What does the word life mean in literature. What is life: definition of the genre and its features
Ancient written literature is divided into secular and ecclesiastical. The latter received special distribution and development after Christianity began to occupy an increasingly strong position among other world religions.
Genres of religious literature
Ancient Russia acquired its own written language along with those brought from Byzantium by Greek priests. And the first Slavic alphabet, as you know, was developed by the Thessalonica brothers, Cyril and Methodius. Therefore, it was church texts that became the one by which our ancestors comprehended book wisdom. The genres of ancient religious literature included psalms, lives, prayers and sermons, church legends, teachings and stories. Some of them, such as the story, subsequently transformed into the genres of secular works. Others remained strictly within the church framework. Let's see what life is. The definition of the concept is as follows: these are works devoted to the description of the life and deeds of saints. We are not talking only about the apostles who continued the preaching work of Christ after his death. The heroes of hagiographic texts were martyrs who became famous for their highly moral behavior and who suffered for their faith.
Characteristic signs of life as a genre
From this follows the first distinguishing feature of what life is. The definition included some clarification: first, it was about a real person. The author of the work had to adhere to the framework of this biography, but pay attention precisely to those facts that would indicate the special holiness, chosenness and asceticism of the saint. Secondly, what is a life (definition): it is a story composed for the glorification of a saint for the edification of all believers and non-believers, so that they are inspired by a positive example.
An obligatory part of the story was reports of the miraculous power that God endowed with his most faithful servants. Thanks to God's mercy, they could heal, support the suffering, perform the feat of humility and asceticism. So the authors drew the image of an ideal person, but, as a result, many biographical information, details of private life were omitted. And finally, another distinguishing feature of the genre: style and language. There are many references, words and expressions with biblical symbols.
Based on the above, what is life? The definition can be formulated as follows: this is an ancient genre of written literature (as opposed to oral folk art) on a religious theme, glorifying the deeds of Christian saints and martyrs.
Lives of the Saints
Hagiographic works were the most popular in ancient Russia for a long time. They were written according to strict canons and, in fact, revealed the meaning of human life. One of the most striking examples of the genre is the "Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh", set forth by Epiphanius the Wise. There is everything that should be in this type: the hero comes from a pious family of the righteous, obedient to the will of the Lord. God's providence, faith and prayers support the hero from childhood. He meekly endures trials and trusts only in God's mercy. Realizing the importance of faith, the hero spends his conscious life in spiritual labors, not caring about the material side of life. The basis of his existence is fasting, prayers, taming the flesh, fighting the unclean, asceticism. The lives emphasized that their characters were not afraid of death, gradually prepared for it and accepted their departure with joy, as this allowed their souls to meet with God and angels. The work ended, as it began, with a doxology and praise of the Lord, Christ and the Holy Spirit, as well as the righteous man himself - the reverend.
List of hagiographic works of Russian literature
Peru of Russian authors owns about 156 texts related to the genre of hagiography. The first of them are connected with the names of princes Boris and Gleb, who were treacherously killed by their own brother. They also became the first Russian Christian martyrs-passion-bearers, canonized by the Orthodox Church and considered intercessors of the state. Further, the lives of Prince Vladimir, Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy and many other prominent representatives of the Russian land were created. A special place in this series is occupied by the biography of Archpriest Avvakum, the recalcitrant leader of the Old Believers, written by himself during his stay in the Pustozersky prison (17th century). In fact, this is the first autobiography, the birth of a new
Usually life is called a story about the life and exploits of those who entered the history of the Christian church and were later included among the saints - those personalities whose memory is still preserved in all varieties of Christianity (Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism).
What qualities of life attracted the attention of readers? The story about the saint has always been structured in such a way that the reader not only vividly imagines why this particular historical (or fictional) person is called a saint by the church, but also read it with unflagging interest.
In the center of the hagiographic story, extraordinary incidents that happened to the hero were always placed, or his sufferings were described in the name of the triumph of the Christian faith.
The main task of the life was the glorification of the saint, which always began with the chanting of his courage, stamina or ability to overcome difficulties. For example, in one of the early lives - the lives of Boris and Gleb - there is a description of their murder by Svyatopolk, amazing in its tragedy. The hagiographic story about Alexander Nevsky also contains a colorful description of the famous Battle of the Neva, where Alexander rode his horse directly onto the deck of an enemy ship.
