265

p The consolidation of centralised autocratic rule, based on the service nobility, led to the further growth of exploitation and the final enslavement of the 266 peasants. The growing economic oppression provoked mass peasant disturbances which, in the end, united into a broad people’s movement—the Peasant War, led by Ivan Bolotnikov.

p With the death of Tsar Feodor loannovich, the dynasty of Ivan Kalita ceased to exist (the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Dmitry, was killed in Uglich in 1591). The new tsar Boris Godunov continued the policy of Ivan the Terrible with regard to the service nobility and the hereditary nobility. This policy could not but provoke sharp opposition from the hereditary nobility, who rose against him. Their opposition was supported from without by Polish magnates who proposed the so-called False Dmitry for the Muscovite throne.

p When Godunov died, the False Dmitry was able to occupy Moscow, but could not hold onto his power for long: the Russian people saw through the politics of the new tsar, the protege of Polish magnates. The False Dmitry was overthrown and the boyars placed Vasily Shuisky in his seat; the latter began to take harsh measures to put down the broad people’s anti-feudal movement directed by Ivan Bolotnikov.

p Polish, Lithuanian and Swedish feudal lords exploited these disturbances for their own purposes, proposing a new candidate for the tsar of Muscovy: the False Dmitry II. He was able to set up a military camp near Moscow in the village of Tushino. In 1609 King Sigizmund III began an open intervention and beseiged Smolensk. Swedish feudal lords attempted to take Pskov and Novgorod.

p The Polish-Swedish intervention led to a mighty rise of a national liberation movement. The tradesmen and craftsmen of the cities took the initiative in the struggle against the foreign aggressors. The patriotic movement was led by merchant Minin of Nizhni Novgorod. Democratic forces of Russian society were able to fuse and unite all the power of the forming Russian nation for the struggle with the interventionists and defeated them in 1613.

p Stormy events of the early seventeenth century, which were known as “the troubles" (smuta) by their contemporaries, were widely reflected in literature. The 267 literature of this period became exclusively topical and polemical, answering the questions of the time and reflecting the interests of various social groups involved in the struggle.

p Society had inherited a fervent faith in the power of the word from the previous century and in the power of conviction; writers attempted to propagandise certain ideas and to attain concrete, real goals.

p Among the tales reflecting the events from-1604 to 1613 we can single out a group of works written by those expressing the interests of the boyars. The Tale of 1606 is a polemic written by a monk of the TrinitySt. Sergius Monastery. It supports the politics of the boyar tsar Vasily Shuisky and attempts to depict him as the people’s choice, stressing his affinity with the people. Even the ruling circles cannot help but consider the force of the people’s will. As proof of the legality of Shuisky’s rule, his descent is traced back to Vladimir Svyatoslavich of Kiev.

p The disorder and unrest in the Muscovite state are blamed on Boris Godunov who, according to the author, maliciously murdered Tsarevich Dmitry and ended the line of lawful tsars of Muscovy, and thus was elevated without the right to the Muscovite throne.

p Later the Tale of 1606 was reworked into Another Tale (Inoe skazanie), a unified narrative of events from 1606 to 1613. The author defends the position of the boyars and depicts them as saviours of the Russian state froni the adversary.

p Characteristically the Tale of 1606 and Another Tale are written in traditional literary manner. They are constructed on a contrast between Vasily Shuisky, pious fighter for the Orthodox faith and the “sly, cunning" Godunov, and the “evil, scheming heretic" Grigory Otrepyev. Their behaviour and actions are written from the traditional perspective of Divine Providence.

In contrast to these works, we find tales reflecting the interests of the nobility and tradesmen-craftsmen strata of the population. Here above all we should mention the polemical epistles exchanged between Russian cities as they unified their forces for the struggle against the enemy.

268

The New Tale of the Glorious
Russian Kingdom and Muscovite State

p One is immediately struck by the polemical title of this tale. Written in the late 1610 or early in 1611 when Moscow was occupied by Polish forces and Novgorod seized by the Swedes, the New Tale called upon all ranks of men to take part in the struggle against the aggressors. It sharply condemned the treacherous policies of the boyar government which, rather than guarding its native land, had been transformed into a domestic enemy; its members were unjust and devoured others’ land. The tale exposed the plans of Polish magnates and their leader Sigizmund III, who through false promises strove to lull the Russians and decrease their vigilance, and glorified the courageous exploit of the men of Smolensk who selflessly defended their city and prevented the enemy from occupying this key position. Patriarch Hermogen is presented as the ideal patriot, a faithful Christian martyr and fighter for his faith against the apostates. With the examples of the courageous men of Smolensk and Patriarch Hermogen, the New Tale emphasised steadfastness as the necessary quality of a true patriot.

p In distinction to other works of the period, the New Tale contains no historical excurses, it is filled with topical material and calls upon the Muscovites to take up arms against the aggressors. This also governs the nature of its style: businesslike, energetic speech is combined with an emotional call. The lyricism of the tale is found in its author’s patriotic moods and effort to get the Muscovites to rise up against the enemy.

p The New Tale is characterised by its democratic qualities, its new treatment of the image of the people as “a great, dry sea”. The people are summoned and invoked by Hermogen; they terrify enemies and traitors; and it is to the people that the author of the tale appeals. But the people do not act here as a real force. N. F. Droblenkova, who has studied the New Tale, believes that its author was not expressing the ideology of the service nobility or the posad strata (craftsmen and tradesmen), since he acknowledged that the 269 privileges of boyars were just and underestimated the active movement of the cities.  [269•1 

p The New Tale presents a close interweaving of rhetorical, elaborate style with the style of the chancellory. Often the author writes in rhythmic prose and includes verse passages.

The generally emotional tone is accompanied by numerous psychological descriptions. For the first time in Russian literature we see an effort to discover and show the contradictions between a man’s thoughts and deeds. This growing attention to the revelation of the thoughts that determine a man’s actions makes the New Tale a significant literary phenomenon.

The Lament of the Capture
and Final Destruction of
the Muscovite State

The Lament of the Capture and Final Destruction of the Muscovite State is close in theme to the New Tale; it appears to have been composed after the capture of Smolensk by the Poles and the burning of Moscow in 1612. In rhetorical form the tale laments the fall of the “pillar of piety”, and the destruction of “the vine planted by the Lord”. The burning of Moscow is seen as the “fall of a multi-national state”. Rhetorical questions and exclamations express patriotic emotions, feelings of profound grief at the “final” fall of the “glorious and wondrous state”. At the same time the author tries to clarify the reasons for the fall of “most lofty Russia”, using the form of the didactic dialogue. In abstract generalising form he speaks of the responsibility of the rulers for the fate of “most lofty Russia”. The author does not call for an active struggle, but merely grieves and convinces his readers to seek consolation in prayer and reliance on Divine aid.

270

The Tale of the Death of Prince
Mikhail Vastly evich Skopin-Shuisky

p The Tale of the Death of Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky is an immediate response to an event. For his victories over the second False Dmitry, Skopin-Shuisky was revered as a talented military leader. His sudden death in April 1610 (he was only twenty) provoked various rumours that he was poisoned by envious boyars. These rumours were reflected in folk songs and tales; this particular tale is a literary version. It begins with a rhetorical, literary introduction tracing the line of Skopin-Shuisky back to Alexander Nevsky and Augustus Caesar.

p The central episode of the tale is a description of a christening feast at the residence of Prince Vorotynsky. With many details from life, the author gives an extensive account of how the hero was poisoned by the wife of his uncle Dmitry Shuisky, the daughter of Malyuta Skuratov. In the rhythms of epic folk songs the tale conveys this episode in the following manner: And after the honoured feast and gaiety, And ... that vilainess god-mother, Princess Maria Brought a goblet to the god-father And bowed and greeted the god-son Aleksei Ivanovich. And in that goblet was a terrible deadly potion. And Prince Mikhailo Vasilyevich drank the goblet to the dregs, And did not know that it was an evil deadly potion.

p The excerpt obviously shows many elements of the bylina poetic style which also can be discerned in the following dialogue between mother and son (the latter had returned earlier than usual from the feast).

p The second part of the tale describes the death of the hero and the grief of people across the land at his end; it is written in traditional literary style. The author conveys the reaction of various social groups to Skopin’s death. The Muscovites, the German governor Yakov Delagardi, Tsar Vasily Shuisky, Skopin’s mother and wife all express their grief and their perception of the deeds of the prince. The laments of his mother and wife are almost entirely from the 271 tradition of the oral folk lament.

p The tale is clearly against the boyars: SkopinShuisky is poisoned “on the advice of the evil traitors" the boyars.

p Skopin-Shuisky is eulogised as a national hero who defended his native land from the enemy.

p In 1620 the tale of Skopin-Shuisky’s death was appended with the Tale of the Birth of Voyevoda Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky written in traditional hagiographical style.

The people have their own interpretation of the historical events of these years as is evident in the recordings of historical songs of the period made in 1619 for Englishman Richard James, including the songs “Of the Dog-and-Thief Pretender, Grishka-rasstrizhka”, “Of Marinka—the Evil Heretic”, and of Ksenia Godunova. The songs condemn the interventionists and their henchmen, the “fat-bellied” boyars, and glorify folk heroes bogatyr Ilya, and Skopin-Shuisky.

The Tale of Avraamy Palitsyn

p One of the finest works of the age was the historical Tale of Avraamy Palitsyn, cellarer of the TrinitySt. Sergius Monastery, written from 1609 to 1620.

p A clever and shrewd dealer, Avraamy Palitsyn was close to the boyar tsar Vasily Shuisky and also held secret negotiations with Sigizmund III in order to persuade the Polish king to grant privileges to the monastery. In his tale he was above all trying to rehabilitate himself and to stress his services in the struggle with the foreign aggressors and the choice of Mikhail Fedorovich for tsar.

p The tale consists of several independent works: 1) A brief historical essay surveying events from the death of Ivan the Terrible to the reign of Shuisky where Palitsyn explains the reason for the disorder as the usurpation of the throne by Godunov and his politics (chapters 1-6); 2) a selective description of the sixteen-month seige of the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery by the armies of Sapieha and Lisowski—a reworking of notes made by 272 those who took part in the defense of the fortress monastery (chapters 7-52); 3) a narrative of the last months of Shuisky’s rule, the plunder of Moscow by the Poles, its liberation, the coronation of Mikhail Romanov and the peace treaty with Poland (chapter 53-76).

p Thus the most important historical events from 1584 to 1618 are narrated in the Tale. They are elucidated from a traditional perspective—that of Divine Providence: the reasons for the misfortunes “that occurred throughout Russia" were “a just and swift punishment by God for all the evil we had done”, and the victories of the Russian people over the foreign aggressors were the result of the good deeds and the grace of the Virgin and the intercession of SS Sergius and Nikon. Religious, didactic thoughts are presented in traditional rhetorical form, a sort of sermon or discourse, supported by quotations from Scripture, and likewise by abundant religious, fantastic scenes of all sorts of miracles, and visions which, in the author’s opinion, provide uncontestable proof of the special protection provided by the heavenly powers to the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery and the Russian land. Avraamy contrasts Mikhail Fedorovich, “a great ruler elected and given to us by God" to the “false tsars": Grishka Otrepyev, the “false faith preacher”, “false tsarevich" Petrushka, “false tsar" Matyushka Verevkin, and Boris Godunov and Vasily Shuisky who were not the lawful rulers of the Russian state.

p The tale is particularly valuable for its factual material on the heroic exploits of peasants from villages belonging to the monastery and monastery servants when “even those who were not soldiers took courage and those who had never seen battle, and with the strength of giants they girded themselves for the struggle”. The peasant Sueta (Fussy) from the village of Molokovo, for example, was “tall and very strong, and always mocked because of his inexperience in battle”. He stops the fleeing soldiers and fearlessly with a poleaxe in hand cleaves “the enemy on either side" and holds back Lisowski’s regiment saying, “I shall die today or earn glory from my deeds”. Servant Pimin Teneyev shot an arrow at the “fierce” Alexander Lisowski who 273 fell from his steed. Servant Mikhailo Pavlov caught and killed voyevoda Yury Gorski.

p Avraamy repeatedly stressed that the monastery was saved from the enemy by the “common people" and that the “increase of injustice and transgression in the city" was due to “military” men. The tale harshly condemns the treachery of monastery treasurer losif Devochkin and his protector voyevoda Aleksei Golokhvastov, as well as the treachery of the “boyars’ sons".

p At the same time Avraamy hardly has any sympathy for the slaves and serfs who “wanted to be lords”. He harshly condemns the rebellious peasants and their “evil leaders”, serfs Petrushka and Ivan Bolotnikov. Still he is obliged to admit the decisive role of the people in the struggle against the intervention: “All of Russia helped the capital city for all shared in the common misfortune.”

