Spiritual life in ancient Rus' briefly. Cultural and spiritual life of Rus' in the XIV – XV centuries. Ministry of Public Education of the Republic of Belarus

In medieval Rus', as in the medieval West, the Christian Church played the main role in the spiritual life of the nation. Thus, especially after the victory of Islam in the Golden Horde, there remained little opportunity for direct Mongol influence on Rus' in the religious sphere. Indirectly, however, the Mongol conquest influenced the development of the Russian church and spiritual culture in a variety of ways. The first blow of the Mongol invasion was as painful for the church as for other aspects of Russian life and culture. Many prominent priests, including the metropolitan himself, died in the destroyed cities; many cathedrals, monasteries and churches were burned or looted; many parishioners were killed or taken into slavery. The city of Kyiv, the metropolis of the Russian Church, was so devastated that for many years it could not serve as the center of church administration. Of the dioceses, Pereslavl suffered the most, and the diocese there was closed.

Only after Mengu-Timur issued a safe-conduct to the Russian church authorities did the church once again find itself on solid ground and could gradually reorganize itself; as time passed, in some respects it became even stronger than before the Mongol invasion. Indeed, led by Greek metropolitans or Russian metropolitans ordained in Byzantium, protected by the khan’s charter, the church in Rus' was then less dependent on princely power than in any other period of Russian history. In fact, the Metropolitan more than once served as an arbiter in disagreements between the princes. This time was also a period when the Russian church had the opportunity to create a powerful material base for its activities. Since church lands were protected from interference by state authorities, both Mongol and Russian, they attracted more and more peasants, and the share of their production in the total agricultural product constantly grew. This is especially true of monastic properties. The level of prosperity achieved by the church towards the end of the first century of Mongol rule helped enormously in its spiritual activities.

Among the tasks facing the church during the Mongol period, the first was the task of providing moral support to bitter and embittered people - from princes to commoners. Related to the first was a more general mission - to complete the Christianization of the Russian people. During the Kievan period, Christianity became established among the upper classes and townspeople. Most of the monasteries founded at that time were located in cities. In rural areas the Christian layer was quite thin, and the vestiges of paganism had not yet been overcome. It was only during the Mongol period that the rural population of Eastern Rus' was more thoroughly Christianized. This was achieved both by the energetic efforts of the clergy and by the growth of religious feeling among the spiritual elite of the people themselves. Most of the metropolitans of that period spent a lot of time traveling throughout Rus' in attempts to correct the evils of church administration and direct the activities of bishops and priests. Several new dioceses were organized, four in Eastern Rus', two in Western Rus' and one in Sarai. The number of churches and monasteries increased steadily, especially after 1350, in both cities and rural areas. According to Klyuchevsky, thirty monasteries were founded in the first century of the Mongol period and about five times more in the second. A characteristic feature of the new monastic movement was the initiative of young people with ardent religious feelings who took monastic orders to retire to the “deserts” - deep into the forests - for hard work in simple conditions, for prayer and reflection. The misfortunes of the Mongol invasion and princely strife, as well as the harsh living conditions in general, contributed to the spread of such mentalities.

When a former hermitage became a large, populous and wealthy monastery, surrounded by prosperous peasant villages, the former hermits, or new monks of a similar spirit, found the changed atmosphere stifling and left the monastery they founded or helped expand to establish another shelter, deeper in the forest or further north. Thus, each monastery served as the cradle of several others. The pioneer and most revered head of this movement was St. Sergius of Radonezh, founder of the Trinity Monastery about 75 kilometers northeast of Moscow. His saintly personality inspired even those who never met him, and the influence of his life's work on subsequent generations was enormous. St. Sergius became a symbol of faith - an important factor in the religious life of the Russian people. Other prominent leaders of Russian monasticism of this era included St. Cyril of Belozersky and Saints Zosima and Savvaty, founders of the Solovetsky Monastery on the island of the same name in the White Sea. By the way, new monasteries played an important role in the colonization of the northern regions of Rus'.

Several northern monasteries were located on the territory of Finno-Ugric tribes, and these peoples now also accepted Christianity. The mission of St. Stepan of Perm among the Zyryans (now called Komi) was especially productive in this regard. A gifted philologist, Stepan Permsky not only mastered the Zyryan language, but even created a special alphabet for it, which he used when distributing religious literature among the aborigines.

Another important aspect of the religious revival in Eastern Rus' during the Mongol era was church art. This period witnessed the flowering of Russian religious painting in the form of both frescoes and icons. An important role in this artistic revival was played by the great Greek painter Theophanes, who remained in Rus' for approximately thirty years until the end of his life and career. Feofan worked first in Novgorod, and then in Moscow. Although the Russians admired both the masterpieces and the personality of Feofan, he cannot be called the founder of either the Novgorod or Moscow schools of icon painting. Russian icon painters made extensive use of his free-brush technique, but they did not try to imitate his individual and dramatic style. The greatest Russian icon painter of this period is Andrei Rublev, who spent his youth in the Trinity Monastery and later painted his famous Trinity icon for it. The charm of Rublev's creations lies in the pure calmness of the composition and the harmony of delicate colors. There are certain similarities between his works and the works of his contemporary, the Italian artist Fra Angelico.

Less striking, but no less significant, apparently, was the development of church singing during this period, about which, unfortunately, we know little. Most of the extant diatonic manuscripts Znamenny the chants date back to post-Mongol times, from 1450 to 1650. The prototype of the znamenny chant was brought to Rus' by Byzantine singers in the eleventh century. In post-Mongol times, Russian chant differed in many respects from the Byzantine model. As Alfred Swan points out, " During its growth on Russian soil and adaptation to Russian conditions, Znamenny chant became closer to Russian folk song"Apparently, the Mongol period was the incubation period of the final stage of the Znamenny chant. Also, it was at the end of the Mongol period that another chant appeared, the so-called demental. It became popular in the sixteenth century.

In literature, the church spirit found expression primarily in the teachings of bishops and the lives of saints, as well as in the biographies of some Russian princes, who, it was felt, were so deserving of canonization that their biographies were written in hagiographic style. The main idea of most of these works was that the Mongol yoke was God's punishment for the sins of the Russian people and that only true faith could lead the Russians out of this difficult situation. The teachings of Bishop Serapion of Vladimir (1274-75) are typical of this approach. He blamed the suffering of the Russians mainly on the princes, who exhausted the strength of the nation with their constant discord. But he didn't stop there. He reproached ordinary people for their adherence to the remnants of paganism and called on every Russian to repent and become a Christian in spirit, and not just in name. Among the princes of the first century of Mongol rule, the lives of Grand Duke Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and his son Alexander Nevsky are of particular interest. The biography of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich has been preserved only in fragments. It was conceived as the first act of a national tragedy, in which the Grand Duke got the main role. The introduction enthusiastically describes the happy past of the Russian land. Apparently, it should have been followed by a description of the disaster that befell Rus', but this part has been lost. The introduction has been preserved under a separate title - “The Word about the Destruction of the Russian Land.” It is perhaps the highest achievement of Russian literature of the early Mongol period. In the Life of Alexander Nevsky, the emphasis is on his military valor, shown in defending Greek Orthodoxy from the Roman Catholic crusade.

As in the Kievan period, the clergy of the Mongol period played an important role in the compilation of Russian chronicles. After the Mongol invasion, all work stopped. The only chronicle written between 1240 and 1260 that has come down to us in fragments is the Rostov chronicle. Its compiler was the bishop of this city, Kirill. As convincingly shown by D.S. Likhachev, Kirill was helped by Princess Maria, the daughter of Mikhail of Chernigov and the widow of Vasilko of Rostov. Both her father and her husband died at the hands of the Mongols, and she devoted herself to charity and literary work. In 1305, the chronicle was compiled in Tver. It was partially rewritten in 1377 by the Suzdal monk Lavrentiy (author of the so-called “Laurentian List”). In the fifteenth century, historical works of a broader scope appeared in Moscow, such as the Trinity Chronicle (begun under the direction of Metropolitan Cyprian and completed in 1409) and an even more significant collection of chronicles, collected under the editorship of Metropolitan Photius around 1428. It served as the basis for further work, which led to the creation of grandiose arches of the sixteenth century - the Resurrection and Nikon Chronicles. Novgorod, during the fourteenth century and until its fall, was the center of its own historical annals. It should be noted that many Russian chroniclers, and especially the compilers of the Nikon Chronicle, demonstrated excellent knowledge not only of Russian events, but also of Tatar affairs.

In Russian secular creativity of the Mongol era, both written and oral, one can notice an ambivalent attitude towards the Tatars. On the one hand, there is a feeling of rejection and opposition to the oppressors, on the other, the hidden appeal of the poetry of steppe life. If we remember the passion for the Caucasus of a number of Russian writers of the 19th century, such as Pushkin, Lermontov and Leo Tolstoy, it will help us understand this way of thinking.

Thanks to the tendency associated with hostility, the epics of pre-Mongol times were reworked in accordance with the new situation, and the name of the new enemies - Tatars - replaced the name of the old ones (Polovtsians). At the same time, new epics, historical legends and songs were created, which dealt with the Mongol stage of the struggle of Rus' against the steppe peoples. The destruction of Kyiv by Batu (Batu) and Nogai's raids on Rus' served as themes for modern Russian folklore. The oppression of Tver by the Tatars and the uprising of the Tver people in 1327 was not only inscribed in the chronicles, but also clearly formed the basis of a separate historical song. And, of course, as already mentioned, the battle on the Kulikovo Field became the subject of many patriotic tales, fragments of which were used by chroniclers and later written down in full. Here we have a case of mixing oral and written forms in ancient Russian literature. “Zadonshchina,” the theme of which belongs to the same cycle, is certainly a work of written literature. The composers of epics of the pre-Mongol period felt the special attractive force and poetry of steppe life and military campaigns. The same poetics can be felt in the works of a later period. Even in patriotic tales about the Kulikovo field, the valor of the Tatar knight, whose challenge the monk Peresvet accepted, is depicted with undoubted admiration. Pre-Mongol Russian epics have close parallels with Iranian and early Turkic heroic songs. During the Mongol era, Russian folklore was also influenced by “Tatar” (Mongolian and Turkic) poetic images and themes. The intermediaries in introducing Russians to Tatar heroic poetry were, perhaps, Russian soldiers who were recruited into the Mongol armies. And the Tatars who settled in Rus' also introduced their national motifs into Russian folklore.

The enrichment of the Russian language with words and concepts borrowed from the Mongolian and Turkic languages, or from Persian and Arabic (via Turkic), has become another aspect of the universal cultural process. By 1450, the Tatar (Turkic) language had become fashionable at the court of Grand Duke Vasily II of Moscow, which caused great indignation on the part of many of his opponents. Vasily II was accused of excessive love for the Tatars and their language (“and their speech”). Typical of that period was that many Russian nobles in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries adopted Tatar surnames. Thus, a member of the Velyaminov family became known under the name Aksak (which means “lame” in Turkic), and his heirs became Aksakovs. In the same way, one of the Shchepin-Rostov princes was called Bakhteyar (bakhtyar in Persian means “lucky”, “rich”). He became the founder of the family of princes Bakhteyarov, which died out in the 18th century.

A number of Turkic words entered the Russian language before the Mongol invasion, but their real influx began in the Mongol era and continued in the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the concepts borrowed from the Mongolian and Turkic languages (or, through Turkic, from the Arabic and Persian languages), from the sphere of management and finance, we can mention such words as money, treasury, customs. Another group of borrowings is associated with trade and merchants: bazaar, booth, grocery, profit, kumach and others. Among the borrowings denoting clothing, hats and shoes, the following can be mentioned: armyak, bashlyk, shoe. It is quite natural that a large group of borrowings is associated with horses, their colors and breeding: argamak, dun, herd. Many other Russian words for household utensils, food and drink, as well as crops, metals, precious stones, are also borrowed from Turkic or other languages via Turkic.

A factor that is difficult to overestimate in the development of Russian intellectual and spiritual life is the role of the Tatars and their descendants who lived in Rus' and converted to Christianity. The story of Tsarevich Peter Ordynsky, the founder of the monastery in Rostov, has already been mentioned. There were other similar cases. The outstanding Russian religious figure of the 15th century, who also founded the monastery, St. Paphnutius of Borovsky, was the grandson of a Baskak. In the 16th century, a boyar son of Tatar origin named Bulgak was ordained, and after that one of the family members always became a priest, right up to his father Sergius Bulgakov, a well-known Russian theologian of the 20th century. There were other prominent Russian intellectual leaders of Tatar origin, such as the historian H. M. Karamzin and the philosopher Pyotr Chaadaev. Chaadaev was probably of Mongolian origin, as Chaadai is a transcription of the Mongolian name Jaghatai (Chagatai). Perhaps Pyotr Chaadaev was a descendant of Genghis Khan’s son, Chagatai. It is at the same time paradoxical and typical that in the “melting furnace” of Russian civilization with its heterogeneous elements, the “Westerner” Chaadaev was of Mongolian origin, and the “Slavophile” Aksakov family had as its ancestors the Varangians (the Velyaminov branch).

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Russian culture of the 14th–16th centuries retained its originality, but was under the strong influence of the Mongol-Tatars, which manifested itself in the borrowing of words (money - from the Turkic tanga), weapons (saber), and techniques in the decorative and applied arts (gold embroidery on velvet).

As a result of the Mongol invasion, many cities were destroyed, stone construction stopped, many technologies of decorative and applied arts were lost, and the educational level of the population decreased. The Novgorod land was subjected to cultural devastation to a lesser extent. Until the middle of the 14th century, Russian culture was in a state of decline. Since the second half of the 14th century, Russian culture has been experiencing a state of revival. She was inspired by two ideas: the struggle against the Horde and feudal fragmentation and the desire for unification and national revival.

Literature

The leading theme in literature is patriotism and the exploits of the Russian people. Many epic stories are being rethought. Becoming a new genre songs and tales on historical topics (The Legend of Evpatiya Kalovrat- about the heroic defense of Ryazan, The Legend of Shchelkan- about the uprising in Tver in 1327). The theme of the fight against external enemies remains the main one in the 16th century. Monuments of this time describe such events as the capture of Kazan, the fight against the Krymchaks and Stefan Batory, the conquest of the Siberian Khanate by Ermak. The image of Ivan the Terrible in these songs is highly idealized, and Malyuta Skuratov becomes the main culprit of the oprichnina.

