"The souls of the righteous in a bright place": Landscape and orthodoxy in Seventeenth-century Russian maps

Russian Review

Volumn 58, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 1-25

  Kivelson, Valerie A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60950283357     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0036-0341.551999055     Document Type: Article

References (114)

1. Ellen Hurwitz, "Metropolitan Hilarion's Sermon on Law and Grace," Russian History 7 (1980): 332, 333.
2. Michael S. Flier, "Breaking the Code: The Image of the Tsar in the Muscovite Palm Sunday Ritual," in Medieval Russian Culture, vol. 2, ed. Michael S. Flier and Daniel Rowland (Berkeley, 1994), 213-42;
3. idem, "Court Ceremony in an Age of Reform: Patriarch Nikon and the Palm Sunday Ritual," in Religion and Culture in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine, ed. Samuel H. Baron and Nancy Shields Kollmann (DeKalb, IL, 1997), 73-95;
4. idem, "Filling in the Blanks: The Church of the Intercession and the Architectonics of Medieval Muscovite Ritual," Harvard Ukrainian Studies 19 (1995): 120-38;
5. Daniel Rowland, "Biblical Military Imagery in the Political Culture of Early Modern Russia: The Blessed Host of the Heavenly Tsar," in ibid., 182-212;
6. idem, "Moscow - The Third Rome or the New Israel?" Russian Review 55 (October 1996): 591-614.
7. For a modern expression of the optimistic view in Orthodoxy see Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, rev. ed. (London, 1993).
8. The optimistic vision of the End of Time, focused on Christian readiness for salvation and the Promised Land, has been labeled "post- millennialism" as opposed to the grimmer, fire-and-brimstone preachings of those "pre-millennialists" whose attention focuses on the terror and destruction of Armageddon. See George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (New York, 1980), 48-55.
9. For representative samples of the pessimistic view see Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, pt. 1 (Belmont, MA, 1979), 86-114;
10. and David Goldfrank, "Pre-Enlightenment Utopianism in Russian History," Russian History 11 (1984): 123-47 (who presents a pessimistic view of "utopianism").
11. In a more modern context see Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, The Slave Soul of Russia: Moral Masochism and the Cult of Suffering (New York, 1995).
12. George P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, 2 vols. (Belmont, MA, 1975);
13. Hurwitz, "Metropolitan Hilarion's Sermon on Law and Grace," 332, 333.
14. Edward Keenan, "Afterword: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy," in Religion and Culture, 201.
15. For a similar view on the limits of understanding popular religiosity see Paul Bushkovitch, Religion and Society: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1992), 7, 212-13n.3.
16. Robert O. Crummey, "Religious Radicalism in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Reexamining the Kapiton Movement," Forschungen zur osteurpäischen Geschichte 46 (1992): 172.
17. See also Crummey's "Old Belief as Popular Religion: New Approaches," Slavic Review 52 (1993): 700-712;
18. and Georg Michels, "Myths and Realities of the Russian Schism: The Church and its dissenters in seventeenth century Muscovy" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1991).
19. Other fruitful explorations of popular apocalypticism include Michael Cherniavsky, "The Old Believers and the New Religion," Slavic Review 25 (1966): 1-39;
20. K. V. Chistov, Russkie narodnye sotsial'no-utopicheskie legendy XVII-XIX vv. (Moscow, 1967);
21. A. I. Klibanov, "K kharakeristike novykh iavlenii v russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli vtoroi poloviny XVII-nachala XVIII vv." Istoriia SSSR, 1963, no. 6:85-103;
22. V. S. Rumiantseva, Narodnoe antitserkovnoe dvizhenie v Rossii v XVII veke (Moscow, 1986);
23. and B. A. Uspenskij, "Tsar and Pretender: Samozvancestvo or Royal Imposture in Russia as a Cultural-Historical Phenomenon," in Ju. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspenskij, The Semiotics of Russian Culture (Ann Arbor, 1984), 259-92.
