The oldest traces of Semitic (Hebrew and Syriac) in early Rus’: two inscriptions in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

In the present article, we argue that two eleventh-century phrases inscribed many times on the walls of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod ( коуни рони and парехъ мари ) are of Semitic provenance. We will provide the linguistic arguments which support the claim of a Hebrew source for коуни рони and a Syriac one for парехъ мари . In addition, we offer a reconstruction of the historical pragmatic context in which the phrases can be situated. We will propose that the коуни рони inscriptions are a citation from the Book of Lamentations of the Hebrew Bible (verse 2:19) and that they can be connected with the seizure of Novgorod and the plundering of St. Sophia by Vseslav of Polotsk in the year 1066. They should be regarded as the oldest tangible proof of contact with Jews and Hebrew in Rus’. In the case of the парехъ мари inscriptions, we will put forward the hypothesis that the author was a certain Efrem, a local citizen, possibly a clergyman, who carried the nickname ‘the Syrian’, because he may have been a Syrian by descent.