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p In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Novgorod was a major political, economic, and cultural centre of Northwest Rus. Its territory extended to the Ural Mountains and enterprising Novgorodians penetrated as far as distant, wealthy Siberia.

p In terms of its political structure Novgqrod was a typical feudal republic. The highest organ of power was the veche—the town meeting. The Council of Lords comprised of boyars and wealthy merchants had the power to carry out laws and was headed by the archbishop of Novgorod. In fact the city was ruled by 193 merchant aristocracy. Relations with princes were based on agreement: from time to time the people of Novgorod summoned a prince to command their armed forces in the struggle against their Western neighbours who continued to covet the wealth of this great merchant city. The prince acted as commander-in-chief of the army, but was not allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of the republic. If he made the slightest attempt to gain political power, the prince met with resistance from the people of Novgorod and was immediately driven away.

p The constant struggles against the Livonian knights and Swedish feudal lords obliged the people of Novgorod to acknowledge a certain political dependency on the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal. Later, in particular after the Battle of Kulikovo, Novgorod became dependent on Muscovy.

p Two parties were formed in the city: the Muscovite “party” and the Lithuanian “party”. Most craftsmen, tradesmen of lower and middle class and peasants (chernye lyudi) supported a centralised system of rule and wanted to unite Novgorod and Moscow. Thus they were called the “Muscovite party”. The noblemen and trade oligarchy, as well as princes of the church wanted to retain their priveleges. They supported the earlier feudal system and leaned politically to Lithuania, thereupon earning the name “Lithuanian party”. Often the parties clashed; it is not difficult to see this as a reflection of a heated class struggle.

p The oldest work of Novgorodian literature is the chronicle. The Novgorod Chronicle began in the 1030’s and since that time was kept without a break until Novgorod lost its political independence in 1478.

p The oldest Novgorod Chronicle recorded purely local events; its style was dry and unusually laconic. In the thirteenth century this chronicle was significantly broadened in its range of themes: in accordance with the idea of the land of Rus, the chronicler began to follow events in other principalities. Important events related to the Swedes’, Germans’ and Tatars’ military and political life were also included. We see this widening in scope of a chronicle originally limited to events in 194 one city, in the First Novgorod Chronicle’s account of the 133O’s.

p Further development of chronicle-writing and literature in Novgorod occurred from the 1430’s to the 1450’s under Archbishop Evfimy II (1429-1459). He wanted to find an ideological foundation for the Novgorod upper classes’ desire to remain a separate republic. With this in mind Novgorod writers gathered historical lore and legends in order to strengthen the authority of local shrines.

p At Evfimy’s order the St. Sophia Chronicle (Sofiysky vremennik) was compiled in 1432. Here Novgorod was shown as the centre of Russian history. But this was a Novgorodian chronicle and gave little notion of the life of other principalities. It also contained historical justification for the political pretensions of Novgorod. To counter this proponents of unity with Muscovy created a new chronicle in 1448 with clearly expressed all-Russian, democratic political views.

p Evfimy II established a cult of Archbishop loann (1163-118-3) in Novgorod. His name was connected with legends about Novgorod’s miraculous salvation from-the attacking men of Suzdal in 1169.

At Evfimy’s request Pakhomy Logofet composed an extended rhetorical Tale of the Sign from the Icon of Our Lady (Skazanie o znamenii ot ikony Bogoroditsy}. This tale glorifies Archbishop loann of Novgorod and the city itself as being under the protection of the Virgin herself; they shame the “violent Pharaoh" Andrei Bogolyubsky, who is defeated at the walls of Novgorod. We can easily see the connection with politics of the time in this tale: Novgorod is specially protected by Heaven and every attempt made by Muscovy to infringe on its political independence will be harshly punished.

The Tale of Archbishop loann
of Novgorod’s Journey on a Devil
to Jerusalem

p The tale of loann’s journey on a devil to Jerusalem was designed to glorify the Novgorod archbishop. Its 195 plot is typical for medieval literature: the struggle between righteous man and a devil. However in this fantastic plot it is not difficult to observe real features of the life of the clergy of the times.

p The sly devil decides to tempt the archbishop. He conceals himself in a vessel of water which loann usually uses to wash up. When he realises the devil’s intentions, loann imprisons him in the vessel by making the sign of the cross. Unable to bear it even for an hour, the devil begins to howl and beg to be released. loann agrees, providing that the devil take him from Novgorod to Jerusalem and back in the course of one night. Here before us is a typical episode from a fairy tale which here takes on religious, moral overtones. After his fantastic journey, the devil makes loann promise that he will keep silent: it would be frightfully embarrassing for the devil if anyone found out that he had carried an archbishop on his back, and not to a witches’ sabbath or to Hell, but to Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre. But (and this is a true stroke of psychology) vainglory overcomes the fear of demonic revenge. And in a conversation with pious men loann tells about how a certain man went to Jerusalem and back in one night. He has violated his oath of silence and given the demon carte blanche to resume tormenting him. The devil’s tricks are concrete and redolent of daily life. Visitors to loann’s cell see a woman’s necklace on his bench, or a woman’s shoes or clothing; a harlot appears repeatedly leaving his cell. These, it goes without saying, were all illusions perpetrated by the devil although the daily life and morals of the Church Fathers are faithfully portrayed in these scenes!

p The people of Novgorod resolve that a person leading such an improper life should not serve as a hierarch. They drive away their archbishop and he has to leave the city on a raft. loann’s prayers make the raft float against the current, a sign of his innocence and saintliness. Upon witnessing this the people of Novgorod repent and with tears in their eyes implore loann to forgive them.

p Not only is the plot of the tale entertaining, it is lively and full of images and details from daily life.

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p Dialogue and direct speech between loann and the devil plays a major part in the tale’s structure.

As a student in the Lyceum Pushkin was charmed by the tale and it inspired his comic narrative poem, The Monk, telling about the adventures of a monk and a skirt. Gogol also used certain motifs from the story for his tale “The Night Before Christmas”.

The Tale of Shchil, Mayor
of Novgorod

p Also connected with loann is The Tale of Shchil, Mayor of Novgorod (Povest o novgorodskom posadnike Shchile). It is based on a legend of ShchU, a moneylender and monk, who built the Church of Intercession in Novgorod in 1320. In the Church environment this legend was altered: the monk turned into a mayor, and the tale was made to show how prayers for the dead lead to salvation and how contributions for this purpose are necessary. The heretical strigolniks began to deny this in fourteenth century Novgorod. It was a rationalistic city heresy and is called by this name because its founder is believed to be the strigolnik (clothier) Karp; strigolniks criticised orthodox Church teachings, such as Church hierarchy, claiming that priests who are paid cannot function as intermediaries between man and God. They cast doubts upon prayers for the dead, believing that if man committed sins on earth he would be punished in the other world. These heretics criticised priests for their improper lives and denied the sacrament of communion. Under the religious wrapping of this heresy, it is not difficult to discover a social protest made by the city’s democratic lower classes against the feudal lords of the Church.

The Tale of Shchil defends the interests of the latter, openly propagandising the necessity and usefulness of prayers for the dead on the example of its hero Shchil the money-lender, and the need to contribute for the dead’s commemoration: the Church and its priests could gain forgiveness for any sin, even the terrible sin of usury. When Shchil’s son gave all his father’s 197 possessions to various churches so that they would pray night and day for his soul, the usurer’s sin was, in the end, forgiven. After the first forty days a head appeared from the hellfire; after forty more days, his body was clear to the waist, and forty days after that his body was freed of the torments of Hell. This gradual process of liberating the hero from Hell’s fire was shown in the “vision” painted by the iconpainter depicting Brother Shchil in Hell’s depths. This tale shows the close ties between the word and the image in Old Russian literature.

The Tale of Novgorod’s End

p After Novgorod lost its independence and was finally united with Muscovy in 1478, legends began to arise about the end of Novgorod, showing that the event was inevitable. Thus in the chronicles under 1045 a legend was introduced telling of the painting of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod by Greek masters: the iconpainters should have depicted Christ Pantocrator in the cupola of the cathedral with his hand opened in a blessing, but miraculously that hand formed a clenched fist, although the artist redid it three times. On the third day the iconpainters heard a voice from Heaven: “Painters, oh painters! Do not paint me with my hand making the sign of a blessing, but with my hand clenched, for in this hand I hold Great Novgorod, and when me hand opens, then will Novgorod come to an end.”

p And in truth the image of the Saviour in Novgorod’s St. Sophia is painted with a clenched hand (the fresco was destroyed by nazi shellfire in 1941).

