And the historical and ecclesiastical aspects of holiness. The lives of the saints can be studied from the historical-theological, historical, socio-cultural and literary points of view. From the historical and theological point of view, the lives of the saints are studied as a source for the reconstruction of theological views of the era of the creation of the life, its author and editors, their ideas about holiness, salvation, deification, etc. in church history as well as civil history. In the socio-cultural aspect of living, it is possible to reconstruct the nature of spirituality, the social parameters of religious life, and the religious and cultural perceptions of society. Lives, finally, constitute almost the most extensive part of Christian literature, with their own patterns of development, evolution of structural and content parameters, etc., and in this regard are the subject of literary and philological consideration.

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Structure

The study of the lives of the saints serves as the basis for all other types of research. Lives are written according to certain literary canons characteristic of various Christian traditions. For example, in such a hagiographic genre as "praise to the saint", which combines the characteristics of living and preaching, a fairly clear compositional structure (introduction, main part and epilogue) and a thematic scheme of the main part (the origin of the saint, birth and upbringing, deeds and miracles , righteous death, comparison with other ascetics).

Numerous standard motives are characteristic of hagiographic literature: for example, the birth of a saint from pious parents, indifference to children's games, etc. Similar motives stand out in hagiographic works of different types and different eras. So, in the acts of martyrs, starting with the most ancient examples of this genre, the prayer of the martyr before his death is usually cited and tells about the vision of Christ or the Kingdom of Heaven that opens up to the ascetic during his suffering. These standard motives are due not only to the orientation of some works towards others, but also to the Christocentricity of the very phenomenon of martyrdom: the martyr repeats the victory of Christ over death, testifies of Christ and enters the Kingdom of Heaven. This theological outline of martyrdom is naturally reflected in the structural characteristics of acts of martyrdom.

Style

The life of the saint is not so much a description of his life (biography) as a description of his path to salvation. Therefore, the set of standard motives reflects, first of all, not the literary methods of constructing a biography, but the dynamics of salvation, the path to the Kingdom of Heaven, which was paved by these saints. Living abstracts this scheme of salvation, and therefore the very description of life is made generalized and typical. The very way of describing the path to salvation can be different, and it is precisely in the choice of this method that the Eastern and Western hagiographic traditions differ most of all. Western Lives are usually written in a dynamic perspective, the author, as it were, traces from his position, from earthly life, along which road the saint passed from this earthly life to the Kingdom of Heaven. For the eastern tradition, a reverse perspective is more characteristic, the perspective of a saint who has already reached the Heavenly Kingdom and from the highest looking his way to it. This perspective contributes to the development of a flowery, decorated style of life, in which rhetorical saturation is designed to correspond to the incomprehensible height of the gaze from the Kingdom of Heaven (such are, for example, the lives of Simeon Metaphrast, and in the Russian tradition - Pachomius Serb and Epiphanius the Wise). At the same time, the features of the Western and Eastern hagiographic traditions are obviously correlated with the characteristic features of the Western and Eastern iconography of saints: the plot of Western iconography, revealing the path of the saints to God, is contrasted with the static nature of Byzantine iconography, depicting, first of all, the saint in his glorified, heavenly state. Thus, the nature of hagiographic literature is directly correlated with the entire system of religious beliefs, differences in religious and mystical experience, etc. Hagiography as a discipline studies this entire complex of religious, cultural and literary phenomena proper.

And the historical and ecclesiastical aspects of holiness. The lives of the saints can be studied from the historical-theological, historical, socio-cultural and literary points of view. From the historical and theological point of view, the lives of the saints are studied as a source for the reconstruction of theological views of the era of the creation of the life, its author and editors, their ideas about holiness, salvation, deification, etc. in church history as well as civil history. In the socio-cultural aspect of living, it is possible to reconstruct the nature of spirituality, the social parameters of religious life, and the religious and cultural ideas of society. Lives, finally, constitute almost the most extensive part of Christian literature, with their own patterns of development, evolution of structural and content parameters, etc., and in this regard are the subject of literary and philological consideration.

Structure

The study of the lives of the saints serves as the basis for all other types of research. Lives are written according to certain literary canons characteristic of various Christian traditions. For example, in such a hagiographic genre as "praise to the saint", which combines the characteristics of living and preaching, a fairly clear compositional structure (introduction, main part and epilogue) and a thematic scheme of the main part (the origin of the saint, birth and upbringing, deeds and miracles , righteous death, comparison with other ascetics).

Numerous standard motives are characteristic of hagiographic literature: for example, the birth of a saint from pious parents, indifference to children's games, etc. Similar motives stand out in hagiographic works of different types and different eras. So, in the acts of martyrs, starting with the most ancient examples of this genre, the prayer of the martyr before his death is usually cited and tells about the vision of Christ or the Kingdom of Heaven that opens up to the ascetic during his suffering. These standard motives are due not only to the orientation of some works towards others, but also to the Christocentricity of the very phenomenon of martyrdom: the martyr repeats the victory of Christ over death, testifies of Christ and enters the Kingdom of Heaven. This theological outline of martyrdom is naturally reflected in the structural characteristics of acts of martyrdom.

Style

The life of the saint is not so much a description of his life (biography) as a description of his path to salvation. Therefore, the set of standard motives reflects, first of all, not the literary methods of constructing a biography, but the dynamics of salvation, the path to the Kingdom of Heaven, which was paved by these saints. Life abstracts this scheme of salvation, and therefore the very description of life is made generalized and typical. The very way of describing the path to salvation can be different, and it is in the choice of this method that the Eastern and Western hagiographic traditions differ most of all. Western Lives are usually written in a dynamic perspective, the author, as it were, traces from his position, from earthly life, along which road the saint passed from this earthly life to the Kingdom of Heaven. For the eastern tradition, a reverse perspective is more characteristic, the perspective of a saint who has already reached the Heavenly Kingdom and from the highest looking his way to it. This perspective contributes to the development of a flowery, decorated style of life, in which rhetorical richness is designed to correspond to the incomprehensible height of the gaze from the Kingdom of Heaven (such are, for example, the lives of Simeon Metaphrast, and in the Russian tradition - Pachomius Serb and Epiphanius the Wise). At the same time, the features of the western and eastern hagiographic traditions are obviously correlated with the characteristic features of the western and eastern iconography of saints: the plot of Western iconography, which reveals the path of the saints to God, is contrasted with the static nature of Byzantine iconography, depicting, first of all, the saint in his glorified, heavenly state. Thus, the nature of hagiographic literature is directly correlated with the entire system of religious beliefs, differences in religious and mystical experience, etc. Hagiography as a discipline studies this entire complex of religious, cultural and literary phenomena proper.

