Features of ancient Russian literature. Questions and tasks

Old Russian(or Russian medieval, or ancient East Slavic) Literature is a collection of written works, written on the territory of Kievan, and then Muscovite Rus' in the period from the 11th to the 17th centuries. Old Russian literature is common ancient literature of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples.

Map of Ancient Rus'
the largest researchers of ancient Russian literature are academicians Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov, Alexei Alexandrovich Shakhmatov.

Academician D.S. Likhachev
Old Russian literature was not the result of fiction and had a number of features .
1. Fiction in ancient Russian literature was not allowed, since fiction is a lie, and a lie is sinful. That's why all works were religious or historical in nature. The right to fiction was comprehended only in the 17th century.
2. Due to the lack of fiction in ancient Russian literature there was no concept of authorship, since the works either reflected real historical events, or were a presentation of Christian books. Therefore, the works of ancient Russian literature have a compiler, a copyist, but not an author.
3. Works of ancient Russian literature were created in accordance with etiquette, that is, according to certain rules. Etiquette consisted of ideas about how the course of events should unfold, how the hero should behave, how the compiler of the work is obliged to describe what is happening.
4. Old Russian literature developed very slowly: for seven centuries, only a few dozen works were created. This was explained, firstly, by the fact that the works were copied by hand, and the books were not replicated, since there was no printing in Rus' until 1564; secondly, the number of literate (reading) people was very small.

Genres Old Russian literature differed from modern ones.

Old Russian literature - literature of the Eastern Slavs of the XI - XIII centuries. Moreover, only from the XIV century can we talk about the manifestation of certain book traditions and the emergence of Great Russian literature, and from the XV - Ukrainian and Belarusian literature.

Conditions for the emergence of ancient Russian literature

Factors without which no literature could have come into being:

1) The emergence of the state: the emergence of orderly relationships between people (ruler and subjects). In Rus', the state was formed in the 9th century, when in 862 Prince Rurik was called. After that, there is a need for texts proving his right to power.

2) Developed oral folk art. In Rus', by the 11th century, it was formed in two forms: a retinue epic glorifying feats of arms, and ritual poetry intended for the cult of pagan gods, as well as for traditional holidays.

3) Adoption of Christianity- 988 year. There is a need for Bible texts translated into Slavonic.

4) The emergence of writing- the most important condition for the formation of any literature. Without writing, it would forever remain in the status of oral art, because the main feature of literature is that it is written down.

Periods of Old Russian literature (X - XVII centuries)

1. The end of the X - the beginning of the XII century: the literature of Kievan Rus (the main genre is chronicles).

2. The end of the XII - the first third of the XIII century: literature of the era of feudal fragmentation.

3. The second third of the XIII - the end of the XIV century (until 1380): literature of the era of the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

4. The end of the XIV - the first half of the XV century: the literature of the period of the unification of Rus' around Moscow.

5. The second half of the 15th - 16th centuries: the literature of a centralized state (publicism appeared at this time).

6. XVI - the end of the XVII century: the era of transition from ancient Russian literature to the literature of the New Age. At this time, poetry appears and the role of personalities significantly increases (authors begin to be indicated).

Features (difficulties) of studying Old Russian literature

1) Handwritten literature. The first printed book (Apostle) is published only in 1564, before that all the texts were written by hand.

3) The inability to establish the exact date of writing the work. Sometimes even a century is unknown, and all dating is very arbitrary.

The main genres of ancient Russian literature

In the first periods, the main part of the texts was translated, and their content was purely ecclesiastical. Consequently, the first genres of Old Russian literature were borrowed from foreign ones, but similar Russian ones also appeared later:

hagiography (lives of saints)

Apocrypha (lives of the saints presented from a different point of view).

Chronicles (chronographs). Historical writings, ancestors of the chronicle genre. ("

The verbal art of the Middle Ages is a special world, largely "hidden" for modern man. He has a special system of artistic values, his own laws of literary creativity, unusual forms of works. This world can only be opened by those who are initiated into its mysteries, who have known its specific features.

Old Russian literature is the literature of the Russian Middle Ages, which went through a long, seven-century path in its development, from the 11th to the 17th century. For the first three centuries it was common for the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian peoples. Only by the 14th century are there differences between the three East Slavic peoples, their language and literature. During the formation of literature, its "apprenticeship", Kyiv, the "mother of Russian cities", was the center of political and cultural life, therefore the literature of the 11th-12th centuries is usually called the literature of Kievan Rus. In the tragic for Russian history of the XIII-XIV centuries, when Kiev fell under the blows of the Mongol-Tatar hordes and the state lost its independence, the literary process lost its former unity, its course was determined by the activities of the regional literary "schools" (Chernigov, Galicia-Volyn, Ryazan, Vladimir -Suzdal and others). Since the 15th century, a tendency has been manifested in Rus' to unite creative forces, and the literary development of the 16th-17th centuries is marked by the rise of a new spiritual center - Moscow.

Old Russian literature, like folklore, did not know the concepts of "copyright", "canonical text". Works existed in handwritten form, and the scribe could act as a co-author, create a work anew, subjecting the text to sampling, stylistic editing, including new material borrowed from other sources (for example, chronicles, local legends, monuments of translated literature). This is how new editions of works appeared, differing from each other in ideological, political and artistic settings. Before publishing the text of a work created

in the Middle Ages, it was necessary to do a lot of rough work on the study and comparison of various lists and editions in order to identify those that are closest to the original appearance of the monument. These goals are served by a special science of textual criticism; its tasks also include the attribution of the work, that is, the establishment of its authorship, and the solution of questions: where and when was it created, why was its text edited?

The literature of Ancient Rus', like the art of the Middle Ages in general, was based on a system of religious ideas about the world; it was based on a religious-symbolic method of cognition and reflection of reality. The world in the mind of an ancient Russian person, as it were, split in two: on the one hand, it is the real, earthly life of a person, society, nature, which can be known with the help of everyday experience, with the help of feelings, that is, “bodily eyes”; on the other hand, it is a religious-mythological, “higher” world, which, unlike the “lower”, opens up to the chosen people, pleasing to God, in moments of spiritual revelation, religious ecstasy.

It was clear to the Old Russian scribe why certain events were taking place, he was never tormented by questions that Russian classics of the 19th century would think about solving: “who is to blame?” and “what to do?” to change a person and the world for the better. For a medieval writer, everything that happens on earth is a manifestation of God's will. If there was a “great star, rays of property like bloody,” then this served the Russians as a formidable warning about the coming trials, Polovtsian raids and princely strife: According to this, there was a lot of usokii / b many and the invasion of the filthy on the Russian land, this star, like a bloody one, showing the shedding of blood. For medieval man, nature had not yet acquired its own independent aesthetic value; an unusual natural phenomenon, whether it was an eclipse of the sun or a flood, acted as a kind of symbol, a sign of the connection between the "higher" and "lower" worlds, was interpreted as an evil or good omen.

Historicism of medieval literature of a special kind. Often in the work, two plans are intertwined in the most bizarre way: real-historical and religious-fiction, and the ancient man believed in the existence of demons in the same way as in the fact that Princess Olga traveled to Constantinople, and Prince Vladimir baptized Russia. Demons in the image of the ancient Russian writer "blacks, wings, tails of possessions", they were endowed with the ability to perform human deeds:

scatter flour at the mill, lift logs to the high bank of the Dnieper for the construction of the Kiev Caves Monastery.

A mixture of fact and fiction is characteristic of the ancient part of The Tale of Bygone Years, whose origins are in folklore. Talking about the journey of Princess Olga to Tsargrad and her adoption of Christianity, the chronicler follows the folk legend, according to which Olga, the “wise maiden”, “switched” (outwitted) the Byzantine emperor. Struck by her “pretentiousness”, he decided to “give” Olga for himself, that is, to take her as a wife, but after the baptism of a heterodox (the condition of marriage put forward by Olga) he was forced to abandon his intention: the godfather could not become the goddaughter’s husband. Recent studies of this chronicle fragment, comparing it with the data of translated chronicles, indicate that Princess Olga at that time was at a very advanced age, the Byzantine emperor was much younger than her and had a wife. The chronicler used the folk-poetic version of this historical event in order to show the superiority of the Russian mind over the foreign, to elevate the image of a wise ruler who understood that without a single religion, the formation of a single state is impossible.

Glorifying the fortitude and wisdom of the Russian people, the medieval writer was the spokesman for the idea of ​​religious tolerance, a humane attitude towards non-Christians. In the 11th century, Theodosius of the Caves in a letter to Izyaslav Yaroslavich, denouncing the "wrong Latin faith", nevertheless calls on the prince: whether it’s winter, whether it’s E "odoy odzhy-ml, the children of the Jews, whether the Jews, or Sorochinin, whether, volgdrin, whether a heretic, or ldtnnin, or from the weather, have mercy on everyone and from e * da izvdvi, as if you can, and mazdy from Eogd don’t bury-shishi. ”

Old Russian literature is distinguished by high spirituality. The life of the human soul is the center of gravity of the literature of the Middle Ages, the education and improvement of the moral nature of man is its main task. The external, objective recedes here into the background. As on an icon, where the “face” and “eyes” are given in close-up, that which reflects the inner essence of the saint, the “light” of his soul, in literature, especially hagiography, the image of a person is subject to the glorification of the proper, ideal, eternally beautiful moral qualities: mercy and modesty, sincere generosity and non-possession.

In the Middle Ages, there was a different system of artistic values ​​than in our time, the aesthetics of similarity dominated, and not the aesthetics of originality. By definition, D.S. Likhachev, Old Russian

the writer proceeded in his work from the concept of "literary etiquette", which was composed of ideas about "how this or that course of events should have taken place", "how the character should have behaved", "what words the writer should describe what is happening. Before us, therefore, is the etiquette of the world order, the etiquette of behavior and the etiquette of words.

Old Russian literature valued the general, the repetitive, and easily recognizable, avoiding the particular, the accidental, and the unusual for the reader. That is why in the monuments of the 11th-17th centuries there are so many “common places” in the depiction of military or monastic deeds, in obituary characteristics of Russian princes and in laudatory words to saints. Comparison of the heroes of Russian history with biblical characters, citing books of Holy Scripture, imitation of the authoritative Fathers of the Church, borrowing entire fragments from the works of previous eras - all this in the Middle Ages testified to the high book culture, the skill of the writer, and was not a sign of his creative impotence.

The literature of Ancient Rus' is characterized by a special system of genres. To a greater extent than in the literature of modern times, it is connected with non-literary circumstances, with the practical needs of ancient Russian society. Each literary genre served a certain area of ​​life. So, for example, the emergence of chronicle writing was due to the need of the state to have its own written history, where the most important events would be recorded (the birth and death of rulers, wars and peace treaties, the founding of cities and the construction of churches).

In the 11th-17th centuries, several genre systems existed and actively interacted: folklore, translated literature, business writing, liturgical and secular, artistic and journalistic literature. Of course, the genres of liturgical literature ("Prologue", "Book of Hours", "Apostle", etc.) were more closely connected with the sphere of their existence, they were more static.

The basis of the selection of genres in the literature of Ancient Rus' was the object of the image. The feats of arms of the Russians were depicted in military stories, travel to other countries, at first only for pilgrimages, and then for trade and diplomatic purposes - in walking. Each genre had its own canon. For example, for a hagiographic work, where the object of the image was the life of a saint, a three-part composition is obligatory: a rhetorical introduction, a biographical part, and praise to one of the “hosts of Christ”. Type

the narrator in his life is a conventionally sinful person, “thin and unreasonable”, which was necessary for the exaltation of the hero – a righteous man and a miracle worker, therefore, for this genre, the idealizing way of depiction was the main thing, when the hero’s behavior was freed from everything temporary, sinful and he appeared only in the front moments of his life as a "positively beautiful person". The style of monuments of hagiographic literature, in contrast to the chronicle, is florid and verbally embellished, especially in the introductory and final parts, which are often called the "rhetorical mantle" of the life.

The fate of ancient Russian genres has developed in different ways: some of them have left literary use, others have adapted to the changed conditions, others continue to function actively, being filled with new content. Essay literature of the 19th - 20th centuries, literary travels of the 18th century go back to the traditions of ancient Russian wanderings - one of the most stable genre formations of the Middle Ages. Researchers see the origins of the Russian novel in everyday stories of the 17th century. The poetics of the ode in the literature of Russian classicism, of course, developed under the influence of the works of oratory of Ancient Russia.

Thus, ancient Russian literature is not a dead, bygone phenomenon, it has not sunk into oblivion, leaving no offspring. This phenomenon is alive and fruitful. She inherited the Russian literature of modern times with a high spiritual attitude and "teaching" character, the ideas of patriotism and a humane attitude towards people, regardless of their religion. Many genres of the literature of Ancient Rus', having undergone evolution, found a second life in the literature of the 18th - 20th centuries.

Any national literature has its distinctive (specific) features.

Old Russian literature (DRL) is doubly specific, since, in addition to national features, it contains features of the Middle Ages (XI-XVII centuries), which had a decisive influence on the worldview and psychology of a person in Ancient Rus'.

Two blocks of specific features can be distinguished.

The first block can be called general cultural, the second is most closely connected with the inner world of the personality of a person of the Russian Middle Ages.

Let's talk about the first block very briefly. First, ancient Russian literature was handwritten. In the first centuries of the Russian literary process, the writing material was parchment (or parchment). It was made from the skin of calves or lambs, and therefore it was called "veal" in Rus'. Parchment was an expensive material, it was used extremely carefully and the most important things were written on it. Later, instead of parchment, paper appeared, which partly contributed, in the words of D. Likhachev, to “the breakthrough of literature to mass character”.

In Rus', three main types of writing successively replaced each other. The first (XI-XIV centuries) was called a charter, the second (XV-XVI centuries) - semi-charter, the third (XVII century) - cursive.

Since the writing material was expensive, the book's customers (large monasteries, princes, boyars) wanted the most interesting works of various subjects and the time of their creation to be collected under one cover.

Works of ancient Russian literature are usually called monuments.

Monuments in Ancient Rus' functioned in the form of collections.

Particular attention should be paid to the second block of specific features of the DRL.

1. The functioning of monuments in the form of collections is explained not only by the high price of the book. Ancient Russian man, in his desire to acquire knowledge about the world around him, strove for a kind of encyclopedia. Therefore, in the Old Russian collections there are often monuments of various subjects and problems.

2. In the first centuries of the development of the DRL, fiction had not yet emerged as an independent area of ​​creativity and social consciousness. Therefore, one and the same monument was at the same time a monument of literature, and a monument of historical thought, and a monument of philosophy, which in Ancient Rus' existed in the form of theology. It is interesting to know that, for example, Russian chronicles up to the beginning of the 20th century were considered exclusively as historical literature. Only thanks to the efforts of Academician V. Adrianov-Peretz did the annals become an object of literary criticism.

At the same time, the special philosophical saturation of ancient Russian literature in the subsequent centuries of Russian literary development will not only be preserved, but will actively develop and become one of the defining national features of Russian literature as such. This will allow Academician A. Losev to state with all certainty: “Fiction is a storehouse of original Russian philosophy. In the prose writings of Zhukovsky and Gogol, in the works of Tyutchev, Fet, Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky<...>often the main philosophical problems are developed, of course, in their specifically Russian, exclusively practical, life-oriented form. And these problems are resolved here in such a way that an open-minded and knowledgeable judge will call these solutions not just "literary" or "artistic", but philosophical and ingenious.

3. Ancient Russian literature had an anonymous (impersonal) character, which is inextricably linked with another characteristic feature - the collectivity of creativity. The authors of Ancient Rus' (often referred to as scribes) did not seek to leave their name for centuries, firstly, by virtue of the Christian tradition (scribe-monks often call themselves "unreasonable", "sinful" monks who dared to become creators of the artistic word); secondly, due to the understanding of their work as part of an all-Russian, collective cause.

At first glance, this feature seems to indicate a poorly developed personal beginning in the Old Russian author in comparison with the Western European masters of the artistic word. Even the name of the author of the brilliant Tale of Igor's Campaign is still unknown, while Western European medieval literature can "boast" of hundreds of great names. However, there can be no question of the "backwardness" of ancient Russian literature or its "impersonality". We can talk about its special national quality. Once D. Likhachev very accurately compared Western European literature with a group of soloists, and Old Russian literature with a choir. Is choral singing less beautiful than the performances of individual soloists? Does it lack the manifestation of a human personality?

4. The main character of ancient Russian literature is the Russian land. We agree with D. Likhachev, who emphasized that the literature of the pre-Mongolian period is the literature of one theme - the theme of the Russian land. This does not mean at all that the ancient Russian authors "refuse" to depict the experiences of an individual human personality, "fixate" on the Russian land, depriving themselves of their individuality and sharply limiting the "universal" significance of DRL.

Firstly, ancient Russian authors always, even in the most tragic moments of Russian history, for example, in the first decades of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, sought to join the highest achievements of the culture of other peoples and civilizations through the richest Byzantine literature. Thus, in the 13th century, the medieval encyclopedias Melissa (Bee) and Physiologist were translated into Old Russian.

Secondly, and most importantly, it must be borne in mind that the personality of a Russian person and the personality of a Western European is formed on different worldview foundations: a Western European personality is individualistic, it is affirmed due to its special significance, exclusivity. This is connected with the special course of Western European history, with the development of the Western Christian Church (Catholicism). A Russian person, by virtue of his Orthodoxy (belonging to Eastern Christianity - Orthodoxy), denies the individualistic (egoistic) principle as destructive both for the person himself and for his environment. Russian classical literature - from the nameless scribes of Ancient Rus' to Pushkin and Gogol, A. Ostrovsky and Dostoevsky, V. Rasputin and V. Belov - depicts the tragedy of an individualistic personality and establishes its heroes on the path to overcoming the evil of individualism.

5. Old Russian literature did not know fiction. This refers to a conscious mindset. The author and the reader absolutely believe in the truth of the artistic word, even if it is fiction from the point of view of a secular person.

The conscious attitude to fiction will come later. This will happen at the end of the 15th century, during the period of intensification of the political struggle for leadership in the process of unification of the original Russian lands. The rulers will also appeal to the absolute authority of the written word. This is how the genre of political legend arose. In Moscow there will appear: the eschatological theory "Moscow - the Third Rome", which naturally took on a topical political coloring, as well as "The Legend of the Princes of Vladimir". In Veliky Novgorod - "The Legend of the Novgorod White Klobuk".

6. In the first centuries, DRL tried not to depict everyday life for the following reasons. The first (religious) way of life is sinful, its image prevents an earthly person from directing his aspirations to the salvation of the soul. Second (psychological): life seemed unchanged. Both the grandfather, and the father, and the son wore the same clothes, weapons did not change, etc.

Over time, under the influence of the process of secularization, everyday life more and more penetrates the pages of Russian books. This will lead to the emergence in the 16th century of the genre of everyday story (“The Tale of Ulyania Osorgina”), and in the 17th century the genre of everyday story will become the most popular.

7. DRL is characterized by a special attitude to history. The past is not only not separated from the present, but is actively present in it, and also determines the fate of the future. An example of this is "The Tale of Bygone Years", "The Story of the Crime of the Ryazan Princes", "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", etc.

