Literary etiquette in ancient Russian literature. Literary etiquette

(1) Basically the text of this chapter is a report submitted for publication in 1962. See: Slavic literature. Reports of the Soviet delegation. V International Congress of Slavists (Sofia, September 1963). M., 1963; and separately. S. Wolman wrote about the system of genres before me, but in application to theatrical and dramatic genres; For references to these works by S. Wolman, see his article: The system of genres as a problem of comparative historical literary criticism (Problems of modern philology. M., 1965. P. 344). In Soviet literary criticism and folklore literature, the concept of a “system of genres” spread after my report at the V International Congress of Slavists in 1963.

Recently, the genre system has been discovered and has begun to be successfully studied in ancient Russian art. A wonderful book by G. K. Wagner “The Problem of Genres in Old Russian Art” (Moscow, 1974) appeared on this topic. In it, the genres of ancient Russian art are studied in the same way as a system, and this system is compared with the one that existed in ancient Russian literature, and very important similarities and differences are revealed. Referring those interested to this book, we only note that in ancient Russian art we find both the functional principle of genre formation (p. 30), and their subordination to aesthetic etiquette (p. 36), and much more, confirming and deepening our ideas about the aesthetics of Ancient Rus'.

II THE POETICS OF LITERARY GENERALIZATION

LITERARY ETIQUETTE

Feudalism at the time of its emergence and flourishing, with its extremely complex ladder of vassalage-suzerainty relations, created a developed ritual: church and secular. The relationships between people and their relationships with God were subject to etiquette, tradition, custom, and ceremonial, developed and despotic to such an extent that they permeated and to a certain extent took over the worldview and thinking of a person. From public life, a penchant for etiquette penetrates into art. Images of saints in painting are to some extent subject to etiquette: iconographic originals prescribe the image of each saint in strictly defined positions, with all the attributes inherent to him. The depiction of events from the lives of saints or events of sacred history was also subject to etiquette.

The iconographic subjects of Byzantine painting largely depended on the etiquette of the feudal court. The entire third part of A. Grabar’s work “The Emperor in Byzantine Art” is devoted to the influence of court ritual on the formation of the main iconographic types - such as the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, the Deesis, the descent into hell, the Almighty seated on the throne, etc.

In addition to painting, etiquette can be revealed in the construction art of the Middle Ages and in applied art, in clothing and in theology, in relation to nature and in political life. This was one of the main forms of ideological coercion in the Middle Ages. Etiquette is inherent in feudalism; life is permeated with it. Art is subject to this form of feudal coercion. Art not only depicts life, but also gives it etiquette forms.

If we turn to the literature and literary language of the era of early and developed feudalism, then here too we will find the same tendency towards etiquette. Literary etiquette and the literary canons developed by it are the most typical medieval conventional normative connection between content and form.

In fact, V. O. Klyuchevsky picked up quite a lot of formulas, supposedly specifically inherent in the hagiographic genre. A. S. Orlov did the same for the genre of military stories. There is no need to list these formulas; they are well known to every specialist: “grabbing the hands of the slaughter,” “blood flows through the fields like a river,” “the knocking and noise is terrible, like thunder,” “beating hard and mercilessly, like groaning the earth,” “and poltsi, like a boar”, etc. However, neither A. S. Orlov nor V. O. Klyuchevsky attached importance to the fact that both hagiographic formulas and military formulas are constantly found outside of lives and outside military stories, for example in the chronicle , in a chronograph, in historical stories, even in oratory and in messages. And this is very important, because it is not the genre of the work that determines the choice of expressions, the choice of formulas, but the subject matter in question. It is the object in question that requires certain stencil formulas for its image. Since we are talking about a saint, hagiographic formulas are mandatory, whether it will be spoken about in a life, in a chronicle, or in a chronograph.

(1) Grabar A. L"Art imperial et l"art chretien /U In: Qrabar A. L"Empereur dans l"art byzantin. Paris, 1936.

(2) See: Klyuchevsky V. O. Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source. M., 1871.

(3) See: Orlov A.S.: 1) On the peculiarities of the form of Russian military stories (ending the 17th century) Ts CHOIDR. 1902, book. IV, pp. 1-50;2) About some features of the style of Great Russian historical fiction of the 16th-18th centuries. // Izv. ORYAS. 1908. T. XIII, book. 4, etc.

These formulas are selected depending on what is said about the saint and what type of events the author is talking about. In the same way, military formulas are required when military events are told - regardless of whether in a military story or in a chronicle, in a sermon or in a life. There are formulas applied to the departure of one’s prince on a campaign, others - in relation to the enemy, formulas defining various moments of the battle, victory, defeat, returning with victory to one’s city, etc. Military formulas can be found in hagiography, hagiographic formulas - in military story, both of them - in the chronicle or in the teaching. It is easy to verify this by reviewing any chronicle: Ipatiev, Laurentian, one of Novgorod, etc. The same chronicler not only uses different formulas - hagiographic, military, necrological, etc., but also changes the entire manner several times, the style of his presentation depends on whether he writes about the prince’s battle or his death, whether he conveys the content of his contract or talks about his marriage.

But not only the choice of stable stylistic formulas is determined by literary etiquette; the very language in which the author writes also changes. It is easy to notice differences in the language of one and the same writer: when philosophizing and reflecting on the frailty of human existence, he resorts to Church Slavonicisms, while talking about everyday affairs - to Narodno-Russianisms. Literary language is by no means one. It is not difficult to verify this by re-reading Monomakh’s “Teaching”: the language of this work is “three-layered” - it contains both the Church Slavonic element, and the business element, and the folk poetic element (the latter, however, in a smaller scale than the first two). If we were to judge the authorship of this work only by style, it might happen that we would attribute it to three authors. But the fact is that each manner, each of the styles of the literary language, and even each of the languages (for Monomakh writes in both Church Slavonic and Russian) was used by him, from a medieval point of view, quite appropriately, depending on what concerns Whether Monomakh church plots, or his campaigns, or the mental state of his young daughter-in-law.

For the question of etiquette, the position of L.P. Yakubinsky is extremely important, that “the Church Slavonic language of Kievan Rus of the X-XI centuries. was delimited, differed from the ancient Russian folk language not only in reality... but also in the minds of people.” In fact, along with the unconscious desire to assimilate the Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages, one should also note the opposite tendency - towards dissimilation. This explains the fact that the Church Slavonic language, despite all the assimilation processes, survived until the 20th century. The Church Slavonic language was constantly perceived as a high, literary and ecclesiastical language. The writer’s choice of the Church Slavonic language or Church Slavonic words and forms for some cases, Old Russian for others, and folk poetic speech for others was always a conscious choice and was subject to a certain literary etiquette. The Church Slavonic language is inseparable from church content, folk poetic speech - from folk poetic subjects, business speech - from business ones. The Church Slavonic language was constantly separated in the minds of writers and readers from the folk and from the business language. It was precisely thanks to the awareness that the Church Slavonic language was a “special” language that the very difference between the Church Slavonic language and Old Russian could be preserved.

Feudalism at the time of its emergence and flourishing, with its extremely complex ladder of vassalage-suzerainty relations, created a developed ritual: church and secular. The relationships between people and their relationships with God were subject to etiquette, tradition, custom, and ceremonial, developed and despotic to such an extent that they permeated and to a certain extent took over the worldview and thinking of a person.
From public life, a penchant for etiquette penetrates into art. Images of saints in painting are to some extent subject to etiquette: iconographic originals prescribe the image of each saint in strictly defined positions, with all the attributes inherent to him. The depiction of events from the lives of saints or events of sacred history was also subject to etiquette.

End of form

In fact, V. O. Klyuchevsky selected quite a lot of formulas that were supposedly specially inherent in the hagiographic genre. A. S. Orlov did the same for the genre of military stories. There is no need to list these formulas; they are well known to every specialist: “grabbing the hands of the slaughter,” “blood flows through the fields like a river,” “the knocking and noise is terrible, like thunder,” “beating hard and mercilessly, like groaning the earth,” “and poltsi, aki borove”, etc.
However, neither A. S. Orlov nor V. O. Klyuchevsky attached importance to the fact that both hagiographic formulas and military formulas are constantly found outside of lives and outside military stories, for example, in the chronicle, in the chronograph, in historical stories, even in oratory and in messages. And this is very important, because it is not the genre of the work that determines the choice of expressions, the choice of formulas, but the subject matter in question.
It is the object in question that requires certain stencil formulas for its image. Since we are talking about a saint, hagiographic formulas are mandatory, whether it will be spoken about in a life, in a chronicle, or in a chronograph.

These formulas are selected depending on what is said about the saint and what type of events the author is talking about. In the same way, military formulas are required when military events are told - regardless of whether in a military story or in a chronicle, in a sermon or in a life. There are formulas applied to the departure of one’s prince on a campaign, others - in relation to the enemy, formulas defining various moments of the battle, victory, defeat, returning with victory to one’s city, etc. Military formulas can be found in hagiography, hagiographic formulas - in military story, both of them - in the chronicle or in the teaching. It is easy to verify this by reviewing any chronicle: the Ipatiev PS, the Lavrentiev PS, one of the Novgorod PS, etc. The same chronicler not only uses different formulas - hagiographic, military, necrological, etc., but also He changes the entire manner and style of his presentation several times, depending on whether he writes about the prince’s battle or his death, whether he conveys the content of his contract or talks about his marriage.

But not only the choice of stable stylistic formulas is determined by literary etiquette; the very language in which the author writes also changes.
It is easy to notice differences in the language of one and the same writer: when philosophizing and reflecting on the frailty of human existence, he resorts to Church Slavonicisms, while talking about everyday affairs - to Narodno-Russianisms. Literary language is by no means one. It is not difficult to verify this by re-reading the “Teaching” of Monomakh S.P.: the language of this work is “three-layered” - it contains both the Church Slavonic element, and the business element, and the folk poetic element (the latter, however, in a smaller scale than the first two).
If we were to judge the authorship of this work only by style, it might happen that we would attribute it to three authors. But the fact is that each manner, each of the styles of the literary language, and even each of the languages (for Monomakh writes in both Church Slavonic and Russian) was used by him, from a medieval point of view, quite appropriately, depending on what concerns Whether Monomakh church plots, or his campaigns, or the mental state of his young daughter-in-law.

For the question of etiquette, the position of L.P. Yakubinsky is extremely important, that “the Church Slavonic language of Kievan Rus of the X-XI centuries. was delimited, differed from the ancient Russian folk language not only in reality... but also in the minds of people.”
In fact, along with the unconscious desire to assimilate the Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages, one should also note the opposite tendency - towards dissimilation. This explains the fact that the Church Slavonic language, despite all the assimilation processes, survived until the 20th century. The Church Slavonic language was constantly perceived as a high, literary and ecclesiastical language. The writer’s choice of the Church Slavonic language or Church Slavonic words and forms for some cases, Old Russian for others, and folk poetic speech for others was always a conscious choice and was subject to a certain literary etiquette.
The Church Slavonic language is inseparable from church content, folk poetic speech - from folk poetic subjects, business speech - from business ones. The Church Slavonic language was constantly separated in the minds of writers and readers from the folk and from the business language. It was precisely thanks to the awareness that the Church Slavonic language was a “special” language that the very difference between the Church Slavonic language and Old Russian could be preserved.

It seems to me wrong to talk about a single literary language of Ancient Rus', highlighting in this literary language the church-book style or, more carefully, the book-Slovenian type (V.V. Vinogradov).
The literary language of Ancient Rus' not only was not united, but it was not one.
There were two literary languages in Ancient Rus': Church Slavonic (like Latin in the west, and Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Wen-Yan in the east) and the Old Russian literary language. Only in the latter can one distinguish different types and styles.

The Church Slavonic language, which arose on the basis of Old Church Slavonic, was the common literary language of the eastern and southern Slavs (as well as Romanians). One cannot think that in the literary languages - Old Russian, Old Serbian, Old Bulgarian, as well as in Central Serbian and Central Bulgarian there were “styles” and “types” of church books.

