Summary (Симеон Полоцкий - первый придворный писатель практика создания образцовых текстов)

National Research University Higher School of Economicsas a manuscriptAnastasia Aleksandrovna PreobrazhenskayaSIMEON OF POLOTSK — THE FIRST COURT WRITER:WORKING ON DEVELOPMENT OF MODEL TEXTSPhD Thesis Summaryfor the purpose of obtainingPhilosophy Doctor in Philology and Linguistics HSEAcademic Supervisors:Anna Litvina,Philosophy Doctor inPhilology and Linguistics,Associate professorAlexander Lavrentiev,Philosophy Doctor in History,Associate professorMoscow 2018General Thesis DescriptionOne of the most prominent and well-known mediators of the Western literarytradition at the court of Moscow Tzars in the second half of the 17 th cent.

was the firstcourt poet and preacher Samuil Gavrilovich Petrovskij-Sitnianovich, known underthe name of Simeon of Polotsk (1629–1680). In 1664, with the help of okolnichijFiodor Mikhailovich Rtischev Simeon moved to Moscow from Polotsk. His statusand position at the Tzar court was unique. While his living was provided by the Tzar,Simeon was in fact the first Russian writer who received money for his writingactivity; first Russian court preacher, who pronounced and published his ownsermons; first private person of a middle rank, who was in charge of a publishinghouse accountable to him only.During the reign of the Tzar Aleksej Mikhailovich, and later his son FiodorAlekseevich, both secular and religious elite cultivated the vogue of Polish courtculture: clothing, literature, music, etc.

Having moved to Moscow, well-educated andfamiliar to foreign way of life Simeon happened to be the right place at the right time— his knowledge and skills allowed him to acquire and keep his unique position andstatus at the Tzar court and in the Russian feudal society of the second half of the 17thcent.Simeon's literary legacy is huge: it encompasses works of various textual genres, withpoems forming the core. He wrote several plays for a court theatre, oratory prose,about two hundred letters, narrations, theological treatises, catecheses, sermons, andtestaments.Research RationaleThe thesis focuses upon two types of texts produced by Simeon — sermons andtestaments, since they are thought to be the most interesting and promising from thepoint of view of author's work with a literary tradition of another culture and2confession.

Both West-European sermon of the 16th cent. and Polish Baroque sermonof the 17th cent., that served Simeon as models, were more separating from theMedieval homily and becoming more and more individual texts, in which personalityand views of their authors found their reflection.The role of Simeon's sermons in the literary process of the pre-Petrine Russia israther interesting. Obied and Veсherya became a transition link between RussianMedieval literature and Russian literature of early Modern and Modern times.

Thesocial-cultural context of his activity required Simeon's sermons to solve twomutually exclusive tasks: on the one hand, they had to correspond to Orthodoxliterary tradition; on the other hand — to match the vogue on everything Polish atcourt.Undoubtedly, Obied and Vecherya demonstrate Simeon's professional skill as apreacher and writer: his wide reading and erudition, skill in working with borrowedtext and in adapting it to his needs. Structural organization of his books of sermonsdemonstrates his independence as an author — we see not copying or mechanicaltransfer of texts of another language and culture, but rather a high level of authorialadaptation and re-thinking of existing homiletic traditions.The second type of texts which we addressed in our research was testaments,composed by Simeon for himself and for five other people. Moscow testaments of theEarly Modern time are a precious source for study of such philological aspects asgenre and literary form, influence of foreign traditions and so on.

Simeon's testamentsare not only documents and private acts, they are also a literary work; that is why thefacts derived from them have to be carefully interpreted with the consideration of therules if literary etiquette and custom. Among known Moscow testaments of the timethe testaments written by Simeon stand out with their textual form, that unites in thespace of a single text traditional for church hierarchs morals and a detailed dispositio.This textual form is characteristic of Polish and West Russian literary traditions, and3thus is considered to be a borrowing and needs to be carefully investigated.Originality and contributionThe collections of sermons Obied and Vecherya by Simeon of Polotsk were analyzedas a single corpus for the first time: structure of the books, choice of sermon days inrelation to Polish homiletic models were studied; the place of sermon in the OrthodoxChristian liturgy was analyzed.

The corpus of biblical quotations in the book Obiedwas formed and organized in a form of a catalogue with an index. In addition, moralexempla coming from Obied and Vecherya were systematized and studied as a corpusfor the first time; the main attention was paid to animalistic exempla forming aspecial homiletic “beastiary”. Simeon's testaments were for the first time analyzed aspart of his literary legacy and in comparison to Polish-Lithuanian model.Research objective is to study methods of Simeon's author work with texts ofanother cultural and literary tradition through the example of his sermons andtestaments which stayed in line with requirements of the Orthodox church from theone hand and were considered to be in vogue by the Tzar and his court – from theother hand.Research questions and tasks:1) to define the place of Simeon's sermon as a literary genre in the Russianliterary process of the 17th cent.: to identify and describe his predecessors andfollowers, to establish its relation to South-West Russian1 and Europeanhomiletic traditions;2) to define the place of the sermon that was re-introduced by Simeon in thecontext of an Orthodox Christian liturgy;3) to describe structural and pragmatic features of the sermon genre that was reintroduced by Simeon: structure of books of sermons Obied and Vecherya and1Hereinafter the term South-West Russian defines anything related to or coming from south-west borderlandterritories that during the 17th cent.

belonged to Russia, the Great Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. Nowadays theseare mainly territories of modern Ukraine and Belarus.4choice of sermon days;4) to describe the role of biblical text in Simeon's sermons and testaments: toidentify and analyze biblical quotations and their functions;5) to analyze Simeon's methods of working with borrowed text: to describemechanism of exempla construction, their sources and functions;6) to identify characteristic features of pragmatics and genre of the testaments,written by Simeon;7) to study monastic bequeathing practices in a cross-cultural perspective.SourcesThe thesis is built upon published texts of sermons; drafts and proofread copies werealso used, when possible.

In our research we used the following old-printed books:Obied from the Muzej knigi of the Russian State Library; Vecherja from the Muzejknigi of the Russian State Library and from the Department of rare books andmanuscripts of the Moscow State University. We also addressed the followingsermons: Pouchenie o blagogoveinom stoianii v khrame... (Moscow, Pechatnyi dvor,ca. 1668) и Dva poucheniia... (Moscow, Pechatnyi dvor, ca. 1668), and three sermonswritten on the holiday Our Lady of Kazan2.One of the interesting sources for understanding of the structure of the Simeon'sbooks of sermons is poetic menology (Miesiatseslov), published in 1680 and republished in 1882.

Several West-European and Polish 16th–17th cc. collections ofsermons were addressed for analysis of structure and composition of Obied andVecherya. Russian, South-West Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish testaments were usedin manuscripts and in editions beginning from the 19th cent.Two copies of Simeon's testaments are found in the two following codices: StateHistorical museum, Manuscript department, Uvarovskoe collection #167 и State2Russian state archive of ancient acts, f. 196. inv. 1. c.

679-4°5Historical museum, Manuscript department, Uvarovskoe collection #247. Threetestaments, written by Simeon for metropolitans and a boyar (Bogdan MatveevichKhitrovo), are known in two copies each. In addition, there exist four introductoryparts for testaments, that exist separately in the codex State Historical museum,Manuscript department, Uvarovskoe collection #229.Recent debatesSimeon's sermons and testaments have often been overshadowed in research by hispoetic works — only some of numerous researches who addressed Simeon's literarylegacy, focused on his theological and teaching works and on his prose in general.Simeon's correspondence was discussed in several articles (Peter Rolland 1985,1993; О.

N. Lazarenko, 2004) and a doctoral thesis (I. F. Podtergera, 2002). Simeon'soratory prose, testaments, contributing acts, and translations have been researched infragments only.Simeon's sermons and testaments were partially studied first in the 19 th cent. (V. F.Pevnitskiy, V. Е. Popov, I. А. Tatarskiy, K. V. Kharlampovich), and then in the moderntime (M.

S. Kiseleva, М. А. Korzo, L. I. Sazonova). A. A. Morozov in his articleidentified the question of relation of Simeon's literary works with Baroque (1982).Important general articles were written by А. S. Yeleonskaya (1982, 1989), whoplaced Simeon's sermons in the literary process of the pre-Petrine Russia anddescribed his work on preparation of Оbied and Vecherya for publishing. The articleby Ye. V. Gradoboynikova discusses geographical distribution of Оbied and Vecheryain the 18th–19th cc.M. S Kiseleva addressed certain aspect of Simeon's sermons from books Оbied иVecherya in articles, devoted to “inner” and “sacral” history (2014), bestiarymetaphors and metaphor of book as spiritual nurture (2011), the image of time andhistory (2010).