Andrei Rublev. Four kingdoms: Babylonian, Macedonian, Roman and Antichrist. Fresco from the cycle " Last Judgment"in the Assumption Cathedral of Vladimir. 1408

By coincidence of historical circumstances - or by the Creator's plan - Rus' took over the baton of the power of the Orthodox Tsar from Byzantium, crushed by the military power of the Ottoman Turks, the burden of its own sins and mistakes, the unbearable burden of the betrayal of imaginary friends. The historical fate of Rus' has developed in such a way that, having gone through the terrible trials of enemy invasions, preserving and strengthening Orthodox faith under the conditions of a foreign yoke and in the end, regaining state power, a new strong Rus' appeared to the world in order to carry further the cosmic fire of Christ's "right confession" on the way to the universal Kingdom of grace.

This theme of salvation is primordial Christian faith through the assumption by Russia of the mission of the Orthodox "center of power" is reflected in Russian culture. Ancient legends establish a mystical regularity in the development of world civilizations. Universal kingdoms-empires arise, strengthen and perish under certain conditions, and the place of the “center of power” doomed to disappear must be occupied by another one capable of making a breakthrough into the future, meeting the tasks of the Divine Plan.

Legends about the transfer of universal power:

from ancient Babylon to Byzantium

Oral tradition, genetic memory expressed in folk culture, stores and transmits through many and many generations the truth about the events of bygone eras and relatively recent times. Ancient works make it possible to establish historical truth, determine the place, role and relationship of peoples in common process development of world civilization.

Babylonian cycle of legends

From the end of the XV century. spread in Rus' legends about the Babylonian kingdom, among them - "The Parable of Babylon City"", or "The Tale of the City of Babylon», « Letter from Leo to Babylon And " On the Marriage of Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar Foundling ( character outside historical context ), by the will of fate, having reigned in Babylon – the first world "center of power"- ordered to do " the sign of the serpent» on all city utensils, on clothes, weapons, banners, mansions. A stone serpent was built at the gates of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar made himself a self-cutting sword, a werewolf sword - “ Serpent Asp”, which differs in that during the battle he himself flew out of the scabbard and began to cut enemies without mercy. Before his death, the king of the “scepter-holding Babylonian state” bequeathed to wall up a terrible destructive weapon in the city wall and conjured never to take it out.

Under Nebuchadnezzar's son Basil, Babylon was attacked by "many kings with great powers." Basil sent his commanders against them with a large army, but the army could not withstand the onslaught. The nobles began to force Vasily to get a self-cutting sword. Vasily did not dare to violate his father's ban: “The sword of my father is cursed until the end of time, I did not order it to be taken out” - but they told him: “You, sovereign, for the present time, and when military time passes, and you, king, save him again.” The king took out a self-cut sword and rode with it to the army. The sword flew out of its scabbard and cut off the head of the king and cut down many warriors. And the snakes depicted on different subjects suddenly descended and devoured all the Babylonians. “From the same places to the now reigning city of Babylon, the new city has become empty” . Wild animals and all kinds of monsters settled in it. A monstrous serpent sprawled around Babylon - a living stone statue. So Babylon perished through its own fault and from its own superpower, when it violated the paternal covenant.

This story is continued by "Message from Leo the King of Greece, in the holy baptism of Basil ...". The Orthodox king Leo (Levkiy), in baptism Basil, decided to get from Babylon "signs" belonging to three holy youths (according to the Bible, friends of the prophet Daniel) - Onania, Ozaria and Misail. Gathering an army, the Greek king went to Babylon. Fifteen days on the way to Babylon, the tsar decided to send “three men” there: the Greek Gugriy, the “Obezhan” (Abkhazian) Yakov and the Rusyn Lavr. “... and drove to Babylon for three weeks. And when they came there, they did not see the hail: everything was overgrown with past so that the palace was not visible. They let the horses go and found a path along which small animals walked. In the thickets of those there was only part of the grass, and two parts of reptiles; but they had no fear. And they went that way and came to the serpent.”

Having read the inscription above the serpent, composed of phrases in three languages ​​- Greek, "Obez" and Russian, - with great difficulty passing by all the monsters and climbing over the serpent, the messengers entered the dead city of Babylon, bowed to the relics of the saints and drank from the goblet that stood on the coffin And the "voice from the tomb" of the holy youths directed them to the king's chambers, where the ambassadors found two crowns - one of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and « of the whole universe," and the other his wife. At the crowns was a letter in Greek, it was said: “Until now, these crowns have been hidden, but now, with the prayers of the three holy youths, they should be placed on the God-protected Tsar Basil and on the blessed Empress Alexandra”. The ambassadors took the crowns with the letter and, together with the seized jewels, including, "carnelian crab" With " royal scarlet" delivered to Byzantium.

The holy "sign" - signs of royal power - was transferred to the patriarch. “The patriarch took two crowns and, having read the letter, laid them on Tsar Basil and Tsarina Alexandria, originally from Armenia.”

Nebuchadnezzar - the prototype of the universal king

Babylon in Russian folk art is an archetype, rooted in the Russian consciousness, the personification of non-aggressive power, fabulous wealth, glorious heroic deeds. During its two thousand year history ancient city Babylon twice became the capital of a great empire. Babylonian kingdom in the XIX-VI centuries. BC. became the cradle of significant scientific and intellectual progress. Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II(605-562 BC) in Rus' - a legendary character, he was revered on a par with epic heroes. In the minds of the people, he is the ideal ruler, victorious, wise and just.

Depiction of the historical Nebuchadnezzar II (630-562 BC). Babylonian cameo

Nebuchadnezzar was one of the greatest rulers in history. He was the son of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. The aggressive campaigns of Nebuchadnezzar were all aimed at one goal: strengthening the new state within the boundaries of the former Assyro-Babylonian kingdom, destroyed by nomads and internal uprisings. For this purpose, it was necessary to fight with the Egyptians, who invaded Syria. Egypt's repeated and insidious attempts to create an anti-Babylonian coalition with local kings in violation of all agreements led to the conquest of Judea, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon (586 BC), the Babylonian captivity and the devastating campaign of Nebuchadnezzar himself to Egypt (568 BC). BC.). The kingdom he founded extended from Suez to Iran. It was announced that the god Marduk gave Nebuchadnezzar the whole earth under his command, so that "from horizon to horizon he would have no rivals." He reigned for 43 years.

Nebuchadnezzar was a gifted military leader and a talented diplomat. But the most glorious deeds are associated with his peace initiatives. Babylon owes him the restoration as the capital of the world. The technocrat king applied new technologies for the construction of palaces, temples, and city fortifications. He introduced new materials (enamelled brick, asphalt combined with natural materials), advanced defensive and engineering solutions (drainage and irrigation systems, ditches, hanging parks, multi-storey construction of residential buildings, a seven-story 91st ziggurat - tower of babel), built roads, complex defensive complexes. The prayers addressed by him to Marduk have a monotheistic-biblical flavor. "Marduk, lord, grant us eternal life!" However, the role of the “destroyer of the city of God” and the Jerusalem temple were the reason that his name was for a long time the subject of horror and even disgust or even taboo in literature.

Nebuchadnezzar. Color engraving. Tate Gallery, London. 1795

In the Bible, the Jewish prophets (Isaiah, 14; Daniel, 4) created the image of a proud villain who, at the end of his life, went mad and began to eat grass like an animal. But this information is doubtful. As "The Encyclopedia Americana" writes ("American Encyclopedia", vol. 20), Nebuchadnezzar until the end of his days was the type of a perfect monarch". In modern sources, he is sometimes compared with Napoleon and Stalin.

The Babylonian captivity and the power of Babylon left such a mark on historical memory Jews, that in later written monuments his name was pronounced in a negative context - it became a symbol of a terrible, rich and immoral city. In the "Revelation of John the Theologian" ("Apocalypse") it is said: "Babylon the Great, mother of harlots and abominations of the earth" (Rev. 17:3-6). It should, however, be said that reading from the book of Revelation has never been part of the liturgical practice of the Eastern Church.

Babylon is mentioned in the First Epistle of the Apostle Peter, where he says that he "greets the elected church in Babylon." Some Latin writers argued that under this name ap. Peter understands Rome. The claims of the Roman popes as the successors of the Apostle Peter are thus correlated with the transfer of the universal "center of power", which was Babylon, to Rome.

Symbolism of the "Tales of Babylon"

Babylonian stories are full of symbols, everything seems to be encrypted in them. Participation in the campaign for the "sign" of three representatives Greece (Byzantium), Abkhazia (Georgia) and Rus' indicates the unity of the three peoples in their Christian asceticism. But when Constantinople fell, the Georgian kingdom (with Abkhazia in its composition) fell apart, and the seceded Abkhazia, as well as Armenia, fell under the yoke of Ottoman Empire, all rights to the signs of royal dignity were to be transferred to the Russian grand dukes.

Interestingly, the Tale localizes the main geopolitical threat to Orthodoxy by no means in exotic southern countries. : “From there the king wished to go to India. David, the king of Crete, said: “Go to the countries of the north, to the enemies of the infidels, for the Christian race!”

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"Babylonian legends" developed in Byzantium until the 13th century. and symbolically conveyed the idea of ​​the regular succession of royal power by Byzantium from the rulers of Babylon - the greatest and most ancient "universal kingdom". It is difficult to say how they got to Rus': the Greek original of these legends has not come down to us. Perhaps the legends of Babylon were brought by pilgrims from the East. It is also known that at the beginning of the 13th century. Novgorod Bishop Anthony (Dobrynya Andreikovich) traveled to Constantinople and saw there a “drag stone”, according to legend, brought to Emperor Leo (probably Leo VI the Philosopher) from Babylon. Be that as it may, the cycle of legends was included in the hagiographic collection Great Menaion Chetiy, which was especially revered by the Old Believers.

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In the 16th century in Rus', versions of the story about Babylon were already found, where the original Byzantine legend was supplemented with a Russian ending corresponding to the new geopolitical reality. IN "Tales of the Grand Dukes of Vladimir"It is said that the Byzantine tsar Konstantin Monomakh sent Vladimir Vsevolodovich, the Russian prince, purple and the royal scepter, "carnelian crab with all royal linen" and Monomakhov's hat, which is taken from Babylon»: "and from that hour passed Grand Duke Vladimir of Kiev Monomakh, and to this day throughout Russia, the tsars of Moscow are married in this age with viss and royal purple and a Monomakh cap.

Thus, the "Tale of the Babylonian Kingdom" substantiates historical transition"universal" power to the Russian tsar and the head of the Russian church and gives this act a sacred character. The motifs of the Babylonian story became popular among the people and spread to many Russian medieval works (for example, the life of St. Cyric and Julitta). The legends are filled with folklore-fabulous images that came from ancient myths: here is a serpent guarding the city and emitting a terrible whistle, and a goblet with a magic drink; a wonderful self-cut sword, a journey for jewels in a city inhabited by monsters.

The Serpent and other reptiles that inhabit Babylon are mentioned in the Bible - the Books of Genesis tell of the struggle of the god Yahweh with the monstrous serpent of the depths Leviathan. The image of the snake has the most ancient origin- cuneiform Sumerian texts they tell about the battle of the supreme god of the Sun and light Enlil (Marduk) with the dragon-goddess Tiamat - the Serpent of Darkness, personifying chaos, deceit and vice; about the god Ea - the snake-tempter, about the white king of all snakes - the healing seven-headed white snake Shakhmer.

God Marduk and the Serpent Dragon

The deadly serpent appears in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh (3000 BC), where the demigod king Gilgamesh searched for and found the flower of eternal life, but the serpent stole immortality from him:

“The flower snake smelled the smell,

She rose from the hole, dragged the flower,

Returning back, shed her skin.

The image of the snake later passed into the Christian tradition. The serpent or dragon is Satan, the enemy of God and a participant in the fall. He personifies the forces of evil, death, destruction, deceit, the enemy.

In the snake of the stories about Babylon, the image of Ouroboros is guessed ( Greekοὐ ροβόρος, lit. “devouring [his] tail”) - a mythological world serpent, wrapping a ring around the Earth, grabbing its own tail.

Depiction of ouroboros in an alchemical treatise from 1478 by Theodore Pelecanos

Ouroboros is one of the first symbols of infinity in the history of mankind, a symbol of eternal rebirth, the cyclic nature of the Universe: creation from destruction, Life from Death. It is a symbol of immortality and time, which has neither end nor beginning. The successful overcoming by the Greeks and Rusyns of the obstacle in the form of the Babylonian Serpent in the legend symbolizes what time itself hands over to these peoples. "the Omen power for eternal life.

Fairy-tale images and symbols that have come down to us from ancient times are evidence of common origin and the common historical past of many peoples. The study of their transition from one cultural layer to another makes it possible to recreate a picture of the development of mankind. The roots of the Russian people through the millennia go back to ancient Sumer-Babylon.

V.M.Vasnetsov. Fight with a snake

From Nebuchadnezzar to Ivan the Terrible

The legend about the transfer of spiritual and secular power acquired new accents and branched into new plots along with the development of Rus itself. Folk tales about the journey to Babylon Theodora Bormy (Bormy Yaryzhki) behind the royal crown and scepter, they link the transfer of royal signs from Babylon to Rus' with the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible and his adoption of the royal title. In the fairy tale, the envoy of Emperor Leo Fyodor Borma, a pious, devout man, brings purple, a crown and other royal regalia from Babylon to Tsargrad, but finds a war there, sees that the Orthodox tsar is gone, the Christian faith is collapsing, and therefore carries the regalia to the conquered by Grozny Kazan: “And here the porphyry and the crown fell from the city of Babylon on the head of the Terrible Tsar, the faithful Ivan, Tsar Vasilyevich, who destroyed the kingdom of Prohodim, the filthy prince of Kazan.”

The tale captures the events of the moment: the capture of Kazan with the help of tunnels and explosions of gunpowder is symbolically depicted in the struggle of Borma with the "reptiles", when he, with the explosion of twenty-seven barrels of gunpowder, burns the snakes attacking his ship. The kingdom where the royal regalia were kept is called in a fairy tale "serpentine” and is associated with the Kazan kingdom, which in the annalistic story about the capture of Kazan and other sources, the authors call "city of serpents" saturated with Russian blood (repeating the legend that Kazan was founded on the place where the "serpent's nest" used to be), and the "bessermenstvo" expelled from Kazan is depicted as a fiery serpent flying away from the city.

This is how the Byzantine legend developed in Russian folklore, and in fairy tales. symbolic images a cosmogonic picture of the emergence, development, fall of world civilizations and their rebirth in new guises was created. Rus' was becoming a new Ecumenical Kingdom, which was entrusted with a special historical mission: to become an Orthodox "center of power" so that the Divine Plan of the endless development of human civilization would not be interrupted and continued to be carried out.

In the second half of the XV - beginning of the XVI century. other stories are being created in Moscow on the theme of the political continuity of Russia's Byzantine heritage. Such are the stories about the Babylonian kingdom and the natural continuation of these stories - "The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir."

In the stories about the Babylonian kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar founded a new Babylon and then the Byzantine king Basil obtained signs of royal dignity from Babylon.

These stories were formed in Byzantium to substantiate the idea of ​​continuity by Byzantium of world-historical royal power, the center of which was previously considered Babylon. The stories about the Babylonian kingdom came to Rus', perhaps in oral transmission, apparently at the end of the 15th century, just at the time of the birth of the idea of ​​​​Moscow - the third Rome. Undoubtedly, already on Russian soil, a Russian person is mentioned as a protagonist, who takes part in obtaining signs of royal dignity for the Greek Tsar Vasily. It is very curious that the tendentious story, which arose on Byzantine soil and has nothing in common with Russian reality, is adapted to the needs of Russian political reality in order to justify Moscow's claims to the role of a world-historical state.

