So, as we have seen, not a single historical source confirms the existence of a trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” It turns out that the Apostle Andrew is the only known historical figure who walked the famous route from end to end. But is it? Did the apostle really undertake a journey from Chersonesos to Rome via Novgorod-on-Volkhov?
Let's once again return to the first pages of The Tale of Bygone Years and carefully read what is written there:
“And the path from the Varangians to the Greeks and from the Greeks to the Dnieper and the top of the Dnieper dragged to Lovat, and along Lovat bring the great lake into Ilmer; from this lake the Volkhov will flow and flow into the great lake Nevo; and the mouth of that lake will enter the Varangian Sea; and along that sea you can even go as far as Rome... And the Dnieper flows into the Pontic [Black] Sea with three dams [mouths], which is known as the Russian Sea, and according to which the Apostle Andrew, brother Petrov, taught...”
From the seaside city of Sinop in Asia Minor, Andrei comes to the Crimean Korsun (Chersonese Tauride). Here, having learned that the mouth of the Dnieper was nearby, he quite unexpectedly “wanted to go to Rome.” By chance (“by chance”) the apostle stops for the night on the banks of the Dnieper, where Kyiv was later destined to emerge. “Rising the next morning,” he prophesies to his disciples about the future greatness of Kyiv, overshadowed by God’s grace, climbs “these mountains,” blesses them and erects a cross in this place. Then he continues his journey to Novgorod, where he becomes an astonished witness to the self-torture of the Novgorodians in the bathhouse: “... how they wash themselves and flog... barely get out, barely alive; and they will douse themselves with cold water, and thus they will come to life; and they do this all day long, not tormented by anyone, but tormented themselves...” Having reached Rome, he talks about this custom that amazed him, and the Romans “heard it and marveled.” After this, the apostle returns to Sinop without any incident.
We have already had the opportunity to dwell on the legendary nature of the news about the stay of the Apostle Andrew in Scythia, and even more so in the northern regions of the Russian land. But even without these considerations, the legend of Andrei’s journey to Rus' confused researchers, including Church historians, primarily with its obvious absurdity from the point of view of geography. “Sending an apostle from Korsun to Rome by the mentioned route,” wrote E. E. Golubinsky, “is the same thing as sending someone from Moscow to St. Petersburg by way of Arkhangelsk” ( Golubinsky E.E. History of the Russian Church. M., 1880, T. 1. P. 4).
One detail in the ancient texts of the legend helps to clarify this issue, where the Dnieper, contrary to geography, flows into the Black Sea with three mouths (“vents”). It has attracted due attention from historians relatively recently. “This fact is extremely remarkable,” notes A. L. Nikitin, “since it excludes the possibility of attributing it to erroneous editing by editors and copyists, since the real Dnieper in historically foreseeable (Holocene) time invariably flowed into the Black Sea at the same mouth as the Southern Bug , forming a common Bugo-Dnieper estuary. The latter circumstance was well known in Rus' and even forced the monk Laurentius in the process of rewriting the text of the PVL (meaning the Laurentian copy of the Tale of Bygone Years. - S. Ts.) accordingly change the “three zherelas” (Ipatiev list. - S. Ts.)... on the “jerelom”... On the contrary, near the Danube, with the equally constant presence of seven branches of the delta, according to tradition, only the three most important ones are indicated - the Chilia, the Sulina and the St. George" (Nikitin A.L. Foundations of Russian history. M., 2000. P. 131).
From this curious observation, the scientist concludes that “we have before us a vivid example of the rooting on Russian historiographical soil of an already existing work, which, in addition to hagiographical, also had geographical content - an indication of the traditional path “from the Varangians to the Greeks” along the Danube, which the Russian chronicler was moved to the Dnieper, distorting the historical and geographical perspective and causing confusion in the minds of later researchers" ( Ibid., p. 133-134).
In other words, the Russian legend about Andrei’s walk along the Dnieper and Volkhov is based on an older legend about the apostle’s walk along the Danube.
There is every reason for such an unexpected conclusion.
During the era of the Roman Empire, the main trade route connecting European East and West, North and South, ran along the Danube. Trade caravans moved along it by land, adhering to the Danube “limes” (the border line of fortresses on the right bank of the Danube, connected by excellent paved roads), for the people of antiquity generally preferred land travel to the vicissitudes of navigation, which they ventured on only in case of emergency.
Massive barbarian invasions of the Balkans during the Great Migration made this route unsafe, and the settlement of the Slavs and Bulgar Turks on the Danube banks completely blocked all communication between Constantinople and Rome for a good two centuries. The situation began to change only in the 60s and 70s. 9th century in connection with the baptism of the Bulgarian kingdom and the Great Moravian principality. The Christian world greeted with delight the restoration of the ancient highway connecting both former parts of the empire. A letter from Pope Nicholas I to Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, dating from this time, is full of praises of Divine grace, thanks to which communication between Rome and Byzantium was again possible. This news was discussed with no less enthusiasm in Constantinople.
Trade routes in medieval Europe
Knowledge of these historical and geographical realities of the second half of the 9th century. allows us to understand what made the Apostle Andrew from the Russian legend undertake an unmotivated and contrary to common sense journey from Korsun to Rome across the Varangian Sea. In fact, the chronicler merely reworked into Russian some legend about Andrei’s journey from Byzantium to Rome along the Danube, which arose under the impression of, so to speak, the geographical reunification of the Eastern and Western churches.
The direct source from which the author of the Russian legend got the idea of identifying the Danube with the Dnieper, with a certain degree of probability, could be one work from the circle of “Andreevsky” literature “On the twelve apostles: where each of them preached and where he died,” in which, among the lands, trodden by the Apostle Andrew, the Danube Thrace is indicated. The fact is that in ancient times there was another Chersonese (Thracian) on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and there is every reason to assume that it was this, and not the Crimean, Chersonese that appeared in the original version of the legend.
But the original legend itself about Andrei’s journey along the Danube to Rome, which formed the basis of the Russian legend, most likely arose not among the Greeks, but among the Slavs of the Danube region. This is indicated by a rare term preserved in the Laurentian list of the “Tale of Bygone Years” - “usniyany kvass”, with which the Novgorodians, according to the apostle, doused themselves in the bathhouse. The word “usnijany” has correspondence only in the Slovenian (usnje) and Old Czech (usne) languages in the meaning of leather, serum used in the treatment of leather, or perhaps lye ( Panchenko A. M. About Russian history and culture. St. Petersburg, 2000. pp. 403-404). Thus, when applied to bath liquid, it means tanning kvass ( Lvov A. S. Vocabulary “Tales of Bygone Years.” M., 1975. P. 82), and the “Novgorodians” of Russian legend doused with it undergo an unexpected metamorphosis, turning into Danube Moravans.
All these circumstances make it possible to point out the group of people in whose circle the legend of the Apostle Andrew’s walk along the Danube most likely originated and received literary embodiment. This is the literary and scientific circle of the “Thessalonica brothers”, Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius. There is a lot of evidence that the missionary activity of the Slavic first teachers was perceived by their immediate circle as a direct continuation of the apostolic ministry of Andrei. The author of the canon “to the first servant of Christ (ambassador, apostle)” Naum Ohridsky, one of the members of the Cyril and Methodius circle, essentially built his entire work on a comparison of the spiritual feat of Andrei and the Equal-to-the-Apostles brothers.
In this regard, attention should be paid to the unusual role assigned to the Apostle of Scythia in Russian legend. Andrei is presented there as a simple traveler, an observer of foreign customs; his entire spiritual mission is limited to the prediction of the future prosperity of Christianity in the Russian land. This strange behavior of the apostle worried the ancient Russian scribes. The Monk Joseph of Volotsky even openly posed the question: why did the Apostle Andrew not preach Christianity in the Russian land? And he answered like this: “Forbidden by the Holy Spirit.” It must be assumed that the Russian legend copied the behavior of the apostle from the Moravian legend, which had a very specific and clear meaning. Andrew’s refusal to preach on the banks of the Danube connected the apostle even more closely with the missionary activities of Constantine and Methodius, who, thus, acted as his spiritual heirs, the consummators of his work. The Old Russian scribe, who borrowed and revised the old Moravian legend, inadvertently dropped its very essence from it, which is why Andrei’s walk on the Russian land was not directly correlated with the subsequent educational activities of Princess Olga and Prince Vladimir.
