Littérature russe I

04/02/2021 - cours 1

The lecture will cover the early history of Russian literature (18th and 19th century). We will
cover literacy in general : how people write things, the culture. We will go from medieval times to the
ripe days of the Romanovs’ Dynasty (the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas the second). We will try to
discuss the main authors, issues, affairs and events to a broader context but, of course, literature
will remain our principal interest. The interest is also to become familiar with less well-known names
of Russian literature.

The early history of Russian Literature : from medieval times to Peter the Great
main issues, affairs and events

Russian or Slavonic languages belong to the broader branch of Indo-European languages.

The Russian Language, as we know, is just a dialect which was originally spoken in the historical
principality of Moscow. The principality arose in its present structure after Tatar invasion. After that
time, we are entitled to call that language Russian language but before that it is more accurate to
speak about Slavonic language. Russian is only from the period of Moscow principality. The earliest
Russian literature comes from medieval Russian period, like the entire east Slavic civilization. It
originates at Kiev, where the first Russian state was founded by the Varangians (Scandinavians).
Rurik and his group were warriors from Sweden. We know that the first princes of Kiev were
Scandinavians, who consolidated a Russian state. Some scholars already use the term “Russian”
for the Kiev period of Russian history but it is not correct. In Russian, those Princes are called Variagi.
They united the Slavs of Kiev region into the single state called Rus’. It’s the root of the term Russian.
We know that during the 9th, 10th and even the 11th century all the Slavs must have spoken one
common language, one common speech. For example, all Slavic languages share 3 words for
literature and each term emphasize one aspect :
- slovesnost’ emphasize language;
- pis’mennost is the literature that is written;
- literatura is more like a structured canon of art, something that people do with words and their
meanings.
We have other Slavonic languages :
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- eastern : Bulgarian and Church-Slavonic, Serbian, Russian with its dialects;
- western : Czech and Polish.
Russian literature can be divided in two parts : oral (=popular) or learned and artistic. We
also have three big periods of development (those periods are just a way to comprehend the
development) :
- The Ancient from the very beginning of Russian literature to the 18th;
- The “new” from the 18th century to the thirties of the 19th century;
- The modern (or post-modern) from Pushkin to Gorbatchev/Eltsin.
It begins with Pushkin who is seen as the creator, the founding father of Russian literary language.
He modernized, got rid of unnecessary archaism, he created a new fluid accessible form of literature
and made it truly accessible to everyone. He modernized the language without unnecessary
conventions of Greek or Latin models. He modernized the language and made it understandable
and popular. The language of Pushkin is the same as Gorbatchev. Pushkin wrote on the very same
language as we write today.

We start with oral literature which is a “spontaneous production(s) of the mind and the
imagination transmitted orally from generation to generation”. The key is orally. It is not written but
being told from father to son. We can also call it folklore. We start with the cycle of the heroic epics,
the Bogatyri tales which are mythologically and historically centred around Prince Vladimir the Saint
also called The Red sun. Red is a sacred colour for Russian. It has magical qualities. For example,
we can think about the main square in Moscow which is called the Red Square. The Bogatyri are
supernatural beings able to transform themselves into various forms like animals. They usually have
extraordinary strength and powers. Their task was to combat enemies, people hostile to Slav nations.
We can think about Prince Vladimir as an archetype of King Arthur. In this cycle, Prince Vladimir is
a historical character but he truly is a contamination of various princes of Kiev who reigned during
the 10th or 11th centuries in Kiev (it contaminates various small periods of time together. Vladimir
can be another prince who reigned during this period of time in Kiev).

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It’s the most popular picture (Viktor Vasnetsov, three Bogatyri, 19th century) depicting three main
Bogatyri who are in many epic texts. They have the highest popularity. The central one is called
Ilya Mouromets. He comes from the small Ukrainian town of Mourom. To his right, we see Dobrynia
Nikititch. It comes from the Russian word dobro which means good. He is the good one. The last
one is Aliocha Popovitch. He’s the younger. They are depicted in a typical Russian plain and they
are looking forward to fight enemies. They are strong. They have peculiar horses that are very swift,
powerful. The horses do not know what is fatigue, they don’t eat or drink. They are magical creatures.
This picture is a typical example of Russian national romanticism.

We can read Святогор. It’s an ancient one. Gor means mountain and Sviata means holy. He has
an unusual size. He is a human but also a mountain. He is a holy mountain human. He is considered
to be the first huge Bogatyr who helps the other Bogatyri. There is a small Bogatyr on his hand and
he gives him the blessing to go forward and to fight the enemies of Slavic people. Sviatogor himself
is already too tired, too old. He is probably a titanic creature. He is also a little bit ambiguous because
he has religious affiliations, he is a syncretic figure. He bears some sacred symbols, not necessarily
Christians. He is someone who represents the older generation of pagan heroes who give their way
to the news Bogatyri who are Christians. Ilya, Aliocha and Dobrynia are Christians. The variation of
sizes is familiar in mythological systems like in the ancient Egyptian system where Râ is enormous
and Seth smaller. The change of size is quite familiar to us from religious history.

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This one is a modern recreation of a Bogatyr in a Russian Museum, the Museum of Bogatyri.

The various deeds of Bogatyri forms the heroic cycle of Kiev or The Republic of Novgorod.
Rus’ existed in the two centres. There was a big distance between them and more or less nothing,
only hostile tribes. There were two centres for Kievan Russ’: Kiev and Novgorod. Novgorod is in the
northern part of Russian and Kiev lies in the south. Kiev was ruled by a prince and Novgorod is
always described as the first of indigenous Russian democracy. Novgorod developed his own city
parliament called Vietche, the Russian equivalent of democracy. It’s a place where everyone can
speak. The parliament is the place where everyone can talk and decide. Without much knowledge
from Ancient Greek Democracy, from Acropolis or Athens, Novgorod developed its own system of
self-government. That’s why it’s called the Republic of Novgorod but the Principality of Kiev. The
Novgorod cycle is different from the heroic cycle of Kiev. It’s a distinct one. We have beautiful epic
poems from there. About the style, it’s a peculiar accent method. They have certain structures which
makes the desire effect of hypnotic rhythm. The aim of poetry is to hypnotize you. The good poet
must hypnotize you. The firsts Russians epic poems can be divided in two types :
- bylina translated as narrated ballad, it’s already musical but it’s not a song;
- pesn’, musical songs
Bylina was a name given by the people that come from byloe which means past. Bylina
always goes about the past, it’s the story of events that already happened : the glorious past of
warriors. Bylina is a story of an event that really happened and pretends to be real and need to be
opposed with skazka which is a composition of some invention, a legend. It’s a fairytale, it’s a fiction
by definition. Bylina begins with “once upon a time” and a description of a feast in the capital city of
Kiev. People are seated around big tables, like the tales about King Arthur and then something
happens, some big challenge. Some Bogatyr or some knight needs to fight. We go from peace to
trouble. The Prince controls de Bogatyri who always follows the Prince’s orders.
We have less details for Russian folk songs than for the Bylina or the other genres. It’s a
condensed picture of Bogatyri life created in a form of lyrical poetry, in a very condensed lyrical
narrative. We can say that both bylini and lyrical songs (pesn’) relate to the same genre of folk or
popular literature. They bear the traces of popular composition. They also have lots of common
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features that make them belong to the same genre such as prevalence of the miraculous elements,
lots of exaggeration, phantasmagoric and magical elements, metaphors, epithets. The Russian way
of narration and Russian language use lots of adjectives, lots of characterizations. We can always
distinguish Russian writing by the way Russian uses characterizations. When there are too many,
the author was probably Russian. Russian authors struggle with English editors because they don’t
like the fact that there’s so may adjectives and they cut them off.
Meter is the way poetry is organized. The relation between music and poetry is quite intimate.
Poetry was born from the spirit of music. Poetry is depending on music, that’s why both bylinas and
lyrical songs need musical accompaniment. It’s supposed to be accompanied with sounds. This
results in the form we have now, the final form which bears some notable signs of old Russian
accentuation. The verses consist of varying number of syllables. The characteristic meter is a line of
four of five chorics terminating in a dactyl. It’s a repetitive form of recital. It has the same purpose, to
try to hypnotize you, trying to gather all your attention. All these genres are not what we call “real
literature” in the full sense. There are no distinct form or idea but most importantly, they were not
written. Generally, we call something that is written, even though it is not entirely correct because
folklore also belongs to literature. This form of “literature” mainly exists in folk-songs. It’s safe to say
that folklore is the pagan genre. Even if folklore contains some Christian elements, the very source
of folklore is pagan.
What we call Russian paganism is a number of rites and ceremonies which were reflected in
Russian epic songs and folk literature. They usually have to do a lot with agriculture cycles, the
forces of nature. We have lots of texts devoted to something called Mat’ syra zemlia (Moist Mother
Earth). It has lots of erotic and fertility connotations. It shows the importance of pregnancy and
bearing someone. Erotic festivals are still held today like the Ivan Kupala, a summer festival where
mass bathing occurs. People are naked and bath themselves. It is considered public eroticism. Only
unmarried people can take part in the festival because the original purpose was to create couples.
Those who wanted to marry were welcome. It’s a good opportunity to see the bare object of your
passion and to decide if you want to go further or not.
Another important theme is wood and river spirits. There are many literary examples. These
cluster of topics existed long after the Christian conversion. For example, the very popular character
Rusalki are ambivalent creatures who are female demon-like fairies. They live in trees and also
rivers. The old Slavic paganism finds its ways in literature. First into epic, folklore literature and from
there it will go to the next stage. We will find lots of connotations and allusions to paganism in the
19th century literature, for example. This unique phenomenon of slow Christianization of the Russian
Slavs is called dvoeverie which means double belief. Different parts of the Slavic world were
Christianized at different times. The process began in the 7th century and lasted till the very end of
the 11th century. Mostly, Christianity was relevant to urban centres and nobility, not to country sides.
The medieval rural majority had old religious traditions. Paganism comes from the Latin term pagi
which means small villages. Of course, Christian priests and monks were against dvoeverie. For

