knighthood, courtly love, and other concepts and practices unknown in the realm of the tsars. Soon, Russian tales following Western models made their appearance: for instance, stories about Savva Grudtsin, who sold his soul to the devil, and about the rogue Frol Skobeev. Numbers of these tales enjoyed great popularity.
Syllabic versification also came from the West, from the Latin and Polish languages, largely through the efforts of Simeon of Polotsk, who died in 1680. It remained the dominant form in Russian poetry until the middle of the eighteenth century. After some productions of plays arranged by private individuals, Tsar Alexis established a court theater in 1672 under the direction of a German pastor, Johann Gregory. Before long, a few Russian plays enriched the repertoire, which was devoted primarily to biblical subjects.
The traditional oral literature of the people continued to thrive throughout the Muscovite period. Tales and songs commemorated such significant events as the capture of Kazan, the penetration into Siberia, or Stenka Razin's rebellion. The byliny retained their popularity. Pilgrims and beggars composed religious poems at venerated shrines. The skomorokhi went on entertaining the people, in spite of all prohibitions. All in all it seems quite unfair to characterize Muscovite culture as silent, as has sometimes been done, all the more so because it is probable that many writings of the period have been lost. On the other hand, Muscovite literary life does appear meager by comparison with the riches of its contemporary West. Nor did it measure up, in the opinion of specialists, to Muscovite architecture and other arts.
In architecture, as well as in literature and in culture as a whole, no divide rises between the appanage and the Muscovite periods of Russian history. Building in both wood and stone nourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As described earlier, wooden houses of the boyars and mansions
of the rulers - the so-called
The church of St. Basil the Blessed at one end of Red Square, outside the Kremlin wall, provides the most striking illustration of this wooden type of construction in stone. Built in 1555-60 by two architects from Pskov, Barma and Posnik, it has never ceased to dazzle visitors and to excite the imagination. This church, known originally as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin, consists in fact of nine separate churches on a common foundation. All nine have the form of tall octagons - a narrower octagon on top of a broader one in each case - and the central church, around which the other eight are situated, is covered by a tent roof. Striking and different cupolas further emphasize the variety and independence of the parts of the church. Bright colors and abundant decorations contribute their share to the powerful, if somewhat bizarre, impression. While the church of St. Basil the Blessed and its predecessor, the church in the village of Diakovo that consisted of five churches, seem strange and unsymmetric to Western eyes, they succeed, in the opinion of many specialists, in combining their separate units into one magnificent whole.
In the Moscow Kremlin itself the construction went on, although the most important work had already been done in the reigns of Ivan III and Basil III. The Golden Gate arose in the first half of the seventeenth century, and as late as 1670-90 towers in the Kremlin wall were topped with roofs, usually in the Russian tent style, while within the walls palaces and churches continued to grow. In addition to the kremlin in Moscow, the beautiful kremlin of ancient Rostov, built mainly in the seventeenth century, and parts of kremlins in a score of other Russian cities have come down to our time.
In the second half of the seventeenth century the baroque style reached Moscovy through Ukraine and quickly gained popularity, developing into the so-called Muscovite, or Naryshkin, baroque - the last name referring to the boyar family which sponsored it. It has been said that the Russians found baroque especially congenial because of their love of decoration. The church built in 1693 in the village of Fili, now part of Moscow, provides an interesting example of Russian baroque.
The great Russian tradition of icon painting continued during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but then was effectively terminated. Two
prominent new schools emerged: the Stroganov school and the school of the tsar's icon-painters. The first, supported by the great merchant family of the northeast, was active approximately from 1580 to 1630. Its characteristics included bright backgrounds, rich colors, elaborate and minute design, and a penchant for decorative elements and gold, for instance gold contours. In fact, the Stroganov icons tended to become miniatures, 'lovely and highly precious objects, if no longer great works of art' in the words of one critic. Procopius Chirin, who later joined the tsar's icon-painters and even became Tsar Michael's favorite artist, was an outstanding member of the Stroganov group.
The tsar's icon-painters dominated the scene in the second half of the seventeenth century. They found patronage in the so-called
Although Russian icon painting in the Muscovite period produced notable works and although its prestige and influence in the entire Orthodox world then reached its height, the school of the tsar's icon-painters marked the end of a long road. Ushakov himself has been praised for his remarkable ability to combine Byzantine and Western elements in his art, and the same can be said more modestly of his companions. Before long, the West swept over the East. Secular painting, including portrait painting, had already become popular in Muscovite Russia. After Peter the Great's reforms, art in Russia, as well as all of Russian culture, joined the Western world. Icon painting, of course, continued to exist, and on a very large scale, but as a craft rather than a highly creative and leading art.
Fresco painting and illumination also prospered in Muscovy. In fact, the second half of the seventeenth century saw a great flowering of fresco painting, which centered in Iaroslavl and spread to other towns in the Volga area. The gigantic scope and the fine quality of the work can best be studied in two churches in Iaroslavl: the church of the Prophet Elijah painted by Gurii Nikitin, Sila Savin, and their thirteen associates, and that of St. John the Baptist, where Dmitrii Grigoriev and fifteen other men painted the frescoes. The frescoes in the last-named church, which were created in
1694-95 and contain approximately 4,200 figures, represent the greatest effort of its kind in the world. Illumination also flourished, as evidenced, for instance, by the 1,269 miniatures - another 710 spaces remained blank - of the huge first volume of a sixteenth-century Russian chronicle of the world. In Muscovite frescoes and miniatures, as in icons, Western influences became increasingly apparent. By the end of the seventeenth century all ancient Russian graphic art was being rapidly replaced by the modern art of the West. It might be added in passing that in many other highly-skilled arts and crafts, such as carving, enamel, ceramics, and work with jewelry and precious metals, Muscovite Russia also left a rich legacy.
Education in pre-Petrine Russia remains a controversial subject. Estimates of Muscovite enlightenment have ranged from an emphasis on well-nigh total illiteracy and ignorance to assertions that there existed in the realm of the tsars a widespread ability to read, write, and understand Church teachings and practices. The highly skeptical views of Miliukov and other critics appear on the whole rather convincing. Still, in this case, as in so many others, one has to strive for a balanced judgment. The Muscovite culture that we have discussed in this chapter could not have existed without some enlightenment. The enormous Muscovite state, and in particular its numerous bureaucracy, required, as a minimum, some education of officials. More speculative, although not necessarily fantastic, is Vladimirsky-Budanov's suggestion that Muscovites, like later Old Believers, generally could read and had
