The image of a Russian person in the works of ancient Russian literature. Everyday ideas of ancient Russian people - about nature, man, society

Since a person simultaneously exists, so to speak, in three hypostases - as a living, rational and social being, the material is presented in three sections: nature, man and society. Of course, such a structure is largely arbitrary, so many issues overlap with each other. I hope this will not make it difficult to understand further lecture material, and maybe even allow you to create a fairly voluminous image systems of spiritual values ​​of people of Ancient Rus'.

Nature

It seems that our vision of the surrounding reality is the only possible and completely “natural” one. It seems us direct. In fact, it is mediated by many categories that are present in our consciousness in an implicit form and are so familiar that we simply do not notice them. And the less noticeable they are, the more power they have over a person’s perception, the more it depends on them what image of the surrounding world appears to him normal. And the less they are accessible to awareness both by the bearer of these concepts and images and by an outsider. And yet, let us try, as far as possible, to look into the “inner” world of man in Ancient Rus', to see the nature around him at least approximately as he himself saw it.

Quantity and number. Even such an abstract, abstract characteristic as quantification whatever it was, had a rather pronounced value significance for the ancient Russian people. The idea of ​​the sacred properties of number was widespread and implemented in a variety of areas of human activity. Numbers and numerical relations, as shown by the works of a number of researchers (V.M. Kirillin, V.N. Toporov, D. Petkanova, etc.), had, in addition to practical significance, also a symbolic and theological meaning. They reflected the essence of the highest unknowable truth and acted as a sacred means of understanding the world around us.

In this regard, in ancient Russian literary works, numbers were performed not only in documentary form. -factographic functions(when they determined the real amount of anything), but they could also be filled symbolic(as literary scholars say, tropic) content. In this case, they first of all conveyed sacred information and stated the divine meaning of the events taking place. You can also find in ancient Russian literary sources numbers that performed mixed functions, oriented simultaneously both to the phenomena of earthly life and to their ideal, divine prototypes.

This perception of quantity was based on a concept well developed in the ancient world. symbolism of numbers .

So, in the Christian tradition troika was considered "complete and perfect number"(Augustine the Blessed); it was the number of the divine Trinity and the number of the soul constructed in its image; she was also a symbol of everything spiritual. In the earliest monuments, three appears as a typically epic number. Four was considered a symbol of the world and material things, signifying static integrity, an ideally stable structure. Seven - the number of a person, signifying his harmonious relationship to the world; it symbolized the sensual expression of the universal order, and was also a sign of the highest degree of knowledge of the divine mystery, the achievement of spiritual perfection. In addition, it was used as a symbol of eternal rest. Ten symbolized harmony and beauty. It was considered as the most perfect cosmic number. At the same time, the alchemists used it to designate matter. Number twelve in Christianity it was associated with the idea of ​​perfection and symbolized renewed humanity (apparently through the Old Testament tradition, in which it was associated with the people of God). In addition, it denoted the earthly and heavenly Church. A typically biblical number was fourty . In Christian practice, it was associated with the idea of ​​cleansing from sins and hope. It symbolized prayer and preparation for a new life.

The author was often more interested not in the actual dimensions of the object being described, but in its symbolic connection - through numbers expressing its dimensions or proportions - with some sacred image, say, the Temple of Solomon (20 x 60 x 120) or Noah's Ark (50 x 300 x 30), etc. This is especially important to consider when the source contains “round” numbers. According to the fair remark of D. Petkanova,

“there was no blind faith in round numbers in medieval literature, they were not perceived as documentary numbers, they had to be considered as conditional or approximate, sometimes they could be close to the truth, but in no case were they historically accurate.”

The symbolic interpretation of numbers (numerology) had a wide scope, since most of the letters of the Slavic alphabet, borrowed from the Greek alphabet, could serve as numbers. Consequently, almost every word had a quantitative expression, since it could be considered as the sum of the “digits” of which it consisted. It is enough to recall the already mentioned equation of “Latins” 666 - the number of the apocalyptic Beast (Antichrist). (See Appendix 5: “Could Kyiv be the New Jerusalem?”)

The specificity of the perception of the world by one or another ethnic group, one or another culture, one or another civilization is manifested, first of all, in the peculiarities of the perception of space and time.

Image space - an integral part of a holistic picture of the world. Objectively existing space is subjectively experienced and perceived by people, and in different historical eras and in different countries in different ways. The Middle Ages, both Western European and domestic, tended to endow space with religious and ethical features. Jerusalem was considered the center of the Earth - literally and figuratively - and the Temple of the Lord was considered the center of Jerusalem. The “Navel of the Earth” was surrounded by “righteous” and “sinful” countries. Some of them were “closer” to heaven, others to hell; some - to the world above, others - to the world below; some - to the sky, others - to the earth.

Moreover, this sacred topography could change from time to time depending on the righteousness or sinfulness of the population of a particular land. At the same time, the spiritual center of the world could also change. The “New Jerusalem” could find a very concrete embodiment, theoretically, in any city that took upon itself the care of universal salvation. In practice, it became - for the reasons already mentioned - a city that claimed to be the center of the “Russian” land.

This idea also explains the extremely high authority in Russian culture. The prince's political activities were aimed at subjugating North-Eastern and North-Western Rus' to the Golden Horde. But his uncompromising opposition to the Catholic world, the defense of the ideals of Orthodoxy from the “distorted” (in the language of a later time) faith of the “Latins” made him a hero who took the entire Orthodox world under his protection.

At the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, after the fall of Constantinople under the blows of the Ottoman Empire, the theory “Moscow is the third Rome” was formed on the basis of these ideas. It was about moving the world Orthodox center to the capital of the Muscovite kingdom. The young unified state, which arose on the ruins of the Western Ulus of the Great Mongol Empire, was perceived as the last stronghold of the right faith: “ two Romes fall, and the third stands, and the fourth will not exist" It is important to note that in this phrase the logical emphasis shifts from the theme of exclusivity (“ the third one is worth") to the problem of high responsibility (" there won't be a fourth") of the Russian state. The consolidation of this idea was embodied in the crowning of the Moscow sovereign, the organization of the urban space of the capital, the construction of the stunning Church of the Intercession on the Moat (St. Basil's) and, finally, in the establishment of the Moscow Patriarchate. It is significant that, according to the testimony of foreigners who visited Moscow at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries, residents called the central part of the city Constantinople, and the Church of the Intercession - Jerusalem.

Such sentiments were subsequently reflected in the strange (for our contemporary reader), but symptomatic words that in “The Tale of Magmet-Saltan” Ivan Peresvetov put into the mouths of Orthodox Greeks arguing with the “Latins”:

« Eatwe have a kingdom in waves and a king in waves, the blessed Prince Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia, and in that kingdom there is great God’s mercy and the banner of God, holy miracle workers, like the first - such is the mercy of God from them, like from the first.”

Their opponents “agree” with them: “ That is the truth" They supposedly saw for themselves that “ God's mercy is great in that land».

« All the good things that were with you passed through the grace of Christ to us in Moscow»

« We had a pious king, but now he doesn’t. And to that place the Lord God raised up a pious king in Moscow».

No less indicative are the assurances of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich addressed to the Greek merchants:

“I accepted the obligation that if God wills, I will sacrifice my army, treasury and even my blood for them [the Greeks] deliverance».

Why did the Greeks call the king " pillar of faith», « assistant in the Vedas», « liberator", they ask him

“Take... the highest throne of the great Tsar Constantine, your great-grandfather, so that the pious people and Orthodox Christians will be freed from wicked hands, from fierce beasts that eat mercilessly.”

Nikon's church reforms led to the most difficult crisis in the spiritual life of Rus', which entailed a conflict between the spiritual and secular rulers. As a result, the ideas of the “third Rome” as the secular center of the “Holy Roman Empire” and the “new Jerusalem” as the spiritual center of the Orthodox world turned out to be divided. Construction New Jerusalem The monastery, the symbolism of the name of which was continued in the place where it was built (meridian of Jerusalem), and in the appearance of the monastery church (created according to the model of the Jerusalem Temple of the Lord), emphasized what happened.

The final point in the sacred perception of geographical space was set by Peter I, who moved the secular capital of Russia to the north, to St. Petersburg, while Moscow continued to remain the capital of the Russian Orthodox Church. It should probably be emphasized that the construction of the new capital began with the foundation of the Church of St. Apostles Peter and Paul. Let me remind you that it was the appearance in Constantinople of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul marked its transformation into the capital of the Roman Empire, and the construction of the Cathedral of the Apostles Peter and Paul by Clovis on the left bank of the Seine is perceived by researchers, in particular, S. Le-bec, as evidence

“his thoughtful policy, the policy of a man who took seriously the recent recognition of him by the emperor and intended to surround himself, his family, and his power with an aura of holiness.”

Perception not only of the “geographical” world as a whole, but also of individual cardinal directions was also associated with value characteristics. Thus, in Rus' there was a fairly widespread attitude to the south as to the “God’s chosen” side of the world. For example, in the Old Russian translation of “The Jewish War” by Josephus, a fragrant south wind blows over the place of the afterlife of blessed souls; In the Russian Church there has long been a chorus to stichera called “ God is from the south ».

An example of such an attitude would be the mention of “ the spirit of the south "in "The Tale of the Massacre of Mamaev." It undoubtedly had a primarily symbolic meaning for the medieval author and reader.

According to the Legend, at the height of the battle, the Tatar regiments greatly pushed back the Russians. Prince Vladimir Andreevich Serpukhovskoy, watching with pain the death " Orthodox army ", invites the governor Bobrok to immediately join the battle. Bobrok dissuades the prince from hasty actions, urging him to wait for “the time like” in which “ the grace of God can be" It’s interesting that Bobrok names the exact hour when “ time is like» — « eighth hour"(eight o'clock in the afternoon, according to the ancient Russian clock system). It was then, as Volynets predicted, “ the spirit of the south pulled them from behind».

“sing Volynets: “...The hour has come, and the time is drawing near..., for the power of the Holy Spirit helps us.”

From this, by the way, according to the well-founded opinion of V.N. Rudakov, it follows that the entry of the ambush regiment into battle was not connected with the real events of the Battle of Kulikovo. Bobrok Volynsky, if you follow the logic of the author of “The Tale of the Massacre of Mamaev,” did not at all choose the moment when the Tatars would expose their flank to the Russians (as L.G. Beskrovny assumed), or when the sun would stop shining in the eyes of the Russian regiments (as A. N. Kirpichnikov). The most widespread opinion in historical literature, that an experienced commander expected a change in the direction of the wind from headwind to tailwind, is also not confirmed. The fact is that the “southern spirit” mentioned in the “Tale” could under no circumstances be a companion for Dmitry Donskoy’s comrades-in-arms (and therefore, help them). Russian regiments on the Kulikovo Field advanced from north to south. Consequently, the south wind could only blow in their faces, hindering their advance. At the same time, any confusion in the author’s use of geographical terms is completely excluded. The creator of “The Tale” was completely free to navigate the geographical space. He accurately indicated: Mamai is moving towards Rus' from the east, the Danube River is in the west, etc.

Another similar example could be the “testimony” of the robber Foma Katsibeev. To him " God is revealed... the vision is great»: « from the east"a cloud appeared (Horde people), " like some bastards, go to the west». « From the midday country" (i.e. from the south) " I got two boys"(meaning Boris and Gleb), who helped the Russian regiments defeat the enemy.

Not only the countries of the world had value content for the ancient Russian people, but also the concepts top And bottom, right And left sides (with a positive and negative sign in both cases, respectively).

Let us explain how this was manifested in the sources using a specific example.

On Saturday night from June 29 to 30, 1174, Andrei Bogolyubsky was killed in his chambers. The so-called “Tale of the Murder of Andrei Bogolyubsky” contains a detailed account of the last hours of the life of the Grand Duke of Vladimir. Here, in particular, it was mentioned how at the end of the tragedy the leader of the murderers, Pyotr Kuchkovich, cut off Andrei’s “right” hand, which allegedly led to the death of the prince. However, when studying the remains of Andrei Bogolyubsky in 1934, doctors discovered that it was not his right hand that was cut off (it was not damaged at all), but his left hand. Experts suggested that there was a mistake in the story or that the chronicler used this detail as an artistic device “to thicken the colors and enhance the effect.” At the same time, undoubtedly, the author of the Tale knew which hand the killers cut off. The miniature of the Radzivilov Chronicle, illustrating the story of the death of Andrei Yuryevich, depicts a woman standing next to the defeated prince and holding a severed hand - precisely the left one, not the right one.

What made the chronicler “deviate from the truth” (in our sense of the word)?

The Gospel of Matthew says:

"And if right your hand offends you, cut it off and throw it away from you.” (Italics are mine. - I.D.)

How could the right hand “seduce” Andrei? The answer can be found in the Apocalypse. People who worship the Antichrist

“there will be a mark on right hand" (Italics are mine. - I.D.)

with the name of the “beast” or the number of its name. At the same time, the description of the “beast” itself, seen by John the Theologian, is very remarkable - it is very close to the description in the chronicle of Andrei Bogolyubsky himself. The "beast" has great power, his head

“as if mortally wounded; but this mortal wound was healed"

(Andrei was killed by the killers and his head, but after they left he began to call for help and even tried to hide from his pursuers under the stairs). His mouth speaks "proudly and blasphemously"

“and it was given to him to make war with the saints and overcome them; and authority was given to him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.”

He "has the wound of the sword and is alive." The description of the “beast” ends with the maxim:

“He who kills with the sword must himself be killed with the sword.”

It was not without reason that before the murder, Andrei’s servant, the housekeeper Anbal, stole from the prince a sword that belonged to St. Boris.

One way or another, the cutting off of Andrei Bogolyubsky’s right hand (according to the Tale) can well be considered as a condemnation of him, if not as the Antichrist himself, then, in any case, as his servant. This is also indicated by the fact that, according to the author of the Tale, Andrei “ having washed his sins with the blood of a martyr "(my italics - I.D.), i.e., the martyr's end seemed to atone for the sins (and, apparently, considerable ones!) of the prince.

As we see, the mention of “specific” spatial details in descriptions of events could and did perform a slightly different function in ancient Russian literature than in modern artistic culture And this happened in connection with the fundamentally different value orientation of ancient Russian spiritual culture.

The above examples, among other things, show that in medieval perception space was not separated from time, forming a kind of space-time continuum, which in scientific literature is usually called chronotope.

Time , like space, in the consciousness of ancient Russian people was endowed with moral and ethical value. Almost any calendar date was considered by him in the context of its real or symbolic content. This can be judged even by the frequency of certain calendar references. Thus, in The Tale of Bygone Years, Monday and Tuesday are mentioned only once, Wednesday - twice, Thursday - three times, Friday - five times, Saturday - 9, and Sunday (“week”) - as many as 17! Naturally, this speaks not so much about “love” or, on the contrary, dislike for certain days, but about their “filling” with events that interested the chronicler and his readers. For example, the foundation and consecration of churches and the transfer of relics usually took place on Saturdays and Sundays.

Contrary to the theory of probability (and modern common sense), events are also unevenly distributed in relation to individual numbers of months. For example, in the Pskov I Chronicle there are calendar dates (January 5, February 2, July 20, August 1 and 18, September 1, October 1 and 26), which account for 6 to 8 events throughout the chronicle text. At the same time, a number of dates (January 3, 8, 19 and 25, February 1, 8 and 14, etc.) are not mentioned at all by the compilers of the code. Such “oddities” of dates are explained by the value attitude of ancient Russian scribes to them.

For example, battles usually took place on Fridays. Mentions of battles were so often associated with the word “ heels"(Friday), that one of the apparently not very educated researchers of the last century even decided that this word denoted the battle order of the Russian troops. In his opinion, it resembled the Roman numeral V. The matter then ended in embarrassment. However, the mythical “order of battle” nevertheless penetrated into fiction and even into the film “Primordial Rus'”. By the way, N.M. Karamzin dated the Battle of Kalka to 1224 precisely because in that year May 31 (mentioned in the chronicles as the calendar date of the battle) fell on a Friday.

How deeply the symbolic content of dates was perceived in Ancient Rus' is shown by the following example. In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” following the description of the solar eclipse observed by the army of the Novgorod-Seversk prince while crossing the Don, the following text follows:

“The prince’s mind fell asleep of lust, and pity was a sign for him to tempt the great Don. “I want,” he said, “to break the end of the Polovtsian field with you, Russians; I want to lay on my head, but I would like to drink the helmet of the Don.”

Its meaning will not be completely clear if you do not take into account that the eclipse occurred on May 1, St. prophet Jeremiah. In the prophecy of Jeremiah there are words that echo in meaning the “speech” of Igor:

“And now why do you go to Egypt to drink water from the Nile? and why do you go to Assyria to drink water from its river?

They contain a reproach to Igor and, one might say, a “scenario” for the subsequent tragic events. Igor, however, ignored the prophetic warning, which he himself indirectly quoted, and was punished accordingly.

As for calendar dates, their frequent mention or, conversely, the desire to avoid such mention, was primarily associated with whether a given number was considered lucky or not. As already mentioned, in Ancient Rus' there was great amount apocryphal “false” (forbidden) books - various “Lunniks”, “Gromovniki”, “Astrologies”, treatises “About Chikhir the star, what is it worth”, “On the evil days of the moon”, “On the lunar flow”, “Books of Rafli” and etc., which described in detail the “qualities” of calendar dates and gave recommendations: is it possible to “open blood” on this day (one of the main methods of treatment) or, say, start some business, what will be the fate of a child born on this day, etc.

In addition, there were clear church calendar regulations, mostly of a prohibitive nature. The most well-known food and behavioral prohibitions associated with fasts: multi-day fasts - Great (seven weeks before Easter), Petrine or Apostolic (from six weeks to seven days - depending on the date of Easter), Dormition or Lady (from August 1 to August 15) ), Christmas or Filippov (forty-day - from November 14 to December 24), as well as one-day - on Wednesdays and Fridays (except for the weeks of Easter, Trinity, Yuletide, the Publican and the Pharisee, cheese), on the Feast of the Exaltation (September 14), day The beheading of John the Baptist (August 29) and on the eve of the Epiphany (January 5). In addition, there were other restrictions. For example, marriages were not celebrated on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, on the days of the twelve, temple and great holidays, as well as during all multi-day fasts, Christmastide (from December 25 to January 7), Maslenitsa, cheese week, Easter, on the days of the Beheading John the Baptist and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

A very detailed system for regulating sexual relations was developed, filled with various prohibitions and limiting sexual relations to approximately 100 days a year. For example, in Ancient Rus', apparently, it was the practice of parish priests to condemn parents who conceived a child on Friday, Saturday or Sunday:

“The child will be either a thief, or a robber, or a fornicator, or a trembler” .

Annual (chronographic) dates also had symbolic and ethical content. More often, however, this applied to multi-year periods. But there were year numbers that occupied the thoughts of our ancestors in themselves. First of all, we are talking about the date of the “end of time”, which was very intensely expected in Ancient Rus', as well as throughout the Christian world - the second coming of Christ, followed by the inexorable Last Judgment. The Holy Scriptures repeatedly emphasize that the date of the end of the world is in the power of God. Neither people nor angels can know her. Nevertheless, many medieval “promuzki” tried to calculate it, relying either on the prophecy of Daniel, then on the 3rd book of Ezra, then on the “Gospel of Matthew”, then on the “Apocalypse”, or on some apocryphal works that were not accepted Christian canon.

Undoubtedly, the most common “potential” date for the end of the world in Rus' was considered 7000 from the Creation of the world. This point of view was based on the biblical book of Genesis, according to which the world was created in six days, and on the seventh day God rested from work. This calculation was made based on the Old and New Testaments, where it is repeatedly mentioned that one divine day is equal to a thousand “normal” years:

“In Your sight a thousand years are like yesterday when it is past.”

“With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

At the end of the seventh thousand-year “day” the “kingdom of glory” should begin. It was customary to divide even the history of mankind into “six days”: from the creation of Adam to the flood, from the flood to Abraham, from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian captivity, from the captivity to the Nativity of Christ and, finally, from Christmas to Last Judgment. This tradition was reflected in many literary monuments of Ancient Rus', including the Tale of Bygone Years.

There were, however, other points of view on the possible date of the Last Judgment. Thus, the first Slavic complete Bible (named after the Novgorod archbishop who translated all the canonical books of the “Holy Scripture” in 1499, Gennadievskaya) ends with the following reasoning:

« And after the renunciation that was spoken [ it implies the release of the devil “for a short time” before the end of the world] let us think: The evangelist said that the devil is bound for a thousand years. How soon would it be possible to bind him? From the entry into hell of our Lord Jesus Christ in the year five thousand, five hundred and thirty-three, and also until the year six thousand, five hundred and thirty-three, a thousand years will be completed. And so Satan will abandon himself according to the righteous judgment of God and deceive the world until the time told to him, which is three and a half years, and then there will be an end. Amen. "

It follows from this that after 6537 from the Creation of the world (apparently 1037 AD), the expectation of the end of the world acquired special tension in Rus'. Let me remind you that it was precisely at this moment that the already mentioned construction of the Church of St. by Yaroslav the Wise in Kyiv was timed. Sophia and the Golden Gate, the monasteries of St. George and Irina, pronouncing the Word about Law and Grace, as well as the creation of the so-called “Ancient Chronicle Code”. According to the Revelation of Methodius of Patara, the years in which the 9th Indictment fell were considered equally “favorable” for the end of the world.

In addition, in Russian literature there were a huge number of descriptions of various signs that should have directly foreshadowed the approach of the “last” time. Some of them also had a calendar form. For example, it was believed that the end of the world would come in the year when Easter falls on the Annunciation (March 25). It is no coincidence that such coincidences were carefully calculated and recorded. Let us remember, by the way, that it was precisely this coincidence (although not entirely accurate: March 25, 1038 fell on Holy Saturday, when the “Word” was read) that Metropolitan Hilarion encountered when he wrote the “Sermon on Law and Grace.”

