How Likhachev called the style of ancient Russian literature. Likhachev D

D. S. Likhachev "Poetics" ancient Russian literature"

BOUNDARIES OF ANCIENT RUSSIAN LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

The artistic specificity of ancient Russian literature is increasingly attracting the attention of literary medievalists. This is understandable: without fully identifying all the artistic features of Russian literature of the 11th-17th centuries. it is impossible to construct a history of Russian literature and an aesthetic assessment of the monuments of Russian literature of the first seven centuries of its existence.

Separate observations on the artistic specifics of ancient Russian literature were already available in the works of F. I. Buslaev, I. S. Nekrasov, N. S. Tikhonravov, V. O. Klyuchevsky and others. These individual observations are closely related to their general ideas about ancient Russian literature and with those historical and literary schools to which they belonged.

Only in recent years have relatively small works appeared outlining general views their authors on artistic specificity and on artistic methods ancient Russian literature. I mean articles by A. S. Orlov, V. P. Adrianova-Peretz, I. P. Eremin, G. Raab and others.

(1) Orlov A. S. and Adrianova-Peretz V. P. Literary studies of the Russian Middle Ages // Izv. OLYA, 1945, No. 6; Orlov A. S. Thoughts on the state of work on the literature of the Russian Middle Ages // Izv. OLYA, 1947, No. 2; Adrianova-Peretz V.P.: 1) The main tasks of studying ancient Russian literature in studies of 1917-1947 // TODRL. T.VI. 1948; 2) Essays on the poetic style of Ancient Rus'. M.; L., 1947; 3) Old Russian literature and folklore (to the formulation of the problem) If TODRL. T. VII. 1949; 4) Historical literature of the 11th - early 15th centuries. and folk poetry // TODRL. T. VIII. 1951; 5) Historical stories of the 17th century and oral folk art// TODRL. poetic stories of the 17th century and oral folk art // TODRL.T. IX. 1953; 6) On the foundations of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1958, No. 4; 7) On the issue of depicting the “inner man” in Russian literature of the 11th-14th centuries. // Issues in the study of Russian literature of the 11th-20th centuries. M.; L., 1958; 8) On realistic trends in ancient Russian literature (XI-XV centuries) // TODRL. T. XVI. I960; Eremin I.P.: 1) The Kiev Chronicle as a monument of literature // TODRL. T. VII (see also: Eremin I. Literature of Ancient Rus'. M.; Leningrad, 1966. P. 98-131); 2) The latest research into the artistic form of ancient Russian literary works // TODL. T. XII. 1956; 3) On the artistic specificity of ancient Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1958, No. 1; 4) On the debate about the realism of ancient Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1959, No. 4; Raab H.: 1) Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Realismus in der russischen Literatur // Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Ernst Moritz Arnd-Universitat Greifswald. Gesellschaftsund sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe. 1958, Bd. 4; 2) On the question of the precursors of realism in Russian literature // Rus. literature, 1960, No. 3. Wed. also: Likhachev D.S.: 1) At the precursors of realism in Russian literature // Questions of literature, 1957, No. 1; 2) On the issue of origin literary trends in Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1958, No. 2; 3) Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'. M.; L., 1958. Ed. 2nd. M., 1970; 4) Literary etiquette Ancient Rus' (to the problem of studying) // TODRL. T. XVII. 1961; 5) About one feature of realism // Questions of literature. 1960, no. 3.

Is it possible to talk about ancient Russian literature as a certain unity from the point of view historical poetics? Is there continuity in the development of Russian literature from ancient to new and what is the essence of the differences between ancient Russian literature and new? These questions should be answered throughout this book, but they can be posed in a preliminary form at the beginning of the book.

GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES

It is customary to talk about the Europeanization of Russian literature in the 18th century. In what sense can ancient Russian literature be considered “non-European”? Usually, two supposedly inherent properties are meant: isolation, isolation of its development and its intermediate position between East and West. Did ancient Russian literature really develop in isolation?

Ancient Russian literature was not only not isolated from the literatures of neighboring Western and southern countries, in particular from Byzantium, but up to the 17th century. we can talk about the opposite - about the absence of clear national boundaries in it. We can rightfully speak about the partial commonality of the development of the literatures of the Eastern and Southern Slavs. There was a single literature, a single written language and a single literary (Church Slavonic) language among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), Bulgarians, Serbs, and Romanians. The main fund of church-literary monuments was common.

Liturgical, preaching, church-edifying, hagiographic, partly world-historical (chronographic), partly narrative literature was uniform for the entire Orthodox south and east of Europe. Common were such huge literary monuments as prologues, menaions, solemnities, triodions, partly chronicles, paleas of various types, “Alexandria”, “The Tale of Barlaam and Joasaph”, “The Trojan History”, “The Tale of Akira the Wise”, “The Bee” , cosmographies, physiologists, hexadays, apocrypha, individual lives, etc., etc.

Furthermore: a commonality of literature existed not only between the eastern and southern Slavs, but for the most ancient period it also captured the Western Slavs (Czechs and Slovaks, in relation to Poland - a controversial issue). Finally, this literature itself, common to the Orthodox Slavs and Romanians, was not isolated in the European world. And we are not talking about Byzantium alone here...

N. K. Gudziy, objecting to me on this matter in the article “Provisions that Cause Disputes,” argued that the common monuments I listed are “almost entirely translated.” But there is no way to say that. I also include in my list monuments of Russian origin that were included in the fund of general South and East Slavic literature, but it would be possible to indicate no less number of monuments from Bulgarian, Serbian and even Czech, which became common to East and South Slavic literature without any translation due to the commonality of the Church Slavonic language. But the point is not whether the monuments common to all Orthodox Slavs were translated or original (both are presented in abundance), but that they were all common to all Eastern and South Slavic literature in a single text, on the same language and they all endured common destiny. In the literature of the Orthodox Slavs one can observe general changes in style, general mental trends, and a constant exchange of works and manuscripts. The monuments were understandable without translation, and there is no doubt about the presence of a common Church Slavonic language for all Orthodox Slavs (separate “national” versions of this language did not interfere with its understanding).

CHRONOLOGICAL BOUNDARIES

Where is the line between ancient Russian literature and modern one? This question is inseparable from another: what does this line consist of? In essence, this entire work is devoted to the question of the artistic specificity of ancient Russian literature, its difference from modern literature, but in a preliminary form this question must still be resolved first: it is necessary to determine what the main differences between ancient literature and modern literature are, which make it possible to distinguish between these two periods . This must be done now in order to confirm our right to speak about ancient Russian literature as a single whole.

Some researchers see the fundamental difference between ancient Russian literature and modern literature in its predominantly religious character. Yes, undoubtedly, in comparison with the literature of the 18th century. Old Russian literature was of a religious nature. With this statement we take into general brackets all Russian literature for the first seven centuries of its existence. However, if we consider this issue in detail, the picture turns out to be quite complex.

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etc. Russian influence in the South Slavic countries concerned historical literature and, as established by a number of researchers, led to the creation of Serbian chronographs. At the same time, if you compare Old Russian literature not with Russian literature of the 18th century, but with other literatures of Slavic and non-Slavic Orthodox countries, then the much more secular nature of Old Russian literature is immediately noticeable.

Not a single country of the Eastern European literary community of the 11th-16th centuries. did not have such a developed historical literature as Russia. No other country had such developed journalism. Old Russian literature, although generally of a religious nature, stands out, however, among the literatures of other countries of Southern and Eastern Europe in the abundance of secular monuments. At the same time, we can talk about the religious nature of Old Russian literature only up to the 17th century. In the 17th century It is secular genres that become leading. The so-called Baroque literature is secular in nature - the works of Simeon of Polotsk

It's amazing that the connection literature XVIII V. with literature of the 17th century. is very clearly felt in anti-clerical works. Clearly associated with anti-clerical literature of the 17th century. songs “Churilla Abbess”, “From the Bogolyubov Monastery”, “At the Savior they are ringing for mass”.

POETICS OF LITERATURE AS A SYSTEM OF A WHOLE

OLD RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE FINE ARTS

Word and image were more closely connected in Ancient Rus' than in modern times. And this left its mark on both literature and the fine arts.

Interpenetration is a fact of their internal structure.

In literary criticism it should be considered not only from a historical and literary perspective, but also from a theoretical one.

The fine art of Ancient Rus' was action-packed, and this story-telling until the beginning of the 18th century, when significant structural changes took place in the fine arts, not only did not weaken, but steadily increased. The subjects of fine art were predominantly literary. Characters and individual scenes from the Old and New Testaments, saints and scenes from their lives, various Christian symbols were to one degree or another based on literature - church literature, of course, predominantly, but not only church literature. The subjects of the frescoes were the subjects of written sources. The contents of icons, especially icons with stamps, were associated with written sources. Miniatures illustrated the lives of saints, chronographic palea, chronicles, chronographs, physiologists, cosmographies and six-day stories, individual historical stories, legends, etc. The art of illustration was so high that even works of theological and theological-symbolic content could be illustrated. Murals were created on the themes of church hymns (akathists, for example), psalms, and theological works. “If by literature we mean any verbal expression of feelings, thoughts and knowledge, including the science of religion and its eternal basis - St. Scripture, it will be clear to everyone that Christian icon painting draws all its essential content from literary monuments, namely from St. scriptures and from the fathers and teachers of the church: all the monuments of ancient Christian art in the catacombs are either ornaments that cannot yet be considered iconography, or symbols already developed by religious doctrine, or, finally, images of St. persons and events of the Old and New Testaments." This was written by A. Kirpichnikov in his famous work “The Interaction of Icon Painting and Folk and Book Literature.”

The artist was often a well-read erudite, combining information from various written sources in paintings and miniatures. Even the portrait images of saints, princes and sovereigns, ancient philosophers or Old Testament and New Testament characters were based not only on the pictorial tradition, but also on the literary one.

“NARRATORY SPACE” AS AN EXPRESSION OF “NARRATORY TIME” IN ANCIENT RUSSIAN FINE ART

When we talk about the connections that existed between literature and art in Ancient Russia, we must keep in mind not only that literature in Ancient Rus' had extremely strong visual representation and not only that fine art constantly had written works as its subjects, but also that the illustrators of Ancient Rus' developed extremely skillful techniques for conveying literary narrative. Although by its nature fine art is static, always depicting some specific, motionless moment, it constantly strived to overcome this immobility - either to create the illusion of movement, or to be narrative, to tell a story. The desire to tell a story was necessary for the miniaturists, and they used an extremely wide range of techniques in order to transform the space of the image into a story. And these techniques were also reflected in the literary work itself, where very often the narrator, as it were, prepares material for the miniaturist, creating a sequence of scenes - a kind of “chain mail of the story.” But let us turn to the narrative techniques of ancient Russian miniaturists.

The narrative techniques of the miniaturists who illustrated chronicles were developed by them in relation to the content of chronicles and chronicles. The images were accompanied by stories about campaigns, victories and defeats, about enemy invasions, invasions, thefts of prisoners, the sailing of troops on the sea, rivers and lakes, about enthronement on the table, about religious processions, the prince’s march on a campaign, about the exchange of ambassadors, the surrender of cities, sending ambassadors and the arrival of ambassadors, negotiations, tribute payments, funerals, wedding feasts, murders, singing of glory, etc. The work of the miniaturist was made easier by the fact that events were more often “named” picturesquely than described, so they could be conveyed more or less conventionally using the same techniques, but also complicated by the fact that events often covered a large space of action and required the depiction of an entire city or even several cities, rivers, temples, etc. in one miniature.

The miniaturist could show almost every action mentioned in the chronicle. He could not depict only that which had no temporal development. For example, he did not illustrate the texts of Russian treaties with the Greeks, or the texts of sermons and teachings. In general, the range of subjects that the miniaturist undertook to convey was unusually large and the space of what was depicted was wide - the range of action. This was achieved thanks to an extremely capacious system that was developed over the centuries and thanks to which the miniaturist could cover a huge number of narrative subjects in the chronicle presentation. Essentially, the miniaturist created a second story about world or Russian history, parallel to the written story.

Much could be said about the variety and richness with which written text was refracted in images of the Middle Ages.

(1) The literature on miniatures of Russian historical manuscripts is abundant. The most detailed study belongs to O. I. Podobedova “Miniatures of Russian historical manuscripts. On the history of Russian facial chronicling" (M., 1965; previous literature is indicated in the footnotes to this work). However, our task is limited to the specified topic: miniatures and text, narrative techniques of miniaturists.

