All six Ukrainian Presidents since 1991, including Volodymyr Zelensky, have taken the oath of office on this book: the 16th century Peresopnytsia Gospels [Ukrainian: Пересопницьке Євангеліє], one of the most remarkably illuminated of all surviving East Slavic manuscripts. 1/
The Peresopnytsia Gospels were written between 15 August 1556 and 29 August 1561, at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Iziaslav, and the Monastery of the Mother of God in Peresopnytsia, Volyn'. The scribe was Mykhailo Vasyl’ovych, son of an archpriest from Sianik. 2/
The Peresopnytsia Gospels are held in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, in Kyiv. Its collection holds more than 15 million items, making it the 20th-largest library in the world. 3/
This manuscript is the earliest complete surviving example of a vernacular Old Ukrainian translation of the Gospels. Its richly ornamented miniatures belong to the very highest achievements of the artistic tradition of the Ukrainian and Eastern Slavonic icon school. 4/
The Peresopnytsya Gospels were commissioned in 1556 by Princess Nastacia Yuriyivna Zheslavska-Holshanska of Volyn, and her daughter and her son-in-law, Yevdokiya and Ivan Fedorovych Czartoryski. After its completion the book was kept in the Peresopnytsya Monastery. 5/
This is Matthew 19:1 from the Peresopnytsia Gospels. The word "ukrainy" (оукраины) in this excerpt corresponds to "coasts" (KJV Bible) or "region" (NIV Bible). 6/
The manuscript mentions the name of the monk Hryhoriy, Archimandrite of Peresopnytsia, who was responsible for the translation into Old Ukrainian. The scribe records that he prayed day and night that "the Lord will allow him to see his end." 7/
The Peresopnytsia Gospels were translated into Old Ukrainian from the Church Slavonic language of the Bulgarian edition. The Gospel of Luke is the closest to the vernacular. The work also uses Greek and West Slavic, most likely Polish, source texts. 8/
The content of the manuscript is the traditional Orthodox Four Gospels, but the text, in the typical Western Slavic tradition, is divided into chapters each of which begins with a summary of the coming chapter, as well as extensive glosses. 9/
The last entry in the Peresopnytsia monastery inventory for this Gospel book dates back to 1600. Most probably, the Gospels were kept there until 1630, when the monastery, together with its property and land, passed into the possession of the Jesuits. 10/
Apparently, after the Peresopnytsia monastery became a Jesuit college, the Gospel book was taken away by Orthodox monks. It's fate in this next period is unclear, but almost 150 years later, thanks to an entry in Latin at the beginning of the manuscript, we learn.... 11/
..... that on April 16, 1701, Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa, Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host in 1687–1708 donated this book to the Pereyaslav Cathedral, built at his own expense. Purportedly, when Hetman Mazepa was in Volhynia, the manuscript was given to him by local Cossacks. 12/
Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host (Ukrainian: Гетьман Війська Запорозького) was the title of the ruler of the Cossack Hetmanate, a state which existed in what is today Central Ukraine from 1648 to 1764. 13/
In a fascinating example of how Ukrainian history is indelibly intertwined with the history of both Europe and the Near East, the same Hetman, Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa, was a key sponsor of the Ottoman Empire's first Arabic script printing press in Aleppo. 14/ HT @antonhowes
For a century, the Gospels were regularly used at Pereyaslav Cathedral. When the Ukrainian Church finally fell under the control of the Russian Synod and Russian bishops were appointed, these Ukrainian Gospels were transferred to the library as "unnecessary for worship." 15/
In the early 19th century, the book was in the library of the Pereyaslav Theological Seminary, where the poet Taras Shevchenko saw it in 1845, when he inspected it on behalf of the Kyiv Archaeological Commission and noted in particular the Ukrainian language of the text. 16/
In 1862, the seminary - and its library - was transferred from Pereyaslav to Poltava. The book was removed from the seminary library by order of the Minister of Education and Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Count D. Tolstoy. 17/
He reported it as an important historic relic to the Russian Emperor Alexander II, who arranged for it to be bought by Grand Duke Peter Georgievich, Prince of Oldenburg. After the Prince's death the book was returned to the seminary library. 18/
In the early twentieth century, the manuscript was transferred to the Poltava library. Here it was studied by the literary critic VM Peretz (1870–1935) and the philologist and paleographer OS Gruzinsky (1881–1954). 19/
During the Second World War, in 1941, as the German forces approached Poltava, the head of the local museum put the Peresopnytsia Gospels in a porcelain box, and evacuated them to Ufa in Bashkortostan. 70,000 volumes that remained in Poltava were destroyed by bombing. 20/
After the war, the Peresopnytsia Gospels ended up in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the historic Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, where the book initially lay unrecognized. In 1948, it was rediscovered and transferred to the Vernadsky National Library in Kyiv, where it still remains. 21/
It's this library, in the heart of Kyiv, which is right now, today, under direct threat of Russian missiles and bombs. 22/
The Peresopnytsia Gospels have become a political symbol of the Ukrainian nation - every President of Ukraine has sworn his oath of office on the Peresopnytsia Gospels during his inauguration. At the moment of the oath, the President lays his hand on this Gospels.... 23/
and he promises to be faithful not only to the laws of Man, but also to the laws of God:
"I undertake to defend the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine in all my affairs , to care for the good of the Fatherland and the welfare of the Ukrainian people...." 24/
"to defend the rights and freedoms of citizens, to abide by the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine, to fulfill my duties, and to raise the authority of Ukraine in the world." 25/
Thank you for reading what's become a very long thread. Please keep the people of Kyiv and of all Ukraine in your thoughts, and in your prayers. 26/
Слава Україні! Героям слава!
