Life and everyday life of Russian people of the 16th century in Domostroy. Their morals. "Enlightened" Europe in the 15th - 16th centuries Life and customs of Russian people of the 16th century

By the beginning of the 16th century, Christianity played a decisive role in influencing the culture and life of the Russian people. It played a positive role in overcoming the harsh morals, ignorance and wild customs of ancient Russian society. In particular, the norms of Christian morality had a huge impact on family life, marriage, and raising children. Is it true. theology then adhered to a dualistic view of the division of the sexes - into two opposite principles - “good” and “evil”. The latter was personified in a woman, determining her position in society and family.

For a long time, the Russian peoples had a large family uniting relatives along the direct and lateral lines. The distinctive features of a large peasant family were collective farming and consumption, common ownership of property by two or more independent married couples. Among the urban (posad) population, families were smaller and usually consisted of two generations of parents and children. The families of feudal lords were, as a rule, small, so the son of a feudal lord, having reached the age of 15, had to serve the sovereign and could receive both his own separate local salary and a granted estate. This contributed to early marriages and the formation of independent small families.

With the introduction of Christianity, marriages began to be formalized through a church wedding ceremony. But the traditional Christian wedding ceremony (“fun”) was preserved in Rus' for about six to seven centuries. Church rules did not stipulate any obstacles to marriage, except for one: the “possession” of the bride or groom. But in real life, the restrictions were quite strict, primarily in social terms, which were regulated by customs. The law did not formally prohibit a feudal lord from marrying a peasant woman, but in fact this happened very rarely, since the feudal class was a closed corporation where marriages were encouraged not just with people in their own circle, but with peers. A free man could marry a serf, but had to obtain permission from the master and pay a certain amount as agreed. Thus, both in ancient times and in the cities, marriages, basically, could only take place within one class-estate.

Divorce was very difficult. Already in the early Middle Ages, divorce (“dissolution”) was permitted only in exceptional cases. At the same time, the rights of the spouses were unequal. A husband could divorce his wife if she cheated, and communication with strangers outside the home without the permission of the spouse was equated to betrayal. In the late Middle Ages (from the 16th century), divorce was permitted with the condition that one of the spouses was tonsured a monk.

The Orthodox Church allowed one person to marry no more than three times. The solemn wedding ceremony was usually performed only during the first marriage. A fourth marriage was strictly prohibited.

A newborn child had to be baptized in church on the eighth day after baptism in the name of the saint of that day. The rite of baptism was considered by the church to be a basic, vital rite. The unbaptized had no rights, not even the right to burial. The church forbade burying a child who died unbaptized in a cemetery. The next rite - "tonsuring" - was carried out a year after baptism. On this day, the godfather or godmother (godparents) cut a lock of the child’s hair and gave a ruble. After the tonsures, they celebrated the name day, that is, the day of the saint in whose honor the person was named (later it became known as the “day of the angel”), and the birthday. The Tsar's name day was considered an official public holiday.

All sources indicate that in the Middle Ages the role of its head was extremely great. He represented the family as a whole in all its external functions. Only he had the right to vote at meetings of residents, in the city council, and later in meetings of Konchan and Sloboda organizations. Within the family, the power of the head was practically unlimited. He controlled the property and destinies of each of its members. This even applied to the personal lives of children, whom he could marry off or marry against their will. The Church condemned him only if he drove them to suicide. The orders of the head of the family had to be carried out unquestioningly. He could apply any punishment, even physical. "Domostroy" - an encyclopedia of Russian life of the 16th century - directly indicated that the owner should beat his wife and children for educational purposes. For disobedience to parents, the church threatened with excommunication.

In-house family life was relatively closed for a long time. However, ordinary women - peasant women, townspeople - did not lead a reclusive lifestyle at all. Testimonies from foreigners about the seclusion of Russian women in the chambers relate, as a rule, to the life of the feudal nobility and eminent merchants. They were rarely allowed even to go to church.

There is little information left about the daily routine of people in the Middle Ages. The working day in the family began early. Ordinary people had two obligatory meals - lunch and dinner. At noon, production activities were interrupted. After lunch, according to the old Russian habit, there was a long rest and sleep (which greatly amazed foreigners). then work began again until dinner. With the end of daylight, everyone went to bed.

With the adoption of Christianity, especially revered days of the church calendar became official holidays: Christmas, Easter, Annunciation, Trinity and others, as well as the seventh day of the week - Sunday. According to church rules, holidays should have been devoted to pious deeds and religious rituals. working on holidays was considered a sin. However, the poor also worked on holidays.

The relative isolation of domestic life was diversified by receptions of guests, as well as festive ceremonies, which were held mainly during church holidays. One of the main religious processions was held for Epiphany - January 6th Art. Art. On this day, the patriarch blessed the water of the Moscow River, and the population of the city performed the Jordan ritual (washing with holy water). On holidays, street performances were also organized. Traveling artists, buffoons, were known back in Ancient Rus'. In addition to playing the harp, pipes, and songs, the buffoons' performances included acrobatic performances and competitions with predatory animals. The buffoon troupe usually included an organ grinder, a gayer (acrobat), and a puppeteer.

Holidays, as a rule, were accompanied by public feasts - fraternities. However, popular ideas about the supposedly unrestrained drunkenness of Russians are clearly exaggerated. Only during the 5-6 major church holidays was the population allowed to brew beer, and taverns were a state monopoly. The maintenance of private taverns was strictly persecuted.

Social life also included games and fun - both military and peaceful, for example, the capture of a snowy city, wrestling and fist fights, small towns, leapfrog, etc. Dice became widespread among gambling games, and from the 16th century - in cards brought from the West. The favorite pastime of kings and nobles was hunting.

Thus, although the life of a Russian person in the Middle Ages, although it was relatively monotonous, was far from being limited to the production and socio-political spheres, it included many aspects of everyday life, to which historians do not always pay due attention

In historical literature at the turn of the 15th - 16th centuries. rationalistic views on historical events are established. Some of them are explained by causal relationships caused by the activities of people themselves. The authors of historical works (for example, “Tales of the Princes of Vladimir,” late 15th century) sought to affirm the idea of ​​​​the exclusivity of the autocratic power of the Russian sovereigns as the successors of Kievan Rus and Byzantium. Similar ideas were expressed in chronographs - summary reviews of general history, in which Russia was considered as the last link in the chain of world-historical monarchies.

It was not only the historical ones that expanded. but also the geographical knowledge of people of the Middle Ages. In connection with the complication of administrative management of the growing territory of the Russian state, the first geographical maps ("drawings") began to be drawn up. This was also facilitated by the development of Russian trade and diplomatic ties. Russian navigators made a great contribution to geographical discoveries in the North. By the beginning of the 16th century, they had explored the White, Icy (Barents) and Kara Seas, discovered many northern lands - the islands of Medvezhiy, Novaya Zemlya, Kolguev, Vygach, etc. The Russian Pomors were the first to penetrate the Arctic Ocean, created the first handwritten maps of the explored northern seas and islands. They were among the first to explore the Northern Sea Route around the Scandinavian Peninsula.

Some progress was observed in the field of technical and natural scientific knowledge. Russian craftsmen learned to make quite complex mathematical calculations when constructing buildings and were familiar with the properties of basic building materials. Blocks and other construction mechanisms were used in the construction of buildings. To extract salt solutions, deep drilling and laying of pipes were used, through which the liquid was distilled using a piston pump. In military affairs, the casting of copper cannons was mastered, and battering and throwing weapons became widespread.

In the 17th century, the role of the church in influencing the culture and life of the Russian people intensified. At the same time, state power penetrated more and more into the affairs of the church.

The purpose of penetration of state power into church affairs was to be served by church reform. The tsar wanted to obtain the sanction of the church for state reforms and at the same time take measures to subordinate the church and limit its privileges and lands necessary to provide for the energetically created army of the nobility.

All-Russian church reform was carried out at the Stoglav Cathedral, named after the collection of its decrees, which consisted of one hundred chapters (“Stoglav”).

In the works of the Stoglavy Council, issues of internal church order were brought to the fore, primarily related to the life and everyday life of the lower clergy, with the performance of church services by them. The flagrant vices of the clergy, the careless performance of church rituals, moreover, devoid of any uniformity - all of this aroused a negative attitude among the people towards the ministers of the church and gave rise to freethinking.

In order to stop these dangerous phenomena for the church, it was recommended to strengthen control over the lower clergy. For this purpose, a special institution of archpriests was created (the archpriest is the main priest among the priests of a given church), appointed “by royal command and with the blessing of the saint, as well as priestly elders and tenth priests.” All of them were obliged to tirelessly ensure that ordinary priests and deacons regularly performed divine services, “stood with fear and trembling” in churches, and read the Gospels, Zolotoust, and the lives of the saints.

The Council unified church rites. He officially legitimized, under penalty of anathema, the double-fingered sign of the cross and the “great hallelujah.” By the way, these decisions were later referred to by the Old Believers to justify their adherence to antiquity.

The sale of church positions, bribery, false denunciations, and extortion became so widespread in church circles that the Council of the Hundred Heads was forced to adopt a number of resolutions that somewhat limited the arbitrariness of both the highest hierarchs in relation to the ordinary clergy, and the latter in relation to the laity. From now on, taxes from churches were to be collected not by foremen who abused their position, but by zemstvo elders and tenth priests appointed in rural areas.

The listed measures and partial concessions could not, however, in any way defuse the tense situation in the country and in the church itself. The reform envisaged by the Stoglavy Council did not set as its task a deep transformation of the church structure, but only sought to strengthen it by eliminating the most blatant abuses.

With its resolutions, the Stoglavy Council tried to impose the stamp of churchliness on the entire life of the people. Under pain of royal and church punishment, it was forbidden to read the so-called “renounced” and heretical books, that is, books that then made up almost all secular literature. The Church was ordered to interfere in the everyday life of people - to turn them away from barbering, from chess, from playing musical instruments, etc., to persecute buffoons, these carriers of folk culture alien to the church.

The time of Grozny is a time of great changes in the field of culture. One of the most significant achievements of the 16th century was printing. The first printing house appeared in Moscow in 1553, and soon books of church content were printed here. The earliest printed books include the Lenten Triodion, published around 1553, and the two Gospels, printed in the 50s. 16th century.

In 1563, the organization of the “sovereign Printing House” was entrusted to an outstanding figure in the field of book printing in Russia, Ivan Fedorov. Together with his assistant Peter Mstislavets, on March 1, 1564, he published the book “Apostle”, and the following year “The Book of Hours”. We also associate the name of Ivan Fedorov with the appearance in 1574 in Lvov of the first edition of the Russian Primer.

Under the influence of the church, such a unique work as “Domostroy” was created, which was already noted above, the final edition of which belonged to Archpriest Sylvester. "Domostroy" is a code of morals and everyday rules intended for the wealthy strata of the urban population. It is permeated with sermons of humility and unquestioning submission to authorities, and in the family - obedience to the householder.

For the increased needs of the Russian state, literate people were needed. At the Council of the Stoglavy, convened in 1551, the question of taking measures to spread education among the population was raised. The clergy were offered to open schools to teach children to read and write. Children were educated, as a rule, in monasteries. In addition, home schooling was common among rich people.

The intense struggle with numerous external and internal enemies contributed to the emergence in Russia of extensive historical literature, the central theme of which was the question of the growth and development of the Russian state. The most significant monument of historical thought of the period under review was the chronicle vaults.

One of the major historical works of this time is the Litseva (i.e., illustrated) chronicle collection: it consisted of 20 thousand pages and 10 thousand beautifully executed miniatures, giving a visual representation of various aspects of Russian life. This code was compiled in the 50-60s of the 16th century with the participation of Tsar Ivan, Alexei Alexei Adashev and Ivan Viskovaty.

The achievements in the field of architecture were especially significant in the late 15th and 16th centuries. In 1553-54, the Church of John the Baptist was built in the village of Dyakovo (not far from the village of Kolomenskoye), exceptional in the originality of its decorative decoration and architectural design. An unsurpassed masterpiece of Russian architecture is the Church of the Intercession on the Moat (St. Basil's Church), erected in 1561. This cathedral was built to commemorate the conquest of Kazan.

The turn of the XV - XVI centuries. - a turning point in the historical development of Russian lands. The phenomena characteristic of this time had a direct impact on the spiritual life of Russia, on the development of its culture, and predetermined the nature and direction of the historical and cultural process. Overcoming fragmentation and creating a unified state power created favorable conditions for the economic and cultural development of the country and served as powerful incentives for the rise of national self-awareness.

The turn of the XV - XVI centuries. - a turning point in the historical development of Russian lands. The phenomena characteristic of this time had a direct impact on the spiritual life of Russia, on the development of its culture, and predetermined the nature and direction of the historical and cultural process.

Overcoming fragmentation and creating a unified state power created favorable conditions for the economic and cultural development of the country and served as powerful incentives for the rise of national self-awareness.

The largest country in Europe numbered by the middle of the 16th century. hardly more than 9-10 million population, moreover, distributed unevenly over the territory. Only the center and the Novgorod-Pskov land were relatively densely populated, where the density apparently reached 5 people per 1 sq. km. (For comparison: in Western European countries at that time the density ranged from 10 to 30 inhabitants per sq. km.). It should be borne in mind that the first half of the 16th century was favorable for the growth of the population of Russia, which increased approximately one and a half times during this period; Consequently, at the beginning of the century, when the Russian state arose, it united about 6 million people under its rule. This means that the average population density was about 2 people. per 1 sq. km. Such a low population density, even if in some areas of the center and north-west and during the first half of the 16th century it increased by 2-3 times, remained extremely insufficient for the intensive development of the economy and solving problems related to the defense of the country.

Housing

For a long time, housing has served not only to satisfy a person’s need for housing, but also as part of his economic and economic life. Naturally, the social differentiation of society was also reflected in the features of the dwelling, its size, and amenities. Each era is characterized by its own special features in residential and commercial buildings and in their complexes. The study of these features gives us additional knowledge about the past era, provides details not only about the everyday life of past generations, but also about the social and economic aspects of their existence.

The end of the 15th and 16th centuries is a kind of milestone in our sources on the history of the material culture of the Russian people; archaeological data, as a rule, do not rise chronologically beyond the 15th century. Selected observations of archaeologists on the material culture of the 16th - 17th centuries. are obtained along with the study of earlier periods and are relatively fragmentary. Special works on the late Russian Middle Ages are rare, although their data on housing are very valuable for us. But as archaeological data decreases, the amount of documentary information also increases. Fragmentary and random mentions of housing in chronicles, with which we are forced to be content with periods before the 16th century, are now significantly supplemented by an ever-increasing number of vital records and other official documents. Dry, brief, but very valuable due to its widespread nature, the data from scribe books allows us to make the first generalizations, calculations, and comparisons of different types of buildings. Here and there in these sources there are also descriptions of interesting details in the characteristics of residential and outbuildings. To this data from written Russian sources, we must add notes from foreigners who visited Russia at this time. Not everything in their observations and descriptions is reliable and clear to us, but many details of Russian life in the 16th century. they noted and conveyed accurately, and much is understood taking into account the comparative study of other sources. Sketches of Russian life, made from outside, also conveyed to us something that was not reflected at all in Russian documents, since for Russian authors much was so familiar that, in their opinion, it was not worth paying special attention to.

Perhaps, only from the 16th century we have the right to talk about the emergence of another type of sources on material culture, the importance of which is difficult to overestimate, various materials of a graphic nature. No matter how accurate the written information is, they give us, at best, a list of the names of buildings or their parts, but from them it is almost impossible to imagine what they looked like. Only since the 16th century have we come across drawings that quite fully reflect the life of Rus' at that time. The manner of these drawings is sometimes unusually conventional for us, subordinate to certain canons of icon painting or book miniatures, but by looking closely at them, having assimilated to some extent the language of conventions, one can quite accurately imagine the real features of the way of life of that time. Among the monuments of this kind, an outstanding place is occupied by the colossal illustrated Chronicle, created according to the plan and with the participation of Ivan IV in 1553-1570. Thousands of miniatures from this collection provide the researcher with excellent visual material on many aspects of Russian life, including housing. They are successfully complemented by some iconographic scenes and miniatures from other books of this era.

The social structure of Russian society was also reflected in the system of dividing settlements into certain units, which for the peasantry were at the same time taxation units, tax units and actually existing units of the peasant family settlement. Such units were courtyards. Documents and chronicles know a courtyard, a courtyard place, a courtyard in these two, at first glance, unequal, meanings. Of course, where we are talking about monastic yards, boyars, clerks' yards, clerks' yards, artisans' yards, or even more specific names - cow yard, stable yard, gross yard, we are only dealing with the designation of a certain space occupied by a complex of residential and outbuildings. But for the main tax population, for the peasantry, the concepts of a yard as an estate, a complex of buildings and a yard as a tax unit coincided to a certain extent, since only a full-fledged peasant yard, which had a full set of buildings necessary for farming and living of a peasant family.

The composition of buildings typical of the medieval Russian peasant courtyard has recently caused lively debate. It is believed that the composition of buildings and even those types of buildings that ethnography knows from the life of a Russian village in the 19th century are primordial and almost unchanged in Rus' since ancient times, from the period before Mongolian Rus'. However, the accumulation of archaeological data on ancient Russian housing, a more careful analysis of written sources and medieval graphics cast doubt on this conclusion.

Archaeological data speak quite clearly about a more complex history of the development of the Russian complex of residential and commercial buildings, this has been depicted previously. The most striking thing seemed to be the minimal number of buildings for livestock, although there is no doubt that the population had a lot of livestock. For hundreds of open residential buildings, there are literally only a few fundamental buildings for livestock. Equally unusual was the conclusion about the predominance of residential single-chamber buildings. Quite complex types of multi-chamber and two-chamber connections between residential and utility premises were also known, but they constitute a minority. From these facts one inevitably has to draw a conclusion about the gradual and rather complex development of residential complexes, and this development in different geographical zones took its own paths and led to the formation of special zonal types. As far as our sources allow us to judge, this process began at the turn of the 15th to 17th centuries, although the formation of ethnographic types in the 19th century. can hardly be considered completely completed, since by their nature the residential complexes were closely related to changes in the socio-economic life of the population and constantly reflected these changes.

The earliest documentary records about the composition of peasant households depict it to us very laconically: a hut and a cage. The above extracts from documents of the late 15th century might seem random and atypical if some sources did not allow their typicality to be supported by mass material. One of the scribe books provides a more detailed than usual list of buildings in peasant households abandoned during the tragic events of the last decade of the 16th century. The analysis of these inventories gave very revealing results. The overwhelming majority of peasant households were very poor in the composition of buildings: 49% consisted of only two buildings (“hut and cage”, “hut and hay barn”). These documents are confirmed by another, unique source - the Litsevoy Chronicle of the 16th century. It is difficult to say why, but even the latest researchers consider the architectural background of the miniatures of this vault to be borrowed from Byzantine sources. Research by A.V. Artsikhovgov at one time convincingly showed the Russian basis of the nature with which these miniatures were painted, the Russian character of things, everyday details, scenes. And only the dwelling is made dependent on foreign sources and conventions of the “fantastic chamber letter of Russian icon painting.” In fact, the dwelling, which consists mostly of miniature scenes (although there are very realistic images of not only temples, but also ordinary huts and cages), is based on the same Russian reality, the same Russian life, well known to the creators of miniatures both from older facial manuscripts that have not reached us, and from our own observations. And among these pictures there are few images of villages. The language of the miniatures of the Facial Vault is distinguished by a certain convention. The pictogram of dwellings is deciphered quite simply. The hut always has three windows and a door on the end wall, and the cage always has two windows and a door. The walls are not lined with logs, do not have the remains of logs in the corners so typical for a log house, and windows and doors for the sake of beauty are smoothed, rounded, equipped with curls, they are difficult to recognize, but they are there and always in a firmly established place, in the traditional quantity for each type of building. Villages, and especially individual peasant households, are rarely depicted, since the main content of the chronicle remains the life of the feudal elite, the feudal city. But where we are talking about villages, they exist, and the pictographic formula for them is built from two buildings, which, based on their characteristics, are easily defined as a hut and a cage. This was, in all likelihood, the real basis of the peasant household, its typical composition until the 16th century.

But for the 16th century, such courtyards were already becoming a relic. The economic upsurge after the final liberation from the Tatar yoke, the elimination of feudal fragmentation, and the general order in life in a centralized and strong state could not but affect changes in the complex of peasant households. Previously, this process began in the northern regions, where social relations favored this, where harsher nature also required it, later we notice this in the central regions, but it was the 16th century that can be considered the beginning of those changes both in the composition and in the layout of the peasant household, which by the 19th century give us an ethnographic diagram of the various types of Russian peasant household. All the main buildings of a peasant yard were log houses - huts, cages, hay barns, moss fields, stables, barns (although there are also references to wattle barns). The main and obligatory element of such a yard was a hut, a heated building, insulated in the grooves with moss, where the peasant’s family lived, where in the winter they studied and worked (weaving, spinning, making various utensils and tools), and here in the cold, livestock also found shelter. As a rule, there was one hut per courtyard, but there were peasant courtyards with two or even three huts, where large undivided families were accommodated. Apparently, already in the 16th century, there was a separation of two main types of peasant housing; in the northern regions, huts on the basement, podizbitsa, i.e. began to dominate. having underground. In such basements they could keep livestock and store supplies. In the central and southern regions, above-ground huts still exist, the floor of which was laid at ground level, and, perhaps, was earthen. But the tradition was not yet established. Above-ground huts are mentioned in documents all the way to Arkhangelsk, and huts on the basements of rich peasants were also erected in the central regions. Here they were often called upper rooms.

Based on documentary records about the dwellings of the 16th century, we know of rare cases of mention of the entryway as part of peasant households. But just in the 16th century, the canopy increasingly began to be mentioned as an element, first of an urban and then of a peasant dwelling, and the canopy definitely served as a connecting link between two buildings - the hut and the cage. But changing the internal layout cannot be considered only formally. The appearance of the canopy as a protective vestibule in front of the entrance to the hut, as well as the fact that the firebox of the hut was now facing the inside of the hut - all this greatly improved the housing, making it warmer and more comfortable. The general rise of culture was reflected in this improvement of housing, although the 16th century was only the beginning of further changes, and the appearance of the canopy, even at the end of the 16th century, became typical for peasant households in many regions of Russia. Like other elements of housing, they first appeared in the northern regions. The second obligatory building of a peasant yard was a cage, i.e. a log building used for storing grain, clothing, and other property of peasants. But not all areas knew the cage as a second utility room.

There is another building that apparently served the same function as the cage. This is a sennik. Of the other buildings of the peasant yard, it is necessary to mention, first of all, barns, since grain farming in the relatively damp climate of Central Russia is impossible without drying the sheaves. Ovins are more often mentioned in documents relating to the northern regions. Cellars are often mentioned, but they are better known to us from urban materials. “Bayna” or “mylna” was equally obligatory in the northern and parts of the central regions, but not everywhere. It is unlikely that the baths of that time were very different from those that can still be found in deep villages - a small log house, sometimes without a dressing room, in the corner - a stove - a heater, next to it - shelves or floors on which to steam, in the corner - a barrel for water, which is heated by throwing hot stones there, and all this is illuminated by a small window, the light from which drowns in the blackness of the smoky walls and ceilings. On top, such a structure often has an almost flat pitched roof, covered with birch bark and turf. The tradition of washing in baths among Russian peasants was not universal. In other places they washed themselves in ovens.

The 16th century was the time when buildings for livestock became widespread. They were placed separately, each under its own roof. In the northern regions, already at this time, one can notice a tendency towards two-story buildings of such buildings (a stable, a moss forest, and on them a hay barn, that is, a hay barn), which later led to the formation of huge two-story household courtyards (at the bottom - stables and pens for livestock, at the top - a shed, a barn where hay and equipment are stored, a cage is also placed here). The feudal estate, according to inventories and archaeological information, was significantly different from the peasant one. One of the main features of any feudal court, in a city or in a village, was special watchtowers and defensive towers - povalushi. In the 16th century, such defensive towers were not only an expression of boyar arrogance, but also a necessary construction in case of attack by neighbors - landowners, restless free people. The vast majority of these towers were made of logs, several floors high. The residential building of the feudal court was the upper room. These upper rooms did not always have slanted windows, and not all of them could have had white stoves, but the very name of this building suggests that it was on a high basement.

