Birch bark - an important historical document

Birch bark letters are private messages and documents of 10-16 centuries, the text of which was applied to the birch bark. The first such documents were found by Russian historians in Novgorod in 1951 during an expedition to archeology under the supervision of historian A.V. Artsikhovsky. Since that time in honor of this find every year in Novgorod celebrated a holiday - Birchbark Day. That expedition brought nine more such documents, and by 1970 they had already found 464 pieces. Novgorod birchbark letters archeologists found in the soil layers, where the remains of plants and ancient garbage were preserved.

Most of the letters on birch bark are personal letters. They touched upon various economic and everyday issues, delegated instructions and described conflicts. Birch-bark letters of half-joking and not serious content were also found. In addition, Arkhipovskiy found copies that contained protests of peasants against the gentlemen, complaints about their fate and lists of barbarous faults.

The text on birch bark writings was deduced by a simple and primitive method - it was scratched with sharply sharpened metal or bone writing (pin). Pre-birch bark was processed in order for the letters to come out clearly. At the same time, the text was placed on a birch bark letter in a line, in most cases without division into words. At writing almost never used fragile ink. Birchbark is usually brief and pragmatic, it contains only the most important information. The fact that the addressee and the author know, it is not mentioned.

In archives and museums, many late documents and letters written on birch bark are stored. Found even whole books. S.V. Maximov, a Russian ethnographer and writer, said that he himself saw a birch bark book in Mezen with the Old Believers.

Birch bark, as a material for writing and transmitting information, became widespread in the 11th century, but lost its importance to the 15th century. It was then that widespread use among the people of Russia found paper that was cheaper. Since then birch bark has been used as a secondary material for recording. Mostly it was used by commoners for personal records and private correspondence, and official letters and messages of state significance were written on parchment.

Gradually, the birch bark left the life. In one of the found letters, in which complaints were filed to the official, the researchers found the instruction to rewrite the contents of the birch bark letter to the parchment and only then send it to the address.

Literacy is given mainly by a stratigraphic method - on the basis of the layer in which the thing was found. A certain number of letters on birch bark is dated due to the mention of historical events or important persons in them.

Birch bark letters are an important source on the history of our language. It is for them to establish the chronology or degree of fame of a linguistic phenomenon, as well as the time of appearance and etymology of a word. There are many words that are found in letters unknown to other Old Russian sources. Basically these are words of everyday importance, which practically had no chance of getting into the writings of the writers of that time.