Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature 1607-6192 2713-2226 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2024-23-179-200 Research Article Articles IMAGOLOGICAL CONTRASTS OF OLD RUSSIAN LITERATURE (EVOLUTION OF THE IMAGE OF METROPOLITAN JONAH OF KYIV) Pervushin Mikhail V. old-rus@imli.ru 2024 23 179 200 Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The article examines the imagological contrasts of Old Russian literature. The events of Russian political history often became events of Russian literature. That is why they influenced the history of literature, in which the images of the heroes of these events stand out vividly. One such hero is St. Metropolitan Jonah of Kyiv. This is undoubtedly a significant figure for Russian Orthodoxy and the Russian state. He was born back in the 1390s in the principality of Galich-Mer, and died on March 31, 1461 in Moscow. With his personality begins the account of the independence of the Russian Church from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The article presents the evolution of portrait changes of Jonah. First, his annalistic image is revealed. It is fixed by his contemporaries and closest descendants. They judged about Jonah and his deeds through the prism of their idea of life, and sometimes understood him little. Then the image of Jonah in his own literary works is considered. After the same and in hagiographical literature. A certain evolution of the image of Jonah in the century after his death is explained by the organic unity of the chronicles, as well as the material of the “literature of the miraculous” and their mutual refraction in the consciousness of the scribe. The image of Jonah in the liturgical (hymnographic) literature, which are a century and a half removed from the real life of the metropolitan, finally erase the boundaries between the personality of the earthly hero and his heavenly face. The birth of a myth takes place.