From the very beginning, the lives were built according to a single model, which included a number of obligatory moments in the life of a saint. The main events of the saint's life were recounted, often from his birth to his death. The lives also included a lot of information from the history, geography, and even the economy of those places where the corresponding saint lived. Due to this, researchers widely use the lives as a source containing important information about the life of people in bygone times.
Sometimes even the most ordinary people who had not accomplished anything heroic in their lives were recognized as saints. Their lives usually included descriptions of miracles attributed to them, sometimes occurring after their death.
Over time, the genre of life began to gradually change. The description of the life of the saint often overshadowed the stories of his exploits. The compiler of the life sought to show that an ordinary person who devoted his whole life to caring for others deserves no less respect than a martyr who was killed in the distant past. The struggle with oneself turned out to be no less important than a heroic death in agony.
At the same time, the image of the saint was revealed from a new and in many ways unexpected side. It was these lives, more reminiscent of biographies (for example, the story of Julian Lazarevskaya), that began to be used by writers of the nineteenth and even the twentieth century. N. Leskov, L. Tolstoy, L. Andreev, B. Zaitsev, B. Pilnyak used hagiographic images and plots to create their works.
That's what an interesting and long life the lives of saints have in Russian culture.
life
life, life, cf.
1. The story of the life of a man recognized by believers as a saint ( lit. church). Lives of the Saints.
| Same as ( books. obsolete).
2. Same as ( books. obsolete, now joke.). Prosperous and peaceful life. Carefree life.
Terminological dictionary-thesaurus on literary criticism
life
a genre of ancient Russian literature that tells about the life of people ranked by the church as a host of saints.
Rb: genera and genres of literature
Genus: genres of ancient Russian literature
Example: "The Life of Theodosius", "The Life of Alexander Nevsky"
* "The first Russian lives (of princes Boris and Gleb, abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery Theodosius) date back to the 11th century. These lives are distinguished by literary perfection, attention to the pressing problems of our time, and the vitality of many episodes" (Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Literary Critic). *
Dictionary of forgotten and difficult words of the 18th-19th centuries
life
, I, cf.
1. Lives of saints or some persons canonized by the church.
* Agafya tells her[Lise] not fairy tales: in a measured and even voice she tells the life of the Blessed Virgin, the life of hermits. // Turgenev. Noble Nest // *
2. A life.
* [Pimen:] And his son Theodore? On the throne, he sighed about the peaceful life of the Silent. // Pushkin. Boris Godunov // *
Bible Dictionary to the Russian Canonical Bible
life
life (Gen.6:9; Gen.37:2; Jer.32:37; 1 Pet.3:1,2,16; 1Tim.4:12; 2Tim.3:10) - life, way of life.
Aesthetics. encyclopedic Dictionary
life
a religious and moral genre of medieval Christian literature, one of the earliest forms of applying the biographical method to compiling the biographies of saints - martyrs for the faith, passion-bearers, miracle workers, especially pious, virtuous, statesmen and learned men, outstanding church leaders who left an indelible mark on Christian culture. Athanasius the Great, Gregory 1 the Great, Gregory of Tours, Bede the Venerable, Peter Damian and others left their mark on the genre of hagiography. The prehistory of the hagiography genre is rooted in the ancient biographism of Plutarch and Tacitus. Its immediate basis is the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, which tell about the earthly life of Christ and the ascetic activity of the Holy Apostles. Starting from the 5th c. hagiographic collections began to be widely distributed - patericons. The hagiographical genre was an integral part of Christian, Western and Eastern (Byzantine) literature. Its religious mission was to promote the widespread veneration of Christian saints.
The problem of achieving the state of holiness and how it was covered in the lives was considered in the works of the Russian culturologist P. M. Bitsilli. “Those who are familiar with the hagiographic literature of the Middle Ages,” the researcher wrote, “know what an insignificant role in the lives of the saints - at least until the period of arousal of historical understanding under the influence of mysticism - is played for hagiographers by the problem of achieving sainthood. The saint either immediately enters the historical field as a "completely ready" saint, or his sudden "conversion" is mentioned dully. Partly this truth follows from the conditions of knowledge about the saint: he is recognized only from the moment when he begins to act as a saint; however, we are well aware that the lack of material has rarely been considered an obstacle by hagiographers: at worst - and this is a constant phenomenon - the missing information is filled in with ready-made templates. If the "prehistory" of the saint was usually omitted, it was because they simply did not think about it ”(Bicilli P. M. Elements of medieval culture. - St. Petersburg, 1995.-S. 159).
