Documents written in Greek in State Archives of Chernihiv Region: proveniences, dating, paleographic and linguistic features, contents

Abstract

The aim of the work is to study the documents of fond 101 (Nizhyn Greek Magistrate) in the State Archives of the Chernihiv Region, identified in the inventory 1 as cases in Greek language, as well as Greek documents according to inventory 2.  Methodology. Descriptive, comparative-historical, statistical methods of processing archival documents are used, as well as a number of special source studies, linguistics, and paleographic methods of researching ancient texts. Scientific novelty. For the first time, an archaeographic and historical overview of all Greek documents is presented as a result of a thorough research and description of the materials. Conclusions. Documents in inventory 1 came directly from the archives of the Nizhyn Greek Magistrate, but also contain parts of the archives of the “Lengaro & Kipuro” company, which arrived from St. Petersburg in the first quarter of the 19th century. During the formation of the fond in the second half of the 20th century, hundreds of different documents were artificially combined on linguistic grounds within 109 cases. In 1962, materials from the archives of Dimitry Melas arrived from Kharkiv, which made up seven storage units according to a separate inventory. The total number of isolated and researched documents in 117 cases of the archive amounted to 849, of which about 750 were written in Greek, including several epistolaries, which contain thousands of copies of commercial letters. Chronological boundaries of Greek documents 1679–1866. According to typology, among Greek documents, deed documents in the composition of court cases, original business and private correspondence, debt obligations, bills, messages, etc. prevail. A number of files contain administrative, accounting, and business books of various organizations. The considered documents allow for a more complete reconstruction of the activities of the Nizhyn Greeks, the Greek diaspora, as well as individual Greek trading companies of the 18th-19th centuries, which operated within the wide Eurasian space.