24. Some examples, by no means exhaustive, of studies of Muscovite popular or lived religion include Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, ed., Russian Traditional Culture: Religion, Gender and Customary Law (Armonk, NY, 1992);
25. Bushkovitch, Religion and Society in Russia;
26. Daniel E. Collins, "Early Russian Topoi of Deathbed and Testament," in Medieval Russian Culture, 134-69;
27. Daniel H. Kaiser, "Death and Dying in Early Modern Russia" Kennan Institute/Woodrow Wilson Center publication;
28. idem, "The Seasonality of Family Life in Early Modern Russia," Forschungen zur osteurpäischen Geschichte 46 (1992): 21-50;
29. Gail Lenhoff, "Unofficial Veneration of the Daniilovichi in Muscovite Rus'," in Culture and Identity in Muscovy, 1359-1584, ed. A. M. Kleimola and G. D. Lenhoff (Moscow, 1997), 391-416;
30. Eve Levin, "Supplicatory Prayers as a Source for Popular Religious Culture in Muscovite Russia," in Religion and Culture, 96-114;
31. David B. Miller, "The Cult of Saint Sergius of Radonezh and Its Political Uses," Slavic Review 52 (1993): 680-99;
32. N. N. Pokrovskii, "Tetrad' zagovorov 1734 goda," in Nauchnyi ateizm, religiia i sovremennost', ed. A. T. Moskalenko (Novosibirsk, 1987), 239-66;
33. idem, "Ispoved' altaiskogo krest'ianina," Pamiatniki kul'tury. Novye otkrytiia. 1978 (Leningrad, 1979), 49-57;
34. R. A. Simonov, A. A. Turilov, A. V. Chernetsov, Drevnerusskaia knizhnost' (Estestvennonauchnye i sokrovennye znaniia v Rossii XVI v., sviazannye s Ivanom Rykovym (Moscow, 1994);
35. Ludwig Steindorff, "Commemoration and Administrative Techniques in Muscovite Monasteries," Russian History 22 (1995): 433-54;
36. idem, Memoira in Altrussland: Untersuchengen zu den Formen christlicher Totensorge (Stuttgart, 1994);
37. and A. A. Turilov and A. V. Chernetsov, "O pis'mennykh istochnikakh izucheniia vostochnoslavianskikh narodnykh verovanii i obriadov," Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1986, no. 1:95-103.
38. Outside of the Russian field, historians of cartography have begun to analyze the religious or ideological visions inherent in maps, but they tend to focus on the ideological content of world and national maps rather than local maps. See, for example, David Woodward, "Reality, Symbolism, Time, and Space in Medieval World Maps," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 75 (1985): 510-21;
39. and J. B. Harley and David Woodward, eds., The History of Cartography, vol. 1, Cartograpy in Prehistoric, Ancient and Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987).
40. For an interesting reading of a city map see Juergen Schultz, "Jacopo de' Barbari's View of Venice: Map Making, City Views, and Moralized Geography before the Year 1500," Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 447-52.
41. Some pioneering work has appeared on local maps as well. See David H. Fletcher, The Emergence of Estate Maps: Christ Church, Oxford, 1600-1840 (Oxford, 1995);
42. P. D. A. Harvey, "Local and Regional Cartography in Medieval Europe," in The History of Cartography 1:464-501;
43. J. B. Harley, "Maps, knowledge, and power," in The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the symbolic representation, design and use of past environments, ed. Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels (Cambridge, England, 1988), 277-312;
44. and Barbara E. Mundy, The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones Geograficas (Chicago, 1996).
45. Of 455 maps for which I have fairly accurate dates, only 46 were made before 1675. A convenient catalog of Muscovite maps may be found in V. S. Kusov, Chertezhi zemli russkoi XVI-XVII vv. (Moscow, 1993).
46. Reproduced in A. V. Postnikov, Karty zemel' rossiiskikh: Ocherki istorii geograficheskogo izucheniia i kartografirovaniia nashego otechestva (Moscow, 1996), 11-12, pictures 1-2.
47. Described in S. M. Kashtanov, "Chertezh zemel'nogo uchasfka 16 v.," Trudy Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo istoriko-arkhivnogo instituta 17 (1963): 429-36.
48. The literature on Russian mapmaking tends to be somewhat partisan, making this conclusion initially somewhat suspect. Nonetheless, the visual uniqueness and the absence of plausible mechanisms of transmission or diffusion of Western models convince me that in this case, the argument for Russian independence is correct. On the history of cartography in the Muscovite period see A. I. Andreev, "Chertezhi i karty Rossii XVII v., naidennye v poslevoennye gody," Trudy Leningradskogo otdeleniia Instituta Istorii AN SSSR, vyp. 2 (1960);
49. Leo Bagrow, A History of the Cartography of Russia up to 1800 (Wolfe Island, Ont., 1975);
50. D. M. Lebedev, Geografiia v Rossii XVII veka (dopetrovskoi epokhi): Ocherkipo istorii geograficheskikh znanii (Moscow, 1949);
51. A. V. Postnikov, Razvitie krupnomasshtabnoi kartografii v Rossii (Moscow, 1989);
52. idem, Karty zemel'rossiiskikh (a lavishly illustrated work);
53. and B. A. Rybakov, Russkie karty Moskovii XV-nachala XVI veka (Moscow, 1974).
54. On this genre of property maps see A. P. Gudzinskaia and N. G. Mikhailova, "Graficheskie materialy, kak istochnik po istorii arkhitektury pomeshchich'ei i krest'ianskoi usadeb v Rossii XVII v.," Istoriia SSSR, 1971, no. 5:214-27;
55. V. S. Kusov, Kartograficheskoe iskusstvo Russkogo gosudarstva (Moscow, 1989);
56. A. A. Kuzin, "Razvitie chertezhnogo dela v Rossii (do XVIII v.)," Trudy Instituta istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki 3 (1955): 131-69;
57. and A. A. Tits, Zagadki drevnerusskogo chertezha (Moscow, 1978).
58. There are interesting discussions of chertezhi in N. F. Gulianitskii, ed., Gradostroitel'stvo Moskovskogo gosudarstva XVI-XVII vekov (Moscow, 1994).
59. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov (RGADA), Moscow, f. 210, Pomestnyi stol, stlb. 108, ll. 250, 257.
60. Gary Marker, "Literacy and Texts in Muscovy: A Reconsideration, " Slavic Review 49 (1990): 74-89;
61. idem, "Primers and Literacy in Muscovy: A Taxonomic Investigation," Russian Review 48 (January 1989): 1-19.
62. Boris Nikolaevich Morozov, "Chertezh kontsa XVII veka podmoskovnoi votchiny kniazei Vorotynskikh," Arkhiv russkoi istorii, 1992, no. 2:189.
63. In a modern context, Joseph Brodsky underscores this notion when he notes in an introduction to an album of black-and-white photographs of Soviet Russia, "the photograph's black-and-white is highly congenial to Russia, since the realm is predominantly threadbare gray. A painter doing his landscape here in vivid colors would be obliging his métier rather than reality - unless of course, he resolves to challenge it." See "In Praise of Gray," in Lev Poliakov, Russia: A Portrait (New York, 1991), 6.
64. See Daniel Rowland's observations on the role of vertical structures, churches, and towers in his "Boris Godunov's Uses of Architecture," Architectures of Russian Identity, 1500-the Present, ed. James Cracraft and Daniel Rowland (Chicago, forthcoming).
65. Morozov, "Chertezh kontsa XVII veka," 189. Map reproduced on pp. 186-87.
66. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind 1:158-75;
67. L. N. Pushkarev notes the importance of human/divine interaction seen in human beautification of nature as expressed in Russian folk sayings (Dukhovnyi mir russkogo krest'ianina po poslovitsam XVII-XVIII vekov [Moscow, 1994], 98-101).
68. G. V. Alferova makes a moving case for the idea that Muscovite cities were designed and built with a fine aesthetic sense defining the town layout. She explains the seemingly haphazard distribution of structures as a method for maximizing each dwelling's uninterrupted view of the natural environment. She traces Muscovite practices back to Byzantine legislation that prohibited obstructing the light to surrounding buildings. See her Russkie goroda XVI-XVII vekov (Moscow, 1989).
69. A. P. Gudzinskaia and N. G. Mikhailova confirm the accuracy of general architectural layout represented in the maps in their "Novye materialy po istorii drevnerusskikh gorodov," Istoriia SSSR, 1970, no. 4:199-202.
70. A. Fedorov-Davydov, Russkii peizazh XVIII-nachala XIX veka (Moscow, 1953));
71. Kusov, Kartograficheskoe iskusstvo Russkogo gosudarstva, 43-56;
72. N. Sultanov, Obraztsy drevne-russkago zodchestva v miniatiurnykh izobrazheniiakh. Izsledovanie po rukopisi XVI veka: "Zhitie Nikolaia Chudotvortsa" so 16-iu tablitsami risunkov (Pamiatniki drevnei pis'mennosti i iskusstva) (St. Petersburg, 1881);
73. E. Ia. Ostashenko, "Arkhitekturnye fony v nekotorykh proizvedeniiakh drevnerusskoi zhivopisi XIV veka," in Drevne-russkoe iskusstvo: Khudozhestvennaia kul'tura Moskvy i prilezhashchikh k nei kniazhestv. XIV-XVI vv. (Moscow, 1970), 275-309;
74. Aleksandr Uspenskii, "K istorii russkago bytogo zhanra (Scène de genre, tirées de manuscrits russes du XVII-e s.)," Starye gody 1 (January 1907): 207-15;
75. Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, vols. 3 and 4, ed. I. E. Grabar' (Moscow, 1955, 1959).
