Vivos voco: y.l. collars, "a tale of grief and evil"

THE STORY OF MORNING-EVIL is a poetic work of the 17th century, preserved in the only list of the 18th century. (full title: "The Tale of Grief and Evil Part, how Grief-Evil Part brought the hammer to the monastic rank"). The story begins with a story about original sin, and the author presents not the canonical, but the apocryphal version, according to which Adam and Eve “tasted the fruit of the grape”. Just as the first people violated the divine commandment, so the protagonist of the Tale, a fine fellow, did not listen to the “teachings of his parents” and went to a tavern, where he “got drunk without memory.” Violation of the prohibition is punished: all the clothes from the hero are "slung", and a "gunk (shabby clothes) tavern" is thrown over him, in which he, ashamed of what has happened, goes "to the wrong side." He gets there “for honors” a feast, they sympathize with him and give him wise instructions, the young man again made himself “a belly bigger than the old one, looked after his bride according to his custom”. But here, at the feast, he uttered “a word of praise,” which Grief overheard. Attaching to him, appearing in a dream, it convinces him to abandon the bride and drink his “bellies” on drink. The good fellow followed his advice, again “he threw off his dress for the living room, he put on a tavern bar.” The attempts of the young man to get rid of the terrible companion, on the advice of good people, to appear with repentance to his parents do not lead to anything. Grief warns: "Although throw yourself into the air birds, although you will go to the blue sea as a fish, I will go with you arm in arm under the right arm." Finally, the young man found a "saved path" and took tonsure in the monastery, "but the Mountain remains at the holy gates, and will not become attached to the young man in the future." DS Likhachev characterized the Story as “an unprecedented phenomenon, out of the ordinary in ancient Russian literature, always harsh in condemning sinners, always straightforward in distinguishing between good and evil. For the first time in Russian literature, the author's participation is used by a person who has violated the everyday morality of society, deprived of parental blessings "," for the first time ... the inner life of a person was revealed with such power and penetration, the fate of a fallen person was portrayed with such drama. " There are no realities in the Tale that would allow it to be accurately dated, but it is obvious that the main character is a man of the 17th century, a “rebellious” era, when the traditional way of life was breaking down. The story arose at the intersection of folklore and book traditions; its "breeding ground" was, on the one hand, folk songs about the Mountain, and on the other - book "poems of repentance" and apocrypha. But on the basis of these traditions, the author created an innovative work, and a sinful but compassionate hero entered Russian literature “in the barn of the tavern”.

The tale of Woe and Wickedness, how Woe Wickedness brought the young man to the monastic rank

By the will of the Lord God and our savior

Jesus Christ the Almighty,

from the beginning of the human age.

And at the beginning of this century

created heaven and earth,

God created Adam and Eve,

commanded them to live in a holy paradise,

gave them a divine command:

did not command to eat the fruit of the grape

kind and cunning and wise, -

there will be no great need for you,

you will not be in great poverty.

Do not go, child, to feasts and brothers,

do not sit down on a bigger seat,

do not drink, child, two spells at once!

yet, child, do not give will to the eyes,

do not blame, child, for good red wives,

) Is an outstanding work of Russian literature of the 17th century. It is written in verse, epic proportion; it reflected the features of folk poetry and deeply religious morality of the Russian people. The story begins with a story about the fall of Adam and Eve; the idea is carried out that from the moment of the Fall, a bad beginning entered the world; people

Have turned to madness,
And taught to live in vanity and enmity,
And they rejected outright humility.

After this introduction, the story is told about a "good fellow" who had good parents who taught and instructed him to do all the best. But the fellow did not want to obey his parents, he was:

I am ashamed to submit to my father
And bow to your mother,
And he wanted to live as he liked.

The good fellow made friends with bad people, one of whom, the best friend, took him to a tavern, got him drunk and robbed him clean. The young man woke up in a tavern deceived, robbed, and saw that even his clothes had been taken off; he was left with "gunka (clothing) tavern" and "little ottochki".

He felt ashamed to return to his parent's house in this form, he set off to wander to the “foreign side”. On a stranger's side, he happened to be at a feast in a rich house; there he was received by kind people, kindly, taught him how to live, and helped him to get back on a good path. The good fellow “taught life skillfully”, made wealth, decided to marry and found himself a good bride; he threw a feast, invited all his new friends to him and, "at the instigation of the devil," began to boast to his friends that he had amassed more wealth for himself.

It was then that "Grief-Evil Part" overheard the "valiant bragging" and began to whisper bad, dark speeches to the young man. Grief is a mysterious, evil creature, the personification of everything dark, sinful. The bragging of the young man, as it were, opened the door to everything bad, let sin into his soul. Grief persuades the young man to leave his bride, assuring him that when he marries her, she will poison him.

The Tale of the Wickedness-Wickedness. Lecture by A. Demin

The good fellow listens to Grief and, refusing to the bride, again begins to go to the taverns and drinks all his property on drink. Barefoot, undressed, hungry, he again starts wandering along the roads in an unfamiliar country.

On the way, he meets a river, and the carriers refuse to take him to the other side because he has nothing to pay for the transportation. For two days a young man sits on the bank of the river, hungry, not knowing what to do next. In complete despair, he wants to finally throw himself into the river, commit suicide. Here again, in reality, Grief-Evil Part appears to him, jumping out from behind a huge stone.

The grief is described by some disgusting, disgusting creature:

Boso, nago, there is no thread on the Mountain,
The Mountain is belted with a little bit.

Grief promises the young man that it will teach him how to live, but demands that the young man obey him and bowed:

Submit to me, I burn the unclean,
Bow down to me, I burn, to the damp earth.

The moral struggle of the young man with the Grief continues for a long time. Either he obeys him, then, having come to his senses again, runs from him. But Grief follows on his heels. There is something in this flight from Grief that resembles "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" (the flight of Prince Igor from captivity). Well done from Grief

Flew like a clear falcon,
And Woe is behind him - a white gyrfalcon,
The good fellow flew like a dove,
And Woe is behind him - a gray hawk,
The good fellow went into the field like a gray wolf,
And Woe is behind him - with greyhounds (dogs),
The fellow went to the sea with a fish,
And Woe is behind him - with frequent seines.

The good fellow walks along the road, and Grief supports him "under the right hand" and whispers evil advice and bad thoughts to him. Then the young man decides to go to the monastery, get a monk's hair - and with this, finally, he saves his soul from Grief, which cannot penetrate the gates of the monastery: "The grief remains at the holy gates, it will not become attached to the young man in the future."

This story expresses a deep popular conviction that only in a monastery is salvation from everything evil and sinful.

