Professional Documents
Culture Documents
New Perspectives
Holy Foolishness in Russia
NEW PERSPECTIVES
Edited by
ISBN 978-0-89357-383-6
BX485.H65 2011
281.9'47—dc23
2011045281
N. Iu. Bubnov
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool
of Constantinople in the Tradition of Russian Old Believers................. 305
Svitlana Kobets
An Illuminated Vita of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople
from the Hilandar Research Library at Ohio State University:
Preliminary Notes on the Manuscript and Illuminations...................... 329
Marco Sabbatini
The Pathos of Holy Foolishness in the Leningrad Underground ........ 337
Per-Arne Bodin
Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture......................................... 353
Laura Piccolo
From Stylization to Parody: The Paradigm of Holy Foolishness in
Contemporary Russian Performance Art............................................ 373
Bibliography.............................................................................................. 391
Acknowledgments
The editors would like to thank the College of Humanities and Fine Arts,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the Five Colleges Incorporated for
financial contributions supporting editorial and translation work for this vol-
ume; the Hilandar Research Library and the Resource Center for Medieval
Slavic Studies at The Ohio State University; the following individuals who
acted as consultants on the translation of "Laughter as Spectacle": Sergey
Ivanov, Maria Fomina, Henry Cooper, Hugh Olmsted, Cynthia Vakareliyska,
Rachel Lesser, Ron Feldstein, and Sergei Shtyrkov; helpers on other matters:
Sergey Ivanov, Marco Sabbatini, Martin Dimnik, Sheila Campbell, Jane Ed-
wards, and Marina Swoboda. The editors take responsibility for any errors.
Our special thanks go to Vicki Polansky, Managing Editor of Slavica Publish-
ers, who worked patiently with us throughout this long process and showed
consummate skill and tact as an editor and manager.
Holy Foolishness as a Key to Russian Culture
Priscilla Hunt
The Byzantine ascetic, Symeon, after many years as a desert recluse, engaged
in a specific form of behavior to announce his new public vocation as a holy
fool. He entered the city of Emesa in rags, dragging a dead dog behind him,
according to his seventh-century hagiographer.1 He not only earned the jeers
and blows of the neighborhood children, he also announced a new way of
conveying spiritual teachings that would be played out on the stage of Rus-
sian culture. Three centuries later, in the Vita of Andrew of Constantinople, a
holy fool provided another authoritative cultural model for Russia by engag-
ing in provocative behavior on the streets of the Byzantine imperial capital,
Constantinople. A hagiographer in Muscovite Russia, six hundred years later,
sardonically commented on the show put on by the local Moscow fool Vasilii
(Basil), and his ilk:
Whenever the spectators and listeners would find out that one of
these valiant sufferers had come from anywhere, a crowd would
gather to see how courageously he would fight and they would train
both their carnal and intellectual eyes on him, as if a marvelous musi-
cal artist had arrived and they were taking part in the shameful spec-
tacle, listening with great zeal to the songs and hooting.2
This short passage from a Muscovite Russian holy foolish vita captures
the essence of holy foolishness (iurodstuo) as cultural phenomenology. Holy
foolishness exists at the center of a clash of viewpoints, in this case, of the
hagiographer, who sees the fool as a "valiant sufferer," and of the crowd,
which fails to differentiate the fool from a street entertainer despite seeing
him with both "carnal" and "intellectual" eyes. The hagiographer has illumi-
nated the interpretative challenge that holy fools offer both to their contempo-
raries and to the modern observer.
1 See Derek Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's “Life" and the Late Antique City
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 151. See also A. M. Panchenko,
"Laughter as Spectacle," trans. Priscilla Hunt, Svitlana Kobets, and Bethany Braley,
pp. 41-47 in this volume.
2 Quoted by Panchenko, in "Laughter as Spectacle," 56-57.
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2 0 1 1 , 1 - 1 4 .
2 Priscilla Hunt
For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last.... We have
been made a spectacle to the world.... To the present hour we both
hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten and home-
less.... We are made as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of
all things until now. (4: 9-11)
Further in this passage Paul proclaims that these "apostles" are "fools for
Christ's sake." Paul's underlying irony shows that he considers their embrace
of Christ-like sacrificial humility an open protest against the worldly defini-
tion of wisdom that discounts their actions as foolishness. He thus forges a
new path for "apostles" of the crucified Christ, which was followed in Ortho-
dox Byzantium and ancient Russia.
The holy fool voluntarily lives out the behavior described above in order
to exemplify Paul's wisdom of the Cross (1 Cor. 1:18-24). The fool for Christ's
sake is a male or female person (or a hagiographical figure) often the subject
of a saint's cult, who makes a public display of his lowliness and uncleanli-
ness. He or she acts for "Christ's sake" in two senses: first, to commune in the
sacrificial humility exemplified on the Cross; and second, to bring others back
to Christ by confronting them with a shocking holy foolish instantiation of the
Cross. The fool's behavior thus has a militant edge. His or her own self-
humiliation exposes pride and hypocrisy in the same way as Paul's irony and
sarcasm shames his addressees: "We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are
wise in Christ! We are weak but you are strong! You are distinguished, but
we are dishonored!" (1 Cor. 4:10).
The Byzantine-Russian cultural institution of holy foolishness has no
direct counterpart in the West.3 Its unique expression and development in
Russia has long been recognized. E. Thompson, in her study Understanding
Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian Culture, has explored its relation to the "na
י׳
Simone Weil appears to have come close to its phenomenology. According to Cze-
slaw Milosz, Weil lived a "life of deliberate foolishness." Referring to fools in Shake-
speare's plays, she wrote: "In this world only human beings reduced to the lowest
degree of humiliation, much lower than mendicancy, not only without any social
position but considered by everybody as deprived of elementary human dignity, of
reason—only such beings have the possibility of telling the truth. All others lie";
Milosz, "The Importance of Simon Weil," in To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays, ed.
Bogdana Carpenter and Madeline G. Levine (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2001), 246-60, here 251.
Holy Foolishness as a Key to Russian Culture 3
tional character." She goes so far as to say that "the society's perception of itself
has been influenced by its perception of holy fools.”4 The articles in this collection
explore holy foolishness as a phenomenology that exists in a "performative
context," that "works through action, and interaction to change perception,"
and that "conveys a message about the intersubjective community and their
power relations [and] shared moral institutional values."5 They show that
holy foolishness is a "pattern of culture" inherited from Byzantium and active
in Russian culture from the eleventh century to the present.6
Holy foolishness is still relatively unknown to the Western public, which
is generally unfamiliar with Eastern Orthodoxy, the context in which holy
foolishness emerged and flourished. Thompson's book and H. Murav's Holy
Foolishness: Dostoevsky's Novels and the Poetics of Cultural Critique offer stimu-
lating introductions for the Western reader.7 However, until recently, knowl-
edge of the Russian language was necessary for access to the main Rtissian
traditions of and textual sources for this phenomenon. Now, S. Ivanov's 2006
study in English, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, has finally mapped out
the entire textual tradition that established the paradigm of holy foolishness,
from its Byzantine origins to its heyday in Muscovite Russia in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Ivanov's book provides descriptions of otherwise
inaccessible holy foolish vitae, and a useful bibliography. It thus opens up the
field of holy foolish studies to the West. Ivanov's cultural and literary history
of holy foolishness through the seventeenth century provides a frame of ref-
erence for the articles in this volume, beginning with A. M. Panchenko's pio-
neering phenomenological study, "Laughter as Spectacle."8
The articles in this volume illustrate the cultural depth with which this
Byzantine paradigm penetrated Russia. Holy foolishness emerged in a mo-
nastic setting in both Byzantium and Rus׳. It became a fully developed
behavioral model in its urban form (exemplified by the Byzantine vitae of St.
Symeon of Emesa and Andrew of Constantinople) as practiced in Russian
towns and cities beginning in the fifteenth century. The urban fool becomes
an apostle of the crucified Christ by living within the city as a vagrant and an
outcaste. He or she assumes a guise of madness in order to be misunderstood
4 See Ewa M. Thompson, Understanding Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian Culture
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), 176-95, esp. 185. The italics are
Thompson's.
5 See the article on "Phenomenology," in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
let me anticipate the questions of those who are interested in the history of holy
foolishness. These readers will not find this work useful..." See Panchenko, "Laughter
as Spectacle," 53.
4 Priscilla Hunt
and persecuted. The fool behaves in an uncouth way in public places to earn
rebukes and blows. Thus the fool humbles his own pride and exposes the
pride of those who subject him to rebuke. When failed Christians increase
their own separation from Christ by persecuting the fool, they unwittingly
enter into a provocative scenario aimed at opening their eyes to spiritual
Truth.
The ambiguous nature of the fool's performance places the point of view
of the "world" and of Christ in a state of eye-opening collision: in the world of
vanity and lies, the fool's acts are misunderstood as irrational and outrageous.
To those who have overcome this vanity, his acts partake of a hidden spiritual
dimension that is both instructive and salvific. The fool's behavior thus places
the spectator on an epistemological boundary between truth and the lie, real-
ity and appearance, self-awareness and self-deception.9 Its purpose is to make
the hypocritical Christian uncomfortable enough with his unexamined faith
to begin to recognize and honor Christ in the person of the holy fool.
The fool uses his "mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2: 16) to effect his antagonist's
salvation. He is able to see into the metaphysical dimension where, invisible
to others, demons and angels battle over human souls. When the fool foresees
that someone is in moral danger, he may intercede by shaming and exposing
him, on the one hand, and by offering secret prayers, on the other. Thus, para-
doxically, the fool's provocative alienation from the "world" serves to restore
the inner community associated with Christ.
In Muscovite times, holy fools had special access to rulers and served as
their "walking conscience."10 Russian holy foolishness developed a dialectical
relationship with the autocratic and bureaucratic state as a culturally produc-
tive antipode to the latter's potential for alienation and violence. Holy foolish-
ness made sense within the context of the pre-Petrine state's messianic Wis-
dom ideology and was an accepted paradim of sanctity.11 However, it was
rejected as a spiritual phenomenon by the modern regulatory "absolutist"
state established by the reforms of Peter I. In the eighteenth century, it was
treated officially as a form of social insubordination at worst and social para-
sitism at best. By the nineteenth century fools were treated as mentally ill,
subjected to a scientific medical model of interpretation that viewed foolish-
ness as a pathology.
Russia inherited holy foolishness from Byzantium through literary con-
ventions in a specific tradition of sacred texts. These conventions inspired the
9 On this problematics, see Priscilla Hunt, ״The Holy Foolishness in the Life of the
Archpriest Avvakum and the Problem of Innovation," Russian History/Histoire russe 35:
3^ (2008): 285-89.
10 See the quotation from V. O. Kliuchevskii in Panchenko, "Laughter as Spectacle,"
99.
11 See Priscilla Hunt, "King and Fool: The Vita of Andrew of Constantinople and the
דך
"Simulacrum" in this context refers to "an image without the substance or qualities
of the original." See The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1993).
6 Priscilla Hunt
13
For Panchenko's explanation of his methodology, see "Laughter as Spectacle," 53
and 78 n. 53.
Holy Foolishness as a Key to Russian Culture 7
nople and Russian Urban Holy Foolishness/' answers his challenge. It finds
that the "antique" spectacle that is paradigmatic for holy foolishness is litur-
gical in nature, that is, the imperial ritual of the Elevation of the Cross. This
Elevation liturgy calls on the Pauline understanding of the Wisdom of the
Cross (in an epistle reading from 1 Cor. 1: 18-24) to interpret the ritual raising
of the cross before the eyes of the faithful. Thus Hunt's discovery of the
predominantly Christian and liturgical framework for holy foolish spectacle
restores it to its original Pauline context and relegates the folk-carnival
aspects to a subordinate and complementary role.
Moreover Hunt's analysis of the Christian imperial basis of holy foolish
spectacle provides the key to other defining aspects of Russian holy foolish-
ness. Andrew of Constantinople's identification with the Elevation liturgy
explains the unique relationship between the fool and the ruler, the fool's pro-
phetic role, his capacity to address apocalyptic-like catastrophes threatening a
nation or a given community, and to serve as a boundary between spiritual
blindness and vision. Hunt also points out that the Muscovite iconography of
the Intercession of the Mother of God ( based on an episode in the Vita of St.
Andrew) was authoritative for the stereotypical relationship between king and
fool in Russian urban holy foolishness. In one condensed image it linked holy
fool and emperor as dual and complementary safeguards of the empire's
messianic calling. According to Hunt, Andrew's embodiment of the Christian
basis of imperial ideology explains the cultural depth of iurodstvo's reception
in Russia.
Thus, this introduction, together with the first three articles by Kobets,
Panchenko, and Hunt, establishes the paradigmatic and scholarly context for
understanding definitive aspects of holy foolishness that are further eluci-
dated by the other articles in this volume. The next three contributions ad-
dress the establishment and cultural uses of the holy foolish paradigm in Rus׳
and Muscovy. Cynthia Vakareliyska's study, "The Absence of Holy Fools
from Medieval Bulgarian Calendars," initiates the reader into a previously
unexamined aspect of holy foolish studies: the institutionalization of holy
foolishness in the larger cult of the saints of the official church. She examines
the reasons for the presence or absence of holy fools in medieval calendars of
the saints in Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Rus ׳from the eleventh through
the fourteenth centuries. These calendars offer evidence of the official Church
recognition or non-recognition of holy fools at a crucial period in the forma-
tion of Slavic national identities. By asking why there are virtually no holy
fools in the medieval Bulgarian church calendar tradition when they are well
represented in Russian calendars, Vakareliyska sheds light on different atti-
tudes to holy foolishness among the ecclesiastical communities of the Slavic
Orthodox lands that were predictive for whether or not a holy foolish tradi-
tion would develop.
The next two articles address the use of holy foolish typologies in Rus׳
and Muscovite Russia as a way of responding to crises in specific commu
8 Priscilla Hunt
nities. Svitlana Kobets, in her article "Isaakii of the Kiev Caves Monastery: An
Ascetic Feigning Madness or a Madman-Turned-Saint," offers a compelling
argument for accepting the edificatory biography of the monk Isaakii as the
first known description of a native Russian holy fool. In her view, it evinces a
behavioral phenomenology that points forward to later Muscovite tradition.
She shows that the author borrows from the inherited Byzantine ascetic mo-
nastic model of holy foolishness to describe a specific period of this monk's
life. She argues that the holy foolish paradigm was applied to Isaakii so that
his actual behavior would not be interpreted as demonic possession. The con-
Crete details of the account suggest to Kobets that Isaakii had actually suffered
a stroke, probably due to an earlier over-zealous embrace of hermitic asceti-
cism. She argues that Isaakii was depicted as a fool actively engaged with the
community to support the monastery's transition from a hermitic-anchoritic
to a coenobic communal model of living.
Sergey Ivanov's article, "Simon of Iurievets and the Hagiography of Old
Russian Holy Fools," explores the use of the urban holy foolish paradigm to
respond to a crisis of authority confronting the northern town of Iurievets at
the very end of the sixteenth century. This vita describes Simon's aggressive
actions against a governor known for his cruelties. It was written under the
auspices of the next governor in 1594, a year after this new governor had as-
sassinated the fool. Evidence from the Cadastre of 1594 gives Ivanov the
unusual opportunity of verifying the presence of factual data alongside hagi-
ographical topoi.
Ivanov shows that Simon's vita was the first to blend contemporary his-
torical reality with the literary conventions of urban holy foolishness. Unlike
earlier vitae, it was not written retrospectively, long after the protagonist's al-
leged existence. The historical evidence surrounding its production suggests
to Ivanov that it was written to mediate between the new governor and the
population. He postulates that this governor allowed Simon to be represented
as a holy fool to express his repentance before the angry community for
Simon's assassination and other cruelties. In Ivanov's view, Simon was not a
holy fool at all but merely the "town idiot." When this idiot acted out against
the previous governor, he could be fit into the dominant cultural paradigm
for critique and mitigation of corrupt worldly power and transformed into a
vehicle of social reconciliation.
The first five topical articles in the collection offer the reader a complex
and rich picture of Russian holy foolishness from its origins in Byzantium to
its adoption in Russia through the seventeenth century. These articles offer
new insights into the literary and experiential Russian paradigms of holy
foolishness in both the monastic and urban variants. Additionally, they ad-
dress a number of central questions: How was the cultural model of holy fool-
ishness received from Byzantium into Russia and uniquely developed there?
When was a reputed holy fool actually such in real life and when was he just
a dressed-up version of the "village idiot" or an otherwise mentally-disabled
Holy Foolishness as a Key to Russian Culture 9
person? What are distinguishing features in the tradition of holy foolish vitae,
whether they are written long after the fact and comprised exclusively of
topoi or contain verifiable facts and presumed eyewitness accounts? How do
the different cultural frameworks for interpreting holy foolish spectacle, such
as the folk-performative or Christian-mystical liturgical, throw a different,
and possibly complementary, light on the essence of the phenomenon, its
place in medieval culture, and its relation to the state? What is the basis of the
holy fool's protection by the ruler who he is allowed to denounce? In what
ways did fools serve the interests of the Church and state authorities?
The remaining four articles explore holy foolishness under the modern
state. Holy foolishness survived the divide between pre- and post-Petrine
Russia by descending to the cultural "underbody," since iurodstvo was subject
to persecution.14 In the eighteenth century and afterwards, holy fools, bearing
chains or other insignia of their vocation, wandered from monastery to mon-
astery and stayed in hermitages of both the Orthodox and various Old Be-
liever communions. They emerged from among peasants and townsfolk, Old
Believer and Orthodox religious communities, and received the patronage of
conservative members of the elite.15
N. Bubnov's article, "Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of
Constantinople in the Tradition of Russian Old Believers," testifies to the con-
tinued meaningfulness of the holy foolish paradigm among radical priestless
Old Believers of the Fedoseevtsy (Theodosian) communion. Refusing to ac-
cept the westernized Church and state, Old Believers of all types retained
aspects of Muscovite spirituality and messianism into the modern age. Wan-
dering fools received special protection within their closed communities. The
priestless Old Believers especially, with their radical sense that the modern
state and ruler embodied the reign of the Antichrist, carried forth the apoca-
lyptic framework in which holy foolishness flourished in medieval times.16
cheskoi literature perioda pozdnego feodalizma (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1988). Iu. D. Rykov
has recently published the mid-nineteenth-century prophetic apocalyptic writings of a
certain priestless Old Believer, Peter the Holy Fool. A former married schoolteacher
from Arkhangelsk province, he left his family and the Orthodox faith and took up the
life of wandering and prophecy befitting his new role. See Rykov, "Neizvestnyi staro-
obriadcheskii pisatel ׳XIX v. Petr iurodivyi i ego eskhatologicheskie sochineniia," in
Staroobriadchestvo v Rossii (XVII-XX vv.), ed. E. M. Iukhimenko (Moscow: Gosudarst-
vennyi istoricheskii muzei, 1999), 149-85.
10 Priscilla Hunt
די ך
On the Theodosians and Pomorians, see I. Part, Old Believers, Religious Dissent and
Gender in Russia, 1760-1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). An ex-
tensive bibliography is also available at www.staropomor.ru (accessed 10 October 2011), a
site that testifies to the active cultural presence of the Fedoseevtsy today. On the
apocalyptic mentality of the priestless Old Believers and especially the Fedoseevtsy,
see Oleg Tarasov, Icon and Devotion (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), 143-99. On the
religious material culture of the Fedoseevtsy, see Obrazy i simvoly staroi very: Pamiatniki
staroobriadcheskoi kul'tury iz sobraniia Russkogo muzeia, ed. N. Pivovarova (St. Peters-
burg: Palace Editions, 2010), items 12-20. Their reproduction of Golgotha crosses
reflects their continuation of the messianic Muscovite eschatologically-oriented world-
view, the cultural matrix in which the Vita of Andrew of Constantinople was developed
and received. Item 17 is a Golgotha Cross with the wall of the heavenly Jerusalem,
produced in the Kalikin workshop in the early twentieth century (Pivovarova, ed.,
Obrazy i simvoly staroi very).
Holy Foolishness as a Key to Russian Culture 11
1Я
See N. Iu. Bubnov, E. K. Bratchikova, and V. G. Podkovyrova, eds., Litsevye staro-
obriadcheskie rukopisi XVIII—pervoi poloviny XX vekov (St. Petersburg: Biblioteka
Akademii nauk, 2010).
19 See Murav, Holy Foolishness, 5-7. As in the case of the fool Ivan Koreisha (former
teacher and seminarian), fools could be found in mental institutions as well as ordi-
nary prisons.
20 Thus, Pushkin's play Boris Godunov, published the same year as the Decembrist re-
bellion, represents a fool denouncing a ruler. In the Brothers Karamazov, as Murav has
pointed out in her study Holy Foolishness, Dostoevsky embodies potentials of the holy
foolish paradigm in a wide spectrum of characters. She notes that Andrew the Fool
and the Liturgy of the Intercession were an inspiration for the thematic constructions
of this great novel (ibid., 124-30). There Dostoevsky's characters, through their inter
12 Priscilla Hunt
tural critics, writers, and artists seeking to recover from the Soviet holocaust
of values. Bodin shows that they employ holy foolishness both to connect
themselves with national culture and to voice their own sense of disorienta-
tion as they grapple with the limits of meaning itself. Thus, they view iu-
rodstvo through the prism of a number of categories that address these limits:
apophaticism, kenosis, theatralization, simulacra, and queer. In describing the
principle influences on postmodern thought about iurodstvo, Bodin credits
Panchenko's interpretation of holy foolishness as spectacle and "low" cami-
val-type behavior (as informed by M. Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World);
Bakhtin's estheticization of holy foolishness in his Problems of Dostoevsky's Po-
etics; and the writings on madness of M. Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix
Guattari.
Bodin points out the active role of the iurodstvo concept in 1) the cultural
controversies around media events such as Christian rock music; the 2006
film, The Island; and the performance art described in the ensuing article by L.
Piccolo; and 2) controversies with a conservative orthodox Christian and be-
tween postmodernists themselves. He throws light on the influence of Pan-
chenko's "Laughter as Spectacle" when he describes M. Epstein's differences
with the emigre writer Dmitrii Shalin: the former asserts that postmodernists
are like holy fools, while the latter objects that they are closer to the jester than
to the holy fool.
Laura Piccolo's article, "From Stylization to Parody: The Paradigm of
Holy Foolishness (iurodstvo) in Contemporary Russian Performance Art,"
shows how both thinkers are correct. She examines two artistic generations
represented by the Actionists and the Blue Noses respectively, their artistic
roots in the early twentieth century, and their own poetic trajectory. In both
cases, Piccolo argues, they are making use of the rhetoric of scandal innate to
holy foolishness to protest against the artist's loss of status as commentator on
contemporary reality. The pre-verbal, gestural-performative nature of this
rhetoric is their response to the collapse of the artistic discourses opposing the
government (and also of the official discourse) together with the Soviet
Union's fall. However the two groups make use of iurodstvo in different ways
while sharing the preeminently non-verbal performative communicative
method characteristic of holy foolishness.
Piccolo notes that the first generation, the Actionists, took on holy foolish
behavior in a sincere sense through the mechanism of stylization (consonant
with the ideas of M. Epstein). The second generation, the Blue Noses, sub-
jected this stylization of iurodstvo to parody and acted more like jesters than
holy fools (substantiating the viewpoint of D. Shalin). The Blue Noses' parody
of the Actionists emptied iurodstvo of its earlier associations and reduced it to
nothing more than a lexical and iconic sign. By voiding iurodstvo of the mean-
ings it had accreted in postmodern usage, the Blue Noses placed it in a posi-
tion to be taken up again and newly embodied.
14 Priscilla Hunt
Svitlana Kobets
1 For a more detailed discussion of the terms iurodstvo and iurodivyi, see n. 1 in A. M.
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2 0 1 1 , 15-40.
16 SVITLANA KOBETS
3 See Marco Sabbatini, "The Pathos of Holy Foolishness in the Leningrad Under-
ground," pp. 337-52 in the current volume.
4 See Priscilla Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of Kingship," Slavic Review 52: 4
The holy fool has been within scholarly focus since the mid-nineteenth
century, yet in the last several decades both scholarly and artistic interest in
the phenomenology of holy foolishness has escalated and ramified. There
have appeared a number of article- and book-length scholarly examinations
of the phenomenon as a whole (Sergey Ivanov, Panchenko, Fedotov, Thomp-
son, Ware, Chizevskii, Saward, Kobets), of its different aspects and individual
saints (Ryden, Krueger, Moldovan, Murav, Lavrov, Vlasov, Challis, Hunt) as
well as of its artistic adaptations (Kuritsyn, Bortnes, Epstein, Kobets, Vasilii
Ivanov). From its initial humble position as a highly specialized subject with-
in Byzantine and Slavic Studies, the holy fool has risen to be the subject of
numerous studies, college curricula, specialized courses, and conference pan-
els as well as entire conferences.
As new discoveries and discussions bring forth new historical evidence,
the scope of our understanding of this phenomenon, its transmutations and
adaptations as well as the parameters of its research, keep widening and
transforming. At the same time the number of new artistic uses of the be-
havioral paradigm of holy foolishness grows. New artists continue to draw
on multiple adaptations and discussions of holy foolery by their predecessors
and scholars. Examples of recent adaptations include Evseev's novella Iurod
(The Holy Fool, 2000) and Shnitke's operatic (1996) adaptation of the imagery
of holy foolery, subversion, and scandal inspired by Viktor Erofeev's short
story ״Zhizn' s idiotom" (Life with an Idiot, 1980).7 The latter work has re-
cently (2010-11) been adapted by an outstanding Ukrainian artistic dissident,
theater director Andrii Zholdak. In the spirit of holy foolishness, Zholdak
revisits Erofeev's work as he scandalizes the public with his raw, subversive,
graphic, and shocking yet mesmerizing spectacle. His avant-garde show takes
Erofeev's famous text beyond its alleged role as political satire to a realm be-
yond two-dimensional interpretation and verbal expression altogether. These
are just a few, albeit remarkable recent developments in the ever flamboyant
literary and artistic life of the holy fool. Scholarly interest in the artistic appli-
cations of holy foolishness and its philosophical and theological uses is
7 Laura Piccolo gives an overview of recent works and authors who rely on the holy
fool paradigm and discusses at length dramatic adaptations of the holy fool's stance
by the creative group Sinie Nosy (Blue Noses) in her article in the current compilation
(see "From Stylization to Parody: The Paradigm of Holy Foolishness [iurodstvo] in
Contemporary Russian Performance Art," 373-89). Two other authors whose discus-
sions of contemporary literature are included in our compilation are Marco Sabbatini
("The Pathos of Holy Foolishness in the Leningrad Underground") and Per-Arne
Bodin ("Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture"). See also Marco Sabbatini, Quel
che si metteva in rima: Cultura e poesia underground a Leningrado (Salerno: Europa Ori-
entalis, 2008); I. V. Moteiunaite, Vospriiatie iurodstva russkoi literaturoi XIX-XX vekov
(Pskov: n.p., 2006); and Per-Arne Bodin, Language, Canonization and Holy Foolishness:
Studies in Post-Soviet Russian Culture and the Orthodox Tradition (Stockholm: Stockholm
University, 2009).
18 SVITLANA KOBETS
equally intense. The wide thematic and methodological range of area studies
scholarship is reflected in the articles published in our current compilation,
which makes available to English-speaking and international audiences new
scholarly responses to the artistic adaptations of the vibrant cultural para-
digm of Russian holy foolishness. The present introductory article will put
this new research in perspective. While this article does not claim to be com-
prehensive, it intends to give a broad overview of the field, its directions, ten-
dencies and insights, its source materials and scholarly appraisals thereof.
The textual history of the Russian holy fool begins as early as the eleventh
century with the Kiev Caves Paterik account of the monk Isaakii, whose holy
foolishness has been continuously questioned by scholars (Challis, Sergey
Ivanov, Kobets, Thompson).8 The heyday of the holy fool's cult falls in the
fourteenth-sixteenth centuries, which yield the greatest number of canoniza-
tions. At the same time, the majority of extant vitae of holy fools of the fif-
teenth-seventeenth centuries have reached us in later editions.9
As a part of Russian Orthodoxy, the ascetic feat of holy foolishness was
first described from the ecclesiastical perspective in vitae, hymns, and other
hagiographic texts as well as icons and frescoes, all of which genres targeted
the depiction of a stereotype rather than a living reality.
Visual sources, including icons, book illuminations, and needlework
supply abundant and important source material for the study of holy foolery.
Scholars have continuously drawn on this source, yet on the whole this area
of research is still at its inception. The most extensive work in this area
belongs to a Russian scholar, V. M. Sorokatyi, whose article "The Image of
Prokopii of Ustiug in Icononography" explores the full range of Prokopii of
Ustiug's imagery—both individual and collective—in its socio-historical set-
ting.10 A. S. Preobrazhenskii published a comparative study of two iconic
types, the holy fool and the monk, as presented in Russian iconography of the
low Middle Ages.11 Bubnov explores the holy foolish imagery found in a
unique and formerly unexplored source, the Old Believers' illuminated
manuscripts of the Vita of St. Andrew the Fool. Our compilation features his
most recent exploration of this subject area, an article entitled "Illustrations to
the Vita of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople in the Tradition of Russian Old
Q
See my discussion of Isaakii's vita in this volume, 245-68.
9 See examples and relevant discussions in articles by Sergey A. Ivanov, Bubnov, and
Kobets in the present compilation.
10 V. M. Sorokatyi, "Obraz Prokopiia Ustiuzhskogo v ikone," in Zhitie sviatogo praved-
Petersburg, 1912).
17Dmytro Abramovych, Kyievo-Pechers'kyi paterik (Kyiv: Vseukrains'ka Akademiia
19 See Sergey A. Ivanov's discussion of this vita within the paradigm of holy foolish-
ness in Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, trans. Simon Franklin (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 81-90.
20 E. Poselianin, Russkie podvizhniki 19-go veka (St. Petersburg: Izdanie I. L. Tuzova,
1901).
ל1
Vladimir Mel'nik, Ivan Iakovlevich Koreisha v zhizni i literature, http://rusk.ru/st.php?idar=
104534 (accessed 8 September 2011).
22I. G. Pryzhov, Zhitie Ivana Iakovlevicha izvestnogo proroka v Moskve (St. Petersburg:
1889).
24 L. A. Dmitriev, Povesti 0 Zhitii Mikhaila Klopskogo (Moscow-Leningrad: Izd-vo Aka-
The Russian Orthodox Church sponsored the 2003 publication of the Vita
of St. Prokopii the Fool for Christ's Sake ofUstiug, which was translated (by L. I.
Shchegoleva), edited, and outfitted with textual studies and commentaries by
the leading Russian medievalists A. N. Vlasov and A. A. Turilov.27 The most
recent contribution to the study of holy foolishness is Moldovan's academic
edition and textological study of the vita of St. Andrew, Zhitie Andreia Iurodi-
vogo.28 It presents this text, seminal in the history of Russian culture, in a
variety of versions and editions and is thus a unique source for the study of
holy foolishness. Moldovan's vita of St. Andrew appeared concurrently with
the new Russian translation published in the Byzantine Library series (Vizan-
tiiskaia biblioteka).29 Among the most recent publications of the important
primary sources is Krys'ko's critical edition of the earliest Slavic-Russian
translation of the Greek Synaxarion, Prolog.30 This widely circulated and ac-
cessible compilation served throughout the Middle Ages as a source of infor-
mation both for aspiring holy fools and for their hagiographers.31
Regrettably, academic editions of either Russian or Slavic translations of
another seminal vita representative of Byzantine holy foolishness, the vita of
Symeon of Emesa, have not yet been published. Although deemed crucial for
understanding holy foolishness in general and Russian iurodstvo in particular,
Slavic versions of this vita are available only in abbreviated Menology edi-
tions. Its Russian translation, published by Poliakova, is of no academic
value,32 yet it has been widely used by scholars as the only available Russian
edition of this vita. At the same time, Greek-language versions of St. Syme-
on's vita have long been scrutinized by European scholars. It has also been
available in German and French translations.33 Linguistic aspects of the Sla
27
Sorokatyi, ed., Zhitie sviatogo pravednogo Prokopiia: Khrista radi iurodivogo Ustiuzhskogo
chudotvortsa.
A. M. Moldovan, ed., Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo v slavianskoi pis'mennosti (Moscow:
Azbukovnik, 2000).
29 E. V. Zheltkova, ed. and trans., Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo (St. Petersburg: Aleteiia,
2001
<ר/' ן
).
V. В. Krys'ko et al., eds., Slaviano-russkii Prolog po drevneishym spiskam. Sinaksar'
(zhitiinaia chast' Prologa kratkoi redaktsii) za sentiabr'-fevral' (Moscow: Azbukovnik, 2010).
31 See the recent exploration of the Prolog in О. V. Loseva, Zhitiia russkikh sviatykh v
Poliakova, ed. and trans., Zhitiia vizantiiskikh sviatykh (St. Petersburg: Corvus, 1995).
Poliakova does not identify the Greek source texts.
33 See Lennart КуЬёп, Das Leben des Heiligen Narren Symeon von Leonios von Neapolis
(Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1963); Vincent Deroche, Etudes sur Leontios de Neapolis
(Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1995); Alexander Y. Syrkin, "On the Behavior of the
'Fool For Christ's Sake,'" History of Religions 22: 2 (1982): 150-71; Sergey A. Ivanov,
Holy Fools.
22 SVITLANA KOBETS
vonic versions of Symeon's vita have recently been discussed by the Austrian
scholar Johannes Reinhart.34
On the one hand, the paucity of published Slavonic and Russian vitae of
holy fools has limited their availability to Western scholars. On the other
hand, non-Slavic vitae and other relevant texts have also long remained un-
published (e.g., the Syriac Book of Steps) and unavailable in English transla-
tion. Most notably, English translations of the vitae of St. Symeon (seventh c.)
and St. Andrew (tenth c.) are among rather recent additions to the corpus of
translated Byzantine works. The two volumes of The Vita of St. Andrew the Fool
(1995) , edited by Lennart Ryden,35 present the reader with the original Greek
text, its English translation, and extensive commentaries on the text, its
author, and the paradigm of the holy fool.36 The discussions contained in the
first volume of the book address literary, historical, chronological, cultural,
and bibliographical issues related to St. Andrew's vita. An English translation
of St. Symeon's vita appeared a year later as a part of Derek Krueger's
monograph, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's "Life" and the Late Antique City
(1996) .37 In this critical study Krueger considers Symeon's vita against the
backdrop of Late Antiquity and in light of the traditions of Diogenes and the
Cynics. This text is of paramount importance. Not only is the vita of St. Sym-
eon the first comprehensive exposition of the holy foolish paradigm, it also
contains a unique theological explication of the exploit of holy foolishness
supplied by his hagiographer, Leontius of Napolis. Ryddn's and Krueger's
English translations and studies of St. Symeon's and St. Andrew's vitae are
invaluable contributions to the scholarship of foolishness in Christ.
There have been several recent English translations of vitae of Russian
fools in Christ. The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery (1989), translated and
edited by Muriel Heppell,38 contains an account of the first Russian fool in
Christ, Isaak the Cave-dweller, as well as the vita of the Kiev Caves monas-
tery's bishop Feodosii, another Eastern Slavic saint important to the history of
mingham Fourteenth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, ed. Sergei Hackel, studies
supplementary to Sobornost 5 (London: Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, 1981),
106-13.
די ב׳
Derek Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's "Life" and the Late Antique City
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
38Muriel Heppell, trans., The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery (Cambridge, MA:
Russian holy foolishness.39 The Vita of St. Avraamii of Smolensk appears in Paul
Hollingsworth's The Hagiography of Kievan Rus' (1992).40 Seraphim's Seraphim:
The Life of Pelagia Ivanovna Serebrenikova, Fool for Christ's Sake of the Seraphim
Diveyevo Convent (1979) and Vladimir Znosko's Hieroschemamonk Feofil, Fool for
Christ's Sake: Ascetic and Visionary of the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra (1987), are
translations of the vitae of the nineteenth-century holy fools Feofil and Pela-
giia Ivanovna Serebrennikova, which were sponsored by the Russian Ortho-
dox Church.41
Because hagiographic sources are highly ritualized and marked by eccle-
siastical bias, they allow for only a limited access to the historical reality of
Russian holy foolishness.42 Travelogues, annals, and other non-ecclesiastical
records often present the holy fool from a quite different vantage point. As ut-
ter outsiders to Russian Orthodoxy and culture, foreign travelers often ex-
press bemusement and incredulity as they describe holy fools and their high
standing in Russian society. In their entries one would expect, and often en-
counter, some degree of unbiased, independent evaluation of holy foolish-
ness.43 Travelers invariably find holy foolishness bizarre, outlandish, and bru-
tal (rude liberty) and provide insights unavailable through native sources.
Such is Fletcher's comparison of holy fools with prophets and gymnosoph-
ists.44 Massa's lack of understanding of Godunov's tolerance to the condem-
nations thrown at him by the contemporary iurodivaia Elena, shows the
foreigner's unawareness and even resentment of the Russian cult of the holy
סר
See George Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, 2 vols. (New York: Harper Torch-
books, 1960); Jostein Bortnes, Visions of Glory: Studies in Early Russian Hagiography
(Oslo: Solum Forlag; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1988);
Svitlana Kobets, "Genesis and Development of Holy Foolishness as a Textual Topos in
Early Russian Literature" (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
2001).
40 Paul Hollingsworth, trans., "The Life of Avraamij of Smolensk," in The Hagiography
of Kievan Rus' (Cambridge, MA: Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University,
1992), 135-64.
41 Father Seraphim, trans., Seraphim's Seraphim: The Life of Pelagia Ivanovna Serebrenni-
kova, Fool for Christ's Sake of the Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent (Boston: Holy Transfigura-
tion Monastery Press, 1979); Vladimir Znosko, Hieroschemamonk Feofil, Fool for Christ's
Sake: Ascetic and Visionary of the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity
Monastery Press, 1987). These two vitae have been discussed in Peter Antoci's Ph.D.
dissertation: Antoci, "The Hermeneutics of Scandal and Marginality: Holy Folly in the
Hagiographies of Pelagia Ivanovna Serebrenikova and Feofil Andreevich Gorenkov-
sky" (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 1994).
42 On the historical value of hagiographic sources, see V. O. Kliuchevskii, Drevnerusskie
fools.45 It is noteworthy that by early modern times the holy fool was just as
alien to the representatives of other denominations of Eastern Orthodoxy as
he was to the Westerners. Thus, the archbishop of Antioch was astounded by
the respect which Nikon allotted to a holy fool.46 At the same time, in Fletch-
er's account about holy fools and their cult this foreigner's opinion was
hardly independent. Textual analysis shows that he relied on the information
provided to him by his far from impartial Russian hosts.47
While the sixteenth century marked the peak of the holy fool's popularity,
the eighteenth century became a time of state- and at times Church-sponsored
suppression of holy foolishness, when holy fools were not only criticized and
reviled48 but also hunted, branded, and exiled along with their impersonators,
sectarians, vagabonds, and other representatives of marginal religiosity, the
alleged targets of this campaign. If the emergence of the cult of holy fools was
accompanied by their hagiographic acclaim, the era of the fool's relentless
persecution supplies a wealth of quite different documents.
At that time, the very term iurodivyi was outlawed and virtually purged
from the official language. The practitioners of holy foolishness were stripped
of their saintly status as they came to be called by different by-names (khan-
zha, bosoi),49 50 whereas the display of holy foolish attributes (chains, rags,
nakedness, iron staffs and hats) and behaviors (obnoxious, erratic, impudent)
led to arrest, interrogation, torture, exile, and even execution.0 כHowever, this
onslaught did not put an end to the popular cult of holy fools, and while its
continuity was compromised, it has never been broken.51 The lives of holy
fools found another witness: their rather unholy versions were documented
in the interrogation records of the Imperial Secret Police. For the first time
these sources have been analyzed in an important recent article by Aleksandr
45 Isaac Massa, Kratkoe izvestie 0 Moskovii v nachale XVII veka (Moscow: Gos. sotsial'no-
tions for Its Care" (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1977).
55See Margaret Ziolkowski, Hagiography and Modern Russian Literature (Princeton, NJ:
century records concerning Kseniia of St. Petersburg, this saint is a creation of the
nineteenth century. See Gordienko, "Kogo i za chto kanoniziroval sobor 1988 goda:
Pervaia sviataia-iurodivaia (Kseniia Peterburgskaia)," in Novye pravoslavnye sviatye
(Kyiv: Ukraina, 1991), 235-72.
57 See Bubnov's article in the present compilation.
26 SVITLANA KOBETS
canonized holy fools were venerated at that time, making the nineteenth cen-
tury the time of a virtual holy fool's boom. Woody Allen does not exaggerate
the pervasiveness of holy foolishness and its cult when in his cinematic
parody of Russian literature, Love and Death (1975), he shows a crowd of fools
swarming to their annual convention, which takes place under a sign reading
"Welcome, idiots!"
On par with the contemporary holy fools, the medieval ones were dis-
covered and rediscovered, depicted on icons and murals (St. Prokopii in the
Vladimir Cathedral) and given new vitae (Prokopii of Ustiug), whereas the
vitae of Russian fool's Byzantine predecessors were revised or translated
anew. While the holy fool, as always, had his opponents (e.g., Pryzhov), his/
her cult was widespread not only among common people but also among
gentry. Tsar Nicholas II personally supported the cult of a medieval Nov-
gorod holy fool, Nikola(i) Kochanov (d. 1392).
In the nineteenth century the holy fool not only becomes for the first time
the subject of historical and ethnographical explorations but also enters belle
lettres. Karamzin's History of the Russian State (Istoriia Gosudarstva Rossiiskogo)
discusses the phenomenon of holy foolishness and offers accounts of three
famous Russian fools in Christ: St. Vasilii of Moscow (d. 1552), St. Nikola
Salos of Pskov (d. 1576), and St. Ioann the Big Cap of Rostov and Moscow (d.
1589).58 First Karamzin's and then Pushkin's textualizations of the iurodivyi
for the first time in Russian literary history brought the iurodivyi to the pur-
view of an educated, secular Russian readership, and later on Musorgskii's
operatic masterpiece introduced this figure to the West. Thus the three fa-
mous narratives of the Boris Godunov tale became instrumental for the iuro-
divyi's appearance in the world cultural arena.59
A writer as well as a historian, Karamzin supplied material and created a
stereotype of the iurodivyi for generations of writers to emulate, reference, and
appropriate for their own artistic purposes. For such authors as Pushkin and
Zagoskin, Karamzin's History became a sourcebook that substituted for the
primary sources. Generations of nineteenth-century writers drew on Karam-
zin, hagiography, iconography, and their own observations of the phenome-
non of holy foolishness. Artistic adaptations of the holy fool's imagery and
behavioral paradigm by such authors as Lev Tolstoy, Gleb Uspenskii, Melni-
kov-Pecherskii, Ivan Turgenev, Leskov, and Dostoevsky are idiosyncratic and
versatile. They present the holy fool as a unique cultural type and at the same
time endow his image with their own aesthetic and/or political agenda.
CO
N. M. Karamzin, Istoriia Gosudarstva Rossiiskogo (St. Petersburg: Izdanie Evgeniia
Evdokimova, 1892), 9: 97-98,10:168-69.
59 Svitlana Kobets, "The Russian Iurodivyi and the Drama of Boris Godunov," and
Caryl Emerson, "Boris Godunov as Comedy, as Tragedy, and Why it Should Matter,"
papers presented at the symposium "The Many Lives of Boris Godunov," Toronto, 6
April 2002.
Lice in the Iron Cap 27
In the nineteenth century the holy fool also comes to the attention of
learned societies, theologians, and philosophers and emerges as a subject of
scholarly research. Kliuchevskii's thesis, entitled Zhitiia sviatykh как istoriche-
skii istochnik (Saints' Vitae as a Historical Source, 1871),60 is among the first
scholarly evaluations of the historical value of hagiographical records of Rus-
sian saints, including holy fools. In 1860-65 the Russian ethnographer and
historian Ivan Pryzhov published several ethnographic sketches and discus-
sions of holy fools61 that are representative of the positivist rejection of holy
fools and their cult. Pryzhov presents holy fools as hustlers and frauds, casti-
gates their worshipers as superstitious and gullible, and opts to dismantle the
cult of holy foolishness as a scam. This militant atheistic approach both fol-
lows the secular orientation of the Age of Reason and anticipates the view-
point of Soviet scholarship regarding holy fools and their cult. For example,
in his outline of the phenomenology and history of Russian iurodstvo, the So-
viet historian I. U. Budovnits presents it as a church-sponsored conspiracy, a
form of brainwashing, which contributed to the "exploitation of the working
masses."62 The Soviet historian N. S. Gordienko's comparative study of the
hagiographic tradition of Kseniia of St. Petersburg is another example of athe-
istic bias. So is the work of Western scholars, such as Daniel Rancour-
Laferriere,63 who considers the cult of holy foolishness to be further evidence
of Russia's masochistic predilection for suffering.
There have been several ventures to outline the history of Russian holy
foolishness, most of which are largely synoptic. The first book-length explora-
tion of iurodstvo, the monograph Iurodstvo 0 Khriste i Khrista radi iurodivye
Vostochnoi i Russkoi Tserkvi (Foolishness in Christ and Fools for Christ's sake
of the Eastern and Russian Orthodox Churches, 1895), was written by a Rus-
sian Orthodox priest, Ioann Kovalevskii.64 He traces the origins of foolishness
in Christ to the Egyptian desert, defines it as an ascetic practice, and supplies
hagiographical sketches of Byzantine and Russian holy fools based on their
vitae and iconographic information. Kovalevskii's work, which is marked by
an expressly religious orientation, relies solely on canonical Orthodox Chris-
tian sources and is confined to the church sanctioned, apologetic point of
view. In fact, the vast majority of works about holy foolishness published at
the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries share that
60 Seen. 42.
61 In 1865 he published them as a monograph, which has recently been reprinted. See
Ivan Pryzhov, 26 Moskovskikh prorokov, iurodivykh, dur i durakov, i drugie trudy po russkoi
istorii i etnografii (St. Petersburg: Ezro; Moscow: Intrada, 1996).
621. U. Budovnits, "Iurodivye drevnei Rusi," in Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma, no. 12
(1964): 170-95.
3Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, The Slave Soul of Russia: Moral Masochism and the Cult of
which had been destroyed after the decline of saintly princes.72 Gora'fnoff's
monograph Les fols en Christ dans la tradition orthodoxe (Fools in Christ in the
Orthodox Christian Tradition, 1983)73 offers an overview of the phenomenol-
ogy and history of Byzantine and Russian holy foolishness, and Ioann Kolo-
grivoff's Essai sur la saintete russe (Essays on the History of Russian Sanctity,
1953)74 treats the holy fool as an important representative of Russian sanctity.
In 1980 Oxford University Press published a monograph by John Saward,
Perfect Fools, which discusses the phenomenology of holy foolishness in the
Roman Catholic world. Saward includes only a brief discussion of Byzantine
and Russian holy fools, yet he does not argue in favor of the holy fool's pre-
dominance in the West. He emphasizes that only in the Orthodox East was
the holy fool recognized as a saint. At the same time, by offering numerous
examples from the Western Catholic tradition, Saward implicitly undermines
his Slavic peers' assertion that holy foolishness was largely foreign to the
Catholic West.75 Despite its apologetic tendencies and minimal discussion of
the Eastern Orthodox tradition of holy foolishness, Saward's praise of folly
has long remained among the most cited English-language sources.
The popularity of Saward's monograph as an English-language study of
holy foolishness was rivaled by Ewa M. Thompson's Understanding Russia:
The Holy Fool in Russian Culture (1987),76 an ambitious scholarly endeavor
which contains a number of insightful discussions and an extensive bibliog-
raphy. Thompson's scholarship, however, is based on the erroneous premise
that holy foolishness is not an innately Christian phenomenon but a Russian
transformation of shamanism. She correctly identifies shamanism as a cul-
tural analogue of holy foolishness, yet she misinterprets the governing se-
mantic codes of the phenomenon of holy foolishness and its place in the
Russian cultural context.
Saward's and Thompson's monographs appeared in the wake of Pan-
chenko's fundamental study of holy foolishness, yet while the latter drew on
Panchenko's research, the Russian language made it unavailable to the
former.
72 Ibid., 191.
Irina Gora'inoff, Les fols en Christ dans la tradition orthodoxe (Paris: Desclee de
Brouwer, 1983).
74 Ioann Kologrivoff, Essai sur la saintete russe (Bruges, 1953), or the Russian edition,
cetic in the Roman Catholic world who bears a hint of resemblance to the Eastern
Orthodox fool for Christ" ("Laughter as Spectacle," 63-64, in the present volume). See
also Sergey A. Ivanov's discussions of holy foolishness in the West in Ivanov, Holy
Fools, 374-98.
76 Ewa M. Thompson, Understanding Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian Culture (Lanham,
In the last decades of the twentieth century the holy fool was once again
put on the map of Russian scholarship when, in 1976, Dmitrii Likhachev,
Aleksandr Panchenko, and Nadezhda Ponyrko published their collection The
“World of Laughter" of Ancient Rus'.77 It comprises Panchenko's ground-break-
ing study of Russian holy foolishness, "Laughter as Spectacle" ("Smekh как
zrelishche"), and Likhachev's remarkable analysis of applications of holy
foolishness in the works of Ivan IV. In their contributions, both Likhachev
and Panchenko explore the world of Russian laughter, of which iurodstvo is an
important component. Yet if Likhachev discusses a variety of aspects of medi-
eval Russia's perception of comical, nationally specific triggers of laughter
and their expression in different venues (folklore, lubok, writings of Arch-
priest Avvakum, writings of Ivan IV), Panchenko discusses different connota-
tions of the iurodivyi's cultural standing (as an actor and a spiritual mentor, a
laughable figure and a figure of power) and his symbolic behaviors, bringing
to the fore the uniquely Russian facets of the fool archetype. At the same time,
he draws important parallels with analogous behaviors recorded in Russian
folklore as well as other, both Christian and non-Christian, cultures. Pan-
chenko thereby takes the iurodivyi out of the narrow niche of the ecclesiastical
culture suggested by vitae —and also from Russian culture in general—and
places him next to minstrels (skomorokhi) and jesters (shuty), Sufi dervishes
and Cynics, thus significantly expanding the perspective.78
Having shown the holy fool's phenomenological kinship with the repre-
sentatives of other cultures, Panchenko underscores the Russian iurodivyi's
uniqueness. He notes that the holy fool occupies a special place in the Russian
world of mirth and laughter as he is both laughable and grim. His offensive
and subversive shows evoke laughter and scorn only in sinners, while they
remind the righteous ones about Christ's humiliation and suffering, the Last
Judgment and divine retribution. The iurodivyi is believed to belong both to
the profane and divine planes of existence and to mediate between them as
God's trustee, a judge and a prophet. The binary sign system which positions
the holy fool between the sacred and profane is, according to Likhachev and
Panchenko, the most salient feature of Old Russia's culture.79
476-81. In his review of Panchenko's work Pope pointed to the limited character of
this discussion and suggested a number of Western studies that had not been ac-
counted for. On the one hand, in the seventies, when Panchenko's work appeared in
print, most of these Western sources were inaccessible to him. On the other hand, the
relevance of Pope's criticism can be challenged by the fact that subsequent scholarship
on the phenomenology of foolishness in Christ chose not to rely on his suggested stud-
ies either.
7Q
Likhachev and Panchenko, ״Smekhovoi mir" Drevnei Rusi, 6.
Lice in the Iron Cap 31
on
For a discussion of points of similarity and difference between the spirit of carnival
and the stance of the holy fool, see also Iurii Mann, "Around and About Carnival,"
Russian Studies in Literature 33: 4 (1997): 5-33.
32 SVITLANA KOBETS
81 "Smekhovoi mir" Drevnei Rusi, 183-91 (prepared by Ponyrko). Also see Sergey A.
Ivanov's discussion of this source in Ivanov, Holy Fools, 408-12.
82 S. A. Ivanov, Vizantiiskoe iurodstvo (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1994).
83 Sergey A. Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. See n. 20. See also the Russian
86
Ibid., 292.
87
Ibid., 295-96.
88
Ibid., 134-38.
89
Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of Kingship." See n. 4.
90
Ibid., 801.
91
Ibid., 789.
92
See Likhachev's discussion of Ivan IV's holy foolish behaviors in Dmitrii Likhachev,
"Litsedeistvo Groznogo: К voprosu о smekhovom stile ego proizvedenii," in Likha-
chev and Panchenko, "Smekhovoi mir" Drevnei Rusi, 25-35. See also my discussion of
Lice in the Iron Cap 35
Ivan IV's applications of the holy foolish paradigm in Kobets, "Genesis and Develop-
ment," 173-205.
93Dmitrii Likhachev, 'Tumor Protopopa Avvakuma," in Likhachev and Panchenko,
the Problem of Innovation," Russian History/Histoire russe 35: 3-4 (2008): 275-309.
97 Priscilla Hunt, "The Theology in Awakum's 'Life' and His Polemic with the Nikon-
ians," in The New Muscovite Cultural History: A Collection in Honor of Daniel B. Rowland,
ed. M. Flier, V. Kivelson, N. S. Kollman, and K. Petrone (Bloomington, IN: Slavica,
2009), 125-40; Hunt, "Awakum's ׳Fifth Petition ׳to the Tsar and the Ritual Process,"
Slavic and East European Journal 46: 3 (2002): 483-510, and the revised Russian version,
P. Khant, "Piataia chelobitnaia Avvakuma к tsariu i ritual'nyi protsess," Germenevtika
drevnerusskoi literatury 14 (2010): 652-90; Hunt, "A Penitential Journey: The Life of the
Archpriest Awakum and Kenotic Tradition," in "The Church and the Religious
Culture of Old Rus׳, ״ed. Norman Ingham, special issue, Canadian-American Slavic
Studies 25: 1-4 (1991): 201-24. See also my discussion of Awakum's narrative style and
portrayals of holy fools in Kobets, "Genesis and Development," 205-49.
8 Sergey A. Ivanov, Holy Fools, 338.
36 SVITLANA KOBETS
types of saintly monks and holy fools as well as their adaptations in nineteenth-
century Russian literature. See Ziolkowski, Hagiography and Modern Russian Literature,
121-89. See also recently published Ph.D. dissertations by I. V. Moteiunaite and
Lauren Elaine Bennett. The former discusses the role and place of holy foolishness in
nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian literature, while the latter addresses holy
foolishness in the narratives of several twentieth-century authors: I. V. Moteiunaite,
"Vospriiatie iurodstva russkoi literaturoi XIX-XX vekov" (Ph.D. diss., Novgorodskii
gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2006); Lauren Elaine Bennett, "The Synthesis of Holy
Fool and Artist in Post-Revolutionary Russian Literature" (Ph.D. diss., University of
Virginia, 2000).
102 Thompson, Understanding Russia.
Lice in the Iron Cap 37
Cultural Critique (1992),103 Harriet Murav analyzes the writer's four novels—
Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils, and The Brothers Karamazov—
making use of the behavioral paradigm of foolishness in Christ, yet primarily
relying on psychiatry. Overall, the scholar chooses to examine holy foolish-
ness within the context of mental abnormality, including the issue of its per-
ception and treatment in nineteenth-century Russia. Murav posits that when
incorporated into a literary narrative, the concept of holy folly can manifest it-
self as a strategy for misleading, baffling, tempting, and scandalizing the
reader. Thus, the holy foolish stance can be a means for the subversive pres-
entation of reality.104 The scholar shares this premise both with early
twentieth-century105 and contemporary Russian critics such as Khodasevich,
Epstein, Kuritsyn and Malen'kikh.106 At the same time, Murav not only makes
an erroneous generalization when she identifies all of Dostoevsky's positive
characters as holy fools, but also fails to distinguish between the popular folk
view of the holy fool (as anyone who displays mental abnormality or behaves
in a bizarre way) and the theological concept of holy foolish asceticism.107
Vasilii Ivanov's monograph Bezobraziie Krasoty: Dostoevskii i russkoe iurod-
stvo (The Ugliness of Beauty: Dostoevsky and Russian Holy Foolishness)108
provides a most insightful discussion of Dostoevsky's multifarious applica-
tions of the holy foolish phenomenology. Among Dostoevsky's characters
stylized as fools for Christ Ivanov distinguishes a holy foolish jester (iurodivyi-
shut) (Fedor Karamazov), a holy foolish hero (Father Zosima, Alesha Kara-
mazov), those who employ holy foolish gestures (Smeshnoi chelovek, Dmitrii
Karamazov) and the possessed ones (Smerdiakov, Ivan Karamazov, Mariia
Lebiadkina). Ivanov points out that while the tradition of Russian holy fool-
ishness had a profound influence on Dostoevsky's oeuvre, hagiographic
103 Harriet Murav, Holy Foolishness: Dostoevsky and the Poetics of Cultural Critique
iurodivye had for him no discernable importance. He also notes that Dostoev-
sky's holy foolish types have peculiarities that are their own (defined by their
time, place, position), whereas paradigmatic attributes of holy foolishness are
secondary to their characterization. Positive holy foolish types reveal rooted-
ness in time-honored traditions and archetypes of wise and/or subversive
foolery. Above all, those include Russian popular and Christian traditions,
which for Dostoevsky embody the highest morality and virtue. His iurodivyi
hero plays the traditional role of intermediary between the earthly and heav-
enly realms, is both a catalyst of communication and a guide to the higher
self, morality, and God.109
Among the notable shorter pieces devoted to holy foolishness in nine-
teenth-century Russian literature we find Jostein Bortnes's110 111 discussion of
The Idiot and Grigorii Amelin's discussion of Crime and Punishment.n1
In the last decades of the Soviet era the thematic importance of holy fool-
ishness escalated as it yet again came to the purview of the creative elite and
began to be discussed and appropriated—both artistically and behaviorally —
by such poets and artists as Vladimir Shinkarev (and the creative group
Mit'ki), Dmitrii Prigov, Oleg Kulik, Konstantin Kuz'min, and Elena Shvartz.
In Venedikt Erofeev's masterpiece Moskva-Petushki112 holy foolishness is both
incorporated in the narrative mode and is a salient feature of the main char-
acter, Venichka. Erofeev's slim book deservedly attracted vast critical atten-
tion,113 the scope of which came close to—and to some degree rivaled—the
109 See also a discussion by Carol Sue Keith, who divides Dostoevsky's fictive holy
fools into two categories, the holy fool grotesque and the holy fool sublime. Keith,
"The Saintly Fool Figure in the Fiction of Dostoevsky" (Ph.D. diss., The University of
Texas at Arlington, 1992), vii.
110 Jostein Bortnes, "Dostoevsky's Idiot or the Poetics of Emptiness," Scando-Slavica 40
(1994): 5-14.
11 See Grigorii Amelin, "Dostoevskii, Arto i russkoe iurodstvo," Russkii zhurnal,
Erofeev, Moscow, to the End of the Line, trans. H. W. Tjalsma (New York: Taplinger Pub.
Co., 1980).
113Mikhail Epstein finds in Venichka's drunkenness the dialectics of kenotic self-
humiliation. See Epstein, "Posle kamavala ili vechnyi Venichka," Zolotoi vek, no. 4
(1993): 84-92. Viacheslav Kuritsyn discusses Moscow-Petushki in "Velikie mify" and
Mark Lipovetskii discusses Venedikt Erofeev's work in Lipovetskii, "Apofeoz chastits,
111 dialogi s khaosom: Zametki о klassike, Venedikte Erofeeve, роете 'Moskva-
Petushki' i russkom postmodernizme," Znamia, no. 8 (1992): 214-24. See an Internet
collection of scholarly texts about Erofeev's Moskva-Petushki at http://kirovsk.narod.ru/
culture/ludi/erofeev/articles/articles.htm (accessed 9 October 2011). See also Svetlana Gaiser-
Shnitman, Venedikt Erofeev, "Moskva-Petushki" ili "The Rest Is Silence” (Bern: P. Lang,
1987); I. V. Fomenko, ed., Analiz odnogo proizvedeniia: ".Moskva-Petushki" Ven. Erofeeva.
Sbomik nauchnykh trudov (Tver׳: Tverskoi universitet, 2001); Karen Ryan-Hayes, ed.,
Venedikt Erofeev's "Moscow-Petushki": Critical Perspectives (New York: Peter Lang,
Lice in the Iron Cap 39
Soviet-era artistic applications of holy foolishness. See Kuper, The Holy Fools of Moscow,
trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Quadrangle, 1974).
115 Viktor Erofeev, Life with an Idiot, trans. A. Reynolds (London: Penguin Books, 2004).
116Al'fred Shnitke (composer) and Viktor Erofeev (librettist), Zhizn's idiotom (1990-
(1986) Abuladze, Taksi-Bliuz (1990) i Ostrov (2006) Lungina, ״Toronto Slavic Quarterly,
no. 28 (2009), http://www.slavdom.com/index.php?id=128 (accessed 18 August 2011).
118 Epstein, After the Future.
119 Malen'kikh, "Popytka iurodstva как odna iz strategii sovremennoi kul'tury."
40 SVITLANA KOBETS
A scholar of comparative religion, Phan coins the term and concept sopho-
moria, which is not based solely on the behavioral paradigm of holy foolish־
ness for Christ's sake but is an umbrella term for several cultural models.
