History of Russian Literature: From the Eleventh Century to the End of the Baroque

488 Pages·2013·17.767 MB·English

by  Dimitrij Cizevskij, Dmitrij CI Evskij

HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE
S L A V I S T I C HE D R U K K EN
EN HERDRUKKEN
•
S LAVI S TIC PRINTINGS
AND REPRINTINGS
uitgegeven door / edited by
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
XII
MOUTON & CO · 1971 · 'S-GRAVENHAGE
HISTORY OF
RUSSIAN LITERATURE
FROM THE ELEVENTH CENTURY TO
THE END OF THE BAROQUE
by
DMITRIJ CIZEVSKIJ
WITH 34 PLATES
THIRD PRINTING
MOUTON & CO · 1971 · 'S-GRAVENHAGE
© Mouton & Co., Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print,
photoprint, microfilm, or any other means without written permission
from the publishers.
FIRST PRINTING 1960
SECOND PRINTING 1962
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS BY
MOUTON & Co., PRINTERS, THE HAGUE
PREFACE
This work is an attempt to present a history of Early Russian Literature
in text-book form. It is designed for those commencing Slavonic studies
but can of course be of use to non-Slavists too. Its task is to provide the
most important material in a way which corresponds to modern scholarly
interpretation. The available text-books in foreign languages and popular
accounts cannot perform this task, since they depict Russian literature
up to the 19th century only in broad outline. That is to say, in terms so
broad that hardly anything but a few names remains in the reader's
memory. Moreover, many of them base their accounts on entirely anti-
quated Russian works. Those who have a command of the Russian lan-
guage resort therefore to modern Russian text-books. One of these, the
excellent text-book of Ν. K. Gudzij, is available also in English trans-
lation, but the edition which served as the basis for the English version
has already been essentially modified by the author himself. The new
editions of Gudzij's text-book and the almost inaccessible collective
history of literature published by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
can hardly satisfy the needs of the foreign reader. The official policy and
requirements of the Soviet Russian authorities exert considerable pressure
on the presentation of the material. It lacks an adequate portrayal of
religious literature, so important in this period of Russian literature. It
lacks, too, a solid formal analysis of works, for such would bring the
accusation of "formalism" on the authors. And last, but not least, it
represents in one way or another some tendencies which, if they do not
entirely undermine the possibility of an objective presentation, to some
extent strongly hamper such a method. The significance given to the
religious life of the past is reduced to a minimum. The role of foreign
influences is conveniently passed over in silence, so that now even the
important translated works disappear entirely from the text-books. Fre-
quently, works are condemned or praised according to their political
significance, and even from the present point of view; thus the polemical
6 PREFACE
works of the 16th century are judged according to their significance for
the ideology of the Great Russian Empire and not according to their
literary or intellectual-historical value. Attempts are made to represent
all the periods of Russian literary history as "brilliant" or "flourishing",
and in order to fill the "gaps" monuments are introduced into the picture
which in no case merit inclusion. In addition, other extra-literary criteria
are becoming increasingly prominent in the accounts. Consequently, the
use of these books, although useful in many respects, produces no small
confusion in the minds of those readers who cannot or do not want to
read the texts of the original works.
I am attempting here, on the basis of my teaching experience (eighteen
years in Germany and five years in the United States), to provide such a
selection and presentation of material as will bring Old Russian literature
closer to the foreign student. Of this selection and this presentation I
should now like to say a few words.
My selection is motivated by the wish to present a history of literature
and not a complete history of letters. Hence I treat many monuments
perhaps in a rather step-motherly fashion, but, I hope, justly from the
literary historian's point of view; to these belongs first of all the trans-
lated literature, mainly works in which the purely literary qualities have
no significance. Besides, I want to give primarily a history of original
literature. Therefore the translated monuments are somewhat pushed
into the background. Nevertheless, to those which exercised a significant
influence on original works I have devoted as much attention as space
has permitted.
The literary-historical presentation required analyses of style, which
of course, due to lack of space, are often somewhat cursory. In some
sections I had to begin further back and treat in a somewhat specialised
manner some general questions (the development of the literary language,
prosody, etc.). Some problems equally important, such as the question
of literary genre influences, I could only touch in passing. I also did
not want to neglect entirely the intellectual-historical bases of the develop-
ment of literature, and so, in certain passages, some further digressions
proved necessary. However, as I am hoping to publish in the very near
future an intellectual history of Russia, I imposed upon myself further
restraint in the treatment of these questions.
I also hold a view which is nowadays shared by most scholars, but
still is not noticeably prominent in the accounts of Russian literature.
This is the conception that the so-called "Old Russian literature" had
in no sense a uniform character and was in no way static. During the
PREFACE 7
eight centuries with which my book is concerned, there were literary
revolutions and changes ; in every single period there were literary trends,
currents and "schools". It may be doubted whether the limits of the
literary eras drawn by me (particularly between the 15th and the 16th
centuries) are convincing and in the right places. To be sure I have
attempted to support my plan of development by the characterization
of every period. That I am fully aware of the difficulties of any division
into periods, the reader may gather from my Outline of Comparative