Since the end of time did not come at any of the “designated” dates, society experienced a colossal ideological crisis. Disappointment in the never-coming “Kingdom of Glory” led to significant changes in the system of existential values ​​and became the mental basis of the ideological and political upheavals that our country experienced in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

In particular, the horrors of the oprichnina were to some extent explained as follows: Ivan the Terrible, until a certain moment, could not imagine that he would stand at the Last Judgment next to his victims. Moreover, he assumed the role of representative of God's court on earth. The justice of the punishments “generously” distributed to them was affirmed by the thought that God punishes sinners not only in the underworld, but also on earth, not only after death, but also during life:

“I confess and we know that not only there is torment, even for those who live evil, who transgress the commandments of God, but here too, God’s righteous wrath, for their evil deeds, they drink the cup of the Lord’s wrath and punish the tormentor with manifold punishments; after the departure of this light, the bitterest condemnation is acceptable...”

The sovereign considered his power to be the instrument of such just retribution on behalf of God himself. In his letter to Kurbsky, he wrote about the need to condemn villains and traitors to torment and death, referring to the authority of the Apostle Jude, who ordered to save people “by fear” (Jude 1.22-23). Following tradition, the king confirmed his thought with other quotations from the Holy Scriptures, including the words of the Apostle Paul:

« If anyone is unlawfully tortured, that is, not for faith, he will not be crowned»

Space and time did not exist for the people of the Middle Ages on their own; they were inseparable from the land on which man lived. Accordingly, it also acquired value content and was comprehended.

"Created World" in general, was perceived by our ancestors primarily symbolically. The worldview of the inhabitants of Ancient Rus' was based, in relatively later language, on “silent theology.” That is why in Rus' we do not find theological treatises of the Western European type. The Orthodox believer sought to comprehend divine revelation not through scholastic reasoning or observation, not with reason or “external” gaze, like, say, a Catholic, but with “inner eyes.” The essence of the world cannot be understood. It is comprehended only by “immersion” in veracious texts and canonical images, approved by the authority of the church fathers and enshrined in tradition. That is why the hesychasm of George Palamas found such distribution here.

In Ancient Rus' we do not encounter images that strive for illusoryness, photographic accuracy in conveying the external features of the visible world, like Western European painting. In Russia until the end of the 17th century. dominated both painting and literature icon- a special figurative perception and display of the world. Everything here was strictly regulated: plot, composition, even color. That is why, at first glance, ancient Russian icons are so “similar” to each other. But it’s worth taking a closer look at them - after all, they are designed for a person to look at them during daily prayer for several hours - and we will see how different they are in their inner world, mood, feelings, laid down by nameless artists of the past. In addition, each element of the icon - from the character’s gesture to the absence of any required details - carries a number of meanings. But in order to penetrate them, you must master the language in which the ancient Russian “icon” speaks to the viewer (in in a broad sense this word). This is best expressed in “open” texts, which directly explain to the reader what is meant by each specific image. Let's give a few examples.

This is how some animals and birds were described in Ancient Rus'.

Physiologist and about the lion. Three natures imate lion. Whenever a lioness gives birth, she is dead and gives birth blindly [the cub], seditje and watches until the third day. After three days a lion will come and blow in his nostrils and will come to life. So about the faithful pagans [about the converted pagans] . Formerly baptisms are dead, but after baptism they are enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

Second nature lvovo. When he sleeps, his eyes watch. Such is our Lord’s speech to the Jews, as if: “I sleep, but My divine eyes and my heart are vigilant.” >

And the third nature is lvovo: when the lioness runs away, she covers her feet with her tail. Yes, the catcher cannot catch [find] a trace of him. So, too, man, when you do alms, your left hand does not sense what your right hand is doing, so that the devil does not forbid the work of your thoughts.”

"About the Tawny Owl [Pelican] . The tawny owl is a child-loving bird. Peck my wife[female] ribs with your chick. And he[male] comes from its feeding[with food] . They peck their ribs, and the flowing blood revives the chick.

So is our Lord from the Jews [the Jews] led him through with a copy of his rib. Blood and water came out. And revive the universe, that is, the dead. The prophet shared and said this, as if he were like the tawny owl of the desert

Already from the given examples it is clear that in the system of traditional folk ideas about the world around us, animals simultaneously appear both as natural objects and as a type of mythological characters. In the book tradition there are almost no descriptions of “real” animals; even in “natural science” treatises the fabulous element predominates. It seems that the authors did not seek to convey any specific information about real animals, but tried to form in the reader some ideas about their symbolic essence. These ideas are based on the traditions of different cultures recorded in written sources.

Animal symbols are not “doubles” of their real prototypes. The indispensable presence of fantasy in stories about animals led to the fact that the described animal could bear the name of an animal or bird well known to the reader, but differ sharply from it in its properties. From the prototype character, often only his verbal shell (name) remained. At the same time, the image usually did not correlate with a set of features corresponding to a given name and forming the image of the animal in everyday consciousness, which once again confirms the isolation of two systems of knowledge about nature from each other: “book” and “practical”.

Within this description of the animal, the following distribution of real and fantastic properties can be noted. Often an object is described according to its biological nature; Such texts are most likely based on practical observations. For example:

Oh foxes. The physiologist talks about foxes having a flattering belly. If you are hungry and want to eat, you will not find it bohma [will not find anything at all] , looking for a vezha[outbuilding] or spittoon[a barn where straw or chaff is stored] and lie down, as a sign of attracting the soul within you, and lie down as if you were dead. And if the bird seems to have died, it will sit on it and begin to peck at it. You then jump up soon, grab me and carry me away

The story about the woodpecker is based on a description of the woodpecker’s ability to chisel trees with its beak; in the description of the cuckoo, the emphasis is on the habit of this bird of laying eggs in other people’s nests; The amazing skill of the beaver in building a dwelling, and the swallow in constructing its nest, is noted.

Sometimes a real object was endowed with only fictitious properties. In this case, the connection between the character and the real animal was preserved only in the name. This is how, say, the relationship of the name “ beaver" and descriptions " Indian"a beaver, from whose entrails musk is extracted, as well as some kind of predatory animal (possibly a tiger or wolverine; in any case, in the miniatures it was depicted as striped and with huge claws). " Ox" could mean not only the pet bos bubalus, but also " Indian» an ox, which, afraid of losing even one hair from its tail, stands motionless if its tail catches on a tree, as well as a mythical sea predator. In addition, it was believed that in India there were huge oxen (between whose horns a person could sit), oxen with three horns and three legs, and, finally, oxen " reserves", whose long horns do not allow them to move forward. Salamander is the name of a lizard, as well as a poisonous snake and an animal the size of a dog that can extinguish fire.

So, depending on the semantic content, the same animal name could mean either a real animal or a fantasy character. A set of properties that, from the point of view of the modern reader, have no basis in reality, were often correlated with the names of animals from distant countries and determined the ideas of the medieval reader about them. Thus, in the “Physiologist” it was said about the elephant that in order to give birth to offspring he needed the mandrake root, and having fallen, he could not get up, since there were no joints in his knees. It was also said here that panfir(panther, leopard) has the ability to sleep for three days, and on the fourth day to lure other animals to itself with its fragrance and voice. Velbudopardus(giraffe) seemed to be a cross between a pard (lynx) and a camel.

The most widespread descriptions were those in which the animal was endowed with both real and fictitious characteristics. Thus, in addition to the raven’s predilection for carrion and the custom of these birds forming mating pairs, ancient Russian descriptions included the story that the corvid does not drink water in the month of July, because he is punished by God for neglecting his chicks, as well as evidence that a thief can “revive "boiled eggs using a herb known to him alone. It was believed that the bird Erody(seagull) is able to distinguish Christians who know Greek language, from people " other knee" There was a story that enudr(otter) kills a sleeping crocodile, reaching through its open mouth to its entrails. Given a fairly accurate description of the dolphin's habits (it comes to the aid of people drowning in the sea, etc.), the author of such a treatise could call it zelfin bird, and an ancient miniature depicts a pair of dolphins ( two delphimon), saving Saint Basil the New, in the form of two... dogs.

The coincidence of characters that arose as a result of the redistribution of characteristics was eliminated by assigning one of them (most often the one in whose description fabulous properties predominated, or it correlated with a “foreign”, exotic region - India, Ethiopia, Arabia, etc.) unusual (foreign language ) name. This, as it were, removed the possible discrepancy between any properties of the object and the usual set of features, united under “its own” familiar name. So, " Indian"The beaver also had the name " muskous (musk, mus, mus))».

It should be borne in mind that the free application of attributes to the character’s name played an important role in the symbolic interpretation of its properties. The most authoritative specialist in the study of animal symbolism in ancient Russian literature, O. V. Belova, notes cases when a set of characteristics completely passed from one name to another, and an object bearing a name that took on someone else’s characteristics received a new property. Thus, having first found themselves united in their characteristics, the hyena and the bear subsequently “exchanged” their names. In ancient Russian alphabet books the word owena along with the meanings " wild animal, imitating a human voice”, “a mythical poisonous beast with a human face, drenched in snakes”, “a feline beast” has the meaning “bear, she-bear”.

From the point of view of medieval books, such descriptions were not examples of pure fiction. Any “natural science” information was taken for granted, being supported by authoritative sources.

“Whether there is truth or falsehood, one does not know. But you found this in books and were forced to write it here. The same is true of animals, and of birds, and of trees, and of grass, and of fish, and of stones.”

- notes the compiler of one of the alphabet books. For a book “scientific” description of animals, the real-unreal attribute is not decisive.

The names of animals were regarded as originally given by Divine Providence. The article “On the naming of cattle and beasts and creeping things” tells:

In the days of the first-created man Adam, the Lord God came to earth to visit her and all his creatures that he himself had created. And the Lord called all the livestock of the earth and all the birds that soar, and brought them before the face of Adam and set them with him, and called the name of all. And Adam called the names of all the livestock of the earth, and beasts, and birds, and fish, and creeping things, and bogeymen [ insects ]

Moreover, these names were given so successfully and so accurately reflected the essence of all creatures that God did not consider it possible to change them even after the fall of the first people.

All animals and all their properties, real and fictitious, are considered by ancient Russian scribes from the point of view of the secret moralizing meaning contained in them. The symbolism of animals provided abundant material for medieval moralists. In The Physiologist and similar monuments, every animal, be it a supernatural creature (unicorn, centaur, phoenix), an exotic animal from distant lands (elephant, lion) or a well-known creature (fox, hedgehog, partridge, beaver) is amazing. All " Chodesti and Letestii“creatures appear in their hidden function, accessible only to spiritual insight. Each animal “means” something, and there can be several meanings, often opposite ones. These symbols can be classified as “dissimilar images”: they are based not on obvious similarities, but on difficult-to-explain, traditionally fixed semantic identities. The idea of ​​external similarity is alien to them.

In the context of the culture of Ancient Rus', a living creature deprived of its symbolic meaning, opposes the harmonious world order and simply does not exist in isolation from its meaning. No matter how interesting the properties of the animal being described may seem, the ancient Russian author always emphasized the primacy of symbolism over the actual description. For him, the names of animals are the names of symbols, and not of specific creatures, real or fantastic. The compilers of “Physiologists” did not set themselves the goal of giving more or less complete characteristics of the animals and birds they talked about. Among the properties of animals, only those with the help of which it was possible to find analogies with any theological concept or draw moral conclusions were noted.

Old Russian scribes perceived them in approximately the same way. stones , their nature, properties and qualities, color.

« 1st like Kamyk, called sardion[the ruby] is Babylonian, and is marked in the image, like blood. Those who travel to Asyria find lands in Babylon. It is transparent. There are healing powers in it, and swellings [tumors] form in it. ulcers caused by iron are anointed. This Kamyk is likened to Reuben the firstborn[Israel] , as strong and strong as you are, you will do better.”

« 3rd Kamyk Izraragd[emerald] is green. They dig them into Indian peas. There is light, you can see a human face in it, like in a mirror. This one is likened to Leugias [the son of Israel] - it is fitting for the saint and the priestly rank, who should not be ashamed of a human face»

An extensive symbolic system of individual elements of “created nature” was embodied in derivative texts and images. So, on the icon “Miracle of St. George about the serpent” was depicted by St. George, sitting on a snow-white horse, in a red cloak fluttering in the wind, with a spear in his hand, striking a dark red serpent writhing under the horse’s hooves. In addition to the literal “illustration” of the corresponding hagiographic text, this icon is also filled with many symbolic meanings. For example, St. himself George symbolizes the entire army of Christ, which, relying on the right faith (symbolized by the white horse), wages an irreconcilable and tireless struggle against the devilish forces (the serpent is a stable symbol of the devil, and the spear in the hands of the saint is a symbol of the overthrow and victory over Satan). These images are complemented and developed by the symbolism of color. The white color of the horse is the color of purity, a symbol of the all-conquering Holy Spirit. The blood red color of St.'s cloak. George corresponds to the color of the ruby ​​(the necessary characteristic can be found in the text just quoted from “The Tale of the 12 Stones”). The dark red color of the serpent was associated with the color of the seventh stone - uakiif (yakhont), corresponding to the son of Jacob Dan, from whose line the Antichrist was to be born.

When analyzing the symbolism of the color characteristics of objects in ancient Russian works of literature and art (with all the conventions of using these terms for Ancient Rus'), it should be remembered that the names of colors could differ significantly from the modern “generally accepted coloristic nomenclature”. If you lose sight of this point, you can find yourself in a very awkward position. Let me give you an example. In the Old Slavonic translation of the Pandects of Antiochus of the 11th century. we read the mysterious phrase:

« Whose eyes are blue, are they not in wine, and are they not watching the feast?»

Here the models of ethical and color spaces are fundamentally different from those familiar to us. A modern person will never understand what connection there can be between “blue” eyes and a tendency to abuse alcoholic beverages, unless he takes into account that at the time when this text was written, the word “blue” meant “dark, dark red (cherry ), brilliant". Without this, by the way, it is not clear why many icons have red(“blue, shiny, shining”) background.

Deviation from the established canon was not perceived by the medieval Russian reader. He was not interested in new stories. He preferred to re-read already famous works. Therefore, the composition of ancient Russian “collections” of literary works could remain unchanged for centuries, and each new chronicle collection necessarily included the texts of previous chronicles.

The most general and universal expression of the ideas of the Russian Orthodox person about the world around him has always been Orthodox church . He kept that one image(not a model!) of the world, which was “theirs” for the people of Ancient Rus'.

The word “temple” itself, along with the words “church”, “cathedral”, means a special building for worship. Here, over the centuries, the most important Christian rituals and actions have been performed and continue to be performed today. In the temple, according to Christian ideas, a believer can enter into direct communication with God. Here a person turns to Him in prayer, enters into dialogue with the highest of the imaginable entities. This is the “number of prayer”, “ earth's sky", "house of God".

For our ancestors the temple was unique mirror the world in which they lived and of which they themselves were a part, and a very unique mirror. It did not reflect appearance, but an internal image, hidden from the uninitiated. The image of the invisible icon(which is what “image” means in Greek). The phenomenon of the inexpressible. The temple was (and remains for believers) an “instrument” not even of knowledge, but of the sensation of truth through earthly, auxiliary images. Such figurative development proceeded from what was accessible to the “external” gaze to that which could only be comprehended by the inner gaze.

At the same time, the “pure meaning” of earthly things, phenomena and events could be transmitted both through “similar” (“similar”) images and through “dissimilar” (“dissimilar”) images.

“Similar” images, “for the sake of the weakness of our understanding” (John of Damascus, c. 675-753), in a certain form reflect prototypes (“archetypes”). “Dissimilar”, although they have a sensory-figurative “shell”, do not so much reflect, but rather denote the truth in certain signs and symbols, which require special decoding for a modern person. Their external form and what they are a sign of have nothing in common with each other. The correspondence between the appearance and content of the image is established through some kind of agreement (convention) between people. Therefore such symbolism sometimes called conventional. To the uninitiated, the meaning of such images is unclear. The sign doesn't tell them anything. Therefore, we find ourselves unable to “hear with our eyes” the voice of those who left these signs.

Which of us, say, would come to mind while looking at the bizarre griffins (an image that came from Ancient East) or good-natured lions sleeping with their eyes open on the walls of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, Demetrievsky Cathedral in Vladimir or St. George's Cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky, what are before us - unlike images of Jesus Christ?

And the less understandable to us is the “flow of metaphors and symbols pattern”, which is every ornamental motif decorating a temple without exception: from “ herbs marking" (a highly stylized image of a grapevine), symbolizing, metaphorically depicting and idea paradise, and the universe (being in a state of continuous creation, and therefore eternal), and the ideas of cyclicity, the rhythm of nature, the change of seasons, the alternation of day and night (i.e., all the basic patterns of living life), and concept human- microcosm(particular correspondence to the entire system of the universe - macrocosm), and the great sacrifice, which became for humanity the path to salvation and immortality, to the endless alternation of extremely generalized images of a flower and a fruit - a symbol of cyclically renewed eternity, or the repetition of stylized images of fan-shaped palm leaves - palmettes, inscribed in intersecting circles - a theme known as called "eternal return".

At the same time, earthly beauty, brought to the simplest, primordial forms in which the idea of ​​the temple is embodied, became the path to the knowledge of absolute beauty - the beauty of those meanings that are embedded in idea temple.

The creators understood the Christian temple as harmonized cosmos. This image was formulated and developed by theologians of the early Middle Ages - Eusebius Pamphilus (264-340), Basil the Great (c. 330-379), etc. In their works, the concepts of the world and the temple flow into each other as artistic divine creations: the world is the temple of God's creation, the temple is the world of God.

The “Temple-Cosmos” was created and perceived as a symbolic, artistic and ideological “image of the world.” The classic image of its embodiment is the Constantinople Church of St. Sofia. This image of a harmonized cosmos turned out to be so universal that after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a Muslim mosque.

The original idea of ​​the temple was supplemented and developed over time, complicated by new meanings. The development of the contemplative nature of Eastern Christian spiritual life led, in particular, to the formation of the idea of ​​the temple as a “symbolic image of man” (Maximus the Confessor). The image of the external world (macrocosm) merges in the temple with the image of the inner world of man (microcosm). Moreover, their merging was not simple. Moreover, both of these images were in the insoluble - and constantly resolvable! - contradictions. Their unity formed the basis of the image of the ancient Russian temple.

The idea of ​​a temple was further developed in Byzantium during the period of iconoclasm (8th - first half of the 9th centuries), when the idea of ​​a “temple-cosmos” was transformed into the idea of ​​a “temple - the earthly sky in which God lives and abides.” According to Patriarch Herman, now the temple is

“The divine house, where a mysterious life-giving sacrifice is performed, where there is an inner sanctuary, a sacred den, a tomb, and a soul-saving, life-giving meal.”

The temple, thus, also turned into a facet (border), separating and, at the same time, like any facet, connecting man and God, man and the Universe, which surrounded and at the same time filled his bodily shell (soul). The temple becomes not only a place of communication with the deity, but also an instrument (mediator) for a person to comprehend his own divine essence, the eternal, imperishable Self, a means of becoming consciousness.

For this, however, the idea of ​​the temple had to be embodied and specific forms that would fully manifest (reveal) these meanings, make them accessible to the direct perception of the sense organs,

How ideas the temple is embodied in image temple?

The visual image of the temple is based on two elementary image-symbols that were formed in the East and came to the Christian world in different ways:

— cross(“earth”, a symbol of death and victory over it, resurrection, immortality, Christ) and

— dome, resting on four supports (palace - “visible, earthly sky”).

That is why churches are called cross-domed.

The combination of these symbols created an extremely complex multi-dimensional and multi-valued image, a complete “deciphering” of which is hardly possible.

The center, the core of the image is the God-man Jesus, whose death on the cross threw (as Christians believe) the only bridge of salvation across the abyss that lies between sinful man (“earth”) and holy God (“heaven”). This is the key that reveals to us the basis of the system of the external and internal appearance of the temple, its constituent elements and their interrelation. This structure had developed in Byzantium as a whole by the 9th century. and at the end of the 10th century. was transferred to Kievan Rus.

Let's go to the temple.

The temple is the first thing we see when approaching an old Russian city or village. Its dome is noticeable when the roofs of other buildings are not yet visible. And this is not only because the temple is the highest of them. The point is also that for its construction the architects selected a special - harmonious - place, the most advantageous for construction, clearly visible from different points. The subtly found harmonious consistency of architecture and nature enhanced the impact on the viewer. The temple seemed to grow out of the earth that gave birth to it. The image of “the temple - heaven on earth” received visual embodiment.

With rare exceptions, outwardly a Russian church (especially an early one) produces a very modest, often even ascetic impression. The decorations of its white stone facade (construction with bricks was prohibited by biblical norms), if there are any, never develop into decoration. There is no in vain, idle beauty. Everything is subordinated to one idea. Everything has its own meaning, or more precisely, meanings.

Each element and the holistic image consisting of them contains several meanings, at least four: literal (it, however, was also divided into obvious and secret), moral, symbolic and allegorical:

“Be aware that, according to a fair teacher, there is betrothal: in other words, in morals, in construction, in secret and in reality.”

The total number of meanings extracted (“read”) from a particular image could even reach several dozen.

The external appearance of the temple was intended for city-wide contemplation and therefore should have most directly expressed the idea “the temple is the earthly sky” embedded in it. This was achieved, first of all, due to the orientation of the temple to the cardinal points: the central axis of symmetry of the temple is located in the east-west direction. The entrance (or main entrance) to the temple is located on its western facade. From the east, the space of the temple is limited by semicircular, faceted or rectangular altar projections - apses. At the same time, the west symbolized the earth, death, the end of visible existence (the “dying” Sun at the end of the day), and the east symbolized the sky, life, rebirth and, finally, Jesus Christ, often called in prayers “ Sun of Truth», « East».

At the head of the dome, perpendicular to the axis of symmetry of the temple there is a cross. The upper end of the sloping lower crossbar points to the north - " midnight countries" The number of heads of the temple is usually also considered symbolic (for example, a five-domed temple - Christ and four evangelists, a 13-domed temple - Christ and 12 apostles, etc.), but early sources do not make it possible to assert this with complete confidence.

The axis of the temple does not always coincide exactly with the geographical cardinal points. Obviously, this is due to the fact that in the absence of a compass, the builders used the points of sunrise and sunset on the day of the founding of the temple or on the day of the holiday to which it was dedicated as a guide.

