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p In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries Russian hagiography underwent a rebirth and 177 development of the Kievan rhetorical-panegyric tradition, called by D.S.Likhachev “expressive-emotional”. Thisphenomenon is related to the rise in national awareness, as a consequence of the triumph over foreign enslavers, the formation of an ideology calling for a centralised state, and the consolidation of princely power in one great prince. Service to the Russian land and the need to overcome internal strife set the tone of the times. This theme was embodied in literature and in art; elevated to the foreground was the moral ideal of a man who was purposeful, steadfast, and ready to sacrifice himself for the good of people and state. The glorification and magnification of this ideal was served by the panegyrical style of the period, based on the traditions of Kievan literature and the considerable South Slavic tradition.

p Usually scholars regard this as a manifestation of the Second South Slavic influence. In the fourteenth century Serbia and Bulgaria had a cultural renaissance. Patriarch Euphemius of Tyrnovo ordered certain orthographical and linguistic reforms which, above all, affected the translation from Greek to Church Slavic. Translators were obliged to follow the Greek example in every way possible. Particular attention was paid to form, graphics and calligraphy. Patriarch Euphemius and his colleagues believed that the word was part of the essence of a phenomenon which it defines, and declared that one could not understand a thing if one did not, first of all, give it the proper name; each letter had a certain significance and if it were changed it would change the meaning of the word. Elevated Church Slavic was contrasted to colloquial speech.

p Patriarch Euphemius’ reforms were reflected in new translations of Scripture from the Greek, and likewise in hagiographical works composed -by himself and his students: solemn, rhetorical panegyrics. This style, known as the “weaving of words" (pletenie slaves) was adopted by the Russians in the late fourteenth century when South Slavic emigrees, such as Metropolitan Kiprian, Gregory Camblak and Pakhomy Logofet, arrived in the country. Furthermore Russian scribes learned the norms in Mt. Athos and Constantinople, cultural centres of the Eastern Church, where they 178 associated with both South Slavic and Greek monks.

p This widespread theory however is, at the time, subject to a re-examination.   [178•1 

p Saints’ lives became panegyrics, “solemn tributes" to Russian saints, embodying the spiritual beauty and power of their people. The structure of the vita changed: there was a small rhetorical introduction, a central biography—reduced to minimum length—and the lament for the dead saint and final tribute, which now occupied the main place in the work.

p In this sort of hagiography, authors focused on various psychological states. D. S. Likhachev has observed that the writers still ignore human psychology and character as a whole, and merely describe various feeling which seem to have a life of their own.

p Even this abstracted attention to psychology was a great step forward in the development of Old Russian literature. Heroes’ deeds began to have psychological motivation; there was an interplay of feelings. The biography of a Christian ascetic was now seen as the history of his inner development. Lengthy and elaborate monologues became an important means of expressing man’s spiritual condition and motives.

p Feelings overshadowed events. Facts from the life of the saint had, therefore, little meaning; if they were insufficient then the author simply made them up, since writers of the time preferred inductive to deductive reasoning, that is, they strove to take universal truths as the point of departure. Extensive authorial digressions on morality and theology were introduced.

p The work was composed in order to evoke a certain mood. Subjective epithets and tropes, as well as Biblical allusions, served this purpose.

The first work of this period to be written according to the above criteria was Kiprian’s Life of Metropolitan 179 Peter. It was based on a vita composed by Prokhor, Bishop of Rostov. In reworking Prokhor’s composition, Kiprian not only made stylistic adornments, he introduced new political ideas. The common fate of Metropolitan Peter, never accepted by the Tver prince, and Kiprian’s own relations with Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich, as reflected in the work; Kiprian, of course, put precedence on the power of the metropolitan.

Discourse on the Life and
Passing of Dmitry Ivanovich

p Kiprian’s work is in sharp contrast with the Life and Passing of Great Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, Tsar of Rus evidently composed soon after the prince’s death (May 19, 1389).  [179•1  It is a solemn speech glorifying the Great Prince of Muscovy and conquerer of the MongolTatars; not only is he seen as a saint with all Christian virtues, but as an ideal ruler. This had great political significance.

p The vita consists of three parts: the prince’s biography, Evdokia’s lament and a eulogy.

p Dmitry’s biography is presented in a religious light; only the most important facts are mentioned—his marriage at the age of sixteen to Evdokia, the building of the stone walls of the Kremlin, the battle with the Tatars on the river Vozha, and the Battle of Kulikovo. There is no mention of Dmitry’s relations with Metropolitan Kiprian; nor is Metropolitan Aleksy, the regent at the beginning of Dmitry’s reign, spoken of; even St. Sergius of Radonezh is left out. Evidently the author generalised all the facts so as to stress the primacy of the secular power of this “tsar of Russia”.

