Translation from Ancient Greek, Introduction, and Commentaries by Nina V. Braginskaya, Andrey N. Koval’, Hel lenistic Anna I. Shmaina-Velikanova. <...> This is not only a translation with commentary of the best known four (out of, at least, eight 1) books called «Maccabean» but an encyclopaedia of Jewish Hellenistic culture focused on different historical and hagiographical traditions that refer to «the Maccabees», whatever it could mean. <...> And, indeed, the book looks as the encyclopaedic editions do, being a huge large-format volume with 136 illustrations and several maps. <...> Such a volume was produced by the team, where the responsibilities were distributed as following (I enumerate the main sections only): four scholarly introductions to four books of Maccabees (by Nina V. Braginskaya, Anna I. Shmaina-Velikanova; Introduction I is dedicated to the unity of the four books established in the later tradition – thus explaining the raison d’кtre of the present volume; Introduction II to the books 1–2; Introductions III and IV to the books 3 and 4, respectively), Russian translations of the four books (by Braginskaya and the classical scholar and renowned Russian translator of ancient and mediaeval sources, Andrey Nikolaevich Koval’, 1962–2014), very detailed commentaries to the texts of the four books (by Braginskaya, Koval’, and Shmaina-Velikanova), Appendix I («The Epistles of the Prologue of 2 Mac 1:2– 2:18» by Braginskaya; p. 497–504;), Appendix II («The Cult of the ‘Maccabean Martyrs’» by Braginskaya in collaboration with Shmaina-Velikanova; p. 505–525), Appendix III («The Maccabees in the Russian Tradition» by Varvara A. Romodanovskaya who is a specialist in the Old Russian biblical tradition; p. 526– 540), two Addenda (added «at the last moment» due to the appearance of new important data, both by Braginskaya): «New Data on the Grave of Mattathias’ family» (p. 540–541) and «The Recently Discovered Mosaic from Huqoq» (p. 542–548), Appendix (called so in the Russian original) «The Hasmoneans in the Literature of the Talmudic Sages» (translation of the 1996 Hebrew article by Isaiah M. Gafni; p. 548–628), and chronological tables for the first two Books of Maccabees (by T. A. Mikhaylova-Smirnova, S. V. Smirnov, and Braginskaya; p. 558–565); the maps are prepared by D. Frumin, the illustrations are selected by Braginskaya. <...> Besides the «general editor» N. V. Braginskaya, the team <...>