History of the Earliest Russian Old Testament Translation

Abstract

This paper introduces a previously unstudied manuscript, “Opyt perevoda vetkhozavetnykh knig [. . .] Mikhailom Fotinskim” (1806). In this article, we analyze the history of this manuscript, the circumstances surrounding the translation, and its purpose; some personal facts about the translator are also reviewed. This source represents the earliest Russian translation of the Old Testament, antedating by more than fifteen years the Russian Bible Society translations. Rev. Mikhail Fotinsky’s translation of five Old Testament books (only two ones in the Genesis) was sent to the Moscow Religious Censorship Committee (Moskovskaia Dukhovnaia tsenzura) in 1806, and the next year, Fotinsky asked the Censorship Committee to allow him to make a translation of the entire Old Testament. However, the censors left the manuscript in their repository, and there was no further development on this project. Contemporaries ignored this translation for several reasons. The first reason might be related to language: Fotinsky’s translation includes many Ukrainian elements. The second reason relates to its literary quality (or lack thereof), as the translation was interlinear and thus not stylistically developed. The manuscript contains many commentaries by Fotinsky, who concentrated on the Hebrew original and Judaic exegesis, trying to show different interpretations that may have occurred as a result of the polysemy of the original text.