180

p The pious prince is contrasted with the godless, shameless Mamai. The presumptious monologues of Mamai are set in opposition to the pious prayer of Dmitry and his speech to the princes of Rus and the nobles. This speech was composed by the author, which is evident in its rhythmic construction.

p The Life and Passing conveys the unanimous support of princes and noblemen for Dmitry as “tsar” of Rus; they are ready to lay down their lives for him.

p The Battle of Kulikovo is described in very general terms by means of traditional formulas from military tales.

p It is compared with Yaroslav Vladimirovich’s battle with Svyatopolk, and, as in the chronicle tale, the infamous Mamai is called a “second Svyatopolk”. Our author emphasises the role of heavenly forces in Dmitry’s victory: the intercessor for the Russian land Mitropolitan Peter, SS Boris and Gleb. The results of the victory over Mongol-Tatar hordes, in the author’s estimation, is peace in the land of Rus and the consolidation of the authority of Moscow’s tsar: “...all bowed to his will, and the sectants and rebels against his reign perished.” These words express the political theme of the work.

p In his hagiography of Dmitry, the author does not merely speak of the prince’s pious origins “from noble and honourable parents”, but establishes a genealogy, stressing that Dmitry is the grandson of the “convener of the land of Rus" Ivan Danilovich, “and the outgrowth of a saintly garden planted by God, the fruit and flower of Prince Vladimir, a new Constantine...”. Already at the end of the fourteenth century and in the beginning of the fifteenth century, Muscovite writers are trying to promulgate the idea that the Muscovite princes had inherited their power from Kiev.

p In addition the Life consistently maintains that Dmitry received his scepter through inheritance.

p An extended, rhetorical catalogue of Christian virtues embodied in the prince ends with this didactic address: “...those who hear this, princes and tsars, act likewise.”

181

p Much of the Life consists of lament by Princess Evdokia and a eulogy.

p Evdokia’s lament begins with a long rhetorical phrase wherein the author describes the psychological state of the widow, almost dead with grief for the untimely loss of the husband. Evdokia “wept bitterly, fiery tears slipped from her eyes, kindling her womb, and beating her chest with her fists, like a trumpet call to battle and like an organ’s sweet playing”.

p V. P. Adrianova-Peretz  [181•1  has noted that her lament goes back to oral traditions. It begins with rhetorical addresses and questions characteristic of folk laments:

p “Why did you die, my dear one, leaving me a lonely widow? Why did I not die before you? Why did the light of my eyes depart? ... My beautiful flower, why did you wither so early? ... My sun, you set early; my beautiful moon, you waned too soon; my eastern star, why did you travel westward? ...” Evdokia addresses the dead man as though he were alive, and seems to converse with him. We often find such comparisons of the departed to the sun, moon, falling stars and withering garden in folk poetry.

p But folk elements are rhetorically reworked and the lament, on the whole, takes on the air of a luxuriant, solemn panegyric, whose purpose is to eulogise the prince’s Christian virtues. It blends into the eulogy which is designed to inspire the reader or audience with the moral and political greatness of the departed. The author strives to stress that Dmitry’s virtues cannot be described in simple, human terms.

p “To whom shall I compare...” is the rhetorical question t!’ it precedes a long list of comparisons between D. dtry and Biblical figures: Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses. Dmitry, it is affirmed, was a greater man than these Biblical patriarchs and prophets.

p Some stylistic formulas seen in Ilarion’s Sermon on Law and Giuce are employed here. Once again the author speaks of Vladimir Svyatoslavich, but emphasises 182 that while Vladimir ruled over Kiev alone, Dmitry Ivanovich was the sovereign of the entire land of Rus.

Based on models like the Life of Alexander Nevsky, parimiyny readings on SS Boris and Gleb, the Life and Passing had, above all, a clear political purpose: to eulogise the Muscovite prince as the conqueror of Mamai and ruler of the entire land of Rus, the heir of the Kievan state, and to surround the power of the prince with an aureole of saintliness and thus lift his political authority to a level far above that of other princes.