But in this case, what goal was pursued by the author of the Russian legend? It seems that the answer to this question lies in the “bath washing” episode. It is unlikely that he was present in the Moravian legend about Andrew’s walk along the Danube. Perhaps the story of the Slavic bathhouse, which always amazed foreigners, was contained in the report of the “Thessaloniki brothers” about their Moravian mission. The existence of such a document, submitted by them to the Vatican or the Patriarchate of Constantinople, can be assumed with a high degree of probability: it was from there that the “usnified kvass” should have migrated into our chronicle; It is also possible that some Central Danube Novgorod appeared in this report. (In connection with this assumption, I draw the reader’s attention to the region in modern Hungary - Nográd, which lies in a real “bath” environment: Rudabanya, Zinobanya, Lovinobanya, Banska Bystrica, Banska Stiavnica, Tatabanya. It seems that the local “Novgorodians” were known , like desperate steamers, or, more precisely, lovers of hot baths, since the names of these cities are most likely associated with the presence of hot springs in these places - “baths”). In any case, the Life of Constantine and Methodius testifies that during their almost two-year stay in Rome, the brothers repeatedly had to talk about the customs of the peoples they baptized to inquisitive Romans, whose reaction to what they heard was captured by the Russian legend: “and when he heard it, he marveled.” But it is difficult to indicate the reasons that could prompt the compilers of the Moravian legend about the walk of Andrew to connect the bathing episode with the name of the apostle. Their merger most likely occurred already in the Russian version of the legend. Moreover, one cannot help but notice that the chronicle story is permeated with deep irony. The author of the Russian legend clearly wanted to laugh at someone. Of course, the object of ridicule could not be the apostle. Then who?
The episode with the Novgorod baths has a striking parallel with the “bath anecdote” from the “History of Livonia” by Dionysius Fabricius (16th century). It talks about a funny incident that supposedly took place in the 13th century. in the Catholic monastery in Falkenau near Dorpat. Local monks demanded from the pope to increase the allowance due to them, since, according to them, they served the Lord so zealously that they exhausted themselves with “superlegal” ascetic exercises, not provided for by the charter. An ambassador went from Rome to Falkenau to find out what was going on. Arriving at the place, he witnessed how the monks, in order to overcome carnal passions, locked themselves in a room where, in the terrible heat, they whipped themselves with rods and then doused themselves with ice water. The Italian found that such a way of life was impossible and unheard of among people. According to his report, the pope paid something extra to the monastery.
Taken out of historical context, this story seems simply a cheerful fabliau, the fruit of Renaissance wit. But the gullibility of the Italian ambassador, and at the same time the pope, becomes understandable if we remember that the 13th century. was the heyday of the flagellant movement, the “scourge” (from the Latin flagellare - “whip, flog, beat”). The practice of flagellanism existed in the Roman Church long before this time. Under Charlemagne, Saint William, Duke of Aquitaine, became famous for self-torture; in the 10th century Saint Romuald labored zealously in this field. The theoretical basis for this form of asceticism was laid down in the 11th century. Peter Damiani in his treatise “Praise of the Scourges”. The spiritual benefit of flagellation and self-flagellation stemmed from the following provisions: 1) this is an imitation of Christ; 2) an act to gain the crown of martyrdom; 3) a method of mortifying sinful flesh; 4) a way to atone for sins.
Under the influence of these instructions, priests and monks began to zealously torture themselves and their parishioners for the glory of God. From the second half of the 13th century. The flagellant movement assumed the dimensions of public insanity. In 1260, tens and hundreds of thousands of people believed in the miraculous saving power of this remedy; from this time on, for several centuries, processions of flagellants became a common occurrence on the roads of Italy, France, Germany, Flanders, Moravia, Hungary and Poland. Only England and Rus' were not affected by savage sentiments. The comedy of bath torture in the face of the papal ambassador, viewed from this angle, takes on the features of a hidden protest against religious fanaticism, approved and supported by Rome.
And here we seem to be approaching the solution to the unusual plot of the Russian legend about the walk of the Apostle Andrew. The main emphasis in it, as is easy to see, is the apostle’s visit to the Novgorod baths and the subsequent story about this event to the Romans, and Andrei’s “Roman report” is limited to the baths alone; there is not a word about the great future of Kyiv. The play on the theme of “torment” and “movement” thus looks like an open mockery, but not of the Novgorodians, as many researchers thought, but of the inappropriate ascetic zeal of the “Latins.” And the fact that this mockery was put into the mouth of the apostle himself, the first of Christ’s disciples and the elder brother of Peter, emphasized the superiority of the Slavs, Russians over the “Germans” and - since the custom at that time was inseparable from the ritual - in general, Orthodoxy over Catholicism. Consequently, the Russian legend about the walk of the Apostle Andrew carries the same semantic load as numerous chronicle invective against the evil “Latin law”.
For dating the Russian legend, it is not without interest that in 1233, Grand Duke Vladimir Rurikovich expelled the Dominicans from Kyiv. Meanwhile, it was this order that most zealously adhered to the theory and practice of Flagellanism. It is characteristic that the monastery in Falkenau, with which Fabricius’ “bath anecdote” is associated, belonged to the Dominicans.
Thus, the apostle was sent “from the Greeks to the Varangians” by a Russian scribe, one of the editors of The Tale of Bygone Years, who lived, in all likelihood, in the second third (after 1233) or even at the end of the 13th century. And without the visit of the Apostle Andrew to Rus', this historical and geographical phantom evaporates forever, like the hot steam of the Novgorod baths.
Fragment from "The Tale of Bygone Years" about the Apostle Andrew in Rus'
After a long time, the Slavs settled along the Danube, where the land is now Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat. So some, having come, sat down on the river in the name of Morava and were called Moravians, while others called themselves Czechs. And here are the same Slavs: white Croats, and Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Luticians, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians.
Likewise, these Slavs came and settled along the Dnieper and were called Polyans, and others - Drevlyans, because they sat in the forests, and others sat between Pripyat and Dvina and were called Dregovichs, others sat along the Dvina and were called Polochans, after the river flowing into the Dvina , called Polota, from which the Polotsk people took their name. The same Slavs who settled near Lake Ilmen were called by their own name - Slavs, and built a city and called it Novgorod. And others sat along the Desna, and the Seim, and the Sula, and called themselves northerners. And so the Slavic people dispersed, and after his name the letter was called Slavic.
When the glades lived separately in these mountains, there was a path from the Varangians to the Greeks and from the Greeks along the Dnieper, and in the upper reaches of the Dnieper - a drag to Lovot, and along Lovot you can enter Ilmen, the great lake; The Volkhov flows from the same lake and flows into the great lake Nero, and the mouth of that lake flows into the Varangian Sea. And along that sea you can sail to Rome, and from Rome you can sail along the same sea to Constantinople, and from Constantinople you can sail to the Sea of Pontus, into which the Dnieper River flows. The Dnieper flows from the Okovsky forest and flows to the south, and the Dvina flows from the same forest and heads north, and flows into the Varangian Sea. From the same forest the Volga flows to the east and flows through seventy mouths into the Khvalisskoe Sea. So from Rus' you can sail along the Volga to the Bolgars and Khvalis, and go east to the inheritance of Sima, and along the Dvina to the land of the Varangians, from the Varangians to Rome, from Rome to the tribe of Ham. And the Dnieper flows at its mouth into the Pontic Sea; This sea is reputed to be Russian, - as they say, St. Andrew, Peter’s brother, taught it along its shores.