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Literature

• A.P. Rudakov Essays on Byzantine culture according to Greek hagiography / A. P. Rudakov; Preface G. L. Kurbatova, G. E. Lebedeva; Aftersl. G. E. Lebedeva. - SPb. : Aletheia, 1997 .-- 304 p. - (Byzantine library. Research). - 2500 copies. - ISBN 5-89329-021-6.(in lane)
• Shastina T.P. Lecture 3. Literature of Kievan Rus. Topic 2. The main types of hagiographic works // / Reviewers: M. N. Darwin, G. P. Kozubovskaya. - Gorno-Altaysk: RIO "Univer-Print", 2003. - 6 p. - 100 copies.
• The Lives of the Saints, in Russian, set out according to the leadership of the Chetykh-Minea of ​​St. Dmitry Rostovsky, Prince. 1-12. M., 1991-1994.

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Excerpt characterizing hagiography

Starting from Smolensk, in all cities and villages of the Russian land, without the participation of Count Rostopchin and his posters, the same thing happened that happened in Moscow. The people carelessly waited for the enemy, did not rebel, did not worry, did not tear anyone to pieces, but calmly waited for their fate, feeling the strength in themselves in the most difficult moment to find what had to be done. And as soon as the enemy approached, the richest elements of the population left, leaving their property; the poorest stayed and burned and consumed what was left.
The consciousness that this will be so, and always will be so, lay and lies in the soul of the Russian person. And this consciousness and, moreover, the presentiment that Moscow would be taken, lay in the Russian Moscow society of the 12th year. Those who began to leave Moscow in July and early August showed that they were expecting this. Those who went out with what they could seize, leaving houses and half of their property, acted in this way due to that latent patriotism, which is expressed not in phrases, not in killing children to save the fatherland, etc., by unnatural actions, but in imperceptibly, simply, organically and therefore always produces the strongest results.
“I am ashamed to run from danger; only cowards flee from Moscow, ”they were told. Rostopchin inspired them in his posters that it was shameful to leave Moscow. They were ashamed to receive the name of cowards, they were ashamed to go, but they still went, knowing that it was necessary. Why did they go? It cannot be assumed that Rostopchin frightened them with the horrors that Napoleon produced in the conquered lands. They left, and the first to leave were rich, educated people who knew very well that Vienna and Berlin remained intact and that there, during their occupation by Napoleon, the inhabitants had fun with the charming French, whom Russian men and especially ladies were so fond of at that time.
They went because for the Russian people there could be no question: will it be good or bad under the control of the French in Moscow. It was impossible to be under the control of the French: it was the worst of all. They left both before the Battle of Borodino, and even faster after the Battle of Borodino, despite appeals to protection, despite the statements of the commander-in-chief of Moscow about his intention to raise Iverskaya and go to fight, and on balloons that were supposed to destroy the French, and despite all that nonsense that Rostopchin wrote about in his posters. They knew that the army must fight, and that if it cannot, then with the young ladies and courtyard people it is impossible to go to the Three Mountains to fight Napoleon, and that it is necessary to leave, no matter how sorry it is to leave your property for destruction. They left and did not think about the majestic significance of this huge, rich capital, abandoned by the inhabitants and, obviously, burned down (the large abandoned wooden city had to be burned down); they left, each for himself, and at the same time only because they left, and that majestic event took place, which will forever remain the best glory of the Russian people. That lady who, back in June, with her blacks and crackers, was rising from Moscow to the Saratov village, with a vague awareness that she was not a servant to Bonaparte, and with fear that she would not be stopped by the order of Count Rostopchin, did that great simply and truly the cause that saved Russia. Count Rostopchin, who then shamed those who were leaving, then took out public places, then gave out useless weapons to drunken rabble, then raised images, then forbade Augustine to take out relics and icons, then seized all the private carts that were in Moscow, then to he took away one hundred and thirty-six carts with a balloon made by Leppich, then hinted that he would burn Moscow, then he told how he burned down his house and wrote a proclamation to the French, where he solemnly reproached them for having ruined his orphanage; then he accepted the glory of the burning of Moscow, then he renounced it, then he ordered the people to catch all the spies and bring them to him, then he reproached the people for this, then he expelled all the French from Moscow, then he left in the city Mrs. Aubert Chalme, who was the center of the entire French Moscow population , and without any special guilt, ordered to seize and take to exile the old venerable post office director Klyucharyov; then he gathered people to the Three Mountains in order to fight the French, then, in order to get rid of this people, he gave them a man to kill and he himself left for the back gate; either he said that he would not survive the misfortunes of Moscow, then he wrote poetry in French about his participation in this business in albums - this person did not understand the meaning of the event, but only wanted to do something himself, surprise someone, do something patriotically heroic and, like a boy, he frolicked over the majestic and inevitable event of the abandonment and burning of Moscow and tried with his small hand to either encourage or delay the flow of the enormous stream of the people that carried him along with it.