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centuries, Russian peasants entertained this interesting form of existential pattern. They engaged in
different ceremonies as good Christian but in the hiding of their own household they remained pagan.
They were able to peacefully coexist. Many Christians holidays coincided with original slavic pagan
important dates, a classic syncretic way. All of this reflects in epic literature, in folklore. The important
conclusion is that the conversion never terminated the pagan practices. The conversion was not an
end to the rural paganism and the dvoeverie phenomenon always existed. For example, after
Christianization in the 11th century, Perun’s cult became associated with St. Elijah. The same
occurred with Volos who became St Vlasii. Almost every Christian feast had its pagan origin. We
know from some written sources that as late as in the 11th century, pagans were still active in
Novgorod.
We start our written literature in Christianity. In Russia we start with Vladimir I in the 10th
century. Vladimir I received his new Christian culture as a present from Constantinople, from the
eastern Christian Empire and the Orthodox Church. He received the Bible translated in Slavic
speech. We cannot call it language yet. It was something spoken on the land of the Slavs. The
Christian message was delivered in Slavic speech - not in Latin or Greek-, meaning it was a
comprehensible form to commoners. Literacy precedes literature which results in cultural training of
Russia. The two Macedonian brothers called Cyril and Methodius were responsible for this miracle.
They had enormous influence on fostering of Russian writing and literature. They can be considered
indirect fathers of Russian literature in general. It is important to know that western Christianity used
Latin for ecclesiastical matters and peoples (we use the plural because there were several tribes
united under the name of Rus’) of Rus’ couldn’t understand. It was already clear that in order to get
a wider appeal it was absolutely necessary to speak to the people in their own language. Byzantine
scholars didn’t attempt to forcibly introduce Greek and Latin language into Slavic liturgy. They
decided to translate the entire liturgy into Slavic liturgy. Byzantine Church welcomed the new
converts to use their own language. There was a huge discussion in western Europe almost until the
Reformation to know if whether or not colloquial language can be accepted as a holy one. Byzantine
Church resolved that problem several centuries before. That was a smart move. Orthodox
Christianity is huge. Orthodox Church has 220 million people and half of Orthodox Christians are
Russian. It’s a very complicated political and hierarchy cult. For the formal point of view, there is one
Patriarch called Sirianski Patriarch translated by universal, as if he was told by the Universe. In
English we call him Ecumenical Patriarch who sits in Constantinople. He is the symbolic figure, the
formal leader of the entire Orthodox Christianity. The influence of the Patriarch is quite limited
because it’s possible to have an autonomous status and not to listen to him. Also, his influence is
limited because he sits in a Muslim country. Two years ago he granted the autonomous status to the
Ukrainian church and it was accepted. It was an important political move and it was accepted. Greek
was the language of the Byzantine Empire, the New Testament. Greek was also the liturgical
language, that’s why we call those churches “Greek” churches even though they are not completely
Greek. Those churches are opposed to the Roman or Latin churches. Eastern churches have these

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geographical element - the East- and Orthodox. Orthos comes from Greek and means correct, true,
right, and Doxa means believe, teaching. We can translate the word Orthodox as true worship, true
teaching.
We know from various sources that the Apostles travelled quite extensively and they were
fond of establishing new churches in the Holy Land, Antioch, Ethiopia, Egypt, Rome, Alexandria,
Athens/Byzantium and after some time they established the New Rome. This concept will be
important for Russian literature and culture because Moscow would like to see itself as the New
Rome. The Great schism is important for us because it will be reflected in culture and literature as
well. Rome and Constantinople part their way in 1054. This separation marked the real separation
between West and East culturally, conceptually and in all possible aspects. The schism appended
because there were many cultural and linguistic differences between Latins and Greeks. The eastern
part of Christianity always rejected the Pope. He was not someone they wanted to respect. They
saw his activities as a usurpation.
Cyril and Methodius came from eastern church and gave us Russian literacy. They were
Byzantine Greek intellectuals from the 9th century. They were sons of a Greek governor. They were
Macedonian or Greeks, it’s unclear. Most probably, they were Greeks born in Macedonia. Methodius
was the elder one, he died in 855. He was quite an important statesman, an army leader,
administrator of some Greek district developed who was active where there were many slaves and
the encounter took place there and he saw they didn’t have written language. As an army leader,
he was responsible of a region where dwelt many Slavs. The original encounter between Slavs and
Methodius happened there. Methodius noted their speech, their peculiar way of communication. He
was surprised to know that they didn’t have written language, they only exchanged oral messages.
Methodius thought how he can help them. Methodius became a monk in a monastery on Mount of
Olympus which rejected old gods, they were now Christians. Cyril is actually the linguist between
the two, he was very scholar. He is the younger brother and he has a second name, Constantine, a
sort of apotropaic, a name meant to protect him. In some Jewish traditions people also have two
names. He had an excellent education in Byzantine Court with the Emperor Michael. Constantine is
the name that wards of Evil, that’s why Cyril also wanted to be Constantine : in order to fight in the
darkest regions of his time. Cyril is also a meaningful name, it means noble. He was a universal
scholar. He knew everything like Leonardo da Vinci. He was really active in astronomy, geometry,
rhetoric and music. It’s the old point of view about education, you couldn’t only specialize in
languages, you also had to do math. He was fluent in many languages like Greek, Latin, Arabic,
Hebrew and Slavonic. He led many Christian missions. He died in Rome as an old man.

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The Glagolitic Alphabet

They were sent to spread Christianity among the Slavs. They created the Glagolitic alphabet. It’s a
proto-Russian. It’s something close to the Old Church-Slavonic which is a proto-language of Slav.
As a sign of respect, we call our letters Cyrillic because they were invented by the brothers. The
letters didn’t exist before them in their visual form. Cyrillic is a simplification of the Glagolitic alphabet.
Cyril’s mission to Khazars is relevant to us because it is described by Pushkin. St Cyril went
to Khazaria. It was a very peculiar state. It was the first and only country that adopted Judaism as
their official religion. They didn’t want any form of Christianity. They didn’t want to depend on
Constantinople. They wanted to be independent and monotheistic so they took Judaism. Cyril was
sent there to convince the leaders of Khazar Khaganate to drop Judaism and to become Christians.
He learned Khazar language for that purpose. One of the important Khazar place called
Chersonesos was in Crimea known to us as Sebastopol. He discussed with other scholars but he
didn’t succeed.
Khazars were always fighting with the Kievans Rus’ for two centuries. Today Khazar
correspond to Georgia, Armenia and a very big part of southern Russia, Krasnodar and Crimea. It’s
a peculiar geographic place. It’s an obscure world and some important linguist think that Khazar
possibly means “wandering”. They were wandering and they came there. They were at the borderline
of old Russia. Khazars were ruling Kiev. It’s proved by documents. Those original Hebrew
documents were found in Cairo and written in Kiev in the 10th century. Those are the earliest Hebrew
document written physically in Kiev where we have the oldest name of Kiev mentioned for the first
time as Küi which means riverbank. Küi + ev means settlement.

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Letters written in
Khazar

At the end of 9th century and until the end of 10th, Khazars had partial administration in Kiev and
the Varagians had to coexist with them somehow. There was a big Jewish community there.
Sviatoslav I of Kiev, father of Vladimir, defeated the Khazars and from the 11th, there were no more
Khazars. They disappeared completely.
The most important event of Russian Slavic literary history is St Cyril’s mission to Slavs. Cyril
was sent by Rastislav of Great Moravia in 862 and by Michael III and Patriarch Photius for Slavic
subjects which were more political than religious. They wanted to incorporate Slavic lands into
Byzantine commonwealth, to expand Byzantine influence. What is called commonwealth is the entire
religion which was sympathetic to the eastern Church. They also wanted to translate Christian texts
for Slavs in the Old Church-Slavonic language. We have the first Slavic text which is the Slavic Civil
Code and we also have Slavic liturgy. In 863, the translation of the Bible into the Old Church-Slavonic
was accomplished : the Evangelium Slovenicum. There were some tensions with the wester church,
mainly with German who also had their own mission into Slavic lands and they tried to convince
Slavs to use Latin. Eventually, the entire scripture was translated to Slavic.

