The Earliest States of Eastern Europe

Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences

For citation: Guminsky, Viktor M. Time in the Pilgrimage of Hegumen Daniil // Drevneishie gosudarstva Vostochnoi Evropy (The Earliest States of Eastern Europe). 2024: In memoriam Alexandr V. Nazarenko / Editors of the volume Т.V. Guimon, P.V. Lukin, Е.А. Мelnikova, А.V. Podossinov. Мoscow: GAUGN-Press, 2024. S. 62–72.

DOI: 10.32608/1560-1382-2024-45-62-72

Abstract: The article discusses the category of time in the Pilgrimage by hegumen Daniil in the context of the development of the Russian travel literature and the medieval perception of time and space. Their representation was largely determined by the peculiarities of the worldview of Old Russians deriving from the Orthodox binary notion of the universe structure, in particular the structure of the other world (heaven – hell) which, in its turn, influenced the assessment of the earthly geographical space. The Earth was divided into regions righteous and sinful, worthy or unworthy of description, etc. Hence, before the 15^th century, the exclusive direction of the development of Old Russian travel literature was the description of only the Holy Land and Tsargrad. That defined the originality of the artistic world of Old Russian pilgrimages (‘walks’): Daniil, for example, says nothing about the way from Rus’ (from where the hegumen set off for the Holy Land) to Tsargrad, about his way back home, he does not specify the distance from Rus’ to Jerusalem, etc. That is what distinguishes the Old Russian travelogues (in fact, pilgrimage literature) from the West European itineraries: by the 15^th century the latter included descriptions of travels to different parts of the world (Persia, Mongolia, China, et al.), including an ancient (from the 4^th century on) pilgrimage tradition, mainly represented by the works close to travel guides in their type. This attitude to the world (its desacralization) is usually explained by the ‘gradual expansion of the neutral space of earthly life’, associated with spreading the doctrine of purgatory in Catholicism. The concept of time in the Pilgrimage by Daniil is multidimensional: the narration is structured by the present time of the journey and the reality of the author-pilgrim personality. ‘The unworthy hegumen Daniil of Rus’ land’ acts in his work as a reliable witness of God's presence on the Earth manifested to him by numerous relics confirming the inseparability of man's connection to Sacred History and to eternity. Every Christian (‘faithful man’) maintains this connection through prayer communion and participation in divine liturgy.

Keywords:

travel literature, medieval geography, pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Hegumen Daniil, time and space, pilgrimage genre, liturgy

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