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One of the masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art, the 'Seated Scribe' was discovered by the French archeologist Auguste Mariette at the Saqqara necropolis just south of Cairo in 1850, and dates to the period of the Old Kingdom, around 2500 BCE. It's now in the collections of @MuseeLouvre.
The eyes are especially amazing. I'll explain why. 🧵
The eyes of the scribe are sculpted from red-veined white magnesite, inlaid with pieces of polished rock crystal. The inner side of the crystal was painted with resin which gives a piercing blue colour to the iris and also holds them in place. 2/
Two copper clips hold each eye securely in place. The eyebrows are marked with fine lines of dark paint. The scribe stares calmly out to the viewer as though he is waiting for them to start speaking. 3/
This is the Rongorongo script of Easter Island. Rongorongo lacks an accepted decipherment but is generally presumed to encode an earlier stage of Rapa Nui, the contemporary Polynesian language of the island. It is possible that it represents an independent invention of writing. 1/
Hundreds of tablets written in Rongorongo existed as late as 1864 but most were lost or destroyed in that period and only 26 of undoubted authenticity remain today; almost all inscribed on wood. Each text has between two and over two thousand glyphs (some have what appear to be compound glyphs). 2/
The longest surviving text is that on the ‘Santiago Staff’: around 2,500 glyphs, depending upon how the characters are divided. The glyph-types are a mixture of geometric figures and standardized representations of living organisms; each glyph is around one centimetre in height. 3/
Oy. Forget about being a "rabbi", if you had even a kindergarten level knowledge of Hebrew (or Judaism for that matter) you'd know that this is not old, not Jewish, not an amulet, and nothing to do with kabbalah (which you grotesquely mischaracterize). It's a crude mishmash of… https://t.co/3IJjWrqnIp https://t.co/U7OBn124MNtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
When looking at any purportedly ancient Jewish manuscript, bear in mind: 1. Jewish manuscripts are generally austerely plain and written in black ink only. Red ink is seen occasionally as a highlight color in for example Yemenite manuscripts, but gold ink is essentially never… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Oi u luzi chervona kalyna - Oh, the Red Guelder Rose in the Meadow - is the anthem of 🇺🇦 Ukrainian resistance to Russian oppression.
Written in 1875, it was adapted by Stepan Charnetsky in 1914 to honor the Sich Riflemen of the First World War. 1/ twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The red guelder rose or viburnum of the song ('kalyna' in Ukrainian) - a shrub that grows four to five metres tall - is referenced throughout Ukrainian folklore. It is depicted in silhouette along the edges of the flag of the President of Ukraine. 2/
Due to the song's association with the Ukrainian people's aspiration for independence, singing of the song was banned during the period in which Ukraine was a Soviet Republic(1919-1991). Anyone caught singing it was jailed, beaten, and even exiled. 3/
Bought this this morning at our regular Sunday market in Bon-Encontre.
This bread is called a 'tortillon', and has been made since the late 17th century ONLY in this one tiny village just outside Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne, ONLY on Sundays and holidays in the month of May.
The tortillon celebrates the feast days of Notre-Dame de Bon-Encontre in May.
The flour is blanched and then boiled in hot water, before being baked in a wood oven. It's traditionally eaten with sausages and white wine. 2/
The idea that there's an entirely unique type of bread that exists exclusively in one tiny French village for 5 or 6 days of the year only - and that this has been the unchanged situation for over 300 years - is exactly the kind of thing that makes me love living in France. 3/
This is the 2001 first edition of the Ruhnama (Book of the Soul), written by Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-styled Türkmenbaşy, President of Turkmenistan from 1990 to 2006, intended to serve as the "spiritual guidance of the nation" and the "centre of the Turkmen universe". 1/ twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The Ruhnama was introduced to Turkmen culture in a gradual but increasingly all-pervasive way. Niyazov first placed copies in all the nation's schools and libraries - but by the end of his reign, an exam on its teachings was an essential element of the driving test... 2/
It was mandatory to study the Ruhnama in all schools, universities and governmental organisations. New governmental employees were tested in detail on the book in job interviews. 3/