Anna Evgenievna Petrakova The Art of Ancient Greece and Rome The educational and methodological manual is published by decision of the Editorial and Publishing Council of the St. Petersburg Cultural Society Scientific editor A. V. Kornilova, Doctor of Art History,

The architecture of Ancient Rus' dates back to the times Greek colonies in the Northern Black Sea region. From the end of the 4th century, Christian churches began to be created here in shape resembling equilateral Greek crosses in the form of a basilica and rotunda. It is worth noting that during this period the main building material is wood. That is why one of the characteristic features of wooden construction became: the technique of laying walls with a log frame and ceilings in the shape of a pyramid. The pyramid-shaped ceilings have been preserved and were used in the construction of bell towers, the oldest of which date back to the 16th-17th centuries. Until the 18th century, bell rings were built exclusively for defense purposes, and, most notably, separately from churches. As a rule, they served as observation towers. At the top, the bell-rings ended in “baths,” the oldest of which are shaped like a helmet. During the Renaissance, the “baths” became semicircular in shape, and during the Baroque times they changed even more and were shaped like a pear.

At the end of X and before the first half XIII century, right up to the attack of the Mongol-Tatars, there was a rapid development of architecture in Rus'. With the adoption of Christianity, the Byzantine style became widespread. Adopting the Byzantine cross-dome shape of the temple, Russian masters also used the established traditions of wooden architecture - multi-domes, the main principle of which was that the basis of the temple was a square dissected by four pillars, and the rectangular cells adjacent to the under-dome space should form an architectural cross. That is why the construction of temples and churches develops at a particularly rapid pace during this period. It is also worth noting that over the years many churches and cathedrals were built in Rus': the Church of the Tithes, the Cathedral of the Savior in Chernigov, the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev, the Golden Gate and the Church of the Annunciation, the Kiev Caves Cathedral, etc.

In the XIV-XV centuries, during the Ruins, the Byzantine style as such ceased to exist. During this period, active construction of castles was carried out: triangular, quadrangular, and even irregular in shape - depending on the relief. The era of the Cossacks (XVII century) is considered the golden age in the history of architecture of Ancient Rus'. At this time, the Baroque style was actively spreading in Western Europe, but on the territory of our state it came with less magnificent forms. Russian masters introduced many unique and original features into the architecture of that time, thanks to which this style began to be called “Ukrainian” or “Cossack” Baroque. The most striking examples of architectural monuments of that time can be considered: St. Nicholas Cathedral, Trinity Church in Chernigov, houses of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Mazepa's house in Chernigov and many others.

Icon painting is a complex process that includes such work as: following strict iconographic canons, observing ancient technologies for choosing wood and preparing boards, using gold leaf and egg tempera on natural pigments (malachite, lapis lazuli, uripigment, etc.), selecting paint colors , correct depiction of temple structures, gestures and the position of saints in relation to each other - icon painting is a complex and real art.

But icon painting is not just art; it is more a way of life and a worldview than a job. The icon painter prepares for a long time to paint each icon in spirit and cannot begin work without the blessing of the Church. Icon painting is a popular art that is trusted only to true professionals.

The main thing in icon painting is the image; it appeared in Christian art initially. Tradition dates the creation of the first icons to apostolic times and is associated with the name of the Evangelist Luke, when icon painting was just beginning its complex and long journey.

In the Roman catacombs from the 2nd-4th centuries, works of Christian art of a symbolic or narrative nature have been preserved. Iconography is not as simple as it seems.

The oldest icons that have come down to us date back to the 6th century and were made using the encaustic technique, which makes them similar to Egyptian-Hellenistic art (the so-called “Fayum portraits” - from this we can consider icon painting as an art).

The Trullo (or Fifth-Sixth) Council prohibits symbolic images of the Savior, ordering that He should be depicted only “according to human nature.”

In the 8th century, the Christian Church was faced with the heresy of iconoclasm, the ideology of which completely prevailed in the state, church and cultural life. Icons continued to be created in the provinces, far from imperial and church supervision. The development of an adequate response to the iconoclasts, the adoption of the dogma of icon veneration at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) brought a deeper understanding of the icon, laying down serious theological foundations, connecting the theology of the image with Christological dogmas, icon painting goes back to ancient times and there were people who took icon painting to a new level. Professional icon painting flourished.

The theology of icon painting had a huge influence on the development of icon painting and the formation of icon painting canons. Moving away from the naturalistic rendering of the sensory world, icon painting becomes more conventional, gravitating towards flatness, the image of faces is replaced by the image of faces, which reflect the physical and spiritual, the sensual and the supersensible. Hellenistic traditions are gradually being reworked and adapted to Christian concepts, icon painting is now a legitimate art and Christianity is being introduced to icon painting.

The different understanding of the icon in the Western and Eastern traditions ultimately led to different directions development of art in general: having had a tremendous influence on the art of Western Europe (especially Italy), icon painting during the Renaissance was supplanted by painting and sculpture. Icon painting developed mainly on the territory of the Byzantine Empire and countries that adopted the eastern branch of Christianity - Orthodoxy.

The iconography of the main images, as well as the techniques and methods of iconography, developed by the end of iconoclastic times. In the Byzantine era, there are several periods distinguished by the style of images: the “Macedonian Renaissance” of the 10th - first half of the 11th century, the iconography of the Komnenos period of 1059-1204, the “Palaeologian Renaissance” of the early 14th century.

Icon painting, together with Christianity, came first to Bulgaria, then to Serbia and Rus'. The first Russian icon painter known by name was Saint Alypius (Alympius) (Kyiv - 1114). The earliest Russian icons were not preserved in the most ancient churches of the south, which were destroyed during Tatar invasions, and in the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod the Great. In Ancient Rus', the role of the icon in the temple increased unusually (compared to the mosaic and fresco traditional for Byzantium). It is on Russian soil that a multi-tiered iconostasis is gradually taking shape. The iconography of Ancient Rus' is distinguished by the expressiveness of the silhouette and the clarity of combinations of large color planes, and greater openness to what is ahead of the icon.

Russian icon painting reached its peak in the 14th-15th centuries; outstanding masters of this period were Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev, Dionysius. Original schools of icon painting were formed in Georgia and the South Slavic countries.

From the 17th century in Russia, the decline of icon painting began, icons began to be painted more “to order”, and from the 18th century the traditional tempera (tempera) technique was gradually replaced by oil painting, which used techniques of the Western European art school: light and shadow modeling of figures, direct (“ scientific perspective, real proportions of the human body, and so on. The icon is as close as possible to the portrait. Secular artists, including non-believers, are attracted to icon painting - icon painting turns into simple entertainment and over time, icon painting begins to degenerate as an art.

After the so-called “discovery of the icon” at the beginning of the 20th century, big interest to ancient icon painting, the technology and worldview of which had been preserved by that time almost only in Old Believer environment. An era begins scientific study icons, basically, as a cultural phenomenon, in complete isolation from its main function.

After the October Revolution of 1917, during the period of persecution of the Church, many works of church art were lost, people forgot what real icon painting was, the icon in the “land of victorious atheism” was assigned only one place - a museum, where it represented “ancient Russian art.” Years passed, icon painting was practically lost as an art. The iconography had to be restored bit by bit. M. N. Sokolova (nun Juliana) played a huge role in the revival of icon painting. Among the emigrants, the Icon Society in Paris was engaged in restoring the traditions of Russian icon painting.

