Knygotyra ISSN 0204–2061 eISSN 2345-0053
2023, vol. 80, pp. 263–281 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15388/Knygotyra.2023.80.131

Vilnius Editions from the End of the 16^th and the Beginning of the 17^th Century in Bulgaria

Mariya Polimirova
Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Centre for Slavo-Byzantine
Studies Prof. Ivan Dujčev
15 Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd., 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria
E-mail: mpolimirova@dujcev.uni-sofia.bg

Summary. The aim of this paper is to present the publications of the printing houses in Vilnius from the end of the 16^th and the 17^th century which have been preserved in the larger Bulgarian libraries and in the archives in Sofia, Plovdiv, and Rila Monastery. These are some of the liturgical books published by Peter Mstislavets, the Mamonichi brothers, and the printing house of the Holy Spirit Monastery. We are offering systematic information with brief descriptions of the preserved copies. We are tracing the distribution of these printed books and the ways of their penetration into the Bulgarian lands in the 16^th –17^th century, as well as their usage in the following centuries.

Keywords: Old printed books, editions from Vilnius, typography, Bulgarian libraries, archives

XVI a. pabaigos ir XVII a. pradžios Vilniaus leidiniai Bulgarijoje

Santrauka. Šio straipsnio tikslas – pristatyti XVI a. pabaigos ir XVII a. Vilniaus spaustuvių leidinius, saugomus didesnėse Bulgarijos bibliotekose ir Sofijos, Plovdivo bei Rilos vienuolynų archyvuose. Tai kai kurios Petro Mstislaviečio, brolių Mamoničių ir Šventosios Dvasios vienuolyno spaustuvių išleistos liturginės knygos. Straipsnyje pateikiama susisteminta informacija su trumpais išlikusių egzempliorių aprašymais bei atskleidžiami šių spausdintų knygų paplitimo bulgarų žemėse XVI–XVII a. būdai, taip pat aptariamas jų naudojimas vėlesniais šimtmečiais.

Reikšminiai žodžiai: senosios spausdintos knygos, Vilniaus leidiniai, tipografija, Bulgarijos bibliotekos, archyvai.

Received: 2023 03 02. Accepted: 2023 05 08
Copyright © 2023 Mariya Polimirova. Published by Vilnius University Press. This is an Open Access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

In the final years of the 16^th century, Medieval Bulgaria lost its political independence, and the Bulgarian lands formed the central part of the Balkan territory of the Ottoman Empire. During the following five centuries, Bulgarians were deprived of national political, religious, and cultural institutions. This led to a long and difficult process of people-driven literary and spiritual development during the time of the National Revival (18^th–19^th c.).

The printed book in the Balkans in the 16^th century

The Bulgarians, as well as the other Slavs in the Balkans subjected to the foreign power, found it extremely difficult to establish their own printing houses on their territory, to produce and distribute printed editions in their own language. The first South Slavonic printing house in the Balkans appeared forty years after the Gutenberg Bible (1453–1455), it was established in 1493, in Cetinje by Ðurad Crnojević, the last ruler of Montenegro. The printing house worked for only three years and printed four essential liturgical books of the Church: the Octoechos in two parts (Octoechos of the First Tone, Octoechos of the Fifth Tone), the Psalter, and the Prayer book (Trebnik)1. These editions exerted great influence on the early Slavonic printing in terms of the text, decoration, and typography. The incunabula of Cetinje were the first printed liturgical books used in the Bulgarian churches. Today, there are thirteen of them preserved in Bulgaria, nine copies of the Octoechos of the First Tone from 1493, and four copies of the Psalter from 14952.

Despite the difficult political situation for the Orthodox people in the Balkans, in the 16^th century, a few Slavonic printing houses were established. These were the printing houses in the towns of Goražde, Belgrade, Târgovište, and Bucharest, and in the Serbian monasteries Gračanica, Mileševa, and Mrkšina Crkva. The printing activities in these places were carried out under the patronage of the local metropolitan, with the support of wealthy merchants and Wallachian governors, and with the efforts of skilled monks. Most of these printing houses operated for a short period of time with frequent interruptions. Usually, they only published a few books, however, these were distributed not only in the immediate lands, but also in the more distant regions in the Balkans. In the Bulgarian libraries, most copies have been preserved from the editions of the printing houses in Brașov, Belgrade and Bucharest.