The "Tale" begins with the fact that the author writes his story into the general biblical context and tells about the first sin of mankind, the sin of Adam and Eve. And so, as the Lord was once angry with people, but at the same time, punishing, leads to the path of salvation, so parents bring up their children. Parents teach the good fellow to live "in reason and good-naturedness." Parents instruct the fellow not to go to "feasts and brotherhoods", not to drink a lot, not to be seduced by women, to be afraid of stupid friends, not to deceive, not to take someone else's, to choose reliable friends. All the instructions of the parents are in one way or another related to the traditional family way of life. The key to human well-being, therefore, is the connection with the family, clan, tradition.

The good fellow tries to live with his own mind, and the author explains this desire by the fact that the good fellow "was at that time small and stupid, not in full reason and imperfect in reason." He makes friends for himself, and one of them is, as it were, a named brother, who invites the young man to the tavern. The young man listens to the sweet speeches of his "reliable friend", drinks a lot, gets drunk and falls asleep right in the tavern.

The next morning he turns out to be robbed - the “friends” leave him only “gunka tavern” (rags) and “little shoes-ototochki” (worn-out sandals). Poor, he is no longer accepted by yesterday's "friends", no one wants to help him. The young man becomes ashamed to return to his father and mother "and to his family and tribe." He goes to distant countries, there he accidentally wanders into some city, finds a certain courtyard where a feast is taking place. The owners like that the fellow behaves "according to the written teaching," that is, the way his parents taught him. He is invited to the table, treated. But the fellow is twisting, and after that he confesses in front of everyone that he disobeyed his parents, and asks for advice on how to live on the wrong side. Good people advise the young man to live according to traditional laws, that is, they repeat and supplement the instructions of the father and mother.

Indeed, at first things are going well for the fellow. He begins to "live skillfully", makes a fortune, finds a good bride. The matter goes to the wedding, but then the hero makes a mistake: he boasts of what he has achieved in front of the guests. "The word praiseworthy has always rotted," the author notes. At this moment, the young man overhears the Grief-Evil Part and decides to exterminate him. From now on, Grief-Evil Part is an indispensable companion of the young man. It persuades him to drink away his property in a tavern, referring to the fact that "even from paradise, the naked, barefoot will not be expelled." The good fellow listens to the Grief-Evil Part, drinks all the money and only after that he realizes himself and tries to get rid of his companion - the Grief-Evil Part. The attempt to throw himself into the river was unsuccessful. Grief-Evil Part is already trapping the young man on the shore and makes him completely submit to himself.

Thanks to the meeting with kind people, the fate of the young man is turning again: they took pity on him, listened to his story, fed and warmed the carriers across the river. They also ferry him across the river and advise him to go to his parents for a blessing. But as soon as the fellow is left alone, the Grief-Evil Part begins to pursue him again. Trying to get rid of the Grief, the fellow turns into a falcon, the Mountain turns into a gyrfalcon; well done - into a dove, Woe - into a hawk; well done - in a gray wolf, Woe - in a pack of hounds; well done - in the feather grass, Woe - in the scythe; well done - into the fish, Woe follows him with a seine. The good fellow again turns into a man, but the Grief-Evil Part does not lag behind, teaching the young fellow to kill, rob, so that the young fellow “is hanged for that, or put with a stone in the water”. Finally, the "Story" ends with the young man going to get tonsured at the monastery, where the Grief-Evil Part is no longer dear, and it remains outside the gates.

The wonderful "The Tale of Grief and Evil Part, how Grief-Evil Part brought the young man to the monastic rank", written in folk verse, is among the significant creations of world literature. It has come down to us in the only list of the first half of the 18th century, but apparently arose about half of the 17th century. It begins literally from Adam:

By the will of the Lord God and the salvation of our Jesus Christ the Almighty, from the beginning of the human aek ... And at the beginning of this age of this corruptible created heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve, commanded them to live in a holy paradise, gave them the divine command:

did not command to eat the fruit of the grape

from the great tree of Eden.

Adam and Eve violated the commandment of God, ate the "fruit of the grape" and for this they were expelled from paradise and settled on earth, where they were ordered to grow, be fruitful and feed on their labors. And the human race went from Adam and Eve,

he is disgraceful to his father's teaching, disobedient to his mother, and deceptive to his counselor friend.

For all these crimes of the human race, the Lord was angry and sent great misfortunes and sorrows to him in order to humble people and lead them to the "saved path."

After such an exposition, the story begins about the hero of the story - about the nameless fellow. Father and mother began to teach him, instruct him on the good path, and taught him the traditional norms of everyday behavior, under which a young man could be protected from temptations that are scattered along the paths of human life:

Do not go, child, to feasts and brothers,

do not sit down on a bigger seat,

do not drink, child, two spells at once!

Also, child, do not give will to the eyes, -

do not blame, child, for good red wives,

fatherly daughter!

Do not lie down, child, in a place of imprisonment,

do not be afraid of the wise, be afraid of the stupid,

so that stupid people don't think about you

Yes, they would not have removed the precious port from you ...

Well done at that time, he was small and stupid,

not in full reason and imperfect in reason, -

my father is ashamed to submit

and bow to your mother,

but wanted to live as he liked.

Having got himself money, he made friends and

His honor flowed like a river; they nailed themselves to the hammer, and were due to the clan-tribe.

Among these friends, he especially fell in love with one who declared himself his "named brother" and invited him to the tavern. There he brought him a glass of green wine and a mug of drunk beer and advised him to go to bed right there, where he drank, relying on his named brother, who would sit at his head and protect him.

The frivolous and gullible fellow hoped for his friend, got drunk without memory and, where he drank, went to bed there.

The day goes by, the evening comes. The good fellow wakes up from sleep and sees that he is naked, covered only with rags, a brick is placed under his violent head, and the "dear friend" has disappeared. The young man dressed up in the rags left to him, complained about his “great life” and the inconstancy of his friends, decided that he was ashamed to appear in this form to his father, mother, to his relatives and friends, and he went to a strange, distant side, where he immediately got to the feast. The feasts accept him very affectionately, because he behaves "according to the written teaching," and they sit him down at an oak table - not in a big place, not in a lesser one, they sit him in a middle place where children sit in living rooms.

But the fellow sits at the feast is not happy. Those present pay attention to this and ask about the reason for his sadness. He frankly tells them that he is punished for "disobeying parental", and asks to teach him how to live. "Good people" take an active part in the fate of the young man and, just as his parents did before, give him a number of soul-saving practical advice, with the help of which he can again get back on his feet:

Do not wake up haughtily on the wrong side,

submit to your friend and foe,

bow down to the old and the young,

and do not announce anyone's business,

and what you hear or see, do not say ...

The good fellow listens attentively to the advice of kind people, goes on, again to the wrong side, and begins to live there "skillfully". He gained more wealth than before and wanted to get married. Having looked after his bride, he starts a feast, invites guests, and then, “by God's allowance, but by the devil’s action,” he makes that fatal mistake, which was the cause of all his further misadventures. He boasted that “he was making more bellies than before”, “and the word of praise was always rotten”. The bragging fellow overheard the Grief-Evil Part and says:

Do not boast, well done, with your happiness,

do not boast of your wealth, - there have been people with me, Grieving,

and wiser you and leisure,

and I, Woe, were too clever:

learn them great evil, -

fought me to death,

in evil wickedness disgraced -

could not have me, Grieving, leave,

and they themselves moved into the coffin ...

