ერკეთის გულანი (ცაიშის I გულანი) და მისი ანდერძ-მინაწერები

Abstract

Manuscript production in Georgia has a centuries-old history. Georgian medieval churches and monasteries, where generations of medieval bookmen and calligraphers carried out their activities, have played significant role in manuscript production. A large collection of liturgical texts called Gulani belongs to a separate group among thousands of manuscripts which came down to us. As a rule, each Gulani is supplied with a big number of testaments and colophons. Multiplicity of colophons on the folios of Gulani attracted attention of scholars as early as in the XIX century. Since that period Georgian scholars have studied and published testaments and colophons found in Georgian Gulani collections from Erketi, Tsaishi, etc. The paper deals with the texts of colophons from Erketi’s Gulani. Unfortunately, Erketi’s Gulani is lost today. Dimitri Baqradze was the sole Georgian scholar who has seen and studied the manuscript in question. The scholar has studied the manuscript, its testaments and colophons when visiting Erketi Monastery in 1873. In 1878 Dimitri Baqradze published the results of his research and texts of the colophons in his Russian-language book. Unfortunately, since 1870-ies we lack information about the location of Erketis’ Gulani and the manuscript has been remaining out of the site of scholars. Based on the analysis I have established that Erketi’s Gulani was copied in 1579-1595. It was commissioned by Eqvtime I Sakvarelidze (1578-1616), Catholicos of Apkhazeti (Western Georgia), as a donation to the Mother of God Church of Tsaishi under the rule of a bishop Maksime of Tsaishi. Later on, for unknown reason, the Gulani ended up at Erketi Church. In addition, I deal with the issues associated with contribution of Maksime of Tsaishi to manuscript production from the standpoint of history and source studies. As it turned out from the study of the colophons, a team of several persons (tabuni in Old Georgian) worked on copying the Gulani. Tasks were distributed between them according to a specific scheme. According to the colophons, the text was copied by Ioane Chkhatarashvili, Natanael Kargareteli, Gabriel and Ioane Svimonisdzes (The latter had copied certain pieces of text from Gulani II from Tsaishi). The manuscript was bound by Gabriel Svimonisdze. This paper will do a service to historians and philologists interested in medieval Georgian literature.