The first story about the Babylonian kingdom tells that the Babylonian king Axerxes removed all those who fell ill with leprosy into the forest in order to protect Babylon from the spread of infection. Their relatives communicated with the deportees, bringing them everything they needed to sustain life. When Axerxes died, the people who were in the forest, having learned that there was no king in Babylon, agreed to go to the city, since they now saw no obstacle to their return. And so they find a boy under a pine tree, who is given the name Nebuchadnezzar. Taking this boy with them, they go to Babylon. Meanwhile, princes and nobles are gathering to determine who will be king. It was decided that the king would be the one over whom the horn with myrrh, hung over the gate, would boil and spill. And when Nebuchadnezzar passes by this horn, the horn boils and the contents of the horn spill over his head. This was a sign that he should be the king of Babylon. The boy was brought into royal palace They put precious garments on him, gave him a scepter in his hand, and seated him on the royal throne.

Despite his youth, Nebuchadnezzar was very wise and brave. Thinking about building a new Babylon, he gathered the princes and nobles and ordered them to create a new city with seven walls, about seven miles. The entrance to the city and the exit from it were through one single gate, near which a stone serpent was carved. Nebuchadnezzar ordered the signs of the serpent to be made on all objects in the city: on weapons, on horses, on bridles, on saddles, on houses, on spoons, on saucers, on all vessels and on any cattle.

Nebuchadnezzar took for himself a queen from the royal family and adopted Tsarevich Basil with her. For all enemies, Nebuchadnezzar was a thunderstorm. He was invincible, especially because he wielded a self-sword that he used when facing enemies. The story describes one of the battles of Nebuchadnezzar. The advantage all the time was on the side of Babylon. But the Babylonians finally win when the king himself enters the battle. A self-cutting sword, a serpent asp, bursts from its scabbard and slashes enemies without mercy.

Nebuchadnezzar reigned for many years. Before his death, he ordered the self-cutting sword to be walled up in the wall and not taken out until the end of the world, otherwise predicting the inevitable death of Babylon.

Having learned that the formidable Nebuchadnezzar was no longer alive, many kings with great forces moved to Babylon, where Nebuchadnezzar's son Basil began to rule. Vasily opposes the enemies, but they get the better of him, and then he decides to break his father's ban, take out the immured self-cutting sword and put it into action. But the sword breaks out of Basil's hands and begins to whip not only the enemy, but also the Babylonian army and kills all the Babylonians, and the snakes depicted on all objects suddenly come to life and finally devour the Babylonians. A large stone serpent, sculpted at the city gates, also came to life.

Since then, Babylon has been completely deserted. Weeds grew around it, and there was not a trace of a strong and glorious city.

The second story already tells how the signs of royal dignity, which were originally in Babylon, passed to the Byzantine king, that is, in other words, how the transfer of world-historical royal power from Babylon to Byzantium is documented.

The Byzantine king Leo, baptized Basil, sends his Roslanians to take a "sign" from three youths - Ananias, Azarias and Misail, whose relics rest in Babylon. Vasily first wants to send two ambassadors - a Greek and an "Obezhan" (Abkhazian), but, on the advice of those close to him, sends another third - "from a Russian Slav". Thus, the Russian also takes part in obtaining signs of royal dignity from Babylon. The king with the army goes after the ambassadors and stops fifteen miles from Babylon, and the ambassadors go to the city itself. They go very slowly, because the path was narrow, they go with "great need". On the way, “the former great, like a thistle” grows. This grass is about sixteen miles from Babylon. Here are all sorts of reptiles and snakes. But “by God’s will”, the ambassadors, unharmed, reach Babylon on the third day and, safely bypassing the sleeping serpent, pass through the eighteen-step staircase to the city wall, and descend into the city by another staircase. On this staircase, as well as on the first one, they find inscriptions in Greek, Obezhan and "Slovonic and Russian". These inscriptions encourage the ambassadors, advising them not to be afraid of the serpent and boldly move on.

