On Sources of the First Russian Old Testament Translation

The article is aimed at description of a hand written manuscript that has not been studied though it is known as the earliest Russian Old Testament translation from Hebrew (1806) made by a preach Mikhail Fotinskij. The author presents some references on possible text sources which were used by the translator and analyzes their contents. Among these texts there are Old-Church Slavonic text from Elisabeth Bible, Hebrew Bible, commentaries of Hebrew scholars and some others. It is stated that the text sources mentioned above had had different degrees of influence on translation process of Mikhail Fotinskij. Despite the translation purpose that was Hebrew translation and even correction of Old-Church Slavonic translation, the Old-Church Slavonic text was still important and authoritative for the translator, who was an Orthodox preach. Having compared interpretations of Old Testament by famous middle century Hebrew scholars (Rashi and Ibn Ezra) the author came to the conclusion that probably Mikhail Fotinskij used commentaries of Hebrew scholar Rashi though they served as an instrument for constructing translator's own opinion about Judaic exegesis. The intention of Mikhail Fotinskij "to improve" the Old-Church Slavonic text of the Bible, to call the Hebrew text original, and to use freely Hebrew Bible and the Judaic commentaries can explain why the manuscript of the Fotinskij's translation was not excepted by his contemporaries because of the translator's intention to correct the Old-Church Slavonic text and his usage of Judaic commentary