Helen, returning with the court from Vilna to St. Petersburg, was in a difficult situation.
In St. Petersburg, Helen enjoyed the special patronage of a nobleman who held one of the highest positions in the state. In Vilna, she became close to a young foreign prince. When she returned to Petersburg, the prince and the nobleman were both in Petersburg, both declared their rights, and a new task in her career presented itself to Helene: to maintain her close relationship with both, without offending either one.
What would have seemed difficult and even impossible for another woman never once made Countess Bezukhova ponder, not without reason, apparently, who enjoyed the reputation of being the smartest woman. If she began to hide her actions, to extricate herself by cunning from an awkward situation, she would thereby spoil her business, recognizing herself as guilty; but Helene, on the contrary, immediately, as a truly great person who can do whatever she wants, put herself in a position of righteousness, in which she sincerely believed, and all others in a position of guilt.

In Russia, hagiography, accompanied by liturgical books, penetrates into the South Slavic (Bulgarian and Serbian) translations from Byzantium together with the adoption of Christianity in the 10th century. The first collections of Lives were the so-called mesyaslovy (Ostromirov, Asemanov XI century, Arkhangelsk XI-XII centuries) and Mena Chetya (from the Greek menaion - month), that is, books for reading "by months." The Menaion of the Chetya (or Chetya-Menaion) contained a huge corpus of the lives of the saints and the teaching "words" of the Fathers of the Church, arranged by months and days of the liturgical year from September to August and covering almost most of the reading circle of Ancient Rus. The monthly words contained short lives in the order of an annual circle according to the days of the memory of the saints. Monthly words coincided in type and composition with the Greek Synaxarii, which in Russia received the names Prologues (translated Synaxarii began with the introduction - "Prologue", the name of which was transferred to the entire book). Chetya-menaea were read at home, in a cell, at a monastery meal. Brief Lives from the Prologues - for the Matins service on the 6th canon.

Already in the XI century. the first original lives of Russian saints appear: Reading about St. Boris and Gleb and the life of Theodosius of the Caves, compiled by Nestor the chronicler, as well as the Legend of Boris and Gleb by an unknown author. It is noteworthy that it was princes Boris and Gleb who became the first Russian saints to be canonized by the church. The attention of their hagiographers is focused on solving the problem of freedom and necessity from a Christian standpoint. Placed in conditions under which they can resist the torture, Boris and Gleb deliberately do not do this and surrender themselves to the torturers. Their death was not a death for the faith - the princes killed by Svyatopolk the "Cursed" fell victim to feudal princely strife. Thus, from the first days of its existence, the Russian Church has been revealing a new order of holiness, unknown to the rest of the Christian world - passion-suffering. The special and nationwide veneration of passion-bearers suggests that the Russian Church does not distinguish between death for Christ (martyrdom) and sacrificial slaughter in following Christ, non-resistance to death (passion-tolerance). One of the most recent canonizations also passed by the rank of martyrs - the canonization at the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000 to the canon of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family.

In the XII-XIII centuries. hagiography is actively developing in the North-East of Russia: the lives of Leonty, Isaiah and Avraamy Rostovsky, Ignatius, Peter, Nikita the Stylite Pereyaslavsky, Varlaam Khutynsky, Mikhail Tversky, Alexander Nevsky. These Lives were written for liturgical use and therefore bear the character of a "memory" of the saint, sustained in an artless, dry and concise style. The very type of holiness, which attracts the attention of northeastern hagiographers, is marked by moderate, "peaceful" and "quiet" exploits. It focuses on the "middle" path of asceticism of the ancient monks of Palestine. Byzantine and southern Russian, Kiev, life gravitates towards the dramatic holiness of the hermits of Syria and Egypt with their severe asceticism and intense spiritual abuse. This type of "rigid" holiness is reflected in the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon of the 13th century.

The patericon genre (from the Greek paterikon - edematous) generally occupies a special place in hagiographic writing. In addition to the hagiographic material, the sayings of the holy ascetic fathers are included in the patericon collections. The hagiographic material itself is interpreted here somewhat differently than in ordinary hagiographies. If ordinary lives strive to show the exemplary life path of the ascetic, to provide a standard of imitation for Christian readers, then patericus legends, or so-called pateric stories, focus on the strange, unusual, purely individual in the life and actions of a saint and therefore not always suitable for imitation ( demonic temptations, "oddities" and "eccentricities" of the saints, etc.).

The heyday of Russian hagiography falls on the 15th century. At the same time, the character of Russian hagiographic literature also changed. The factual, documentary material fades into the background, and the main attention is paid to its processing. Skillful literary techniques begin to appear in the Lives, and a whole system of strict rules develops. Through the so-called "second South Slavic influence", hagiographers of Serbian and Bulgarian origin, the Byzantine style of "weaving words" penetrates into Russia. The strengthening of this style is facilitated by the ascetic-theological movement of hesychasts, the most prominent representative of which was the outstanding Byzantine saint Gregory Palamas (IV). The scribes of the hesychast tradition proceeded from the fact that the word is inextricably linked with the person or object that it denotes. And therefore, to name a phenomenon means, as far as possible, to cognize it, to touch its eternal, and in the case of hagiography, the Divine essence. Hence the rhetorical "irrepressibility" of the "weaving of words" in hagiography, the desire to pick up a number of vivid synonyms, comparisons, solemn phrases in order to get closer to understanding the mystery of the hero of life. The former brief "memory" of the saint is transformed into an extensive laudatory church-historical word. The personality of the hagiographer, who was hiding before, now appears more or less clearly. Quite often a short biography of the author is given in the life. The place of compilation of the life is no longer only cities, but also monasteries far from cultural centers. And therefore, in the lives of this time there is a lot of everyday material that is valuable from a historical point of view. The most famous scribes of the era were Pachomius Logofet, who left 10 lives, 6 legends, 18 canons and 4 words of praise to the saints, and Epiphanius the Wise - the author of the lives of Stephen of Perm and the most famous Russian saint, founder of the Holy Trinity Lavra, St. Sergius of Radonezh.

