How did ancient literature appear? History of Old Russian Literature

Historical background. Literature arises only in the conditions of the development of class society. Necessary prerequisites for its emergence are the formation of the state, the emergence of writing, and the existence of highly developed forms of oral folk art.

The emergence of Old Russian literature is inextricably linked with the process of creating an early feudal state. Soviet historical science refuted the Norman theory of the origin of the ancient Russian state, proving that it arose not as a result of the calling of the Varangians, but as a result of a long historical process of decomposition of the tribal communal system of the East Slavic tribes. A characteristic feature of this historical process is that the East Slavic tribes come to feudalism, bypassing the stage of slaveholding formation.

The new system of social relations, based on the class dominance of a minority over the majority of the working population, needed ideological justification. This justification could not be provided either by the tribal pagan religion or by oral folk art, which previously served ideologically and artistically the basis of the tribal system.

The development of economic, trade and political relations created a need for writing, the existence of which is one of the most necessary prerequisites for the emergence of literature.

Data from Soviet linguistic and historical science indicate that writing in Rus' appeared long before the official adoption of Christianity. About the existence of some forms of writing among the Slavs already in the second half of the 9th century. The Monk Khrabr and the Pannonian Life of Cyril testify.

The creation of the Slavic alphabet by Cyril and Methodius in 863 was an act of the greatest cultural and historical significance, contributing to the rapid cultural growth of both the southern and eastern Slavs. By the end of the 9th - first quarter of the 10th century, ancient Bulgaria was experiencing a remarkable period of flourishing of its culture. During this period, outstanding writers appeared here: John the Exarch of Bulgaria, Clement, Constantine and Tsar Simeon himself. The works they created played an important role in the development of ancient Russian culture. The closeness of the Old Russian language to the Old Slavic (“...the Slavic language and Russian are one,” – the chronicler emphasized) contributed to the gradual assimilation of new writing by the Eastern Slavs.

A powerful impetus to the wide dissemination and development of writing in Rus' was given by the official adoption of Christianity in 988, which helped to consolidate the ideologically new social relations of the emerging feudal society.

For the development of the original ancient Russian culture, the fact that Rus' adopted it from Byzantium, which at that time was the bearer of the highest culture, was of no small importance. The Byzantine Orthodox Church, which by that time had actually separated from the Western Roman Catholic Church (the formal division of churches occurred in 1054), gave much more scope for the formation of national cultural characteristics. If the Catholic Church put forward Latin as a literary language, the Greek Orthodox Church allowed the free development of national literary languages. The literary church language of Ancient Rus' became the Old Slavic language, close in character and grammatical structure to the Old Russian language. The original literature that emerged contributed to the development of this language, enriching it through colloquial oral folk speech.

From the end of the 10th century. we can talk about the emergence of a certain education system in Rus' - "book teaching".

Christianity played a progressive role in the formation of the culture of Ancient Rus'. Kievan Rus is emerging as one of the leading states in Europe. At the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century, as Bremen testifies, Kyiv in its wealth and population competed with Constantinople.

In the 30s and 40s of the 11th century in Kyiv there were already many skilled translators who "shift" books directly from Greek into "Slovenian". Yaroslav's son Vsevolod speaks five foreign languages, his sister Anna, having become the French queen, leaves her own signature - “Anna Regina”, while her royal husband puts a cross instead of a signature.

In the development of book education, including literature, monasteries played a large role, which in the first years of their existence were the center of a new Christian culture. The role of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, created in the middle of the 11th century, was especially great in this regard.

So, the formation of the early feudal ancient Russian state and the emergence of writing were necessary prerequisites for the emergence of literature.

Main sources. On the one hand, oral folk poetry, and on the other, Christian book culture, coming both from the southern Slavs, in particular the Bulgarians, and from Byzantium, actively participate in the formation of literature.

The historical study of folklore that began relatively recently shows that the Eastern Slavs by the 10th century. There were highly developed forms of oral folk art. Researchers believe that at this time there was a transition in folklore from mythological subjects to historical ones. Historical family tradition, toponymic legend, tradition associated with burial grounds, heroic legends, songs about military campaigns occupy a leading place in the oral poetry of that time.

The formation of the folk epic, which played an extremely important role in the formation of original ancient Russian literature, apparently dates back to this period.

The princely squads, who carried out numerous military campaigns, obviously had their own singers, who entertained them during feasts, composing “glory” songs in honor of the victors, glorifying the prince and his brave warriors. Heroic songs of warrior singers, epic tales of battles and campaigns constituted a kind of oral chronicle, which was then partially consolidated in writing.

Thus, folklore was the main source that provided images and plots for the emerging original ancient Russian literature. Through folklore, not only the artistic imagery of folk poetry and individual elements of style, but also folk ideology penetrated into it.

Assimilating Christian ideology, the people adapted it to their pagan concepts and ideas. This gave rise to such a very characteristic feature of Russian life as “dual faith,” which was retained in the popular consciousness for a long time, which was also reflected in ancient Russian literature. Throughout the history of the development of literature, oral folk poetry has been the life-giving source that contributed to its enrichment.

The art of oral speech and business writing also played an important role in the formation of literature. Oral speech was widespread in the life practice of early feudal society; before the start of battles, military leaders addressed their soldiers with a speech, giving them "insolence" inspiring to a feat of arms. Oral speech was constantly used in diplomatic negotiations: ambassadors going to carry out their diplomatic mission usually memorized the words that one or another ruler ordered them to convey. These speeches contained certain stable phrases; they were distinguished by their conciseness and expressiveness.

Business writing also developed verbal formulas. Laconism and precision of expression in oral speech and business writing contributed to the development of a concise, aphoristic style of presentation in literary monuments.

It could not but have a great influence on the emerging original ancient Russian writing and the Christian book culture assimilated by Russian scribes.

Philosophical foundations of ancient Russian literature. The philosophical foundations of Old Russian literature were the Christian canonical books of the New Testament, the Gospel and the Apostle, as well as the Old Testament book of Psalms. It is by no means accidental that the oldest monuments of ancient Russian writing that have come down to us are the Ostromirovo (1056 - 57) and Arkhangelsk (1092) gospels, which explain the meaning of “many complex (containing many difficulties) these books”, so that “ add” (open) their innermost mind to the articles of the philosophical and didactic Collection of Grand Duke Svyatoslav of 1073. The selection goes back to the ancient Bulgarian encyclopedic Collection of Tsar Simeon (10th century), translated from Greek.

The fundamental principles of Christian philosophical thought were the Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles. They included a biography of the earthly life of the God-man Jesus Christ, a presentation and explanation of his doctrine, a description of his passion and self-willed death, his miraculous resurrection and ascension into heaven.

He wrote about the significance of the gospel in the life of Christian peoples, and in particular the Russian people, in the 30s. last century A. S. Pushkin in the article “On the Duties of Man”: “There is a book in which every word is interpreted, explained, preached to all ends of the earth, applied to all kinds of circumstances of life and events of the world; from which it is impossible to repeat a single expression that everyone did not know by heart, which would not already be proverb of peoples; it no longer contains anything unknown to us; but this book is called the Gospel, and such is its ever-new charm that if we, satiated with the world or depressed by despondency, accidentally open it, we are no longer able to resist its sweet enthusiasm and are immersed in spirit in its divine eloquence.”

The scientific significance of the Gospel was clearly emphasized by V. G. Belinsky: “There is a book,” he wrote, “in which everything is said, everything is decided, after which there is no doubt about anything, an immortal, holy book, a book of eternal truth, eternal life - the Gospel. All progress of mankind, all successes in the sciences, in philosophy lie only in greater penetration into the mysterious depth of this divine book, in the awareness of its living, everlasting verbs.”

The process of development of ancient Russian literature was associated primarily with the gradual penetration into the “mysterious depth” of this “eternal book”, the “book of life” - the Gospel, mastery of its philosophical content and linguistic riches, which gradually became proverbs and catchphrases.

The main philosophical thoughts of Ancient Rus' in the first centuries of its adoption of Christianity were focused on the knowledge of God, on comprehending the secrets of divine wisdom, the world created by God, the wisdom of the Divine word, and determining the place of man - the crown of God's creation - in the system of the universe.

Classical patristic Byzantine literature of the 4th century was devoted to clarifying these issues: the works of Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, as well as the works of the philosopher and poet of the first half of the 8th century, John of Damascus. His “Sermon on the Right Faith,” translated into Old Slavonic by John Exarch of Bulgaria in the 10th century, was the philosophical and theological basis of the Orthodox faith.

John of Damascus considered philosophy as the knowledge of all things, the nature of the visible and invisible world, and raised questions about its beginning and end. He viewed philosophy as being like God. is the highest ideal of moral perfection, the immortal embodiment of goodness, truth and beauty.

A primary place in Christian theological philosophy was given to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that is, the doctrine of the trinity of God, his inseparable triune hypostases: God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This philosophical concept was essentially the idea of ​​a triune being and consciousness.

The 9th chapter of the Izbornik of Svyatoslav of 1073 sets out the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the words of Michael Sinkel of Jerusalem: “...Not three Gods, but one, one Deity in three persons, equal, neither separated by nature, nor by image, where the Father and the Son and Spirit, and where is the Spirit, where are the Father and the Son. It’s easier to say: We worship the Trinity in unity, and one in the Trinity, a unit containing three beings, and the Trinity is consubstantial and capacious and, like the others (hypostases), has no beginning. I confess the One Deity of the Holy Trinity, one and consubstantial Deity, one power, one authority, one dominion, one kingdom, one eternally existing, unborn, beginningless, indescribable, incomprehensible, limitless, unchangeable, unshakable, immortal, eternal, impassive, everything and everything creating and containing, providentially ruling heaven and earth and the sea, and everything that is visible and invisible in them.”

The crown of God's creation is Man. He was created by God in his own image and likeness. The image of God is given to man from birth, but it depends only on the personal will of man to preserve this image during his earthly life and to liken himself to God.

Man is endowed by the creator with an immortal, rational and verbal soul. This is the difference between man and the soulless, unreasonable, dumb creatures of God, created for man and subordinate to man.

The Christian worldview doubled the world, contrasting the material, visible world with the spiritual, invisible world. The first is temporary, transitory, the second is eternal. These principles of the temporary and eternal are contained in man himself, his mortal, perishable body and eternal immortal soul. The soul imparts life to the body, spiritualizes it, and at the same time, “carnal seduction” (temptations) distort the soul, distort the image of God with which a person is endowed from birth. The flesh is the source of base passions, illnesses, and suffering. “The ruling power of the soul is reason,” said John of Damascus. Thanks to reason, man becomes the master of everything. Reason allows a person, with the help of the will, to overcome base passions, to free himself from their power, for passions enslave a person.

With the help of the five “servants” (senses), the mind allows a person to cognize the material world around him. But this is the lowest form of knowledge. The highest goal is knowledge of the invisible world, knowledge of the entities hiding behind the visible phenomena of the material world. A person is able to penetrate into these essences not with “bodily eyes”, “bodily ushima”, but by opening “spiritual” eyes and ears, that is, through internal spiritual insight and reflection. Asceticism, suppression of carnal passions, prayerful ecstasy open the “spiritual eyes” of a person and they reveal to a person the hidden secrets of the Divine, allow him to penetrate into the essence of the invisible world hidden from the “bodily eyes” and thereby bring a person closer to the knowledge of God.

Having created the first man - the old man and his wife Eve, God settled the first people in the Paradise he planted in the East and made a covenant with them: Adam and Eve can enjoy all the benefits of paradise life, but do not have the right to eat the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of Good planted in the middle of Paradise and Evil. However, the devil-tempter, the bearer of absolute evil, having possessed the serpent, tempts Eve to break the covenant, and Eve, in turn, encourages Adam to taste the forbidden fruit. Original sin is committed, the Divine covenant is violated, and Adam and Eve are expelled by God from paradise to earth. People are now doomed to death, hard work and torment (Adam will earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, Eve will give birth to children in pain).

