XVII century in the history of Russian culture

XVII century was in Russia transitional from the Middle Ages to the New Age. During this period, a new attitude towards the individual begins to emerge, manifested in the recognition of its self-worth, regardless of the official position of a person in society.

Increasingly, a protest against feudal structures, identified, in particular, with the church, begins to sound. Attention is drawn to the individual personality traits in the literature, and a fictional character appears who doesn’t belong to the elite, but to servants or posad people, and sometimes even to the “naked and not rich.” The hypocrisy and acquisitiveness of the clergy was ridiculed in the Kalyazin petition and The Tale of the Chicken and the Fox, the injustice of the court is shown in The Tale of the Shemyakin Court.

The inability of the noblemen to work was exposed in the "Tale of Thomas and Erem." But in the "ABC of a naked and not rich man" was shown not only the path "to the bottom", but also the willingness to rebel against their destroyers. In the XVII century. new literary genres arise: democratic satire and versification.

Church schism left its mark on literature. Memoirs appear, the most famous of which is The Life of Protopope Habakkuk, whose writings were very actively distributed among the Old Believers, where Habakkuk, using unquestioned authority, was revered as a saint.

The founder of the poetic tradition in Russia was Simeon of Polotsk (1629-1682). He transferred the Psalter to poetry, according to which literacy was taught for a long time. The legacy of S. Polotsky is enormous. He was the author of numerous sermons and articles, the encyclopedic collection "Multicolor Vertograd"; heading a state-owned printing house, he mass-produced books primarily of an educational character. The poetic tradition of S. Polotsky was continued by his contemporaries Sylvester Medvedev and Karion Istomin. K. Istomin developed the principle of baroque poem, established before him by S. Polotsky and S. Medvedev. The works of K. Istomin were educational and religious-didactic in nature.

A lot in the XVII century. continued to go out and translated literature. Some translations, such as “The Tale of Bova Korolevich” and “The Tale of Yeruslan Lazarevich”, turned into popular tales.

Realistic trend in the painting of the XVII century. represented by Simeon Ushakov (1626–1686), Tsar’s isographer and art theorist. He introduced the image into the icon. Angels, for example, on the Trinity icon, the artist painted flourishing, full of health, personifying not only spiritual, but also earthly, material beauty and thirst for life. Realism began to manifest itself in the fact that during the fresco painting of churches more and more “everyday” scenes appeared, commenting on biblical subjects. The man on them was represented by a figure (warring, trading, building), but not a contemplator.

At the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. a portrait genre also appears. The first portraits - parsuns (Ivan the Terrible, Tsar Fedor Ioannovich, Prince MV Skopin-Shuisky) are still close to icon-painting standards. But already from the second half of the XVII century. according to the western model, portraits began to be painted with oil on canvas. More and more realistic features arose in them, artists sought to show the individuality of the portrayed (portraits of the tsars of Alexei Mikhailovich and Fedor Alekseevich).

The period of the Time of Troubles beginning of the XVII century. heavily affected architecture. Only since the 20s. resumed the activity of the Order of stone affairs. But initially, the general nature of architecture did not differ much from the samples of the previous century. The same types of structures were repeated. In the 30s. XVII century The Terem Palace was built for the daily life of Russian tsars. This palace was almost the first residential stone building in Russia, since wooden buildings were preferred for housing. The architectural innovations of this century include the polychrome facade, where irrigation tiles played a large role, as well as the typology of details: stacked brick window frames, bell-shaped columns, etc.

The view of the tent architecture is coming to an end, the construction of churches of this type is generally prohibited from the middle of the XVII century. The following saying was in the patriarchal letters: "And so that the top on that church would not be tent-like." One of the last monuments of this style was the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Putanki in Moscow.

In the second half of the century, the number of stone civil buildings increased. Quite a lot of houses of that period were preserved in Pskov, whose architecture differed from other parts of Russia in that it practically did not have decorations. One of the largest residential complexes in Pskov is the Pogankinsky Chambers.

The development of manufactory production and trade required the construction of both commercial buildings and premises for manufactories. In 1661 - 1665 years. Gostiny Dvor is being built in Moscow in Kitay-Gorod. But Gostiny Dvor in Arkhangelsk was built according to the drawings sent from the capital. The famous Sukharev Tower in Moscow (Sretensky Gate of the Earth City), which initially had no defense significance, was built as a premises for the garrison.

A new direction in architecture, which arose at the end of the 17th century, was called Moscow Baroque, or Naryshkin’s style. It combined the traditions of the Russian white-stone design with the new trends of European architecture, trying to make up for the functions of the Renaissance in Russia. The Church of the Intercession at Fili is one of the most outstanding monuments in this area, characterized by impeccable proportions and a fine drawing of details.

In English, the construction of sentences is significantly different from Russian. You should start learning English grammar from the simplest times, for example, present simple . Using this time is appropriate when it comes to the usual actions that are taking place at the present time.

There are also churches of this style in Trinity-Lykov and Ubora. They are characterized by a tier, a massive volume on a high basement, topped with several chapters. Beautiful churches were built by order of the Stroganov merchants; one of them has been preserved in Nizhny Novgorod.

Along with carving on bone and wood, round sculpture is becoming increasingly important. This also reflected the struggle for new realistic traditions.

XVII century becomes a watershed in music too. The church stands for the rigid canons of church singing. In 1652, unanimous singing was introduced in all cathedrals by Patriarch Nikon, and basic singing books were amended. In the second half of the century, a new style of polyphony was established - part-time singing. His samples were diverse: from four-voice singing to the most complicated compositions for 24 voice parts. The theoretical foundations of this singing were developed in the treatise of NP Diletsky "Musik Grammar." He created the first composer school in Russia. Its most prominent representatives were the clerk Vasily Titov, who wrote over 200 works in various genres, as well as the Moscow priest Ivan Ignatiev.

Although the church forbade singing “demonic songs” that arose on the basis of folklore, it was precisely in this century that the masterpieces of the folk satire “Kamarinskaya” and “Barynya” were born, the origins of which go into a merry mood. A harpsichord, organ, and other European musical instruments appear in the imperial palace and in the houses of enlightened Russian boyars; home music chapels began to be created.

Music also occupied a large place in the first Russian court theater (1672-1676), for which musicians were invited from abroad. Since the time of Kievan Rus, three types of theater have been known: folk, court and church. In the XVII century. there is a revival of the folk theater: an oral folk drama and a simple puppet theater are taking shape. There is also a written drama serving the court and school theaters. Under Mikhail Romanov, the Amusing closet was replaced by the Amusing chamber, the first theater building in Russia. Simeon Polotsky introduces the drama of the church-school theater.

In the 80s. XVII century in Russia there were 15 thousand churches and 650 monasteries. The church had a huge impact on the development of culture. So, with the assistance of the church and the state, the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy was opened in Moscow in 1687. It studied the ancient Greek language and Latin, theology, arithmetic, grammar, geography, astronomy, etc. This was the first higher educational institution in our state.

Text writer: M.V. Sokolova