On July 26, 1951, birch bark letter No. 1 was discovered in Novgorod. Today, more than a thousand of them have been found; there are finds in Moscow, Pskov, Tver, Belarus and Ukraine. Thanks to these findings, we can say with confidence that the overwhelming majority of the urban population of Ancient Rus, including women, was literate. Widespread literacy implies the availability of literature: after all, not only birch bark letters were read by our ancestors! So what was on the bookshelf of the ancient Russian? To get to the bottom of the truth, we will begin to raise the historical layers.
Layer 1: surviving rarities
The first logical step is to take an inventory of the surviving book heritage. Alas, little has survived. From the pre-Mongol period, less than 200 books and manuscripts have come down to us. According to historians, this is less than 1% of everything that happened. Russian cities burned during internecine wars and nomadic raids. After the Mongol invasion, some cities simply disappeared. According to the chronicles, even in peacetime, Moscow burned to the ground every 6-7 years. If the fire destroyed 2-3 streets, such a trifle was not even mentioned. And although the books were appreciated, cherished, the manuscripts still burned. What has survived to this day?
The overwhelming majority is spiritual literature. Liturgical books, gospels, biographies of saints, spiritual instructions. But there was also secular literature. One of the oldest books that have come down to us is "Izbornik" of 1073. In fact, this is a small encyclopedia based on the historical chronicles of Byzantine authors. But among more than 380 texts there is a treatise on stylistics, articles on grammar, logic, articles of philosophical content, parables and even riddles.
Chronicles were copied in large numbers - the Russian people were by no means Ivans, who did not remember their kinship, they were keenly interested in “where the Russian land came from and where it came from”. In addition, individual historical chronicles are akin to modern detective literature in terms of plot twist. The story of the death of princes Boris and Gleb is worthy of adaptation: brother against brothers, deception, betrayal, villainous murders - truly Shakespearean passions boil on the pages of The Tale of Boris and Gleb!
There was scientific literature. In 1136, Kirik Novgorodsky wrote The Doctrine of Numbers, a scientific, mathematical and astronomical treatise devoted to the problems of chronology. 4 (!) Lists (copies) have come down to us. This means that there were a lot of copies of this work.
The "Prayer of Daniel the Zatochnik" with elements of satire, directed against the clergy and boyars, is nothing more than the journalism of the 13th century.
And, of course, "The Word about Igor's Campaign"! Even if the "Word" was the only creation of the author (which can be doubted), he probably had both predecessors and followers.
Now we will raise the next layer and proceed to the analysis of the texts themselves. This is where the fun begins.
Layer 2: what is hidden in the texts
In the X-XIII centuries, copyright did not exist. The authors, scribes and compilers of Izborniks, Prayers and Teachings everywhere inserted fragments from other works into their texts, not at all considering it necessary to give a link to the original source. This was a common practice. It is very difficult to find such an unmarked fragment in the text, for this you need to know the literature of that time perfectly. And what if the original source has been lost long ago?
And, nevertheless, there are such finds. And they just give a sea of information about what they read in Ancient Russia.
The manuscripts contain fragments of the "Jewish War" by the Jewish historian and military leader Josephus Flavius (1st century AD), the Greek chronicles of George Amartolus (Byzantium, 9th century), Chronographies of John Malala (Byzantium, 6th century AD).). Quotations from Homer and the Assyrian-Babylonian story "About Akim the Wise" (VII century BC) were found.
Of course, we are interested in how widespread these primary sources were among the reading population. Wasn't that unknown author-monk the only one in Russia who fell into the hands of this or that precious tome? In one of the teachings criticizing the remnants of paganism, explaining the essence of a pagan deity, the author calls him an analogue of Artemis. He not only knows about the Greek goddess - moreover, the author is sure that the reader also knows who she is! The Greek Artemis is more familiar to the author of the teaching and readers than the Slavic goddess of the hunt Devan! Hence, knowledge of Greek mythology was ubiquitous.
Prohibited literature
Yes, there was one! Taking care of the spiritual health of its flock, the church released the so-called. "Indexes" in which she listed books classified as "renounced". These are fortune-telling, witchcraft, magic books, legends about werewolves, interpreters of signs, dream books, conspiracies and liturgical literature, recognized as apocryphal. The indexes indicate not just topics, but specific books: "Ostrologer", "Rafli", "Aristotelian gates", "Gromnik", "Kolednik", "Volkhovnik", etc. All these "godless writings" were not just forbidden, but were subject to destruction. Despite the prohibitions, the renounced books were kept, read and copied. Even in the XVI-XVII centuries. “Dissident literature” was burned in wagons. The Orthodox Russian people have never been distinguished by religious fanaticism, Christianity and pagan beliefs have peacefully coexisted in Russia for centuries.
Layer 3: Textual Matches
Borrowing plots has never been considered reprehensible among authors. A. Tolstoy never concealed that his Pinocchio was a copy of Pinocchio Collodi. The great Shakespeare practically does not have a single “own” plot. Both in the West and in the East, borrowing plots was used with might and main. And in Russia too: in the biographies of princes, in the lives of saints there are plot lines from Greek chronicles, Western literature ("Songs of Guillaume of Orange", France, XI century), Celtic "Ossian ballads" (III century AD) and even ancient Indian literature.
In The Vision of Elder Matthew, the monk sees how a demon, invisible to others, throws petals at the monks. To whom they stick, he immediately begins to yawn and, under a plausible pretext, seeks to leave the service (he did not break his connection with the world). The petals do not stick to true companions. Replace the demon with the Heavenly Maiden, monks of the Caves with Buddhist monks - and you will receive the Mahayana sutra of the II century. BC e., it is not clear by what wind brought to Russia.
And then the next question arises: how did the books get to Ancient Russia? Having answered this question, we will find out which ones and in what quantity.
Digging further
It has been established that a number of manuscripts of the X-XI centuries. are lists from Bulgarian originals. Historians have long suspected that the library of the Bulgarian tsars ended up in Russia. It could have been taken out as a trophy of war by Prince Svyatoslav, who captured the capital of Bulgaria, Preslav the Great in 969. The Byzantine emperor Tzimiskes could have taken it out and subsequently handed it over to Vladimir as a dowry for Princess Anna, who married the Kiev prince (this is how in the 15th century, together with Zoya Palaeologus, the future wife of Ivan III, the library of the Byzantine emperors, which became the basis of the "liberei" Ivan the Terrible).
In the X-XII century. The Rurikovichs entered into dynastic marriages with the reigning houses of Germany, France, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary and Byzantium. The future spouses went to Russia with their retinue, confessors, and brought books with them. So, in 1043, the "Code of Gertrude" came to Kiev from Poland together with the Polish princess, and in 1048 from Kiev to France, together with Anna Yaroslavna, the "Reims Gospel".
Something was brought by the Scandinavian warriors from the princely entourage, something by merchants (the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" was very busy). Naturally, the books were not in Slavic. What was the fate of these books, were there people in Russia who could read in foreign languages? And how many such people were there?
Basurman speech
Vladimir Monomakh's father spoke five languages. Monomakh's mother was a Greek princess, his grandmother was a Swedish princess. Surely the boy who lived with them until adolescence knew both Greek and Swedish. Proficiency in at least three foreign languages was the norm in the princely environment. But this is a princely family, now let's go down the social ladder.
In the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, one demon-possessed monk spoke in several languages. The monks standing nearby freely defined the "non-Sermenian yazytsi": Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Syrian. As you can see, knowledge of these languages was not a rarity among the monastic brethren.
In Kiev, there was a significant Jewish diaspora, one of the three gates of the city (trade) was even called "Zhidivski". Plus mercenaries, merchants, the neighboring Khazar Kaganate - all this created the most favorable conditions for the development of multilingualism. Therefore, a book or manuscript that came to Ancient Russia from the West or the East did not disappear - it was read, translated and rewritten. Almost in Ancient Russia, all the world literature of that time could walk (and probably did). As you can see, Russia was neither dark nor downtrodden. And they read in Russia not only the Bible and the Gospel.
Waiting for new finds
Is there any hope that someday unknown books of the X-XII centuries will be found? Kiev guides still tell tourists that before the capture of the city by the Mongol-Tatars in 1240, Kiev monks hid the library of Prince Yaroslav the Wise in the dungeons of the Sophia Monastery. They are still looking for the legendary library of Ivan the Terrible - the last searches were carried out in 1997. And although there are few hopes for the "find of the century" … But what if ?!