p Under the year 1471, the chronicle tells of a terrible storm which broke the cross on St. Sophia, of the appearance of blood on two graves, and tears from the icon of the Virgin. All of these terrible signs foretold the defeat of Novgorod at the hands of the Muscovites on the River Shelon in 1472. As a result of this loss, Novgorod was finally united to Muscovy.

p Many legends of Novgorod’s fall are found in hagiography. Thus, in the Life of Mikhail of Klopovo we find 198 an interesting episode where Mikhail meets with Archbishop Evfimy of Novgorod, Mikhail tells him that an heir (Ivan III) was born in Moscow who will be terrible for many lands and will take control of Novgorod. He advises the people to send emissaries to Moscow and mollify the prince, or else he would attack them. The archbishop did not listen to St. Mikhail and all came true as he prophesied.

p The Lives of SS Zosima and Sawaty of Solovki contained a scene where Zosima visits the home of Marfa Boretskaya (one of the leaders of the Lithuanian party). She does not receive him, and Zosima says in defeat: “The time is drawing near when the inhabitants of this home will not walk about this courtyard and the doors of the home will be closed, and they will not open and their courtyard will be desolate.” Later invited by Marfa to a feast, Zosima sees that six boyars are sitting without their heads. Later they were executed by Ivan III.

In the description of posthumous miracles appended to St. Varlaam of Khutyn’s vita we find an extended account of a vision by the sexton Tarasy. This legend stresses that human transgressions and sins had led God to destroy Novgorod: to flood Lake Ilmen, exterminate people by plague and fire. Only through the intercession of St. Varlaam could his native city avoid destruction. But in fact for three years in Novgorod there was a plague and then a great fire. Thus did the people of Novgorod try to explain and justify the loss of their independent feudal republic.

The Anti-Feudal Heretical Movement
in Late Fifteenth Century
and Early Sixteenth Century Novgorod

p In the 1470’s when Novgorod was being united with Moscovy, a new, widespread heretical movement emerged, named by its opponents “Judaisers” ( zhidovstvuyushchie). No works by these heretics survived. We can only judge the nature of the heresy by the works of their opponents: losif of Volotsk’s Enlightener 199 (Prosvetitel) and Archbishop Gennady’s epistles.

p The author of the Enlightener, losif connects the new heresy with the arrival in Novgorod of Lithuanian Prince Mikhail Olelkovich’s retainer the Jew Skhary. But Ya. S. Lurye has shown that the Abbot’s contentions have little foundation.  [199•1  Trying to obtain the permission of Ivan III to wage a resolute struggle against the heretics, losif accused them of “Judaising”. In fact the new heretical movement was a new version of the strigolniks’ heresy and was based on a typical urban anti-feudal movement.

p The heretics critically re-examined one of the basic dogmas of the Orthodox Church: the teachings about the consubstantial and indivisible Trinity. Christ, they declared, was not the God-man, the consubstantial God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, but a prophet like Moses. They wanted to stop venerating icons, things made by human hands, and saw nothing divine in them. Following the teachings of the strigolniks the heretics were hostile to the Church hierarchy. They believed that man did not need special intermediaries between himself and God. Furthermore these intercessors (priests, monks) often lived a life very distant from the moral norms which they preached and bought ecclesiastical ranks and profited on worshippers’ contributions for the remembrance of the dead.

p The social essence of urban medieval heresies was well defined by F. Engels: “The town heresies—and those are the actual official heresies of the Middle Ages—were directed primarily against the clergy, whose wealth and political station they attacked. Just as the present-day bourgeoisie demands a gouvernement a bon marche (cheap government), the medieval burghers chiefly demanded an eglise a bon marche (cheap church). "  [199•2 

p The Novgorod heresy seized Pskov and then quickly spread to Moscow. This was also facilitated by Great 200 Prince Ivan III himself, who supported the heretics. In 1480 he had two heretics, Presbyter Aleksey and Father Denis, brought from Novgorod to Moscow and assigned the first to the Cathedral of the Dormition and the second to the Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin. Obviously the heretics approved of Ivan Ill’s firm measures against the Novgorod boyars and the higher ranks of the clergy: the execution of the heads of the Lithuanian party, the confiscation of land from Novgorod bishops and major monasteries. In turn the great prince saw the tradesmen and craftsmen of Novgorod, whose interests the heretics expressed, as a force supporting his centralised policies.

