The story and word genres of Old Russian. Features of Old Russian literature

The system of genres in the literature of Ancient Rus' was significantly different from the modern one. Old Russian literature developed largely under the influence of Byzantine literature: it borrowed genres, reworked and "mixed" with Russian folklore. It is customary to divide the genres of Old Russian literature into primary and unifying.

Primary genres These genres are called primary because they served as building material for unifying genres.

life was an indispensable attribute when a person was canonized, i.e. were considered saints. Life was created by people who directly communicated with a person or could reliably testify to his life. Life was always created after the death of a person. It performed a huge educational function, because the life of the saint was perceived as an example of a righteous life.

Canons of Life: The pious origin of the hero of life; a saint was born a saint, but did not become one; the saint was distinguished by an ascetic way of life; a mandatory attribute of the life was a description of the miracles that occurred during the life of the saint and after his death; the saint was not afraid of death; the life ended with the glorification of the saint.

Old Russian eloquence this genre was borrowed by ancient Russian literature from Byzantium, where eloquence was a form of oratory. In ancient Russian literature, eloquence appeared in three varieties: didactic, political, solemn.

teaching- a kind of genre of ancient Russian eloquence. Teaching is a genre in which ancient Russian chroniclers tried to present a model of behavior for any ancient Russian person: both for a prince and for a commoner. The most striking example of this genre is the Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh included in The Tale of Bygone Years.

Word- is a kind of genre of ancient Russian eloquence. An example of the political variety of ancient Russian eloquence is the "Tale of Igor's Campaign".

Tale- this is a text of an epic character, telling about princes, about military exploits, about princely crimes. Examples of military stories are "The Tale of the Battle on the Kalka River", "The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu Khan", "The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky".

Uniting genres

chronicle It is a story about historical events. This is the most ancient genre of ancient Russian literature. The chronicle tells about the origin of the Russians, about the genealogy of the Kyiv princes and about the emergence of the ancient Russian state.

Chronograph- these are texts containing a description of the time of the 15th-16th centuries.

Cheti-Minei (literally "reading by months")- a collection of works about saints.

patericon- description of the life of the holy fathers.

The genres of ancient Russian literature were basically borrowed from the Byzantine tradition, but underwent some changes in the "national" character.

In them, the influence of oral folk art is noticeable. At the same time, this influence is not particularly strong, since ancient Russian literature is characterized by stereotypes, and Byzantine works served as a model in this sense.

The pattern was manifested both in the structure of the Old Russian work and in expressive means - the same epithets were repeated from one text to another, comparisons, descriptions of cities or historical figures were similar to each other and almost did not contain specific details.

Primary and unifying genres

The primary genres of ancient Russian literature were included in the "secondary" - unifying genres. Here is a list of primary ones:

1. Life;
2. teaching;
3. Word;
4. Tale;
5. Church legend;
6. Chronicle story, chronicle legend;
7. Walking is a description of traveling to "holy places".

Combining genres:

1. chronicle (in general, the central genre of ancient Russian literature),
2. chronograph,
3. patericon,
4. cheti-minai.

"The Tale of Igor's Campaign"

The Tale of Igor's Campaign is one of the most unique ancient Russian works. Already the genre of "Words" is knocked out of the usual system: it is a completely artistic epic poem, containing both a heroic plot, and lyrical digressions, and inserted episodes; there is also a place for philosophical and political reasoning.

The narrator tells about the past, at times returning to the present - this technique was generally not welcomed by Russian scribes. "The Word", apparently, was purposefully written for artistic and journalistic purposes, the historicity of the plot was not particularly important for the author.

These features and inconsistencies with traditions led to the fact that the authenticity of this literary monument was repeatedly disputed.

Modifications of Old Russian genres in the late era

Over time, the "range" and the internal content of the genres have changed. Tales and legends already in the 15th century turn into fiction, often written for entertainment. “Journey Beyond Three Seas” by Athanasius Nikitin is a completely secular work, written for educational and even to some extent entertaining purposes, it contains descriptions of the peoples of distant countries, their customs, traditions and way of life.

A big commotion in the church environment was caused by what he himself wrote. It was created in the 17th century. Recall that Avvakum is the initiator of the church schism, a supporter of the "old rite" (the sign of the cross with two fingers) and an ardent critic of the patriarch-reformer Nikon. Outrage was caused by the fact that the author made himself the hero of the "life" by committing an unforgivable sin - that is, he declared himself a saint.