When Andrei taught in Sinop and arrived in Korsun, he learned that the mouth of the Dnieper was not far from Korsun, and he wanted to go to Rome, and sailed to the mouth of the Dnieper, and from there he went up the Dnieper. And it so happened that he came and stood under the mountains on the shore. And in the morning he got up and said to the disciples who were with him: “Do you see these mountains? On these mountains the grace of God will shine, there will be a great city, and God will erect many churches.” And having ascended these mountains, he blessed them, and put up a cross, and prayed to God, and came down from this mountain, where Kyiv would later be, and went up the Dnieper. And he came to the Slavs, where Novgorod now stands, and saw the people living there - what their custom was and how they washed and whipped themselves, and he was surprised at them. And he went to the country of the Varangians, and came to Rome, and told about how he taught and what he saw, and said: “I saw a marvel in the Slavic land on my way here. I saw wooden bathhouses, and they would heat them up very much, and they would undress and naked, and they will douse themselves with leather kvass, and they will pick up the young rods and beat themselves, and they will finish themselves off so much that they barely crawl out, barely alive, and they will douse themselves with cold water, and that’s the only way they will come to life. And they do this constantly, not tormented by anyone. , but they torture themselves, and then they perform ablution for themselves, and not torment.” Those who heard about this were surprised; Andrei, having been in Rome, came to Sinop.
Fragments of "The Tale of Bygone Years"
<Хождение апостола Андрея>
<Предание об обосновании Киева>
<Притча об обрах>
<Повесть о взятии Олегом Царьграда>
<Сказание о смерти Олега от коня>
<Об убийстве Игоря и мести Ольги древлянам>
<Начало княжения Святослава, сына Игорева>
<Хождение Ольги в Царьград>
<Повесть об осаде Киева печенегами>
<Повесть о походе Святослава на Византию>
<О Владимире Святославиче>
<Сказание о Кожемяке>
<Сказание о белгородском киселе>
<Об убиении Бориса и Глеба>
<О разгроме Святополка Ярославом Мудрым>
<О единоборстве Мстислава с Редедею>
<О правлении Ярослава Мудрого>
<Слово о нашествии иноплеменных>
<Повесть об ослеплении Васильки Теребовльского>
<Хождение апостола Андрея>
When Andrei taught in Sinop and arrived in Korsun, he learned that the mouth of the Dnieper was not far from Korsun, and he wanted to go to Rome, and sailed to the mouth of the Dnieper, and from there he went up the Dnieper. And it so happened that he came and stood under the mountains on the shore. And in the morning he got up and said to the disciples who were with him: “Do you see these mountains? On these mountains the grace of God will shine, there will be a great city, and God will erect many churches.” And having ascended these mountains, he blessed them, and put up a cross, and prayed to God, and came down from this mountain, where Kyiv would later be, and went up the Dnieper. And he came to the Slavs, where Novgorod now stands, and saw the people living there - what their custom was and how they washed and whipped themselves, and he was surprised at them. And he went to the country of the Varangians, and came to Rome, and told about how he taught and what he saw, and said: “I saw a marvel in the Slavic land on my way here. I saw wooden bathhouses, and they would heat them up, and they would undress and be naked, and they would douse themselves with leather kvass, and they would pick up young rods on themselves and beat themselves, and they would finish themselves off so much that they would barely get out, barely alive, and douse themselves with cold water, and This is the only way they will come to life. And they do this constantly, not tormented by anyone, but tormenting themselves, and then they perform ablution for themselves, and not torment.” Those who heard about this were surprised; Andrei, having been in Rome, came to Sinop.
<Предание об обосновании Киева>
The Glades lived separately in those days and were governed by their own clans; for even before that brethren (which will be discussed later) there were already glades, and they all lived with their clans in their own places, and each was governed independently. And there were three brothers: one named Kiy, the other - Shchek and the third - Khoriv, and their sister - Lybid. Kiy sat on the mountain where Borichev now rises, and Shchek sat on the mountain that is now called Shchekovitsa, and Khoriv on the third mountain, which was nicknamed Khorivitsa after his name. And they built a city in honor of their elder brother, and named it Kyiv. There was a forest and a large forest around the city, and they caught animals there, and those men were wise and sensible, and they were called glades, from them glades are still in Kyiv. Some, not knowing, say that Kiy was a carrier; At that time, Kyiv had transportation from the other side of the Dnieper, which is why they said: “For transportation to Kyiv.” If Kiy had been a ferryman, he would not have gone to Constantinople; and this Kiy reigned in his family, and when he went to the king, they say that he received great honors from the king to whom he came. When he was returning, he came to the Danube, and took a fancy to the place, and cut down a small town, and wanted to sit in it with his family, but those living around did not let him; This is how the Danube residents still call the settlement - Kievets. Kiy, returning to his city of Kyiv, died here; and his brothers Shchek and Horiv and their sister Lybid died immediately.
<Притча об обрах>
When the Slavic people, as we said, lived on the Danube, the so-called Bulgarians came from the Scythians, that is, from the Khazars, and settled along the Danube and were settlers in the land of the Slavs. Then the White Ugrians came and settled the Slavic land. These Ugrians appeared under King Heraclius, and they fought with Khosrow, the Persian king. In those days there were also obras, they fought against King Heraclius and almost captured him. These obrins also fought against the Slavs and oppressed the Dulebs - also Slavs, and committed violence against the Duleb wives: it happened that when an obrin rode, he would not allow a horse or an ox to be harnessed, but ordered three, four or five wives to be harnessed to a cart and the obrin to be driven, - and so they tortured the Dulebs. These obrins were great in body and proud in mind, and God destroyed them, they all died, and not a single obrin remained. And there is a saying in Rus' to this day: “They perished like obras,” but they have no tribe or descendants. After the raids, the Pechenegs came, and then the Black Ugrians passed by Kyiv, but this happened after - already under Oleg.
<Повесть о взятии Олегом Царьграда>
6415 (907) per year. Oleg went against the Greeks, leaving Igor in Kyiv; He took with him many Varangians, and Slavs, and Chuds, and Krivichi, and Meryu, and Drevlyans, and Radimichi, and Polans, and Northerners, and Vyatichi, and Croats, and Dulebs, and Tiverts, known as interpreters: these were all called Greeks "Great Scythia". And with all these Oleg went on horses and in ships; and there were 2000 ships. And he came to Constantinople: the Greeks closed the Court, and the city was closed. And Oleg went ashore and began to fight, and committed many murders to the Greeks in the vicinity of the city, and broke many chambers, and burned churches. And those who were captured, some were beheaded, others were tortured, others were shot, and some were thrown into the sea, and the Russians did many other evils to the Greeks, as enemies usually do. And Oleg ordered his soldiers to make wheels and put ships on wheels. And when a fair wind blew, they raised sails in the field and went to the city. The Greeks, seeing this, were frightened and said, sending to Oleg: “Do not destroy the city, we will give you the tribute you want.” And Oleg stopped the soldiers, and they brought him food and wine, but did not accept it, since it was poisoned. And the Greeks were afraid and said: “This is not Oleg, but Saint Dmitry, sent to us by God.” And Oleg ordered to give tribute to 2000 ships: 12 hryvnia per person, and there were 40 men in each ship. And the Greeks agreed to this, and the Greeks began to ask for peace so that the Greek land would not fight. Oleg, moving a little away from the capital, began negotiations for peace with the Greek kings Leon and Alexander and sent Karl, Farlaf, Vermud, Rulav and Stemid to their capital with the words: “Pay me tribute.” And the Greeks said: “We will give you whatever you want.” And Oleg ordered to give his soldiers for 2000 ships 12 hryvnia per rowlock, and then give tribute to Russian cities: first of all for Kyiv, then for Chernigov, for Pereyaslavl, for Polotsk, for Rostov, for Lyubech and for other cities: for according to In these cities sit the great princes, subject to Oleg. “When the Russians come, let them take as much allowance for the ambassadors as they want; and if merchants come, let them take monthly food for 6 months: bread, wine, meat, fish and fruits. And let them give them a bath - as much as they want. When the Russians go home, let them take food, anchors, ropes, sails and whatever else they need from the Tsar for the journey.” And the Greeks obliged, and the kings and all the boyars said: “If the Russians do not come for trade, then let them not take their monthly allowance; Let the Russian prince, by decree, prohibit the Russians who come here from committing atrocities in the villages and in our country. Let the Russians who come here live near the church of St. Mammoth, and send them from our kingdom, and write down their names, then they will take their monthly allowance - first those who came from Kyiv, then from Chernigov, and from Pereyaslavl, and from other cities . And let them enter the city only through one gate, accompanied by the king’s husband, without weapons, 50 people each, and trade as much as they need, without paying any fees.” Kings Leon and Alexander made peace with Oleg, pledged to pay tribute and swore allegiance to each other: they themselves kissed the cross, and Oleg and his husbands were taken to swear allegiance according to Russian law, and they swore by their weapons and Perun, their god, and Volos, the god of cattle, and established peace. And Oleg said: “Sew sails for Rus' from fibers, and for the Slavs from coprine,” and so it was. And he hung his shield on the gates as a sign of victory, and left Constantinople. And the Russians raised sails of grass, and the Slavs raised their sails, and the wind tore them apart; and the Slavs said: “Let’s take our thicknesses; the Slavs were not given sails made of pavolok.” And Oleg returned to Kyiv, carrying gold, and grasses, and fruits, and wine, and all sorts of ornaments. And they called Oleg the Prophetic, since the people were pagans and unenlightened.