Along with historical songs, lives(Sergius of Radonezh, Metropolitan Peter), walking– travel descriptions ( Walking beyond three seas by Afanasy Nikitin). In the XIV–XV centuries there was a flourishing chronicles to the monasteries. In the 14th century, a unified Russian chronicle, and in the middle of the 15th century - “ Chronograph"- a review of world history, which includes Russian history. A great deal of work on collecting and systematizing Russian literature was carried out by Ivan the Terrible's associate of Novgorod Metropolitan Macarius.

IN journalistic literature XV-XVI centuries persistently pursued the idea of the legitimate supremacy of Moscow in the Russian lands. Under Prince Vasily III, monk Philotheus formulates theory “Moscow – Third Rome”. In this theory, Moscow is called the guardian of Orthodoxy after such world centers of Orthodoxy as Rome and Constantinople perished. This theory will determine the development paths of Russia until the beginning of the twentieth century. Ivan the Terrible and Andrei Kurbsky try to comprehend the nature of royal power in their correspondence. A striking example everyday genre becomes " Domostroy", where tips on proper housekeeping are collected.

Since the 14th century, paper has appeared in Russia, which makes it possible to create many textbooks for monastic schools. IN 1533 The first printing house (Anonymous printing house) opens in Moscow, and by 1564 attributed to the first accurately dated printed book produced Ivan Fedorov.

Craft

The revival of the craft begins at the end of the 14th century. By the 15th century, metalworking, wood carving and bone carving were actively developing. IN In 1586, foundry worker Andrei Chokhov cast the Tsar Cannon.

Iconography

In the 14th–15th centuries, icon painting schools of individual lands finally took shape. Came to Novgorod from Byzantium Feofan the Greek, who had a great influence on Russian icon painters. The images created by Feofan are imbued with enormous spiritual power. Feofan's student was Andrey Rublev. Andrey is characterized by a special roundness, smooth lines, and a light range of colors. The main idea of the icon painter is the comprehension of moral purity through the heavenly world. The pinnacle of ancient Russian painting is considered to be the icon “ Trinity"created by Andrey Rublev.

In the 15th century, subjects on historical themes increasingly penetrated into icon painting, and portrait images of kings and queens appeared.

Architecture

In the 14th century, after the Mongol pogrom, stone construction was revived. IN 1327 Dmitry Donskoy surrounds the Kremlin with a white stone wall. Under Ivan III, large-scale construction was taking place on the territory of the Kremlin, for which the best craftsmen from Novgorod, Pskov, Rostov, Vladimir and Italy were invited. Italian master Aristotle Feoravanti erects Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals, and Pskov craftsmen are building Annunciation Cathedral. The architectural composition of the Moscow Kremlin in the 16th century became a model for construction in other cities: Novgorod, Tula, Smolensk. In the 16th century, a new architectural style emerged - the tented style.. Elements of the tent style were used in the architecture of the central church of St. Basil's Cathedral.

In general, by the end of the 16th century, Russian art was losing traces of local artistic traditions and turning into all-Russian art.

Literature

Craft

Iconography

In the 15th century, subjects on historical themes increasingly penetrated into icon painting, and portrait images of kings and queens appeared.

Architecture

In general, by the end of the 16th century, Russian art was losing traces of local artistic traditions and turning into all-Russian art.

Source: “Science and Religion”, No. 1, 1984.

Not a single issue is discussed by modern Orthodox theologians and church preachers so actively and with such clearly expressed polemical fervour as the problem of the relationship between religion and culture. The purpose of the discussion is more than specific: to convince Soviet people interested in various aspects of social progress that religion is the fundamental basis of culture, its deep stimulator, and Orthodoxy is the main factor in the emergence, formation and development of the culture of the Russian people. It was Orthodoxy, the Russian emigrant press assures its readers, that determined the historical path of Russia, its “spiritual existence, i.e. culture" (magazine "Orthodox Rus'", 1980, No. 1, p. 2).

In this context and introduction of Christianity(in church terminology “baptism of Rus'”) is considered by modern church authors as the source of cultural progress of ancient Russian society - progress that boils down to the simple assimilation by our ancestors of Byzantine cultural standards. “Together with Christianity,” states the author of the article “A Brief Review of the History of the Russian Church,” “the Russian Church brought to Rus' the highest of that time Byzantine education, culture and art, which fell on the good soil of the Slavic genius and bore fruit in the historical life of the people.” (50th anniversary of the restoration of the patriarchate. Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate (hereinafter ZMP). Special issue, 1971, p. 25).

This interpretation of cultural progress is deeply flawed. The assimilation and creative rethinking of the elements of Byzantine culture that came to Rus' during the Christianization of ancient Russian society (Christianity in this case performed a purely communicative function - acted as a simple transmitter of these elements) became possible only because in pre-Christian Rus' there was no kind of spiritual vacuum, as modern church authors claim, there was a fairly high level of development of spiritual culture.

Refuting common speculation about the “backwardness of ancient Russian culture,” as well as attempts to derive the latter from the Christianization of ancient Russian society, academician D. S. Likhachev wrote: “...More than a thousand years of Russian folk art, Russian writing, literature, painting, architecture, sculpture, music." Academician B. A. Rybakov also points out that our distant ancestors had cultural traditions. In his opinion, the origins Russian non-native art go back thousands of years, “by the time of the adoption of Christianity, Russian art was at a fairly high stage of development.”

Now let's turn to historical facts. Calling pre-Christian forms of spiritual life “paganism,” modern Orthodox theologians and church preachers consider them the embodiment of primitivism and squalor, meeting only “meager needs, small needs, low tastes” (JMP, 1958, No. 5, p. 48). Meanwhile, that small part of the monuments culture of pre-Christian Rus', which has reached us and has become the object of scientific study, refutes such statements.

The economic and political development of Ancient Rus' in the pre-Christian era gave rise to many forms and manifestations of a spiritual culture that was quite high for its time. Unfortunately, much of this heritage of ancient Russian society has been irretrievably lost. This is due to merciless time, devastating natural disasters (primarily fires), numerous enemy invasions, interspersed with princely feuds, and the disdainful attitude of the ruling classes towards the people's cultural heritage. The Russian Orthodox Church is also to blame for this (and quite a lot!): at its command, many cultural creations of pre-Christian times were exterminated (as “products of pagan superstition”) or consigned to oblivion.

But even the relatively little that was preserved: the forms of labor and everyday objects perfect for their time, the high artistic level of design of weapons and military armor, the elegance of jewelry - convincingly indicates that our ancestors had a subtle understanding of beauty. Having studied folk embroidery, B. A. Rybakov came to the conclusion that its plots and compositional solutions, striking in aesthetic perfection, arose thousands of years ago. The oldest tools of women's labor - spinning wheels - were decorated with great taste: the ornaments and patterns applied to them are highly artistic.

Based on the jewelry found, one can judge that ancient jewelers not only mastered the technology for making complex crafts from gold, silver, and bronze, but also had high artistic taste. All books on the cultural history of Ancient Rus' certainly mention turk horns from the Black Mogila in Chernigov, dating back to the 10th century. Their silver frame, on which, according to B. A. Rybakov’s assumption, the plot of the Chernigov epic about Ivan Godinovich is minted, belongs to the masterpieces of ancient Russian art.

Scientists suggest that in Ancient Rus' of the pre-Christian era there was painting. There are more than enough reasons for such an assumption. If ancient Russian society had not had these traditions, the art of frescoes, mosaics and icon painting, stimulated by the introduction of Christianity, would not have taken root so quickly and would not have reached such heights. With this very circumstance in mind, B. A. Rybakov wrote: “The high level of artistic expression achieved by ancient Russian painting is partly explained by the fact that the perception of Byzantine craftsmanship was prepared by the development of Slavic folk art back in the pagan period.”

There were also the beginnings of sculpture in Ancient Rus' - the work of wood and stone carvers. They made statues of pagan gods that were later destroyed: Perun, Khors, Veles and others. There were figurines of gods - patrons of the hearth. One of the very complex sculptural compositions was found on the banks of one of the Dniester tributaries. On the stone of the cave is a bas-relief image of a man praying in front of a sacred tree with a rooster sitting on it.

Many household rituals included theatrical performances. In ancient Rus' of those distant times, the foundations of buffoonery were laid - the art of traveling actors who enjoyed the love of the broad masses. Previously, it was believed that buffoons, first mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years in 1068, entered the historical arena after the “baptism of Rus'”. However, modern researchers have come to the conclusion that buffoonery appeared “not after the adoption of Christianity, but before it; that buffoons existed even during paganism.”

The true spiritual wealth of Ancient Rus' was oral folk art in all the diversity of its manifestations: songs, proverbs and sayings, tales, epics. Guslar-storytellers, whose fame was embodied in the image of the legendary Boyan, sung by the author of “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign,” created and performed songs on heroic themes, sang songs of folk heroes, defenders of their native land. “If it had not been so late,” lamented Academician B.D. Grekov, who had deeply studied and highly valued the pre-literate culture of the Slavic peoples, “they began to collect and record Russian epic, we would have had an incomparably greater wealth of these vivid indicators of the deep patriotism of the masses, their immediate interest in one’s history, the ability to make a correct assessment of people and events.”

Historians of Ancient Rus' noted that the “Tale of Bygone Years” and other chronicles used folk songs and epics composed at an earlier time. These include tales about the brothers Kiy, Shchek, Khoriv and their sister Lybid. About Olga's revenge on the Drevlyans who killed her husband, Prince Igor. About the feasts of the Kyiv prince Vladimir and his marriage to the Polotsk princess Rogneda. The greatest Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky called these tales “the people's Kyiv saga.” Based on a thorough analysis, B. A. Rybakov attributed the legend about Kie to the 6th–7th centuries.

Songs played a big role in the lives of our distant ancestors. Songs accompanied many rituals and holidays; they were sung at feasts and funeral feasts.

Epic creativity has its roots in distant pre-Christian times, although a significant part of epic stories are of later origin. According to the conclusion of Academician B. A. Rybakov, the basis of the epic about Ivan Godinovich was laid in the 9th–10th centuries. Around the same time, epics about Mikhail Potok and the Danube (Don Ivanovich) were composed. And the scientist attributes the epics about Volga Svyatoslavich and Mikul Selyaninovich to the eve of the “baptism of Rus'”.

In later records (in particular, in the “Tale of Bygone Years”) ancient spells and conspiracies have come down to us. There we also find many ancient proverbs and sayings: “perished like obre” (about the death of the Obry (Avar) tribe, which fought with the Slavs), “dead people have no shame” (words of Prince Svyatoslav, spoken before the battle with the Byzantines), etc. d.

Much of the oral folk art of Ancient Rus' has not been preserved for a number of reasons, and the first collection of epics was published only in the 18th century. A fatal role was played by the hostile attitude towards ancient Russian folklore and literature on the part of the Russian Orthodox Church, which branded them as paganism and tried to eradicate them by all means. “The medieval church, jealously destroying the apocrypha and works in which pagan gods were mentioned,” noted academician B. A. Rybakov, “probably had a hand in the destruction of manuscripts like “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” where the church is mentioned in passing, and the whole the poem is complete pagan deities."

The assertions of modern church authors that pre-Christian Rus' did not know writing do not stand up to comparison with the facts of Russian history. So, for example, Archpriest I. Sorokin said in one of his sermons that from the church “Russian people received writing, education and were grafted into the centuries-old Christian culture” (ZhMP, 1980, No. 7, p. 45). He is echoed by Archimandrite Palladius (Shiman): only after the “baptism of Rus'” and thanks to him, the Slavic peoples of our country “soon had their own original writing and original art” (“Orthodox Visnik” (hereinafter PV), 1982, No. 8, p. 32 ). According to Archpriest A. Egorov, “the first Russian writing arose in monasteries” (ZhMP, 1981, No. 7, p. 46).

Scientists have sufficient factual material proving that the Eastern Slavs had writing before the “baptism of Rus'”. And this is natural. Writing, like other manifestations of culture, arose from the needs of social development, primarily from the need to expand communication between people, as well as to record and transmit the experience accumulated by previous generations. Such a need became urgent in the era of the formation of feudal relations, during the formation of ancient Russian statehood. “The need for writing,” notes Academician D.S. Likhachev, “appeared with the accumulation of wealth and with the development of trade: it was necessary to record the amount of goods, debts, various obligations, to record in writing the transfer of accumulated wealth by inheritance, etc. In writing The state also needed it, especially when concluding treaties. With the growth of patriotic self-awareness came the need to record historical events. There was also a need for private correspondence.”

Based on the data of scientific research and on the evidence of ancient authors, D. S. Likhachev suggested that “apparently, separate writing systems existed on the territory of the Russian land for a long time, especially in the areas adjacent to the northern shores of the Black Sea, where once then ancient colonies were located.” Here's some evidence.

In the “Pannonian Life of Constantine the Philosopher” (Cyril, the creator of the Slavic alphabet), it is reported that during a trip to Khazaria (about 860), he saw in Chersonesus (Korsun) the Gospel and the Psalter, written in “Russian letters.” It is believed that the Glagolitic alphabet was used there - the ancient Slavic alphabet, which replaced the "traits" and "cuts".

Arab and German sources of the 10th century report that the Eastern Slavs had a written language in the pre-Christian era; they mention an inscription on a monument to a Russian warrior, a prophecy written on a stone in a Slavic temple, and “Russian letters” sent to one of the Caucasian kings.

Traces of ancient Russian writing have also been discovered by archaeologists. Thus, during excavations of the Gnezdovo burial mounds near Smolensk (1949), a clay vessel dating back to the first quarter of the 9th century was found. They read the inscription on it indicating the spice (“gorukhsha” or “gorushna”). This means that even then writing was used for everyday purposes.

The most convincing evidence of the existence of writing in Rus' in pre-Christian times is the texts of treaties concluded by Russian princes with Byzantium in the first half of the 10th century.

From the text of the treaty of 911, given in the Tale of Bygone Years, it is clear that it was drawn up in two copies (“in two copies”), one was signed by the Greeks, and the other by the Russians. The treaty of 944 was drawn up in the same way.