p One of the striking features of the tale is the depiction of daily life in the besieged monastery: there was a terrible crush, and people dragged off “all sorts of sticks and stones to make places to live”, and “women gave birth in front of everyone”; because of the crowded conditions there was a fuel shortage, and in order to wash their clothes people were obliged to periodically leave the monastery; Avraamy describes an epidemic of scurvy as well. “For it is not fitting to lie about the truth, but we should keep to it with great care,” writes Avraamy in the seventh chapter of his Tale, which serves as an introduction to the central part. Although Avraamy conceives of religious-fantastic scenes as part of the truth, this cannot overshadow the main theme: the heroism of the people.

p Avraamy narrates everything in order, striving to document his material; he provides the precise dates of events, the names of participants, and introduces documents.

p On the whole the Tale is an epic work, but it has many lyrical and dramatic elements. On many occasions Avraamy begins a rhythmic monologue with rhymed speech.

p The Tale devotes much attention to the depiction of 274 people’s deeds and thoughts. Avraamy reveals the thoughts and describes the behaviour not only of the defenders of the fortress, but of the enemies and traitors.

Based on the traditions of the Kazan Chronicle and the Tale of the Taking of Constantinople, Avraamy Palitsyn created an original historical work and made a significant stride toward acknowledging the people as active participants in historical events.

The Chronicle Book Ascribed
to Katyrev of Rostov

p Events of the first peasant war and the struggle of the Russian people with the Polish-Swedish intervention are related in the Chronicle Book (Letopisnaya kniga) ascribed to Katyrev of Rostov.  [274•1  It was written in 1626 and reflected the official view of ruling circles on recent events. Its purpose was to strengthen the authority of the new ruling dynasty. As opposed to Palitsyn’s Tale, which consisted of a series of episodes, the Chronicle Book was a connected pragmatic narrative of events from the last years of Ivan the Terrible’s reign to the choice of Mikhail Romanov as tsar. Katyrev tried to make his tale objective. The Chronicle Book lacks the polemicism of works written in the heat of events. It is almost devoid of religious didacticism or moralising; the narrative is purely secular. Unlike Palitsyn’s Tale the Chronicle Book focuses on the figures of the rulers, the military commanders, and Patriarch Hermogen. The author tries to give more profound psychological descriptions and to remark on both positive and negative qualities of many historic figures. In this respect Katyrev of Rostov relied on the Khronograf redaction of 1617 where attention was turned to internal contradictions of human character for “no mortal" can remain “unmarred by vice in his life”, because “the 275 human mind is sinful and is seduced from good morals by evil ones".

p The Chronicle Book has a special section entitled, “A Brief Discourse on the Muscovite Tsars, their Appearance and of their Age and Habits”. Here the author provides not only a verbal portrait of the historical personalities, but a description of contradictory sides of their characters.

p One of the most interesting parts is the portrait of Ivan IV which coincides with his well-known image in a painting preserved in the Copenhagen National Museum:

p “Tsar Ivan is not handsome, but has gray eyes, a long, loose-hanging nose; he is tall and lean of body with high shoulders, a broad chest and thick muscles.” After this verbal portrait there follows a description of the tsar’s contradictory character and the acts connected with it: “... a man of great intelligence, well-read and eloquent, bold and ready to take up arms and a staunch defender of his fatherland. To the servants granted him by God he was very strict and bold and implacable when he set out to shed their blood and murder; he killed many of his subjects, both the lowest and the highest, and captured many cities, and banished many hierarchs and subjected them to cruel deaths, and did many such things unto his slaves and defiled many women and virgins in fornication. That same Tsar Ivan did much good, for he loved his army and gave generously to them from his treasury.”

p In this way Katyrev of Rostov departs from the tradition of a one-sided depiction of man. He even notes positive qualities in the character of the “one-time monk"—the False Dmitry I: he is witty, learned, bold and brave and only his simple appearance gives him a lack of “royal dignity”. His “darkened” body shows that he is an impostor.

p The author of the Chronicle Book introduces landscapes into the historical narrative which either contrast or harmonise with events. An emotionally coloured landscape glorifying the “lovely time" of awakening nature contrasts sharply with the cruel battlefield where the armies of that “predatory wolf" the False Dmitry meet the Muscovite forces. By 276 comparing this landscape to Kirill of Turov’s Sermon on the First Sunday After Easter, we can immediately see the considerable changes in the method of reflecting reality that have occurred in literature of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. At first glance Katyrev of Rostov seems to use the same images as Kirill: winter, the sun, spring, the wind, the plowman. But these writers have different attitudes to these images. For Kirill they are only symbols of sin, Christ, the Christian faith, and the “sower of the word”. Katyrev gives these images no symbolic interpretation, but uses them in their direct, earthly meaning. For this writer of the early seventeenth century they are only devices for the artistic evaluation of events.