However, the all-merciful God, the lover of mankind, does not allow his creatures - people - to perish completely and sends his only begotten son to earth. Having incarnated into man, God the Son, through a voluntary atoning sacrifice, saves people from final destruction. Having trampled Death by his own death, he gave people eternal life, eternal bliss - salvation to all who believed in Christ.

Thus, God, from the point of view of Christian philosophy, is not the source and cause of evil. The main culprit of evil - “hating the human race from time immemorial” - and his servants demons, as well as evil are rooted in man himself, and it is connected with his free will, freedom of choice between good and evil (“to avoid evil, or to be evil” - as the Izbornik of 1073 writes).

Every person is faced with the question: which path should he follow in earthly life: the wide road of sin, allowing sin to enslave his soul to passions, or the narrow thorny path of virtue, associated with the fight against passions and the desire to free oneself from them. The first path leads to eternal torment, the second to salvation.

Demons push a person onto the first path. The source of sin is “dense (carnal) seduction”: “multiple eating, much lithium, many sleeps.” “Laziness is the mother of all vices,” Vladimir Monomakh instructs his children. It is generated by idleness and entails drunkenness and fornication, and “in drunkenness and fornication the soul and body of men perish.” Just as smoke drives away bees, so wine vapors expel the king of the soul from the head - reason and madness take its place.

Old Russian literature, however, does not shift all the evil of the world onto otherworldly demonic forces. It argued that an evil person can be worse than a demon: “the demon is afraid of the cross, but an evil person is neither afraid of the cross nor ashamed of people.” Especially disgusting are those people who quarrel friends with each other and push others onto an evil path. The ancient scribes warned about the evil that false prophets bring to people, hiding the predatory essence of evil wolves under sheep's clothing.

Evil, unkind advisers bring great evil to the country, giving bad advice to the ruler, they “bring “abomination” to the whole country.” Even Satan himself is capable of appearing to a person in the form of a bright angel and his servant being transformed into righteous people. This idea will be further developed by Kiev-Pechersk patericon.

By the end of the 12th century. a collection of aphorisms collected from the books of the “holy scriptures”, the works of the “church fathers”, and the books of ancient philosophers was translated. Since these sayings were collected with great diligence, like a bee collects nectar, and such nectar was the wisdom extracted from books, this collection was called “Bees.” Its main goal was didactic: to give in an aphoristic form the norms of Christian-feudal ethics. Russian scribes used “The Bee” as a source of aphorisms with which they supported their thoughts. At the same time, they supplemented the “Bee” with new aphorisms taken from the works of ancient Russian literature, as well as their “worldly parables,” i.e., folk proverbs.

So, the emergence of Old Russian literature was caused by the needs of the political and spiritual life of the Old Russian state. Relying on oral folk art and assimilating the artistic traditions of Christian literature, Russian writers of the mid-IV - early 12th centuries. create original works.

CONTROL QUESTIONS

1 . What are the historical background for the emergence of ancient Russian literature?

2 . The role of folklore and Byzantine book literature in the formation of Old Russian literature.

3 . What circle of Byzantine literature existed in Rus' in the 11th – 12th centuries?

4 .What are the philosophical foundations of ancient Russian literature?

5 . What are apocrypha, what is their classification?

6 . The originality of the ideological and artistic content of the apocrypha “The Tale of Solomon and Kitovras” and “The Virgin Mary’s Walk through Torment.”

7 . What works of Byzantine natural science and historical literature were translated into Old Slavic?

When did ancient Russian literature appear? What prerequisites were necessary for this? Let's try to find out the features of the historical period of that time that influenced literature.

Early feudal period

Discussing when and why ancient Russian literature arose, let us dwell on its close connection with the formation of the state. The Old Russian state emerged during a long historical process of division of the communal tribal system of the East Slavic tribal peoples.

Prerequisites for the appearance

Let's find out why ancient Russian literature arose. The East Slavic tribes switched to the feudal system, bypassing the slaveholding formation. In such a system of social relations, the minority dominated the majority. To find an ideological explanation for this fact, pagan tribal religion and oral folk art used during the time of the tribal system were not enough.

The development of political, trade, and economic relations required new writing, which was to become a prerequisite for the emergence of literature.

When did ancient Russian literature appear? The age of computer technology, as our time is called, is characterized by a lack of interest in reading fiction. Few people know that writing in Rus' arose even before the official adoption of Christianity.

The Pannonian Life of Cyril provides evidence that some form of writing existed in the second half of the ninth century.

Cyril and Methodius

So in what century did ancient Russian literature emerge? Scientists have not found an exact answer to this question, but they are convinced that the greatest historical and cultural event for the Slavs was the discovery of the alphabet by Methodius and Cyril (863). The end of the ninth century saw a period of cultural flourishing in ancient Bulgaria. At this time, wonderful writers appeared: Clement, John Exarch of Bulgaria, Constantine. The works that they created were of particular importance for the formation of ancient Russian culture.

Acceptance of Christianity

Arguing about when ancient Russian literature arose, let us turn to 988. This date is considered the time of the official adoption of Christianity in Rus'. For the formation of ancient Russian original culture, it was important that Rus' recognized Byzantium, which at that time was a representative of high culture.

The Byzantine Orthodox Church had already separated from the Roman Catholic faith. If Catholics put forward Latin as the basis of the literary language, then the Orthodox Greeks welcomed the development of national literary styles.

In Ancient Rus', the ecclesiastical literary language was considered to be Old Slavic, which was close in grammatical basis to the Old Russian language. The original literature that appeared during that historical period became the stimulus for its development. The enrichment of the Russian language took place with the help of oral folk speech.

Thinking about when ancient Russian literature arose, historians and writers agree that a certain system of “book teaching” in Rus' appeared at the end of the tenth century.

It was Christianity that played an important role in the formation of the culture of Ancient Rus'. By the middle of the 11th century, skilled translators appeared who were engaged in “translating” Greek books into “Slovenian” language.

At the time when ancient Russian literature arose, monasteries played a special role. For example, in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery a true center of Christian culture was formed.

Sources

The following people take an active part in the development of literature:

• folk poetic oral creativity;
• Christian book literature.

When studying folklore, it was possible to establish that the ancient Slavs who lived in the 10th century owned developed forms of folk oral creativity.

Researchers are convinced that it was during this period of time that the transition to historical subjects from mythological tales took place. Tradition, legend, toponymic legend, songs about military battles became leading in the oral poetry of that era.

Researchers believe that it was during this period that the folk epic was formed, which played a role in the original ancient Russian literature. Princely squads that carried out military campaigns always had singers who glorified the valor of the prince and his warriors during feasts and rest. This peculiar oral chronicle was partially written down, which became the main source for literary subjects.

It was through folklore that elements of folk ideology and artistic poetic images entered literature.

In the process of assimilating Christian ideology, the Russian people adapted to their pagan ideas and concepts.

Conclusion

Throughout the entire period of formation of ancient Russian literature, it was folk poetry that was the main source contributing to its enrichment. Let us also note the importance of business writing and oral speech in the formation of literature.

For example, before a battle, military leaders always addressed their soldiers with a speech, setting them up and inspiring them to perform feats of arms. Oral speech was systematically used during diplomatic negotiations. Ambassadors sent to another country memorized the phrases spoken to them by the ruler.

Such speeches implied certain phrases and were expressive and concise. Thanks to the accuracy and conciseness of expressions in oral speech and business writing, an aphoristic, concise style of presentation appeared in ancient Russian books.

The process of formation and development of ancient Russian literature was influenced by many facts. First of all, it is important to note the peculiarities of the social system of that time, the desire of people to receive an explanation for the changes that they observed in their lives.

Historians consider the canonical Christian books of the New Testament, the Gospel, as the philosophical foundations of ancient Russian literature. Religious books set out and explained in detail the torment of earthly life, the miracles of resurrection, and ascension to heaven.

Old Russian literature is the solid foundation on which the majestic edifice of national Russian artistic culture of the 18th – 20th centuries is erected. It is based on high moral ideals, faith in man, in his possibilities for limitless moral improvement, faith in the power of the word, its ability to transform the inner world of man, the patriotic pathos of serving the Russian land - the state - the Motherland, faith in the ultimate triumph of good over the forces of evil, universal unity of people and its victory over hateful discord.

Without knowing the history of ancient Russian literature, we will not understand the full depth of the work of A. S. Pushkin, the spiritual essence of the work of N. V. Gogol, the moral quest of L. N. Tolstoy, the philosophical depth of F. M. Dostoevsky, the originality of Russian symbolism, the verbal quest of the futurists .

Chronological boundaries of Old Russian literature and its specific features. Russian medieval literature is the initial stage in the development of Russian literature. Its emergence is closely connected with the process of formation of the early feudal state. Subordinated to the political tasks of strengthening the foundations of the feudal system, it in its own way reflected various periods of the development of public and social relations in Rus' in the 11th – 17th centuries. Old Russian literature is the literature of the emerging Great Russian nationality, gradually developing into a nation.

The question of the chronological boundaries of ancient Russian literature has not been finally resolved by our science. Ideas about the volume of ancient Russian literature still remain incomplete. Many works were lost in the fire of countless fires, during the devastating raids of steppe nomads, the invasion of Mongol-Tatar invaders, and Polish-Swedish invaders! And at a later time, in 1737, the remains of the library of the Moscow tsars were destroyed by a fire that broke out in the Grand Kremlin Palace. In 1777, the Kiev Library was destroyed by fire. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the handwritten collections of Musin-Pushkin, Buturlin, Bauze, Demidov, and the Moscow Society of Lovers of Russian Literature were burned in Moscow.

The main keepers and copyists of books in Ancient Rus', as a rule, were monks, who were least interested in storing and copying books of secular (secular) content. And this largely explains why the overwhelming majority of works of Old Russian writing that have reached us are of an ecclesiastical nature.

Works of ancient Russian literature were divided into “secular” and “spiritual”. The latter were supported and disseminated in every possible way, since they contained the enduring values ​​of religious dogma, philosophy and ethics, and the former, with the exception of official legal and historical documents, were declared “vain.” Thanks to this, we present our ancient literature as more ecclesiastical than it actually was.

When starting to study ancient Russian literature, it is necessary to take into account its specific features, which are different from the literature of modern times.

A characteristic feature of Old Russian literature is the handwritten nature of its existence and distribution. Moreover, this or that work did not exist in the form of a separate, independent manuscript, but was part of various collections that pursued certain practical goals. “Everything that serves not for the sake of benefit, but for the sake of embellishment, is subject to the accusation of vanity.” These words largely determined the attitude of ancient Russian society towards written works. The value of a particular handwritten book was assessed from the point of view of its practical purpose and usefulness.

“Great comes the benefit of bookish teaching, since we teach through books and teach the path of repentance, we gain wisdom and abstinence from the words of books; for these are the rivers that feed the universe, these are the sources of wisdom, these are the sources of wisdom, these are the unsought depths, these are the comforts of us in sorrow, these are the bridles of self-control... If you diligently search for wisdom in the books, you will find great progress in your soul... » – the chronicler teaches in 1037.

Another feature of our ancient literature is anonymity, the impersonality of her works. This was a consequence of the religious-Christian attitude of feudal society towards man, and in particular towards the work of a writer, artist, and architect. At best, we know the names of individual authors, “copywriters” of books, who modestly put their name either at the end of the manuscript, or in its margins, or (which is much less common) in the title of the work. At the same time, the writer will not accept to provide his name with such evaluative epithets as “thin”, “unworthy”, “many sinners”. In most cases, the author of the work prefers to remain unknown, and sometimes hide behind the authoritative name of one or another “father of the church” - John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, etc.

Biographical information about the ancient Russian writers known to us, the volume of their creativity, and the nature of their social activities is very, very scarce. Therefore, if when studying literature of the 18th – 20th centuries. Literary scholars widely use biographical material, reveal the nature of the political, philosophical, aesthetic views of this or that writer, using the author's manuscripts, trace the history of the creation of works, reveal the creative individuality of the writer, then they have to approach the monuments of ancient Russian writing in a different way.