The concept of “Old Russian literature” is so familiar that almost no one notices its inaccuracies. Until about the middle of the 15th century, it would be more correct to call Old Russian literature Old East Slavic. In the first centuries after the baptism of Rus' and the spread of writing in the East Slavic lands, the literature of the Eastern Slavs was uniform: the same works were read and copied by scribes in Kiev and Vladimir, in Polotsk and Novgorod, in Chernigov and Rostov. Later, three different East Slavic nationalities emerged in this territory: Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The previously unified Old Russian language disintegrates: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages ​​emerge.

The main range of works - religious and edifying works, lives of saints, liturgical chants - was common to Old Russian literature and to the literature of other Orthodox Slavic countries - Bulgaria and Serbia. After all, the eastern Slavs and the southern Slavs, Serbs and Bulgarians, had the same faith and the language of church writing, Church Slavonic. In the South Slavic lands they copied and read Old Russian works, and in Rus' - works of Bulgarian and Serbian literature. Both southern and eastern Slavs considered Byzantine church literature as a model for their own writings. For them, Byzantium was both the guardian of the Orthodox faith and a great empire. The Orthodox Slavic states sought to achieve equality in political relations with the Byzantine Empire, and cultural communication with Byzantium was very valuable for the Orthodox Slavs. In Rus', many Byzantine religious works were distributed in South Slavic translations. Some researchers believe that in the Middle Ages there was a unified literature of the Orthodox Slavs.

Old Russian literature arose in the 11th century. One of its first monuments, the “Sermon on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion of Kyiv, was created in the 30s and 40s. XI century. The 17th century is the last century of ancient Russian literature. During its course, traditional ancient Russian literary canons are gradually destroyed, new genres and new ideas about man and the world are born.

Works are also called literature ancient Russian scribes, and texts by authors of the 18th century, and works of Russian classics of the last century, and works of modern writers. Of course, there are obvious differences between the literature of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. But all Russian literature of the last three centuries is not at all similar to the monuments of ancient Russian verbal art. However, it is precisely in comparison with them that it reveals many similarities. About ninety percent of ancient Russian works that have survived to this day are translations from Greek, and only a tenth belongs to the pen of ancient Russian scribes. Almost all of the works translated from Greek were of purely religious content. They were equally revered by the Byzantines, the South Slavs, and the Russians. From Byzantium such genres as hagiography, sermons, chronicles, and various liturgical chants were inherited. But secular, worldly Byzantine literature aroused virtually no interest among ancient Russian scribes. And this is no coincidence.

Literature in Rus' arose only after the adoption of Christianity. The oral creativity of the ancient Russians received almost no response in literature. Part of the exception is the chronicles in which some legends were set out.

Russian folklore was deeply connected with the old pagan faith, and literature sought to embody the truths of the new religion - Christianity. Slavic writing was created in the middle of the 9th century. by the Greek brothers Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius specifically for the needs of Christian worship. The alphabet, writing, and books became sacred for the recently baptized Slavs. The word and text were supposed to reveal Christian truths, introduce them to the supernatural Divine world, to the highest religious wisdom.

That is why “useless” worldly works did not appear in Rus' in the first centuries after baptism. Therefore, there were not many secular genres characteristic of both Byzantine and Western European medieval literature: novels, poems, dramas, lyrics. At least, there are no such works in the surviving ancient Russian manuscripts.

The values ​​and interests of earthly life attracted almost no attention from scribes. Old Russian literature until the 17th century. does not describe love experiences and does not seem to know the very concept of “love”. She talks either about the sinful “prodigal passion” leading to the death of the soul, or about a virtuous Christian marriage. Only one Byzantine poem was translated, and then in prose - “Digenis Akrit”, which tells about the exploits of the hero Digenis, who seeks marriage with the beautiful Stratigovna. Only in the 17th century. Russian readers will get acquainted with translated love-adventure novels, which will be remade in the spirit of folk tales (“The Tale of Bova Korolevich”, “The Tale of Eruslan Lazarevich”, etc.)

Dont know Old Russian writing and poetry. Some researchers believe that “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” was written in verse, but this opinion is not generally accepted. Folklore lyrical songs have existed since ancient times, but ancient Russian scribes did not write them down. Rhythmically organized texts were performed at services. But these were not poems in the modern sense of the word: such liturgical texts were certainly sung and not read. Instead of the now familiar opposition between “poetry and prose,” in Ancient Rus' there was another: “a text being sung - a text being spoken or read.” Book, literary poetry arises when interest in the word, attention to literary form: rhythm and various consonances in verse and rhyme are born. Poetry as such appears in Muscovite Rus' only in the 17th century.

They resorted to various stylistic devices, to playing with the meaning and sound of words only in order to reveal the ineffable Divine holiness, not fully expressible in human language.

Until the 17th century. There were no parodic, comic works in ancient Russian literature. For the first six centuries, ancient Russian literature treated laughter with caution and disapproval, as a “waste” and sinful phenomenon. Earthly and heavenly. Unlike Byzantine and Western European literature, Old Russian literature did not know clear boundaries between secular and ecclesiastical texts. Of course, lives that tell about the life and deeds of saints, or a sermon that reveals the meaning of a Christian holiday and contains religious instruction, are works of church literature. A chronicle or historical story describing events contemporary to the author: military campaigns of Russian princes, battles with foreigners, internecine feuds - secular texts. But both the chronicler and the compiler of the historical story explain the events described in the spirit of a religious understanding of history. For the ancient Russian scribe - whether he creates a life or a chronicle - everything that happens is explained by providence, the will of God.

In ancient Russian literature, events and things surrounding a person are symbols and manifestations of a higher, spiritual, Divine reality. The miraculous, the supernatural in ancient Russian literature was perceived as no less genuine than the familiar, ordinary. Two forces rule in the world - the will of God, who desires the good of man, and the will of the devil, who with his machinations desires to turn man away from God and destroy him. Man is free to choose between good and evil, light and darkness. But, succumbing to the power of the devil, he loses his freedom, and resorting to the help of God, he gains Divine grace that strengthens him.

And the compilers of lives and sermons, and chroniclers, and authors of historical stories invariably turn to the Bible: biblical events are interpreted as prototypes of what is happening in the present. The church holidays that repeat every year: the Nativity, death and resurrection of Christ were not just a memory of the events of the Savior’s earthly life, but a mysterious and real repetition of these very events.

Folk musical art originated long before the emergence of professional music in the Orthodox church. In the social life of ancient Rus', folklore played a much greater role than in subsequent times. Unlike medieval Europe, Ancient Rus' did not have secular professional art. In its musical culture, only two main areas developed - temple singing and folk art of the oral tradition, including various, including “semi-professional” genres (the art of storytellers, buffoons, etc.).

By the time of Russian Orthodox hymnography, folklore had a centuries-old history, an established system of genres and means of musical expression.

Folk music has firmly entered the everyday life of people, reflecting the most diverse facets of social, family, and personal life. Researchers believe that in the pre-state period (that is, before the formation of Kievan Rus), the Eastern Slavs had a fairly developed calendar and family ritual folklore, heroic epic and instrumental music.