But it is easy to notice that in the single Church Slavonic language, which had a single base of literary monuments among the eastern and southern Slavs (about the commonality of this literary base, see above, pp. 262-270), there were different national editions. Only the awareness that the Church Slavonic language is a special language in the presence of monuments common to all southern and eastern Slavs, the lists of which were passed from country to country, can explain the commonality and stability of this language despite all its national editions.

The fates of both literary languages of Ancient Rus' were completely different. They not only had different stylistic functions, but also found themselves in different conditions of existence.
The Church Slavonic language, ancient Bulgarian in origin, was a common language for many Slavic countries with which Ancient Rus' was in constant literary communication. We can talk about the Russian review (version) of the Church Slavonic language, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian reviews and consider their changes over the centuries. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Church Slavonic language as a whole was in constant internal intensive interaction both vertically and horizontally: the influence of the language of monuments of past eras constantly affected the language of monuments of new ones; works written in Church Slavonic in one of the Slavic countries moved to other countries. Individual, especially authoritative works retained their language for many centuries. New works in all countries were compared to them in language. This is the uniqueness of the history of the Church Slavonic language, traditional, stable, sedentary. This was the language of traditional worship, traditional church books.
Books of liturgical and ecclesiastical nature in the first centuries of Slavic writing were the same examples as traces and chips in icon painting.

The Russian literary language, on the contrary, did not have such examples. It was associated with the living, oral language of offices, judicial institutions, and official political and public life. Business language changed much more rapidly than Church Slavonic.

The question is of great interest: what was stronger in this Russian literary language - the written tradition or the oral tradition with which it was associated.

In terms of its types (in different spheres of use, in different areas, in its chronological differences), the Russian literary language was much more diverse than the Church Slavonic language, less stable, less closed. It did not have that fixed base of “models” that the Church Slavonic language possessed. There was no desire in him for “self-purification” of alien forms. He was not so much recognized as a phenomenon of a certain, high style. On the contrary, the styles in the Russian literary language could be different: it is enough to compare the language of the first Novgorod chronicle with the language of the “Russian Pravda” P, the Galicia-Volyn Chronicle with the language of the “Prayer of Daniil the Zatochnik” S P. However, with all the diversity of their styles, according to their system (grammatical , phonetic, lexical) it was still one language, different from the Church Slavonic language.

Both literary languages of Ancient Rus' - Russian and Church Slavonic - were in constant interaction. Literary etiquette sometimes required quick transitions from one language to another. These transitions sometimes took place over the shortest distances - within the limits of one work. But the interaction of literary languages was not equal. Church Slavonic forms and words passed into the Russian literary language “forever”, received stylistic shades and semantic nuances here (the movement here took place from style to meaning), they constantly enriched the Russian literary language. The opposite effect was different. Individual penetrations of the Russian literary language into Church Slavonic were systematically expelled from the latter.

Medieval scribes sharply felt the difference between written and oral languages. Therefore, one cannot imagine the written Russian literary language as a simple written fixation of Koine, the common language of various administrative centers. It was some kind of transformation of the oral language that was still little clear to us - a transformation that had its own rules and mine etiquette. Nevertheless, the culture of oral speech in the written literary Russian language clearly made itself felt. At one time I tried to uncover the oral foundations of the Russian literary language of the 11th-12th centuries.

Written literary Russian was associated not only with the koine of the most important administrative centers of Rus'. In one of its varieties, it transformed and transferred into writing the language of oral folk poetry, which had a special stylistic function and possessed its own poetic formulas and poetic vocabulary. In this variety, the Russian literary language, like the Church Slavonic language, was poetically elevated above ordinary language. This variety of the Russian literary language did not have a “continuous” development from the 11th century. until the 17th century inclusive. This variety made itself felt either in the “Teachings” of Monomakh, then in the Ipatiev Chronicle, then in the “Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land”, then in the “Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu”, but most of all it is represented in the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, reflected through the latter in “Zadonshchina”. In the 17th century the language of oral folk poetry entered literature through “The Tale of Azov”, “The Tale of Suhana”, “The Tale of the Mountain of Misfortune” and other poetic works of democratic literature.

All of the above determined the extreme complexity of the development of the language of literature in Ancient Rus' with its two literary languages - Church Slavonic and Russian, of which the latter had several more types.

It is curious that with all the stability of the consciousness of the “peculiarity” of the Church Slavonic language, the content of this consciousness changed. Until the 17th century Church Slavonic was primarily a church language, but in the 18th and 19th centuries. individual Church Slavonicisms were “secularized”; they became a sign of a high, poetic language in general. Until the 18th century every solemn style was to a certain extent colored by churchliness. Therefore, even secular ceremonial subjects set out in the monuments of ancient Russian literature in Church Slavonic language acquired this ecclesiastical character. In the 18th century The Church Slavonic language could already be used for purely secular subjects, without coloring them with ecclesiastical character. In the same way, the idea of the “specialness” of business language changed. It would be extremely important to study in the future the historical variability of the content of this consciousness of the “peculiarity” of a particular language.

So, the use of the Church Slavonic language was clearly subject to etiquette in the Middle Ages; church subjects required church language, secular ones - Russian.

This medieval etiquette in the use of the appropriate language or style of language was observed not only in Rus'. It is even more significant in the medieval literature of many other countries. That is why, following L.P. Yakubinsky, it seems to us that the following position of A.A. Shakhmatov, which occupies a central place in his concept of the origin and development of the Russian literary language, is incorrect: that the Church Slavonic language from the very first years of its existence on Russian soil became “ uncontrollably to assimilate to the national language, because the Russian people who spoke it could not differentiate in their speech either their pronunciation, or their word usage and inflection from the church language they had acquired.” a. There is no need to give examples of a conscious desire to distinguish between the Church Slavonic and Russian languages, Church Slavonic and Russian forms, and the desire to delay assimilation. At the heart of all these aspirations are the requirements of literary ritual, subordinating considerations of a stylistic order.

So, the requirements of literary etiquette give rise to the desire to distinguish between the use of the Church Slavonic language and Russian in all its varieties; these same requirements give rise to the appearance of various formulas - military, hagiographic, etc. However, literary etiquette cannot be limited to the phenomena of verbal expression. In fact, not everything that was noted by A. S. Orlov as verbal formulas is really only a verbal phenomenon. So, for example, among various “military formulas” A. S. Orlov mentions “help from heavenly power” to the Russian army, this help can be carried out in different ways: enemies are either “driven by the wrath of God”, then “by the wrath of God and the Holy Mother of God”; sometimes God “puts fear” into the hearts of enemies; sometimes enemies are persecuted by an “invisible force,” and sometimes by angels, etc. This is a stencil of a situation, not its verbal expression. The verbal expression of this stencil can be different, just like the situations of various other stencils in the description of the gathering, march of the army and attack, in the description of the life of the saint - his birth from pious parents, removal into the desert, exploits, the founding of a monastery, pious death and posthumous miracles.

The point, therefore, is not only that certain expressions and a certain style of presentation are selected for the corresponding situations, but also that these very situations are created by writers exactly as required by etiquette requirements: the prince prays before setting out on a campaign, his squad usually small in number, while the enemy’s army is huge and the enemy comes out “in mighty strength,” “puffing with the spirit of war,” etc.

The literary canons of situations can be demonstrated at least in “Reading about the life and death of Boris and Gleb” by S. P. Like most literary works of the Middle Ages, “Reading” is permeated from beginning to end with a heightened sense of etiquette. Describing the life of Boris and Gleb, the author strives to force them to behave as saints should behave. He puts lengthy expressions of meekness and piety into their mouths, describes their obedience to their elder brother Svyatopolk, their refusal to resist the murderers, explains those of their actions that are somewhat at odds with the generally accepted idea of holiness (for example, the marriage of Boris). Distributing roles among the characters, the author is concerned with finding a model in the past: Vladimir is the second Constantine, Boris is Joseph the Beautiful, Gleb is David, Svyatopolk is Cain, etc.

Etiquette requires a certain “breeding”. Literary etiquette and “good manners” in life are closely interdependent. Kievans behave completely “decently” during baptism. Everyone goes to be baptized, and “not a single one resists, but they have been taught from long ago, so they move, rejoicing, to baptism.” These words are significant: people behave as if they had been taught “long ago” - after all, good manners are given precisely by teaching and upbringing. They “rejoice” - this is also required by good manners. Boris, as soon as he becomes “sane,” looks for role models. He turns to God with a prayer: “My Lord, Jesus Christ, vouchsafe me as one of those saints, and grant me to walk in their footsteps.” This is a prayer about etiquette, and it is put into the mouth of Boris also according to etiquette - everyday life. Therefore, even the very request to observe etiquette is etiquette!

Where does this situational etiquette come from? There is a lot of research to be done here: some of the etiquette rules are taken from everyday life, from real rituals, some were created in literature. Examples of real-life etiquette are numerous. The etiquette here is mainly church and princely (the top of feudal society). So, for example, in the “Reading about the life and destruction of Boris and Gleb”, which we have already quoted, when Vladimir sends Boris against the Pechenegs, Boris says goodbye to his father according to the etiquette of his time: “The blessed one fell before his father and kissed his nose more honestly, and Then we got up and put shoes on his neck, kissing him with tears.” Hagiographer of the late 11th century. did not witness this farewell and could not find a description of it in previous oral and written materials: he composed this scene based on ideas about how it should have taken place, taking into account the good manners and ideality of both characters.

Most of the “distributions” of previous editions are of this kind. A typical example: the appearance of a description of the funeral of Evpatiy Kolovrat in one of the editions of the 16th century. "Tales of Nikola Zarazsky." This description was not in the first editions; it was created on the basis of ritual and custom in the 16th century, when, for a number of reasons, there was a need to honor the main character of the Tale with a magnificent funeral.

It should be especially noted that only the behavior of ideal heroes was subject to etiquette norms taken from life, from real customs. The behavior of villains and negative characters did not obey this etiquette. It was subject only to the etiquette of the situation - purely literary in origin. Therefore, the behavior of villains did not lend itself to etiquette specification to the same extent as the behavior of ideal heroes. Fictional speeches are less often put into their mouths. The villains go roaring, “like a beast of divinity, wanting to devour the righteous.” They are compared to animals and, like animals, are not subject to real etiquette, but the very comparison of them with animals is a literary canon, it is a repeating literary formula. Here literary etiquette is entirely born in literature and is not borrowed from real life.

The desire to subordinate the presentation to etiquette and create literary canons can also explain the transfer of individual descriptions, speeches, and formulas from one work to another, which is common in medieval literature. In these transfers there is no conscious desire to deceive the reader, to pass off as a historical fact what is actually taken from another literary work. The point is simply that what was transferred from work to work was primarily what had to do with etiquette: speeches that should have been pronounced in a given situation, actions that should have been performed by the characters under given circumstances, the author’s interpretation what is happening, what is appropriate for the occasion, etc. What should be and what is is confused. The writer believes that etiquette entirely determined the behavior of the ideal hero, and he recreates this behavior by analogy. This is how, for example, borrowings are justified in the life of Dovmont P from the life of Alexander Nevsky S. P. These borrowings go primarily along the lines of observing etiquette. Charges against enemies are a matter of etiquette, and Dovmont goes on a campaign in the same way as Alexander Nevsky. Dovmont falls to his knee before the altar, like Alexander; prays like Alexander; receives a blessing from the abbot, just as Alexander receives it from the archbishop; goes against the enemies “with a small squad,” like Alexander. By transferring all these etiquette moments from the life of Alexander into his work, the author of Dovmont’s life did not at all assume that he was committing literary theft, sinning against the truth, or making things up.

When defining the artistic method of Old Russian literature, it is not enough to say that it tended towards idealization. There are different forms of idealization in literature. Medieval idealization is largely subordinated to etiquette. Etiquette in it becomes the form and essence of idealization. Etiquette also explains borrowing from one work to another, the stability of formulas and situations, ways of creating “common” editions of works, partly the interpretation of the facts that formed the basis of the works, and much more.

