Ignatius of Smolensk (fl. 1389-ca. 1405)

by Caroline Stone (See Chinese translation)

Nothing of known of Ignatius of Smolensk (alternative names, not to be confused with the earlier St Ignatius of Smolensk), other than the very few details that he gives at the beginning of his account of the Journey to Constantinople. He was probably the secretary of his patron, Bishop Michael of Smolensk, and seems to have been log-keeper of the Journey, setting out in 1389 AD, or, as it is given in the text, 6897 of the Byzantine Calendar, dating from the Creation, Year One being 1 September 5509 BC to 31 August 5508 BC.

Judging by descriptions of the political events, including a serious revolt and the coronation of Manuel II, Ignatius was in Constantinople from June 1389 to February 1392. It is not clear whether he then returned to Russia, or remained in the Balkans, but his description of the Holy Mountain -- Mount Athos -- the first by a Russian, appears to date from 1405. Another work, the "Abbreviated Chronicle" is also attributed to him, but there is much uncertainty. The fourth work to which his name is attached, an account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, can be dated on internal evidence to some time after 1475, so clearly not by him.

There are a large number of manuscripts of all or part of Ignatius of Smolensk's works, many in composite manuscripts and ranging in date from the mid-15th to the 19th centuries. Their complicated interrelationship has been admirably described and analysed in George Majeska's work (see the Bibliography).

Where the manuscripts are cited across the literature, it has to be remembered that both cities and libraries have changed names several times in the past hundred years. Volumes in monastic libraries having been transferred to the Imperial Library, for example, then to the Lenin Library in Moscow, renamed the Russian State Library (http://www.rsl.ru) in 1992. Catalogue numbers have generally remained the same. A number of manuscripts, particularly those known to have been in private hands, have also disappeared in the course of the centuries, something mentioned by Sofia Khitrovo as early as 1889.