With the adoption of Christianity, pagan beliefs gradually lose their meaning. The meaning of magical acts that gave rise to this or that type of folk music was gradually forgotten. However, the purely external forms of ancient holidays turned out to be unusually stable, and ritual folklore continued to live as if out of connection with the paganism that gave birth to it.

The Christian Church (not only in Rus', but also in Europe) had a very negative attitude towards traditional folk songs and dances, considering them a manifestation of sinfulness and devilish seduction. This assessment is recorded in many chronicles and in canonical church decrees. For example, the answers of the Kyiv Metropolitan John II to the 11th century writer are known. Yakov Chernorizets, which says about the priests: “Those persons of the priestly rank who go to worldly feasts and drink, the holy fathers command to observe decorum and accept what is offered with a blessing; when they come in with games, dances and music, then you must, as the fathers command, get up (from the table), so as not to defile your feelings with what you can see and hear, or completely abandon those feasts or leave at a time when there will be a great temptation."

The negative reaction of the Orthodox Church was caused by a very specific area of ​​folklore, born in the depths of the so-called “laughing” or “carnival” culture of Ancient Rus'. Noisy folk festivals with elements of theatrical performance and with the indispensable participation of music, the origins of which should be sought in ancient pagan rituals, were fundamentally different from temple holidays. “Laughter” culture has always been a “distorting mirror” of reality, an absurd “stupid” life, where everything was the other way around, everything changed places - good and evil, bottom and top, reality and fantasy. These holidays are characterized by turning clothes inside out and using matting, bast, straw, birch bark, bast and other carnival paraphernalia for dressing up.

The most extensive area of ​​​​folk musical creativity of Ancient Rus' consists of ritual folklore, testifying to the high artistic talent of the Russian people. The ritual was a normative, strictly regulated religious act, subject to the canon that had developed over the centuries. He was born in the depths of the pagan picture of the world, the deification of natural elements. Calendar-ritual songs are considered the most ancient. Their content is associated with ideas about the cycle of nature and the agricultural calendar. These songs reflect the different stages of life of peasant farmers. They were part of winter, spring, and summer rituals that correspond to turning points in the change of seasons. When performing the ritual, people believed that their spells would be heard by the mighty gods, the forces of the Sun, Water, and Mother Earth and would send them a good harvest, offspring of livestock, and a comfortable life.

Folk art and artistic crafts have their roots in ancient times, when people lived in conditions of a primitive communal and tribal system. He obtained his livelihood using primitive methods. Any activity in primitive society could only be collective. The division of labor was carried out only into male labor (war, hunting) and female labor (cooking, making clothes, housekeeping); at that time, even ceramic production was a domestic women's activity. The need for joint labor led to common ownership of tools, land, and products of production. There was no wealth inequality yet.

The beginnings of art then were also of a collective nature. By making tools for labor, hunting and war, dishes, clothing and other household items necessary, man sought to give them a beautiful shape and decorate them with ornaments, that is, he thereby turned ordinary things into works of art. Often the shape of the product and its ornament also had a magical, cult purpose. Thus, one and the same object could simultaneously satisfy a person’s real needs, meet his religious views and correspond to his understanding of beauty. This syncretism, indivisibility, unity of functions of ancient art was a characteristic feature of the art of the ancient Eastern Slavs, which was inseparable from their life.

By the time of the creation of the East Slavic state - Kievan Rus - crafts in it had reached a high level of development. The very first production that emerged as an independent craft in the city and countryside was metal processing. Ancient Rus' knew almost all types of modern artistic metalworking, but the main ones were forging, casting, chasing, filigree and granulation. Jewelry art reached its highest level of development at this time. The second craft in origin, after metal processing, was pottery. In the IX-X centuries. Kievan Rus already knows the potter's wheel, the appearance of which meant the transition of ceramic production from the hands of women engaged in household work to the hands of a male artisan. Pottery workshops produced dishes, household utensils, toys, church items, tiles - decorative ceramic tiles, which were used in architecture as a finishing material. In ancient Rus', the art of stone-cutting artisans was also developed: carvers of icons and foundry molds, bead cutters. There were many bone-carving workshops, whose mass products were combs of various shapes, as well as objects for religious purposes: crosses, icons, etc.

Craftsmen of Ancient Rus' mainly made products to order. According to their social status, they belonged to different groups of the population. Free craftsmen were already working in the cities: icon painters, goldsmiths, minters, blacksmiths, toy makers and others. At the same time, enslaved master slaves worked in boyar and princely courts, on estates and estates. Craftsmen also worked in the monasteries. It should be noted that in Ancient Rus', not all types of crafts were treated equally; there were more “revered” professions, such as icon painting, goldsmithing, and there were “black”, “dirty” ones, such as pottery.

The main types of female artistic creativity in Ancient Rus' there were patterned weaving (in particular, brano), embroidery on canvas, gold embroidery, “silk hoop work.” The main type of art was ancient Russian sewing - embroidered church utensils: shrouds, shrouds, coverings, which aroused universal admiration and were exported from Rus' to other countries.

About seven centuries passed from the Baptism of Rus' to Peter’s reforms, and it is easy to understand that over such a long periodDuring the period in many dissimilar genres, in the works of hundreds of talented scribes, verbal art could not remain strictly uniform and unchanged. Indeed, in different eras, by different authors, in texts of different orientations ancient Russian verbal art every time it turns to us with its new facets. And yet it is possible to find features characteristic of most of the most perfect and at the same time exemplary works of ancient Russian literature - moreover, such features that distinguish the ancient Russian art of words from what was characteristic of other eras and cultures.

The laws of ancient Russian literature often seem alien and strange to our contemporaries (people of the 19th century already felt this). It was dominated by an unusual for us genre system: the most important ones in our time were practically absent literary forms- a story about fictional characters(novel, story) and lyric poem with its usual themes; Only at the end of the Old Russian era did versification and theater appear. Basic Old Russian genres- the life of a saint, a solemn church sermon (the Word), a chronicle, a story about a military campaign, etc. - by their very content are not similar to what is now called literature. Their poetics may seem just as far from us, which was not immediately discerned and unraveled by readers of modern literature. In the 20th century many historians, philosophers, theologians, who loved Russia with all their hearts and wanted to protect and glorify Ancient Rus', nevertheless called it “dumb”, which did not show the gift of words, and called for looking for its only revelation in the field fine arts— architecture and painting (frescoes, icons). Find ways to understanding ancient Russian art the words were only possible as a result of his careful study.

Old Russian literature belongs to the number of medieval literatures, which are characterized by the dominance of tradition - or, in other words, the canon. In accordance with the idea of ​​tradition, bright novelty, great originality, or bold expression of one’s thoughts and feelings are not expected from the writer of a newly created text. He is required to be faithful to the truth (and truth, unlike errors, can only be one) and to the artistic experience and taste of previous generations. To a person far from canonical art, it may seem monotonous, and effort is required in order to understand its truth, meaning and greatness. But perhaps it is even more difficult - and, moreover, more important - to see that traditions and canons in no way prevented the best medieval masters from demonstrating their art. The most insightful researchers note that the great authors were able to express themselves without fighting the canons, but, on the contrary, tightening their requirements, tightening the demands on themselves. The icon painter Andrei Rublev achieved such perfection within the framework of this canon that even in the ancient Russian era he was recognized as a role model. The same applies to the ancient Russian masters of words: they followed tradition and were able, without departing from it, to show their special art; but, in order to understand it, you need to compare different texts, be attentive to the seeming “little things,” and appreciate the shades.