<Сказание о смерти Олега от коня>
And Oleg, the prince, lived in Kyiv, having peace with all countries. And autumn came, and Oleg remembered his horse, which he had previously set to feed, having decided never to mount it. For he asked the magicians and wizards: “What will I die from?” And one magician said to him: “Prince! From your beloved horse, on which you ride, will you die from it?” These words sank into Oleg’s soul, and he said: “I will never sit on him and see him again.” And he ordered to feed him and not to take him to him, and he lived for several years without seeing him, until he went against the Greeks. And when he returned to Kyiv and four years had passed, in the fifth year he remembered his horse, from which the wise men predicted his death. And he called the elder of the grooms and said: “Where is my horse, which I ordered to feed and take care of?” He answered: “He died.” Oleg laughed and reproached that magician, saying: “The magicians say wrong, but it’s all a lie: the horse died, but I’m alive.” And he ordered him to saddle his horse: “Let me see his bones.” And he came to the place where his bare bones and bare skull lay, got off his horse, laughed and said: “Should I accept death from this skull?” And he stepped on the skull with his foot, and a snake crawled out of the skull and bit him on the leg. And that’s why he got sick and died. All the people mourned him with great lamentation, and they carried him and buried him on a mountain called Shchekovitsa; His grave exists to this day and is known as Oleg’s grave. And all the years of his reign were thirty and three.
<Об убийстве Игоря и мести Ольги древлянам>
Per year 6453 (945). That year the squad said to Igor: “The youths of Sveneld are dressed in weapons and clothes, and we are naked. Come with us, prince, for tribute, and you will get it for yourself and for us.” And Igor listened to them - he went to the Drevlyans for tribute and added a new one to the previous tribute, and his men committed violence against them. Taking the tribute, he went to his city. When he walked back, after thinking it over, he said to his squad: “Go home with the tribute, and I’ll come back and go again.” And he sent his squad home, and he himself returned with a small part of the squad, wanting more wealth. The Drevlyans, having heard that he was coming again, held a council with their prince Mal: “If a wolf gets into the habit of the sheep, he will carry out the entire flock until they kill him; so is this one: if we don’t kill him, he will destroy us all.” And they sent to him, saying: “Why are you going again? I’ve already taken all the tribute.” And Igor did not listen to them; and the Drevlyans, leaving the city of Iskorosten, killed Igor and his warriors, since there were few of them. And Igor was buried, and his grave remains near Iskorosten in Derevskaya land to this day. Olga was in Kyiv with her son, the child Svyatoslav, and his breadwinner was Asmud, and the governor Sveneld was the father of Mstisha. The Drevlyans said: “We killed the Russian prince; Let’s take his wife Olga for our prince Mal and take Svyatoslav and do to him what we want.” And the Drevlyans sent their best men, twenty in number, in a boat to Olga, and landed in the boat near Borichev. After all, the water then flowed near the Kyiv Mountain, and people sat not on Podol, but on the mountain. The city of Kyiv was where now is the courtyard of Gordyata and Nikifor, and the princely court was in the city, where is now the courtyard of Vorotislav and Chudin, and the place for catching birds was outside the city; There was also another courtyard outside the city, where the courtyard of the domestic is now located, behind the Church of the Holy Mother of God; There was a tower courtyard above the mountain - there was a stone tower there. And they told Olga that the Drevlyans had come, and Olga called them to her, and told them: “Good guests have come.” And the Drevlyans answered: “They have come, princess.” And Olga said to them: “So tell me, why did you come here?” The Drevlyans answered: “The Derevskaya land sent us with these words: “We killed your husband, because your husband, like a wolf, plundered and robbed, and our princes are good because they protect the Derevskaya land - marry our prince Mala.” "". After all, his name was Mal, the prince of the Drevlyans. Olga told them: “Your speech is dear to me, I can no longer resurrect my husband; but I want to honor you tomorrow before my people; Now go to your boat and lie down in the boat, magnifying yourself, and in the morning I will send for you, and you say: “We will not ride on horses, nor will we go on foot, but carry us in the boat,” and they will carry you up in the boat,” and released them to the boat. Olga ordered to dig a large and deep hole in the tower courtyard, outside the city. The next morning, sitting in the tower, Olga sent for the guests, and they came to them and said: “Olga is calling you for great honor.” They answered: “We are not riding on horses or in carts, and we are not going on foot, but carry us in the boat.” And the people of Kiev answered: “We are in bondage; our prince was killed, and our princess wants for your prince,” and they were carried in the boat. They sat, majestic, with their arms on their feet and wearing great breastplates. And they brought them to Olga’s courtyard, and as they carried them, they threw them along with the boat into a pit. And, bending towards the pit, Olga asked them: “Is honor good for you?” They answered: “Igor’s death is worse for us.” And she ordered them to be buried alive; and covered them. And Olga sent to the Drevlyans and told them: “If you really ask me, then send the best men to marry your prince with great honor, otherwise the Kyiv people will not let me in.” Hearing about this, the Drevlyans chose the best men who ruled the Derevskaya land and sent for her. When the Drevlyans arrived, Olga ordered a bathhouse to be prepared, telling them: “After you have washed, come to me.” And they heated the bathhouse, and the Drevlyans entered it and began to wash themselves; and they locked the bathhouse behind them, and Olga ordered it to be set on fire from the door, and then everyone burned. And she sent to the Drevlyans with the words: “Now I’m coming to you, prepare a lot of honey in the city where they killed my husband, so that I will cry at his grave and perform a funeral feast for my husband.” Having heard about this, they brought a lot of honey and brewed it. Olga, taking with her a small squad, went light, came to the grave of her husband and mourned him. And she commanded her people to fill up a high burial mound, and when they had filled it up, she ordered a funeral feast to be performed. After that, the Drevlyans sat down to drink, and Olga ordered her youths to serve them. And the Drevlyans said to Olga: “Where is our squad that they sent for you?” She answered: “They are coming after me with my husband’s retinue.” And when the Drevlyans became drunk, she ordered her youths to drink in their honor, and she went far away and ordered the squad to cut down the Drevlyans, and 5000 of them were cut off. And Olga returned to Kyiv and gathered an army against those who remained.