Making the contemporary epistemological crisis his point of departure, the
scholar claims that in the contemporary world the model of holy foolish irony
and subversion, sophomoria, became the only option for seeing the world. A
similar claim, yet about the iurodivyi, was earlier advanced by Goricheva, who
posits that "the holy fool's grotesque behavior denies all knowledge of the di-
vine and materializes this denial."120
Among the latest contributions to the study of holy foolishness are two
chapters devoted to holy foolishness that are included in Bodin's monograph
Language, Canonization and Holy Foolishness: Studies in Post-Soviet Russian Cul-
ture and the Orthodox Tradition.121 While in these two chapters iurodstvo is ex-
amined in its own right, it is also an topic of discussion throughout the book
and is considered as a part of such issues as the character of Russia's recent
church canonizations and adaptations of the Orthodox tradition in contempo-
rary Russian literary works.122 Bodin is interested in the discursive peculiar-
ities of recent hagiographical narratives devoted to holy fools, which, he ar-
gues, present a blend of traditional church and Soviet discourses. This present
compilation offers Bodin's most recent research into these issues.
As it is, our volume marks the bicentenary of scholarship devoted to holy
foolishness, the first ventures of which go back to Karamzin and Pushkin.
Ironically, when Pushkin started his research and requested from Karamzin
more information about fools in Christ, Karamzin as well as Viazemskii, who
served as an intermediary in this communication, discouraged Pushkin from
looking for more details, claiming that hagiographic accounts of iurodivye
were bland and uniform. In his letter of August 1825, Viazemskii wrote,
"Karamzin wanted to find for you [the Life of the iurodivyi nick-named] Iron
Cap ... [yet] Karamzin says that you will not find much in the Cap, except for
maybe lice. All the holy fools are alike!" Two hundred years later, the holy
fool's continuing eminence in Russian arts, culture, and scholarship has
proven Prince Viazemskii wrong. The present compilation of the new schol-
arly forages into the phenomenology of holy foolishness bears witness to the
holy fool's inexhaustible potential for renewal, his perennial appeal to the
creative elite, and his continuous centrality to Russian culture.
Post-Soviet Russian Culture and the Orthodox Tradition, by Per-Ame Bodin, Russian
Review 70:1 (2011): 166-67.
Laughter as Spectacle*
Holy Foolishness in Old Russia
A. M. Panchenko
Old Russian iurodstvo, or holy foolishness for Christ's sake,* 1 is a complex and
multifaceted phenomenon, which has mainly been described by Church his-
torians. Since holy foolishness occupies an intermediate position between the
world of laughter [smekhovoi rnir]2 and the religious culture, the confines of
the Church history approach are too narrow. One could say that without min-
strels [skomorokhi] and jesters [shuty], there would not have been holy fools.
The affinity between holy foolishness and the world of laughter is not limited
to the "inside out" [iznanochnyi] principle3—it will be shown that holy foolish
iurodstvo and its practitioner, the iurodivyi (also pokhab), the English language does not
have linguistic equivalents of these terms. Traditionally, the Russian term iurodstvo
translates as "holy foolishness," "holy foolery," "holy folly," "foolishness in Christ,"
and "foolishness for Christ's sake," whereas iurodivyi can be rendered as "holy fool,"
"fool for Christ," or "fool for Christ's sake." For the most part, scholars use these Eng-
lish terms interchangeably. Other Russian terms that refer to the holy fool are bui,
pokhab, and blazhennyi. For a detailed discussion of the usage and etymology of these
terms, see Sergey A. Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, trans. Simon Franklin
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 245, 247-49. —Trans.
2 For a discussion of this concept and term, see D. S. Likhachev, "Smekhovoi mir Drev-
nei Rusi," in Likhachev, Panchenko, and Ponyrko, Smekh v Drevnei Rusi, 7-24; and H.
Bimbaum, "The World of Laughter, Play and Carnival: Facets of the Sub- and Coun-
terculture in Old Rus׳," in Aspects of the Slavic Middle Ages and Slavic Renaissance
Culture (New York: Lang, 1991), 483-84. — Trans.
3 This concept is discussed at the opening of Smekh v Drevnei Rusi, 3-6, 14-16. Likha-
chev and Panchenko use it to associate holy foolishness with a humorous "anti-
culture" that parodies the dominant culture for social critical ends. According to their
model, holy foolish behavior turns normative behavior "inside out" when it violates
social norms in order to expose the hypocritical enforcement of these norms. The term
"inside out" reflects their acknowledged debt to the Bakhtinian interpretation of the
popular culture of laughter as an anti-authoritarian alternative to the official world.
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,41-147.
42 А.М. Panchenko
ness creates its own type of "upside-down world" [mir navyvorot]—but also
includes a strong visual component. At the same time, holy foolishness could
not exist without the Church: it finds its moral justification in the Gospels,
and takes its characteristic didacticism from the Church. The holy fool bal-
ances on the divide between the risible and the serious, embodying a tragic
aspect of the world of laughter. Holy foolishness is, in a way, a "third world"
of Old Russian culture.
Of the several dozen holy fools canonized by the Orthodox Church,4 Rus׳
inherited only six from Byzantine Christendom. These are: Isidora (feast day
10 May), Serapion the Syndonite (14 May), Vissarion the Egyptian (6 June),
the Palestinian monk Simeon (21 July), Foma Kelesirskii (24 April), and,
finally, Andrei of Tsargrad, otherwise known as Andrei of Constantinople (15
October), whose vita enjoyed special popularity in Rus'. Russian holy
foolishness begins with Isaakii of Pechersk (14 February), whose vita is re-
counted among the vitae of the Fathers of the Kievan Pechersk or Caves Mon-
astery (Isaakii died in 1090). Then, until the fourteenth century, the sources
are silent about holy foolishness. The phenomenon flourished, however, from
the fifteenth through the first half of the seventeenth century. Although many
of the canonized Russian holy fools are secondary figures, several among
them stand out in both Church and lay history, namely Avraamii of Smo-
lensk, Prokopii of Ustiug, Vasilii Blazhennyi (the Blessed) of Moscow, Nikola
Salos5 of Pskov, and Mikhail of Klopsk.
By the time of its heyday, holy foolishness had become a markedly Rus-
sian national phenomenon. At that time, the Orthodox East had scarcely any
holy fools. They were not to be found in Belorussia or in Ukraine (Isaakii of
Pechersk remained the only holy fool from Kiev). The phenomenon was like-
wise foreign to the Roman Catholic world. This claim is supported by the
writings of foreign travelers such as Herberstein, Horsey, and Fletcher, who,
while visiting Rus ׳in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, described holy
fools with no small degree of wonder. Moreover, to become a holy fool, a
European had to settle in Russia first. Indeed, many of Russia's holy fools
were of foreign origin.6 Prokopii of Ustiug, as related by hagiographical tra
See Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1984), 11. — Trans.
4 See Aleksii Kuznetsov, lurodstvo i stolpnichestvo: Religiozno-psikhologicheskoe issledo-
vanie (St. Petersburg, 1913), 7-10. Unfortunately, I was unable to familiarize myself
with the work of G. P. Fedotov, Sviatye Drevnei Rusi (X-XVII stoletiia) (New York,
1959), which includes a section on Old Russian holy foolishness.
5 For a discussion of the term salos, see Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, 31,
doxy frequently went to the extremes of mysticism and asceticism. Such is the case of
the Frenchman and Sorbonne student Vavila the Young (very likely a Huguenot),
who, in Russia, became the most zealous follower of the well-known ascetic Kapiton.
Laughter as Spectacle 43
dition, was a merchant "from the Western countries, from the German lands,
who spoke the Latin tongue" [ot zapadnykh stran, ot latinska iazyka, ot nemetskiia
zemli].7 In his vita, Isidor Tverdislov is described as follows:
According to some, this blessed one came from the Western coun-
tries, from the Germanic lands, and spoke the Latin tongue. He was
bom and raised in a wealthy, honorable family, in a family of crafts-
men, they say. Hating his godless native Latin faith, he came to love
our true Orthodox Christian faith [Сей блаженный, яко поведают
неции, от западных убо стран, от латынского языка, от немече-
скиа земля. Рождение име и воспитание от славных же и богатых,
яко же глаголють, от местерьска роду бе. И възненавидев бого-
меръзскую отческую веру, възлюби же истинную наппо христи-
анскую православную веру].8
Ioann Vlastar ׳of Rostov prayed from a Latin psalter. This psalter remained in
Rostov over one hundred years after the holy fool's death,9 when Dimitrii
Tuptalo assumed the post of metropolitan there.
In the everyday world, iurodstvo is consistently linked with spiritual or
bodily wretchedness, but this is clearly a misunderstanding. It is important to
make a distinction between inborn and voluntary iurodstvo—or iurodstvo "for
Christ's sake" [Khrista radi]—which the Orthodox Christian tradition has
always opted to uphold.
Dimitrii of Rostov, relating in his Great Menology the vitae of holy fools,
often explains that holy foolishness is "self-imposed martyrdom" [samoizvoV-
noe muchenichestvo], that it "comes from without," and that by its means "wise
men conceal their virtue from others" [mudre pokryvaetsia dohrodetel' svoia pred
cheloveki].10 Yet this distinction is not always applied consistently, as, for ex-
ample, is the case with Mikhail of Klopsk.
See la. L. Barskoe, "Pamiatniki pervykh let russkogo staroobriadchestva," Letopis' za-
niatii arkheologicheskoi komissii, vyp. 24 (St. Petersburg, 1911-12), xvi n. 1, 330-34. See
also S. A. Zen'kovskii, Russkoe staroobriadchestvo: Dukhovnye dvizheniia semnadtsatogo
veka (Munich, 1970), 150.
7 See Zhitie Prokopiia Ustiuzhskogo, in Pamiatniki drevnei pis'mennosti, vyp. 103 (St.
Petersburg, 1893), 8.
8 Institut russkoi literatury (IRLI), Drevlekhranilishche, kollektsiia V. N. Perettsa, no.
edition).
44 A. M. Panchenko
99.
12 Filofei, Zhitie i deianiia Savvy Novogo, trans. P. Radchenko (Moscow, 1915), 59.
Laughter as Spectacle 45
The wise one did not follow in the path of those who rashly and hap-
hazardly presented themselves as fools, and who in so doing (God
knows by what means) fooled only themselves, not only pretending
to be foolish but being fools in reality, as their words and deeds be-
trayed. Instead of mocking the demons and the world, as the holy
Fathers instruct us to do, they made a mockery of themselves, for
they were unprepared to subjugate the ineffable depths of their souls
to reason and had not wholly given themselves over to good; rather,
they easily fell prey to the passions, acting and speaking shamelessly,
as madmen do. Not so the righteous Sabas [He как попало и не-
обдуманно мудрый прикидывался дураком, подобно некоторым,
которые не знаю каким образом обманывали себя, не прикиды-
ваясь только дураками, но будучи ими и на самом деле по своим
словам и делам, и, вместо того чтобы смеяться над демонами и
миром, как говорится у отцов, сами подвергали себя насмешкам,
ибо, еще не будучи в состоянии подчинить бессловесное души
разуму и не предавшись всецело добру, они ... низвергались
легко в страсти, бесстыдно поступая и говоря, словно безумные.
Не так великий Савва].13
13 Ibid., 42-43.
14 N. Demin provides the most detailed biography of Avraamii to date. See N. Demin,
"Raskolouchitel ׳starets Avraamii, ״in Uchebno-bogoslovskie i tserkozmo-propovednicheskie
opyty studentov Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii LXVII kursa (1914 goda) (Kiev, 1914), 124-
232. This biography repeats the main facts and observations set forth by the publisher
of Avraamii's writings, N. I. Subbotin; see N. I. Subbotin, ed., Materialy dlia istorii
raskola za pervoe vremia ego sushchestvovaniia (Moscow, 1874-90), 7: 5ff.; this book also
supplies a relevant bibliography. For more recent commentaries, see A. N. Robinson,
Zhizneopisaniia Avvakuma i Epifaniia (Moscow, 1963), as well as the section "Inok
Avraamii, on zhe iurodivyi Afanasii," in A. M. Panchenko, Russkaia stikhotvornaia kuV-
tura XVII veka (Leningrad, 1973), 82-102.
15 Pamiatniki istorii staroobriadchestva XVII veka, vol. 1, vyp. 1 (Leningrad, 1927), col. 57.
46 А. М. Panchenko
Avraamii gained his reputation as an ardent defender of the Old Belief during
and after the Council of 1666-67, which condemned and exiled the leaders of
the Schism. This former holy fool, who was known and loved by all of Mos-
cow, combated the Nikonians by means of preaching. While incarcerated at
Nikola־on־the־Ugresh׳, Avvakum exhorted his faithful disciple: "I am pleased
that you are defeating the heretics, that you are vexing these dogs in their
very own den. I wish I could be there with you, to help you even just a little"
[Liubo mne, chto ty eretikov pobezhdaesh', sredi torga ikh, psov, vzushcha-
esh׳. Ashche by ia byl s toboiu, posobil by tebe khotia nemnogo].16 Even more
fascinating, however, is the fact that Avraamii took up writing as soon as he
had donned a monk's cassock. Indeed, after the Church council, he began
work on a collection entitled The Inviolable Christian Shield of Faith, which in
addition to Avraamii's own writings contains works by the Archpriest Avva-
kum, the Deacon Fedor, and Ivan Neronov. In February of 1670, Avraamii
was arrested and locked up at the Mstislavskii residence [dvor]. In prison
Avraamii managed to write several works, including the treatise entitled
"Elder Avraamii's Question and Answer" ["Vopros i otvet startsa Avraam-
iia"] and his well-known "Petition to Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich." Nor did he
stop his correspondence with Avvakum: even after Avraamii's death, Mos-
cow Old Believers delivered one of his epistles to Pustozersk.
In addition to writing prose, Avraamii was a poet. While his poetic legacy
is limited to two prefaces (themselves mere compilations) to The Inviolable
Christian Shield of Faith, his stature in the history of literature as the first Old
Believer poet is worthy of mention. He is also remarkable as the only known
former holy fool who wrote both poetry and prose.
The vitae of Sabas the Younger and Avraamii prove that the holy fool's
feeblemindedness and spiritual poverty are by no means the general rule.
One cannot suspect feeblemindedness in a learned hesychast or in a rebellious
thinker and leader of the Moscow Old Believer community whose conduct
while under investigation was both clever and dignified. In our evaluation of
Sabas's and Avraamii's personalities we rely on the hard facts, which lend
much credence to hagiographical testimonies about holy fools' "self-imposed
madness" [samoproizvol'noe bezumie].
Why then did Avvakum's disciple Afanasii choose to renounce the "holy
foolish life" [iurodstvennoe zhitie] and become a monk? In theory, Orthodox
doctrine did not prevent ascetics from exchanging one spiritual feat for
another, a liberty that surely embraced holy foolishness as well. Isaakii of the
Pechersk or Kievan Caves Monastery was initially an anchorite and only later
became a holy fool; the hagiography and annals both suggest that in Isaakii's
case, this transition occurred as the result of an illness. However, the holy
foolish nun Isidora, who according to Ephraim the Syrian "could not abide
the honor bestowed on her by her cloister sisters" [ne terpiashchi byti pochi-
taema ot sestr],17 left the monastery and spent the rest of her life as a desert
ascetic. The Vita of Sabas the Younger can be viewed as a "ladder" [lestvitsa]
of spiritual ascent where holy foolishness is one of the rungs. Therefore, the
urge to abandon iurodstvo can proceed from a wide range of considerations,
both internal and external. Among such considerations is the desire to write.
The ascetic "feat" [podvig] of holy foolishness is incompatible with the
writer's vocation. We know, however, that the Vita of Mikhail of Klopsk opens
with a book-writing episode: "The elder sits in a chair in front of a lit candle.
He is writing out the Acts of the apostle Paul, the story of his journey by sea"
[Starets sidit na stule, a pred nim sveshcha gorit. A pishet sebia deaniia svia-
togo apostola Pavla, plavanie].18 In another episode, "Mikhail writes on the
sand: T will receive the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.
From this place the everlasting fount shall spring forth"' [Mikhail pishet na
pesku: "Chashu spaseniia priimu, imia gospodne prizovu. Tu budet kladiaz
neischerpaemyi].19 Of course, copying out the Acts of the Apostles or drawing
prophecies in the sand can hardly be considered "writing" in the vocational
sense of the word. Moreover, while analyzing these scenes we have to keep in
mind that Mikhail of Klopsk cannot be considered a canonical holy fool.
Yet, since there is an exception to every rule, we should also take care not
to absolutize the incompatibility of writing and holy foolishness. Since many
fools-for-Christ were literate, they could and did put their skills to occasional
use. In a letter to Abbot Feoktist, sent from Mezen ׳during the winter of 1665,
the Archpriest Avvakum makes the following request: "Please write to me
about anything and everything. Give details, and don't be lazy, or else have
Afanasii write for you" [Da otpishi ко mne кое о chem. Prostranno — ne
polenis׳, ili Afonas'ia zastav'].20 If Avvakum is referring to the holy fool "Afa-
nasii," which is most probable (since in 1665 Afanasii was not yet a monk),
then clearly this iurodivyi did not shy away from epistolary prose altogether.
The Vita of Arsenii from Rzheva Vladimirova relates that when Arsenii left for
Novgorod to take up foolishness for Christ's sake, he wrote to his wife and
mother about his decision.21 Naturally, though, private correspondence can-
not be equated with composition for a general readership.
1960), 235.
21 Biblioteka Akademii nauk (BAN), Ustiuzhskoe sobranie, no. 55, fol. 12.
48 А. М. Panchenko
Ivan's behavior was that of the holy fool without holiness, not sane-
tioned from above. Hence he was playing at being a holy fool or
parodying one. We must bear in mind that for those of his contem-
poraries who were witnesses of his activities, this play element might
be eliminated; for some, he might well seem like a stereotype from
hagiographic literature of a tormentor of saints, or like a tyrant from
antiquity, while for others he might seem like a wizard who had sold
his soul to the Devil and was now living in the topsy-turvy world.
Both these "readings" switch Ivan's behavior from the plane of play
onto that of serious activity.23
לל
D. S. Likhachev, "Kanon i molitva Angelu Groznomu voevode Parfeniia Urodivogo
(Ivana Groznogo), ״in Rukopisnoe nasledie Drevnei Rusi: Po materialam Pushkinskogo doma
(Leningrad, 1972), 20.
23 Iu. Lotman and B. Uspenskii, "Novye aspekty izucheniia kul'tury Drevnei Rus,"
Voprosy literatury, no. 3 (1977): 164-65. [Quoted here from Ju. Lotman and B. A. Uspen-
skij, "New Aspects in the Study of Early Russian Culture," trans. N. C. F. Owen, in The
Semiotics of Russian Culture, ed. Ann Shukman (Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Contribu-
tions, 1984), 49-50.—Trans.]
Laughter as Spectacle 49
roborate this, the letter's author included a fragment from the "Burial Rite"
["Chin pogrebeniia"]: "The joints and vessels of our flesh—which are but dust
and stench—have become food for the worms. Once beautiful, our bodies are
now vile and reeking; our bones are dry and have no breath in them. Look
upon them and run your hands over them. Where is the beauty of counte-
nance? Has it not grown black?" [Sostavy i sosudy ploti nasheiia, iako prakh i
smrad, sned ׳chervem bysha. Prezhe sostavy ploti nasheiia liubezny, nyne zhe
gnusnyi i smerdiashchii, iako sukhi kosti nasha, ne imushche dykhaniia.
Smotri i razdvizai rukami svoimi. Gde krasota litsa? Ne sei li ocheme?]. It is
also possible that this citation is derived from the verse "Come before the end,
beloved brethren" [Pridete prezhe konetsa, vozliublennaia moia bratiia]. In
the Old Russian manuscript tradition it can be found both among confes-
sional verses and in the section "Burial Rite for a Layman" ["Chin pogrebe-
niia mirskim chelovekom"] as a burial [zaupokoinyi] verse.25 Whatever the case
may be, Stefan explicitly announces the worldly man's death and the birth of
the fool for Christ. Stefan's letter is a unique document. Before N. V. Po-
nyrko's discovery, we knew nothing about the letters of holy fools. It is
possible, however, that the composition of such letters had a conventional
aspect. Indeed, the vita of the sixteenth-century holy fool Arsenii of Nov-
gorod also mentions a farewell letter to his mother, which marks his depar-
ture from home and the beginning of his life as a holy fool.
How then can we pinpoint the essence of holy foolishness, this unique
brand of "voluntary martyrdom?" The passive, inward-looking part of fool-
ishness for Christ's sake comprises ascetic self-abasement, apparent madness,
and insult to as well as mortification of the flesh, which proceed from a literal
understanding of certain New Testament teachings: "Whoever desires to
come after me, let him deny himself" [Ashche kto khoshchet ко mne iti, da ot-
verzhetsia sebe (Matt. 16: 24-25; Mark 8: 34)]; "We are fools for Christ's sake"
[My iurodi Khrista radi (1 Cor. 4: 10)]. Holy foolishness is a voluntary ascetic
Christian feat of the type that is named "beyond the law" [sverkhzakonnyi] and
that is not accounted for in the monastic rule [operasupererogatoria].26
The "active" side of holy foolishness entails an obligation to "mock the
world" [rugat'sia miru\. Hence, while the holy fool lives in the world, among
men, he reviles the sins and vices of all (of the weak and the strong alike) and
disregards all social norms. Moreover, his scorn for propriety is at once a
form of social license and an essential condition of holy foolishness; therefore,
the holy fool pays no heed to time or place, even daring to "mock the world"
in God's house during a church service. He seems to say that the world's least
are covered by grace [Blagodat' pochiet na khudshem]. These two— "pas
25
Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia biblioteka (GPB), Kirillo-Belozerskoe sobranie, no.
652/909, fol. 450,1958 collection.
See I. Kovalevskii, Iurodstvo 0 Khriste i Khrista radi iurodovye, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1900),
103 n. 1.
Laughter as Spectacle 51
sive" and "active" —sides of iurodstvo balance out and mutually determine
one another. The holy fool's voluntary asceticism and a life defined by bur-
dens and defamation earn him the right to "revile the proud and vain world"
[rugat'sia gordelivomu i suetnomu mini]. It goes without saying that the authori-
ties recognized the fool for Christ's license to denunciate only to a certain
point, which will be discussed separately below.
As the vitae of Sabas the Younger and Avraamii demonstrate, those who
voluntarily pursued holy foolishness were not necessarily uneducated men.
Serapion the Syndonite, who won in disputes with the Athenian philoso-
phers, was a "man of letters." Likewise, a bright and handsome youth, Andrei
of Tsargrad was an avid reader and mastered to perfection the Greek tongue
(which was for him a foreign language). The hagiographical tradition empha-
sizes that Avraamii of Smolensk, too, was well educated.27
To conclude, not only mentally healthy but also highly intelligent people
sometimes chose the path of holy foolishness. We should not be confused by
the seemingly paradoxical linkage of the words "holy foolishness" and "intel-
ligence." Holy foolishness could indeed be a viable form of intelligent and
intellectual critique.
This aspect of holy foolishness comes from the tradition of ancient Cyni-
cism. One cannot claim, however, that there is a genetic link between the two
(specialized research might yield sufficient evidence to reject or defend such
an assertion). The parallel between holy foolishness and Cynicism is a typo-
logical one since they evidently share a number of cultural and behavioral
features (Islamic dervishes present yet another analogous cultural phenome-
non).28 Like the Cynic, the holy fool consciously rejects beauty and distances
himself from accepted ideals of the beautiful —or, more precisely, he turns
97
An ascetic always acts in imitation of a chosen saint depicted in hagiography.
Avvakum's disciple apparently emulated Avraamii of Smolensk (according to one
version of this saint's vita, his worldly name was also Afanasii); see Zhitiia prepodob-
nogo Avraamiia Smolenskogo i sluzhby emu, ed. S. P. Rozanov (St. Petersburg, 1912), 66-
67. Pivotal points in Avraamii's biography are reminiscent of the life (both coenobitic
and lay) of his Muscovite namesake. In his youth, Avraamii of Smolensk received a
good education (see Dimitrii Rostovskii, Chet'i Minei [August], fol. 724v). Then he
spent a significant stretch of time "as a holy fool" [v iurodstvo prilozhisia]. Afterwards,
Avraamii received tonsure as a monk and from then on all traces of his holy fool-
ishness vanished completely. His hagiographers depict him as a "bookman" or man of
letters and also as a writer: "His mind, just like a library, stored many books" [aki by
vivliofika um ego mnogiia v sebe obderzhashche knigi] (ibid., fol. 725).
28 Like holy fools, dervishes practiced mortification of the flesh. In their shows they
swallowed burning coals, snakes, scorpions and shards of glass, and also stuck needles
into their bodies, earning such titles as "screamers" [krikuny] and "dancers" [pliasuny].
See Encyclopedic de VIslam (Leyde-Paris, 1913), 1: 975-76.
52 А. М. Panchenko
these ideals on their head and attributes to ugliness positive aesthetic value.29
Just as the Cynical "esthetic of ugliness" [estetika bezobraznogo] is the result of
reducing the "Socratic principle of utilitarian virtue" [sokratovskii printsip utili-
tarnoi dobrodeteli]30 to the point of absurdity, the holy fool's exaltation of ug-
liness asserts the primacy of ethics over aesthetics. This concept represents a
return to early Christian ideals, according to which physical beauty is of the
Devil. For example, "The Acts of Paul and Thecla" ["Deianiia Pavla i Tekly"]
portray the Apostle Paul as unattractive, whereas Justinian, Origen, Clement
of Alexandria, and Tertullian all reiterate traditions portraying Christ himself
as ugly; such a characterization of Jesus closely corresponds to conceptions of
the Messiah in the Old Testament.31 In holy foolishness we observe —as
though frozen in time—that historical era which treated Christianity and the
fine arts as directly opposing categories. However the premises underlying
Cynicism and holy foolishness may differ, both phenomena foreground a
philosophical interpretation of life: the Cynic and the fool for Christ similarly
strive towards the attainment of spiritual freedom. Their common goal is
goodness, and goodness cannot proceed from carnal beauty. Neither does it
proceed from ugliness; this is why both holy fools and the Cynics so consis-
tently attack established behavioral norms. However, whereas the Cynic opts
to shock, the holy fool aims to evoke remorse.
The hardships and "ugliness" [bezobrazie] of the holy fool's undertaking
can also be seen as the dues he must pay for the right to denounce the world.
As he proclaims the unadorned, naked truth, the holy fool embodies the say-
ing "You can't scare a fish with water or a naked man with sorrows" [Ne
grozi shchuke morem, a nagomu gorem]. In this regard a comparison be-
tween the iurodivyi and the cultural institution of European jesters is in order.
In Perceval, Chretien de Troyes mentions two features of the jester, which ap-
ply just as well to the holy fool—the gifts of foresight and immunity. Yet the
jester and the holy fool differ radically in their approaches: the jester uses
laughter to heal social failings, whereas the holy fool provokes his audience to
laugh at his show. While this "one man show" [spektakl' odnogo aktera] can
indeed be outwardly funny, it will entertain only sinners (since laughter is
sinful by definition) who are unable to recognize the holy fool's hidden, "edi-
fying" [dushespasitel'no] message. The holy fool's ultimate spiritual goal is to
make his audience weep even as they are tempted to laugh at the comedy un-
folding before them.
Now, let me anticipate the questions of those who are interested in the
history of holy foolishness. These readers will not find this work useful as it
explains only certain aspects (in my mind essential) of the phenomenology of
foolishness for Christ's sake: its functions as spectacle and as social protest. I
have based my research on the only available material, the vitae of holy fools.
Since hagiography presents an idealized image of the holy fool, such is the
subject of this study. The drama of holy folly, which this work will explore,
unfolds on the pages of saints' vitae rather than on the church steps and
streets of Old Russian cities.
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle
Do we have a basis for making the claim that holy foolishness is a type of
public spectacle? In fact, the evidence supporting this idea is considerable.
Time and again hagiographers underscore that, when the holy fool is by him-
self, he does not clown around:
For during the day he played the fool, yet at night he would go with-
out sleep, praying incessantly to the Lord God.... At night he never
allowed himself any rest, but rather walked about the city visiting all
the churches and tearfully praying to the Lord. The next day, just as
every day, he would set out about the city streets playing the fool [B
день убо яко юрод хождаше, в нощи же без сна пребываше и
моляшеся непрестанно господу бо1у.... В нощи ни мала покоя
себе приимаше, но по граду и по всем божиим церквам хождаше
и моляшеся господеви со многими слезами. Заутра же паки во
весь день ... исхождаше на улицы градныя и в похабстве
пребывая].1
The stereotype of the holy fool who prays at night (and never in the presence
of people) runs throughout hagiographical literature. This formula is used
both as a literary convention and in factual accounts of holy foolishness.
At the end of the seventeenth century, a brief vita of Maksim of Moscow
was compiled; according to legend, this holy fool was a contemporary of
Prince Vasilii Vasil'evich "the Dark" [Temnyi]. The author of Maksim's short
vita, which was written to celebrate the translation of the saint's relics, knew
literally nothing about his hero and relied exclusively on cliches. In this vita
we also encounter the aforementioned stereotype: "By day he ran through the
streets, playing the fool, but at night he refrained from sleep and instead
prayed to the Lord God" [Vo dni po ulitsam ristashe, pokhab sia tvoriashche,
v noshchi zhe bez sna prebyvaia, gospodu bogu moliashchisia].2
The Archpriest Avvakum also paints a fully canonical portrait of the holy
fool Fedor's routine:
Uncommonly stem was the ascetic life of that Fedor. During the day
he played the blessed fool, but all night long he was at prayer with
tears.... He lived with me about half a year in Moscow—I was still
feeble—the two of us stayed in a little back room. Most of the time
he'd lie down an hour or two, then get up; he'd toss off a thousand
prostrations and then sit on the floor, or sometimes stand, and weep
for maybe three hours. But even so I'd be lying down, sometimes
asleep, but sometimes too feeble to move. When he had wept his fill
and even more, he'd come over to me: "How long are you going to lie
there like that, Archpriest? Get your wits about you, you're a priest,
you know! How come you are not ashamed?" And I was feeble, so
he'd lift me up, saying, "Get up, sweet Father of mine, well come on,
just drag yourself up somehow!" And he'd manage to stir some life
into me. He'd tell me to recite the prayers sitting down, and he'd
make the prostrations for me [Зело у Федора тово крепок подвиг
был: в день юродствует, а нощь всю на молитве со слезами....
Пожил у меня с полгода на Москве, — а мне еще не моглося, — в
задней комнатке двое нас с ним, и много час-другой полежит, да
и встанет. 1000 поклонов отбросает, да сядет на полу и иное, стоя,
часа с три плачет, а я־таки лежу — иное сплю, а иное неможется.
Егда уж наплачется гораздо, тогда ко мне приступит: «Долго ли
тебе, протопоп, лежать тово, образумься, ведь ты поп! Как со-
рома нет?» И мне неможется, так меня подымет, говоря: «Встань,
миленький батюшко, — ну, таки встащимся как-нибудь!» Да и
роскачает меня. Сидя мне велит молитвы говорить, а он за меня
поклоны кладет].3
3 Zhitie protopopa Avvakuma, 99. [English quoted here from Kenneth N. Brostrom, trans.
and ed., Archpriest Awakum, The Life Written by Himself (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan; Michigan Slavic Publications, 1979), 91. — Trans.]
4 Velikie Minei Chet'i [VMCh], 1-3 Oktiabr' (St. Petersburg, 1870), col. 90 (Zhitie
Andreiia Tsaregradskogo).
56 А.М. Panchenko
[shaluet] much like a skomorokh. Public space serves the holy fool as a stage
platform (because of this, holy foolishness is predominantly an urban phe-
nomenon). He is drawn to any crowd and "plays the fool" just as well in a
tavern as in a monastery. Here's how the same Fedor, Avvakum's spiritual
son, behaved at the Chudov Monastery: "In the bakery after the bread was
done, our dear departed one climbed into the hot oven and, resting his bare
bottom on its floor, collected the remaining crumbs and began to eat them.
The monks were appalled" [On zhe, pokoinik-svet, v klebne toi posle khlebov
v zharkuiu pech' vlez i golym guznom sel na polu i, kroshki v pechi pobira-
iuchi, est. Так cherntsy uzhasnulisia].^ One on one with Avvakum, Fedor did
not perform any such antics, since the holy fool employs the guise of madness
only when he acts for a crowd.
This scene, which we find in Avvakum's vita has parallels in the skomo-
rokh's repertoire. One version of "The Petition of Daniil the Prisoner"
["Molenie Daniila Zatochnika"] lists playing with fire as part of the minstrel's
performance: "Others throw themselves into the fire, showing thereby the
strength of their hearts" [A in mechetsia vo ogn׳, pokazaiushche krepost' ser-
dets ׳svoikh].5 6 This scenario was also well known to Europe's culture of
laughter [smekhovaia kul'tura]. An anecdote about an old woman who got
drunk every day enjoyed wide circulation in sixteenth-century Germany.
Despite her children's efforts to make her see reason—which included threat-
ening her with Hell's unquenchable fire—the old drunkard persisted in her
vice. Finally one day, seeing her lying drunk on the ground, her children scat-
tered burning coals around her. When the old woman came to herself, she
thought she was burning in the flames of Gehenna.7
Holy fools' hagiographers were so keenly aware of the theatrical aspects
of their heroes' vitae —such as transformation, performance and sham —that
they often likened them to professional actors. The author of Vasilii Blazhen-
nyi's complete vita writes:
Whenever the spectators and listeners would find out that one of
these valiant sufferers had come from anywhere, a crowd would
gather to see how courageously he would fight and they would train
both their carnal and intellectual eyes on him, as if a marvelous musi
5 Zhitie protopopa Avvakuma, 93. We can draw hagiographical analogies to this act of
Fedor's. In the "Panegyric to Prokopii and Ioann of Ustiug" ["Slovo pokhval'no Pro-
kopiiu i Ioannu Ustiuzhskim"], Prince S. I. Shakhovskii writes of Ioann: "You sat on
the stove's hot coals as on water, and the flame did not penetrate your long-suffering
body" [Na uglie goriashchie peshchi iako na vode pochival esi, i ne prikosnusia ogn'
mnogostradal'nomu telesi tvoemu] (Zhitie Prokopiia Ustiuzhskogo, 248). See also the
section "Holy Foolishness as Social Protest" below.
6 Slovo Daniila Zatochnika po redaktsiiatn XII i XIII vv. i ikh peredelkatn, prep, by N. N.
cal artist had arrived and they were taking part in the shameful spec-
tacle, listening with great zeal to the songs and hooting [Зрителие и
слышателие егда коего доблественна страдалца отнекуде при-
шедша уведят, стекаются множество, иже видети храбрость бор-
бы, и вся тамо телесный и мысленны сопряжут очи, якоже муси-
кейский художник чюден приидет, и тако подобнии вси такоже
исполняют позорище, и со многим тщанием и песни, и 1удения
послушающе] .8
Theatricality can be a form of art or, like iurodstvo, can stand on its own.
Theatricality is not necessarily identifiable with theater, just as a "spectacle" is
not always and not necessarily a stage play. Like medieval Europe, Old Rus-
sia was theatrical through and through, even though Moscow —until the time
of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich—did not know theater as we understand it. Can
we deny the theatrical nature of the tsar's royal banquets or of his "Procession
on the Ass" [Shestvie na osliati]? During this ceremony the tsar led a horse,
upon which the patriarch sat, through the streets of the city and youths
(specially trained for the occasion) paved their way with varicolored coats.
Does not the tsar's alms-giving on the eve of important holidays and the
secrecy with which this was done (even though it happened every year at the
same time and place) amount to a show? Medieval culture—whether courtly,
religious, or popular—was uniformly "ritualized" [obriadnaia] and theatrical
[zrelishchna]. Medieval men and women did not only observe but also took
part in spectacles. They received what we now call ״theater training" prac-
tically from infancy.
"Drama was bom on the square and was a form of popular enter-
tainment. The people, just as children do, demand diversion and action. The
play appears as an extraordinary and strange adventure. The people demand
strong sensations, for them even executions are spectacles."10
Although medieval theatricality took a number of different forms, we can
assume that antique spectacles presented a well-balanced system. To explore
and describe aspects of this system would be an important and rewarding
task for the historian of culture. One hopes that in due time such a work will
be undertaken so that we will be able to determine the place and function of
holy foolishness within the larger system. The present state of knowledge,
however, limits us to a lamentably superficial understanding of iurodstvo’s
function as spectacle.
Like every other medieval phenomenon, holy foolishness comprises a set
of conventions: the sources unambiguously show that it is made up of a
number of fixed theatrical scenarios. However, by contrast with Church ritual
(holy foolishness is, we mustn't forget, a Christian feat of faith), it represents a
special type of social convention. People know when and how the Procession
on the Ass will take place, and are familiar with the blessing of waters at Epi-
phany down to the last detail; the actors in these performances may change,
but the script remains the same. On the other hand, no one knows where or
exactly how the holy fool's performance will play out.
The Church upholds "regularity" [mernost'], orderliness, and devout sol-
emnity. These values are incompatible with holy foolishness, which, in an
emphatic manner, counterposes itself to them. In the Church there is too
much material, carnal beauty; the Tale of Bygone Years reflects this fact when it
relates that Prince Vladimir chose Greek Orthodox liturgy because of its un-
matched beauty. In holy foolishness, ugliness reigns supreme. The Church
made even death beautiful by giving it the [sonorous] name dormition
[uspenie]. Conversely, the holy fool dies an anonymous death, in an unknown
place at an unknown time. He may freeze to death, like Prokopii of Ustiug
did, or he may simply disappear. Later on, someone stumbles upon his body,
and hagiographers retrospectively construct the scene of his demise.
The Church appeals more to the soul than to the intellect. In Church cer-
emony, thought yields to emotion and passion. Eventually, though, after
countless repetitions of the "eternal truths" that imbue ceremony with mean-
ing, these truths lose their luster, and passionate veneration gradually cools
10A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 10-ti tomakh, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1958), 7: 213
(article entitled "O narodnoi drame i drame 'Marfa Posadnitsa)״׳. [Quoted here from
Pushkin on Literature, trans. Tatiana Wolff, ed. Tatiana Wolff and John Bayley (Stan-
ford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986), 265. — Trans.]
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 59
Thus did God order Isaiah to walk naked and barefoot, and thus did
He instruct Jeremiah to lay a cloth about his loins, or on occasion to
lay a yoke around his neck, and thus to preach. So also did he order
Hosea to take a harlot of a woman for his wife, and to love a wife
who loved evil and fornication. And He ordered Ezekiel to lie on his
right side for forty days and on his left side for one hundred and fifty
days, and also to dig a hole in the wall through which to escape so
that he might stage his capture; likewise, God instructed him to
sharpen a sword and to shave his head with it, dividing his hair into
four equal parts. I cannot tell you of all the cases when the keeper and
ruler of words ordered each of these men to behave such that those
who did not obey the word would be awakened by a spectacle
strange and marvelous.11 For edification can be achieved through the
novelty of such a spectacle [Тако повелел бог и Исаии ходить нагу
и необувенну, и Иеремии обложить чресленник о чреслех, и
иногда возложить на выю клади и узы, и сим образом
проповедывать; и Осии повелел пояти жену блуждения и паки
возлюбити жену любящую зло и любодеицу; и Иезекиилю воз-
лежать на десном боку четыредесять и на левом сто пятдесят
дней, и паки прокопать стену и убежать и пленение себе при-
писать и иногда мечь изострить и им главу обрить и власы
разделить на четыре части. Но да не вся глаголю, смотритель и
правитель словес повелел каждому из сих быть того ради, да не
повинующийся слову возбудятся зрелищем странным и чудным.
Новость 60 зрелища бывает довлетельным учения залогом].12
11The Russian translation, spectacle "strange and marvelous" refers to the Greek
"paradoksas," which literally means "contrary to" or "beyond expectation." — Trans.
1 Quoted from L E. Zabelin, Domashnii byt russkikh tsarits v XVI i XVII stoletiiakh, 3rd
ed. (Moscow, 1901), 112. It is difficult to say which Slavonic translation Zabelin is
using when he quotes Cedrenus. Most probably he was using a Slavonicized trans-
position from the end of the eighteenth century, published in Cyrillic (see G. Kedrin,
Deianiia tserkovnye i grazbdanskie, pts. 1-3, trans. I. I. Sidorovskii [Moscow, 1794]). [For
the original Greek text, accompanied by Latin, see Immanuel Bekker, ed., Compendium
Historiarum, by Georgios Kedrenos (Georgius Cedrenus), 2 vols. (Bonn: Impensis Ed.
Weberi, 1838-39), 2: 340, paragraphs C-D. — Trans.]
60 А. М. Panchenko
ferent by the power of "a spectacle strange and marvelous." Outwardly, this
spectacle resembles that of the skomorokh; however, while the skomorokh
amuses, the holy fool instructs. The holy fool functions on a meta-aesthetic
plane—that is, the comical shell of his performance cradles a thoroughly
didactic endeavor (see "Holy Foolishness as Social Protest"). The holy fool is
an intermediary between popular and official culture. He brings together the
worlds of laughter and of pious gravity (in much the same way as medieval
or baroque European theater fused laughter and drama together) by balanc-
ing on the divide between comedy and tragedy. The holy fool is a grotesque
character.
However, the holy fool is not the only performer. In the shows he creates
on the streets and squares of Old Russian cities he is the main but by no
means the only character. As we have already mentioned, holy foolishness
acquires validity only in the midst of the crowd, where people can see it,
when it becomes a public spectacle. Without the public eye it simply cannot
take shape. The theatrical conception of time cannot be applied to holy fool-
ishness: its time is eternity [vsegdashno]. Furthermore, only when he is by him-
self, during an intermission of sorts (either at night or else when no one is
looking) can the holy fool remove his mask of feigned madness and be him-
self.13 (Remember, we are talking about the "ideal" holy fool, since in real life
things sometimes went differently.) It won't be an exaggeration to assert that
in the holy fool's performance, the viewer's role is no less important than that
of the main character. Since the iurodivyi is both an actor and a director, he
directs the crowd and uses it as he would use a marionette, turning it into a
kind of collective character. Because of this special relationship, the observer
becomes an active participant in the show and even a performer.
Understanding this symbiosis—this close interdependency of the roles
allotted to the iurodivyi and the crowd—is evidently the key to understanding
holy foolishness as spectacle. Of course, the interdependence of actor and
audience never reaches the level of amoebaean performance (where the
iurodivyi is an actor and crowd is a choir). The gestures and cries of the crowd
are absolutely artless: its emotional response is spontaneous and passionate.
The crowd treats this interaction neither as a "rite" [chin] nor as ceremony but
rather responds emotionally, whence emerges a special type of play.
This play-acting is full of paradox, and paradox, as we know, does not
allow passion to cool. The holy fool establishes highly complex and ambigu-
ous relations with his audience. These relations are essentially paradoxical
and cannot be otherwise, for the "spiritual feat" of holy foolishness is itself
paradoxical. The fool for Christ must reconcile the most irreconcilable ex
13 In the Vita of Andrei ofTsaregrad, the narrator states that he once caught a glimpse of
the holy fool praying during the day: "Looking all around and seeing no one, he
would raise his hands in prayer" [Vzria semo i ovamo, da iako zhe ne vide nikogo zhe,
vzde rutse gore, tvoria molitvu] (VMCh, 1-3 Oktiabr', col. 96).
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 61
tremes. On the one hand, he seeks first and foremost his own "salvation." In
his ascetic eradication of vanity, in the mortification of his flesh, the holy fool
is a complete loner who breaks all human ties and "lives among men as
though in the wilderness" [iako v pustyni v narode prebyvaia]. If his behavior
can't be called individualism then it is certainly a kind of personalism. On the
other hand, holy foolishness incorporates aspects of public service (see our
discussion below), which powerfully came to the fore around the time of the
Schism. During the reign of Ivan Groznyi, holy fools were considered defend-
ers of the people and denunciators of the crowned villain.
It goes without saying that actual holy fools were not all of identical
stripe. From time to time a holy fool might even fail to display the ardor of a
committed denunciator. This notwithstanding, "mockery of the world" and
concern for the people's moral health are integral attributes of the holy fool's
endeavor. They find expression in the set phrase "to mock the vain and proud
world" [rugat'sia suetnomu i gordelivomu miru\, which hagiographers offer as a
working definition for the "active" side of iurodstvo. The contradictory charac-
ter of holy foolishness was a palpable experience in Old Russia and became
fixed in the oxymoronic expression "most wise holy foolishness" [mudreishee
iurodstvo].14 The paradoxical foundations of the holy fool's spectacle derive
from the paradoxical nature of his spiritual "feat." Let's take a closer look at
the principle examples of paradox here.
In choosing the feat of holy foolishness, a person "accepts reproach and
beatings from madmen, since in their eyes he is both a fool and a madman"
[ukorenie priemlet ׳i bienie ot bezumnykh chelovek, iako iurod vmeniaem imi
i bezumen].15 This citation from the Vita oflsidor Tverdislov of Rostov is a stere-
otypical formula that recurs in the vitae of holy fools. Here are several more
examples. "The blessed Prokopii [of Ustiug—A.P.] suffered much vexation,
reproach, beating, and bullying from madmen" [Priiat blazhennyi Prokopii
mnogu dosadu, i ukorenie, i bienie, i pkhanie ot bezumnykh chelovek].16
Andrei of Tsaregrad's vita includes the following observations: "Looking at
him, some people would say: this one has just gone mad; others remarked
that holy fools are everywhere, you can't get rid of them, ... still others would
slap him, beat him and spit in his face with disdain" [Zrishche na n ׳chelo-
vetsy glagoliakhu: se nova beshenina; druzii zhe glagolakhu, iako zemlia si
nikoli zhe bez salosa nest', ... druzii pkhakhu ego po shii, biakhnut ׳ego i
slinami litse kropliakhu, gnushaiushchesia].17 This stereotype appears yet
14 A similar oxymoron appears in L. N. Tolstoy's diary, where he refers to the violinist
[Christoph Gottfried] Kiesewetter, who served as the prototype for Tolstoy's pro-
tagonist in the story "Albert" ("Al'bert") (entry for 8 January 1857): "He's a brilliant
holy fool" [On genial'nyi iurodivyi] (L. N. Tolstoi, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Moscow,
1937], 47:110).
15IRLI, Drevlekhranilishche, kollektsiia V. N. Perettsa, no. 29, fol. 515.
16 Zhitie Prokopiia Ustiuzhskogo, 16.
17 VMCh, 1-3 Oktiabr׳, col. 91.
62 А. М. Panchenko
from the Psalms concerning the "owl of the wilderness" (neiasyt' pustynnaia) with
Christ, medieval authors sometimes made a point of stressing the epithet "of the
wilderness" [pustynnaia]. In Athanasius of Alexandria's commentaries (in the "Tolstoy
Psalter" of the eleventh and twelfth centuries) we read: "Like an owl of the wilderness:
this bird has always preferred to live in the mountains; likewise, Christ loved the
wilderness because it was quiet there" [Upodobikh'sia neiasyti pustyn'nei: neiasyt'
liubit' prisno v gorakh zhiti, liubliashe zhe i Khristos v pustyniakh, iako bezmlv'no]
(L. S. Kovtun, Russkaia leksikografiia epokhi srednevekov'ia [Moscow-Leningrad, 1963],
177). In his interpretation, the act of likening the holy fool to an "owl of the wilder-
ness" retained its full value: after all, the holy fool lives among men "as though in the
wilderness" [iako v pustyni].
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 63
Friar Leo, albeit the friars ... give good examples of holiness and edi-
fication, nevertheless write and note down diligently that perfect joy
is not to be found therein.... О Friar Leo, even though the friar minor
gave sight to the blind, made the crooked straight, cast out devils,
made the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and restored speech to the
dumb, and what is yet a greater thing, raised those who have lain
four days in the grave;22 write—perfect joy in not found there.... О
Friar Leo, if the friar minor knew all tongues and all the sciences and
all the Scriptures, so that he could foretell and reveal not only future
things, but even the secrets of the conscience and of the soul; write —
perfect joy is not there.... О Friar Leo, although the friar minor were
skilled to preach so well that he should convert all the infidels [to the
faith of Christ]; write—not there is perfect joy.
And when Brother Leo turned to him in amazement and asked how one
might obtain "perfect joy," Francis answered him thus:
When we are to come to [St. Mary of the Angels] ... [if] the door-
keeper cometh in a rage and saith, "Who are ye?" and we say, "We
are two of your friars" and he answers, "Ye tell not true; ye are rather
two knaves that go deceiving the world and stealing the alms of the
poor; begone!" and he openeth not to us, and maketh us stay outside
hungry and cold all night in the rain and snow; then if we endure
patiently such cruelty, such abuse, and such insolent dismissal with-
out complaint or murmuring.... О Friar Leo, write—there is perfect
joy. And if we ... knock once more and pray with many tears that he
open to us for the love of God and let us but come inside, and he
more insolently than ever crieth, ״These impudent rogues, I will pay
them out as they deserve"; and issues forth with a big knotted stick —
if we, thinking on the agony of the blessed Christ, endure all these
things patiently and joyously for love of Him; О Friar Leo, write —
there is perfect joy. О Friar Leo, now hear the conclusion. Above all
the grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that Christ giveth to His be-
loved is that of overcoming self, and for love of Him willingly to bear
pain and buffetings and revilings and discomfort; for in none other of
God's gifts, save these, may we glory, seeing they are not ours, but of
God. Wherefore the Apostle saith, "What hast thou that is not of God,
and if thou hast received it of Him, wherefore dost thou glory as if
thou hadst it of thyself?" But in the cross of tribulation and of afflic-
tion we may glory, because this is ours. Therefore the Apostle saith,
"I will not glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
were entirely theological. Holy fools ׳vitae state that they prayed for those
who "reproached, beat and shoved" them. Such a prayer cannot be simplis-
tically equated with the fulfillment of the evangelical command to love one's
enemy. Aware that he himself provoked the crowd's brutalities and that he,
rather than his abuser, is therefore the sinner, the holy fool intercedes with
God on his abusers' behalf. This is what the hagiographies tell us.
Yet this resolution of the antinomy embedded in holy foolishness is not
absolute and only raises more questions. Since the holy fool's prayer has no
witnesses—he prays only at night or in the privacy of his own soul—it re-
mains unknown to the "ignorant" observer [;neveglas]. Moreover, his prayer
has no relation to street performance or to the interplay between the per-
former-ascetic and the crowd: after all, the supplicant is no longer a holy fool
but a sane person who has shed his mask of feigned madness.
We might even say that it is Vasilii's hagiographer who prays in his hero's
stead; moral ambiguity disturbs him, and he tries his best to remove it
through purely literary means. Yet he fails to realize that if holy foolishness
lost its inherent antinomies, it would also forfeit the emotional suspense and
passionate altruism that make it unique.
The viewer's live reaction is an indispensible component of any comic
performance:
26
IRLI, Drevlekhranilishche, kollektsiia V. N. Perettsa, no. 29, fol. 545v.
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 67
with an audience and turns into pure play, in which both the actors and
the public take an active role.27
Having repudiated the world and all its finery, he wore no perishable
clothing, toiling with his naked body for Christ.... Just as he emerged
from his mother's womb, thus he also walked unashamedly before
men, avoiding neither the frost nor the burning sun [Мира вся крас-
ная отвергл еси, ничтоже на теле своем ношаше от тленных одея-
ний, наготою телесною Христове работая.... Яко же от чрева
материя изыде, тако и в народе наг ходя не срамлялся, мраза и
жжения солнечнаго николи же уклонялся].29
Nakedness is one of the most important attributes of the holy fool. When
one decides to take up foolishness for Christ's sake, he sheds his clothing.
Such was Andrei of Tsaregrad's first step on the path of holy foolishness. He
removed his clothes and cut them to shreds with a knife, muttering "some
obscure words."30 The Hesychast Sabas the Younger, who began practicing
holy foolishness in Cyprus, did likewise. As he distanced himself from his
traveling companions, he
pulled off all his bodily clothing, even his underwear ... and in such
countenance appeared on the island ... pronouncing Job's renowned
words: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I
return there." And he began his path through ... the towns and vil-
lages completely naked, barefoot, with his head uncovered and with-
out a roof over his head, a stranger to all, entirely unknown and
27
P. G. Bogatyrev, Voprosy teorii narodnogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1971), 88-89
28 GBL, Sobranie Undol'skogo, no. 361, fol. 4v (Zhitie Prokopiia Viatskogo).
29IRLI, Drevlekhranilishche, Karel'skoe sobranie, no. 127, fol. 3v, fol. 9v.
30 VMCh, 1-3 Oktiabr', col. 83.
68 А.М. Panchenko
He tied crosses onto his body with iron chains and put a heavy, over-
sized cap on his head; he wore copper rings on his fingers and carried
around wooden prayer beads. He subdued his body with great
patience, and toiling for Christ he chased away the evil spirits of
darkness. And on his private parts he wore copper rings. [Положив
на тело свое кресты с веригами железными, а на верху главы
своея колпак великий и тяжкий носяше, и у рук своих на перстех
колца и перстни медяные и четки древяные носяще, и терпением
своим тело свое сокрушая, Христу работая и злыя же темныя
духи отгоняя, и у тайных уд своих колца медные ношаше].34
Over time iconographers began to "cover up" Vasilii's nakedness. Later icon-
ographic templates prescribe for him covered loins: "Naked, left hand cov-
ering his loins with a cloth, right hand pressed to his chest" [Nag, na chres-
lakh plat, prizhat levoi rukoi, pravaia к grudi].
יי1
Translated from the Greek by Sergey A. Ivanov. The Greek original is found in
Demetriou G. Tsame, Philotheou Kokkinou bios hagiou Saba tou Neou (Thessalonike:
Aristoteleion Panepistemion Thessalonikes, 1983), 10, 20.
32 Filofei, Zhitie i deianiia Savvy Novogo, trans. P. Radchenko (Moscow, 1915), 37.
331.1. Kuznetsov, "Sviatye blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann," 381-87.
34 Ibid., 422.
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 69
Nakedness symbolizes the soul. Sabas the New saw it this way, and so
did Old Russian hagiographers, who asserted time and again that the holy
fool is angelically incorporeal. Simultaneously, though, nakedness embodies
malevolence, devilish impiety, and sin. In grotesque medieval tableaux the
Devil always appears naked. The jester—who in the Church's view is both a
fool and an embodiment of the demonic realm—exposes himself as well.
Once again, we find that the holy fool's nakedness is ambiguous. Like his ac-
tions, this actor's "costume" suggests a choice: for some it is perdition, for
others—salvation.
In order to reconcile nakedness "for Christ's sake" with the temptation
that is naturally associated with contemplation of the naked body, holy fools
sometimes make use of palliatives, such as, for instance, a loincloth. However,
it goes without saying that most details of the fool's costume bear no relation
to their palliative function. Such is the case with Ioann the Water-bearer's
"heavy, oversized cap" and with the bronze rings worn on his "private
parts." These are, unmistakably, an actor's props. Like a clown or a master of
ceremonies [konferans'e], the holy fool is an actor sui generis, who plays only
himself.35 Therefore, the holy fool's costume must, above all else, accentuate
his peculiarity, his otherness, and must distinguish him from the crowd.
Hence the wide variety of holy fools' costumes, which satisfy but one com-
mon requirement: they are all extravagant.
Still, amidst this diversity, the "holy fool's shirt" [rubakha iurodivogo]
flashes with special intensity. We find its detailed description in Arsenii of
Novgorod's vita:
This blessed one's garment, which he wore at all times, was unsightly
(and indecent) and had been patched many times over, as though it
had been trampled upon in the city or at the marketplace for many
days, and no one would touch it because it was so shabby. For [his
garment] was not made of one piece nor even composed of many bits
pieced together, but rather consisted of motley scraps of worn-out
cloth, which were sewn together by hand onto a well-worn gar-
ment.... In the same way his hat, which covered precisely half of his
head, left the other side of his head completely exposed to the ele-
ments [Ризы же сего блаженнаго, еже ношаше выну, толико
видением непотребии бяху и многошвени и сиротны, яко бы на
многи дни и посреде града или на торжищи повержены бы
были, и никому же им коснутися худости их ради. Понеже 60
беша не от единаго чесого, аще и неисщетнаго рубствования со-
ставлены, но всяко от всякаго составнаго, пометнутаго в персть от
человек, худоризного лускотования, пришиваемаго им к ветсей
единой ризе.... Такожде и на главе его покровение шляпное, им
35
See Bogatyrev, Voprosy teorii narodnogo iskusstva, 103.
70 А. М. Panchenko
In this episode we find no basis for identifying the holy fool's shirt with
political masquerade. Such an assumption would be misleading since it
would overlook the specifics of Fedor's religious outlook: for him, worldly
clothes were the real facade. As he donned worldly garments he consciously
violated his sacred duties as an ascetic and relinquished his divine folly. For
this reason he did not have the courage to take such a step on his own and
appealed to his spiritual father. Likewise, this explains Avvakum's hesitation
to grant Fedor permission. Many years later these nagging doubts were re-
fleeted in his revisions of the last phrase.
We can conclude that the holy fool did not have to make his presence
known through denunciations or by offending the public's sense of decency:
Dimitrii, Isaac Massa observes: "Her speeches against the tsar were not lengthy and
are summed up by the poet's words: 'While you are busy arranging your marital
happiness, fate will determine your lot[ "׳Rechi, kotorye ona govorila protiv tsaria,
byli neveliki, i ikh mozhno peredat' slovami poeta: Dumque paras thalamum, sors tibi
fata parat (I рока ty gotovish' brachnyi pokoi, rok vershit tvoiu uchast')]. Massa places
equal emphasis on the brevity and the aphoristic character of Elena's prophecy. See I.
Massa, Kratkoe izvestie 0 Moskovii v nachale XVII veka, trans. A. A. Morozov (Moscow,
1937), 128.
43 For more information about the role of "auto-communication" in medieval culture,
see Iu. M. Lotman, "O dvukh modeliakh komunikatsii v sisteme kul'tury," in Trudy po
znakovym sistemam, vyp. 6 (Tartu, 1973): 227-43.
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 73
A certain elder arrived at the Klopsk Monastery on St. John's Eve. Abbot
Feodosii
said to him: "Who are you? Are you man or demon? What is your
name?" And he answered with the very same words: "Are you a man
or a demon? What is your name?" And Feodosei spoke to him a
second time and a third ... and Mikhail countered him a second and
third time.... And the Abbot Feodosei asked him: "How did you get
here? Where did you come from? What kind of man are you? What is
your name?" And the elder answered him with the same words:
"How did you get here? Where did you come from? What is your
name?" And they were unable to get him to say his name [молвит
ему: "Кто еси ты, человек ли еси или бес? Что тебе имя?" И он
отвеща те же речи: "Человек ли еси или бес? Что тебе имя?" И
Феодосей молвит ему в другие и вь третее те же речи ... и
Михайла противу того те же речи в другие и вь третие ... И
игумен воспроси его Феодосей: "Как еси пришел к нам и откуду
еси? Что еси за человек? Что имя твое?" И старец ему отвеща те
же речи: "Как еси к нам пришел? Откуду еси? Что твое имя?" И
не могли ся у него имени допытати].44
Mikhail chose to echo the abbot's inquiries (omitting however the first part of
each question). When the abbot realized that the elder was not a madman but
rather someone who had taken a vow of silence, he reassured the brethren:
"Have no fear, brothers, God has sent this elder to us" [Ne boitesia, startsy,
bog nam poslal sego startsa].
Glossolalia (speaking in tongues), inarticulate mutterings, comprehen-
sible only to the holy fool himself, and the kind of "obscure words" [slovesa
mutna] uttered by Andrei of Tsaregrad can all be considered a further permu-
tation of the silence principle. They all share in the kind of childish "bab-
bling" [nemotstvovanie] which the Middle Ages viewed as a means of commu-
nication with God and for which Old Believer culture provides a wealth of
examples (let me skip ahead and tell you that in the seventeenth century
nearly all holy fools aligned themselves with the Old Believers).
On 5 July 1682, when the rebellious Musketeers (Strel'tsy) controlled
Moscow, the memorable dispute about the Old and New Beliefs took place in
the Kremlin's Faceted Chamber. Nikita Dobrynin-Pustoviat stood at the head
of the Old Believers, while Patriarch Ioakim led the Orthodox hierarchs.
Natal'ia Kirillovna Naryshkina and other members of the royal family were
present in the Faceted Chamber. So was Tsarevna Sof'ia Alekseevna, who on
44Quoted from the reconstructed text of the original vita, which L. A. Dmitriev put to-
gether and published in the volume Izbornik (Sbomik proizvedenii literatury Drevnei
Rusi) (Moscow, 1969), 414-16.
74 А. М. Panchenko
Not knowing what else to say, we seal our lips in silence, and like
children we weep, moaning "a-a-a." Yet in commending him to Thee,
we utter a mental cry: give rest to the soul of Thy servant, О Lord, in
the bosom of Thy saints, whence all sickness, sorrow and sighing
have fled away [Детски слезяще и немотствующе "а-а-а", не вемы
прочее что глаголати, безгласием уста печатлеем. Точию обра-
тившеся на провождение, мысленно взовом: со святыми покой,
Христе, душу раба своего, идеже несть болезни, ни печали ни
воздыхания].46
that, in this case, the Old Believers relied on a biblical textual tradition that
corresponded with the Vulgate.) It is now clear that in Nikita Pustosviat's
mind, this exclamation stands for divinely inspired language, which the Old
Believer leaders were appropriating. It is also apparent that religious imagi-
nation ascribed similar mystical qualities to the "obscure words" (mutnye slo-
vesa) of holy fools. Precisely because such utterances were seen as a suitable
vehicle of communication with God, Vasilii Blazhennyi's hagiographer inter-
prets his hero's babbling as "speech incomprehensible to men" but intelligible
to angels.