The Old Russian writer with invincible confidence put everything that happened historically into appropriate ceremonial forms and created various literary canons. Hagiographic, military and other formulas, etiquette self-recommendations of authors, etiquette formulas for the introduction of heroes, appropriate for the occasion of prayer, speeches, reflections, formulas of obituary characteristics and numerous actions and situations required by etiquette are repeated from work to work. Authors strive to introduce everything into known norms, classify everything, compare it with known cases from sacred history, provide appropriate quotations from sacred scripture, etc. The medieval writer looks for precedents in the past, is concerned with patterns, formulas, analogies, selects quotes, subordinates events, actions, thoughts, feelings and speeches of the characters and their own language to a pre-established “order”. If a writer describes the actions of a prince, he subordinates them to princely ideals of behavior; if his pen depicts a saint, he follows the etiquette of the church; if he describes the Campaign of the enemy of Rus', he also subordinates him to the ideas of his time about the enemy of Rus'. He subordinates military episodes to military ideas, hagiographic ones to hagiographic ones, episodes of the prince’s peaceful life to the etiquette of his court, etc.

The writer longs to introduce his work into the framework of literary canons, strives to write about everything “as it should be,” strives to subordinate to literary canons everything he writes about, but borrows these etiquette norms from different areas: from church ideas, from the ideas of a combat warrior, from the ideas of a courtier, from the ideas of a theologian, etc. There is no unity of etiquette in ancient Russian literature, just as there are no requirements for unity of style. Everything is subject to its own point of view. Military episodes are described by the writer according to the warrior’s ideas about the ideal warrior, hagiographic ones - according to the ideas of the hagiographer. He can move from one idea to another, everywhere striving to write according to ideas “befitting the occasion,” in words “befitting the occasion.”

We see something similar in ancient Russian painting: there each object is depicted from the point of view from which it can best be shown. There is no single point of view of the artist - there are many points of view, specific to each subject of the image or group of objects.

What does this literary etiquette of a medieval writer consist of? It is composed of ideas about how this or that course of events should have taken place; from ideas about how the actor should have behaved in accordance with his position; from ideas about what words a writer should use to describe what is happening. Before us, therefore, is the etiquette of the world order, the etiquette of behavior and the etiquette of words. Everything merges together into a single normative system, as if pre-established, standing above the author and not distinguished by internal integrity, since it is determined from the outside - by the objects of the image, and not by the internal requirements of the literary work.

It would be wrong to see in the literary etiquette of the Russian Middle Ages only a set of mechanically repeating patterns and stencils, a lack of creative invention, the “ossification” of creativity, and to confuse this literary etiquette with the patterns of individual mediocre works of the 19th century. The whole point is that all these verbal formulas, stylistic features, certain repeating situations, etc. are used by medieval writers not at all mechanically, but precisely where they are required. The writer chooses, reflects, and is concerned about the overall “prettyness” of the presentation. The most literary canons are varied by him, changing depending on his ideas about “literary decency.”

It is these ideas that are central to his work. That is why we prefer to talk about literary etiquette, and not just about literary stencils and templates, which, by the way, can not only change creatively, but also be completely absent in the narrative of a particular complex event. A military formula or a recurring situation is only a part of literary etiquette, and sometimes not even the most important one.

Repetitive formulas and situations are caused by the requirements of literary etiquette, but in themselves are not yet patterns. What we have here is creativity, and not a mechanical selection of stencils - creativity in which the writer strives to express his ideas about what is proper and proper, not so much by inventing something new as by combining the old.

The literary etiquette of the Russian Middle Ages needs to be studied primarily as a phenomenon of ideology, worldview, and idealizing ideas about the world and society. If we begin to study literary canons - all these military formulas, hagiographic formulas, etiquette provisions, etc. - without the literary etiquette and worldview that embraces them, we will not go beyond the elementary compilation of a card index of literary canons and will not understand the changes these literary canons undergo, without We will also understand the aesthetic value of the literature associated with them.

So, the study of the literary canons of the Russian Middle Ages, begun by the works of V. O. Klyuchevsky and A. S. Orlov, should, firstly, be significantly expanded (in addition to verbal formulas, one should study the norms of choice of language and style, literary canons in plot construction, individual situations, the nature of the characters, etc.), and secondly, the literary canons themselves must be considered as a consequence of the etiquette of the medieval worldview and explained in connection with medieval ideas about what is proper.

Literary etiquette, as we have already said, caused a special traditionalism of literature, the emergence of stable stylistic formulas, the transfer of entire passages from one work to another, the stability of images, metaphorical symbols, comparisons, etc.

To some researchers, this traditionalism seemed to be the result of the inertia of the “ancient Russian consciousness”, its inability to be inspired by the new, that is, the result of a simple lack of creativity. Meanwhile, the traditionalism of Old Russian literature is a fact of a certain artistic system, a fact closely connected with many phenomena of the poetics of Old Russian literary works, a phenomenon of artistic method. The desire for novelty, for updating artistic means, for bringing artistic means closer to what is depicted is a principle that has been fully developed in new literature. Therefore, the desire for “defamiliarization,” for surprise, for updating one’s perception of the world is by no means an eternal property of literary creativity, as it seemed and continues to seem to many literary scholars.

In particular, B.V. Tomashevsky distinguishes between tangible (noticeable) and intangible (unnoticeable) devices in any literary work. About tangible techniques, B.V. Tomashevsky writes the following: “The reason for the perceptibility of a technique can be twofold: their excessive old age and their excessive novelty. Outdated, old, archaic techniques are felt as an annoying relic, as a phenomenon that has lost its meaning, continuing to exist due to inertia, like a dead body among living beings. On the contrary, new techniques are striking in their unusualness, especially if they are taken from a repertoire that is still prohibited (for example, vulgarisms in high poetry).”

From the point of view of B.V. Tomashevsky, literature always strives to free itself from traditional techniques, hiding them or, on the contrary, exposing them. Techniques are born, live, grow old, die. However, even for the literary consciousness of modern times, traditionalism plays its positive role in the poetic systems of classicism and romanticism. It is known that many trends in art obliged writers to obey certain canons. Thus, Boileau ordered writers to follow classical models. This is what L. Ya. Ginzburg rightly writes in his book “On Lyrics”: “French classicism was the culmination of literary thinking with canons. He brought to the extreme the unmistakable effectiveness of poetic form, instantly recognizable to the reader.

Classicism built its developed genre-stylistic hierarchy on a precise hierarchy of religious, state, and ethical values.”

In the Middle Ages, the attitude towards literary technique was different: the traditional nature of the technique was not perceived as its disadvantage. Therefore, there is no desire specific to the literature of modern times to hide the technique or expose it. Reception is normal. It is used when depicting events and phenomena. It is required by literary etiquette. It evokes a certain reflex in the reader and serves as a signal to create a certain mood in the reader.

The effect of surprise was not of great importance in the ancient Russian literary work: the work was reread many times, its contents were known in advance. The Old Russian reader embraced the work as a whole: reading its beginning, he knew how it would end. The work unfolded before him not in time, but existed as a single, previously known whole. In any case, literature was a less “temporary” art than in modern times, when the reader, while reading, waits for how the work will end. Accordingly, the dynamic elements of literature, which Yu. Tynyanov so emphasized, played a noticeably smaller role in medieval literature than in modern literature.

The medieval reader, reading a work, seems to participate in a certain ceremony, includes himself in this ceremony, is present at a certain “action”, a kind of “divine service”. The writer of the Middle Ages does not so much depict life as transform and “dress up” it, making it ceremonial and festive. The writer is the master of ceremonies. He uses his formulas as signs, coats of arms. He hangs flags, gives ceremonial uniforms to life, and directs “decency.” Individual impressions of a literary work are not provided. A literary work is not intended for an individual, individual reader, although the work is not only read aloud to many listeners, but also by individual readers.

For us, the work “comes to life” in reading. The work exists in its reproduction by the reader - out loud or silently. On the contrary, a medieval scribe, creating or rewriting a work, creates a well-known literary “action”, “order”. This rank exists on its own. That’s why the work needs to be beautifully rewritten and bound in an expensive binding. This is the point of view of medieval “realism” (a philosophical movement opposite to nominalism) - a completely idealistic point of view, presuming the reality of the existence of ideas. A literary work lives an “ideal” and completely independent life. The reader does not “reproduce” this work in his reading; he only “participates” in the reading, just as a praying person participates in a divine service or is present at a certain solemn ceremony. Solemnity, a certain pomp and ceremony of literature is an integral quality of literature; it is inseparable from its etiquette, the use of the same ceremonial techniques.

We will return to this issue of stereotypes associated with the idealistic artistic methods of ancient Russian literature more than once. Looking ahead a little, it should still be noted that this is only one side of literature. Along with it, there is also its opposite, a kind of counterbalance - this is the desire for concreteness, for overcoming canons, for a realistic depiction of reality. We will also dwell on this issue further (see the section “Elements of Realism”).

One of the most interesting tasks of poetics is to find out the reasons why certain poetic formulas, images, metaphors, etc. were developed in literature. In the lecture “On the method and tasks of the history of literature as a science,” A. N. Veselovsky wrote: “... isn’t poetic creativity limited? known definite formulas, stable motifs that one generation adopted from the previous one, and this from the third, whose prototypes we will inevitably meet in epic antiquity and further, at the level of myth, in specific definitions of the primitive word? Doesn’t each new poetic era work on images bequeathed from time immemorial, necessarily revolving within their boundaries, allowing itself only new combinations of old ones and only filling them with that new understanding of life, which actually constitutes its progress before the past?

As can be seen from the above passage, A. N. Veselovsky believed that the traditional nature of formulas, motifs, images, and other things depended on the certain inertia of literary creativity. I think that this is not a matter of inertia, but of a certain aesthetic system. And this system must be studied in the same way as the reasons why this system gradually died out, being replaced by another system. Here we need to recall some features of literary development in the Middle Ages.

Yu. Tynyanov, in his article “On Literary Fact,” put forward a special principle of literary development - the fight against automation: “... when analyzing literary evolution, we come across the following stages: 1) in relation to the automated principle of construction, the opposite constructive principle is dialectically outlined; 2) its application is underway - the constructive principle seeks the easiest application; 3) it extends to the largest mass of phenomena; 4) it becomes automated and causes the opposite principles of design.” The principle of automation and the fight against it in literature presupposes a good sense of modernity in readers of literature. This did not happen in Ancient Rus'. The works lived there for many centuries. Old works were sometimes even more interesting than newly created works (they were interested in the “authority” of the work as a historical document, as a work significant in ecclesiastical terms, etc.). Therefore, the change in literary phenomena was not realized. In writing, everything that was written now or in the past was “simultaneous,” or rather, timeless. There was no clear consciousness of the movement of history, the movement of literature, there were no concepts of progress and modernity, therefore, there were no ideas about the obsolescence of a particular literary device, genre, ideology, etc.

Literature developed not because something in it became “obsolete” for the reader, became “automated,” sought “defamiliarization,” “exposure of the device,” etc., but because life itself, reality, and, first of all, the social ideas of the era demanded introducing new topics, creating new works.

Literature was even less subject to internal laws of development than in modern times.

Liberation from old visual means occurs in the Middle Ages not through their discovery and subsequent withering away, for the discovery of a traditional technique, formula, motif in itself in no way requires their removal, but through their excessive “formalization”, excessive external development at the expense of loss of internal content, weakening of significance in new historical and historical-literary conditions.

In new literature, in a traditional formula or in a traditional motif, first of all, the external side of the formula and motive dies out, ceases to be effective; in ancient Russian literature, the content dies out, the formula and motive “petrify”. The formula and motive can be filled with other content, and therefore their etiquette and the severity of their use in certain cases die out. The function of etiquette formulas and motives disappears before these formulas and motives themselves disappear. Literary works are being filled with “stray” formulas and traditional motifs that have lost their traditional “moorings” that stabilize them.

