The final form of the Primary Chronicle, compiled early in the twelfth century, was probably based on the work of many hands during the preceding century; and it became, in turn, the starting point for innumerable subsequent chronicles of even greater length and detail. The reverence with which these sacred histories were regarded soon made slight changes in narration or genealogy an effective form of political and ideological warfare among fractious princes and monasteries. Variations in the phraseology of the chronicles remain one of the best guides to the internecine political straggles of medieval Russia for those able to master this esoteric form of communication.22
Much more than most monastic chronicles of the medieval West, the , Russian chronicles are a valuable source of profane as well as sacred history. A miscellany of non-Christian elements, political and economic information, and even integral folk tales are often presented within the traditional framework of sacred history. In general, Kiev was a relatively cosmopolitan and tolerant cultural center. The chronicles frequently testify to the persistence of older pagan rites. The hallowed walls of the Santa Sophia in Kiev contain a series of purely secular frescoes. The first and most widely copied Russian account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land includes more dispassionate geographical and ethnographic description than do most contemporary accounts by Western pilgrims and crusaders.23 The famous epic The Lay of the Host of Igor is far more rich in secular allusions and subject matter than epics of the Muscovite period. If one considers it an authentic work of this period, both the worldliness and literary genius of Kievan Russia become
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even more impressive.2*
Secular literature no less than theology was infused with a sense of history. As a leading Soviet historian of old Russian literature has written:
Every narrative subject in Russian medieval literature was looked on as having taken place historically. . . .
The active figures of old-Russian narrative tales were always historical figures, orTigures whose historical existence-even when apocryphal -permitted,Qf no doubt. Even in those cases where a contrived figure was introduced, he was surrounded with a swarm of historical memories, creating the illusion of real existence in the past.
The action of the narrative always took place in precisely delineated historical circumstances or, more often, in works of old Russian literature, related directly to historical events themselves.
That is why in medieval Russian literature there were no works in the purely entertaining genres, but the spirit of historicism penetrated it all
in.in beginning to end. This gave Russian medieval literature tne stamp 01 Mrtleular seriousness and particular significance.25
The desire to find both roots and vindication in history grew partlyjput ?! the insecurity of the Eastern plain. Geography, not history, had tradi-
illy dominated the thinking of the Eurasian steppe. Harsh seasonal
¦ les, a few, distant rivers, and sparse patterns of rainfall and soil fertility mtrolled the lives of the ordinary peasant; and the ebb and flow of nomadic conquerors often seemed little more than the senseless movement of surface I ibjects on an unchanging and unfriendly sea.
Any steppe people who felt that time really mattered-and that they as « pcopleTiarTa mission to perform in time-was automatically distinct. Conversion to the profoundly historical creed of Judaism had prolonged the" life nl 1 he exposed Khazar empire to the south; and to the east, the Volga llulgars had attained an importance out of all proportion to their numbers by accepting Islam. Christianity had appeared in history midway in time I ui ween these two monotheisms, and the Christianity which took root amone ilie l.astern Slavs provided many of the same psychological satisfactions as tlic prophetic creeds adopted by their neighboring civilizations.
There is a historical cast to the most widely reproduced sermon of the Kievan period, Metropolitan Ilarion's "On Law and Grace." It was apparently first delivered on Easter in 1049, just two days after the feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin in the church of the Annunciation, near the ‹ loldcn Gate of the city, to celebrate the completion of the walls around Kiev.2" After contrasting the law of the Old Testament with the grace made possible through the New, Ilarion rushes on to depict something rather like I he coming age of glory on Russian soil. He bids Vladimir rise from the dead and look upon Kiev transformed into a kind of New Jerusalem. Vladimir's son, Yaroslav the Wise, has built the Santa Sophia, "the great and holy lemple of Divine Wisdom;," within the walls of "the city of glory, Kiev," just as David's son Solomon had raised up a temple within Jerusalem in the time of the law.27 Like the people of Israel, the Kievans were called upon not just to profess the faith but to testify in deeds their devotion to the living (loci. Thus, churches were built and a city transformed under Yaroslav, not lor decorative effect, but for Christian witness. In response to God's gracious gilt of His Son, God's people were returning their offering of praise and thanksgiving. The forms of art and worship were those hallowed by the one "right-praising" Church in which His Holy Spirit dwelt.
Conservative adherence to past practices was to serve, ironically, to heighten radical expectations of an approaching end to history. Believing that the forms of art and worship should be preserved intact until the second
coming of Christ, Russians tended to explain unavoidable innovations as signs that the promised end was drawing near. Though this "eschatological psychosis" was to be more characteristic of the later Muscovite period, there are already traces of it in the dark prophetic preaching of Abraham of Smolensk.28
Kievan Russia received such unity as it attained essentially through waves of conversion-moving north from Kiev and out from the princely .court in each city to ever wider sections of the surrounding populace. Conversion was apparently more important than colonization in unifying the region,29 and each new wave of converts tended to adopt not merely the Byzantine but the Kievan heritage as well. The Slavonic language became the uniform vehicle for writing and worship, slowly driving the Finno-Ugrian tongues which originally dominated much of northern Russia to peripheral regions: Finland and Esthonia to the west and the Mordvin and Chefemis regions to the east along the Volga. The sense, of historic destiny grew; and the idea of Christianity as a religion of victorious combat increased as the obstacles-both pagan and natural-grew more formidable.
Everywhere that the new faith went it was dramatically translated into monuments of church architecture: j the magnificent Santa Sophia in Novgorod, the second city of early Russia and a point of commercial contact with the Germanic peoples of the Baltic; the lavish Cathedral of the Assumption in Vladimir, the favored northern headquarters for the Kievan princes and a key center on the upper Volga. Both of these twelfth-century masterpieces were modeled on (and named after) counterparts in Kiev; but the building of churches extended beyond the cities, even beyond the records of monastic chroniclers, out to such forbidding spots as the shores of Lake Ladoga. There, in the late 1160's, the church of St. George was built and adorned with beautiful frescoes which illustrate the fidelity to tradition and sense of destiny that were present in the chronicles. The fact that this memorable church is not even mentioned in the chronicles points to the probability that there were many other vanished monuments of this kind. Named after the saintly dragon slayer who became a special hero of the Russian north, St. George's was probably built as a votive offering for victory in battle over the Swedes.30 Byzantine in its iconography, the surviving frescoes reveal nonetheless a preoccupation with the details of the Last Judgment, which-characteristically in Russian churches-dominated, and even extended beyond, the confines of the inner west wall.