The Emerging Perceptions of Nationhood and Spirituality in the Prayers of the Early Slavs and of Kievan Rus' Within Their Literary Context
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The emerging perceptions of nationhood and spirituality in the prayers of the Early Slavs and of Kievan Rus’ within their literary context Joy Helene Bache PhD School of Slavonic and East European Studies ProQuest Number: 10055417 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10055417 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Joy Helene Bache The emerging perceptions of nationhood and spirituality in the prayers of the Early Slavs and of Kievan Rus’ within their literary context This study explores the evolving identity of the Slavs, particularly of Kievan Rus’, as perceived in the prayers written by Slavs in the ninth to twelfth centuries. Chapter I examines the so-cdX\Qé Alphabetical prayer, commonly attributed to Konstantin of Preslav, as an early expression of Slavonic literature, celebrating the linking of the Slavonic language with the language of the Gospels and indeed with the logos. Chapters II and III focus on Kievan Rus’ and consider how the literary prayers embedded in the accounts of the conversion and baptism of Vladimir I, and also those concerning the martyrdom of Princes Boris and Gleb, raise these events from the level of prosaic and politically motivated incidents to the level of sacred events of national life. Chapter IV investigates the prayer attributed to Ilarion, placed in connection with the Slovo o zakone i blagodati, as a prayer spoken on behalf of the whole people, which impresses on them the identity of Rus’ united first and foremost by their new-found faith. In chapter V, works on Feodosii are shown to exemplify an intercessor’s monastic perspective, while chapter VI explores how Vladimir Monomakh writes hisPouchenie as a prince and layman, laying a moral foundation through prayer, in particular aimed at the factious princes of Rus’. The final chapter examines how Kirill of Turov’s weekly prayer cycle portrays the interior spiritual world. As well as tracing the evolving nationhood and spirituality of Rus’, this study throws light on scholarly debates surrounding the original context of some of the prayers. In contexts as diverse as a narrative of a vita to a prologue of a commentary, prayers are seen to function dynamically within their wider setting. In a period when written evidence is comparatively scarce, prayers offer a further perspective on the emerging identity and spirituality of Kievan Rus’. The evident care with which prayers were written and placed in significant contexts should help to alert the reader to the importance of prayers in early Slavonic literature in general. Contents Acknowledgements........................................................................ 4 Editorial notes .................................................................................. 5 Abbreviations .................................................................................. 6 Introduction .................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1 : The word of the Alphabetical prayer................... 14 Chapter 2: Vladimir I: prayers of a sinner and saint .............. 49 Chapter 3: The prayers attributed to St Boris and St Gleb . 74 Chapter 4: Unity in the prayer attributed to Ilarion................. 104 Chapter 5: The perception of the Kievan Caves Monastery as a centre of intercession ............................................................ 136 Chapter 6; Vladimir Monomakh’s prayers and spirituality . 166 Chapter 7 : Kirill of Turov and a language for prayer 189 C on clusion ...................................................................................... 225 Bibliography.................................................................................... 238 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Dr F. Wigzell for her help and advice in the writing of this thesis, as well as Dr L Hughes for her encouragement. In addition I would like to thank the administrative and library staff at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies for their friendly co-operation. I am also grateful for the stimulating environment of the SEEMSG (Slavonic and East European Medieval Studies Group) meetings, and the warm welcome given in St Petersburg by the academics from the Early Russian department in Pushkin House. Last but not least, the untiring support of my husband and family also deserves a special word of thanks. Editorial Notes When quoting from a printed source, I have generally followed the