RELATIONS OF LITERARY GENRES BETWEEN THEM

The category of literary genre is a historical category. Literary genres appear only at a certain stage in the development of the art of words and then constantly change and are replaced. The point is not only that some genres come to replace others and not a single genre is “eternal” for literature; the point is also that the very principles of identifying individual genres change, the types and nature of genres change, their functions in that or another era. The modern division into genres, based on purely literary characteristics, appears relatively late. For Russian literature, purely literary principles of identifying genres came into force mainly in the 17th century. Until that time literary genres to one degree or another, in addition to literary functions, they carry out extraliterary functions. Genres are determined by their use: in worship (in its different parts), in legal and diplomatic practice (article lists, chronicles, stories about princely crimes), in the atmosphere of princely life (solemn words, glory), etc.

We observe similar phenomena in folklore, where extra-folklore features of genres are very important, especially in ancient periods (in ritual folklore, in history, in fairy tales, etc.).

Since genres in any given era literary development stand out in literature under the influence of a combination of changing factors, are based on various characteristics, the history of literature faces a special task: to study not only the genres themselves, but also the principles on which genre divisions are carried out, to study not only individual genres and their history, but also the system of genres of each given era. In fact, genres do not live independently of each other, but constitute a certain system, which changes historically. The literary historian is obliged to notice not only changes in individual genres, the emergence of new ones and the extinction of old ones, but also changes in the system of genres itself.

Just as in botany we can talk about “plant associations,” in literary criticism there are genre associations that are subject to careful study.

A forest is an organic combination of trees with certain types of shrubs, herbs, mosses and lichens. Different types of vegetation are included in combinations that cannot be changed arbitrarily. Likewise, in literature and folklore, genres serve to satisfy a whole complex of social needs and, therefore, exist in strict dependence on each other. Genres constitute a certain system due to the fact that they are generated by a common set of causes, and also because they interact, support each other’s existence and at the same time compete with each other.

Only in recent years have relatively small works appeared that set out the general views of their authors on the artistic specifics and artistic methods of Old Russian literature. I mean articles by A. S. Orlov, V. P. Adrianova-Peretz, I. P. Eremin, G. Raab and others.

(1) Orlov A. S. and Adrianova-Peretz V. P. Literary studies of the Russian Middle Ages // Izv. OLYA, 1945, No. 6; Orlov A. S. Thoughts on the state of work on the literature of the Russian Middle Ages // Izv. OLYA, 1947, No. 2; Adrianova-Peretz V.P.: 1) The main tasks of studying ancient Russian literature in studies of 1917-1947 // TODRL. T.VI. 1948; 2) Essays on the poetic style of Ancient Rus'. M.; L., 1947; 3) Old Russian literature and folklore (to the formulation of the problem) If TODRL. T. VII. 1949; 4) Historical literature of the 11th - early 15th centuries. and folk poetry // TODRL. T. VIII. 1951; 5) Historical stories of the 17th century and oral folk art // TODRL. poetic stories of the 17th century and oral folk art // TODRL.T. IX. 1953; 6) On the foundations of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1958, No. 4; 7) On the issue of depicting the “inner man” in Russian literature of the 11th-14th centuries. // Issues in the study of Russian literature of the 11th-20th centuries. M.; L., 1958; 8) On realistic trends in ancient Russian literature (XI-XV centuries) // TODRL. T. XVI. I960; Eremin I.P.: 1) The Kiev Chronicle as a monument of literature // TODRL. T. VII (see also: Eremin I. Literature of Ancient Rus'. M.; Leningrad, 1966. P. 98-131); 2) The latest research into the artistic form of ancient Russian literary works // TODL. T. XII. 1956; 3) On the artistic specificity of ancient Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1958, No. 1; 4) On the debate about the realism of ancient Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1959, No. 4; Raab H.: 1) Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Realismus in der russischen Literatur // Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Ernst Moritz Arnd-Universitat Greifswald. Gesellschaftsund sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe. 1958, Bd. 4; 2) On the question of the precursors of realism in Russian literature // Rus. literature, 1960, No. 3. Wed. also: Likhachev D.S.: 1) At the precursors of realism in Russian literature // Questions of literature, 1957, No. 1; 2) On the issue of the origin of literary trends in Russian literature // Rus. Literature, 1958, No. 2; 3) Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'. M.; L., 1958. Ed. 2nd. M., 1970; 4) Literary etiquette of Ancient Rus' (to the problem of studying) // TODRL. T. XVII. 1961; 5) About one feature of realism // Questions of literature. 1960, no. 3.

Is it possible to talk about ancient Russian literature as a certain unity from the point of view of historical poetics? Is there continuity in the development of Russian literature from ancient to new and what is the essence of the differences between ancient Russian literature and new? These questions should be answered throughout this book, but they can be posed in a preliminary form at the beginning of the book.

GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES

Moreover: a commonality of literature existed not only between the eastern and southern Slavs, but for the most ancient period it also captured the Western Slavs (Czechs and Slovaks, in relation to Poland - a controversial issue). Finally, this literature itself, common to the Orthodox Slavs and Romanians, was not isolated in the European world. And we are not talking about Byzantium alone here...

N. K. Gudziy, objecting to me on this matter in the article “Provisions that Cause Disputes,” argued that the common monuments I listed are “almost entirely translated.” But there is no way to say that. I also include in my list monuments of Russian origin that were included in the fund of general South and East Slavic literature, but it would be possible to indicate no less number of monuments from Bulgarian, Serbian and even Czech, which became common to East and South Slavic literature without any translation due to the commonality of the Church Slavonic language. But the point is not whether the monuments common to all Orthodox Slavs were translated or original (both are presented in abundance), but that they were all common to all Eastern and South Slavic literature in a single text, on the same language and they all suffered a common fate. In the literature of the Orthodox Slavs one can observe general changes in style, general mental trends, and a constant exchange of works and manuscripts. The monuments were understandable without translation, and there is no doubt about the presence of a common Church Slavonic language for all Orthodox Slavs (separate “national” versions of this language did not interfere with its understanding).

(1) The following people wrote about the common development and mutual influence of the literatures of the Eastern and Southern Slavs: Speransky M.N. On the history of the relationship between Russian and South Slavic literatures // Izv. ORYAS, 1923, vol. XXVI; republished in the book: Speransky M. N. From the history of Russian Slavic literary connections. M., 1960; Gudziy N.K. Literature of Kievan Rus and the most ancient non-Slavic literatures // IV International Congress of Slavists. Abstracts of reports. M., 1960; Likhachev D.S. Some problems of studying the second South Slavic influence in Russia And Ibid.; Moshin V. A. On the periodization of Russian-South Slavic Literary connections of the X-XV centuries, // TODRL. T. XIX. 1963.

(2) There are no generalizing large works on this topic. See the literature on the issue in the article by V. A. Moshin mentioned in the previous footnote.

(3) Literature issues. 1965, no. 7, p. 158.

(4) In the question of the Russian origin of the “Prologue” we will take into account the conclusions of the researchers of this very complex monument - A.I. Sobolevsky, B. Angelov (Sofia) and V. Moshin (Belgrade). The translation of the ancient edition of the Greek Synaxarion was completed in Rus', supplemented with Russian articles, received the name “Prologue” in Rus' and from here moved to the Balkans. Consequently, the “Prologue” is only partly a translated monument.

INTRODUCTION
The artistic specificity of ancient Russian literature is increasingly attracting the attention of literary medievalists. This is understandable: without fully identifying all the artistic features of Russian literature of the 11th-17th centuries. it is impossible to construct a history of Russian literature and an aesthetic assessment of the monuments of Russian literature of the first seven centuries of its existence.

However, not only these people were interested in many issues of ancient Russian literature; many writers in Russia and neighboring countries are engaged in these issues to this day.

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev made his contribution to the artistic specifics of ancient Russian literature. His works are contained in the book “The Poetics of Old Russian Literature,” which was published more than once. Its very first publication was in 1967. In 1969, academician D.S. Likhachev was awarded for this book State Prize THE USSR. This book has been published in different languages and in different countries. However, its content did not change. Similar publications by other authors also took place, but none of the materials by D.S. Likhacheva is not repeated in comparison with other authors. This book, “The Poetics of Old Russian Literature,” was gradually expanded. Some of its sections were published much earlier than the book itself. The author dedicates this book to “his comrades - specialists in ancient Russian literature.”

There is a book in front of me Likhachev Dmitry Sergeevich “Poetics of Old Russian Literature” - third updated edition, publishing house “Nauka” (Moscow), 1979. The author of the book poses the following questions: “Is it possible to talk about ancient Russian literature as a certain unity from the point of view of historical poetics? Is there continuity in the development of Russian literature from ancient to new and what is the essence of the differences between ancient Russian literature and new? His entire book should answer these questions, but in a preliminary form they are posed at the beginning.
Geographical boundaries

Ancient Russian literature was not only not isolated from the literatures of neighboring Western and southern countries, in particular from Byzantium, but up to the 17th century. we can talk about the opposite - about the absence of clear national boundaries in it. There was a single literature, a single written language and a single literary (Church Slavonic) language among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), Bulgarians, Serbs, and Romanians. The main fund of church-literary monuments was common.

Likhachev includes in his list monuments of Russian origin that were included in the fund of common South and East Slavic literature, but it would be possible to indicate no less number of monuments of Bulgarian, Serbian and even Czech, which became common to East and South Slavic literatures without any translation into force communities of the Church Slavonic language. In the literature of the Orthodox Slavs one can observe general changes in style, general mental trends, and a constant exchange of works and manuscripts. The monuments were understandable without translation, and there is no doubt about the presence of a common Church Slavonic language for all Orthodox Slavs.

Perhaps the isolation and isolation of Russian literature of the 11th-16th centuries. should be understood in the sense that Russian literature only passively received their literary monuments without giving them anything? Many people think so, but this position is also completely untrue. Now we can talk about a huge “export” of monuments and manuscripts created there from Kievan Rus and from Moscow Rus. The writings of Cyril of Turov were distributed in manuscripts throughout southeastern Europe, along with the writings of the church fathers. Finally, the sophisticated style of “weaving words”, which arose and spread in the Balkans in the 14th and 15th centuries, developed not without Russian influence and it was in Russia that it reached its highest flowering.

The following is characteristic: the influence of Russian literature in the countries of South-Eastern Europe did not stop in the 18th and early XIX century, but this was primarily the influence of ancient Russian literature, and not the new one created in Russia. In Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania, the influence of ancient Russian monuments continues after the development of the traditions of ancient Russian literature in Russia itself ceased. The last writer who was of great importance for the entire Orthodox Eastern and Southern Europe was Dmitry Rostovsky. Further, only a small stream of influences from secular Russian literature of the 18th century is felt - mainly school theater and some works of a religious nature. Anti-heretical literature is also exported from Russia. Manuscripts testify to all this.

The isolation of ancient Russian literature is a myth of the 19th century. True, one can pay attention to the fact that Old Russian literature was closely connected with Orthodoxy and its connections with the literatures of Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and in the ancient period - with Western Slavs were explained mainly by religious ties. This is one of the explanations, but we cannot talk only about connections within religious literature, since these connections are noticeable both in chronography and in the traditions of the Hellenistic novel, in “Alexandria”, in “natural science” literature.

Now let us turn to the other side of the issue of “Europeanization” of Russian literature in the 18th century: to the supposed position of ancient Russian literature between East and West.

This is another myth. It arose under the hypnosis of Russia's geographical position between Asia and Europe. I am not now touching on the issues of political development of Russia under the influence of East and West. I will only note that exaggerated ideas about the significance of Russia’s geographical location, about the role of “eastern” and, in particular, “Turanian” elements in it, disappointed even their most consistent adherents - the Eurasians.

In ancient Russian literature, what is most striking is the complete absence of translations from Asian languages. Ancient Rus' knew translations from Greek, Latin, Hebrew, knew works created in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia, knew translations from Czech, German, Polish, but did not know a single translation from Turkish, Tatar, or other languages Central Asia and the Caucasus. Orally Two or three stories from Georgian and Tatar came to us (“The Tale of Queen Dinara”, “The Tale of Human Reason”). Traces of the Polovtsian epic were found in the chronicles of Kyiv and Galician-Volyn Rus, but these traces are extremely insignificant, especially if we take into account the intensity of the political and dynastic ties of the Russian princes with the Polovtsians.

Oddly enough, eastern subjects penetrated to us through the western borders of Rus', from Western European peoples. This way came to us, for example, the Indian “Tale of Barlaam and Joasaph” PS and another monument of Indian origin - “Stephanit and Ikhnilat”, known in the Arabic version under the name “Kalila and Dimna”.

The lack of literary connections with Asia is a striking feature of Old Russian literature.

From here it is clear that it is completely impossible to talk about the position of ancient Russian literature “between East and West”. This means replacing the absence of accurate ideas about ancient Russian literature with geographical ideas.

