"The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom": analysis. Characteristics of Peter and Fevronia
"The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" was created in the middle of the 16th century by the writer-publicist Yermolai Erasmus on the basis of Murom oral legends. The heroes of the story - historical figures: Peter and Fevronia reigned in Murom at the beginning of the XIII century, died in 1228. However, in the story, only the names are historical, around which a number of folk legends have formed, which form the basis of the plot. According to scientists, the story combines two folk poetic plots: fairy tale about the fiery serpent and the tale of the wise virgin 1. The image of the central heroine, Fevronia, is also associated with the oral-poetic folk tradition.
A fabulous beginning of the story: "There is in the earth Russian city called Moore. In it, as they say, a prince named Paul ruled. "And a serpent began to fly to his wife. He took the form of Paul. Paul's wife told her husband about her misfortune, and both began to think how to get rid of the serpent. Once, when the serpent flew again to Paul's wife, she asked him: “You know a lot, do you know your end: what will it be and why?” The snake, seduced by the woman’s words, replied: “My death is from Petrov's shoulder, from Agricov's sword” 2.
Paul's brother Peter decides to kill the serpent, but does not know where to get the Agrik sword. One day he finds this sword in the altar of the church. Then Peter manages to catch a serpent in the chambers, which took the form of Paul, and deal with him. The defeated serpent takes on its original form and dies in convulsions. However, incurable ulcers appeared on Peter's body, where the drops of the monster's blood fell. Peter orders his servants to go to the Ryazan land, where, as he heard, there are good doctors.
One of the princely youths comes to the village of Laskovo, enters a peasant hut and sees a girl sitting in front of a loom - this is Fevronia. In a conversation with a girl, he is amazed at her wise answers, the meaning of which the messenger does not understand the first time. For example, she says to him: "It's bad when the yard is without ears, and the house is without eyes." When asked where is the owner of the house, the girl replies: "Father and mother went on loan to cry, and my brother went through the feet of death to look into the eyes." The young man demands clarification and hears in response: "Well, why can't you understand! You drove up to the courtyard and entered the house, and I sit untidy, I don't meet a guest. If there was a dog in the courtyard, it would smell you from afar, bark: here it is. would have ears at the courtyard. And if there was a child in my house, she would see you walking through the courtyard, and he would say to me: there would be a house with eyes. Father and mother went to the funeral and cry there, and when they will die, others will cry over them, so now they are shedding their tears. I said that my brother is a bee keeper, in the forest they collect honey from wild bees in the trees. looks, as if not to break, because whoever broke, that is the end. That is why I said: “Through the feet of death in the eyes to look” 3.
Then the young man tells Fevronia about the prince's illness, and she undertakes to cure him, but on condition that the prince marries her for this. She is wise folk wisdom... So, Fevronia gives the prince's servants the ointment and orders to smear all the abscesses on his body, except for one, which later gives her the opportunity to force the prince to fulfill the agreement. On the other hand, Peter wants to test her mind and sends her a bundle of linen with the demand to weave a shirt, trousers and a towel out of it while he washes in the bath. In response, Fevronia sends him a small chock with a request to make a loom out of it and all the shells necessary for work. The prince is surprised at the girl's wisdom, but, having anointed his wounds, returns to Murom, not fulfilling his promise to marry. And he gets sick again. He understands then that a simple peasant girl, competing with him in wisdom, wins. Peter marries Fevronia, and they long years they rule peacefully in Murom.
When old age comes, the spouses pray to God that they die on the same day and that they be buried in the same coffin. Fevronia dies at the same time as her husband, for she cannot imagine life without him.
The character of Fevronia in the story is given in many ways. The daughter of a Ryazan peasant is full of self-esteem, female pride, extraordinary strength mind and will. She has a sensitive, tender heart, is able to love and fight for her love with constancy and faithfulness. She makes wise riddles, copes with life's difficulties without fuss, speaks allegorically, works miracles, teaches Prince Peter lessons.
In the eyes of those around her, Fevronia is a "seer", possesses the gift of foresight, reveals moral and mental superiority over the prince. For the author, she is the ideal of moral wealth and spiritual beauty. Ermolai Erasmus writes about her with deep sympathy, glorifies wisdom, faithfulness in love, holiness of feelings, high moral qualities peasant girl. In all manifestations of her feelings, actions, deeds there is peace of mind and serenity. Even at the moment when she decides to die at the same time with her beloved, without fuss, without exclamations and groans, Fevronia interrupts her work, wrapping a needle with thread and sticking it into the air that she was embroidering for the church. To some extent, this detail is perceived as a symbol of the end of earthly life and the beginning of life beyond the grave.
D.S. is undoubtedly right. Likhachev, calling the main feature of Fevronia's character "psychological peace" and drawing a parallel of her image with the faces of the saints A. Rublyov, who carried the "quiet" light of contemplation, the highest moral principle, the ideal of self-sacrifice.