The Works of Epifany the Wise

p Most talented writer of the period was Epifany Premudry (the Wise) who spent most of his thirty-one years of life in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery. He was first educated in Rostov, where he was admitted as a monk to the Monastery of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, which boasted an extensive library. Here he met the protagonist of future works, St. Stefan of Perm, with whom he conversed frequently, “arguing about words or lines or phrases”. Epifany made a pilgrimage to the East, stayed at Mt. Athos, and acquainted himself with the finest models of Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian literature. His many interests brought him close to artist Theophanes the Greek, believed to have worked in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. In a letter to Kiprian, Bishop of Tver, Epifany gave an interesting description of Theophanes who amazed him by his method of painting: he did not look at models. It is likely that his conversations with Theophanes influenced Epifany and the former’s expressive brush corresponds to the latter’s expressive style. We do not know whether Epifany knew other renowned contemporaries, such as Andrei Rublev, but beyond doubt the moral atmosphere of the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery and the person of its abbot, St. Sergius of Radonezh, exercised a beneficial influence on their work. Both express the general rise in national awareness as a result of the historic victory on Kulikovo Field. Epifany died about 1420.

183

p We know two of his works: the Life of St. Stefan of Perm and the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh.   [183•1  In .his vitae of these renowned contemporaries whose names, in the words of V. O. Klyuchevsky, shine forth like bright constellations in our fourteenth century and make it the dawn of the political and moral rebirth of Rus, Epifany shows the grandeur and beauty of a moral ideal of a man who is primarily concerned with consolidating the Russian state.

p The Life of St. Stefan of Perm was written soon after the subject’s death in 1396 and praises the Russian monk’s missionary work; St. Stefan was named Bishop of Komi and Perm and worked to convert pagans to Christianity. After painstakingly collecting facts on Stefan, Epifany reworked them into a refined, solemn panegyric.

p The Life of St. Stefan of Perm corresponds to all the rules: it opens with a rhetorical introduction, then has a biographical section, and closes with three laments (the lament of the Perm people, the Perm Church and Epifany himself).

p In his introduction, Epifany gives extensive descriptions of his motivations for writing the work: “...If this is not written in commemoration, then it will not be remembered, and in years to come and among future generations it will be consigned to oblivion....” He then names his sources and recounts some of the obstacles.

p The biographical section contains certain concrete facts about Stefan’s life and work. He was born in Ustyug to a church cleric. He learned to read and read much of the Old and New Testaments. He was particularly interested in writing. Not only did he read the Bible, listened to tales and didactic discourses, but with his own hands set to work writing out holy books, beautifully and with great energy. He began preparing for a missionary career early in life, “himself studying the language of Perm and creating a grammar of Perm, and an alphabet,... and translating books from Russian to the language of Perm, and copying them and rewriting 184 them”. Furthermore, in his desire for “greater understanding" Stefan learned Greek and “studied Greek writings and always carried them with him...”.

p Before going to the land of Perm, Stefan prepared himself for the task of teaching and made enlightenment the goal of his life.

p Central to the work is Stefan’s missionary activity. He lived for many years among the people of Komi, and Perm and tried to set a personal example for the pagans. He waged an energetic struggle against pagan rites, smashing idols, cutting down a magic birch tree worshipped by the pagans, and shaming the shaman Pam. Epifany shows Stefan’s great strength of will, patience, tolerance and conviction. For these qualities enabled him to win a moral victory. Stefan proclaims his rivalry with Pam, proposing that the magician walk with him over a bonfire and go through a hole in the ice. Pam categorically refuses to undergo such trials and loses his authority. The victorious Stefan then defends Pam from the wrath of the Permians, who demand his execution, and convinces them to merely exile the discredited shaman.

p Epifany takes a new approach to his negative hero. Stefan’s antagonist Pam is an extraordinary personality who has much influence with his constituents. He attempts to convince them not to accept Christianity and sees Stefan, above all, as a pawn of Muscovy: “What good can come to us from Moscow? Are not all our woes from there, and heavy tributes and violence and governors and tax collectors and overseers? " Pam’s speech makes him a convincing figure. Stefan does not easily triumph over him, which makes him even a stronger personality in his own right and stresses the significance of his moral example.

p Epifany also incorporates elements of criticism of his clerical contemporaries in the Life, showing how hierarchs of the Church attain their positions by struggling against their rivals, “riding over" each other, and acting through bribery and rewards.

