LAMENT FOR A DESTROYED CITY IN THE MANUSCRIPT TRADITION OF KYIVAN RUS’ (texts and contexts)

Abstract

Based on a source-analytical examination of written texts containing descriptions of the destruction of a medieval city, in this paper the author attempts to illuminate their cultural and symbolic content. The formation and embodiment, within the Kyivan Rus’ cultural tradition, of the idea of the Most Holy Theotokos’s merciful protection of the Christian city and its inhabitants is traced. In the Middle Ages, when the thinking and sensibility of contemporaries were permeated by profound pessimism and uncertainty about the future, trust in God’s mercy counterbalanced the rhythm of urban life — measured by everyday anxieties — which unfolded in a state of uneasy apprehension. The apocalyptic tension and eschatological disposition of Old Rus’ communities were further intensified by Polovtsian (Cumanic) raids and princely wars of successions. The destructive consequences thereof, as recorded in the chronicles, are framed by a series of biblical quotations and paraphrases, concealed allusions, and citations from translated Byzantine works. Within this corpus of reading, medieval Rus’ scribes, reflecting on Old Testament precedents, sought in the contemporary worldview the causes of calamity, grief, and lamentation. Such thematic content structured the dramaturgy of the Lament over the Destroyed City — most notably over Kyiv, which was positioned as the Second Jerusalem. Consequently, instances of Kyiv’s devastation and the abuse of its inhabitants, as recorded in the chronicles, were interpreted as a divine curse visited upon the capital of Rus’ in the same manner as had once befallen Jerusalem. The path to salvation, to the overcoming of apocalyptic tension and eschatological anxiety, was indicated to Old Rus’ communities by the Gospel commandments. It was paved by the practice of vigorous church construction, daily prayer, and liturgical observance. People lived in hope of God’s mercy. Such hope fills the Prayer to the Theotokos — Intercessor of Volodymyr Monomakh, included in the Tale of Bygone Years at the conclusion of the account of the Rus’-Cumanic wars of 1093—1096, which proved so destructive for Kyiv and other cities. The veneration of the Theotokos as Intercessor, which reached its apogee in the late eleventh and first third of the twelfth century, played a defining role in shaping the poetic-religious image of the Inviolable Wall. Given that the majority of Kyiv’s churches were dedicated to the Mother of God, the capital of Rus’ was perceived in the collective consciousness as a divinely chosen and divinely protected city — the City of the Theotokos. The idea of the Theotokos’s intercession as patroness of Kyiv found further development and material expression, manifest in the dense concentration of churches dedicated to her within the urban fabric. These included the Church of the Theotokos of the Blachernae Monastery at Klov, built in 1108, and the Church of the Theotokos Pyrogoshcha on the Podil, erected in the 1130s. It is for this reason that the Theotokos was conceived as the Heavenly Intercessor of Kyiv and of all Christians, identified with the idea of divine purity and holiness. The glory of her virginity functions here as a metaphor for the inviolability, sovereignty, and golden glory of the City under her patronage. It is from there — from «her city on high», that is, from Kyiv — that the Mother of God protects the entire Christian community of Rus’-Ukraine.