Old Russian literature briefly about the main thing. Teachings of the Metropolitans. - Hilarion. - Works of Theodosius. – Nestor Pechersky

Old Russian literature- “the beginning of all beginnings”, the origins and roots of Russian classical literature, national Russian artistic culture. Its spiritual, moral values ​​and ideals are great. It is filled with patriotic pathos of service to the Russian land, state, and homeland.

To feel the spiritual riches of ancient Russian literature, you need to look at it through the eyes of its contemporaries, to feel like a participant in that life and those events. Literature is part of reality; it occupies a certain place in the history of the people and fulfills enormous social responsibilities.

Academician D.S. Likhachev invites readers of ancient Russian literature to mentally transport themselves to the initial period of the life of Rus', to the era of the inseparable existence of the East Slavic tribes, to the 11th-13th centuries.

The Russian land is huge, settlements in it are rare. A person feels lost among impenetrable forests or, on the contrary, among the endless expanses of steppes that are too easily accessible to his enemies: “the unknown land,” “the wild field,” as our ancestors called them. To cross the Russian land from end to end, you need to spend many days on a horse or in a boat. Off-road conditions in spring and late autumn take months and make it difficult for people to communicate.

In boundless spaces, man was especially drawn to communication and sought to mark his existence. Tall, bright churches on hills or on steep river banks mark settlement sites from afar. These structures are distinguished by a surprisingly laconic architecture - they are designed to be visible from many points and serve as beacons on the roads. Churches seem to be sculpted by a caring hand, keeping the warmth and caress of human fingers in the unevenness of their walls. In such conditions, hospitality becomes one of the basic human virtues. The Kiev prince Vladimir Monomakh calls in his “Teaching” to “welcome” the guest. Frequent moving from place to place belongs to considerable virtues, and in other cases even turns into a passion for vagrancy. The dances and songs reflect the same desire to conquer space. It is well said about Russian drawn-out songs in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”: “... the davitsi sing on the Danube, - the voices curl across the sea to Kyiv.” In Rus', even a designation was born for a special type of courage associated with space and movement - “prowess”.

In the vast expanses, people with particular acuteness felt and valued their unity - and, first of all, the unity of the language in which they spoke, in which they sang, in which they told legends of deep antiquity, again testifying to their integrity and indivisibility. Under the conditions of that time, even the word “language” itself takes on the meaning of “people”, “nation”. The role of literature becomes especially significant. It serves the same purpose of unification, expresses the national consciousness of unity. She is the keeper of history and legends, and these latter were a kind of means of developing space, marking the holiness and significance of a particular place: a tract, a mound, a village, etc. Legends also imparted historical depth to the country; they were the “fourth dimension” within which the entire vast Russian land, its history, its national identity were perceived and became “visible.” The same role was played by chronicles and lives of saints, historical stories and stories about the founding of monasteries.

All ancient Russian literature, up to the 17th century, was distinguished by deep historicism, rooted in the land that the Russian people occupied and developed for centuries. Literature and the Russian land, literature and Russian history were closely connected. Literature was one of the ways to master the surrounding world. It is not for nothing that the author of praise for books and Yaroslav the Wise wrote in the chronicle: “Behold, these are the rivers that water the universe...”, compared Prince Vladimir to a farmer who plowed the land, and Yaroslav to a sower who “sowed” the land with “bookish words.” Writing books is cultivating the land, and we already know which one - Russian, inhabited by the Russian "language", i.e. Russian people. And, like the work of a farmer, the copying of books has always been a sacred task in Rus'. Here and there sprouts of life, grains, were thrown into the ground, the shoots of which were to be reaped by future generations.

Since rewriting books is a sacred task, books could only be on the most important topics. All of them, to one degree or another, represented “book teaching.” Literature was not of an entertaining nature, it was a school, and its individual works to one degree or another - by teachings.

What did ancient Russian literature teach? Let's leave aside those religious and church issues with which she was busy. The secular element of ancient Russian literature was deeply patriotic. She taught active love for the homeland, fostered citizenship, and strived to correct the shortcomings of society.

If in the first centuries of Russian literature, in the 11th-13th centuries, she called on the princes to stop discord and firmly fulfill their duty of defending their homeland, then in the subsequent centuries - in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries - she no longer cares only about protecting the homeland, but also about reasonable government system. At the same time, throughout its development, literature was closely connected with history. And she not only reported historical information, but sought to determine the place of Russian history in world history, to discover the meaning of the existence of man and humanity, to discover the purpose of the Russian state.

Russian history and the Russian land itself united all works of Russian literature into a single whole. In essence, all the monuments of Russian literature, thanks to their historical themes, were much more closely connected with each other than in modern times. They could be arranged in chronological order, and as a whole they set out one story - Russian and at the same time world. The works were more closely connected with each other as a result of the absence of a strong authorial principle in ancient Russian literature. Literature was traditional, new things were created as a continuation of what already existed and based on the same aesthetic principles. The works were rewritten and reworked. They reflected more strongly the reader's tastes and requirements than the literature of modern times. Books and their readers were closer to each other, and the collective principle was more strongly represented in the works. Ancient literature, by the nature of its existence and creation, was closer to folklore than to the personal creativity of modern times. The work, once created by the author, was then changed by countless copyists, altered, in different environments acquired various ideological colors, supplemented, acquired new episodes.

“The role of literature is enormous, and happy are the people who have great literature in their native language... In order to perceive cultural values ​​in their entirety, it is necessary to know their origin, the process of their creation and historical change, the cultural memory embedded in them. In order to deeply and accurately To perceive a work of art, we need to know by whom, how and under what circumstances it was created. In the same way, we will truly understand literature as a whole when we know how it was created, shaped and participated in the life of the people.

It is as difficult to imagine Russian history without Russian literature as it is to imagine Russia without Russian nature or without its historical cities and villages. No matter how much the appearance of our cities and villages, architectural monuments and Russian culture as a whole changes, their existence in history is eternal and indestructible" 2 .

Without ancient Russian literature there is and could not be the work of A.S. Pushkina, N.V. Gogol, moral quests of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky. Russian medieval literature is the initial stage in the development of domestic literature. She passed on to subsequent art the richest experience of observations and discoveries, as well as literary language. It combines ideological and national characteristics, lasting values ​​were created: chronicles, works of oratory, “The Tale of Igor’s Host”, “The Kiev-Pechersk Patericon”, “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom”, “The Tale of Misfortune-Grief”, “The Works of Archpriest Avvakum” and many other monuments.

Russian literature is one of the most ancient literatures. Her historical roots date back to the second half of the 10th century. As noted by D.S. Likhachev, of this great millennium, more than seven hundred years belong to the period that is commonly called Old Russian literature.

“Before us is literature that rises above its seven centuries, as a single grandiose whole, as one colossal work, striking us with its subordination to one theme, a single struggle of ideas, contrasts that enter into a unique combination. Old Russian writers are not architects of separate buildings. city ​​planners. They worked on one common grandiose ensemble. They had a remarkable “sense of shoulder”, created cycles, vaults and ensembles of works, which in turn formed a single building of literature...

This is a kind of medieval cathedral, in the construction of which thousands of free masons took part over several centuries..." 3.

Ancient literature is a collection of great historical monuments, created mostly by nameless masters of words. Information about the authors of ancient literature is very scanty. Here are the names of some of them: Nestor, Daniil Zatochnik, Safoniy Ryazanets, Ermolai Erasmus, etc.

The names of the characters in the works are mainly historical: Theodosius of Pechersky, Boris and Gleb, Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Sergius of Radonezh... These people played a significant role in the history of Rus'.

The adoption of Christianity by pagan Russia at the end of the 10th century was an act of the greatest progressive significance. Thanks to Christianity, Rus' joined the advanced culture of Byzantium and entered the family as an equal Christian sovereign power European peoples, became “known and followed” in all corners of the earth, as the first ancient Russian rhetorician 4 and publicist 5 known to us, Metropolitan Hilarion, said in his “Sermon on Law and Grace” (a monument from the mid-11th century).

The emerging and growing monasteries played a major role in the spread of Christian culture. The first schools were created in them, respect and love for books, “book teaching and veneration” were fostered, book depositories and libraries were created, chronicles were written, translated collections of moralizing books were copied, philosophical works. Here the ideal of a Russian monk-ascetic who devoted himself to serving God, moral improvement, liberation from base, vicious passions, and serving the high idea of ​​civic duty, goodness, justice, and public good was created and surrounded by the aura of a pious legend.

Description of the work: “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu”, “Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh”, etc. These works belong to Old Russian literature. The literature of antiquity is based on real events and reflects Rus', its position at one time or another. Old Russian literature reflects the character of Rus' and its inhabitants. It, like the history of Rus', contains information about its relationships with other countries and within the country. This literature is rich in discussions about kings, princes and the common people. We simply must protect and study its riches.

Russian literature is a thousand years old. We know our great classical writers well, but we know little about our literature of the first seven centuries. Every Russian person knows only “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” well. Meanwhile, our ancient literature is rich in works of various genres. The chronicles told about the history of our country, starting from ancient, pre-literate times and ending with the events of the turbulent 17th century. Biographies (“lives”) told about the lives of individual people. In ancient Russian literature there are works of oratory, descriptions of travel (“walkings”) to the East or Western Europe, journalistic works aimed at eradicating social evil and injustice, calling for truth and goodness. There are a number of so-called “military stories” dedicated to the struggle of the Russian people against foreign enemies: the Pechenegs, Polovtsians, Mongol-Tatars, German knights. Stories telling about princely civil strife and crimes have been preserved. These stories are full of pain for the untruth, for the suffering brought to people and the entire country. In the 17th century, stories of a domestic nature appeared. At the end of the same century, dramatic and poetic works appeared.

Old Russian literature, as you can see, is rich in written monuments. She was even richer. After all, of its entire treasury, only a small part has reached us; the rest was destroyed in fires, plundered by enemies, perished from storage in damp rooms, due to the negligence and indifference of people.

We consider ancient Russian literature to be especially significant because it contains features that are consonant with our era. The works of our antiquity are marked by high citizenship and sincere love for the motherland. Writers, separated from us by many centuries, were proud of the greatness of Rus', its vastness, beauty, the “bright lightness and red decoration” of its fields and forests, the “audacity” of the Russian people, and high moral qualities. The true patriotism of ancient Russian authors was also manifested in the fact that they boldly wrote about the shortcomings and crimes of the princes.

The works of Ancient Rus' captivate with their chastity and purity. Old Russian literature does not dwell on descriptions of atrocities and does not cherish the dream of retribution against enemies. She calls for the sublime, the good. In it we find noble ideals. Almost every writer of Ancient Rus' could, like A. S. Pushkin, say about himself that he aroused “good feelings” with his work. He could declare, together with N.A. Nekrasov, that he “sowed the reasonable, the good, the eternal.” Therefore, the works of ancient Russian authors so vividly respond to our time and the growing need for goodness and kindness in our country.

Ancient Russian literature, as well as Russian literature in general, is characterized by life-affirmation, lightness and clarity. Let's take for example. The most tragic “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu”. What could be more terrible! The army was defeated, all the princes were killed on the battlefield, the city was taken, plundered, burned, almost all the inhabitants were killed. All that was left was “smoke, earth and ashes.” But there is no despair, no despondency in the story. Crying for the Russian princes, glorifying their valor, pride in the fact that there were such princes. And the story ends with a major chord: one of the Ryazan princes, who accidentally survived, arrives, pays tribute to the murdered, buries them with honor, gathers the surviving residents, restores the city, and everything ends with general pacification. This fortitude is amazing.

Another property of ancient Russian literature is especially attractive in our time: ancient Russian writers treated other peoples, their customs, and their beliefs with deep respect. Tolerance is manifested in the relationship between the Russian governor Pritech and the Pecheneg prince in the Tale of Bygone Years, in the Tale of the Emshan Grass, which conveys the Polovtsian tradition, in the sermons of the Bishop of Vladimir Serapion, who wrote about the torment of the Russian people under Tatar oppression, lamented the loss of the former glory of Rus' and at the same time spoke about the moral virtues of the Tatars. Respect for other peoples, sympathy for their troubles sounds with particular force in “Walking across Three Seas” by Afanasy Nikitin.

Even in stories describing the fight against enemies, for example in “The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev,” the author notes the combat prowess of the enemies and considers both Russians and Tatars to be children of the same mother Earth. The admiration for the courage of enemies in “Kazan History”, a work dedicated to the centuries-old struggle of Russians with the people of Kazan, sounds absolutely amazing.

In the new Russian literature of the 18th-20th centuries, the best traditions of ancient literature continue. However, ancient literature has its own characteristics that distinguish it from the literature of modern times.

In the art of the word of modern times, we are dealing with individual authors, and ancient literature, although it retained a number of names of writers - Hilarion, Nestor, Kirill of Turovsky and many others - was generally a collective work. If in modern times works of classical literature are published in the form in which the author wrote them, then the works of ancient writers have been changed over the centuries by different copyists. Each new copyist either shortened the text somewhat, or sought to “embellish” the presentation, or changed the overall focus of the work. He adapted the work of his predecessor to the literary taste and ideological requirements of his time. This is how new types arose, or, as they say, editions of the same monument. This situation is close to oral folk art: each narrator sang the same epic in a different way, adding or omitting something.

In all new editions, the monuments of ancient Russian literature lived on, retaining the main original features and acquiring new ones. Rare monuments have survived to us in the form in which they were first written, most of them came down to us in later correspondence, “lists”.

Old Russian literature, unlike modern literature, did not have fictional characters or plots. Ancient stories always featured historical figures and described historical events. Even if the author introduced the miraculous and fantastic into his narrative, it was not a conscious fiction, because the writer himself and his readers believed in the veracity of what was being described. Conscious fiction appeared only in the literature of the 17th century. And even then, as a rule, he hid behind references to historical events. Thus, the fictional hero of one of the stories of the 17th century, Savva Grudtsyn, appears in the Russian army of the boyar Shein, who besieged Smolensk.

We are used to the works we read being entertaining. Entertaining for us is mainly associated only with the rapid development of a complex plot. The writers of Ancient Rus', of course, also sought to interest the reader. But their plot is simple, the story is told calmly, not hastily.

The people of Ancient Rus' read books earnestly, slowly, rereading the same work several times, reverently seeking in it instructions, advice, or images of significant events from the history of their country or other countries. It is not for nothing that books have been figuratively compared to the depths of the sea, and the reader - to a pearl diver.

One of the achievements of modern literature was that it began to depict the everyday, that its characters were the same people as each of us. In ancient Russian literature there are no simple characters, there are heroes who perform great feats on the battlefield and moral improvement.

Like folklore, literature dwelled only on exceptional events; it did not condescend to the reader, but sought to raise him to its heights.

In ancient literature there were no poems, but there was poetry. Only the imagery of this poetry is different than in modern times, we need to get used to it, understand it. The images appeared as if by themselves. We would say: “I’ll come in the spring,” and a man of the 11th-17th centuries wrote: “I’ll arrive as soon as the leaves dawn on the trees.” Ancient authors did not write that someone did a lot for their homeland, they wrote: “He lost a lot of sweat for his homeland”; we would say: “The enemies fled,” and the ancient scribe wrote: “They showed their shoulders.” They loved hyperbole: the name of Alexander Nevsky, according to his biographer, was glorified “throughout all countries to the Sea of ​​Egypt and to the mountains of Ararat.” Old Russian authors often resorted to comparisons: warriors were compared to falcons, flying arrows to rain, enemies to ferocious beasts.

In ancient Russian works you will find many examples of rhythmic speech.

The poetry of ancient Russian literature is largely due to its closeness to oral folk art. In our time, literature and folklore are strictly separated. Writers of the 18th-20th centuries turn to folklore, but never become storytellers. In ancient Russian literature it was different. Writers, like storytellers, created epic works. Not only the initial tales of the “Tale of Bygone Years” are epic, based on oral traditions - about Oleg, Igor, Olga, Vladimir, about the young man-kozhemyak and Belgorod wells. Later works of the 15th, 16th, and even 17th centuries are also epic. Many narratives that are examples of high rhetoric organically include epic parts. This is the story about Evpatiy Kolovrat in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu”, about six brave men in “The Life of Alexander Nevsky”. Folk songs are woven into the fabric of many works, for example, in “The Tale of Prince Skopin-Shuisky.” The “Tale of Woe-Misfortune” is based on the literary basis of a lyrical song. And what beautiful folk laments can be found in chronicles and stories! In addition to laments, glorifications—“glories”—are also heard in literature. Ritual in origin, pagan poetry was a living source to which writers turned all the time.

There is no need to exaggerate the importance of oral folk art in the literature of Ancient Rus'. Despite its closeness to folklore, it was written literature (the word “literature” comes from the Latin “litera” - letter), and the literature was very high, skillful, and artistic. It arose back in the 10th century along with the adoption of Christianity under the influence of the needs of the church and state.

With the adoption of Christianity (988) from Slavic Bulgaria, which was experiencing a cultural dawn at that time, books were brought to Rus'. Some books were copied into Bulgarian. The Old Bulgarian language, called Church Slavonic in Rus', because liturgical books were written in it, was close to Old Russian and was well understood by Russian readers of that time. The Church Slavonic language, flexible and subtle, capable of expressing the most complex abstract ideas, extremely enriched the ancient Russian language and made it more expressive. Synonyms still live in our language: Russian-eyes, Slavic-eyes, etc. Western Catholic countries were united by Latin, Slavic countries - by the Church Slavonic language. From the end of the 10th to the beginning of the 11th century, translated books of a wide variety of genres, styles and purposes appeared in Rus'. There are biblical historical books, Byzantine chronicles, and lyrical chants, sometimes joyful, sometimes full of sorrow and sadness. Collections of works of oratory that were part of the art of eloquence of antiquity, and collections of aphorisms appeared. Natural history and history books were brought to Rus'.

In the first half of the 11th century, “words” (speeches) appeared in Rus'. From the forties of the 11th century, the “Sermon on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion, remarkable for its harmony and elaborate oratorical techniques, has been preserved. Hilarion was a “Rusin” (Russian) by birth, a priest of the country church of the Savior in the village of Berestovo near Kiev (this church has survived to this day). Yaroslav the Wise appointed him metropolitan, head of the entire Russian church. In “The Sermon on Law and Grace,” delivered in the presence of Yaroslav the Wise and his family, Hilarion gives a unique overview of world history and asserts the equality of “new people,” that is, Russians recently introduced to Christianity, with the rest of the peoples of the Christian world.

The pinnacle of literature of the 12th century is “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” - a work typical of this century, when the art of speech reached a high development, and the consciousness of the need to preserve the unity of the Russian land was especially strong.

We do not know the names of the authors of the tales about Oleg’s campaigns, Olga’s baptism, or Svyatoslav’s wars. The first known author of a literary work in Rus' was the priest of the princely church in Berestov, later Metropolitan Hilarion. In the early 40s of the 11th century, he created his famous “Sermon on Law and Grace.” It talks about the Church of the Annunciation on the Golden Gate, built in 1037, and mentions Irina (Ingigerda), the wife of Yaroslav the Wise, who died in 1050. The word introduces us to the struggle of religious and political ideas of the 11th century. Hilarion speaks in it about the baptism of Rus' and praises Vladimir, who baptized the Russian land: “Let us praise our teacher and mentor, the great Khagan of our land, Vladimir, the grandson of old Igor, the son of the glorious Svyatoslav, who in his years ruled, having listened with courage and bravery in in many countries they are now remembered for their victories and strength. It’s not in the worst of battles, it’s not in the unknown that the land has dominion, but in Russia, which is known and heard, there is the end of the land.” Hilarion appeals to Vladimir to look at the greatness of Kyiv under Yaroslav, who “covered the glorious city of Kyiv with majesty like a crown.” These words, apparently, should be understood as an indication of the newly built and majestic fortifications that surrounded the capital of the Kyiv princes. In the second half of the 11th century, other striking literary and journalistic works appeared: “Memory and Praise of Vladimir” by the monk Jacob, in which Hilarion’s ideas are further developed and applied to the historical figure of Vladimir I. At the same time, “The Legend of the Initial Spread of Christianity in Rus'”, “The Legend of Boris and Gleb”, patron saints and defenders of the Russian land.

In the last quarter of the 11th century, the monk Nestor began to work on his writings. The chronicle was his final fundamental work. Before that, he created the famous “Reading about the Life of Boris and Gleb.” In it, as in Hilarion’s “Word”, as later in the Tale of Bygone Years, the ideas of the unity of Rus' are heard, and tribute is paid to its defenders and guardians. Already at that time, Russian authors were worried about this growing political hostility in the Russian lands, in which they discerned a harbinger of a future political catastrophe.

The literature of the 12th century continues the traditions of Russian writings of the 11th century. New ecclesiastical and secular works are being created, marked by a vivid form, richness of thoughts, and broad generalizations; new genres of literature emerge.

In his declining years, Vladimir Monomakh wrote his famous “Instruction for Children,” which became one of the favorite readings of the Russian people of the early Middle Ages. The teaching clearly depicts for us the life of Russian princes at the end of the 11th – beginning of the 12th centuries. Vladimir Monomakh talks about his campaigns and travels. His whole life was spent in continuous wars, either with the Poles, or with the Polovtsians, or with hostile princes. He counts 83 large campaigns, not counting small ones, as well as 19 peace treaties with the Cumans. To characterize feudal ideology, the image of the ideal prince depicted by Monomakh is interesting. The prince must monitor everything in the house, and not rely on the tiun or the warrior (“youth”), so as not to laugh at the order in the house and at dinner. During military campaigns, one must avoid excess food and drink, as well as long periods of sleep. By nightfall, appoint guards yourself, Monomakh teaches, and, having arranged the army around you, go to bed and get up early; and do not quickly take off your weapons without looking, out of laziness, “suddenly a person dies.” The prince's life is filled with wars and hunting, death follows on the warrior's heels. And this knightly ideology is perfectly expressed by the words of Monomakh addressed to his second cousin Oleg Svyatoslavovich of Chernigov. Monomakh offers him peace and friendship and promises not to avenge the death of his son, killed in battle with Oleg: “Isn’t it amazing that my husband died in the regiment” (is it surprising that a warrior died during the battle). The teaching provides a lot of historical information that is missing in the chronicle; it is a valuable historical source.

At the beginning of the 12th century, one of Monomakh’s associates, Abbot Daniel, created his own, no less famous, “Hegumen Daniel’s Walk to Holy Places.”

The pious Russian man went to the Holy Sepulcher and made a long and difficult journey - to Constantinople, then through the islands of the Aegean Sea to the island of Crete, from there to Palestine and to Jerusalem, where at that time the first crusader state was founded, led by King Baldwin. Daniel described in detail his entire journey, spoke about his stay at the court of the King of Jerusalem, about the campaign with him against the Arabs. Daniel prayed at the Holy Sepulcher, placed there a lamp from the entire Russian land: near the tomb of Christ he sang fifty liturgies “for the Russian princes and for all Christians.”

Both “Teaching” and “Walking” were the first genres of their kind in Russian literature.

XII – early XIII century. They gave many other bright religious and secular works that added to the treasury of Russian culture. Among them are “The Word” and “Prayer” by Daniil Zatochnik, who, having been in captivity and having experienced a number of other everyday dramas, reflects on the meaning of life, on a harmonious person, on an ideal ruler. In the “Word” the author himself calls himself Daniel the prisoner, that is, a prisoner, exiled. The word is addressed to Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich. The Message (Prayer) is addressed to Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich.

The word gives an interesting characterization of feudal relations in the 12th century. First of all, what is striking is the indication of the importance of the personality of the prince as a feudal sovereign, to whom, depending on his personal qualities, “servants” - vassals - gather: “The psaltery is formed by fingers, and the body is based on veins; oak is strong with many roots; so is our city your dominion. The prince is generous, the father has many servants: many people leave their father and mother and resort to him. By serving a good master, you will earn a settlement, and by serving an evil master, you will earn more work.” The prince is famous for those who surround him: “The pavoloka (expensive fabric) is speckled with many silks and reds, your face shows: so you, prince, are honest and glorious with many people in all countries.” The word of Daniil Zatochnik is a most valuable source for studying the class struggle in ancient Russian society. It repeatedly emphasizes the antagonism of rich and poor. The word clearly characterizes the order of the patrimony of the period of feudal fragmentation: do not have a courtyard near the king’s court, exclaims Daniel, and do not keep a village near the prince’s village; His thiun is like a covered fire, and his “rank and file” are like sparks. If you guard against fire, then you cannot “guard yourself” from sparks and from burning clothes. The word of Daniel the Sharper is woven from a number of aphorisms and teachings. It was this feature that made him very popular in medieval Rus'.

