The existence of an early Russian prosodie tradition has long been the object of controversy. Many factors have impeded efforts to ascertain its presence and determine its nature and function. These include the absence of graphic markers—lines, punctuation, headings—which might indicate whether a given text was perceived as the medieval equivalent of verse, and the absence of treatises which might suggest an awareness of prosody in the medieval period. The first reference to prosody is Lavrentij Zizanij's Slavonic grammar, published in 1596, where a system is proposed for adapting Greek and Latin meters to Russian.' For all the evidence that the early Russians lacked a native prosodie school, Slavists have continued to search for signs of poetic structures in apparently prosaic texts. Among the most promising texts in this regard are liturgical compositions, which are often provided with special signs to guide celebrants and singers. They suggest, at the very least, the possibility of hidden prosodie parameters inherent to the texts themselves, and they have prompted the elaboration of various hypotheses concerning liturgical prosody.