Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus: biography, political activity. What to read about Byzantium Vantukh Konstantin and Byzantine literature

3. Ancient Russian Literature and the Byzantine Tradition on Muslim Civilization The point was not only that the Arabistic knowledge of the Greeks and Byzantines never stood high: they were usually limited to information about Islam, most often in a distorted form, and

BYZANTINE LITERATURE in the second half of the 9th–12th centuries

BYZANTINE LITERATURE in the second half of the 9th–12th centuries The period of Byzantine history of three and a half centuries from the middle of the 9th to the beginning of the 13th century. historical science defines as the period of the final formation and flourishing of feudalism. This period has sharply defined

BYZANTINE LITERATURE XIII-XV centuries.

BYZANTINE LITERATURE XIII-XV centuries.

Porphyrogenitus was born in 905. He was the son of Leo VI, originally from the Macedonian dynasty. His figure is of particular interest to historians. The fact is that this ruler during his time on the throne was not so much involved in politics as he devoted his time to science and the study of books. He was a writer and left behind a rich literary legacy.

Heir to the throne

The only son of Leo VI the Philosopher Constantine Porphyrogenitus was born from his marriage to his fourth wife. Because of this, according to Christian rules, he could not occupy the throne. Nevertheless, Leo wanted to see his son as emperor and therefore, during his lifetime, he made him his co-ruler. With his death in 912, the year began. As a result, the younger brother of the deceased Alexander came to power. He removed the young Constantine from the administration of affairs, and also deprived all the supporters of his nephew of influence. It seemed that the new emperor firmly took power into his own hands. However, already in 913, not yet old Alexander died from a long illness.

Loss of real power

Now Constantine finally became emperor. However, he was only 8 years old. Because of this, a regency council was established, headed by Patriarch Nikolai Mystik. has always been distinguished by the instability of power, which was transferred from hand to hand through conspiracies and military coups. The precarious position of the regency council allowed the naval commander Roman Lekapin to stand at the head of the state.

In 920, he declared himself emperor. At the same time, at first, the new autocrat declared himself only as a defender of the legitimate minor emperor. However, Lekapinus managed to paralyze the will of Constantine without much difficulty, who was not at all interested in power and treated it as a burden.

Under Romanus Lakapinus

The new ruler did not belong to the previously reigning dynasty, so he decided to legitimize himself by marrying Constantine to his daughter Elena. The young man was removed from real power. He devoted his youth to science and reading books. At that time, Constantinople was one of the world centers of education. Thousands of unique tomes dedicated to various disciplines and cultures were stored here. It was they who fascinated the young man for life.

At this time, Roman Lecapenus surrounded Constantine with people loyal to himself, who followed the legitimate monarch. As the real ruler usurped power more and more, conspiracies began to appear among the aristocracy directed against him. Almost every year, new traitors were identified, who were dealt with without much ceremony. Any methods were used: intimidation, confiscation of property, monastic tonsure and, of course, executions.

Return of the imperial title

Konstantin Porphyrogenitus received his nickname in honor of the name of the hall in the imperial palace in which he was born. This epithet emphasized his legitimacy, which Father Leo VI wanted so much.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus for most of his life was content with only attending formal ceremonies. He was not trained to manage the army, so he was not interested in a military career. Instead, Konstantin was engaged in science. Thanks to his works, modern historians can draw up the most complete picture of the life of Byzantium in the 10th century.

In 944, the usurper Romanus Lekapenos was overthrown by his own sons. Riots broke out in the capital. Ordinary residents did not like the chaos in power. Everyone wanted to see the legitimate heir of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and not the children of the usurper, at the head of the state. Finally, the son of Leo VI finally became emperor. He remained so until 959, when he died unexpectedly. Some historians are supporters of the theory that the ruler was poisoned by his son Roman.

Literary works of Constantine

The main book that Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus left behind was the treatise "On the Management of the Empire." This document was compiled by the ruler for his predecessors. hoped that his advice on state administration would help future autocrats avoid conflicts within the country. The book was not intended for the general public. It was printed after the fall of Byzantium, when several copies miraculously found their way to Europe. The title was also given by the German publisher (Konstantin VII Porphyrogenitus did not give a title to the secret treatise).

In his book, the author examined in detail the life and foundations of the state. It has 53 chapters. Many of them are dedicated to the peoples who inhabited the empire or neighboring it. Foreign culture has always been the area that Konstantin Porphyrogenitus was interested in. About the Slavs, he left unique essays that are no longer found in any source of that era. It is curious that the emperor even described the visit of the Kievan princess Olga to Constantinople. As you know, in Constantinople, the Slavic ruler received Christian baptism, when her people still professed the pagan faith.

In addition, the author examined the administrative and economic structure of Ancient Rus'. In different chapters there are descriptions of Slavic cities: Novgorod, Smolensk, Vyshgorod, Chernigov, and also Kyiv. The emperor also paid attention to other neighboring peoples: Bulgarians, Hungarians, Arabs, Khazars, etc. The original treatise was written in Greek. Later, the book was translated into Latin, and after that - into other European languages. This work mixes the most diverse genres of narration, which Konstantin Porphyrogenitus skillfully used. "On the Management of the Empire" is a unique example of medieval literature.

"About Ceremonies"

Another important book written by the emperor was the collection On Ceremonies. In it, the autocrat described all the rituals adopted in the Byzantine court. The collection also includes an interesting appendix on military tactics. As conceived by Constantine, these notes were to become a teaching aid for the future rulers of a vast state.

Philanthropist and educator

Constantine not only wrote books, but also patronized various authors and institutions. Having matured, he first of all took up the processing of a huge literary array that Orthodox Byzantium had accumulated. These were various lives of saints kept in the libraries of monasteries. Many of them existed in a single copy, and rare books were damaged from antiquity and poor storage conditions.

In this undertaking, the emperor was assisted by the logothete and master Simeon Metaphrastus. It was in his processing that many Christian literary artifacts have come down to our times. The master received money from the emperor, with which he bought rare copies of books, and also maintained an office with a large staff of employees: clerks, librarians, etc.

Encyclopedia of Constantine

The emperor became the inspirer and sponsor of other similar educational events. Thanks to him, an encyclopedia was published in Constantinople, consisting of more than fifty volumes. This collection included knowledge from a wide variety of fields, both humanities and natural sciences. The main merit of the encyclopedia of the era of Constantine was the codification and ordering of a huge array of disparate information.

Much knowledge was also needed for practical purposes. For example, Konstantin funded the compilation of a collection of articles on the Agriculture. The knowledge contained in these documents helped for several generations to achieve the greatest harvest in the open spaces.

Rejecting the paganism of antiquity and adopting Christianity as the ideology of a new society, the peoples of the former Roman Empire began to create their own, different culture, in the west - starting almost from scratch, in the east - preserving the ruins of the old ancient civilization and adapting them to the new world of values.

As we remember, the Ancient Roman Empire was huge, its expanses stretched from Gibraltar in the west to the Caucasus in the east. In 395, it split into two parts - the western one with Rome at the head and the eastern one, the capital of which was once the small village of Byzantium, which turned into the magnificent city of Constantinople. Now it bears the Turkish name Istanbul (in Rus' it was called Constantinople).

The western part of the empire broke up into many small states, which then gathered again into large territorial associations (the Empire of Charlemagne in the last quarter of the 8th - early 9th centuries), then disintegrated.

The eastern part of the empire managed to maintain a single statehood throughout its territory, and it included Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor and the Black Sea coast of Colchis (present-day Caucasus), the Balkan Peninsula and the islands of the Aegean Sea. Such was originally Byzantium. Its inhabitants called themselves Romans and considered their country the "second Rome" - the custodian of the former glory of Rome.

The history of Byzantium was complex. From all sides her enemies, hungry for her riches, crowded her. The last rise of her fame and her power was during the reign of Emperor Justinian I. He expanded its borders to the maximum, but already in 630 the Arabs tore Egypt from it.

In the end, the territory of Byzantium was reduced to the lands of the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor.

Byzantium adopted Christianity when it was still part of the Roman Empire, but after its division into eastern and western parts, church disagreements began, which in 1054 led to a final split. In the western part, Catholicism was established (Greek catholikos ecumenical, universal), in the eastern part - Orthodoxy. Churches have not been reconciled so far. In 1204, Christian crusaders (they will be discussed later) Western Europe captured Byzantium and founded the Latin Empire on part of its territory. It was liquidated approximately sixty years later by Michael VIII.

Russia adopted Christianity from Byzantium. Grand Duke Kiev Vladimir carried out the act of baptism of Rus' in 988. Byzantine icons, Byzantine literacy poured into Russian cities in a broad wave, primarily, of course, to Kyiv and Novgorod.

After the fall of Constantinople, and this happened in 1453 under the blows Turkish troops, Byzantium as a state ceased to exist, and Moscow called itself the "third Rome", taking the historical baton of Orthodoxy. “Moscow is the third Rome, and there will never be a fourth!” - Russian clergy proudly declared.

The culture of Byzantium developed under the ideological influence Christian doctrine. Nowhere did religion influence culture so much as in Byzantium. Everything was permeated by her. At the very beginning, after the official recognition of Christianity state religion, the old Greek culture was cursed and condemned. A significant part of the famous Alexandrian Library (4th century) was destroyed. In 529, the philosophical school in Athens was closed. The old cultural centers (Athens, Alexandria) have survived, but have dimmed considerably. The highest education was concentrated in Constantinople. In 425, a Christian high school was opened there. The new religion required propaganda forces, scientific justification. But science began to lose one position after another. In the 6th century, the monk Cosmas Indikoples (“the discoverer of India”) wrote the book “Christian Topography”, in which he completely rejects the imperfect, but still closer to the truth, picture of the cosmos created in antiquity (Ptolemy’s system), and presents the Earth as a flat quadrilateral, surrounded by the ocean, with heaven in heaven.

However, Byzantium did not completely break with antiquity. Its population spoke Greek, although it had already changed significantly compared to the language of antiquity. Interest in ancient authors, in ancient history did not dry out. The historical picture of the world appeared, of course, in a rather fantastic form. Such, for example, is the Chronicle of Georgiy Amartol, so popular in Rus' in the 9th century with a bright Christian tendentiousness and with extensive use of the writings of theologians and even Greek authors (Plutarch, Plato).

In the 10th century, by order of Emperor Constantine VI Porphyrogenitus, a historical encyclopedia was created, something like a historical reader with fragments from the works of ancient historians and writers (“Biblion”). In the 11th century, the philosopher and philologist Mikhail Psel studied Homer and wrote comments on Menander's comedies.

Byzantine poetry mainly consists of church hymns. The great master of this genre was the Syrian Roman the Melodist (VI century).

Most of Byzantine prose consists of the lives of hermit saints (Pateriki), but novels about love and adventurous novels were also written. The novel about Alexander the Great was very popular with a series of adventures, but not without Christian symbolism.

Byzantine art bears the stamp of a different worldview and a different aesthetic ideal compared to ancient times. The artist abandoned the ideal of a harmoniously developed person and saw both in the world and in the personality disharmony, disproportion, he turned away from the beauty of the body and imbued with respect for the spiritual principle. In Byzantine icons we feel this desire of the master for spirituality, for detachment from the world, in the icon we see, first of all, the eyes of the God or saint depicted in it - huge mournful eyes as a mirror of the soul.

In the lives of the saints we find the same desire for spirituality. The writer shows a small man with a weak, puny body, but with an unshakable will. In the struggle between the flesh and the spirit, the spirit wins, and the writer glorifies this victory.

Byzantine culture did not give the world a single significant author, not a single name capable of taking a place next to the famous masters of Western European medieval culture, but it retained something of antiquity, a smoldering ember from a once bright fire. After the fall of Constantinople, she transferred it to Europe (Renaissance).

One more small addition to the topic: we have an icon of the Mother of God of Vladimir. It was created in Constantinople in the first half of the 12th century. Transferred to Russia, it entered the life of the people and is associated with many significant events in Russian history. The icon is wonderful. Here is how the specialist describes it: “... a mother with a baby is presented: she is in a mournful doom to sacrifice her son, he is in a serious readiness to embark on a thorny path.

They are alone in the whole world and are drawn to each other in their hopeless loneliness: the mother - bowing her head to her son, the son - fixing unchildishly serious eyes on her. The noble face of the Mother of God seems almost incorporeal, her nose and lips are barely outlined, only her eyes - huge sad eyes - look at the baby, at the viewer, at all of humanity, and the tragedy of the mother becomes a universal tragedy. The colors seem thick and twilight, dark, brownish-green tones dominate, and from them the face of the baby appears bright, contrasting with the face of the mother. Aimed at elevating a person to divine contemplation, such an icon as the Mother of God of Vladimir gave the viewer a feeling of the hopeless sorrow of earthly existence ”(Kazhdan A.P.“ Byzantine Culture ”).

From the second half of the ninth century Byzantine society enters a period of stabilization. The new Macedonian dynasty (since 867) establishes a relatively strong centralized regime. Rising from the decline of the city replace the monasteries in the function of cultural centers; the importance of secular elements of culture again increases. After a three-century break, interest in classical antiquity is renewed, planted by such erudite scholars as Patriarch Photius (c. 820 - c. 891), his student Arethas (c. 860 - after 932) and Aretha's enemy Leo Hirosfakt (IX-X centuries). The revival of philological interests is colorfully evidenced by the epigram of a certain Komita, which is characteristic not only for its content, but also for the correctness of its prosody:

Comita found a manuscript for Homer,

Worthless, without punctuation marks;

Sowed for work, he diligently straightened everything,

From now on for diligent scribes

The manual is ready and reliable.

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

Patriarch Photius, the most prominent ecclesiastical and political figure of his time, who experienced both power and exile, the initiator of the division of the Orthodox

and the Catholic churches, found time in his turbulent life to make detailed notes on the old pagan and Christian books that came across to him. Here is how he analyzes Livania's style: “This writer is more useful for study in his speeches, written for exercise and on fictitious occasions, than in others. The fact is that in the latter, excessive and immoderate decoration ruined the unconstrained - if I may say so, unaccountable - charm of the style and led to incomprehensibility, resulting either from unnecessary additions, or from abbreviations that harm the very essence. For all that, and in these speeches, he is the measure and pillar of Attic eloquence. Thus Photius annotates 280 different works; the collection of these records is called the Myriobiblio, or Library. Like the members of his circle, the patriarch combined academic studies with poetry.

The poems of Aretha, a philologist, politician and bishop of Caesarea, testify to the poetic gift, to whom, by the way, we are indebted for the best extant lists of texts by Plato, Euclid, Lucian and other classical authors rewritten by his order from unique manuscripts. This erudite turned to the long-abandoned form of the epigram in elegiac distichs.

Leo the Philosopher (beginning of the 10th century) was a scientist and poet. This courtier of Emperor Leo the Wise owns a number of epigrams on purely book topics (about Archytas, about Plato, about Aristotle, about Porfiry, about Aristotelian definitions, etc.). His anacreontic poem on the marriage of Leo the Wise is replete with ancient reminiscences: the emperor's bride is "the new amiable Penelope", the poet praises her and the groom on the "lyre of Orpheus", while calling on the "light-bearing Helios".

Court life in Byzantium in the 10th century. embodied in a monument that has to be mentioned for its value not so much in historical and literary, but in historical and cultural terms: this is a treatise known under the title "On Ceremonies" (the title of the original is "Explanation of the Imperial Ceremonial") and attributed to Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenetes (To Porphyrogenitus, reigned in 913-959). It is doubtful that this codification of the rites of the court of Constantinople belongs to the royal author, but the monument undoubtedly belongs to the 10th century. (rather the 2nd half), although it includes much earlier material. The aesthetics of the ceremony, so important for Byzantine life and for Byzantine art, found here a convinced expression: if the imperial power, as the introduction says, appears in the decoration of “proper rhythm and order”, the empire truly reflects the harmonious movement of the cosmos created by the god.

After several generations of epigrammatists-versifiers at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. a real poet appears who manages to combine the brilliance traditional form with a creative individuality: this is John Kyriot, nicknamed "Geometer" for his mathematical studies. John held the court position of protospafarius and lived by the political passions of his time, although towards the end of his life he became a priest and reached the rank of metropolitan. His epigrams are characterized by the ancient harmony of the figurative system:

Similar are the lives and the seas of the abyss: salty bitterness,

Monsters, swell and darkness; there is a brief peace in the harbor.

