EVFIM'JA, MASKIM AND OTHERS: CRITICAL NOTES ON NOVGOROD BIRCHBARK DOCUMENTS

In the four decades that have passed since Nina Federovna Akulova discovered the first inscribed piece of birchbark, the art of reading birchbark documents has reached a high level of sophistication, symbolized in particular by the "kommentarii i slovoukazateF k berestjanym gramotam" appended to the eighth volume of the Academy Edition (Janin and Zaliznjak 1986: 87-310). Much remains to be done, however, and this contribution is devoted to problems raised by some thirty-five texts published in the first seven volumes of the Academy Edition. In addition to textual problems, three types of issues will be discussed: