Medieval Russian Epics, Chronicles and Tales: Revised Edition

544 Pages·1974·15.563 MB·English

by  Serge A. Zenkovsky

raertfeoaL
Rcissîcrs
aptes,
cbRonfdes,
St. George in the garb of a medieval Russian
knight. A sixteenth-century icon.
raeTAeoal
R u s s i a ’s
eptcs,
cbRoofcLes,
ana tales
Edited, Translated, and with an Introduction by,
SERGE A. ZENKOVSKY
Vanderbilt University
REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION
A Dutton Paperback
E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC. NEW YORK 1974
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for
permission to quote from copyright material:
Selections from The Russian Primary Chronicle as trans­
lated by Samuel H. Cross in Harvard Studies and Notes
in Philology and Literature, Volume XII, 1930, reprinted
by permission of the Harvard University Press. Copyright,
1930, © 1958, by The President and Fellows of Harvard
College.
Selection from The Correspondence Between Prince
A. M. Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia translated by
J. L. I. Fennell, 1955, reprinted by permission of the
Cambridge University Press, London and New York.
Copyright, ©, 1963,1974, by Serge A. Zenkovsky
All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
SECOND EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
whatsoever without permission in writing from the pub­
lishers, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief
passages in connection with a review written for inclusion
in a magazine or newspaper or broadcasts.
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Clarke, Irwin &. Company Limited,
Toronto and Vancouver.
ISBN: 0-525-47363-7
Designed by The Etheredges
PREFACE
In preparing this volume for publication, I felt that at the
present level of American and British scholarship in the field of
Russian studies the time has come to offer readers and students
a comprehensive anthology of Russia’s medieval literature in
translation. The works of modern Russian writers of the nine­
teenth century, especially those of the age of the great Russian
novel as represented by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, have long since
become an inalienable part of American and British curricula of
literary studies and of collections in public and school libraries.
Also rather well known are the contemporary writings of Russia’s
Soviet period. Very different is the situation regarding the litera­
ture of previous centuries, especially that of the Russian Middle
Ages, which lasted until the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Indeed, there are available in English translation such master­
pieces of medieval Russian letters as the Primary Chronicle, the
Lay of Igors Campaign, some adaptations and translations of
the Life, or autobiography, of Awakum, and of some other
works written from the eleventh through the seventeenth cen­
turies. Most of these translations, however, are either out of
print or not readily available, having appeared in rare or expen­
sive editions. Moreover, the tremendous remaining part of Rus­
sian medieval writings has never been translated either into
English or into any other Western language.
The present anthology is therefore a pioneering effort to pre­
sent to Western readers the finest works, a few in excerpt, of
Russian literature from its very beginning, in the early eleventh
century, through the seventeenth century, when Peter the Great
forced Russia to rejoin the European family of nations and dis­
card its medieval culture.
Russian medieval literature is very extensive. According to
incomplete statistics, for example, there are over seven thousand
versions of lives of saints written during Russia’s Middle Ages,
and many thousands of chronicles and tales. Therefore, the task
of selecting for translation the most outstanding of these was
not easy. I attempted to solve this problem by offering here as
many recognized masterpieces of that period as possible, together
with some lesser-known works that also contribute to an under­
standing of the mentality, culture, and literary manners of Old
Russia. My guiding principle was to offer entire works whenever
possible, or at least complete narrative passages from such longer
VI PREFACE
writings as the chronicles, in order to give the reader an oppor­
tunity to grasp the style and spirit of the Russians of that age.
In a few cases—as, for instance, the long historical and polemical
writings of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—I de­
cided, owing to the limitations of this volume, to include the
most characteristic and interesting passages, in order to convey
a more complete picture of the evolution of Russian letters.
When possible, already existing translations have been used;
but the major part of the works published in this book appear
for the first time in English. The translation of medieval Russian
letters presents a number of technical difficulties. Their syntax,
structure, and style are very different from the methods and
devices of contemporary writers. Therefore, the translation of
many passages required some adaptation to the mode of expres­
sion of modem English for them to be comprehensible to readers.
For the sake of those who are not well acquainted with Rus­
sian medieval history, geography, and terminology, the words
“prince,” “city,” or “river” have been added to avoid possible
confusion. Since the Russian medieval calendar was 5,508 years
behind the Western one, the corresponding Western dates have
been supplied where necessary.
A customarily difficult problem is that of the transliteration
of Russian names. For the titles of original Russian sources the
system of the Library of Congress has been used, except for the
diacritical signs. In the transliteration of Russian names and
terminology, the Library of Congress system underwent some
minor modification: for instance, the initial Russian soft vowels
rendered by ia or iu have been changed to the more readable