The system of literary etiquette and associated literary canons, which cannot in any way be equated to cliches, lasted in ancient Russian literature for several centuries. In the end, despite the fact that this system contributed to the “fertility” of literature and facilitated the emergence of new works, it led to a certain slowdown in literary development as a whole, although it never completely subdued it. In particular, the so-called elements of realism in ancient Russian literature, the presence of which is seen in a number of ancient Russian stories about feudal crimes (in the stories about the blinding of Vasilko Terebovlsky, the murder of Igor Olgovich, the crime of Vladimirka Galitsky, the murder of Andrei Bogolyubsky, the death of Vladimir Vasilyevich Volynsky, the blinding of Vasily II Dmitrievich, the death of Dmitry the Red, etc.), are a violation of literary canons. These violations are gradually increasing. In literature, forces are gradually developing that fought against literary etiquette, against literary canons, and led to their destruction.

How did the system of literary canons collapse? This process is very interesting. With the formation of the Russian centralized state, literary etiquette, it would seem, not only does not weaken, but, on the contrary, becomes unusually magnificent. Let us take, for example, the military formulas of the “Kazan History”, “The Chronicler of the Beginning of the Reign”, “The Degree Book” or “The Tale of Stefan Batory’s Finding in Pskov”. They are much more extensive and elaborate than in the Ipatiev Chronicle. The authors are not content with their short stable form. They introduce various kinds of “distribution”, strive to combine pomp with clarity, etc. But as a result of this kind of proliferation of literary canons, their stability is lost.

In this case, we must pay attention to the following circumstance: the destruction of literary canons took place simultaneously with the magnificent development of etiquette in real life. The study of the dependence of the decline in the role of literary canons on the rise in the importance of etiquette in state practice is of great interest for literary studies.

In fact, the ritual side of the life of the Russian state reached a high degree of development in the 16th century. Literature was forced to reproduce the contents of books of rank, the rites of crowning, and describe complex ceremonies. Literature as an art was in serious danger. At the same time, writers therefore strive to enliven the ceremonial side of their descriptions with actually observed details. The complication of etiquette is accompanied by the growth of realistic elements in literature, the reasons for which we will talk about later. This paradoxical combination of the complication of literary etiquette with the strengthening of elements of realism is clearly noticeable, for example, in “Kazan History” by S. This is how the opening of the meeting of the boyar duma is described in it. The boyars take their seats according to local traditions and make speeches appropriate to the occasion. Before the performance of the Russian troops, a review is held, the soldiers appear “dressed in their bright clothes and with all their youths, as well as their good horses in red utensils leading,” and it is especially emphasized that everything was exactly like that, “ as worthy of life even at Ratekh for governors”, that is, that everything was done according to etiquette. But the fact is that there were so many troops gathered in Moscow that in the city there was no room either in the streets or “in people’s houses” and they had to be stationed near the settlements “across the field and in the meadow in their tents,” and the tsar watched the passage of the army, standing “on their sheet ladders” - these are already details, vitally observed and not provided for by any etiquette.

In exactly the same way, there is a collision between the development of etiquette and the development of the tendency to specify the presentation in direct speech. Ivan the Terrible’s speech to his governors in the “Kazan History” exactly reproduces individual formulas from the address of Russian princes to the warriors before battles, but, unlike the brief princely encouragements of the 12th-13th centuries, Ivan the Terrible’s speech is lush and lengthy, individual formulas are concretized, comparisons are developed , they are given clarity, their meaning is explained.

The same path is followed by updating etiquette formulas. So, for example, the formula “like the blood of a mother-in-law” acquires visually imaginable features: “...like great puddles of rainwater, blood standing in low places and blackening the earth.”

To summarize, we can say that the phenomena of literary etiquette tend to develop in the 16th-17th centuries. to increase, to increase, and thus from a state of organization and differentiation they pass into a state of mixing and merging with surrounding forms. Stable, short and compact at first, etiquette then becomes more and more magnificent and at the same time vague and gradually dissolves in new literary phenomena of the 16th and 17th centuries. And this is by no means due to the “internal laws” of the development of literature and literary language. There is a collapse of etiquette in general, associated with changes in the essence of the feudalism that gives rise to it. The fact is that with the formation of a centralized state, the pomp of etiquette increases, but etiquette ceases to be a vital form of ideological coercion for feudalism: in a centralized state, the forms of external, direct coercion are quite diverse and reliable. The pomp of etiquette is necessary, but its coercion is not really necessary. From a phenomenon of ideological coercion, etiquette became a phenomenon in the design of state life. The process of the decline of literary etiquette therefore occurs in another way: the etiquette ritual exists, but it is divorced from the situation that requires it; etiquette rules, etiquette formulas remain and even grow, but they are observed extremely ineptly, used “inappropriately”, in the wrong cases when they are needed. Etiquette formulas are applied without the strict analysis that was characteristic of previous centuries. Formulas describing the actions of enemies are applied to Russians, and formulas intended for Russians are applied to enemies. The etiquette of the situation is also being shaken.

Russians and enemies behave the same, pronounce the same speeches, the actions of both are described in the same way, their emotional experiences.

Vivid examples of these mixtures of literary etiquette are given by one of the best literary works of the 16th century - “Kazan History”. A striking violation of literary etiquette is the description of the performance of the Russian army from Kolomna in “Kazan History”. The author of “Kazan History” speaks of the Russian army in images that previously could only be applied to the enemy’s army: there were as many Russian soldiers as the Babylonian king had when he attacked Jerusalem: “... as if about the arrival of the Babylonian king to Jerusalem and prophesied by Jeremiah: from the violence, he said, from the thunder of his chariots, and from the tread of his horses and elephants, the earth that was here will shake. And the Great Tsar, the Great Prince, departed through the open, great field of Kazan with many spoken nations serving him, with Russia, and with the Tatars, and with the Cherkassy, and with the Mordovians, and with the Fryags, and with the Germans, and with the Poles, in great and heavy strength three ways, on chariots and on horseback, and on the fourth way by rivers, in boats, leading with them a howl wider than the Kazan land.” Before us is a description of the performance of the enemy of the Russian land with “twelve languages,” but by no means the Russian Grand Duke with the Russian army. Elements of this description are taken from the description of Batu’s presence in Kyiv in the Ipatiev Chronicle PS.

Tsar Ivan the Terrible approaches Kazan “no worse than Antiochus who appeared when he came to capture Jerusalem.” True, the author of “Kazan History” makes a reservation: “... but he (Antioch. - D.L.) is unfaithful and filthy, and he wants to consume the Jewish law, and desecrate and destroy the Church of God, but (Ivan the Terrible. - D.L. .) faithful and against the infidels and for the lawlessness towards him and for their atrocities he will come to destroy them,” but this clause does not save the awkwardness, and the further description of the arrival of Russian troops near Kazan directly resembles the usual approaches of the enemy army to Russia: “And fill (Grozny. -D.L.) the entire Kazan land with their warriors, horsemen and foot soldiers; and was covered with an army of fields and mountains and valleys, and scattered like a bird throughout that land, and the warlord, and the captive of the Kazan land and region everywhere, without any restrictions, walking throughout the whole country around Kazan and to the end of it. And there was great human slaughter, and the blood of the barbarian land was watered; cronyism and wilds, and lakes and rivers are paved with Cherem bones. The land of Kazan is flooded with rivers, yozers, and blats velmi. For the sin of the Kazan people of that summer, not a single drop of rain fell from heaven to earth: from the heat of the sun, impenetrable places, wilds, and cronyism, and all the speech came out; and the Rustian forces throughout the land, along impassable paths, needlessly killed whatever they wanted, and drove away the herd of cattle.” This peculiar lament for the Kazan land represents an unheard-of violation of etiquette, and this is not the only violation; Similar violations are encountered at every step: military formulas have been preserved, but they are applied to both our own and the enemy indiscriminately. The literary “breeding” of the author of “Kazan History” is limited to a few reservations that emphasize his sympathy for the Russians, and nothing more.

The similarity of Ivan the Terrible with the enemy increases because, having approached Kazan, Ivan marveled at its beauty, just as Mengu Khan marveled at the beauty of Kiev: “... and looking at the wall heights and attack places and seeing and marveling at the unusual beauty of the walls and fortress of the city " As in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu,” the Kazan people fight in forays against the Russians: “one Kazan citizen fought against a hundred Rusyns, and two against two hundred.”

The description of the attack of the Russian troops on Kazan is reminiscent of the description of the siege of Ryazan by Batu: the Russians approach Kazan day and night for forty days, “not allowing the Kazan people to sleep from labor, and plotting many machinations for the battering walls, and working a lot, but it is different, but otherwise successful and nothing harms the hail; but like a great mountain of stone, the city stands firm and motionless, neither staggering nor wavering from the strong beating of the cannon. And the wall-beating fighters would never imagine that they would create a hailstorm.”

The speeches of Kazan residents are unusual for enemies. They are filled with military valor and courage, loyalty to their homeland, its customs and religion. The Kazan people say to each other, strengthening themselves for battle: “Let us not be afraid, O brave Kazan citizens, of the fear and reprimand of the Moscow Ugaubi (so! - D. L.) and many of his Russian forces, like the sea, the waves beating against the stone, and like the great forest, rustling in vain Our city is strong and great, it has high walls and iron gates, and the people in it are brave, and there is a lot of food and contents for ten years to feed us. Let us not mark our good faith in Sratsyn and let us not spare the shedding of our blood, let us not go into captivity to work for non-believers in a foreign land, for Christians who are inferior in race to us and who have stolen the blessing.” The formulas of Ingvar Ingorevich’s lament from S. P.’s “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” are put into the mouths of Kazan residents. The despair of the Kazan residents is described in a way that previously only the despair of the Russians would have been described. Kazan people say: “Where there is now we will hide from evil Rus'. And then unkind guests came to us and poured out the bitter cup of death for us to drink.” True, the awkwardness of such a lyrical attitude towards the emotional experiences of enemies is softened by the subsequent words about the “bitter cup”, which, in turn, the Kazan people once forced “evil Rus'” to drink: “...with it (that is, with this cup. - D. L .) we sometimes often drink from them, but now we ourselves are forced to drink the same bitter mortal drink from them.” Violations of etiquette extend to such an extent that the enemies of Rus' pray to the Orthodox God and see divine visions, and the Russians commit atrocities as enemies and apostates.

One could try to explain these strange violations of etiquette by the fact that the author of the “Kazan History” was a prisoner in Kazan and, perhaps, even a secret supporter of the Kazan people, but it is appropriate to recall that the author of the “Tale of the Capture of Constantinople” was from the second half of the 15th century. Nestor Iskander was also a prisoner of the Turks, but it is impossible to observe a single case of violation of literary etiquette by the latter. The sympathy of the author of “Kazan History” with the Russians and Grozny is beyond doubt. And the sheer number of copies of “Kazan History” circulating among Russian readers testifies to the fact that we have before us a work that is by no means hostile to Russians.

Violations of literary etiquette in the Kazan History are similar to violations of the unity of point of view on the characters in the Chronograph of 1617. The author of the Kazan History confuses etiquette in relation to Russians and their enemies, just as the author of the Chronograph of 1617 combines bad and good qualities in the persons he characterizes. And here and there the primitive moralizing attitude towards the object of the story is destroyed, with the only difference being that in the Chronograph of 1617. this destruction was carried out deeper and more consistently.

In his recent study of The Kazan Story, Edward Keenan continued my observations on the destruction of literary etiquette and suggested that, along with the process of degradation of the old etiquette, in the Kazan Story there is an attempt to build a new literary etiquette - an etiquette characteristic of chivalric romance in the West. The characters in a chivalric romance behave regardless of which camp, country or religion they belong to. They are praised for their knightly qualities - for loyalty, nobility, courage - as such. The examples he gives from “Kazan History” are interesting and deserve serious attention, especially because they mark the beginning of the liberation of literature from medieval didacticism. The internal laws of plot development take hold of literature and create a new “red and sweet story” - “The Kazan Story”, a step forward in the genre development of literature.

However, E. Keenan's observations require continuation and development.