The prolonged interjection "A" serves as an indicator of special language
in modern Russian literature, too. V. Khlebnikov, a creator of neologisms and
a self-styled iurodivyi—N. N. Aseev refers to him as "Dostoevsky's Idiot"
[Dostoevskogo Idiot] in the poem "Mayakovsky Begins" ["Maiakovskii nachi-
naetsia"]— used the pseudonym AAAA to sign his prose works "A Simple
Tale" ["Prostaia povest ]"׳and "Iamir the Youth" ["Iunosha Iamir"].4/
In one remarkable scene from the Vita of Andrei of Tsaregrad, the lan-
guage of the holy fool clashes with the speech of the crowd, emphatically re-
vealing their incompatibility. As befits a holy fool, Andrei does not converse
with people but rather utters cryptic prophesies, which are not readily avail-
able to his audience. On one occasion, though, Andrei breaks his usual habit
and deigns to converse, under the following remarkable circumstances. A cer-
tain youth, who aspired to take up the burden of iurodstvo, publically re-
quested Andrei's instruction. For Andrei this was an issue of great impor-
tance and he did not wish to refuse the request. But since you can't teach
someone with screams and "incomprehensible speech," he knew that a coher-
ent discussion was called for. Under Andrei's influence, the youth suddenly
and unexpectedly began to speak in Syriac. Teacher and disciple conversed
"in Syriac" [posredstvom "sirskoi rechi"], so that the Greek bystanders could un-
derstand nothing. Thus, the speech of the holy fool kept its cryptic character
and, simultaneously, the coherence of the exchange was not compromised.
But why did Andrei of Tsaregrad choose "Syriac speech" in particular?
As they contemplated the history of nations and tongues, medieval "book-
men" considered two biblical points of departure.47 48 The first of these was the
myth of the Tower of Babel, when "the Lord confused the language of all the
earth" "so that they [would] not understand one another's speech, [and scat-
tered] them ... abroad over the face of all the earth." The second key event
was the miracle that occurred on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles
were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came
a sound.... Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a
tongue rested on each of them.... All of them [] began to speak in
other languages.... And at this sound the crowd gathered and was
bewildered: because each one heard them speaking in the native Ian-
guage of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these
who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in
our own native language?"
These two texts present antithetical worldviews. The Old Testament myth
posits that linguistic diversity on earth comes as a punishment for mankind's
arrogance in the face of God, whereas the New Testament miracle rehabil-
itates the existence of national tongues. In the Middle Ages, a concrete cul-
tural situation would dictate the choice of one of these mutually exclusive
views and the use of either "sacred" [lingua sacra] or "popular" [lingua
vulgaris] language.
Holy foolishness, of course, cleaved to the apostolic tradition. The latter,
however, does not account for Andrei of Tsaregrad's choice of "Syriac
speech." In accordance with biblical tradition, before the Tower of Babel was
built "the whole earth had one language and one tongue." But which one,
specifically? Over time this question received a number of different answers.
Slavists, for example, often cite as a curiosity the opinion of Wojciech D§bo-
lenskii, a Pole who in 1633 suggested that Adam and Eve conversed in
"Proto-Slavic" [praslavianskii]. One of the proposed answers was that man's
first language was in fact Syriac.49 For South and East Slavs this belief did not
lose currency throughout the medieval period. Chemorizets Hrabar [Eng.
Hrabar the Monk] expressed it in the following way: "For God did not create
the Jewish tongue before all others, or the Roman or Greek tongues, but first
He created the Syriac tongue, which was spoken by Adam and from Adam
[by all those] up to the time of the Flood and after the Flood until the day God
divided the tongues, when the Tower of Babel was being built" [Nest ׳bo bog
sotvoril zhidov'ska iazyka prezhde, ni rim'ska, ni ellin'ska, no sir'sky, imzhe i
Adam glagola, i ot Adama do potopa, i ot potopa, donezhde bog razdeli
iazyki pri stl'potvorenii].50 Avvakum, who shared this belief, wrote in his
Narratives and Miscellanies about the Divinity and the Creation, and about how God
Created Man [Skazanii i sobranii 0 bozhestve i 0 tvari i kako sozda bog cheloveka]:
And as God saw their insanity, He scattered them across the face of
the earth, and he destroyed two thirds of the Tower but let the final
third stand. And from that time on men began to speak in different
tongues. Eber alone did not partake in their deeds and council. He
continued to speak the old Syriac tongue, which Adam and others
had spoken before [И виде бог безумие их, разсея всех по лицу
земли, а столпа две доли разорил, а треть оставил. И оттоли на-
чаша глаголати вси разными языки. Един не пристал Евер совету
и делу их. Тот старым языком и говорил сирским, имже Адам и
вси преже говорили].51
Andrei of Tsaregrad, is the same Symeon, the monk from Palestine, whose feast day is
celebrated on 21 July. Symeon's vita has been beautifully translated from the Greek
into modem Russian [Zhizn' i deianiia avvy Simeona, iurodivogo Khrista radi, zapisannye
Leontiem, episkopom Neopolia Kritskogo]; this translation can be found in the book Vizan-
tiiskie legendy, ed. S. V. Poliakova (Leningrad, 1972), 53-83. [See also Derek Krueger's
English translation of Symeon's vita in Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's "Life"
and the Late Antique City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). — Trans.]
78 А. М. Panchenko
Prologue entry for 2 October), they viewed him with special interest and trust.
Russian versions of his vita indeed call him a Slav, though in Greek versions
he is called a Scythian.
The more recent the holy fool, the longer the list of his precursors.
Maksim of Moscow (mid-fifteenth c.), for instance, "strove to emulate the
blessed fools in Christ Andrei and Simeon ... as well as holy Prokopii of
Ustiug" [revnoval blazhennym Andreiu i Simeonu Urodivym ... i sviatomu
Prokopiiu Ustiuzhskomu] (GBL, Rumiantsevskoe sobranie, no. 364, fol. 327).
Such lists of precursors often ended with the most recent popular and canon-
ized fools in Christ, to whom the holy fool in question fell nearest in terms of
both chronology and character. Thus, Prokopii of Viatka, who, his vita claims,
appeared in Khlynov in 1577 or 1588, "emulated those blessed men of old:
Andrei of Tsaregrad, Prokopii of Ustiug and Vasilii [Blazhennyi] of Moscow"
[podrazhal drevnikh blazhennykh muzhei Andreia glagoliu Tsaregradskago,
Prokopiia Ustiuzhskago i Vasiliia Moskovskago].53
People also observed fools directly. Each year Prokopii of Ustiug, at that
time still a merchant "from the western countries, from the German lands,
who spoke the Latin tongue," would load his ship with wares and travel to
Novgorod for trade. Amazed by the beauty of Orthodoxy, he made up his
mind to stay there.
53 GBL, Sobranie Undol'skogo, no. 361, fol. 4v. L. N. Pushkarev once reproached me
for including Byzantine works in my descriptions of Old Russian holy foolishness,
especially as "Byzantine vitae offer very little to the researcher" (Voprosy istorii, no. 7
[1977]: 169). This is a reasonable reproach, as long as one is speaking about a study's
purely ethnographic, everyday, and historically pragmatic aspects. My present task,
however, is a phenomenological exploration of holy foolishness, in which I attempt to
point out its various stereotypes, organizing them according to a kind of taxonomy;
therefore, I am absolutely unable to operate without recourse to Byzantine vitae, as
they offer important insights into the conventions of holy foolishness, which were
strictly observed by hagiographers, if not by the ascetics themselves.
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 79
nepotrebnyia rizy].54 (As we can see, the principle of paradox in holy foolish-
ness emerges right at the very beginning of Prokopii's vita: he is stunned by
the beauty of the Orthodox faith, yet he chooses for himself ugliness as a
means of ״protecting" beauty.)
The holy fool does not invent his own language of symbols. Rather, born
of the same flesh as folklore, he employs the same devices, paradox foremost
among them. Both vitae of holy fools and folk tales about simpletons are
rooted in paradox. In fact, "holy fool" [iurodivyi] and "simpleton" [durak] are
virtual synonyms. In dictionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
the terms "holy foolishness" [iurodstvo], "stupidity" [glupost'], and "insanity"
[buistvo]55 appear in the same semantic cluster. It is therefore no surprise that
folk tales about fools provide one of the richest sources for understanding
holy foolishness as a cultural phenomenon (I am indebted to D. S. Likhachev
for this suggestion). Ivan the Fool resembles a holy fool both because he is the
wisest of the folk tale heroes and because his wisdom is hidden from public
view. In the fairy tale's expository sections, Ivan's opposition to the world ap-
pears as a conflict between stupidity and common sense; however, as the
story progresses, we begin to see that this stupidity is either feigned or is only
a matter of external appearance, whereas "common sense" itself is superficial,
lacking in substance. Culturological studies remark that Ivan the Fool is the
secular counterpart of the fool "for Christ's sake" in the same way as Ivan-
Tsarevich is a counterpart for the saintly prince. It has also been noted that
Ivan the Fool, who always gains the upper hand, has no analogous figure in
West European folklore.
Iurodstvo also borrows from folklore its use of enigma and parable. The
holy fool poses riddles to his audience, as the vita of Andrei of Tsaregrad
demonstrates. A certain good-looking and vain youth, "who was also a eu-
nuch and the servant of a certain important man" [otrochishche, skopets' syi,
nekoego velika muzha sluga], offered the holy fool some figs. Andrei refused
the gift, saying, "Holy fools do not partake of the fruit of sodomy" [Dara
sodomskogo rodom pokhabi iasti ne umeiut]. Unable to comprehend, the
youth laughed at him, after which Andrei (or Andrei's hagiographer) ex-
plained the riddle, saying: "Go, accursed one, lay on your master's bed, com-
mit the sin of sodomy with him and he will give you more figs" [Idi, nepri-
54 Zhitie Prokopiia Ustiuzhskogo, 8-9, 14. Judging from the sources, Novgorod was the
"capital" of Russian holy foolishness.
55 Connotations of bui, the adjectival form of buistvo, in Old Russian include "strong,"
azne, па lozhe gospodina svoego i delai s nim sodomskyi grekh, i vdast ׳ti
drugyia finiki].56
The riddle is the cornerstone of the holy fool's language. We inductively
arrive at this conclusion when we analyze hagiographical materials and other
Old Russian sources. But the same principle can also be considered axiomatic.
Arsenii of Novgorod's vita illustrates this well. It relates a local legend57 in
which Ivan Groznyi and his sons offered Arsenii a gift of "villages and ham-
lets." "To which the saint replied in parables and riddles [italics here and below
are mine— A.P.]: 'Will you really give me whatever I ask for?' They promised
that they would" ["Izbrakh az, da dadite li mi?" Oni zhe obeshchastasia dati].
Arsenii then made an exorbitant demand: "Give me this Novgorod the Great
for sustenance, and I will be satisfied" [Dazh'te mi sei Velikii Novgrad na pro-
pitanie, i se dovleet mi]. The fool's demand was a riddle, yet the tsar under-
stood Arsenii literally and was dismayed, as he did not want to go back on
his word, nor to give the holy fool a large commercial city. "Then, as the holy
one started to play the fool, he said: 'Although you do not want to grant it to
me, it will be mine all the same'" [Sviatyi zhe, iako urod sia tvoria, reche к
nim: "I ne khotiashchim vam togo, az priemliu Г]. The tsar and his sons did
not realize that Arsenii, as was his custom [k bezizmenstvu svoemu], had
spoken allegorically, implying that he had no need of earthly treasures. The
only thing that he really valued was wandering about Novgorod dressed in
his tattered rags and playing the holy fool in the city squares. Arsenii's
iurodstvo lay within his own power and volition, and no one could either
grant it to or take it from him.
In an attempt to edify his reader, the author of this vita explicitly states
that the holy fool relies on encrypted speech: "The holy one's most foolish
habit was not to answer people's questions directly, but rather to speak to them
in parables and riddles'' [Ponezhe sviatomu obychai be emu blagoiurodstvennyi
ne protivu voproshenii koegozhdo voprosy otveshchevati, no vsiako pricht-
ami i gadanmi].58
Still, neither enigmatic exclamations nor aphorisms nor even rhymed
phrases add up to a "shared language" of holy foolishness. The language of
the holy fool is comprised of gestures (I employ the term "gesture" in its pro-
visional sense, meaning any nonverbal communicative act, whether gesture
per se, action, or sign). It was precisely the gesture —which figured so cen-
trally in medieval culture—that reconciled the holy fool's nonverbal com-
munication with his task of engaging his audience and of evoking a response.
No inventory of holy fools' gestures has been compiled to date, and, as will be
shown below, the meanings of many gestures remain unclear, just as they did
at times to hagiographers. Meanwhile, we are certain that inquiries into this
subject are bound to be rewarding. Before delving into specific illustrations,
one important caveat is in order: we see no reason to separate the holy fool's
gestures into universally recognizable gesture-signs and symbolic gestures
requiring decryption. As we will soon see, in the spectacle of holy foolishness,
universally accessible gestures can acquire an additional symbolic meaning.
This is entirely warranted, considering that what counts in iurodstvo is not so
much the message itself (which can be quite banal) but rather its transmission
into a special sign system. This is how the holy fool facilitates the "renewal"
of eternal truths.
We observed earlier that the iurodivyi provokes the crowd as he assaults it
with rocks, mud and spit. Yet this provocative behavior is also a recognizable
theatrical gesture—a kind of "kinetic phrase" [kineticheskaia fraza]—and a
most typical, conventional one at that. When prostitutes drew Andrei of
Tsaregrad in and attempted to seduce him, the iurodivyi "began spitting re-
peatedly and covered his nose with a rag" [nacha plevati chasto i portom zaia
nos svoi].59 Why would he do this? As it turns out (according to his hagiog-
rapher), Andrei did not intend to expose or insult the dissolute women; he
did it rather because he saw in their midst a stinking devil, a "demon of fomi-
cation" [bludnyi demon]—in all probability Eros (the episode takes place in an
environment still informed by the traditions of antique culture). This scene
points yet again to the duality integral to holy foolishness. Indeed, while the
holy fool's behavior is that of a jester [shut] (the brothel is a typical comic
space), his goals are purely didactic.
Whenever Prokopii of Viatka threatened someone with death, he would
cross his arms over his chest: "Crossing his arms over his chest he gave the
instruction: 'Go make your burial arrangements'" [Rutse zhe svoi к persem
prigibashe i ukazaniem veliashe: "Gotovite pogrebal'naia"].60 Similarly, when
the townspeople of Khlynov were fearfully expecting a decree from Moscow
concerning the recovery of unpaid taxes, "the blessed Prokopii ... came
walking through the marketplace, setting saplings in a row and flogging them
with another sapling,—just as [the authorities] would flog people, forcing
them to pay their debts" [i togda sei blazhennyi Prokopii ... khodia po torgu i
postavliashe drevtsa po riadu i khodia biiashe te drevtsa drevtsem zhe, — aki
liudei na pravezhe].61
As Vasilii Blazhennyi wandered through the streets of Moscow, he would
stop in front of those homes "where people lived piously and righteously and
looked after their souls ... and he would gather stones, flinging them at the
comers of those houses so that they made a loud noise when they hit" [v
table and that disgusting conversation. The demons will appear, re-
joicing. Their desires will be loosed and all kinds of things that please
Satan will happen [Егда ядяху с благодарением и с молчанием или
с духовною беседою, тогда ангел и невидимо предстоят и напис-
уют дела добрая. И ества и питие в сладость бывает ... Агце ска-
редныя речи, и блудные срамословие и смехотворение, и всякое
глумление, или 1усли и плесание, и плескание и скокание, и вся-
кие игры и песни бесовские, — тогда, якоже дым отгонит пчелы,
такоже и отыдут ангели божии от тоя трапезы и смрадныя
беседы. И возрадуются беси, и приидут, волю свою улучив, и вся
угодная творится им].63
Nevertheless, this scene from Vasilii's vita still engaged the reader. The vivid
description rendered a trite situation new and appealing again.
Enigma and paradox are essential to the holy fool's behaviors described
above. Vitae of holy fools give the distinct impression that for the iurodivyi
paradox is an end in itself, and that it functions as an esthetic dominant in
depictions of iurodstvo. As such it is irresistible to both hagiography and folk-
lore. Authors and narrators go out of their way to invent the most fantastic
circumstances simply to reaffirm the defining role of paradox in holy fool-
ishness. Once, before a scandalized group of worshippers, Vasilii Blazhennyi
used a rock to smash an icon of the Mother of God on the Varvarskii [St.
Barbara's] Gates that had been considered miracle working from ancient
times. It soon came to light, however, that a devil was depicted beneath the
sacred image on the wooden base.
In narratives the holy fool appears not only as the opponent of beggars
but also as a persecutor of skomorokhi and mummers, waging wars against the
very popular culture of laughter [smekhovaia kul'tura] with which he is so
closely affiliated. Hagiographers were not afraid to relinquish the traditional
characterization of the holy fool for the sake of expressing this idea. They
were willing to portray him not only as an implacable rigorist, but also as
cruel.
One story relates that during a brutally cold winter, a nobleman who held
Vasilii Blazhennyi in high esteem, and who was also loved by him, cajoled the
holy fool into covering up his nakedness. After Vasilii accepted the noble-
man's gift of a fox-fur coat with a scarlet (or, in some versions, a green) lining
and continued on his way, he encountered some swindlers who coveted his
valuable present. One of them lay down on the road and pretended to be
dead, and when Vasilii approached, the swindlers asked him for a contribu
63 Domostroi, in Sil'vestr's recension (St. Petersburg, 1902), 12-13. [English quoted here
from Carolyn Johnston Pouncy, ed. and trans., The Domostroi: Rules for Russian House-
holds in the Time of Ivan the Terrible (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 77.—
Trans.]
84 А. М. Panchenko
tion towards the dead man's funeral. "Is your companion really dead?"
[Istinno li mertv klevret vash], asked the holy fool. "He is really dead"
[Istinno mertv], they replied, "He has just died" [Tol'ko chto skonchalsia].
Then Vasilii Blazhennyi removed his coat, wrapped it around the man play-
ing dead, and said: "Then stay dead forever!" [Budi otnyne mertv voveki!]
And the rascal died for real and was indeed buried in the coveted garment.
(See fig. 7.)
We can easily identify the swindlers, whom Vasilii Blazhennyi chastised
so mercilessly, as holiday mummers taking part in a "dead man" charade
[igra v pokoinika] (the words "brutally cold winter" indicate that the episode
took place during Christmas festivities). One of these "mummers" would cast
himself as recently deceased, while the others would wail in grief, parodying
his funeral rite. According to ethnographic materials from the last century,
there were several versions of this "dead man" [utnrun, smert'] charade. In one
version, the participants select a young man and
dress him up ... all in white, smear his face with oat flour, put long
teeth made from a turnip in his mouth ... and lay him on a bench or
in a coffin, having first bound him tightly with rope ... then four peo-
pie—followed by a mock priest—carry him into a house where a
village gathering is taking place. The priest, wearing a bast robe and a
cylindrical hat typical of the clergy [kamelaukion] made of blue sugar
paper, carries a censor in the form of either a clay pot or a washbasin,
filled with smoking hot coals mingled with moss and chicken drop-
pings.... They place the coffin with the deceased in the center of the
house, and thus begins a blasphemous mock funeral service com-
prised of the most elaborate cursing and verbal abuse.... After the
service is over the young girls are forced to bid the dead man farewell
by kissing his open mouth, filled with turnip teeth.... The young men
deliberately introduce an indecent component into the game by
scandalously rearranging his outfit. "Though he is very ashamed,"
they say, "there's nothing he can do about it all tied up like that"
[Наряжают ... во все белое, натирают овсяной мукой лицо, вста-
вляют в рот длинные зубы из брюквы ... и кладут на скамейку
или в гроб, предварительно привязав накрепко веревками.... По-
койника вносят в избу на посиделки четыре человека, сзади идет
поп в рогожной ризе, в камилавке из синей сахарной бумаги, с
кадилом в виде глиняного горшка или рукомойника, в котором
дымятся горячие уголья, мох и сухой куриный помет.... Гроб с
покойником ставят среди избы, и начинается кощунственное
отпевание, состоящее из самой отборной брани.... По окончании
отпевания девок заставляют прощаться с покойником и насильно
принуждают их целовать его открытый рот, набитый брюквен-
ными зубами.... В этой игре парни намеренно вводят скабрезный
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 85
In another version of this game mummers carry the "dead man, wrapped in a
shroud, from one house to another, asking the hosts, 'We found this dead
man in your grave—is he your ancestor?"' The hosts then have to pay the
mummers off. Vasilii Blazhennyi did likewise, though his was a peculiar kind
of ransom. In this case, the holy fool both joined in the Christmas show, cast-
ing himself as one of the actors, and subverted it as the festivities' opponent.
As he distances himself from society, the holy fool also distances his
speech from the language in common use. His gestures, though, as we noted
before, have to be available to the observer lest the connection between actor
and audience be compromised. The holy fool makes himself understood be-
cause his body language is both national and conservative. After all, gestures
endure much longer than words, supplying the common pool of gestures on
which the popular, church, and courtly cultures draw. Their symbolic inter-
pretations are identical in folklore and hagiography. Let us take a look at a
legend entitled "The Angel," which was recorded and published by A. N.
Afanas'ev.64 65
An angel went to work for a priest as his hired hand.... One day the
priest sent him out on an errand. As the hired hand walked by the
church, he stopped and began hurling rocks at it, aiming right at the
cross. A great number of people flocked together and began to rebuke
him, coming very close to beating him up. But the hired hand con-
tinued on his way, on and on, until seeing a tavern, he stopped there
and prayed to God over it. "What a blockhead," said the passersby,
"he throws rocks at a church and prays over a tavern! Such idiots
need more thrashing" [Нанялся ангел в батраки у попа ... Раз
послал его поп куда-то за делом. Идет батрак мимо церкви,
остановился и давай бросать в нее каменья, а сам норовит, как бы
прямо в крест попасть. Народу собралось много-много, и при-
нялись все ругать его; чуть-чуть не прибили! Пошел батрак
дальше, шел-шел, увидел кабак и давай на него бо1у молиться.
"Что за болван такой, — говорят прохожие, — на церковь
26: 189-91. For a comparison of "The Angel" and oral traditions about Petr and
Fevroniia, see the article by R. P. Dmitriev, "Drevnerusskaia povest ׳о Petre i Fevronii i
sovremennye zapisi fol'klomykh rasskazov," in Russkaia legenda, no. 4 (1974): 99.
86 А. М. Panchenko
Later, the angel explained to the priest the true meaning of his actions:
I didn't throw rocks at the church, and I didn't pray over the tavern!
As I was walking past the church, I saw how an unclean spirit—a
punishment for our sins! —was circling over God's house and cling-
ing to the cross. So I began hitting it with rocks. And when walking
past the tavern, I saw many people drinking, carousing, and not
thinking about the hour of death. So I stopped right there and prayed
to God not to let Orthodox souls be drawn into drunkenness and per-
dition [He на церковь бросал я каменья, не на кабак бо1у молился!
Шел я мимо церкви и увидел, что нечистая сила за грехи наши
так и кружится над храмом божьим, так и лепится на крест; вот я
стал шибать в нее каменьями. А мимо кабака идучи, увидел я
много народу, — пьют, гуляют, о смертном часе не думают; и
помолился тут я богу, чтоб не допускал православных до пьянст-
ва и смертной погибели].
This legend is a folkloric equivalent of the typical holy fool's vita. It bears
a special resemblance to hagiographical depictions of Vasilii Blazhennyi (as
we remember, hagiography perpetually likens the iurodivyi to an angel: he is
"angelically incorporeal" and he lives "like an angel" amidst worldly vanity).
This hybrid legend—combining aspects of the saint's vita and a folktale about
a fool—shed all its hagiographic concerns and didacticism, and survived as a
mere collection of episodes. It demonstrates how firmly established the para-
doxical interpretation of the gestures described above had become in popular
consciousness.
Folklore provides a key to one of the most puzzling gestures ascribed to
Prokopii of Ustiug. The author of Prokopii's vita tells us that the iurodivyi
carried three fire pokers in his left hand.... And whenever the saint
carried his pokers pointing upwards, there would be an abundant
season, much grain and plenty of every fruit of the earth. But if his
pokers were not turned face up, then that season would suffer a
dearth of grain, and other fruits of the earth would be scarce as well
[три кочерги в левой своей руце ношаше ... И внегда же убо
кочерги святаго простерты главами впрямь, тогда изообилие
велие того лета бывает хлебу и всяким иным земным плодом
пространство велие являюгце. А егда кочерги его бывают непро-
стерты главами вверх, и тогда хлебная скудость является и иным
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 87
the three pokers in the hand of Prokopij of Ustug correlate with the
three candles in a prelate's hand during an episcopal blessing. Fur-
thermore, Prokopij carries the pokers in his left hand and visits the
churches at night, not in the day. This behavior comes within a hair's
breath of being a blasphemous parody of a church service and only
stops short of this, owing to the circumstance that the concept of
parody is in principle not applicable to the idea of the holy fool.71
71 Lotman and Uspenskii, "Novye aspekty izucheniia kul'tury Drevnei Rusi," 162-63.
[English quoted here from Lotman and Uspenskij, "New Aspects in the Study of Early
Russian Culture," 48. — Trans.]
72
The pithiness of this saying rests on the ancient association of kocherga with fire in a
dual sense: The same wooden stick, burned at one end, served both as a poker for a
peasant hearth and as a torch that provides light. The opposition between the "pitch-
fork" and the "candle," the Devil and God, here reflects this original dual meaning of
kocherga as poker and torch respectively: The Devil is associated with the poker and a
dirty dark hearth; God is associated with the "candle," the light-providing torch. The
saying, however, refers to a "good-for-nothing" person who is neither torch (candle)
for God nor poker (pitchfork) for the Devil, and thus is utterly worthless. See Abram
Kashper, "Slovo о slovakh," in Russkii Globus, no. 1 (December 2001), http://www.russian-
globe.com/N1/WordsAboutWords1 .htm. — Trans.
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 89
A Prologue article entitled "The tale of a monk who raised a fallen woman
from the dead through prayer without being seduced" ["Slovo о chernoriztse,
egozhe bludnitsa ne prel'stivshii umre, i voskresi iu, pomolivsia bogu"] de-
scribes a scenario almost identical to Avvakum's. This tale is found both in
the Prologue (for 27 December)74 75 and in the Izmaragd,7 כi.e., two books familiar
to every Orthodox Christian reader or listener in Rus׳.
Having entered into a wager with some fellow debauchers, a dissolute
young woman went out into the desert in order to seduce a hermit. After she
tearfully complained that she had lost her way, the hermit let her into the
yard but locked himself in his cell. "Then the accursed young woman called
out 'Father, the beasts are gnawing at my flesh!' So he ... opened the doors
and led her inside," and the "onslaught of the enemy" [bran' vrazhiia] began.
And rising, he lit a candle and, since he was consumed with lust, he
said: "Those who do what [the flesh dictates] are bound for torment; I
will try myself here and see if I will be able to endure eternal flame."
And he put one of his fingers in the candle flame and seared it, yet he
could not feel the burning because of the inflamed condition of his
flesh. And as he continued in this way until dusk and then until
dawn, he burnt away his fingers in the flame [И восстав, возже све
7f\
Zhitie protopopa Avvakuma, 208.
77 Izmaragd, fol. 20-21v (second foliation); compare the Prologue entry for 24
November.
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 91
year-old widow78 regarding her amorous interest in (most probably) the holy
fool Fedor, a Moscow celebrity, who at that time was living at the Morozov
residence. Even without Avvakum's interference, this romance ended in ani-
mosity. Such an end was quite inevitable: what, after all, could a house-
proud, unspeakably rich, and tight-fisted widow have in common with a fear-
less knight of iurodstvo, who "counted as dung" [vmenil vo umety] all wordly
comforts, except their shared adherence to the Old Belief? Avvakum's ref-
erence to Mastridiia also gives us some additional information about Fedos'ia
Prokop'evna Morozova herself: she had very beautiful eyes.
But let's return to Prokopii of Ustiug and to the question of which ges-
tural convention, out of all those available in Old Russia, he drew on. Since he
was forecasting an either plentiful or meager harvest, we must look for Pro-
kopii's model within prophetic tradition. In fact, this exact type of divination
is closely associated with one of Contantinople's most venerated (and ancient)
sacred relics: the right hand of St. John the Forerunner.
They say that on the day of the Elevation of the Cross, the archbishop
would move [St. John's] most venerable hand. And while being
moved, it would either extend or bend, and whenever it extended,
there was plentitude, but whenever it was clenched, a period of scar-
city followed [Глаголют же ся, в день воздвижения честнаго креста
праздника, двизати и сию честную руку архиереом. И внегда дви-
заеме, овогда простиратися, овогда згибатися ей, да внегда про-
стерта будет, изобилию плодом являтися, внегда скутана будет,
пустоши быти и скудости].79
The entire Orthodox world has always been well aware of this symbolism
and remembered it even when this Constantinople relic fell into the hands of
the Maltese Knights-Ioannites. It is no accident that in the preface to his Book
About Sybils [Kniga 0 Sivillakh, 1672-73], Nikolai Spafarii reflects on "rituals of
prophecy" [chiny prorochestviia] but refers to this particular ritual without
providing any explanation; instead, he merely alludes to the Synaxarion:
"Concerning divine and holy prophecies, the Synaxarion speaks about the
Forerunner's hand, which when extended announces plenitude and when
clenched portends famine" [Vo bozhestvennaia zhe i sviataia prorecheniia
otnositsia, i to vo Sinaksari pishet, о rutse Preditecheve, iazhe egda raz-
For a detailed calculation of her age, see Povest' 0 boiarine Morozovoi, prep, by A. I.
Mazunina (Leningrad, 1979), 93-94. At the time of Avvakum's letter, Morozova had
been a widow for seven years already. [Cf. Margaret Ziolkowski's English translation,
Tale of Boiarynia Morozova: A Seventeenth-Century Religious Life (Oxford: Lexington
Books), 2000,-TraHs.]
79 Prolog, December-February, fol. 202-203 (7 January: "Sobor chestnago proroka
prosterta be, obilie iavliashe; egda zhe sovlechenna be, glad znamenovashe].80
People in medieval Russia did not require any explanation.
It is self-evident that St. John's "prophecy" [prorechenie] served as a model
for the holy fool of Ustiug. Apparently, the author of his vita had the same
opinion, since there is evidence that he was influenced by the Prologue tale
entitled "The Synaxis ... of St. John the Baptist" ["Sobor ... Krestitelia
Ioanna"] or by one of its variants. Any discussion of the interrelationship be-
tween these two works would be premature, since textologically they remain
unexplored. However, one salient detail supports our conjecture that the Pro-
logue tale provided source material for that segment of Prokopii's vita
featuring the behavioral gesture in question.
Both of these texts make frequent recourse to phonetic consonance. As we
recall, the holy fool's "extended" [prostertye] pokers foretell "a period of abun-
dance" [prostranstvo], and "unextended" [neprostertye] pokers signify scarcity
[neprostranstvo]. Likewise, in the Prologue entry for 7 January, when John the
Forerunner's hand is "drawn up" [skutana] —meaning clenched or curled —
there will be not an abundance but a "dearth" [skudost']. "Grain shortage"
[khlebnaia skudost'] and "a great dearth" [velie skudost'], as synonyms for "un-
extended" [neprostranstvo] are mentioned in Prokopii's vita but do not possess
phonetic correlates. Most likely, then, these words are mere birthmarks in-
herited from the Prologue entry mentioned above. I would like to underscore
that the technique of consonance is not used for its own sake; rather, it allows
the underlying principle of echo to resurface on the level of speech. Consider,
for example, the various derivatives of the verb "burn" [zhech'] found in both
Awakum's vita and the Prologue tale about a monk. None of them can be re-
duced to mere wordplay but are sonorous and written deliberations on the
philosophical concept of fire, which encompasses both the fire of Gehenna
and the divine fire, the purifying as well as the "dew-producing" [rosoda-
tel'nyi] flame.
Consequently, the meaning of Prokopii's gesture is threefold, and its last,
third interpretation, complements rather than overrides the first two. This is
understandable since iurodstvo, just like any cultural phenomenon, makes use
of many languages. Thus, on the one hand Prokopii relied on the model pro-
vided by the tradition involving John the Baptist's relic, and on the other
hand his prophecies took place during St. John's feast days, which the folk
calendar aligns with divinations about the coming harvest. The same, appar-
ently, also applies to the Elevation of the Cross (14 September), when the hier-
archs of Constantinople would parade with St. John's relics. In the popular
harvest cycle, the third greeting of autumn and the beginning of a two-week-
long series of "festive evenings" [kapustenskie vechorki] also fall on 14 Septem-
ber. It is noteworthy that in proverbs and folk sayings church and agrarian
themes are also sonically harmonized: Thus, the proverb ״On the feast of the
Elevation we take up the grain from the fields" [Na Vzdvizhen'e khleb s polia
sdvinulsia] describes the removal of the last shocks of grain. South Slavs and
Greeks mark this day with a typical rite of pagan magic: they bum trees.
Since St. John the Forerunner extended his right hand, the proper behav-
ior for a holy fool on 14 September would be to turn this "upside down," to
be "left-handed." The fool's answer to the raising of a wooden cross [vozdvi-
zal'nyi krest] during the "Elevation" Vespers service was to raise [vozdvigat'] a
wooden staff. Incidentally, John the Forerunner's hand ended up in Russia:
when Emperor Pavel I became Grand Master of the Order of Malta, the
knights entrusted to him all their most treasured relics, including St. John's
hand. Until the Revolution, these relics were housed in the Gatchina palace
church [in St. Petersburg].
Side by side with instances of hagiographers' failure to decipher the
iurodivyi's behavioral code, we find cases of this code's intentional misrep-
resentation. A folk vita relates how Vasilii Blazhennyi "played the holy fool"
[shaloval] while attending one of Ivan Groznyi's feasts. Three times the tsar
graciously sent the holy fool a drink, but each time Vasilii emptied the cup
out the window. The tsar resented this behavior, as he "believed that the fool
held his hospitality in contempt" [mnia ego preziraiushche svoe ugoshche-
nie], but the holy fool soothed the monarch's fearful wrath: "Righteous tsar,
do not take offence at this my discerning act. I did not pour your drink out
the window because I despise you but because I was putting out a fire in
Novgorod the Great" [Blagovemyi tsariu, ne skorbi na moe sie smotritel'noe
delo. Ne bo tia preziraia izlikh onyia chashi za okno, no pozhar zalikh v
Velikom Novegrade]. Believing and not believing, Ivan Groznyi sent a courier
to Novgorod, where the latter learned that there indeed had been a great fire,
which had encroached upon the city from all directions, leaving the residents
without hope of rescue: "All of a sudden, they say, a stark-naked man
appeared, ... and he walked through the flames and poured water on them,
thus extinguishing the fire" [Vnezapu iavisia, rekosha, chelovek nag ...
khodia po pozharu i vodonosom zalivaia, i vsiudu zagasi onoe vospalenie].81
It also came to light that this vision had occurred on the same day and at the
same hour as Vasilii was "playing the holy fool" in the tsar's chambers.
The story of the fire in Novgorod is certainly an innovation. The tsar's
anger at the iurodivyi was entirely reasonable, as the holy fool's action of
throwing out the drink clearly indicated he was protesting (see the section
"Holy Foolishness as Social Protest"). His gesture contained two separate
meanings, an evident one and a symbolic one. Firstly, the fool for Christ
shunned and even disdained the tsar. Secondly, Vasilii threatened Groznyi
with divine retribution and prophesied that God would pour out his wrath
upon him.
81 See 1.1. Kuznetsov, "Sviatye blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann," 81, 93-94, 282-83.
94 А. М. Panchenko
So the first [angel] went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and
a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of
the beast and those who worshipped his image. Then the second
angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a
dead man; and every living creature in the sea died. Then the third
angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and
they became blood [Пошел первый ангел и вылил чашу свою на
землю: и сделались жестокие и отвратительные гнойные раны на
людях, имеющих начертание зверя и поклоняющихся образу его.
Вторый ангел вылил чашу свою в море: и сделалась кровь, как бы
мертвеца, и все одушевленное умерло в море. Третий ангел вы-
лил чашу свою в реки и источники вод: и сделалась кровь].
84
See К. V. Chistkov, Russkie narodnye sotsial'no-utopicheskie legendy XVII-XIX vv.
(Moscow, 1967), 176-79.
85 Istoriia Vygovskoi staroobriadcheskoi pustyni, ed. D. E. Kozhanikova (St. Petersburg,
1862), 46.
The following is a literary convention brought to life by iurodstvo: "By day he
laughed at the world, at night he mourned for it." [Vo dne ubo posmeiakhsia emu
(miru,— A.P.), v noshchi zhe oplakaa ego] (IRLI, Drevlekhranilishche, kollektsiia V. N.
Perettsa, no. 29, fol. 524). Once again, I remind the reader that the holy fool treated in
this article is first and foremost a literary one, a character from vitae and legends. An
actual holy fool may well have cried in public. Avvakum recollects how the iurodivyi
Afanasii "was much given to tears: he would walk and cry all the time. And whenever
he talked to someone, his words were quiet and soothing, just like tears" [Plakat zelo
zhe byl okhotnik: i khodit i plachet. A s kem molyt, i и nego slovo tikho i gladko, iako
96 А. М. Panchenko
Though the holy fool is ugly and naked, the crowd should understand
that within the earthly vessel [of his body] there resides an angelic soul. We
noted earlier that within the Early Christian pool of ideals—before Christian-
ity reconciled itself with beauty and the fine arts—ugliness was held in high
esteem whereas physical beauty was associated with the Devil. It goes with-
out saying that neither the holy fool nor his audience was aware of this
ancient tradition. Nor did they necessarily associate iurodstvo with a reenact-
ment of the Way of the Cross: such a connection belonged to theology and as
such remained inaccessible for many. Nevertheless, the main premise of
iurodstvo—that beauty and the body are nothing, while morality and the
soul's salvation are everything—was more or less accessible to all. The iu-
rodivyi pursues the good, seeking his own benefit as well as that of society.
The good, however, as previously mentioned (see "Holy Foolishness in Old
Russia"), by no means arises from ugliness. This is yet another paradox of
holy foolishness.
This paradox is not irrelevant to a deeper understanding of the phenome-
non of holy foolishness. Since iurodstvo polemically targeted conventional,
"philistine" behavioral norms, its public display of bodily ugliness implied
the pursuit of spiritual and moral goals. At the same time, it underscored the
uniqueness of iurodstvo among other medieval spectacles. Indeed, iurodstvo
vividly stood out against the backdrop of official ceremonies (both religious
and secular) with their decorous ornamentation and ritual solemnity. But
iurodstvo also had a jarring effect when set against popular carnival or the
skomorokh's performances, where unrestrained merriment held sway, as it
possessed an unparalleled ability to astound the spectator. The ugliest specta-
cle of all claimed to be the most morally edifying.
At first glance, all these contradictions might be easily eliminated. If the
viewer only understood that the holy fool is in a state of grace, the charade
would immediately fall apart. Then the fool's rock-throwing and spitting
would cease to scandalize the crowd, his nakedness would cease to assault
the eye, and his moral depravity would cease to shock people's sense of pro-
priety. Such a switch in attitude seems easy to achieve. By Synodal times, the
Orthodox Church had canonized dozens of holy fools, and while full vitae
were harder to come by, services and Prologue commemorations honoring
holy fools were familiar to all. The motif of "beatings, reproach, and shoving
by ignoramuses" [bienie, ukorenie, i pkhanie ot neveglas], which recurred in
these texts, should have instilled in the worshippers an understanding of their
guilt once and for all. But time passed and these "madmen" [bezumnye chelo-
veki\ failed to learn their lessons. Why then was the drama of iurodstvo des-
tined to drag on for centuries? Why did its curtain fall only under Peter, when
the Synod finally refused to recognize holy fools as ascetics?
plachet] (Zhitie protopopa Avvakuma, 100). On the role of laughter in holy foolishness,
see the section of the present article entitled "Holy Foolishness as Social Protest."
Holy Foolishness as Spectacle 97
Among others, the edict lists fake holy fools who turned holy foolishness into
a method of providing for themselves. It describes these frauds, who preyed
on gullible people, as "pretendfing] to be mentally deficient, though later they
were found to be of sound mind."
Hence, counterfeits took shelter under the umbrella of iurodstvo. At the
same time, to suit their purposes, the Church authorities could denounce true
foolishness as false. Indeed, whenever the need arose to do away with a de-
nunciator, the zealot in question would be charged as a false iurodivyi, which
eliminated his immunity and allowed for all kinds of disciplinary actions—he
could be incarcerated, exiled, tortured, and even executed.
The crowd could not possibly tell the true fool "for Christ's sake" from a
fraudulent one. If we take a rational rather than an apologetic view of iurod-
stvo in Old Russia, we see that there is no perceptible difference between
mystical transformation and mere affectation. In medieval Russian conscious-
ness the opposition of genuine and fraudulent holy foolishness was axiomat-
ic; however, in contemplating a holy fool's spectacle, one was in no position
to judge whether the actor before him was a saint or a hypocrite, a "wise
madman" [mudryi bezumets] or a miserable idiot [ubogii durachok], an ascetic or
a fraud. For this reason the drama of iurodstvo—with its deep-seated tensions,
passions, and paradox—played itself out over and over again, until a new
age, new axioms, and new spectacles consigned it to the realm of legend.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest
Holy foolishness has long been associated with the exposure of social vices.
Hagiographers repeatedly underscore this connection, as do travelers to Rus-
sia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the thoughtful and
attentive Englishman Giles Fletcher. In his observations about Russian society
during the reign of Tsar Fedor Ioannovich, Fletcher made special note of holy
fools:
These they take as prophets and men of great holiness, giving them a
liberty to speak what they list without any controlment, though it be
of the very highest himself. So that if he reprove any openly in what
sort soever, they answer nothing but that it is po grekham, that is, for
their sins.... Among others at this time they have one at Moscow that
walketh naked about the streets and inveigheth commonly against
the state and government, especially against the Godunovs that are
thought at this time to be great oppressors of that commonwealth....
This maketh the people to like very well of them, because they are as
pasquils to note their great men's faults that no man else dare speak
of.1
1 Giles Fletcher, О gosudarstve russkom (St. Petersburg, 1911), 142-44. [Quoted here
from Giles Fletcher, Of the Russe Commonwealth (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1911), 218-20.-Trans.]
2 Kliuchevskii, Sochineniia, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1956-59), 3:19.
100 Л. М. Panchenko
ר
Veselovskii, "Razyskaniia v oblasti russkogo dukhovnogo stikha VI—X," 154. [The
term spielman refers to a wandering actor and musician in medieval Germany and
Austria similar to the French jongleur and the Russian skoromokh — Trans.]
4 See Matthew 18: 6.—Trans.
5 Fletcher, О gosudarstve russkom, 144. [Quoted here from Of the Russe Commonwealth,
220. — Trans.]
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 101
Only one specialist, the late I. U. Budovnits, has challenged the general
consensus on holy fool-denunciators.7 He proceeds from the premise that all
holy fools were mentally ill and incapable of mounting any kind of rational
protest. This is, of course, a misconception. An abundance of evidence (some
of which was already given above) proves that holy fools were not only
sound of mind but also, frequently, educated and could possess a highly
developed intellect. Captive to preconceived notions, I. U. Budovnits refused
to believe that "these weak-minded people would intentionally hide their in-
telligence to some higher purpose, consciously choosing the lot of asceticism
and torment." This point of view is one-sided and therefore inaccurate. There
are plenty of cases in history (not only Russian) where people with healthy
faculties and sound mind abandon their families and well-ordered homes
with idealistic goals. For that matter, even Lev Tolstoi followed this pattern in
his old age.
Thus, the notion of the holy fool-denunciator does not belong to the realm
of historical fable. However, from an academic point of view, it is still just a
cultural axiom, a postulate that has yet to be substantiated by proper re-
search. In any case, the holy fool's denunciations conform to culturally spe-
cific models and exist in a particular cultural system.
Holy foolishness combines different types of protest. The very manner in
which holy fools subsist, that is, their homelessness and nakedness, serves as
a reproach to the world of material wealth, carnality, and spiritual vacuity. Of
course, when a holy fool undergoes a grueling fast or walks barefoot in the
snow, he is animated first and foremost by the thought of his own salvation.
When, in a time of extreme heat, Andrei of Tsaregrad stands in direct sun, he
is imitating Diogenes of Sinope, who rolled in red-hot sand during the sum-
mer.8 (See fig. 9.) At the same time, it is possible that Andrei had never even
heard of Diogenes. In speaking of imitation, I have in mind the analogies in
their philosophies. Diogenes throws down the gauntlet to the world when he
practices impassivity. Andrei the Holy Fool's behavior embodies the same
'anaQeia—the idea of "insensitivity to and scorn for all aspects of earthly
6 IRLI, Drevlekhranilishche, Pinezhskoe sobranie, 130 (St. Petersburg). This verse has
(Moscow: Akademiia nauk, 1964), 12: 170-95. Though its premise is unacceptable, this
work still contains a large amount of useful material.
8 For the English translation, see The Life of Andrew the Fool, trans. L. ИуВёп (Uppsala,
One night he lit a fire in a stove in the cave. The stove was full of
holes, and when the fire started to burn, flames began to come
through the cracks. He had nothing with which to cover the holes so
he put his bare feet against the flames until the fire burned out. Then
he got down, quite unharmed [В един же нощ возжегшу блажен-
ному пещ в пещере, и разгоревшейся пещи, яже бе утла, нача
пламень исходити горе утлизнами. Он же, не имея чим скважне
прикрыта, вступи босыми ногама на пламень и стояше, дондеже
выгоре пещ, таже снийде, ничим же врежден].11
Certainly, the two fragments differ in action: Ioann of Ustiug lies on the fire of
his own accord, while Isaakii does so by necessity. Still, the motif of scorn for
the weak and vulnerable flesh in both is the same.
With due regard for the legendary aspect of these and other scenes of this
kind, we nonetheless must note that "insensibility" [nechuvstvitel'nost'] did
not come easily to holy fools. However, if it had, it would not have had such
profound moral merit. Reliable eyewitnesses give credence to this view. For
instance, the Archpriest Avvakum described the sufferings of the holy fool
Fedor:
the Cave-dweller," in The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, trans. Muriel Heppell,
ed. Omeljan Pritsak et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 208-09.—
Trans.]
11 Paterik, Hi Otechnik Pecherskii (Kiev, 1661), fol. 152.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 103
Such was his manner: ... he would go along the street, not at a slow
pace, but passing quickly by.... And suddenly he would request alms
... but if the household had tarried and not arranged ahead of time to
give alms as he passed by their house, he would by no means turn
back and accept their charity, even if they called out and offered it to
him [Нрав же его ... таков бе: ... идеже 60 грядяше сквозе улицу.
VAndrew, 41 .—Trans.]
15 See Losev, Istoriia antichnoi estetiki, 91-92.
104 Л. М. Panchenko
Even though Arsenii, unlike Andrei of Tsaregrad, asked for alms, he was
infinitely far from beggarly humility. An idle moment was all it took for
Arsenii to refuse a piece of bread. The hagiographer notes in passing that the
״unwise ones" [nerazumnii] vilified the holy fool, "seeing him as quarrel-
some" [mniashche ego gnevliva] when in reality he was not angry but simply
teaching them to be quick to give alms.
A god-fearing military general of the town, Khlynov, invited Prokopii of
Viatka to his home, and the general's wife "washed the body of the blessed
one with her own hands and clothed him in new garments" [telo blazhennago
omyvashe svoima rukama i oblachashe ego v novyia srachitsy]. As he left the
general's chambers, the iurodivyi
tore off his garments, threw them on the ground, trampled on them
and walked naked as before. Seeing that the water had cleansed his
body of dust, he went off to the public baths, drinking houses and
tavern kitchens, rolled around on the ground so that he blackened his
own body and then went on walking about as before [срачицы ...
раздираше ... и меташе на землю и ногами попираше и хождаше
наг, якоже и прежде. Тело же свое видя от всякаго праха водою
очищено, и тогда хождаше в градския бани, и в корчемныя избы,
и на кабацкия поварни, и валяшеся по земли, и тело свое почер-
невающа, и хождаше якоже и прежде].17
The town baths, drinking houses and tavern kitchens were always full of
people. Prokopii of Viatka needed an audience before whom he would pro-
vide a graphic example of contempt for the body. In his vita, the use of con-
trasts enhances this motif: before his death the holy fool "walked to a ditch at
the eastern edge of town and began ... to wipe off many parts of his body in
the snow" [ide na vostochnuiu stranu vozle grada v rov i nacha ... telo svoe
na snegu otirati vo mnogikh mestekh].
16BAN, Ustiuzhskoe sobranie, no. 55, fol. 21-21v. Ioann of Ustiug had the following
behavioral pattern: "He would move through the city and along the streets at a trot,
and when he did not want to continue, he would search out a rotting heap of refuse,
and would rest there in the manner of the righteous Prokopii" [I po gradu i po ulitsam
ryshchushchi gruntseiu (trustsoi—A.P.), a kogda khotiashe khoditi, i sogliadashe
mesta, idezhe biashe kucha gnoishcha, i po obrazu pravednago Prokopiia tu
pochivashe]. GPB, Q.1.344, fol. 204.
7 GBL, Sobranie Undol'skogo, no. 361, fol. 7v-8.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 105
For, as he said, when he had the burning desire and the battle in the
desert, he asked God and the great Nikon, so that they would lift him
above the battle with unchastity. And one time he saw the celebrated
Nikon coming to him and saying, "How are you, brother?" "And I
said to him," Symeon reported, "Badly, if you hadn't come. For my
flesh troubles me, and I don't know why." The admirable Nikon, he
reported, smiled and took some water from the holy Jordan and put it
beneath Symeon's navel.... And he said to him, "Behold, you are
healed.18״
Since everyday sins are washed away with holy water, and this nun
transgressed with men only during the day, once, when she was
sprinkling herself, she said, "Wash away my sins!" Then she lifted up
her gown and sprinkled her private parts, uttering with great enthu-
siasm: "Here, here, wash here, for here there is the most sin of all."19
ךо
Poliakova, ed., Vizantiiskie legendy, 74. The Old Russian reader knew this work well:
it was included in VMCh for 21 July. [English quoted here from Leontius of Neapolis,
"Life of Symeon the Fool," in Krueger, trans., Symeon the Holy Fool, 159 — Trans.]
19Bebel', Fatsetii, 160. ["Monialis cum diurnalia (ut vocant) peccata aqua benedicta
deleat et ipsa tantum die cum viris peccasset, semel aqua se aspergens dixit: 'Dele
peccata mea!' Et summotis vestibus aspersit occultiores partes dicens summa cum
vehementia: 'Hie hie hie dele: nam hae peccarunt maxime!'" Quoted from Heinrich
Bebel, Facetien: Drei bucher (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1967), 112.
Translation by Priscilla Hunt, Svitlana Kobets, and Bethany Braley.
106 А. М. Panchenko
he has no form nor comeliness; and we saw him, but he had no form
nor beauty. But his form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the
children of men; ... But he was wounded on account of our sins, and
was bruised because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace
was upon him; and by his bruises we were healed ... and he, because
of his affliction, opens not his mouth: he was led as a sheep to the
slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he opens not
his mouth. (Isa. 53: 2-7)
20 Paterik, or Оtechnik Pecherskii (Kiev, 1661), fol. 151v. [Cf. "Venerable Isaakij the Cave-
dweller," in Pritsak, ed., The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 208.—Trans.]
21 Vizantiiskie legendy, 67. [English quoted here from "Life of Symeon the Fool," 149.—
Trans.]
See E. R. Curtius, Europaische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern-Munich,
1969),
2ל
419-34.
See Panchenko, Russkaia stikhotvornaia kul'tura XVII veka, 196-99.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 107
tov directly ordered his flock not to laugh loudly, but rather to "grin"
[osklabit'sia] whenever an amusing moment arose in the course of daily life24 25 26
(this stricture is taken from the Wisdom of Sirach 21: 20: "A fool raises his
voice when he laughs, but the wise smile quietly"). Dimitrii's older contem-
porary Ioannikii of Galiatovsk, also a disciple of the Kievan Moghila Acad-
emy, was known to instruct his parishioners: "Let us guard ourselves ... from
laughter, for Christ said: ׳Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn
and weep'" [Vysteregaimosia ... smekhov, bo molvil Khristos: "Gore vam,
smeiushchimsia, iako vozrydaete"].23
Traveling in the seventeenth century, Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo (a man
of Orthodox confession and the son of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch) wrote
with surprise and trepidation about the prohibitions on laughter and merri-
ment in Moscow:
Dnestra do Moskvy), trans. from the Arabic by G. Murkosa (Moscow, 1897), 101.
[English quoted here from Paul Aleppo, Russia Observed: The Travels of Macarius, 1652-
1660, ed. Harmon Tupper and Harry W. Nerhood (New York: Arno Press and the
New York Times, 1971), 20-21.-Trans.]
108 Л. М. Panchenko
found expression in proverbs: ״Laughs and titters lead one straight into trans-
gression" [Smekhi da khikhi vvedut vo grekhi]; ״Where iniquity is found,
there laughter abounds[ ״Gde grekh, tarn i smekh]; ״Where laughter resides
sin abides" [V chem zhivet smekh, v tom i grekh]; ״Sin and pleasure come in
equal measure" [Skol'ko smekhu, stol'ko grekha]; "He who laughs walks a
sinful path" [I smekh navodit na grekh].
The heroes of saint's vitae generally do not laugh. Exceptions to this rule
occur rarely, though for holy fools allowances are always made. Let us con-
sider two consecutive episodes from the vita of Vasilii Blazhennyi.27 Once two
dissolute maidens (marketplace vendors in other versions) laughed at the
holy fool's nudity and immediately went blind. One of them, "being sensi-
ble," followed, stumbling, after the blessed one and fell at his feet, beseeching
him for absolution and healing. Vasilii asked: "From now on will you not
laugh ignorantly anymore?" [Otsele ne budesh' li paki smeiatsia nevezhest-
venno?]. When the girl swore that she would not, Vasilii healed her and all
those standing by.
The second scenario takes place in a Moscow tavern. The owner of the
tavern was mean and a "grumbler": "He spoke to everyone abusively as his
evil habit dictated, saying: 'the Devil take you!"' [Vsem rugatel'no obychaem
svoim besovskim glagolashe: "Chort da poberet!"] A miserable drunkard
walked into the tavern and, shaking with delirium tremens, pulled out a copper
coin and demanded wine. Many people were waiting to be served, and the
owner waved the drunk away. The latter would not relent, and "so the inn-
keeper poured a draught of wine and gave it to him, uttering with heartfelt
candor: "Take this, you drunkard, and may the Devil be with you!" [kor-
chemnik zhe ... nali vina sklianitsu i daet emu, s serdtsa glagolia: "Priimi,
piianitsa, chort s toboiu!"]. An eager demon sprang into the glass at the very
mention of these words (only the holy fool-clairvoyant noticed this, of
course). The drunkard lifted the wine glass with his left hand and crossed
himself with his right. Instantly the demon "leapt from the vessel and fled the
tavern, for the power of the cross had burnt and singed him like a fire" [byst׳
siloiu kresta palim i zhegom aki ognem i vyskochi iz sosuda i ... pobezhe iz
korchemnitsy]. Vasilii Blazhennyi laughed out loud at this, puzzling the
drunken brotherhood: "Why is he laughing and clapping his hands?" [pochto
pleshchet rukami i smeetsia?]. The fool was obliged to explain what had been
"revealed" to him.
Both of these stories are of discemibly poor artistic quality. This becomes
especially striking when we juxtapose them with other episodes from Vasilii's
vita.28 Nevertheless, by incorporating them into the narrative fabric, the hagi-
27See 1.1. Kuznetsov, "Sviatye blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann," 84-85, 94-95, 97-98.
28To all appearances, the first is connected to Yuletide superstitions. A. N. Veselovskii
writes about the logic behind punishing disrespectful laughter with blindness, a
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 109
ographer is neither indulging a whim nor committing an error. For him, their
appeal lies not in the trivial subject matter, which in itself reveals nothing
about holy foolishness, but rather in their common theme of laughter. Laugh-
ter opens the first episode and concludes the second, leaving us with a chain-
link structure in a highly distinctive frame. All of this has ideological weight:
for while laughter is forbidden to the wayward maidens, since it is the seed of
their spiritual downfall,29 the holy fool is permitted to laugh since "when
your face laughs, your mind does not indulge in merriment."
Buffoonery [durachestvo] and jesting [shutovstvo] are the fool's preferred
means of mocking the world. The fool for Christ:
played all sorts of roles foolish and indecent, but language is not suf-
ficient to paint a portrait of his doings. For sometimes he pretended
to have a limp, sometimes he jumped around, sometimes he dragged
himself along on his buttocks, sometimes he stuck out his foot for
someone running and tripped him. Other times when there was a
new moon, he looked at the sky and fell down and thrashed about.30
Abba Symeon took a job at a vending stand and handed out beans without
taking payment, for which, of course, the owner beat him. At the marketplace,
Prokopii of Viatka took a basket filled with loaves of bread from a vendor,
scattered them on the ground and trampled on them. Arsenii of Novgorod,
when he received a bag of silver from Ivan Groznyi, threw it at the tsar's feet
the next morning, accompanying this gesture with the jesting remark: "It
cried out all night in my cell, and made sure that I slept soundly" [Vopiet ubo
и тепе v kelii, i spati mne krepko sotvorit].31 An ordinary jester would have
completed this phrase with the words "and I couldn't get a wink of sleep" [i
spati mne ne daet]; however, since the iurodivyi was obligated to keep vigil at
night and to pray, he made use of the antonym. Simon of Iur'evets once be-
haved outrageously in the home of a military general. When they threw him
out on the street, he cried: "In the morning your cow will fall from the hall-
way entrance!" [Zautra и tebe s senei krava svalitsia!]. And true to his words,
the next morning the general's wife Akulina fell from the porch to her death.
practice also reflected in European Yuletide folklore. See Razyskaniia v oblasti russkogo
dukhovnogo stikha, VI-X, 119-20.
29 Compare A. N. Veselovskii, Razyskaniia (197):
This holy fool's behavior is more gross buffoonery than prophecy (it doesn't
take a prophet to label a fat and clumsy woman a cow). Here are the antics of
a jokester [shut], not of an ascetic.32
From time to time Simon of Iur'evets finds himself in comical circum-
stances (and even rigs them himself). On one occasion, a fishbone got lodged
in the throat of a certain priest. Barely alive, the priest arrived at an inn "hop-
ing to buy a drink there. It just so happened that Simon the Blessed was there,
because the blessed one on occasion visted the place in order to rebuke
drinkers" [v neizhe pitie prodaetsia. Blazhennomu zhe Simonu priluchivshu-
sia vo khramine toi, ponezhe nechaste prikhozhdashe blazhennyi vo khram-
inu tu i piiushchim vozbraniashe]. By the time it occurred to the priest to tell
the fool about his condition, the latter, guided "by the power of, the Holy
Spirit," already knew his plight. Simon grabbed the priest's neck and rang it.
The priest fell down in a dead faint, blood gushing from his neck, and the
bone came out with it. This sequence of events amounts to little more than an
amusing anecdote: the hagiographer intends to narrate a healing but unwit־
tingly describes a bar fight instead.
We find a classic example of such holy foolish buffoonery in the story of
Archpriest Avvakum's dispute with the ecumenical patriarchs (whose num-
ber, by the way, included Macarius of Antioch, father of the very same Arch-
deacon Paul who so bitterly and with such trepidation complained of the
Moscow ban on laughter). Avvakum recalls: "And then I walked out to the
doors and dropped down on my side: 'You take a seat, I'm just going to lie
down here,' I told them. So they laughed at me, saying 'What a buffoon
[durak] this archpriest is! He doesn't even respect the patriarchs!"' [I ia otshel
ко dveriam da nabok povalilsia: "Posidite vy, a ia polezhu," govoriu im. Так
one smeiutsia: "Durak־de protopop־ot! I patriarkhov ne pochitaet!"]. To help
his reader decode this scene correctly, Avvakum goes on to paraphrase the
words of the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 4: 10): "And I say we are fools [urody] for
Christ's sake; you are distinguished, but we are dishonored, you are strong
but we are weak."33 This is one of the key phrases from the New Testament
that theologians use to justify the feat of holy foolishness. In this scene, we
find all the characters—Avvakum and the ecumenical patriarchs—laughing.
But while Avvakum's laughter is good for the soul (since the fool for Christ's
sake, not the archpriest, plays the buffoon), the patriarchs' laughter is sinful.
We are in a position to understand what Avvakum really had in mind
when he "dropped to his side," what he wanted to say to his persecutors. This
text can be deciphered with the help of the Old Testament. As it turns out,
Avvakum was emulating the Prophet Ezekiel (4: 4-6): "Then lie on your left
side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it.... You shall lie
down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the
house of Judah." By divine command Ezekiel condemned the Jews who were
reveling in iniquity, prophesying their death by pestilence, starvation, and the
sword. Avvakum repeats this prediction in his "First Petition to Tsar Aleksei
Mikhailovich" (1664), where he writes of "a plague of pestilence" and "the
sword of Ha gar" as punishments for "Nikon's little jokes" [Nikonovy zateiki].
He returns to this theme several times while writing from the Pustozerk
prison:
The meaning of the holy fool's mockery of the world is fully transparent and
accessible to an observer. The fool for Christ is an "apparent madman"
[mnimyi bezumets], a capricious dunce [durachok], concealing wisdom and
sanctity beneath the guise of stupidity. He mocks those who are wise only in
appearance, about which the former fool, the monk Avraamii, wrote in The
Inviolable Shield of Christian Faith: "Seeming to be wise, in reality they have
become utter fools" [Mudri mnimye byti, voistinu obiurodesha]/3 In the mid-
sixties the Archpriest Avvakum reflected at length on the correlation between
"wise foolishness" and "foolish wisdom." He expounded on this idea in a
letter to the tsar's councilor, the boyar F. M. Rtishchev, in the summer of 1664:
34 Ibid., 274. Avvakum knew holy foolishness not only from his own observations but
also by reading the vitae of the saints. Thus, in his letter to "those seeking eternal life"
(1679) he includes a paraphrase of an episode from the vita of Andrei of Tsaregrad
(ibid., 280).
35 See "Khristianoopasnyi shchit very,"in Subbotin, ed., Materialy dlia istorii raskola, 7:
which you are, rather than selling yourself as a Lutheran and becom-
ing a stranger to Christ. For this wisdom is carnal, my benefactor, and
he who relies on it instead of on the Holy Spirit in argument, as it is
written, disobeys divine law, and since he is disobedient, Christ does
not dwell in him. It would be better for you to be simple so that
Christ may dwell in you than to gain the reputation of an angel for
your rhetoric without Christ [Верных християн простота толико
мудрейши суть елленских мудрецов, елико же посредство. Пла-
тону же и духу святому ... Ныне же, аще кто не будет буй, сиречь
аще не всяко умышление и всяку премудрость истощит и вере
себя предаст, — не возможет спастися ... Свет мой, Феодор
Михайловичь, и я тебе вещаю, яко и Григорий Нисский брату
его: возлюбя зватися христианином, якоже и есть, нежели литор-
ом слыть и чужю Христа быть. Мудрость 60 плотская, кормилец
мой, и иже на нея уповаша, а не на свята го духа во время брани,
якоже и пишет, закону 60 божию не повинуется, ни может 60, а
коли не повинуется, и Христос не обитает ־ту. Лутче тебе быть с
сею простотою, да почиет в тебе Христос, нежели от риторства
аггелом слыть без Христа].36
The mockery of the world in holy foolishness is close to jesting since the
basic premise of the jester's philosophy is that all are fools, but that the great-
est fool is he who does not know that he is one. Conversely, the man who pro-
fesses himself a fool has already ceased to be one. In other words, the world is
brimming with fools; the only genuine sage is the holy fool pretending to be
an idiot [durak].37
Paradoxical vita scenes embody this premise of holy foolishness. A re-
markable episode from the vita of Abba Symeon of Emessa may serve as illus-
tration 38 A certain pious Ioann, the holy fool's confidant, once asked Abba
Symeon to accompany him to the bathhouse (the bathhouse is a typical comic
space [shutovskoe prostranstvo]).
And Symeon said to him, laughing, "Yes, let's go! Let's go!" And with
these words, he stripped off his garment and placed it on his head,
wrapping it around like a turban. And Deacon John said to him, "Put
it back on, brother, for truly if you are going to walk around naked, I
won't go with you." Abba Symeon said to him, "Go away, idiot, I'm
all ready. If you won't come, see, I'll go a little ahead of you." And
leaving him, he kept a little ahead. However, there were two baths
next to each other, one for men and one for women. The fool ignored
the men's and rushed willingly into the women's. Deacon John cried
out to him, "Where are you going, fool? Wait, that's the women's!"
The wonderful one turned and said to him, "Go away, you idiot,
there's hot and cold water here, and there's hot and cold water there,
and it doesn't matter at all whether [I use] this one or that."
39See A. N. Afans'ev, Narodnye russkie skazki, 3 vols. (Moscow, 1957), 3 (no. 412-17):
213-17.
40 See Frantove i grobiani. Z mravokarnych satir 16. Veku v Cechdch. К vyddni pripravil a
uvod napsal J. Kolar (Prague, 1959), 50; J. Krzyzanowski, Polska bajka ludowa w uktadzie
systematycznym, 2 vols. (Wroclaw, 1962), 1: 279 (item 922 A: Dysputa gestami); S.
Thompson, trans., The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, an ex-
panded translation of A. Aarne, Verzeichniss der Marchentypen, 2nd ed. (Helsinki, 1961),
322-23 (item 924: Discussion by Sign Language. FF Communications, no. 184). The
gestural dispute is also well known in medieval Russian literature. To this genre be
114 Л. М. Panchenko
longs, for example, a literary monument of the seventeenth century referred to as "The
Disputation Over Faith Between the Clown and the Philosopher-Jew Taras" ["Prenie о
vere skomorokha s filosofom zhidovinom Tarasom"]. One copy has been published in
V. I. Malyshev, ed., Drevnerusskie rukopisi Pushkinskogo Doma (Obzor fondov) (Moscow-
Leningrad: Obzor fondov, 1965), 182-84.
41 Poliakova, ed., Vizantiiskie legendy, 68. [English quoted here from "Life of Symeon
I came to an empty hut and found dogs there lying in a corner. I lay
down beside them in order to warm myself. As soon as they saw me,
the dogs quickly rose and ran from the hut and from me. Then I ...
said to myself that not only have God and men forsaken me, even
dogs find me disgusting and run away [Пришед аз в пустую
храмину и ту обретох во едином угле пен лежащи. Аз же ту близ
их легох, яко да согреюся от них. Тии же пси видевше мя и скоро
восташа и отбегоша от храмины и от мене. Аз же ... глаголах в
себе, яко лишену быти ми не токмо от бога и от человек, но и пси
гнушаются мене и отбегают].43
Although the holy fool humbled himself to the point of sleeping with stray
dogs, the dogs refused to lower themselves and receive him.
In the Orthodox culture of Rus' the dog symbolized holy foolishness.
However, in Roman Catholic Europe it was a symbol of jesting [shutovstvo]
and a sign of shame; the tomcat, too, served this function. One of the most
humiliating punishments of the Middle Ages was to be flogged with a dead
dog. While the holy fool assumed the pose of an outcast, the jester was un-
touchable. Municipal law set him on a level with the executioner and forbade
him to settle among respectable towndwellers.
Although the Orthodox Church recognized the feat of holy foolishness up
until Synodal times, its relationship with the fool "for Christ's sake" was most
unusual (in the hierarchy of saints the holy fool occupied the lowest rung,
lower than the Equals-to־the־Apostles and among the Flesh-mortifiers, Chain-
bearers and Stylites). The holy fool does not pray in front of people and goes
to the cathedral only to "create a nuisance" [shalovat'], just as the holy fool
Fedor, spiritual son of the archpriest Awakum, acted up before Tsar Aleksei
Mikhailovich in the church. The first thing Abba Symeon did when he
appeared in the city dragging a dead dog on a rope was to gather nuts and
head off to church just as the service was beginning. In the church nave, "he
42 VMCh, 1-3 October, col. 90-91. [Cf. the English translation of VAndrew, 45. — Trans.]
43 Zhitie Prokopiia Ustiuzhskogo, 32-33. Cf. VMCh, 1-3 October, col. 98-99.
116 А. М. Panchenko
threw nuts and put out the candles. When they hurried to run after him, he
went up to the pulpit, and from there he pelted the women with nuts/44׳
Like the beggar, the holy fool usually lives on the church porch;45 but he,
as we understand him, does not beg alms. Beggars throng to church porches
because they are the city's most populous places; the same considerations are
true for the iurodivyi (he also needs a crowd), but for different reasons. The
porch represents neutral ground, a boundary zone separating the world from
the church. Paradoxically, the crowded church porch is a symbol of solitude,
homelessness, and rejection for the fool.
Relations between beggars and holy fools are curiously uncongenial and
tend towards mutual displays of animosity. Before he would lie down with
stray dogs, Prokopii of Ustiug preferred to sleep in the bathhouse where a
number of beggars went to escape the cold. However, they chased him away
with pieces of firewood. For his part, the fool annoys the beggars in whatever
way he can manage. In the Vita of Andrei of Tsaregrad, a beggarly old
woman sitting at the roadside lamented: "'Woe to me an old woman, woe to
me a pauper and wretched indeed! This madman has done me so much
evil!"' [Gore mne sostarevyshisia, gore mne uboze i velmi vetse sushchi!
Kolika mi zla bezumnyi s'tvori!]. When passersby asked the old woman what
was wrong, she answered that the holy fool had robbed her, and that when
she grabbed his arm,
"he began to drag me along by the hair ... he pulled my gray hair,
kicked me in the stomach and knocked out my frail teeth with his
fist." The minute the people moved away, the fool reappeared: "Why
aren't you crying? Go on and sigh, you foul abomination, you faded
dungheap, you hunchbacked old hag!" As he said this, he looked on
the ground, picked up some excrement, rolled it into a ball the size of
a stone and threw it into her shameless face ["лачити мя нача, за
власы держа ... тергал ми есть седины и утробу ми есть разопхал
ногама ... ветхиа моя зубы пястию ми есть избил." Стоило
людям отойти, как появился юродивый: "Что ся не плачеши?
Воздыхай, со гнилая мерзости, померклая гноище, баба горбата!"
44Poliakova, ed., Vizantiiskie legendy, 68. [English quoted from "Life of Symeon the
Fool," 151.—Trans.]
45 It stands to reason that holy fools set up shelters for themselves, most often in the
form of a squalid "shack" [khizha]. The vita of Isidor Tverdislov offers a typical de-
scription of such a place of refuge: "The blessed one made himself a roofless tent out
of brushwood in a dry place in the city in a certain swamp, where his sacred body now
lies and where at that time he would go to pray unseen by others" [Ustraiaet' zhe sebe
blazhennyi kushchu v khvrastii nepokrovenu, na meste suse v grade sredi blattsa
nekotorago, idezhe sviatoe telo ego nyne lezhit׳, iako egda molitvu tvoriti emu, i ne-
vidim budet ׳ot chelovek] (IRLI, Drevlekhranilishche, sobranie V. N. Perettsa, no. 29,
fol. 515v).
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 117
Яко сии изрече, возрев на землю, взя кал и, сваляв обло яко
камень, на бестудное лице ея верже].46
46 VMCh, 1-3 October, col. 109-110. [For this passage in other variants of the manu-
script, see VAndrew, 63-65, and A. M. Moldovan, Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo v slavianskoi
pis'mesnnosti (Moscow: Azbukovnik, 2000), 217.—Trans.]
47See I. I. Kuznetsov, "Sviatye blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann," 291 (with reference to the
48 Subbotin, ed., Materialу dlia istorii raskola, 1: 310. Cf. Zen'kovskii, Russkoe staroobriad-
chestvo, 269.
49 Pis’ma russkikh gosudarei (Moscow, 1848), 301.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 119
This was the Nikon in whom could still be felt the influence of the "Zealots of
Piety" [bogoliubtsy], as well as of discussions with Avvakum, Stefan Voni-
fabev, and Ivan Neronov. Later, the reforming Nikon rejected the very institu-
tion of iurodstvo, anticipating Petr I's rationalistic repudiation of holy fools
altogether. The Old Believer text "Reliable evidence that the apostate Nikon is
a shepherd in sheep's clothing" ["O bogootmetnike Nikone dostoverno svide-
tel'stvo, izhe byst ׳pastyr ׳v ovchei kozhe"] directly attests: "Nikon calls holy
fools madmen and he does not allow their images to be written into icons"
[On zhe Nikon iurodivykh sviatykh beshanymi naritsal i na ikonakh ikh lika i
pisati ne vele].50
Avvakum recounts an incident that elucidates how "madmen" [beshanye\
and holy fools differed in the eyes of the Zealots of Piety:
50 Subbotin, ed., Materialy dlia istorii raskola, 6: 300. N. Subbotin attributes this letter to
oil not accomplish for the ill and the possessed, by the grace of God!" [Chego krestnaia
sila i sviashchennoe maslo nad beshanymi i bol'nymi ne tvorit blagodatiiu bozhieiu!].
120 А. М. Panchenko
exercise his rational faculties as necessary. When the need arose, Avvakum
would entrust the care of a "madman" to a holy fool.
The reproach to "Nikon the apostate" for his denunciations of iurodstvo
"for Christ's sake" was in no way arbitrary. It occupied no trivial place
among the stream of accusations thrown at the hated patriarch according to
the maxim that "those who caste blame are blameworthy themselves"
[vsiakaia vina vinovata]. The reproach of Nikon's accusers held great signifi-
cance: by defending holy foolishness, the leaders of the Schism were defend-
ing a type of the national culture that had been undermined by the Church
reforms. Moreover, iurodstvo became for them something like a Church ban-
ner, which they hung out on public display. When the Archpriest Avvakum
acted out in front of the ecumenical patriarchs he was offering a visual apolo-
getic for holy foolishness, its graphic apotheosis. Avvakum was behaving
according to the same didactic idea set forth in Cedrenus's chronicle (see
above): "May those who are unresponsive to the word be stirred by a spec-
tacle at once strange and marvelous." Avvakum wanted to hold sway over
his opponents through the "power of faith and simplicity" and put them to
shame "without philosophy."52
Deacon Fedor's story about the first Old Believer martyr, Bishop Pavel of
Kolomna, evinces the same attitude towards holy foolishness. In an epistle
from Pustozersk addressed to his son Maksim, the Deacon Fedor recounted
how
Even if we assume that Deacon Fedor did not know the truth regarding
Pavel's fate (since the circumstances surrounding the Kolomna bishop's mur
der are puzzling), and that he was simply passing along what he had heard
because he believed it to be true, his account is still incredibly valuable. It is
especially important because it connects holy foolishness and the Old Belief.
Pavel of Kolomna, the only Russian hierarch to openly oppose Nikon, takes
up holy foolishness for two reasons. It offered him his last opportunity to
save himself, for the iurodivyi was considered inviolable. Secondly, iurodstvo
constituted Pavel's final argument in defense of national tradition: when the
people disregarded his words, the bishop chose to address them as "a spec-
tacle at once strange and marvelous."
An implacable rigorist, the holy fool refuses to recognize extenuating cir-
cumstances. For him immorality is always immorality, regardless of whether
it concerns the weak or the strong. Because the holy fool protests in the name
of humane values, he condemns violations of Christian morality rather than
flaws in the social structure, not the status quo but persons; therefore, in
principle, it makes no difference to him whether he is exposing a beggar or a
magnate. Earlier, we discussed two episodes in the vita of Vasilii Blazhennyi
that were based on the antithesis between the "sinful laughter" [greshnyi
smekh] of the young women in the marketplace and the "soul-strengthening
laughter" [dushepoleznyi smekh] of the ascetic. The vendors were struck blind,
while the holy fool could see what remained invisible to everyone else. Other
episodes in this vita suggest similar antitheses. For example, our story about
the beggar "for the sake of riches" [sta radi] contrasts powerfully with that of
the merchant in "beautiful garments," before whom Vasilii poured out a
mound of gold, giving away the tsar's generous gift of alms: "The tsar
doubted the saint ... because he had given it not to beggars but to a merchant,
so he called the saint to himself and asked him about the gold he had given
away" [Tsar' zhe sumnisia о sviatom ... chto ne nishchim razdade ego, no
kuptsu, i prizva к sebe sviatago i voprosi о dannom onom zlate]. As might be
expected, the tsar received immediate clarification that the merchant had lost
his whole fortune and had only his "bright merchant's garb" left, so that he
was a genuine beggar. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that the hagiog-
rapher plays on these antitheses to underscore the holy fool's well-known
asocial behavior.
If the fool's protest allows for no exceptions, and he makes no distinctions
about whom he exposes, then he must include the tsar. Moreover, he must
chastise Ате tsar more often and more severely, since a ruler's crimes are
highly visible and more terrible in their consequences. Under such circum-
stances, a protest that is by nature moral acquires maximum social signifi-
cance. Russian vitae and other sources give special attention to the denunci-
ation of tsars. Some of these records are reliable and others clearly belong to
the realm of fancy. In any case, legend and fact together give rise to a specific
cultural stereotype, which has been nurtured in the soil of folklore tradition.
This stereotype includes the idea that it is not only possible but even
inevitable that the holy fool come into direct contact with the tsar. This idea is
122 А. М. Panchenko
At that time there lived the wondrous Kipriian, who seemed foolish
and mad to the world but who appeared wise and of sound mind be-
fore God, who was so holy and led such a good life that the monarch
himself knew about this and loved him for his many good deeds.
Often, when the tsar was riding in his royal chariot to distribute his
royal gifts, the wondrous Kipriian, going about in nothing but an
outer garment, would run up and, jumping into the chariot, ride with
the tsar [Бяше тогда и дивный Киприан, иже мирови юрод и буй,
богови же премудр и благоразумен показовашеся, иже толь
святаго и великаго жития бяше, яко и самому монарху того знати
и за премногую добродетель зело любити. Многажды ездягцу
царю на царстей колеснице с царским дароношением, Дивный
Киприан, во единой ризе ходяй, прибег, на колесницу востечая, с
царем ездягце].55
57 Zhitie protopopa Avvakuma, 92. [Compare the English with Brostrom, Archpriest
Avvakum, 85.—Trans.]
58 Ibid., 100. [Cf. Brostrom, Archpriest Avvakum, 89.—Trans.]
124 А. М. Panchenko
The sovereign's special regard for these elders was such that he
would often attend their burials, conducted with great pomp, usually
in the Epiphany Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin filial of the Holy
Trinity Sergius Monastery. The sovereign buried the pilgrim Vene-
dikt Andreev in this manner on 9 April 1669.... These palace pilgrims
also bore the title of palace beggars, and among them lived a number
of holy fools. The tsaritsa and adult tsarevnas also housed pilgrims
and holy fools near their own quarters.60
At the beginning of his reign, in the years of his collaboration with the
"Zealots of Piety," the young Aleksei Mikhailovich enjoyed a close relation-
ship with the same holy fool whom Nikon would later bury [Vasilii]. Let's
look at what is known about this tie. Nikon, while still the archbishop of Nov-
gorod, left for Solovki in March 1652 to collect the relics of Metropolitan Filip
Kolychev, whom Ivan Groznyi had tortured. On the same day another envoy
set out for Staritsa, where Patriarch Iov had been buried in the Time of
Troubles after losing his seat through the machinations of the False Dimitrii. It
was decided to transfer the remains of these passion-sufferers to the Kremlin
Dormition cathedral where Tsar Aleksei prayed for the sins of former sover-
eigns. Moscow received the coffin with Iov's remains on the sixth day of
Great Lent when Nikon was still away. While these magnificent and exhaust-
ing celebrations were going on, the aged Patriarch Iosif died. He had been
guiding the Russian Church in name only, as the "Zealots of Piety" were in
control of everything at the time. Iosif's position was so ambiguous and diffi-
cult that he feared (however without sufficient foundation) removal from the
patriarchal see.
Aleksei Mikhailovich informed his "bosom friend in body and spirit"
[telesnyi i dukhovnyi sobinnii drug], Nikon, about all this; in these letters he
mentioned on several occasions a certain holy fool whom the tsar called "our
odd brother." The tsar first refers to him in the message regarding the death
of Patriarch Iosif: "And you, Holy Master, pray also with Vasilii the Fool, or
in our parlance Vavil, that God send us a shepherd and spiritual father"61 (the
59I.E. Zabelin, Domashnii byt russkikh tsarei v XVI i XVII stoletiiakh, 3rd ed. (Moscow,
1895), pt. 1:373.
60 Ibid., 374.
61 The Collected Letters of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich (Moscow: P. Bartenev, 1856), 167. It is
difficult to say why this holy fool had two names. Possibly, holy fools, like jesters,
would at times change their given names. In such a case, the worldly name of "our
odd brother" was Vavil, while his name as a holy fool was Vasilii. In any case, we
should not confuse this holy fool with the famous ascetic and ideologue of self
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 125
tsar was hinting that Nikon would be this "shepherd and father"). Regarding
the patriarch's fear of falling into disgrace, Aleksei Mikhailovich writes:
I have hope that even if you, holy master, are at a distance from our
sinful presence, that it can never be said that he, our light was dis-
missed or imprisoned with dishonor. You are a witness to our in ten-
tions ... as our odd brother Vasilii is a witness, for I hope that he too
will confirm that such a thing has never entered our mind [Чаю,
владыко святый, аще и в далнем ты разстоянии с нами грет-
ными, едино то ж речеши, что отнюдь того не бывало, что его,
света, отставить или ссадить с безчестием. Ты сему помышлению
нашему свидетель ... свидетель и странный брат наш Василей,
чаю и он то ж речет, что отнюдь в помышлении нашем того не
бывало у нас].62
Towards the end of his long message (which the tsar called an "official
record" [stateinyi spisok]) the holy fool makes a second appearance.
Holy master, may it move you to save this document and preserve it
in a hidden place ... and may it move you, great sovereign, to read it
yourself and not to take offense at me, a sinner, nor to scorn my poor
and erratic handwriting. And finally may it move you, my light, to
have Vasilii Bosoi (the Barefoot) read my letter and this appended
note all the way through [И тебе б, владыко святый, пожаловать
сие писание сохранить и скрыть в тайне ... пожаловать тебе,
великому господину, прочесть самому, не погнушаться мною
грешным и моим рукописанием непутным и несогласным. Да
пожаловать бы тебе, свету моему, велеть да брату нашему Васи-
лию Босому прочесть сию грамоту и список сей].63
This "official record" and other of the tsar's writings64 indicate beyond a
shadow of a doubt that Vasilii Bosoi was Aleksei Mikhailovich's confidant
and privy to the tsar's most private affairs. After Vasilii's death, it seems the
tsar found a replacement for him. An observer of the royal procession into the
conquered city of Vilnius on 3 July 1655 made note of a "little old man"
[starichok] who stayed constantly in the tsar's presence: "From the gates to the
mortification Vavil the Young. Vasilii ("in our parlance Vavil") died on 3 May 1652,
before he could return to Moscow (see above). Vavil the Young was burned at the
stake on 5 January 1666 (see Letopis' zaniatii Arkheografichesкоi komissii for the years
1911 and 1912, vyp. 24, 15 n. 1: 330-34; S. A. Zen'kovskii, Russkoe staroobriadchestvo,
279, 491).
62 Collected Letters, 175.
63 Ibid., 184.
64 See Nikon's letter from 25 May 1652 (ibid., 210, 211).
126 Л. М. Panchenko
palace the entire road was draped with red cloth and the staircase with the
same red velvet. When the tsar got out of his carriage, a little old man went
ahead of him" [Ot vorot do dvortsa byla vsia doroga ustlana krasnym suk-
nom, a lestnitsa takim zhe barkhatom. Kogda tsar ׳vyshel iz karety, to stari-
chok shel vperedi].65
To attribute all this to Aleksei's personal biases alone would be naive. It
would also prevent our understanding why the tsar later dealt so cruelly and
carelessly with holy fools to whom he had previously shown respect, at least
on a superficial level. The relevant facts have to do less with a particular indi-
vidual than with palace custom and institutionalized court ritual. At the be-
ginning of Aleksei's reign, things stood just as they had in the past. However,
at some point palace life began to take on Western ways. The tsar commis-
sioned the construction of a theater and began patronizing court poets. Tsar
Aleksei's children—Fedor, Sofia, and Petr—carried this Europeanization
even further: palace pilgrims and holy fools disappeared from the royal
household. Interpreters of these events are liable to fall into a logical trap:
Since Petr did not keep holy fools in his court and Aleksei Mikhailovich did,
even in the royal residences, it must mean that the former disliked them and
the latter held them in high esteem. In fact, Aleksei Mikhailovich merely in-
herited these palace pilgrims from his father and the last rulers of the Riuri-
kovich dynasty.
This demonstrable closeness between the monarch and the holy fool
originates from an ancient cultural archetype that identified the ruler and the
social outcast in any of the latter's manifestations as slave, leper, beggar, or
clown.66 The first jester to enter historical literature was a pygmy who lived in
the age of Pharoah Pepi I. He possessed the talent of performing the "dance of
the gods" [pliaska boga], and the Pharoah closely identified with him. Pariahs
of the ancient world often paid with their lives for this identification with roy-
alty. During the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, the emperor would single
out a slave to whom everyone would submit unquestioningly for the period
of the feast; however, this favored slave knew only too well that when the
holiday was over he would become a bloody sacrifice. Just prior to our own
era Roman legionnaires cultivated the tradition of "playing king" [igra v
tsaria]. A criminal already condemned to death often played this role. An echo
of this tradition is carried down into the Gospels, in the fragment where
Roman soldiers proclaim Christ king:
65 V. N. Berkh, Tsarstvovanie tsaria Alekseia Mikhailovicha, pt. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1831),
102.
66A large body of literature is devoted to this identification of "the first" and "the
last." See, for example, the foundational work of J. G. Frazer and M. Eliade for a partial
explanation. [J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 2 vols. (New
York: Macmillan and Co., 1894); and Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The
Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961).—
Trans.] See also M. Gutowski, Komizm w polskiej sztuce gotyckiej (Warsaw, 1973), 120-22.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 127
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and
gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him
and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of
thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And
they bowed the knee before Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!"
Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the
head. And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him,
put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.
(Matt. 27: 27-31)
67
John 13: 4-16.
128 А. М. Panchenko
Aleksei Mikhailovich visited Zinovei every year for as long as the latter lived.
Such demonstrable dedication suggested that the tsar cared greatly about the
publicity his "excursions" [vykhody] attracted. He wanted the people to know
exactly where and when he associated with the least of his subjects.
There are echoes of the identitification between tsar and pariah in Old
Russian holy foolishness. Andrei of Tsaregrad had a vision in which he saw
himself in Paradise clothed as a king.69 70
A copy of the vita of Vasilii Blazhennyi includes an "Introductory Instruc-
tion" [predrazumlenie vvoditel'no], an unusual epigraph consisting of a quota-
tion from the Apocalypse: "And [He] has made us kings and priests to His
God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1:
6)7° The reference to kings [tsari] here refers to the apostles, with whom holy
fools—and especially Vasilii Blazhennyi — are typically compared. However,
if we take into account the function of epigraphs, we may assume that in the
given instance, the reference to "kings" is literal. There is a scene portraying
the sovereign's generosity in the vita of Arsenii of Novgorod (see "Holy Fool-
ishness as Spectacle"). Arsenii literally exchanged positions with Ivan Groz-
nyi, and the iurodivyi became greater than the king. Groznyi's inability to give
Novgorod to Arsenii as a gift shows that his power is not absolute but lim-
ited. The true "autocrat" [derzhavets] of the city is a homeless man dressed in
the pitiful rags of a vagrant-holy fool: "Since you do not desire it, I will take it
upon myself" [I ne khotiashchim vam togo, az priemliu i]. The hagiographer's
qualification regarding the tsar and tsareviches' lack of understanding [neraz-
umiia] reveals that only he who is "of sound mind" [tseloumen] understands
the holy fool. If Ivan Groznyi did not comprehend Arsenii's enigmatic words,
it can only mean that he was not "of sound mind." In other words, he is a
sage in appearance only while the roaming idiot is the real sage. All this re-
lates directly to the paradigm of "status reversal" [peremena mest].71
writer of the vita apparently wishes to express his views on foolishness for Christ's sake,
which are undeniably unique. In choosing this epigraph out of Revelation, he is
simply calling attention to the traditional analogy between the first and the last."
71 See Victor Turner, "Humility and Hierarchy: The Liminality of Status Elevation and
Reversal," in 771c Ritual Process (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), 166-203.
On p. 167, he describes rituals of status reversal as "the liminality frequently found in
cyclical and calendrical ritual, usually of a collective kind, in which ... groups or
categories of persons who habitually occupy low status positions ... are positively en
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 129
The tsar owns his subjects' property and does with it what he deems best.
The holy fool owns this property in exactly the same way. Giles Fletcher re-
counts, "And if any of them take some piece of sale ware from any man's
shop as he passeth by to give where he list, he thinketh himself much beloved
by God and much beholding to the holy man for taking it in that sort.72״
Whereas the tsar is annointed by God, the holy fool is a divine vessel, a
member of the elect, the only wise person in a world gone mad [v "obiurodev-
shem" mire]. Here the famous syllogism of Diognes of Sinope springs to mind:
"All things belong to the gods. If the wise are friends of the gods and friends
share all things in common, then all things belong to the wise."
An invisible but unbreakable thread binds together the first and the last,
which is why they are able to trade places so easily. The vita of Prokopii of
Viatka illustrates this idea (only here a provincial governor, rather than the
tsar, plays the role of "the first"):
In the town of Khlyn, the Blessed Prokopii once came to the official
headquarters entirely naked, as he was accustomed to walking
around that way. The military governor, who at that time was Prince
Grigorii Zhemchuzhnikov, was sitting in his usual seat ... Prokopii
took the governor's hat from his head and put it on his own. The
governor, confronted with the blessed one's remarkable boldness,
gladly relinquished his seat to him. The blessed one sat in the gover-
nor's chair as though he were himself the judge [Во граде Хлынове
сей блаженный Прокопий некогда прииде в приказную избу наг,
якоже бе ему обычай ходити. Воевода же тогда сущий, князь
Григорий по реклу Жемчюжников, ту на месте своем седяше ...
Прокопий взя с него, воеводы, со главы шапку его и возложив на
свою главу. Той же воевода, виде блаженна го дерновение, даде
joined to exercise ritual authority over their superiors.... Such rites ... are often accom-
panied by robust verbal and nonverbal behavior, in which inferiors revile and even
physically maltreat superiors ... A common variant ... is when inferiors affect the rank
and style of superiors...."—Trans.
72 Fletcher, О gosudarstve Russkom, 142-43. [Quoted here from Of the Russe Common-
Fedka Shaklovityi had told Seliverstko that during Great Lent, during
the week of Palm Sunday, the holy fool Ivashko had come from the
Nilovo Monastery to see her Majesty; but his full name, he [Fedka]
never told him [Seliverstko]. And he said that the fool was literate,
and also that Ivashko made known to her Majesty whatever words
Seliverstko had said to Andriushka (the muskateer Andrei Sergeev, —
A.P.). And Ivashko, he said, was exiled to the Nilovo Monastery but
he did not know the reason why. And he added that Ivashko spent
the night as Seliverstko's. And he was sent by the highest authority to
Seliverstko to offer the evidence of holy foolishness [Сказывал ему,
Селиверстку, Федка Шакловитой: в великийь-де пост, на вербной
неделе, приходил־де к великой государыне из Ниловы пустыни
юрод Ивашко; а чей словет, того ему не сказал; а грамоте-де
умеет; и такия־де слова, которыя он, Селиверстко, ему, Ондрюш-
ке (стрельцу Андрею Сергееву, —А.П.), говорил, извещал Иваш-
ко ей, великой государыне. И он־де, Ивашко, сослан в Нилову
пустынь; а за что сослан, того он не ведает. А он-де, Ивашко, у
76Rozysknye dela о Fedore Shaklovitom i ego soobshcheniiakh, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1884-
93), 1: col. 112.
132 А. М. Panchenko
The interrogation transcripts show that they also examined Medvedev on the
rack about Ivashko: "He has no idea whether the holy fool was telling the
truth" [A iurod byl priamoi li, togo on ne znaet]/8
On 15 October the tsar sent an official communication to the military gov-
emor, the cupbearer [stol'nik] Ivan Suponev, in Rzheva Volodimirova contain-
ing an order to hunt down Ivashko in the Nilovo Monastery, place him in
irons and deliver him to Moscow with haste. In two weeks ׳time the iurodivyi
stood before T. N. Streshnev, the boyar who was heading the interrogation.
And Ivashko told this man to inform his Majesties and her Majesty,
the pious Tsarevna Sofiia Alekseevna that while he was sleeping, a
man, young in appearance and very handsome, holding a rounded
sword, had come to him in a dream and had commanded him to
deliver this message to his Majesties, and not to fear: A powerful
member of the regiment will betray you [И он-де, Ивашко, тому чело-
веку говорил, чтоб он известил великим государем и великой
государыне благоверной царевне Софии Алексеевне: видел-де он,
Ивашко, видение во сне, человека, стояща с мечем круглым,
образом млада, зело прекрасен. И тот-де человек велел ему: из
77
Ibid., col. 547-48. Shaklovityi could not provide testimony on this point, since he
was already dead.
78 Ibid., col. 631; see col. 678-79.
79Ibid., col. 801.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 133
And ... they led him to to an unidentified man who owned a number
of stone buildings in the courtyard (quite possibly this person was F.
L. Shaklovityi—A.P.) ... Ivashka refused to divulge his message to
him. Afterwards, they took him to the Monastery of Christ the Savior
to see the monk Seliverst Medvedev ... he again refused to speak, but
he did tell everyone that he would confide his message to her
Majesty, the pious tsarevna. And they escorted him into the upper
chambers ... to the tsarevna ... and in her presence ... Ivashko
warned that a powerful member of the regiment would betray her
and that the consequences of this event would be dire [И ... повели
его не ведому к какому человеку на двор; а на дворе-де у того
человека каменныя полаты (не исключено, что здесь имеется в
виду Ф. Л. Шакловитый, —А. П.) ... И он-де, Ивашка, о том не
сказал же. И после-де его водили в Спаской м<онасты>рь к
чернецу к Селиверсту Медведеву ... и он-де ему о том не сказал
же; а сказал им всем, что־де он о том скажет великвой государыне
благоверной царевне. И его ... взвели в Верх к ... царевне ... и
перед нею ... он, Ивашко, говорил, что в полкех болшой изменит,
и оттого-де будет худо].
Once she had heard out the fool, the tsarevna sent him back to the Nilovo
Monastery under guard to put him out of harm's way.
134 А. М. Panchenko
It goes without saying that this episode had its consequences. Ivashka did
not limit himself to his prophecy regarding the "powerful member of the regi-
ment" but in every respect behaved as if he were a special messenger of God.
According to his own confession, the holy fool's revelations before the tsar-
evna included these fateful words: "although Tsar Petr Alekseevich's side will
win and well over ten days will pass, Sofia Alekseevna will return to rule
with her strong arm" [Khotia־de velikogo gosudaria tsaria i velikogo kniazia
Petra Alekseevicha ... storona povezet, i mnogo־de togo budet den na desiaf,
a to-de opiaf budet storona sil'na ruka velikaia gosudaryni].80
In essence, Sofia and Ivashka shared a confidential exchange in which the
holy fool instructed the tsarevna and prophesied her future and the tsarevna
heard him out; however, she made her own decisions concerning which parts
of his prophecy to believe and which to disregard.
Among the things she chose to believe was Ivashka's prophecy that she
would triumph over her younger half-brother. SiTvestr Medvedev debriefed
the streTtsy about this prediction, though personally he was not convinced
that "the fool was telling the truth" (unfortunately, no materials documenting
the witness of this fool for Christ have survived). In an attempt to strengthen
the resolve of the factious and unreliable streTtsy, Shaklovityi spread a rumor
that Ivashka had wandered into Moscow at the direct behest of saints Nil and
Nektarii, who had appeared to the iurodivyi in a dream: "And from Fedka
Shaklovityi he heard," testified SiTvestr Medvedev, "that Nil and Nektarii the
Wonderworkers had sent him (Ivashka— A.P.) forth with this message" [A ot
Fedki de Shaklovitova slyshal on ... budto prislali s temi slovami Nil i
Nektarii chudotvortsy].81 Ivashka firmly denied this. We can understand and
appreciate Shaklovityi and Medvedev's willingness to stretch the truth,
knowing how alarming the situation was in Moscow in the spring of 1689.
The Naryshnikov party, whom the patriarch favored, was gathering strength,
and Sofia was constantly changing her position.
Ivashka Grigor'ev entered Moscow during Palm Week, the sixth week of
Great Lent, which in 1689 occured between 17 March and 23 March since
Easter fell on 30 March that year. On Wednesday, 12 March, during the fifth
week of the Great Fast, the Patriarch dismissed SiTvestr Medvedev from the
Royal Printing House, where for over a decade the latter had filled the impor-
tant position of corrector of books. Ioakim's order to arrest and exile SiTvestr
should come as no surprise. Sofia had already ceased to back her favorite
publicly and since Easter her loyal streTtsy had been standing guard daily at
Medvedev's cell in the Zaikonospaskii Monastery. They were ordered "not to
hand SiTvestr over to the patriarch's men, but rather to tell them that SiTvestr
is under state investigation" [как ... pridut ot... patriarkha, i ego, Seliverstka,
St. Basil instructs us to avoid syllogisms as if they were fire, since syl-
logisms, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, are a perversion of
the faith that empty the sacraments of meaning.... The syllogism is a
manifest lie that is attractive to people who are not knowledgeable in
scripture [Бегати 60 силлогисмов, по святому Василию, повелева-
емся, яко огня, зане силлогисмы, по святому Григорию Бого-
слову, — и веры развращение, и тайны истощение.... Силлогисм
явленно лжив есть и человекы, не зело внемлющыя святым
писаниям, прелщает].83
People who were willing to sacrifice the truths of the faith to the "soul-
destroying arguments" [dushetlitel'nye argument])] of reason appeared to be
"Latinizers" to their conservative contemporaries.
Indeed, Shaklovityi's lie about saints Nil and Nektarii, presented above,
reeks of the cold-hearted "syllogism": it is a calculated appeal to the supersti-
tion of simple folk and a manipulation of the people's love for holy fools. This
shrewdness also characterizes Medvedev's communications with the strel'tsy:
as a clerical personage, he had no business passing on to them the words of a
holy fool about whom he himself was skeptical. However, the "Latinizers"
were a far cry from being strict rationalists, calculating politicians, or pro-
vocateurs. In the final count, they were still Orthodox Russians and to that
degree, like it or not, partook of national cultural traditions. Not only did they
employ the holy fool in their agitational efforts, they also believed in him,
albeit with no small measure of doubt. An overblown and even morbid inter-
est in every kind of seer and magician characterized the emotional and intel-
lectual climate surrounding Sof'ia Alekseevna. The preoccupation with such
social types is telling for their reception of holy foolishness as well.
This page in the history of morals is truly a gem. "Golitsyn the Great"
[Velikii Golitsyn], as foreign observers liked to call this court favorite, was a
fluent speaker of Latin and Polish, a proponent of Western Enlightenment,
and a social reformer who played a significant role in the abolition of the
mestnichestvo system and also dared to take seriously the liberation of serfs.
The story of the astrologer makes this same "Golitsyn the Great" look like a
self-infatuated fool [samodur], an overly indulged serf-owner [barin] of the old
school. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Ivashka Grigor׳ev׳s conversations with T. N. Streshnev ended more or
less tolerably for the holy fool. Most likely a certain word [skazka] of support
sent by the abbot and brethren of the Nilovo Monastery in response to in-
quiries from Moscow facililated a positive outcome:
The holy fool Ivashko, who, by order of his Majesties has been taken
from us to Moscow, has been living among us since the year 191
[1682/1683]. None of us has seen signs that he has the falling illness,
but Ivashka was out of his mind some of the time; he would walk
about mindlessly for periods of two weeks and more. This is all we
can tell you [Юрод Ивашко, которой по указу великих государей
взят от нас к Москве, учал у нас жить со 191 [1682/1683] году; а
падучей болезни на нем, Ивашке, мы не видали; а бывает он,
Ивашко, во изступлении ума почасту; ходит без ума недели по
две и болше. То наша и сказка].85
Once the pious tsar (the author here refers to Ivan Groznyi—A.P.)
was in the process of building his royal palace at Sparrow Hills in
Moscow. He had already finished the walls of his fortress when a
certain holy day approached, and so the tsar went... to the Cathedral
of the Dormition of the Mother of God.... Now Vasilii Blazhennyi
was also there, standing in a comer where the tsar could not see him,
although it had always been his habit to make himself visible. During
the liturgy, the tsar was thinking about the palace he was building at
Sparrow Hills and about how to make it elegant inside, and well put-
together and how to decorate its rooms [В некое время благо-
верному царю (имеется в виду Иван Грозный, — А.П.) зиждущу
на Москве свой царьский двор на Воробьевых горах и уже зданию
стен совершающу, и приспе же некий праздник, и поиде госу-
дарь ... в собор Успения божией матери.... Ту же бысть и Васи-
лий Блаженный, стояв во едином угле, царю не являяся тогда,
яко же прежде обычно ему завсегда являяся. За оною же литор-
гиею царю помышляющу о созидаемом дворце на Воробьевых
горах, како бы его лепо внутри и добре устроити и чем покрыти
оныя полаты].
After the liturgy, Ivan Groznyi asked Vasilii why he had not seen him in the
cathedral: could it be because of the crowd?
״But there wasn't a crowd..." the holy fool objected, "in fact, only
three were there: the metropolitan, the pious tsaritsa and I, a sinner.
The rest of the people were reveling in earthly daydreams, and you,
tsar, in your thoughts were building yourself dwellings at Sparrow
Hills. You can't call it true prayer when the body stands in church
while the mind roams at will; rather, genuine prayer is to stand in
body before the Church while rising to God in the mind [He 6e
множество народа..., — возразил юродивый, — но токмо трое.
Первое митрополит, вторая благоверная царица, третий аз
грешный. А прочий народ все житейская умом мечтаху, но и ты,
царю, мыслию был еси на Воробьевых горах, созидая себе
полаты. Не 60, царю, судится истинно моление, токмо еже телом
в церкви стояти и умом всюду мястися, но истинное моление, —
еже в церкви телесно предстояти, а умом к богу возводитися].
The holy fool's perspicacity stunned the tsar, as the hagiographer makes a
point of noting: "From that moment on he lived in fear of the fool" [Ottole
nacha ego boiatisia].88
While Petr did display goodwill to Faddei, as his correspondence shows,
it was the condescending affection of the strong for the weak and not rev-
erence for a saint. In 1719 Petr wrote the following to Murav'ev, his factory
manager [landrat] in Petrozadvodsk at the time:
OQ
1.1. Kuznetsov, "Sviatye blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann," 82.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 139
A local man by the name of Faddei, already old and by all accounts
mentally deficient, lives in the forest and comes to visit the village.
The people look on him as a miracle. I detect in him no sign of any-
thing unsavory or any tendency to the Schism. However, so that there
won't be any trouble, I have ordered him delivered to you at the
factories to be given food as along as he lives [Здешний мужик,
которого зовут Фадеем и который стар уже и кажется умалишен-
ным, живет в лесу и приходит в деревню. Его здесь считают за
чудо. Чего-либо худого и склонности к расколу не замечено.
Поэтому я, чтобы не было какого-либо соблазна, велел к вам на
заводы отвести, чтобы там его кормили до смерти].89
The holy fool's practice of denouncing the tsar is one of those cultural
stereotypes that confound historians' attempts to separate fact from fiction.
Not surprisingly, the holy fool relied heavily on the usual corporate codes in
his interactions with the tsar, first and foremost on riddle and gesture. Semen
Denisov tells us that Kipriian, who enjoyed riding in the postman's seat on
the tsar's sleigh, presented Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich with a verbal riddle:
tally, tradition attributes the prophecy regarding the False Dimitrii's death to
the same Elena.) According to Massa, Elena lived with several almswomen in
a dugout near a certain bell tower. At that time, when news of the first pre-
tender had already spread far and wide, Boris Godunov happened to grace
her with a visit. Without as much as a word, Elena set a "short, rectangular
beam[ ״korotkoe chetyrekhugol'noe brevno] before him and motioned for him to
swing a censor over it. This scene very clearly presents a riddle, only without
words. The ״short rectangular beam" symbolizes an old type of coffin fash-
ioned by hollowing out a log (until Petr's time, there were no coffins made
with boards in Russia): if Isaac Massa guessed correctly, Elena was prophesy-
ing Godunov's demise. Perhaps, as Isaac Massa did not suspect, Elena was
also using her pantomime to encode a message about time and the tsar's im-
pending death. The log [koloda] figures in many riddles about time; in the
following cases one log signifies one year: "There lies a log, and on it a road;
fifty knots and three-hundred leaves" [Lezhit koloda, na nei doroga, piat'-
desiat suchkov, da trista list'ev]; "A log lies across a road; in the log are
twelve nests, in each nest four eggs, in each egg seven embryos: what do you
get?" [Lezhit koloda poperek dorogi; v kolode dvenadtsat ׳gnezd, v gnezde
po chetyre iaichka, v iaichke po semi zarodyshkov, chto vydet?]. What you
get is twelve months in a year, four weeks in a month, and seven days in a
week.
Folk legend never worried about accuracy wherever the association of
tsar and holy fool was concerned. No matter what concrete forms the denun-
ciations of tsars assumed (if they appear at all), oral transmission turned them
into riddles in an amazingly short time, most frequently of a visual kind akin
to pantomime. I. U. Budovnits has thoroughly examined the medieval Rus-
sian and foreign sources that mention Nikola the Salos of Pskov.92 These ac-
counts univocally depict Nikola delivering Pskov from the tsar's wrath, but
just how Nikola denounced Ivan Groznyi varies from text to text. (However,
this does not necessarily mean that the act of denunciation is itself a fiction, as
Budovnits insists.93 If holy fools chastised Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, why
shouldn't they have spoken out against the cruelties perpetrated by Ivan
Groznyi a hundred years before?) One report confirms that Nikola the Salos
prophesied that the tsar's argamak94 would fall, and another merely states that
Nikola reviled Groznyi with "harsh words." Consider the testimony of Jer-
ome Horsey, who arrived in Russia in 1573, three years after the Oprichnina
campaign on Novgorod and Pskov.
92
See Budovnits, lurodivye drevnei Rusi, 171-77.
93Other historians allow that such denunciations occurred. See R. G. Skrynnikov,
Oprichnyi terror (Leningrad, 1969), 60.
94 The argamak is a Central Asian breed of saddle horse.—Trans.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 141
but that there [Pskov] met him an imposter or magician, which they
held to be their oracle, a holy man named Nikola Sviatoi, who, by his
bold imprecations and exorcisms, railings, and threats, terming him
the emperor bloodsucker, the devourer and eater of Christian flesh,
... swore by his angel that he should not escape death of a present
thunderbolt if he or any of his army did touch a hair in displeasure of
the least child's head in that city, which God, by his good angel, did
preserve for better purpose than his rapine; therefore to get him
thence before the fiery cloud, God's wrath, were raised, hanging over
his head as he might behold, being in a very great and dark storm at
that instant. These words made the emperor to tremble, so as he
desired prayers for his deliverance and forgiveness of his cruel
thoughts. I saw this imposter or magician, a foul creature, went naked
both in winter and summer; he endured both extreme frost and heat,
did many strange things through the magical illusions of the devil,
much followed, feared, and reverenced, both of prince and people.95
man's flesh as he hath done already?"97 This paradox quickly became the
legend's crowning jewel and canonical for depictions of holy foolish protest.
At first associated with the oprichnina pogrom in Novgorod, it subsequently
entered the vita of Vasilii Blazhennyi who, as the story goes, lured Tsar Ivan
into a poor retreat [vertep] underneath the Volkhovskii Bridge and proceeded
to offer his guest a "draught of blood and a piece of raw meat."98
All the evidence suggests that the holy fool's denunciation of the tsar was
no accident but integral to his mission: the common people learned to anti-
cipate such behavior, and the holy fools did not disappoint their expectations.
Evidently Fletcher shared the conviction that protest against abusive rulers
and acts of intercession for the people was an obligatory aspect of holy fool-
ishness. A fragment from his book relates that they are "like to those gymno-
sophists for their life and behavior, though far unlike for their knowledge and
learning."99 Stories about the legendary land of virtuous gymnosophists (the
"brahmins" [rakhmany] and "naked Philosophers" [nagomudretsy]) abounded
in medieval Rus׳. The chronicle of George Hamartolos, collections of trans-
lated apocryphal tales, The Tale of Bygone Years and both the Chronograph and
the "Serbian Alexandriad”100 all mention "naked philosophers." However,
what could Fletcher have known about them, and why would he want to
compare them with holy fools?
European encyclopedias from the Baroque period provide some clues.
One dictionary highly regarded in the seventeenth century says:
Q7
Quoted from Fletcher, Of the Russe Commonwealth, 220. — Trans.
98See I. I. Kuznetsov, "Sviatye blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann,83 ( ״I predlozhi tsariu
sklianitsu krovi i chast' syrago miasa). — Trans.
99 Fletcher, Of the Russe Commonwealth, 218.
100 See M. N. Botvinnik, la. S. Lur'e, and О. V. Tvorogov, Aleksandriia. Roman ob Alek-
rbr>
It has come to the attention of her Imperial Majesty that there are two
malingerers in Novgorod who regardless of the season refuse to live
in houses but reside rather in lean-tos nearby the city walls and in
other similar places, viewed by the local people as saints.... Her
Imperial Majesty has decreed that the authorities secretly seize these
malingerers and without any torture or punishment whatsoever dis-
perse them to different monasteries ... and that in the monasteries
95 Polnoe sobranie sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii s 1649 goda, vol. 5 (1713-19) (St.
Petersburg, 1830),, no. 2985:194.
96 Ibid., vol. 10 (1737-39), no. 7450: 361-64.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 145
they should not walk barefoot or in peasant shirts but should dress
normally; if in the future any more of these seductive malingerers
appear in any diocese, if they are elderly, they should also be sent to
male and female monasteries according to their gender; and if they
are young, they should be caught and enlisted as soldiers ... whereas
young girls who roam at large should be given over to the landed
gentry; and if they be of diverse rank from among merchants and
other classes, they should be given over to family or relatives with a
written injunction not to wander in the streets in the future; if they
have no relatives, they should be given over to the townspeople or
villagers with the written injunction that society feed them and set
them to work appropriate to their age [Ея императорскому вели-
честву известно учинилось, что обретаются в Новгороде некакие
два человека ханжей, которые как летом, так и зимою живут не в
домах, но в шалашах при городевой стене и в прочих тому
подобных местех, являя себя простому народу святыми.... Ея им-
ператорское величество указала: оных ханжей тайным образом
взять и, без всякаго изтязания и наказания, послать в разные
монастыри ... и чтоб в монастыре в рубашках и босые не ходили,
но одеты бы были обыкновенно; а впредь ежели где в епархиях
такие соблазнители ханжи являться будут и буде они в пре-
старелых летах, то их по тому ж отсылать в монастыри, мужеск
пол в мужеские, а женск в девичий; ежели будут молодые люди,
то их ловить и отдавать в солдаты ... а молодых и девок, скитаю-
гцихся по миру ... отсылать и отдавать помещикам, а если будут
разночинцы, из купечества и прочих чинов, тех отдавать родст-
венникам и свойственникам с подпискою, что им впредь по
улицам не скататься; а буде родственников нет, то отдавать граж-
данам и поселянам с подпискою, чтоб их кормили обществом, а
по восрасте определять их в работу].97
This document shows that holy foolishness was very much alive at that
time and that attempts to repress it were unsuccessful. As soon as Petersburg
was built, holy fools appeared in the new capital city.98 Holy fools found pro
tectors in high places. While Anna Ioannovna went after holy fools with a
vengeance, her mother, Tsaritsa Praskov'ia Fedorovna, showered them with
her favor. V. N. Tatishchev was a relative of Praskov'ia Fedorovna, and, by
extension, of Anna Ioannova (Praskov'ia Fedorovna on her mother's side was
the granddaughter of the boyar M. Iu. Tatishchev).99 He wrote:
burg, 1900).
100 ^ —
V. N. Tatishchev, Istoriia rossiiskaia, 7 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1962), 1:116.
Holy Foolishness as Social Protest 147
In the eighteenth century, holy foolishness remained true to its Old Rus-
sian roots even after the Synodal Church had ceased to recognize it and had
launched a campaign to extirpate it. Holy foolishness remained a "serious"
variation on the world of laughter as well as a spectacle "at once strange and
marvelous." Needless to say, the holy fool no longer performed before the
same crowds. The number of his spectators was severely diminished. Still,
this ancient institution could not be eradicated by decree alone, whether in
the name of the ruler or of the Holy Synod.
Priscilla Hunt
Introduction
Ponyrko, Smekh v Drevnei Rusi (Leningrad: Nauka, Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1984), 72-
154. Translated in the present volume as "Laughter as Spectacle," by P. Hunt, S.
Kobets, and B. Braley. All references to Panchenko will be to this translation.
2 Panchenko, "Laughter," 118,124.
3 Ibid., 121,141-43.
4 S. A. Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, trans. Simon Franklin (Oxford:
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2 0 1 1 , 149-224.
150 Priscilla Hunt
even inveigh against them before being ritually "uncrowned" and sacrificed.7
Similarly, the Russian fool's spectacle could involve temporarily changing
places with the tsar in a comic-burlesque way, and blasphemous displays and
provocative actions intent on shaming the tsar and other social superiors.
While scholars have questioned this "popular" interpretation of holy fool-
ish spectacle, this study will be the first to challenge its use as the dominant
framework for describing the relationship between holy fool and king.8 Yet
Panchenko himself acknowledged its limitations when he wrote:
7 V. Turner, "Humility and Hierarchy: The Liminality of Status Elevation and Rever-
sal," in The Ritual Process (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), 166-203. Pan-
chenko acknowledges the influence of J. Frazer ("Laughter," 126 n. 66). See Frazer, The
Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1976), 1:
675-79, for the description of the Roman Saturnalia to which Panchenko refers
("Laughter," 126).
8 S. Averintsev, "Bakhtin i russkoe otnoshenie к smekhu," in Ot mifa к literature: Sbor-
nik v chest' 75-letiia E. M. Meletinskogo, ed. S. Nekliudov and E. Novik (Moscow: Rossii-
skii gosudarstvennyi gumanitamyi universitet, 1993), 341-45; H. Birnbaum, "The
World of Laughter, Play and Carnival: Facets of the Sub- and Counterculture in Old
Rus׳," in Aspects of the Slavic Middle Ages and Slavic Renaissance Culture (New York:
Lang, 1991), 483-84; Richard W.F. Pope, "Fools and Folly in Old Russia," Slavic Review
39: 3 (1980): 476-81; and Iu. Lotman and B. Uspenskii, "Novye aspekty izucheniia
kul'tury Drevnei Rusi," Voprosy literatury, no. 3 (1977): 148-66.
9 Panchenko, "Laughter," 58.
10 Lennart Ryden, ed. and trans., The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, vol. 2, Text, Translation
and Notes, Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 4, 2 (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1995). Pan-
chenko himself attests, "I am absolutely unable to operate without recourse to Byzan-
tine vitae, as they offer important insights into the conventions of holy foolishness,
which were strictly observed by hagiographers, if not by the ascetics themselves. See
"Laughter as Spectacle," 78 n. 53. He refers to Andrew's vita at least thirteen times, as
attested by the index to the Russian 1984 edition.
The Fool and the Tsar 151
second is the closely related spectacle of the emperor's procession from the
throne room (or the outskirts of the city) to the imperial cathedral. VAndrew
blends the mythology of Wisdom derived from the Elevation liturgy and
from the related symbolism of imperial procession with the authoritative
paradigm for holy foolish spectacle in St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians.
Our documentation of VAndrew's place within this imperial framework
also elucidates the messianic Wisdom ideology in which the stereotype of the
fool's relation to the ruler developed in Russia. In VAndrew the fool emerges
as a hidden king and high priest, and the mythological double in Wisdom to
the Byzantine emperor Constantine. In Russia, Andrew's role as the emper-
or's secret double led fools to engage in "spiritual combat" with the ruler
when necessary to uphold the latter's Wisdom.
However, the Byzantine Andrew and his successor, the Russian fool, had
a special method of "sacred combat" through the "trickery" or "deception" of
the cross. It entailed manifesting Wisdom's hidden nature through a rhetoric of
disguise that involved the use of playful folk-oral speech and gestures. Thus
the similarity of holy foolish spectacle to carnival-like performances does not
mean that folk etiket was the dominant framework of interpretation. Rather
this etiket was integral to the fool's rhetoric of disguise: it allowed the fool to
conceal and reveal his inner Wisdom by evoking this Wisdom in an upside-
down way.
Up until now scholars have shied away from looking to Byzantine
sources for the basis of the Russian fool's special relationship to the ruler. The
widespread assumption has been that this relationship was sui generis, with-
out Byzantine precedents.11 Moreover, there were no obvious reasons to pur-
sue this direction in research: neither of the authoritative Byzantine texts for
urban holy foolishness described below make any attempt to bring their fools
face to face with a king.
The first authoritative text, the seventh-century Vita of Symeon of Emesa
(hereafter VSymeon), by the Bishop Leontius, alludes to but has not yet devel-
oped the framework motivating the Russian fool's later relation to the ruler.12
This vita is transitional to the urban paradigm of holy foolishness since a sig-
nificant portion of the narrative is devoted to early stages of the saint's life
where he starts his spiritual path in a monastery, tests himself in the desert,
and only then becomes a fool in the city of Emesa.
11M. Petrovich, "The Social and Political Role of the Muscovite Fools-in-Christ: Reality
and Image," Forschungen zur Osteuropaischen Geschichte 25 (1978): 283-96; S. Ivanov,
"Holy Fools and Political Authorities in Byzantium and Russia," in Acts of the XVIIIth
International Congress of Byzantine Studies: Selected Papers. Main, and Communications.
Moscow, 8-15 August 1991, ed. I. Shevchenko and G. Litavrin (Shepherdstown, WV:
Byzantine Studies Press, 1996), 266-71, posed the question of why Russian fools differ
from Byzantine fools in this respect, but did not offer a solution.
12Derek Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's "Life" and the Late Antique City
13 On Nikephoros's status, see Lennart Ryden, ed., The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, vol. 1,
A. Carile, ״Byzantine Political Ideology and the Rus' in the Tenth-Twelfth Centuries,"
Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12/13 (1988/1989): 400-08.
17 C. Mango, "The Life of St. Andrew the Fool Reconsidered," Rivista di studi bizantie
the origins, nature, and end of the world in the format of both questions-and-
answers (erotapokriseis) and apocalyptic prophecy.20
Poetic analysis will uncover a set of episodes in VAndrew that function as
its core because they are structurally marked and because they re-instantiate
the Pauline paradigm of holy foolishness within a mythological framework
derived from the Elevation liturgy. These episodes model the paraliturgical
function of VAndrew as a symbolic extension of this liturgy. They represent
Andrew's foolishness as a disguised spectacle of Christ's Wisdom of the
Cross, embodied by metaphors of Christ's sovereignty as high priest and
king. They also evoke Andrew's role as the emperor Constantine's counter-
part in the latter's role as a spectacle of the Wisdom of the Cross.
In order to understand how the core episodes instantiate this mythology,
it is necessary to look at another important influence—-the imperial proces-
sions that drew on the metaphorical framework of the Elevation liturgy to
interpret the living ruler as a new Constantine. They created a narrative out of
the mythology of the Elevation liturgy, embodied in the emperor's choreo-
graphed movement through a space saturated with ritual objects. This move-
ment symbolically integrated palace and church into a consecrated area that
was the terrestrial mirror of the cosmic heavenly Jerusalem. This narrative
realized the Elevation liturgy's mythology of Wisdom more completely than
did the Elevation liturgy itself. It served, therefore, as a resource for Nike-
phoros, who knew this ceremonial intimately. On a symbolic level, he por-
trays Andrew's movement around Constantinople, by analogy to imperial
procession, as a manifestation of the Wisdom of the Cross.
Thus, the core episodes serve as a kind of mystical didactic parable
(prichta) that integrates the fool into the Wisdom mythology evoked by the
Elevation liturgy and imperial spectacle. Their symbolism shows that An-
drew's activity among the sinners of the city is integral to the emperor's
messianic role of enthroning all the faithful as high priests and kings at the
Second Coming. These core episodes were widely known, excerpted, and
read in later Russian tradition.21 They will be discussed at length in section 2
of this study. They include:
studied and is key to our understanding of its Russian reception. For the treatment of
these episodes in iconographic and Old Believer written tradition, see I. Bubnov,
"Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople in the Tradition of
Russian Old Believers," in this volume, and especially miniatures 1-4, 18-20, 26-33
and their possible iconographic sources.
154 Priscilla Hunt
mysterious youth, Christ, tells him that he will gain three crowns
and ״receive the good things of my kingdom" if he overcomes two
hurdles: he must win a wrestling match against a giant Ethiopian
and "run the good race naked, become a fool for my sake";
2. the episode of the "Winter Storm," in which Andrew runs the
metaphorical race to the point of death by freezing, only to be mi-
raculously revived and touched by a flowering branch that sends
him into the promised kingdom;
3. the episode of Andrew's "Personal Apocalypse," the visionary
journey that ensues, when he leaves his carnal body and experi-
ences a mental ascent that is actualized as a journey into paradise
and heaven. Crowned with a flowering wreath and wearing the
garments of a king, he beholds the glory of the Kingdom.
