TEXT-CRITICAL AND LANGUAGE FEATURES OF THE EARLY OLD RUSSIAN CANONICAL TEXT INTRODUCTION TO PENANCE

 The paper focuses on the textual criticism and language of the early Old Russian canonical text Introduction to Penance as presented in 28 manuscript witnesses from the 14th to the 17th century. Four recensions of the text are defined: the short, the full, the extended (which includes a number of interpolations, one of them from Izbornik of 1073) and the abridged. A hypothesis is put forward that the short recension is the earliest one. The extended recension was subjected to further alterations. Language characteristics of the Introduction, in particular its lexis, found also in other early original Old Russian texts, such as the Rus’ Justice (Russkaya Pravda), the Chronicles, allow to suppose that the text dates from the 12th century. The Appendix contains a critical edition of the short recension.