Thus, the destruction of the system of literary etiquette began in the 16th century, but this system was not completely destroyed either in the 16th or 17th centuries, but in the 18th century. partially replaced by another. We especially note that the destruction of etiquette took place primarily in the secular part of literature. In the sphere of the church, literary etiquette was more necessary, and here it persisted longer, although Avvakum staged a real revolt against it - however, more like self-immolation, for the literary effect of this rebellion against etiquette could only exist as long as he himself continued to exist. literary etiquette, which nourished the work of Avvakum in this regard. And in fact, Habakkuk’s actively destructive style, despite all its attractive power, had no continuation...

The literary etiquette of Ancient Rus' and the literary canons associated with it require careful, comprehensive description and “cataloging.” It would be possible to compile an interesting and useful dictionary of etiquette formulas and provisions. Many questions of literary form can be explained as a result of a complete study of this phenomenon specific to the Middle Ages. In this chapter we limited ourselves to the most preliminary formulation of the question, without at all exhausting all the problems that arise in connection with this topic.

There is still a lot of specific and general research to be done before this question becomes more or less clear as a subject of study. In particular, it is extremely important to carefully study the phenomena opposing literary etiquette, destroying literary canons, because the artistic methods of the Middle Ages are extremely diverse and cannot be reduced only to idealization, only to normative requirements, and even more so to literary etiquette and literary canons. All kinds of categorical and limiting judgments would only be harmful here. One should strive to see the phenomena of literary etiquette and literary canons in all their breadth and diversity, but also not to exaggerate their significance in medieval literature. At the same time, one must see in literary etiquette a system of creativity, and not a simple stereotype. In no case should one equate the canon and the template. What we see is the originality of literature, not its poverty.

There were two literary languages in ancient Rus': Church Slavonic and Old Russian literary language. Only in the latter can different types and styles be distinguished. Church Slavonic was the common literary language of the Eastern and Southern Slavs. They not only had different stylistic functions, but were in different conditions of existence. The Church Slavonic language was a common language for many Slavic countries, with which ancient Rus' was in constant literary communication. This was the language of traditional worship, traditional church books.

The Russian literary language was associated with the living, oral language of offices, judicial institutions, and official political and public life. Business language changed much more rapidly than Church Slavonic.

In terms of its types, the Russian literary language was much more diverse than the Church Slavonic language, less stable, less closed. It did not have that fixed base of “models” that the Church Slavonic language possessed.

Both literary languages of ancient Rus' - Russian and Church Slavonic - were in constant interaction. Literary etiquette sometimes required quick transitions from one language to another. These transitions sometimes took place over the shortest distances: within the limits of one work. That. the use of the Church Slavonic language in the Middle Ages was clearly subject to its own rules and etiquette; church subjects required church language, secular ones - Russian.

The requirements of literary etiquette give rise to the desire to distinguish between the use of the Church Slavonic language and Russian in all its varieties. However, literary etiquette cannot be limited to the phenomena of verbal expression. Not everything verbal is only a verbal phenomenon. Certain expressions and a certain style of presentation are selected for appropriate situations. These situations are created by writers exactly as required by etiquette requirements.

We can conclude that the literary etiquette of a medieval writer consists of:

1.
ideas about how a particular course of events should have taken place,

2.
ideas about how the actor should have behaved in accordance with his position,

3.
ideas about what words a writer should use to describe what is happening.

Before us, therefore, is the etiquette of the world order, the etiquette of behavior and the etiquette of words.

Literary etiquette caused a special traditionalism of literature, the emergence of stable stylistic formulas, the transfer of entire passages from one work to another, the stability of images, comparisons, etc.

The system of literary etiquette and associated literary canons, which cannot in any way be equated to cliches, lasted in ancient Russian literature for several centuries. In the end, this system hampered the development of literature.????? In the 16th century, the destruction of literary etiquette began. It is noteworthy that at this time there was a magnificent development of etiquette in real life.

To summarize, we can say that the phenomena of literary etiquette in the 16th and 17th centuries tend to increase, to increase, and move into a state of mixing and merging with surrounding forms. Etiquette becomes more magnificent and at the same time vague, and gradually dissolves in new literary phenomena of the 16-17 centuries. From a phenomenon of coercion, etiquette became a phenomenon of the design of state life. The process of the decline of literary etiquette therefore occurs in another way: the etiquette ritual exists, but it is divorced from the situation that requires it; etiquette rules and formulas remain and even grow, but they are observed extremely ineptly, used “inappropriately”, in the wrong cases when it is necessary. Etiquette formulas are applied without the strict analysis that was characteristic of previous centuries. Formulas describing the actions of enemies are applied to Russians, and formulas intended for Russians are applied to enemies. The etiquette of the situation is also being shaken. Russians and enemies behave the same, pronounce the same speeches, the actions of both are described in the same way, their emotional experiences.

Thus, the destruction of the system of literary etiquette began in the 16th century, but this system was not completely resolved either in the 16th or 17th centuries, and in the 18th century it was partially replaced by another. The destruction of etiquette occurred primarily in the secular part of literature. In the church sphere, literary etiquette was more necessary, and here it was preserved longer.

Chronicle time

The literary genre that first came into sharp conflict with the closedness of plot time is the chronicle.

Time in the chronicle is not uniform. In different chronicles, in different parts of the chronicles, throughout their centuries-old existence, diverse time systems are reflected. Russian chronicles are a grandiose arena for the struggle of basically two diametrically opposed ideas about time: one is old, preliterate, epic, torn into separate time series, and the other is newer, more complex, uniting everything that happens into a kind of historical unity and developing under the influence of new ones. ideas about Russian and world history that emerged with the formation of a single Russian state, aware of its place in world history, among the countries of the world.

Epic time is combined with this newer, “historical” idea of time in approximately the same way as in feudal society the remnants of old social formations are combined with the new - feudal, as elements of the natural - communal-patriarchal - are preserved in the feudal economy.

Epic time and time in new historical concepts are chronicled in a tireless struggle lasting several centuries. Only in the 16th century. clear signs of the victory of the new consciousness of time are determined as a single stream capturing the entire Russian land and the entire world history.

Let us dwell on the two types of ideas about time and the struggle between them in a little more detail.

The most ancient ideas about time, attested by the Russian language, were not as egocentric as our modern ideas are. Now we imagine the future in front of us, the past behind us, the present somewhere next to us, as if surrounding us. In Ancient Rus', time seemed to exist independently of us. Chroniclers spoke about the “foremost” princes - about the princes of the distant past. The past was somewhere ahead, at the beginning of events, a number of which did not correlate with the subject who perceived it. "Backward" events were events of the present or future. “Back” is the inheritance remaining from the deceased, this is the “last” that connected him with us. “Forward glory” is the glory of the distant past, the “first” times; “The glory that is behind” is the glory of the last deeds. This idea of “front” and “back” was possible because time was not oriented towards the subject perceiving this time. It was thought of as objectively and independently existing.

(1) It is curious that M. Guyot (The Origin of the Idea of Time. St. Petersburg, 1899. P. 39) believes that the future was initially, always considered as lying in front of a person, what he strives for, and the past is behind, from which he has left and to which it does not return.

The time flow was not single, there were many time, cause-and-effect series, and each series had its own “front”, its own beginning, and its own end, its own “back” edge. To some extent, these ancient ideas about time were reflected in the artistic time of epics. There were also closed time series here, closely related to the plot. Combining the time of different epics into a single time and creating contaminated epics, epic vaults is a relatively late phenomenon.

In Russian epics, time is “unidirectional.” We saw this in the chapter on the artistic time of folklore. The action of epics never returns. The story of the epic, as it were, seeks to reproduce the sequence in which events occurred in reality. Moreover, the epic only talks about what happened or what has changed, but not about what seems unchanged. Therefore, the purely descriptive aspect addressed to static phenomena is extremely insignificant in epics. The epic narrative avoids stops and static moments, preferring action. It tells only about what is directly necessary for understanding action, but not reality - dynamics, but not statics.

(2) See: Skaftymov A.P. Poetics... P. 90.

In the section “Artistic Time in Folklore” we have already seen that the epic time of epics is, as it were, closed by a plot. The time line develops primarily within a single and usually one plot of the epic. The connection with historical time is established through a general indication of the era: the action of the epic takes place in some conventional Russian antiquity - under the epic Prince Vladimir, at the time of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, in the era of independence of Novgorod. The time that epics depict is a conventional era, located somewhere in the distant past and very loosely connected with modernity - without any transitions. This epic era is a kind of “island” in time, in “antiquity.” This epic time is no longer in the historical songs of the 16th-17th centuries. Historical songs reflect a gradually newer historical consciousness. They already have an idea not only of antiquity, but also of history, of its movement. The isolation of folklore time begins to collapse in them.

The events in them continue in modern times.

Compared with epic epics and even historical songs, the chronicle marks a later stage in the development of ideas about historical time. The chronicle is younger than epics and historical songs. In the chronicle, the isolation of time is destroyed even more than in historical songs.

In fact, the chronicler, on the one hand, seems to strive for a closed time. Russian history (especially in the most ancient chronicles) has its beginning (and the beginning is already a certain element of limited time). The chronicler looks for this beginning either in the calling of the Varangians, who laid the foundation of the princely dynasty, or in the first precisely dated event from which he could begin his presentation and “put down the numbers.” The histories of principalities and cities have their beginning (however, later they very often dissolve this beginning in Russian history, with which they are associated in their introductory part).

However, on the other hand, having a clearly defined beginning, chronicles often do not have an end, an “ending,” since the end is, as it were, constantly destroyed by the present, new events advancing on it. Modernity is growing and “escaping” from the narrator. However, the story of the native country, principality, city tends to end in the chronicle with some significant event: the death of one prince and the installation of another, victory, the annexation of another principality, the appearance of a new metropolitan, the receipt of a title, etc. This ending event in the chronicle remains effective in the chronicle only as long as it is effective in reality itself. Then the chronicle narrative continues to a new milestone, which for some time again seems final. The inertia of closed time is also reflected in the chronicle, despite the fact that the chronicle as a whole can be considered as one of the most “open” works.

The chronicle records only part of the events, creating the impression of the immensity of the historical movement. The chronicle is not confined to one plot (for example, a story about a war or battle, a biography of a prince, etc.). The theme of the chronicle's narrative is the history of the principality, Russian history in general. But Russian history in the chronicles is not closed, but is connected by its beginning with “world” history in its medieval understanding. World history usually precedes Russian history in chronicles. At the beginning of many Russian chronicles there are abbreviations from chronicles and chronographs.

By snatching this or that fact from the general flow of numerous events and recording it in its records, the chronicle creates the impression of an overwhelming abundance of events in human history, its incomprehensibility, its greatness and God-directedness.

However, the chronicle does not tell about this or that country, land, principality, and not about humanity, not about the people, but only about what happened to this country and these people. It doesn't even tell a story, but rather the events of that story. Much remains outside the chronicle's presentation, and this flow of history, beyond the chronicle, makes itself known to the reader in one way or another. The chronicler seems to realize the incomprehensibility of everything that happens.

The flow of history is only partially captured by the chronicler, humbly aware of his powerlessness to tell everything.

The chronicle records only the most “official” events, only what obviously changes, what needs to be remembered, what happens and happens.

The chronicle does not describe everyday life, does not dwell on the social structure, does not record the political system of the country: all this seems to the chronicler unchanged, as if established from time immemorial, and therefore unworthy of attention. The chronicler talks only about the dynamics, and not about the statics of life.

And he understands this dynamic with medieval limitations.

The monotonous and limited selection of events noted by the chronicler emphasizes the repeatability of history, the “unimportance” of its individual events from the point of view of the timeless meaning of existence and the simultaneous importance of the eternal. The only exception, when the chronicle narrative leaves the dynamism of the story, is the death of a historical person - a prince or a church hierarch. Here the flow of events seems to be interrupted. The chronicler stops the description of the flow of events in order to, stopping the story, honor the memory of the deceased in an obituary article, summarize his activities, characterize him from the point of view of eternal values, list virtues and good deeds, and in other cases describe his appearance. Death itself is static. It interrupts life, stops the flow of events.