A characteristic feature of the story is the reflection in it of the details of the peasant and princely life (description of the peasant hut, Fevronia's behavior at dinner). Such attention to everyday life, private life of a person was new in ancient literature.
Individual details allow an impression of peasant life... Fevronia's brother and father are tree frogs-beekeepers, collecting honey from trees in the forest. The princely life is also described: the city of Murom, standing on Russian land, is mentioned about the principality of the "noble prince" Paul, about the "one autocrat to his city" Peter, about the conflict between the boyars and the prince, about the estate prejudices of the prince, who did not immediately decide to marry a peasant Fevronia's girlfriend. All these details speak about the attention of ancient literature to everyday life, a person's private life.
The story testifies to a departure from hagiographic canons and an interest in a person's personal life, and in addition, it allows one to judge a broader, than before, entry into ancient literature of the epic principle associated with oral-poetic folk tradition.
The genre "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom" does not match either historical story nor hagiographic. Poetic fiction, dating back to the traditions of a folk tale, the author's ability to artistically generalize various phenomena of life allow us to consider it as an initial stage in the development of the genre of a secular everyday story, according to D.S. Likhachev.
QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS
- In the "Reference Materials" section, find information about the author of the story. Name the folklore sources on the basis of which the work was created.
- Retell the plot of the story, how events develop in it.
- Tell us about the main character. What traits of her character are noted by the author?
- Why does the author call Fevronia "wise virgin", "seer"?
- Tell us what miracles Fevronia works, give examples of her allegorical speech and wise deeds.
- Point out the connection between her image and folk poetry tradition.
- Why is the image of the heroine dear to the author and what qualities does he value in her? Why does he consider her the ideal of moral wealth and spiritual beauty?
- Why can the story be considered a hymn to the life-giving power of love?
- Read the famous medieval novel about Tristan and Isolde. Give examples of similar situations in the story of Ermolai Erasmus (Isolde heals Tristan, Isolde's exile, joint death).
- Why D.S. Likhachev compares Fevronia with the faces of saints on the icons of A. Rublev? Do you agree with his opinion?
- Using the dictionary and reference material, prepare a message about the life and work of A. Rublev.
In the city of Murom, Prince Pavel ruled. The devil sent a flying serpent to his wife for fornication. He appeared to her in his form, and to other people he seemed Prince Paul. The princess confessed everything to her husband, but he did not know what to do. He told his wife to ask the serpent from what death could come to him. The serpent told the princess that his death would be "from Petrov's shoulder, from Agricov's sword."
The prince had a brother named Peter. He began to think about how to kill the serpent, but did not know where to get the Agrik sword. Once, in the church of the Exaltation of the Monastery, a child showed him Agrikov's sword, which lay in the gap between the stones of the altar wall. The prince took the sword.
One day Peter came to his brother. He was at home, in his room. Then Peter went to his daughter-in-law and saw that his brother was already sitting with her. Paul explained that the serpent knows how to take his form. Then Peter told his brother not to go anywhere, took Agricov's sword, went to his daughter-in-law and killed the serpent. The serpent appeared in its nature and, dying, sprinkled Peter with blood.
Peter's body was covered with ulcers, he became seriously ill, and no one could cure him. The patient was brought to the Ryazan land and began to look for doctors there. His servant came to Laskovo. Entering a house, he saw a girl weaving linen. It was Fevronia, the daughter of a poison dart frog extracting honey. The young man, seeing the wisdom of the girl, told her about the misfortune that befell his master.
Fevronia replied that she knew a doctor who could cure the prince, and offered to bring Peter to her house. When this was done, Fevronia volunteered to take up the treatment herself if Peter took her as his wife. The prince did not take her words seriously, for he did not consider it possible to marry the daughter of a tree frog, but promised to do this in case of healing.
She gave him a vessel of her bread leaven and ordered him to go to the bathhouse, anoint all the ulcers with leaven there, except one. Peter, wanting to test her wisdom, sent her a bundle of flax and ordered to weave a shirt, ports and a towel out of it while he was in the bath. In response, Fevronia sent him a stump of log so that the prince would make a loom out of it during this time. Peter told her it was impossible. And Fevronia replied that it was also impossible to fulfill his command. Peter marveled at her wisdom.
The next morning he woke up healthy - there was only one ulcer on his body - but he did not fulfill his promise to marry Fevronia, but sent her gifts. She did not accept them. The prince left for the city of Murom, but his ulcers multiplied and he was forced to return to Fevronia with shame. The girl healed the prince, and he took her as his wife.
Paul died, and Peter began to rule Murom. The boyars did not like Princess Fevronia because of her origin and slandered Petra about her. One person said, for example, that Fevronia, getting up from the table, collects crumbs in her hand as if she were hungry. The prince told his wife to dine with him. After dinner, the princess gathered crumbs from the table. Peter opened her hand and saw incense in it.
Then the boyars directly told the prince that they did not want to see Fevronia as a princess: let him take whatever wealth he wants and leave Murom. They repeated the same thing at Fevronia's own feast. She agreed, but only wanted to take her husband with her. The prince followed God's commandments and therefore did not part with his wife, although he had to give up the principality at the same time. And the boyars were pleased with this decision, because each of them himself wanted to be a ruler.
Peter and Fevronia sailed from the city along the Oka. On the ship where Fevronia was, there was another man with his wife. He looked at Fevronia with a certain thought. And she told him to scoop up water on the right and left sides of the boat and take a drink. And then she asked which water tastes better. Hearing that she was the same, Fevronia explained: the female nature is also the same, so there is nothing to think about another man's wife.
Food was prepared on the shore, and the cook chopped down small trees to hang cauldrons on. And Fevronia blessed these trees, and in the morning they became big trees... Peter and Fevronia were going to drive on. But then the nobles from Murom came and began to ask the prince and princess to return to rule the city.
Peter and Fevronia, returning, ruled meekly and justly.
The couple begged God to die at the same time. They wanted to be buried together and ordered to carve two coffins in one stone, which had only a partition between them. Simultaneously, the prince and princess took monastic vows. Peter received the monastic name David, and Fevronia became Euphrosyne.
Euphrosinia was embroidering air for the temple. And David sent a letter to her: he was waiting for her to die together. The nun asked him to wait while she finished embroidering air. In the second letter, David wrote that he could not wait long, and in the third, that he could not wait any longer. Then Euphrosinia, having finished embroidering the face of the last saint, without finishing the clothes, sent to tell David that she was ready for death. And after praying, they both died on June 25th.
Their bodies were laid in different places: David - at the cathedral church of the Virgin, and Euphrosinia - in the Exaltation of the women's monastery. And their common coffin, which they themselves commanded to hew out, put in the Church of the Virgin.
In the morning, their separate coffins were empty, and the bodies of the saints rested "in a single coffin." People buried them as before. And in the morning they again found them in the common coffin. Then people did not dare to touch the bodies of the saints anymore and, having fulfilled their will, they buried them together in the cathedral church of the Nativity of the Virgin. Those who come to their relics in faith receive healing.
The poetic heritage of Ancient Russia includes more than one work. However, in terms of the depth of artistic thought, the subtlety of psychological analysis and the perfection of the form, "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" rightfully occupies a special place among the Old Russian literary monuments, and in world literature.
At the same time, "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" is also a kind historical source containing information on the history of Ancient Rus.
This property of her is due to the fact that by its nature she belongs to legends dating back to folklore tradition... And although in 1547 it was recognized as a life and began to be called "The Tale of the Lives of the New Saint Miracle Workers of Murom Peter and Fevronia", most researchers who turned their gaze to the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" recognized it as a folk-poetical basis.
The accents were placed only in the direction of the author in order to appreciate his literary work.
Various considerations were expressed regarding the author and the time when the monument was created. So, some researchers attributed the writing of "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" unknown author by the 15th century, others, considering the author of Ermolai-Erasmus, - by the forties of the 16th century. R. P. Dmitrieva's research on this issue has convincingly proved the latter.
L. A. Dmitriev increases the role of the author, believing that "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" "should be assessed as literary work, and not as a record of oral tradition or legend, or an insignificant literary processing of oral material. " Nevertheless, the researcher still defined the work as a "legendary life." A close judgment belongs to NS Demkova, who believes that for all the author's orientation towards oral and poetic sources, "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" is to a greater extent "a medieval literary parable."
Without diminishing the role of the author of "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" in the compilation of the monument in question, it still seems that he was more dependent on folk traditions dating back to the local Murom oral legends, which, in our opinion, is convincingly proven in the above works. We may well agree with O. V. Gladkova that Ermolai Erasmus in his attitude to folklore is not an innovator, but rather a traditionalist, who is in the mainstream of the world hagiographic tradition, which, using folklore, treated him as a historically reliable fact. “Folklore motives for Ermolai Erasmus,” the researcher writes, “are not an artistic device for creating an“ entertaining ”work, but a historical canvas, a list of events that cannot be changed to suit a poetic task."
Moreover, we cannot neglect the facts that, along with the cult of saints, known in Murom since the 15th century. and predetermined the emergence of a pictorial embodiment of the images of the heroes, independent of the Tale, as well as services to them that took place already at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, there are also the relics of the faithful Peter and Fevronia, now resting in the same shrine in the Trinity Cathedral of the Holy Trinity Novodevichy Monastery. Before they were found, according to the testimony of L. Belotsvetov, a priest of the early 19th century. of the aforementioned cathedral, under the southern side of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Theotokos "under a bushel", and even earlier "were at an autopsy." The circumstances and time of uncovering the relics remain unknown. The relics exist, therefore, people (apparently, not quite "average statistical") existed, therefore, we cannot fail to notice this (unless, of course, we are dealing with a monstrous deception or an error associated with some substitution of relics). And there are almost always legends about unusual people. If we talk about Peter and Fevronia as saints, then people who actually lived became saints. And this, too, apparently has to be reckoned with.
