Old East Slavic epigraphy (11–15th centuries) digitally approached
Abstract
In this paper, we present the project epigraphica.ru, dedicated to medieval East Slavic epigraphy. It is currently the largest digital collection of OES inscriptions, encompassing material from the territories of present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Chronologically, it covers the 11th to the 15th centuries and now includes slightly over one thousand items, with the corpus continuing to expand.
Our aim is to introduce this project into the broader international epigraphic context. Although East Slavic epigraphy began with the inscription on the Stone of Tmutarakan, which bears a direct connection to classical antiquity, European editorial practices have had almost no influence on its development, even the notation used by Russian scholars, though superficially reminiscent of the Leiden conventions, differs from it in nearly every symbol. In this respect, our project inherits Russian epigraphic traditions: despite the existence of EpiDoc, we created our own tools for presenting the highly heterogeneous corpus of inscriptions. We seek to move beyond this long- standing isolation and engage with the wider community of digital epigraphy.
We also aim to highlight the distinctive features of OES inscriptions. Their heterogeneity complicates any attempt to create uniform descriptions. An inscription on a cathedral wall bearing thousands of texts cannot easily be treated in the same way as one on a knife handle. Methods developed for the consistent digital publication of birchbark documents gramoty.ru prove insufficient here. We discuss our approach to addressing this problem and outline our plans for integrating EpiDoc in order to strengthen the project’s descriptive framework.