The next important element of the external appearance of the temple is the decoration of the facade. Apparently, the external images divided the surface of the temple into three tiers, or registers. Each of them carried its own content. They symbolized the levels of ascent from sinful earth to heaven.

The lower tier symbolized the earth itself. At first, images here filled mainly the portals (entrances) and the lines of the consoles (protrusions in the wall supporting the cornice) of the arched columns of the frieze. These images meant evil forces, which were prohibited from accessing the interior of the temple and the upper parts of its walls. Subsequently, the lower tier of the walls was sometimes filled with images of the plant world.

The frieze that separated the lower tier from the middle one was a cosmitis - “ the dividing line of earthly and heavenly paradise", or (possibly) a symbol of the heavenly arcade (a series of identical arches supported by columns or pillars).

The second tier was identified with the world of the Divine in its unity with people. Here the pictures of the earthly mission of God unfolded - himself or through messengers. It is in this tier that we find the most “narrative” images. The characters here are God himself, people, animals, and sometimes the most fantastic “creatures” (griffins, whale-race centaurs, sirens, etc.), which, as we know, had symbolic meanings.

The upper, third tier is the sky itself. At first it remained empty. Then they began to fill it with images of God and senior figures of the church hierarchy.

Thus, moving along the walls of the temple from bottom to top, the images embodied a special view of the world - gradualism, representing a gradual transition from the world of plants and demonic faces through the images of people and animals to the image of God, which grew into the central, highest and most capacious symbol of Christianity, crowning the dome of the temple - the cross.

Moreover, the higher tiers are inaccessible to a person who has not entered the temple. He is doomed to remain at the plant level; of the earthly world, being himself only a “moving plant.”

In contrast to the external (very laconic) design, which is associated with modesty, unpretentiousness and austerity of the external life of a Christian, the complex internal structure and magnificent decoration of the interior of the temple, sometimes bordering on luxury, symbolizes the richness of the spiritual life of a believer.

The internal appearance of the temple is three-part in its structure. Its space is formed by walls, pillars supporting the dome, and special barriers. In the horizontal plane, the temple is divided into a vestibule ( narthex), ship ( nave) and altar ( konhu).

Narthex- the western part of the temple, separated from the middle - the temple itself - by a blank wall. Not only “true believers” could enter the vestibule, but also people who were prohibited from entering the main part of the temple - Gentiles and heretics. It symbolized the earth (Zephanios, Patriarch of Jerusalem).

Ship- the central part of the temple - was a prototype of the visible sky. Its somewhat strange name is associated with the idea that the church, like a ship, is in the image Noah's Ark, draws the believer across the sea of ​​life to a quiet pier in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Altar- the eastern part of the temple, separated from the nave by a special barrier. An iconostasis is usually located on the altar barrier. The altar is the throne of God, the most important part of the temple. Here, in the altar, lay people, as a rule, are not allowed (for women this is generally excluded). The altar is built on a raised platform, which has not only a symbolic, but also a practical meaning; everyone should be able to hear the service and see what is happening in the altar. The interior of the altar is covered with a curtain, which opens and closes during the service.

In the middle of the altar is located throne- the main accessory of a Christian temple. It is a rectangular table covered with two blankets (“ clothes"). It is believed that God is invisibly, secretly present on the throne as the King and Ruler of the church. Before communion and the consecration of the new church, they place on the altar the antimens- a quadrangular linen or silk board with images of the position of Jesus Christ in the tomb and the four evangelists. Particles of the relics of saints are sewn into its corners (at first, Christian services were performed at the graves of saints).

During the service, the altar Gospel and cross, tabernacle and monstrance are placed on the antimension. The sacrament of communion is performed near the throne, and divine services are held.

The throne of the temple is consecrated in honor of a saint or event in Sacred history. This is where the temple gets its name. Often in one temple there are several altars, which are located in special altars - aisles. Each of them is consecrated in honor of its saint (event). But the entire temple is named after the main, central altar. Only the priest can touch the altar.

Behind the throne are the seven-branched candlestick and (behind it) the altar cross. At the very eastern wall of the altar there is a sublime high place, symbolizing the upper (higher) world. To the left of the throne, in the northern part of the altar, stands altar, where gifts for the sacrament of communion are prepared. On the right (south) side of the altar there is a sacristy, in which sacred vestments, church vessels and liturgical books are kept.

There are three doors in the altar barrier: "Royal" and deacon's(southern and northern) gate. It is believed that Jesus Christ himself, the “King of Glory,” invisibly passes through the Royal Doors in the Holy Gifts. Only a priest in full vestments can enter the Royal Doors. They contain images of the Annunciation and the Evangelists. Above them is the icon of the Last Supper.

The dais on which the altar and iconostasis stand protrudes forward into the ship. This elevation in front of the iconostasis is called salty. Its middle is called pulpit(which means “edge of the mountain, ascent”). From the pulpit, the deacon says litany (prayers), reads the gospel, and the priest reads sermons. Here the believers are given the sacrament. Along the edges of the salt, near the walls, they arrange choirs for readers and singers.

The central part of the temple, the sanctuary itself, is divided by pillars into so-called naves(ships). Vary central(limited by two rows of central pillars) and side ones - north and south(formed by pillars and a corresponding wall) - naves. The transverse nave is called transept. The semantic center of the nave (the space between the altar and the vestibule) is the crossing formed by the central nave and transept. Here, so to speak, is the vertical “semantic vector” of the temple.

The porch, corresponding to the courtyard of the Old Testament temple, where all the people were, has now almost completely lost its original meaning, although gravely sinners and apostates are still sent here to stand for correction.

Well-known symbolism was also contained in the trinity of the transverse division of the central-domed temple (central and side naves, altar, altar and deacon; Royal and Deaconal Doors), but it, apparently, was derivative and not system-forming.

In accordance with the semantic division of the horizontal plane of the temple, the cycles of paintings were distributed in it. The western part was reserved for Old Testament (“historical”) subjects. They partially occupied the walls of the main room, but only up to the pre-altar pillars on which the Annunciation was depicted. Here was the limit that separated pre-Christian and New Testament history.

Time thus acquired horizontal extension. A person entering the temple, as he moved towards the altar, repeated the entire path of humanity - from the creation of the world to the Nativity and the sufferings of the Savior on the cross, from His resurrection to the Last Judgment, the image of which was on the western wall of the central nave.

However, there was also cyclical time, into which the entire life of a medieval person fit. In the XI-XII centuries. In Rus', the Byzantine tradition of arranging temple Christological paintings was widespread. She invited the “spectator” to a circular movement in the interior of the temple, which was entirely consistent with the “cyclical-temporal” symbolism of the central domed structure. The Gospel story, according to this tradition, originates at the northern end of the central cross formed by the central nave and transept. Then the narrative moves to its southern, and from here to its western ending,

Thus, the semantic and chronological sequence of images unfolds clockwise. In order for the worshiper to see all the Gospel episodes in turn, he had to make three circles within the central cross. First, the images on three vaults were “read” (“Nativity of Christ”, “Candlemas”, “Baptism”, “Transfiguration”, “Resurrection of Lazarus”, “Entrance into Jerusalem”). The second circle consisted of images above the choir arches (“Christ before Caiaphas,” “Denial of Peter,” “Crucifixion,” “Descent from the Cross”). Finally, the final episodes of the gospel story were placed in the walls of the lower tier (“Myrrh-Bearing Women at the Holy Sepulcher,” “The Descent into Hell,” “The Appearance of Christ to the Myrrh-Bearing Women,” “The Assurance of Thomas,” “Sending the Disciples to Preach,” “The Descent of St. . Spirit"). In the altar part there was an image of the “Eucharist”.

We find this sequence of paintings in the churches of St. Sofia in Kyiv and Novgorod. However, this Byzantine canon of the arrangement of Gospel images in Russian churches was most often violated. But even there, cyclical, eternally repeating time continued to be present in the texts of the liturgies. All the events of Sacred history mentioned in them have been updated. They are happening (judging by the verb forms that are used in the spoken texts) right now, but in some other dimension.

It is interesting that the entire “path” of someone who comes to the temple covers not only the history that has happened at the moment, but also what will happen in the coming end of time. In other words, a person sees his life path as already completed; everything has already happened, has become unchangeable, eternal. However, the present moment (“today”) is not here. He is the man himself, standing in the temple and solving the “last questions of existence” (or - focusing on the “last human” - current questions of his mortal life), deciding and re-deciding his fate. This kind of mental dialogue between a person living and experiencing this state, and by him, but who had already graduated, completed his life’s journey, between the momentary and the eternal, the temporary and the timeless, the transitory and the enduring, gave rise to a special emotional and moral tension, in the “force field” of which the formation of the believer’s consciousness and his personality took place.

The original focus of the horizontal vector of the “energy field” of the temple was the Deesis (Greek “prayer”) - the icons located in the third (considering the second the icon of the “Last Supper” above the Royal Doors) row of the iconostasis. They depict Jesus Christ in Glory with forthcoming figures. Christ in bishop's vestments sits on the throne. Standing before him is the Mother of God (on the right, “ right hand"from Him) and John the Baptist (left, " awesome"). They act as mediators between God and people, praying to Christ for the forgiveness of human sins. Deesis embodies the idea of ​​intercession ( intercession) for the “Christian race”.

Another semantic vector of the temple is the vertical structure of his paintings. The lower (“earthly”) register is assigned to the organizers of the “earthly church” - the apostles, saints, and church fathers. The second tier is Christological. The proto-evangelical and evangelical scenes, which have already been discussed, are located here. The third (“heavenly”) register is dedicated to the “heavenly church,” embodied in the images of angels and crowning the inner space of the temple of Christ the Pantocrator (Pantocrator, often in the image of the “ancient of days,” that is, in old age, which is an incomparable image of God- Father), depicted on the central dome.

So, the vertical structure of the interior of the temple also symbolizes the ascent from the “earthly”, transitory - through the repetitive, cyclical - to the timeless, eternal, universal level, consolidating the semantics: “cross - Universe”.

External and internal images temples corresponded not only to the macrocosm, but also to the microcosm. Since the 14th century the idea of ​​the microcosm gradually becomes dominant. The focus of attention shifts to the person, his inner world. At the same time, the appearance of the temple also undergoes some changes. By the beginning of the 15th century. he is clearly becoming more and more “humanoid”, anthropomorphizing. Its proportions change, the vertical axis of symmetry shifts somewhat. The image of the temple is becoming more and more “human”.

Obviously, these metamorphoses were associated with certain changes in the value system. In particular, apparently, it became clear that the inner world of man is a universe that generally coincides with the external Divinely harmonized world. And therefore, everyone carries within themselves their own “temple” - the images of the microcosm merged with the images of the macrocosm. The temple becomes a place (and a “tool”) for the harmonization of a person’s internal and external world, where he realizes himself and his place in this world, and finds the meaning of his existence.

The idea of ​​harmony between internal and external is perhaps most clearly manifested in the descriptions a person's appearance, which we find in ancient Russian literature. The material and physical were then perceived as visible beauty, testifying to the beauty and purposefulness of the invisible, spiritual world. The dialectical combination of the visible (material) and the invisible (supersensible) became the core of medieval Christian aesthetics, which understood man as two-pronged creature (« animal mixed"). He is one of the most beautiful phenomena of the surrounding world, in which the creative idea of ​​the Eternal Builder comes off. The invisible and visible worlds are the creation of God. Everything created by God is beautiful. The source of beauty and goodness is in absolute beauty and absolute goodness.

On the contrary, the source of what is ugly and evil is outside of God, in free will. Satan was the first to fall away from God. Man was created in the image and likeness of the Creator. In the act of the Fall, Adam and Eve lost similarity, the primitive ideal state of man. Dmitry Rostovsky wrote:

“God create a man who is kindly, virtuous in character, carefree, sorrowless, illuminated by every virtue, adorned with all blessings, like a kind of second world, small in the great [microcosm] , Another angel... the king of beings on earth[equal to the Angel, king over everything that is on Earth] .. .»

Spiritual improvement of man ( after the coming of Christ into the world) is the way to restore the original harmony. Target - deification of all creation. Myself a person bears full responsibility for his actions, because he is endowed with “autocity”, the freedom to choose between good and evil. In the interaction (cooperation) of the will of created beings and the ideas-wills of the Divine ( synergy) is the guarantee of perfect union with God.

The ideal image of a prince (and we don’t see anyone except princes or people from their closest circle in ancient Russian literary works) was built on the combination and interpenetration of the beautiful material and the beautiful spiritual in the “corporal temple.” Here, for example, is how the author of “The Tale of Boris and Gleb” describes one of his heroes:

« About Boris, as soon as I'm alive[what was the view]. Behold, the faithful Boris is a good son, obedient to his fathers, repenting in front of all his fathers. The body is red, tall, only round, the shoulders are large, the shoulders are tall, the eyes are kind, cheerful, the beard is small and the mustache is still young. The king’s crown lights up, his strong body is decorated in every possible way like the color of flowers in his youth, in his army he is brave, in his world he is wise and reasonable in everything, and the grace of God blooms upon him.”

Such a laconic portrait of Boris contains holistic concept of man, representing in an undivided form the system of moral and aesthetic views of a medieval scribe on man. By the way, it was continued in Russian classical literature of modern times. Let us at least recall Chekhov’s textbook: “ everything should be perfect in a person..." Corporeal " good-naturedness"(decency) directly indicates the inner enlightenment of a person and " the limit of wisdom”, to the fact that a person (in this case, the passion-bearing prince) during his lifetime achieved a high degree of perfection in humility, obedience, and meekness.

Old Russian culture deeply adopted the Christian medieval ideal of asceticism, which was expressed in the so-called ascetic aesthetics. The latter contrasted everything material, earthly and carnal with the spiritual.

The monk withdraws from the world and preaches abstinence, pacifying his passions, and mortifies the body through various deprivations and self-torture. From the point of view of modern man, there is nothing aesthetically valuable here. However, the logic of early medieval hagiographers (compilers of hagiographies, biographies of saints) was different. So, for example, the creator of “The Life of Simeon the Stylite”, carried away by the extremes of monastic asceticism, asserts a peculiar “ aesthetics of negation", the essence of which is to highlight the ugly and disgusting. The writer compares the worms that eat the flesh of an ascetic with precious pearls, the pus of an ascetic with gilding. From Simeon's body

« an unbearable stench emanates, so that no one can stand near him, and his bed is infested with worms...»

— these details become the object of specific pleasure, admiration and contemplation.

A modern person can understand such a “philosophy of beauty” only if he tries to adequately reveal its moral and religious meaning. The answer is in the primary source, the Gospel instructions of Jesus Christ about the Pharisees. The Pharisees (representatives of the Jewish sect) ascribed to themselves exceptional holiness and despised “unclean” people (including tax collectors - publicans). In Christian medieval literature, these proud people and deceivers became the personification of vicious human nature: they are pious only in words, but their true essence is in slavish dependence on the material goods of “this world”, in the worship of false idols. Christ reproaches the Pharisees:

« Still, they do their deeds so that people can see them.”

comparing the wicked to "painted tombs"

“Which on the outside seem beautiful, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and all uncleanness.”

For the Christian ascetic, the whole worldly life has become a “painted coffin”, in which people die from vices and satiety of the flesh during their lifetime. The more beautiful and alluring the appearance of a sinner, the more terrible he is inner essence. And vice versa, the disgusting side of the earthly “dying” of the flesh (the monk and his mortal body have the name die for the world) becomes a symbol of inner perfection. Such symbolism, built on the contrast of the sign and the signified, is typical of medieval thinking.

Paradoxical logic is very consonant with the sentiments of a person who seeks the salvation of the soul, rejecting earthly pleasures. This is the explanation for the “absurd” behavior of holy fools, who “returned” to the world in order to expose it. By their actions they demonstrate contempt for generally accepted moral standards. The holy fool eats meat during Lent and dances with harlots. His behavior seems ridiculous, but in fact it is full of deep meaning. Moscow holy fool of the 16th century. St. Basil, walking through the streets, threw stones at the corners of those houses in which they prayed, and kissed the corners of those houses in which they indulged in debauchery, drank wine and sang shameless songs. He interpreted his actions as follows: demons should be driven away from pious people, and kissing corners is a greeting to angels leaving a bad home. However, the extremes of the aesthetics of negation did not conflict with everyday life. One thing - ideal, completely different - code of Conduct.

How is the ideal revealed? Should we strive for it? The ancient scribes answered these questions, guided by the commandments of the “Holy Scripture.” The Christian teaching about man contrasts the “body” with the “flesh”:

“He who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

Old Russian writers, brought up on patristic teaching literature, understood well that sin has not material, but spiritual nature(the satanic principle is realized in the action of evil spirits). Speaking about the high dignity of a person, they defined it as the measure of things. Consequently, not only the rational part and the highest element of human nature is the “spirit” ( pneuma), but the body itself, with its inherent expediency and beauty of proportions, received a place in the hierarchy of spiritual values.

The beautiful - material and visible - contains information about absolute beauty - “spiritual”. This concept turned out to be a natural organic element of the Christian system of ethical and aesthetic ideas. It received its justification from Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The natural cause of the multitude of blessings and beautiful visible and invisible creations was the “one good-and-beautiful.”

V.V. Bychkov, based on the texts of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, establishes the following hierarchy of beauty in Russian spiritual culture:

1. Absolute Divine beauty. The model, the cause of all things, the source of expediency and harmony.

2. The beauty of heavenly beings.

3. The beauty of the phenomena of the material world, everything visible and corporeal.

So, earthly beauty served in medieval aesthetics as a symbol of spiritual beauty. Consequently, everything supersensible could receive material expression in symbols and even in naive-naturalistic (unsimilar) images.

Human

The family was the center of human life in Ancient Rus'. The extensive and detailed terminology of kinship relationships is one of the best confirmations of this. Unfortunately, written sources cover this aspect of the spiritual life of our ancestors very sparingly. However, even indirect data allows us to draw quite interesting conclusions.

Apparently, the most significant connections were considered, firstly, between brothers and, secondly, between parents and children. The “depth” of ancestral memory rarely went beyond these two generations of relatives. No wonder the nouns “ Brother», « brothers"More often than any other words are used by chroniclers. Thus, in The Tale of Bygone Years they occur 219 times (i.e., on average 4.6 mentions for every thousand words of text; for comparison, the most used noun in the Tale is “ summer" - encountered 412 times - gives 8.8 mentions for every 1000 words, and the next most frequently used is " son" - met 172 times, - correspondingly 3.7 mentions). In general, children were of little interest to the chronicler. Words denoting the younger generation (“ youth», « child», « child"), are found in The Tale of Bygone Years ten times less frequently than nouns referring to adult men. Male related terminology makes up a little less than a third of the entire complex of chronicle nouns, despite the fact that in general “related” vocabulary makes up 39.4% of all nouns used by the chronicler. It should also be noted that the older generation (father - mother; husband - wife) occupies a subordinate position in the chronicle compared to the younger (son - daughter; brothers - sisters; children - children); 353 and 481 mentions respectively. Moreover, the problem of “fathers and sons” in the Russian Middle Ages took the form of a problem of “sons and parents”; the relationship between sons, on the one hand, and parents (father, mother), on the other, gives 355 mentions.

Approximately the same trends can be traced in the material of East Slavic anthroponymy, when analyzing the proper names that people bore in Ancient Rus'. These include personal names, nicknames, nicknames, patronymics and surnames.

Personal names are the names given to people at birth and by which they are known in society. In ancient Rus', canonical and non-canonical names were distinguished.

Canonical name- the “true”, “real” name of a person, enshrined in the traditions of the Christian religion. In domestic sources, canonical names usually include Orthodox names taken from the church calendar, where the names of canonized saints are listed by month and day of their memory (the so-called calendar, or hagiographic, names). In the early stages of the development of feudal society, as a rule, only godparents (baptismal, church), monastic (monastic) and schema names were canonical.

Godname given to a person at baptism. It was usually chosen by the priest from the church calendar in accordance with the name of the saint whose memory was celebrated on the person's birthday or baptism. There are also other motives for assigning a person a particular name.

The baptismal name is rarely mentioned in early sources, usually only in reports of the death of a given person or in texts written after his death. Perhaps this was due to superstitious ideas about the need to hide the “true” name, which connected a person with a heavenly patron, patron, guardian angel, in order to protect its bearer from “damage” and the “evil eye.”

In Ancient Rus', it was popular to designate the baptismal names and patronymics of customers of icons, works of small plastic art and jewelry, owners of hanging seals (until the 15th century) by depicting saints on these objects that were directly related to family patronage (the namesake, say, of the owner or the customer, or his father, etc.). Thanks to the images of patronal saints, when compared with genealogical data, the baptismal names and patronymics of the owners of ancient Russian seals can be restored and many artistic works of ancient Rus' can be attributed.

An indirect basis for restoring the baptismal name of the prince may be a certificate of the construction of a church or monastery, since among the princes there was a custom to build church buildings in the name of their holy patrons. Thus, the construction of the Church of St. by Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich. Andrei, under whom the monastery was founded by his daughter Yanka, is considered by V.L. Yanin as an indirect confirmation of the baptismal name Andrei belonging to this prince. And the message of the “Tale of Bygone Years” under 882 about the construction of the Church of St. on the grave of Askold. Nikola gave reason to some scientists to assume that Askold was a Christian and bore the baptismal name Nikola. For similar reasons, Yaroslav the Wise is credited with the founding of the Yuryev, or St. George, monastery three miles from Novgorod.

It is important to emphasize that in Rus' there was a custom of giving children names (both pagan and baptismal) in honor of their grandfather or grandmother, which emphasized (especially before the appearance of surnames) their belonging to a given family. Based on this custom, V. A. Kuchkin suggested that the sister of Vladimir Monomakh was called not Catherine, as recorded in the Laurentian Chronicle, but Irina (a reading preserved in the Ipatiev Chronicle). The researcher justified his choice by the fact that the name of Vladimir Vsevolodovich’s daughter most likely repeated the baptismal name of Vsevolod’s mother, Princess Irina, the second wife of Yaroslav the Wise.