Murom Cathedral of the Mother of God (and with it Peter and Fevronia) almost became a place dramatic action... During the confrontation between Dmitry Shemyaka and Vasily II, the children of the captured Grand Duke Ivan and Yuri fled to Murom. It was in the named cathedral that the transfer of the young legal heirs of the Grand Duke's throne "to the epitrachil" to the Ryazan Bishop Jonah, who acted as a kind of mediator between Dmitry and Vasily, took place. The danger in Jonah's position was directly linked to the safety of Basil's sons. No one could give a guarantee successful outcome not for them, not for the bishop. Without going into the details of the events mentioned, we will only inform you that after the extradition of Ivan and Yuri Shemyaka, they united with their father in captivity, and the power of the insidious temporary worker began to gradually leave from under his feet.
Indirectly, the events in the Murom Cathedral of the Theotokos marked the beginning of the events happily resolved for the grand ducal family and, thus, made it possible for Vasily and his heirs to consider those resting in the Cathedral of Peter and Fevronia as their “relatives”, saviors and patrons.
The veneration of Peter and Fevronia continued further. It is known that the “sovereign of all Russia” Ivan III in 1468 came “to worship” the holy relics of “his relatives”. Ivan IV also prayed at the tomb of “his relatives”, sending “royal gifts” to the cathedral. In 1594, the last couple of Rurikovich, Fyodor Ivanovich and Irina "put a cover on the relics of the saints, sewn in the famous workshop of this queen." Irina (nee Godunova) prayed to Peter and his wife to give her children.
Against the background of the worship of the reigning persons to the Murom saints Peter and Fevronia, the appearance of their names in the list for canonization seemed logical. Since 1547 they have been honored locally, and since 1549 on an all-Russian scale. And, nevertheless, the Life of the Murom miracle workers that appeared was so far from the hagiographic canons that Metropolitan Macarius in the 16th century. did not include it in the new collection of the Great Minei Chetiy. And in order to bring the work closer to the hagiographic theme, for example, the compiler of the late Pechudskaya edition, which best meets the requirements of the hagiographic genre, “had to resort to an independent arrangement of the plot, and the author of the Programmatic Article, excluding the event series, limited himself to general phrases about the pious way of life of these saints ". The text of the Second Edition in the Museum List has generally undergone significant revision, with the aim of strengthening the elements of the hagiographic genre. It was precisely those subjects that were cut that least of all corresponded to Christian piety.
Even A. Popov, a thoughtful and punctual researcher, noted in the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" not only claims to wit, but also "admixtures of superstition." Superstition is born of a pagan worldview dating back to archaic times... We will also try to find elements of pre-Christian morality and traditions in the text.
The image of Fevronia has always evoked an ambivalent attitude towards herself. On the one hand, she acts as a Christian saint, on the other, as a fabulous sorceress. Her image is more attractive, active and is the main one in the story. The reason for this is not only her fabulous wisdom, but also to some extent realism, and the attempts of Ermolai Erasmus to create from Fevronia a hagiographic ascetic ascetic clearly lose to the image established in the folk tradition. Moreover, the artificial author's character would look dull if it had a right to exist at all. Probably, this circumstance was understood by the author himself, who was unable to disguise, or even remove from the folk legend, features that were not in tune with the hagiographic genre.
The first meeting with the heroine is interesting and symptomatic. “The only one from those who stood before him (to Prince Peter) was the young man who deviated in all that was pretended to be Affectionate. And he came to a certain house with a gate and did not see anyone. And into the house and not be, whoever cheats. And when you enter the temple, and in vain the vision is wonderful: the maiden is more united sitting, weaver is red, the hare galloping before her. " The dialogue that took place further between the hostess of the house and the bewildered messenger of the sick Peter, led to an even greater misunderstanding of the young man. And Fevronia gives reasonable answers to logical, as a result of this misunderstanding, questions, except, perhaps, one, which Petrov's servant also asked about: “Come to you, in vain I am doing it, and I see a rabbit galloping before you ... and we don’t know .. . "Maybe Fevronia deliberately does not give an explanation for this question? The fact is that the hare is a cult, symbolic animal.
The hare (rabbit) is a well-established and multifunctional character in folklore. He was considered a harbinger of misfortune - the meeting with him was regarded as such, it was not by chance that he was called "the devil". The hare is also found as a werewolf and almost always, in one way or another, is associated with the world. evil spirits, evil spirit generally. However, in the overwhelming majority of references in Slavic folklore, the hare acted as a symbol of male fertilizing power: many erotic songs and sayings are associated with it, which were widely used among the Slavic peoples in the process of wedding rituals.
The connection of the hare with the phallic cult is noted. In Ukraine and Germany, explanations to children have survived that hares bring them. In folk medicine, hare blood among Serbs served as a remedy for infertility, and a close meeting with a hare promised to promote fertility. Also, in the views old Russian man affairs of an intimate nature and the enchantments associated with them were mainly in the hands of women, since attracting persons of the opposite sex to oneself provided the girl with happiness and well-being.
Who knows what inspired the desire of the wife of the last tsar of Rurik, Fyodor, to turn to Fevronia? The absence of an heir to the monarch led to the end of the dynasty, and childlessness for Irina Godunova could end in a monastery under an unfavorable political situation. Considering Fevronia her saint, the queen turned to her with a deep desire, hoping for a miracle, using, perhaps, her last chance and it does not matter whether to Christian or to pagan symbols she addressed. The first meeting with Fevronia in the text is associated with a hare - a symbol far from Christian, disappearing from the text of the most "hagiographic" edition of the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia".
There is even less hagiographic holiness in the method of healing the Murom prince Peter who fell ill from the snake (snake). “My prince has a grave illness and ulcers. I am amazed at him because of the blood of a hostile flying serpent ... ", - reported the young man Fevronia, complaining about not knowing where to look for doctors. Hearing Peter's anamnesis, Fevronia agreed to "heal" the prince, not at all doubting the results of the treatment, as if she had been doing this (healing) all her life. The recipe for curing the prince turned out to be very simple for the readers, unless, of course, go into the details (which we do not know) of the composition of the "sour": "She will take a small vessel, get sour yours, and dunu for nya, and rivers:" Yes they will establish a bathhouse for your prince and let him anoint it on his body, but there are scabs and ulcers ”. Thus, the whole process of Peter's recovery had to go through the following phases: the delivery of Fevronia Peter to the "temple", the prince's promise to marry her, the preparation of "sour", bathing in the bath and lubrication of the affected parts of the infected body. The drug can be regarded as a kind of decoction, "potion", and its preparation by magic ("dunu na nya"), witchcraft, "witchcraft", the transfer of power magic word along with the spoken object. The very same treatment in this case becomes witchcraft. Note that it happens without the help of prayer and the requisites of Christian mysticism, as it should have been by the nature of the genre of hagiography. The historian of folk medicine N.F. Vysotsky noted the use of Fevronia's usual methods of preparing medicine for pagan healers.
It is noteworthy that the prince is smeared with "sour" in the bathhouse. The bath itself in the Slavic world is associated with an archaic past. Let us recall the conversation of Jan Vyshatich with the Magi in 1071, during which the idea of sorcerers about the origin of man was revealed, reproduced in the words of the chronicler: “God washed himself in the Movnitsi and sweated, wiped himself off with a vecht, and laid down from heaven to earth; and split sotona with God, to whom can he create man? And the devil cut the man, and God put your soul into it ... ". Such pagan ideas were quite widespread in ancient Russian society.
But for us, the mention of the bath is important here. The pagan origin of man was associated with it. It is no coincidence that the cult of ancestors or communication with the dead, developed and not lost its significance until the Middle Ages, was reflected in the communication of the living with the dead, including through baths. It was for the dead (or for their souls) that the baths were drowned in certain days(usually on Holy Thursday), where various treats were left before washing, and the floor was sprinkled with ashes, so that the bird tracks left on the floor could be used to judge whether the deceased (navyami) visited the bathhouse.
The choice of a bath for a meeting, according to B.A. hostile dead. Ethnographers claim that the bathhouse for a long time in Russia was considered an unclean place from the point of view of Christianity. In the northern lands, they did not hang icons in it, and when they went to wash, they removed the crosses from the neck. "Baths are a favorite place for evil spirits, about whose tricks they went about scary stories", - wrote S. A. Tokarev.
Thus, the bathhouse in the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" can appear not so much as a symbol of the moral cleansing of Prince Peter from human sins (sins are ulcers on Peter's body) in the spirit of Christian symbolism, but as a place of communication with those who have passed away according to the views of Slavic paganism ...
So, if we follow the logic of pagan views, explained by ethnographers, the fraudulent prince Peter in the bathhouse could meet (communicate in any way) with the dead, which, in turn, could contribute to his healing. In the plot "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia", with the exception of the main characters and the boyars mentioned in passing, who "died by the sword" during the period of ruin in Murom, there are only two dead: Peter's predecessor on the Murom princely throne, his brother Pavel and Peter killed " hateful serpent. " However, Peter's treatment is carried out when only the snake is killed in the plot. Consequently, Peter's meeting could only take place with the untimely deceased serpent.
The image of the serpent is extremely complex. “The serpent does not lend itself to any single explanation,” V. Ya. Propp rightly writes. - Its meaning is multifaceted and versatile. Any attempts to reduce the whole complex of the serpent to something single ... are doomed to failure in advance. " At the same time, in this "serpentine" variety of functions in later forms of folklore, the snake appears both as a father and as an ancestor. As a symbol of the phallus, he "represents the paternal principle, and after a while he becomes the ancestor." According to the Balkan folklore tradition, the main function of the snake as a mythical ancestor is, according to N. N. Veletskaya, "to maintain healthy, strong, clean-spirited offspring." Exploring the epic history, I. Ya.Froyanov and Yu.I. Yudin concretized the role of the serpent as the ancestor of the princely family, the guardian of its purity, purity, which is quite consistent with the totemic, pagan views of the population of Ancient Russia period X-XII centuries
The snake "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" does not fit into the magic fairy tale characters, as, in fact, and the first part of the whole story, associated with snake-fighting motives. The closeness of the story to the epic through the chronicle stories about the snake was noted by M.O. Skripil. He did not doubt the genetic connection of these stories with the ancient Russian ideas about the snake - the rapist and the werewolf - which took place much earlier than the time to which the creation of the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" is attributed. It is important to note that the image of the serpent, both in Russian poetry and in the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia," very little resembles the dragon of hagiographic translated literature. In the story, in the words of A. A. Shaikin, he is "reduced to the role of a lover, does not wish death on anyone and does not kidnap anyone." The Serpent flew "to the wife of that prince (Paul) for fornication" —that was his only sin. “And you appear to her with your dreams, as if byashe and nature; but you are a person who comes, as if the prince himself is sitting with his wife. " Note that Paul's wife, the princess, accepted the Serpent not only in dreams, but also "by nature", that is, consciously and only from her natural honesty ("you cannot hide this") confessed everything to the prince. Here the plot of "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" clearly agrees with the above reflections on the snake - the continuer of the princely family, the guardian of its purity. It is especially important that the Serpent should not become an ancestor in general, but the ancestor of a princely (in this case, Murom) clan, a clan of a leader, a leader. Communication with him through the female line in this version is especially desirable. The serpent, possessing a cosmic essence, phallic symbolism and werewolf, contributes to the appearance of offspring in earthly women endowed with supernatural qualities from extraordinary strength to fabulous beauty. Thanks to these forces, none of ordinary people the Serpent cannot overcome the descendants. All the qualities acquired from the Serpent, as a rule, were attributed in the folk tradition to the offspring of the princely family. The mythological motives about the snake as a cosmic ancestor are consonant with the idea of the protective power of the snake - the patron saint of the house (in this case, the princely family), the keeper of the family hearth, as the embodiment of the mythical ancestor, as the appearance in which the souls of deceased relatives are.
In "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia," Peter violates the mythological scheme of the well-being of the princely family and the continuation of the princely family: his brother, but a lovely serpent, and strike him with the sword. The serpent appears, yak by nature, and began to tremble, and was dead. " What is the result of Peter's intervention in his brother's life? The story gives us the answer to this question: “Little by little, the foretold prince Paul departs from his life. But the faithful prince Peter, according to his brother, is one autocrat is his hail. " So, having killed the Serpent, Peter deprived his brother of the heir, becoming such himself after Paul's death. But the violation of the fraternal family hearth, in whatever form it is presented, and the deprivation of the protection of the princely family from the Serpent is a kind of totem sin, in the Tale somewhere even self-serving on the part of Peter. Any sin provides for punishment and, in the future, atonement. Peter receives punishment immediately after the death of his mythological counterpart: the Serpent, beating in agony, sprinkled Peter with his blood, who "from hostility to that blood became acute, and ulcers were sick, and the disease was very grave."
In this vein of parsing the text, there is no reason to believe that Peter's illness or mortification is an invention of the author of the story to combine the two parts that he used to write a whole work - the legend of the flying snake and the tale of the wise maiden, as M.O. Skripil did. In our understanding, the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" was based on one legend, and not on several, artificially combined by the author, and in this sense we agree with A. A. Shaikin that the hypothesis of unification in the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" folklore motifs different nations"Looks a little taut."
Peter, as an atonement for his pagan sins, in addition to suffering caused by illness, had to restore the ancestral taboo, the protective halo of the ancestors of the princely family. And in the course of the development of the mythological plot, he accomplishes this by marrying not quite ordinary, but endowed with sorcerous abilities, the wise maiden Fevronia (the wife of a member of the princely family must necessarily be wise). Let us recall that their union in a marriage union can in no way be called amicable - only on the second attempt does Peter realize the need for this. The bathhouse, as a meeting place with "hostile spirits" (the Snake was an enemy for Peter), in this sense could play the role of a catalyst for Peter's comprehension of the situation. The development of community psychology can serve as a justification for understanding the ideas of the inhabitants of Ancient Rus. The power of the prince - the leader, based on ancestral traditions and associated in myth and epic with a serpentine heritage, and at the same time with a narrow social support, is becoming a thing of the past (in the story, the Serpent dies). At that time (X-XII centuries) new social forces came to the fore: in the epic it was a hero destroying the old "snake" support of the prince's power64; traditions, wedging into the infallibility and purity of the princely family. Note that this kind of compromise, which took place, on the one hand, between Prince Peter and a commoner, the daughter of the tree-dart Fevronia, and on the other, between the princely and communal authorities, leads to a favorable development of events for the population of Murom, "from small to large" - in the city is becoming quieter. Prince Peter not only heals himself from the disease, but also "cures" society.
