in the discipline "Culturology"

on the topic: “Culture of Ancient Rus'”

INTRODUCTION

1. ORAL FOLK ARTS

2. WRITING AND LITERATURE

3. ARCHITECTURE

4. PAINTING

5. ARTISTIC CRAFTS

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The culture of Ancient Rus' is a unique phenomenon. According to the researcher, “Old Russian art is the fruit of the feat of the Russian people, who defended their independence, their faith and their ideals on the edge of the European world.” Scientists note the openness and synthetic nature (from the word “synthesis” - reduction into a single whole) of ancient Russian culture. The interaction of the heritage of the Eastern Slavs with Byzantine and, consequently, ancient traditions created a unique spiritual world. The time of its formation and first flowering was the 10th-first half of the 13th century. (pre-Mongol period).

The Russian people made a valuable contribution to world culture, creating hundreds of years ago works of literature, painting and architecture that have endured for centuries. Acquaintance with the culture of Kievan Rus and the Russian principalities of the era of feudal fragmentation convinces us of the fallacy of the once-existing opinion about the original backwardness of Rus'.

Russian medieval culture X-XIII centuries. earned high praise from both contemporaries and descendants. Eastern geographers pointed out the routes to Russian cities and admired the art of Russian gunsmiths who prepared special steel (Biruni). Western chroniclers called Kyiv the adornment of the East and the rival of Constantinople (Adam of Bremen). The learned presbyter Theophilus of Paderborn in his technical encyclopedia of the 11th century. admired the products of Russian goldsmiths - the finest enamels on gold and niello on silver. In the list of countries whose masters glorified their lands with one form of art or another, Theophilus put Rus' in a place of honor - only Greece was ahead of it. The sophisticated Byzantine John Tsetzes was so fascinated by Russian bone carving that he sang in poetry about the pyxis (carved box) sent to him, comparing the Russian master with the legendary Daedalus.

1. ORAL FOLK ARTS

Oral folk art includes proverbs and sayings, songs and stories, ditties and charms. An integral part of the art of Rus' was the art of music and singing. In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” the legendary storyteller-singer Boyan is mentioned, who “let” his fingers onto the living strings and they “themselves rumbled glory to the princes.” On the frescoes of the St. Sophia Cathedral we see images of musicians playing woodwind and string instruments - lute and harp. The talented singer Mitus in Galich is known from chronicle reports. Some church writings directed against Slavic pagan art mention street buffoons, singers, and dancers; There was also a folk puppet theater. It is known that at the court of Prince Vladimir, during feasts, those present were entertained by singers, storytellers, and performers on string instruments.

An important element of the entire ancient Russian culture was folklore - songs, tales, epics, proverbs, aphorisms. Wedding, drinking, and funeral songs reflected many features of the life of people of that time. So, in ancient wedding songs they spoke about the time when brides were kidnapped, “kidnapped”, in later ones - when they were ransomed, and in songs from Christian times they talked about the consent of both the bride and parents to marriage.

A special place in the historical memory of the people was occupied by epics - heroic tales about defenders of their native land from enemies, recorded on paper in the 19th century. Folk storytellers glorify the exploits of Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Volga, Mikula Selyaninovich and other epic heroes (in total there are more than 50 main characters in the epics). They address their appeal to them: “You stand for the faith, for the fatherland, you stand for the glorious capital city of Kiev!” It is interesting that in epics the motive of defending the fatherland is supplemented with the motive of defending the Christian faith. The Baptism of Rus' was the most important event in the history of ancient Russian culture.

2. WRITING AND LITERATURE

With the adoption of Christianity, the rapid development of writing began. Writing was known in Rus' in pre-Christian times (mention of “traits and cuts”, mid-1st millennium; information about treaties with Byzantium drawn up in Russian; the discovery near Smolensk of a clay vessel with an inscription in Cyrillic - the alphabet created by the Slavic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius at the turn of the X-XI centuries). Orthodoxy brought liturgical books, religious and secular translated literature to Rus'. The oldest handwritten books have reached us - the “Ostromir Gospel” (1057) and two “Izborniki” (collections of texts) of Prince Svyatoslav (1073 and 1076). They say that in the XI-XIII centuries. 130-140 thousand books of several hundred titles were in circulation: the level of literacy in Ancient Rus' was very high by the standards of the Middle Ages. There is other evidence: birch bark letters (archaeologists discovered them in the middle of the 20th century in Veliky Novgorod), inscriptions on the walls of cathedrals and handicrafts, the activities of monastic schools, the richest book collections of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, etc.

There was an opinion that ancient Russian culture was “dumb” - it was believed to have no original literature. This is wrong. Old Russian literature is represented by various genres (chronicles, lives of saints, journalism, teachings and travel notes, the wonderful “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” which does not belong to any known genre), it is distinguished by a wealth of images, styles and trends.

In the XI-XII centuries. chronicles appear in Rus'. The chronicles not only describe the sequence of events that took place, but also contain biblical texts, record documents, and provide comments from the chronicles' compilers. The oldest chronicle that has come down to us, “The Tale of Bygone Years,” was created around 1113 by the monk of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Nestor. The famous questions with which “The Tale of Bygone Years” opens: “Where did the Russian land come from, who was the first prince in Kiev, and how did the Russian land begin to exist?” already speak about the scale of the personality of the creator of the chronicle, his literary abilities. After the collapse of Kievan Rus, independent chronicle schools arose in the isolated lands, but they all turned to the “Tale of Bygone Years” as a model.

Another genre of ancient Russian literature is hagiography. A life (hagiography) tells about the holy life of a clergyman or a secular person elevated to the rank of saint. The Life required its author to strictly follow the established rules. The life was compositionally divided into three parts: introduction, central part, conclusion. In the introduction, the author should have apologized for his lack of skill in writing. And the conclusion was dedicated to praising the hero of the life. The central part directly describes the biography of the saint. The life belongs to the pre-realistic genre, because Only the positive properties of the hero are described. Negative ones are omitted. The result is a “saccharine” image of the saint. In this case, hagiography comes close to icon painting. The chronicler Nestor is credited, according to legend, with the authorship of a life dedicated to the murdered Boris and Gleb, as well as to the founder of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Abbot Theodosius.

Among the works of the oratorical and journalistic genre, the “Sermon on Law and Grace”, created by Hilarion, the first metropolitan of Russian origin, in the middle of the 11th century, stands out. These are reflections on power, on the place of Rus' in Europe. The “Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh, written for his sons, is wonderful. The prince must be wise, merciful, fair, educated, lenient and firm in protecting the weak. Strength and valor, faithful service to the country, were demanded from the prince by Daniil Zatochnik, the author of the brilliant “Prayer” in language and literary form.

The unknown author of the greatest work of ancient Russian literature, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (late 12th century), also called for agreement and reconciliation among the princes. A real event - the defeat of the Seversk prince Igor from the Polovtsians (1185-1187) - became only the reason for the creation of the “Word”, amazing with the richness of the language, the harmony of the composition, and the power of the figurative structure. The author sees “Russian land from a great height, covers vast spaces with his mind’s eye. Danger threatens Rus', and the princes must forget the strife in order to save it from destruction.

A significant difference between Russian culture and the culture of most countries of the East and West is the use of the native language. The Arabic language for many non-Arab countries and the Latin language for a number of Western European countries were alien languages, the monopoly of which led to the fact that the popular language of the states of that era is almost unknown to us. The Russian literary language was used everywhere - in office work, diplomatic correspondence, private letters, in fiction and scientific literature. The unity of the national and state languages ​​was a great cultural advantage of Rus' over the Slavic and Germanic countries, in which the Latin state language dominated. Such widespread literacy was impossible there, since to be literate meant knowing Latin. For Russian townspeople, it was enough to know the alphabet in order to immediately express their thoughts in writing; This explains the widespread use in Rus' of writing on birch bark and on “boards” (obviously waxed).

