[THE FINEST EXTANT COPY? – WITH EARLY PROVENANCE] Iroicheskaia piesn' o pokhodie na polovtsov udiel'nago kniazia Novagoroda-Sieverskago Igoria Sviatoslavicha, pisanaia starinnym russkim iazykom v iskhodie XII stolietiia, s perelozheniem na upotrebliaemoe nynie nariechie [A heroic song about the campaign against the Polovtsians of the appanage prince of Novgorod-Seversky, Igor Svyatoslavich, written in the old Russian language at the end of the 12th century, with a rendering into the language now in use, i.e. The Tale of Igor's Campaign].

Moscow: V Senatskoi Tipografii [Aleksei Ivanovich Musin-Pushkin], 1800. Quarto (29 × 23 cm). Original unbound gatherings housed in recent decorative custom leather box; VIII, 46, [2] pages (pp. 47–48 blank); one folded leaf of plates (genealogical table). Lacking the errata leaf (which was possibly not present in this early state). Nineteenth-century South Slavic annotations to left margin in brown ink on pp. 17, 20, 25–27, 32, 34, 40, 41, 46 (most often only one glossed word or phrase). Very minimal, barely visible professional restoration to upper spine fold of first two gatherings; else very good or better, uncut, unresized, and unbound individual gatherings with the original wide margins. Item #55634

Extremely rare unbound copy in the original seven gatherings (plus the folded genealogical table) of the earliest Slavic medieval epic poem. This is likely one of the very first copies to come off the press and it reflects the uncorrected first state; it is also one of a small number of copies that survived the 1812 Moscow fire, which also destroyed the original manuscript copy owned by Count Aleksei Musin-Pushkin (1744–1817) that was the basis of this edition. In his analysis of the extant copies, L. A. Dmitriev notes that in almost all known copies several leaves were replaced by later states and typically glued into the printed copies; only five out of his census of sixty surviving copies preserved the original state, as is the case with our copy. Of these five "archetypal" copies, four also lack the errata sheet (and three lack the genealogical table, which is present here). The census does not, however, list any other copies that are in loose gatherings, as issued; all known copies are either sewn pamphlets in the publisher's marbled paper wrappers or in various early or later bindings. It is possible that the present copy was issued as a review or proof copy; in any case, no other copy in equally fine condition is known either in public holdings or auction records.

The Moscow fire during the Napoleonic occupation in September 1812 destroyed much of the city, including the library of Count Musin-Pushkin, which contained a bound volume with the only extant manuscript copy of the medieval epic. By most accounts (see Bitovt, Sopikov, Mintslov), the fire also claimed the remaining print run (it is believed that 1200 copies were printed, but only a few dozen are known to survive today). It is possible that Musin-Pushkin, having instigated and financed the publication, was in possession of the unsold copies. A small number of copies were distributed to the Balkans in order to bolster nascent nationalist revivals and to foster a sense of pan-Slavic unity. This copy features early marginalia with South Slavic lexical equivalents for the Eastern Slavic idiom of the original. It was owned by Danilo Medić (1844–1879), a writer and journalist from Doljani (modern-day Croatia), who studied in Russia and traveled extensively. Known for his fervent Pan-Slavic and pro-Russian views, he published an annotated translation into Serbian of the "Tale of Igor's Campaign" (St. Petersburg, 1870; with a dedication to the Serbian nationalist and fellow Pan-Slavist Svetozar Miletić, 1826–1901). It is possible, though not certain, that the annotations are in his own hand; they may in fact be of an earlier date. In any case, they firmly establish an early South Slavic provenance.

The only known manuscript of the epic surfaced in a Yaroslav monastery library in 1795 and was acquired by Musin-Pushkin, who shared a transcription with Catherine the Great shortly thereafter. Writer and historian Nikolai Karamzin was also among the earliest scholars to study the manuscript. Its publication in 1800 set off a vigorous debate about its authenticity that continues to this day. Given the loss of the only known manuscript and the suspicions raised by established Western forgeries such as the "Songs of Ossian", accusations of forgery abounded. Today, most scholars agree that the work is an authentic document of the medieval East Slavic oral tradition, possibly dating to the late twelfth century, that was written down sometime during the thirteenth century, making it the earliest known Slavonic text, in an idiom not yet affected by Church Slavonic. The text recounts the failed 1185 military campaign of the Prince of Novgorod-Seversk, Igor Sviatoslavich, against the Turkic Polovtsians, and laments the lack of unity among feudal Kyivan Rus in the face of the persistent threat from the East, calling for reconciliation, collaboration, and unity. The theme of patriotism and national sentiment has determined the epic's reception, often in complicated ways. Given its setting in Kyivan Rus, it has been argued since the nineteenth century that the text cannot be, as Russian nationalists have claimed, a specifically Russian, rather than broadly East Slavic and at least partially Ukrainian literary document. The provenance of the present copy suggests the salience of the text to South Slavic readers and Slav nationalists under Austro-Hungarian hegemony. The great Serbian philologist and folklore compiler, Vuk Karadžić, also engaged with the "Tale", as did the Croatian Illyrian movement of the 1830s and 1840s. In Bohemia, for instance, Josef Dobrovský and Pavel Šafařík took a strong interest in the epic, also taking it as evidence of a shared Slavic literary heritage.

Also included: bound facsimile copy of L. A. Dmitriev. Istoriia pervogo izdaniia "Slova o polku igoreve": materialy i issledovanie (Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1960); Original edition of: Danilo Medić, Slovo o polku igorevom ili pjesma o igorevoj ćeti (Petrograd, 1870).

Provenance: collection of Danilo Medić, author of the 1870 monograph; his descendants; from 1988: private collection Vienna.

Bitovt 2613; Mintslov 143; Burtsev 857; Sopikov 8721; Svodnyi katalog 2665.

Price: €125,000.00

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