The "breakthrough" mentioned above occurred when Meshchersky, while studying the book of Esther, made a "strong" (and ultimately the most natural and simple) move, suggesting the ancient origin of Esther and its Jewish origin. This assumption was made possible by the combination of two correct and non-trivial choices that provided a solid basis for comparison: the Masoretic text from the Hebrew side and one of the three known translations of Esther from the English side (of the other two, one had its source in the Greek text). The essence of the heuristic construction built by Meshchersky was precisely in the simultaneous joint proof of both assumptions put forward (by the way, although the immediacy of the translation from Hebrew for Esther was not proved, it seemed more than probable to Gorsky, Nevostruev, and Evseev; moreover, Vostokov, who was the first to pay attention to the translation of Esther as early as 1842, remarked, however, without trying to prove it: "It is remarkable that the book of Esther was translated from Hebrew and, apparently, in Russia, but in a very ancient time"). Meshchersky successfully solved the problem he set, collecting arguments at different levels of comparative analysis, from the ratio of volume and content of the texts being compared (the identity of volume, division, even deviations, not to mention the content of the Masoretic textus receptus and the Old Russian text) to such linguistic "shiboleths" as proper nouns, both personal and local (cf. Ahasveros — Heb. Ahasweros in Greek: Άρταξέρξης or Άσσυέρος; Ud — Hebrew. Hud, on India and Ethiopia; Susan-grad — Heb. šušan-, not Susa, etc.; cf. also the names of the Persians and Medes, referring to Hebrew forms, not Greek, etc.). The conclusion about the dating of the proto-text to the eleventh and twelfth centuries should be considered equally reliable, and although the oldest copies are 200-250 years away from the time of the creation of the Russian text of Esther, the Old Russian basis is clearly visible in them and is proved by almost all diagnostically significant linguistic phenomena in this case. The attempt of Altbauer and Taube to revise Meshchersky's decision both in favor of the South Slavic origin and in favor of the Greek original is hardly tenable, which was convincingly shown by Alexeev.

Meshchersky, on the other hand, raised the question of the literary environment of the book of Esther and pointed out, and in a number of cases specifically analyzed, the range of texts of historical content and compilations in nature, the appearance of which on Russian soil he attributes to the eleventh and twelfth centuries and which are translations from the Hebrew. To this circle belong excerpts from the translation of the Jewish folk book "Josippon", which found their way into the Russian chronicle at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in one case, in the Academic Chronograph (the legend "Of the Three Captivities of Jerusalem") in another, in the "Hellenic and Roman Chronicler" of the so-called 2nd redaction ("On the Capture of Jerusalem by the Third Titovo") in the third (cf. now the article by Taube 1992). The Hebrew text of "Josippon" was compiled in Italy, no earlier than the second half of the tenth century, by one of the Jews living there and is a compilation chronography covering the events of world history from a Judeocentric religious point of view. Although the historical value of the book is not great, it enjoyed wide success in the Jewish environment, is often quoted in the texts of Jewish-Khazar correspondence (especially in the so-called "Cambridge Document"), and this circumstance seems to be very important in the light of the question of possible sources and impulses for the translation of this Hebrew text into Russian (perhaps it is significant to note that the lists of the Hebrew text of the book, which are very numerous, belong to the XII–XV centuries)· It is also noteworthy that the translation of Josippon belongs to the same school as the translation of Esther (it is assumed that in both cases the translator was the same person). And, finally, it is also important that the translation of Josippo from Hebrew appeared at about the same time as the translation from Greek of Josephus' History of the Jewish War. Meshchersky calls "Josippon" a kind of literary rival and competitor of "History". The literary milieu of Esther also includes the apocryphal Exodus of Moses, which was included in the explanatory book, and the Song of Songs, which has been preserved in the only copy of the sixteenth century (incidentally, the text already existed in the fifteenth century, and it was used in the work on the Vilna RCP. 262). Alexeev, who was engaged in the publication and study of the Song of Songs, later admitted that his assumption about the possible Western Russian edition of the translation of the Kievan era was unreliable, but did not recognize Taube's opinion that the translation was made in Kiev in the 15th century as motivated.

