Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/316

RUSSIA From Kieff Western culture was carried to Moscow, to which city masters and learned men of Little Russia were called to organize schools, compose works, and print books; but they did not receive a friendly welcome. Their orthodoxy was suspected; the more so since several of the most illustrious theologians of Kieff admitted with the Latins the dogmatic truth of the Immaculate Conception, and the efficacy of the words of consecration alone to effect Transubstantiation. The suspicion against the purity of their theological teachings became so strong that the Russians turned to the Greeks for masters. In 1685 the Greek school was established at Moscow, and in time took the name of Greco Slav-Latin Academy. Its first masters were the Greek hiero-monks Joannikius and Sophronius Likhudes, who had studied in Italy, and who taught Greek literature at Moscow from 1685 to 1694. They wrote many polemical works against the Latins, against Protestants, and against the theologians of Little Russia who leaned towards the Latins, especially against Sylvester Medviedeff. In ecclesiastical literature the most distinguished authors were Epiphanius Slavinecki, the first of Russian bibliographers; Arsenius Sukhanoff, author of "A Voyage to the Holy Land" ("Proskynitarion"); Simon Polocki (of Polotsk), author of one of the first systematic treatises on Orthodox theology ("Vienec viery"), and also of sermons that are highly prized, of sacred poems, and of sacred plays; St. Demetrius of Rostoff (1651-1709), one of the most illustrious bishops of the Russian Church, a theologian, historian, poet, polemic, and hagiologist. He was the author of two Orthodox catechisms, of a very strong work against the Raskolniki ("Rozysk"), of a diary of his life, the "Tcheti minei" (menologies), a work upon which he spent twenty years; many sacred discourses that are appreciated for the simplicity of their style and for their depth of religious sentiment, and, finally, of several sacred plays, one of the most interesting of which is the "Birthday".

Epiphanius Slavinecki and an unnamed priest of Orel were also distinguished as sacred orators. The former rendered a great service to Patristic literature by translating into Russian a great many of the writings of the Fathers (St. Justin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Basil, and St. John Damascene). One of his scholars, Eutimius, wrote a polemical work, called "Osten", against the theories of Sylvester Medviedeff, who sided with the Latins in the question of the Epiklesis. Against the Raskolniki, besides St. Demetrius of Rostoff, there wrote Simeon of Polotsk in 1666 ("Zhely pravlenij a"); in 1682 the Patriarch of Moscow, Jacob ("Uviet dukhovnii") likewise, the Metropolitan of Siberia, Ignatius, and George Krizhanitch. The latter, who was a student of the Greek College of St. Athanasius at Rome (1640), became famous on account of his theories of the cause of the schism between East and West, which he attributed to politics and the antagonism between Greeks and Latins, due to Panslavist ideas and political doctrines. The learned Sergius Bielokuroff devoted four volumes to the life and works of Krizhanitch. In the seventeenth century there began to be published the first Greco-Latin lexicons, and also the first scientific books, arithmetics and geographies. Historical literature is represented by the chronicle of the Patriarch Nicomachus, which is brought down to 1631; by the chronicle called "Voskresenski", after the monastery where it was written, of which the relation finishes with the year 1560; and by several special chronicles, as the account of the siege of the Shrine of St. Sergio by the Poles in 1610, by Abraham Polycin, and by others of the diak Feodor Griboiedoff, of the deacon Timothy Kamevevitch Rvovski, of Andrew Lyzloff, a priest of Smolensk, and of Sergius Kubasoff.

VII. RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE TIME OF PETER THE GREAT.—Under Peter the Great there began a new period in Russian literature. The foundation of St. Petersburg put Russia in more direct contact with the West. Peter the Great, by violence and absolutism, dragged Russia out of her isolation, and directed her upon a new way. A new and more simple alphabet took the place of the old Slav alphabet, the new characters being adapted from the Latin. The first book that was printed with the new characters is a treatise on geometry (1708). In arithmetical books, Arabic figures were substituted for the Slav letters that represented numerals (1703). Schools of navigation, of military science, and of medicine were established. Peter the Great determined to establish an academy of sciences at St. Petersburg, and Catherine I carried out his project in 1726. Many foreign books were translated into Russian, and the most intelligent students were sent to foreign countries to complete their studies. Russian literature lost its ecclesiastical character and assumed a lay form; and in ecclesiastical literature itself there was effected a transformation towards the modern, due to the reforms of Peter the Great.

The first period of this new literature begins with Peter the Great, and closes with Lomonosoff and Sumarokoff. In the realm of sacred literature there became famous Stephen Javorski (1658-1723), patriarchal vicar and Metropolitan of Ryazan, and Theophanus Procopovitch, Archbishop of Novgorod (1681-1736). The former, in his "Kamen viery" (Rock of Faith), wrote a most learned refutation of Protestantism, taking much from Bellarmine; the second, who was the author of the "Ecclesiastical Regulations" of Peter the Great, wrote a voluminous course of Orthodox theology in Latin, and acquired fame as a man of letters and orator. In profane literature the influence of the French entirely predominated. There began the period of the new Russian poetry, the rules of which were propounded by Tredianovski (1703-69), who translated into Russian the "Ars Poetica" of Horace, and the work bearing the same title by Boileau. Prince Antiochus Dmitrievitch (1708-44), a Rumanian in the service of Russia, inaugurated the era of classicism in Russian poetry with his satires, which are often servile imitations of Horace, Juvenal, and Boileau. Michael Vasilevitch Lomonosoff (1711-65) deserves to be called the Peter the Great of Russian literature on account of his versatility, of the multiplicity of his works, and of his great literary influence: he wrote a treatise on Russian poetry (1739), on rhetoric (1748), on grammar (1755); he composed an epic poem on Peter the Great, two tragedies (Tamira and Salim, and Damofonte); he translated the Psalms into verse and wrote lyric poems, among which the ode to the Empress Elizabeth has remained famous. Alexander Petrovitch Sumarokoff composed many tragedies, some of them with Russian subjects (Yaropolk and Dimisa, Vysheslaff, Demetrius, Mstislav); he founded the national Russian drama wrote the comedies "Opekun" (The Tutor), and "Likhoimec" (The Concussionist), composed satires, and in 1759 established the first Russian literary periodical, the "Trudoliubivaia Ptchela" (The Working Bee).

Among the prose writers, Ivan Pososhkoff (1670-1725), in his "Zavieshanie otetcheskoe" (testament of the Fatherland), shows the necessity of well-ordered reforms in Russia, and in his book on poverty and wealth ("Kniga o skudosti i bogatstvie") he develops in an original way his theories on political and social economy. Basil Nikititch Tatiahshef (1685-1750) gathered the chronicles the synaxaria, and the historical documents, and subjecting them to critical analysis, wrote the "History of Russia". The academician Schlötzer spent forty years elucidat-