Arriving in the city, the ambassadors first of all go to the tomb of the three youths to bow to them and take a “sign” from them. They saw on the tomb a goblet made of gold, adorned with pearls and various precious stones. This goblet was full of myrrh and lebanon. The messengers drank from the goblet and became "merry". Then they fell asleep, and when they woke up and wanted to take the goblet with them, a voice was heard from the tomb, which forbade them to do this and ordered them to go to the royal chambers and take the signs of royal dignity from there. The messengers do this. They take the crowns of Nebuchadnezzar and his wife and a letter written in Greek and explaining the origin of the crown and other jewels.Following this, they go to another chamber, where they see various jewels and a carnelian "crab" (box) in which the royal purple is enclosed.Here they see caskets full of gold, silver, and precious stones, and a golden goblet, which they take with them and go back.

Then they come back to the church, to the tomb of the three youths, again drink from the goblet that stands on the tomb, again feel cheerful, fall asleep and, waking up, go back. During the return journey, one of the messengers, an obezhanin, stumbled, fell on a snake and woke him up. He raised an unusual whistle. The envoys were alarmed, fell to the ground and lay for a long time, as if dead, and then woke up and went to the place where Tsar Vasily was supposed to expect them. But here they found complete confusion. The whistle of the snake was so devastating that a huge number of people from Vasily's army fell dead. Only some part, together with Vasily himself, managed to escape. Tsar Basil thought that the ambassadors would not return, and was very pleased when he saw them safe and sound. They give Basil the booty they took in Babylon, and Vasily transfers part of this booty, precious stones and gold, to the patriarch, while leaving the royal regalia for himself. Thus, the Byzantine king becomes a full-fledged representative of world-historical power, since he possesses such material signs of royal dignity that personify it.

Thus, in order to affirm the idea of ​​a Byzantine world-historical monarchy, a legend is created that tells about the specific transfer of symbols and signs of royal dignity from Babylon to Byzantium.

Both stories, which are based on fairy tale motifs, have not been preserved in the Greek text, despite the fact that they undoubtedly originated in Byzantium; but, judging by the various reflections in the literature of the West, they were popular in medieval Europe. However, the acquisition of signs of royal dignity is discussed only in Russian stories and fairy tales, and this makes us assume that the mention of the Babylonian crown was not original in the circle of the corresponding legends. This mention turned out to be significant, obviously, in connection with the developing idea of ​​the continuity of the Byzantine inheritance in Moscow: in some copies of the second story it is said that "carnelian crab with all royal whistle" passed into the possession of Kyiv prince Vladimir. Hence, one step to the direct transfer of the Byzantine regalia to the Grand Dukes of Moscow.

At the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century. we are creating the "Tale of the Princes of Vladimir", which is a direct development and continuation of the stories about the Babylonian kingdom. The same "Legend", according to the view established in science, formed the basis of the "Message" of the monk Spiridon-Sava about the Monomakh's crown, written under Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich in the first quarter XVI V. ", as well as the basis of the corresponding articles in the Genealogy of the Grand Dukes of Russia. The Tale gained particular popularity under Ivan the Terrible, who officially married the kingdom for the first time in 1547, reinforcing his authority as an autocrat with references to the Tale. It was used at the time of Grozny as an indisputable official document, in particular in diplomatic practice, was widely reflected in the Moscow annals of the 16th century and other popular monuments of the 16th-17th centuries, was translated into Latin.

The “Tale” is preceded by an introduction that begins the story from Noah and brings it to Augustus Caesar, who, “arranging the universe”, sends his own brother Prus to the banks of the Vistula, to a country that was then named Prussian land after him (it was in ancient times was inhabited by Prussians - Lithuanians). The Russian princes considered themselves descendants of the Roman Prus, and therefore Augustus Caesar. Hence - the usual statement of Ivan the Terrible that he descends from Augustus Caesar.

Thus, the legend, created on Russian soil, connects the Moscow grand ducal family with the representative of the oldest world monarchy, with Augustus Caesar.