The sea is to be avoided; but on each the demon will raise

Worldly storms are, alas, much worse than those of the sea.

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

A husband without blemish must sacredly keep three blessings:

In his heart - purity; quiet modesty - in the eyes;

Restraint - in speech calm. Who kept and learned everything,

Much richer, believe me, that Croesus of Lydia.

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

A funny example of a word game in the medieval taste is the couplet “For wine”, where each word of the first line is opposed to the same member of the list in the second line (the same verses were composed in the medieval West):

You are courage, youth, cheerfulness, treasure, fatherland:

For cowards, old men, frail, poor, exiled.

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

Early 11th century It was marked by a wave of monastic reaction against the secular, anti-kizing tendencies of Byzantine culture. It was this time that gave one of the most prominent mystics of Byzantium, to whom tradition appropriated the honorary title of "New Theologian", thereby, as it were, equating him with the Apostle John the Theologian and the Church Father Gregory the Theologian, Simeon (949-1022). In the poetry of Simeon the New Theologian, which glorifies the self-deepening of the ascetic, the characteristic Byzantine mysticism of light reaches its limit:

I am sitting in my cell

All day, all night.

And with me love is invisible,

Dwells unfathomably:

Outside of things, outside of every creature,

But in everything and in every thing,

Like heat, like a flame in brilliance,

Like a cloud of light

At the end - the glory of the sun ...

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

In the worldview, in the religious and philosophical aspect, Simeon is a traditionalist; he not only strictly accepts all the traditions of monastic mysticism, but is connected by hidden threads with ancient Neoplatonism, with the late antique experience of the inner light of spirituality. But in the literary plane, he had little to do with the classical traditions revived by book poetry. Simeon introduces into poetry a popular meter, which had a great future - an iambic fifteen-syllable, the so-called political verse ("political" and means "common people").

But the time when creativity outside the classic norms was conceivable only in line with ecclesiastical and monastic literature, just in the era of Simeon, was coming to an end. By the X century. there is an update of Byzantine folklore, re-mastering the military-heroic theme. The prerequisite for these shifts in folk art was the strengthening of the military-feudal nobility and the social significance of the war in the context of successful wars with the Arabs from the first victories of Basil I (867-886) to the capture of Edessa by Georgy Maniak in 1032. A new ideal for Byzantium of a cheerful young warrior is being developed. , of course, devoted to the Orthodox faith, but in a purely worldly way, without a shadow of monastic humility, and ready to talk as an equal even with the emperor himself. Songs glorifying such brave men were already sung on the verge of the 9th-10th centuries: the above-mentioned student of Photius Arethas of Caesarea complains about the abundance of storytellers, whose folk tunes offended his refined taste. Apparently, the song “About the son of Armuris”, preserved in the manuscript of the XIV-XV centuries, belongs to this era. This medieval Greek "epic" is inspired by the enthusiasm for revenge taken in the wars with the Arabs. Briefly, its plot is as follows: young Armuris, the son of the knight Armuris, who has been languishing in Arab captivity for twenty years, asks his mother to let him go “on a collision”; he proves his strength by bending his father's heroic bow, and sets off on his father's reserved horse. Having crossed the Euphrates and seeing the Saracen army, he refuses a sudden attack in the name of knightly honor:

Well done thinks, thinks, says:

“I won’t go to the unarmed - otherwise they will refer,

That I caught the unarmed, and there is little honor in this.

"To arms, filthy Saracen dogs,

Hurry put on your armor, hurry saddle your horses,

Do not hesitate, do not think: Armuris is in front of you,

Armuris, son of Armuris, brave warrior!"

(Translated by M. Gasparov)

The battle itself is described in the everyday formulas of the heroic epic:

And gloriously brave is chopped, bravely brave fights:

It hits to the right, hits to the left, and chases the middle ones.

I swear by the gentle king of the sun and the mother of the king of the sun,

All day from dawn to dawn he beats them up the river,

All night from dawn to dawn he beats them down the streams:

Whom he struck down, whom he pierced, no one came out alive.

(Translated by M. Gasparov)

Thus, the young Armuris destroys the entire army of the emir; the only Saracen, who managed to hide in time, steals the horse and club of the hero and arrives with them to the emir. The father, languishing in confinement, sees a horse and a club and becomes alarmed for his son (who, meanwhile, in pursuit of a thief managed to reach Syria), but the surviving Saracen tells what happened; the emir frees his father and asks his son for peace, offering him his daughter as a wife. The cheerful tone of this small (201 verses) heroic song is sustained very whole. Its historical symbolism - the son's revenge for the defeat of his father - is associated with the mood of the first victories over the hitherto invincible Arabs.

Much more significant in terms of volume and interesting in content is the monument of the Byzantine heroic epic - the famous poem "Digenis Akritus", which has come down in a number of versions. In this case, we are dealing with the processing of folklore material under the influence of the norms of scholarly poetry. The original version, apparently, dates back to the end of the 10th - the beginning of the 11th century; a number of layers in the surviving versions indicate different eras from the second half of the 11th century to the 14th century. Digenis (Greek “two-born”) is already connected with the East by his origin: he is the son of a Greek woman and a Syrian emir who was baptized out of love for her. As befits a hero, Digenis performs great feats already in childhood: he strangles a bear with his bare hands, breaks a bear's spine, cuts a lion's head with a blow of a sword. Growing up, he fights with the well-known robbers of the Greek mountains "apelates". He also obtains a bride for himself with a sword; after the wedding, cherishing his independence, he retires to the border regions of the state and becomes an akrit (akrits -

free landowners-warriors who settled on the border and pledged to defend it).

When Digenis is summoned by the emperor, the hero politely but decisively declines the invitation, referring to the fact that one of the royal servants may, due to inexperience, speak to him in an inappropriate way, and then, alas, he will have, to his own regret, to reduce the number of sovereigns. of people. The emperor accepts the reasons of Digenis and comes to him himself to listen to instructions on how to rule the state. Then alternate descriptions of heroic deeds and erotic episodes of a rather crude nature, in which, however, Digenis is endowed with features that make one recall his pagan predecessor, Hercules; but unlike Hercules, Digenis is a Christian, and therefore after each fall he invariably feels guilty, which destroys the integrity of his epic-heroic appearance, but at the same time gives him humanity. This is followed by a description of the magnificent palace of Digenis, sustained in the literary tradition of rhetoric, and a story about the death of Digenis's parents, then himself and his wife. The plot of "Digenis Akrita" reveals a number of parallels with the Arabic story about Omar ibn al-Naum from the tales of "Thousand and One Nights" and with the Turkish epic about Said-Battala; there is no need to assume the dependence of one folklore monument on another - it is much more important to understand the typological proximity between the cultural environment that gave rise to the Byzantine poem and the Muslim world of the same era. The analogies can be even wider. The restless life on the border of confessional regions, which created contradictory relations between peoples on both sides of the border, was reflected in the poem, as well as in the Spanish-Moorish romance of the XIV-XVI centuries. or in the heroic epic of the southern Slavs and the Oguz-Seljuk written monuments about the border service.

Social conditions and people's interests depended little on state and religious borders. The striking benevolence with which the Digenis Akrita speaks of the Gentiles is in full agreement with this.

Characters poems often and willingly pray, and their words sound sincere and heartfelt, but there is no fanaticism in their faith; when the brothers of the mother of Digenis speak to the emir, who has not yet converted a Moslem, they wish him in respectful terms to see the tomb of Mohammed. The absence of hatred for people of a different faith is one of the most encouraging features of the epic about Digenis, for Byzantine literature almost as unusual as the independent attitude of Akrita towards the person of the emperor. Natives of various lands gather for the burial of Digenis, mostly lying in Asia Minor or to the east of it.

Apparently, already in the XII-XIII centuries. adaptations of the epic about Digenis entered the ancient Russian literature (“Deed of Devgen”) and at the same time found an echo in the West - in Flanders poetry. There is reason to believe that at the dawn of the Renaissance, songs about the Byzantine hero were brought by the Greeks to Italy. But even in Greece itself, the image of Akrita lives on in the memory of the people to this day.

From the second half of the XI century. the mystical wave subsides, which gave birth to Simeon the New Theologian, and an unprecedented rise in the secular tendencies of Byzantine culture begins, which stimulate a more comprehensive assimilation of the ancient heritage than in the time of Photius. In this era, the philosopher, encyclopedic scientist, rhetorician, historian and politician Michael Psellos (1018 - c. 1078 or c. 1096) renews the tradition of Neoplatonism and calls for precise reasoning based on syllogistic. His disciple and successor in the rank of "consul of philosophers" John Ital brought the attraction to the ancient idealistic rationalism of the Platonic type to a direct conflict with Christianity and church orthodoxy; by order of Emperor Alexei I Komnenos, the teachings of Italus were considered at a church council in 1082 and anathematized. Theologians Eustratius of Nicaea, Sotirich Pantevgen, Nikifor Vasilaki come up with attempts at a rationalistic rethinking of Christian dogma, in many respects similar to what Roscellinus and Abelard carried out in the West in the same era. Representatives of scientific literature are characterized by the desire to reconcile a deep love for pagan antiquity with Christian piety, to throw a bridge over the abyss that separates the two worlds. The most prominent epigrammatist of the 11th century. John Mavropod, or Euchait, expresses in one of his epigrams the highest love for Plato and Plutarch, which was conceivable for medieval Christianity in relation to the pagans - he prays for the salvation of their souls.

If you would decide someone from strangers,

Christ, deliver me from your disgrace,

Deliver Plato and Plutarch for me!

They are both in word and custom

Your laws are unfailingly kept.

And if you were unknown to them as a creator god,

You must show them mercy

When you want to save everyone from death.

(Translated by F. Petrovsky)

Mythological names are firmly included in the lexicon of an educated society and serving

of his literature: when Michael Psellos needs to scold some monk with whom he was in a quarrel, such comparisons are used:

Charybdis's mouth, the face of the abominable Gorgon,

Charon's eyebrow and eye of evil Tartarus,

Titan is noisy, fiery Typhon,

Incinerated by Zeus' arrows...

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

Another monk, in turn, likens Psellos to Zeus, who, because of longing for his “goddesses”, has to leave his “Olympus” (a monastery on a mountain in Asia Minor, which bore the same name, where Psellus was a monk for a very short time). This atmosphere of playing book jokes is very characteristic of the entire era.

