knotted elm, cinnabar. Facial image of Ev. The bows placed at the beginning of the book are carved on wood or tin. Regarding the text of the first printed Apostle, some think (Soloviev, Rev. Philaret, etc.) that it was bad, but this is not entirely fair. The first printed Moscow Apostle did not differ in any way from the Apostle published in Ostrog, and then it was repeated several times in subsequent editions 23 until 1679, when it was significantly corrected, but this correction, however, was more likely a cleansing of the Apostle from ancient Slavic forms and an approach to our modern Church Slavonic language, and not a correction in the proper sense of the word. Following the Apostle, that is, on September 2, 1565, the printing of the Book of Hours began, which was published the same year on October 29. Metropolitan Evgeniy, Sopikov and others believe that in addition to these books, Ivan Feodorov published the Gospel 24 in Moscow, but there is no exact information about it in the bibliography, and therefore it is difficult to say anything positive. Further work in the printing house turned out to be impossible and our pioneer printers were forced to leave even their homeland. The attention of the court and the favorable attitude of the High Hierarch of Moscow towards our pioneer printers aroused hatred among the intriguers, for whom an evil tongue is the only way to pave the way for undeserved honors and rewards. The scribes were also dissatisfied, for whom copying books was a profitable craft that provided good income, and who now faced enormous, irreducible competition in the form of printed books, which, in addition to their external advantages, were remarkable for their cheapness for that time. These people could not understand the importance of printing and, of course, did not want to understand it. On the contrary, they tried in every possible way to sully the reputation of our pioneer printers, and to do this they spread a false rumor among the people that they had allegedly abandoned Orthodoxy and become heretics. In Ivan Feodorov’s own words, they suffered a lot “from extreme bitterness, which did not come from the sovereign himself, but from many leaders and teachers, who, out of envy, conceived many heresies, wanting to turn a good deed into evil and ultimately destroy God’s work” 25. Discontent among the people soon turned into open hatred and ended with the fact that one night the printing house was set on fire and completely burned down with all the printing property, and the printers, fearing for their lives, were forced to seek salvation outside their homeland. This happened between 1566 and 68. But if the best sons of the Russian country were thrown out of its heart, Moscow, as worthless members, as heretics, then they were welcome guests in a foreign land. Poland, a neighbor at the time, welcomed them with open arms. The Polish King Sigismund Augustus and the Polish Sejm gave full attention and a kind welcome to the Moscow fugitives, and the Lithuanian “highest hetman” Grigory Aleksandrovich Khodkevich opened the doors of his house for them. Soon Khodkevich set up a printing house on his Zabludov estate, and Moscow fugitives began printing the Teaching Gospel, which was published in 1569 on March 17. In 1570 they published another book, “The Followed Psalter.” Here in Zabludovo our fugitives were soon forced to part ways and part forever. Each of them went their own way in pursuit of the same goal. The fact is that in the same 1570, Hetman Khodkevich, depressed by illness and old age, decided to close his printing house, and then soon died. Our native book printers were thus left out of work and decided to part with each other. Pyotr Timofeev went to Vilna, set up a printing house there on behalf of the brothers Kuzma and Luka Mamonich and began publishing the “Altar Gospel,” while Ivan Feodorov remained for now in his estate, which he received as a reward for his labors from Hetman Khodkevich. But this quiet, peaceful and inactive life was not to the liking of our enthusiastic typographer. These were the thoughts that worried his hot head. “It would be inconvenient for me,” Ivan Feodorov reasoned with himself in the quiet of his village, to reduce the time of his life by sowing seeds, but the Imam instead of sowing the art of handicrafts, vessels, instead of living seeds, scatter spiritual seeds throughout the universe and distribute this spiritual food to everyone according to rank. I was especially afraid of the torture of my master Christ, who continually cried out to me: “I am a wicked and lazy servant, why did not the trader give me my money, and when I came I would take what was mine with interest?” And when I come to solitude in myself and wet my bed with many