Manuscript of Prince Semen Shakhovsky from the collection of the Russian State Library: content analysis

Abstract

Introduction. The article is a brief substantive analysis of the handwritten collection of works by Prince Semen Shakhovskoy. The collection consists of several dozen works of various genres, including historical, hymnographic, religious and philosophical, etc. The relevance of text analysis lies in obtaining a more complete understanding of the development of events of the period under study to which the manuscript belongs, including the Time of Troubles, through the restoration of biography and eyewitness testimony. Materials and methods. The main source of the work was a manuscript dating from 1652 from the collections of the Russian State Library, as well as its alleged copy (F. 173.1 No. 213 and No. 214). When writing the article, the following methods were used: the biographical method gave a clearer understanding of the life path and personality characteristics of Shakhovskoy; the paleographic method allowed to determine the distinctive features of the manuscript itself; the descriptive method allowed to reveal its content and classify the presented works. This classification is proposed for the first time. Results. The author managed to identify 5 types of texts in the collection: prayer, theological, hymnographic, historical and epistolary (epistles). An indication is also made of the preservation of authorship and the formation of a corpus of works for the memory of subsequent generations. This tradition, in many ways, was laid down by Maxim the Greek, references to whose works are in the Shakhovsky manuscript. Conclusion. Prince and voivode Shakhovskoy devoted his whole life to public service, but he gained the main fame thanks to the works that became historical and literary property. The collection under study does not contain all the works of Shakhovskoy known to researchers, but probably those that were of the greatest value to the author.