Eastern themes, motifs and plots appear in Russian literature only in the 18th century. They are more abundant and deeper than in all seven centuries of the previous development of Russian literature.

From what has been said it is clear: there is no talk of any “Europeanization” of Russian literature of the 18th century. V in general terms you can't talk. We can talk about something else: that the European orientation of Russian literature has moved from one country to another. Literature XI-XVI centuries. was organically connected with such European countries, like Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania. From the 16th century it is connected with Poland, the Czech Republic, also with Serbia and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. These new connections increased enormously in the 17th century. In the 18th century the orientation changes - a period of influence begins from France and Germany, and through them, mainly, other Western European countries. Can we see Peter’s will in this? No. Peter oriented Russian culture towards those Western European countries with which Russia had established ties earlier, in the 17th, and partly as early as the 16th century - towards Holland and England. The influence of France in the field of literature was established after Peter, beyond Peter's intentions. But neither Dutch nor English literature in the era of Peter the Great attracted the attention of Russian writers.

At first, the equal relations that existed in Ancient Rus' with other East Slavic countries and with the countries of South-Eastern Europe were not established with Western European countries.

New connections were extremely important; they predetermined the world connections of Russian literature in the 19th and 20th centuries. Why and how is a very complex question that I cannot touch on now. But the fact is that in the 18th century. these connections unexpectedly and contrary to a long tradition acquired a one-sided character: at first we began to receive more than to give to others. In the 18th century Russian literature for some time ceased to generally extend beyond the borders of Russia.

Chronological boundaries

Where is the line between ancient Russian literature and modern one? This question is inseparable from another: what does this line consist of?

Compared with the literature of the 18th century. Old Russian literature was of a religious nature. With this statement we take into general brackets all Russian literature for the first seven centuries of its existence.

Old Russian literature before the 16th century. was united with the literature of other Orthodox countries. The commonality of religion in this case was even more important than the commonality of the literary language and the proximity of national languages. Not a single country of the Eastern European literary community of the 11th-16th centuries. did not have such a developed historical literature as Russia. No other country had such developed journalism. Old Russian literature, although generally of a religious nature, stands out, however, among the literatures of other countries of Southern and Eastern Europe in the abundance of secular monuments. At the same time, we can talk about the religious nature of Old Russian literature only up to the 17th century. In the 17th century It is secular genres that become leading. Traditionally indicated differences between ancient Russian literature and literature of the 18th century. may be accepted with great reservations. Meanwhile, these differences are clearly felt; literature in the 18th century. really becoming less churchy.

There is also a certain amount of truth in the statement that Russian literature takes a sharp turn in the 18th century. facing European literature. In fact, the works that influenced or were translated in Rus' in the 11th-17th centuries corresponded in their nature to the medieval type of Old Russian literature. This became especially noticeable in the 17th century. What was translated was not what was first-class, but what sometimes turned out to be secondary, which for its time was already “yesterday” in the West, but which to one degree or another corresponded to the internal, basically medieval, structure of ancient Russian literature. The treatment of all this translated material was also typical: it was the same as the treatment of one’s own literary works. The monuments were redone by translators and subsequent editors-copyists in the spirit of the traditions of ancient Russian scribes.

From here it is clear that the main thing lies in the internal structural features of literature, which left their mark on the treatment of Western European literature.

In ancient and modern Russian literature we have different types of literature and different types of literary development. The transition from one type to another took place over a long period of time.

noted many times in research literature and the greater “openness” of literature towards non-literary genres of writing. The genres of ancient Russian literature often had a greater ritual and business purpose than the genres of new Russian literature. One can say even more decisively: the main difference between one genre in ancient Russian literature and another is in their use, in their ritual, legal or other functions. The boundaries of literature are not delineated, although in certain genres literariness is quite strongly expressed.

So, the text is unstable and traditional, genres are sharply delimited from each other, and works are delimited from each other weakly, maintaining their stability only in some cases. The literary fate of works is heterogeneous: the text of some is carefully preserved, while others are easily changed by copyists. There is a hierarchy of genres, just like there is a hierarchy of writers. The styles are extremely diverse, they differ by genre, but individual styles are generally not clearly expressed. All this constitutes a sharp structural difference between ancient Russian literature and modern one.

When did the restructuring of one literary structure to another?

Essentially, this restructuring was happening all the time. It began with the emergence of ancient Russian literature. The final transition from one structure to another took place in Russian literature later than in Western European literature, but earlier than in the literature of the South Slavs.

The revolution was gradual and lengthy, the line of change was extremely uneven. Some phenomena were prepared by the entire development of ancient Russian literature, others took place throughout the entire 17th century, and others were finally determined only in the second quarter or second third of the 18th century. The structure of ancient Russian literature has never been stable. Genres of a new type arose in the depths of the old genre system and coexisted with genres medieval type. The authority of the writer was great in some cases and weak in others. One of the features of the structure of ancient Russian literature was precisely that this structure was never integral and stable.

The Petrine era was a break in the movement of literature, a stop. Russian literature knew such breaks before (the second half of the reign of Ivan the Terrible). Peter's time, of course, gave new, very strong historical incentives for literary development, and this should in no case be forgotten, but the development of literature itself was not marked by anything new in Peter's time. This is the most “non-literary” era of the entire existence of Russian literature. At this time there was no significant works literature and its character has not changed. The so-called Peter's stories arose sometimes earlier, and sometimes later, and were associated primarily with the traditions of Russian literature of the 17th century. The image of the “new man” outlined in them was prepared by the entire development of Russian literature of the 17th century.

New type literary development comes into force from the second quarter, or rather from the second third of the 18th century. It rises and forms with unusual speed. A combination of reasons was at work here: the emergence of book printing in literature (before this, printing houses served administrative, educational and church purposes), the emergence of literary periodicals, the development of a higher, secular type of intelligentsia, and much more. Certain streams of ancient literature (hagiography, chronicles, etc.) continue their flow, but leave the “day surface” of literature and wither away; others, like church sermons, are rebuilt in the Catholic manner, but also leave the “day surface.”

The uneven nature of the development of Russian literature in the XI-XVII centuries, the absence general movement literature, the accelerated development of some genres and the slow development of others allowed the leap of the 18th century to take place. to a new structure of literature. The disharmony concealed within itself enormous possibilities for moving forward; there was no inertia that would need to be overcome through the efforts of centuries. The halt that the Petrine era represented in the development of literature meant that this leap was ready to take place. The plow stopped plowing the ground and was easily dragged across a large strip, leaving it unplowed. When he dug into the soil again, Lomonosov, Fonvizin, Radishchev, Derzhavin appeared and, finally, when the plowing became smooth and deep, Pushkin.

Pushkin was the first to fully appreciate the difference in literary styles across eras, countries and writers. He was passionate about his discovery and tried his hand at various styles - different eras, peoples and writers. This meant that the leap was over and the normal development of literature began, aware of its development, its historical changeability. A historical and literary self-awareness of literature emerged. Literature entered a single direction of development and decisively changed its structure.

So, between ancient Russian literature and new literature there are differences in structures and in the types of their development. The poetics of ancient Russian literature differs from the poetics of new literature. It is this difference that is most significant for determining the boundaries between ancient Russian literature and modern one.
POETICS OF LITERATURE AS A SYSTEM OF A WHOLE
The fine art of Ancient Rus' was action-packed, and this story-telling until the beginning of the 18th century, when significant structural changes took place in the fine arts, not only did not weaken, but steadily increased. The subjects of fine art were predominantly literary. Characters and individual scenes from the Old and New Testaments, saints and scenes from their lives, various Christian symbols were to one degree or another based on literature - church literature, of course, predominantly, but not only church literature. The subjects of the frescoes were the subjects of written sources. The contents of icons, especially icons with stamps, were associated with written sources. Miniatures illustrated the lives of saints, chronographic palea, chronicles, chronographs, physiologists, cosmographies and six-day stories, individual historical stories, legends, etc. The art of illustration was so high that even works of theological and theological-symbolic content could be illustrated. Murals were created on the themes of church hymns (akathists, for example), psalms, and theological works.

Much attention is paid to monuments of art in works of Novgorod literature: in walks to Constantinople, in Novgorod chronicles, in the lives of Novgorod saints, stories and legends. The art of words comes into contact with the fine arts of Ancient Rus' not only through written monuments, but also through folklore monuments. Folklore interpretations of events penetrate into the visual arts.

Special and very important topic research represents the role of words in works of art. As you know, inscriptions, signatures and accompanying texts are constantly introduced into ancient Russian easel works, wall paintings and miniatures.

The art of painting seemed to be burdened by its silence and sought to “speak.” And it “spoke,” but it spoke in a special language. Those texts that accompany the stamps in hagiographic icons are not texts mechanically taken from one or another hagiography, but in a special way prepared, processed. The hagiographic excerpts on the icon were supposed to be perceived by viewers in different conditions than by readers of manuscripts. Therefore, these texts are abbreviated or unfinished, they are laconic, short phrases predominate in them, and sometimes the “ornament” disappears in them, unnecessary in the vicinity of the colorful language of painting. Even this detail is significant: the past tense in these inscriptions is often transferred to the present. The inscription explains not the past, but the present - what is reproduced on the mark of the icon, and not what once was. The icon does not depict what happened, but what is happening now in the image; it affirms what exists, what the worshiper sees in front of him.

It is necessary to penetrate into the psychology and ideology of the Middle Ages in order to understand in all its depth the aesthetic significance of inscriptions in the fine arts of the Middle Ages. The word appeared not only in its sound essence, but also in its visual image. And not only the word in general, but also given word of this text. It was also “timeless” to some extent. That is why the inscriptions were so organically included in the composition and became an element of the ornamental decoration of the icon. And that’s why it was so important to decorate the text of manuscripts with initials and headpieces, create a beautiful page, even write in beautiful handwriting.

A careful study of the common regional features in literature and other arts, the commonality of their destinies and the content of regional, centrifugal tendencies, their simultaneous overcoming and combination with centripetal forces can clarify the process of gradual formation unified literature. Local shades begin to disappear simultaneously in the 16th century. in various fields of artistic culture: literature, architecture and painting. On the basis of the economic and political unification of individual Russian lands, the unification of all Russian culture takes place in the sequence and with the degree of speed that was prompted by the socio-political reality itself.

General achievements in the various arts are not always, however, so demonstrative and “disciplined.” The most common, hackneyed example of regional features common to literature and other arts - the notorious Novgorod laconicism, supposedly equally reflected in Novgorod chronicles, Novgorod architecture and Novgorod fine art - may turn out to be, upon closer study, not so indicative and simple, how it has been presented to art and literary critics studying Novgorod over the past hundred years.

It is necessary to distinguish between two concepts of style in literature: style as a phenomenon of the language of literature and style as a certain system of form and content.

Style is not only a form of language, but it is the unifying aesthetic principle of the structure of all content and the entire form of a work. The style-forming system can be revealed in all elements of the work. Artistic style combines the general perception of reality, characteristic of the writer, and the writer’s artistic method, determined by the tasks that he sets for himself. In this sense, the concept of style can be applied to various arts, and there may be synchronous correspondences between them. The same depiction techniques can be reflected in the literature and painting of a particular era; they may correspond to some general formal features of the architecture of the same time or music. And since aesthetic principles can extend beyond the boundaries of the arts, to the extent that we can talk about the style of a particular philosophy or theological system. We know, for example, that the Baroque style affected not only architecture, but also captured painting, sculpture, literature (especially poetry and drama) and even music and philosophy.

Currently, we can talk about the Baroque style as a style of the era, which to one degree or another is reflected in all types of artistic activity within known chronological and geographical boundaries.

Returning to Ancient Rus', we should note that what was previously perceived as a “second South Slavic influence” in Old Russian literature, now, thanks to the involvement of extra-literary material, appears to us as a manifestation of the Pre-Renaissance throughout the south and east of Europe. It is becoming increasingly clear that the so-called Eastern European Pre-Renaissance covered an even wider range of cultural life than the Baroque. It went beyond the boundaries of the phenomena of art and extended its “style-forming” tendencies, taking advantage of the lack of clear boundaries of human artistic activity, to the entire ideological life of the era. As a cultural phenomenon, the Eastern European Pre-Renaissance was broader than the Baroque. It covered, in addition to all types of art, theology and philosophy, journalism and scientific life, everyday life and morals, the life of cities and monasteries, although in all these areas it was limited primarily to the intelligentsia, the highest manifestations of culture and urban and church life.

