Abstract:
This paper introduces a previously unstudied manuscript, “Opyt perevoda
vetkhozavetnykh knig [. . .] Mikhailom Fotinskim” (1806). In this article, we analyze
the history of this manuscript, the circumstances surrounding the translation, and
its purpose; some personal facts about the translator are also reviewed. This source
represents the earliest Russian translation of the Old Testament, antedating by more
than fifteen years the Russian Bible Society translations. Rev. Mikhail Fotinsky’s
translation of five Old Testament books (only two ones in the Genesis) was sent to
the Moscow Religious Censorship Committee (Moskovskaia Dukhovnaia tsenzura)
in 1806, and the next year, Fotinsky asked the Censorship Committee to allow him
to make a translation of the entire Old Testament. However, the censors left the
manuscript in their repository, and there was no further development on this project.
Contemporaries ignored this translation for several reasons. The first reason might
be related to language: Fotinsky’s translation includes many Ukrainian elements.
The second reason relates to its literary quality (or lack thereof), as the translation
was interlinear and thus not stylistically developed. The manuscript contains many
commentaries by Fotinsky, who concentrated on the Hebrew original and Judaic
exegesis, trying to show different interpretations that may have occurred as a result
of the polysemy of the original text.