For a long time, hagiography existed as an anonymous literature. If the author nevertheless declared himself, then he was supposed to emphasize all his "folly", pointing out in the introduction that he was too insignificant to describe the life of a person marked by God. On the one hand, the look of the hagiographer on his hero is the look of an ordinary person on an extraordinary personality. On the other hand, a bookish person, knowledgeable in the works of predecessors, possessing a literary gift and capable of interpreting Divine Providence by analogy, mainly from Holy Scripture, could undertake the compilation of the Life. Nevertheless, medieval hagiography does not know the principle of unconditional reverence for the creative individuality of the scribe and his "author's will". Lives were copied many times, and in the process of correspondence they could be seriously corrected, edited, enriched with new inserts, since the most valuable thing in the life is not the "hand of the scribe", but the face of the saint himself. Therefore, the lives of ancient and medieval saints are variable, they often exist in dozens and even hundreds of different editions, which differ significantly from each other. This greatly complicates the work of critical hagiography in the preparation of scientific editions of the lives, especially since most of them have come down to us only in later and heavily modified copies. Critical hagiography is faced with the task of either restoring a hypothetical primary edition, or bringing all the texts together and publishing them in a common corpus. Therefore, so far scientific publications have received no more than a quarter of the Old Russian lives. The rest are mostly scattered in the lists of dozens of state and monastic meetings.

Like iconography and ecclesiastical art in general, hagiography is subject to a canon, a set of rules strictly defined and enshrined in tradition that determines the samples of the genre. The canon prescribes certain verbal and compositional stencils in describing the life of a saint, a clear genre etiquette.

The etiquette canon of the life consists of a preface and a short afterword by the hagiographer, framing the main narrative, which includes several obligatory milestones:

• 1. praising the homeland and / or parents of the saint;
• 2. a miraculous foreshadowing of his birth, the manifestation of holiness at an early age, the rejection of self-indulgence and mischievous children's games;
• 3. temptations;
• 4. a decisive turn towards the path of spiritual salvation;
• 5. death and posthumous miracles.

The predestination of the canon could lead to the fact that the scribe sometimes compiled the life of the Russian saint according to the model of the life of the Greek saint of the same name. However, in such a regulation of the structure of life, one should not see stereotyped or "constraint on the author's individuality." In medieval literature, originality and freedom are not thought of outside the stencil, strictly limited formal framework, since the very appearance of the saint is certainly drawn in a generalized way. Just as iconography deforms the appearance of the depicted person in order to reveal his spiritual essence, hagiography refuses everyday specifics, and sometimes even "historical reliability" in favor of a canonical stencil.

In the XVII century. with the process of gradual secularization, the "secularization" of Russian culture, the crisis of canonical hagiography begins to manifest itself. Among the Old Believers, there are previously unthinkable autoagiographic works (compiled by the "hagiographic hero" The Life of Archpriest Avvakum).

Following the Greek tradition, in Russian hagiography and hagiology, in addition to martyrs, passion-bearers and blessed ones, a number of other orders of holiness were also established: saints - monks; saints - bishops; Equal to the Apostles - monarchs and princes who baptized their peoples (Prince Vladimir) or prepared for their baptism (Princess Olga); hieromartyrs - martyrs who were in the priestly or episcopal rank; non-silver people - saints who were especially famous for their disinterestedness (first of all, Roman doctors of the 3rd century, Cosma and Damian, who were especially venerated in Russia); the righteous are saints from among the laity and the "white", non-monastic clergy, who have not accepted martyrdom; the faithful are pious princes and monarchs, intercessors for their people before God and defenders of the faith.

In ancient Russia, the concepts of "bookish" enlightenment and Christian orthodoxy were not accidentally identified: Christianity is a religion of highly developed writing. From the very beginning of its existence, the Christian church, fulfilling the testament of the Apostle Paul "Remember your teachers who preached the word of God to you" (Heb. 13: 7), carefully collects and records information about the life of its ascetics. This is how hagiography arises (Greek agios - saint, grapho - I write) - literature about the life and deeds of saints. Christians were revered as saints, especially pleasing to God by works of piety and ardent prayer, who were awarded special God's grace. After death, they become part of that Divine Providence, which, according to the medieval man, determines the fate of history.

“Holy men” pray before God for their fellow believers, and those, on their part, should give prayerful homage to them. Their lives were compiled so that, as Nestor writes in his "Life of Theodosius of the Caves", "the scripture is more acceptable and reverently and, thus, seeing the husband's valor, praise God, and his worshiper glorifying for other feats to be strengthened" (taking the scripture and reading it, everyone could learn about the valor of their husband and praise God, glorifying his saint, and strengthen their souls for exploits).

The ascetic-heroic life of the saint is portrayed in the Lives as a school of spiritual being, which points everyone on the way to the attainment of the Kingdom of God and warns of difficulties along the way. The heroes of the lives embody the highest moral ideal, their deeds appear as a manifesto of a highly moral life position. The idealization of hagiographic heroes was intended to affirm the inner power, greatness and beauty of Christian teaching. Poeticization of spiritual feat, the triumph of the spirit over sinful flesh, moral maximalism in confronting evil determines the general ideological and aesthetic direction of hagiographic literature. The life, exploits and teachings of the lights of faith, captured in hagiographic monuments, are included in the richest treasury of world Christian culture.

The Russian Church has brought up in its depths many holy ascetics, who, through the labors of piety and ardent prayer, have acquired the glory of the heavenly patrons and defenders of their native land. The first East Slavic Lives appear soon after the official reckoning of the Orthodox holy princes-martyrs Boris and Gleb (canonized in 1072) and the Monk Theodosius of the Caves (canonized in 1108) to the host of Orthodox saints.

The first East Slavic lives took shape in close dependence on the most ancient examples of Byzantine hagiography. By that time, the Eastern European hagiographic literature already had a centuries-old tradition, developed its own clear genre forms and poetical and stylistic means. Old Russian scribes found in the early Byzantine lives the highest examples of spiritual and religious heroism, an already formed ideal of holiness.

The prototype in relation to all images of holiness in hagiography is the image of Christ. The heroes of the Lives perform their exploits "in the name of Christ", and most importantly - "like Christ." They strive to shape their lives according to a sacred pattern in an instant empathy with the passions of the Master of Galilee. Such, in the words of M. Bakhtin, "a significant life in God" allows them to overcome their earthly nature, to move to the rank of "earthly angels": their holiness denotes a special zone between the heavenly world, full of goodness, purity, moral perfection, and the earthly world, associated with the concept of sinfulness, inferiority, injustice. The fact that even during their lifetime the saints were “citizens” of the heavenly spheres shows their miracles, their ability to overcome the material laws of being. They bind the two worlds even after death; posthumous miracles are the most important proof of the ascetic's holiness, the most weighty argument for canonization.

The power of holiness, manifested in the miracles of the heroes of the lives, was called upon to evoke awe, to inspire fear, but not fear-fear, but reverent fear, “the fear of God,” that is, the feeling of insignificance before the immensely great, powerful, good. Most often, miracles were a manifestation of unearthly mercy: pure-hearted devotees of love save those who have stumbled, heal the sick, help the suffering. The miraculous and the real were described in the Lives with the same degree of reliability.

By its very essence, hagiography is ecclesiastical literature, fulfilling the role of the bearer of Church Tradition. The compilation, rewriting and re-reading of the Lives was an integral part of church life, liturgical and ascetic practice. The ecclesiastical purpose of the Lives led to the formation of a canonical, standard scheme, which all hagiographers had to adhere to. It has a three-part structure and consists of the following elements. The rhetorical introduction from the author brings the reader to the very subject of the story, contains a derogatory self-characterization of the originator of the life, his confession of his ignorance, literary helplessness and a prayer request to God to "enlighten". The conventionally “sinful” and “insane” hagiographer humiliated himself in order to elevate his hero and avoid being accused of pride. The main part began with the words about the parents, who, as a rule, were “pious Christ-lovers,” followed by a story about the birth of a baby and his dedication to God. The story about the childhood of the hero emphasized his difference from his peers, piety, diligence in his studies. Further, the life path of the saint marked by the heroism of spiritual asceticism was depicted. Just as the medieval icon painter, emphasizing the greatness of the saint, painted him above the trees and hills, the hagiographer described the life of his hero from the position of a certain distance and, following the attitude towards his idealization, omitted everyday details, details of private life. All attention in the lives was focused on the "solemn" moments of the hero's life, the essential, important that should have surrounded him with an aura of holiness. The chain of episodes from the saint's life could be linked not only chronologically, but also thematically. The constant comparison of the hagiographic hero with biblical characters, the accompaniment of the story of his deeds with analogies from the Holy Scriptures makes us consider his life under the sign of Eternity as a preparation for eternal bliss. The pleasing of God always knows about the time of his death and manages to give the last instruction to his disciples and followers. The acceptance of death by the saints is the last apotheosis of his earthly life, the threshold of eternal life. After the description of his solemn, stately departure from life, usually marked by miraculous phenomena in nature, followed by "crying", a mention of the acquisition of incorruptible relics and a description of the posthumous miracles associated with them.

Life is a story about the life of a saint, but this story is not equal to a simple biography. It does not give an image, but a model; it describes not just human life, but a holy life. In contrast to the biographical story, where the connection of the hero with the environment and the growth of character are important, in the Lives a personality was formed from the very birth, having already a completely “ready” essence. The hagiographic canon demanded "the dissolution of the human face in the heavenly glorified face", the embodiment in the hero of the totality of ideal qualities that were to be manifested in ideal deeds. The hagiographer strove to give an extremely generalized idea of ​​the hero, detached from the transitory and accidental circumstances of earthly life. The compiler of the lives ascended from the particular to the general, from the external to the internal, from the temporal to the eternal, looked in the biographical material that was not fascinating, interesting, uniquely individual, but above all the proper, sacred and, if he did not find it, then without hesitation, included it in the composition of his narrative, fragments from other texts, "forced" his hero to behave as this category of literary heroes should behave. This was neither plagiarism nor deception and did not come from a poverty of imagination: the hagiographer was sure that the saint could not behave otherwise.

The main means of comprehending the connection and meaning of the Earth and Heaven, the world of visible and invisible, served in hagiographic literature a symbolic image. Signs and symbols permeate the narrative fabric of every life.

The etiquette of the Russian medieval worldview prescribed to depict the world according to certain principles and rules, demanded to express ideas about what should be, befitting, not inventing a new one, but combining the old according to a strictly defined "rank". Therefore, the hagiographer did not seek to captivate the reader with the unexpectedness of the content or amaze with the freshness of the forms of expression, on the contrary, he tried to reduce the originality of the biographical material to a common denominator. "Common place", "wandering" narrative cliché (healing, food multiplication, prediction of the outcome of battles, temptation by a harlot, etc.), repeated types of hero behavior and stereotyped verbal formulas are an organic element of living as a genre. The regulation of the plot-compositional model of the "righteous life", the stereotyped images and situations, the standard set of speech turns are actually called the hagiographic canon.

One should not think, however, that the compilation of the Lives was reduced to the mechanical selection of templates and stencils. It was a creative act, but of a special kind. Hagiography is more the art of combining "ours" and "others" than the art of individual creative initiative and the measure of the hagiographer's skill, the criterion of artistry was careful observance of the hagiographic canon, the ability to follow tradition.

The repetition of episodes, the stereotypical nature of verbal formulas contributed to the creation of a special moral atmosphere for readers and listeners of the Lives, a special kind of Christian-Orthodox world outlook. For centuries, the canons of figurative and expressive means and plot motives that have been formed were also artistically capacious and effective, could with the greatest brightness and obviousness manifest the eternal and unchanging properties and powers of the human soul. Poetising the truly worthy in life, showing examples of selflessness, self-denial of blessings in the name of the highest truth and, conversely, condemning the vicious, denouncing the villainous, hagiographic literature has always caused the reader to think, an evaluative reaction, allowing him to develop his attitude to reality, to assimilate the best human qualities. morality. It is no coincidence that in Russia lives were the most read literary genre, were considered the most authoritative source of human wisdom.