It is necessary to strictly distinguish individual mental trends and ideological directions- no matter how wide a range of phenomena they cover. For example, the desire for revival cultural traditions Pre-Mongol Rus' covers the late XIV and XV centuries. architecture, painting, literature, folklore, socio-political thought, is reflected in historical thought, penetrates into official theories, etc., but this phenomenon in itself does not form a special style. Numerous penetrations into Rus' do not form a special style either. Renaissance culture. The Renaissance, which in the West was also a phenomenon of style, in Russia remained only a mental movement.
When we talk about the connections that existed between literature and art in Ancient Russia, we must keep in mind not only that literature in Ancient Rus' had extremely strong visual representation and not only that fine art constantly had written works as its subjects, but also that the illustrators of Ancient Rus' developed extremely skillful techniques for conveying literary narrative. The desire to tell a story was essential to the miniaturists, and they used an extremely wide range of techniques to transform the space of the image into a story. And these techniques were also reflected in the literary work itself, where very often the narrator, as it were, prepares material for the miniaturist, creating a sequence of scenes - a kind of “chain mail of the story.” But let us turn to the narrative techniques of ancient Russian miniaturists.

The main technique used by the miniaturist is “narrative reduction”. On icons, for example, the saint may be larger in size than ordinary people. This emphasizes its importance. But this is done in the average, but in the hagiographical marks the saint will be the same size as other people. It is not people who are reduced there, but architecture, trees, mountains, in order to emphasize the importance of people in general. Actions in miniatures have a monotonous image. The language of miniatures, like any language, requires some formalization and stability of the “sign system”.

The miniaturist is in obvious difficulty when the text conveys the speeches of the characters. The pronunciation of words is usually depicted using appropriate gestures. The speakers gesture and occasionally point.

Narrative space dominates over geographical space in miniatures. One can say more - in miniatures the narrative sequence dominates over the possible real one.

In conveying individual scenes in miniatures, one should note the desire to depict the most important thing in what is happening and not to hide this main thing outside the image. Neither a crowd of people, nor a group of troops or architectural details never close or cut off the main action. Flaky slides or architectural details always only limit the attention of the audience, direct it, but never obscure the content itself. Everything is in sight, and at the same time there is nothing that is outside the narration! The artist ascetically refrains from telling the viewer something that is not in the text of the chronicle. Everything is subordinated to the story. The characters pose lightly for the artist. This makes their gestures, their movements seem as if suspended in the air. Each gesture is “stopped” by the artist precisely at the moment that is most expressive of the event: the saber is raised, the hand is raised for a blessing or to indicate, the pointing finger clearly appears above a group of people. Hands in miniatures play a primary role. Their positions are symbolic.

The category of literary genre is a historical category. Literary genres appear only at a certain stage in the development of the art of words and then constantly change and are replaced. The point is not only that some genres come to replace others and not a single genre is “eternal” for literature; the point is also that the very principles of identifying individual genres change, the types and nature of genres change, their functions in that or another era. The modern division into genres, based on purely literary characteristics, appears relatively late. For Russian literature, purely literary principles of identifying genres came into force mainly in the 17th century. Until this time, literary genres, to one degree or another, carried, in addition to literary functions, extraliterary functions. Genres are determined by their use: in worship (in its different parts), in legal and diplomatic practice (article lists, chronicles, stories about princely crimes), in the atmosphere of princely life (solemn words, glory), etc.

Genres constitute a certain system due to the fact that they are generated by a common set of causes, and also because they interact, support each other’s existence and at the same time compete with each other.

Indeed, genre indications in manuscripts are characterized by extraordinary complexity and intricacy: “alphabet book”, “alphabet”, “conversation”, “being”, “memories” (for example, notes about a saint or a story about a miracle that occurred: “Memories of former banner and miracles of the icon... the Mother of God... the hedgehog in Veliky Novegrad"), "chapters" ("Chapters of the Hearings", "Chapters of Father Nile", "Instructive Chapters", etc.), "double words", "deeds", etc.

An exact listing of all the names of the genres would give a figure of approximately one hundred. It is characteristic that in ancient Russian literature there is constantly an intensive self-increase in the number of genres. This lasts until the 17th century. principles medieval system genres do not begin to partially die out and do not appear in place of the medieval system new system- system of genres of new Russian literature.

From the above enumeration of ancient Russian names of genres, it is clear that these names differ from each other far from precisely. Under the same name there can be completely different works (see, for example: “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “The Tale of Antipascha” by Kirill of Turov and “The Word of Praise” by the monk Thomas). Therefore, scribes very often put two genre definitions at the same time in the title of a work, and sometimes more: “The Legend and Conversation is Wisdom...”, “The Legend and the Vision...”, “The Legend and the Tale...”, “The Tale and the Teaching...”, “The Tale and Scripture...", "The Tale and Miracles...", "The life and deeds and walking are known and all the chosen ones of the most glorious and wise, virtuous and veleum husband of the autocrat Alexander, the great king of Macedonia", etc.

Sometimes the same work in different lists had different genre definitions: for example, “Epistle to the brother stylite” and “With a word to the brother stylite” the same work of Hilarion the Great was entitled. The life of Alexander Nevsky in different lists is defined either as a “life”, or as a “legend”, or as a “story”.

The combination of several genre definitions in the titles of a work indicates not only the scribe’s hesitation as to which definition to choose, but is sometimes the result of the fact that ancient Russian works actually combined several genres. One work could consist, for example, of a life, followed by a service to a saint, posthumous miracles, etc.

However main reason confusion and unclear distinction between individual genres in ancient Russian literature was that the basis for identifying a genre, along with other features, was not literary features presentation, but the subject itself, the topic to which the work was devoted. In fact, genre definitions of Ancient Russia were very often combined with definitions of the subject of the story: “vision”, “life”, “exploits”, “passion”, “torment”, “walking”, “miracle”, “deeds”, etc. (cf. “The Torment of Barbara and Juliana”, “The Torment of Eleazar”, “The Ordeal of Theodora”, “The Vision of Gregory”).

The literary genres of Ancient Rus' have very significant differences from the genres of modern times: their existence, to a much greater extent than in modern times, is due to their use in practical life. They arise not only as varieties of literary creativity, but also as certain phenomena of the ancient Russian way of life, everyday life, and everyday life in the broadest sense of the word.

It is hardly possible to discern in the literature of modern times a significant difference between the story and the novel in their use in everyday life. Both are intended for individual reading. Somewhat more significant in the literature of modern times, from the point of view of everyday use, are the differences between lyrics and artistic prose- in the totality of all its genres. This is reflected, in particular, in age differences in interest in lyrics. People become more interested in lyrics at a relatively young age. The role of lyrics in everyday life is somewhat different than the role of other genres (lyrics and poetry in general are not only read to oneself, they are recited). However, even with all the differences in the “use” of genres, the latter does not constitute their fundamental feature.

Unlike the literature of modern times, in Ancient Rus' the genre determined the image of the author. In the literature of modern times, we do not find a single image of the author for the genre of the story, another image of the author for the genre of the novel, a third single image of the author for the genre of lyric poetry, etc.

The literature of modern times has many images of authors - individualized, each time created anew by the writer or poet and largely independent of the genre. A work of modern times reflects the personality of the author in the image of the author he creates. Something else in the art of the Middle Ages.

It seeks to express collective feelings, a collective attitude towards what is depicted. Hence, much of it depends not on the creator of the work, but on the genre to which this work belongs. The author is much less concerned than in modern times with introducing his individuality into the work. Each genre has its own strictly developed traditional image of the author, writer, “performer”. One image of the author is in a sermon, another in the lives of saints (it varies somewhat according to subgenre groups), a third in a chronicle, another in a historical story, etc. Individual deviations are mostly accidental and are not part of the artistic intent of the work. In cases where the genre of a work required it to be spoken out loud, was intended for reading or singing, the image of the author coincided with the image of the performer - just as it coincides in folklore.

A complex and important question is the question of the relationship between the system of literary genres of Ancient Rus' and the system of folklore genres. Without a series of extensive preliminary studies, this question not only cannot be resolved, but even more or less correctly posed.

If the literature of modern times in its genre system independent of the system of folklore genres, the same cannot be said about the system of literary genres of Ancient Rus'. In fact, the system of literary genres was determined to a large extent by the needs of everyday life - church and secular. However, secular life was served not only by literature, but also by folklore. The upper strata of society in Ancient Rus' during the era of feudalism continued to use folklore. They were not free from paganism, they partially participated in the performance of traditional rituals, listened and sang lyrical songs, listened to fairy tales, etc. Of course, the folklore that existed in the ruling class of society was special, selected, perhaps modified. It goes without saying that folklore as a whole was very far from the worldview of the ruling class.

Folklore and literature oppose each other not only as two, to a certain extent, independent systems of genres, but also as two different worldviews, two different artistic methods. However, no matter how different folklore and literature were in the Middle Ages, they had much more more points contacts than in modern times.

Folklore, and often homogeneous, was widespread not only among the working class, but also among the dominant one. Peasants and boyars could listen to the same epics, the same fairy tales, the same lyrical songs were sung everywhere. Undoubtedly, there were works that could not be performed for representatives of the feudal elite: some pagan ritual songs, satirical works, bandit songs, etc. Those works in which the “worldview of folklore” turned out to be anti-feudal could not be distributed among the ruling class, however These were only some of the works, by no means all. The existence of folklore among the ruling class was facilitated by the fact that the feudal worldview, by its very nature, was contradictory. Idealistic and naturalistic elements and different artistic methods could coexist in it. Even individual monuments could be permeated with this diversity. That's why some folklore works could also be performed for the ruling class, sometimes with certain omissions.

If the system of genres of folklore was a whole and complete system, capable to some extent of fully satisfying the needs of the people, who were mostly illiterate, then the system of genres of literature of Ancient Rus' was incomplete. She could not exist independently and satisfy all the needs of society in verbal art.

The system of literary genres was supplemented by folklore. Literature existed parallel to folklore genres: lyrical love song, fairy tale, historical epic, buffoon performances. That is why entire types of literature were absent from literature, and above all lyric poetry.
POETICS OF LITERARY DEVICES
Medieval symbolism “deciphers” not only many motives and details of plots, but it also allows us to understand a lot in the very style of medieval literature. In particular, the so-called common places medieval literature, so widespread in it, in many cases reflect the features of the medieval symbolizing worldview. And even in those cases when they move from work to work as a result of borrowing, they are still “supported” by the symbolic meaning given to them. For example, medieval symbolism explains many of the “literary cliches” of medieval hagiography. The formation of hagiographic schemes occurs under the influence of ideas about the symbolic meaning of all events human life: the life of a saint always has a double meaning - in itself and as a moral example for other people

Also, medieval symbolism often replaces metaphor with symbol. What we take to be a metaphor turns out to be in many cases hidden symbol, born from the search for secret correspondences between the material and “spiritual” worlds. Based primarily on theological teachings or on pre-scientific systems of ideas about the world, the symbols introduced a strong stream of abstraction into literature and, by their very essence, were directly opposed to the main artistic tropes - metaphor, metonymy, comparison, etc. - based on likening, on aptly captured similarity or clear identification of the main thing, based on what is actually observed, on a living and direct perception of the world. In contrast to metaphor, simile, and metonymy, symbols were brought to life primarily by abstract idealistic theological thought. A real understanding of the world is replaced in them by theological abstraction, art by theological scholarship.

In medieval works, the metaphor itself very often turns out to be at the same time a symbol, referring to one or another theological Teaching, theological interpretation or corresponding theological tradition, proceeding from that “double” perception of the world, which is characteristic of the symbolizing worldview of the Middle Ages.

Using theological symbols to build a whole artistic painting not uncommon in ancient Russian literature and later - up to the 18th century. The addition of familiar theological symbols into a living and “visual” picture required purely combinatorial abilities from the writer. In these combinations, the symbolic meaning of certain natural phenomena was sometimes forgotten, and tasks of a different nature emerged. Already here we can notice a desire to liberate literary creativity from the power of theology.

Another way of liberation from the power of theology was that in a symbol, of the two “co-thrown” meanings, the preponderance was on its “material” part. Hence medieval “realism”, leading to the material embodiment of symbols.

This medieval “realism” sometimes caused a kind of “myth-making.” The materially understood symbol developed a new myth. The struggle against the theological system of symbols lasted continuously in ancient Russian literature until the 18th century. It was complicated by the dominance of theology. The final liberation of literature from abstract theological thought could only take place after the victory of the secular principle in literature. This struggle was more successful in democratic and progressive literature, less successful in church literature. She had various shapes and led to different results in different eras; it did not proceed in the same way in individual genres and even within the same work.

