The Seal of Novgorod Veche in Publications and Researches

Abstract

The article is devoted to so-called “seal of the Novgorod veche” or “the seal from the collection of Count M. V. Tolstoy”, which not only has been periodically published since the second half of the 19th century, but also has been undergoing transformations from publication to publication. It is often interpreted in the scholarchip as the 15th-century monument of sphragistics. It supposedly sealed decisions of the Novgorod veche — the supreme authority of the Novgorod Republic, i. e. having been in use until 1478. The iconography of the seal enables some authors to suggest the emergence of the attributes of Novgorod independence — the “veche stepen”, which is understood as a platform for orators to speak, and the rod of the Novgorod archbishop. This article attempts to trace the history of the development of this approach to the monument of sphragistics and to understand whether this source meets the requirements applied by researchers. The author demonstrates that all known images of the seal are rooted in the only source — the illustration in the 1855 corpus by of A. B. Lakier of 1855 reproducing the seal of Novgorod voevodas of the late 16th — early 18th centuries. The version that this seal belonged to the Novgorod veche was formed in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries, but took its final shape in the presentation by A. V. Artsikhovsky. Unfortunately, the ingenious and outwardly convinving idea of Artsikhovsky is refuted by the whole complex of monuments of Novgorod sphragistics.