In the 16^th century, the largest, most productive and continuously operating South Slavic typography was located in Venice. It was established in 1519 by Božidar Vuković of Podgorica, also known by his Latinized name Dionisio della Vecchia3. His publications were intended for the Slavs under the Ottoman rule whose Orthodox churches lacked the basic liturgical books. In addition to liturgical books, Božidar Vuković also published other types of books, Prayer Books or Miscellanies, in a small format, which are convenient for travelers (the so-called Miscellanies for travelers). The Venetian editions of the Vuković printing house were the most widely distributed books in the 16^th century in the Balkans, and also in the Bulgarian lands. Today, more than 130 of them have been preserved in Bulgaria4. Bulgarian scholars have demonstrated a lasting research interest in them, especially in the editions of the first Bulgarian printer Jakov Krajkov, the owner of the Vuković printing house in the period of 1566–15725.

The Cyrillic incunabula and the early printed books in the large Bulgarian libraries were catalogued at the beginning of the 20^th century by our first bibliographers E. Sprostranov and B. Tsonev6. In the second half of the century, the earlier information about them was further updated and supplemented by I. Goshev, P. Atanasov, I. Bogdanov, B. Raikov, L. Dragolova, D. Ivanova7, and was also included in the general catalogues prepared by the Russian bibliographers A. Guseva and E. Nemirovsky8. At the beginning of the 21^st century, a separate catalogue of early Slavic printed books from the 17^th century was prepared by the National Library in Sofia9. Catalogues of the Kliment Ohridski University Library and of the National History Museum in Sofia were also published, in which a few additional Cyrillic early printed books were included10. Editions from the printing houses in Targovishte, Brașov and Bucharest, and the Venetian editions, were the subject of separate publications examining their content, language, illumination and marginal notes, as well as the relationship between the printed book and the manuscript tradition. In a number of studies on the early Russian and Ukrainian printed books in Bulgaria, some editions from the printing houses in Vilnius were also mentioned, but, so far, a separate publication focusing on these editions has not appeared11. Bulgarian bibliographic scholarship is in need of more studies which would offer updated information about the editions of specific printing houses preserved in Bulgaria. This topic has caught our attention12, and, more specifically, here we focus on the Cyrillic editions of the 16^th and the first half of the 17^th century from the printing houses in Vilnius.

The Vilnius early printed books are included in the aforementioned general catalogues and the publications on early printing of the National Library St. St. Cyril and Methodius in Sofia, the Ivan Vazov Public Library in Plovdiv, the library of Rila Monastery, and the library of the Church Historical and Archival Institute. Regrettably, the latter two collections have only catalogues from the beginning of the 20^th century, which have not been updated13. Research work in both repositories is currently difficult. The collection in Rila Monastery is being studied by a team of researchers, and a new detailed catalogue is about to appear. The building of the Church Historical and Archival Institute in Sofia is under major renovation, and, for the time being, the archive is not accessible to readers, but we received important information about two editions from Vilnius held there14. Other Bulgarian book repositories which have preserved copies from the printing houses of Vilnius are: the library of the Chitalishte (community center) Elenka and Kiril Avramovi in Svištov and the National Museum of History in Sofia.

At the end of the 16^th century and in the beginning of the 17^th century, the local Balkan printing houses were not operational, and the Vuković printing house in Venice was not as active as before. At that time, publications from the territories of Russia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania penetrated the Bulgarian lands thereby compensating for the lack of liturgical books. For the spiritual development of the Bulgarian people under the Ottoman rule and under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Greek Patriarchate15, cultural
ties with other Eastern Orthodox nations, especially with the Eastern Slavs in Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, were of vital importance.

Vilnius editions from the end of the 16^th and the beginning of the 17^th century in Bulgaria

The process of territorial consolidation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was intensified in the period from the end of the 15^th to the middle of the 16^th century. After the Union of Lublin (1569) and the formation of the united Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it became one of the most important political and cultural European centers.

