Channel 1 Russia and Birch-bark Manuscripts

The Channel 1 Russia’s “Good Morning” television program has been shot on July 18 at the Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy.

The story marks the 60th anniversary of the first excavation of ancient birch-barks in Veliky Novgorod. As is known during the excavations in 1951 on the territory of the Novgorod Kremlin archeologists found several hundred letters, memos and charters on birch-bark, which later were dated 11-15th centuries. Somewhat surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of all the birch-barks are private letters, promissory notes, shopping lists... Don’t forget that we are talking about ancient Novgorod, governed by veche (popular assembly).

Note from Marina to her son, Grigory. 1400

Drawing of this note Interpretation: “Greetings from Marina to my son Grigory. Buy me a good zendyan (cloth), I gave the money to Davyd Pribysh. So, my child, do [the purchase] yourself (literally: in his presence) then bring it here”

Petition from calligrapher Yuri Koverdyayev

People today imagine the Middle Ages as dark, wild times, when people were illiterate and lived a primitive joyless life. The found letters prove quite the opposite: people in ancient Novgorod were almost all educated, and even peasants could read and write and were active in correspondence with each other. The situation was slightly different in other regions of ancient Russia, but Novgorod was truly the center of education and culture. This was largely facilitated by the veche (popular assembly) form of government in Novgorod when people chose their princes, and could even influence the politics.

So, to tell about these amazing documents of past eras the Channel 1 Russia’s production team visited our museum, which stores the samples of birch-bark art. Although they are not original exhibits that are several hundred years old, but all of our birch-barks made by the exact technology of the Middle Ages and written by all the canons of ancient grammar and graphics. We have birch-barks written in the style of 11th, 13th and 15th centuries, i.e., in Uncial and Half-uncial Cyrillic book hand and the Russian Cyrillic cursive handwriting.

We told all that in detail to the "Good Morning" journalists, who were delighted by the colorful detailed story about birch-barks, and the works on bark exposed at the Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy.

Shooting

Source: Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy