Medieval Rus’ and Early Modern Russia: Texts and Contexts 2022039392, 2022039393, 9781032187853, 9781032187860, 9781003256236

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Frontispiece
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Foreword by Andrei Franklin and Susana Torres Prieto
List of Abbreviations
List of Archives and Libraries
Part I: Use of Byzantine Models and Sources
Chapter 1: Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking about the Rus’
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 2: Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’, the Owner of the Stone from the Holy Sepulchre?
Anthologia Marciana
‘A Precious Stone from the Holy Sepulchre of Christ’
Restoration of Christ’s Tomb
‘Theodore from the Family of Emperors’
The Mstislav Gospel
‘Of Imperial Kin’
‘The Cornerstone Carried as Foundation’
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 3: Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice in the Miscellanies of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Their Late Byzantine Counterparts (14th to Early 16th Centuries)
Medical Calendars in the Manuscripts of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius
Cosmography and Medical Calendars in the Byzantine Tradition
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 4: Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography from the Middle Ages to Modernity
Introduction
Andrei of Constantinople
Feodor/a of Alexandria
Andrei/Kseniia of St. Petersburg
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Part II: Historiography and Construction of Historical Narratives
Chapter 5: Some Unnoticed Greek Quotes in Old Russian Chronicles
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle: Perspectives on Horace Lunt’s New Rendering
Notes
Bibliography
Rusian Chronicle Texts
Old Church Slavonic Texts
Secondary literature
Chapter 7: Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople: Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos versus John Tzimiskes in the Copies of the Rus’ Primary Chronicle
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 8: Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World
Introduction
Acts of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea (1234)
Synodal Epistle on the Movements of Bishops (c. 1226)
Synodal Decree on Slaves to Metropolitan Kirill I of Kyiv (1228)
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 9: Thoughtful Agglomeration: Late Byzantine Sources for Muscovite Ceremonial
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 10: Boris Godunov and His Family in the Mirror of Medieval Russian Polyonymy
Notes
Bibliography
Part III: Material Supports of Written Texts
Chapter 11: “I Must Be Cruel Only to Be Kind”: Towards a Literary History of Kyiv Graffito No. 108
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 12: Muscovite Acquisition of Books from Poland in the Late 1640s to Early 1650s
Notes
Bibliography
17th-century publications
Modern source publications and studies
Chapter 13: The Codex in Early Rus’ between the 11th and 15th Centuries: Variations of Form and Variations of Function
Form and Function
The Experience of the First Centuries
Monastic Revival
Books Not for Reading
Notes
Bibliography
Part IV: Social Repercussions of the Graphosphere
Chapter 14: Sofiia Vitovtovna’s Dance: The Wedding of Vasilii II in Russian Cultural Memory
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 15: Revolution in the Pictosphere: The Ukrainian Baroque and Muscovite Reception
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Medieval Rus’ and Early Modern Russia

Research on the East Slavs in the medieval period has considerably changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The emergence of new states forced a rethinking of many aspects of the history and culture of the early East Slavs as the subject became increasingly disentangled from the umbrella of Byzantine studies and fruitful collaboration was fostered between scholars worldwide. This book, which brings together scholars from Russia, Ukraine, western Europe, and North America, of several generations, presents a broad overview of the main results of the last three decades of research and mutual collaboration. This is important work, providing a much-needed counterbalance to studies of western Europe in the period, which has been the main focus of study, with the lands of the East Slavs relatively neglected. Susana Torres Prieto is an Associate Professor of Humanities at IE University, Madrid/Segovia. Andrei Franklin is a freelance researcher, proofreader, and translator.

Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe

Late Tsarist Russia, 1881-1913 Beryl Williams Duelling, the Russian Cultural Imagination, and Masculinity in Crisis Amanda DiGioia Russian Peasant Bride Theft John Bushnell The Soviet Union and Global Environmental Change Modifying the Biosphere and Conceptualising Society-Nature Interaction Jonathan D. Oldfield Russia in Manchuria A Problem of Empire Paul Dukes Soviet and Post-Soviet Lithuania Generational Experiences Edited by Laima Žilinskienė and Melanie Ilic Muslim Reformers and the Bolsheviks The Case of Daghestan Naira Sahakyan The Warsaw Pact, 1985-1991- Disintegration and Dissolution Matěj Bílý Medieval Rus’ and Early Modern Russia Texts and Contexts Edited by Susana Torres Prieto and Andrei Franklin For a full list of available titles please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Studies-in-the-History-of-Russia-and-Eastern-Europe/bookseries/SE0329

Medieval Rus’ and Early Modern Russia Texts and Contexts Essays in Honour of Simon C. Franklin Edited by Susana Torres Prieto and Andrei Franklin

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Susana Torres Prieto and Andrei Franklin; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Susana Torres Prieto and Andrei Franklin to be identified as the author[/s] of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Prieto, Torres, editor, writer of foreward. | Franklin, Andrei, editor, writer of foreward. Title: Medieval Rus’ and early modern Russia : texts and contexts / edited by Torres Prieto and Andrei Franklin. Description: New York : Routledge, 2023. | Series: History of Russia and Eastern Europe | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: List of figures -- List of contributors -- Foreword / by Andrei Franklin and Susana Torres Prieto -- List of abbreviations -- List of libraries and archives -- Leo VI and the transformation of Byzantine strategic thinking about the Rus’ / Monica White -- Who was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a family of emperors’, the owner of the stone from the Holy Sepulchre? / Oleksiy Tolochko -- Cosmos, calendars and medical advice in the miscellanies of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and their late Byzantine counterparts (14th-early 16th centuries) / Ann-Laurance Caudano -- Holy foolishness and gender transgression in Russian hagiography from the Middle Ages to modernity / Nick Mayhew -- Some unnoticed Greek quotes in old Russian Chronicles / Sergey A. Ivanov -- Retranslating the Rus’ Primary Chronicle: perspectives on Horace Lunt’s new rendering / Michael S. Flier -- Two emperors of the princess Olga’s visit to Constantinople: Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos versus John Tzimiskes in the copies of the Rus’ Primary Chronicle / Tatiana Vilkul -- Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic world / Maria V. Korogodina -- Thoughtful agglomeration: late Byzantine sources for Muscovite ceremonial / Alexandra Vukovich -- Boris Godunov and his family in the mirror of medieval Russian polyonymy / Anna Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij -- “I must be cruel only to be kind”: towards a literary history of Kyiv graffito No. 108 / Aleksey A. Gippius -- Muscovite acquisition of books from Poland in the late 1640s-Early 1650s / Daniel C. Waugh and Olena Janssen -- The Codex in early Rus’ between the 11th-15th centuries: variations of form and variations of function / Dmitrii Bulanin -- Sofiia Vitovtovna’s dance: the wedding of Vasilii II in Russian cultural memory / Sergei Bogatyrev -- Revolution in the pictosphere: the Ukrainian Baroque and Muscovite reception / Valerie Kivelson -- Index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022039392 (print) | LCCN 2022039393 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032187853 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032187860 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003256236 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Russia--History--To 1533--Sources. | Russia--History--To 1533--Historiography. | Slavs, Eastern--History. | Slavs, Eastern--Historiography. | Kievan Rus--History--Sources. | Kievan Rus--Historiography. Classification: LCC DK70.A25 M437 2023 (print) | LCC DK70.A25 (ebook) | DDC 947/.03--dc23/eng/20221101 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022039392 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022039393 ISBN: 978-1-032-18785-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-18786-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-25623-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236 Typeset in Times New Roman by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

Contents

List of Figures List of Contributors Foreword by Andrei Franklin and Susana Torres Prieto List of Abbreviations List of Archives and Libraries

x xi xv xxi xxii

PART I

Use of Byzantine Models and Sources

1

1 Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking about the Rus’

3

MONICA WHITE

2 Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’, the Owner of the Stone from the Holy Sepulchre?

15

OLEKSIY P. TOLOCHKO

3 Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice in the Miscellanies of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Their Late Byzantine Counterparts (14th to Early 16th Centuries)

28

ANNE-LAURENCE CAUDANO

4 Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography from the Middle Ages to Modernity NICK MAYHEW

49

viii Contents PART II

Historiography and Construction of Historical Narratives

67

5 Some Unnoticed Greek Quotes in Old Russian Chronicles

69

SERGEY A. IVANOV

6 Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle: Perspectives on Horace Lunt’s New Rendering

77

MICHAEL S. FLIER

7 Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople: Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos versus John Tzimiskes in the Copies of the Rus’ Primary Chronicle 88 TATIANA VILKUL

8 Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World

103

MARIA V. KOROGODINA

9 Thoughtful Agglomeration: Late Byzantine Sources for Muscovite Ceremonial

117

ALEXANDRA VUKOVICH

10 Boris Godunov and His Family in the Mirror of Medieval Russian Polyonymy

134

ANNA F. LITVINA AND FJODOR B. USPENSKIJ

PART III

Material Supports of Written Texts

149

11 “I Must Be Cruel Only to Be Kind”: Towards a Literary History of Kyiv Graffito No. 108

151

ALEKSEY A. GIPPIUS

12 Muscovite Acquisition of Books from Poland in the Late 1640s to Early 1650s

165

OLENA JANSSON AND DANIEL C. WAUGH

13 The Codex in Early Rus’ between the 11th and 15th Centuries: Variations of Form and Variations of Function DMITRII M. BULANIN

183

Contents  ix PART IV

Social Repercussions of the Graphosphere

205

14 Sofiia Vitovtovna’s Dance: The Wedding of Vasilii II in Russian Cultural Memory

207

SERGEI BOGATYREV

15 Revolution in the Pictosphere: The Ukrainian Baroque and Muscovite Reception

229

VALERIE A. KIVELSON

Index

249

Figures

14.1 Negotiations between Vasilii II and I. D. Vsevolozhskii and Vasilii II’s wedding (Illustrated Compilation) 210 14.2 The wedding banquet of Vasilii II and Maria Iaroslavna (Illustrated Compilation) 211 14.3 P. K. Dobrynskii recognises Vasilii Kosoi’s belt (Illustrated Compilation) 212 14.4 Sofiia Vitovtovna removes the golden belt from Vasilii Kosoi (Illustrated Compilation) 213 14.5 B. A. Chorikov, Tsaritsa Sofiia ceremoniously strips Prince Vasilii Kosoi of the golden belt that was stolen from Dmitrii Donskoi, 1433 (A. Prevo, Zhivopisnyi Karamzin) 215 14.6 P. P. Chistiakov, Sofiia Vitovtovna at the Wedding of Great Prince Vasilii the Dark (1861) 217 15.1 S. F. Ushakov, Tree of the Muscovite State, 1668. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 236 15.2 S.U. Remezov, Tree of the governors-generals (voevody) of Tobol’sk, Rossiiskaia natsional’naia biblioteka, St. Petersburg, Ermitazhnoe sobranie, no. 237, Sluzhebnaia chertezhnaia kniga Remezova (Sluzhebnaia kniga), l. 9. By permission of RNB 237 15.3 Frontispiece of the Moscow Bible of 1663 241

Contributors

Sergei Bogatyrev (University of London) Sergei Bogatyrev is Associate Professor, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. Sergei’s research interests lie in the history of family memory in Kyivan Rus, the history and culture of Muscovite Russia (15th to 17th centuries), book culture, and technology transfer. He is on the editorial boards of several academic journals and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Dmitrii M. Bulanin (Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) Dmitrii Bulanin is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia, at the Department of Old Russian Literature. His research focuses on the literature of Old Russia, Byzantine-Russian, and Slavic-Russian relations in literature and culture. Anne-Laurence Caudano (University of Winnipeg) Anne-Laurence Caudano is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Winnipeg and the author of “Let There be Lights in the Firmament of the Heaven”: Cosmological Depictions in Early Rus (2006). Her recent work focuses on Late Byzantine and Slavic cosmographical texts, and on John Chortasmenos’ astronomical miscellanies. Michael S. Flier (University of Harvard) Michael Flier is the Oleksandr Potebnja Professor of Ukrainian Philology at Harvard University. He specialises in Slavic linguistics, especially the historical phonology and morphology of East Slavic; and in the semiotics of the culture of medieval Rus’, including art, architecture, ritual, and literature. Aleksey A. Gippius (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) Aleksey Gippius is a member of the School of Philology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and principal researcher

xii Contributors at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He received his PhD in 1996 and the degree of Doctor of Science in 2006; since 2011 he has been a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include the language and writing of medieval Rus (in particular chronicles, birchbark documents, epigraphy), social and cultural history of medieval Novgorod, and old Russian monetary system. He is the author of about 200 publications, including two volumes of the serial edition Novgorod Birchbark Documents (2004, 2014, co-authored with V. L. Yanin and A. A. Zalizniak). Sergey A. Ivanov (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) Sergey Ivanov is Professor at the Institute of the Classical Orient and Antiquity of the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in Moscow. His research focuses on the literary and cultural relations between Byzantium and the Slavs. He is a corresponding member of the British Academy. Olena Jansson (Uppsala University) Olena Jansson is a PhD Candidate in Slavic Languages at Uppsala University (Sweden). She combines philological and translation studies approaches. She has just completed a philological study on the history of the text with a focus on cultural transfer, choice of language register, translation strategies and the reasons for the multiple translations from Polish to Russian in the 17th century. Valerie A. Kivelson (University of Michigan) Valerie Kivelson teaches at the University of Michigan. Her publications include Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia (2006), and Witchcraft in Early Modern & Modern Russia and Ukraine: A Sourcebook translated and edited by Christine D. Worobec. Maria V. Korogodina (Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) Maria Korogodina is the Head of the Manuscript Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences Library in St. Petersburg. She is a Doctor in History and the author of four books, published in Russian and dedicated to the Orthodox penitential texts, and the Russian canon law collections (Kormchaja kniga). Anna F. Litvina (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) Anna Litvina is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia). Her research interests focus on Russian historical linguistics, medieval Russia, history

Contributors  xiii of Russian Literature, and historical onomastics. She is the author of numerous studies, among which are: The Choice of Names in Rurikids Dynasty (2006), The Dynastic World of Pre-Mongol Russia (2020). Nick Mayhew (University of Glasgow) Nick Mayhew received his PhD in Slavonic Studies at Cambridge in 2018, under the supervision of Simon Franklin. From 2018 to 2021, he was a research fellow and lecturer in Slavic Languages & Literatures at Stanford. Since October 2022, he is Lecturer in Russian at the University of Glasgow. Oleksiy P. Tolochko (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv) Oleksiy Tolochko is Director of the Center for Kievan Rus’ studies at the Institute of Ukrainian History (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). His research has addressed various problems of Medieval and Early Modern history of Eastern Europe. His most recent project was leading a team of Ukrainian scholars into textological examination of the 13th-century Galician-Volhynian Chronicle (2021). Fjodor B. Uspenskij (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) Fjodor Uspenskij is Full Professor of Medieval Studies at the Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia). Since 2021 he is also a Director of the Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His fields of research include Russian historical linguistics, Scandinavian philology, medieval Russia and medieval Scandinavia, Old Norse language and literature, history of Russian literature, and historical onomastics. Tatiana Vilkul (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv) Tatiana Vilkul, Doctor of History, is a leading researcher of the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She works in the fields of Old Rus’, Old Russian chronicles, textual criticism, Old Slavonic Bible, medieval social history, and medieval Kyiv. Alexandra Vukovich (King’s College London) Alexandra Vukovich is Lecturer in late medieval history at King’s College London. Her research and teaching focus on the interactions between northern Eurasia and the Byzantine world through writing, society, political culture, and material culture, spanning the later Middle Ages. Daniel C. Waugh (University of Washington, Seattle) Daniel Waugh is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle (USA). He has published extensively on Muscovite book culture

xiv Contributors and with Ingrid Maier (Uppsala) is completing a book on foreign news in Muscovy. He also writes about the historic Silk Roads across Afro-Eurasia. Monica White (University of Nottingham) Monica White is Associate Professor of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include Byzantine-Rus relations and Orthodox sainthood.

Foreword

It is indeed a truism that each epoch produces its own narrative of the past, and the present volume is just another example of it: it is rooted in a gradual change of paradigms that has severely affected, and continues to do so, our study of the first centuries of history of the East Slavs. Both the time frame and the geographic area covered by this book are difficult to define in conventional terms and therefore terminology, and accurate terminology, is of utmost importance, not only because it betrays a conception of the past, but also because it underlines an understanding of the present. If accurate terminology has always been important in academia, it becomes crucial at the time of writing the present introduction. The range of centuries covered by the chapters of this book, from the 9th to the 21st centuries, overlaps with the traditional categories of medieval and modern historiography that are useful for other colleagues in non-Slavic studies. Most importantly, within the geographic area covered by this book, there are at least five, if not more, modern political entities that were relevant in the same space at different times. Some are extinct, such as the Byzantine Empire or Kyivan Rus’, others, like Russia or Poland, are still a reality. Kyivan Rus’ is indeed not Russia, and it is neither Ukraine, nor Belorussia. It was a polity that included lands that are today within the modern borders of at least three modern nations: Ukraine, Russia, and Belorussia. It was medieval only in the sense that it was premodern, but certainly not in the sense that it followed Antiquity. If one chooses the official date of its Christianisation, 988, as a meaningful date, though there is evidence of an organised society from at least a century before that, the end of Kyivan Rus’ is usually placed by the time the Mongols sacked the capital city in 1240. It would take a few more centuries for Russia to emerge, in the course of which a constant re-shifting of centres of political, religious, and cultural power will take place. Oversimplification is tempting, nuances are paramount, and refraining from the automatic allocation of well-known categories to new unexpected realities takes some effort. The title of this volume tries to reflect the difficulties inherent to this problem. Many formulas have been tried before, and all of them are ultimately problematical: from the conventional Early Rus’ (which would naturally oppose a Late Rus’, whose range of dates would be even more difficult to pinpoint and which would imply a continuity of Rus’ to

xvi Foreword Russia that many would deny) to the often used Kyivan Rus’, which would not reflect the decades where political, religious, and cultural prominence were displaced from the old capital, even before the Mongol invasion, to the principalities of Galicia-Vohlynia or Vladimir-Suzdal. Equally problematical is the term Early Modern Russia, because it tends to include the centuries known in Western Europe as the Renaissance and far beyond (Late Modern Russia?) almost to the days of Peter I ‘The Great’ in the 18th century. Many would argue that dates could be found (change of dynasty, change of capital, change of sovereignty) to try to structure and organise these nine long centuries of history into recognisable categories. The problem, of course, is that, in order to recognise those categories we assign to them certain characteristics that we incorporate into their definition and the common use of the terms, either as praises (“this is so modern”) or as insults (“a very medieval society”). The area under study has traditionally challenged all those definitions, and the essays collected herewith are a good example of the complexity of the situation. Traditionally, the study of the history and culture of this geographic area before the emergence of modern states has been in the hands of two significant groups of scholars: on the one hand, and due to chronological frame and cultural sphere of influence, Byzantinists. The list of Byzantine scholars, of Slavic origin or not, who devoted their professional careers to understanding the transfer of culture from Constantinople to the northern corners of what Dmitri Obolensky, one of its most notable representatives, called ‘The Byzantine Commonwealth’, is long and full of extraordinary titles. On the other, and due to the geopolitical situation imposed after the Second World War, medieval scholars of the USSR, regardless of their nation of origin, were the most prolific in their study and description, if only because they had a direct access to the sources that, for a long time, was limited to foreign specialists. In that situation, medieval East Slavic studies flourished in the West in the second half of the 20th century thanks to the efforts of a few specialists, one of whose most notable representatives is honoured by his colleagues and students in this volume. Since the demise of the USSR, the study of the Middle Ages in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, what is understood as the East Slavic realm, has benefitted from several important changes. Firstly, the emergence of new states forced a rethinking of the theoretical framework, both spatially and temporally, of the object of study. Secondly, studies on every aspect of the history and culture of the early East Slavs were finally disentangled from the umbrella of Byzantine studies under which they had flourished for decades in Europe and the United States. Lastly, and probably most importantly, for the first time new findings of Russian and Ukrainian colleagues were made widely available to fellow medievalists in Europe and the United States thanks to more intense collaboration and the translation into Western academic languages of the main works of our Eastern colleagues. This encounter of medieval and early modern scholars from two previously separated academic traditions has rendered mutual benefits for both,

Foreword  xvii particularly, but not only, in the interpretation of sources. For some decades now, new interpretative paradigms in the West have fostered the reassessment of narratives and sources in order to distance themselves from the teleological ethno-genetic and nation-building endeavours that had encouraged the study of the European Middle Ages in the 19th century and a significant part of the 20th century. As these changes were occurring in the West, our Eastern colleagues, deprived of the possibility of engaging in any theoretical discussion that would undermine the tenets of Soviet historiography, focused on a meticulous study of the sources, both textual and archaeological, with brilliant results. When finally free and fruitful collaboration could take place between both traditions, the results have been quite spectacular. The present volume, which includes chapters from scholars of several generations and half a dozen countries, is a tribute to this encounter. As such, it aims to present a broad outlook on the main achievements of these last three decades of mutual collaboration in the study of the medieval and early modern history and culture of the East Slavs. Whether as historians, philologists, or palaeographers, the authors have focused their often interdisciplinary research of recent decades on either bringing new explanations to formerly existing materials, or on bringing to light previously unknown sources for study. To those previously unfamiliar with the more remote history of the East Slavs, the volume will present curious resonances of similar questions in their own areas of study. For Slavonic and Byzantine scholars, it will present the latest tendencies in research by some of their most widely acknowledged colleagues. Regardless of their approaches or their particular field of study, all authors are also united in their admiration and friendship to the person honoured by this book. In many respects, the career of Simon C. Franklin, Fellow of Clare College and former Professor of Slavonic Studies at Cambridge, embodies all the above-mentioned changes, from a Byzantine to a Slavonic perspective, from a theoretical inductive to a material deductive methodology, that has illuminated new generations of scholars both in the East and the West. Disciple himself of one of the most notable Byzantinists of the 20th century, Dmitri Obolensky, of whom he was his last PhD. student, Simon Franklin soon showed how a mastery in the command of Byzantine Greek, Old Church Slavonic, and a handful of modern European languages was key in pushing the studies of Medieval Rus’ further in the West. After completion of his PhD at Oxford, he received a post-doctoral fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks and from there to Clare College, from where he has researched, studied, and taught students from all over the world for more than three decades, years of indefatigable work interspersed with trips to the USSR, then to Russia, to foster that collaboration which is herewith attested. Authors in this volume include some of his best friends form the young days at Dumbarton Oaks as well as some of his own latest PhD students. The volume is, as Simon Franklin’s own production, interdisciplinary, and it is necessarily focused on some, not all, of the honouree’s interests. The reader will often find references to and quotations from some of his most

xviii Foreword prominent works. From the volume co-authored with Jonathan Shepard in 1996, The Emergence of Rus 750-1200, which served as inspiration to undertake Rus’ studies to so many of his own future PhD students, to the groundbreaking Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c. 950-1300 (2002), and his latest innovational The Russian Graphosphere, 1450-1850 (2019). And throughout those years, quite a collection of substantial articles, some of them published subsequently in Byzantium-Rus-Russia (2002), in which his theories were being presented in peer-reviewed journals as his work was becoming familiar in specialised circles and his work admired by older and younger colleagues. The volume is, therefore, grouped in thematic blocs, arranged more or less chronologically, that are, nevertheless, easily permeable and highly disputable. Many of the chapters would be equally well placed in two or more of these. Part I, ‘Use of Byzantine Models and Sources’, is the one that, maybe not surprisingly, encompasses the chapters of many of Simon Franklin’s PhD students. Starting with Monica White’s reassessment of the relations between the Byzantine Empire under Leo VI and the newly-arrived Rus’, in which the author underlines how key those years were in defining a new strategic approach towards Byzantine’s northern neighbours, to the intriguing piece by Oleksiy Tolochko in search of the real identity of a certain Theodore the Rhos’ whose name appeared on an inscription of an enkolpion in Venice. The cultural links between Byzantium and Rus’ and Early Russia were long-standing and fruitful, as is aptly demonstrated by the chapters by AnneLaurance Caudano and Nick Mayhew. Caudano, carrying out a meticulous study of the miscellanies from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius containing astrological and medical texts, shows how the transmission process was long and complex, and decisive for a better understanding of Early Russia’s cosmogony. Similarly, the innovative reading by Nick Mayhew of some of the most famous hagiographies transmitted from Byzantium to Rus’ and then popular in Russia provides wonderful new insights into the relation between gender-transgression and the very East Slavic tradition of the holy fools. In Part II, ‘Historiography and Construction of Historical Narratives’, Sergey Ivanov analyses some previously unnoticed quotations in early Rus’ chronicles, opening new possibilities for a deeper understanding of the extent to which Byzantine literary culture was known and used in Kyivan Rus’. Michael S. Flier analyses in detail the difficulties encountered in translating into English the most famous Early Rus’ chronicle, the Povest’ vremmenykh let, known as The Rus’ Primary Chronicle. Taking as a starting point the project of Horace Lunt, Flier digs into the problems associated with trying to render style, orality, register, or paraphrase in the monument of Early East Slavic letters. The different witnesses of the Primary Chronicle are also discussed by Tatiana Vilkul in her own research into the famous episode of the baptism of Olga in Constantinople and the intriguing question of which emperor did she actually meet, or, rather, which Byzantine Emperor did the sources say she actually met, which are clearly two separate questions. Historical narratives, however, are not only restricted to the works of

Foreword  xix historiography. As some authors clearly show in their innovative scholarly approaches, narratives concern not only traditional historiographic sources. Maria Korogodina, for example, discusses in depth the relation of Church elites in the times of Patriarch Germanus II, a key character not so much in the first process of Christianisation of Early Rus’, but more decisively in the key years of consolidation of the Metropolinate of Kyiv as a referent in Rus’. Similarly, Alexandra Vukovich underlines the relevance of rituals of enthronement in order to create a powerful visual narrative, undoubtedly aimed at their contemporaries, but key in our modern understanding of how monarchs understood their social and religious role. For their part, Anna Litvina and Fjodor Uspenskij have looked into the conventions that the family of Boris Godunov used in naming themselves, thus betraying a self-image in their use of polyonymy, and constructing for posterity their own historical narrative. Part III, ‘Material Supports of Written Texts’, explores the ways in which writing created a new communication environment from its introduction among East Slavs. From the Novgorod graffito analysed by Aleksey Gippius and its linguistic and literary repercussions for our understanding of literary culture in Kyivan Rus’, to the detailed analysis of Daniel Waugh and Olena Jansson about the books that were imported into Early Modern Russia from neighbouring Poland, which provides extraordinary insights into which topics and authors interested the Russian public in the 17th century. In between those two extremes, Dmitrii Bulanin discusses the value of the books as objects and how authority often rested on their material features and not on their content. The final part, Part IV, also corresponds to Simon Franklin’s latest research. Under the title ‘Social Repercussions of the Graphosphere’, Sergei Bogatyrev and Valerie Kivelson discuss the social and cultural reception of objects and events that are part of the Russian graphosphere created by Franklin in his latest title. Sergei Bogatyrev explores diachronically the visual repercussions of the wedding of Sofia Vitovtovna to Vasilii II in the mid-15th century, particularly as it appears depicted in the Illustrated Compilation. Valerie Kivelson challenges in her chapter the often radical separations made in academia between artistic movements, and proposes a more nuanced scenario in which Early Modern Russia was certainly exposed to, and sometimes imported, aspects of the Western European Baroque. We want to thank all the authors for their work and their wonderful collegiality. It has been a pleasure sharing this project with them. This project would have not been possible, however, without the decisive support of our editor at Routledge, Peter Sowden. His enthusiasm from the beginning was key in taking us this far. When we first entertained the idea of preparing and editing this volume in 2019, neither of us could foresee that two dramatic events were going to mark its development. In February 2021, Simon lost his lifelong companion and one of us, his mother. This volume is also a tribute to Natasha, whose generosity and partnership with her husband are undoubtedly behind many of his

xx Foreword achievements. Many among the authors were also her students and her friends. Secondly, when we were about to send the final manuscript to the editors, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and our Ukrainian colleagues found themselves bombarded and undergoing the horrors of war that nobody should ever have to witness. This is our joint tribute to them. Under current circumstances, a volume such as this, in which scholars from both countries at war, and friends of many years, were involved from the very beginning, and in which references are present to places now destroyed, becomes dramatically relevant. We started by saying that terminology matters. Under the present circumstances, it is maybe more relevant than ever, and we have made an effort to be scrupulous about it. Today, maybe more poignantly that a few months ago, we think that a less conscious use of terms and labels can result in the falsification of history and, more dramatically, in a justification for war. The Editors London – Segovia April 2022

Abbreviations

AAE

Akty, sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh rossiiskoi imperii arkh­ eograficheskoiu ekspeditsieiu imperatorskoi akademii nauk AIuZR Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii iuzhnoi i zapadnoi Rossii, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoiu kommissieiu. BLDR Biblioteka literatury Drevnei Rusi CCAG P. Boudreaux, Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum ChOIDR Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh CPG Clavis Patrum Graecorum DAI Constantine Porphyrogenitos, De Administrando Imperio, trans. and ed. by G. Moravcsik and R. J. H. Jenkins (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1967) PG J.P-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca. PSRL Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei RIB Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka TODRL Trudy otdela drevnerusskoi literatury

Archives and Libraries

BAN

Biblioteka Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk (Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) GIM Gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii muzei (State Historical Museum, Moscow) MGAMID Moskovskii glavnyi arkhiv Ministerstva inostrannykh del (Moscow State Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, RGADA, Moscow) RGADA Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov (Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents, Moscow) RGB Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennaia bilioteka (Russian State Library, Moscow) RNB Rossiiskaia Natsional’naia biblioteka (Russian National Library, St. Petersburg)

Part I

Use of Byzantine Models and Sources

1 Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking about the Rus’1 Monica White

In the 9th century, relations between Byzantium and the Rus’ were largely improvised. The fortune-seekers from Scandinavia who were only beginning to establish permanent structures in the eastern Baltic region, and the highly centralised empire with its heartland in the eastern Mediterranean, had little incentive or precedent for dealing with each other. Both had other pressing foreign policy concerns, and their considerable distance from each other hindered the growth of regular ties. Yet both sides had goods (whether material, spiritual, or diplomatic) which the other wanted, and over the course of the 9th century this provided an incentive to grope toward a working relationship, however tentatively. From their earliest dated contact with the empire in 839 and probably before, the Rus’ vacillated between opportunistic violence, regulated trade, and cultural exploration in their dealings with the empire, while the Byzantines sought to draw the Rus’ into mutually beneficial interactions of a spiritual or mercantile nature while shrugging off occasional bad behaviour in the form of raids.2 Between the late 9th and early 10th centuries, the Rus’ power centre migrated from the area near the Gulf of Finland to the mid-Dnieper region, as upheaval in the steppe world forced them to relocate to pursue their traditional enterprise of trading natural resources for silver dirham coins. Archaeological research has shown that, by the turn of the 10th century, significant groups of Rus’ were ensconced in the south, from where they maintained their existing ties with Byzantium. Excavations in Gnezdovo, for example, have revealed fourteen coins from the reigns of Basil I (867–86) and Leo VI (886–912): twice as many as the coins of all previous emperors combined.3 Other Byzantine items from the new southern settlements encompass a broad range of materials and functions, including jewellery, pottery, glassware, silk, seals, and even reliquary and pendant crosses.4 Although the dates associated with them are often imprecise, their variety suggests that trade and, potentially, proselytising remained central to relations, continuing the patterns established in the previous century. Maintaining these contacts was, however, still a difficult undertaking. Even if the move to the mid-Dnieper region had brought significant numbers of Rus’ some 550 miles closer to the empire from their Baltic fastness, it did not turn the two sides into close neighbours, and they remained separated by an arduous river and sea journey. DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-2

4  Monica White In their new bases of operations, the Rus’ were still one of the furthest-flung groups with which the Byzantines had dealings, and one of very few which could not be reached by the relative ease of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and/or overland routes which had been established since Roman times. For this reason, despite their increased proximity to the empire, the Rus’ remained peripheral to the Byzantine world, both physically and conceptually. They were still highly volatile, poorly understood, and even more remote than the steppe tribes to their south, with which the Byzantines had occasional dealings. On its own, the move to the south thus appears not to have changed the nature of Byzantine–Rus’ relations which had been established in the 9th century. The increased proximity did, however, contribute to the emergence of a new type of interaction, as groups of Rus’ began serving in the Byzantine armed forces for the first time. To be sure, many, if not most, Rus’ continued to visit Byzantium in a civilian capacity. Military service was, however, disproportionately influential to the development of relations between the empire and its northern neighbour. The Byzantines, who did not employ large numbers of mercenaries at that time, must have had compelling reasons to accommodate this foreign, non-Christian group. The Rus’, meanwhile, found themselves in the novel position of being a foreign minority in the command structures of the Byzantine military – no doubt a larger and more complex force than anything they had experienced before. The arrangement was mutually beneficial, supporting Byzantium’s early efforts to re-conquer territory from the Arabs while providing employment and prospects for adventurous Rus’. It also played an important role in formalising Byzantium’s relationship with the emerging Rus’ state, with mercenaries given basic legal protections along with their more numerous fellow-countrymen who were involved in trade. The Rus’ value as mercenaries was, it will be argued, the main reason they went from diplomatic afterthought to valued partner in the sources associated with Leo VI. The following study will examine the origins of Rus’ mercenary service in Byzantium in order to shed light on this watershed in relations, which was at least as significant as trade in their development in the 10th century and beyond. Written sources from the early 10th century confirm the continuation of both the forms of interaction established in the 9th century and the uncertainty of southern observers about many aspects of the Rus’. For example, Rus’ trade with Byzantium still attracted the attention of observers from the Muslim world. The Treatise of the Regions by the Persian geographer Ibn al-Faqih, completed in 903, mentions ‘merchants of the Saqaliba’, who bring fox and beaver fur to the ‘Roman Sea’ and pay a tithe to the Byzantine Emperor before proceeding to the Khazars, where they are taxed again.5 Aspects of this passage may well have been borrowed from the observations of the earlier author Ibn Khurradadhbih about the ‘al-Rus’, who followed similar routes, probably because Byzantine–Rus’ trade still followed these patterns.6 The fact that Ibn al-Faqih refers to the merchants in question as ‘Saqaliba’, whereas Ibn Khurradadhbih calls them ‘al-Rus’ does not necessarily

Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking  5 mean that they were describing different groups of people. Although the term ‘Saqaliba’ is often translated as ‘Slav’, its meaning was not precise and it could be used broadly to refer to any foreigners from the north.7 Because the activities of Ibn al-Faqih’s ‘Saqaliba’ – obtaining furs and engaging in long-distance trade – are precisely those which are known from various sources to have been undertaken by the Rus’, there is little reason to doubt that the author is describing that group (whose numbers may, of course, have included Slavs).8 Of interest is the fact that, despite borrowing extensively from Ibn Khurradadhbih, who was from the same cultural milieu and lived only one generation earlier, Ibn al-Faqih did not use the same term as his source to describe the Rus’. This inconsistency in terminology may well reflect the uncertainty of authors from the Arabic-speaking world about these distant and unpredictable people, and it is also found in Byzantine sources. The writings of Ibn al-Faqih’s contemporary, the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI, likewise paint a picture of the Rus’ as long-distance merchants on the fringes of the known world, and refer to them using inconsistent terminology. Some sense of the Emperor’s understanding of the Rus’ can be gleaned from his writings on foreign affairs: the ‘Northern Dossier’, a digest of information about actual and potential allies and clients of the empire, and a military handbook known as the Taktika. James Howard-Johnston has argued persuasively that the ‘Northern Dossier’ was compiled c. 900 for and possibly by Leo. The Emperor’s son Constantine VII and his collaborators used it and related material as the core of the diplomatic handbook known as De Administrando Imperio, in which the ‘Northern Dossier’ comprises chapters 37–42.9 It focuses primarily on the Pechenegs, Hungarians, Moravians, and a group of uncertain identity called the ‘Kabaroi’, and also includes a geographical description of a vast swathe of eastern Europe from Belgrade to the Khazar city of Sarkel on the lower Don river. The Rus’ (referred to as hoi Rhos) do not merit their own chapter, and the location of their territory (Rhosia) and that of their tributaries is only mentioned as they relate to Pecheneg lands. The proximity of the Rus’ to the Pechenegs is noted again in the geographical description in chapter 42, which also states that they live on the higher reaches of the Dnieper and sail down that river to reach the Byzantines, Black Bulgaria, Khazaria, and Syria.10 Howard-Johnston no doubt correctly argues that the Rus’ were not a primary focus of the ‘Northern Dossier’ “because they were adjudged to be of little diplomatic importance at the time of writing”.11 Leo’s lack of specific attention to the Rus’ broadly reflects the state of affairs in the 9th century, when this remote group was at best peripheral to the empire’s concerns and of interest mainly as it related to other groups, for example, the Pechenegs. The Taktika, composed c. 904–12, provides further evidence for Leo’s thinking about Byzantium’s northern neighbours.12 Like the ‘Northern Dossier’, the goal of the Taktika was to provide accurate information to support the empire’s strategic goals. Thus, although Leo took much of the material for the Taktika from the 6th-century Strategikon attributed to the Emperor Maurice, he did not simply copy his source but updated many sections to reflect contemporary challenges. Leo’s concern for accuracy is reflected in,

6  Monica White among other areas, the information about foreign peoples which he adapted from the Strategikon. In particular, his use of the term ‘Scythian’ provides clues about his views of the Rus’ and other northern peoples. Leo omits this term on four occasions when paraphrasing or copying Maurice’s remarks about potential enemies and types of formations, presumably because the information was no longer accurate.13 Although the Emperor does refer to ‘Scythians’ in other contexts, he always uses a qualification of some kind. In Constitution 14 he discusses the fighting techniques of “the more northern and Scythian nations”; in Constitution 17 he describes attacks against “some Scythian or some similar nations”; in Constitution 18 he declares that “The Scythian nations are one”; and in Constitution 19 he describes ships used by “those called Northern Scythians”.14 The descriptive phrases attached to the term probably indicate that a universal understanding of ‘Scythian’ could no longer be assumed, and that Leo was taking care to convey his meaning as accurately as possible. Leo’s usage and omission of this term reveals his awareness of the fact that the people known as ‘Scythians’ in Maurice’s time (according to the Strategikon, primarily the Avars and Turks15) were no longer a priority for the Byzantines, or even in existence, by the early 10th century. Although the term itself was still useful to Leo’s strategic thinking about the empire’s neighbours, his consistent qualification of it indicates his desire to convey some nuance in his discussions of the inhabitants of the steppe and beyond. The identities of all the people known as ‘Scythians’ in Leo’s time are not entirely clear, but there is strong evidence that a subset of them, the ‘Northern Scythians’, can be equated with the Rus’. The remarks in Constitution 19 about the vessels of the ‘Northern Scythians’ likely reflect the journeys of the Rus’ from north-eastern Europe to Constantinople: “the Scythians use ships that are smaller, lighter, and faster [than those of the Saracens]. Because they come into the Euxine Sea from rivers, they cannot use larger vessels”.16 Two later paraphrases of this section of the Taktika, known as the Naumachia, show that this equivalence was clear to later generations of Byzantines. A manuscript of the Naumachia from the mid- to-late 10th century, Ambros. B 119-sup., changes ‘Northern Scythians’ to Rhos, and a paraphrase of the text by the retired officer Nikephoros Ouranos from c. 1000 replaces it with Rhosoi.17 Given that Leo’s ‘Northern Dossier’ uses the terms Rhos and Rhosia, it is not clear why the Taktika subsumes the Rus’ under the broader designation of ‘Northern Scythians’. Rhos had been in use longer than ‘Northern Scythians’, since it is attested in The Life of St. George of Amastris and the sermons of Photios, both from the middle decades of the 9th century.18 Photios, however, also refers to the invaders of 860 as ‘Scythians’ without further qualification, and other sources confirm that both Rhos and variations on ‘Scythians’ continued to be used in diplomatic and other elite contexts through the early 10th century. ‘Scythians’ and related terms were not necessarily flattering: the diplomat Leo Choirosphaktes describes his enemies as “altogether more Scythian than the northern barbarians” in a letter to Leo VI.19 These appellations were, however, in sufficiently wide use that they became known outside Byzantium.

Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking  7 An entry in the Rus’ Primary Chronicle s.a. 907 lists twelve groups from eastern Europe who participated in the leader Oleg’s raid on Constantinople, including Varangians and various Slavonic tribes, noting that “All of them are called Great Scythia by the Greeks”.20 The fact that this observation is found in the same entry as a Byzantine–Rus’ treaty which was drafted in Greek by diplomats working for Leo VI is probably not a coincidence. The term ‘Scythian’ does not appear in this treaty or the related text s.a. 911, in which the Rus’ are referred to exclusively as ‘Rus’’, but it may well have found its way into the chronicle entry because of the Rus’ increased awareness, thanks to negotiations such as those described in the chronicle, of the names that the Byzantines used for them. Whatever the exact circumstances and history of each individual text, it is clear that there was little consensus in Leo’s time, and for many decades after, about how to refer to the Rus’ and their neighbours.21 The proliferation of terms doubtless reflects a combination of context, genre, and literary affectations, but also, and perhaps primarily, the low standing of the Rus’ in Byzantium’s strategic priorities. Relegated to the margins of Leo’s writings, they did not warrant detailed descriptions of their way of life, such as those about the Pechenegs and Hungarians. Consistency in terminology was therefore not important, even in works with a practical focus such as the Taktika and the ‘Northern Dossier’. Yet despite Leo’s seeming inattention to the Rus’ in his strategic writings, other evidence suggests that the nature of their involvement with the empire was undergoing a significant change during his reign. The Book of Ceremonies, a handbook of imperial ceremonial and other topics compiled during the reign of Constantine VII, mentions the service and payment of 700 Rus’ mercenaries in its detailed description of the personnel and equipment taken on the campaign to re-conquer Crete from the Arabs in 911.22 Described by John Haldon as “one of the most costly military operations ever undertaken in the long history of the medieval eastern Roman state”, it was an enormous investment of money and resources at a time when Byzantium was only beginning to go on the offensive against the Arabs.23 Although the campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, the account of the personnel and expenses associated with it is of considerable interest for the military history of the time, and provides the earliest evidence for the Rus’ serving in the empire’s armed forces. The Rus’ participation in this campaign marks an important addition to the forms of Byzantine–Rus’ interaction known from earlier sources, which involved trading, raiding, and missionary work. In contrast to these activities, mercenary service required the Rus’ to submit to Byzantine authority, follow Byzantine strategic plans, and serve in the company of Byzantine soldiers and sailors for at least several months at a time. Nothing is known about the exact role of the Rus’ on the campaign, but it is clear that they were vastly outnumbered by other regiments (John Haldon estimates the total number of participants to have been 46,964).24 It is therefore unlikely that the Rus’ were hired simply to make up the numbers, and there must have been a compelling reason to employ this numerically insignificant group. Presumably, as is often the case with mercenaries, they offered some specialist skills and/or equipment

8  Monica White which could not be found among domestic forces. Their appeal starts to look even more compelling given the fact that they were one of very few groups of foreign mercenaries known to have served in the Byzantine military not only on the Cretan campaign, but in this entire period. The description in The Book of Ceremonies lists one division of Mardaites and three of Armenians, in addition to the Rus’.25 The Mardaites were Monophysite Christians originally from Syria who were largely resettled in Byzantium in the 7th century. Although they apparently maintained their own identity and “constituted a … distinctive group whose prowess in military terms was appreciated by the authorities”, they seem to have been recruited from within the empire.26 The same is probably true of the Armenians, who “had always been well represented in the upper echelons of the Byzantine establishment, especially in military positions”, and who seem to have come from north-eastern Asia Minor where there was a large Armenian population.27 The Rus’ were thus probably the only foreign-born, and certainly the only non-Christian, contingent on the expedition (assuming that Photios’ missionary efforts of the 860s had not resulted in large-scale conversions). The presence of foreign, non-Christian mercenaries was unusual in the Byzantine military in general in this period. John Haldon notes that, from the mid-to-late 7th century through the early to mid-10th century “many (at times most) soldiers were Byzantine”.28 Exceptions were not unknown, such as the units of Persians and Ethiopians created by Theophilos in the 9th century.29 The Kletorologion of Philotheos, composed during the reign of Leo VI, mentions Pharganoi (apparently Turks from Central Asia), Khazars, Arabs, and Franks serving in the basilikoi anthropoi, and “Turks, Khazars and others” in the imperial bodyguard or hetaireia.30 Although little is known about the origins and functions of these groups, they differed in an important respect from the Rus’ who served on the expedition to Crete. Rather than being recruited for a foreign campaign, they formed permanent divisions, meaning that they were stationed in Constantinople but might accompany the emperor on military operations. They were probably recruited precisely because, as outsiders, they were less likely to get caught up in palace intrigue: John Haldon suggests that Theophilos’ sense of insecurity was an important factor in his fondness for foreign forces.31 Given that all other known foreign detachments from the mid-9th to early 10th century served in the imperial bodyguard, the place of the Rus’ on a distant campaign, in which the emperor did not participate, is striking. Yet all of the other foreign detachments were, if not Christians (as the Ethiopians presumably were), at least from parts of the world in which Byzantium had long-standing interests: Persian refugees from the Arabs were probably valued for the intelligence they might offer and Turkic groups were well-known close neighbours. None of this was true of the Rus’. As pagan newcomers from a distant land of which the Byzantines had little knowledge, they must have been valued chiefly for the fighting prowess which had already earned them a fearsome reputation, but were trusted to serve only in small numbers on foreign campaigns, and not in close proximity to the emperor.

Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking  9 But even if the Rus’ role in the expedition to Crete was minor compared to the long-standing engagement of other foreign detachments in the court, the rarity of mercenaries in general at this time means that their presence was not an accident. Indeed, the emperor himself may have been involved in the decision to hire them. John Haldon points out that the use of the first-person plural in the documents related to the campaign may indicate the imperial voice, and hence the “close degree of interest and involvement of Leo VI in this campaign”.32 The emperor’s encouragement of the Rus’ service in the Byzantine armed forces is confirmed by another source dated to the same year as the Cretan expedition: the Rus’–Byzantine treaty of 2 September 6420 (911) inserted into The Primary Chronicle.33 The many mysteries and contradictions associated with this treaty, and a related text found s.a. 6415 (907), are well known to scholars and need only be summarised briefly here.34 In the narrative of The Primary Chronicle, the Rus’ leader Oleg launched an attack on Constantinople which is dated to 6412–5 (904–7). Following this, the two sides concluded an agreement setting out the terms and conditions of the annual travel to and from, and residence in, Constantinople by Rus’ merchants. The entry for 911 describes Oleg dispatching vassals to conclude peace and agree a treaty, but does not mention another conflict. Most scholars agree that the texts are authentic products of early-10th-century diplomacy. They refer to the correct combination of Byzantine rulers for the relevant years (Leo and Alexander in 907 and Leo, Alexander and Constantine in 911) and give Norse names for the Rus’ representatives (five in 907 and fifteen in 911, including all of the names from 907). Moreover, numerous calques and literary formulae indicate that the texts are Old East Slavonic translations of original Greek texts.35 Beyond the authenticity of the texts, however, there is little clarity about the context in which they were written. There are no unambiguous references in Byzantine histories to a Rus’ attack in or around 907, while a Khazar source refers to a certain Rus’ leader named H-L-G-W who participated in the raid of 941.36 It is certainly possible that (for example) a small Rus’ incursion went unrecorded in Byzantine sources but was exaggerated in East Slavonic chronicles, and there may well have been more than one leader with a name similar to Oleg. These inconsistencies mean, however, that there is little agreement about how the events of the early years of the 10th century unfolded, and how the treaty texts relate to those events. Although an attack on Constantinople would certainly not have been out of character for the Rus’, the historicity of this particular event, its relationship to the texts of 907 and 911, and the status of the latter as a single or separate documents are not central to the present discussion. Of interest instead is the evidence the texts provide about the changing nature of Byzantine–Rus’ engagement in the early 10th century. The 907 text consists solely of provisions for merchants, including the allowances to which they were entitled, arrangements for their arrival in and departure from Constantinople, and taxation. The overwhelming interest of both parties in trade, and recent memories of Rus’ raids, are clear: the text includes clauses that those arriving without merchandise will not receive an

10  Monica White allowance, that the Rus’ prince must instruct the arrivals “not to cause destruction in the towns and throughout our territory”, and that they must enter the city through one gate, unarmed, in groups of no more than fifty, and escorted by an imperial agent.37 These stipulations are consistent with Byzantine and Arabic sources from the 9th and early 10th centuries which emphasise the mercantile interests of the Rus’, in addition to their tendency to launch raids. The 911 text has a broader focus, with less emphasis on the logistics of travel and more on procedures for dealing with situations which might affect both sides, including damages, murder, assault, theft, shipwreck, repatriation of prisoners, procedures for dealing with escaped slaves and criminals, and inheritance. All of the situations envisioned in the clauses could happen to merchants in the course of carrying out their business, and they were doubtless the main constituency for whom this text, as well as that of 907, was intended. The treaty also shows, however, that the Rus’ merchants had been joined by at least some fellow-countrymen who were engaged in other activities. The 911 text states: “Whenever it is necessary [for the emperor] to go to war and any [Rus’] want to honour your emperor, no matter how many arrive or when, if they want to remain with your emperor by their own free will, let them do so”. A later clause about the procedures for dealing with inheritance refers to “The Rus’ serving the Christian emperor in Greece”. These procedures are also described as applying to “Rus’ engaged in trade, various people travelling in Greece and those with debts outstanding”.38 These thus seem to have been the main categories of Rus’ who might find themselves in need of legal recourse while in Byzantium. Although mercenaries were doubtless in the minority compared to merchants, their presence was, as discussed above, a significant and recent addition to the Rus’ expatriate community and they therefore needed some degree of legal protection. It is impossible to determine how the 911 text related to the Cretan campaign, if at all. On the date given in The Primary Chronicle for its ratification, 2 September, the campaign was probably already underway, having set out during the summer of that year.39 The treaty may thus have been intended at least in part to provide a legal framework for the Rus’ who were taking part in the expedition. However, its lack of specific reference to the Cretan campaign is in itself a clue about the status of Rus’ mercenaries. The language of the treaty is very general (“Whenever it is necessary to go to war”; “no matter how many arrive or when”), implying that military service by the Rus’ was already, or was at least envisioned as becoming, a regular occurrence. Like the account of the Cretan expedition, the treaty refers to Rus’ mercenaries serving on foreign campaigns, rather than at court, suggesting that they were not yet trusted to be members of the imperial bodyguard. Nevertheless, the implications of the treaty were significant, in that the two sides were establishing a legal framework for Rus’ to serve under Byzantine command not just on one campaign, but for an unspecified number of future expeditions. Such service, it must have been appreciated, would pave the way to integrating potentially large numbers of Rus’ into the military, economic, and,

Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking  11 indirectly, cultural structures of the empire. Such integration was, to be sure, also happening as a result of the annual arrival of Rus’ merchants in Constantinople. As stated in the 907 text, however, these merchants lived together in the St Mamas quarter40 and may well not have mixed a great deal with the local population. The Rus’ serving in the military probably also formed their own units, possibly even with their own leaders, but they were ultimately subject to Byzantine commanders and following Byzantine strategy.41 Long campaigns with few, if any, other foreigners probably provided many opportunities for the Rus’ to learn about and assimilate aspects of Byzantine life. The treaty thus has profound implications for Byzantine–Rus’ relations. At a time when the empire employed very few foreign mercenaries, it was establishing a legal framework for regular military service by members of an obscure group which had launched violent attacks on the empire in living memory, and possibly within the previous few years. The provisions of the treaty are all the more extraordinary given the lack of attention paid to the Rus’ in the earlier writings of Leo VI. The reason for this discrepancy is not clear, although it is possible that Leo’s outlook changed in the final years of his reign. In his works studied above, Leo followed the precedent of 9th-century writers. Although the Rus’ must already have been frequent visitors to Byzantium for the purpose of trade, the emperor did not consider them to be significant to foreign policy, characterising them as one of many ‘Scythian’ tribes which were peripheral to the empire’s interests. Unlike other northern barbarians, however, the Rus’ had proven themselves capable of inflicting serious damage on Constantinople. The emperor must have been aware of their fearsome reputation, whether from stories about the attack of 860 or personal experience of a more recent raid. Given the scale of the Cretan campaign and the emperor’s strong personal interest in it, he may well have decided to try to surprise the enemy with Rus’ ‘shock troops’. Because their deployment coincided with the conclusion of a treaty mainly about trade, it made sense to include a few clauses regulating Rus’ mercenary service. Importantly, however, the treaty envisioned the Rus’ serving in the Byzantine military on a long-term basis, a form of interaction which was new to both parties and highly unusual in contemporary Byzantine strategic arrangements. The reign of Leo VI thus marks an important turning-point in Byzantine– Rus’ relations. The received wisdom about the Rus’ in the first decade of the 10th century, which the emperor repeated in his own writings, was that they were of little interest or importance, occupying a peripheral place both geographically and tactically. Faced with an overwhelming military challenge, however, Leo seems to have drawn on his skills as a strategist to recruit members of the group who had already terrorised Constantinople at least once. Although the Cretan campaign was not successful, the Rus’ role as mercenaries added a new and more formal dimension to their relationship with Byzantium, in which a significant number of them submitted to Byzantine authority for the first time. With trade and military service now supported by a legal framework, the Rus’ had accepted a higher degree of regulation in

12  Monica White their dealings with the empire. The Rus’ progress toward respectable ally and trading partner was, to be sure, far from linear. The time-honoured pursuit of raiding was still part of their repertoire, as future emperors learned to their cost. Yet the actions of Leo VI ensured that the Rus’ became a permanent, if distant, feature of the empire’s foreign policy interests.

Notes 1 I count myself very fortunate that the professor of Russian History at my undergraduate institution (a specialist in the revolutionary intelligentsia) not only offered a class which covered the early history of the East Slavs but also bothered to keep the reading list up-to-date. He added The Emergence of Rus in the 1995– 96 academic year, which happened to coincide with my enrolment in the class. On the basis of that extraordinary book I decided to go to Cambridge to pursue a PhD with the dedicatee of the present volume, who proved to be a patient, encouraging, and, above all, inspirational mentor. I offer this study in tribute to the excitement I first felt on discovering Rus’ through his scholarship. 2 On the forms and patterns of Byzantine-Rus’ interactions in the 9th century see M. White 2023 (forthcoming). 3 N. Eniosova and T. Pushkina (2013, 217). 4 N. Eniosova and T. Pushkina (2013); F. Androshchuk (2013). 5 I. al-Fakikh, in T. N. Dzhakson, I. G. Konovalova, and A. V. Podosinova (2009, III, 35). 6 J. E. Montgomery (2008), 551–2. 7 P. B. Golden et al., “al-Ṣaḳāliba”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. by P. Bearman and others, 2nd edn, [website], http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.nottingham. ac.uk/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0978 [last accessed 22/7/21]. 8 I am grateful to Thorrir Hraundel for clarifying a number of questions about the works of Arab authors in personal communications. 9 J. Howard-Johnston (2000). 10 DAI, 168, 184, 186. 11 J. Howard-Johnston (2000, 331). 12 On the date of the composition of the Taktika see J. Haldon (2014, 61–2). 13 J. Haldon (2014, 248, 270, 274, 334–5). 14 Leo VI in G. T. Dennis (2010, 312, 406, 452, 532). 15 Maurice in G. T. Dennis (1984, 116). 16 Leo VI in G. T. Dennis (2010, 532–3). 17 J. Haldon (2014, 417). See also A. S. Shchavelev (2016). 18 Zhitie sv. Georgiia Amastridskago, in V. G. Vasil’evskii (1915), III, 64; Photios, Homilia proť ē eis te ̄n ephodon to ̌n Rho ̌s, Homilia deutera eis te ̄n ephodon toň Rho ̌s, in P. V. Kuzenkov (2000, 23–31, 45–56). 19 Leo Choirosphaktes, ‘Lettre XXI (XVI)’, in G. Kolias (1939, 103). 20 D. Ostrowski (2003, I, 29,19–29,25). The treaties found s.a. 907 and 911 will be discussed in more detail below. 21 Indeed, such questions remain unresolved over 1,000 years later. The comparison with contemporary debates about the relative virtues of ‘Rus’, ‘Rus”, ‘Rusia(n)’, etc., is instructive. 22 An edition of this and related texts, along with exhaustive analysis, can be found in J. Haldon (2000, 203, 205, 207). 23 J. Haldon (2000, 240–2). Haldon argues that the expedition to Crete was not a stand-alone campaign, but part of a larger operation in Syria in 911–2. 24 J. Haldon (2000, 308). 25 J. Haldon (2000, 203, 205, 207, 209, 213).

Leo VI and the Transformation of Byzantine Strategic Thinking  13 26 J. Haldon (2000, 248–9, n. 45). On the Mardaites see also W. Treadgold (1992, 115–21). 27 J. Haldon (2000, 250–2, nn. 48–50). 28 J. Haldon (2014a, 268). 29 J. Haldon (1984, 251–2). 30 Le traité de Philotheé, in N. Oikonomidès (1972, 65–235, esp. 177, 209); W. Treadgold (1995, 110). 31 J. Haldon (1984, 252). 32 J. Haldon (2000, 294). 33 The year 6420 is generally reckoned to correspond to 912, but the death of Leo VI in May of that year makes that date impossible. This apparent mistake in The Primary Chronicle may have arisen because the treaty was signed just after the Byzantine New Year on 1 September. 34 The texts can be found in D. Ostrowski (2003, I, 31,10–32,1; 32,27–37,28). 35 For detailed analysis see, among others, Ia. Malingudi (1995); Ia. Malingudi (1997); M. V. Bibikov (1995). It is likely, however, that there are a few later interpolations. In particular, the listing of Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Pereiaslav as the principal Rus’ towns seems to reflect the political situation of the mid-11th century. See J. H. Lind (1984). 36 For a discussion see S. Franklin and J. Shepard (1996, 115–6). 37 D. Ostrowski (2003, I, 179–81, 211, 212). 38 D. Ostrowski (2003, 207–8). 39 J. Haldon (2000, 241). 40 D. Ostrowski (2003, I, 180). 41 J. Haldon (2014a, 125).

Bibliography Androshchuk, F. (2013), ‘Vikings in the East: Essays on Contacts along the Road to Byzantium (800–1100)’, Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia, 14: 96–117. Bibikov, M. V. (1995), ‘Rus’ v vizantiiskoi diplomatii: dogovory Rusi s Grekami X v’, Drevniaia Rus’, 1: 5–15. Dennis, G. T. (1984), Maurice’s Strategikon: Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy, trans. by T. George. Dennis Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. Dennis, G. T. (2010), The Taktika of Leo VI, trans. and ed. by George T. Dennis, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks. Dzhakson, T. N., Konovalova, I. G. and Podosinova, A. V. (2009), Drevniaia Rus’ v svete zarubezhnykh istochnikakh, Moscow, Russkii Fond Sodeistviia Obrazovaniiu i Nauke. Eniosova, N. and Pushkina, T. (2013), ‘Finds of Byzantine Origin from the Early Urban Centre Gnezdovo in the Light of the Contacts between Rus’ and Constantinople (10th – early 11th centuries AD)’, in Bjerg, L., Lind, J. H. and Sindbaek, S. M. (eds.) From Goths to Varangians: Communication and Cultural Exchange between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Black Sea Studies, 15. Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, 213–49. Franklin, S. and Shepard, J. (1996), The Emergence of Rus 750–1200, London, Longman. Golden, P. B. et al. (n.d.) ‘al-Ṣaḳāliba’, in Bearman, P. et al. (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, [website], http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.nottingham.ac.uk/10.1163/ 1573-3912_islam_COM_0978 [last accessed 22/7/21]. Haldon, J. (1984), Byzantine Praetorians: An Administrative, Institutional and Social Survey of the Opsikion and Tagmata, c. 580–900, Bonn, Dr. Rudolf Habelt.

14  Monica White Haldon, J. (2000), ‘Theory and Practice in Tenth-Century Military Administration: Chapters II, 44 and 45 of the Book of Ceremonies’, Travaux et Mémoires, 13: 201–352. Haldon, J. (2014), A Critical Commentary on the Taktika of Leo VI. Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks. Haldon, J. (2014a), Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World 565–1204. London, Routledge. Howard-Johnston, J. (2000), ‘The De Administrando Imperio: A Re-examination of the Text and a Re-evaluation of its Evidence about the Rus’, in Kazanski, M., Nercessian, A. and Zuckerman, C. (eds.) Les centres proto-urbains russes entre Scandinavie, Byzance et Orient. Lethielleux, Paris, Éditions P, 301–36. Kolias, G. (1939), Léon Choerosphactès, magistre, proconsul et patrice: biographie-correspondance (texte et traduction), Athens, Verlag der “Byzantinisch-neugriechischen Jahrbücher”. Lind, J. H. (1984), ‘The Russo-Byzantine Treaties and the Early Urban Structure of Rus’’, Slavonic and East European Review, 3/62: 362–70. Malingudi, Ia. (1995), ‘Russko-vizantiiskie sviazy v X veke s tochki zreniia diplomatiki’, Vizantiiskii Vremennik, 56: 68–91. Malingudi, Ia. (1997), ‘Russko-vizantiiskie dogovory v X v. v svete diplomatiki’, Vizantiiskii Vremennik, 57: 58–87. Montgomery, J. E. (2008), ‘Arabic Sources on the Vikings’, in Brink, S. and Price, N. (eds.) The Viking World. London, Routledge, 550–61. Oikonomidès, N. (1972), Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles, Paris, Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Ostrowski, D. (2003), The Pověst’ vremennykh lět. An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Shchavelev, A. S. (2016), ‘Izvestie o “Severnykh Skifakh” (“Rosakh”) v traktake “Taktika” vizantiiskogo imperatora L’va VI mudrogo’, in Konovalova, I. G. (ed.) Istoricheskaia Geografiia. Moscow, Akvilon, III, 236–50. Treadgold, W. (1992), ‘The Army in the Works of Constantine Porphyrogenitus’, Rivista di studi byzantini e neoellenici, n.s. 29, 77–162. Treadgold, W. (1995), Byzantium and Its Army 284-1081, Stanford, Stanford University Press. Vasil’evskii, V. G. (1915), Zhitie sv. Georgiia Amastridskago, Petrograd, Izdanie Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk. Kuzenkov, P. V. (2000), ‘Pokhod 860 g. na Konstantinopol’ i pervoe kreshchenie Rusi v srednevekovykh pis’mennykh istochnikakh’, Drevneishie gosudarstva vostochnoi Evropy, 3–172. White, M. (2023) ‘The Byzantine “Charm Defensive” and the Rus’, in Jakobsson, S., Hraundal, T. and Segal, D. (eds.) The Making of the Eastern Vikings: Rus’ and Varangians in the Middle Ages. London, Routledge (forthcoming).

2 Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’, the Owner of the Stone from the Holy Sepulchre? Oleksiy P. Tolochko

Among the anthology of Byzantine poetry found in Codex Venetus Marcianus Graecus 524 of the 13th century, there is an epigram (no 254/279) on the inscription on the enkolpion enclosing a portion of the rock of the Holy Sepulchre. It reads as follows: On an enkolpion containing a precious stone from the Holy Sepulchre of Christ [This is] part of the stone from the tomb that covered the cornerstone [=Christ], and it is carried as foundation by Theodore the Rus’ from a family of Emperors.1 The owner of the relic, ‘Theodore the Rhos from a family of Emperors’, has been identified as Mstislav, son of Iurii Dolgorukii, Prince of Kyiv.2 Mstislav is known to have travelled to Byzantium and to have spent some time there, as reported by the Kyivan Chronicle under the year 1162: In the same year, Mstislav and Vasilko, sons of Iurii, together with their mother went to Constantinople, having taken young Vsevolod, the third brother, with them. And the Emperor gave Vasilko four towns along the Danube, while Mstislav received the province of Otskalana.3 Vasilko’s tenure as the emperor’s vassal was short-lived. As we learn from John Kinnamos, by 1165, he had already vacated the Danube province now transferred to yet another refugee from Rus’, a certain Vladislav.4 Nothing further, however, is known of Mstislav’s fortunes: the chronicle entry for 1162 is the last we hear of him. The two brothers seem not to have returned to Rus’ and they are not registered elsewhere either. They disappear from the sources; chances are, both died soon after their flight to Byzantium.5 Nothing excites the historical imagination as much as the total absence of evidence. In its current incarnation, the hypothesis of Mstislav-Theodore, the owner of the enkolpion, runs as follows.6 The brothers fled to Byzantium and were awarded provinces by the Emperor Manuel because their mother, the second wife of Iurii Dolgorukii, might have been of Greek extraction, possibly of the imperial family; chances DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-3

16  Oleksiy P. Tolochko are, a daughter of Alexios Komnenos.7 Mstislav, whose Christian name might have been Theodore,8 received the province of Otskalana, which might be a corrupted rendering of Askalon, the city in Palestine,9 which about that time the King of Jerusalem might have ceded to Manuel who, in turn, could have transferred it to Mstislav.10 Once in the Holy Land, Mstislav might have come into possession of a portion of the rock of the Holy Sepulchre and ordered an enkolpion to house the relic. Thus, behind the epigram lurks a fascinating story, exotic and sensational, of a Rus’ prince turned Crusader lord in the service of the Byzantine Emperor, suggesting that the Rurikids did not stay away from the Crusader movement, after all. However, the amount of ‘might haves’ by which every single suggestion in the previous paragraph is introduced signals that none of them, not even the one launching the whole sequence, is rooted in evidence. Such an argument is unsustainable. The present chapter aims at substituting this piece of fiction for a proposition which, while still a conjecture, will nevertheless have the attributes of a proper hypothesis, that is, of a statement inferred from the sources and in each of its segments anchored to the evidence.

Anthologia Marciana The motives that compelled scholars, in their attempts to identify ‘Theodore Rhos’, to look into the second half of the 12th century, result from a misunderstanding. They were misled (unintentionally) by the noted Byzantinist Sergei Shestakov, who in 1926 published an article with annotated translations of several poetic pieces from codex Marcianus Graecus 524.11 The poems Shestakov chose to publish mostly dealt with Manuel I Komnenos, his military exploits, and dignitaries of his reign. The selection created the false impression that the Anthologia Marciana contains only poetry from Manuel’s times and later. No further work was done on Marcianus Graecus 524, and the belief persisted. However, recent studies on Marcianus Graecus 524 by Foteini Spingou present the collection in a different light. Marcianus Graecus 524 is a collection of poetry compiled sometime in the 13th century for private use. The owner and editor drew on some previous collections, picking those pieces that he considered examples of ‘good poetry’. Anthologia Marciana contains several long poems (by Theodore Balsamon, Constantine Manasses, Nicholas Kallikles, and Theodore Prodromos) and three collections of anonymous occasional poetry from the 11th through the 12th centuries. Among the collection of texts, there are many epigrams on inscriptions on sacred objects: icons, reliquaries, and also enkolpia, the oldest pieces dating to the 1040s–1050s.12 ‘A Precious Stone from the Holy Sepulchre of Christ’ From the contemporaneous point of view, the most important element in our story is the relic enclosed in Theodore’s enkolpion. It is extremely difficult,

Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’?  17 now as in the past, to distinguish between authentic relics and those purported to be so, acquired on the market or through other means. Theodore’s status and the pains he took to announce his possession mean that his relic was of an impeccable provenance. It is to house it that the reliquary was ordered and a noted poet commissioned to compose the inscription. The relic was no ordinary one: a portion of the stone from the Holy Sepulchre. Relics of this kind were extremely rare in Eastern Europe.13 In fact, only a single instance of stone from the Holy Sepulchre brought to Rus’ is known, and its uniqueness allows us to positively identify the origin of the relic in Theodore’s enkolpion. Sometime between 1104 and 1106 a man who styled himself Daniel ‘Abbot from the Rus’ Land’ visited the Holy Land.14 He was a man of considerable means (paying handsomely for access to objects he desired to see or to have) and unusual high connections. Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, he was immediately received by its King, Baldwin, and introduced to the royal entourage. When Baldwin set off against Damascus, Daniel was offered a place in the king’s train so he could safely visit the holy sites as far as Lake Tiberias. In Daniel’s own words, the King ‘took a liking to him’ and granted him an audience whenever asked. The reason for such benevolence is unclear, but on Baldwin’s orders, Daniel got privileged access to Christ’s tomb and on Good Friday was allowed to place his own lamp there. During the Easter service in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Daniel again found himself in Baldwin’s retinue and was placed by the King on a special spot in front of the altar so he ‘can see inside Christ’s tomb’ and thus follow the ceremony of the Holy Fire. When, three days later, Daniel came to retrieve his lamp, the keeper of the Holy Sepulchre allowed him to enter and stay in the aedicula alone. Daniel used the moment to properly measure Christ’s tomb and then, having honoured the tomb of the Lord as best I could, I gave the keeper of the key a small present and my poor blessing. And he, seeing my love for the Lord’s tomb, pushed back for me the slab which is at the head of the holy tomb of the Lord and broke off a small piece of the blessed rock as a relic. Daniel, as we know, returned to Rus’ and authored the first description of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in Slavonic. He brought with him the fragment of the rock on which the Saviour was laid. Another portion of the holy rock would next be brought to Rus’ only in 1383 by Archbishop Dionisios who obtained it, together with other relics of the Passion, in Constantinople. The event is noted by the chronicle and documented by the inscription on the precious reliquary commissioned for the occasion by Grand Prince Dimitrii Konstantinovich.15 No Rus’ source mentions the holy stone brought by Daniel from Jerusalem and it seemed it had vanished without a trace. It appears now it had not. It was delivered to a Rus’ prince by the name of Theodore who commissioned the enkolpion.

18  Oleksiy P. Tolochko Restoration of Christ’s Tomb Abbot Daniel had travelled to the Holy Land at an auspicious time. Had he visited the Holy Sepulchre a decade or two later he might not have been that lucky. The church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed in 1009 by the caliph Al-Hakim. The holy rock was damaged and stood exposed for any pious pilgrim to carve a piece and take it home. Many did, and relics of this kind were not infrequent in the West before the First Crusade,16 most of them probably pious fakes.17 But that would soon change. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored, as is now believed, in two stages: by local efforts in 1012–1023, and in 1037–1040 by the Byzantines under Michael IV Paphlagon.18 The reconstruction started with the sacred centre, the aedicula, and by 1027, according to pilgrims’ reports, it had been recreated.19 The quality of the work must have been inferior, and by the early 12th century, judging by Daniel’s description, the aedicula or at least the stone bench that covered the rock was in disarray and needing repair: its marble slabs got loose so the keeper of the church was able to remove one of them easily. The chronology of the Crusaders’ restorations in the Holy Sepulchre is not quite clear. The works apparently started in 1114, although the bulk of the building activity may have taken place from the late 1130s until the late 1160s.20 It appears that, as in the previous phase, the work commenced with the aedicula, which underwent renovation and the bench-like stone sheathing of the rock was remodelled substantially. It now received a single porphyry slab as its horizontal face, while the transenne, which screened the rock yet made it possible to peer at it through the three round openings, was substituted for an entirely new one made to an identical design. The restoration of the bench must have been completed by 1134; this year, the discarded old transenne ‘with windows’21 was acquired by a certain Dionisios, a pilgrim from Rus’ sent for the purpose by one of the Kyiv grandees.22 The date for the transenne replacement (and thus the dating for restoration of the bench) may be moved even further back. For the first time, its depiction appears ostentatiously on the seal of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Warmund (1119–1128),23 clearly in celebration of the accomplishment of the Holy Sepulchre’s renovation. After this reconstruction, the access to the actual rock was closed and the harvesting of new relics was no longer possible.24 ‘Theodore from the Family of Emperors’ Once the proper time-frame for the acquisition of the relic is established, the identification of its owner does not present any difficulties. At the time when Abbot Daniel travelled to the Holy Land, the extended clan of the Rus’ princes did list a family of imperial descent among its members. In 1052, to seal the Ruso-Byzantine agreement, a marriage was arranged between Vsevolod, son of the Prince of Kyiv Iaroslav, and the daughter of the Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos.25 The following year the couple

Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’?  19 produced a son, who was named Volodimer-Basil after the Baptiser of Rus’. In due course, he would become the Prince of Kyiv, yet for most of his life Volodimer’s genealogical position in the dynasty would not allow him to aspire to the highest office. Volodimer compensated by stressing his unique status in the clan by adopting his grandfather’s family name of Monomachos.26 Indeed, he was the only one in the family born to an imperial mother, and the Greek Metropolitan of Kyiv Nikephoros emphasised this fact by reminding the Prince that he was indeed the chosen and anointed one since he was born by the blending of royal and imperial blood.27 Monomachos’ eldest son and his would-be heir was Mstislav. He was the first among the Rurikids, and the only one in his generation, to receive the baptismal name of Theodore.28 Abbot Daniel lists him as ‘Theodore Mstislav’ among the names of the Rus’ princes for whom he ordered litanies in the monastery of St. Sabba’s.29 Daniel might have been assisted in securing the relic for Theodore by the belief, held by the Crusaders, that the Holy Sepulchre, as reported by William of Tyre, was restored from total destruction by the Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, Theodore’s great-grandfather.30 We may even venture to suggest that Theodore may have followed the family example: Constantine IX Monomachos had owned a very similar relic, an enkolpion with a fragment of the Stone of Unction.31 The Mstislav Gospel The existence of a Rus’ prince by the name Theodore who could legitimately claim his affinity to ‘the family of Emperors’ might look like a mere coincidence had it not been for the fact that Mstislav had a documented history of commissioning works of art in Constantinople, and at precisely the time the relic was obtained by Abbot Daniel. In 1103, Mstislav had founded the Cathedral of the Annunciation in his residence Gorodishche, near Novgorod. In 1106, when the cathedral was inaugurated,32 Mstislav made a precious donation to the church: a great Gospel lavishly adorned.33 Novgorod lacked the expertise necessary for the task, so the book itself was produced in Kyiv, but for its treasure binding one has had to look further afield. Thus, while Abbot Daniel was making his way to Constantinople with the relic, another man was travelling to the Imperial City from the opposite direction. His name was Naslav and he was sent by Prince Mstislav to commission decorations for the treasure binding for the Gospel. Naslav himself reported on his mission in the colophon to the Mstislav Gospel: As I had been ordered by Prince Mstislav […], I have carried [the book] to Constantinople and commissioned enamels there; and by God’s command I came back from Constantinople, having secured all the gold and silver, and precious stones, to Kyiv and finished the whole task on August 20. The value of this Gospel only God knows.34

20  Oleksiy P. Tolochko Naslav’s wording, as well as observations over the existing binding, suggest that the enamels were not some ready-made items bought on the market but were made to order. The high quality of those pieces that survived from the initial set indicates that they must have been produced in an imperial workshop.35 Whether the enkolpion for the stone from the Holy Sepulchre was part of the same order placed by Naslav in 1106 (which it is tempting to assume) or not, the story of the Mstislav Gospel shows that Theodore had enough influence at the court of the Komnenoi to employ an imperial workshop. ‘Of Imperial Kin’ Basil Monomachos and his son Theodore were the in-laws of ‘the tsars’ in Constantinople by virtue of several marriages between the Rurikids and members of the ruling houses of Byzantium.36 Whether that made them part of the family in the eyes of the Komnenoi, we do not know. But that is beside the point. The inscription on the enkolpion is a manifestation of self-perception: Theodore declares himself to belong to the imperial kin. Incidentally, Naslav, the person who went to Constantinople on Mstislav– Theodore’s orders, also proudly boasts of his patron’s imperial status, calling him ‘our/my emperor’ and his dominion – ‘an imperial rule’ in the colophon to the Mstislav Gospel (съпьсахъ памѧти дѣлѧ. цр҃ѫ нашемоу; обрѣсти чєсть и милость ѿ своѥго цсрѧ; вьсѣмъ людємъ оугодиꙗ ѥмоу творити. слышащємъ ѥго цсрствиѥ).37 It is rather uncommon for a Rus’ prince to be called ‘tsesar’, and Naslav’s insistence (three times in a rather short text!) is remarkable. Clearly, Naslav echoed the ideas of Mstislav’s exceptional status cultivated in his milieu. It is quite unusual for the Rurikids, where an individual’s fortunes were determined by strict patrilineal precedence of birth, to attach themselves to the maternal lineage. Yet Volodimer Monomachos and his son Mstislav seemingly did. In so doing, they may have followed a well-documented fashion in Byzantium, or, at least, in laudatory poetry of the time, to prefer the more prestigious lineage or even to adopt one’s mother’s family name if her family was of more noble descent or of higher standing. Indeed, several conspicuous examples could be found in Marcianus Graecus 524 itself.38 If so, we have to allow for a greater measure of the Monomachos’ family’s appreciation of Byzantine ways than previously supposed. Whether Mstislav’s self-image was well founded or was a part of the prince’s personal megalomania, Mstislav (or, rather, Theodore) did enjoy trusting relationships with the Komnenoi: in 1129, he pulled his familial ties to banish the whole clan of Princes of Polotsk ‘to Constantinople’,39 where they were kept as exiles until after Mstislav’s death.40 ‘The Cornerstone Carried as Foundation’ It now only remains to establish what the epigram tells and what can be inferred from it about the use the stone from the Holy Sepulchre enjoyed in Rus’.

Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’?  21 Relics like the stone in Theodore’s enkolpion have recently earned a class of their own and are now cast under the heading of ‘relics of place’. When chipped off and taken from the site, stones of the Sepulchre served much like the bodily remains of a saint. […] Like body parts, they served as pars pro toto, a part signifying the whole, and representing their place of origin, they could help to recreate the sacred space of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in new locations.41 Similar relics brought to the West in the 11th century often served in the consecration of churches or fostered the foundation of ecclesiastical establishments.42 Enkolpia are objects of personal devotion worn by high-ranking people, and their inscriptions express ideas suggested by the owner. In our case, it announces the nature of the relic, the name of its owner, and also his intended purpose for the relic: to be transferred to a specific destination to provide ‘a foundation’. As we have seen, the moment when the portion of Christ’s tomb arrived in Rus’ coincided with the consecration of Mstislav–Theodore’s major foundation, the Cathedral of the Annunciation. It would be appealing to assume that it had played some role in this event. The enkolpion with the precious relic might have been intended as a donation to this church. In Decalog by Nicholas Mesarites describing the relics kept in the Pharos church in Constantinople, the last item is the portion of the stone from the Holy Sepulchre. It is defined as ‘the cornerstone of Christ-cornerstone’.43 Mesarites was clearly referring to a specific place in the Epistle to the Ephesians by Paul the Apostle: You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:20) It is clear that the inscription on Theodore’s enkolpion paraphrases the same text, and even more pronouncedly than Mesarites. ‘The cornerstone’ (that is, Christ) is carried as a ‘foundation’ to Rus’. By ‘foundation’ Paul meant the Apostles, but the inscription substitutes them for Christ who is both the cornerstone and the foundation. The Church of Rus’, therefore, acquires its foundation directly in Christ rather than in his disciples. Such a message probably reflects discussions, current in Rus’ at that time, about the lack of a proper apostolic mission. Abbot Sylvester, the author of the Primary Chronicle (1116), extricated himself from the problem by faking the apocryphal story where Apostle Andrew did visit Rus’ in the course of a journey along the Black Sea.44

22  Oleksiy P. Tolochko The inscription on Theodore’s enkolpion might represent an earlier attempt to solve the same problem.

Conclusions It would be advisable, at this point, to reiterate those threads of the argument that are not controversial and not a matter of conjecture. They fall into three categories: things we do not have to assume, things we must not assume, and things we have no choice but to assume. Anthologia Marciana is a collection representing poetry of substantial chronological range, with makes it dispensable to look for ‘Theodore Rhos’ among individuals of the late 12th century. Moreover, after the renovation of the aedicula early in the century, acquisition of the relic housed in Theodore’s enkolpion was all but impossible, which precludes searching for the relic and its owner beyond the 1120s. In fact, only one stone from the Holy Sepulchre is known to have reached Rus’, the one brought by Abbot Daniel in 1106. At that time, only one family in Rus’, that of Volodimer-Basil Monomachos, could claim ‘imperial descent’. There was only one prince in Rus’ by the name Theodore, and he happened to belong to that family. Furthermore, Mstislav is the only prince who is known to have commissioned works of art in Constantinople. This confluence of unique circumstances makes alternatives all but impossible. ‘Theodore the Rhos’, the owner of the enkolpion with the stone from the Holy Sepulchre, must be Mstislav-Theodore, the son of Volodimer Monomachos. The convergence of the events in a single year of 1106 seals this identification.

Notes 1 Published: S. Lambros (1911, 153). The translation is adapted from F. Spingou (forthcoming). I am grateful to Dr. Spingou for making her translation, as well as comments on the epigram, available to me. For other translations, see A. Kazhdan and A. Wharton Epstein (1985, 258); I. Drpić (2019, 70). 2 I. Gralia (1990). 3 Том же лѣт̑ идоста Гюргевича. Цр҃югороду Мьстиславъ и Василко. съ матерью. и Всеволода молодого поꙗша. со собою третьего брата. и дасть цр҃ь Василкови. в Дунаи д.҃ городъı. а Мьстиславу дасть волость. Ѿскалана (PSRL 2: 521). For the episode, see F. J. Thomson (2000, 132–3); M. White (2013, 184–5). 4 J. Kinnamos (1976, 178). 5 The third brother, Vsevolod, had survived and did return to Rus’ by 1169, later to become the Grand Prince of Vladimir. The later tradition of uncertain value maintained that while in Byzantium he spent his time in Thessaloniki. 6 What follows is a composite story based on several recent studies: A. Gippius (2005, 105); O. Etingof (2005, 175–6); A. Maiorov (2011); A. Maiorov (2016); J. Shepard (2019, 276). 7 Nothing is known about the woman, not even her name. Her Greek origin is deduced from the direction of her sons’ flight (while their destination, in a circular fashion, is motivated by the supposed Greek origin of their mother), and her belonging to the imperial family of the Komnenos is quite doubtful (see A. Kazhdan, 1988–1989, 423–4; E. Pchelov, 2004: 72–3).

Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’?  23 8 Mstislav’s Christian name is not noted by the sources, and Theodore is but a possibility among many. It is obvious that he was chosen for the role of ‘Theodore Rhos’ for one simple reason: he is the only one of the three brothers whose Christian name is unknown and can be a matter of speculation. 9 The form in which the name of the city was known in Rus’ is Askolon’ (Асколонь) as evidenced by Abbot Daniel, a pilgrim who visited the Holy Land in the early 12th century (for the English translations, see The library of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, vol. 4 (1888). Neither the Greek and Latin (Askálōn, Ascalon), nor ̄ alān), names of the city can account for the Slavonic form the Arabic (ʿAsḳ Otskalana. Most probably, both brothers received adjacent possessions over the Danube, in the theme of Paristrion that had had a history of a foreign-born lordship (see V. P. Stepanenko, 2008; V. P. Stepanenko, 2009). 10 Upon its capture in 1153, Ascalon was joined with Jaffa to form a double county of Jaffa and Ascalon under the lordship of Amaury, brother of King Baldwin III. Amaury retained the county when he became king in 1163 and it stayed a part of the royal domain until his death in 1174. In 1176, King Baldwin IV detached the county of Jaffa and Ascalon from the royal domain in order to provide the dowry for his sister Sybil, who until her death in 1190 was their countess (although she ruled through her consorts, William of Montferrat and later Guy of Lusingnan) (H. E. Mayer, 1984: 143). The uninterrupted ‘chain of custody’ leaves no space for the county (or its portion) to have been transferred to Manuel I. Moreover, possession of Ascalon would make the Emperor Manuel a direct vassal of the King of Jerusalem, a situation quite impossible in the 1160s or 1170s. 11 S. Shestakov (1923–1926). 12 F. Spingou (2014). See also F. Spingou (2019). 13 For the veneration of stones associated with the Passion, see S. Lerou (2004, 177–82). 14 This attestation sounds more ambiguous in Slavonic: игоуменъ Русьскыя земля (father superior either ‘from Rus’ or ‘of Rus’). The identity of this enigmatic man is not quite clear. He never specified of which monastery he was an abbot and, in general, was rather elusive in providing other references to his station or place of origin. His freely moving in the high Crusaders’ circles, as well as his affluence inclined some scholars to suspect that he was not just an ordinary humble pilgrim, while those of more conspiratorial disposition suggested that he was none other than Prince Volodimer Monomachos travelling in disguise. In the monastery of St. Sabbas, Daniel ordered litanies not for his own folk, but for the family of the Rus’ princes, whom he knew by name and in order of seniority. He also possessed a unique piece of insider knowledge: that Prince Oleg, while in exile (some twenty five years earlier), had spent two years on the island of Rhodes, and casually noted this fact while passing through the place. 15 For the inscriptions and the dating of the reliquary, see B. A. Rybakov (1964, 46–8, no 54). More ambiguous are the inscriptions on the now lost reliquary cross of Princess Euphrosyne of Polotsk (1161). One of those hinted that the cross housed something unspecified ‘from the tomb of the holy Mother of God’, while another one, placed lower, reads simply ‘the tomb of Christ’. Unlike in other instances where the relics are explicitly named (‘True Cross’, ‘body part’ or ‘blood’), in these two cases the exact nature of the items enclosed remains conspicuously unidentified. Pilgrims’ ‘relics’ may have included various objects and substances (oil, water, soil, etc.) that had been found at the tombs of Christ and of the Mother of God and were brought home ‘from’ there. For the cross of Euphrosyne, see L. V. Alekseev (1957). 16 R. Bartal (2018). 17 Robert Ousterhout expressed his ‘strong suspicion’ that the relics of the Holy Sepulchre noted in European inventories are, in fact, fragments of either the aedicula or the church building rather than portions of the rock (R. Ousterhout (2003, 22, n. 68)).

24  Oleksiy P. Tolochko 18 19 20 21

M. Biddle (1999, 77–81). M. Biddle (1999, 74, 81–8). M. Biddle (1999, 89–98); R. Ousterhout (2003, 9–10). The transenne with its three round holes is a famous motif in medieval art. It was apparently of Byzantine manufacture, installed after the 1009 destruction. Abbot Daniel was the first to provide its description: “On the side three circular windows are made and through those one can see the holy rock, and all the Christians lay their kisses there”. The Crusaders evidently copied the design. The description of the transenne by Theoderich from Wurzburg, a pilgrim from the late 12th century, is very similar to that of Daniel: “In the side it has three holes, through which the pilgrims give their long-wished-for kisses to the very stone whereon their Lord lay” (Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society, 1889, 5). On replicas of the transenne and its depictions in Western art, see S. Lamia (2005, 365–81); G. R. Murphy (2006, 94–6); A. Keshman (2009, 7–8); K. B. Moore (2017, 77). 22 As reported by the Kyivan Chronicle under that year: “в се же лѣто. принесена бъıс̑ дъска. оконечнаꙗ гроба Гн҃ѧ. Дионисьемъ послалъ бо бѣ Мирославъ” (PSRL 2: 295). This dating is additionally supported by the fact that in the 1130s, when the aedicula of the Mother of God in the Church of St Mary of the Vally of Jehoshaphat was constructed, it was modelled (including the burial bench featuring the transenne with three round openings) after Christ’s tomb, which by then must have been completed (for the crypt and aedicula, see D. Pringle, 2007, 287–302). Abbot Daniel describes the crypt with not yet decorated bench carved in the rock. 23 S. Lamia (2005, 376). 24 Still later, the bench was covered by golden plates donated by Emperor Manuel I (Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society, 1889, vol. 5, 19). 25 For the identity of the princess, see A. Kazhdan (1988–1989, 416–17). 26 The Greek-language inscription on his seal attests Volodimer as “Basil, the most-noble born archont of Rus’ [from the] Monomachos” (V. L. Ianin, 1970, 16). 27 For the text, see G. S. Barankova (2000, 59). 28 A. Litvina and F. Uspensky (2006, 404–5). Unlike in many other instances where the Christian name of a prince is a matter of speculation, in the case of Mstislav both of his names are documented by the scribes of Mstislav’s Gospel: “Father save our Prince Theodore by worldly name of Mstislav for many years” (L. Zhukovskaia, 1983, 289) and also by Mstislav founding the church and the monastery of St. Theodore in Kyiv, where he was buried. 29 A. S. Norov (1864, 155). 30 R. Ousterhout (1989); M. Biddle (1999, 77–9). If Daniel indeed acted on behalf of Mstislav or Volodimer, a few biographical details might not be out of place here. Volodimer’s wife and Mstislav’s mother Gida, daughter of the Anglo-Saxon king Harold, made her pilgrimage to the Holy Land (A. Nazarenko, 2001, 632), which some scholars are inclined to date to 1103 and to time up with the pilgrimage of Gida’s cousin King Erik I of Denmark (A. Gorskii, 2020: 23–4). Gida’s presence in Palestine shortly before Daniel’s arrival and her acquaintance with the leaders of the realm might account for the exceptional reception her son’s agent enjoyed a couple of years later. 31 As evidenced by the epigram in the Anthologia Marciana (B. A. Hostetler, 2016, 200–1). For other epigrams in the Anthologia Marciana that accompanied enkolpia with pieces of stones of Passions, see I. Drpić (2019, 60–82). 32 The date of the cathedral’s inauguration is not noted in the sources. The Novgorod First Chronicle (NPL) reports only the year it had been founded, 1103 (NPL: 19). However, church buildings of that size were normally built in course of three seasons, which yield 1106 as the most probable date of completion. The date of the Mstislav Gospel (1106) confirms that by that year the cathedral was already functioning.

Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’?  25 33 The book’s dating is established on the basis of correlation between movable and unmovable feasts in its Synaxarion, which yields either 1106 or 1117 as the only two possible dates (N. Lisovoi, 1997, 710–20). The first year is preferable as the one coinciding with the cathedral’s inauguration. The second one is impossible: in 1116, Volodimer Monomachos supported his brother-in-law Leo Diogenes (the pretender) in attacking Byzantine provinces on the Danube and after Leo’s death occupied them with his own forces (PSRL 2: 283–4). These hostilities would make the mission of Naslav quite improbable at that time. 34 L. Zhukovskaia (1983, 289–90). 35 L. Zhukovskaia (1997, 687). 36 Shortly before the events of this article, in 1104, Mstislav’s cousin Volodar married his daughter to “the son of Emperor Alexios” (PSRL 2: 256). In 1122, Mstislav’s own daughter was married to someone from the Komnenoi clan (called ‘tsar’, that is, emperor in the chronicle (PSRL 2: 286)). A more complicated case is the marriage of Mstislav’s aunt to Leo Diogenes. This man, an impostor who pretended to be the son of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, was clearly, if mistakenly, believed to be a genuine ‘tsarevich’ by the Rurikids. On these marriages, see A. Kazhdan (1988–1989: 419–24). 37 L. Zhukovskaia (1983, 289–90). 38 Thus, for example, Andronikos Kamateros, senior official and intellectual of Manuel I Komnenos’ reign, styled himself ‘Andronikos Duka’ and placed his mother’s lineage first; John II Komnenos’ son-in-law John Rogerius preferred to call himself ‘Dalassenos’, by his mother’s family name (The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 1802–3); the daughter of Constantine Angelos and Theodora Komnene (daughter of Emperor Alexios) retained her mother’s family name and was invoked in poetry as ‘Komnena Eudokia, offspring of Theodora’ (S. Shestakov, 1923–1926: 53). 39 PSRL 1: 301. In the chronicles, ‘Constantinople’ often metonymically stands for ‘Byzantium’, as we find in the parallel account in the Kyivan Chronicle, where the destination is defined as ‘to the Greeks’ (PSRL 2: 293). 40 Only two ‘kniazhychi’ (that is, sons of those exiled) returned from ‘Constantinople’ in 1140 (PSRL 2: 303). 41 R. Bartal (2018, 415). 42 R. Bartal (2018, 408–11). 43 A. Lidov (2009, 87). 44 For the text, see PSRL 2: 6–7.

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26  Oleksiy P. Tolochko Gralia, I. (1990), ‘“Fedor ros” vizantiiskogo kodeksa serediny XIII veka’, in Afanas’ev, Iu. N. and Novosel’tsev, A. P. (eds.) Spornye voprosy otechestvennoi istorii XI–XVIII vekov, part 1. Moscow, Institut Istorii AN SSSR. Hostetler, B. A. (2016), The Function of Text: Byzantine Reliquaries with Epigrams, 843–1204. PhD Thesis, Florida State University. Ianin, V. L. (1970), Aktovyie pechati Drevnei Rusi X–XV vv, vol. 1. Moscow, Nauka. Kazhdan, A. and Wharton Epstein, A. (1985), Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Berkley and London, University of California Press. Kazhdan, A. (1988–1989), ‘Rus’-Byzantine Princely Marriages in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12–13: 414–29. Keshman, A. (2009), ‘An Emblem of Sacred Space: The Representation of Jerusalem in the Form of the Holy Sepulchre’, in Lidov, A. (ed.) New Jerusalems. Hierotopy and Iconography of Sacred Spaces, Moscow, Indrik, 1–12. Kinnamos, J. (1976), Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. Translated by C. M. Brand, New York, Columbia University Press. Lambros, S. (ed.) (1911), ‘Ὁ Μαρκιανὸς κῶδιξ 524’, Nέος Ἑλληνομνήμων 8, 8–192. Lamia, S. (2005), ‘Erit Sepulcrum Ejus … Gloriosum: Verisimilitude and the Tomb of Christ in the Art of Twelfth-Century Île-de-France’, in Blick, S. and Tekippe, R. (eds.) Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 365–81. Lerou, S. (2004), ‘L’usage des reliques du Christ par les empereurs aux XIème et XIIème siècles: le Saint Bois et les Saintes Pierres’, in Durand, J. and Flusin, B. (eds.) Byzance et les reliques du Christ, Paris, Association des amis du Centre d'histoire et civilisation de Byzance, 159–82. Lidov, A. (2009), Ierotopia. Prostranstvennye ikony i obrazy paradigmy v vizantiiskoi kulture, Moscow, Indrik. Lisovoi, N. (1997), ‘K datirovke Mstislavova Evangelia’, in Mstislavovo Evangelie XII veka. Issledovaniia, Moscow, Skriptorii, 710–9. Litvina, A. and Uspensky, F. (2006), Vybor imeni u russkikh kniazei v X–XVI vv., Moscow, Indrik. Maiorov, A. (2011), ‘Mezhdu Novgorodom i Askalonom: Iz istorii vneshnepoliticheskikh i kulturnykh sviazei russkikh kniazei so Sviatoi zemlei vo vtoroi polovine 12 veka’, Vestnik Udmurtskogo universiteta. Istoria i filologia 1: 10–8. Maiorov, A. (2016), ‘Rus’, Byzantium and Western Europe in the Late Twelfth–early Thirteenth Centuries’, Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History 4: 31–43. Mayer, H. E. (1984), ‘John of Jaffa, His Opponents, and His Fiefs’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 128/2: 134–63. Moore, K. B. (2017), The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press. Murphy, G. R. (2006), Gemstone of Paradise. The Holy Grail in Wolfram’s Parzival, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Nazarenko, R. (2001), Drevniaia Rus na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh. Mezhdistsiplinarnye ocherki kulturnykh, torgovykh, politicheskikh sviazei XI–XII vv, Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kultury. Norov, A. S. (ed.) (1864), Puteshestvie igumena Daniila po Sviatoi Zemle v nachale 12 veka (1113–1115), St. Petersburg, Izdano Arkheografichesoiu kommissieiu. Ousterhout, R. (1989), ‘Rebuilding the Temple: Constantine Monomachus and the Holy Sepulchre’, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 48/1: 66–78.

Who Was ‘Theodore the Rhos from a Family of Emperors’?  27 Ousterhout, R. (2003), ‘Architecture as Relic and the Construction of Sanctity: The Stones of the Holy Sepulchre’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 62/1: 4–23. Pchelov, E. (2004), ‘Genealogia semii Yuria Dolgorukogo’, Ruthenica 3: 68–79. Pringle, D. (2007), The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Corpus, vol. 3: The City of Jerusalem, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Rybakov, B. A. (1964), Russkie datirovannye nadpisi XI–XIV vekov, Moscow, Nauka. Shepard, J. (2019), ‘North-South, not Just East-West? An Understated Nexus of Byzantium before and during the Crusading Era?’, in Menasheh, S., Kedar, B. Z. and Balard M. (eds.) Crusading and Trading between West and East: Studies in Honour of David Jacoby, London, Routledge, 265–83. Shestakov, S. (1923–1926), ‘Zametki k stikhotvoreniiam codicis Marciani gr. 524’, Vizantiiskii vremennik 24: 45–56. Spingou, F. (2014), ‘The Anonymous Poets of the Anthologia Marciana: Questions of Collection and Authorship’, in Pizzone, A. (ed.) The Author in Middle Byzantine Literature. Modes, Functions, and Identities, Berlin, Munich, Boston, De Gruyter, 139–53. Spingou, F. (2019), ‘Byzantine Collections and Anthologies of Poetry’, in Hörandner, W., Rhoby, A. and Zagklas, N. (eds.) A Companion to Byzantine Poetry, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 381–98. Spingou, F. (forthcoming), Devotion & Propaganda in Byzantium. The Anonymous Poems in the Anthologia Marciana, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Stepanenko, V. P. (2008),’“Goroda na Dunaie” v kontekste russko-vizantiiskikh otnoshenii X–XII v.’, paper presented at the conference Rus’ i Vizantia. Mesto stran vizantiiskogo kruga vo vzaimootnosheniiakh Vostoka i Zapada, 20–21 October, Moscow. Stepanenko, V. P. (2009), ‘Olisei Grechin: mezhdu Novgorodom i Askalonom’, Problemy istorii Rossii, 8/1: 224–33. Thomson, F. J. (2000), ‘Communications orales et écrites entre Grecs et Russes (IXe– XIIIe siècles). Russes à Byzance, Grecs en Russie: connaissance et méconnaissance de la langue de l’autre’, in Sansterre, J. M., Dierkens, A. and Kupper, J. L. (eds.) Voyages et voyageurs à Byzance et en Occident du VIe au XIe siècle, Geneva, Droz, 113–163. White, M. (2013), Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900–1200, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Zhukovskaia, L. (ed.) (1983), Aprakos Mstislava Velikogo, Moscow, Nauka. Zhukovskaia, L. (1997), ‘Aprakos Mstislava Velikogo’, in Mstislavovo Evangelie XII veka. Issledovaniia, Moscow, Skriptorii, 670–709.

3 Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice in the Miscellanies of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Their Late Byzantine Counterparts (14th to Early 16th Centuries) Anne-Laurence Caudano By the 16th century, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius near Moscow had acquired one of the largest monastic libraries in Muscovy. In the midst of its collection, four codices reproduce small clusters of texts describing the fabric of the cosmos and of man, calendars based on the passage of the Sun, the Moon and the Pleaides through the heavens, to which were attached a variety of health advice that ranged from diet, hygiene and sexual intercourse to the best times for performing bloodletting procedures. The cluster varies across these manuscripts; some included similar advice based on thunder (gromnik), others on the day of the Nativity (koliadniki). The information conveyed in them, however, revolved more or less consistently around health. Similar texts on the position of these celestial bodies and on the structure of the world appear in other Russian manuscripts, for instance in 15th-century codices from the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery. In the Kirillov collections, however, the focus was not so much on health, but on cosmography, as the passages on celestial movements were included among brief texts about astronomy, cosmology, geography, or meteorology. In the Byzantine tradition, similar astronomical, cosmographical, geographical, and meteorological passages sometimes circulated with medical advice analogous to those found in the codices of the library of the Trinity monastery, sometimes on their own or, sometimes, with other groups of texts about astronomy, astrology, or geoponics. The manuscript tradition of these clusters of texts is difficult to unravel. Their layout varied according to the interests of their Byzantine and Slavic copyists, but the cosmographical, geographical, and meteorological passages formed the core of an elementary handbook that circulated in the Byzantine and Slavic worlds through a variety of versions and contexts.1 In the Byzantine tradition, one of these versions has been coined by A. Delatte in 1932 as an “anonymous cosmographical handbook”, which it most likely is; another version was attributed to Eustratios of Nicea by P. Polesso-Schiavon on the basis of a single (defective) manuscript.2 In what follows, the Anonymous Cosmography will be used as a generic term to refer to this elementary textbook of cosmography, geography, and meteorology. DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-4

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  29 Such collections have been well known to Russian scholars, especially since N.K. Gavriushin published a series of articles on the subject in the 1980s, including a list of all these passages or their incipits, and the manuscripts where they are found.3 S. N. Gukova also identified several Byzantine manuscripts that bear different versions of the Anonymous Cosmography, and pointed out the similarities between the so-called ‘Eustratios handbook’ and the anonymous handbook studied by A. Delatte.4 In contrast, in his analysis of the question, N. K. Gavriushin highlighted the contradictions and dissimilarities between these variants, and considered premature the conclusion that they stemmed from the same work.5 Indeed there are many variants among the different versions of the Anonymous Cosmography, but such texts clearly stemmed from a similar core that has been adjusted according to individual interests and that served diverse purposes according to their codicological, educational, or scholarly context. The text appears in more than thirty Greek manuscripts with almost as many variants; it was probably part of a tradition of schooling, which found use and adaptation in different fields, from medicine stricto sensu (e.g. in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, codex gr. [hereafter Paris. gr.] 2219 and London, Wellcome Library, MS.MSL.60 [hereafter MSL.60]), astrology and astronomy (e.g. in Rome, Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana, codex Urbinas gr. [hereafter, Vat. Urb. gr.] 76), natural philosophy (e.g. in Rome, Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana, codex Palatinus gr. [hereafter Pal. gr.] 295), geoponics (e.g. in Rome, Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana, codex gr. [hereafter, Vat. gr.] 216) to asceticism (e.g. in Pal. gr. 364). As we shall see, it also came to be included in practical medical manuals developed in monastic settings. In recent years, V. V. Mil’kov published many of the Russian equivalents of these texts on the basis of a wide range of manuscripts and analysed their content, focusing more particularly on the knowledge which these texts conveyed to their users in the fields of cosmology, astrology, or medicine.6 Others, such as R. P. Dmitrieva, have also studied the place and possible function(s) of such works in their miscellanies, particularly the miscellanies known as minei chet’i that were compiled for a monk’s private reading, and the role they played in monastic life.7 In this context, R. Romanchuk has convincingly demonstrated that these introductions to cosmography, geography, meteorology, astronomy, astrology, and, to a lesser extent, medicine in the 15th century were integral to the ascetic curriculum developed in the miscellanies of the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery.8 The focus of this essay are the clusters of medical advice and calendar texts included in four reading miscellanies from the late 15th to early 16th centuries that ultimately found their way into the library of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius: Moscow, RGB, Tr.-Serg. [hereafter, TSL] codices 177, 762, and 765, as well as Moscow, RGB, Muz. [hereafter, Muz.] codex 921. All these codices are Russian, except Muz., of South Slavic origin. In these codices, the collections of calendars and medical advice cover about fifteen folios and constitute but a short section of these books. It is even shorter in TSL 765, where the focus lies on astronomical calendars and excludes medical advice; for this reason, this codex will be dealt with separately from the others. Comparisons

30  Anne-Laurence Caudano with Byzantine codices and with other Russian manuscripts from the same period will highlight not only the origins and the transmission of such works within the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but also the specificities of the medical texts available to the Trinity monastery at a time when Western and Jewish influences became more markedly felt in Muscovy, particularly in medicine and astronomy.9

Medical Calendars in the Manuscripts of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius The library of the Trinity monastery was one of the largest in late 15th-century Russia and boasted an active scriptorium.10 There is, however, no certainty that all manuscripts were originally copied in the Muscovite monastery. Indeed, codices constituted for daily reading by unnamed individuals cannot necessarily be traced to a monastery until it was gifted to the library and the gift registered. For instance, the rapid growth of the library in the 16th century was in part the result of bequests from individual collections.11 This also means that the provenance of some earlier manuscripts cannot be ascertained precisely, which is notably the case for the codices under review. Whether or not these manuscripts reflect the interests of the monks of the Trinity monastery in the late 15th century cannot be firmly ascertained, unfortunately. Regardless, the similarities in the content of the more scientific clusters are intriguing and may well reflect more deliberate attempts to collect works of similar kind at a later time. Codex TSL 177 (in-4°, semi-uncial, 339 folios) was written in the late 15th century. In the 16th century, it belonged to a Semen Fedorovich Kiselev of Murom, but was bequeathed with other books to the Trinity library in 1560 by the monastery’s cellarer Adrian Angelov who had acquired it in between.12 According to R.P. Dmitrieva, this could indicate that the codex was originally copied on the grounds of the monastery.13 The bulk of the manuscript is constituted with works of John Damascene (ff. 41r-252v), including the Dialectic (Filosofiia), the Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Kniga Nebesa), and his Life. The collection of medical advice and calendars comes after (ff. 253r-270r), clearly introduced by a large rubricated title. It is immediately followed by Kirill of Turov’s encomium to Joseph of Arimathea, six iarlyki, and a text on the heresy of the Latins; it ends with the Vita of Martyr Artemios. In what follows, I will break down the different passages, assigning a number to each of them, from 1 to 14. Even though I am using codex 177 as a basis for comparison with the other manuscripts, this does not imply that codex 177 lay behind the other manuscripts presented here. The choice is merely one of convenience, dictated in part by the fact that this codex includes more passages of medical astrology:14 •

(ff. 253r-255v): 1. “On the Cycle of the Year and on Changes in the Air”, a zodiacal calendar with dietary advice and instructions related to diet, bloodletting and bathing;

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  31 • (ff. 255v-256r): 2. “On Heaven”, which describes the heavens, not only allegorically as the ages of creation and resurrection or as the seven ages of the world, but also physically as the seven expanses of the planets (or the stars) above which are twelve other stars, namely the twelve zodiacal signs. In the Byzantine tradition, this text is usually part of the Anonymous Cosmography;15 • (ff. 256r-257v): 3. A “Poem on the Twelve Months”, likely written or inspired by Theodore Prodromos, which also includes dietary advice and information related to humoral theory;16 • (ff. 257v-258r): 4. “On the Degrees of the Zodiac”, which discusses the divisions of the zodiacal circles, including degrees and decans; • (f. 258r): 5. A sentence establishing the start of the solar year on 20th April, attributed to John Damascene; • (ff. 258r-262v): 6. “By Galen on Hippocrates”, a brief introduction to humoral medicine, to which we shall return below;17 • (f. 262v): 7. “On Phlebotomy”, a brief lunar calendar indicating the best times for this medical procedure; • (ff. 262v-263v): 8. “From a Wiseman”, meteorological predictions based on the observation of the Sun and clouds, as well as the Moon; • (ff. 263v-264r): 9. “On the Pleiades”, a dietary calendar based on the visibility of the Pleiades as a marker of seasons; • (ff. 264r-v): 10. “Story on the Twelve Signs”, a brief statement about the Zodiac and planetary houses; • (ff. 264v-265r): 11. “When the Moon Enters and Exits Zodiacal Signs”, a means to know where the Moon is in the Zodiac relative to the Sun; • (ff. 265r-v): 12. “On Good, Bad and Median Signs”, a brief statement about auspicious, ominous and neutral signs; • (f. 265v): 13. “On a Sick Man, Look Carefully”, a text on the days of a sickness according to the position of the Moon in an auspicious, ominous, or median sign. It is followed by a range of letters or numbers in rubricated ink that seems nonsensical,18 although the statement “zri” (look) written in red ink at the bottom of this folio may indicate that it was considered important; • (ff. 265v-270r): 14. “On the Correction by Zodiacal Signs”, is tied to the previous text and offers the days of the Moon per sign each month.19 The text is illustrated with personifications of the months. In this codex, the collection of medical astrology has likely been included as a result of John Damascene’s Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, whose chapters on the heavens (numbered 17 in the Slavonic translation) and on the celestial bodies (18) served as cosmological introductions for the Slavs, as they did for the Byzantines.20 Codex TSL 762 (in-4°, semi-uncial, 284 folios) was written in the late 15th to mid-16th century.21 For the most part, the codex includes items related to the spiritual life of the Trinity monastery, such as liturgical works (notably services for Leontios of Rostov and Sergei Radonezh), the Lives of Nikon

32  Anne-Laurence Caudano and Sergei Radonezh as well as the Rule of the monastery. According to R.P. Dmitrieva, the name “Dmitrii” written in Glagolitic at the bottom of f. 21r may be the name of the copyist,22 though it may as well be that of a reader; a prayer is also written in Glagolitic at the bottom of f. 44r and one can only speculate about the reasons for such a choice of script. The focus of the codex turns to the calendar from f. 245r onwards, where folios 245r-254v reproduce Paschalia from 1450 to 1492 with annalistic comments in the margins.23 The text is followed by data for the nineteen years of the lunar cycle (ff. 255r-260r), after which come fragmentary texts, two pages at least having been torn between ff. 260v and 261r. One of these fragments is the beginning of a text providing geoponic advice (f. 260v), and the other is the end of a bloodletting calendar based on the Moon (f. 261r). This section ends with data on the epacts and foundation of the Moon (f. 261r). Folio 261v is blank; it is likely that more folios are missing since f. 262r starts in the middle of a sentence of a text describing the passage of the Sun through the signs of the Zodiac from December to March (a text to which I have assigned the number 15).24 In the following description, numbers 1–14 refer to the corresponding texts in TSL 177. Texts without duplicates in other manuscripts have been left without a number. New numbers are added only if a text is reproduced in another manuscript. • (f. 262r): 15. “On the Sun, when it Enters and Exits Zodiacal Signs” (incomplete); • (ff. 262r-v): 11. “On the Moon, when it Enters and Exits Zodiacal Signs”;25 • (ff. 262v-263r): a passage on the months corresponding to zodiacal signs; • (ff. 263r-265r): 1. “On the Cycle of the Year and on Changes in the Air”; • (ff. 265r-267v): 16. A gromnik, a divinatory text based on the moment of thunder;26 • (ff. 267v-268v): a koliadnik, a divinatory text based on the weekday of the Nativity;27 • (f. 268v): 2. “On Heaven”; • (ff. 268v-270r): 3. “Poem on the Twelve Months”; • (ff. 270v-274v): 6. “By Galen on Hippocrates”;28 • (ff. 274v-276r): a section on diseases and bloodletting that seems to carry over from the end of the previous text; • (ff. 276r-v): 12. “On Good, Bad and Median Signs”; • (ff. 276v-277v): 8. “From a Wiseman”;29 • (ff. 277v-278r): 9. “On the Pleiades”; • (f. 278r): “On the Plant Called Bzhur”, a healing recipe.30 The codex ends with a selection of proverbs by Menander (ff. 279r-283r) and, at the very end, Greek prayers written in Cyrillic (ff. 283r-284r).31 The focus on lifestyle and therapy is evident in this composite codex. Judging from the incomplete sections on ff. 260v-262r, the original cluster was likely longer.