As the Bible is seen as literature, its history is important. The language of Bible, especially in
the Older Testament, has lots of literary elements. For example, the Song of Songs. The Bible is a
big literary project. A Bible in the vernacular was Peter the Great’s goal. This project of translating
the Bible into modern normal Russian language started in 1703. Only by the end of the 19th century,
in 1802, we had the major part translated into English. The New testament and the Pslams were
translated in 1822. In 1876, the entire Bible was published as the “Synod Version”. We use it until
this very day. There is a new translation but the Synod one stays quite influential. To compare, the
first printed translation of the Bible into French was in 1530 in Antwerp. The next full French Catholic
Bible by Nicholas de Leuze was printed in 1550. The modern French Bible also comes quite late in
1744. The first endeavour to spread literacy in Russia was immediately after the conversion of Saint
Vladimir. With literacy, with the capacity to write and to read, also comes political elements. It’s an
opportunity to structure the land better. Vladmir built schools, originally attached to the churches in
an attempt to educate children in the framework of the new religion. The son of Vladimir, Iaroslav
The Wise, was even more active. He bought, read, copied and transcribed books. It was then

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considered pious. Buying and reading books were considered a step towards salvation. Books were
holy objects. His library unfortunately disappeared. Novgorod also had a big library as well. Vladimir
was originally pagan and when he came to power he wanted to strengthen his authority. He couldn’t
use pagan ways of ruling the land anymore. It was outdated and chaotic. Vladimir tried to reform the
existing pagan pattern in what we call “pagan religious reform”. He tried to established official idols
which are sanctioned and set in Kiev. The biggest and most important one was supposed to be the
Thunder-god Perun. It wasn’t efficient enough and at some point Vladimir faced the necessity to
choose a monotheistic religion instead of the Pagan one. He could choose between Islam, Judaism
and Christianity. In Christianity he had to choose between the western or the easter part. Vladimir
chooses Orthodox Byzantine Christianity. It was a very relevant choice because he wanted to be
closer to the Byzantine Empire. There was no powerful Roman state. The Carolingians states were
not so successful, they were not united.
In 988, Vladimir was baptized in Sebastopol - in the Byzantine Crimean town of Cherson. He
married a Byzantine princess who came as a price for his agreement to choose eastern Christianity.
He also took a new name, Basil (Vasilii) which was his second name. After that, many pagan altars
were ruined and there were some minor revolts.

Some pictures of Vladimir in Chersonasus :

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 The Christian government in Kiev means more literacy, more culture. Vladimir creates a
Christian consultative assembly, he appoints his sons as local rulers and created a new Empire
known as Rus’. A new culture begins to exist. The cultural significance of this can’t be
underestimated. Initially, the adoption of Christianity influenced the upper strata of society : the
literati. It comes with a different approach on culture, on life,… With Paganism we have natural
phenomena, the human is seen as a part of nature while in Christianity we have a different approach.
More Christians subjects come instead of the folk one. Before we had land and water, wood, plants,
birds and animals mythology and now we have a monotheist creationist cycle.

Some pictures of dvoeverie :

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 Dvoeverie exists now too.

Dvoeverie is usually related to Volkvhvy translated as Magi in English. They were pagan magicians,
even pagan officials in the early Slavic society who represented this autochthonic Slavic religion and
they represent the clergy caste. They never stopped to exist, even after Christianization. They
obviously were hostile to the new political move that Vladimir made. Iaroslav persecuted them but
they always remained more or less alive.

The Adoration of the

Magi, c. 1304-c. 1306.
Giotto

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 Vladimir left very firm political connections with Constantinople to the future princes of Russia.
He left the entire region of Black Sea as a part of Kievan principality. He established new trade routes
which were cultural routes too. No Latin was ever used, that’s why we have a big push for
autochthonic Slavic literature to be developed which came with religious and state independence.

Modern statues of
Vladimir in Kiev and
Moscow

Rus’ is a very fertile soil for literature. From the 11th century, we have the first literary
productions. Byzantine influenced Russia deeply, the first Russian models were Byzantines in their
essence. There was an adaptation from the Greek. The intention of this process of spreading the
knowledge of letters was to give the people literate priests. The literati in Russia were mostly the
clergy. They lived in what we call the religious habitations such as monasteries. With Iaroslav comes
also the first Russian writer, Metropolitan Illarion who wrote “Slovo o zakone i blagodati” (Sermon on
Law and Grace), a Christian text written with notable literary style . It’s the primary work of old
Russian literature. We notice a rapid flowering of Christian culture in Kievan Russia. The architecture
also changed. The best masters of church architecture were invited from Byzantium. There are
churches in Pskov and Novgorod in a Romanesque architecture.

Iaroslav is giving a
church as a gift to his
new land because he
invited an architect who
was supposed to build
this church

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 After that, the ancient state of Rus’ disintegrated into separate independent feudal states.
Some Princes tried to stop it but they didn’t succeed. Novgorod was struggling for its
independence. Then Genghis Khan came and everything became Tatar for three or four centuries.
This Mongol occupation was not too harsh or oppressive, it was mostly fiscal but it was quite
noticeable in many cultural aspects especially in the history of literature. During those centuries
more or less nothing was written in Russian.

Ghenghis
Khan

As mentioned, the first author was Metropolitan of Kiev, Illarion. The other one was Novgorod
Luka. Illarion wrote “On the Grace and Law” whose first line was “Given by Moses and on
benevolence and truth which proceed from Jesus Christ”. The third most important author called
Nestor The Scribe who was an author from the end of the 11th, beginning of the 12th century. He is
considered the most ancient literary/chronicler of old Russia. Nestor’s compilation of Chronicles are
called “These are the tales of the bygones years in their seasons”. Little is known about him.

Nestor writing in
Glagolitic Alphabet

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He entered the monastic life in 1073. It is common for early authors to be monks. Nestor is a
legendary personality. We are not sure if he is the one who wrote that but we accept this. Nestor’s
text is called in Russian “Povest Vremennykh let” which means “Russian Primary Chronicle”. It is
seen as a literary work as well. The events are narrated in chronological order and the succession
of the years is observed strictly. The language is Church-Slavonic or old Russian (those two are
synonyms). Church-Slavonic preserved in expressions with religious import or borrowed from the
scriptures. This language is especially valuable for philology because we can reconstruct the
common ground of many other Slavic languages. Especially it is relevant because it is the principal
example of old Russian speech. When we read that, we can ear the voices from the people of the
11th century. This is very precious.
The second notable piece of Russian literature is a real one, it’s real literature. It’s called
“Slovo o Polku Igoreve” (The Tale of Igor’s campaign), an anonymous piece but it’s not folklore. It’s
something on the borderline between real literature and folklore. It’s an epic poem describing the
conflict between the Olgovichi and the Monomakhovichi, two rival families descendants of Vladimir.
We call it the first literary masterpiece of Russia. We presume it was written in the end of the 12th
century. It’s a very important century for European history. For example, the Renaissance of the 12th
century in France. It was the first Renaissance. We can also translate it in “The Song of Igor’s
Campaign” or “The Lay of the Host of Igor”. It authenticity is disputed as often. The prevailing
mainstream scholar opinion is that the text is authentic. We also have an opera composed by
Alexander Borodin “Prince Igor”, first performed in 1890. Slovo is enigmatic. It narrates a strange
military raid against the Polovtsians, a nomadic Turkic tribe hostile to Slavs. It’s the late Kievan
period, a couple of years before Mongol invasion. Count Aleksei Musin-Pushkin, a relative of
Pushkin, discovered the manuscript in 1792. It was discovered among a pile of old documents in
Iaroslavl’, the city established by Iaroslav the Wise. The manuscript was written in the 16th century
but it was a copied manuscript from the earlier one from the 14th-15th centuries. The first edition
post-Gutenberg comes in 1800. There’s no author. We call it the absent author of the text. Musin-
Pushkin’s Moscow house burned during the Napoleonic siege in 1812 and his manuscript collection
was destroyed. The first manuscript of Igor’s tale was also destroyed. We don’t know the author,
neither when or where it was composed. The presumed author was a member of the Igor’s force, a
soldier himself, which is strange because soldiers don’t write especially in the 12th century. Maybe
it was a knight and well educated to write such a magnificent and complicated work. There are
numerous details of the warfare of the steppe and also lots of allusions to many epic traditions like
Boyan a legendary Slavic bard. The plot is simple : the failed raid of Prince Igor who tried to fight the
Polovtsians and there is Vseslav of Polotsk, a very important Prince. They fight the Turkic enemies.
It is the combat between Christianity and hostile religions. There’s a lot of pagan and folkloric
elements inside these texts. These are full of dvoeverie, full of pagan gods and the nature plays a
huge role. The story is about the campaign of Prince of Novgorod Igor Svyatoslavitch (not the
grandfather of Prince Vladimir, another one) who died in 1202. The main enemies were Khans

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Kobyak and Konchack. They attacked first and Igor responded. Eventually, Kievan princes were
defeated.

An early illustration
of Igor’s tale by
Vasnetsov. The
tragic defeat of
Russians and Igor.

Polovtsians are depicted as Turkic hostile tribes.

We know that Polovtians had moveable camps, they were cattle farmers and also warriors.
There was constant enmity between them and the Russian, a classic hostility between the Chinese

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and the nomadic peoples beyond the Great Wall. Unfortunately, Russia had no Great Wall and all
sorts of Polovtians were at ease to come and to do what hey wanted. Igor fell into captivity and was
wounded. There was also the Pechenegi, also nomadic Turkic people. Polovtians usually took many
prisoners including princes and they entered Rus’ with two armies : Khan Gza and Konchak. Igor
was dishonoured. By the codes of the time, he was impossible for Igor to flee from captivity. We
have a beautiful ballet called “Polovtsian Dances” at the end of the Act 2 of Alexander Borodin’s
opera, Prince Igor.
Vseslav of Polotsk also called Vseslav the Sorcerer was the ruler of Polotsk and the great-
grandson of Vladimir I of Kiev. He was a werewolf. It’s a literary metaphor, an epithet but it can also
be real because vampires and werewolves were important in Russian culture. We will encounter
many werewolves and creatures. Vseslav had the extraordinary ability of animalistic hearing.