Meanwhile, Avvakum's "Life" is an excellently written autobiography, in which the author did not seek to appropriate the status of a saint, but only showed what disasters a simple person goes through and how he carries his cross in spite of ill-wishers. "Life" is completely devoid of church genre canons, written in simple "folk" language, contains a lot of everyday and portrait descriptions, pictures of nature.

The Tale, finally becoming a secular genre, entered popular literature and folklore. These are The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn, and especially the Tale of Ersh Ershovich, in which anthropomorphic animals are involved; This is a caustic satire on the then judicial realities. "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn" originally contained all the elements inherent in the church genre: teaching, the theme of the salvation of the soul, a description of miracles. But in subsequent editions, these elements were already omitted, which is why the work eventually turned into a fairy tale.

By the 18th century, the genres of ancient Russian literature had already completely outlived themselves, and a period of completely different literature began.

life
The genre of life was borrowed from Byzantium. This is the most widespread and favorite genre of Old Russian literature. Life was an indispensable attribute when a person was canonized, i.e. were considered saints. Life was created by people who directly communicated with a person or could reliably testify to his life. Life was always created after the death of a person. It performed a huge educational function, because the life of the saint was perceived as an example of a righteous life, which must be imitated. In addition, life deprived a person of the fear of death, preaching the idea of ​​the immortality of the human soul. Life was built according to certain canons, from which they did not depart until the 15th-16th centuries. Primary genres
These genres are called primary because they served as building material for unifying genres. Primary genres:
life
Word
teaching
Tale

The primary genres also include the weather record, chronicle story, chronicle legend and church legend.
Canons of Life
The pious origin of the hero of life, whose parents must have been righteous. The saint's parents often begged God.
A saint was born a saint, not made one.
The saint was distinguished by an ascetic way of life, spent time in solitude and prayer.
A mandatory attribute of life was a description of the miracles that occurred during the life of the saint and after his death.
The saint was not afraid of death.
The life ended with the glorification of the saint.
One of the first works of the hagiographical genre in ancient Russian literature was the life of the holy princes Boris and Gleb.
Old Russian eloquence
This genre was borrowed by ancient Russian literature from Byzantium, where eloquence was a form of oratory. In ancient Russian literature, eloquence appeared in three varieties:
Didactic (instructive)
Political
Solemn
teaching
teaching - a kind of genre of ancient Russian eloquence. Teaching is a genre in which ancient Russian chroniclers tried to present a model of behavior for any ancient Russian person: both for a prince and for a commoner. The most striking example of this genre is the Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh included in The Tale of Bygone Years. In The Tale of Bygone Years, the Teaching of Vladimir Monomakh dates back to 1096. At this time, the strife between the princes in the battle for the throne reached its climax. In his teaching, Vladimir Monomakh gives advice on how to organize your life. He says that there is no need to seek the salvation of the soul in seclusion. It is necessary to serve God by helping those in need. Going to war, you should pray - God will definitely help. Monomakh confirms these words with an example from his life: he took part in many battles - and God kept him. Monomakh says that one should look at how the natural world works and try to arrange social relations along the lines of a harmonious world order. The teaching of Vladimir Monomakh is addressed to posterity.
Word
The word is a kind of genre of ancient Russian eloquence. An example of the political variety of ancient Russian eloquence is the "Tale of Igor's Campaign". This work causes a lot of controversy about its authenticity. This is because the original text of The Tale of Igor's Campaign has not been preserved. It was destroyed by fire in 1812. Only copies have survived. Since that time, it has become fashionable to refute its authenticity. The word tells about the military campaign of Prince Igor against the Polovtsy, which took place in history in 1185.
Tale
The story is a text of an epic nature, telling about princes, about military exploits, about princely crimes. Examples of military stories are "The Tale of the Battle on the Kalka River", "The Tale of the Devastation of Ryazan by Batu Khan", "The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky".

Uniting genres
The primary genres acted as part of the unifying genres, such as the chronicle, the chronograph, the cheti-menei, and the patericon.

chronicle It is a story about historical events. This is the most ancient genre of ancient Russian literature. In Ancient Rus', the chronicle played a very important role, because. not only reported on the historical events of the past, but was also a political and legal document, indicating how to act in certain situations. The oldest chronicle is The Tale of Bygone Years, which has come down to us in the lists of the Laurentian Chronicle of the 14th century and the Ipatiev Chronicle of the 15th century. The chronicle tells about the origin of the Russians, about the genealogy of the Kyiv princes and about the emergence of the ancient Russian state.

Chronograph - these are texts containing a description of the time of the 15th-16th centuries.

Chet's Menaion (literally "reading by months") - a collection of works about holy people.

patericon - a description of the life of the holy fathers.

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.

The system of genres of ancient Russian literature (XI- XVIcenturies)

The main part of the genres was borrowed by Russian literature in the X-XIII centuries. from Byzantine literature: in translations and works transferred to Rus' from Bulgaria. In this system of genres transferred to Rus', there were mainly church genres, that is, genres of works necessary for worship and for the administration of church life - monastic and parish. Various manuals of worship, prayers and lives of saints of various types should be noted here; works intended for pious individual reading, etc. But, in addition, there were works of a more “secular” nature: various kinds of natural science works (six-day books, bestiaries, alphabet books), works on world history (on the Old Testament and Roman-Byzantine) , writings of the "Hellenistic novel" type ("Alexandria").

The variety of borrowed genres is amazing, but they all continued their lives here in different ways. There were genres that existed only together with transferred works and did not develop independently. There were others who continued their active existence. Within their framework, new works were created: the lives of Russian saints, sermons, teachings, less often prayers and other liturgical texts.

In order to understand the genre system of ancient Russian literature (very heterogeneous, by the way), it is necessary, first of all, to identify the main criteria by which the genre was distinguished.

ü The division into genres is due to non-literary factors, that is, a) their application; b) the subject to which the work is dedicated;

ü Genres are divided into ecclesiastical and secular and are subject to a hierarchy:

Church genres

1. Texts of "Holy Scripture"

2. Hymnography, that is, church hymns. This example clearly shows one of the features of the system of genres of Ancient Rus': non-literary criteria are defining for the genre. For example, some types of church hymns differed not in form and content, but in what church service and in what part of it they were performed. Other types - according to how they were performed (trinary tones, performed three times in the morning after the Six Psalms and Litany, antiphons, sung alternately on two kliros). Some types of church hymns were named according to how it was supposed to behave when they were performed. Such are the sedals (when singing they began to sit down), katavasia (the last verse, for which the singers converged in the middle of the church). In ancient Rus', there were different types of the Apostle, depending on his use in church life, there were different types of Psalter, also arising from the needs of the church way of life.

3. Sermon: this category includes "words" associated with the interpretation of "scripture", explanations of the meaning of the holidays. Such "words" were usually combined into collections - "celebrators", triods of color and Lenten.

4. Hagiography: lives - stories about the exploits of saints. Lives were combined into collections: Prologues (Sinaxari), Cheti-Minei, Pateriki. Each type of hero: martyr, confessor, reverend, 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. From the point of view of the setting in which the life is read, there are prologue and menaine lives.
Based on Byzantine examples, ancient Russian writers created a number of outstanding works of hagiographic original literature, reflecting the essential aspects of the life and life of Ancient Rus'. Unlike Byzantine hagiography, ancient Russian literature creates an original genre of princely life, which aimed to strengthen the political authority of princely power, to surround it with an aura of holiness. A distinctive feature of the prince's life is "historicism", a close connection with chronicle legends, military stories, i.e., genres of secular literature. Just like the princely life, on the verge of transition from ecclesiastical to secular genres are "walks" - travel, descriptions of pilgrimages to "holy places", legends about icons.

secular genres

The system of secular genres was developed by ancient Russian writers through extensive interaction with the genres of oral folk art, business writing, and church literature.

1. Chronicles: the emergence of the chronicle genre requires additional research. Some chronicles arose in connection with the reign of one or another prince, others - in connection with the establishment of a bishopric or archbishopric, still others - in connection with the annexation of a principality or region, fourth - in connection with the construction of cathedral churches, etc., which suggests that the annalistic code, telling about the past, fixed some important stage of the present. The idea that the Russian chronicles arose as an imitation of the Byzantine chronicles does not find confirmation: the Byzantine samples were used far from the initial stage (by the way, most Russian chronicles are structured differently: if the chronicles record the sequence of reigns, then the chronicles record the sequence of events. The oldest chronicle that has come down to us vault - PVL (circa 1113) (preserved in the Lavrentiev, Ipatiev, Radzivilov and other chronicles. In addition to brief weather records, the PVL includes the texts of documents, and retellings of folklore legends, and plot stories, and excerpts from monuments of translated literature , there is also a theological treatise (“The Philosopher’s Speech”), and a hagiographic story about Boris and Gleb, etc. In a word, a complex genre nature: the chronicle is one of the “unifying genres”, subordinating the genres of its components. The composition of the chronicles included a historical story dedicated to outstanding events related to the struggle against the external enemies of Russia, the evil of princely strife. The story is accompanied by a historical legend, a legend. The basis of the legend is any plot-completed episode, the basis of the legend is an oral legend.

2. Walking (although they are sometimes considered on the border of church and secular genres);

3. Didactic literature: the only, it seems, example of a political and moral instruction, created not by a clergyman, but by a statesman, is the Teaching of Vladimir Monomakh.

IV Genres were lined up in a hierarchy not only in terms of significance (based on the role assigned to them in worship), but also according to the principle: “primary” and “unifying”. Works that collected several representatives of different genres used to be simply called “collections”, but a significant part of these “collections” are so stable in composition that they should be considered as a separate, complex genre. Such are patericons, menaions, chronographs, prologues, ceremonials, flower beds, etc. Moreover, each type of collection has several varieties. Likhachev insists that all these collections and their derivatives be considered as separate genres. The situation changed only in the 16th-17th centuries, when the works included in the collection began to be rewritten separately.

ü The specificity of the genre system (as well as literature in general) of this period lies in the fact that until the 17th century literature did not allow fiction, the world was thought of as a given, and therefore the desire to subordinate the very image of the world to certain principles and rules is understandable, to determine once and for all What And How should be portrayed. Old Russian literature, like other medieval Christian literature, is subject to a special literary and aesthetic regulation - the so-called literary etiquette. Likhachev notes, in particular, that literary etiquette “is composed of: 1) ideas about how this or that course of events should have taken place; 2) from ideas about how the actor should have behaved in accordance with his position; 3) from ideas about 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. The presence of etiquette can be easily traced by comparing two samples of the same genre: In the life of a saint, according to the requirements of etiquette, it was supposed to tell about the childhood of the future saint, about his pious parents, about how he was drawn to the church from infancy, shunned games with peers, etc. This plot component was necessarily present in the life, and it was expressed in different lives with the same words: thus, there was not only the etiquette of the situation (what to write about), but also the etiquette of expression (how exactly to describe the etiquette situation). Turning to the annals, we will find a similar picture there: the textual descriptions of the battles coincide, princely obituary characteristics or characteristics of church hierarchs consist of the same components.

ü Genre is such an important category that it determines both the image of the author and the style of narration. It was difficult with authorship in general: all works were either anonymous (half of all texts), or pseudo-anonymous (that is, authorship was attributed to a famous person), or there was conditional authorship (when someone wrote the text, but who cares). In any case, the personality of the author did not add anything, since God was the global author, and everything else could not withstand the onslaught of etiquette.

ü Breaking traditional forms was common. All more or less outstanding works of the DRL often break out of the traditional forms. PVL does not fit into the Byzantine or Bulgarian genre framework. The same with Vladimir Monomakh's Teaching, The Tale of Igor's Campaign, The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land, and Daniil Zatochnik's Lay. The development of ancient Russian literature of the XI-XVII centuries. goes through the gradual destruction of a stable system of church genres, their transformation. The genres of secular literature are being fictionalized. They increase interest in the inner world of a person, the psychological motivation of his actions, there is entertainment, everyday descriptions. Historical heroes are being replaced by fictional ones. In the 17th century this leads to fundamental changes in the internal structure and style of historical genres and contributes to the birth of new purely fictional works. Virsh poetry, court and school drama, democratic satire, everyday tales, and picaresque short stories emerge.

ü It is also important to note that interaction with folklore genres plays a significant role.

ü And finally: Likhachev offers such a scheme for the evolution of styles: in the XI-XII 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 replaces the emotionally expressive, and in the XVI - the style of idealizing biographism, or the second monumentalism. However, the picture of the development of styles drawn somewhat schematizes a more complex process of the development of literature.