p In the mid-1480’s a circle of Muscovite freethinkers arose, including many helmsmen of the state: the royal scribe Fedor Kuritsyn, his brother Ivan Volk, scribe Mitya Konoplev, merchant Semyon Klenov and Ivan Ill’s daughter-in-law Elena Voloshanka. This circle was not so clearly opposed to feudal politics and was purely secular in character.

p Muscovite heretics did not criticise the Old and New Testaments. They acknowledged the unchallengeable authority of Scriptures, but criticised the works of the Church Fathers. According to Church Fathers the end of the world would occur in 1491. This did not happen. Heretics claimed that the Church Fathers lied and therefore their writings were not authoritative; this cast doubt on personal immortality and the resurrection of the dead. Metropolitan Zosima, consecrated in 1490, supported these views; losif of Volotsk called him “a demonic wolf" and “vile heretic".

p Criticisms of the Moscow circle regarding the Church Fathers denied any basis for the tradition of the institution of monasticism; this hit at the interests of the Church.

p The religious ferment that arose at the end of the fifteenth century was observed by losif of Volotsk: “Today in their homes and on the streets and in the marketplace, monks and laymen express their doubts and question their faith.”

p As Ya. S. Lurye showed, the formation of the ideology of the Muscovite centralised state was 201 connected, riot with losif of Volotsk, as earlier believed, but with the activities of heretical circles in Muscovy.   [201•1 

p In 1488, answering German Emperor’s ambassador Poppel, Fedor Kuritsyn, in the name of Ivan III, announced: “By God’s grace we rule our land, granted to our forefathers and issued to them by God, and as our forefathers ruled, so do we.”

p Metropolitan Zosima calls Moscow the “new city of Constantine" in his Paschal Tables (Izlozhenie paskhalii) of 1492, and calls Ivan III the new Constantine, stressing the idea of the transfer of world significance from the “Second Rome" (Constantinople) to Moscow. This was practically embodied in the coronation of Ivan Ill’s grandson Dmitry as tsar in 1498.

p Novgorod Archbishop Gennady waged a constant, unceasing fight against the Novgorod heretics (he was consecrated in 1484); Abbot losif Sanin of the Volokolamsk Monastery joined him.

p In 1488 Gennady had several Novgorod heretics subjected to a civic execution; a special Church council called in 1490 to judge the heretics excommunicated them from the Church and anathemised them. But Ivan Ill’s government took no measures against the heretics. Their opponents, headed by Gennady and losif, were discontent. In 1494 they had the heretic Zosima dethroned as metropolitan and forced the government of Ivan III to face the need to take strong measures against the heretics; these steps were taken, however, only in 1504.  [201•2 

p Insofar as the Novgorod heretics had criticised the books of Holy Scripture, in order to wage a successful struggle with them, Novgorod Archbishop Gennady had a new, full translation of the Old Testament made: this task was completed in 1499.

To the idea of a centralised state worked out by the Muscovite heretics, the proponents of the Church Militant led by Gennady contrasted the idea of the primacy of ecclesiastical over secular power: “The Church is 202 greater than the kingdom.” To give this idea support, the Tale of the White Mitre of Novgorod (Povest o novgorodskom belom klobuke) was composed in the late fifteenth century.

The Tale of the
White Mitre of Novgorod

p The tale has three parts. The first tells how the rru’tre came to be: it was created by order of the Emperor Constantine who was converted to Christianity by Silvester. To show his gratitude for being cured of an incurable disease and for enlightenment, Constantine made Silvester pope, gave him a white mitre, and put Rome under his power, after founding the new capital of Constantinople for he was opposed to Church and secular power in the confines of one city.

p The second part tells of how the mitre went from Rome back to Constantinople. The impious pope Formus and King Carolus ceased to venerate the white mitre after the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Pope Formus abandoned the mitre and the Orthodox religion. After a long period of time, another pope, carried away by pride, and spurred on by a demon, vainly tried to burn the mitre or send it to distant lands so that there it would be “defiled and destroyed”. An angel gave strict orders for the impious pope to send the mitre to Patriarch Philopheus in Constantinople.

p The third part tells of the mitre’s transfer from Constantinople to Great Novgorod. By order of a “haloed youth”, who told Philopheus the history of the mitre, as well as Silvester and Constantine who appeared to the patriarch in a portentuous dream, he was obliged to send the white mitre to Novgorod, insofar as God’s grace was taken away from Constantinople and “all holy relics would be transferred by God to the great land of Rus" In Novgorod Archbishop Vasily received the mitre with proper ceremony; an angel had warned him of its arrival. “And by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the blessing of the most holy Philopheus, Patriarch 203 of Constantinople, the archbishop of Great Novgorod fixed the white mitre on their heads.”