8. Old Russian literature wore instructive character. This means that the ancient Russian scribes sought, first of all, to enlighten the souls of their readers with the light of Christianity. In DRL, unlike Western medieval literature, there was never a desire to lure the reader with a wonderful fiction, to lead away from life's difficulties. Adventurous translated stories will gradually penetrate into Russia from the beginning of the 17th century, when the Western European influence on Russian life becomes obvious.

So, we see that some specific features of DID will be gradually lost over time. However, those characteristics of Russian national literature, which determine the core of its ideological orientation, will remain unchanged up to the present time.

"Separate observations on the artistic specifics of ancient Russian literature were already in the works of F.I. Buslaev, I.S. Nekrasov, I.S. Tikhonravov, V.O. Klyuchevsky." Likhachev D.S. Poetics of ancient Russian literature, M., 1979, p. 5.

But only at the end of the 20th century did works appear that set out the general views of their authors on the artistic specificity and artistic methods of ancient Russian literature. "These views can be traced in the works of I.P. Eremin, V.P. Andrianova-Peretz, D.S. Likhachev, S.N. Azbelev." Kuskov V.V. History of Old Russian Literature, M., 1989, p. 9.

D.S. Likhachev put forward a thesis about the diversity of artistic methods not only in all ancient Russian literature, but in this or that author, in this or that work.

"Any artistic method," the researcher distinguishes, "comprises a whole system of large and small means to achieve certain artistic goals. Therefore, each artistic method has many features, and these features are in a certain way correlated with each other." Likhachev D.S. To the study of artistic methods of Russian literature of the XI-XVII centuries // TODRL, M., L., 1964, v. 20, p.7.

The worldview of a medieval person absorbed, on the one hand, speculative religious ideas about the human world, and on the other hand, a specific vision of reality that followed from the labor practice of a person in a feudal society.

In his daily activities, a person is faced with reality: nature, social, economic and political relations. The Christian religion considered the world around man to be temporary, transient, and sharply opposed the world to the eternal, incorruptible. The beginnings of the temporal and eternal are contained in man himself: his mortal body and immortal soul, the result of divine revelation allows man to penetrate the secrets of the ideal world. The soul gives life to the body, spiritualizes it. The body is the source of carnal passions and the illnesses and sufferings resulting from them.

A person cognizes reality with the help of five senses - this is the lowest form of sensory cognition of the "visible world". The "invisible" world is comprehended by reflection. Only inner spiritual insight as a doubling of the world largely determined the specifics of the artistic method of ancient Russian literature, its leading principle is symbolism. Medieval man was convinced that symbols are hidden in nature and in man himself, historical events are filled with symbolic meaning. The symbol served as a means of revealing the meaning, finding the truth. As the signs of the visible world surrounding a person are ambiguous, so is the word: it can be interpreted both in direct and figurative meanings.

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

A characteristic feature of medieval thinking was retrospectiveness and traditionalism. Thus, the ancient Russian writer constantly refers to the texts of "scripture", which he interprets not only historically, but also allegorically, tropologically and analogously.

The Old Russian writer creates his work within the framework of an established tradition: he looks at patterns, canons, does not allow "self-thinking", i.e. artistic invention. His task is to convey the "image of truth." The medieval historicism of Old Russian literature is subordinated to this goal. All events occurring in the life of a person and society are considered as a manifestation of the divine will.

History is a constant arena of the struggle between good and evil. The source of good, good thoughts and deeds is God. The devil pushes people to evil. But ancient Russian literature does not remove responsibility from the person himself. He is free to choose either the thorny path of virtue or the wide path of sin. In the mind of the ancient Russian writer, the categories of ethical and aesthetic organically merged. The Old Russian writer usually builds his works on the contrast of good and evil, virtues and vices, ideal and negative heroes. He shows that the high moral qualities of a person are the result of hard work, a moral feat.

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

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.