The buildings were log buildings, made from selected timber, had good gable roofs, and on the floors they were of several types - gable, hipped and covered with a figured roof - barrels, etc. The courtyard of a wealthy citizen was similar in composition and names of buildings to the boyars' courtyards, and the Russian cities themselves in those days, as was repeatedly noted by foreigners, were still very similar to the sum of rural estates rather than to a city in the modern sense. We know very little about the homes of ordinary artisans from documents; they did not often have to describe their meager inheritance in legal acts. Archaeologists do not have sufficient information about them either. There were entire settlements of artisans. But many of them lived in the courtyards of monasteries, boyars, and in the courtyards of rich townspeople. Based on materials from the 16th century, it is difficult to distinguish them into a separate group. One might think that the courtyards of artisans in urban suburbs, in terms of the composition of buildings, were closer to peasant courtyards; they did not have a choir of rich people. Stone residential buildings, known in Rus' since the 14th century, continued to be rare in the 16th century. The few residential stone mansions of the 16th century that have reached us amaze with the massiveness of the walls, the obligatory vaulted ceilings and the central pillar supporting the vault. Researchers of ancient architecture and folklore paint us a colorful picture of antiquity as a world of patterned, carved, decorated huts, towers, chambers with chiseled porches and gilded domes. However, our data does not allow us to judge how richly and how the peasant huts and other buildings were decorated. Apparently, peasant huts were decorated very modestly, but some parts of the huts were necessarily decorated; roof ridges, doors, gates, stove.

Comparative materials from ethnography of the 19th century show that these decorations played, in addition to an aesthetic role, the role of amulets that protected “entrances” from evil spirits; the roots of the semantics of such decorations go back to pagan ideas. But the homes of rich townspeople and feudal lords were decorated magnificently, intricately, and colorfully with the hands and talent of the peasants. We know little about the interior decoration of dwellings, although it is unlikely that the interior of peasant huts and artisans' houses was very different from what was typical for the peasantry in the 19th century. But no matter how fragmentary our information is on some elements of the 16th century dwelling, we can still state a significant shift in this area of ​​the culture of the Russian people in the 16th century, associated with the general processes of the historical development of the country.

Cloth

We can restore in general terms the true picture of how our ancestors dressed in the 16th century only by synthesizing information from various sources - written, graphic, archaeological, museum, ethnographic. It is completely impossible to trace local differences in clothing from these sources, but they undoubtedly existed.

The main clothing in the 16th century was the shirt. Shirts were made from woolen fabric (hair shirt) and linen and hemp fabric. In the 16th century, shirts were necessarily worn with certain decorations, which among the rich and noble were made of pearls, precious stones, gold and silver threads, and among the common people, probably with red threads. The most important element of such a set of jewelry is the necklace that covered the opening of the collar. The necklace could be sewn to a shirt, or it could be a false necklace, but wearing it should be considered mandatory outside the home. Decorations covered the ends of the sleeves and the bottom of the hem of shirts. Shirts varied in length. Consequently, short shirts, the hem of which reached approximately to the knees, were worn by peasants and the urban poor. The rich and noble wore long shirts and shirts that reached to their heels. Pants were a mandatory element of men's clothing. But there was no single term to designate this clothing yet. Shoes of the 16th century were very diverse in both materials and cut.

Archaeological excavations show a clear predominance of leather shoes woven from bast or birch bark. This means that bast shoes were not known to the population of Rus' since ancient times and were rather additional shoes intended for special occasions.

For the 16th century, a certain social gradation can be outlined: boots - shoes of the noble, rich; caligas, pistons - shoes of peasants and masses of townspeople. However, this gradation may not have been clear, since soft boots were worn by both artisans and peasants. But feudal lords always wear boots.

Men's hats were quite varied, especially among the nobility. The most common among the population, peasants and townspeople, was a felt hat of a cone shape with a rounded top. The dominant feudal strata of the population, more associated with trade, and striving to emphasize their class isolation, borrowed a lot from other cultures. The custom of wearing tafya, a small cap, became widespread among the boyars and nobility. They didn’t take off such a hat at home either. And when leaving the house, she was put on a tall “gorlat” fur hat - a sign of boyar arrogance and dignity.

The nobility also wore other hats. If the difference in basic men's clothing between class groups was reduced mainly to the quality of materials and decorations, then the difference in outer clothing was very sharp, and, above all, in the number of clothes. The richer and more noble the person, the more clothes he wore. The very names of these clothes are not always clear to us, since they often reflect such characteristics as material, method of fastening, which also coincides with the nomenclature of later peasant clothing, which is also very vague in terms of functionality. The only things the common people shared in name with the ruling strata were fur coats, single-row coats and caftans. But in terms of material and decoration there could be no comparison. Among men's clothing, sundresses are also mentioned, the cut of which is difficult to imagine exactly, but it was a spacious long dress, also decorated with embroidery and hems. Of course, they dressed so luxuriously only during ceremonial exits, receptions and other special occasions.

As in a men's suit, the shirt was the main, and often the only clothing of women in the 16th century. But the shirts themselves were long; we don’t know the cut of a woman’s shirt down to the toes. The material from which women's shirts were made was linen. But there could also be woolen shirts. Women's shirts were necessarily decorated.

Of course, peasant women did not have expensive necklaces, but they could be replaced by embroidered ones, decorated with simple beads, small pearls, and brass stripes. Peasant women and ordinary townswomen probably wore ponevs, plakhtas, or similar clothes under other names. But in addition to waist clothes, as well as shirts, some kind of maid clothes were issued already from the 16th century.

We know nothing about the shoes of ordinary women, but most likely they were identical to men's. We have very common ideas about women's headdresses of the 16th century. In the miniatures, the women's heads are covered with plates (ubrus) - pieces of white fabric that cover the head and fall onto the shoulders on top of the clothing. The clothing of noble women was very different from the clothing of the common people, primarily in the abundance of dress and its wealth. As for sundresses, even in the 17th century they remained predominantly men's clothing, not women's. While talking about clothing, we are forced to mention jewelry. Some of the jewelry became an element of certain clothes. Belts served as one of the obligatory elements of clothing and at the same time as decoration. It was impossible to go outside without a belt. XV-XVI centuries and later times can be considered a period when the role of metal sets of jewelry gradually faded away, although not in all forms. If archaeological data gives us dozens of different types of neck, temple, forehead, and hand jewelry, then by the 16th century there remained relatively few of them: rings, bracelets (wrist), earrings, beads. But this does not mean that the previous decorations disappeared without a trace. They continued to exist in a greatly modified form. These decorations become part of the clothing.

Food

Bread remained the main food in the 16th century. Baking and the preparation of other products from grain, and grain products in the cities of the 16th century were the occupation of large groups of artisans who specialized in the production of these foodstuffs for sale. The bread was baked from mixed rye and oat flour, and also, probably, only from oatmeal. Bread, rolls, and bread were baked from wheat flour. They made noodles from flour, baked pancakes and “perebake” - fried rye flatbreads made from sour dough. Pancakes were baked from rye flour and crackers were prepared. There is a very diverse assortment of pastries - pies with poppy seeds, honey, porridge, turnips, cabbage, mushrooms, meat, etc. The listed products do not exhaust the variety of bread products consumed in Rus' in the 16th century.

A very common type of bread food was porridge (oatmeal, buckwheat, barley, millet), and jelly - pea and oatmeal. Grain also served as a raw material for preparing drinks: kvass, beer, vodka. The variety of vegetable and horticultural crops cultivated in the 16th century determined the variety of vegetables and fruits eaten: cabbage, cucumbers, onions, garlic, beets, carrots, turnips, radishes, horseradish, poppy seeds, green peas, melons, various herbs for pickles (cherry, mint, cumin), apples, cherries, plums.

Mushrooms - boiled, dried, baked - played a significant role in the diet. One of the main types of food, next in importance to grain and plant foods and animal products in the 16th century, was fish food. For the 16th century, different methods of processing fish were known: salting, drying, drying. Very expressive sources depicting the variety of food in Rus' in the 16th century are the canteens of the monasteries. An even greater variety of dishes is presented in Domostroy, where there is a special section “Books throughout the year that are served on tables... "

Thus, in the 16th century, the range of bread products was already very diverse. Advances in the development of agriculture, in particular gardening and horticulture, have led to a significant enrichment and expansion of the range of plant foods in general. Along with meat and dairy foods, fish food continued to play a very important role.

Rituals

Folklore of the 16th century, like all art of that time, lived in traditional forms and used previously developed artistic means. Written records that have come down to us from the 16th century testify that rituals in which many traces of paganism were preserved were ubiquitous in Rus', and that epics, fairy tales, proverbs, and songs were the main forms of verbal art.

Monuments of writing of the 16th century. buffoons are mentioned as people who amuse the people, amusements. They took part in weddings, played the role of groomsmen, participated in funerals, especially in the final fun, told fairy tales and sang songs, and gave comic performances.

Fairy tales

In the 16th century fairy tales were popular. From the 16th century Few materials have survived that would allow us to recognize the fairy-tale repertoire of that time. We can only say that it included fairy tales. The German Erich Lyassota, while in Kyiv in 1594, wrote down a fairy tale about a wonderful mirror. It tells that a mirror was embedded in one of the slabs of the St. Sophia Cathedral, in which one could see what was happening far from this place. There were fairy tales about animals and everyday ones.

Genres of traditional folklore were widely used at this time. XVI century - a time of great historical events, which left its mark on folk art. The themes of folklore works began to be updated; new social types and historical figures were included as heroes. The image of Ivan the Terrible also entered fairy tales. In one tale, Ivan the Terrible is depicted as a shrewd ruler, close to the people, but harsh towards the boyars. The tsar paid the peasant well for the turnips and bast shoes given to him, but when the nobleman gave the tsar a good horse, the tsar unraveled the evil intent and gave him not a large estate, but a turnip, which he received from the peasant. Another genre that was widely used in oral and written speech in the 16th century was the proverb. It was the genre that most vividly responded to historical events and social processes. The time of Ivan the Terrible and his struggle against the boyars were subsequently often satirically reflected, irony

they were directed against the boyars: “Times are shaky - take care of your hats,” “The Tsar’s favors are sown in the boyar’s sieve,” “The Tsar strokes, and the boyars scrape.”

Proverbs

Proverbs also evaluate everyday phenomena, in particular the position of women in the family, the power of parents over children. Many of this kind of proverbs were created among backward and ignorant people and were influenced by the morality of the clergy. "A woman and a demon - they have the same weight." But proverbs were also created that embodied the life experience of the people: “The house is held by the wife.”

Beliefs

In folklore of the 16th century. Many genres were widely used, including those that arose in ancient times and contain traces of ancient ideas, such as belief in the power of words and actions in conspiracies, belief in the existence of goblins, water goblins, brownies, sorcerers, in superstitions, legends , which are stories about miracles, about encounters with evil spirits, about treasures found, and deceived devils. For these genres in the 16th century. significant Christianization is already characteristic. Belief in the power of word and action is now confirmed by asking for help from God, Jesus Christ, Our Lady and the saints. The power of Christian, religious ideas was great, they began to dominate over pagan ones. In addition to the goblin, mermaids and the devil, the characters of the legends are also saints (Nikola, Ilya).

Epics

Important changes also occurred in epics. The past, the subject of the depiction of epics, receives new illumination in them. Thus, during the period of struggle with the Kazan and Astrakhan kingdoms, epics about battles with the Tatars received a new meaning due to the rise of patriotic sentiments. Sometimes epics were modernized. Kalin the Tsar is replaced by Mamai, and Ivan the Terrible appears instead of Prince Vladimir. The fight against the Tatars gave life to the epic epic. It absorbs new historical events and includes new heroes.

In addition to this kind of changes, epic researchers attribute the emergence of new epics to this time. In this century, epics were composed about Duke and Sukhman, about the Lithuanian raid, about Vavil and the buffoons. The difference between all these epics is the broad development of social themes and anti-boyar satire. Duke is presented in the epic as a cowardly “young boyar” who does not dare to fight the snake, is afraid of Ilya Muromets, but amazes everyone with his wealth. Duke is a satirical image. The epic about him is a satire on the Moscow boyars.