The results of the cognitive efforts of writers - hagiographers(from Greek. hagios- holy and grapho- describe) allow us to identify the typical features of the Christian consciousness in its most striking manifestations. At the same time, the author's "I" completely dissolved in the narrative, did not reveal itself in any characteristic manifestations. This circumstance was one of the most important distinguishing features of this genre: the author considered his work a service to God, perceived his "I" as an insignificantly small value, unworthy of attention and mention. Compared with the figure of the depicted saint, she seemed to him completely insignificant.
Another feature was the uniqueness of the moral and psychological drawings depicting the spiritual metamorphoses of Christian saints. This stemmed not from the weakness of the intellectual resources of the authors of biographies and not from their indifference to the unique that is present in each individual fate, but from the desire to identify and designate the most important and most characteristic in those metamorphoses that occur in a person under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
A person in life appears, as a rule, in three main states - ordinary, everyday, ordinary, then transitional, crisis, turning point, and, finally, in a state that meets the criteria of holiness. The high drama, complexity and difficulty of the ongoing transformation are emphasized. Ultimately, before the feat of faith in the glory of God, all the worldly attachments of the passion-bearer, his love for parents, home, wealth, if any, etc., recede. Through asceticism and prayer, the imperfection of human nature is overcome.
Through hagiographic writings, an ethical paradigm is formed, an ideal type that represents the highest normative model of the Christian attitude to the world. In this type, the tone is set by the New Testament paradigm of the transformation of the Pharisee Saul into the Apostle Paul, which, however, is significantly modified. In the New Testament, there is virtually no information about the psychodynamics of the transformation of Saul into Paul, but there is a history of two polar types - a fanatical persecutor of Christians and a fearless apostle. The hagiographic genre, focused on the plots of transfiguration, carefully writes out the trajectories of the future saints' ascents from their "natural", pre-Christian state to enlightenment. But these are, for the most part, external signs and evidence of transformation, and not an internal struggle of motives. The reader is left with the impression of inner rebirth as an instantaneous act that takes place, as it were, outside of physical time.
Another characteristic difference of the ongoing spiritual transformation is found in the fact that if the transformation of Paul took place as if against his will, then the transformations with hagiographic heroes are most often a metamorphosis that occurs in accordance with their free decision, driven by their free will.
Early Christian hagiography is distinguished by a number of significant features:
Replication of several typical models of dianoia (restructuring of the soul) - metanoia (restructuring of the mind):
1) the transformation of a pagan into a Christian, permeated with the pathos of the struggle against pagan temptations;
2) the transformation of an ordinary Christian into a righteous man;
3) the tireless struggle of the righteous with many temptations and temptations of the flesh, which continue to confuse him even in solitude and distance from worldly fuss;
Normative idealization, which assumes the "laying" of all empirical material under the canon of hagiography;
The interest is not so much in the external and internal life of the saint's personality, but in the extent and in what forms its involvement in the Christian idea, in the world of religious duty, in the ideal of holiness is revealed;
The predominance of a tone of harsh normativity, pious didactics, moralizing edification, with the goal of "delighting the soul striving for virtue";
The cross-cutting nature of the antitheses between the existent and the proper, the earthly and the heavenly, the carnal and the spiritual, the vanity of worldly goods and the greatness of heavenly bliss;
The presence of folklore motifs that connect the biography with the deep cultural traditions of the pre-Christian past and the stereotypes of the people's worldview;
The extremely serious tone of the narration, excluding any signs of a laughable beginning;
The phenomenology of intentional anti-aestheticism of descriptions, emphasizing the frailty of everything earthly, carnal, devaluing the latter, pointing to its incomparability with the beauties of Christian spirituality and supreme piety; The result of the anti-aestheticism strategy turned out to be paradoxical, but, at the same time, quite consistent with the biblical tradition of “extracting the precious from the insignificant” (Jer. 15, 19): the Christian virtue of humble self-denial grew from the dust of the earth, reaching the degree of dazzling holiness. Through hagiographic writings, a philosophical and ethical paradigm was formed, an ideal type was formed, representing the highest normative model of the Christian attitude to the world.
Ancient Russia, which adopted Orthodoxy from Byzantium, treated hagiographic works with great attention: numerous translations of the Byzantine biographies of saints began to appear. Subsequently, the first Russian church chroniclers began to write in this genre, creating lives about the murdered princes Boris and Gleb, about the Christian thinker Theodosius of the Caves, Alexander Nevsky, Sergius of Radonezh, and others. The suffering and moral deeds of the saints were regarded as evidence of their chosenness, as signs marked by God's protection.
In the XV century. in Moscow, under the leadership of Metropolitan Macarius, a set of hagiographic narratives "Great Menaion-Chetii" was created. It collected the lives of a number of Latin (Catholic), Greek (Byzantine) and Russian saints. At the turn of the XVII-XVII centuries. Metropolitan Dmitry of Rostov prepared a multi-volume set of biographies of the saints.
Old Russian hagiographic works dispersed among handwritten collections of the 15th-18th centuries. and grouped in special editions - this is not only a genre of soul-saving reading and one of the components of the historical and literary process, but also an important source of non-religious and non-literary information. The study of hagiographic creations led researchers to the conclusion that the historical evolution of hagiographic literature was carried out in accordance with the same logic with which the transition of painting from the icon to the portrait took place: the normative role of the canon gradually weakened, and the factual side of the content became more and more representative. As a result, the appearance of works of such a kind as "The Life of Archpriest Avvakum" became possible. This is already a marginal work, in which the genres of life, confession, sermon, adventure novel are mixed. A thread of continuity stretches from him already to purely artistic works, the authors of which used elements of hagiography as a literary device that made it possible to give the narrative a special, sublimely archaic direction. The literary works of this kind should include the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky “ Brothers Karamazov" (1880) as part of the intended "superchroman" " Life of the great sinner Father Sergius"(1898) L. N. Tolstoy," Cathedral"(1872) N. S. Leskov," Life of Basil of Thebes"(1904) L. N. Andreeva," Saint Eustathius" (1915) and " Matthew the Perspicacious"(1916) I. A. Bunin," chopping block” (1986) Ch. Aitmatova and others. In Western literature, elements of hagiography were used in their work by T. S. Eliot, K. G. Chesterton, R. Brandstetter and other writers.
In the 19th century secular scientists drew attention to the ability of these literary monuments to serve as a source of scientific-theoretical, socio-humanitarian, historical knowledge about the founding of monasteries, the construction of temples, important church-state, political events, the tragic conflicts of princely strife and the fight against enemy invasions. Russian philologist, researcher of ancient icon painting F. I. Buslaev considered hagiography to be an extremely important source, providing valuable information on the history of ancient customs and mores.
The master's thesis of the Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky " Ancient Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source» (1871). Klyuchevsky's university teacher, historian S. M. Solovyov, suggested that his student consider the ascetic activity of Russian saints, hermit monks, as one of the manifestations of the internal colonization of Russia. The sketes and monasteries that arose in the northern forests constituted one of the lines of colonization by Russia of its own, undeveloped geographical spaces. Klyuchevsky formulated a number of theses regarding the use of hagiography for research purposes: “1. In the literary part of the life, biographical facts serve in it only as ready-made forms for expressing the ideal image of the ascetic. 2. From the described life, life takes only such features that go towards the designated task. 3. Selected features are generalized in the life so that the individual personality disappears in them behind the features of the ideal type. 4. The hagiobiographer and the historian look at the described person from different points of view: the first one looks for the reflection of an abstract ideal in it, the second - for individual distinctive features. 5. The abundance and quality of biographical facts in the life are inversely related to the development of the honoring of the saint, to the solemnity of the occasion that caused the life, and to the chronological distance between the death of the saint and the writing of the life. Klyuchevsky managed to see in hagiography not only material for the historian, but also broader cognitive possibilities of a sociological and anthropological nature. He wrote: “Reading the lives, we are present at two main processes of our ancient history: we meet face to face with an ancient Russian man who, always moving with a cross, an ax and a plow, in a zipun and in a monastic cassock, did one considerable thing - he cleared a place for history from the banks of the Dnieper to the shores of the Northern Ocean, and at the same time, despite such extensibility, he knew how to gather strength to create a state that would hold back both invasions from the East and propaganda from the West.