<Начало княжения Святослава, сына Игорева>
Per year 6454 (946). Olga and her son Svyatoslav gathered many brave warriors and went to Derevskaya land. And the Drevlyans came out against her. And when both armies came together to fight, Svyatoslav threw a spear at the Drevlyans, and the spear flew between the horse’s ears and hit the horse’s legs, for Svyatoslav was still a child. And Sveneld and Asmud said: “The prince has already begun; Let us follow, squad, the prince.” And they defeated the Drevlyans. The Drevlyans fled and locked themselves in their cities. Olga rushed with her son to the city of Iskorosten, since they killed her husband, and stood with her son near the city, and the Drevlyans shut themselves up in the city and staunchly defended themselves from the city, for they knew that, having killed the prince, they had nothing to hope for. And Olga stood all summer and could not take the city, and she planned this: she sent to the city with the words: “What do you want to wait until? After all, all your cities have already surrendered to me and agreed to tribute and are already cultivating their fields and lands; and you, refusing to pay tribute, are going to die of hunger.” The Drevlyans replied: “We would be happy to pay tribute, but you want to avenge your husband.” Olga told them that “I had already taken revenge for my husband’s insult when you came to Kyiv, and the second time, and the third time when I held a funeral feast for my husband. I don’t want to take revenge anymore, I just want to take a small tribute from you and, having made peace with you, I’ll leave.” The Drevlyans asked: “What do you want from us? We are happy to give you honey and furs." She said: “Now you have neither honey nor furs, so I ask you for a little: give me three pigeons and three sparrows from each household. I don’t want to impose a heavy tribute on you, like my husband, which is why I ask little of you. You are exhausted in the siege, that’s why I ask you for this little thing.” The Drevlyans, rejoicing, collected three doves and three sparrows from the courtyard and sent them to Olga with a bow. Olga told them: “Now you have already submitted to me and my child, go to the city, and tomorrow I will retreat from it and go to my city.” The Drevlyans joyfully entered the city and told the people about everything, and the people in the city rejoiced. Olga, having distributed to the soldiers - some a dove, some a sparrow, she ordered to tie a tinder to each dove and sparrow, wrapping it in small handkerchiefs and attaching it to each with a thread. And, when it began to get dark, Olga ordered her soldiers to release pigeons and sparrows. The pigeons and sparrows flew to their nests: the pigeons into the dovecotes, and the sparrows under the eaves, and so they caught fire - where were the dovecotes, where were the cages, where were the sheds and haylofts, and there was not a yard where it was not burning, and it was impossible to extinguish it, since All the yards immediately caught fire. And the people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to grab them. And how she took the city and burned it, took the city elders captive, and killed other people, and gave others into slavery to her husbands, and left the rest to pay tribute.
<Хождение Ольги в Царьград>
Per year 6463 (955). Olga went to the Greek land and came to Constantinople. And then there was Tsar Constantine, the son of Leo, and Olga came to him, and, seeing that she was very beautiful in face and intelligent, the Tsar marveled at her intelligence, talking with her, and said to her: “You are worthy to reign with us in our capital.” . She, having thought it over, answered the king: “I am a pagan; If you want to baptize me, then baptize me yourself - otherwise I won’t be baptized.” And the king and the patriarch baptized her. Having been enlightened, she rejoiced in soul and body; and the patriarch instructed her in the faith and said to her: “Blessed are you among the Russian women, because you loved the light and left the darkness. The Russian sons will bless you until the last generations of your grandchildren.” And he gave her commandments about church rules, and about prayer, and about fasting, and about almsgiving, and about maintaining bodily purity. She stood with her head bowed, listening to the teaching like a watered sponge; and bowed to the patriarch with the words: “Through your prayers, lord, may I be saved from the snares of the devil.” And she was given the name Elena in baptism, just like the ancient queen - the mother of Constantine the Great. And the patriarch blessed her and released her. After baptism, the king called her and told her: “I want to take you as my wife.” She answered: “How do you want to take me when you yourself baptized me and called me daughter? But Christians are not allowed to do this - you know it yourself.” And the king said to her: “You have outwitted me, Olga.” And he gave her numerous gifts - gold, and silver, and fibers, and various vessels; and released her, calling her his daughter. She, getting ready to go home, came to the patriarch and asked him to bless the house, and said to him: “My people and my son are pagans, may God protect me from all evil.” And the patriarch said: “Faithful child! You were baptized in Christ and put on Christ, and Christ will preserve you, as He preserved Enoch in the time of the forefathers, and then Noah in the ark, Abraham from Abimelech, Lot from the Sodomites, Moses from Pharaoh, David from Saul, the three youths from the furnace, Daniel from beasts, so he will deliver you from the wiles of the devil and from his snares.” And the patriarch blessed her, and she went in peace to her land and came to Kyiv. This happened as in the time of Solomon: the Ethiopian queen came to Solomon, seeking to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and saw great wisdom and miracles: in the same way, this blessed Olga was looking for real divine wisdom, but that (the Ethiopian queen) was human, and this one was God’s. “For those who seek wisdom will find.” “Wisdom proclaims in the streets, raises her voice on the highways, preaches on the city walls, loudly speaks in the city gates: How long will the ignorant love ignorance. .." This same blessed Olga, from an early age, sought with wisdom what is best in this world, and found a valuable pearl - Christ. For Solomon said: “The desire of the faithful is pleasant to the soul”; and: “Thou shalt incline thy heart to ponder”; “I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find me.” The Lord said: “He who comes to me I will never cast out.”
<Повесть об осаде Киева печенегами>
Per year 6476 (968). The Pechenegs came to the Russian land for the first time, and Svyatoslav was then in Pereyaslavets, and Olga and her grandchildren, Yaropolk, Oleg and Vladimir, locked themselves in the city of Kyiv. And the Pechenegs besieged the city with great force: there were countless numbers of them around the city, and it was impossible to leave the city or send messages, and the people were exhausted from hunger and thirst. And the people from that side of the Dnieper gathered in boats and stood on the other bank, and it was impossible for any of them to get to Kyiv, or from the city to them. And the people in the city began to grieve and said: “Is there anyone who could cross to the other side and tell them: if you don’t approach the city in the morning, we will surrender to the Pechenegs.” And one youth said: “I will make my way,” and they answered him: “Go.” He left the city, holding a bridle, and ran through the Pecheneg camp, asking them: “Has anyone seen a horse?” For he knew Pecheneg, and they took him for one of their own. And when he approached the river, he threw off his clothes, rushed into the Dnieper and swam. Seeing this, the Pechenegs rushed after him, shot at him, but could not do anything to him, On the other side they noticed this, drove up to him in a boat, took him into the boat and brought him to the squad. And the youth said to them: “If you don’t approach the city tomorrow, the people will surrender to the Pechenegs.” Their commander, named Pretich, said: “We will go tomorrow in boats and, having captured the princess and princes, we will rush to this shore. If we don’t do this, then Svyatoslav will destroy us.” And the next morning, close to dawn, they sat down in the boats and blew a loud trumpet, and the people in the city shouted. The Pechenegs decided that the prince had come, and ran away from the city in all directions. And Olga came out with her grandchildren and people to the boats. The Pechenezh prince, seeing this, returned alone to the governor Pretich and asked: “Who came?” And he answered him: “People of the other side (Dnieper).” Pretich replied: “I am his husband, I came with an advance detachment, and behind me is an army with the prince himself: there are countless of them.” He said this to scare them. The Prince of Pecheneg said to Pretich: “Be my friend.” He replied: “I will do so.” And they shook hands with each other, and the Pecheneg prince gave Pretich a horse, a saber and arrows. The same one gave him chain mail, a shield and a sword. And the Pechenegs retreated from the city, and it was impossible to water the horse: the Pechenegs stood on Lybid. And the people of Kiev sent to Svyatoslav with the words: “You, prince, are looking for someone else’s land and taking care of it, but you left your own, and the Pechenegs, and your mother, and your children almost took us. If you don’t come and protect us, they will take us. Don’t you feel sorry for your fatherland, your old mother, your children?” Hearing this, Svyatoslav and his retinue quickly mounted their horses and returned to Kyiv; He greeted his mother and children and lamented what he had suffered from the Pechenegs. And he gathered soldiers and drove the Pechenegs into the steppe, and peace came.