4. the episode of Andrew's spiritual "Combat at the Forum." It por-
trays Andrew as the counterpart to the emperor Constantine in
Wisdom and high-priestly kingship; the emperor is present in the
form of his statue. Andrew, having returned to earth and to his
carnal body, is now performing his foolishness there. He provokes
bystanders ignorant of his inner sovereignty-in-Christ to attack
him as a madman; all the while the pious woman Barbara sees
through to his inner glory.
We will also treat another episode that exists within the mythology of the
core, "The Future Patriarch's Vision." It offers a spectacle of the divine-high-
priestly kingship hidden behind Andrew's foolishness, as seen by Andrew's
disciple Epiphanios, portrayed as the future patriarch of Constantinople.
The first three core episodes described above depict Andrew's initiation
as a wise fool and his preparation for his salvific role in the city. The fourth
core episode offers a full mythological framework for interpreting this salvific
role. In an ensuing non-core episode, "The Vision of the Mother of God at
Blachernae," Andrew experiences an encounter with the Queen Mother of
God.22 He is granted a vision that he shares with Epiphanios: they see the
Mother of God with her royal retinue entering the Blachemae shrine through
the imperial doors. She stops and sprinkles the ambo with her tears as she
prays for the people who are there worshipping in the early morning hours;
she proceeds to the sanctuary, prays again, and then turns around and holds
her luminescent veil over the faithful, the beneficiaries of her intercession.
This episode associates Andrew with the cult of the robe of the Blachernae
Mother of God, one of the most powerful and prestigious loci of intercessory
ליל
VAndrew, 255. On his way back from heaven Andrew's guide had told him: "Our ...
Lady, the Queen ... Mother of God is not present here, for she is in the vain world to
support and help those who invoke God's Only Son ... and her own all-holy name"
(61).
The Fool and the Tsar 155
power in Byzantium, subordinate only to the cult of the Cross, whose primary
relic, the True Cross, was also housed at Blachemae. The episode at
Blachernae played a key role in the reception of VAndrew in Russia and will
be discussed in section 3.1 of our study.
The performative teachings in the biographical episodes of VAndrew are
aimed at the uninitiated, complementing the lengthy sections in which
Andrew offers verbal explanations to Epiphanios. Just as the Mother of God
comes down from heaven to intercede for the faithful, so Andrew dedicates
himself in these episodes to the everyday lives of everyday sinners.
VAndrew is organized on the level of poetic structure rather than plot.
This structure has not been evident to modern readers, who see with different
eyes than the faithful of the Byzantine empire and of medieval Slavia Ortho-
doxa. D. S. Likhachev was the first to note that "the medieval reader, while
reading, participates, as it were, in some kind of ceremony, ... similar to a
liturgical service ... the reader takes part in the reading in the same way as he
would pray during the divine liturgy" (my italics—P.H.).23 In constructing
VAndrew as a paraliturgical text, Nikephoros expected his reader to fully take
part in attaining its deeper meaning. He embeds in his narrative the scriptural
Wisdom dramatically reenacted in liturgy.24 The presence of this inner Wis-
dom enables the narrative to invoke action, personal transformation, and ulti-
mately theosis, or union with God.25
Reading in Byzantium required both divine initiation, and human pa-
hence (endurance), like the spiritual life itself. It entailed the ability to move
beyond the "veil," i.e., beyond the surface meaning to a deeper, sacred mes-
sage. The effort was the necessary preparation for receiving the mystery, but
for Research in Medieval Slavonic Studies," in Medieval Slavonic Studies: New Perspec-
tives for Research/Etudes slaves medievales: Nouvelles perspectives de recherche, ed. Juan
Antonio Alvarez-Pedrosa and Susana Torres Prieto (Paris: Institut d'Etudes slaves,
2009), 129. He quotes A. Naumov ("Srednevekovaia literatura i bogosluzhenie,"
Ricerche Slavistiche 42 [1995]: 52): "the liturgy must be recognized as the most impor-
tant factor of modelization of medieval culture ... the artistic reflection of the ancient
age can be considered a liturgical reflection" (132).
25Romanchuk, Byzantine Hermeneutics, 37, where the author quotes Origen's authori-
tative Commentary on the Song of Songs; see Garzaniti, "Bible and Liturgy," 127-48, esp.
135,142.
156 Priscilla Hunt
it required the assistance of divine grace. The prayer before reading included
the invocations "Unveil Thou mine eyes" (Ps. 118:18-19) and "Manifest to me
the secret and hidden things ... of Thy wisdom" (Ps. 50: 6).26
The process of unveiling hidden wisdom required the reader to inwardly
co-perform the meaning of the text. He/she had to search out embedded scrip-
tural allusions and citations in order to mentally create, in an act akin to
contemplation, the symbolic representation of the world signifying Wisdom.
In this study we have used the tools of poetic analysis to unveil for the mod-
em reader the mythological structure of this symbolic representation. This
analysis, assisted by L. Ryden's textual notes, will enable us to identify a set
of functions that integrate repeating motifs into larger metaphorical systems
signifying high-priestly kingship. These systems, in turn, as an integral
whole, express a dominant messianic imperial concept of divine Wisdom in-
herent to the Elevation liturgy.
Our understanding of the mythology embedded in VAndrew has led to
the following hypothesis: Nikephoros created his paradigm of holy foolish-
ness in response to apocalyptic anxiety. The millennium was expected in the
year 1000.27 However, Andrew's namesake, Andrew of Caesarea, in his com-
mentary on Revelation, had asserted that a "notional millennium" was al-
ready underway in the cult of the saints: "They have the power to judge,
through which they judge demons even until now.... They are glorified with
Christ until the consummation of the present age, revered by pious emperors
and faithful rulers ... they officiate and reign, as we can see, with Christ."28
The holy fool's confrontational tactics distinguished him from other saints
and were the most effective defense against apocalyptic catastrophe. VAndrew
placed the fool at the vanguard of the emperor's messianic mission to deliver
Л/:
Garzaniti, "Bible and Liturgy," 121. Garzaniti notes that the reciting of the Psalms
was a model for reading as an act of recollection of spiritual mysteries (136). Cf. the
episode of the "Wrestling Parable," where Andrew's request that his (and our) "eyes
be unveiled" is implicit in his recitation of Psalm 118. In the "Personal Apocalypse,"
Andrew actually moves beyond a series of veils and passes through a "broad place"
where Nikephoros has embedded another allusion to the psalm: "I walked also at
large [in a broad place: en platismu; Slavonic, po shirine]" (Psalm 118: 45). See VAndrew,
51. These interrelated allusions in marked places alert the reader to this psalm's impor-
tance for Nikephoros as a metapoetic reference about reading with spiritual sight. All
citations from the New Testament, Psalms, and Revelation will be from The Orthodox
Study Bible: New Testament and Psalms, New King James Version, ed. P. Gilliquist et al.
(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993), unless they are quoted from the
Elevation feast.
27
P. Magdalino, "The Year 1000 in Byzantium," in Byzantium in the Year 1000, ed. Mag-
dalino (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 250-54.
Ibid., 249-51. Magdalino finds evidence in the tenth century of a sense of a "heaven-
sent remission" (55) that would make conditions ripe for Nikephoros to portray a fool
with radical intercessory powers.
The Fool and the Tsar 157
the world from judgment. Andrew was thus following a path laid out in the
Synaxarion of Basil II when it invoked the saints and angels to "assist the
emperor in wielding power and to intercede for him on Judgment Day" (my
italics—P.H.).29
These hypotheses about the nature and function of VAndrew have impli-
cations for the development of Russian urban holy foolishness. We argue that
it too emerged to endow Russia with similar intercessors in the face of apoca-
lyptic forebodings.30 In choosing to bring the fool face to face with the ruler,
Russian hagiographers were logically consistent with this strategy of interces-
sion. Our hypothesis is that Russian fools, both in hagiography and in life,
who interacted directly with the ruler, went one step further than Andrew. In
their role of fending off divine punishment, they did not wait for the Last
Judgment to intercede with and for the ruler. Russian readers of VAndrew un-
derstood that when the fool reproached the emperor, he was confronting the
sovereign with a foolish version of the latter's own royal "iconic" image. The
fool, far from being a rebel, was shaming the ruler into living up to his own
Wisdom. By reinforcing the ruler's piety, the fool was staving off, for as long
as possible, the inevitable great apostasy of the elite foretold in Revelation
and prophesied in VAndrew and apocalyptic texts.31 When the inevitable came
to pass and the tsar and Church hierarchy accepted ecclesiastical reforms, the
archpriest Avvakum appealed to all to become fools for Christ's־sake in order
to deliver themselves while there was still time, during the Last Days.
Nikephoros found in VSymeon the authority for producing a new "impe-
rial" rendition of holy foolishness that was destined to take deep root in Rus-
sia.32 He could not have missed VSymeon's marked references to the Elevation
liturgy at points that were determinative for Symeon's spiritual path. While in
Jerusalem for the feast of the Elevation of the Cross, Symeon decided to en-
gage in self-purification first as a monk and then as a hermit in the desert.
Immediately preceding his entrance into the city of Emesa as a fool, Symeon
revisited the Lord's tomb, the "place of Golgotha and the Resurrection," in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the feast of the Elevation origi-
nated.33 Symeon's return to the locus of his original inspiration indicates that
29 Ibid., 257.
30 Ibid., 257. The ever changing dates of the millennium were themselves a source of
anxiety, since the relief of having escaped a given deadline also led to tension about
the oncoming one. On Andrew's sense of the imminence of the end, see Ryden, The
Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 1: 70. Russia faced continuing crises over the period that
urban holy foolishness emerged and developed.
31 For Andrew's apocalypse, see VAndrew, 259-85. On the succession of evil rulers of
spiritual companion John to the apostles Peter and John "running ... toward the
158 Priscilla Hunt
he was asking for the intercession of divine Wisdom, symbolized by the Ele-
vation of the Cross, prior to taking on the most challenging ascetic feat of his
life.34 35
Nikephoros may have understood that Symeon's decision to become a
fool arose from his personal dedication to the imperial cult of the Holy Sepul-
chre, and especially the Elevation liturgy, as well as from a desire to draw the
people of Emesa to Christ in the same way as the Elevation had originally
drawn the crowds into Jerusalem.Зэ Nikephoros, in his turn, chose to dedicate
his fool, Andrew, to making Constantinople as sacred as the Jerusalem filled
with adoring crowds during the same feast. Nikephoros was building on
Hagia Sophia's symbolic role as the empire's sacred center. Its altar symbol-
ized the Jerusalem Holy Sepulchre. The performance of the Feast of the Eleva-
tion of the Cross embodied the Wisdom after which the Church was named36
(see fig. 12 in the gallery of illustrations following p. 224).37 Nikephoros went
beyond VSymeon's brief allusions to the Holy Sepulchre cult. He invoked this
cult's mythological system to offer a new paradigm of holy foolishness that
parallels the Macedonian emperors' use of this system to express their
legitimacy.38
Lord's life-giving tomb" (cf. John 20: 4). See also R. Ousterhout, "New Temples and
New Solomons: The Rhetoric of Byzantine Architecture," in The Old Testament in
Byzantium, ed. Paul Magdalino and Robert S. Nelson (Washington, DC: Dumbarton
Oaks, 2010), 241.
34 In Church tradition, the Elevation liturgy became the dominant vehicle for expres-
sing the mythology of the Holy Sepulchre Church as "Wisdom's house" (see Ouster-
hout, "New Temples and New Solomons," 151).
35 References to Andrew's Wisdom of the (elevated) Cross mark two stages of his
spiritual path: 1) his preparation for foolishness; and 2) his entrance into the city's
forum for sacred combat. Similarly, references to the Elevation and the Holy Sepulchre
in VSymeon mark the same two stages of 1) Symeon's preparation for foolishness in the
desert; and 2) his entrance into the city.
36On the transference of the symbolism and cult of the Holy Sepulchre to Hagia
Sophia, see Ousterhout, "New Temples and New Solomons," 223-53, esp. 229-51. On
the reproduction of the cult of the Holy Sepulchre in the altar installations of Hagia
Sophia, see A. Lidov, Ierotopiia: Prostranstvennye ikony i obrazy-paradigmy v vizantiiskoi
kul'ture (Moscow: Theoriia, 2009), 211-27.
37 N. Lazarev, Stranitsy istorii novgorodskoi zhivopisi: Dvustoronnie tabletki iz sobora sv.
Sofii v Novgorode (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1983), plate 3. This feast is represented on a late
fifteenth-century Church calendar table for the Church of Holy Wisdom in Novgorod
during the reign of the Archbishop Gennadii.
38 L. Brubaker, "To Legitimize an Emperor: Constantine and Visual Authority in the
Eighth and Ninth Centuries," in New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in
Byzantium, 4th-13th Centuries. Papers from the Twenty-Sixth Spring Symposium of Byzan-
tine Studies, St. Andrews, March 1992, ed. Paul Magdalino (Aldershot, UK: Variorum,
1994), 139-59, esp. 142; Andre Grabar, "L'Art religieux et !׳empire Byzantin a l'epoque
The Fool and the Tsar 159
September 13 and the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross on September 14. Vladimir
Lossky, "The Raising of the Cross," in The Meaning of Icons, ed. L. Ouspensky and
Lossky (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989), 148-51. On its celebra-
tion in tenth-century Constantinople, see D. Beliaev, "Ezhednevnye priemy Vizantii-
skikh tsarei i prazdnichnye vykhody v khram Sv. Sofii v IX-X vv.," Zapiski imperator-
skogo russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva, n.s., 6:1-4 (1892): 237-43.
40 Ousterhout, "New Temples and New Solomons," 236-37.
41 The Elevation liturgy nowhere openly quotes Revelation, but its messianic typolo-
gies continually point forward to the Second Coming of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Likewise, VAndrew does not allude to Revelation directly, but in a prototypical man-
ner, through references to Old Testament prophecies and the Psalms, and also in the
form of parable. Magdalino notes the apparently marginal status of Revelation in
tenth-century Byzantium: "It is not used in liturgical readings, the main Greek Fathers
hardly cite it, and only three Greek commentaries are preserved.... The text of Re vela-
tion was neither illustrated nor a direct source of religious iconography" ("The Year
1000 in Byzantium," 249-50). Yet, Revelation was an important underlying framework
of interpretation, according to Magdalino, "because it gave ... validation to Old Testa-
ment prophecies ... which had not yet been fulfilled....״
160 Priscilla Hunt
42On the ninth-century celebration of this idea, see Brubaker, "To Legitimize an
Emperor," 139, 148. See also J. Gage, "La victoire imperial dans l'empire chretien,"
Revue d'historie et de philosophie religieuses 13 (1933): 370-400. On the importance and
use of the victory "sign" in imperial culture and spectacle, see ibid., 371-72, 375.
43 M. Barker, Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 2004); and Barker, The
Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (London: T&T Clark Interna-
tional, 2003).
The Fool and the Tsar 161
44
Ivanov, Holy Fools, 285.
162 Priscilla Hunt
context in which the stereotype of fool and ruler arose. It shows that the folk-
lore motifs and ritualized gestures that Panchenko observed played their part
within the liturgical typologies integrating the fool into the Wisdom mythol-
ogy of the state.
Our analysis of VAndrew's paraliturgical nature and impact in Russia will
occur in two parts. The first part addresses the Byzantine context for the crea-
tion and interpretation of VAndrew (sections 1 and 2); the second part ad-
dresses the Russian reception of VAndrew and its impact on Russian urban
holy foolishness (section 3). Our investigation will proceed from the top
down. We start with the liturgical mythology of the Feast of the Elevation of
the Cross and then examine its instantiation by the emperor in procession and
in VAndrew. We then turn to the use of this inherited Byzantine mythology to
formulate Russian identity, climaxing in the age of the Metropolitan Makarii,
and postulate its impact on the reception of VAndrew. Finally, we elucidate
the role of VAndrew and Muscovite Intercession iconography as a typological
framework for Russian holy foolish hagiography, including the stereotypical
relations between fool and king.
The study is divided into three major sections. Section 1, "Spectacles of
Wisdom" (pp. 163-81), addresses a) the eschatologically oriented royal-high-
priestly metaphorical system of the Elevation liturgy that manifests the
Wisdom of the Elevated Cross and this system's role as a framework for b)
imperial spectacle, and c) holy foolish spectacle. It also addresses d) the meta-
phorical pathways available to Nikephoros for uniting the Pauline paradigm
with this system. We will devote significant space to elucidating the connec-
tion between imperial spectacle and the spectacle of the Elevation since this
has not been understood and is key to Nikephoros's interpretation of holy
foolish spectacle.
Section 2, "The Mystical-Didactic Import of Core Episodes of VAndrew"
(pp. 181-202), will offer a poetic analysis of the underlying mythological sys-
tern uniting core episodes of VAndrew. It will uncover a typology of Wisdom
that likens the fool to the emperor Constantine and to the contemporary em-
peror engaged in imperial procession. Section 3 (pp. 202-21) will examine the
"Russian Reception of VAndrew" within the context of the developing messi-
anic imperial ideology. Here the ancient Kiev and Novgorod Wisdom cults
played a key role. However, the decisive factor in the emergence of VAndrew
as an authority for a national holy foolish canon was Muscovy's use of the
Novgorod Wisdom cult to articulate its new imperial stature after Ivan IV's
crowning as tsar in 1547. In subsection 3.1, "The Iconic Role of VAndrew in
Russian Culture," a mid-sixteenth-century Novgorod icon of the Intercession
from Makarii's circle will be the subject of analysis. It provides evidence of
Andrew's typological role within Muscovite eschatological imperial ideology,
and as such embodies the cultural justification for a Russian cult of holy fools.
The following subsection, 3.2, "Typologies and Stereotypes of Urban Holy
Foolishness," addresses VAndrew's role in the development of Russian holy
The Fool and the Tsar 163
foolish hagiography and its stereotypical relations between fool and tsar.
Finally we evaluate what the reception of VAndrew in Russia teaches us about
the determinative factors for the flourishing of a uniquely Russian urban holy
foolishness.
In the course of this study, it will become clear that 1) the Russian fool's
spectacle had less to do with Panchenko's carnival rites than with imperial
liturgy and spectacle; 2) the stereotypical relationship between king and fool
in Russian urban holy foolishness is derived from a Byzantine model,
VAndrew; and 3) VAndrew spoke urgently to Russia's cultural needs as inher-
itor of Byzantium's messianic mandate in conditions of eschatological anxiety.
It thus played a key role as an authoritative model in the genesis of Russian
urban holy foolishness.
45 The Elevation liturgy mentions Wisdom explicitly only three times, in contexts that
evoke the intercessory power of the Cross. See The Festal Menaion, trans. and ed.
Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 135, 138, 161. All
references to this book will be from the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross.
46 Barker, Temple Theology, 35-37.
47 The Elevation liturgy exhibits a strong typology that subsumes sacred history under
the Pattern (Logos) of the Cross and its eschatological triumph. As a result, the cross-
bearing Constantine is the apotheosis of a long line of typological predecessors in-
eluding Adam, Moses, Aaron, David, and Paul. On the typology of Constantine's
vision according to Eusebios of Caesarea, and on imperial typology, see C. Rapp, "Old
Testament Models for Emperors in Early Byzantium," 182-83, 196; and E. Jeffreys,
"Old Testament 'History ׳and the Byzantine Chronicle," 155, 172, in Magdalino and
Nelson, eds., The Old Testament in Byzantium.
164 Priscilla Hunt
rations of the glory of the Throne (Altar) that Christ occupies with God the
Father.
The Elevation of the Cross celebrates a ״mystic entrance" into a reign of
universal happiness that Christians associate with the Resurrection and the
Second Coming: a return to Eden and to the heavenly Kingdom, it symbolizes
the place where the "Lord of hosts" dwells with his people and can be seen.48
Accordingly, a rhetoric of amazement saturates the Elevation liturgy. Cho-
ruses of the faithful together with the angels in the concomitant celestial
liturgy celebrate the spectacle.49 The acclamations glorifying the emperor dur-
ing imperial procession echoed this chorus. In "Combat at the Forum" Nike-
phoros also places Andrew's holy foolish spectacle at the center of a similar
chorus, foolishly evoked by "sparrows" instead of angels and men.
A plethora of variants on the motif of "lifting up" (vozdvizhenie) in the
Elevation liturgy elaborates the import of Christ's prophecy: "And I, if I am
lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself" (John 12: 32; my
italics—P.H.). Variants such as "drawing upward," "elevation," "rising," "ex-
altation," "ascension," and "resurrection" are placed in the service of a cosmic
triumphalism. This choral-proclamatory mode looks forward to the great
gathering of the faithful before the Lord's throne in the apocalyptic New
Jerusalem.50
The Cross is raised on high, and urges all the creation to sing the
praises ... of Him who was lifted high upon it. For there it was that He
killed our slayer ... and counted us to be worthy to be citizens of
heaven. Therefore with rejoicing let us exalt His Name.... Therefore,
beholding thee raised on high, creation rejoices ... glorifying Christ,
who joined together that which was divided ... thou dost lift up again
all those who ... had been made outcasts and were sunk in death ...
through the cross we are all drawn to God.... Today is lifted up ... the
Tree of life ... it proclaims His Ascension to heaven, whereby our
nature ... is made a citizen of heaven. (My italics—P.H.)51
48 Barker, Great High Priest, 14-33; Barker, Temple Theology, 32, 39; Festal Menaion, 141,
147,148,150,157.
49 Festal Menaion, 131-63.
50 Ibid., 136, 160. On Revelation's relation to the temple cult, see Barker, Great High
Priest, 223-25.
51 Festal Menaion, 134,153,157.
The Fool and the Tsar 165
52 G. Dagron, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2003), 95-97, notes that access to the emperor was strictly
controlled, and that in the church and at the hippodrome his place was elevated above
the populus romanus.
53 Festal Menaion, 137,139,152.
54Ibid., 137: "Divine treasure hidden in the earth, the Cross of the Giver of Life ap-
peared in the heavens to the godly King.... Rejoicing with faith and love, inspired by
God he made haste to raise on high the Cross which he had seen in his vision ... for
the deliverance of the world and the salvation of our souls."
166 Priscilla Hunt
55 Ibid., 134, 150: "the most glorious Cross [is] a safeguard of royal power. For it is a
triumphal glory to kings, and a light...."
56 Festal Menaion 122. See also John 17: 1-2, 19, 22: "Jesus spoke these words, lifted up
his eyes to heaven and said: 'Father the hour has come. Glorify your Son ... you have
given Him authority over all flesh.... And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they
also may be sanctified ... and the glory that you have given me I have given them'״
(my italics—P.H.).
57 Barker, Temple Theology, 26.
58 Plates 21 A-E in The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era
A.D. 843-1261, ed. H. Evans and W. Wixom (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,
The Fool and the Tsar 167
the Cross symbolically mediated between heaven and earth, humanity and
divinity (on the vertical axis); between the high priesthood and royal kingship
(on the horizontal axis); and between all these oppositions taken together. By
resolving the "central" paradox of the Cross in narrative (durative) form, this
system of mediations laid a basis for the metaphorical structure of imperial
ritual and VAndrew.
It is necessary to briefly outline how the components of this system
worked together as a grid in order to understand how they were transferred
to VAndrew by way of the Elevation liturgy and imperial spectacle. The lower
polarity of the vertical axis was the archetype of Christ's human degradation
on the cross. It could be realized typologically on opposite sides of the hori-
zontal axis by narratives of 1) Christ's high-priestly glorification of the
Father's name, and 2) his royal sovereignty as a "military" victor over sin and
death. Such narratives involved symbolism of 1) the high priests' passage
through the veils into the glory of the Holy of Holies of the universal-cosmic
Temple, and/or 2) a king's triumphal conquest of and crowning and enthrone-
ment in the universal-cosmic City.
In royal procession the opposite sides of the horizontal axis were per-
formed in sequence and related either latently or explicity to the lower and
upper polarities of the vertical axis. Dagron has pointed out that royal pro-
cession on the twelve great feast days of the Church or on the emperor's
coronation followed one basic bipartite schema:60 the first part involved a
procession from the throne room of the palace toward Hagia Sophia, or, alter-
natively, during the coronation of a military general, a procession through the
outer gates of the city towards the church; the second part was a procession
into Hagia Sophia (or Nea Ekklesia), to the altar. The first part, outside the
church, operated predominantly within the framework of the Elevation litur-
gy's royal-military metaphors and was associated with the Victory Cross that
1997), 55-56, show processional crosses with symbolic churches at their base that ״may
refer both to the Holy Sepulchre and to 'Sion,' the city of God or the Heavenly Jeru-
salem." On the inclusion of the Mother of God as another key imperial archetype of
this intercessory symbolism in the Byzantine processional cross, see The Glory of
Byzantium, plates 24-26.
Plates 5 and 6 in T. E. Samoilova, Vera i vlast': Epokha Ivana Groznogo (Moscow:
Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-kul'turnyi muzei-zapovednik "Moskovskii Kreml'," 2007),
42-44. Samoilova notes that this processional cross, made by a Kremlin master under
the Metropolitan Makarii in the sixteenth century, is based on the Byzantine proces-
sional crosses that acted as dominant symbols in imperial ceremonial symbolizing the
emperor's nature as a "new Constantine." Under the presiding image of God as Trin-
ity is an image of the cherubimic door out of the Holy of Holies, itself presiding over an
image of the Holy Face (the Savior Not Made by Human Hands) and of the
crucifixion.
60 Dagron, Emperor and Priest, 84. Acclamations on the feast days make direct analogies
between Christ and the emperor, especially as regards their light-bearing nature.
ו68 Priscilla Hunt
Constantine saw in the sky; the second part, inside the church, shifted to the
high-priestly metaphorical system associated with the Golgotha Cross, the
Victory Cross's mythological double.61
Imperial procession was thus a system of mediations in movement that
transformed the emperor into an epiphany of the Presence by analogy to the
Elevated Cross. This ritual performance expressed aspects of the Elevation
liturgy's mythology that were latent in the Elevation liturgy itself. When
Nikephoros embedded Andrew's holy foolish spectacle in this same mythol-
ogy, he drew from the Elevation liturgy as well as from the elaboration of this
mythology in imperial procession. In the following sections we will describe
the structural analogies between the archetypal Spectacle of the Elevated
Cross, the spectacle of imperial procession, and holy foolish spectacle in
VAndrew. We will show that they are analogous epiphanies of the Wisdom of
the Cross. At the same time, the spectacle in VAndreiv differs from the others
in that it disguises Andrew's Wisdom as holy foolishness (in the spirit of St.
Paul) in order to be able to present it to the uninitiated urban population
(populus romanus).
The symbolic epiphany of the Wisdom of the Cross is well represented in
the Elevation liturgy and imperial spectacle on the horizontal axis, i.e., in both
the royal-military and high-priestly mode. The imperial evocations of this
epiphany operate in VAndreiv on a latent symbolic level. Nikephoros alludes
to this system's active but implicit role when he makes Constantine present in
the plot in the form of the emperor's statue in the forum. This statue stands
symbolically at the center of the epiphanic grid invoked in the Elevation lit-
urgy. It is a touchstone evoking Andrew's parallelism in Wisdom with the
spectacle of the emperor on the hidden level of poetic structure.
1.2.1 Horizontal Reflections of the Vertical Axis of the Cross: Upper Polarity
61 Ibid., 84-114. For the first (military-royal) part, see 84-95; for the second (high-
priestly) part, see 99-114.
The Fool and the Tsar 169
Andrew's holy foolish form of sacred combat and victorious entrance into the
city are in dialog with the imperial military-royal narrative on these same
themes. In the Elevation liturgy, this narrative signified the emperor's power
to wrest back territory usurped by the Devil (and his servants, including
pagan "barbarians") and deliver it into the Father's kingdom.62
Metaphors of the emperor's military victory in the Elevation liturgy are
typological expressions of the Cross's power to defeat the "slayer."
He raised us up, whom the enemy had before despoiled ... let us
venerate the wood through which we have been counted worthy to
crush the heads of our invisible enemies.... Ye faithful Christian
kings, forechosen by divine decree ... make this victorious weapon
your glory, for by it the tribes of the enemy ... are scattered unto all
ages.63
The ruler's victory over barbarians thus testified to his own kingship in
Christ.
The length and breadth of the Cross is equal to the heavens, for by
divine grace it sanctifies the whole world. By the Cross barbarian
nations are conquered, by the Cross the scepters of kings are con-
firmed, ... lifted on high before the battle line, strengthen us through
thine Exaltation.64
The emperor's defeat of barbarians initiated the formerly profane into the
promise of the eschatological New Jerusalem.65 His military triumphs ush-
ered in a state of enlightenment that threw off the deception of the Beguiler:
"Heaven showed the Cross as a sign of victory to Constantine, ... through it
the proud insolence of his enemies was cast down, deceit was overthrown"
(my italics—P.H.).66
The statue of Constantine in the forum is a symbolic nexus of these mean-
ings that played a crucial role in VAndrew. The (no longer extant) statue on its
62 For visual evidence of this equivalence between barbarians and the Devil, see a min-
iature of the Khludov Psalter produced around 850 (Brubaker, "To Legitimize an
Emperor," 147).
63 Festal Menaion, 156,150.
64 Ibid., 153,139.
Ibid., 136: "Therefore thy gates shall be open continually, О Jerusalem, that men
may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles [the profane] and that their kings may
be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish" (Isa. 60:
11-16).
66 Ibid., 145. On the "beguiler," see 147.
170 Priscilla Hunt
ibid., 370-400.
70These military rituals were still in use in Nikephoros's day and described in
On the assimilation of the Mother of God to the royal military system, see
Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 11-61,145-65.
74Ibid., 137-40,152-53,163.
ו72 Priscilla Hunt
priestly metaphors of "inscribing" with the Holy Name played an active role
in the poetic construction of the fool's hidden Wisdom.
Nikephoros also draws on the Elevation liturgy's association of the Cross
with Aaron's flowering rod:
•УС
Festal Menaion, 145.
Dagron describes how the holy emperors reflected the sainted Constantine's role as
"quasi-bishop" (Emperor and Priest, 127-57).
77Wikimedia Commons, Yorck Project, Mosaiken in der Hagia Sophia, Szene: Christus
Pantokrator und Kaiser Leon VI (886-912), File Byzantinischer Mosaizist des 9. Jahrhunderts,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Byzantinischer_Mozaicist_des_9-Jahrhunderts_001 .jpg.
The Fool and the Tsar 173
This imagery suggests that the living emperor passing under this mosaic and
approaching the altar is mystically entering into the Light of Christ's throne,
the manifest Holy of Holies. The emperor's arrival at the altar prefigured a
scenario described in Byzantine apocalypses: prior to the Second Coming, the
last emperor of Byzantium will go to Jerusalem and lay his crown on the
Cross.78
The emperor who has arrived at the altar of Hagia Sophia alludes to this
ultimate act of deliverance of the empire into the kingdom.79 He thus be-
comes, implicitly a living icon of Christ's Wisdom. He inwardly mirrors the
Christ enthroned with a cross of light around his head. Mosaic depictions of
the emperor reflect this system of imagery when they portray him crowned
with the Cross and flashing with Christ's Wisdom-Light (fig. 19).80
Andrew parallels the emperor as icon in Epiphanios's description of the
fool in his heavenly palace, flashing with Light and filled with Wisdom. At
the same time, Andrew's movement during his "Personal Apocalypse" paral-
lels the symbolism of the emperor's approach to the altar. Ultimately, Nike-
phoros associates Andrew with the altar of Hagia Sophia itself, as symbolized
by the two compositions around the imperial doors.
The main altar was symbolically the Holy of Holies and the place sancti-
fying the emperor. It contained relics associated with Constantine's messianic
status. Positioned above this altar was the katapetasma, symbolically the last
curtain on the path leading into the Holy of Holies. Immediately below this
curtain was the crown-wreath (venets) of Constantine. A dove, signifying the
Holy Spirit, descended onto a cross that was suspended from this wreath.
These objects made the crown a symbol of the emperor's manifestation of the
Wisdom of the Cross. The crowns of later emperors that surrounded this in-
stallation augmented its glory.81
The composition within the molded brass frame of the imperial doors
offered another symbolic representation of the altar. It depicted a ciborium, a
symbolic evocation of the aedicula of the Holy Sepulchre.82 Within this cibor-
ium was an altar, portrayed as a throne with an open Gospel. A dove (the
Holy Spirit) descended into the throne's midst (fig. 17).83 The emperor in
procession passed under this dove, which symbolically crowned him with the
door of the sheep; through me if anyone should enter [he will be saved], and will go in
and go out and find pasture."
174 Priscilla Hunt
84Ibid., 211.
85 Ibid., 216-19,297-313 on these curtains.
Q/:
VAndrew, 54-55; Lidov describes a possible model, a large golden cross behind the
altar of Hagia Sophia (Ierotopiia, 212).
87 VAndrew, 57.
The Fool and the Tsar 175
1.2.2 Horizontal Reflections of the Vertical Axis of the Cross: Lower Polarity
The manifestation of the divine presence by emperor and fool hinged on their
identification with the lower polarity of the epiphanic grid —the archetype of
Christ's human suffering and degradation. They achieved this identification
through dramatizing typologies of sacred combat and atoning sacrifice.
Nikephoros could not find relevant material in the Elevation liturgy for
this typology since the liturgy's triumphal celebratory mode undercut its sac-
rificial symbolism, despite the long Gospel reading about Christ's torments.90
References to the sacrificial aspect of sacred combat are entirely absent,
whereas evocations of high-priestly atonement are reduced to mere mentions
of Constantine's piety 91 In the first (military-royal) half of imperial proces-
sion, the typology of sacrificial combat also remained latent. However, the
"nails" of the Cross thought to be in Constantine's statue in the forum associ-
ate the victorious emperor with Christ's sacrifice and suffering.
The Military-Royal Side
When Nikephoros wishes to assimilate Andrew to this Wisdom typology of
sacrificial combat with the Cross, he relies on St. Paul. He shows Andrew
wielding holy foolish spectacle as a weapon for challenging the world
according to Paul's boast: "We are fools for Christ's sake ... we ... both hunger
and thirst ... are poorly clothed, and beaten and homeless" (1 Cor. 4: 9-13).92
Accordingly, in a paradoxical way, Andrew's "nakedness" becomes function-
ally analogous with the Cross as "armor" and as a weapon of battle. Nike-
phoros also has Andrew act out the Elevation liturgy's agonistic metaphor for
Christ's suffering on the cross: a wrestling match that overthrows the
Deceiver in "headlong fall." In this way, Nikephoros implicitly places the fool
158.
91 Ibid., 137 for references to Constantine's "faith and love."
92 2 Cor. 11: 30, 12: 9: "If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my
infirmity.... And He said to me, ׳My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is
made perfect in weakness. ׳Therefore most gladly I will rather boast of my
infirmities."
176 Priscilla Hunt
Nikephoros, however, found rich material for associating his fool with the
imperial high-priestly typology for Christ's degradation. This typology, the
sacrifice of atonement, was actively invoked in the second half of imperial
procession by rituals enacting the emperor's penitential self-humiliation.93
Once the emperor entered the narthex of Hagia Sophia, he engaged in a set of
ritualized gestures prior to passing through the imperial doors into the nave.
He gave up his crown and then prostrated himself three times.94 The meaning
of this gesture is condensed in iconic form in the narthex mosaic over the im-
perial doors (fig. 16). 95
The narthex mosaic depicts Emperor Leo VI in a "sacrificial" penitential
pose before Christ's throne, presumably in atonement for adulterous behav-
ior.96 This pose represents an act of self-humiliation that is both an appeal for
divine intercession, and a sign that it has been granted. Thus, the emperor's
prostrate posture simultaneously symbolized his entrance into the Light and
his own intercessory powers, his ability to bring his people with him. At the
same time references to chapters 8 and 12 of the Gospel of John associate the
emperor with the Wisdom/Light of the Cross. These chapters illuminated the
significance of Emperor Leo Vi's repentance in ways that were directly rele-
vant to Nikephoros's depiction of Andrew's holy foolish spectacle as an expi-
atory act.
The depiction of Emperor Leo VI in proskynesis dramatizes the import of
the cross in the King's halo, which refers to the path of Christ's enthronement
and illumination. The adulterous emperor's gesture shows that he has be-
come "a son of light," as Christ had urged when meditating on his crucifixion:
"Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.... While you
have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light (John 12:
32-36)." The quotation from John 8 on the Gospel displayed by the enthroned
Christ alludes to the context of the entire chapter as an framework for inter-
preting the emperor's gesture: Christ is interceding for an adulteress whom a
crowd is stoning to death, exclaiming, "He who is without sin among you, let
him throw the first stone..."
93 This humiliation was foreshadowed in the first military-royal part of the procession,
when, on successive occasions, the emperor surrendered his crown. See Dagron,
Emperor and Priest, 64-65.
94 For a description of this ceremony, see ibid., 115-23.
95 Also, ibid., plate 1, p. 100, and 101-03.
96 Leo VI entered into a non-canonical fourth marriage that was considered adulter-
By humbling himself, the emperor shows that he does not consider him-
self higher than the adulteress. He, like the shamed crowd, has already "con-
victed [himself] by [his] conscience" (John 8: 9) and stands prepared to
identify with and intercede for all, like Christ. He makes a spectacle of the
penitential self-awareness that endows him with the Power of the Cross. At
the same time, his posture announces his public refusal to "usurp" Christ's
authority as Judge on the grounds of his own human sinfulness. In this re-
gard the emperor identifies with the human (as opposed to the divine) Christ,
who ceded to the Father his power to judge sinners (John 12: 47-49) while
judging the Temp tor himself: "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall
the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto me" (John 12: 28-36).97
This interpretation of the emperor's imitation of the Cross provided the
context for understanding the function of Andrew's holy foolish suffering
and endurance. Implicitly, Andrew's nakedness in "The Winter Storm" and
"Combat at the Forum" is a public avowal, like Leo Vi's, that he is above no
one in righteousness. It identifies him with the lowest common denominator
of human vulnerability and weakness; it is an open acknowledgement of
Christ's sovereignty and of his and humankind's dependence on divine inter-
cession for salvation. At the same time, his extreme lowliness constitutes a
radical manifestation of the Cross's power to draw "all men" to Christ, even
the worst sinners like himself.
Two medallions on either side of the Christ-King in the narthex mosaic
make the archetypes of the emperor's and the fool's intercessory powers more
explicit. These medallions allude to the combined mercy and judgment of the
Cross in the persons of the Mother of God (Theotokos) and an archangel
respectively. The Theotokos acts as high priestess before God's throne, com-
passionately intervening on behalf of the repentant emperor and his subjects.
The archangel, according to Dagron, is Michael, who is known in the tradition
as both the Archangel of Death and Warrior General of the Lord of Hosts at
the Last Judgment. His fierce expression shows him to be the angry emissary
of Christ's judgment on the "prince of the world" that frees the repentant sup-
plicant from the captivity of darkness. The archangel's presence endows the
scene with apocalyptic implications that integrate the "ritual present" into the
Cross's power of universal deliverance.98
These medallions are the key to Nikephoros's representation of Andrew's
holy foolishness as an intercessory process in "Combat at the Forum." There,
in the spirit of the archangel's clarifying justice, Andrew exposes the hypoc
99 On the Mother of God's likeness to the "fool" in the Akathistos hymn, see V. Lim-
beris, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1994), 150, 156: She is: '"the recalling of the fallen Adam," "height
beyond human logic," "vessel of God's wisdom ... who proves the wise to be unwise
... the sophists as foolish." On her apocalyptic role as intercessor, with the Archangel
Michael, for the damned, see Sakharov, Eskhatologicheskie sochineniia, on the "Khozh-
denie bogoroditsy po mukam," 192-98.
The Fool and the Tsar 179
1 no
"For it is written: T will destroy the wisdom of the wise ... for since in the wisdom
of God, the world through [its] wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the
foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe" (1 Cor. 1:19).
180 Priscilla Hunt
101 When Paul insists on boasting of his infirmity (2 Cor. 11: 30), he is alluding to
Jeremiah 9:23-24: "Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and
let not the strong man boast in his strength, and let not the rich man boast in his
wealth, but let him that boasts boast in this, the understanding and knowing that I am
the Lord that exercise mercy and judgment, and righteous upon the earth."
102 Festal Menaion, 134.
103 Ibid., 158.
104Ibid., 134.
The Fool and the Tsar 181
As we will see, the "Wrestling Parable" plays a foundational role for inte-
grating the two paradigms in VAndrew. There Nikephoros takes his first steps
toward creating a metaphorical structure that will combine allusions to Paul
and to the Elevation liturgy. As a result, he takes the spectacle of holy foolish-
ness beyond the inherited paradigm and invests it with the eschatological
messianic implications of the Elevation liturgy's Wisdom mythology and the
associated imperial ritual. Nikephoros transforms the Pauline fool into a war-
rior of the Cross like the emperor. Yet the enemy that Andrew attacks during
his combat at the forum is not the state of "deceit" of pagan barbarians; it is
the self-deception of the average hypocrite. His attackers represent Paul's
main enemy, the worldly-wise, who can no longer see hidden Wisdom be-
cause they are using their "carnal eyes"; they thus attack Andrew instead of
trembling before him. Whereas the emperor in royal procession exhibited his
weapons, the spear and the Cross, Andrew makes a spectacle of the disguise
that is his secret weapon of deliverance—his uncouth nakedness (para-
doxically equivalent to the Elevation liturgy's "armor for kings").105
Thus, the major pathways in 1 Corinthians for integrating Pauline foolish-
ness with imperial spectacle were first of all hidden Wisdom, and then the use
of disguise or trickery to manifest, protect, and uphold this Wisdom. This
trickery involved a display of upside-down or inverted boasting that delib-
erately appeared ridiculous. In the "Wrestling Parable" and elsewhere,
VAndrew instantiates this boasting by employing comic and paradoxical mo-
tifs drawn from popular culture. These motifs function as a poetic mechanism
of inversion that disguises Andrew's role as the ruler's alter-ego in Wisdom.
This precedent set the stage for Russian holy foolish hagiographies that drew
from the "carnival" "anti-world" to represent the stereotypical relationship
between the fool and the king. Yet VAndrew also realizes the context in which
this use of popular motifs plays an integral but subordinate role. This context
was Panchenko's "well-balanced" system of spectacle: a metaphorical model-
ing of the Cross as an epiphanic grid combining the Pauline and imperial
paradigms of Wisdom.
105
Ibid., 152.
182 Priscilla Hunt
the climactic episode, ״Combat in the Forum," which describes Andrew after
he has redirected his holy foolishness to the deliverance of the city. Here
Nikephoros places Emperor Constantine's statue on the scene, bringing to the
narrative surface the underlying parallelism between the fool and the empe-
ror as living icons of the Elevation and "talismans" for the city. In the episode
"The Future Patriarch's Vision" Nikephoros also evokes Andrew's analogy to
the emperor, but in an ecstatic transcendental mode.
The analysis of these five episodes, each discussed in a separate subsec-
tion, will elucidate the common mythology that re־contextualizes the Pauline
paradigm of foolishness in an imperial messianic context. An understanding
of this mythology gives new insight into the basis of the Russian reception of
VAndrew that will be addressed in section 3. The present section will conclude
with an examination of the reception of Andrew's spectacle by its immediate
viewers —the woman Barbara, Andrew's attackers at the forum, the emperor
(in the form of Constantine's statue), and finally, the future patriarch, An-
drew's disciple Epiphanios. Nikephoros's portrayal of Andrew through these
seers' viewpoints made his paradigm of holy foolishness an experiential
didactic teaching for Byzantine (and later Russian) readers.
In the first episode, the "Wrestling Parable," Andrew's dream about a wrest-
ling match functions as a parable within a parable. The whole episode ope-
rates as a master-parable announcing the function and meaning of the epi-
sodes devoted to Andrew's foolishness. This episode is foundational because
here Nikephoros establishes the mythological framework for Andrew's holy
foolish spectacle by interpreting the fool's actions as a metaphor for the
Elevation. The metaphorical keystone to his strategy surfaces in the dream,
where Nikephoros uses the phrase "lifted up" to describe Andrew's position
in a wrestling match with the champion of the "prince of this world."106 His
comic, mystical-didactic narrative melds motifs from 1 Corinthians and He-
brews into the mythological matrix derived from the Elevation liturgy. This
strategy allows Nikephoros to add the imperial Wisdom dimension to the
Pauline motifs of deception, boasting, and glorying in the Lord, and of com-
petition between divine and worldly wisdom. In Nikephoros's rendition, the
fool becomes a defender of Christ's kingship and sovereignty, and thus of the
sacred basis of the emperor's legitimacy. However, despite their innate seri-
ousness, Andrew's actions are inherently comic since they inversely (foolishly
and ridiculously) parallel the splendor of royal spectacle.
Andrew is still a slave in his master's house in Constantinople when he
follows Paul's advice to "glory in the Lord" and unwittingly calls out the
Lord's competitor for spiritual combat. The secret boast occurs in the form of
106
VAndrew, 17-19.
The Fool and the Tsar 183
107 Ryden confesses that he does not know how to translate this insulting compound
phrase that the Devil uses. He claims only that it contains a pun on salos, or fool (The
Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 1: 304 n. 3).
108 D. Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity
In this dramatic context, Nikephoros offers the reader the keystone to the
latent mythology that transforms Andrew's actions into an iconic, ritual per-
formance. The "bright youth" advises: "When he lifts you up, do not be afraid
but grapple him crosswise, and you will see the glory of God." "Crosswise" is
a technical wrestling term, but here it is also a pun associating Andrew with
the Cross, the mythological archetype for the comic display of his weak-
ness.109 Moreover, when his protagonist lifts him off the ground he is reenact-
ing Christ's elevation on the Cross (John 12: 32) and announcing that this
Elevation (in all it Wisdom connotations) is the sacred model for his spectacle.
Andrew's display of weakness is analogous in function to the "wrestling
match" with the Devil that Christ fought when he was lifted up on the cross,
according to the Elevation liturgy. Just as Christ's apparent degradation was a
trick that enabled him to overthrow the Deceiver "in headlong fall," so
Andrew's "crosswise" wrestling trick overthrows the Ethiopian. When, to the
amazement of the Ethiopians, the fool vanquishes his opponent, the whole
crowd "disappears with great shame." Thus, Andrew's actions exemplify
how the "weak things of the world put to shame the things which are
mighty" (1 Cor. 1: 27) and how a Pauline sort of holy fool can also be a living
icon of the Elevated Cross.
Next, Nikephoros widens the spectrum of themes that integrate the holy
fool with the Wisdom manifest at the Elevation. By overthrowing the Devil's
champion, Andrew has implicitly recovered the "royal dignity" lost by
Adam, as indicated in the Elevation liturgy. For this reason, the coach prom-
ises Andrew three magnificent crowns (in the form of victory wreaths) as a
reward. The promise of a flowering wreath associates Andrew's crown with
the flowering rod of Aaron, the sign of election to the high priesthood, in the
Elevation liturgy.
This promise implies that Andrew has proven himself a high priest as
well as a king, worthy to join the white-robed elders-martyrs who cheered
him along.110 Nikephoros thus introduces his stratagem of associating An
109 The Slavonic translation does not preserve a reference to ״lifting up" (alluding to
John 12: 32) in the "coach's" advice. Rather it alludes to Andrew's elevation on the
cross by the double use of the verb voskhtytit' (to be caught up), as applied to both the
Ethiopians ("efiop dysha i groziasia v"skhtytiti Andreia") and the "holy men" (elders)
("v"skhytisha pravednika na vysotu rukami svoimi") (my italics—P.H.). This double
usage recapitulates the paradoxical inversions symbolized by the Cross, especially its
defeat of death by death. In this case, the repetition of voskhtytit' identifies a negative
combatative action aimed at Andrew's defeat and humiliation with a positive action
celebrating Andrew's victory and glorification. The elders' action resonates with the
use of the same verb in the Slavonic Bible to refer to Paul's "being caught up" to Para-
dise (2 Cor. 12: 4), a direct result of his foolishness of the Cross, and a type for the
resurrection in the Elevation liturgy. See n. 88 in this article and Moldovan, Zhitie
Andreia Iurodivogo, 165.
110 Festal Menaion, 145.
The Fool and the Tsar 185
where did they come from?'... These are the ones who come out of the great tribu-
lation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. There-
fore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple."
112 For an imperial parallel, see also Dagron, Emperor and Priest, 210, describing the
meaning of the Macedonian emperor's movement from the throne room to the Nea
Ekklesia, with its symbolism of "Judaic kingship." There "a few souvenirs of Constan-
tine (his cross and his shield ... ) recalled that the Christian basileus succeeded to David
186 Priscilla Hunt
and Solomon by unction and for the eschatological conclusion of the Second Parousia,
that is, the return of Christ on the Last Day."
113 VAndrew, 4347־.
114Ryden, The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 1: 310 n. 2, reference to Job 30: 3. In another
episode, the Devil openly threatens Andrew with Job's trial. See VAndrew, 109.
The Fool and the Tsar 187
115 Nikephoros puts rhetorical emphasis on Andrew's nakedness to mark its key im-
portance as a symbol of suffering on the Cross in his typology of holy foolishness: "My
heart was heavy with sorrow for the servant of God, for his body was naked and he
had neither a tunic, nor a woolen cloak, nor a Cicilian coat, nor a sleeping-mat, nor a
hut, but was completely destitute ... I kept saying to myself, "now he is dead!" See
VAndrew, 43.
188 Priscilla Hunt
ludes to his escape from the apocalyptic catastrophe since, as L. Ryden has
pointed out, the duration of the Last Judgment in the vision in St. Niphon's
vita also was two weeks.116 Andrew's ensuing mystical journey shows him
experiencing his deliverance in advance of the Second Coming.
[Bjehold, an immense dove came flying down from above and settled
on the curtain. Its head was gold, its breast purple, its wings shining
like flame of fire, its feet scarlet, and from its eyes rays of light ...
came forth.... When this curtain, too was raised and I looked up ...
and thought I saw an awe-inspiring throne ... and gazed at the mag-
nificence ... of the God-Man ... overcome by ineffable trembling, joy
and shivering.120
The imagery suggests that, like the emperor in the liturgy, Andrew reflects
the God-Man's Sovereignty, Wisdom, and Glory. In paradise, he experiences
the state of inner transcendence that prepared him for this moment. He
describes himself moving and dressing "like a king"; a flowering wreath in
116
Ryden, The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 1: 310 n. 1.
117
VAndrew, 47-59.
118
Ibid., 59, and 2 Cor. 12:4 as recalled in Festal Menaion, 148.
119
Ibid., 55.
120
Ibid., 57-59.
The Fool and the Tsar 189
terwoven with gold is on his head, a red belt around his waist, and he experi-
ences a sense of "being above the human condition." 121
By laying bare Andrew's hidden Wisdom, "Personal Apocalypse" ex-
presses an underlying paradox: when Andrew takes on his Cross and exposes
his naked body in the earthly city, he is still inwardly wearing the dazzling
garment of a king and offering an epiphany of the Wisdom of the Cross.
Nikephoros temporarily lays aside the disguise so that the reader can under-
stand its mythological function: Andrew's display of nakedness and degrada-
tion is a foolish, upside-down way of putting both Christ's high priesthood
and sovereignty on view. To the spiritual eye, his holy foolish spectacle com-
prehends both polarities of the grid of the Cross. The inner journey to the
celestial liturgy realizes the upper polarity; it is simultaneous with his realiza-
tion of the lower polarity, his "outer" peregrinations as a cross-bearing fool.
Thus Andrew enacts a living liturgy of the Elevation that is parallel to the
emperor's movement through the imperial doors to the altar of the universal
Church. This latent parallelism finds objective expression in "Combat at the
Forum."
The episode "Combat in the Forum" brings to light the underlying system of
parallels between the Wisdom of Andrew and the Emperor, conveyed by the
poetic structure. Although the real emperor does not enter the plot, as he will
later in Russian holy foolish narratives, he is present symbolically in the form
of his statue. The action takes place in the forum under the shadow of Con-
stantine's porphyry column with the sculptural image of Constantine on top.
This statue's presence presages analogies between fool and emperor that un-
fold as the episode progresses. Both fool and statue offer a spectacle at the
symbolic center of Constantinople that enacts the mythology of the Elevation
of the Cross in Hagia Sophia. The fool and the statue function as "icons" of
triumphant sovereignty realizing the connotations of Constantine's vision in
the Elevation liturgy.122 Andrew shares in the statue's allusions to Constan-
tine's conquest of, intercession for, and guardianship over the universal city.
This episode offers several viewpoints on Andrew that reflect the prob-
lem of "reading" with the spiritual eyes, and recognizing the iconic signs of
Christ's presence in the world.123 We are given the conflicting viewpoints of
Andrew's uninitiated attackers and the pious passer-by Barbara, as well as,
implicitly, of the emperor himself, the model initiate into Wisdom. Presiding
over the forum, the emperor-statue also presides over the fool's field of "ath-
letic combat," just as the Byzantine emperors viewed sacred games in the hip-
podrome. The "emperor" is implicitly "viewing" his symbolic alter-ego. In a
similarly iconic way the fool is ritually performing the mythology of the em-
peror's sovereignty in all its eschatological connotations. Barbara makes this
clear when she sees beyond Andrew's cover to what is hidden underneath, an
image of Christ's glorified kingship. She witnesses to the foolish realization of
both polarities of the epiphanic grid of the Cross whereby the fool becomes an
image of Christ's divine-humanity.
In this episode's opening scene, Andrew passes by "the column erected
by the Emperor Constantine ... now among the saints, ... he [Constantine] ...
they say, took the precious nails which had pierced Christ's life-giving body
and built them into the surmounting statue for the glory of God and as a
protection and a talisman for the imperial city" (my italics — P.H.). A tradition
inspired by Eusebios identified the embedded nails with the seven rays of
light around the emperor's head.124 The nails comprising the light symboli-
cally endowed him with a "cruciform" halo that likened him to the enthroned
Christ depicted in the narthex mosaic (fig. 16). "Surmounting" the column,
the glorified Constantine is also like Christ elevated on the Cross, glorifying
the Father's Name. This latent symbolism is inherent in the statue's nature as
an apotheosis of the ideal of triumphant sacred kingship and will be reflected
in its alter-ego, Andrew.
The nails, then, have a symbolic value that associates the statue of Con-
stantine with the high-priestly sacrifice of atonement that remits Divine Judg-
ment. Andrew associates the statue with this meaning later, when, describing
1 ^׳ל
See pp. 155-56 and n. 26 in this study. This concern may have been inspired by the
presence in the Blachernae palace of the miraculous cloth with the Holy Face that had
been brought there from Edessa in 944. The related Mandylion iconography repre-
sen ted "the archetypal image that authorized all images." By the eleventh century,
iconography expressed the cloth's association with the temple veil by adding fringes
(see Num. 15: 37-40). See H. Kessler, "Configuring the Invisible by Copying the Holy
Face," chap. 4 in Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God's Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 5-77. This cult object may have worked
together with other cult objects of the Blachernae sanctuary (the True Cross and the
Virgin's robe) that offered inspirations for Nikephoros's narrative. On the play of the
Holy Face in the system of images signifying the Cross as manifest Holy of Holies, see
n. 59 in this study.
124 See VAndrew, 342 n. 1. The interpretation of the nails as the sun's rays is an image
the fall of the universal Empire to his disciple, he states that the nails will de-
liver the statue from the final apocalyptic inundation of the city.125
Nikephoros next sets up a series of parallels between the "surmounted"
statue and Andrew's open spectacle of foolishness. Fool and statue share im-
agery of Wisdom/Glory and sovereignty. Barbara sees that Andrew is "flash-
ing like a fiery pillar" and "lifted up into the air, dazzling like a beam of fire"
(my italics —P.H.). Implicitly, he is lifted up like the statue into the "glory of
God" and becomes, like the statue, an icon of Christ's Glorification on the
Cross. The comparison of the fool to a "pillar of fire" identifies him with the
Lord as Holy of Holies leading the chosen people from captivity into the
promised land: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud ...
and by night in a pillar of fire" (Ex. 12: 21, my italics—P.H.)126 The evocation of
Andrew's powers of deliverance, then, makes him analogous to the statue
with the salvific light-bearing nails.
The episode now turns to another analogy between fool and statue —their
shared associations with sacred combat. In this regard, the forum acts as the
real-life counterpart to the athletic stadium of Andrew's dream. Here An-
drew's boast takes the form of his metaphorically displaying the "nails of the
cross" by forcing his misery on the eyes of the people. This boast, predictably,
is taken as an affront, and the spectators react in a familiar way, covering the
fool's innate sovereignty-in-Christ with the "cloak of mockery": "Some fool-
ish people slapped him on the neck, others hit him on the back of his head.
Many who saw him said in disgust, 'Lord, may not even our enemies meet
with such misery!"127 ׳This scene is fraught with irony as the foolish people
unwittingly fall into Andrew's trap. By persecuting Andrew, they are
unknowingly attacking the very Lord whom they are invoking. Unknowingly
likening themselves to the crucifiers of Christ, they are rendering themselves
vulnerable to the divine Judgment.
Indeed, Andrew's spectacle brings down on them a Judgment of the
Cross, a moral trial of their allegiance to Christ. Andrew's sudden and
unpleasant appearance has placed his attackers before the judgment seat of
their own consciences. It has offered them the trial that Christ offered the sin-
ners who stoned the adulteress in chapter 8 of the Gospel of John. They are
called to "follow" Christ into the Light by publicly demonstrating their repen-
tance. Andrew's refusal to allow them to remain "lukewarm" is also an allu
sion to Revelation (3: 16), hinting that the present trial is a rehearsal of the
Last Judgment.
Their absence of shame demonstrates the opposite of repentance —their
failure to convict themselves in their own consciences and their movement
into Darkness. The fool has exposed their inability to heed Christ's message
(John 8: 12; 12: 32-36). Moreover, he has laid bare a deeper irony. Blindly,
they have placed themselves before the judgment seat of the very King whom
they refuse to acknowledge and who now confronts them in Andrew's
person.
Next the plot dramatizes the fate awaiting those who fail to heed Christ's
exhortation to "walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you"
(John 12: 36).128 A group of dark demons, strolling behind, get close enough to
overtake Andrew's attackers and echo their sentiments: "Yes, may God ...
never again let such a man arise, for nobody has burnt our hearts like this
idler! Not wanting to serve his master, he pretends to be mad and mocks the
world!"
The demons' remarks are typical of the "normal" reactions of anyone
looking at a holy fool with worldly eyes.129 The irony in their remarks exem-
plifies the Devil's "craftiness"—his method of covertly reversing values, un-
dermining the sacred, and turning people into unwitting idolaters.130 131 They
begin by appealing to God to save them from Andrew; they offer a negative
acknowledgment of Andrew's divine power of judgment over their hearts
and the conscience; they reverse the value of the holy foolish trick by which
Andrew testifies to his obedience to his divine master—his pretense of being
mad. They reinterpret this pretense as idleness, unwillingness to serve his
worldly master. They thus offer a distorted (reversed) version of Truth that
corrupts its essence and transforms it into a lie. In this way they perfect their
service to the wisdom of the ruler of this world, the Deceiver.bl Their almost
comic guise reflects their function as a "parody" of the sacred.132
128John 12: 39-41: "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: ׳He
has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts' ... these things Isaiah said when he
saw His glory and spoke of Him" (Isa. 6:1).
129 Interestingly, Panchenko documents the same perception of the fool as an idler or
vagrant on the part of secularized authorities beginning in the reign of Peter the Great
("Laughter," 144-46).
130 On the archpriest Avvakum's polemic with the Nikonians for exercising this same
about the divine Judgment: "because, although they knew God, they did not glorify
The Fool and the Tsar 193
The attackers have earned themselves signs of Judgment, the Devil's im-
print. Barbara notices that "dark demons marked those who hit the righteous
man, saying, 'they have stricken one of God's elect unjustly and in their case
there will be no salvation/" Now the demons have branded Andrew's attack-
ers with the Devil's "name," transforming them into dwellers in an inverse
Holy of Holies (the fires of hell, condemnation). The marks allude to the
judgment that they have brought on themselves that will determine their fate
on the "last day" (John 12: 31, 48).
The marks transform Andrew's attackers into anti-icons equivalent to the
idol.132 133 They are reverse icons of "darkness," manifesting "tyranny" and self-
deception. They wear the same fiery marks that the apocalyptic first beast
places on the hand or the forehead of those who worship "his image" (Rev.
13: 12-16).134 In contrast to the Name-bearing number of the saints, they
represent the number who shall fall with the apocalyptic Babylon: "'for the
hour of His judgment has come' ... Babylon is fallen, ... that great city.... If
anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his fore-
head or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of
god....( ״Rev. 14:7-10).
Him as God ... and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they
became fools" (Rom. 1: 21-22).
132 The demons' parody of Christ's sovereignty is comic in an antithetical way to the
fool's upside-down disguise of Christ's sovereignty. This antithesis reflects the opposi-
tion between "foolishness" and "foolishness-for-Christ." The devilish parody func-
tions in a Wisdom context rather than a folk one. Unlike the parody temporarily
offered by a comic mock king in rites of status reversal, demonic parody symbolizes
an on-going foolish state of mind that deceitfully apes Wisdom: it is the opposite of
Paul's mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2: 16), and similar to Paul's "debased mind" (Rom. 1: 28)
associated with the foolishness of worldly wisdom. On the Devil as signifier of a
mental state, see Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk, 70-73.