In terms of the stability of tradition and the abundance of significant texts, Old Russian church literature is especially remarkable. Actually, Old Russian works, primarily in the genre of Life and Words, coexisted with quantitatively sharply predominant translations. Since the time of Cyril and Methodius they have corresponded bible books— Gospels, Psalms, etc.; the works of the Church Fathers and other necessary church books were also copied or re-translated from the Greek. Writers, translators, editors and copyists (scribes) worked side by side, and often in several roles and simply acted as one person. Old Russian church literature is thoroughly permeated with the spirit of the Bible and literal borrowings from it. Biblical quotation is one of the most stable and expressive verbal means of the ancient Russian text. Quotes could vary in volume (from a phrase of two words to an extensive extract), in the presence of a direct link to biblical text(from a direct indication of the source to the dissolution of a biblical quotation in one’s text, devoid of any indication), according to the degree of literalness: demanding the strictest fidelity to the original when rewriting the text, Old Russian tradition allowed the Bible to be quoted much more freely, if there was no semantic substitution or overexposure. Often several biblical quotations followed one after another, and only this quotational pattern generated the meaning of the context. Along with the Bible, the works of previous authors served as sources of borrowing and samples: at first only the Byzantine Fathers of the Church, and over time, also ancient Russian writers of previous eras. From such samples they could inherit a compositional scheme, general meaning, individual expressions, while the development and elaboration of this source material by good ancient Russian authors always had an independent character. A true master of using authoritative sources in profound independent writings was the church orator of the 12th century. Kirill Turovsky. In many cases, the interpretation of a theme, narrative episode, description or argument became a kind of “common place” (topos): in many texts there was a clear similarity, but not a literal coincidence. For example, in different places of his writings, Kirill Turovsky describes the phenomena in the universe during Christ’s death on the cross like this: “I saw... the sun darkening and the earth shaking” (I saw... the sun darkening and the earth shaking), “I was horrified by the sky and the earth trembling... the sun darkened and stone disintegrated" (the sky was horrified, and the earth trembled... the sun darkened, and the stones disintegrated), "darken the sun and shake the earth, and make every creature weep" (darken the sun and shake the earth and make the whole world cry), "darken the sun and the moon in He turned the blood, and darkness came over all the earth... he shook the earth and the stones disintegrated” (he darkened the sun and plunged the moon into blood, and darkness was over all the earth... he shook the earth and the stones disintegrated). An exceptional role was also played by stable phrases of great semantic capacity, the so-called formulas, which are found very often in ancient Russian texts, especially of older times; in church literature their sources were the Bible or liturgical books, in works close to folklore - oral folk tradition, in legal and historical texts - the terminology of ancient law, etc. These are the formulas “Sun of Truth”, “joy and gladness”, “ prayer and fasting,” “the wrath of His wrath,” “and the slaughter was great,” “dati shoulders” (to run), etc. In a later period, formulas are increasingly destroyed and individual words are combined into phrases and sentences without the mediation of formulas.

The monograph by V.V. Bychkov is the first systematic study in domestic and foreign science of the formation and development of spiritual and aesthetic culture in Rus'. Rare and rich illustrative material on the history of artistic culture of the Middle Ages was involved in the publication of the book.

The book is intended for a wide range of readers.

Viktor Vasilyevich Bychkov (born in 1942), doctor philosophical sciences, head of the research group "Non-classical aesthetics" of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Union of Artists of Russia, author of more than 140 scientific works - 60 of which were published abroad - on early Christian, Byzantine, Old Russian cultural studies, aesthetics, and art history.

Main works:

Byzantine aesthetics. Theoretical problems. M., 1977 (Italian edition - 1983; Bolt. - 1984; Hung. - 1988; Serbian, full - 1991);

Aesthetics of Late Antiquity. II – III centuries (Early Christian aesthetics). M., 1981 (Romanian edition - 1984); Aesthetics . M., 1984;

Aesthetic consciousness of Ancient Rus'. M., 1988;

Aesthetics in Russia of the 17th century. M., 1989;

The aesthetic face of existence (Speculations of Pavel Florensky). M., 1990; The meaning of art in Byzantine culture. M., 1991 (with bibliography of the author’s works);

A short history of Byzantine aesthetics. Kyiv. 1991 (with bibliography of the author's works).

Currently, V.V. Bychkov continues to work on the “History of Orthodox Aesthetics.”

Harmony's mysterious power

Ancient Rus' - this symbol immediately brings to mind the image of Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity” - the brilliant embodiment of the spiritual ideal of the Russian Middle Ages, the amazing harmony of light and color, spirit and matter, heavenly and earthly, divine and human, - the incomprehensible unity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty .

If only this unique icon had survived from medieval Rus', we could already feel the extraordinary depth and richness of the spiritual world of a man of that time, the significance of his ideals, the wise insight of his mind and a heightened craving for beauty. Fortunately, fate has generously endowed us with many first-class works of ancient Russian painting, architecture, hymnography, literature, and decorative and applied arts. It has preserved to this day, despite enormous losses, an impressive fund of cultural values, spiritual potential which can significantly enrich both modern culture and the noosphere of the distant future of humanity. First of all, this applies to the artistic and aesthetic heritage of Ancient Rus', in which the universal human values ​​accumulated over many centuries of cultural development in the Byzantine-Slavic-Russian region were most fully expressed.

An appeal to the Russian aesthetic heritage today, during a period of intensive development of complex processes in culture, the breaking of many traditional ideas, a revision of the fund of spiritual values ​​that have evolved over centuries and a painful search for new ideals adequate to our time, is especially important because the ancient Russian artistic culture was “open” to of its time. She did not isolate herself within the narrow framework of elitism and “aestheticism,” but was closely connected with the most pressing spiritual, cultural, and social movements of her time, and acted in many ways as their spokesman. The best examples of this culture today can serve as an excellent educator of the feelings of humanism, patriotism, internationalism, peacefulness, high morality and spirituality. Academician B. A. Rybakov rightly notes the “high patriotism of Russian literature” of the medieval period and points out the absence in it of “a trace of preaching aggressive actions."

Concluding one of his books with an answer to the question “why study the poetics of ancient Russian literature,” Academician D. S. Likhachev set another urgent task for modern researchers - the study of the aesthetics of Ancient Rus'.

“The aesthetic study of monuments of ancient art (including literature), writes D. S. Likhachev, seems to me extremely important and relevant. We must put the cultural monuments of the past at the service of the future. The values ​​of the past must become active participants in the life of the present, our comrades-in-arms... One of the most important evidence of cultural progress is the development of understanding of the cultural values ​​of the past and the cultures of other nationalities, the ability to preserve, accumulate, and perceive their aesthetic value. The entire history of the development of human culture is a history not only of the creation of new ones, but of the discovery of old cultural values. And this development of understanding of other cultures to a certain extent merges with the history of humanism." From these fragments it is clear what great importance Our greatest specialist in the field of ancient Russian culture attaches importance to the study of its aesthetic side. Today, we regret to say that the aesthetics of medieval Rus' has not been fully studied, and the scientific level of existing works does not meet the requirements for modern philosophical research.