In the Word we also encounter a constant theme in many ancient Russian works - about evil wives. The ascetic nature of church writing contributed to the view of a woman as a “vessel of the devil.” Here are a few of the Sharpener’s attacks against malicious wives: if any husband looks at the beauty of his wife and her kind and flattering words, but does not check her deeds, then God forbid he had better have a fever. Or in another place: “What is the wife of evil - an irresistible inn, a demonic blasphemer. What is an evil wife? Worldly rebellion, blindness of the mind, the master of all malice,” etc.

No less interesting is the second work associated with Daniil Zatochnik, the so-called Epistle (Prayer). The message begins with an appeal to Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who researchers consider to be Pereyaslavl, and later Grand Duke Yaroslav, son of Vsevolod the Big Nest. The message is extremely interesting in its social orientation. The author paints for us the appearance of a prince from the era of feudal fragmentation, which harmonizes well with the biography of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, a warlike, intelligent and at the same time cruel prince: “The people are wise, strong and their cities are strong; The brave ones are strong and crazy: for them there is victory. Many people take up arms against large cities and attack their own, smaller cities.” In this description of the prince one can involuntarily feel historical features. Such was Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who chased the Novgorod table and often lost it. In the Epistle we read an unusually harsh review of monastic life: “Or you will say, prince: take monastic vows. So I didn’t see a dead man riding a pig, not a damn woman, I didn’t eat figs from oak trees. After all, many, having departed from this world into monasticism, return again to worldly life and to the worldly race, like dogs to their vomit: they go around the villages and houses of the glorious houses of this world, like caressing dogs. Where there are weddings and feasts, there are monks and monks and lawlessness. They wear an angelic image on themselves, but they have a dissolute disposition and a holy rank, but their customs are obscene.”

Addressing his prince in “Prayer,” Daniel says that a real man must combine the strength of Samson, the courage of Alexander the Great, the intelligence of Joseph, the wisdom of Solomon, and the cunning of David. Turning to biblical stories and ancient history helps him convey his ideas to the addressee. A person, according to the author, must strengthen his heart with beauty and wisdom, help his neighbor in sorrow, show mercy to those in need, and resist evil. The humanistic line of ancient Russian literature firmly asserts itself here too.

An interesting monument of the 12th century is the Epistle of Metropolitan Clement. Clement Smolyatich, originally from Smolensk, in 1147 was elected by a council of Russian bishops as metropolitan of All Rus' without the installation of a patriarch, while other metropolitans were appointed by the patriarch in Constantinople. “The message was written by Clement, Metropolitan of Russia, to Thomas the Presbyter, interpreted by Athanasius the Mnich” was preserved in a 15th-century manuscript. The authorship of Clement is attributed only to the first two parts, and the last to the monk Athanasius. The message provides interesting material for characterizing the education of Kievan Rus. The author turns to Thomas with a response to his message, which denounced Clement for being proud of his philosophical knowledge, since Clement made references to Homer, Aristotle and Plato in his writings. Averting reproaches of pride from himself, Clement at the same time attacks those bishops who add “house to house, village to village, expelling the siabrs, and the borti, and the reapers, the lads and the old ones, from them the accursed Klim greatly free.”

In his “Parable of the Human Soul” (late 12th century), Bishop Kirill of the city of Turov, relying on the Christian worldview, gives his interpretation of the meaning of human existence and discusses the need for a constant connection between soul and body. At the same time, in his “Parable” he raises questions that are quite topical for Russian reality, reflects on the relationship between church and secular authorities, defends the national-patriotic idea of ​​​​the unity of the Russian land, which was especially important, while the Vladimir-Suzdal princes began to implement centralization policy on the eve of the Mongol-Tatar invasion.

Simultaneously with these works, where religious and secular motives were constantly intertwined, copyists in monasteries, churches, princely and boyar houses diligently copied church service books, prayers, collections of church traditions, biographies of saints, and ancient theological literature. All this wealth of religious and theological thought also formed an integral part of general Russian culture.

But, of course, the most vivid synthesis of Russian culture, the interweaving of pagan and Christian features, religious and secular, universal and national motives in it was heard in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The Word tells about the campaign of the Seversky princes in 1185, led by Prince Igor Svyatoslavovich, against the Polovtsians. Shortly before this, the Severn princes refused to participate in the campaign against the Polovtsians, which was undertaken by their relative, the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich. From the very beginning, the participants in the campaign were confused by bad omens - an eclipse of the sun occurred. However, the princes decided to move on. The first battle was successful for the Russians. But soon things took a different turn. The Polovtsians defeated the Russian troops, and Igor Svyatoslavovich was captured, from which he escaped with the help of a certain Ovlur.

The story of Igor's regiment perfectly depicts princely relations at the end of the 12th century. What stands out in particular is the power of two princes, who in strength are on a par with Svyatoslav of Kyiv or even higher than him. This is the Galician prince Yaroslav Osmomysl and Vsevolod the Big Nest. Yaroslav sits high on his gold-plated table, he propped up the Carpathian (Hungarian) mountains with his iron regiments, closing the path for the Hungarian king and closing the Danube Gate for him, dominating all the way to the Danube. “Your thunderstorms flow across the lands, shooting a hundred gold from the Saltani table beyond the lands. Shoot, sir, Konchak, that filthy bastard, for the Russian land, for the wounds of Igor, my dear Svyatoslavovich.” This praise of Yaroslav Galitsky is confirmed in the chronicle. He was a wise, eloquent, God-fearing prince, revered in other lands, glorious in battles, we read in the chronicle about Yaroslav of Galicia.

The Vladimir-Suzdal prince Vsevolod the Big Nest seems no less powerful for the singer of the Word. He addresses him with the words: “You can sprinkle the Volga with oars, and pour out the Don with helmets.” If we remember that the Tale of Igor’s Campaign was compiled in southern Rus', then such princely characteristics acquire special meaning for us. They show the true balance of power between the princes of feudal Rus' at the end of the 12th century, when the Galicia-Volyn and Vladimir-Suzdal lands became especially strong.

“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” has another remarkable feature. Created in an era of feudal fragmentation, it nevertheless testifies to the unity of the Russian people. The entire content of the Word about Igor's Campaign rests on the idea that the Russian land can fight against the Polovtsian raids only as a single whole. A constant refrain is patriotic words, full of ardent love for the homeland, about the Russian land hidden behind the hills (“Oh, Russian land, you are already behind the shelomyan”).

The word unusually vividly depicts feudal strife and discord among the princes, mourning the fact that they are weakening the Russian land.

“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is of great interest for studying the beliefs of ancient Rus'. Nature is personified in Yaroslavna’s cry: “Oh the wind! – Yaroslavna turns to the wind. - “Why, sir, did you force yourself? Why do the Khinov arrows moo on their easy wings in my own way? You never know how grief blows under the clouds, cherishing ships on the blue sea.” The Dnieper River appears as the same living creature in Yaroslavna’s lament. She even calls him with his patronymic – Slovutich. The Word also mentions ancient Slavic deities. Bayan, named the grandson of Veles, god of livestock and abundance, patron of singers; Russians are the children of Dazhd-God, the great sun god.

Unlike other monuments of ancient Russian literature, The Tale of Igor's Campaign does not reflect church ideology. Only once is it mentioned the church of the Mother of God Pirogoshcha, to which Igor goes when returning to Kyiv.

The Word about Igor's Campaign included many legends unknown to us from other works. One of the sources for the author was Boyan’s songs, to which he refers. Boyan recalled “the first times of strife.” He sang songs about old Yaroslav, about the brave Mstislav, who stabbed Redea in front of the Kasozh regiments, about the beautiful Roman Svyatoslavovich.

We do not know the sources of the Word about Igor's Campaign. But its author undoubtedly used a large number of oral traditions. This is confirmed by many epithets that find analogies in monuments of oral literature: “golden table”, “golden stirrup”, “gray eagle”, “blue sea”, “green grass”, “sharp swords”, “open field”, “black crow".

A remarkable feature of the Tale of Igor's Campaign is its focus. While the chronicles preserved mainly the Kyiv tradition, the Tale of Igor's Campaign mainly reflects the Chernigov and Polotsk traditions. The singer's sympathies are with the Chernigov princes. He writes about the “resentment” of the Chernigov prince Oleg Svyatoslavovich, a young and brave prince expelled by Vladimir Monomakh from his principality. But Vladimir himself is depicted as a cowardly prince, covering his ears from the ringing of Oleg’s golden stirrups. The nickname “Gorislavich”, which the singer gives to Oleg, is an epithet denoting a person famous for his grief and misadventures.

High artistic skill“Words” is based not only on folk tradition, but also on Russian writing known to the author. It is impossible not to see what pearls the author selected in the chronicles and other works known to him! All this places “The Lay” next to the greatest monuments of Russian culture of the 12th century.

The development of literature in the 15th century was facilitated by the reduction in cost of writing material: at this time, instead of expensive parchment and specially treated calfskin, they began to use paper imported from the West.

Serious changes are taking place in the literary style of works. The upsurge that came after the Kulikovo victory led to the development of the so-called panegyric style: a lush and solemn style, ornate and complex; it was figuratively called “weaving words” (meaning that the authors weaved verbal wreaths to the glory of ascetics and warriors). The most sophisticated writer who worked in this direction was Epiphanius the Wise and Pachomius Logofet, a native of Serbia. Both were writers - professionals, connoisseurs of the art of words.

Such subtle and elegant works as “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” and “The Life of Sergei of Radonezh” date back to the 15th century.

For the history of literature, the “Degree Book” is of significant interest - a collection of biographies of the rulers of the Russian state. There are many legends in biographies, often of a romantic nature.

Interesting works of the mid-16th century include “Domostroy”; its creation is attributed to Sylvester, a priest of the Annunciation Church in the Kremlin.

Old Russian literature is also valuable for its own artistic achievements and the fact that it prepared the emergence of great Russian literature of modern times. Knowledge of ancient Russian literature helps to more fully and deeply understand the literature of the 19th-20th centuries.

But the value of ancient Russian literature lies not only in this. For us, she is a pure and life-giving source to which we turn in times of troubles and trials, “in days of doubt, in days of painful thoughts,” as well as in times of recovery. We draw deep thoughts from it, find high ideals and beautiful images in it. Her faith in goodness and the victory of justice, her ardent patriotism strengthens and inspires us. M.V. Lomonosov called Russian chronicles “books of glorious deeds.” The same can be said about most of the ancient Russian stories.

More than a thousand years have passed since Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich baptized Rus' in 988. This event had a direct impact on the formation and development of ancient Russian literature. Christianity, unlike pagan beliefs, is closely connected with writing. Therefore, already from the end of the 10th century. in Rus', having joined Christian culture, they experienced an urgent need for books. Having adopted Christianity from the hands of Byzantium, Rus' inherited enormous book wealth. Their assimilation was facilitated by Bulgaria, which was baptized back in 865. It played the role of a kind of mediator between Byzantium and the young Christian state, and made it possible to take advantage in Rus' of translations into the Slavic language made by the students of Cyril and Methodius, who created the Slavic alphabet in 863.

Writing came to Rus' long before the adoption of Christianity. Archaeologists discovered evidence of the use of the Slavic alphabet in the cultural layers of the early 10th century. However, it was after 988 that the number of books began to multiply. An outstanding role here belonged to Vladimir's son, Yaroslav the Wise. The chronicle reports about this prince in 1037: “He gathered many scribes who translated from Greek into Slavic and wrote many books.” It is known that even before the official adoption of the new religion, Christians lived in Kyiv. Among the rulers, Princess Olga became the first Christian. She, like other early Christians, used books.

Translations of Christian books played a special role in the history of Russian literature. They were especially important in the first centuries after the adoption of Christianity. The range of these books was very wide and varied. Translations in those days often had the character of a kind of co-creation, rather than a literal translation of the original. The book seemed to begin a new life in different cultural circumstances. Of course, this does not apply to the Holy Scriptures, the works of the Church Fathers, etc. In general, canonical texts did not allow the freedom that medieval scribes enjoyed when translating works of secular content.

This manual examines only original works of ancient Russian literature. But they could often be influenced by translated sources. For example, the Pechersk chroniclers already used Byzantine chronicles when creating the Tale of Bygone Years. Recently, research into the translated literature of Ancient Rus' has revived; interesting attempts are being made to write its history, aimed at identifying the patterns of existence of translated works, their role in the creation of original monuments.

What did Rus' perceive in the first centuries of Christianity? Of course, first of all we should mention the Gospel texts and the works of the Church Fathers. Rus' turned not to modern Byzantine literature, but to the works of authors who lived in the 4th-6th centuries. n. e. Early Byzantine literature was more consistent with the needs of the young Christian state. Of the later Christian authors, the works of John of Damascus and Fyodor the Studite were especially famous in Rus'. The earliest surviving Four Gospels dates back to 1144 (Galician Gospel). All earlier Gospels are aprakosnymi, that is, they contain readings in the order they appear in the calendar of church holidays.

Old Testament books existed in fragments as part of proverbs. And the most popular of the books of the Old Testament was the Psalter. The full text of the Bible was finally formed in Rus' only at the very end of the 15th century. in Novgorod under Archbishop Gennady. From Byzantium and the Slavic world, collections of church chants, teachings, as well as a rich corpus of Byzantine hagiography came to Rus'.

In Kievan Rus there is also great interest in works of a secular, heroic nature. Already in the early period of the development of ancient Russian literature, the Byzantine chronicles of George Amartol and John Malala, “The Deed of Deugene” - a translation of the Byzantine epic tale about the hero Digenis Akritos, as well as “Alexandria” - a novel about the life of Alexander the Great, were widely known. Particularly popular in Rus', as in medieval Europe, was the “History of the Jewish War” by Josephus, written in 75-79. n. e. and telling about the Roman conquest of Judea. This historical narrative had a strong influence on the style of ancient Russian military stories.

In the first centuries of Christianity, collections also came to Rus', which can be called original medieval encyclopedias, reference books, from which the ancient Russian reader could glean information about the world around him, about animals and plants (“Physiologist”), get acquainted with the aphorisms and sayings of ancient sages (“Bee” ).

Old Russian literature did not know works that declared the principles of literary creativity. And yet, as part of the “Izbornik” of 1073, copied for the Kyiv prince from the collection of the Bulgarian king Simeon (10th century), there is an article “On images”. This is the most ancient poetics in Rus', containing information about twenty-seven poetic figures and tropes. True, at present it is difficult to judge how popular this set of poetic terms was among the scribes of Ancient Rus'.

Associated with the perception of the ancient Russian culture of a new religious doctrine Apocrypha (from Greek - “secret”, “intimate”"), which can be called the religious epic of the Middle Ages. Their content diverged from the canonical texts of Holy Scripture. The Apocrypha was not officially recognized by the church and was included in indexes "renounced books" but, despite this, they were very popular and often served as sources for iconographic subjects. The prevalence of apocryphal literature can be partly explained by the fact that, by transforming the plots of Sacred history in its own way, it made them accessible to the public consciousness.

This is the range of translated works that served as the basis for the creation of original Old Russian literature and its subsequent development.

"The Tale of Bygone Years"

Chronicle writing is a unique phenomenon of national culture and writing. Throughout the Middle Ages, chronicles were kept in various principalities and cities. They were united into monumental vaults, where the story of the events of the past covered several centuries. The oldest of the all-Russian chronicles that have reached us is the Tale of Bygone Years. This grandiose historical and journalistic work of the early Middle Ages was at the origins of Russian historical narrative. Subsequent generations of chroniclers placed The Tale of Bygone Years at the beginning of their collections. It's not only important historical source, but also a most valuable literary monument, because many original works of various genres have been preserved here.

The Tale of Bygone Years took shape gradually; several generations of Kyiv scribes took part in its creation. The history of the chronicle is reconstructed hypothetically. The greatest influence on the study of The Tale of Bygone Years was the fundamental concept of A. A. Shakhmatov, proposed at the beginning of the 20th century. Its provisions are shared by the majority of modern medievalists, who have complemented certain aspects of the theory of A. A. Shakhmatov. According to the scientist, the “Tale of Bygone Years” was preceded by a number of chronicles of the 11th century; the most important of them were created in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery (1073 and 1095). The earliest chronicle texts appeared in the 1030s. in Kyiv and Novgorod independently of each other. Actually, “The Tale of Bygone Years” in its first edition (not preserved) was compiled by a monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Nestor in 1113 based on arches of the 11th century, supplemented by new sources. In 1116, by order of Vladimir Monomakh, the chronicle was transferred to the patrimonial Vydubitsky monastery, where the abbot Sylvester to please Monomakh, he created the second edition of The Tale of Bygone Years. Then in 1118 a third edition appeared, compiled unknown chronicler. The second and third editions were preserved as part of the Laurentian (1377) and Ipatiev (early 15th century) chronicles.

The Tale of Bygone Years owes its appearance to the development historical consciousness in Kievan Rus. Chroniclers sought to understand the place and role of the young Christian state among other European lands and peoples. The very name of the monument already articulates the goals of its creators: “These are the stories of past years, where the Russian land came from, who became the first to reign in Kyiv and how the Russian land arose”. The final formation of the “Tale of Bygone Years” occurs at a time when similar works appear among Rus'’s closest neighbors - the Poles and Czechs.

The story about the events of Russian history is told by year (the first date is 852). The weather principle of presentation arose in the 11th century. and then became the basis of the chronicle narrative for many centuries. Its appearance is usually associated with Easter tables. Byzantine chronography had its own principles of organizing material - according to emperors. There is not and cannot be a single plot and hero in the chronicle. Chronology is the main connecting principle. The discrete nature of the chronicle text and the combination of various sources in it determine the thematic and genre diversity of The Tale of Bygone Years. The choice of faith by Prince Vladimir and the baptism of Rus', military campaigns and battles, the fight against the Polovtsians, princely feuds, diplomatic efforts, astral phenomena, construction activities, the life of the ascetics of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery - these are the main themes of The Tale of Bygone Years.

The ancient chroniclers did not just convey events - they were concerned about the fate of the Motherland, defended the ideas of the unity of Rus', called for peace between the princes, and moralized. Their reasoning about good and evil, Christian values ​​often gave the chronicle a journalistic sound. The chronicle reflected popular (and not narrowly feudal, as it would be later) views on the history of Rus', because the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery from the first years of its existence occupied an independent position in relation to the Grand Duke.

As already noted, the chronicle is not an author's text. Chroniclers acted not only as creators of new historical narratives - they were primarily copyists, systematizers, and editors. In the “Tale of Bygone Years” one can find texts that are different in genre and stylistically (from a short weather record to a lengthy narrative), created specifically for the chronicle or included in it (for example, the “philosopher’s speech” addressed to Prince Vladimir, outlining the fundamentals Christian faith). The work of the chroniclers was perceived by contemporaries as a document and had national significance, so it is not surprising that legal texts were preserved in it (for example, treaties between Russian princes and the Greeks).

In the chronicle, elements of the hagiographic style (for example, in the story about the murder of Boris and Gleb by their brother Svyatopolk) coexist with military narratives, which have their own style.

Chronicle stories about military events are characterized by features that will become traditional for the poetics of Russian military narrative - stable formulas that served to depict campaigns, sieges, and the ferocity of battle (for example, “the slaughter of evil”, “I shoot like rain”, etc.).

The ancient chronicler begins his story with information about the settlement of peoples after the flood, and talks about the Slavic tribes. In this part of the chronicle the influence of Byzantine chronography is noticeable. Pagan times are described based on the epic tradition. D. S. Likhachev noted the interaction in The Tale of Bygone Years between the epic style and the “style of monumental historicism.” Folklore influences are most clearly felt in stories about pagan princes (Oleg, Igor, Svyatoslav). The first Christian, Princess Olga, is portrayed as a wise fairy-tale heroine. She asks her husband's killers unique riddles that cost the Drevlyans their lives. A number of legends and traditions were also included in the “Tale of Bygone Years” (for example, about the visit to Rus' by the Apostle Andrew, a toponymic legend about the origin of the name of the city of Kiev, a legend about Belgorod jelly or about the young man Kozhemyak). In the description of historical events contemporary to the scribe, the central place is occupied by the figure of the prince, who is denounced for unrighteous acts (for example, Svyatopolk the Accursed) or is depicted from the standpoint of idealization. Gradually, a small genre form of princely posthumous praise is developed in the chronicle. For all their traditionalism and laconicism, these obituaries sometimes reflected the traits of a specific person. Here, for example, is what the chronicler says about Mstislav Vladimirovich the Brave, who, as stated in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” “Killed Rededya in front of the Kasog regiments”: “Mstislav was powerful in body, handsome in face, with big eyes, brave in battle, merciful, loved his squad beyond measure, did not spare property for her, did not forbid her anything in drink or food " This squad military praise contrasts, for example, with the praise of another prince of the 11th century. - Vsevolod Yaroslavich, sounding completely different: “This noble prince Vsevolod from a young age loved the truth, gave to the poor, gave honor to bishops and presbyters, especially loved the monks and gave them everything they asked for. He himself abstained from drunkenness and lust.”

Inter-princely relations already in the 11th century. abounded in dramatic situations. The denunciation of strife and crimes sounds with particular force in the chronicle story about the murder of Boris and Gleb by their elder brother Svyatopolk the Accursed. And under 1097 there is a story about the blinding of Prince Vasilko Terebovlsky. The insidious crime was committed soon after the congress in Lyubech, where the princes vowed to live in peace. It led to a new feud. The author described the bloody drama in great detail, wanting to provoke a protest against the civil strife that was weakening Rus'.

Russian chronicles were created in the Old Russian language. This is a significant difference between our historical narratives and Western European chronicles (including Slavic ones), which were written in Latin, and not in national languages.

Preliminary remarks. The concept of Old Russian literature means, in a strict terminological sense, the literature of the Eastern Slavs of the 11th - 13th centuries. until their subsequent division into Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. Since the 14th century The special book traditions that led to the formation of Russian (Great Russian) literature are clearly visible, and from the 15th century. - Ukrainian and Belarusian. In philology, the concept of Old Russian literature is traditionally used in relation to all periods in the history of Russian literature of the 11th - 17th centuries.

All attempts to find traces of East Slavic literature before the baptism of Rus' in 988 ended in failure. The evidence presented is either crude forgeries (the pagan chronicle “Vlesova Book”, covering a huge era from the 9th century BC to the 9th century AD inclusive), or untenable hypotheses (the so-called “Askold Chronicle” in the Nikon Code of the 16th century. among articles 867-89). This does not mean at all that there was a complete absence of writing in pre-Christian Rus'. Treaties of Kievan Rus with Byzantium in 911, 944 and 971. as part of the "Tale of Bygone Years" (if we accept the evidence of S.P. Obnorsky) and archaeological finds (an inscription from firing on the Gnezdovo pot of the first decades or no later than the middle of the 10th century, a Novgorod inscription on a wooden cylinder lock, according to V.L. . Ioannina, 970-80) show that in the 10th century, even before the baptism of Rus', the Cyrillic letter could be used in official documents, government apparatus and everyday life, gradually preparing the ground for the spread of writing after the adoption of Christianity in 988.

§ 1. The emergence of Old Russian literature
§ 1.1. Folklore and literature. The predecessor of Old Russian literature was folklore, widespread in the Middle Ages in all layers of society: from peasants to the princely-boyar aristocracy. Long before Christianity it was already litteratura sine litteris, literature without letters. In the written era, folklore and literature with their genre systems existed in parallel, mutually complementing each other, sometimes coming into close contact. Folklore accompanied ancient Russian literature throughout its history: from the chronicles of the 11th - early 12th centuries. (see § 2.3) to the “Tale of Woe-Misfortune” of the transitional era (see § 7.2), although in general it was poorly reflected in writing. In turn, literature influenced folklore. The most striking example of this is spiritual poems, folk songs of religious content. They were strongly influenced by church canonical literature (biblical and liturgical books, lives of saints, etc.) and apocrypha. Spiritual poems retain a vivid imprint of dual faith and represent a motley mixture of Christian and pagan ideas.

§ 1.2. The Baptism of Rus' and the beginning of the “book teaching”. The adoption of Christianity in 988 under the Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Svyatoslavich brought Rus' into the orbit of influence of the Byzantine world. After baptism, the rich Old Church Slavonic literature created by the Thessalonica brothers Constantine the Philosopher, Methodius and their disciples in the second half of the 9th-10th centuries was transferred to the country from the southern and, to a lesser extent, from the western Slavs. A huge corpus of translated (mainly from Greek) and original monuments included biblical and liturgical books, patristics and church teaching literature, dogmatic-polemical and legal works, etc. This book fund is common to the entire Byzantine-Slavic Orthodox world , ensured within it a consciousness of religious, cultural and linguistic unity for centuries. From Byzantium the Slavs adopted primarily church-monastic book culture. The rich secular literature of Byzantium, which continued the traditions of antiquity, with few exceptions was not in demand by the Slavs. South Slavic influence at the end of the 10th - 11th centuries. marked the beginning of ancient Russian literature and book language.

Ancient Rus' was the last of the Slavic countries to accept Christianity and became acquainted with the Cyril and Methodius book heritage. However, in a surprisingly short time, she turned him into her national treasure. Compared to other Orthodox Slavic countries, Ancient Rus' created a much more developed and genre-diverse national literature and preserved the pan-Slavic book fund immeasurably better.

§ 1.3. Worldview principles and artistic method of ancient Russian literature. For all its originality, Old Russian literature had the same basic features and developed according to the same general laws as other medieval European literatures. Her artistic method was determined by the peculiarities of medieval thinking. He was distinguished by theocentrism - belief in God as the root cause of all being, goodness, wisdom and beauty; providentialism, according to which the course of world history and the behavior of each person is determined by God and is the implementation of his pre-planned plan; understanding of man as a creature in the image and likeness of God, endowed with reason and free will in choosing good and evil. In the medieval consciousness, the world bifurcated into a heavenly, higher, eternal, inaccessible to touch, revealed to the elect in a moment of spiritual insight (“the hedgehog cannot be seen with the eyes of the flesh, but is heard by the spirit and mind”), and the earthly, lower, temporary. This faint reflection of the spiritual, ideal world contained images and likenesses of divine ideas by which man came to know the Creator. The medieval worldview ultimately predetermined the artistic method of ancient Russian literature, which was religious and symbolic at its core.

Old Russian literature is imbued with a Christian moralistic and didactic spirit. Imitation and assimilation to God were understood as the highest goal of human life, and service to him was seen as the basis of morality. The literature of Ancient Rus' had a pronounced historical (and even factual) character and for a long time did not allow artistic fiction. It was characterized by etiquette, traditionalism and retrospectiveness, when reality was assessed based on ideas about the past and the events of the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments.

§ 1.4. Genre system of ancient Russian literature. In the ancient Russian era, literary examples were of exceptionally great importance. First of all, translated Church Slavonic biblical and liturgical books were considered such. Exemplary works contained rhetorical and structural models of different types of texts, defined the written tradition, or, in other words, codified the literary and linguistic norm. They replaced grammars, rhetoric and other theoretical manuals on the art of words, common in medieval Western Europe, but absent for a long time in Rus'. By reading Church Slavonic examples, many generations of ancient Russian scribes comprehended the secrets of literary technique. The medieval author constantly turned to exemplary texts, used their vocabulary and grammar, sublime symbols and images, figures of speech and tropes. Sanctified by hoary antiquity and the authority of holiness, they seemed unshakable and served as a measure of literary skill. This rule constituted the alpha and omega of ancient Russian creativity.

The Belarusian educator and humanist Francis Skorina argued in the preface to the Bible (Prague, 1519) that the books of the Old and New Testaments are an analogue of the “seven free arts” that formed the basis of medieval Western European education. Grammar is taught by the Psalter, logic, or dialectics, by the Book of Job and the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, rhetoric by the works of Solomon, music by biblical chants, arithmetic by the Book of Numbers, geometry by the Book of Joshua, astronomy by the Book of Genesis. and other sacred texts.

Biblical books were also perceived as ideal genre examples. In the Izbornik of 1073 - an Old Russian manuscript dating back to the collection of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon (893-927), translated from Greek, the article "from the apostolic charter" states that the standard of historical and narrative works is the Book of Kings, an example in the genre of church hymns is the Psalter , exemplary “cunning and creative” works (that is, related to the writing of the wise and poetic) are the teaching Books of Job and the Proverbs of Solomon. Almost four centuries later, around 1453, the Tver monk Thomas called in his “Laudatory Word about Grand Duke Boris Alexandrovich” an example of historical and narrative works of the Book of Kings, an epistolary genre - apostolic epistles, and “soul-saving books” - lives.

Such ideas, which came to Rus' from Byzantium, were widespread throughout medieval Europe. In the preface to the Bible, Francis Skorina referred those who wanted “knowledge about military” and “heroic deeds” to the Books of Judges, noting that they are more truthful and useful than “Alexandria” and “Troy” - medieval novels with adventure stories about Alexander Macedonian and Trojan Wars, known in Rus' (see § 5.3 and § 6.3). By the way, the canon says the same thing in M. Cervantes, convincing Don Quixote to leave his extravagances and come to his senses: “If... you are drawn to books about exploits and knightly deeds, then open the Holy Scriptures and read the Book of Judges: here you are you will find great and genuine events and deeds as true as they are courageous" (part 1, 1605).

The hierarchy of church books, as it was understood in Ancient Rus', is set out in the preface of Metropolitan Macarius to the Great Menaions Chetiy (finished ca. 1554). The monuments that formed the core of traditional book literature are located in strict accordance with their place on the hierarchical ladder. Its upper levels are occupied by the most revered biblical books with theological interpretations. At the top of the book hierarchy is the Gospel, followed by the Apostle and the Psalter (which in Ancient Rus' was also used as an educational book - they learned to read from it). Next follow the works of the church fathers: collections of works by John Chrysostom “Zlatostoy”, “Margarit”, “Zlatostom”, works of Basil the Great, words of Gregory the Theologian with interpretations of Metropolitan Nikita of Irakli, “Pandects” and “Tactikon” by Nikon Chernogorets etc. The next level is made up of oratorical prose with its own genre subsystem: 1) prophetic words, 2) apostolic, 3) patristic, 4) festive, 5) laudable. At the last stage there is hagiographic literature with a special genre hierarchy: 1) lives of martyrdom, 2) saints, 3) patericon Alphabet, Jerusalem, Egyptian, Sinai, Skete, Kiev-Pechersk, 4) lives of Russian saints canonized by the councils of 1547 and 1549

The Old Russian genre system, having developed under the influence of the Byzantine one, was rebuilt and developed over the course of seven centuries of its existence. Nevertheless, it was preserved in its main features until the New Age.

§ 1.5. Literary language of Ancient Rus'. Together with Old Slavonic books to Rus' at the end of the 10th-11th centuries. The Old Church Slavonic language was transferred - the first common Slavic literary language, supranational and international, created on the Bulgarian-Macedonian dialect basis in the process of translations of church books (mainly Greek) by Constantine the Philosopher, Methodius and their students in the second half of the 9th century. in Western and South Slavic lands. From the first years of its existence in Rus', the Old Church Slavonic language began to adapt to the living speech of the Eastern Slavs. Under its influence, some specific South Slavicisms were supplanted by Russianisms from the book norm, while others became acceptable options within its limits. As a result of the adaptation of the Old Church Slavonic language to the peculiarities of Old Russian speech, a local (Old Russian) version of the Church Slavonic language was formed. Its formation was close to completion in the second half of the 11th century, as shown by the oldest East Slavic written monuments: the Ostromir Gospel (1056-57), the Arkhangelsk Gospel (1092), the Novgorod service Menaions (1095-96, 1096, 1097) and other contemporary manuscripts.

The linguistic situation of Kievan Rus is assessed differently in the works of researchers. Some of them recognize the existence of bilingualism, in which the spoken language was Old Russian, and the literary language was Church Slavonic (Old Church Slavonic in origin), which was only gradually Russified (A. A. Shakhmatov). Opponents of this hypothesis prove the originality of the literary language in Kievan Rus, the strength and depth of its folk East Slavic speech basis and, accordingly, the weakness and superficiality of the Old Slavic influence (S. P. Obnorsky). There is a compromise concept of two types of a single Old Russian literary language: book-Slavic and folk-literary, which interacted widely and diversified with each other in the process of historical development (V.V. Vinogradov). According to the theory of literary bilingualism, in Ancient Rus' there were two book languages: Church Slavonic and Old Russian (F. I. Buslaev was close to this point of view, and then it was developed by L. P. Yakubinsky and D. S. Likhachev).

In the last decades of the 20th century. The theory of diglossia became very famous (G. Hütl-Folter, A. V. Isachenko, B. A. Uspensky). In contrast to bilingualism, in diglossia the functional spheres of bookish (Church Slavonic) and non-bookish (Old Russian) languages ​​are strictly distributed, almost do not overlap and require speakers to evaluate their idioms on a scale of “high - low”, “solemn - ordinary”, “ecclesiastical - secular”. . Church Slavonic, for example, being a literary and liturgical language, could not serve as a means of spoken communication, but for Old Russian this was one of the main functions. Under diglossia, Church Slavonic and Old Russian were perceived in Ancient Rus' as two functional varieties of one language. There are other views on the origin of the Russian literary language, but they are all debatable. It is obvious that the Old Russian literary language was formed from the very beginning as a language complex composition(B. A. Larin, V. V. Vinogradov) and organically included Church Slavonic and Old Russian elements.

Already in the 11th century. Different written traditions developed and a business language appeared, ancient Russian in origin. It was a special written, but not literary, not actually bookish language. Official documents (letters, petitions, etc.), legal codes (for example, “Russkaya Pravda”, see § 2.8) were drawn up on it, and administrative office work was carried out in the 16th - 17th centuries. Texts with everyday content were also written in Old Russian: birch bark letters (see § 2.8), graffiti inscriptions drawn with a sharp object on the plaster of ancient buildings, mainly churches, etc. At first, the business language had little interaction with the literary one. However, over time, the once clear boundaries between them began to collapse. The rapprochement of literature and business writing took place mutually and was clearly manifested in a number of works of the 15th-17th centuries: “Domostroye”, the messages of Ivan the Terrible, the work of Grigory Kotoshikhin “On Russia during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich”, “The Tale of Ersha Ershovich”, “Kalyazinskaya” petition" and others.

§ 2. Literature of Kievan Rus
(XI - first third of the XII century)

§ 2.1. The oldest book of Rus' and the first written monuments. The “book teaching” started by Vladimir Svyatoslavich quickly achieved significant success. The oldest surviving book of Rus' is the Novgorod Codex (no later than the 1st quarter of the 11th century) - a triptych of three waxed tablets, found in 2000 during the work of the Novgorod archaeological expedition. In addition to the main text - two psalms, the codex contains "hidden" texts, scratched on wood or preserved in the form of faint imprints on tablets under wax. Among the “hidden” texts read by A. A. Zaliznyak, especially interesting is a previously unknown composition of four separate articles about the gradual movement of people from the darkness of paganism through the limited benefit of the Law of Moses to the light of the teachings of Christ (tetralogy “From Paganism to Christ”).

In 1056-57 The oldest surviving precisely dated Slavic manuscript was created - the Ostromir Gospel with an afterword by the book writer Deacon Gregory. Gregory, together with his assistants, rewrote and decorated the book in eight months for the Novgorod mayor Ostromir (baptized Joseph), which is where the name of the Gospel comes from. The manuscript is luxuriously decorated, written in large calligraphy in two columns and is a wonderful example of book-writing art. Among the other oldest accurately dated manuscripts, one should mention the philosophical and didactic Izbornik of 1073, copied in Kiev - a richly decorated tome containing more than 380 articles by 25 authors (including the essay “On Images”, on rhetorical figures and tropes, by the Byzantine grammarian George Hirovosk, ca. 750-825), a small and modest Izbornik of 1076, rewritten in Kiev by the scribe John and, perhaps, compiled mainly from articles of religious and moral content, the Archangel Gospel of 1092, rewritten in the south of Kievan Rus, as well as three Novgorod list of service Menaions: for September - 1095-96, for October - 1096 and for November - 1097.

These seven manuscripts exhaust the surviving ancient Russian books of the 11th century, which indicate the time of their creation. The rest of the Old Russian manuscripts of the 11th century. either do not have exact dates, or were preserved in later lists. Thus, it has reached our time in lists no earlier than the 15th century. a book of 16 Old Testament prophets with interpretations, rewritten in 1047 by a Novgorod priest who had the “worldly” name of the Dashing Ghoul. (In Ancient Rus', the custom of giving two names, Christian and “secular,” was widespread not only in the world, cf. the name of the mayor Joseph-Ostromir, but also among the clergy and monasticism.)

§ 2.2. Yaroslav the Wise and a new stage in the development of ancient Russian literature. The educational activities of Vladimir Svyatoslavich were continued by his son Yaroslav the Wise († 1054), who finally established himself on the Kiev throne in 1019 after the victory over Svyatopolk (see § 2.5). The reign of Yaroslav the Wise was marked by foreign policy and military successes, the establishment of broad ties with the countries of Western Europe (including dynastic ones), a rapid rise in culture and extensive construction in Kiev, which transferred to the Dnieper, at least in name, the main shrines of Constantinople (St. Sophia Cathedral, Golden Gate and etc.).

Under Yaroslav the Wise, “Russkaya Pravda” arose (see § 2.8), chronicles were written and, according to A. A. Shakhmatov, around 1039, at the metropolitan see in Kyiv, the Most Ancient Chronicle Code was compiled. In the Kyiv metropolis, administratively subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Yaroslav the Wise sought to promote his people to the highest church positions. With his support, the first Old Russian hierarchs from among the local clergy were Luka Zhidyata, Bishop of Novgorod from 1036 (see § 2.8), and Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev from 1051 (from the priests in the village of Berestov - the country palace of Yaroslav near Kiev). During the entire pre-Mongol period, only two metropolitans of Kyiv, Hilarion (1051-54) and Clement Smolyatich (see § 3.1), came from among the local clergy, were elected and installed in Rus' by a council of bishops without relations with the Patriarch of Constantinople. All other metropolitans of Kyiv were Greeks, elected and consecrated by the patriarch in Constantinople.

Hilarion owns one of the most profound works of the Slavic Middle Ages - “The Sermon on Law and Grace,” spoken by him between 1037 and 1050. Among Hilarion’s listeners there could well have been people who remembered Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich and the baptism of the Russian land. However, the writer did not appeal to the ignorant and simpletons, but to people experienced in theology and book wisdom. Using the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians (4: 21-31), he proves with dogmatic impeccability the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, the New Testament - Grace, bringing salvation to the whole world and establishing the equality of peoples before God, over the Old Testament - the Law given to one people. The triumph of the Christian faith in Rus' has global significance in the eyes of Hilarion. It glorifies the Russian land, a full-fledged power in the family of Christian states, and its princes - Vladimir and Yaroslav. Hilarion was an outstanding orator; he knew very well the techniques and rules of Byzantine preaching. "The Sermon on Law and Grace" is not inferior in rhetorical and theological merits to the best examples of Greek and Latin church eloquence. It became known outside of Rus' and influenced the work of the Serbian hagiographer Domentian (13th century).

According to the Tale of Bygone Years, Yaroslav the Wise organized large-scale translation and book-writing works in Kyiv. In pre-Mongol Rus' there were various translation schools and centers. The vast majority of texts were translated from Greek. In the XI-XII centuries. remarkable examples of ancient Russian translation art appear. Over the centuries, they have enjoyed constant success among readers and influenced ancient Russian literature, folklore, and fine art.

The Northern Russian translation of “The Life of Andrei the Holy Fool” (XI century or no later than the beginning of the 12th century) had a noticeable influence on the development of ideas of holy foolishness in Ancient Rus' (see also § 3.1). An outstanding book of world medieval literature, “The Tale of Varlaam and Joasaph” (no later than the first half of the 12th century, possibly Kiev), vividly and figuratively told the ancient Russian reader about the Indian prince Joasaph, who, under the influence of the hermit Varlaam, renounced the throne and worldly joys and became an ascetic hermit. "The Life of Basil the New" (XI - XII centuries) struck the imagination of medieval people with impressive pictures of hellish torment, paradise and the Last Judgment, as did those Western European legends (for example, "The Vision of Tnugdal", mid-XII century), which subsequently fed " Divine Comedy"Dante.

No later than the beginning of the 12th century. in Rus' was translated from Greek and supplemented with new articles Pr o log, dating back to the Byzantine Synaxarion (Greek ukhnbobsypn) - a collection brief information about the lives of saints and church holidays. (According to M. N. Speransky, the translation was carried out on Athos or in Constantinople by the joint works of Old Russian and South Slavic scribes.) The prologue contains, in abridged editions, lives, words for Christian holidays and other church teaching texts, arranged in the order of the church calendar, starting with first day of September. In Rus', the Prologue was one of the favorite books; it was repeatedly edited, revised, and supplemented with Russian and Slavic articles.

Historical works received special attention. No later than the 12th century, apparently, in the south-west of Rus', in the Principality of Galicia, the famous monument of ancient historiography - “The History of the Jewish War” by Josephus, a fascinating and dramatic story about the uprising in Judea in 67-73, was translated in a free manner. against Rome. According to V.M. Istrin, in the 11th century. In Kyiv, the Byzantine world Chronicle of the monk George Amartol was translated. However, it is also assumed that this is a Bulgarian translation or a translation made by a Bulgarian in Rus'. Due to the lack of originals and the linguistic proximity of Old Russian and South Slavic texts, their localization is often hypothetical and gives rise to scientific disputes. It is not always possible to say which Russianisms in a text should be attributed to the East Slavic author or translator and which to later copyists.

In the 11th century Based on the translated Greek chronicles of George Amartol, the Syrian John Malala (Bulgarian translation, probably from the 10th century) and other sources, the “Chronograph according to the Great Exposition” was compiled. The monument covered the era from biblical times to the history of Byzantium in the 10th century. and was reflected already in the Initial Chronicle around 1095 (see § 2.3). The “Chronograph according to the Great Exposition” has not survived, but it existed in the first half of the 15th century, when it was used in the “Hellenic and Roman Chronicle” of the Second Edition - the largest ancient Russian compilation chronographic code containing an account of world history from the creation of the world.

On Old Russian translations of the 11th-12th centuries. usually include "Devgenie's Act" and "The Tale of Akira the Wise". Both works have reached our time in late copies of the 15th-18th centuries. and occupy a special place in ancient Russian literature. “The Deed of Devgenie” is a translation of the Byzantine heroic epic, which over time was revised in Rus' under the influence of military stories and heroic epics. The Assyrian “Tale of Akira the Wise” is an example of entertaining, edifying and semi-fairy-tale short stories, so beloved in the ancient literatures of the Middle East. Its oldest edition is preserved in fragments in an Aramaic papyrus from the late 5th century. BC e. from Egypt. It is believed that “The Tale of Akira the Wise” was translated into Rus' from the Syriac or the Armenian original dating back to it.

The love for didactic sententiousness, characteristic of the Middle Ages, led to the translation of “The Bee” (no later than the 12th-13th centuries) - a popular Byzantine collection of moralizing aphorisms from ancient, biblical and Christian authors. "The Bee" not only contained ethical instructions, but also significantly expanded the historical and cultural horizons of the ancient Russian reader.

Translation work was apparently carried out at the metropolitan see in Kyiv. Translations of dogmatic, church teaching, epistolary and anti-Latin works by Metropolitans of Kyiv John II (1077-89) and Nicephorus (1104-21), Greeks by origin, who wrote in their native language, have been preserved. Nikifor's message to Vladimir Monomakh "about fasting and abstinence of feelings" is marked by high literary merits and professional translation techniques. In the first half of the 12th century. Theodosius the Greek handled the translations. By order of the monastic prince Nicholas (Svyatosha), he translated the message of Pope Leo I the Great to Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople about the heresy of Eutyches. The Greek original of the message was received from Rome.

Not yet extinguished after the church schism of 1054, ties with Rome owe the origin of one of the main holidays of the Russian Church (not recognized by Byzantium and the Orthodox southern Slavs) - the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from Myra Lycian in Asia Minor to the Italian city of Bari in 1087 (9 May). Established in Rus' at the end of the 11th century, it contributed to the development of a cycle of translated and original works in honor of Nicholas of Myra, which includes “A word of praise on the transfer of the relics of Nicholas the Wonderworker,” stories about the miracles of the saint, preserved in copies of the 12th century, etc.

§ 2.3. Kiev-Pechersk monastery and ancient Russian chronicles. The most important literary and translation center of pre-Mongol Rus' was the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, which educated a bright galaxy of original writers, preachers and church leaders. Quite early, in the second half of the 11th century, the monastery established book connections with Athos and Constantinople. Under the Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Svyatoslavich (978-1015), Anthony († 1072-73), the founder of Russian monastic life, one of the founders of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, took monastic vows on Mount Athos. His disciple Theodosius of Pechersk became the “father of Russian monasticism.” During his abbess at the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery (1062-74), the number of brethren reached a figure unprecedented in Rus' - 100 people. Theodosius was not only a spiritual writer (the author of church teaching and anti-Latin works), but also an organizer of translation works. On his initiative, the community charter of the Studite Monastery of John the Baptist in Constantinople, sent to Rus' by Anthony's tonsured monk Ephraim, who lived in one of the Constantinople monasteries, was translated. Adopted in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, the Studite Charter was then introduced in all ancient Russian monasteries.

From the last third of the 11th century. The Kiev-Pechersk Monastery becomes the center of ancient Russian chronicles. The history of early chronicle writing is brilliantly reconstructed in the works of A. A. Shakhmatov, although not all researchers share certain provisions of his concept. In 1073, in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, on the basis of the Most Ancient Code (see § 2.2), the code of Nikon the Great, an associate of Anthony and Theodosius of the Pechersk, was compiled. Nikon was the first to give historical records the form of weather articles. Unknown to Byzantine chronicles, it was firmly established in ancient Russian chronicles. His work formed the basis of the Initial Code that appeared under the Pechersk abbot John (c. 1095) - the first all-Russian chronicle monument in nature.

During the second decade of the 12th century. one after another, editions of a new chronicle collection - "The Tale of Bygone Years" - appeared. All of them were compiled by scribes who reflected the interests of one or another prince. The first edition was created by the Kiev-Pechersk monk Nestor, chronicler of the Grand Duke of Kyiv Svyatopolk Izyaslavich (according to A. A. Shakhmatov - 1110-12, according to M. D. Priselkov - 1113). Nestor took the Primary Code as the basis for his work, supplementing it with numerous written sources and folk legends. After the death of Svyatopolk Izyaslavich in 1113, his political opponent Vladimir Monomakh ascended the Kiev throne. The new Grand Duke transferred the chronicle to his family's St. Michael's Vydubitsky Monastery near Kiev. There, in 1116, Abbot Sylvester created the Second Edition of the Tale of Bygone Years, positively assessing the activities of Monomakh in the fight against Svyatopolk. The third edition of the "Tale of Bygone Years" was compiled in 1118 on behalf of Vladimir Monomakh's eldest son Mstislav.

"The Tale of Bygone Years" is a most valuable monument of ancient Russian historical thought, literature and language, a complex collection of composition and sources. The structure of the chronicle text is heterogeneous. "The Tale of Bygone Years" includes epic legends (about the death of Prince Oleg the Prophet from the bite of a snake that crawled out of the skull of his beloved horse, under 912, about Princess Olga's revenge on the Drevlyans under 945-46), folk tales ( about the elder who saved Belgorod from the Pechenegs, under 997), toponymic legends (about the Kozhemyak youth who defeated the Pecheneg hero, under 992), testimonies of contemporaries (voivode Vyshata and his son, voivode Yan), peace treaties with Byzantium 911 , 944 and 971, church teachings (a speech by a Greek philosopher in 986), hagiographic stories (about the murder of princes Boris and Gleb in 1015), military stories, etc. The heterogeneity of the chronicle determined the special, hybrid nature of its language : complex interpenetration of Church Slavonic and Russian linguistic elements in the text, a mixture of book and non-book elements. "The Tale of Bygone Years" became an unsurpassed role model for centuries and formed the basis for further ancient Russian chronicles.

§ 2.4. Literary monuments in the "Tale of Bygone Years". The chronicle includes “The Tale of the Blinding of Prince Vasilko of Terebovl” (1110s), which arose as an independent work about princely crimes. Its author, Vasily, was an eyewitness and participant in the dramatic events, and knew very well all the events of the internecine wars of 1097-1100. The entire scene of the reception of Vasilko by princes Svyatopolk Izyaslavich and David Igorevich, his arrest and blinding, the subsequent torment of the blinded man (the episode with the bloody shirt washed by the priest) are written with deep psychologism, great specific accuracy and exciting drama. In this respect, Vasily’s work anticipates “The Tale of the Murder of Andrei Bogolyubsky” with its vivid psychological and realistic sketches (see § 3.1).

A selection of works by Vladimir Monomakh († 1125) was organically included in the “Tale of Bygone Years” - the fruit of many years of life and deep reflections of the wisest of the princes of the appanage period. Known under the name "Instruction", it consists of three works from different periods: instructions for children, an autobiography - a chronicle of Monomakh's military and hunting exploits, and a letter from 1096 to his political rival, Prince Oleg Svyatoslavich of Chernigov. In "Instruction" the author summarized his life principles and the princely code of honor. The ideal of the “Instruction” is a wise, fair and merciful sovereign, sacredly maintaining fidelity to contracts and the kiss of the cross, a brave prince-warrior, sharing labor in everything with his squad, and a pious Christian. The combination of teaching and autobiographical elements finds a direct parallel in the apocryphal "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs", known in medieval Byzantine, Latin and Slavic literature. The "Testament of Judas on Courage" included in the apocrypha had a direct influence on Monomakh.

His work stands on a par with medieval Western European teachings to children - heirs to the throne. The most famous among them are the “Testament”, attributed to the Byzantine Emperor Basil I of Macedon, the Anglo-Saxon “Teachings” of King Alfred the Great and the “Teachings of the Fathers” (8th century), used for the education of royal children. It cannot be argued that Monomakh was familiar with these works. However, one cannot help but remember that his mother came from the family of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomakh, and his wife was Gida († 1098/9), daughter of the last Anglo-Saxon king Harald, who died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

§ 2.5. Development of hagiographic genres. One of the first works of ancient Russian hagiography is “The Life of Anthony of Pechersk” (§ 2.3). Although it has not survived to this day, it can be argued that it was an outstanding work of its kind. The Life contained valuable historical and legendary information about the emergence of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, influenced chronicle writing, served as a source for the Initial Code, and was later used in the “Kievo-Pechersk Patericon”.

The features of the life and historical words of praise are combined in one of the most ancient monuments of our literature - the rhetorically decorated “Memory and Praise to the Russian Prince Vladimir” (11th century) by the monk Jacob. The work is dedicated to the solemn glorification of the Baptist of Rus', proof of his chosenness by God. Jacob had access to the ancient chronicle that preceded the Tale of Bygone Years and the Primary Code, and used its unique information, which more accurately conveyed the chronology of events during the time of Vladimir Svyatoslavich.

The lives of the Kiev-Pechersk monk Nestor (not earlier than 1057 - early 12th century), created according to the models of Byzantine hagiography, are distinguished by their outstanding literary merits. His "Reading on the Life of Boris and Gleb" along with other monuments of the 11th-12th centuries. (the more dramatic and emotional “The Tale of Boris and Gleb” and its continuation “The Tale of the Miracles of Roman and David”) form a widespread cycle about the bloody internecine war of the sons of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich for the Kiev throne. Boris and Gleb (baptized Roman and David) are depicted as martyrs not so much of a religious as of a political idea. Having preferred death in 1015 to the struggle against their elder brother Svyatopolk, who seized power in Kyiv after the death of their father, they affirm with all their behavior and death the triumph of brotherly love and the need for the subordination of the younger princes to the eldest in the clan in order to preserve the unity of the Russian land. The passion-bearing princes Boris and Gleb, the first canonized saints in Rus', became its heavenly patrons and defenders.

After the “Reading,” Nestor created, based on the memories of his contemporaries, a detailed biography of Theodosius of Pechersk, which became a model in the genre of the life of the monk. The work contains precious information about monastic life and customs, about the attitude of ordinary laymen, boyars and the Grand Duke towards monks. Later, “The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk” was included in the “Kievo-Pechersk Patericon” - the last major work of pre-Mongol Rus'.

In Byzantine literature, paterikas (cf. Greek rbfesykyn, ancient Russian otchnik 'otechnik, paterik') were collections of edifying short stories about ascetics of monastic and hermit life (of some area famous for monasticism), as well as collections of their moralizing-ascetic sayings and short words . The golden fund of medieval Western European literature included the Skitsky, Sinai, Egyptian, and Roman patericons, known in translations from Greek in ancient Slavic writing. Created in imitation of the translated "fatherland", the "Kievo-Pechersk Patericon" worthily continues this series.

Back in the XI - XII centuries. In the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, legends were written down about its history and the ascetics of piety who labored there, reflected in the “Tale of Bygone Years” under 1051 and 1074. In the 20s-30s. XIII century The “Kievo-Pechersk Patericon” begins to take shape - a collection of short stories about the history of this monastery, its monks, their ascetic life and spiritual exploits. The monument is based on the messages and accompanying patericon stories of two Kiev-Pechersk monks: Simon († 1226), who became the first bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal in 1214, and Polycarp († 1st half of the 13th century). The sources of their stories about the events of the 11th - first half of the 12th century. Monastic and family traditions, folk tales, the Kiev-Pechersk chronicle, and the lives of Anthony and Theodosius of the Pechersk appeared. The formation of the patericon genre took place at the intersection of oral and written traditions: folklore, hagiography, chronicle writing, and oratorical prose.

"Kievo-Pechersk Patericon" is one of the most beloved books of Orthodox Rus'. For centuries it was eagerly read and copied. 300 years, before the appearance of the Volokolamsk Patericon in the 30s-40s. XVI century (see § 6.5), it remained the only original monument of this genre in ancient Russian literature.

§ 2.6. The emergence of the "walking" genre. At the beginning of the 12th century. (in 1104-07), the abbot of one of the Chernigov monasteries, Daniel, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and stayed there for a year and a half. Daniel's mission had a political background. He arrived in the Holy Land after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099 and the formation of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Daniel was twice granted an audience with the King of Jerusalem by Baldwin (Baudouin) I (1100-18), one of the leaders of the First Crusade, who more than once showed him other exceptional signs of attention. In "Walk" Daniel appears before us as a messenger of the entire Russian land as a kind of political whole.

"The Walk" of Daniel is an example of pilgrimage notes, a valuable source of historical information about Palestine and Jerusalem. In form and content, it resembles numerous medieval itinerariums (Latin itinerarium ‘description of a journey’) of Western European pilgrims. He described in detail the route, the sights he saw, retold traditions and legends about the shrines of Palestine and Jerusalem, sometimes not distinguishing church canonical stories from apocryphal ones. Daniel is the largest representative of pilgrimage literature not only of Ancient Rus', but throughout medieval Europe.

§ 2.7. Apocrypha. As in medieval Europe, in Rus' already in the 11th century, in addition to orthodox literature, the apocrypha (Greek: ркхх f т 'secret, hidden') - semi-bookish, semi-folk tales on religious topics not included in the church canon (in history, the meaning of the concept apocrypha has changed). Their main flow came to Rus' from Bulgaria, where in the 10th century. The dualistic heresy of the Bogomils was strong, preaching the equal participation of God and the devil in the creation of the world, their eternal struggle in world history and human life.

The Apocrypha form a kind of common people's Bible and are mostly divided into Old Testament ("The Tale of How God Created Adam", "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs", apocrypha about Solomon, in which demonological motifs predominate, "The Book of Enoch the Righteous"), New Testament ("Gospel of Thomas" ", "The First Gospel of Jacob", "The Gospel of Nicodemus", "The Tale of Aphroditian"), eschatological - about the afterlife and the final destinies of the world ("The Vision of the Prophet Isaiah", "The Virgin's Walk in Torment", "The Revelation" of Methodius of Patara, used already in "Tales of Bygone Years" under 1096).

Apocryphal lives, torments, words, messages, conversations, etc. are known. The “Conversation of the Three Hierarchs” (Basily the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom), preserved in ancient Russian copies from the 12th century, enjoyed great love among the people. Written in the form of questions and answers on a wide variety of topics: from biblical to "natural science", it reveals, on the one hand, clear points of contact with medieval Greek and Latin literature (for example, Joca monachorum 'Monastic games'), and on the other - has experienced, throughout its handwritten history, the strong influence of folk superstitions, pagan ideas, and riddles. Many apocrypha are included in the dogmatic-polemical compilation "Explanatory Palea" (possibly from the 13th century) and in its revision "Chronographic Palea".

In the Middle Ages, there were special lists (indexes) of books renounced, that is, books prohibited by the Church. The oldest Slavic index, translated from Greek, is in the Izbornik of 1073. Independent lists of renounced books, reflecting the real reading range in Ancient Rus', appear at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries. and have a recommendatory, rather than strictly prohibitive (with subsequent punitive sanctions) nature. Many apocrypha ("Gospel of Thomas", "First Gospel of James", "Gospel of Nicodemus", "Tale of Aphroditian", significantly supplementing the information of the New Testament about the earthly life of Jesus Christ) could not be perceived as "false writings" and were revered on a par with church canonical works . The Apocrypha left noticeable traces in the literature and art of all medieval Europe (in church painting, architectural decoration, book ornament, etc.).

§ 2.8. Literature and writing of Veliky Novgorod. Even in ancient period literary life was not concentrated in Kyiv alone. In the north of Rus', the largest cultural center and trade and craft center was Veliky Novgorod, which early, already at the beginning of the 11th century, showed tendencies towards isolation from Kyiv and achieved political independence in 1136.

In the middle of the 11th century. In Novgorod, chronicles were already being written at the Church of St. Sophia. The Novgorod chronicles are generally distinguished by their brevity, business-like tone, simple language, and the absence of rhetorical embellishments and colorful descriptions. They are intended for the Novgorod reader, and not for all-Russian distribution, they tell about local history, rarely touch upon the events of other lands, and then mainly in their relation to Novgorod. One of the first ancient Russian writers known to us by name was Luka Zhidyata († 1059-60), Bishop of Novgorod from 1036 (The nickname is a diminutive formation from the secular name Zhidoslav or the church name George: Gyurgiy> Gyurata> Zhidyata.) His “Teaching to the Brethren” "on the foundations of Christian faith and piety represents a completely different type of rhetorical strategy compared to Hilarion's "Sermon on Law and Grace." It is devoid of oratorical tricks, written in accessible language, simply and briefly.

In 1015, an uprising broke out in Novgorod, caused by the shameless management of the princely squad, which largely consisted of Varangian mercenaries. To prevent such clashes, by order of Yaroslav the Wise and with his participation, in 1016 the first written law book in Rus' was compiled - “The Most Ancient Truth”, or “The Truth of Yaroslav”. This is a fundamental document in the history of ancient Russian law in the 11th - early 12th centuries. In the first half of the 11th century. it was included in the Brief Edition of "Russian Truth" - the legislation of Yaroslav the Wise and his sons. The "Brief Truth" has come down to us in two lists from the mid-15th century. in the Novgorod first chronicle of the younger edition. In the first third of the 12th century. The "Brief Pravda" was replaced by a new legislative code - the Long Edition of the "Russian Pravda". This is an independent monument, which includes various legal documents, including the “Brief Truth”. The oldest list of the "Long-Range Pravda" was preserved in the Novgorod helmsman of 1280. The emergence at the very beginning of our writing of an exemplary legislative code written in Old Russian was of exceptionally great importance for the development of business language.

The most important sources of everyday writing of the 11th-15th centuries. are birch bark letters. Their cultural and historical significance is extremely great. Texts on birch bark made it possible to put an end to the myth of almost universal illiteracy in Ancient Rus'. Birch bark letters were first discovered in 1951 during archaeological excavations in Novgorod. They were then found in Staraya Russa, Pskov, Smolensk, Tver, Torzhok, Moscow, Vitebsk, Mstislavl, Zvenigorod Galitsky (near Lvov). Currently, their collection includes over a thousand documents. The vast majority of sources come from Novgorod and its lands.

Unlike expensive parchment, birch bark was the most democratic and easily accessible writing material. On soft birch bark, letters were squeezed out or scratched with a sharp metal or bone rod, which was called a scribble. Only in rare cases was pen and ink used. The oldest birch bark documents discovered today date back to the first half - mid-11th century. The social composition of the authors and recipients of birch bark letters is very wide. Among them are not only representatives of the titled nobility, clergy and monasticism, which is understandable in itself, but also merchants, elders, housekeepers, warriors, artisans, peasants, etc., which indicates the widespread spread of literacy in Rus' already in the 11th-12th centuries. Women took part in the correspondence on birch bark. Sometimes they are the recipients or authors of messages. Several letters sent from woman to woman have survived. Almost all birch bark letters are written in Old Russian, and only a few are written in Church Slavonic.

Birch bark letters are mostly private letters. Everyday life and the concerns of medieval man appear in them in the smallest detail. The authors of the messages talk about their affairs: family, economic, trade, money, litigation, travel, military campaigns, expeditions for tribute, etc. Documents of business content are not uncommon: bills, receipts, records of debt obligations, ownership labels, wills, bills of sale , petitions from peasants to the feudal lord, etc. Educational texts are interesting: exercises, alphabet books, lists of numbers, lists of syllables by which they learned to read. Conspiracies, a riddle, and a school joke have also been preserved. All this everyday side of the medieval way of life, all these little things of life, so obvious to contemporaries and constantly eluding researchers, are poorly reflected in the literature of the 11th-15th centuries.

Occasionally, birch bark letters of church and literary content are found: excerpts of liturgical texts, prayers and teachings, for example, two quotes from the “Sermon on Wisdom” by Cyril of Turov (see § 3.1) in the birch bark list of the first 20th anniversary of the 13th century. from Torzhok.

§ 3. Decentralization of Old Russian literature
(second third of the 12th - first quarter of the 13th century)

§ 3.1. Old and new literary centers. After the death of Vladimir Monomakh's son Mstislav the Great († 1132), Kyiv lost power over most of the Russian lands. Kievan Rus broke up into one and a half dozen sovereign and semi-sovereign states. Feudal fragmentation was accompanied by cultural decentralization. Although the largest ecclesiastical, political and cultural centers still remained Kyiv and Novgorod, literary life awakened and developed in other lands: Vladimir, Smolensk, Turov, Polotsk, etc.

A prominent representative of Byzantine influence in the pre-Mongol period is Clement Smolyatich, the second Metropolitan of Kiev after Hilarion (1147-55, with short interruptions), elected and installed in Rus' from local natives. (His nickname comes from the name Smolyat and does not indicate origin from the Smolensk land.) Clement’s polemical letter to the Smolensk presbyter Thomas (mid-12th century) discusses Homer, Aristotle, Plato, the interpretation of Holy Scripture with the help of parables and allegories, and the search for spiritual meaning in objects of material nature, as well as schedography - the highest literacy course in Greek education, which consisted of grammatical analysis and memorization of exercises (words, forms, etc.) for each letter of the alphabet.

The solemn word of thanks to the Grand Duke of Kyiv Rurik Rostislavich, written by Moses, abbot of the St. Michael's Vydubitsky Monastery near Kiev, on the occasion of the completion of construction work in 1199 on the construction of a wall strengthening the bank under the ancient St. Michael's Cathedral, is distinguished by its skillful rhetorical technique. It is believed that Moses was the chronicler of Rurik Rostislavich and the compiler of the Kyiv grand ducal code of 1200, preserved in the Ipatiev Chronicle.

One of the most learned scribes was the hierodeacon and domestic (church regent) of the Anthony Monastery in Novgorod, Kirik, the first ancient Russian mathematician. He authored mathematical and chronological works, combined into “The Doctrine of Numbers” (1136) and “Questioning” (mid-12th century) - a complex work in the form of questions to the local Archbishop Nifont, Metropolitan Kliment Smolyatich and other persons concerning various aspects of church-ritual and secular life and discussed among Novgorod parishioners and clergy. It is possible that Kirik participated in the local archbishop's chronicle. At the end of the 1160s. priest German Voyata, having revised the previous chronicle, compiled an archbishop's codex. The early Novgorod chronicles and the Kiev-Pechersk Initial Code were reflected in the Synodal list of the 13th-14th centuries. Novgorod first chronicle.

Before his monastic vows, the Novgorodian Dobrynya Yadreykovich (Archbishop Anthony of Novgorod from 1211) traveled to the holy places in Constantinople before its capture by the Crusaders in 1204. What he saw during the journey was briefly described by him in the “Book of the Pilgrim” - a kind of guide to the Constantinople shrines . The fall of Constantinople in 1204 is dedicated to the testimony of an unknown eyewitness, included in the First Novgorod Chronicle - “The Tale of the Capture of Constantinople by the Fryags.” Written with outward impartiality and objectivity, the story significantly complements the picture of the defeat of Constantinople by the crusaders of the Fourth Campaign, drawn by Latin and Byzantine historians and memoirists.

Bishop Kirill of Turov († c. 1182), the “Zlatoust” of Ancient Rus', was brilliant in the techniques of Byzantine oratory. The sublimity of religious feelings and thoughts, the depth of theological interpretations, expressive language, clarity of comparisons, a subtle sense of nature - all this made the sermons of Kirill of Turov a wonderful monument ancient Russian eloquence. They can be placed on a par with the best works of contemporary Byzantine preaching. The creations of Cyril of Turov became widespread in Rus' and beyond its borders - among the Orthodox South Slavs, and caused numerous alterations and imitations. In total, more than 30 compositions are attributed to him: a cycle of 8 words for the holidays of the Colored Triodion, a cycle of seven-week prayers, “The Tale of the Beloriztsy and the Minshestvo and the Souls and Repentance,” etc. According to I. P. Eremin, in an allegorical form “ Parables about the human soul and body "(between 1160-69) Kirill of Turov wrote an accusatory pamphlet against Bishop Fyodor of Rostov, who fought, with the support of the appanage prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, son of Yuri Dolgoruky, for the independence of his see from the Kyiv Metropolis.

Under Andrei Bogolyubsky, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, which before him was one of the youngest and most insignificant destinies, experienced political and cultural flourishing. Having become the most powerful prince in Rus', Andrei Bogolyubsky dreamed of uniting the Russian lands under his power. In the struggle for church independence from Kyiv, he either planned to separate the Suzdal region from the Rostov diocese and establish a second (after Kyiv) metropolis in Vladimir in Rus', then after the refusal of the Patriarch of Constantinople, he tried to achieve autocephaly for the Rostov diocese. He received significant assistance in this struggle from literature glorifying his deeds and local shrines, proving the special patronage of the heavenly powers of North-Eastern Rus'.

Andrei Bogolyubsky was distinguished by his deep veneration of the Mother of God. Having left for Vladimir from Vyshgorod near Kiev, he took with him an ancient icon of the Mother of God (according to legend, painted by the Evangelist Luke), and then ordered a legend to be compiled about her miracles. The work affirms the chosenness of the Vladimir-Suzdal state among other Russian principalities and the primacy of the political importance of its sovereign. The legend marked the beginning of a popular cycle of monuments about one of the most beloved Russian shrines - the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, which later included “The Tale of Temir Aksak” (beginning of the 15th century; see § 5.2 and § 7.8) and the compilative “The Legend of the Icon of Vladimir” Our Lady" (mid-16th century). In the 1160s under Andrei Bogolyubsky, the feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos was established on October 1 in memory of the appearance of the Mother of God to Andrei the Fool and Epiphanius in the Blachernae Church of Constantinople, praying for Christians and covering them with her headdress - the omophorion (see § 2.2). Old Russian works created in honor of this holiday (prologue legend, service, words for the Intercession) explain it as the special intercession and patronage of the Mother of God of the Russian land.

Having defeated the Volga Bulgarians on August 1, 1164, Andrei Bogolyubsky composed a grateful “Word on the Mercy of God” (First edition - 1164) and established a holiday to the All-Merciful Savior and the Most Holy Theotokos. These events are also dedicated to the "Tale of the victory over the Volga Bulgarians in 1164 and the festival of the All-Merciful Savior and the Most Holy Theotokos" (1164-65), celebrated on August 1 in memory of the victories on this day of the Byzantine emperor Manuel Komnenos (1143-80) over the Saracens and Andrei Bogolyubsky over the Volga Bulgarians. The legend reflected the growing military-political power of the Vladimir-Suzdal state and portrayed Manuel Komnenos and Andrei Bogolyubsky as equal in glory and dignity.

After the discovery in Rostov in 1164 of the relics of Bishop Leonty, who preached Christianity in the Rostov land and was killed by pagans around 1076, a short version of his life was written (before 1174). "The Life of Leonty of Rostov", one of the most widespread works of ancient Russian hagiography, glorifies the holy martyr as the heavenly patron of Vladimir Rus'.

The strengthening of princely power led to a clash between Andrei Bogolyubsky and the boyar opposition. The death of the prince in 1174 as a result of a palace conspiracy was vividly captured by the dramatic “Tale of the Murder of Andrei Bogolyubsky” (apparently between 1174-77), combining high literary merits with historically important and accurate details. The author was an eyewitness to the events, which does not exclude the recording of the story from his words (one of the possible authors is the servant of the murdered Prince Kuzmishcha Kiyanin).

The eternal theme of “woe from mind” is also developed by Daniil Zatochnik, one of the most mysterious ancient Russian authors (XII or XIII centuries). His work has been preserved in several editions in copies of the 16th - 17th centuries, apparently reflecting a late stage in the history of the monument. “The Word” and “Prayer” by Daniil Zatochnik are, in fact, two independent works created at the intersection of book, primarily biblical, and folklore traditions. In the figurative form of allegories and aphorisms, close to the maxims of “The Bee,” the author sarcastically depicted the life and customs of his time, the tragedy of an extraordinary person who was haunted by need and troubles. Daniil Zatochnik is a supporter of the strong and “formidable” princely power, to which he turns with a request for help and protection. In terms of genre, the work can be compared with Western European “prayers” for pardon, for release from prison, often written in verse in the form of aphorisms and parables (for example, Byzantine monuments of the 12th century “Works of Prodromus, Mr. Theodore”, “Poems of the grammarian Michael Glika” ).

§ 3.2. The swan song of the literature of Kievan Rus: “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” In line with the medieval pan-European literary process is also “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” (late 12th century), a lyric-epic work associated with the militia milieu and poetry. The reason for its creation was the unsuccessful campaign of Novgorod-Seversk Prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the Polovtsians in 1185. The military stories that survived in the Laurentian Chronicle (1377) and the Ipatiev Chronicle (late 10s - early 20s of the 15th century) are dedicated to the defeat of Igor. However, only the author of the “Lay” was able to turn a private episode of numerous wars with the Steppe into a great poetic monument, standing on a par with such masterpieces of medieval epic as the French “Song of Roland” (apparently, the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century), Spanish "Song of my Sid" (c. 1140), German "Song of the Nibelungs" (c. 1200), "The Knight in the Tiger's Skin" by the Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli (late 12th - early 13th centuries).

The poetic imagery of the "Lay" is closely connected with pagan ideas that were alive in the 12th century. The author managed to combine the rhetorical techniques of church literature with the traditions of druzhina epic poetry, an example of which in his eyes were the works of the poet-singer of the 11th century. Boyana. The political ideals of the "Slovo" are associated with the fading Kievan Rus. Its creator is a staunch opponent of princely “sedition” - civil strife that destroyed the Russian land. "The Word" is imbued with the passionate patriotic pathos of the unity of princes for protection from external enemies. In this regard, he is close to the “Tale of Princes,” directed against the civil strife that tore Rus' apart (possibly in the 12th century).

"The Lay of Igor's Campaign" was discovered by Count A.I. Musin-Pushkin in the early 1790s. and published by him according to the only surviving copy in 1800. (By the way, the “Song of My Sid” has come down to us in a single manuscript, which was extremely faulty and incomplete.) During the Patriotic War of 1812, the collection with the “Word” burned down in the Moscow fire. The artistic perfection of the “Word”, its mysterious fate and death gave rise to doubts about the authenticity of the monument. All attempts to challenge the antiquity of the “Slovo”, to declare it a fake of the 18th century. (French Slavist A. Mazon, Moscow historian A. A. Zimin, American historian E. Keenan, etc.) are scientifically untenable.

§ 4. Literature of the era of the struggle against foreign yoke
(second quarter of the 13th - end of the 14th century)

§ 4.1. The tragic theme of ancient Russian literature. The Mongol-Tatar invasion caused irreparable damage to ancient Russian literature, led to its noticeable reduction and decline, and interrupted book ties with other Slavs for a long time. The first tragic battle with the conquerors on the Kalka River in 1223 is the subject of stories preserved in the First Novgorod, Laurentian and Ipatiev Chronicles. In 1237-40. hordes of nomads led by Genghis Khan's grandson Batu poured into Rus', sowing death and destruction everywhere. The stubborn resistance of Rus', which held “a shield between the two hostile races of the Mongols and Europe” (“Scythians” by A. A. Blok), undermined the military power of the Mongol-Tatar horde, which ravaged, but no longer retained Hungary, Poland and Dalmatia.