<Повесть о походе Святослава на Византию>
Per year 6479 (971). Svyatoslav came to Pereyaslavets, and the Bulgarians locked themselves in the city. And the Bulgarians went out to battle with Svyatoslav, and the slaughter was great, and the Bulgarians began to prevail. And Svyatoslav said to his soldiers: “Here we will die; Let us stand courageously, brothers and squad!” And in the evening Svyatoslav prevailed, took the city by storm, and sent it to the Greeks with the words: “I want to go against you and take your capital, like this city.” And the Greeks said: “We cannot bear to resist you, so take tribute from us and for your entire squad and tell us how many of you there are, and we will give according to the number of your warriors.” This is what the Greeks said, deceiving the Russians, for the Greeks are deceitful to this day. And Svyatoslav said to them: “We are twenty thousand,” and added ten thousand: for there were only ten thousand Russians. And the Greeks set one hundred thousand against Svyatoslav, and did not give tribute. And Svyatoslav went against the Greeks, and they came out against the Russians. When the Russians saw them, they were greatly frightened by such a great number of soldiers, but Svyatoslav said: “We have nowhere to go, whether we want it or not, we must fight. So we will not disgrace the Russian land, but we will lie here as bones, for the dead know no shame. If we run, it will be a shame for us. So let’s not run, but we’ll stand strong, and I’ll go ahead of you: if my head falls, then take care of your own.” And the soldiers answered: “Where your head lies, there we will lay our heads.” And the Russians became angry, and there was a cruel slaughter, and Svyatoslav prevailed, and the Greeks fled. And Svyatoslav went to the capital, fighting and destroying cities that stand empty to this day. And the king called his boyars into the chamber and said to them: “What should we do: we can’t resist him?” And the boyars said to him: “Send gifts to him; Let's test him: does he love gold or pavoloki? And he sent gold and grass to him with a wise husband, instructing him: “Watch his appearance, his face, and his thoughts.” He, taking the gifts, came to Svyatoslav. And they told Svyatoslav that the Greeks had come with a bow, and he said: “Bring them in here.” They entered and bowed to him, and laid gold and pavoloks before him. And Svyatoslav said to his youths, looking to the side: “Hide it.” The Greeks returned to the king, and the king summoned the boyars. The messengers said: “We came to him and presented gifts, but he did not even look at them - he ordered them to be hidden.” And one said: “Test him again: send him a weapon.” They listened to him, and sent him a sword and other weapons, and brought them to him. He took it and began to praise the king, expressing love and gratitude to him. Those sent to the king returned again and told him everything that had happened. And the boyars said: “This man will be cruel, for he neglects wealth and takes weapons. Agree to the tribute." And the king sent to him, saying: “Don’t go to the capital, take as much tribute as you want,” for he did not reach Constantinople a little. And they gave him tribute; He also took it from the slain, saying: “He will take his family for the slain.” He took a lot of gifts and returned to Pereyaslavets with great glory. Seeing that he had few squads, he said to himself: “Lest they kill both my squad and me by some cunning.” since many died in battle. And he said: “I’ll go to Rus', I’ll bring more squads.” And he sent ambassadors to the king in Dorostol, for the king was there, saying: “I want to have lasting peace and love with you.” The king, hearing this, rejoiced and sent him more gifts than before. Svyatoslav accepted the gifts and began to think with his squad, saying this: “If we do not make peace with the king and the king finds out that we are few, then they will come and besiege us in the city. But the Russian land is far away, and the Pechenegs are hostile to us, and who will help us? Let us make peace with the king: after all, they have already committed to pay us tribute, and that is enough for us. If they stop paying us tribute, then again from Rus', having gathered many soldiers, we will go to Constantinople.” And this speech was loved by the squad, and they sent the best men to the king, and came to Dorostol, and told the king about it. The next morning the king called them to him and said: “Let the Russian ambassadors speak.” They began: “This is what our prince says: “I want to have true love with the Greek king for all future times.” The tsar was delighted and ordered the scribe to write down all of Svyatoslav’s speeches on the charter. And the ambassador began to make all the speeches, and the scribe began to write. He said this: “A copy of the treaty concluded under Svyatoslav, the Grand Duke of Russia, and under Sveneld, written under Theophilos Sinkel to John, called Tzimiskes, king of the Greeks, in Dorostol, the month of July, 14th indictment, in the year 6479. I, Svyatoslav, the Russian prince, as he swore, I confirm my oath with this agreement: I want, together with all the Russian subjects to me, with the boyars and others, to have peace and true love with all the great Greek kings, with Vasily and with Constantine, and with the divinely inspired kings, and with all your people until the end of the world. And I will never plot against your country, and I will not gather soldiers against it, and I will not bring another people against your country, not the one that is under Greek rule, nor the Korsun country and all the cities there, nor the Bulgarian country. And if anyone else plans against your country, then I will be his opponent and I will fight with him. As I already swore to the Greek kings, and with me to the boyars and all the Russians, may we keep the agreement unchanged. If we do not comply with any of what was said earlier, may I and those who are with me and under me be cursed by the god in whom we believe - in Perun and Volos, the god of cattle, and may we be yellow as gold , and we will be flogged with our weapons. Do not doubt the truth of what we have promised you today, and have written in this charter and sealed with our seals.” Having made peace with the Greeks, Svyatoslav set off in boats to the rapids. And his father’s governor Sveneld said to him: “Go around, prince, the rapids on horseback, for the Pechenegs are standing at the rapids.” And he did not listen to him, and went in the boats. And the Pereyaslavl people sent to the Pechenegs to say: “Here Svyatoslav with a small army is coming past you to Rus', having taken from the Greeks a lot of wealth and countless prisoners.” Hearing about this, the Pechenegs entered the rapids. And Svyatoslav came to the rapids, and it was impossible to pass them. And he stopped to spend the winter in Beloberezhye, and they ran out of food, and they had a great famine, so they paid half a hryvnia for a horse’s head, and here Svyatoslav spent the winter. Per year 6480 (972). When spring came, Svyatoslav went to the rapids. And Kurya, the prince of Pecheneg, attacked him, and they killed Svyatoslav, and took his head, and made a cup from the skull, bound it, and drank from it. Sveneld came to Kyiv to Yaropolk. And all the years of Svyatoslav’s reign were 28.
On December 13, the Orthodox Church celebrates the feast day of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called. The legend about St. Andrew’s journey to Rus', about his visit to Kyiv and Novgorod for more than two centuries, causes heated discussions in Russian science. We offer readers an article by the teacher of the Kyiv Theological Academy V.V. Burega, devoted to a review of the judgments of domestic researchers on this issue.
Perhaps it is safe to say that of all the disciples of Christ the Savior, it was the holy Apostle Andrew who has traditionally attracted (and continues to attract) special attention from Russian historians. Moreover, this applies equally to both church and secular historiography. Even during the Soviet period, when, it would seem, church topics, for obvious reasons, were not the focus of attention of researchers, mentions of the Apostle Andrew never disappeared from the pages of scientific publications. Any serious researcher of Russian chronicles simply could not pass over in silence the legend about the journey to Rus' of the Apostle Andrew, placed in the Tale of Bygone Years. So for more than two centuries this plot has remained one of the traditional and hardly solvable problems of Russian historiography.
Early historiography (first half of the 19th century)
During the period from the beginning of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, even the very formulation of problems associated with the chronicle legend about the Apostle Andrew underwent fundamental changes. Researchers who stood at the origins of Russian historical science usually formulated the problem simply: was there Saint Andrew in Rus'? That is, historians of the first half of the 19th century discussed, first of all, the problem of the historicity of the story preserved as part of the original Russian chronicle. So, for example, A.L. Schlötzer, in his study of the Venerable Nestor the Chronicler, limited himself to the statement that “Nestor’s story about the walk of the Apostle Andrew is nothing more than a pious fairy tale.”
The first church historian who tried to comprehend this legend from a scientific point of view was Moscow Metropolitan Platon (Levshin). In his “Brief Russian Church History” (1805), he, without directly rejecting the historicity of the legend, expressed a number of considerations that cast doubt on this legend. Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov), on the contrary, considered it quite probable that Saint Andrew would travel not only along the Black Sea coast, but also “in the interior regions of our fatherland.” At the same time, he admitted that in the chronicle legend “there is a slight oddity” regarding the story about the Novgorod baths. “But this is a necessary growth and embellishment,” writes the Bishop, “without which the most reliable tradition, preserved for centuries in the mouths of the people, cannot do; this strangeness concerns a completely foreign subject in the narrative, it can be thrown away, it can be changed and further increased, and the basis of the narrative about the journey of the First-Called in Russia will remain intact.”
Archbishop Filaret (Gumilevsky) expressed a skeptical attitude towards the chronicle legend. In the first volume of his “History of the Russian Church” (1847), he writes that the Monk Nestor conveyed the legend about the Apostle Andrew only as a private opinion (in the “Tale of Bygone Years” the legend is equipped with a clause: “like a decision”). In one of his letters to A.V. Gorsky, Bishop Filaret wrote that Macarius (Bulgakov) amuses the reader with “watery stories without thought and strength and empty guesses about the preaching of the apostle. Andrew to the Slavs."
