143 144 145

p The desintegration of Rurik’s empire into a spate of independent feudal states was part of the historically conditioned process of the development of the productive forces of feudal society. The division of the medieval Kievan state was connected with the growth of certain of its areas, the development of local productive forces, and the formation of new political, economic and cultural centres. In the final analysis this was conditioned by a new stage in the feudal mode of production: the appearance of farming, new agricultural crops and the growth of large feudal estates. The entire territory of the Old Russian state was divided, into parts, each of which gravitated to separate centres: the Rostov-Suzdal, Murom-Ryazan, Smolensk, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Galich, Volhynia, Polotsk, Turov-Pinsk principalities. Other centres included the feudal city-states of Novgorod and Pskov.

p With the development of local economic and political centres the power of the great Princes of Kiev declined and Kiev became far less of a centre for the entire Russian land.

p In this period culture and literature take on local features. Based on the literature of the preceding period each 146 feudal principality developed its own literature. These local tendencies in literary development cultivated by the feudal ruling classes were opposed by the people who expressed an interest in a united Russian state.

p “The warring, separate principalities,” notes N.G. Chernyshevsky, “left no traces in the people’s memory because they were never rooted in their hearts: the people merely submitted to familial decrees of the princes."  [146•1 

The growth of a common Russian principle of unity, born by the struggle against the Mongol-Tatar yoke, acted as a substantial counterbalance to the feudal disintegration of culture. National awareness was forged in the struggle against the invaders and the Great Russian people developed certain characteristics expressed in the literature of this period.

Daniel the Exile’s Supplication

p One of the finest literary works of Northeastern Rus in the early thirteenth century is Daniel the Exile’s Supplication which is extant in two redactions preserved in copies from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first redaction is addressed to Yaroslav Vladimirovich who ruled Novgorod from 1182 to 1199. Here the Supplication is abstract and aimed primarily against “evil women”.

p The second redaction is addressed to Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, Prince of Pereyaslavl from 1213 to 1236. It abounds in concrete social polemics against the boyars and the monks. This redaction was composed on the eve of the Mongol-Tatar invasion which is evident in the prayer: “Oh Lord, spare our land from being captured by the pagan who knows not God.” This redaction gives a fuller conception of the author’s social views.

p An extended scholarly polemic still surrounds the question of how one redaction of the Supplication relates to the other. The archaic language of the first 147 redaction corresponds to our notions of Old Russian works at the close of the twelfth century; this has led scholars like S. P. Obnorsky  [147•1  and B. A. Romanov  [147•2  to conclude that it is older. On the other hand the social polemics of the second redaction and its vivid reflection of the author’s persona could speak for the seniority of this version and its closeness to the protograph. Such considerations have been expressed with much justification by N. K. Gudzy  [147•3  and V. M. Gusov.  [147•4 

p One feature characteristic of Daniel’s Supplication is his effort to establish new criteria for the evaluation of a man’s social position. Literature of the previous period judged men according to their rank in the feudal hierarchical ladder; the Supplication speaks out against this tradition. For the first time in Old Russian literature the author affirms man’s right to be respected on the basis of personal merits. For Daniel the Exile the primary merit is a man’s wisdom and the Supplication begins with a rhetorical tribute to the human mind:

p “Let us sound forth, as from a gold-forged trumpet, in the reason of our mind and play upon silver organs that wisdom be known, and hit the tambourines of our minds, singing in inspired pipes, that salutary thoughts might cry within us.”

p Daniel protests against defining a man in terms of his social standing or his membership in a given section of the population:

p “A rich man is known everywhere, even in a strange city, but a poor man is unknown even in his own city.”

p “Look not upon my exterior, but attend to my inner self. For I am poorly clothed, but rich in wisdom; I am young in years, but old in wisdom, and have soared 148 on the wings of thought like an eagle in the sky.”

p Thus Daniel considers that a man should be measured by personal, inner qualities, most importantly, intelligence. The Supplication contrasts wisdom to valour in battle, in an attempt to show the superiority of the first. Daniel himself confesses that he is “not particularly brave in battle, but strong in the art of words”. On the examples of King Solomon and Daniel the prophet he shows that “one wiseman is better than ten brave men who can’t think”.