Medieval symbolism as a system of medieval imagery received its clearest development in Rus' in the 11th-13th centuries. Starting from the end of the 14th century. a period of gradual withdrawal begins. The style of the era of the so-called second Yugoslav influence was, of course, hostile to medieval symbolism as the basis of medieval images and metaphors. The works of this period are characterized by a new attitude to the word and new means of expression.

Poetic tropes are by no means eternal and unchanging. They live a long time, but nevertheless they still live: they appear in literature, develop, and in some cases we can observe their petrification and death. Poetic tropes are far from being limited to those usually given in school textbooks on literary theory. One of the phenomena of poetics not taken into account in literary theories, which subsequently disappeared, is stylistic symmetry.

The essence of this symmetry is as follows: the same thing is said twice in a similar syntactic form; it is like a certain stop in the narrative, a repetition of a close thought, a close judgment, or a new judgment, but about the same phenomenon. The second term of symmetry says the same thing as the first term, in different words and in different images. Thought varies, but its essence does not change.

Stylistic symmetry is usually confused with artistic parallelism and stylistic repetition. However, what distinguishes stylistic symmetry from artistic parallelism is that it does not compare two different phenomena, but speaks twice about the same thing; What distinguishes stylistic symmetry from stylistic repetitions (common, in particular, in folklore) is that, although it says the same thing, it is in a different form, in other words.

Stylistic symmetry is a deeply archaic phenomenon. It is characteristic of the artistic thinking of pre-feudal and feudal society.

The phenomena of stylistic symmetry also passed into ancient Russian literature, and since the influence of the poetry of the psalms, and partly of other poetic books of the Bible, was constant, periodically intensifying and affecting especially clearly in the literature of the “high” style, individual examples This stylistic symmetry is very numerous in all centuries. However, if we compare the stylistic symmetry in the psalter with the phenomena it caused in Russian literature of the 11th-17th centuries, then some differences are noticeable in the mass: Russian symmetry is much more diverse, “ornamental”, more dynamic. It is not limited to two terms of symmetry, but goes into syntactic repetitions in general. More and more often, it ceases to be a “stop” in the development of a poetic theme; more and more often, the terms of symmetry cover various phenomena, turn into phenomena of parallelism, serve the purposes of comparison, lose connection with artistic thinking, are destroyed, and become formalized.

Comparisons in ancient Russian literature differ sharply in nature and inner essence from comparisons in new literature.

In contrast to the literature of modern times in Russian medieval literature comparisons based on visual similarity are few. There are much more comparisons in it than in the literature of modern times, emphasizing tactile similarities, gustatory, olfactory similarities, associated with the sensation of the material, with the feeling of muscular tension.

Comparisons of modern times (19th and 20th centuries) are typically characterized by the desire to convey the external similarity of the objects being compared, to make the object visual, easily imaginable, and to create the illusion of reality. Comparisons of modern times are based on diverse impressions of objects, drawing attention to characteristic details and secondary features, as if bringing them to the surface and giving the reader the “joy of recognition” and the joy of immediate clarity.

Ordinary, “average” comparisons in ancient Russian literature are of a different type: they primarily concern the internal essence of the objects being compared.

Of course, not all functions of objects are taken into account in medieval comparisons. Medieval comparisons are “ideological”, i.e. they are closely connected with the dominant ideology of their time, and this explains their traditional nature, their low variability, canonicity and stereotyped nature.

As is known, comparisons of modern times are very important in establishing the emotional atmosphere of a work3. The “rational”, ideological nature of medieval comparisons provided much less opportunity for this. Comparison in ancient Russian literature is prompted not by a worldview, but by a worldview.

Even in the expressive-emotional style of literature of the XIV-XV centuries. the range of literary emotions is limited: these are emotions of the majestic, terrible, grandiose, significant... “The Lion King is like a marvelous beast, devouring the flesh of those who venerate holy icons.” The same King Leo, “like a great serpent crawling, gaping terribly, and swallowing the church with a whistle, like a chick of a nesting bird with little feathers.”

As you know, the advantage of comparison is its completeness and diversity. It is important that the comparison concerns not one characteristic, but many. Then it can be considered especially successful. This rule was fully taken into account by ancient Russian writers, who sometimes turned comparisons into whole pictures, small narratives.

The earthly world and the heavenly world, the material world and the Spiritual world are not only, therefore, compared, but also opposed. This element of opposition is almost always present in medieval comparison and is the inevitable result of its ideological nature, which does not allow for the usual artistic inaccuracy in comparison.

Finally, one more note about medieval comparisons.

Due to their “ideological” or “ideological” meaning, medieval comparisons were relatively easily emancipated from the surrounding text. They often acquired independence, possessed internal completeness of thought and easily became aphorisms.
POETICS OF ARTISTIC TIME
Artistic time of a verbal work. If you take a closer look at how the world was understood in antiquity or the Middle Ages, you will notice that contemporaries did not notice much in this world, and this happened because ideas about the changeability of the world over time were narrowed. The social and political structure of the world, life, morals of people and much more seemed unchanged, forever established. Therefore, contemporaries did not notice them and they were not described in literary and historical works. Chroniclers and chroniclers note only events, incidents in the broad sense of the word. They don't see the rest.

The development of ideas about time is one of the most important achievements of new literature. Gradually, all aspects of existence turned out to be changeable: the human world, the animal world, the plant world, the world of “dead nature” - the geological structure of the earth and the world of stars. Historical understanding of material and spiritual world embraces science, philosophy and all forms of art. “Historicity” extends to an ever wider range of phenomena. In literature, the awareness of the diversity of forms of movement and at the same time its unity throughout the world is increasingly reflected.

The most essential for the study of literature is the study of artistic time: time as it is reproduced in literary works, time as an artistic factor in literature.

What is the artistic time of a work in contrast to grammatical time and the philosophical understanding of time by individual authors?

Artistic time is a phenomenon of the very artistic fabric of a literary work, subordinating both grammatical time and its philosophical understanding by the writer to its artistic tasks.

Actual time and depicted time are essential aspects of the entire artistic work. The author's time changes depending on whether the author is involved in the action or not. The author's time can be motionless, as if concentrated at one point from which he leads his story, but it can also move independently, having its own storyline in the work. The author's time can either overtake the narrative or lag behind the narrative.

Time in fiction is perceived due to the connection of events - cause-and-effect or psychological, associative. Time in work of art- this is not only and not so much calendar references, but the correlation of events. Events in a plot precede and follow each other, are arranged in a complex series, and thanks to this, the reader is able to notice time in a work of art, even if it does not specifically say anything about time.

One of the most complex issues The study of artistic time is a question of the unity of the time flow in a work with several storylines. The consciousness of the unity of the time flow, the flow of historical time, does not come immediately in folklore and literature.

Events of various subjects in folklore and on initial stages Literary developments can each occur in its own time series, independently of the other. When the consciousness of the unity of time begins to prevail, the very violations of this unity, the differences in time of various plots begin to be perceived as something supernatural, miraculous.

On the one hand, the time of a work can be “closed”, self-contained, taking place only within the plot, not connected with events occurring outside the work, with historical time. On the other hand, the time of a work can be “open,” included in a broader flow of time, developing against the background of a precisely defined historical era. The “open” time of a work, which does not exclude a clear frame delimiting it from reality, presupposes the presence of other events taking place simultaneously outside the work, its plot.

The author's attitude to the depicted time in all its aspects can also be different. The author may “not keep up” with rapidly changing events, describe them in pursuit of them, as if “out of breath,” or calmly contemplate them. The author is like an editor in cinematography: according to his artistic calculations, he can not only slow down or speed up the time of his work, but also stop it for certain periods, “turn it off” from the work. This is mostly to give a generalization: philosophical digressions in “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, descriptive digressions in “Notes of a Hunter” by Turgenev.

Plot time can speed up and slow down, especially in a novel: the novel “breathes.” Speeding up the action can also be used as a kind of summary. The acceleration of action in the epilogue of the novel is like an exhalation. It creates an ending. Much less common is the beginning of a novel with fast-paced, eventful action (as in Dostoevsky’s novels): this is a “breath.” Very often, the time of action in a work gradually slows down or speeds up its pace (the latter in Gorky’s “Mother”).

The depiction of time can be illusionistic (especially in works of a sentimental direction) or introduce the reader into an unreal, conventional circle. The problem of depicting time in a verbal work is not a problem of grammar. The verbs may be used in the present tense, but the reader will be clearly aware that we are talking about the past. Verbs can be used in the past tense or in the future, but the tense depicted will be the present. The grammatical tense and the tense of a verbal work can diverge significantly. The discrepancy between grammar and artistic intent is, of course, only external: the grammatical tense of a work itself is often included in the artistic intent of the highest order - in the meta-artistic structure of the work.

Each literary movement develops its own attitude to time and makes its own “discoveries” in the field of depicting time. Different types time are characteristic of various literary movements. Sentimentalism developed the image of the author's time, which was close to the plot. Naturalism sometimes tried to “stop” the depicted time, to create “daguerreotypes” of reality in “physiological sketches.” “Open” time is characteristic of realism of the 19th century.

It is necessary to pay attention to one more aspect of artistic time: each type of art has its own forms of the passage of time, its own aspects of artistic time and its own forms of duration.
Artistic time in folklore. The originality of the depiction of time in folk lyrics is closely connected, first of all, with the fact that it contains neither an actual nor a depicted author. In this way, folk lyrics are fundamentally different from book lyrics, where the author is not only obligatory, but where he plays a very important role as the “lyrical hero” of the work. Russian folk lyrics are not so much “created” as performed. The place of the author is taken by the performer. Its “lyrical hero” is, to a certain extent, the performer himself. The singer sings about himself, the listener listens about himself.

The themes of folk lyrics are extremely general themes, in which there are no random, individual motives. They are dedicated to the situations of entire segments of the population (recruitment songs, military songs, soldiers' songs, barge haulers' songs, bandits' songs, etc.) or situations recurring in life (calendar songs, ritual songs - lamentations, wedding songs, etc.). If in book lyrics the lyrical hero is the author, sharply individualized, whom the reader can individually bring closer to himself to a certain extent, never, however, forgetting about the author, then in folk lyrics the lyrical “I” is the “I” of the performer , each time new and completely detached from any ideas about the author of the song.

An exposition in a Russian lyrical song talks about something that lasts for a long time, but this long-lasting thing is shortened, as it were, due to the fact that the past is presented in the exposition as an explanation of the present: this is not a story about the past, but a lyrical explanation of the present. After the exposition there is usually a complaint from the singer-poet.

A folk lyrical song sings about what its performer is thinking at the time of performance, about his current situation, about what he is doing now. That is why the content of a folk lyrical song is so often the singing of the song itself, crying, complaining, appealing and even screaming.

Thanks to folk song there is a song about the song present time its special. It has the ability to "repeat". In each performance, this present tense refers to a new time - to the time of performance. This “repetition” of the present tense is due to the fact that the time of a folk lyrical song is closed - it is contained in the plot and is exhausted by the plot. If the time of a folk lyrical song were openly connected with many facts, partly beyond the boundaries of the song, its “repetition” would be difficult. Everything individual, all the details, all the strong historical connections would destroy the closedness of the artistic time of the work and would interfere with its “repetition.” That's why lyrical folk song not only closed in its time, but also generalized to the limit.

A fairy tale cannot be fulfilled for oneself. If a storyteller tells a tale alone, then he obviously still imagines listeners in front of him. His story is, to a certain extent, a game, but unlike the game of a lyrical song, it is a game not for oneself, but for others. A lyrical song is sung about the present, while a fairy tale tells about the past, about what happened once and somewhere. To the same extent that a lyrical song is characterized by the present tense, a fairy tale is characterized by the past tense.

The time of a fairy tale is closely related to the plot. A fairy tale often talks about time, but time is counted from one episode to another. Time is counted from the last event: “in a year”, “in a day”, “the next morning”. A break in time is a pause in the development of the plot. At the same time, time seems to be included in the traditional fairy-tale ritual. For example, the repetition of episodes, which slows down the development of action, is very often associated with the law of tripartiteness. The action is postponed until the morning using the formula “the morning is wiser than the evening.”

Time in a fairy tale always moves consistently in one direction and never goes back. The story always moves him forward. That is why there are no static descriptions in the fairy tale. If nature is described, it is only in movement, and its description continues to develop the action.

Fairytale time does not go beyond the boundaries of a fairy tale. It is entirely wrapped up in the plot. It is as if he is not there before the beginning of the fairy tale and is not there at its end. It is not defined in the general flow of historical time.

