Tatiana G. Popova: Die „Leiter zum Paradies“ des Johannes Klimakos – „Lestvica“ Ioanna Sinajskogo. Katalog der slavischen Handschriften – Katalog slavjanskich rukopisej. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2012. 1073 S. = Beiträge zur Slavischen Philologie und Kulturgeschichte. Reihe A: Slavistische Forschungen, 76. ISBN: 978-3-412-20948-3

Tatiana G. Popova: Die „Leiter zum Paradies“ des Johannes Klimakos – „Lestvica“ Ioanna Sinajskogo. Katalog der slavischen Handschriften – Katalog slavjanskich rukopisej. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2012. 1073 S. = Beiträge zur Slavischen Philologie und Kulturgeschichte. Reihe A: Slavistische Forschungen, 76. ISBN: 978-3-412-20948-3.

The Ladder, a seventh-century ascetic treatise originally composed as a spiritual guide for monks, profoundly influenced the thought of Byzantine theologians, among them SS Hesychios of Sinai, Philotheos of Sinai, and Symeon the New Theologian, and was widely copied among the Orthodox Slavs. Excerpts read during the fourth week of Lent circulated in Orthodox Slavic liturgical codices such as the Lenten Triodion and various kinds of toržestvenniki. Passages were included in the Prolog, in miscellanies for monastic and lay spiritual reading and in such diverse works as the Stepennaja kniga, written in the metropolitans’ scriptorium between 1555 and 1563, and the correspondence of Car’ Ivan Groznyj and Prince Andrej Michajlovič Kurbskij.

T. G. Popova’s catalog describes over a thousand manuscripts of The Ladder in Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian Church Slavic. Section I covers 583 complete copies (pp. 57–341; the earliest known are parchment codices in the Russian State Library, Moscow, dated XII or XIII c.). Section II covers 566 manuscripts with excerpts of the work (pp. 342–685; among the earliest is the 1073 Izbornik Svjatoslava). The remaining 600+ pages of this weighty book contain an extended bibliography (pp. 686–733) and seven indices (pp. 735–1058). Four indices list manuscripts respectively by chronology, by linguistic provenance, by archives and by a list of call numbers arranged in rough alphabetical order. Also included are an index of persons historically involved with the manuscripts (copyists, owners, readers); a geographical index (including monasteries and churches); and an index of names and topics. Two appendices list 31 pre-Revolutionary editions of The Ladder in Russian and 169 Greek manuscripts.

Despite the impressive quantity of information, this is not an ideal research aid. Because of its heft, scope and erratic organizing principles (described on pp. 42–48 of the introductory essay) the catalog is laborious to use. The decision to arrange manuscripts of the same work, most titled “Lestvica” and many written around the same time, from multiple archives in alphabetical and chronological order makes it difficult to locate individual manuscripts. The “alphabetical” index of complete manuscripts by call numbers, which can be counter-intuitive (some manuscripts from the MGAMID collection are entered under R as RO MGAMID), consists of three successive alphabetical lists (the first on pp. 1034–1037, the second on pp. 1037–1045, and a third on pp. 1045–1046). The terminology is opaque and sometimes idiosyncratic. While Popova does cite new research and modernizes most archival references, much of the data supplied here appears to be compiled from heterogeneous sources of varying quality. It needs to be checked, supplemented and in some cases corrected.

The weaknesses of the book can most clearly be seen when we compare Popova’s entry on a manuscript of The Ladder (f. 181, RO MGAMID, № 691, dated 1520) with the entry in the exemplary Katalog slavjano-russkich rukopisnych knig XVI veka, chranjaščichsja v Rossijskom gosudarstvennom archive drevnich aktov, edited by L. V. Moškova, vypusk 2 (Moscow, 2014). The RGADA essay (pp. 15–20), written on site by Moškova and I. L. Žučkova, provides a wealth of verifiable information on the manuscript and its provenance, including the exact measurements of the codex and a description of its bindings and ornaments. They identify three watermarks (with references to paleographical albums and the folio numbers where each can be found) and two scribal hands. Glosses and inscriptions are transcribed with folio references. A detailed description of the contents with folio references is included. Under additional information a history of the manuscript’s known owners, information on other manuscripts copied at the Filimonov monastery and current theories (that the manuscript was written in the circle of Bulgarian patriarch Evfimij) are given. Popova’s essay (pp. 194–195) not only supplies less information, which is understandable given the need to cover many more archives, but misses or obscures critical data. She identifies one of two hands. She points out which folia are empty, but does not give watermarks. She summarizes the contents without folia numbers. She classifies the translation as “Athonian”. One must page back to the introduction to discover that this is her own term for a manuscript written on Mount Athos by a member of Patriarch Evfimij’s school (p. 49).

Used discretely, Popova’s catalog can be a useful preliminary tool for scholars engaged in archival research on texts other than The Ladder. But it does not replace authoritative reference works on specific archival collections or individual manuscripts.

Gail Lenhoff, Los Angeles