. In the works of Epiphanius the Most Wise the expressive-emotional style reached its height. In the third exponent of this style in hagiography, Pachomius the Logothete, it acquired an official nature. The vitae written by Pachomius became models for all subsequent official hagio­graphies. We cannot deny Pachomius’ literary ability. […]

The Eulogy of the Life and Death of Grand Prince Dmitry, Son of Ivan. Stylistically The Eulogy of the Life and Death of Grand Prince Dmitry, Son of Ivan, and Tsar of Russia belongs to hagiographical works of the expressive-emotional style. It is a eulogy to Dmitry Donskoy. At the […]

The mid-fifteenth-century specimen of Tver literature, The Eulogy to Prince Boris of Tver written by the monk Thomas, is a striking example of the expressive-emotional style. In its lofty rhetoric and certain literary devices it resembles The Eulogy of the Life of Grand Prince Dmitry. But Thomas departs even further […]

Historical Legends.  In terms of genre the historical legends that were widespread in the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth century stand somewhere between the vita and the tale. Dealing with a single person and in a single text, they were read and intended as vitae. An example is […]

1             For more detail see: Лихачев Д. С. “Возрождение в средневековье”. Русская литература, No. 4, 1973, pp. 114-118. 2              Лихачев Д. С. Развитие русской литературы X-XVII веков. Эпохи и стили, р. 91. For more detail about the Russian Pre-Renaissance see the above-mentioned work by Dmitry Likhachev and his study Поэтика […]