However, let us return to Peter's method of healing. Treatment of diseases in ancient Russia, as a rule, was accompanied by appropriate prayers, since the disease itself was defined as God's punishment for sins. Church Bookbooks were even compiled, containing prayers for the treatment of various diseases. There was a prayer, and with it a method of treatment for someone infected from a snake (snake), and it only vaguely resembles Fevronia's manipulations: “From a serpent to a grieving person. Let us enter the vessel clean and pour in the water I clean, and the prayer of this river over the water and give it to drink, and you do it to the one who told and give it to drink, and anoint him, as you would dissolve it. Heals the inadvertent. Amen". Note that the main components that healed the "injected" were water and prayer.
Together with book healing prayers in Ancient Russia, there also existed popular conspiracies, and treatments that reflect pagan beliefs. Probably, the healing of Peter by Fevronia should be attributed to these. And the heroine of the Tale herself can be considered a "witch" with a certain degree of caution. Perhaps it is no coincidence that in the Ryazan versions of the tales of Peter and Fevronia, stable hostile relations between Fevronia and local residents associated with her medical practice. Apparently, such activities have always aroused among the people at all times double feelings: on the one hand, respect - "... heals all diseases", on the other, proceeding from the eccentricity of behavior and as a result of this incomprehensibility - negative emotions - "people began to laugh at her" or "The people laughed, did not give rest." Fevronia (in some versions - Khavronia) is called a fool. However, Fevronia reciprocated: "Damn this village forever!"
Meanwhile, in the XII-XIII centuries. herbs ("potion") were treated not only by healers, but also by the monastery "healers". There is a well-known example of Agapit, a resident of Kiev, who healed the brethren with herbs (“even brewing potion”), for which he received the nickname “Lechets”.
Nevertheless, the patient of the monk Agapit was cured not only with herbal medicine, but "the patient was healthy by his prayer (Agapit)." The "doctor" prayed to God for the sick man "ceaselessly, until the Lord give health to the sick man." However, the healers included in the monastic hierarchy, like the princely court doctors, had a peculiar official status. And the church was supposed to identify the real healers mentioned in the second article of Russian Pravda from the healers.
The jurisdiction of the church included offenses related to manifestations of paganism. In the Charter of Prince Vladimir, "witchcraft" (witchcraft), "potion" (preparation of medicines and love potions) were distinguished. Interesting in this respect is the position of the Extensive edition of the Charter of Prince Yaroslav on church courts, demonstrated in article 38: "If the wife will be a sorceress, a forge, or a sorcerer, or a sorceress, a husband, having done it, will execute her, and not lose herself." Attention is drawn to the absence of an indication of a fine in favor of the metropolitan, that is, the discovery of sorcery in the family was not considered worthy of being brought to trial “out of public”.
At the same time, it should be noted that there were women in Russia who were somehow connected with witchcraft and sorcery. At least, the chronicles are not silent about the "wives of demons." Suffice it to recall the ritual massacre of the Magi in the Rostov land in 1071 over the "best wives" suspected of having a detrimental effect on the harvest. Or the chronicler's reflections on paganism: “Moreover, demonic wives can be wives. ... A lot of wives inflict magic and poison and frost with demonic kaznmi. ” BA Rybakov, researching the paganism of Ancient Rus, relying on late ethnographic research, came to the conclusion that primitive pharmacology was a hereditary affair and the distant foremothers of the "godless women" of the 17th century. and healers of the XIX century. were part of what can be conditionally called the "class of priests" in Ancient Russia.
We do not intend to supplement the list of "godless women" of Ancient Russia with Fevronia from the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia", but we strive to show, on the one hand, the existence of women-sorceresses at that time, on the other hand, the relative impunity of their actions ("vlkhvany ) primarily by the church. So the church arbitrage practice was quite loyal to home-grown healers, sorcerers, etc. insofar as the church felt insecure in Ancient Russia.
About a similar attitude towards himself in the 16th century. The "wizards" could only dream. In the very early XVII v. one of the most notorious witchcraft trials took place, initiated by the treasurer Bartenev, who served with the boyar A. N. Romanov. Bartenev reported to the tsar that his master kept magic roots in the treasury, with the help of which he intended to exterminate Boris. In the course of the arrest, a sack of roots was found, which figured as the main piece of evidence. The crime threatened to be the most serious in its composition, but Romanov got off with exile. The bailiffs accompanying the disgraced said: "You villains, traitors, wanted to get the kingdom with witchcraft and root!" We admit that the roots are just a reason for the removal of the Romanovs, but the very fact of the trial for "herbs", coupled with accusations of "witchcraft", speaks of the attitude of the official authorities to such pagan events.
The dying of a wife with her husband by origin and in essence is also a pagan, archaic rite, which was perceived by pagan peoples as a second marriage through death. Even in the V-X centuries. the girl's marriage meant for her the obligation to die with her husband, even in the case of his early death... Departure to the "next world" married couples in the Middle Ages, which took place with mutual consent, is regarded by N.N. Veletskaya as a vivid rudiment of stable pagan rituals.80 In "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" the narrative ends with this rite. And, apparently, Ermolai Erasmus faced a difficult choice in writing the finale of his work.