The treaties state the presence in Rus' in the time of Oleg of written wills (“let the one to whom the dying man wrote to inherit his property take what was bequeathed to him” - treaty of 911), and in the time of Igor - accompanying letters. Russian merchants and ambassadors were supplied with them (“previously, ambassadors brought gold seals, and merchants brought silver; now your prince has commanded to send letters to us, the kings” - agreement of 944).

All this taken together allowed Soviet historians to conclude: “ The need for writing in Rus' appeared a long time ago, and a whole series of, although not entirely clear, news tells us that the Russian people used writing even before the recognition of Christianity as the state religion.” “There is no doubt,” writes Professor V. V. Mavrodin, “that among the Slavs, in particular among the Eastern Slavs, Russians, writing appeared before the adoption of Christianity and its emergence is in no way connected with the baptism of Rus'.”

As for the impact of the Christianization of Rus' on the further development of writing, it was, contrary to the statements of modern Orthodox theologians and church preachers, stimulating, but not determining “Christianity...” emphasized academician B. D. Grekov, “it became only one of the factors increasing the need for writing and undoubtedly hastening the improvement of their own alphabet.” Just “one of”, nothing more.

Indeed, the Christianization of Rus', which created the need for liturgical and apologetic literature, various hagiographic materials, and religious and edifying reading for believers, gave impetus to the further development of writing and book publishing. But in addition to Christianity and simultaneously with it, those stimulators for the development of writing that existed in pre-Christian times continued to operate (and to an ever-increasing degree!): the need for state and business documentation, the need to record products and goods, cultural and aesthetic needs, the need to consolidate and transfer of knowledge.

In particular, the need to record and evaluate historical events gave rise to chronicle writing. It appeared in pre-Christian times, but took its classical forms after the establishment of Christianity.

Modern advocates of Orthodoxy demonstrate obvious bias leading to a distortion of historical truth when considering religious beliefs of ancient Rus'. The reason for this tendentiousness is the desire to convince that Christianity (and therefore Russian Orthodoxy) is fundamentally different from pre-Christian beliefs called paganism - as truth from error, light from darkness, that only with the establishment of Orthodoxy in Rus' did the introduction to true spirituality begin. Hence the desire to present ancient Russian society on the eve of the “baptism of Rus'” as being in “pagan ignorance”, and the adoption of Christianity as the acquisition of “true spirituality”. Moreover, the paganism of the Slavic peoples is characterized in the modern church press not only as a delusion and superstition, but also as a state of oppression from which they were supposedly brought out by the Russian Orthodox Church, which fought “against pagan prejudices and superstitions that spiritually enslaved the people” (“50th anniversary restoration of the patriarchate”, p. 25).

The epoch-making nature of the adoption of Christianity lies not in itself, but in the circumstances of the social order. It does not consist in replacing a “less true” religion with a “more true one,” as church authors claim for apologetic purposes, but in the epochal nature of humanity’s transition from one socio-economic formation to another.

The religious beliefs of Ancient Rus' corresponded to the era that gave birth to them. And until tribal relations became obsolete and gave way to feudal relations, ancient Slavic paganism remained the only possible form of religiosity in Rus', easily assimilating the pagan beliefs and cults of neighboring peoples, adapting them to their own needs.

That is why in the pagan pantheon, which the Kiev prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich intended to make the religious and ideological support of the ancient Russian state, there were gods who were revered not only in Rus', but also in the neighborhood. In one place for general veneration, images were installed not only of the long-venerated Perun, Dazhdbog and Stribog, but also of Khorsa and Simurg (Simargl) - the gods of the peoples of Central Asia.

Christianity as a religion of a developed class society could not establish itself in Rus' before feudal relations there became sufficiently strong. While the islands of feudalism were drowning in Rus' in the ocean of tribal relations, Christianization did not take on a mass character, spreading only to individuals and small social groups.

Both Prince Askold and part of his squad accepted Christianity, but did not baptize all of Kievan Rus under their control. And the Christian Princess Olga did not manage to make any significant progress along this path: feudal relations had not yet gained strength. Even her son Svyatoslav refused to be baptized, declaring, according to the Tale of Bygone Years: “How can I alone accept a different faith? And my squad will mock.” Persuasion did not help - he, according to the chronicler, “did not listen to his mother, continuing to live according to pagan customs” (p. 243).

Only after feudal relations in Rus' had become sufficiently strengthened did real prerequisites arise for the transition from paganism to Christianity.

As for the accusations of paganism “being primitive” coming from Orthodox ideologists, we can cite the opinion of Academician B. A. Rybakov on this matter. Having deeply and comprehensively studied the religious beliefs of our distant ancestors, he proved that they are not something inferior and narrowly local. " Slavic paganism“,” he emphasized, “is part of a huge universal complex of primitive views, beliefs, rituals, coming from the depths of millennia and serving as the basis for all later world religions.”

In the fundamental research of B. A. Rybakov “ Paganism of the ancient Slavs“Based on vast archaeological and ethnographic material, it is shown that the religious beliefs that existed in Rus' before the adoption of Christianity are the product of a long evolution, reflecting the main stages of development of the ancestors of the Slavs during the times of Kievan Rus.

Not only Slavic paganism of the end of the 1st millennium AD, but also the religion of the Proto-Slavs of the 1st millennium BC represented a complex, internally contradictory and yet quite coherent system of beliefs and rituals, where there is a quite tangible tendency of transition from polytheism (polytheism) to monotheism ( monotheism).

This is evidenced by the cult of the god of the universe, Rod, that emerged with the victory of patriarchy. B. A. Rybakov considers the traditional idea of Rod as the patron of the family, the household god-brownie, to be unreasonable. In his opinion, “Rod in Russian medieval sources is depicted as a heavenly god, located in the air, controlling the clouds and breathing life into all living things.” B. A. Rybakov believes that the Rod overshadowed the archaic women in labor. “In Russian embroidery,” he writes, “a three-suit composition consisting of Mokosh and two women in labor with their hands raised to the sky is presented as an appeal to the heavenly god, in which one should see Rod, “breathing life.” Prayers on high mountains located closer to the sky are obviously associated with the heavenly Family.”

According to a fairly convincing assumption by B. A. Rybakov, the cult of Rod contained elements of “ancient pre-Christian monotheism,” which religious ideologists (including theologians of the Russian Orthodox Church) consider the prerogative of Christianity.

The reconstruction of ancient Slavic beliefs, carried out by Academician B. A. Rybakov and other researchers, convinces that the attempts of the ideologists of modern Russian Orthodoxy to present the paganism of the Slavs as something amorphous, primitive and unsystematic are untenable.

If we turn to the ideological content of pagan and Christian beliefs, then from this point of view they turn out to be equally naive and untenable.

Let us take, for example, the pagan idea of the appearance of man, expressed by the Belozersk Magi in a polemic with adherents of Christianity and given on the pages of “The Tale of Bygone Years”: “God washed himself in the bathhouse, got sweaty, wiped himself with a rag and threw it from heaven to earth. And Satan argued with God over who should create a man from her. And the devil created man, and God put his soul into him. That’s why when a person dies, his body goes to the earth, and his soul goes to God” (p. 318).

Let’s compare the story of the Magi with the biblical story of the creation of man: “And the Lord God created man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis, chapter 2, v. 7). God said to the man he created: “...You will return to the ground from which you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you will return” (Genesis, chapter 3, v. 19).

As we see, the pagan idea of the appearance of man is no more primitive than the Christian one.

At the same level are such components of the pagan and Christian worldview as the worship of idols and veneration of icons, appeal to spirits and invocation of saints, belief in the supernatural capabilities of the Magi and the endowment of “divine grace” to clergy, confidence in the miraculousness of the pagan fetish and hope in the saving power of the Christian cross .

Such parallels can be continued indefinitely. But the point is not in the number of comparisons, but in their essence: Christianity is just as distorted a reflection of reality as paganism. According to the fair remark of B. A. Rybakov, Christianity differs from paganism not in its religious essence, but only in those features of class ideology that have been layered over a thousand years on primitive beliefs, rooted in the same primitiveness as the beliefs of the ancient Slavs or their neighbors "

Consequently, even in a purely religious aspect, the “baptism of Rus'” cannot be qualified as the beginning of beginnings. It was not marked by the emergence of some fundamentally new form of spiritual life in Kievan Rus. Old Russian society moved from one religious level to another, more corresponding to the new stage of its development.

This is the real historical picture, and it convincingly refutes the leading theological thesis about the fundamental difference between Christianity and pre-Christian (pagan) beliefs.

So, national history does not begin with the “baptism of Rus'”. The statements of modern Orthodox theologians that the church had before it “the unenlightened soul of the Russian person” (ZhMP, 1982, No. 5, p. 50) and “stood at the origins of Russian national identity, statehood and culture” (ZhMP, 1970, No. 5) are also unfounded , page 56).

“Truths” of this kind distort historical truth, and they are proclaimed in the hope that, by exaggerating the scale of the “baptism of Rus'”, exaggerating its role in national history, to force all Soviet people (including non-believers) to regard its upcoming anniversary as millennium as a national holiday.

Reactionary circles of Russian church emigration try to take advantage of such distortions for ideologically subversive purposes, contrasting the “baptism of Rus'” as the “true beginning” of Russian history with the October Revolution as an allegedly “false beginning.” It is the responsibility of not only scientists, but also popularizers of historical knowledge and propagandists of scientific atheism to convincingly prove the complete inconsistency of such a contrast between events of different scales, and to convincingly expose the true goals of this action of church-emigrant falsifiers of history. This is the patriotic duty of every Soviet person who knows and respects the past of his people.

An appeal to the times of pre-Christian Rus', their correct coverage is not just a tribute to interest in antiquity or the satisfaction of natural curiosity. It is necessary to refute theological fabrications in the field of Russian history, to expose the attempts of emigrant churchmen to use these fabrications for anti-Soviet purposes.

Option 3

Culture of Russia in the XIV – XVI centuries. V.

The religious worldview continued to determine the spiritual life of society. The Council of the Hundred Heads in 1551 regulated art, establishing models that were to be followed. The work of Andrei Rublev was formally proclaimed as a model in painting. But what was meant was not the artistic merits of his painting, but the iconography - the arrangement of figures, the use of a certain color, etc. in each specific plot and image. In architecture, the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin was taken as a model, in literature - the works of Metropolitan Macarius and his circle.

Socio-political thought problems of that time: about the nature and essence of state power, about the church, about the place of Russia among other countries, etc.

Literary, journalistic and historical essay "The Legend of the Grand Dukes of Vladimir." The fact that the Russian princes are descendants of the Roman Emperor Augustus, or rather his brother Prus. And about the fact that Vladimir Monomakh received from the Byzantine kings the symbols of royal power - a hat and precious mantles.

In the church environment, a theory was put forward about Moscow - the “third Rome” The first Rome, the “eternal city”, perished due to heresies; “second Rome” - Constantinople - because of the union with Catholics; “The third Rome” is the true custodian of Christianity - Moscow, which will exist forever.

I.S. Peresvetov discussed the need to create a strong autocratic power based on the nobility. Questions concerning the birth and place of the nobility in the management of the feudal state were reflected in the correspondence of Ivan VI and A. Kurbsky.

Chronicle. P Russian chronicle writing continued to develop.

"The Chronicler of the Beginning of the Kingdom" which describes the first years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible and proves the need to establish royal power in Rus'. "Book of the Degree of the Royal Genealogy." Portraits and descriptions of the reigns of the great Russian princes and metropolitans, the location and construction of the text seem to symbolize the inviolability of the union of the church and the tsar.

Nikon Chronicle. a huge chronicle collection of Moscow chroniclers, a kind of historical encyclopedia of the 16th century (belonged to Patriarch Nikon). contains about 16 thousand miniatures - color illustrations, for which it received the name Facial vault(“face” is an image).

Historical stories which told about the events of that time. (“The Capture of Kazan”, “On the Coming of Stefan Batory to the City of Pskov”, etc..)

Chronographs. Evidence of the secularization of culture is "Domostroy" (translated as home economics), which contains various (useful information) for guidance in both spiritual and worldly life, the author of which is considered to be Sylvester.

The beginning of printing

1564 - the first Russian dated book was published by pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov "Apostle". However, there are seven books without an exact publication date. These are the so-called anonymous books - books published before 1564. Typographic work begun in the Kremlin was transferred to Nikolskaya Street, where printing houses were built. Besides religious books Ivan Fedorov n his assistant Peter Mstislavets in 1574 the first Russian primer was published in Lvov - "ABC". For the entire 16th century there were 20 books. The handwritten book occupied a leading place in both the 16th and 17th centuries.

Architecture construction of tent-roofed temples Tent-roofed temples do not have pillars inside, and the entire mass of the building rests on the foundation. The most famous monuments of this style are Church of the Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye, built in honor of the birth of Ivan the Terrible, Intercession Cathedral (St. Basil's Cathedral), built in honor of the capture of Kazan

Construction of large five-domed monastery churches such as the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. (Assumption Cathedral in the Tronets-Serkhvey Monastery, Smolensky Cathedral of the Novodevichy Convent, cathedrals in Tula, Suzdal, Dmitrov) Construction of small, stone or wooden townsman churches. They were the centers of settlements, and were dedicated. patron of the craft. Construction of stone kremlins.

Option 1

The Mongol-Tatar invasion interrupted the powerful rise of Russian culture. The destruction of cities, the loss of traditions, the disappearance of artistic movements, the destruction of monuments of writing, painting, and architecture - a blow from which it was possible to recover only by the middle of the 14th century. In the ideas and images of Russian culture of the XIV-XVI centuries. reflected the mood of the era - a time of decisive successes in the struggle for independence, the overthrow of the Horde yoke, unification around Moscow, the formation of the Great Russian people.
The memory of a prosperous and happy country, which Kievan Rus remained in the consciousness of society (“bright and beautifully decorated” - words from “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land”, no later than 1246), was preserved primarily by literature. Chronicle writing remained its most important genre; it was revived in all lands and principalities of Rus'. At the beginning of the 15th century. In Moscow, the first all-Russian chronicle was compiled - an important evidence of progress in the unification of the country. With the completion of this process, chronicle writing, subordinated to the idea of substantiating the power of the Moscow prince and then the tsar, acquired an official character. During the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible (70s of the 16th century), an illustrated “Facebook Chronicle” was compiled in 12 volumes, containing more than one and a half ten thousand miniatures. In the XIV-XV centuries. The favorite theme of oral folk art is the struggle of Rus' with the “infidels.” A genre of historical song is emerging (“Song about Shchelkan”, about the Battle of Kalka, about the ruin of Ryazan, about Evpatiy Kolovrat, etc.). The most important events of the 16th century were also reflected in historical songs. - Kazan campaign of Ivan the Terrible, oprichnina, image of the Terrible Tsar. Victory in the Battle of Kulikovo 1380 gave rise to a series of historical stories, of which “The Tale of Mamayev’s Massacre” and the inspired “Zadonshchina” stand out (its author, Sophony Ryazanets, used images and excerpts from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”). Lives of saints were created in the 16th century. they are combined into a 12-volume set of “Great Chetiy-Menya”. In the 15th century The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin (“Walking across Three Seas”) describes his journey to India and Persia. “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” remains a unique literary monument - the love story of the Murom prince and his wife, probably described by Ermolai-Erasmus in the middle of the 16th century. “Domostroy,” written by Ivan the Terrible’s confessor Sichvester, is remarkable in its own way—a book about housekeeping, raising and educating children, and the role of women in the family.
At the end of the XV-XVI centuries. literature is enriched with brilliant journalistic works. The Josephites (followers of the abbot of the Volotsk monastery Joseph, who defend the principle of non-interference of the state in the affairs of a rich and materially strong church) and non-acquisitors (Nil Sorsky, Vassian Patrikeev, Maxim the Greek, who condemn the church for wealth and luxury, for craving for worldly pleasures) argue fiercely. In 1564-1577 Ivan the Terrible and Prince Andrei Kurbsky exchange angry messages. “...Tsars and rulers who draw up cruel laws perish,” Kurbsky inspires the king and hears in response: “Is this really light - when priests and crafty slaves rule, while the king is a king only in name and honor, and not at all with power?” no better than a slave? The idea of the “autocracy” of the tsar, the divinity of his power, acquires almost hypnotic power in Ivan the Terrible’s messages. In a different way, but just as consistently, Ivan Peresvetov writes about the special calling of the autocratic tsar in “The Great Petition” (1549): when punishing the boyars who have forgotten their duty to society, the righteous monarch must rely on the devoted nobility. The meaning of the official ideology is the idea of Moscow as the “third Rome”: “Two Romes (“the second Rome” - Constantinople, devastated in 1453 - Author) have fallen, the third stands, the fourth will not exist” (Philofey).

Let us note that in 1564 in Moscow, Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets published the first Russian printed book - “The Apostle”.

In the architecture of the XIV-XVI centuries. the trends in the historical development of Rus'-Russia were reflected with particular clarity. At the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries. Stone construction is being resumed - in Novgorod and Pskov, which suffered less than others from the Ordish yoke. In the XIV century. A new type of temple appears in Novgorod - light, elegant, bright (Spas on Ilyin). But half a century passes, and tradition wins: harsh, heavy structures reminiscent of the past are being erected again. Politics imperiously invades art, demanding that it be the guardian of independence, which the unifier Moscow is so successfully fighting. It accumulates the signs of a capital city of a single state gradually but consistently. In 1367 The white stone Kremlin was erected at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries. New red brick walls and towers are being erected. They are built by masters Pietro Antonio Solari, Aleviz Novy, and Mark Ruffo, imported from Italy. By that time, on the territory of the Kremlin, the Italian Aristotle Fioravanti had already erected the Assumption Cathedral (1479), an outstanding architectural monument in which an experienced eye will see both traditional features of Vladimir-Suzdal architecture and elements of the construction art of the Renaissance. Next to another work of Italian masters - the Chamber of Facets (1487-1489) - Pskov masters are building the Annunciation Cathedral (1484-1489). A little later, the same Aleviz the New completes the magnificent ensemble of Cathedral Square with the Archangel Cathedral, the tomb of the Grand Dukes (1505-1509). Behind the Kremlin wall on Red Square in 1555-1560. In honor of the capture of Kazan, the nine-domed Intercession Cathedral (St. Basil's Cathedral) was erected, topped with a high multifaceted pyramid - a tent. This detail gave the name “tent” to the architectural style that arose in the 16th century. (Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye, 1532). The zealots of antiquity fight against “outrageous innovations,” but their victory is relative: at the end of the century, the desire for splendor and beauty is revived. Painting of the second half of the XIV-XV centuries is the golden age of Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev, Dionysius. The paintings of the Novgorod (Savior on Ilyin) and Moscow (Annunciation Cathedral) churches of Theophanes the Greek and the icons of Rublev (“Trinity”, “Savior”, etc.) are addressed to God, but tell about man, his soul, about the search for harmony and the ideal. Painting, while remaining deeply religious in themes, images, genres (wall paintings, icons), acquires unexpected humanity, gentleness, and philosophy.

Option 2

Culture and spiritual life of Rus' in the 14th-16th centuries.

By the 14th century, in conditions of fragmentation and the influence of neighboring peoples, features developed in the language, customs, and culture of the peoples of different parts of Rus'. The 14th-16th centuries were associated with the struggle against the Horde yoke and the formation of a Russian centralized state around Moscow. The literature is represented by historical songs, where the victory on the “Kulikovo Field” and the heroism of Russian soldiers were glorified. In “Zadonshchina” and “The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev” he talks about the victory over the Mongol-Tatars. Afanasy Nikitin, who visited India, left his notes “Walking across Three Seas,” where he talks about the customs and beauties of this region. An outstanding event in Russian culture was book printing. In 1564, Ivan Fedorov published the first printed book in Russia, “The Apostle,” and later “The Primer.” In the 16th century, an encyclopedia of patriarchal conditions of family life was created. Painting increasingly began to move away from church channels. Theophanes the Greek in the 14th century. painted the churches of Novgorod and Moscow. Andrei Rublev, known for Trinity, worked with him. Dianisy painted the Vologda Cathedral near Vologda and others. It is characterized by: brightness, festivity, sophistication. The development of architecture is associated with large-scale construction in Moscow, where the walls of the Kremlin, the Archangel Annunciation Cathedral, the Assumption Cathedrals, the Faceted Chamber, and the bell tower of Ivan the Great were erected. Crafts, especially foundry, reached a high level. Andrei Chokhov created the Tsar Cannon, which weighs 40 tons and its caliber is 89 cm. In the culture of the 14th-16th centuries. More and more secular elements are appearing, a kind of return and revival of Russian culture is taking place.

Thanks to the tendency associated with hostility, the epics of pre-Mongol times were reworked in accordance with the new situation, and the name of the new enemies - Tatars - replaced the name of the old ones (Polovtsians). At the same time, new epics, historical legends and songs were created, which dealt with the Mongol stage of the struggle of Rus' against the steppe peoples. The destruction of Kyiv by Batu (Batu) and Nogai's raids on Rus' served as themes for modern Russian folklore. The oppression of Tver by the Tatars and the uprising of the Tver people in 1327 was not only inscribed in the chronicles, but also clearly formed the basis of a separate historical song. And, of course, as already mentioned, the battle on the Kulikovo Field became the subject of many patriotic tales, fragments of which were used by chroniclers and later written down in full. Here we have a case of mixing oral and written forms in ancient Russian literature. “Zadonshchina,” the theme of which belongs to the same cycle, is certainly a work of written literature. The composers of epics of the pre-Mongol period felt the special attractive force and poetry of steppe life and military campaigns. The same poetics can be felt in the works of a later period. Even in patriotic tales about the Kulikovo field, the valor of the Tatar knight, whose challenge the monk Peresvet accepted, is depicted with undoubted admiration. Pre-Mongol Russian epics have close parallels with Iranian and early Turkic heroic songs. In the Mongol era, Russian folklore was also influenced by “Tatar” (Mongolian and Turkic) poetic images and themes. The intermediaries in introducing Russians to Tatar heroic poetry were, perhaps, Russian soldiers who were recruited into the Mongol armies. And the Tatars who settled in Rus' also introduced their national motifs into Russian folklore.

The enrichment of the Russian language with words and concepts borrowed from the Mongolian and Turkic languages, or from Persian and Arabic (via Turkic), has become another aspect of the universal cultural process. By 1450, the Tatar (Turkic) language had become fashionable at the court of Grand Duke Vasily II of Moscow, which caused great indignation on the part of many of his opponents. Vasily II was accused of excessive love for the Tatars and their language (“and their speech”). Typical of that period was that many Russian nobles in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries adopted Tatar surnames. Thus, a member of the Velyaminov family became known as Aksak (which means “lame” in Turkic), and his heirs became Aksakovs. In the same way, one of the Shchepin-Rostov princes was called Bakhteyar (bakhtyar in Persian means “lucky”, “rich”). He became the founder of the family of princes Bakhteyarov, which died out in the 18th century.

A factor that is difficult to overestimate in the development of Russian intellectual and spiritual life is the role of the Tatars and their descendants who lived in Rus' and converted to Christianity. The story of Tsarevich Peter Ordynsky, the founder of the monastery in Rostov, has already been mentioned. There were other similar cases. The outstanding Russian religious figure of the 15th century, who also founded the monastery, St. Paphnutius of Borovsky, was the grandson of a Baskak. In the 16th century, a boyar son of Tatar origin named Bulgak was ordained, and after that one of the family members always became a priest, right up to Father Sergius Bulgakov, a well-known Russian theologian of the 20th century. There were other outstanding Russian intellectual leaders of Tatar origin, such as the historian H. M. Karamzin and the philosopher Pyotr Chaadaev. Chaadaev was probably of Mongolian origin, as Chaadai is a transcription of the Mongolian name Jaghatai (Chagatai). Perhaps Pyotr Chaadaev was a descendant of Genghis Khan’s son, Chagatai. It is at the same time paradoxical and typical that in the “melting furnace” of Russian civilization with its heterogeneous elements, the “Westerner” Chaadaev was of Mongolian origin, and the “Slavophile” Aksakov family had as its ancestors the Varangians (the Velyaminov branch).

The spiritual life of ancient Russian society before baptism. In the 10th century Culturally, ancient Russian society was still quite homogeneous, despite the identification of the princely squad with its special way of life, sharply different from the way of life of the rest of the population, and special interests. All Eastern Slavs were united by traditional ideas about the structure of the world, already by this time, closely related to their religious beliefs. The world was filled with a large number of gods, large and small, who controlled the various forces of nature, maintaining order in the natural world and society and influencing the lives of people. By observing certain standards of behavior in relation to the gods, it was possible to achieve their support. Of particular importance was the cult of ancestors - Rod and Rozhanits, who were revered by the population for a long time after the adoption of Christianity. Among the deities, those who controlled the main natural elements stood out. At the head of the East Slavic pantheon was, as in the 6th century, the “creator of lightning” Perun. The god of fire was Svarog. The fire in the hearth, which also served as an object of veneration, was called Svarozhich - the son of Svarog. The Sun, revered under the name Dazhbog, was also the son of Svarog. Veles occupied a special place in this pantheon. If the successful growth of cereals depended on Perun, the god of thunderstorms, then ancient Russian chroniclers call Veles the “cattle god,” i.e., the preservation and reproduction of livestock depended on him. The princely squad swore by Perun and Veles when concluding treaties with the Greeks. There was no special layer of priesthood that possessed special secrets inaccessible to the uninitiated. The functions of priests were often performed by the rulers themselves, who made sacrifices to the gods, which were supposed to ensure peace and harvest for the country. There were no pagan temples; images (statues) of gods mentioned in the sources, sometimes richly decorated (the statue of Perun in Kyiv had a silver head and a golden mustache) stood in the open air. Apparently, the Eastern Slavs did not have any other monuments of fine art associated with the pagan cult.

Christians in Rus' before the country's baptism. An important facet in the spiritual life of ancient Russian society was the adoption by Ancient Russia in the late 80s. X century Christian religion. True, information about the baptism of Russians back in the 60s. 9th century preserved in a number of Byzantine sources, but this step had no consequences at that time. In the middle of the 10th century. There were quite a lot of Christians in Kyiv. When concluding an agreement with Byzantium in 944, part of Prince Igor’s squad took the oath not in front of the statue of Perun, but in the Church of Elijah the Prophet in Constantinople. After Igor's death, his widow Olga converted to Christianity. The Kiev princess even visited one of the main centers of the Christian world - Constantinople. In the Cathedral of St. Sophia in this city at the end of the 12th century. They showed the “great gold dish”, donated by Olga to this temple. At the end of the 50s, probably after some complications in relations with Constantinople, Olga sent ambassadors to the German king Otto I with a request to send a bishop to Kyiv. Now, obviously, the conversation was supposed to be about the baptism not of the princess, but of the population of the country. However, the bishop's trip to Rus' ended in failure. Olga's son Svyatoslav and his squad refused to convert to Christianity.

Probably, thanks to the first Christians, even before baptism, Slavic writing became known in Rus' (the archaic language of the Slavic texts of the treaties of Rus' with the Greeks, sharply different from the language of the chronicle in which the texts of these treaties are placed, indicates that these translations from Greek are contemporary with the conclusion of the treaties themselves ), but only after the official adoption of Christianity by Ancient Russia as a state religion, Christian teaching was able to become widespread here, take a leading position in the religious consciousness of society, and Slavic writing became an important tool in the hands of Christian missionaries.

Reasons for accepting Christianity. For a correct understanding of the events that followed the baptism of Rus', one should dwell on the motives that prompted the ruling elite of Ancient Rus' to decide to change their faith. In Soviet historiography, there was a widespread idea that such a decision was associated with the need for ideological sanction for the new social relations that emerged with the formation of the state and the identification of a dominant social group in society. This opinion seems one-sided. Ancient history knows such large states with a society complex in its social composition, such as the Hellenistic kingdoms or the Roman Empire, which successfully developed under the dominance of pagan polytheism. It was a different matter. Pagan statehood could not function successfully in a world dominated by monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam. Only the adoption of the Christian faith made it possible for the rulers of Ancient Rus' to maintain equal relations with their powerful neighbors - the rulers of the Ottonian Empire in the west and the rulers of the Byzantine Empire in the east of Europe. The very values of Christian teaching, initially quite far from the way of life and ideals of the Kyiv squad, did not play a decisive role in this choice. The squad chose the Christian god not because he was the embodiment of the Christian ideal, but because the Christian god, the patron of the rich and powerful Byzantine Empire, seemed to them more powerful than the pagan Perun.