The fairy tale ends with a no less emphasized stop of fairy-tale time; the fairy tale ends with a statement of the ensuing “absence” of events: prosperity, death, wedding, feast. The final formulas record this stop: “They began to live and be, to acquire good things - to do evil!”, “and he moved to the sunflower kingdom; and lives very well, comfortably, and wishes long-term peace for himself and his children...”, “that’s how his life ended.” Final prosperity is the end of a fabulous time.

The exit from fairy-tale time to reality is also accomplished through the self-exposure of the narrator: an indication of the frivolity of the storyteller, the unreality of everything he tells, and the removal of illusion. This is a return to the “prose of life”, a reminder of its worries and needs, an appeal to the material side of life.

Bylinas, like other folklore genres, do not have an author's time. Their time is action time and performing time. The time of action of epics, like the time of action of fairy tales, is attributed to the past.

Unlike epics, historical songs take place at different times: from the 13th to the 19th centuries. Historical songs seem to accompany Russian history and mark its most outstanding events. In epics, the time of action is all assigned to a certain conventional era of Russian antiquity, which, however, despite all its conventionality, is perceived as historical time, “byvalshchina.”

The action of the epics could not be attached to the social situation of the 14th-17th centuries. In the latter, the epic relationship between the hero and the prince is impossible. To reflect the events of this time, the people created another type of epic creativity - historical song, where there was no place for heroes, where social inequality and the new relationship of the prince, the tsar to his military servant made it impossible for the epic idealization of the latter, his transformation into a hero.

Whenever the epic was composed and no matter what real event It does not reflect - it transfers its action to a kind of “epic time”. Russian epics reproduce the world of social relations and the historical situation of this particular time and only the heroes of the Kiev cycle are called heroes.

When defining the time of action of epics as conditional, we must still keep in mind that it was nevertheless perceived as strictly historical, really existing, and not fantastic. That is why people never give fictitious names to the heroes of historical epics, and the action of epics takes place among really existing cities and villages.

The action of epics all takes place in the past, but not in the indefinite conventional past of fairy tales, but in a strictly limited idealized epic time in which special social relations, special life, special state position Rus', in which special conditional motivations for the actions of heroes and enemies of Russia, special psychological laws, etc., prevail.

In this epic time, any number of different events can take place, always, in general, ending more or less well for the country. The events of epics, in contrast to the events of fairy tales, are perceived as events of Russian history; they are classified as conventional Russian antiquity.
Artistic time
in ancient Russian literature
. Artistic time in ancient Russian literature differs sharply from artistic time in the literature of modern times. The subjective aspect of time, in which time sometimes seems to flow slowly, sometimes running quickly, sometimes rolling in an even wave, sometimes moving spasmodically, intermittently, was not yet discovered in the Middle Ages. If in new literature time is very often depicted as it is perceived by the characters in the work or presented to the author or the author’s “replacement” - the lyrical hero, the “image of the narrator”, etc. - then in Old Russian literature the author strives to depict objectively existing time, independent of one or another perception of it. Time seemed to exist only in its objective reality. Even what was happening in the present was perceived without regard to the subject of time. For the ancient Russian author, time was not a phenomenon of human consciousness. Accordingly, in the literature of Ancient Russia there were no attempts to create the “mood” of the narrative by changing the pace of the story. Narrative time slowed down or sped up depending on the needs of the narrative itself. So, for example, when the narrator tried to convey the event with all the details, the narration seemed to slow down. It slowed down in cases where dialogue was involved, when the character was uttering a monologue, or when this monologue was “internal”, when it was a prayer. The action slowed down almost to real life when picturesque descriptions were required. We saw such slowdowns in action in Russian epics - in scenes of a hero saddling a horse, a dialogue between a hero and an enemy, in battle scenes, in descriptions of a feast. This time can be defined as “artistic imperfect”. In epics, this artistic imperfect usually coincides with the grammatical imperfect; in works of Old Russian literature, this coincidence of artistic tense with grammatical tense is less common.

Precisely because the pace of narration in Old Russian literature depended to a large extent on the richness of the narrative itself, and not on the writer’s intention to create this or that mood, not on his desire to manage time in order to create various artistic effects, the problem of time in Old Russian literature attracted the attention of the author relatively less than in the new literature. Artistic time did not have that measure of independence from the plot that was necessary for its independent development and which it began to possess in modern times. Time was subordinate to the plot, did not stand above it, and therefore seemed much more objective and epic, less diverse and more connected with history, understood, however, much more narrowly than in modern times - as a change of events, but not as a change in the way of life . Time in its flow seemed to capture in the Middle Ages a much narrower range of phenomena than it captures in our consciousness now.
Chronicle
time. The literary genre that first came into sharp conflict with the closedness of plot time is the chronicle.

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

The chronicle record stands at the transition of the present to the past. This process of transition is extremely significant in the chronicle. The chronicler “without deception”, in fact, records the events of the present - what was in his memory, and then, accumulating new records, during subsequent rewriting of the chronicle texts, thereby pushing these records into the past. The chronicle record, which at the time of its composition related to an event of the present or just recently happened, gradually turns into a record of the past - more and more distant. The chronicler's remarks, exclamations and comments, which when written were the result of the chronicler's excitement, his “empathies”, his political interest in them, then become dispassionate documents. They do not disturb either the temporal sequence or the epic calm of the chronicler. From this point of view it is clear that artistic image the chronicler, invisibly present in the chronicle presentation, appears in the reader’s mind in the image of a contemporary recording what is happening, and not in the image of a “scientific and inquisitive historian” creating chronicle collections, as he appears in studies of Russian chronicles.
CONCLUSION

The humanities are now gaining more and more higher value in the development of world culture.

It has become banal to say that in the 20th century. distances have been reduced due to technological developments. But it may not be a truism to say that they have been further reduced between people, countries, cultures and eras thanks to the development of the humanities. This is why the humanities are becoming an important moral force in the development of humanity.

The same task faces the cultural history of our own country's past.

Penetrating into the aesthetic consciousness of other eras and other nations, we must first of all study their differences among themselves and their differences from our aesthetic consciousness, from the aesthetic consciousness of modern times. We must first of all study the peculiar and unique, the “individuality” of peoples and past eras. It is in the diversity of aesthetic consciousnesses that they are especially instructive, their richness and the guarantee of the possibility of their use in modern artistic creativity. To approach old art and the art of other countries only from the point of view of modern aesthetic norms, to look only for what is close to ourselves, means to extremely impoverish the aesthetic heritage.

Nowadays, the study of ancient Russian literature is becoming more and more necessary. We are gradually beginning to realize that the solution to many problems in the history of Russian literature of its classical period is impossible without involving the history of ancient Russian literature.

Peter's reforms marked a transition from the old to the new, and not a break, the emergence of new qualities under the influence of trends hidden in the previous period - this is clear, just as it is clear that the development of Russian literature from the 10th century. and to this day it represents a single whole, no matter what turns may be encountered along the path of this development. We can understand and appreciate the significance of the literature of our days only on the scale of the entire thousand-year development of Russian literature. None of the questions raised in this book can be considered definitively resolved. The purpose of this book is to outline the paths of study, and not to close them to the movement of scientific thought. The more controversy this book generates, the better. But there is no reason to doubt that there is a need to argue, just as there is no reason to doubt that the study of antiquity should be conducted in the interests of modernity.

INTRODUCTION

However, not only these people were interested in many issues of ancient Russian literature; many writers in Russia and neighboring countries are engaged in these issues to this day.

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev made his contribution to the artistic specifics of ancient Russian literature. His works are contained in the book “The Poetics of Old Russian Literature,” which was published more than once. Its very first publication was in 1967. In 1969, academician D.S. Likhachev was awarded the USSR State Prize for this book. This book has been published in different languages and in different countries. However, its content did not change. Similar publications by other authors also took place, but none of the materials by D.S. Likhacheva is not repeated in comparison with other authors. This book, “The Poetics of Old Russian Literature,” was gradually expanded. Some of its sections were published much earlier than the book itself. The author dedicates this book to “his comrades - specialists in ancient Russian literature.”

In front of me lies the book by Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev “The Poetics of Old Russian Literature” - the third updated edition, published by the Nauka publishing house (Moscow), 1979. The author of the book poses the following questions: “Is it possible to talk about ancient Russian literature as a certain unity from the point of view of historical poetics? Is there continuity in the development of Russian literature from ancient to new and what is the essence of the differences between ancient Russian literature and new? His entire book should answer these questions, but in a preliminary form they are posed at the beginning.

Geographical boundaries

Ancient Russian literature was not only not isolated from the literatures of neighboring Western and southern countries, in particular from Byzantium, but up to the 17th century. we can talk about the opposite - about the absence of clear national boundaries in it. There was a single literature, a single written language and a single literary (Church Slavonic) language among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), Bulgarians, Serbs, and Romanians. The main fund of church-literary monuments was common.

Perhaps the isolation and isolation of Russian literature of the 11th-16th centuries. should be understood in the sense that Russian literature only passively received their literary monuments from neighboring peoples, without transmitting anything to them? Many people think so, but this position is also completely untrue. Now we can talk about a huge “export” of monuments and manuscripts created there from Kievan Rus and from Moscow Rus. The writings of Cyril of Turov were distributed in manuscripts throughout southeastern Europe, along with the writings of the church fathers. Finally, the sophisticated style of “weaving words”, which arose and spread in the Balkans in the 14th and 15th centuries, developed not without Russian influence and it was in Russia that it reached its highest flowering.

The following is characteristic: the influence of Russian literature in the countries of South-Eastern Europe did not stop in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but this was primarily the influence of ancient Russian literature, and not the new one created in Russia. In Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania, the influence of ancient Russian monuments continues after the development of the traditions of ancient Russian literature in Russia itself ceased. The last writer who was of great importance for the entire Orthodox Eastern and Southern Europe was Dmitry Rostovsky. Further, only a small stream of influences from secular Russian literature of the 18th century is felt - mainly school theater and some works of a religious nature. Anti-heretical literature is also exported from Russia. Manuscripts testify to all this.

The isolation of ancient Russian literature is a myth of the 19th century. True, one can pay attention to the fact that Old Russian literature was closely connected with Orthodoxy and its connections with the literatures of Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and in the ancient period with the Western Slavs were explained mainly by religious ties. This is one of the explanations, but we cannot talk only about connections within religious literature, since these connections are noticeable both in chronography and in the traditions of the Hellenistic novel, in “Alexandria”, in “natural science” literature.

Now let us turn to the other side of the issue of “Europeanization” of Russian literature in the 18th century: to the supposed position of ancient Russian literature between East and West.

In ancient Russian literature, what is most striking is the complete absence of translations from Asian languages. Ancient Rus' knew translations from Greek, Latin, Hebrew, knew works created in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia, knew translations from Czech, German, Polish, but did not know a single translation from Turkish, Tatar, or from the languages of Central Asia and the Caucasus . Two or three stories from Georgian and Tatar came to us orally (“The Tale of Queen Dinara”, “The Tale of Human Reason”). Traces of the Polovtsian epic were found in the chronicles of Kyiv and Galician-Volyn Rus, but these traces are extremely insignificant, especially if we take into account the intensity of the political and dynastic ties of the Russian princes with the Polovtsians.

The lack of literary connections with Asia is a striking feature of Old Russian literature.

From what has been said it is clear: there is no talk of any “Europeanization” of Russian literature of the 18th century. It is impossible to speak in general terms. We can talk about something else: that the European orientation of Russian literature has moved from one country to another. Literature XI-XVI centuries. was organically connected with such European countries as Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania. From the 16th century it is connected with Poland, the Czech Republic, also with Serbia and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. These new connections increased enormously in the 17th century. In the 18th century the orientation changes - a period of influence begins from France and Germany, and through them, mainly, other Western European countries. Can we see Peter’s will in this? No. Peter oriented Russian culture towards those Western European countries with which Russia had established ties earlier, in the 17th, and partly as early as the 16th century - towards Holland and England. The influence of France in the field of literature was established after Peter, beyond Peter's intentions. But neither Dutch nor English literature in the era of Peter the Great attracted the attention of Russian writers.

At first, the equal relations that existed in Ancient Rus' with other East Slavic countries and with the countries of South-Eastern Europe were not established with Western European countries.

Chronological boundaries

Where is the line between ancient Russian literature and modern one? This question is inseparable from another: what does this line consist of?

From here it is clear that the main thing lies in the internal structural features of literature, which left their mark on the treatment of Western European literature.

The greater “openness” of literature in relation to non-literary genres of writing has also been repeatedly noted in the research literature. The genres of ancient Russian literature often had a greater ritual and business purpose than the genres of new Russian literature. One can say even more decisively: the main difference between one genre in ancient Russian literature and another is in their use, in their ritual, legal or other functions. The boundaries of literature are not delineated, although in certain genres literariness is quite strongly expressed.

