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Boris and Gleb: Princely Martyrs and Martyrology in Kievan Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

R. M. Price
R. M. Price*
Affiliation:
Heythrop College, University of London
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Extract

The first canonized Russian saints were the princes Boris and Gleb (d. 1015), and the early accounts of their martyrdom, dating to the late eleventh or early twelfth century, are among the most important works of early Russian hagiography. It is the aim of this paper to locate these texts in the history of European martyrology, and to identify where they exhibit originality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 30: Martyrs and Martyrologies , 1993 , pp. 105 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1993

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References

1 Good introductions to the cult and associated literature are Poppe, Andrzej, ‘La Naissance du culte de Boris et Gleb’, Essay 6 in The Rise of Christian Russia (London, 1982)Google Scholar, and Vodoff, Vladimir, Naissance de la chrétienté russe (Fayard, 1988), pp. 242–8, 275–85.Google Scholar

2 ‘Passion-sufferer’ translates strastoterpets. The oft-repeated claim that this word was not simply a synonym of muchenik (martyr), but was applied to those who died not for the faith, but in imitation of the Passion of Christ, is questioned by Vodoff, Naissance, pp. 257–8.

3 For the Tale and Lesson I use the edition by D. I Abramovich (Petrograd, 1916), reprinted with an introduction by Müller, Ludolf as Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen und liturgischen Dichtungen über die heiligen Boris und Gleb (Munich, 1967) [hereafter Abramovich], pp. 1—51 Google Scholar. For the Chronicle entry, I use Likhachev, D. S., ed., Povest’ vremennykh let, 2 vols (Moscow and Leningrad, 1950), 1, pp. 89–96 Google Scholar [hereafter Povest’], while comparing it to Novgorodskaya pervaya letopis’ (Moscow and Leningrad, 1950), pp. 168–74. See now Hollingsworth, Paul, ‘The Hagiography of Kievan Rus’ (Harvard, 1992)Google Scholar, which contains translations of the Tate and Lesson, and much useful bibliography.

4 For these two positions contrast Fairy von Lilienfeld, ‘Die ältesten russischen Heiligenlegenden’, in Aus Jer Byzantinischen Arbeit der DDR, 1, Berliner Byzantinische Arbeiten, 5 (1957), pp. 237–71, and N.N. Il’in, Letopisnaya stat’ya 6523 goda i ego istochnik (Moscow, 1957), pp. 189–209.

5 Abramovich, p. 32, line 17. Povest’, p. 90.

6 Abramovich, p. 47, lines 18–20. Povest’, p. 98.

7 Abramovich, p. 29, lines 3–6. Povest’, p. 89.

8 Il’in, Letopisnaya slat’ya, p. 202.

9 The existence both of an Urlegende used by both the Chronicle and the Tale and of a saga as the ultímate source was deduced in the 1950s with a different and much longer array of arguments by Ludolf Müller, in a series of studies summed up in ‘Neue Forschungen über das Leben und die kulrische Verehrung der heiligen Boris und Gleb’, Opera Slavica, 4 (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 295–317. His theory did not win general acceptance, but holds the field in the sense that the debate then ground to a halt.

10 Specifically, the Life of Wenceslas. This is the theory of Il’in, Letopisnaya stat’ya, p. 209 and passim.

11 See Ingham, N. W., ‘The sovereign as martyr, East and West’, Slavic and East European Journal, 17 (1973). pp. 1–17.Google Scholar

12 Abramovich, p. 33, line 11.

13 These texts are in Vajs, Josef, ed., ík staroslovanských literámích památek o sv. Váciami a sv. Lidmile (Prague, 1929)Google Scholar. They should be compared to the early Latin literature, in Josef Pekař, Die Wenzets- und Ludmila-Legenden und die Echtheit Christians (Prague, 1906).

14 Vigfusson, G., ed., Icelandic Sagas, 3 (London, 1893)Google Scholar, contains translations of the Long and Short Magnus Sagas; the Long Saga incorporates (in translation) a Latin eulogy. That in the martyr doms of both Gleb and Magnus the martyr’s own cook is forced to commit the murder is an oddly precise similarity, which may point to a wide oral dissemination of the Gleb story.

15 Reisman, Edward S., ‘The cult of Boris and Gleb: remnant of a Varangian tradition?’ Russian Review, 37 (1978), pp. 141–57.Google Scholar

16 Povest’, pp. 93–4. Since this eulogy is not contained in the Novgorod First Chronicle, it must be an addition to the Primary Chronicle (of c. 1095) and date to the time of the compilation of the Povest’ itself (c. 1113). Other evidence points to this date as the time when die cult became a truly national one: see Vodoff, Naissance, p. 281, and Voronin, N. N., ‘Anonimoe skazanie o Borise i Glebe, ego vremya, sril’ i avtor’, sTrudy otdela drevnerusskoy literatury [TODRL], 13 (1957). pp. 11–46.Google Scholar

17 Abramovich, pp. 49–51.

18 Especially Likhachev, D. S., ‘Nekotory voprosy ideologii feodalov v literature XI-XIII vekov’, TODRL, 10 (1954), pp. 77–91 Google Scholar. See, too, Dimnik, Martin, ‘The “Testament” of laroslav “the Wise”: a re-examination’, Canadian Slavonic Papers, 29 (1987), pp. 369–86.Google Scholar

19 Abramovich, p. 25, lines 5–9.

20 Abramovich, p. 31, lines 3–8.

21 Abramovich, p. 42, lines 5–9.

22 In Wensinck, A. J., ‘Über das Weinen in den monotheistischen Religionen Vorderasiens’, in Weil, Gotthold, ed., Festschrift Eduard Sachau (Berlin, 1915), p. 27.Google Scholar

23 Pamyatniki literalury drevney Rusi, XII vek (Moscow, 1980), pp. 226–44. Cited at Abramovich, p. 4, lines 10–17.

24 I follow the Old Russian translation (pp. 232–4), which is very close to the Greek (PC 105, col. 393D).

25 Synekdemos orthodoxou (Athens, 1912), pp. 286–7. For the gradual expansion of this theme from the seventh till the fourteenth century in the Byzantine Holy Week liturgy, see Pallas, Demetrios I., Die Passion und Bestattung Christi in Byzanz (Munich, 1965), pp. 30–66.Google Scholar

26 E.g., the lament of the mother of St Hiero (PG 116, cols 117D-120A). The laments of the parents of Alexis (though not a martyr) in the Life of Alexis are particularly relevant, since this text was one of the most celebrated works of all medieval hagiography and was translated into Russian in the eleventh or twelfdi centuries.

27 Abramovich, pp. 40–2. It is part of this emphasis that the Gleb of hagiography is an adolescent, although the historical Gleb was a grown man.

28 For these and other Russian princely martyrs, in the tradition of Boris and Gleb, see Fedotov, G. P., The Russian Religious Mind: Kievan Christianity (Cambridge, MA, 1946), pp. 104–10 Google Scholar, and Cherniavsky, Michael,Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myth (New Haven and London, 1961), pp. 5–43.Google Scholar