Abstract:
The article analyzes the literary sources of the “Life of Alexander of Svir,” which
was written by Hegumen Herodion of Svir. The discovery of new sources sig nificantly
expands the methodological possibilities of studying this literary monument.
Knowing which text the medieval author reworked, we can reveal and
describe those changes which were made by the author in the adaptation of the
borrowed texts. In addition, knowing which circle of sources the author borrowed
from, we can come to a conclusion concerning the result that the author sought.
The study shows that the final chapter, with autobiographical information on the
hagiographer’s life, was compiled on the basis of three sources: “The Life of
Theo dosius of Kiev,” “The Life of Nikon of Radonezh,” and the epilogue of scribe
Athanasius to “Oko tserkovnoe.” The first of these sources was pointed out by I.
Yakhontov (1881), but the borrowings from this source that are found in the final
chapter of “The Life of Alexander of Svir” have still not been studied. The other
two sources are revealed for the first time. Yakhontov concluded that Herodion
used in his work the lives of Russian venerables and monastery founders, mainly
the works of Pachomius the Serb. Now we have reason to believe that Alexander
of Svir’s hagiographer was not ruled only by patriotic or genre considerations,
and that he was not an imitator of Pachomius. As far as we can tell, the choice of
the source was motivated by a specific literary purpose and by each separate episode,
the description of which he created on the basis of the texts of his predecessors.
(The examination of these motives, however, are beyond the scope of
this article.) The texts of all of the sources known to date (especially those sources
which were unchanged when they were included in the “Life” of the saint) can
be used as a control element in the comparison of the copies of the literary monument
and in the construction of a stemma codicum.