Sometimes members of the same clan can trace a certain connection between the traditional pagan family names and baptismal names. So, for example, the Chernigov princes were characterized by a combination of the Christian name Nikola, which was extremely rare for the princely environment (St. Nicholas of Myra was revered in Rus' almost on a par with Christ) with the pagan name Svyatoslav.

Until the second half of the 15th century. In the overwhelming majority of cases, baptismal names can be established only for representatives of the feudal elite - princes, members of their families and boyars. The bulk of the population of that time - peasants, artisans, traders - usually preferred non-calendar, pagan names. Consequently, the mention of a baptismal name in the source (or, conversely, its absence - although with less justification) can be considered as a sign that indirectly indicates a person’s social affiliation,

Monastic name was the second canonical name that a person received when he was tonsured a monk. It replaced his former worldly name. Usually, the tonsured person received the name of the saint whose memory was celebrated on the day of tonsure, or a calendar name that began with the same letter as the secular name of the monk or nun. Thus, the Novgorod I Chronicle mentions the boyar Proksha Malyshevits, who took the name Porfiry at tonsure, the monk Varlaam, in the world the boyar Vyacheslav Prokshinich, the Novgorodian Mikhalko, who took tonsure under the name Mitrofan, and others.

Schema name given to the monk at the “third baptism” (acceptance of the great schema) instead of his monastic name. It was also given to Moscow kings and boyars, many of whom, according to tradition, took the schema before death (which ensured their inclusion in the rank of angels). Often schema-monks, and sometimes monks, were given rare calendar names, rarely used in the world as baptismal names (Sakerdon, Melchizedek, Acepsios; Synklitikia, Golindukha, Christodoulos, etc.). Such names can also be considered as an additional basis for determining the social status of their bearers.

Over time, canonical names gradually replaced non-canonical ones in everyday life and began to be used as the only name of a person. At the same time, they often took a non-canonical form in pronunciation and spelling. At the same time, a number of pagan, non-calendar names of secular and religious figures of the Russian Middle Ages, canonized by the Orthodox Church, became calendar names (for example, Gleb, Boris, Vladimir, Olga, etc.). Their use as canonical names could only take place after the canonization of a given saint.

In some cases, the canonical name gave an idea of ​​the religion of its bearer, since many calendar names of the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christian churches differ from each other in form, and the days of remembrance of the same saints are often celebrated on different days.

Non-canonical (secular) name usually not associated with religious traditions. It was the second, optional name of a secular person. In Ancient Russia, a worldly name, as a rule, served

function of the main name, since it was more famous and common than the godname. First, this is a non-calendar, pre-Christian name, not associated with the name of any saint. It,

as a rule, it had an “internal” meaning and was supposed to endow its bearer with some useful qualities in life. Later, in the same capacity, along with pagan ones, Christian names begin to be used, usually in their folk, colloquial, non-canonical form, for example, Mikola and Mikula instead of the canonical form Nikolai, Mikita instead of Nikita, Gyurgi instead of Georgiy, Nefed instead of Methodius, Nero instead of Miron, Upolon instead of Apollo, Fedosia instead of Theodosius, Ophimia instead of Euphemia, Ovdokia or Avdotya instead of Evdokia, etc. The replacement of pagan names with Christian ones was especially active in the princely and boyar environment.

Sources often use diminutive or disparaging derogatory (pejorative) forms of non-canonical names. It is quite difficult to reconstruct the full form of the name from them. This is especially difficult to do when it comes to homophonic (coincident in pronunciation and spelling) forms of different names. In such cases, an incomplete (ellipsed) name can correspond to two or more full ones. For example, the name Elka could be formed both from the name Elisha, and from the name Elpidifor, or Elizar, and perhaps from the non-calendar name El; Zinka - from the name Zinovy ​​or Zeno; the abbreviated Alyosha could correspond to both Alexei and Alexander; Mitka - Dmitry and Nikita, etc. At the same time, the source may contain various variant forms of one name (allonyms). Let's say such names as Stekhno, Stensha, Stepsha are non-canonical variant forms of one name - Stepan.

Nicknames , unlike names, always reflect not desirable, but real properties and qualities, territorial or ethnic origin, place of residence of their bearers and thus indicate the special meaning that these properties and qualities had for others. Nicknames could be given to people at different periods of their lives and were known to a fairly limited circle of people.

Nicknames should be distinguished from pagan Old Russian names. However, this distinction is not always easy to establish. This is due, in particular, to the custom of giving children names derived from ethnonyms, names of animals, plants, fabrics and other objects, “protective” names. Apparently, he wrote about such nicknames at the beginning of the 17th century. English traveler Richard James in his dictionary-diary:

“(Nickname), a nickname given by the mother along with the name of the godfather, and they [Russians] are usually called by this name.”

Many of these names sound offensive and may therefore be perceived modern people like nicknames. For example, even among the nobles of the 16th century. there are names Chudim, Kozarin, Rusin, Cheremisin, Mare, Shevlyaga (Nag), Stallion, Cat, Goat, Beast, Cow, Woodpecker, Grass, Sedge, Radish, Zhito, Cabbage, Velvet, Aksamit, Izma-ragd, Shovel, Chobot , Rag, Ignorant, Unstroyed, Bad, Malice, Uninvited, Unloving, Thief, and even Grimacing (Snotty) Face, etc. Many of these nicknames existed in individual families for several generations, thereby emphasizing a person’s belonging to a given clan. They were often used in official documents along with non-calendar names.

An important clarifying part of a person’s name in Rus' was and remains surname(patronymic nickname), usually used together with personal names and formed from the name of the father. The patronymic directly indicated the origin and family ties of the person. Along with the traditional names for a given family, it was one of the most important “external” indicators of a person’s belonging to a particular clan (at least, before the advent of surnames).

At the same time, in the old days in Rus', the patronymic also indirectly indicated a person’s social affiliation, since it was considered an honorary name. If representatives of the highest feudal aristocracy were called by the so-called full patronymic ending in — hiv, then the middle classes used less honorable forms of patronymic nicknames - semi-patronymic names ending in - ov, - ev, -in, and the lower ones generally did without patronymics.

First names, patronymics and nicknames have been known since ancient times, but surnames appeared in Rus' quite late. Surnames - these are inherited official names indicating a person’s belonging to a particular family. As we have already noted, for several centuries, “ancestral memory” in Rus' made do with two generations of relatives: fathers and children. This was reflected in the increased (compared to other kinship terms) frequency of mentions of brothers, on the one hand, and fathers and mothers, which were not realized by the author of the source. This is also confirmed by the fact that naming a person with his father’s nickname as a family nickname was considered quite sufficient, and therefore the so-called grandfatherhoods (personal nicknames formed on behalf of the grandfather) were used extremely rarely. Now (apparently with the development of private land ownership) a “deeper” genealogy was required, recorded in generic nicknames common to all family members. They appeared only in the 15th-16th centuries, and even then at first only among the feudal lords.

Particular attention should be paid to female non-canonical names. They are almost unknown to them. This alone is an important indicator of the attitude towards women in Ancient Rus'. There are even a number of names that cannot be clearly classified as female or male. In particular, we are talking about the names: Gostyata, found in a Novgorod birch bark document of the 14th century. (No. 9); Uncles (author of graffito No. 8 in Novgorod Sofia), Omrosiya (author of Novgorod birch bark letter No. 59, first half of the 14th century), etc. If these are female names, then we receive indisputable evidence of a fairly high level of education of ancient Russian women and their struggle for their rights (mentioned Novgorod birch bark document No. 9).

Woman's position. Women are rarely mentioned in chronicles. For example, in The Tale of Bygone Years there are five times fewer messages related to the fair sex than “male” ones. Women are considered by the chronicler primarily as a “predicate” of men (as are children). That is why in Rus', before marriage, a girl was often called by her father, but not as a patronymic, but in a possessive form: “ Volodymerya”, and after marriage - according to her husband (in the same as in the first case, “possessive”, “possessive” form; cf. turnover: “husband’s wife”, i.e. “belonging to her husband”). Perhaps the only exception to the rule was the mention of the wife of Prince Igor Novgorod-Seversky in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” - Yaroslavna. By the way, this served as one of the arguments for A. A. Zimin to justify the late dating of the Lay. A quote from worldly parables", given by Daniil Zatochnik (XIII century):

“Not a bird among the birds is an owl; nor in the beast the hedgehog beast; neither fish in fishes cancer; neither cattle in cattle goats; neither a serf to a serf, who works for a serf; neither is the husband among husbands who listens to his wife"

The despotic orders that became widespread in ancient Russian society did not bypass the family. The head of the family, the husband, was a slave in relation to the sovereign, but the sovereign was own home. All household members, but speaking of servants and slaves in literally elephant, were under his complete subordination. First of all, this applied to female half Houses. It is believed that in ancient Rus', before marriage, a girl from a well-born family, as a rule, did not have the right to leave the boundaries of her parents’ estate. Her parents were looking for a husband for her, and she usually did not see him before the wedding.

After the wedding, her new “owner” became her husband, and sometimes (in particular, if he was young - this happened often) his father-in-law. A woman could go outside her new home, not excluding visiting church, only with her husband’s permission. Only under his control and with his permission could she meet anyone, have conversations with strangers, and the content of these conversations was also controlled. Even at home, a woman had no right to eat or drink secretly from her husband, or to give or receive gifts to anyone.

In Russian peasant families, the share of female labor has always been unusually large. Often a woman even had to take up a plow. At the same time, the labor of daughters-in-law, whose position in the family was especially difficult, was especially widely used.

The duties of the husband and father included “educating” the family, which consisted of systematic beatings to which the children and wife were to be subjected. It was believed that a man who does not beat his wife, “ doesn't build his own house" And " does not care about his soul", and will be " ruined" And " in this century and in the future" Only in the 16th century. society tried to somehow protect the woman and limit the arbitrariness of her husband. Thus, Domostroy advised beating your wife “not in front of people, to teach in private” and “ no way to be angry" wherein. Recommended " for any reason“[because of trifles] “don’t beat me by sight, don’t hit me in the heart with your fist, or kick me, or hit me with a staff, or hit me with anything iron or wood.”

Such “restrictions” had to be introduced at least on a recommendation basis, since in everyday life, apparently, husbands were not particularly constrained in their means when “explaining” with their wives. No wonder it was immediately explained that those who

“It hits so hard from the heart or from the torment, there are many parables from this: blindness and deafness, and dislocated arms and legs, and fingers, and headaches, and dental disease, and in pregnant wives and children, damage occurs in the womb.”

That is why the advice was given to beat your wife not for every, but only for serious offense, and not with anything or any way, but

« soya shirt, politely with a whip[carefully ! ]to beat, holding hands": "and reasonable, and painful, and scary, and healthy»

At the same time, it should be noted that in pre-Mongol Rus' a woman had a whole range of rights. She could become the heir to her father's property (before getting married). The highest fines were paid by those guilty of “ bruising"(rape) and abuse of women" shameful words" A slave who lived with her master as a wife became free after the death of her master. The appearance of such legal norms in ancient Russian legislation indicated a fairly widespread prevalence similar cases. The existence of entire harems among influential persons is recorded not only in pre-Christian Rus' (for example, among Vladimir Svyatoslavich), but also at a much later time. Thus, according to the testimony of one Englishman, one of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich’s close associates poisoned his wife because she expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that her husband kept many mistresses at home.

At the same time, in some cases a woman, apparently, could become a real despot in the family. It is difficult, of course, to say what influenced the views of the author and editors of the popular “Prayers” and “Words” in Ancient Rus', attributed to a certain Daniil Zatochnik - childhood impressions of the relationship between father and mother or their own bitter family experience, but in these works a woman does not look at all as defenseless and lacking in rights as it might seem from the above. Let's listen to what Daniel says.

“Or say, prince: marry a rich father-in-law; drink that and eat that. It’s better to be sick with shaking; shaking, shake, he will let go, but the evil wife dries to death... Fornication in fornication, whoever takes advantage of evil is the wife of the profit, or the father-in-law, of the rich. It would be better for me to see an ox in my house than for an evil wife... It would be better for me to weld iron than to be with an evil wife. A woman is wicked, like a comb [combed place] : it itches here, it hurts here».

Isn’t it true that the preference (even if only in jest) for the hardest craft - iron smelting - over life with an “evil” wife says something?

However, a woman gained real freedom only after the death of her husband. Widows were highly respected in society. In addition, they became full-fledged mistresses of the house. In fact, from the moment of the death of the spouse, the role of head of the family passed to them,

In general, the wife had full responsibility for running the household and raising young children. Teenage boys were then handed over for training and education " guys"(in the early period, indeed to uncles on the maternal side - yum), considered the closest male relatives, since the problem of establishing paternity, apparently, could not always be solved).

Parents and children. The despotic order that reigned in the family could not but affect the position of the children in it. Spirit of slavery, " covered with the false sanctity of patriarchal relations"(N.I. Kostomarov), dominated the relationship between children and parents in Ancient Rus'.

The subordinate position of the child and adolescent to the family is perhaps best confirmed by the fact that in the overwhelming majority of terms denoting socially unequal segments of the population, they initially referred specifically to the younger members of the family or clan. So, the word " man" was formed from the noun " husband” (“an adult free, independent person” and at the same time “spouse”) with the addition diminutive suffix— ik(literally “little husband”). " Youth” (“child, teenager, youth” and “younger warrior”, and also, at the same time, “servant, slave, worker”) literally meant “non-speaking”, i.e. “not having the right to speak, the right to vote in the life of the family or tribe." " Serf"("enslaved, unfree person") is associated with the word " lad" - "boy, boy, guy" and may have come from the root * сhol-, from which the Old Russian adjective “ single, single”, i.e. “unmarried, celibate, incapable of sexual activity” (by the way, this is why in “Russkaya Pravda” another word is used to refer to dependent women - “ robe»). « Servants"("slaves, slaves, servants") originally, apparently, referred to the younger members of the clan, family (cf.: Proto-Slavic * cel "ad"- “herd, clan”, related to Irish clan- “offspring, clan, clan”, and Olonets “servants” - “children, boys”, as well as Bulgarian “ servants" - “offspring, clan, children”), Finally, the word “÷åëîâåê” means “a person in the service of someone; someone's servant" came, according to most modern etymologists, from a combination of two stems, one of which was related to the Proto-Slavic root just discussed cel- (“clan, clan, tribe”), and the second - to the Lithuanian word vaikas- “child, cub, descendant, boy” and Latvian vaiks - “boy, young man”.

To what has been said, we can add that in ancient Russian miniatures and icons beards were depicted only on people over 30 years old. However, this rule applied only to the privileged classes. Representatives of the urban and, especially, rural “lower classes”, regardless of age, were depicted as beardless. From here it is clear why, for example, in “Russkaya Pravda” for “ depredation For a beard or mustache, an incredibly high, in the opinion of the reader of the late 20th century, fine was 12 hryvnia (the same as for a stolen beaver and only three times less than the fine for killing a free person). The persistent mention that St. Boris " beard is small and mustache(but there is!) - still young" The absence of a beard served as evidence of a person’s incompetence or inferiority, while pulling out a beard was an insult to honor and dignity.

The constant shortage of labor led to very ugly phenomena in peasant life in Rus'. The hunger for labor penetrated into the very way of life of the peasant family. Therefore, children from the very early age used on various works. However, since they were clearly inferior workers, parents often married their sons at the age of 8-9 to adult women, wanting to get an extra worker. Naturally, the position of a young wife who came to her husband’s family under such conditions could hardly really differ in any significant way from the position of a slave. This disfigured family relationships, giving rise to such phenomena as daughter-in-law, etc.

Beating children for “educational” purposes was considered the norm. Moreover, the authors of many ancient Russian instructions, including the famous “Domostroy”, recommended doing this systematically:

« Executions[punish] your son from his youth, and he will give you rest in your old age and give beauty to your soul; and do not weaken when beating a child: if you beat him with a rod, he will not die, but he will be healthy. You beat him in the body, and deliver his soul from death... Loving your son, make his wounds more frequent, and rejoice over him, execute your son from his youth and rejoice over him with courage... Do not laugh at him, playing games: in If you weaken him a little, you will suffer a lot [you will suffer] in grief... And you will not give him power in his youth, but crush his ribs, he will grow stronger, and, having become bitter, he will not obey you and will cause you annoyance, and illness of the soul, and futility of home, destruction estate, and reproach from neighbors, and laughter before enemies, before the authorities, payment [fine] , and the vexation of evil»

The norms of attitude towards children, declared in the 16th century, were in effect half a thousand years before the lines just quoted were written. The mother of Theodosius of Pechersk, as the author of his “Life” repeatedly emphasized, tried to influence her son using precisely these methods. Each of his offenses, be it an attempt to engage in a task unusual for a person of his class, or secretly wearing chains to “depress the flesh,” or escaping from home with pilgrims to the Holy Land, was punished with extraordinary, in the opinion of a person at the end of the 20th century, cruelty. The mother beat her son (even with her feet) until she literally fell from fatigue, put him in shackles, etc.

Marriage and sexual relations . In medieval society, “depression of the flesh” was of particular value. Christianity directly connects the idea of ​​the flesh with the idea of ​​sin. The development of the “anti-corporeal” concept, found already among the apostles, follows the path of “diabolization” of the body as a container of vices, a source of sin. The doctrine of original sin, which actually consisted of pride, over time acquired an increasingly distinct anti-sexual orientation.

In parallel with this, in official religious attitudes there was an all-out exaltation of virginity. However, the girl’s “purity” was not preserved until marriage; apparently, it was initially valued only by the top of society. Among " simpletons“, according to numerous sources, premarital sexual relations in Rus' were looked upon condescendingly. In particular, until the 17th century. society was quite tolerant of girls visiting spring and summer " merrymaking", which provided the opportunity for pre- and extramarital sexual contacts:

“When this very holiday comes, not all of the city will take up tambourines and sniffles... And with all sorts of inappropriate Sotonin games of splashing and splashing. For wives and girls, the head is swayed and their lips are hostile to the cry, all the nasty songs, their wobbling with their groans, their feet jumping and trampling. Here there is a great fall as a man and a youth, nor a woman's and girl's vacillation. The same is true for the wives of married men, who are immediately subject to lawless desecration...”

Naturally, the participation of girls in such “ games" led - and, apparently, often - to " molestation" Nevertheless, even according to church laws, this could not serve as an obstacle to marriage (the only exceptions were marriages with representatives of the princely family and priests). In the village, premarital sexual contacts between both boys and girls were considered almost the norm.

Experts note that ancient Russian society recognized the girl’s right to free choice sexual partner. This is evidenced not only by the long-term preservation of the custom of marriage in Christian Rus' “ withdrawal", by kidnapping the bride by prior agreement with her. Church law even provided for the responsibility of the parents, who forbade the girl to marry of her choice if she “does something to herself.” Indirectly, the right of free sexual choice of girls is evidenced by the rather severe punishments of rapists. " Molested a girl too much"should have married her. In case of refusal, the culprit was excommunicated from the church or punished by four years of fasting. Perhaps even more curious is that twice as much punishment was expected in the 15th-16th centuries. those who persuaded the girl to have intimacy " cunning”, promising to marry her: the deceiver was threatened with nine years of penance (religious punishment). Finally, the church ordered to continue to consider the raped girl (albeit, provided that she resisted the rapist and screamed, but there was no one who could come to her aid). A slave raped by her master received complete freedom along with her children.

The basis of the new, Christian, sexual morality was the renunciation of pleasures and bodily joys. The biggest victim of this ethics was marriage, which, although perceived as a lesser evil than debauchery, was still marked by sinfulness.

In Ancient Rus', the only meaning and justification for sexual life was seen in procreation. All forms of sexuality that pursued goals other than procreation were considered not only immoral, but also unnatural. In the “Question of Kirikov” (XII century) they were assessed “ aka the sin of sodom" The emphasis on sexual abstinence and moderation was supported by religious and ethical arguments about the sinfulness and baseness of “carnal life.” Christian morality condemned not only lust, but also individual love, since it supposedly interfered with the fulfillment of the duties of piety. It may seem that in such an atmosphere sex and marriage were doomed to extinction. However, the gap between the instructions of the church and everyday everyday practice was very great. That is why ancient Russian sources pay special attention to issues of sex.

According to the Questioning, spouses were required to avoid sexual contact during fasting. Nevertheless, this restriction was apparently violated quite often. No wonder Kirik was worried about the question:

« Is it worthy to give him communion, even to have sex with his wife during Lent?»

Bishop Nifont of Novgorod, to whom he addressed, despite his indignation at such violations

« Do you teach Qi, speaking, to abstain from fasting from your wives? That's your sin!»

was forced to make concessions:

« Even if they cannot [abstain], but in the first week and in the last»

Apparently, even the clergy understood that it was impossible to achieve unconditional compliance with such instructions. Bishop Nifont of Novgorod, to whom he addressed, despite his indignation at such violations

Singles " on Great Day[for Easter], Let us preserve the purely great fasting", it was allowed to give communion despite the fact that those " sometimes we sinned" True, first it was necessary to find out with whom “ sinned" It was believed that fornication with " a man's wife“There is greater evil than with an unmarried woman. The possibility of forgiveness for such sins was provided for. At the same time, the norms of behavior for men were softer than for women. The offender most often faced only an appropriate reprimand, while the woman was subject to rather severe punishments. Sexual prohibitions established for women may not have applied to the stronger sex at all.

Spouses, in addition, were instructed to avoid cohabitation on Sundays, as well as on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, before and immediately after communion, since “ in these days a spiritual sacrifice is offered to the Lord" Let us also remember that parents were forbidden to conceive a child on Sunday, Saturday and Friday. For violation of this prohibition, parents were entitled to penance " two summers" Such prohibitions were based on apocryphal literature (and in particular, on the so-called “ Commandment of the Holy Fathers" And " Skinny Nomokanunians"), so many priests did not consider them obligatory.

