Statement ‘Concerning the Composition of Ink’: on the Issue of the Existence of Old Russian Technological Literature

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Category: Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature: Issue 25
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The study was completed with the support of the Russian Science Foundation No. 25-28-01069, https://rscf.ru/project/25-28-01069/, IRL RAS.
Abstract:

The statement “Concerning the composition of ink” is the most common Old Russian ink recipe and is known in 17 copies from the 16th–17th centuries, the earliest of which dates back to the 1590s. It was created and usually existed as part of a stable complex, together with an statement on cinnabar dye. As the 18th century approached, these two statements were increasingly copied separately. The statement “Concerning the composition of ink” is presented in the Main Version and its derivative Brief Versions. In the course of its existence, the text was not expanded by improving the recipe and adding additional recommendations to it, but, on the contrary, was shortened. The changes to the text mainly concerned its literary, rather than pragmatic (recipe) side. The statement “Concerning the composition of ink” existed as part of Old Russian compilations of various content: at the end of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, it was usually found in compilations of theological and encyclopedic content with grammatical and historical works, and closer to the end of the 17th century, it was found in craft compilations and iconographic manuscripts. Its inclusion in the relatively stable cycle “Decrees on various statements” played a major role in the dissemination of this statement. There is a group of texts for which the statement “Concerning the composition of ink” served as a model, so that they adopted its structure and vocabulary. Among them is the article “On Ink” from the collection of Jonah of Solovetsky.
Keywords: Old Russian technological literature, texts on bookmaking, textual criticism, ink, paleography
Author: Anna B. Belova
Information about the author:

Anna B. Belova, Junior Researcher, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Makarov Emb., 4, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7912-4959

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For citation:

Belova, A.B. “Statement ‘Concerning the Composition of Ink’: on the Issue of the Existence of Old Russian Technological Literature.”  Germenevtika  drevnerusskoi  literatury  [Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature]. Issue 25. Ed.-in-chief O.A. Tufanova, sci. ed. M.V. Kaplun. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2026, pp. 254–285. https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2026-25-254-285 (In Russian)
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/QLQRYL
UDC: 821.161.1.0
Publication Type: Research Article and Publication of Archival Documents
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2026-25-254-285

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