| Bojana Palimpsest | |
| Native Name: | Боянское Евангелие |
| Native Name Lang: | ru |
| Location: | Russian State Library |
| Discovered Date: | 1840s |
| Discovered By: | Viktor Grigorovich |
| Discovered Place: | Bulgaria |
| Id: | F. 87 No. 8 / M. 1690 |
| Created: | 1036-1044 |
| Size: | 16 x 18 cm |
| Language: | Old Bulgarian, Old Church Slavonic |
The Bojana Palimpsest or Bojana Gospel (Russian: Боянское Евангелие) is an 11th-century Old Church Slavonic manuscript, originally written in a Glagolitic manuscript.[1] In the 13th century, the Glagolitic text was removed, and the parchment was reused to write a Cyrillic gospel.[2]
The manuscript was discovered by historian Viktor Grigorovich during his research in the Balkans during the mid-1840s. It is currently stored in the Russian State Library in Moscow.[3]
The Boljana Palimpsest should not be confused with a similar-natured Cyrillic manuscript that was discovered during restoration work in the Bojana Church in 1981, and is known as the Bojana Psalter.
In modern times, surviving parts of the manuscript include 84 leaves measuring 16 x 18 cm. The parchment tetrads are not sewn together, and are separate, and the first 8 pages of the text are missing, and neither are the last 8. In the form that the gospel had in the 15th century, it probably contained 13 tetrads with 28 leaves each. The manuscript includes the Synaxarium, a hagiographic compilation, and the Menaion, a set of propers for the Orthodox calendar. The initial letters of the text are painted on with cinnabar pigment.
The original text belongs to the late Glagolitic written documents, as it lacks the soft sign. The only other preserved text is an inserted part of the Zograf Gospel. According to Slavic historian Ivan Dobrev, the text is a sign that at the end of the 11th century, attempts were made to reform the spelling in the direction of approaching the vernacular. He states that the text was most likely written in Western Bulgaria.[4]