When did the restructuring of one literary structure into another take place?

The revolution was gradual and lengthy, the line of change was extremely uneven. Some phenomena were prepared by the entire development of ancient Russian literature, others took place throughout the entire 17th century, and others were finally determined only in the second quarter or second third of the 18th century. The structure of ancient Russian literature has never been stable. Genres of a new type arose in the depths of the old genre system and coexisted with genres of the medieval type. The authority of the writer was great in some cases and weak in others. One of the features of the structure of ancient Russian literature was precisely that this structure was never integral and stable.

The Petrine era was a break in the movement of literature, a stop. Russian literature knew such breaks before (the second half of the reign of Ivan the Terrible). Peter's time, of course, gave new, very strong historical incentives for literary development, and this should in no case be forgotten, but the development of literature itself was not marked by anything new in Peter's time. This is the most “non-literary” era of the entire existence of Russian literature. At this time, no significant works of literature arose and its character did not change. The so-called Peter's stories arose sometimes earlier, and sometimes later, and were associated primarily with the traditions of Russian literature of the 17th century. The image of the “new man” outlined in them was prepared by the entire development of Russian literature of the 17th century.

A new type of literary development came into force from the second quarter, or rather from the second third of the 18th century. It rises and forms with unusual speed. A combination of reasons was at work here: the emergence of book printing in literature (before this, printing houses served administrative, educational and church purposes), the emergence of literary periodicals, the development of a higher, secular type of intelligentsia, and much more. Certain streams of ancient literature (hagiography, chronicles, etc.) continue their flow, but leave the “day surface” of literature and wither away; others, like church sermons, are rebuilt in the Catholic manner, but also leave the “day surface.”

The uneven nature of the development of Russian literature in the 11th-17th centuries, the lack of a general movement of literature, the accelerated development of some genres and the slow development of others allowed the leap of the 18th century to take place. to a new structure of literature. The disharmony concealed within itself enormous possibilities for moving forward; there was no inertia that would need to be overcome through the efforts of centuries. The halt that the Petrine era represented in the development of literature meant that this leap was ready to take place. The plow stopped plowing the ground and was easily dragged across a large strip, leaving it unplowed. When he dug into the soil again, Lomonosov, Fonvizin, Radishchev, Derzhavin appeared and, finally, when the plowing became smooth and deep, Pushkin.

POETICS OF LITERATURE AS A SYSTEM OF A WHOLE

A special and very important topic of research is the role of words in works of art. As you know, inscriptions, signatures and accompanying texts are constantly introduced into ancient Russian easel works, wall paintings and miniatures.

The art of painting seemed to be burdened by its silence and sought to “speak.” And it “spoke,” but it spoke in a special language. Those texts that accompany the marks in hagiographic icons are not texts mechanically taken from one or another hagiography, but prepared and processed in a special way. The hagiographic excerpts on the icon were supposed to be perceived by viewers in different conditions than by readers of manuscripts. Therefore, these texts are abbreviated or unfinished, they are laconic, short phrases predominate in them, and sometimes the “ornament” disappears in them, unnecessary in the vicinity of the colorful language of painting. Even this detail is significant: the past tense in these inscriptions is often transferred to the present. The inscription explains not the past, but the present - what is reproduced on the mark of the icon, and not what once was. The icon does not depict what happened, but what is happening now in the image; it affirms what exists, what the worshiper sees in front of him.

It is necessary to penetrate into the psychology and ideology of the Middle Ages in order to understand in all its depth the aesthetic significance of inscriptions in the fine arts of the Middle Ages. The word appeared not only in its sound essence, but also in its visual image. And not only the word in general, but also the given word of the given text. It was also “timeless” to some extent. That is why the inscriptions were so organically included in the composition and became an element of the ornamental decoration of the icon. And that’s why it was so important to decorate the text of manuscripts with initials and headpieces, create a beautiful page, even write in beautiful handwriting.

A careful study of the common regional features in literature and other arts, the commonality of their destinies and the content of regional, centrifugal tendencies, their simultaneous overcoming and combination with centripetal forces can clarify the process of the gradual formation of a unified literature. Local shades begin to disappear simultaneously in the 16th century. in various fields of artistic culture: literature, architecture and painting. On the basis of the economic and political unification of individual Russian lands, the unification of all Russian culture takes place in the sequence and with the degree of speed that was prompted by the socio-political reality itself.

It is necessary to distinguish between two concepts of style in literature: style as a phenomenon of the language of literature and style as a certain system of form and content.

Style is not only a form of language, but it is the unifying aesthetic principle of the structure of all content and the entire form of a work. The style-forming system can be revealed in all elements of the work. Artistic style combines the general perception of reality, characteristic of the writer, and the writer’s artistic method, determined by the tasks that he sets for himself. In this sense, the concept of style can be applied to various arts, and there may be synchronous correspondences between them. The same depiction techniques can be reflected in the literature and painting of a particular era; they may correspond to some general formal features of the architecture of the same time or music. And since aesthetic principles can extend beyond the boundaries of the arts, we can also talk about the style of a particular philosophy or theological system. We know, for example, that the Baroque style affected not only architecture, but also captured painting, sculpture, literature (especially poetry and drama) and even music and philosophy.

Currently, we can talk about the Baroque style as a style of an era, which to one degree or another is reflected in all types of artistic activity within certain chronological limits and geographical boundaries.

Individual mental trends and ideological trends must be strictly distinguished from the phenomena of the “style of the era” - no matter how wide a range of phenomena they cover. For example, the desire to revive the cultural traditions of pre-Mongol Rus' spanned the late 14th and 15th centuries. architecture, painting, literature, folklore, socio-political thought, is reflected in historical thought, penetrates into official theories, etc., but this phenomenon in itself does not form a special style. The numerous penetrations of Renaissance culture into Rus' do not form a special style. The Renaissance, which in the West was also a phenomenon of style, in Russia remained only a mental movement.

When we talk about the connections that existed between literature and art in Ancient Russia, we must keep in mind not only that literature in Ancient Rus' had extremely strong visual representation and not only that fine art constantly had written works as its subjects, but also that the illustrators of Ancient Rus' developed extremely skillful techniques for conveying literary narrative. The desire to tell a story was essential to the miniaturists, and they used an extremely wide range of techniques to transform the space of the image into a story. And these techniques were also reflected in the literary work itself, where very often the narrator, as it were, prepares material for the miniaturist, creating a sequence of scenes - a kind of “chain mail of the story.” But let us turn to the narrative techniques of ancient Russian miniaturists.

The main technique used by the miniaturist is “narrative reduction”. On icons, for example, a saint may be larger in size than ordinary people. This emphasizes its importance. But this is done in the average, but in the hagiographical marks the saint will be the same size as other people. It is not people who are reduced there, but architecture, trees, mountains, in order to emphasize the importance of people in general. Actions in miniatures have a monotonous image. The language of miniatures, like any language, requires some formalization and stability of the “sign system”.

Narrative space dominates over geographical space in miniatures. One can say more - in miniatures the narrative sequence dominates over the possible real one.

In conveying individual scenes in miniatures, one should note the desire to depict the most important thing in what is happening and not to hide this main thing outside the image. Neither crowds of people, nor groups of troops or architectural details ever obscure or cut off the main action. Flaky slides or architectural details always only limit the attention of the audience, direct it, but never obscure the content itself. Everything is in sight, and at the same time there is nothing that is outside the narration! The artist ascetically refrains from telling the viewer something that is not in the text of the chronicle. Everything is subordinated to the story. The characters pose lightly for the artist. This makes their gestures, their movements seem as if suspended in the air. Each gesture is “stopped” by the artist precisely at the moment that is most expressive of the event: the saber is raised, the hand is raised for a blessing or to indicate, the pointing finger clearly appears above a group of people. Hands in miniatures play a primary role. Their positions are symbolic.

The category of literary genre is a historical category. Literary genres appear only at a certain stage in the development of the art of words and then constantly change and are replaced. The point is not only that some genres come to replace others and not a single genre is “eternal” for literature; the point is also that the very principles of identifying individual genres change, the types and nature of genres change, their functions in that or another era. The modern division into genres, based on purely literary characteristics, appears relatively late. For Russian literature, purely literary principles of identifying genres came into force mainly in the 17th century. Until this time, literary genres, to one degree or another, carried, in addition to literary functions, extraliterary functions. Genres are determined by their use: in worship (in its different parts), in legal and diplomatic practice (article lists, chronicles, stories about princely crimes), in the atmosphere of princely life (solemn words, glory), etc.

Indeed, the genre indications in the manuscripts are characterized by extraordinary complexity and intricacy: “alphabet”, “alphabet”, “conversation”, “being”, “memories” (for example, notes about a saint or a story about a miracle that occurred: “Memories of the former banner and miracles icons... of the Mother of God... hedgehog in Veliky Novegrad"), "chapters" ("Chapters of the Hearings", "Chapters of Father Nile", "Chapters are instructive", etc.), "double words", "deeds", etc.

An exact listing of all the names of the genres would give a figure of approximately one hundred. It is characteristic that in ancient Russian literature there is constantly an intensive self-increase in the number of genres. This lasts until the 17th century. the principles of the medieval system of genres do not begin to partially die out and in place of the medieval system a new system does not appear - the system of genres of new Russian literature.

However, the main reason for the confusion and unclear distinction of individual genres in Old Russian literature was that the basis for identifying a genre, along with other features, was not the literary features of the presentation, but the subject itself, the topic to which the work was devoted. In fact, genre definitions of Ancient Russia were very often combined with definitions of the subject of the story: “vision”, “life”, “exploits”, “passion”, “torment”, “walking”, “miracle”, “deeds”, etc. (cf. “The Torment of Barbara and Juliana”, “The Torment of Eleazar”, “The Ordeal of Theodora”, “The Vision of Gregory”).

It is hardly possible to discern in the literature of modern times a significant difference between the story and the novel in their use in everyday life. Both are intended for individual reading. Somewhat more significant in the literature of modern times, from the point of view of everyday use, are the differences between lyrics and artistic prose - in the totality of all its genres. This is reflected, in particular, in age differences in interest in lyrics. People become more interested in lyrics at a relatively young age. The role of lyrics in everyday life is somewhat different than the role of other genres (lyrics and poetry in general are not only read to oneself, they are recited). However, even with all the differences in the “use” of genres, the latter does not constitute their fundamental feature.

If the literature of modern times in its genre system is independent of the system of folklore genres, then the same cannot be said about the system of literary genres of Ancient Rus'. In fact, the system of literary genres was determined to a large extent by the needs of everyday life - church and secular. However, secular life was served not only by literature, but also by folklore. The upper strata of society in Ancient Rus' during the era of feudalism continued to use folklore. They were not free from paganism, they partially participated in the performance of traditional rituals, listened and sang lyrical songs, listened to fairy tales, etc. Of course, the folklore that existed in the ruling class of society was special, selected, perhaps modified. It goes without saying that folklore as a whole was very far from the worldview of the ruling class.

Folklore, and often homogeneous, was widespread not only among the working class, but also among the dominant one. Peasants and boyars could listen to the same epics, the same fairy tales, the same lyrical songs were sung everywhere. Undoubtedly, there were works that could not be performed for representatives of the feudal elite: some pagan ritual songs, satirical works, bandit songs, etc. Those works in which the “worldview of folklore” turned out to be anti-feudal could not be distributed among the ruling class, however These were only some of the works, by no means all. The existence of folklore among the ruling class was facilitated by the fact that the feudal worldview, by its very nature, was contradictory. Idealistic and naturalistic elements and different artistic methods could coexist in it. Even individual monuments could be permeated with this diversity. That is why some folklore works could be performed for the ruling class, sometimes with certain omissions.

POETICS OF LITERARY DEVICES

Medieval symbolism “deciphers” not only many motives and details of plots, but it also allows us to understand a lot in the very style of medieval literature. In particular, the so-called commonplaces of medieval literature, so widespread in it, in many cases reflect the features of the medieval symbolizing worldview. And even in those cases when they move from work to work as a result of borrowing, they are still “supported” by the symbolic meaning given to them. For example, medieval symbolism explains many of the “literary cliches” of medieval hagiography. The formation of hagiographic schemes occurs under the influence of ideas about the symbolic meaning of all events of human life: the life of a saint always has a double meaning - in itself and as a moral example for other people

Also, medieval symbolism often replaces metaphor with symbol. What we take for a metaphor in many cases turns out to be a hidden symbol, born of the search for secret correspondences between the material and “spiritual” worlds. Based primarily on theological teachings or on pre-scientific systems of ideas about the world, the symbols introduced a strong stream of abstraction into literature and, by their very essence, were directly opposed to the main artistic tropes - metaphor, metonymy, comparison, etc. - based on likening, on aptly captured similarity or clear identification of the main thing, based on what is actually observed, on a living and direct perception of the world. In contrast to metaphor, simile, and metonymy, symbols were brought to life primarily by abstract idealistic theological thought. A real understanding of the world is replaced in them by theological abstraction, art by theological scholarship.

