New Information about the Russian Translation of Gerasim Vlakh's Four-Language Lexicon (Thesaurus) (in a Copy by N. P. Popov)

The article publishes new information concerning one copy of Gerasimos Vlachos’ Lexicon (Thesaurus), containing a handwritten translation, attributed to Sylvester Medvedev. At the beginning of the 20th century this book was in the personal collection of the historian and archaeographer N. P. Popov, who made the extracts from this book for the Card Index of the Old Russian Dictionary (KDRS), which is used to create the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 11th–17th centuries. The owner of this copy attributed the authorship of the translation to Sylvester Medvedev. The copy was considered lost for a long time, until it was discovered last year, 2024. A comparison of the handwritten translation with the extracts made by N. P. Popov for the KDRS showed their selective and fragmentary nature, which significantly impoverished the information that could be used in the process of compiling dictionary entries, because the handwritten translation contains much more significant lexical material compared to the super-brief extracts made by the subscriber for the Card Index. Detection of the complete handwritten translation makes it possible to evaluate the translation language in a new way, to show the richness of its lexical material, to supplement, and in some cases, to revise the available lexicographic descriptions. The question of the Sylvester Medvedev’s authorship is still open.