133 On Andrew's view of idols at the forum in another episode, see VAndrew, 141.
134This "deceitful" beast has taken on the image of a lamb. In a parody of Pentecost,
he "causes all ... to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads"; he makes
"fire"' come down by means of deception and sorcery. See the footnote on Revelation
13:13-15 in The Orthodox Study Bible, 615-16. The editors note that "statues were often
'brought to life' by sorcerers" who used "illusion and occult practices to make idols
seem alive," as noted by St. Irenaeus, Clement, Justin, and Eusebius in commentaries
on Acts 8: 9-24. Here Nikephoros is implicitly contrasting the "statue" of the emperor
and Andrew as "icons" and Andrew's attackers as idolatrous "statues." This implied
contrast may be inspired by the themes shared by the Elevation liturgy and the liturgy
of the Celebration of Orthodoxy, which marks the reinstatement of icon veneration
after the Iconoclastic Controversy. On the icon's role as an "imprint" of Wisdom de-
scending through a celestial hierarchy, see Priscilla Hunt, "The Wisdom Iconography
of Light: The Genesis, Meaning and Iconographic Realization of a Symbol," Byzantino-
slavica 67:1-2 (2009): 55-118, esp. 71-72.
194 Priscilla Hunt
Now that Andrew has militantly lain bare the nature of his attackers' self-
deception and their place at the Last Judgment, the fool changes over to his
intercessory role. He engages in the act of atonement that is the metaphorical
other side of sacred combat and reflects Christ's prophecy "I did not come to
judge the world but to save the world" (John 12: 47). Like Christ, Andrew acts
on the assumption that "he who walks in darkness does not know where he is
going" (John 12: 35).
When the demons boast, "At the moment of their death we shall surely be
able to condemn them ... the blessed man heard this [and] argued: 'You are
not permitted to mark these men, for I have besought my terrible Lord not to
reckon as a sin that they strike me. They do not know what they are doing....'"
(my italics—P.H.). Andrew checks the demons by echoing Christ's prayer
from the cross: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing"
(Luke 23: 24). Andrew himself is then "filled with mighty power from God,"
and "wipes out their marks with divine spirit."
Up until now, the fool has offered the trial of the conscience of John,
chapter 8; this is the same trial evoked by the image of the prostrate emperor
in the narthex mosaic of Hagia Sophia. Now Andrew embodies the interces-
sory powers of the Cross personified by the Mother of God and the Archangel
Michael in the same mosaic. Like the Mother of God he engages in compas-
sionate supplication for the sinners, while using his "mighty power" to remit
judgment like the archangel.
This imagery implies that Andrew is acting in parallel to the emperor's
own intercessory powers in the narthex mosaic. The narrative goes on to
show Andrew crowned with Christ's Light, just as the head of the prostrate
emperor is "crowned" with light. In the mosaic, the emperor's kneeling posi-
tion evokes the Pentecostal kneeling ritual celebrating the Spirit's descent.135
Nikephoros invokes similar Pentecostal symbolism to allude to Andrew's
symbolic crowning. A heavenly dove, representing the Holy Spirit, literally
lands on the fool's head.
The dove's descent shows that Andrew's foolish performance of the Wis-
dom of the Cross has reached a climax. He has become like the emperor who
passed under the descending dove in the composition over the imperial
doors, has reached the altar, and, implicitly, assumed Constantine's crown
(with the dove descending on the Cross). (See fig. 17). He now participates in
the emperor's powers of deliverance, but in their mythological implications.
The dove imagery fulfills the import of a series of typological Old Testament
allusions to signify the fool's power to undo the force of the Last Judgment.136 *
First, the heavens open and a multitude of "delightful swallows" come out.
135 Z. Gavrilovich, "The Humiliation of Leo VI the Wise (the Mosaic of the Narthex at
The birds are an allusion to Proverbs 26: 2: ״Like a flitting sparrow, like a
flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight.137 ״The reference to
the lifting of the curse is also an allusion to Revelation 22: 3: ״There shall be
no more curse." Next, a large dove emerges carrying an olive branch to
Andrew. This gesture likens the fool to Noah receiving the sign that he has
reached dry land after the flood (Gen. 8: 11). The gift of the olive branch
shows that Andrew, like Noah, has delivered his people from a judgment that
prefigures the Last Judgment, as prophesied by Christ (Matt. 24: 27). Indeed,
on this typological level Andrew-as-Noah has delivered his attackers from a
flood—the same apocalyptic inundation of the city that the glorified statue of
Constantine will survive.
The symbolism now identifies Andrew with divine kingship in a way that
parallels the latent apocalyptic symbolism of the emperor's statue and other
ceremonial evocations of the emperor's triumphal high-priestly kingship. The
dove-Spirit brings the twig from the "Almighty Father and Son Sabaoth" (the
whole victorious Trinity that ushers in the cosmic New Jerusalem in Revela-
tion).138 The gift signifies that Andrew has been vested with the power to
deliver the earthly city, and the name of the giver, "Almighty Father and Son
Sabaoth," announces the activation of the military-royal metaphorical system
that, in Revelation, is seamlessly blended with its high-priestly counterpart.
Outwardly cloaked in "mockery," Andrew inwardly partakes of the war-like
majesty of the Lord of Hosts (Sabaoth) and his army of martyrs processing
into the celestial Jerusalem.139
The dove sings a hymn of praise to Andrew: '״The Lord will glorify you
again and again and his holy name shall be exalted (John 12: 28) (my italics—
P.H.)140 This hymn is a quotation from the Father's answer to his Son's ex
1
VAndrew, 343 n. 7. Nikephoros may also have had in mind Jeremiah 8: 7, which
ironically picks up on the theme of "not knowing:" "Even the stork in the heavens
knows her appointed times ... the swallows observe the time of their coming. But My
people do not know the judgment of the Lord."
38 The dove gives the reason: "because you are merciful and benevolent in the same
"army" and is a name of God as "Lord of Hosts"; Catholic Encyclopedia (New York:
Robert Appleton Co., 1907-12), s.v. "Sabaoth." Here the term Sabaoth also alludes to
the Word enthroned as the Lamb in Revelation (19:11-16).
140 John 17: 22, 26: "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them ... and I have
declared to them Your Name ... that the love with which You loved Me may be in
them, and I in them." This context of meaning expands the symbolism of Andrew's
appearance as a fiery "pillar" to include an allusion to Revelation 3: 12: "I will make
him a pillar in the temple of My God ... I will write on him the name of My God and
the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem." This passage is followed by a
warning to the Laodiceans not to remain "lukewarm" (3: 16) that also informs An-
drew's relationship to his attackers.
196 Priscilla Hunt
pressed wish to glorify the Father's name at his crucifixion. The fool himself is
now exalted in a similar manner, the object of liturgical adoration. He thus be-
comes analogous to the emperor in procession and the glorified cross in the
Elevation liturgy, as well as to their higher archetype, the throne of the Trinity
in the New Jerusalem.
The dove's words show that the same Andrew who received the secrets
of the Name in the heavenly Jerusalem now embodies the power of the Name
in the earthly city. The "loud chirping of the swallows" that Barbara hears is
analogous to the chorus of angels surrounding the risen enthroned Christ
(and to the urban, courtly acclaimers of the glorious emperor). This chirping
exalts Andrew for lifting the curse when he erased the Devil's "marks" on his
attackers.
When this dove, crowned with a cross of flowers, alights on Andrew's
head it signifies Andrew's re-consecration into the Wisdom/Glory of the
Elevation. Other of the dove's attributes personify Andrew's power to exalt
God's name and foolishly manifest the Holy of Holies in the city's midst, tri-
umphant over the "prince of this world." The dove is "white as snow and
very large," "completely covered with silver"; "its breast is yellow gold."141
These attributes allude to the hymn of praise in Psalm 67: "Sing ... praises to
His name ... God in His holy habitation ... [who] went out before Your people
... You will be like the wings of a dove covered with silver, And her feathers
with yellow gold. When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as
snow in Zalmon" (Ps. 67: 4, 7, 11,13-14; my italics — P.H.).
The dove's colorful "armor" alludes to Andrew's true nature as a martyr-
warrior in the army of the Lord of Hosts. The dove associates Andrew di-
rectly with the Lord of Hosts: Its eyes were "like precious pearls, its feet ...
dipped in imperial dye." The Lord of Hosts in Revelation has eyes "like flame
of fire," with a robe dipped in blood" who "had a name written that no one
knew except Himself" (19:12-16).
Thus, the dove symbolism has many functions in the text. It evokes the
apocalyptic framework informing the typology of Andrew as a pillar of fire
leading the people into the promised land. As such, this symbolism enhances
parallels between Andrew and the emperor's statue, with its power to deliver
the city from preordained apocalyptic destruction. The dove also functions as
a poetic device for showing that Andrew as a fool is experiencing a triumphal
realization of his "Personal Apocalypse." The dove symbolism associates An
141 Its golden breast is a distant echo of the golden breastplate worn by the high priest
Aaron in Exodus 28: 26-29, according to the Septuagint: "And thou shalt put the Mani-
festation and the Truth on the oracle of judgment; and it shall be on the breast of
Aaron, when he goes into the holy place before the Lord; and ... bear the judgments of
the children of Israel on his breast ... continually." Aaron also wears on his forehead a
golden plate engraved with the name of the Lord: "And Aaron shall bear away the
sins of their holy things...." (Exod. 28: 34-35).
The Fool and the Tsar 197
drew's holy foolishness with the grand liturgy of the cosmic Jerusalem that
destroys Satan and lifts the curse.
Thus Nikephoros raises the mythology of Andrew's Wisdom to an escha-
tological level. He identifies the fool wandering in the city with the apocalyp-
tic archetypes of the military royal and highpriestly narratives that express
the emperor's Wisdom of the Cross. When Andrew mitigates the Devil's
power over his attackers like the Archangel Michael in the narthex mosaic, he
is also ritually performing the military coming of the Lord of Hosts; and when
he prays for them afterward like the Mother of God in the same mosaic, he
implicitly is identifying with the high priestly sacrifice of the Lamb (Son) on
the throne with the Father. Nikephoros thus portrays Andrew as the empe-
ror's messianic alter-ego. The eschatological seriousness of this episode is in
marked contrast to the comic tone of the "The Wrestling Parable." Now An-
drew embodies the full mythological power of the Elevated Cross. Together
with the emperor's statue, he is the sacred center of the universal city and the
guarantor of its deliverance. This symbolism also implies a parallelism in
Wisdom mythology between Andrew's peregrinations around the earthly city
and the two parts of imperial procession, the military-royal and the high-
priestly. When Andrew provokes judgment on his attackers, he is ritually
performing the apocalyptic archetype for the military royal narrative, the
coming of the Lord of Hosts; and when he prays for them afterward, impli-
citly is identifying with the apocalyptic archetype for the high priestly narra-
tive, the sacrifice of the Lamb on the throne with the Father.
Thus, the unfolding metaphorical system in this episode augments the
meaning of Andrew's juxtaposition with the emperor's statue. The episode's
pathos, however, relies on Barbara's vision of Andrew's crowning, glorifica-
tion, and redemptive power. Her viewpoint shows that the fool, like the
emperor's statue, stands before the people as a true icon and as an antidote to
their secret idolatry. The scriptural allusions indicate that she sees in Andrew
a kingly-high-priestly intercessor for the city, who manifests the Holy of Ho-
lies in a way no less brilliant that the Cross-as Light around the statue's head.
Barbara has the last word in this episode and she speaks for the reader.
She articulates our wonder at why Andrew does not allow the people to know
about his glory. He himself is aware that they "do not know where they are
going" or "what they are doing." Yet when Barbara laments, "What lumina-
ries he [God] has on earth, and nobody knows it," Andrew instructs her to
keep his glory secret and God Himself seals her lips.
This rhetorical ploy makes a statement about the fool's special mission to
"mediate" the emperor's Wisdom before the people. The signs of Constan-
tine's sacred sovereignty are openly apparent in his statue. Yet the people's
response to Andrew has demonstrated that they are unable to read these
signs with spiritual eyes. Andrew's God-given job as the emperor's alter-ego
is to resolve the problem of idolatry. He fights and intercedes as a fool so that
the people may see the true Christ in his own and the emperor's Wisdom and
198 Priscilla Hunt
thus assure their own places as kings and priests before the Throne. God со-
operates with Andrew's tactic of hiding his glory, because it is the fool's
special prerogative to test and hone the people's vision and expose their self-
deception. The fool must be allowed to use confrontational tactics as well as
intercessory powers to save false Christian from the consequences of their
blindness. By addressing this otherwise unreachable group of hypocrites, the
fool assists the emperor in realizing the Cross's "universal" salvific power.
The divine sanction against revealing Andrew's glory shows how God
favors the fool's way of displaying Wisdom's hidden nature. The overt, some-
times comic, grotesque character of this display offers an object lesson about
divine Wisdom's essential otherness from the "world" and the distance be-
tween the kingdoms of Light and Darkness. Andrew offers a messianic holy
foolish counterpart to the sword of the Cross wielded by the emperor against
barbarian "deceit."142
Barbara personifies what our own reaction to the holy foolish spectacle
should be. When an "invisible power" prevents her from speaking about An-
drew's glory, she reacts with terror and awe: "trembling enters my bones and
my strength is troubled within me." Her trembling alludes to the prophet Ha-
bakkuk's response to the imminent approach of the Lord with his anointed:
You went forth for the salvation of Your people, for salvation with
Your anointed. You struck the head from the house of the wicked....
When I heard my body trembled; my lips quivered at the voice; rotten-
ness entered my bones; and I trembled in myself that I might rest in the
day of trouble. (3:13,16; my italics—P.H.)143
She personifies the pious reader's reaction to the fool's exercise of his
"sword"— an awakening of the conscience and fear for one's deliverance
from the imminent Judgment. In Russia this reaction to the fool could be
articulated by a repentant emperor, such as Ivan IV.144
142 Revelation 19: 15. Compare this "Wisdom" perspective on the fool's secrecy to
Ivanov, Holy Fools, 42-48.
143 VAndrew, 343 n. 10.
144 According to the 1573 narrative of Jerome Horsey about the Pskov fool Nikola, the
fool made the "emperour to trembell" and ask for "preyers for his deliverance" when
he warned the ruler "to gett him thence before the fierie cloud, God's wrath, wear
raised, ... beinge in a verie great and dark storm at that instant." See Ivanov, Holy
Fools, 295; and Panchenko, "Laughter," 140-42.
The Fool and the Tsar 199
Epiphanius sees Andrew's place in the celestial liturgy of the heavenly city.
Bearing the Holy Name (the Cross) on his forehead, he reflects Christ's royal
High Priesthood. He is analogous to the risen glorified Christ who in his hu-
man body has returned to the Holy of Holies. The inscription on Andrew's
scepter, "Holy, Holy, Holy," associates him with the highest rank of angels
around God's throne, filled with Wisdom.146 This static hieratic image sym-
bolizes Andrew's manifestation of Christ's divinity, of the unchanging Pres-
ence—the Light from the "divine countenance."147
When Epiphanius sees Andrew in this pose, he is receiving a revelation of
Andrew's immovability (apatheia). This revelation implicitly contrasts with
Barbara's vision of Andrew as a fiery column leading the people into the
"promised land." Each viewpoint represents a different level of initiation be-
yond the veil of Andrew's foolishness. Barbara sees the inner Light of his-
tory's providential movement. Epiphanius sees deeper to the Light of the
eternal Pattern (Logos) —the Wisdom of the Cross.
At the same time, the imagery that Nikephoros uses to portray Andrew's
Wisdom evokes latent parallels between Andrew and the emperor as a mani
145 VAndrew, 129-31. After receiving this vision, Epiphanios ״thanked God who had
revealed to him the secret and hidden things of his ineffable wisdom (1 Cor. 2: 1-3; Ps.
50: 6).
146The inscription on the scepter is from the Seraphic Hymn, which is sung in
preparation for the rite of the anaphora, the sending down of the Spirit onto the gifts
in the liturgy of the terrestrial Church. On the angelic hierarchy as a source of the
Wisdom-Light manifest in the liturgy, see Hunt, "The Wisdom Iconography of Light,"
70-77.
147 Festal Menaion, 63: "The light of Thy countenance is marked upon us, О Lord."
200 Priscilla Hunt
festation of divinity.148 Andrew holds a scepter and a cross, while the emperor
typically held a scepter and an orb (with a cross on top).149 The light imagery
evokes the brilliance of mosaic depictions of the emperor as "an image [eikon]
of the signs of God"150 (see fig. 19).151 Epiphanios's depiction of Andrew also
echoes the rhetoric of imperial eulogy, as in the following description of
Emperor Manuel I Komnenos presiding in splendor over games (jousts): "The
emperor wears a gold crown that "flashed like lightening, the pearls ap-
peared white, and the precious red stone glistened, these being a mirror of the
treasury of wisdom that resides in the emperor's head."152
The cross from the imperial crown imprinted on Andrew's forehead sig-
nifies his treasury of Wisdom, in parallel to the (undescribed) cross on top of
the emperor's jewel-studded crown (fig. 19). This Wisdom flashes through his
many-colored raiment just as the emperor's raiment flashes in the mosaic
iconic portraits. Thus, the episode "The Future Patriarch's Vision" brings the
mythological structure developed in the core episodes of VAndrew to apothe-
osis. It offers an initiated view on the fool's inner reflection of the upper
polarity of the epiphanic grid. Implicitly, Andrew has perfected his likeness
to the glorified emperor Constantine, in a more intense way than Constan-
tine's royal successors.
Epiphanius sees Andrew as a spectacle of the Wisdom of the Logos, of the
Word itself (which Andrew received directly from the throne of the Trinity
during his personal apocalypse). In this regard, the words "Holy, holy, holy"
on his scepter identify him with the four evangelists, the rung immediately
beneath the seraphim in the hierarchy manifesting Wisdom/Glory.153 These
148 Eusebius emphasizes the apatheia in Constantine's nature even as he compares him
with Christ as Sun. See H. Drake, In Praise of Constantine: A Historical Study and New
Translation of Eusebius' Triennial Orations (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1976), 84, 89-91. Eusebius writes that his thought "mirrorfs] [Wisdom's] virtuous
rays.... Through exalted contemplation, he has raised his thoughts beyond the heav-
enly vault.... Turning his attention inward, he sees in himself the nature common to
all.... Not even the sight of ... the myriads of his armies ... excites him ... [He] laughs
at his raiment, interwoven with gold ... but ... clothes his soul in raiment embroidered
with temperance and justice, piety...."
149 An example is an ivory depicting Leo VI the Wise, in H. Maguire, "Style and Ideol-
According to Maguire, the iconic imperial portraits symbolized the emperor's un-
changing nature, his "immovable rectitude," "unmoved by excesses of motion."
151 For this mosaic of lohn II Komnenos in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia, ca. 1122,
alludes to Constantine's Victory Cross. On the labarum, see Gage, "La Victoire
imperiale," 387-89.
153 On the symbolism of the "four living creatures" in the theophanic hierarchy and
iconographic program of the Church (as Wisdom's house), see Hunt, "The Wisdom
The Fool and the Tsar 201
words echo the praise offered by the four "living creatures" before God's
heavenly throne in Revelation 4: 8: "And they do not rest day or night, saying:
׳Holy, holy holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!" At the
same time, they associate him with the Emperor Constantine, as praised by
Eusebios in his Tricennial Oration.154
The representation of the fool's Wisdom in Epiphanius's vision is indica-
tive of the profound changes in the paradigm of holy foolishness that Nike-
phoros has accomplished. It re-contextualizes the monastic interpretation of
the fool's apatheia in VSymeon into an imperial-liturgical image of the fool's
Wisdom derived from the mythology of the Constantine cult.155 Nikephoros
portrays Andrew as a renewal of Constantine who experiences the same tran-
scendental glory as Constantine during his vision of the Cross in the sky.156
Andrew is an enhanced version of the saints evoked in the Synaxarion of Basil
II since he, during his lifetime "assists" the emperor in preparing for the Last
Judgment. He surpasses all as the emperor Constantine's secret alter-ego in
realizing the empire's and the city's messianic destiny.
Nikephoros has represented Andrew as a radical solution to the apoca-
lyptic crisis hanging over tenth-century Byzantium. The fool, on the home-
front, draws "all men" to Christ through the weapon of the Cross, just as the
emperor does on the battlefield. While still alive on earth, Andrew exercises
the powers that Andrew of Caesarea attributes to the saints in heaven: to
"judge ... demons" and to be "glorified with Christ until the consummation
Iconography of Light," 71-76 and figure 5. See also plate 2 showing a mosaic of the
Glorified Cross in the dome of the Mausoleum at Galla Placida.
154Drake, In Praise of Constantine, 84. Eusebius describes the Logos, the archetype of
Constantine's Wisdom, as both ineffable and Light-emanating: "Would that one were
able adequately to envision Him, but light flashing forth about Him shields the sign of
His divinity from all."
155On Symeon's apatheia, see the description of the fool's single-handed combat
him to a vision that prefigures the rebuilding of Constantine's oratory into the new
church of the Holy Apostles by a future "pious emperor." When he sees the Cross
"hanging in the air like a flame of fire" he calls out "Let the light of thy countenance, О
Lord, be manifested towards us!" See n. 147 in this article.
202 Priscilla Hunt
of the present age." He already "officiate^] and reignfs] with Christ in ways
exemplary for the emperor himself.
Nikephoros has represented the fool's unique form of sanctity—his use of
disguise as a transformational weapon —as an upside-down, opaque mirror of
the Wisdom that the emperor manifests in imperial spectacles. He also im-
plies that Andrew is the upside-down mirror of the patriarch (the emperor's
ceremonial sacred alter-ego), when he portrays Andrew's disciple, the future
patriarch Epiphanios, as the fool's double in Wisdom.
Andrew fulfills the potential of the ruler, the patriarch, and the faithful to
see beyond the veil. Barbara and Epiphanius realize this potential by seeing
through Andrew's foolishness, in contrast to Andrew's attackers in Constan-
tinople and their comic doubles, the demons. Epiphanius's viewpoint offered
authority for the reception of VAndrew by influential Church hierarchs. It was
doubtless definitive for the metropolitan in the age of Ivan IV, who became a
powerful official patron of a Russian holy foolish cult. At the same time, the
woman Barbara offered the broadest authority for the reception of VAndrew
and of Russian holy foolishness among rulers and people alike. Her insight
into and response to Andrew represented the fool as an awesome, frightening
and necessary remedy against Divine Punishment. It underscored the fool's
integral place in the empire's messianic agenda, his special way of keeping
even the pious vigilant and assuring that the greatest possible number of
people can be delivered into the kingdom.157
Russian readers were still drawing inspiration from VAndrew when they
applied the fool's role of keeping the faithful vigilant to the ruler first of all:
The fate of the universal Church depended on the ruler's piety, and the fall of
the elite would herald the end of time. By denouncing an impious sovereign,
the Russian fool was taking responsibility for fending off both local and final
catastrophe. Moreover, Andrew's analogy to the ruler in spiritual vision
moved Russians to view the fool as the keeper of the ruler's eyes and con-
science. Episodes like "Combat at the Forum" showed both people and ruler
that failure to fear the fool and tolerate his antics would reflect back on them
in terrible judgment.158 To defuse this danger and put it at their service, Mus-
covite rulers ultimately involved their fools in court life and ritual.
Thus Nikephoros's paradigm represents holy foolish spectacle as a para-
liturgical ritual act, analogous to and complementing imperial spectacle, that
makes the fool an upholder of the emperor's Wisdom. It also lays out the pre-
scribed set of reactions to this holy foolish spectacle, "directing" the view-
point of the other ritual participants. These contributions to the inherited
model of urban holy foolishness in VSymeon produced a full-fledged mytho-
logical and experiential paradigm that had profound import for later Russian
holy foolish tradition.
157 On filling out this number, see Magdalino, "The Year 1000 in Byzantium," 258.
158 See n. 144 in the present article.
The Fool and the Tsar 203
St. Sophia of Kiev below the mosaic of Christ as "Great High Priest" in the arch above
the apse. See Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 77 and fig. 44; S. Averinstev, "K uiasneniiu
smysla nadpisi nad konkhoi tsentral'noi apsidy Sofii Kievskoi," in Drevnerusskoe
iskusstvo: Khudozhestvennaia kul'tura domongol'skoi Rusi, ed. V. N. Lazarev (Moscow:
Nauka, 1972), esp. 25-27, 40-49; L. Livshitz, "Premudrost ׳v russkoi ikonopisi," Vizan-
tiskii vremennik 61 (86) (2002): 138-50, esp. 139. On the Wisdom cult and the Kievan
iconography of Christ as High Priest, see also V. Briusova, "Tolkovanie па IX pritchu
Solomona v Izbornike 1073 g.," in Izbornik Sviatoslava 1073 g.: Sbornik statei, ed. B. A.
Rybakov (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), 292-307.
163 E. Gordienko, Varlaam Khutynskii i arkhiepiskop Antonii v zhitii i misteriiakh: XII-XVI
veka (Moscow: Al'ians-Arkheo, 2010), esp. 43, 48, 80-84. She documents Archbishop of
204 Priscilla Hunt
sented in Novgorod by its own Church of the Deposition of the Robe (Polo-
zhenie rizy) and by the development of the iconography of the Virgin of the
Sign and the idea of the Virgin's intercession (Pokrov).164 165
In the twelfth century Grand Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii of Vladimir-Suz-
dal chose an episode from VAndrew as a building block for his ideology of
rulership. He produced a new liturgy, the Feast of the Intercession, based on
the fool's vision of the Mother of God's intercession for the people in the Bla-
chemae shrine.163 He made use of VAndrew to bring to his own grand princi-
pality the intercessory powers of the Mother of God before Christ, the Great
High Priest, portrayed in the Kiev Wisdom cathedral.
Thus, even at this early stage in Russia's cultural development, VAndrew
was perceived as an important source for the elite's personal and ritual
appropriation of Byzantine rulership ideology. However, VAndrew could not
serve as a model for urban holy foolishness until cultural conditions were
ripe, i.e., until a sufficiently Christian urban population emerged. By the four-
teenth century, the trading city of Novgorod, known for its widespread liter-
асу, represented such a case. Unlike the rest of Rus' it had not been destroyed
by the Mongol Hordes and flourished as an independent "theocratic repub-
lie" founded on Wisdom until its takeover by Moscow in 1478.166
The appearance of holy fools and their cults in Novgorod may have be-
gun as early as the fourteenth century, but the first Russian holy foolish vita
has come down from the late fifteenth century when Novgorod was under
Novgorod Antonii's role as a founder of the Wisdom cult of the Holy Sepulchre. See
also M. Pliukhanova, "Tserkovnoe predanie о Konstantine, Elene i о vozdvizhenii
kresta v tserkovnoi zhizni i v slovesnosti drevnego Novgoroda," in Contributi italiani al
XII Congresso Internazionale Degli Slavistic (Cracovia 26 Agosto-3 Septembre 1998)
(Naples: Associazone Italiana Degli Slavish, 1998), 61-86.
164 On the Virgin of the Sign and the Blachernae cult, see Pentcheva, Icons and Power,
editrice, 1980), 68-84; Ryden, "The Vision of the Virgin at Blachernae and the Feast of
Pokrov," Analecta Bollandiana 94 (1976): 74-82; Ivanov, Holy Fools, 256.
166 On the correlation between the spread of manuscripts of Andrew's vita and the
spread of holy foolishness in Russia from the northwest (Novgorod region) to the
center, see Moldovan, Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo v slavianskoi pis'mennosti, 27. Its fre-
quent presence in monastic church libraries suggests that it was taken as a mystical
teaching, not an entertaining novel. On Andrew's popularity in Novgorod, see Ivanov,
Holy Fools, 257.
The Fool and the Tsar 205
167On early signs of the cult of Prokopii the fool, see A. Vlasov, "Pravednyi Prokopii,
Khrista radi iurodivyi, Ustiuzhskii chudotvorets i literaturnaia istoriia ego zhitiia," in
О drevnei i novoi russkoi literature: Sbornik statei v chest' professora Natal'i Sergeevny
Demkovoi, ed. M. V. Rozhdestvenskaia (St. Petersburg: Filologicheskii fakul'tet Sankt-
Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2005), 175; and Ivanov, Holy Fools,
259. Ivanov notes that a church in Andrew's name was mentioned in the Novgorod
chronicle under 1371 (257). On the first holy foolish vita, see O. Gladkova, "Agiografi-
cheskii kanon i 'zapadnaia tema ׳v 'Zhitii Isidora Tverdislova, Rostovskogo iurodi-
vogo, ״׳Drevniaia Rus'. Voprosy medievistiki, no. 4 (2001): 81-88. On its debt to VAndrew,
see Ivanov, Holy Fools, 265.
168
An icon combining the symbolism of the Last Judgment and the Elevated Cross
expressed these anxieties and offered the intercession of the Cross as the solution. See
Priscilla Hunt, "Confronting the End: The Interpretation of the Last Judgment in a
Novgorod Wisdom Icon," Byzantinoslavica 65 (2007): 275-325. For the apocalyptic tenor
of the time, see N. Sinitsyna, Tretii Rim: Istoki i evoliutsiia russkoi srednevekovoi kontseptsii
(XV-XVI vv.) (Moscow: Indrik, 1998), 183-87; M. Flier, "Till the End of Time: The
Apocalypse in Russian Historical Experience before 1500," in Orthodox Russia: Belief
and Practice under the Tsars, ed. V. Kivelson and R. Greene (University Park: Pennsyl-
vania State University Press, 2003), 127-58.
169Ivan IV clearly perceived of himself within a framework similar to that which
Nikephoros evoked for his fool. On Ivan's self-identification with the violent interces-
sory powers of the avenging fool who inverted the power of the Archangel Michael,
see Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of Kingship," Slavic Review 52: 4 (1993): 785,
788-91. On Ivan's self-perception as a "new Constantine" with the intercessory powers
of the Archangel Michael and the Mother of God, implicitly participating in the army
of the Lord of Hosts, see ibid., 801-02.
170
On the apocalypticism of Ivan IV's reign, see Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology
of Kingship," 777-83; Pliukhanova, Siuzhety i simvoly, 49-51, 73-83, 199-201; S.
Bogatyrev, "The Heavenly Host and the Sword of Truth: Apocalyptic Imagery in Ivan
IV's Muscovy," in Flier et al., eds., The New Muscovite Cultural History, 77-93. See also
206 Priscilla Hunt
karii must have received VAndrew in Muscovy as part of the larger cultural
inundation of Novgorod Wisdom rituals and narratives that served as
resources for expressing the new tsar's legitimacy.171
Makarii's program carried into Muscovy the same matrix of imperial
mythology that informed VAndrew. As will be demonstrated in a forthcoming
study, the Four-Part Icon of the Kremlin Annunciation cathedral announced
the Wisdom of the Elevated Cross as the dominant archetype for his
program.172 Other iconographic texts and artifacts of the royal cult made use
of the royal-military and high-priestly metaphorical systems of the Elevation
liturgy to express the ruler's legitimacy.173 VAndrew's reflection of this im-
ported imperial ideology assured its reception as an authoritative text.
Makarii included VAndrew in his Great Menalogion (Velikie chet'i minei)
next to the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, the authority on Divine
Wisdom. In the mid-sixteenth century he canonized Andrew.174 During this
same period, the Book of Royal Degrees associated holy foolishness with high,
4).
1 /לP. Hunt, "The Four-Part Icon of the Kremlin Annunciation Cathedral: An Initiation
into the Tsar's Wisdom," due to appear in the Proceedings of the XV International Con-
gress ofSlavists (Minsk, 2013); Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of Kingship," 779-
81. On the interpretation of Tsar Ivan IV and his wife as a "new Constantine" and
Helena, see I. Thyret, Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of
Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001), 25-28, 48-54.
173 Scholars have described these narratives but not placed them within a higher
system. For the high-priestly narrative, see, for example, B. Uspenskii, Tsar' i patriarkh:
Kharisma vlasti v Rossii (Vizantiiskaia model' i ее russkoe pereosmyslenie) (Moscow: Iazyki
russkoi kul'tury, 1998), 440-49; T. E. Samoilova, Kniazheskie portrety v rospisi ArkhattgeT-
skogo sobora Moskovskogo Kremlia: Ikonograficheskaia programma XVI veka (Moscow:
Progress-Traditsiia, 2004), esp. 79-87; and I. Thyret, "The Katapetasma of 1555 and the
Image of the Orthodox Ruler in the Early Reign of Ivan IV," in Flier et al., eds., The
New Muscovite Cultural History, 43-63. For the related royal military narrative as ex-
pressed in the icon "Blessed Is the Host of the Heavenly Tsar," see Bogatyrev, "The
Heavenly Host and the Sword of Truth" and the original work on this icon he refer-
ences by D. Rowland, N. Kvlividze, and A. Kochetov on 77-78 nn. 2-4. For an integra-
tion of both narratives, see also M. Flier, "The Throne of Monomakh: Ivan the Terrible
and the Architecture of Destiny," in Architectures of Russian Identity: 1500 to the Present,
ed. J. Cracraft and D. Rowland (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 20-36.
174 Velikie Minei Chet'i (VMCh), 1-3 Oktiabr( ׳St. Petersburg: Izd. Arkheograficheskoi
komissii, 1870), cols. 80-236. On this canonization, see Rydёn, "The Vision of the
Virgin at Blachemae," 75 n. 1.
The Fool and the Tsar 207
even "royal" status when it described Vladimir, the "new Constantine" and
baptizer of Rus׳, as a fool (urod).175 Ivan IV himself realized the messianic
imperial context for interpreting holy foolishness invoked in VAndrew when
he adapted it as a behavioral model for expressing his own Wisdom.176
Makarii testified to the impact of VAndrew's mystical didactic parable when
he commissioned Ermolai Erazm to write the Tale of Peter and Fevronia of
Murom about the sacred basis of the tsar's legitimacy. Like the foolishness epi-
sodes in VAndrew, the Tale proved to be a didactic-mystical parable (prichta)
about the Elevation of the Cross.177
As part of the same program that elevated VAndrew's status, Makarii can-
onized a number of known Russian holy fools.178 The Book of Royal Degrees
described the local Moscow fool Vasilii the Blessed, by direct analogy to An-
drew, as an intercessor with the Mother of God.179 Makarii's active develop-
ment of holy foolish cults extended to commissioning new hagiographies that
drew in marginal figures such as the Novgorod monastic elder Mikhail of
Klopsk. Mikhail's new Muscovite vita emphasized pro-Moscow characteris-
tics associated with the fool's power of prophecy. This vita connected Mikhail
to the royal line, thus concretizing the association between the fool and ruler
175 Stepennaia kniga tsarskogo rodosloviia, in Biblioteka literatury drevnei Rusi, ed. D. S.
Likhachev et al. (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2003), 12: 322: "samovolnoiu nishchetoiu, i
stranstviem, i bogomudrostnym pretvoreniia urodstvom, i bezdorrTstviem vo ote-
chestviikh i v chiuzhezemstviikh..."
176See Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of Kingship," esp. 788-803, 806; and
291-308, esp. 295-96. Instead of the holy fool, the "wise" peasant woman who outwits
and marries the king functions as the king's alter-ego. This choice likely reflected the
description of the Kievan Olga in the Stepennaia kniga, 12: 332347 ,41־. It focuses on her
sacred trickery and especially her ability to shame the Byzantine emperor into NOT
marrying her: "Tsar׳, oblichaemyi sovest'iu svoei i stydom, ... i raskaialsia ... ibo
podivilsia on velikoi premudrosti ее slov, i blagorazumiiu ее otveta...." Her return
from Constantinople to Kiev with gifts from the emperor symbolically founds the
parallelism between the two as sacred cities. Olga's baptismal name, "Helena," associ-
ates her with Constantine's mother, discoverer of the True Cross. These themes link
Olga to the Fevroniia by way of 1) the latter's association with the healing powers of
the Elevation, and 2) references to Constantine's universalistic agenda that transform
Murom into a symbol of the new Constantinople-Jerusalem.
178 E. Golubinskii, Istoriia kanonizatsii sviatykh v russkoi tserkvi (Moscow: S. Posad, 1894),
54-55.
17Q
Pliukhanova, Siuzhety i simvoly, 44-51. The existence of iron chains and weights for
the mortification of the flesh (verigi) embellished with metal icons of the Cross and the
Mother of God suggests that actual living fools followed VAndrew in their archetypal
interpretation of their own intercessory powers. See the reproduction of such verigi in
K. Brostrom, Archpriest Avvakum: The Life Written by Himself (Ann Arbor: Michigan
Slavic Publications, 1979), 90.
208 Priscilla Hunt
in VAndrew.180 By the end of the sixteenth century, during the reign of Tsar'
Fedor, the uniquely prophetic form of holy foolishness inspired by VAndrew
was fully institutionalized within the messianism of the state.181 A mid-
sixteenth-century Novgorod icon of the Intercession to be discussed in Section
3.1 provides evidence of Andrew's iconic role for this process of
institutionalization.
The Muscovite seventeenth century saw the establishment of a canon of
Russian urban holy foolish vitae.182 Dominant typologies of intercession and
judgment in this canon reflect an age in which every local crisis seemed to
portend the ultimate punishment for the sins of the people and their rulers.183
Such a typology is evident, for example, in the Vita of Arsenii of Novgorod: the
fool "would go along the street ... passing quickly by" and suddenly request
alms. If the people were slow to respond, he would not turn back. His behav-
ior is a graphic demonstration of two interrelated scriptural texts: "Watch
therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man
is coming" (Matt. 25: 13) and "Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so,
come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev. 22: 20).184 This and other hidden apocalyptic teach-
ings in Russian holy foolish vitae suggest that the canon of holy foolishness
may have emerged in response to the two apocalyptic events that framed the
180On Mikhail of Klopsk, see Ivanov, Holy Fools, 270-71. See also M. Swoboda,
"Reworking the Tale: The Textual History of The Life of Mikhail of Klopsk," in Flier et al.,
eds., The New Muscovite Cultural History, 255-70; and her discussion of its ideological
import in the unpublished study "Ascetics and Prophets: The Topic of Holy
Foolishness in the Vitae of Avraamii of Smolensk and Mikhail of Klopsk."
Ivanov, Holy Fools, 303-10, especially the testimony of Giles Fletcher: "These they
take as prophets and men of great holiness ... So that if he reprove any openly ... they
answer nothing, but that it is po graecum, that is, for their sins. "׳See also Svitlana
Kobets, "The Paradigm of the Hebrew Prophet and the Russian Tradition of Iurodst-
vo," in "Canadian Contributions to the XIV International Congress of Slavists: Ohrid,
Macedonia, 2008," ed. Oleh Il'nytsky, special issue, Canadian Slavonic Papers 50: 1-2
(2008): 1-16; Rudi, "O topike zhitii iurodivykh," 457.
182 Ivanov, Holy Fools, 318-24.
183 On typologies of judgment manifest in comic holy foolish form, see, for example,
the case of Prokopii of Viatka, who sits "in the governor's chair as though here were
himself the judge." See Panchenko, "Laughter," 129. The famous "draught of blood,"
that Vasilii Blazhennyi offers Ivan IV refers to the apocalyptic judgment (Rev. 14: 19-
20; 16: 18). See Panchenko, "Laughter," 142. According to Silvestr Medvedev, the ac-
tual fool "Ivashko" offers a political prophecy in an apocalyptic mode. His spiritual
guide, "a man, young in appearance and very handsome" resembles Andrew's nu-
merous "bright youths." Moreover, this "angel" holds a rounded sword that appears
to be an apocalyptic reference (Rev. 6: 4). ״See Panchenko, "Laughter," 132.
184Panchenko does not recognize the apocalyptic connotations of this episode
("Laughter," 103-04).
The Fool and the Tsar 209
century, the Time of Troubles and the Nikonian church reforms of the
Council of 1666-67 (marked by 666, the number of the Beast).185
As Panchenko has noted, holy foolishness had a strong institutional pres-
ence in the court of Aleksei Mikhailovich. Panchenko claimed that the tsar
merely "inherited" these fools from his father and had no particular personal
attachment to them.186 However their presence testifies to the tsar's earlier
spirituality, his embrace as a young man of the messianic, penitential move-
ment of the Zealots of Piety, led by Ivan Neronov and including Avvakum
and the future patriarch Nikon.187 Moreover, the intimate relations that Pan-
chenko describes between Aleksei Mikhailovich, Nikon and a certain fool,
Vasilii, suggests that they saw holy foolishness as a necessary complement to
their authority, in the same way as Ivan IV and Makarii. They had the same
reasons—dedication to the Wisdom of the Cross as the basis of their legiti-
macy.188 When the ideology of the state changed with the rationalizing church
reforms at the ominous Council of 1666, so also did the official status of the
fool.189 The tsar's repudiation of the traditional religious bases of his legiti-
macy destroyed the context in which holy foolishness had developed and
made cultural sense.
This cultural dynamic explains the willingness of holy fools to act to-
gether against the Church reforms at the end of the seventeenth century.190
They were expressing a shared response to the realization of the traditional
culture's worst fear, the apostasy of the rulers of the universal Christian
empire. When they took direct aim at the "impious" tsar in the streets and in
written correspondence, fools were acting on premises established in
ךor
Russian traditionalists were aware of the eschatological implications of the number
666. See Magdalino, "The Year 1000 in Byzantium," 262.
186 Panchenko, "Laughter," 126.
187Ibid., 119. On this penitential piety and its prophetic aspect, see P. Hunt, "Piataia
Thryet, Between God and Tsar, 64-70. By establishing an analogy between Moscow and
Jerusalem, it also implied the necessity of fools as guardians of Moscow's messianic
status.
189 Panchenko, "Laughter," 119,126,143-47.
190Ibid., 143. On Avvakum's holy foolishness as a response to the collapse of the
196 Samoilova, ed., Vera i vlast', 150-51. On the Novgorod iconography, see Gordienko,
Varlaam Khutynskii i arkhiepiskop Antonii, 101-03.
197This icon appears to reflect the triumphalist understanding of Pokrov expressed in
the Stepennaia Kniga (Book of Royal Degrees) in the 1560s. See Pliukhanova, Siuzhety i
simvoly, 44-47, where Andrew participates in a typology for interpreting Russia's
providential historical development.
198 Hurwitz discusses the Prologue Narration and Service Hymn of this feast (Prince
Andrei Bogoliubskii, 74-78). On the Novgorod St. Sophia Prologue narration of the ser-
vice of Pokrov, see Gordienko, Varlaam Khutynskii i arkhiepiskop Antonii, 96.
199 VAndrew, 255; and Moldovan, Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo, 398-400. Moldovan has
noted that the iconography was based on the twelfth-century Prologue version of
VAndrew (116).
200 See Samuilova, ed., Vera i vlast', 150, for the identification of these figures. Ivan IV,
who broke Church canon by having seven marriages, shared Leo Vi's status as a
repentant "adulterer." His depiction in prostration in the Four-Part Icon of the Annun-
ciation Cathedral reproduces Leo Vi's pose in the Hagia Sophia narthex mosaic and
may allude to its symbolism. For this icon, see Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of
212 Priscilla Hunt
of the royal-high priesthood of the universal Church in the future New Jeru-
salem, symbolizing their Russian counterparts' place before the Holy of
Holies.
Andrew's function of pointing to two discrete moments at once—his own
vision and consecration of the emperor and the patriarch—is rhetorically sig-
nificant. It invites us to see a timeless typological analogy between the fool,
the emperor, and the patriarch as intercessors with divine Wisdom. It also im-
plies that the emperor and patriarch fulfill the prophetic import of Andrew's
vision. In this way the iconographer consciously incorporates him into the
Russian imperial narrative as existing in a parallel universe.
For spiritual readers of VAndrew and this icon, Andrew in the comer,
pointing upwards, is a holy foolish counterpart to the Byzantine emperor and
patriarch and their Russian successors. Although he is smaller in stature than
they, he still serves as a model for their role as initiates of Wisdom, justified
by VAndrew's parallelism in intercessory powers between fool and emperor.
The depiction of Andrew here is an exemplum of the new status of Russian
holy fools, such as Vasilii of Moscow.201 The contemporary Royal Book of
Degrees entered Vasilii into a system of correspondences with Andrew as the
prophetic visionary of Blachemae.202
Kingship, ״plate 1. Andrew in the corner, pointing to the fulfillment of the import of
his vision, is analogous to the prophet Daniel in Last Judgment iconography. There
Daniel abides on the mountain where he received his vision of the world's end and
looks towards the fulfillment of his vision's import from his place in the same lower
internal left-hand comer. For an example, see Hunt, "Confronting the End," 285, plate
1. Nikephoros describes Andrew as living in the age of Leo I the Great (457-74). See
Moldovan, Zhitie Andreia iurodivogo, 159. The ruler and patriarch in this Intercession
icon are not contemporaries with the fool or with each other, but serve a typological
role pertaining to the living emperor and patriarch.
201 The epigraph to a late sixteenth-century copy of a Preamble to the Vita of Vasilii of
Moscow alludes to the fool's hidden high-priestly kingship and his role of initiating
others by the scriptural citation: "And He has made us kings and priests to His God
and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1: 6) (Panchenko,
"Laughter," 128). See Kuznetsov, Sviatye Blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann, 43-44. For this re-
daction of the vita, see 33-75. The narrative describes the contemplative celestial lit-
urgy taking place in the fool's mind even as he makes his beaten and reviled body a
sacrificial altar of atonement like the high priest Aaron's: "Blazhennyi zhe bogovi
predstoia vsegda umom i dusheiu i serdtem, zhertvennik svoe telo sotvori. v nem zhe
zriashe zhertvu khvalenia aronovy zhertvy..." (my italics—P.H.). This redaction em-
phasized the fool's desire to gain "Wisdom's unattainable depths" by following
Christ's Cross and engaging in intense spiritual battle (zhelaniem krestonosno khristu
posledova v puchinu neizsledimyia premudrosti vshed...). It also stresses the "godly-
wise fool's" (bogomudrogo iuroda) close relations with both Ivan IV and the Metropoli-
stan Makarii. See ibid., 43-45
202 Pliukhanova, Siuzhety i simvoly, 44-45. Popular tradition also associated the Inter-
cession cathedral with Vasilii of Moscow, and official circles followed suite. After Tsar
The Fool and the Tsar 213
Fedor canonized Vasilii and built a church attached to the Intercession cathedral over
the fool's remains, the cathedral became known as St. Vasilii's (Basil's).
203 Hurwitz, Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii, 75-76.
204 A. Lidov, "Obraz Nebesnogo Ierusalima v vostochnokhristianskoi ikonografii," in
lerusalim v russkoi kul'ture, ed. A. Batalov and Lidov (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura,
1994), 15-34.
А Л С ___
This icon signifies the Mother of God's implied place in the hierarchy of manifesta-
tion of the Holy of Holies portrayed along the central axis of the sixteenth-century
Kremlin processional cross reproduced in Vera i vlast'. See n. 59 and fig. 14.
206 For a reproduction and description of this icon and its relation to the Elevation of
the Cross, see Hunt, ״Confronting the End: The Interpretation of the Last Judgment in
a Novgorod Wisdom Icon."
207 Hurwitz, Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii, 76.
214 Priscilla Hunt
patriarch.208 The iconographer located the holy fool-prophet and the future
patriarch, Epiphanios, in a chain of mediators-intercessors topped by the
Mother of God and Christ. All are subordinate to the dominant Wisdom sym-
bol—the three crosses representing the Wisdom of the Trinity on three domes
of the heavenly Temple.
The fool and the emperor are also in a complementary relationship from a
spiritual perspective. The viewer knew that Andrew, when he received the
vision, was engaged in penitential intercession for the people in the church
and that the Mother of God answered by shining Wisdom down on them; the
emperor was already before the Holy of Holies, a beacon for his court and
implicitly for his subjects. Andrew's gesture of pointing implies a "causal"
link between these two moments of penitence and consecration with Wisdom.
In VAndrew, anonymous "people stand around" with the fool in the soros
(rotunda) holding the relics of the Virgin's robe. Since they themselves do not
see the Light, they stand for the sinful population that Andrew has been
assisting unbeknownst to itself. Their presence signifies that they are already
in a state of repentance; otherwise why would they be praying with the fool
in the early morning hours? They also, implicitly, are aware of the impending
catastrophe that the fool is addressing as he invokes the Mother of God to
intercede with her Son. When the Mother of God enters the Church through
the royal doors (from narthex to nave), Andrew sees her stop to pray at the
ambo. As L. Ryden has pointed out, her tears likely refer to the "impending
Doom and the drowning of Her city" that Andrew prophesies to his disciple
later in the text.209
Thus, the viewer fills out the empty scene in Andrew's comer with the
knowledge that the fool acts as special mediator for the anonymous repentant
sinner (everyman) in the face of the impending eschatological crisis facing the
empire and its rulers. He then sees that the rulers have also avoided this crisis
and brought the empire's messianic promise to an apotheosis. Unlike the
fool's unnamed fellow supplicants in the soros, they are mediators of her
grace, forming the basis of a triangle with the Mother of God. They have, im-
plicitly, already repented (as typologically expressed by Leo Vi's prostration
in the narthex mosaic of Hagia Sophia). Emperor and patriarch thus mysti-
cally stand before the Holy of Holies in advance of the Second Coming, just as
Andrew had in his "Personal Apocalypse." Thus the icon implies a kind of
moral typology whereby the intercessory power of the fool's penitential activ-
ity "points" forward to the emperor (and the empire's) deliverance and
apotheosis.
9ПЯ
Roman the Melode, at the center with a scroll, also wears a halo. On his presence in
the icon by association with the Blachernae cult, see Ryden, "The Vision of the Virgin
at Blachernae," 75.
209 VAndrew, 344 nn. 3,4, 5.
The Fool and the Tsar 215
If read in this way, the icon expresses the perception by Makarii and his
circle of the fool's integral role in the imperial messianic agenda. Thus, the
Intercession icon models Andrew's cultural significance in a condensed form.
For this reason, perhaps, Andrew was commemorated on the day of the Inter-
cession instead of on the day of his presumed death.210 Andrew's role in the
icon confirmed the message of VAndreiv that the fool's intercession assisted
the emperor and patriarch in their task of delivering the faithful into God's
kingdom. Implicitly, the fool interceded for the sinners who lagged behind
the triumphal procession of the righteous into the Holy of Holies led by em-
peror and patriarch.
Part of the fool's implied responsibility in the icon, however, was to make
sure that the ruler on the next level of the intercessory chain fulfilled his
sacred responsibility. Fools who were not afraid to stand up to a ruler were,
implicitly, responding to the latter's failure to intercede for, protect, and de-
liver his people into the kingdom. As a deep reader of VAndrew and its
sources, Makarii understood that the fool who interceded with unjust or
impious tsars was foolishly confronting them with the sacred basis of their
own legitimacy. When fools acted out these shaming spectacles, they were
reproaching the sovereign for his failure to champion the "righteous" and
"succor the persecuted," to intercede for them like the Mother of God and
Christ and His Cross. 211
Thus, the icon offered a typological basis for the official tolerance of fools
who instruct and denounce the tsar and his official representatives, as docu-
mented in the case of Nikola of Pskov. By canonizing Russian fools and
encouraging hagiographers to sanctify their behavior, Makarii was assuring
that both sides of the social continuum, the lowest and the highest, would
have the fool as intercessor and teacher. In Makarii's mind, the Russian fool
may have been a lynchpin of the empire's capacity to embody the consecrated
universal Church. This icon's representation of the relationship between fool
and emperor offered the justification and raison d'etre of the Russian tradi-
tion of urban holy foolishness. It explains why Archpriest Avvakum saw holy
foolishness as the only possible antidote to what he believed to be the
apocalyptic cataclysm brought on by the apostasy of patriarch and tsar.
ל10
Ryden, "The Vision of the Virgin at Blachernae," 75 n. 1.
211 Hagiographers represented their fools as the rulers' teacher about the state of
mental ascent (in continual praise of God's heavenly throne) that Andrew himself
experienced in "The Future Patriarch's Vision." See Panchenko, "Laughter," 137.
216 Priscilla Hunt
and intercessor for the city, especially with the Mother of God.212 The Rus-
sians, however, typically re-instantiated the threat that Andrew addressed —
apocalyptic cataclysm—on a "microcosmic" local level, as ominous impend-
ing catastrophes threatening the collective salvation, be they natural weather
events or impious authorities.
When they developed motifs about the fool's "biographical" existence,
they presented the vitae of Symeon and Andrew as their primary sacred
models.213 These motifs related exclusively to their protagonists' foolishness
and were constructed by analogy to corresponding episodes in earlier model
vitae, both Byzantine and Russian.214 Furthermore, as Panchenko has demon-
strated, hagiographers followed Nikephoros's lead in enlivening their plots
about this foolishness with folklore motifs circulating in the population at
large. At the same time, Russian hagiographers paid their debt to the fool's
Wisdom in their introductory eulogies, where they alluded to the fool's pres-
ence now in the future heavenly Jerusalem, his light-bearing nature as a
"beacon" for his city (as Andrew was in the eyes of Barbara).215 They thus im-
plied that their fool paralleled Andrew in Wisdom.
The question remains whether the Russian hagiographers' debt to
VAndrew extended to its underlying mythology, derived from the Elevation
liturgy and mediated through the Blachernae cult. Our hypothesis is that the
analogies to VAndrew in the vitae of Russian holy fools occurred on a typo-
logical level that offered a basis for the fool to denounce authorities. The sub-
stantiation of this hypothesis would offer us a new approach for interpreting
the topoi of Russian urban holy foolishness. This framework would allow us
to appreciate how these topoi instantiate cultural myths and offer keys to a
given vita's inner integrity. The function of these topoi would be determined
by their place within an implied framework signifying the fool's hidden royal
high-priestly nature. As such they would serve to express his mythological
role as intercessor for a city symbolizing a "universalist" collective. This
functionality would link the fool for a given city to the larger cultural Con-
stantinian Jerusalem myth. His stereotypical relations with the population,
king and commoner alike, would model the moral and social complexity of
this universum and the process of its deliverance.
Andrew's vita and in the border scenes of Andrew's hagiographical icon offer keys to
VAndrew's reception. See for example, Bubnov, "Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the
Holy Fool of Constantinople," in this book.
215 On the motif of the fool's "wisdom," see Rudi, "O topike zhitii iurodivykh," 458.
The Fool and the Tsar 217
Holy foolish topoi would thus represent local, cultural variants on motifs
of Andrew's foolishness. These variants would identify the Russian fool with
the lower polarity of Wisdom's grid of the Cross through a rhetoric of
disguise; they would functionally instantiate the mythic paradigm of sacred
combat/ atonement through self-humiliation. At the same time the
hagiographers would be alluding elliptically (in introductions and main
narratives) to the fool's instantiation of the Wisdom grid's upper polarity, i.e.,
to royal-military entrance into the universal earthly-heavenly city and to
high-priestly entrance into the Holy of Holies. As such they would
recapitulate VAndrew's function as a paraliturgical text.
Up until now, scholars have limited their investigation of VAndrew's im-
pact to identifying the surface borrowings in the form of topoi or repeated
motifs rather than typology, since Andrew's mythological structure and its
place in imperial ideology had not yet been uncovered by modern scholars.
Yet the typological patterning associating Andrew the fool with the epiphanic
grid of the Cross was known to contemporaries as evidenced by the sixteenth-
century Intercession icon. It is therefore safe to assume, that Russian hagiog-
raphers would want their vitae to invoke typologies related to the imperial
mythology of Wisdom in order to participate in the legitimacy of the sacred
model. The degree to which a given text realized its paraliturgical function
and attained to the status of mystical-didactic parable about the Wisdom of
the Cross is open to exploration.216
It is beyond the scope of this paper to test this hypothesis, especially since
each Russian vita tradition needs to be looked at as a separate case study sub-
ject to as many disparate influences as informed VAridrew. However, our goal
here is to lay out an argument for and a possible method of investigating the
relevance of VAndrew's mythology and the typology of the Intercession icon
to the plots of Russian vitae, including the stereotypical relationship between
king and fool.
A short case study of the Vita of Prokopii of Ustiug (VProkopii) will offer
supporting evidence for my hypothesis. The redaction discussed here was
described by A. Vlasov, completed between 1650 and 1670, and circulated
among Old Believers at the end of the seventeenth century.217 * The introduc-
tion to VProkopii celebrates holy fools, and Prokopii in particular, within the
216 Panchenko, "Laughter," 60, 82, recognizes the primarily didactical function of the
vitae, but does not address the question of their mysticism.
217See S. V. Zavadskaia, ed., Zhitie sviatogo pravednogo Prokopiia: Khrista radi iurodivogo
סןר
Ibid., 109. His miraculous icons shared his intercessory functions.
Ibid., 12: "Iakozhe bo tii sviatii v zhitii svoem siloiu Presviatago Dukha vziasha
krest Khristov na ramekh svoikh i posledovasha Emu, i togo radi otverze im Gospod'
dver' raiskiia porody, da vnidut v radost' Ego i nasladiatsia vechnyia zhizni." In the
plot this contention is modestly echoed: "bog ... ego proslavil v sem mire.... I ne tol'ko
v etom veke, no i v budushchem beskonechnom Tsarstve storitseiij vozdaet emu
velikuiu Svoiu blagodaf" (ibid., 27).
220 VProkopii alludes to the "Wrestling Parable" in the proper place, the opening epi-
sode establishing Prokopii's feat of holy foolishness (25-31). There the reference to the
Epistle to the Hebrews 11-12 is an allusion to a similar reference in VAndrew (section
2.1): "vse te dosazhdeniia ... terpel, ustremiv svoi vzor i upovanie na predstoaiashchii
podvig, na Nachal'nika very i sovershitelia Isusa..." Other more obvious examples
include the modeling of an ensuing winter storm episode directly on VAndrew. See
Ivanov, Holy Fools, 283-84.
A. Vlasov notes that the biographical vita aggregated around this founding miracle
for the fool's cult. Vlasov, "Kul't iurodivogo Prokopiia Ustiuzhskogo v istoriko-etno-
graficheskom osveshchenii," in Traditsionnaia dukhovnaia kul'tura narodov evropeiskogo
severa: Ritual i simvol. Mezhvuzovskii sbornik nauchnykh trudov, ed. V. V. Ivanov (Syktyk-
var: Syktykvarskii gosudarstvennyi universitet imeni 50-letiia SSSR, 1990), 82,112.
The Fool and the Tsar 219
has noted, this liturgy borrows its hymnology from the Elevation liturgy. It is
oriented primarily on the fulfillment of God's plan (promysl') through divine
corrective punishment followed by merciful intercession. It mixes hymns to
the Savior with hymns to His Mother. The episode begins when the people in
the Church are involved in this liturgy, and imploring God the Savior and his
Mother for protection and well being:222 "at the end of a matins service in the
cathedral when the deacons began to raise the honorable crosses [nachali
vozdigat' chestnye kresty] in the holy cathedral ... church of our Most Holy
Mother of God, ... and the [clergy] were singing litanies to Our Lord God and
his Most Pure Mother," Prokopii speaks aloud a "revelation": "'Repent,
brothers ... if you don't ... you will perish by fire and water together with
your city."223 Prokopii is here playing the role modeled by Andrew in "Com-
bat at the Forum." He is confronting the people with their failure to examine
their conscience even as they give lip service to repentance in their prayers.
The people avoid confronting their consciences by dismissing Prokopii as
mad. The fool however does not hold their failure to recognize his Wisdom
against them. Probably, he assumes that they do not know what they are
doing (like Andrew in a similar position at the forum). Although Prokopii
continues to publically weep, wail, and pray for the people, his actions are not
enough to fend off the corrective, clarifying judgment that they have brought
on themselves by their blindness. A terrible cloud arrives with thunder and
lightening that shake the earth. Shocked finally into recognizing the Wisdom
in the fool's prophecy, the people gather in the cathedral for collective repen־
tance, offering together with the fool fervent and lengthy prayers to the
Mother of God. Now they are analogous to the people praying in the early
morning hours at the Blachernae rotunda in the episode of Andrew's vision of
the Mother of God's intercession. Accordingly, the storm miraculously abates.
Healing myrrh from the Mother of God's icon has a similar protective sym-
bolism as the spreading of her veil over the faithful. In both cases, they are
signs of the people's merciful deliverance from a punishing catastrophe
thanks to the fool's pivotal role in the high priestly intercessory chain.
The hagiographer has used the Russian Savior liturgy to translate the
intercessory archetypes of VAndrew from the Elevation liturgy and the cult of
the Blachernae Mother of God into his national and local context. He has
mediated his debt to VAndrew and the Elevation liturgy through his own
traditions.224 Another example of this mediation occurs in circumstances that
ללל
On this feast in relation to cult of Constantine's Cross, see Pliukhanova, Siuzhety i
simvoly, 124-32, esp. 127. The kondak and ikos refer to the anguish of repentance, hope
for victory over enemies: "Tvorim bo nevidimym promyslom sokhraniaemi i pokrov-
от, vidimyia i nevidimyia vragi pobezhdaem. Tvoiiu presviatuiu Mater' imeiushe
Pom oshchni tsu."
223 VProkopii, 29 (my translation—P.H.).
224 An imitator of Prokopii of Ustiug, Prokopii of Viatka, himself enacts the whole
typology associated with non-recognition of the fool's Wisdom. He first punishes and
220 Priscilla Hunt
Panchenko made famous. He noted that Prokopii's act of divinizing with pok-
ers combined allusions to ancient pagan fire rituals and to a prophetic
Christian ritual, associated with harvest cults, performed by the archbishop
on the day of the Elevation of the Cross.225 Thus the hagiographer paid horn-
age to VAndrew and its paradigm of holy foolish spectacle by blending two
kinds of etiketnoe behavior, derived from liturgical and folk practice respec-
tively. This method is also indicative of shared mechanisms of cultural syn-
thesis that gave rise to the creative local variations within the "open tradition"
inspired by VAndrew and its Russian successors.226 * It provides evidence of at
least one Russian hagiographer's knowledge of VAndrew's mythological foun-
dations in the Elevation liturgy. It also testifies to an ability to rework та-
terials from a given cultural environment to give native expression to
VAndrew's typology.