This stop, as it were, calls for reflection on the meaning of what was lived, to give a description of the departed person.

Every event has its own internal and external sides. The inner side of events for the chronicler consists in the divine will manifested in them. The chronicler sometimes deliberately avoids delving into this. the inner side of events, from their theological explanations. He retreats from his “mindless statement” of events only when he has the opportunity to explain them by supernatural causes, when he sees in them the “finger of God”, the divine will, or in those rare cases when he is distracted from the presentation of events in order to read to his readers Instruction: “About love, Russian prince, do not be seduced by the empty and charming glory of this world, which is worse than a spider and like a wall to walk past; You didn’t bring anything into this world, you can attribute it below.”

(1) Simeonovskaya Chronicle under 6778 PSRL. T. XVIII, 1913. P. 73.

Consequently, the chronicler does not establish a pragmatic connection between the individual historical events he records because he allegedly does not notice it, but because his own point of view rises above it. The chronicler strives to see events from the height of their “eternal” rather than real meaning. Often, the lack of motivation, attempts to establish the cause-and-effect relationship of events, the refusal of real explanations of events emphasize the highest predetermination of the course of history, its “eternal” meaning. The chronicler is a visionary of higher connections. He sometimes “speaks” more with his silence than with his story. His silence is meaningful and wise.

But reverently silent in the significant, he is eloquent in the insignificant. The chronicle is cluttered with individual facts. The composition of chronicle articles is often so patchy and fragmentary that it seems chaotic. We can easily be deceived and think that the cluttering of the chronicle with individual facts is a sign of its “factuality”, attachment to everything earthly, everyday, to gray historical reality, to descriptions of the discord of princes, their struggle among themselves, to wars, to the turmoil of feudal life. The chronicler writes about the reigns of princes and their deaths, about moves, campaigns, marriages, intrigues... But it is precisely in these descriptions of seemingly random events that his religious rise above life is reflected. This rise allows the chronicler to show the illusory nature of life, the transient nature of everything that exists. The chronicler seems to equate all events and does not see much difference between major and minor historical events. He is not indifferent to good and evil, but he looks at everything that happens from his own high point of view, leveling everything. He monotonously introduces more and more new news using the words “the same summer”, “the same spring” or “the same summer”: “In the summer of 6691. The church of St. Epatius Radko and his brother was erected on Rogatei Street. That same summer, Vsevolod marched on the Bulgarian with his entire region, and killed the Bulgarian prince Glebovits Izyaslav. That same winter, Plskovitz fought with Lithuania, and did a lot of harm to Plskovitsa.” “In the summer of 6666. Rostislav went to Smolsk and with the princess, and seated his son Svyatoslav on the table in Novgorod, and Davyd - on Novem Targa. That same summer, due to our sins, there was a lot of pestilence among the people, and a lot of horses died, as it was impossible to quickly get to Targu through the city, neither by rowing, nor out into the field of currants; the cattle also died. That same summer, Arkad went to Kiev to be appointed bishop, and was quickly appointed by Metropolitan Kostyantin, and came to Novgorod, on the 13th day of September, for the canon of the Holy Exaltation. In the same summer, Mstislav Izyaslavitsa defeated Davydovitsya Izyaslav, and drove him out of Kiev, and called Rostislav, his hero, to Kiev on the table. That same autumn, Dionysius was installed as abbot of St. George.”

(1) [-?-]Novgorod first chronicle of the older and younger editions. M.; L., 1950. P. 37.

(2) Ibid. P. 30. 544

The chronicler looks at historical life from such a height from which the differences between big and small become insignificant - everything seems equalized and moving equally slowly and “epicly”.

Life is reduced to one religious denominator. The pragmatic connection is not described, and not because the chronicler is unable to notice it, but because the chronicler thereby hints at the existence of another, more important connection. The pragmatic connection does not contradict, but it interferes with the perception of this serious, religious connection of events - a connection under the sign of eternity. That is why in the chronicle there is no plot depiction of events, there is no intrigue, there is no generally coherent story about history. There are only individual facts and individual stories about individual events. A coherent narrative changes its function within the chronicle. A coherent story, with a plot and a pragmatic explanation of what is happening, is included in the chronicle as an organic part of its narrative, and remains as much a statement of the event as short articles recording a historical fact. The chronicler glimpses a special historical truth that stands above private events.

The chronicler’s system of depicting the course of historical events is a consequence not of “special thinking,” but of a special philosophy of history. It depicts the entire course of history, not the correlation of events. It describes the movement of facts in their mass. He tries not to notice the pragmatic connection of facts, since for him their general dependence on the divine will is more important. Facts and events arise by will from above, but not because some of them cause others in the “earthly” sphere.

The capricious intermittency and incompleteness of practical, real explanations emphasize the awareness that life is controlled by deeper, otherworldly forces. Much may seem to the reader of the chronicle meaningless, vain, “trifling.” This is the goal of the chronicler. It shows the “vanity” of history. “Let us begin to tell of countless armies, and great labors, and frequent wars, and many seditions, and frequent uprisings, and many rebellions...” writes the chronicler.

In the chronicle we can also find the following statements by the chronicler: “We have heard from the ancients telling the scriptures, and more than the famous, we have listened with reverence to the old chronicler, who was in Veliky Novgorod in ancient times, when the former bridge structure was torn apart by the multitude of waters and the disturbance of waves; and such a great number was found in the Scripture, and some other sign came to pass, for our punishment I saw in the Scripture and in the sayings of the wisest men who loved to read the ancient scriptures, and we heard from them: “As Solomon said.”

(1) Ipatiev Chronicle under 1227; Chronicle according to the Ipatsky list. St. Petersburg, 1871. P. 501.

(2) Chronicle of Abraham // PSRL. T. XVI, part I. 1889. Stlb. 173.

Comparisons with the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments help the chronicler explain the repetition of events and their meaning. Sometimes the chronicler more briefly states the purpose of his notes: “And this will not be forgotten in the last births.”

These rare statements by the chronicler confirm his desire to record events for memory and extract them from other writings for memory: not to tell history, but to consolidate historical facts in the mind. In this consolidation of events for memory, the chronicler sees the moralizing meaning of his work.

When events, as in the life of a saint, or in Alexandria, or in any historical story, are connected into one plot line, one has to be reminded of the vanity of human history. It must be explained to the reader.

There is no particular need for such explanations in the chronicle. They are rare. The vanity of history is emphasized in the chronicle by the very artistic, historical method by which the presentation is carried out.

The eternal in the chronicle is given in the aspect of the temporal. The more the temporality of events is emphasized, the more their eternal and timeless meaning is revealed. The more often the chronicler reminds of the transience and fleetingness of existence, the slower and more epic the chronicle’s presentation.

Time is subordinate to eternity. Tamed by eternity, it flows slowly. In the chronicle, all events are subordinated to the smooth and measured flow of time. Time does not speed up in the narration of the personal destinies of historical figures and does not slow down during significant events. It flows epically calmly, following not hours of events, but years, rarely numbers. The chronicler creates an “equalized” flow of events following each other in the measured rhythm of numbers and years, and does not recognize the uneven rhythm of cause-and-effect relationships.

The majestic flow of time equalizes small and large, strong and weak, significant events and insignificant, meaningful moments of history and meaningless ones. The action is not in a hurry and does not lag behind, it is above reality. It is completely different in plot literature, where attention is focused on the climactic points and, as it were, lingers on them, causing time to flow unevenly and intermittently.

In historical stories, time moves slower in some cases and faster in others.

The strict sequence of chronology and the slowness of the story create the impression of the “inexorability” of history, its irreversibility, and fatal nature. Each entry is to a certain extent independent, but there is still a missing connection between them, the possibility of other entries about other events. The absence of narrative transitions in a number of cases creates the impression of not only the inevitability of the course of history, but also its certain monotony. The rhythmic alternation of events is the steps of history, the chiming of the clock in the city “clock bell”, the “pulsation” of time, the beats beaten off by fate.

This chronicle method of depicting events is applied in the chronicle only to Russian history. “Sacred history,” world history, is depicted in chronicles (mainly in their initial parts) in more general and significant terms. The chronicle and chronographic ways of depicting history, which exist simultaneously, are deeply different. The events of the Old and New Testaments cannot be depicted with such epic contempt for them as in the chronicles. Each event of the Old and New Testaments has its own symbolic, theological meaning. Sacred history as a whole therefore has an “eternal” meaning. There's no fuss of history. Time in sacred history flows differently: what has happened does not disappear, it continues to be remembered by the church, and is reproduced in church services. There is more “eternal” in the “temporal” of sacred history. This is why there is such a difference in the narration of the chronograph and the palea, on the one hand, and the chronicle, on the other.

Much in this chronicler’s view of time is the result of his artistic, historical method, and much appears in the chronicle spontaneously, under the influence of the ways in which the chronicle was written.

The methods of chronicling are organically connected with her artistic method and enhance the artistic effect of her method. Let's look at this in more detail.

In the chronicle, as we have already seen, the recording of events prevails over the narration of events. The chronicler is not so much a storyteller as a “protocolist.” He records and records. The hidden meaning of his recordings is their relative contemporaneity with events. That is why the chronicler strives to preserve the records of his predecessors in the form in which they were made, and not to retell them. For the chronicler, the previous text of the chronicle or the historical story he uses is a document, a document about the past, made in this past. His own text is also a document, but a document of the present, made in this present. To record an event, not to let it be forgotten, to disappear from the memory of subsequent generations is the main goal of the chronicler who keeps chronicles; he captures the vain… . The chronicle record stands at the transition of the present to the past. This process of transition is extremely significant in the chronicle. The chronicler “without deception”, in fact, records the events of the present - what was in his memory and then, accumulating new records, during subsequent rewrites of chronicle texts, thereby pushing these records into the past. The chronicle record, which at the time of its composition related to an event of the present or just recently happened, gradually turns into a record of the past - more and more distant. The chronicler's remarks, exclamations and comments, which when written were the result of the chronicler's excitement, his “empathies”, his political interest in them, then become dispassionate documents. They do not disturb either the temporal sequence or the epic calm of the chronicler. From this point of view, it is clear that the artistic image of the chronicler, invisibly present in the chronicle presentation, appears in the reader’s mind in the image of a contemporary recording what is happening, and not in the image of a “scientific and inquisitive historian” creating chronicle vaults, as he appears in studies of Russian history. chronicles. The literary image of the chronicler diverges from the real one.

The chronicler reacts vividly to the events of our time, but the subsequent compiler, mechanically combining the news of different chronicles, gives them an impassive character.

The vanity of history appears more and more in chronicle records as their number increases, as the diversity of these records, created by mechanically connecting them, increases. The more the chronicle is rewritten, the more complex and voluminous it becomes, acquiring the character of extensive chronicle collections, the more calm and “indifferent” the presentation becomes.

The real chronicler and his artistic image, as I have already said, are different. Real chroniclers are young people (Lavrenty - the compiler of the Laurentian Chronicle) and old people, monks and representatives of the white clergy (Novgorodian German Voyata), and princes (Monomakh and his son Mstislav), and employees of the posadnik hut (in Pskov), but artistically - there is only one image of the chronicler. This is an old man, indifferently listening to good and evil. This image was brilliantly reproduced by Pushkin in Pimen’s monologue.

So, the artistic image of the chronicler largely depends on the way the chronicle was written and on his artistic method. Not the least role in the creation of this image was played by the above-described “aging” of chronicle records. The “antiquity” of the chronicle records “aged” the chronicler himself, made him even more indifferent to life than he actually was, forced him to rise above time, to recognize even more the vanity of everything that happened. The epic image of the chronicler, common to all chronicles, was created by the very method of compiling chronicles, by the tasks that were set for chronicle writing. This image became more and more defined and integral in the process of subsequent work by the compilers and editors of the chronicle collections, who deepened the diversity, mechanicalness and “calmness” of the chronicle records.

Let us now turn to how, gradually, as a result of the struggle within the described system, epic time was conquered by historical time.