In medieval society, the concept of copyright did not exist; the individual characteristics of the writer’s personality did not receive such a vivid manifestation as in the literature of modern times. Copyists often acted as editors and co-authors rather than simple copyists of the text. They changed the ideological orientation of the work being copied, the nature of its style, shortened or distributed the text in accordance with the tastes and demands of their time. As a result, new editions of monuments were created. And even when the copyist simply copied the text, his list was always somehow different from the original: he made typos, omitted words and letters, and involuntarily reflected in the language the features of his native dialect. In this regard, in science there is a special term - “izvod” (manuscript of the Pskov-Novgorod edition, Moscow, or, more broadly, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.).

As a rule, the author's texts of works have not reached us, but their later lists have been preserved, sometimes distant from the time the original was written by a hundred, two hundred or more years. For example, “The Tale of Bygone Years,” created by Nestor in 1111–1113, has not survived at all, and the edition of Sylvester’s “story” (1116) is known only as part of the Laurentian Chronicle of 1377. “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” written at the end of 80 s of the 12th century, was found in a list of the 16th century.

All this requires from the researcher of ancient Russian literature unusually thorough and painstaking textual work: studying all available lists of a particular monument, establishing the time and place of their writing by comparing various editions, variants of lists, as well as determining which edition the list most matches original author's text. These issues are dealt with by a special branch of philological science - textual criticism.

When solving complex questions about the time of writing of a particular monument and its lists, the researcher turns to such an auxiliary historical and philological science as paleography. Based on the characteristics of letters, handwriting, the nature of writing material, paper watermarks, the nature of headpieces, ornaments, miniatures illustrating the text of a manuscript, paleography makes it possible to relatively accurately determine the time of creation of a particular manuscript and the number of scribes who wrote it.

In the XI - first half of the XIV century. The main writing material was parchment, made from calf skin. In Rus', parchment was often called “veal” or “haratya”. This expensive material was, naturally, available only to the propertied classes, and artisans and traders used birch bark for their ice correspondence. Birch bark also served as student notebooks. This is evidenced by the remarkable archaeological discoveries of Novgorod birch bark letters.

To save writing material, the words in the line were not separated, and only paragraphs of the manuscript were highlighted with a red cinnabar letter - the initial, the title - a “red line” in the literal sense of the word. Frequently used, widely known words were written abbreviated under a special superscript - title m. For example, lithargy (verb - says), bg (god), btsa (Mother of God).

The parchment was pre-lined by a scribe using a ruler with a chain. Then the scribe placed it on his lap and carefully wrote out each letter. Handwriting with regular, almost square letters was called charter. Working on the manuscript required painstaking work and great skill, so when the scribe completed his hard work, he celebrated it with joy. “The merchant rejoices when he has made the purchase, and the helmsman in the calm of the bailiff and the wanderer having come to his fatherland, the book writer rejoices in the same way when he reaches the end of his books...”- we read at the end of the Laurentian Chronicle.

The written sheets were sewn into notebooks, which were intertwined into wooden boards. Hence the phraseological turn - “read a book from blackboard to blackboard.” The binding boards were covered with leather, and sometimes covered with special frames made of silver and gold. A remarkable example of jewelry art is, for example, the setting of the Mstislav Gospel (early 12th century).

In the XIV century. paper replaced parchment. This cheaper writing material adhered and speeded up the writing process. The statutory letter is replaced by slanted, rounded handwriting with a large number of ascenders - semi-charter. In the monuments of business writing, cursive writing appears, which gradually replaces semi-character and occupies a dominant position in manuscripts of the 17th century .

The emergence of printing in the mid-16th century played a huge role in the development of Russian culture. However, until the beginning of the 18th century. Mostly church books were printed, but secular and artistic works continued to exist and were distributed in manuscripts.

When studying ancient Russian literature, one very important circumstance should be taken into account: in the medieval period, fiction had not yet emerged as an independent area of ​​public consciousness; it was inextricably linked with philosophy, science, and religion.

In this regard, it is impossible to mechanically apply to ancient Russian literature the criteria of artistry with which we approach when assessing the phenomena of literary development of modern times.

The process of historical development of ancient Russian literature is a process of gradual crystallization of fiction, its isolation from the general flow of writing, its democratization and “secularization,” i.e., liberation from the tutelage of the church.

One of the characteristic features of Old Russian literature is its connection with church and business writing, on the one hand, and oral poetic folk art, on the other. The nature of these connections at each historical stage of the development of literature and in its individual monuments was different.

However, the wider and deeper literature used the artistic experience of folklore, the more clearly it reflected the phenomena of reality, the wider was the sphere of its ideological and artistic influence.

A characteristic feature of Old Russian literature is historicism. Its heroes are predominantly historical figures; it allows almost no fiction and strictly follows the fact. Even numerous stories about “miracles” - phenomena that seemed supernatural to a medieval person, are not so much the invention of an ancient Russian writer, but rather accurate records of the stories of either eyewitnesses or the people themselves with whom the “miracle” happened.

The historicism of ancient Russian literature has a specifically medieval character. The course and development of historical events is explained by God's will, the will of providence. The heroes of the works are princes, rulers of the state, standing at the top of the hierarchical ladder of feudal society. However, having discarded the religious shell, the modern reader easily discovers that living historical reality, the true creator of which was the Russian people.

Main themes of ancient Russian literature. Old Russian literature, inextricably linked with the history of the development of the Russian state and the Russian people, is imbued with heroic and patriotic pathos. The theme of the beauty and greatness of Rus', the motherland, "bright and ornate" Russian land, which "known" And "led" in all parts of the world is one of the central themes of ancient Russian literature. It glorifies the creative work of our fathers and grandfathers, who selflessly defended the great Russian land from external enemies and strengthened the mighty sovereign state "great and spacious" which shines “light”, “like the sun in the sky.”

Literature glorifies the moral beauty of the Russian person, who is capable of sacrificing what is most precious for the sake of the common good - life. It expresses deep faith in the power and ultimate triumph of good, in man's ability to elevate his spirit and defeat evil.

The Old Russian writer was least of all inclined to an impartial presentation of facts, “listening to good and evil indifferently.” Any genre of ancient literature, be it a historical story or legend, hagiography or church sermon, as a rule, includes significant elements of journalism.

Touching primarily on state-political or moral issues, the writer believes in the power of words, in the power of persuasion. He appeals not only to his contemporaries, but also to distant descendants with an appeal to ensure that the glorious deeds of their ancestors are preserved in the memory of generations and that descendants do not repeat the sad mistakes of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

The literature of Ancient Rus' expressed and defended the interests of the upper echelons of feudal society. However, it could not help but show an acute class struggle, which resulted either in the form of open spontaneous uprisings or in the forms of typically medieval religious heresies. The literature vividly reflected the struggle between progressive and reactionary groups within the ruling class, each of which sought support among the people.

And since the progressive forces of feudal society reflected national interests, and these interests coincided with the interests of the people, we can talk about the nationality of ancient Russian literature.

The problem of artistic method. The question of the specifics of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature was first raised by Soviet researchers I. P. Eremin,

V. P. Adrianova-Peretz, D. S. Likhachev, S. N. Azbelev, A. N. Robinson.

D. S. Likhachev put forward the position of the diversity of artistic methods not only in all ancient Russian literature, but also in this or that author, in this or that work. “Any artistic method,” notes the researcher, “makes up a whole system of large and small means to achieve certain artistic goals. Therefore, each artistic method has many characteristics, and these characteristics are related to each other in a certain way.” He believes that artistic methods differ according to the individuality of the writers, according to eras, according to genres, according to different types of connection with business writing. With such a broad understanding of the artistic method, this term is deprived of the certainty of its literary content and cannot be spoken of as principle figurative reflection of reality.

More right are the researchers who believe that ancient Russian literature is characterized by one artistic method, S. N. Azbelev defined it as syncretic, I. P. Eremin - as pre-realistic, A. N. Robinson - as the method of symbolic historicism. However, these definitions are not entirely precise and are not exhaustive. I. P. Eremin very successfully noted two sides of the artistic method of Old Russian literature: the reproduction of individual facts in all their specificity, “purely empirical statement,” “reliability,” and the method of “consistent transformation of life.”

To understand and determine the uniqueness of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature, it is necessary to dwell on the nature of the worldview of medieval man.

It absorbed, on the one hand, speculative religious ideas about the world and man, and, on the other, a specific vision of reality, resulting from the labor practice of a person in feudal society.

In his daily activities, a person came across reality: nature, social, economic and political relations. The Christian religion considered the world around man to be temporary, transitory and sharply contrasted it with the eternal, invisible, imperishable world.

The doubling of the world inherent in medieval thinking largely determined the specifics of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature, its leading principle - s i m v o - l i z m. “Revealed things are truly images of invisible things,” emphasized the pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite. Medieval people were convinced that symbols were hidden in nature and in man himself, and that historical events were filled with symbolic meaning. The symbol served as a means of revealing meaning and finding truth. Just as the signs of the visible world around a person are polysemantic, so is the word: it can be interpreted not only in its direct, but also in figurative meanings. This determines the nature of symbolic metaphors and comparisons in ancient Russian literature.

Religious Christian symbolism in the consciousness of ancient Russian people was closely intertwined with folk poetic symbolism. Both had a common source - the nature surrounding man. And if the labor agricultural practice of the people gave this symbolism earthly concreteness, it introduced elements of abstractness.

A characteristic feature of medieval thinking was retrospectiveness and traditionalism. The Old Russian writer constantly refers to texts of “scripture”, which he interprets not only historically, but also allegorically, tropologically and analogically. In other words, what the books of the Old and New Testaments narrate is not only a narration about “historical events”, “facts”, but each “event”, “fact” is an analogue of modernity, a model of moral behavior and assessment and contains hidden sacramental truth. “Communication” with the Truth is carried out, according to the teachings of the Byzantines, through love (their most important epistemological category), contemplation of the deity in oneself and outside oneself - in images, symbols, signs: by imitation and likening to God, and finally, in the act of merging with him.”

An Old Russian writer creates his work within the framework of an established tradition: he looks at models, canons, and does not allow "self-thinking" i.e. artistic fiction. His task is to convey "image of truth" The medieval historicism of ancient Russian literature, which is inextricably linked with providentialism, is subordinated to this goal. All events occurring in the life of a person and society are considered as a manifestation of divine will. sends people signs of his anger - heavenly signs, warning them of the need for repentance, cleansing from sins and offering to change their behavior - to leave “lawlessness” and turn to the path of virtue. "Sin for Our Sake" God, according to the conviction of the medieval writer, brings foreign conquerors, sends the country an “unmerciful” ruler or grants victory, a wise prince as a reward for humility and piety.

History is a constant arena for the struggle between good and evil. The source of goodness, good thoughts and actions is God. His servants and demons push people to evil, “Hate the human race from time immemorial.” However, ancient Russian literature does not relieve responsibility from the person himself. He is free to choose for himself either the thorny path of virtue or the spacious road of sin. In the consciousness of the ancient Russian writer, the categories of ethical and aesthetic organically merged. always beautiful, it is full of light and radiance. Evil is associated with darkness, darkness of the mind. An evil person is like a wild beast and even worse than a demon, since the demon is afraid of the cross, and an evil person “is not afraid of the cross, nor is he ashamed of people.”

The ancient Russian writer usually builds his works on the contrast of good and evil, virtues and vices, what should be and what is, ideal and negative heroes. It shows that high moral qualities of a person are the result of hard work, moral feat, "high life" The Old Russian writer is convinced that “the name and glory is more honest to man than personal beauty; glory endures forever, but the face fades after death.”

The character of medieval literature is stamped by the dominance of the estate-corporate principle. The heroes of her works, as a rule, are princes, rulers, generals or church hierarchs, “saints” famous for their deeds of piety. The behavior and actions of these heroes are determined by their social status, "rank".