Cours 2 - 11/02/2021

The principle we use in order to determine what is real literature -and what is not - is
important. The scholar consensus tells us that when we can speak of pure aesthetic interest, by
aesthetic we actually mean pleasure. Aesthetic is useless, it has no pragmatic goal in comparison
for example to a religious sermon which has a goal like converting someone, explaining some
important matter to those who worship a certain religion. Aesthetic texts are useless, they only offer
beauty and the possibility to feel. It’s about the specific experience the author wants to give you. This
aesthetic dimension is what makes literature, literature. This aesthetic dimension in folklore with no
doubt, it is present in bylina and songs but overwhelmed by some other pragmatic matters like rituals.
In the Slovo, which we consider the first example of medieval Russian literature, we have a pure
aesthetic experience, we have a historic narration that uses literary devices in order to convey to us
this unique historical occasion with all its tragedy, odd circumstances, using lots of tropes,
metaphors, lots of other instruments that we consider today as literature. The thematic point in its
narrative is already clear, it’s about the concrete historical raid which happened between nomadic
tribes of Polovtsians and the early Russian Principality of Novgorod-Seversk who tried to defend its
borders. The author uses this occasion to speak about all sorts of additional topics, additional matters
that are related to the story. Some of them are not directly built in, in this military history. One of
those aspects is pagan religion that as we mentioned was still relevant and will continue to be present
for many centuries after that and also now. This unique coexistence between Christianity and pagan
gods came as a vivid picture in this text and something that strikes immediately. Somehow,
Christianity peacefully coexists with pagan tradition. We meet incantations along with other folkloric
devices. This makes a very unusual text.
The main hero is Prince Igor who was the Prince of Novgorod. He is quite familiar to
historians. Igor is a Scandinavian name, it’s the Slavic form of Ingvar. It was necessary to get an

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anther name, more Christian or more Orthodox. So, Vladimir got the name of Basil and Igor got the
name of George of Iurii which is more Christian, more Slavic sounding. It was its baptismal name.
Russian or Slavic tribes and nomads always had a very tense system of political coexistence,
it was never peaceful. In the case of this particular raid, Igor lost the battle. Polovtsians were the one
who attacked Igor. They were living by sword, that was the normal way of nomadic life. Igor
responded and teamed up with Kievan princes but they lost. The narrative is not what attracts our
attention, it is quite straight forward. What is more interesting are some side effects, some
unnecessary details that are being told to us for no reason. This is what makes literary texts,
literature. Something that the author tells against the pragmatic odds, his agenda. One of those
details is the name of Vseslav who is mentioned as the Sorcerer or Vseslav the Seer. This is a
curious historical figure. He was from and the ruler of Polotsk. He was remotely related to Vladimir I
of Kiev (he was his great-grandson) and actually, he traces his generation back to the Rurik Dynasty.
We don’t have too many “official” characters who are defined as sorcerers in Russian literature, he
is one of the very few. We have a sub-story, a small incursion called Vseslav passage, which
describes the way Vseslav act as a character, as a unique human being or maybe not a human
being. He is characterized as someone very powerful, someone who was able to rule several towns,
who usually judged man as a very strict judge. More importantly, we read that Vseslav, in the guise
of a wolf, was wandering. How he was wandering remains a little unclear. He wandered via the path
of “Great hors”. Hors is an obscure deity. Vseslav is compared to a wolf. He has extraordinary ability
of animalistic hearing. He ears like an animal, he has wolf ears. We understand that he was actually
a vampire. Vampires have lots of relevance for Slavic history. Slavs were obsessed with vampires
and werewolves. Vseslav, as a ruler, was very active and he had a big family. He had 7 sons and
every son got another town. He has a direct and strong association with sorcery. Those who have
this association are usually described as those who were “born with a caul” (a birth membrane
remaining on the head). It’s a peculiar membrane around the head. Russian term for sorcerer is
charodei, it literally means “someone who does charms” (chari means charm and dei the one who
does. The one who does magic). Vseslav is also called Vseslav Veshchii which means sear or
sorcerer. Some later authors, when they dealt with the Tale of Igor’s Campaign, called him Vseslav
the werewolf. He was able to hear the church bells (stolen from Novgorod) of his cathedral at Polotsk
all the way from Kiev. He is also compared to another mighty figure, a Russian bogatyr Volkh
Vseslavich (literally “the wolf son of Vseslav”, volkhv means a pagan priest/sorcerer). It’s kind of a
circle that embraces all the traditional complex of meanings that are focused on the idea of sorcery
or extra-human abilities. There is a special passage that describes Vseslav :

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This is a very characteristic behaviour of werewolves. They are using mist and they are running
extremely quickly at midnight. We can see it in countless modern films.
We have lots of werewolves legends and those legends probably contributed to this piece of
narrative that we find in Slovo. Werewolves legends exist in Slavic languages as well but they
originated from Greek Antiquity. Those legends are focusing on the idea of man-wolf syncretism, the
mixture between man and wolf, a new species that is being born. We call those species lycanthropes
(which means wolf-human). It’s a shapeshift into wolf transformations. This usually happens at full
moon. We have countless depictions of werewolves starting from the first century from Pretronius
and goes till the high middle age (12th century, until Gervaise of Tilbury).
The Old Norse is very relevant for Russian culture because the Princes were Scandinavians
and the very name of Igor is Ingvar in Old Norse. Old Norse language (an old Scandinavian
language) remains very relevant, enough to say that the term Russian (Rus’) is a Scandinavian word.
That’s why we have to pay attention to Norse philology. In Old Norse, varúlfur means werewolf, “one
in wolf-skin”. Lúkos and ánthrōpos is a clear linguistic artificial form. We have lots of descriptions
from later periods. Usually, werewolves come by the witches and other sorceries.

This is a Slavic werewolf or vampire called Vlad Tepes (Dracula).

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This is a traditional picture that depicts the way vampires or werewolves move.

In Slavic language, we have our own names, always with the root “vlko” which means wolf :
- wilkołak in Polish;
- vlkodlak in Czech;
- vlkolak in Slovak,…
All those names means wolf-skin. The Russian term vurdalak means vampire or werewolf. It also
means revenant (someone who is not still, active not in a good way).
Herodotus is our primary source of the very first depiction of Slavs in general. He is
considered the father of history. He said that the Slavic tribes of Scythia “all transformed into wolves
once every year for several days”. He is the one who mentions this as a plain fact. Herodotus is a
historian, he is no literary author and considered himself historian. He learned from others that Slavic
tribes of Scythia (the region around Black Sea, the region were early Greeks went to via their colonies
on the shore of Black Sea) regularly transformed themselves in wolves once a year, as a custom. It
was a regular habit and hey were known for that. Pausanias, seven centuries later, mentions King
Lycaon of Arcadia whom, as a fact, transforms himself into a wolf. He was doing human sacrifices,
which were forbidden but he’ll still do it. He sacrificed a child in the alto of Zeus Lycaeus. Human
sacrifices were not welcome in Greek religion so Zeus was not happy with that and that’s why he
turned King Lycaon into a wolf.
There are lots of legends about Christian religion that was and is still now actively fighting
against vampires and werewolves. The only force that can truly contain dark magic and forces of
werewolves and vampires is Christian religion. Christ himself was active. He came into contact with
demons and was able to curse them off. He was confronted with demons and always victorious. This
picture depicts the fact that werewolves try to steal the human aspect, the human nature. In the
picture, the werewolf tries to steal flesh, it’s a metaphor. Christ is the one who protects and curses
werewolves away.

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 Before Dracula, we have several pieces of evidence from Russian Primary Chronicle that
depict vampires. One in particular is curious because it is authentic. We have the term likhoj upyr
(translated as creepy vampire, upyr means vampire). It goes about Novgorodian citizen who was
also a priest and he was noticed to be a vampire. He was killed. There are several graves of alleged
vampires with wooden pieces in their bodies discovered in Bulgaria and in Novgorod. The Slavic and
the Balkan worlds are full of legend and myths with all those undead creatures who take life out of
the living in order to sustain themselves. This is the base of Vseslav story in Igor’s Tale. The
obsession with werewolves and vampires is an archetype because it is present in all cultures from
Persians to ancient Romans. We have tales of blood-drinking demons and we have lots of
archaeological evidence for them and lots of linguistic evidence for vampires. For example Strix,
another nocturnal bird that eats human flesh and drinks blood. We have all those examples from
Babylonia to ancient Hebrews. For example, we have lilitu in Hebrew demonology which is a demon
sucking blood. A very famous goddess is Hecate who is present in Macbeth (Shakespeare). This
literary motive is truly overwhelmingly popular.

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Originally Diana as a Roman Goddess had nothing to do with witchcraft but in later centuries in the
Medieval times, she was seen as a witch Goddess. She was responsible for witchcraft together with
Hecate. Hecate is usually depicted with three faces and usually present on crossroads. The following
picture is Hecate from William Blake, a famous English poet. He was also a painter and very fond of
those subjects. He was also popular in Russia and translated in many Russian editions.