The epic about Sukhman, old in origin, is characterized by the strengthening in it of a negative interpretation of the images of boyars, princes and Vladimir, who comes into conflict with the hero who does not reconcile with the prince. The epic about the invasion of the Lithuanians contains vivid traces of time. Two brothers Livikov from the land of Lithuania are plotting a raid on Moscow. The epic has two storylines: the kidnapping of Prince Roman and his fight against the Lithuanians. The epic about Babyla and the buffoons and their struggle with Tsar Dog, whose kingdom they ruin and burn, is a work of a special kind. It is allegorical and utopian, as it expresses the age-old dream of the masses about a “just kingdom.” The epic is distinguished by satire and funny jokes, which were included in it along with the images of buffoons.

Legends

New features acquired in the 16th century. and legends - oral prose stories about significant events and historical figures of the past. From the legends of the 16th century. First of all, two groups of legends about Ivan the Terrible and Ermak stand out.

1) They are full of great social resonance, include stories related to the campaign against Kazan, with the subjugation of Novgorod: they are patriotic in nature, praising Ivan the Terrible, but are clearly democratic in nature.

2) Compiled by the Novgorodians and contains a condemnation of Ivan the Terrible for cruelty. The fight against Martha Posadnitsa, whom he allegedly exiled or killed, is also attributed to him. The name of Ivan the Terrible is associated with quite a few legends about the areas he visited or the churches he built. Novgorod legends depict the executions of townspeople, which, however, is condemned not only by the people, but also by the saints. In one of the legends, the saint, taking the severed head of an executed man in his hands, pursues the king, and he runs away in fear. The legend about Ermak is local in nature: there are legends about him from the Don, Ural, and Siberia. Each of them gives his image its own special interpretation.

1) In Don legends, Ermak is portrayed as the founder of the Cossack army, protecting the Cossacks: he liberated the Don from foreigners: he himself came to the Don, fleeing after the murder of a boyar. Thus, in Don legends, Ermak, often at odds with history, is presented as a Cossack leader. There is a rich group of legends in which Ermak appears as the conqueror of Siberia. His trip to Siberia is motivated differently: either he was sent there by the tsar, or he himself went to Siberia in order to earn the tsar’s forgiveness for the crimes he committed. His death is also described in different ways: the Tatars attacked his army and killed the sleeping ones; Ermak drowned in the Irtysh in a heavy shell; He was betrayed by Captain Ring.

Songs

The unrest of the townspeople in Moscow (1547), the desire of the Cossacks for self-government, the royal decrees on the temporary ban on the transfer of peasants from one landowner to another (1581), on indentured servants (1597) - all this contributed to the growth of discontent among the masses, one of the forms whose protest became robbery. It is reflected in folklore in the so-called bandit or daring songs. Peasants fled not only from the landowners' estates, but also from the tsarist troops. Life in freedom served as a condition that contributed to a more vivid expression of the age-old dreams of the masses about social liberation. The artistic form in which these dreams found poetic embodiment was bandit songs. They were just emerging at the end of the 16th century. The hero of these songs is a brave, daring, kind fellow, which is why the songs themselves are popularly called “daring songs.” They are distinguished by acute drama, glorification of “will” and the image of a robber who hangs boyars and governors. A classic example is the song “Don’t make noise, you mother, green oak tree.” Its hero rejects the demand of the royal servants to hand over his comrades.

In the 16th century The genre of ballad songs was also formed - a small ethical poetic poetic form. This type of work, to which the Western - European term “ballad” is applied, is very unique. It is distinguished by its subtle characteristics of personal, family relationships of people. But it often includes historical motives and heroes, but they are not interpreted historically. The ballads have a clearly anti-feudal orientation (for example, condemnation of the arbitrariness of the prince, the boyar in the ballad "Dmitry and Domna", where the prince brutally deals with the girl who rejected his hand), they often develop harsh parental authority and family despotism. Although the criminal in ballads is usually not

is punished, but moral victory is always on the side of ordinary people. The heroes of ballads are often kings and queens, princes and princesses, their fate is connected with the fate of ordinary people - peasants, servants, whose images are interpreted as positive. A characteristic feature in the ballads is an anti-clerical orientation (for example, “Churilla - Abbess”, “The Prince and the Elders”, in which representatives of the clergy play a negative role).

Among the ballads that arose in the 16th century are the ballads “Dmitry and Domna”, “Prince Mikhailo”, “Prince Roman was losing his wife”. In the first, a girl, protesting against a forced marriage, takes her own life. In other versions, the groom, Prince Dmitry, beats her to death. In the ballad "Prince Mikhailo" the mother-in-law destroys her daughter-in-law. The ballad about Prince Roman and his wife is deeply dramatic. Having destroyed her, he hides it from his daughter. Works of the ballad genre are emotionally intense, and the plots are tragic: a positive hero dies, evil, unlike epics and fairy tales, is usually not punished. The ideological and moral content in them is revealed through a positive hero who, although he dies, wins a moral victory. Despite its popularity in the 16th century. epics, fairy tales, proverbs, ballads, the most characteristic of folklore of this time were historical songs. Having originated earlier, they became the most important genre in this century, since their plots reflected the events of the time that attracted general attention, and the flowering of this genre in the 16th century. It was due to a number of factors: the rise of the national creation of the masses and the deepening of their historical thinking; completion of the unification of Russian lands; the aggravation of social conflicts between the peasantry and the landed nobility as a result of the former’s attachment to the land. Historical songs are divided into 2 main cycles associated with the names of Ivan the Terrible and Ermak.

Songs about Ivan the Terrible include stories about the capture of Kazan, the fight against the Crimean Tatars, the defense of Pskov, the personal life of the tsar: Ivan the Terrible’s anger at his son, the death of the tsar himself. Songs about Ermak - stories about Ermak and the Cossacks, the Golytba campaign near Kazan, the robbery campaign on the Volga and the murder of the Tsar's ambassador by the Cossacks, the capture of Kazan by Ermak, meetings with Grozny and being in Turkish captivity. The songs also found a response to the raids of the Crimean Khan Davlet-Girey on Moscow in 1571-72. and the defense of Pskov from Batory’s troops in 1581-82. the song "Raid of the Tatars" and the song "Siege of Pskov".

Major historical events and important social processes of the 16th century. determined the deep connection of songs with living reality, reduced elements of convention in the narrative and contributed to a broad reflection of phenomena and everyday details characteristic of the time.

Russian Civilization

The appearance of the vestibule as a protective vestibule in front of the entrance to the hut, as well as the fact that now the firebox of the hut was facing inside the hut. The appearance of the vestibule as a protective vestibule in front of the entrance to the hut, as well as the fact that now the firebox of the hut was facing inside the hut - all this greatly improved the housing , made it warmer. The appearance of the canopy even at the end of the 16th century became typical for peasant households not in all regions of Russia (In the northern regions)

Drawing a conclusion about the dwellings of peasants, we can say that the 16th century was the time when buildings for livestock became widespread. They were erected separately, each under its own roof. In the northern regions, already at this time, one can notice a tendency towards two-story buildings of such buildings (a stable, a moss forest, and on them a hay barn, that is, a hay barn), which later led to the formation of huge two-story household courtyards (at the bottom - stables and pens for livestock, at the top - a shed, a barn where hay and equipment are stored, a cage is also placed here).

The basis of nutrition was grain crops - rye, wheat, oats, millet. Bread and pies were baked from rye (everyday) and wheat (on holidays) flour. Kissels were made from oats. A lot of vegetables were eaten - cabbage, carrots, beets, radishes, cucumbers, turnips

On holidays, meat dishes were prepared in small quantities. The most common product on the table was fish; wealthy peasants had garden trees that gave them apples, plums, cherries, and pears. In the northern regions of the country, peasants collected cranberries, lingonberries, and blueberries; in the central regions - strawberries. Mushrooms and hazelnuts were also used as food.

The Orthodox Church allowed one person to marry no more than three times. (A fourth marriage was strictly prohibited) The solemn wedding ceremony was usually performed only during the first marriage. Weddings were celebrated, as a rule, in the fall and winter - when there was no agricultural work. Divorce was very difficult. The husband could divorce his wife if she cheated, and communication with strangers outside the home without the permission of the spouse was considered cheating.

The working day in the family began early. Ordinary people had two obligatory meals - lunch and dinner. At noon, production activities were interrupted. After lunch, according to the old Russian habit, there was a long rest and sleep (which greatly amazed foreigners). then work began again until dinner. With the end of daylight, everyone went to bed.

After the Christmas holiday, an amazing time begins - Christmas time, the girls were going to tell fortunes. And on the street there was a cheerful commotion - the children were walking around singing carols. Christmastide After baptism, the fun died down, but not for long. Before Lent there is a great holiday: Broad Maslenitsa! It has been customary to celebrate the farewell of winter since pagan times. In Great Broad, the main dish on the table is golden pancakes: a symbol of the sun. Maslenitsa

Characterized by an increase in the literacy rate of 15% of peasants; Primers, ABCs, grammars and other educational literature were printed. Handwritten traditions have also been preserved. “White stoves” appeared instead of “chicken stoves” (peasants had “chicken stoves” until the 19th century) In the 17th century, Western European experience was being adopted. From the 17th century, marriages had to be blessed by the church. Dissolution was carried out only with the condition that one of the spouses was tonsured a monk. The appearance of metal utensils (samovar) Literature of the 17th century was largely freed from religious content. You no longer find in it various kinds of “trips” to holy places, holy teachings, even works like “Domostroy”

In the difficult conditions of the Middle Ages, the culture of the 16th-17th centuries. has achieved great success in various fields. There has been an increase in literacy among various segments of the population. Primers, ABCs, grammars and other educational literature were printed. Books containing various scientific and practical information began to be published. Natural science knowledge was accumulated, manuals on mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, medicine, and agriculture were published. Interest in history increased. New genres are appearing in Russian literature: satirical tales, biographies, poetry, and foreign literature is being translated. In architecture, there is a departure from strict church rules, the traditions of ancient Russian architecture are being revived: zakomari, arcature belt, stone carving. Iconography continued to be the main type of painting. For the first time in Russian painting, the portrait genre appears.

ON NATIONAL HISTORY

Topic: Life and everyday life of Russian people of the 16th century in “Domostroy”

Introduction

Family relationships

Woman of the house-building era

Everyday life and holidays of Russian people

Work in the life of a Russian person

Morals

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

By the beginning of the 16th century, church and religion had a huge influence on the culture and life of the Russian people. Orthodoxy played a positive role in overcoming the harsh morals, ignorance and archaic customs of ancient Russian society. In particular, the norms of Christian morality had an impact on family life, marriage, and raising children.

Perhaps not a single document of medieval Rus' reflected the nature of life, economy, and economic relationships of its time, like Domostroy.

It is believed that the first edition of “Domostroi” was compiled in Veliky Novgorod at the end of the 15th – beginning of the 16th centuries and at the beginning it was used as an edifying collection among the trade and industrial people, gradually acquiring new instructions and advice. The second edition, significantly revised, was collected and re-edited by the priest Sylvester, a native of Novgorod, an influential adviser and educator of the young Russian Tsar Ivan IV, the Terrible.

"Domostroy" is an encyclopedia of family life, household customs, traditions of Russian economics - the entire diverse spectrum of human behavior.

“Domostroy” had the goal of teaching every person “the good of prudent and orderly living” and was designed for the general population, and although this instruction still contains many points related to the church, they already contain a lot of purely secular advice and recommendations on behavior in everyday life and in society. It was assumed that every citizen of the country should be guided by the set of rules of behavior outlined. In the first place it puts the task of moral and religious education, which parents should keep in mind when caring for the development of their children. In second place was the task of teaching children what is necessary in “home life,” and in third place was teaching literacy and book sciences.

Thus, “Domostroy” is not only a work of moralizing and family life type, but also a kind of code of socio-economic norms of civil life of Russian society.

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

For a long time, the Russian peoples had a large family uniting relatives along the direct and lateral lines. The distinctive features of a large peasant family were collective farming and consumption, common ownership of property by two or more independent married couples. Among the urban (posad) population, families were smaller and usually consisted of two generations - parents and children. The families of service people were, as a rule, small, since the son, upon reaching 15 years of age, had to “serve the sovereign’s service and could receive both his own separate local salary and a granted patrimony.” This contributed to early marriages and the formation of independent small families.

With the introduction of Orthodoxy, marriages began to be formalized through a church wedding ceremony. But the traditional wedding ceremony - “fun” - was preserved in Rus' for about six to seven centuries.

Divorce was very difficult. Already in the early Middle Ages, divorce - “dissolution” was permitted only in exceptional cases. At the same time, the rights of the spouses were unequal. A husband could divorce his wife if she cheated, and communication with strangers outside the home without the permission of the spouse was equated to cheating. In the late Middle Ages (from the 16th century), divorce was permitted with the condition that one of the spouses was tonsured a monk.

The Orthodox Church allowed one person to marry no more than three times. The solemn wedding ceremony was usually performed only during the first marriage. A fourth marriage was strictly prohibited.

A newborn child had to be baptized in church on the eighth day after birth in the name of the saint of that day. The rite of baptism was considered by the church to be a basic, vital rite. The unbaptized had no rights, not even the right to burial. The church forbade burying a child who died unbaptized in a cemetery. The next rite after baptism - tonsure - took place a year after baptism. On this day, the godfather or godfather (godparents) cut a lock of hair from the child and gave a ruble. After the tonsures, every year they celebrated a name day, that is, the day of the saint in whose honor the person was named (later it became known as the “day of the angel”), and not the birthday. The Tsar's name day was considered an official public holiday.

In the Middle Ages, the role of the head of the family was extremely important. He represented the family as a whole in all its external functions. Only he had the right to vote at meetings of residents, in the city council, and later in meetings of Konchan and Sloboda organizations. Within the family, the power of the head was practically unlimited. He controlled the property and destinies of each of its members. This also applied to the personal lives of children whom the father could marry or marry against their will. The Church condemned him only if he drove them to suicide.

The orders of the head of the family had to be carried out unquestioningly. He could apply any punishment, even physical.

An important part of Domostroy, an encyclopedia of Russian life of the 16th century, is the section “about worldly structure, how to live with wives, children and household members.” Just as a king is the undivided ruler of his subjects, so a husband is the master of his family.

He is responsible before God and the state for the family, for raising children - faithful servants of the state. Therefore, the first responsibility of a man - the head of a family - is to raise his sons. To raise them to be obedient and loyal, Domostroy recommends one method - a stick. “Domostroy” directly indicated that the owner should beat his wife and children for educational purposes. For disobedience to parents, the church threatened with excommunication.

In Domostroy, chapter 21, entitled “How to teach children and save them through fear,” contains the following instructions: “Discipline your son in his youth, and he will give you peace in your old age, and give beauty to your soul. And do not feel sorry for the baby bey: if you punish him with a rod, he will not die, but will be healthier, for by executing his body, you are delivering his soul from death. Loving your son, increase his wounds - and then you will not boast about him. Punish your son from his youth and you will rejoice for him in his maturity, and among your ill-wishers you will be able to boast about him, and your enemies will envy you. Raise your children in prohibitions and you will find peace and blessing in them. So do not give him free rein in his youth, but walk along his ribs while he is growing, and then, having matured, he will not offend you and will not become an annoyance for you and illness of the soul, and the ruin of the house, the destruction of property, and the reproach of neighbors, and the ridicule of enemies , and fines from the authorities, and angry annoyance.”

Thus, it is necessary to raise children in the “fear of God” from early childhood. Therefore, they should be punished: “Children who are punished are not sin from God, but from people are reproach and ridicule, and from the house is vanity, but from themselves sorrow and loss, but from people is sale and disgrace.” The head of the house must teach his wife and his servants how to put things in order at home: “and the husband will see that his wife and servants are dishonest, otherwise he would be able to punish his wife with all kinds of reasoning and teach But only if the guilt is great and the matter is difficult, and for great terrible disobedience and negligence, sometimes with a whip, politely beat by the hand, holding someone to blame, but having received it, keep silent, and there would be no anger, and people would not know or hear it.”

WOMAN OF THE HOUSE-BUILDING ERA

In Domostroy, a woman appears obedient to her husband in everything.

All foreigners were amazed at the excess of domestic despotism of the husband over his wife.

In general, a woman was considered a being lower than a man and in some respects unclean; Thus, a woman was not allowed to slaughter an animal: it was believed that its meat would not be tasty. Only old women were allowed to bake prosphora. In certain days, a woman was considered unworthy to eat with her. According to the laws of decency, generated by Byzantine asceticism and deep Tatar jealousy, it was considered reprehensible to even have a conversation with a woman.

Intra-estate family life in medieval Rus' was relatively closed for a long time. The Russian woman was constantly a slave from childhood to the grave. In peasant life, she was under the yoke of hard work. However, ordinary women - peasant women, townspeople - did not lead a reclusive lifestyle at all. Among the Cossacks, women enjoyed comparatively greater freedom; the wives of the Cossacks were their assistants and even went on campaigns with them.

Among the noble and wealthy people of the Moscow state, the female sex was locked up, as in Muslim harems. The girls were kept in solitude, hidden from human gaze; before marriage the man must be completely unknown to them; It was not in the morals for a young man to express his feelings to a girl or to personally ask for her consent to marriage. The most pious people were of the opinion that parents should beat girls more often so that they do not lose their virginity.

In “Domostroy” there are the following instructions on how to raise daughters: “If you have a daughter, and direct your severity towards her, you will save her from bodily harm: you will not disgrace your face if your daughters walk in obedience, and it is not your fault if Out of stupidity, she will ruin her childhood, and it will become known to your acquaintances as ridicule, and then they will disgrace you in front of people. For if you give your daughter immaculate, it’s as if you’ve accomplished a great deed; you’ll be proud in any society, never suffering because of her.”

The more noble the family to which the girl belonged, the more severity awaited her: princesses were the most unfortunate of Russian girls; hidden in chambers, not daring to show themselves in the light, without hope of ever having the right to love and get married.

When given in marriage, the girl was not asked about her desire; She herself did not know who she was marrying; she did not see her fiancé until her marriage, when she was handed over to a new slavery. Having become a wife, she did not dare to leave the house anywhere without her husband’s permission, even if she went to church, and then she was obliged to ask questions. She was not given the right to freely meet according to her heart and disposition, and if some kind of treatment was allowed with those with whom her husband wanted to allow it, then even then she was bound by instructions and comments: what to say, what to keep silent about, what to ask, what not to hear . In her home life, she was not given farming rights. A jealous husband assigned spies to her from among her maids and slaves, and they, wanting to ingratiate themselves into their master’s favor, often interpreted everything to him in a different direction, every step of their mistress. Whether she went to church or on a visit, persistent guards watched her every move and reported everything to her husband.

It often happened that a husband, at the behest of a beloved slave or woman, beat his wife out of mere suspicion. But not all families had such a role for women. In many houses, the housewife had many responsibilities.

She had to work and set an example for the maids, get up earlier than everyone else and wake others up, go to bed later than everyone else: if a maid wakes up the mistress, this was considered not to be a praise to the mistress.

With such an active wife, the husband did not care about anything in the household; “The wife had to know every task better than those who worked on her orders: to cook the food, and put out the jelly, and wash the linen, and rinse, and dry, and lay the tablecloths, and lay the counters, and with such her skill she inspired respect for herself.” .

At the same time, it is impossible to imagine the life of a medieval family without the active participation of a woman, especially in the organization of meals: “The master should consult with his wife about all household matters, like servants, on what day: on a meat-eater - sieve bread, shchida porridge with liquid ham, and sometimes, replacing it, and steep with lard, and meat for lunch, and for dinner cabbage soup and milk or porridge, and on fast days with jam, when there are peas, and when there is sour cream, when there is baked turnips, cabbage soup, oatmeal, and even pickle, botvinya

On Sundays and holidays for lunch there are pies, thick porridge or vegetables, or herring porridge, pancakes, jelly, and whatever God sends.”

The ability to work with fabric, to embroider, to sew was a natural activity in the everyday life of every family: “to sew a shirt or embroider a trim and weave, or sew on a hoop with gold and silk (for which) measure yarn and silk, gold and silver fabric, and taffeta, and Kamki."

One of the important duties of a husband is to “teach” his wife, who must run the entire household and raise their daughters. The will and personality of a woman are completely subordinate to a man.

A woman’s behavior at a party and at home is strictly regulated, down to what she can talk about. The punishment system is also regulated by Domostroy.

The husband must first “teach a negligent wife with every kind of reasoning.” If verbal “punishment” does not produce results, then the husband “deserves” his wife to “crawl with fear alone,” “looking out of guilt.”

EVERYDAYS AND HOLIDAYS OF RUSSIAN PEOPLE IN THE 16th CENTURY

Little information has been preserved about the daily routine of people in the Middle Ages. The working day in the family began early. Ordinary people had two obligatory meals - lunch and dinner. At noon, production activities were interrupted. After lunch, according to the old Russian habit, there was a long rest and sleep (which greatly surprised foreigners). Then work again until dinner. With the end of daylight, everyone went to bed.

The Russians coordinated their home lifestyle with the liturgical order and in this respect made it similar to the monastic one. Rising from sleep, the Russian immediately looked for the image with his eyes in order to cross himself and look at it; It was considered more decent to make the sign of the cross, looking at the image; on the road, when the Russian spent the night in the field, he, getting up from sleep, crossed himself, turning to the east. Immediately, if necessary, after leaving the bed, linen was put on and washing began; wealthy people washed themselves with soap and rose water. After bathing and washing, they got dressed and began praying.

In the room intended for prayer - the cross room, or, if it was not in the house, then in the one where there were more images, the whole family and servants gathered; lamps and candles were lit; smoked incense. The owner, as the lord of the house, read the morning prayers aloud in front of everyone.

Among noble persons who had their own home churches and home clergy, the family gathered in church, where the priest served prayers, matins and hours, and the sexton who looked after the church or chapel sang, and after the morning service the priest sprinkled holy water.

Having finished the prayer, everyone went to their homework.

Where the husband allowed his wife to manage the house, the housewife held advice with the owner about what to do for the coming day, ordered food and assigned the maids work lessons for the whole day. But not all wives were destined for such an active life; For the most part, the wives of noble and rich people, at the will of their husbands, did not interfere with the household at all; everything was in charge of the butler and the housekeeper of the slaves. Housewives of this kind, after morning prayer, went to their chambers and sat down to sewing and embroidering with gold and silk with their servants; Even the food for dinner was ordered by the owner himself to the housekeeper.

After all the household orders, the owner began his usual activities: the merchant went to the shop, the artisan took up his craft, the clerks filled the orders and the clerk's huts, and the boyars in Moscow flocked to the tsar and took care of business.

When starting the day's work, whether it was assigned writing or menial work, the Russian considered it proper to wash his hands, make three signs of the cross with prostrations in front of the icon, and if an opportunity or occasion presented itself, accept the blessing of the priest.

Masses were served at ten o'clock.

At noon it was time for lunch. Single shopkeepers, guys from the common people, serfs, visitors to cities and suburbs dined in taverns; homely people sat down at the table at home or at friends' houses. Kings and noble people, living in special chambers in their courtyards, dined separately from other family members: wives and children had a special meal. Unknown nobles, children of boyars, townspeople and peasants - settled owners ate together with their wives and other family members. Sometimes family members, who with their families formed one family with the owner, dined from him and especially; during dinner parties, female persons never dined where the owner and guests sat.

The table was covered with a tablecloth, but this was not always observed: very often humble people dined without a tablecloth and put salt, vinegar, pepper on the bare table and put slices of bread. Two household officials were in charge of dinner in a wealthy house: the housekeeper and the butler. The housekeeper was in the kitchen when the food was served, the butler was at the table and with the supply of dishes, which always stood opposite the table in the dining room. Several servants carried food from the kitchen; The housekeeper and butler, receiving them, cut them into pieces, tasted them, and then gave them to the servants to place in front of the master and those sitting at the table.

After the usual lunch we went to rest. This was a widespread custom, sanctified by popular respect. The kings, boyars, and merchants slept after having dinner; the street rabble rested in the streets. Not sleeping, or at least not resting after lunch, was considered heresy in a sense, as was any deviation from the customs of our ancestors.

Having risen from their afternoon nap, the Russians again began their usual activities. The kings went to vespers, and from about six in the evening they indulged in fun and conversation.

Sometimes the boyars gathered at the palace, depending on the importance of the matter, in the evening. evening at home was a time of entertainment; In winter, relatives and friends gathered together in houses, and in summer, in tents that were pitched in front of houses.

The Russians always had dinner, and after dinner the pious host said evening prayer. The lamps were lit again, candles were lit in front of the images; households and servants gathered for prayer. After such prayer, it was no longer considered permissible to eat or drink: everyone soon went to bed.

With the adoption of Christianity, especially revered days of the church calendar became official holidays: Christmas, Easter, Annunciation and others, as well as the seventh day of the week - Sunday. According to church rules, holidays should have been devoted to pious deeds and religious rituals. Working on holidays was considered a sin. However, the poor also worked on holidays.

The relative isolation of domestic life was diversified by receptions of guests, as well as festive ceremonies, which were held mainly during church holidays. One of the main religious processions was held for Epiphany. On this day, the Metropolitan blessed the water of the Moscow River, and the population of the city performed the Jordan ritual - “washing with holy water.”

On holidays, other street performances were also held. Traveling artists and buffoons are known even in Kievan Rus. In addition to playing the harp, pipes, singing songs, performances by buffoons included acrobatic performances and competitions with predatory animals. The buffoon troupe usually included an organ grinder, an acrobat, and a puppeteer.

Holidays, as a rule, were accompanied by public feasts - “brotherhood”. However, the idea of ​​the supposedly unrestrained drunkenness of Russians is clearly exaggerated. Only during the 5-6 major church holidays was the population allowed to brew beer, and taverns were a state monopoly.

Social life also included games and fun - both military and peaceful, for example, the capture of a snow town, wrestling and fist fights, small towns, leapfrog, blind man's buff, grandmothers. Among gambling games, dice became widespread, and from the 16th century, cards, brought from the West. The favorite pastime of kings and boyars was hunting.

Thus, human life in the Middle Ages, although it was relatively monotonous, was far from being limited to the production and socio-political spheres; it included many aspects of everyday life, to which historians do not always pay due attention.

WORK IN THE LIFE OF A RUSSIAN PERSON

The Russian man of the Middle Ages is constantly busy with thoughts about his economy: “Every person, rich and poor, big and small, judge himself and estimate himself, according to industry and earnings and according to his estate, and the clerk, according to the state salary and according to income, and this is how to keep a yard and all acquisitions and every supply, and this is why people keep all their household needs; That’s why you eat and drink and get along with good people.”

Work as a virtue and a moral act: every handicraft or craft, according to the “Domostroy”, should be done in preparation, cleansing oneself of all filth and washing one’s hands cleanly, first of all, venerate the holy images in the ground, and with this begin any work.

According to Domostroy, every person should live according to his income.

All household supplies should be purchased at a time when they are cheaper and stored carefully. The owner and housewife should walk through the storerooms and cellars and see what the supplies are and how they are stored. The husband must prepare and take care of everything for the house, while the wife, the housewife, must save what has been prepared. It is recommended to issue all supplies by account and write down how much was given so as not to forget.

“Domostroy” recommends constantly having in your home people capable of various kinds of crafts: tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, so that you don’t have to buy anything with money, but have everything ready in the house. Along the way, the rules are indicated on how to prepare certain supplies: beer, kvass, prepare cabbage, store meat and various vegetables, etc.

“Domostroy” is a kind of worldly everyday guide, indicating to a worldly person how and when he should observe fasts, holidays, etc.

“Domostroy” gives practical advice on housekeeping: how to “arrange a good and clean” hut, how to hang icons and how to keep them clean, how to cook food.

The attitude of Russian people to work as a virtue, as a moral act, is reflected in Domostroy. A real ideal of the working life of a Russian person is being created - a peasant, a merchant, a boyar and even a prince (at that time class division was carried out not on the basis of culture, but more on the size of property and the number of servants). Everyone in the house - both owners and workers - must work tirelessly. The hostess, even if she has guests, “would always sit on the needlework herself.” The owner must always engage in “righteous work” (this is repeatedly emphasized), be fair, thrifty and take care of his household and employees. The housewife-wife should be “kind, hardworking and silent.” servants are good, so that “they know the craft, who is worthy of whom and what craft they are trained in.” Parents are obliged to teach their children how to work, “handicrafts to the mother of their daughters, and craftsmanship to the father of their sons.”

Thus, “Domostroy” was not only a set of rules of conduct for a wealthy person in the 16th century, but also the first “encyclopedia of household management.”

MORAL FOUNDATIONS

To achieve righteous living, a person must follow certain rules.

In “Domostroy” the following characteristics and covenants are given: “A prudent father, who feeds himself by trade - in the city or overseas, - or plows in the village, such a one saves from all profits for his daughter” (chapter 20), “love your father and mother honor your own and their old age, and place all infirmity and suffering upon yourself with all your heart” (chapter 22), “you should pray for your sins and remission of sins, for the health of the king and queen, and their children, and his brothers, and for the Christ-loving the army, about help against enemies, about the release of captives, and about priests, icons and monks, and about spiritual fathers, and about the sick, about those imprisoned, and for all Christians” (chapter 12).

Chapter 25, “An order to husband, and wife, and workers, and children, how to live as they should,” of “Domostroy” reflects the moral rules that Russian people of the Middle Ages should follow: “Yes, to you, master, and wife, and children and household members - do not steal, do not fornicate, do not lie, do not slander, do not envy, do not offend, do not slander, do not encroach on someone else’s property, do not judge, do not indulge in carousing, do not ridicule, do not remember evil, do not be angry with anyone, be obedient to your elders and obedient, friendly towards the middle ones, friendly and merciful towards the younger and wretched, instill in every business without red tape and especially not to offend the employee in remuneration, but endure any insult with gratitude for the sake of God: both reproach and reproach, if rightly they reproach and reproach, accept with love and avoid such recklessness, and not take revenge in return. If you are not guilty of anything, you will receive a reward from God for this.”

Chapter 28 “On Unrighteous Life” of “Domostroy” contains the following instructions: “And whoever does not live according to God, not according to Christianity, commits all kinds of untruth and violence, and inflicts great offense, and does not pay debts, but an unworthy person will offend everyone, and whoever is not kind as a neighbor, or in the village on his peasants, or in an order sitting in power, imposes heavy tributes and various illegal taxes, or plowed someone else's field, or cut down the forest, or caught all the fish in someone else's cage, or , or he will seize and plunder and rob, or steal, or destroy, falsely accusing anyone of anything, or deceiving someone of something, or betraying someone for nothing, or enslaving innocent people into slavery through guile or violence, by untruth and violence, or he judges dishonestly, or unjustly makes a search, or gives false testimony, or takes away a horse, and every animal, and every property, and villages, or gardens, or courtyards, and all kinds of land by force, or buys it cheaply into captivity, and in all sorts of indecent matters: in fornication, in anger, in vindictiveness - the master or mistress himself commits them, or their children, or their people, or their peasants - they will certainly all be together in hell, and cursed on earth, for in all those unworthy deeds the owner is not such a god forgiven and cursed by the people, and those offended by him cry out to God.”

The moral way of life, being a component of daily concerns, economic and social, is as necessary as concerns about “daily bread”.

Decent relationships between spouses in the family, a confident future for children, a prosperous position for the elderly, a respectful attitude towards authority, reverence for clergy, caring for fellow tribesmen and fellow believers are an indispensable condition for “salvation” and success in life.

CONCLUSION

Thus, the real features of Russian life and language of the 16th century, a closed self-regulating Russian economy, focused on reasonable wealth and self-restraint (non-acquisitiveness), living according to Orthodox moral standards, were reflected in Domostroy, the significance of which lies in the fact that it depicts life for us wealthy man of the 16th century. - a city dweller, merchant or clerk.

“Domostroy” gives the classic medieval three-membered pyramidal structure: the lower a creature is on the hierarchical ladder, the less responsibility it has, but also freedom. The higher, the greater the power, but also the responsibility before God. In the Domostroy model, the king is responsible for his country at once, and the owner of the house, the head of the family, is responsible for all household members and their sins; This is why there is a need for total vertical control over their actions. The superior has the right to punish the inferior for violation of order or disloyalty to his authority.

“Domostroy” promotes the idea of ​​practical spirituality, which is the peculiarity of the development of spirituality in Ancient Rus'. Spirituality is not speculation about the soul, but practical deeds to implement an ideal that has a spiritual and moral character, and, above all, the ideal of righteous labor.

“Domostroy” gives a portrait of a Russian man of that time. He is the earner and breadwinner, an exemplary family man (there were no divorces in principle). Whatever his social status, family comes first for him. He is the protector of his wife, children and his property. And, finally, he is a man of honor, with a deep sense of self-worth, alien to lies and pretense. True, Domostroi’s recommendations allowed the use of force against one’s wife, children, and servants; and the status of the latter was unenviable, without rights. The main thing in the family was the man - the owner, husband, father.

So, “Domostroy” is an attempt to create a grandiose religious and moral code, which was supposed to establish and implement precisely the ideals of world, family, and public morality.

The uniqueness of “Domostroy” in Russian culture, first of all, is that after it no comparable attempt was made to normalize the entire circle of life, especially family life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Domostroy // Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus': Middle of the 16th century. – M.: Artist. Lit., 1985

2. Zabylin M. Russian people, their customs, rituals, legends, superstitions. poetry. – M.: Nauka, 1996

3. Ivanitsky V. Russian woman in the era of “Domostroy” // Social Sciences and Modernity, 1995, No. 3. – P. 161-172

4. Kostomarov N.I. Home life and morals of the Great Russian people: Utensils, clothing, food and drink, health and illness, morals, rituals, receiving guests. – M.: Education, 1998

5. Lichman B.V. Russian history. – M.: Progress, 2005

6. Orlov A.S. Ancient Russian literature of the 11th-16th centuries. – M.: Education, 1992

7. Pushkareva N.L. The private life of a Russian woman: bride, wife, mistress (X - early 19th century). – M.: Education, 1997

8. Tereshchenko A. Life of the Russian people. – M.: Nauka, 1997

Orlov A.S. Ancient Russian literature of the 11th-16th centuries. - M.: Education, 1992.-S. 116

Lichman B.V. History of Russia.-M.: Progress, 2005.-P.167

Domostroy // Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus': Middle of the 16th century. – M.: Artist. lit., 1985.-P.89

Right there. – P. 91

Right there. – P. 94

Domostroy // Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus': Middle of the 16th century. – M.: Artist. Lit., 1985. – P. 90

Pushkareva N.L. The private life of a Russian woman: bride, wife, mistress (X - beginning of the 19th century) - M.: Enlightenment, 1997.-P. 44

Domostroy // Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus': Middle of the 16th century. – M.: Artist. Lit., 1985. – P. 94

Right there. – P. 99

Ivanitsky V. Russian woman in the era of “Domostroy” // Social Sciences and Modernity, 1995, No. 3. –P.162

Treshchenko A. Life of the Russian people. - M.: Nauka, 1997. - P. 128

Domostroy // Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus': Middle of the 16th century. – M.: Artist. Lit., 1985.

Gate Church of the Prilutsky Monastery, etc. Painting In the center of the pictorial culture of the late 15th - 16th centuries is the work of the greatest icon painter of that time, Dionysius. The “deep maturity and artistic perfection” of this master represent the centuries-old tradition of Russian icon painting. Together with Andrei Rublev, Dionysius makes up the legendary glory of the culture of Ancient Rus'. ABOUT...

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

ROSTOV STATE ECONOMIC UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Law

ABSTRACT

course: “National History”

topic: “Life of the Russian peopleXVI–XVIIcenturies"

Completed by: 1st year student, group No. 611 full-time study

Tokhtamysheva Natalia Alekseevna

Rostov-on-Don 2002

XVI- XVIIcenturies.

XVIcentury.

XVIIcentury.

Literature.

1. Social and political situation in Russia inXVI- XVIIcenturies.

To understand the origins of the conditions and reasons that determine the way of life, way of life and culture of the Russian people, it is necessary to consider the socio-political situation in Russia at that time.

By the middle of the 16th century, Rus', having overcome feudal fragmentation, turned into a single Moscow state, which became one of the largest states in Europe.

Despite the vastness of its territory, the Moscow state in the middle of the 16th century. It had a relatively small population, no more than 6-7 million people (for comparison: France at the same time had 17-18 million people). Of the Russian cities, only Moscow and Novgorod the Great had several tens of thousands of inhabitants; the share of the urban population did not exceed 2% of the total population of the country. The vast majority of Russian people lived in small (several households) villages spread across the vast expanses of the Central Russian Plain.

Thus, unlike the West, where the formation of centralized states (in France, England) went parallel to the formation of a single national market and, as it were, crowned its formation, in Rus' the formation of a single centralized state occurred before the formation of a single all-Russian market. And this acceleration was explained by the need for the military and political unification of Russian lands in order to free themselves from foreign enslavement and achieve their independence.

Another feature of the formation of the Russian centralized state in comparison with Western European states was that from the very beginning it arose as a multinational state.

The lag of Rus' in its development, primarily economic, was explained by several unfavorable historical conditions for it. Firstly, as a result of the disastrous Mongol-Tatar invasion, material assets accumulated over centuries were destroyed, most Russian cities were burned, and most of the country’s population died or was taken captive and sold on slave markets. It took more than a century just to restore the population that existed before the invasion of Batu Khan. Rus' lost its national independence for more than two and a half centuries and fell under the rule of foreign conquerors. Secondly, the lag was explained by the fact that the Moscow state was cut off from world trade routes, especially sea routes. Neighboring powers, especially in the west (Livonian Order, Grand Duchy of Lithuania) practically carried out an economic blockade of the Moscow state, preventing its participation in economic and cultural cooperation with European powers. The lack of economic and cultural exchange, isolation within its narrow internal market concealed the danger of growing lag behind European states, which was fraught with the possibility of becoming a semi-colony and losing its national independence.

The Grand Duchy of Vladimir and other Russian principalities on the Central Russian Plain became part of the Golden Horde for almost 250 years. And the territory of the Western Russian principalities (the former Kiev state, Galicia-Volyn Rus, Smolensk, Chernigov, Turovo-Pinsk, Polotsk lands), although they were not included in the Golden Horde, were extremely weakened and depopulated.

The Principality of Lithuania, which arose at the beginning of the 14th century, took advantage of the vacuum of power and authority that arose as a result of the Tatar pogrom. It began to rapidly expand, incorporating Western Russian and Southern Russian lands. In the middle of the 16th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a vast state stretching from the shores of the Baltic Sea in the north to the Dnieper rapids in the south. However, it was very loose and fragile. In addition to social contradictions, it was torn by national contradictions (the overwhelming majority of the population were Slavs), as well as religious ones. The Lithuanians were Catholics (like the Poles), and the Slavs were Orthodox. Although many of the local Slavic feudal lords became Catholic, the bulk of the Slavic peasantry staunchly defended their original Orthodox faith. Realizing the weakness of the Lithuanian statehood, the Lithuanian lords and gentry sought outside support and found it in Poland. Already from the 14th century, attempts were made to unite the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Poland. However, this unification ended only with the conclusion of the Union of Lublin in 1569, as a result of which the united Polish-Lithuanian state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed.

Polish lords and gentry rushed to the territory of Ukraine and Belarus, seizing lands inhabited by local peasants, and often expelling local Ukrainian landowners from their possessions. Large Ukrainian magnates, such as Adam Kisel, Vishnevetsky and others, and part of the gentry converted to Catholicism, adopted the Polish language and culture, and renounced their people. The movement to the East of Polish colonization was actively supported by the Vatican. In turn, the forced imposition of Catholicism was supposed to contribute to the spiritual enslavement of the local Ukrainian and Belarusian population. Since the overwhelming mass of it resisted and steadfastly adhered to the Orthodox faith in 1596, the Union of Brest was concluded. The meaning of the establishment of the Uniate Church was to subordinate this new church to the Vatican, and not to the Moscow Patriarchate (Orthodox Church), while maintaining the usual architecture of churches, icons and services in the Old Slavonic language (and not in Latin, as in Catholicism). The Vatican had special hopes for the Uniate Church in promoting Catholicism. At the beginning of the 17th century. Pope Urban VIII wrote in his message to the Uniates: “Oh my Rusyns! Through you I hope to reach the East...” However, the Uniate Church spread mainly in the west of Ukraine. The bulk of the Ukrainian population, and above all the peasantry, still adhered to Orthodoxy.

Almost 300 years of separate existence, the influence of other languages ​​and cultures (Tatar in Great Russia), Lithuanian and Polish in Belarus and Ukraine, led to the isolation and formation of three special nationalities: Great Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. But the unity of origin, the common roots of ancient Russian culture, the common Orthodox faith with a common center - the Moscow Metropolis, and then, from 1589, the Patriarchate - played a decisive role in the desire for the unity of these peoples.

With the formation of the Moscow centralized state, this craving intensified and the struggle for unification began, which lasted about 200 years. In the 16th century, Novgorod-Seversky, Bryansk, Orsha, and Toropets became part of the Moscow state. A long struggle began for Smolensk, which changed hands several times.

The struggle for the reunification of three fraternal peoples into a single statehood proceeded with varying degrees of success. Taking advantage of the severe economic and political crisis that arose as a result of the loss of the long Livonian War, the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible and the unprecedented crop failure and famine of 1603, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth put forward the impostor False Dmitry, who seized the Russian throne in 1605 with the support of the Polish and Lithuanian gentry and gentry. After his death, the interventionists nominated new impostors. Thus, it was the interventionists who initiated the civil war in Rus' (“Time of Troubles”), which lasted until 1613, when the highest representative body, the Zemsky Sobor, which assumed supreme power in the country, elected Mikhail Romanov to the kingdom. During this civil war, an open attempt was made to re-establish foreign domination in Rus'. At the same time, this was an attempt to “break through” to the East, to the territory of the Moscow State of Catholicism. It was not for nothing that the impostor False Dmitry was so actively supported by the Vatican.

However, the Russian people found the strength, rising in a single patriotic impulse, to nominate from their midst such national heroes as the Nizhny Novgorod zemstvo elder Kuzma Minin and the governor Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, organize a nationwide militia, defeat and throw out foreign invaders from the country. At the same time as the interventionists, their servants from the state political elite were thrown out, who organized the boyar government (“seven boyars”), for the sake of protecting their narrow selfish interests, they called the Polish prince Vladislav to the Russian throne and were even ready to give the Russian crown to the Polish king Sigismund III. The largest role in preserving independence, national identity and restoring Russian statehood was played by the Orthodox Church and its then head, Patriarch Hermogenes, who set an example of perseverance and self-sacrifice in the name of his beliefs.

2.Culture and life of the Russian people inXVIcentury.

By the beginning of the 16th century, Christianity played a decisive role in influencing the culture and life of the Russian people. It played a positive role in overcoming the harsh morals, ignorance and wild customs of ancient Russian society. In particular, the norms of Christian morality had a huge impact on family life, marriage, and raising children. Is it true. theology then adhered to a dualistic view of the division of the sexes - into two opposite principles - “good” and “evil”. The latter was personified in a woman, determining her position in society and family.

For a long time, the Russian peoples had a large family uniting relatives along the direct and lateral lines. The distinctive features of a large peasant family were collective farming and consumption, common ownership of property by two or more independent married couples. Among the urban (posad) population, families were smaller and usually consisted of two generations of parents and children. The families of feudal lords were, as a rule, small, so the son of a feudal lord, having reached the age of 15, had to serve the sovereign and could receive both his own separate local salary and a granted estate. This contributed to early marriages and the formation of independent small families.

With the introduction of Christianity, marriages began to be formalized through a church wedding ceremony. But the traditional Christian wedding ceremony (“fun”) was preserved in Rus' for about six to seven centuries. Church rules did not stipulate any obstacles to marriage, except for one: the “possession” of the bride or groom. But in real life, the restrictions were quite strict, primarily in social terms, which were regulated by customs. The law did not formally prohibit a feudal lord from marrying a peasant woman, but in fact this happened very rarely, since the feudal class was a closed corporation where marriages were encouraged not just with people in their own circle, but with peers. A free man could marry a serf, but had to obtain permission from the master and pay a certain amount as agreed. Thus, both in ancient times and in the cities, marriages, basically, could only take place within one class-estate.

Divorce was very difficult. Already in the early Middle Ages, divorce (“dissolution”) was permitted only in exceptional cases. At the same time, the rights of the spouses were unequal. A husband could divorce his wife if she cheated, and communication with strangers outside the home without the permission of the spouse was equated to betrayal. In the late Middle Ages (from the 16th century), divorce was permitted with the condition that one of the spouses was tonsured a monk.

The Orthodox Church allowed one person to marry no more than three times. The solemn wedding ceremony was usually performed only during the first marriage. A fourth marriage was strictly prohibited.

A newborn child had to be baptized in church on the eighth day after baptism in the name of the saint of that day. The rite of baptism was considered by the church to be a basic, vital rite. The unbaptized had no rights, not even the right to burial. The church forbade burying a child who died unbaptized in a cemetery. The next rite - "tonsuring" - was carried out a year after baptism. On this day, the godfather or godmother (godparents) cut a lock of the child’s hair and gave a ruble. After the tonsures, they celebrated the name day, that is, the day of the saint in whose honor the person was named (later it became known as the “day of the angel”), and the birthday. The Tsar's name day was considered an official public holiday.

All sources indicate that in the Middle Ages the role of its head was extremely great. He represented the family as a whole in all its external functions. Only he had the right to vote at meetings of residents, in the city council, and later in meetings of Konchan and Sloboda organizations. Within the family, the power of the head was practically unlimited. He controlled the property and destinies of each of its members. This even applied to the personal lives of children, whom he could marry off or marry against their will. The Church condemned him only if he drove them to suicide. The orders of the head of the family had to be carried out unquestioningly. He could apply any punishment, even physical. - an encyclopedia of Russian life of the 16th century - directly indicated that the owner should beat his wife and children for educational purposes. For disobedience to parents, the church threatened with excommunication.

In-house family life was relatively closed for a long time. However, ordinary women - peasant women, townspeople - did not lead a reclusive lifestyle at all. Testimonies from foreigners about the seclusion of Russian women in the chambers relate, as a rule, to the life of the feudal nobility and eminent merchants. They were rarely allowed even to go to church.

There is little information left about the daily routine of people in the Middle Ages. The working day in the family began early. Ordinary people had two obligatory meals - lunch and dinner. At noon, production activities were interrupted. After lunch, according to the old Russian habit, there was a long rest and sleep (which greatly amazed foreigners). then work began again until dinner. With the end of daylight, everyone went to bed.

The relative isolation of domestic life was diversified by receptions of guests, as well as festive ceremonies, which were held mainly during church holidays. One of the main religious processions was held for Epiphany - January 6th Art. Art. On this day, the patriarch blessed the water of the Moscow River, and the population of the city performed the Jordan ritual (washing with holy water). On holidays, street performances were also organized. Traveling artists, buffoons, were known back in Ancient Rus'. In addition to playing the harp, pipes, and songs, the buffoons' performances included acrobatic performances and competitions with predatory animals. The buffoon troupe usually included an organ grinder, a gayer (acrobat), and a puppeteer.

Holidays, as a rule, were accompanied by public feasts - fraternities. However, popular ideas about the supposedly unrestrained drunkenness of Russians are clearly exaggerated. Only during the 5-6 major church holidays was the population allowed to brew beer, and taverns were a state monopoly. The maintenance of private taverns was strictly persecuted.

Social life also included games and fun - both military and peaceful, for example, the capture of a snowy city, wrestling and fist fights, small towns, leapfrog, etc. . Among gambling games, dice became widespread, and from the 16th century, cards, brought from the West. The favorite pastime of kings and nobles was hunting.

Thus, although the life of a Russian person in the Middle Ages, although it was relatively monotonous, was far from being limited to the production and socio-political spheres, it included many aspects of everyday life, to which historians do not always pay due attention

In historical literature at the turn of the 15th - 16th centuries. rationalistic views on historical events are established. Some of them are explained by causal relationships caused by the activities of people themselves. The authors of historical works (for example, the end of the 15th century) sought to affirm the idea of ​​​​the exclusivity of the autocratic power of the Russian sovereigns as the successors of Kievan Rus and Byzantium. Similar ideas were expressed in chronographs - summary reviews of general history, in which Russia was considered as the last link in the chain of world-historical monarchies.

It was not only the historical ones that expanded. but also the geographical knowledge of people of the Middle Ages. In connection with the complication of administrative management of the growing territory of the Russian state, the first geographical maps ("drawings") began to be drawn up. This was also facilitated by the development of Russian trade and diplomatic ties. Russian navigators made a great contribution to geographical discoveries in the North. By the beginning of the 16th century, they had explored the White, Icy (Barents) and Kara Seas, discovered many northern lands - the islands of Medvezhiy, Novaya Zemlya, Kolguev, Vygach, etc. The Russian Pomors were the first to penetrate the Arctic Ocean, created the first handwritten maps of the explored northern seas and islands. They were among the first to explore the Northern Sea Route around the Scandinavian Peninsula.

Some progress was observed in the field of technical and natural scientific knowledge. Russian craftsmen learned to make quite complex mathematical calculations when constructing buildings and were familiar with the properties of basic building materials. Blocks and other construction mechanisms were used in the construction of buildings. To extract salt solutions, deep drilling and laying of pipes were used, through which the liquid was distilled using a piston pump. In military affairs, the casting of copper cannons was mastered, and battering and throwing weapons became widespread.

In the 17th century, the role of the church in influencing the culture and life of the Russian people intensified. At the same time, state power penetrated more and more into the affairs of the church.

The purpose of penetration of state power into church affairs was to be served by church reform. The tsar wanted to obtain the sanction of the church for state reforms and at the same time take measures to subordinate the church and limit its privileges and lands necessary to provide for the energetically created army of the nobility.

All-Russian church reform was carried out at the Stoglav Cathedral, named after the collection of its decrees, which consisted of one hundred chapters ("Stoglav").

In the works of the Stoglavy Council, issues of internal church order were brought to the fore, primarily related to the life and everyday life of the lower clergy, with the performance of church services by them. The flagrant vices of the clergy, the careless performance of church rituals, moreover, devoid of any uniformity - all of this aroused a negative attitude among the people towards the ministers of the church and gave rise to freethinking.

In order to stop these dangerous phenomena for the church, it was recommended to strengthen control over the lower clergy. For this purpose, a special institution of archpriests was created (the archpriest is the main priest among the priests of a given church), appointed “by royal command and with the blessing of the saint, as well as priestly elders and tenth priests.” All of them were obliged to tirelessly ensure that ordinary priests and deacons regularly performed divine services, “stood with fear and trembling” in churches, and read the Gospels, Zolotoust, and the lives of the saints.

The Council unified church rites. He officially legitimized, under penalty of anathema, the double-fingered sign of the cross and the “great hallelujah.” By the way, these decisions were later referred to by the Old Believers to justify their adherence to antiquity.

The sale of church positions, bribery, false denunciations, and extortion became so widespread in church circles that the Council of the Hundred Heads was forced to adopt a number of resolutions that somewhat limited the arbitrariness of both the highest hierarchs in relation to the ordinary clergy, and the latter in relation to the laity. From now on, taxes from churches were to be collected not by foremen who abused their position, but by zemstvo elders and tenth priests appointed in rural areas.

The listed measures and partial concessions could not, however, in any way defuse the tense situation in the country and in the church itself. The reform envisaged by the Stoglavy Council did not set as its task a deep transformation of the church structure, but only sought to strengthen it by eliminating the most blatant abuses.

With its resolutions, the Stoglavy Council tried to impose the stamp of churchliness on the entire life of the people. Under pain of royal and church punishment, it was forbidden to read the so-called “renounced” and heretical books, that is, books that then made up almost all secular literature. The Church was ordered to interfere in the everyday life of people - to turn them away from barbering, from chess, from playing musical instruments, etc., to persecute buffoons, these carriers of folk culture alien to the church.

The time of Grozny is a time of great changes in the field of culture. One of the most significant achievements of the 16th century was printing. The first printing house appeared in Moscow in 1553, and soon books of church content were printed here. The earliest printed books include the Lenten Triodion, published around 1553, and the two Gospels, printed in the 50s. 16th century.

In 1563, the organization of the “sovereign Printing House” was entrusted to an outstanding figure in the field of book printing in Russia. Together with his assistant Peter Mstislavets, on March 1, 1564, he published the book “Apostle”, and the following year “The Book of Hours”. We also associate the name of Ivan Fedorov with the appearance in 1574 in Lvov of the first edition of the Russian Primer.

Under the influence of the church, such a unique work as “Domostroy” was created, which was already noted above, the final edition of which belonged to the archpriest. "Domostroy" is a code of morals and everyday rules intended for the wealthy strata of the urban population. It is permeated with sermons of humility and unquestioning submission to authorities, and in the family - obedience to the householder.

For the increased needs of the Russian state, literate people were needed. At the Council of the Stoglavy, convened in 1551, the question of taking measures to spread education among the population was raised. The clergy were offered to open schools to teach children to read and write. Children were educated, as a rule, in monasteries. In addition, home schooling was common among rich people.

One of the major historical works of this time is the Litseva (i.e., illustrated) chronicle collection: it consisted of 20 thousand pages and 10 thousand beautifully executed miniatures, giving a visual representation of various aspects of Russian life. This code was compiled in the 50-60s of the 16th century with the participation of the Tsar, Alexei and.

The achievements in the field of architecture were especially significant in the late 15th and 16th centuries. In 1553-54, the Church of John the Baptist was built in the village of Dyakovo (not far from the village of Kolomenskoye), exceptional in the originality of its decorative decoration and architectural design. An unsurpassed masterpiece of Russian architecture is the Church of the Intercession on the Moat (St. Basil's Church), erected in 1561. This cathedral was built to commemorate the conquest of Kazan.

3. Culture, life and social thought inXVIIcentury.

The culture and life of the Russian people in the 17th century experienced a qualitative transformation, expressed in three main trends: “worldliness,” the penetration of Western influence, and ideological split.

The first two trends were to a significant extent interconnected, the third was rather a consequence of them. At the same time, both “worldization” and “Europeanization” were accompanied by the movement of social development towards a split.

Indeed, the 17th century was an endless chain of unrest and riots. And the roots of the unrest were not so much in the economic and political planes, but, apparently, in the socio-psychological sphere. Throughout the century, there was a breakdown in social consciousness, familiar life and everyday life, and the country was pushed towards a change in the type of civilization. The unrest was a reflection of the spiritual discomfort of entire sections of the population.

In the 17th century, Russia established constant communication with Western Europe, established very close trade and diplomatic relations with it, and used European achievements in science, technology, and culture.

Until a certain time, this was precisely communication; there was no talk of any kind of imitation. Russia developed completely independently, the assimilation of Western European experience proceeded naturally, without extremes, within the framework of calm attention to the achievements of others.

Rus' has never suffered from the disease of national isolation. Until the mid-15th century, there was intense exchange between Russians and Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs. The eastern and southern Slavs had a common literature, writing, and literary (Church Slavonic) language, which, by the way, was also used by the Moldovans and Wallachians. Western European influence penetrated into Rus' through a kind of filter of Byzantine culture. In the second half of the 15th century, as a result of Ottoman aggression, Byzantium fell, the southern Slavs lost their state independence and complete religious freedom. The conditions for cultural exchange between Russia and the outside world have changed significantly.

Economic stabilization in Russia, the development of commodity-money relations, the intensive formation of the all-Russian market throughout the 17th century - all this objectively required turning to the technical achievements of the West. The government did not make a problem out of borrowing European technological and economic experience.

The events of the Time of Troubles and the role of foreigners in them were too fresh in people’s memories. The search for economic and political solutions based on real possibilities was characteristic of the government . The results of this search were quite successful in military affairs, diplomacy, construction of state roads, etc.

The situation in Muscovite Rus' after the Time of Troubles was in many respects better than the situation in Europe. The 17th century for Europe was the time of the bloody Thirty Years' War, which brought ruin, hunger and extinction to the people (the result of the war, for example, in Germany was a reduction in the population from 10 to 4 million people).

There was a flow of immigrants to Russia from Holland, the German principalities, and other countries. Emigrants were attracted by the huge land fund. The life of the Russian population during the reign of the first Romanovs became measured and relatively orderly, and the wealth of forests, meadows and lakes made it quite satisfying. The Moscow of that time - golden-domed, with Byzantine pomp, brisk trade and cheerful holidays - amazed the imagination of Europeans. Many settlers voluntarily converted to Orthodoxy and took Russian names.

Some emigrants did not want to break with habits and customs. on the Yauza River near Moscow became a corner of Western Europe in the very heart of Muscovy." Many foreign novelties - from theatrical performances to culinary dishes - aroused interest among the Moscow nobility. Some influential nobles from the royal circle - Naryshkin, Matveev - became supporters of the spread of European customs, their homes arranged in an overseas manner, wore Western dress, shaved beards.At the same time, Naryshkin, as well as prominent figures of the 80s of the 17th century Vasily Golitsyn, Golovin were patriotic people and the blind worship of everything Western and the complete rejection of Russian life, so inherent, were alien to them. such ardent Westerners of the beginning of the century as False Dmitry I, a prince who declared: “In Moscow, the people are stupid,” and also a clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, who refused to fulfill his demands and fled to Lithuania in 1664, and then to Sweden. There he wrote commissioned by the Swedish government, his essay about Russia.

Such statesmen as the head of the Ambassadorial Prikaz and the closest adviser to Tsar Alexei believed that much, but not everything, should be remade in the Western style.

Ordyn-Nashchokin, saying, “A good person is not ashamed to learn from strangers,” stood for the preservation of Russian original culture: “Land dress... is not for us, and ours is not for them.”

In Russia, the 17th century, compared to the previous one, was also marked by an increase in literacy among various segments of the population: among landowners, about 65% were literate, merchants - 96%, townspeople - about 40%, peasants - 15%. Literacy was greatly promoted by the transfer of printing from expensive parchment to cheaper paper. The Council Code was published in a circulation of 2,000 copies, unprecedented for Europe at that time. Primers, ABCs, grammars and other educational literature were printed. Handwritten traditions have also been preserved. Since 1621, the Ambassadorial Prikaz compiled "Courants" - the first newspaper in the form of handwritten reports on events in the world. Handwritten literature continued to prevail in Siberia and the North.

Literature of the 17th century is largely freed from religious content. We no longer find in it various kinds of “walks” to holy places, holy teachings, even writings like. Even if individual authors began their work as religious writers, the majority of their work was represented by literature of secular content. So written out for the translation of the Bible from Greek into Russian (we note in passing that such a need was caused by the fact that the ancient Russian hierarchs, who raised a dispute over the spelling of the name Jesus, because of how many times to say “hallelujah”, did not have at their disposal even the correct text of the Bible and for centuries managed well without it) from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, monks E. Slavinetsky and S. Satanovsky not only coped with their main task, but also went much further. By order of the Moscow Tsar, they translated “The Book of Medical Anatomy”, “Citizenship and Teaching Children’s Morals”, “On the Royal City” - a collection of all sorts of things, compiled from Greek and Latin writers in all branches of the then circle of knowledge from theology and philosophy to mineralogy and medicine .

Hundreds of other essays were written. Books containing various scientific and practical information began to be published. Natural scientific knowledge was accumulated, manuals on mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, medicine, and agriculture were published. Interest in history increased: the events of the beginning of the century, the establishment of a new dynasty at the head of the state, required comprehension. Numerous historical stories appeared in which the material presented served to draw lessons for the future.

The most famous historical works of that period are “The Legend” by Avramy Palitsyn, “Vremennik” by clerk I. Timofeev, “Words” by Prince. , "Tale" book. . The official version of the events of the Time of Troubles is contained in the “New Chronicler” of 1630, written by order of Patriarch Philaret. In 1667, the first printed historical work, “Synopsis” (i.e., review), was published, which outlined the history of Rus' from ancient times. The "State Book" was published - a systematized history of the Moscow state, the "Royal Book" - an eleven-volume history and illustrated history of the world, "Azbukovnik" - a kind of encyclopedic dictionary.

The work of Archpriest Avvakum is folk-accusatory and at the same time autobiographical. “The Life of Archpriest Avvakum, written by himself,” with captivating frankness tells about the ordeals of a long-suffering man who devoted his entire life to the struggle for the ideals of the Orthodox faith. The leader of the schism was an exceptionally talented writer for his time. The language of his works is surprisingly simple and at the same time expressive and dynamic. “Archpriest Avvakum,” L. Tolstoy would later write, “burst into Russian literature like a storm.”

In 1661, the monk Samuil Petrovsky-Sitnianovich came from Polotsk to Moscow. He becomes a teacher of the royal children, the author of odes to the glory of the royal family, original plays in Russian “The Comedy Parable of the Prodigal Son”, “Tsar Novochudnezzar”. This is how Russia found its first poet and playwright .

Literature.

1. Taratonenkov G.Ya. History of Russia from ancient times to the second half of the 19th century. M.1998

2. A course of lectures on the history of the fatherland. Ed. prof. B.V. Lichman, Ekaterinburg: Ural.gos.tekh. univ. 1995