"Decent" And "orderliness" constituted a characteristic feature of the social life of the Middle Ages, which was strictly regulated "in order" system of rules, ritual, ceremonies, tradition. The order had to be strictly observed from the moment a person was born and accompany him throughout his life until death. Each person is obliged to take his rightful place in the general order, that is, in the social order. Maintaining order - "decency" beauty, its violation - "outrage" ugliness. The Old Russian word “rank” corresponds to the Greek “rhythmos”. Strict adherence to the rhythm and order established by the ancestors forms the vital basis of etiquette and ceremoniality of ancient Russian literature. Thus, the chronicler, first of all, sought "put numbers in a row" that is, present the material he selected in a strict time sequence. Each time the violation of order was specifically stipulated by the author. Ritual and symbol were the leading principles of reflecting reality in medieval literature.

Thus, symbolism, historicism, ritualism, or etiquette, and didacticism are the leading principles of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature, which incorporates two sides: strict factuality and the ideal transformation of reality. Being unified, this artistic method manifests itself in different ways in specific works. Depending on the genre, time of creation, and the degree of talent of its author, these principles received different relationships and stylistic expression. The historical development of ancient Russian literature proceeded through the gradual destruction of the integrity of its method, liberation from etiquette, didacticism and Christian symbolism.

Genre system. D. S. Likhachev introduced the concept of a system of genres into scientific circulation. “Genres,” the researcher noted, “compose a certain system due to the fact that they are generated by a common set of reasons, and also because they interact, support each other’s existence and at the same time compete with each other.”

The specific features of the medieval worldview determined the system of genres of ancient Russian literature, subordinated to practical utilitarian goals - both moral and political. Along with m, Ancient Rus' also adopted the system of genres of church writing that was developed in Byzantium. There were no genres here yet in the modern literary understanding, but there were canons enshrined in the decrees of ecumenical councils, legend - tradition and charter. Church literature was associated with the ritual of Christian worship and monastic life. Its significance and authority were built on a certain hierarchical principle. The top level was occupied by the books of “holy scripture.” Following them came hymnography and “words” associated with interpretations of “scripture” and explanations of the meaning of the holidays. Such “words” were usually combined into collections - “celebrants”, Triodion colored and Lenten. Then followed the lives - stories about the exploits of saints. The Lives were combined into collections: Prologues (Synaxari), Chetii-Minea, Patericon. Each type of hero: martyr, confessor, monk, stylite, holy fool - had its own type of life. The composition of the life depended on its use: liturgical practice dictated certain conditions to its compiler, addressing the life to readers and listeners.

Based on Byzantine examples, ancient Russian writers created a number of outstanding works of hagiographic original literature that reflected essential aspects of the life and everyday life of ancient Rus'. In contrast to Byzantine hagiography, Old Russian literature creates an original genre of princely lives, which aimed to strengthen the political authority of princely power and surround it with an aura of holiness. A distinctive feature of the princely life is “historicism”, a close connection with chronicles, military stories, i.e. genres of secular literature.

Just like the princely life, on the verge of transition from church genres to secular ones there are “walkings” - travel, descriptions of pilgrimages to “holy places”, legends about icons.

The system of genres of worldly (secular) literature is more flexible. It was developed by ancient Russian writers through extensive interaction with the genres of oral folk art, business writing, and church literature.

The dominant position among the genres of secular writing is occupied by the historical story, dedicated to outstanding events related to the struggle against the external enemies of Rus', the evil of princely strife. The story is accompanied by a historical legend and legend. The basis of a legend is some plot-completed episode; the basis of a legend is an oral legend. These genres are usually included in chronicles and chronographs.

A special place among worldly genres is occupied by the “Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh, “The Lay of Igor’s Host”, “The Lay of the Destruction of the Russian Land” and “The Lay” of Daniil Zatochnik. They testify to the high level of literary development achieved by Ancient Russia in the 11th – first half of the 13th centuries.

Development of Old Russian literature of the 11th – 17th centuries. goes through the gradual destruction of a stable system of church genres and their transformation. Genres of worldly literature are subject to fictionalization. They intensify interest in the inner world of a person, the psychological motivation of his actions, and appear entertaining and everyday descriptions. Historical heroes are being replaced by fictional ones. In the 17th century this leads to radical changes in the internal structure and style of historical genres and contributes to the birth of new purely fictional works. Virsha poetry, court and school drama, democratic satire, everyday stories, and picaresque short stories appeared.

Each genre of ancient Russian literature had a stable internal compositional structure, its own canon and had, as A. S. Orlov rightly noted, “its own stylistic template.”

D. S. Likhachev examined in detail the history of the development of styles of ancient Russian literature: in the 11th – 12th centuries. The leading style is medieval monumental historicism and at the same time there is a folk epic style, in the XIV - XV centuries. The style of medieval monumental historicism is replaced by an emotionally expressive one, and in the 16th century by the style of idealizing biographism, or second monumentalism.

However, the picture of the development of styles drawn by D. S. Likhachev somewhat schematizes the more complex process of development of our ancient literature.

Main stages of study. The collection of monuments of ancient Russian writing begins in the 18th century. Much attention is paid to their study by V. Tatishchev, G. Miller,

A. Schletser. The remarkable work of V.N. Tatishchev “Russian History from Ancient Times” has not lost its source study significance even today. Its creator used a number of such materials, which were then irretrievably lost.

In the second half of the 18th century. The publication of some monuments of ancient writing begins. N. I. Novikov includes certain works of our ancient literature in his “Ancient Russian Viflyofika” (the first edition was published in 1773–1774 in 10 parts, the second in 1778–1791 in 20 parts). He also owned the “Experience of a Historical Dictionary of Russian Writers” (1772), which collected information about the life and work of more than three hundred writers of the 11th – 18th centuries.

An important event in the history of the study of ancient Russian literature was the publication in 1800 of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” which awakened a keen interest in the past in Russian society.

“Columbus of ancient Russia,” as defined by A. S. Pushkin, was N. M. Karamzin. His “History of the Russian State” was created based on the study of handwritten sources, and the commentaries included precious extracts from these sources, some of which were then lost (for example, the Trinity Chronicle).

In the first third of the last century, the circle of Count N. Rumyantsev played a major role in collecting, publishing and studying monuments of ancient Russian writing.

Members of the Rumyantsev circle published a number of valuable scientific materials. In 1818, K. Kalaidovich published “Ancient Russian Poems of Kirsha Danilov”, in 1821 - “Monuments of Russian Literature of the 12th Century”, and in 1824 the study “John the Exarch of Bulgaria” was published.

The scientific publication of Russian chronicles began to be carried out by P. Stroev, who published the “Sofia Temporary” in 1820. For a number of years, from 1829 to 1835, he led archaeographic expeditions to the northern regions of Russia.

Evgeniy Bolkhovitinov took upon himself the colossal work of creating bibliographic reference books. Based on the study of handwritten material, in 1818 he published the “Historical Dictionary of the clergy of the Greek-Russian Church who were in Russia,” in 2 volumes, including 238 names (“The Dictionary” was republished in 1827 and in 1995) . His second work - “Dictionary of Russian secular writers, compatriots and foreigners who wrote in Russia” - was published posthumously: the beginning of the “Dictionary” was in 1838, and in its entirety in 1845 by M. P. Pogodin (reprint reprint 1971 G.).

The scientific description of manuscripts began with A. Vostokov, who published “Description of Russian and Slovenian manuscripts of the Rumyantsev Museum” in 1842.

By the end of the 30s of the XIX century. enthusiastic scientists collected a huge amount of handwritten material. To study, process and publish it, an Archaeographic Commission was created at the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1834. This commission began the publication of the most important monuments: a complete collection of Russian chronicles (from the 40s of the last century to the present day, 39 volumes have been published), legal, hagiographic monuments, in particular, the publication of the “Great Chetya-Menya” of Metropolitan Macarius began.

Reports of newly found manuscripts and materials related to their study were published in the specially published “Chronicle of the Activities of the Archaeographical Commission.”

In the 40s of the XIX century. At Moscow University, the “Society of Russian History and Antiquities” is active, publishing its materials in special “Readings” (CHOIDR). The “Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature” emerges in St. Petersburg. The works of members of these societies are used to publish the series “Monuments of Ancient Writing” and “Russian Historical Library”.

The first attempt to systematize historical and literary material was made in 1822 by N. I. Grech in “An Experience in a Brief History of Russian Literature.”

A significant step forward was “The History of Ancient Russian Literature” (1838) by M. A. Maksimovich, a professor at Kyiv University. Here is a periodization of literature in accordance with the periodization of civil history. The main part of the book is devoted to the presentation of general bibliographic information about the composition of the written language of this period.

The popularization of works of ancient Russian literature and folk literature was facilitated by the publication of I. P. Sakharov’s “Tales of the Russian People” in the second half of the 30s and early 40s. The nature of this publication was thoroughly reviewed on the pages of Otechestvennye Zapiski by V. G. Belinsky.

A special course of lectures was devoted to Old Russian literature, given at Moscow University by Professor S.P. Shevyrev. This course, entitled “The History of Russian Literature, Mainly Ancient,” was first published in the second half of the 40s and was then republished twice: in 1858 - 1860. and in 1887 S.P. Shevyrev collected a large amount of factual material, but approached its interpretation from a Slavophile position. However, his course summarized everything that had been accumulated by researchers by the 1940s.

The systematic study of ancient Russian literature begins in the middle of the last century. Russian philological science at this time was represented by outstanding scientists F.I. Buslaev, A.N. Pypin, N.S. Tikhonravov, A.N. Veselovsky.

The most significant works of F. I. Buslaev in the field of ancient writing are “Historical Reader of the Church Slavonic and Old Russian Languages” (1861) and “Historical Sketches of Russian Folk Literature and Art” in 2 volumes (1861).

The anthology of F.I. Buslaev became an outstanding phenomenon not only of its time. It contained the texts of many monuments of ancient writing based on manuscripts with their variants. The scientist tried to present ancient Russian writing in all the diversity of its genre forms, and included in the anthology, along with literary works, monuments of business and church writing.

“Historical Sketches” is devoted to the study of works of oral folk literature (volume 1) and ancient Russian literature and art (volume 2). Sharing the point of view of the so-called “historical school” created by the brothers Grimm and Bopp, Buslaev, however, went further than his teachers. In works of folklore and ancient literature, he not only looked for their “historical” - mythological - basis, but also connected their analysis with specific historical phenomena of Russian life, everyday life, and the geographical environment.

Buslaev was one of the first in our science to raise the question of the need for an aesthetic study of works of ancient Russian literature. He drew attention to the nature of her poetic imagery, noting the leading role of the symbol. Many interesting observations were made by the scientist in the field of relationships between ancient literature and folklore, literature and fine arts; he tried in a new way to solve the issue of the nationality of ancient Russian literature.

By the 70s, Buslaev moved away from the “historical” school and began to share the positions of the “borrowing” school, the theoretical provisions of which were developed by T. Benfey in “Panchatantra”. F. I. Buslaev sets out his new theoretical position in the article “Passing Stories” (1874), considering the historical and literary process as the history of borrowing plots and motifs that pass from one people to another.

A. N. Pypin began his scientific career with the study of ancient Russian literature. In 1858, he published his master's thesis “Essay on the literary history of ancient Russian stories and fairy tales,” devoted to the consideration of mainly translated ancient Russian stories.

Then the attention of A. N. Pypin was attracted to the apocrypha, and he was the first to introduce this most interesting type of ancient Russian writing into scientific circulation, devoting a number of scientific articles to the apocrypha and publishing them in the third issue of “Monuments of Ancient Russian Literature”, published by Kushelevsh-Bezborodko, “False and renounced books of Russian antiquity."

A. N. Pypin summed up the results of his long-term study of Russian literature in the four-volume “History of Russian Literature,” the first edition of which was published in 1898–1899. (the first two volumes were devoted to ancient Russian literature).

Sharing the views of the cultural-historical school, A. N. Pypin does not actually distinguish literature from general culture. He refuses the chronological distribution of monuments by century, arguing that “due to the conditions in which our writing was formed, it knows almost no chronology.” In his classification of monuments, A. N. Pypin strives to “combine what is homogeneous, although different in origin.”

A. N. Pypin’s book is rich in historical, cultural and literary material, its interpretation is given from the position of liberal enlightenment, the artistic specificity of the works of ancient Russian literature remains outside the field of view of the scientist.