The foreign invasion was perceived in Rus' as a sign of the end of the world and God's punishment for the grave sins of the entire people. The former greatness, power and beauty of the country is mourned by the lyrical “Word about the destruction of the Russian land”. The time of Vladimir Monomakh is depicted as the era of the highest glory and prosperity of Rus'. The work vividly conveys the feelings of contemporaries - the idealization of the past and deep sorrow for the bleak present. "The Lay" is a rhetorical fragment (beginning) of a lost work about the Mongol-Tatar invasion (according to the most probable opinion, between 1238-46). The passage survives in two lists, but not in separate form, but as a kind of prologue to the Initial edition of “The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky”.

The most prominent church preacher of that time was Serapion. In 1274, shortly before his death († 1275), he was installed as Bishop of Vladimir from the archimandrites of the Kiev Caves Monastery. From his work, 5 teachings have been preserved - a vivid monument to a tragic era. In three of them, the author paints a vivid picture of the defeat and disasters that befell Rus', considers them God's punishment for sins, and preaches the path of salvation through popular repentance and moral cleansing. In two other teachings he denounces belief in witchcraft and gross superstitions. Serapion's works are distinguished by deep sincerity, sincerity of feelings, simplicity and at the same time skillful rhetorical technique. This is not only one of the finest examples of ancient Russian church-educational eloquence, but also a valuable historical source, revealing with particular strength and brightness the life and mood during the “destruction of the Russian land.”

XIII century gave outstanding monument southern Russian chronicle - the Galicia-Volyn Chronicle, consisting of two independent parts: “The Chronicler of Daniil of Galicia” (before 1260) and the chronicle of the Vladimir-Volyn principality (from 1261 to 1290). The court historiographer of Daniil Galitsky was a man of high book culture and literary skill, an innovator in the field of chronicle writing. For the first time, he compiled not a traditional weather chronicle, but created a coherent and coherent historical story, not constrained by year-by-year records. His work is a vivid biography of the warrior prince Daniil of Galicia, who fought the Mongol-Tatars, Polish and Hungarian feudal lords, and the rebellious Galician boyars. The author used the traditions of druzhina epic poetry, folk legends, and subtly understood the poetry of the steppe, as evidenced by the beautiful Polovtsian legend he retold about the Yevsha grass “wormwood” and Khan Otrok.

The Mongol-Tatar invasion revived the ideals of a wise sovereign, a courageous defender of his native land and the Orthodox faith, ready to sacrifice himself for them. A typical example of a martyr's life (or martyrium) is "The Tale of the Murder in the Horde of Prince Mikhail of Chernigov and his boyar Theodore." In 1246, they were both executed by order of Khan Batu for refusing to bow to pagan idols. A short (Prologue) edition of the monument appeared no later than 1271 in Rostov, where Maria Mikhailovna, the daughter of the murdered prince, and his grandchildren Boris and Gleb ruled. Subsequently, on its basis, more extensive editions of the work arose, the author of one of which was priest Andrei (no later than the end of the 13th century).

The conflict in the oldest monument of Tver hagiography - “The Life of Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver” (late 1319 - early 1320 or 1322-27) has a clearly expressed political background. In 1318, Mikhail Tverskoy was killed in the Golden Horde with the approval of the Tatars by the people of Prince Yuri Danilovich of Moscow, his rival in the struggle for the great reign of Vladimir. The life portrayed Yuri Danilovich in the most unfavorable light and contained anti-Moscow attacks. In the official literature of the 16th century. it was subject to strong pro-Moscow censorship. Under the martyr's son, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, a popular uprising broke out in Tver in 1327 against the khan's baskak, Chol Khan. The response to these events was the “Tale of Shevkal”, which appeared shortly after them, included in the Tver chronicles, and the folk historical song “About Shchelkan Dudentievich”.

The "military-heroic" direction in hagiography is developed by "The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky." Its original edition was probably created in the 1280s. in the Vladimir Monastery of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, where Alexander Nevsky was originally buried. Unknown author, who had an excellent command of various literary techniques, skillfully combined the traditions of military stories and hagiography. The bright face of the young hero of the Battle of the Neva in 1240 and the Battle of the Ice in 1242, the winner of the Swedish and German knights, the defender of Rus' from foreign invaders and Orthodoxy from Roman Catholic expansion, a pious Christian became a model for subsequent princely biographies and military stories. The work influenced "The Tale of Dovmont" (2nd quarter of the 14th century). The reign of Dovmont (1266-99), who fled to Rus' from Lithuania due to civil strife and was baptized, became for Pskov a time of prosperity and victories over external enemies, the Lithuanians and Livonian knights. The story is connected with the Pskov chronicle, which began in the 13th century. (see § 5.3).

Two interesting works of the late 13th century are dedicated to princely power. The image of an ideal ruler is presented in the message-instruction of the monk Jacob to his spiritual son, Prince Dmitry Borisovich of Rostov (possibly 1281). The prince's responsibility for the affairs of his administration, the issue of justice and truth are considered in the "Punishment" of the first Bishop of Tver Simeon († 1289) to Prince Konstantin of Polotsk.

Stories about the foreign invasion and the heroic struggle of the Russian people grew over time with legendary details. "The Tale of Nikola Zarazsky", a lyric-epic masterpiece of regional Ryazan literature, is distinguished by its high artistic merits. The work, dedicated to the local shrine - the icon of St. Nicholas of Zaraz, includes the story of its transfer from Korsun to the Ryazan land in 1225 and the story of the devastation of Ryazan by Batu Khan in 1237 with praise to the Ryazan princes. One of the main places in the story of the capture of Ryazan is occupied by the image of the epic knight Evpatiy Kolovrat. Using the example of his valiant deeds and death, it is proven that there are not a shortage of heroes in Rus', the heroism and greatness of the spirit of the Russian people, who were not broken by the enemy and cruelly avenged him for the desecrated land, are glorified. The final form of the monument apparently took shape in 1560, but it should be borne in mind that over the centuries its ancient core could have been and, presumably, was subjected to revision, acquiring factual inaccuracies and anachronisms.

In Smolensk literature of the 13th century. only dull echoes of the Mongol-Tatar invasion are heard, which did not affect Smolensk. The well-read and educated scribe Ephraim calls on God to destroy the Ishmaelites, that is, the Tatars, in the life of his teacher Abraham of Smolensk, a valuable monument of local hagiography (apparently, the 2nd half of the 13th century). For understanding the spiritual life of that time, the clash depicted by Ephraim, Abraham, an ascetic scribe, with an environment that did not accept him, is important. The learning and preaching gift of Abraham, who read the “deep books” (possibly the Apocrypha), became the cause of envy and persecution of him by the local clergy.

What seemed to contemporaries to be a miraculous deliverance of Smolensk from Batu’s troops, who did not besiege or plunder the city, but passed away from it, was understood as a manifestation of divine intercession. Over time, a local legend developed that completely rethought historical facts. In it, the savior of Smolensk is presented as the young man Mercury, an epic hero who, with the help of heavenly forces, defeated countless hordes of enemies. The “Tale of Mercury of Smolensk” (lists from the 16th century) uses a “vagrant” plot about a saint carrying his severed head in his hands (cf. the same legend about the first bishop of Gaul, Dionysius, executed by the pagans).

Such later literary adaptations of oral legends about the Batyevism include the legend about the invisible city of Kitezh, after its destruction by the Mongol-Tatars, hidden by God until the second coming of Christ. The work was preserved in late Old Believer writing (2nd half of the 18th century). Faith in the hidden city of the righteous lived among the Old Believers and other religious seekers from the people back in the 20th century. (see, for example, “At the walls of the invisible city. (Bright Lake)” by M. M. Prishvin, 1909).

§ 4.2. Literature of Veliky Novgorod. In Novgorod, which retained its independence, the archbishop's chronicle writing continued in a relatively calm atmosphere (its most significant literary part belongs to the 13th-century sexton Timothy, whose style of presentation is distinguished by an abundance of edifying digressions, emotionality, and the widespread use of church-book language means), travel notes appeared - " The Wanderer of Stephen of Novgorod, who visited Constantinople in 1348 or 1349, created biographies of local saints. Ancient oral traditions preceded the lives of the two most revered Novgorod saints who lived in the 12th century: Varlaam of Khutyn, founder of the Transfiguration Monastery (Original edition - 13th century), and Archbishop of Novgorod Ilya-John (Main edition - between 1471-78). In the “Life of John of Novgorod” the central place is occupied by the legend created at different times about the victory of the Novgorodians over the united Suzdal troops on November 25, 1170 and about the establishment of the Feast of the Sign of the Mother of God, celebrated on November 27 (it is believed that the 40s-50s of the XIV century), as well as a story about the journey of Archbishop John on a demon to Jerusalem (possibly the 1st half of the 15th century), using a “vagrant” plot about a trait cursed with a cross or the sign of the cross.

To understand the medieval religious worldview, the message of Archbishop Vasily Kalika of Novgorod to Bishop Fyodor the Good of Tver about heaven (possibly 1347) is important. It was written in response to theological disputes in Tver about whether paradise exists only as a special spiritual substance or, in addition to it, in the east of the earth there is a material paradise created for Adam and Eve. The central place among the evidence of Vasily Kalika is occupied by the story of the discovery by Novgorod sailors of an earthly paradise surrounded by high mountains, and earthly hell. Typologically, this story is close to Western European medieval tales, for example, about Abbot Brendan, who founded many monasteries in England and sailed to the Paradise Islands. (In turn, the legends about St. Brendan absorbed the ancient Celtic legends about King Bran’s voyage to an otherworldly wonderful land.)

Around the middle of the 14th century. In Novgorod, the first significant heretical movement in Rus' appeared - strigolism, which then spread to Pskov, where in the first quarter of the 15th century. reached its peak. Strigolniki denied the clergy and monasticism, church sacraments and rituals. The “Copying from the Rule of the Saints Apostle and Saints Father... to Strigolniki” is directed against them, among the possible authors of which Bishop Stephen of Perm is named.

§ 5. Revival of Russian literature
(late XIV-XV century)

§ 5.1. "Second South Slavic influence". In the XIV century. Byzantium, and after it Bulgaria and Serbia, experienced a cultural upsurge that affected various areas of spiritual life: literature, book language, iconography, theology in the form of the mystical teachings of hesychast monks, that is, the silent ones (from the Greek ?ukhchYab 'peace, silence, silence '). At this time, the southern Slavs were undergoing a reform of the book language, large-scale translation and editing work was being carried out in book centers on Mount Athos, in Constantinople, and then in the capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom of Tarnovo under Patriarch Euthymius (c. 1375-93). The goal of the South Slavic book reform of the 14th century. there was a desire to restore the ancient norms of the common Slavic literary language, dating back to the Cyril and Methodius tradition, in the XII-XI V centuries. more and more isolated according to national versions, to streamline the graphic and spelling system, to bring it closer to Greek spelling.

By the end of the 14th century. The Southern Slavs had a large corpus of church monuments translated from Greek. The translations were caused by the increased needs of cenobitic monasteries and hesychast monks for ascetic and theological literature, rules of monastic life and religious polemics. Basically, works unknown in Slavic literature were translated: Isaac the Syrian, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Peter of Damascus, Abba Dorotheus, Simeon the New Theologian, preachers of updated hesychast ideas Gregory the Sinaite and Gregory Palamas, etc. Such old translations as “The Ladder” of John Climacus , were verified with the Greek originals and thoroughly revised. The revival of translation activity was facilitated by church reform - the replacement of the Studite church charter with the Jerusalem one, carried out first in Byzantium, and then, by the middle of the 14th century, in Bulgaria and Serbia. Church reform required the South Slavs to translate new texts, the reading of which was provided for by the Jerusalem Charter during worship. This is how the verse Prologue, the triode Synaxarion, the menaine and triode Solemnity, the Teaching Gospel of Patriarch Callistus, etc. appeared. All this literature was not known in Rus' (or existed in old translations). Ancient Rus' was in dire need of the book treasures of the southern Slavs.

In the XIV century. Rus''s connections with Athos and Constantinople, the largest centers of cultural contacts between Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Russians, were resumed, interrupted by the Mongol-Tatar invasion. In the last decades of the 14th century. and in the first half of the 15th century. The Jerusalem Charter became widespread in Ancient Rus'. At the same time, South Slavic manuscripts were transferred to Rus', where, under their influence, the “book right” began - the editing of church texts and the reform of the literary language. The main directions of the reform were to “cleanse” the book language from “damage” (bringing it closer to colloquial speech), its archaization and Greekization. The renewal of bookishness was caused by the internal needs of Russian life. Simultaneously with the “second South Slavic influence” and independently of it, a revival of Old Russian literature took place. Works preserved from the era of Kievan Rus were diligently searched for, copied and distributed. The revival of pre-Mongol literature, combined with the “second South Slavic influence,” ensured the rapid rise of Russian literature in the 15th century.

From the end of the 14th century. Changes in the rhetorical order are taking place in Russian literature. At this time, a special rhetorically decorated style of presentation appeared and developed, which contemporaries called “weaving words.” "Weaving of words" revived the rhetorical techniques known in the eloquence of Kievan Rus ("The Word of Law and Grace" by Hilarion, "Memory and Praise to the Russian Prince Vladimir" by Jacob, the works of Cyril of Turov), but gave them even greater solemnity and emotionality. In the XIV-XV centuries. Old Russian rhetorical traditions were enriched due to strengthened connections with South Slavic literatures. Russian scribes became acquainted with the rhetorically decorated works of Serbian hagiographers of the 13th-14th centuries. Domentian, Theodosius and Archbishop Danilo II, with monuments of the Bulgarian Tarnovo literary school (primarily with the lives and laudatory words of Patriarch Euthymius of Tarnovo), with the Chronicle of Constantine Manasseh and the “Dioptra” of Philip the Hermit - South Slavic translations of Byzantine poetic works made in the 14th century. ornamental, rhythmic prose.

“Weaving of words” reached its highest development in the work of Epiphanius the Wise. This style was most clearly manifested in the “Life of Stefan of Perm” (1396-98 or 1406-10), the enlightener of the pagan Komi-Zyryans, the creator of the Perm alphabet and literary language, the first bishop of Perm. Epiphanius the Wise is less emotional and rhetorical in his biography of the spiritual educator of the Russian people, Sergius of Radonezh (completed in 1418-19). Life shows in the person of Sergius of Radonezh the ideal of humility, love, meekness, love of poverty and non-covetousness.

The spread of South Slavic influence was facilitated by some Bulgarian and Serbian scribes who moved to Rus'. Prominent representatives of the literary school of Patriarch Euthymius of Tarnovsky were Metropolitan of All Rus' Cyprian, who finally settled in Moscow in 1390, and Gregory Tsamblak, Metropolitan of Lithuanian Rus' (from 1415). The Serb Pachomius Logothetes became famous as the author and editor of many lives, church services, canons, words of praise. Pachomius Logothetes revised the “Life of Sergius of Radonezh” by Epiphanius the Wise and created several new editions of this monument (1438-50s). Later he wrote “The Life of Kirill Belozersky” (1462), making extensive use of the memories of eyewitnesses. The Lives of Pachomius Logothetes, constructed according to a clear pattern and decorated with “weaving of words,” stand at the origins of a special trend in Russian hagiography with its strict etiquette and magnificent eloquence.

§ 5.2. The collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of Moscow. During the Turkish invasion of the Balkans and Byzantium, an interesting monument appears - “The Legend of the Kingdom of Babylon” (1390s - until 1439). Going back to oral legend, it substantiates the continuity of Byzantine imperial power from the Babylonian monarchy, the arbiter of the destinies of the world, and at the same time proves the equality of Byzantium, Rus' and Abkhazia-Georgia. The subtext was probably a call for joint action among Orthodox countries in support of Byzantium, which was dying under the blows of the Turks.

The threat of Turkish conquest forced the Constantinople authorities to seek help from the Catholic West and, in order to save the empire, make important concessions in the field of religious dogma, agree to submit to the Pope and unite the churches. The Union of Florence of 1439, rejected by Moscow and all Orthodox countries, undermined the influence of the Greek Church on Rus'. The Russian participants in the embassy to the Ferraro-Florence Council (Bishop Abraham of Suzdal and scribes in his retinue) left notes telling about their travels through Western Europe and its attractions. Literary merits are distinguished by “Walking to the Florence Cathedral” by an unknown Suzdal scribe (1437-40) and, obviously, by his “Note on Rome”. Also of interest are the “Exodus” of Bishop Abraham of Suzdal and the “Tale of the Council of Florence” by Hieromonk Simeon of Suzdal (1447).

In 1453, after a 52-day siege, Constantinople, the second Rome - the heart of the once huge Byzantine Empire, fell under the blows of the Turks. In Rus', the collapse of the empire and the Muslim conquest of the entire Orthodox East were considered God's punishment for the great sin of the Union of Florence. The fall of Constantinople is dedicated to the translated "Sobbing" of the Byzantine writer John Eugenicus (50s-60s of the 15th century) and the original "Tale of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks" (2nd half of the 15th century) - a talented literary monument and valuable historical source attributed to Nestor Iskander. At the end of the story there is a prophecy about the future liberation of Constantinople by the “Rus” - an idea that was subsequently repeatedly discussed in Russian literature.

The conquest of Orthodox countries by the Turks took place against the backdrop of the gradual rise of Moscow as a spiritual and political center. Of exceptional importance was the transfer of the metropolitan see from Vladimir to Moscow under Metropolitan Peter (1308-26) - the first Moscow saint and heavenly patron of the capital. Based on the Brief edition of the “Life of Metropolitan Peter” (1327-28), the earliest monument of Moscow hagiography, Metropolitan Cyprian compiled a Long edition (late 14th century), in which he included Peter’s prophecy about the future greatness of Moscow.

The great victory over the Tatars on the Kulikovo field on September 8, 1380 meant a radical turning point in the fight against foreign rule, was of exceptional importance for the formation of Russian national identity, and was a unifying principle in the era of fragmentation of Russian lands. She convinced her contemporaries that the wrath of God had passed, that the Tatars could be defeated, that complete liberation from the hated yoke was just around the corner.

The echo of the Kulikovo victory did not cease in literature for more than a century. The cycle about the heroes and events of the “massacre on the Don” includes a short (initial) and lengthy story about the Battle of Kulikovo as part of the chronicle collections under 1380. The author of the lyrical-epic “Zadonshchina” (1380s, or, in any case, not later 1470s) turned to the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” in search of literary samples, but rethought his source. The writer saw in the defeat of the Tatars a fulfilled call of “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” to put an end to internecine strife and unite in the fight against the nomads. The “Tale of the Battle of Mamayev” (no later than the end of the 15th century) became widespread in the handwritten tradition - the most extensive and fascinating story about the Battle of Kulikovo, but containing obvious anachronisms, epic and legendary details. Adjacent to the Kulikovo cycle is “A Tale of the Life and Death of Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, Tsar of Russia” (possibly 1412-19) - a solemn panegyric in honor of the Tatar winner Dmitry Donskoy, close in language and rhetorical techniques to the literary style of Epiphanius the Wise and, probably written by him.

The events after the Battle of Kulikovo are told in “The Tale of the Invasion of Khan Tokhtamysh,” who captured and plundered Moscow in 1382, and “The Tale of Temir Aksak” (early 15th century). The last work is dedicated to the invasion of Rus' in 1395 by the hordes of the Central Asian conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) and the miraculous salvation of the country after the transfer of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, the “sovereign intercessor” of the Russian land, to Moscow (after standing at the Oka for 15 days, Timur unexpectedly turned back to the south). "The Tale of Temir Aksak", proving the special patronage of the Mother of God of Muscovite Rus', was included in the monumental Grand Duke's Moscow Chronicle of 1479. This monument, compiled shortly after the annexation of Novgorod to Moscow under Ivan III (see § 5.3), formed the basis of all official All-Russian chronicles of the late XV-XVI centuries, grand ducal and royal.

The reign of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III (1462-1505), married to Sophia (Zoe) Paleologus - the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, was marked by the cultural rise of Rus', its return to Europe, the unification of Russian lands around Moscow and liberation from the Tatar yoke in 1480 At the moment of the highest confrontation between Moscow and the Golden Horde, Archbishop Vassian of Rostov sent the rhetorically embellished “Message to the Ugra” (1480) - an important historical document and journalistic monument. Following the example of Sergius of Radonezh, who, according to legend, blessed Dmitry Donskoy for the battle, Vassian called on Ivan III to decisively fight the Tatars, declaring his power royal and divinely approved.

§ 5.3. Local literary centers. By the second half of the 15th century. These include the first surviving Pskov chronicles, and at the same time three branches of local chronicles are distinguished, different in their ideological and political views: the first Pskov chronicle, beginning with the “Tale of Dovmont” (see § 4.1), the second and third chronicles. Already in the 14th century. Dovmont was revered as a local saint and heavenly patron of Pskov, which in 1348 separated from the Novgorod feudal republic and was the center of an independent principality until 1510, when it was subordinated to Moscow, as a well-read and talented eyewitness of the events tells in a deeply lyrical and figurative form author, in “The Tale of the Capture of Pskov” (1510s) as part of the Pskov First Chronicle.

In the 15th century in the literature of Veliky Novgorod, conquered by Ivan III in 1478, the “Tale of Posadnik Shchila” appears (apparently not earlier than 1462) - a legend about a moneylender who went to hell, proving the saving power of prayer for dead sinners; the simple, unadorned "Life of Michael Klopsky" (1478-79); chronicle story about Ivan III's campaign against Novgorod in 1471, contrasted with the official position of Moscow in covering this event. In the Moscow chronicle of 1479, the main content of the story about Ivan III’s campaign against Novgorod in 1471 is the idea of ​​the greatness of Moscow as the center of the unification of Russian lands and the continuity of grand-ducal power since the time of Rurik.

The swan song for the powerful Tver principality (shortly before its annexation to Moscow in 1485) was composed by the court writer Monk Thomas in the rhetorically decorated panegyric “A Word of Praise about the Grand Duke Boris Alexandrovich” (c. 1453). Portraying Boris Alexandrovich as the political leader of the Russian land, Thomas called him “autocratic sovereign” and “tsar”, in relation to whom the Grand Duke of Moscow acted as a junior.

The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin wrote about the lack of brotherly love between princes and justice in Rus', switching to a mixed Turkic-Persian language for safety. Thrown by fate into a foreign land, he spoke in simple and expressive language about his wanderings in distant countries and his stay in India in 1471-74. in travel notes "Walking across Three Seas". Before Nikitin, in Russian literature there was an image of India as a fabulously rich kingdom of Prester John, as a mysterious country located not far from the earthly paradise, inhabited by blessed sages, where amazing miracles are encountered at every step. This fantastic image was formed by “The Tale of the Indian Kingdom” - a translation of a Greek work of the 12th century, “Alexandria” - a Christian adaptation of the Hellenistic novel by Pseudo-Callisthenes about Alexander the Great (in a South Slavic translation no later than the 14th century), “The Lay of the Rahmans”, an ascending to the Chronicle of George Amartol and preserved in the list of the late 15th century. In contrast, Afanasy Nikitin created a real portrait of India, showed its splendor and poverty, described its way of life, customs and folk legends (legends about the gukuk bird and the prince of monkeys).

Along the way, it should be noted that the deeply personal content of the “Walk”, the simplicity and spontaneity of its story are close to the notes of the monk Innocent about the death of Paphnutius Borovsky (apparently 1477-78), the spiritual teacher of Joseph of Volotsky, who created a large literary and book center in the Joseph-Volokolamsk region he founded monastery and became one of the leaders of the "Church Militant".

§ 6. Literature of the "Third Rome"
(late XV - XVI century)
§ 6.1. "Heretical storm" in Rus'. End of the 15th century was gripped by religious fermentation, generated, among other reasons, by the uncertainty of religious and cultural guidelines in the minds of the educated part of Russian society after the fall of Constantinople and the expectation of the end of the world in 7000 from the Creation of the world (in 1492 from the Nativity of Christ). The heresy of "Judaizers" originated in the 1470s. in Novgorod, shortly before he lost his independence, and then spread to Moscow, which defeated him. Heretics questioned the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and did not consider the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God. They did not recognize church sacraments, condemned the worship of sacred objects, and sharply opposed the veneration of relics and icons. The fight against freethinkers was led by Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod and Abbot Joseph Volotsky. An important monument to theological thought and religious struggle of that time is the “Book on the Novgorod Heretics” by Joseph Volotsky (Short edition - no earlier than 1502, Long edition - 1510-11). This “hammer of the Jews” (cf. the title of the book of the inquisitor John of Frankfurt, published around 1420) or, more precisely, the “hammer of heretics” was renamed in the lists of the 17th century. in "The Enlightener".