This method of plot construction suggests the active use of typologies
from VAndrew and the icon of the Intercession in Russian holy foolish vitae.
These typologies were also a context in which the stereotypes of the fool's re-
lationship to the ruler emerged. The authority for this stereotype would be
the "Wrestling Parable," the episode in which Andrew, acting for Christ,
overpowers the "prince of the world" and his Ethiopian champion in a con-
test over sovereignty. When Andrew outwits the usurper king through verbal
and behavioral feints—buffoonery, word-play (punning or riddling), inappro-
priate boastings, exchanges of place, and sudden reversals—he is embodying
the Wisdom of the Elevated Cross. His buffoonery is part of a rhetoric of dis-
guise that is essential to his ability to disarm his rival's false pretenses and
gain the upper hand. This disguise is an essentially pagan language accessible
to the uninitiated that functioned as an inverted mirror of divine Wisdom.
Folk motifs and "carnivalesque" gestures were residues of a pagan mytho-
logical-ritual framework in which scenarios of symbolic mediation between
opposites took the form of playful, comic reversals, and inversions. In this
capacity, they fit into VAndrew's liturgical typology of spectacle as upside-
then intercedes, as when he kills a baby and then resurrects it. See Ivanov, Holy Fools,
325. For the presence of this typology of punishment and deliverance in narratives of
national providence, see Pliukhanova, "Antinomiia pobedy i gibeli v slovesnosti mos-
kovskogo perioda," in Siuzhety i simvoly, 73-83,177, 330.
225 Panchenko, "Laughter," 87-88, 91-93. See also Vlasov, "Kul't iurodivogo
were worked on by more than one person. A given vita tradition was subject to varia-
tion and change in content. Unabashedly transferring motifs and topoi from one vita
tradition to the next, these vitae were virtually "authorless." For repeating motifs, see
Panchenko, "Laughter," 102, 137-39, 140-42. They acted as a "collective subject that is
simultaneously the creator and the user of the work ... [that] gives voice to a message,
continually adapting it to suit the practical requirements of a given community." See
Garzaniti, "Bible and Liturgy," 138-39.
The Fool and the Tsar 221
לל7
Ryden, The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 1: 59. On an "antique" precedent, see L.
Kurke, Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of
Greek Prose (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), esp. 7-10. Kurke de-
scribes the use of similar material to construct loosely organized episodes in which a
former slave, Aesop, engages in a public performance of wisdom to avert civic dis-
aster, similar to Andrew.
For Russian examples of this behavior, and the use of riddles, see Panchenko,
"Laughter...," 128, 129-30,140,107-08. Vlasov ("Kul't iurodivogo Prokopiia," 89 n. 22)
notes that, while Prokopii may appear to be parodying church ritual when he carries
the pokers in his left hand in the church at night, he is only "externally" engaging in
magical behavior, since he is acting in a different context ([״povedenie] napolniaetsia
... inym soderzhaniem"). His source (Lotman and Uspenskii, "Novye aspekty," 162-
63) recognizes that the fool exists in his own sacred "microworld" ("okruzhen
sakral'nym mikroprostranstvom"), separate from his viewers. For this reason the
fool's behavior takes on an "inside out" character (kharakter perevernutosti) that is not
the same as Panchenko's folk parodical ritualized (igrovoe) behavior. On the contrary,
the fool’s behavior is in "didactic counterpoint" to the ways of the world, showing that
the latter represents the "antibehavior" (antipovedenie) and mere appearance while the
fool represents reality and seriousness.
229 Russian vitae differed in their level of sophistication and referentiality to the cul-
hire's core mythology. Each vita was a site of competing and overlapping traditions
and influences that ideally were integrated on a typological level. Unfortunately it is
difficult to study these differences in cultural self-consciousness and poetic integration
between holy foolish vitae because so few have been published. S. Ivanov's future
publication of the Vita of Simon of Iurevets will be interesting in this regard. See S.
Ivanov, "Simon of Iurievets and the Hagiography of Old Russian Fools," in this
volume.
222 Priscilla Hunt
Conclusion
230 у тигпег ׳Forest of Symbols: Aspects ofNdembu Ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1967), 27-32; Hunt, "Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of Kingship," 774.
231 Pliukhanova, Siuzhety i simvoly, 73-83,177, 330.
The Fool and the Tsar 223
ology inherited via VAndrew, Russian holy foolishness embodied the deepest
national ideals, and has maintained its relevance to the present day.
The Byzantine VAndrew reveals the mythological parameters of Russian
urban holy foolish spectacle and the predominantly liturgical nature of its eti-
ket, substantiating the model of medieval poetics advanced by Likhachev. In
VAndrew, the appeals to folk etiket functioned within this larger paraliturgical
system as a means of holy foolish disguise. VAndrew portrayed the fool as a
spectacle of the Wisdom of the Cross (not just of the Way of the Cross).232 It
embedded holy foolishness in the mystical-liturgical messianic rulership ide-
ology that the Muscovite empire inherited from Byzantium to justify its role
as the world-Christian empire. The ability of the Byzantine VAndrew to reflect
this cult offers the key to why Russian urban holy foolishness took root in
Russia and in a preeminently national form, without direct parallels in the
West.233
In sum, we have posited that Russian urban holy foolish vitae embedded
the stereotypical relationship between king and fool within a well-balanced
Christian system of spectacle expressing imperial Wisdom mythology. The
Byzantine VAndrew provided them with a model for the fool's role as the
emperor's alter-ego, and as his assistant on the home front in the battle for the
empire's deliverance from judgment. Muscovite versions of the Intercession
icon offered an archetypal expression of this role. Russian tradition developed
this role one step further when Russian fools fought to keep the ruler himself
faithful to his responsibilities as an initiate into Wisdom. The folk "carnival"
motifs and gestures used to express the fool's relations with the ruler were
meant to catch him off guard and reopen his spiritual eyes, in the same way
as Andrew's antics before the "prince of this world" in the "Wrestling Par
Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
I. Introduction
The role of holy fools in the Russian Orthodox hagiographic tradition has
been studied closely since the nineteenth century, and specialists, including
my colleagues contributing to this volume, have offered eloquent and com-
pelling explanations for their popularity and influence on Russian culture.1
Byzantine saloi and the later Russian iurodivye also appear frequently in medi-
eval East Slavic calendars of saints, and Byzantine and later Serbian saloi can
also be found in some medieval Serbian calendars. With the exceptions, how-
ever, of Symeon of Emesa,2 and, to some extent Theodore,3 holy fools rarely
appear in medieval Bulgarian calendars of any genre.4 Since Bulgaria differs
significantly from Russia in its attitude toward holy fools, it does not seem
amiss to examine why they did not become a part of the general calendar tra-
dition in Bulgaria as they did in Russia (and possibly, to a much lesser extent,
in Serbia).5
1 See the overview of the scholarly literature in this volume, pp. 15-40. I use the term
"Russian ״in this paper rather than "East Slavic" with respect to holy fools because the
role, or lack thereof, of holy fools in medieval Ruthenia has not yet been analyzed in
the scholarly literature.
2 Chronologically the first of the "classic" urban Byzantine holy fools, Symeon of
Emesa, lived in the first half of the sixth century. For an analysis of the events from his
vitae, see S. A. Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, trans. Simon Franklin
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 104-23.
There is no extant vita of this Byzantine saint, who is known only from calendars; see
Ivanov, Holy Fools, 148. On Theodore's identity, see Svitlana Kobets, "The Fioly Fool in
Russian Literature and Culture," chap. 6 (unpublished manuscript).
4 In this paper, the term "Bulgarian calendar" refers to a calendar composed within the
territory of the medieval Bulgarian state. Since there was no independent Macedonian
state at that time, this term as used here includes calendars from manuscripts that can
be identified as Macedonian on the basis of their orthographic or other features.
כThe role of holy fools in the Serbian hagiographic tradition appears to remain an
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,225-44.
226 Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
A major explanation for this situation, which Lazarova set forth in her
2004 article, was the lack of appeal in Bulgaria of the typical jarring holy fool
figure, with his outrageous violations of social mores.6 Indeed, Lazarova notes
that the vitae of the major Byzantine saloi Symeon of Emesa and Andrew of
Constantinople7 were translated in Bulgaria only in the fourteenth century,
during a period of flurried literary activity, and were incorporated into mis-
cellanies rather than appearing as independent literary texts.8 Few copies of
these translations appear to have been made in the first place, and the practice
of copying Symeon's vita appears to have lasted only about half a century or
less.9 Andrew was more popular in Bulgaria than Symeon, and Lazarova sug-
gests this is because the Bulgarian version of his vita omitted his holy fool
behavior and presented him solely as a spiritual instructor.10 Moreover, it ap-
pears to be no accident, if Lazarova is correct, that in contrast to the situation
in Russia and Serbia, no Bulgarian holy fools are recorded in extant Bulgarian
writings of any period.11
Lazarova's analysis of the vitae of Symeon and Andrew demonstrates
that the concept of the Byzantine holy fool held no special interest in
medieval Bulgaria. Ivanov observes that although the vitae of Symeon and
several other saints associated with holy fool status were translated in
Bulgaria, no original Bulgarian hagiographies exist of these saints.12 On the
6 On the negative official Byzantine attitude towards holy foolishness at the Council of
tine and Bulgarian Vitae," Scripta & e-scripta, no. 2 (2004): 355-89, here 364.
9 Ibid., 382.
10 Ibid., 379. Note also that in his discussion of Andrew's vita, Lennart Ryden states
that Andrew's holy foolishness is much milder than Symeon's, and not indecent;
Lennart Ryden, "The Holy Fool," in The Byzantine Saint: University of Birmingham
Fourteenth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, studies supplementary to Sobornost 5,
ed. Sergei Hackel (London: Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, 1981), 106-13, here
112. Svitlana Kobets has observed that the Bulgarian version of Symeon's vita omits
his characteristic behavior also (personal communication, 15 August 2010).
11Lazarova, "Holy Fools," 382. Ivanov observes that only one narrative in general
merit Okhridski: Sybrani sychineniia, ed. B. Angelov et al. (Sofia: Bylgarska Akademiia na
Naukite, 1977), 2: 592, cited in Ivanov, Holy Fools, 249.
14 See, for example, the discussion in Cynthia M. Vakareliyska, The Curzon Gospel, vol.
2, A Linguistic and Textual Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), chap. 6.
15The corpus includes approximately 300 East Slavic calendars, 47 Serbian calendars,
and approximately 90 Bulgarian calendars. The East Slavic part of the corpus consists
primarily of Loseva's collation of eleventh- through fourteenth-century Russian
menologies (О. V. Loseva, Russkie mesiatseslovy XI-X1V vekov [Moscow: Pamiatniki
istoricheskoi mysli, 2001]) and East Slavic calendars from Spasskii's calendar collation
(S. Spasskii, Polnyi mesiatseslov Vostoka, vol. 1, Vostochnaia agiologiia [Vladimir: Tipo-
Litografiia V. A. Parkova, 1901; repr., Moscow: Tserkovno-nauchnyi tsentr "Pravoslav-
naia entsiklopediia," 1997]). Except where otherwise indicated, the data presented
here from the Serbian and Bulgarian calendars are the product of my examination of
manuscripts and microfilms in archives in Bulgaria, Russia, and England. I am grate-
ful to the monks of the Hilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos for microfilm access to the
calendars in their collation at the Hilandar Research Library at The Ohio State
University.
228 Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
Several caveats are in order. First, the conclusions drawn in this paper
must be only tentative, pending further development of the electronic colla-
tion for which the corpus has been assembled.16 Without the opportunity to
conduct an electronic search of more than a small subset of the calendars in
the corpus at this time, it is quite possible that I have missed some listings of
holy fools in the corpus on non-traditional dates. Moreover, the survey of the
corpus in this paper is in no way scientific, since there are not equal numbers
of calendars in the corpora from each Slavic recension and genre (menologies,
menaia, prologues, typika, etc.), and the corpus includes calendars of varying
lengths. Second, the corpora are compiled primarily of eleventh- through
fourteenth-century manuscripts, because, as will be discussed below, after the
late fourteenth century, the contents of Slavic Eastern Orthodox calendars
tend to be more uniform, conforming more to the Jerusalem Typikon. This
means, of course, that the corpora lag behind the zenith of holy fool vener-
ation in Russia by at least a century.17
Finally, a relevant factor in the presence or absence of holy fools in any
medieval Slavic calendar is the genre of the calendar itself. Full prologues and
menaia, which generally list multiple saints for every day of the calendar
year, are more likely to include lesser-known saints than the short menologies
attached to gospels and apostoli that compose the majority of Slavic
calendars.18
16For information on the electronic calendar of saints project, see Cynthia M. Vaka-
sixteenth century, during the reigns of Ivan IV and, particularly, Fedor. In 1547, during
Ivan's reign, the Russian Church canonized the local holy fools Maksim the Naked
and Prokopii and Ioann of Ustiug; during Fedor's reign, in 1588, the Moscow holy fool
Vasilii the Blessed was canonized by the Church at a ceremony attended by the patri-
arch of Constantinople. For a detailed discussion of this period, see Ivanov, Holy Fools,
chap. 10.
18 1
Therefore the general absence of prologues and menaia from Loseva's 2001 collation
of saints' entries from East Slavic calendars does not give an accurate picture of the
frequency of holy fool commemorations in East Slavic calendars; nor should it, of
course, since Loseva's purpose in compiling the collation was specifically to compare
the contents of gospel menologies vs. apostolus menologies. There are three main
genres of medieval calendars of saints. Menologies are year-length calendars which
specify the commemoration of saints on specific dates, together with scriptural read-
The Absence of Holy Fools from Medieval Bulgarian Calendars 229
Despite these major limitations, however, the results from the corpora
offer some support for the thesis that the general absence of holy fools from
Bulgarian calendars during the chronological period in question has to do
with the difference in primary sources for the Russian and Serbian calendar
traditions vis-a-vis the Bulgarian calendar tradition.
ings, or lections, for some or all of those dates. Menologies can be found at the back of
continuous gospels (tetraevangelia), which contain the full texts of the four Gospels in
succession, and continuous apostoli, which contain the full texts of the books of the
Acts and Epistles in succession. Some psalters (collections of the Psalms) contain a
menology mid-way through the manuscript.
In contrast to the continuous gospels and apostoli, lectionary gospels and apostoli
are composed of discrete lections in the order in which they are to be read during the
cycle of moveable feasts (i.e., those feasts that do not occur on the same calendar date
each year) and on specific dates of the church calendar year. The menology section of a
lectionary follows the set of lections for moveable feasts. Each lection in the menology
portion of the manuscript is preceded by a header specifying the calendar date for the
lection and the saint or saints to be commemorated on that date. Menologies can be
either long, or full, specifying commemorations for every calendar date of the year, or,
much more commonly, short, specifying only the dates of more major feasts. Even
among short menologies, however, there is wide variety in some of the dates and
saints listed, and in the number of dates provided. Most short menologies list almost
all the calendar dates in the first half of the church calendar year, from September
through March, and considerably fewer dates in the second half of the year. Menol-
ogies that include a large number of dates in the second half of the year, but not all the
dates in the calendar year, can be considered "semi-short" menologies (see Vakareliy-
ska, The Curzon Gospel, 2: 226).
Unlike menologies, prologues (collections of saints' lives in calendar date order),
and metiaia (calendars for one to six months, containing services) overlap directly with
hagiographic traditions by containing either vitae or brief identifying descriptions of
saints. These genres generally did not undergo significant changes in the selection of
vitae when they were copied, but they include additional saints without vitae for each
date, and these lists, which can contain ten or twenty saints for a given date, were
subject to the same sort of amendment as menologies were.
19 The calendars cited are identified in the appendix. Unless otherwise specified, any
Of course, part of the reason for the low incidence of holy fools in any
Slavic calendar tradition during the eleventh-fourteenth centuries is that holy
fools in general, and particularly the later Russian holy fools, became popular
in the late fifteenth century and achieved their greatest recognition by the
Russian Church in the sixteenth century, when, Ivanov argues, they seemed
to be perceived by the society as a form of divine control over the secular
rulers of the country.20 Not only was this era much later than the period of
inquiry in this paper, but because Bulgaria and Serbia were part of the Otto-
man Empire after the late fourteenth century, the concept of holy fools as
monitors of state authorities would not have the relevance in those lands that
it had in Russia as a Christian autocracy.21 Moreover, the earliest East Slavic
holy fool to appear in Russian calendars was the thirteenth-century Prokopii
of Ustiug, whose cult began in Russia only in the fifteenth century, too late to
be known and included in fourteenth-century Bulgarian calendars.22 And, not
least, as Kobets has observed, the vehement opposition of the Church to the
neo-Manichean Bogomil movement in the Balkans during the tenth-fifteenth
centuries was a likely contributor to the unpopularity of holy fools in Bui-
garia. Bogomilism had begun in Bulgaria, and its members' socially unaccept-
able behavior had much in common with that of the holy fools 23
Nevertheless, the Ottoman occupation cannot explain the lack of interest
in Byzantine holy fools in Bulgaria before the mid-fourteenth century. Ivanov
has noted that Andrew's cult had emerged in the mid-twelfth century in
Russia. There it was closely tied to the feast of the Intercession of the Veil of
the Mother of God (Pokrov), which celebrates the appearance of the Theoto-
kos to Andrew at the Church at Blachernae in Constantinople, where her veil
was kept.24 Considering the flow of manuscripts in both directions between
Bulgaria and Russia during the eleventh-fourteenth centuries, theoretically
there would have been ample opportunity for Andrew to reach Bulgarian cal-
endars during the 150 years between the genesis of Andrew's cult in Russia
and the end of the fourteenth century.
20 Ivanov, Holy Fools, 284, 303; see also S. Ivanov, "Holy Fools and Political Authorities
in Byzantium and Russia," in Acts of the XVIIIth International Congress of Byzantine
Studies: Selected Papers. Main, and Communications. Moscow, 8-15 August 1991, vol. 1,
History, ed. I. Shevchenko, G. Litavrin, and W. Hanak (Shepherdstown, WV: Byzantine
Studies Press, 1996), 266-68; and P. Hunt, "The Fool and the Tsar: The Vita of Andrew of
Constantinople and Russian Urban Holy Foolishness," in this volume.
21 Relevant here is Ivanov's observation that no holy fools appear in periods when the
in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 21.
The Absence of Holy Fools from Medieval Bulgarian Calendars 231
h/pikon
Polnyi mesiatseslov
232 Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
The Studite Typikon (ST) was developed in the eleventh century for the
Studion Monastery in Constantinople by Patriarch Alexis, and is extant only
in Church Slavonic, in six Slavic manuscripts; so far no manuscripts contain-
ing the Greek text have been found. A synthesis of material from the ST, CT,
and revised JT, known as the Neo-Sabaite Typikon, was adopted by Studite
monasteries in Constantinople by the twelfth century, and then spread to
monasteries in Greece, Southern Italy, and Georgia.29 Urban monasteries in
Constantinople continued to follow the strict Studite rite into the thirteenth
century, but elsewhere in Byzantium more lenient Sabaitic practices were
adopted and the Studite Typikon went into decline.30
In the Slavic Eastern Orthodox lands, however, the ST continued on, in
one incarnation or another, for at least another 150 years. It was translated
into Church Slavonic by Theodosius of the Caves Monastery in Kiev in the
second half of the eleventh century, and Studite menaia were the only menaia
used throughout Rus ׳and Muscovy from the twelfth century into the first
half of the fourteenth century. During the fourteenth century, as in Byzan-
tium, the ST was gradually replaced in Russia by the synthesized Neo-
Sabaitic Typikon, which had been translated into Church Slavonic in the late
1360s, originally for use at the Monastery of the Archangel Michael (Chudov
Monastery) in the Moscow Kremlin.31 A combined Athonite-Studite Typikon,
first created for the Great Lavra Monastery at Mt. Athos, and no longer extant
in Greek copies, was brought to Italo-Greek monasteries in Southern Italy in
the first half of the tenth century, and was translated into Bulgarian Church
Slavonic in the twelfth century or earlier.32 Textual fragments from the
Athonite-Studite Typikon can be found in some thirteenth-century Bulgarian
liturgical manuscripts,33 34 and Western saints from Italo-Greek calendars that
were based on the Athonite-Studite tradition found their way into Bulgarian
calendars as late as the fourteenth century, including the ZT, 882, C, and B.’4
kovskii, Tipikon Patriarkha Aleksiia Studita v Vizantii i na Rusi (Moscow: Izd־vo Moskov-
skoi Patriarkhii, 2001), 427.
32
Pentkovskii, Tipikon Patriarkha Aleksiia Studita, 425.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.; Vakareliyska, The Curzon Gospel, vol. 2, chap. 6.
The Absence of Holy Fools from Medieval Bulgarian Calendars 233
The ST reached Serbia by an indirect route also, via the later Greek Ever-
getis Typikon (ET), over which it had a large influence.^ The ET was used as
the basis for the typikon that the Serbian saint Savva wrote for the Serbian
Hilandar Monastery at Mt. Athos, which he founded in 1198. Dmitrievskii
notes that the Hilandar Typikon of St. Savva shows no influence from the JT,
with which the Hilandar monks were apparently unfamiliar until the igutnen
Gervasius ordered a copy to be made in 1331 for liturgical use.35 36 Savva later
created a different typikon for the Studenitsa Monastery in Serbia that was
also based quite closely on the ET and even included lexical Graecisms.37 The
Studenitsa Monastery was the first monastery in Serbia, founded in 1198 by
Savva's father, Grand Duke Stefan Nemania, the founder of the Serbian state,
who also became a monk at the Hilandar Monastery, taking the monastic
name Symeon. The typikon of the Studenitsa Monastery held great impor-
tance for the Serbian Church as a symbol of its autocephaly from the Ohrid
Patriarchate, which was granted in 1219 by the Patriarchate of Constantinople
despite opposition from the Bulgarian Church, and which lasted until 1346.38
With the exception of the isolated Athonite-Studite commemorations found in
some Bulgarian calenders, the ST and ET were not major influences on the
Bulgarian tradition. For this reason, holy fool commemorations that are
distinguishing features of the ST or the combined ST/ET tradition should be
either rare or non-existent in Bulgarian calendars.
Unlike the Jerusalem and Studite monastic typika, the Constantinople
Typikon was an imperial typikon designed for urban Constantinopolitan
priests and churches. As such, the typikon contained liturgical instructions for
processions and other rites conducted by urban priests both outside and
within specific churches. Indeed, the calendar to the first edition of the CT is
called the Synaxarion of the Great Church precisely because the instructions
focus on the calendar dates and locations within Constantinople for annual
synaxes, or gatherings of clergy and laity to commemorate a more major
saint, usually at a specific church dedicated to that saint.39 The second edition,
Novine, 1986), 5.
סי׳
The term synaxarion also refers, more commonly, to a different type of year-length
calendar: either a calendar that specifies only the lections for each week of the Church
year, or a calendar that specifies saints, but not synaxes, for each calendar date listed.
The latter calendar type is referred to in this paper as a menology. Unfortunately, the
distinction between menology/menologion and synaxarion is not yet standardized in
the scholarly literature, so that scholars who use the term synaxarion for a calendar
234 Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
the Menology of Emperor Basil, significantly revised the CT, not only by
adding and removing a large number of saints, but also by changing the
calendar structure from a synaxarion (in the sense the term is used in the CT,
i.e., a year-length calendar of saints that specifies which saints listed have syn-
axes devoted to them), to a regular menology, which lists the names of saints
to be commemorated on calendar dates of the year, together with scriptural
readings for some dates, but which does not necessarily indicate which saints
have synaxes or special liturgical services dedicated to them.40
By the period of Latin rule over Byzantium after the Fourth Crusade
(1204-61), the Constantinopolitan clergy found it difficult to continue the
complicated offices of the Constantinople Typikon, and gave them up in favor
of the monastic version of the offices in the synthesized Neo-Sabaite Typi-
kon.41 However, until the fifteenth century, most Bulgarian full calendars
continue to reflect heavy Bas influence, and a minority of twelfth- through
fourteenth-century calendars also preserve archaic commemorations and
even textual formulae from the CT that had been later dropped from Bas.42
Archaic CT entries do not appear either in any Serbian calendars in my cor-
pus, or in any East Slavic calendars in Loseva's and my corpora. The excep-
tion is the East Slavic Ostromir Gospel of 1056-57, which closely reflects a
Bulgarian antigraph. Hence we can expect any inclusions and exclusions of
holy fools that are unique to the CT among the major Byzantine typika to be
mirrored in Bulgarian calendars, but not in Serbian and Russian ones.
Since Slavic scribes commonly compiled calendars from more than one
antigraph, particularly when using a short calendar as the basis for a full cal-
endar, no individual Slavic calendar is an exact copy in translation of any one
of the three major Byzantine typika.43 Moreover, the migration of manuscripts
between and among Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia, and the editing and up-
dating of individual calendars, resulted in the contamination and synthesis of
but these mentions are simply textual formulae that have been preserved from the CT.
41 Taft, "The Synaxarion," 276.
42 Examples of archaic CT entries found in multiple Bulgarian calendars of this period
46 The term menology as used here means a year-length calendar which specifies saints
for specific calendar dates as well as scriptural readings, or lections, for some or all of
those dates. The term gospel includes both continuous gospel manuscripts, which
contain the full texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in succession, and lectionary
gospels, which are composed of Gospel lections in the order in which they appear in
the Church year. Similarly, the term apostolus, or Acts and Epistles, includes both con-
tinuous and lectionary apostoli. Lectionary gospels and apostoli can be short, contain-
ing the lections for Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, or long, containing lections also
for the weekdays in the Church year.
47Loseva, Russkie mesiatseslovy, 389.
48 ^
Nevertheless, Symeon's role as a holy fool is downplayed in the Syrian and Greek
traditions, including both editions of the Constantinople Typikon, which venerate him
together with his companion the desert hermit John the Confessor, who was not a holy
fool. See F. G. Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints (St. Louis: B. Herder,
1924), 918.
The Absence of Holy Fools from Medieval Bulgarian Calendars 237
Andrew and others (1 October), which does not appear in Serbian or Bulgar-
ian calendars in the corpora, may have functioned for all intents and purposes
in most Russian calendars as the commemoration of Andrew. It is not surpris-
ing that Andrew is absent from the Bulgarian calendars and from all but three
Serbian calendars, because neither Andrew nor the Intercession of the Veil is
commemorated in any of the major Byzantine typika that form the original
basis for the Slavic calendars.49
Paul the Corinthian is found on the 6 November Greek date in two Bulgarian
calendars, mss. 897, a menaion containing prologues that was dated to the
late fourteenth century, and P58, a Bulgarian prologue dated 1339.50 Loseva
does not list this saint in any East Slavic calendars on this date, but lists him
in eleven East Slavic menologies on the alternate 28 February date. Spasskii
reports Paul on 28 February in 239, an eleventh-century Russian prologue. No
Serbian calendars in the corpora list Paul on either of these dates. The only
calendar listing Paul on the alternate 29 February date is a Russian continu-
ous gospel dated to the fourteenth century, in Loseva's collation.51 Neither
does Paul appear in either edition of the Constantinople Typikon, the Jerusa-
lem Typikon, the Studite Typikon, or the Evergetis Typikon.
Isidora of Egypt (1, 9, 10 May) appears on 1 May in a single Serbian prologue
(ms. 1040, mentioned above) but not in any Bulgarian or Russian calendars in
49 Spasskii states that the feast was established in Russia in the first half of the twelfth
century (Mesiatseslov Vostoka, 3: 406). In Byzantium, the veil of the Theotokos at Bla-
chernae (in Constantinople) was among the most important Christian relics. Its cult
and legends about its protective powers can be traced back to 626, when the Church of
the Theotokos in Blachernae was spared by the invaders. Depictions of the Theotokos
holding her protective veil over the praying congregation are frequently found in
medieval Italian churches (Svitlana Kobets, personal communication, 15 July 2010).
However, outside Russia, Andrew was not depicted as part of the Intercession: even in
Ukrainian icons and mosaics, Andrew and the other holy fools are often excluded
from the depiction of all the saints surrounding the Theotokos, a composition which
substitutes for the standard Intercession composition (ibid.).
50 Note again that prologues likely are a special case, being essentially collections of
vitae. 6 November is also the date for Paul the Confessor, a much more widely vener-
ated saint; thus any single listing for this date of Paul without a descriptor must be
assumed to be Paul the Confessor and not Paul the Corinthian. Paul the Corinthian
appears in calendars described as solos beginning in the tenth century, but only the
first sentence of his vita is extant (Ivanov, Holy Fools, 142-43). On the depiction of Paul
in the 11 November canon dedicated to him, see ibid., 144-47; see also Ivanov's article
"St. Paul the Corinthian, Holy Fool," in The Heroes of the Orthodox Church: The New
Saints, 8th-16th c., ed. E. Kountoura-Galake (Athens: Ethniko Idruma Ereunon, Insti-
touto Buzantinon Ereunon, 2004), 39-46.
51 "Sn64־," i.e., Sin. 64, State Historical Museum, Moscow (Loseva, Russkie mesiatse-
slovy, 281). The presence or absence of Paul on this date is largely dependent, of
course, on whether or not the calendar includes a listing for leap year.
238 Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
antine saints generally considered to be holy fools; she was never canonized as a holy
fool in the Byzantine tradition, but her vita is found in later Russian compilations. For
an account of her original vita, as related by Palladius, see Ivanov, Holy Fools, 51-53.
53 This saint too was not officially recognized as a holy fool. For a brief discussion of
Museum in St. Petersburg; and Fad-56, RGB Fad. 56, at the Russian State Museum in
Moscow, an apostol dated to c. 1417 (Loseva, Russkie mesiatseslovy, 126, 356).
55 See, for example, Sinai no. 1096, a twelfth-century Greek Jerusalem Typikon contain-
ing a full menology, kept at the Sinai Monastery Library and transcribed by Dmitriev-
skii in Opisanie, 20-64, here 50.
56Oh describes Theodore accurately as n p n b m i o y -0- e w а о p оу ш1и1А1и1ъшош1июу
c a, but ZT describes him erroneously as •в-Лх/рл 1лк a, clearly indicating that the
ZT scribe, and possibly one or more of his predecessors, did not realize that this Theo-
dore was the holy fool. Significantly, ZT's close relative F72 has dropped Theodore
from this listing.
57Sof. Obix. (Sophia Obikhodnik), Russian National Library, St. Petersburg, Sof. 1052
of 27 February. Note that 25 February is the date for Theodore in the CT; he
does not appear in Bas or in the Studite or Neo-Sabaite typika. It would not be
surprising if Theodore's presence in the two East Slavic fourteenth-century
calendars were found to be a reflection of a Bulgarian predecessor, although
this issue remains to be examined.
It is noteworthy that the Byzantine holy fools make only a very modest
showing even in the calendars to the Byzantine typika themselves. Magdalino
notes, for example, that although the vita for Andrew was probably written in
the tenth century, he does not appear in the CT until a single late recension
lists him for 28 May.39 Ryddn has observed that new Byzantine saints of the
ninth and tenth centuries no longer included holy fools, penitents, or Desert
Fathers.59 60
Bessarion and Theodore, who appear in the early Jerusalem and Constan-
tinople typika, respectively, were dropped from later Greek calendars and,
consequently, were absent also from most Slavic calendars that were based on
later Greek versions. Thus, for example, it is not that surprising that Theodore
is absent from С, B, and most other Bulgarian calendars that closely preserve
the textual tradition of the archaic CT tradition, because these Slavic calendars
were based largely on eleventh-century Italo-Greek menologies from the CT
tradition, and are not direct apographs, or descendants, of the CT itself.61 This
fact also supports the hypothesis I have proposed elsewhere that at least
some, if not most, Bulgarian scriptoria had a specific Slavic calendar anti-
graph based on the CT or Bas that was treated as the "house version." This
antigraph was copied to the extent possible, even if this meant filling in the
blank dates in a short "house" calendar with saints from a different calendar
source and even though it would have been simpler to substitute a full calen-
dar from a different tradition.62
59 Paul Magdalino, "'What We Heard in the Lives of the Saints We Have Seen with
Our Own Eyes': The Holy Man as Literary Text in Tenth-Century Constantinople," in
The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter
Brown, ed. James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1999), 83-114, here 96, 90 n. 19, citing H. Delehaye, Synaxarium Ecclesiae
Constantinopolitanae, Propylaeum ad AASS Novembris (Brussels, 1902). Magdalino does
not identify the late redaction of the CT that lists Andrew or provide a century for it.
60 Ryden attributes the absence of further Byzantine saints in these three categories to
the muting of the earlier sharp contrast between monasticism and secular society. The
former had been the background for holy fools and Desert Fathers, while the latter had
been the backdrop for penitents. L. Ryden, "New Forms of Hagiography: Heroes and
Saints," in The Seventeenth International Byzantine Congress: Major Papers, Dumbarton
Oaks!Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., August 3-8, 1986 (New Rochelle, NY:
Aristide D. Caratzas, 1986), 537-51, here 520.
61 See Vakareliyska, The Curzon Gospel, vol. 2, chap. 6.
62 Ibid., 284-85,293-95.
240 Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
IV. Conclusions
Appendix
Manuscript References
Dec Decani Gospel, RNB Gil'f. 4, Russian National Library, St. Peters-
burg: tetraevangelion, western Bulgaria, second half of thirteenth
century.
13 NBKM no. 13, Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia, no.
13: menaion with prologues, Bulgarian, dated to the thirteenth
century.
113 NBKM no. 113, Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia:
menaion covering 29 June 29 through 31 August, Bulgaria, thir-
teenth century.
146 Khlud. no. 146, State Historical Museum, Moscow: menaion for
October, Serbia, dated 1388.
239 Sin. Tip. 239, State Historical Museum, Moscow: prologue, Rus-
sia, thirteenth-fourteenth centuries.
502 NBKM no. 502, Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia:
lectionary apostol, Bulgaria, fourteenth century, full menology.
882 NBKM no. 882, Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia: lee-
tionary apostol, Bulgaria, probably fourteenth century.
897 NBKM no. 897, Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia:
menaion for November with prologues, Bulgaria, dated to the
late fourteenth century.
981 NBKM no. 981, Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia:
menology, Bulgaria, fifteenth century.
1040 NBKM no. 1040, Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia:
prologue for second half of the church year, Serbia, second half
of fourteenth century (folios begin at 31 March).
244 Cynthia M. Vakareliyska
1295 Sin. Tip. no. 390, Russian State Archive for Archaic Documents,
Moscow: verse prologue, Greek, for September-March.
1370 GIM Khlud. no. 188, Russian Historical Museum, Moscow: verse
prologue, Serbian, for March-August.
Abstract
Svitlana Kobets
The Tale of Isaakii the Caves Dweller, ״Slavic and East European Journal 22: 3 (1978):
259; G. P. Fedotov, Sviatye drevnei Rusi (X-XVII st.) (New York: Izdanie russkogo pra-
voslavnogo Bogoslovskogo Fonda, 1959), 147; Marcia A. Morris, Saints and Revolution-
aries: The Ascetic Hero in Russian Literature (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1993), 71; and S. B. Chernin, "Povestvovatel'naia struktura slova о chernoreztse
Isaakii v sostave PVL," Vestnik Udmurtskogo universiteta, no. 7 (2005): 85. These scholars
consider Isaakii as an ascetic and not a iurodivyi.
3 The matter of canonizations of Kiev Caves Monastery saints is complex and poorly
documented. In the case of Isaakii, specific canonization documents and references are
unavailable. Before Metropolitan Makarii's canonizations of 1547-49, Isaakii was ven-
era ted as a monk (Russ, chernorizets) of the Kiev Caves Monastery. As such he is
mentioned in the fifteenth-century Kiev Caves Monastery sinodik along with nine
other Kiev Caves Monastery saints; see Elena Vorontsova, Kievskie peshchery: Pute-
voditel' (Kiev: Amadei, 2005), 30. His relics are in part located in the Near Caves of the
monastery; see Evgenii E. Golubinskii, Istoriia kanonizatsii sviatykh v russkoi tserkvi
(Moscow, 1903; repr., Famborough, UK: Gregg International Publishers, 1969), 205. In
Makarii's Chet'i Minei Isaakii does not have a separate vita. His story appears together
with other Kiev Caves Paterik texts under 13 May as an attachment to the vita of St.
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,245-68.
246 SVITLANA KOBETS
the Russian paradigm of foolishness for Christ has been continuously de-
nied.4 Scholars voice the contention that in Russia the genre of the holy fool's
vita fully evolved and came into its own only in the fourteenth-sixteenth
centuries,5 when the vitae of urban fools in Christ (e.g., Ioann Ustiuzhskii, Isi-
dor Rostovskii)6 were first created in the Novgorod and Moscow lands.7
Consequently, first Novgorodian and then Moscow hagiographers were ac-
claimed as the initiators of the Russian tradition of holy fools' hagiography.
Meanwhile the vita of St. Isaakii of the Kiev Caves Monastery has been seen
as an abortive attempt at creating an indigenous Russian vita of a iurodivyi8
and proof of the discontinuity between the Novgorod-Moscow and Kievan
Rus ׳periods in the history of Russian iurodstvo.9
Ivanov proposes to view Isaakii's vita as a reflection of the Byzantine tradition. See
Ivanov, Holy Fools, 253-54. Ewa Thompson suggests that Isaakii exhibited shamanic
behaviors. At the same time she does not include Isaakii in the list of Russian holy
fools. See Thompson, Understanding Russia, 7-8, 76-77.
5 See Fedotov, Sviatye drevnei Rusi, 191; Ivanov, Holy Fools, 258; V. O. Kliuchevskii,
Drevnerusskie zhitiia sviatykh как istoricheskii istochnik (Moscow: Nauka, 1988), 112;
Ioann Kologrivoff (Ieromonakh), "Les 'fous pour Christ' dans l'hagiographie russe,"
Revue d'ascetique et mystique 25 (1949): 243; Challis and Dewey, "Divine Folly," 258.
6 See the discussion of the origins of Russian holy foolery in Ivanov, Holy Fools, 245-84.
7See Kliuchevskii, Drevnerusskie zhitiia, 112; and S. A. Ivanov, Vizantiiskoe iurodstvo
foolishness begins in the North and North-East of Russia. It would be wrong to assert
that the holy foolishness of the Kievan period was entirely imitative in character while
the ׳Northern ׳variety was completely independent of the Byzantine model. On the
one hand, in the image of Isaakii of the Kiev Caves Monastery there are enough indig-
enous traits. On the other hand, almost all Russian hagiographies of holy fools up to
the nineteenth century are imitative. Nevertheless, it is impossible to overlook the fact
that after Isaakii there was not even one holy fool in the South Russian lands, and the
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 247
This vita indeed considerably differs from Byzantine and Northern Rus-
sian vitae of iurodivye both in style and composition and in its choice of topoi.
Unlike both Byzantine and Northern Russian vitae, Isaakii's vita did not treat
iurodstvo as the central issue. Thus, in stark contrast to St. Andrew of Con-
stantinople (tenth century) or St. Vasilii Blazhennyi (the Blessed) of Moscow
(sixteenth century), St. Isaakii of the Kiev Caves Monastery is not primarily a
holy fool, nor is he devoted to the exploit of iurodstvo unconditionally. At
some point in his ascetic career Isaakii leaves holy foolishness behind, which
is highly unusual both for Byzantine and medieval Russian traditions, where
iurodstvo tends to be a lifelong commitment.10 St. Isaakii's hagiographer fur-
ther deviates from the traditional hagiographic pattern (found, for example,
in the vitae of Vasilii Blazhennyi and Isidor Tverdislov) when he neither
openly extols iurodstvo as the most difficult and glorious Christian ascetic
practice nor makes it central to the biography of his hero. As will be shown in
this paper, the devotional, ascetic, and social goals that this saint pursues
have a number of connotations that are in line with paradigmatic Byzantine
holy foolishness, yet overall his iurodstvo does not conform to the canonical
(Byzantine) models.11 Contrary to them, his ascetic quest is not defined by
holy foolishness and at some point of his life he even abandons foolery alto-
gether. Arguably, his odd behaviors suggested madness and demon posses-
sion, which possibly posed a problem for his acceptance by the community
and for the positive interpretation of his ascetic stance and person altogether.
This situation accounts, at least in part, for the idiosyncrasies of Isaakii's por-
trayal. Furthermore, he was canonized as an ascetic and a reverend (Russ.
prepodobnyi) and has never been listed in church records as a holy fool.12 The
phenomenon of North Russian holy foolishness is separated from its Kievan counter-
part chronologically. Evidently, it would be correct to claim that there were indige-
nous reasons for the emergence of holy fools in Novgorod, Ustiug, and Rostov. These
reasons are characteristic of the Russian cultural and religious environment. It was the
hagiographic canon that made them resemble Byzantine holy fools" (Vizantiiskoe iurod-
stvo, 142).
10 Byzantine hagiographies claim the holy fool's unconditional commitment to his as-
Arkhimandrit Leonid, Sviataia Rus', ili svedeniia 0 vsekh sviatykh i podvizhnikakh blago-
chestiia na Rusi (do XVIII veka) obshche i mestno chtimykh (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M.
Stasiulevicha, 1891); L V. Vladyshevskaia and V. L. Sorokina, eds., Russkie sviatye, pod-
vizhniki blagochestiia i agiografy (Moscow: Russkii mir, 1992); Slovar' istoricheskii 0 svia-
248 SVITLANA KOBETS
The story about the life and deeds of St. Isaakii13 (d. 1090)14 was written in the
eleventh century in the Caves Monastery, the leading monastery in Kievan
Rus.' Initially, it was a part of The Primary Chronicle (Povest' vremennykh let)15
where it was located under year 1074. Later on, in the thirteenth-fourteenth
centuries, when the Kiev Caves Paterik16 (KCP) was created, Isaakii's entry
became a part of it. While the authorship of most of the Paterik is distributed
dered into English as St. Isaakii of the Kiev Caves Monastery, Isaakii the Recluse, and
Isaakii the Caves-Dweller.
14 In the Russian Orthodox Church calendar Isaakii's feast day falls on 14 February.
Isaakii's Prologue entry is on 27 April. The Slavonic text of Isaakii's vita, in the Second
Cassian redaction, can be found in the 1991 reprint of Dmytro Abramovych's critical
edition of Kyievo-Pechers'kyi pateiyk (Kiev: Vseukrains'ka Akademiia nauk, 1930; repr.,
Kyiv: Chas, 1991), 185-89, part of the series Pam'iatky movy ta pys'menstva davn'o'i
Ukrainy, vol. 4. An English translation of this redaction of St. Isaakii's vita is found in
The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, trans. Muriel Heppell (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1989), 205-10. All the quotations are taken from
these two editions. The English translation will be accompanied by the original cita-
tion. Each will be followed by the corresponding page number.
15This opinion was first advanced by A. A. Shakhmatov, who, together with Dmytro
Abramovych, reconstructed the text of the first edition of the Kiev-Caves Paterik. See
О. V. Tvorogov, "Povest ׳vremennykh let," in Slovar' knizhnikov i knizhnosti Drevnei
Rusi, vol. 1, Xl-pervaia polovina XIV v., pt. 1, ed. D. S. Likhachev (Leningrad: Nauka,
1987), 337-43.
16The term paterik was given to the compilation only in the fifteenth century and ini-
tially was not found in its title. See Richard W. F. Pope, "O kharaktere i stepeni
vliianiia vizantiiskoi literatury na original'nuiu literaturu iuzhnykh i vostochnykh
slavian: Diskussiia i metodologiia," in American Contributions to the Seventh Interna-
tional Congress of Slavists, ed. Ladislav Matejka, 2 vols. (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), 2:
469-93. For a general discussion of the Kiev Caves Paterik, see L. A. Ol'shevskaia,
"Paterik Kievo-Pecherskii," in Likhachev, ed., Slovar' knizhnikov i knizhnosti Drevnei
Rusi, vol. 1, Xl-pervaia polovina XIV v., pt. 1, 308-13.
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 249
between Nestor, Simon, and Polikarp, the author of the chapter about Isaakii
(Discourse 36)17 largely remains a matter of dispute.18 Besides attributing the
possible authorship to the above three monks, some express the view that
Isaakii's hagiographer is Abbot Feodosii's disciple, Silvestr, who arrived at
the Kiev Caves Monastery at the age of 17 and who was supposedly the au-
thor of the entries for the years 1051, 1074, and 1091.19 Yet another scholarly
view posits that Isaakii's vita was written by none of the above hagiographers
but by an anonymous author.20 I side with the latter opinion.
As we approach the KCP entry about Isaakii's life and person we have to
note its genre peculiarities. Within the great variety of hagiographic genres,
which exhibit quite different structures and narrative modes, Isaakii's vita is
representative of a paterik tale, which can be described as a short biography
or an anecdote from a monk's or nun's life. A canonical hagiography is
marked by formal structure, extensive citations from the scriptures, strong
laudatory component, detailed account of the saint's biography, reliance on
topoi,21 and adherence to literary conventions characteristic of the historical
period which it represents.22 The paterik tale, on the other hand, is a much
less formalized, more succinct, and often entertaining narrative. Most impor-
tantly, paterik stories do not target expression of the character's holiness but
relate events from the monk's life regardless of the final verdict. The consid
17
Abramovych, Kyievo-Pechers'kyi pateryk, slovo 36, 185-89; and Heppell, trans., The
Paterik, Discourse 36, 205-10.
1Я
For an overview of the scholarship on the subject of authorship of the tale about
Isaakii, see О. V. Tvorogov, "Nestor," in Likhachev, ed., Slovar' knizhnikov i knizhnosti
Drevnei Rusi, vol. 1, Xl-pervaia polovina XIV v., pt. 1, 274-78; and L. A. Ol'shevskaia,
"Polikarp," in ibid., 370-73. See also Fedotov, Sviatye drevnei Rusi, 49-55; Fedotov, The
Russian Religious Mind, 1: 142-56; Muriel Heppell, "Isaakij the Caves-dweller and the
׳Jurodstvo' Tradition," in Heppell, trans., The Paterik, 228-30; Heppell, "The Authors
of the Paterik," in The Paterik, xxiii-xxix; and Chernin, "Povestvovatel'naia struktura,"
82-95. Chernin offers a succinct up to date overview of scholarship on the authorship
of Isaakii's tale and rightfully notes that scholars mostly concern themselves with the
issues of this work's authorship and chronology.
19 This opinion is voiced, for example, by the Russian scholar A. G. Kuzmin. See Iu. A.
Manson, "Studies in Russian Hagiography during the Period of the Second South
Slavic Influence" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1968). See esp. chap. 4, "Narrative
Structure in the New Hagiography," 96-171.
22 For a detailed discussion of hagiographic typology, see Hippolyte Delehaye, The
erable oral aspect of paterik stories allows for their qualification as monastery
folklore.23
It is unknown why the story about Isaakii, which in The Primary Chronicle
comprises part of a chapter about four early Kievan monks (Damian, Eremiia,
Matfei, and Isaakii), got separated from the other three accounts (Discourse
12) in the Kiev Caves Paterik.24 Chemin rightfully points to the thematic unity
between these four stories,25 identifying their central theme as the strange,
remarkable nature of the described ascetics, who are miracle workers, clair-
voyants, and prophets. The scholar further notes that Isaakii's strangeness is
expressed by the outstanding rigors of his ascetic pursuits. He indeed shares a
number of traits with other representatives of ascetic strangeness found in the
Kiev Caves Paterik. They may be arrogant, overly meek, fallen ascetics, or
ones who found their individual forms of asceticism by trial and error.26 Yet
we cannot overlook an even more consequential aspect of Isaakii's strange-
ness. He is called a iurodivyi and to some extent presented as one. In this
regard he is unique in the Kiev Caves Paterik. It is very likely that it was
Isaakii's uniqueness as a iurodivyi that brought about the dissociation of his
story from those of other "strange" ascetics. His portrayal as a iurodivyi, how-
ever, is far from paradigmatic.
In his vita, Isaakii is first introduced as an ascetic and not as a holy fool. Yet it
is noteworthy that the very first line declares that Isaakii's vita exemplifies
humility, the cornerstone of iurodstvo: "Just as gold is tried in fire, so men are
tested in the crucible of humility" (Iako v" ogni iskushaetsia zlato—chelovetsi
priiatni v peshchi smirenia; 185/205). This opening mention of humility pro-
vides a thematic link to the ensuing story about holy foolery.
Isaakii, formerly a rich merchant named Chern',27 takes the first step to-
ward humility when he fulfils the evangelical mandate to rid oneself of one's
wealth (Luke 18: 22, Matt. 19: 21) 28 He strips himself of the power secured by
of the Early Kievan Caves Monastery," in Christianity and the Eastern Slavs, vol. 1, Slavic
Cultures in the Middle Ages, ed. B. Gasparov and R. Hughes (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993), 69.
27
It must be noted that Isaakii comes from the northern city of Toropets, which, at
least textually, connects him with the future Northern Russian fools for Christ.
28 This hagiographic topos is an important first step in an ascetic life, e.g., the vita of
Antony. For a discussion of this topos, see Martin Dimnik, "Sviatosha—the First
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 251
money and becomes the first in a line of Russian holy fools who come from
high positions and wealth.29 The text, however, implies that he did not com-
pletely humble himself by absolute poverty, as can be seen in the hagiog-
rapher's choice of the word povele (commanded) in the description of Isaakii's
preparation for his ascetic life: "He ... told someone to buy him a goat and to
skin it, and put the skin on his hair shirt, so that the raw hide dried on him" (i
povele kupite sobe kozlishch ׳i odrati ego mekhom״, i vozvleche na via-
sianitsiu, i os"she okolo ego kozha syra; 186/206). Thus, Isaakii does not buy
the goat and prepare the skin himself but employs someone else's services.
In the first part of his vita, Isaakii's asceticism is extreme and extravagant
rather than humbling. Even as a neophyte he pursues the utmost rigors, seal-
ing himself in a cave and remaining there for seven years in prayer and fast-
ing. His self-mortification, however, does not bring the desired results of
ascetic apathea and enlightenment, but, quite to the contrary, leads him into
the sin of pride, which Christianity regards as the most alienating from God.
As the hagiographer relates Isaakii's failure, he employs imagery and topoi
found in the vitae of failed ascetics—the ascetics who were tricked, overpow-
ered, and abused by demons—whose stories were abundantly represented in
ascetic compilations from the translated Byzantine corpus.30 For example,
Prince-Monk of Kievan Rus', ״in Love of Learning and Devotion to God in Orthodox
Monasteries, ed. Miroljub Jokovic, Daniel Collins, M. A. Johnson, and Predrag Matejic
(Belgrade: Raska skola; Columbus: Ohio State University, Resource Center for Medi-
eval Slavic Studies, 2006), 1: 260.
29 '
Such a transition looks especially drastic in the vita of a holy fool and was widely
employed in this genre. In Byzantine hagiography, Symeon of Emesa comes from a
wealthy family, while Andrew of Constantinople leaves behind the comforts of life in
the family of an appreciative and sympathetic master. The Russian hagiography of
holy foolishness reiterates this topos. Its representatives include Mikhail of the Klopsk
monastery, who was formerly a nobleman; Prokopii of Ustiug, who was a wealthy
merchant; Nikola Kochanov, who was from a well-off family; and Vasilii Blazhennyi,
who was from a well-to-do family.
30For discussions of the translated Byzantine Pateriks, see Francis Thompson, "The
Nature of the Reception of Christian Byzantine Culture in Russia in the Tenth to Thir-
teenth Centuries and Its Implications for Russian Culture," in Belgian Contributions to
the 8th International Congress of Slavists, Zagreb, Ljubljana, September 1978, Slavica Gan-
densia, vol. 5 (Blandijnberg, Belgium: Department of Slavonic Philology, 1978), 107-31;
Pope, "O kharaktere i stepeni vliianiia," 469-93; Zlatar Zdenko, "The Transmission of
Texts and Byzantine Legacy to Kievan Rus' (a Re-Examination of the Typology of Cul-
ture)," Australian Slavonic and East European Studies 2: 2 (1988): 1-27; and E. P. Eremin,
"K istorii drevne-russkoi perevodnoi povesti," Trudy otdela drevnerusskoi literatury 3
(1936): 37-57. See also the following entries by N. I. Nikolaev in Slovar' knizhnikov i
knizhnosti Drevnei Rusi: "Paterik Azbuchno-Ierusalimskii," 1: 299-302; "Paterik Egipet-
skii," 1: 302-08; "Paterik Sinaiskii," 1: 316-21; and "Paterik Skitskii," 1: 321-25.
252 SVITLANA KOBETS
Palladius's Lausiac History (Russ. Lavsaik) relates the tale of Ptolemy,31 who
wandered and, like Isaakii after his failure, estranged himself from the
Church; about a nun who fell;32 and about Valens33 who, like Isaakii, saw the
Devil disguised as the Savior. Palladius also mentions the failed ascetics
Stephen, Ecarpius, and Heron, who "fell into shameful libertinism."34 In addi-
tion to Palladius's works, the Pro log ue35—which was translated into Old
Church Slavonic specifically for the Kiev Caves Paterik, whose rule assigned
readings from this compilation36 —contained a number of such stories as well.
For example, a Prologue entry for 9 January is called "About how the devil
easily conquers those who are prideful,"37 and an entry for 10 July is called
"An edificatory story about the pride-stricken ones." Other Prologue entries
address this issue from another angle, showing how the ascetic can confront
demons and the Devil. For example, the 1 December story is "About the
monk Iora (who defeated the Devil on a chariot)."38 The theme of ascetic
failure and the dangers of demonic temptations is also prominent in a number
of important individual hagiographies, including those of St. Antony of Egypt
31 Robert T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History (New York: Paulist Press,
1964), 87.
32 Ibid., 150. Entry 69, "The Nun Who Fell and then Repented," relates the tale of a nun
who fornicated, got pregnant, gave birth to a baby, and then prayed to God for this
child to be dead (cf. the vita of Pelageia Ivanovna Serebrennikova, a nineteenth-cen-
tury fool for Christ, who also prayed for her children to be taken by God). Neverthe-
less, after this nun had repented she, according to her vita, became very pleasing to
God.
33 The personality of Valens, as well as events of his life, reveal a number of parallels
with those of Isaakii. For a discussion of those parallels, see H. C. Kozak, "Litopysna
opovid ׳pro prepodobnoho Isakiia Pechernyka v konteksti stanovlennia 'Zhyttia
obshchoho ׳v Kyivo-Pechers'kii obyteli," in Mohylians'ki chytannia: Zbirnyk naukovykh
prats', ed. V. M. Rekeda and V. M. Kolpakova (Kyiv: Pul'sary, 2001), 167-68.
34 Meyer, Palladius, 126.
35See E. A. Fet, "Prolog," in Likhachev, ed., Slovar' knizhnikov i knizhnosti Drevnei Rusi,
by Athanasius39 of Alexandria and St. Symeon the Stylite, which were among
the earliest translated vitae.40
Isaakii's ascetic failure is in line with this genre. When one night Isaakii is
visited by demons disguised as angels, he neither questions nor discerns the
diabolic nature of his visitors and, without crossing himself, hurries to accept
"the honor" of worshiping with them the Lord Jesus Christ, another dis-
guised demon. Thereby Isaakii demonstrates vainglory, his prideful convic-
tion of his righteousness, and his need for appreciation. As soon as the monk
prostrates himself before the "Lord," he is seized by the demons, who start
shouting, "Isaakii, you are ours!" (206). They begin playing musical instru-
ments, inducing Isaakii to dance, which he does until dawn, when he col-
lapses in exhaustion. In the morning he is found near death:
In the morning, at daybreak, the time drew near for him to eat some
bread, and as usual Antonij came to the window and said to him,
"Give me a blessing, Father Isaakij!" But he heard nothing. Antonij
spoke several times, but there was no reply, and he said to himself,
"Can he have passed away?" He sent to the monastery for Feodosij
and the brethren. The brethren came and dug out an opening where
the entrance was stopped up, and took hold of him. Thinking he was
dead, they carried him out and put him down in front of the Caves.
They saw that he was alive, and Feodosij said that this was the
demons' work. They laid him on a bed, and the holy Antonij looked
after him. (207)
Заутра же бывшю дьни и приспевшю вкушению хлеба, прииде
Антоше по обычаю въ оконцю и глагола ему: «благослави, отче
Исакые», — и не бе гласа, ни послушашя. И многажды глагола
Антоше, и не бысть гласа, и рече в собе: «егда преставилъ ся
есть»? и посла въ монастыръ по Феодоаа и по братсю.
Paterik in general. Among the fallen ascetics are Nikita, Ioann, and Fedor. These tales,
however, were written later than Isaakii's and were probably modeled on or oriented
to Isaakii's story. See the discussion of Isaakii's story as one of the models for the later
Kiev Caves Paterik entries in Dmytro Chyzhevskii, History of Russian Literature from the
Eleventh Century to the End of the Baroque (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 95-96. Thus,
Isaakii's excessive self-confidence is reiterated in the vita of Nikita. The structural and
thematic similarities between these vitae are many: both ascetics initially have overly
ambitious goals and both are tempted by the demons. Finally, in both vitae the as-
cetic's fall is followed by the recovery through a different task or a form of asceticism,
which facilitates his personal fulfillment as a holy person. It is noteworthy that while
neither Nikita nor Isaakii abandon asceticism, they do adjust their ascetic goals and
means.
254 SVITLANA KOBETS
Learning that Antonii had gone to Chemihiv, Feodosii went out with
the brethren, took Isaakii, carried him to his own cell, and looked
after him there. For Isaakij was weakened in mind and body and
could not turn over on his side, stand up, or sit down; he just lay
there on one side. (207)
41 See Fedotov's discussion of ascetic models, represented in the Kiev Caves Paterik by
Antonii and Feodosii (Sviatye, 152-57). Also see Kozak's discussion of the strife in
early Kievan Christianity between these ascetic tendencies, which were represented by
conventional monastic collective living and the individualistic asceticism of anchorites
("Litopysna opovid'," 161-69). Chemin seconds the above opinions as he calls Isaakii's
vita a pamphlet championing communal living ("Povestvovatel'naia struktura," 92).
42 It is noteworthy that all these vitae offer either explicit criticism of solitary living
(tales about Isaakii and Nikita) or deemphasize it, thereby offering implicit criticism
(tale about Lavrentii). Further criticism of Antony the anchorite can be seen in the im-
plication of his faulty mentorship.
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 255
ceived Antonii's blessing for his venture as a recluse, even though he was just
a neophyte. Thus his mentor both misguided him and violated the rule of
gradual advancement in the individual's ascetic life and practices.
Antonii's fear of Prince Iziaslav's wrath and his decision to flee in order to
save his life can also be seen as implied criticism of the practice of hermetic
seclusion. As Peter Brown convincingly argued in his famous article "The
Rise of a Holy Man in Late Antiquity," the paradigmatic holy man exhibits a
state of grace by being fearless in the face of the world's threats and persecu-
tions.43 Antonii's fear, however, runs counter to this topos of grace as power.
Antonii's flight can be seen against the backdrop of not-yet-quite-Christian
Rus׳, where the princes do not yet acknowledge the holy men's authority.44
At the same time, Christian awareness about the holy man's authority is
prominent in those parts of the Kiev Caves Paterik which deal with the vita of
Feodosii. He, as an archetypal saint,45 is a staunch defender of justice and
truth. As the leader of the Kievan monastic and lay communities, Feodosii is
not only fearless but also defiant. He gives spiritual counsel to Prince Iziaslav
and challenges Prince Sviatoslav as a usurper of the throne.
It is under the care of Feodosii that Isaakii starts his recovery two years
later. During this period Isaakii relies on Feodosii to regain and relearn the
skills of everyday living and return to normal life. The hagiographer carefully
describes Feodosii's actions and strategies, showing close familiarity with the
situation to which he was, most likely a witness.46 His detailed description of
how Feodosii taught Isaakii to eat is an example:
They sat him down apart from the brethren and put some bread in
front of him, but he did not want to take it, so they put it in his hand.
Feodosij said, "Put the bread in front of him, but do not put it in his
hand. Let him eat it himself." For a whole week he did not eat but
after some time he looked around and put the bread in his mouth and
thus learned how to eat. (207-08)
... и посажаху его кроме братиа, полагаху пред нимъ хлеб, и не
хотяше взяти его, они же влагаху въ руку его! Феодосш же рече:
43 Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," Journal of
Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101.
44 Later on in Russian history and culture, the holy man, and especially the fool for
Christ, acquired great authority over the rulers. The vitae of such influential saints as
Sergii of Radonezh or such holy fools as Nikola Salos and Vasilii Blazhennyi portray
them as figures of power.
45 See Fedotov's discussion of Feodosii as Russia's archetypal saint (Russian Religious
Mind, 2:121).