The most striking work of Psellos, the author of a strikingly versatile one, is the Chronography, a memoir and historical work covering events from 976 to 1077. Psellos’ dry, insightful mind, not alien to cynicism, the clarity, expressiveness and looseness of his language, the colorful concreteness of personal observations make "Chronography" is a unique phenomenon of medieval historical literature. The liberty of Psellos' position in his attitude to the viewer is striking, reaching the point of coquetry, to the feeling of being almost "a director of a drama on historical theme”(an expression by Ya. N. Lyubarsky), the sovereign master of the events being told. “While the king is blissful with his sevast,” Psellus will talk about the lawful wife of the emperor, and the story about her will end with the words: “having brought the story of the queen to this place, let’s return to the sevast and the autocrat again and, if you like, wake them up, separate Constantine we will save it for further story, and we will finish the life of Sklirena already here ”(translated by Y. N. Lyubarsky). The verbal "gesticulation" of these appeals to the reader betrays a degree of self-confident individualistic subjectivity and artistry that brings to mind the authors of the Renaissance. The characteristics of the characters in the Chronography are unusually nuanced, alien to unambiguous evaluation: the inconsistency of human disposition is noted accurately, coldly and calmly. Here is how Psellos describes John Orfanotrof, the actual ruler of the empire in the reign of the weak-willed Michael IV: “He had a sober mind and was smart like no one else, as evidenced by his penetrating gaze; diligently taking up state duties, he showed great zeal for them and gained incomparable experience in any business [...] interlocutors and at the same time showed his temper in many guises [...] Being present with him at the feasts, I was often amazed how such a person prone to drunkenness and revelry could carry the burden of Roman power on his shoulders. And while intoxicated, he carefully observed the behavior of each of the feasters, as if he caught them red-handed, later called them to account and investigated what they said or did during the drinking, so they were more afraid of him drunk than sober ”(translation by Y. N. Lyubarsky). An inquisitive observer and a crafty accomplice in court intrigues, a courtier and a rhetorician, a scholar greedy for knowledge, however, along with truly original creativity, he was very much engaged in the most mechanical compilers, a lover of the occult sciences and their rationalistic critic, combining both with quite sincere piety, and at the same time Needlessly capable of repulsive hypocrisy, Psellos is not only the central figure of the cultural upsurge of the 11th century, but also the embodiment of some aspect of Byzantine culture as a whole, opposite to that which was embodied in Simeon the New Theologian. The contrast of these two figures is the central contrast of the spiritual life of Byzantium.

A distant parallel to the work of Psellos is the sarcastic epigrams of Christopher of Mytilene (c. 1000 - c. 1050). With the worldly experience of Psellos, his experience could not be compared, but he also knew the underside of life as an official, who at the end of his life became the chief judge of Paphlagonia. He is well aware of colleagues like that Vasily Ksir, who was the governor of the region, the former "sea of ​​\u200b\u200bgoods", but left behind a "dry" place. He sneers at the collection of countless relics and relics:

The rumor goes - people are talking all sorts of things,

And yet, it seems, the truth is in the rumor, -

Honest father, as if to the extreme

Are you happy when the seller offers you

The saint's relics are venerable;

As if you filled all your chests

And often you open - show your friends

Procopius of the holy hand (a dozen),

And two dozen Nesterov jaws,

And with them eight jaws of George.

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

Life seems to him empty and motley, a poorly arranged and easily exposed deception: through the appearance of a newly minted priest, the features of his former worldly profession appear, through the diversity of the human lot - one

and the same dust from which the sons of Adam were created and into which they will return; a short holiday, which the schoolchildren celebrate, is quickly replaced by everyday beatings of the teacher. At the same time, the skeptical poet, of course, does not come into conflict with Byzantine orthodoxy and even puts into verse the annual cycle of the church calendar.

Apparently, the fruit of the scientific studies of the era was the only dramatic work of its kind, which is commonly called “Christ the Passion-Bearer” (in various manuscripts it bears different headings, for example: “Drama, according to Euripides, expounding us for the sake of the completed incarnation and the saving suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ"). The handwritten tradition ascribes this tragedy to Gregory of Nazianzus, but the language and metrics force it to be attributed to the 11th-12th centuries. This drama for reading stands out sharply against the background of Byzantine literature. The poetic introduction promises:

Following Euripides,

I will tell about the torment that redeemed the world.

Indeed, the imitation of Euripides has been brought to the direct use of his poems (slightly turned), so that the words of Medea's Nurse, Hecuba, Cassandra, Andromache, etc. were successively put into the mouth of the Mother of God. The author also used the poems of Aeschylus and Lycophron. The structure of tragedy is static. The central and most tense scene is "Kommos", Mary's lamentation over the body of Jesus:

Alas, alas! What do I see? What do I touch?

What kind of dead man rests in my hands?

Is it now in sorrow and horror

Do I put it on my chest? Do I cry for him?

Goodbye! I greet you for the last time

Deceased, born on the mountain,

Murdered, shamelessly slain!

Let your mother kiss your right hand.

...................

How, the king, mail you sobbing?

How, oh God, crying cry to you?

From the bowels of the heart will pour out what song?

Here you lie, and the shroud swaddled you,

My child, like a veil in infancy! ..

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

Then the ups and downs take place: a messenger appears, announcing the resurrection of Christ, and the Paschal rejoicing begins. The drama rests on two lyrical parts, giving emotional poles of sad and joyful mood. Each emotion in itself knows no development; the transition from sorrow to joy is instantaneous, as a response to the messenger's message. Action has been replaced by a reaction to action. If the new European imitations of the Greek tradition, as a rule, strengthen the element of dramatic action, then the Byzantine imitation completely sweeps aside this element, returning to the original (Aeschylean and even pre-Aeschylean) structure of tragedy as a static "action".

