Kyiv Psalter (Київський Псалтир; Kyivskyi Psaltyr). A monument of Old Ukrainian script and illumination. The work was commissioned by Bishop Mykhail and composed in 1397 by the Kyiv archdeacon Spyrydonii. Consisting of 228 large parchment sheets, its 293 rich miniatures belong to the highest achievements of 14th-century Ukrainian art and continue the artistic tradition of Kyivan Rus’. The psalter, preserved in the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library in Saint Petersburg, was reproduced photomechanically and published in Moscow in 1978.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).]