Abstract: The book is an attempt of semantic interpretation of the old Russian literary life as a reflection of the medieval Christian mentality, which was made for the first time in the Russian medieval studies. The author explores biblical sacred numbers as narrative elements of texts. The disclosure of their symbolic purpose allows us to take a fresh look at the inner world of writers and readers of Old Russia. It turns out that their characteristic “speculation in numbers” is a peculiar way of religious and artistic reflection on reality, there is a way of symbolic theology. The book is intended for historians, philologists and all those interested in Russian medieval culture.

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