Even an “unclean” dream could be a worthy punishment. However, in this case, it was necessary to carefully determine whether the person who saw the shameful dream was susceptible to lust for his own flesh (if he dreamed of a woman he knew) or whether he was tempted by Satan. In the first case, he was not allowed to receive communion, but in the second, he was simply obliged to receive communion,

« for otherwise the deceiver [ devil] will not stop attacking him at the time when he should partake»

This also applied to the priest:

« More damn [“unclean” dream] be from the devil in the night, is it worthy to serve at dinner, having rinsed yourself, taking up prayer? - If, as a matter of fact, you were devoted to the thought of your wife, then you will not be worthy; else…. seduce soton, although leave the church without [without] service, then rinsed off to serve»

Interestingly, woman was seen as a greater evil than the devil, since natural carnal desire and the erotic dreams associated with it were declared unclean and unworthy of the priesthood (or a person in general), while the same dreams caused by supposed diabolical influences deserved forgiveness.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that the compulsory marriage established by the Orthodox Church for the white clergy brought the priest closer to his flock in everyday life. And the life of a married clergyman" put forward essentially the same questions that the priest then had to solve in relation to his"children"" (B. A. Romanov).

Society

Team and personality . Russia is a country with deep and lasting traditions. They are her wealth. The stability of the social structure of Russian society and state forms, life and spiritual culture are amazing and deserve the deepest respect. Generated largely by the relative isolation of the country, they themselves become a component of it.

Continuation and at the same time ensuring traditionalism Russian spiritual culture has become its collectivism. In Ancient Rus', the peasant community (mir, rope) had unquestioned and inviolable authority. For centuries it remained the most general conservative principle in the life of society. It was the collective and its memory that were the bearers of tradition and its defenders. In the city, collectivist tendencies were embodied in the people's council.

Collectivism, inherent in our spiritual culture, has given rise to a number of features that characterize Russian society from ancient times to the present day.

First of all, this is - denial of the value of the individual. How deep it is is shown at least by the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in Ancient Rus' are anonymous - if not literally, then in essence. Even when naming names, sources tend to retain almost no information about their personal qualities. With great difficulty, and even then not always, it is possible to find their biographical information. The personalities of all turn out to be “absorbed” by one Personality - the sovereign. Our ideas about many outstanding figures of Russian history are clearly “mythological” in nature.

The tradition of “depersonalization” was reinforced by economic factors. Throughout Russian history, collective forms of land ownership dominated: communal, monastic, state. Private property, as already noted, has not gained the same prevalence and “weight” here as in Western European countries.

Power and personality . Collective property and the authority of “public meetings” in Rus' gave rise to the idea that only some external force, standing above everyone and not subordinate to anyone, could control the life of society. The basis of such ideas lay, strange as it may seem at first glance, in the specifics of the collective form management of society.

Despite the fact that the legends about the first steps of ancient Russian statehood as descriptions of specific events are hardly trustworthy, nevertheless, they preserve memories of some real facts. In particular, it is possible that among the first East Slavic rulers, foreign warriors predominated (as in Slavic Bulgaria, Frankish Normandy and many other European countries) - sometimes invaders (Kiy), sometimes specially invited for this (Rurik). Inviting princes “from outside” seemed quite normal (if not natural) in the conditions of state formation.

Veche orders made it possible to resolve issues only of a certain degree of complexity. The interests of small territorial associations, represented at the veche meeting by the heads of families and communities, stood against the general interests of the nascent community. Therefore, as such a community expanded, the danger of collective decision-making escalating into open conflict between communities became greater. Let us remember that the Novgorodians, who had expelled the Varangians at one time, were forced to ask them to return due to internal conflicts. common problems a large society carried with it the danger of great conflicts, irreversible disorganization, and catastrophe.

A special institution that stood above the interests of the constituents could prevent the conflict. People who were not part of any of the cells that formed the new social association were able to become the spokesmen of non-local, but general interests to a much greater extent. The state, represented by such a group of people or one person, became a powerful institution that consolidated society, capable of “ judge by right", organize joint actions of individual clans (tribes) to defend their lands or to develop new territories or control trade routes (which acquired special importance in Eastern Europe).

Alienation of power functions from society led to further denial of the role of the individual “ordinary” person. Accordingly, the individual’s need for free will also faded away as a value realized and accepted by society. Moreover, relying on collectivist traditions, society actively suppressed attempts at such expression of will, if they did appear. So, all members of ancient Russian society, except the ruler himself, were denied freedom. As a result, this led to the personification of power - the identification of power functions with the specific person performing them. Becoming a ruler, a person stood out from society and rose above it. Similar tendencies found a very definite expression in the activities of Andrei Bogolyubsky, who was the first to try ancient Russian princes become "autocratic".

However, despotic personified power represented the most serious danger for its bearer. The same Andrei Yuryevich Bogolyubsky paid with his life for attempting to establish it. If the vigilantes could " drive off” from an undesirable prince, with whom they were in a contractual vassal-suzerain relationship, then the “merciful people” were completely deprived of such an opportunity. They were not equal to him in status, they did not travel with him to polyudye, but were servants who received stipends. They could only get rid of the despotic master in one way - by physically eliminating him.

Personality and freedom . The concept of freedom in Russian spiritual culture had a special meaning. In practice, it has always been perceived as non-dependence, freedom from something or someone. The Proto-Slavic word itself *sveboda related to Church Slavonic freedom or property — « persona", in which the root *svobь came from svojь(cf.: “ mine") and denoted the position of an independent member of the clan, independent of elders.

The place of personal freedom (in the “European” sense of the word) in Russian spiritual culture was taken by the category will. It is interesting that in Russian this word denotes both “power, the ability to control” and “freedom, the ability to fulfill one’s desires.” The words “command”, “dominate”, “allow”, “power” are derived from it.

It's interesting that central figure ancient Russian culture, ancient Russian self-awareness, it was often not the winner, but the victim. It is characteristic that the first saints of Ancient Rus' were the victims: “ innocent people"brothers Boris and Gleb, whose entire merit was that they did not resist their own murder. True, it was organized by their elder brother, who, naturally, should have been obeyed unquestioningly! Yaroslav the Wise, who avenged their murderer, was not given such an honor, although his own contribution to the development of Russian statehood, and to the development of domestic legislation, and to the Christianization and enlightenment of Rus' is undoubted.

Many “messianic” assessments of events in Russian history in Russian chronicles are also closely related to the category of sacrifice. They seem to justify in advance the sacrifices that were made in the name of collective interests. In addition, the need for such a sacrifice removed from the agenda the issue of lack of personal freedom, and at the same time the responsibility for unjustified losses. As soon as one realized the need for sacrifice, voluntary consent to one’s slaughter turned into the highest freedom.

Personality and law . In the early stages of the development of ancient Russian society, a purely natural (pagan-mythological) understanding of the essence of man freed moral assessments from the sense of human justice, that is, from the consciousness of guilt. As we know, “myths do not teach morality.” The moral law of epic consciousness protected the right of individual arbitrariness of the “strong personality.” Consequently, the goal, duty and main virtue of the epic hero was the unconditional exercise of his individual right. In other words, personal valor was put at the forefront, but not conscience, which, it seemed, inevitably had to lead to arbitrariness.

Relations between people in society were regulated by folk custom. Customary norms were treated as inviolable, sacred institutions, which enjoyed the greater respect and authority the more ancient they seemed. " Old man" custom gave him strength. Of course, in reality the custom has transformed over time. However, the content of the custom was gradually corrected, reflecting changes in the life of the tribe, mostly beyond the consciousness of the people. In their memory, the custom seemed to remain the same. Radical changes in the accepted norm were not allowed. And the way of life of traditional society, which changed more on the surface than in essence, excluded any serious changes in the law. Common law is conservative law.

However, as social life became more complex, it became necessary to regulate those relations that went beyond the framework of customary law and did not obey it. " Strong personalities"(the prince and his squad) had to first of all formulate the norms of their relations with the townspeople and communal peasants, from whom they received tribute and whom they protected (including from themselves!). Thus, they not only consolidated the emerging new social traditions, but also guaranteed compliance with certain norms that limited their own arbitrariness. The creation of such legal acts protected both those who paid for the failed raid and those who collected such payment.

How relevant this was is shown by the conflict between Prince Igor and the Drevlyans. As we remember, an attempt to re-collect tribute led to the murder of the unlucky “racketeer”. The immediate consequence of the tragedy was a series of legislative measures taken by his widow, Princess Olga. As the chronicler writes, she had to travel through tribute-paying territories, “ establishing regulations and lessons».

To replace the vital-egoistic principle of “I want” in the relationship between those who stood above society, and society itself followed the conscious-volitional principle of “must”. The implementation of this principle had to be based on a certain system of values, which until that moment were apparently absent in society (at least in an explicit form). Customary law, which had previously regulated relations between people for thousands of years, was now supplemented by written law, which came not only from oral and ritual tradition, but also from written tradition. The custom was reinforced and developed in the “Holy Scripture”, from where (along with the monuments of Byzantine legislation) new legal norms were primarily drawn.

The first monument of such “paper” law that has reached our time was “ Russian Truth" Its very name included the word (“truth”), from which almost all modern legal the vocabulary is “right”, “justice”, “rightness”, “rule” and even “righteous”. Meanwhile, its original meaning, in which it existed in Ancient Rus', differs significantly from our understanding of what stands behind the word “truth”. Hence the everyday idea of ​​the injustice of that world. What did it mean?

Root *pro- apparently Proto-Indo-European. Plunging into the depths of time by comparing related languages, etymologists found that its earliest meanings were “strong, outstanding (in strength or abundance)”, later they were joined by “active, courageous, standing in front”, then “endowed with power, having right" and, finally, "kind, honest, decent." In Ancient Rus', the first of these meanings was most likely dominant. By the way, that's why gum the hand, as the stronger one in most people, is called in our country right. The idea of ​​law and truth is traditionally associated within the meaning of with the concept of force, violence.

The establishment of rightness among the peoples of traditional cultures, including our ancestors, was closely related to the idea of ​​​​divine justice. The main thing was not so much to establish who is guilty and who is not, but to find out whether a person’s actions received the sanction of higher powers, whether they correspond good, inaccessible to direct human perception and understanding. Therefore, the solution to legal issues was often based not on a legal norm precisely formulated by man, but on whether this or that action was performed by God’s permission, “permission” or not. Hence the widespread practice of resolving litigation through “God’s judgment”: testing by iron, water or legal combat (“ field"). The winner clearly proved whose side God was on, and therefore was right. He was given “ right» a letter is a court decision. The one who suffered defeat (“ killed", according to the terminology of the 15th-16th centuries) was found guilty or lost. The practice of judicial duels existed in Rus' at least until the middle of the 16th century.

Even the role of witnesses (“ Vidokov" or " rumors) was reduced to testifying not so much “about a fact” as about “ good fame» the person on whose side they acted in court. Thus, their function apparently consisted primarily of providing “moral” support to the plaintiff or defendant. And such support was not conditioned by knowledge of the truth and the desire to demonstrate it, but by connections with the person who attracted them to participate in the legal battle on his side. The purpose of the process was not to clarify and prove the facts - they seemed self-evident or became so as a result of taking the appropriate oaths and performing the necessary actions. The court, as an authority designed to establish the truth, obviously did not exist in Ancient Rus'; It was replaced by a process of competition between litigants. The court was called upon to monitor their strict and unwavering compliance with the “rules of the game.” I. Huizinga’s idea that among ancient peoples litigation to a large extent represented a competition in the literal sense of the word, which gave the participants a feeling of moral satisfaction in itself, regardless of its outcome, can be fully attributed to ancient Russian legal proceedings.

Another distinctive feature of ancient Russian legal systems was that “ right[loyal] court"could only be so if it occurred with the strictest adherence to all procedures. The slightest deviation from the “standard” was fraught with failure. Strict adherence to all detailed instructions of the procedure was considered absolutely mandatory. The explanations of judicial procedures and customs offered by modern researchers, reflected in the “Russian Truth”, “Standards of the Righteous”, “Helmsmen’s Books” and other similar legislative sources, inevitably have a rationalistic character. An integral need for the thinking of a person of our time is the desire to find some kind of interpretation of certain human actions, based on “ common sense" However, the norms that we find in ancient Russian legislative acts are organically connected with consciousness, which differently perceived and mastered social world. There is no certainty that for the participants in the legal procedures themselves everything in them was completely clear and they could reveal the meaning of each symbol or symbolic action. Apparently, they did not need such an explanation at all, and a rational explanation, familiar to a person of modern times, would not actually explain anything to them. The effectiveness and legitimacy of normative rituals was not related to their understandability for performers. As already noted, the main thing was to comply with the “old times”.

A characteristic feature of common and early written law was its publicity. The system of such law, based on a detailed formalism and comprehensive ritualization of its norms, represented a kind of mechanism for the “inclusion” of the individual in society. Subject social activities acted by a group to which the individual belonged, performing the traditional functions prescribed to him, following the categorical imperatives of behavior. A man of Ancient Rus' is a man of a group, an organic collective in which he was born and to which he belonged throughout his life. Only as a member of this collective could he enjoy legal capacity.

All of the listed features of Old Russian legal system to a greater or lesser extent continued to exist in subsequent times. Over the course of several centuries, the laws in force on Russian lands were only supplemented, remaining fundamentally unchanged. Thus, “Russian Truth” of the 12th-13th centuries. was based on the “Russian Law”, mentioned at the beginning of the 10th century. It, in turn, was repeated by the Code of Laws of 1497 and 1550, and they were repeated by the Cathedral Code of 1649.

Ethnic identity . One of the most important characteristics a person of any world, including Ancient Rus', had and remains his idea of ​​his own involvement in a certain community (ethnic, political, confessional).

“When studying the processes of ethnic development,” writes B. N. Florya, “for a long time the prevailing tendency was to establish “objective” characteristics of certain ethnic communities (the presence of a territory of compact residence, unity of language, etc.). However, as the research progressed, it became increasingly clear that all these “objective” signs represent only some conditions for the development of a process that takes place primarily in the sphere of social consciousness. What makes a particular community of people an ethnic group is the presence of a special ethnic identity, which is characterized by a clear awareness of the differences between the ethnic group “one’s own” and “alien.” Therefore, by tracing the history of the development of ethnic self-awareness, it is possible to establish the main stages in the development of a particular ethnic group. “Everything that has been said fully applies to the history of the Slavic ethnic community.”

The sources make it possible to establish, at least in general terms, to which community and how the Old Russian people identified themselves. Chronicle data is of primary importance in this. They allow us to believe with a high degree of confidence that the most important thing for the compiler and potential reader of the chronicle was involvement, firstly, in the descendants of Adam, secondly, in the heirs of Japheth, thirdly, in Christians, fourthly, in the Slavs, fifthly, to a specific branch of the Slavs (including the descendants of one or another tribe of the Eastern Slavs) and, finally, sixthly, to the inhabitants of a certain city or territory adjacent to it.

In "The Tale of Bygone Years"

“First of all, there is a noticeable commitment to the category of “universal”, without expressively distinguishing between “one’s own” or “alien” ethnic groups, separating them by borders.”

“to find for each people a major geographical landmark of settlement, and not to pettyly draw ethnic boundaries... The chronicler himself formulated the principle of connecting peoples with noticeable places, which led to the problem of “ours / not theirs”: “on the ground... where you sit in which place:... on the river ...", "I live every... in my own place... on the mountain" and so on.... However, in general, the principle of subject-landscape orientation rather than differentiation prevailed... In general, the principle was maintained: people + a large geographical feature, implying “ours / not ours.”

These were not precise political, legal or linguistic categories of “us” and “alien”, but relatively vague feelings and emotional-figurative ideas, which were not manifested in terminology or in uniform statements. At the same time, one feels that the chronicler was constantly looking for some formal criteria for separating “us” and “strangers”. Language was such a source, or at least a very significant feature, for him. Here is what B. N. Florya writes about this:

"One of important signs unity of the Slavs as a special ethnic community was for the people of the era early Middle Ages the fact that all Slavs speak one, common “Slavic” language for all of them. The conviction that all Slavs speak one, common language for them and that therefore all Slavic peoples can use both writing and translations made by Cyril and Methodius is expressed with greater force in the Long Lives of Cyril and Methodius and in other texts of the Cyril and Methodius circle "

However, as is not difficult to notice, in this case we are talking primarily about written language, the language of bookish, primarily Christian, culture. The own language of one or another part of the Slavic world became an ethnic “marker” at a later time. According to B.N. Flora,

“In the early Middle Ages, all Slavs believed that they spoke the same “Slavic” language, but by the 13th century. the situation has changed. In the second half of the 12th century. We meet the first mentions of the “Czech” language, in the beginning. XIII century - about “Polish”, in texts of the 13th century. The “Bulgarian” language also begins to be mentioned in those contexts where the “Slavic” language was previously spoken of. From that time on, it was their own special “language” that became the main sign of a special nationality. Before the “Slavs” of the Byzantine cultural circle, for whom in the 13th century. Old Slavonic language remained the most important means of mutual communication, the question arose about how this common language for many (and not only Slavic) peoples relates to the actually existing, distinct languages ​​of individual such peoples.” (Italics are mine. - I.D.)

In the meantime, the factor of language served only as a sign of belonging to an extremely broad, and therefore largely ephemeral, Slavic-Christian community. This criterion was neither strictly ethnic nor political in the consciousness of ancient Russian people.

Much more concrete for him was his involvement in a certain rather narrow urban locus.

“It would seem,” writes A.P. Motsya, “mentions on the pages of ancient Russian chronicles of “Suzdal”, “Rostovtsy”, “Novgorod”, “Smolyan”, “Ryazan”, “Chernigov”, etc. allow us to talk about complete the ephemerality of the existence of a pan-East European (or rather East Slavic) community and its replacement by self-awareness at the level of the land-principality. Of course, ethnocultural ties in each specific microregion strengthened horizontally and vertically. But, in our opinion, even during times of fragmentation in Rus', the nationality continued to exist at certain levels of public consciousness. This was due to the peculiarities of socio-economic relations in Rus', and first of all they consisted in the struggle between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies, as well as in the specifics of the feudal holding throughout the entire ancient Russian period.”

At the same time, however, the problem arises of identifying those features that would still make it possible to isolate on the pages of written sources the idea of ​​an ancient Russian person about his belonging to a certain single “nationality.” Until such a formal criterion is found, we will have to agree with the opinion of the author cited above that

“In the Middle Ages, in general, a very significant population was often non-ethnic.”

This applies primarily to representatives of the “lower classes” who are not covered by the “elite” book culture:

“The broad masses at that time,” says A.P. Motsia, “participated very weakly in the integration processes. It is difficult to imagine the high awareness of their unity among the Smerds sitting (for example) near Galich and Pskov - their “world” was real and occupied a much smaller size.”

The question of identifying the elements of self-awareness itself “ masses"is extremely complex. First of all, it has still not been possible to determine the range of sources in which their self-awareness would be reflected quite adequately. It may be objected that such texts are known. This is primarily folklore, in which a special place is given to epics. In particular, according to B. N. Flory,

“it seems...possible to compare the system of ideas about the place of one’s country and people in the surrounding world reflected in epics with the system of ideas that we find in chronicles and other literary monuments of Kievan Rus. The ideas reflected in epics and chronicles have in common a feeling of deep patriotism: the main feat of the epic heroes is the defense of Kyiv and the Russian land from its traditional enemies - nomadic neighbors. For this reason, they leave feasts in the princely gridnitsa in order to stand at the heroic “outposts” for many years. As in the chronicles, the nomads in the epics are contrasted with the inhabitants of “Holy Rus'” as “filthy” who do not honor Christ and do not worship icons. However, the pathos of a “holy war” against the infidels, characteristic of historical monuments of early feudal society, is alien to the creators of epics. If the author of the introduction to the Primary Code of the second half of the 11th century. praised the “old” princes and their warriors for the fact that they not only “reclaimed the Russian land”, but also “made other countries subservient to them”, and in general “feeding, fighting other countries”, then the creators of epics, although they are confident and the superiority of their heroes over the heroes of other nations, the theme of aggressive campaigns is also alien. All these comparisons indisputably speak of only one thing: the lower classes had their own views and ideas, which did not entirely coincide with what we find in the official tradition.”

This thesis is acceptable, if, of course, we ignore the fact that this leaves an open question; On what basis are the texts telling about “ heroes" And " heroic outposts", can be attributed to the history of Rus' in the 10th-11th centuries? After all, these words themselves appeared in sources no earlier than the 13th century. " Bogatyrs”, which are described in epics, is a rather late borrowing from the Turkic languages ​​(M. Vasmer). The earliest mentions of it are recorded in the Ipatiev Chronicle (South Russian code of the late 13th century) under 1240, 1243 and 1262. It is characteristic that in the first articles mentioning “heroes” we are talking about the Mongol invasion (in particular, under 1240 it is present in the combination “ Bouroundayi hero"). The word " outpost“was first mentioned in the same Ipatiev Chronicle in 1205 in the meaning of “ambush”, and in the meaning of “a detachment left to guard some routes”, “border outpost” - and in general in the 17th century.

In addition, the names and patronymics of most of the heroes of epics ( Ilya, Alyosha, Mikula, Dobrynya Nikitich etc.) - Christian, calendar. Along with mentioning the usual forms of female patronymics for us ( Amelfa Timofeevna, Zabava Putyatichna, Marfa Dmitrievna) this gives reason to suspect a rather later (not earlier than the 16th-17th centuries) origin of the “old times”, at least in the form in which they were written down.

Consequently, if East Slavic folklore sources (and all of them, I repeat, were preserved only in modern records) are used to reconstruct mental structures early history Rus', then their involvement must have a powerful theoretical justification. It must explain, in particular, what, in fact, allows us to date these texts to a time earlier than the words of which they consist? How did it happen that lexical changes to the basic vocabulary of oral works (what else do the earliest Russian epics talk about, if not about heroes and heroic outposts?) did not affect the content of “old times”? And, finally, on what basis are the restored mental structures dated not to the time of existence (and recording) of these folklore works, but to the time of their origin? Without resolving these issues, any reconstruction of the ideas of the ancient Russian “lower classes” based on epic materials can apparently be considered only as working hypotheses.

