The art of manuscript books was widely practiced in Gorodets until the mid-20th century. The ‘Collection of Hagiographies’ housed by the museum belonged to Peter Ovchinnikov (1843–1912), a merchant from the Volga region, a prominent Old Believer, and a collector of ancient books and manuscripts, who managed to create a remarkable collection consisting of a large number of rare items. ‘He found them everywhere — in Moscow, throughout the Arkhangelsk and Vologda provinces, and sometimes went to the Volga and Ural regions just to search for rare finds. He was most interested in Bulgarian manuscripts, which he acquired at the Nizhny Novgorod fair or through the Old Believers living in Bulgaria and Romania”, recalled the writer Sergey Yelpatyevsky.

There were more than 800 manuscripts in Ovchinnikov’s collection. They included copies commissioned by the collector to be made by professional scribes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A calligrapher Ivan Blinov wrote more than twenty of them, including this edition from the museum collection.

Blinov’s legacy includes more than a hundred illustrated manuscript books. He was a member of the scholarly board of the Historical Museum, maintained ties with the Rumyantsev Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Synodal Library, and the library of The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. From 1920 to 1925 he was head of the Gorodets Museum of Local Lore. When Ovchinnikov’s collection was transferred to the Rumyantsev Museum, it was Blinov who ensured that some of his works remained in Gorodets.

The manuscript includes ‘The Life and Death of Dmitry Uglitsky’ and ‘The Tale of Peter and Fevronia’. The former tells the well-known story of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, which is commonly regarded as the beginning of the Time of Troubles. The hagiography of the canonized Tsarevich was written at the end of 1606. It contains a narrative about the life and death of the saint, as well as the account of the discovery and transfer of the tsarevich’s relics to Moscow. “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” belongs to ancient Russian literature. It was created in the 16th century and is a combination of hagiography and a fairy tale. The story of Peter and Fevronia was very popular in Russia.

The book’s binding was made in the 16th century from a board covered with light brown leather. There are two clasps, with the letters ‘P.A.O.’ stamped on the inside, which are the collector’s initials.