Akathist Hymn in the East Slavonic Literature of the 15th – 16th Centuries: On the Problem of the Existence of Russian Version

Abstract

Purpose. The paper presents the results of a textological investigation of the Church Slavonic translation of the Akathist Hymn – the masterpiece of the Byzantine hymnography – based on East Slavic manuscripts of the 15th – 16th centuries. The author examined textological data proving the existence in the Russian area of a special (unknown n the South Slavic territories) version of the Akathist Hymn. The problems concerning the process of the appearance and the existence of that version in the East Slavic written tradition are discussed in the work.Results. That distinct version is presumably attributed to Metropolitan Cyprian (1330–1406) basing on the attribution of the manuscripts containing its full form, its South Slavic protograph (that fact was also proved with the usage of textological methods), as well as the language features of the corrections to the text of the hymn. Due to textological data it is also supposed that the correction to the text of the Akathist was performed by Cyprian after he had come to Rus and worked on the correction to the Psalter. The compiling process of the certain version of the Akathist with the Athonite version, that existed simultaneously in Rus, explains the diversity of textual traditions of the Akathist Hymn presented in Russian manuscripts of the 15th – 16th centuries.