When Níkon passed from power, lesser men took up the battle. Chief among these was Archimandrite Simeón Polótzky (already mentioned), who lived from 1626-1681, and was the first learned man to become tutor to a Tzarévitch. The spirit of the times no longer permitted the heir to the throne to be taught merely to read and write from the primer, the Psalter, and the "Book of Hours"; and Alexéi Mikháilovitch appointed Simeón Polótzky instructor to the Tzarévitch Feódor.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

  1. What unfavorable conditions do we find in Russian society at the beginning of the sixteenth century?
  2. Who was Maxím the Greek, and what service did he render to his times?
  3. What was the purpose of the "House-Regulator" of Pope Sylvester?
  4. How does he define the duties of woman?
  5. What early attempts at printing were made in Russia?
  6. What qualities of Iván the Terrible may be seen in his writings?
  7. Describe his correspondence with Prince Kúrbsky.
  8. How do Kúrbsky's qualities compare with those of the Tzar, as shown in this correspondence?
  9. Why is Kúrbsky's history of Moscow a remarkable work?
  10. What great work was done by Moghíla and his Academy?
  11. How did his influence prove very far-reaching?
  12. What did other writers of this time say of the need for better education in Russia?
  13. Describe the career of the famous Patriarch Níkon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER V

FOURTH PERIOD, FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TO THE EPOCH OF REFORM UNDER PETER THE GREAT.

Even in far-away, northeastern Russia a break is apparent in the middle of the sixteenth century; and during the reign of Iván the Terrible, a new sort of historical composition came into vogue—the so-called "Stépennaya Kníga," or "Book of Degrees" (or steps), wherein the national history was set forth in order, according to the Degrees of the Princely Houses in the lines of descent from Rúrik to Iván the Terrible in twenty degrees. This method found favor, and another degree was added in the seventeenth century, bringing the history down to the death of the Tzar Alexéi Mikháilovitch. During the seventeenth century many attempts were made at collections and chronicles, the only one approaching fullness being the "Chronicle of Níkon," so-called, probably, because it was compiled by order of the Patriarch Níkon.

During the seventeenth century a fad also sprang up of writing everything, even school-books, petitions, and calendars in versified form, which was known as vírshi, and imported from Poland to Moscow by Simeón Polótzky. At that time, also, it was the fashion for school-boys to act plays as a part of their regular course of study in the schools in southwest Russia; and in particular, in Peter Moghíla's Academy in Kíeff. Plays of a religious character had, naturally, been imported from western Europe, through Poland, in the seventeenth century, but as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century certain church ceremonies in Russia were celebrated in a purely dramatic form, suggestive of the mystery plays in western Europe. The most curious and famous of these was that which represented the casting of the Three Holy Children into the Fiery Furnace, and their miraculous rescue from the flames by an angel. This was enacted on the Wednesday before Christmas, during Matins, in Moscow and other towns, the first performance, so far as is known, having been in the beginning of the sixteenth century, it being mentioned, in the year 1548, in the finance-books of the archiepiscopal residence of St. Sophia at Nóvgorod. The "furnace" was a circular structure of wood, on architectural lines, gayly painted with the figures of appropriate holy men; specimens have been preserved, one being in the Archeological Museum in St. Petersburg.