The use of theological symbols to build an entire artistic picture on their basis is not uncommon in ancient Russian literature and later - right up to the 18th century. The addition of familiar theological symbols into a living and “visual” picture required purely combinatorial abilities from the writer. In these combinations, the symbolic meaning of certain natural phenomena was sometimes forgotten, and tasks of a different nature emerged. Already here we can notice a desire to liberate literary creativity from the power of theology.

This medieval “realism” sometimes caused a kind of “myth-making.” The materially understood symbol developed a new myth. The struggle against the theological system of symbols lasted continuously in ancient Russian literature until the 18th century. It was complicated by the dominance of theology. The final liberation of literature from abstract theological thought could only take place after the victory of the secular principle in literature. This struggle was more successful in democratic and progressive literature, less successful in church literature. It took different forms and led to different results in different eras; it did not proceed in the same way in individual genres and even within the same work.

Stylistic symmetry is a deeply archaic phenomenon. It is characteristic of the artistic thinking of pre-feudal and feudal society.

The phenomena of stylistic symmetry also passed into ancient Russian literature, and since the influence of the poetry of the psalms, and partly of other poetic books of the Bible, was constant, periodically intensifying and affecting itself especially clearly in the literature of the “high” style, individual examples of this stylistic symmetry are very numerous in all centuries. However, if we compare the stylistic symmetry in the psalter with the phenomena it caused in Russian literature of the 11th-17th centuries, then some differences are noticeable in the mass: Russian symmetry is much more diverse, “ornamental”, more dynamic. It is not limited to two terms of symmetry, but goes into syntactic repetitions in general. More and more often, it ceases to be a “stop” in the development of a poetic theme, more and more often the terms of symmetry cover different phenomena, turn into phenomena of parallelism, serve the purpose of comparison, lose connection with artistic thinking, are destroyed, and are formalized.

Comparisons in ancient Russian literature differ sharply in their nature and internal essence from comparisons in modern literature.

In contrast to the literature of modern times, in Russian medieval literature there are few comparisons based on visual similarities. There are much more comparisons in it than in the literature of modern times, emphasizing tactile similarities, gustatory, olfactory similarities, associated with the sensation of the material, with the feeling of muscular tension.

Ordinary, “average” comparisons in ancient Russian literature are of a different type: they primarily concern the internal essence of the objects being compared.

Finally, one more note about medieval comparisons.

POETICS OF ARTISTIC TIME

Artistic time of a verbal work. If you take a closer look at how the world was understood in antiquity or the Middle Ages, you will notice that contemporaries did not notice much in this world, and this happened because ideas about the changeability of the world over time were narrowed. The social and political structure of the world, life, morals of people and much more seemed unchanged, forever established. Therefore, contemporaries did not notice them and they were not described in literary and historical works. Chroniclers and chroniclers note only events, incidents in the broad sense of the word. They don't see the rest.

The development of ideas about time is one of the most important achievements of new literature. Gradually, all aspects of existence turned out to be changeable: the human world, the animal world, the plant world, the world of “dead nature” - the geological structure of the earth and the world of stars. The historical understanding of the material and spiritual world embraces science, philosophy and all forms of art. “Historicity” extends to an ever wider range of phenomena. In literature, the awareness of the diversity of forms of movement and at the same time its unity throughout the world is increasingly reflected.

The most essential for the study of literature is the study of artistic time: time as it is reproduced in literary works, time as an artistic factor in literature.

What is the artistic time of a work in contrast to grammatical time and the philosophical understanding of time by individual authors?

Artistic time is a phenomenon of the very artistic fabric of a literary work, subordinating both grammatical time and its philosophical understanding by the writer to its artistic tasks.

Time in fiction is perceived through the connection of events - cause-and-effect or psychological, associative. Time in a work of art is not only and not so much calendar references, but the correlation of events. Events in a plot precede and follow each other, are arranged in a complex series, and thanks to this, the reader is able to notice time in a work of art, even if it does not specifically say anything about time.

One of the most difficult issues in the study of artistic time is the question of the unity of the time flow in a work with several plot lines. The consciousness of the unity of the time flow, the flow of historical time, does not come immediately in folklore and literature.

Events of different plots in folklore and in the initial stages of the development of literature can each take place in its own time series, independently of the other. When the consciousness of the unity of time begins to prevail, the very violations of this unity, the differences in time of various plots begin to be perceived as something supernatural, miraculous.

The author's attitude to the depicted time in all its aspects can also be different. The author may “not keep up” with rapidly changing events, describe them in pursuit of them, as if “out of breath,” or calmly contemplate them. The author is like an editor in cinematography: according to his artistic calculations, he can not only slow down or speed up the time of his work, but also stop it for certain periods, “turn it off” from the work. This is mostly necessary in order to give a generalization: philosophical digressions in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” descriptive digressions in Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter.”

Each literary movement develops its own attitude to time and makes its own “discoveries” in the field of depicting time. Different types of tense are characteristic of different literary movements. Sentimentalism developed the image of the author's time, which was close to the plot. Naturalism sometimes tried to “stop” the depicted time, to create “daguerreotypes” of reality in “physiological sketches.” “Open” time is characteristic of realism of the 19th century.

It is necessary to pay attention to one more aspect of artistic time: each type of art has its own forms of the passage of time, its own aspects of artistic time and its own forms of duration.

Artistic time in folklore. The originality of the depiction of time in folk lyrics is closely connected, first of all, with the fact that it contains neither an actual nor a depicted author. In this way, folk lyrics are fundamentally different from book lyrics, where the author is not only obligatory, but where he plays a very important role as the “lyrical hero” of the work. Russian folk lyrics are not so much “created” as performed. The place of the author is taken by the performer. Its “lyrical hero” is, to a certain extent, the performer himself. The singer sings about himself, the listener listens about himself.

Due to the fact that a folk song is a song about a song, the present time is special. It has the ability to "repeat". In each performance, this present tense refers to a new time - to the time of performance. This “repetition” of the present tense is due to the fact that the time of a folk lyrical song is closed - it is contained in the plot and is exhausted by the plot. If the time of a folk lyrical song were openly connected with many facts, partly beyond the boundaries of the song, its “repetition” would be difficult. Everything individual, all the details, all the strong historical connections would destroy the closedness of the artistic time of the work and would interfere with its “repetition.” That is why lyrical folk songs are not only closed in their time, but also generalized to the limit.

The action of the epics could not be attached to the social situation of the 14th-17th centuries. In the latter, the epic relationship between the hero and the prince is impossible. To reflect the events of this time, the people created another type of epic creativity - a historical song, where there was no place for heroes, where social inequality and the new relationship of the prince, the king to his military servant made it impossible for the epic idealization of the latter, his transformation into a hero.

Whenever the epic is composed and no matter what real event it reflects, it transfers its action to a kind of “epic time”. Russian epics reproduce the world of social relations and the historical situation of this particular time and only the heroes of the Kiev cycle are called heroes.

The action of epics all takes place in the past, but not in the indefinite conventional past of fairy tales, but in a strictly limited idealized epic time, in which there are special social relations, a special way of life, a special state position of Russia, in which special conditional motivations for the actions of heroes and enemies of Russia prevail, special psychological laws, etc.

Artistic time in ancient Russian literature. Artistic time in ancient Russian literature differs sharply from artistic time in the literature of modern times. The subjective aspect of time, in which time sometimes seems to flow slowly, sometimes running quickly, sometimes rolling in an even wave, sometimes moving spasmodically, intermittently, was not yet discovered in the Middle Ages. If in new literature time is very often depicted as it is perceived by the characters in the work or presented to the author or the author’s “replacement” - the lyrical hero, the “image of the narrator”, etc. - then in Old Russian literature the author strives to depict objectively existing time, independent of one or another perception of it. Time seemed to exist only in its objective reality. Even what was happening in the present was perceived without regard to the subject of time. For the ancient Russian author, time was not a phenomenon of human consciousness. Accordingly, in the literature of Ancient Russia there were no attempts to create the “mood” of the narrative by changing the pace of the story. Narrative time slowed down or sped up depending on the needs of the narrative itself. So, for example, when the narrator tried to convey the event with all the details, the narration seemed to slow down. It slowed down in cases where dialogue was involved, when the character was uttering a monologue, or when this monologue was “internal”, when it was a prayer. The action slowed down almost to real life when picturesque descriptions were required. We saw such slowdowns in action in Russian epics - in scenes of a hero saddling a horse, a dialogue between a hero and an enemy, in battle scenes, in descriptions of a feast. This time can be defined as “artistic imperfect”. In epics, this artistic imperfect usually coincides with the grammatical imperfect; in works of Old Russian literature, this coincidence of artistic tense with grammatical tense is less common.

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

The chronicle record stands at the transition of the present to the past. This process of transition is extremely significant in the chronicle. The chronicler “without deception”, in fact, records the events of the present - what was in his memory, and then, accumulating new records, during subsequent rewriting of the chronicle texts, thereby pushing these records into the past. The chronicle record, which at the time of its composition related to an event of the present or just recently happened, gradually turns into a record of the past - more and more distant. The chronicler's remarks, exclamations and comments, which when written were the result of the chronicler's excitement, his “empathies”, his political interest in them, then become dispassionate documents. They do not disturb either the temporal sequence or the epic calm of the chronicler. From this point of view, it is clear that the artistic image of the chronicler, invisibly present in the chronicle presentation, appears in the reader’s mind in the image of a contemporary recording what is happening, and not in the image of a “scientific and inquisitive historian” creating chronicle vaults, as he appears in studies of Russian history. chronicles.

CONCLUSION

The humanities are now becoming more and more important in the development of world culture.

The same task faces the cultural history of our own country's past.

Poetics of artistic generalization:

Literature and literary language of that time were subject to etiquette. Literary etiquette and the literary canons developed by it. The most typical medieval conditional normative connection between content and form.

There are formulas inherent, for example, in the description of a saint or formulas for military stories: the march of a prince, certain moments of a battle, etc.

The language also changes: when philosophizing, the writer resorts to Church Slavonicisms, talking about everyday affairs, and Narodorussianisms.

Not only is a certain style of presentation built according to the canons, but the situations themselves are created exactly as required by etiquette requirements.

All these stencils and templates are used by readers - not at all mechanically, but exactly where they are required.

The traditionality of DRL is a fact of a certain artistic system, closely related to many phenomena of ancient Russian. works.

(Abstracting is isolating one element from many others).

The desire for artistic abstraction of what is depicted runs through all medieval Russian literature. It was caused by attempts to see in everything “temporary” and “perishable” symbols and signs of the eternal, divine.

A typical phenomenon of Old Russian prose is ornamentation, i.e. poetic speech.

One of higher manifestations poetic speech - ornamental prose, the heyday of which falls at the beginning of the 20th century. However, it appeared in Rus' quite early. (A Word about Law and Grace)

The style of weaving words belongs to one of the very first examples of ornamental prose.

Ornamental prose is close to verse in that it strives to create a kind of “super meaning.” In this case, the rhythmic organization of speech is not required.

In the style of weaving words, repetitions of words with the same root are often used, and key words for a given text + realistic elements.

Poetics lit. Means:

Metaphors-symbols

In the Middle Ages, a poetics of symbols developed. Metaphors for the most part are also symbols. Symbolism received its clearest development in Rus' in the 11th-13th centuries. Starting from the end of the 14th century, the period of its breakdown began. A revival of interest in church symbolism was observed in the 16th century.

Stylistic symmetry is a poetic phenomenon that subsequently disappeared.

The essence: the same thing is said twice in a similar syntactic form.

Stylistic symmetry differs from artistic parallelism in that it does not compare two elements, but speaks about the same thing in different words. Steele. Symmetry is an archaic phenomenon; it is characteristic of artists. pre-feudal and feudal thinking.

Comparisons

In medieval literature there are few comparisons based on external similarity: there are many more comparisons emphasizing tactile, gustatory, and olfactory similarities. (A daughter-in-law is kind in the house, like honey on the lips).

Conventional comparisons primarily concern the inner essence of the objects being compared (Sergius of Radonezh is the most luminous luminary).

Unstylized imitations (14th-15th centuries)

Zadonshchina is a typical unstylized imitation of a monument from the era of Russian independence.