At first glance this work is a vita of a locally revered saint. Take the typical hagiographical heading, for example: In the Month of January on the Second Day Is the Dormition of Saint Juliana the Wonder-Worker of Murom. The tale makes use of many stereotypes of the hagiographical genre. […]

New Russian literature uses two forms of literary speech— prose and verse. The same forms are also characteristic of folklore, where prosaic and poetic genres have developed since time immemorial. In oral popular poetry the text is, as a rule, closely connected with a melody. The performer sings, rather than […]

The verse section of The Epistle of One Nobleman to Another (1608-1609) is written in rayeshnik verse. The author of the Epistle, a landowner by the name of Ivan Funikov, was in Tula, which had been captured by Ivan Bolotnikov, when it was besieged by Vasily Shuisky. Food supplies ran […]

Whereas Funikov made use of the verbal art of the skomorokhs, the traditions of the wandering minstrels, showmen and jesters, a contemporary of his, the poet Evstraty, who was a supporter of Vasily Shuisky, borrowed from the poetic culture of Western Europe in his prayer in verse of 1621. This […]

Already during the time of Patriarch Philaret, in late 1622 or early 1623, Khvorostinin was persecuted for “vacillating in faith” (he forbade his servants to go to church, saying that “praying is useless and won’t raise the dead”). They confiscated Khvorostinin’s manuscripts containing “all manner of reproaches against various people […]

Until recently it was thought that the versification of the first half of the seventeenth century was a random collection of a few disconnected and immature attempts at writing verse. An analysis of manuscript material has shown, however, that by the late 1620s and early 1630s a poetic school had […]

In the first half of the seventeenth century the “geography” of Russian literature expanded somewhat, as the remote borderlands of the state, Siberia and the Don, in particular, joined in the literary movement. The beginning of Siberian literature is connected with the founding of the Tobolsk archbishopric in 1621. Before […]

The Synodical did not only contain the “names of the slain,” i.e., it was more than a simple list of names. Cyprian included the Synodical in the Feast of Orthodoxy ritual according to which praises were sung in Lent for people revered by the Church and heretics and sinful people […]

In 1637, one year after the completion of The Esipov Chronicle, another work about the Cossacks was written in a different borderland region of Russia, the Don. It was the first of the Azov cycle of tales, which consists of an “historical”, a “poetic” and a “folk” tales. The events […]

The “poetic” tale was aimed at winning Moscow public opinion for the Cossacks and influencing the National Assembly. Through the mouths of the Turks it uttered truths most unpalatable for the Moscow authorities: “And to you, rebels, we declare that you will receive no help or support from the Tsardom […]