3. ARCHITECTURE

Russian medieval architecture makes a serious contribution to the history of world culture. For many years, Rus' was a wooden country, and its architecture, pagan chapels, fortresses, towers, and huts were built of wood. In wood, Russian people, first of all, expressed their perception of structural beauty, a sense of proportion, and the merging of architectural structures with the surrounding nature. If wooden architecture goes back mainly to pagan Rus', then stone architecture is associated with already Christian Russia. Unfortunately, ancient wooden buildings have not survived to this day, but the architectural style of the people has come down to us in later wooden structures, in ancient descriptions and drawings. Russian wooden architecture was characterized by multi-tiered buildings, crowning them with turrets and towers, and the presence of various types of extensions - cages, passages, vestibules. Intricate artistic wood carving was a traditional decoration of Russian wooden buildings.

The medieval culture of Rus' has come a long way from simple imitation of Greek models to the creation of an original cultural complex, which included vibrant literature of various directions (polemical, liturgical, everyday, historical), original wooden and stone architecture and a vibrant tradition of icon painting. The culture of Rus' and the Muscovite kingdom, based on the traditions of Orthodoxy, also absorbed ancient Slavic pre-Christian elements, and later was influenced by the Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples who lived in the neighborhood of the Slavs. This influence was especially strongly reflected in folk costume and folklore.

At the dawn of modern times, the development of Russian culture was determined not only by individual figures, but also by entire institutions. The church and especially the monasteries were centers of education and book writing. Talented architects worked in Moscow, and the country's first printing house also operated. However, the cultural ties of the Muscovite kingdom with other countries remained weak.

In the second half. XVII century Several public schools were established.

1649 – F. Rtishchev’s school (school in St. Andrew’s Monastery).

1640s – school of Epiphany Slavinetsky in the Chudov Monastery,

1665 - the school of Simeon of Polotsk in the Zaikonospassky Monastery there was a school for training employees for central institutions, for the Printing House (Printing School in 1681, headed by the Russian monk Timothy and the Greek Manuil), the Apothecary Prikaz, etc. 1687 The first higher educational institution was founded in Moscow -Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy,where they taught “from grammar, rhetoric, literature, dialectics, philosophy... to theology.” The Academy was headed by the brothers Sophrony and Ioannikiy Likhud (after the exile of the Likhuds in 1701, the Academy fell into decay), Greek scientists who graduated from the University of Padua (Italy). Priests and officials were trained here. M.V. Lomonosov also studied at this academy.

The interest of Russian people in literacy is evidenced by a sale in Moscow(1651) within one day“ABC book” by V. F. Burtsev, published in a circulation of 2,400 copies. Were published“Grammar” by Meletiy Smotritsky(1648) and multiplication table“Counting is convenient” (1682). But: Psalter.

In the 17th century, as before, there was a process of accumulation of knowledge. Great successes were achieved in the field of medicine (“Herbalists”, “Healers”, “Pharmacopeia” by Ivan Venediktov, “On the structure of the human body” - translation by Epiphany Slavinetsky) in solving practical problems in mathematics (many were able to measure areas, distances, loose bodies, etc.), in observing nature.

Age of great geographical discoveries. 1632 - the Cossacks reached the Lena, founded Yakutsk; Elisha Buza discovered Yana, Indigirka, and Kopylov reached the Sea of ​​Okhotsk ( 1639 ). In 1643 Kolesnikov reached Lake Baikal, and Poyarkov discovered the Amur, which was explored in 1650-1651. Khabarov. 1654 The rivers Argun, Selenga and Ingoda were discovered. 1675-1678 . – expedition to China O.N. Spafarius, compiled “Description of the first part of the Universe, called Asia”, “The Legend of the Great Amur River”.