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  33 A somewhat similar cluster of medical calendars and astronomical texts appears in a later miscellany of South Slavic origin.32 Muz. 921 was written in the second quarter of the 16th century, in semi-uncial with Bulgarian spelling; evidently, it entered the collection of the Trinity library at a later date. The manuscript includes the Shestodnev of Severian of Gabala and the Chronicle of George Hamartolos in its Serbian redaction. In between the two, the following works are reproduced (ff. 94r-107r):33 •

ff. 94r-99v: “Shestodnevnik”, a brief commentary on the creation with a description of the layout of the cosmos and the movement of the celestial bodies; • ff. 99v-100r: 10. “On the Twelve Signs”; • f. 100r: 4. “On the Degrees of the Zodiac”; • f. 100r: a brief passage on the seasons and their corresponding element and humour; • ff. 100r-v: “On the Sun, the Moon and Astronomy” (incomplete);34 • ff. 101r-102r: 14. a text, entitled “Gromovnik” and attributed to Herakleios, corresponds instead to text 14 (On the correction of the zodiacal signs); • ff. 102r-104r: 16. Gromnik; • ff. 104r-v: 2. “On Heaven”; • ff. 104v-105r: 15 and 11. “On the Sun, the Moon and when it Comes in and out of the Signs”; • ff. 105r-106r: 3. “Poem on the Twelve Months”, here attributed to Ptochoprodromos;35 • ff. 106r-107r: 9. “On the Pleiades”; • f. 107r: 6. “By Galen on Hippocrates”, of which only one paragraph is reproduced. The scientific focus of Muz. 921 is on the heavens and the movement of the celestial bodies, less so on medicine, although the subject is briefly touched upon in the last three texts. The repurposing of a cluster of texts used for medical advice in codices TSL 177 and TSL 762 into a cosmological discussion also shows how these passages were adaptable to different textual environments. The contrast of this cluster of texts that assumes a classic spherical model of the world with the hemispherical worldview of Severian of Gabala’s Hexaemeron reproduced at the beginning of the codex is striking of course, but such type of juxtaposition was already the approach taken by John the Exarch’s Shestodnev a few centuries earlier.36 This is also the case in another manuscript, which did not belong to the library of the Trinity monastery, but included a similar selection of texts, Moscow, RGB, Iudinsk. [hereafter, Iudinsk.] codex 2 (late 15th to early 16th centuries).37 The miscellany reproduces historical works, apocrypha, the Zlataia tsep’, and a large excerpt from Cosmas Indicopleustes’ Christian Topography (ff. 311r-389v). Interspersed between these works are several passages on celestial cycles and calendars (ff. 276v-309r), including texts number 10, 4, 15, 11, 12, texts similar to 14 and

34  Anne-Laurence Caudano 13, as well as other works on zodiacal signs, lunar movements, calendar, and cycles of the elements. As in Muz. 921, the focus of this cluster is on calendar and celestial movements, but on folios 392r-393r, after a large excerpt from the Christian Topography, famous for its hemispherical worldview, one finds an intriguing passage “On the Changes of the Moon with the Pleiades”, which echoes text 9, but differs from it.38 In Iudinks. 2, the passage on the Pleiades is longer than those found in the Trinity library, and also offers medical advice on diet, hygiene, sexual relations, and bloodletting. We shall return to this version of the text below. The medical focus of these ensembles is especially apparent in the cases of TSL 177 and 762, and is reminiscent of similar clusters found in Byzantine medical handbooks, from which they likely derived, although this is not to say that the way in which some of these texts were compiled was not an original Russian work. Rather than finding an exact equivalent, I am interested in the codicological and maybe monastic context, in which these sorts of texts circulated. For this purpose, I have isolated some Byzantine manuscripts that bear interesting similarities with the Russian codices described above. By doing so I hope to establish how these Byzantine and Russian miscellanies partook in analogous reading practices and, maybe, medical traditions.

Cosmography and Medical Calendars in the Byzantine Tradition In her 1986 article, S. N. Gukova identified Paris. gr. 2219 as a manuscript with a content that, if not identical, stemmed at the very least from a tradition similar to the Slavic versions of these collections of passages.39 Nothing indicates that Paris.gr. 2219 was necessarily monastic in origin – its content is exclusively medical in nature – but it has generally been considered one of the closest collections to the medical, astrological, and cosmographical ensembles that made their way into Russian monastic libraries. This 15th-century Byzantine medical miscellany (28x21 cm, 156 ff.) includes works of Theophilos, Galen, and Avicenna.40 Folios 20r-47v also reproduce a handbook that functioned as an introduction to the medical arts: “Βίβλος σὺν θεῷ ἀγίῳ ἰατρικῆς τέχνης συλλεγεῖσα παρὰ διαφόρων βιβλίων καὶ ἀνδρῶν σοφωτάτων” (A book of the medical art assembled with the help of the Holy God from different books and men most wise). The manual first introduces a discussion of the world and its parts (ff. 20r-24v), including a longer version of the text “On Heaven” (text 2); “On the Degrees of the Zodiac” (text 4); on the movements of the Sun and the Moon in the Zodiac (texts 15 and 11); on auspicious, opposite, and median signs (text 12); a version of the Anonymous Cosmography singled out by A. Delatte and with equivalents in the Slavonic tradition. It is followed by several sections borrowed from Michael Psellos’s De omnifaria doctrina (ff. 24v-27r).41 Directly after this (ff. 27r-29r) are reproduced two works. One is a version of Hippocrates’ treatise on the cosmos and the constitution of man, and the other is on the development of the foetus. The first of these texts bears resemblance with “By Galen on Hippocrates” (text 6), although it is not identical. The second text, on foetal development,

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  35 is reminiscent of a work called “Alexandrinovo” in a manuscript of the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery, St Petersburg, RNB, Kir.-Bel. [hereafter KB] codex XII (ca. 1424).42 The rest of the medical handbook of Paris.gr. 2219 (ff. 29r-47v) includes brief texts about remedies for various medical conditions that have no equivalent in the Russian manuscripts under consideration. I would like to turn here to the texts attributed to Galen in the Trinity manuscripts and to “Alexander” in KB XII. Byzantine manuscripts include a number of different brief texts or letters attributed to Hippocrates or supposedly related to him, which describe humoral theory in different ways.43 None so far have been found to be the equivalent to the Russian texts, but three of them bear intriguing similarities. The first is the “Letter to Ptolemy on the constitution of man”, which expounds humoral theory and finishes with sections on the seasons (in relation to humour and bloodletting) and on the rising and setting of the Pleiades.44 The fact that the end of the text “On the Pleiades” (text 9) is dedicated to Ptolemy in Russian manuscripts indicates that this section may have been separated from its original.45 Iudinsk.2, ff. 392r-393r, is yet another example. This version of the text on the Pleiades is longer, adding considerably more detailed advice on a healthy lifestyle. The text has no title in the Russian codex, but starts with a dedication to an unnamed king. It is likely a translation of the beginning of another pseudo-Hippocratic “Letter to Ptolemy”, which similarly starts with a calendar based on the observation of the Pleiades and includes identical advice.46 Finally, yet another pseudo-Hippocratic text, called “On the Constitution of the Cosmos and of Man”, is much shorter.47 A version of this text is reproduced in Paris.gr. 2219. Like its Slavic equivalents it explicitly states that “man is a microcosm of the world”, and includes passages on breath (pneuma) according to the four humours, on the four ages of man and on temperaments, although the data does not necessarily correspond.48 We cannot exclude that an amalgamation between several versions of these texts occurred at some point, either in a Byzantine or in a Slavic composition. The fact that these pseudo-Hippocratic works circulated in Byzantine manuscripts with texts bearing similarities to the clusters found in the codices of the Trinity library TSL 177 and 762 confirms the connections between these Byzantine medical handbooks and the Russian codices. The “Alexandrinovo” (of Alexander) is reproduced in one manuscript only (KB XII). Prokhorov suggested that its author referred to the Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias.49 But, as was the case for the pseudo-Hippocratic work on humours, anonymous texts on generation and embryology also circulated in many Byzantine manuscripts. For instance, in the Paris. sup. gr. 165, ff. 105-122, a codex copied in the second half of the 15th century by George Hermonymos, two medical texts follow one another, inserted between the works of Plutarch and Libanios: pseudo-Hippocrates’ “Letter to King Ptolemy” (ff. 105r-115v), which is immediately followed by a work attributed to an “Alexander the Sophist” on conception (ff. 116r-117v) that bear resemblances with the “Alexandrinovo”, at least for the beginning.50 The same text is unattributed and untitled in a 14th-century therapeutic

36  Anne-Laurence Caudano handbook, the London, Wellcome Library MS.MSL. [hereafter MSL] 14 (pp. 12–14), and has been considered by scholars to be part of a range of pseudo-Hippocratic texts that provided brief introductions to the medical art.51 Regardless of the real identity of the author behind these pseudo-Hippocratic texts, it is interesting to see how these accessible works had a place in more theoretical medical codices, like the Paris.gr. 2219, and in practical (therapeutic) codices like the Wellcome MSL.14. A manuscript analogous to Paris. gr. 2219 belonged more clearly to a convent’s library. The 14th-century Madrid, Biblioteca de El Escorial, codex Scorialensis Φ.III-11 (22.5 x 15.2 cm, 254 folios) [hereafter Scor.] was written by multiple hands and belonged to the Palaeologan Princess Irene-Eulogia Choumnaina (1291–d. c. 1355), patron of the Philantropos Soter monastery in Constantinople.52 This miscellany reproduces a variety of texts of medical, theological, exegetical, philosophical, and moral nature. The last section of the codex includes sermons and correspondence related to the Princess’s milieu.53 The section that interests us is at the beginning of the codex which reproduces a medical handbook in thirty titles (ff. 1r-82v). Folios 16r-26v are from the same hand and include “Different Chapters from Astronomical Books” (title 4), which reproduce many passages analogous to those of Paris.gr. 2219, described above. Some of them have their Russian equivalents: on the degrees of the zodiacal signs (text 4) and the movement of the Sun and the Moon through them (texts 15 and 11), and a passage on auspicious, ominous, and median days (text 12). This “astronomical book” is immediately followed by a text on wrongful divination (title 5), in an interesting but unsurprising juxtaposition for a codex owned by a convent. Included next is an abbreviated version of the Anonymous Cosmography that concludes with a discussion of thunder, attributing the phenomenon to the collision of clouds (title 6). Other works of the Scor. medical handbook discuss fevers, remedies for various ailments, bloodletting, medical astrology, and diagnosis from urine and pulse. In contrast with Paris. gr. 2219, the medical knowledge showcased in Scor. is more practical than theoretical and seems suited to the more immediate needs of a convent.54 That Scor. may be a close ancestor to some Russian codices is visible in title 7, a text about “Spirits in the air” included right after the anonymous cosmography. This short text describes a demonic fight for the souls in the air, the space between Heaven and Earth. An equivalent passage found its way in abbreviated form into the Kirillov codex KB 10/1087 (ca. 1446, ff. 94–95), after a version of the Anonymous Cosmography and among several other brief texts on the origins of thunder (including passages on the same subject from the Tolkovaia Paleia).55 While the Greek text is really about the demonic fight for the soul in Scor., one sentence seems to have brought confusion: the rattling or clapping sound (κρóτος, Scor., f. 26) made by the serpents who carry the soul upward reads in Slavonic as a thundering noise (клопотъ, KB 10/1087, f. 94). This is also the place where the Slavonic text ends, although the Greek text carries on with categories of demons living in the air. In KB10/1087, this passage on aerial demons must be taken as yet another explanation for thunder; the same cannot be said with certainty in the Scor.

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  37 codex, although it cannot be excluded that the copyist had such an association in mind.56 Also close to the Slavic versions found in the manuscripts of the library of the Trinity monastery are the Paris. gr. 2317 and MSL.60. The first is a 16th-century medical handbook copied by the hieromonk Arsenios,57 otherwise unknown. An examination of the content of Paris. gr. 2317 shows this codex was likely meant for practical purposes.58 The codex is short (85 folios) with a large section devoted to the practice of medicine at a rudimentary level (ff. 1r-52r): remedies (ff. 1r-12v); a passage on effective hours of the week (f. 13r);59 a brontologion and a seismologion (ff. 13v-14r), in which health recommendations are provided according to thunder and earthquakes – the brontologion is analogous, but not similar to text 16; a Diagnosis of the Solar Sphere, which includes advice on diet and phlebotomy, reminiscent of calendar texts with similar instructions in TSL 177 (such as texts 1, 3 or 7); a passage from the Sphere of Proclus (ff. 16r-21r); a version of the Anonymous Cosmography (ff. 21v-30r);60 a brief text on the renewal of the heavens and other elements, with equivalents in several Russian manuscripts;61 chapters 20–22 from John Damascene’s Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, on the heavens, fire and air (ff. 25r-31r); other passages on bloodletting (ff. 32r36r); a variety of short texts on the four elements and the four humours attributed to Galen, Hippocrates, and Meletios, reminiscent but not identical to text 6 and to the “Alexandrinovo” (ff. 43v-52r). The second section includes prayers, biblical and patristic excerpts, and a brief text on degrees of consanguinity, baptism, and familial ties. The practical aspects of this monastic codex that tended to the physical wellbeing, but also to the spiritual welfare of the community, are emphasised in a notebook that was quite literally a “hand” book due to its relatively small size (20x13 cm). Whether it has been used for such purposes is, of course, difficult to determine, but marginal comments and about eleven blank folios (recto-verso) may indicate a codex that enabled its author (and later readers) to add complementary works.62 The second, MSL.60, dates from the second half of the 15th century, is larger (21.3 x 14.5 cm, 221 folios), and is more strictly medical than the Paris. gr. 2317; it includes a wider range of texts of an (almost) exclusively medical nature and was likely assembled for the needs of a practicing physician, although later hands also added their personal remedies to the original fold.63 A monastic or clerical connection is not out of the question, considering the presence of Easter Tables in its midst.64 The codex includes classical works such as Hippocrates’ Aphorisms and Prognosticon, but also works tied to Byzantine medical practice, e.g. Nicholas Mirepsos’ Dynameron (a pharmaceutical work), as well as a variety of remedies, recipes, and works on diagnosis by urine, pulse, and on medical procedures like phlebotomy. The presence of Turkish terms, as well as Arab and Persian treatises indicates that its author was attuned to the practices of neighbouring cultures.65 After an epitome of Myrepsos’ Dynameron, folios 46r-71r of this codex include heteroclite texts, some of them discussed earlier, such as a short work “On the Creation of the World and Man”, akin to text 6 (ff. 46r-v); an anonymous work on offspring

38  Anne-Laurence Caudano akin to the “Alexandrinovo” (ff. 46v-48r); a lunar calendar and Paschalia (ff. 59v-62v); another version of the Anonymous Cosmography (ff. 63r-68r); “On the Body of Heaven” (ff. 66v-67v, text 2); on the movement of the Sun and the Moon through the zodiac (ff. 67v-68r, texts 15 and 11); a sentence establishing the start of the solar year on 21st March, attributing it to John Damascene (text 5);66 and “On good, bad and median signs” (f. 69v, text 12). That the cluster of texts under review was part of the baggage of a practicing physician indicates their perceived relevance in Byzantine medicine. So far, the Byzantine manuscripts described here have been singled out not only for their connection to the cluster of medical texts found in the codices of the Trinity library near Moscow, but also because they all include a version of the Anonymous Cosmography that circulated in various guises in Russian manuscripts. I would like to add a final Byzantine medical codex with clusters very close to those found at the Trinity library. Paris.gr. 2315 is a 15th-century miscellany of 400 folios mostly devoted to medical practices, where texts on diagnosis through urine and pulse, as well as therapeutic remedies have been gathered.67 Folios 72r-76v reproduce “On the Constitution of Man and the Cosmos” (similar to text 6), but folios 277r-287r also include a familiar cluster of texts: a brontologion (as in text 16); a brief text on the cycles of renewal of the sea, the stars, the Earth, and the heavens;68 a zodiacal calendar for bloodletting (as in text 7); a brief text on the passage of the seasons and their impact on humours; various medical conditions and their remedies; the pseudo-Hippocratic “Letter to Ptolemy” (as in text 6), where the sections on the five senses, the four seasons, and the Pleiades (as in text 9) are given separate numbers; Hippocrates on the seven ages of man; Theodore Prodromos’ poem on the months (as in text 3); and, finally, a divinatory work on auspicious and ominous days attributed to Prophet Esdras (koliadnik).69 The content of these texts is not identical to the Russian codices under review, but the types of texts are similar: medical advice based on the calendar or on thunder, and elementary introduction to medical theory were all considered acceptable to Byzantine medical practitioners. The passages missing in this codex include the brief texts describing the movements of the Sun and the Moon in the Zodiac, as well as descriptions of the heavens, which generally circulated in the vicinity of the Anonymous Cosmography in Byzantine manuscripts. Whether the Byzantine codices presented here were medical notebooks or compendia put together by a practicing physician or by a larger medical community, for instance that of a hospital, cannot be said without a careful study of these manuscripts and is certainly beyond the scope of this study.70 Regardless, the clusters of texts providing medical advice that found their way into the Russian codices of the Trinity library were also considered sufficiently relevant to be included even in the more theoretical manuscripts of Byzantine medicine, despite their elementary content. In some of these codices (Paris.gr. 2219, Scor., Paris.gr. 2317 and MSL.60), this corpus introduced, framed, or followed texts about cosmography, geography, and meteorology (the Anonymous Cosmography) with textual equivalents in manuscripts from Russian monastic libraries. In the Byzantine tradition, therefore, the

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  39 elementary Anonymous Cosmography also became embedded in a larger medical curriculum aimed at practicing physicians, just as it found similar relevance in manuscripts of astronomical, geoponic, or spiritual nature.71 The ensembles of medical astrology included in the manuscripts of the Trinity monastery thus have interesting equivalents in Byzantine medical handbooks that ranged from more theoretical compendia to more practical, therapeutical, handbooks, but by no means does this mean that these codices were behind these Russian manuscripts. Rather, it is likely the protograph(s) of these manuscripts partook in a similar medical tradition. Whether these texts are evidence of the presence of monastic hospitals in the Russian monasteries where such miscellanies are found is, however, a different matter.72 While the existence of infirmaries in monastic foundations is likely, there is no evidence for them in these specific sources. Taken in isolation, these collections are somewhat reminiscent of late medieval almanacs, and offered basic knowledge about humoral theory and mostly preventative advice aimed at maintaining humoral balance, through proper diet, hygiene, and, maybe, routine and therapeutic bloodletting.73 One should consider as well the portion of oral and practical teaching in this field that cannot be recovered. Undeniably, they still remain important evidence of medicine in Muscovy in the late 15th century. Whether such advice was followed is even more difficult to determine, although the note “zri” at the bottom of TSL 177, f. 265v may indicate more than just reading practices. Similar passages on celestial cycles were not read exclusively with medicine in mind, however, and likely fulfilled a different function in codices that were primarily spiritual in content. Codex TSL 765 (in-4°, semi-uncial, 325 folios) is a composite manuscript made of several quires written by several hands over the course of the late 15th to early 16th centuries.74 This manuscript was acquired by the Trinity library around 1640 as part of a bequest from Solomonida Azar’ina, staritsa of the nearby convent of Khotkovo. That it may have belonged to a monk of the Trinity monastery earlier is not excluded of course.75 The content of the codex is varied and includes canonical texts (notably from the ecumenical councils), laws of Rus’ princes, excerpts from chronicles, sermons, liturgical texts, iarlyki, or even Symeon Seth’s Stephanites and Ichnelates, among other works. Folios 88r-91v reproduce lunar tables that deserve closer scrutiny and the last folio of the manuscript (f. 324v) a fragmentary lunnik, but the section that interests us follows a sermon by Gregory the Theologian and occupies ff. 307r-311v:76 • • • • • • •

ff. 307r-308v: a text on the Moon’s cycle and the Jewish calendar; ff. 308v-309r: 10. “On the Twelve Signs”; ff. 309r-v: 4. “On the Degrees of the Zodiac”; ff. 309v-310r: 15. “When the Sun Enters and Exits Zodiacal Signs”; ff. 310r-v: 11. “When the Moon Enters and Exits Zodiacal Signs”, which is incomplete;77 It is likely that folios are missing between ff. 310v and 311r since the beginning of f. 311r includes part of a Koliadnik that has been crossed out. ff. 311r-v: 2. “On Heaven”.

40  Anne-Laurence Caudano Short spiritual and historical works follow. In this case, the selection of texts is more strictly based on the Zodiac and the movements of the Sun and the Moon, although it is likely that the collection was longer originally and that some texts were purged as the result of censorship.78 Regardless, in contrast to the other manuscripts described previously, one is struck by the absence of medical content for clusters of texts that seem alike at first glance. Comparable sections on the Zodiac are also reproduced in larger collections, most notably in the well-known codex Sin. 951, a manuscript of encyclopaedic nature produced ca. 1460 at the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery. Folios 280v-304r include a systematic compilation of different cosmographical and zodiacal passages gathered from earlier Kirillov compilations, and likely from other material as well.79 In this manuscript, the focus is largely on cosmography and astronomy, not so much on medicine, yet it also includes passages similar to TSL 765. Such approaches to these texts are visible in Byzantine manuscripts as well, where the ensemble on the Zodiac and the passages of the celestial bodies through various signs did not necessarily display medical information. Examples include the Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Ambrosianus [hereafter, Ambros.] B33 sup., the beginning of the Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, Neapolitanus II C33, the Pal. gr. 364, the Urb. 76, and even manuscripts that include medical content, such as the Bologna, Biblioteca universitaria di Bologna, Bononiensis 3632, the Pal.gr. 295, the Ambros. E37 sup. and the Athos, Mone Iviron, codex 92. Even though these ensembles seem to derive from similar texts, they likely came from different manuscript traditions where this corpus was developed for different uses. This is visible as well in the passages on the Pleiades reproduced in TSL 177, TSL 762, Muz. 921 and Iudinsk. 2, which stemmed probably from different versions of the spurious letter of Hippocrates to Ptolemy. In contrast, the text called “On the Pleiades” in Sin. 951 likely originated from a geoponic work, considering the information on harvest it provides.80 These clusters of texts on medical astrology or on cosmography lent themselves to versatile uses which enabled Byzantine and Russian scholars to assemble them in accordance with their personal interests and aims. Sometimes, the content was purged or reorganised when some texts were no longer deemed suitable, particularly divinatory works, as was likely the case in the 16th century for TSL 765.81 This does not, however, mean that these works were considered heretical in the previous century. Even though such texts were not meant for the edification of the soul, they were still integrated into the material of Russian monastic codices meant for personal reading.82 More typical to the Russian (and generally Slavic) tradition is the exclusively monastic context wherein these texts circulated. This was not entirely true to the Byzantine tradition, even though Byzantine monasteries also integrated them in their practice and in their libraries (as in Scor., Paris.gr. 2317 and MSL.60). Determining whether these works transited through Mount Athos, as Prokhorov has suggested, or whether the second wave of South Slavic

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  41 literature included works from professional physicians, as Mil’kov hypothesises, is beyond the scope of this study.83 It is likely that a more extensive Byzantine medical handbook was behind the works that ended up at the TSL library, the content of which may have been distilled in the translation or in the copying process. Even though the four manuscripts held at the Trinity library only hold in common the text “On Heaven” (2) and those describing the movements of the Sun and the Moon across the Zodiac (11 and 15), they seem to provide the same kind of information. Not all these codices were necessarily compiled at the monastery, but to see them collected together in the same library is striking. In fact, according to Dmitrieva’s study of the contents of codices meant for private reading, the Trinity library had a tendency to assemble similar texts, particularly after the 16th century.84 Rather than a simple lack of variety, this approach may have intentionally aimed at harmonising the type of knowledge available to the monks for private reading. One is also struck by what was not included in these miscellanies, notably the Anonymous Cosmography, which appeared in various garbs across different codices of the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery in the 15th century, and in other Russian manuscripts later, and which, in Byzantine manuscripts, is often found in the vicinity of texts similar to the cluster reproduced in the codices of the Trinity library. In his study of reading practices at the Kirillov monastery, R. Romanchuk has shown that the text was likely part of a broader ascetic curriculum.85 One can only speculate on its absence at the Trinity library, likely due to the vicissitudes of manuscript transmission and bequests. The monastery was not particularly famed for its scholarship though, certainly when compared to the intellectual production at the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery.86 Intellectual speculation may not have been a priority at the Trinity monastery, but we cannot exclude that the choice of texts was deliberate. The focus across these manuscripts is consistent, with their practical emphasis on a healthy lifestyle throughout the year and knowledge of the calendar, based on the movements of the Moon and the Sun, but also of the easily recognisable Pleiades. In the Byzantine tradition, these works were integral parts of introductions to more elaborate medical handbooks. That the whole was not translated or transmitted is beside the point as well and we can only speculate about what has not been preserved. In the larger context of books meant for individual readings, these calendar and medical passages together aimed at providing consistent information about a balanced state of health and its principles, next to works meant for the edification of the soul. The way in which Byzantine and Russian content circulated, was appropriated, transformed, reorganised, compiled, and read also highlights what mattered to this specific monastery. That it does not meet the expectations we have for them now would surely not have troubled them, and should not be disconcerting to us, as it seems to have in past – and even quite recent – scholarship.87

42  Anne-Laurence Caudano

Notes 1 A.-L. Caudano (2017); A.-L. Caudano (2015). 2 About this cosmographical handbook, see A. Delatte (1932). In a late manuscript, the Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, codex Marc.gr. III-4 (16th century), one version of this handbook has been assimilated with a brief treatise on thunder and lightning written by Eustratios of Nicaea, with the unfortunate result that the whole has been attributed by its editor, P. Polesso-Schiavon (1965–1966), to the 12th-century philosopher (edition of the text at 290–330). More about this attribution in A.-L. Caudano (2012). 3 N. K. Gavriushin (1981) establishes a preliminary inventory of such passages of natural philosophy; N. K. Gavriushin (1984) is specifically devoted to a manuscript compiled at the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery, Moscow, RGB, codex Sin. 951, dated c. 1460, to which we shall return below; N. K. Gavriushin (1988) offers an exhaustive list of these passages and the manuscripts where they can be found. This is not to say that these collections were unknown before, e.g. F. I. Buslaev (1861, col. 695–705), who published cosmographical and meteorological passages from Moscow, RGB, codex Rum. 358; and N. S. Tikhonravov (1863, 398–421), who published the calendar and medical works from Moscow, RGB, Tr.-Serg. codex 177, which will be analysed below. 4 S. N. Gukova (1986). 5 N. K. Gavriushin (1988: 132–3). 6 V. V. Mil’kov (2004, 86–95); V.V. Mil’kov (2008); for medical astrology, see especially I. A. Gerasimova, V. V. Mil’kov and R. A. Simonov (2015, 187–234). 7 R. P. Dmitrieva (1968); R. P. Dmitrieva (1972). About such reading collections, see also the more recent study by I. M. Gritsevskaia (2012), which unfortunately was not available to me. 8 R. Romanchuk (2007, 179–82, 260–7). 9 W. F. Ryan (1999, 16–18, 21–2); I. A. Gerasimova, V. V. Mil’kov and R. A. Simonov (2015, 182–3). 10 R. P. Dmitrieva (1968, 156–7 and 161 n. 86) for the names of identified copyists. 11 R. P. Dmitrieva (1968, 168–9). 12 The bequest may be read across several folios at the beginning of the codex. A transcription is included in the manuscript description (https://lib-fond.ru/ lib-rgb/304-i/f-304i-177/). 13 R. P. Dmitrieva (1968, 167). 14 The manuscript is available online at: https://lib-fond.ru/lib-rgb/304-i/f-304i-177/ and edited in V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 512–37). 15 For instance, P. Polesso-Schiavon (1965–1966: 303–4; CCAG 8.4, 109). 16 The poem is attributed to “Petokho Prodromo” in Muz. 921 (text in V.V. Mil’kov, 2008, 245–7). A “Poem on the Twelve Months” is attributed to Theodore Prodromos, but a range of similar works circulated in Byzantine manuscripts, as they also did in these Russian codices. About the Byzantine tradition of such texts, see H. Eideneier (1979, esp. 370–3) and B. Keil (1889), where the text attributed to Theodore Prodromos is edited at 95–115. The identification of Ptochoprodromos with Theodore Prodromos, or even with Manganeios Prodromos, is a contentious question that is beyond the scope of this paper (about this controversy, see A. Rhoby, 2009: 329–36). Note that the Slavonic translation or the original on which it was based is incomplete. For instance, verses related to the rise of Sirius in August and fire from Etna are missing in the Slavonic (compare B. Keil, 1889, 112 ll. 33, 35–6 with TSL 177, f. 257r, ed. V. V. Mil’kov, 2008, 518; other differences occur between the two versions, but they are relatively minor). 17 The text has been edited by G.M. Prokhorov (1982, 192–215 (notes at 599–601)) on the basis of St Petersburg, RNB, Kir.-Bel. codex XII. Other versions have been

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  43 edited in V. V. Mil’kov (1999, 450–76), the most important of which reproduces TSL 177 with variants from TSL 762; shorter versions are included as well, which stem from St Petersburg, RNB, Kir.-Bel. codices 10/1178 and 22/1099. Following Prokhorov, V. V. Mil’kov has noted that the version of Kir.-Bel. XII includes more South Slavic lexemes; the versions from TSL are more Russian, particularly TSL 177 (V. V. Mil’kov, 1999, 453). 18 V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 531). 19 The text is reproduced in Muz. 921 as well. Variants are noted by V. V. Mil’kov in the notes 2008, 541–2. 20 John Damascene’s chapters describing the heavens and the celestial bodies in the Exposition on the Orthodox Faith were sometimes copied separately in Byzantine manuscripts and associated with other cosmographical works to function as introductions to natural philosophy. Examples include the Milan, codex Ambros. B33 sup.; London, British Library, codex Harl. 5624; Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana, Pal. gr. 295. These chapters fulfilled a similar function in the Slavic world (Kh. Trendafilov, 1997). 21 V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 543); some sections are edited at 562–89. Online description and manuscript are available at https://lib-fond.ru/lib-rgb/304-i/f-304i-762/, which dates the manuscript from the 15th century. R.P. Dmitrieva (1972, 166) considered that the manuscript was finished before 1492, as the last date included in the Paschal calendar of ff. 245–55. 22 R. P. Dmitrieva (1972, 166). 23 The main text also includes a long comment for the year 1459 (ff. 247r-v). 24 The text appears in TSL 765 and in Moscow, RGB, Sin. codex 951 as well. 25 As we shall see, similar texts describing the movements of the Sun (text 15) and of the Moon (text 11) through the Zodiac are customarily found together in Greek manuscripts. Note that this passage, while stemming from the same tradition, is not entirely similar to that found in TSL 177, ff. 264v-265r. 26 The same Gromnik is reproduced in Muz. 921 and, for this reason, has been assigned a number (16). About such texts, see W. F. Ryan (1999, 378–9); A. Angusheva-Tikhanova (1996). 27 See W. F. Ryan (1999, 380). 28 The hand changes after f. 271v. 29 This section is borrowed from John the Exarch’s Shestodnev, itself inspired by Basil of Caesarea’s Hexaemeron (V. V. Mil’kov, 2008, 620–1 n. 67). 30 I. I. Sreznevskii (1893, 86) did not identify this plant, but publishes the passage instead. 31 Edition V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 588–9). 32 The manuscript is available online, https://lib-fond.ru/lib-rgb/178/f-178-921, where a description is also available (https://lib-fond.ru/lib-rgb/178/f-178-921#image-4). 33 N. K. Gavriushin (1988, 137); description, edition, translation and commentary in V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 210–74). Numbers correspond once again to the texts numbered in manuscripts described previously. 34 The text discusses the relative sizes of the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth with reference to John Damascene V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 236–7), but finishes on f. 100v in the middle of a sentence. 35 Cf. supra. 36 Similar juxtapositions of contradictory cosmological ideas appear in late Byzantine manuscripts as well. See A.-L. Caudano (2015). 37 N. K. Gavriushin (1988, 136). 38 V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 428–30). His edition at 436–58 does not reproduce these other texts, some of which have been edited elsewhere, but it does include the passage on the Pleiades. 39 S. N. Gukova (1986, 154–6). Digital copy available at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/btv1b53164671b?rk=2360526;4.

44  Anne-Laurence Caudano 40 Description CCAG 8.4, pp. 14–15 and, online, at the Pinakes database (https:// pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/51848/). 41 Sections on nature (57); on the soul (60, 65, 64); on generation and corruption (91); on conception (110); on gender, women and other issues (111–6); on fortune and accident (106); on fate (105); on senses (109, 108), edition L. G. Westerink (1948). 42 In KB XII, the two medical passages are followed by a version of the Anonymous Cosmography (edition G. M. Prokhorov, 1982, 193–214). 43 S. N. Gukova (1986, 155). More recently, J. Jouanna has studied different versions of these short works in several articles, see for instance J. Jouanna (2006) and J. Jouanna (2007), where a list of such short treatises is offered at 318 n. 22. 44 Epistula ad Ptolemis regem de hominis fabrica, ed. F. Z. Ermerins, (1840, 279–97). The passage on the seasons is similar to a section in text 9 (e.g. in TSL 177, f. 261v-262v). 45 Compare these similar, although not identical, endings: “Ταῦτα δὴ παραφυλαξάμενος, ὦ βασιλεῦ, ζήσεις ἀλύπως καὶ ἀπόνως τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον”, with “аще тако храниши то добрѣ пребоудеши превелики цѣсарю птоломею” (F. Z. Ermerins, 1840, 297; V. V. Mil’kov, 2008, 528). 46 V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 457–8); Epistula ad Ptolemaeum regem, ed. J. F. Boissonade (1831, 422–5) for the section on the Pleiades, but the full text covers 422–8. 47 Edition I. L. Ideler (1841, 303–4). 48 For instance, in the Greek text the four ages provided are 14, 28, 42, and 80, whereas in TSL 177, they are 14, 30, 45 and 80 (I. L. Ideler, 1841, 304; V. V. Mil’kov, 2008, 521). 49 G. M. Prokhorov (1982) also mentions similarities with some passages, but no references are provided. 50 “Ἀλλὰ μηδεὶς ὑπολαμβανέτω, παντελὼς ἄψυχον εἴναι τὴν γονήν” (Paris. sup. gr. 165, f. 116r); compare with “Никто же да непщуеть бездушну быти сѣмени” (G.M. Prokhorov, 1982, 196). The Paris. sup. gr. 165 is available online at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/btv1b11004941s?rk=4206029;2. Aboutsuch texts in the Byzantine tradition, see also J. Jouanna (2008, esp. 39–41) where a similar text is discussed. 51 Description of Wellcome MS.MSL.14 in B. Zipser (2020, 54–65); P. BourasVallianatos (2015, 283–6). 52 About the analysis of this manuscript in the context of conventual practices and education, see A.-L. Caudano (2017). 53 Description in C. Larrain (1988) and C. Larrain (1995). 54 For instance, Paris. gr. 2219 also includes treatises on nerves and dissection (ff. 124v-144v; more about the similarities and differences between these two codices in A.-L. Caudano, 2017: 37–8). 55 I would like to thank Robert Romanchuk for providing me with a transcription of these passages. 56 The Byzantines were no strangers to fanciful explanations about thunder or lightning either, if one remembers how, in the 11th century, Katakalon Kekaumenos mocked the belief that lightning chased a dragon to the ground (A.-L. Caudano, 2012, 618). 57 As a signature on f. 80v indicates. 58 The digital version of the manuscript is available at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/btv1b10722915z, where a brief description is also available. See also CCAG 8.4, pp. 17–19. 59 An equivalent, but not identical, text appears in KB 22/1099 (I. A. Gerasimova, V. V. Mil’kov and R. A. Simonov, 2015, 296–8). 60 Identified by A. Delatte (1932, 189). 61 The oldest equivalent to this text was included in the Uchenie of Kirik Novgorodets in the 12th century (R. A. Simonov, 2007, 322–3), but a closer version is included in Iudinsk. 2, KB 10/1087 and in Sin. 951, where it is also associated with the anonymous cosmography (N. K. Gavriushin, 1988: 135).

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  45 62 As was the case in the 14th-century medical handbook Paris.gr. 2243, which was, however, considerably more voluminous (B. Mondrain, 2004, 269–70). 63 P. Bouras-Vallianatos (2020a, 8). 64 The manuscript had a variety of owners and readers, including women and, possibly, the Metropolitan of Imbros Joachim in the 16th century; it was purchased in Gallipoli for the monastery Tou Dionysiou on Mount Athos in 1628, although this does not mean that it was monastic in origin. Digital version https:// wellcomelibrary.org/item/b19683704#?cv=1. Description: P. Bouras-Vallianatos (2015, 293–302). 65 P. Bouras-Vallianatos (2020a, 8). 66 Ἔστω δὲ καὶ τοῦτο γνωστὸν ὅτι ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ ὁ ἥλιος ἀπὸ τὴν εἰκοστὴν πρώτην τοῦ μαρτίου μηνὸς ἐποίει τὴν ἀρχὴν τοῦ εἰσέρχεσθαι ἐν τοῖς ζῳδίοις (MSL.60, f. 68r). The sentence is similar in TSL 765, f. 258r, but for the strange date given for the beginning of the solar year on 20 April. 67 Description Pinakes (https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/51945/). The codex is available online: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10723129g. After f. 303v, other texts have been included such as brief astronomical, hagiographic, liturgical, and homiletic works, which may indicate a monastic or ecclesiastical origin for this manuscript. The end of the codex is also devoted to medical practice, however (ff. 347r-400r) and includes parts of the Therapeutics of Iohannes Archiatros (B. Zipser 2009, 22–3). 68 As in Iudinsk. 2 and in Paris. gr. 2317 (cf. supra). 69 W. F. Ryan (1999, 380). 70 A. Touwaide (2007, 148); B. Zipser (2009, 9). 71 Other medical handbooks include the Anonymous Cosmography and part of the astrological corpus attached to it in the codices discussed here (texts 2, 4, 10–12, 15) but, in these cases, they do not convey an openly medical significance to these passages. Such are the cases of 15th-century Bologna, Biblioteca universitaria di Bologna, Bononiensis 3632 (ff. 335v-345r) and 16th-century Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Ambrosianus E37 sup. (ff. 356r-373r). The latter is reminiscent of TSL 177 with its inclusion of John Damascene’s Dialectica. 72 See Mil’kov’s claim (I. A. Gerasimova, V. V. Mil’kov and R. A. Simonov, 2015, 180), based on V. K. Kuzakov (1976, 287). 73 F. Brévart (1988), on a German handbook written in the vernacular that included similar hygienic, dietary, and bloodletting advice, as well as brief introductions to cosmography. More elaborate works on diet existed in the Byzantine world as well, such as the dietary treatise of Hierophilos, which describes the ideal regimen of food, hygiene, sexual practices, and physical exercises for each month of the calendar (E. Delacenserie, 2014). 74 R. P. Dmitrieva (1972: 166); online description, https://lib-fond.ru/lib-rgb/304-i/f304i-765/. One of the copyists is a certain Mykula (f. 82v). 75 R. P. Dmitrieva (1972: 166). This information is relayed in the library’s description made in 1641 (online description https://lib-fond.ru/lib-rgb/304-i/f-304i-765/). 76 Edition Simonov (2007, 355–60). The manuscript is also available online (https:// lib-fond.ru/lib-rgb/304-i/f-304i-765/). 77 The text ends abruptly on folio 310v, which has also been damaged. The last line has been crossed out. 78 R. A. Simonov (2007, 351–4); W. F. Ryan (1999, 18–21). 79 R. Romanchuk (2007, 181). The manuscript is well known to scholars and has been the object of several analyses (e.g. N. K. Gavriushin, 1984; S. N. Gukova, 1986; V. V. Mil’kov, 2008, 275–384, where the text is also edited at 287–326). 80 Ed. V. V. Mil’kov (2008, 318). 81 R. A. Simonov (2007, 351–4). 82 Overall, works on natural philosophy tended to disappear from monastic codices after the 16th century (R. P. Dmitrieva, 1968: 168–9).

46  Anne-Laurence Caudano 83 G. M. Prokhorov (1982, 599); I. A. Gerasimova, V. V. Mil’kov and R. A. Simonov (2015, 189–90). South Slavic versions of these texts did circulate (R. Romanchuk, 2007, 181–2; A.-L. Caudano, 2017, 31–2). 84 R. P. Dmitrieva (1968: 168–9). 85 R. Romanchuk (2007, 179–82). Similar observation may be made about the Goricki zbornik, a codex that reproduces the Anonymous Cosmography, among many other texts compiled in the 15th century by Nikon Chernogorets for the Serbian Princess Ielena Balšić (A.-L. Caudano, 2017: 42–3). 86 R. Romanchuk (2007, 31–2). 87 The debate of Rus’ so-called intellectual silence seems to have found a new wind in the recently published book by D. Ostrowski (2018), and the various pointed critiques about it published in a ‘Forum’ of Russian History, 2019.

Bibliography ‘Forum: Europe, Byzantium and the ‘Intellectual Silence’ of Rus’ Culture’ (2019), Russian History 46/2–3: 167–237. Angusheva-Tikhanova, A. (1996), Gadatelnite knigi v Starob”lgarskata literatura, Sofia, Vremia. Boissonade, J. F. (1831), Anecdota Graeca, vol. 3. Paris. Bouras-Vallianatos, P. (2015), ‘Greek Manuscripts at the Wellcome Library in London: A Descriptive Catalogue’, Medical History 59/2: 275–326. Bouras-Vallianatos, P. (2020a), ‘The Wellcome Greek Collection’, in BourasVallianatos, P. (ed.), Exploring Greek Manuscripts in the Library at Wellcome Collection in London, Abingdon, Routledge, 1–11, online at https://library.oapen. org/handle/20.500.12657/39409. Bouras-Vallianatos, P. (ed.) (2020b), Exploring Greek Manuscripts in the Library at Wellcome Collection in London, Abingdon, Routledge, online at https://library. oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/39409. Brévart, F. (1988), ‘The German Volkskalender of the Fifteenth Century’, Speculum 63/2: 312–42. Buslaev, F. I. (1861), Istoricheskaia khrestomatiia tserkovno-slavianskogo i drevnerusskogo iazykov, Мoscow, v Universitetskoi tipografii. Caudano, A.-L. (2012), ‘Eustratios of Nicaea on Thunder and Lightning’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 105/2: 611–34. Caudano, A.-L. (2015), ‘Cosmologies et cosmographies variées dans les manuscrits byzantins tardifs’, Byzantion 85: 1–25. Caudano, A.-L. (2017), ‘Cosmography, Asceticism and Female Patronage in Late Byzantine and Slavic Miscellanies’, Almagest 8/2: 28–47. CCAG 8.4 (1921) = P. Boudreaux, Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, vol. 8.4, Bruxelles, Lamertin. Delacenserie, E. (2014), ‘Le traité diététique de Hiérophile: analyse interne’, Byzantion 84: 81–103. Delatte, A. (1932), ‘Un manuel byzantin de cosmologie et de géographie’, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres de l’Académie Royale de Belgique. 3e série 18: 189–222. Dmitrieva, R. P. (1968), ‘Svetskaia literatura v sostave monastyrskikh bibliotek XV i XVI vv’, TODL 23: 143–70. Dmitrieva, R. P. (1972), ‘Chet’i sborniki XV v. kak zhanr’, TODL 27: 150–80. Eideneier, H. (1979), ‘Eine byzantinisches Kalendergedichte in der Volkssprache’, Ελληνικά 31/2: 368–419.

Cosmos, Calendars, and Medical Advice  47 Ermerins, F. Z. (1840), Anecdota Graeca e codicibus regiis, Leiden, Luchtmans. Gavriushin, N. K. (1981), ‘Kosmologicheskii traktat XV veka kak pamiatnik drevnerusskogo estestvennoznaniia’, Pamiatniki nauki i tekhniki 1981: 183–97. Gavriushin, N. K. (1984), ‘Pervaia russkaia entsiklopediia’, Pamiatniki nauki i tekhniki 1982–83: 119–30. Gavriushin, N. K. (1988), ‘Istochniki i spiski kosmologicheskogo trakata XV v. ‘O nebesi’’, Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki 1: 132–9. Gerasimova, I. A., Mil’kov, V. V. and Simonov, R. A. (2015), Sokrovennye znanniia Drevnei Rusi, Moscow, Knorus. Gritsevskaia, I. M. (2012), Chtenie i chet’i sborniki v russkikh monastyriakh XV-XVII vv, St Petersburg, Dmitrii Bulanin. Gukova, S. N. (1986), ‘Kosmograficheskii traktat Evstratiia Nikeiskogo’, Vizantiiskii vremennik 47: 145–56. Ideler, I. L. (1841), Physici et medici graeci minores, vol. 1, Berlin, G. Reimer. Jouanna, J. (2006), ‘La postérité du traité hippocratique de la Nature de l'homme: la théorie des quatre humeurs', in Müller, C. (éd.) Ärzte und ihre Interpreten: Medizinische Fachtexte der Antike als Forschungsgegenstand der Klassischen Philologie. Fachkonferenz zu Ehren von Diethard Nickel, München-Leipzig, K. G. Saur, 117–41. Jouanna, J. (2007), ‘Un pseudo-Galien inédit: Le Pronostic sur l'homme. Contribution à l'histoire de la théorie quaternaire dans la médecine grecque tardive: l'insertion des quatre vents’, Troïka. Parcours antiques. Mélanges offerts à Michel Woronoff, 1, Collection «ISTA», 1079: 303–22 (www.persee.fr/doc/ista_0000-0000_2007_ant_1079_1_2673). Jouanna, J. (2008), ‘La postérité de l’embryologie d’Hippocrate dans deux traités pseudo-hippocratiques de la médecine tardive: Sur la formation de l’homme et Sur la génération de l’homme et de la semence’, in Brisson, L., Congourdeau, M.-H. and Solère, J.-L. (eds.), L’embryon: formation et animation. Antiquité grecque et latine, traditions hébraïque, chrétienne et islamique, Paris, Vrin, 15–41. Keil, B. (1889), ‘Die Monatscyclen der byzantinischen Kunst in spätgriechischer Literatur’, Wiener Studien. Zeitschrift für classische Philologie 11/1: 94–142. Kuzakov, V. K. (1976), Ocherki razvitiia estestvennonauchnykh i tekhnicheskikh predstavlenii na Rusi v X-XVII vekakh, Moscow, Nauka. Larrain, C. (1988), ‘Miszellen zur Scor. Graec. 230 (Φ–III–11)’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 81/2: 265–7 Larrain, C. (1995), ‘Miszellen zur Scor. Graec. 230 (Φ–III–11). 2. Teil’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 106: 131–61 Mil’kov, V. V. (1999), Drevenrusskie apokrify, St Petersburg, RXGI. Mil’kov, V. V. (2004), ‘Kosmologicheskie kontseptsii i svedeniia v knizhnosti Drevnei Rusi’, in Barankova, G. S. (ed.), Drevnerusskaia kosmologiia, St Petersburg, Aletiia, 25–151. Mil’kov, V. V. (2008), Kosmologicheskie proizvedeniia v knizhnosti Drevnej Rusi, vol. 1, St Petersburg, Mir. Mondrain, B. (2004), ‘Les manuscrits grecs de médecine’, in La médecine grecque antique. Actes du 14ème colloque de la Villa Kérylos, Cahiers de La Villa Kérylos 15. Paris, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 267–85. Ostrowski, D. (2018), Europe, Byzantium and the “Intellectual Silence” of Rus’ Culture, Leeds, ARC Humanities Press. Polesso-Schiavon, P. (1965–1966), ‘Un trattato inedito di meteorologia di Eustrazio di Nicea’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici 2–3: 285–304.

48  Anne-Laurence Caudano Prokhorov, G. M. (1982), ‘O zemnom ustroenii’, in Likhachev, D. S. and Dmitriev, L. A. (eds.), Pamiatniki literatury Drevnei Rusi, 5.1: Vtoraia polovina XV v., Moscow, Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 192–215. Rhoby, A. (2009), ‘Verschiedene Bemerkungen zur Sebastokratorissa Eirene und zu Autorem in ihrem Umfeld’, Nea Rhome 6: 305–36. Romanchuk, R. (2007), Byzantine Hermeneutics and Pedagogy in the Russian North. Monks and Masters at the Kirillo-Belozerskii Monastery, 1397-1501, Toronto, University of Toronto Press. Ryan, W. F. (1999), The Bathhouse at Midnight. An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia. University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press. Simonov, R. A. (2007), Matematicheskaia i kalendarno-astronomicheskaia mysl’ v Drevnei Rusi, Moscow, Nauka. Sreznevskii, I. I. (1893), Materialy dlia drevnerusskago iazyka po pismmennym “amiatnikam”, vol. 1, St Petersburg, Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk. Tikhonravov, N. S. (1863), Pamiatniki otrechennoi russkoi literatury, vol. 2, Мoscow, v Universiteskoi tipografii. Touwaide, A. (2007), ‘Byzantine Hospital Manuals (Iatrosophia) as a Source for the Study of Therapeutics’, in Bowers, B. S. (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice, Aldershot, Ashgate: 147–73. Trendafilov, Kh. (1997), ‘Perevody ‘Bogosloviia’ Ioanna Damaskina v russkoi i slavianskoi filologii’, TODL 50: 658–67. Westerink, L. G. (1948), Michael Psellus. De omnifaria doctrina. Critical text and introduction, Nijmegen, Centrale Drukkerij N.V. Zipser, B. (2009), John the Physician’s Therapeutics. A Medical Handbook in Vernacular Greek, Leiden, Brill. Zipser, B. (2020), ‘Wellcomensis MS.MSL.14 as a Therapeutic Handbook’, in BourasVallianatos, P. (ed.), Exploring Greek Manuscripts in the Library at Wellcome Collection in London. Abingdon: Routledge, 54–65, online at https://library.oapen. org/handle/20.500.12657/39409.

4 Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography from the Middle Ages to Modernity1 Nick Mayhew

Introduction Hagiographies tell stories about the lives of holy and therefore extraordinary individuals. A saint’s extraordinariness is typically shown by their rejection or even subversion of something that their hagiography presents as normative within the saint’s society, differentiating them from a spiritless mass of ordinary and often sinful people. Already as children, frequently saints are described as uniquely studious or spiritual in some way, distancing them from the children around them. In one of Russia’s most renowned monastic hagiographies, for example, already as a child Sergii of Radonezh is described as “wonderful and remarkable, fortifying himself through his fear of God, not approaching or joining in with the games of the other playing children” (“предобрый и вседоблий отрок, преуспеваа въ страхъ Божий: къ детемь играющим не исхожаше и к ним не приставаше”).2 Sometimes, a saint’s differentiation is expressed by their refusal to conform to gender norms in particular. Feminist and queer scholars of medieval European hagiography have long since highlighted the ways in which the generic conventions of hagiography serve to confound essentialist notions of gender.3 More recently, scholars of both Byzantine and European hagiography have illustrated that transgender in particular is not only compatible with holiness, but that hagiographies present transgender itself as holy; as one means by which saints transcend normative bounds of gender.4 Such studies have provided a historical means of refuting the theological transphobia of the contemporary Catholic Church. As far as I am aware, there have not been any sustained thematic studies of gender transgression in Russian hagiography. Inspired by scholarship on European religious literature, this chapter considers moments when gender transgression and holy foolishness coalesce in Russian hagiography; when holy foolishness is expressed through gender transgressions and when gender transgressions are expressed through holy foolishness. So-called “holy fools” (iurodivye) are a type of holy figure who behave in a subversive way to impart a moral lesson of some sort, often critiquing ordinary people’s tendency to condemn others according to superficial criteria. It is not uncommon for the protagonist of a holy fool hagiography to subvert gendered expectations in particular. For example, one characteristic trait of DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-5

50  Nick Mayhew early modern Russian holy fool hagiographies was the saint’s public display of nudity. According to the hagiography of the holy fool Isidor Tverdislov, he is subject to abuse for what others in the narrative perceive as madness, including Isidor denuding himself in public.5 Even iconographies of holy fools sometimes show their nudity. For instance, in one early modern icon of the Virgin’s Protecting Veil (Pokrov) from Pskov, the Byzantine holy fool Andrew (in Russian, Andrei) points to the Virgin with little or even no clothes covering him.6 Like the reader or listener of Isidor’s hagiography, the worshipper of this icon is aligned not with those who condemn the saint’s nudity, but those who recognise it as a marker of his holiness. This chapter mainly explores gender transgression in the Russian hagiographies of three holy fools: Andrei of Constantinople, along with Feodor/a of Alexandria and Andrei/Kseniia of St. Petersburg, both of whom go by masculine as well as feminine names in their hagiographies. The texts are from different historical periods, spanning the medieval period to the 21st century, which allows me to consider how changing contexts inform the dual textual construction of holy foolishness and gender transgression in Russian hagiography broadly conceived.

Andrei of Constantinople The concept of holy foolishness (iurodstvo) first appeared in East Slavonic literature in a translation, likely dating to the 11th or 12th century, of the Byzantine Greek hagiography of Andrei of Constantinople.7 I begin this chapter with Andrei as a means of reflecting in broad terms on holy foolishness, gender transgression and the relationship between the two in the East Slavonic hagiographical tradition. Andrei’s hagiography can be seen as a kind of archetype for later East Slavonic holy fool hagiographies. As such, I also consider two of these in this section alongside Andrei. Looking at Andrei’s hagiography together with holy fool hagiographies written in its wake reveals certain conventions of the holy fool genre which, as I consider in the subsequent two sections, end up being altered in the hagiographies of gender non-conforming saints. The original Greek account of Andrei’s life tells the story of a protagonist who, typically for a Middle Byzantine holy fool hagiography, engages in socially disruptive behaviour, including behaviour that is sexually explicit or otherwise subversive.8 One day, for example, Andrei “was relieving himself behind a tavern in front of the passers-by”. The text reports that a young man who caught sight of Andrei went and told the tavern keeper, who in turn “took a rod and beat him with all his might”. The passage ends with the reflection that “God knows the reasons for his [Andrei’s] actions”.9 This account of Andrei’s public act of “relieving himself ” is conventional in three regards: first, the holy fool engages in socially controversial behaviour; second, he is subjected to physical persecution as a result; and third, the narrator draws a contrast between what appears to be improper (hence the tavern keeper beats the saint) but actually is holy (hence it receives God’s approval).

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  51 The passage describing Andrei publicly “relieving himself ” is not included in the first East Slavonic version of his hagiography. It is by far not the only omission. Several other unsanitary episodes are absent as well, such as Andrei’s meeting with a “sodomite eunuch”, which concludes with the saint launching into an explicit verbal attack on the eunuch that even Andrei’s closest disciples see as an act of madness. In fact, almost no passages from the Byzantine text dealing with gender or sexual impropriety are preserved in the East Slavonic tradition. The only subversive passage that remains is an episode where Andrei gets up at midnight to pray, and after finishing his prayers, he picked up a knife and went to the well, which was by the landlord’s bedroom. He took off all his clothes and started cutting them into pieces. Pretending to be possessed, he started speaking incoherently and mumbling senselessly like a madman (вземъ ножь, иде къ кладязю, иже беаше близъ ложница господина своего. И съвлекъ со себе ризу, в неиже самъ хожаше, нача ю дробити на платы. И якоже бешенъ ся дея, словеса некая мутна нача молвити съ гласомъ беставномъ, якоже неистовеи деють).10 The narrator accounts for Andrei’s naked knife-wielding midnight wandering in detail. Namely, the episode is preceded by an angel visiting Andrei and summoning him to perform his subversive act, instructing him to “prepare for a good deed by getting naked and being a holy fool” (“теци уже добрыи подвигъ, нагъ буди и похабъ”).11 One of the conventional features of holy fool hagiography is the depiction of the saint’s holy foolishness as strictly performative. As one critic puts it, “holy fools are actors, because when they are alone they do not behave like holy fools”.12 This convention is common to both the Greek and Slavonic versions of Andrei’s hagiography. In both versions, the text emphasises that the saint is sound of mind and shows an aptitude for learning. In the case of Andrei’s midnight wandering, the juxtaposition between the sound-minded saint and his seemingly mad actions is mitigated by a divine intervention that unambiguously calls on the saint to behave indecorously. This creates a dramatic irony whereby the reader or listener of the hagiography is prompted to see subversiveness as sacred, differentiating him or her from the characters in the narrative who respond to Andrei with judgment and persecution. In sum, Andrei’s hagiography established a convention of presenting subversion, including gender and sexual transgression, as strictly performative. Scholars have long since identified this as an integral feature of holy foolishness at large.13 However, in East Slavonic hagiography, specifically gender or sexual subversion seems to have been sanitised in comparison to its Byzantine precedent. This can be gleaned in the East Slavonic version of Andrei’s hagiography, but it can also be felt in local (Kyivan and Muscovite) holy fool hagiographies that were written in its wake. For instance, in the case of the monk Isakii the Cave Dweller, who is the protagonist of the thirty-sixth Discourse in the Patericon of the Kyivan Caves

52  Nick Mayhew Monastery, the narrator describes holy foolishness as little more than a mildly stylised, typical ascetic life of a holy monk. The first indicator of Isakii’s holy foolishness is that he “put on a shirt made of hair and on top of that he put on another rough shirt” (“и паки облечеся въ власяницу и на власяницю свиту тесну”). His holy foolishness is then described as follows: He helped the cooks and worked for the brethren, arrived at matins before everyone else and stood unwaveringly. When winter came and the frost started, he stood in worn-out shoes and his feet would freeze to the stone floor but he didn’t move them until the matins ended (и нача помогати поваромъ и работати на братию, и на заутренюю преже всехъ входя и стоаше крепко и непоколебимо. И егда же приспеваше зима и мрази лютии, стоаше же въ плесницах раздраных, яко многажды примерзаху нозе его к камени, и не подвизася ногама, дондеже отпояху утренюю).14 In this passage, the feats associated with Isakii’s holy foolishness are no more than the typical deeds of any monastic saint, the only discernible difference being that Isakii performs them in a shirt made of hair, the characteristic garment of the holy fool. This description of holy foolishness is a far cry from the public urination and explicit, sexually oriented tirades of Byzantine holy fools. In fact, Isakii’s holy foolishness arguably bears resemblance to Western holy fool narratives. For example, a typical structure of early medieval Irish sagas of gelta (madmen) includes an “occasion of madness” (which usually includes a visitation of some kind), followed by a “state of madness” (which may involve the saint being in a numb or comatose state), finally concluded by an “occasion of restoration to sanity”.15 In Isakii’s hagiography, the saint is visited by demons, after which he mysteriously falls unconscious for two years. It is when he regains consciousness that Isakii becomes a holy fool. “And from then on, he suffered no longer from demonic tricks, about which he spoke himself, saying that ‘I fought with them for three years’. And from then on, he lived by abstinence, fast and vigils” (“и оттоле не бысть пакости ему никоеаже от бесовъ, якоже и самь поведаше, яко: ‘Се бысть ми, — рече, — за 3 лета брань’. И потом нача крепчае жити и въздержание имети, пощение и бдение”).16 In a sense, Isakii is restored to “sanity” through holy foolishness. Although much less explicit when compared with Andrei’s Byzantine hagiography, Isakii’s holy foolishness is not without transgression. On one occasion, for example, Isakii began to bring children into the monastery and dressed them in monastic attire. For this he was beaten, both by the hegumen Nikon and by the parents of those children. The holy fool endured all this, the beatings, naked in the cold day and night

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  53 (нача събирати к собе юных от мирьскиа чади, въскладываше на них порты чернеческиа. Да ово от игумена Никона раны приимаше, иногда же и от родитель детей тех. Блаженный же то все тръпяше и подъимаше раны, и наготу, и студень день и нощь).17 In the context of monastic regulations in Rus’, Isakii’s act of holy foolishness transgresses sexual regulations. For example, one monastic charter stipulated that “beardless youths” should not be allowed into monasteries because “by doing so one accepts the seed of lust from the devil. […] Youths are not to stay in the monastery, for their effect on monks is worse than that of women” (“семя похотением от врага приимем […] отрочатом не пребывати, злейши бо суть жен отрочата на иноки”).18 The transgression appears particularly sexualised through the detail that Isakii himself is naked. Although there is no explicit reference to wrongdoing, Nikon and the children’s parents presumably suspected the saint of untoward sexual behaviour. In East Slavonic holy fool hagiographies more broadly, nudity becomes the main – and in many cases, the only – gender transgression associated with holy fool saints, so much so that it becomes little more than a generic, often unembellished visual cue of holy foolishness, much like how it functions in the iconographic depiction of Andrei above. Especially in the 16th century, Muscovite hagiographies were standardised when large hagiographical tomes (Minei) were drawn up, arranged calendrically to be read on saints’ feast days. The most famous of these is the Great Menaion Reader (Velikie Minei Chetii) that was compiled by the Moscow Metropolitan Makarii. Within this collection, holy foolishness tends to be described in generic terms. One example of this is the hagiography in the Great Menaion Reader dedicated to Isidor Tverdislov, a 15th-century holy fool who lived in Rostov but hailed from Brandenburg (it was a commonplace of holy fool hagiographies for their protagonist to hail from foreign lands). Isidor’s holy foolishness is described without embellishment, as little more than a series of topoi. First, his holy foolishness is introduced by reference to Corinthians 1:27 and 28 (“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong”; “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are”).19 Generically for a holy fool hagiography, the narrative then recounts that the saint strips naked (“мало пришед и ризе совлачит ся”) and moves from town to town appearing to be mad, for which he suffers numerous beatings (“и много досаду блаженый смиренье приемаетъ, и бьение от безумных человекъ приемлеть, яко уродъ вменяем ими и безуменъ”). Isidor’s perceived or performed madness is contrasted against his piety when he is alone, when he prays and cries endlessly to God (“в нощи же молитву непрестанно къ Богу възсылаше и плачася”).20 While Isidor’s holy foolishness comprises little more than unembellished topoi, his hagiography appears generic in other ways, too. Like with many of the narratives in

54  Nick Mayhew Makarii’s collection, Isidor’s hagiography is dominated by a focus on the burden of evidence for canonisation, through which holy foolishness ends up being overshadowed by miraculous occurrences, in particular posthumous miracles. Aside from certain visual cues of holy foolishness like nudity, Isidor’s hagiography becomes nearly indistinguishable from those of any other ascetic. When Andrei’s hagiography was re-worked into Slavonic, it lost most of its sexually explicit and transgressive passages. This laid the foundations for a narrative tradition in which nudity often became little more than a symbolic aid to help distinguish or categorise the saint as a “holy fool” (blazhennyi), with few or none of the gender-transgressive episodes once associated with nudity in Byzantine holy fool hagiographies. However, as the next two sections consider, when East Slavonic hagiographies dealt specifically with narratives of gender transformation, holy foolishness could be evoked in new and even transformative ways.

Feodor/a of Alexandria The Byzantine and later the Russian hagiographical canon include stories about saints who are initially gendered feminine by their narrators but who during their lives go on to present in masculine ways. Often, such saints are identified female at birth but go on to live a large part of their lives as monks, presenting and passing as either eunuchs or men in male monastic communities. Thirteen accounts of this kind form the basis of the Byzantine tradition.21 Several of them were translated into Slavonic in the medieval period and they were later included in major early modern Russian hagiographical collections as well. Although, to the best of my knowledge, nothing has been written about gender in the Russian versions of these hagiographies, work has been published on the original Byzantine texts, as well as on the cult of such saints in Europe. Historically, scholars have described these saints as “female cross-dressers”, perhaps betraying a scholarly reluctance to believe that transgender people could be represented in the premodern world.22 However, especially since 2019 a new generation of scholars have used trans perspectives to shine a light not only on the existence of transgender subjects in premodern hagiography, but also on their sanctity.23 Inspired by such work, the following two sections look at the depiction of masculinity in the hagiographies of two transmasculine saints whose non-normative gender seems to be interpreted though the lens of holy foolishness in their hagiographies. The first is a 16th-century Russian translation of the Byzantine hagiography of Feodor/a of Alexandria, and the second is a 19th-century account of a local Russian saint referred to by two names, Andrei and Kseniia. When I refer to the saints, I use gender-neutral pronouns to reflect, on the one hand, their canonisation as women (Feodora and Kseniia respectively) and on the other hand, the transmasculinity they exhibit in their hagiographies. In the 16th-century hagiography of Feodor/a of Alexandria that is preserved in Makarii’s Great Menaion Reader, the narrator describes the saint using

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  55 feminine personal pronouns and adjectival endings, as the beautiful daughter of rich parents and the wife of a God-fearing husband.24 A rich man sends women to the saint, hoping to convince the saint to have sex with him, which they eventually do, although they did not want to (“не хотяше”).25 After the saint is coerced into committing adultery, they are unable to bear the shame, and so shave their head, put on their husband’s clothes and enter a male monastery, adopting the masculine name Feodor (“не терпящи поношения, облечеся в ризы мужески нища и иде в мужеский манастырь, претворивши себе имя Феодоръ”).26 While Feodor/a is at the monastery, everybody recognises them as a man. According to the narrator, even the saint’s husband “saw the blessed Feodora dressed in male monastic clothes but did not recognise her” (“и виде блаженную Феодору, мужеско и мнишеско одение носящи, и не позна ея”).27 Later in the hagiography, Feodor/a is wrongly accused of committing fornication and impregnating a girl who had been visiting the monastery. The saint does not deny the false accusation and is thus condemned to live outside of the monastery for years, impoverished, while parenting the illegitimate child. Eventually, after the monastery’s hegumen is satisfied that Feodor/a has undergone sufficient penances, both they and their adopted son are welcomed back into the monastery. The narrator’s suggestion that the saint’s husband “saw the blessed Feodora dressed in male monastic clothes but did not recognise her” illustrates the dual gendering process of the hagiography more broadly, whereby characters in the text like Feodor/a’s husband and fellow monks identify the saint as a man, while the narrator identifies them as a woman. Central to this hagiography is a dramatic irony whereby all the text’s characters identify the saint as a man, while the reader or listener learns from the narrator that Feodor/a is “really” a woman. The reader or listener is privy to information that is not known to the characters who encounter the saint in the narrative. This dramatic irony takes shape like that of holy fool hagiographies, in which the holy fool engages in subversive acts that characters in their hagiographies understand to be vulgar and sinful. The reader or listener, on the other hand, appreciates that these are acts of holy foolishness and thus actually indicative of the protagonist’s sanctity. There are other, more direct allusions to holy foolishness in Feodor/a’s hagiography, too. For example, the saint is described using the epithet blazhennaia. This word can be translated generically as “blessed”; however, in Russian hagiography it is typically reserved for holy fools. Moreover, some of Feodor/a’s actions are depicted in a fashion typical for feats of holy foolishness. On one occasion, for instance, the saint refuses to bow before a prince, for which they are severely beaten.28 It seems that the hagiographer tries to make sense specifically of the saint’s transmasculinity through the prism of holy foolishness. As discussed above, one of the typical features of a holy fool hagiography is the contrast between the saint’s controversial public presentation and their piety in private. In Feodor/a’s hagiography, the narrator draws a distinction of sorts between how the saint self-identifies in public and in private. In front of other

56  Nick Mayhew characters in the narrative, the saint self-identifies by saying “my name is Feodor” and always using masculine adjectival endings (“имя мое Феодоръ есть”; “оставите мене, яко живъ есть”).29 However, on one single occasion when Feodor/a is alone, they criticise themselves by referring to themselves as a “sinner” using a feminine adjectival ending (greshnitsa). One could, therefore, suggest that the saint’s transmasculinity is a performative act of holy foolishness. However, the text demonstrates beyond any doubt that Feodor/a is not a greshnitsa. Rather, there is a chasm between Feodor/a’s self-perception as being at once feminine and sinful, and the piety and chastity that they embody as a male-presenting monk. For example, when a girl visiting the monastery propositions Feodor/a to have sex with her, the saint responds by saying: “truly, my sister, I cannot have sex with a woman, because I have a spirit of ashes” (“въ истину, сестро моа, не могу лещи со женою, яко духъ золъ имамъ”).30 Although the saint does not sleep with the girl, when they are accused of impregnating her, they do not deny the accusation but rather accept the penances for it, leaving the monastery and parenting the girl’s son. The saint willingly takes on the penances for an act of fornication that they did not commit, implicitly to repent for their previous act of infidelity. Eventually, some seven years after they are expelled from the monastery, Feodor/a is cleansed of their original sin, and they are allowed re-join the monastic brethren. Effectively, this episode casts transgender as both an antipode and antidote to sexual sin: Feodor/a makes up for their act of fornication through a transmasculine embodiment of monastic piety. In this sense, the hagiography can be contrasted to other, non-hagiographic texts of roughly the same period, in which male cross-dressing and sexual indecency are connected. For example, in the 17th-century Tale of Frol Skobeev, the main male character dresses up as a girl in order to gain access to a female-only party, where he goes on to rape one of the girls present.31 In a similarly transmisogynistic linkage of male cross-dressing and sexual impropriety, in the 17th-century Tale of Karp Sutulov, an archbishop delights in dressing up in the clothes of a woman whom he attempts to seduce.32 In both tales, nonconformity to assigned gender roles, here in the form of male feminine presentation, is envisaged as something morally degenerate. By contrast, Feodor/a’s hagiography depicts transmasculinity as something morally formative.33 If Feodor/a’s transmasculinity is depicted partly through the prism of holy foolishness, this does not necessarily imply that the saint’s gender is performative, at least not in any straightforward sense. The saint’s transmasculinity is an integral part of the text, which ultimately tells the story of a person who, in spite of the gender ascribed to them at birth, presents themselves continually as a man. Their transmasculinity transforms holy foolishness into something different to “performance” as scholars have tended to understand it. The juxtaposition between Feodor/a’s presentation to others in the narrative and their one-off reference to themselves as a greshnitsa does not suggest a clear or sustained contrast between the saint’s public and private gender identification. More than this, though, the juxtaposition

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  57 itself contradicts outright how “performance” is constructed in holy fool hagiographies more broadly. Usually, the performativity of a holy fool’s persona is shown through the contrast between their subversive public persona and their “real” holy identity in private, as demonstrated by the Slavonic version of Andrei’s hagiography. In stark contrast, Feodor/a’s hagiography suggests that it is actually the saint’s private criticism of themselves as a greshnitsa that is false, since through their “public” transmasculinity they are able to repent for the adultery they committed during their marriage and become a saint. In spite of the narrator’s insistence on gendering the saint feminine and their conviction that the saint “pretended to be a man” (“в мужа претворившейся”),34 sometimes narratorial gendering is blurred anyway. For instance, the commemoration of the saint that follows on from the hagiography proper, in which the narrator calls the saint by his masculine name, suggesting that, in becoming a monk “Feodor put on angelic clothes” (“Феодоръ ангельскую одежю приимши”).35 Moreover, the narrator conceptualises Feodor/a’s gender identity in the following way: “Although a woman in conception, she masculinised her body through constant prayer and labour (“се яко жена въображениемъ, но пакы мужескымъ абие сама частыми молитвами и труды истаявши тело”).36 Despite feminine gendering here, the narrator in effect describes the saint’s bodily process of gender transition – the masculinisation of their physical body. These are not the only examples of gender slippage in the text. On another occasion, the narrator comments that “whichever brothers imitate her will be saved” (“и етери бо отъ братиа подобящися ей, спасахуся”).37 Again, despite feminine gendering, the narrator describes Feodor/a as an example for male monastics to follow, depicting the saint as an exemplary embodiment of monastic values. Elsewhere, just before the saint is about to pass away, they speak to their adopted son, whose name is also Feodor, and instruct him about how to live piously as a monk in the monastery. After the very saint dies, their adopted son Feodor goes on to become the monastery’s hegumen, further masculinising the saint through what is effectively an account of patrilineality. Why, if the text in many ways underlines Feodor/a’s transmasculinity, does the narrator insist on gendering the saint feminine anyway? Ultimately, the narrator bases their gendering of the saint on their body – on their presumed primary and/or secondary sex characteristics. The narrator remarks that “the monks believed [the saint] to be a man, but when washing her after death, they identified [the saint] to be a woman and praised God” (“мняще же мниси, яко мужь есть; по умертвии же измывше ю, познавше жену суще, и прославиша Бога”.38 This revelation functions as a posthumous miracle of sorts, a commonplace at the close of hagiographies. What is miraculous here is the contrast between the gender of the saint’s body discovered upon their death in contrast to the gender they embodied during their monastic life – between how their body is ultimately and essentially sexed after death and how it had been gendered during their life. It is thus the transgender nature of the saint’s

58  Nick Mayhew monastic life that renders them so venerable. This is emphasised elsewhere in the text as well, for example when an angel appears to the archimandrite of the monastery and shows him “a woman decorated with much honour” (“жена, украшена многою славою”). The angel tells the archimandrite: “Do you see, this is Father Feodor […] who didn’t say that [they were] a woman. […] And for this [they have] inherited eternal life” (“виде ли, с есть авва Феодоръ. […] Не рече, яко жена есмь […] и сего ради жизнь вечную наследова).39

Andrei/Kseniia of St. Petersburg Given that Feodor/a’s hagiography was based on a Byzantine prototype, the question arises as to what exactly it can tell us about early modern Russia. Arguably it can be read as an important part of Russian Orthodox culture for at least three reasons. First, from an ecclesiastical perspective, translated or not, Feodor/a’s hagiography is a significant part of the Russian hagiographical canon. Theologically speaking, a locally composed hagiography need not take precedence over one that is translated, even if the cult of local saints often seems to have superseded that of Byzantine saints. Second, Feodor/a’s hagiography is a coherent thread in the tapestry of gender in Russian hagiography more broadly. Namely, native compositions of female saints often disentangle masculinity from biologically defined manhood by showcasing female masculinity. This is arguably the case in the early modern Russian hagiographical accounts of Fevroniia of Murom and Iulianiia Lazarevskaia, both of whom embody masculinity: in the case of Fevroniia, by possessing “the wisdom of holy men in a female head” (“в женстей главе святых муж мудрость имела еси”)40 and in the case of Iulianiia, by “ruining [her] virginal beauty” (“красоту девьственую погубиши”) in the pursuit of asceticism.41 The Russian translation of Feodor/ a’s hagiography further disentangles masculinity from biologically defined manhood through the account of the life of a transmasculine monk. Finally, the dissemination of the Byzantine hagiography of Feodor/a, alongside several other transmasculine monks, through landmark compilations like the Great Menaion Reader, set into motion a distinctly local transgender hagiographical tradition that extends beyond the chronological confines of the early modern period. The final section of this chapter turns to a native, late-19th-century composition that reiterates some of the transgender components of Feodor/a’s hagiography, including the interconnection of transgender and holy foolishness. On the one hand, the sociocultural conditions of late-19th-century Russia are clearly different to those of 16th-century Muscovy, not least if one thinks about either narrative conventions or gender norms. On the other hand, despite the rigid cisnormative view of gender and sexuality that was arguably part and parcel of modernity, hagiography, one of Russia’s oldest genres of Orthodox literature, continued to express transgender identities, showing that the hagiographical phenomenon, like this chapter, lacks neat chronological bounds. In 1890, the theologian Dmitrii Bulgakovskii published a hagiography that was devoted to a saint who was called by two names: one feminine and the

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  59 other masculine. The text was entitled Kseniia the Servant of God, or Andrei Feodorovich the Holy Fool (Raba bozhiia Kseniia ili iurodivyi Andrei Fedorovich).42 Just like Feodor/a, the saint was eventually canonised according to the gender assigned to them at birth, as St. Kseniia. According to the first version of the saint’s hagiography, they were born in St. Petersburg in the year 1720 or thereabouts. At the age of sixteen, the saint, then known as Kseniia, marries a chorister named Andrei Feodorovich. When the saint is only twenty-six, their husband dies unexpectedly. At this point in the narrative, the saint adopts the name of their former husband, puts on his clothes, and presents themselves as Andrei. This is how the hagiography describes this episode in the saint’s life: Andrei Feodorovich died and left Kseniia Grigor’evna a widow at the age of just twenty-six. This hit the young widow so hard that she almost lost her mind. But confiding her grief in God, Kseniia Grigor’evna devoted herself to prayer. She sought consolation and comfort in prayer. She gave away all of her belongings and became a holy fool. She assured everyone that she was not Kseniia Grigor’evna but Andrei Feodorovich and that Andrei Feodorovich had not died at all, but that he had just transformed into her, Kseniia; that Andrei Feodorovich was still alive physically and that it was Kseniia Feodorovna who had ceased to exist – that she had died. And so, she stopped responding to her previous name and would even get very angry when called Kseniia. She would say “Leave the deceased in peace! What did she ever do to you? God forgive you”. But whenever addressed as Andrei Feodorovich, she would always reply “that’s me”.43 (Андрей Феодоровичъ умеръ, оставивъ Ксению Григорьевну вдовою, когда ей было всего лишь 26 летъ от роду. Ударъ был так силенъ, что молодая вдова едва не лишилась разсудка. Но возложивъ на Господа печаль свою, Ксению Григорьевна вся отдалась молитве. Въ молитве искала отрады и утешения. Раздавъ все свое имущество беднымъ, она стала юродствовать. При этом уверяла всехъ, что она не Аксинья Григорьевна, а Андрей Феодоровичъ и что Андрей Феодоровичъ не умеръ, а только обратился въ нее, Аксинью, но въ существе остался Андрей Феодоровичъ, а Аксиньи Феодоровны нетъ на свете—она умерла. Поэтому на свою прежнюю кличку она уже не откликалась и даже очень сердилась, когда называли ее Аксиньею, говоря: “да не троньте покойницу, что она вамъ сделала, прости Господи!..” А когда ей говорили: “Андрей Федоровичъ!” она всегда отвечала: “Ась!”)44 Andrei/Kseniia’s hagiography shares (at least) two transgender framing devices with Feodor/a’s hagiography (along with at least one other Russian translation of a Byzantine transmasculine saint, Pelagii/a of Antioch, included in Makarii’s Great Menaion Reader on 8 October). The first of these framing devices is the dual gendering of the saint. The omniscient narrator essentialises the saint’s gender based on assumed knowledge about their “biological sex”, while the saint themselves and other characters in the

60  Nick Mayhew narrative gender them according to their self-identification as a man named Andrei. The people of St. Petersburg revere the saint and call them Andrei Feodorovich. In one passage, the townspeople punish a group of children for “persecuting Andrei Feodorovich with words and dirt” (“въ преследовании Андрея Феодоровича словами и грязью).45 The text further cites an additional outside source that contains information about the saint’s life, the Journal of the St. Petersburg City Police (Vedomosti S.-Peterburgskoi Gorodskoi Politsii) from 1847. The citation mirrors the dual gendering strategy of the hagiographer’s narrator, describing how “here in St. Petersburg widow of the court chorister Andrei Feodorovich passed away, Kseniia Grigor’evna, known at the time by the name Andrei Feodorovich” (“скончалась здесь в Петербурге вдова придворнаго певчаго Андрея Феодоровича, Ксения Григорьевна, известная въ свое время подъ именемъ Андрей Феодоровичъ).46 This passage shares a temporal conflict with the hagiography at large, as well as with Feodor/a’s hagiography, whereby the saints are gendered masculine during their lives, only to be re-gendered feminine by the narrators of their lives after their deaths. Like the narrator of Feodor/a’s hagiography, Andrei/Kseniia’s narrator also fails to uphold a binaristic view of gender rooted in assumed “biological sex”. For example, there are moments of queer grammatical gendering in the narrative. On the one hand, the saint is described using masculine adjectival endings, like in the following extract: “They would feed and clothe their poor [svoego bednago, masculine] Andrei Feodorovich” (“кормили и одевали своего беднаго Андрея Феодоровича”).47 Elsewhere, this masculine subject performs actions with feminine verbal endings, like in the following extract: “Andrei Feodorovich appeared [iavlialas’, feminine] on the market square” (“Андрей Феодоровичъ являлась на площади Сытнаго рынка”).48 Grammatically, then, the narrator genders the saint both masculine and feminine. Ambiguity in terms of grammatical gendering is particularly apparent in a subsequent version of Andrei/Kseniia’s hagiography that was published sixteen years later, in 1906, as shown in the following extract: “Everybody loved God’s servant [rabu bozhiiu, feminine] Kseniia […] and they would feed and clothe their poor [svoego bednogo, masculine] Andrei Feodorovich. But she didn’t accept [ne brala, feminine] warm clothes” (“все рабу Божию Ксению любили […] и кормили, и одевали своего бедного Андрея Федоровича. Но она не брала теплой одежды”).49 What this extract demonstrates, like Feodor/a’s hagiography, is that despite the attempt of hagiographers to reinscribe transgender narratives as cisnormative, there remains a conflict that cannot be fully overcome between the saint’s self-identification in the narrative, which is respected by those who encounter them, and the narrator’s insistence on an essentialist view of gender defined by “biological sex”. The second transgender framing device this hagiography shares with that of Feodor/a is the connection of transgender and holy foolishness. In fact, this text quite unambiguously presents the saint’s gender transition as an act of holy foolishness: “She gave away all of her belongings and became a

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  61 holy fool. She assured everyone that she was not Kseniia Grigor’evna but Andrei Feodorovich” (“раздавъ все свое имущество беднымъ, она стала юродствовать. При этом уверяла всехъ, что она не Аксинья Григорьевна, а Андрей Феодоровичъ”).50 The narrative does not refer to holy foolishness by name anywhere else, although it is evoked in other ways, for example by behaving in ways that other characters find strange, and for the persecution the saint suffers as a result of their perceived strangeness. Similar to Feodor/a’s hagiography, holy foolishness does not take shape as something straightforwardly “performative” in the way scholars have tended to understand holy foolishness. For example, there is no discernible contrast between Andrei/Kseniia’s behaviour or identity in public and in private. In a much later re-writing of the hagiography dating to 1995, the authenticity of the saint’s holy foolishness (and thus also of their gender) is discussed directly. That text suggests the following: People did not always choose to become holy fools or devote themselves to this way of life consciously. Sometimes it happened that an unfortunate circumstance would befall a person, that they would experience a terrible upheaval of some kind in which their life would be ruptured and their fate would change. This is exactly how it happened with Kseniia of St. Petersburg.51 The scholar Sergei Shtrykov has already pointed out that the saint’s gender transition has been largely re-conceived in the post-Soviet period from being an act of holy foolishness to being “an unusual feat of ultimate love”.52 According to this logic, the widow Kseniia transforms herself into her deceased husband in order to save his soul. Shtrykov argues that this interpretation of Andrei/Kseniia’s gender transition is likely connected with the belief, apparently common in post-Soviet Russia, that a widow’s faith is sufficient not only for their own salvation, but for the salvation of their relatives as well. This interpretation of Andrei/Kseniia’s hagiography dominates 21st-century versions of the text, in which the saint’s femininity is embellished at length and their gender transformation is presented as an act of undying love for and loyalty to their husband. In the post-Soviet period, the saint’s gender transformation, once presented as a form of holy foolishness, has been filtered through a new prism, namely patriarchal family values. Andrei/Kseniia’s hagiography is an example of how gender, including transgender, is constantly reimagined through the rewriting of religious texts. The first 19th-century version of Andrei/Kseniia’s hagiography seems to have constructed its transgender narrative in similar ways to Feodor/a’s early modern Russian hagiography. By contrast, in the 21st century, Andrei/Kseniia’s gender has been reinterpreted in conversation with different, extra-hagiographical cultural models, namely the patriarchal family, to which the hagiography has now become subordinate. In contrast to its first version, today Andrei/Kseniia’s hagiography is not “unusual” in its transgression of cisnorms, but rather in how strongly it defends them.

62  Nick Mayhew Another critic, Svitlana Kobets has suggested that Andrei/Kseniia’s holy foolishness was always depicted as more sanitary than the traditional model of holy foolishness, for example because it lacks any display of public nudity. Kobets has thus argued that the hagiography is actually “subversion-free”.53 The extent to which the original hagiography from 1890 might have subverted broader cultural ideas about gender from the time of its publication is hard to establish. Scholars are in broad agreement that the hagiography was not transgressive, reading it as the account of a cisgender woman. Much like, until recently, scholars tended to refer to saints like Feodor/a as “transvestite nuns”, Kobets has described Andrei/Kseniia as a “cross-dresser” who fundamentally “reiterates the Byzantine models of transvestism”.54 According to Kobets, since the saint spends most of their time with women, they are clearly ascribed a “feminine character”. This is one way of interpreting the text, and it is certainly the interpretation that enjoys hegemony in Russia today. There are, however, other ways of interpreting the hagiography, as I have explored briefly in this chapter. One of them is tracing the text’s transgender intertextuality back to the early modern period, in part through the depiction of transgender as a facet of holy foolishness (or vice-versa). It is also possible to read the original text in the context of Russian Orthodox views on (trans)gender from around the time it was published, for which there is some documentary evidence. For example, in 1910 a public scandal erupted in Russia after newspapers in Archangel, Moscow, and St. Petersburg reported that a person named Mariia Zakharova, who was later identified as a woman, had been discovered living in Russia’s Solovetsky monastery as a male monk under the name Artemii or Arkadii. After the individual’s “biological sex” had been established, the State and Church authorities treated them as “a degenerate criminal” and “a possible prostitute” by subjecting them to physical examinations to determine whether or not they had ever had sex.55 To the relief of the authorities, the examination confirmed that the individual was a virgin. This case suggests that the Church was likely to view gender transgression as a transgressive act par excellence and especially as a likely form of sexual transgression, even when it took the exact same form of monastic transmasculinity that was venerated in hagiographies like those of Feodor/a. With this in mind, it seems significant that Andrei/Kseniia’s late-19th-century hagiography viewed gender transformation not as something morally subversive at all, but instead – partly through holy foolishness – as something spiritually formative. The text takes something socially controversial and filters it through a conventional hagiographical prism for depicting subversiveness, to reveal it as holy.

Conclusion The hagiographies of Feodor/a and Andrei/Kseniia present transgender as a feat of holy foolishness, but not holy foolishness in a conventional sense. Unlike the traditional holy fools of the medieval period like Andrei of Constantinople, neither of them appear as actors who “perform” their

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  63 gender in any straightforward way, hence, perhaps despite their best efforts, their narrators struggle to gender them consistently. On the one hand, the prism of holy foolishness allows the saints’ hagiographers to acknowledge the queer nature of their gender transformations (hence, in the case of Feodor/a, the shock on the part of those characters who discover the saint’s “biological sex”) but at the same time to present transgender “subversion-free”; as something holy in its extraordinariness. However, if even into the 19th century holy foolishness seems to have provided a satisfactory explanation for Andrei/Kseniia’s gender transformation, by the post-Soviet period and especially into the 21st century, this is no longer the case. To remove any hint of gender transgression, in many accounts the saint has now been reimagined as a feminine housewife who, in an act of total uxorial devotion, took on her husband’s identity so that she might save his soul.

Notes 1 When I first started out as a PhD student under Simon’s supervision in 2014, I knew I wanted to write about gender, sexuality, and Orthodox Christianity, but I didn’t really know where to begin. Simon suggested that I might like to start by looking at the hagiographies of holy fools. I was intrigued by the coexistence of the sacred and the seemingly sacrilegious in these texts, and while ultimately my doctoral thesis didn’t explore holy foolishness, the tension between piety and profanity has underlain my research since. Simon has influenced my scholarship in so many ways, but the most striking aspects are the following. Simon has taught me to engage meticulously with primary sources and reflect critically on the scope of the conclusions they allow me to make. He has empowered me to see the relevance of my own conceptual interests to the empirical study of Russia; to engage queer theory to shine new light on the cultural artefacts I work with. And he has prompted me not only to consider the precedence of the sources I write about, but also to understand their immediacy; to explore their Byzantine origins on the one hand, while also seeing their importance beyond the cultural context in which I most immediately locate them – to modern Russian literature and culture and beyond. Simon’s supervision has shaped my scholarship immeasurably but subtly, affording me maximum freedom to explore what I care about. In this chapter I return to holy fool hagiographies, the source materials Simon first suggested I might like to read, and I explore them in the light of the approaches I developed thanks to his supervision. 2 D. M. Bulanin (1999). Available at: http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx? tabid=4989 (Accessed: 10 December 2021). 3 K. Lochrie (1991); A. Hollywood (1995); V. Burrus (2004). 4 M. Bychowski and D. Kim (2019); R. Betancourt (2020); A. Spencer-Hall and B. Gutt (2021). 5 M. Kagan-Tarkovskaia (2003). Available at: http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default. aspx?tabid=10101 (Accessed: 10 December 2021). 6 M. V. Alpatov and I. S. Rodnikova 1990, 27. 7 A. Moldovan (1999). Available at: http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx? tabid=2175 (Accessed: 10 December 2021). 8 When I describe actions as subversive, I do not impose my own or some other external notion of subversiveness, but reiterate what the texts themselves describe as subversive. 9 Rydén (1995, 97). 10 A. Moldovan (1999). 11 Ibid.

64  Nick Mayhew 12 “Юродивый – актер, ибо наедине с собою он не юродствует.” A. Panchenko (1999, 394). 13 Ibid. 14 L. Ol’shevskaia (1997). Available at: http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=4945 (Accessed: 10 December 2021). Translation is my own. 15 J. Saward (1980, 31–42). 16 L. Ol’shevskaia (1997). 17 Ibid. 18 Episkop Amvrosii (2001, 96). 19 “Буая мира и избра Богъ, да премудрыя посрамить, и немощнаа мира избра Богъ, да посрамит крепкая. И безродная мира и укоренаа избра Богъ, да сущаа и не сущая упразнити.” M. D. Kagan-Tarkovskaia (2003). 20 Ibid. 21 R. Betancourt (2020, 89). 22 C. W. Bynum (1987, 291). 23 A. Spencer-Hall and B. Gutt (2021). 24 Zhitie i zhizn’ blazhennyia Feodory (1868, 632–5). 25 Ibid, 635. 26 Ibid, 632. 27 Ibid, 637. 28 Ibid, 641. 29 Ibid. 636, 642. 30 Ibid, 639. “Spirit of ashes” (dukh’ zol’) means to be sinful (N. K. Nikol’skii 1906). 31 V. P. Budaragin (2006, 67–75). 32 M. D. Kagan-Tarkovskaia and N. A. Kobiak (2006, 76–81). 33 There are two things to bear in mind here. First, transmasculinity may appear in a positive light partly because Russian hagiography tends to privilege masculinity over femininity in general (through the dominance of male monastic hagiographies and through gendering certain sins feminine, such as fornication). Second, it is in a sense unsurprising that trans narratives appear in hagiography, since the genre lends itself to positive stories about transformation and the subversion of social norms, while secular tales often deal with stories of moral corruption. 34 Zhitie i zhizn’ blazhennyia Feodory (1868, 645). 35 Ibid, 646. 36 Ibid, 646. 37 Ibid, 642. 38 Ibid, 632. 39 Ibid, 644. 40 R. P. Dmitrieva (1979, 222). 41 T. R. Rudi (2006, 108). 42 D. Bulgakovskii (1890). For an English translation of the text, see N. Mayhew (2020, 114–20). 43 N. Mayhew (2020, 115). 44 D. Bulgakovskii (1890, 4–5). 45 Ibid, 117. 46 Ibid, 115. 47 Ibid, 9. 48 Ibid, 10. 49 Zhizneopisaniia otechestvennykh podvizhnikov (1906, 128). 50 D. Bulgakovskii (1890, 4–5). 51 V. A. Gubanov (1995). 52 S. Shtrykov (2011, 303). 53 S. Kobets (2018, 87–107). 54 Ibid. 55 C. D. Worobec (2011).

Holy Foolishness and Gender Transgression in Russian Hagiography  65

Bibliography Alpatov, M. and Rodnikova, I. (1991), Icônes-Pskov: XIIIe – XVIe siècles, Paris, Aurore éditions d’art, no. 27. Episkop Amvrosii (2001), Drevnerusskie inocheskie ustavy, Moscow, Severnyi palomnik. Betancourt, R. (2020), Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages, Princeton, Princeton University Press. Budaragin, V. P. (2006), ‘Povest’ o Frole Skobeeve’, in Likhachev, D. S. et al. (ed.) BLDR, Tom 15, St. Petersburg, Nauka, 67–75. Bulanin, D. M. (1999), ‘Zhitie Sergiia Radonezhskogo’, in Likhachev, D. S. et al. (ed.) BLDR, Tom 6, St. Petersburg, Nauka, 254–411. Bulgakovskii, D. (1890), Raba bozhiia Kseniia ili iurodivyi Andrei Fedorovich, St. Petersburg. Burrus, V. (2004), The Sex Lives of Saints, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. Bychowski, M. W. and Kim, D. (2019), ‘Visions of Medieval Trans Feminism: An Introduction’, Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, 55/1: 6–41 Bynum, C. W. (1987), Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Berkeley, University of California Press. Dmitrieva, R. P. (1979), Povest’ o Petre i Fevronii. Podgotovka tekstov i issledovanie, Leningrad, Nauka. Gubanov, V. A. (1995), Pravoslanye chudesa v XX veke. Svidetel’stva ochevidtsev, Moscow, Trim. Halberstam, J. (2018), Female Masculinity, London, Duke University Press. Hollywood, A. (1995), The Soul as Virgin Wife, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press. Kagan-Tarkovskaia, M. D. (2003), ‘Pamiat’ sviatogo Sidora’, in Likhachev, D. S. et al. (ed.) BLDR, Tom 12, St. Petersburg, Nauka. Available at: http://lib.pushkinskijdom. ru/Default.aspx?tabid=10101 (Accessed: 10 December 2021). Kagan-Tarkovskaia, M. D. and Kobiak, N. A. (2006), ‘Povest’ o Karpe Sutulove’, in Likhachev, D. S. et al. (ed.) BLDR, Tom 15, St. Petersburg, Nauka, 76–81. Kobets, S. (2018), ‘From the Tabennisi Nunnery to Pussy Riot: Female Holy Fools in Byzantium and Russia’, Canadian Slavonic Papers, 60/1–2: 87–107. Lochrie, K. (1991), Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. Mayhew, N. (2020), ‘Xenia the Servant of God, or Andrey Fyodorovich the Holy Fool’, Transgender Studies Quarterly, 7/1: 114–20. Moldovan, A. M. (1999), ‘Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo’, in Likhachev, D. S. et al. (ed.) BLDR, Tom 2, St. Petersburg, Nauka, 330–59. Nikol’skii, N. K. (1906), Materialy dlia povremennogo spiska russkikh pisatelei i ikh sochinenii, St. Petersburg, Tipografiia imperatorskoi akademii nauk. Ol’shevskaia, L. A. (1997), ‘Kievo-Pecherskii Paterik’, in Likhachev, D. S. et al. (ed.) BLDR, Tom 4, St. Petersburg, Nauka, 296–489. Panchenko, A. M. (1999), Russkaia istoriia i kul’tura: Raboty raznykh let, St. Petersburg, Iuna. Rudi, T. R. (2006), ‘Zhitie Iulianii Lazarevskoi’, in Likhachev, D. S. et al. (ed.) BLDR, Tom 15, St. Petersburg, Nauka, 108–17. Rydén, L. (1995), The Life of St Andrew the Fool II: Text, Translation and Notes, Uppsala, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.

66  Nick Mayhew Saward, J. (1980), Perfect Fools, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Shtrykov, S. (2011), ‘The Unmerry Widow: The Blessed Kseniia of Petersburg in Hagiography and Hymnography’, in Hunt, P. and Kobets, S. (ed.) Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives, Bloomington, Slavica, 281–304. Spencer-Hall, A. and Gutt, B. (2021), Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press. Unknown (1868), ‘Zhitie i zhizn’ blazhennyia Feodory’, in Velikie Minei Chetii. Entry for 11 September, St. Petersburg, Arkheograficheskaia kommissiia, 632–46. Unknown (1906), Zhizneopisaniia otechestvennykh podvizhnikov blagochestiia 18 i 19 vekov. S portretami. Ianvar, Moscow, Tipografiia I. Efimova. Worobec, C. D. (2011), ‘Cross-Dressing in a Russian Orthodox Monastery: The Case of Mariia Zakharova’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 20/2: 336–57.

Part II

Historiography and Construction of Historical Narratives

5 Some Unnoticed Greek Quotes in Old Russian Chronicles Sergey A. Ivanov

In recent decades, the study and identification of Greek sources in historiographical works compiled in Kyivan Rus’ has benefitted from some new approaches:1 Igor Danilevskii has suggested that nearly all the Kyivan chronicles consisted of direct or indirect quotations from the Bible;2 Sean Griffin has offered another universal solution: the Orthodox liturgy.3 Both approaches have their advantages, but they fail to explain the whole “mosaic” of the chronicle texts. We need to be more careful in identifying quotes from works of very different genres of Christian literature. A lot has been written, for example, on the sources of the famous “Philosopher’s Speech” in the Primary Chronicle, and Prof. Franklin, among others, has emphasised the importance of Greek apocryphal texts (some originally composed in Hebrew) in compiling this long treatise. This should not come as a surprise, Franklin explains, since those sources were used in Byzantine chronicles as well. Meanwhile, what is much stranger and calls for interpretation is the usage of small quotes from quite another literary genre: the Philosopher tells Prince Vladimir that “Соломанъ … бысть мудръ, но на конѣць поползеся” (“Solomon … was wise, yet in the end he came to ruin”).4 As I have observed elsewhere,5 this sentence is a quote from Amphilochius of Iconium’s “Oratio in mesopentecosten”: “σοφὸς ὁ Σολομών, ἀλλ’ εἰς τὸ τέλος ὠλίσθησεν”.6 Of course, it was not translated directly from Greek, but rather taken from the Bulgarian version, which can be found in the Uspenskii Sbornik where that sermon is ascribed to Chrysostom: “мудръ соломонъ нъ на коньць попълъзе ся”.7 Νο other phrases from this sermon seem to have been borrowed by the compiler of the Philosopher’s Speech, or by the author of the text that he used for this compilation. What attracted him in this phrase remains unclear to me, but this example proves that whoever did it, worked meticulously, having more than one book at his disposal. That enables us to suggest other unexpected sources for the chronicles as well, beyond the circle of “usual suspects”. One of the chapters in Sean Griffin’s book is titled The Dawn before the Sunrise.8 It deals with the image of Princess Olga in the Primary Chronicle. Griffin hypothesises that all characteristics and epithets applied to the Princess are borrowed from liturgy. For example, the phrase “си быс предътекущи … аки деньица предъ слн҃цмь. и акі зорѧ предъ свѣтомъ”9 ([Olga] was the forerunner … like the dayspring before the sun and the dawn before the sunrise) DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-7

70  Sergey A. Ivanov which gave the name to this chapter is taken “from the Menaion”.10 Yet later we find out from Griffin’s book that this metaphor does not feature in the Menaion in the way it is used in the Chronicle – what Griffin means is that some of the words from this metaphor occur in different liturgical chants sung on various feasts. According to his theory, those words resonated in the chronicler’s memory and (unwittingly or intentionally) found their way into his text. Meanwhile, if we assume that the chronicler worked with an array of different sources, the same phrase can be analysed in a different way. In the Acta Andreae apostoli (BHG 100) by Nicetas David the Paphlagonian there is the following sentence: “τὴν φωνὴν τοῦ λόγου προδραμοῦσαν τὸν λύχνον τε τοῦ φωτὸς προλάμψαντα καὶ τὸν ἑωσφόρον τοῦ ἡλίου προανατείλαντα αἰσθόμενος” ([Andrew the Apostle] was perceiving the sound of [Christ’s] speech which was the forerunner of the dawn before daylight and of dayspring before the sunrise).11 The coincidence between this sentence and the one cited above cannot be fortuitous; yet Nicetas certainly did not draw upon liturgical texts: he was a refined literatus, not a mere cleric. Why not assume that all the sources pertaining to Andrew were known in Kyiv, whose very foundation and future grandeur he was believed to have predicted? True, there is no known Slavic translation of Nicetas David’s Acta, but this does not exclude the possibility that a Kyivan Greek could have used it.12 Many metaphors occurring in the Chronicle can be suspected of having a Greek origin: Olga accepting Christian admonition “аки губа папаяема” (like a sponge absorbing water)13 is a “Mediterranean” association that is unlikely to have come to the mind of a native of Rus’ in the first place.14 Yet exactly the same metaphor is applied to the Samaritan woman by Romanus the Melode: she also accepted the blessing from Christ “ὥσπερ σπόγγος … ὑδροφόρος” (like a water-carrying sponge); moreover, Princess Olga perfectly fits in the next verses by Romanus: τίς οὐ μακαρίζει τοῦτο τὸ θῆλυ, μᾶλλον δὲ σέβει τὴν ἐξ ἐθνῶν, τὸν τύπον, τὴν λαβοῦσαν15 (“who will not deem this female blessed? [everyone] reveres the woman from the heathens who accepted the sign [of the cross]”). In spite of this tempting similarity, I am not ready to admit a direct quote from Romanus in the Chronicle because the writings of the Melodist were all but forgotten in 11th-century Byzantium, and the borrowing could only have gone through some unknown intermediaries. Another example concerns the following phrase “Богъ кажеть рабы своя напастми ратными, да явятся яко злато искушено в горниле”16 (“God punishes his servants by means of barbarian incursions so they would evolve as gold which has been tried in the furnace”).17 The metaphor used here has parallels in different Byzantine texts18 but the only source likely to have been known in Kyiv is the miracles of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki who was extremely popular in Rus’. The first miracle of his “first collection” (BHG 500) has the following sentence: ἵνα καὶ πλέον λαμπρύνηται, ὡς ἐν χώνῃ χρυσὸς τῷ πυρὶ γινόμενος δοκιμώτερος’19 (“to make him shine as gold in the furnace which becomes more excellent”). Yet, this exact miracle is not known in Slavic translation, being attested only in abridgement.

Some Unnoticed Greek Quotes in Old Russian Chronicles  71 Contrary to the above examples, the following metaphor can be satisfactorily derived from a certain source. Since Simon Franklin is the most insightful observer of the book culture in Rus’, in his writings he, of course, could not overlook the famous “praise of book” in the Chronicle entry for the year 1037. I would like to demonstrate a short Greek quote inserted in this praise: books, according to the chronicler, “соуть оузда въздръжанiю”20 (“are the bridle of self-restraint”).21 This metaphor can be regarded as a direct quote from the Ascetic Rules by Basil the Great who also speaks of the χαλινῷ τινι τῇ ἐγκρατείᾳ (“bridle of self-restraint”).22 This text existed in the Old Bulgarian translation, although only a small portion of this translation survived23 and our metaphor belongs to the perished part. Yet, the knowledge of Basil’s ascetic rules by the Kyivan monks cannot be doubted. Let us now turn to the Kyivan Chronicle of 1200 which is known to us through the later Hypatian version. In 1169, Bishop Theodore of Vladimir was defrocked and brutally executed.24 In the Kyivan Chronicle, a long digression was added to the narrative of events taken from a local Vladimir source.25 Among numerous biblical quotes, this digression contains the following paragraph: ты всемощенъ єси ѹбожа и ба҃тѧ. ѹмр҃швѧя и ѡживлѧя. творѧи всѧ премудрено. творѧ ѿ нощи дн҃ь а ѿ зимы весну. а ѿ бурѧ тишину. а ѿ суша тучю. и воздвизая кроткая на высоту и смирѧя грѣшникы до землѧ”26 (“But since God, Who maketh poor and maketh rich, Who killeth and maketh alive; Who maketh and transformeth all things; Who turneth night into day, winter into spring, storm into calm, drought into abundance of rain; …Who lifteth up the meek on high, and bringeth the ungodly down to the ground).27 This is a quote from the 42nd Oration of Gregory of Nazianzus (CPG suppl. 3010.42; BHG 730b): “Ἀφ’ οὗ δὲ ὁ πτωχίζων καὶ πλουτίζων Θεὸς, ὁ θανατῶν καὶ ζωογονῶν, ὁ ποιῶν πάντα… τῷ βούλεσθαι, ὁ ποιῶν ἐκ μὲν νυκτὸς ἡμέραν, ἐκ δὲ χειμῶνος ἔαρ, ἐκ δὲ ζάλης γαλήνην, ἐκ δὲ αὐχμῶν ἐπομβρίαν· καὶ ἀναλαμβάνων πραεῖς εἰς ὕψος, καὶ ταπεινῶν ἁμαρτωλοὺς ἕως γῆς”.28 This oration by Gregory was part of the Studios liturgy which had been adopted in Rus’.29 So, the compiler of the Chronicle heard (or even performed) this text, in its Slavic translation, every year, on the 25th of January. Yet the above quote differs from the version used in the Slavic text of Gregory: the passage which reads in the Chronicle as “ѹмр҃швѧя и ѡживлѧя. творѧи всѧ премудрено” is rendered in the liturgy as “мертвѧ и животворѧ и всѧ претворѧя единѣм”.30 So, it is not ruled out that this passage reflects some other translation, but nothing can be said here with certainty before a critical edition for the 42nd oration appears. Be that as it may, this quote corroborates the idea that the narrative of Theodore’s trial was written by Kirill of Turov: on the one hand, he took an active part in condemning Theodore;31 on the other hand, it was Kirill who actively resorted to quoting Gregory.32 Thus, we can tentatively add the description of Theodore’s trial inserted in the Chronicle

72  Sergey A. Ivanov to Kirill’s corpus. If true, this attribution helps establish the time of Kirill’s floruit, which is a matter of debate.33 Returning to the Kyivan Chronicle, we find that its closing pages are devoted to a verbose eulogy34 to Prince Riurik Rostislavich on the occasion of the construction of a sustaining wall at the steep bank of the river Dnepr;35 the construction was funded by the Prince and protected St. Michael’s church of the Vydubichi monastery from slipping down. The ornate speech was delivered by the monastery head Moisei on the 24th of September 1200, before the Prince, his family, the court, and the crowd of monks and Kyivan citizens who had gathered in the monastery. The speech became popular in subsequent centuries and served as a model for later panegyrics.36 It also attracted the attention of several modern scholars, but the publication by Iu. Begunov became the most influential one.37 He supposed that Moisei knew Greek and used Byzantine sources in the original; yet, Begunov did not give any proofs thereof. The texture of the Kyivan Chronicle vocabulary was analysed by Franchuk, who noticed that Moisei used excessively in his speech both words borrowed from Greek and calques from Greek composita.38 Moisei says in his speech: и со прпд̑бнъıмъ Мефедьемь гл҃емь днс̑ь бо сбъıтье бжс̑твенъıхъ словесъ его яже положи въ своихъ емоу написаниихъ вѣщая: Малое н҃бо бг҃омоудраго дш҃а воиноу повѣдающи славоу Бж҃ию правостью вѣръı и словесъı истѣньнъıми. и дѣлъı добръıми. н҃бса бесловесное естьство соуще и сочювьствено и самовластно но точью свѣтлостью слн҃ца и растѣниемь лоунъı, оукрашениемь звѣздъ и не пременьно хранѧще оуставъı временемь влд̑чнѧ повеления повѣдають славоу его яко же всимъ добрѣ смотрѧщимъ творца ѡ томъ похвалити добраго ради оурѧжения” (“And with the most-holy Methodius we speak for today is the realisation of the divine words which he put into his testament. He said: a soul of good wisdom is a small heaven, forever telling of the glory of God, the righteousness of faith and true words and good deeds. The heavens, being a senseless entity, sympathetic and powerful in itself, relentlessly preserving the limits of time, set by the Lord, by the light of the sun, by the growing of the moon and by the adornment of the stars, herald His glory, so that everybody who hallows the Lord, must praise Him for this benign arrangement).39 Begunov wrote that the cited paragraph is borrowed from Methodius’ treatise De sanguisuga40 (CPG, N 1816) and everybody has been taking this assertion for granted ever since. However, only the first sentence of the paragraph (“The soul of a wise one is a small heaven”) belongs to this treatise,41 while its main part has no parallels, either in his De sanguisuga or in any other of his known writings. The problem here is that, although the main corpus of Methodius’ works survived only in their Slavonic translations, these still remain largely unpublished.42 That is why it cannot be ruled out that, when the Methodian corpus comes to be attentively scrutinised,43 the words quoted by Moisei will be identified, but as yet, they remain unattested and without proper context.

Some Unnoticed Greek Quotes in Old Russian Chronicles  73 The locution on the nature of heavens was wrongly understood by both Iu. Begunov and L. Heinrich. Moreover, it had been difficult for the Bulgarian translator of Methodius’ Greek text and this, in its turn, complicates our task. Yet while the term ‘самовластно’ (αὐτεξούσιον) occurs in Methodius many times, the terms ‘бесловесное’ (ἄλογον) and, especially, ‘сочювьствено’ (συμπαθές) seem to be uncharacteristic of his style. Both pertain to the early Christian cosmological debates with Neoplatonic philosophy, and different fragments of Moisie’s speech are reminiscent of different facets of these debates:44 the assertion that heaven is the ἄλογος entity refutes the hermetic idea that “Ἡ γῆ ἄλογος, ὁ οὐρανὸς λογικός”45 “the earth is senseless, the heaven is sapient”. The term συμπαθές here means not a ‘good feeling’ (as in later Christian times) but an interconnection between all parts of the Universe; this usage reveals the writer’s close familiarity with the Stoic philosophical parlance.46 Whether this author was Methodius or anybody else, his text must have been not easily understandable even to a learned Byzantine reader who lived in 1200, let alone to a listener, let alone in a clumsy translation. And yet, Moisei meant this turn as an adornment of his speech. It has been noted previously that his eulogy was a piece of high rhetoric.47 But what does it imply for his audience? No doubt, the panegyric could hardly have been understood by the honorand, Prince Riurik, a ruthless warrior. This self-sufficiency of Moisei’s rhetoric, his proud aloofness from both the listeners’ level of education and the insignificance of the pretext resembles the status of rhetoric in contemporary Byzantium. For example, contemporaneously with Moisei, in distant Constantinople, Nicholas Chrysoberges was delivering his sophisticated eulogies before the Angeloi Emperors who must have understood them not much better than Riurik understood Moisei. The latter might himself be a Greek, used to the imperial customs – but what about the former? The eloquent hegumenos could afford to be indifferent to the boredom of the Kyivans present at the ceremony, but not to the reaction of his sovereign and benefactor. This means that Moisei was sure of Prince Riurik’s approval. Therefore, we can surmise that the Prince must have felt obliged to preside over the orator’s logorrhea, and this became possible because Riurik, somehow heard how such ceremonies should be arranged, for they are so arranged in the city which still served as a frame of all references, in the Queen of Cities, Constantinople.

Notes 1 Simon Franklin has made a significant contribution to identifying the Greek sources of the chronicles compiled in Kyivan Rus’, so, it seems appropriate to honour him with an article dedicated to this topic. See, among others, S. Franklin (1982). 2 I. Danilevskii (2004). 3 S. Griffin (2019). 4 Ipat’evskaia Letopis’ PSRL II 1908, 84. The English translations are taken from S. H. Cross et al. (transl.) (1953), 94. 5 S. Ivanov (2020, 445). 6 C. Datema (ed.) (1978, 259). 7 O. A. Kniazevskaia, V. G. Dem′ianov, M. V. Liapon (1971, 414 (253в, 10–2)). 8 S. Griffin (2019, 125–31).

74  Sergey A. Ivanov 9 10 11 12 13 14

Ipat’evskaia Letopis’ (1908, 56). Ibid., 125–6. M. Bonnet (1894, 312). Cf.: A. Vinogradov (2021, 295). Ipat’evskaia Letopis’ (1908, 49); S. H. Cross (1953, 82). Cf.: A. Musin (2014, 370–1). Of course, the sponge came to any Christian’s memory as part of the Crucifixion scene, but this was a ‘negative’ association. 15 P. Maas and P. Trypanis (1963, 66). 16 Ipat’evskaya Letopis’ (1908, 223). 17 S.H. Cross (1953, 183). 18 Cf.: ὥσπερ χρυσὸς ἐν καμίνῳ δοκιμασθεὶς (Gregorius Nazianzenus, De pauperum amore (orat. 14) PG 35 897); ὡς χρυσὸς ἐν χωνευτηρίῳ δοκιμασθεὶς (A. Smithies, 2013, 108). 19 P. Lemerle (1979, 62). 20 Ipat’evskaia Letopis’ (1908, 140). 21 S. H. Cross (1953, 137). 22 Basilius Caesariensis, ‘Asceticon magnum sive Quaestiones’, PG, 31, 957. 23 A. Mincheva (1978, 40–2). 24 On the reasons and the details see: A. Iu. Vinogradov, M. S. Zheltov (2019). 25 V. I. Panova (2016, 321). 26 I. S. Iurieva (2017, 397, (f.198a.10–7)). 27 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Series II, 1894, VII, 771. 28 J. Bernardi (1992, 60). 29 A. Pentkovskij (2001, 324). 30 Cf. RNB, Troitse-Sergieva Lavra collection, f.304, №8 (14th century), fol. 210; №138 (16th century), fol. 554v, etc. 31 A. Iu. Vinogradov, M. S. Zheltov (2019, 16–7). 32 A. Vaillant (1950, 36–50) and I. Lunde (2001, 111). 33 I. Lunde (2001, 14–5 with bibliography). 34 I. Iurieva (2017, 575–83 (fol. 243a-235a)). 35 S. T. Golubev (1907, ii.88–101). 36 M. Gorlin (1942: 156–8). 37 Iu. K. Begunov (1974, 60–76). 38 V. Iu. Franchuk (1986, 17–25, 38, 74). 39 L. Heinrich (1985, 494). This translation is used by me but corrected in many places. 40 Iu. K. Begunov (1974, 72–3). 41 M. Chub (1961, 187). 42 Cf.: K. Bracht (2017). 43 B. Danilenko (2016: 369–88). 44 I have not been able to trace this phrase in any surviving text, at least among those available in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. 45 O. Hense and C. Wachsmuth (1884, I. 277). 46 Cf.: K. Reinhardt (1926). 47 M. S. Grushevs’kii (1993 III. 29–31); Iu. K. Begunov (1974, 73).

Bibliography Begunov, Iu. K. (1974), ‘Rech’ Moiseia Vydubitskogo kak pamiatnik torzhestvennogo krasnorechiia XII v’,TODRL, 28: 60–76. Bernardi, J. (ed.) (1992), Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 42-43, [Sources chretiennes 384], Paris, Cerf. Bonnet, M. (1894), ‘Acta Andreae apostoli cum laudatione contexta’, Analecta Bollandiana 13: 312.

Some Unnoticed Greek Quotes in Old Russian Chronicles  75 Bracht, K. (2017), Methodius of Olympus: State of the Art and New Perspectives, Berlin, De Gruyter. Chub, M. (1961), ‘Mefodii Patarskii, O piiavitsi sushchii v pritchakh’, Bogoslovskie Trudy 2, 184–205. Cross, S. H. et al. (1953), The Russian Primary Chronicle, Cambridge, Medieval Academy of America. Danilenko, B. (2016), ‘Slavianskie perevody tvorenii sviatogo Mefodiia Patarskogo. K voprosu o slavianskoi versii rannikh sviatootecheskikh tekstov, posviashchennykh bibleiskoi ekzegeze’, Studi Slavistici 13: 369–88. Danilevskii, I. (2004), Povest’ Vremennykh Let: Germenevticheskie osnovy izucheniia letopisnykh tekstov, Moscow, Aspekt-press. Datema, C. (1978), Amphilochii Iconiensis opera, Turnhout, Brepols. Franchuk, V. Iu. (1986), Kievskaia Letopis’. Sostav i istochniki v lingvisticheskom osveshchenii, Kyiv, Naukova dumka. Franklin, S. (1982) ‘Some Apocryphal Sources of Kievan Russian Historiography’, Oxford Slavonic Papers. New Series 15: 1–27. Golubev, S. T. (1907), ‘Podberezhnaia kamennaia stena v Kievo-Vydubitskom monastyre, sooruzhennaia v 1199—1200 gg.’, Chteniia v Istoricheskom obeshchestve Nestora letopistsa 19.4, ii.88–101. Gorlin, M. (1942), ‘Un écho de l'éloge de Rjurik Rostislavič’, Revue des études slaves, 20/4: 156–8. Griffin, S. (2019), The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Grushevs’kii, M. S. (1993), Istoriia ukrains’koi literatury, Kyiv: Lybyd’. Heinrich, L. (1985), The Kievan Chronicle: A Translation and Commentary, PhD. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Hense, O. and Wachsmuth, C. (1884), Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, Berlin, Weidmann. Iurieva, I. S. (2017), Kievskaia Letopis’, Moscow, YaSK. Ivanov, S. (2020), ‘Spasti tsaria Solomona’, Vizantiiskaia kul’tura i agiografiia, Moscow, YaSK, 444–6. Kniazevskaia, O. A., Dem′ianov, V. G., and Liapon, M. V. (1971), Uspenskii Sbornik, Moscow, Nauka. Lemerle, P. (1979), Les plus anciens recueils des miracles de saint Démétrius et la pénétration des Slaves dans les Balkans, vol. 1, Paris, CNRS. Lunde, I. (2001), Verbal Celebrations, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag. Maas, P. and Trypanis, P. (1963), Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Mincheva, A. (1978), Starobalgarski kirilski otkasletsi, Sofia, BAN. Musin, A. (2014), ‘Korally v khristianskoj kul’ture Vostochnoi Evropy i Sredizemnomor’ia’, Rossijskij arkheologicheskij ezhegodnik 4(2014): 366–87. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1894). Series II, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans. Panova, V. I. (2016), ‘Ipat’evskaia Letopis’ kak istochnik dlia izucheniia pravoslavnogo dukhovenstva na Rusi v XII veke’. PhD. Dissertation (Moscow). Pentkovskij, A. (2001), Tipikon patriarkha Aleksiia studita v Vizantii i na Rusi, Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Moskovskoi Patriarkhii. Reinhardt, K. (1926), Kosmos und Sympathie, Munich, C. H. Beck. Smithies, A. (2013), The Life of Patriarch Ignatius, Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks. Vaillant, A. (1950), ‘Cyrille de Turov et Grégoire de Nazianze’, Revue des Etudes Slaves 26: 36–50.

76  Sergey A. Ivanov Vinogradov, A. Iu. and Zheltov, M. S. (2019), ‘Zhizn’ i smert’ Feodortsa Vladimirskogo: pravo ili rasprava?’, Istoriia 10: 281–96. Vinogradov, A. (2021) ‘Apostol’skii avtoritet, vlast’ nad telom i Rim kak arbitr: spor o bane na vostoke i zapade Evropy’, Anatomiia vlasti: gosudari i poddannye v Evrope v Srednie veka i Novoe vremia, Moscow, https://publications.hse.ru/mirror/pubs/ share/direct/322786164.pdf (last accessed 4.12.2021).

6 Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle Perspectives on Horace Lunt’s New Rendering Michael S. Flier Without previous knowledge of a Slavic language, most anglophone readers have, at least in part, likely engaged with the early history and culture of the East Slavs through the prose of Harvard professor Samuel Hazzard Cross (1891–1946), who published the first complete English translation of the Rus’ Primary Chronicle (RPC) in 1930.1 For over nine decades excerpts from the Cross translation have appeared in articles, books, encyclopaedia entries, and anthologies, introducing new generations to accounts of the East Slavic pagan tribes, the arrival of the Varangians, the emergence of Novgorod and Kyiv, the conversion of Grand Prince Volodimer to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and the ascendance of written and artistic culture during the reign of his son, Iaroslav the Wise, and those of his direct descendants. Cross provided an annotated Introduction that addressed the collection and publication of the major manuscripts of the RPC as well as the later local chronicles that each incorporated the RPC as an introductory text. He also discussed questions of authorship, the composition of the text, the sources, the chronology, and the contentious issue of the origin of the Scandinavian Russes and their role in early East Slavic history and culture. He provided no notes in the translation itself, but apparently had long intended to improve the translation and add extensive annotations in a new edition. Cross’s premature death in 1946 prompted his original publisher, the Mediaeval Academy of America, to invite Georgetown University historian Olgerd Sherbowitz-Wetzor to take on that task. He reviewed all of Cross’s remarks and archival notes about the translation, added numerous annotations to the translation itself, updated the references, and published a revised and expanded edition of the Cross translation in 1953.2

DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-8

78  Michael S. Flier Marc Szeftel wrote a comprehensive, eleven-page review, praising Sherbowitz-Wetzor at the end for the prodigious labour expended to bring the revised edition of this “pioneering work” to fruition.3 Still, in reviewing the various aspects of the book’s coverage and presentation, he found issues large and small to compliment and to dispute. Among the latter, the translation came in for particular criticism: It must be regretted that no further modifications have been undertaken in the new edition with regard to Professor Cross’s translation of 1930, open to criticism in many regards. It is unquestionably a very fluent and readable translation, much more readable than the original, couched as it is in a clear, simple, one would say epical style …. Professor Cross’s work is a pioneer’s enterprise inasmuch as translation in English is concerned. And it is, on the whole, a faithful translation. There are, nevertheless, serious deficiencies.4 Among the most serious mentioned was Cross’s sole reliance on the Laurentian chronicle of 1377 (hereafter L), containing the oldest extant copy of the RPC, covering events up to 1110. It ends with a colophon of hegumen Sil’vestr of Saint Michael’s Monastery in Vydubichi, near Kyiv, dated to 1116 (6624 A.M.), more than two and a half centuries before L itself was completed. Cross did not consider the variants preserved in the four other oldest copies with the incipit Pověst′ vremennykh lět: the Radziwiłł chronicle (1490s, R) and the Academy chronicle (end 15th century, A), the two bearing the closest affinity to the Laurentian, and the Hypatian chronicle (c. 1425, H) and the Xlebnikov chronicle (16th century, X), which constitute a different branch of the RPC heritage. Likewise he did not refer to parallel readings in the younger recension of the Novgorod I chronicle and verified entries through 906 of the early-15th-century Trinity chronicle, which perished in the fire of 1812.5 Additional major deficiencies identified by Szeftel in the Cross translation included ignoring controversies over particular readings, leaving terms preserved from the original text untranslated, restating direct speech as reported speech with different words or dividing up long passages into individual sentences. We shall examine some of these issues below. It was Horace Lunt, Cross’s undergraduate mentee in German at Harvard, who had himself become dissatisfied with the Cross translation in mid-career and decided to attempt a new one. Ironically it was Cross who had encouraged his young charge to develop an interest in Slavic studies. Lunt took that advice and as a graduate student studied Slavic linguistics under Roman Jakobson at Columbia. He joined the Harvard Slavic Department faculty along with Jakobson in 1949. It was during his four-decade career at Harvard that he taught Slavic linguistics to generations of students and published articles, reviews, and books that established him as one of the preeminent Slavic philologists of his day. The language of the RPC was among his favourite topics of research.

Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle  79 In 1973, at the urging of Harvard colleague Omeljan Pritsak, Lunt agreed to lead a weekly seminar at Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute to review and improve his own translation of the RPC based on all five major textual witnesses and occasional comparison with the other relevant texts noted above. He firmly believed that one could determine through collocation the best reading possible for the non-extant protograph. The seminar continued for six years, but in the following three decades, Lunt took on several other large projects that competed for his time and attention. He died in 2010 before tying up loose ends or writing an introduction. The Institute’s Editorial Board requested that I complete the project and publish the new translation under its imprimatur. I am extremely grateful to the in-house staff at the Institute, especially monograph editor Michelle Viise and former manager of publications Marika Whaley, for all their assistance in digitising the text and copious notes, providing new enhanced maps for the volume, and establishing uniformity in the presentation of the translation, including abbreviations and place-names. Additionally, I have profited from the editorial advice of several philologists in our field, including Simon Franklin, whose expertise and sharp eyes have identified a number of issues of form, content, and selection that have required special attention. I am delighted to present this brief report in celebration of his seventieth birthday. Unlike all researchers before him, Lunt had the advantage of using the draft version of an interlinear collation and paradosis of the RPC ultimately published by Donald Ostrowski in 2003. The collation aligns the corresponding readings from the five major texts together with relevant readings from other chronicles. It also provides the conjectured textual readings of the RPC by Afanasii Bychkov (1872), Aleksei Shakhmatov (1916), Dmitrii Likhachev (1950), and the paradosis by Donald Ostrowski et al. (2003). To aid in determining the relative ranking of comparable readings, Ostrowski presents in the Introduction a reasoned argument for creating a stemma, a branching genealogical tree representing logical connections or deviations among sets or groupings of textual copies based on the analyses of scribal errors, textual incongruities (scribal addition, subtraction, omission, haplology, homoioteleuton), and the like.6 When attempting to determine the preferred reading among the five major witnesses, Lunt operated with the working hypothesis that if L matched H (L=H), that reading was preferred and assigned to the protograph, but if not (L≠H), then the readings from R and A vis-à-vis L, and X vis-à-vis H could be decisive in selecting the preferred reading. In Lunt’s view, L was more conservative in phonology and morphology, whereas H was more reliable for content.7 This basic view was firmly supported by Alan Timberlake in his convincing argumentation that the more expansive passages shared in the copies of the younger recension of the Novgorod I chronicle and in the southern branch of the earlier Kyivan tradition

80  Michael S. Flier represented by H and X were derived from the earlier Basic Compilation (Shakhmatov’s Nachal’nyi svod).8 In these cases, Timberlake uses common sense logic to show that the corresponding passages in the copies of north-eastern branch of the Kyivan tradition represented by L, R, and A have subtracted (reduced or omitted text) from the protograph, rather than the southern branch adding to it. There is little doubt that Horace Lunt approved of Szeftel’s list of serious deficiencies in the Cross translation. But he would have disputed the assessment of his Cornell colleague that “It is unquestionably a very fluent and readable translation, much more readable than the original, couched as it is in a clear, simple, one would say epical style….And it is, on the whole, a faithful translation”. On the contrary, it was precisely the fluidity and readability of the Cross translation that perturbed Horace Lunt. His retranslation of the RPC was especially motivated by his desire to present the RPC in as literal a rendering as possible without extraneous words or stylistic embellishments, including paraphrase, that might skew the meaning. He wanted to avoid bestowing on the chronicle text an elevated style possible to achieve in Slavonic but not faithful to the chronicle text at hand. The narratives of the chronicle were certainly created in the liturgical world of the very monks who produced, copied, and read from ritual texts and who were quite capable of imparting a style and register that befitted the sacred nature of that generic material.9 But the chronicle was not itself a ritual text. The language and composition could often be very plain, laconic, and stylistically uneven. The appropriate translation in Lunt’s reading would not attempt to tidy the text up or make it more poetic than it was. Lunt clearly records his misgivings in a personal letter addressed to his Harvard colleague, English professor Joseph Harris, on 4 May 1993. I have purposely been as literal as possible, in hopes of giving readers a sense of the multiple possibilities of interpretation in many important passages, as well as the fairly primitive style. Sam Cross turned it all into a sort of purple 19th-century style with some literary grace – but he paraphrased too many passages in such a way that the message ends up different. A brief review of the RPC episode concerning the visit of St. Andrew to the future land of Rus′ offers ample evidence in support of Lunt’s objections.

Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle  81 L 7.21–8.11 а | днѣпръ вътечеть в понетьское море жереломъ· ‖ еже море словеть руское· по немуже ѹчилъ ст҃ꙑи ѡнь|дрѣи братъ петровъ· ꙗкоже рѣша· ѡньдрѣю ѹчащю | въ синопии· и пришедшю емѹ в корсунь· ѹвидѣ ꙗ|ко ис корсунѧ блиꙃь ѹстье днѣпрьское· въсхотѣ по|ити в римъ и проиде въ вустье днѣпрьское. ѿтоле | поиде по днѣпру горѣ. и по приключаю· приде и ста | подъ горами на береꙃѣ· ꙃаутра въставъ и реч к сущи|мъ с нимъ ученикомъ· видите ли горꙑ сиꙗ· ꙗко | на сихъ горах восиꙗеть блг҃дть бж҃ьꙗ· имать градъ | великъ· и цр҃кви многи б҃ъ въꙃдвигнути имать· въ|шедъ на горꙑ сиꙗ бл҃ви ꙗ· постави крстъ и помоли|въсѧ б҃у· и сълѣꙃъ съ горꙑ сеꙗ· идеже послѣже бꙑс ки|евъ· и поиде по днѣпру горѣ· Cross translation 1930/1953 But the Dnieper flows through various mouths into the Pontus. This sea, beside which taught St. Andrew, Peter’s brother, is called the Russian Sea. When Andrew was teaching in Sinope and came to Kherson (as has been recounted elsewhere), he observed that the mouth of the Dnieper was nearby. Conceiving a desire to go to Rome, he thus journeyed to the mouth of the Dnieper. Thence he ascended the river, and by chance he halted beneath the hills upon the shore. Upon arising in the morning, he observed to the disciples who were with him, “See ye these hills? So shall the favor of God shine upon them that on this spot a great city shall arise, and God shall erect many churches therein.” He drew near the hills, and having blessed them, he set up a cross. After offering his prayer to God, he descended from the hill on which Kiev was subsequently built, and continued his journey up the Dnieper.

Lunt translation And the Dnieper flows into the Pontus Sea by three estuaries, which sea is known as the Rus´ Sea, and along it, St. Andrew, the brother of Peter, taught. For as it was said, when Andrew was teaching in Sinope and came to Korsun′, he learned that the mouth of the Dnieper was near Korsun′. And he wanted to go to Rome, and he came to the mouth of the Dnieper, and from there he went up the Dnieper. And by chance he came and stopped at the foot of the hills on the shore. And in the morning he arose and said to the disciples who were with him, “Do you see these hills? For on these hills will shine forth the grace of God. There will be a great town and God will raise up many churches.” And going up onto these hills, he blessed them and placed a cross. And when he had prayed to God, he descended from the hill where later Kyiv came to be, and he started up the Dnieper.

It is instructive to examine several discrepancies between the two translations of these passages. Limited to a single text (L), Cross had to make sense of днѣпръ втечеть в понетьское море жереломъ (L) vs. треми жерелꙑ (RAHX). If he took the form жереломъ to be a plural (since he knew the other four texts had plurals), this word must be analysed as an ethical dative plural, clumsily translatable as the Pontus (or Pontic Sea) of mouths, even though the noun жерело refers not to the sea but to the flow of the river through channels into the sea. If he took the form as an instrumental (the other four texts all have instrumental forms), then жереломъ had to be taken as a singular with the no longer pronounced weak final front jer rendered orthographically as a back jer following a presumably hardened m in the ending -омъ (a common orthographic feature after the jer shift). But the instrumental singular would be translated by a (single) mouth. The solution for Cross was to unite the plural meaning and

82  Michael S. Flier the instrumental case to yield through various mouths derived from an imaginary mash-up of a non-existent form. By using all five witnesses, however, Lunt established the correct instrumental plural reading, substituting an appropriate contextual variant by three estuaries. The adjective руское is derived from the noun русь and should be translated as Rus’ or Rusian. The name Russia did not yet exist in pre-Mongol Rus′; the adjective Russian is an anachronism here. The clause якоже рѣша (L)/рекоша (RAHX) is expressed by Cross within parentheses in the overly expansive paraphrase as has been recounted elsewhere, as though nonexistent words had to be added to make sense, in contrast to Lunt’s more accurate and pithy as it was said. Having translated the earlier жереломъ as mouths instead of estuaries or channels, Cross introduces potential ambiguity using the same translation mouth for устье. Instead of introducing difference where it exists as in the examples above, Cross creates ambiguity in the text where there is none. And finally when Andrew comes to the mouth of the Dnieper, is one to think it is one of the various mouths recorded earlier or the broad opening where the estuaries meet the sea? Cross reduces the clause яко ис корсуня блиꙃь to nearby, a clear example of his attempt to elevate the style of a text and avoid repetitions that are characteristic of the RPC. The ornate elaboration inherent in Lunt’s critique of Cross’s prose as purple is demonstrated by comparing translations of и въсхотѣ поити в римъ.10 In the plain style of the text, Lunt renders this clause as and he wanted to go to Rome, whereas Cross converts it into a subordinate clause, opting for the baroque transformation of wanted into conceiving a desire to go to Rome. The text uses поити (LHX) or ити (RA) to go to Rome, and проиде (L) or при(и)де (RAHX)11 въ (в)устье to go through the mouth or come to the mouth, the underlying verb root {id} identical for both collocations, and thus translated by Lunt as a form of go or come, each case determined by context. Cross, apparently avoiding repetition at all costs, uses go to Rome but journeyed to the mouth, again unnecessarily distorting the simple character of the text. The same avoidance of repetition and elevation of plain speech crop up in several of the following sentences. Cross eliminates the repetition of Dnieper and elevates the register of Andrew’s trip: thence he ascended the river as compared with Lunt’s stylistically neutral and repetitious from there he went up the Dnieper. Consider Lunt’s direct translation of Andrew’s own speech to his disciples: “Do you see these hills? For on these hills will shine forth the grace of God. There will be a great town and God will raise up many churches”. In Cross’s version, the second mention of hills is predictably replaced by them, the phrase on this spot is interpolated without corresponding Slavonic text, and the emergence of Kyiv is expressed with shall arise, instead of the more neutral will be to translate имать бꙑти. By contrast God’s dramatic raising up of churches, signalled by the forceful construction имать б҃҃ъ въздвигнути is plainly captured by Lunt’s will raise up but flattened by Cross’s matter-of-fact shall erect.

Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle  83 Cross misreads the meaning of и въшедъ на горы сия with he drew near the hills by comparison with Lunt’s and going up onto these hills. Support for the latter interpretation lies in the following sentence: сълѣꙃе съ горы сеꙗ is translated by both as he descended from the hill, with the following restrictive clause capturing the emphatic expression of сеꙗ. Continuing with that subordinate clause Cross opts for the wordy and more elevated on which Kyiv was subsequently built, and continued his journey up the Dnieper to translate идеже послѣже быс киевъ, и поиде по днѣпру горѣ. Lunt follows the text more closely in register and lexical accuracy with where later Kyiv came to be, and he started up the Dnieper. The perfective aorist быс(ть) is commonly translated as became or came to be without specific information about the form of generation. Cross invokes the previous text to introduce and continued his journey, which is a clear overreading of и поиде, in which the combination of the perfectivising prefix {po} and the root {id} can signal inception. For no rhyme or reason, Cross could turn reported speech into indirect speech and begin in earnest to paraphrase.12 In the episode about the blinding of Vasilko (s.a. 6605/1097), he loses the dramatic intimacy of oral expression that provides the direct motive for the planned attack on Vasilko (the quotes added below demarcate the quoted speech). L 257.25–258.5. ст҃ополкъ же сжа|лиси по братѣ своем · и ѡ собѣ на|ча помꙑшлѧти “еда се право | будет” · и ꙗ вѣру двд҃ви · и прелсти | двд҃ъ ст҃ополка · и начаста ду|мати ѡ василкѣ · а василко | сего не вѣдѧше · и володимеръ · | и нача двд҃ъ гл҃ати · “аще не име|вѣ василка то ни тобѣ кнѧженьꙗ кꙑевѣ · ни мнѣ в воло|димери” · и послуша ѥго ст҃опо|лкъ · Cross translation 1930/1953 Sviatopolk was concerned for his brother and himself, and wondered whether the rumor was true. He finally believed David, who thus deceived Sviatopolk, and the two of them set out to plot against Vasil’ko. Now Vasil’ko and Vladimir were ignorant of this fact. David remarked, however, that if he and Sviatopolk did not seize Vasil’ko, Sviatopolk would not be sure of Kiev, nor he himself of Vladimir [Volÿnsk]. And Sviatopolk believed him.

Lunt translation And Svjatopolk was sorrowful about his brother and began to think to himself, “Could this be true?” And he came to believe David. And David deceived Sviatopolk. And they began to consider what to do about Vasilko. And Vasilko did not know this, nor Volodimer. And David began to say, “If we do not seize Vasilko, there will be no princedom for you in Kyiv or for me in Volodimer′.” And Sviatopolk heeded him.

Cross’s choice of concerned misses the notion of sorrow basic to the root {žal}. He misreads the preposed phrase ѡ собѣ as parallel to по братѣ rather than being correlated with the verb помꙑшлѧти. Losing the insight into Sviatopolk’s thinking by substituting the pitch-perfect quotation Could this be true? with wondered whether the rumor was true, Cross allows the poignant inner quandary to splay into verbosity. His treatment of the ruminations of the pair makes their initial contemplation much more sinister than начаста ду|мати ѡ would imply: set out to plot against (Cross) vs. began to consider what to do about (Lunt). By avoiding direct speech a second time, Cross introduces

84  Michael S. Flier greater ambiguity by eliminating the overt representation of princedom in favour of the vague be sure of, and the intimate for you – for me of direct speech with reported Sviatopolk – nor he. Additionally, by using the translation believed to render two distinct predicates, ꙗ вѣру and послуша, he misses the opportunity to describe the result of consideration that led to conviction. Style, register, orality, and paraphrase present only some of the problems Lunt wanted to address in his new translation of the RPC. As noted above, when deciding among variants in the five witnesses Lunt had his working hypothesis of preferring L = H, but if L ≠ H, then X, R, and A were to prove decisive, roughly in that order. In the passage about Saint Andrew above, recall that Lunt selected поити (LHX) instead of ити (RA) to go to Rome, and при(и)де (RAHX) instead of проиде (L) въ (в)устье came to the mouth by preferring L=H in the former, and RAHX (L≠H) in the latter. But in the last analysis each and every case of variation had to be considered on its own terms, obliging the analyst to consider overriding the working hypothesis:13 “We must start with the maximal evidence and cautiously seek to distinguish older items by ascertaining changes and innovations”.14 A case in point is found in the Greek philosopher’s pronouncement about the vile nature of the Bulgars, “the most cursed of all men”, who had committed the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and were drowned by God and sank. The line that follows reads: L 86.14–17 яко | и сихъ ѡжидаєть. дн҃ь погибели их· | єгда придеть бъ҃ судитъ ꙃемли… [RAHKh, N1K судити на ꙃемлю; N1A, N1T судити ꙃемли] Cross Translation 1930/1953 The day of destruction likewise awaits these men, on which the Lord will come to judge the earth….

Lunt Translation Just so, the day of their destruction awaits these, when God comes to judge the earth….

The Cross translation of L is flawed in not translating их, in translating б҃ъ as Lord instead of God, and егда with on which instead of simple when. But Lunt favoured the L reading as well, despite the disagreement in the other major witnesses and the younger recension of N1, in apparent violation of his working hypothesis when L ≠ H. Important in this choice was the preservation in L alone of the supine form судитъ. The supine, an original Common Slavic verb form represented in Church Slavonic writing, was used instead of the infinitive after verbs of motion. Normally a transitive supine governs a genitive object, but if the verb itself governs a case other than accusative, here the dative, that verbal case marking is dispositive: we see dat.sg ꙃемли instead of gen.sg ꙃемлѣ.15 Confusion of the supine and the infinitive already occurs in the 11th century (Ostromir Lectionary, 1056–57) and the supine is lost by the 14th century.16 The introduction of the prepositional phrase на ꙃемлю may signal scribal confusion about the ṡ upine form or interference in anticipation of several closely following passages citing the descent of Christ to earth: L съниде на

Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle  85 ꙃемлю и распꙙ|тье приꙗ (87.11–12), L то что ради сниде|б҃ъ на ꙃемлю и страсть такою приꙗ (87.18), L чьсо ради сниде б҃ъ на ꙃемлю володимеръ реч послушаю рад. (87.20– 21). Key here is that the more appropriate translation of the passage above is when God comes to judge the earth, not *when God comes down to earth to judge. At a later place in the philosopher’s speech, Lunt confronts the issue of how to present translations of translations. L 103.22–27 пилатъ же испꙑтавъ ꙗко беꙃ винꙑ приведоша и· хотѣ испустити | и· ѡни же рѣша ему· аще сего пустиши не има‖ши бꙑти другъ кисареви. пилатъ же повелѣ · да и распнуть· ѡни же поимше іс҃а· ведоша на мѣсто | краньево· распѧша и ту· Cross translation 1930/1953 When Pilate discovered that they had arrested him without charge, he desired to release him, but they said, “If you release this man, you cannot be a friend of Caesar.” Pilate then commanded that they should crucify him. So they led him to the Place of the Skull and crucified him there.

Lunt translation And Pilate, having established by questioning that they had turned him in without cause, wanted to let him go. But they said to him, “If you let this (man) go, you will not be a friend of Caesar’s.” And Pilate ordered that they crucify him. And they, taking Jesus, led him to the Place of Kranij, and crucified him there.

The text leading up to the translation is inaccurate. Lunt correctly translated the participle испꙑтавъ by indicating the mechanism by which Pilate learned of Christ’s arrest, having established by questioning instead of Cross’s ambiguous discovered. He understood that Christ was arrested without cause, not without charge. And he heard that he will not be, not cannot be, a friend of Caesar’s if Jesus were let go. The clause taking Jesus is simply omitted in the Cross translation. The Greek phrase κρανίου τόπος ‘place of the skull’ appears in the original Greek text as a translation of the Hebrew Golgotha, and is found only once in each of the four Gospels (Mt 27:33, Mk 15:22, Lk 23:33, and Jn 19:17).17 Unlike Cross, Lunt assumed that the original Greek was not understood as a translation of the Hebrew, but simply as the genitive singular of a proper name associated with a specific location. The addition of the possessive suffix {ov} yields the derived possessive adjective kranijevo ‘Kranij’s, of Kranij’ from {kranij-ov-o} with {ov} realised as ev after j. This analysis is supported in the Church Slavonic rendering of another place-name referring to the site of the judgement seat for which the Hebrew Gabbatha is rendered in Greek as λιθόστρωτον ‘tesserated’ (Jn 19:13), commonly translated into English as Pavement. In the oldest Old Church Slavonic lectionaries and full Gospels, the word is represented as a place-name in the phrase на мѣстѣ рекомѣ|мь літострата (Assem 117b.18–19); cf. лотостратѫ (Sav 115, 8–9); литостратѫ (Zogr 283, 2–3); литостротѣ (Mar 169, 16–17). If the Greek phrase κρανίου τόπος is truly translated into (Old) Church Slavonic, one sees лъбьное мѣсто ‘place of the skull’, originally produced by a scribe familiar with both Greek and Church Slavonic. It can be found in Old Church Slavonic

86  Michael S. Flier (Euchologium Sinaiticum) and in Rusian Church Slavonic (Jur’ev Gospel of 1144). The RPC, however, clearly uses the older, untranslated place-name. This brief review of various kinds of issues presented in the Cross translation of the RPC demonstrates the clear need for a more accurate, philologically based retranslation of this important text into English since its original publication more than nine decades ago. The new translation by Horace Lunt, based on the five best witnesses, with reference to other chronicles where relevant, will be an invaluable resource for Slavists as well as the general reader for many decades to come. Harvard University

Notes 1 S. H. Cross (1930). Cross’s original English translation of the RPC, which served as a basis for his 1930 publication, was included as an addendum to his 1916 Harvard PhD dissertation entitled “The Contribution of Gerhardt Friederich Mueller to Russian Historiography, with Some Consideration of August Ludwig Schloezer. Supplemented by a Complete Translation of the Primary Chronicle, with an Introduction”. Harvard University Archives, HU 90.1134. 2 S. H. Cross and O. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (1953, vii). 3 M. Szeftel (1955, 267). 4 Ibid. 261–2. 5 A. N. Nasonov (1950) and M. A. Priselkov (1950), respectively. 6 D. Ostrowski et al. (2003, xvii–lxxix). 7 H. Lunt (1994, 11). 8 A. Timberlake (2001, 200ff). 9 See S. Griffin (2019, 55–61). 10 RAHX и; L Ø 11 The erroneous form прïи in R is apparently corrected with a 17th-century insertion of де above as indicated in the facsimile edition of the text (M. V. Kukushkina, 1994, 15, 18). 12 Szeftel (M. Szeftel, 1955, 262) noted that the dramatic Vasilko narrative contained thirty-seven quotations of direct speech, only twenty of which were preserved as such by Cross. 13 D. Ostrowski et al. (2003, xli–xlv). 14 H. Lunt (1994, 11–12). 15 It is unlikely that L zемли (dat.sg.f) is actually gen.sg.f, that is, with an original soft-stem ending replaced by its hard-stem counterpart, i. e. {ê} replaced by {i}. L is quite stable in preserving the original soft-stem endings and the dominance of dative government persists in the other witnesses following an infinitive. 16 V. I. Borkovskii and P. S. Kuznetsov (1965, 317–18). 17 According to Slavic Orthodox tradition, Christ was crucified over the burial site of Adam, a belief associating Christ as the New Adam with Adam, the first man.

Bibliography Rusian Chronicle Texts Bychkov, A. F. (ed.) (1872), Letopis’ po Lavrentievskomu spisku, St. Petersburg, Izdanie arkheograficheskoi komissii. Cross, S. H. (trans. and ed.) (1930), The Russian Primary Chronicle, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Retranslating The Rus’ Primary Chronicle  87 Cross, S. H. and O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (trans. and ed.) (1953), The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, Cambridge, MA, The Mediaeval Academy of America. Kukushkina, M. V. (ed.) (1994), Radzivilovskaia letopis’: Tekst. Issledovanie. Opisaniia miniatiur, St. Petersburg, Glagol. Likhachev, D. S. (ed.) (1950), Povest’ vremennykh let. 2 vols. Moscow and Leningrad, Izd. Akademii nauk SSSR. Nasonov, A. N. (ed.) (1950), Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov, Moscow, Izd. Akademii nauk SSSR. Ostrowski, D., D. J. Birnbaum and H. G. Lunt (eds.) (2003), The “Pověst’ vremennykh lět”: An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis, Cambridge, Harvard University Press for the Ukrainian Research Institute. Priselkov, M. A. (ed.) (1950), Troitskaia letopis’. Rekonstruktsiaia teksta, Moscow and Leningrad. Izd, Akademii nauk SSSR. Shakhmatov, A. A. (ed.) (1916), Povest’ vremennykh let. v. 1: Vvodnaia chast’. Tekst. Primechaniia, Petrograd, Izdanie arkheograficheskoi komissii.

Old Church Slavonic Texts Assem = Kurz, J. (ed.) (1955), Evangeliář Assemanův: Kodex Vatikánský. 3. Slovanský, v. 2. ̌ Úvod, text v přepise cyrilském, poznámky textové, seznamy čtení, Prague, Ceskoslovenské Akademie Věd. Mar = Jagić, I. V. (ed.) (1883), Mariinskoe chetveroevangelie s primechaniiami i prilozheniiami, Pamiatnik glagolicheskoi pis’mennosti, Berlin, Weidmann. Sav = Kniazevskaia, O. A., Korobenko, L. A., and Dogramadzhiev, E. P. (eds.) (1999), Savvina kniga. Drevneslavianskaia rukopis’ XI, XI–XII i kontsa XIII veka. Pt. 1. Rukopis’. Tekst. Kommentarii. Issledovanie. Pt. 2: Savvina kniga, Moscow, Indrik. Zogr = Jagić, V. (ed.) (1879), Quattuor Evangeliorum codex glagoliticus olim Zographensis nunc Petropolitanus characteribus cyrillicis transcriptum notis criticis prolegomenis appendicibus auctum. Editiones monumentorum slavicorum veteris dialecti, Berlin, Weidmann.

Secondary literature Borkovskii, V. I. and P. S. Kuznetsov (1965), Istoricheskaia grammatika russkogo iazyka, Moscow, Nauka. Griffin, S. (2019), The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Lunt, H. (1994), ‘Lexical Variation in the Copies of the Rus’ Primary Chronicle: Some Methodological Problems’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 18/1–2: 10–28. Szeftel, M. (1955), ‘Review of Cross and Sherbowitz 1953’, Speculum 30/2: 257–67. Timberlake, A. (2001), ‘Redactions of the Primary Chronicle’, Russkii iazyk v nauchnom osveshchenii 1: 196–218.

7 Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos versus John Tzimiskes in the Copies of the Rus’ Primary Chronicle Tatiana Vilkul The copies of the Old Rus’ian Primary Chronicle substantially vary as to which of the Byzantine emperors ruled during Princess Olga’s visit to Constantinople in the year 955. While the Hypatian and Radzivill manuscripts mention “Constantine the son of Leo”, that is, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, the Laurentian, Novgorod I and Novgorodian-Sophian chronicles report about “a Caesar named Tsimskes”. Scholars have drawn heavily on the LaurentianNovgorodian version, though the latter imply John Tzimiskes, whose reign actually began only in 969, that is, more than decade after Olga’s visit. The author sets out to show that the author of the correct version of the chronology must have had access to sources setting out the unusual pattern of succession that attended Constantine’s reign(s), which other scribes must have dismissed as being too unlikely. The distinguished British scholar Simon Franklin has devoted a lot of research to the problems of Old Slavic and Rus’ written texts. In this chapter readers are offered a case study within the framework of this genre: we will talk about a set of discrepancies in one annual entry of the Primary Chronicle, also known as the Tale of Bygone Years. The main conflict concerns the heroes of the chronicle narrative. Using the names of the Early Rus’ sources themselves, it can be designated in a nutshell as “Constantine, son of Leo” versus “Caesar by the name of Tzimiskes”. The Primary Chronicle has come down to us in five main manuscripts – the Laurentian from the end of the 14th century; the Radzivill, Moscow Academy, and Hypatian from the 15th century; and the Khlebnikov from the 16th century (sigla L, R, A, H, Kh).1 To get a clear picture of textual correspondences and differences, further copies of the First Novgorodian Chronicle of the Younger version (N1),2 as well as the Novgorodian-Sophian group, which includes the Novgorodian Karamzin, Fourth Novgorodian and First Sophian chronicles (sigla Nk, N4, S),3 all with significant sections of the Primary Chronicle, have to be drawn on. The traditional division of the main witnesses of the Primary Chronicle in case of divergence of versions is into the northeastern or ‘Suzdalian’ branch (LRA) versus the southern or ‘Kyivan’ branch (HKh).4 An analysis of the discrepancies shows that the Novgorodian-Sophian chronicles are strongly associated with the Suzdalian manuscripts in a version DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-9

Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople  89 close to the Laurentian copy,5 while the First Novgorodian Chronicle, where it reproduces the text of the Primary Chronicle, shares either LRA or HKh variant readings. The special position of N1 is explained by various hypotheses, including the use of the Hypatian branch of the Primary Chronicle (i.e. origin from or contamination with the protograph of HKh). But most often it is suggested that N1 uses the so-called ‘Initial Compilation’ (Nachal’ny Svod) of the 1090s, the hypothetical predecessor of the Primary Chronicle (the last one dates back to the 1110s). The latter explanation is within the framework of the theory advanced by Aleksei A. Shakhmatov.6 The Primary Chronicle begins, as is usual for medieval chronicles, with biblical history and semi-legendary stories about the origin of the people and territory. It narrates the history of Slavic tribes, the Rus’ and the Varangians,7 as well as the first Rus’ princes and cities – Kyiv, Novgorod, etc. However, the 10th-century entries, one of which will be discussed below, have already a historical nature, and are partly confirmed by foreign sources. In the narration about the baptism in Constantinople of Princess Olga, the first Early Rus’ saint, the MSS of the Primary Chronicle give strongly divergent versions. The point under discussion is who was the Byzantine Emperor who ruled at the time when Olga visited Constantinople s.a. 6463 AM / 955 CE. Two names are given in two groups of manuscripts: HKhRA mention Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, while LN1NkN4S has John Tzimiskes. At the beginning of the 955 annual entry the Hypatian and Radzivill manuscripts read: “и бѣ тогда цсрь Костѧнтинъ. сн҃ъ Леѡнтовъ”8 (then was the Emperor Constantine, son of Leo), while the Laurentian-Novgorodian copies have: “и бѣ тогда цр҃ь именемь Цѣмьскии”9 (then was the emperor called Tsimskii).10 Though all that concerns textual criticism rarely draws attention outside of strictly scientific publications, the divergence of versions is so extraordinary that its interpretation has even affected popular non-fiction.11 Princess Olga could not have really visited John Tzimiskes in Constantinople, since he only became Byzantine Emperor in the year of her death (969), and she lived on for quite a few years after converting to Christianity (fifteen according to the chronicle). The report of the reception of the Kyivan Princess was preserved in the treatise De Cerimoniis (On Ceremonies), attributed to Constantine Porphyrogenitos, the son of Leo VI (905–959). The text is actually the work of several authors and editors, mainly from the time of Constantine.12 As it includes two narrations on the official reception of archoness Helga (Olga)13 on Wednesday, 9 September, and Sunday, 18 October, the information about her visit during the reign of Constantine is reliable. The point open to debate is simply the chronology, because De Cerimoniis gives two month-and-day dates, but not a specific year. According to various calculations based on indirect data, scholars have hypothesised about a visit to Constantinople in 946, shortly after the death of Olga’s husband, Prince Igor, or maybe in 957.14 It should be added that after Constantine Porphyrogenitos died at 959, his son Romanos II reigned from 959 to 963, then Nicephoros II Phocas from 963 to 969, and only after that did John Tzimiskes (969–976) ascend to the throne.

90  Tatiana Vilkul It would seem that the matter has been settled, since the HKhRA reflect the true state of affairs and name the actual emperor by the time of Olga’s visit – Constantine Porphyrogenitos. However, the testimonies of L, N1 and the Novgorodian-Sophian chronicles were not to be discarded, in spite of their obvious anachronism. As has already been noted, the dominant hypothesis in the study of Old Rus’ chronicles is the identification of N1 with the so-called ‘Initial Compilation’ (‘Nachal’ny Svod’) of the 1090s. The L variant readings shared by N1 (L=N1) are taken simultaneously as evidence of the oldest of the copies of the Primary Chronicle and the ‘Initial Compilation’: two branches versus one are considered to attest to original text.15 However, this is not the only possible solution, because the agreements of N1 with the Suzdalian chronicle might be the result of their early family ties.16 As has already been noted, Constantine “son of Leo” is documented not only by HKh, but also by RA, which is usually closely associated with L. The grouping of HKhRA against L can be also attested in a series of readings. When dealing with innovations in L, we simply assume that the version of the single copy deviated from the original. Taking into account that the Laurentian tradition is well represented in later manuscripts, we obtain the LNkN4C group and similar ones. However, in a fairly representative number of examples the presumed innovation is detected, to the contrary, in HKhRA or HRA, while L or LKh retains the original reading. Two explanations have been proposed for this phenomenon. Aleksei A. Gippius has put forward a hypothesis about contamination between HKh and the RA at an early stage of the existence of the texts.17 Conversely, I suggested contamination of HRA at a much later stage, when H and Kh had already diverged,18 tentatively in the late 14th to early 15th centuries. The last hypothesis satisfactorily explains both (1) the collection of common secondary readings in HKhRA, and (2) some notable exceptions where HRA opposes LKh. It is now accepted as being more satisfactory by Gippius himself and other scholars.19 In this case, it is important for us that both initial and secondary readings of HKh+RA, as well as both initial and secondary readings of L+N1, are textologically probable. A most difficult situation in textual criticism has arisen where we cannot rely on the stemma and are forced to use additional sources and take indirect pieces of evidence into account. We would venture to suggest that the account in HKhRA, that corresponds to reality, is the original. In order to prove this, we shall play devil’s advocate. Let us imagine that, in spite of the fact that under 6463/955 HKhRA correctly calls Constantine Porphyrogenitus Emperor, this is, in fact, a secondary reading, and initially the anachronistic John Tzimiskes was named. Here, apart from the ambiguity of the situation when the reading corresponding to reality is considered secondary, while the anachronism, by contrast, is treated as the original; it is also necessary to come up with a motive for the copyist’s actions. Indeed, the scribe would have had to not just copy “Tzimiskes”, but to reject the reading of the protograph, and go through the trouble of entering the name of the truly reigning emperor. What could have pushed him to make such a decision? As far as I can see,

Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople  91 there were no new sources on the history of Byzantium available,20 and equally, knowledge of Greek is not detected among the Early Rus’ chroniclers. Of course, until all the manuscript collections have been examined, it is risky to assert anything with absolute certainty, but it seems there were no additional texts with references to Constantine at the disposal of the Rus’ scribes of the 12th to 13th centuries, although, similar sources do appear later, in the 14th century.21 Accordingly, there is no motive for changing the name of the emperor from Tzimiskes to Constantine. Moreover, already in the second half of the 12th century, the Prolog (Synaxar) named John Tzimiskes as the Byzantine Emperor at the time Princess Olga had been baptised.22 This very authoritative source, used at church services, confirmed the reading of ‘Tzimskii’. In the 13th century the same was attested by the Extended Edition of the Letopisets vskore by Patriarch Nicephorus with Rus’ inserts,23 brought up to 1278 by Suzdalian entries (see texts below). By the way, the oldest manuscript of that edition of Letopisets came from Novgorod, from where some witnesses of the reading ‘Tsimskii’ originated. All of the above means that until the end of the 13th century, the exact opposite tendency of substitution of Constantine Porphyrogenitos for Tsimskii is much more likely. Thus, our assumption that the version of HKhRA reflects the original of the Primary Chronicle where “Constantine son of Leo” was mentioned under 6463/955 and that the name was subsequently changed to Tzimiskes in one of the branches of the textual tradition, is again indirectly confirmed. Let us proceed to how the reading of “Constantine son of Leo” could have arisen for the compiler of the Primary Chronicle. Apparently, the expression itself came to him from the Chronicle of George Hamartolos.24 Its first Old Slavic translation, entitled Vremennik or Knigi vremennyja (lit. Books of Times),25 was a favourite source of the chronicler, from which he borrowed dozens of quotes.26 As for the expression of interest to us, it occurs three times in the Chronicle of Hamartolos. Thus, it was said that the dying Leo, handing over the throne to his brother Alexander, prays to preserve his son Constantine, and that Alexander reigns “a year and a day with Constantine, son of Leo”. At death’s door Alexander “hands over rule to Constantine, son of Leo”. Then, once again recalling the same events: “Constantine, son of Leo, born to the royal house (lit. born in purple) … being 7 years old at his father’s death, is placed on the throne with his paternal uncle Alexander”.27 Constantine Porphyrogenitos (ὁ Πορφυρογέννητος) had, as it were, a nonlinear destiny, so it is worth marking the main chronological milestones. He was seven years old when his father Leo VI died (in 912); the following year (913) Constantine’s uncle Alexander died, and the infant ascended the throne. In 919 he married the daughter of Romanus I Lecapenos, and in 920 the young Emperor was effectively forced to hand over power to his father-in-law Romanus. The latter reigned with his sons Christopher, Stephen, and Constantine until December 944, while Constantine Porphyrogenitos was precluded from having real power. Constantine’s true rule,28 when he is called ‘sole ruler’ or ‘autocrat’,29 refers to the second part of his reign (945–959).

92  Tatiana Vilkul It is noteworthy that Hamartolos illuminates in detail the stages of the emperor’s life, starting from his birth, and includes entries about him right up to the very end of the Chronicle in 946. Twice in connection with the emperor a comet (lit. ‘great star’) is recorded, very significant for medieval scribes. The first comet is said to appear at his birth, and the second during his joint reign with his uncle, when plans are made to emasculate the young co-ruler.30 Dates in years were recorded thrice, which is quite unique for the Chronicle, for which, in general, relative chronology and numbers of indictions (15-year periods) are more common. The first year marks the moment of bestowment of the title of Caesar on Romanos Lecapenos and the coronation of Romanos’ wife as empress – in reality, the semi-voluntary transfer of power to the father-in-law in 6428/920.31 The second year 6453/945 (or 944) indicates Constantine’s return to power according to the will of Romanos – seemingly the seriously ill old Emperor named Constantine as primary ruler of the empire, and assigned his own sons to subordinate roles.32 The third year 6454/946 is given on the last sheet of the Chronicle within the description of the conspiracy of the sons against Romanos, when Stephen “deposed … and sent his father into exile”, while Constantine managed to remain as “autocrat”.33 Then the latter decided that since Romanos’ sons had not spared their own father, he too was in danger, and sent them into exile; the former Emperor Romanos died on 15 June.34 There are also relative dates, recollecting the main moments of Constantine’s life. According to Hamartolos, Constantine reigned “with his mother Zoe … for seven years”, then “jointly with Roman, his father-in-law, being his subordinate for 27 years” and, finally, “as sole ruler for 15 years”.35 Chroniclers and subsequently researchers of Early Rus’ literature converted the relative chronology into an absolute one, correlating the mentions of the years of reign and indictions, and calculating the years from the AM (or CE) on that basis. Such operations can lead to a discrepancy of 1–2 years, but in general, the historical outline is preserved. Apparently, the compiler of the Primary Chronicle used Slavonic Hamartolos for several such calculations. If from 6428/920 (see the first absolute date above) we subtract seven years of the reign of Constantine with his mother Zoe, we get the Chronicle date of the accession of “Constantine the son of Leo” 6421/913.36 If we take another year off the reign of his uncle Alexander, brother of Leo, we get 912, the date of the treaty between Rus’ and the Greeks in the reign of Prince Oleg, where Leo and Alexander are mentioned together for the last time. The 27 years of joint reign of Constantine with Romanos, after the ‘appointment’ of the latter as emperor, are 920–946. One year before the last date – 6453/945 – indicates Igor’s treaty with the Greeks, where Romanos I Lecapenos and his co-rulers Constantine and Stephen are named together for the last time.37 After them, there are still 15 years left when Constantine Porphyrogenitos ruled as ‘autocrat’: 946–960 (actually 945–959). With such an abundance of information, one can hope that the attentive reader of Hamartolos, as the author of the Primary Chronicle showed himself to be, was able to understand the intricate history of the reign of

Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople  93 Constantine VII. Of course, we cannot know for sure all the sources of the Rus’ chronicler – no one has managed to achieve such precise knowledge in the 250 years that the Primary Chronicle has been studied – which might have included lost texts and informants who had visited Constantinople. However, in this case, it is important that the 15-year reign of Constantine VII as autocrat could have been learned already through reading Slavonic Hamartolos alone. Moreover, it is absolutely impossible to assume that the author who knew the Hamartolos so well would have missed the persistently highlighted news of Constantine’s return to the throne in the 940s. The last sheets of Vremennik provided more than enough material to draw a conclusion about the transfer of power from Romanos I to Constantine VII. In the Primary Chronicle, as we have seen, under the year 913, Constantine is presented as the “son-in-law of Romanos”, which he actually became six years later. Such a leap forward is not surprising. This compiler had carefully read the Slavonic Hamartolos, but included only a short synopsis of what he had read in his own text. As a rule, he recorded changes on the throne of Constantinople: 6360/852 “at the accession of the [emperor] Michael…”;38 6376/868 “Basil began to reign”;39 6395/887 “Leo son of Basil reigned, who was called Lev, with his brother Alexander”;40 6421/913 “Constantine began to reign, son of Leo, son-in-law of Romanos”;41 6428/920 “Romanos was made emperor in the Greek [land, i.e. Byzantium]”.42 Finally, under 6463/955, according to HKhRA, the compiler of the Primary Chronicle names the reigning Emperor Constantine in describing Olga’s baptism. In the latter case, to repeat, we proceed from the assumption that the HKhRA version reflects the original text, and that the chronicler, who was familiar with Hamartolos, understood that c. 945 Constantine VII regained the throne and successfully ruled for another 15 years. However, the scribe tightly filled the 945–946 years with Rus’ events: the death of Prince Igor, the embassy of the Drevlians to Olga and the princess’s revenge for the murder of her husband, the burning of the Drevlian city of Iskorosten. For 947, Olga’s journey through the lands of Rus’ in order to establish “regulations and duties” is mentioned. Thus, the news of the return of power to Constantine remained unrecorded, and formally, the last event on the Byzantine throne concerns Romanus I, who had replaced Constantine in 920. In 6454/946 the Slavonic Hamartolos, which served as the main source of the Primary Chronicle on Byzantine history, ends. Because of this, the Primary Chronicle omitted the accession of the son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Romanos II (959), the reign of Nicephoros Phocas (963), and the beginning of the reign of John Tzimiskes (969). The dates of enthronement found above give us some idea of how Constantine “son of Leo” could have been replaced by John “Tzimiskes”. Let’s try to restore the logic of the scribes who read the Primary Chronicle without studying the Hamartolos (as the author of the Primary Chronicle had). As has already been noted, the story of Constantine Porphyrogenitos is quite unusual. He was neither killed, nor emasculated, nor exiled; he managed to regain the throne for a second time after 25 years in the shadows. After all, usually pretenders to the throne had only one chance, and one ruler often

94  Tatiana Vilkul succeeded another as a result of bloody rebellions and executions. In other words, the life of the previous emperor usually ended with the reign. So, in the Primary Chronicle, a series of accessions to the Byzantine throne is noted, but the last such mention is 920, the ‘ordination’ of Romanos, who replaced Constantine. Byzantine emperors were also mentioned in the treaties between Rus’ and the Greeks. In Oleg’s treaties we have Leo (or, in the Greek spelling ‘Leon’) and Alexander under 6415/907 and 6420/912;43 in Igor’s treaty from 6453/945 – Romanos I with his co-rulers (one can assume that his two sons are meant);44 in Sviatoslav’s treaty of 6479/971 – John Tzimiskes.45 What impression did the attentive copyist have, who did not refer to the text of Hamartolos, but had only the Primary Chronicle to hand? Constantine “son of Leo” became emperor in 913, but already in 920 he was replaced by Romanos, who reigned until 945, as mentioned in the treaty with Prince Igor. So, according to logic (remember, the logic of a person not knowing the history of Byzantium and not having read Hamartolos closely) – under 955, the mention of “Constantine son of Leo” must be wrong: he had been replaced by another emperor long before; an error must have crept into the narration and a correction must be found urgently! Where to find the name? It should also be noted that Romanos reigned for quite a long time (from 920 to 945 – 25 years), and logically, in 945 we are talking about the end of his reign. Therefore, it is safer to take the next emperor mentioned. There is such a candidate. The closest emperor is John “Tsimskii”, mentioned in the treaty with the Greeks in 971. Apparently, this is how the innovation arose – the replacement of “Constantine son of Leo” with John “Tsimskii”. As was said, in addition to the group of manuscripts of the Primary Chronicle, it is also reflected in a version of the Extended Edition of the Prolog, which appeared in the 12th century. Unfortunately, what the relationship may be between the texts, in this case is not known. Maybe the compiler of the Prolog composed his narration about Olga after reading the Primary Chronicle, or the L and N1 versions arose under the influence of the Prolog, or several authors drew on a single source, the treaty with the Greeks in 971, which mentioned the name of “Tsimskii”. As already noted, the Extended Edition of the Prolog that interests us appeared in the second half of the 12th century. In the 13th century, we already have actual manuscripts of the Prolog with such readings. In the “Sinai Palimpsest” of the 13th century, written in Middle Bulgarian, but reflecting the Novgorodian protograph, the “Olga’s Life” for 11 July reads thus: “Hearing about the Greek faith, she went to Constantine’s city, then ruled by Tzimiskes”.46 The same innovation was also reflected in the Second or Extended Edition of the Letopisets vskore by Patriarch Nicephorus with Rus’ inserts.47 The earliest example is in the Synodal Novgorodian Kormchaia (Nomocanon) of 1282.48 The text of the fragment we are interested in reads as follows: Constantine, son of Leo, son-in-law of Romanos, ruled from the age of 7, while in Rus’ Igor started his rule, when Oleg died. Romanos reigned

Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople  95 for 36 years, in the 27th year of his reign Igor was killed. Olga started to rule with her son Sviatoslav. Ivan, known as Tsimskii, ruled. In the first year of his reign Olga came to Tsargrad49 and was baptised. [This was] 6463 years from Adam.50 This means that the Extended Edition of the Letopisets vskore does not have any record either of the return of power to Constantine VII and his reign from 6453/945 to 6467/959, nor of Constantine’s son Romanos II, nor of Nicephoros Phocas.51 The date 6463/955 is taken from the Primary Chronicle. The length of Romanos’ reign is incorrectly stretched, having in fact been c. 25 years (27 according to Hamartolos), rather than 36 years. If we proceed from the year when Igor was killed 6453/945 = the 27th year of the reign of Romanos I, then the “36th year of Romanos” would be 6462/954, one year before Olga’s baptism. As we can see, the versions of the Prolog and the Letopisets vskore confirm exactly that path of transition from “Constantine” to “John Tzimiskes”, which was reconstructed for the scribes who had not studied Hamartolos closely. In Letopisets vskore, the peculiarities of the narrative are manifested most prominently, since only Romanos I is mentioned, and immediately after him came “Ivan Tsemskii”, that is, the presentation skips three emperors at once. Although we cannot and are unlikely to be able to accurately restore the original source in which Constantine was replaced by Tzimiskes, it can be confidently asserted that a tradition, whereby the baptism of Olga was attributed to the time of Tzimiskes, was formed in the 12th to 13th centuries.52 As it was reflected in the L and Novgorodian chronicles, it should be borne in mind that the convergence of N1 and the Novgorodian-Sophian chronicles with L is not surprising. The copy of the Primary Chronicle which was used in the First Novgorodian Chronicle of the Younger version most likely belonged to the North-Eastern Rus’ (or, to be even more precise, Suzdalian) copies, and not the Southern Rus’ ones. From the second half of the 12th century, representatives of the Suzdalian dynasty reigned in Novgorod more and more often, which stimulated common phenomena in cultural life. In conclusion, this chapter has, so to speak, a strictly positive outcome, now that we have learnt that the Primary Chronicle does not have an obvious anachronism in 955. The chronicler who had closely read the Slavonic Hamartolos received enough information about the return to power of Constantine Porphyrogenitos c. 945 and his reign as autocrat for the next 15 years. So, he correctly reflected in his story about Olga’s journey to Constantinople under 955 the name of the actual Greek emperor – “Constantine son of Leo”. The substitution for “emperor named Tsimskiy” was made by scribes who had not closely read Hamartolos, that is, in some copies of the Primary Chronicle as well as other Rus’ texts, which were written after the beginning of the 12th century. At the same time, this chapter aims to make a contribution to the polemics generated by Shakhmatov’s theory. Indeed, though N1 does not contain a single treaty with the Greeks, it does contain, nevertheless, an innovative

96  Tatiana Vilkul reading about the emperor “named Chem’skii” from the entry for 955, which, most likely, comes from the treaty of 971. Its presence in N1 presupposes the use of a copy of the Primary Chronicle, which included the treaty of Sviatoslav with the mention of John Tzimiskes. It is believed that treaties with the Greeks were introduced into the Primary Chronicle in the 1110s during the final edition of the text. In that case N1 would reflect a version created after the 1110s, instead of the 1090s, where the “Initial Compilation” is traditionally placed. Thus, the set of discrepancies we are unravelling not only provides an “incontrovertibly secondary reading”53 of L and the Novgorodian chronicles, but also indirectly testifies against the Shakmhatov hypothesis of the “Initial Compilation, reflected in the First Novgorodian Chronicle of the Younger version”.

Notes 1 L, R and A were published in the first volume of the Complete collection of Russian chronicles (Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, PSRL) following L as the main manuscript; R and A in variant readings. HKh was published separately (following H as the main manuscript and Kh in variants) in the second volume. See Laurentian Chronicle, PSRL. vol. 1 (Moscow 1997); Hypatian Chronicle, PSRL, vol. 2 (Moscow 2001). All five manuscripts, as well as the First Novgorodian Chronicle of the Younger version, are used in D. Ostrowski’s edition The Povest ‘vremennykh let: an interlinear collation and paradosis (D. Ostrowski 2003). 2 Since the Early edition, that is, the GIM, Synodal No. 786, hardly bears comparison with the Primary Chronicle, the abbreviation N1 is permissible, although it is usually abbreviated as N1ml (ml for “mladshii”, i.e. the Younger), or N1Y, in English. See A. N. Nasonov (1950), reprinted in PSRL, vol. 3. 3 See Novgorodian Karamzin Chronicle (PSRL, vol. 42); First Sophian Chronicle Elder version (PSRL, vol. 6. I); Fourth Novgorodian Chronicle, (PSRL. vol. 4. part 1). 4 This division has subsequently been followed by the continuators: while the Laurentian and Radzivill manuscripts, after the completion of the Primary Chronicle in the 1110s, proceed to the records of the Vladimir-Suzdalian chroniclers, the Hypatian and Khlebnikov were continued by the Kievan Chronicle, which went up to the end of the 12th century. As for the date of the “1110s”, the narration in the Laurentian branch is cut off in the middle of an entry dated 1111. In HKh, the Primary Chronicle goes up to 1115 or a little later (the years 1118, 1119, and others have been proposed). 5 In terms of discrepancies, possible readings include LRA = NkN4S versus HKh, and L = NkN4S versus HKhRA. 6 Shakhmatov’s concept is currently the dominant one. Supporters of his theory are, among others, A. A. Gippius (2006, 56–96); A. A. Gippius (2012, 37–63); S. M. Mikheev (2011); T. V. Guimon (2021). Among the main objectors to Shakhmatov’s theory are D. Ostrowski (2007); T. L. Vilkul (2003); T. L. Vilkul (2019). 7 See, for example, S. L. Nikolaev and T. L. Vilkul (2020). 8 As in H; RAKh have Леѡновъ. See PSRL, vol. 2, column 49, rows 12–13. 9 See PSRL, vol. 1, column 60, rows 26–7. The numbering of columns and rows according to L is indicated in: D. Ostrowski et al. (2003). Among variant readings: L om. “и”, N1NkN4S; L “имѧнемь”, in other versions “именемъ”. Also, in N1 the name is reproduced with the Novgorodian transition ts/ch and ѣ/е as “Чемьскии”; in NkN4S with the amplification “Иванъ” (John), it comes out as “Иванъ Чемьскыи” or “Чемьскыи Іоаннъ”. Nasonov (1950, 113); PSRL, vol. 42, 37; PSRL, vol. 6. 1, 50.

Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople  97 10 The spelling is the archaic transliteration of the Greek Τσιμισκής. I am grateful to Sergei Lvovich Nikolaev who drew my attention to this aspect. 11 A. Iu. Karpov (2009, 52). 12 For example, M. Featherstone (2003, 241–51). 13 For the text, see J. J. Reiske (1830, II, 594–8). 14 For example, A. V. Nazarenko (2001). 15 A. A. Gippius (2002, 93). 16 The sets of discrepancies in the copies of the Primary Chronicle and the Novgorodian Chronicles are analysed in our joint textual study, S. L. Nikolaev and T. L. Vilkul (2022). According to our observations, the analysis of several hundred sets of readings presents the following picture: N1 itself is quite innovative, but if it supports HKh or LRA, then these options are much more likely to be primary, and those opposed to them secondary. Nevertheless, there is a small series of secondary readings of the type N1=L, which had already been noted in T. L. Vilkul (2004, 183–4). 17 A. A. Gippius (2002). 18 The copies of the southern branch are extremely close. Therefore, in those cases when Kh=H, and these constitute an absolute majority, we have a combination of HKhRA versus L. But where innovations in H arose after a divergence with the protograph into H and Kh, HRA versus LKh readings were formed. See T. L. Vilkul (2004, 177–83). 19 A. A. Gippius (2014, 342–59). 20 For example, the author of the Kyivan chronicle – i.e. the continuation of the Primary Chronicle in the southern HKh branch – used, in the main, the same translated texts. Namely, the Early Slavic translations of the Chronicle of George Hamartolos, whose entries end in 946, and the Chronicle of John Malalas. Only Josephus Flavius (History of the Jewish War) was subsequently added, but he describes events well before the 10th century. See T. L. Vilkul (2019, 269–303). 21 For example, in the Middle Bulgarian translation of the Chronicle of Constantine Manasses, where in the headings after: “Цсртво Рѡмана Лакапина” there follows “црство Кѡстантiна Багрѣнороднаго, сн҃а Львова”, “Цсртво Романа сн҃а Кѡстантин Багрѣнороднаг”, “Цсртво Никфора Фѡкѫ”, “Цсртво Цимисхiа цр҃ѣ”. GIM, Synodal collection No.38, l.38-131, digitalised: http://histdict.uni-sofia.bg/textcorpus/show/ doc_169. It should be noted that in the translation of Manasses the spelling of “Tsim’skii” is no longer reproduced. Still more material about Tzimiskes appears in the 15th century. See below about the third or Synoptic Edition of the “Letopisets vskore”, where the list of Byzantine emperors is brought up to John VIII Palaeologus (who reigned between 1425 and 1448). 22 The version of the Prolog’s Life of Princess Olga, which contains the reading we need, is now dated to the third quarter of the 12th century: A. A. Pichkhadze, V. A. Romodanovskaya, and E. K. Romodanovskaya (2005, 292); O. V. Loseva (2009, 146). 23 E. K. Piotrovskaya (1974, 170–7). 24 This fact has been repeatedly pointed out, already by A. A. Shakhmatov (1940, 53). 25 For editions see V. M. Istrin (1920); V. A. Matveenko and L. I. Shchegoleva (2006). The last part of the Chronicle, the so-called Continuation of Hamartolos after the middle of the 9th century, is part of the Chronicle of Symeon Magister, but is attributed to Hamartolos himself. See A. Iu. Vinogradov and P. V. Kuzenkov (2014, 11–14). There is a second Slavic translation entitled Letovnik, but it did not influence the early Old Rus’ian chroniclers. 2 6 Researchers have been referring to quotations from Hamartolos in the Primary Chronicle since the 1820s. See, for example, S.C. Franklin (2002, 67, 139); T. L. Vilkul (2019, 99–232). 27 Corresponding sections in Slavonic Hamartolos: “лѣто едино и дн҃iи .кѳ҃. с Костѧнтином, Леѡнтовомъ сн҃омъ”; “цсртвие Костѧнтиноу, Леѡнтовоу сн҃оу, предасть”; “Костѧнтинъ,

98  Tatiana Vilkul Леѡнтовъ сн҃ъ, в прапроудѣ рожденыи… ѿцо҃у его оумр҃шоу, .з҃. (7) лѣт имѣаше възрастомъ, Ѡлександромъ стрыа ег в цсртвiи ѡставлен быс”. V. M. Istrin (1920, 540, 542). 28 Slav.: «самовластие». V. M. Istrin (1920, 568, 569, 571). 29 Slav.: «единодьржьць» or «самодьржьць». V. M. Istrin (1920, 542, 571). Greek: μονοκράτωρ. or αὐτοκράτωρ. V. M. Istrin (1922, 39, 64). 30 “Роди же Леѡнъ сн҃а Костѧнтина именемь, ѿ Зоа, четвертыа его жены . семоуж на рожство ӕвисѧ звѣзда велиа, лоуча на въстокъ испүщаа, .з҃. дн҃iи и нощи ӕвлѧас” (Leo’s son named Constantine was born to Zoe, his fourth wife. at his birth a great star appeared, shining its rays to the east, 3 days and nights it appeared); “при семь звѣзда ӕвисѧ велиӕ ѿ запада, копииника его нарицахоу” (at this [time] there appeared a great star from the west, [they] called it a spearhead”. V. M. Istrin (1920, 536, 541). 31 “Въ .к҃. и .д҃. дн҃ь септевриа мсца почтен быс Романъ Кесаревом саномъ, а декавриа мсца въ .зı҃. дн҃ь, в ндлю праѿц҃мъ, в цсркыи вѣнець вѣнчан быс Костѧнтином цр҃мь, зѧтем своимъ, и Николою патриархомъ. В лѣт .҂sу҃ки҃ . индикта .и҃. геноуариа мсца въ .s҃., ст҃ых Бг҃оӕвленiи дн҃ь, вѣнчаеть цр҃ь Феѡдороу, женоу его, цр҃цею” (Romanos was honoured with the title of Caesar on 24 September, and in the month of December on the 17th day, in the Week of Holy Forefathers, was crowned with the imperial wreath by the Emperor Constantine, his son-in-law, and the patriarch Nicholas. In the year 6428 of the eighth indiction on the sixth day in the month of January, the day of the Epiphany, the Emperor crowned Theodora, his wife, as Empress). A few months later, in May, Romanos’ son Christopher was crowned Emperor. V. M. Istrin (1920, 552–3). 32 “…цр҃ь же Романъ, долгою старостию и недоугомъ изнемогсѧ, ѡ цсртвiи клѧтвү истовствоуеть и цр҃мъ старѣи въ прапроудѣ рожденаго Костѧнтина повелѣ, в лѣт .҂sу҃нг. дн҃iи три и по рѧдоу на .в҃.е и .г҃.е своа сн҃ы” (“The emperor Romanos, exhausted by age and illness, prepared his will concerning the imperial rule and named as primary emperor the royal-born Constantine, in the year 6453 three days and then in second and third place his own sons”). V. M. Istrin (1920, 570). I must add, there is an error “days” here in all surviving copies of the Vremennik. Cf. Slav. text above and the Greek Hamartolos: …καὶ ἄνακτα πρῶτον τὸν Πορφυρογέννητον Κωνσταντῖνον προσδιορίζεται ἐν ἔτει ҂συνγʹ ἰνδικτιῶνι γ’ … ἐν δευτέρῳ καὶ τρίτῳ τοὺς τούτου υἱούς… V. M. Istrin (1922, 64). However, in the Chronographic edition of Hamartolos it reads more accurately “3 indicta” (of the third indiction). Cf.: Trinity chronograph – RGB fond 304. I, coll. Trinity-Sergius Lavra No. 728, chronograph of the late 14th or early 15th century f. 392r; Sinodal’naia paleia – GIM, coll. Synodal No. 210, the Complete chronographic paleia, 1477, f. 546v; Pogodinskaya palaea - RNB, fond 588 coll. Pogodin, No. 1435, the Complete Chronographic Palaeia, 1st third of the 16th century, f. 441. 33 “…ѿц҃а с полаты злѣ сведе, гл҃емыи Первыи ѡстровъ ѡземствова бг҃ъ (sic!), постриже и чръноризцемъ. ѡставленъ оубо самодръжцемъ Костѧнтинъ, сего зѧт, мсца деквриа въ .к҃., индикта .г҃., лѣт .҂sу҃. и .д҃.” (“…deposed his father from the throne, God exiled to the island called of the First (Greek: τούτον τού παλατιvου κακὼς κατηvγαγε καί ἐν τῇ Πρώτῃ νήσῳ ἐξορίσας,), and made him take monastic vows. Thus was established as autocrat Constantine, his son-in-law, on December, 20, of the third indiction, in the year 6404”.) V. M. Istrin (1920, 570–1); V. M. Istrin (1922, 64). There are errors in the surviving complete copies of the Vremennik (“father” instead of “him”, amplifications “God” and “called”, the numeral representing the decade was omitted and the year comes out as 6404, though must be 6454). The correct date is restored in the Chronographic edition of Hamartolos, including the Trinity Chronograph, sheet 392c: “лѣт .҂s҃.у҃.н҃.д҃”. 34 V. M. Istrin (1920, 571–2). 35 “с материю Зоиею… лѣт седмь”; “коупно же и с Романом, тестем своимь, сыи в повиновении инѣх лѣт .кз҃ (27)”; “единодръжець же лѣт .еı҃. (15). V. M. Istrin (1920, 542). 36 That is, in the Primary Chronicle, the first mention of “Leo’s son” is quite correctly dated 6421/913 (for the text see below, note 41).

Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople  99 37 It should also be borne in mind that the Rus’ campaign against Constantinople at the time of Prince Igor, attested by foreign sources, dates to 941, and it would be logical to assume the conclusion of a peace treaty at a time closer to the date of 941, and not some four years later in 945. 38 Slav. «наченшю Михаилу цсртвовати…». PSRL, vol. 1, column 17, rows 25–26. 39 “Поча цсртвовати Василии”. “Василии” according to H and other manuscripts though L has corrupted “всилѣ”. PSRL, vol. 1, column 22, rows 4–5; vol. 2, column 16, rows 1–2. 40 “Левонъ црствова сн҃ъ Васильєвъ . иже Левъ прозвас и брат єго Ѡлександръ”. Левонъ in L; other copies have Леѡнъ. PSRL, vol. 1, column 24, rows 22–23. 41 “поча цсртвовати Костѧнтинъ . сн҃ъ Леѡнтовъ зѧть Романовъ”. PSRL, vol. 1, column 42, rows 4–5. 42 “Поставьленъ Романъ цсрмъ въ Грѣцѣхъ”. L has lacunae; therefore the text is given according to H and other copies, cf. PSRL, vol. 1, column 43, rows 7–8; vol. 2, column 32, rows 23–24. 43 In the first year, in the narration preceding the treaty: “съ цсрема… съ Леѡномъ и съ Александром” (with Emperors Leo and Alexander). According to H and other copies; L has a lacuna; R switches the syllables “со Ѡленом”. PSRL, vol. 1, column 30, rows 26–27. In the second year, in the body of the treaty: “при тѣх же цр҃ьхъ . Лва . и Александра” (with the same Emperors Leo and Alexander). According to R and other copies; L has a lacuna. PSRL, vol. 1, column 32, rows 27–28. 44 “при цр҃и Раманѣ и Ко|стѧнтинѣ и Стефанѣ” (by Emperor Roman and Constantine and Stephen). PSRL, vol. 1, column 46, row 19. L Raman; all other copies have Roman. 45 “к Ивану нарицаемому Цѣмьскию” (to John called Tsimskii). PSRL, vol. 1, column 72, row 21. 46 Slav.: “слышавьши о вѣрѣ гречьстѣи . иде в костандньдиньградь (!) . тогда же цсрьствоующе цимьскиоу”. RNB, Q.п.I.63. Digital copy, available at http://nlr.ru/ manuscripts/RA1527/elektronnyiy-katalog?ab=55137E27-EAAE-4E4F-8EE37C3BD1257E72 . Here the name of Constantinople is spelled erroneously, but in copies of Prolog from the 14th to the 16th centuries, published by Russian scholars, the same passage reads as follows: “…иде въ Костѧнтинь градъ . тъгда цсртвоующю Цѣмьскѣю [variant readings: Цемьскыю, Чемьскѣю, Цимьскиоу]”. See O. V. Loseva (2009, 421), n. 12; A. A. Pichkhadze, V. A. Romodanovskaya, and E. K. Romodanovskaya (2005, 300). 47 The use of the Primary Chronicle in the Extended Edition of the Prolog was supposed, for example, by A. A. Shakhmatov (1940, 644). 48 Piotrovskaia names more than thirty-five copies in total, including seventeen copies of the Second or Extended edition with Rus’ recorded events: E. K. Piotrovskaia (1998, 36–40, 45). 49 The Early Rus’ name for Constantinople. 50 Slav.: “Костянтинъ, сынъ Львовъ зять Романовъ, цсртвова лѣт 7, а в Руси поча княжити Игорь, а Ольгъ умре. Роман цсртвова лѣт 36, в 27 лѣт цсртва его оубьенъ Игорь. Поча княжити Олга съ сыномъ Ст҃ославомь. Иванъ, рекомыи Цемьскыи, цсртвова. Въ 1 лѣт цсртва его иде Олга к Цр҃югороду и крстися. От Адама лѣт 6463”. E. K. Piotrovskaia (1998, 132). We see nothing of the kind in the First or Short Edition, where the list of emperors ends with: “Basil 18 years 11 months. Leo and Alexander 26 years”: ibid, 124. 51 Such data would appear only in the 3rd Synoptic Edition, according to Piotrovskaia’s classification. In this version, the list of emperors is brought to John VIII Palaeologus, i.e. up to 1425. There is also mention of the second reign of Constantine VII after Romanos I, but this Emperor seems to be split in two. He is presented both as “the son of Leo” and as “Porphyrogenitos”. E. K. Pitrovskaia (1998, 46, 146). The text reads: “Константин, сынъ Лвов, зять Романов, царствова лѣтъ 7. И в Руси поча княжити Игорь, а Олегъ умеръ, Роман старыи Неодрьжим именуемыи

100  Tatiana Vilkul лѣтъ 26, православен. Костянтин Порфирогенитъ сиречь Багророженыи, лѣт 15, православен. Роман Порфирогенитъ, лѣта 3 и месяцы 3, православен. Никифор Фока лѣт 6 и мѣсяць 6, православен. Иоанъ Цимисхинъ лѣтъ 6 и мѣсяць 6, православен” (“Constantine, son of Leo, son-in-law of Romanos, ruled for 7 years, while in Rus’ Igor started his rule, when Oleg died. Romanos the elder known as the Irrepressible, 26 years, orthodox. Constantine Porphyrogenitos or royal-born, 15 years, orthodox. Romanos Porphyrogenitos, 3 years 3 months, orthodox. Nikephoros Phokas 6 years 6 months, orthodox. John Tzimisces, 6 years 6 months, orthodox”). Here, by the way, we no longer have the archaic spelling “Tsimskiy”. At the same time, “Tsimiskhin” and “Bagrorozheny” recall rather the version of the Chronicle of Constantine Manasses. 52 One more detail should be noted with regard to the chronicle discrepancies. The spellings of the Prolog “цимьскиоу / цѣмьскѣю” correctly render the Greek Τσιμισκής, and could have been taken from the preamble of the treaty with the Greeks in 971. At the same time, in the copies of the Primary Chronicle in the 971 we see a discrepancy. L has “Цѣмьскию”, RA “Цемьскию” and N4 “Чемьскию” close to the reading of the Prolog and the Extended Edition of the “Letopisets vskore”, while HKhNkS decline the soubriquet like an adjective: HKh “Цимьскому”, Nk “Цемскому”, S “Чьмьскому”. Apparently, L+RA+N4 reflect the original reading, while HKh and NkS are an innovation more convenient for Rus’ copyists. Such innovations arose among different scribes independently of one another. 53 See about the need to provide such readings under the assumptions of contamination of HKh+N1 in A. A. Gippius (2014, 343).

Bibliography Featherstone, M. (2003), ‘Olga’s Visit to Constantinople in De Cerimoniis’, Revue des études byzantines, 61: 241–51. Franklin, S. (2002), Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c.950 – 1300, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Gippius, A. A. (2002), ‘O kritike teksta i novom perevode-rekonstruktsii “Povesti vremennykh let”’, Russian Linguistics, 26: 63–126. Gippius, A. A. (2006), ‘Dva nachala Nachal’noi letopisi: k istorii kompozitsii Povesti vremennykh let’, in Verenitsa liter: K 60-letiiu V. M. Zhivova, Moscow, Iazyki slavianskoi kul’tury, 56–96. Gippius, A. A. (2012), ‘“Do i posle Nachal’nogo svoda: ranniaia letopisnaia istoriia Rusi kak ob”ekt tekstologicheskoi rekonstruktsii’, in Rus’ v IX-X vekakh: arkheologicheskaia panorama, Moscow, Vologda, Drevnosti severa, 37–63. Gippius, A. A. (2014) ‘Reconstructing the Original of the Povest’ Vremennyx Let: A Contribution to the Debate’, Russian Linguistics, 38: 341–66. Guimon, T. V. (2021) Historical writing of Early Rus (c. 1000–c. 1400) in a comparative perspective, Leiden; Boston, Brill. Hypatian Chronicle (2001), Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), T. 2, Ipat’ievskaia Letopis’, Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Istrin, V. M. (1920), Knigy vremen’nyia i obraznyia Georgiia Mnikha. Khronika Georgiia Amartola v drevnem slaviano-russkom perevode. T. 1: Tekst, Petrograd, Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia Akademicheskaia tipografiia. Istrin, V. M. (1922), Knigy vremen’nyia i obraznyia Georgiia Mnikha. Khronika Georgiia Amartola v drevnem slaviano-russkom perevode. T. 2: Grecheskii tekst “Prodolzheniia Amartola”. Issledovanie, Petrograd, Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia Akademicheskaia tipografiia.

Two Emperors of the Princess Olga’s Visit to Constantinople  101 Karpov, A. Iu. (2009), ‘Kniaginia Ol’ga’ in Zhizn’ zamechatel’nykh liudei, Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Laurentian Chronicle (1997), Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), T. 1, Lavrent’evskaia Letopis, Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Loseva, O. V. (2009), Zhitiia russkikh sviatykh v sostave drevnerusskikh Prologov XII - pervoi treti XV vekov, Moscow, Rukopisnye pamiatniki Drevnei Rusi. Matveenko, V. A. and Shchegoleva, L. I. (2006a), Knigy vremennye i obraznye Georgiia Monakha. T. 1. Ch.1: Interpretirovannyi tekst Troitskoi rukopisi, Moscow, Nauka. Matveenko, V. A. and Shchegoleva, L. I. (2006b), Knigy vremennye i obraznye Georgiia Monakha. T. 1. Ch.2: Tekstologicheskii kommentarii, Moscow, Nauka. Mikheev, S. M. (2011), Kto pisal “Povest’ vremennykh let”?, Moscow, Indrik. Nasonov, M. L. (1950), Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov, Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR. Nazarenko, A. V., (2001), Drevniaia Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh: Mezhdistsiplinarnye ocherki kul’turnykh, torgovykh, politicheskikh sviazei IX-XII vv, Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Nikolaev, S. L. and Vilkul, T. L. (2020), ‘Rus’ v perechniakh narodov “Povesti vremennykh let” i vne ikh’, Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana, 1: 138–60. Nikolaev, S. L. and Vilkul, T. L. (2022), ‘Raskhozhdenia Novgorodskoi pervoi letopisi i Novgorodsko-sofiiskikh svodov na materiale “Povesti vremennykh let”’, (in press). Novgorodian Fourth Chronicle (2000), Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), T. 4, Ch. 1, Novgorodskaia Chetvertaia letopis, Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Novgorodian Karamzin Chronicle (2002), Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), T. 42, Novgorodskaia Karamzinskaia letopis, Saint Petersburg, Dmitrii Bulanin. Ostrowski, D. et al. (2003), The Povest’ vremennykh let: an interlinear collation and paradosis, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Ostrowski, D. (2007), ‘The Nacalnyj Svod Theory and the Povest’ vremennyx let,’ Russian linguistics, 31: 269–308. Pichkhadze, A. A., Romodanovskaia, V. A., and Romodanovskaia, E. K. (2005), ‘Zhitiia kniagini Ol’gi, Variazhskikh muchenikov i kniazia Vladimira v sostave Sinaiskogo palimpsesta (PNB, Q.p.I. 63)’, Russkaia agiografiia: Issledovaniia. Publikatsii. Polemika, 288–307. Piotrovskaia, E. K. (1974), ‘K izucheniiu “Letopistsa vskore” konstantinopol’skogo patriarkha Nikifora’, TODRL, 29: 170–7. Piotrovskaia, E. K. (1998), Vizantiiskie khroniki IX veka i ikh otrazhenie v pamiatnikakh slaviano-russkoi pis’mennosti (“Letopistsa vskore konstantinopol’skogo patriarkha Nikifora”), Saint Petersburg, Dmitrii Bulanin. Reiske, J. J. (ed.) (1829–1830) Constantini Porphyrogeniti, De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae libri. Volumes I.II, Bonn, E. Weber. Shakhmatov, A. A. (1940), ‘Povest’ vremennykh let i istochniki’, TODRL, 4: 9–150. Sophian Chronicle Elder version (2000), Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), T. 6, Issue 1, Sofiiskaia letopis’ starshego izvoda, Moscow, Iazyki slavianskoi kul’tury. Vilkul, T. L. (2003), ‘Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis’ i Nachal’nii svod’, Palaeoslavica, XI: 5–35. Vilkul, T. L. (2004), ‘Tekstologiia i textkritik. Ideal’nyi proekt…Po povodu: ‘Povist’ vremennikh lit: Mizhriadkove spivstavlennia i paradosis. Sklav i vidredaguvav Donald Ostrovski, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature. Texts: Vol. X. P. 1-3 (2003)’, Palaeoslavica, XII(1): 177–205.

102  Tatiana Vilkul Vilkul, T. L. (2019), Letopis’ i khronograph, Tekstologiia domongol’skogo kievskogo letopisaniia, Moscow, Kvadriga. Vinogradov, A. Iu. and Kuzenkov, P. V. (ed.) (2014), Khronika Simeona Magistra i Logofeta, perevod so srednegrecheskogo Andreia Iu. Vinogradov, vstupitel’naia stat’ia i kommentarii Pavla V. Kuzenkova, Moscow, Universitet Dmitriia Pozharskogo.

8 Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World Maria V. Korogodina

Introduction Patriarch Germanus II (1223–1240) headed the Patriarchate of Constantinople at a difficult time. Constantinople had been occupied by the Crusaders as early as 1204, so the imperial and patriarchal sees were moved to Nicaea. Remote parts of the widespread Byzantine Church suffered from invasions of both the Mamluks and the Crusaders, as well as from internal conflicts: attempts by monasteries to escape subordination to bishops in office, redistribution of dioceses, irreconcilable quarrels, and attempts to expel bishops. The list of problems that the synod had to deal with during the patriarchate of Germanus II goes on.1 The Slavic countries were the most distant dioceses of the Church of Constantinople, but not the quietest. In 1219, before the patriarchate of Germanus II, his predecessor Manuel had elevated Sava to the rank of archbishop, thereby establishing the Archdiocese of Serbia. In the first third of the 13th century, the Metropolitanate of Bulgaria was also established, refusing, however, to submit to the archdiocese of Ohrid. In the mid-1180s the Metropolitan of Vidin had ordained Basil as the first Bishop of Tarnovo,2 and the rise of the canonical status of the archdiocese of Tarnovo to the detriment of Ohrid continued right up until the end of the 1220s. Additionally, the military actions of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II against the Latin Empire in the 1230s were accompanied by the appointment of new metropolitans and bishops from the Bulgarians,3 and forced the Patriarch, who was in Nicaea, to reckon with an illegitimate archdiocese. After Ivan Asen initiated the schism of the union with Rome and rapprochement with the Nicene Empire,4 it became possible to resume canonical communion with the Church of Constantinople, and in 1234 Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople ordained Archbishop Joachim of Tarnovo. A year later, Archbishop Joachim was elevated to the rank of Patriarch of Tarnovo by a Council convened by Patriarch Germanus II in Lampsakos.5 Undoubtedly, this solemn and decisive moment for both churches was recorded in the letters of the Patriarch and the Synod. The decrees of the Patriarch and the Synod on the elevation of Sava to the rank of Archbishop of Serbia, and Joachim to that of Archbishop and later Patriarch of Tarnovo, have not survived, and their DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-10

104  Maria V. Korogodina existence can only be inferred from references in other documents.6 It can be assumed that on its return from Nicaea to Tarnovo, the Bulgarian delegation took with them not only the foundational charts and encyclicals of Patriarch Germanus, but also various books and copies of documents important for the maintenance of the new Church. To the more distant Metropolitanate of Kyiv, which in the first third of the 13th century did not experience serious problems, Patriarch Germanus II appointed two Greek Metropolitans: Kirill I (1224) and Joseph (1236). We have no reliable information about other contacts of the Kyiv Metropolitanate with the Patriarch and the synod or about the exchange of embassies between Kyiv and Nicaea on the eve of the Mongol invasion. However, we can be sure that each newly appointed Metropolitan of Kyiv brought with him relics and books and copies of texts necessary for the organisation of Church life in the distant Metropolitanate of Rus’. Despite the fact that the messages of Patriarch Germanus II and acts related to the approval of the Tarnovo Patriarchate or the appointment of the Metropolitans of Kyiv have not survived, there are several texts in Slavic translation related to the activities of the Patriarch. They testify to the fact that Patriarch Germanus paid considerable attention to the dioceses in the Slavic countries, sending there the acts of the most important Church Councils and encyclicals containing decrees important for all corners of the Orthodox world. Acts of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea (1234) Negotiations on the union of the Churches between, on the one hand, the Patriarch of Constantinople Germanus II and the Nicene Emperor John III Vatatzes, and, on the other, Pope Gregory IX, which led to a debate at the Council of Nicea and Nymphea in 1234,7 would seem to bear no direct relevance to the Slavic countries. There were no representatives from the Slavic dioceses at this Council and the actions of the Council did not directly affect the Church administration in the Slavic region. However, the lack of communication is deceptive. In the north and west, the Slavic dioceses bordered on Catholic lands, so anti-Latin polemics always retained their relevance in the largest Orthodox Slavic centres. As shown by the latest research, the creation of a Catholic bishopric in the western Rus’ lands in the first half of the 1230s is closely connected with the events in Nicaea and Nymphea and with the negotiations on an alliance with Rome, which were conducted with the support of the Galicia-Volhynia Prince, Daniil Romanovich and the Grand Prince of Vladimir, Iuri Vsevolodovich.8 Following the unsuccessful conclusion of the disputes in Nymphea, the Rus’ princes changed their attitude towards the papal curia, preferring more reliable Byzantine connections. In conditions when the most influential Princes of the Kyiv Metropolitanate favoured the plans of the Pope, who sought to expand the presence of papal missions in the Slavic territories, it was especially important for Patriarch Germanus to make the text of the Council’s

Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World  105 acts available in the Slavic lands and to substantiate the theological and political truth of the Greek delegation. A. Nikolov has noted the relevance of the preparation of the Slavic translation of the acts of the Council in the Bulgarian Tarnovo Patriarchate, which was in the process of being established in the 1230s.9 This suggests that the account of the Council at Nicaea and Nymphea was sent to the Slavic lands and translated shortly after the conclusion of the events. Clearly, at the same time, a translation of another text was prepared, which tells of one of the joint embassies of the Nicene Patriarchate and the Emperor Frederick II to the Pope – the report of John Grasso, notary to the Emperor, about the negotiations in 1232 by Nicholas Nektarios, abbot of a Greek monastery near Otranto, with the papal curia. This event, at first glance, takes us even further away from the interests of the Slavic countries, transferring the reader to Rome and telling about the plight of the Italian Greeks, who were threatened with the prohibition of baptism in accordance with the Orthodox rite. In fact, these events far from the Slavic lands clearly show how defenceless the adherents of Orthodoxy living in Catholic countries were, and how they could lose all religious privileges and guarantees overnight. The translation of the report of John Grasso could serve as a living lesson for those Orthodox Slavic princes who considered going under the omophorion of the Pope. John Grasso’s account survived fragmentarily in the only Middle Bulgarian copy of the last third of the 14th century and was discovered and attributed by A. A. Turilov and E. M. Lomize.10 Neither the Latin nor the Greek text of the work of John Grasso is known. Unlike the records of John Grasso, the acts of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea were preserved in Greek.11 Older copies testify to the spread of texts describing what happened at the Council in the Bulgarian and Serbian traditions in the second half of the 14th century12 and in the 15th century.13 No later than the beginning of the 15th century, the acts of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea became known in the Moldavian principality and in the western parts of the Kyiv Metropolitanate. It can be assumed that the transfer came to Moldova through Balkan contacts, and thence from Moldova to the Galician lands. The two older East Slavic copies are closely dated: the anti-Latin collection of the 1410s comes from the western lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (RNB, O.p.I.7);14 and from the 1420s the Moldavian canonical collection, copied by Gabriel Urik (BAN, Yatsimir. 47).15 The text continued to be copied in the Moldavian principality in the 16th century.16 From the middle of the 15th century, a set of articles describing the course of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea became known in Muscovite Rus’,17 later receiving wide distribution in anti-Latin collections that were copied in the Moscow principality18 and was even included in the August volume of the Great Menaeum of Metropolitan Macarius.19 Anti-Latin collections, including the acts of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea, were especially widespread in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.20 In the second half of the 16th century, a collection of texts describing the debate at the Council was included in the Kormchaia created for the Galician Metropolitans.21

106  Maria V. Korogodina As we can see, the texts dedicated to the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea were in demand in the East Slavic region. Although both the report of John Grasso and the deeds of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea were preserved in manuscripts no earlier than the second half of the 14th century, their appearance in Slavic countries can presumably be associated with the activities of Patriarch Germanus II.22 Such texts, not directly related to life in certain lands, arouse interest among contemporaries who follow the latest events in the Orthodox world, but cease to be perceived as relevant over time. This allows us to think that a set of materials about the Council could have been brought from Nicaea to Bulgaria with the consent of the Patriarch. The documents could have remained untranslated for a long time and been stored among archival materials. This may explain the extremely poor preservation of such copies for the 13th to 14th centuries. For this period, there is no tradition of filing documents into codices that ensured better preservation; therefore, in the overwhelming majority of cases, we can guess about the existence of documents from scant references in other sources or from later copies, since most of the documents recorded in loose leaves quickly deteriorated and were easily lost. Synodal Epistle on the Movements of Bishops (c. 1226) Another text, known only in the Slavic translation, comes, as one might assume, from the chancellery of the synod, which acted under Patriarch Germanus II. In the Kormchaia sent by the Vidin despot Ivan Svyatoslav to Metropolitan Kirill II of Kyiv in 1262, there was a synodal message about the transfer of bishops from one see to another. When preparing the Kormchaia, extracts from the message were included in the decree on the fourth marriage of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI and in the interpretation of the 71st rule of the Council of Carthage. The message can be associated with the activities of Bishop Manuil of Melitene, who fell into an irreconcilable conflict with the congregation and turned to Patriarch Germanus II and the synod in 1224– 1226 for help.23 The complaints of Bishop Manuil did not find endorsement from the synod. In an effort to resolve the conflict, the synod condemned the transfer of bishops from see to see, stressing that transfers were possible only in the form of a reward for the patience and humility of a bishop. This synodal decree has not survived in Greek and is known only in the form of extracts included in the Slavic translation of the Kormchaia. Probably, a lengthy message, of an educational nature, was transmitted by Patriarch Germanus II to the Tarnovo Patriarch Joachim after his approval in Nicaea for the instruction and organisation of Church administration in the new autocephalous Patriarchate. Perhaps, through the Tarnovo Patriarchate, the work got to Bdin (Vidin), where its translation was included in the nomocanon which was being prepared for dispatch to Metropolitan Kirill of Kyiv. The result was that the decree of the Synod under the Patriarch of Constantinople was preserved only in the East Slavic copies of the Kormchiie and did not survive either in the Greek original or in South Slavic manuscripts.

Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World  107 The synodal decision on the transfer of bishops, made under Patriarch Germanus II, appeared in the Kyiv Metropolitanate almost half a century after its creation, although it was probably sent to the Slavic lands during the lifetime of the Patriarch himself. Despite its fragmented nature, the decree played an important role in the Russian Church. Under difficult circumstances, when, following the Mongol invasion, some of the ancient dioceses were abandoned, and political and church life shifted to cities that had not been traditional diocesan centres from earlier times, the question of transferring a bishop from one see to another in the Kyiv Metropolitanate became particularly acute. Up to 1273, Metropolitan Kirill II himself spent most of his time in Vladimir, and not in Kyiv. In the 1260s and 1270s the ancient dioceses became deserted, and Metropolitan Kirill placed bishops in cities that had not previously been bishoprics. This is how Bishop Simeon of Tver and Bishop Theognost of Saray were appointed. Both were originally ordained in the ancient dioceses of Polotsk and Pereiaslavl, approved by the synod and recorded in the notations of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The unusual decision of Metropolitan Kirill (and questionable from the point of view of canon law) was to appoint them officially to two sees each: Bishop Simeon of Polotsk and Tver, and Bishop Theognost of Pereslavl and Saray, which was obviously dictated by the prevailing circumstances. The centres of political and church life in north-eastern Rus’ shifted considerably; at the same time, the formation of a new diocese had to be approved by the Patriarchal synod. In these circumstances, Metropolitan Kirill appointed them to those abandoned sees that had been previously approved, while obliging the bishop to support a new diocese that was important for the Metropolitanate at the same time. The Metropolitan could not ordain them immediately to a new diocese, since these had not yet been approved by the synod; it was also impossible to move the bishops there because of the prohibition expressed in the synodal decree adopted under Patriarch Germanus II and included in the Kormchaia being created by Metropolitan Kirill. In the Kyiv Metropolitanate, the message about the transfer of bishops constantly drew attention in the last third of the 13th to the first half of the 14th century. This is evidenced by two major revisions of this message. The first was undertaken in connection with the creation of the Measure of Righteousness (Merilo Pravednoie, beginning of the 14th century) – a church-law collection addressed to Grand Prince Mikhail Iaroslavich and incorporating all legal regulations concerning ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction.24 The second revision was prepared for the collection Blasphemy, dedicated to the regulation of episcopal power and prohibiting the appointment of bishops “for a bribe”.25 Under the pen of Russian scribes, the decree of Patriarch Germanus was significantly transformed: extensive extracts from Justinian’s Novellae Constitutiones and from the Holy Scriptures were added to it. Despite the fact that cases of the transfer of bishops in the Kyiv Metropolitanate were inevitable,26 the compiler of Blasphemy took the path of stricter rules and a complete ban on the transfer of bishops from see to see.

108  Maria V. Korogodina Synodal Decree on Slaves to Metropolitan Kirill I of Kyiv (1228) Also preserved is the message of the Patriarch of Constantinople Germanus II, intended for the Kyiv Metropolitan Kirill I.27 The message concerns the prohibition against ordaining slaves, since a person with dependent status cannot become a cleric. The epistle dates back to 1228, as established by A. Kh. Vostokov based on the indict and the list of mentioned hierarchs.28 After the month and indict, traditionally recorded at the end of the letter, a command was added to the princes on behalf of the Patriarch not to interfere with Church courts and Church property. The appendix lacks an introductory part and a conclusion; this allows us to assume that it has an origin independent of the missive of 1228. Neither the epistle of Patriarch Germanus, nor this addition to it are known to exist in Greek. The ban on ordaining dependent people was well known in Rus’, since it had been formulated more than once both in the Church rules and in the decrees of the Byzantine emperors that were included in the Old Slavic Kormchaia. This prohibition was included in Canon 82 of the Holy Apostles and in Chapter 50 of the Collectio 93 capitulorum, where Justinian’s 123 Novella is quoted.29 The Greek Metropolitan Kirill should have been perfectly familiar with this ban, since it was also included in the Byzantine collection of extracts from the “Nomokanon in XIV titles of Patriarch Photius”, which included the above-mentioned Novellae Constitutiones of the Emperor Justinian.30 A detailed explanation to the Metropolitan of such an obvious prohibition on the part of the Patriarch and the synod seems superfluous and could only have caused bewilderment. Moreover, the text is not a personal message from the Patriarch, but a synodal decree. Six bishops, in addition to the Patriarch, considered it necessary to explain to the Kyiv Metropolitan that a slave cannot be elevated to the priesthood. Clearly, this issue had been brought to the meeting of the Synod not by chance, but as a result of a complaint about illegal actions. Indeed, the decree opens with the words: “It has come to our attention, that certain people in the Russian lands …”.31 Doubtless, behind the vague designation of “certain” there were specific individuals named in the complaint. What could have been the reason for the complaint? Although the decree refers to “priests”, it is unlikely that the complainant would have travelled to Nicaea to report on an improperly appointed parish priest. More likely, the synodal decree was the result of a conflict over the ordination of one of the bishops. This conflict may have been not necessarily with the Metropolitan himself, but have reflected the uneasy relationship between the princes, who often initiated, sometimes peremptorily, the ordination of their preferred candidates to the episcopal see. Almost nothing is known about the lives of many bishops before they were elevated to that rank; at best, mentions of their service as abbots or the places of their monastic lives have been preserved. The only mention of the appointment of a dependent person to the bishopric for this period is contained in the Galicia-Volhynian Chronicle, where under the year 6731 (1223) a list of

Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World  109 the Vladimir-in-Volhynia bishops is recorded, among whom there is mention to one “Mikifor, known as Stanilo, previously a servant of Vasil’ko”.32 In this message, attention is drawn to the colloquial nickname of the bishop, testifying to his low social status, and an indication of his position as a dependent of Prince Vasil’ko Romanovich (1203–1269).33 The latter became the Volhynian Prince in 1231, and before that he ruled in other cities of south-western Rus’. The absence of indications of his reign does not allow us to judge the period in which Vasil’ko Romanovich owned his servant Mikifor or Nikiforos. According to the study by P. P. Tolochko, the list of bishops, who are not chronologically linked in the chronicles and are known only from this entry, was added to the chronicle much later, so the dates for the episcopacy of the bishops mentioned in it are unknown. The succession of the next Bishop of Vladimir after Nikiforos, Bishop Koz’ma, is dated by Tolochko to 1242;34 however, in general, the chronology of events relating to the bishops continues to be a subject of discussion.35 Until now, the synodal decree of 1228 has not been considered in the context of the events in the Vladimir-in-Volhynia diocese. In our opinion, given that the list was entered in the chronicle under 1223, it cannot be ruled out that the reason for the complaint to Patriarch Germanus was the ordination of Bishop Nikiforos, which took place, probably at the insistence of his lord, Prince Vasil’ko Romanovich. An indirect argument in favour of this assumption is the indication that the complaint came from “the Rus’ian lands”. This is how the Galicia-Volhynian lands later came to be known. The life of Prince Vasil’ko Romanovich, like his brother Daniil, was filled with military conflicts, treaties of alliance and irreconcilable enmity with the surrounding princes and the polovtsians. Perhaps the embassy to Nicaea was sent by one of his enemies; however, the complainant was obviously well acquainted with Church rules and was confident that the synod would impose a ban. Therefore, the complaint, more likely, came from a spiritual, not a secular person. Perhaps it was Bishop Joasaph, one of the predecessors of Nikiforos at the bishopric of Vladimir-in-Volhynia, who in 1229 unsuccessfully applied for the vacant Novgorod archdiocese36 and was ousted for trying to seize the Metropolitan seat.37 The sequence of these events is also unclear,38 but there is no doubt that Bishop Joasaph had grounds for enmity towards both Metropolitan Kirill I and the bishops who held power in Vladimir, as well as towards both Romanovich princes. Joasaph may have gone to Nicaea to bring back from there a Patriarchal rebuke to the Metropolitan and a ban on Nikiforos serving as bishop. In the Slavic tradition, the synodal decree was included in several books of different compositions. The earliest and most developed tradition is associated with the Russian editions of the Kormchaia. The decree, as one might expect, is unknown in the South Slavic tradition, given that it is addressed to the Kyiv Metropolitan. However, it is also absent in the Initial Russian redaction of the Kormchaia, compiled in the final third of the 13th century, as well as in the early legal collections of the early to first half of the 14th century:

110  Maria V. Korogodina Measure of Righteousness and Blasphemy. Obviously, the patriarchal letter, received by the Metropolitan in the pre-Mongol era, remained little known and was “discovered” by the creators of large canonical collections no earlier than the 14th century. It is to this period that the compilation of the Chudovo redaction of the Kormchaia, which included the missive from Patriarch Germanus, can be dated.39 The earliest copies of the Chudovo redaction of the Kormchaia date back to the middle to third quarter of the 15th century, but its creation can be dated to the second quarter of the 14th century. The Synodal decree is among the instructive articles addressed to judges and rulers and inserted between the Procheiros and Eclogue. Thematically, the set of “words” about righteous judgment and Church acquisitions is closer to an addition to the Synodal decree than to the Synodal decree itself. In the appendix, the form of the patriarchal missive is changed: there is no indication as to who issued it, which members of the Synod approved it, to whom it was addressed, when the Synod meeting took place, nor the reason for its publication. In the addendum, different forms of the verb are used to express the command of the Patriarch in adjacent phrases: in the third person, as was usually written in hierarch’s letters: “our measure commands”, and in the first person, which is uncharacteristic for such missives: “I command”. The sanction for violation of the command is placed at the beginning of the letter, and not at the end, and is formulated using the indirect case: “with indestructible excommunication”, and not through the imperative mood: “let him be excommunicated”. The uncharacteristic wording indicates that the addition to the letter of Patriarch Germanus is an original work of an early Rus’ author, and not part of the decree of 1228 or a fragment of another patriarchal letter. In the same period when the charter was included in the Chudovo redaction of the Kormchaia, a number of Russian articles appeared prohibiting the interference of secular authorities in Church courts and property: “Rule on Church People”, and “Canon of the 165 Holy Fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council”. These texts, created no earlier than the 14th century, are thematically close to the addition to the decree of 1228. In accordance with the “Canon of the 165 Holy Fathers”, the addition prohibits princes from interfering with Church and monastic property; in accordance with the “Rule on Church People”, it gives Church courts jurisdiction over divorce, sexual violence and the abduction of maidens. This suggests that the addition to the decree of Patriarch Germanus II was also created no earlier than the middle of the 14th century; perhaps when preparing the letter for inclusion in the Chudovo redaction of the Kormchaia, which also included the “Rule on Church People” and the “Canon of the 165 Holy Fathers”. In the second half of the 15th century, the Synodal decree was included in a legal collection of regular content, known as “Legal Books”.40 The proximity with the same instructional articles for judges and rulers, as in the Chudovo redaction of the Kormchaia, points to this being the source of these articles in the collection. From the same Chudovo redaction in the first third of the

Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World  111 16th century, the letter of Patriarch Germanus was written out to the Lukashevich edition of the Kormchaia, which was drawn up in Lviv for the newly formed Galician Metropolitanate.41 This is how the message became known in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. During the course of the 16th century, the message of Patriarch Germanus was included in four more different adaptations of the Kormchaia, created in the Moscow principality.42 This testifies to the demand for the text in the 16th century. In all cases, the source was the previous editions of Kormchaia. Copying in various redactions of the Kormchaia led to the text being included in collections of mixed composition, where they were often copied along with other articles from the Kormchaia.43 At one of the stages of the letter’s copying, the name of the addressee was distorted as “kir Leonty”44.

Conclusion The time of the Patriarchate of Germanus II, which fell during a difficult period for the Byzantine Church, turned out to be rich in contacts with the Slavic countries, for whom not only resolutions directly addressed to them were relevant, but also synodal decisions and patriarchal letters concerning distant dioceses. All the materials discussed above, except for the acts of the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea, are known only in the Slavic translation and have not survived in Greek. All Slavic translations associated with the name of Patriarch Germanus II have come down to us in significantly later copies. Clearly, the texts that came from the Patriarch and the synod were not always translated immediately after they were brought. The earliest and most hypothetical among the decisions of Patriarch Germanus is the synodal decision that forbade the transfer of bishops from one see to another. It was probably revised and divided into parts for inclusion in the Kormchaia when translated in the middle of the 13th century. Perhaps the earliest evidence of the acquaintance of the Kyiv Metropolitans with the synodal decisions of Patriarch Germanus are the rules of the Council in Vladimir in 1273. The rules of the Council of Russian bishops contain two consecutive decrees referring to the letters of Patriarch Germanus: the ban on transferring a bishop from one city to another, and the ban on ordaining slaves.45 Subsequently, the decrees of Patriarch Germanus and the Council of Nicaea – Nymphea were widely disseminated in the manuscript tradition. In the 17th century, along with the translation of the Epitome by Constantine Armenopulus in Muscovy, other decrees on the status of monasteries, dating back to the time of Patriarch Germanus become known: two synodal decisions of 1232 and a decree of 1235.46 However, these decisions were translated as part of an extensive legal collection, which absorbed the letters and decrees of many Patriarchs, so that their appearance in Russian is not connected with the intentions of Patriarch Germanus. In contrast to them, the texts considered above, as can be assumed, were sent from the patriarchal chancellery to the Slavic dioceses during the lifetime of Patriarch Germanus II.

112  Maria V. Korogodina

Notes 1 V. Laurent (1971, 42–109, n. 1233–1304); J. Shepard (2006, 21–2); V. Stanković (2011, 119–31). 2 V. Zlatarski (1934, 472–5). 3 P. Nikov (1921, 38–9); I. Snegarov (1924, 130–5, 152); G. Tsankova-Petkova (1968, 140–1); A. Dancheva-Vasileva (1985, 136–7). 4 I. Snegarov (1924, 145–52); G. Tsankova-Petkova (1968); A. Dancheva-Vasileva (1985, 133–8); I. Bozhilov (1994, 82–5); I. Bolizhov, V. Giuzelev (1999, 491–3). 5 D. Mureşan (2014, 212–7). 6 V. Laurent (1971, 31–2, 85–9, nos. 1225, 1278, 1282). 7 A. Nikolov (2016, 130–6); J. Brubaker (2016, 115–28); J. Brubaker (2018, 613–30); J. Brubaker (2020: 311–42). 8 A. Maiorov (2018: 390–2). 9 A. Nikolov (2016, 133–4). 10 A. A. Turilov, E. M. Lomize (1996, 245–57); A. G. Sergeev (2017, 151). 11 Alter (1796, 139–50); H. Golubovich (1919, 466–70). 12 A. A. Turilov (2006, 260–2); A. A. Turilov (2016, 339); A. Nikolov (2016, 127–8). 13 A. N. Popov (1875, 148–54). 14 A. N. Popov (1875, 154–74); M. V. Korogodina (2015, 73–8). 15 R. Constanstinescu (1972, 74, num. 362); A. D. Paskal (1989, 9–10, 32); M. V. Korogodina (2020, 422–8). 16 Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA), f. 196, coll. Mazurin, num. 728 (Catalogue RGADA, 2020, 47). 17 One of the earliest copies is in the Russian State Library (RGB) f. 236, coll. A.N. Popov, num. 147. See M. Korogodina and B. Lourié (2021, 234). 18 Copies of the late 15th century: RGADA, f. 201, coll. Obolensky, num. 93 (Catalogue RGADA, 2000, 253–54); RGADA, f. 187, op. 1, coll. Central State Archive of Literature and Art, num. 121 (Catalogue RGADA, 2000, 267). Copies of the 16th century: Library of the Academy of Sciences (BAN), 45.10.4 (M. V. Korogodina, 2020, 440–8); RGADA, f. 196, coll. Mazurin, num. 1495 (Catalogue RGADA, 2020, 347); RGADA f. 181, coll. Moscow Main Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MGAMID), num. 749 (Catalogue RGADA, 2020, 373–4). 19 State Historical Museum (GIM), Synod. col., num. 183, fol. 527–66. The coincidence of the composition of the RGB, O.p.I.7 manuscript and the synodal August volume of the Great Menaeum was noted by G. S. Barankova. See G. S. Barankova (2009, 73). 20 RGADA, f. 381, coll. Synod. typogr., num. 345 (Catalogue RGADA, 2000, 291); RGADA f. 196, op. 1, coll. Mazurin, num. 287 (Catalogue RGADA, 2020, 296– 97). See also V. E. Zema (2001: 56–8, 61). 21 M. V. Korogodina (2015, 140). 22 The suggestion that the translation of John Grasso’s account was carried out shortly after the events described is made by Turilov in A. A. Turilov and E. M. Lomize (1996, 353). 23 M.V. Korogodina (2019, 288–349). 24 M. N. Tikhomirov (1961); M. V. Korogodina (2011, 125–31); K. V. Vershinin (2019). 25 A. I. Alekseev (2012, 90–124); M. V. Korogodina (2018, 74–91). 26 B. A. Uspenskii (1998, 337–46). 27 Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka 1880, cols. 79–84, num. 5. 28 A. Kh. Vostokov (1842, 304). 29 V. N. Beneshevich (1906, 80, 775–7). I thank E.V. Beliakova for the consultation. 30 Book 1, chapter 36 of the collection. See Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca (PG) 1896, v. 104, 1021–26.

Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World  113 31 Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka 1880, col. 79. 32 PSRL, v. 2. Ipatiev Chronicle (2001, col. 740). 33 D. Dąbrowski (2015, 326–31). 34 P. P. Tolochko (2005, 50). 35 D. Dąbrowski, A. Jusupović (2017, 548, 554); A. Jusupović (2019, 59–61); A. P. Tolochko (2017: 262–4). 36 M. L. Nasonov (1950, 68). 37 “Пискупъ Асафъ Вугровьскыи, иже скочи на стол митрофоличь и за то свѣржен бысть стола своего” – “Piskup Asaf Vugrovsky, who jumped on the table of the metropolitan and for that he was overthrown by the speed of his table” (PSRL, v. 2, col. 740). 38 A. Poppe believed that Joasaph claimed the Metropolitan See in 1220–1224, after the death of Metropolitan Matthew (see A. Poppe, 1989, 202–3); P. P. Tolochko and A. P. Tolochko attribute the actions of Joasaph to 1240–1247, when the Metropolitan seat was formally vacant following the disappearance of Metropolitan Joseph (see P. P. Tolochko, 2005, 49; A. P. Tolochko, 2017, 266). However, the report may also refer to 1233–1236, when the Metropolitanate was vacant following the death of Metropolitan Kirill I. 39 M. V. Korogodina (2017, 226–35). 40 E. E. Lipshits, I. P. Medvedev and E. K. Piotrovskaia (1984, 198–210). 41 M. V. Korogodina (2015, 109–14). 42 M. V. Korogodina (2017, 452). 43 RGADA, f. 196, coll. Mazurin, num. 1054, fol. 452v. (third quarter of the 16th century). 44 RNB, F.I.211, f. 413–14v. (first quarter of the 16th century). 45 RIB, vol. 6, col. 90. 46 BAN, 16.4.3, l. 212–217v. See V. Laurent (1971, 68-71, 89-92, nums. 1259, 1260, 1283.

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114  Maria V. Korogodina Brubaker, J. (2020), ‘The Diplomacy of Theological Debate: The Friars’ Report of the Disputatio of 1234’, in A. Bucossi and A. Calia (eds.) Contra Latinos et adversus Graecos. The Separation between Rome and Constantinople between the Ninth and the Fifteenth Century, Leuven, Peeters, 311–42. Constanstinescu, R. (1972), Vechiul drept românesc scris: repertoriul izvoarelor, 13401640, Bucharest, Direcția Generală a Arhivelor Statului din Republica Socialistă România. Dancheva-Vasileva, A. (1985), Bŭlgariia i Latinskata imperiia, 1204-1261, Sofia, ̆ Izd-vo na Bulgarskata akademiia na naukite. Dąbrowski, D. (2015), Genealogiia Mstislavichei: pervye pokoleniia (do nachala XIV v.), St. Petersburg, Izdanie ispravlennoe i dopolnennoe. Dąbrowski, D. and Jusupović, A. (2017), Kronika Halicko-Wołyńska (Kronika Romanowiczów)/Wydali, wstępem i przypisami opatrzyli przy wspołpracy I. Juriewej, A. Majorowa i T. Wiłkuł, Kraków, Polska Akademia Umiejętności. Golubovich, H. (1919), ‘Disputatio latinorum et graecorum seu relatio apocrisiariorum Gregorii IX de gestis Nicaeae in Bithynia et Nymphaeae in Lydia’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 12: 418–70. Jusupović, A. (2019), Kronika halicko-wołyńska (Kronika Romanowiczów) w latopisarskiej kolekcji historycznej, Kraków–Warszawa, Instytut Historii PAN. Korogodina, M. V. (2011), ‘O proiskhozhdenii Merila pravednogo’, in I. M. Belyaeva (ed.) Sovremennye problemy arkheografii. sbornik statei po materialam konferetsii, prokhodivshei v Biblioteke RAN 25-27 mai︠a︡ 2010 g., St. Petersburg, RAN, 125–31. Korogodina, M. V. (2015), Kormchaia kniga v Galitsii (XVI-nachalo XVII veka), St. Petersburg, Biblioteka Rossiı̆skoı̆ akademii nauk. Korogodina, M. V. (2017), Kormchie knigi: XIV--pervoı ̆ poloviny XVII veka, 2 vols., Moscow, Alians-Arkheo. Korogodina, M. V. (2018), ‘Paleograficheskie i kodikologicheskie osobennosti Trifonovskogo sbornila rubezha XIV – XV veka’, in L. A. Timoschina (ed.) Istorik i istochnik: Sbornik stateı ̆ k i͡ubilei͡u Sergei͡a Nikolaevicha Kistereva, St. Petersburg, Iskusstvo Rossii, 74–91. Korogodina, M. V. (2019), ‘Vizantiiskoe poslanie o postavlenii episkopov i ego sud’ba na Rusi v XIII – XIV vekakh’, Slověne, 8/2: 288–349. Korogodina, M. V. (2020), Pamiatniki tserkovnogo prava v rukopisiakh Biblioteki Rossiiskoi akademii nauk XV – nachala XX veka, Moscow-St. Petersburg, Alians-Arckheo. Korogodina, M. and Lourié, B. (2021), ‘On the Perdition of the Higher Intellect and on the Image of Light: Critical Edition, Translation, and Commentary’, in I. Dorfmann-Lazarev (ed.) Apocryphal and Esoteric Sources in the Development of Christianity and Judaism: The Eastern Mediterranean, the Near East and Beyond, Leiden, Brill, 217–61. Laurent, V. (1971), Les Regestes des Actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople, 1: Les Actes des Patriarches, fasc. 4, Les Regestes de 1208 a 1309, Paris, Institut français d’études byzantines. Lipshits, E. E., Medvedev, I. P. and Piotrovskaia, E. K. (1984), Vizantiiskii zemledel’cheskii zakon, Leningrad, Nauka. Maiorov, A. (2018), ‘Church-union negotiations between Rome, Nicaea and Rus’, 1231–1237’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 84/2: 385–405. Migne, J.-P. (1896), Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca (PG). T. 104: Photii, Constantinopolitani patriachae, opera omnia, Paris.

Patriarch Germanus II of Constantinople and the Slavic World  115 Mureşan, D. I. (2014), ‘Le patriarcat oecuménique et les patriarcats balkaniques (Tarnovo, Peć). Enjeux ecclésiaux et impériaux au XIVe s.’, in M.-H. Blanchet, M.-H. Congourdeau et and D. I. Mureşan (eds.) Le patriarcat œcuménique de Constantinople et Byzance hors frontières (1204-1586), Paris, Centre d’études byzantines, néo-helléniques européenne, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 203–42. Nasonov, M. L. (1950), Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov, Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR. Nikolov, A. (2016), Mezhdu Rim i Konstantinopol: iz antikatolicheskata literatura v ̆ Bŭlgariia i slavianskiia pravoslaven sviat (XI-XVII v.), Sofia, Fondaiaiia, Bulgarsko istorichesko nasledstvo. Nikov, P. (1921), Prinos kŭm istoricheskoto izvoroznanie na Bŭlgariia i kŭm istoriiata ̆ na bŭlgarskata tsŭrkva, Spisanie na Bulgarskata akademii︠a︡ na naukitie, v.10, Sofia, Durzhavna pechatnitsa. Paskal’, A. D. (1989), ‘Itogi i zadachi izucheniia rukopisei Gavrila Urika kak rannikh istochnikov po istorii slaviano-moldavskoi knizhnosti XV vv’, in B. G. Litvak, V. A. Kuchkin and A. P. Bogdanov (eds.) Issledovaniia po istochnikovedeniiu istorii SSSR dooktriabr’skogo perioda, Moscow, Institut Istorii SSSR, 4–32. Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), T. 2, Ipat’ievskaia Letopis, (2001), Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Popov, A. N. (1875), Istoriko-literaturnyi obzor’ drevne-russkikh’ polemicheskikh’ sochinenii protiv’ latinian’, XI-XV v., Moscow, Tip.T.Ris. Poppe, A. (1989), ‘Mitropolity kievskie i vseia Rusi (988-1305)’, in Shchapov, Ia. I (ed.) Gosudarstvo i tserkov′ Drevnei Rusi, X-XIII vv., Moscow, Nauka, 191–206. Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka, v. 6: Pamiatniki drevnerusskogo kanonicheskogo prava. Ch. 1 Pamiatniki XI–XV v, (1880), St. Petersburg, Pechatnia V. I. Golovina. Sergeev, A. G. (2017), Opisanie bumazhnykh rukopisei XIV veka Biblioteki Rossiiskoi akademii nauk, St. Petersburg, Al’ians-Arkheo. Shepard, J. (2006), ‘The Byzantine Commonwealth, 1000 – 1550’, in Michael Angold (ed.) The Cambridge History of Christianity, Vol. 5: Eastern Christianity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1–52. Snegarov, I. (1924), Istoriia na Okhridskata arkhiepiskopiia, v. 1, Sofia, Kooperativna pechatnitsa ‘Gutenberg’. Stanković, V. (2011), ‘Tsarigradski patrijarsi u aktima Ohridskog arhiepiskopa Dimitrija Homatina’, Zbornik radova Bizantološkog instituta, XLVIII: 119–31. Tikhomirov, M. N. (1961), Merilo pravednoe po rukopisi XIV veka, Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR. Tolochko, A. P. (2017), ‘Osnovanie Kholmskoi episkopii’, Palaeoslavica. International Journal for the Study of Slavic Medieval Literature, History, Language and Ethnology, 25/1: 254–277. Tolochko, P. P. (2005), ‘Stat’ia 6731 goda Galitsko-Volynskoi letopisi i vremia ee napisania’, Ruthenica, 4: 47–53. Tsankova-Petkova, G. (1968), ‘Vosstanovlenie bolgarskogo patriarshestva v 1235 g. i mezhdunarodnoe polozhenie bolgarskogo gosudarstva’, Vizantiiskii vremennik, 28, 136–50. Turilov, A. A., (2006), ‘German II’ in Pravoslavnaia entsicklopediia, v. 11, Moscow, Tserkovno-nauchnyi tsentr ‘Pravoslavnaia Entsicklopediia’, 260–62. Turilov, A. A. (2016), Katalog slavianskikh rukopisei afonskikh obitelei, Belgrade, Čigoja štampa.

116  Maria V. Korogodina Тurilov, А. А. and Lomize, Е. М. (1996), ‘Neizvestnyi pamiatnik greko-latinskoi polemiki XIII v. v bolgarskoi rukopisi XIV v.: Otryvki sochineniia Ioanna Grasso o sobesedovanii Nikolaia-Nektariia Otrantzkovo s rimskim papoi’, Trudy rossiiskikh uchenykh k XIX Mezhdunarodnomu kongressu vizantinistovsbornik. Vizantiiskie ocherki: 245–57. Uspenskii, B. A. (1998), Tsar’ i patriarkh: kharizma vlasti v Rossii: vizantiı ̆skaia model’ i ee russkoe pereosmyslenie, Moscow, Shkola “Iazyki russkoi kul’tury”. Vershinin, K. V. (2019), Merilo Pravednoe v istorii drevnerusskoı ̆ knizhnosti i prava, Moscow, Nestor-Istoriia. Vostokov, A. Kh. (1842), Opisanie russkikh i slovenskikh rukopisei Rumiantsovskago muzeuma, St. Petersburg, V tip. Imp. akademii nauk. Zema, V. (2001), ‘Polemiko-dogmatichni zbirki XVI - pochatku XVII st.’, Ukrains’kii istorichnii zhurnal, 5: 43–74. Zhuchkova, I. L., Morozov, B. N. and Turilov, A.A., (2000), Katalog slaviano-russkikh rukopisnykh knig XV veka, khaniashchikhsia v Rossiiskom gosudarstvennom arkhive drevnikh aktov, Moscow, Drevlekhranilishche. Zhuchkova, I. L., Morozov, B. N. and Moshkova, L. V. (2020), Katalog slaviano-russkikh rukopisnykh knig XVI veka, khaniashchikhsia v RGADA. Vyp. 3: Sbornik asketicheskii “Sviashchennye paralleli” Ioanna Damaskina, Moscow, Indrik. Zlatarski, V. (1934), Istoriia na Bŭlgarskata derzhava prez sredite vekove, II: Bŭlgariia ̆ pod vizantiı ̆sko bladichestvo (1018-1187), Sofia, Durzh. pechatnitsa, AI Marin Drinov.

9 Thoughtful Agglomeration Late Byzantine Sources for Muscovite Ceremonial Alexandra Vukovich

The agglomeration of information equals a failure of thinking. (Simon Franklin’s comments on an early thesis chapter c. 2011)

The construction and development of symbolically charged landscapes, processions, rituals of commensality, and inauguration rites and regalia all formed a court culture to accompany the increasing wealth and power of the Muscovite princes and, later, tsars. Richard Wortman, in his study of court ceremony and ritual in early modern Russia (Muscovy and the Tsardom of Russia), indicated that Muscovite rulers and their advisers considered the symbolic sphere of ceremonies and imagery intrinsic to their exercise of power.1 The political innovations of the Muscovite period found their stylised expression in the ritual world of the Muscovite rulers, as described in chronicles and service books (trebniki). However, rather than attending to the changing fortunes of the Muscovite elite, the content of ceremonies (inauguration, procession, etc.) became itself a type of power, one that was constructed and structured by a literate ecclesiastical elite, both to bolster and to invent (and re-invent) the historical legitimacy of the Muscovite rulers based on local and immediate political requirements. Muscovy saw a new set of sources for the legitimacy of rulers and the idea of rulership, one that was both an innovation and an invention. This is because the idea of monarchy (of solitary rule) was, to a large extent, alien to north-eastern Europe, especially when viewed in contrast to the non-centralised functioning dynastic political system of the pre-Mongol (early or Kyivan) period in Rus’.2 The chroniclers of Rus’ had access to a rich source base, including constitutive precedents, symbols, and cultural forms for the construction of political legitimacy in early Rus’ and Muscovy. The linearity of this contact (Rus’ to Muscovy) was itself the result of a series of narrative strategies that shaped and reshaped events to justify outcomes and make the de facto, de jure. Ceremonies of inauguration were a powerful technology to externalise and encode rule, featuring appropriate symbols, forms of representation, and rites (such as enthronement or acclamation). Such rituals form a narrative substrate3 or ritual mainstay, one that permitted the agglomeration of ritual elements without disrupting the message.4 Although there is a narrative continuity, that of the chronicles of Rus’ and Muscovy, documenting rites and DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-11

118  Alexandra Vukovich ceremonial from the time of the Princes of Rus’ to the Muscovite period, this continuity functions as a narrative strategy, compiling (really, agglomerating) a set of referents and building on those, to signal political and cultural inheritance attended by radical change. In the afterword to his seminal Writing, Society, and Culture in Early Rus’ Simon Franklin asks: “How, then, did the adoption and spread of the technology [writing] relate to social and cultural change?” and concludes that writing itself was constitutive of cultural change and progression.5 Calling this assessment “glib”, Franklin proceeds to discuss the contours of writing as a “sociocultural package”.6 Part of this “sociocultural package” was the formalisation of rituals of power, the constitutive elements that, in the absence of an explicitly constitutional basis for princely power, described (and perhaps determined) who ruled and who did not; which political forms were acceptable and which ones were off-limits. The chronicles of Rus’ and Muscovy packaged the shifting power dynamics and modes of governing into a consciously concise narrative (conciseness serving as narrative strategy), one capacious enough to withstand sociocultural shifts, as evidenced by the increasingly agglomerative rituals of inauguration, as compiled/packaged in the chronicles from pre-Christian times to the Urtext of early modern and modern inauguration ceremonial in the Russian Empire: the 1547 inauguration rite of Ivan IV.7 Rituals can be a complicated point of entry into medieval political culture because of the importance medieval societies attached to solemnities and the highly crafted rhetoric attached to ritual acts.8 The application of methodologies derived from social scientific theory to the study of medieval ritual and ceremony can overdetermine interpretation of practices known only through textual and iconographic representations. According to the anthropologist Victor Turner, rituals express and make “sensorily perceptible” invisible concepts and social dynamics, in the form of symbol, for the “purposive action of society”.9 For Turner, a symbol is regarded by general consent as naturally typifying or representing or recalling something by possession of analogous qualities or by association in fact or thought.10 Within this paradigm, ritual is a system of meanings. Turner writes: “I came to see performances of ritual as distinct phases in the social processes whereby groups became adjusted to internal changes and adapted to their external environment”.11 The active ordering and organisation of society, as authoritative and God-given, can occur precisely while rituals and ceremonies relate immutability, even while undergoing constant modification. On a functional level, rituals serve as symbolic tools enabling individuals to identify with political regimes and supporting rulers to legitimate themselves and to maintain their grasp on power.12 Externalisation through performance makes visible the invisible and gives definition to symbolic systems through their social enactment.13 Normative performances that integrate various ritual elements display the notion of permanence and provide the scheme for ritual “correctness”. Geoffrey Koziol, writing about the depiction of the ritual of supplication in the medieval kingdom of France, observed that texts were forces in the practice of power since they could interpret political realities and endow

Thoughtful Agglomeration  119 them with meaning.14 Texts written even a little after the events they represented provided proleptic arguments, and sought to shape the past in response to current demands—those of a favoured camp—or to create coherent narratives in order to demonstrate that events followed a providential path and/or to respond to a political imperative.15 The texts of Rus’ and Muscovy are not outliers to these observations and present the same ideological problems based on the culture that produced them. However, the specific conditions of textual production which began in early Rus’, particularly the annalistic chronicles of Rus’,16 were determined by the internal ideology of the social and political realities that produced these. To some extent, the brevity of the annalistic entries, the log of annual events, functions as a narrative strategy, allowing information to agglomerate, naturalising processes and outcomes with the veneer of objectivity. The brevity of entries about ceremonies and rites functions to create an ambient mainstay for the deeds of princes, offering the basic elements required for ritual efficacy. The repetition of formulaic passages allows for the agglomeration of ritual elements without disrupting the cultural bedrock, and, more importantly, the message. In Rus’, succession and rituals of inauguration suggest procedure and rationalised systems of attributing or recognising power and authority.17 Rituals of inauguration depend on historical circumstances, ideological principles, political strategies, and public or publicising enactments.18 The narrative presentation and interpretation of these events in the sources of early Rus’ betrays a paucity of information regarding the structural elements of inauguration. However, models are discernible when the narratives of inauguration are examined individually, and changes in the shaping of information yield insights into norms, structures, and patterns of succession in conjunction with a common moral framework.19 Narratives of elevations to the throne of Kyiv and to the thrones of northern principalities give definition to succession configurations, while narrative strategies provide a context for the inclusion and exclusion of certain princes and certain branches of the dynasty over others. Beyond narratives and the identification of ritual elements of inauguration, rituals of enthronement predated the period known as the ‘Christianisation of Rus”, i.e. the events of 988/9. The main witnesses to ritual and ceremony in early Rus’ are texts.20 Rituals and ceremonies, including the rites of inauguration, association, itinerancy, and intercession, do not provide a definitive list of ritual categories in early Rus’. Rather, these rituals exemplify the political system of early Rus’ and the transformative, demonstrative, and performative acts that convey the ideology of rulership, building a social world that would be easily interpolated into later chronicles.21 Thus, even as the ceremonial of the Rus’ prince gained rhetorical amplification, with new rites and regalia, for example, in the 1206 enthronement of Konstantin Vsevolodovich at Novgorod, the basic components (sitting on the ancestral throne, acclamation, and association with a senior prince) were all present.22 The late George Majeska portrayed the schema of a Kyivan enthronement, in comparison with, for example, that of Dimitrii Ivanovich in 1498, thus: “Prince (or Grand Prince) blank came to

120  Alexandra Vukovich blank and sat (sede) on the throne of his forefathers”.23 Though not as pithy as Majeska claims, the enthronement ceremonies of early Rus’ received none of the ordines or theoretical exegeses that defined analogous ceremonies in Byzantium, the Latinate kingdoms,24 and, later on, Muscovy. In general, the chronicles of Rus’ include consistent details about ceremonies of inauguration through enthronements at the Church of St. Sophia in Kyiv or at analogous churches in other polities, a ritual that is absent in the 1498 and later inauguration ceremonial. Very little can be surmised from the earliest descriptions of the enthronements of princes in Kyiv. It is possible that ceremonies of enthronement were an innovation of the late 11th and 12th centuries, one that dictated the shaping of information (or lack thereof) of the first noted enthronements in Rus’. From pre-Christian times, every Rus’ prince is depicted as “sitting” or being “seated” upon a seat/throne in Kyiv or elsewhere, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the enthronement or the political climate represented in the chronicles. For example, the notion of “sitting” is articulated in the Primary Chronicle for the reign of Vsevolod Iaroslavich for the year 1078, when: “Всеволод же седе Киеве на столе отца своего и брата своего переем всю власть” (Vsevolod sat on the throne of his father and brother in Kyiv and began to rule).25 This basic information varies depending on the chronicle recension (the Hypatian Chronicle tends to be more verbose in this respect), and enthronements occasionally feature additional information, such as that of Sviatopolk Iziaslavich in the year 1093 when: “Приде Святополк Киеву изидоша противу ему Кияне с поклоном и прияша с радостю и седе на столе отца своего и стрыя своего” (Sviatopolk arrived in Kyiv and the Kyivans came out to greet him with many gifts and he came to them with joy and sat on the throne of this father and his uncle).26 Even in these bare-bone accounts, the agglomeration of information and sober tone function to establish linearity and order. Thus, although the 1498 coronation of Dimitrii Ivanovich by his grandfather was an innovation in very real terms: it was the first event of its kind to deploy a particular set of mixed symbols, accoutrements, choreographed movements, and dialogue deployed in the chronicles of Rus’/Muscovy about princely inaugurations; the repetition of ritual mainstays (the formulaic notice for enthronement) inserts this event within the social and cultural world established by the chronicles of Rus’, practically from the advent of chronicle writing.27 I have argued elsewhere that searching for the template for Muscovite inaugurations, whether in Byzantine sources or normative Church texts (such as trebniki,liturgy books of performance of worship), misses the most common feature of this type of ceremony, namely, its constant reinvention.28 Certain characteristics are consistently repeated; in the case of Rus’ chronicles these include enthronement, elevated seating, and churches of dynastic significance. In texts such as the enthronement of 1498 which feature an extended account, or the extraordinary and elaborate ceremonial for the 1547 inauguration of Ivan IV, the agglomerative logic reflects a thoughtful compilation of handpicked rites, ritual elements, and regalia, in order to convey a

Thoughtful Agglomeration  121 circumscribed message. The objective in either case was less a ceremonial reproduction according to an already extant template, but a series of simulacra, appearing both ancient and distant, but also immediate, local, and comprehensible within the cultural context of their performance. Thus, rather than viewing this ritual as a demonstration of Muscovite antiquarianism, based on a compilation of Byzantine sources, Muscovite inaugurations were a political action that performed and re-actualised the political and social order. Agglomeration transformed ritual mainstays in conformity with new political contexts and needs, while at the same time, stimulating a transcultural process that altered the meaning of interpolated material.29 Texts (chronicles and books of precedence) that were produced by churchmen, interpolating a series of sources (both local and foreign), created a new set of references to bolster the rule of Muscovite princes and tsars. The interpolation of Byzantine sources and the elaboration of foundation legends (for example in Ivan IV’s Illustrated Chronicle or the Tale of the Princes of Vladimir) were created to explain the ascendency of one set of rulers over another. A new terminology accompanied this age of innovation, such as the introduction of the term ‘autocrat’ (samoderzhets) for the Grand Prince of Moscow, first cited in the passage by Metropolitan Zosima (d. 1478).30 The association of Muscovite rulers with foreign images (Byzantine, but also South Slavonic) of political power provided a double legitimacy.31 Legitimacy is provided by devices of identification with documented historical sources of power and the mystery of a legendary provenance, such as the 16th-century Tale of the Princes of Vladimir. However, it also had a material basis, that offered by the Pax Mongolica (until about the 1350s) during which Moscow emerged as an important economic and political centre.32 The role of trade and commercial networks in the political economy of early Muscovy is often overlooked in studies of its cultural production, but the transfer of texts, artefacts, people, and technical knowledge across northern Eurasia was an important factor in Moscow gaining prominence,33 as reflected in the expansion of settled territory.34 Richard Wortman, in his study of court ceremony and ritual in early modern Russia (Muscovy), indicated that Russian rulers and their advisers considered the symbolic sphere of ceremonies and imagery intrinsic to their exercise of power.35 He further noted that participants of court ceremony and ritual were (to a large extent) also its audience and that they neither attended court ceremonies nor participated in court rituals for amusement but were obligated to do so by a central authority, which used these occasions as a means to survey and control its proponents and potential opponents.36 Through the construction of a symbolically charged landscape, processions, rituals of commensality, rituals of inauguration, baptism and marriage, and the development of regalia, the rulers of Muscovy created a court culture to accompany their increased wealth (through the conquest of former Mongol lands and by initiating restrictions on the movement of agricultural labour) and their increased power (through the destitution of other members of the princely family and wealthy boyars).37 The material reality of Mongol rule, and the benefits of it, were rhetorically reshaped in the chronicles in favour of

122  Alexandra Vukovich dynastic continuity with a variety of sources and myth-historical nodal points. However, esteem for the Mongol suzerain, the Great Qan, and the pre-eminence of the Golden Horde and its system of domination was all-present, even when it was narratively recast.38 Muscovy saw this process continue and adapt to new circumstances. The Princes of Moscow who consolidated their power over an increasingly unified territory beginning in the 15th and 16th centuries understood sovereignty in terms of a new set of ideas within a framework of Mongol suzerainty over the principalities of Rus’, which would form a tax base and submit to timely levies.39 Within this framework, the Princes of Rus’ maintained a degree of hegemony over their increasingly patrimonial lands, but now they ruled by the consent of the Mongol Qan via his officers. It is telling that in chronicles, even those composed during the period of the loosening of Mongol rule over Rus’, Mongol lords and the mechanics of rule adopted by the Horde are represented as holding sway over political power in Rus’. Thus, in the late15th- and early-16th-century Nikon Chronicle, the representation of rule in Rus’ is mediated by Mongol lords who give their assent, act as patrons, and confirm or refuse princely rights to the Rus’ princes. The chronicles of Rus’ integrate this status quo into their story-world, framing events and the rites of rule by Mongol consent within an existing narrative structure. The previous annalistic brevity (for the beginnings of Rus’) set the coordinates for the constitutive rituals of Rus’ (enthronement, acclamation, association via ‘Cross kissing’ with a senior or junior prince), but these could be built on without disrupting the narrative core. In 1432, Vasilii Vasilievich of Moscow was (re-)instated a final time on the throne of Moscow, having been repeatedly threatened by his uncle, Iurii Dimitrievich of Zvenigorod, and his high-ranking Mongol allies.40 In the narrative for 1432, Mongol lords of the Golden Horde, such as Shirin Tiagin and MinBulat, play a decisive role as allies and benefactors for both princes, brokering peaceful relations and consensus around the rule of one prince over the other.41 The political process for making consensus reflects the Mongol institution of kurultai, whereby Mongol lords elected the new Qan.42 However, once the decision has been reached and the candidate confirmed, the ceremonial for the Muscovite Prince’s investiture follows the exact narrative coordinates present in the chronicles of Rus’ from the earliest period: elevation to the princely throne metonymically associated with the polity and ritual sitting at a prominent church.43 There was a boyar, Ivan Dmitrievich, who worked on behalf of the current grand prince, Vasilii Vasilievich, and petitioned important princes of the Horde—such as Aidar, Min-Bulat, and other lords of the Horde – to help Vasilii Vasilievich. […] All the lords of the Horde started petitioning the Khan on behalf of Vasilii Vasilievich and met to consult with him. […] Vasilii Vasilievich came to Moscow on the feast of St Peter with the Khan’s envoy, Mansur Ulan. The latter let him ascend the throne of Moscow, at the Church of the Most Holy Mother of God at the Golden Gates.44

Thoughtful Agglomeration  123 Richard Wortman, Robert Crummey, and Russell Martin present the Mongol conquest of Rus’, from 1220 to 1238, as a period of subjugation to the domination and influence of the Golden Horde. For these historians, the period of Mongol suzerainty presents a dilemma since integration into the Mongol Empire appears to have affected the representation of the political legitimacy through a Russo-Byzantine semiotic framework very little. However, as this example demonstrates, representation and content (or the mechanics of power) could be two separate elements. The chronicle narrative agglomerates methods of rule, articulating them within the common framework of the chronicles, including the use of feast days (in this case, St. Peter, both a martyr of persecutions during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero, and a leader of the newly established Church) and the ceremonial apparatus common to chronicle accounts of inauguration.45 Similarly for artefacts, such as the crowns and regalia of Monomakh, narrative recasting within a Byzantine framework (that of the 16th century) collapsed difference for the sake of narrative homogeneity.46 The transposition of 16th-century ideals on the narrative texts about the 15th century reflected in The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir, functionally adapted new ideas in conformity with a Russo-Byzantine semiotic framework. Like the earliest portions of the chronicles of Rus’, the text follows the style and substance of Byzantine chronography, focusing on the establishment of the ‘Rus’ lands’, but with a linear progression from Kiev to Vladimir, and culminating in Muscovy. With the loosening of Mongol suzerainty, Rus’ distinction was fortified by myth-historical genealogies. This process was attended by new sources of legitimacy, but also with older idioms, thus the Princes of Moscow could be descendants of the legendary Riurik (an eastern Viking character who briefly appears in the Primary Chronicle) and Julius Caesar in equal measure.47 In the second part of The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir the ‘legend of Monomakh’ is presented to relate the provenance of the ‘ancient’ regalia for the inauguration ritual. According to the legend, Vladimir Monomakh received imperial regalia from the 11th-century Byzantine Emperor, Constantine IX Monomakh (the supposed grandfather of the Prince), including the “life-giving cross” (a pectoral cross), the barmy (embellished shoulder pieces), a crown probably of Tatar origin (the Cap of Monomakh/Шапка Мономаха), and a chain of the “gold of Araby”.48 Giuseppe Olshr writes that the Monomakh regalia were a representation of the ultimate ceremonial device, immediately becoming a mainstay to articulate legitimacy by appearing both remote and entirely appropriate the contemporary context.49 The genesis of court ceremonies and rituals in Muscovy relied on new texts and objects, which served to invent a historical basis for the ruler and the ruler’s dynasty through its association with religion. The interpolation of Byzantine sources and the elaboration of foundation legends to explain the ascendency of one set of rulers (from within a noncentralised dynastic culture) over another used tangible narrative links to previous rituals and ceremonies, while at the same time adding cultural layers. According to Wortman and Reisman, the association of Muscovite rulers

124  Alexandra Vukovich with foreign images, characters, and textual traditions (most obviously Byzantine, but also South Slavonic) of political power provided a double legitimacy, but the narrative interplay of the conventional with the new functionally allowed the thoughtful agglomeration of cultural layers whose novelty was narratively rendered ancient. It is generally agreed that the coronation of Dimitrii Ivanovich by Ivan III in 1498 reflects the first great ceremonial innovation of Muscovite political culture.50 It is worthwhile recapitulating the constituent parts of the longform ceremonial of the 1498 coronation at the Dormition Cathedral of the Kremlin. The ceremony is attended by the highest clergy of the Muscovite realm in full vestments, thrones for the Metropolitan and the old and new Grand Princes are arranged on a dais before the sanctuary. Members of the Grand Princely family (those still in favour) in full regalia are accompanied by sumptuously accoutred boyars and other attendants. During the ceremony itself, a series of Muscovite ritual objects are described, including the barmy (a richly decorated broad collar) and cap representing the Byzantine imperial crown (attributed to Monomakh, in some versions of the text) are put on young Dimitrii. The ceremony is accompanied by solemn Byzantine-style prayers and ritual elements associated with the coronation of an emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.51 The ceremony follows on from Byzantine rituals (possibly from medieval Serbian translations with the addition of elements not mentioned in Byzantine texts) that were described by Ignatius of Smolensk at the coronation of Manuel II in 1392.52 However, where the newly crowned ruler left the church and was “showered with gold coins”, a new element occurs in imitation of the Rus’ traveller’s mistaken impression of the largesse thrown to the people of Constantinople to celebrate an imperial coronation.53 This unpacking of ritual elements shows the ceremony as a palimpsest rather than an imitation, integrating and transforming ritual elements from a number of sources, some already an interpretation of previous events, real and invented. The long version (that of the Nikon Chronicle) juxtaposes a series of layers (including the probably 16th-century regalia of Monomakh), carefully drawing from diverse sources to produce an account that features the constitutive ritual elements of Rus’ enthronement (sitting on the ancestral throne at a prominent church, association with a senior prince, and acclamation) with a series of new sources, including a South Slavonic enthronement prayer, reinterpreted as a Byzantine imperial ritual.54 Elpidifor Barsov reproduced an ideal text for the prayer based on both liturgical books (trebniki) and the texts from the chronicles of Rus’.55 Barsov’s attribution of the ritual to medieval Serbia may be somewhat overdetermined, but there is definite evidence for the transmission and interpolation of South Slavonic sources, about the Nemanjid Dynasty, in 15th- and 16th-century chronicles (the Litsevoi Letopisnyi Svod contains a life of Stefan Nemanja, d. 1199) and the presence of South Slavonic prelates in Moscow is known from Muscovite sources.56 There are consistent mentions of ceremonies of inauguration in medieval South Slavonic literature. The ceremonies of enthronement of the Nemanjid kings were developed from the time of the

Thoughtful Agglomeration  125 earliest Nemanjids, and the description of regalia in the transfer of power from Stefan Nemanja to his son Stefan Prvovenčani (the First-Crowned) includes a crown that was sent from Rome and placed on his head by a papal legate, as well as a locally sourced crown (depending on the account) that was placed on his head by St. Sava. Enthronement at one of the religious foundations of the Nemanjids is a further ceremonial feature described in a similar way to those of early Rus’ princes, for example: “и по благословенıю светааго Сıмеона прѣдрьже ѡт оу ѥмоу прѣстоль дѣдинь и отьчинь” (and with the blessing of holy Simeon he took over the throne of his father and grandfather from him), in Domentijan’s Life of SS Simeon and Sava.57 Much of this framing is due to genre, hagiography, which functionally changes the way in which information is articulated about the Nemanjid kings. In the princely hagiographies (or hagio-biographies), information about the acts and deeds of these rulers is cast within a hagiographicising framework, replete with prayers, biblical citations, and miracula accounts. Many of the topoi of kingship, like the citation of Romans 13:4 explaining why it is just for the ruler to dispense martial justice, are entirely commonplace across Christian traditions. However, it is the particular shaping of information, within the framework of hagiography, that gives these texts their unique character. In medieval Serbian hagio-biographies enthronements are attended by prayers and formulaic passages, which are standard across South Slavonic literature depicting the Nemanjid dynasty. Despite the basic similarities of the inaugurations, for the 1498 enthronement in Moscow, it is the potential overlap between medieval Serbian ordines, sermons, and prayers for investiture that is most intriguing. These ordines are not interpolated into medieval Serbian hagio-biographies and are preserved separately. The ordines/službe (much like the hagio-biographies) contain disquisitions on the nature of princely rule as representative of the heavenly kingdom on earth and its symphony with the Church.58 Whether intertextuality or merely thematic overlap, the inclusion of a prayer in the 1498 enthronement reflected both a shared feature of enthronement in medieval Christendom, but also built on previous esquisses in the chronicles of Rus’.59 The ceremonial agglomeration (or source layering) can be viewed diachronically, via the periodisation of the rites and associated artefacts and their provenance. However, it is only later that a logic of agglomeration would explicitly interpolate intertextual elements, creating a palimpsest-like ceremonial with an obvious Byzantine source base. The first coronation of a Russian tsar in 1547, that of Ivan IV by the Metropolitan Macarius, demonstrated an integration of a ceremony adapted from the late Byzantine sources for the ceremonial of investiture.60 The coronation rite opens with a dialogue between the tsar and metropolitan wherein Ivan IV demands that the Metropolitan Macarius consecrate his hereditary and legitimate claims to the title of tsar.61 This dialogue is followed by a declaration that since the time of Vladimir Monomakh, all of Ivan IV’s ancestors had been crowned with these regalia. The vocabulary of the rite reflected a grand departure from previous ceremonies, interpolating the

126  Alexandra Vukovich ideological system deriving from the term samodrzhets (autocrat) from Romano-Byzantine political culture.62 The metropolitan complies with the tsar’s entreaty, thus confirming the tsar’s ancestral right to the crown of his ancestors. The ceremony then proceeds with the placing of a (pectoral?) cross around Ivan IV’s neck, followed by the act of conferring the holy barmy and handing the sceptre, a new accoutrement, to the new tsar, and the pronouncement of the benediction presented as an act of consecration. The concluding portion of the ceremony consists of the delivery of a pouchenie (lesson), written by Metropolitan Macarius and derived from the homily of the deacon Agepetus to the Emperor Justinian. The precept functions as an extended admonition on the Emperor’s obligations to the Church and his subjects. The final portion presents an eschatological vision of the tsar’s ascent to heaven, to rule with Christ and all the saints in recompense for his imperial undertakings (царские подвиги), borrowing from the language of hagiography.63 In spite of the radical departure, Ivan IV is voiced as commanding to be crowned, “according to our ancient rite” (по древнему нашему царскому чину), ignoring that this coronation never formally featured in that “ancient rite”.64 If writing is indeed part of a sociocultural package, then the evolution of the narrative depiction of investiture (including its codification) offers insight not only into changing attitudes and notions of power and the state, but also changing attitudes towards style and the substance of depiction: the sources themselves. The logic of agglomeration in the investiture ritual of Ivan IV is one that repackages what was already agglomerated before (perhaps even retroactively changing the constitutive elements of previous depictions) and interpolates new concepts, symbols, and ideological systems. The dimension of court ceremonies and rituals as proponents of legitimacy for the ruler require them to develop and evolve in order to respond to changing conditions. From this perspective, court ceremonies and rituals are like a living entity that must respond to environmental factors. Paul Veyne posed the premises for evaluating whether or not the ancient Greeks believed their own myths, the tales of their gods and lesser divinities.65 The majority of the civic ceremonies of the ancient Greeks derived from their descent myths reinforcing the notion of ‘antiquity’, which extends the legitimacy of rulership to a mythical past, bolstering the permanence of its contemporary representation. The shared religious significance of ritual in textual sources constructs the rhetoric of unity while displaying a duality.66 In medieval texts (as today), an authority’s legitimacy or illegitimacy can be inferred based on the treatment of information according to rhetorical commonplaces. From this perspective, chroniclers, rather than events, measured the power and legitimacy of princes, especially how these would be preserved and understood later on. Historicising annalistic literature represented ritual as a form of instruction as to which types of governing modes were appropriate and those to be avoided or kept off limits, even when flatly recounting normative acts. As in Byzantium, the rituals associated with the normative acts and constitutive ceremonies of the Princes of Rus’ and, later Muscovy, were shaped to appear

Thoughtful Agglomeration  127 remote and commonplace in equal measure. Rituals had to appear anchored in ancient tradition, while being actual and function and, above all, comprehensible. In describing ceremonies and rituals of the court and ruler, narrative brevity was intentional, articulating ever-changing processes as normative and situated. The narrative strategy of a compendium like the Byzantine ‘Book of Ceremonies’ gives the impression of a sober, bureaucratic compilation (and, certainly, parts of the text were compiled from earlier sources), but the selection process followed the logic of 10th-century imperial administration. The long and relatively peaceful reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (908–959) saw the development of a court culture that both reactualised older ceremonial practices (such as the 6th-century texts attributed to Peter the Patrician) and committed to writing the idealised forms of daily practice. The bureaucratic presentation (by list and genre) of the ceremonies articulates practice rather than conscious innovation, as a process underway since time immemorial rather than invention. By giving the impression of procedure, political rituals could radically depart from prior political practice (from a polycentric dynastic culture based on itinerancy to a centralised imperial state, in the case of northern Eurasia) while narratively subsuming the shift. It is not arbitrary that Byzantine ceremonial captivated the minds of the French monarchs of the ‘Age of Absolutism’ and the early Bourbons took a personal interest in it and patronised the study of its civilisation. During the long reign of Louis XIV, the architects of the post-Fronde state, centred around Versailles, would look to Byzantium and, like in Muscovy, the deacon Agapetus for not only the ideological coordinates of statecraft, but the practical forms or rule by ritual, the meaningful acts and attitudes that would shape court life.67 The agglomerative logic of these rituals was fundamentally transcultural, in that ritual practices were thoughtfully compiled, mixing the habitual with the new, introducing new elements to be transformed through contact and interpretation, both through practice and in text.

Notes 1 R. Wortman (1995, 25–7). 2 My description of the political system of Rus’ remains heavily influenced by the teachings and works of Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, best described in S. Franklin and J. Shepard (1996, 245–77). 3 S. Griffin (2019, 9–14). Griffin points to the liturgical substrate of the earliest portions of Christian Rus’ in the Primary Chronicle, demonstrating via intertextual elements and clear analogies that, much like Byzantine chronography, the liturgy was a constituent element of the chronicles of Rus’. 4 In the Kniga Palomnik of Dobrynia Iadreikovich’s journey to Constantinople around 1200, there is a passage describing an imperial throne at the Constantinopolitan St Sophia. The description (mistaking and conflating two spaces and objects) reflects the degree to which the chronicle formula for enthronement (possibly reflecting the event itself) was banal in Rus’: Во святѣі же Софѣі у олтаря на правоі странѣ ту есть мороморъ баграянъ, і ту поставляютъ престолъ златъ і на престолѣ поставляютъ царя на царьство. (At Saint Sophia by the altar, on the right

128  Alexandra Vukovich side, there is a purple marble and this is where they place a golden throne. On this throne, they install the emperor to rule). Here the omphalion (associated with the votive crowns that used to hang in St Sophia) is confounded with the metatorion where the emperor changed in the investiture ritual, Loparev (1899, 15). 5 S. Franklin (2002, 277–8). 6 S. Franklin (2002, 278). 7 See comments and bibliography by Paul Bushkovitch in P. Bushkovitch (2021, 73–89). 8 M. McCormick (1985); and G. Dagron (1996, 129). 9 V. Turner (1967, 25). 10 V. Turner (1967, 176–7). 11 V. Turner (1967, 20). 12 See: D. Kertzer, (1988) and the review of M. S. Kimmel (1989, 1272–4). 13 See: S. Price (1987). Price demonstrates that imperial funerals made evident and gave definition to a combination of pre-existing symbolic systems. 14 G. Koziol (1992, 305–7). 15 See: R. McKitterick (2000, 1–20), discussing the limits of Carolingian accounts of papal involvement in the dynastic change of 751–4; and P. Buc (2001, 242). 16 For an overview of the schools of textology, see: V. G. Vovina-Lebedeva (2011). The chronicles of Rus’, particularly the Primary Chronicle (Повесть временных лет), have been the objects of linguistic, textological, and historical analyses, and yet they still pose a problem to those who wish to employ them as historical witnesses due to their compilatory and heterogeneous form and the posteriority of their earliest manuscript witnesses. The question of later interpolation is a complex issue since texts that are clearly later productions include amplified narratives for the early period that are tempting to use to flesh out scantier early chronicles. However, this temptation should be avoided since such amplified narratives often provide more information about the period of their production than the period they recount, for example, the narrative of the Nikon Chronicle. See the comments of Donald Ostrowski in D. Ostrowski (2002, 147–9). 17 On the topic of succession and political organisation, see: A.V. Nazarenko (1986); P. Golden (2004); and D. Ostrowski (2012). 18 In a documentary on the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, The Queen’s Coronation: Behind Palace Doors (2008), the event was reinvented to reflect the sensibilities of the period, to correspond more closely to the desires of the viewing public and to impress upon them the immutability of the event. See: D. Cannadine (1983). 19 B. Weiler (2010). 20 See discussions in: P. Buc (2000); and K. Ashley and P. Scheinhorn (1992). 21 See remarks in A. Vukovich (2020). 22 A. Vukovich (2021). 23 G. Majeska (1978, 355). 24 See: J. Nelson (1986). 25 PSRL vol. 2, Hypatian Chronicle, col. 195. 26 PSRL 2, col. 209; and PSRL, vol. 1, Laurentian Chronicle, col. 218. 27 Previous inaugurations, beginning in the 10th century, featured several ritual mainstays (including enthronement), but were relatively disparate and included a variety of rituals. For a chronological overview, see: F. Androshchuk (2003); A. Vukovich (2018). 28 A. Vukovich (2020, 60–2). 29 The tendency to view the chronicles of Rus’ as Muscovite products finds surer footing when one considers that the reshaping of information about the medieval past was part of the compilation process, to produce a linear narrative that favoured certain political outcomes (a sort of translatio imperii from Kyiv to Vladimir to Moscow) over others (the reality of the multi-nodal and non-centralised functioning dynastic culture of early Rus’).

Thoughtful Agglomeration  129 30 Cited in Wortman (1995, 9–10). 31 This is certainly the case for the Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan IV, which interpolates South Slavonic documents, like the ‘Life of Stefan Nemanja’ by Domentijan, in order to create a link between Muscovy and the South Slavonic world. 32 D. Ostrowski (2002, 29–36); and L. Langer (2021). 33 There were several axes of trade crossing Rus’, from Novgorod to the Black Sea (under Italian control), from Moscow and Tver to Sarai joining the ‘Silk Road’ across the Caspian Sea to Central Asia and India, or south to the Ottoman Empire and Mamluk Egypt. See: J. Martin (1995, 225–7). 34 The ‘Life of St. Stefan of Perm’ describes the emergence of Perm via the conversion of the Vychegda Permians to Christianity and the monastic colonisation of the Vologda area. See: J. Korpela (2001). 35 Wortman (1995, 10–12). 36 Wortman (1995, 14–15). 37 Langer (2021, 395–8). 38 This is how commemorative objects and landscapes, like the crowns and regalia of Tatar origin that were brought to Moscow following the fall of the Khanate of Kazan, should be viewed. Similarly, St Basil’s Cathedral (Собор Василия Блаженного) is a monument to the Mongols, commemorating Ivan IV’s capture of Kazan and Astrakhan and expansion of the tsardom further into Siberia. See: J. Pelenskij ([1974] 2017, 111). 39 T. Allsen (2002, 15–16); and Langer (2021, 395–8). 40 For the events in question: Nikon Chronicle, PSRL vol. 12, 14–17. 41 On familiarity, see comments by C. Halperin (1982). 42 On kurultai as an institution and political process, see: T. Allsen (1987, 34); and P. Jackson (1999, 12–37, esp. 30–1). 43 A. Vukovich (2018, 215–18). 44 Боаринъ же бѣ тогда съ великимъ княземъ Василиемъ Васильевичемъ Иванъ Дмитреевичь, и той здума великому князю Василию Васильевичю. И начять бити челомъ великимъ княземъ Ординьскимъ князю Аидару и Минь-Булату и прочимъ княземъ Татарскимъ, за свого государя великого князя Василья Васильевичя […] И таки сви ови скязи Ординстйи начяша бити челомъ цярю за великого князя Василия Васильевичя и впреки глаголати съ нимъ. […] И прииде князь велики Василей Васильевичь на Москву на Петровъ день. А съ нимъ царевъ посолъ Мансырь-Ыланъ царевичь; тотъ его садилъ на великое княжение у пречистые у Золотыхъ дверей. Nikon Chronicle, PSRL 12, 15–16. Nikon’s Chronicle is compilatory in character and quite lengthy. For the late 15th century, there is a shared account for the Nikonian, Patriarchal, and Voskressenskii chronicles. The narrative is shared until about 1520. However, already for the account of events in the late 15th century, there are variations of which events are related and how information is shaped and conveyed, which will be discussed further on. As with previous chronicles, Nikon’s Chronicle interpolates a variety of sources (including other chronicles) and types of narrative, and its manuscript tradition dates to later than the period in which it was compiled. On textology, see: Ia. S. Lur’e (1955, 180–6); B. M. Kloss (1980); and Ia. S. Lur’e (1985, 190–205, esp. 193–6). 45 Enthronements and oath-takings are often associated with meaningful feast days in the chronicles of Rus’. For example, the feast day of SS Boris and Gleb – who had been killed on the orders of their brother, Sviatopolk, during the internecine conflict of 1015–1036, and whose relics had been ceremoniously translated in 1072 – is rhetorically invoked to articulate peace, brotherly love, and the princely patrimony, especially for enthronements following periods of internecine conflict: PSRL 2, cols. 443–4. 46 D. Ostrowski (2002, 174–6); see also: S. Bogatyrev (2011); and for a different perspective, taking into account Russian state intransigence and the political ramifications of the Kazan regalia’s provenance, see: G. F. Valeeva-Suleimanova (2008).

130  Alexandra Vukovich 47 A. Etkind (2013, 57–60). On the longue durée role of Riurik in the process of imperial expansion and its justification. 48 Bogatyrev (2011, 253–4). 49 G. Olshr (1950, 283, 292–3). 50 PSRL 12, 246–8. The text of the Nikon Chronicle (from the 1520s) is reproduced in several other chronicles, both in its long form (the Voskressenskii Chronicle: PSRL 8 (1901/2001), 234–6) and in a shorter form (the Russkii Khronograf: PSRL 22, part 2 (1914/2005), 512–13). The shorter form may have been taken from an earlier chronicle, as Majeska discusses in G. Majeska (1978, 360–1). On the relationship between chronicle textology and the rite of enthronement of Dmitrii Ivanovich, see G. Majeska (1978, 356). 51 For the full text and translation, see: A. Vukovich (2020, 58–65). 52 For the Byzantine rite, see: P. Schreiner (1967). 53 G. Majeska (1984, 433–4); V. Savva (1901, 153); E. V. Barsov (1883, xxix–xxxi); and Kh. M. Loparev (1887, 312–19). 54 The use of prayers and biblical injunctions as part of investiture ceremonial features in the chronicle narrative from at least the enthronement of Constantine Vsevolodich in 1206, see: A. Vukovich (2021, 92–3). 55 See: E.V. Barsov (1883, 32–8). The original manuscript is held at the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius in Russia, MS 304.I. Службеник и Требник (1474). 56 This is the period when the so-called Second South Slavonic influence is supposed to have been most evident with the Nikon Chronicle, including the arrival of Lazar ‘the Serb’, a horologist, in Moscow in 1402 or the elevation of a South Slavonic man of letters, Gregory Tsamblak, to the metropolitan see of Kiev (1413–1420). See: D. S. Likhachev (1960); and H. Birnbaum (1984–5). 57 See: A. Solovjev (1933). Compare with the 1176 account of Mikhailko Iurevich: “и седе на столе деда своего и отца своего” (and he sat upon the throne of his forefathers and his father), PSRL 2, col. 602. See: S. Marjanović-Dušanić and S. Ćirković (1994, 23–37); and J. Kalić (1997). 58 Such prayers and sermons are appended to the 13th-century Zivoti Kraljeva i Arhiepiskopa Srpskih (the Lives of the Serbian Kings and Archbishops) by Archbishop Daniel II and his 14th-century continuators. 59 See: S. Marjanović-Dušanić and S. Ćirković (1994, 36). 60 G. Ostrogorskii (1973). On the ceremony of investiture for Ivan IV, see: E. V. Barsov (1883, 39–66), based on printed texts in Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika, vol. 7 (1788), iv-xxxv; and Dopolneniia k aktam istoricheskim, vol. 1, no. 39 (1846), 41–53. For the shorter notice of the coronation, see: PSRL 13.1 (1904/2002), 150–1 and PSRL 5 (1925/2000), 307. 61 B. Uspenskii (2012); B. Uspenskii (1998, 14–30); and M. V. Shakhmatov (1930). 62 Metropolitan Zosima (d. 1478) turned the analogy between the Moscow prince and the Byzantine Emperor into a semantic equivalence, showing how narrative could act on ideology and produce its own reality. Samoderzhets, a calque of the Greek autocrator, expressed the supremacy of the Muscovite tsar and his freedom from overlordship. The symbiotic relationship between ruler and the Church reflected the late Byzantine concept of the “symphony” between the secular and ecclesiastical spheres as elaborated in the Byzantine book of canons, such as Kormchaia Kniga which featured Byzantine ideas on kingship via the translation of Byzantine imperial decrees into Slavonic. See comments by C. Halperin (2014). 63 R. Wortman (1995, 11–14) (for a summary); and B. Uspenskii (1998, 20–2). 64 Dopolneniia k aktam istoricheskim, 44. 65 P. Veyne (1983, 89–101). 66 See comments by M. Bloch (1974). 67 On the treatise by the deacon Agapetos in France, see I. Ševčenko (1982).

Thoughtful Agglomeration  131

Bibliography Allsen, T. (1987), Mongol Imperialism. The Politics of the Great Qan Möngke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251-1259, Berkeley, University of California Press. Allsen, T. (2002), Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Androshchuk, F. (2003), ‘K istorii obriada intronizatsii drevnerusskikh kniazei (“sidenie na kurganakh”)’, in Druzhnni starozhitnosti tsentral’no-skhidnoi Evropi VIII-X st. Materiali Mizhnarodnogo pol’ovogo arkheologichnogo seminaru, Chernihiv, Siverians’ka dumka, 5–10. Ashley K. and Scheinhorn, P. (1992), ‘An Unsentimental View of Ritual in the Middle Ages’, Journal of Ritual Studies 6/1: 65–85. Barsov, E. V. (1883), Drevnerusskie pamiatniki sviashchennogo venchaniia tsarei na tsarstvo, Moscow, Imperial University Press. Birnbaum, H. (1984–5), ‘Old Rus’ and the Orthodox Balkans: Differences in Kind, Extent and Significance of the Earlier and Later Cultural Impact’, Cyrillomethodianum 8–9: 1–15. Bloch, M. (1974), ‘Symbols, Song, Dance and Features of Articulation: Is Religion an Extreme form of Traditional Authority?’, Journal of Sociology 15/1: 54–81. Bogatyrev, S. (2011), ‘Eshche raz o shapke Monomakha i kazne moskovskikh kniazei’, Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana 2: 251–4. Buc, P. (2000), ‘Ritual and Interpretation: The Medieval Case’, Early Medieval Europe 9/2: 1–28. Buc, P. (2001), The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Bushkovitch, P. (2021), Succession to the Throne in Early Modern Russia. The Transfer of Power 1450-1725, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Cannadine, D. (1983), ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the ‘Invention of Tradition’, c. 1820-1977’, in Ranger, T. and Hobsbawm, E. (eds.) The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 101–64. Dagron, G. (1996), Empereur et prêtre: étude sur le ‘césaropapisme’ byzantin, Paris, Gallimard. Etkind, A. (2013), Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience, Cambridge, Polity Press. Favereau, M. (2021), The Horde, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Franklin, S and Shepard, J. (1996), The Emergence of Rus’, c. 950-1300, London and New York, Longman. Franklin, S. (2002), Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c. 950-1300, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Golden, P. (2004), “Ascent by Scales’: The System of Succession in Kievan Rus’ in a Eurasian Context’, in Duzinkiewicz, J. (ed.) States, Societies, Cultures: East and West. Essays in Honour of Iaroslav Pelenski, New York, Ross Publishing. Griffin, S. (2019), The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Halperin, C. (1982), “Know They Enemy’: Medieval Russian Familiarity with the Mongols of the Golden Horde’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 30/2: 161–75. Halperin, C. (2014) ‘Ivan IV as Autocrat (Samoderzhets)’, Cahiers du Monde russe 55/3–4: 197–213.

132  Alexandra Vukovich Jackson, P. (1999), ‘From Ulus to Khanate: the Making of the Mongol States, c.1220-c.1290’, in Amitai, R. and Morgan, D. (eds.), The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, Leiden, Brill, 12–37. Kalić, J. (1997), ‘Pretece Žice: Krunidbena mesta Srpskikh vladara’, Istorijski Časopis 44: 77–87. Kertzer, D. (1988), Rituals, Politics, and Power, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press. Kimmel, M. S. (1989) ‘Review’, American Journal of Sociology 94: 1272–4. Kloss, B. M. (1980), Nikonovskii svod i russkie letopisi XVI-XVII vekov, Moscow, Nauka, 190–5. Korpela, J. (2001), ‘‘Stefan von Perm’ Heiliger Täufer im politischen Kontext,’ Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteruropas 49: 481–99. Koziol, G. (1992), Begging Pardon and Favor. Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press. Langer, L. (2021), ‘The Economics of Mongol rule in Rus’, 1237-1350’, in Maiorov, A. V. and Hautala, R. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Mongols and CentralEastern Europe. Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations, London, Routledge. Likhachev, D. S. (1960), ‘Nekotorye zadachi izucheniia vtorogo Iuznoslavianskovo vliianiia v Rossii’, in Issledovaniia po slavianskomu literaturovedeniiu i fol’kloristike, Moscow, Akademiia nauk SSSR, 95–151. Loparev, Kh. M. (ed.) (1899), Kniga Palomnik. Skazanie mest’ sviatykh vo Tsaregrade Antoniia, arkhiepiskopa Novgorodskago v 1200 godu, Pravoslavnyi Palestinskii sbornik, vol. 17/3, St. Petersburg, Tipografiia V. Kishbluma. Loparev, Kh. M. (1887), O chine venchaniia russkikh tsarei, St. Petersburg, V. S. Balasheva. Lur’e, Ia S. (1955), ‘Iz istorii russkogo letopisaniia kontsa XV veka’, TODRL 11: 156–86. Lur’e, Ia S. (1985), ‘Genealogicheskaia schema leteopisei XI–XVI vv.’, TODRL 40: 190–205. Majeska, G. (1978), ‘The Moscow Coronation of 1498 Reconsidered’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 26/3: 353–61. Majeska, G. (1984), Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks Studies. Marjanović-Dušanić, S. and Ćirković, S. (1994), Vladarske insignije i državna simbolika u Srbiji od XIII do XV veka, Belgrade, Serbian Academy. Martin, J. (1995), Medieval Russia, 980-1584, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. McCormick, M. (1985), ‘Analyzing Imperial Ceremonies’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 35: 1–21. McKitterick, R. (2000), ‘The Illusion of Royal Power in the Carolingian Annals’, English Historical Review 460: 1–20. Nazarenko, A. V. (1986), ‘Rodovoi siuzerenitet Riurikovichei nad Rus’iu (X-XI vv.)’, in Drevneishie gosudarstva na territorii SSSR, Moscow, Nauka, 149–57. Nelson, J. (1986), ‘Symbols in Context: Rulers’ Inauguration Rituals in Byzantium and the West’, in Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 259–83. Olshr, G. (1950), ‘La Chiesa e lo Stato nel cerimoniale d’incoronazione degli ultimi sovrani Rurikidi’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 16: 267–302. Ostrogorskii, G. (1973), ‘Evoliutsiia vizantiiskogo obriada koronovaniia’, in Grashchenkov, V. N., Kniazevskaia, T. B. et al. (eds.) Vizantiia iuzhnye slaviane i Drevniaia Rus’ zapadnaia Evropa. Iskusstvo i kul’tura. Sbornik statei v chest’ V. N. Lazareva, Moscow, Nauka, 32–43.

Thoughtful Agglomeration  133 Ostrowski, D. (2002), Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304-1589, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Ostrowski, D. (2012), ‘Systems of Succession in Rus’ and Steppe Societies’, Ruthenica 11: 29–58. Pelenskij, J. ([1974] 2017), Russia and Kazan: Conquest and Imperial Ideology (14381560s), Berlin, De Gruyter. Price, S. (1987), ‘From Noble Funerals to Divine Cult: The Consecration of Roman Emperors’, in Cannadine, D and Price, S. (eds.), Rituals of Royalty Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 56–105. Savva, V. (1901), Moskovskie tsari i viszantiiskie vasilevsy. k voprosu o vliianii Vizantii na obrazovanie idei tsarskoi vlasti Moskovskikh gosudarei, Kharkov, M. Zilberberg. Schreiner, P. (1967), ‘Hochzeit und Krönung Kaiser Manuels II. im Jahre 1392’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 60/1: 70–85. Shakhmatov, M. V. (1930), ‘Gosudarstvenno-natsional’nye idei chinovnikh knig venchaniia na tsarstvo russkikh gosudarei’, Zapiski russkogo instituta v Belgrade 1: 248–51. Ševčenko, I. (1982), ‘Agapetus East and West: the fate of Byzantine Mirror of Princes’, in Sevcenko: Ideology, Letters and Culture, London, Variorum, 3–44. Solovjev, A. (1933), ‘Pojam države u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji’, Godišnjica Nikole Ćupića 42: 123. Turner, V. (1967), The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press. Uspenskii, B. (1998), Tsar’ i patriarkh: kharizma vlasti v Rossii (Vizantiiskaia model’ i ee russkoe pereosmyslenie), Moscow, Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Uspenskii, B. (2012), ‘Enthronement in the Russian and Byzantine Traditions’, in Uspenskii B. and Zhivov V. (eds.), “Tsar and God” and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics, Boston, MA, Academic Studies Press, 153–63. Valeeva-Suleimanova, G. F. (2008), ‘Shapka Monomakha—Imperskii symbol tatarskogo proiskhozhdeniia’, in Murzaleev, I. M. (ed.), Zolotoordynskaia tsivilizatsiia, Kazan, Institut istorii, 22–29. Veyne, P. (1983), Les Grecs, ont-ils cru à leurs mythes? Essai sur l’imagination constituante, Paris, Éditions du Seuil. Vovina-Lebedeva, V. G. (2011), Shkoly Issledovaniia russkikh letopisei: XIX-XX vv, St Petersburg, Dmitrii Bulanin. Vukovich, A. (2018), ‘Enthronement in Early Rus: Between Byzantium and Scandinavia’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 14: 211–39. Vukovich, A. (2020), ‘How Byzantine was the Moscow Inauguration of 1498?’, in Rossi, M. A. and Sullivan, A. (eds.), Byzantium in Eastern European Culture in the Late Middle Ages, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450, Leiden, Brill, 35–71. Vukovich, A. (2021), ‘Le Prince et son épée dans le Rous’ du Nord à la suite de l’exil byzantin de Vsévolod Iourevich’, in Yota É. (ed.), Byzance et ses voisins: XIIIe-XVe siècle, Bern, Peter Lang, 85–107. Weiler, B. (2010), ‘Crown-giving and King-making in the West ca. 1000-ca. 1250’, Viator 41/1: 57–88. Wortman, R. (1995), Scenarios of Power Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarch from Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I, Vol. 1, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.

10 Boris Godunov and His Family in the Mirror of Medieval Russian Polyonymy Anna F. Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij

It is only in the last few years that medieval Russian polyonymy in its entirety has become the object of close study. Until recently, some very important aspects of it, such as the possibility of having two lay Christian names at the same time, were clearly lacking in systemic analysis, and, accordingly, were overgrown with onomastic myths and erroneous constructions. Under the pen of a researcher, the same male person could easily turn into two brothers, while a woman with two names could easily turn into two separate wives of the same historical figure. On the other hand, insufficient awareness of the relative structure of the polynomial could lead not only to the appearance of superfluous people, who never existed but also to quite real people being given superfluous, phantom names that they did not have, and often could not have had. Boris Godunov and his family were especially “unlucky” in this respect. The tsar’s aunt, Stephanida/Matryona, the wife of his uncle Dmitry Ivanovich Godunov, whom Princess Ksenia Borisovna quite naturally called her grandmother in her letters,1 was transformed in the historiographic tradition into two separate women (Matryona and Stephanida) with their own habits and artistic preferences.2 The tsar himself ended up with a whole series of names, in which Christian and non-Christian, secular and monastic names were mixed. There is, nevertheless, a way to sort out this confusion and significantly improve our understanding of personal names and heavenly patrons of the royal family. Before discussing each of the Godunov anthroponyms, it is worth presenting a few general rules and laws that governed the Russian polynomial uses in the second half of the 16th and early 17th centuries. 1) It was compulsory for every Christian in Russia to have one single common name – the baptismal one. Many people, from birth to death, had only this, and they used it in all possible situations, private and public, secular and religious. 2) Alongside their baptismal name, people could have yet another common name, either a second common name in public life, or another common name in some areas of religious life. This duality could, in turn, be of two DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-12

Boris Godunov and His Family  135

3)

4)

5) 6)

7)

types: the oldest, so to speak, classical form (“Christian baptismal name + non-Christian name”, cf. Nazariy / Bazhen) and the newest, based on the model “Christian baptismal name + Christian public name” (Zephaniah/ Georgiy). One and the same person could simultaneously be the public bearer of two types of double-name, that is, his anthroponymic dossier could consist of three units – a Christian baptismal name (Ivan), a Christian public name (Vasiliy) and a non-Christian public name (Pomyas). Strictly speaking, there could have been even more anthroponyms: there were apparently no visible restrictions on the number of non-Christian public names, or at least there were known cases where individuals had two or three of them. There were, however, no more than two Christian names for a layperson, as long as the person did not change confessional affiliation and did not pretend to be another person (Christian baptismal and Christian non-baptismal). When taking monastic vows, a person, as a rule, received a new Christian name. At the same time, the names that had been used in public, both Christian and non-Christian, did not completely disappear from their life – a kind of accumulation of anthroponyms took place. At this time there was most often one monastic name: the appearance of another name during the induction into the great schema was still a great rarity; such a practice would only become widespread from the middle of the 17th century.3 Non-Christian and Christian names were two autonomously functioning systems – for this period there are no known cases when a translation of a Christian name was used as a non-Christian name. All Christian names of the same person are in a non-rigid and non-binding relationship with each other. At the heart of this microsystem is the baptismal name. There is a general tendency to select a second Christian common name for it according to the calendar (so that the saint’s day for the baptismal name is not too far from the saint’s day for the second Christian name – for example, the secular names of Prince Pozharsky, Cosmas and Dmitri, a case in which the holy day of St. Cosmas is celebrated on 1 November, and St. Dmitri on 26 October). Even more widespread, perhaps, but also not strictly obligatory, was the practice of choosing a monastic name on the basis of their consonance with the baptismal one (most often, a simple coincidence of the initial sounds: Vasiliy in baptism becomes Varlaam in monasticism, the bearer of the baptismal name Nikita takes the vows as Nicodemus, etc.).4 In the ruling house of the Riurikovichi in the 16th century, there is a tendency to change the model of secular Christian duality. In this period, the baptismal name of the dynast and his public Christian name increasingly coincide, and the second Christian name remains only to function as a kind of pious appendix marking the day the representative of the ruling house came into the world.5

136  Anna F. Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij Returning now to the names of Godunov, we can state that in many authentic sources two anthroponyms are consistently recorded – the secular Boris and the monastic Bogolep. The monastic name Bogolep in Russia was given exclusively to those who were baptised Boris.6 Accordingly, we have every reason to believe that the tsar’s name Boris combined baptismal and public functions. Meanwhile, in the famous Catalogue of Old Russian Painting by V. I. Antonova and N. E. Mneva, a more extensive collection of tsarist anthroponyms is given – it is reported here that Boris also had such names as Bogdan, Feodot and Iakov.7 This indication formed the basis of a whole research tradition, which up to the present day recognises all these naming conventions for Boris Fyodorovich. As has already been mentioned (point 3 above), one and the same person should not have three Christian lay names, and in this particular instance, that was certainly not the case either. The name Iakov in relation to Godunov was borrowed by the compilers of the catalogue from the remarkable ethnographer N. N. Kharuzin,8 who, in turn, relied on the History of the Russian State by N. M. Karamzin.9 Karamzin, for his part, was a victim of a technical error, a misreading of the syntactic comparative construction таков… яков from The Tale of How Boris Godunov Seized the Tsar's Throne – the connective word яков, probably due to cursory reading, was taken to be a proper name. This mistake was revealed quite early, even in the first monograph of S. F. Platonov’s Old Russian legends and stories about the Time of Troubles of the 17th century, as a historical source;10 however, in the scientific tradition, his perfectly correct remark was ignored, and Karamzin’s erroneous assertion, by contrast, stuck and passed on from study to study. As for the name Bogdan, not a single source – be it a detailed written text or a laconic inscription on an artefact – records it in relation to Tsar Boris. This naming is purely the result of research reconstruction and, moreover, a reconstruction that simultaneously contradicts several parameters of the naming tradition of the 16th to 17th centuries. Accordingly, there is absolutely no reason to believe that it applied to Tsar Boris.11 Much more complex and interesting is the situation with the name Feodot, traditionally associated with Boris. The fact is that St. Theodotus frequently appears on icons, frames and murals definitely associated with the Godunov family – he figures among the heavenly namesakes of the members of the royal family, alongside Sts. Boris, Theodore Stratelates, Mary Magdalene and the venerable Xenia of Milassa (and Rome). At the same time, we can be sure that St. Boris (and St. Gleb, who often appears with him) were the heavenly patrons of Tsar Boris himself. Mary Magdalene is the patron saint of Tsarina Maria Grigorievna Godunova, which is unambiguously evidenced, for example, by the entry in the Donations book of the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma.12 In turn, St. Ksenia of Rome, without a doubt, was the patroness of their daughter, Ksenia Borisovna. As for St. Theodore Stratelates, he clearly correlates with the figure of the tsarevich – Fyodor Borisovich, who was named after his grandfather, Fyodor

Boris Godunov and His Family  137 Ivanovich “the One-eyed”, and, apparently, inherited his patron saint. The figure of St. Theodotus might seem somewhat redundant here, but we do know that such group patronal images sometimes reflect two names of one of the family members: public and non-public. With whom, in that case, is the figure of St. Theodotus associated? To answer this question, first of all, it is necessary to determine which of the several holy namesakes who bore this name is shown to us in these images. Quite often, the inscription “Theodotus of Ancyra” appears on corresponding artefacts. We see it, for example, on two icons painted by Procopius Chirin (both are called “Selected Saints”; they represent Saints Boris and Gleb, Theodore Stratelates, Theodotus of Ancyra, Mary Magdalene and Xenia of Rome);13 there is a corresponding signature on the black plaque from the frame of the icon “The Mother of God of Smolensk”,14 on the plaque of the sudarium “Trinity” (donation of Boris Godunov) and on the plaque from the burial shroud of Tsarevich Fyodor Borisovich.15 Judging by the inventory of the sacristy of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, there was “an image of the local Lord Sabaoth, on the sides in prayer Boris and Gleb and Theodore Stratelates and Theodotus of Ancyra and Mary Magdalene and the venerable Xenia”.16 In the account book of the Novodevichi Convent for the years 1603–1604, it is reported that in the cell of the nun Tsarina Irina Godunova, among other items, there were icons of “Boris and Gleb and Mary Magdalene” and “Theodore Stratelates, Theodotus of Ancyra and the venerable Xenia”.17 Only once on the icons of Godunov’s circle do we find the epithet “Kyrenian” applied to Theodotus, which is usually applied to another owner of the same name (we shall discuss this below). Additionally, in a number of cases, icons and objects are marked only by a general indication that we are looking at the martyr or hieromartyr Theodotus, as any qualifying epithet is absent. So, in particular, on one of the plaques of the famous gold setting for the “Trinity” icon from the local series of the Trinity Cathedral of the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma (donation of Dmitry Ivanovich Godunov), we see images of the Apostle Philip (left), Theodore Stratelates (centre) and St. Theodotus (right) in the form of a saint with the Gospel and the inscription hieromartyr Theodotus (“СТА СВШНАМУ ѲЄ// Ѡ//Д//ОТЪ”).18 On the outer side of one of the shutters of the folding body of the icon “Our Lady of Vladimir” (possibly also the donation of the tsar's uncle, Dmitry Godunov), between the images of Theodore Stratelates and the venerable Xenia, we find a figure in holy robes with the signature “ѲЄѠДОТЪ”.19 One of the icons from a private collection, attributed to Procopius Chirin, depicts Mary Magdalene, the venerable Xenia, Sts. Boris and Gleb and St. Theodotus, and above the figure of the last is the inscription “св҃щенны1 Феѡдотъ” (looking ahead a little, let us note that St. Theodore Stratelates is absent here).20 In addition, there is a preserved handwritten sheet of a Greek lectionary, copied in 1596 in Moscow by Arseny Elassonsky and decorated by Russian artists, that depicts in medallions the already mentioned royal family patrons, among them St. Theodotus with the Gospel and signature “ѲЄѠДОТЪ”. The hieromartyr Theodotus also appears on one of the plaques

138  Anna F. Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij of the so-called pearl shroud “Cross on Golgotha” from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (donation of Tsar Boris, 1599), where all the other patrons of the Godunov family are present.21 The saint, known as the hieromartyr Theodotus, was, judging by the inventory of 1641, also on the unpreserved golden panagia, suspended from the haloes on the frame of the Rublev Trinity (donation of Fyodor Borisovich); here he was depicted together with St. Theodore Stratelates. In another document of the 17th century, in the Descriptive Books of the Old Assumption Monastery, an icon is mentioned: “the praying martyrs Boris and Gleb and Theodore Stratelates, and the martyr Theodotus, and the holy Mary and Xenia”.22 Which of the St. Theodotus’ – the Ancyran or the Kyrenian – is represented on these artefacts that have no additional information? It would appear that iconography could help a lot here, especially since in referring to the lives of St. Theodotus of Ancyra and St. Theodotus of Kyrenia, one cannot help but notice the clear contrast, as if forcing us to talk about different types of holiness. Indeed, St. Theodotus of Kyrenia was a priest, bishop in Cyprus, while St. Theodotus of Ancyra was the owner of a tavern, which served as a refuge for persecuted Christians. It should be possible to conclude, therefore, that only one of them – Theodotus of Kyrenia – warrants the epithet hieromartyr and the image in holy robes with the Gospel in his hands, and, accordingly, any icon or other artefact where St. Theodotus figures with similar attributes, refers to Theodotus of Kyrenia. This is the preferred reasoning of a number of researchers who, in one way or another, touch upon the problem of attribution of artefacts associated with the family of Boris Godunov.23 Nevertheless, it seems they do not take into account one very important circumstance. Already at the level of service texts, both Greek and Slavic, there is a certain complex confusion, noted by Archbishop Sergius (Spasskii): in the Menaeum and in the Prolog, Theodotus of Ancyra is called, like other saints, a “hieromartyr”, and a troparion was composed for him according to the holy martyr canon.24 As indicated in the notes to his Complete Menologion of the East, a particular rhetoric conducive to such glorification is contained in the very text of the Life of Theodotus of Ancyra, for it refers to the fact that he was a teacher of faith and piety, and his inn was a prayer temple and an altar for the priests of God.25 In other words, what is more likely part of a metaphor as described in his Life is transformed into a stable characteristic in liturgy. How much this characteristic was entrenched in tradition is evidenced, in particular, by the original letter of Patriarch Job of 1599 on the construction of the gateway church of Theodotus of Ancyra connected with the Godunovs – the Patriarch, without a shadow of a doubt, calls him a hieromartyr: “… to erect a new stone church in the name of the holy hieromartyr Theodotus of Ancyra, and on that temple and shrine to dedicate and consecrate”.26 Naturally, the epithet also brings to life the corresponding images – in Russia the dominant iconographic type for the depiction of the pious innkeeper Theodotus of Ancyra is a figure in pastoral clothes with the Gospel in

Boris Godunov and His Family  139 his hand. Accordingly, seeing in front of us an icon with the image of the saint and the inscription hieromartyr Theodotus, we cannot know who is in front of us – Theodotus of Kyrenia or Theodotus of Ancyra, but in an overwhelming number of such images within Godunov’s circle, where the figure of the saint is more widely identified, he is specifically labelled as Theodotus of Ancyra. As a matter of fact, on all the items listed above, which include the Ancyra clarification, we are invariably dealing with the iconographic image of the hieromartyr – the holy vestments, the Gospel, the blessing gesture – all these attributes are present in various combinations. Thus, we have every reason to believe that it is Theodotus of Ancyra who is depicted on those artefacts associated with the royal family, in those cases where his name is not properly labelled. But what about the only icon where the epithet Kyrenian can be clearly read in the inscription above one of the patron saints of the Godunov family? Here, apparently, we are faced with another round of confusion of saints with identical and similar names and characteristics, dating back to the end of the 16th century. In fact, there are two icons that are very similar in composition to each other, and at the same time differ somewhat from other artefacts of Godunov's circle. One of them was in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin of the Novgorod Antoniev Monastery, and the other – the one that interests us most now – ended up in the Pskov Museum, but it may also have been originally associated with Novgorod. Both icons depict St. Boris and Mary Magdalene (patron saints of the tsar and his wife), and on the right is the venerable Xenia and a saint with the iconographic attributes of a hieromartyr. On both icons above this last figure there are inscriptions: on the icon from the Antoniev Monastery we read ОАГιѲЄДОРъАНГιРЪСКИІ (i.e. St. Theodore of Ancyra);27 while on the icon, which by the will of fate found itself in Pskov, the inscription looks like ОАГѲЄДоКИРІНIЄСКИ (i.e. St. Fedo(t/r?) of Kyrenia), where the final letter of the name and the initial letter of the epithet are a ligature, as a result of which the signature can be read equally as “Fedor of Kyrenia” and as “Fedot of Kyrenia”.28 It is quite obvious that the iconographers who made the inscriptions on the icons found themselves trapped here by a certain confusion, and between not two, but four saints who are present in Orthodox menologia. For the fact is that the canon includes not only Sts. Theodotus of Ancyra and Theodotus of Kyrenia, but also Sts. Theodore of Ancyra and Theodore of Kyrenia. An additional complication lies in the fact that, together with Bishop Theodore of Ancyra, whose commemoration falls on 3 November, his companions Dasius, Severus, Andronicus, Theodotus, and Theodote are also commemorated on that day, while on the same day as the holy martyr Theodore of Kyrenia (4 July) is commemorated in some menologia, the office for the martyrs Theodotus and Theodota, who were martyred under Trajan, is equally listed. As we know, such calendar proximity in the Russian commemorative tradition often provokes a confusion of epithets and attributes even among saints with dissimilar names.29 The cross-confusion of Theodores and

140  Anna F. Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij Theodotuses, some of whom are better known than others, looks almost inevitable in this situation, with the intertwining of names and dates. In other words, it was extremely easy for the iconographer to get entangled among the two Ancyran martyrs and the two Kyrenian martyrs, called Fyodor and Feodot, especially since each of them was usually depicted as a hieromartyr. The bizarre ways in which such a mix-up can occur are very interesting in themselves, and have much to say about the cult of saints in Russia at the turn of the 16th to 17th centuries. It is obvious, however, that the result of this confusion – the epithet “Kyrenian” on the one and only Godunov icon next to the name, which can be read both as Fyodor and Feodot – can in no way serve as a decisive argument with regard to which St. Theodotus was revered in the royal family. In any case, these contradictory and vague data do not outweigh the evidence of numerous icons and other artefacts directly related to the Godunovs, where there is an unambiguous indication of Theodotus of Ancyra. In other words, it was this saint, who is commemorated on 7 November, 18 May, and 7 June, who was the personal heavenly patron of one of the members of the royal family. So which of the Godunovs had Theodotus of Ancyra as a patron? Until now, all researchers have followed a single possibility and believed that St. Theodotus – since he is present on family icons and artefacts – must undoubtedly be the patron of Tsar Boris himself. If that is the case, what place could the name Feodot occupy in the tsar’s anthroponymic dossier? As shown above, it was neither baptismal nor public – both these functions were performed by the name Boris; it was not monastic either, because in monasticism the tsar, as we remember, became Bogolep. All that is left for it is the role of the notorious “pious appendix”, highlighting in a special way the day on which the future tsar was born.30 Although we cannot completely dismiss this version, we are not fully convinced by it either. In fact, as far as can be judged from the information that has come down to us, the custom of carrying the additional name of the saint on whose day he was born, when a child was not baptised according to his birthday, only became customary in the 16th century among the members the ruling house of the Moscow, the Rurikovichi, to which Godunov, naturally, did not belong by birth. Of course, it can be assumed that Boris simply imitated his predecessors on the throne and retroactively introduced Theodotus of Ancyra as his personal pious ordinary name to commemorate the saint, on whose day he had been born. But even this assumption does not seem entirely plausible. Here, calendar considerations should be taken into account: Boris, apparently, celebrated his name day on 24 July (commemorating Boris and Gleb),31 but all days of commemoration of St. Theodotus of Ancyra are quite a long away from this date. Some special grounds are needed for a child born, for example, on 7 June, 18 May or 7 November, to be baptised Boris, especially since for the Godunovs this was not an ancestral or common name at all.32 In addition, the bearers of the baptismal name Boris in public, as a rule, did not need another holy namesake, since they had already been provided with the patronage of two holy brothers, Boris and Gleb, which is reflected in many artefacts of Godunov’s time.

Boris Godunov and His Family  141 All these problems – the uncertainty of the functional status, the apparent lack of relation with the calendar, the specificity of the name Boris in Russian anthroponymic use – might completely disappear if we turn to another possibility and assume that it was not Tsar Boris, but his son Fyodor, who was under the direct patronage of Theodotus of Ancyra. Indeed, referring to the anthroponymic dossier of the tsarevich, it is not difficult to conclude that he was named Fyodor in honour of Theodore Stratelates. This naming perfectly suited him according to two lines of succession – the family itself and the power-elite. Fyodor was his own paternal grandfather, who died many years before the birth of his grandson, and, on the other hand, as is known, Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, the husband of the boy's aunt, the autocrat whose successor his father was destined to become, was named after Theodore Stratelates. At the same time, one cannot help but notice that one of the celebrations of Theodotus of Ancyra, 7 June, falls right on the eve of the summer commemoration of Theodore Stratelates – it was on this day, 8 June, that Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich celebrated his name day.33 The role of this kind of eve in choosing a Christian name for a child in Russia can hardly be overestimated: in particular, they provide the best reasons for giving two calendar names at once. So, a person born on 21 March received the baptismal name Iakov (in honour of James the Confessor, who is commemorated on that day) and the public name Vasily (after Basil of Ancyra – 22 March); those who were baptised Iakinf (after St. Hyacinth of Caesarea, 3 July), in public life were easily turned into Andrei, since 4 July is celebrated in memory of Andrew of Crete; and those who became Emilian for the celebration of St. Emelian of Trebia (18 August) received the second name Andrei after Andrew Stratelates (19 August). As a result, the more popular and common name very often forms a kind of anthroponymic pair with the name of the saint who is commemorated on the preceding or following day. Apparently, this also happened with the names Feodot and Fyodor – they were both borne, for example, by Ivan the Terrible’s father-in-law Fyodor / Feodot Nagoy; a 17th-century clerk Fyodor / Feodot Griboyedov, and, most likely, Fyodor / Feodot Saburov, who lived in the first half of the 16th century. Thus, it is quite natural to assume that Boris Godunov’s son was born on 7 June and Theodotus of Ancyra became his “birthday saint”, and the name Fyodor (and the patronage of Theodore Stratelates) ideally suited him both according to the calendar and for all sorts of family reasons. This assumption seems to be supported by the compositional features of those Godunov artefacts, on which all the patron saints of the family are present. Indeed, wherever paired images appear (two saints on one plaque, in one medallion, etc.), it is certainly St. Theodotus of Ancyra that St. Theodore Stratelates is paired with. We can observe such a combination, for example, on the frame of the icon ‘The Mother of God of Smolensk’, on the plaque from the gold frame of the Trinity icon from the Kostroma Ipatiev Monastery, on one of the plaques from the sudarium from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius,34 as well as judging by the Inventory of 1641, on one of the golden panagias (medallions) attached by Fyodor Borisovich to the Trinity icon by

142  Anna F. Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij Andrei Rublev. Usually, the joint image of saints, who are not in any way connected with each other hagiographically, on personal or family donations, is due to the fact that they are the heavenly patrons-namesakes of the same person. Since the saints on one or another Godunov donation are represented individually, Sts. Theodore Stratelates and Theodotus of Ancyra, as a rule, neighbour each other, often correlating in one way or another with the image of the venerable Xenia, or, to put it another way, the patron saints of the parents (Sts. Boris, Gleb, and Mary Magdalene) constitute one group, and the children’s patrons – another. Of course, such observations of the composition are much more open to dispute (it is obvious that the relative position of a comparatively small group of saints can often be read in different ways), but in other cases they can be quite definite and expressive. In this respect, the burial shroud of Tsarevich Fyodor Borisovich, commissioned by his only sister Xenia, is very interesting. Here, several dozen plaques with single images of saints are laid out in the form of a Golgotha cross. At the very base of the cross there is a plaque with St. Theodotus of Ancyra; on the neighbouring plaque we see Theodore Stratelates; relatively close – the venerable Xenia (they are separated by plaques with St. Cyril and the Apostle Philip). The images of Sts. Boris, Gleb, and Mary Magdalene are located at a considerable distance: Boris and Gleb are in the uppermost part of the cross, framing on both sides a plaque with the figure of the Mother of God. The plaque with St. Mary Magdalene is located just a little lower, directly under the intersection with the upper bar of the cross. In our opinion, such a combination of plaques quite decisively leads to the conclusion that St. Theodotus of Ancyra (as well as Theodore Stratelates) should be considered the personal heavenly protector of the deceased Tsarevich Fyodor, and the heavenly patrons of his father – the holy brothers Boris and Gleb. The assumption of the patronage of St. Theodotus is strengthened even more by a non-iconographic source, also dating back, apparently, to the time when Tsar Boris, his wife, and Fyodor Borisovich himself had passed away, and only Princess Ksenia Borisovna remained alive. We are talking here about the synodicon of the Stefano-Makhrishch Monastery, which, in general, is characterised by the fixation of secular Christian binomials. The record of the commemoration of the royal family is as follows: Family of Tsar Boris. Tsar and Grand Duke Boris in monasticism Bogolep. Tsarina and Grand Duchess Maria. Tsarevich Prince Theodore Theodotus. Theodore. nun Sandulia. Children: Ivan. Boris. Theodore. Matrona. Anastasia. Mina. Vasiliy. Irina. Grigoriy.35 As we can see, here we have the secular and monastic names of Tsar Boris, the name of his wife (Maria), the names of the Tsar's parents (the secular Christian name of his father, Fyodor, and the monastic name of his mother – Sandulia), a whole list of royal children who died in infancy, and two standing side by side and named directly after the tsarevich – Fyodor and Feodot.

Boris Godunov and His Family  143 This unique piece of evidence seems to remove the last doubt that St. Theodotus of Ancyra was the patron saint not of the tsar, but of his son. The conclusion we have reached, among other things, introduces certain adjustments in the established dating of several icons already mentioned in this work – from the Antoniev Monastery, from the Pskov Museum and the icon from a private collection that is attributed to Procopius Chirin. Indeed, until now, guided by the conviction that St. Theodotus was Boris’ patron, and the only patron of the tsarevich was Theodore Stratelates, researchers believed that individual family icons of Godunov, where Stratelates is absent, were painted before Fyodor Borisovich was born, that is, before 1589.36 However, since the hieromartyr Theodotus or his, so to speak, conditional substitute (a saint called “Theodore of Ancyra”, or “Fedo(t/r?) of Kyrenia”) is present in such compositions, we, most likely, are simply dealing with a practice, quite possible in the 16th to 17th centuries, when only one of the two heavenly intercessors of a particular person is depicted on a patronal icon or donated artefact. In some other cases, only Theodore Stratelates may appear as the patron saint of the tsarevich,37 although, to repeat, the much more typical situation is when both of his saints appear on Godunov’s donations. Should we assume that Feodot was the baptismal name of Fyodor Borisovich? It seems that the fact that the image of Theodotus of Ancyra was placed at the very base of the Golgotha cross on the burial shroud of the tsarevich may prompt just such a conclusion. Or did Boris Godunov, who at the time of the birth of this son was de facto ruler of the country and was extremely close to the family of the ruling sovereign Fyodor Ivanovich, decide to imitate the last Rurikovichi on the throne in everything and give him the family name Fyodor in baptism, and leave Feodot as a pious addition? We can hardly resolve this issue unambiguously – too little anthroponymic data has been preserved about Godunov's son, who did not last three months on the throne and could not strengthen the cult of his patron saints as an autocrat. One way or another, we repeat, Fyodor Borisovich is a much more reliable candidate in the Godunov family for naming after Theodotus of Ancyra than his father Boris. So, the most reasonable is the anthroponymic scenario, according to which Boris Godunov had only one holy namesake and two heavenly intercessors – Boris and Gleb; while his son Fyodor Borisovich had two names and, accordingly, two heavenly namesakes – Theodore Stratelates and Theodotus of Ancyra.

Notes

1 2 3 4 5 6

I. O. Tyumentsev and N. A. Tupikova (2018, 945, app. No. 1). A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij (2018). B. A. Uspenskij and F. B. Uspenskij (2017, 40–81, 123–31). A. F. Litvina and F. B, Uspenskij (2018a). For further details, see A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij (2019). B. A. Uspenskij and F. B. Uspenskij (2017, 105–7).

144  Anna F. Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij 7 V. I. Antonova and N. E. Mneva (1963, 185–6, No. 588). 8 N. N. Kharuzin (1899, 170). 9 N. M. Karamzin (1842–3 [1988] vol. XII, n. 194). 10 S. F. Platonov (1888, 28–9, n. 1). 11 The name Bogdan was very popular in this period, but being a non-Christian name, it was never something secret and intimate: on the contrary, it always functioned as a public one. Simply put, if a person was called Bogdan, then it was Bogdan that he was called, both in everyday life and in all secular and some church documents. Once again, Godunov is never called that – neither during his reign, nor before his accession to the throne. In addition, in the catalogue of Antonova and Mneva, Bogdan is called the “direct name” of the tsar, while in the entire array of sources available to us, the term “direct name” can only denote a Christian name, most often received in baptism (c.f. in this regard A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij, 2018a, 245–6). Bogdan is consistently marked everywhere and described by sources as a non-Christian name, not associated with the church calendar. 12 “…на Марьины имѧнины Григорьевны, июлѧ въ к҃в ден: на памѧт Марiи Магдалины” (Donations book of who pledged and gave what as a permanent gift to the House of the Life-giving Trinity in the Ipatev Monastery. 1728. Kostroma Museum-Reserve (КМЗ КОК 24010). sheet 15v.). 13 V. I. Antonova and N. E. Mneva (1963, 331–2, no. 805, 806). 14 D. K. Trenev (1902, 54, 64–5, tab. VI, no. 15); M. V. Martynova (1999, 318, 322, ill. 4). 15 V. I. Baldin and T. N. Manushina (1996, 383, ill. 312). For more on the second artefact, see below. 16 Tserkvi i riznitsy Kirillo-Belozerskogo monastyria (1861, 138–9). 17 Tserkvi i riznitsy Kirillo-Belozerskogo monastyria (1861, 138–9). 18 S. G. Ziuzeva (2016, 68–9, ill. 3). 19 S. V. Gnutova (2018, 23, 29). 20 See Icons (1991, 106–7 ). In the Sotheby’s catalogue, the saint of interest to us is identified as Feodor of Ankara, and in the work of N. M. Abramenko (2012, 203–4), as Theodotus of Kyrenia. 21 T. V. Nikolaeva (1968, 150–1, 153); V. I. Baldin and T. N. Manushina (1996, 383, ill. 320, 321). 22 Istoricheskaia biblioteka (1879, 33). 23 M. T. Trubacheva (1990); N. M. Abramenko (2012, 203–6). 24 S. Spasskii (1875–76 [1997], v. III, 186, 212). 25 Ibid., 212. 26 «…воздвигнути новой каменной храмъ, во имя святаго священномученика Ѳеодота Ангирскаго, да на тотъ храмъ и онтимисъ дати и освящати» (V. A. Rozhdestvenskii, 1866, 23, 127, no. 3/22). 27 See E. Petrova (2010, 36–7), cat. 10, ill. No. 6. The icon, now kept in the State Russian Museum, is listed in the catalogue as ‘Holy Prince Boris, hieromartyr Theodotus of Cyrene, St. Mary Magdalene, Venerable Xenia the Roman’. Cf. also N. M. Abramenko (2012, 204). Accordingly, the compilers of the catalogue deliberately or accidentally omit the inscription on the icon that reads ‘Theodore of Ancyra’. 28 See M. V. Alpatov and I. S. Rodnikova (1990, no. 149); O. A. Vasil'eva (2012, 48–55, no. 134). The authors of the descriptions, I. S. Rodnikova and O. A. Vasilyeva, confidently believe that this icon depicts “Theodotus of Kyrenia, Bishop of Kyrenia on the island of Cyprus, martyred at the beginning of the 4th century at the time of the persecution of Christians under the emperor Licinius” (M. V. Alpatov and I. S. Rodnikova, 1990, 317). Cf. also M. T. Trubacheva (1990); N. M. Abramenko (2012, 204). 29 See A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij (2019b, 152, n. 30).

Boris Godunov and His Family  145 30 Such a possibility was admitted, in particular, by M. V. Martynova (1999, 333, n. 6). 31 In 1595, Boris Fyodorovich, while still a boyar and tsarist master of horse, made a donation on behalf of himself and his wife. Accordingly, the date of the commemorative meal in his honour was determined as “July on the 24th day, on the memorial day of Boris and Gleb” (Donations book of who pledged and gave what as a permanent gift to the House of the Life-giving Trinity in the Ipatev Monastery. 1728. Kostroma Museum-Reserve (КМЗ КОК 24010). sheet 15v.). “In honour of Tsar Boris, in monasticism Bogolep” is indicated on July 24 in other commemorative sources – in the Donations book of the Moscow Novodevichy Convent and the Revenue book of the Vologda Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery (V. B. Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, 1985; N. I. Suvorov, 1861, 309). 32 We believe that the unique information of diplomat Georg Tektander, a member of the embassy of Emperor Rudolf II to the Persian Shah Abbas I, reporting that Boris Godunov’s birthday fell on 2 August, is completely reliable and accurate (see, for more details, A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij, 2021); however, at the same time, we are aware that this issue requires further discussion, and therefore we do not use it in our analysis. 33 A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij (2019a, 62). 34 I. A. Bobrovnitskaia and O. A. Tsitsinova (2015, 318–19, no. 131). The author of the description is G.P. Cherkashina. 35 L. Kavelin (1878, 3). 36 M. T. Trubacheva (1990, 15). 37 Cf., for example, S. G. Ziuzeva (2019, 114–16).

Bibliography Abramenko, N. M. (2012), ‘Obrazy sviatykh kniazei Borisa i Gleba v ikonopisi i prikladnom iskusstve kontsa XVI - nachala XVIIv. Patronal’naia tema v iskusstve vremeni Borisa Godunova’, in Zakharova, A. V. (ed.) Aktual’nye problemy teorii i istorii iskusstva: Sbornik nauchnykh statei. Vol. II, St. Petersburg, N. P. Print, 201–8. Alpatov, M. V. and Rodnikova, I. S. (1990), ‘Introduction’, in Alpatov, M. V., Rodnikova, I. S. and Barnev. V. E. (eds.), Pskovskaia ikona XIII-XVI vekov, St. Petersburg, Avrora, 7–45. Antonova, V. I. and Mneva, N. E. (1963), Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi XI-nachala XVII v. v, I-II, Moscow, Iskusstvo. Baldin, V. I. and Manushina, T. N. (1996), Troitse-Sergieva lavra: arkhitekturnyi ansambl′ i khudozhestvennye kollektsii drevnerusskogo iskusstva XIV-XVII vv., Moscow, Nauka. Bobrovnitskaia, I. A. and Tsitsinova, O. A. (2015), Boris Godunov: ot slugi do gosudaria vseia Rusi, Moscow, Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-kul’turnyi muzei-zapovednik “Moskovskii Kreml’”. Gnutova, S. V. (2018), Relikviia roda Godunovykh: skladen’-kuzov s izbrannymi prazdnikami i sviatymi, Moscow, Tsentral’nyi muzei drevnerusskoi kul’tury i iskusstva imeni Andreia Rubleva. Icons (1991), Icons, Russian pictures and works of art: [catalogue of sale: ] Sotheby’s, London, Thursday 28th November 1991, London, Sotheby’s. Istoricheskaia biblioteka Tverskoi eparkhii, T. I, Tver (1879). Karamzin, N. M. (1842-43[1988]), Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskogo, Moscow, Kniga. Kavelin, Leonid. Arch (1878), ‘‘Makhrishchskii monastyr’ Sinodik i vkladnaia kniga’. ChOIDR 3: 1–37.

146  Anna F. Litvina and Fjodor B. Uspenskij Kharuzin, N. N. (1899), ‘K voprosu ob upotreblenii nekalendarnykh imen v dopetrovskoi Rusi’, in Sbornik istoriko-filologicheskogo obshchestva pri institute kniazia Bezborodko v Nezhine, II, Nezhin, Tipo-Litografiia M. V. Glezera, 150–71. Litvina, A. F. and Uspenskij, F. B. (2018), ‘Manifestatsiia sviazi s praviashchim domom v zhenskikh imenakh: Rannie Romanovy i sem’ia Dmitriia Godunova’, Drevniaia Rus’: Voprosy medievistiki 4 (74): 63–79. Litvina, A. F. and Uspenskij, F. B. (2018a), ‘Monasheskoe imia i fenomen svetskoi khristianskoi dvuimennosti v dopetrovskoi Rusi’, in Gorskii, A. A. (ed.) Srednevekovaia Rus’. Vyp. XIII, Moscow, Indrik, 241–80. Litvina, A. F. and Uspenskij, F. B. (2019), ‘Khristianskaia dvuimennost’ v praviashchei dinastii na Rusi: Etapy evoliutsii’, Die Welt der Slaven 64/1: 108–27. Litvina, A. F. and Uspenskij, F. B. (2019a), ‘K utochneniiu imen i dat v sem’e tsaria Fedora Ivanovicha’, Drevniaia Rus’: Voprosy medievistiki 1(75): 616. Litvina, A. F. and Uspenskij, F. B. (2019b), ‘Muzhskoe vs. zhenskoe v kontekste svetskoi khristianskoi dvuimennosti na Rusi XVI–XVII vv.’, Slověne 8/1: 133–61. Litvina, A. F. and Uspenskij, F. B. (2021), ‘Den’ rozhdeniia Borisa Godunova’, Studi slavistici, 18/1: 9–18. Martynova, M. V. (1999), ‘Oklad ikony “Bogomater’ Smolenskaia” i chernevaia graviura XVI v.’, in Vladimirskaia, N. S. et al. (eds.) Blagoveshchenskii sobor Moskovskogo Kremlia: Materialy i issledovaniia, Moscow, Gos. istoriko-kul’turnyi muzei-zapovednik “Moskovskii Kreml’”, 318–35. Nikolaeva, T. V. (1968), Sobranie drevnerusskogo iskusstva v Zagorskom muzee, Leningrad, Avrora. Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, V. B. (1985), ‘Donations Book’ (ed. and introduction), in Koretskii, V. I. and Pavlov-Sil’vanskii, V. B. (eds.) Istochniki po sotsial′no-ekonomicheskoii istorii Rossii XVI-XVIII vv: iz arkhiva Moskovskogo Novodevich′ego monastyria, Moscow, In-t istorii AN SSSR, 152–210. Platonov, S. F. (1888), Drevnerusskiia skazaniia i povesti o smutnom vremeni XVII veka, kak istoricheskii istochnik, St. Petersburg, Tip. V. S. Balasheva. Rozhdestvenskii, V. A. (1866), Istoricheskoe opisanie Serpukhovskago Vladychniago obshchezhitel’nago dievich’iago monastyria, Moscow, Tip. V. Got’e. Petrova. E. (2010), Sviatye zemlii russkoi, St. Petersburg, Palace Editions. Spasskii, Sergius. Arch. (1875-6/1901 [1997]), Polnyi mesiatseslov Vostoka, T. I-III, Moscow, Pravoslavniia entsiklopedia [repr.]. Suvorov, N. I. (1861), ‘Kormovaia kniga Vologodskogo Spaso-Prilutskogo monastyria’, Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva III/4: 301–27. Tserkvi i riznitsy Kirillo-Belozerskogo monastyria (1861), ‘Tserkvi i riznitsy KirilloBelozerskogo monastyria (Po opisnym knigam 1668 g.)’, Zapiski Otdeleniia russkoi i slavianskoi arkheologii imp. russkogo Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva II: 126–343. Trenev, D. K. (1902), Ikonostas Smolenskago sobora moskovskogo Novodevich’ego monastyria: obraztsovyi russkii ikonostas XVI-XVII vekov: s pribavleniem kratkoi istorii ikonostasa s drevneishikh vremen. Moscow, Izdanie Avtora. Trubacheva, M. T. (1990), ‘Patronal’naia ikona sem’i Borisa Godunova’, in Rybakov, A. A. (ed.), Restavratsiia i issledovanie tempernoi zhivopisi i dereviannoi skul’ptury, Moscow, Restavracionnyi Centr imeni I.E. Grabaryara, 13–21. Tyumentsev I. O., Tupikova N. A. (2018), ‘Novye pis’ma i chelobitnye Smutnogo vremeni iz Troitse-Sergieva monastyria i ego votchin’, Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta, Istoriia LXIII/3: 935–48. Uspenskij, B. A. and Uspenskij, F. B. (2017), Иноческие имена на Руси, St. Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriia.

Boris Godunov and His Family  147 Vasilyeva, O. A. (2012), Ikony Pskova, T. II Katalog: vtoraia polovina XVI–XVIII v., Moscow, Severnyi Palomnik. Ziuzeva, S. G. (2016), ‘Zolotoi oklad ikony “Troitsa” kontsa XVI veka: Ikonograficheskie i stilisticheskie osobennosti ditsevykh izobrazhenii’, in Batalov, A. L. et alii (eds.) Moskovskii Kreml’ v gosudarstvennoi zhizni Rossii: chetyre stoletiia istorii, Moscow, Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe biudzhetnoe uchrezhdenie kul’tury “Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-kul’turnyi muzei-zapovednik ”Moskovskii Kreml’”, 64–80. Ziuzeva, S. G. (2019), ‘Oklad ikony “Bogomater’ Znamenie”. “Istoriia sozdaniia i problemy atributsii”’, in Beliaev, S. A. and Vorotnikova, I. A. (eds.) Moskovskii Kreml’ XVII stoletiia: drevnie sviatyni i istoricheskie pamiatniki: sbornik statei v 2 knigakh, Vol. II, Moscow, FGBUK “Gosudarstvenny istoriko-kul’turnyi muzei-zapovednik “Moskovskii Kreml’”, 111–20.

Part III

Material Supports of Written Texts

11 “I Must Be Cruel Only to Be Kind” Towards a Literary History of Kyiv Graffito No. 108* Aleksey A. Gippius

The graffito in the northern inner gallery of St. Sophia of Kyiv, published by S. A. Vysotskii under No. 1081 is well known to researchers. The text, long by the standards of early Rus’ epigraphy, taking up four lines and numbering thirty-one words, did not immediately yield to the efforts of interpreters. The discoverer of the inscription, noting that, despite the good state of preservation, “reading and especially understanding it is rather difficult”, attributed the text as “some kind of teaching to women who abandon their children”.2 The reason for the failure was the erroneous identification of a number of letters and the failure to recognise a rare graphic feature of the inscription – the use of the letter г [g] to indicate iotation. Vysotskii’s reading was partially corrected by V. V. Kolesov,3 but the real breakthrough in the study of the graffito was made by T. V. Rozhdestvenskaia,4 who published a new transcription and translation of the inscription, which for the first time presented it as a complete, grammatically coherent text with a clear meaning. The literary source of the graffito was also identified – it turned out to be two sentential sayings (gnomes) from the translated florilegium, which passed down in copies of the 15th to 16th centuries and is known as The sententiae composed by Barnabas the Anomoean (Разумы сложения Варнавы неподобного).5 Rozhdestvenskaia also pointed out the parallel use of one of the sayings in the yearly entry for 1214 of the Chronicle of PereiaslavlSuzdal, drawing a conclusion about the wide popularity of the Sententiae of Barnabas in pre-Mongol Rus’. Later, this conclusion was supported by the discovery of another epigraphic reference to this work – an inscription on a fragment of fresco plaster from a 12th-century Smolensk church excavated by N. N. Voronin.6 In the latest corpus of graffiti inscriptions of Kyiv’s Sophia Cathedral, V. V. Kornienko reproduced Rozhdestvenskaia’s transcription with minimal corrections, referring to her analysis of the text and attribution of the source, without adding anything to them. Meanwhile, the possibilities of interpreting this remarkable specimen in terms of its relationship with the Sententiae of Barnabas and the excerpt from them in the Chronicle of Pereiaslavl-Suzdal are far from being exhausted, as we would like to demonstrate.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003256236-14

152  Aleksey A. Gippius To begin with, we present the text of the inscription, discussing the details of the reading that are relevant for the following presentation: Мати не хотѧчи дѣтичѧ бѣжѧгет Бь҃ же не хотѧ человѣка бѣдами кажет Уомъ истоупивъ свогего чиноу вьсѣмъ грѣхомъ объчь боудет[ь] аминь This version differs from the transcriptions of Rozhdestvenskaia (R) and Kornienko (K) in the following ways: дѣтичѧ (R: дѣтича), б҃ь (R: г҃ь); объ|чь (R: обь|чь); вьсѣмъ (RK: въсѣмъ), боудеть (RK: боудетъ). The initial letters of the first two lines are slightly enlarged; the third line opens with the full initial У.7 The reliability of the reading б҃ь is confirmed by graffito No. 5946 published by Kornienko, which is on the same wall and repeats (without the particle же) the beginning of the second line of inscription No. 108: [Б]ь не хотѧ человѣка бѣда… (the initial Б is lacking in Kornienko’s version, but its lower part is easily discernible on his drawing). Kornienko attributes the inscription to the second quarter of the 12th to early 14th centuries on paleographic grounds, which, however, do not stand up to criticism: the forms of the letters в, а, н named by him are also present in inscription No. 108, which Kornienko dates to between the second quarter of the 11th and the end of the 12th centuries. The similarity of handwriting and, especially, the spelling of the word богъ with a ь – the same as in No. 108 – make it more than likely that both inscriptions were made by the same hand. We should note right away that the orthography with a mixture of ъ and ь (б҃ь, but объчь) rules out the dating of the inscription to any time after the mid12th century. Another graphic feature, the letter г denoting jotation in the words бѣжѧгет and свогего is not chronologically indicative, as it occurs in texts of different time periods.8 In this connection, however, it is impossible not to touch upon the inscription published by Kornienko as graffito No. 108a and written below the end of the third, longest line of inscription No. 108, apparently by the same hand. Kornienko reads this inscription as чѧѥніа ‘hope’ and assumes that it is somehow connected in meaning with the main inscription. This reading lacks plausibility: the letter а does not occur after vowels in the texts of this time, with very rare exceptions; the scribe does not use the letter i; and there is no reason to replace ѧ or ꙗ with ѥ. An on-site inspection, carried out by me in 2015 together with S. M. Mikheev, showed that the written word has the form чѧѥша. This is definitely the name Chaisha – a hypocoristic form of a name with the root čaj- (from čajati), written with a widespread in early Rus’ everyday writing graphic effect – the designation [j] at the end of a word or before a consonant through е/ѥ.9 In birchbark documents this effect usually accompanies the mixing of о with ъ and е with ь, but is also found in texts without this confusion (for example, in letters Nos. 438, 609). Thus, it turns out that Chaisha, who apparently was the

“I Must Be Cruel Only to Be Kind”  153 author of graffito No. 108, actually knew the grapheme ѥ, but used it in a different meaning. Returning to the text of the main inscription, here are two versions of its translation proposed by Rozhdestvenskaia: The mother, even without wanting to, instructs the child; the Lord, even without wanting to, punishes the person with troubles. The mind that has gone beyond its boundaries (violated its order) will become the cause of all transgressions.10 The mother punishes the child not out of ill will; the Lord does not punish a person with troubles out of ill will. The mind that has gone beyond its limits will become the cause of all sins.11 and the translation of the first phrase and the end of the second, given by A. A. Zalizniak: The mother, (even) without setting such a goal, brings up the child. God, (even) not setting such a goal for himself, instructs a person with troubles.12 The main difference between the versions is, as can be seen, in the different rendering of the form бѣжагет , convincingly explained by Rozhdestvenskaia as the third person singular of the verb бѣжати (