Prokhor Kolomiatin’s Turkic Dictio­nary among the Narrative Monuments from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries Related to Crimea

Research objectives: To analyze the genre-typological and stylistic peculiarities of the narrative parts that accompany the actual dictionary entries of the Turkic-Russian dictionary, and thus to add a new source to the group of narrative monuments from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries centuries which pertain to Crimea. Research materials: The Turkic-Russian dictionary (“Kniga Elihv”) included in the manuscript miscellany (“Tsvetnik”) that was compiled by the hieromonk, Prokhor Kolomiatin, in 1668. The manuscript is kept in the collection of the State Historical Museum (Muzeyskoe sobr., No. 2803). Results and novelty of the research: The Turkic-Russian dictionary included in Prokhor Kolomiatin’s miscellany is one of the earliest examples of a Turkic lexicography in the Cyrillic tradition. Along with the records of lexemes and word collocations, it contains lengthy narratives concerning religion, geography, and ethnography of Crimea. The nature of the information provided suggests that the author of the dictionary was living in Crimea for some time, most likely as a prisoner, although having a certain privileged status. Having little opportunity to travel outside the peninsula, he received knowledge, including information about other countries, from verbal communication with the local inhabitants made up of different national and social groups. Analysis of the content of the narrative material allows us to state that the text has its own degree of originality, although it naturally finds thematic and genre parallels with the well-known medieval narratives concerning Crimea.