In the second half of the 16^th century, Vilnius established itself as the leading center of Cyrillic printing in Eastern Europe16. In 1575–76, the printing house of Peter Mstislavets revived book publishing in Vilnius 50 years after the printing activities of Francysk Skaryna17. Vilnius printing houses published a significant number of books with religious and secular content, intended for the needs of both the Eastern Orthodox and the Uniates, not only on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also for Muscovite Russia, as well as for the Southern Slavs in the Balkans. This was a tradition introduced in the middle of the 16^th century with the publications of the Mamonichi brothers which were addressed to: “the regions of Muscovite Russia, Wallachian, Serbian and Bulgarian”18. It is no coincidence that the first edition from the printing house of the Mamonichi brothers in Vilnius – the Priest’s Service Book of 1583 reproduced the famous Venetian headpieces with the monogram of Božidar Vuković. The sought-after similarity with the popular editions of Vuković was a guarantee for the successful distribution of the Vilnius editions among the Southern Slavs in the Balkans in the period after 1572, when the activity of the Venetian printing house declined19. In the final decades of the 16^th and in the early decades of the 17^th century, the production of Vilnius printing met the urgent need for new liturgical books for all Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Balkans.

Some of these Vilnius editions reached the Bulgarian lands where they were used for centuries by priests and literate Christians, and they have been preserved until today in our libraries and archives. These are a total of eight books printed in the late 16^th and the early 17^th century in the typographies of the Mamonichi brothers, of the Brethren of the Monastery of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and in the typography in Evije (Vievis), near Vilnius20. There are multiple copies of some of these editions preserved in the Bulgarian libraries (11 books in total). These are:

1. 1575, Mstislav’s Four Gospels (Четириевангелие на Мстиславец), Vilnius – 3 copies.

2. 1576, Mstislav’s Psalter (Псалтир на Мстиславец), Vilnius – 1 copy.

3. 1596, Study about reading (Наука ку читанию), Vilnius – 1 copy.

4. 1616, Didactic Gospel (Учително евангелие), typography in Evije (Vievis), near Vilnius – 1 copy.

5. 1620, [The Vertograd dushevniy] (Вертоград Душевный), Vilnius – 2 copies.

6. 1640–41, Prayer book (Требник), typography in Evije – 1 copy.

7. 1641, Priest’s Service book (Служебник), Vilnius – 1 copy.

8. 1644, Gospel (Евангелие), Vilnius – 1 copy.

In this article, we present up-to-date information about the above listed items based on bibliographic studies and library research. The focus of our attention is directed to some newly discovered, as yet unknown and unpublished copies, as well as the different typographical versions of the same edition. We also examine some more significant marginal notes which are bound to reveal the origin, the journey, and the previous owners of these books in Bulgaria.

Following the chronology of the editions, we present three copies of the earliest and most luxurious edition from the printing house of the Mamonichi brothers in Vilnius, the Four Gospels, printed by Peter Mstislavets in 157521.

The Gospel book is the main liturgical book with a solemn function in the liturgy, and it must be present on the altar of every church. It is one of the symbols of Christianity, and it is revered as a sacred book before which an oath of fidelity and truth is taken. The Gospel books are better preserved than other liturgical books, we rarely find careless marginal notes on their pages, where usually only the more significant events were being recorded. The presence of three copies of the Mstislav’s Four Gospels book is indicative of the popularity and use of this edition in the Bulgarian lands at the end of the 16^th century.

The distribution of the early Vilnius editions in Bulgaria is related to the monastic embassies to Muscovite Russia and Kiev to collect alms. The first such monastic missions were carried out by the largest Bulgarian monastery (Rila Monastery) in the first half of the 16^th century during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and related to these delegations were the so-called проэзжие грамоты, preserved to the present day22. The usual practice for these embassies was to wait for official permission from the Russian authorities in the border town of Putivl, where these documents are kept in the archive. According to reports, on their way back, the monks passed through Lithuania to avoid the danger of Tatar incursions into Ukrainian lands and to strengthen their contacts with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth23. More detailed information has been preserved about the trips of the Kolasian (from Kyustendil) Metropolitans Vissarion and Michael to Moscow who returned with donations in money, ecclesiastical books, and church utensils24. At the end of the 16^th century, the Kolasian Metropolitan Vissarion travelled together with other clergymen from Western Bulgaria and was mentioned in a letter delivered to the Russian ruler Fyodor I Ivanovich (1584–1598)25.