In the "Tale" and further it is said that a certain governor of Novgorod Gostomysl, approaching the end of his life, orders the Novgorodians to send a wise man to the Prussian land and call the prince from there. Novgorodians obey him, and from the Prussian land comes a prince named Rurik, a direct descendant of Augustus (“being from the family of the Roman king Augustus”), and becomes a prince. Together with him, his brothers Truvor and Sineus come and also become princes in the Russian land. Some time later, the Russian prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich, the great-grandson of the Grand Duke Vladimir, the fourth generation from him, "decided to go to Byzantium, citing precedents - the campaigns of Oleg and Svyatoslav Igorevich. He gathers the nobles" prudent and prudent and prudent ", as well as a large army and goes to Thrace, on the outskirts of Constantinople. Having captivated many inhabitants of Thrace, he returns with rich booty. At that time, the pious Constantine Monomakh, who then fought with the Persians and Latins, was king in Constantinople. and other ambassadors, giving them “a life-giving cross from the life-giving tree itself, on which Lord Christ will be crucified”, a royal crown from his head, a carnelian crab, “from which Augustus the king of Rome rejoicing”, then barmas, which he wore on his shoulders, a chain of Arabian gold and many other valuable gifts, and all this is sent to Vladimir with a request that he not fight Byzantium (the sending of gifts to Vladimir Monomakh by the Byzantine king Manuel is, as we know, even in the monument of the 13th century - “The Word of Death Russian land"). “Receive from us, God-loving and faithful prince, this honest gift, even from the beginning of the eternal years of your kinship and the generation of royal lots, for glory and honor, for the wedding of your wave and autocratic kingdom,” Konstantin addresses Vladimir Vsevolodovich.

Vladimir accepts these gifts, is crowned with the crown of Constantine, and since then he himself has been called Monomakh: “And from that time on, the great prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich was called Manamakh, the king of great Russia, and then the rest of the time with Tsar Konstantin, the great prince Vladimir was in peace and love. From then on and until now, the great princes of Vladimir are crowned with that royal crown, it was also sent by the Greek Tsar Konstantin Manamakh, when they are put on the great reign of Russia ... "

The royal regalia, taken out of Babylon, thus make their third and last way: they are settled with the Russian princes, who, thanks to this, are interpreted as the successors of the Byzantine kings. The legend resorts to such a tendentious fiction in order to substantiate the rights and authority of the Moscow autocrats, who asserted their power in the struggle against the appanage princes and the oppositional boyars and established a successive connection between Moscow, through the mediation of Vladimir, and Kiev. At the same time, historical facts are distorted: Konstantin Monomakh died when Vladimir Vsevolodovich was only about two years old. This chronological inconsistency was noticed only in later annalistic collections, where Konstantin Monomakh was replaced by Alexei Komnenos.

Since, however, there was no historical confirmation of the indication of the "Tale" that from the time of Vladimir Vsevolodovich the Russian princes were crowned with Monomakh's crown, then in order to eliminate the contradiction in some lists of the "Tale" it was said that Vladimir Monomakh before his death bequeathed the royal regalia to his sixth son George, ordering that he take care of them as the soul of the li as the apple of his eye, passing them from generation to generation, until a worthy autocratic king appears, whom God will “raise up” for possession Russian state, and so that until then the descendants of Monomakh would not put on themselves royal regalia and would not be married to the kingdom.

The emergence of the "Tale" and its ideological content should be associated with South Slavic autonomist tendencies adapted to Moscow political reality. Both the Serbs and the Bulgarians had fictitious genealogies of their kings, who descended from the Roman emperors, in order to justify their aspirations for political independence from Byzantium. So, the Serbian scribes claimed the relationship of Nemanja with Constantine the Great and with the family of Augustus Caesar; the Aseni Bulgarian kings also claimed descent from Rome. The author of the "Tale" turned out to be even bolder: he directly points to August's brother, Prus, as the ancestor of the Russian princes. I. N. Zhdanov suggests that this author could be none other than Pakhomiy Logofet, who worked hard to develop and strengthen the Moscow political ideology.

