UDC

Authors

Abstract

This article turns to the works of the “long-forgotten” writer V.Ya. Nikonov (“Arkhangelsk-dweller”), born in the Arkhangelsk province, to study the unique introduction of religious and spiritual content in the essay genre. Nikonov’s essays are devoted to the religious life of the Russian North and are rich in historical and ethnographic material. Such religious content deepens the documentary material, serves a “spiritual vector” directing our process of its rethinking and brings the essay closer to chronicles. The materials in Nikonov’s essays allow us to talk of the special nature of the essay chronotope which, mainly focusing on the concrete historical perspective, at the same time reveals the deep historical value and meaning providing insights into the historical and the timeless. In his essays, Nikonov turns to the early Russian literature (monastic chronicles, lives, cadastres and folklore) seen by him as a treasure trove of folk spiritual culture. Important elements of the genre and composition in the essays are historical portraits, landscapes and religious ecphrasis. The landscape descriptions always include a church or a monastery seen as a certain “spiritual vertical line” of the Russian national landscape. Religious ecphrasis is characterized by syncretic perception; integrity of the sacred space is organized by means of spiritual objects of worship (icons and relics). This research contributes to the study of Russian essays, which in the first half of the 19th century (during the formation of Russian realism) did not only have documentary and factual character, but also preserved the traditions of Russian spiritual literature dating back to early medieval Russia, when the national history, man’s place in it and the significance of the religious word were interpreted in spiritual terms.

Keywords

References

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