Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature

1607-6192 2713-2226

IWL RAS

https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2025-24-394-429

Research Article

Articles

EUCHOLOGICAL MONOLOGUES OF VLADIMIR SVYATOSLAVICH AS A REFLECTION OF REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT HIM

Kirillin

Vladimir M.

old-rus@imli.ru

2025

24 394 429

2026

The article examines the texts of own prayers of the holy and great Kiev prince Vadimir, included in the plot of the works of the 11th–16th centuries, which made up the literary cycle about him. The prayers, or internal monologues of the character, which are the embodiment of a canonical, very stable genre, are analysed in terms of their compositional and stylistic construction and ideological content, but first of all, in terms of their reflection of the spiritual image of the prince as protagonist and addressee, namely, a reflection of the personality he was seen as by Old Russian literati, those who created these prayers. The comparison of this euchological experience as a special form of creativity with historiographical, panegyric and hymnographic lines of Old Russian authors’ reflections on the Baptist of Rus’ within the framework of the literary tradition about him reveals their undoubted ontological and axeological identity. The results of observations stated in the article, in turn, open for researchers the prospect of analysing the prayers of other characters of Old Russian literature in comparison with the prayer monologues of Vladimir Svyatoslavich in terms of their content and formal features as samples of euchological poetry.

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