76. On gardens in Muscovite culture see Ivan Egorovich Zabelin, "Moskovskie sady v XVII st.," in his Opyty Izucheniia russkikh drevnostei i istorii: Izsledovaniia, opisaniia i kriticheskiia stat'i, pt. 2 (Moscow, 1873), 266-321.
77. M. V. Alpatov, Drevnerusskaia ikonopis'/Early Russian Icon Painting (Moscow, 1984), plate 179, St. Nicholas of Zaraisk with Scenes from his life. Border scene: Nicholas Exorcizes the Devil, early sixteenth century (Andrei Rublev Museum).
78. The best rendition of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Paradise, showing the stark transition from the garden of Eden to the barrenness of the external world, is on a set of doors in the Muzei drevnerusskogo iskusstva imeni Andreia Rubleva (zhertvennik kontsa XVI-nachala XVII v.). Other versions include Alpatov, Drevnerusskaia ikonopis', plate 203, "The Symbol of Faith," second half of the seventeenth century, from the Kolomenskoe Museum, Moscow, (reproduced here);
79. Gennady Popov, Tver Icons, 13th-17th Centuries (St. Petersburg, 1993), plate. 173, Door to a Prothesis. "The Expulsion from Paradise," first half of the seventeenth century.
80. A wonderful example is reproduced in a tiny black-and-white image in V. G. Briusova, Russkaia zhivopis' 17 veka (Moscow, 1984), 65, black-and-white plate no. 52: Novgorodskie pis'ma. Simvol very. Ikona iz Preobrazhenskogo sobora Solovetskogo monastyria. Mid-seventeenth century. Bruisova reproduces two details from the icon in beautiful color: color plate 115, "Grekhopadenie, " showing Adam and Eve naked, being tempted by the serpent, who is writhing around what appears to be a raspberry (more likely grape) tree, flanked by two trees of the kind familiar from the maps. The scene showing the contrasting barren landscape outside the gates, however, is not shown in detail. Also in Briusova are two renditions of the Fall that contradict the general pattern. The first image, color plate 114: Novgorodskie pis'ma. Sotvorenie Adama i Evy. Izgnanie iz raia. Fragment rospisi altarnoi dveri. Mid-seventeenth century, shows a constant background of trees and plants in and outside of Eden, with the only difference being the hostile, rocky terrain on which the trees and bushes grow beyond the gates of Eden. The second, color plate 130, from a "Veruiu" icon of the 1680s, seems to show minute trees and plants growing outside of Eden, but the image is dark.
81. The Expulsion theme is discussed in V. N. Sergeev, "Dukhovnyi stikh "Plach Adama" na ikone," Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury (TODRL) 26 (1971): 280-86, but Sergeev focuses on the unusual textual elements, a poem in which Adam laments his lost garden: "Paradise mine, my paradise, my wonderful paradise!"
82. O Tebe raduetsia: Russkie ikony bogomateri XVI-nachala XX vekov: Katalog vystavki iz fondov Muzeia imeni Andreia Rubleva, 1995 (Moscow, 1995), plate 10, text on p. 39. The icon "O Tebe raduetsia" derives from a hymn by John of Damascus, and its message was constantly reinforced by the hymn "Dostoino est'" (Meet It Is).
83. Smirnova, Moscow Icons, 283, no. 113.
84. A number of other images repeat the association between trees and paradise: Briusova, Russkaia zhivopis' 17 veka, color plate 116, (Novgorodian, mid-seventeenth century, from the Symbol of Faith icon, shows souls in the Bosom of Abraham, against a background of grape-laden trees). The Annunciation to Joachim and Anna, a 1642-43 fresco on the third tier of the southern wall of the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, marks the scenes with trees, but particularly the Annunciation to Anna is set against the paradisical trees of the maps, while Joachim's trees are more naturalistic.
85. See T. V. Tolstaya, The Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin: For the 500th Anniversary of the Unique Monument of Russian Culture (Moscow, 1979), plate 38.
86. The icon is reproduced in a number of places. Particularly good reproductions appear in Smirnova, Moscow Icons, plates 176, 177, 178, 179.
87. Discussion of the icon may be found in V. I. Antonova and N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi XI-nachala XVII v., 2 vols. (Moscow, 1963);
88. I. A. Kochetkov, "K istolkovanii ikony 'Tserkov' voinstvuiushchaia, (Blagoslovenno voinstvo nebesnogo tsaria)," TODRL 38 (1985): 185-209;
89. and Rowland, "Biblical Military Imagery."
90. O Tebe raduetsia, 43, no. 18.
91. The description of Paradise as the place where both Jesus and the Repentant Thief go after their deaths comes from Luke 23:43 (John L. McKenzie, S. J., Dictionary of the Bible [London, 1972], 637).