This is the first embarrassment that brought Grief-Evil Part into the thoughts of the young man. Following this, the Grief appears to the young man in a dream and whispers evil advice to him - to destroy the well-established life, abandon his bride, drink up all his property and walk naked and barefoot across the wide earthly expanse. It frightens the young man with the fact that his wife will harass him because of gold and silver, and seduces him with the promise that Grief will be overcome with a tavern, it will not chase after the naked, "but robbery is rustling naked and barefoot."

The good fellow did not believe that dream, and now the Grief-Evil Part appears to him again in a dream in the form of the Archangel Gabriel and draws the advantages of the free life of a naked, barefoot, who is neither beaten, nor tortured, and is not expelled from paradise. The young man believed this dream, drank his property on drink, threw off his living room dress, put on a tavern gun and went his way to unknown lands. On the way he meets a river, beyond the river - carriers, and they demand from the young man a payment for the transportation, but he has nothing to give. The young man sits all day until the evening by the river without eating and in despair decides to throw himself into the fast river in order to get rid of his plight, but Grief - barefoot, naked, belted with a bast - jumps out from behind the stone and holds the young man. It reminds him of his disobedience to his parents, demands that the young man obey and bow to him, I Grieve, and then he will be transported across the river. Well done and does so, becomes cheerful and, walking along the shore, sings a song:

Careless mother gave birth to me,

combed the kudertsy with a comb,

dragimi ports me blankets

and went under the handle looked:

“Is my child good at the ports? -

And in other ports there is no fumes and there is no price! "

The carriers liked the good fellow, they transported him without money to the other side of the river, fed him, watered him, dressed him in a peasant dress and advised him to return with repentance to his parents. The young man headed in his direction, but the Grief pursues him even more:

The young man flew like a clear falcon, - and Woe followed him as a white krechat; the young man flew like a gray dove, and Woe followed him like a gray hawk; the young man went into the field like a gray wolf, and Woe followed him with greyhounds ...

There is no way to get away from the Grief-Evil Part, which, moreover, now teaches the young man to live richly, to kill and rob, so that he would be hanged or thrown into the river with a stone. It was then that the young man remembers the "saved path" and goes to get tonsured at the monastery, but the Grief remains at the holy gates and henceforth will not become attached to the young man.

In all the preceding Russian literature, we will not find works that would tell about the fate of an ordinary worldly person and set out the main events of his life. Ancient narrative literature featured either ascetics, saints, or, more rarely, historical figures, whose life, or rather "life", was described in the traditional style of a conventional church biography. "The Tale of Woe and Malice" speaks of the fate of an unknown young man who violated the commandments of antiquity and paid heavily for it. The “saved path” saves the young man from the final death, leading him to the monastery, near the walls of which the evil-wickedness that pursues him lags behind him. The good fellow took it into his head to disregard the old way of life and morality, decided to live "as he liked", disregarding parental prohibitions, and from here all his misadventures began. He almost got on his feet already after his first crash, began - on the advice of good people - to live as his parents taught, but he thought too much of himself, hoped for himself and his luck, boasted, and then he took possession to them the persistent Woe-Evil Part, which broke his disobedience, turned him into a miserable person who had lost himself. The image of "Grief-Malice" - a share, fate, as it appears in our story, is one of the most significant literary images. Grief at the same time symbolizes the external, hostile to man, strength and inner state of man, his spiritual emptiness. It is, as it were, his double. The good fellow, who has broken free from the circle outlined by the pious antiquity, does not withstand this will and finds himself salvation no longer in the traditional atmosphere of worldly life, from which he allowed himself to leave, but in a monastery, where he is ordered to every manifestation of an independent initiative, allowed even by strict forms home-building order. Such is the heavy reckoning that falls on the head of a young man who has departed from the precepts of his fathers, who decided to live as he wants, and not as the god-saved old times tells him to. Behind her, behind the old days, while there is a victory, she still triumphs over the awakening individualistic impulses of the younger generation. This is the main meaning of the story, very talentedly depicting the fate of "children" at the turn of two eras.

It is characteristic, however, that the monastic life is interpreted in the story not as an ideal, not even as a norm, but as a kind of exception for those who have not been able to establish their worldly life according to the rules prescribed by the established tradition for centuries. Turning to the monastery is sad for the young man, but the only way out of his unsuccessful life. It is not for nothing that the title of the story promises to tell how the Grief-Evil Part - the evil force that took possession of the young man, brought him to the monastic rank. The monastic life, which until recently was interpreted as the best and highest form of life, towards which every pious person should strive, in our story turns out to be the lot of the sinner, the monastery redeeming his grave delusions. Most likely, the author, who himself did not belong to a monastic, but to a secular environment, could reason like this. The entire style of the story, thoroughly imbued with a secular folklore element, and the very image of Grief-Evil Part, an evil lot, which is different from the traditional image of the enemy of the human race - the devil, speaks for this belonging. In the everyday environment, which is reflected in the story, there are some hints of a conservative merchant way of life, and it is very likely that the author himself belonged to the same conservative merchant or close to it among the townspeople.

The orally poetic element colors the "Tale of Woe and Evil Part" almost throughout its entire length. First of all, the almost complete identity of the metric structure of the story with the structure of the epic verse is striking; further, common epic passages (like coming to a feast and boasting at a feast) that are present in our story draw attention to themselves. The story is connected with the epic verse by the method of repetition of individual words (“hope, hope in me, brother of the name”; combinations ("kruchinovat, mournful, unhappy", "steal-rob-ti", "yasti-kushati", "clan-tribe", etc.), and the use of constant epithets ("violent winds", "violent head" , "Fast river", "green wine", "oak table", etc.). There is a lot in common in "The Tale of Woe and Malice" with the style of not only the epic, but also the oral lyric song, which in many respects, however, coincides with the epic style.

But next to the indicated elements of the oral-poetic tradition, the book tradition clearly makes itself felt in the story. It is found primarily in the introduction to the story, which sets out the origin of sin on earth after Adam and Eve violated the commandment of God not to eat the fruit of the grape. She is also present in the last lines of the story. Both the introduction and the conclusion bring it closer to the works of the genre of life. The book tradition affects both in some typical book epithets of the story, and in its thematic proximity to book works on the topic of drunkenness.

The misadventures of the young man, the power over him of Grief-Malice were the result of his drunken revelry, just as the punishment of Adam and Eve is explained in the story by the fact that they ate the "fruit of the grape," that is, the fruit of drunkenness, in a deviation from the Bible, where it is said, that they have tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "And my nest and patrimony are in the hawk moths." A number of works have been written on the topic of the destructive effect of drunken drinking on a person. Back in the 15th century. in Russia it was known in the manuscripts "The Word of Cyril the Slovenian philosopher", clothed in the form of an appeal "to every person and to a sacred rank, and to a prince and a bolyar, and to servants and a merchant, and rich and poor, and to wives." In it, the speech is made by the hop itself, using proverbs and sayings, as, for example, in the following phrase: “To lie down for a long time - do not get good, and do not have enough grief. Lying down does not powerfully beg God, you cannot get honor and glory, and you cannot take away a sweet bite, don’t drink honey bowls, and the prince’s dislike of being, and you don’t see the volost or hail from him. Disadvantages are at home, but wounds on his shoulders lie, tightness and grief - smoothly tinkles on his thighs, "and so on.

Obviously, based on the "Word of Cyril the Philosopher" in the 17th century. a number of prose and poetic works about hops appeared, which replaced the apocryphal vine, mentioned in the "Tale of Woe and Malice". Such are the "Tale of a highly intelligent drunkard and insane drunkards", "The tale of what the essence of drinking wine is staring at", a parable about hops, a legend about the origin of distilling, "A Word about the lazy and sleepy and intoxicated", poems "repentant about drunkenness" "and others. In some of these works, as in “The Word of Cyril the Philosopher,” the drunk himself speaks of the troubles he inflicts on those who are committed to him. Thus, in The Tale of the High-Wise Hop, he declares to the sober drunkard who bound him: “If a rich man begins to love me, I’m mournful and stupid, and will walk in tattered robes and fragile boots, but he will start asking people for loans ... his mind and meaning, and I will do it according to my will, and I will create him as one from the insane, ”etc.

Later records preserved a large number of songs about the mountain - Great Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. In one group of these songs, the motive of grief was developed as applied to the female part, in the other - it is associated with the image of a good fellow. In both groups, we find many coincidences with the story, not only in certain situations, but even in poetic formulas and individual expressions. However, it is very difficult to determine exactly in what cases the songs influenced the story and in what cases there was a reverse influence. The fact that we have a significant song tradition associated with the theme of grief, and the story came down to us in only one list, which does not indicate its wide popularity, suggests that the oral poetic influence on the story was stronger than the opposite influence.

Such a wide access of folklore to book literature, as we see in our story, could take place only in the 17th century, when folk poetry gains a particularly wide access to book literature and has a particularly strong influence on it. The entire previous history of Russian literature does not give us a single sample that could be compared with the "Tale of Woe and the Evil Part" in terms of the strength of the richest deposits of folk-poetic material present in it. "

Since then, as in 1856 A. N. Pypin opened in the collection of the first half of the XVIII century. the poetic "The Tale of Woe and Evil Part, how Woe-Evil Part brought the hammer to the monastic rank", no new copies of it were found. Obviously, the only list that has come down to us is separated from the original by intermediate links: this is indicated, in particular, by frequent violations of the verse model. Thus, it is obvious that the original is much "older" than the list. But what is the duration of this time interval, it is difficult to establish. The characters in The Tale of Woe-Evil Part are almost entirely unnamed. There are only three exceptions - Adam, Eve and the Archangel Gabriel, but these names do not go to the point. The dating of any text is usually based on different kinds of realities. There are no such realities in the Tale. Its breeding ground is folk songs about the Mountain and book "poems of repentance"; both lyric songs and "penitential verses", by their genre nature, do not need realities that refer to specific persons and events. Such is the "Tale of Woe-Evil Part", which tells about the sad fate of an unnamed Russian fellow. Based on formal criteria, the Tale would have to be placed in a broad chronological framework, including the first decades of the 18th century.

Meanwhile, the dating of the monument did not arouse discussion. Everyone who wrote about him agreed that the fellow to whom the "gray Gore-Gorinskoye" became attached was a man of the 17th century. Indeed, the signs of this "rebellious" era, when the old Russian way of life was breaking down, are evident in the story. Her hero despised the covenants of the family, became a "prodigal son", a renegade, a voluntary outcast. We know that this is one of the most characteristic of the 17th century. types. The disintegration of family ties is reflected in such an impartial and eloquent genre of business writing as family memorials. “In commemoration of the 17th century. we usually see only the closest parents, that is, father, mother, brothers and sisters, mother's closest relatives, less often grandfather and grandmother. Commemoration of the 15th century, and partly of the first half of the 16th century. usually contain a large number of persons of many generations, sometimes for 200 years or more. This clearly shows that the consciousness of the tribal connection in the 17th century. significantly weakened and narrowed, the cult of veneration of distant ancestors fell out of use, and this was a reflection of the collapse of the old concepts of the genus. "

Typical of the 17th century. and one of the speeches of Grief-Malice, tempter, shadow, double of the young man:

Ali, well done, is unknown to you

immeasurable nakedness and barefoot,

great ease-without a protagonist?

What to buy for yourself - something will be done,

and you, brave fellow, and so you live!

Yes, they do not beat, do not torment the naked, barefoot,

and from paradise the naked, barefoot will not be driven out,

but the syuds will not vytatyut for the light,

but no one will get attached to him, -

and to mock the naked-barefoot robbery!

This is the bizarre philosophy of the characters of the 17th century laughter literature, the moral recklessness of mischievous people from the "pitch world", for whom the tavern is their home and wine is their only joy. Along with them, having drunk down to the "gunka tavern", the fellow from "The Tale of the Woe-Evil Part" drowns grief in wine, although in this noisy crowd he looks like a black sheep, an accidental guest.

In other words, the reader's and scholarly sensation, forcing without hesitation and reservations to place "The Tale of the Woe-Evil Part" in the 17th century, is quite reasonable. This dating, both impressionistic and efficient (such a combination is very rare in the history of literature), can be supported and clarified with the help of a comparative analysis of the Tale and prose of Archpriest Avvakum. The author of "Grief-Evil" began his story with the theme of original sin. This is not just medieval inertia, according to which any particular event must be brought into the perspective of world history. This is the philosophical and artistic principle of the Tale (see below).

In the story of original sin, not a canonical legend is presented, but a version of the apocrypha, diverging from Orthodox doctrine:

The human heart is meaningless and unresponsive:

Adam was delighted with Eve,

forgot the commandment of God,

have tasted the fruit of the grape

from the wonderful tree of the great.

It is not clear from the Bible what the commandment “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” was. There is a certain freethinking in identifying him with the apple tree - the same as in identifying with the vine, which is characteristic of folk fantasy and dates back to the days of bogomilism. According to folk tradition, the first people, to put it simply, got drunk. God drove them out of Eden, and cursed the wine. Therefore, Christ, the “new Adam,” who redeemed the fall of the “old” Adam, had to remove condemnation from wine. Christ did this at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, turning water into wine. "Wine is innocent - drunkenness is guilty" - this proverb of the 17th century. accurately expresses the old Russian point of view on drunken drinking. A person should be limited to three cups, which were legalized by the holy fathers - those that are drunk at the monastery meal while the troparion is chanting. In accordance with this, the parents instruct the young man from "The Tale of Woe-Evil Part": "Don't drink, child, I'll get into two spells!" But the young man does not listen to them, just as Adam and Eve did not listen to the creator.

The same parallel image of the first people and Russian sinners of the 17th century. we find in Habakkuk in the "Descent and assembly about the deity and about the creature and how the god of man created." The idea of ​​direct similitude is set forth by Habakkuk very similar to the "Tale of Woe-Evil Part": Eve, "having listened to the snakes, approach the tree, take dreams, and his chills, and Adam dada, after all, a tree with a red vision and good in food, a red fig, berries sweet, weak minds, words flattering among themselves; They get drunk, but the devil rejoices. Alas, the intemperance of the then and the present! .. Ottole and to this day the feeble-minded do the same, treat each other with flattery, with undissolved potion, hedgehog with strained wine ... And after a friend they laugh at the drunk. Word for word it happens that in paradise with Adam and with Eve, and with the serpent, and with the devil. Genesis Paki: And Adam and Eve tasted delicious from the tree, from him the God of commandment, and naked. Oh, dear ones, there was no one to dress! The devil brought him into trouble, and himself and to the side. The crafty owner gave food and drink, and he hurried out of the yard. Drunk lying robbed in the street, and no one will have mercy. Alas, the madness of that time and now! Packs of the Bible: Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves for themselves from the tree, from which they are tasty, and cover their shame and hide under the tree, resting. They woke up, poor people, with a hangover, but we were rubbish ourselves: beard and mustache in vomit, and from goznos all to feet in shit, the head was spinning from healthy bowls ”.

Accusations of drunkards and pictures of drunkenness Avvakum, of course, could not find in "Woe-Evil Part": in the literary use of the 17th century. there were as many works on this topic as desired, in prose and in poetry. But the depiction of original sin as drunkenness is extremely rare. "The grape tree" in "The Tale of Woe-Evil Part" and "red fig" in Avvakum are about the same for the Russian people of that era, because "fig" means a berry of wine. It can be assumed that Habakkuk knew the "Woe-Evil Part". In this case, the Tale arose no later than 1672, when Avvakum's "Descent and Assembly" was written.

So, the author of "The Tale of Woe-Evil Part" builds the plot on the analogies between the fall of the first people and the sinful life of his contemporary. For the most part, these analogies are only implied, but they were clear to everyone who went to church, and in the 17th century. everyone went to church. (By the way, Habakkuk in "parallel places" is not at all so restrained as the author of the Tale, so that "Descent and Collection" can be used as a guide to our monument).

The first people were seduced by the serpent, which was "more cunning than all the beasts of the field." The "serpent" nailed to the fellow:

The hammer also had a sweet and reliable friend -

the named brother called himself to the hammer,

delighted him with lovely speeches,

called him to the tavern yard,

brought Evo into a tavern hut,

brought him a spell of green wine

and pianov's beer brought the roll.

After tasting the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve “knew they were naked,” and sewed clothes for themselves from the leaves. The same motive for nudity and disguise is found in the Tale:

A young man awakens a man from a dream,

at that time the fellow looks around:

and that the precious ports have been removed from it,

boils and stockings - all filmed,

shirt and trousers - everything is sluggish ...

He will be thrown over with a gunka tavern,

at his feet are ottochki pussies ...

And the young man got up on his white feet,

the fellow taught to dress up,

he put on shoes,

he put on a tavern gunk.

The first people knew shame, "and Adam and his wife hid from the face of the Lord God among the trees of paradise," and the god drove Adam out of paradise, and commanded him to get his daily bread in the sweat of his brow. The good fellow from the Tale “felt shameful ... to appear” in the eyes of his father and mother, “he went to a foreign country, dalna, don’t know”, lived by his own labors and “made money from the great mind… the belly of Bolsha Starov”. This is where the direct semblance of the biblical story and the plot of the Tale ends. What the young man is destined to endure further is his individual fate, his “free choice”.

Human being, taken as a whole, was interpreted in medieval Russia as an echo of the past. Having been baptized, a person became "the namesake" of a certain saint, became the "image" and "mark" of his guardian angel. This ecclesiastical tradition was to a certain extent supported by the secular one. It was believed that the descendants echo the ancestors, that there is a common ancestral fate for all generations. Only in the 17th century. the idea of ​​individual destiny is affirmed. In "The Tale of Woe-Evil Part" this idea becomes fundamental.

From the point of view of the author, a man of ancient hardening, loyal to the ideals of Izmaragd and Domostroi, individual fate is “evil”, an evil part, a dashing lot, a mediocre life. This share is personified in Grief, which appears before the hero after his second fall, when he decided to commit suicide:

And at that hour by the swiftness of the river

Skoca Woe because of the stone:

boso-nago, there is not a single thread on the Mountain,

The mountain is still belted with a stripe,

“Wait, well done; me, Grief, will not go anywhere! ".

Now the young man can no longer get out of the power of his double:

The good fellow flew like a dove

and Woe is behind him like a gray hawk.

The good fellow went into the field like a gray wolf,

and Woe is behind him with greyhounds ...

The fellow went to the sea with a fish,

and Woe behind him with happy seines.

Still the wicked Woe laughed:

"Be you, little fish, caught by the shore,

to be eaten by you,

it will be a vain death to die! "

This power is truly demonic; only a monastery can get rid of it, within the walls of which the hero is finally shut up. Moreover, for the author, the monastery is not a longed-for refuge from worldly storms, but a forced, only way out. Why is Grief-Evil Part so "sticky", so obsessive? Why was he given full power over the young man, for what sins? Of course, the fellow fell, but he got up. As one poet of the mid-17th century wrote, accurately expressing Orthodox teaching,

There is Christianity - pad, vostati,

but the devil is - pad, do not reckon.

One God without sin, man lives, alternating between "falls" and "uprisings", another life on earth is simply impossible.

Usually they pay attention to the fact that the young man, having arranged his affairs in a foreign land, “by the permission of God and by the devil’s action,” uttered a “praiseworthy word” at the feast, boasted of the wealth he had acquired.

And the word of praise has always rotted,

praise lives on harm to man!

It was then that the Grief-Evil Part noticed him, since "bragging" is pernicious both from the church point of view (this is "boast", a kind of pride, the first of the seven main sins), and from the point of view of the people: “in epics, heroes never boast and extremely rare cases of bragging cause the most dire consequences. " But after "bragging", the Mountain only noticed a suitable sacrifice: "How would I appear for a hammer?" Now is the time to return to biblical events and their projection onto Russian life in the 17th century.

If at first the direct parallelism was the constructive principle of the author of the Tale, then later it is replaced by negative parallelism. The projection of the biblical story continues, but it is already an inverted projection. Note that the author tells about original sin in an epic-calm tone. This is not difficult to explain. As a Christian, the author knows that the "new Adam" atoned for the guilt of the "old Adam." As a person, the author understands that he owes his presence on earth to the first people, for Eve is life, God punished Eve with childbirth: "in illness you will bear children."

And the god drove out Adam with Eve

from the holy paradise, from the Eden,

and he put them on a low ground,

blessed them to grow and be fruitful ...

God made a lawful commandment:

told them to be married and

for the birth of a human and for beloved children.

Woe-Evil Part forced the young man to break this commandment. The bride was looked after "according to custom", Grief persuaded him to break with her, having dreamed of the archangel Gabriel. (This character was introduced into the Tale for a reason: in the Gospel he brings Mary the good news of the birth of a son, in the Tale he turns the hero away from marriage "for the birth of a human being and for beloved children"). This is the ideological culmination of the work. The good fellow died completely, irrevocably, he can no longer get on his feet, do not throw off the yoke of Grief-Malice. Having chosen a personal destiny, he chose loneliness. This is stated in the song "Good fellow and the river Smorodina", in which there are many common motives with the Tale:

The berry rolled down

from the sakhanov tree,

a twig broke off

from the curly from the apple tree.

The theme of loneliness is one of the main themes not only of Russian, but also of Western European culture of the 17th century. The Moscow "walking man" is closely related to the Baroque pilgrim, lost in the labyrinth of the world. Of course, the author of The Tale of Woe-Evil Part condemns his hero. But the author is not so much indignant as sad. He is full of sympathy for the fellow. A person deserves sympathy simply because he is a person, even if he is fallen and mired in sin.

Archpriest Avvakum

In the memory of the nation, Archpriest Avvakum exists as a symbol - a symbol of the Old Believer movement and Old Believer protest. Why did the "national memory" choose this particular person? Habakkuk was a martyr. Of the over sixty years of his life (he was born "in the Nizhny Novgorod region" in 1620 or 1621), almost half fell on exiles and prisons. Habakkuk was a rebel. He fearlessly fought with the church and secular authorities, with the king himself: "Like a lion roars, tenacious, exposing their diverse charm." Avvakum was the people's defender. He defended more than one old faith; he also defended the oppressed and humiliated "commoners". "Not only for changing the holy books, but also for worldly truth ... it is fitting to lay down your soul." His martyrdom was crowned with a martyr's death. On April 14, 1682, Avvakum was burned in Pustozersk "for the great blasphemy against the royal house."

As you can see, Habakkuk became a symbolic figure by merit, and not by a whim of history. But at the beginning of the schism, there were many thousands of sufferers and warriors. Why did Russia prefer Avvakum to all of them? Because he possessed a wonderful gift of speech and was head and shoulders above his contemporaries as a preacher, as a "man of the pen," as a stylist. Of the writers of the 17th century, generally very rich in literary talents, only Avvakum was given the epithet "genius". Since the time when N. S. Tikhonravov published Avvakum's Life in 1861 and it went beyond the limits of Old Believer reading, the artistic power of this masterpiece was recognized once and for all, unanimously and without hesitation.

Since Avvakum is both a writer and a scholar (this word is from the vocabulary of biased Orthodox polemicists, apologists for Nikon's reform), the general assessment of the Old Believers inevitably affects the attitude towards his personality and his writings. We inherited it from the 19th century, which dealt with the late, outlived Old Believer world, fragmented into hostile accords and rumors. Those who watched this world were struck by its isolation, conservatism, its narrowness and "ritualism." These stagnant features were also attributed to the "zealots of ancient piety" of the middle of the 17th century, including Avvakum. They were portrayed as fanatics and retrogrades, opponents of any change.

Transferring the situation of the XIX century. at the time of Tsar Alexei - an obvious mistake. The principle of historicism cannot be violated and facts cannot be ignored. Then the Old Believers defended not museum, but living values. It is true that Habakkuk stood up for the national tradition: “Hear, Christian, if you have put aside something of the faith, you have damaged everything ... Hold, Christian, the whole church is unchanged… And do not move church things from place to place, but hold. What the fathers laid down to the saints, let them abide unchanged, like Basil the Great said: do not propose limits, even the fathers laid down ”. But the scope of this tradition was wide enough not to hinder creativity. Habakkuk could prove himself and showed himself as an innovator - both in church affairs and in literature. In his "Life" he insisted on his "calling" to innovation (in the system of meanings of Habakkuk, innovation was identified with the apostolic ministry: "It seems that I didn't need to talk about life, yes ... the apostles announced themselves about themselves"; therefore, loyalty Avvakum so organically combined "holy Russia" with freethinking). From this point of view, the very first autobiographical phrase of the Life is full of deep meaning.

“My birth is in the Nizhny Novgorod region, beyond the Kudma River, in the village of Grigorov ...”. What was the Russian man of the 17th century thinking about after reading these words? The fact that the Nizhny Novgorod region since the Time of Troubles played the role of a zemstvo center, to a certain extent opposing boyar and bishop Moscow; that it was here that Kozma Minin, the “elected man of the whole earth,” managed to gather a militia and raise the banner of the war of liberation; that in the 20-30s. here began that religious movement, which foreign observers called the Russian Reformation. The very place of birth, as it were, predicted the priest's son Avvakum Petrov, twenty-three years old ordained a priest, to take part in the struggle against the episcopate, who did not care about the needs of the people. In Nizhny Novgorod, Ivan Neronov asceticised, later the archpriest of the cathedral of the Kazan Mother of God in Moscow and the patron of Avvakum, who was the first to dare to denounce the episcopate. The destinies of the most prominent figures of church and culture of the 17th century were intertwined "in the Nizhegorotsk predekhs". Ivan Neronov and Nikon, the future patriarch, were both disciples of the most popular priest Anania from the village of Lyskovo. Nikon, a native of the village of Valdemanova, and Avvakum were fellow countrymen, almost neighbors.

Describing his youth in Nizhny Novgorod, Avvakum recalled his constant quarrels with the “bosses”. “The chief took her daughter away from the widow, and I prayed him, but he would return the orphan to the mother, and he, despising our prayer, raised a storm on me, and at the church, he came in a crowd, they crushed me to death ... time, he got furious with me, - he ran to my house, hitting me, and biting off the fingers of my hand, like a dog, with his teeth ... Therefore, the yard took from me, but knocked me out, robbing me all, and did not give bread for the road. " There is no reason to attribute these strife only to the rebellious nature of Avvakum, if only because the same conflicts accompanied the pastoral activities of all "God-lovers" in general. A typical example is the behavior of one of their leaders, the tsar's confessor Archpriest Stephen Vonifatiev, at the consecrated cathedral in 1649. In the presence of the sovereign, he cursed the aged Patriarch Joseph “a wolf, not a shepherd”, and all bishops in general “scolded without honor”; they, in turn, demanded to put Stephen to death.