At the archbishop's court in Novgorod, Gennady created a large book center open to Western European influences. He assembled a whole staff of employees who translated from Latin and German. Among them were the Dominican monk Veniamin, obviously a Croat by nationality, the German Nikolai Bulev, Vlas Ignatov, Dmitry Gerasimov. Under the leadership of Gennady, the first complete biblical code of the Orthodox Slavs was compiled and translated - the Bible of 1499. In its preparation, in addition to Slavic sources, the Latin (Vulgate) and German Bibles were used. Gennady's theocratic program is substantiated in the work of Veniamin (probably 1497), written in defense of church property from attacks on them by Ivan III and asserting the superiority of spiritual power over secular power.

By order of Gennady, an excerpt (8th chapter) from the calendar treatise of Guillaume Durand (William Durandus) “Conference of Divine Affairs” was translated from Latin in connection with the need to compile the Paschal for the “eighth thousand years” (1495) and the anti-Jewish book “of the teacher Samuel the Jew” " (1504). The translation of these works is attributed to Nikolai Bulev or Dmitry Gerasimov. The last of them, also commissioned by Gennady, translated the Latin anti-Judaic work of Nicholas de Lira, “Proof of the Coming of Christ” (1501).

In 1504, at a church council in Moscow, the heretics were found guilty, after which some of them were executed, while others were sent into exile in monasteries. The most prominent figure among the Moscow freethinkers and their leader was the clerk Fyodor Kuritsyn, close to the court of Ivan III. Kuritsyn is credited with "The Tale of the Governor Dracula" (1482-85). The historical prototype of this character is Prince Vlad, nicknamed Tepes (literally 'Impaler'), who ruled "in the Muntean land" (the ancient Russian name for the principality of Wallachia in southern Romania) and died in 1477 shortly before Kuritsyn's embassy to Hungary and Moldavia ( 1482-84). There were numerous rumors and anecdotes about the monstrous inhumanity of Dracula, which Russian diplomats became familiar with. Talking about the numerous cruelties of the “evil-wise” Dracula and comparing him with the devil, the Russian author at the same time emphasizes his justice and merciless fight against evil and crime. Dracula strives to eradicate evil and establish a “great truth” in the country, but he acts using methods of unlimited violence. The question of the limits of supreme power and the moral character of the sovereign became one of the main ones in Russian journalism of the 16th century.

§ 6.2. The rise of journalism. In the 16th century there was an unprecedented rise in journalism. One of the most remarkable and mysterious publicists, the reliability of whose writings and personality itself have more than once been questioned, is Ivan Peresvetov, a native of Lithuanian Rus, who served in mercenary troops in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Arriving in Moscow in the late 30s. XVI century, during the boyar "autocracy" under the young Ivan IV, Peresvetov accepted Active participation in discussing the burning issues of Russian life. He submitted petitions to the tsar, spoke with political treatises, and wrote journalistic works (the tales of “Magmet-Saltan” and Tsar Constantine Palaeologus). Peresvetov's political treatise, containing an extensive program of government reforms, took the form of a large petition to Ivan IV (1540s). The writer is a convinced supporter of a strong autocratic government. His ideal is a military monarchy modeled on the Ottoman Empire. The basis of its power is the military class. The Tsar is obliged to take care of the well-being of the serving nobility. Anticipating the oprichnina terror, Peresvetov advised Ivan IV to put an end to the arbitrariness of the nobles who were ruining the state with the help of a “thunderstorm.”

Russian writers understood that there was only one step from strong individual power to Dracula’s “man-hunting”. They tried to limit the "royal thunderstorm" by law and mercy. In a letter to Metropolitan Daniel (until 1539), Fyodor Karpov saw the state ideal in a monarchy based on law, truth and mercy.

Church writers were divided into two camps - the Josephites and the non-covetous, or Trans-Volga elders. Metropolitan Gennady, Joseph of Volotsky and his Josephite followers (Metropolitans Daniel and Macarius, Zinovy ​​of Otensky, etc.) defended the right of cenobitic monasteries to own land and peasants, accept rich donations, while not allowing any personal property of the monk. They demanded the death penalty for stubborn heretics, entrenched in their errors ("The Word on the Condemnation of Heretics" in the Long Edition of "The Enlightener" by Joseph Volotsky 1510-11).

The spiritual father of the non-covetous people, the “great elder” Nil Sorsky (c. 1433-7. V. 1508), a preacher of the monastery’s silent life, did not take part in the church-political struggle - this contradicted, first of all, his inner convictions. However, his writings, moral authority and spiritual experience had a great influence on the Trans-Volga elders. Nil Sorsky was an opponent of monastic estates and rich deposits; he considered the hermitage way of life to be the best type of monasticism, understanding it under the influence of hesychasm as an ascetic feat, a path of silence, contemplation and prayer. The dispute with the Josephites was led by his follower, the monastic prince Vassian Patrikeev, and later Elder Artemy became a prominent representative of non-covetousness (see § 6.7). Non-covetous people believed that repentant freethinkers should be forgiven, and hardened criminals should be sent to prison, but not executed (“Response of the Cyril elders to the message of Joseph Volotsky on the condemnation of heretics,” perhaps 1504). The Josephite party, which occupied the highest church positions, used trials in 1525 and 1531. over Patrikeev and Maxim the Greek and in 1553-54. over the heretic boyar's son Matvey Bashkin and the elder Artemy to deal with the non-covetous.

Monuments of the religious struggle are the treatise of Zinovius of Otensky “Truth testimony to those who asked about the new teaching” (after 1566) and the anonymous “Verbose Message” created around the same time. Both works are directed against the fugitive slave Theodosius Kosy, the most radical freethinker in the entire history of Ancient Rus', the creator of the “slave doctrine” - the heresy of the lower classes.

Literature of the first third of the 16th century. developed several ways to connect Russian history with world history. First of all, we should highlight the Chronograph of the 1512 edition (1st quarter of the 16th century), compiled by the nephew and student of Joseph of Volotsky, Dosifei Toporkov (see § 6.5). This is a new type of historical work, introducing into the mainstream of world history the history of the Slavs and Rus', understood as a stronghold of Orthodoxy and the heir of the great powers of the past. Legends about the origin of the Moscow sovereigns from the Roman Emperor Augustus (through his mythical relative Prus, one of the ancestors of Prince Rurik) and about the receipt by Vladimir Monomakh of the royal regalia from the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Monomakh are united in the “Epistle on the Crown of Monomakh” by Spiridon-Sava, the former Metropolitan of Kyiv, and in "The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir". Both legends were used in official documents and Moscow diplomacy in the 16th century.

The response to Boolean’s Catholic propaganda for church union and the primacy of Rome was the theory “Moscow is the Third Rome,” put forward by the elder of the Pskov Eleazar Monastery Philotheus in a letter to clerk M. G. Misyur Munekhin “against the astrologers” (c. 1523-24). After the fall of Catholics from the right faith and the apostasy of the Greeks at the Council of Florence, which were conquered by the Turks as punishment for this, the center of universal Orthodoxy moved to Moscow. Russia was declared the last world monarchy - the Roman power, the only guardian and defender of the pure faith of Christ. The cycle of main works united by the theme of the “Third Rome” includes “Message to the Grand Duke of Moscow on the Sign of the Cross” (between 1524-26), the attribution of which to Philotheus is doubtful, and the essay “On the Insults of the Church” (30s - early 40s) 16th century) the so-called successor of Philotheus.

Works that represented Rus' as the last stronghold of true piety and Christian faith, the heir of Rome and Constantinople, were created not only in Moscow, but also in Novgorod, which, even after the loss of independence, preserved traditions about past greatness and rivalry with Moscow. “The Tale of the Novgorod White Cowl” (XVI century) explains the origin of the special headdress of the Novgorod archbishops with the transfer from Constantinople to Novgorod of a white hood given by the first Christian emperor Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester I. The same path (Rome-Byzantium-Novgorod land) was made a miraculous image of the Mother of God, according to the “Tale of the Icon of the Mother of God of Tikhvin” (late 15th - 15th centuries). "The Life of Anthony the Roman" (16th century) tells about a hermit who, fleeing persecution of Orthodox Christians in Italy, miraculously sailed on a huge stone to Novgorod in 1106 and founded the Nativity Monastery.

A special place in the literature of the 16th century. occupies the work of Tsar Ivan IV. Grozny represents a historically colorful type of autocratic author. In the role of "Father of the Fatherland" and defender of the right faith, he composed messages, often written with the famous "biting verbs" in a "mockingly sarcastic manner" (correspondence with Kurbsky, letters to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery 1573, oprichnik Vasily Gryazny 1574, Lithuanian prince Alexander Polubensky 1577 , to the Polish king Stefan Batory 1579), gave mandated memorials, made passionate speeches, rewrote history (additions to the Front Chronicle, reflecting his political views), participated in the work of church councils, wrote hymnographic works (canon to the Angel the Terrible, voivode , stichera to Metropolitan Peter, the Presentation of the Icon of the Mother of God of Vladimir, etc.), denounced dogmas alien to Orthodoxy, and participated in learned theological debates. After an open debate with Jan Rokita, pastor of the Czech Brethren community (an offshoot of Husism), he wrote “Answer to Jan Rokita” (1570) - one of best monuments anti-Protestant polemics.

§ 6.3. Western European influence. Contrary to popular belief, Muscovite Rus' was not fenced off from Western Europe and the culture of the Latin world. Thanks to Gennady Novgorodsky and his circle, the repertoire of translated literature, which had previously been almost exclusively Greek, changed significantly. The end of the 15th - the first decades of the 16th century. marked by previously unprecedented interest in Western European books. Translations from German appear: “The Debate of Life and Death” (late 15th century), corresponding to the eschatological sentiments of its time - expectations of the end of the world in 7000 (1492); "Lucidarius" (late 15th century - 1st century 16th century) - a general education book of encyclopedic content, written in the form of a conversation between a teacher and a student; medical treatise "The Herbalist" (1534), translated by Nikolai Bulev by order of Metropolitan Daniel.

A Westerner was also such an original writer as Fyodor Karpov, who was sympathetic (unlike Elder Philotheus and Maxim the Greek) towards Boolean’s propaganda of astorology. In a letter to Metropolitan Daniel (before 1539), answering the question of what is more important in the state: people's patience or truth, Karpov argued that the basis of public order is neither one nor the other, but the law, which should be based on truth and mercy. To prove his ideas, Karpov used Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Ovid's works Metamorphoses, The Art of Love and Fasti.

A notable event in the history of Russian translated literature was the secular Latin novel by the Sicilian Guido de Columna (Guido delle Colonne) “The History of the Destruction of Troy” (1270s), in the Old Russian translation - “The History of the Ruin of Troy” (late XV - early XVI century). The fascinatingly written book was the forerunner of chivalric novels in Rus'. “The Trojan Story” introduced the Russian reader to a wide range of ancient myths (about the campaign of the Argonauts, the history of Paris, the Trojan War, the wanderings of Odysseus, etc.) and romantic stories (stories about the love of Medea and Jason, Paris and Helen, etc.).

The repertoire of translated church literature is also changing dramatically. Translations of Western European Latin theologians appear (see § 6.1 and § 6.3), among which the “Book of St. Augustine” (no later than 1564) stands out. The collection includes “The Life of Augustine” by Bishop Possidios of Calama, two works of Pseudo-Augustine: “On the Vision of Christ, or the Word of God” (Manuale), “Teachings, or Prayers” (Meditationes), as well as two Russian stories of the 16th century. about St. Augustine, which use “wandering” stories told by Maxim the Greek, who developed humanistic traditions in literature and language.

§ 6.4. Russian humanism. D. S. Likhachev, having compared the second South Slavic influence with the Western European Renaissance, came to the conclusion about the typological homogeneity of these phenomena and the existence in Ancient Rus' of a special East Slavic Pre-Renaissance, which was never able to transition into the Renaissance. This opinion gave rise to reasonable objections, which, however, do not mean that in Ancient Rus' there were no correspondences to Western European humanism. As R. Picchio showed, points of contact can be found primarily at the linguistic level: in the area of ​​attitude to the text, to the principles of its translation, transmission and correction. The essence of the Italian Renaissance debate about language (Questione della lingua) consisted, on the one hand, in the desire to justify the use of the vernacular language (Lingua volgare) as a literary language, to establish its cultural dignity, and on the other, in the desire to establish its grammatical and stylistic norms. It is significant that the “book on the right”, based on the Western European sciences of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics), originates in Rus' with the activities of Maxim the Greek (in the world Mikhail Trivolis), who lived at the turn of the 14th - 15th centuries. during the heyday of the Renaissance in Italy, where he met and collaborated with famous humanists (John Lascaris, Aldus Manutius, etc.).

Having arrived in Moscow from Athos to translate church books in 1518, Maxim the Greek tried to transfer the rich philological experience of Byzantium and Renaissance Italy to Church Slavonic soil. Due to his brilliant education, he became the center of intellectual attraction, quickly gaining admirers and students (Vassian Patrikeev, Elder Silouan, Vasily Tuchkov, later Elder Artemy, Andrei Kurbsky, etc.), worthy opponents (Fedor Karpov) and making such powerful enemies as Metropolitan Daniel. In 1525 and 1531 Maxim Grek, close to non-covetous people and the disgraced diplomat I. N. Bersen Beklemishev, was tried twice, and some of the charges (deliberate damage to church books during their editing) were of a philological nature. Nevertheless, his humanistic views are affirmed both in Russia and in Lithuanian Rus' thanks to his followers and like-minded people who moved there: Elder Artemy, Kurbsky and, possibly, Ivan Fedorov (see § 6.6 and § 6.7).

The literary heritage of Maxim the Greek is great and varied. In the history of Russian journalism, a noticeable mark was left by “The Tale is terrible and memorable and about the perfect monastic residence” (before 1525) - about the mendicant monastic orders in the West and the Florentine preacher G. Savonarola, “The Word, more extensively expounded, with pity for the disorder and disorder of kings and rulers of the last century of this "(between 1533-39 or the middle of the 16th century), denouncing the boyar tyranny under the young Ivan IV, the ideological program of his reign - "The chapters are instructive for those in charge of the faithful" (c. 1547-48), works against ancient myths, astrology , apocrypha, superstitions, in defense of the “book justice” carried out by him and the philological principles of text criticism - “The word is responsible about the correction of Russian books” (1540 or 1543), etc.

§ 6.5. Generalizing literary monuments. The centralization of Russian lands and state power was accompanied by the creation of generalizing book monuments of an encyclopedic nature. Literature of the 16th century as if he sums up the entire path traveled, strives to generalize and consolidate the experience of the past, and create models for future times. At the origins of the generalizing enterprises stands the Gennady Bible of 1499. Literary collecting was continued by another Archbishop of Novgorod (1526-42) - Macarius, who later became Metropolitan of All Rus' (1542-63). Under his leadership, the Great Menaions of Chetia were created - a grandiose collection of spiritual literature in 12 books, arranged in the order of the church monthly. Work on the Makaryev Menaions, begun in 1529/1530 in Novgorod and completed around 1554 in Moscow, lasted almost a quarter of a century. One of the most prominent scholars of Ancient Rus', Macarius united the efforts of famous church and secular scribes, translators and scribes, and created the largest book center. Its employees searched for manuscripts, selected the best texts, edited them, composed new works and created new editions of old monuments.

Under the leadership of Makarii, Dmitry Gerasimov worked, which translated the Latin intelligent psalter of Bishop Brunon Gerbipro, or Würzburg (1535), Vasily Tuchkov, who processed the simple Novgorod "Life of Mikhail Klopsky" in a rhetorically decorated version (1537), the Novgorod presbyter, who wrote the living muchess Ka George is new (1538-39) based on the oral history of the Athonite monks, Dositheus Toporkov - editor of the ancient "Sinai Patericon" (1528-29), the basis of which is the "Spiritual Meadow" (early 7th century) by the Byzantine writer John Moschos. Dosifey Toporkov is known as the compiler of two generalizing monuments: the Chronograph edition of 1512 (see § 6.2) and the “Volokolamsk Patericon” (30s-40s of the 16th century), which resumed the traditions of the “Kievo-Pechersk Patericon” after a long break ". "Volokolamsk Patericon" is a collection of stories about the saints of the Josephite school of Russian monasticism, primarily about Joseph of Volotsky himself, his teacher Paphnutius Borovsky, their associates and followers.

In 1547 and 1549 Macarius held church councils, at which 30 new all-Russian saints were canonized - 8 more than in the entire previous period. After the councils, dozens of lives and services to new miracle workers were created. Among them was the pearl of ancient Russian literature - “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” (late 1540s) by Ermolai-Erasmus.

The work depicts the love of a peasant girl from the Ryazan land, the daughter of a simple beekeeper, and the Murom prince - a love that conquers all obstacles and even death. The writer created a sublime image of an ideal Russian woman, wise and pious. The peasant princess stands immeasurably higher than the boyars and their wives, who did not want to come to terms with her low origins. Ermolai-Erasmus used folk-poetic “vagrant” stories about the fight against a were-serpent and a wise maiden, incorporating the motifs of a fairy tale. His work reworks the same motifs as the medieval legends about Tristan and Isolde, the Serbian youth song “Queen Milica and the Serpent from Yastrebac”, etc. The story sharply diverges from the hagiographic canon and therefore was not included by Macarius in the Great Menaion of Chetia. Already in the 16th century. they began to correct it, bringing it into line with the requirements of literary etiquette.

Macarius was the inspirer of the church council of 1551, at which many aspects of the church, social and political life of the Moscow kingdom were regulated. The collection of conciliar decrees, arranged in the form of answers of church hierarchs to one hundred questions of Tsar Ivan IV, was called "Stoglav" and for a century was the main normative document of the Russian Church.

Metropolitan Daniel, who angrily denounced human vices in words and teachings, was the editor and compiler of the extensive Nikon Chronicle (late 1520s) - the most complete collection of news on Russian history. The monument had a great influence on subsequent chronicles. It became the main source of information on Russian history in the grandiose Litsey Chronicle Code - the largest chronicle-chronographic work of Ancient Rus'. This authentic "16th-century historical encyclopedia", created by order of Ivan the Terrible, covers world history from biblical times to 1567. It has reached our time in 10 luxuriously decorated volumes, made in the royal workshops and containing more than 16,000 magnificent miniatures.

The Nikon Chronicle was also used in the famous "Book of Degrees" (1560-63). The monument was compiled by the monk of the Chudov Monastery, the confessor of Ivan the Terrible, Athanasius (Metropolitan of Moscow in 1564-66), but the idea apparently belonged to Macarius. "The Power Book" is the first attempt at presenting Russian history on a genealogical basis, in the form of princely biographies starting from the baptist of Rus', Vladimir Svyatoslavich, and up to Ivan IV. The introduction to the "Degree Book" is "The Life of Princess Olga" as edited by Sylvester, archpriest of the Kremlin Annunciation Cathedral.

Sylvester is considered the editor or author-compiler of “Domostroy” - a strictly and detailed “rule” of home life. The monument is a valuable source for studying the life of Russian people of that time, their morals and customs, social and family relations, religious, moral and political views. The ideal of "Domostroy" is a zealous owner who authoritatively manages family affairs in accordance with Christian morality. The language of the work is remarkable. In "Domostroy" the features of book language, business writing and colloquial speech with its imagery and ease merged in a complex fusion. Works of this kind were common in Western Europe. Almost simultaneously with the final edition of our monument, an extensive work by the Polish writer Mikołaj Rey, “The Life of an Economic Man” (1567), appeared.

§ 6.6. The beginning of book printing. Apparently, the emergence of Russian book printing is also connected with the generalizing book enterprises of Metropolitan Macarius. In any case, his appearance in Moscow was caused by the needs of worship and was a state initiative supported by Ivan the Terrible. The printing press made it possible to distribute large quantities of correct and unified liturgical texts, free from the errors of book writers. In Moscow in the first half of the 1550s - mid-1560s. There was an anonymous printing house that produced professionally prepared publications without imprints. According to documents from 1556, the “master of printed books” Marusha Nefediev is known.

In 1564, Ivan Fedorov, deacon of the Church of St. Nicholas Gostunsky in the Moscow Kremlin, and Peter Mstislavets published the Apostle, the first Russian printed book with imprints. In its preparation, the publishers critically used numerous Church Slavonic and Western European sources and did extensive and thorough textual and editorial work. Perhaps it was on this basis that they had serious disagreements with traditionally-minded church hierarchs, who accused them of heresy (like Maximus the Greek earlier, see § 6.4). After two editions of the Book of Hours in Moscow in 1565 and no later than the beginning of 1568, Fedorov and Mstislavets were forced to move to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

With their move abroad, book printing became permanent in the lands of modern Belarus and Ukraine. Using the support of Orthodox patrons, Ivan Fedorov worked in Zabludov, where, together with Peter Mstislavets, he published the Teaching Gospel in 1569, intended to oust translated Catholic and Protestant collections of sermons from use; in Lvov, where he founded the first printing house in Ukraine, he published a new edition Apostle in 1574 and at the same time the first printed book that has come down to us for primary education- ABC, and in Ostrog, where he published another ABC in 1578, as well as the first complete printed Church Slavonic Bible in 1580-81. The epitaph for Fedorov on the tombstone in Lvov is eloquent: “Drukar [printer - V.K.] of books before you, unprecedented.” Fedorov's prefaces and afterwords to his publications are the most interesting monuments of this literary genre, containing valuable information of a cultural, historical and memoir nature.

§ 6.7. Literature of the Moscow emigration. By the time Fedorov and Mstislavets moved to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, there already existed a circle of Moscow emigrants who were forced for various reasons, religious and political, to leave Russia. The most prominent representatives among them were Elder Artemy and Prince Andrei Kurbsky, both close to Maxim the Greek and continuing his humanistic traditions in literature and language. Moscow emigrants were creative, translated and edited books, and participated in the creation of printing houses and book centers. They contributed to the revival of Church Slavonic literature and the strengthening of Orthodox consciousness in the religious and cultural struggle with Catholics and religious reformers on the eve of the Union of Brest in 1596.

The counterbalance to the official Moscow literature of the 16th century, which deified tsarist power and asserted the originality of autocracy in Rus', was the work of Kurbsky, a representative of the princely-boyar opposition. Immediately after fleeing to Lithuania, he sent his first message to Ivan the Terrible (1564) with accusations of tyranny and apostasy. Ivan the Terrible responded with a political treatise in epistolary form, glorifying “free royal autocracy” (1564). After a break, correspondence resumed in the 1570s. The dispute was about the limits of royal power: autocracy or a limited class-representative monarchy. Kurbsky dedicated “The History of the Grand Duke of Moscow” to the denunciation of Ivan IV and his tyranny (according to I. Auerbach - spring and summer 1581, according to V.V. Kalugin - 1579-81). If the monuments of official historiography of the 50s-60s. XVI century ("The Degree Book", "The Chronicler of the Beginning of the Kingdom", compiled in connection with the conquest of Kazan in 1552, dedicated to this event in the context of three hundred years of Russian-Horde relations "Kazan History") are an apology for Ivan IV and unlimited autocracy, then Kurbsky created the exact opposite he told the tragic story of the moral decline “before the kind and deliberate Tsar,” ending it with a martyrology of the victims of the oprichnina terror, impressive in its artistic power.

In emigration, Kurbsky maintained close relations with the elder Artemy († 1st century 1570s), one of the last adherents of non-covetousness. A follower of Nil Sorsky, Artemy was distinguished by his tolerance for the religious pursuits of others. Among the scribes close to him were such freethinkers as Theodosius Kosoy and Matvey Bashkin. According to the latter’s stipulation, on January 24, 1554, Artemy was condemned by a church council as a heretic and exiled to prison in the Solovetsky Monastery, from where he soon fled to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (c. 1554-55). Having settled in Slutsk, he proved himself to be a staunch fighter for Orthodoxy, an exposer of reform movements and heresies. From his literary heritage, 14 messages have survived.

§ 6.8. On the eve of the Troubles. The tradition of military stories is continued by the “Tale of the Coming of Stefan Batory to the City of Pskov” by icon painter Vasily (1580s), which tells about the heroic defense of the city from the Polish-Lithuanian army in 1581. In 1589, the patriarchate was established in Russia, which contributed to the revival literary activity and book printing. “The Tale of the Life of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich” (before 1604), written by the first Russian Patriarch Job in the traditional style of idealizing biographism, stands at the origins of the literature of the Time of Troubles.