tears, I ponder all this in my heart, so that I would not hide in the earth the talent given by God to me and my anguished spirit" 26 . In 1571, Ivan Feodorov left his warm corner and headed to Lviv, the main city of Galicia, which at that time was, so to speak, the advanced post of the Orthodox Russian people in the fight against Latinism and where the need for people like Deacon Ivan Feodorov seemed urgent. In Lvov, at the Assumption Church, there was a brotherhood and a printing house attached to it, which was not distinguished by the wealth of workers. However, Ivan Feodorov was severely mistaken in his calculations. Lvov received him coldly and with great distrust. This is what he himself writes in the afterword to the Lvov Apostle about his journey to Lvov and the first days of his stay in this city.” “And as I walked on the road,” he writes, I found many sorrows and troubles, not just for the sake of the long march, but also breathing in the free wind and obstructing the path of my march, and simply saying – all evil and more evil than the evil ones. And so, by the Providence of God’s love for mankind, I came to the God-saved city called Lvov, and everything that happened to me on the way was worth nothing, so that I might receive my Christ... And when we were all heard in the most famous city of Lvov, as if walking in the footsteps of a certain God-chosen Man, trampled, I began to say a prayer within myself... And having prayed, I began this God-chosen work to complete, supposedly inspired dogmas to spread and spread among many rich and noble people in the world, asking for help from them and throwing, touching with my knee and falling on the faces of the earth with my heart-dropping tears, washing their feet, and this is not one, not two, but and he did many things and in the church he commanded the priest to tell it to everyone in the hearing.” But despite his fervent requests and earnest entreaty, few of the residents of Lvov responded and extended a helping hand to our Moscow fugitive. The indifference with which the residents of Lvov received him drove Ivan Feodorov into despair, and he, in his own words, “cryed bitter tears.” Only a very few “in the priestly rank, but in the midst of disgrace in the world, help was found” who responded to his call for help. With meager financial resources, denying himself a daily piece of bread, Ivan Feodorov finally managed to put into practice what was the goal of his life, i.e. purchase a printing press, matrices and generally the necessary materials for printing books. On February 25, 1573, he had already begun printing the book of the Apostle “including the Acts of the Apostles and the Catholic Epistles and the Epistle of St. Apostle Paul,” and exactly a year later, on February 15, 1574, he finished printing it and published it. Based on the charter of the Bishop of Galicia Gideon Balaban in 1585, which testified that “a lot of books” came out of the Lvov printing house, and based on the news of the pledge of 140 books to the Jew Yakubovich by Ivan Feodorov, one can think that other books came out of the Lvov printing house of Ivan Feodorov, but their exact information has not been preserved. Scarce funds and extreme poverty did not allow Ivan Fedorov to continue further in Lvov the work he had begun, which did not find support and proper sympathy from people who were more or less respectable in their social status and were well-off financially. As for the funds that were collected for him for the sake of his “many tears and bitter tears” “small in the priestly rank” and “not famous in the world,” they turned out to be so meager that with them not only was it not possible to continue the good work of book printing, but Ivan Fedorov himself soon found himself, in the literal sense of the word, without a piece of bread. Only this bleak financial situation can explain the sad circumstance in the life of the “Russian Gutenberg” that in 1579 he was forced to pawn printing supplies and materials and some 140 books in Russian to the Lvov Jew Israel Yakubovich for 411 gold wei. The bitter fate of our book printer at that time was shared by his worthy son, who worked with his father as a bookbinder and pamphlet maker, and to whom some even credit the publication of the Ostrog Bible 27 . At this critical moment in the life of Ivan Feodorov, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky, famous in the history of the southwestern enlightenment, “voivode of Kiev, marshal of the land of Volyn, etc.”, lent a helping hand. Having established a printing house in Ostrog, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich was in great need of such experts in printing and so sincerely devoted to him as the former Nikolo-Gostun deacon Ivan Feodorov was, and therefore invited him to his place in Ostrog. It is hardly necessary to talk about with what joy Ivan Feodorov accepted the offer of Prince Ostrog, whom we already see in 1580, “in the God-saved pre-monastery city” of Ostrog. In the same year, the book “The Psalter with the New Testament,” which Ivan Feodorov calls in the preface, written in the form of a dedication to K. K. Ostrozhsky, “the first vegetable from the printing house of Ostrozhsky,” was published from the printing press of the Ostrozh printing house. With the widespread beneficent assistance and sufficient material resources that Prince Ostrog gave enough for the creation of God-inspired writings, Ivan Feodorov’s financial situation improved greatly, and at the same time the printing business developed in Ostrog with extraordinary success. In 1580, Ivan Feodorov finished printing the famous Ostrog Bible. The following year, i.e. August 12, 1581, due to hitherto unknown circumstances, Ivan Feodorov changed the title page and the “output” of the Bible 28 . The preface to this book, printed with the participation of our pioneer printer, tells the story of the first printed Slavic Bible. When we began to publish the Bible, it turned out that our typographer felt the shortcomings in the newly established printing house in everything. There were no necessary “doers”; there was not a sufficient number of the most ancient “books spoken of as the Bible in the book of this matter” in order to choose the correct and quite good original. It was in these terms that Konstantin Konstantinovich addressed himself through the clerk “(i.e. now Secretary of State) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania” Mikhail Garaburd to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible “with a diligent prayer” for the temporary expulsion of the “modern Bible”. Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich did not refuse to help the good cause and sent “the Bible from the Greek language, seventy and two translators, multiplying five hundred years by the Slavic translation, for the great Vladimir, who baptized the Russian land.” - But this Bible was not enough to undertake such a great undertaking - the publication of all the books of the Holy Scriptures in the Slavic language. In the same way, it was decided to win over to their side “with their messages and writings many distant countries,” such as: “Roman chapels, the Candy Islands, many Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian monasteries, and even the apostle himself and the entire eastern church, the building of the official, the Most Honorable Jeremiah, the Archbishop of Constantine, New Rome, the universes Patriapxa, high-altar churches." All these lists of the Bible were necessary in order to, with the help of “people punished in the writings of Saint Helena and Slavic”, by comparing our Slavic list with the lists of the Bible in other languages ​​“and the commandments corrected for good and every vice other than those testified”, to resolve a very important question in this case: “if all agree in this Divine Scripture.” After a thorough solution of this issue, it was already time to print the Bible, which was gratefully accepted by dear compatriots and in posterity glorified the name of the enlightened Prince Ostrozhsky and his enthusiastic printer 29 . Having printed the “Chronology of Andrei Rymsha” in Ostrog on May 5, 1581, Ivan Feodorov, having parted forever with his benefactor, left Ostrog and moved again to Lvov, which had received him so inhospitably the first time. The thirst for activity did not leave our tireless book printer even now. Thoughts about opening a printing house were already flashing through his hot head, but severe need again stood before him in all its nakedness and prevented the implementation of his plans. Having a need for the necessities of life, quite naturally Deacon Ivan Feodorov could not redeem his printing property from the Jew Yakubovich until the end of his miserable life. Life's adversities, moral upheavals, need and lack of the most necessary items, which haunted the “Russian Gutenberg” all his life, however, did their job. They broke his strong body and brought him to the edge of the grave. Ivan Feodorov died on December 5, 1583 on the outskirts of the city of Lvov in Podzamche in complete poverty. The Lvov brotherhood took part in his funeral, gave a place for a grave near the Onufrievskaya Church, which belonged to the brotherhood at that time, and placed a stone slab on his grave, found at the beginning of this century by Archbishop Khodakovsky with the following very characteristic inscription: “John Feodorovich, drukar Moskvitin, who with his diligence renewed the drukarnoe under the brethren, reposed in Lvov