What is the reason, what is the meaning of these attacks by Habakkuk and his teachers on the "chiefs", be they governors or archpastors? God-lovers believed that the state and the church, whose weaknesses were exposed by the Troubles, needed a transformation, and those in power resisted all changes, clinging to "ancient disobedience." The innovations of Ivan Neronov and his followers seemed to them "insane doctrine" and heresy. The God-lovers were engaged in social and Christian work: they revived personal preaching (an unheard-of innovation!), Interpreted "every speech is clear and angry for simple listeners", helped the poor, started schools and almshouses. The bishops saw in this an encroachment on their spiritual power, a rebellion of the flock against the shepherds: after all, the God-lovers represented the lower clergy, the provincial white clergy, who were much closer to the people than the bishops.

But when the real church reform began, the God-lovers did not accept it: “We are pondering, coming together; we see that winter wants to be; my heart went cold and my legs trembled. " On the eve of Lent in 1653, Nikon, a friend of the God-lovers, who had become patriarch with their support a year before, sent to the Kazan Cathedral, and then to other Moscow churches, the patriarchal "memory", in which he ordered to replace the two-fingered sign of the cross with three-fingered. Avvakum, who served in the clerk of the Kazan Cathedral, did not obey the patriarch. The rebellious archpriest demonstratively gathered the parishioners in a hay barn ("in a dryer"). His adherents directly said: "In some time, and the stable, de other churches are better." Avvakum was taken into custody and put on a chain in one of the Moscow monasteries. This was Avvakum's first "prison sitting": sitting in the dark, bowing to the chepie, I don't know - to the east, I don't know - to the west. Nobody came to me, only mice, and cockroaches, and crickets screaming, and there are enough fleas. " Soon he was sent to Siberia with his wife Nastasya Markovna and with children - first to Tobolsk, and then to Dauria.

How can this opposition be explained? First of all, by the fact that Nikon began the reform with his will and his power, as a patriarch, and not as a representative of the God-lovers. Of course, they were hurt, even offended, but the point is not in their ambition. From their point of view, Nikon betrayed the main idea of ​​the movement - the idea of ​​conciliarity, according to which the management of the church should belong not only to the bishops, but also to the Belians, “as well as those living in the world and living a virtuous life of people passing through every rank”. Thus, Nikon turned into a retrograde, returning to the idea of ​​archpastoral superiority; God-lovers remained innovators.

The second aspect of the opposition is national. Nikon was overwhelmed by the dream of a universal Orthodox empire. It was this dream that made him bring the Russian rite closer to the Greek. To the God-lovers, universal claims were alien, and Nikon with his grandiose plans seemed to them something like a Roman pope. So the split of the Muscovy began.

Avvakum wandered across Siberia for eleven years. Meanwhile, his enemy Nikon in 1658 was forced to leave the patriarchal throne, because Tsar Alexei could no longer and did not want to endure the overbearing tutelage of his "sobin friend". When Avvakum was returned to Moscow in 1664, the tsar tried to persuade him to make concessions: the trial of the defeated patriarch was approaching, and the sovereign needed the support of a man in whom the "simpletons" had already recognized their intercessor. But nothing came of the attempt at reconciliation. Avvakum hoped that the removal of Nikon also meant a return to the "old faith", the triumph of the God-loving movement, which was once supported by the young Alexei Mikhailovich. But the tsar and the boyar elite were not at all going to abandon the church reform: they used it in order to subordinate the church to the state. The king soon became convinced that Habakkuk was dangerous for him, and the rebellious archpriest was again deprived of freedom. New exiles followed, new prisons, deprivation of priesthood and the curse of the church council in 1666-1667. and, finally, imprisonment in Pustozersk, a small town at the mouth of the Pechora, in "a place of tundra, cold and treeless." Habakkuk was brought here on December 12, 1667. Here he spent the last fifteen years of his life.

In Pustozersk, Avvakum became a writer. In his younger years, he had no literary inclinations. He chose another field - the field of oral preaching, direct communication with people. This communication filled his life. “I had many spiritual children,” he recalled in Pustozersk, “until now it will be about five or six hundred. Without resting, I am a sinner, I was diligent in churches, and in houses, and on roadsteads, in towns and villages, also in the reigning city, and preaching in the Siberian country ”. In Pustozersk, Avvakum could not preach to his “spiritual children,” and he had no choice but to take up his pen. Of the writings of Avvakum (up to ninety in total) found so far, more than eighty have been written in Pustozersk.

In the 70s. Pustozersk suddenly became one of the most prominent literary centers of Russia. Avvakum was exiled here together with other leaders of the Old Believers - the Solovetsky monk Epiphanius, the priest from the city of Romanov Lazar, and the deacon of the Annunciation Cathedral Fyodor Ivanov. They made up the "great four" of writers. In the first years, the prisoners lived relatively freely, immediately established literary cooperation, discussed and ruled each other, and even co-authored (for example, the so-called fifth petition in 1669, Avvakum composed together with Deacon Fyodor). They searched for and found contacts with readers on the Mezen, where Avvakum's family stayed, in Solovki and in Moscow. “And the archer at the reed in the ax ordered the box to be made,” wrote Avvakum to the boyaryna FP Morozova in the same 1669, “and sealed that messenger in the reed with his poor hand ... to the hands of my son-light; and the box for the archer was made by the elder Epiphanius. " Epiphanius, very capable of any kind of handicraft, also made numerous wooden crosses with hiding places in which he hid "letters" addressed "to the world."

The authorities resorted to punitive measures. In April 1670 Epiphanius, Lazar and Fedor were subjected to "execution": they cut off their tongues and cut off their right palms. Avvakum was spared (the king, apparently, felt some kind of weakness for him). He endured this mercy very hard: "And I resisted tovo spat and wanted to die without eating, and did not eat for eight days or more, but the brothers ordered to eat packs." The conditions of detention have deteriorated sharply. "He chopped down the log cabins near our dungeons and showered earth in the dungeons ... and left us a single window, where to take the necessary food and take wood." Habakkuk, with a proud and bitter mockery, portrayed his "great peace" in the following way: and the tsar-tovo, Alexei Mikhailovich, has no such peace. "

But even in these unbearable conditions, the "great four" continued their intensive literary work. Habakkuk wrote many petitions, letters, epistles, as well as such extensive works as "The Book of Conversations" (1669-1675), consisting of ten discourses on doctrinal topics; as the "Book of Interpretations" (1673-1676) - it includes Habakkuk's interpretations of the psalms and other biblical texts; as "The Book of Rebuke, or the Eternal Gospel" (1679), containing a theological controversy with Deacon Fyodor. In the "earthen prison" Avvakum created his "Life" (1672), which he revised several times.

