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Магический текст на плинфе из Успенского собора Киево-Печерского монастыря
The author suggests a new interpretation of the inscription on a brick from the Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev Cave Monastery dated to the time of the construction of the cathedral (1073–1077). The previously proposed interpretations are rejected for linguistic reasons and because all of them were based on an incorrect assessment of the physical parameters of the brick. According to the proposed reconstruction, the text is magical and starts with a direct speech of a personified disease – a sore (zheloza). This interpretation makes it possible to connect the inscription with the illness of the Kiev prince Svyatoslav Yaroslavich, who died in 1076 from «сutting of a sore» and had a direct relation to the construction of the Dormition
Cathedral. Apart from that, other texts with magical content found among inscriptions on
Old Russian and Byzantine plinth are also considered in the paper.