In the development of scientific textual criticism not only of ancient, but also of new Russian literature, the works of Academician N. S. Tikhonravov are of great importance. From 1859 to 1863, he published seven editions of the Chronicles of Russian Literature and Antiquities, in which a number of monuments were published. In 1863, N. S. Tikhonravov published 2 volumes of “Monuments of Renounced Russian Literature,” which compares favorably in completeness and quality of textual work with the publication of A. N. Pypin. Tikhonravov began studying the history of Russian theater and dramaturgy of the late 17th - first quarter of the 18th centuries, which resulted in the publication in 1874 of the texts of Russian dramatic works of 1672 - 1725. in 2 volumes.

The review of “The History of Russian Literature” by A.D. Galakhov, published by N. S. Tikhonravov in 1878, was of important methodological significance (the 1st edition of this book was published in the early 60s). Tikhonravov criticized the concept of Galakhov, who viewed the history of literature as the history of exemplary verbal works. Tikhonravov contrasted this tasteful, “aesthetic” principle of evaluating literary phenomena with a historical principle. Only adherence to this principle, the scientist argued, will make it possible to create a true history of literature. Main works

N. S. Tikhonravov were published posthumously in 1898 in 3 volumes, 4 issues.

A huge contribution to Russian philological science was made by Academician A. N. Veselovsky.

Developing the principles of comparative historical study of literature, in the first period of his scientific activity in 1872, Veselovsky published his doctoral dissertation “Slavic legends about Solomon and Kitovras and Western legends about Morolf and Merlin,” where he established connections between the eastern apocryphal story about King Solomon and Western European knightly novels dedicated to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Veselovsky paid great attention to the relationship between literature and folklore, devoting to them such interesting works as “Experiments on the history of the development of the Christian legend” (1875 – 1877) and “Research in the field of Russian spiritual verse” (1879 – 1891). In his last work, he applied the principle of sociological study of literary phenomena, which became the leading principle in the most significant theoretical works of the scientist.

Veselovsky’s general literary concept was idealistic in nature, but it contained many rational grains, many correct observations, which were then used by Soviet literary criticism. Speaking about the history of the study of ancient Russian literature at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries, one cannot fail to mention such a wonderful Russian philologist and historian as Academician A. A. Shakhmatov. The breadth of knowledge, extraordinary philological talent, and scrupulous textual analysis gave him the opportunity to achieve brilliant results in studying the fate of the most ancient Russian chronicles.

The successes achieved by Russian philological science in the field of studying ancient writing by the beginning of the 20th century were consolidated in the historical and literary courses of P. Vladimirov “Ancient Russian literature of the Kiev period (XI - XIII centuries)” (Kiev, 1901), A.S. Arkhangelsky “From lectures on the history of Russian literature” (vol. 1, 1916), E. V. Petukhov “Russian literature. Ancient period" (3rd ed. Pg., 1916), M.N. Speransky "History of ancient Russian literature" (3rd ed. M., 1920). Here it is appropriate to note the book by V. N. Peretz “A Brief Essay on the Methodology of the History of Russian Literature,” last published in 1922.

All these works, distinguished by the great content of the factual material contained in them, gave only a static idea of ​​​​ancient Russian literature. The history of ancient literature was considered as a history of changing influences: Byzantine, first South Slavic, second South Slavic, Western European (Polish). No class analysis was applied to literary phenomena. Such important facts of the development of democratic literature of the 17th century as satire were not considered at all.

After the October Revolution, Soviet philological science was faced with the task of a Marxist understanding of the course of the history of ancient Russian literature.

Among the first interesting experiments in this area is the work of Academician P. N. Sakulin “Russian Literature” in 2 parts (1929). The first part was devoted to the literature of the 11th – 17th centuries.

P. N. Sakulin paid main attention to the consideration of styles. The scientist divided all literary styles into two groups: realistic and unrealistic. He viewed the literature of the Middle Ages as an expression of the cultural content of the era and its cultural style. Putting forward the position that styles are conditioned by the psychology and ideology of the ruling classes, P. N. Sakulin identified two large styles in ancient literature: church, unreal primarily, and secular, real primarily. In turn, in the church style, he distinguished apocryphal and hagiographic styles. Each of them, the scientist argued, has its own genres and its own typical images that determine the artistic teleology of a given style.

Thus, in terms of studying the artistic specifics of our ancient literature, P. N. Sakulin’s book was a significant step forward. True, P. N. Sakulin’s concept schematized the historical and literary process; many phenomena turned out to be much more complex and did not fit into the Procrustean bed of the two styles.

The works of academicians A. S. Orlov and N. K. Gudziya were of great importance in the creation of the scientific history of ancient Russian literature. “Ancient Russian literature of the 11th – 16th centuries. (course of lectures)" by A. S. Orlov (the book was expanded, republished and called "Old Russian Literature of the 11th - 17th Centuries" /1945/) and "The History of Ancient Russian Literature" by N. K. Gudziya (from 1938 to 1966). the book went through seven editions) combined a historicist approach to literary phenomena with their class and sociological analysis, and paid attention, especially the book by A. S. Orlov, to the artistic specificity of monuments. Each section of the textbook

N.K. Gudziya was provided with rich reference bibliographic material, which was systematically updated by the author.

The publication of a ten-volume history of Russian literature, published by the USSR Academy of Sciences, summed up the achievements of Soviet literary criticism over the twenty-five years of the existence of the Soviet state. The first two volumes are devoted to the consideration of the historical destinies of our literature from the 11th to the 17th centuries.

Our literary science has achieved new significant successes in the study of ancient Russian literature over the past thirty years. These successes are associated with the great work being carried out by the sector of ancient Russian literature of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House), headed by D. S. Likhachev, and the sector for the study of ancient Russian literature at the IMLI. A. M. Gorky, led by A. S. Demin.

Archaeographic expeditions are systematically carried out in various regions of the country. They provide an opportunity to replenish manuscript collections with new valuable manuscripts and early printed books. Archaeographer V.I. Malyshev put a lot of work and enthusiasm into organizing this work.

Since the 30s, the sector has been publishing “Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature” (50 volumes had been published by 1997), where newly found manuscripts are published and research articles are published.

In recent years, the central problem of studying the artistic specifics of ancient Russian literature: method, style, genre system, relationships with the fine arts has been put forward. A major contribution to the development of these issues was made by V. P. Adrianova-Peretz, N. K. Gudziy, O. A. Derzhavina, L. A. Dmitriev, I. P. Eremin, V. D. Kuzmina, N. A. Meshchersky, A.V. Pozdneev, N.I. Prokofiev, V.F. Rzhiga.

The merits of D. S. Likhachev in the development of these problems are immeasurable. His books “Man in the Literature of Ancient Rus'”, “Poetics of Old Russian Literature”, “Development of Russian Literature of the X – XVII Centuries.” are of fundamental importance in posing and solving both theoretical and historical-literary issues related not only to our ancient, but also to modern literature.

Under the leadership of D. S. Likhachev, the scientific team of the sector of ancient Russian literature of the Pushkin House completed the publication of texts under the general title “Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'” by the publishing house “Fiction” (in 12 volumes, introducing readers to the works of the 11th – 17th centuries).

The “Dictionary of Scribes and Books of Ancient Rus'” provides great assistance in the study of ancient Russian literature; the first issue covers the 11th – first half of the 14th centuries. (L., 1987); 2nd issue – second half of the XIV – XVI centuries. / Part 1. A – K. L., 1988. Issue. 3. Part 1. A – 3. St. Petersburg, 1992; Part 2. I – O. St. Petersburg, 1993. Under the general editorship. D. S. Likhacheva. The publication is not completed.

The works of scientists R. P. Dmitrieva, A. S. Demin, Ya. S. Lurie, A. M. Panchenko, G. M. Prokhorov, O. V. Tvorogov deepen and expand our understanding of the nature and artistic specificity of literature XI - XVII centuries These achievements of literary science facilitate the task of constructing a curriculum on the history of ancient Russian literature.

Periodization. According to the established tradition, three main stages are distinguished in the development of Old Russian literature, associated with periods of development of the Russian state:

I. Literature of the Old Russian state of the 11th - first half of the 13th centuries. The literature of this period is often called the literature of Kievan Rus.

II. Literature of the period of feudal fragmentation and the struggle for the unification of northeastern Rus' (second half of the 13th - first half of the 15th centuries).

III. Literature from the period of creation and development of the centralized Russian state (XVI – XVII centuries).

However, when periodizing the literary process, it is necessary to take into account:

1 . A range of original and translated monuments that appeared in a given period.

2 . The nature of ideas and images reflected in literature.

3 . The leading principles of reflecting reality and the nature of genres and styles that determine the specifics of literary development of a given period.

The first monuments of ancient Russian writing that have come down to us are known only from the second half of the 11th century: the Ostromir Gospel (1056 - 1057), “Izbornik of the Grand Duke Svyatoslav 1073”, “Izbornik 1076”. Most of the works created in the 11th – 12th centuries were preserved only in later copies of the 14th – 17th centuries.

However, the intensive development of writing in Rus' began after the official adoption of Christianity in 988. At the same time, a certain education system arose. In the 30s of the 11th century. in Kyiv there are “many scribes” who not only copy books, but also translate them from Greek into "Slovenian letter" All this allows us to highlight the end of the 10th - the first half of the 11th century. as the first, initial, period of formation of Old Russian literature. True, we can only speak hypothetically about the range of works of this period, their themes, ideas, genres and styles.

The predominant place in the literature of this period was apparently occupied by books of religious and moral content: the Gospels, the Apostle, the Service Menaion, the Synaxari. During this period, the translation of the Greek chronicles was carried out, on the basis of which the “Chronograph according to the Great Exposition” was compiled. At the same time, records of oral legends about the spread of Christianity in Rus' arose. The artistic peak of this period and the beginning of a new one was Hilarion’s “Sermon on Law and Grace.”

The second period - the middle of the 11th - the first third of the 12th century - the literature of Kievan Rus. This is the heyday of original ancient Russian literature, represented by the genres of didactic “word” (Theodosius of Pechersky, Luka Zhidyata), genre varieties of original lives (“Legend” and “Reading” about Boris and Gleb, “Life of Theodosius of Pechersky”, “Memory and praise of Prince Vladimir "), historical tales, tales, traditions that formed the basis of the chronicle, which at the beginning of the 12th century. is called "The Tale of Bygone Years". At the same time, the first “walk” appeared - the journey of Abbot Daniel and such an original work as the “Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh.

Translated literature during this period is widely represented by philosophical-didactic and moral-didactic collections, patericons, historical chronicles, and apocryphal works.

The central theme of the original literature becomes the theme of the Russian land, the idea of ​​its greatness, integrity, and sovereignty. Its devotees are the spiritual lights of the Russian land and the ideal of moral beauty. to his "toil and sweat" formidable princes build the fatherland - “good sufferers for the Russian land.”

During this period, various styles developed: epic, documentary-historical, didactic, emotionally expressive, hagiographic, which are sometimes present in the same work.

The third period falls on the second third of the 12th - first half of the 13th century. This is literature from the period of feudal fragmentation, when the “patchwork empire of the Rurikovichs” broke up into a number of independent feudal semi-states. The development of literature takes on a regional character. Based on the literature of Kievan Rus, local literary schools are created: Vladimir-Suzdal, Novgorod, Kiev-Chernigov, Galicia-Volyn, Polotsk-Smolensk, Turovo-Pinsk, which will then become the source of the formation of the literature of the three fraternal Slavic peoples - Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.

In these regional centers, local chronicles, hagiography, genres of travel, historical stories, epideictic eloquence (“words” of Cyril of Turov, Kliment Smolyatich, Serapion of Vladimir) are developing, and the “Tale of the Miracles of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God” begins to take shape. Through the works of Bishop Simon of Vladimir and monk Polycarp, the “Kievo-Pechersk Patericon” was created. The pinnacle of literature of this period was “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” firmly connected with the outgoing traditions of the heroic druzhina epic. The original striking works are “The Lay” by Daniil Zatochnik and “The Lay on the Destruction of the Russian Land.”