For now, we can only agree with the opinion of A. S. Demin, who writes:

“It can be assumed that in the Tale of Bygone Years, especially in its first half, the chronicler of the early 12th century. looked at the world of the past as a world full of attractions and mysteries and almost completely not “alien”, although with many “not our own” ethnic groups. The chronicler expressed an active, unobstructed, optimistic outlook and, in essence, continued to live with the sentiments of the 11th century. The bitter division of peoples into “us” and “strangers” arose quite recently and concerned only modern times, first with the compiler of the “Initial Code”, and soon with Nestor.”

It is characteristic that these new “painful ideas,” says A. S. Demin,

“were expressed scatteredly, in isolated cases and only at the end of the “Initial Code”. They were not developed by Nestor, who, in the new beginning of the chronicle, narrated the history of the habitats of peoples and various sights, without at all touching upon the question of “ours” or “theirs.” Nestor wrote about neutral route landmarks intended for each and every person on his path, without the feeling that the border between “us” and “stranger” was being crossed. The whole world is “not a stranger.” This attitude of the chronicler was apparently associated with a phenomenon that historians, with reference to B. A. Rybakov, called “hybridization”, “international syncretism” of culture as a special qualitative characteristic of early feudal society.

For such an open worldview, it was natural to blur the distinction between ethnic poles. Indeed, who did the chronicler initially classify as “his own” based on clan, confessional, or other group affiliation, and who did he definitely classify as “strangers”? This can be seen from the use of the words “we” and “our” in the author’s speech (not in the characters’ speeches!). The chronicler considered Christians in general, their entire community, “his own,” and he proclaimed this at the beginning of the “Tale of Bygone Years”: “We are Christians, the entire earth, who believe in the Holy Trinity and in one baptism, in one faith, for which there is one imam.” The chronicler repeated this further: “We, the peasants of existence...” (under 1015), “we... accept book teaching” (under 1037), etc. Both Nestor and his predecessors thought so.

Of course, “ours” was another large whole, in which the chroniclers included themselves - Rus', the Russian land: “we are. (under 1093). It was natural for the chronicler to address the princes of Rus' as “our princes” (under 1015), to the united army of Rus' as “ours”: “ours rode with joy on horseback and walked” (under 1103), “ours more of the slaughter" (under 1107). The Russian land was also implied in the chronicler’s frequent condemnations of “our malice” and “our sin” (under 1068, and many others). He could blame “ours,” but they remained “ours.”

However, there was no coherent system of “ours” and “strangers” in the chronicle... The category of “alien”, that is, “alien”, sharply opposed to “ours”, was not actually used by the chronicler while he was narrating about past times... The idea is really about “strangers”, absolutely not belonging to “ours”, was expressed only at the end of the “Tale of Bygone Years”, when the chronicler, once again talking about the Polovtsians, suddenly started talking about “our enemies”: “ours fled before the foreigners and fell ill before our enemies " (under 1093), "our persecution... we ran away from the foreigners... many enemies of ours that fallen" (under 1096). The chronicler began to emphasize the separation of “them” from “us” with additional designations: “foreigners”, “sons of Ishmael”, “stranger people”, “the crafty sons of Ishmael... we are betrayed to be in the hands of the language of the countries” (under 1093).

But until the chronicler felt acutely the “strangers,” he was focused on a vast transitional area: on ethnic groups and individual people, not absolutely “strangers,” but not entirely “ours,” but psychologically foreign to “ours” or strange to “ours.” ... There is a certain alienation between them.”

It is noteworthy that the division into “us” and “strangers” proposed by A. S. Demin exactly corresponds to the question we have already discussed about what the category of “Russian land” is in ancient Russian sources. If we remember that “Russian” (i.e. “ours”, in the terminology of A. S. Demin) is “Christian”, “devout believer”, then the “sudden” transformation of the Polovtsians into “our enemies” (read: enemies Christians) exactly corresponds to the general eschatological

orientation of the “Tale of Bygone Years” in articles 1093-1096. In them, the Cumans are described as “Ishmaelites,” whose invasion should have immediately preceded the arrival of the peoples of Gog and Magog, “riveted” by Alexander the Great somewhere in the north until “last times”...

From this a very important conclusion follows for us: in all likelihood, the self-awareness of the inhabitants of Ancient Rus' (more precisely, the elite self-awareness) did not have a strictly ethnic or political character. Rather, it can be attributed to ethno-confessional ideas. Apparently, this should not be forgotten when it comes to ancient Russian patriotism and love for the “Russian land”.

I. N. Danilevsky

From the book “Ancient Rus' through the eyes of contemporaries and descendants (IX-XII centuries). Lecture course"

The publication of the diploma continues! I thought with sadness about how much our perception of meaning has changed. Now the phrase “inner world” cynically evokes intestines, but when I gave this name to one of the subsections thesis, it never occurred to me or the scientific supervisors that it could be about anything other than spirituality. N-yeah... Earlier entries can be easily found by the tag. People interested in this work are kindly requested not to take anything away for now, but if necessary, provide links to my LJ posts. Remember, soon it will all be one, beautiful and free!

The inner world of ancient Russian man and its reflection in the literature of the period of Kievan Rus

The inner world of a person, the area of ​​his individual preferences and perceptions, is a forbidden fruit for those who long to penetrate the inexhaustible treasury of the human soul. It is impossible to solve all its mysteries, because the inner world of a person is like a huge cave with many labyrinths and exits. No one can fully explore it: no matter how far and deep philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, historians, writers, psychics or simply amateurs penetrate there, the cave of the soul will never reveal all its secrets. One can only guess by what laws the inner world of a person is built and, in turn, try to unravel part of its riddle without hope of complete success.

The era and belonging to a particular nation (state) are undoubted factors influencing the formation of a person’s personality. These factors, although they do not reveal the whole essence of the issue, are amenable to historical determination. And through their consideration we will try to find out what peculiarities of thinking and perception of the world the ancient Russian possessed during the era of the formation of the state and the change of spiritual priorities (the adoption of Christianity).

During the formation of the state, the archaic consciousness of ancient Russian people was characterized by a sharp opposition between value and anti-value - good and evil, truth and falsehood, etc. Subsequently, this cultural tradition was reinterpreted in Christianity and had a serious impact on the entire history of the country. The Russian character is to take everything to the extreme, to try to accomplish the impossible. If these attempts fail, apathy and reluctance to do anything follows. Note that such a polar orientation of activity towards vigorous activity or complete inaction corresponds to the geographical conditions of Rus', the short duration of agricultural work and the long “dead season” of winter. The value orientation of Russian culture established norms of behavior that corresponded to the task of adaptation to the natural environment (1).

A leisurely and passive attitude towards work and life has developed in a person another value - patience, which has become one of the traits of the national character. It is better to “endure” than to do anything, to change the course of life. This reveals not only a lack of initiative, but also a fundamental reluctance to stand out among others with one’s activity. This behavior is justified by the nature of the work and settlement of Russian peasants. The development of forests covering most of the country's territory, cutting down and uprooting trees, and plowing the land required the collective labor of several families. Working in a team, people acted uniformly, trying not to stand out from others. This had its own meaning. The cohesion of the team was more important than the effectiveness of each of its members. Subsequently, the peasants were pushed in the same direction by communal, equal land tenure. As a result, individualism has poorly developed among Russians, forcing them to strive for initiative, increased labor efficiency and personal enrichment. Its appearance is associated with later processes in Russian society and the influence of European values.

However, the same collectivism was the basis of the sincerity of relationships between people, reckless manifestations of nobility and self-sacrifice, the breadth of the soul of the Russian person, which is also a form of “lack of calculation.”

The focus on the needs of the collective instilled in the Russian people that they, for the most part, turned out to be alien to petty everyday prudence. The ideal of a peasant was the ability to deny himself many things for the sake of the interests of the common cause. Life was perceived as the fulfillment of duty, the endless overcoming of difficulties. Worldly wisdom taught that circumstances are more often against a person than on his side. This formed in representatives of the Russian people such traits as perseverance and ingenuity in achieving their goals. The fulfillment of the plan was considered as a rare success, a gift of fate, and then the usual asceticism of everyday life was replaced by the revelry of the holiday, to which the entire village was invited (2).

The adoption of Byzantine Orthodoxy meant for Ancient Rus' entry into the circle of Christian countries and opened the way for political contacts with Europe. Great opportunities were provided by the features of Christianity as the spiritual basis of civilization, general Europe, Byzantium and Rus'. The main one of these features was that, unlike Judaism and Islam, Christianity was addressed directly to the individual person. Christianity does not know the cult of obedience inherent in Islam. In it, human individuality can reveal itself. Jesus Christ, the son of God, loves every person, sacrifices himself out of love for him, and thereby, as it were, expects a reciprocal spiritual movement from each person. Accordingly, the idea of ​​fate in Christianity is not as fatalistic as in Islam. Much, if not everything, in the matter of salvation depends on the individual’s own will. These trends in Christianity opened up opportunities for individual activity, the development of his economic and political activity, a progressive movement towards a more efficient economy, a better society, and humane forms of state (3).

Christianity also left its mark on the internal spiritual priorities of ancient Russian man, who sought in life authenticity of feeling, open manifestation of will, complete and harmonious embodiment of the ideals of truth, goodness and beauty. Individualism was alien to him; he demanded a constant spiritual dialogue of a person with himself and with his neighbors (4).

These are the main points of the fusion of national character with a religious worldview, embodied in the personality of the ancient Russian. But there was one more feature characteristic of all medieval cultures: the dissolution of man in the world space, the subordination of his behavior and way of thinking to higher laws. In Rus', this trait manifested itself most clearly in works of literature and art: that holistic perception of the world, which was fragmented in the minds of each individual person, obscured by everyday life, is clearly visible in architectural forms, in stylized pictorial images, and appears to us from the pages of literary monuments.

A sense of the significance of what is happening, the significance of everything temporary, the significance of history human existence did not leave the ancient Russian man either in life, or in art, or in literature. Man always remembered the world as a whole as a huge unity, and felt his place in this world. His house was located at a red corner to the east. Upon death, he was placed in the grave with his head facing west, so that his face met the sun. His churches were turned with altars towards the emerging day (5).

In addition to a person’s real awareness of his inclusion in the world order, this feeling was reinforced by the tradition that arose in ancient Russian literature of explaining the dual causation of an event (6). Everything that happens in the world has two sides: the side facing the temporary, and the eternal side - the eternal plan of what is happening in the world. The battle with the Polovtsians, the change of prince, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks and any other event - everything has two sides. One side is what happened, and there is real causality in it. The other side is the eternal struggle between good and evil, this is God’s desire to correct people, punishing them for their sins or interceding for them through the prayers of individual righteous people. In this case, superreal causality is combined with real causality.

The preference for the divine will over the will of an individual person also manifested itself in the fact that the author’s principle was muted in ancient Russian literature. This was not the literature of individual writers: it, like folk art, was supra-individual art. It was an art created through the accumulation of collective experience and making a huge impression with the wisdom of traditions and the unity of all - mostly anonymous - writing (7).

However, man has always been the central object of literary creativity. Everything else is in accordance with the image of a person: not only the image of social reality, everyday life, but also nature, the historical variability of the world, etc. All artistic means used by the author are in close contact with how a person is portrayed.
The literature of Ancient Rus' knew several styles in the depiction of a person. Basically, they successively replace each other, but sometimes they exist in parallel - in different genres, serving the different needs of society. D.S. Likhachev in his work “Man in the Literature of Ancient Rus'” gave a broad general analysis of these styles relating to different periods of the existence of the Russian state. We will be interested in only one, the one that is characteristic of Kievan Rus - the style of monumental historicism (8).

The first fully developed style in the depiction of a person in the literature of the 11th–13th centuries. − this is a style of monumental medieval historicism, closely associated with the feudal structure of society, with knightly ideas about the honor, rights and duty of the feudal lord, about his patriotic duties etc. This style develops mainly in chronicles, in military stories, in stories about princely crimes, but it also permeates other genres.

The characteristics of people, human relationships and the ideological and artistic structure of the chronicle form an inextricable whole. They are subject to the same principles of the feudal worldview and are determined by the class essence of the chronicler’s worldview.

Man was the focus of the art of feudalism, but man not on his own, but as a representative of a certain environment, a certain level in the ladder of feudal relations. Each character in the chronicle is depicted only as a representative of a certain social category. The prince is assessed by his “princely” qualities, the monk by his “monastic” qualities, the city dweller as a subject or vassal.

Belonging to a certain level of the feudal ladder is clearly noticeable in the characteristics of the characters in the chronicle. Each level has developed its own standards of behavior, its own ideal and its own image stencil. The individuality of a person turns out to be completely subordinate to his position in feudal society, and the depiction of people in the Russian chronicle of the 11th–13th centuries. to the greatest extent followed the ideals that were developed in the ruling elite of feudal society. This is not an idealization of a person, this is an idealization of his social position. A person is good primarily when he corresponds to his social status or when this correspondence is attributed to him (the latter - more often).

The works of the feudal period were closely connected with life - with the needs and requirements of feudal society. It was life, and not the literary tradition, that developed those ideals that, both in reality and in literature, served as the standards of people. In literary depictions, real people were either drawn up to these ideals, recognized as conforming to them, or rejected precisely from the point of view of these ideals.

Both in literature and in painting we are undoubtedly facing monumental art. This is an art that can embody the heroism of an individual, the concepts of honor, glory, the power of a prince, and class differences in the status of people. Fearlessness, courage, feudal loyalty, generosity, since they were all expressed in actions and speeches, were “available for observation” by the reader, were not hidden in the depths of the personality, were expressed clearly - in word, deed, gestures, position, and could be conveyed by the chronicler without special attention. insight into the intricacies of psychology.

The princes in the chronicle do not know mental struggle, emotional experiences, what we could call “soul development.” Princes may experience physical torment, but not mental torment. Throughout his life, as recorded in the chronicles, the prince remained unchanged. Even in those cases when the chronicler speaks of the prince’s mental hesitations, it seems that he is weighing the pros and cons more than experiencing indecision. In such cases, timidity itself appears as a trait of political convictions, not character.

The prince and vassals, the prince and the people form a single whole, bound by feudal relations. The people represent an unchanging and impersonal background against which the figure of the prince appears most clearly. The people seem to only frame the group of princes. He expresses joy over their seating on the table, sadness over their death, sings glory to the princes upon their return from victorious campaigns; he always acts in unison, without a single individual voice, as a mass where individual personalities are indistinguishable, even nameless ones, like those faceless groups that are conventionally depicted on icons and frescoes as neatly painted rows of heads, behind the even first row of which only the tops of the heads of the second barely protrude row, followed by the third, fourth, etc. - without a single face, without a single individual feature. Their only noted virtue is loyalty to the prince, loyalty to the feudal lord.

The prince’s military prowess interests the chronicler not only in itself. The prince thinks about the principality, about the Russian land. With his own valor he sets an example for his vassals. The prince personifies the power and dignity of the country. That is why among his virtues are the good qualities of a warrior and a statesman. The ideal of a prince in the 11th–13th centuries. was inseparable from the ideas of patriotism. Patriotism is not only a duty, but also the conviction of those Russian princes, whose images the chroniclers endowed with positive traits.

So, as the main characteristics of monumental historicism, Likhachev identifies the presence of a certain literary ideal and its inextricable connection with feudal reality. A person in such an image is drawn rather from the outside, he is somewhat static, his inner world often remains inaccessible to the reader. The more firmly the writer of the 11th–13th centuries stood. on the ideal positions of the feudal class, the more firmly the stereotype in the depiction of man entered into his works, the more conservative he was in his ideological and artistic positions. But as soon as the writer retreated from these positions, giving free rein to his personal impressions, showing personal feelings for one or another person depicted, elements of a new, less traditional and more original attitude to reality penetrated into his work.

“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is one of the most humanistic works of world literature (9). It is marked by a special humanity, a particularly attentive attitude to the human person. It is full of strong and exciting feelings. Talking about the campaign of the Russian army, the author of the Lay is filled with such intense grief that he seems unable to restrain himself from interfering in Igor’s actions.

The unknown author spiritualizes nature, makes it respond to everything that happens among people. The author’s feelings are so great, his understanding of other people’s grief and other people’s joys is so acute that it seems to him that everything around him is endowed with these same feelings, these same experiences. Animals, trees, grass, flowers, all nature, and even the cityscapes are generously endowed with human feelings, the ability to distinguish between good and evil; they warn the Russians about misfortunes, experience sorrow and joy with them. This fusion of the author and nature enhances the significance and drama of what is happening.

The author of “The Lay” penetrates with exceptional care into the emotional experiences of his characters. The tenderness of Yaroslavna and the severity of the warriors are accessible and close to him in equal measure. The basis of the author's brilliant observation, the basis of the strength and freshness of his human feelings was his love for his native suffering land. Love for the Motherland guided his pen and determined the deep nationality of the content and form of the “Word”.

Works of literature of the 11th–13th centuries. reflected some of the character traits of women in Ancient Rus'. In all references, the woman invariably appears in the charm of tender caring, soulful understanding of the state concerns of her husbands and brothers. A daughter, mother or wife - she always helps her father, son or husband, grieves for him, mourns him after death and never inclines him during life to cowardice or self-preservation at the cost of shame. She takes death in battle with enemies for granted, and mourns her sons, husbands or fathers without a shadow of reproach, without a trace of discontent, as warriors and patriots who have fulfilled their duty, without being horrified or condemning their behavior, but with quiet affection and praise their courage, their valor. Love for a husband, father or son does not dull their love for the Motherland, hatred of enemies, or confidence in the rightness of the cause of their loved one (10).

Along with works where the main character appears from the pages in all his relief, in ancient Russian literature there are monuments in which there is no image of a specific person - these are mainly monuments of church journalism - the role of the main character is played by the author himself. This position is motivated by the nature of these works, their primary task. The author of the “Word”, “Teaching”, “Instruction” must certainly teach and instruct, often doing this on his own behalf, as required by the form of the sermon. Despite the fact that the main ideas of such works are part of public morality, public worldview and serve the purpose of transforming the same society, so that the author could never call these ideas his own, he is nevertheless forced to sign his full name and address to readers (listeners) on their own behalf: “my brothers,” “my beloved,” “my children.”

The main character, the author, is portrayed in the work as expressively and succinctly as if he were a prince in the chronicle. The features of monumental historicism are discernible here behind all the teaching phrases, behind all the lyrical comparisons. Before us is a monk-preacher, the way he should be in a feudal society: strict and stern, but at the same time endowed with all Christian virtues, merciful to the human weaknesses of others, but not allowing these weaknesses to appear in his own heart. In no case should one think that the humble monks who wrote these instructive addresses deliberately embellished themselves, taking advantage of the right of the author. No, because many of them are more likely to even downplay their own merits, but this was the stereotype of the monk’s behavior in society, and this is how he was portrayed in literature.

For example, let's look at the works of Theodosius of Pechersk. All the personal qualities of this wonderful man, reflected in his teachings, do not appear to us immediately. They seem to shine through under the motley mosaic of the virtues of a true servant of God. He affectionately addresses his listeners: “my brothers and fathers,” calls himself “insignificant,” he seems to forget about himself in a sincere desire to serve his neighbor: “... I pray for you with all my heart, my beloved.” And suddenly, in this Christian bouquet of eloquence, a phrase appears that reflects the willpower and fortitude of Theodosius, his organizational talent and even some harshness in addressing violators of the monastic charter: “And can’t I do among my own as I want?!” (eleven).

Theodosius understands his listeners and speaks to them in a language they understand. Boring edifications are often replaced with colorful comparisons, as if in imitation of Christ, who widely used parables in his conversations with people. Before the abbot are careless monks who need to be severely reprimanded for laziness and set on the path of truth. This is how Theodosius copes with this task, turning to the most sacred feelings in each of the listeners - patriotic feelings. He compares the servants of the faith with the warriors of the army, and at the same time promises glory and honor to the monks. “After all, if war happens and the trumpet of war blows, then no one sleeps - and it is not proper for a soldier of Christ to be lazy.” However, the warriors sacrifice everything “for the sake of vain, passing glory,” “just so as not to be disgraced.” It is more honorable to be a warrior of Christ, for “We suffer in the fight against our enemies, so that, having won, we may receive eternal glory and receive an unspeakable honor” (12).

It’s amazing how the author, himself the main character of the work, brings to our attention those to whom he addresses. These are people, according to literary tradition, devoid of individual traits, but, without a doubt, these are monks, strictly assessed by the author from the standpoint of compliance with the ideal of a clergyman.

There is one more point in the depiction of personality that deserves our detailed consideration. In ancient Russian literature, artistically accurate descriptions of deaths are especially frequent. Death has the greatest significance in human life. Here, only the human is important, and here the attention to personality on the part of the author reaches its greatest strength.

Amazing examples of humility and courage in the face of the inevitability of treacherous death are shown to us by Boris and Gleb in “Praise to the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb” (13). The author deliberately describes in detail the last minutes of the sufferers; he puts all his feeling into this description. Left alone with the killers, Boris still tries to appeal to their Christian mercy by example non-resistance to evil. “And when he heard an ominous whisper near the tent, he trembled, and tears flowed from his eyes, and said: “Glory to you, Lord, for everything, for you have made me worthy of envy for the sake of accepting this bitter death and enduring everything for the love of your commandments. ... As the Lord wishes, so it will be.” The author conveys the spiritual nobility of Boris, his inner courage stemming from love for God, in the touching dying address of the young prince: “And looking at his killers with a sad look, with a haggard face, shedding tears, he said: “Brothers, having begun, finish what was entrusted to you.” . And may there be peace to my brother [Svyatopolk] and to you, brothers!” Gleb dies in the same way: with the name of God on his lips, with faith and humility in his heart. But Gleb is younger, and therefore the author allows him to show a little weakness: what Boris tried to do with his own example and behavior, his brother expresses in words - he begs the murderers to have mercy on him. “And looking at the murderers with a meek gaze, ...having humbled himself, in heartfelt contrition, tremblingly sighing, bursting into tears and weakening in body, he began to pitifully beg...” But seeing that the mercenaries are deaf to his pleas, Gleb submits to fate, revealing in the last exclamation all the purity of his soul: “Once you have started, having started, do what you were sent to do!”