biographies of people canonized by the church as saints. Such people were honored with church veneration and commemoration, the compilation of a Zh. was an indispensable condition for canonization, that is, recognition of holiness. Zh.'s clerical appointment was conditioned by the requirement of strict observance of the basic principles of the genre: the hero Zh. had to serve as a model of an ascetic for the glory of the church, to resemble other saints in everything. Composition F was traditional: a story about the childhood of a saint who avoids playing with children, a devout believer, then a story about his life with deeds of piety and miracles performed, a story about death and posthumous miracles. Hagiographers willingly borrow from other magazines both the plot and individual collisions. However, Zh.'s heroes were, as a rule, real people (with the exception of Zh. the first Christian martyrs), and therefore it was precisely in Zh. that real life was reflected more vividly than in other genres of ancient Russian literature. This feature of Zh. was especially strong in the section of miracles that was obligatory for them. Most of the miracles of life are a protocol-business record about the healing of sick and suffering people from the relics of a saint or through prayer to him, about the saint’s help to people in critical situations, but there are many vitally vivid action stories among them. At one time, F.I. Buslaev wrote: “In articles about the miracles of saints, sometimes in remarkably vivid essays, the private life of our ancestors appears, with their habits, sincere thoughts, with their troubles and sufferings” (Buslaev F.I. Historical reader, - M., 1861.-Stb. 736). Oral monastic legends, features of monastic life, the circumstances of the relationship of the monastery with the world, secular authorities, real historical events are reflected in the hagiographic stories about ascetic monks. Zh. founders of monasteries reflect sometimes very dramatic clashes between the founder of the monastery and the local population. In a number of cases, living human feelings and relationships are hidden behind traditional hagiographic collisions. Very characteristic in this regard is the episode of Zh. Theodosius of the Caves, dedicated to the traditional hagiographic situation - the departure of a young man, the future saint, from home to a monastery. The opposition of the mother of Theodosius to his charitable desire to leave the world and devote himself to the service of God is interpreted by the author as a manifestation of the enemy's will, as a result of devilish instigations, but he describes this situation as a vitally vivid, dramatic picture of maternal feelings. The mother loves her son and rebels against his desire to go to the monastery, but she is a person of a strong, adamant character, and because of her love for her son and the desire to insist on her own, this love turns into cruelty - not having achieved her persuasion and threats, she subjects her son to cruel tortures . Zh. can be divided into several groups according to the type of subjects. Zh.-martiria told about the death of saints who suffered for their adherence to Christianity. These could be the first Christians tortured and executed by the Roman emperors, Christians who suffered in countries and lands where other religions were practiced, who died at the hands of the pagans. In J. martyrias, an almost indispensable plot motif was a detailed description of the torment to which a saint is subjected before death, in an attempt to force him to renounce his Christian views. Another group of Zh. narrated about Christians who voluntarily subjected themselves to various kinds of trials: rich young men secretly left their homes and led a half-starved life of beggars, being humiliated and ridiculed; ascetics, leaving cities, went into the desert, lived there all alone (hermits), suffering from deprivation and spending all the days in unceasing prayers. A special type of Christian asceticism was pilgrimage - the saint lived for many years on the top of a stone tower (pillar), in monasteries ascetics could “shut up” in a cell, which they did not leave for an hour until death. Many statesmen were also proclaimed saints - princes, tsars, emperors, church leaders (founders and abbots of monasteries, bishops and metropolitans, patriarchs, famous theologians and preachers). Zh. were timed to coincide with a specific date - the day of the saint's death, and under this number were included in the Prologues, Menaion (collections of lives, arranged in the order of the monthly calendar), in collections of stable composition. As a rule, Zh. were accompanied by church services dedicated to the saint, laudatory words in his honor (and sometimes words for the acquisition of his relics, the transfer of relics to a new church, etc.). Hundreds of Zh. are known in ancient Russian literature, while translated (Byzantine, less often Bulgarian and Serbian) Zh. Orthodox saints, regardless of who they were by nationality and in what country they lived and labored. Of the Byzantine genres, the translations of J. Alexei, the Man of God, Andrew the Holy Fool, Barbara, George the Victorious, Demetrius of Thessalonica, Eustace of Placis, Euthymius the Great, Euphrosyne of Alexandria, Catherine, Epiphanius of Cyprus, John Chrysostom, Cosmas and Damian, Mary of Egypt, Nicholas of Myra, Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa, Savva the Sanctified, Simeon the Stylite, Theodore Stratelates, Theodore Tiron and other saints. For translations from Greek of some of them, see the book: Polyakova S. V. Byzantine legends.