Neoclassical tendencies also capture historical prose. Already Nikephoros Bryennios (c. 1062 - c. 1140) in his “Sketch to the History of Tsar Alexei” (i.e. Alexei I Comnenus) noticeably imitates Xenophon. The wife of Nikephoros, the daughter of Alexei I, Anna Komnena (born 1083) dedicated a kind of epic in prose (“Alexiad”), marked by strong Attikist and purist aspirations, to the deeds of her father. Anna's specimens are Thucydides and Polybius; its vocabulary is far from the living language of the era. When she has to give a vernacular expression, she stipulates and explains it, as if in a foreign language. However, the picture of Byzantine literature at the end of the XI century. not all painted in classic colors. It is already characteristic that, along with the ancient heritage, Oriental literature attracts keen interest; the Orientalization of Byzantine taste, which we noted in connection with Digenis Akritos, continues. During the reign of Alexei I Komnenos (1081-1118) and on his behalf, Simeon Seth translated from Arabic the fable collection “Kalila and Dimna”, Indian in origin (Simeon’s version was called “Stephanit and Ikhnilat” and with it passed into ancient Russian literature). In the same era, the “Book of Sinbad” (“Sinbad-name”, in the Greek version of “Sintipa”) was translated from the Syriac - also a collection of edifying texts.

From a motley mixture of teachings of worldly wisdom and complaints about one’s fate, “Poems by the grammarian Mikhail Glyka, which he wrote when he was in prison at the machinations of a certain spiteful critic” (written after 1159, when the author was blinded and thrown into prison) are composed. The thoughts and images of this poem, written in "political" verse, precisely in their triviality, represent an excellent compendium of commonplaces characteristic of the spiritual life of the average Byzantine literate; and with this the language of the poem, approaching the folk, is in agreement. Of course, the most vivid parts of the poem are lamentations about the malice of informers and the horrors of prison:

You ask what death is, would you like to know Hades?

Numera's prison - that's Hades, it's worse than Hades,

This prison surpassed all the horrors of Hades.

In Hades - says the rumor - you can see each other,

And it consoles those who endure torment there.

And in this impenetrable darkness, in a deep dungeon

Not a single beam shines, not a word can be heard;

Only darkness and smoke swirl here, all the thick darkness embraces,

Doesn't let you see each other, doesn't let you know.

(Translated by M. E. Grabar-Passek)

The work of the most prominent Byzantine poet of the 12th century has a complex and diverse character. Theodora Prodrom (born c. 1100). First of all, we are struck by its genre diversity. Theodore was not alien to scholarly genres of high literature: he owns dialogues in verse and prose, didactic poems, a huge novel in verse "Rodanthes and Dosicles" (4614 trimeters), which for the first time after a centuries-old break renews the ancient tradition of erotic narration. Considerable scholarship should have been required from Theodore by his parody of the classical tragedy of the Aeschylus type - “The War of the Cat and Mice”: the miniature volume of this little thing does not prevent it from having all the attributes of the tragic genre (chorus, etc.) and using typical methods of tragic technique (composition , built on the ups and downs, verse-mythical dialogues, where each replica fits in one verse, kommos with the participation of the choir). In pure formal aspect“The War of the Cat and Mice” is curiously reminiscent of “Christ the Passion-Bearer”: as there, here in the center is the pathetic cry of the mother over the body of her son (the queen of mice over the hero prince):

Queen. Alas, alas, alas, alas, my child!

choir. Alas, alas, Creill is ours! Ah, our lord!

Queen. When, when, O son, will you have to see each other?

choir. Where, where did you hide, leaving life?

Queen. O sorrow, o pain, o burden!

choir. O grief! And again - about sorrow!

Queen. You do not see, child, the radiant sun!

choir. Only dust and dust - our whole life is mouse,

Only the ghost of a shadow - all deeds and thoughts.

(Translated by S. Averintsev)

But no matter how good these stylizations of Prodrom may be, they do not contain its true meaning. He also worked in genres of a completely different type, where, with unprecedented courage, he introduced everyday writing into Byzantine literature (close in style to the depiction of everyday prose, which urban short stories develop in the pre-Renaissance West). Like his Western counterparts, Theodore is not afraid to laugh at sacred objects: for this he introduces animals into the game - in an atmosphere of “cosmic” universalization of church concepts, it was so natural to imagine that animals are familiar with them. And in the prose sketch of Prodrom, the mouse-doctor, having fallen into the paws of a cat, begins to pour quotations from penitential psalms: “Ah, madam, don’t rebuke me with your rage, punish me with your anger! My heart is troubled within me, and the fear of death attack me! My iniquities have surpassed my head! ..”, etc. The cat, in response to these shouting outs, suggests quoting the prophet Hosea (VI, 6) in a new edition: “I want grub, not sacrifice.” In his other works, Prodrom comes close to depicted everyday life, without resorting to literary travesty or fable mediation. Here he sketches (in the prosaic humoresque "The Executioner, or the Doctor") a frightening portrait of an ignorant tooth-puller who performs a priestly act over the poet's gums; here he draws a nun who is fed up with his monastery:

After all, it’s worth me at least a little bit from the church to leave

Yes, skip matins - well, little happens! -

How will they go, how will reproaches and reproaches go:

“Where were you when you burned? Give back a hundred bows!

Where was he, how did they sing the kathisma? Sit now without bread!

Where was he during the six psalms? There will be no wine for you!

Where was he when Vespers was going on? Drive you away, but everyone is here!

And even like this: “Stop and sing! Yes, louder! Yes soulful!

What are you muttering? Do not be lazy! Don't waste your mouth!

Don’t scratch, don’t scratch, don’t squeak with your nails!”