Christianity and the elite. However, after the corresponding decision was made, Christian teaching began to have an increasingly strong influence on the way of thinking of the ancient Russian ruling elite and its behavior towards its subjects. The very idea of the structure of society, its institutions and customs has changed. In pagan society, both its very structure and the norms regulating its life were perceived as something eternal, unchangeable, created with the direct participation of the gods. With the adoption of Christianity, the idea began to be established that the social order - the creation of people, like their other creations - is imperfect and can be improved and changed for the better. It is no coincidence that the adoption of Christianity was followed by a number of monuments of legislation of ancient Russian rulers. It was under the influence of Christianity that the rulers of Ancient Rus' began to develop the idea that the ruler was not just the leader of the squad, but the head of state, who must maintain order in society and take care of all his subjects, and not just the squad. Under the influence of Christianity, the idea began to emerge that, while maintaining social order, the ruler should take special care of the weak, unprotected members of society. On the pages of the chronicle, when creating the image of Vladimir, who, as an ideal ruler, was supposed to serve as an example for posterity, it was emphasized that he not only fed all the poor and beggars in the princely court, but also ordered carts with food to be transported around Kyiv in order to feed those who were not was able to get there. The idea was also formed that the ruler should protect the weak, unprotected members of society from the tyranny of the strong. At the beginning of the 12th century. in his

In the “Instruction” addressed to his sons, Vladimir Monomakh wrote: “don’t forget the poor, but feed with all your might, and give to the orphan and the widow, justify yourself, and do not force the strong to destroy a person.”

Evidence of the spread of Christianity. For ordinary people who were forced to be baptized by order of the prince and the squad, baptism was only the beginning of a long process of assimilating the Christian hierarchy of values and the Christian worldview. The changes in the funeral rites of the Eastern Slavs, traced by archaeologists, make it possible to judge how the process of subordinating wide circles of the population to the formal instructions of the Christian religion took place. In pagan times, the Slavs burned their dead on funeral pyres; with the adoption of Christianity, such a practice, which sharply contradicted the prescriptions of the new religion, began to supplant the burial of the dead in the ground. In ancient Russian cities, the old pagan rite was supplanted by the end of the 11th century. In rural areas in the south of Rus', pagan funeral rites were eliminated by the end of the 12th century, in the north - by the end of the 13th century. Pagan funeral rites were preserved especially long in the land of the Vyatichi.

Archaeological data is confirmed by evidence from written sources, which show that it was in the north of Rus', in the lands farthest from Byzantium, where the Slavic population lived adjacent to Finno-Ugric tribes that had long maintained pagan beliefs, that the spread of Christianity was slower and faced serious difficulties. Data on the performances of the “magi” in the Rostov-Suzdal land have already been given above. But also in Novgorod in the 70s. XI century a sorcerer also appeared who managed to win over the population of the city to his side, so that “everyone had faith in him and wanted to destroy the bishop,” whom only the prince and his retinue were able to protect. In the land of the Vyatichi at the turn of the XI-XII centuries. The monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, Kupsha, who went to baptize them, was killed. The text of the Novgorod lord's chronicle preserves evidence of the construction of Christian churches in Novgorod: in the 11th century. two of them were built, in the 11th century. - 68, in the 13th century. - 17. Obviously, the 12th century was the century when Christianity truly took root in Novgorod.

Features of Old Russian Christianity in the X-XII centuries. Christianity, which was formed in the minds of wide circles of the population of Ancient Rus', was a kind of fusion of views and ideas that came from the Christian world with those traditional ideas with the help of which a person in the pagan world determined his place in the world and his relationships with his neighbors and nature. For rural residents, a set of rituals of agrarian magic was of particular importance, which, in their opinion, ensured the natural change of seasons, during which the earth regularly gave its fruits to man. Although the Christian idea of a single omnipotent God, the creator of the world, had developed and was quite firmly assimilated, the surrounding world continued to be filled with many different forces, in communication with which it was still largely necessary to use traditional methods of influencing them. Instead of the gods of the East Slavic pagan pantheon, Christian saints acted as patrons of the main of these forces. So, instead of the pagan Perun, Elijah the Prophet now sent rain and lightning to the earth. Other such powers were still in charge of lower-level pagan deities (mermaids, goblins), who continued to be revered along with the saints. The old and the new in the minds of the Russian people of that time could be closely intertwined in the most bizarre way. Thus, it is known that in the middle of the 12th century. Residents of Novgorod, according to custom, served a meal to the spirits of their ancestors - Rod and Rozhanitsa, accompanied this procedure by singing the troparion to the Mother of God.

A peculiar fusion of old and new, when new religious teachings were layered on a powerful layer of traditional ideas, determined the appearance of folk culture right up to the invasion of the traditional rural world of capitalism. In the early Middle Ages and later, the Christian Church, having achieved an end to the practice of open veneration of characters from pagan mythology, generally put up with this state of affairs, and only from the middle of the 17th century. The highest ecclesiastical and secular authorities began to make systematic attempts to cleanse the customs of Russian Christians from pagan layers.

The peculiarity of the early Middle Ages was that at that time such a mixture was fully inherent in people who belonged to the social elite. An illustrative example is the discovery by archaeologists of pots of food (a detail of a pagan funeral ritual) in the graves of Novgorod mayors XII -XIII centuries, buried in the Yuryev Monastery. A striking parallel to such a fusion of Christianity and paganism can be the Novgorod epics (the true popular name is “old times”) that arose in this era about the Novgorod merchant Sadko, who played the harp remarkably well. He is patronized by the king of the sea, for whom Sadko plays the harp at a feast in the underwater kingdom. When the Tsar begins to dance and a storm begins at sea, the play of the guslar is interrupted by the miraculous intervention of the Christian Saint Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of seafarers. Thus, in the world of the creators of these epics, both pagan and Christian forces were active at the same time.

A similar situation is found in such an ancient Russian monument, created at the end XII c., as “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” Its author is a convinced Christian, calling on the reader to war with the “filthy” - pagan Cumans, but behind the phenomena of the world around him the presence of pagan gods is still felt: the winds for him are the grandchildren of Stribog, after the defeat of the Russian army the harbinger of trouble - Zhlya rushes across the Russian land , sowing grief from a fiery horn.

"The Tale of Igor's Campaign."“The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” is a unique monument in ancient Russian literature, reflecting the views and interests of the secular elite of ancient Russian society. The author’s views and ideas about the past and the present have much in common with the views of the Old Russian chroniclers, who mourned the collapse of the Old Russian state and recalled the former heyday during the reign of the “old princes”, but his artistic language is based on the traditions of folk heroic poetry, modified over a long period of time. living in a friendly environment. In his work, the author of “The Lay” mentions one of his predecessors - the singer Boyan, who in his songs glorified the exploits of the princes of the second half of the 11th century. and mourning their defeat. The works of this tradition have not reached us. But “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” gives an idea of this poetic language, when its author glorifies the skill and courage of his heroes in the fight against enemies or mourns their defeat. Both the circle of concepts characterizing the ethics of the warrior-combatant and the warrior-prince, and the poetic formulas in which the approval or condemnation of certain actions characteristic of this environment were expressed, found an unusually vivid expression in the text of the Lay. This side of the creativity of the author of “The Lay” was continued in the military stories of subsequent times. It has already been said that the culture of the druzhina environment was not separated from the culture of the wider circles of people by any clear barriers. The text of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” shows the close connection of the author’s poetic language with the traditions of oral folk art, as they appear to us in the records of folklore collectors. Thus, the features of folk lamentation clearly appear in the cry of the wife of the main character of the work - Igor - Yaroslavna about the fate of him and other participants in the campaign.

The connection with the traditions of folk art should also explain the attitude of the author of the Lay to natural elements, which act as active participants in the action, either echoing what is happening or interfering with the course of events.

(The reflection of the traditions of social thought of his time in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” will be discussed elsewhere.)

Elite culture. Reconstructing the cultural appearance of the secular elite of ancient Russian society is a complex task that has not yet been solved by researchers. Certain material for its solution is contained in sources of different origins, but extracting it from them is far from easy. First of all, let us name the ancient Russian chronicles, the compilers of which drew their information from this environment. So, according to one of them, he communicated a lot with the Kyiv boyar Yan Vyshatich and from him “I heard a lot of words, which were written down in this chronicle.” These statements have come down to us in the interpretation that was given to them by the compilers of the codes - clergy.

The most important source for judging the culture of the secular elite of ancient Russian society is Vladimir Monomakh’s “Instruction for Children,” written by him at the end of his life, when he already occupied the Kiev table, and addressed to his sons. The “Teaching” begins with extracts from the Psalter, the teaching of Basil the Great and a number of other texts, from which the prince, who knows them well, selects what his sons will need when they begin to rule the earth: they should not envy those who commit lawlessness and encroach on other people’s property, since they will be punished God will exalt the righteous; one should not abuse food and drink, talk with “ridiculous” wives, but should “listen to the wise, repent to the elders”; be able to manage your feelings, do good deeds, protect the poor and offended.

Further, Monomakh describes the actions of his life as a person who sought to follow these principles. He repeats the advice contained in the “divine” words from himself, but adds to them many instructions that reflect not the general norms of Christian morality, but his personal experience. And here we are already talking about the knowledge and concepts that have developed in the squad environment. Thus, in war you should always be vigilant, check the guards yourself, and not remove your weapons without making sure that there is no danger. When moving with a squad through the territory of the principality, one must not let the “youths” of the squad “do dirty tricks”. Guests must be received well (but not because this is what a Christian should do): such people “pass by, glorify a person throughout all lands,” and will create a certain reputation for him. The prince must, without relying on his subordinates, arrange “all the order in his house” and even take care of the church “outfit”.

Having placed in the “Instruction” a long list of his military campaigns and exploits in war and hunting, Monomakh writes that, honoring God, he successfully passed all the tests and therefore turns to his sons: “Fearing death, children, not afraid, not fighting, not from beasts, but do a man’s work,” that is, fight bravely.

Monomakh is an adherent of Christian moral ideals, he wants to live in accordance with them, to be humane and fair, but at the same time, ideas about the relationship between the prince and the squad, when the prince must be brave and command the army well, occupy a strong place in his mind.

Another type of source that should be named in this connection is the folk heroic epic, which is reflected in very few and fragmentary medieval texts, and mainly in the records of collectors of the 18th-19th centuries. In them, the tradition, the origins of which lead to the druzhina environment, was subject to transformation due to its long existence in the lower folk environment.

The main theme of the recorded texts are stories about “heroes” (in pre-Mongol Rus' they were called “braves”) who perform their feats in the service of the prince, or getting him a bride, or defending his country from the enemy, or proving their military superiority in disputes with others heroes - definitely points to the environment in which this tradition was formed.

The existence of such an epic tradition among the Eastern Slavs is also preserved in direct evidence in the text of the so-called “Thidrek Saga” - a story about the hero of the German epic Thidrek of Berne, recorded in the 13th century. according to the stories of “German men” from the cities of Northern Germany. A number of episodes in this work feature the Kiev prince Vladimir and the hero “Ilya the Russian,” his maternal uncle, who procures a bride for Vladimir. Since records of epic texts made in the 17th-19th centuries do not know such a plot with such characters, it is obvious that at that time the epic tradition was seriously different from the later forms of its existence. Those preserved in the texts of the 15th-16th centuries do not find correspondence in the records of folklore collectors. stories about the military exploits of Alexander Popovich, later one of the main heroes of the Russian heroic epic. Alexander Popovich appears in these stories, which were formed in a druzhina environment, as a warrior of the Rostov prince Konstantin Vsevolodovich, performing his military exploits in the war with his brother Yuri, a participant in the Battle of Lipitsa in 1216. In the epics that have come down to us, Alexander (Alyosha) Popovich appears completely in another role. In the form that has come down to us, the ancient Russian epic was formed in the XIV-XV centuries. - the era of the struggle for liberation from the Horde yoke and the unification of Russian lands, but the stable situations repeated in various epics that characterize the relationship of the heroes with the prince, the feats that they perform, probably reflect the tradition that developed in an earlier era.

The emergence of an Old Russian translation of the Byzantine knightly epic about Digenis Akritos is also associated with the special interests of the druzhina environment. This example shows that the formation of the culture of the elite of the secular society of Ancient Rus' was influenced by contacts with the secular elite of neighboring countries. Another example of such influence from Byzantium can be the frescoes of the staircase tower of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, which connected the temple with the princely palace, where images of the Byzantine emperor and his court are placed watching the games at the hippodrome in Constantinople. Messages from the Ipatiev Chronicle of the mid-12th century speak about contacts with the knightly culture emerging in Western Europe. about the knightly tournament organized at the “Yaroslavl courtyard” in Kyiv, and that the Polish prince, who was in Kyiv, “shepherded many sons of the boyars with a sword,” i.e. knighted them.

Writing in Ancient Rus'. Birch bark letters. An important feature of the lifestyle of the elite of secular society in Ancient Rus' was familiarity with the art of writing and its fairly widespread use in everyday life. This was explained by the fact that writing in an understandable Slavic language came to Rus', even before its baptism, from the First Bulgarian Kingdom, the mastery of which did not require special long efforts. Initially, writing was taught using, as in the Mediterranean region, a wooden board covered with wax, on which words were written, which could then be erased. Such a board was recently found in Novgorod in layers of the late 10th - early 11th centuries. It contained verses from the Psalter, a book used to teach literacy in the Middle Ages. A cheap material for writing was also found - birch bark (birch bark), on which letters were scratched with a special tool - a pen. Such texts scratched on birch bark - birch bark letters - were found during archaeological excavations in a number of ancient Russian cities (Torzhok, Staraya Russa, Smolensk, Zvenigorod - i.e. not only in the north, but also in the south of Rus'). To date, more than a thousand different texts from the 11th - first half of the 15th centuries have been found, providing unique material about the life of our ancestors. The vast majority of birch bark letters found come from excavations in Novgorod, where they were well preserved in the water-saturated soil of that city. If the texts of the 11th century. relatively few in number, then by the 12th century. There are already many dozens of texts. Some of these texts are related to the needs of management - records of tax defaulters, administrative orders, complaints addressed to judges, the earliest surviving peasant petitions. But a significant part of the texts are private letters in which people discuss a variety of issues. Here we encounter both complaints about the husband’s injustice and declarations of love. Philological researchers are especially attracted by the lively colloquial language of letters spoken by the Novgorodians, which is noticeably different from the literary language of the chronicle and from the clerical language of documents.

