Tatiana G. Popova presented the Hilandar Research Library with a copy of her latest book on the Slavic text of The Ladder by St. John Climacus (6th cent.), Die “Leiter zum Paradies” des Johannes Klimakos: Katalog der slavischen Handschriften / “Лествица” Иоанна Синайского: Каталог славянских рукописей (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2012). The 1073-page tome provides descriptions of extant and lost Slavic manuscripts containing the entire text of The Ladder, as well as manuscripts such as miscellanies, prologs, paterika, the Pandects of Nikon Chernogorets, etc., that include excerpts from The Ladder.
The 40-page, two-column bibliography on The Ladder includes works in Slavic, Greek, English, German, Romanian, and several other languages. The indexes arrange the manuscript data according to chronology; recension and language; repository location; the names of people connected to the history of the manuscripts; geographical names and the names of monasteries and churches. There’s also an index of proper names and subjects, an alphabetical index of manuscript sigla, and two appendices: 1. pre-revolutionary Russian editions of The Ladder, and 2. Greek manuscripts of The Ladder.
This work follows Tatiana Popova’s 2010 publication Славянская рукописная традиция Лествицы Иоанна Синайского: Монография (Северодвинск, Россия) – another gift from the author to the Hilandar Research Library.
Postscript, July 31, 2012: Tatiana Popova requests that readers notify her if they find errors in her book or if they have any questions or comments – lestvic@mail.ru.