(Translated by M. Gasparov)

In a whole series of poems, Theodore Prodrom depicts the unfortunate fate of an educated person who, with all his learning, is unable to feed himself; he enviously sniffs the smell of roast, which he pulls from the dwelling of a neighbor - an illiterate artisan; he listens to the reproaches of his wife, who has not seen a single gift from him since the wedding day. The mask of the poet-beggar, now crying about his sorrows, now laughing at his insatiability, appealed to a great many Byzantine poets: there were many imitators and successors at Prodrom. A whole "prodromic" literature has grown up, among which it is not so easy to single out the authentic writings of Prodromus. If we remember that Theodore was just a contemporary of the Western European vagantes, who wore the same mask of clownish vagrancy and begging and, under the protection of this mask, allowed themselves the same unusual ease in the face of the authorities of medieval society, - the facts of Byzantine

literature will be within a broad historical and literary perspective.

The fruit of the secular tendencies of Byzantine cultural development was a return to the ancient form of a love-adventure novel. This form, however, undergoes a significant restructuring, passing from the realm of prose to the realm of poetry. Even the "Tale of Isminia and Ismin" by Eumatius Makremvolita is written, like late antique novels, in flowery, rhythmic rhetorical prose; but "Rodantha and Dosicles" by Theodore Prodrom is a novel in verse: prose is replaced by iambic trimeters. The example of Theodore is followed by his contemporary and admirer Nikita Evgenian, author of the novel The Tale of Drosilla and Charicles. The plot scheme of Byzantine novels remains true to the ancient model: in the center stands the passionate, sensual, but also sublime love of a beautiful and virgin couple, ignited at first sight, saved in disastrous trials and unimaginable adventures, then crowned with a happy marriage. To this scheme, Byzantine writers add folklore motifs as decoration, as well as a play of symbols and allegories in a medieval style. Rhetorical descriptions (ekphrases) play a special role. Here is how Nikita Evgenian describes the beauty of the heroine:

She was like a maiden to the starry sky

In a cloak that shone with gold and purple,

Thrown over the shoulders for the sake of the holiday;

Stately, graceful and with white hands;

Blush like a rose, red lips;

Eye outline black perfect

................

The nose is carved gracefully; straight row of teeth

Sparkles with a snow-white string of pearls;

Eyebrow bends, like a stretched bow,

They threaten with an arrow of Eros, full of joy;

And milk, as if mixed with a rose,

Like a painter, painted everything

Nature is a perfect body...

(Translated by F. Petrovsky)

The Hellenic delight in bodily beauty, which created a thousand-year-old rhetorical tradition for its expression, is inextricably intertwined in such ekphrases with the Byzantine craving for luxury, for decorative excess, for a verbal flow that overflows. Compared with the ancient novel, the Byzantine novel is characterized by greater lyricism and less narrative; action recedes into the background, while expressive descriptions and exaggerated outpourings of feelings almost become an end in themselves.

John Tsets is in the XII century. somewhat obsolete by this time type of erudite, as he was known in the era of Photius, Aretha, Constantine Porphyrogenitus. His writings, which are important for the transmission of the ancient heritage, have a somewhat curious character. Thus, he composed a monumental poetic (!) commentary to the collection of his own letters, consisting of 12,674 "political" fifteen-syllable words and known under the title "Chiliads". This is a completely disorderly display of his learning; if, say, in one of the letters, a certain Timarchus, an opponent of the ancient Attic orator Aeschines, is accidentally mentioned, then Tsets dedicates 185 verbose verses to Timarchus. In the 11th chapter of the Chiliad, by the way, a certain guide to rhetoric is given. Three hexametric poems of Tsets have a purely formal character - “Pre-Homeric Acts” (the youth of Paris, the abduction of Helen), “Homeric Acts” (a brief retelling of the Iliad) and “Post-Homeric Acts” (the death of Troy according to Tryfiodorus, Quintus of Smyrna and John Malala).

A completely different level of attitude to the treasury of classical antiquity belongs to Eustathius of Thessalonica, who managed to combine in himself a deep connoisseur of ancient authors and an astute observer of contemporary life. This scholar, who made his way from a petty official of the patriarchal office to the master of rhetors, and then the metropolitan of Thessaloniki, worked hard on commentaries on the writings of Homer, Pindar, Aristophanes, Dionysius Periegetes; these works constituted a fundamentally new stage in the history of Byzantine philology, anticipating the textological work of the humanists of the Renaissance. He entered the history of literature primarily as the author of "Review of monastic life for the sake of correcting it" - a sharp socio-critical work that castigates the vices of Byzantine monasticism and is distinguished by apt observation of everyday writing sketches. Rare for a Byzantine author, the specificity of figurative vision is also distinguished by his “Tale of the Capture of Thessaloniki” (about the capture of the city by the Normans). In place of a purely rhetorical development of general schemes, there is an interest in an unexpected detail (in itself, of course, quite coexisting with the general rhetorical setting, but opening up new opportunities for literary culture).

The heyday of Byzantine culture since 1071 (the date of the battle of Manzikert, after which the Seljuks withdrew Asia Minor) had a background of the decline of Byzantine statehood and was forcibly interrupted by the catastrophe of 1204. This year is the date of the “Latin” conquest: April 12-13, knights greedy for power and prey

During the Fourth Crusade, they stormed Constantinople, plundered it and founded their own state on the ruins of the Byzantine order (contemporaries most often called this state Romania, in science it is customary to designate it as the Latin Empire). On the throne of the Roman basils sat the Flanders count Baldwin; throughout Greece, the dominance of foreign feudal lords spread, and Western forms of feudalism were forcibly implanted.