p Daniel advises the prince to surround himself with wise counsellors and to judge them by their personal merits rather than by their wealth. Incompetent advisors only bring a prince to grief and regiments perish due to their inefficiency.

p At the close of his supplication Daniel resorts to the traditional topos of self-denigration: “Perhaps, my prince, you will say that I have lied like a dog. But both princes and noblemen love a good dog.” Daniel reserves his most stinging criticisms for arrogant boyars who are unable to value a man and spend their time humiliating him. It appears that Daniel himself is materially dependent on the noblemen for he asks that the prince take him into his service.

p He condemns wealth for leading to pride and ruthlessness. He himself has suffered from “great want and misery and has suffered the yoke of slavery”. Now he serves a master who does not value his wit and lowers his dignity. Therefore Daniel asks the prince to free him of his dependence on a boyar and take him on as a servant: “I would rather wear bast sandals in your home than crimson boots in the court of the boyar; I would rather serve you in rags than wear purple cloth in the boyar’s home.”

p Daniel rejects another means of freeing himself— taking the tonsure of a monk. He says with indignation: “I would better end my life being myself than take the angelic habit and thus lie to God.” Here are the first elements of satire, in particular satire on monastery life in Old Russian literature. When they retire from the world monks return to worldly temptations, “like a dog to his own vomit”. They go around to the villages and 149 homes ol the powerful “like tender-hearted dogs”. Monks imariably turn up at leasts and banquets, giving themselves up to gluttony and fornication.

p Nor will Daniel agree to a second means of freeing himsell horn want: marriage to a wealthy woman. To enter the home of a rich father-in-law would be to lower oneself. “I would rather shake with fever than be forced to live with a wife whom I do not love; the fever would stop racking me, but an evil woman would keep at me till I gave up the ghost.” He quotes “worldly sayings" (folk proverbs) which warn: “A man isn’t worth his salt if he listens to his wife.” And he would rather lead an ox into his home than an ugly woman.

p The Supplication focuses on the image of an ideal prince, a wise ruler capable of establishing social justice. Only such a prince, Daniel assures us, can save him from dependence on boyars and from poverty—and poverty forces a man to resort to thievery and plunder. As Daniel sees it, a prince is the sun that warms his subjects with the rays of his favour. Only fear of a princely storm can defend Daniel’s dignity from abuse like a strong wall.

p In order to praise the prince’s virtues Daniel borrows from the Song of Songs of King Solomon. A city is strengthened by the power ol a prince as an oak is by a multitude of roots. The prince is the helmsman and head of his people. His main source of wealth is his people: “For you cannot get good men with gold, but with men you can get gold, silver and cities.” The prince adorns his subjects with his favour, as spring adorns the earth with flowers; like the sun he warms his subjects with the rays ot his grace.

p Daniel calls upon the prince to turn the cloud of his favour “to the earth and my own miserable person”. Heasks that the prince gaze upon him, not like a wolf upon a lamb, but like a mother upon her child. Only the prince, as Daniel sees it, can free him from the constraints of serving boyars and guarantee material independence.

p Although he speaks of the need of the prince to surround himself with capable, wise counsellors, Daniel does not pose the question of social equality. He is for 150 retaining “serfdom”. No matter how proud or bold the serf “he cannot avoid reproaches in the name of a serf”, just as a pot with golden rings cannot avoid blackness and scorching.

p On this basis I. U. Budovnitz  [150•1  believes that Daniel was a representative of the feudal military class—a new social stratum of the ruling class—the nobility in the capacity of civil servants striving to reach the helm of the government and crowd out the boyars.

p Scholars have not agreed on the social position of the Supplication’s author. In the text we find the following statements: “...I am your slave and the son of your slave,” he repeats asking the prince to recall that he “eats dry bread" and is clothed in tatters, “dying each winter and pierced with drops of rain like arrows”. He is poverty-stricken and works like a slave. He begs the prince to save him from his poverty “like a goat from a trap”, “like a bird from a snare”. This has led scholars to view him as a boyar’s serf who places all of his hopes on a prince—the only one able to alter his fate. This is the opinion of N. K. Gudzy.