§ 7. From ancient Russian literature to modern literature
(XVII century)
§ 7.1. Literature of the Time of Troubles. XVII century - a transitional era from ancient to new literature, from the Muscovite kingdom to the Russian Empire. This was the century that prepared the way for the comprehensive reforms of Peter the Great.

The "rebellious" century began with the Troubles: a terrible famine, civil war, Polish and Swedish intervention. The events that shook the country gave rise to an urgent need to comprehend them. People of very different views and origins took up the pen: cellarer of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Abraham Palitsyn, clerk Ivan Timofeev, who in florid language outlined the events from Ivan the Terrible to Mikhail Romanov in “Vremennik” (work was carried out until the author’s death in 1631), Prince I. A Khvorostinin is a Western writer, a favorite of False Dmitry I, who composed in his defense “The Words of Days, and Tsars, and Moscow Saints” (possibly 1619), Prince S. I. Shakhovskoy is the author of “The Tale in Memory of the Great Martyr Tsarevich Dmitry,” The Tale of a Certain Mnis..." (about False Demetrius I) and, possibly, the "Tale of the Book of Sowing from Previous Years", or the "Chronicle Book" (1st tr. 17th century), which is also attributed to princes I.M. Katyrev-Rostovsky, I. A. Khvorostinin and others.

The tragedy of the Time of Troubles gave rise to vibrant journalism that served the goals of the liberation movement. A propaganda work in the form of a letter-appeal against the Polish-Lithuanian invaders who captured Moscow is “The New Tale of the Glorious Russian Kingdom” (1611). In “Lament for the Captivity and Final Ruin of the Moscow State” (1612), depicting in a rhetorically embellished form “the fall of the great Russia,” propaganda and patriotic letters of the Patriarchs Job, Hermogenes (1607), and the leaders of the people’s militia Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Prokopiy Lyapunov ( 1611-12). The sudden death at the age of twenty-three of Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky, a talented commander and people's favorite, gave rise to persistent rumors about his poisoning by the boyars out of envy, due to dynastic rivalry. Rumors formed the basis of a folk historical song used in the “Scripture on the death and burial of Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky” (early 1610s).

Among the most remarkable monuments of ancient Russian literature is the work of Abraham Palitsyn “History in memory of the previous generation.” Abraham began writing it after the accession of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov in 1613 and worked on it until the end of his life in 1626. With great artistic power and with the reliability of an eyewitness, he painted a broad picture of the dramatic events of 1584-1618. Most of the book is devoted to the heroic defense of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery from Polish-Lithuanian troops in 1608-10. In 1611-12 Abraham, together with Archimandrite Dionysius (Zobninovsky) of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, wrote and sent out patriotic messages calling for the fight against foreign invaders. Abraham's energetic activity contributed to the victory of the people's militia, the liberation of Moscow from the Poles in 1612 and the election of Mikhail Fedorovich to the throne at the Zemsky Sobor in 1613.

The events of the Time of Troubles gave impetus to the creation of numerous regional literary monuments (usually in the form of stories and tales of miracles from locally revered icons), dedicated to episodes of the struggle against foreign intervention in different regions of the country: in Kursk, Yaroslavl, Veliky Ustyug, Ustyuzhna, Tikhvinsky, Ryazan Mikhailov monastery and other places.

§ 7.2. Historical truth and fiction. Development of fiction. A feature of the literature of the 17th century. is the use of fictional plots, legends and folk tales in historical stories and tales. The central monument of legendary historiography of the 17th century. - Novgorod "The Tale of Sloven and Rus" (no later than 1638). The work is dedicated to the origins of the Slavs and the Russian state (from the descendants of Patriarch Noah to the calling of the Varangians to Novgorod) and includes the mythical letter of Alexander the Great to the Slavic princes, popular in ancient Slavic literature. The legend was included in the Patriarchal Chronicle of 1652 and became official version initial Russian history. It had a significant influence on subsequent Russian historiography. The historical outline is completely subordinated to fictional intrigue with elements of an adventurous plot in “The Tale of the Murder of Daniil of Suzdal and the Beginning of Moscow” (between 1652-81).

In the depths of traditional hagiographic genres (tales about the founding of a monastery, about the appearance of the cross, about a repentant sinner, etc.), the sprouts of new narrative forms and literary techniques matured. A fictional folk-poetic plot is used in the “Tale of the Tver Otroche Monastery” (2nd half of the 17th century). The work, dedicated to a traditional theme - the founding of a monastery, is turned into a lyrical story about a man, his love and fate. The basis of the conflict is the unrequited love of the prince’s servant George for the beautiful Ksenia, the daughter of the village sexton, who rejected him on her wedding day and “by God’s will” married her betrothed, the prince. Heartbroken, Gregory becomes a hermit and founds the Tverskaya Otroch Monastery.

Murom literature of the first half of the 17th century. gave wonderful images of ideal female types. As in “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom,” which captures the sublime image of a wise peasant princess (see § 6.5), the events in these stories unfold not in the monastery, but in the world. Features of the life and biography are connected by “The Tale of Ulyaniya Osoryina”, or “The Life of Julian Lazarevskaya”. The author, the son of Ulyaniya Kallistrat (Druzhina) Osoryin, created a work that is unusual for hagiographic literature, and in many ways diverges from generally accepted views on the deeds of saints. The Murom landowner with all her behavior affirms the sanctity of a virtuous life in the world. She embodies the ideal character of a Russian woman, compassionate and hardworking, daily engaged in business and caring for her neighbors. "The Tale of Martha and Mary" or "The Tale of the Unzhe Cross" paints vivid pictures taken from life. The miraculous origin of a local shrine, life-giving cross, is connected here with the fate of loving sisters, separated for a long time by a quarrel between their husbands over a place of honor at the feast.

In the 17th century works are being created with frankly fictitious plots, anticipating the emergence of fiction in the proper sense of the word. The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn (possibly 1660s) is extremely important for understanding changes in cultural consciousness. The work is in close connection with demonological legends and motifs widespread in Russian literature of that time. It is enough to name, for example, “The Tale of the Possessed Wife Solomonia” by priest Jacob from Veliky Ustyug (probably between 1671 and 1676), a fellow countryman of the actually existing merchants Grudtsyn-Usov. At the same time, the basis of “The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn” is the theme of the contract between man and the devil and the sale of the soul for worldly goods, honors and love pleasures, which was thoroughly developed in the Western European Middle Ages. The successful outcome of demonological plots is intended to testify to the power of the Church, defeating the machinations of the devil, to the saving intercession of heavenly powers, and especially the Mother of God (as, for example, in the famous cycle of medieval works about Theophilus, one of which was translated by A. Blok, or in the case of Savva Grudtsyn). However, in the story, religious didactics, characteristic of stories about repentant sinners, is overshadowed by a colorful depiction of everyday life and customs, and folk-poetic images dating back to Russian fairy tales.

Writers of the 17th century for the first time they realized the self-sufficient value of artistic comprehension of the world and artistic generalization. This turning point in the history of Russian literature is clearly reflected in "The Tale of Misfortune" - an unusually lyrical and deep work written in beautiful folk poetry. "The Tale of Woe-Misfortune" was conceived as a moral and philosophical parable about prodigal son, an unfortunate vagabond hawk-moth, driven by an evil fate. In the collective image of a fictional hero (a nameless young merchant), the eternal conflict between fathers and sons, the theme of a fatal unfortunate fate, the desired deliverance from which is only death or entering a monastery, are revealed with amazing force. The ominously fantastic image of Grief-Misfortune personifies the dark impulses of the human soul, the guilty conscience of the young man himself.

“The Tale of Frol Skobeev” became a new phenomenon in the literature of Peter the Great’s time. Its hero is a noble nobleman who seduced a rich bride and secured a comfortable life for himself with a successful marriage. This is a type of cunning cunning, joker and even swindler. Moreover, the author does not condemn his hero at all, but even seems to admire his resourcefulness. All this brings the story closer to the works of the picaresque genre, fashionable in Western Europe in the 16th-17th centuries. “The Tale of Karp Sutulov” (late 17th - early 18th centuries), which glorifies the resourceful female mind and ridicules the unlucky love affairs of a merchant, priest and bishop, also has an entertaining plot. Its satirical orientation grows out of the folk culture of laughter, which flourished in the 17th century.

§ 7.3. Folk laughter culture. One of the brightest signs of the transitional era is the flourishing of satire, closely connected with folk laughter culture and folklore. Satirical literature of the 17th century. reflected a decisive departure from the old book-Slavic traditions and “spiritual reading”, apt folk speech and imagery. For the most part, monuments of folk laughter culture are independent and original. But even if Russian writers sometimes borrowed plots and motifs, they gave them a vivid national imprint.

"The ABC of the Naked and Poor Man" is directed against social injustice and poverty. Judicial red tape and legal proceedings are ridiculed by "The Tale of Ersha Ershovich" (possibly from the end of the 16th century), corruption and bribery of judges - "The Tale of Shemyakin's Court", which develops a picaresque line in Russian literature on the basis of a "vagrant" plot. The target of satire is the life and customs of the clergy and monasticism (“Kalyazin Petition”, “The Tale of Priest Sava”). The ill-fated losers, who literally have the luck of drowning, are presented in a clownish form in “The Tale of Thomas and Erem.”

Monuments of folk laughter culture with great sympathy depict the intelligence, dexterity and resourcefulness of the common man ("The Tale of Shemyakin's Court", "The Tale of a Peasant Son"). Behind the external comic side of “The Tale of Hawk Moth,” who out-argued the righteous and took the best place in heaven, hides a polemic with church ritual formalism and there is proof that human weaknesses cannot interfere with salvation if there is faith in God in the soul and christian love to your neighbors.

Folk laughter culture of the 17th century. (“The Tale of Ersha Ershovich”, depicting a land dispute, and “Kalyazin Petition”, depicting the drunkenness of monks) widely uses genres of business writing for comic purposes: the form of a court case and petitions - official petitions and complaints. The language and structure of medical books, recipes and documents of the Pharmacy Order are parodied by the clownish “Medicine for Foreigners”, obviously created by one of the Muscovites.

In the 17th century for the first time in the history of ancient Russian literature, parodies of the Church Slavonic language and liturgical texts appear. Although the number of monuments of this kind is small, undoubtedly, only a few parodies have survived to our time, created among scribes who were well-read in church books and knew their language well. Writers of the 17th century they knew how not only to pray, but also to have fun in the Church Slavonic way. Sacred plots are played out to a greater or lesser extent in “The Tale of the Peasant’s Son” and “The Tale of the Hawk Moth.” In the genre of parodia sacra, the “Service for the Tavern” was written - a clownish tavern liturgy, the oldest copy of which dates back to 1666. “Service for the Tavern” is in line with traditions dating back to such Latin services for drunkards, such as, for example, “The Most Drunken Liturgy” (13th century) - the greatest monument of medieval learned buffoonery in the literature of the vagants. The Western European “vagrant” plot, “turning inside out” church confession, is used in “The Tale of the Hen and the Fox.”

The dystopian genre also came to Rus' from Western Europe. The satirical “Tale of Luxurious Life and Joy,” a Russian adaptation of a Polish source, depicts in a Rabelaisian manner a fabulous paradise of gluttons and drunkards. The work is opposed to popular utopian legends like those that fed the legends about Belovodye, a wonderful, happy country where true faith and piety bloom, where there is no untruth or crime. Faith in Belovodye lived among the people for a long time, forcing brave dreamers to go in search of the blessed land to distant overseas lands back in the second half of the 19th century. (see essays by V. G. Korolenko “At the Cossacks”, 1901).

§ 7.4. Activation of local literary life. Since the Time of Troubles, local literatures have been developing, maintaining connections with the center and, as a rule, traditional forms of storytelling. XVII century presents in abundance examples of the glorification of local shrines that have not received all-Russian veneration (lives, tales of miraculous icons, stories of monasteries) and examples of the creation of new editions of already known works. From the literary monuments of the Russian North, one can highlight the biographies of saints who lived in the 16th century: “The Tale of the Life of Varlaam of Keretsky” (17th century) - a Kola priest who killed his wife and in great grief wandered in a boat with her corpse along the White Sea, begging God's forgiveness, and "The Life of Tryphon of Pechenga" (late 17th - early 18th centuries) - the founder of the northernmost monastery on the Pechenga River, educator of the Sami in the western part of the Kola Peninsula.

The first history of Siberia is the chronicle of the Tobolsk clerk Savva Esipov (1636). Its traditions were continued in the “History of Siberia” (late 17th century or until 1703) by the Tobolsk nobleman Semyon Remezov. The cycle of stories is dedicated to the capture of Azov by the Don Cossacks in 1637 and their heroic defense of the fortress from the Turks in 1641. The “poetic” “Tale of the Azov Siege of the Don Cossacks” (1641-42) combines documentary accuracy with Cossack folklore. In the “fairytale” story about Azov (70s-80s of the 17th century) that used it, historical truth gives way to artistic fiction based on a large number of oral traditions and songs.

§ 7.5. Western European influence. In the 17th century Muscovite Rus' is rapidly ending the medieval era, as if in a hurry to make up for lost time over the previous centuries. This time was marked by Russia's gradual but steadily increasing attraction to Western Europe. In general, Western influence did not penetrate to us directly, but through Poland and Lithuanian Rus' (Ukraine and Belarus), which largely adopted Latin-Polish culture. Western European influence increased the composition and content of our literature, contributed to the emergence of new literary genres and themes, satisfied new reader tastes and needs, provided abundant material for Russian authors and changed the repertoire of translated works.

The largest translation center was the Ambassadorial Prikaz in Moscow, which was in charge of relations with foreign states. At various times it was headed by outstanding diplomats, political and cultural figures - such as, for example, the philanthropists and bibliophiles Boyar A. S. Matveev (§ 7.8) or Prince V. V. Golitsyn. In the 70s-80s. XVII century they directed the literary, translation and book activities of the Ambassadorial Prikaz. In 1607, a native of Lithuanian Rus', F.K. Gozvinsky, who served there, translated Aesop’s fables and his legendary biography from ancient Greek. Another embassy translator, Ivan Gudansky, participated in the collective translation of the “Great Mirror” (1674-77) and independently translated from Polish the famous knightly novel “The Story of Melusine” (1677) with a fairy-tale plot about a werewolf woman.

The translated chivalric romance became one of the most significant events of the transition era. He brought with him many new exciting stories and impressions: exciting adventures and fantasy, a world of selfless love and friendship, the cult of ladies and female beauty, a description of knightly tournaments and fights, a knightly code of honor and nobility of feelings. Foreign fiction came to Russia not only through Poland and Lithuanian Rus', but also through the South Slavs, the Czech Republic and other routes.

The Tale of Beauvais the Prince was especially loved in Rus' (according to V.D. Kuzmina, no later than the middle of the 16th century). It goes back through a Serbian translation to the medieval French novel about the exploits of Bovo d’ Anton, which traveled throughout Europe in various poetic and prose adaptations. Oral existence preceded the literary treatment of the famous "Tale of Eruslan Lazarevich", which reflected the ancient Eastern legend about the hero Rustem, known in the poem "Shah-name" by Firdousi (10th century). Among the early translations (no later than the mid-17th century) is “The Tale of Stilfried” - a Czech adaptation of a German poem from the late 13th or early 14th centuries. about Reinfried of Brunswick. “The Tale of Peter of the Golden Keys” (2nd half of the 17th century) was translated from Polish, going back to the popular French novel about Peter and the beautiful Magelona, ​​created in the 15th century. at the court of the Burgundian dukes. In the XVIII - XIX centuries. the stories about Bova the Prince, Peter the Golden Keys, and Eruslan Lazarevich were favorite folk tales and popular print books.

Foreign fiction appealed to the taste of the Russian reader, causing imitations and adaptations that gave it a pronounced local flavor. Translated from Polish, “The Tale of Caesar Otto and Olund” (1670s), telling about the adventures of the slandered and exiled queen and her sons, was reworked in a church-didactic spirit into “The Tale of the Queen and the Lioness” (late 17th century .). There are still debates about whether “The Tale of Vasily Goldhair,” close to the fairy-tale story about a proud princess (probably the 2nd half of the 17th century), is translated or Russian (written under the influence of foreign entertainment literature).

In the last third of the 17th century. Popular collections of stories and pseudo-historical legends with a predominant church-moralistic spirit, translated from Polish, are becoming widespread: “The Great Mirror” in two translations (1674-77 and 1690s) and “Roman Acts” (last 17th century). ), which used plots from late Roman writers, which explains the title of the book. In the same way, through Poland, secular works come to Russia: “Facetius” (1679) - a collection of stories and anecdotes that introduces the reader to the short stories of the Renaissance, and apothegmata - collections containing apothegmata - witty sayings, anecdotes, entertaining and moralizing stories. No later than the last quarter of the 17th century. The Polish collection of apothegms of A. B. Budny († after 1624), a figure of the Reformation era, was translated twice.

§ 7.6. Pioneers of Russian versification. Rhyme in ancient Russian literature originated not in poetry, but in rhetorically organized prose with its love for the equality of structural parts of the text (isokolia) and parallelism, which were often accompanied by consonance of endings (homeoteleutons - grammatical rhymes). Many writers (for example, Epiphanius the Wise, Andrei Kurbsky, Abraham Palitsyn) consciously used rhyme and rhythm in prose.

Since the Time of Troubles, verse poetry has firmly entered Russian literature with its spoken verse, unequally complex and rhymed. Pre-syllabic poetry was based on ancient Russian book and oral traditions, but at the same time it experienced influences coming from Poland and Lithuanian Rus'. The older poets were well acquainted with Western European culture. Among them, an aristocratic literary group stands out: princes S.I. Shakhovskoy and I.A. Khvorostinin, okolnichy and diplomat Alexei Zyuzin, but there were also clerks: Fyodor Gozvinsky, a native of Lithuanian Rus', and Antony Podolsky, one of the writers of the Time of Troubles, Evstratiy - author "serpentine" or "serpentine" verse, common in Baroque literature.

For the 30s-40s. XVII century The formation and flowering of the “prikaz school” of poetry, which united employees of the Moscow orders, took place. The center of literary life became the Printing Yard, the largest center of culture and the place of work of many writers and poets. The most prominent representative of the “school of ordered poetry” was the monk Savvaty, the director (editor) of the Printing House. His colleagues Ivan Shevelev Nasedka, Stefan Gorchak, and Mikhail Rogov left a noticeable mark on the history of Virsch poetry. All of them wrote mainly didactic messages, spiritual instructions, poetic prefaces, often giving them the form of extended acrostics containing the name of the author, addressee or customer.

An echo of the Troubles is the work of clerk Timofey Akundinov (Akindinov, Ankidinov, Ankudinov). Enmeshed in debt and under investigation, in 1644 he fled to Poland and for nine years, moving from one country to another, posed as the heir of Tsar Vasily Shuisky. In 1653, he was handed over by Holstein to the Russian government and quartered in Moscow. Akundinov is the author of a poetic declaration to the Moscow embassy in Constantinople in 1646, the metrics and style of which are typical of the “order school” of poetry.

In the last third of the 17th century. spoken verse was supplanted from high poetry by more strictly organized syllabic verse and moved into lower literature.

§ 7.7. Baroque literature and syllabic poetry. Syllabic versification was brought to Russia (largely through Belarusian-Ukrainian mediation) from Poland, where the main syllabic meters in Baroque literature developed in the 16th century. based on examples of Latin poetry. Russian verse received a qualitatively new rhythmic organization. The syllabic is based on the principle of equisyllabicity: rhyming lines must have the same number of syllables (most often 13 or 11), and in addition, exclusively feminine rhymes are used (as in Polish, where words have a fixed stress on the penultimate syllable). The work of the Belarusian Simeon of Polotsk was of decisive importance in the dissemination of a new verbal culture and syllabic poetry with a developed system of poetic meters and genres.

Having moved to Moscow in 1664 and becoming the first court poet in Russia, Simeon of Polotsk was the creator of not only his own poetic school, but the entire literary movement of the Baroque - the first Western European style to penetrate Russian literature. Until the end of his life († 1680), the writer worked on two huge collections of poetry: “Vertograd of many colors” and “Rhythmologion, or Poetry Book”. His main poetic work, “The Vertograd of Many Colors,” is a “poetry encyclopedia” typical of Baroque culture with thematic headings arranged in alphabetical order (1,155 titles in total), often including entire cycles of poems and containing information on history, natural philosophy, cosmology, theology , ancient mythology, etc. Characteristic of elite baroque literature and “Rhythmologion” - a collection of panegyric poems for various occasions in life royal family and nobles. In 1680, the “Rhyming Psalter” by Simeon of Polotsk was published - the first poetic arrangement of psalms in Russia, created in imitation of the “Psalter of David” (1579) by the Polish poet Jan Kokhanovsky. An extremely prolific author, Simeon of Polotsk wrote plays in verse on biblical subjects: “About King Nechadnezzar...” (1673 - early 1674), “The Comedy of the Parable of the Prodigal Son” (1673-78), containing typical Russian life of that time conflict between fathers and children, polemical works: the anti-Old Believer “Rod of Government” (ed. 1667), sermons: “The Soulful Dinner” (1675, published 1682) and “The Soulful Supper” (1676, published 1683), etc.

After the death of Simeon of Polotsk, the place of court writer was taken by his student Sylvester Medvedev, who dedicated an epitaph to the memory of his mentor - “Epitafion” (1680). Having led the Moscow Westerners - the “Latinizers”, Medvedev led a decisive struggle with the party of Grecophile writers (Patriarch Joachim, Evfimy Chudovsky, brothers Ioannikiy and Sophrony Likhud, Hierodeacon Damascus), and fell in this struggle, executed in 1691. In collaboration with Karion Istomin Medvedev wrote a historical essay about the reforms of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, the Streltsy revolt of 1682 and the first years of the regency of Princess Sophia - “A brief contemplation of the years 7190, 91 and 92, in them what happened in citizenship.” End of the 17th century was the time of greatest creative success court author Karion Istomin, who wrote a huge number of poems and poems, epitaphs and epigrams, orations and panegyrics. His innovative pedagogical work, the illustrated poetic "Primer" (entirely engraved 1694 and typeset 1696), was reprinted and used as an educational book at the beginning of the 19th century.

A school of poetry also existed in the New Jerusalem Monastery of the Resurrection founded by Patriarch Nikon, the most prominent representatives of which were Archimandrites Herman († 1681) and Nikanor (2nd half of the 17th century), who used isosyllabic versification.

An outstanding representative of Baroque authors was the Ukrainian Dimitri Rostovsky (in the world Daniil Savvich Tuptalo), who moved to Russia in 1701. A writer of versatile talents, he became famous as a wonderful preacher, poet and playwright, author of works against the Old Believers ("Search for the schismatic Bryn faith", 1709). The work of Demetrius of Rostov, the East Slavic “metaphrast,” summed up ancient Russian hagiography. For almost a quarter of a century he worked on a general collection of the lives of saints. Having collected and processed numerous Old Russian (Great Menaion of Cheti, etc.), Latin and Polish sources, Demetrius created a “hagiographical library” - “Lives of the Saints” in four volumes. His work was published for the first time in the printing house of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra in 1684-1705. and immediately won lasting readership.

§ 7.8. The beginning of the Russian theater. The development of Baroque culture with its favorite postulate: life is the stage, people are actors, contributed to the birth of the Russian theater. The idea of ​​its creation belonged to the famous statesman, Westerner boyar A.S. Matveev, head of the Ambassadorial Prikaz. The first play of the Russian theater was "The Artaxerxes Action". It was written in 1672 by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich on the plot of the biblical book of Esther by Lutheran pastor Johann Gottfried Gregory from the German settlement in Moscow (possibly with the participation of Leipzig medical student Laurentius Ringuber). "Artaxerxes' action" was created in imitation of Western European drama of the 16th - 17th centuries. on biblical stories. The play, written in German poetry, was translated into Russian by employees of the Ambassadorial Prikaz. First staged on the opening day of the court theater of Alexei Mikhailovich on October 17, 1672, it ran for 10 hours without intermission.