Slavic Literature (Boston, 1952).
The distribution of material in each of the larger sections has been
made according to genres. Therefore the reader will sometimes find
himself led to refer to other pages. To this end, I hope, he will be helped
by the indices, to the compilation of which I have attached much im-
portance. The indices will also help the reader to find the necessary
material in those parts which are set in small type, and which are suited
and intended more for reference than for study.
References to scholars are lacking in the text. I have also avoided
polemics as far as possible. I have mentioned differing views of other
authors only in cases where silence was impossible, as in cases where
entirely baseless judgements have been made by contemporary Soviet
scholars, for instance, that the political writings of the 16th century sur-
pass the contemporary West European works, or that Zinovij Otenskij
is to be reckoned as equal to St. Thomas Aquinas, and so on, or where
groundless parallels with foreign literatures are introduced (for example :
Castiglione and Boccaccio to Domostroj). I had also to take a stand,
though briefly, on the question which has virtually become a curse on
the history of literature, the entirely unfounded hypothesis of the falsifi-
cation of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. As I often had to content myself
here with merely an outline, I shall express myself in detail on a number
of questions in specialised studies, some of which will soon appear or
will have already been published upon the appearance of this book.
The texts and quotations, when quoted in Cyrillic, are always accom-
panied by a translation. The orthography until the 16th century is that
of the original edition; for the 17th and 18th centuries, however, I have
used (with few exceptions) the modern spelling.
It was impossible to treat in detail in all instances the events of Russian
history and the notions of poetics and literary theory. The reader will
sometimes have to turn to reference works or to the relevant literature;
one would like to assume in every reader of a scholarly work the habit
of using at least an encyclopaedia. The literary references which - where
δ PREFACE
ever possible - are given in every chapter, lay no claim to completeness ;
I give mainly references to publications of texts and only to the most
essential literature ; on many occasions I have confined myself to naming
the works in which further literary references can be found. In some
cases I have added to a literary reference a short explanatory note, mostly
in those instances when an older work is dealt with, which, however, is
still worthy of being read, or when a work is tendentious in one or
another sense and thus is to be used with caution.
As usual, I have read all the texts mentioned in this ^ork, as far as
they are published. On the other hand, I could not examine some works ;
oddly enough, these are mostly works of recent times (for example, the
publications of some Soviet Universities). As to the MSS, I was able
to use only numerous later MSS of the Old Believers, which are almost
without importance for this book.
The period between the 11th and 13th centuries, which, in my opinion,
influenced only in some points the later development of Russian (Great
Russian) literature in its proper sense, and the very content of which was
about to be subjected to a re-interpretation, I have treated in a separate
work (Geschichte der altrussischen Literatur im 11., 12. und 13. Jahr-
hundert: Kiever Epoche, Frankfurt a.M., 194δ). This latter book is
written on a different scale and with a somewhat different intention.
Here I give a different account of that period; I needed to revise the
opinions previously expressed in only a few points. Among the reviewers
of the book I am indebted especially to Max Vasmer, even if I cannot
accept all his objections.
I am indebted to those of my friends, pupils and colleagues with whom
I was able to discuss some questions treated in this work.
Whether I have been successful in this book in giving non multa, sed
multum, which was my intention, this the readers and the critics will be
better able to judge than I myself am.
DMITRIJ CIÍEVSKIJ
CONTENTS
Preface 5
I. THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD 11
II. TRANSLATED AND BORROWED LITERATURE 20
III. THE PERIOD OF STYLISTIC SIMPLICITY (The Early Middle Ages) 31
1. Characteristics 31
2. Sermons 34
3. Hagiographie Literature (the Lives) 40
4. The Tales 47
5. The Chronicle 52
6. The Pilgrimage of Abbot Daniil 60
7. Works of Prince Vladimir Monomach 64
8. The Izbornik of 1076 68
9. The Question of the Old Russian Epos 71
10. Various Works 78
IV. THE AGE OF ORNAMENTAL STYLE (12th-13th centuries) . .. 82
1. Characteristics 82
2. Sermons 85
3. The Tales 91
4. Hagiographie Literature 94
5. The Chronicles 101
6. The Remains of the Epos 109
7. The Tale of Igor's Campaign 112
8. Stories of Tatar Invasion 124
9. The Supplication of Daniil 131
10. Adam's Speech to Lazarus 135
11. Secular Biography 137
12. Various Works 142
V. THE PERIOD OF SPIRITUAL STRUGGLE 145
1. Characterics 145
2. Translated and Borrowed Literature 155
3. Sermons 162
10 CONTENTS
4. Lives of the Saints 165
5. Secular Biography 184
6. The Tales 193
7. The Chronicles 204
8. Travellers' Tales 207
9. Historical Songs 212
10. The Spiritual Crisis of the Fifteenth Century 214
11. Various Works 227
VI. MUSCOVITE LITERATURE 230
1. Characteristics 230
2. Translated Literature 235
3. Hagiographie Literature 238
4. The Tales 250
5. The Chronicles 255
6. Travellers' Tales 262
7. Polemical Writings 263
8. Metropolitan Daniil 286
9. Maksim Grek 291
10. Encyclopaedical Works - Metropolitan Makarij . . .. 300
11. From the Folklore of the 16th Century 306
12. Other Works 308
13. Literature during and after the Interregnum 310
VII. THE BAROQUE 320
1. Characteristics 320
2. Translated Literature (17th Century) 326
3. Hagiographie Literature 331
4. The Tales 331
5. Simeon Polockij 346
6. The Ukrainians in Moscow 358
7. The Schism {raskol) 367
8. Kosma Grek 377
9. The Theatre 379
10. Translated Literature in the Petrine Period 382
11. The Tales 387
12. Kantemir 393
13. Trediakovskij and Verse Reform 401
14. Michail Vasil'eviö Lomonosov 415
15. Other Literary Works 429
16. The End of the Baroque 432