Kievan Rus was extremely interested in the canonization and glorification of its national saints, since, having adopted Christianity from Byzantium, it was forced to defend its spiritual, ideological and legal independence. Byzantium strove in every possible way to hinder the movement of provincial churches towards independence and was jealous of the creation of local cults, since it was believed that this was fraught with a deviation from the dogmatic foundations of the Christian doctrine. Canonization practice was limited by strict rules and strictly centralized: officially, a saint could be venerated only after the consent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The patriarchs, like the Greek metropolitans of Kiev, in every possible way restrained the religious nationalism of the newly baptized people. The very fact of the canonization of Boris and Gleb, and a little later of Theodosius of the Caves, testified to the recognition by Byzantium of the military and political might of the Russian state, the high vocation of the Russian Church.

The national originality of ancient Russian hagiographic literature is largely determined by a much greater connection with living reality than was allowed by the established hagiographic canon.

In contrast to the Byzantine samples, ancient Russian hagiography, especially of the early period, gravitated both in content and stylistic design to the genre of the chronicle story. Plot situations in early Russian lives are saturated with national-historical and everyday realities associated with the Christianization of Rus, monastery construction, princely strife, and the development of new lands. Conflicts in them were often of a "secular" nature, determined not so much by the struggle with the infidels, as by the arbitrariness and greed of the princes, negative phenomena in everyday life.

The heroes of ancient Russian lives were often portrayed not only as ascetics, but also as people with completely worldly virtues, for example, zealous economy, diplomatic and military talents. In the depiction of their images, there were many real details, living features.

Framing faceless "common places" with concrete and real, named exact dates, historical names, references to the words of eyewitnesses brought the narrative closer to a specific biography, and the early discovered interest of ancient Russian hagiographers to the oldest work of Russian hagiography that has come down to us is the anonymous "The Tale of Boris and Glebe ".

The story of the martyrdom of princes Boris and Gleb, killed by their brother Svyatopolk Vladimirovich, is included in the "Tale of Bygone Years" under the year 1015. On its basis, at the end of the 11th century, the anonymous "Legend and Passion and Praise to the Holy Martyr Boris and Gleb" was created. The action in it, in comparison with the chronicle story, is more dramatized, the general panegyric and lyrical tonality is significantly enhanced. The oldest list of the monument has come down to us as part of the Assumption collection of the late XII - early XIII centuries.

Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich had twelve sons from different wives. The third in seniority was Svyatopolk. Svyatopolk's mother, a nun, was cut and married by Yaropolk, Vladimir's brother. Vladimir killed Yaropolk and took possession of his wife when she was pregnant. He adopted Svyatopolk, but did not love him. And Boris and Gleb were the sons of Vladimir and his Bulgarian wife. Vladimir planted his children in different lands to reign: Svyatopolk - in Pinsk, Boris - in Rostov, Gleb - in Murom.

When the days of Vladimir approached the end, the Pechenegs moved to Russia. The prince sent Boris against them. He set out on a campaign, but did not meet the enemy. When Boris returned back, the messenger told him about the death of his father and that Svyatopolk tried to hide his death. Listening to this story, Boris burst into tears. He realized that Svyatopolk wanted to seize power and kill him, but decided not to resist. Indeed, Svyatopolk insidiously took possession of the Kiev throne. But, despite the persuasion of the squad, Boris did not want to drive his brother out of the reign.

Meanwhile, Svyatopolk bribed the people of Kiev and wrote an affectionate letter to Boris. But his words were false. In fact, he wanted to kill all of his father's heirs. And he began by ordering the squad, which consisted of Vyshgorod husbands, headed by Putynya, to kill Boris.

Boris, on the other hand, spread his camp on the Alta River. In the evening he prayed in his tent, thinking about impending death. When he woke up, he told the priest to serve Matins. The assassins sent by Svyatopolk approached Boris's tent and heard the words of holy prayers. And Boris, hearing the ominous whisper near the tent, realized that they were murderers. The priest and servant of Boris, seeing the grief of their master, grieved for him.

Suddenly Boris saw the killers with naked weapons in their hands. The villains rushed to the prince and pierced him with spears. And Boris's servant covered his master with his body. This servant was a Hungarian by the name of George. The assassins struck him too. Wounded by them, George jumped out of the tent. The villains wanted to inflict new blows on the prince, who was still alive. But Boris began to ask that he be allowed to pray to God. After the prayer, the prince turned to his murderers with words of forgiveness and said: "Brothers, having come, finish your command." So Boris died on the 24th day of July. Many of his servants were also killed, including George. His head was cut off to remove the hryvnia from his neck.

Boris was wrapped in a tent and taken on a cart. When we were driving through the forest, the holy prince raised his head. And two Varangians pierced him again with a sword in the heart. Boris's body was laid in Vyshgorod and buried near the Church of St. Basil.

After that Svyatopolk conceived a new atrocity. He sent Gleb a letter in which he wrote that his father, Vladimir, was seriously ill and was calling Gleb.

The young prince went to Kiev. When he reached the Volga, he slightly injured his leg. He stopped not far from Smolensk, on the Smyadyn River, in a boat. The news of the death of Vladimir, meanwhile, reached Yaroslav (another of the twelve sons of Vladimir Svyatoslavich), who then reigned in Novgorod. Yaroslav sent Gleb a warning not to go to Kiev: his father died, and his brother Boris was killed. And when Gleb wept for his father and brother, the evil servants of Svyatopolk suddenly appeared in front of him, sent by him to kill.

Saint Prince Gleb was then sailing in a boat along the Smyadyn River. The murderers were in another boat, they began to row to the prince, and Gleb thought that they wanted to greet him. But the villains began to jump into Gleb's boat with drawn swords in their hands. The prince began to beg that they did not ruin his young life. But the servants of Svyatopolk were relentless. Then Gleb began to pray to God about his father, brothers and even about his killer, Svyatopolk. After that, the cook Glebov, Torchin, stabbed his master. And Gleb ascended to heaven, and met there with his beloved brother. It happened on September 5th.

The murderers returned to Svyatopolk and told him about the command they had fulfilled. The evil prince was delighted.