Numerous inscriptions on handicraft products and graffiti on the walls of Christian churches also testify to the fairly wide distribution of writing in ancient Russian society. In this regard, the situation in Rus' differed from the situation in the countries of Western Europe, where the written language was Latin, a language whose mastery required long and careful preparation, so knowledge of writing and literacy were for a long time the monopoly of clergy there.

It should be borne in mind that in the early Middle Ages the culture of the druzhina environment and the wider population had much in common; one was not separated from the other by any insurmountable barriers. This is best evidenced by the penetration into the people's environment of the traditions of the heroic epic created among the druzhina.

"Scientific" culture of the clergy. Along with traditional folk culture in its Christianized form and the closely related culture of the druzhina environment in Ancient Rus', there were also traditions of Christian culture in the form in which they were transferred to ancient Russian soil from Byzantium. The bearer of this culture was the clergy (primarily the educated upper strata) and some educated representatives of the top of secular society, like Yaroslav the Wise, who, according to the chronicle, “collected many scribes and translated from Greek into Slovenian writing, and copied many books.”

Initially, the newcomer, the Greek element, predominated among the clergy. In the first Christian church built by Vladimir, the Church of the Tithes, the “priests of Korsun” served, Greek priests brought from Korsun-Chersonese, a Byzantine city in Crimea on the site of modern Sevastopol. But from the very beginning, the princely government was concerned with preparing educated people from its own midst. Thus, Vladimir, according to the chronicle, “began to take children from the most prominent children (i.e., the best people) and began to give book learning.” Already under Vladimir, a wide range of Christian monuments could have been used to educate these youth. They were translated into the Slavic language after the creation of the Slavic alphabet by Cyril and Methodius in other Slavic states - in Great Moravia and mainly in the First Bulgarian Kingdom. A significant part of these translations has come to us thanks to Old Russian copies. To these were added original works created already in Bulgaria, such as “Words” for Christian holidays by Clement of Ohrid or the ABC Prayer and “Teaching Gospel” by Constantine of Bulgaria. New translations were made by scribes surrounding Yaroslav the Wise. Researchers associate the translation of such a major monument of ancient literature as “The History of the Jewish War” by Josephus with their activities.

Monuments of ancient Russian literature. Already in the middle - second half of the 11th century. In Ancient Rus', educated spiritual people appeared, capable of creating their own works that were in line with the Christian tradition.

The earliest work of ancient Russian Christian literature, showing the masterful mastery by the ancient Russian scribe of the rich traditions of Byzantine theology and the art of preaching, is Hilarion’s “Sermon on Law and Grace,” read by the author in the St. Sophia Cathedral of Kyiv in the presence of Yaroslav the Wise and members of his family. Proclaiming the superiority of the Christian teaching - “Grace” over the dilapidated Jewish Law, leaving the historical scene, the author simultaneously contrasts this “Law,” which was preserved only by the Jews, with the Christian teaching, which extends “to all the ends of the earth.” The Jews, who were the first to receive the “Law” from God, did not accept the “Grace,” and Christian teaching spread to new “tongues” - peoples who previously did not know God at all. Rus' has now entered the family of these peoples professing the Christian teaching (“and we, together with all Christians, glorify the Holy Trinity”). Having revealed the full significance of the fact that Rus' joined the Christian teaching, which replaced pagan polytheism and the dilapidated “Law,” Hilarion ended his sermon with praise for Vladimir, thanks to whom Rus' joined the true faith, and Yaroslav, a worthy successor of his work. The contrast between “Law” and “Grace” and the glorification of new values of Christian teaching are created in the sermon according to all the rules of Byzantine rhetoric thanks to the constant contrast and comparison of complex symbolic images. Hilarion was confident that listeners could understand and appreciate his art, since he was addressing not the “ignorant”, but “the one who has been overfilled with the sweetness of books.” Hilarion’s “Word” also reflected his pride in his land. Speaking about Vladimir’s ancestors, he wrote that they “didn’t rule in a bad and unknown land, but in Russia, which is known and heard by all four ends of the earth.”

The traditions of Hilarion were continued in the works of writers of the 12th century: Kliment Smolyatich, who lived in the middle of the century and occupied the position in the second half of the 12th century. episcopal see of Cyril of Turov. Clement Smolyatich, in his letter to Presbyter Thomas, acted as an adherent of the “scientific”, allegorical interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, when a secret meaning is revealed in certain specific messages of the Old or New Testament. Well acquainted with the Greek education of his time, he sought to follow the interpretations of the 11th century writer. Nikita of Heracles on the works of Gregory the Theologian. Clement rejected Thomas's accusations that he was doing something bad, using images of ancient mythology in his symbolic interpretations, like Nikita of Heracles.

Hilarion’s brilliant oratory was continued in the “words of praise” written by Kirill of Turov for the main Christian holidays. Using all the variety of techniques developed by ancient and then Byzantine rhetoric, Kirill Turovsky created vivid emotional images of those events of gospel history to which the corresponding holiday is dedicated, and structured his speeches in such a way as to evoke a jubilant, festive mood in his listeners. His words were highly appreciated very early, and they began to be included in collections along with the works of John Chrysostom and other prominent Greek preachers.

Not all examples of ancient Russian preaching were at the same high level. Many of them are quite simple in their structure and vocabulary, they repeatedly repeated the same provisions, stated as simply as possible - they addressed an audience that needed the most basic knowledge about Christian doctrine.

Another literary genre, in which already in the second half of the 11th century. original works were created, in no way inferior to Byzantine models - hagiography, lives of saints. The first ancient Russian lives of saints were created by the outstanding ancient Russian scribe, monk of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery Nestor. He wrote the life of Theodosius of Pechersk, abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery in Kyiv. It became a model for the lives of saints - ascetics, founders of monasteries and organizers of monastic life - created in subsequent centuries. Using the life of Savva the Sanctified, one of the founders of Palestinian monasticism, as a model, Nestor creates an original image of a man who first strives with all his might to take monastic vows, even breaking with his own mother for this purpose, and then purposefully fights the vices of not only the monastic brethren, but also those around him society. At the same time, the high position of the holders of supreme power did not stop him. As the life tells, when Svyatoslav Yaroslavich expelled his elder brother Izyaslav from the Kyiv table, Theodosius refused to remember the new prince at the service and sent him a “great epistole” in which he compared him with Cain the fratricide.

The works dedicated to the first Russian saints - Boris and Gleb, the sons of Vladimir, are very far from Byzantine examples. This is “Reading about Boris and Gleb” by Nestor, written in the 80s. XII century, and “The Tale of Boris and Gleb”, created among the clergy of the church dedicated to these saints in Vyshgorod near Kiev in connection with the transfer of their remains to a new temple in 1072. And the very problem that is the focus of attention of the authors of the works - what should be the fair relations between members of the princely family, and the glorification of the heroes of the work - the princes for not raising arms against the “eldest brother” who attempted on their lives, chose to die, but not to plunge the Russian land into the horrors of internecine war - all this has neither parallels nor examples in the monuments of Byzantine hagiography.

The first monuments of ancient Russian hymnography were the “services” to Boris and Gleb, in which the saints are glorified not only as martyrs, but also as wonderful defenders, patrons of the Russian land, protecting it with their miraculous intervention from external enemies and princely strife.

Christian culture of ancient Russian society and the spiritual heritage of Byzantium. In order to determine the originality of the Old Russian version of Christian culture, it is necessary to find out to what extent the cultural heritage of Byzantium was assimilated by the educated circles of Old Russian society.

The heritage of Byzantium, as is known, included not only monuments of Christian culture itself, but also a very significant range of monuments that belonged to an earlier ancient civilization. As in earlier times, the traditional education system was built here (as in Western Europe) on the study of texts by ancient authors.

This most important component of the Byzantine cultural heritage was not transferred to Old Russian soil - both the texts of ancient authors and the educational system based on their study remained unknown to Old Russian people. The ancient Russian reader could draw information about antiquity only from the explanations of Byzantine scribes to those places in the writings of the church fathers in which pagan gods or customs were mentioned, and from Byzantine historical chronicles created in the monastic environment, such as the chronicles of John Malala or George Amartol, in which told about the beliefs of the pagans. The “Chronicle” of George Amartol was well known to the ancient Russian chronicler of the early 12th century. - the creator of the “Tale of Bygone Years”, quotes from the “Chronicle” of John Malala are found in the Galician-Volyn Chronicle of the 13th century.

Actually, Christian literature also transferred to ancient Russian soil from Byzantium, far from being in full. Thus, some important manuals outlining Christian dogma were translated very early (primarily the most authoritative manual... John of Damascus), but the overwhelming majority of Byzantine theological literature remained unknown to the Old Russian reader.

On the contrary, monuments containing characteristics of the truths of Christian doctrine and Christian ethical standards, given in a more accessible form for the reader and listener in living, vivid images on the pages of sermons, teachings and words of praise, were widely translated and distributed in numerous copies. The works of the famous preacher of the 4th century enjoyed especially wide recognition. John Chrysostom. His works already included the collection “Zlatostruy”, translated in Bulgaria in the first half of the 10th century. under Tsar Simeon. Translations of the lives of saints were abundant and numerous, in which the Christian ideal was revealed through a vivid concrete example of the life of a person in whose actions it was embodied. The lives of saints were transferred to ancient Russian soil in the form of entire collections of texts, intended to be read at the monastery meal throughout the year. These are collections of short lives - the so-called Synaxarion (or Prologue) and collections of full lives - the so-called Fourth Menaion. A number of collections of the lives of saints are also known as part of the patericon - collections of the lives of saints of a certain area or country. It was by creating words of praise and lives of saints that ancient Russian scribes most successfully competed with their Byzantine teachers.

CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE OF Rus' INXIV – XVV.

“...Culture is true enlightened knowledge. Culture is a scientific and inspired approach to solving the problems of mankind. Culture is beauty in all its creative grandeur. Culture is accurate knowledge beyond prejudice and superstition. Culture is the affirmation of goodness - in all its effectiveness. Culture is the song of peaceful labor in its endless improvement. Culture is a revaluation of values in order to find the true treasures of the people. Culture is established in the heart of the people and creates a desire for construction. Culture perceives all discoveries and improvements in life, for it lives in everything thinking and conscious. Culture protects the historical dignity of the people.”

(Diary sheets)

The development of ancient Russian art, disrupted in the first half of the 13th century by the Mongol invasion, changed the political and cultural significance of individual cities. Destroyed to the ground by Batu, Kyiv was revived with difficulty and had already lost its role as the center of the all-Russian state. The unified East Slavic statehood collapsed two centuries before the foreign yoke, and with the fall of Kyiv, Southern Rus' weakened and was completely devastated by the Tatars. However, the Tatar yoke did not break the creative spirit of the Russian people, but, on the contrary, contributed to the growth of Russian national self-awareness. It can be said that the Horde rule was an important factor in the formation of domestic political culture, and, above all, because it initially acquired features of a national liberation character. The intensive development of art in Moscow, Tver, Novgorod and other cities in the 14th and 15th centuries was a kind of protest against the desire of the Tatars to assert their political dominance over the Russian lands. Domestic culture in the Middle Ages developed under the influence of a number of extreme factors.

Firstly, fragmented Rus' contrasted the heroism of the people with the Horde.

Secondly, the Horde experience of conquering Rus', having tempered the ardor of the conquerors, led to the fact that the Horde did not occupy Rus', but introduced tribute dependence, supplemented by raids. This made it possible to preserve the existence of national culture, including political culture.

Thirdly, nomadic pastoralists were unable to adapt to the forests. In addition, they were military conquerors, but not cultural ones: their culture was narrower and poorer, because the structure of their activity was narrower and poorer.

As is known, cities were the centers of both the struggle for independence and the formation of political culture, and the alignment of historical forces is clearly reflected in the process of development of art. First of all, a new rise in artistic culture began in Novgorod, one of the few Russian cities that was not subject to the Mongol invasion. Veliky Novgorod was the political center of the Novgorod feudal republic. Here, in the 14th and 15th centuries, contradictions intensified between the church and the city authorities, who demanded a revision of religious dogmas on the one hand, and with the trade and craft people on the other. The life content in art grew, the emotionality of images increased, and new means of artistic expression were sought. Architecture has developed widely. In Novgorod in the 14th-15th centuries, churches were erected by order of the boyars, archbishops, merchants, street corporations, etc. Novgorod architects came from an urban craft environment and brought lively creative thought and folk tastes into their works. The largest architectural structure that became the starting point in the development of Novgorod temple architecture was the construction of the Church of St. Nicholas on Lipna. This is a square, four-pillar, almost cubic, single-domed building. This form of church was further developed in other Novgorod churches built in the 14th century. However, in the first half of the 14th century, the search for the new still coexisted with old traditions.

In the second half of the 14th century, with the growth of the economic and political power of Novgorod, monumental construction developed widely. At this time, the classical type of Novgorod temple was taking shape, excellent examples of which are the churches of Fyodor Stratelates on Ruchee (1361) and the Church of the Transfiguration on Ilyin Street (1374). These are large buildings that stand out sharply from the surrounding wooden buildings. Architects make temples especially elegant. Famous customers - the Novgorod boyars - are primarily interested in the external effect.

The architecture of Pskov in the 14th and 15th centuries began to differ significantly from Novgorod architecture, although until the 14th century the architecture of these two cities developed in the same direction, and one could say that Pskov architecture until the 14th century belonged entirely to the Novgorod circle. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Pskov residents built defensive structures much more often than religious buildings. Stretched out in a narrow strip along the borders with Lithuania and the knightly Livonian Order, the Pskov land needed to constantly strengthen its borders.

