Birch bark letters are private messages and documents of the 10th-16th centuries, the text of which was applied to birch bark. The first such documents were found by Russian historians in Novgorod in 1951 during an archeological expedition led by the historian A. V. Artsikhovsky. Since then, in honor of this find, every year a holiday is celebrated in Novgorod - the Day of the birch bark letter. That expedition brought nine more such documents, and by 1970 they had already found 464 pieces. Novgorod birch bark letters were found by archaeologists in layers of soil, where the remains of plants and ancient debris were preserved.
Most of the letters on birch bark are personal letters. They touched upon various economic and domestic issues, gave instructions and described conflicts. Birch-bark letters of semi-joking and frivolous content were also found. In addition, Arkhipovsky found copies containing protests of peasants against their masters, complaints about their fate and listslordly faults.
The text on birch-bark letters was written out by a simple and primitive method - it was scratched out with a sharply sharpened metal or bone writing (pin). Previously, the birch bark was processed so that the letters came out clear. At the same time, the text was placed on birch bark in a line, in most cases without division into words. When writing, fragile ink was almost never used. Birch bark is usually short and pragmatic, containing only the most important information. What the addressee and the author know is not mentioned in it.
A lot of later documents and letters written on birch bark are stored in archives and museums. Whole books have been found. S. V. Maximov, a Russian ethnographer and writer, said that he himself saw a birch bark book in Mezen among the Old Believers.
Birch bark, as a material for writing and transmitting information, became widespread in the 11th century, but lost its importance by the 15th century. It was then that paper, which was cheaper, was widely used among the population of Russia. Since then, birch bark has been used as a secondary recording material. It was mainly used by commoners for personal records and private correspondence, while official letters and messages of national importance were written on parchment.
Gradually, birch bark also left everyday life. In one of the letters found, in which complaints were recorded to the official, the researchers found an instruction to rewrite the contents of the birch bark document on parchment and only thensend it to.
Dating of letters occurs mainly in a stratigraphic way - on the basis of the layer in which the thing was discovered. A number of letters on birch bark are dated due to the mention of historical events or important people in them.
Birch bark is an important source on the history of our language. It is from them that one can establish the chronology or degree of fame of a linguistic phenomenon, as well as the time of appearance and etymology of a particular word. There are many words that are found in letters that are unknown from other ancient Russian sources. Basically, these are words of everyday meaning, which had practically no chance of getting into the works of writers of that time.