Gleb's body was thrown in a deserted place between two decks. Merchants, hunters, shepherds passing by this place saw a pillar of fire, burning candles, heard angelic singing. But no one thought to look for the body of the saint there.

And Yaroslav moved with his army to the fratricide of Svyatopolk in order to avenge his brothers. Yaroslav was accompanied by victories. Arriving at the Alta River, he stood at the place where Saint Boris was killed, and prayed to God for the final victory over the villain.

The slaughter on Alta lasted all day. By evening, Yaroslav defeated, and Svyatopolk fled. Madness overtook him. Svyatopolk was so weak that they carried him on a stretcher. He ordered to run even when the chase stopped. So they carried him on a stretcher across the Polish land. In a desolate place between the Czech Republic and Poland, he died. His grave has survived, and a terrible stench emanates from it.

Since then, strife has ceased in the Russian land. Yaroslav became the Grand Duke. He found Gleb's body and buried him in Vyshgorod, next to his brother. Gleb's body turned out to be incorrupt.

Many miracles began to emanate from the relics of the holy martyrs Boris and Gleb: the blind saw their sight, the lame walked, the hunchbacked straightened. And in those places where the brothers were killed, churches were created in their name.

Researchers of this monument have every reason to assert that the Legend is subordinated to the task of strengthening the feudal world order, glorifying feudal loyalty, "the cult of Boris and Gleb ... asserted the obligation to" conquer "the younger princes by the elders." However, such a traditional allocation of the political idea of ​​tribal seniority as the basis of the ideological content of the Tale narrows the ideological and spiritual-moral meaning of the feat of the passion-bearers, reduces its meaning to a political lesson. The feat of Boris and Gleb first of all affirmed common Christian ideals and only then, as a result, the ideas of state building of that time, political ideals. Boris and Gleb are not at all involuntary victims of political intrigue, but "free" victims. In their voluntary acceptance of the martyr's crown, they were guided by the Gospel commandments about humility, about the vanity of this world, about love for the Lord ("endure everything for love's sake"), but by no means exclusively by the political principle of obedience to the elder in the family. And the very idea of ​​tribal seniority did not at all require unconditional obedience to the senior prince if he committed crimes. In this case, resistance to him was morally justified, which is shown in the "Tale" on the example of Yaroslav. His vengeance is unambiguously interpreted as a righteous action. The fact that Boris renounces illegal claims to power is the act of an ideal prince, but not yet the asceticism of a saint. His feat in another - in the decision not to resist Svyatopolk, but, being like Christ, voluntarily go to death. Boris in his prayer speaks precisely about this: “Lord Jesus Christ! Like this image appear on earth, willingly to be nailed to the crust and accept the passion of sin for our sake, grant me to accept passion "(Lord Jesus Christ! our sins, grant me so to accept suffering). Boris suggests about the impending threat to his life from his brother: "Nt, mmyu, learn about the vanity of the worldly and think about my beating" (But he, I feel, who cares about the worldly vanity, is plotting my murder), but God orders to listen to the elders and Boris decides to be obedient to Svyatopolk. His reflections on what to do, how to behave are reflections of a deeply religious person: comparing values ​​that are transient and eternal, he comes to the conclusion that “the glory and reign of this world ... in this world ... everything is transitory and fragile, like a spider's web).

Like Christ, Boris and Gleb asserted by their martyrdom the absolute moral ideal in an environment that excluded the triumph of ideal moral principles in human behavior. But the fact that the Christian commandments of brotherly love, humility, obedience, embodied in the behavior of the brothers, laid the moral and political foundations of the state unity of Kievan Rus (recognition of the unconditional authority of seniority for the great Kiev prince) makes their religious feat at the same time a feat of social and political content. The disclosure of the religious essence of the feat of the martyrs is organically intertwined with the interpretation of its political meaning in the posthumous praise of them. The author asks the saints for representation before God for the Russian land, expressing the most vital aspirations of his era, namely the desire for a peaceful life, the end of fratricide: God for us. In the same way, we resort to vama, and with tears falling down, pray, so that the leg of the guard and the hand of sinners do not destroy us, and no harm can be found on us; And the chyuzha will make all the war, and all the sins and attacks will intercede with us, who hope in vama "(You have been given grace, pray for us, after all, God set you before himself as intercessors and intercessors for us. Therefore, we resort to you, and falling down with tears, we pray may we not find ourselves under the heel of the enemy, and the hand of the wicked may not destroy us, and save us from the enemy's sword and internecine strife, and protect us from any trouble and attack, who trust in you). Paradoxically, the meek, who did not raise their weapons to protect even their lives, Saints Boris and Gleb become formidable defenders of the entire Russian land from military misfortunes: “You have taken our weapons from the land of Russia, and the approval, and the sword is sharp for both, and we put down the ferocity of the trash ... "(You are our weapon, Russian lands are protection and support, two-edged swords, with them we overthrow the insolence of the filthy ...).

In full accordance with the hagiographic canon, the content structure of the "Tale" is determined by the confrontation of two, polarly divorced in the moral sense, worlds. The world of light and good, which is personified in the images of Boris and Gleb, is opposed by the world of darkness and evil - Svyatopolk and the executors of his will. Svyatopolk appears as the standard of the hagiographic villain. His mother was a "chrnitsa, a Greek woman" (a nun, a Greek woman) when Yaropolk Svyatoslavich took her as his wife, seduced by her beauty. Vladimir, having killed his brother, received her "no longer idle existence" (pregnant). Svyatopolk, thus, "was from the dear father and brother" (the son of two father-brothers). This genealogical excursion at the beginning of the "Tale" not only explains the godless behavior of the murderer, but also frees Vladimir from responsibility for the sinful inclinations of his stepson. The fate of Svyatopolk is a foregone conclusion, he is "doomed" to commit atrocities even before his birth, for "from sinful roots of evil there is fruit." The prince knows about the curse that gravitates over him, that he will not be with the righteous in the next world ("I will not write with the righteous"), and therefore does not hesitate to shed the blood of the brothers: " (I added a new plague to the disease, I will add lawlessness to the lawlessness).

