Bookvica

[OLD-BELIEVER MANUSCRIPT] Skazaie o chudesah sviatogo Nikolaya Mirlikiyskogo [i.e. The book of miracles of St. Nikolas]

Item #2706

Naumovka [Arzamas region], 1870. [6], [351] p. 23x19 cm. Original full-leather binding over wooden boards. Original leather and brass clasps preserved and in working order. Occasional spotting on the pages from use. Endpapers with the traces of wax, on the rear endpaper contemporary inscription (begging of a prayer). Small tear of the spine. Overall, in very good condition for a village manuscript.

Manuscript on paper, it was created in the village of Naumovka, close to Arzamas town of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate in Central Russia, as stated on the colophon on the last page. The south of the
governorate has been the traditional place of resettlement of Old Believers since the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Kerzhenets hermitages emerged within the
territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate; some of these were described in the novels ‘In the Forests’ and ‘On the Hills’ by the local writer P. I. Melnikov-Pecherskiy. During the period of persecution against Old Believers, several instances of self-immolation were recorded in the Nizhny Novgorod region; however, by the late 18th century, the pressure on Old Believers had subsided. The Nizhny Novgorod Governorate was home to communities of Self-Baptizers, Spasovtsy, adherents of the Pomorian and Deaconist Concordances, Molokans, Fedoseyevtsy, Filippovtsy, Wanderers, and Runaway-Priest Old Believers; groups such as the Otritsantsy and Nemolyaki were also present. By mid-XIXth century over 120 000 Old Believers were living in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate.
The current manuscript was created in a village of Naumovka, and was likely done by an artisan calligrapher for the priestess Old Believres (Bespopovtsy). It was a village, found in the beginning of XIXth century to where Old Believers could immigrate, and by 1891 the total pollution was 422. Despite its size there was a few tar and brick factories and a sawmill in the village, as well as the prayer house, for which this manuscript presumably was done.
The book starts with table of contents, followed by the frontispiece of St.Nicolas, execute in red and black, and followed by the main body of text: first eighteen chapters are dedicated to the life of the saint, and the next fifteen are dedicated to the miracles. The content of the book is loosely based on pre-reform editions of 1640 and 1641, printed in Moscow, however neither of them had a frontispiece, and
the order and the content of the miracles are different.
It is well known that the miracles of Saint Nicholas were widely utilized in Russian folk literature—specifically in ‘spiritual verses’. (Spiritual verses constitute a form of poetry that emerged among the literate common people and employs literary devices.) It was precisely such books that served as a source of inspiration for folk authors.

Overall a rare well-preserved example of the folk manuscript tradition of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Old Believers.