The composition of translated literature is replenished with the works of Ephraim and Isaac the Syrians, John of Damascus. The fourth collection “The Triumphant” and “Izmaragd” is being formed. As a result of cultural ties with the southern Slavs, the eschatological story “The Tale of the Twelve Dreams of King Shahaisha” and the utopian “The Tale of Rich India” appear.

The fourth period is the second half of the XIII - XV centuries. - literature from the period of the struggle of the Russian people with the Mongol-Tatar conquerors and the beginning of the formation of a centralized Russian state, the formation of the Great Russian people. The development of literature during this period took place in such leading cultural centers as the towering Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, and Tver.

Awareness of the need to fight against foreign enslavers led to the unification of popular forces, and this struggle goes hand in hand with the political unification of Rus' around a single center, which becomes Moscow. An important milestone in the political and cultural life of Rus' was the victory won by the Russian people on the Kulikovo field in September 1380 over the hordes of Mamai. It showed that Rus' has the strength to decisively fight the enslavers, and these forces can be united and united by the centralized power of the Grand Duke of Moscow.

In the literature of this time, the main theme was the fight against foreign enslavers - the Mongol-Tatars and the theme of strengthening the Russian state, glorifying the military and moral exploits of the Russian people, their deeds. Literature and fine arts reveal the moral ideal of a person who is able to overcome “the strife of this age” - the main evil that prevents the unification of all forces to fight the hated conquerors.

Epiphanius the Wise revives and raises to a new level of artistic perfection the emotionally expressive style developed by the literature of Kievan Rus. The development of this style was determined by the historical needs of life itself, and not only by the second South Slavic influence, although the experience of Bulgarian and Serbian literature was taken into account and used by the literature of the late XIV - early XV centuries.

The style of historical narration receives further development. It is influenced by the democratic strata of the population, on the one hand, and church circles, on the other. Entertainment and artistic fiction are beginning to penetrate more widely into the historical narrative. Fictional tales appear that are taken as historical (the story of the city of Babylon, “The Tale of the Mutyansky governor Dracula”, “The Tale of the Iveron Queen Dinara”, “The Tale of Basarga”). In these tales, journalistic and political tendencies are intensified, emphasizing the importance of Rus' and its center of Moscow - the political and cultural successor of the ruling world powers.

In the 15th century Novgorod literature reaches its peak, clearly reflecting the acute struggle of classes within the feudal city republic. Novgorod chronicles and hagiography with its democratic tendencies played an important role in the development of ancient Russian literature.

The development of the style of “idealizing biographism” is outlined in the literature of Tver. “Walking across Three Seas” by Afanasy Nikitin is associated with democratic urban culture.

The emergence and development of the rationalistic heretical movement in Novgorod, Pskov and then Moscow testifies to the shifts that took place in the consciousness of the town, the intensification of its activity in the ideological and artistic spheres.

In literature, there is growing interest in the psychological states of the human soul, the dynamics of feelings and emotions.

The literature of this period reflected the main character traits of the emerging Great Russian people: perseverance, heroism, the ability to endure adversity and difficulties, the will to fight and win, love for the homeland and responsibility for its fate.

The fifth period of development of Old Russian literature falls at the end of the 15th – 16th centuries. This is the period of literature of the centralized Russian state. In the development of literature, it was marked by the process of merging local regional literatures into a single all-Russian literature, which provided an ideological justification for the centralized power of the sovereign. The acute internal political struggle to strengthen the autocratic power of the Grand Duke, and then the Sovereign of All Rus', determined the unprecedented flourishing of journalism.

The official style of the era becomes the representative, magnificent, eloquent style of the Makaryev literary school. Polemical journalistic literature gives rise to freer, more vibrant literary forms associated with business writing and everyday life.

In the literature of this time, two trends are clearly visible: one is the observance of strict rules and canons of writing, church ritual, and everyday life; the other is the violation of these rules, the destruction of traditional canons. The latter begins to manifest itself not only in journalism, but also in hagiography and historical narration, preparing the triumph of new beginnings.

The sixth period of development of Old Russian literature falls on the 17th century. The nature of literary development allows us to distinguish two stages in this period: 1st - from the beginning of the century to the 60s, 2nd - 60s - the end of the 17th, the first third of the 18th centuries.

The first stage is associated with the development and transformation of traditional historical and hagiographic genres of ancient Russian literature. The events of the first Peasant War and the struggle of the Russian people against the Polish-Swedish intervention dealt a blow to religious ideology and providentialist views on the course of historical events. In the social, political and cultural life of the country, the role of the posad - the trade and craft population - has increased. A new democratic reader has appeared. Responding to his requests, literature expands the scope of reality, changes the previously established genre system, and begins to free itself from provenentialism, symbolism, etiquette - the leading principles of the artistic method of medieval literature. Hagiography is turning into everyday biography, and the genre of the historical story is being democratized.

The second stage in the development of Russian literature in the second half of the 17th century. associated with Nikon’s church reform, with the events of the historical reunification of Ukraine with Russia, after which an intensive process of penetration of Western European literature into Old Russian literature began. A historical story, losing connections with specific facts, becomes an entertaining narrative. The life becomes not only an everyday biography, but also an autobiography - a confession of a hot rebellious heart.

Traditional genres of church and business writing become objects of literary parody: a church service is parodied in the service to a tavern, the life of a saint in the life of a drunkard, petitions and the “judgment case” in “The Kalyazin Petition” and “The Tale of Ersha Ershovich.” Folklore is rushing into literature in a broad wave. The genres of folk satirical tales, epics, and song lyrics are organically included in literary works.

The self-awareness of the individual is reflected in a new genre - the everyday story, in which a new hero appears - a merchant's son, a seedy rootless nobleman. The nature of translated literature is changing.

The process of democratization of literature meets with a response from the ruling classes. In court circles, an artificial normative style, ceremonial aesthetics, and elements of Ukrainian-Polish baroque were implanted. Living folk lyrics are contrasted with artificial syllabic book poetry, democratic satire with moralizing abstract satire on morals in general, and folk drama with court and school comedy. However, the emergence of syllabic poetry, court and school theater testified to the triumph of new principles and prepared the way for the emergence of classicism in Russian literature of the 18th century.

CONTROL QUESTIONS

1 . What are the chronological boundaries of Old Russian literature and what are its specific features?

2 . List the main themes of Old Russian literature.

3 . How does modern science solve the problem of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature?

4 . What is the nature of the medieval worldview and what is its connection with the method and system of genres of ancient Russian literature?

5 . What contribution did Russian and Soviet scientists make to the study of ancient Russian literature?

6 . What are the main periods of development of Old Russian literature?

The history of ancient Russian literature of the 11th-13th centuries is often considered as the first chapter in the history of modern Russian literature. And indeed, images from chronicles or “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” firmly take their place in the stock of Russian culture - just remember Pushkin’s “Song of the Prophetic Oleg” or Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor”. However, it is important to understand that these images come from a world that was significantly different from ours in its value systems. Awareness of this difference is the first step towards understanding all the cultural works of Ancient Rus'.

The main difference between ancient Russian literature and modern fiction is its purpose. The purpose of fiction is to lift the reader above the ordinary world. Books that are “intelligent” and “challenging” do this through unexpected form and multifaceted content; in those that are “simpler,” we are treated to a wildly twisted plot with an unobvious outcome, and some masterpieces manage to combine both. The assertions of 19th-century critics that art must necessarily be “useful” seem deeply outdated today. And even the obligatory “partisanship” of literature, which was until recently obligatory, seems to have finally been allowed to be forgotten.

The book culture of the Russian Middle Ages is a completely different matter. Books and writing in general appeared in Rus' after Epiphany, so their composition and content were determined primarily by the needs of the Church. And in the eyes of the Church, art for art’s sake was a dangerous matter, because such art is capable of attracting attention - and therefore helping the devil, who will certainly take the opportunity to distract people from prayer and in some cunning way plunge human souls into temptation. In order to prevent this, some popular forms of folk entertainment - for example, square comedies - were directly prohibited by church canons (at the same time, square comedy is one of those forms of art from which modern theater came out). Of course, it was not easy to implement such severe prohibitions: “trumpets, buffoons, harps and mermaids” continued, as ancient Russian preachers admitted, to “lure” the people away from God. At the same time, mentions of buffoons in the sources of the pre-Mongol era are rare, and examples of their creativity dating back to such early times are completely unknown to us. The literature of Ancient Rus' with which the modern reader deals is a purely religious literature, and its main task is to bring spiritual benefit. It makes sense to take up a pen only insofar as the result of your creativity will contribute to the salvation of the soul.

This goal setting did not at all exclude the grace of style. On the contrary, divine truths are so complex and brilliant that it is impossible to express them in “simple” language, and even a skilled writer can be baffled by this task. The author of “The Tale of [the Holy Princes] Boris and Gleb,” addressing the heroes of his work, admits:

“I don’t know how to praise you, and what to say, I don’t understand and can’t come up with. I would call you angels who quickly come to the mourning, but you lived in the flesh on earth among people. I would call you people, but you surpass human reason with your miracles and help to the weak. I would have proclaimed you crowns or princes, but you have shown more humility than the simplest and most humble of people, and it is for this that you have been admitted to heaven into the heavenly dwellings...” Here and below, quotes are translated by Dmitry Dobrovolsky.

In other words, not a single definition by itself is capable of conveying the greatness of the sacrifice that the martyred princes made, which means that we need to find as many such definitions as possible - suddenly, as they will say much later, the number will change in quality and at the intersection of many semantic fields, will something remotely similar to the described object still appear?

Thoughts were expressed using complex multifaceted comparisons. For example, addressing his prince, the author of the turn of the 12th-13th centuries Daniil Zatochnik consistently compares himself with “the pale grass that grew between the walls,” a lamb, a baby and a “bird of heaven” - the common thing here the fact that they all depend on mercy from above, which Daniel himself seeks from his recipient. Humanity could be likened to the temple of the wisdom of God, which rests on seven pillars, one for each of the seven Ecumenical Councils. The books themselves were figuratively called the rivers that water the Universe. The most important skill of the ancient Russian scribe was the selection of synonyms - the more, the better. For example, speaking about the Baptism of Rus', one could say that Russian people “came closer to God”, “rejected the devil”, “condemned the service of Satan”, “spit on the demon”, “knew the true God”, etc. d. And it’s especially good if all the phrases found can be combined in one sentence. It is clear that this will make the sentence longer and it will become inconvenient to read it. But the objects in question do not have to be accessible. “Difficult books” is how Christian literature is defined in one of the oldest Russian manuscripts, Prince Svyatoslav’s “Izbornik” of 1073.

It is natural to ask: how was the desire to speak in complex language about complex matters combined with one of the key postulates of the Christian faith - with the conviction of the weakness and sinfulness of man? How can a weak and sinful person write about divine truths? The obvious contradiction was resolved by the fact that complex phrases and multifaceted images of ancient Russian literature were rarely the original invention of local writers.

By the time of Epiphany, knowledge of foreign languages, especially Greek, was not uncommon. As a result, ancient Russian literature could rely, at a minimum, on the achievements of Byzantine literature, and that, in turn, combined ancient rhetoric with the rich imagery of Holy Scripture. That is, by and large, the Kiev, Novgorod or, say, Rostov scribe had at his disposal the entire thousand-year experience of Judeo-Christian civilization - it was only necessary to select samples suitable for the occasion. If it was necessary to talk about a noble prince-warrior (for example, about Alexander Nevsky), then techniques were used that were tested by predecessors when describing the great warriors of antiquity - Gideon or Alexander Make- Don If we were talking about a criminal, then here too the previous literature provided a very representative set of examples, from Cain to tyrant emperors. At the same time, many of the authors of “exemplary” works were revered by the Church as saints, which provided some additional guarantee of the appropriateness and accuracy of borrowings - and at the same time freed those who used the findings of their predecessors from worries about their own sinfulness. It is clear that such a creative method limits the freedom of literary experimentation and is at odds with the way it is customary to write now. But for a religious culture, permeated with the idea of ​​human sinfulness, it was precisely the strict adherence to the patterns sanctified by tradition that turned out to be the most suitable. If you are subject to devilish temptations, then it is better not to invent anything.