As is known, Academician E. E. Golubinsky made a particularly derogatory criticism of the legend. In the first part of the first volume of his “History of the Russian Church” (1880), he stated that the source of the legends about the Apostle Andrew is “the ambition and vanity of our ancestors.” Golubinsky believed that the apostle simply had no need to go to the Kyiv Mountains, since this area was simply not yet populated at the beginning of our era. In addition, he emphasized that the path by which the Apostle Andrew wanted to reach Rome is completely incredible. Sending an apostle from Korsun to Rome via Kyiv and Novgorod, according to Evgeniy Evstigneevich, is the same as “sending someone from Moscow to St. Petersburg by way of Odessa.”
Historiography of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries
However, in the second half of the 19th century one can see a new trend in historiography. The question of the historicity of the chronicle narrative gradually faded into the background. Now researchers are striving, first of all, to answer the question of when and for what reason a legend about the Apostle Andrew’s journey here was formed in Rus'. In addition, in the second half of the century, critical editions of apocryphal tales dedicated to St. Andrew appeared in the West. First of all, these are “The Acts of the Apostles Andrew and Matthew in the Land of the Anthropophagi”, “The Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Andrew” and “The Acts and Torment of the Holy Apostle Andrew”. This also introduces new trends into Russian historiography.
One of the first to draw attention to the new range of sources was the founder of Russian Byzantine studies, Academician V. G. Vasilievsky. In his detailed article, which first appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education in 1877, he drew attention to the fact that medieval church writers had a common belief in the relative historical reliability of apocryphal monuments. Vasilievsky suggested that church writers who reported brief information about the apostles (primarily Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea) borrowed this information from more ancient apocryphal sources.
Vasilievsky showed that in Rus' there were some monuments in circulation dedicated to the holy apostles, which did not reach us. Perhaps one of them served as the basis for the creation of a chronicle legend. Vasilievsky also published (in Russian translation) and researched two letters from the Byzantine Emperor Michael VII Ducas, which he believed were addressed to the Kyiv prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich. He dated both letters to the 70s of the 11th century. In one of them, the emperor wrote: “Our states both have one certain source and root, ... the same saving word was spread in both, ... the same witnesses of the divine sacrament and its messengers proclaimed the word of the Gospel in them ". Academician Vasilievsky considers these words to be an indication of the legend about the preaching of the Apostle Andrew both in Byzantium and in the Russian land. According to the scientist, the quoted letter gives reason to believe that the legend included in the “Tale of Bygone Years” was not an invention of a local scribe, but came from Greece, although today it is impossible to indicate its specific source.
The line outlined by V. G. Vasilievsky was continued by S. P. Petrovsky. In his study, published in 1897-98 in the “Notes of the Imperial Odessa Society of History and Antiquities,” he examines the editions and translations of apocryphal tales about the acts of the apostles into different languages (Ethiopian, Coptic, Syriac) and reveals the evolution of these texts over the centuries . Petrovsky shows that the earliest editions of apocryphal monuments date back to the 1st-2nd centuries. For example, “The Acts of the Apostles Andrew and Matthew in the Land of the Anthropophagi” and “The Acts of the Apostles Andrew and Peter” were written in the first half of the 2nd century. Thus, these sources are older than the brief information contained in the works of Origen. The researcher also suggested that apocryphal tales record the tradition that developed in the places where the apostles preached.
A special contribution to the study of the problem of the genesis of the Russian legend about the Apostle Andrew was made by professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy I. I. Malyshevsky. In his article published in 1888, he drew attention to the fact that the legend about the Apostle Andrew’s visit to Rus' is not found in earlier Russian monuments. For example, Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev in his “Sermon on Law and Grace” directly says that the Russian land did not see the apostles. The legend also does not agree with the more ancient parts of the chronicle (the lives of Boris and Gleb). Hence Malyshevsky’s first conclusion: the indicated legend “is a later insertion” into the initial chronicle. Further, Malyshevsky shows that, most likely, this legend did not have a direct written source. According to the researcher, the legend about the Apostle Andrew was included in the chronicle with the aim of elevating the Russian land. That is why Saint Andrew strangely decides to go to Rome, bypassing Greece. And the appearance in the legend of a clearly apocryphal story about the Novgorod baths should be interpreted as an attempt to elevate Kyiv above Novgorod.
Malyshevsky believed that the legend was formed in Rus' during the reign of the Kyiv prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich (1078-1095). It is indirectly attested in a letter from Emperor Michael VII Duca; it is also indicated by the appearance at this time in Rus' of the first churches in honor of St. Andrew (in 1086 in Kyiv and in 1089 in Pereslavl). However, according to Malyshevsky, this legend received literary form only in the 12th century during the reign of Metropolitan Clement Smolyatich (1147-1155) under the Grand Duke Izyaslav Mstislavich, when the idea of the apostolic pre-election of Kyiv served as a justification for the rights of the Kyiv Metropolis to exist independently from Constantinople. At the same time, Malyshevsky specifically emphasizes that the legend could not have been included in the chronicle later than the middle of the 12th century, since it was preserved in almost all editions of the initial chronicle (except for Novgorod). It is quite obvious that the legend found its way into Russian chronicles even when “the Kiev Chronicle continued as a general chronicle of all Rus', when our chronicles did not yet diverge very much into local branches, which only happened in the second half of the 12th century.”
Professor Malyshevsky’s concept became a classic, and for several decades it was his opinion on the origin of the chronicle legend that was the most authoritative in science. To a large extent, this concept has not lost its relevance to this day.
An original attempt to answer the question about the historicity of the legend about the Apostle Andrew’s visit to Rus' was made in 1907 by A. V. Kartashev. In the magazine “Christian Reading” he published an article “Was the Apostle Andrew in Rus'?”, which was later included in his “Essays on the History of the Russian Church”. “Even if ap. Andrei did not physically reach the borders of our land in his apostolic labors, writes Kartashev, but this does not change the essence of the matter... The lot that fell to each apostle constituted his, so to speak, geographical destiny on the map of the spread of Christianity... From Jerusalem, as it were, radii were mentally drawn, and the sectors of the circle enclosed between them constituted the destinies of the apostleship, exceeding in their universal dimensions the powers and life span of a person.” Thus, no matter where Saint Andrew went with his preaching, he remains the heavenly patron of the lot that befell him. And this destiny, undoubtedly, includes the Russian land. It is quite obvious that with this approach the problem of the historicity of the analyzed chronicle legend is actually removed.
Historiography of the second half of the twentieth century
In the post-revolutionary period, the historiography of the issue underwent new, quite understandable changes. Attempts to continue the pre-revolutionary tradition of studying legends were made only abroad. In Soviet historiography, the problem of the historicity of the chronicle legend about the Apostle Andrew was not discussed. Soviet researchers a priori proceeded from the fact that this story “does not belong to the number of historical facts.” At the same time, the analysis of the content of the original chronicle, even in this paradigm, could not be considered satisfactory without solving two questions of a fundamental nature: “when the legend arose and when it was entered into the chronicle.” In addition, Soviet researchers paid special attention to the internal analysis of the legend, which led to the emergence of a number of new versions in science. However, a clear answer to the questions posed was never received.
For example, Professor A.G. Kuzmin, analyzing the content of the legend, drew attention to the “mocking tone” of the chronicler in relation to the Novgorodians. The researcher came to the conclusion that such a story about Novgorod most likely could have appeared during the “rule of the Yaroslavichs (that is, in the second half of the 11th century - V.B.), when Novgorod did not have any permanent princes, and for a number of years did without them at all.” In addition, Professor Kuzmin paid special attention to the seemingly unusual journey of the Apostle Andrew from Sinop to Rome via Kyiv and Novgorod. He recalls that, according to available information, the papal legates in 1054, after breaking communication with Patriarch Michael Cerularius, returned to Rome from Constantinople through Rus'. It is characteristic that already at the beginning of the 12th century, as can be seen from the “Walking of Abbot Daniel,” people were heading to the Mediterranean basin through Constantinople. Professor Kuzmin believes that for the legend of the Apostle Andrew this is the top dating sign. The conclusion of A.G. Kuzmin is extremely important. He insists that “The legend of the Apostle Andrew is associated in the chronicle with such texts, the origin of which does not extend beyond the 11th century.” In addition, the legend itself, in his opinion, reflects the ideological trends and ideas of the 11th century.
