Onfim

Onfim's homework exercises and "I am a beast", c. 1260.

Onfim (his Russian name; also, Anthemius of Novgorod) was a boy who lived in Novgorod, Russia, in the 13th century. He left his notes and homework exercises scratched in soft birch bark (beretsy) which was preserved in the clay soil of Novgorod. Onfim, who was six or seven at the time of his writings, wrote in Old Slavic; besides letters and syllables, he drew "battle scenes and drawings of himself and his teacher".

Background

Novgorod, now known as Veliky Novgorod, is the important administrative center of the Novgorod Oblast. Some 200 kilometres (120 mi) south of Saint Petersburg, the city is surrounded by birch forests, whose bark, which was soft and easily scratched, was used for centuries by the locals for writing. Since 1951, more than 1100 pieces of birch bark with writing on it have been found, and more are dug up every summer. The term beretsy, denoting such birch bark manuscripts, is derived from beresta ("birch bark"), and the study of beretsy is called berestologija. The plenitude of beresty is indicative of a high rate of literacy among the population, as is the large number of styluses.

Onfim's writings

Onfim left seventeen beretsy. Twelve of those have illustrations, five only text. One of the drawings features a knight on a horse, stabbing someone on the ground with a lance, with scholars speculating that Onfim pictured himself as the knight. The writings are clearly homework exercises: Onfim practiced by writing out the alphabet, repeating syllables, and writing psalms, texts that were presumably familiar to him. His writing includes phrases such as "Lord, help your servant Onfim" and fragments from Psalms 6:2 and 27:3; in fact, most of Onfim's writing consists of citations from the Book of Psalms.

Onfim's illustrations include pictures of knights, horses, arrows, and slain enemies, a range of subject considered "of all time". One striking image, "a portrait of himself, disguised as a fantastic animal", is found on item 199 (pictured above; it was originally the bottom of a basket made of birch bark), which contains a picture of a beast with a long neck, pointy ears, and a curly tail. The beast either has an arrow with feathers in its mouth or is spewing fire; one of the accompanying texts (the one below the box) says "I am a beast" (the text in the box says "Greetings from Onfim to Danila"). The rows of five letters each on the other side of 199 are an alphabet exercise. On item 205 Onfim wrote the Cyrillic alphabet and added "On[f]", for his name, in the middle; below that alphabet is what some researchers see as a boat with oars. Item 206 contains alphabetic exercises and "'portraits' of little Onfim and his friends".

Gallery

• 
  206: Some words, a series of syllables, and portraits
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  Various drawings
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  200: Horseman, with name "Onfim" to the rider's right, and above that the alphabet, A - K
• 
  Birch-bark letter no. 202: spelling lessons and drawings

References

Reference bibliography

• Chambers, John H. Everyone's History. Xlibris. ISBN 9781462821679.
• Franklin, Simon (2010). Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c.950-1300. Cambridge UP. ISBN 9781139434546.
• Freeze, Gregory (2002). Russia: A History, new edition. Oxford UP. ISBN 9780191622496.
• Kent, Allen; Lancour, Harold; Daily, Jay E. (1979). "Slavic Paleography". Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Vol. 27. CRC. ISBN 9780824720278.
• Schaeken, Jos (2012). Stemmen Op Berkenbast: Berichten Uit Middeleeuws Rusland: Dagelijks Leven en Communicatie. Amsterdam UP. ISBN 9789087281618.
• Yanine, Valentine (2009). "The Dig at Novgorod". In Thomas Riha (ed.). Readings in Russian Civilization, Volume 1: Russia Before Peter the Great, 900-1700. U of Chicago P. pp. 47–59. ISBN 9780226718439.

External links

• Website, contains catalog of all beretsy found in Novgorod, in Russian; contains database
• Blog post by Erik Kwakkel, medieval book historian