These were, if you like, the “theoretical foundations” of ancient Russian literature. Let us turn to the most important works created in Rus' in the 11th-13th centuries.

The first in this series should undoubtedly be called “The Tale of Law and Goodness,” written by Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kyiv in 1051-1055. Apparently, the “Lay” was written even before Hilarion’s appointment to the department: the author names among the living the wife of Prince Yaroslav the Wise Irina-Ingigerda, who died back in 1050. On the other hand, Hilarion mentions the Kyiv Church of the Annunciation on the Golden Gate, built around 1037, which means that the “Slovo” was written after 1037. It is impossible to say anything more precise about the circumstances of the creation of this monument. Hilarion's biography is also very poorly known. However, the content of the Lay is eloquent in itself.

The work consists of three parts. First, Hilarion tells the reader about how humanity learned about the path of salvation and gaining eternal life: first this happened through the Old Testament, which Hilarion calls “Law,” and then through the New Testament, “Grace.” At the same time, the author pays special attention to the dual divine-human nature of Christ, explaining this complex dogma with the help of a long (almost two dozen elements!) series of paired contrasts:

“...how a man [Christ] fasted for 40 days and was hungry, but how God defeated the tempter, how a man came to a wedding in Cana of Galilee, but how God turned water into wine, how a man slept in a boat and how God stopped the wind and waves (and they listened to him)..."

Then it is reported that Rus', although it was a country of pagans, has now also joined the grace of Christianity. This gives rise to a new series of oppositions:

“Being barbarians, we called ourselves people of God, and being enemies, we called ourselves sons, and we no longer condemn in a Jewish way, but in a Christian way we bless, and we do not think how to crucify [Christ], but to the Crucified we worship..."

Finally, Hilarion praises “the great Khagan of our land, Vladimir,” for the Baptism of Rus'. In this last part, it is strongly emphasized that Rus' is an independent and powerful state, which is “known and heard to all the ends of the earth,” and also that Vladimir came to Christ himself, without hearing the apostolic sermon and without seeing what he did. preachers of miracles. Byzantium (from where priests, church craftsmen, and books arrived in Rus') is mentioned only once. This kind of patriotism becomes especially noteworthy if we consider that it was at the time of compilation of the Lay - the 1040s - that the next military conflict between Rus' and Byzantium occurred. And Hilarion himself was appointed metropolitan by a council of bishops, without the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople, to whom the Russian Church was then subordinate. As a result, scholars often talk about the anti-Byzantine orientation of the “Tales of Law and Grace.” But even more remarkable is the author’s historical outlook: from the moment of the Baptism of Rus' to the compilation of the “Lay”, at most sixty years passed, and local scribes could already, as we see, build large-scale schemes of world history, covering times from Abraham to Yaroslav the Wise inclusive. In other words, although Hilarion emphasizes the independence of ancient Russian culture, the very text of the “Word” he composed clearly demonstrates how thoroughly Kievan Rus was included in the world cultural context.

Another famous scribe of the 11th century was Nestor. Nestor is usually known as the “chronicler” - according to the epithet that his grateful followers awarded him several centuries later. But there are a number of contradictions between the most ancient chronicles and the works signed with the name of Nestor, so modern science speaks with caution about Nestor’s participation in chronicle writing. However, there is no doubt about Nestor’s contribution to ancient Russian hagiography, that is, to the writing of the lives of saints.

Nestor’s first accomplishment in the field of hagiography was the writing of “Reading about the life and destruction of the blessed passion-bearers Boris and Gleb.” The history of princes Boris and Gleb goes back to the events of 1015, when the sons of the baptist of Rus' Vladimir Svyatoslavich, barely waiting for the death of their father, staged a bloody struggle for power. How exactly this civil strife developed is a complex question. However, relatively early on, the idea was formed that two of the heirs - Boris Rostovsky and Gleb Muromsky - did not participate in the battle and did not even resist the killers sent to them, just so as not to “raise a hand against their brother.” And in 1072, the veneration of the two princes was further strengthened thanks to the miraculous discovery of their fragrant relics. Apparently, around the same time, the oldest version of the legend about the death of Boris and Gleb appeared, notable for the lengthy and picturesque scene of the murder of Prince Boris: driven by rage, the murderers point spears at Boris, but then the action suddenly freezes, and the doomed prince says a long and pathetic prayer. Obviously, in reality everything was not like that, but Boris’s dying thoughts about death as deliverance from the temptations of this world make an indelible impression on the reader. Nestor freed the legend from some plot inconsistencies, combined the story of the death of the princes with the story of miracles from their remains, and in addition, provided the legend with a historical preface, starting it, no less, from the Fall of Adam. The result of such processing is less impressive than the original story, the action is no longer so dynamic, and the images are drier. At the same time, under the pen of Nestor, the death of Boris and Gleb turned from a private episode of local politics into a world-class event, and the Russian saints became the heavenly patrons of all Christians.

“Having been honored” to narrate the life and death of the martyred princes, Nestor, in his own words, “forced himself to turn to another story” and “attempted to write” about Saint Theodosius of Pechersk. Theodosius came from a wealthy family and could have become the heir to a large estate, but from childhood he was religious and eventually fled to Kyiv to join a monastery. In the 11th century there were few monasteries in Rus'; the one where Theodosius was taken was a simple cave dug into the steep bank of the Dnieper. However, over the course of several decades, this modest monastery turned into the center of monastic life in Rus', and Theodosius (by this time already abbot) became the recognized leader of the ascetic movement. The biography of Theodosius and the history of the formation of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery are full of dramatic episodes: the monks more than once came into open conflict with the powers that be. However, Nestor managed to reconcile the traditional form of living with reliability and psychological accuracy in the presentation of conflict situations.

The ancient Russian chronicle also represents a similar combination of following literary traditions with masterly descriptions of real everyday conflicts. The chronicle is not an ordinary “monument of literature.” She had a special task - to find the place of Rus' in the general plan of Providence regarding the history of mankind. Therefore, the chronicle story begins with a story about what kind of peoples there are on earth and where the Slavs came from, but cannot end by definition: the end of the chronicle work could only be the end of history as such, or, in other words, the Last Judgment. It is clear that one person cannot write such a work. But each subsequent scribe could edit what he inherited from his predecessors, and when the accumulated material ran out, he could supplement the chronicle text with a description of those events of which he himself was an eyewitness. When one chronicler retired, another took over the baton, and so gradually, generation after generation, the chronicles grew from a relatively small narrative about the “beginning of the Russian land” into extensive historical canvases, covering events from the Great Flood to the current reign prince

The first of these so-called chronicle collections was created in Kiev no later than the 30s of the 11th century, and at the beginning of the 12th century, another expansion and revision of the same text basically led to the emergence of a work that is now published under the title The Tale of Bygone Years. When exactly this name appeared - at the beginning of the 12th century or earlier - is difficult to say. But in essence, it clearly indicates the religious meaning of the chronicle work: “at times” and “years”, or “temporary years” in the Slavic translation of the book of the Acts of the Apostles refers to the period of the Last Judgment established by God. And since a “story” is already being written about these last years of the world’s existence, it means that the second coming will happen any day now and we must be prepared for it.

A specific vision of the task of their own work early led chroniclers to a very “anti-artistic” method of organizing material: with rare exceptions, events were recorded in strictly chronological order, in separate “chapters” devoted to incidents of one year and beginning with the standard heading “In the summer of such and such” (in science it is customary to call these “chapters” annual articles). It is inconvenient to read such a text: the headlines of subsequent articles interrupt the story at the most interesting point, and even the immediate cause and effect may be separated into different articles and broken up by messages about completely different events and processes. It’s also difficult for the narrator: his ability to develop the plot and reveal the characters of the characters is inevitably limited to one year. However, the logic of the divine plan still cannot be accessible to the average person, so for the medieval consciousness the grid of dates remained almost the only visual reference point in the element of events.

Some chronicle news is extremely laconic (“The saints were transferred to the Church of the Holy Mother of God” or “Prince Yaroslav went to war against Lithuania”). Others (for example, the story about the kidnapping and blinding of Prince Vasilko Rosti-slavich in 1097) are detailed narratives with vivid characters and scenes full of drama. And the authors are not always loyal to the current government: the chronicle pages mention the miscalculations of princes, the abuses of boyars, and church “rebellions.” At the beginning of the 12th century, the critical tone of the chroniclers weakened somewhat; a comprehensive view of events gave way to praise of the ruling princes. However, in Rus' there were several chronicle traditions: in addition to Kiev (where chronicle writing originated), Novgorod, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, as well as in Volyn and the Galician land had their own chroniclers. As a result, modern researchers are presented with a detailed and multifaceted picture of the political life of Russian lands.

The political rise of Rus', which marked the 11th century, quickly gave way to an era of fragmentation. However, from the point of view of literature, the new historical period was no less interesting than the previous one. The second half of the 12th century saw the work of the famous composer of church hymns and teachings, Cyril of Turov. His "Tale of the Blind and the Lame" is a sophisticated parable about the nature of sin. And at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, no less sophisticated praise of the power of the grand princely power appeared in the Vladimir land - “The Word” (in another version - “Prayer”) by Daniil Zatochnik, about which there was already an opportunity to speak above. However, the most famous and most in demand among modern readers remains another famous monument of this time - “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”

“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is very original. Its plot is built not around the figure of some saint and not around a miracle revealed from above, and not even around a heroically won battle, but around the unsuccessful campaign of Prince of Novgorod-Seversk Igor Svyatoslavich against the steppe nomads in 1185. The text opens with a story about the advance of Russian troops into the steppe and that the beginning of the expedition was accompanied by an ominous sign - a solar eclipse. Then follows a description of two battles: one unfolds successfully for the Russian troops, and the second ends in defeat, after which the prince-leaders, led by Igor, are captured. Then the action moves to Rus', and the reader finds himself first in Kiev, at the council of the Kiev prince Svyatoslav with the boyars, and then in Putivl, where his wife Yaroslavna is crying about the missing Igor on the city wall. The Lay ends with a message about Igor’s escape from Polovtsian captivity: to the joy of Rus' and surrounding countries, the prince triumphantly returns to Kyiv.

Describing all these events, the author of “The Lay” actively uses very complex metaphors (“There was not enough bloody wine, here the brave Russians finished the feast: they gave the matchmakers drink, and they themselves died for the Russian land”); non-Christian gods and mythological creatures are mentioned: Divas, winds - Stribozh’s grandchildren, “great Horse”, etc. The author’s assessment and, especially, Christian morality are almost completely hidden behind this bizarre verbal pattern.

One might think that this is a military epic, similar to, say, the Old French “Song of Roland.” But the most important feature of an epic is a poetic form with a clear meter, and it cannot be identified in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” In addition, along with the “pagan” or “folk”, the Christian, bookish component is also represented in the imagery of the “Word”. So, in order to show the devastation of the Russian land from princely civil strife, the author describes flocks of birds that eat corpses:

“Then on Russian soil the cry of a plowman was rarely heard, but crows often croaked, dividing corpses, and jackdaws spoke in their own language, gathering for prey.”

Biblical prophecies also mention corpses that will become food for birds when God turns away from Israel for their sins. It is also noteworthy that Prince Svyatoslav’s arguments to the boyars (defined by the author himself as the “golden word”) are devoted not so much to the need to fight the enemies of Rus', but to the pride of those who do it at the wrong time:

“Oh, my nephews, Igor and Vsevolod! Early on you began to cut down the Polovtsian land with swords and gain glory for yourself. You won dishonorably, you shed the blood of the filthy ones dishonorably. Your brave hearts are forged from cruel damask steel and tempered with audacity. What have you done to my silver gray hair!”

In other words, the theme of “The Lay” is not only military valor, but also the audacity of princely thoughts. And this is already a predominantly bookish, essentially Christian motif.

