A history of Russia

included sayings, proverbs, riddles, and fairy tales of different kinds.

But special interest attaches to the epic poems, the famous byliny. They represent one of the several great epic cycles of Western literature, comparable in many ways to the Homeric epic of the Greeks, or to the Serbian epic. The byliny narrate the activities of the bogatyri, the mighty warriors of ancient Russia, who can be divided into two categories: a few senior bogatyri and the more numerous junior ones. Members of the first group, concerning whom little information remains, belong to hoary antiquity, overlap with or even become part of mythology, and seem often to be associated with forces or phenomena of nature. The junior Kievan bogatyri, about whom we possess some four hundred epic songs, reflect Kievan history much better, although their deeds too usually belong to the realm of the fantastic and the miraculous. Typically, they form the entourage of St. Vladimir, at whose court many byliny begin and end, and they fight the deadly enemies of the Russian land. The Khazars, with their Hebrew faith, may appear in the guise of the legendary Zhidovin, the Jew; or Tugor Khan of the Polovtsy may become the dragon Tugarin. The junior bogatyri express the peculiarly Kievan mixture of a certain kind of knighthood, Christianity, and the unremitting struggle against the steppe peoples.

Ilia of Murom, Dobrynia Nikitych, and Alesha Popovich stand out as the favorite heroes of the epic. Ilia of Murom, the mightiest of them and in many respects the most interesting, is depicted as an invalid peasant who only at the age of thirty-three after a miraculous cure started on his great career of defending Kievan Russia against its enemies: his tremendous military exploits do not deprive him of a high moral sense and indeed combine with an unwillingness to fight, except as a last resort. If Ilia of Murom represents the rural masses of Kiev, Dobrynia Nikitych belongs clearly to the upper stratum: his bearing and manners strike a different note than those of the peasant warrior, and in fact he, more than other bogatyri, has links to an actual historical figure, an uncle and associate of St. Vladimir. Alesha Popovich, as the patronymic indicates, comes from the clerical class; his characteristics include bragging, greediness, and a certain shrewdness that often enables him to defeat his opponents by means other than valor. In addition to the great Kievan cycle, we know some Novgorod byliny that

will be mentioned later in a discussion of that city-state and a few stray epic poems not fitting into any cycle, as well as the artistically much less valuable historical songs of the Moscow period.

Kievan written literature, as already noted, developed in close association with the conversion of the Russians to Christianity. It contained Church service books, collections of Old Testament narratives, canonical and apocryphal, known as Palaea after the Greek word for Old Testament, sermons and other didactic works, hymns, and lives of saints. Among the more prominent pieces one might mention the hymns composed by St. Cyril of Turov; a collection of the lives of the saints of the Monastery of the Caves near Kiev, the so-called Paterikon; and the writings of Hilarion, a metropolitan in the reign of Iaroslav the Wise and a leading Kievan intellectual, who has been described by Fedotov as 'the best theologian and preacher of all ancient Russia, the Muscovite period included.' Hilarion's best-known work, a sermon On Law and Grace, begins with a skillful comparison of the law of Moses and the grace of Christ, the Old and the New Testaments, and proceeds to a rhetorical account of the baptism of Russia and a paean of praise to St. Vladimir, the baptizer. It has often been cited as a fine expression of the joyously affirmative spirit of Kievan Christianity.

The chronicles of the period deserve special notice. Although frequently written by monks and reflecting the strong Christian assumptions of Kievan civilization, they belong more with the historical than the religious literature. These early Russian chronicles have been praised by specialists for their historical sense, realism, and richness of detail. They indicate clearly the major problems of Kievan Russia, such as the struggle against the peoples of the steppe and the issue of princely succession. Still more important, they have passed on to us the specific facts of the history of the period. The greatest value attaches to the Primary Chronicle - to which we have already made many references - associated especially with two Kievan monks, Nestor and Sylvester, and dating from around 1111. The earliest extant copies of it are the fourteenth-century Laurentian and the fifteenth- century Hypatian. The Primary Chronicle forms the basis of all later general Russian chronicles. Regional chronicles, such as those of Novgorod or Vladimir, a number of which survive, also flourished in Kievan Russia.

The secular literature of Kievan Russia included a variety of works ranging from Vladimir Monomakh's remarkable Testament to the most famous product of all, The Lay of the Host of Igor. The Lay, a poetic account of the unsuccessful Russian campaign against the Polovtsy in 1185, written in verse or rhythmic prose, has evoked much admiration and considerable controversy. Although one view, championed by Mazon, more recently Zimin, and some other scholars, holds it to be a modern forgery, the Lay has been accepted by Jakobson and most specialists as a genuine, if in cer-

tain respects unique, expression of Kievan genius. Its unknown author apparently had a detailed knowledge of the events that he described, as well as a great poetic talent. The narrative shifts from the campaign and the decisive battle of one of the local Russian princes, Igor and his associates, to Kiev where Grand Prince Sviatoslav learns of the disaster, and to Putivi where Igor's wife Iaroslavna speaks her justly celebrated lament for her lost husband. The story concludes with Igor's escape from his captors and the joy of his return to Russia. The Lay is written in magnificent language which reproduces in haunting sounds the clang of battle or the rustle of the steppe; and it also deserves praise for its impressive imagery, its lyricism, the striking treatment of nature - in a sense animate and close to man - and the vividness, power, and passion with which it tells its tale.

Architecture and Other Arts

If Kievan literature divides naturally into the oral or popular and the written, Kievan architecture can be classified on a somewhat parallel basis as wooden or stone. Wooden architecture, like folk poetry, stems from the prehistoric past of the East Slavs. Stone architecture and written literature were both associated with the conversion to Christianity, and both experienced a fundamental Byzantine influence. Yet they should by no means be dismissed for this reason as merely derivative, for, already in the days of Kiev, they had developed creatively in their new environment and produced valuable results. Borrowing, to be sure, forms the very core of cultural history.

Because wood is highly combustible, no wooden structures survive from the Kievan period, but some two dozen of the stone churches of that age have come down to our times. Typically they follow their Byzantine models in their basic form, that of a cross composed of squares or rectangles, and in many other characteristics. But from the beginning they also incorporate such Russian attributes as the preference for several and even many cupolas and, especially in the north, thick walls, small windows, and steep roofs to withstand the inclement weather. The architects of the great churches of the Kievan age came from Byzantium and from other areas of Byzantine or partly Byzantine culture, such as the Slavic lands in the Balkans and certain sections of the Caucasus, but they also included native Russians.

The Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev, built in 1037 and the years following, has generally been considered the most splendid surviving monument of Kievan architecture. Modeled after a church in Constantinople and erected by Greek architects, it follows the form of a cross made of squares, with five apses on the eastern or sanctuary side, five naves, and thirteen cupolas. The sumptuous interior of the cathedral contains columns of porphyry, marble, and alabaster, as well as mosaics, frescoes, and other decora-

tion. In Novgorod another majestic and luxurious Cathedral of St. Sophia - a favorite Byzantine dedication of churches to Christ as Wisdom - built by Greeks around 1052, became the center of the life of that city and territory. But still more outstanding from the artistic point of view, according to Grabar, was the St. George Cathedral of the St. George Monastery near Novgorod. Erected by a Russian master, Peter, in 1119-30, this building with its three apses, three cupolas, and unornamented walls of white stone produces an unforgettable impression of grace, majesty, and simplicity.

The architecture of the Kievan period achieved especially striking results in the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth century in the eastern part of the country, the Vladimir-Suzdal area, which became at that time also the political center of Russia. The churches of that region illustrate well the blending of the native tradition with the Romanesque style of the West together with certain Caucasian and, of course, Byzantine influences. The best remaining examples include the two cathedrals in Vladimir, that of the Assumption of Our Lady, which later became