characters and punctuation of the edition (‘e’, however, is not distinguished from ‘e’, diacritic marks are not included and several characters are missing from the font, namely JG ^ rn). When quoting from manuscripts or copies and facsimiles of manuscripts, punctuation is added in order to facilitate reading, while retaining idiosyncratic orthography and obvious mistakes. Generally thetitlo is printed in full and the letters inserted are then italicized (if the edition indicates the titlo). In the footnotes, however, letters which comprisetitlo a are not always italicized. For works which are given a title in the original, the modem Russian rendering is transliterated or, alternatively, a commonly accepted form of the title is used. In cases where works have been given a title centuries later by scholars, for example the ‘azbuchnaia molitva’ or the ‘laroslav sbomik’, they are translated into English and italicized, hence the Alphabetical prayer and the laroslav miscellany. Names are given in a form which is commonly used or transliterated according to the Library of Congress system, and without diacritics. Slavonic quotations from the Psalter are cited with references which follow the numbering of the Septuagint, while quotations in English are given according to the edition used. In quotations certain words or letters may appear in bold to highlight a point that has just been made. These do not reflect a different lettering in the original text. Abbreviations Places GIM Gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii muzei (Moscow) RGB Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka (Moscow) RNB Rossiiskaia natsional’naia biblioteka (St Petersburg) Periodicals HUS Harvard Ukrainian Studies TODL Trudy otdela drevnerusskoi literatury Books Gebete Kirill von Turov. Gebete. Nach der Ausgabe in Pravoslavnyi sobesednik 1858, repr. Dm. Tschizewskij (ed ), (Slavische Propylaen 6), Munich, 1965 KPP D. Abramovich (ed ), Kyievo-Pechers’kyi Pateryk, Kiev, 1930; repr. Dm. Tschizewskij (ed.). Das Paterikon des Kiever Hohlenklosters, (Slavische Propylaen 2), Munich, 1964 Psalterium Sinaiticum S. Sever’ianov (ed ),Sinaiskaia Psaltyr', Petrograd, 1922; repr. Graz, 1954 PVLL ‘Lavrent’evskaia letopis’,Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei. I, 2nd edn, Leningrad, 1926; repr. L. Müller (ed.), Handbuch zur Nestorchronik, (Forum Slavicum 48, ed. Dm. Tschizewskij), I, Munich, 1977 Usp mise O A Kniazevskaia et al. (eds), Uspenskii Sbornik XII- XIIIw., Moscow, 1971 Introduction In the past, literary critics have regularly ignored Slavonic prayers, regarding them as stale and unoriginal in both style and content. ^ As a result there is a paucity of literary criticism on prayers considered as an integral part of the Slavonic literary heritage. The majority of studies on prayers to date tend to concentrate on textual questions regarding individual prayers.^ ' Fennell has little time for the opening of Nestor’s Zhitie Feodosiia and comments that it begins ‘with a standard, tedious introduction crammed with self-denigration, quotations and prayers’ (John Fennell and Antony Stokes, Early Russian Literature, London, 1974, pp.32-3). ^ One notable exception is Gerhard Podskalsky’s article which gives an overview of the prayers of Kievan Rus’. See G. Podskalsky, ‘Das Gebet in der Kiever Rus’; seine Formen, sine Rolle, seine Aussagen’, Orthodoxes Forum 2, 2, 1988, pp. 177-91. Articles on individual prayers are primarily devoted to a) the so-called Alphabetical prayer, commonly ascribed to Konstantin of Preslav; b) the prayer attached to the end of Ilarion’s Slovo o zakone i blagodati, and c) prayers attributed to Kirill of Turov. Questions of authorship and textology tend to dominate discussions of these prayers. a) For textual studies on the Alphabetical prayer see A. Dzhambeluka-Kossova (Giambelluca- Kossova), ‘Vuzstanovim li e tekstut na Azbuchnata molitva?’, Palaeobulgarica, 2, 1978, 2, pp.52-65; Kuio Kuev 1) Azbuchnata molitva v slavianskite literaturi, Sophia, 1974, 2) Novootkriti prepisi na Azbuchnata molitva’, Palaeobulgarica, 3, 1979, 4, pp.26-33; R. Nahtigal, ‘Rekonstrukcija treh starocerkveno-slovanskih izvimih pesnitev’, Razprave I, Filozofsko- filolosko-historicni razred, Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, Ljubljana, 21, 1943/44, 1,2, pp.43- 156; S. Stoianov, ‘Otnosno raznocheteneto letit’/let’ ti v azbuchnata molitva’, Ezik i literatura, 30, 1975, 5, pp.26-35; Kh. Trendafilov, Neizvestnyi spisok Azbuchnoi molitvy’, 10, Palaeobulgarica, 1986, 1, pp.77-80 and E.G. Zykov, ‘Sud’ba “Azbuchnoi molitvy” v drevnerusskoi pis’mennosti’, TODL, 26, 1971,