92. "Blagorazumnyi razboinik Rakh v raiu," in Antonova and Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, plate 167.
93. Isolde Thyrêt analyzed this icon brilliantly in "The Virgin and the Tsar: A Gender-specific Analysis of Medieval Russian Ruler Images" (paper delivered at the AAASS National Convention, Boston, 1996). My thanks for her permission to cite this unpublished work.
94. Briusova, Russkaia ikonopis' 17 veka, plates 87, 203 (detail). The text is unfortunately cropped out in the detailed view reproduced here.
95. Fedorov-Davydov, Russkii peizazh XVIII-nachala XIX veka, 19;
96. I agree with Briusova, who argues here against I. E. Danilova and N. E. Mneva's assertion that, in the masterpieces of Iaroslavl' artists, "the central place is occupied not by abstract, theological themes, but rather by a living and attractive tale about a world in which not ascetically minded saints, but ordinary mortal people live and act" (I. E. Danilova and N. E. Mneva, "Zhivopis' XVII veka," in Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, 426).
97. Kochetkov, "K istolkovanii ikony 'Tserkov' voinstvuiushchaia";
98. A classic rendition of the Transfiguration from the 1490s illustrates this usage of the mandala most dramatically. See Smirnova, Moscow Icons, plates 121-23.
99. and Ivan Filat'ev, "Dormition," plate 31, "Days of Creation," plate 61, and "Resurrection," end of seventeenth century, Iaroslavl' school, plate 65, all in Briusova, Russkaia ikonopis' 17 veka.
100. Revelations 21:10. Antonova and Mneva provide a careful reading of the biblical and hymnological references in this icon, but they do not mention the open circle or discuss its meaning (Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, 128-34). In Kochefkov's reading, the opening allows the newly minted martyrs direct access to the Heavenly Jerusalem. He bases his reading on Metropolitan Makarii's sermon before the battle of Kazan' ("K istolkovanii ikony 'Tserkov' voinstvuiushchaia,"').
101. Kochetkov notes the distinction of fruited and fruitless trees in his "K istolkovanii ikony 'Tserkov' voinstvuiushchaia," 198-99.
102. On the importance of imagery equating Moscow with the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City, and on its impact on the lived environment see A. L. Batalov and T. N. Viatchanina, "Ob ideinom znachenii i interpretatsii Iersusalimskogo obraztsa v Russkoi arkhitekture XVI-XVII vv."' Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo 36 (1988);
103. Flier, "Breaking the Code";
104. idem, "Filling in the Blanks"; M. P. Kudriavtsev, Moskva - Tretii Rim: Istoriko-gradostroitel'noe issledovanie (Moscow, 1994), 38-45;
105. Protierei Lev Lebedev, "Bogoslovie russkoi zemli kak obraza obetovannoi zemli tsarstva nebesnogo (na nekotorykh primerakh arkhitekturno-stroitel'nykh kompozitsii XI-XVII vekov," in Tysiacheletie kreshcheniia Rusi: Mezhdunarodnaia tserkovnaia nauchnaia konferentsiia "Bogoslovie i dukhovnost'," Moskva, 11-18 maia 1987 goda (Moscow, 1989), 140-179;
106. and Rowland, "Boris Godunov's Uses of Architecture, 1584-1605."
107. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York, 1979), 143.
108. O Tebe raduetsia, 45, no. 21.
109. On recruitment of administrative personnel see N. F. Demidova, Sluzhilaia biurokratiia v Rossii XVII v. i ee rol'v formirovanii absoliutizma (Moscow, 1987);
110. N. N. Ogloblin, "Proiskhozhdenie provintsial'nykh pod'iachikh," Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia, 1894, no. 9:118-50 and no. 10:219-41 ;
111. and S. B. Veselovskii, D'iaki i pod'iachie XV-XVII vv. (Moscow, 1975).
112. On the development of maps on icons see Kusov, Kartograficheskoe iskusstvo Russkogo gosudarstva, 43-56. In his Karty zemel' rossiiskikh, Postnikov disagrees with Kusov's analysis.
113. The rich associations attached to trees in particular, as opposed to other forms of vegetation, may reflect what Douglas Davies calls "the evocative symbolism of trees," "the intrinsic suggestivity and the inherent attractiveness of trees as the basis of and for evocative symbolic responses." See Douglas Davies, "The evocative symbolism of trees," in The Iconography of Landscape, 41.
114. Joel Raba, "The Biblical Tradition in the Old Russian Chronicles," Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 46 (1992): 20.