The story of events is their internally ordered transmission. Recording events requires only external order. Documents need to be filed. This “filing” of chronicle records - documents was the external form of chronicles: strict chronological timing, breakdown of all records by year. The chronicler strives to create a “chain of events”, by an external method of stringing together records in their strict chronological sequence.

In this chronicle form of presentation there is some external opposition to the epic consciousness of history that was still active. The epic uses a special, epic method of depicting time: time develops within the plot, the events of the plot determine time. If there are many events - “many”, that is, for a long time, artistic time is also represented. If there are no events, artistic time passes instantly, conditionally reflected only in the epic formula “thirty years and three years”, etc.

Consequently, the time of the epic is compressed depending on the saturation of its events. This method of compressing time in the epic is directly opposite to the “expansion” of time in the chronicle with the help of annual records. The weather method of presentation in the chronicle, recording by years, are a kind of “hooks” with the help of which the chronicler strives for an objective reflection of the smooth passage of time, independent of its saturation with events. This desire extends so far that for those years for which he has no records of events, he still leaves the date: “In the summer of 6775 there was nothing,” or writes; “There was silence,” that is, it notes that there was still something. Consequently, unlike epics, the chronicle has the idea of a single objectively existing time, independent of its saturation with events, and an attempt to reflect this objective time by creating a rigid chronological network that rhythmically breaks and connects the presentation.

From the point of view of the development of ideas about time, this was a huge step forward. The progress was even greater than the consciousness of many chroniclers and especially their readers allowed, and this contradiction was constantly reflected in the chronicles. We often encounter in the chronicles a return to old ideas about time. One form of such return was local time constraints. To understand the essence of this “local limitation” of the chronicle sense of time, we need to return to the principle of the integrity of the image that we have already mentioned, which is reflected both in the epic and in ancient Russian literature.

The principle of image integrity operates in the epic consciousness. It leads to the fact that in the epic one series of events is depicted, one plot unfolds. We also know in epics that plots are connected, but by stringing them onto a more general plot, which allows us not to violate the chronological “unidirectionality” of the presentation. Based on various stories about the hero’s exploits in the epic, his “biography” can be created: the stories can be arranged in chronological order - from his birth and childhood to death. Thus, in the records of epics there are several cases of combining several epics about Ilya Muromets into one consolidated epic poem. There are records of epics covering the entire cycle of stories about Ilya Muromets, and the stories are always connected to each other according to a chronological principle. Before us is the enfilading principle of connecting various epics.

(1) Simeonovskaya chronicle... P. 72.

(2) See: Astakhova A. M. Ilya Muromets in the Russian epic // Ilya Muromets. Prepare texts, article and commentary. A. M. Astakhova. M.; L., 1958. P. 393.

In the chronicle, the primacy of notes over the story seems to strive to destroy this integrity and unity of artistic vision. It develops, as we have already said, more than one action; it does not convey an integral plot, but gives many fragmented impressions. However, at the same time, the chronicle is subject to the same principle of image integrity.

Russian chronicles strive to present the history of the principality on the basis of their records, to combine the history of the principalities into the history of the Russian land as a whole, and to connect the history of the Russian land with world history through special chronographic introductions compiled on the basis of translated Byzantine chronicles.

As a rule, the most significant Russian chronicles begin from the creation of the world, from the flood or from the Babylonian Pandemonium, from which, according to the Bible, the peoples of the world got their beginning. The fan of events in The Tale of Bygone Years diverges from the Babylonian pandemonium. This is where the Slavs originate. The beginning of the Slavs turns into a message about the division of the Slavs, the division of the Slavs turns into a story about Russian tribes, then a chain of events in Russian history is built. This uniting knot of events in Russian history forms the basis of local chronicles. “The Tale of Bygone Years” or the “Initial Code” preceding it, with its world-historical introduction, form the basis of most Russian chronicles.

This means that the chronicle records are united not only by the annual network of chronicles, but also by the collection of Russian lands by their common beginning in world history. The desire for completeness of information, for the depiction of the majestic, finds its magnificent embodiment in Russian chronicles. The majestic flow of history seems to be opposed to the vanity and insignificance of the individual people who create this flow of events.

The single principle of chronological sequence is also the desire for completeness of the image. The stringing of events in chronological order is reflected in the style of presentation of the chronicle, in the typical monotony of turns, emphasizing the measured “step of history,” its gait, rhythm. Even the syntax of the chronicle language is indicative, in which syntactic composition predominates over syntactic subordination. The syntax of the chronicles is the construction of a complex sentence, characteristic of the ancient Russian language: the simple succession of one sentence after another, in which the whole is maintained by the fact that the sentences are united by the unity of content.

(1) See: Obnorsky S.P. Essays on the history of the Russian literary language of the older period. M.; L., 1946. S. 175-176.

The unity of content for chronicle records was also determined by territorial characteristics. The time of the chronicles is also “local time.” Time seems to be torn between the territories of the principalities. But just as in feudal Rus' centripetal tendencies met in political life with centralizing aspirations, in the chronicles “local time” was constantly struggling with a single time, externally introduced in the chronicle vaults by an annual network superimposed on everything.

Let us dwell in some detail on this “local time”.

The coexistence of different time series is just as possible in a medieval literary work, just as the coexistence of different perspective projections is possible in an icon. Some architectural detail is depicted in the projection on the right, but on the same icon next to it another detail is depicted in the projection on the left. The third projection shows a table and chair standing in the foreground (see, for example, Rublev’s “Trinity”).

Similar differences in the projection of time are possible in a literary work with two or more plots. These various time systems are also present in the chronicles (until the 16th century), but they are overcome by the desire to subordinate them to a single annual network, which includes everything described.

However, this desire is not always fully realized. “Seams” between different chronological systems up to the 16th century. are constantly visible in chronicles. Different chronological systems are caused not by different plots, as in a sequential narrative (the chronicle does not know cross-cutting plots), but by the fact that the events take place in different principalities and in different cities of Rus'.

The connection between time and place in Ancient Rus' was constantly manifested. It existed, of course, not in every place, but only in those that had their own history: therefore, it is especially intensified in historical, revered places, surrounded by an aura of holiness. Bishop Simon, in his letter to Polycarp, included in the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon, says that it is better to live one day in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery than a thousand years in the villages of sinners; further he illustrates his idea with a story about the Pechersk Monastery, its beginning and its devotees. The sanctity of a place lies in its history. History is attached to the area, inseparable from geographical locations. Russian history is the history of the Russian land - territories, cities, principalities, monasteries, churches.

(1) “One day in the house of God’s mother is more than a thousand years away, and one would deign to stay in it more than to live in the villages of sinners” (Abramovich D. Kiev-Pechersk Patericon. Kiev, 1931. P. 103).

Chronicle records in Russian chronicles were mainly of local origin. The chronicle collections of these records are, to one degree or another, centralized.

In certain areas of Rus' during the period of feudal fragmentation, there existed their own time, their own ideas about time. The calendars of individual principalities, as is well shown by historians of Russian chronicles, could diverge significantly - sometimes by a year or two.

In Ancient Rus', the March, ultra-March and September calendars coexisted. Sometimes in the same principality in different centers of chronicle writing there were different chronology systems, which partly, of course, indicates that Christian chronology was taken into account only by the educated elite of feudal society and was not at all universal. So, for example, certain chronological inconsistencies in the Laurentian Chronicle were explained by A. A. Shakhmatov as a result of the fact that in the princely chronicle and in the episcopal chronicle of the same principality - Pereyaslavl-South - there were different chronologies.

Investigating the origin of the Ultra-Martov chronology, N.G. Berezhkov determined that it was not the result of errors or distortions, but represented a special style of chronology that existed along with the March one. In the 15th century September joins these two styles. The Ultra-March year is “clearly delineated in time: from the second decade of the 12th century. to the first years of the 14th century; then they disappear almost to nothing.”

(1) See: Berezhkov N. G. Chronology of Russian chronicles. M., 1963. P. 28 et seq.

(2) Ibid. P. 29.

The existence of several chronology systems is, after all, only an indicator, but not the very essence of the feeling of “local time”, its territorial location. Consciousness could not yet embrace time as a kind of unity for the entire Russian land. It would still be very difficult for a chronicler to chronologically link the events of his principality with the events of another principality. He tried to do this by compiling codes, putting all events into a single chronological network, but this was far from an easy task. Hence the well-known mechanicalness and “violence” of the annual network of chronicles.

If we look closely at the chronological layouts of the chronicle, we will notice in it the remains of separate and independent lines, closely related to local events. The general history of Rus', by combining local chronicles into codes, was created on the basis of an artificial, mechanical connection of various time lines, but bundles of these lines were not always connected correctly: hence the same event could sometimes be told twice or thrice. All-Russian chroniclers - the compilers of all-Russian chronicle codes - made great efforts to bring these various time lines into a single trunk. There were several methods of such reduction to unity. But these very techniques and errors that arose with this kind of information about the unity of all time series of Russian chronicles indicate that a single historical time was still difficult to carry out. We notice in the chronicle a struggle between local and general historical ideas about time.

The idea of the unity of historical time was sharply expressed and centralizing. The local chronicle, with its local idea of time, could be a private matter (compare the chronicles of individual churches in Novgorod), but the all-Russian chronicle collection, with its ideas about the unity of historical time, was always a state enterprise.

Local news was subjected to forced centralization in all-Russian codes, forced unification into a single annual network for the entire Russian land. The chronicles were sorted out according to individual news and again mechanically collected in enlarged annual articles.

Synchronization of private manifestations of time, individual local time lines in order to create a common, unified “centralized” time was necessary for public and state actions. The fact that during the period of feudal fragmentation time in the all-Russian chronicle was nevertheless connected mechanically, “forcibly”, sometimes with errors, reflected the internal inconsistency of the feudal statehood of the period of feudal fragmentation with its centrifugal and centripetal tendencies.

Along with the mechanical “filing” of individual documents-information in chronicles, in other genres of historical narration there has always been a coherent historical narrative. The ability for historical storytelling was already well demonstrated in the epic. In ancient literature, it is reflected in translated historical works: chronicles, paleys, books of sacred history, etc. A coherent historical narrative is presented in translated “novels”: in “Alexandria”, in “The Tale of the Devastation of Jerusalem”, etc. Original Russian historical stories and lives testify to the same thing. But here’s what’s characteristic: in all of the listed genres, a coherent story is characterized by greater or lesser limitations, time closure within the boundaries of the story. Being included in the chronicle, these coherent and closed historical narratives received a new artistic function: their isolation was destroyed, the story became a record, the plot turned into an event. If coherent narratives about certain events were part of the chronicle, they were not divided into annual articles and were presented to the reader under one or another year of one of the events in the narrative. Thus, they were not placed in close connection with other local events recorded in the chronicle. This connection was more mechanical than organic. There are several closed time series.

Already in “The Tale of Bygone Years,” the chronological connection of events is continually broken by the chronicler by introducing plot narratives: now about Olga’s revenge on the Drevlyans, now about the Belozersk Magi, now about the campaigns of Vladimir Monomakh in his “Instructions,” etc.

For the XIII and XIV centuries. we have in the chronicle an example of a coherent historical narrative - this is that part of the Ipatiev Chronicle that dates back to the Galician-Volyn chronicle. The Galician-Volyn chronicle, as researchers have repeatedly noted, did not initially have a weather chronological network. But this exception only emphasizes the rule upon closer examination: the Galician-Volyn Chronicle is devoted to the history of only one region of Rus', and it is natural that for the historian this region had its own unity of time.

The historian of this region did not arrange his story according to the annual network - there was no need for this, since it was a story about one region of Rus'. The annual network was introduced into the Galician-Volyn Chronicle later, when it was included in a larger code. However, one of the lists of the Ipatiev Chronicle, the so-called Khlebnikovsky, in its Galician-Volyn part does not have a breakdown by annual articles, as in the archetype.