As regards the question of the relations between the Russian Prince Vladimir and the Greek Konstantin Monomakh, appearing in the Tale, these relations are most naturally explained as follows. In the XV-XVI centuries. in Rus', a folk-poetic legend about Vladimir's war with the Greeks was circulated. This legend was akin to the epics of the Vladimir cycle that have come down to us and was an echo of the epic legend about Vladimir Svyatoslavich's campaign against Korsun.

In its original form, the old epic about the war between Vladimir and the Greeks has not reached us and is known only from book alterations of the 15th-16th centuries, one of which deals with the war between Vladimir Vsevolodovich and Konstantin Monomakh. Later, the legend about the transfer of Byzantine royal regalia to Russia with the translated story about the extraction of royal utensils from Babylon by Tsar Leo (Basil) took place. This rapprochement was reflected in the monuments written literature as well as in spoken language.

So, in one song, Terrible at the feast boasts: and

I have something to boast of to the king:

I took the king out of Tsar-grad,

I put on the royal purple,

I took the royal crutch in my hands,

And I will bring treason from stone Moscow ...

In another song composed in connection with the conquest of the Kazan kingdom, the Terrible says:

I took the Kazan kingdom in passing,

Tsar Simeon bowed under the world,

I removed the royal purple from the king,

He brought porphyry to stone Moscow,

I baptized purple in stone Moscow,

He imposed this purple on himself, After that, the Terrible Tsar became.

The end of this song is as follows:

I put this purple on myself, After that I became the presbyter-tsar, the Terrible Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich.

Here, as we see, the signs of royal dignity are transferred to Moscow from Kazan, and the very wedding to the kingdom of Grozny is associated with the conquest of Kazan.

The transfer of royal regalia to Moscow to Ivan the Terrible is also discussed in the tale of Borma Yaryzhka, or Fyodor Borma, which exists in several versions and is directly dependent on the stories about the Babylonian kingdom. According to the Samara version, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich calls out the cry: “Who will get me a crown, a scepter, a power orb and a book with them from the Babylonian kingdom?” On the third day, Borma responds to the call of the king, setting off on a ship with satellites to Babylon, presenting the same picture of desolation that is mentioned in written stories. The same snakes appear in the tale as there, and, in addition, the "tsar-maiden", the one-eyed giant and his sister, with whom Borma lived for twenty years and had a son. He gets what the tsar instructed him to get, skillfully fools everyone and leaves for Russia, where he gets only thirty years after his absence. As a reward for the extracted valuables, he asks Grozny to allow him to drink tax-free for three years in all taverns.

According to another version, retold by E. Barsov, Borma goes to Babylon for the royal purple, crown, wands and scepter from Constantinople on behalf of the "higher people" there. With the help of an unknown person who calls himself "Pravda", he ends up in Babylon. In the church of St. George the Victorious and Dmitry of Thessalonica, he finds the royal regalia and on the carpet, which is handed to him by a girl present at the church, sails back to Constantinople. “But there was a great bloodshed in Constantinople; the Orthodox faith collapsed, the Orthodox tsar was no more.” And Borma went to Rus', to Kazan, "and here the porphyry and the crown lay down from the city of Babylon on the head of the formidable king, the faithful Ivan Tsar Vasilyevich, who destroyed the kingdom of Prohodim, the filthy king of Kazan."

As you can see, the oral tradition in all cases assigns the possession of the royal regalia exported from Babylon to Ivan the Terrible, who completed the process of political elevation of Moscow.

Literature Grade 8. Textbook-reader for schools with in-depth study Literature Team of authors

The Legend of the Babylonian Kingdom Translated by N. Drobenkova

The legend of the Babylonian kingdom

Translation by N. Drobenkova

A LEGEND ABOUT WHAT IS AND WHAT WAS RUSSIA, WHO REIGNED IT AND WHAT IT HAPPENED. Prince V. V. Lvov. (Posthumous edition.) S.-P.-burg. 1863 This book is one of the innumerable, but so far almost never successful attempts to imitate Russian