p Scholars believe that the tale was written by translator Dmitry Gerasimov, who helped to translate the Bible under Gennady’s direction, and went to Rome on the orders of the archbishop. In a letter addressed to Gennady preceding the tale, Dmitry Gerasimov writes that he has completed the task set by the archbishop to search out writings in Rome on the white mitre. This, he explains, was very difficult since the Romans, “out of shame”, carefully hid all such documents. After begging Jacob, the archivist of the Church of Rome, Dmitry Gerasimov was able to obtain a Roman copy of a lost Greek manuscript. The text of the tale follows; Gerasimov presents it as a retelling of the Roman manuscript.

p This appears to be a literary device designed to show the authenticity and historical accuracy of the tale. In fact only individual names are historically documented:: the emperors Constantine, Carolus and John Cantacuzene, popes Silvester and Formus, Patriarch Philopheus, and Archbishop Vasily. The tale does not name the impious pope who attempted to defile and destroy the mitre, but there is an interesting note that “his name is hidden in writing and presented in another name; some say Gevras is his name, others say it is Eugene, and no one tells the truth”. Not only did the author use written sources, but also oral sources!

p Central to the tale is the historical, philosophical and political theme of the transfer of the symbol of world ecclesiastical power—the white mitre—from ancient Rome, that had fallen through pride and wilfulness from the true faith of Christ, to Constantinople, where the Christian faith will perish at the hands of the Muslims, and finally to the third Rome “which is in the land of Rus”. “All other Christian kingdoms will cease to exist and there will be one Christian centre, the Kingdom of Rus for its Orthodox faith.”

p Scholar N. N. Rozov had shown an exchange of ideas with works propounding the theory that Moscow 204 was the third Rome.  [204•1  It seems to us, however, that this is not merely an exchange, but a polemic with the political conception of the Russian state which developed among Moscow heretic circles and was officially acknowledged in the act of the coronation of Dmitry. It is no coincidence that the tale does not specify the location of the third Rome, which is located “in the land of Rus”, and only there! Through a series of miraculous visions the tale stresses the idea that the transfer of the mitre occurred “by God’s will”, “by the will of the Heavenly King Christ”, while the imperial crown was given to the Russian tsar “by the will of earthly Emperor Constantine”. The heavenly King gives this mitre, not to the metropolitan of Muscovy, but to the archbishop of Novgorod!

p A question arises as to whether this tale reflected the ideas of the Church Militant and the ambitious dreams of Gennady to set a “new Constantine" and a “new Constantinople”, Moscow, in opposition to the new Rome, the Great Novgorod, as the centre of true Orthodoxy.

p The tale consistently advocates the primacy of the clergy over secular authority: the white mitre is “more holy" than the imperial crown. With this in mind, the tale uses a “document” composed in the Vatican, known as “Constantine’s Gift”. In addition veneration of the mitre is equated with veneration of icons.

p We can judge the tale’s popularity by the many surviving copies (over 250} from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. In the mid-seventeenth century Patriarch Nikon attempted to oppose the power of the patriarchate to that of the tsar and used the theme of the tale proclaiming the primacy of the clergy to that of kings. The Moscow Church Council of 1666-1667, called to remove Nikon from the office of patriarch and condemn the Old Believers, denounced the tale of the mitre of Novgorod as “apocryphal and false”, stressing that its author Dmitry Gerasimov “wrote it from his 205 own idle fantasies”. Often found together with the tale of the white mitre of Novgorod are the Tale of the Tikhvin Icon of the Virgin and the final reduction of the Life of St. Anthony of Rome.

We see that fifteenth century Novgorod literature shows clear separatist tendencies, cultivated by the ruling circles of feudal society: archbishops, mayors, and the like. To confirm the independence of the “free city" they glorified local shrines and relics, archbishops loann, Vasily, Moisei and Evfimy II, while condemning the “violent Pharaoh" Andrei Bogolyubsky, who encroached on their sovereignty. Novgorod literature on the whole made wide use of legends; legends play an important role in Novgorod hagiography and historical tales. Folk philosophy and artistic tastes reflected in such legends leave many traces on the literary tradition of Novgorod. The best works are concrete, with intriguing plots and a simple style, characteristic of Novgorod.