Therefore, historians of aesthetics today face, as one of the most urgent tasks, a comprehensive analysis of the main forms of manifestation of aesthetic consciousness in ancient Russian culture in the process of its historical development.

Upon closer examination, this problem turns out to be by no means simple, but nevertheless, in principle, solvable. I’ll start with the subject of research, about which there is still no consensus in science. Research in the field of the history of culture and aesthetics, as well as modern philosophical, aesthetic and art history research convinces us that all components of the system of non-utilitarian relationships between a person and the surrounding world (natural, objective, social, spiritual) can be included in the sphere of aesthetics in medieval culture. , as a result of which he experiences spiritual pleasure. The essence of these relationships lies either in the expression of some meaning in sensory forms, or in the self-sufficient contemplation of a certain object (material or spiritual). Spiritual pleasure testifies to the subject’s super-intelligent vision in an aesthetic object of the essential foundations of being, the hidden truths of the spirit, the elusive laws of life in all its fullness and deep harmony, the eventual implementation of spiritual contact with the Universe, a breakthrough in the connection of times and at least an instantaneous exit into eternity , or, more precisely, about the feeling of being involved in eternity. The aesthetic thus acts as a kind of universal characteristic of the entire complex of non-utilitarian relationships between man and the world, based on his sense of his original involvement in being and in the eternity of harmonious inscription in the Universe.

In Old Russian, as in any other medieval culture, many components of this system did not have complete autonomy. They were organically woven into the flow of utilitarian-practical activity (industrial, everyday, religious - to the extent that it is appropriate to include religion in it) and can be analyzed from it only with a certain measure of convention. This is one of the main difficulties in studying medieval aesthetics.

So, if we turn to ancient Russian folklore, we will see that almost all of its various forms are permeated with the aesthetic worldview of our ancient ancestors. It would, however, be an unjustified modernization to consider that the creators of folklore were guided only or primarily by aesthetic needs. They were faced with (unrealized by them, of course) a more difficult task: to express on an emotional-rational level, merging didactics with the imagery of folk thinking, the entire complex of social experience that was relevant for that time. Folklore formed the basis of pre-Christian Slavic rituals that accompanied ancient man throughout his life. The aesthetic component was not the end in itself of folk rituals, but unconsciously it was an important attractive force any ritual performance, folk games and festivities. The sacred and didactic content of wedding, birth, funeral and other rites of the ancient Slavs was expressed in rich artistic and aesthetic forms that brought spiritual pleasure to all participants in these actions.

Naturally, today it is impossible to correctly understand ancient Russian aesthetics in its entirety without identifying the aesthetic specificity of folklore. What has been said applies to all types of spiritual, practical and artistic activity, which existed in Rus'. Moreover, it is also valid in relation to ancient Russian book literature, on the basis of which the study of Russian medieval aesthetics in this work is primarily based.

A researcher of ancient Russian aesthetics has to keep in mind at least two main (although not the only) cultural and historical sources: 1) folk culture(material, spiritual and, above all, artistic) of the Eastern Slavs, which formed even before they adopted Christianity and existed in Rus' as an active antithesis to official Christian culture throughout the Middle Ages, and 2) Byzantine aesthetics and artistic culture, from the 10th century. actively imported into Rus', often in a South Slavic version. In turn, Byzantine aesthetics itself represented a kind of integral unity of religious aesthetics, which developed during the period of patristics, and pagan Hellenistic aesthetics.

The culture imported from Byzantium acquired, as D.S. Likhachev notes, a new coloring in the Slavic world, significantly different from the Greek original. Similarly, the aesthetics of medieval Rus', especially during the heyday of ancient Russian artistic culture, was a complex synthesis of folk East Slavic and Russian aesthetic elements with South Slavic, Hellenistic and Byzantine-Christian motifs. In certain lands of Ancient Rus' at certain stages of history, among these main motifs there were often motifs of the Tatar-Muslim, Scandinavian or Western European artistic cultures, but they were never decisive.

The main route for introducing Rus' to the values ​​of world culture passed through Byzantium at that time. With the adoption of Christianity by Russia, this process became regular and consistent, but even before that, the Slavs, according to the observations of B. A. Rybakov, “touched the centers of world culture…” three times. The third time this happened in the 6th century, during the period of the victorious wars of the Slavs with Byzantium, when “the Slavs saw and felt a new world for them of an incomparably higher culture.” These periodic communications of the Slavs with Byzantine culture prepared a more consistent process of its perception, which began in the 10th century. “Kievan Rus,” writes B. A. Rybakov, “was already, to a certain extent, prepared not only for contemplation, but also for the perception of the culture of the advanced countries of the world.” The first among them during this period was Byzantium, so it is quite natural that Kievan Rus’ aspirations in everything, including artistic culture, look up to her.

Constant cultural contacts between Rus' and Byzantium contributed to the accelerated, almost spasmodic development of Russian national culture in the 11th–12th centuries. The very process of active assimilation by Russia of the richest Byzantine traditions must be correctly understood and comprehended from the standpoint of historicism, that is, it must be considered in the broad context of the cultural and historical development of the entire early medieval Europe, when Byzantium, which adopted the cultural traditions of the ancient world (ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle East) , acted as a teacher in relation to the younger cultures of Western and Eastern Europe.

Among important features Old Russian aesthetics and, more broadly, the entire culture, it is worth noting its ability to subtly feel and accept, almost as one’s own, many of the most important achievements of Byzantine, and in its composition, Hellenistic artistic culture. As N.K. Gudziy noted at one time, analyzing ancient Russian literature, the very ability of newly converted Rus' to widely and very quickly master Byzantine book literature, as well as a keen interest in it, is indisputable evidence of the height cultural level Ancient Rus'". It should be emphasized that the deepest response in the souls of our ancestors was found not by the philosophical and religious ideas of the Byzantines, but by their artistic and aesthetic culture; it captivated the Russians, was organically assimilated by them and in a very short term received the most active development in fact as one of the most important parts ancient Russian culture. In the field of religious architecture and painting, Ancient Rus', relying on Hellenistic and Byzantine traditions, went further along the path of creating original spatial-plastic and color-rhythmic images of the great artistic value. Many monuments of ancient Russian architecture and painting, in terms of depth and richness of artistic design, represent a new step after Byzantium in the development of artistic aesthetic thinking.

If we trace the line of development of artistic culture from Hellenism and early Christianity through Byzantium to Ancient Rus', then it can be noted that the main tendency of this line - the desire to express spiritual values ​​in sensually perceived forms - in Rus' was realized (at least in architecture and painting) in an extremely perfect form for this line of development. The artistic culture of Ancient Rus' was in many ways the pinnacle (and completion) of the entire Eastern Christian culture, originating in late antiquity.

In this regard, one cannot agree with the statement of one of the largest modern art historians, O. Demus, that the ancient Russian masters, unlike their Western colleagues, being students of Byzantium, did not turn to the ancient sources of Byzantine art and their path was “lost in the decorative labyrinths folk art".

Indeed, Old Russian masters, as a rule, did not directly turn to Greco-Roman originals or their reminiscences in Byzantine art and, apparently, were little familiar with them, but they actively and creatively continued the path of artistic and aesthetic expression of spirituality, which was started by Hellenism and developed by Byzantium, and followed it through highest peaks to its logical conclusion. Painting by a Russian isographer of the 17th century. Simona Ushakova completed the process of annihilation of medieval artistic thinking and was at the same time the ideal embodiment of the art that late antiquity and the Christian world dreamed of from the first centuries of its existence. We find a similar process in aesthetic thought.

In a bright, figurative form, the idea of ​​​​the spiritual succession of the Byzantine heritage by Ancient Russia and its deep assimilation was perfectly expressed by the greatest Orthodox thinker of our century, Pavel Florensky: “Ancient Rus' kindles the flame of its culture directly from the sacred fire of Byzantium, accepting from hand to hand as its most precious heritage, Promethean fire of Hellas." Florensky speaks here about the beginning of the heyday of ancient Russian culture, the symbol and focus of which for him was the figure of Sergius of Radonezh. “In St. Sergius, as in a perceiving eye, the achievements of the Greek Middle Ages and culture are gathered into one focus. Having dispersed in Byzantium and fragmented there, which led to the death of culture, here, in the full-life heart of the young people, they are again creatively and vitally reunited by the dazzling appearance of a single personality, and from it, from St. Sergius, diverse streams of cultural moisture flow as if from a new center of unification, feeding the Russian people and receiving a unique embodiment in them.”

The essential foundations of ancient Russian aesthetics include its emergence and development in line with Christian ideology.

The dominance of this ideology explains many of the features of the aesthetics of Ancient Rus', which distinguish it from both ancient and modern European aesthetics, but bring it closer to the aesthetics of other medieval regions. When starting to analyze such a complex and distant phenomenon as medieval aesthetics, the author sought to be guided by the principle of historicism, the essence of which, in relation to this study, can be expressed as follows. When studying Russian medieval aesthetics, it is necessary to remember the specific historical situation in Ancient Rus', the vicissitudes of socio-cultural reality, the constant and complex relationship between the East Slavic pagan tradition, rooted in the folk environment, and the new Christian religion, which was actively being introduced into Slavic culture; it is also necessary to remember that for all its national originality, Russian medieval culture and aesthetics had a number of typological characteristics common to all medieval cultures, and they cannot be considered outside the pan-European cultural (and aesthetic) tradition. Further, Russia itself must be considered not abstractly, but concretely historically, that is, taking into account its spiritual, creative and educational function during the early Russian Middle Ages, when it contributed to the formation and strengthening of more progressive relations in feudal Russia, contributed to the formation of a single ancient Russian nation and was the main source of the spread of book and artistic culture and education, the bearer of Christian spirituality.

The main method of analysis of Old Russian aesthetics in this work is a problem-historical one, that is, an analysis of the formation and development, if any, of the main aesthetic concepts and ideas throughout the history of medieval Rus', from the 19th century to the 15th century.

Due to the fact that in Rus' there were no actual aesthetic theories, and high artistic and aesthetic culture covered almost all aspects of the life of ancient Russian people, the most complete idea of ​​ancient Russian aesthetics as a whole can be given by analyzing this aesthetics at two levels - verbalized and non-verbalized expression of aesthetic consciousness.

The analysis of the first level is focused on identifying aesthetic concepts, ideas, views within the general worldview system of medieval Rus', and for the 17th century. and certain theoretical concepts. The main source at this level is verbal texts of various contents, the authors of which from time to time “speak out” on aesthetic topics. Here something close to the aesthetic “theory” of our ancestors is reconstructed. It is clear that this path is fraught with the modernization of medieval ideas and places great responsibility on the researcher, not to forget about which is the sacred duty of anyone who has embarked on this difficult but fascinating path.

The subject of the second level of research is the aesthetic specificity of the entire ancient Russian culture, because it is in real forms culture (in the style of all its phenomena) the aesthetic ideas of the people of Ancient Rus' found, perhaps, the most adequate embodiment. Naturally, the first place here comes to the analysis of the aesthetic specificity of artistic culture (architecture, painting, plastic arts, music, applied arts and literature), that is, the analysis of artistic languages ​​of all types of art in their historical development.

In this work, I limit myself mainly to the first level of research, that is, the study of the verbalized layer of ancient Russian aesthetic consciousness, although in some cases I also turn to the analysis of aesthetically significant moments of ancient Russian art. However, the systematic development of this level, or the identification, in the words of the famous Polish scientist V. Tatarkiewicz, of “implicit” aesthetics, is the subject of special painstaking research, and it is still waiting for its enthusiasts.

The book uses ancient Russian literature of various genres as the main source, including chronicles, military stories, hagiography, travel notes, theological treatises, decrees of church councils, words and teachings, epistles, poetry and special works on art for the 17th century, as well as some monuments of translated literature that were especially popular in Rus'. It is clear that in this sea of ​​bookishness we will find not only Russian original aesthetic ideas, but also borrowed ones. It should be noted that many formulas of Byzantine aesthetics, translated almost word for word from Greek, often acquired a new, actually Russian sound in the structure of Russian texts. However, for a general analysis of Russian medieval aesthetics, the main importance is not a meticulous analysis of what Ancient Russia borrowed and from whom (although this is also important for the history of culture), but first of all an understanding of the general picture of aesthetic ideas that existed in Russia at one time or another. a different period of its history and was organically inherent in the spiritual world of our ancestors, regardless of what elements (Slavic, Greek, Latin, Tatar or any other) it was formed from. The level of aesthetic consciousness of ancient Russian man was ultimately determined by what he himself felt and realized in the sphere of aesthetics as his own, close to his soul. It’s a different matter when the task is to identify the national originality of ancient Russian aesthetics. Here you cannot do without a good knowledge of all its sources.

Further, in this study, with the exception of the first chapter, I practically do not consider folklore and, accordingly, the layer of aesthetic consciousness expressed in it as requiring special analysis. This does not mean, naturally, that chthetic ideas mass consciousness medieval society are completely out of my sight. They are analyzed here, however, only to the extent that they are reflected on the pages of ancient Russian literature. In the first place in this work is the level of aesthetic consciousness of the ancient Russians, which found the most complete expression in the masterpieces of ancient Russian painting, architecture, music, literature, which also delivers to the people of the 20th century. high aesthetic pleasure.

A careful study of ancient Russian texts shows that in Rus' in the Middle Ages, aesthetic ideas were, perhaps more closely than in other regions, intertwined with worldview, ethical, religious, ritual, everyday and socio-political ideas. This is one of the features of ancient Russian aesthetics, and therefore separating (or “purifying”) aesthetic views in Rus' from their extra-aesthetic cultural context is a risky task and fraught with negative consequences, namely the loss of the actual national specifics this aesthetics. Thus, the aesthetic ideas of ancient Russian people of the 11th–14th centuries. are a special projection of his general worldview position, his understanding of nature, society and man in their interrelation. Aesthetics of the second half of the XIV-first half of the XV century. cannot be separated from the complex of diverse manifestations of patriotic feelings and the growth of national self-awareness, from extremely developed ethical ideas, from the sharply increased desire for high spirituality in culture. Aesthetic ideas of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. it is impossible to single out from a whole series of socio-religious problems that were at the center of attention of the entire Russian culture of that time. The 16th century is a period of conscious normalization and canonization of culture in Rus', and without the general grandiose cultural and protective measures of this time, its aesthetics cannot be correctly understood. For the 17th century. characterized by the connection of aesthetic ideas and emerging theoretical concepts with both the socio-political struggle of the Time of Troubles and with tragic events schism, and with the powerful movement of enlightenment that swept Russia in the last third of the century. Therefore, in the book, aesthetic ideas themselves are analyzed in close connection with the cultural and historical context that stimulated their appearance.

The book is structured chronologically. However, this chronology for the aesthetics of Ancient Rus', as well as other regions of the Middle Ages, is quite conventional. It concerns the sources, the texts on the basis of which aesthetic ideas are reconstructed, rather than them themselves. And although the aesthetic consciousness of medieval Rus' as a whole changed quite noticeably under the influence of changes in the socio-political, cultural-historical, religious situations, as evidenced by constant stylistic changes in artistic culture, at the level of verbal fixation the main aesthetic ideas almost until the end of the 16th century. remained virtually unchanged. Here it is appropriate to recall, using the terminology of D. S. Likhachev, “the aesthetic inflexibility” of medieval Russian culture, about traditionalism as the most important and fully recognized principle of medieval life and thinking in Rus', as we will see; finally, about a certain stereotyping of the aesthetic consciousness of that time.

The history of ancient Russian “theoretical” aesthetics consisted mainly not of the development of ideas and concepts, but of a kind of “highlighting” (moreover, in in different light) certain ideas and problems in a certain historical period by certain authors. Of the total, quite stable for the entire Middle Ages (with the exception of the second half XVII c.) systems of aesthetic ideas, the ray of attention of ancient Russian scribes caught in one period the concept of beauty in nature or the ethical-aesthetic principle of “non-acquisitiveness”, in another - the problem of light or the beauty of architecture, in a third - the theory of symbols in art, etc. All these ideas and problems were inherent in the ancient Russian aesthetic consciousness throughout the Middle Ages. Ultimately, the entire artistic practice Ancient Rus', but they surfaced to the level of verbalized comprehension in different historical periods, and on this basis a unique “history” of ancient Russian aesthetic “theory” can be built. However, another way of analyzing this level of Old Russian aesthetics is possible—problematic-typological, but it presupposes a higher level of abstraction, a greater separation from the socio-cultural context, which for Old Russian aesthetics is fraught with the loss of a certain part of its specific features. Therefore, in this study, a problem-historical method of analysis was chosen.

As for the very concept of “aesthetic theory,” for Rus' it also has its own characteristics. Well, for example, feeling many manifestations of beauty, people of Ancient Rus', as a rule, did not think about what beauty is, and if they did, they did not try to express it verbally. He only stated that beauty exists, and knew how to rejoice and be surprised by it, to admire it with childish spontaneity. Aesthetic theory almost until the middle of the 17th century. was not written in Rus', it can only be reconstructed with greater or to a lesser extent probabilities based on what the Russians themselves considered beautiful or giving spiritual pleasure. Only in the 17th century, during the period of active penetration of Western European culture and art into Russia, more or less developed aesthetic concepts and theories. The second part of the book, that is, approximately half of its volume, is devoted to this complex transitional period from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age in the history of Russian aesthetics. It was then that many ideas of the already outgoing medieval aesthetics were clearly formulated, which guided artistic practice throughout the entire Middle Ages, and new, non-medieval theories began to take shape, for which there was a future.

By presenting his work to the strict judgment of the reader, the author considers it possible to ask him for some leniency. The fact is that this research is to some extent innovative, and, like any new step in science, it is not without discussion sharpness, an element of provocation that encourages the reader to independent reflection and polemics with the author. The volume of ancient Russian material to be studied turned out to be so large, and there were so many aesthetic problems arising in connection with this, that it was not possible to develop them to the end and in its entirety in one book. However, it would be wrong not to point out them, not to designate them in a work that claims, although it is a preliminary, but still a generalized outline of all Russian medieval aesthetics. Therefore, some problems and characteristics of ancient Russian aesthetics are only outlined here and require further development, confirmation or refutation. The author does not at all believe that everything in his book is indisputable, and is far from claiming any absolutization of his judgments. With this work, I would first of all like to attract the attention of both readers and researchers to this extremely important, but still little explored area of ​​the history of Russian culture. The material still to be studied here is so great, and the breadth and depth of the opening scientific problems and the prospects are so tempting that the life of a scientist who decides to devote himself to this research will not be considered useless by history.

Despite the ever-increasing interest in ancient Russian culture in our century, the systematic study of its aesthetics is just beginning. This does not mean, of course, that the modern historian of aesthetics has absolutely nothing to rely on, but this help is still indirect, although quite fundamental.

First of all, it is necessary to point out the numerous works of philologists and literary scholars, which also touch upon individual aesthetic issues. Among them, it is enough to name at least the names of A. S. Orlov, A. N. Veselovsky, V. P. Adrianova-Peretz, I. P. Eremin, D. S. Likhachev, A. N. Robinson, V. V. Kuskov , S. Mathauzerova, B. A. Uspensky, A. S. Demin, A. M. Panchenko, G. M. Prokhorov, N. I. Prokofiev, and this series can be continued. Special mention should be made of “The Poetics of Old Russian Literature” by D. S. Likhachev, from which one step remains to aesthetics, his article “The Word” and the aesthetic ideas of his time”; the article by Yu. N. Dmitriev “The Theory of Art and Views on Art in Writing ancient Russia"; the book by S. Mathauzerova "Ancient Russian theories of the art of words"; articles by V.V. Kuskov "The idea of ​​beauty in ancient Russian literature" and "Aesthetic ideas in Ancient Russia".

Much attention was paid to the aesthetic aspects of ancient Russian art in the works of P. Muratov, E. Trubetskoy, S. Bulgakov, P. Florensky, L. Uspensky, P. Evdokimov, I. Grabar, N. Demina, M. Alpatov, V. Lazarev, K Onash, I. Danilova, G. Wagner, V. Ivanov, O. Popova, A. Saltykov, A. Komech and other theologians and art historians.

The number of names of scientists who dealt specifically with ancient Russian aesthetics is much poorer, although it dates back to the middle of the last century.

Already in 1856, P. Bezsonov, publishing Alexei Mikhailovich’s “The Falconer’s Way Officer,” emphasized in extensive notes that before us is “a kind of speculation of beauty (theory of beauty, aesthetics),” and tried to highlight the “purely Russian” contained in the treatise. representations of beauty" and aesthetic categories such as honor, rank, example, row, system, measure, etc.

These ideas were developed in the same years by I. E. Zabelin, noting the synonymy in ancient Russian aesthetics of the concepts of beauty and surprise, which, in his opinion, related to brilliance precious stones and metals, to the brightness and variegation of colors, “cunning patterns”, etc.

An important step towards the study of ancient Russian aesthetics was the three-volume fundamental study by A. N. Afanasyev “Poetic views of the Slavs on nature” (M., 1865–1869).

At the end of the last century, F. I. Buslaev, the greatest scientist of that time, drew attention to ancient Russian aesthetics. In the article “Russian Aesthetics of the 15th Century,” he analyzed the now widely known treatise by Joseph Vladimirov and concluded that the sense of beauty awoke in the soul of the Russian artist no earlier than the 17th century. under the influence of Western European art, that is, in aesthetics, F. I. Buslaev took a Western-centric position, ignoring the specifics of the Russian medieval aesthetic consciousness itself.

The first and so far the only generalizing study on Russian medieval aesthetics was published by K. V. Shokhin in 1963. In fact, the stage of systematic scientific study of ancient Russian aesthetics begins with this small book. K.V. Shokhin, quite thoroughly for his time, analyzed the ideas of the ancient Russians about beauty (“beauty is the Motherland”, the beauty of nature, man, “mental”, “heavenly beauty”) and about art, relying on the texts of scribes of the 11th-17th centuries . He paid his main attention to isolating “folk” ideas, contrasting them with “religious” aesthetics as introduced from the outside and opposing “true nationality,” as well as finding “materialistic and realistic foundations” of Russian aesthetics. With all the ahistoricism and artificiality of the author’s initial attitude, characteristic of the period of stagnation and vulgarization in our humanities and actually imposed on a scientist from the extra-scientific sphere, K. V. Shokhin managed to notice some characteristic features of ancient Russian aesthetics, and most importantly, to show that this aesthetics existed and deserves the closest attention to itself.

Shokhin’s work, with many of its conclusions and assessments, also indirectly convinces us that today it is futile to study ancient Russian aesthetics without a good knowledge of the spiritual culture and aesthetics of Byzantium and Greco-Roman antiquity, that is, its most important sources. This shortcoming is also inherent in some articles that appeared in the next quarter century. The most interesting among them is the chapter “Ancient Rus'” in the volume “History of Aesthetic Thought”, written by A. A. Bazhenova and N. B. Pilyugina. However, the limited volume of the chapter and the type of publication allowed the authors to mainly only summarize the previous stage of research into ancient Russian aesthetics.

In the work brought to the attention of readers, an attempt is made to take another step in the direction of studying Russian medieval aesthetics. How successful it turned out to be is not for the author to judge.

A significant role in the book is played by the visual-illustrative series, which not so much illustrates the text as complements it. The aesthetic consciousness of man in medieval Rus', as has already been pointed out, was far from fully reflected in the verbal statements of the ancient Russians, but was more adequately and vividly expressed in artistic culture. Therefore, accompanying the analysis of verbalized aesthetics with a display of a number of highly artistic or characteristic works of art for a particular historical period is intended to significantly complement readers’ ideas about the general picture of Russian medieval aesthetics.

The author's position on this issue is set out in the articles: On the subject of the history of aesthetics//Ancient culture and modern science. M., 1985. pp. 295–303; On the issue of Old Russian aesthetics II Old Bulgarian literature. Book 16. Sofia, 1984. pp. 18–25; For an abbreviated version of this article, see: Study Problems cultural heritage. M., 1985. pp. 303–311.

See: Zabelin Ya. E. Features of Russian life in the 17th century // Otechestvennye zapiski. 1857. January. P. 339.

See: Shokhin K.V. Essay on the history of the development of aesthetic thought in Russia (Old Russian aesthetics of the 11th-17th centuries). M., 1963.

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In the textbook there are chapters about Bunin, Zabolotsky, Mayakovsky, Tvardovsky, Akhmatova, methodological apparatus for all chapters (questions and assignments, “Enrich your speech”, memoirs, “In creative laboratory writer" etc.), sections "Romances and songs based on Russian words writers XIX-XX centuries", about artistic reading (advice from V.S. Lanovoy, A.M. Brusser), " Brief dictionary literary terms" prepared by V.Ya. Korovina. The chapter on Sholokhov (together with I.S. Zbarsky), a dictionary of names, the section "Literary places of Russia" were prepared by V.P. Zhuravlev. Sections "Old Russian literature", "Russian literature XVIII century", "Masterpieces of Russian literature of the 19th century", "Poetry of the 19th century", "Literature of the 20th century. Strokes to portraits of writers", stories about writers: Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Radishchev, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Griboyedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Ostrovsky, L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, Blok, Yesenin, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Catullus, Horace, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe - prepared by V.I. Korovin. Chapters on Sholokhov (together with V.P. Zhuravlev) and on Bulgakov prepared by I.S. Zbarsky.

Old Russian literature.
The literary art of Ancient Rus' originates in the Middle Ages and dates back to the end of the 10th and the first years of the 11th century. This time is so far from us that it is difficult for a person living now to understand the unique book and cultural world that has gone into the depths of centuries and has now become mysterious. In order to penetrate into it, you need to know the history, religion, and peculiarities of the aesthetic ideas of the people of that time.

With the adoption of Christianity and Orthodoxy as the state religion, which came to us from Byzantium through the lands of the southern Slavs, mainly through Bulgaria, books appeared in Ancient Rus' - church-service and narrative-historical. They were written in Church Slavonic. This is how Ancient Rus' became familiar with Greek and Pan-Slavic Orthodox writing and culture.

Table of contents
A word to ninth graders
Old Russian literature
About “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (According to D. S. Likhachev)
From the history of the manuscript (According to N.K. Gudzi)
A Word about Igor's Campaign (Translated by N.A. Zabolotsky)
Develop the gift of words 84
Russian literature of the 18th century 86
Classicism
M. V. Lomonosov 42
Evening reflection on God's Majesty during the Great Northern Lights 50
Ode on the day of accession to the All-Russian throne of Her Majesty Empress Elisaveta Petrovna 1747 51
Develop the gift of words 58
G. R. Derzhavin 59
To rulers and judges 63
Monument 64
In the creative laboratory of G. R. Derzhavin 65
Develop the gift of words 67
A. N. Radishchev 68
N. M. Karamzin 75
In the creative laboratory of N. M. Karamzin 83
Sentimentalism 84
Poor Lisa 85
Autumn 102
Develop the gift of words 104
Masterpieces of Russian literature of the 19th century 106
19th century poetry
Romanticism 112
B. A. Zhukovsky Ill
Lyrical hero 124
Features of Zhukovsky's poetic language 125
In the creative laboratory of V. A. Zhukovsky
Svetlana 132
Develop the gift of words 140
A. S. Griboyedov 141
About the comedy “Woe from Wit” (1824) 147
I. A. Goncharov. A Million of Torments (Critical Study) 158
Develop the gift of words 166
A. S. Pushkin 167
Biography of A. S. Pushkin 171
To Chaadaev 172
To the sea 175
Prophet 178
Anchar 181
“On the hills of Georgia lies the darkness of the night...” 185
“I loved you: love is still, perhaps...” 186
Demons 188
Let's think together 190
“I erected a monument to myself, not made by hands...” 192
Mozart and Salieri 199
Realism 214
About the novel “Eugene Onegin” 215
In the creative laboratory of A. S. Pushkin 242
M. Yu. Lermontov 250
Biography of M. Yu. Lermontov 252
Two poetic worlds 252
In the creative laboratory of M. Yu. Lermontov 254
Sail 259
Death of a Poet 263
Rodina 267
Duma 269
Prophet 273
Poet 275
“No, it’s not you that I love so passionately...” 280
Both boring and sad 282
“No, I’m not Byron, I’m different...” 284
“I used to think that I was kissing...” 284
“We parted; but your portrait..." 284
“There are speeches - meaning...” 285
Prediction 285
Prayer 285
Beggar 286
“I want to live! I want sadness..." 287
About the novel “A Hero of Our Time” 288
In the creative laboratory of M. Yu. Lermontov. On the history of the creation of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” 315
N.V. Gogol 319
In the creative laboratory of N.V. Gogol 323
About the poem " Dead Souls» 325.