From A. A. Zimin’s Scholarly Heritage: The Publication of the Poganaya Kniga

This work publishes a previously unknown paper by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zimin (1920–1980), an outstanding Soviet historian, source study specialist, and archaeographer, discovered in the personal archive of his student Margarita Evgenyevna Bychkova (1936–2014). It is a publication of the so-called Poganaya Kniga prepared following several copies. The Poganaya Kniga is a genealogical pamphlet of the seventeenth century based on the Votskaya Pyatina cadastre from 1500 by scribe Dmitry Kitaev. In the Poganaya Kniga, several noble families were ranked among serfs (kholopy) who received estates in Novgorod Land after its annexation by the State of Muscovy. A. A. Zimin repeatedly referred to this source in his research and, as it transpires, he was preparing its publication. This work was never completed; Bychkova was supposed to continue it as an acknowledged specialist in the textual study of genealogical books. However, having supplemented Zimin’s publication with the variants found in the copies she had identified, she did not publish it for some reason. Considering the scale and scholarly significance of A. A. Zimin’s and M. E. Bychkova’s papers, the author assumes that this publication of the Poganaya Kniga will be of interest to those dealing with source studies and historiography.