The same literary environment of Esther includes the texts in the Expository Palea that convey the haggadic legends of the Midrash and Targums. We are talking about the cycle of apocryphal legends about Solomon – about the construction of the temple (Solomon and Kitovras), about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, about the judgments of Solomon, about King Adarian, as well as the already mentioned "Exodus of Moses". These texts are represented by East Slavic copies and collections of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and, as has been guessed for a long time (this possibility is also recognized by Meshchersky), they apparently reflect an ancient Hebrew source, although it seems that it is not yet known whether the construction of such a composition existed in the Talmudic writing. In any case, for these texts, the assumption of their direct translation from the Hebrew seems to be very likely, which is confirmed by a number of analyses at the linguistic level (it should be noted that from this circle of legends about Solomon there are separate texts about the wisdom of Solomon, the abduction of his wife by Kitovras by Kitovras, some parables and riddles, for which both their South Slavic origin and the Greek original are indisputable. from which they were directly translated). The very presence of lexical Hebraisms in these texts is significant, although, of course, they could have been included in the lists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as glosses (this applies not only to šamir — shamir, see above, but also to the name of the Queen of Sheba — Malkatshka, Malkatksha, Malkatoshva, a corrupt transliteration of the Hebrew teleket sebа). More indicative from the point of view of the presence of an ancient Hebrew source are cases that clarify semantic ambiguities: for example, the expression "nail bird mal" in the name of shamir (list of 1477), which caused so much perplexity, remains unclear even after Mazon's indication that the translator chose the wrong meaning of the Greek όνυξ (1. "Onyx", 2. "nail"), which is necessary in this case, is more easily explained on the basis of the Hebrew (cf. siporem šamir "diamond claw", Jeremiah 17:1, designation of a diamond point for carving and writing on stone; sipar – "bird"). Such explanations are found in other cases, and even the name Kitovras (κενταυρος) may suggest a Hebrew intermediary (cf. qintorin, plur., with the consequent well-known loss of the nasal). Finally, in connection with the range of these texts, some others are also indicated, suspected of the possibility of their translation from Hebrew (the Talmudic parable of the lame man and the blind man in Cyril of Turov, a chronological entry in the Gospel list of 1340, where the Hebrew calendar count is used; a number of examples indicating a direct acquaintance with the structure of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, glossing of Hebrew names in their linguistic form, the direct influence of Jewish models such as midrash on the East Slavic "Explanatory Palea", etc.). For the most significant works, see Vostokov 1842:25; Veselovsky 1880:298–300; Borisov 1987:162–167; Meshchersky 1956: 198–219; 1956a:58–68; 1958:58–72 (cf. 1958a); 1964:180–231; 1978; Alekseev 1980; 1987; 1990 and others; Altbauer 1992; Altbauer, Taube 1988:304–320; Taube 1985:203–210; 1989:146–151; 1991:113–122; 1992:365–375; 1993:84–119; Olmsted, Taube 1987:100–117; Lunt, Taube 1988:147–187; Arkhipov 1982 and others.

From the point of view of literary and textual Russian-Jewish relations, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries open a fundamentally new page in this history, associated primarily with the activity of the "Judaizers" in the direct translation of a number of key texts from Hebrew into Russian, and far beyond the boundaries of the Biblical-Talmudic circle (cf. "The Psalter of the Judaizers", "The Six Wings", "The Secret of the Secrets", "The Logic of the Judaizers" and other later texts). The history of this period and the polemics with the "Judaizers" (in the course of which, in particular, translations of anti-Judaic writings appeared (cf. the translation of Delier's book in 1505) and original texts against the "Judaizers") constitute one of the brightest pages in the history of literary and textual Russian-Jewish relations. Fortunately, it is quite well known, and a lot has been written about it. Therefore, here, perhaps, it is more important to mention the text of the Book of the Prophet Daniel, the Vilna copy of which became the subject of a special study by Arkhipov. This text is literally teeming with herbaisms at various levels and reveals the intimate features of the relationship between the Russian text and the Hebrew text from which the Russian was translated.

Both in the late case of the era of the "Judaizers" and in the early epoch of the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, everything that is still known about Russian-Jewish literary-textual ties confirms the opinion about the intensity and fruitfulness of these contacts – not only indirect, indirect, but also direct, immediate. In the latter case, these contacts presuppose in a number of examples the immediacy of personal contacts in both these epochs, and again, referring us to the theme of the Jewish ethnic element, raise the question of the purpose of these direct transfers. When it was a question of "entertaining reading and translation of the corresponding Jewish texts," one could think of the interest of only the Russian reader. When the "Psalter of the Judaizers" was translated into Russian from Hebrew and other works aimed at seducing the inexperienced Russian reader and sometimes clearly anti-Christian, one could think that only Jews and Judaism were interested in them. But both of these options are true only in general. The most important and interesting thing lies in something else, one might say, in the opposite: the Russian reader was also interested in translating Jewish religious texts (the success of the propaganda of the "Judaizers" in various strata of society is now well known), but the Jews were also interested in translations into Russian and, consequently, in the Russian reader – and not only for the spread of Judaism and the recruitment of proselytes: The Jews themselves were in great need of manuals on their own faith, and because of the shortage of Jewish texts (and partly because of the poor knowledge of the Hebrew language among the Jewish masses), they were ready to turn to Russian translations of them. Language was exchanged for essence, for content, for meaning. The Jews sacrificed language for the meaning of the text, which they preserved. The Russians preserved the language and won a new content, a new meaning. The basis of this exchange is winning, although different for different parties. And one more aspect of the problem: much was translated, undoubtedly, in close cooperation between the Judeo-Russian translation pair, each of the members of this pair became acquainted with the opposite language, and if for a Jew acquaintance with the Russian language over time (e.g., in the Kievan circumstances, not to mention the "Judaizers") was a conditio sine qua non, then for the Russian scribe contact with the Hebrew language was an important and positively marked event (cf. the legend of Polycarp of the Caves in "Kiev Patericon" about Nikita the Recluse (later Bishop of Novgorod), who knew by heart the Old Testament texts in Hebrew and even refused to read the New Testament books for a long time). The significance of Jewish-Russian contacts in the history of the two peoples cannot be doubted, as well as, one would like to think, their mutual benefit.

LITERATURE

Abaev, V. I.

1949 "The Origin of the Old Russian Hors and the Svan "St. George", in: Ossetian Language and Folklore, vol. I. M.–L.

1965 Scythian–European isoglosses. M.

1973 Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the Ossetian Language, vol. II.

Abramov, A. I.

1986 "The Word on Law and Grace" by Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev as a Historiosophical Reaction to the Christian-Ideological Expansion of Byzantium". Legacy, II.

Ainalov, D. V.

1917 "On the Question of the Construction Activity of St. Vladimir", in: Collection in memory of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. St. Petersburg.