One of the strongest stone fortresses was Izborsk, which still amazes with the stern grandeur of its walls and towers. Pskov itself expanded and strengthened. From 1393 to 1452, all wooden structures in the central part of the city - the ancient Detinets, which the Pskovites called Krom - were replaced by stone walls.

In Novgorod, as well as in Pskov, the rise of ancient Russian painting began, which led to its flourishing in the second half of the 14th and early 15th centuries.

Novgorod monumental painting of the 14th century is characterized by a number of features that speak of a number of changes in the worldview of Russian people of that time, an expansion of the range of ideas that became the property of art, and a desire to express new feelings and experiences through pictorial means. The compositions of well-known biblical and gospel scenes were constructed more freely and naturally, the images of saints became more lifelike, and with much greater determination and strength, the living aspirations and thoughts that worried the man of that era broke through the religious shell. This process was characteristic not only of Novgorod painting, but also of the art of Byzantium, the Balkans and other areas of the Eastern Christian world. Only in Rus' did it acquire special forms.

The first pictorial monument of the new style is the painting of the St. Michael's Church of the Skovorodsky Monastery (c. 1360). In the saints of the Skovorodsky Monastery there is no straightforwardness of images characteristic of 12th century painting. They do not order, but reflect, do not intimidate, but attract to themselves. A new impression is achieved by new means. The expression of the eyes acquires a softness unfamiliar to the past. Free movement, which is enhanced by the soft folds of clothing, the figures themselves acquire more slender proportions. The color becomes more vibrant.

The greatest achievement of Novgorod painting was a deeper understanding of man. The important ideological movements of the century were reflected here.

These trends manifested themselves with particular brightness in the work of Theophanes the Greek. He moved to Rus' from Byzantium. In Rus', his art took deep roots and bore fruit. Arriving in Novgorod, Feofan turned to the study of the artistic tradition already established there; he penetrated into the spirit of the frescoes of Nereditsa, Staraya Ladoga, Snetogorsk Monastery, and his own paintings in the Church of the Savior on Ilyin to a certain extent develop this tradition, although in a very new and different way. -to your own.

“A wonderful sage, a very cunning philosopher... an excellent painter among icon painters.” This is what his contemporary, the Russian church writer Epiphanius the Wise, said about Theophanes the Greek. His brush belongs to the painting of the Church of the Transfiguration on Ilyin Street. These are frescoes in the dome of Christ Pantocrator, figures of archangels with wide open wings, six-winged seraphim, and in the drum between the windows - life-size figures of the forefathers.

The faces of the saints are painted with sweeping strokes of the brush, white highlights are easily and confidently thrown over the dark red-brown tone. Folds of clothing break at sharp angles. The images are extremely laconic. Such, for example, is Macarius of Egypt, an ancient old man with long white hair and a beard, a thin nose and sunken cheeks. Highly raised eyebrows are brought to the bridge of the nose. The inner strength of Feofan’s images, their passionate intensity and enormous spiritual energy, the unique variety of individual characteristics that violate the conventions of iconography are an expression of the master’s pictorial temperament.

The influence of Theophanes the Greek was felt in many works of monumental painting. For example, in the frescoes of the Novgorod Church of Fyodor Stratilates on the Stream, painted in the 70s-80s of the 14th century. The masters who painted the frescoes of this church, in all likelihood having gone through the school of the great Greek, were able to brilliantly use the painting techniques of their teacher, and, at the same time, introduce a lot of new things into the manner of their painting. The colors give the impression of being light and transparent. The contrasts of white highlights and background are softened. The highlights become softer and are applied easily. However, there is a significant difference. It is in the nature of the images. The harsh pathos of Theophan's saints, gloomy, self-contained and lonely, gives way to softer and lyrical, or simpler and more specific images and scenes.

The end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries were a time of a new rise in national consciousness. In the literature dedicated to the Battle of Kulikovo (“Zadonshchina”), the motifs of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” come to life. The weakening of Byzantium and the establishment of Turkish rule in the Balkans coincided with the growing importance of Muscovite Rus' as the largest power in the Slavic world. Novgorod and Pskov, which resisted the unification of all Russian lands under the rule of Moscow, were forced to give in.

The heyday of culture and art in the Moscow Principality began in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. It’s amazing how, in just over a hundred years, Moscow turns from a small, poor town into a capital city, which by the end of the 15th century united scattered principalities into a single power.

An important factor that contributed to the unification of Rus' was Christianity. Even before the formation of the unified Moscow kingdom, it actually took on the role of the state religion. The church was an institution that ensured statehood.

In Russia, after being baptized by Saint Vladimir, there was one chief bishop, a metropolitan, who lived in Kyiv and was therefore called Kiev and All Rus'. He was usually chosen from among the Greeks and was initiated in Constantinople. As a Greek, a foreigner who could not speak Russian fluently, the Metropolitan could not take an active part in the affairs taking place in Rus'. With the fall of Kyiv, metropolitans began to travel north and stay there for a long time, and finally the need arose to change their main residence. The choice of the city - the seat of the metropolitan - was an important issue, since this meant the elevation of the chosen city and principality above all others. The particular importance of this issue was due to the fact that at this time the northern principalities were waging a fierce struggle over which of them would be the strongest and conquer all the other principalities, and therefore gather all Russian lands under their rule. After all, there were many princes, but there was only one metropolitan, and he was called the Metropolitan of All Rus'. In whichever city he begins to live, the clergy, and after him all the people, will begin to look at that city as the main city of all Rus', which means that the prince of this city will also be looked at as the main prince of all Rus'. And the metropolitan will help the prince in whose city he will live. Even when Moscow was a small, inconspicuous city, St. Peter the Metropolitan persuaded Ivan Kalita to build a stone Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in it. Peter said to the prince: “If you, son, listen to me, build a temple of the Most Pure Mother of God and calm me down in your city, then you yourself will become famous more than other princes, and your sons and grandsons, and this city will be glorious, the saints will live in it, and he will subjugate all the other cities." Saint Peter died in Moscow in 1326 and was buried there. And following his example, subsequent metropolitans lived in Moscow. The other princes did not like this, and they tried in every possible way to prevent this.

Having strengthened Moscow, Ivan Kalita became the Grand Duke and from then on the Moscow principality finally strengthened in front of the rest of the northern principalities. When Kalita died in 1341, not a single prince could argue with his son Simeon, who began to treat the princes not in the old way, as brothers, equal owners, but as subordinates, and therefore he was nicknamed Proud.

Simeon's grandson Ditrius, who later received the name Donskoy for his victory over the Tatars across the waters of the Don River, ascended the princely throne while still a young man. If Moscow had not been a strong principality in those years, it would hardly have retained its importance over other principalities. There were people who knew how to use this power and did not let Moscow fall under the young prince. One of these people was Metropolitan Alexy, whom Simeon the Proud bequeathed to his boyars to obey. He provided great services to Moscow during the childhood of Prince Dimitri.

During these years, the spiritual mentor of the Russian people was the holy Venerable Sergius of Radonezh. “He was born when the last old people who saw the light around the time of the Tatar defeat of the Russian land were dying out, and when it was already difficult to find people who would remember this defeat. But in all Russian nerves, the impression of horror produced by this nationwide disaster and constantly renewed by repeated local invasions of the Tatars was painfully vivid. It was one of those national disasters that bring not only material, but also moral ruin, plunging the people into deathly stupor for a long time. People helplessly gave up, their minds lost all vigor and elasticity and hopelessly surrendered to their deplorable situation, not finding or looking for any way out" ()

“One of the hallmarks of a great people is its ability to rise to its feet after falling. No matter how severe his humiliation may be, the appointed hour will strike, he will gather his confused moral forces and embody them in one great man or in several great people, who will lead him onto the straight historical path that he had temporarily abandoned. ()

The holy hermit Sergius of Radonezh became such a person. Even in his youth, at the age of 20, he went into a dense forest and began to live there alone, not seeing a human face. However, rumors about him spread everywhere and monks began to gather to him, despite the fact that he greeted everyone with the words: “Know first of all that this place is difficult, hungry and poor; prepare not for hearty food, not for drink and fun, but for toil, sorrow, and misfortune.” With his own hands he built cells, he himself carried firewood from the forest and chopped it, he carried water from a well and placed it at each cell, he prepared food for all the brethren, he sewed clothes and boots, he served everyone as a slave, not sparing his physical strength or having pride.

At the time when the future Venerable Sergius was building his first cell in a dense forest, in Ustyug, a son was born to a poor cathedral cleric, the future enlightener of the Perm land, St. Stephen.

Three great men - Metropolitan Alexy, St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. Stefan's actions marked the beginning of the political and moral revival of the Russian land. They were bound by close friendship and mutual respect. Metropolitan Alexy visited Sergius in his monastery and consulted with him, wanting to make him his successor. Driving past the Sergius Monastery of St. Stefan of Perm called out to his friend, and at a distance of more than 10 miles they exchanged fraternal bows. All these three men did one common thing - strengthening the Russian state, the creation of which the Moscow princes of the 14th century worked in their own way. This deed was the fulfillment of a covenant given by the great saint of ancient Rus', Metropolitan Peter.

With the strengthening of the Moscow principality and the beginning of the centralization of a single state, life in Rus' became calmer and, finally, a silence came, which had not been experienced in Russian soil for a long time. For the first time in a hundred years of slavery, the people could breathe easy.

Prince Dmitry, having matured, began, like his grandfather, to collect the Russian land and annex other principalities to Moscow. In 1367 he built a stone Kremlin, and until then Moscow had only wooden walls. These measures were very timely, since soon Moscow had to defend the collected Russian land from numerous powerful enemies attacking from different sides. Western Russian lands, together with Kiev, now belonged to the Lithuanian prince Gediminas. Rus' was divided into two parts: the northeastern, gathered near Moscow under the rule of ancient princes, descendants of St. Vladimir, and the southwestern, subordinate to the princes of Lithuania. The Lithuanian princes, wanting to expand their possessions, attacked the Principality of Moscow and persuaded the Tatar Khan to help them conquer Moscow.

At a time when Russia began to strengthen, uniting into one powerful state, the Tatar Horde, on the contrary, began to weaken and began to disintegrate into small possessions of individual khans. The time had come for Russia to free itself from the Tatar yoke, and Dmitry saw this and considered it possible to fight the Tatars.

After much unrest in the Horde, the khan's power was seized by Mamai, who was very angry with Grand Duke Dmitry because he, in his wars with other princes, did not pay any attention to his labels.

In 1380, Mamai, having gathered a large army, in alliance with the Lithuanian prince Jagiello, the Russian prince Oleg Ryazansky, went against Dmitry. The time has come for Rus'. Metropolitan Alexy had already died, and there was no new metropolitan yet, since there was unrest in the church. At this time, St. Sergius appeared in all the power of his charm. He was able to raise the entire people and inspire in them an unshakable faith in the rightness of the cause, and, consequently, in victory. The peaceful ascetic, alien to any violence, without hesitation blessed the prince and the army for a feat, for a just cause.

Before the performance, the Grand Duke went to the Trinity - Sergius Monastery. The holy abbot blessed Dmitry for the war and promised him victory, although not an easy one. “The Lord God is your helper. The time has not yet come for you to wear the crown of this victory with eternal sleep, but many of your co-workers are wearing martyr’s crowns with eternal memory.” He sent two monks, Alexander Peresvet (former boyar of Bryansk) and Andrei Oslyab (boyar of Lyubetsky), who had previously distinguished themselves in the world for their courage, on a campaign with the prince. They delivered Dmitry a handwritten letter from Sergius. Sergius chose these monks as assistants to the prince, so that with their courage, as those who had completely given themselves to God, they would serve as an example to his army.

When Dmitry approached the Don, his commanders hesitated whether to cross the Don or not. “...Some said: “Go, prince, for the Don,” and others: “Don’t go, because there are many enemies, not only the Tatars, but also Lithuania and Ryazan.” Dmitry listened to the first; He also obeyed the letter of Saint Sergius, who wrote to him: “Certainly, sir, go, God and the Holy Mother of God will help you.” On September 8, in the morning, the Russians crossed the Don and lined up at the mouth of the Nepryavda River. Soon the Tatars appeared; The Russians moved towards them and met them on the wide Kulikovo field. A battle began that had never happened before: they say that blood flowed like water, horses could not step on the corpses, the warriors were suffocating from the crowded conditions” (ev)

The great elder's predictions came true. The Russian army achieved victory with heavy losses, but its significance was great.

The art of that era - the period of the exaltation of Moscow and the Battle of Kulikovo reflected the contemporary mood and heroic pathos. In the Moscow Principality, the flowering of culture and art began in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The everyday icon “Archangel Michael” most vividly reflected the heroic mood of the people. It represents the Archangel Michael - the leader of the heavenly army, the conqueror of Satan. He was considered in Rus' an assistant in battles and a patron of Russian princes. Spreading his wings wide, turning energetically to the left, the archangel grabbed the sword from its sheath and raised it threateningly up; a bright scarlet cloak falls from the shoulders in heavy folds. The stamps located around the main image reveal the theme of the feat.

Several excellent icons have survived from the end of the 14th century, such as “The Descent into Hell”, “The Annunciation”, “Holidays”. Different in color and manner of execution, they are at the same time permeated with a special emotional tension, embodied in the increased dynamics of poses, gestures, and folds.

From 1395, Theophanes the Greek also worked in Moscow. The icon “Our Lady of the Don” is associated with his name. The head of the Mother of God receives special expressiveness thanks to the strongly accentuated contour of the long slender neck, which, turning into the outline of the cheek and temple, forms a long line. The movement of the head is rhythmically reflected in the sharply broken, as if agitated, outlines of the golden border of the maforium. Not only is the traditional iconographic scheme unique, but also the coloring: the usual dark cherry maforia color in the icons of the Mother of God is enlivened near the face with a bright cornflower blue bandage stripe. This contrast makes the painting of the faces of Mary and the baby, filled with energetic strokes of red, blue, green, and white, especially sonorous. Just as in Feofan’s frescoes, highlights are used not so much to correctly sculpt the shape of the face, but to give greater expression to the features. On the reverse side of this icon is an image of the Dormition of the Mother of God. And here, in general terms, the traditional iconographic scheme is preserved, but at the same time the compositional accents are changed so much that the scene receives an unusual, dramatic interpretation. The dark figure of the Mother of God seems small, as if shrunk, in contrast to the wide light bed and the huge ocher-golden figure of Christ growing behind it. The motif of a candle burning alone by the bed takes on the character of a kind of poetic metaphor, reinforcing the theme of death. The sharp movements of the apostles, their gloomy faces, and the bright and at the same time mournful coloring enhance the intense sound of the icon.