p Stefan’s main service, as Epifany sees it, is his work to enlighten the people: his development of an alphabet for the Perm language and his translation of 185 Scriptures into Permian:

p “How many years did Greek philosophers compile and create the Greek grammar and hardly left many works and spent much time in the process; one monk created the alphabet and grammar of Perm; he compiled it alone, composed it alone; one monk, one monastic, one cenobite. Stefan, I tell you, the revered bishop, alone at one time, and not a long time, as they did, being one monk, alone and secluded, alone asked help from the Only God, alone calling the One God to aid him, and praying alone and addressing the Only God....” Here is a typical example of rhetorical speech, constructed on the unified principle of “oneness” (edin), employing synonyms and parallel expressions as widely as possible.

p We can see Epifany’s great mastery of “ word-weaving" in the “Lament of the Permians”, “Lament of the Perm Church”, and the “Lament and Eulogy of the Monk Who Wrote This”. Rhetorical questions, and addresses to the reader, and exclamations alternate with comparisons to Biblical figures, similes and anaphorae. He cannot find words to glorify the work of the Bishop of Perm: “What can I say of this bishop, how shall I describe him, what name can I give him, and what shall I declare or proclaim of him, and how shall I praise, or honour, or relate his work and what eulogy shall I weave for him? " Indeed Epifany weaves words as one mi. it weave delicate lace in praise of Stefan. One is struck by his extensive vocabulary and artful choice of synonyms. At times we find up to twenty-five synonyms in the eulogy, helping the author to express his deep respect and admiration for the hero.

p The “Lament of the Permians" conveys the “heartfelt sorrow" of newly converted Christians who have been deprived of a “good lord and teacher”, ”a benevolent pastor and ruler”. The literary rhetoric of this lament also displays some motifs from folklore which are found in laments of widows, for example: “Why has your goodness gone from us, and why have you left us, and abandoned us like orphans.... Who shall console us in our grief, to whom shall we turn or to whom shall we look....”

186

p Here too the Permians express their offense at Muscovy which for many scholars testifies to the antiMuscovite tendencies in the Life of St. Stefan of Perm and its author’s opposition to Moscow. But close study of this text and its general political tendencies show that like Epifany’s other work—the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh— provides no grounds for such conclusions. Epifany stresses that Stefan and Sergius devoted themselves to the good of the land of Rus.

p Laments in the Life of Stefan of Perm express both the grief of the people of Perm and their awe at the grandeur of the saint’s work.

p The “Lament and Eulogy of the Monk Who Wrote This" contains certain elements from Epifany’s own life (his meetings and arguments with Stefan) and lyrical thoughts on this account. There is a traditional hagiographical modesty topos: “For I am the least among brothers, and the worst of men, and least among mortals, and the last of Christians, the most useless of monks and illiterate.” The traditional topos stresses, on the one hand, the grandeur of the hero’s deeds and, on the other, the art of the author himself whose love for the hero compels him “to eulogy and weaving of words”. Epifany describes his style as follows: “For I, the sinful and ignorant author, have written a eulogy for you, weaving words and multiplying words, and wishing to honour in words, and composing a tribute in words, and gathering words and weaving them....”

p Epifany gathered his words from various sources including Scriptures; he also cites from memory the works of Church Fathers, patericons, the Paleya, the World Chronicle and the work of the Monk Khrabr.

p His solemn rhetoric is based on Kievan traditions and, in particular, on Ilarion’s Sermon on Law and Grace. His eulogy for Stefan expands a familiar formula used by Ilarion:

p “For the Romans praise apostles Peter and Paul, and the Asians honour the apostle John, Egypt the apostle Mark, Antiochia the apostle Luke, Greece the apostle Andrew, and the land of Rus Great Prince Vladimir who christened Rus, and Moscow venerates and honours Metropolitan Peter as a new miracle-worker, and Rostov 187 its Bishop Leonty; the land of Perm venerates and praises you, Stefan, as a leader, teacher, guide, and preacher, for through you we came out of our darkness and through you we came to know the light.”

p Epifany violated many canons in his Life of Stefan of Perm: length, factual material, ethnographic notes on the region of Perm and criticism of simony, as well as a new treatment of negative characters, the lack of miracles, both in the saint’s life and after his death, and the compositional structure differ from previous models. Evidently Epifany intended his work to be read individually and, like his friend Theophanes the Greek did not look at canonical models.

p In either 1417 or 1418, Epifany wrote the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh with consummate historical accuracy. The style is less rhetorical than that of his life of Stefan. Sergius’ biography is well narrated; Epifany speaks warmly of his work against the hated internecine strife and aimed at consolidating a centralised Russian state.

Epifany the Wise’s literary work helped to make the “weaving of words" a dominant literary trend. This style enriched the literary language and contributed to the further development of literature in its depiction of human psychological states and the dynamism of emotions.