rock (1583) Dekemvria (5). “In the middle of the stone in a circle there is a monogram with the letters I.F. 30 ; then some words, smoothed out, behind which only the following are clear: about the repose of the resurrection from the dead, tea... A drukar of books never seen before” 31 . Soon after his death in 1584, all the printing things and books pledged by Ivan Feodorov to the Jew of Israel Yakubovich became the property of the latter and they were in danger of perishing as a victim of the owner’s greed and ignorance. But at this time, with an energetic word of exhortation, the famous bishop of Galicia, Lviv, Kamenets-Podolsk Gideon Balaban (in 1607) managed to convince his fellow citizens to make a monetary collection, and the pledged items were redeemed for 1,500 gold. All the printing supplies of Ivan Feodorov served as the basis for the newly established fraternal Lviv printing house. Thus, reviewing the life and work of Deacon Ivan Feodorov, one cannot help but see that he was not only the “Russian Gutenberg”, “the Master of books previously unseen in Russia, but with his works and even, one might say, with his property, he contributed to the rapid spread of printing outside his homeland. The printing houses of Lvov, Ostrog and Zabludov were founded with the direct participation of our pioneer printer. His disciples subsequently founded printing houses in other cities, for example, in Sryatin, Vilna, Derman, Kliros, Kyiv, etc., and book printing has developed since that time on a wide scale, bringing invaluable service to the Slavic World in mental and moral development. Printing business merged the entire Slavic tribe into one; united the Slavs and gave them full opportunity to understand and get to know each other. We can now judge the great merit of our pioneer printer, who devoted his entire life to serving humanity. But among the Slavs, even in the place where he shed so many tears, where he drank a full cup of suffering during his life, at the place of his eternal rest there were people who tried to erase from the face of the earth the very memory of this undeniably great man. The city of Lvov, inhospitable during the life of our pioneer printer, does not leave the suffering printer in peace even after death. Very recently, newspapers reported that Fr. Sarnitsky, the current, by the grace of Rome and the Jesuit fathers, proto-abbot of the Galician-Russian Basilians (Uniate monks subordinate to one chief or general, who previously retained the title of proto-archimandrite, and is now called proto-abbot) ordered the tombstone to be thrown out of the church, broken and its pieces used for the fence 32. Thus, one of the dear monuments of our past historical life disappeared before the eyes of the enlightened and blessed Slavic World. Otherwise, however, Muscovites honor the memory of where such a fruitful activity of Ivan Feodorov began, who was not destined to lay down his bones in his native country. 1869 marked the 300th anniversary of the publication of the “Teaching Gospel” in Zabludov. On this occasion, the Moscow Archaeological Society honored the memory of our pioneer printer with a solemn meeting, at which it was decided to petition for the opening of a subscription throughout Russia for the monument to Ivan Feodorov. The highest permission followed. The model of the monument, representing our first printer sitting at a book printing press with the attributes of the necessary accessories, is already ready and is in the Moscow Printing Library. The erection of the monument, obviously due to insufficient funds, is progressing very slowly. One must think that the upcoming celebration of the 300th anniversary of the death of “the Russian Gutenberg will revive in the minds of the Russian people the memory of one of the best sons of Russia, who, in the words of Ernest Renan, recently spoken at the grave of I. S. Turgenev, is truly “an honor to the entire Slavic race” and “its happiness.” One can hope that the generous hand of a true Slav will not hesitate to reach out into a mug to collect contributions for the construction of this monument in order to prove to the enlightened World that the Slavic “young race” knows how to honor its best sons with dignity. In this matter, it is very appropriate for the Russian clergy to take a particularly ardent part, since there is a question of erecting a monument to one of his brethren. Sochin. teacher Maxim the Greek. Kazan, 1862, vol. III, p. 62. Stoglav. ed. Kaz. 1862 chapter 5, issue 5, p. 52. Histor. states Russian 1821 S.-P. v. 9, approx. 