# The Ostromir Gospel > The Ostromir Gospel is the oldest surviving precisely dated East Slavic manuscript (1056–1057), created for St Sophia's Cathedral in Novgorod and preserved intact. - Canonical page: https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/07/ostromirovo-evangelie/ - Page language: English - Published: 2024-07-31 - Tags: Preservation, DigitalTransformation, Library, Book - Russian version: https://shorin.me/blog/2024/07/ostromirovo-evangelie/index.md I haven't written about books for a while. Have you missed them? Today I'd like to say a little about the Ostromir Gospel (National Library of Russia, St Petersburg). Several facts make this manuscript unique: 1. It is the oldest surviving precisely dated East Slavic manuscript book – in other words, a book whose date of creation was recorded by its scribe. As we may remember from my post about [the Laurentian Codex](https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/06/lavr-letopis/index.md), an exact date is a very rare and valuable thing. On the final leaf of the Ostromir Gospel is an afterword written in the hand of Deacon Gregory, who carried out most of the work of copying the text. In it, Deacon Gregory says that he copied the Gospel at the request of Ostromir, the distinguished governor of Novgorod, who was baptised as Joseph, during the reign of Prince Izyaslav Yaroslavich of Kyiv (1024–1078, son of Yaroslav the Wise). Work began on 21 October 1056 and was completed on 12 May 1057, meaning that the book was produced in seven months. 2. The Ostromir Gospel has survived intact. In my post about [the Gutenberg Bible](https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/07/gutenberg-bible/index.md), I wrote that breaking books up and dispersing their pages was common practice. The Ostromir Gospel was created as a book of exceptional status: it was commissioned as a precious donation to St Sophia's Cathedral, the principal church of north-western Rus', built in Veliky Novgorod between 1045 and 1050 and modelled on St Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv, whose foundations were laid in 1037. The Ostromir Gospel was most likely kept at St Sophia's Cathedral in Veliky Novgorod for several centuries. In 1701, the manuscript was discovered in the Church of the Resurrection in the Moscow Kremlin. It was sent to St Petersburg in 1720, after which it vanished from the record once again. In 1805, Catherine II's private secretary discovered the manuscript among the late empress's possessions. As we [know](https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/07/biblioteka-voltera/index.md), Catherine II was an avid collector of books and entire libraries. The Ostromir Gospel was then transferred to the Imperial Public Library – now the National Library of Russia – where it remains to this day. Its history is not quite as astonishing as that of [the Prayer Book of Mary, Queen of Scots](https://shorin.me/en/blog/2024/06/chasovnik/index.md), of course, but it still deserves our attention. ## Media ## Original posts - LinkedIn: