Translated ancient Russian literature briefly. Questions for the exam
Cultural and religious ties of Ancient Rus' with other Slavic countries at the early stage (X-XI centuries) were in the nature of assimilation of the heritage of Great Moravia, the First Bulgarian Kingdom and the Czech Republic. The first and decisive thing was the acceptance of the Cyril and Methodius inheritance, and direct spiritual and cultural contact with Byzantium was secondary. Florovsky G.V., prot. Paths of Russian theology. Paris, 1983. P. 5.
Old Russian literature, being younger compared to the literature of Bulgaria and especially Byzantium, became the object of their influence. However, according to D.S. Likhachev, it is more correct to talk not about “influence,” but about a peculiar process of transferring Byzantine literature to Russian soil. The fact is that before the adoption of Christianity in Ancient Rus' there was no literature (the art of words was represented by folklore) and, therefore, Byzantine literature had nothing to influence. Therefore, at first after the adoption of Christianity, Byzantine literature - directly or through Bulgarian media - was simply transferred to Rus'. Such a transfer, however, was not mechanical: works were not simply translated or rewritten, they continued their literary history on new soil. Therefore, the division of ancient Russian literature into original and translated can only be significant in the sense that we indicate the origin of the monument, and not its place in the literature of ancient Rus'. Likhachev D. S. Development of Russian literature X - XVII centuries. St. Petersburg, 1998. pp. 21 - 23.
This phenomenon turned out to be extremely progressive. Thanks to him, Rus' in a short time received literature with an extensive system of genres. Thus, at the beginning of the 11th century, the entire written stock of Simeonov’s Bulgaria became available to the Russian scribe, which, in terms of the wealth of literary works, could be put on the same level with the richest literatures at that time, Greek and Latin. Florovsky G.V., prot. Paths of Russian theology. Paris, 1983. pp. 6 - 7.
Bulgarian writing, however, did not overshadow Greek. Under Yaroslav the Wise, a whole circle of translators from Greek worked, and the work of this circle is associated with the entry into Slavic circulation of a long series of monuments unknown in Simeon’s Bulgaria. Right there. P. 7.
It should be noted that currently no more than 0.5% of the pre-Mongol manuscript heritage has been preserved. Vereshchagin E.M. Christian bookishness of Ancient Rus'. M., 1996. P. 4. In total, the book collections of the former USSR contain 498 Church Slavonic manuscript monuments, of which 321 are of Russian origin, dating back to the 10th - 14th centuries. From the 14th century 685 handwritten books and fragments have reached us. From the 15th century we already have about 3.5 thousand Church Slavonic books, and from the 16th - 17th centuries. - at least 250 thousand. Levshun L. V. History of East Slavic book word XI-XVII centuries. Minsk, 2001. P. 24.
“A characteristic feature of the most ancient part of the surviving manuscript heritage of Ancient Rus' is its predominantly ecclesiastical or church-liturgical character.” Right there. P. 24. 75.5% of the monuments known to us from the 11th - 13th centuries. - biblical and liturgical texts. Right there. P. 25.
The main directions of ancient Russian literature until the middle of the 17th century. developed under the influence of the Church Charter. He was the main regulator of church liturgical practice, determining the set and composition of liturgical and religious books. History and the change of Charters determined the composition and characteristics of book complexes in various periods of the history of Ancient Rus'. Right there. P. 34. The Church Charter prescribed three main types of readings: words of praise to saints and feasts, interpretations and lives. It was the threefold nature of the readings prescribed by the Typikon that influenced the emergence of three main, that is, the most common genres in book literature: panegyric, teaching (interpretation-commentary), and edifying biography. Accordingly, chetya collections of three main types appeared: 1) solemnities (triode and menaion) and prologues, 2) chrysostomniks (weekly, Lenten and colored) and 3) Chetya-Minea. Right there. P. 35.
Three types of collections, which included corresponding genre works, corresponded to the three ranks of those being saved. Hagiobiography, the historical word, and the patericon contributed to the education of beginners’ feelings; education of the mind of the successful - interpretations, announcements, question-and-answer works, teachings; education of the minds of the perfect - prayers, hymnography, sermons. Right there. P. 69.
Personality of the Rev. Maxima was known to Old Russian readers from the Prologue and the Chetyih Menaion (both St. Macarius and St. Demetrius of Rostov). Sidorov A.I. Some remarks on the biography of Maximus the Confessor // Byzantine temporary book. T. 47. M., 1986. Note. 2. P. 109. In the monthly calendar of the 13th century. the days of memory of St. Maxim: January 21 (Memory of the Venerable Father Maximus the Confessor) and August 13 (Assumption of Blessed Maximus the Confessor). Macarius (Bulgakov), Metropolitan. History of the Russian Church. T. 2. M., 1996. pp. 585-593. And the saint’s works were included in various collections. It was in the second oldest Russian book - the Izbornik of Svyatoslav of 1073 - that enough information has reached us a large number of fragments of the professor's works Maxim, which we will consider in the corresponding chapter. Excerpts from the works of the monk were included in other monuments of translated literature of the 11th - 13th centuries. Translations of ascetic works by Rev. Maximus is known to us from manuscripts of the 13th - 14th centuries. and subsequent time.
Thus, according to A.I. Sidorov, “Rev. Maximus the Confessor is one of the striking examples of the organic connection between Byzantine and Russian cultures.” Sidorov A.I. Some remarks on the biography of Maximus the Confessor // Byzantine temporary book. T. 47. M., 1986. Note. 2. P. 109.
The fact that the works of Rev. Maxims are represented to a lesser extent in ancient Russian literature than the works of some other holy fathers, due to the fact that East Slavic scribes, selecting material for translation, focused mainly on the authors of the 4th - 6th centuries. In the manuscripts that have reached us, translations of the works of Sts predominate. John Chrysostom, Athanasius the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Cyril of Jerusalem, John of Damascus. The orientation towards these holy fathers was laid down by the requirements of the Helmsman and the Typikon. Levshun L.V. History of the East Slavic book word of the 11th-17th centuries. Minsk, 2001. P. 81.
Of the ascetic works in Ancient Rus', the most popular were the Ladder, the Teachings of Abba Dorotheus and Isaac the Syrian. Zhukovskaya L.P. Ancient Slavic translations of Byzantine and Syrian monuments in the book depositories of the USSR // Palestine collection. Vol. 19 (82). L., 1969. P. 172. This is explained by the more systematic nature of these works and their practical orientation. The creativity of the Rev. Maximus and the depth of his thought were not easily perceived even by the Byzantines and sometimes aroused “a certain opposition from readers due to their complexity.” Works of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book 1. M., 1993. P. 71.
1. Specifics of Old Russian literature. Features of medieval aesthetics and poetics.
Russian literature before the 18th century. "ancient" First stage in the development of great Russian literature, which has acquired global significance. High ideological, national character, lively connection with pressing issues of public life, journalistic, topical due to the fact that it took a direct part in the ideological and political struggle of its time, reflecting the class struggle in Russian society . cognitive significance, educational value, themes of patriotism, state building, political unity and heroism of the Russian people, elements of oral poetry, features of real life. many themes, images and motifs of ancient Russian literature were used by Russian writers of modern times. the end of ancient Russian literature and the beginning of a new one - the end of the 17th century. Russian literature at this time puts forward new themes and new ideas related to the fact that it becomes at the service of the state structure reformed by Peter. At the same time, new literary genres and styles were developing. So, ancient Russian literature dates back approximately six and a half centuries of existence. Periods:
1. 11-12th centuries. The predominance of Byzantine literary monuments. The first lives, chronicles. Tsentr-Kyiv, Novgorod. In the rest it is poorly developed. (Illarion of Kyiv, Life)
2. 12-13th centuries. period of feudal fragmentation. The emergence of new centers. Original monuments + translated ones. (over the years, the word about Igor’s campaign, oratorical prose, Kirill of Turov)
3. 13th century Tatar-Mongol yoke. Decline of national identity and cultural life. The decline of chronicles. A special genre is about ruin. (p. about the battle on the river Kalka, about the destruction of Ryazan by the baty, A. Nevsky)
4. 14th century Rising national consciousness. Battle of Kulikovo 1382 (zadonshchina, Dmitry Ivanovich’s word, about Mamaev’s massacre)
5. 15th century Pre-Renaissance ideas. Awareness of the role of the individual, humanism, manifests the inner world of a person in a weak form. Changing the monumental-historical style to a national-expressive one. (walking of A. Nikitin, life of Radonezh, epiphanius the wise)
6. 16th century Moscow's role is leading. The destruction of the feudal system and the establishment of a centralized system of government. State propaganda values, the priority of the state over individuality. the inner world of the individual is not interesting. A person serves the state. Priority of the letter over the spirit. Copying texts (did not always make sense) the task of the literati is to summarize the information according to the definition. Subject. (domostroy, journalism, peresvetov, correspondence between Grozny and Kurbsky)
7. 17th century Trouble, chaos. Reorientation to Western culture. Destruction of traditional mentality and genre system. Individualistic tendencies. Liberation from canons. Satirical literature, poetry, drama.
8. 18th century The least literary one. The era of classicism.
Printing - in the middle of the 16th century. served primarily liturgical literature. The handwritten tradition of ancient Russian literature contributed to the variability of literary monuments. The concept of literary property and individual author's monopoly on a literary work was absent in ancient Rus'. The development of ancient Russian literature generally proceeded in parallel with the evolution of the literary language. In monuments with church-religious themes, the presence of elements of the Church Slavonic language is also evident. Literary process in ancient Rus' was in close connection with changes in the material and technique of writing. Features: - bookishness is not art-literature as comments on the Holy Scripture - reverse plagiarism - canon - symbolism - features of postmodernism (total text, death of the author, everything has already been written) - language (diglasie) Old Church Slavonic, Church Slavonic. - marginalia – notes in the margins not related to the text
2. Genre system of ancient Russian literature.
· Chronographs told about the history of the world; (translated Alexandria)
· about the history of the fatherland - chronicles, monuments of historical writing and literature of Ancient Rus', the narration in which was carried out by year. They narrated the events of Russian and world history.
· There was an extensive literature of moralizing biographies - lives of saints, or hagiography. Collections were widespread short stories about the life of monks. Such collections were called patericons (life of Eustathius Plakida, Kiev-Pechora patericon)
· The genres of solemn and teaching eloquence are represented by various teachings and words. Christian holidays were glorified in solemn words pronounced in church during services. The teachings exposed vices and glorified virtues.
· The walks told about travels to the holy land of Palestine.
· Church Gospel texts
Literature in its genre structure seemed to repeat the structure of feudal society. Disparate works were grouped into a coherent whole: chronicles, chronographs, patericons, etc. Individual parts of the work could belong to different genres.
The development of ancient Russian literature of the 11th–17th centuries proceeds through the gradual destruction of a stable system of church genres and their transformation. Genres of worldly literature are subject to fictionalization 2 . They intensify interest in the inner world of a person, the psychological motivation of his actions, and appear entertaining and everyday descriptions. For changing historical heroes fictitious ones come. In the 17th century, this led to radical changes in the internal structure and style of historical genres and contributed to the birth of new, purely fictional works. Virsha poetry, court and school drama, democratic satire, everyday stories, and picaresque short stories appeared.
3. Translated literature of Kievan Rus.
translations in the XI-XII centuries. in some cases preceded the creation of original works of the same genre. Rus' began to read other people's things before writing their own. Bulgaria and Byzantium played the most important role in this regard.
Byzantine and Bulgarian books in Rus'. The phenomenon of "transplantation"
A significant part of the books, and in particular liturgical books, were brought in the 10th-11th centuries. from Bulgaria. The Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) and Old Russian languages are so close that Rus' was able to use the ready-made Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic alphabet, created by the great Bulgarian enlighteners Cyril and Methodius. translations directly from Greek. Translations from other languages were less common
transplantation (“transplantation”) of literature from one country to another - about the transfer of Byzantine literature to Russian soil. Before the adoption of Christianity, the art of speech was represented by folklore. works were not simply translated or rewritten, they continued their literary history on new soil. This means that new editions of works were created, their plot changed. Already a few decades after the start of this process in Rus', their own original works began to be created based on the model of translated monuments - lives, solemn and teaching words, stories, etc.
Genres of translated literature. Bible books. Let us now turn to the consideration of the main genres of translated literature of the 11th-13th centuries.
The basis for Christian doctrine and worldview were biblical books (or Holy Scripture), as well as the works of the most authoritative theologians. The Bible was completely translated into Rus' only in the 15th century, but individual biblical books became known in Slavic translations (through Bulgarian media) already in the 15th century. Kievan Rus. The books of the New Testament and the Psalter were most widely used at this time.
The books of sacred scripture and liturgical books, in addition to purely teaching and service functions, also had considerable aesthetic significance: the Bible contained bright plot stories, the books of the prophets were distinguished by increased emotionality, vivid imagery, passion in exposing vices and social injustice; the psalter and service menaions were brilliant examples of church poetry, although their Slavic translations were prosaic.
Patristics. works of Roman and Byzantine theologians of the 3rd-11th centuries, revered as “fathers of the church.” the dogmas of the Christian religion were commented on, polemics were conducted with heretics, the foundations of Christian morality or the rules of monastic life were presented in the form of teachings and instructions (works of John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea...) Patristic literature played an important role in the formation of ethical ideals new religion and in strengthening the foundations of Christian dogma, contributed to the improvement of the oratory art of Russian church writers.
The collections of sayings “The Wisdom of Menander the Wise”, “The Sayings of Hesychius and Barnabas” and especially “The Bee” were studied by M. N. Speransky.
Lives of the Saints. stories about the life, suffering or pious deeds of people canonized by the church, that is, recognized as saints and officially honored. Hagiography. the plots and plot devices of ancient Greek adventure novels were used, the intervention of miraculous forces - angels or demons, the illusion of believability of the most fantastic episodes. (the lives of Alexei, the Man of God, Basil the New, Sava the Sanctified, Irina, Anthony the Great, Theodora and others. An example of a life-novel is “The Life of Eustathius Placis”).
Patericon.- collections of short stories, mostly about monks who became famous for their piety or asceticism.
If the righteous are accompanied by divine help, then the sinners in the patericon legends face a terrible - and what is especially characteristic - not posthumous, but immediate punishment: a thief who desecrates graves has his eyes gouged out by a living dead man; the ship does not move until a female child killer steps into the boat from its side, and this boat with the sinner is immediately swallowed up by the abyss; a servant who has decided to kill and rob his mistress cannot leave his place and stabs himself to death. The patericons depict a certain fantastic world in which the forces of good and evil are constantly fighting for the souls of people, where the righteous are not just pious, but pious to the point of frenzy and exaltation , where miracles sometimes happen in the most everyday settings.
The subjects of translated patericons influenced the work of ancient Russian scribes: in Russian patericons and lives we sometimes encounter similar episodes and characteristics borrowed from Byzantine patericon legends
Apocrypha-renounced, heretical books. legends about characters biblical history, however, the plot differs from those contained in the biblical canonical books. Sometimes in the apocrypha the origin of the world, its structure, or the question of the “end of the world”, which so worried the minds of the Middle Ages, was considered from a different ideological perspective. Finally, apocryphal motifs could be included in works of traditional genres, for example, in hagiographies. Apocryphal subjects are found in chronicles, chronicles, and paleas, and the apocrypha themselves are found in collections, along with authoritative and revered works. apocryphal tales about the prophet Jeremiah, apocrypha “The Walk of Agapius into Paradise”, “The Tale of Aphroditian”, “The Virgin Mary’s Walk through Torment” and a number of others. At the same time, the apocrypha satisfied not only literary, but also theological interests. They posed problems that especially worried the minds of religious people: about the causes of disorder in this world, which, as the church taught, was created and controlled by an omnipotent and just deity, about the future of the world, about the fate of man after his death, etc. This topic dedicated, for example, to the popular apocrypha - “The Walk of the Virgin Mary through the Torment.” Apocrypha was found in ancient Russian writing throughout its history, and in the future we will have to return to apocryphal stories that became widespread at a later time.
Chronicles.“Chronicle of George Amartol” - a sinner; it is a traditional self-deprecating epithet for a monk. from the “creation of the world”; then he sets out biblical history, the history of the Babylonian and Persian kings, talks about the Roman emperors, and the emperors of Byzantium. “Chronicles of Simeon Logothet” The chronicler was most interested in church history. The Old Russian scribe, on the contrary, was largely interested in history as such: the fate of the great powers of antiquity, information about their most prominent rulers, as well as various entertaining stories from the lives of prominent kings, emperors or sages. an abbreviated chronographic code called the “Chronograph of the Great Exposition.” brief information about the kings and emperors of the countries of the East, Rome and Byzantium, legends and stories about miracles and heavenly signs, and outlined the decisions of church councils. “Chronograph according to the great exposition” was used in the compilation of the Russian chronicle. " Chronicle of John Malala". No later than the 11th century. Ancient myths and the history of the Trojan War were presented. the history of Rome and, finally, the history of Byzantium up to the reign of Emperor Justinian (VI century).
"History of the Jewish War" by Josephus. No later than the beginning of the 12th century. The first two books recount the history of Judea, beginning in 175 BC. e. and ending 66 AD. e. - the time of the uprising against Roman rule, the third - sixth books tell about the suppression of the uprising by Vespasian, and then his son Titus, about the siege, capture and destruction of Jerusalem; finally, the last, 7th book tells about the triumph of Vespasian and Titus in Rome. The works of Josephus Flavius are by no means a dry historical chronicle - it is rather a literary and journalistic work. The journalistic spirit of the work is manifested, in particular, in the speeches of the characters - Vespasian, Titus and Joseph himself (the author speaks about himself in the third person); the main goal of these speeches, constructed according to all the rules of ancient declamations, is to convince of the destructive intentions of the rebels and glorify the nobility and valor of the Romans. The stylistic art of Josephus is manifested not only in the monologues and dialogues of the heroes, but also in the descriptions - be they descriptions of the nature of Judea or its cities, battles or terrible scenes of famine in besieged Jerusalem; rhythmic syllable, vivid comparisons and metaphors, precise epithets, concern for euphony (clearly manifested in the original “History”) - all this indicates that the author attached great importance literary side of the work.
Chronographic Alexandria. No later than the 12th century. an extensive novel about the life and exploits of Alexander the Great, the so-called “Alexandria,” was translated from Greek. As already said, “Alexandria” is not so much a historical novel or a fictionalized biography of the hero as a novel of adventures, and Alexander’s personality itself acquires some completely legendary features. Thus, he is declared not to be the son of the Macedonian king Philip, but the son of the former Egyptian king-sorcerer Nektonav, who appeared to Philip’s wife Olympias under the guise of the god Ammon. The birth of Alexander is accompanied by miraculous signs: thunder roars and the earth shakes. Contrary to history, “Alexandria” tells about Alexander’s campaign in Sicily and his conquest of Rome. This is no coincidence: the Macedonian commander appears in the novel not only as the winner of the great Persian power, but also as a hero who managed to conquer the whole world. For example, the interpretation of the episode of the death of Darius is typical: mortally wounded by his satraps, the king himself gives Alexander power over Persia and gives him his daughter Roxana as his wife; whereas in reality Roxana, one of Alexander’s wives, was the daughter not of Darius, but of a Bactrian satrap. The novel has many sharp plot conflicts. So, Alexander goes to Darius under the guise of his own ambassador and only accidentally avoids exposure and captivity. Another time, posing as his associate Antigonus, he comes to Queen Candace, whose son wants to deal with Alexander, because he killed his father-in-law, the Indian king Porus. Candace recognizes Alexander, and he manages to escape danger only because the queen decides to hide the secret of her guest in gratitude for saving her other son. Alexander's death is also surrounded by mystery. The hero becomes aware of his imminent death from a sign; when he dies, the sky darkens, a bright star lights up and descends into the sea, the “Babylonian idol” wavers.
Devgenie's act. In the XI-XII centuries. a translation of the Byzantine epic tale about the hero Digenis Akritos was also carried out
The Tale of Akira the Wise. Akir, advisor to the king of Ador and Naliv countries (i.e. Assyria and Nineveh) Sinagrip, by divine direction adopts his nephew Anadan. He raised and educated him, taught him all the wisdom (the story contains a long list of Akir’s instructions to Anadan) and, finally, introduced him to the king as his student and successor. However, Anadan begins to rampage in Akir’s house, and when he tries to curb him, he carries out an insidious plan: having forged Akir’s handwriting, Anadan composes forged letters that will convince Synagrip that Akir is plotting high treason. The king is shocked by the imaginary betrayal of his adviser, and Akir, out of surprise, cannot justify himself and only manages to ask permission so that the death sentence passed on him at Anadan’s insistence will be carried out by his old friend. Akira manages to convince his friend of his innocence, he executes the criminal instead of Akira, and hides Akira himself in a dungeon. The Egyptian pharaoh, having heard about the execution of Akir, sends envoys to Synagripus demanding that one of his entourage build a house between heaven and earth. Synagripus is in despair: Anadan, whom he was counting on, refuses to help, saying that only a god can complete this task. Then Akira's friend informs the king that the disgraced adviser is alive. The king sends Akir to Egypt, where he solves all the ingenious riddles that the pharaoh offers him. Akir forces the pharaoh to abandon the demand to build a house: the eagles trained by Akir raise a boy into the sky, who asks to give him stones and lime, but the Egyptians, naturally, cannot do this. Having received tribute for three years, Akir returns to Synagrip, chains Anadan at the porch of his house and begins to reproach him for the evil he has done. In vain Anadan begs for forgiveness. Unable to withstand Akir’s stinging reproaches, he swells up “like a jug” and bursts with anger. This story is interesting as an action-packed work: the cunning and cunning of Anadan, who slanderes his adoptive father, and the wisdom of Akir, who finds a worthy way out of all the difficulties in which the pharaoh is trying to stage it, creating many acute collisions in the work. On the other hand, almost the fourth part of the story is occupied by the instructions with which Akir addresses Anadan: here are maxims on the topics of friendship, justice, generosity, etiquette, and denunciation of “evil wives.”
Natural science essays. Byzantine science of the early Middle Ages was very closely connected with theology. The natural world, information about which Byzantine scientists could glean both from their own observations and from the writings of ancient philosophers and naturalists, was considered primarily as a visual evidence of the wisdom of God who created the world, or as a kind of living allegory: natural phenomena, the habits of living beings or the world of minerals - all this seemed to be a kind of embodiment in living and material images of some eternal truths, concepts or moral teachings.
Six days works commenting on the short biblical story about God’s creation of the sky, stars, luminaries, earth, living beings, plants and humans within six days (hence the title of the book - “Six Days”
"Physiologist". about living creatures, both real (lion, eagle, ant, whale, elephant, etc.) and fantastic (phoenix, sirens, centaur), and only about some plants or precious stones (diamond, flint, magnet, etc. ) Each story reported the properties of a creature or object, and then gave a symbolic interpretation of these properties. However, as a rule, both the habits of animals and the characteristics of plants or stones in the presentation of the “Physiologist” are completely fantastic, for its main goal is to find an analogy between the properties of a creature or object and some theological concept.
"Christian Topography" Cosmas of Indicoplova. Cosmas was a merchant who traveled to Egypt, Ethiopia and Arabia around 530. It is believed that Cosmas was not in India itself, despite his nickname - Indicoplov (that is, who sailed to India), and gives information about this country from other people's stories. The monument consists of 12 “words” (chapters), which contain a discussion about the structure of the Universe. In particular, Cosmas claims that the Earth is flat; it and the sky covering it are likened to a room with a vaulted ceiling. The sky we see consists of water, and above it stretches another sky, invisible to us. The movement of the luminaries and atmospheric phenomena are controlled by angels specially assigned for this purpose. Equally legendary is the information about the flora and fauna of the countries that Cosma speaks of.
4. The Bible as a translated monument of ancient Russian literature.
Old Bulgarian translations from Greek - biblical books - Old Testament, i.e., telling about the ancient destinies of the Jewish people, and New Testament, i.e., associated with the initial period of Christianity. The reliability of the stories is minimal, as is the reliability of the authorship of individual parts of the Bible. The biblical books of the Old Testament consisted of three sections: "Law", "Prophets" and "Scriptures". The "Law", or "Pentateuch of Moses", included the books "Genesis", "Exodus", "Leviticus", "Numbers" and "Deuteronomy" and contained rules and regulations relating to the religious and social life of the Jews, legendary information about the creation of the world and man and legends about the origin of the Jewish people and their destinies before their occupation of Palestine. The biblical books of the New Testament consist of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles, or, for short, the Apostle, and Revelation, or the Apocalypse of John the Theologian. the foundations of Christian mythology, which reflected the diverse layers of various ancient religious systems, myths and legends. The Apostolic Epistles set the task of popularizing, interpreting and explaining the Gospel in relation to those circumstances that were caused by the social and religious practice of individual Christian communities, religious groups or individuals. catastrophic events, the second coming to earth of Christ, finally defeating his enemy and the enemy of the entire human race - the Antichrist. Ancient Russian literature often used biblical quotations and in a number of cases used biblical stylistics and figurative means of the Bible. The Psalter has gained particular popularity since ancient times. This was due to her poetic merits, verbal expressiveness and the religious lyricism that penetrated her through and through. These qualities of the Psalter made it not only a reference book for reading, but also a teaching book, and it fulfilled this role for many centuries. The texts of Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon were also popular in ancient Russian literature, attracting the ancient Russian reader not only with their content, but also with their sharp aphorism. As for the Gospel and the Apostle, they served as our main source for religious and moral formulations in the spirit of Christian doctrine. Liturgical books, in addition to the biblical ones, also include the Service Menaion. The poetic style and verbal formulas of prayers and chants were to a certain extent used by our ancient literature.
5. Hagiographic literature of the 11th – 12th centuries. “The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk”, “The Tale of Boris and Gleb”.
hagiographic, or hagiographical (from the Greek auos - saint), through which the church sought to give its flock examples of the practical application of abstract Christian principles. The conventional, idealized image of a Christian ascetic, whose life and work took place in an atmosphere of legend and miracle, was the most suitable conductor of the ideology that the church was called upon to instill. The author of the life, a hagiographer, pursued primarily the task of presenting an image of the saint that would correspond to the established idea of an ideal church hero. Only those facts were taken from his life that corresponded to this idea, and everything that diverged from it was hushed up. Usually the life of a saint began with a brief mention of his parents, who turned out to be mostly pious people and at the same time noble. Next they talked about the behavior of the future saint in childhood. He is distinguished by modesty, obedience, diligence in his book work, shuns games with peers and is completely imbued with piety. Later, often from youth, his ascetic life begins, mostly in a monastery or in desert solitude. It is accompanied by ascetic mortification of the flesh and the fight against all sorts of passions. In order, for example, to get rid of female temptation, the saint inflicts physical pain on himself: he cuts off a finger, thereby distracting himself from carnal lusts (cf. the corresponding episode in “Father Sergius” by L. Tolstoy), etc. Often the saint is haunted by demons in which The same sinful temptations are embodied, but through prayer, fasting and abstinence the saint overcomes the devilish obsession. He has the ability to perform miracles and communicate with heavenly powers. For the most part, the death of a saint is peaceful and quiet: the saint passes painlessly into another world, and his body emits a fragrance after death; Miraculous healings take place at the saint’s tomb and at his grave: the blind receive their sight, the deaf receive hearing, the sick are healed. The life usually ends with praise to the saint. Byzantium in the 4th century. a sample is the life of Anthony the Great, written by Athanasius of Alexandria. translated lives of Nicholas the Wonderworker, Anthony the Great, John Chrysostom, Savva the Sanctified, Basil the New, Andrei the Fool-for-Christ, Alexei the man of God, Vyacheslav the Czech (the latter of West Slavic origin), etc. In the 11th - early 12th centuries. the first Russian lives were created: two lives of Boris and Gleb, “The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk”, “The Life of Anthony of Pechersk” (not preserved until modern times). Their writing was not only literary fact, but also an important link in the ideological policy of the Russian state. At this time, the Russian princes persistently sought from the Patriarch of Constantinople the rights to canonize their own Russian saints, which would significantly increase the authority of the Russian Church. The creation of a life was an indispensable condition for the canonization of a saint. We will consider here one of the lives of Boris and Gleb - “Reading about the life and destruction” of Boris and Gleb and “The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk”. Both lives were written by Nestor. A comparison of them is especially interesting, since they represent two hagiographic types - the life-martyria (the story of the martyrdom of the saint) and the monastic life, which tells about the entire life path of the righteous man, his piety, asceticism, the miracles he performed, etc. Nestor, Of course, he took into account the requirements of the Byzantine hagiographic canon. There is no doubt that he knew translated Byzantine Lives. But at the same time, he showed such artistic independence, such extraordinary talent that the creation of these two masterpieces makes him one of the outstanding ancient Russian writers, regardless of whether he was also the compiler of “The Tale of Bygone Years” (this issue remains controversial).
6. “The Sermon on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion as an exegetical text.
Among the genres of Byzantine literature, the works of the church fathers - theologians and preachers - occupied a place of honor. These “words” and teachings of Byzantine authors were widely known in Rus', and already in the 11th century. original works of Russian writers appear: “The Sermon on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion, the teachings of the Novgorod Bishop Luke Zhidyata and the abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Theodosius; in the 12th century Old Russian literature is enriched with such masterpieces of solemn eloquence as the “words” of Cyril of Turov.
"A Word on Law and Grace."“The Sermon on Law and Grace,” written by the Kiev priest Hilarion (the future metropolitan), as N. N. Rozov believes, was first spoken by him in 1049 in honor of the completion of the construction of Kiev defensive structures.
However, the meaning of the “Word” goes far beyond the genre of solemn holiday words pronounced in church before the believers. Hilarion's "Lay" is a kind of church-political treatise in which the Russian land and its princes are glorified.
The Lay begins with a lengthy theological discussion. Contrasting the Old and New Testaments, Hilarion holds the idea that the Old Testament is a law established for the Jewish people alone, while the New Testament is a grace that extends to all peoples who have adopted Christianity without exception. Hilarion returns several times to this important thought for him; to confirm it, he reveals the symbolism of biblical images, recalls the sayings of the “church fathers”, and with various reasons and arguments he supports his thesis about the superiority of Christianity over Judaism intended for one people, about the high calling of Christian peoples.
This first, dogmatic part of the “Lay” leads to the central idea of the work: Prince Vladimir, on his own impulse (and not on the advice or insistence of the Greek clergy), accomplished a “great and wondrous” deed - he baptized Rus'. Vladimir is the “teacher and mentor” of the Russian land, thanks to whom “grace-filled faith” and “until our language (people) of Russian came to fruition.” The role of Vladimir as the baptizer of Rus' grows to a universal scale: Vladimir is “equal in mind”, “equal lover of Christ” to Constantine the Great himself, the emperor of the “two Romes” - Eastern and Western, who, according to church tradition, proclaimed Christianity state religion in Byzantium and extremely revered in the empire. Equal deeds and equal dignity give the right to equal veneration. Thus Hilarion leads his listeners to the idea of the need to recognize Vladimir as a saint. He puts him on a par with the apostles John, Thomas, Mark, to whom belongs the merit of converting various countries and lands to the Christian faith. At the same time, Hilarion seeks to glorify the power of the Russian land and emphasize its authority. The phraseology of church sermons is sometimes replaced by the phraseology of chronicle praise: Vladimir’s ancestors, Igor and Svyatoslav, became famous throughout the world for their courage and bravery, “victories and strength”; and they ruled not in the “unknown land,” but in Rus', which “is known and heard by all four ends of the earth.” And Vladimir himself is not only a devout Christian, but a mighty “single ruler of his land,” who managed to conquer neighboring countries, “some with peace, and the disobedient with the sword.”
The third and final part of the Lay is dedicated to Yaroslav the Wise. Hilarion portrays him not only as a continuer of Vladimir’s spiritual behests, not only as a diligent builder of new churches, but also as a worthy “vicar... of the dominion” of his father. Even in prayer, Hilarion does not forget about the worldly, political needs of Rus': he prays to God to “drive away” enemies, establish peace, “tame” neighboring countries, “make wise the boyars,” strengthen cities... This civic spirit of church preaching is well explained by the situation of the thirties and forties years of the 11th century, when Yaroslav sought by all means the independence of the Russian Church and the Russian public policy and when the idea of equality of Rus' in relations with Byzantium (and not subordination to it) took on the most acute forms, influencing even church construction; for example, in Rus', temples were built with the same name to the famous cathedrals of Constantinople: St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, the churches of St. Irene and St. George in Kiev, the Kiev “Golden Gate”, etc. According to the plans of politicians and architects, Kiev became as if a rival of Constantinople.
There is a well-founded opinion that the first work on Russian history also belongs to Hilarion: a cycle of stories about the Christianization of Rus', from which Russian chronicle writing may have begun; This is evidenced by numerous textual parallels contained in both monuments
7. Solemn words of Kirill of Turovsky.
Kirill Turovsky. The later “Life of Cyril” reports that he took monastic vows early, became a recluse (that is, lived alone in a cell) and during the period of his seclusion “expounded a lot of divine scriptures.” Later, the prince and the townspeople begged Cyril to take the episcopal see in the city of Turov (in the north-west of the Kyiv land). Cyril died no later than 1182. The authority of Cyril’s works was so great that many of his “words” were included in the collections “Chrysostom” and “The Triumphant” along with the works of John Chrysostom. The authorship of a number of works inscribed with the name of Cyril of Turov is controversial, but with sufficient it can be considered that he owns the “Parable of the Soul and Body”, “The Tale of the Beloriztsev and the Minshtstvo”, “The Tale of the Chernoriz Rite”, eight “words” for church holidays, thirty prayers and two canons (a cycle of chants in honor of the saint ).
“The Parable of Soul and Body,” written, according to I. P. Eremin, between 1160-1169, is an accusatory pamphlet against the Rostov Bishop Fedor (Fedorets). The parable is based on the plot of a blind man and a lame man. Its essence is as follows. A certain owner of a vineyard assigned two watchmen to guard it: one blind, the other lame. He hoped that the lame man would not be able to enter the vineyard, and if the blind man entered, he would get lost. However, the lame will see the thief, and the blind will hear him. But the watchmen decided to outwit the master: the lame man sat astride the blind man and showed him where to go. In this way they were able to rob the vineyard, but they paid dearly for it. In the parable, the blind man is an allegory of the soul, and the lame man is an allegory of the body. At the same time, it is the soul (the blind man) who seduces the body (the lame man) into committing a crime. Kirill of Turovsky, interpreting the “Parable,” allowed the reader to guess that by the blind man he meant Bishop Fedor, and by the lame man, Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. The reason for writing the parable was the prince’s attempt to establish a bishopric in Vladimir, independent of the Kiev metropolitan, for which Feodor went to Constantinople to receive initiation from the local patriarch, and deceived the latter by saying that there was no metropolitan in Kiev - he had died. Subsequently, the deception was revealed, the Kiev Metropolitan excommunicated Fyodor from the church, and Andrei Bogolyubsky’s attempt to achieve church autonomy from Kiev was condemned. The most famous were the solemn “words” of Cyril, intended for reading in church on church holidays. In these “words” Kirill complements and develops the underlying gospel stories with new details, composes dialogues for the characters, thus creating new story , which would provide him with great opportunities for an allegorical interpretation of the meaning of this or that holiday. The main artistic principle in Cyril’s “words” is rhetorical amplification. “This or that topic with him,” writes I. P. Eremin, “always varies verbally, spreads until its content is completely exhausted.” Each topic was clothed in the form of a rhetorical tirade, in which sentences that were synonymous in meaning and of the same type in syntactic structure alternated. Consider one of the “words” of Kirill Turovsky - “A Word for the New Week of Easter.” The “Word” begins with a kind of introduction explaining the reason for it writing: “Great is the teacher and wise of the storyteller to demand the church to decorate the holiday,” but we, “poor in word” and “clouded in mind,” continues Kirill, “can only say “a little something” about the holiday. Next, the author characterizes the Easter holiday: when “there was a change in everything”: the earth became heaven, cleansed of demonic filth, people were renewed, for from pagans they became Christians... The new week is a renewal of people who have accepted the Christian faith. Kirill Turovsky paints a picture of the spring awakening of nature: the sky, freed from clouds, brightens, the sun rises to a height and warms the earth, the winds blow quietly, the earth gives birth to green grass, “lambs and ounces” (i.e., lambs and bulls) are jumping, rejoicing in the spring ), flowers bloom and leaves bloom on the trees... However, Kirill Turovsky immediately gives a parallel to each element of this description, after which it becomes clear that this vivid picture is just a series of metaphors and comparisons designed to elevate, glorify and, most importantly, , to explain to believers certain tenets of the Christian faith. Spring is the faith of Christ, “lambs” are “meek people”, “uns” are “idol worshipers” of pagan countries that have joined or will join Christianity, etc. Each of Cyril’s “words” is a vivid example of festive, solemn eloquence . The author is fluent in the art of rhetoric: he either addresses the listeners, then conveys the Gospel plot or a complex theological concept with the help of colorful allegories, as was shown above, then he questions and immediately answers himself, argues with himself, proves to himself. Researchers of the work of Kirill of Turov have long established that in allegories, and in the methods of their interpretation, and in the rhetorical figures themselves, the author is not always original: he relies on Byzantine examples, quotes or retells fragments from the “words” of famous Byzantine preachers. But in general, the works of the Bishop of Turov are not just compilations of other people’s images and quotes - they are a free rethinking of traditional material, which results in a new work, perfect in form, cultivating in listeners a sense of the word, captivating them with the harmony of rhythmically constructed speech periods. Syntactic parallelism of forms, the widespread use of morphological rhyme (the use of a number of similar grammatical forms) in the “words” of Kirill of Turov, as it were, compensated for the lack of book poetry, prepared the Russian reader for the perception of the “weaving of words” and the ornamental style of the 14th-16th centuries. Let's give just one example. In the tirade “(Christ) introduces the soul of the saints, the prophet into the heavenly kingdom, divides the monastery of the mountain city with his saint, opens paradise to the righteous, crowns the martyrs who suffered for him...” each of the three members of the syntactic construction (predicate, direct and indirect objects) turns out to be parallel. . Further, its rhythmic pattern becomes even more complicated, since the direct object, expressed in the constructions of the above passage in one word, now turns into a phrase, each of the components of which, in turn, has parallel constructions: “all who do his will and keep his commandments have mercy.” , sends to our faithful princes the health of our bodies and souls, salvation and victory over the enemy... blesses all peasants, small with great, poor with rich, slaves with free, old with husbands and married with maidens...” The work of Kirill of Turov testifies that ancient Russian scribes of the 12th century reached the heights of literary perfection, were fluent in all the variety of techniques developed by ancient rhetoric and developed by the classical solemn eloquence of Byzantium. Kirill Turovsky, having embodied in his work those principles of “stashhouse interpretation” that Kliment Smolyatich defended, followed him in the art of widespread use of the technique of rhetorical amplification.
8. Educational literature of Kievan Rus. "Teaching" by Vladimir Monomakh.
outside the traditional genre system. One of these works is the famous “Teaching” by Vladimir Monomakh. that's four independent works; three of them, indeed, belong to Vladimir Monomakh: this is the “Teaching” itself, an autobiography and “Letter to Oleg Svyatoslavich”. The prayer does not belong to Monomakh. Let us recall that all four named works are known to us in one list: they are inserted into the text of the “Tale of Bygone Years” in the Laurentian Chronicle, as if dividing the text of the chronicle article of 1096.
The “Teaching” was written by Monomakh, apparently in 1117. He taught to observe the norms of Christian morality: to be “meek,” to listen to the “elders” and submit to them, “to have love with the equals and the lesser,” not to offend orphans and widows - the contours of a certain political program are visible. The main idea of the “Instruction”: the prince must unquestioningly obey the “eldest”, live in peace with other princes, and not oppress younger princes or boyars; the prince must avoid unnecessary bloodshed, be a hospitable host, not indulge in laziness, not get carried away with power, not rely on the tiuns (those who manage the prince’s household) in everyday life and on the governor on campaigns, delve into everything himself...
Reinforcing your instructions and teachings with personal example. The “Instruction” ends with a call not to fear death, either in battle or hunting, valiantly performing “a man’s work.” Another work of Monomakh is “Letter to Oleg Svyatoslavich.” The reason for its writing was an inter-princely feud, during which Oleg killed Monomakh’s son, Izyaslav. True to his principles of justice and “brotherly love,” Monomakh makes a call for prudence and reconciliation. This letter amazes not only with the generosity and statesmanship of the prince, but also with heartfelt lyricism, especially in that part of the letter where Monomakh asks Oleg to release Izyaslav’s widow to him. “Instruction” by Vladimir Monomakh is so far the only example in ancient Russian literature of political and moral instruction created by not a clergyman, but a statesman. The author was fluent different styles literary language and skillfully applied them according to the genre and theme of the work. Monomakh calls his children to an active life, to constant work and convinces them never to remain in laziness or indulge in debauchery. You cannot rely on either the servants or the governor, and you yourself need to enter into everything and supervise everything so that no trouble happens. One should avoid drunkenness and fornication, because both soul and body perish from this. What you know, you should not forget, and what you don’t know, you should learn, as Monomakh’s father (Vsevolod) learned, who learned five languages while sitting at home, for which they give honor in foreign lands. In the Instruction, Monomakh expresses poetic delight in the beauty of nature. At its core, the language of the “Instruction” and the letter to Oleg of Chernigov is the indigenous Russian language, only to a small extent complicated by Church Slavonicisms, most often present in the actual edifying part of the “Instruction” and less often in its autobiographical part and in the letter to the Chernigov prince Oleg."
9. Old Russian chronicle. "The Tale of Bygone Years."
"The Tale of Bygone Years." The chronicle - a systematic chronicle kept year after year - grew to a large extent on the basis of the oral historical epic.
Chronicle of how literary genre in the middle of the 11th century. However, the oldest lists of chronicles date back to a later time: the 13th and 14th centuries. - Synodal list of the First Novgorod Chronicle, Laurentian list dates back to 1377, Ipatiev Chronicle to the first quarter of the 15th century.
The study of chronicles is further complicated by the following circumstance. In almost every chronicle, the history of Rus' is set out “from the very beginning” - the text of the “Tale of Bygone Years” is given in full or in an abbreviation, sometimes very significant, telling “where the Russian land came from.”
“The Tale of Bygone Years,” which will be discussed below, was created at the beginning of the 12th century. Compiled by Nestor. was a complete, literary history of Rus'.
corpus, a work based on previous chronicle writings, which included fragments from various sources, literary, journalistic, folklore, etc. a presentation “from the very beginning,” from the creation of the world, and the genealogical lines of the ruling dynasties are traced back to mythical heroes or even to the gods.
permeated with a single patriotic idea: a story about great beginnings: the beginning of Russian statehood, the beginning of Russian culture, about the beginnings that, according to the chroniclers, promise future power and glory for their homeland. plot stories are common.
the chronicle is full of analogies and broad historical perspectives. Therefore, the chronicle talks about the main characters of this historical mystery - kings, princes, governors and the main functions corresponding to their position in society. The prince is depicted primarily at the most central moments of his activity - upon accession to the throne, during battles or diplomatic actions; the death of the prince is a kind of result of his activity, and the chronicler seeks to express this result in a ceremonial posthumous obituary, which lists the valor and glorious deeds of the prince, and precisely those of his virtues that befit him as a prince and a Christian. The ceremonial nature of the image requires adherence to etiquette of verbal expression
Almost all chronicles of subsequent centuries began with the “Tale”.
10. " The Word about Igor's Campaign" and its era. Ideological content works.
“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and monuments of ancient Russian literature. influenced other monuments of ancient Russian literature on the story of the Battle of Kulikovo - “Zadonshchina”. It was the custom of medieval scribes to imitate another work, quote or retell it. on "The Tale of Akira the Wise".
The debate about the authenticity of the monument or the time of its creation occupies a significant place.
Distrust in the antiquity of the Lay arose after the destruction of the manuscript in a fire in 1812. The Lay seemed unnaturally perfect for the level of artistic culture of Kievan Rus. “dark places” “Words”, abundance in it unclear words, which at first they tried to explain using the material of other Slavic languages.
The historical basis of the plot of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” Let us consider the events of 1185 as they appear to us according to the chronicle story.
The ideological content of the "Word". The author of the Lay persistently emphasizes the main idea of the work: the unity of the princes is necessary in the struggle among the steppes, it is necessary to stop strife and “which” - wars between individual feudal lords, into which the warring parties also dragged the Polovtsians. objects to civil strife, encroachments on foreign lands, convinces the princes of the need to live in peace and unconditionally obey the eldest in position - the Grand Duke of Kyiv. The author discusses them, evaluates them, considers them against the background of a broad historical perspective, almost against the background of the entire Russian history. It is these genre features“Words” are determined by the originality of its composition and the system of its images.
11. Artistic originality of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (genre, composition, system of images).
“Composition “Words”. introduction - a memory of the singer Boyan. A chronological range has been defined (“from old Vladimer to present-day Igor”), the author talks about Igor’s daring plan to “send” his regiments to the Polovtsian land, “to drink the sack of the Don.” the meeting of Igor and Bui Tur Vsevolod, a contrast with the subsequent story about the terrible signs that marked the beginning of Igor’s campaign and which foreshadowed its tragic outcome: this is a solar eclipse, and unusual ominous sounds in the silence of the night. The story about the second battle, fatal for Igor, is interrupted by the author's digression - a memory of the times of Oleg Svyatoslavich - the theme of disastrous civil strife, because of which the prosperity of all Russians is perishing. Igor’s battle against the Polovtsian, the consequences of Igor’s defeat will affect Rus'. Nature itself mourns the defeat of Igor. The insertion about the troubles of the entire Russian land suggests that the Russian princes themselves are to blame for them, who began to commit sedition on themselves. Only in the unification of all Russian forces against the nomads is the guarantee of victory, and an example of this is the defeat that Svyatoslav of Kiev inflicted on the Polovtsians, when the Polovtsian Khan Kobyak was captured and “fell” “in the grid of Svyatoslavli.” a prophetic dream of Svyatoslav, predicting grief and death for him. Insert about the time of Vseslav of Polotsk. He also did not achieve victory, despite temporary successes. In Putivl, Yaroslavna prays to the forces of nature to help her husband, to rescue him from captivity. It is characteristic that in this lyrical lament, modeled on folk lamentation, the social motives characteristic of the entire monument are heard: Yaroslavna cares not only about her husband, but also about his “howls”; she remembers the glorious campaigns of Svyatoslav of Kiev against Khan Kobyak. Yaroslavna's cry is closely connected with the subsequent story about Igor's escape from captivity. Nature helps Igor: the Donets River talks with the prince in a friendly manner, crows, jackdaws and magpies fall silent so as not to reveal to their pursuers the whereabouts of the fugitives, woodpeckers show them the way, and nightingales delight them with songs. The dispute between the khans Konchak and Gza about what to do with Igor’s captive son Vladimir is continued by this story, full of symbols taken from the world of living nature, about the flight of the prince: Igor flies as a “falcon” to his homeland, and the khans decide the fate of the “falcon”. two types of metaphors - military symbols ("falcon" - a daring warrior) and folklore symbols, in this case - going back to the symbolism of wedding songs, where the groom is a "falcon" and the bride is a "red girl", "swan". The epilogue of the Lay is festive and solemn: Igor, who has returned to Rus', comes to Kyiv, to the great Svyatoslav; “Countries are happy, the city is happy.” The Lay ends with a toast in honor of the prince.
Genre "Words". the focus is on reasoning, assessing Igor’s actions, thinking about the reasons for the “toughness” and sadness that has gripped the entire Russian land in the present, turning to the events of the past with its victories and misfortunes. “The Word” (like a number of other monuments) appears to be outside the genre system. A. N. Robinson and D. S. Likhachev compare it with the genre of the so-called “chanson de gesture” - “songs about exploits”, analogies of “The Song of Roland” or other similar works of Western European feudal epic. The Lay combines epic and bookish principles. “The epic is full of calls for the defense of the country...” writes D. S. Likhachev. “His “direction” is characteristic: the call comes as if from the people (hence the folkloric origin), but it is addressed to the feudal lords - the golden word of Svyatoslav, and hence the bookish origin.”
Poetics of the Word. features of the epic and monumental historicism style. events, and actions, and the very qualities of the heroes of “The Lay” are assessed against the background of the entire Russian history, against the background of events not only of the 12th, but also of the 11th century, the ceremoniality, etiquette of “The Lay” (as glory and lament). And the princes themselves in the Lay are depicted in ceremonial positions. The capture of Igor is reported as a ceremonial event: the prince is transferred from the golden princely saddle to the saddle of a slave (koshcheevo). the author's digressions, historical excursions, in which the main idea of the Lay usually stands out most clearly - condemnation of princely strife, reflection on the sorrows of the Russian land, subject to Polovtsian raids.
Epicness coexists with bookish elements. Author's thoughts, appeals, folklore elements. hyperbolization typical of folklore; images of a battle-feast, a battlefield identified with peaceful arable land, and images of a wolf, aurochs, and falcons, with which the heroes of “The Lay” are compared, are also folklore; epithets. Plans for a realistic (historical-documentary) depiction of characters and events and a description of the fantasy world of forces hostile to the “Russians.” Many episodes of The Lay have symbolic overtones. there is no static landscape. It was noticed that " art system“Words” is all built on contrasts.” One of these contrasts is the opposition of metaphoric images: the sun (light) and darkness (night, darkness). Igor is the “bright light”, and Konchak is the “black raven”; on the eve of the battle, black clouds are coming from the sea, wanting to cover the 4 suns. In a prophetic dream, Svyatoslav sees that he is covered with “black papoloma” (as the body of a dead person was usually covered), blue (black) wine was poured into him, and “beaded (gray) lies” were croaked all night. But when Igor returns from captivity to Rus', “the sun shines in the sky” again.
The rhythm of the "Word". the rhythm is deliberate, part of the author’s artistic goals, but this is rhythmic prose; Moreover, rhythmic fragments in the “Word” alternate with fragments in which the rhythm is either different or absent altogether. repetitions of similar syntactic constructions, and “rhythmic balance,” when “several short syntactic units are replaced by one or two long ones; several long ones are concluded by one or two short ones.” A feature of the language is “to combine similar sounding words”, resort to a kind of sound recording (see, for example: “moaning at night; trampling the filthy Polovtsian regiments... across the field; grinding them tight; trampling... the dew”).
12. The patericon genre in ancient Russian literature. Kiev-Pechersk Patericon.
Patericon (a fatherly book, an old man's book, a genre of ascetic literature, a collection of sayings of the holy fathers of ascetics or stories about them.) The literature of patericons develops in the 4th-5th centuries, when three collections appear that are included in the main fund of Christian literature: the so-called alphabetic patericon, in in which the sayings of the elders (in Greek tradition the book is called Αποφθέγματα των άγίων γερόντων - “sayings of the holy elders”), an Egyptian patericon or “History of the monks in Egypt” (Historia Monachorum in Aegypto), containing short stories about the Egyptian anchorites, their readings and aphorisms, and Lavsaik (Greek Λαυσαϊχόν, Historia Lausiaca), a story about the Egyptian monks of Palladius, Bishop of Helena, written by him at the request of the Byzantine dignitary Laus (the significance of the last book is evidenced by the fact that stories from it are read in Orthodox services at matins throughout Lent). a collection of stories about the founding of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery and the lives of its first inhabitants. The basis was two messages written in the 13th century. The first was written by the former monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, later the Bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal Simon (died in 1226) to his student and friend the Kiev-Pechersk monk Polycarp; The purpose of this message is to teach Polycarp Christian humility and meekness by narrating the wonderful life of the ascetics who glorified the Pechersk monastery. The second was written by the Kiev-Pechersk monk Polycarp to the Kiev-Pechersk Archimandrite Akindinus and also consists of stories about the monks of the monastery. Later, legends about the beginning of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, about the decoration of the monastery, about the first ascetics, as well as articles related to the subject of the “Paterikon”, and sometimes without any connection with it, were added to these messages. Here you can find Theodosius’ answer to Grand Duke Izyaslav’s question about the Latins, legends about the origin and initial state of the Russian Church, the baptism of the Slavs, etc. Historians find in the Patericon information about economic, social and cultural relations in Kievan Rus, animistic ideas of those times when pagan beliefs coexisted with Christianity. “Paterik” was edited many times; the oldest list dates back to the 15th century, the latest to XVII century. The oldest lists: Arsenyevsky, compiled in 1406 for the Tver bishop Arseny, contains stories about saints and Simon’s story about the creation of the Pechersk Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary (“The Sermon on the Creation of the Pechersk Church”); two of Cassian’s, compiled in 1460 and 1462 on behalf of the Kiev-Pechersk clergy member, later the guide, monk Cassian; contain the entire writings of Simon and Polycarp and the story of the creation of the church, which is divided into two parts: the first - about the church, placed at the beginning of the Patericon; the second (about the binding of the shrine of Theodosius) after the life of St. Feodosia. In 1635, the printed “Paterik” was published, edited by Sylvester Kossov, in Polish; The appendix of this edition includes the lives of Nestor, Simon and Polycarp. In 1661, the first Church Slavonic edition was published (initiated by Archimandrite Innocent (Gisel)). In 1759, a new edition was published in the Moscow Synodal Printing House, thoroughly revised and checked in accordance with the teachings of the Orthodox Church (the rector of the Novgorod Seminary, Archimandrite Joasaph (Mitkevich) participated in the editing); subsequently it was reprinted several times. Separate parts of the Patericon were translated into Russian. In 1870, a Russian translation by M. A. Viktorova was published.
13. Military stories of the era of the Tatar-Mongol invasion.
The first clash between Russians and Tatars occurred in 1223 in the south, on the Kalka River, when the Russians, united with the Polovtsians, were defeated by the Tatar army. In connection with this defeat, between 1223 and 1237, a story arose within Kyiv. We are especially curious about the later versions of the story about the Battle of Kalka with mention of the death of Alexander Popovich with seventy brave princes, or Alexander Popovich, his servant Toropets, Dobrynya Ryazanich - the Golden Belt and seventy great and brave heroes. This mention of Alexander Popovich is in direct connection with the epic about the death of Russian heroes, including Alexander Popovich and Dobrynya. "The story of the Battle of Kalka, having undoubtedly arisen among the druzhina, was subjected to editorial processing in the chronicle collections by the compilers of the collections who belonged to majority to the spiritual environment, and after that reflected those repentant and pious motives that characterize, among other things, the sermon of that time. These motives, interspersed with quotations from the “holy scripture,” sound even more strongly in the description of the devastation of northern Russia by the Tatars, mainly Suzdal land and the city of Vladimir, read in the Laurentian Chronicle under 1237. Using a quotation from the Psalter, the author exclaims: “God, the pagans have come upon your heritage, desecrated your holy church, laid Jerusalem as a vegetable storehouse, laid the corpses of your servant for the birds heavenly, the flesh of your saints as an earthly beast, shedding their blood like water." In connection with Batu's devastation in the same year, 1237, the Ryazan land was created (perhaps soon after this event) a story about the devastation of Ryazan by Batu, which is preceded by a story about transfer of the icon of St. Nicholas by priest Eustathius from Korsun to Ryazan. It is known in texts only from the 16th century. and is read in later chronicles and in some collections. It is undoubtedly based on epic tales, oral poetic works related to the event itself. The episode of the death of Fyodor and his wife Eupraxia, reflected in the epic about Danil Lovchanin, as well as the story about Evpatiy Kolovrat, obviously go back to special folk historical songs. The phraseology of the story is also connected with the poetics of oral folk art in those cases when the valor of the Ryazan people is depicted: “gentle squad”, “rezvetsy”, “daring people”, “rezansky pattern and education”, “rezansky domination”, “strong governors”. Throughout the tone of the story, ideal ideas about the chivalric relationship between the prince and the squad strongly make themselves felt. The princes invariably care about their squad and mourn the warriors who died in battle, but the squad wants to “drink the mortal cup with their sovereigns equally.” Inspired by devotion to their princes, the “daring men and spirited men of Rezan” fight “strongly and mercilessly, as if the earth were groaning,” “one with a thousand, two with you,” and when they are unable to defeat the enemy, every single one of them dies, having drunk the one mortal cup. The story lacks that repentant tone that we noted in previous monuments written on the topic of the Tatar invasion. The story calls not for passive submission to a terrible disaster, but for an active struggle against it. And its end is cheerful and confident. The Ryazan land is recovering from Batu’s invasion and is being rebuilt, the Ryazan people rejoice at their liberation from the “godless, evil Tsar Batu.” Clear signs of the story's rhythmic structure have already been partially noted above. They can also be traced in other samples. When the Tatars captured Ryazan, they Grand Duchess Agripena, the mother of the Grand Duke, cut off swords with her daughters-in-law and other princesses, and gave the bishop and the priestly rank to fire, burned them in the holy church, and a lot of frost fell from weapons, and in the city of many people, both wives and children, cut off swords, and I drowned some in the river, and cut down the erey, the monk to the remains, and burned the whole city, and all the deliberate ornaments, the wealth of the river , and their relatives, Kiev and Chernigov, captured, and destroyed the temples of God, and shed a lot of blood in the holy altars. About the princes and warriors who died in defense of Ryazan, it is said: their bodies are devoured by beasts and torn to pieces by many birds. All the noted features of the story about the devastation of Ryazan by Batu make us highly regard it as a monument to our early narrative literature of the military genre, giving it almost second place after “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”
14. “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” and “The Life of Alexander Nevsky” in the process of genre formation in the 13th century.
Among the Northern Russian monuments associated with the invasion of the Tatars is “The Tale of the Death of the Russian Land,” found by Kh. M. Loparev in the early 1890s in a 15th-century manuscript. Pskov Pechersky Monastery and published by him at the same time." It is small in volume (in the manuscript it takes up 45 lines). The "Lay" lists the natural and material wealth that, before the Tatar invasion, abounded in the "light-bright and ornately decorated Russian land." There were then in Russia there were formidable princes, honest boyars, many nobles. Large spaces and the peoples living on them were conquered by the Grand Duke Vsevolod, his father Yuri, the Prince of Kiev, his grandfather Vladimir Monomakh, in whose name the Polovtsy frightened children in the cradle and under whom the Lithuanians from their the swamps did not appear, and the Hungarians fortified their stone cities with iron gates so that he would not enter them through them; the Germans rejoiced, living far beyond the blue sea. Various neighboring tribes paid tribute to Vladimir with honey, and the Byzantine king Manuel, fearing how "If Vladimir had not taken Constantinople, he would have sent him great gifts. This was the case before, but now illness has befallen Christians. This is the content of this outstanding monument, imbued with a feeling of deep patriotism, pride in the past of the Russian land and grief over its disasters caused to it by the Tatars. Following it comes the life of Alexander Nevsky, which does not have a special title here and is not even separated from the text of “The Tale of Perdition” by a special line. “The Word of Perdition” was the first part of the trilogy that has not been completely preserved. N.I. Serebryansky assumed that “The Lay of Destruction” is a preface to the secular biography of Alexander Nevsky that has not reached us, written by one of the prince’s warriors and appeared shortly after his death. “However, the “Lay” can hardly be considered the original introduction to the secular biography of Alexander Nevsky or his church life. Art style“Words of Destruction” is a combination of book style with oral poetic forms of song speech. The book style is reflected mainly in the enumeration of the riches that abound in the Russian land, and in the composition of the epithets. This is also where the epic image of Vladimir Monomakh comes from. "The Word of Perdition" had big influence to the introductory part of one of the editions of the life of Prince Fyodor of Yaroslavl, which arose at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. under the pen of Andrey Yuryev, but here this introductory part adjoins the life of Fyodor much more organically than “The Lay of Perdition” to the life of Alexander Nevsky.
The Life of Alexander Nevsky, especially famous for his valiant victory over the German knights, written at the end of the 13th or at the very beginning of the 14th century. Judging by the similarity of the literary style of the life of Alexander Nevsky with the literary style of the Galicia-Volyn Chronicle (see below) and the “Deeds of Devgenia”, translated, one must think, in the Galicia-Volyn land, the author of the life was a native of the Galicia-Volyn principality, who moved with Metropolitan Kirill III to the court of Alexander Nevsky." As we see, Alexander Nevsky is depicted in the life primarily as an ideal prince and warrior, endowed with all positive spiritual and physical qualities to the highest degree. He is likened more than once to the most outstanding biblical characters. Such an image of a prince could be most likely given by a person close to him, and this image was present, one must think, already in that secular biographical story about Alexander, which supposedly formed the basis of the most ancient life. in some cases a compilation Chronograph, consisting of biblical books, the Chronicles of George Amartol and John Malala, “Alexandria” and “The Tale of the Devastation of Jerusalem” by Josephus and included in the so-called Archive Collection, compiled in 1262, a year before the death of Alexander Nevsky. Individual episodes from his life could have arisen under the influence of “Devgeniy’s act.” A number of small episodes and stereotypical formulas in the life of Alexander Nevsky go back to hagiographic literature, original (The Legend of Boris and Gleb and parimies in honor of them, etc.) and partially translated, and to Russian chronicles
As the chronicle reports, immediately after Russia adopted Christianity, Vladimir Svyatoslavich “began to take children from deliberate children [of noble people], and began to give them book learning” (PVL, p. 81). For education, books brought from Bulgaria were needed. Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) and Old Russian languages are so close that Rus' was able to use a ready-made Old Church Slavonic alphabet, and Bulgarian books, being formally foreign languages, essentially did not require translation. This greatly facilitated the acquaintance of Rus' with the monuments of Byzantine literature, which for the most part penetrated into Rus' in Bulgarian translation.
Later, during the time of Yaroslav the Wise, in Rus' they began to translate directly from Greek. The chronicle reports that Yaroslav collected “many scribes and translations from Greek to Slovenian writing. And I copied many books” (PVL, p. 102). Intensity translation activities is confirmed both by direct data (lists of translated monuments that have come down to us or references to them in original works), and indirect: the influx of translated literature at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century. was not only a consequence of the established cultural ties between Rus' and Bulgaria or Byzantium, but was primarily caused by an urgent need, a kind of state necessity: Rus', which had adopted Christianity, needed literature for worship, to become familiar with the philosophical and ethical doctrines of the new religion, the ritual and legal customs of the church and monastic life.
For the activities of the Christian church in Rus', liturgical books were needed first of all. The obligatory set of books that were necessary for worship in each individual church included the Gospel aprakos, the Apostle aprakos, the Missal, the Breviary, the Psalter, the Lenten Triodion, the Colored Triodion and the General Menaion. Considering that in the chronicles in the narration of the events of the 9th–11th centuries. 88 cities are mentioned (data from B.V. Sapunov), each of which had from several units to several dozen churches, then the number of books necessary for their functioning will be in the many hundreds. Only a few copies of manuscripts from the 11th–12th centuries have reached us, but they confirm our ideas about the above-mentioned repertoire of liturgical books.
If the transfer of liturgical books to Russian soil was dictated by the needs of church services, and their repertoire was regulated by the canon of liturgical practice, then in relation to other genres of Byzantine literature one can assume a certain selectivity.
But it is here that we encounter an interesting phenomenon, which D. S. Likhachev characterized as the phenomenon of “transplantation”: Byzantine literature in its individual genres not only influenced Slavic literature, and through it on Old Russian literature, but was - of course, in some way its part was simply transferred to Rus'.
Patristics. First of all, this applies to Byzantine patristic literature. In Rus', the works of the “church fathers”, theologians and preachers were known and enjoyed high authority: John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius of Alexandria, etc.
Homiletic writers (authors of teachings and sermons) were highly valued throughout the Russian Middle Ages. Their creations not only helped to shape the moral ideals of the Christian world, but at the same time made them think about the properties of human character, drew attention to various features of the human psyche, and influenced other literary genres with their experience of “human studies.”
Of the homiletic writers, John Chrysostom (d. 407) enjoyed the greatest authority. In his work, “the assimilation of the traditions of ancient culture by the Christian Church reached complete and classical completion. He developed a style of preaching prose that absorbed the countless richness of expressive techniques of rhetoric and brought the virtuosity of finishing to stunning expressiveness.” The teachings of John Chrysostom have been included in collections since the 11th century. From the 12th century The list “Zlatostruya” has been preserved, containing mainly the “words” of Chrysostom; several “words” were included in the famous Assumption collection at the turn of the 12th–13th centuries.
In the lists of the 11th–12th centuries. translations of other Byzantine homilets have also been preserved - Gregory the Theologian, Cyril of Jerusalem, “The Ladder” of John Climacus, Pandects of Antiochus and Pandects of Nikon the Montenegrin. The sayings and aphorisms of the “Church Fathers” (along with aphorisms extracted from the works of ancient authors) made up a popular collection in Ancient Rus' - “The Bee” (the oldest list of the turn of the 13th–14th centuries). In the "Izbornik 1076" A significant place is occupied by Gennady’s “Stoslovets” - a kind of “moral code” of a Christian.
Works of the homiletical genre did not hide their edifying, didactic function. Addressing readers and listeners directly, homiletic writers sought to convince them with the logic of their reasoning, extolled virtues and condemned vices, promised eternal bliss to the righteous, and threatened the careless and sinners with divine punishment.
Lives of the Saints. Monuments of the hagiographic genre - the lives of saints - also educated and instructed, but the main means of persuasion was not so much the word - sometimes indignant and denouncing, sometimes insinuatingly instructive - as a living image. An action-packed narrative about the life of a righteous man, willingly using the plots and plot devices of the Hellenistic adventure novel, could not fail to interest the medieval reader. The hagiographer addressed not so much his mind as his feelings and ability for a vivid imagination. Therefore, the most fantastic episodes - the intervention of angels or demons, miracles performed by saints - were sometimes described with detailed details that helped the reader to see and imagine what was happening. Sometimes the Lives reported precise geographical or topographical features, and named the names of real historical figures - all this also created the illusion of authenticity and was intended to convince the reader of the veracity of the story and thereby give the Lives the authority of a “historical” narrative.
The lives can be roughly divided into two plot types - martyrium lives, i.e. stories about the torment of fighters for the faith in pagan times, and lives that told about saints who voluntarily took on the feat of seclusion or foolishness, distinguished by extraordinary piety and love of poverty etc.
An example of the first type of life is the “Life of St. Irene.” It tells how Irina’s father, the pagan king Licinius, at the instigation of a demon, decides to destroy his Christian daughter; According to his sentence, she should be crushed by the chariot, but a miracle happens: the horse, breaking the traces, pounces on the king, bites off his hand and returns to its original place. Irina is subjected to various sophisticated tortures by King Zedeki, but each time, thanks to divine intercession, she remains alive and unharmed. The princess is thrown into a ditch infested with poisonous snakes, but the “reptiles” immediately “press” against the walls of the ditch and die. They try to saw the saint alive, but the saw breaks and the executioners die. She is tied to a mill wheel, but water “by the command of God flows around,” etc.
Another type of life includes, for example, the legend of Alexei the Man of God. Alexey, a pious and virtuous young man, voluntarily renounces wealth, honor, and women's love. He leaves the house of his father - a rich Roman nobleman, his beautiful wife, as soon as he has married her, distributes the money taken from the house to the poor and for seventeen years lives on alms in the vestibule of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Edessa. When the fame of his holiness spread everywhere, Alexei left Edessa and, after wanderings, found himself again in Rome. Unrecognized by anyone, he settles in his father’s house, feeds at the same table with the beggars, whom the pious nobleman gives alms every day, and patiently endures the bullying and beatings of his father’s servants. Another seventeen years pass. Alexei dies, and only then do the parents and widow recognize their missing son and husband.
Patericon. Patericons - collections of short stories about monks - were widely known in Kievan Rus. The themes of the patericon legends are quite traditional. Most often these are stories about monks who became famous for their asceticism or humility. Thus, one legend tells how elders come to a hermit to talk with him, thirsting for instruction from him. But the recluse is silent, and when asked about the reason for his silence, he replies that day and night he sees before him the image of the crucified Christ. “This is our best instruction!” - the elders exclaim.
The hero of another story is a stylite. He is so alien to pride that he even lays out alms for the poor on the steps of his shelter, and does not give them from hand to hand, claiming that it is not he, but the Mother of God who gives gifts to the suffering.
The patericon tells of a young nun who gouges out her eyes after learning that their beauty has aroused the lust of a young man.
The omnipotence of prayer and the ability of ascetics to perform miracles are the subjects of another group of patericon short stories. The righteous elder is accused of adultery, but through his prayer the twelve-day-old baby, when asked “who is his father,” points his finger at his real father. Through the prayer of a pious shipbuilder, rain pours over the deck on a hot day, delighting travelers suffering from the heat and thirst. A lion, having met a monk on a narrow mountain path, stands on its hind legs to give him way, etc.
If the righteous are accompanied by divine help, then sinners in the patericon legends face a terrible and, what is especially characteristic, not posthumous, but immediate punishment: the desecrator of graves has his eyes gouged out by a living dead; the ship does not move from its place until a female child killer steps into the boat from its side, and the boat with the sinner is immediately swallowed up by the abyss; the servant, who plans to kill and rob his mistress, cannot leave his place and stabs himself to death.
Thus, in the patericon a certain fantastic world is depicted, where the forces of good and evil are constantly fighting for the souls of people, where the righteous are not just pious, but exaltedly fanatical, where miracles are performed in the most everyday situations, where even wild animals their behavior confirms the omnipotence of faith. The subjects of translated patericons influenced the work of Russian scribes: in Russian patericons and lives we will find direct analogies to episodes from Byzantine patericons.
Apocrypha. Apocrypha was also a favorite genre of ancient Russian readers, the oldest translations of which also date back to the Kievan era. Apocrypha (from the Greek ?????????? - “secret, hidden”) were works that tell about biblical characters or saints, but were not included in the circle of monuments revered as sacred scripture or officially recognized by the church. There were apocryphal gospels (for example, “The Gospel of Thomas”, “The Gospel of Nicodemus”), lives (“The Life of Andrew the Fool", “The Life of Basil the New”), legends, prophecies, etc. The apocrypha often contained a more detailed account of events or characters mentioned in canonical biblical books. There were apocryphal stories about Adam and Eve (for example, about Adam’s second wife, Lilith, about the birds that taught Adam how to bury Abel), about the childhood of Moses (in particular, about the test of the wisdom of the boy Moses by Pharaoh), about the earthly life of Jesus Christ.
The apocryphal “Walking of the Mother of God through the Torment” describes the suffering of sinners in hell, the “Tale of Agapius” tells of paradise - a wonderful garden, where “a bed and a meal decorated with precious stones” are prepared for the righteous, birds sing around “with different voices”, and the plumage they have gold, and scarlet, and scarlet, and blue, and green...
Apocrypha often reflected heretical ideas about the present and future world, rising to complex philosophical problems. The apocrypha reflected the teaching according to which God is opposed by an equally powerful antipode - Satan, the source of evil and the culprit of human disasters; Thus, according to one apocryphal legend, the human body was created by Satan, and God only “put” the soul into it.
The attitude of the Orthodox Church towards apocryphal literature was complex. The most ancient indices (lists) of “true and false books,” in addition to “true” books, distinguished between “hidden” and “hidden” books, which were recommended to be read only by knowledgeable people, and “false” books, which were certainly forbidden to be read, since they contained heretical views . However, in practice, it was almost impossible to separate apocryphal stories from stories found in “true” books: apocryphal legends were reflected in monuments that enjoyed the highest authority: in chronicles, paleas, in collections used in worship (Solemnists, Menaions). Attitudes towards the apocrypha changed over time: some monuments that were popular in the past were subsequently banned and even destroyed, but, on the other hand, in the “Great Menaion of Cheti”, created in the 16th century. Orthodox churchmen included many texts previously considered apocryphal as a set of recommended reading literature.
Among the first translations carried out under Yaroslav the Wise or over the subsequent decades were also monuments of Byzantine chronography.
Chronicle of George Amartol. Among them, the Chronicle of George Amartol was of greatest importance for the history of Russian chronicles and chronography. The author, a Byzantine monk, outlined in his work the entire history of the world from Adam to the events of the mid-9th century. In addition to the events of biblical history, the Chronicle told about the kings of the East (Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius), Alexander the Great, Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Costanius Chlorus, and then about the Byzantine emperors, from Constantine the Great to Michael III. While still on Greek soil, the Chronicle was supplemented by an extract from the “Chronicle of Simeon Logothetes,” and the presentation in it was completed before the death of Emperor Roman Lecapinus (he was overthrown from the throne in 944 and died in 948). Despite its significant volume and breadth of historical range, Amartol's work presented world history from a unique perspective, primarily as church history. The author often introduces lengthy theological reasoning into his presentation, scrupulously sets out the debates at ecumenical councils, himself argues with heretics, denounces iconoclasm, and quite often replaces the description of events with reasoning about them. Relatively detailed presentation political history We find Byzantium only in the last part of the Chronicle, which sets out the events of the 9th - first half of the 10th centuries. The “Chronicle of Amartol” was used in the compilation of a brief chronographic code - the “Chronograph according to the Great Exposition”, which in turn was used in the compilation of the “Initial Code”, one of the oldest monuments of Russian chronicles (see below, p. 39). Then the Chronicle was again turned to when compiling the Tale of Bygone Years; it became part of the extensive ancient Russian chronographic codes - “Greek Chronicler”, “Russian Chronograph”, etc.
Chronicle of John Malala. The Byzantine Chronicle, compiled in the 6th century, had a different character. by the Greek Syrian John Malala. Its author, according to the researcher of the monument, “set out to provide moralizing, in the spirit of Christian piety, edifying, and at the same time entertaining reading for a wide audience of readers and listeners.” The “Chronicle of Malala” retells in detail ancient myths (about the birth of Zeus, about the struggle of the gods with the Titans, myths about Dionysus, Orpheus, Daedalus and Icarus, Theseus and Ariadne, Oedipus); The fifth book of the Chronicle contains a story about the Trojan War. Malala sets out in detail the history of Rome (especially the ancient one - from Romulus and Remus to Julius Caesar), and a significant place is devoted to the political history of Byzantium. In a word, the “Chronicle of Malala” successfully complemented Amartol’s presentation, in particular, it was through this “Chronicle” that Kievan Rus could get acquainted with the myths of ancient Greece. They didn't reach us separate lists Slavic translation of the “Chronicles of Malala”, we know it only as part of the extracts included in Russian chronographic compilations (“Archive” and “Vilna” chronographs, both editions of the “Hellenic Chronicler”, etc.).
History of the Jewish War by Josephus. Perhaps already in the middle of the 11th century. Josephus Flavius’s “History of the Jewish War” was translated in Rus' - an exceptionally authoritative monument in the Christian literature of the Middle Ages. The History was written between 75–79. n. e. Joseph ben Mattafie, a contemporary and direct participant in the anti-Roman uprising in Judea, who later went over to the side of the Romans. The book of Joseph is a valuable historical source, although extremely biased, for the author very unequivocally condemns his fellow tribesmen, but glorifies the military art and political wisdom of Vespasian and Titus Flavius. At the same time, “History” is a brilliant literary monument. Josephus Flavius skillfully uses plot narration techniques; his presentation is replete with descriptions, dialogues, and psychological characteristics; the “speeches” of the characters in “History” are constructed according to the laws of ancient declamations; even when talking about events, the author remains a sophisticated stylist: he strives for a symmetrical construction of phrases, willingly resorts to rhetorical oppositions, skillfully constructed enumerations, etc. Sometimes it seems that for Josephus the form of presentation is no less important than the subject itself about which he writes.
The Old Russian translator understood and appreciated the literary merits of the “History”: he was not only able to preserve the refined style of the monument in translation, but in a number of cases he entered into competition with the author, either disseminating descriptions using traditional stylistic formulas, or translating the indirect speech of the original into direct speech, or introducing comparisons or clarifications that make the narrative more lively and imaginative. The translation of “History” is convincing evidence of the high culture of words among the scribes of Kievan Rus.
Alexandria. No later than the 12th century. An extensive narrative about the life and exploits of Alexander the Great was also translated from Greek - the so-called pseudo-Callisthenes “Alexandria”. It is based on a Hellenistic novel, apparently created in Alexandria in the 2nd–1st centuries. BC e., but later subjected to additions and revisions. Over time, the initial biographical narrative became more and more fictionalized, overgrown with legendary and fairy-tale motifs, gradually turning into an adventure novel typical of the Hellenistic era. One of these later versions of “Alexandria” was translated into Rus'.
The actual history of the actions of the famous commander is barely traceable here, buried under the layers of later traditions and legends. Alexander turns out to be no longer the son of the Macedonian king, but illegitimate son Olympiad and the Egyptian king-sorcerer Nektonav. The birth of a hero is accompanied by miraculous signs. Contrary to history, Alexander conquers Rome and Athens, boldly appears to Darius, posing as a Macedonian ambassador, negotiates with the queen of the Amazons, etc. The third book of Alexandria is especially replete with fairy-tale motifs, where Alexander’s (of course, fictitious) letters to mothers; the hero informs Olympias about the miracles he saw: people of gigantic stature, disappearing trees, fish that can be boiled in cold water, six-legged and three-eyed monsters, etc. Nevertheless, the ancient Russian scribes apparently perceived “Alexandria” as a historical narrative about as evidenced by the inclusion of its full text in the chronographic codes. Regardless of how the novel about Alexander was received in Rus', the very fact that ancient Russian readers became acquainted with this most popular plot of the Middle Ages was of great importance: ancient Russian literature was thereby introduced into the sphere of pan-European cultural interests, enriching their knowledge of the history of the ancient world.
The Tale of Akira the Wise. If "Alexandria" genetically went back to the historical narrative and told about a historical character, then "The Tale of Akira the Wise", also translated in Kievan Rus in the 11th - early 12th centuries, is in origin a purely fictional monument - an ancient Assyrian legend of the 7th century. BC e. Researchers have not come to a single conclusion about the ways of penetration of “The Tale of Akira” into Rus': there are assumptions that it was translated from the Syriac or Armenian original. In Rus' the Tale lived a long life. Its oldest edition (apparently a translation very close to the original) was preserved in four copies of the 15th–17th centuries. In the 16th or early 17th centuries. The story has been radically revised. Its new editions (Brief and Distributed, which goes back to it), have largely lost their original oriental flavor, but acquired Russian features folk tale, were extremely popular in the 17th century, and among the Old Believers the story continued to exist until our time.
The oldest edition of the Russian translation of the Tale told how Akir, the wise adviser to King Sinagrippa, was slandered by his adopted son Anadan and sentenced to death. But Akira’s devoted friend Nabuginail saved and managed to reliably hide the convict. Some time later egyptian pharaoh demanded that King Sinagrippa send him a sage who could solve the riddles proposed by the pharaoh and build a palace “between heaven and earth.” For this, the pharaoh will pay Synagrippa “three years’ tribute.” If the envoy Synagrippa fails to complete the task, tribute will be exacted in favor of Egypt. All those close to Sinagrippa, including Anadan, who has now become Akir’s successor as the first nobleman, admit that they are unable to fulfill the pharaoh’s demand. Then Nabuginail informs the despairing Synagrippus that Akir is alive. The happy king forgives the disgraced sage and sends him under the guise of a simple groom to the pharaoh. Akir solves the riddles and then cunningly avoids completing the final task - building a palace. To do this, Akir teaches the eagles to lift a basket into the air; the boy sitting in it shouts to be given “stone and lime”: he is ready to begin building the palace. But no one can deliver the necessary goods to the skies, and the pharaoh is forced to admit defeat. Akir returns home with a “three-year tribute”, again becomes close to Synagrippa, and the exposed Anadan dies a terrible death.
The wisdom (or cunning) of the hero freeing himself from the need to complete an impossible task is a traditional fairy tale motif. And it is characteristic that with all the alterations of the Tale on Russian soil, it was the story about how Akir guesses the riddles of the pharaoh and, with wise counter-demands, forces him to abandon his claims, enjoyed constant popularity, it was constantly revised and supplemented with new details.
The Tale of Barlaam and Joasaph. If “The Tale of Akira the Wise” resembles a fairy tale in many of its elements, then another translated story - about Varlaam and Joasaph - is closely related to the hagiographic genre, although in fact its plot is based on the legendary biography of Buddha, which came to Rus' through Byzantine media.
The Tale tells how Prince Joasaph, the son of the Indian pagan king Abner, under the influence of the hermit Varlaam, becomes a Christian ascetic.
However, the plot, potentially replete with “conflict situations,” turns out to be extremely smoothed out in the Tale: the author seems to be in a hurry to eliminate the obstacles that arise or simply “forget” about them. So, for example, Abner imprisons young Joasaph in a secluded palace precisely so that the boy cannot hear about the ideas of Christianity and does not learn about the existence of old age, illness, and death in the world. And yet, Joasaph still leaves the palace and immediately meets a sick old man, and the Christian hermit Barlaam enters his chambers without any special obstacles. The pagan sage Nahor, according to Abner's plan, in a dispute with the imaginary Barlaam, should debunk the ideas of Christianity, but suddenly, completely unexpectedly, he himself begins to denounce paganism. A beautiful princess is brought to Joasaph; she must persuade the young ascetic to sensual pleasures, but Joasaph easily resists the beauty’s charms and easily convinces her to become a chaste Christian. There are a lot of dialogues in the Tale, but they are all devoid of individuality and naturalness: Barlaam, Joasaph, and the pagan sages speak in the same pompous and “scholarly” manner. Before us is like a lengthy philosophical debate, the participants of which are as conventional as the participants in a conversation in the genre of “philosophical dialogue”. Nevertheless, The Tale of Varlaam was widely distributed; Particularly popular were the parables-apologists included in its composition, illustrating the ideals of Christian piety and asceticism: some of the parables were included in collections of both mixed and permanent staff(for example, in “Izmaragd”), and many dozens of their lists are known.
Devgenie's act. It is believed that even in Kievan Rus a translation of the Byzantine epic poem about Digenis Akrites (warriors who guarded the borders were called Akrites Byzantine Empire). The time of translation is indicated, according to researchers, by language data - lexical parallels of the story (in the Russian version it was called “Devgenie’s Deed”) and literary monuments of Kievan Rus, as well as the mention of Devgeny Akrit in “The Life of Alexander Nevsky”. But the comparison with Akrit appears only in the third (according to the classification of Yu. K. Begunov) edition of the monument, probably created in the middle of the 15th century, and cannot serve as an argument in favor of the existence of the translation in Kievan Rus. Significant plot differences between the “Acts of Deugene” and the Greek versions of the epic about Digenis Akritus known to us leave open the question of whether these differences were the result of a radical reworking of the original during translation, whether they arose in the process of later alterations of the text on Russian soil, or whether the Russian text corresponds to a text that has not survived before us the Greek version.
Devgenius (as the Greek name Digenis was rendered in Russian translation) is a typical epic hero. He has extraordinary strength (even as a boy, Devgeniy strangled a bear with his bare hands, and, having matured, exterminates thousands of enemy soldiers in battles), he is handsome, and chivalrously generous. A significant place in the Russian version of the monument is occupied by the story of Devgeny’s marriage to the daughter of the proud and stern Stratigus. This episode has all the characteristic features of an “epic matchmaking”: Devgeny sings a love song under the girl’s windows; She, admiring the beauty and daring of the young man, agrees to run away with him. Devgeny takes his beloved away in broad daylight, defeats her father and brothers in battle, then makes peace with them; the parents of the newlyweds arrange a multi-day lavish wedding.
Devgeny is akin to the heroes of translated chivalric novels that spread in Rus' in the 17th century. (such as Bova Korolevich, Eruslan, Vasily Zlatovlasy), and, apparently, this closeness to the literary taste of the era contributed to the revival of the manuscript tradition of the “Acts”: all three lists that have come down to us date back to the 17th–18th centuries.
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So, Kievan Rus in a short period of time acquired a rich and varied literature. A whole system of genres was transferred to new soil: chronicles, historical stories, lives, patericons, “words”, teachings. The significance of this phenomenon is being increasingly studied and comprehended in our science. It has been established that the system of genres of Byzantine or ancient Bulgarian literature was not completely transferred to Rus': ancient Russian scribes preferred some genres and rejected others. At the same time, genres arose in Rus' that had no analogues in “model literature”: the Russian chronicle is not similar to the Byzantine chronicle, and the chronicles themselves are used as material for independent and original chronographic compilations; the “Tale of Igor’s Host” and “Teaching” by Vladimir Monomakh, “The Prayer of Daniil the Imprisoner” and “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan” are completely original. Translated works not only enriched Russian scribes with historical or natural science information, but also introduced them to the plots ancient myths and epic legends, they represented at the same time different types of plots, styles, manners of narration, being a kind of literary school for ancient Russian scribes who were able to get acquainted with the ponderous, verbose Amartol and the laconic Malala, stingy with details, with the brilliant stylist Flavius and the inspired rhetorician John Chrysostom, with the heroic world of the epic of Devgenia and the exotic fantasy of Alexandria. It was rich material for reading and writing experience, an excellent school of literary language; it helped Old Russian scribes to visualize possible variants of styles, to refine their hearing and speech on the colossal lexical wealth of Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic literature.
But it would be a mistake to believe that translated literature was the only and main school of ancient Russian scribes. In addition to translated literature, they used the rich traditions of oral folk art, and above all, the traditions of the Slavic epic. This is not a guess or a reconstruction of modern researchers: as we will see later, folk epic legends are recorded in early chronicles and represent a completely exceptional artistic phenomenon that has no analogues in the monuments of translated literature known to us. Slavic epic legends are distinguished by a special manner of constructing the plot, a unique interpretation of the character of the heroes, and a style that differs from the style of monumental historicism, which was formed mainly under the influence of monuments of translated literature.
Translated literature of Kievan Rus (church history, “natural science”, patristic; patericon, hagiography)
In Kyiv, intensive translation activity reached its peak in the 30-40s of the 11th century.
The selection of works to be translated was determined by the needs of the upper echelons of feudal society. The tasks of strengthening Christian morality and the new religion were in the foreground, and this determined the predominance of church translated literature over secular literature. However, Russian translators did not ignore the secular story, which, by the nature of its ideological and artistic content, corresponded to the spirit of the times. Old Russian scribes translated a number of military, historical and didactic stories from Greek, which helped strengthen the secular ideal that the original literature promoted. The translators did not set out to accurately convey the original, but sought to bring it as close as possible to the demands of the time and environment. Therefore, the translated works were subject to editorial editing.
Translated church-historical liters: Byzantine chronicles, “natural science” encyclopedias, writings of the church fathers.
The Chronicles set out world history, mainly Jewish and Byzantine, from the creation of the world and interpreted it from a church-religious point of view. The most significant are the Chronicles of John Malala of Antioch (VI century) and George Amartol (sinner) (IX century).
The most popular in Rus' was the Chronicle of George Amartol, until 864 and supplemented by material from the Chronicle of Simeon Logothet, until 948 - the death of the Byzantine. Emperor Roman I. The Chronicle of Amartol contained a large number of facts relating to Byzantine church life and monastic history; she provided information about heretical movements, about miraculous “signs” and included many instructive anecdotal stories. Factual data from the chronicles was used in Russian narrative literature.
Historical lit. The medieval “natural science” encyclopedias, “Six Days” and “Physiologists” were important. "The Six Days" is an account of the six days of creation based on medieval knowledge. These are the views of an old scribe on nature, especially on the flora and fauna, abundantly endowed with elements of poetic fantasy.
"Physiologists". (II-III centuries AD) information mainly about animals, real and imaginary, and about fantastic stones and trees.
The eagle lives a hundred years, and the end of its beak grows, and its eyes go blind, so that it does not see and cannot catch. Then he flies up to a height, falls onto a stone, and the end of his beak breaks off. Then he swims in the golden lake, sits directly opposite the sun, and when he warms up, his scales fall off and he becomes a chick again.
About the phoenix: the phoenix is the most beautiful of all birds; wears a crown on his head and shoes on his feet, like a king; He lies for 500 years on the cedars of Lebanon without food, feeds on the same holy spirit and fills his wings with fragrance for 500 years. And the bell rings, and a bird comes, and enters the church. The priest with the bird sits on the steps of the altar, and the bird turns to ashes. In the morning it becomes a young chick, and two days later the chick becomes the “perfect” bird that it was before. There are about fifty such stories
Among the monuments translated from Greek is “Christian Topography” by Cosmas Indikoplov of the 15th century. Contains many legendary and apocryphal elements in explanations of the structure of the Universe. ". "Kozma Indicoplov, i.e., a sailor to India, who lived in the 6th century AD in Alexandria, being a merchant, made several trips to the East. In his opinion, the earth is not a ball, but an elevated plane, oblong, quadrangular , covered with the firmament and similar in shape to Noah's Ark and the Tabernacle of the Covenant. Standing on a solid foundation, it is surrounded on all sides by the ocean, along the edges of which rises a wall, attached to the sky with its four corners. The sun, moon and stars set behind a high mountain standing in the north. The movements of the luminaries are controlled by angels, to whom this task was entrusted on the fourth day of the creation of the world. The Russian manuscripts of “Topography” by Kozma Indikoplov, just like the Greek ones, are equipped with a large number of illustrations.
Patristic literature - works of the church fathers John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian. Ephraim Sirin (author of the collection "Parenesis") had an extraordinary poetic talent. The poetry of Ephraim the Syrian is very gloomy and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of asceticism.
Brief instructive sayings, aphorisms selected from the “holy scriptures,” patristic literature and even ancient secular writers made up “The Bee,” a special collection, 12th century. The material in “The Bee” is divided into words: “about virtue and about malice”, “about wisdom”, “about purity and chastity”, “about courage and about strength”, etc. The sayings are given in order of their authority - from the Gospel , Apostle, from the Bible (Solomon, Sirach, etc.), from the church fathers, from the works of ancient writers and philosophers (Plutarch, Diogenes, Socrates, Pythagoras, Menander, Aristotle, Epicurus, etc.) - Placed in the "Bee" sometimes moralistic statements of a fable nature,
Old Russian authors made abundant use of the material from “The Bee” in their writings, citing aphorisms and sayings contained in it. In a number of cases, later “The Bee” was replenished with sayings and proverbs borrowed from original works of ancient Russian literature (for example, from “The Prayer of Daniil the Sharper”), as well as oral proverbs, and individual sayings from it themselves turned into proverbs.
2. Translated literature of the 11th–12th centuries
As the chronicle reports, immediately after Russia adopted Christianity, Vladimir Svyatoslavich “began to take children from deliberate children [of noble people], and began to give them book learning” (PVL, p. 81). For education, books brought from Bulgaria were needed. Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) and Old Russian languages are so close that Rus' was able to use a ready-made Old Church Slavonic alphabet, and Bulgarian books, being formally foreign languages, essentially did not require translation. This greatly facilitated the acquaintance of Rus' with the monuments of Byzantine literature, which for the most part penetrated into Rus' in Bulgarian translation.
Later, during the time of Yaroslav the Wise, in Rus' they began to translate directly from Greek. The chronicle reports that Yaroslav collected “many scribes and translations from Greek to Slovenian writing. And I copied many books” (PVL, p. 102). The intensity of translation activity is confirmed both by direct data (lists of translated monuments that have come down to us or references to them in original works) and indirect data: the influx of translated literature at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century. was not only a consequence of the established cultural ties between Rus' and Bulgaria or Byzantium, but was primarily caused by an urgent need, a kind of state necessity: Rus', which had adopted Christianity, needed literature for worship, to become familiar with the philosophical and ethical doctrines of the new religion, the ritual and legal customs of the church and monastic life.
For the activities of the Christian church in Rus', liturgical books were needed first of all. The obligatory set of books that were necessary for worship in each individual church included the Gospel aprakos, the Apostle aprakos, the Missal, the Breviary, the Psalter, the Lenten Triodion, the Colored Triodion and the General Menaion. Considering that in the chronicles in the narration of the events of the 9th–11th centuries. 88 cities are mentioned (data from B.V. Sapunov), each of which had from several units to several dozen churches, then the number of books necessary for their functioning will be in the many hundreds. Only a few copies of manuscripts from the 11th–12th centuries have reached us, but they confirm our ideas about the above-mentioned repertoire of liturgical books.
If the transfer of liturgical books to Russian soil was dictated by the needs of church services, and their repertoire was regulated by the canon of liturgical practice, then in relation to other genres of Byzantine literature one can assume a certain selectivity.
But it is here that we encounter an interesting phenomenon, which D. S. Likhachev characterized as the phenomenon of “transplantation”: Byzantine literature in its individual genres not only influenced Slavic literature, and through it on Old Russian literature, but was - of course, in some way its part was simply transferred to Rus'.
Patristics. First of all, this applies to Byzantine patristic literature. In Rus', the works of the “church fathers”, theologians and preachers were known and enjoyed high authority: John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius of Alexandria, etc.
Homiletic writers (authors of teachings and sermons) were highly valued throughout the Russian Middle Ages. Their creations not only helped to shape the moral ideals of the Christian world, but at the same time made them think about the properties of human character, drew attention to various features of the human psyche, and influenced other literary genres with their experience of “human studies.”
Of the homiletic writers, John Chrysostom (d. 407) enjoyed the greatest authority. In his work, “the assimilation of the traditions of ancient culture by the Christian Church reached complete and classical completion. He developed a style of preaching prose that absorbed the countless richness of expressive techniques of rhetoric and brought the virtuosity of finishing to stunning expressiveness.” The teachings of John Chrysostom have been included in collections since the 11th century. From the 12th century The list “Zlatostruya” has been preserved, containing mainly the “words” of Chrysostom; several “words” were included in the famous Assumption collection at the turn of the 12th–13th centuries.
In the lists of the 11th–12th centuries. translations of other Byzantine homilets have also been preserved - Gregory the Theologian, Cyril of Jerusalem, “The Ladder” of John Climacus, Pandects of Antiochus and Pandects of Nikon the Montenegrin. The sayings and aphorisms of the “Church Fathers” (along with aphorisms extracted from the works of ancient authors) made up a popular collection in Ancient Rus' - “The Bee” (the oldest list of the turn of the 13th–14th centuries). In the "Izbornik 1076" A significant place is occupied by Gennady’s “Stoslovets” - a kind of “moral code” of a Christian.
Works of the homiletical genre did not hide their edifying, didactic function. Addressing readers and listeners directly, homiletic writers sought to convince them with the logic of their reasoning, extolled virtues and condemned vices, promised eternal bliss to the righteous, and threatened the careless and sinners with divine punishment.
Lives of the Saints. Monuments of the hagiographic genre - the lives of saints - also educated and instructed, but the main means of persuasion was not so much the word - sometimes indignant and denouncing, sometimes insinuatingly instructive - as a living image. An action-packed narrative about the life of a righteous man, willingly using the plots and plot devices of the Hellenistic adventure novel, could not fail to interest the medieval reader. The hagiographer addressed not so much his mind as his feelings and ability for a vivid imagination. Therefore, the most fantastic episodes - the intervention of angels or demons, miracles performed by saints - were sometimes described with detailed details that helped the reader to see and imagine what was happening. Sometimes the Lives reported precise geographical or topographical features, and named the names of real historical figures - all this also created the illusion of authenticity and was intended to convince the reader of the veracity of the story and thereby give the Lives the authority of a “historical” narrative.
The lives can be roughly divided into two plot types - martyrium lives, i.e. stories about the torment of fighters for the faith in pagan times, and lives that told about saints who voluntarily took on the feat of seclusion or foolishness, distinguished by extraordinary piety and love of poverty etc.
An example of the first type of life is the “Life of St. Irene.” It tells how Irina’s father, the pagan king Licinius, at the instigation of a demon, decides to destroy his Christian daughter; According to his sentence, she should be crushed by the chariot, but a miracle happens: the horse, breaking the traces, pounces on the king, bites off his hand and returns to its original place. Irina is subjected to various sophisticated tortures by King Zedeki, but each time, thanks to divine intercession, she remains alive and unharmed. The princess is thrown into a ditch infested with poisonous snakes, but the “reptiles” immediately “press” against the walls of the ditch and die. They try to saw the saint alive, but the saw breaks and the executioners die. She is tied to a mill wheel, but water “by the command of God flows around,” etc.
Another type of life includes, for example, the legend of Alexei the Man of God. Alexey, a pious and virtuous young man, voluntarily renounces wealth, honor, and women's love. He leaves the house of his father - a rich Roman nobleman, his beautiful wife, as soon as he has married her, distributes the money taken from the house to the poor and for seventeen years lives on alms in the vestibule of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Edessa. When the fame of his holiness spread everywhere, Alexei left Edessa and, after wanderings, found himself again in Rome. Unrecognized by anyone, he settles in his father’s house, feeds at the same table with the beggars, whom the pious nobleman gives alms every day, and patiently endures the bullying and beatings of his father’s servants. Another seventeen years pass. Alexei dies, and only then do the parents and widow recognize their missing son and husband.
Patericon. Patericons - collections of short stories about monks - were widely known in Kievan Rus. The themes of the patericon legends are quite traditional. Most often these are stories about monks who became famous for their asceticism or humility. Thus, one legend tells how elders come to a hermit to talk with him, thirsting for instruction from him. But the recluse is silent, and when asked about the reason for his silence, he replies that day and night he sees before him the image of the crucified Christ. “This is our best instruction!” - the elders exclaim.
The hero of another story is a stylite. He is so alien to pride that he even lays out alms for the poor on the steps of his shelter, and does not give them from hand to hand, claiming that it is not he, but the Mother of God who gives gifts to the suffering.
The patericon tells of a young nun who gouges out her eyes after learning that their beauty has aroused the lust of a young man.
The omnipotence of prayer and the ability of ascetics to perform miracles are the subjects of another group of patericon short stories. The righteous elder is accused of adultery, but through his prayer the twelve-day-old baby, when asked “who is his father,” points his finger at his real father. Through the prayer of a pious shipbuilder, rain pours over the deck on a hot day, delighting travelers suffering from the heat and thirst. A lion, having met a monk on a narrow mountain path, stands on its hind legs to give him way, etc.
If the righteous are accompanied by divine help, then sinners in the patericon legends face a terrible and, what is especially characteristic, not posthumous, but immediate punishment: the desecrator of graves has his eyes gouged out by a living dead; the ship does not move from its place until a female child killer steps into the boat from its side, and the boat with the sinner is immediately swallowed up by the abyss; the servant, who plans to kill and rob his mistress, cannot leave his place and stabs himself to death.
Thus, in the patericon a certain fantastic world is depicted, where the forces of good and evil are constantly fighting for the souls of people, where the righteous are not just pious, but exaltedly fanatical, where miracles are performed in the most everyday situations, where even wild animals confirm the omnipotence of faith with their behavior. The subjects of translated patericons influenced the work of Russian scribes: in Russian patericons and lives we will find direct analogies to episodes from Byzantine patericons.
Apocrypha. Apocrypha was also a favorite genre of ancient Russian readers, the oldest translations of which also date back to the Kievan era. Apocrypha (from the Greek ?????????? - “secret, hidden”) were works that tell about biblical characters or saints, but were not included in the circle of monuments revered as sacred scripture or officially recognized by the church. There were apocryphal gospels (for example, “The Gospel of Thomas”, “The Gospel of Nicodemus”), lives (“The Life of Andrew the Fool", “The Life of Basil the New”), legends, prophecies, etc. The apocrypha often contained a more detailed account of events or characters mentioned in canonical biblical books. There were apocryphal stories about Adam and Eve (for example, about Adam’s second wife, Lilith, about the birds that taught Adam how to bury Abel), about the childhood of Moses (in particular, about the test of the wisdom of the boy Moses by Pharaoh), about the earthly life of Jesus Christ.
The apocryphal “Walking of the Mother of God through the Torment” describes the suffering of sinners in hell, the “Tale of Agapius” tells of paradise - a wonderful garden, where “a bed and a meal decorated with precious stones” are prepared for the righteous, birds sing around “with different voices”, and the plumage they have gold, and scarlet, and scarlet, and blue, and green...
Apocrypha often reflected heretical ideas about the present and future world and rose to complex philosophical problems. The apocrypha reflected the teaching according to which God is opposed by an equally powerful antipode - Satan, the source of evil and the culprit of human disasters; Thus, according to one apocryphal legend, the human body was created by Satan, and God only “put” the soul into it.
The attitude of the Orthodox Church towards apocryphal literature was complex. The most ancient indices (lists) of “true and false books,” in addition to “true” books, distinguished between “hidden” and “hidden” books, which were recommended to be read only by knowledgeable people, and “false” books, which were certainly forbidden to be read, since they contained heretical views . However, in practice, it was almost impossible to separate apocryphal stories from stories found in “true” books: apocryphal legends were reflected in monuments that enjoyed the highest authority: in chronicles, paleas, in collections used in worship (Solemnists, Menaions). Attitudes towards the apocrypha changed over time: some monuments that were popular in the past were subsequently banned and even destroyed, but, on the other hand, in the “Great Menaion of Cheti”, created in the 16th century. Orthodox churchmen included many texts previously considered apocryphal as a set of recommended reading literature.
Among the first translations carried out under Yaroslav the Wise or over the subsequent decades were also monuments of Byzantine chronography.
Chronicle of George Amartol. Among them, the Chronicle of George Amartol was of greatest importance for the history of Russian chronicles and chronography. The author, a Byzantine monk, outlined in his work the entire history of the world from Adam to the events of the mid-9th century. In addition to the events of biblical history, the Chronicle told about the kings of the East (Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius), Alexander the Great, Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Costanius Chlorus, and then about the Byzantine emperors, from Constantine the Great to Michael III. While still on Greek soil, the Chronicle was supplemented by an extract from the “Chronicle of Simeon Logothetes,” and the presentation in it was completed before the death of Emperor Roman Lecapinus (he was overthrown from the throne in 944 and died in 948). Despite its significant volume and breadth of historical range, Amartol's work presented world history from a unique perspective, primarily as church history. The author often introduces lengthy theological reasoning into his presentation, scrupulously sets out the debates at ecumenical councils, himself argues with heretics, denounces iconoclasm, and quite often replaces the description of events with reasoning about them. We find a relatively detailed account of the political history of Byzantium only in the last part of the Chronicle, which describes the events of the 9th - first half of the 10th centuries. The “Chronicle of Amartol” was used in the compilation of a brief chronographic code - the “Chronograph according to the Great Exposition”, which in turn was used in the compilation of the “Initial Code”, one of the oldest monuments of Russian chronicles (see below, p. 39). Then the Chronicle was again turned to when compiling the Tale of Bygone Years; it became part of the extensive ancient Russian chronographic codes - “Greek Chronicler”, “Russian Chronograph”, etc.
Chronicle of John Malala. The Byzantine Chronicle, compiled in the 6th century, had a different character. by the Greek Syrian John Malala. Its author, according to the researcher of the monument, “set out to provide moralizing, in the spirit of Christian piety, edifying, and at the same time entertaining reading for a wide audience of readers and listeners.” The “Chronicle of Malala” retells in detail ancient myths (about the birth of Zeus, about the struggle of the gods with the Titans, myths about Dionysus, Orpheus, Daedalus and Icarus, Theseus and Ariadne, Oedipus); The fifth book of the Chronicle contains a story about the Trojan War. Malala sets out in detail the history of Rome (especially the ancient one - from Romulus and Remus to Julius Caesar), and a significant place is devoted to the political history of Byzantium. In a word, the “Chronicle of Malala” successfully complemented Amartol’s presentation, in particular, it was through this “Chronicle” that Kievan Rus could get acquainted with the myths of ancient Greece. Separate lists of the Slavic translation of the “Chronicle of Malala” have not reached us; we know it only as part of the extracts included in Russian chronographic compilations (“Archive” and “Vilna” chronographs, both editions of the “Hellenic Chronicler”, etc.).
History of the Jewish War by Josephus. Perhaps already in the middle of the 11th century. Josephus Flavius’s “History of the Jewish War” was translated in Rus' - an exceptionally authoritative monument in the Christian literature of the Middle Ages. The History was written between 75–79. n. e. Joseph ben Mattafie, a contemporary and direct participant in the anti-Roman uprising in Judea, who later went over to the side of the Romans. The book of Joseph is a valuable historical source, although extremely biased, for the author very unequivocally condemns his fellow tribesmen, but glorifies the military art and political wisdom of Vespasian and Titus Flavius. At the same time, “History” is a brilliant literary monument. Josephus Flavius skillfully uses plot narration techniques; his presentation is replete with descriptions, dialogues, and psychological characteristics; the “speeches” of the characters in “History” are constructed according to the laws of ancient declamations; even when talking about events, the author remains a sophisticated stylist: he strives for a symmetrical construction of phrases, willingly resorts to rhetorical oppositions, skillfully constructed enumerations, etc. Sometimes it seems that for Josephus the form of presentation is no less important than the subject itself about which he writes.
The Old Russian translator understood and appreciated the literary merits of the “History”: he was not only able to preserve the refined style of the monument in translation, but in a number of cases he entered into competition with the author, either disseminating descriptions using traditional stylistic formulas, or translating the indirect speech of the original into direct speech, or introducing comparisons or clarifications that make the narrative more lively and imaginative. The translation of “History” is convincing evidence of the high culture of words among the scribes of Kievan Rus.
Alexandria. No later than the 12th century. An extensive narrative about the life and exploits of Alexander the Great was also translated from Greek - the so-called pseudo-Callisthenes “Alexandria”. It is based on a Hellenistic novel, apparently created in Alexandria in the 2nd–1st centuries. BC e., but later subjected to additions and revisions. Over time, the initial biographical narrative became more and more fictionalized, overgrown with legendary and fairy-tale motifs, gradually turning into an adventure novel typical of the Hellenistic era. One of these later versions of “Alexandria” was translated into Rus'.
The actual history of the actions of the famous commander is barely traceable here, buried under the layers of later traditions and legends. Alexander turns out to be no longer the son of the Macedonian king, but the illegitimate son of Olympias and the Egyptian sorcerer king Nektonav. The birth of a hero is accompanied by miraculous signs. Contrary to history, Alexander conquers Rome and Athens, boldly appears to Darius, posing as a Macedonian ambassador, negotiates with the queen of the Amazons, etc. The third book of Alexandria is especially replete with fairy-tale motifs, where Alexander’s (of course, fictitious) letters to mothers; the hero informs Olympias about the miracles he saw: people of gigantic stature, disappearing trees, fish that can be boiled in cold water, six-legged and three-eyed monsters, etc. Nevertheless, the ancient Russian scribes apparently perceived “Alexandria” as a historical narrative about as evidenced by the inclusion of its full text in the chronographic codes. Regardless of how the novel about Alexander was received in Rus', the very fact that ancient Russian readers became acquainted with this most popular plot of the Middle Ages was of great importance: ancient Russian literature was thereby introduced into the sphere of pan-European cultural interests, enriching their knowledge of the history of the ancient world.
The Tale of Akira the Wise. If "Alexandria" genetically went back to the historical narrative and told about a historical character, then "The Tale of Akira the Wise", also translated in Kievan Rus in the 11th - early 12th centuries, is in origin a purely fictional monument - an ancient Assyrian legend of the 7th century. BC e. Researchers have not come to a single conclusion about the ways of penetration of “The Tale of Akira” into Rus': there are assumptions that it was translated from the Syriac or Armenian original. In Rus' the Tale lived a long life. Its oldest edition (apparently a translation very close to the original) was preserved in four copies of the 15th–17th centuries. In the 16th or early 17th centuries. The story has been radically revised. Its new editions (the Brief and the Distributed, which goes back to it), which have largely lost their original oriental flavor, but acquired the features of a Russian folk tale, were extremely popular in the 17th century, and among the Old Believers the story continued to exist until our time.
The oldest edition of the Russian translation of the Tale told how Akir, the wise adviser to King Sinagrippa, was slandered by his adopted son Anadan and sentenced to death. But Akira’s devoted friend Nabuginail saved and managed to reliably hide the convict. Some time later, the Egyptian pharaoh demanded that King Sinagrippa send him a sage who could solve the riddles proposed by the pharaoh and build a palace “between heaven and earth.” For this, the pharaoh will pay Synagrippa “three years’ tribute.” If the envoy Synagrippa fails to complete the task, tribute will be exacted in favor of Egypt. All those close to Sinagrippa, including Anadan, who has now become Akir’s successor as the first nobleman, admit that they are unable to fulfill the pharaoh’s demand. Then Nabuginail informs the despairing Synagrippus that Akir is alive. The happy king forgives the disgraced sage and sends him under the guise of a simple groom to the pharaoh. Akir solves the riddles and then cunningly avoids completing the final task - building a palace. To do this, Akir teaches the eagles to lift a basket into the air; the boy sitting in it shouts to be given “stone and lime”: he is ready to begin building the palace. But no one can deliver the necessary goods to the skies, and the pharaoh is forced to admit defeat. Akir returns home with a “three-year tribute”, again becomes close to Synagrippa, and the exposed Anadan dies a terrible death.
The wisdom (or cunning) of the hero freeing himself from the need to complete an impossible task is a traditional fairy tale motif. And it is characteristic that with all the alterations of the Tale on Russian soil, it was the story about how Akir guesses the riddles of the pharaoh and, with wise counter-demands, forces him to abandon his claims, enjoyed constant popularity, it was constantly revised and supplemented with new details.
The Tale of Barlaam and Joasaph. If “The Tale of Akira the Wise” resembles a fairy tale in many of its elements, then another translated story - about Varlaam and Joasaph - is closely related to the hagiographic genre, although in fact its plot is based on the legendary biography of Buddha, which came to Rus' through Byzantine media.
The Tale tells how Prince Joasaph, the son of the Indian pagan king Abner, under the influence of the hermit Varlaam, becomes a Christian ascetic.
However, the plot, potentially replete with “conflict situations,” turns out to be extremely smoothed out in the Tale: the author seems to be in a hurry to eliminate the obstacles that arise or simply “forget” about them. So, for example, Abner imprisons young Joasaph in a secluded palace precisely so that the boy cannot hear about the ideas of Christianity and does not learn about the existence of old age, illness, and death in the world. And yet, Joasaph still leaves the palace and immediately meets a sick old man, and the Christian hermit Barlaam enters his chambers without any special obstacles. The pagan sage Nahor, according to Abner's plan, in a dispute with the imaginary Barlaam, should debunk the ideas of Christianity, but suddenly, completely unexpectedly, he himself begins to denounce paganism. A beautiful princess is brought to Joasaph; she must persuade the young ascetic to sensual pleasures, but Joasaph easily resists the beauty’s charms and easily convinces her to become a chaste Christian. There are a lot of dialogues in the Tale, but they are all devoid of individuality and naturalness: Barlaam, Joasaph, and the pagan sages speak in the same pompous and “scholarly” manner. Before us is like a lengthy philosophical debate, the participants of which are as conventional as the participants in a conversation in the genre of “philosophical dialogue”. Nevertheless, The Tale of Varlaam was widely distributed; The parables-apologists included in its composition, illustrating the ideals of Christian piety and asceticism, were especially popular: some of the parables were included in collections of both mixed and permanent composition (for example, in “Izmaragd”), and many dozens of their lists are known.
Devgenie's act. It is believed that back in Kievan Rus, a translation of the Byzantine epic poem about Digenis Akrites was carried out (akrits were the name given to the warriors who guarded the borders of the Byzantine Empire). The time of translation is indicated, according to researchers, by language data - lexical parallels of the story (in the Russian version it was called “Devgenie’s Deed”) and literary monuments of Kievan Rus, as well as the mention of Devgeny Akrit in “The Life of Alexander Nevsky”. But the comparison with Akrit appears only in the third (according to the classification of Yu. K. Begunov) edition of the monument, probably created in the middle of the 15th century, and cannot serve as an argument in favor of the existence of the translation in Kievan Rus. Significant plot differences between the “Acts of Deugene” and the Greek versions of the epic about Digenis Akritus known to us leave open the question of whether these differences were the result of a radical reworking of the original during translation, whether they arose in the process of later alterations of the text on Russian soil, or whether the Russian text corresponds to a text that has not survived before us the Greek version.
Devgenius (as the Greek name Digenis was rendered in Russian translation) is a typical epic hero. He has extraordinary strength (even as a boy, Devgeniy strangled a bear with his bare hands, and, having matured, exterminates thousands of enemy soldiers in battles), he is handsome, and chivalrously generous. A significant place in the Russian version of the monument is occupied by the story of Devgeny’s marriage to the daughter of the proud and stern Stratigus. This episode has all the characteristic features of an “epic matchmaking”: Devgeny sings a love song under the girl’s windows; She, admiring the beauty and daring of the young man, agrees to run away with him. Devgeny takes his beloved away in broad daylight, defeats her father and brothers in battle, then makes peace with them; the parents of the newlyweds arrange a multi-day lavish wedding.
Devgeny is akin to the heroes of translated chivalric novels that spread in Rus' in the 17th century. (such as Bova Korolevich, Eruslan, Vasily Zlatovlasy), and, apparently, this closeness to the literary taste of the era contributed to the revival of the manuscript tradition of the “Acts”: all three lists that have come down to us date back to the 17th–18th centuries.
So, Kievan Rus in a short period of time acquired a rich and varied literature. A whole system of genres was transferred to new soil: chronicles, historical stories, lives, patericons, “words”, teachings. The significance of this phenomenon is being increasingly studied and comprehended in our science. It has been established that the system of genres of Byzantine or ancient Bulgarian literature was not completely transferred to Rus': ancient Russian scribes preferred some genres and rejected others. At the same time, genres arose in Rus' that had no analogues in “model literature”: the Russian chronicle is not similar to the Byzantine chronicle, and the chronicles themselves are used as material for independent and original chronographic compilations; the “Tale of Igor’s Host” and “Teaching” by Vladimir Monomakh, “The Prayer of Daniil the Imprisoner” and “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan” are completely original. Translated works not only enriched Russian scribes with historical or natural science information, introduced them to the plots of ancient myths and epic legends, they at the same time represented different types of plots, styles, and manners of narration, being a kind of literary school for ancient Russian scribes who were able to get acquainted with the ponderous, verbose Amartol and the laconic Malala, stingy with details, with the brilliant stylist Flavius and with the inspired rhetorician John Chrysostom, with the heroic world of the epic of Devgenius and the exotic fantasy of Alexandria. It was rich material for reading and writing experience, an excellent school of literary language; it helped Old Russian scribes to visualize possible variants of styles, to refine their hearing and speech on the colossal lexical wealth of Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic literature.
But it would be a mistake to believe that translated literature was the only and main school of ancient Russian scribes. In addition to translated literature, they used the rich traditions of oral folk art, and above all, the traditions of the Slavic epic. This is not a guess or a reconstruction of modern researchers: as we will see later, folk epic legends are recorded in early chronicles and represent a completely exceptional artistic phenomenon that has no analogues in the monuments of translated literature known to us. Slavic epic legends are distinguished by a special manner of constructing the plot, a unique interpretation of the character of the heroes, and a style that differs from the style of monumental historicism, which was formed mainly under the influence of monuments of translated literature.
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