1692-1695 . – Dutchman Isbrant Eades compiled a description of the part of Russia near the border with China. IN 1648 The expedition of Semyon Dezhnev (80 years before Vitus Bering) reached the strait between Asia and North America, discovered the river. Anadyr. The easternmost point of our country now bears the name of Dezhnev. E. P. Khabarov in 1649 g . compiled a map and studied the lands along the Amur River, where Russian settlements were founded. The city of Khabarovsk and the village of Erofey Pavlovich bear his name. In the very end of the 17th century . Siberian Cossack V.V. Atlasov explored Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands islands. 1690 naval officer Dubrovin compiled a map of Turkestan. The first map of the Moscow state was drawn up at the turn of the 16th – 17th centuries, 1640 - “Painting of Siberian cities and fortresses”, and in 1672 - “Drawing of the Siberian land.”

Literature. In the 17th century The last official chronicles were created."New Chronicler"(30s) outlined the events from the death of Ivan the Terrible to the end of the Time of Troubles. It proved the rights of the new Romanov dynasty to the royal throne.

The central place in historical literature was occupied by historical stories that hadjournalistic character.For example, a group of such stories (“Vremennik of clerk Ivan Timofeev”, “The Legend of Abraham Palitsyn”, “Another Legend”, etc.) was a response to the events of the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century.

The penetration of secular principles into literature is associated with the appearance in the 17th century.genre of satirical story, where fictional characters act. “Service to the Tavern”, “The Tale of the Chicken and the Fox”, “Kalyazin Petition” contained a parody of the church service, ridiculed the gluttony and drunkenness of the monks, and “The Tale of Ersha Ershovich” contained judicial red tape and bribery. The new genres were memoirs (“The Life of Archpriest Avvakum”) and love lyrics (Simeon of Polotsk).

The reunification of Ukraine with Russia gave impetus to the creation of the first Russian printed work on history. The Kiev monk Innocent Gisel compiled a “Synopsis” (review), which in a popular form contained a story about the joint history of Ukraine and Russia, which began with the formation of Kievan Rus. In the XVII - first half of the XVIII century. "Synopsis" was used as a textbook of Russian history.

The culture of which was a striking phenomenon in the development of the country, famous for its beautiful architectural monuments and literary creations. What influenced its development? How has your view of the world changed? All this needs to be sorted out.

Ancient Rus': culture and its features before and after

As you know, the ancient state was subordinated to pagan religion, as a result of which we can talk about several characteristic features of that society. Firstly, oral folk art predominated. It was then that epics, songs and fairy tales began to emerge. People passed on the most important information from generation to generation, which has survived to this day. Secondly, wooden architecture was developed. At that time there were no stone buildings in Rus', but there were strong wooden temples and huts known throughout the world. Thirdly, there were no written sources. Yes, before the adoption of the new faith there were no such monuments of art on the territory of our country. Fourthly, there were a lot of features that changed a lot after the adoption of Christianity:

Ancient Rus': culture and its embodiments

The entire culture of that time can be divided into three areas: writing, architecture and fine arts. So, let's start with literature. The first kind of messages to each other (and this can be called the origin were found in Novgorod, where they were nicknamed After the adoption of Christianity, Illarionov’s “Sermon on Law and Grace” appeared, as well as the “Ostromir Gospel” (the authorship is attributed to the scribe Gregory). In addition, it is impossible one cannot remember the fact that the alphabet was created by the great brothers, Cyril and Methodius, also at that time. The history of the culture of Ancient Russia, in particular, stone architecture, is the richest heritage of the entire country. What are the examples of the cross-domed style: both Kiev and " Our Lady of Oranta”, the icon “The Annunciation of Ustyug”, as well as the fresco “Prophet Zachary”.

Thus, Ancient Rus', whose culture laid the foundations for the development of the Russian soul, became an example for subsequent creators. We study her works and rejoice at the achievements of that time to this day, and this is one of the main reasons to be proud of our history.