We are going three centuries forward and the first important event for Russian Christianity
which had an impact on literature too : the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Originally
Vladimir’s church was part of Byzantine commonwealth. Christianity came to Russia from Byzantium
with an immense amount of literature (literary and religious texts). All the literary culture came from
Byzantium. That also meant that Kievan church was dependent and obeying Constantinople as the
main source of its power. It was dependent from the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
In 1448, Russian church gets independence. The first Russian Metropolitan called Jona
became something called the “Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia” (Metropolit Moskovskii i Vseia
Rusi). Coincidentally it’s also the time when Moscow Principality grows important and we have the
initial period of Moscow’s Tsardom. The Tsardom would like all possible independence from the
irrelevant Byzantium because at the time Byzantium and lost his military gain to the rising of Islam.
Russia couldn’t fail to notice the new historical and political tendencies that were occurring in front
of its eyes and they didn’t miss the opportunity and became independent. In 5 years, Constantinople
will surrender to Muslim armies (1453). Then, Russian cultural world will see itself as the next Rome.
Constantinople was the second Rome and Moscow will become the third Rome. Moscow would like
to take the legacy of Universal Christian and to become the new Christian empire. There was no big

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empire at the time so the newly recreated Russian state would like to assume this venerable role of
the third Rome.
At that time, we have a minor renaissance of Christian literacy (Christian literature). It’s the
time of heresies, the time of new monastic life which flourishes in the entire Christian world.
Monasteries were given land and farms and churches became more and more important and
powerful. Along with the mainstream field of church history, there was also a new situation in regard
to sects and all sorts of schism, mystical organizations that were created at the time. One of those
heresies was the new sect of the true “Mosaic law” wishing to come back to the old testament. It was
like a Judaism heresy. The priest was Zechariah. He was not successful. Monastic literacy was
rapidly growing and responsible for the popularity of literature in general. The amount of literati in
Russia was not high and those who were literate were usually Christians monks and representative
of aristocracy. Monasteries were responsible for spreading literacy. They had schools, libraries and
they saw literacy and literate people as those who will come to them later because illiterate people
are less prone to go to church regularly than literate ones. We can call it monastic renaissance. So,
the Russian church is growing independent. It gets more and more powerful Metropolitans. Makarii
was one of them. They also created something called the “Hundred Chapter Synod” in 1551. This is
sometimes considered as a literary work too because it was extensively written with details and even
sometimes metaphors. Another thing that we can roughly include in our literary history is the
compendium of universal “Church ceremonies and duties”. It’s not aesthetic, it’s not real literature
but it’s valuable. Those books are of great value. An interesting tendency is that for some shorter
period of time, the influence of Russian Tsar was somewhat reduced. That will not always be the
case and eventually the church will become purely subdued to the tsar. That’s something we call
caesaropapism. It’s a situation where a caesar defines everything for the church and the church is
not independent. Most of time, Russian church was not independent politically. It was always
politically relatante to those who were at the head of Russian state. For a period of relative weakness
of the political regime in Russia, church immediately used this opportunity to get more independence.
In the western part of Europe, it’s the same struggle with Charlemagne and the Pope and Avignon.
An important piece of literature is Domostroi (Domestic Order). Dom means house and stroi
means building. It’s translated as building your house. We include it in literature, not without
hesitation but most of literary history include it as a good example of medieval anonymous literary
work. It’s a fascinating reading, interesting today as well as a curious archaic moral and archaic
writing. It’s a book about spiritual, habitual but mostly household instructions and advice. We don’t
know the identity of the author but it should have been someone who was on an advising role,
perhaps Archpriest Sylvester. This is something we can call a moral codex. It brings along several
quotations from the Bible and by that we can also see the way early translations of the Bible. We do
consider the Bible a literary text, like the Song of Songs which can be called literature and often
mentioned and studied as such. Domostroi is often republished in Russia as a monument, a curious
text. Today in modern Russian the word domostroi has an obvious pejorative and negative

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connotation. It is seen as something archaic, something that is synonymous patriarchal dictate and
more importantly, anti-liberal bias. It’s very anti-liberal. It’s nationalistic, chauvinistic, full of quite
harsh definitions. For example “ A wife is good when she is obeying, working and silent” or “Don’t
pity a young child while beating : if you punish him with a rod, he will not die, but only become
healthier”. Only the boys were beaten. Body punishment in school (with sticks) that existed until
Revolution (1917) was completely permitted and even welcome. The Russian school teacher was
supposed to punish children when the answer was wrong or when the homework wasn’t properly
done. They were beaten by their hands and when the mistake was more serious they were beaten
by the back. Girls were never punished. It was forbidden to interact physically with a girl. Girls should
never be beaten or punished. Girls were considered too fragile, too tender to interact with. It’s a
chauvinistic subtext because girls were not even supposed to go to school. Even at home, it was
forbidden to punish female children. The father was not allowed to punish female children, only male
children. Domostroi offered the codified compendium of everything a Russian family was supposed
to know : how to conduct the proper Christian Orthodox old fashion life including culinary receipts
and written in much detail.

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 Archpriest Protopop Avvakum (1620-1682)

Our individual literature starts with Archpriest Protopope Avvakum. We count Slovo as
literature but it was anonymous because medieval literature is anonymous. When there is no name
signed, unfortunately we consider the piece of work as a problematic example of literature even
though we have many mysteries with Shakespeare and Cervantes but they were signed.

Avvakum

The first literary author with whom we start personified literature is Protopope from the 17th
century. He is a very famous figure in Russia. He was considered as very charismatic and influential.
He was one of the founders of what we call the Old Believers schism. At the same time, he is one of
the most original writers of the 17th century. He was odd, a little insane. Avvakum comes from
obscure background. He came from a lower provincial archaic clergy from Nizhny Novgorod
province. There are two Novgorod. The old Novgorod, the city was the first Scandinavians came and
there is also a second Novgorod called the Nizhny (it means lower). It’s more on the south, on the
river Volga. Originally he was a simple village priest but he always had this rebellious character. He
was also in opposition to every innovation, to every reform. He always tried to protect old values
(conservative thinking). Everything that he believes was old, was good. At that time, there were the
first ideas of reformation in Russia. They were not as big as the Luther or the Calvin ones but it was
notable. They manly concerned church books. They were about reforming Old Church Slavonic (the
content of those books) to new Greek standards. The Greek language was changing and there was
a necessity to adapt those books. Avvakum always preferred antiquity above novelty. Because he

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was such a unique personality, he became known to Tsar Alexei and he was summoned to Moscow’s
court. He became a celebrity of his time. Being a powerful original writer, he got more attention. One
of his first texts is called Zealots of Piety, a book full of religious pathos and religious ideas or
sermons which were meant to oppose the new tendency of innovation that was related to a new
Russian Patriarch called Nikon. After all his rebellious actions Avvakum was persecuted and he was
exiled to Tobolsk then to Dauria (remote border of Mongolia). Because he was such a powerful and
charismatic character, the tsar didn’t want to abandon him completely and he always tried to
embrace Avvakum, to use Avvakum but the Tsar didn’t realize that Avvakum wasn’t usable or
someone that could be adapted. The tsar summoned him to Moscou to reconcile him with the official
Church. It wasn’t a success. Eventually, Avvakum found himself in big trouble. He had a group of
people who supported him, the Old Believers. Among those people was the famous boyarynia
Morozova. All of this happens in the symbolic millenarist year of 1666. The last three six are very
telling, very symbolic. This is a millenarist sort of thinking. This is the number of the Beast, vampires
and werewolves. People were waiting for something bad to happen and for big changes that were
supposed to happen.
Avvakum saw himself as a new prophet, as a new guardian of truth. It didn’t go well. He was
a priest but eventually he received anathema which means the excommunication (later it will happen
to Tolstoï). He was exiled, persecuted and it went to prison for many years. Even in prison, he was
never quiet. He always continued his struggles. He always communicated with his followers which
is even more dangerous. He wrote and that was his big mistake because communicating with peers,
creating a network of followers is always a dangerous thing in Russia (we can think about what’s
happening today). You can be in opposition but if you create a network, an underground you become
dangerous. They were all burned down and persecuted.

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 This is Boyarina Morozova, one of his female devotees. She’s famous because it was not a
custom in Russia to behave in such a brave and passionate way. She was a mystical woman. This
is a painting by Surikov, a 19th-century Russian painter. Boyarina was born in 1632 as Feodosia
Prikopievna. She married a very rich person called Gleb Morozov who died so she became a very
rich woman. Like Avvakum, she was a very conservative person. She met him in 1664 and in his
figure she met everything she needed a conservative thinker who would protect the holy values of
Russia. Together, they opposed to all the changes Russian Orthodox liturgy was creating. With them
we get this important historical name : “Old Believers” or Raskol’niki (the name is familiar to us from
reading Dostoevski’s book Crime and Punishment). The main character is called Raskolnikov.
Raskol’niki means schismatic. Due to his name, Raskolnikov is already someone who has a dual
morality, a very ambivalent sort of ethic. They all refused to accept Nikon’s changes. There were
several official historical church events that happened at the time. One of them is this big council
called “The Great Moscow Synod”. This council condemned previous Orthodox Church Council
Stoglav (“Hundred Chapters Council” of 1551) that approved Russian Church practices that differed
from Greek Orthodoxy. They all debated the new reforms that should be adjusted but a notable
group of Russian people refused to accept that and refused to renounce the previous Stoglav Council
and they refused to accept the so-called “reforms” of Nikon.
Protopope became Morozova’s confessor. She followed all his teachings and together they
did opposition to the “reforms” instituted by Nikon. Morozova was a very rich woman so she was part
of Russian Court. She knew the tsar very well but because of the fact that Tsar Alexei was in favour
of Nikon’s reformations, Morozova refused to attempt Tsar’s wedding. That antagonized her and
eventually she was arrested with her sister. She was put in chains, all the family wealth and property
were confiscated. Morozova was violently tortured. Her son Ivan became mentally ill because he
heard about the violent torture his mother was put through.

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This is the complete painting. It’s huge. We can see it in Moscow. It’s a beautiful painting full of small
details. We have to contemplate paintings like this for hours because there are so many details like
all those faces which reflect different characters. Everyone has a different attitude towards what’s
happening. All those boyars are happy to see a woman who suffers, someone is puzzled and doesn’t
understand how that can be. He is asking himself why a wealthy and honest woman is being dragged
in prison and tortured. Some boys are happy, it’s a funny occasion for them. Not everyone is happy,
some people understand the cruelty and the immorality of what’s happening. There’s a woman who
prays for Morozova. It’s a tragic event, typically Russian in its landscapes. We see the snow, we see
streltsy (the sharp object). She became later the Venerable Martyr.

Vasnetsov devoted years to this particular work of art so he left several sketches of different parts of
this painting. It’s a very peculiar face, very pale. We can see the very powerful glance of her eyes.
Especially, her hand is important because it represents the Orthodox blessing (different from the
Catholic one). Initially, after the torture, she was brought to a monastery and then they denied her
food so she starved to death. It proves the importance of religious matters. She was buried inside
her cell. She became an Old Believer saint. Old Believers still exist, no one persecute them. They
are not part of the mainstream official Russian Church.

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 This is an icon of Avvakum, he is also considered
an Old Believer Church. He is also considered a
martyr because he was also tortured and killed.

This is a rare painting. Avvakum is summoned to Tsar Alexi who tries to convince him to embrace
the reforms. There’s a huge bible, a very expensive one with metal locks. Avvakum doesn’t want to
be convinced. He already came with chains on his feet as a real martyr. He represents the spirit of
old conservative Russia that refuses to bend to the new spirit of reformation.
Some authors called Avvakum a religious fanatic because of his views. Others saw this as a
completely normal and permitted defence of the old faith because everyone is entitled to have his

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own old faith and they also thought that Avvakum denounced the vices of the official Russia “State
Church” representatives which were dishonest. Old faith was always considered pure, modest and
real. He was responsible for the schism. It was, of course, limited because not too many people went
with Avvakum. There were minor uprising, some form of insurrection and he was the one who incite
it. He wrote so many beautiful sermons and discussions or interpretations of biblical texts that were
supposed to support his defence of real old Christian religion, of tradition.
Our reader begins with the “Life of Protopope Avvakum”, written by Avvakum himself. This is
real literature. It’s not a religious sermon but the first specimen of literary autobiography. This is an
ego document. Coincidentally, it’s also the first experience of very long, very detailed and very
original autobiography in Russian literature. He could be called the inventor of this genre in Russia.
There were also political details in its text. Its text is anti-feudal and generally anti-establishment. It
is full with a rebellious spirit. What’s important for us is that Avvakum is justly considered a true
innovator in Russian style. He departs from the traditional form of hagiography, he departs from all
canonical rules and he uses speech language, very harsh, very transgressive and full of humour and
wit. It was completely unusual and brave.
Vita (Avvakum’s autobiography) is roughly modelled by vita sanctorum (the life of the saints)
but it was no vita sanctorum (more like the life of someone who isn’t interested in mainstream church
canons). It’s full of modernity and polemics. Polemic itself is also a modern detail. The language is
highly unusual for the 17th-century literary work. It’s very brutal with lots of sharp and obscene
sayings. There are crude details. This text portrays Avvakum’s unique idiotype and idiostyle. Idiotype
is an artificial word with idea and type. He was quite a type and had his own ideology. Idiostyle is a
linguistic term meaning a peculiar style of a person which is grounded in his ideas of language. The
resulting is the unique individuality of this writer. Avvakum was constantly at odds with church and
they fought with him. When they understood there is no way they can change him, he was deprived
of his human rights and they cursed him. It’s not just a metaphor, it’s a real ritual in Russian church.
It’s not just excommunicate someone. It’s synthesist and related to dvoeverie. This is not a normal
Christian practice to curse someone even if the person is a heretic. They sentenced him initially to
imprisonment with others of his circle and eventually he was burn which is also not a Christian thing
to do. The ideological aspect of his writings still remained valid and was very powerful. The
ideological aspect of all Avvakum’s writing consists in their condemnation of New Reforms headed
by the patriarch (who was acting on behalf of the tsar), who is seen as the forerunner of Antichrist
because he was implementing evil politics of the secular power.
Avvakum always talks very persuasively about advantages of Old faith and uses a very
sophisticated dogmatic reasoning. He also created something we can call a real theory of Old
Believer community (about real piety, self-immolation as a purifying martyrdom).

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It’s a rare picture that depicts Avvakum’s last moment. This was the way mortal punishment was
executed in Russia. It was inside the ground, putting him in a pit. The priest read Avvakum’s
sentence. What is remarquable here is the soldiers who execute it. Those are sent by the tsar, they
are not church people. It’s a direct allusion to Christ and his death which was also executed by
Roman soldiers. The major difference is that instead of the secular judge who judged Jesus, Ponce
Pilate, here we see someone who is supposed to be a Christian priest doing this to another fellow
Christian. This is painted as a sort of satanic ritual. The one who is burned still prays with a candle
and those who execute this punishment are part of the state. It’s the deadly meeting of state and
church. It’s supposed to show that it’s important to divide church from state.
In Avvakum’s texts we read all sorts of powerful metaphors, something he turns as
“delusions”. When we read his autobiography, we get the sense that the person who wrote it was
delusional. It depicts with such power his hallucinations which he himself sincerely believes and uses
to prove his point. There are many logical errors, paradox and inconsistencies. Some conclusions
are very strange. There are odds arguments used in order to elucidate or confirm his ideas. This text
remains quite simple, it’s accessible. It combines an interesting folkloric spirit and it gives some
sense of real life of this time. It’s a real fusion of different traditions that meet together. It creates this
unique blend of speech. He tries to imitate learned examples of high rhetoric but he remains the very
same simple provincial Russian cleric who is not sophisticated.

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Enough or interested to be sophisticated enough to create the traditional genre of church rhetoric.
He remains who he is and that makes him extremely interesting.
This is the narrative of his life. We start from Avvakum’s early years and it begins quite
strangely for a priest. Avvakum takes some young and beautiful private maiden from a “chief” (some
powerful landlord). She happens to be his own parish girl with whom he was acquainted as priest.
Obviously, he committed a moral crime. Then, he enters the village of skomorokhi (holy/fools/jesters)
with whom he fights. He breaks their chars (masks) because he thinks it distracts people from God.
He describes odd dancing bears. Also, he insolently refuses to bless the ‘face-shaven” son of boyar
Sheremet’ev. This is the time when Russia was entering new fashion and when people were creating
their outward appearance. It will finish with Peter the Great who obliged every serviceman to shave
their faces. It was a formal obligation. The traditional style of life meant that males were never
supposed to shave their faces. It was seen as a sin and meant that someone tried to change one’s
nature to become unnatural. Avvakum was against the shaving and he refuses to bless the shaved
son.
As a result of all the actions Avvakum did, we find him injured, banished and beaten and
thrown into the river. He was wondering why it was happening to him. It is an innocent and strange
question after his transgressive behaviour. It happened to him because he was such an honest
person, such a zealot that he was persecuted for his honest faith. His Vita is full of exclamatory and
interrogative intonations with some major abrupt different styles like solemn readings of biblical texts,
oratorical speech, a sermon, many funny puns, playful folk proverbs and jokes or couplets. It’s an
odd text that combines several traditions together.

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Page 33
This is about a constant fight between him and the devil. He always tries to find the right spiritual
path in this harsh and crude reality of Russian life with so many distractions and temptations, so
many opportunities for incorrect answers.

Vasilij Trediakovskij (1703-1769)

Our next literary author is Vasilij Trediakovskij (1703-1769), an important poet and style
innovator. He was also a literary theorist. He is called one of the founders of Russian classicism. He
introduced the European literary tradition into Russian soil. It’s his major accomplishment. As
Avvakum, he also comes from a provincial region called Astrakhan. He comes from clergy, from the
family of a priest. We don’t know why he decided to relocate to Moscow. He departed to Moscow in
1723. He enrolled in the Slavic-Greco-Latin Academy and received an excellent education. This
education will further permit him to introduce the West-European literary world into Russian. As a
young student, he already wrote his first literary work. All his works were mostly related to classical
antiquity. It will have historical ascent and it will be based on Roman or Greek-known cultural names

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or artefacts. His piece of work was called Jason, Titus Vespasianus’ Son, Elegy on the Death of
Peter the Great (1725).

He was always interested in the west in general. He went to The Netherlands. He was fluent in
Dutch, he went to Paris and also stopped to Brussels. He was supposed to permanently settle in
Paris but eventually he studied mathematics and philosophy in Sorbonne. During that time, people
were supposed to be universally educated. It was completely fine to combine math with philosophy
and that was great to be combined with theology too. It’s the Renaissance mode of thinking. If
someone wanted to consider himself as an educated person, he was supposed to be fluent in all
sciences. It was his path too. In Paris, he started his mature career as a writer. He wrote elegies,
love songs. He was bilingual in French and Russian and when he returned to Russia he was well
appreciated and was immediately offered a job at the Academy of Sciences. At first, he became a
translator and a secretary but he was always busy with writing his own texts. He was translating
poems and odes of other European authors. It was a known custom that during every palace
celebration, before the ceremony can begin, a poet was supposed to read a text. People were waiting
to hear poetic speech. It was very much needed by everyone in the higher culture at the time. There
was nothing strange in that, it was a good and normal job at the time. The other colleague with whom
he worked was Michael Lomonosov (he was even more important than Trediakovskij). Trediakovskij
was the one who prepared the ground for Lomonosov’s eventual reform. They go together especially

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when we talk about the Academy of Sciences because Lomonosov was the one who organized
Russian Academy of Sciences. He was a major poet and scientist. The idea of being eloquent, of
offering a good example or exercises in rhetoric presupposed that someone was a good scientist.
They were acting together in shaping the future state of Russian culture in the field of academy and
literature.

Cours 3 - 18/02/2021

Vasilii Trediakovskii (1703-1769) is considered the founding father of Russian Classicism, an

international movement, like romanticism. His family name is strange. That has to do with his family.
Russian priests often had strange surnames. He comes from the family of a priest and was born in
Astrakhan. For unexplained reasons he came to Moscow where he immediately started to study in
the Slavic-Greco-Latin Academy. As a young student, he wrote his first dramas such as Jason, Titus
Vespasianus’ Son, Elegy on the Death of Peter the Great (1725). The normal way of creating
literature was to base the subject on classical antiquity because only classical Antiquity offered the
right metaphorical structures for the correct literature which was a priori directed at high strata of the
society (not for peasants, they couldn’t read anyway). He was also active abroad. He went to The
Netherlands and stayed two years in The Hague. Then he moved to Paris. In Sorbonne, he studied
all the sciences (mathematics, philosophy, theology,…). As a parallel activity, he was writing elegies.
He was fluent in French. After his studies, he went back to Russia. He got his employment at the
Academy of Science where he became a translator and a secretary. He spent more or less his entire
career there. He was always active as an original author. He produced his own text and was quite
active as a translator. At that time, it wasn’t possible to conduct any event (public or a state event)
without poetic accompagnement. Those texts were called odes (it’s a genre of wishing good things
to someone). He was the one who supplied all those odes. He was a friend of Lomonosov. Together,
they were appointed assistant professor at the Academy of Sciences in the newly created
department of rhetoric and eloquence. At that time, eloquence was considered a major skill to be
mastered (all successful men were supposed to master it). Rhetoric was considered as a real
science. It was needed to follow the rules established by rhetoric. If not, people were considered as
outcasts.

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Trediakovskii

He introduced a new elaborate system of syllabo-tonic verse. It’s based on a regular alternation of
stressed and unstressed syllables. He wrote his thoughts in The New Method of Russian Verse
Composition (1735). We define it as a new system of classicist poetic genres, sonnets, rondo,
madrigal and ode. Each one of them had his own specific format. It was given for the first time in
Russian poetry tradition. Codification of all this was quite important. For the first time, everything was
codified and written down. As a result of his work, he proposed a reform of versification which will
be based more on national Russian style (more authentic and indigenous rather than following Latin
or Greek formats). That was considered a major innovation because a true classical author was just
supposed to follow and to have very little. He was proceeding with reformation about the ways
Russian poetry should be written at the time. He introduced the tonic/sound principle which was
supposed to be closer to the nature of Russian language which ic accented. Every Russian word
has an accent, without it the word wouldn’t be understandable at all. That’s why they were so much
active in the matter of creating a format and providing the correct framework for future written poetry.
But Trediakovskii was inconsistent in his reforms. He also developed Russian variants of the Greek
and Latin system of meter. One of the most popular one was chorus. He declared chorus (horei) the
main meter, rejecting iambus and the possibility to combine male versus female rhyme. Essentially,
Trediakovskii work remained unfinished and it took Lomonosov to complete his work and to justify
those broad possibilities of iambic versed that could still be realized. Official poetry was practically
commissioned by the court so it was very important to create the right poetry. It had to do with the
peculiar ceremonial nature of Russian Court which was much more ceremonial than the French one,
for example. That’s why Lomonosov and Trediakovskii were so much active on those matters of

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creating the right format and providing the correct framework for writing future poetry. Today it
sounds a little bit odd.
In 1745, as an acknowledgement of his achievements, Trediakovskii was appointed as a full
Academician. Russian Academy is a very powerful institution. It doesn’t have any parallel in the
world. A lot of authors are members. Academically active people can become members. It’s a life
appointment which entails an excellent salary and a great future. The source of the Academy was
founded by Peter the Great, by the special decree of the Senate in 1725. It was originally called The
Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences. With the time, it grew less dependent of the city and was
called Russian Academy of Sciences. Trediakovskii was active there. One of his major concerns
was going beyond the simple art of poetry, the limited way of creating poetry. He had ambition of
proceeding with a reformation of Russian language. In order to update the way Russians were
writing, he was thinking of formulating new principles. The principles he initially discussed and
conceived are the foundation of modern Russian language. It has to do with something we call full
syntactic freedom. In Russian, we have completely free order of words (free syntax). This syntactic
freedom allows very interesting mixtures and very unexpected forms of literary creation.
Trediakovskii was struggling with something called Slavenshchina (meaning rigid form of creating a
sentence) based on very limited number of approved models, formulas and clichés. He wanted to
reform that and expressed his opinion in Conversation on Orthography. He was also active in
exploring phonetic structure of Russian language (creating relations between phonetic landscape,
phonetic part of the language and the written part). He was constantly active as a translator (English,
French, German, aside of Latin) and a part of his appointment was to be a professor of translation.
For example, he translated John Barclay’s book Argenis. When he was finished with reforming
Russian versification, syntax and phonetics, he came to the theory of poetical translation. He was a
pioneer on theory of poetical translation. He was translating the same theoretical approach which he
could find in the west,
mainly in France with
Boileau.

Boileau

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 L’art poétique is the most influential book of Boileau. It was setting out rules for the
composition of poetry for someone who would like to follow the Classical tradition. This text will later
be considered of immense importance and some scholars called it the definitive handbook of
classical principles. This book influenced English major poets such as Samuel Johnson, John
Dryden and Alexander Pope. He was a member of the Académie Française.
1692 was the time of fierce polemics between Ancients versus Moderns. Boileau was a very
active part of that polemic. Coincidentally, it was the initial period of emancipation of women and
Boileau saw them as potential danger that could destroy classical old system. That’s why he wrote
Contre les femmes, published as Satire X in 1694. The protection of old tradition was by all means
expanding on all possible fields of human activity (not just about poetry).
Trediakovskii, just like Boileau (as it was a custom at the time), was also quite active in all
sorts of disputes and arguments with colleagues. He found himself quite isolated as a theoretician
and academician. He was not supported by his peers due to various reasons (jealousy or other
matters). As we already said, he Trediakovskii was active in literary disputes of the 1740-50s and
was opposed to State poets such as Lomonosov and Sumarokov. Trediakovsky’s views on
versification and the structure of literary language was not fully respected by the new generations of
literati. It took time. Especially at the last part of his life, he was quite unpopular. Also for the Christian
part of Russian Establishment, he had some powerful enemies. He was seen as too scholastic,
which is strange because he was fighting against it. He was always active as an individual poet
(Theoptia, 1753; The Psalter, 1754).
One of his last book was called On the Ancient, Middle, and New Russian Verse, in which a
clear preference was given to syllabic poetry over the newest poetry. This study was not accepted
in a positive way. At some point, Trediakovskii was found too ancient, too archaic. He didn’t welcome
the new poetry, which was departing from those rigid traditions that he was fostering. As a result (he
had some powerful enemies), he was fired from the Academy but he had enough funds to sustain
himself and he continued to publish translations and poetry. Especially, he was dedicated to bringing
to Russian public those texts which he deemed of paramount importance for Russian culture, like
the major history book he translated : Roman History and History of Roman Emperors from Augustus
to Constantine. He also translated Fenelon’s novel The Adventures of Telemachus. He continued to
be active despise the period of animosity. Posthumously, Trediakovsky’s work was really

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appreciated by all the major authors of the coming time, like Pushkin and Radishchev which are free-
thinkers.

Example of
Trediakovsky’s
lyrical poem
(original edition),
based on classical
sources.

