Suchergebnisse

In the article, we consider such language realities as abbreviations that were found at the Beshenkovichi cemetery in Belarus during the field expedition which was conducted by the "Sefer" Center in 2016. The goal of all the abbreviations is to reduce space on the material and to speed writing. The article describes in detail all kinds of abbreviations (alphabetic, sound and spelling) found in the epitaphs as well as general tendencies and peculiarities of their use on tombstones are revealed. For example, the most common abbreviations are the abbreviations "Here rests" ("Pei-Nun") and "Tantzevah" ("ה''תנצב — ("the final blessing. They are traditional for the region, but relate to two different types of abbreviations, alphabetic and sound respectively. Per contra, the use of the abbreviation "modest woman" ("שהצנו(י)הא ,("which does not occur in other burials of Eastern Belarus, is a characteristic feature of the cemetery epitaphs. Its peculiarity is in the fact that both words are written together, and the connecting part represented with the letter "hey" ("-ה ,("- which semantically is perceived the ending of the feminine gender of the word "woman" (Hebrew האשה (as well as a definite article to the adjective "modest" agreed with it (Hebrew הצנועה.( Thus, the abbreviations found in the epitaphs of the Beshekovichi cemetery were identified and described in the article together with the potential reasons for their use in the texts indicated. However, it is difficult to draw a conclusion on the interpretation of such phenomena (at the same time, both traditional abbreviations and explicit features of the cemetery). This may require further study of the funerary culture of the region.

The article examines the provenance of two Judeo-Persian manuscripts from the collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts RAS (C40 Hebrew) and the National Library of Russia (Evr. IV 150). Both manuscripts were restored in the 19th century, apparently by one master. However, in the 20th century these manuscripts ended up in St. Petersburg in completely different ways: one was bought in Europe in 1904, while the other was brought to Leningrad from Uzbekistan only in 1975. The provenance of both manuscripts can allow us to trace their history in the 20th century, and can help us to answer another question – if we can confirm that these two codexes of Shahin's poems were restored by the same person. The first manuscript was sold to the Asian Museum by Dr. Yahuda from Germany, a Jerusalemite Jew who became one of the leading figures for Jewish education in Europe, a bookseller and collector of oriental manuscripts. Apparently, he purchased the manuscript in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20th century, while a large number of Bukharian Jews emigrated to Palestine and Shimon Hakham published a distinguished number of Judeo-Persian literature that made it rather popular that time. The second manuscript was sold by its owners in 1975. The manuscript most likely did not leave the territory of presentday Uzbekistan before that. I failed to find any documents describing the reasons that prompted the owners to part with this codex. Unfortunately, given the number of gaps in the provenance, the question of whether the same master restored both manuscripts remains open.