3. From the sixteenth century to the present time. This comprises the
_modern_ Slavonic of the church books printed in Russia and Poland;
especially after the _Improvement_ of those writings, so called.
The most ancient documents of the Old Slavic language, are not older
than the middle of the eleventh century. There has been indeed
recently discovered a manuscript of the translation of John of
Damascus, written by John, exarch of Bulgaria, in the ninth century.
Vostokof however proves on philological grounds, that it cannot be the
original, but is a later copy. The above-mentioned Evangelium of
Ostromir (1056) is the earliest monument of the language, as to the
age of which no doubt exists. It is preserved in the imperial
library at St. Petersburg.[18] According to Vostokof, this is the
third, or perhaps the fourth, copy of Cyril's own translation. This
latter is irretrievably lost, as well as the copy which was made for
Vladimir the Great, a hundred years afterwards.
Only a few years younger is a _Sbornik_, A.D. 1073, or a collection of
ecclesiastical writings, discovered in the year 1817, and a similar
_Sbornik_ of 1076; the former in a convent near Moscow, the other now
in the library of the imperial Hermitage of St.
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