In the 1640s, Metropolitan Michael participated in several trips of this kind. From 1651 to 1654, he resided in Moscow, where he met Tsar Alexei Romanov (1645–1676) and Patriarch Nikon. The arrival of the delegation was recorded in the archives of the Ambassador’s Order, and, on the way back, the mission left with 12 carts loaded with donations, including printed books26. At that time, Vilnius was the main typographic center of Cyrillic printing in Eastern Europe, and it is fairly logical that the Metropolitans passing through the city acquired the new editions printed there27. The monks of Rila Monastery most often undertook these missions, and they completed such missions regularly, every seven years, and, as a result, today, three out of the 11 Vilnius-printed early books in Bulgaria are preserved in the library of the monastery.

In a publication from 1981, P. Athanasov28 informed that, in Rila Monastery, the following editions from the beginning of the 17^th century can be found: Didactic Gospels, published in 1616 in a printing house in Evije (Vievis) near Vilnius29; two copies of the Didactic Gospels of Cyril Tranquilion, published in 1619 in the village of Rokhmaniv30; and two copies of the miscellany The Vertograd dushevniy (“Вертоград Душевный”) of Thikarios (Phikarios) of the Holy Mount, published in 1620 in the typography of the Monastery of the Descent of the Holy Spirit31.

The preservation of more than one copy of the editions of 1619–1620 supports the suggestion that they were probably brought by the monks of Rila Monastery on a trip made in those years to Russia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania32. The Prefaces in the two Didactic Gospels appealed for the use of simple, understandable language in communication with the common people, and expressed disapproval of the attitudes of rulers and clergy towards the common people treating them “as donkeys and oxen.” This democratic exhortation certainly resonated with the enlightened monks of Rila Monastery. At that time, a new genre of collections (Damaskin), which were miscellanies with mixed – religious and instructive – content, written in simple language, were becoming particularly popular in the Bulgarian lands. These collections were written by the monks of Rila Monastery who knew well and regularly used Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian early printed books. The relationship between the Damaskin miscellanies and the early printed books, for example, the Moscow printed Prologues, was established long ago by Bulgarian researchers33.

We mentioned that three copies of Mstislav’s Four Gospels from 1575 have been preserved in Bulgaria. We had access to two of them, stored in the libraries in Sofia and Plovdiv34. A comparison to the described versions of the edition by N. Bondar35 allows us to conclude that they represent the second published version of Mstislav’s Four Gospels. The characteristic features of this second version included the use of different types of paper with variable watermarks and placing the superscripts of certain words in the main line of the text36. For example: ff. 3, 5 and 20 where ‘ч’ from Ре/ч/гь was placed in the main line Рече Гь. The most representative example is on f. 128, where, in this second version, the Рече Гь was not printed at all.

The marginal notes of the copy in Sofia reveal that the Gospels were used in several churches in Western Bulgaria. On the first folio, under the main text, there is a marginal note recording the purchase of the book by the inhabitants of the village of Lokorsko, near Sofia37. On folio 391v, in the margins, a note was added about the commemoration of St. Therapontii. The saint was especially venerated in Western Bulgaria, in the region of Tran and Sofia.

In the Plovdiv copy, we find a handwritten marginal note about the binding of the book, commissioned by certain Nedyalko the Teacher from the village of Adjar in 1687, at the time of Bishop Nektarios of Plovdiv38. Regrettably, we cannot offer new information about the copy of Svištov, since we were not able to study it de visu, and we only have its early catalogue description from 193139. The Gospels book is preserved in a good condition, it is nearly complete, and it was part of an exposition in the Museum of Aleko Konstantinov in Svištov in 2018.

In the National Library in Plovdiv one more edition by Peter Mstislavets is available, the Psalter of 157640. It was printed in the Mamonichi typography. The book is missing the first folio, but a fragment of the engraving of King David and the entire epilogue has been preserved. Between ff. 243 and 244 and in the end of the book, 14 handwritten folia in total were inserted, containing a fragment of the Liturgy of Hours for the Great Compline, and a Service for the Holy Mother of God41. Thus, this handwritten insertion provided the most necessary services to the Psalter. On the last folia of the book, many notes about the ownership, acquisition and donation were written by literate Bulgarians who were referred to as “the grammarian,” “the teacher,” “the pilgrim,” and were also added in the years 1704 and 1714. The Bulgarian alphabet was employed, and there is also a note about the appearance of a comet star in 1666.