89, page 28 Such a program for candidates for the priesthood was drawn up by the fathers of the Hundred Head Cathedral. (Stoglav, chapter 26, pp. 122, 123). Memorial Russian old in the west lips ed. Father. St. Petersburg 1874 17, p. 166, appendix. Stogl. question 18, p. 62. Solov. East. Ross. from ancient times vrem., vol. 7, pp. 104–109. Receipts books, rkp. typogr. bib. No. 29, l. 1, 2; No. 34, l. 12; Specified RCP book the same library. No. 66, l. 8; No. 67, l. 9. Karamz. East. Ross. vol. 9, p. 28, approx. 99 Review Slavic-Russian bibliographer. St. Petersburg 1849 vol. 1, p. 15. Russian experience. Bibliography St. Petersburg 1813, p. 56. Dictionary of History. describe spiritual rank of St. Petersburg 1827, p. 264. Description Starop. book gr. Tolstoy, Moscow 1829, p. 52. Review. Slavs Russian bibliography, p. 15. This letter is printed in Theologisk bibliothek. udoivet af Iens Moller 1816, part 10, p. 326. (Kappen, list of Russian monuments M. 1822, p. 88 Soloviev, East. Ross. vol.7, p. 243; Macarius, East. Russian Churches, vol. 7, book 2, p. 121. Doubts about the personality of Hans Missenheim were expressed even earlier by Solovyov by the author of the book: “Review of Slavic Russian Bibliography”, vol. 1, p. 15. The Bible was published in Venice in Slavic for the first time in 1508. According to Karamzin’s remark, the Russians called the inhabitants of northern Italy, the Genoese, Frfgami (vol. 4, note 357, p. 444; 6, pp. 74, 79). Teredorschik (printer) in Italian tiritore, in German – drucker, batyrschik (printer or ink-layer) – battitore; pian (drunk - the top board in a printing press for pressure) - piano; tympanum (a quadrangular frame at the machine, which was previously covered with parchment and on which a printing sheet was applied) - timpano; the frashket that covers this sheet is frascato; matzah (leather bag stuffed with wool with a handle for printing paint on letters) - mazza, punch (steel letter for adding matrices) - punzone and other terms. (Rumyants. collection of memorials related to book printing in Russia. M. 1872, pp. 14, 15). Karamz. East. Ross. vol. 9, p. 50. Stroyev, the description is printed in old times. books gr. Tolstoy, p. 9. Here, for example, is what is said in the decree on the printing house regarding the publication of a new edition of the Apostle: but those books of the Apostles were again not translated from the Greek books and there was no correction made by him. (indicated book. RKP. typographical library. No. 69, l. 76). Consequently, the text of the Apostle remained the same as in the first printed Apostle of 1564, even after the correction of the books undertaken by Patriarch Nikon. Review Slavic-Russian bibliogr. vol. 1, pp. 15, 20. A remarkable indication of the Moscow edition of the Gospel is even found in one of the foreign editions, namely: in the Tyapin Slavic-Russian unfinished Gospel of an unknown year. Seen here in the margins. In the Moscow recently published (i.e. Gospel). But, however, this remark does not accurately determine which edition of the Moscow Gospel the Tyapin Gospel refers to, and therefore one cannot attach special significance to this remark. From the afterword to the Lviv Apostle of 1574. See the afterword to the Lvov Apostle of 1574. Zhur. Min. Nar. enlightenment 1838 Part 19, page 564. All known copies of the Ostrog Bible, even those published in 1580. have the year 1581 on the title page. Since both of these editions differ only in two pages that make up the afterword, and are literally similar in everything else, it is hardly necessary to consider the change of year on the title page as a new edition. The Ostrog Bible was reprinted verbatim under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1663 in Moscow, with the spelling of some names and sayings corrected, as well as errors, which were numerous in the Ostrog Bible. This edition of the Bible is now known as the Moscow First Printed Bible. Already from this edition, the so-called “Elizabethan Bible” was printed with new corrections in St. Petersburg in 1751 and the third edition in Moscow in 1753. This sign is similar to the coat of arms called Srzeniawa or Druzyna, which depicts a river in a red field, sometimes with or without a cross. Here, instead of a cross, something else is visible, similar to an anchor, or rather a square, placed on top of a straight column. The square, which is the main and necessary tool for size in the manufacture of movable typographic letters, could be used here as an emblem of typographic art. (Rumyanst. collection, memory, relating to book printing in Russia, p. 49; Köppen - list of Russian memory, p. 89 A photograph from this slab was taken for our famous archaeologist Count Uvarov, who donated it to the Moscow Printing Library. Here this photograph is placed in the hall for scientific studies and forms the front side of one of the many cabinets containing manuscripts and early printed books. New time 1873, No. 2721.