The Ukrainian Gospels of the 17th Century From the Chester Beatty Library: The History of Creation, Usage, and Migrations

VOLOSHCHENKO, Stanislav. The Ukrainian Gospels of the 17th Century From the Chester Beatty Library: The History of Creation, Usage, and Migrations. The study is dedicated to the manuscript of Four-Gospels W 150 from the Chester Beatty Library Collection (Dublin, Republic of Ireland). The publication consists of four aspects that disclose the history of the creation, provenance, usage, and migrations of the manuscript. A detailed paleographic and codicological study of the Gospels made it possible to determine the exact location of its production - village of Pniv (Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Ukraine) in the first half of the 17th c., by local priest Ioanne. The study of the inscriptions of 1640, 1641, and 1738 showed the purchase of the book by the family of Kostya and Anastasia, together with their sons Gryd and Stepan, daughter Agafia, son-in-law Petrash, daughter-in-law Christina and Maria, as well as grandchildren. The motive of giving the Gospels to the church in the village Yasinia (Transcarpathian region, Ukraine) was concerned with the salvation of their souls. Spouses Ivan and Olena Strukov and Pavlo Gryd were worried about keeping the codex and together paid for a new binding in 1738. The artistic component of the manuscript was also investigated, which made it possible to find out the identity of the author of drawings. As a result of the research, it was possible to reconstruct the history of its provenience and usage from the time of writing to the time of the migration to the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, cataloguing and the first description of the codex.