ya or yu (that is, “Yaroslav,” not “Iaroslav”); the final ii and yi
have been replaced by y (that is, “Kurbsky” instead of “Kurb-
skii” ) ; and the final iia has been rendered by ia (“Dobrynia” in
place of “Dobryniia”). Most of the proper names are given in
their Russian form. Those of the clergy, such as “Theodosius” or
“Sergius,” are usually given in their original Greek or Latin
version, and those of foreign rulers and writers in their original
form, while common Christian names, such as “Alexander,”
“Nicholas,” “Andrew,” or “Helen,” are given in the usual English
manner.
Of the works previously translated into English and incorpo­
rated in the present collection, many have been revised against
the original Russian texts and their transliteration of Russian
names altered for the sake of consistency. It is my pleasant duty
to acknowledge my gratitude to the following publishing houses.
PREFACE vii
persons, and institutions for their permission to reproduce here
the material listed:
1. to Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
for permission to reprint passages from The Russian Primary
Chronicle, translated by Samuel H. Cross; copyright 1930 by
Harvard University Press;
2. to G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, and London, for per­
mission to use portions of Leo Wieners Anthology of Russian
Literature; copyright 1902 and 1903 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons;
3. to the Editorial Board of the Slavonic and East European
Review, London, for permission to reprint Adams Address to
Lazarus in Hell, translated anonymously and published in Vol­
ume X (1932), pp. 145-152; copyright 1932 by Cambridge
University Press;
4. to Mr. Nicholas Zernov and The Society for the Promotion
of Christian Knowledge, London, for permission to reprint The
Acts and Miracles of Our Dear and Holy Father, Sergius, by
Epiphanius the Wise, from St. Sergius, Builder of Russia, trans­
lated by Nicholas Zernov; copyright 1939 by The Society for the
Promotion of Christian Knowledge (London);
5. to Cambridge University Press, London and New York, for
permission to reprint J. L. I. Fennell’s translation of Prince
Andrew Kurbsky’s “First Epistle to Ivan IV,” from The Corre­
spondence between Prince A. Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan TV of
Russia; copyright © 1956 by Cambridge University Press;
6. to Miss U. M. Lane and The Hogarth Press, Ltd., London,
for permission to use The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Him­
self, translated by Jane Harrison and Hope Mirrless; copyright
1929 by L. and V. Woolf (London).
In the preparation of this volume I was assisted by students
in my graduate seminar on ancient Russian literature at the
University of Colorado. The Reverend George Benigsen helped
in translating The Life of Yuliania Lazarevsky, and Mr. Dan B.
Chopyk translated Bishop Serapion’s Sermon on the Merciless
Heathens. The remaining translations were made by myself in
cooperation with my graduate student and assistant, Mr. Richard
White. It is evident, however, that I am the only person respon­
sible for all possible errors or shortcomings in selecting, translat­
ing, and commenting on the works in this book.
I am grateful to the Graduate School of the University of
Colorado for financial help toward the completion of this volume
when I was Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at
that University.
viii PREFACE
Only I can fully appreciate the contribution made by my
wife and colleague, Betty Jean, whose interest and editorial skill
were so helpful in the planning and completion of Medieval
Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales.
SERGE A. ZENKOVSKT
April 10,1963
PR EFA C E TO THE S E C O N D EDITION
This second, revised edition of Medieval Russia's Epics, Chron­
icles, and Tales differs considerably from the first. Many works
have been added, among which such important Old Russian
texts as the Instruction to His Children of Vladimir Monomakh,
the Lives of St. Theodosius, Alexander Nevsky, Prince Dov-
mont, and Dmitry Donskoy, the Writing of Daniil the Prisoner,
the Travels of Afanasy Nikitin, the epic of Sukhan, one of the
earliest recorded byliny, and several poetic works from the sev­
enteenth century should be singled out. Whereas in the earlier
edition the texts were organized primarily in chronological order
and historical periods, now the governing literary school has
determined the classification of the selections. The original order
has been changed to accord with a new division of the texts
into the literary school of the Kievan era; epigones of the Kievan
school in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the age of
Muscovite omamentalism; and the wane of medieval letters and
beginning of the Baroque. The translations have been checked,
revised, and sometimes changed substantially to agree more
closely with new and better editions of the Old Russian literary
"monuments.”
This is a pleasant opportunity for the editor to express his
gratitude to several students in his seminars on Old Russian
literature at Vanderbilt University who lent their very consider­
able help in the preparation of this new edition of Medieval
Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. Among them he would
like particularly to thank his graduate assistant, David L. Arm-
bruster, as well as Messrs. James Hadra, Robert Patterson, and
Robert Bowie. He also thanks his wife, Betty Jean, for her edi­
torial assistance.
Despite the generous help of these and several other persons,
the editor, himself, is of course responsible for any omissions,
misjudgments, errors, or inaccuracies found herein.
Since medieval Russian syntax and stylistics were very differ­
ent from today’s, sometimes the editor has had to supply some
additional words in order to make the text more readable: these
words are in brackets. In other cases some explanatory words
were likewise added to the text: in this case these words are in
parentheses.
SERGE A. ZENKOVSKY
Vanderbilt University