Russian theater was not limited to religious subjects. In 1673, it turned to ancient mythology and staged the musical ballet "Orpheus" based on the German ballet "Orpheus and Eurydice". Gregory's successor, the Saxon Georg Hüfner (in the Russian pronunciation of that time - Yuri Mikhailovich Gibner or Givner), who directed the theater in 1675-76, compiled and translated "Temir-Aksakov's action" based on various sources. The play, dedicated to the struggle of the Central Asian conqueror Timur with the Turkish Sultan Bayezid I, was topical in Moscow both from a historical perspective (see § 5.2) and in connection with the brewing war with Turkey over Ukraine in 1676-81. Despite the fact that the court theater existed for less than four years (until the death of the “main theatergoer,” Alexei Mikhailovich on January 29, 1676), it was with it that the history of Russian theater and drama began.

By the beginning of the 18th century. School theater, used for educational and religious-political purposes in Western European educational institutions, penetrates into Russia. In Moscow, theatrical performances were held at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy (see § 7.9), for example, “The Terrible Comedy of the Treason of a Voluptuous Life” (1701), written on the theme of the Gospel parable about the rich man and the beggar Lazarus. A new stage in the development of school theater was the dramaturgy of Metropolitan Dimitry of Rostov, the author of “comedies” for the Nativity of Christ (1702) and for the Dormition of the Virgin Mary (probably 1703-05). In the Rostov school, opened by Demetrius in 1702, not only his plays were staged, but also the works of teachers: the drama “The Crown of Demetrius” (1704) in honor of the heavenly patron of the Metropolitan Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki, composed, it is believed, by the teacher Evfimy Morogin. IN early XVII I century Based on the lives, as edited by Dmitry of Rostov, plays were performed in the court theater of Princess Natalya Alekseevna, the beloved sister of Peter I: the “comedy” of Varlaam and Joasaph, the martyrs Evdokia, Catherine, etc.

§ 7.9. Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. The idea of ​​​​creating the first higher educational institution in Muscovite Rus' belonged to the Baroque authors - Simeon of Polotsk and Sylvester Medvedev, who wrote on behalf of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich “Priviles of the Moscow Academy” (approved in 1682). This document defined the foundations of a state higher educational institution with an extensive program, rights and prerogatives for the training of secular and ecclesiastical professional personnel. However, the first leaders and teachers of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, opened in Moscow in 1687, were the opponents of Simeon of Polotsk and Sylvester Medvedev - the learned Greek brothers Ioannikis and Sophronius Likhud. The Academy, where Church Slavonic, Greek, Latin, grammar, poetics, rhetoric, physics, theology and other subjects were taught, played an important role in the spread of enlightenment. In the first half of the 18th century. From its walls came such famous writers and scientists as A. D. Kantemir, V. K. Trediakovsky, M. V. Lomonosov, V. E. Adodurov, A. A. Barsov, V. P. Petrov and others.

§ 7.10. Church schism and Old Believer literature. The rapidly expanding work of the Moscow Printing House required an increasing number of experts in theology, grammar and Greek. The “Kyiv elders” Epiphany Slavinetsky, Arseny Satanovsky and Damaskin Ptitsky, who arrived in Moscow in 1649-50, were invited to Russia to translate and edit books. Boyarin F.M. Rtishchev built St. Andrew's Monastery for the "Kyiv elders" on his estate on the Sparrow Hills. There they began academic work and opened a school in which young Moscow clerks studied Greek and Latin. Southwestern Russian bookishness became one of the sources of Nikon's church reform. Its other component was the modern Greek church rite, the differences of which from the Old Russian rite were of concern to Patriarch Joseph.

In 1649-50. the learned monk Arseny (in the world Anton Sukhanov) carried out responsible diplomatic assignments in Ukraine, Moldova and Wallachia, where he participated in a theological debate with the Greek hierarchs. The dispute is described in the “Debate with the Greeks about Faith,” where the purity of Russian Orthodoxy and its rituals (two fingers, special alleluia, etc.) is proven. In 1651-53. with the blessing of Patriarch Joseph, Arseny traveled to the Orthodox East (Constantinople, Jerusalem, Egypt) for the purpose of comparative study of Greek and Russian church practice. Sukhanov outlined what he saw during the trip and critical reviews of the Greeks in the essay “Proskinitarium” ‘Admirer (of holy places)’ (from the Greek rspukkhnEsh ‘to worship’) (1653).

In 1653, Patriarch Nikon began to unify the Russian church ritual tradition with the modern Greek one and with the Orthodox Church in general. The most significant innovations were: the replacement of the two-finger sign of the cross with the three-finger sign (to which the Byzantines themselves switched under Latin influence after the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204); printing on prosphora a four-pointed cross (Latin “kryzha”, as the Old Believers believed) instead of the Old Russian eight-pointed one; transition from a special hallelujah to a triple hallelujah (from its twice repetition during worship to three times); exclusion from the eighth member of the Creed ("True Lord") of the definition true; writing the name of Christ with two and (Iisus), and not with one (Isus) (in translations from the Greek Ostromir Gospel of 1056-57, Izbornik 1073, both options are still presented, but subsequently in Rus' a tradition was established to write the name with one i ) and much more. As a result of the "book law" in the second half of the 17th century. a new version of the Church Slavonic language was created.

Nikon’s reform, which broke the centuries-honored Russian way of life, was rejected by the Old Believers and marked the beginning church schism. The Old Believers opposed orientation towards foreign church orders, defended the faith of their fathers and grandfathers, ancient Slavic-Byzantine rituals, defended national identity and were against the Europeanization of Russian life. The Old Believer environment turned out to be unusually rich in talents and bright personalities, and a brilliant galaxy of writers emerged from it. Among them were the founder of the “God-loving” movement Ivan Neronov, Archimandrite Spiridon Potemkin, Archpriest Avvakum Petrov, Solovetsky monks Gerasim Firsov, Epiphanius and Geronty, a preacher of self-immolation as the last means of salvation from the Antichrist, Hierodeacon Ignatius of Solovetsky, his opponent and denouncer of “suicidal deaths” Efrosin, priest Lazar, deacon Fyodor Ivanov, monk Abraham, Suzdal priest Nikita Konstantinov Dobrynin and others.

The inspired speeches of Archpriest Avvakum attracted to him numerous followers not only from the lower classes, but also from the aristocracy (boyar F. P. Morozova, princess E. P. Urusova, etc.). This was the reason for his exile to Tobolsk in 1653, then to Dauria in 1656 and later to Mezen in 1664. In 1666, Avvakum was summoned to Moscow for a church council, where he was defrocked and anathematized, and the next year he was exiled to the Pustozersky prison together with other defenders of the “old faith.” During their almost 15-year imprisonment in an earthen prison, Avvakum and his comrades (Elder Epiphanius, priest Lazar, deacon Fyodor Ivanov) did not stop fighting. The moral authority of the prisoners was so great that even the prison guards participated in the dissemination of their works. In 1682, Avvakum and his comrades were burned in Pustozersk “for great blasphemy against the royal house.”

In the Pustozersk prison, Avvakum created his main works: “The Book of Conversations” (1669-75), “The Book of Interpretations and Moral Teachings” (c. 1673-76), “The Book of Reproof, or the Eternal Gospel” (c. 1676) and a masterpiece of Russian literature - "Life" in three author's editions 1672, 1673 and 1674-75. The work of Avvakum is far from the only autobiographical life in the 16th - 17th centuries. Among its predecessors were the story of Martyriy Zelenetsky (1580s), “The Legend of the Anzersky Skete” (late 1630s) by Eleazar and the remarkable “Life” (in two parts 1667-71 and ca. 1676) by Epiphany, spiritual father Habakkuk. However, the “Life” of Avvakum, written in the “Russian natural language”, unique in its richness and expressiveness, is not only an autobiography, but also a sincere confession of a truth-seeker and a fiery sermon of a fighter ready to die for his ideals. Avvakum, the author of more than 80 theological, epistolary, polemical and other works (some of them have been lost), combines extreme traditionalism with bold innovation in creativity, and especially in language. The word Habakkuk grows from the deepest roots of truly popular speech. The living and figurative language of Avvakum is close to the literary style of the Old Believer Ioann Lukyanov, the author of pilgrimage notes about the “walk” to Jerusalem in 1701-03.

Avvakum's spiritual daughter, boyar F. P. Morozova, killed starvation together with his sister Princess E.P. Urusova and the wife of Streltsy Colonel M.G. Danilova in an earthen prison in Borovsk in 1675 for refusing to accept church reform, dedicated to “The Tale of Boyarina Morozova,” a work of high artistic merit. Soon after the death of the disgraced noblewoman, an author close to her (obviously, her brother, boyar Fyodor Sokovnin) created in the form of a life a vivid and truthful chronicle of one of the most dramatic events in the history of the early Old Believers.

In 1694, in the northeast of Lake Onega, Daniil Vikulin and Andrei Denisov founded the Vygovsky hostel, which became the largest book and literary center of the Old Believers in the 18th - mid-19th V. The Old Believer book culture, which also developed in Starodubye (from 1669), on Vetka (from 1685) and in other centers, continued the Old Russian spiritual traditions in new historical conditions.

MAIN SOURCES AND LITERATURE

SOURCES. Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus'. M., 1978-1994. [Vol. 1-12]; Library of literature of Ancient Rus'. St. Petersburg, 1997-2003. T. 1-12 (edition in progress).

RESEARCH. Adrianova-Peretz V.P. “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and monuments of Russian literature of the 11th-13th centuries. L., 1968; It's her. Old Russian literature and folklore. L., 1974; Eremin I.P. Lectures and articles on the history of ancient Russian literature. 2nd ed. L., 1987; The origins of Russian fiction. L., 1970; Kazakova N. A., Lurie Y. S. Antifeudal heretical movements in Rus' in the 14th - early 16th centuries. M.; L., 1955; Klyuchevsky V. O. Old Russian lives of saints as a historical source. M., 1989; Likhachev D.S. Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'. M., 1970; It's him. Development of Russian literature of the X-XVII centuries: Epochs and styles. L., 1973; It's him. Poetics of Old Russian Literature. 3rd ed. M., 1979; Meshchersky N. A. Sources and composition of ancient Slavic-Russian translated writing of the 9th-15th centuries. L., 1978; Panchenko A. M. Russian poetic culture of the 17th century. L., 1973; It's him. Russian culture on the eve of Peter's reforms. L., 1984; Peretz V.N. From lectures on the methodology of the history of literature. Kyiv, 1914; Robinson A. N. Lives of Avvakum and Epiphanius: Research and texts. M., 1963; It's him. Literature of Ancient Rus' in the literary process of the Middle Ages in the 11th-13th centuries: Essays on literary-historical typology. M., 1980; Russian literature of the 10th - first quarter of the 18th century. / Ed. D. S. Likhacheva // History of Russian literature: In four volumes. L., 1980. T. 1. P. 9-462; Sazonova L.I. Poetry of the Russian Baroque: (second half of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century). M., 1991; Sobolevsky A.I. Translated literature of Moscow Rus' of the XIV-XVII centuries. St. Petersburg, 1903; Shakhmatov A. A. History of Russian chronicles. St. Petersburg, 2002. T. 1. Book. 1; 2003. T. 1. Book. 2.

TEXTBOOKS, READINGS. Buslaev F.I. Historical anthology of Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages. M., 1861; Gudziy N.K. History of ancient Russian literature. 7th ed. M., 1966; It's him. Reader on ancient Russian literature / Scientific. ed. N. I. Prokofiev. 8th ed. M., 1973; History of Russian literature X - XVII centuries. / Ed. D. S. Likhacheva. M., 1985; Kuskov V.V. History of ancient Russian literature. 7th ed. M., 2002; Orlov A. S. Ancient Russian literature XI - XVII centuries. 3rd ed. M.; L., 1945; Picchio R. Old Russian literature. M., 2001; Speransky M. N. History of ancient Russian literature. 4th ed. St. Petersburg, 2002.

DIRECTORIES. Bibliography of Soviet Russian works on literature of the 11th-17th centuries. for 1917-1957 / Comp. N. F. Droblenkova. M.; L., 1961; Bibliography of works on Old Russian literature published in the USSR: 1958-1967. / Comp. N. F. Droblenkova. L., 1978. Part 1 (1958-1962); L., 1979. Part 2 (1963-1967); the same: 1968-1972 / Comp. N. F. Droblenkova. St. Petersburg, 1996; the same: 1973-1987 / Comp. A. G. Bobrov et al. St. Petersburg, 1995. Part 1 (1973-1977); St. Petersburg, 1996. Part 2 (1978-1982); St. Petersburg, 1996. Part 3 (1983-1987); Bibliography of works on Old Russian literature published in the USSR (Russia): 1988-1992. / Comp. O. A. Belobrova et al. St. Petersburg, 1998 (edition in progress); Dictionary of scribes and bookishness of Ancient Rus'. L., 1987. Issue. 1 (XI-first half of the XIV century); L., 1988. Issue. 2 (second half of the XIV-XVI centuries). Part 1 (A-K); L., 1989. Issue. 2 (second half of the XIV-XVI centuries). Part 2 (L-Y); St. Petersburg, 1992. Issue. 3 (XVII century). Part 1 (A-Z); St. Petersburg, 1993. Issue. 3 (XVII century). Part 2 (I-O); St. Petersburg, 1998. Issue. 3 (XVII century). Part 3 (P-S); St. Petersburg, 2004. Issue. 3 (XVII century). Part 4 (T-Y); Encyclopedia "Tales about Igor's Campaign". St. Petersburg, 1995. T. 1-5.

The first rhetoric appeared in Russia only at the beginning of the 17th century. and survives in the earliest copy of 1620. This is a translation of the Latin short Rhetoric by the German humanist Philip Melanchthon, as revised by Luke Lossius in 1577.

Its source was the "Russian Law", which dates back to the ancient tribal era of the Eastern Slavs. In the 10th century The “Russian Law” developed into a complex monument of customary law, which was used to guide the Kyiv princes in court cases. During the times of paganism, the “Russian Law” existed in oral form, passed down from memory from one generation to another (apparently, priests), which contributed to the consolidation in its language of terms, traditional formulas and phrases, which after the baptism of Rus' merged into the business language.

A descendant of St. Michael of Chernigov on the maternal side was L. N. Tolstoy.

The literature of “sovereign traitors” was continued by clerk Grigory Kotoshikhin. Having fled to Sweden, he wrote there, by order of Count Delagardie, a detailed essay on the peculiarities of the Russian political system and public life- “About Russia during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich” (1666-67). The writer speaks critically about the Moscow order. His work is a vivid document of a transitional time, testifying to a turning point in people's minds on the eve of Peter's reforms. Kotoshikhin had a sharp natural mind and literary talent, but in moral terms, apparently, he was not high. In 1667, he was executed in a suburb of Stockholm for killing his landlord in a drunken brawl.

Alexey Mikhailovich’s interest in the theater is not accidental. The monarch himself willingly took up the pen. Most of his work is occupied by monuments of the epistolary genre: official business messages, “friendly” letters, etc. With his lively participation, “The Officer of the Falconer’s Way” was created. The book continues the traditions of Western European hunting writings. It describes the rules of falconry, Alexei Mikhailovich’s favorite pastime. He also owns "The Tale of the Death of Patriarch Joseph" (1652), remarkable for its artistic expression and life truthfulness, unfinished notes about the Russian-Polish war of 1654-67, church and secular poetic works, etc. Under his supervision, the famous set of laws of the Russian state was compiled - the “Cathedral Code” of 1649, an exemplary monument of the Russian business language of the XVII V.)

Old Russian literature is the solid foundation on which the majestic edifice of national Russian artistic culture of the 18th–20th centuries is erected.

It is based on high moral ideals, faith in man, in his possibility of limitless moral improvement, faith in the power of the word, its ability to transform the inner world of man, the patriotic pathos of serving the Russian land - the state - the Motherland, faith in the final triumph of good over the forces of evil, the worldwide unity of people and its victory over hateful strife.

Without knowing the history of ancient Russian literature, we will not understand the full depth of A. S. Pushkin’s work, the spiritual essence of creativity

N.V. Gogol, the moral quest of L.N. Tolstoy, the philosophical depth of F.M. Dostoevsky, the originality of Russian symbolism, the verbal quest of the futurists.

Chronological boundaries of Old Russian literature and its specific features.

Russian medieval literature is the initial stage in the development of Russian literature. Its emergence is closely connected with the process of formation of the early feudal state.

Subordinated to the political tasks of strengthening the foundations of the feudal system, it reflected in its own way various periods of development of social and social relations in Rus' XI-XVII centuries. Old Russian literature is the literature of the emerging Great Russian nationality, which is gradually developing into a nation.

The question of the chronological boundaries of ancient Russian literature has not been finally resolved by our science. Ideas about the volume of ancient Russian literature still remain incomplete.

Many works were lost in the fire of countless fires, during the devastating raids of steppe nomads, the invasion of Mongol-Tatar invaders, and Polish-Swedish invaders! And at a later time, in 1737, the remains of the library of the Moscow tsars were destroyed by a fire that broke out in the Grand Kremlin Palace.

In 1777, the Kiev Library was destroyed by fire. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the handwritten collections of Musin-Pushkin, Buturlin, Bauze, Demidov, and the Moscow Society of Lovers of Russian Literature were burned in Moscow.

The main keepers and copyists of books in Ancient Rus', as a rule, were monks, who were least interested in storing and copying books of secular (secular) content. And this largely explains why the overwhelming majority of works of Old Russian writing that have reached us are of an ecclesiastical nature.

Works of ancient Russian literature were divided into “secular” and “spiritual”. The latter were supported and disseminated in every possible way, since they contained the enduring values ​​of religious dogma, philosophy and ethics, and the former, with the exception of official legal and historical documents, were declared “vain.” Thanks to this, we present our ancient literature as more ecclesiastical than it actually was.

When starting to study ancient Russian literature, it is necessary to take into account its specific features, which are different from the literature of modern times.

A characteristic feature of Old Russian literature is the handwritten nature of its existence and distribution. Moreover, this or that work did not exist in the form of a separate, independent manuscript, but was part of various collections that pursued certain practical goals.

“Everything that serves not for the sake of benefit, but for the sake of embellishment, is subject to the accusation of vanity.” These words of Basil the Great largely determined the attitude of ancient Russian society towards written works. The value of a particular handwritten book was assessed from the point of view of its practical purpose and usefulness.

“Great comes the benefit of bookish teaching, since we teach through books and teach the path of repentance, we gain wisdom and abstinence from the words of books; for these are the rivers that feed the universe, these are the sources of wisdom, these are the sources of wisdom, these are the unsought depths, these are the comforts of us in sorrow, these are the bridles of self-control... If you diligently search for wisdom in the books, you will find great progress in your soul... "- the chronicler teaches in 1037.

Another feature of our ancient literature is the anonymity and impersonality of its works. This was a consequence of the religious-Christian attitude of feudal society towards man, and in particular towards the work of a writer, artist, and architect.

IN best case scenario we know the names of individual authors, “copywriters” of books, who modestly put their name either at the end of the manuscript, or in its margins, or (which is much less common) in the title of the work. At the same time, the writer will not accept his name with such evaluative epithets as “thin”, “unworthy”, “many sinners”.

Biographical information about the ancient Russian writers known to us, the volume of their creativity, character social activities very, very scarce. Therefore, if when studying literature of the 18th-20th centuries. Literary scholars widely use biographical material, reveal the nature of the political, philosophical, aesthetic views of this or that writer, using the author's manuscripts, trace the history of the creation of works, reveal the creative individuality of the writer, then they have to approach the monuments of ancient Russian writing in a different way.

In medieval society, the concept of copyright did not exist; the individual characteristics of the writer’s personality did not receive such a vivid manifestation as in the literature of modern times. Copyists often acted as editors and co-authors rather than simple copyists of the text. They changed the ideological orientation of the work being copied, the nature of its style, shortened or distributed the text in accordance with the tastes and demands of their time.

As a result, new editions of monuments were created. And even when the copyist simply copied the text, his list was always somehow different from the original: he made typos, omitted words and letters, and involuntarily reflected in the language the features of his native dialect. In this regard, in science there is a special term - “izvod” (manuscript of the Pskov-Novgorod edition, Moscow, or, more broadly, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.).

As a rule, the author's texts of works have not reached us, but their later lists have been preserved, sometimes distant from the time the original was written by a hundred, two hundred or more years. For example, “The Tale of Bygone Years,” created by Nestor in 1111–1113, has not survived at all, and the edition of Sylvester’s “story” (1116) is known only as part of the Laurentian Chronicle of 1377. “The Tale of Igor’s Host,” written at the end of 80 s of the 12th century, was found in a list of the 16th century.

All this requires from the researcher of ancient Russian literature unusually thorough and painstaking textual work: studying all available lists of a particular monument, establishing the time and place of their writing by comparing various editions, variants of lists, as well as determining which edition the list most matches original author's text. A special branch deals with these issues philological science— textual criticism.

When solving complex questions about the time of writing of a particular monument and its lists, the researcher turns to such an auxiliary historical and philological science as paleography.

Based on the characteristics of letters, handwriting, the nature of writing material, paper watermarks, the nature of headpieces, ornaments, miniatures illustrating the text of a manuscript, paleography makes it possible to relatively accurately determine the time of creation of a particular manuscript and the number of scribes who wrote it.

In the XI - first half of the XIV century. The main writing material was parchment, made from calf skin. In Rus', parchment was often called “veal” or “haratya”. This expensive material was, naturally, available only to the propertied classes, and artisans and traders used birch bark for their ice correspondence. Birch bark also served as student notebooks. This is evidenced by the remarkable archaeological discoveries of Novgorod birch bark letters.

To save writing material, the words in the line were not separated, and only the paragraphs of the manuscript were highlighted with a red cinnabar letter - the initial, the title - a “red line” in the literal sense of the word. Frequently used, widely known words were written abbreviated under a special superscript - title. For example, glet (verb - says), bg (god), btsa (Mother of God).

The parchment was pre-lined by a scribe using a ruler with a chain. Then the scribe placed it on his lap and carefully wrote out each letter. Handwriting with regular, almost square letters was called charter.

Working on the manuscript required painstaking work and great skill, so when the scribe completed his hard work, he celebrated it with joy. “The merchant rejoices when he has made the purchase and the helmsman in the calm of the bailiff and the wanderer who has come to his fatherland, and the book writer rejoices in the same way, having reached the end of the books...” - we read at the end of the Laurentian Chronicle.

The written sheets were sewn into notebooks, which were intertwined in wooden boards. Hence the phraseological turn - “read a book from blackboard to blackboard.” The binding boards were covered with leather, and sometimes covered with special frames made of silver and gold. A remarkable example of jewelry art is, for example, the setting of the Mstislav Gospel (early 12th century).

In the XIV century. paper replaced parchment. This cheaper writing material adhered and speeded up the writing process. The statutory letter is replaced by slanted, rounded handwriting with a large number of superscripts - semi-character. In the monuments of business writing, cursive writing appears, which gradually replaces semi-character and occupies a dominant position in manuscripts of the 17th century.

The emergence of printing in the mid-16th century played a huge role in the development of Russian culture. However, until the beginning of the 18th century. Mostly church books were printed, but secular and artistic works continued to exist and were distributed in manuscripts.

When studying ancient Russian literature, one very important circumstance should be taken into account: in the medieval period, fiction had not yet emerged as an independent area of ​​public consciousness; it was inextricably linked with philosophy, science, and religion.

In this regard, it is impossible to mechanically apply to ancient Russian literature the criteria of artistry with which we approach when assessing the phenomena of literary development of modern times.

The process of historical development of ancient Russian literature is a process of gradual crystallization of fiction, its isolation from the general flow of writing, its democratization and “secularization,” i.e., liberation from the tutelage of the church.

One of the characteristic features of Old Russian literature is its connection with church and business writing, on the one hand, and oral poetic folk art, on the other. The nature of these connections at each historical stage of the development of literature and in its individual monuments was different.

However, the wider and deeper literature used the artistic experience of folklore, the more clearly it reflected the phenomena of reality, the wider was the sphere of its ideological and artistic influence.

A characteristic feature of Old Russian literature is historicism. Its heroes are predominantly historical figures; it allows almost no fiction and strictly follows the fact. Even numerous stories about “miracles” - phenomena that seemed supernatural to a medieval person, are not so much the invention of an ancient Russian writer, but rather accurate records of the stories of either eyewitnesses or the people themselves with whom the “miracle” happened.

The historicism of ancient Russian literature has a specifically medieval character. The course and development of historical events is explained by God's will, the will of providence.

The heroes of the works are princes, rulers of the state, standing at the top of the hierarchical ladder of feudal society. However, having discarded the religious shell, the modern reader easily discovers that living historical reality, the true creator of which was the Russian people.

Kuskov V.V. History of Old Russian Literature. - M., 1998