Coherent narratives continue to be introduced into the chronicle network in the all-Russian chronicle collections of the 15th and 16th centuries. An example of this is “The Walk of Afanasy Nikitin across the Three Seas.” It was included in the chronicle under one year - 1475, but combined the events of six years. They were not classified by the compiler of the code into annual articles, because the time of Indian events, events that took place in distant countries, was not synchronized in the minds of the chronicler with the time of Russian history. They were far “beyond the three seas”, and there, in those countries, there was their time. The same should be said regarding other inclusions in the chronicle related to events geographically distant from the Russian land.

Coherent narratives about Russian events were divided and sorted into cells of a chronological network much more easily than stories about events that happened far from the Russian land. It was easy to make fragmentary insertions from the lives of Russian saints, but not easy from the travels of Russians beyond the borders of the Russian land. Thus, time and territory were united in the mind of the chronicler.

The overcoming of the chronicle method of presenting Russian history and the transition to a coherent narrative about the history of Rus' took place with the formation of a single Russian centralized state in the 16th century. based on an intermediate stage of coherent narratives about more limited topics: about the history of the Kazan kingdom and its annexation to Moscow (Kazan history), about the history of the family of Moscow sovereigns (Degree book of royal genealogy), about the history of Grozny (Royal Chronicler and History of the Grand Duke of Moscow Kurbsky).

Historical narratives decomposed the chronicle's way of depicting time both from within the chronicle and from outside it. Literature overcame the document. Instead of documents about the past collected in huge chronicles, there is an increasingly stronger tendency towards reconstruction of the past in coherent literary stories, but stories not with closed time, as in the epic, but with open time - historical. Events are “arranged” from a simple chronological sequence into a cause-and-effect sequence. Time, which could never be perceived alone, in its pure form, abstracting from the phenomena accompanying it, from events, passes from the local series and its narrow territorial perception

In a series of cause and effect. Both series, as we have already seen, have always existed, but they existed for different volumes of history; Now the chronicle ceases to be a monopoly on history of wide coverage - all-Russian history.

The history of chronicle times is significant. The earth and the time that flows on it were something whole in the minds of people. The history of chronicle forms and the history of chronicle time were therefore closely connected with the history of the collection of the Russian land. This is the special significance of the chronicle, its greatness and its connection with the history of the people to whom it was dedicated.

The “transpersonal” element in chronicle writing was especially strong. Therefore, the artistic nature of chronicle writing is largely contradictory. This inconsistency was created, destroyed and restored constantly. The conscious will of the chronicler came into constant conflict with the way the chronicle was actually kept. Therefore, aspirations and results often did not coincide. The artistic image of the chronicler, which arose unconsciously in the reader, did not coincide with the image of the real chronicler - as he really was. The image of time created by chronicle writing did not coincide in many ways with the real ideas about time that the chronicler possessed. The hand of an individual chronicler was controlled by worldly passions and religious beliefs, but the entire course of chronicle writing was controlled not only by individual chroniclers, but to some extent by the entire historical course of the unification of the country.

6. The genre of life in ancient Russian literature. The hagiographic canon and its originality. Life of Boris and Gleb, life of Theodosius of Pechersk.

7. Formation of the walking genre in the literature of Ancient Rus'. Types of walking. Pilgrimage walks (Walk of Hegumen Daniel).

8. The Tale of Igor’s Campaign: historical basis, problem of dating and authorship. System of images and artistic originality.

9. Literature of the period of feudal fragmentation. Analysis of “The Life of Alexander Nevsky”.

1. Literature of the period of feudal fragmentation (XIII-XIV centuries)

2. Analysis of the “life of Alexander Nevsky”.

10. Hagiographic literature of the late 14th-15th centuries. Hagiographic works of Epiphanius the Wise, Pachomius Lagofet.

11. Old Believer literature of the 18th century. Archpriest Avvakum and his works.

Life of Archpriest Avvakum

12. Russian historical and everyday story of the 17th century. (“The Tale of Grief and Misfortune”, “The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn”, “The Tale of Frol Skobeev”, etc.)

13. The originality of satirical literature of the 17th century.

14. Poetry of the 17th century. Presyllabic poetry. Syllabic poetry by Simeon of Polotsk, Sylvester Medvedev, Karion Istomin.

15. Russian literature of the 18th century: meanings, features, periodization, system of genres.

16. Creativity A.D. Cantemira. Compositional and thematic originality of Cantemir's satires.

17. The originality of Russian classicism. Poetry M.V. Lomonosov.

18. The ode genre in Russian literature of the 18th century. (“Ode on the day of the accession to the throne of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, 1747” by M.V. Lomonosov).

“Ode on the day of accession to the throne of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna 1747”

19. Creativity V.K. Trediakovsky and A.P. Sumarokova. Reform of Russian versification.

20. Satirical journalist of the late 60s - early 70s of the 18th century. Creativity N.I. Novikova.

21. Lyrics by G.R. Derzhavina. Satirical world image in the solemn ode “Felitsa”.

22. A.N. Radishchev “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: composition, structure, issues, genre originality of the “journey” in relation to the national literary tradition

23. D.I. Fonvizin: creativity, personality. Comedy “The Minor”: issues, plot and compositional structure. Researchers about comedy

24. Sentimentalism in Russian literature of the 18th century and N.M. Karamzin as its representative. The stories “Poor Liza” and “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter”: a system of images, the originality of language and style

1. To the main prerequisites for the emergence of Old Russian literature Scientists attribute the following prerequisites:

Formation of the Old Russian state. Development of writing.

Baptism of Rus'. (988, baptized by Vladimir the Red Sun). The adoption of Christian culture required many literate people, and the book industry was developing.

Using the experience of Byzantium and Bulgarian cultures. Bulgaria was the closest Christian country. (Old Church Slavonic is a written language, the ancient language is oral).

The presence of oral folk art.

Periodization of Old Russian literature. Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev identified 3 major periods:

Literature of Kievan Rus. XI – mid-XII century.

Literature of the period of feudal fragmentation and subsequent unification of North-Eastern Rus'. The end of the XII-XV centuries.

Literature from the period of creation and development of the central Russian state. XVI-XVII centuries.

Main features of Old Russian literature.

The nature of existence. Old Russian literature, handwritten. The creation work was enormous. Special respect for the book. In the 11th-14th centuries, the material for manuscripts was parchment made from calfskin. Only in the 14th century did paper appear. Manuscripts were written in ink and cinnabar.

The main type of Old Russian book is a voluminous manuscript. Almost never ancient Russian works were published alone, but were included in some collections.

Muffledness (obscurity) of the author's beginning. One of the main problems of literature of this period is the problem of authorship. The ancient scribe almost never sought to claim authorship. The vast majority of works were anonymous.

The writings of Russian literature of this period were of an applied nature. Works of ancient Russian literature were either part of church services or were used for edification, instruction, enlightenment, that is, they were published for some practical use.

2. The problem of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature.

The artistic method is a figurative reflection of reality. This issue has not been fully resolved in science. D.S. Likhachev, I.P. Eremin, A.N. Robinson, A.A. Shakhmatov.

There are only 4 principles for displaying reality: 1. Religious symbolism.

2. Medieval historicism.

3. Traditionality.

4. Didacticism.

1. Religious symbolism.

The basis of the worldview of the Old Russian man is righteous Christianity; the Old Russian man saw the world as follows:

The whole world was presented as a struggle between God and the devil, good and evil. The epicenter of this struggle was the human soul.

Old Russian literature is literature with extensive use of religious symbols. The symbol formed the basis of the state of a religious person.

The world of ancient Russian people is a binary world, consisting of two spheres:

The visible world, earthly

Invisible, ideal, heavenly (highest).

Both of these worlds are, according to ancient people, God’s creation, and not a single event in the daily life of the visible world occurs without the will of the invisible.

Everything around was perceived as certain signs, symbols of the higher world. Nature was perceived by the ancient Russians as a single holistic symbol. The changing seasons were perceived as a symbol of sacred history.

2. Medieval historicism.

Old Russian literature is deeply historical. At the center of the description are real facts, a real phenomenon of reality. Works of ancient Russian literature were created in hot places of events. Hence such properties: truthfulness, historicity, journalisticity. From the point of view of the truthfulness of the image in the ancient Russian work, history takes on a providentialist coloring, a retrospective into the future. The course of historical events is explained, as a rule, from a religious point of view. All events that occur are considered as a manifestation of God's plan for the world and man.

3. Traditionalism.

The fundamental concepts of the 11th-17th centuries are the concepts of tradition and norm. The Old Russian writer tried to show himself as exemplary and traditional as possible. They sought to create an exemplary essay. Within this method, the key concept was literary etiquette.

Literary etiquette is a special principle of ancient Russian literature, indicating what and how to depict. It has 3 components:

Etiquette of the world order (consists of the ancient scribe’s idea of how the course of events should take place).

Etiquette of behavior (consists of ideas about how a particular character should behave).

Verbal etiquette (consists of ideas about the means by which a scribe should describe everything that happens).

4. Didacticism.

Didacticism, moralizing (this is the most soul-helping and instructive literature). It is extremely serious, it reflected the choice between salvation and death of a person. I taught you to choose.

3. Genre system of ancient Russian literature

Old Russian literature had a unique and rather complex genre system. Drama did not exist until the 12th century. The theater appears with the birth of Peter I. Lyric poetry also did not exist; it appears in the 18th century. This appearance is associated with Simeon of Polotsk.

The most developed form was the epic. Epic genres in ancient Russian literature were divided into groups:

Hagiographic literature (from the Greek agiossaint) is a biography of a person canonized by the church. (“I describe the lives of the saints”).

The formation and development of hagiographic literature dates back to the first centuries of Christianity.

V.V. Kuskov believes that this literature incorporates elements of different genres:

1. Ancient, historical biography.

2. Hellenistic novel.

3. Eulogy.

In the 8th-9th centuries in Byzantium, the canonical structure of the hagiography and the basic principles of the hagiographic hero were developed. At the same time, a hierarchical division of lives took place according to the types of heroes and the nature of their exploits; this classification was completely accepted in Rus'.

Classification of Lives

1. Lives of saints who left the world. (The first venerable “Life

2. Theodosius of Pechersk").

3. Lives of martyrdom. (“The Life of Boris and Gleb”).

4. Equally apostolic life (Life of Princess Olga and life of Vladimir the Baptist).

5. Lives of saints XIV-XV centuries. (Life of Stefan of Perm).

6. Lives of warrior princes. (Life of Alexander Nevsky. Life of Dmitry Donskoy).

7. Lives of Christ for the sake of holy fools. (Life of St. Basil).

8. Lives of holy ascetics (hermits, cave dwellers).

At the center of life stood the ideal Christian hero, following Christ in his life; a person who has achieved Christian perfection. The life, as a rule, combines an entertaining plot narrative with edification and panegyric (glorification). The compilers of the Lives show in all its grandeur the beauty of the Christian ideal; the nature of this ideal leaves its mark on the compositional and stylistic structure of the Lives. It had 3 parts:

1. It explains the importance and purpose of life. Self-deprecation is a must. In the center of the work is the image of only the saint. The description of a saint's life path usually begins with an indication of his origin; as a rule, he came from pious parents. This fact is connected with the next stage: in childhood, the hero shuns games, does not upset anyone, is secluded.

2. The hero refuses marriage. He leaves his parents' house, he runs away, he withdraws from the world. He works a lot, becomes a monk, and wages a tense struggle against devilish temptations. As a rule, the brethren flocked to the saint. Usually he founded a monastery. The hero predicted the day and hour of his death. After his death, the body turned out to be incorruptible, and emitted a wonderful fragrance - this was one of the evidence of the holiness of the deceased. Miracles occurred at his incorruptible relics (for example, candles lit up).

3. The autobiography ended with a brief praise of the saint or prayer. This is how a generalized radiant image of a saint was created, adorned with virtues, detached from everything accidental.

In Rus', with the adoption of Christianity, hagiographies began to spread in two forms: in a short form, prologues (as part of prologues or synaxariums) were used during worship, and in a lengthy form they were called linear - these are monthly readings for every day.