The unusual composition and imagery played a cruel joke on “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The strange work was not popular among readers and copyists. Only one of his manuscripts has reached modern times, found by antiquities lovers at the end of the 18th century and published in 1800. And when this manuscript was destroyed during the famous Moscow fire of 1812, skeptical researchers were able to assert that the Lay was a late forgery, which unscrupulous publishers, for one reason or another, passed off as a monument of the 12th century. Modern science: the language of the “Lay” is very close to the language of authentic monuments of the 12th century; A falsifier from the time of Catherine II would not have been able to reproduce so well the grammar and vocabulary of the Old Russian language - especially those features that have become understandable only in our days. At the same time, the very emergence of a dispute about the origin of the “Word” clearly demonstrates the unusualness of this monument for the ancient Russian book literature of the pre-Mongol era.

Not all works of ancient Russian literature of the 11th-13th centuries have reached us. Books were composed, copied, read and stored primarily in cities, and cities were built mainly from wood, often burned, and libraries perished in the flames of these fires. In addition, large cities and rich monasteries were an attractive target for invaders - which is why the Horde invasion of the mid-13th century was a strong blow to literature. However, much has been preserved, not least thanks to the diligence of subsequent generations. From the point of view of the scribes of the 14th-17th centuries, the vocabulary of the pre-Mongol period, which followed Byzantine models, itself turned into a time-honored example to follow, and what was written by the great predecessors should have been preserved and disseminated. And although the originals of most works of the 11th-13th centuries have not reached us, thanks to copies made from them in subsequent centuries, modern researchers have a very detailed idea of ​​how ancient Russian literature began.

The concept of “Old Russian literature” includes literary works of the 11th-17th centuries. The literary monuments of this period include not only literary works themselves, but also historical works (chronicles and chronicle stories), descriptions of travel (they were called walks), teachings, lives (stories about the lives of people ranked among the saints by the church), epistles, works of the oratorical genre, some texts of a business nature. All these monuments contain elements of artistic creativity and emotional reflection of modern life.

The overwhelming majority of ancient Russian literary works did not preserve the names of their creators. Old Russian literature, as a rule, is anonymous, and in this respect it is similar to oral folk art. The literature of Ancient Rus' was handwritten: works were distributed by copying texts. In the course of the handwritten existence of works over the centuries, texts were not only copied, but often revised in connection with changes in literary tastes, the socio-political situation, in connection with the personal preferences and literary abilities of the copyists. This explains the existence of different editions and variants of the same monument in handwritten lists. Comparative textual analysis (see Textology) of editions and variants makes it possible for researchers to restore the literary history of a work and decide which text is closest to the original, author’s, and how it has changed over time. Only in the rarest cases do we have author's lists of monuments, and very often in later lists texts come to us that are closer to the author's than in earlier lists. Therefore, the study of ancient Russian literature is based on an exhaustive study of all copies of the work being studied. Collections of Old Russian manuscripts are available in large libraries in different cities, archives, and museums. Many works are preserved in a large number of lists, and many in a very limited number. There are works represented by a single list: “The Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh, “The Tale of Woe-Misfortune”, etc., in the only list the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” has come down to us, but he also died during Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow in 1812 G.

A characteristic feature of Old Russian literature is the repetition of certain situations, characteristics, comparisons, epithets, and metaphors in different works of different times. The literature of Ancient Rus' is characterized by “etiquette”: the hero acts and behaves as he should, according to the concepts of that time, act and behave in the given circumstances; specific events (for example, a battle) are depicted using constant images and forms, everything has a certain ceremoniality. Old Russian literature is solemn, majestic, and traditional. But over the seven hundred years of its existence, it has gone through a complex path of development, and within the framework of its unity we observe a variety of themes and forms, changes in old and creation of new genres, a close connection between the development of literature and the historical destinies of the country. All the time there was a kind of struggle between living reality, the creative individuality of the authors and the requirements of the literary canon.

The emergence of Russian literature dates back to the end of the 10th century, when, with the adoption of Christianity as the state religion in Rus', service and historical narrative texts should have appeared in Church Slavonic. Ancient Rus', through Bulgaria, where these texts mainly came from, immediately became familiar with the highly developed Byzantine literature and the literature of the South Slavs. The interests of the developing Kyiv feudal state required the creation of their own, original works and new genres. Literature was called upon to cultivate a sense of patriotism, to affirm the historical and political unity of the ancient Russian people and the unity of the family of ancient Russian princes, and to expose princely feuds.

Objectives and themes of literature of the 11th - early 13th centuries. (issues of Russian history in its connection with world history, the history of the emergence of Rus', the struggle with external enemies - the Pechenegs and Polovtsians, the struggle of princes for the Kiev throne) determined the general character of the style of this time, called by academician D. S. Likhachev the style of monumental historicism. The emergence of Russian chronicles is associated with the beginning of Russian literature. As part of later Russian chronicles, the “Tale of Bygone Years” has come down to us - a chronicle compiled by the ancient Russian historian and publicist monk Nestor around 1113. At the heart of the “Tale of Bygone Years”, which includes both a story about world history and year-by-year records about events in Russia, and legendary legends, and stories about princely feuds, and laudatory characteristics of individual princes, and philippics condemning them, and copies of documentary materials, there are even earlier chronicles that have not reached us. The study of lists of Old Russian texts makes it possible to restore the unpreserved titles of the literary history of Old Russian works. XI century The first Russian lives also date back (of princes Boris and Gleb, abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery Theodosius). These lives are distinguished by literary perfection, attention to pressing problems of our time, and the vitality of many episodes. The maturity of political thought, patriotism, journalisticism, and high literary skill are also characterized by the monuments of oratorical eloquence “The Sermon on Law and Grace” by Hilarion (1st half of the 11th century), the words and teachings of Cyril of Turov (1130-1182). The “Instruction” of the great Kyiv prince Vladimir Monomakh (1053-1125) is imbued with concerns about the fate of the country and deep humanity.

In the 80s XII century an author unknown to us creates the most brilliant work of ancient Russian literature - “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The specific topic to which the “Tale” is devoted is the unsuccessful campaign in 1185 in the Polovtsian steppe of the Novgorod-Seversk prince Igor Svyatoslavich. But the author is concerned about the fate of the entire Russian land, he recalls the events of the distant past and the present, and the true hero of his work is not Igor, not the Grand Duke of Kiev Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, to whom a lot of attention is paid in the Lay, but the Russian people, the Russian land. In many ways, “The Lay” is associated with the literary traditions of its time, but, as a work of genius, it is distinguished by a number of features unique to it: the originality of the processing of etiquette techniques, the richness of the language, the sophistication of the rhythmic structure of the text, the nationality of its very essence and the creative rethinking of oral techniques. folk art, special lyricism, high civic pathos.

The main theme of the literature of the period of the Horde yoke (1243, XIII century - end of the XV century) was national-patriotic. The monumental-historical style takes on an expressive tone: the works created at this time bear a tragic imprint and are distinguished by lyrical elation. The idea of ​​strong princely power acquires great importance in literature. Both chronicles and individual stories (“The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu”), written by eyewitnesses and going back to oral traditions, tell of the horrors of the enemy invasion and the infinitely heroic struggle of the people against the enslavers. The image of the ideal prince - a warrior and statesman, defender of the Russian land - was most clearly reflected in the “Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky” (70s of the 13th century). A poetic picture of the greatness of the Russian land, Russian nature, the former power of the Russian princes appears in the “Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” - in an excerpt from a work that has not survived in full, dedicated to the tragic events of the Horde yoke (1st half of the 13th century).

Literature of the 14th century - 50s XV century reflects the events and ideology of the time of the unification of the principalities of north-eastern Rus' around Moscow, the formation of the Russian nationality and the gradual formation of the Russian centralized state. During this period, ancient Russian literature began to show interest in the psychology of the individual, in his spiritual world (though still within the limits of religious consciousness), which leads to the growth of the subjective principle. An expressive-emotional style emerges, characterized by verbal sophistication and ornamental prose (the so-called “weaving of words”). All this reflects the desire to depict human feelings. In the 2nd half of the 15th - early 16th centuries. stories appear, the plot of which goes back to oral stories of a novelistic nature (“The Tale of Peter, Prince of the Horde”, “The Tale of Dracula”, “The Tale of the Merchant Basarga and his son Borzosmysl”). The number of translated works of a fictional nature is significantly increasing, and the genre of political legendary works (The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir) is becoming widespread.

In the middle of the 16th century. Ancient Russian writer and publicist Ermolai-Erasmus creates “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia” - one of the most remarkable works of literature of Ancient Rus'. The story is written in the tradition of an expressive-emotional style; it is built on the legendary legend about how a peasant girl, thanks to her intelligence, became a princess. The author widely used fairy-tale techniques; at the same time, social motives are acute in the story. “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia” is in many ways connected with the literary traditions of its time and the previous period, but at the same time it is ahead of modern literature and is distinguished by artistic perfection and bright individuality.

In the 16th century the official character of literature intensifies, its distinctive feature becomes pomp and solemnity. Works of a general nature, the purpose of which is to regulate spiritual, political, legal and everyday life, are becoming widespread. The “Great Menaion of Chetya” is being created - a 12-volume set of texts intended for everyday reading for each month. At the same time, “Domostroy” was written, which sets out the rules of human behavior in the family, detailed advice on housekeeping, and the rules of relationships between people. In literary works, the individual style of the author is more noticeably manifested, which is especially clearly reflected in the messages of Ivan the Terrible. Fiction is increasingly penetrating historical narratives, making the narrative more interesting. This is inherent in the “History of the Grand Duke of Moscow” by Andrei Kurbsky, and is reflected in the “Kazan History” - an extensive plot-historical narrative about the history of the Kazan kingdom and the struggle for Kazan by Ivan the Terrible.

In the 17th century the process of transforming medieval literature into modern literature begins. New purely literary genres are emerging, the process of democratization of literature is underway, and its subject matter is significantly expanding. Events of the Time of Troubles and the Peasant War at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries. change the view of history and the role of the individual in it, which leads to the liberation of literature from church influence. Writers of the Time of Troubles (Abrahamy Palitsyn, I.M. Katyrev-Rostovsky, Ivan Timofeev, etc.) try to explain the acts of Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, False Dmitry, Vasily Shuisky not only by the manifestation of divine will, but also by the dependence of these acts on the person himself, his personal characteristics. In literature, the idea of ​​the formation, change and development of human character under the influence of external circumstances arises. A wider circle of people began to engage in literary work. The so-called posad literature is born, which is created and exists in a democratic environment. A genre of democratic satire emerges, in which state and church orders are ridiculed: legal proceedings are parodied (“The Tale of Shemyakin’s Court”), church services (“Service for the Tavern”), sacred scripture (“The Tale of a Peasant Son”), office work practice (“The Tale of about Ersha Ershovich", "Kalyazin Petition"). The nature of the lives is also changing, which are increasingly becoming real biographies. The most remarkable work of this genre in the 17th century. is the autobiographical “Life” of Archpriest Avvakum (1620-1682), written by him in 1672-1673. It is remarkable not only for its lively and vivid story about the harsh and courageous life path of the author, but for its equally vivid and passionate depiction of the social and ideological struggle of its time, deep psychologism, preaching pathos, combined with full revelation of confession. And all this is written in a lively, rich language, sometimes in a high bookish language, sometimes in a bright, colloquial language.

The rapprochement of literature with everyday life, the appearance in the narrative of a love affair, and psychological motivations for the hero’s behavior are inherent in a number of stories of the 17th century. (“The Tale of Misfortune-Grief”, “The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn”, “The Tale of Frol Skobeev”, etc.). Translated collections of a novelistic nature appear, with short edifying, but at the same time anecdotally entertaining stories, translated knightly novels (“The Tale of Bova the Prince”, “The Tale of Eruslan Lazarevich”, etc.). The latter, on Russian soil, acquired the character of original, “their” monuments and over time entered popular popular literature. In the 17th century poetry develops (Simeon Polotsky, Sylvester Medvedev, Karion Istomin and others). In the 17th century The history of the great ancient Russian literature as a phenomenon characterized by common principles, which, however, underwent certain changes, came to an end. Old Russian literature, with its entire development, prepared Russian literature of modern times.