Six-year-old Onfim stifled a yawn. His teacher was droning on and on about Old Russian alphabet, but Onfim had had enough scrawling letters onto his birchbark notebook. His mind wandered to the really exciting things that Novgorod in 1220 AD had to offer: brave warriors, epic battles, and horses. Almost without thinking, his bone stylus scratched the bark.
Onfim the 6-year warrior standing over slain foe. Novgorod, 1220. Source: https://russia-ic.com/
Little did he know that some 800 years later, people would marvel at his rudimentary sketches, or that they would be sharing them in seconds across something called the Internet.
Birch-bark manuscripts
Birch-bark manuscripts represent one of the most enigmatic phenomena in Russian history. And yet, they used to be a common element of medieval Novgorod household. Dwellers of Novgorod constantly wrote and read letters, tore them up and threw them away. Its use didn’t fade away until the 19fth century.
This is mainly because of economic reasons: Birchbark was cheap as compared to parchment and, later, to paper. Along with writing, the natural and accessible material was widely used in birch-bark handicraft for decoration and household. To prepare birch bark for writing, all that people needed to do was boil it in water, then delaminate it, removing its cruder layers; a process that was fast and economic.
Onfim’s manuscripts and writing instruments. 13th century Novgorod. Source: V.L. Yanin, “The Archaeology of Novgorod,” Scientific American, 1994
In the picture above, you can see a 14th-century beresta (writing tablet), a birch-bark book (middle) and metal and bone styli. Near the top are two wooden writing tablets, used by students and meant to be covered with wax. The holes in the first tablet served as “wax wells.” The wide end of the styli served to erase the wax text. The reverse side of the writing tablet (upper right) is carved with an alphabet, presumably for use in school. Students did their first lessons on wax tablets before advancing to birch bark, which required more strength and a firm hand.
At the left of the picture are Onfim’s exercises, consisting of the Old Slavic alphabet. Onfim covered the remaining space with battle scenes and pictures of himself and his teacher.
The Novgorod Manuscripts
Onfim’s manuscripts. Novgorod, 1220. Source: Erik Kwaakel
The Novgorod feudal republic consisted of Novgorod, Staraya Russa and Torzhok. In 1951, archaeologists made an amazing find, right in the pavement, in a chink between two blocks of decking: a dense and dirty scroll of birch bark with clear letters showing through the dirt. It was one of the biggest birch bark manuscripts ever found in Novgorod, with 13 lines and some 38 cm (15″) long. The document contained a list of settlements and their compulsory services to someone named Roma.
Since then, thousands of manuscripts have been discovered, including Onfim’s playful scrawlings–altogether, 12 manuscripts by Onfim have been discovered, along with several birch-bark drawings.
The majority of the manuscripts, however, were private letters of business nature concerning debt collection, trade, or household instructions. That category borders upon debt lists, which could serve as instructions (“to take that much from so-and-so”) and collective petitions from peasants to their feudal lord (14-15 cc). Besides these, there are birchbark drafts of official acts, such as wills, receipts, deeds of purchase, minutes of the court, and so on.
Other types of birch-bark monuments discovered include church texts (prayers, beadrolls, icon orders, and sermons), works of literature and folklore (charms, school jokes, riddles, household admonitions), and learning notes (alphabets, syllables, exercises, children’s drawings and scribbles).
Many of the manuscripts were written in the Old Novgorod dialect. However, many were written in Old Russian, a few in Church Slavonic, and others in a variety of languages: 292 in Baltic-Finnish, 488 in Latin, 552 in Greek, and 753 in German, revealing a well-educated and cosmopolitan world.
So, next time you want your fantasy world hero to send a message, you may have them look around for a birch tree!
You can find out more about this fascinating medium in russia-ic.com.
I have Erik Kwakkel’s Medieval Books to thank for notifying me to this discovery. Erik Kwakkel is a book historian and lecturer at Leiden University. His blog brings the world of medieval manuscripts to life in a wonderful way.
This post is part of a multi-part series of posts on ancient and Medieval wonders, to celebrate my 99c Pearseus: Rise of the Prince promo. As Pearseus has been described as “Ancient Greece in space,” it seemed strangely appropriate.
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Very interesting. Cave walls, papyrus–so many things to write on. What will anthropologists of the the 25th century think of the blog posts we share today? No doubt a 100 writers have already taken the thought to make a story already.
Lol – thanks for the writing prompt 😀
I hadn’t realized birchbark was so easy to use for writing. Now I’m suddenly looking up what regions in my world birch trees would grow in!
Lol – same here 😀
Fascinating! Thanks for finding such interesting material to write about!
Aw, you! Thank you 🙂
Fascinating article here. As a history major in college, I wonder how none of my Russian history professors ever mentioned this.
Interesting. I wonder if, as a modern discovery, it hadn’t yet trickled down to academic curricula.
Very cool! I always figured that writing materials would be costly and therefore wouldn’t be available for children to draw pictures on. I love how those pictures are just like those drawn by kids today (the bodies anyway). So fun. Thanks, Nicholas.
I know, right? Heroic doodles on the edge of a roughly sketched alphabet; what modern boy wouldn’t identify with that?
Exactly!
Very interesting. I find it rather amazing how doodles haven’t changed much over the centuries. Probably not what I’m supposed to take away from this, but it kind of shows how some things don’t change that much.
Lol – it’s not a bad takeaway, actually. Especially since I kicked off this series by making the point that people visiting oracles a couple of millennia ago were preoccupied with much the same concerns as us.
Fascinating stuff indeed. Great to see it has survived the centuries for us to enjoy today.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thank you, Pete 🙂
Wow! I love this post, Nick! On firm’s little stick drawings look much like a modern 6 year olds doodles. And not much different from mine, if the truth be known! Lol! I’ve never been very artistic. But why this really grabbed me is that the first ogham writing according to Irish mythology was made on a birch branch, and I suspect birch bark may well have been used before parchment in Ireland for writing on. What an exciting discovery! I wonder about the climate those manuscripts in Russia were preserved in. Our damp climate would have just rotted any ‘evidence’, but it’s an exciting possibility. ? Thanks for sharing this.
That is amazing! In hindsight, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? People would use whatever means were available to them, and birch bark certainly suits the bill. See? There’s your research, my dear budding academic 😉