The "Legend" is deeply lyrical: the depiction of the actions of the heroes, their reflections is inseparably connected with the depiction of the "oscillogram" of the life of their heart - from its "crushing" to "ascension". The heroes of The Tale are constantly in an extremely agitated state. Everyone does not just go to his goal, but passionately wants to achieve it: Svyatopolk is “burning to kill”, Boris is seeking “all the suffering for love,” Yaroslav is seeking revenge, “not for this evil of murder”. Increased emotionality leads the heroes to mistakes: the joy of the meeting prevents Gleb from recognizing the murderers, fear penetrates so deeply into the heart of Svyatopolk that he sees the persecutors where they are not. Emotionality of Boris is so great that at the same time he experiences directly opposite feelings: "crying, crumble with my heart, but emit joy in my soul." Such an attention of the author to the “life of the heart” of his heroes is not accidental: a distinctive feature of Russian Orthodoxy was from the beginning the rootedness of the Christian doctrine more in the heart than in the mind.

The saints in the "Tale" do not resemble the martyrs for the faith of the early Christian era, who have always been portrayed as proudly defying the forces of evil and strong in spirit in their last moments. The anonymous author is not afraid to show the living human weaknesses of his heroes, making their feat closer and more understandable to the reader.

In the Lives, it was a common place to celebrate the bodily beauty of the saints, especially the young, early perished, martyrs. ("The martyr's body ... we are beautiful," declares John Chrysostom in his "Lay of All Saints".) The beauty of Boris and Gleb is noted throughout the "Legend". Boris, for example, before his death "thinking about the beauty ... of your body", those around him regret, including for the fact that "the beauty of your body is fading." After death, the body of the saint not only remained incorruptible, it miraculously "bright and red and whole and welfare of property." The author describes in detail and solemnly this clear evidence of the heavenly glory of his hero. At the same time, the description of Boris's appearance in the concluding part of The Tale does not correspond to the traditional appearance of a Christian martyr with the inherent features of asceticism, exalted spirituality, and deep inner faith. His appearance rather resembles a good fellow from a folk lyric song: "The body is red, tall, the face is round, the shoulders are great, the face is in the loins, the goodness is good, the face is cheerful ... the body is strong ...".

The Legend style is characterized by an abundance of excerpts from the Psalter, Paremiynik, frequent double and triple comparison of heroes with biblical characters, a heap of synonymous expressions reflecting either the expressive state of the heroes (“with sad tears and often we sigh and groan a lot of these things”), or a moral assessment ("The damned cursed Svyatopolk are the witnesses of all evil and the beginning of all untruths").

Introduction

hagiography ancient Russian literature

Hagiography (from the Greek [Greek] bgypt “saint” and [Greek] gsbtsch “I write”), a scientific discipline that studies the lives of saints, theological and historical-church aspects of holiness. Hagiographic monuments can be studied from theological, historical, socio-cultural and literary points of view. From the historical and theological point of view, the lives of the saints are studied as a source for the reconstruction of theological views of the era of the creation of the life, its author and editors, their ideas about holiness, salvation, "deification", etc. Historically, the Lives, with appropriate criticism, act as a first-class source for the history of the Church, as well as for civil history. The philological study of the Lives presupposes the study of their poetics. At the same time, it is important to note that consideration of life in this aspect cannot be complete without historical and theological commentaries.

Hagiographic (hagiographic) literature has been insufficiently studied for a long time, therefore there are still no scientific publications of many texts, in modern medieval studies there are practically no generalizing works on the study of hagiography as such, therefore there are some problems in the research methodology.

In this work, a multilevel approach to the study of hagiographic monuments seems to be relevant. Lives will be considered in theological, historical and literary aspects.

Hagiography in the system of genres of ancient Russian literature

Before considering hagiography as a separate genre, we should focus on identifying the features of the process of genre formation in ancient Russian literature as a whole. Since the genres of Old Russian literature, in contrast to the literature of modern times, are not equal in rights, but constitute a hierarchical peculiar system, they act in interaction and support the existence of each other. As noted by D.S. Likhachev, “The literary genres of Ancient Rus have very significant differences from the genres of modern times: their existence, to a greater extent than in modern times, is due to their application in practical life. They arise not only as varieties of literary creativity, but also as certain phenomena of the Old Russian way of life, everyday life, was in the broadest sense of the word. "

Thus, in the literature of Ancient Russia, a "genre system" can be traced, in which genres differ from modern literature, firstly, by their practical purpose, and secondly, by their functional significance. Thus, lives, teachings, sermons were used in church life, chronicles - in diplomatic relations, walks served the practical purposes of pilgrimage, etc.

It should be noted that the genre specificity of Old Russian literature is determined largely on the basis of the peculiarities of the world outlook of Old Russian medieval society, by its nature it is more conservative, since it is focused on the canons approved at church councils. Within this system, genres were arranged in a certain hierarchical sequence: Holy Scripture, the creations of the church fathers, lives, which in an interim form referred to liturgical literature, and in the menaean to the cheat. In connection with this specificity of the lives, special attention should be paid to the study of hagiographic monuments.

Hagiography is one of the most important genres in the system of medieval Christian literature, containing a narrative about the life and deeds of people recognized by the church as saints. According to the Brief Dictionary of Hagiographic Terms, life should be recognized not so much as a biography of a saint, but as a description of "his path to salvation, such as his holiness." In the literary encyclopedia, life is considered “one of the main epic genres of church literature, which flourished in the Middle Ages. The object of the image of the life is a feat of faith performed by a historical person or a group of persons (martyrs of the faith, church or statesmen). Most often, the whole life of the saint becomes the feat of faith, sometimes only that part of it is described in the life, which constitutes the feat of faith, or the object of the image is only one deed. "

Since all Lives are based on a Christian context, it seems to us that a multilevel approach to their study is relevant. In this work, the Lives will be considered in theological, historical, literary aspects.