According to ideology, Avvakum was a democrat. Democracy also determined its aesthetics - both linguistic norms, and pictorial means, and the writer's position in general. His reader is the same peasant or townsman who was taught by Avvakum "in the Nizhny Novgorod region", this is his spiritual son, careless and diligent, sinful and righteous, weak and staunch at the same time. Like the protopope himself, this is a "natural hare". It is not easy for him to understand Church Slavonic wisdom, one should speak simply with him, and Avvakum makes vernacular the most important stylistic principle: "Those who honor and hear, do not disguise our vernacular, I still love my natural Russian language ... I do not shy away from eloquence and do not despise my Russian language." Avvakum feels himself to be a speaker, not a writer, calling his manner of presentation "grumble" and "grumble". He spoke Russian with amazing freedom and flexibility. He sometimes caressed his reader-listener, calling him "father", "darling", "poor", "pretty"; then he scolded him, as he scolded Deacon Fyodor, his opponent on theological issues: "Fyodor, you are a fool!" Avvakum is capable of lofty pathos, to the "deplorable word", which he wrote after the martyrdom of Boyaryn Morozova, Princess Urusova and Maria Danilova in Borovsk: "Alas for me, an orphan! Leaving me, children, to the beasts to be devoured! .. Alas, the deads, who died in the underworlds of the earth! .. No one dares to ask the Nikonians for godless bodies, your blessed, soulless, dead, vulnerable, shocked with shabbiness, moreover wrapped in matting! Alas, alas, my chicks, I see your mouth is mute! You kiss, having attached to yourself, crying and kissing! ". Humor is no stranger to him either - he laughed at his enemies, calling them "bitters" and "fools", laughed at himself, protecting himself from self-aggrandizement and narcissism.

It was not in vain that Avvakum was afraid of accusations that he was "self-praised." Having declared himself the defender of “holy Russia,” he essentially breaks with its literary prohibitions. For the first time, it unites the author and the hero of the hagiographic narrative in one person. From the traditional point of view, this is unacceptable, it is sinful pride. For the first time, Avvakum writes so much about his own experiences, about how he “grieves”, “sobs”, “sighs,” “grieves”. For the first time, a Russian writer dares to compare himself with the first Christian writers - the apostles. Avvakum calls his "Life" "the book of the eternal belly," and this is not a slip of the tongue. As an apostle, Habakkuk has the right to write about himself. He is free in the choice of themes and characters, free in "vernacular", in the discussion of his own and others' actions. He is an innovator breaking tradition. But he justifies himself by returning to the apostolic origins of this tradition.

Medieval literature is symbolic literature. Habakkuk also holds to this principle. But the symbolic layer of his "Life" is innovatively individual: the author attaches symbolic meaning to such "perishable", insignificant everyday details, which medieval hagiography generally did not notice at all. Talking about his first "prison sitting" in 1653, Avvakum writes: “I was on the third day, I wanted to eat, and after a hundred Vespers before me, we do not know - an angel, we do not know - a man, and so I don’t know the time, only in the dark he made a prayer and, taking me by the shoulder, brought me to the bench with a chain and put me in my hands and gave me a little loaf and a little loaf and a little bit of bread and a little bit of bread - very bitten, good! - and he advertised to me: “It’s full, it is enough for strengthening!” And it’s not a herd. The doors did not open, and it was gone! Only wonderful is the man; what about an angel? But there’s nothing to marvel at — he’s not fenced in everywhere. ” "The miracle with cabbage soup" is an everyday miracle, like the story of a little black hen who fed Avvakum's children in Siberia.

The symbolic interpretation of everyday life is extremely important in the system of ideological and artistic principles of the Life. Avvakum fiercely fought Nikon not only because Nikon encroached on the time-honored Orthodox rite. Avvakum saw in the reform an encroachment on the entire Russian way of life, on the entire national way of life. For Habakkuk, Orthodoxy is firmly connected with this way of life. As soon as Orthodoxy collapses, it means that "bright Russia" is dying too. Therefore, he so lovingly, so vividly describes Russian life, especially family life.

The connection between the Pustozero literary center and Moscow was two-way. The "Great Quaternary" received regular information about European trends in the capital - about the court theater, "part singing", "promising" painting, syllabic poetry. All this Habakkuk, of course, denied - as a violation of paternal covenants. He sought to create a counterbalance to baroque culture (this is the main reason for his colossal productivity). In the fight against it, he was forced to respond in one way or another to the problems that this culture put forward. In it, the individual principle became more and more weighty - and Avvakum also cultivates a unique, creative manner inherent only to him. Poetry was considered the "queen of arts" in the Baroque - and Avvakum also began to use measured speech, focusing on the folk tale verse.

About my soul, what is your will,

Like you yourself in that distant desert

Like a homeless now sytaesh,

And wondrous beasts you have your life,

And in poverty without mercy you wear yourself out,

Thirsty and hungry now dying?

Why is God's creation with thanksgiving not acceptable?

Ali you have no power from God

Access the sweets of this age and bodily joys?

The poem about the soul is a reflection of a person who suddenly regretted the "sweetness of this age", who felt sorry for himself. It was only a momentary weakness, and Habakkuk later rejected the poem "About my soul ...". Until his death, he remained faithful to his convictions, remained a fighter and accuser. He wrote only the truth - the truth that his "angry conscience" told him.

Moscow baroque

The culture of the Middle Ages is characterized by the integrity of the artistic system and the unity of artistic tastes. In medieval art, the collective principle ("anonymity") reigns supreme, hindering the development of competing trends. Aesthetic consciousness puts etiquette and canon above all else, values ​​newness and takes little interest in it. Only in the 17th century. literature is gradually moving away from these medieval principles. Writer of the 17th century. he is no longer content with the familiar, retired, "eternal", he begins to realize the aesthetic appeal of the unexpected and is not afraid of originality and dynamism. He is faced with the problem of choosing an artistic method - and, which is very important, he has a choice. This is how literary trends are born. One of them in the 17th century. was Baroque - the first of the European styles, represented in Russian culture.

In Europe, the Baroque replaced the Renaissance (through a transitional stage, mannerism). In the culture of the Baroque, the place of the Renaissance man was again taken by God - the primary cause and purpose of earthly existence. In a sense, the Baroque gave a synthesis of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. Eschatology, the theme of "dances of death," revived again, and interest in mysticism intensified. This medieval stream in the Baroque aesthetics contributed to the assimilation of this style among the Eastern Slavs, for whom medieval culture was by no means a distant past.

At the same time, the Baroque never (at least theoretically) broke with the heritage of the Renaissance and did not abandon its achievements. Ancient gods and heroes remained the characters of baroque writers, while ancient poetry retained the significance of a high and unattainable model for them. The Renaissance stream determined the special role of the Baroque style in the evolution of Russian culture: the Baroque in Russia performed the functions of the Renaissance.

The ancestor of the Moscow baroque was the Belarusian Samuil Yemelyanovich Sitnianovich-Petrovsky (1629-1680), who at the age of twenty-seven took monasticism with the name of Simeon and who was nicknamed Polotsk in Moscow - after his hometown, where he was a teacher at the school of the local Orthodox "brotherhood". In 1664, at the same time as Archpriest Avvakum, who had returned from Siberian exile, Simeon of Polotsk came to Moscow - and stayed here forever.