The fact is that confusion ("... begging God, so at one hour there will be her repose ...") and burial together ("... and the advice of the creator, may both be placed in a single tomb ...") clearly contradict the rules of the faith of Christ, his commandments ... Referring to the same Yermolai Erasmus, A. L. Yurganov rightly notes that "without recognizing Christ's commandments, one cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven, even if a person does good deeds" and in the name of love for each other. In "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia", both Peter and Fevronia violate church rules... Attempts to correct their actions are being undertaken by the "people" of Murom: "... I put them into special coffins and put them in packs": Peter to the Church of the Mother of God, and Fevronia to the Church of the Exaltation. Nevertheless, “on the morning, the holy was found in a single sepulcher. And I dare not touch that with their holy body and I put it in a single coffin, in which I myself ordered, at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos inside the city ... ”. Both in the plot of the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" and in the outlook of Yermolai Erasmus, the idea of an all-encompassing love for each other, expressed by him in "The Word about the Discourse of Love and Truth and the Conquest of Enmity and Lies" sounds exactly in the "pagan" version of "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" and would lose much in its Christian, "correct" version. Probably, the author perfectly understood this and made his choice.
With the official condemnation of any kind of sorcery, as a pagan worldview, the latter quite got along in the period of the XI-XIII centuries. in the territories of Ancient Russia, was not something out of the ordinary and was not punished severely.
We associate this with the process of adaptation of Christianity to pagan beliefs, common for all of Russia, a kind of forced tolerance for "languages" arising from a number of objective reasons. On the other hand, one can focus on the fact that along with the strengthening of the church, with a change in the attitude of state structures and the Grand Duke to it, there is a tendency to tighten measures against all manifestations of paganism, proclaimed in the name of the purity of Orthodoxy. The 16th century becomes fateful in this regard.
Understanding the anti-living nature of "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia", one can, nevertheless, be amazed at its genre potential. The fact is that the genre of the story has not yet been precisely established. We have already said above that "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" was defined as a poem of theological and didactic meaning, and as a medieval literary parable, and as a legendary life. RP Dmitrieva showed the importance of the story as a short story tale.89 Apparently, the above-mentioned difficulty in defining the genre arises from the peculiarity and uniqueness of the “Tale of Peter and Fevronia” itself, which many researchers spoke about. She in Russian literature, like the work of Andrei Rublev in icon painting, is unique. Nevertheless, without belittling the merits of the story in the named genres, we see in it a historical basis, genetically proceeding, in our view, from an early historical tradition, based, in turn, on vagrants mythological motives serpentry and fabulous - about the wise virgin.
Primordial folklore forms (fairy tales, epics, songs) were not always direct material for the writer of Ancient Rus. Between him and folk art, the role of a connecting link could be played by a legend, an oral or handwritten legend. Apparently, itinerant motives in the oral tradition were combined into a complete legend. Supernatural heroes were replaced by specific people, and the legend in popular memory was dated to Murom, which is characteristic of the historical tradition. "A cycle of historical legends, in oral existence, complicated and colored by traditionally folklore, mainly fairy-tale plots and motives," SK Rosovetsky calls the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia". According to many criteria developed by VK Sokolova, "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" can be attributed as a historical legend.
The main acting heroes stories - existing real faces, which became popular in the Muromo-Ryazan land. Legends about them still exist, passing down from generation to generation. Places attributed to their visit have become places of worship and pilgrimage. "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia" tells us about complete and unique events that took place in the distant past, the story itself entered the treasury of Russian medieval literature. Reality is basically depicted realistically, consideration of the socio-political background brought us to the era of the formation of rural municipality territories at the end of the 12th-beginning of the 13th centuries. The central conflict, which carries a socio-political subtext, the basis of the plot of the story, in our opinion, is the expulsion and vocation of Prince Peter and his wife and the nuances associated with this. The characters (the prince and the princess, the boyars, the inhabitants of the city) are shown precisely in the socio-political aspect. Through a particular specific event (exile, the calling of the prince), we can have an idea, comparing with data from other written sources, with ethnographic materials, about the era in which the above events could take place.
In "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia", despite the hagiographic form of presentation, a story technique is used, designed to convince the listener (reader) that everything told (written) is true, that it was exactly so. And as proof, an indication is given of the legendary, but not invented by the author, past of the described one. In the text of the story, we see the reservations of Ermolai Erasmus in the spirit of “as if I’ll tell you” at the beginning of the story, “but remember me the sinner who wrote off this, you have only heard, ignorant, if you have written the essence above me” - at the end of the story. The latter circumstance, characteristic of the work of Ermolai Erasmus in general, allows us to note with greater confidence that the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" has not an artificial author's nature, but features of a slightly revised historical tradition.