Ivan A. Bulychev On the Newly Discovered Horologion (Moscow, December 1689), Previously Known Only from Seventeenth-Century Documents

Abstract

This article is devoted to the attribution and dating of an incomplete copy of a printed Horologion (Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, hereinafter РГАДА, Library of the Moscow Synodal Printing House collection, hereinafter БМСТ, subdivision, hereinafter спк, № 2342). Since traditional methods made it possible only to establish the Moscow origin of the book under study, documentary materials from the archival collection of the Department of Printed Books (РГАДА. Ф. 1182) were consulted in order to determine the exact date of its publication. Their examination made it possible to establish the period during which the edition in question was printed. The non-liturgical texts contained in the book — Predislovie v Chasoslov (“Preface to the Horologion”) and Predanie o slozhenii perstov (“Instruction on the Folding of Fingers”) — allowed 1684 to be identified as the lower chronological boundary for the search for the edition. The upper boundary was set at 1700 because such characteristics of the examined copy as the number of quires, the typeface, and the number of lines in the type area differ from the corresponding features of the Horologia printed in the eighteenth century. As a result of the study, it was established that the book belongs to the December 1689 edition, previously known only from seventeenth-century documentary evidence. An analysis of the contents of these texts, together with the cultural and political context of the Muscovite Tsardom in the 1680s, sheds light both on the reasons for their inclusion in this Horologion and on the publishing policy of the Moscow Print Yard concerning editions used for teaching faith and literacy. The article also examines the peculiarities of the liturgical contents of the edition in comparison with other Horologia of the last third of the seventeenth century, as well as the free distribution of newly printed copies of the December 1689 edition. In addition, the article establishes the period during which Simeon of Polotsk wrote the work Predislovie v Chasoslov and clarifies details of the procedure by which the management of the Print Yard reported printing expenses to the Patriarch.

Keywords:

Moscow Print Yard; Early printed Cyrillic editions; History of the book; Horologion; Department of Printed Books

For сitation:

Ivan A. Bulychev. On the Newly Discovered Horologion (Moscow, December 1689), Previously Known Only from Seventeenth-Century Documents. The Historical Reporter. 2026. Vol. 58. P. 10–37. DOI: 10.35549/HR.2026.2026.58.001

Received 30.10.2025. Revised 01.12.2025. Accepted 12.01.2026. 

Ivan A. Bulychev
Master of Theology, leading specialist of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. Moscow, Russian Federation.
e-mail: fenix-zero@yandex.ru

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