Manuscript Monuments of the Komi-Permyak Writing of the 18th – Early 20th Century: Creation History and Archaeographic Description Concept

The article is devoted to handwritten documents of the 18th – early 20th century containing Komi-Permyak language material. Although archives and libraries in Russia and abroad hold many well-known, but unstudied manuscripts, and information on previously unknown documents continues to appear, study of the manuscript traditions of various Permyak languages in general, and of the Komi-Permyak in particular, remains lacunar. There is no archaeographic and palaeographic description of documents, which should precede textual and linguistic analysis of the manuscripts and their subsequent publication. The study is to offer a brief overview of the history of the Komi-Permyak language written monuments of the 18th – early 20th century and to develop a concept of their archaeographic description. The first part of the article outlines the main milestones in the history of the Komi-Permyak manuscript tradition, indicating types and authors of the written monuments: (1) the century of travelers and scientific expeditions (N. Witsen 1641–1717, Ph. J. von Strahlenberg 1676–1747, D. G. Messerschmidt 1685–1735, J. E. Fischer 1697–1771, G. F. M?ller 1705–83, I. I. Lepekhin 1740–1802); (2) the era of Catherine II (Nikita Ovchinnikov, A. I. Popov 1748–88); (3) the first half of the 19th century (Georgy Chechulin, F. F. Lyubimov 1779/1780–1851, F. A. Volegov 1790–1856); (4) the time of the first printed books (P. M. Sorokin 1860–95, A. F. Teploukhov 1880–1943). All manuscripts fall into the following genres: (1) dictionaries of the Komi-Permyak language; (2) Permyak dictionaries included in multilingual collections; (3) grammatical essays on the Komi-Permyak language; (4) translations of religious texts (Gospels, prayers) into the Permyak. The second part of the article, taking into account specifics of the Komi-Permyak writing manuscript monuments and time of their creation, proposes to consider the following elements in their archaeographic description: (1) place of storage, code, date; (2) name; (3) volume, format; (4) binding; (5) numbering; (6) filigree, stamps; (7) notebooks; (8) handwriting; (9) records, labels; (10) Russian graphics and spelling; (11) Komi-Permyak graphics and spelling; (12) content; (13) additional information; (14) history of manuscript description and its study; (15) bibliography. In the course of archaeographic description, the history of the Komi-Permyak writing and manuscript tradition is reconstructed; links between various Finno-Ugric manuscripts are established; previously unknown monuments of the Finno-Ugric writing and new facts regarding dating of various papers of the 18th–19th centuries come to light.