Новое об изданиях Нижегородской типографии 1613 г.

Abstract

The article proposes a principally new view on the Importance of the history of Russian politics and culture with regard to scantily explored problems of book-printing. The main conclusion of the article is that the Gospel traditionally dated from about 1619 and included In the list of the Moscow Printing Yard editions was published according to the edict of the Yaroslavl government of the 2nd people’s volunteer corps as early as 1613 in Nizhny Novgorod. The publication of this book was considered to be an act of political significance. Those supposed to stand behind the establishment of the printing house were Prince Pozharsky and Metropolitan Yephrem. Proceeding from the estimate of 1612 concerning the building of printing-presses the authors managed to identify the customers more exactly. The document which is one of the most important sources in the history of the "Smuta" period (the Trouble times) is referred to the documents of the Yaroslavl government. The authors also put forward an original idea of the destiny of the so-called Nizhny Novgorod sheets. They are considered to be an original printed version of the petition of a Nikita Fofanov, a printer at the Nizhny Novgorod House, — a sort of "pleading quilty" to the newly-elected Tzar Michail Romanov.