-L., 1972. Zh. Russian saints were created throughout all the centuries of the existence of ancient Russian literature - from the 11th to the 17th centuries. Zh. these can also be systematized according to the type of heroes Zh.: princely Zh., Zh. church hierarchs, Zh. builders of monasteries, Zh. ascetics for the glory of the church and martyrs for the faith, Zh. holy fools. Of course, this classification is very arbitrary and has no clear boundaries; many princes, for example, appear in Zh. as martyrs for the faith, the founders of monasteries were a variety of people, etc. Zh. North Russian, Pskov, Rostov, Moscow, etc.). For the most part, the names of the authors of Zh., as well as in general the written monuments of Ancient Russia, remained unknown to us, but in a number of cases we recognize the names of the writers of Zh from the text of the works themselves, on the basis of indirect data. The most famous among Russian authors are Nestor (XI-beginning of the XII century), Epiphanius the Wise (2nd half of the XIV-1st quarter of the XV century), Pachomius Logofet (XV century). Let us list some ancient Russian Zh., grouping them according to the character of the heroes Zh. Zh. ascetics to the glory of the church and the founders of monasteries: Abraham of Rostov, Abraham of Smolensk, Alexander Oshevensky, ALEXANDER SVIRSKY, Anthony of Siya, Varlaam Khutynsky, Dmitry Prilutsky, Dionisy Glushitsky, Zosima and Savvaty Solovetsky, John of Novgorod, Kirill Belozersky, Leonty of Rostov, Pavel Obnorsky, Pafnuty Borovsky, Sergius of Radonezh, Stefan of Perm. Zh. hierarchs of the Russian church - metropolitans: Alexei, Jonah, Cyprian, Peter, Philip. Zh. holy fools: St. Basil the Blessed, John of Ustyug, Isidor of Rostov, Mikhail Klopsky, Procopius of Ustyug. Of the princely Zh., the most famous are: Zh. Alexander Nevsky, Boris and Gleb, Prince Vladimir, Vsevolod-Gavriil of Pskov, DMITRY DONSKOY, Dovmont-Timofey, Mikhail Alexandrovich of Tverskoy, Mikhail Vsevolodovich of Chernigov, Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tverskoy, Feodor, Prince of Smolensk and Yaroslavl. There are few women's Zh. in Russian hagiography: Anna Kashinskaya, Euphrosyne of Polotsk, Euphrosyne of Suzdal, Juliania Vyazemskaya, Juliania Osoryina (see Osoryin Druzhina), Princess Olga. Legendary-fairy motifs, local legends sometimes influence the authors of Zh. so strongly that the works created by them can only be attributed to Zh. only because their heroes are recognized by the church as saints and the term “life” may appear in their title, and in terms of their literary nature These are vividly expressed plot-narrative works. This is “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” by Yermolai-Erasmus. “The Tale of Peter, Prince of the Orda”, “The Tale of Mercury of Smolensk”. In the 17th century Zh. appear in the Russian North, completely based on local legends about miracles occurring from the remains of people whose life path is not connected with feats for the glory of the church, but is unusual - they are sufferers in life. Artemy Verkolsky - a boy who died from a thunderstorm while working in the field, John and Loggin Yarensky, whether Pomors, roofing felts, monks who died at sea and were found by the inhabitants of Yarenga on ice, Varlaam Keretsky - a priest of the village of Keret, who killed his wife, imposed on himself for this severe test and forgiven by God. All these Zh. are notable for miracles, in which the life of the peasants of the Russian North is colorfully reflected. Many miracles are associated with the deaths of Pomors in the White Sea. For publications of Zh., see the articles in this dictionary: Epiphanius the Wise, Yermolai-Erasmus, Life of Alexander Nevsky, Life of Alexei, the Man of God, Life of Varlaam Khutynsky, Life of Zosima and Savvaty of Solovetsky, Life of Leonty of Rostov, Life of Mikhail Klopsky, Life of Mikhail Tverskoy, Life of Nicholas of Mirlikiy, Life of Boris and Gleb, Nestor, Pakhomiy Serb, Prokhor, Word on the life of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, as well as articles about Zh. in the Dictionary of Scribes (see: Issue 1.-S. 129-183, 259-274 ; Issue 2, part l.