Reading the works of ancient Russian literature, we are convinced that not all people accepted death with such humility as Boris and Gleb. The act of the holy martyrs was the exception rather than the rule in the society of Kievan Rus. For all other people who did not possess the amazing virtues of the saints, it was necessary to meet death with dignity, that is, without betraying their personal honor, the honor of their family, their overlord, their state. “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” (14) presents us with a whole series of similar heroic deaths. The author describes them with pride, with touching sympathy, as if saying that only people of great spirit, ready to prefer the interests of the state over their own lives, ready to fulfill their duty at all costs, can face death in this way.

Oleg Ingvarevich, captured on the battlefield, refuses Khan Batu's offer to convert to Islam, knowing that after this he will face cruel reprisals. “And Tsar Batu saw Oleg Ingvarevich, so handsome and brave, exhausted from serious wounds, and wanted to heal him from serious wounds and win him over to his faith. But Prince Oleg Ingvarevich reproached Tsar Batu and called him godless and an enemy of Christianity. The accursed Batu breathed fire from his vile heart and immediately ordered Oleg to be cut into pieces with knives.” Oleg Ingvarevich did not betray the interests of his Motherland and his people, just as Prince Fyodor Yuryevich, who refused to hand over his wife Eupraxia to Batu for desecration, did not betray them. “When you defeat us, then you will own our wives,” he answers the Horde khan. Eupraxia did not betray her Christian people either, who, having learned about the death of her husband, “threw from her high chamber with her son Prince Ivan straight to the ground and fell to death.”

Having described all these heroic deaths and presented to us the exploits of the Ryazan people in the name of the interests of their state, the author himself appears as a true patriot and a wonderful person worthy of high praise. The author of “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” in his work not only mourns the lost independence and destroyed Ryazan, he is proud of its people: “fast spirits”, “brave men”, “patterns and Ryazan upbringing”. And this pride, the consciousness of the priceless qualities of the Russian people constitute the most characteristic feature of the Tale. It was necessary to have extreme steadfastness of patriotic feeling so that, despite terrible disaster, the horror and soul-searing oppression of the evil Tatars, to believe so strongly in your compatriots, to be proud of them and to love them.

The people of Ancient Rus', appearing to us from the pages of its monuments, differed from each other in their inner world, your desires, your character. Despite some cliche in the depiction of a person, dictated by the dominant style of monumental historicism in literature, the portraits and characteristics of the ancient Russians appear to us as colorful and bright as the ancient Russian writers saw them. And the authors themselves, who were often contemporaries of the events described, often appear to us as heroes of their own works. Their assessment of reality, their vision of the world is discernible behind every line, and thanks to this, the modern reader has the opportunity to judge the soul of an ancient Russian man in the same way as he can judge his character from descriptions in a chronicle or life.

Everything that we know about the people of Kievan Rus convinces us that the peculiarities of the Russian national character are rooted in that distant era. A modern Russian often notices in himself the qualities that the ancient Russian was endowed with. And this is another reason to remember your past, your history, and carefully preserve it for posterity.

Notes:

(1) Ionov I.N. Russian civilization 9th – early 20th century. − M, 1995. − p. 29
(2) On collectivism, see: ibid., p. 12−13
(3) Ibid., p. 48.
(4) Ibid., p. 56.
(5) Likhachev D.S. “The first seven hundred years of Russian literature” − introductory article to that “Selection” of the Library of World Literature. − M, 1969.
(6) About this, see: ibid.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Analysis based on the book: Likhachev D.S. Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'. − M, 1970.
(9) Analysis of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” based on the book: Likhachev D.S. Great legacy. − M, 1975.
(10) Likhachev D.S. Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'. − M, 1970.
(11) Quotes from: F. Pechersky “A Word about Patience, and about Love, and about Fasting” / in the collection Eloquence of Ancient Rus' (XI-XVII centuries), − M, 1987.
(12) F. Pechersky “Teaching on patience and alms” / in the collection Eloquence of Ancient Rus' (XI-XVII centuries), − M, 1987.
(13) “The story and suffering and praise of the holy martyrs Boris and Gleb” op. from the edition: Old Russian stories. − Tula, 1987.
(14) Quote. from the edition: Old Russian stories. − Tula, 1987.

Sources and literature:

F. Pechersky “Teaching on patience and alms” / in the collection Eloquence of Ancient Rus' (XI-XVII centuries), − M, 1987.
F. Pechersky “A Word about Patience, and about Love, and about Fasting” / in the collection Eloquence of Ancient Rus' (XI-XVII centuries), − M, 1987.
“Story and suffering and praise to the holy martyrs Boris and Gleb” / Old Russian stories. − Tula, 1987.
Likhachev D.S. Great legacy. − M, 1975.
Likhachev D.S. “The First Seven Hundred Years of Russian Literature” is an introductory article to the volume “Selections” of the Library of World Literature. − M, 1969.
Likhachev D.S. Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'. − M, 1970.
Ionov I.N. Russian civilization 9th – early 20th century. − M, 1995.

Introduction

Russian literature is almost a thousand years old. This is one of the most ancient literatures in Europe. Its beginning dates back to the second half of the 10th century. Of this great millennium, more than seven hundred years belong to the period that is commonly called “ancient Russian literature.”

Literature arose suddenly. The leap into the kingdom of literature occurred simultaneously with the appearance of Christianity and the church in Rus' and was prepared by the entire previous cultural development of the Russian people.

The artistic value of ancient Russian literature has not yet been truly determined.

Russian literature of the 11th - 17th centuries developed in peculiar conditions. It was handwritten. Printing, which appeared in Moscow in the mid-16th century, very little changed the nature and methods of distributing literary works. Basically, in the 17th century, literary works continued, as before, to be distributed through correspondence.

Some of the ancient Russian literary works were read and copied over several centuries. Others quickly disappeared, but the parts that the scribes liked were included in other works, since the sense of authorial ownership had not yet developed enough to protect the author's text from changes or from borrowing from other works.

None of the works of ancient Rus' - translated or original - stands apart. They all complement each other in the picture of the world they create. We often talk about internal patterns of development literary images in works of new literature and that the actions of heroes are determined by their characters. Each hero of new literature reacts in his own way to the influences of the outside world. That is why the actions of the characters may even be “unexpected” for the authors, as if dictated to the authors by the characters themselves.

A similar conditionality exists in ancient literature. The hero behaves as he is supposed to behave, but he is supposed to behave not according to laws of a natural nature, but according to the laws of the category of heroes to which the hero belongs in feudal society. For example, an ideal commander should be pious and should pray before going on a campaign. And in “The Life of Alexander Nevsky” it is described how Alexander enters the Church of Sophia and prays with tears to God to grant him victory. The ideal commander must defeat a numerous enemy with few forces, and he is helped by God.

The writers of Ancient Rus' had a very definite attitude towards the depiction of a person. The main thing is not external beauty, the beauty of the face and body, but the beauty of the soul.

In the ideas of the ancient Russians, the bearer of absolute, ideal beauty was only the Lord God. Man is His creation, a creature of God. The beauty of a person depends on how fully the Divine principle is expressed in him, that is, his ability to desire to follow the commandments of the Lord, to work on improving his soul.

The more a person worked on this, the more he seemed to be illuminated from within by the inner light that God sent him as his Grace. The rich spiritual life of any person could create a miracle: make the ugly beautiful. This requires a righteous, pious lifestyle (especially through prayer, repentance, and fasting). This means that the Spiritual sphere was perceived, first of all, aesthetically; they saw the highest beauty in her. She didn't need physical beauty.

The ideal of man in Ancient Rus' was primarily considered to be holy ascetics, who were seen as direct intermediaries between sinful man and the divine sphere. Each era had its heroes. Using the example of several works, we will consider how the theme of man and his deeds developed in ancient Russian literature. But first, let's look at the periodization of the history of ancient Russian literature.1. Periodization of the history of ancient Russian literature

Works of literature of Ancient Rus' are always attached to a specific historical event, to a specific historical person. These are stories about battles (about victories and defeats), about princely crimes, about trips to the holy land and simply about real life. existing people: most often about saints and prince-commanders. There are stories about icons and the building of churches, about miracles that are believed in, about phenomena that supposedly happened. But not new works on clearly fictional plots.

Literature accompanies Russian reality, Russian history in a huge stream, following on its heels. Fearing lies, writers base their works on documents, which they consider to be all previous writing.

The literature of Ancient Rus' is evidence of life. That is why history itself, to a certain extent, establishes the periodization of literature.

The literature of the 11th - first third of the 13th century can be considered as a single literature of Kievan Rus. This is the century of a single ancient Russian state. The century of the first Russian lives - Boris and Gleb and the first monument of Russian chronicle that has come down to us - “The Tale of Bygone Years”.

Next comes a relatively short period of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, when stories about the invasion of Mongol-Tatar troops in Rus', the Battle of Kalka, “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” and “The Life of Alexander Nevsky” were created. Literature is compressed into one theme, but this theme manifests itself with extraordinary intensity, and the features of the monumental-historical style acquire a tragic imprint and the lyrical elation of a high patriotic feeling.

The next period, the end of the 14th century, the first half of the 15th century, is the century of the Pre-Renaissance, coinciding with the economic and cultural renaissance Russian land in the years immediately preceding and following the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. This is a period of expressive-emotional style and patriotic upsurge in literature, a period of revival of chronicle writing and historical storytelling.

The victory won by the Russians over the Mongol-Tatars on the Kulikovo Field made a huge impression not only on their contemporaries. This explains the fact that a number of literary monuments are dedicated to the Mamaev Massacre: “Zadonshchina”, “The Tale of the Mamaev Massacre”, etc.

In the second half of the 15th century, new phenomena were discovered in Russian literature: works of translated literature became widespread, and journalism developed.

Since the middle of the 16th century, literature has become increasingly influenced by the official trend. The 17th century is the century of transition to the literature of modern times. This is the age of development of the individual principle in everything: in the very type of writer and his work, the age of the development of individual tastes and styles, writer’s professionalism and a sense of authorial ownership.

This is the periodization of the history of ancient Russian literature. There is no need to consider all the monuments that existed in Ancient Rus'. Using the example of several works, we will consider how the theme of man and his deeds developed in ancient Russian literature.

Man in the literature of ancient Rus'

One of the first, most important genres of emerging Russian literature was the genre of chronicle. The oldest chronicle that has actually reached us is the “Tale of Bygone Years,” presumably created around 1113. It is here that we first learn about the people of Ancient Rus'.

Kyiv scribes argued that the history of Rus' is similar to the history of other Christian states. It also had its own Christian ascetics, who tried to encourage the people to accept the new faith by personal example: Princess Olga was baptized in Constantinople and convinced her son Svyatoslav to also become a Christian. Rus' had its own martyrs and its own saints, for example, Boris and Gleb, who were killed on the orders of their brother Svyatopolk, but who did not break the Christian covenants of brotherly love and obedience to their elders.

Two lives were written on the plot of the martyrdom of Boris and Gleb. The author of one of them, “Readings about the life and destruction of Boris and Gleb,” is the chronicler Nestor. The creation of the church cult of Boris and Gleb pursued two goals. Firstly, the canonization of the first Russian saints raised the ecclesiastical authority of Rus'. Secondly, he affirmed the state idea, according to which all Russian princes are brothers, and at the same time emphasized the obligatory “conquest” of the younger princes by the elders.

Nestor's "reading" indeed contains all the elements of the canonical life: it begins with an extensive introduction, with an explanation of the reasons why the author decides to begin work on the life, with a brief summary of world history from Adam to the baptism of Rus'. In the hagiography itself, Nestor talks about the childhood years of Boris and Gleb, about the piety that distinguished the brothers in childhood and youth; in the story of their death, the hagiographic element is even stronger: they are preparing to accept death as a solemn suffering destined for them from birth. In "Reading", in accordance with the requirements of the genre, there is also a story about miracles performed after the death of saints, about the miraculous "discovery" of their relics, about the healing of the sick at their tomb.

Thus, Saints Boris and Gleb entered Russian literature as people who honored Christian covenants.

Another work of the hagiographic genre can be considered “The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky,” written, as suggested by D.S. Likhachev, Metropolitan Kirill between 1263 - 1280.

The characteristics of Alexander Nevsky in the work are diverse. In accordance with the canons of life, his “church virtues” are emphasized. And at the same time, Alexander, majestic and beautiful in appearance. A courageous and invincible commander. In his military actions, Alexander is swift, selfless and merciless. Having received news of the Swedes coming to the Neva. Alexander “inflamed in heart”, “with a small squad” he rushes towards the enemy. Alexander's swiftness and military leadership are characteristic of all episodes that speak of the prince's military exploits. Here he appears as an epic hero.

For the author, Alexander is not only a hero-commander and a wise statesman, but also a man whose military valor and statesmanship he admires. For the enemies of the Russian land, the prince is terrible and merciless. This is the ideal of a wise prince - ruler and commander. Until the 16th century, “The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky” was a kind of standard for depicting Russian princes when describing their military exploits.

It is impossible not to tell about another outstanding personality of ancient Rus'. Vladimir Monomakh is a prominent statesman who firmly guards the interests of the Russian land, a man of great intelligence and literary talent. He earned devoted love for himself and great respect from his contemporaries and posterity.

Under the year 1096, in the “Tale of Bygone Years” according to the Laurentian list, the “Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh is placed, combined with his letter to Prince Oleg of Chernigov. The “Instruction” was addressed by Monomakh to his children and continued with his autobiography. In his “Instructions”, Vladimir Monomakh appears as a wise man with great life experience, a noble, humanely minded person, always thinking about the good of his state, calling for the protection of the weak from the strong and those in power. At the same time, he is an energetic, enterprising prince, endowed with military virtues, who spends his entire life in tireless labor and in dangerous military campaigns. When ambassadors from his brothers come to him with a proposal to join forces to expel the Rostislavichs from their inheritance and take away their volost, he refuses to do this because he does not want to break the oath of the cross. He advises taking an oath only if the swearer can keep it, but having sworn, one must keep the promise so as not to destroy his soul.

Monomakh especially persistently advises to protect all the disadvantaged and calls for descent even in relation to criminals. The old should be revered as fathers, and the young as brothers.

Monomakh calls his children to an active life, to constant work and convinces them never to remain in laziness or indulge in debauchery. You can’t rely on anyone, you need to get involved in everything yourself and supervise everything so that no trouble happens.

By listing many of his “paths” and “fishings” (hikes and hunts), Monomakh means by personal example to teach his children and all those who read his “letter”, which was written not only for the prince’s children.

Vladimir Monomakh condemns civil strife, strives to mitigate feudal exploitation, which reached cruel forms in the 11th century, and to establish firm and unified power in Rus'.

Monomakh does not seek to compose a complete biography in his “Instructions”, but conveyed only a chain of examples from his life, which he considered instructive. This ability to choose from one’s life that which is not of personal, but of civic interest, is the uniqueness of Monomakh’s autobiography.

Monomakh's review appears in the "Instruction" as if against his will, which achieves special artistic persuasiveness. Subsequently, Vladimir Monomakh was idealized by Russian chronicles.

For posterity, the “Instruction” was a kind of reference book in moral education.

The 17th century entered Russian literature as “rebellious.” Riots and rebellions reflected the irreconcilable social contradictions of pre-Petrine Rus'. This was also the culture of the 17th century, which had lost that external unity, that relative monolithicity that was characteristic of the Middle Ages. Fiction remains anonymous. The share of original works has increased. Literature of the lower classes appeared. These lower classes - the poor clergy, clerks, literate peasantry - began to speak in an independent and free language of parody and satire.

Among the translated and original short stories are stories and legends.

“The Tale of Karp Sutulov” has come down to us in a single copy, which is now lost (the collection in which the story was included was divided into separate notebooks; some of them have not survived). The Russian merchant Karp Sutulov, going on a trading trip, instructs his wife Tatyana, if necessary, to ask for money from his friend, Afanasy Berdov, also a merchant. In response to Tatyana's request, her husband's unworthy friend seeks her love. Tatyana goes for advice to the priest, who turns out to be no better than Afanasy Berdov, then to the bishop. But even in this archpastor, who gave the dinner of chastity, a sinful passion flared up. Tatiana pretends to give in and makes appointments for all three of them at home. The first is Afanasy Berdov. When the priest knocks on the gate, Tatyana tells Afanasy that it is her husband who has returned and hides the first guest in a chest. In the same way, she gets rid of the priest and the bishop - in the latter case, the culprit of the commotion turns out to be the maid she persuaded. The matter ends with the disgraced seekers being removed from the chests in the voivode's courtyard.

This is a typical fairy-tale short story with slow action, with repeated repetitions, with a folklore three-part construction - and an unexpected, entertaining ending: the shaming of the harassers is followed by the division of money between the “strict” governor and the “pious” Tatyana. The Russian flavor of the novella is only a superficial layering. The Sutulovs and Berdovs really belong to the eminent merchant families of pre-Petrine Rus'. Tatiana's husband goes "to buy his own land in Lithuania" - the usual merchant route for Russia in the 17th century to Vilna. The action takes place in the voivode's courtyard - this is also a Russian reality. However, all these realities do not affect the plot structure. Names and Russian circumstances are the scenes of the action; they can easily be eliminated and replaced, and we get a “general” transitory plot, not necessarily connected with Russian urban life of the 17th century. According to the plot, "The Tale of Karp Sutulov" is a typical picaresque short story in the spirit of Boccaccio.

The connection between the characteristics of the heroes and their actions in both cases is very direct. It’s different, for example, in the obituary description of Vsevolod Yaroslavich: “This noble prince Vsevolod was mockingly loving of God, loving the truth, providing for the poor, giving honor to the bishop and presbyter, loving the monks and giving their demands. He himself abstained from drunkenness and from lust..." etc. Nothing in this characterization follows from the facts cited about him in the chronicle. The characterization of Vsevolod Yaroslavich here performs a purely etiquette function: it is a conventional funeral word, noting his Christian qualities at the moment when these Christian qualities needed to be remembered.

Consequently, another difference between the epic style in the depiction of people and the dominant medieval monumentalism is that the diversity of the hero, appearing each time in a new guise appropriate to him, is absent in the epic style: here the hero is closely connected with one or more of his exploits, his characteristics are uniform, unchangeable, attached to the hero. The characteristics of the hero are like his coat of arms; it is short and unusually expressive, like the shield of the Prophetic Oleg on the gates of Constantinople.

In general, the epic style in depicting people precedes the monumental style in stages, just as the oral creativity of a written people precedes it. But with the advent of writing, oral creativity does not disappear; the influence on literature of this epic style in the depiction of heroes also does not disappear. It manifests itself in those works that are associated with oral folk art.

In fact, something in the depiction of the characters in the chronicle suggests a relationship with folklore.

Folk art, obviously, goes back to the chronicles and other works of literature in the characteristics of the characters based on their one major act. This is how, for example, Prince African is described in the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon: “Prince African, the brother of Yakun Slepago, who escaped from the golden moon, fought in a regiment in Yaroslav with the Fierce Mstislav.”

Before us is a reminder of a well-known feat, deed or incident. This is how, in particular, some of the characters in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” are characterized: “... to the brave Mstislav, like the dawn of Rede-dupred pylkykasozhiok”; "...until today's Igor, who has suffered through his own selfishness and sharpened his hearts with courage, filled with the military spirit, brought his brave tears to the Polovtsian land for the Russian land."

It is remarkable that in the chronicle many of the famous Polovtsian khans are introduced to the reader in this way: “...Kontsak, like the one who demolished Sula, walked walking, carrying a cauldron on his shoulder”; “...Sevench Bonyakovich... also said: “I want to be slaughtered at the Golden Gate, just like my father””; "... Altunopu, like the word courage."

The general characteristics of the inhabitants of any locality also have a national character. The people of Kiev called the Novgorodians “carpenters.” Residents of Rostov, Suzdal and Murom say about the residents of Vladimir: “...then these are our servants of stone.” The people of Vladimir noted their “pride” in the Novgorodians. Following these folk characteristics and the chronicler says about the Pereyaslavl people that they “dare to be.”

Adjacent to these same characteristics is the description of the Kurdish people - “knowledgeable marksmen” in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” All these characteristics are interesting in that they are conveyed by the chronicler as known to everyone, as popular opinion and as “glory” about certain residents. In all of them one can feel the reliance on real popular rumor.

The characterization of the “Kuryans” in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, in its principles of artistic generalization, coincides with the characterization of the “Ryazan army” in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” - those “dares and frolics” of Ryazan, of whom “one fought with a thousand, and two with you." Both in the “Word” and in the “Tale” we have a description of the army, in which not a word is said about the feudal loyalty of the soldiers to their prince, but everything is aimed only at revealing the military virtues of the fighters - the defenders of the homeland.

Characteristic phenomena are found in the XII-XIII centuries. in the same monuments when creating the image of a national hero, the image of a defender of the homeland. This hero exaggerates his strength and courage, he seems to grow in size, his enemies cannot defeat him. However, the concept of hyperbole can be applied here with great restrictions. The impression of hyperbole is achieved by the fact that the exploits of his squad are transferred to this hero. So. for example, Vsevolod Bui Tur in “The Tale of Igor’s Host” shoots arrows at his enemies, rattles his Haraluz swords against their helmets, and the Avar helmets are “scratched” by his red-hot sabers.

It goes without saying that Vsevolod shoots at his enemies with the arrows of his squad, fights with their swords and sabers: Vsevolod himself could only have one sword or saber. We see the same transfer of the exploits of the squad to the prince in the Lay and in other cases. Svyatoslav of Kiev “pulled away” the treachery of the Polovtsians “with his strong plakas and haraluzhny swords”; Vsevolod of Suzdal can “pouring the Don with helmets” - not with just his helmet, but with many, of course, helmets of his warriors.

The image of Evpatiy Kolovrat in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” is created in the same way. The exploits of his warriors and their fighting qualities are transferred to Evpatiya. It seems to combine the features of the entire Russian army. Without mercy, he cuts down Batu’s regiments so that the Tatars become “like drunk or frantic.” When Evpatiy's swords became dull, he took Tatar swords and cut them with them. Again, this plural is characteristic: “... as the swords became dull, and the Tatar swords were cut and they were cut.” There can be no doubt that, speaking of Evpatiya, the author had in mind not just him, but his entire squad. That is why it goes on to say: “... the Tatars are mnyash, as if they were dead.” We are talking specifically about the dead, about many resurrected fighters. That is why further, without any transition, it is said about the Evpatiy regiment: the Evpatiy regiment and Evpatiy himself are united. Thanks to this, Evpatiy grows to heroic proportions: he is “giant in strength”; the Tatars manage to kill him only with the help of “numerous vices” - battering machines.