Another very rare edition kept in the National Library in Sofia deserves our attention. This is the so-called Study about the Reading and Understanding of the Slavonic Writing (“Наука ку читанию”) by Laurentius and Stephan Zizaniy from 159642. We have only a fragment of four folia of this publication bound together with six other editions in one volume. This volume (convolute) contains grammar studies and other works in Latin, Polish, and Church Slavonic focusing on the teaching and upbringing of children. Among these different compositions, there is a complete copy of the “Lament of the House of Prince Ostrogski” (“Ламент дому княжат Острогски”) from 160343.

The fragment from the aforementioned Vilnius edition of “Study about the Reading” (“Наука ку читанию”) contains two folia with the alphabet and syllables, one folio with a Preface beginning with a Prayer to the Lord, and one folio with the Orthodox Creed. The edition is missing 40 folia containing the entire Lexis (Dictionary), compiled by Laurentius Zizaniy, which was probably taken to be used elsewhere with a different purpose44. After the “Study about the Reading” (“Наука ку читанию”), we find some handwritten folia containing the textbook of Ivan Feodorov “Beginning of Teaching Children” (a primer) (“Начало учения дете”) from 1574. This unique volume from the collection of the National Library in Sofia has been the subject of several publications, presenting separately the Polish and the Cyrillic editions45. However, a detailed study of the volume as a whole is most certainly due.

In this general overview of the early printed books from the Vilnius printing houses in Bulgaria, we should also include two later editions from the 1640s which are stored in the archive of the Church Historical and Archival Institute in Sofia. These are the Prayer Book printed in the typography of the Brethren of the Holy Spirit in 1640/41, and a Priest’s Service Book from 1641 published in the printing house in Evije (Vievis)46. The two editions are bound together in one volume. The beginning of the Prayer Book is missing, but manuscript sheets are inserted instead.

The final edition to be presented here is one luxury Vilnius publication, acquired in 2017 by the National Museum of History in Sofia. The book was included in the second volume of the Catalogue of the Early Printed Books in the National Museum of History where its detailed description was complemented by a few photos47. This is a Four Gospels book printed in 1644 in the printing house of the Brethren of the Church of Descent of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius48. The book is well preserved, and it contains 257 folia with engravings of the four evangelists. On the front flyleaf there are notes in several languages, on which we shall summarize below. The note in Bulgarian is from 1773, and it is related to the purchase of the book by the town of Shumen for the Monastery of Nativity of Virgin Mary in Kilifarevo. On the back flyleaf, there is another inscription about the binding of the book “by Stoen the Teacher from the village of Tryavna”. The note in Greek is from 1759, and it says that the Gospels had a silver bookbinding, which was stolen by the Tatars in 1758, and afterwards Christopher from the village of Lovcha “spent money and donated it”49.

The earliest note in the Four Gospels book is dated to precisely June 4, 1696. It is in Polish, and is written in the lower margins of the first 24 folia of the book. In translation, it says: “This Gospels is donated by me, Alexander Mokoshey, Denisk Matveyovski, a hieromonk from the order of St. Basil, administrator of the bishoprics of Udzk and Ostrog, who donated this book to the church of the Annunciation of the Holy Mother of God who is my mother, patroness, and benefactor. Whoever takes this book, may he be excommunicated from the Orthodoxy and from our holy Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, let he be cursed by… and called another Judas”50. The text is informative, and it is a testimony to the complex religious relationship between the Uniates and the Eastern Orthodox believers at that time in the territory of Poland, and especially in the region of Ostrog. The note was written by a hieromonk, a member of the Uniate order of St. Basil, founded in 1617 (This is a Roman Catholic order but following a Byzantine Orthodox rite). In 1623, the Mamonichi typography was given to this order, and the printing house of the Brethren of the Holy Spirit was its heir51.

These handwritten marginal notes in the presented editions can be analyzed further, and new facts and connections related to the distribution and the use of these books in Bulgaria may still come to light. The presence of more than one copy of a given book in the library of Rila Monastery is also important, indicating the lasting interest towards these books among the literate Bulgarian clergy. Here, we have presented the general information about the Vilnius-originating editions from the end of the 16^th and the first half of the 17^th century in hope to stimulate the scholarly interest and inspire further research on the topic.

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