Acknowledgements:

The work was completed with the support of the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 22-18-00488 “The Crisis of Values and the Coping Strategies: The Idea of the ‘Common Wealth’ in the Intellectual Discourse of Britain and Russia (1650–1750).”

Abstract:

The article is a study and publication of autographs of two sermons by Metropolitan of Ryazan and Murom Stefan (Yavorsky) stored in the Russian State Historical Archive (RSHA). The sermons performed both didactic and panegyric functions: 1) sermon on the birthday of Peter the Great in 1709; 2) sermon in 1721 on the anniversary of victory in the Battle of Lesnaya. The work analyzes the ideological content of the works, identifies themes and topoi that combine these words with other sermons of author from the so-called “victorian cycle.” In both sermons, Yavorsky formulates the pro-state idea of “common good” (obshchaia pol’za) (a formula that replaced the idea of common wealth in the Petrine era, discusses the role of people representing different “ranks” in achieving the “common good,” finding in the military rank as a social ideal and a model of virtues, glorifies the sovereign and the state. The sermons published in the article are bright authorial publicistic statements and expand the understanding of Stefan Yavorsky as a writer.

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