Trediakovskii is important because of the accumulative effect, the valuable input which he
left on development of Russian literary language in general. He’s important because of his several
likes of attempts of reformation, attempts to cleverly change the laws of writing poetry. He created
himself a major theory, even though this theory had a limited influence in his own time. Still this
theory was proved to be durable and influential. It was never completely forgotten. He was the one
who discussed the major topic of genres (what do we consider to be literary genres ? How do we
define them ?). This question remains relevant today. He is also remembered for his inputs in the
theory of translation. Another important aspect of his legacy is related to his linguistic efforts to enrich
the way Russians were writing their language and to change the normative. He was also famous for
bringing new words that were previously considered unfit to be included in the official Russian
vocabulary. Those words were coming for the everyday practice. He was a proponent of the
democratization of Russian literary practice. He was living during the time of several Russian
monarchs. One of those was Empress Elizabeth. She supported his work. One of his concerns,
which seems odd for a classicist, was to strengthen the pure Slavic element of Russian language.
On one hand, Trediakovskii was an obvious proponent of Classical Antiquity (subjects, names,
titles,…) and on the other, he wanted to bring the indigenous local spirit into Russian high literary
language. Some of those words, which were a little odd or even notorious because of their Slavicist
nature, were criticized because not everyone was ready to immediately used them. Trediakovskii
was allowed by Elizabeth to include them into the official vocabulary. Trediakovsky’s interest in
elaborating a new theory has to do with his ambition of creating -that would sound odd today- “the
scientific translation”. How can it be achieved when we know that translation is an arbitrary art, an
art of creating a rough variant, a parallel to the origin ? Still he claimed that scientific translation
should be possible. He wanted to illustrate that with his own translations of French Classicism, while

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still keeping supplying his own odes -partially because those odes, madrigals and songs had some
commercial value for him because he could sell them to the court. The main next reformer of Russian
versification was Mikhail Lomonosov. According to Pushkin (seen as the founding father of modern
Russian style literature, he uses the same language as we use today, counter to Trediakovskii), “the
study of Trediakovskii is more useful than the study of many other writers”. Trediakovskii metaphors
are considered peculiar, he uses something we call stable epithets (for example “deep forests”,
“people’s poetry”, “clear eyes”, “sugar lips”). Today, it would sound banal but at that time, it was
considered as an epitome of the model of the correct good style.

Antioch Kantemir (1708-1744)

Kantemir

Antioch Kantemir generally is considered a major Russian satirist. Just as Trediakovskii, he

was also important as a poetry theorist. He comes from the south of Russian Empire. He was the
son of a Moldavian prince who came to Russian Empire from the Ottomans. At that time, Moldavia
was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Crimea war (19th century) would be related to the ambition of
Nicholas I, a Russian Tsar, to gain more land from Ottomans, specifically Moldavian lands. He
received an excellent classical education. It was permitted and considered better to receive home
education. Already as a young child, he was thinking of himself as a poet and a translator. Every
Russian poet, started his career as a translator because there was not valuable, approved poetry in
Russia at that time. In order to gain some taste of real poetry, one should have consulted Latin,

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Greek or French. If one wanted to be a poet, he would have to start as a translator. He translated
Boileau as well. He was proponent of a different mode of translation, not the scientific translation of
which Trediakovskii was speaking. Kantemir was famous for his Russification of the plots. He
changed the very names of characters, the plots. It’s inconceivable today. At that time, that was
perfectly accepted. By doing it, he was also developing his own style of poetry which was aimed at
facilitating the way that target readers perceived the original text. In order to facilitate this process,
Antioch was ready to go as far as to completely russify the original text. He was also translating
Classical Roman texts like Juvénal and Horace. By doing all those translations, he was also
developing his own peculiar style. For some reason he was more interested in satire. Satire means
epigram, humoristic text that is pointed as someone. He first started with political epigrams and then
turned to original satires in 1729-31 which were published in many copies. His satire was not
perceived as something outrageous or inconceivable with the political regime he was living in.
Kantemir was quite popular and successful.
In a way like Trediakovskii, he was siding with the past. They were always defending the
past, it’s anachronistic but we can call him conservative (Trediakovskii as well). He was always
defending the legacy that Peter the Great brought to Russia and it put him in a very interesting
position because Peter himself was himself an innovator. That would make Kantemir a conservative
innovator. This position would immediately put Kantemir at odds with Orthodox church because
Russian church was always quite hostile towards Peter the Great and did not accept those
westernizing, Europeanizing policy that Peter was bringing. Supporting Peter made oneself
automatically at odds with Orthodox church. A part of Peter tradition was Kantemir’s view on
meritocracy. Every society develops his own system of judging people. At that time, people were
judged by their family provenance and not by their merits. Peter brought the natural equality of
people, still limited but better than before. Kantemir developed as well the idea of the natural equality
of people ant the advantage of personal merit over family provenance. Kantemir could express his
view only in literature. At the time, there was no journalism and literature and poetry was the only
means of expressing oneself, the only mean to criticize the ruling state of affairs. He was laughing
at obscure customs and that was a dangerous business in general but he had Peter the Great on
his side and it was considered bon ton to follow innovations approved by the tsar despise the fact
that those innovations were met with hostility from some powerful circles of society. He was involved
in its turbulent political struggle which was happening between the two types of Russian nobility. He
took an active part in the political struggle, defending interests of “old type of service nobility” against

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“new opportunist servicemen” (a derogatory term). Eventually, the new opportunist servicemen will
prevail.

Kantemir

In 1730, Kantemir took an active part in the struggle against the attempt of the old nobility to limit in
their favor the autocratic rights of Anna Ioannovna, the new Empress. Kantemir also translated
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle’s anticlerical book Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. Church
was against any changes. This is a positivist book of science which was an affront against Church’s
views. It contained an explanation of the heliocentric model of the Universe, suggested by Nicolaus
Copernicus in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543). It was part of the new trend of
emancipating from church
doctrinal power.

The Age of Enlightenment was seen as something politically precarious and dangerous. Only
Catherine the Great, in some fifty years later, will approve Enlightenment. For Anna Ioannovna the

Page 43
Age of Enlightenment, the new tradition of French free-thinking was going too far. She disapproved
and she wanted to stop Kantemir who became too active in his unorthodox way of thinking. A
Russian tradition was to send controversial writers abroad. Anna Ioannovna appointed Kantemir to
be ambassador in London, then in Paris, in order to limit his influence on Russian sociality and to
limit the influence of the Lumières.
He continued to be active in writing satirical poems. Kantemir was aware of Trediakovsky’s
theoretical activities and was attentively reading The New and Method of Russian Verse Composition
(Trediakovskii, 1735). He was not happy with Trediakovsky’s contribution and answered him in a
special article (1743) where he defended syllabic verse from the criticism of Trediakovskii who was
a supporter of tonic verse. Being an ambassador in Paris, Kantemir befriended Montesquieu, the
biggest Enlightened philosopher of his time (before Voltaire and Diderot). He translated his first book,
Persian Letters, but he did not translate his most important work (On the spirit of law). Kantemir's
conceptual understanding of society was very much dependent on French Enlightenment. It already
proved to be appealing and Kantemir was not the only one interested or influenced by it. We can
define Kantemir as an educator. With satire, he always wanted to express some didactic message.
He was also a rationalist. It’s impossible to write satire without being a rationalist. Satire is a rational
exercise. Despite his controversy with Trediakovskii, Kantemir was one of the founders of the
Russian classicism (it’s just another branch of Russian Classicism). His constant activity of translator
made him automatically a Russian Classicist. He was active in translating classical writing and
creating his own satirical poetry. For quite unusual reason, he was allowed to criticize powerful
nobles and aristocracy. They were open to his criticism. He used quite harsh metaphors, epithets
and stereotypes : nobles were seen as ignoramuses, they did nothing, they were weasels (Russian
term meaning they depended on others). By doing that he created a very distinct trend in Russian
literature because before him, we didn’t have Russian satire. He was one of the founders of the
Russian satirical genre. All the compendiums of Russian satire begins with him. He was a
trendsetter. He was also very active in another field, partially related to his satirical activity. He felt
the necessity of using colloquial proverbs. It was not a custom before him. He made them more
popular. Kantemir gave a boost to the popular proverbs and sayings and largely determined the style
of the Russian satirical poetry to the second half of the 18th century.
The group around him was called the “learned team”. The root of this learned team can be
traced back to the époque of Peter the Great. Only with him, it became possible for someone to
come forward, offering his merit rather than just be interested in the family provenance. It was for no
importance for Peter the Great. He wanted to judge only on their concrete and practical contribution
to common good that someone was bringing to society. It was the only criteria. When Peter passed
away, came a reaction. Kantemir still wanted to defend Peter’s approach to live and culture. Peter
the Great found his source of inspiration for his social reform in European nobility, mainly in the
Nederland and in France. Peter was the enlightener of Russia and those who surrounded him were
part of his task. Even after his death, his Enlightenment project was relevant even though it received

Page 44
attacks from the aristocracy and from the church. Still, those principles of Enlightenment grew some
roots in the fabric of Russian society and they were able to sustain those attacks from reactionists
and old aristocracy and those parts of high bourgeoisie who still wanted to claim their merit based
on their family, not on their concrete actions and values as human beings.

cours 4 - 25/02/2021

Kantemir will always be fond of Satire. Irony and Satire will define Kantemir’s style. He was
famous for his satirical writings. He was the first to address various political and social issues with
his satirical brilliance. The problem of circulation of his work is still relevant. The censorship was
really hard. Spiski means underground paper circulation. Many papers were circulating underground
but he still remained really influential. There was not too many literate people who would be able to
read (several thousands) but they were connected and they could read spiski. There was a limited
number of readers so they could reach the underground publications.

Antioch Kantemir

The titles are very telling. The main address were clergy and fake hypocrites. Clergy was a powerful
enemy. His satirical writings were always ambiguous. This fact can be related to the very essence
of the satire genre. When you read those titles like On blasphemous teaching, you would be
immediately puzzled and intrigued to read further. All these vices are ridiculed by Kantemir with
erudition and precision. Others example are On the envy and pride of the wicked nobility, On
shameless insolence and on education, On human wickedness.
Education was an important subject at that time. He was also famous for his style which was different
from other authors. He used what he called domestic stylistic. Gossip was defined life of people.

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