-C. 237-345; Issue 3, part I-C. 326-394). Lit .: Klyuchevsky Old Russian Lives, BarsukovN P. Sources of Russian hagiography. SPb., 1882, Golubinsky E History of the canonization of saints in the Russian Church - M, 1903, Serebryansky Princely Lives; Adrianov-Peretz V.P.; 1) The tasks of studying the “hagiographic style” of Ancient Russia // TODRL - 1964 - T 20 - C 41-71; 2) Narrative narrative in the hagiographic monuments of the XI-XIII centuries // Origins of Russian fiction. - P. 67-107, Budov n and c I. U. Monasteries in Russia and the struggle of peasants against them in the XIV-XVI centuries ( according to the lives of the saints) - M, 1966; Dmitriev L. A.; 1) Plot narrative in the hagiographic monuments of the XIII-XV centuries. // Origins of Russian fiction. - S. 208-262; 2) Genre of North Russian Lives // TODRL.-1972 - T. 27.- C 181-202; 3) Hagiographic stories of the Russian North as literary monuments of the XIII-XVII centuries: Evolution of the genre of legendary biographical legends. - L., 1973, 4) Literary fate of the genre of ancient Russian hagiographies // Slavic literature / VII International Congress of Slavists. Reports of the Soviet delegation.-M., 1973-S. 400-418, Research materials for the "Dictionary of scribes and bookishness of Ancient Russia". Original and translated lives of Ancient Russia // TODRL -1985 - T 39 - C 185-235; O. Tvorogov B. Old Russian collections of children of the XII-XIV centuries. Article two Monuments of hagiography // TODRL-1990 T 44.- P. 196-225 L. A. Dmitriev, O. V. Tvorogov
LIFE (Greek βίος, Latin vita), a genre of church literature, a biography of a saint. The area of literature, to which the totality of life belongs, is called "hagiography". Life is usually divided into groups according to the following criteria: the rank of holiness (hagiological type) of the depicted person; features of the narrative form; the lengthy or short character of the description of the saint's life. In accordance with the ranks of holiness, the lives are divided into martyr's, the lives of the Equal-to-the-Apostles saints, the venerable (the life of the holy monks), the life of the holy wives, the life of the holy fools (known only in Orthodox hagiography), the saints (the life of the saints - hierarchs of the Church), as well as the lay saints ; among the latter, the life of the holy rulers is singled out (in the Slavic tradition, the life of the holy princes). This classification is not rigorous, because. a saint can simultaneously belong to several hagiological types (a martyr or a missionary can be a saint at the same time, a holy wife can be a martyr and/or a nun, etc.). According to the peculiarities of the narrative form, hagiobiographies are distinguished, in which the life of a saint is described in detail from birth to death, and martyria (from the Greek μαρτύριον - torment; in the Western Catholic tradition they were called passio), describing the martyrdom of saints for confession of faith, but not containing a story about their lives in general. By the nature of the description of the life of the holy life can be lengthy and short. The lengthy lives were intended for reading in monasteries at a meal on the day of the saint's memory, for cell and home reading (in the Orthodox Greek and Slavic traditions, they are usually called menaias, since they were included in the Cheti-Minei). Brief lives were compiled for reading at the service (in the Orthodox Greek tradition, they were part of the collections of Synaxar and Menologia; in Ancient Russia, they were part of the Prologue collection created on the basis of the Synaxar, which continued to be called Synaksar among the Orthodox southern Slavs).
From the point of view of the authority and reliability of the reported information, the lives of some saints in the church tradition are usually divided into canonical and apocryphal; the canonical and apocryphal lives of the great martyrs George, Nikita Gotha, Theodore Tyron are known. Lives were often created by witnesses of the lives of saints or from eyewitness accounts. The purpose of life is to preserve the memory of the saints, to edify those who read, to glorify the saint at divine services. According to the materials of the life, services to the saints were usually compiled. The writing of the life was often timed to coincide with the moment of the canonization of the saints, or served as a preparation for the canonization.
In contrast to secular biography, life describes in the person of a saint, first of all, the manifestation of the Divine principle; the images of saints in their lives are usually not individualized; life - the "verbal icon" of the saint (V. O. Klyuchevsky). The life is characterized by a set of compositional and stylistic "common places" (topoi): the author's prayer to God with a request for help and recognition of his sinfulness and "unlearnedness"; information about the saint's parents; miracles accompanying his birth; baptism, naming a name endowed with a symbolic meaning and foreshadowing the exploits of a saint; his childhood refusal to play with peers; turning to God; going to a monastery; demonic temptations; knowledge of the day of one's death and pious death; intravital and posthumous miracles (healing of the blind, paralyzed, demon-possessed, etc.). Different types of life have their own set of topoi.