The Works of Pakhomy Logofet

p Another central figure in the development of a rhetorical, panegyric style was Pakhomy Logofet (“Arranger of Words”). A Serb by nationality, Pakhomy was educated on Mt. Athos. He arrived in Rus in the 1430’s and remained until the end of his life (148.4). In response to orders from Moscow and Novgorod, Pakhomy gladly reworked many vitae in a rhetorical vein, according to the tastes of his customers, the ruling classes of Moscow and Novgorod.

p He reworked Epifany’s Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh, and also the vitae of Metropolitan Aleksy, St. Varlaam of Khutyn, Archbishop loann of Novgorod, 188 Archbishop Moisei of Novgorod, and the Tale of Mikhail of Chernigov and His Boyar Fedor. These were all revisions and new redactions of earlier works. He wrote vitae of Abbot Nikon of the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery (Sergius* successor), Evfimy, Archbishop of Novgorod, Sawa of Vishera and Kirill of Belozersk.

p All these works were composed according to Church canons. Educated in the philosophy of Hesychasm, Pakhomy made an effort to spread these ideas, both in his editing and in his original works. He gave the vita a luxurious, solemn rhetorical form and extended descriptions of miracles.

At times the rhetorical form was so exaggerated by Pakhomy that content suffered.

The Tale of the Taking of
Constantinople by Nestor-Iskander

p In 1453 Turkish forces took Constantinople. Nestor-Iskander composed a tale interpreting the universal historical significance of this event. He was Russian, but had been captured by the Turks and had converted to Islam. He took part in the seige of Constantinople and recreated the seige and defense of the city through personal observations and tales of witnesses.

p Nestor-Iskander begins his narrative with the founding of Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine Flavius. He borrows from the chronicle of George Hamartolos the symbolical image connected with the city’s founding. A snake crawls out of a cave and is attacked by an eagle, who seizes the reptile and flies away; exhausted by the struggle with the snake, the eagle falls to the earth. But people rush to the spot, kill the snake and free the eagle. This was interpreted in the following way: the eagle symbolised Christianity, the snake—Islam; Islam conquers Christendom, but it is a temporary victory. The final triumph will be that of the Christians.

p This introduction had a profound philosophical and political import. In his conclusion Nestor said that if the first part of the prophecy came true—the city begun by 189 Constantine ended with Constantine—then the second part would aslo be fulfilled—“the Russians and the former creators would triumph over Ishmael and would recover the city of Seven Hills, earlier belonging to it, and rule in it”. This second part was interpreted in Moscow as a sign that the Russians were to liberate Constantinople from the infidels. Church circles tried to point the politics of Muscovy in this direction, but the chancellory of the Great Prince created its own theory of the sovereignty of the Russian state.

p The Tale of the Taking of Constantinople focuses on the course of the seige. Not only does Nestor-Iskander state facts, he evaluates them, attempting to convey the psychological state of the beseiged citizens and concentrating on the figure of the Emperor Constantine. This courageous warrior despised death; the interests of the state superceded all others for him. His valour and heroism are emphasised by terrifying heavenly omens: the city is sheathed in darkness, a flame rises from the cupola of St. Sophia and ascends to the heavens. These show that God’s grace has abandoned the city. Nevertheless Constantine resolves that he will remain in the doomed city and die a hero’s death in battle. Nestor describes his behaviour in hyperbolic terms: Constantine kills 600 Turks singlehandedly, and then himself falls, struck down by the enemy.

p A match for Constantine is his faithful ally, Prince Zusteneya (Justinian) of Genoa. He is the only one to respond to the emperor’s call to Western powers; he arrives to help the beseiged city and conducts himself like a hero in the course of the battle. He dies with his weapon in hand.

p Constantine’s enemy, the “Godless King Magmet" is not entirely a villain in the tale, which represents a significant break with tradition. Magmet is also courageous in battle; he is cruel, but just. Recognising the courage of his opponent, he kisses the head of the dead Constantine and sends it to the patriarch so that it can be encased in gold and silver and buried with honours.

p Much space in the tale is allotted to a colourful description of the battle and the many attempts to storm the city walls. Nestor makes his audience feel the 190 tension and grandeur of the battle: “What tongue can confess or speak of the woes and misfortunes: corpses fell on both sides like sheaves that had been harvested and their blood flowed like rivers along the walls; howls and human cries and the clatter of weapons and the gleam of steel made the city seem transformed; pits were filled with human corpses to the very top and the Turks crossed over them like ladders as they fought; for the dead made a bridge and ladder to the city. Thus did all the rivers fill and their shores were strewn with corpses and their blood flowed like streams....”

