Малоизвестное рукописное сочинение «Слово на украшающих себя прелестными ризами»
A LITTLE-KNOWN MANUSCRIPT TALE “THE WORD ON THOSE WHO ADORN THEMSELVES WITH DECEITFUL VESTMENTS”

Summary/Abstract: The article examines a little-known Russian manuscript work, “The Word on Those Who Adorn Themselves with Deceitful Vestments”, which condemns the pursuit of ornate clothing and belongs to a corpus of writings against drunkenness, tobacco smoking, European fashion, and foul language. The study focuses on the history of this work’s existence within manuscript culture from the XIX to the early XX century. The scholarly novelty lies in the fact that this work is introduced into academic circulation for the first time. Based on an analysis of sixteen copies from various collections and regions, the author identifies two versions of the text – the “Sergian” and the “Georgean” (named after the self-identification in the manuscripts) – which differ by their titles and the composition of their narrative motifs. The article also examines two variants of the “Sergian” manuscript: a short version and a version written in the genre of a vision. Of particular interest is a hybrid manuscript, which demonstrates how a formal combination of a fragment from the “Sergian” version with a chapter from The Great Mirror titled “On Deceitful Female Adornments” creates a new narrative. Both studied versions of the manuscript are provided in the annex.

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