p This evaluation is also conveyed through lyrical digressions on the part of the author. Unlike earlier literature these digressions are neither Christian nor didactic and contain no references to the authority of Scripture. All this lends the style of the Chronicle Book “an original, lovely, epic cast”,  [276•1  and has made it popular. Moreover, in his desire to give the narrative a beautiful climax, Katyrev of Rostov ends it with virshi (thirty rhymed lines). These pre-syllabic verses are an attempt to announce the author’s individuality as a writer: he “saw the events himself”, and heard other things from witnesses, and “wrote about that which he had investigated”. About himself he tells us that he belongs to the family of princes of Rostov and is the son of Prince Mikhail.

p While continuing to develop the traditions of sixteenth century historical narratives, works of the period of the Russian people’s struggle against the PolishSwedish intervention and of the time of the Peasant War led by Bolotnikov vividly reflected the growth of national awareness. This was evident in the changed views on the historical process: the course of history was determined not by God’s will, but by the deeds of men. 277 Therefore the early seventeenth century tales could not help but speak of the people, of their participation in the struggle for national independence of their motherland and of the responsibility of the entire land for what had happened.

p This determined their increased interest in the human personality as well. For the first time they tried to depict internal contradictions of character and to reveal the reasons for these contradictions. Straightforward descriptions of man found in sixteenth century literature began to be replaced by more profound depictions of the contradictory qualities of the human soul. As D. S. Likhachev notes, the characters of historical figures in early seventeenth century works are presented against the background of folk interpretations and views on them. Man’s deeds are presented in historical perspective and for the first time are evaluated in terms of “social function”.  [277•1 

p The events of the period from 1604 to 1613 made many essential changes in social consciousness. The attitude that the tsar was chosen by God changed for life showed that the tsar was chosen by the “zemstvo” and was morally responsible to his country and subjects for their fate. Therefore the deeds of the tsar and his behaviour are to be judged, not by Divine, but by human courts.

p The events from 1604 to 1613 dealt a crushing blow to religious ideology and the Church’s total domination in all spheres of life: not God, but man made his fate, not God’s will but the deeds of men determined the historical fate of the nation.

p Tradesmen and craftsmen took a greater part in social, political and cultural life. This was due in no small measure to the formation in the mid-seventeenth century of one all-Russian market, which led to the ecomomic unification of all the Russian lands and accordingly supported their political unification.

p The intensified role of these people in cultural life entailed the democratisation of literature which gradually freed itself of adherence to views of Divine 278 Providence, symbolism and etiquette—the major features of the Russian medieval artistic method. The integrality of this method began to break down in the literature of the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth century symbolic depiction of reality was crowded out by a more realistic approach. The beginning of this process is related to the broad penetration of official style into literary rhetorical style, on the one hand, and to the influence of oral folk poetry, on the other.

All this shows the intensification of process of secularisation of culture and literature, their gradual liberation from the wardship of the Church and religious ideology.

Sources

p 1. N. F. Droblenkova, “Novaya povest o preslavnom Rossiyskom tsarstve" i sovremennaya ei agitatsionnaya patrioticheskaya pismennost (The New Tale of the Glorious Russian Kingdom and Patriotic Writing of the Period), M.-L., 1960.

p 2. D. S. Likhachev, Chelovek v literature Drevnei Rusi (Man in Old Russian Literature), M., 1970, chapters 1 and 7.

p 3. S. F. Platonov, Drevnerusskie skazaniya i povesti Smutnogo vremeni XVII veka kak istorichesky istochnik (Old Russian Tales of Troubled Times in the Seventeenth Century as Historical Sources), SPb., 1913.

p 4. Russkaya povest XVII veka (Russian Seventeenth Century Tales). Compiled by M. O. Skripil, M., 1954.

p 5. Skazanie Avraamiya Palitsyna (The Tale of Avraamy Palitsyn). Preparation of texts and commentary by O. A. Derzhavina and E. V. Kolosova, M.-L., 1955.

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