Book monuments of “The Stephen the Great epoch”: falsification of scribes’ records and historiographic delusions

The reign of Voivode Stephen the Great (1429-1504) is rightly considered the time of reinforcement of the Moldavian Principality as well as the time of book culture flourishing. Donating to new monasteries and churches, Stephen the Great also provided them with handwritten books, beautifully decorated and written in calligraphic handwriting. In historiography, mainly Romanian, there has long been a stable concept of some handwritten books, undoubtedly created by Moldavian scribes, but mistakenly dated only basing on their scribes' records and considered book monuments of the Stephen the Great epoch. However, such records could be the result of later falsifications aimed at raising the cost of Moldavian-origin manuscripts without indicating the time and place of their creation. It had a completely utilitarian purpose - to increase their sales value on the Russian antique market. The report provides four examples of such falsifications: a parchment copy of the Gospel-tetras (Moscow, State Historical Museum, A.S. Uvarov's collection, No. 91), a copy of the Teachings of Abba Dorotheus with additional articles (Moscow, State Historical Museum, P.I. Shchukin's collection, No. 360), a parchment copy of the Aprakos Apostle (Moscow, State Historical Museum, Museum Collection, No. 3451), a parchment copy of the Gospel-tetras of 1491 (Moscow, State Historical Museum, Museum Collection, No. 3442). A de vizu study of the records in these manuscripts shows a peculiar evolution in the skill of falsifying “imprint data” - the records of the book codes creation allegedly at the behest of Stephen the Great during his government. At the same time, it was discovered that the fake scribal records in two manuscripts - the copy of the Teachings of Abba Dorotheus with additional articles (Moscow, State Historical Museum, P.I. Shchukin's collection, No. 360) and the parchment copy of the Aprakos Apostle (Moscow, State Historical Museum, Museum Collection, No. 3451) - were made by the same unnamed forger. The obtained research results allow correcting the register of handwritten book monuments of the Stephen the Great epoch, generally accepted in Romanian historiography.