p Images of battles and the scenes of heroic defenders of Constantinople battling the enemy host alternate with terrifying omens—symbols that the city is doomed. The author interprets these as signs that God is angry at the city and wishes to punish it for its many sins and transgressions. At the same time the omens help the author to describe the unparalleled heroism of the city’s defenders. His view of the event as part of Divine Providence does not prevent him from showing the true reasons for the fall of this world power: unequal forces and lack of help from the West.

p The author sympathises with the Greeks: “Who does not weep and lament this? " he asks as he shows devastation of the city by the forces of the accursed Magmet.

The Tale of the Taking of Constantinople represents an important stage in the development of the historical tale as a genre. The combination of concrete descriptions of real events and imagined events (omens, fictional monologues) depicting the inner state of the characters as well as the broad historical and philosophical interpretation of events distinguish the tale. Extremely popular with readers, it served as a model for historical narratives in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

The Tales of the Kingdom of Babylon

p Evidence of the change in the form of historical narration in fifteenth century literature are tales of the Kingdom .of Babylon, which played an important role in 191 the development of the political theory of the Muscovite state. These include the Fable of the City of Babylon, which tells legendary information on King Nebuchadnezzar, the city of Babylon which he founded and its desolation after it had developed into a world power, and the Tale of the City of Babylon. M. O. Skripil believes that the Tale was disseminated in the fifteenth century and the Fable written in the sixteenth century.  [191•1 

p N. K. Gudzy believes that both tales originated in Byzantium during Constantinople’s efforts to establish its rights to world primacy.  [191•2 

p The Tale of the City of Babylon shows how the coronation regalia were gotten from the desolated Babylon for Greek Emperor Basil by three youths: a Greek, a Georgian and a Russian. The equal participation of representatives of three Christian peoples in this exploit stressed the equal rights of these three Christian powers: Byzantium, Georgia and Rus. When Constantinople fell and Georgia had almost lost its independence, all the coronation regalia were ceded to the Russian Great Prince. Thus the Tale of the City of Babylon anticipated the Tale of the Crown of Monomachus.

p These tales of Babylon were like fairy tales: here we have symbolical snakes, a miraculous sword, a gigantic sleeping dragon guarding the wealth of the desolated city of Babylon ruined by snakes, a magic cup with a Divine drink, a miraculous voice giving instructions to the youths, and the like. This tale is therefore close in many respects to fairy tales. Only the names of Kings Nebuchadnezzar and Basil are historical—the rest is fiction.   [191•3 

Thus Muscovite literature of the early fifteenth century shows a development of emotional-expressive style in hagiographical literature, which served as an 192 important means of affirming the moral ideal of the saint and likewise the ideal of the prince or “Russian tsar" who dedicates himself to serving the interests of the all-Russian state. Gradually this style began to penetrate historical narrative and polemics, changing their form considerably. Fiction began to play an important part in historical narrative. In their attemtps to draw broad generalisations, authors of historical tales gave their works political and philosophical orientation.

Sources

p 1. V. A. Grikhin, Problemy stilya drevnerusskoi agiografii (The Style of Old Russian Hagiography), 1974.

p 2. L. A. Dmitriev, “Nereshennye voprosy proiskhozhdeniya i istorii ekspressivno-emotsionalnogo stilya XV v.” (“Unsolved Problems of the Origins and History of Fifteenth Century Expressive-Emotional Style”), TODRL, vol. 20, 1964.

p 3. O. F. Konovalova, “Printsip otbora fakticheskikh svedeniy v ’Zhitii Stefana Permskogo’" (“The Principle for the Choice of Facts in the ’Life of Stefan of Perm”’), TODRL, vol. 24, 1969.

p 4. D. S. Likhachev, Kultura Rusi vremeni Andreya Rubleva i Epifaniya Premudrogo (konets XlV-nachalo XV v.) (Russian Culture in the Age of Andrei Rublev and Epifany the Wise. Late Fourteenth-Early Fifteenth Centuries), M.-L., 1970, chapters four and five.

p 5. Russkie povesti XV-XVI vv. (Russian Tales of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries). Compiled by M. O. Skripil, M., 1958.

6. Khrestomatiya po drevnei russkoi literature (Anthology of Old Russian Literature). Compiled by N. K. Gudzy, 8th edition, M.,1973.