The death of Evpatiy is a kind of birth of the first hero in Russian literature. We clearly see how the image of Evpatiy combines the qualities of his squad. It is not the hero who is strong - it is the army that he embodies that is strong. Artistic generalization follows the path of creating a collective image of a hero who embodies the qualities of all Russian soldiers. This path led to the development of the image of the epic hero, who over time began to fight alone, without an army, for the Russian land against a huge host of enemies. This path, not yet trodden and only weakly outlined, will in the future lead to literary generalizations of a new, more perfect nature. This path, as we have clearly seen in other cases, was associated with a violation of the narrow class, feudal literary stereotype in the depiction of people. These violations were especially frequent in the depiction of women. Women did not usually take their place in the hierarchical ladder of feudal relations. She was a princess, princess, noblewoman, hawthorn or merchant's wife by her husband or father. And this weakened the definiteness of her class characteristics.

The works of ancient Russian literature reflected few of the character traits of women in ancient Rus'. In great state concerns, ancient Russian writers rarely had to turn their gaze to the daughters, wives and mothers of the heroes of Russian history. However, short and few lines of Russian secular works are almost always written about women with sympathy and respect. The “evil wife,” so typical of ascetic church literature, is a rare guest in works of secular literature: in chronicles, in military, embassy, ​​and historical stories. And even in those cases when she appears in secular works, as, for example, in the “Prayer” of Daniil Zatochnik, she is devoid of any femininity: she is “rotasta,” “jawed,” “old-looking.” Young women are attractive without exception. With what touchingness Vladimir Monomakh writes in a letter to Oleg Svyatoslavich about the widow of his son Izyaslav, who was killed by Oleg; the chronicler remembers the mother of Monomakh’s young brother, Rostislav, who died untimely in Stugna. Rostislav's mother mourned him in Kyiv, and the chronicler sympathizes with her grief: “And crying for him, his mother and all the people pitied her little by little, for his loss.”

He knows ancient Russian literature and heroic images of Russian women. Princess Maria, the daughter of the Chernigov prince Mikhail who died in the Horde and the widow of the Rostov prince Vasilko, who was tortured by the Tatars, worked hard to perpetuate the memory of both. At her direction (and perhaps with her direct participation), the life of her father Mikhail of Chernigov was compiled and touching lines were written about her husband Vasilka in the Rostov Chronicle.

Touching and beautiful in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” is the image of the wife of the Ryazan prince Fyodor, Eupraxia. Her husband sacrificed his life defending her honor in Batu’s camp. Hearing about the death of her husband, Eupraxia “abby rushed from his high temple with his son and Prince Ivan into the middle of the earth, and became infected to death.”

Although stingy in everything that concerns the personal feelings of its characters, the Russian chronicle nevertheless notes that the Suzdal prince Vsevolod the Big Nest was “sorry” for his “dear daughter” Verkhoslava. Vsevolod gave “a lot of money for her, countless gold and silver,” richly presented the matchmakers and, releasing her with great honor, accompanied her to three camps. “And her father and mother cried for her: she was sweet even when she was young.” The chronicler did not forget that unknown woman who, mistaking the blinded Prince Vasilko-Rostislavich Terebovolsky for the dead, mourned him and washed his bloody shirt.

Describing the death of the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkovich, the chronicler did not fail to mention his love for his wife - “dear Olga”. This was the fourth daughter of the Bryansk prince Roman, but she was “dearest” to him. Roman gave “his dear daughter” to Vladimir Vasilkovich, “he sent with her the son of his eldest Mikhail and many boyars.” Subsequently, her brother Oleg visits her. With her help, on his deathbed, Vladimir Vasilkovich settles his state affairs, and calls her “Princess Moa Mila Olgo.” Vladimir and Olga were childless. Vladimir’s dying concerns are directed “to arrange the fate of her and their adopted daughter, Izyaslava, “like the Milovs, like his dear daughter.” Vladimir Vasilkovich allows his wife to do after his death as she pleases - live like this or go to the monastery: “I can’t get up to see what someone is doing to my stomach,” he says.

The gentle, thoughtful appearance of a woman-mother was brought to us by works of Russian painting of the 12th century. They embody the care of a woman, her love for her deceased son.

There is a story about the impression these works left on the audience. The proud prince Andrei Yuryevich Bogolyubsky, who never bowed his head to anyone, a brave warrior who was always the first to rush at enemies in battle, was amazed by the image of Our Lady of Vladimir. “The Tale of the Miracles of the Vladimir Icon” speaks of the deep impression that the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir made on Andrei Bogolyubsky. Seeing her for the first time, he fell to his knees in front of her - “falling to the ground.” Subsequently, he and his chronicler attributed all his victories over enemies to the help of this icon.

In all these few references, the woman invariably appears in the charm of tender caring, soulful understanding of the state concerns of her husbands and brothers. Daughter, mother or wife - she always helps her father, son or husband, grieves for him, mourns him after death and never inclines him during life to cowardice or self-preservation at the cost of shame. She takes death in battle with enemies for granted and mourns her sons, husbands or fathers without a shadow of reproach, without a trace of discontent, as warriors and patriots who have fulfilled their duty, without being horrified or condemning their behavior, but with quiet affection and praise for them courage, their valor. Love for a husband, father or son does not dull their love for their homeland, hatred of enemies, or confidence in the rightness of the cause of their loved one.

The Russian women of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” embody the same traits that, although meagerly, were quite clearly conveyed to us by the chronicles and military stories of the 12th-13th centuries. We can confidently imagine the ideal of a woman in ancient Rus' of the 12th-13th centuries, which will be the same in the chronicles, and in military stories, and in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”; only in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” the image of a modest, caring, faithful and loving woman, worthy of the wife of her hero-husband, appears with even greater clarity and greater charm. The ideal of a woman of the 12th-13th centuries. contains few class features. The feudal class did not develop own ideal women, sharply different from the folk one. Even among feudal lords, a woman was devoted to her cares as a wife, mother, widow, and daughter. Large government responsibilities were not her lot. And this is precisely what contributed to the convergence of female images - feudal and folk. That is why Yaroslavna in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is presented in the image of a lyrical, song-like Russian woman - Yaroslavna.

The epic style in depicting people never fully embraces a literary work. Even in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” this epic style is combined with the style of medieval monumentalism. As we have already seen, elements of the epic style are clearly felt only in the initial part of the Tale of Bygone Years, and subsequently in the images of women. It is reflected in the Ipatiev Chronicle (characteristic of Roman Galitsky), in the “Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land”, in the Life of Alexander Nevsky (in the characteristic of the six brave men of Alexander Nevsky), in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” and in some other works. Such episodicity in the manifestations of this style is quite understandable: this style was mainly expressed only in oral folk art, and in literature it was reflected from time to time under the influence of the latter. Since the oral folk art of the Kyiv period is known to us in scant remains among written works, many features of this style still remain unclear to us.

The epic style was almost not reflected in the visual arts. This is understandable: fine art was much more “expensive” than literature, but individual elements of the epic style still penetrated into fine art through direct executors of the will of the feudal customers. Here is what M. V. Alpatov writes about this: “The art that was created in Kiev by the people for themselves has not reached us. The Smerdas had to live in semi-dugout type chicken huts. But they composed songs about heroes, the voice of protest of the common people sounded in the cities at the assembly. Working people had their own ideals of life and their own concepts of beauty. The hands of these people created the Kiev buildings with their magnificent decoration. That is why in many grand-ducal monuments one can feel the echoes of folk artistic ideas."

Chapters: “Folk poetry during the heyday of the ancient Russian early feudal state (X-XI centuries)” and “Folk poetry during the years of feudal fragmentation of Rus' - before the Tatar-Mongol invasion (XII - early XII centuries).” in the book: "Russian folk poetic creativity", vol. I, M-L., 1953.

Stories about Nikola Zarazsky - Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature (ODRL) of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. VII, 1949, pp. 290-291.

Stories about Nikola Zarazsky - Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature (ODRL) of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. VII, 1949, p. 293.

Stories about Nikola Zarazsky - Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature (ODRL) of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. VII, 1949, p. 294.

The Tale of Bygone Years, vol. I, p. 144.

Due to the fact that the portrait of the prince was always facing the viewer and painted for the viewer, those features that were most dear to the viewer who acted as the customer for the work were easily visible in it. In the vault of the Rostov princess Maria, in the description of her late husband - the Rostov prince Vasilko Konstantinovich - not only praise is clearly felt, but also an expression of the grief of loss: “Vasilko is red-faced, bright and menacing in the eyes, handsome beyond measure for a hunter, light in heart, the boyar is affectionate, but no one from the boyars who served him and ate his bread, and drank his cup, and had gifts - then no other prince could have been for his love; he loved his servants too much. Courage and intelligence are in him lively, but the truth walks with him. He was clever and able to do everything, and in goodness he was on his table and his days" (Lavrentevskaya Chronicle, under 1237, p. 467). This lyrical portrait, in which external features the prince was given this great importance, can only be compared with the portrait of the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkovich, compiled by the Volyn chronicler, who was also especially attentive to the fate of the widow of this prince, “sweet” Olga. Volynsky: Rostov chroniclers - both wrote for the widows of their princes, both, to some extent, reflected their feelings. “This blessed prince Volodymer,” writes the Volyn chronicle, “was tall in age, had great shoulders, had a red face, had curly yellow hair, a shorn beard, and had red hands and feet; his speech was thick and his mouth was thick, he said It is clear from the books that he was a great philosopher and a cunning fisherman, good-natured, meek, humble, kind, truthful, not a bribe-taker, not a liar, hating thieves, and not drinking his own drink, but having love for everyone, even more so for his brothers, in the kiss of Christ, standing with all the truth, unfeigned" (Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1289, p. 605).

Proceedings of ODRL, vol. VII, p. 289.

Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1187, p. 443.

Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1264, p. 569.

Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1274, p. 577.

Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1287, p. 595.

Ipatiev Chronicle, under 1287. Vladimir says about Izyaslav: “God did not allow me to give birth to my own, for my sins, but I was like a horn from my princess, I took you from my mother in swaddling clothes and nursed me” (p. 593).

The Legend of the Miracles of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. Ed. IN. Klyuchevsky. Society of Lovers of Ancient Writing, vol. XXX, 1878, p. 30.

M.V. Alpatov. General History of Arts, ///. M., 1955, pp. 60-61.

The ideal is a guiding star.

Without it there is no solid direction,

and no direction - no life.

L.N. Tolstoy

The main distinctive feature of the development of modern Russia is the desire to search for a national idea. Understanding of the meaning of the national idea itself grows on a positive perception and reflection of the roots of one’s historical past, finding the deep sources of social existence through understanding one’s own understanding of the greatness of the national idea and the revival of the best folk traditions stored in the treasury donated to the world by Russian literature.

It is well known that any country, nation, state only gains strength, stability, the will to live, and the ability to develop when people are inspired by a great idea, a noble and bright ideal. And vice versa, whenever a people is deprived of a big goal, an inspiring idea, a dream, it loses its active creative charge and ceases to be a viable subject of history. Without a really existing social, national, state ideal, the normal existence and development of human society is as impossible as the viability of any integral system - without a goal.

What is an ideal? Relevance this issue in our days and determined the choice of this topic. What interested me most was the ideal of man depicted in ancient Russian literature, because, as it seems to me, in ancient times people had pure thoughts, and all their thoughts came from the heart. Moreover, one of the heroes of Ancient Rus', whose image was used as the basis for one of the works - the Grand Duke of Novgorod and one of the saints Alexander Nevsky - in September 2009 was proclaimed by the Orthodox Church of Russia as the national ideal of our state. In addition, acquaintance with the origins of Russian culture gives us new knowledge, helping us to comprehend a new view of the world, a different way of thinking. Russian literature, in its centuries-long development, has created artistic values ​​of world significance.

Hypothesis: We assume that the image of an ideal person is a timeless concept, possessing a set of certain characteristics that are identical regardless of the historical context, but not without the influence of the “demands” of contemporary society.

So the topic this research work "The ideal of manancient Russian literature and in modern society" Purpose this work isa comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of the main characters of ancient Russian literature and the identification of the “ideal of a modern high school student” model.

To achieve this goal, we set the following tasks :

• Identify the characteristic features of the national ideal in oral folk art, in ancient Russian works of various genres (word, life, ancient Russian story, teaching).
• Present a classification of features of the national ideal in ancient Russian works.
• Compare the idea of ​​the ideal person in ancient Russian literature and in the consciousness of modern man.

Novelty The proposed research isanalysis of the main parameters ideal person, in a systematic description of the principles for determining ideal traits that can reflect linguistic self-awareness, provide information about the culture of an ethnic group, about the folk picture of the world.

Object of study:the image of an ideal person, embodied in ancient Russian literature and expressed in the imagination of a modern young man.

Research methods: analysis ancient Russian literary texts;sociologicaloral research survey among students in grades 9-11, MSOS No. 40; modeling the image of an ideal person; generalization material obtained during the study.

Theoretical significance of the study:a study based on ancient Russian literary texts and a sociological survey among high school students with the aim of comprehensively characterizing the model of an ideal person.

Practical significance of the study:This research work can be used in the extracurricular activities of a literature teacher, has high social significance from the point of view of the formation of a national ideal among adolescents, and is aimed at the older age category of schoolchildren.

Chapter 1. The ideal of man in ancient Russian literature.

In the minds of the ancient Russians, the bearer of absolute, ideal beauty is only the Lord God. Man is His creation, a creature of God. The beauty of a person depends on how fully the divine principle is expressed in him, that is, his ability and desire to follow the commandments of the Lord, to work on improving his soul.

The more a person works on this, the more he, as it were, is illuminated from within by the inner light that God sends to him as his grace. Therefore, on the icons of saints we see a glow around their heads - a golden halo. Man lives at the intersection of two worlds - visible and invisible. A righteous, pious lifestyle (especially prayer, repentance, fasting) could create a miracle: make an ugly person beautiful.

Since ancient times, Russian literature has been distinguished by high patriotism, interest in topics of social and state construction, and connections with folk art. She has placed man at the center of her quest; she serves him, sympathizes with him, portrays him, reflects national traits in him, and seeks ideals in him. We have selected for analysis and highlighting the characteristics of the image of an ideal person the following ancient Russian texts, as well as works of CNT: proverbs and sayings of the Russian people, epics about Ilya Muromets, Russian folk tales (“The Little Humpbacked Horse”, arranged by P.P. Ershov), “The Word about Igor’s Campaign”, “Teaching of Vladimir Monomakh”, “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land”, “The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu”, “The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky”, “The Tale of Boris and Gleb”, “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh”, “ The Life of Archpriest Avvakum”, “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom”. The results of the study of ancient texts are reflected in the table “Characteristics of the heroes of ancient Russian literature and CNT.”

Table 1 “Characteristics of the heroes of ancient Russian literature and CNT”

Thus, gradually, from century to century, the image of a beautiful Russian man takes shape, which can be understood as an ideal. The writers of Ancient Rus' had a very definite attitude towards the depiction of a person. The main thing is not external beauty, the beauty of the body and face, but the beauty of the soul. In the minds of the ancient Russians, the bearer of absolute, ideal beauty is only the Lord God. Man is His creation, “creature of God.” The beauty of a person depends on how fully the divine principle is expressed in him, that is, his ability and desire to follow the commandments of the Lord, to work on improving his soul.

national ideal, which include the following (the number of mentions in Old Russian texts is reflected in Diagram No. 1 of the Appendix):

It is precisely these personality traits that the ideal of the Old Russian man possesses, judging by the literary sources of that time. Does such an ideal coincide with the ideas about it of a modern young man?

Chapter 2. Ideas about the ideal of modern high school students.

The ideal of a person has changed significantly over the centuries under the influence of certain events in the lives of people and the country, and I decided to find out what the ideal person is like for my peers by conducting a sociological survey among grades 9-11.

34 people took part in the survey and were asked the following questions:

• Which works of ancient Russian literature do you know?
• How do you think the ideal person appears in these works?
• What kind of person do you think is ideal in the modern world?
• What qualities should you have?
• Do you agree with the statement that the true beauty of a person lies in the beauty of his soul?
• Which of your contemporaries corresponds to your idea of ​​the ideal?
• How do you measure up to the ideal?
• Would you like to become more ideal? Why?

2.1. Poor knowledge of literary works of Ancient Rus' has been revealed. Students know only two works of that period: “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” and “Song of prophetic Oleg" Consequently, the definition of an ideal person for most is associated with modern man, and not with historical figures. Moreover, the results showed in general that students have a vague understanding of the concept of “ideal.”

Having processed the received data on the representation of the ideal, I received the following relationship (See Diagram 2 “Appendices”):

60% of respondents consider the ideal person to be someone who is honest, brave, strong, ready to help those in need, and who loves his homeland. parents, wise, faithful, capable of creativity, etc.

20% of respondents believe that the ideal person is practical, cunning, and able to adapt to any situation.

10% consider their parents to be ideal people to look up to.

10% find it difficult to define the concept of ideal for themselves.

2.2. Among the main features of the national idealhigh school students identified the following (See “Diagram 3 “Appendices”):

2.3. To the question: “To what extent do you correspond to the ideal image?” high school students answered the following (See Diagram 4 “Appendices”):

It is noteworthy that when answering the question: “Would you like to correspond to the ideal person?” The respondents’ opinions were distributed as follows (Diagram 5):

To the question about the reasons why a person tends to strive for an ideal, the main answers boiled down to the following (Diagram 6):

Thus, we can distinguish 3 levels lowest high highest

2.4. To the question: “Which of our contemporaries (and non-contemporaries) corresponds to the ideal?” high school students responded (Diagram 7, Table 2):

Such a range of opinions once again indicates a certain degree of uncertainty in understanding the ideal and the impossibility of the existence of a truly ideal person. That is why it is an ideal, a word derived from the word “idea” - something that cannot be “touched”, but can be imagined, something that one wants and needs to strive for. Without this desire, in my opinion, a person cannot become a Human.

Application.

Diagram 1 "The national ideal of the ancient Russian man"

Diagram 2 . “The ratio of ideal (60%) - anti-ideal (20%) – parents as an ideal (10%), found it difficult to answer (10%)”

Diagram 3. “Signs of the ideal of a modern young man”

Diagram 4. “Compliance of respondents with the ideal”

Diagram 5. “Respondents’ desire to live up to the ideal.”

Diagram 6. “Reasons for a person’s striving for the ideal”

Diagram 7. “Your ideal is an existing person”

table 2 . “Your ideal is an existing person”

Conclusion.

Each historical period forms its own idea of ​​the ideal of a person, which was glorified in literary monuments. An ideal is that inexplicable, fascinating concept that has no stereotype or precise definition.

Having studied the content of ancient Russian texts of various genres, I came to the conclusion that Russiannational idealconsists of well-defined signs, characteristic typological features , which include the following:

• Selfless love for the Motherland,
• Willingness to “lay down one’s head” for her in a moment of danger,
• Spiritual beauty,
• Righteousness, adherence to Christian moral standards (honoring elders, living in love and harmony, etc.),
• Tendency to introspection
• The desire for self-improvement,
• The ability to create and be creative,
• Honesty and loyalty
• Strength and courage
• Intelligence and ingenuity
• Kindness and mercy
• Hard work and diligence,
• Wisdom and patience.

Among the main features of the national idealhigh school students highlighted the following:

A sense of patriotism, the ability and desire to defend the Fatherland (78%),

Inner harmony and beauty (65%),

Peacefulness, mercy, kindness (63%),

Honesty and loyalty (60%),

Ability to be creative (57%),

Wisdom(55%),

Education (54%),

Healthy lifestyle (50%),

Ability to achieve the intended goal (38%),

Social activity (34%),

Entrepreneurship (28%).

From the above survey data, it becomes obvious that the ideal of a modern person is, in most respects, identical to the ideal of a person presented in ancient Russian literature. To neoplasms modern ideal should be attributedability to achieve goals, social activity, entrepreneurship, which fully meets the needs of modern society. In general, the concept of the “ideal of man” remains timeless, a constant unit with a “set” of the best qualities of the national character of the Russian person.

According to a survey of high school students, we can distinguish 3 levels the formation of a position reflecting the desire for the ideal of a modern young man: lower the level when a person just wants to appear and not be (the same “adaptive ideal”), high level when high school students really feel the need to be better, more “ideal,” and highest a manifestation of this desire is to make the WORLD BETTER, CLEANER, MORE BEAUTIFUL.

The range of opinions of students in grades 9-11 at MSOS No. 40 on the question of which of the really existing (existing) people can be considered an ideal once again indicates a certain degree of uncertainty in understanding the ideal and the impossibility of the existence of a truly ideal person. That is why it is an ideal, a word derived from the word “idea” - something that cannot be “touched”, but can be imagined, something that one wants and needs to strive for, which, of course, is inherent in the very human nature. Without this desire, in my opinion, a person cannot become a Human. Because, as T. Carlyle argued: “The ideal is in yourself. The obstacles to achieving it are within you. Your position is the material from which you must realize your ideal.”

List of used literature.

1. Russian literature, practical textbook, 9th grade, ed. Mnemosyne, 1999.
2. History of Russian literature of the X-XVII centuries, D.S. Likhachev, Moscow “Enlightenment”, 1980.
3. “Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'”, D.S. Likhachev, 2nd edition M., 1970.
4. Proverbs of the Russian people. V.I. Dal. Moscow, "NNN", 1994.
5. “Poetics of Old Russian Literature”, D.S. Likhachev, ed. "Science", 1979.
6. “Old Russian Literature”, E. Rogachevskaya, ed. "School-press", 1996.
7. Russian literature, Encyclopedia for children Avanta +, Moscow “Avanta +”, 1998.
8. Brave Russians. Collection. E.I. Osetrov, Moscow worker, 1986.