The 1603/04 Altar Cross from the Monastery of the Intercession of our Lady in Suzdal: On the Identity of its Donator
National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Financing: The article was prepared in the framework of a research grant funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (grant ID: 075-15-2022-326).
For citation: Linvina, Аnna F., Uspenskij, Fjodor B. The 1603/04 Altar Cross from the Monastery of the Intercession of our Lady in Suzdal: On the Identity of its Donator // Drevneishie gosudarstva Vostochnoi Evropy (The Earliest States of Eastern Europe). 2024: In memoriam Alexandr V. Nazarenko / Editors of the volume Т.V. Guimon, P.V. Lukin, Е.А. Мelnikova, А.V. Podossinov. Мoscow: GAUGN-Press, 2024. S. 179–190.
DOI: 10.32608/1560-1382-2024-45-179-190
Abstract: The paper reconsiders the issue of the attribution of the eight-pointed reliquary cross made of silver (gilded) and decorated with stamped images on its front side. The votive inscription on the artefact says that the cross was donated to the Suzdal Monastery of the Intercession of Our Lady in 1603/04, with the style of figurative images, foliage pattern and the high quality of work clearly indicating the Moscow origin of this liturgical object.
As of presently, the identity of the donator has been believed to be unclear, although the inscription is reliably readably and contains both his names and all information necessary for identification. Many people of Medieval Rus’ had two lay Christian names - today, this idea comes as less of surprise to researchers as it used to a decade earlier, yet the tradition of lay Christian binominality is still to be described and analyzed. There are two aspects to it, equally fascinating: revealing the general structure and the semantics of this bizarre practice and simply replenishing the collection by establishing the very fact that this or that person, often notable, bore not just the name under which everyone knows them, found in history textbooks, but had another name, perhaps even more important from their own perspective. This last task of studying specific cases sometimes requires almost detective investigation, and challenges faced by a researcher are not incidental: they are rooted in the very ways how this system of lay Christian binominality functioned in the pre-Petrine Rus’: the same person could appear under one name in one case and under the other name in another, and sometimes it is really challenging to find the crossover points allowing to identify, say, Cosmas, servant of God with Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky.
The historical and onomastic analysis of the inscription on the 1603/04 cross not only allows to reliably identify the owner of this precious specimen of early 17th –century jewellery but also to make some guesses about the circumstances of donation and to clarify our evidence of naming practices characteristic of the 16th -century Rus’.
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