QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
- What was the effect of the Tatár raids upon Kíeff?
- What striking illustration have we of the weak religious literature of this time?
- What were the "decorated narratives"? To what famous epic are they similar in style?
- What foreign character have the secular tales of this period?
- What famous collection of Legends of the Saints was made in the sixteenth century?
CHAPTER IV
THIRD PERIOD, FROM THE TIME OF IVÁN THE TERRIBLE, 1530, TO THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Political events had tended to concentrate absolute power in the hands of the Grand Princes of Moscow, beginning with Iván III. But no counterbalancing power had arisen in Russian society; there was no independent life, no respect for the individual, no public opinion to counteract the abuse of power. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Russian society had reached the extreme limits of development possible to it under its unfavorable conditions. The time for the Russian Renaissance had arrived. It is well to remember that at this time in other parts of Europe also the spirit of despotism and intolerance was holding individual liberty in check. This was the age of Henry VIII., of Catherine de Medici, of the Inquisition, and of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
In this century of transition, the sixteenth, the man who exerted over the spirit of the age more influence than any other was Maxím the Greek (1480-1556), a learned scholar, a monk of Mt. Athos, educated chiefly in Italy. He was invited to Russia by Grand Prince Vasíly Ivánovitch, for the purpose of cataloguing a rich store of Greek manuscripts in the library of the Grand Prince. To his influence is due one of the most noteworthy books of the sixteenth century, the "Stogláva," or "Hundred Chapters," a set of regulations adopted by the young Tzar Iván Vasílievitch (afterwards known as Iván the Terrible), the son of Vasíly, and by the most enlightened nobles of his time at a council held in 1551. Their object was to reform the decadent morals of the clergy, and various ecclesiastical and social disorders, and in particular, the absolute illiteracy arising from the lack of schools. Another famous work of the same century is the "Domostróy," or "House-Regulator," attributed to Pope (priest) Sylvester, the celebrated confessor and counselor of Iván the Terrible in his youth. In an introduction and sixty-three chapters Sylvester sets forth the principles which should regulate the life of every layman, the management of his household and family, his relations to his neighbors, his manners in church, his conduct towards his sovereign and the authorities, his duties towards his servants and subordinates, and so forth. The most curious part of the work deals with the minute details of domestic economy—one injunction being, that all men shall live in accordance with their means or their salary—and family relations, in the course of which the position of woman in Russia of the sixteenth century is clearly defined. This portion is also of interest as the forerunner of a whole series of articles in Russian literature on women, wherein the latter are depicted in the most absurd manner, the most gloomy colors—articles known as "About Evil Women"—and founded on an admiration for Byzantine asceticism. In his Household Regulations Sylvester thus defines the duties of woman:
"She goeth to church according to opportunity and the counsel of her husband. Husbands must instruct their wives with care and judicious chastisement. If a wife live not according to the precepts of her husband, her husband must reprove her in private, and after that he hath so reproved her, he must pardon her, and lay upon her his further injunctions; but they must not be wroth one with the other.... And only when wife, son, or daughter accept not reproof shall he flog them with a whip, but he must not beat them in the presence of people, but in private; and he shall not strike them on the ear, or in the face, or under the heart with his fist, nor shall he kick them, or thrash them with a cudgel, or with any object of iron or wood. But if the fault be great, then, removing the offender's shirt, he shall beat him (or her) courteously with a whip," and so forth.
We have seen that Iván IV. (the Terrible) took the initiative in reforms. After the conquest of Kazán he established many churches in that territory and elsewhere in Russia, and purchased an immense quantity of manuscript service-books for their use, many of which turned out to be utterly useless, on account of the ignorance and carelessness of the copyists. This circumstance is said to have enforced upon Iván's attention the advisability of establishing printing-presses in Russia; though there is reason to believe that Maxím the Greek had, long before, suggested the idea to the Tzar. Accordingly, the erection of a printing-house was begun in 1543, but it was only in April, 1563, that printing could be begun, and in March, 1564, the first book was completed—The Acts of the Apostles. The first book printed in Slavonic, however, is the "Októikh," or "Book of the Eight Canonical Tones," containing the Hymns for Vespers, Matins, and kindred church services, which was printed in Cracow seventy years earlier; and thirty years earlier, Venice was producing printed books in the Slavonic languages, while even in Lithuania and White Russia printed books were known earlier than in Moscow. After printing a second book, the "Book of Hours" (the Tchasoslóff)—also connected with Vespers, Matins, kindred services, and the Liturgy, in addition—in 1565, the printers, both Russians, were accused of heresy, of spoiling the book, and were compelled to flee from Moscow. In 1568 other printers produced in Moscow the Psalter, and other books. In 1580, in Ostróg, Government of Volhýnia, in a printing-house founded by Prince Konstantín Konstantínovitch Ostrózhsky, was printed the famous Ostrózhsky Bible, which was as handsome as any product of the contemporary press anywhere in Europe.
Nevertheless, manuscripts continued to circulate side by side with printed books, even during the reign of Peter the Great.