(20.) The Wjetkners.
(21.) The Yedinovertzi (Coreligionists). This name was given to some members of the Starovertzi in the reign of Alexander (1801-25), when strong hopes were entertained of regaining them to the orthodox commun- ion. They assume for themselves the name of Blagos- lovenni, or " The Blessed."
For literature, see Dimitri, Hist, of Russian Sects; Farlati, Ilbjricum Sdcrum; Gregoire, Hist, des Sectes Relifjieuses (Paris, 1814), vol. iv; Haxthausen, Studien iibe?- Russland (llan. 1847); Krazinski, l.ectures on Sla- vonia (Lond. 1869); Mouravieff, Hist, of the Church of Russia (ibid. 1842) ; Platon, Present State of the Greek Church in Russia (Pinkerton's transL Edinb. 1814 ; N. Y. 1815); Strahl, Gesch.der Grihuhmr/, etc., der christlichen Lehre in Riisdnnd. etc. (Halle, 1830). See Russia.
Russian Version of the Scriptures. The Russian language, which is understood from Archangel to Astrakhan, admits ofbut two principal divisions, name- ly. Great Kussian— the literary and orticial language of the nation, spoken in IMoscow and the northern parts of the empire — and Little, or Alalo, Russian, which contains IX.— M
many obsolete forms of ex- pression, and is predominant in the south of European liussia, especially towards the last. To this may be added I be White, or Polish, Russian, •spoken by the common peo- ple in parts of Lithuania and in White Russia. The earli- est Russian version of the Scrijitures was written in White Russian, and in 1517 parts of the Old Test, were printed at Prague, wliile the Acts and the Epistles ap- peared at Wilna in 1527. The translator is said to liave been Fr. Skorina. At the close of the 17th century another attempt was made to produce a version of the Scriptures in the Groat Rus- sian. The promoter of this version was the Lutheran pas- tor Ernest Gliick, of Livonia, who made it from the Old Slavonic text. Unhappily, at the siege of Marienburg, in 1702, the whole ofGluck's MSS. were destroyed. Li tlie year 1816 the Russian Bible Society laid before the emperor Alexander some copies of a new version, and he was much struck at per- ceiving that, while so manj' barbarous tribes had been thus put in possession of the oracles of God, " his own Russians still remained destitute of the boon mercifully designed to be freely communicated to all." At his in- stigation an order was immediately forwarded through the president of the society to the Holy Synod, enjoin- ing the translation of the New Test, into modern Puss. Under the auspices of the Religious Academy of St. Pe- tersburg, the work was undertaken by the archiman- drite Pliilaret, and, after three years had been devoted to the undertaking, an edition of the Four Gospels was struck off, in i)arallel columns with the Slavonic text. The preface to the Gospels, which appeared in 1819, was signed by Philaret, Michael, metropolitan of Nov- gorod, and Seraphim of ]Moscow. The demand for this work was such that in 1820 the fourth edition of the Gospels was published ; in the same year the second edition of the Acts was printed, while the first edition of the entire New Test, did not appear till 1823. As to the order of the books of the New Test., which were reprinted and published by Tauchnitz, of Leipsic, in 1838, and again in London in 1862, it is as follows: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts; the epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude; Romans, Philemon, Hebrews, Revelation.
Of the Old Test., only the Psalms were translated by the Rev. Dr. Pavsky, of the Cathedral of St. Petersburg, the first Hebrew scholar in tlie empire. The tirst edi- tion appeared in 1822, and consisted of 16,000 copies; yet so great was the demand that within the space of two years no less than 100,000 copies left the press. In 1853 Mr. Tauchnitz, of Leipsic, published an edition in Hebrew and Russian. The edition before us, in Riiss alone, was published at London in 1862, and we notice that the word " Selah" is always put in brackets; that the number of verses in the different psalms does not agree with the English, but with the Hebrew, as the superscriptions, whicli are found in the English Bible in small type, are counted as a verse; Psa. ix and x are translated according to the Sept. as one, and thus, e. g., the xviiith is the xviith Psalm; the cxlviith Psalm of the Hebrew is divided, as in the Sept., into two — cxlvi, from 1-11, and cxlvii, from 12-20 — and thus the usual numl)er of 150 psalms is gained. The translation of the other books of the Old Test, from the
RUSSNIAKS
1V8
RUSSO-GREEK CHURCH
Hebrew proceeded under the direction of the religious ' academies of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kief; and an edition to consist of 10,000 copies of the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, was subse- quently undertaken; but in 1826 the Russian Bible So- ciety was suspended by the ukase of the emperor Nich- olas. A new translation has of late been issued by the Holy Synod, while the British and Foreign Bible Soci- etj' also published a version, which is largely circulated in Russia. See The Bible of Every Land, p. 296 sq. ; Dalton, Das Gebet des Herrii in den :Spj-ache7i Russlamls, \\ 37 sq. ; Reuss, Geschichfe der heilifjen Schrifien des Xeuen Testaments (Brunswick, 1874), § 490; also the A nnual Reports of the British and Fui-ei(jn Bible Soci-