Book Reviews 445 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 06:03:38AM via free access . 446 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 06:03:38AM via free access A NEW STUDY INTO REGIONAL BOOKLORE TRADITION: THE HAGIOGRAPHY OF VELIKY USTYUG AND SOLVYCHEGODSK А. Н. Власов, Сказания и повести о местночтимых святых и чудотворных иконах Вычегодско-Северодвинского края XVI–XVIII веков. Санкт-Петербург: Пуш кинский Дом, 2011. 802 c. ISBN 978-5-91476-006-6. А. N. Vlasov, Tales and Narrations about the locally venerated saints and wonder-working icons of the Vychegodsk- Severodvinsk Region in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries. St. Petersburg: Pushkinskiy Dom, 2011. 802 p. (in Russian). A. N. Vlasov’s book adds to the number of recently published schol- arly publications on handwritt en books of some specifi c region or literary centre. Among these one has to name fi rst of all studies by V. I. Okhotnikova (Pskov hagiography), N. V. Saveljeva (Pinega and Mezen), L. S. Soboleva (Ural) and E. M. Yukhimenko (Old Belief in White Sea Coast and Vyg). A. N. Vlasov presents the Vychegodsk- Severodvinsk region with its cultural and spiritual centers, towns of Veliky Ustyug, Solvychegodsk and Koryazhma St. Nicholas monastery as another signifi cant region in terms of the history of Russian hand- writt en literature. His main objective is to give an overall picture of literary works by local scribes, publish and comment as far as possible the whole body of hagiographical stories of the Solvychegodsk-Ustyug “cultural and historical zone.” The publication includes 16 texts dating from the XVII–XVIII centuries within the genres of Lives of the Saints, stories about wonder-working icons and foundations of monaster- ies. The section Appendices includes liturgical texts and offi cial docu- ments; the section Study contains analysis of stories from the Ustyug Chronicle and stories by an Ustyug chronicler about the foundation of the fi rst Ustyug monasteries and wonder-working icons in the town churches. Besides Old Russian texts which are prepared from manu- scripts, their translations into the modern language are published. This makes the edition intelligible even to non-specialists. The Lives of St John and St Prokopius of Ustyug, the most famous texts of Ustyug ha- giography, are not included in the edition since they are the subject of 447 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 06:03:38AM via free access 448 Scrinium IX (2013). Patrologia Pacifica Tertia A. N. Vlasov’s separate study published in 2010.1 Perhaps these two books should be published as a two-volume edition under a common title. Along with A. N. Vlasov other scholars took part in the edition: V. V. Kopytkov, V. I. Schipin (introduction to the legend about St. Peter Cherevkovsky’s miracles) and R. P. Bilanchyk (publication of one of the versions of St. Peter Cherevkovsky’s miracles). The edition puts into scholarly circulation a large number of for- merly unpublished, litt le known works. Previously research could acquire information about them mainly from articles in the Diction- ary of Old Russian Bookmen and Book Learning [Словарь книжников и книжности Древней руси]. The “stories” published by A. N. Vlasov include, “The Story about the foundation of Koryazhma St. Nicholas Monastery and Hegumenos Longinus,” “The Story about Christo- pher’s Hermitage,” “Krasnobor wonders, worked by the icon of the Savior not-made-by-hands, “The Story about wonders worked by the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria in Turovets churchyard,” the Lives of John Samsonovich of Solvychegodsk, Simon of Volomy, Andrew of Totma,” and others. The reader gets acquainted with the spiritual life of the Northern Russian region over several centuries shown through biographies of the local ascetics and the history of its sacred places. This edition is a result of a long-lasting and thorough source study of the manuscripts, taking into account the majority of their copies and versions. The author takes a close look at the literary work of Alexander (1604–1679), the Bishop of Vyatka and Great Perm, a native of Solvy- chegorsk, who is noted for his sympathy towards the Old Believers. In 1643–1650 Alexander of Vyatka was the hegumenos in Koryazhma St. Nicholas monastery, where he retired in 1674 and remained until his death. Earlier, before A. N. Vlasov’s studies, the church service for the founder of this monastery Longinus of Koryazhma had been att ributed to Bishop Alexander. According to A. N. Vlasov’s convincing theory, Alexander of Vyatka was also the writer of the Story about Koryazhma Monastery and the Story about Christopher’s Hermitage. Problems of att ribution of the texts are also discussed in other sections of the book. A. N. Vlasov’s book contributes signifi cantly to the study of Russian church history; moreover, it will be of great interest to folklore experts (1) А. Н. ВЛАСОВ, Житийные повести и сказания о святых юродивых Прокопии и Иоанне Устюжских [Hagiographical Tales and Legends About Fools for Christ Saints Prokopius and John of Ustyug], Санкт-Петербург, 2010. Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 06:03:38AM via free access A. N. Vlasov 449 and researchers of “popular Orthodoxy.” Many of the published texts here refl ect vividly the beliefs of Northern Russian rural residents of the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries. As the writer points out, “these manuscripts were primarily aimed at the lowly reader, that’s why they had close affi nities with folklore legends in prose” (p. 642). The Story about the wonders worked by the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria in Turovets churchyard tells about aquatic demons which dragged a woman into the water and then demanded to give her son to them (p. 226). Another story contains narration about snakes conceived in the womb of a woman (p. 150). A steady motif in the Solvychegodsk- Ustyug stories is prohibition against obscenities and tobacco. If this prohibition is not applied, divine powers threaten to send down a stony cloud, fi ring lighting, “severe snow” and “stillness in all the land” (p. 328 and more). These motives are primarily connected with veneration of icons of the Virgin Mary, since obscenities were per- ceived by folk consciousness as an insult to Mother Earth, one’s own mother and the Virgin Mary (cf. in Old Russian Homily about “evil barking swearing”: “If someone barks inappropriate nasty foul swear- ing then at once heaven and earth will shake and the Blessed Virgin at the throne of Her Son and God starts to tremble…”).2 In the published writings toponymic traditions are recorded as well: the origin of the river’s name Neduma derives from the Virgin Mary’s words “not to think” (“ne dumat’” in Russian), legends about the indigenous popu- lation (“chud’” in Russian) and epic heroes (“bogatyr’” in Russian). In some pieces of writings A. N. Vlasov fi nds the realization of the fairy tale archetype (p. 371, 507). Any researcher who is conducting studies into some local book tra- dition inevitably starts thinking about the question of its originality as well as the principles (apart from the geographical one) of compil- ing diff erent texts into a homogeneous regional collection. Avoiding addressing this problem directly, A. N. Vlasov nevertheless att empts to establish connections among the “stories” in similarities of plot construction, in recurrent themes (exorcism etc.), records of everyday life details, special “ethnographism” and affi nity with a chronicle. In A. N. Vlasov’s opinion, the published compilation indicates the exis- tence of some “native regional self-awareness” (p. 628, 662). In addi- tion, the author fully understands that some literary features of the lo- (2) John Chrysostom’s Homily about Evil Barking Swearing, National Museum of the Republic of Karelia. Index of manuscript: КП-4184. The re- verse of the 70th paper sheet (the early nineteenth-century manuscript). Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 06:03:38AM via free access 450 Scrinium IX (2013). Patrologia Pacifica Tertia cal manuscripts are inherent parts of the new artistic consciousness of scribes of the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries. Thus, A. N. Vlasov’s study off ers food for thought about the correlation between native and common components in the regional literary traditions of the Russian writt en language in its late period. Unfortunately, the author and the editor did not manage to avoid some “technical” fl aws. For example, “PSRL” (“ПСРЛ” in Russian) stands for the “Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles” in the list of abbreviations (p. 779); meanwhile, on p. 139 a diff erent edi- tion, “Manuscripts of Old Russian Literature,” is marked as “PSRL.” The date is 7048 since the Creation is changed to the year of AD 1640 (p. 28, 29). The word “founder” (“начальник” in Russian) (meaning the founder of a monastery) in the Old Russian text is att ributed to Longinus of Koryazhma, but in the translation (only in one case) it refers to hegumenos Theodosius (p. 34, 35). It would be easier for read- ers to use the book if it contained an index of names, geographical places and cited manuscripts. Certainly, the fundamental nature and great scholarly value of the edition fully make up for these drawbacks, almost unavoidable in any scholarly publication of such volume. Be- yond doubt, A. N. Vlasov’s book will be accepted with gratitude by researchers of Northern Russian literature, folklore and the history of Orthodoxy. Alexander Pigin Petrozavodsk Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 06:03:38AM via free access.