The formation of life was partly influenced by various traditions. It absorbed some features of ancient biography, the ancient novel, folklore genres and mythological representations (for example, the motif of snake fighting in the life of the Great Martyr George).
The earliest lives are those of martyrdom. The initiative but to compile the first collections of martyr lives that have not come down to us is attributed to the Roman popes Clement I and Fabian, later a martyrology was compiled, without sufficient grounds attributed to Jerome the Blessed, another collection was written by the English monk Bede the Venerable. In the 9th century in the Latin West, martyrologists were Flor, Hraban Moor, Vandelbert, Uzuard, in the 10th century - Notker Zaika. The unsurviving martyrology of Eusebius of Caesarea was compiled in Greek, and his book on the Palestinian martyrs is also known. The "History of the Persian Martyrs" was compiled around 410 by Bishop Marufa of Targit.
The most ancient venerable life is the life of Anthony the Great, written by Athanasius the Great. In the 5th century, life in the East was written by Gerontius the Presbyter, Kallinikos, Theodoret of Cyrus. Hagiographic tales about the monks of a certain area were combined into special collections - patericons (Egyptian patericon - “Lavsaik” by Palladius, Sinai patericon - “Spiritual Meadow” by John Moskh).
In Byzantine hagiography, two directions coexisted - "folk", distinguished by the simplicity of language and adherence to everyday specifics, and "literary", focused on the book style, abstracting from the depiction of everyday realities, gravitating towards parable. The “folk” direction includes the lives of John the Merciful and Simeon the Holy Fool, compiled by Leonty of Cyprus. In the 2nd half of the 10th century in Byzantium, the previously written lives were rewritten in an abstract rhetorical style by Simeon Metaphrastus (in total, he edited 148 lives, among them the lives of the Virgin, Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, Dionysius the Areopagite).
The first Latin life is the life of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, written by the deacon Pontius (mid-3rd century). The life was written by Rufin of Aquileia, John Cassian the Roman, Gregory of Tours and others. Artistic features are enhanced in the lives created by Walafrid Strabo (St. Blaitmakk, St. Mamma). By the 11th century, the canons of depicting the life of saints were finally developed in Latin literature; in the 12th century, the hagiographies were dominated by descriptions of miracles. In the 11th-13th centuries, codes of life - legends - were created. The most famous and readable was the legend of the Dominican monk Yakov Voraginsky "Golden Legend" (13th century), which included 180 lives; the collection "Catalogue of Saints" was compiled in the 14th century by Peter Natalibus (died 1382). The publication of the corpus of the Latin life ("Acta Sanctorum") was begun in 1643 by the Bollandist society (the publication continues to this day).
The oldest Russian lives date back to the turn of the 11th-12th centuries: “Reading about Boris and Gleb”; the life of Theodosius of the Caves, compiled by Nestor, as well as the "Tale of Boris and Gleb" by an unknown author. The lives compiled at the end of the 14th - 1st quarter of the 15th century by Epiphanius the Wise (Sergius of Radonezh, Stefan, Bishop of Perm) are written in a sophisticated style, which is characterized by a variety of rhetorical devices (the style of "weaving words"). In the middle of the 16th century, a corpus of translated and original lives was collected by Metropolitan Macarius in the collection "Great Menaion". A new edition of the translated and original lives, also combined in the collection of the Menaion, belongs to Metropolitan Dimitry of Rostov. The canonization by the Russian Church at the turn of the 20th-21st century of a large number of saints (mainly martyrs who suffered in the 20th century) became the reason for the active development of Russian hagiography in the last 2 decades and the compilation of numerous new lives, mostly based on documentary materials.
Lit .: Klyuchevsky V. O. Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a historical source. M., 1871. M., 1989; Brown R. Society and the holy in late antiquity. Berk., 1989; Toporov VN Holiness and saints in Russian spiritual culture. M., 1995-1998. T. 1-2; Podskalski G. Christianity and theological literature in Kievan Rus (988-1237). 2nd ed. SPb., 1996; World of Lives: Collection of materials of the conference (Moscow, October 3-5, 2001). M., 2002; Fedotov G.P. Saints of Ancient Russia. M., 2003; Russian hagiography: research, publications, controversy. SPb., 2005.