Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/122

Rh 104 K U S S I A [LITERATURE. the florid Byzantine style. He is very fond of allegorical representations; thus, in his sermon on Holy Week, Christianity is represented under the form of spring, Paganism and Judaism under that of winter, and evil thoughts are spoken of as boisterous winds. An attempt to carry this symbolism through other portions of his writings leads him to many fantastic conceits which are far from being in good taste. And here may be mentioned the many lives of the saints and the Fathers to be found in early Russian literature. Some of these have been edited by Count Bezborodko in his Pametniki Starinnoi Itusskoi Literaturt (" Memorials of Ancient Russian Literature"). The Story We now come to the story of the expedition of Prince of Igor. Igor, which is a kind of bilina in prose, and narrates the expedition of Igor, prince of Novgorod-Severski, against the Polovtzes. The manuscript was at one time preserved in a monastery at Yaroslavl, but was burnt in the great fire at Moscow in the year 1812. Luckily the story had been edited (after a fashion) by Count Musin-Pushkin, and a transcript was also found among the papers of the empress Catherine. The authenticity of this production has been disputed by some modern scholars, but without solid grounds. The original was seen by several men of letters in Russia, Karamzin among the number. There is a mixture of Christian and heathen allusions, but there are parallels to this style of writing in such a piece as the " Discourse of a Lover of Christ and Advocate of the True Faith," from which an extract has been given by Buslaeff in his Chrestomathy. Unlike most of the productions of this period, which are tedious, and interesting only to the philologist and antiquary, there is a great deal of poetical spirit in the story of Igor, and the metaphors are fre- quently very vigorous. Mention is made in it of another bard named Boyan, but none of his inspirations have come down to us. A strange legend is that of the czar Solomon and Kitovras, but the story occurs in the popular literatures Other of many countries. Some similar productions among the popular Russians are merely adaptations of old Bulgarian tales, especially the so-called apocryphal writings. The Zadon- stchina is a sort of prose-poem much in the style of the " Story of Igor," and the resemblance of the latter to this piece and to many other of the skazania included in or attached to the Russian chronicle, furnishes an additional proof of its genuineness. The account of the battle of the "Field of Woodcocks," which was gained by Dmitri Donskoi over the Mongols in 1380, has come down in three important versions. The first bears the title "Story of the Fight of the Prince Dmitri Ivanovich with Mamai"; it is rather meagre in details but full of expressions showing the patriotism of the writer. The second version is more complete in its historical details, but still is not without anachronisms. The third is altogether poetical. The Poviest o Drakule ("Story of Drakula") is a collection of anecdotes relating to a cruel prince of Moldavia, who lived at the beginning of the 15th century. Several of the bar- barities described in it have also been assigned to Ivan the Terrible. Codes of The early Russian laws present many features of laws. interest, such as the Russkaia Pravda of Yaroslaff, which is preserved in the chronicle of Novgorod; the date is between 1018 and 1054. Large additions were made to it by subsequent princes. It has many points in common with tho Scandinavian codes, e.g., trial by wager of battle, the wergild, and the circuits of the judges. The laws show Russia at that time to have been in civilization quite on a level with the rest of Europe. But the evil influence of the Mongols was soon to make itself felt. The next important code is the Sudebnik of Ivan III., the date of which is 1497 ; this was followed by that of Ivan IV., of the year 1550, in which we have a republi- cation by the czar of his grandfather's laws, with additions. In the time of this emperor also was issued the Stoglav (1551), a body of ecclesiastical regulations. Mention must also be made of the Ulozhenie or " Ordinance" of the czar Alexis. This abounds with enactments of sanguinary punishment : women are buried alive for murdering their husbands ; torture is recognized as a means of procuring evidence ; and the knout and mutilation are mentioned on almost every page. Some of the penalties are whimsical : for instance, the man who uses tobacco is to bave his nose cut off ; this, however, was to be altered by Peter the Great, who himself practised the habit and encouraged it in others. In 1553 a printing press was established at Moscow, Introdui and in 1564 the first book was printed, an " Apostol," as tion ?f it is called, i.e., a book containing the Acts of the Apostles P rintin 8 and the Epistles. The printers were Ivan Feodoroff and Peter Mstislavetz ; a monument was erected a year or two ago to the memory of the former. As early as 1548 Ivan had invited printers to Russia, but they were detained on their journey. Feodoroff and his companions were soon, however, compelled to leave Russia, and found a protector in Sigismund III. The cause of their failure appears to have been the enmity which they had stirred up among the copyists of books, who felt that their means of gaining a livelihood were lessened. They succeeded accordingly in drawing over to their side the more fanatical priests, who thought it degrading that the sacred books should be multiplied by such an art, just as at the present day the Arabs refuse to allow the Koran to be printed. The first Slavonic Bible was printed at Ostrog in Volhynia in 1581. Another press, however, was soon established at Moscow ; up to 1600 sixteen books had been issued there. A curious work of the time of Ivan the Terrible is the Time oi Domostroi, or " Book of Household Management," which is I van. tu said to have been written by the monk Sylvester, although ( this statement has been disputed. This priest was at one time very influential with Ivan, but ultimately offended him. and was banished to the Solovetzkoi monastery on the White Sea. The work was originally intended by Sylvester for his son Anthemius and his daughter-in-law Pelagia, but it soon became very popular and in general use. We have a faithful picture of the Russia of the time, with all its barbarisms and ignorance. We see the unbounded authority of the husband in his own house- hold : he may inflict personal chastisement upon his wife ; and her chief duty lies in ministering to his wants. The Mongols had introduced into Russia the Oriental seclusion of women ; those of the older time knew nothing of these restrictions. Sylvester, or whoever wrote the book, was a complete conservative, as indeed the clergy of Russia almost universally were. 1 To the reign of Ivan the Ter- rible must also be assigned the Chetii-Minei or " Book of Monthly Readings," containing extracts from the Greek fathers, arranged for every day of the week. The work was compiled by the metropolitan Macarius, and was the labour of twelve years. An important writer of the same period was Prince Alexander Kurbski, de- scended from the sovereigns of Yaroslavl, who was born about 1528. In his early days Kurbski saw a great deal of service, having fought at Kazan and in Livonia. But he quarrelled with Ivan, who had begun to perse- cute the followers of Sylvester and Adasheff, and fled to Lithuania in 1563, where he was well received by 1 In a curious letter of the date of 1698, and now among the manu- scripts of the Bodleian, Bishop Burnet writes thus of a priest who accompanied Peter the Great to England : ' ' The czar's priest is come over, who is a truly holy man, and more learned than I should have imagined, but thinks it a great piece of religion to be no wiser than his fathers, and therefore cannot bear the thought of imagining that anything among them can want amendment. "