p Still the dispute over Daniel’s social origins remains open. As we see it I. U. Budovnitz’ conclusions that the Supplication is the expression of the growing ideology of noblemen in the civil service seems most convincing. But as Belinsky rightly observes: “No matter who Daniel the Exile was we have every basis for concluding that he was a person too wise for his own good, too gifted, too well-informed and that he could not hide his superiority from others and therefore was a constant thorn in the side of mediocre men; he was a man whose heart ached and was eaten away with worry about others’ affairs; who spoke when he would better have remained silent, and was silent when it would have been wiser to speak out: in a word a person whose fellows at first praise and care for and then edge out of the scene, and after exhausting them, once again praise...."  [150•2  151 Belinsky perceptively noticed the author’s passionate defense of his personal rights, his dignity, and his right to be respected, not for his social position, but for his personal merits.

p The author is an extraordinarily well read man. Daniel says that he did not grow up in Athens and was not taught by philosophers, but like the diligent bee gathered literary nectar, accumulating “wisdom like the waters of the sea in a sack”.

p In his Supplication Daniel uses Holy Scripture, the miscellany Melissa, historical examples from The Tale of Bygone Years (on Svyatoslav Igorevich, Yaroslav the Wise’s struggle against Svyatopolk, Khan Bonyak’s victory over the Hungarians) and folk sayings. D. S. Likhachev has shown the relation between Daniel’s aphorisms and the art of medieval Russian troubadours ( skomorokhs).  [151•1  But we can hardly claim that the author was a troubadour striving to attain the prince’s favour. B. A. Rybakov sees him as a chronicler  [151•2  who is well versed in history; but Daniel does not write in the manner of the chronicles.

p Another complex question is that of the Supplication’s genre. The first redaction is called a “sermon”, the second a “lament” or “supplication”. Daniel begins by addressing his audience; later in the “supplication” he addresses the prince alone. The phrase “My Lord and Prince" serves to separate one concept from the next. Often he engages in an imaginary dialogue or polemic with the prince in order to convince him that he is right. A panegyric to the prince’s might and grace alternates with a plea to be spared poverty and dependence on boyars and a wrathful condemnation of the arrogance of the nobles and the hypocrisy of the clergy. In Daniel’s plea to the prince we hear the voice of a man who has experienced the conflict between his ideals and 152 reality. In this respect B. A. Romanov was right when he called Daniel the first misanthrope in Russian literature.

p The Supplication is a protest against social injustice. But as Daniel sees it only the prince is capable of remedying such abuses.

p Above all one is struck by the many aphorisms which inform the style of the Supplication more than any other element; they are primarily literary, but we do find a few folk proverbs:

p “Any man can say wise things about another’s sorrow, but he can’t begin to think about his own.”

p “Rust devours iron and misery—man’s mind.”

p “The feeble-minded are neither planted, ploughed, spun or woven—they grow in and of themselves.”

p Many of the proverbs rhyme which gives the work a strong rhythmic element: Komu Pereslavl, a nine goreslavl (You may take Pereslavl, but I have only woe); Komu Bogolyubovo, a nine gore lyutoe (Some may take Bogolyubovo, but I have only misery); Muzh mudr smyslennym drug, a nesmyslennym nedrug (A wise man befriends other thinking men, and shies away from the unthinking); Dobru gospodinu sluzha, dosluzhitsya svobody, a zlu gospodinu sluzha, dosluzhitsya bolshe raboty (If you serve a good master, you’ll earn your freedom, a bad master will only reward you with more work); Ne vozri na vneshnyaya moya, no vonmi vnutrennaya moya (Look not upon my face, but attend to what is within me).

p Many varied and pithy similes are used by Daniel; these too can be traced both to literary and folk sources. For example: “The eagle is king of all birds, the sturgeon king of fishes, the lion king of the beasts and you, prince, rule the people of Pereslavl;" “ Psalteries are strung by fingers, and our city by your power.”

Daniel the Exile’s vivid aphorisms and imagery guaranteed his Supplication great popularity in Old Rus. Many of his sayings were included in the miscellany Melissa and were later cited in historical and polemical texts.