In the summer of 1405, Theophanes the Greek, together with two Russian masters - Prokhor from Gorodets and Andrei Rublev, painted the Moscow Annunciation Cathedral. The old temple was rebuilt in subsequent years and only the iconostasis remained from the cathedral. This is the oldest surviving ancient Russian iconostasis. The appearance of the high iconostasis should apparently be attributed to the end of the 14th century. Byzantine art, to which Rus' owes most of the systems of fresco paintings and iconographic translations of individual subjects, does not know the developed form of the iconostasis, and therefore its creation is considered an achievement of Russian art.

Since the 15th century, the iconostasis has become an obligatory part of the interior decoration of every temple. It is a whole system of icons placed in several rows, forming a high wall separating the altar from the rest of the temple. In the center of the iconostasis were the royal doors leading to the altar. The icons were arranged in strict order. Following the lower tier, where the local temple icon of the saint or holiday to which the temple is dedicated was placed, there was a main row, called the Deesis tier. In the center of it is depicted Christ sitting on a throne. On either side of him stand, with their heads bowed and their hands stretched out in prayer, Mary and John the Baptist. This is the original core of the iconostasis. The Archangel Michael follows the Mother of God, and the Archangel Gabriel follows the Forerunner. Then, respectively, the apostles Peter and Paul, and others. Above this main tier follows a series of smaller icons - “Feasts”, which depict gospel events, starting with the Annunciation and ending with the Dormition of Mary. Even higher was a row of icons depicting prophets. A row of icons depicting the forefathers was later placed above them.

In semantic and pictorial terms, the iconostasis is a single, logically constructed composition and figurative expression of the main tenets of faith. All the figures of the iconostasis appear as majestic and impressive silhouettes against a light or golden background.

The composition of the iconostasis was based on the idea of hierarchy, supremacy and subordination. Since the tenth century, established canons have been established, now and then violated in the work of individual artists.

Color was of great importance in ancient Russian icon painting. Like the whole of it with its subjects and forms, color had several meanings in it.

First of all - figurative, literal. Color allowed artists to convey to the viewer what was depicted in the icons, and thereby raise their pictorial value. Color is an additional characteristic of things by which people, animals, trees, mountains and buildings can be recognized. In this respect, the icon does not differ from the painting of modern times. However, in icon painting, unlike painting, the task was not to reliably and accurately convey the color of objects or the colorful impression of them.

It is enough for an icon painter that an object can be recognized by color. According to the dark cherry cloak - the Mother of God, according to the light crimson - of the Apostle Paul, according to the ocher - of the Apostle Peter, according to the bright red cloak - of the martyrs George or Dmitry, according to the fiery red background - Elijah the Prophet, who ascended alive into the heavenly ether, and according to the same red color - eternal fire in hell, in which Satan reigns over condemned sinners.

Color is, to a certain extent, the most striking external sign of individual objects in the real or imaginary world. This is an identification mark of images. From the patterned brocade fabrics in the Novgorod icon “Boris, Gleb and their father Vladimir” we recognize Novgorod noble merchants.

However, icon painters did not always adhere to this meaning of color. They couldn't help but back away from him. Icons contain colors that reproduce what exists in the world. But there are also those that do not exist anywhere and that make objects unrecognizable, although beautiful. Snow-white church buildings are similar to Novgorod churches, which can still be seen on the banks of the Volkhov. Multi-colored, multi-colored, colorful buildings - such things have never existed anywhere. This is an outlandish fairy-tale color, these are the colors of the invisible city of Kitezh. And a wide variety of objects can have such an outlandish color: these are the multi-colored classic

cloaks and tunics, purple slides, blue and pink horses. Among this fairy-tale world, there is nothing strange in the bright scarlet cherubs, in the red light of a candle, in the bright blue reflections that on Mount Tabor fall from the snow-white vestments of Christ onto the clothes of the apostles. In the world of icons, everything is possible. This world pleases with a feeling of freedom.

One of the highest tasks of Russian icon painting was the creation of a colorful symphony of pure, unadulterated and unclouded colors. The purity and brightness of colors in icon painting was understood as an expression of liberation from darkness, from colorlessness, from hopelessness, as a high goal to which every pious soul strived.

The ideas that captivated progressive Russian people during the years of liberation from the Mongol-Tatar yoke and overcoming feudal fragmentation and the creation of a single all-Russian state found their most complete expression in the work of the brilliant Russian artist Andrei Rublev. His life is known only in the most general terms. He was a monk of the Moscow Andronnikov Monastery, closely associated with the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. He may not have witnessed the Battle of Kulikovo, but he certainly knew those who took part in it. The years of Rublev's creative formation were filled with the joy of the first victory over the Tatars and the prospects for the future final liberation of Rus'. This largely determined the nature of his work.

Collaborating with Theophan the Greek in painting the Annunciation Cathedral, Rublev could not help but experience the influence of the remarkable master. The authoritative, stern, emotionally rich pictorial language of Feofan, the unusualness of his bold images, which violated traditional iconographic schemes, could not but make a deep impression on Rublev. However, from the very beginning he emerges as a bright and independent creative individual.

Rublev's early works include miniatures depicting the symbols of the evangelists in the so-called Khitrovo Gospel. One of the best miniatures depicts an angel with wide-open wings (the symbol of the Evangelist Matthew). In his hands is a large book. The slender figure of an angel is inscribed in a golden circle. The soft combination of a blue chiton with a lilac cloak and a golden background testifies to the artist’s outstanding coloristic talent.

In 1408, Andrei Rublev, Daniil Cherny and their assistants painted the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. Of all this painting, the main thing that has reached us is the frescoes located on the vaults, pillars and arches.

Remaining within the traditional iconographic scheme, Rublev and his assistants deprived the painting of medieval asceticism. The artist brings something new to the techniques of constructing an image. Light, light strokes discreetly and delicately model the shape. But the main artistic device becomes a strongly accentuated line, expressing movement, flexible and generalized, imparting a special rhythm to the figures.

A huge role is played by the movements of the arms and wings, turning the head, tilting, and the soft contours of the oval face and hairstyle.

The brushes of Rublev, Daniil Cherny and their followers are also attributed to the Iconostasis of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir.

The works of Rublev himself, executed, obviously, shortly after the frescoes of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, created before the Trinity icon, include three surviving icons of the half-length Deesis rank from the Assumption Cathedral on Gorodok in Zvenigorod.

“Trinity” by Andrei Rublev is the most famous work of Russian icon painting. In this creation of Rublev, in its purest form, all the versatility of ancient Russian art was revealed: philosophical depth, religious basis, symbolic nature of images, perfection and ambiguity of pictorial form, composition, rhythm and color.

Rublev's "Trinity" was the fruit of genuine and happy inspiration. At first glance, she captivates with her incomparable charm. But inspiration dawned on the master only after he had gone through the path of persistent quest; Apparently, he tested his heart for a long time and exercised his eye before taking up his brush and pouring out his feelings...

An ancient legend tells how three young men appeared to the ancient elder Abraham and he and his wife treated them under the shade of a Mamvrian oak tree, secretly guessing that the three faces of the “Trinity” were embodied in them. This legend was based on the belief that the deity is unattainable to the consciousness of a mortal and becomes accessible to him only by acquiring human traits. This conviction guided artists to create images woven from life impressions and expressing their ideas about the sublime and beautiful.

For Rublev, the icon becomes the subject of philosophical and artistic contemplation. At the other pole of Russian culture of that time, an icon was just an object of cult, endowed with magical powers. Two worlds, two ideas, two aesthetics. We must not forget this antagonism in order to understand the enormous importance of the master, underestimated by his contemporaries.

Rublev’s “Trinity” presents the same slender, beautiful young men, “who can be found in all its prototypes, but the very circumstances of their appearance are passed over in silence; we remember them only “because we cannot forget the legends. But this understatement gives the images a multifaceted meaning that goes far beyond the boundaries of myth. What are three winged youths doing? Are they eating food and one of them reaches out for a bowl? Or are they having a conversation - one speaks commandingly, the other listens, the third bows his head obediently? Or are they all simply lost in thought, carried away into the world of dreams, as if listening to the sounds of unearthly music? The figures show both this and that, and the third, in the icon there is both action and action? conversation, and a thoughtful state, and yet its content cannot be expressed in a few words. What does this bowl on the table of the sacrificial animal mean? Is it not a hint that one of the travelers is ready to sacrifice himself? Isn’t that why the table looks like an altar? ? And the staves in the hands of winged creatures are not a sign of the wandering to which one of them doomed himself on earth?

The Mongol-Tatar invasion stopped the development of crafts. Such types of applied art as cloisonne enamel, niello, granulation, stone carving, and glassmaking disappeared for a long time. Many masters were taken captive. At this time, cultural ties with Byzantium and other countries died out.

As in architecture and painting, the decorative and applied arts of Novgorod and Pskov, which escaped the Tatar devastation, developed, demonstrating the people's democratic principle much more widely. Instead of the abstract speculative-symbolic, the living spontaneity of feeling and at the same time materiality came into play in artistic representation. The Vladimir-Suzdal system of sculpture, which was mainly cosmogonic, has lost its significance. Now large themes of the human world were developed in sculpture.

Although the church still did not allow the use of round sculpture, the idea of statuary was gaining increasing popularity. It turned out to be one of the main plastic ideas of art in the 14th and 15th centuries. First, crucifixes appeared with a very large, high-relief figure of Christ, and then statuary works. The figure of Nikola Mozhaisky, carved from wood, is an almost round sculpture. The statue was located above the city gates of Mozhaisk, the saint was considered its guardian. Nikola is depicted with a raised sword in one hand and a model of the city in the other. The image expresses the strength and greatness of the people's intercessor. Later it became popular in art.

From the middle of the 14th century, with the beginning of a new rise in national culture, artistic craft came to life. The skills of forging, filigree, and embossing are rapidly developing, decorating both massive products and items made on special orders: icon frames, book bindings, chalices and panagias.

Of great interest is the silver setting of the Gospel, created in 1392 by order of the boyar Fyodor Andreevich Koshka. Surrounded by the finest openwork of flexible curls of filigree ornament, massive figures of saints are placed in keeled arches against a background of blue enamel. In the center of the composition is Christ sitting on the throne, in the corners of the frame are the evangelists.

It is not only this gospel that is framed this way. This design became characteristic of all Gospels until the 16th century.

Objects of decorative and applied art were more connected with church life. The richly decorated frames of icons and gospels showed all the perfection of Russian jewelry technology of that time.

Moscow of the 14th – 15th centuries was one of the largest cities inhabited by artisans of various specialties. Golden crosses, chains, icons are often mentioned in princely charters. The names of remarkable jewelers of this time are known - Paramon (Paramshi) and Ivan Fomin. Among the outstanding works of the 15th century is a jasper chalice he created in a gold filigree frame with the inscription: “And Ivan Fomin made it.” The shapes, proportions of the chalice, the harmony of the rounded smooth line of the silhouette, the rhythmic clarity of the divisions bear the stamp of the high culture of Rublev’s era.

At this time, facial embroidery (fine) and small plastic arts rose to a high artistic level. The main center for the creation of these works were monasteries and workshops at the grand ducal court. Face sewing was most often done using satin stitch and multi-colored silks. Gold and silver were introduced little before the 16th century, and only as a color that enriched bright and pure colors.

The Russian embroiderer mastered such perfect line and color, had such a subtle sense of material that she created works that were not inferior to paintings. Using a variety of techniques, depending on the smooth or rough surface of the fabric, a subtle coloristic effect was achieved. The shape seemed to be molded with stitches of threads, forming an exquisite, airy web of pattern.

For Rus', sewing was one of the most primordial types of artistic creativity. It is known from chronicles that a school of sewing and weaving was established in Kyiv back in the 11th century. The centuries-old Russian sewing traditions were so strong that the lush decorative Byzantine fabrics did not have any influence on the art of Russian embroiderers. They were not captivated by either the techniques or the color scheme of foreign designs. Byzantine compositions were creatively reworked. The design for sewing was most often made by a “flag-maker” or an experienced embroiderer. Shrouds, veils, shrouds, and “airs” repeated the iconographic images.

Russian sewing reached artistic perfection in the works of the Moscow school. The famous shroud of Princess Mary, the widow of Simeon the Proud, has in the center an image of a salvation not made by hands, flanked by the Mother of God, John the Baptist, archangels and Moscow saints.

An outstanding monument of early Moscow sewing is a cover with the image of Sergius of Radonezh (early 15th century). Sergius is depicted at full length in a dark purple monastic robe. He holds the scroll and blesses with his other hand. There is so much in the face that is strict and kind, strong and beautiful, and, at the same time, alive and individual, that there is an assumption that the image is a portrait.

Folk views and artistic ideals of the Rublev era were reflected not only in sewing, but also in small plastic arts.

Works of both sculpture and jewelry were created from wood, bone, and metal. The development of the plastic qualities of carved bone was closely related to the skill of wood and stone carving. An outstanding phenomenon in ancient Russian art is the work of the remarkable Russian master Ambrose, who worked in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and ran a workshop here.

The language of plastic art in Ambrose’s works is so rich and imaginative that it can only be understood in the light of the general achievements of the artistic culture of that time.

In the 80s of the 15th century, the formation of the Russian centralized state was basically completed, the last remnants of dependence on the Mongol-Tatar khans disappeared. Moscow became the capital of the mighty Russian state, a symbol of its strength and greatness.

Used literature:

1. History of Russian art, edited by Rakov.

2. M. Alpatov. Colors of Old Russian painting.

3. Old Russian art.

(A Brief History of Art M, “Art”, 1986)

4. The formation of Russia in the mirror of political culture

V. Trushkov, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor

5.History of the Russian Church. ()

6. ev. Public readings about Russian history

7. Banner of St. Sergius of Radonezh (collection of articles)