ON THE ISSUE OF CYRILLIC MANUSCRIPTS IN CHUVASHIA: THE OLD BELIEVER MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY “KATOLOKH” FROM THE COLLECTION OF A.G. BERMAN

This work is devoted to the paleographic and source-study description of the Cyrillic Old Believer manuscript collection of the XIX century, stored in the collection of A.G. Berman. The compiler of the collection named it “Katolokh”. The presence of Soviet documents inside the collection, used by former owners of the handwritten monument, enables us to determine that it comes from Semenovsky uyezd of Nizhny Novgorod governorate, which has long been known for Old Believers’ small monasteries. 
 
An important dating element that makes it possible to determine the time of the manuscript creation are the paper blocks used. The stamps on the paper of the collection under study enable to establish the chronological framework of paper production in 1868–1874. A more accurate dating was made due to the presence of financial and accounting documentation woven into the collection. 
 
Upon a detailed study of the entire collection under study, it was revealed that the accounting documents presented in the collection relate to the period of economic activity of Nizhny Novgorod Old Believers-salt merchants, who introduced trade with one of the major salt suppliers to the market of the Russian Empire – Countess Varvara Petrovna Shakhovskaya-Shuvalova-Polye, Princess Butero-Rodali (1796–1870). 
 
The collection includes excerpts from theological works, monuments of the canon law, works of the Old Russian literature, Old Believers’ writings of the XVII – XIX centuries. The content of “Katolokh” is divided into several thematic blocks, in accordance with the ideological tasks that the compiler solved. 
 
Based on paleographic, textual and historical analysis, it is concluded that the collection called “Katolokh” was created at the very end of the 60s – the first half of the 70s of the XIX century in the midst of the Old Believers who did not reject the priesthood. It is very likely that these Old Believers had close ties between the co-religionists of Perm and Nizhny Novgorod governorates. The collection reflects the state of external and internal Old Believers polemics, when dogmatic differences with the Bespopovtsy were already fully realized, but the positions between the Belokrinitsky hierarchy, the chapel and Beglopoptsy agreement on the issue of receiving clergy from the New Believer church did not completely diverge yet and were in a state of acute controversy and discussion.