Studia Litterarum (Mar 2017)
“THE TALE OF THE MIRACULOUS ICON OF OUR LADY OF KAZAN” IN THE LIGHT OF OLD RUSSIAN LITERARY TRADITION
Abstract
“The Tale of the Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Kazan” is related to other Old Russian tales with the motif of apparition or discovery of the icon of Our Lady. Reading this tale in comparison with the tales of Kolochskaya, Tikhvin, Okovetskaya, and Vydropusskaya icons, I will focus on the structure of its plot motifs that organize the tale’s narrative. The essay reveals a combination of traditional and novel features in the construction of the text and the specificity of the story. The latter was determined by some general trends in the development of Russian literature at the end of the 16 th century as well as by the social circumstances in the newly added Kazan State and by the official position of the Kazan Metropolitan Hermogenes, a presumed author of the tale. A comparative reading reveals typicality and conventionality as regards the plot, the structure, and the language of the tale about the Kazan icon, despite the presence of new motifs and elements of authorial self- reflection. The author of the tale rigorously followed official ideological and aesthetic line as well as existing literary standards and was guided by the mainstream clerical, political, and spiritual ideas that did not favor descriptive exaggerations inspired by imagination, religious exaltation, and mysticism. There is a stark contrast between the conventional tale by Anonymous-Hermogenes and legends about Kolochskaya, Okovetskay, and (to some extent) Vydropusskaya icons of the Holy Virgin that represent narratives dramatically and stylistically close to the folk speech. Such reading gives grounds to certain conclusions about the peculiarities of the historical development of Russian literature in Moscow Rus’ of the second half of the 16 th century. The official line of its development was primarily aimed at the conservation and formalization of creative work.
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