Thus, A.G. Kuzmin to a certain extent agreed with the concept of Professor Malyshevsky, with the only difference that Kuzmin rejected the latter’s opinion about the inclusion of the legend in the chronicle only in the 12th century. Professor Kuzmin still insisted that the legend entered the chronicle narrative already in the second half of the 11th century.
The famous German Slavist Ludolf Müller also expressed important considerations regarding the chronicle legend. He also turned to an internal analysis of the chronicle story and tried to present a new perspective on the plot of the apostle’s visit to Novgorod. Usually this plot is perceived as humorous. The Apostle, being from the southern (relative to Rus') lands, is surprised at the strange northern custom of steaming in a bathhouse and whipping oneself with rods. He perceives this as a special kind of torment. Arriving in Rome, Saint Andrew tells the Romans, first of all, precisely about this feature of the northerners. Muller, following D. Gerhard, points out an interesting parallel to this plot. The Jesuit Dionysius Fabricius, who lived in the 16th century, in his “History of Livonia” reports an amusing story that happened in the 13th century. The monks of the Falkenau monastery asked the pope for financial help, while reporting on the special ascetic work of the local monks: every Saturday they heated a hot bath in which they steamed, dousing themselves with cold water and whipping themselves with rods. The Pope sent a monk to Livonia to verify this information. Having visited Livonia, this monk actually saw that local monks were torturing themselves in the bathhouse, after which the pope provided them with the desired financial assistance.
Based on this message from Fabricius, Gerhard believed that in the Russian chronicle the “torment” of the Novgorodians is spoken of not in an ironic sense, but “as a completely serious ascetic rite.” Müller believes that the story of the Falkenau monastery and the Russian chronicle legend had a “common predecessor.” He also tried to show that the story about the Novgorod baths was not originally part of the legend about the walk of Andrei.
Müller also points out that the letter from the Byzantine Emperor Michael VII Duca, which, according to Vasilievsky, was sent to Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich, was actually sent to a completely different addressee (Norman Prince Robert Guiscard). Nevertheless, Müller fully shares the opinion that the legend of the Apostle Andrew appeared in Rus' in the 80s of the 11th century as a definite solution to the problem of the “apostolic origin” of the Russian Church. After this, over the course of about thirty years, the legend spread from Kyiv to Novgorod, where it was enriched by the story of a local steam room. As a result, Muller came to a peculiar conclusion. Denying the historicity of the legend about the walk of the Apostle Andrew, he still believed that this legend is neither a “pious fairy tale” nor a “meaningless interweaving of three fragments.” Müller believed that the legend “is a product of historiographical thinking. The desire to find a direct connection between the emergence of Christianity in Rus' and the apostolic origin of the Church leads at the end of the 11th century. to the conviction that the apostle, heading to Rome along the northern route, passed through Rus'. And since he was considered the first southerner to visit Northern Rus', an anecdote telling about the surprise of southerners at northern baths was associated with his name.” Thus, the author of the tale seems to be a scrupulous researcher, collecting information about the early history of Rus' with special care and accuracy. That is why he does not ignore the legend of St. Andrew, but includes it in his work, providing it with the clause “like a decision.”
The original vision of the outlined problem can also be seen in the works of Academician A. M. Panchenko. This famous researcher tried to develop the thoughts of D. Gerhard and L. Muller regarding the special meaning of the plot about the Novgorod baths. Academician Panchenko connects stories about bathhouse self-torture (real or imaginary) with the movement of flagellants, i.e. “scourges” ( flagellare- whip, flog, beat, torment), which became widespread in Western Europe after 1260. “The flagellants themselves were scourged in monasteries, they scourged parishioners before absolution. Processions of flagellants... flooded Italy, Southern France, then Germany, Flanders, reaching Moravia, Hungary and Poland. Gathering in crowds, exposing themselves (even in the winter cold), they “depressed” the flesh.” Panchenko admits that the legend about the Apostle Andrew appeared much earlier than 1260 and therefore cannot be due to the movement of the flagellants. However, the doctrine of self-torture was known in the West until the 13th century, and therefore Panchenko still sees “the meaning of the Novgorod journey” in the fact that “the observer encountered a culture that did not at all praise self-abasement and self-destruction.” However, in our opinion, the lines of understanding the Novgorod plot outlined by Panchenko have not been brought to any clear concept.
Modern historiography
A number of important publications appeared in Russia in the 1990-2000s. It is characteristic that at this time one can again see a certain return to the problems characteristic of pre-revolutionary historiography. In this regard, the article by S. A. Belyaev, placed as an introduction in the first volume of the republished “History” of Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov), is very characteristic. The author gives here a fairly complete overview of the opinions expressed both in pre-revolutionary and Soviet historical science. At the same time, S. A. Belyaev specifically dwells on the analysis of those objections that Academician E. E. Golubinsky once put forward against the reliability of the chronicle legend. Using data obtained in the twentieth century by Soviet archaeologists, Belyaev convincingly shows that “the region where the Apostle Andrei was heading was not a desert, but had long been developed and inhabited.” The author also emphasizes that the route from Crimea to Rome through Kyiv and Novgorod, which seemed strange to Golubinsky, actually existed: “the direction of this route, its beginning and end, the issues of protecting travelers on the road, the organization of travel have been well developed by Western researchers on the basis of written sources and vast material , obtained through excavations." S. A. Belyaev stands in solidarity with Metropolitan Macarius, recognizing the historicity of the fact of the journey of the Apostle Andrew not only along the Black Sea coast, but also in the internal territories of the future Kievan Rus.
In 2000, the introductory volume of the Orthodox Encyclopedia was published. It is dedicated to the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. The question of the stay of the Holy Apostle Andrew in the Russian land is covered here in a special section. The authors (Archimandrite Macarius (Veretennikov) and I.S. Chichurov) acknowledge that “the Greek and especially Old Russian traditions of legends about the ap. Andrey has not been studied enough yet.” Therefore, “clarification of the specific historical basis of the stories about the apostle” is considered “impossible” at this stage. Nevertheless, the authors trace the late antique and ancient Russian traditions about the walks of St. Andrew and show that it testifies to the preaching of the holy apostle in the Black Sea region. Citing the chronicle legend about the Apostle Andrew’s visit to Kyiv, the authors once again emphasize that “the question of the sources of the chronicle legend is complex and insufficiently studied.” Particularly interesting is the authors’ indication of the existence of different versions of the legend about the Apostle Andrew in the Russian “Prologue”. More than a thousand copies of this monument have been preserved, which also remain insufficiently studied.
In 2001, the article “St. Andrew the First-Called” was published in the second volume of the Orthodox Encyclopedia. The authors (A. Yu. Vinogradov, M. Surguladze, T. V. Anokhina, O. V. Loseva), analyzing early Christian and Byzantine writing dedicated to St. Andrew, note the presence of two traditions in it. The first dates back to the 2nd century and is recorded in a number of apocryphal monuments. The second goes back to at least the first half of the 3rd century and is recorded in Origen's Commentary on Genesis. At a later time, on the basis of both traditions (as a result of their processing), the canonical lives of the Apostle Andrew were created. Of the latter, the most widely circulated was the Life of Andrew, written between 815 and 843 by Epiphanius the Monk. All subsequent authors who wrote about the Apostle Andrew relied on this monument (Nikita David Paphlagon, Simeon Metaphrastus). The Byzantine tradition was adopted and developed in Georgia and Rus'. The authors trace in some detail the history of the veneration of the Apostle Andrew in Russia, while avoiding answering the question about the historicity of the legend contained in The Tale of Bygone Years. However, on the map “Missionary Travels of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called”, located on p. 371, the journey of the holy apostle from Chersonesus to Kyiv and Novgorod is not indicated.
