TOWARDS THE DEBATE OVER THE LITERARINESS OF OLD RUSSIAN LITERATURE

Abstract

The article examines a number of critical arguments against the concept of Old Russian literature and its canon. These critiques insist on the inapplicability of literary criteria to the verbal monuments of Old Rus’, pointing to the lack, in early East Slavic culture, of the cultural context necessary for the normal development of literature, and above all, the lack of assimilation of the classical (Antique) heritage. They argue that a more adequate approach is to study written monuments within the system of literary genres, taking into account their practical functions in the respective historical context. The article advances the view that the specific combination of cultural richness and deficiencies, as well as the gaps in East Slavic culture, contributed to the emergence of works that contained potential literariness and prepared the ground for the later literocentricity of Russian culture. A distinction is proposed between the text-as-copy (spisok) as a product of book culture in its physical dimension (the graphosphere) and the text-as-artwork, embedded in the system of traditions and languages of non-material culture (the semiosphere). Structural analysis of works within the framework of historical poetics is highlighted as a productive method, while a cautious use of data from historical studies of book culture is advocated.