46 Scholars agree that Isaakii's hagiographer renders first-hand information. See, for
Isaakii is taught anew how to eat, walk, and speak, which is emblematic
of rebirth and initiation into a new life. It will be a life of asceticism marked
by strangeness and foolishness bordering on madness. At this stage of his life,
Isaakii pursues humility with the determination of the iurodivyi fighting
demons by means of self-denigration. In line with the paradigm of foolishness
for Christ, he purposefully attracts abuse and scorn both from his brethren
and the laymen, engaging audiences far beyond the monastery walls:
In his new role, Isaakii, makes a classical move toward ascetic humility
when he finds his place in the kitchen, a typical locale for a holy fool.47 There
he does the most menial work, and, like a iurodivyi, is continuously mocked
and teased by his brethren. Some of Isaakii's actions are eccentric (e.g., his ob-
session with dressing lay children in monk's garb), but all in all his holy fool-
ishness is very mild and basically amounts to the pursuit of asceticism with
an emphasis on humility. Isaakii's miracle-working ability testifies to the sue-
cess of his venture. Thus he evokes his brethren's awe when he catches a
47 In Pateriks this motif is illustrated by Ephrem the Syrian's Isidora, whose story later
reappeared in Palladius's "The Nun Who Feigned Madness," as well as by the tale
about Euphrosynos the Cook. Their lowliness and humility are defined by their posi-
tion in the kitchen. These personages and saints are considered within the monastic
paradigm of iurodstvo and secret sanctity. See Ivanov, Holy Fools, 51-52, 53-55, 56-59.
It is noteworthy that Palladius's work was available in Old Church Slavonic transla-
tion as early as the eleventh century. Euphrosynos's (Russ. Efrosin) story was trans-
lated later. It is probable that these texts were known to the author of Isaakii's vita in
their Greek originals. At the same time, the kitchen or the bakery traditionally served
as "rehabilitation facilities" for fallen monks. This trend is illustrated in a number of
Prologue stories (see, for example, Prologue entries for 9 January and 4 April).
Another Kiev Caves Paterik story that engages the kitchen as a humbling locale is the
story about Abbot Feodosii, who as a youth assumed the humble (in his mother's
opinion, humiliating) job in a bakery.
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 257
raven with his bare hands.48 He also walks barefoot on a flaming stove, there-
by extinguishing the fire, and endures suffering by extreme cold whilst pray-
ing. As he describes these feats, Isaakii's hagiographer further develops
themes of ascetic humility and "strangeness" and coins Isaakii's image as a
fool for Christ.
Presumably, the entire range of topoi of holy foolery was available to Isaakii's
hagiographer through the translated Byzantine corpus, which contained ac-
counts about monastic and urban holy fools, stories about eccentric ascetics,
wanderers, and beggars as well as stories about the clandestine holiness of
secular individuals.49 Understandably, Isaakii's hagiographer chose not to re-
iterate the extremes of folly as featured in the vitae of the archetypal urban
holy fools St. Symeon of Emesa (seventh century) and St. Andrew of Constan-
tinople (tenth century). For example, such outrageous deeds as gorging on
sausages during Lent and in front of a church (Symeon) or congregating
openly with prostitutes (Symeon, Andrew), blasphemous mischief in the
church (Symeon) or attacks against clergy (Symeon, Andrew) are not in Isaa-
kii's repertoire. In the recently baptized Kievan Rus׳, where the process of
Christianization was still at the stage of inception, such accounts would have
been seen as subversive rather than edifying, if not by the monks then at least
by the wider reader and listener. Only in the fifteenth-seventeenth centuries,
when Russian Christian consciousness became sufficiently sophisticated to
expect edificatory messages in the holy fool's subversion, the vita of the ar-
chetypal holy fool St. Andrew of Constantinople and arguably the vita of
Symeon the Fool of Emesa50 began to serve as hagiographic models for —and
became instrumental for the emergence of—the vitae of Novgorodian and
Moscow iurodivye. Yet in eleventh-century Kievan Rus', urban holy foolery
could not but be rejected by Isaakii's hagiographer in favor of the monastic
model.
до
The raven, a bird associated with death and mediation with the other world, is sym-
bolic of both the iurodivyi and the monk.
49 For a comprehensive discussion of the Byzantine repertoire of stories about holy
foolery and adjacent motifs and phenomena (e.g., secret sanctity, wandering), see
Ivanov, Holy Fools, 11-173.
50 The question of availability to Eastern Slavs of this holy fool's vita remains open, so
is the question of this vita's impact on the Russian tradition of holy foolishness. The
sole study in this important field of enquiry is an article by Iokhanes Rainkhart
[Johannes Reinhart], "Staroblgarskiiat prevod na zhitieto na Symeon Iurodivi: Teksto-
logiia i leksika," in Srednovekovieto v ogledaloto na edit1 filolog: Sbomik v chest na Svetlina
Nikolova, Kirilo-Metodievski Studii 18 (Sofia: Kirilo-Metodievski Nauchen Tsentr,
2009), 309-22.
258 SVITLANA KOBETS
The monastic model of holy foolery supplied the author of Isaakii's vita
with topoi necessary to fulfill his twofold task: to describe Isaakii's life and
edify its reader.51 The hagiographic themes and models evident in Isaakii's
vita include the perils of ascetic life, ascetic failure, sickness as grace, combat
with demons and feigned foolishness. Thus Isaakii shares numerous features
with Egyptian and Palestinian playful and unconventional ascetics and
monks. Like Isidora's holy foolishness, his own folly is associated with the
kitchen; like Serapion Sindonite, Makarii the Great, and numerous desert
abbas, Isaakii is an eccentric ascetic, and, as was typical of the monastic fool,
he assumes the exploit of iurodstvo after having found conventional asceticism
inadequate (cf. the vitae of Symeon and Isidora). All these models were avail-
able through the translated pateriks, which included the Lausaik History, the
Spiritual Meadow, the Egyptian Paterik, and the Prologues. Isaakii's
hagiographer liberally drew on the stock elements of ascetic and holy fool's
vitae (e.g., work in the kitchen; walking barefoot; bizarre, unpredictable
behaviors and adverse reactions of the community), aptly adopting these
building blocks for his purposes.
The presence in Isaakii's vita of a strong demonic component reflects his
hagiographer's indebtedness to Egyptian demonology, where vices were per-
sonified as demons whereas ascetic pursuits, achievements, and failures were
presented as encounters with them.52 Thus, Isaakii's conversations with de-
mons, which explain to the reader his reasons for undertaking iurodstvo, have
models in the Egyptian tradition.53 There are also Egyptian hagiographic pre-
cedents for the scene of Isaakii's ascetic fall to the vices of pride and vain-
glory, presented as his unwitting worship of the demons. Holy foolery al-
lowed Isaakii to overcome his failings and achieve complete humility, thereby
defeating demons and attaining holiness.
To show this progress, Isaakii's vita engages the topos of holy foolery as
the most efficient means against the demons. This feature is representative
both of monastic and urban hagiographic patterns. Yet only the latter type of
vita explicitly makes it the domain of foolery for Christ. Thus, in Leontius's
vita of Symeon of Emesa, the iurodivyi declares that one can become a fool for
Christ only after completely vanquishing his demons, or, in ascetic terms,
genre peculiarities of Isaakii's vita, the scholar rightly argues that the hagiographic
glorifying of the saint's holiness was not a goal for Isaakii's hagiographer nor for the
genre of paterik tale in general. The latter pursues the edification of the reader rather
than the glorification of the saintly protagonist.
52 See David Brakke's discussion of Egyptian demonology in Brakke, Demons and the
Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2006), 127,131, esp. 134-45.
53 Ibid., 136.
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 259
after having achieved a complete apathia.54 In the vita of St. Andrew of Con-
stantinople, the protagonist is crowned by Christ and initiated to the path of
holy foolishness only after having vanquished demons. The vitae of Symeon
and Andrew establish the paradigmatic image of the holy fool as the perfect
ascetic, making the topos of the holy fool's victory over demons his ascetic
prerogative.55 In the Kievan and Russian traditions, Isaakii's vita is the first to
reflect this convention.
At the same time, Isaakii's vita deviates from the Byzantine models of
holy foolery in several important ways. After having vanquished the demons,
Isaakii stops playing the fool and resumes his life as a conventional monk. He
thus trespasses against the topos of iurodstvo as a life-long commitment:
They (the demons) said, "You have beaten us, Isaakii!" ... Henceforth,
as he himself said, he had no more trouble with them, although they
had fought with him for three years. Then he began to live even more
austerely, fasting and keeping vigils. (209)
И рекоша: «Исаакые, победилъ ны еси» ... И оттоле не бысть ему
пакости никоея же от бесовъ, яко же и сам поведаше, яко ее
бысть ми, рече, за 3 лета брань. (189)
54Derek Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's "Life" and the Late Antique City
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 148.
5 See the above examples from the vitae of Symeon and Andrew. This understanding
of foolery for Christ can also be traced to its early representations found in the Syrian
Book of Steps and the Ecclesiastical History by Evagrius Scholasticus.
56 In Ephraem the Syrian's writings this character is identified as Isidora.
57 Meyer, Palladius, 96-97.
58 In the Northern Russian tradition of fools for Christ, the explanation of holy foolish-
only then begins playing the fool. Leontius makes a point of explaining why
to successfully achieve his impersonation as a madman, Symeon spends time
with real lunatics and emulates their actions. Isaakii's vita, on the other hand,
states that he played the fool (nachal iurodstvovati), yet it does not dwell on the
ascetic meaning of his foolery. Nor is Isaakii called a fool for Christ. Isaakii's
iurodstvo proceeds from his actions and behaviors and not the other way
around. Quite to the contrary, the text emphasizes his identity as an ascetic,
whose vita has an episode of holy foolery.59
In line with Isaakii's interpretation as an ascetic, his death is devoid of the
holy fool's drama of non-belonging. A paradigmatic Byzantine holy fool dies
the dramatic death of an outcast. Then his role as a secret saint becomes
revealed to the community, which repents its blindness to his holiness and
starts revering the new saint. At that time, however, his corpse disappears as
it is taken to heaven following the path of Jesus Christ's ascent. The congrega-
tion, therefore, is left to atone for its blindness to and repent its mistreatment
of the iurodiuyi, while remembering and relating the stories of his/her marvel-
ous life, miracles, and death.60
Isaakii's death drastically deviates from this pattern. It neither reveals his
incognito as an ascetic who was feigning madness, nor does it have anything
to do with his holy foolery! In the end, his holy foolery is not even mentioned,
which implies yet again that it was limited to a distinct period of his life.
Isaakii dies as an ascetic recognized for his righteousness and as a well-
regarded member of the monastic community:
He was ill for seven days and then departed to the Lord in the full-
ness of faith, without ever deviating from the path. The superior,
Ioann, and all the brethren laid out his body and gave him an honor-
able burial in the Caves with the holy fathers. (209)
Разболевся в печере, и несоша его в манастыръ больна суща, и
тако поболе до осми дьни, и не преминущим путем к Господу
отъиде въ добре исповедати. Игуменъ же 10анъ и вся opaTia
опрятявше тело его, погребоша честно съ святыми отьци в
печере. (189)
39Morris, Saints and Revolutionaries, 43; Challis and Dewey, "Divine Folly," 259;
On the secret saint model, see Ivanov, Holy Fools, 108-12. Also see Ryden's discussion
of the Byzantine hagiography of the holy fool, including his discussion of the paradig-
matic ending, in "The Holy Fool," in The Byzantine Saint: University of Birmingham
Fourteenth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, studies supplementary to Sobornost 5,
ed. Sergei Hackel (London: Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, 1981).
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 261
While Isaakii's death and funeral — those of a monk—differ from the Byz-
antine hagiographic pattern of holy foolery, they also anticipate the future
Russian model, which does not embrace the holy fool's post-mortem disap-
pearance. In a number of Novgorodian and Muscovian vitae of urban fools,
the iurodivyi's recognition and veneration as a living saint often culminates in
an honorable funeral. This topos amounts to a Russian hagiographic innova־
tion, which was exemplified in a great number of vitae of monastic (Michael
of Klopsk, Feofil of the Kiev Caves Monastery, Pelageia Ivanovna Serebren-
nikova of Diveevo) and urban iurodivye (Basil the Fool of Moscow and Ioann
the Big Cap)61 as well as in iconographic tradition.
Thus, Isaakii's vita significantly differs from the established Byzantine models
of holy foolery, evoking the question whether Isaakii was a iurodivyi. As we
discuss this question we will turn to the second—holy foolish —part of the
tale about Isaakii and venture to assess the factual material that it offers.
As a rule, hagiographic topoi remove actual historical reality from the
narrative, stripping the saint's vita of concrete details and rendering it hack-
neyed. They would often make the iurodivyi look like a generalized formula
and a symbol rather than a real-life individual. Yet, notwithstanding its over-
all indebtedness to stock hagiographic models, and unlike those hagiographic
models (e.g., the vitae of Isidora, Andrew, and Symeon), Isaakii's vita cannot
be reduced to a literary concoction.62 Written by an eyewitness, it brings the
reader into contact with the real life of a personalized and rather unique char-
acter. In contrast with hagiographic convention revealing the truth about the
fool's saintly identity, Isaakii's vita retains the ambiguity characteristic of holy
foolish phenomenology. It challenges the reader, just as if he were in front of
a real iurodivyi and not an image whitewashed by the hagiographer's brush.
On the one hand, the text views Isaakii's foolish, odd behaviors (e.g., tireless
work for the cooks and the brethren; motionless standing in the church) as an
ascetic exploit of holy foolery as well as a strategy in the ongoing combat with
demons:
61 In the vitae of Northern Russian holy fools, the iurodivyi's death and funeral acquire
a completely new meaning and significance. They become the triumph of the fool's
holiness, the time of his recognition as a saint and the time of acquisition of his relics,
which play an important role in the holy fool's cult. The holy fool's funeral was ex-
plicitly described in eulogies and vitae as well as in iconography.
,2According to Ivanov, the Byzantine fools for Christ Symeon of Emesa, Isidora,
Andrew of Constantinople, and Alexis the Man of God, are "literary fictions" (Holy
Fools, 147). Arguably, their vitae are loosely based on the lives of real individuals, yet
legendary, hagiographic components eventually took over and in the final editions be-
came overwhelming. The final versions of these vitae are extremely formulaic and
formalized pieces.
262 SVITLANA KOBETS
Isaakij said, "Devil, you have already deceived me once, when I was
sitting in a solitary place. Henceforth I shall not shut myself up in the
Caves, but by God's grace I shall vanquish you in the monastery." He
again put on a hair shirt, with a tight tunic over it, and he began to act
like an idiot. He began to help the cooks and work for the brethren.
At matins he would enter the church before everyone else and stand
firm and motionless. (208)
Исакый же рече: «се уже прельстилъ мя еси, дiaвoлe, седяща на
едином месте, отселе уже не имамъ в печере затворитися, но
имамъ тя победити благодарю бож1ею ходя въ манастыри». И
пакы облечеся въ власяницю и на власяницю свиту тесну, и нача
уродство творити, и нача помогати поваром и работати на
братию и на заутреную преже всех входя и стоаше крепко и не-
подвижимо. (187)
63See the information available on the site of the Heart and Stroke Foundation,
http://www.heartandstroke.eom/site/c.iklQLcMWJtE/b.3483933/ (accessed 23 July
2010).
64On stress as a major risk factor for stroke, see the followingarticle: http://www.
medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=87585 (accessed 23 July 2010)
65See John. Nolte, ed., The Human Brain: An Introduction to Its Functional Anatomy, 5th
ed. (St. Louis: Mosby, 2002), 262-90. In medicine, a coma (from the Greek коора кота,
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 263
physical and mental functions are usually interrupted and the victim can lose
the ability to move, speak, see, remember, and reason.66 Isaakii's disabilities,
which include all of the above, continue challenging him when he reemerges
from his prolonged comatose state (he spent two years unable to move lying
down on his back!) and his rehabilitation starts. As medical research shows,
complete recovery from a stroke is unusual and, quite in line with this see-
nario Isaakii, who eventually regains all his bodily functions, deviates from
the behavioral norm for the rest of his life.67
Isaakii's vita presents his affliction as a truly humbling experience (he
completely relies on his caretakers) and a facilitator in his ascetic quest.68 It
literally puts and keeps Isaakii down, signifying defeat and lowliness, which
facilitate his pathway to God. His hagiographer relies on the hagiographic
topos of illness as a blessed state, which precludes adequate participation in
the life of the world and thereby brings one closer to God. Hence it is viewed
as a path to salvation. This meaning of illness is found in another Kiev Caves
Paterik vita, the vita of Pimin,69 whose sickness is the foundation for his right-
eousness ("Because of his sickness, he was free from every kind of impurity
from his mother's womb and was a stranger to sin" [Pimin" bolen" rodilsia i
v״zraste, i togo radi neduga chist byst ׳ot vsiakya skverny i ot utroby materiia
ne pozna grekha; 200/179]) and who opts to cherish rather than get rid of it
("He was not praying for recovery but for his illness to get worse" [ne
proshashe zdravia, no prilozhenia bolezni; 200/180]).
Pimen's and Isaakii's cases are paralleled as their Kiev Caves Paterik
entries are placed side by side. Pimen's illness fits the hagiographic canon and
fines as a generic psychiatric term for a mental state involving a "loss of contact with
reality." People experiencing psychosis may report hallucinations or delusional be-
liefs, and may exhibit personality changes and disorganized thinking. This may be
accompanied by unusual or bizarre behaviour, as well as difficulty with social interac-
tion and impairment in carrying out the activities of daily living.
68The humbling experience of a sick or disabled person can be visually rendered
through his nakedness, which is symbolic of vulnerability and parallels the deliberate
nakedness of the fool for Christ. See, for example, scenes of healing of the sick in the
frescoes of The Life of St. Peter in Cappella Brancacci, Florence.
69Discourse 35. The venerable and long-suffering father Pimin and those who wish to
be tonsured before their death. Heppel, The Paterik, 200-05; Abramovych, Kyievo-
Pecherskii paterik, 179-84.
264 SVITLANA KOBETS
[H]e put out his candle, as was his habit. Suddenly, a light shone in
the Caves, like sunlight, bright enough to blind a man. Two very
handsome youths came up to him, with their faces shining like the
sun, and said to him, "Isaakij, we are angels, and there is someone
coming who is Christ, with His angels." Isaakij got up and saw a host
of demons, whose faces were brighter than the sun. One of them was
shining in their midst more than the others, with rays issuing from
his face. They told him, "Isaakij, this is Christ! Fall down and pros-
trate yourself before Him."
Isaakij did not understand that this was demonic activity, nor did
he remember to cross himself. He came out of his cell and prostrated
himself before the demons' handiwork as though before Christ. The
demons shouted and said, "Isaakij, you are ours!" They led him into
his cell and made him sit down, and they sat round him. The cell be-
came full of demons, and the gallery of the Caves too. One of the
demons, the one they called Christ, said, "Take pipes and lutes and
drums and strike them, and Isaakij will dance for us!" They struck
their pipes and lutes and drums and began to play. Having exhausted
him, they left him almost dead, and having mocked him, they cursed
him and went away. (206)
Единою же ему седящю, по обычаю, и свещю угасивппо, внезапу
светъ восья, яко отж солнца восья, в печере, яко зракъ вынимая
человеку, и поидоста 2 уноши к нему красна, и блистаста лице ею
акы солнце, и глаголюща к нему: «Исакие! Be есве ангела, а се
идегь к тобе Христосъ, падъ, поклонися ему». Онъ же не разуме
бесовьскаго действа, ни памяти прекреститися, выступя и по-
клонися, акы Христу, бесовьску действу. Беси же клукнуша i
реша: «нашь еси, 1сакие, уже». Введше и в кельицю, и посадиша
и, и начата садитися около его, и бысть полна келья ихъ и улица
печерская. И рече единъ отъ бесовъ, глаголемый Христосъ: «въз-
мете сопели, бубны и гусли, и ударяйте, ать ны Исакий спля-
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 265
70
For the discussion of various aspects of the phenomenon of possession, see
Christine D. Worobec, Possessed: Women, Witches, and Demons in Imperial Russia
(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001).
71 As was stated earlier, stroke victims are taught anew all their physical and social
functions.
266 SVITLANA KOBETS
tance of Isaakii's person and quest.72 Therefore, both the hagiographer's work
and the later compilers' inclusion of Isaakii's vita into the Kiev Caves Paterik
testify to efforts to understand and embrace an ascetic and hagiographic
model of iurodstvo by the monastic community.
In the tale about Isaakii the topoi of holy foolery were arguably employed
for the interpretation of Isaakii's mental derangement. In medical terms,
Isaakii's obsession with dressing children in monastic garb qualifies him as a
psychotic, yet the hagiographic framework interprets the same behavior as a
holy fool's cryptic message and his ascetic provocation of audience abuse.
Isaakii's predilection for solitude as well as his unconditional commitment to
his daily routine can be seen both as ascetic prerogatives and as evidence of
obsessive compulsive disorder. Isaakii's success in catching a raven brings to
mind the symptoms that result from damage to the right hemisphere of brain,
which include judgmental difficulties, impulsive behavior, and failure to
realize one's own limitations. However, when Isaakii's hagiographer relates
this, most likely real life event, he conceptualizes it along the lines of Old and
New Testament hagiographic topoi, evoking the imagery of the prophet
Elijah's raven and the prophet Daniel's lions.73 Yet even more this episode is
reminiscent of the Egyptian desert tradition, which relates how an abba once
mockingly told his disciple to go to the desert and catch a hyena, which the
obedient disciple did.74 The abba's awe before his disciple's deed is compara-
ble to the brethren's awe as they see Isaakii catch the raven. Strange as these
"catchers'" actions are, in the ascetic and hagiographic context they are seen
as superhuman and saintly. They amount to a miracle-working topos, which
is further linked to the topos of the saint's harmony with or control over na-
ture, including the taming or overpowering of wild animals.75 It goes without
saying that in his efforts at Isaakii's rehabilitation, the hagiographer most of
all needed a miracle, i.e., a statement of Isaakii's holiness. The episode with
the raven provided one.
Abramovych argues that Isaakii's treatment by the hegumen and brethren testifies
to the dubious status of the exploit of holy foolery among the Kievan monastic com-
munity: "Отношение к нему игумена и братии показывает, что подвиг уродства
не понимали и не одобряли" (Abramovych 192 п. 22).
73 See ту discussion of the holy man's communion with nature as a sign of grace in
Svitlana Kobets, "From Fool to Mother to Savior: Poetics of Orthodox Christianity and
Folklore in Svetlana Vasilenko's Novel-Vita Little Fool (,Durochka), ״Slavic and East
European Journal 51:1 (2007): 87-110.
74This apophthegma is found in Patrologiae ursus completes. Series Latina, ed. J.-P.
Migne, vol. 65, col. 240, quoted in Ivanov, Holy Fools, 38.
75 Examples can be found in the vitae of the prophet Elijah, who was helped in the
desert by a raven, and the prophet Daniel, who was unharmed by lions. See also nu-
merous paterik stories about tamed lions and Makarius's story about the inner desert
ascetics who lived in harmony with animals.
ISAAKII OF THE KIEV CAVES MONASTERY 267
One night he lit a fire in a stove in the Caves. The stove was full of
holes, and when the fire started to burn, flames began to come
through the cracks. He had nothing with which to cover the holes so
he put his bare feet against the flames until the fire burned out. Then
he got down quite unharmed. (209)
Въ едину же нощь въжегъ пещь в пещере, и яко разгореся пещь,
бе 60 утла, и нача пламенъ исходити горе утлизнами: оному же
нечим скважни покрыти, и въступи босыма ногама на пламень,
дондеже изгоре пещь, и сниде ничим же невреженъ. (188)
In conclusion: the Tale of Isaakii was written at the time when recently bap-
tized Kievan Rus' was reinventing its religious and cultural identity and
monks relied in this process on the translated legacy of Byzantium. A variety
of forms of asceticism were emulated and textualized, among them the ascetic
76 See the discussion of how mental pathologies were interpreted in Russia in the light
of holy foolishness in Natalie Challis and Horace W. Dewey, "The Blessed Fools of Old
Russia," Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, n.s., 22:1 (1974): 1-11.
77The vita of Ivan Koreisha exemplifies such a case. Koreisha was institutionalized
and most of his life "played the fool" in the mental institution, where he did not have
a lack of visitors. See A. F. Kireev, Student khladtiykh vod: Zhizni i deianiia moskovskogo
blazhennogo Ioanna Iakovlevicha Koreisha (Moscow: Lestvitsa, 1996).
268 SVITLANA KOBETS
feat of holy foolishness for Christ's sake. The first Kievan hagiographic por-
trayal of an ascetic practice of holy foolery is found in a structurally complex
and thematically diverse Paterik tale about Isaakii the Recluse of the Kiev
Caves Monastery, which later on served as a model for other Kiev Caves
Paterik stories of ascetic search, failure, and success. The distinctive circum-
stances under which this work was created determined its idiosyncratic
character as well as deviations from existing Byzantine patterns. Isaakii's
hagiographer was most likely dealing with a case of real mental derangement
rather than with an ascetic feat of feigned madness. However, he successfully
dealt with this problem as he interpreted Isaakii's bizarre personality and
aberrant behaviors, as well as public reactions to them, in terms of the inten-
tional provocation of abuse and the voluntary martyrdom of a holy fool. By
presenting Isaakii's life and ascetic quest as a success story of combat with
demons, he not only legitimized holy foolery as an ascetic model, but also
reiterated its claim to superiority among other ascetic practices. To this end,
he brought into play several hagiographic patterns, and used ascetic activity
as a framework for presenting holy foolery. Isaakii's ascetic progress culmi-
nates in victory over the demons by foolery for Christ. In this sense Isaakii's
tale restates the Byzantine hagiographic convention. Yet Isaakii's hagiogra-
pher's concern with actual events determined his decision to considerably re-
strict the pool of holy foolish topoi, bringing about a truly original account of
iurodstvo. This account firmly puts Isaakii in the line of Kievan—and later on
Ukrainian and Russian—fools for Christ and marks the start of these tradi-
tions by the eleventh century.
Sergey A. Ivanov
The first vitae of holy fools were written retrospectively, i.e., on the basis of
preexisting popular legend or miracle cults, well after the fool's alleged
existence. These vitae invariably consisted of literary cliches and did not carry
any verifiable information. By the end of the sixteenth century, the remark-
able popularity of holy fools' vitae inspired people to look for holy fools in
their own milieu. As a result, a new kind of vita began to appear: its main
hero was a real person whose eccentricities had been identified by eyewit-
nesses as signs of hidden sanctity and who after his death was included into a
pious narrative. Simon of lurievets (d. 1594) was the first real person whose
life was tailored by his neighbors and contemporaries to fit the literary para-
digm of holy foolishness. In this paper I will discuss the factual material
found in the vita of Simon of lurievets in the light of a newly published
Iur'evets Cadastre of 1594.
The inhabitants of the town of Iur'evets on the Upper Volga (168 km to
the northeast of Ivanovo, the regional capital) began to collect data about
Simon, the local idiot, immediately after his assassination in 1594. By that
year, the history of holy foolery as a special kind of Orthodox Christian sane-
tity went back several centuries.* 1 Pious writings and church calendars are
replete with the names of holy fools who are reputed to have lived much ear-
lier than Simon. Meanwhile, if we look at the traditional list of iurodivye more
closely, we will see that the vitae of saints believed to have lived between the
thirteenth and sixteenth centuries were written down much later. Prokopii of
Ustiug is believed to have died in 1303. The only solid fact that testifies to his
existence is the church established in his honor in Ustiug in 1458, more than
150 years after his death.2 The establishment of this church suggests that
This article is a reworked and expanded version of my paper "Simon of lurievets and
the Paradigm of Old Russian Holy Foolery," read at the International Medieval
Congress in Leeds in June 2007.
1 S. A. Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, trans. Simon Franklin (Oxford:
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,269-80.
270 Sergey A. Ivanov
Zhitie sviatogo pravednogo Prokopiia: Khrista radi iurodivogo Ustiuzhskogo chudotvortsa, ed.
S. V. Zavadskaia (Moscow: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli, 2003), 112-13.
3Ibid., 110; Vlasov, Zhitiinye povesti i skazaniia 0 sviatykh iurodivykh Prokopii i loanne
nei Rusi, vol. 2, Vtoraia polovina XIV-XVI v., pt. 1, ed. D. S. Likhachev (Leningrad:
Nauka, Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1988), 511-12.
6A. A. Romanova, "Zhitie Georgiia Shenkurskogo," in Likhachev, ed., Slovar'
knizhnikov i knizhnosti Drevnei Rusi, vol. 3, XVII v., pt. 4, Dopolneniia, 380-81;
Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, s.v. "Georgii," by Romanova, 11: 22-23.
7 M. N. Tikhomirov, ed., Vladimirskii Letopisets. Novgorodskaia vtoraia (Arkhivnaia) leto-
8 A. N. Barsukov, Istochniki russkoi agiografii (St. Petersburg, 1882), 347-49. For a more
ed., Slovar' knizhnikov i knizhnosti Drevnei Rusi, vol. 3, XVII v., pt. 4, Dopolneniia, 388.
12 V. I. Okhotnikova, "Novye materialy po literaturnoi istorii Povesti о iavlenii ikon na
called "holy fools" in the course of their veneration (e.g., Arkadii of Viaz'ma, Mikhail
272 Sergey A. Ivanov
that the ones who buried him were a small minority and that the majority of
Rostov city-dwellers did not recognize his sanctity.
Only after people came to share the concept of the holy fool's hidden
sanctity did they begin to take an interest in madmen. In the capital city of
Moscow there must have been too many social outcasts for fools to attract
special attention during their lives. The chances of attracting notice were
arguably higher in smaller towns where everybody was in the public eye.
Ioann of Ustiug27 (d. 1494) came to a local center, Ustiug, from the country-
side in order to play the fool at the grave of his "predecessor," Prokopii. His
vita ended up being written in 1554,28 prior to that of his hero, Prokopii.
Unlike Isidor's, Ioann's vita was composed by a local man and included
everyday local details. Yet, Ioann's hagiographer was not acquainted with
him personally; he drew on the memories of his own father, the former
Ustiug priest Dionisii,29 who had known the holy fool half a century earlier.
Simon played the fool in Iur'evets, a town of 231 households in 1594, the
year of the saint's death. His vita was a completely new, revolutionary phe-
nomenon because it was written about an identifiable person by a near con-
temporary, but from the perspective of the existing hagiographic pattern. The
great attention paid to the personality of the local governor Fedor Petelin sug-
gests that it was created soon after the holy fool's death in 1594. Feeling him-
self guilty of Simon's assassination, Petelin wanted to right his wrong and
gave orders to collect material for the future vita. As a result the text is vivid:
it contains numerous personal accounts by local residents, such as the priests
Iosif and Alimpii, the merchants Iosif Zubarev, Longin Korepa, and Petr
Sutyrev, and reflects local memories about the conflict between the holy fool
and the previous governor, Tret'iak Treguba.
This text was originally brought to light in the late nineteenth century as
paraphrased by D. Pospelov.30 The vita of Simon exists in ten manuscripts,31
Likhachev, ed., Slovar’ knizhnikov i knizhnosti Drevnei Rusi, vol. 2, Vtoraia polovina XIV-
XVI v., pt. 1,268.
Vlasov, Zhitiinye povesti, 490.
29 V. O. Kliuchevskii, Drevnerusskie zhitiia sviatykh как istoricheskii istochnik (Moscow,
1871), 144. Recently the interdependence between the vitae of Prokopii and Ioann has
become the subject of a fierce debate: A. L. Iurganov, Ubit' besa: Put’ ot Srednevekov'ia к
Novomu vremeni (Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 2006);
A. Vlasov, "O knige A. L. Iurganova...," Drevniaia Rus'. Voprosy medievistiki, no. 31
(2008): 109-15; Iurganov, "O dokazatel'stvakh v пайке i v nauchnom spore (otvet A.
N. Vlasovu), ״Drevniaia Rus’. Voprosy medievistiki, no. 34 (2008): 122-27; and I. D.
Sirotkina, "K polemike mezhdu dvumia issledovateliami," Drevniaia Rus’. Voprosy
medievistiki, no. 36 (2009): 113-15.
D. Pospelov, Blazhennyi Simon Khrista radi iurodivyi Iurievetskii chudotvorets (Kos-
troma, 1879).
274 Sergey A. Ivanov
and in two redactions, the short and the extended. Both of them go back to a
prototype, which has not survived. The vita's main character was a peasant
bom in the middle of the sixteenth century in the village of Odolevo near the
town of Plios. He left home to escape marriage and wandered in the forest
until he was found by the inhabitants of the distant village Elnat׳. At first he
was unable to say anything but his name, but later he acquired the ability to
speak. After fifteen years in Elnat ׳not marked by any significant events,
Simon followed the common pattern:31 32 He moved to the city of Iur'evets and
it is there that his adventures began as the village idiot transformed himself
into a iurodivyi. In Iur'evets
he would come to the tavern to spend long winter nights there, but he
did not come in order to sleep but to endure abuse, beating, and
mockery. The local drunks, disturbed by him (he would not let them
sleep), would strip him ... and drive him out.... Often the blessed one
would go to taverns so that someone would abuse him as a fool. The
people there would offer him vodka.... From some he would accept it
... and pretend to drink.... Sometimes, if someone in the tavern
would not offer him a drink, he would take it by force.
Yet this morally dubious conduct was not Simon's most striking trait; he was
primarily remarkable for going after those in power.
grave of the local saint Simon the Blessed pseudo-prophets are shrieking with
impunity" (vozle Bogoiavlenskoi tserkvi и mogily mestnogo sviatogo Simona
Blazhennogo nevozbranno klikushestvuiut lzhivye proroki).38 Avvakum's
words indicate that the holy fool had followers and imitators.
The Cadastre of Iur'evets for the year 1676 mentions icons of Simon in the
Epiphany church.39 In 1694 this church perished in a fire together with many
texts dedicated to Simon, and this prompted the writing of a new vita. In 1698
the abbot Stefan finished writing the extended vita that has come down to us.
It contains new miracles, which provide evidence that the cult of this holy
fool was still flourishing. In accordance with the tastes of the late seventeenth
century, this vita is imbued with stereotypes and refers to Andrei of Tsargrad
(Eng. Andrew of Constantinople), whereas the short redaction, which dates
much earlier, seems to be more matter of fact.
We have a unique opportunity to check the validity of some of the hagio-
graphic data recorded in the 1594 text. An alternative source for this period of
Simon's Life is the Cadastre compiled in the same year as the saint's death,
1593/94.40 Moreover, the vita mentions that Postnik Shipilov, who compiled
the Cadastre, attended Simon's funeral. We read in the vita that the town
woodcutters found the saint wandering in the forest. The Cadastre confirms
that "The forest is eighty miles long and twenty, sometimes fifteen miles wide
... and people from Iurievets go there" (lesu bolshovo v dlinu na vosmdeset
verst, a popereg na 20, a imde na 15 ... a khodiat v tot les iur'evetskie
volosnye liudie).41
We read that the city-dweller Petr Sutyrev saw Simon crossing the river
Volga as if on dry land.42 While the ability to walk on water is a hagio-
graphical topos, the witness was a verifiable person. The Cadastre states that
merchant Petr Sutyrev owned thirteen small shops in the town market.43 Even
though exact names and circumstances are mentioned, however, the hagiog-
rapher definitely is hinting at another hagiographical source, the exploits of
Isidor of Rostov. Those exploits were also a source of imitation in the vitae of
Vasilii Blazhennyi. Tret'iak Treguba is well attested as a ruthless governor,
chased out of Iur'evets by an angry mob of commoners because of his harangues and
denunciations.
38 L. L. Poliakova, Iur'evets: Istoriko-kraevedcheskii ocherk (Iaroslavl׳: Verkhne-Volzhskoe
knizhnoe
סי
izd-vo, 1984), 18-19.
N. Vinogradov, ed., Pistsovaia i mezhevaia knigi po gorodu Iur'evtsu Povolzhskomu i
Streletskoi slobode 1676 g. (Kostroma, 1912), 16.
40 S. V. Sirotkin, "Sotnaia gramota 1593/94 g. na posad Iur'evtsa Povol'skogo," Ocherki
and we know that the inhabitants of Iur'evets complained about his misde-
meanors.44 Yet, at the same time, descriptions of Simon's uninhibited conduct
vis-a-vis the political authorities draw on the well-established traditions that
came down from Isidor's vita and also from the vitae of Vasilii Blazhennyi
and Ioann the Big Cap.
Although a devastating fire really happened in Iur'evets in 1588,45
Simon's prediction of it46 had a prototype in Vasilii Blazhennyi's prediction of
a Moscow fire. In personal conversation, Simon had predicted that a certain
merchant, Longin Korepa, along with other people would lose his house dur-
ing the Iur'evets fire. After the fire Longin exclaimed: "Oh, how many secret
servants does the Lord have!" (chiudiasia bozhiei premudrosti, imushchei
tainykh rab svoikh). Although this merchant could have been a real person,47
his words can be traced back to the literary sources, the earliest Greek legends
of the fifth century 48 We encounter such hagiographical commonplaces as the
holy fool's homelessness, bare feet, threadbare clothes, and his ability to en-
dure severe frost. At the same time, the description of the North Russian win-
ter in Simon's vita reflects actual conditions. The holy fool's prediction to the
women of Iur'evets about which of their children will survive and which will
die49 is reminiscent of a similar episode from the vita of Symeon of Emesa.
Thus this vita contains topoi and verifiable facts side by side.
Several episodes are innovative and have no hagiographic pedigree. This
vita is the first of its kind in Russia where a tavern appears on the scene. The
motif of a saint in a tavern occurs again only in a later version of Vasilii Bla-
zhennyi's vita, written in the early eighteenth century. Of course, there were
Byzantine precedents. The tavern played an enormous role in the vitae of the
holy fools Symeon of Emesa and Andrei of Tsar grad, but a Russian hagiog-
rapher had to be brave to introduce this dubious motif. Simon's vita also of-
fers the first instance of a iurodivyi's aggression against the clergy, the priest
Alipii of the church of St. George, a historical figure who owned several
meadows near the town.50 In the tavern scene Simon strangles him with his
own hands (the priest was subsequently revived).51 Prokopii of Viatka in the
seventeenth century took up this behavior.
Some pretend to be insane, and then are seen sane; others go about in
the likeness of hermits, in black garb and in fetters and with hair un-
kempt; others crawl around and squeal in church during singing, and
instill great agitation among ordinary people.
Yet it was during this time period that the hagiography of holy fools
began to develop as a literary genre. The vast majority of holy foolish vitae
date to the seventeenth century. The vita of Simon is one of the oldest speci-
mens of a genre that never reached its full potential because of official
persecution.
Peter the Great, who loathed the iurodivye, struck a heavy blow to "offi-
dal" holy foolery:
1910), 388-89.
54 Akty, sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Rossiiskoi imperii (St. Petersburg, 1836), 3: 402
n. 264.
Simon of Iurievets and the Hagiography of Old Russian Holy Fools 279
Any sensible person can see how many thousands of such lazy beg-
gars can be found in Russia ... who devour the labor of others with
their impudence and their feigned humility ... and who drive
ordinary simple people insane.... They slander high authorities, yet
they themselves take on no Christian responsibilities. They do not go
into church but think it has nothing to do with them, so long as they
can carry on their shrieking in front of the church.
In the ״Pledge given by top clergy at their promotion to this rank" (1716,
item 6) we read: "I pledge not just to punish, but also to send to the town
court those feigning insanity, disheveled, barefoot and walking around in
undershirts" (Paki obeshchavaiusia ... pritvomykh besnuiushchikhsia, v kol-
tunakh, bosykh, v rubashkakh khldiashchikh, ne tokmo nakazyvat', no i
gradskomu sudu otsylat').56 It is no wonder that in 1722 the cult of Simon of
Iur'evets was officially forbidden. 57
To sum up: The vita of Simon of Iur'evets offered the first verifiable example
of the process of assimilating the life of a town idiot to the pattern of holy
foolish hagiography. In an unprecedented manner, the vita recorded his-
torical facts, including Simon's tragic murder by the governor of Iur'evets
(1594), even though it overrode the topos of the holy fool's invulnerability
when denouncing rulers. This vita offers the reader a unique opportunity to
access the real world behind the hagiographical curtains and to evaluate a
number of topoi/events of Simon's life and cult against the backdrop of late
sixteenth-century Russia. This perspective has led to the following conclu-
sions: First, Simon himself may have had no pretenses to the role of secret
saint and martyr later ascribed to him by the citizens of Iur'evets. Second,
Simon's vita may have served to express the townsfolk's reproach to the gov-
ernor for all his misdeeds, not just his treatment of Simon. Finally, the fact
that the governor patronized the vita suggests that it may also have been an
expression of Governor Petelins's repentance for more than just the idiot's
death. Thus, even as Simon's vita faithfully reflected the convention of the
holy fool's rivalry with those in power, it may also have been a symbolic
means of reconciling the people and the governor.
Sergei Shtyrkov
Saints are often called "pillars of faith" in the Orthodox hymn tradition and
they serve as such for believers. While the image of pillars implies steadiness
and immutability, the saint's image may undergo significant evolutions as
social contexts change and different political and spiritual needs arise. These
influences on a saint's hagiographical tradition can give rise to a dramatic
proliferation of images that are actively constructed and may share and ex-
change semantic nuances.
This paper will point out a few important instances that illustrate the
tension and even discontinuities within the hagiographical tradition of one of
Russia's most highly esteemed saints, the Blessed St. Kseniia of St. Petersburg.
The first officially recognized female fool for Christ in Russia, she lived in St.
Petersburg in the eighteenth century and was canonized by the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad in 1978 and by the Russian Orthodox Church in
1988. (See figs. 21 and 22 in the gallery of illustrations following p. 224.)2 * * * * Her
feastday is 24 January, old style and 6 February, new style. When we talk
about St. Kseniia's hagiography, it is important to remember that we have
little reliable information on her life. Most of the data on her life comes from
oral tradition, or has been reconstructed from indirect evidence. It is believed
that she lived in eighteenth-century St. Petersburg and died there, probably at
the very beginning of the nineteenth century. According to the account that
1 Povest7 moia dlia prostogo naroda, / Ne dlia sviatoi raznotsvetnaia oda. Irina Bre-
rison, as reproduced in Russkii Palomnik, no. 20 (1999): 112, back cover; no. 2 is a plastic
icon from the Smolensk Cemetery, acquired by the author in 2010, and measuring
135x110 m.
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011, 281-304.
282 Sergei Shtyrkov
о
' D. Bulgakovskii, Raba Bozhiia Kseniia Hi lurodivyi Andrei Fedorovich. Pogrebena na
Smolenskom kladbishche v Sankt-Peterburge (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia arteli pechatnogo
dela, 1904).
4This information derives from different sources. See, for example, E. Grebenka,
Smolenskogo kladbishcha 70-80־e gody 20 v.), ״in Mif Ritual. Simvol. Obraz: Issledo-
vaniia v oblasti mifopoeticheskogo (Moscow: Progress, 1995), 369-76.
6 O. N. Filicheva, "Zapiski dlia Ksenii Blazhennoi: Pozitsiia tserkovnosluzhitelei i
narodnye obychai," in Sny Bogoroditsy: Issledovaniia po antropologii religii, ed. Zh. Kor-
mina, A. Panchenko, and S. Shtyrkov (St. Petersburg: Izd-vo Evropeiskogo universi-
teta, 2006), 171-83.
7 Gordienko, Novye pravoslavnye sviatye, 244-51.
8 N. Kizenko, "Protectors of Women and Lower Orders: Constructing Sainthood in
Modern Russia," in Orthodox Russia: Belief and Practice under the Tsars, ed. Robert H.
Green and Valerie A. Kivelson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2003), 105-24.
The Unmerry Widow 283
1) Early texts about the Blessed Kseniia dating from the nineteenth
century. These take the form of sketches from everyday life, and his-
torical anecdotes about city eccentrics.10 In some cases, the accuracy
of these narratives is questionable.11 Some authors recognized and
stressed the pious nature of their work, but they did not use the word
vita since Kseniia was canonized only at the end of the twentieth cen-
tury.12 All in all, these early texts are not about a saint.
2) Several pre-Revolutionary authors produced "classical" hagio-
graphical narratives that had a strong influence on the later tradition.
These were typically very thin and cheap books that were reprinted
several times. The most influential ones were compiled by two
priests: Dmitrii Bulgakovskii, Kseniia, the Servant of God, or the Holy
Fool Andrei Fedorovich, published in 1890;13 and Evgenii Rakhmanin,
9 Daniel Bomstein, "Dominican Friar, Lay Saint: The Case of Marcolino of Forli,"
Church History 66 (1997): 252-67. It is a commonplace of scholarship to associate differ-
ent images of the saint with either "popular" or "official" culture. On that approach,
see, for example, June Macklin, "Two Faces of Sainthood: The Pious and the Popular,"
Journal of Latin American Lore 14: 1 (1988): 67-90. This distinction is not useful here
since representatives of the educated church and lay hagiographers constructed narra-
tives "from above," presenting them, however, as the "voices of common people" with
pure childlike faith. See Jeanne Kormina and Sergei Shtyrkov, "Pis'ma veruiushchikh
как reklama: 'Vsenarodnaia priemnaia sv. Ksenii Peterburgskoi/" Antropologicheskii
forum, no. 9 (2008): 154-84.
10 E. Grebenka, "Peterburgskaia storona," "Peterburgskie predaniia," Vedomosti Sankt-
Once you took it into your heart to save a young warrior from a cruel,
untimely end and eternal perdition, even though he did not know of
you and would not call for God's help, as those were godless times
and God's Church was still persecuted. In order to do this you ap-
peared unexpectedly to him in the cellar of a house and told him to
leave immediately, that enemy fire would destroy the building; and
you told him that you were the blessed Kseniia. When, after many
years had passed, the warrior learned who you were, and where your
relics lay, he joyfully thanked God, calling out: Hallelujah!
iubileiu 1000-letiia Kreshcheniia Rusi (Sergiev Posad: Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, 1988), 169.
16 Minea dopolnitel'naia, vyp. 1 (Moscow: Izdatel'skii sovet Russkoi Pravoslavnoi
Tserkvi, 2005), 172-81; "Service to Saint Xenia of Petersburg," Orthodox Word 14: 4
И 978): 154-90.
7For example, an akathistos is more "theological ״than an average vita, and includes
extensive testimonies to the glorified saint's Christian feats and posthumous miracles.
It asserts not only the subject's similarity to other saints, but his likeness to Jesus Christ
and the Mother of God. Hymns are also more divorced from real-life circumstances;
concrete indicators of time and place are absent. The use of archaisms makes the con-
tents difficult to understand.
The Unmerry Widow 285
When your parents and relatives saw this young girl given to them
by God, adorned by good health and beauty, they joyfully went to a
pastor, and he performed the christening, naming you in honor of the
saint-wanderer Kseniia of Rome. Or there was some man of God
there, who saw your future righteous work, or by some other method
God gave His servants to understand that they had to name you such,
but in any case, your life corresponds to your name.
Видяще родители твои и сродницы такову младу отроковицу
Богом им даровану, здравием и лепотою украшену, веселящеся к
пастырю церковному текоша, иже тя святым Крещением про-
свети и в честь преподобныя странницы Ксении-Римляныни на-
рече. Или бысть тамо некий Божий человек, иже будущая твоя
исправления провиде, или иным образом Господь рабы Своя
1Я
Капоп i akafist sviatoi blazhennoi Ksetiii Peterburgskoi (Moscow: Izd-vo im. Sviatitelia
Ignatiia StavropoTskogo, 2001), 43-44. On more recent miracles pertaining to the war
in Chechnya, see "Svecha ot materi, ״Russkii dom, no. 1 (2001): 23; Anna Gippius,
Kseniia Blazhennaia. Sviatoi Panteleimon (Moscow: AST, 2008), 18; and N. A. Sindalov-
skii, Sankt-Peterburg: Istoriia v predaniiakh i legendakh (St. Petersburg: Norint, 2002), 136.
19The first version of this narrative was published by Liudmila Iakovleva, "Svetlyi lik
Ksenii," Literaturnaia ucheba, no. 3 (1993): 162. Different versions of this story appear
regularly. See, for example, V. I. Kozachenko, Kniga 0 blazhennoi Ksenii Peterburgskoi
(Moscow: Kovcheg, 2006), 186-87.
286 Sergei Shtyrkov
Shvarts (2001) and Dmitrii Bobyshev (1980) have paid tribute to her
in their poetic works, as have countless dilettantes.23 In 1992 a church
publicist had accurately prophesied: "The tragedy and works of the
Blessed Kseniia will be panegyrized in poetry and prose."24
23 See E. A. Shvarts, Dikopis' poslednego vremeni (St. Petersburg: Pushkinskii fond, 2001),
28; Dmitrii Bobyshev, Polnota vsego: Kniga stikhotvorenii i poem (St. Petersburg: Vodolei,
1992), 14-15. For more on both of these poems, see Bodin, Language, Canonization and
Holy Foolishness, 240-46. On the dilettantes, see Brekhuntsova, Kseniia blazhennaia; and
Irina Semenova, Kseniia Peterburgskaia: Poenia (Orel: Veshnie vody, 2008). Several
examples are also available on-line at http://www.mgarsky-monastery.org/
omiliya.php?auth=kuchinskaite#bk45; http://www.tropinka.orthodoxy.ru/zal/poezija/ piskunov.htm;
http://www.inna-f.narod.ru/st_petersburg_2_0.htm; http://natabutterfly.narod.ru/ religio.htm
24 V. Zhdanov, "Velikaia sila liubvi," in Blazhennaia Kseniia Peterburgskaia (St. Peters-
http://www. ogoniok.com/archive/2001/4676-4677/01-34-37/.
26For a discussion of Kseniia's worshippers and nonstandard religiosity, see Jeanne
Kormina and Sergei Styrkov, "St. Xenia as a Patron of Female Social Suffering: An
Essay on Anthropological Hagiology," in Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet
Russia, ed. JarrettZigon (New York: Berghahn Books, forthcoming).
27Emiliia Kundy sheva, О chem plachesh', Andrei Fedorovich?: Povestvovanie 0 blazhennoi
any reference to the author.28 One could argue that there is no clear boundary
between clerical and lay literature. One could speak of different modalities of
narrative presentation rather than different narratives. Some of them are more
traditional and church-oriented, while others are less so.
Drawing examples from this wide range of material, I will now show
some of the important changes that took place in Kseniia's hagiography un-
der different periods of the modern state.
their words and acts, their double life at day and at night, their display of
some and hiding of other aspects of their life. For most nineteenth-century
writers and readers of earlier versions of St. Kseniia's vita, these character-
istics would have been easily recognizable signs of urban holy foolishness,
amounting to narrative cliches in holy foolish pre-modern hagiography.
There is, however, one persistent episode in early and contemporary de-
scriptions of St. Kseniia's life that locate her in the epoch of the modern state
as described by Michel Foucault.32 This episode's treatment of Kseniia's sham
madness reflects the new emphasis on forms of regulation, examination and
classification characterizing modernity. In traditional vitae, the observers who
described the holy fool were either saints and/or pious confidants, who could
perceive his secret asceticism through the affected mask of madness.33
However, a very different source reveals that Kseniia's madness is feigned in
an episode composed in the nineteenth century in a church milieu and re-
peated in dozens of editions
ךי׳
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan
(New York: Vintage, 1995), 213-16.
33 Ivanov, Blazhennye pokhaby, 110,160.
290 Sergei Shtyrkov
Having examined the case and conversed with the "lunatic," the doc-
tors and the colleagues of the late Andrei Fedorovich who had been
gathered to examine her were able to see that the young woman's
strange behavior could only be explained as a higher form of evan-
gelical love and self-sacrifice.
Рассмотрев дело и побеседовав с «умалишенной», собранные для
этого врачи и сослуживцы покойного Андрея Федоровича все-
Press, 2002), 247; R. Balakshin, Blazhennaia Kseniia Peterburgskaia (Moscow: Izd-vo Sre-
tenskogo monastyria, 2005), 4; and the documentary film Sviataia blazhennaia Kseniia,
directed by Sergei Lomkin (Moscow: Kanon, 2001). The earliest mention of the medical
inquiry into Kseniia is in N. Il'icheva, "Sviataia Khrista radi Iurodivaia Kseniia
Petersburgskaia," Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii, no. 3 (1989): 65-66.
The Unmerry Widow 291
Here, the expected clash between the regulatory Russian state and the
holy fool fails to occur.38 At a time when the authorities had no tolerance for
holy fools, the vita presents this unexpected collaboration as not only pos-
sible, but even natural. Together, the holy fool with her Christian truth, and
the bureaucrat with his state truth stand against the family's philistine truth,
which is concerned with petty issues of personal prosperity that are of no
interest to the saint or the state. Possibly, nineteenth-century readers saw this
episode as a miracle and benediction of her ascetic feat, precisely because of
its unexpected representation of the regulatory state.
In another popular episode concerning the police, the state again lends its
weighty aid to St. Kseniia, if not entirely willingly. In one of the very first
testimonies about her life—the entirely un-hagiographic newspaper Bulletin of
the St. Petersburg City Police—the police now play the traditional role of the pi-
ous layman or saint who knows the fool's secret:
At night she would leave her house to pray to God in a field, con-
vinced that the presence of God is more perceptible in open fields,
and she would pray for a few hours, bowing down to the earth in all
four directions. At first her nightly absences aroused the doubts of
mistrustful people, and even the police, based on people's rumors,
began to wonder if the prophetess was not one of those women
whom 1.1. Dmitriev portrayed with such vigor in his fine ditty: "She
shelter gave to Bad Guys. When one was nabbed, He went ahead and
blabbed. Right away they took her, in order to book her, But what-
ever was her turn, We in no way could learn." They began to spy on
her and they verified that she really did go to the field to pray to God.
По ночам выходила она из своего дома молиться Богу в поле,
утверждая, что присутствие Божие в чистом поле явственнее и
молилась по нескольку часов, кланяясь в землю на все четыре
стороны. Ночное отсутствие ея сначала возбуждало сомнения в
недоверчивых людях, и даже полиции, следуя народной молве,
стали подозревать, не принадлежит ли пророчица к числу тех
женщин, которых так живо изобразил И. И. Дмитриев в прекрас-
ной сказке своей: «Она держала пристань Недобрым молодцам, * 8
In later variants of the vita, the flippant tone used to describe the Blessed
Kseniia's nightly prayers disappears.
То this day, the version with the police remains the most widespread
story about the saint's ascetic habits in popular hagiographical literature.
Once more, the state operates in the capacity of the confidant and unwilling
helper, frustrating the saint's plans to remain unknown. The state officials'
detached role implies that they are objective, unbiased observers who are also
potential regulators of the holy fool.41 This shift in the canon serves a hagio-
graphical convention whereby the fool is alone among crowds, since it em-
phasizes St. Kseniia's isolation, without a favorite confidant with whom she
can be herself.
The traditional, pre-modem iurodivyi's contact with the state often oc-
curred in the form of direct conversation with the ruler.42 In modem times,
the state official and policeman also became his or her interlocutor but in the
role of supervisor. Bureaucrats entered into hagiographic texts as a regulatory
instrument that legitimized his or her presence in the religious landscape of
changing Russia. Nevertheless, despite this innovation, the meaning of the
main features of St. Kseniia's portrait were still preserved, including her
double identity and her different activities day and night.
41 The police and jail have a significant place in hagiographic narratives about modem
holy fools, where their regulatory stance generally serves to curb the fool's behavior.
See for example: "She [iurodivaia Domna Karpovna] also loved singing religious
songs when walking along the streets and often landed in police stations for that"
(Liubila ona takzhe, khodia po ulitsam, raspevat ׳dukhovnye pesni, za chto chasto
popadala v politseiskie uchastki) ("Tomskaia iurodivaia Domna Karpovna," in Zhiz-
neopisaniia otechestvennykh podvizhnikov blagochestiia 18 i 19 vekov. Oktiabr' (Moscow:
Tipo-litografiia L Efimova, 1909), 464. "He [Terentii] was often at the police station
where he humbly endured the punishment to which restless vagabonds are usually
subjected" (On ne raz byval v politsii, gde s krotkost'iu terpel vse, chem tarn
obyknovenno nakazyvaiut nespokoinykh brodiag) ("Iurodivyi Terentii," in ibid., 797).
42 On this subject, see Ivanov, Blazhennye pokhaby, 265-87.
294 Sergei Shtyrkov
cal to his readership. He took it on himself to explain the nature of her ascetic
charisma.43
In Zhivotov's vita, St. Kseniia turns into a straightforward teacher of
morality who instructs her audience about moral issues, as opposed to an
urban holy fool who teaches in a hidden way, through actions and words that
require exegesis. Often, his pen transforms the saint's mysterious, frequently
paradoxical divinations into maxims, stylistically lofty and completely clear
in meaning: "Love thy fellow creature. When I see a kind person, I rejoice
more than at any other time" (Liubi blizhnikh svoikh. Kogda ia vizhu do-
brogo cheloveka, ia raduius ׳bol'she vsego).44 These are excellent words for a
preacher, but not for a holy fool. Unlike the typical holy fool who alienated
the public, Kseniia had a regular following: "It would happen that wherever
Kseniia would go to speak, hundreds of her followers would flock to her and
she would tell them about how to understand earthly happiness" (Sluchalos׳,
chto v dom, kuda prikhodila pobesedovat ׳Kseniia, stekalis ׳sotni pochitatelei
iurodivoi i ona rasskazyvala im, как nado ponimat' zemnoe schastie).45 Since
the saint has so many disciples, the police are no longer necessary to reveal
the secret of her nightly disappearances:
Kseniia's followers once took it into the heads to follow her, and they
saw that after lengthy prayer in a field she went to weed the garden
of a poor townsperson; when she had become exhausted by her work,
she slept between the garden beds.
43 "There are people, who in life and in death exercise a sort of obscure, as they say,
spontaneous and overwhelming attraction. They, against their will, are surrounded by
an aureole of honor, even worship, which not uncommonly reaches a high pitch..."
(Est ׳liudi, kotorye pri zhizni i po smerti vozbuzhdaiut к sebe kakoe־to maloponiatnoe,
tak skazat ׳stikhiinoe i massovoe vlechenie, okruzhaiutsia pomimo svoei voli oreolom
slavy, pochti pokloneniia, dokhodiashchego neredko do entuziazma...). See Zhivotov,
Stranniki, 1. The author reports about his research: "Chiefly, we gathered materials
relating to the Volkovo cemetery, where Kseniia rated a cathedral among her distant
relatives and friends. In Moscow, Iaroslavl׳, Tver׳, and Petersburg there are still
elderly women who preserve the legends of Kseniia" (My glavnym obrazom sobirali
materialy na Volkovom kladbishche, gde Kseniia stoila khram sredi otdalennykh
rodstvennikov i znakomykh pokoinoi. V Moskve, Iaroslavle, Tveri i Peterburge est׳
eshche staritsy, kotorye sokhranili predanie о Ksenii) (ibid., 3). This description of the
author's "fieldwork" puts him in a unique and, one might say, marginal position, as
the name Kseniia the Blessed is first of all associated with Vasil'evskii Island and the
Petrograd (Petersburg) Side, that is, the northern regions of the city, while the Volkovo
cemetery, as it was located on the southern border of the city, is not mentioned any-
where except in Zhivotov's text.
44 Ibid., 18.
45 Ibid., 24.
The Unmerry Widow 295
This author found Kseniia's feat of prayer insufficient. His Kseniia also
rendered practical help to her neighbor (much as she financially supported
hundreds of poor households in a previously mentioned account).47
Zhivotov takes the entirely new step of developing the relationship be-
tween Kseniia and her husband. In earlier hagiographies, Kseniia the Blessed
is born as a character the moment that Andrei Fedorovich dies. Until then, she
might as well have never existed.
46 Ibid., 18.
47Such descriptions would seem unrealistic to the modem reader. The Russian au-
thorities always jealously kept track of manifestations of mass religious enthusiasm,
and for that reason they would have had a presence at any evangelistic, charitable
activity in the capital involving hundreds of people or families.
48 Zhivotov, Stranniki, 5-6.
296 Sergei Shtyrkov
Zhivotov further notes that "Kseniia Grigor'evna ... helped the poor, read
religious books with her husband, and often did works of charity and love for
her neighbors" (Kseniia Grigor'evna ... pomogala bednym, zanimalas ׳s
muzhem chteniem dukhovnykh knig i ne redko sovershala podvigi
miloserdiia i liubvi к blizhnemu).50 The portrayal of her Christian virtue,
among other additional features added by the author, undoes the effect of the
conversion that takes place with her husband's death and contributes to the
impression of her normality.51
Two issues raised by Zhivotov have turned out to be important to hagiog-
raphers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Although these writers
treated the issues differently, Zhivotov anticipated later developments in
modern religiosity in the post-Soviet period, when the official culture of athe-
ism was overturned.
The first issue was completely immaterial in a "traditional" vita of a holy
fool: Who gave Kseniia their blessing to undertake her difficult path? Nor did
earlier hagiographers find the second concern very urgent: What does "unex-
pectedly passed away" mean in the case of her husband's, Andrei Fedoro-
vich's death? Zhivotov both introduced and resolved these questions without
ambiguity. Her husband himself gives her his blessing during a last minute
respite from death by typhoid.
When she had been married four years, Andrei Fedorovich fell ill
"with a temperature," "burning up"; doubtless, he had typhoid. An
hour before his death, he returned to consciousness. He demanded a
priest, confessed, and received the Holy Mysteries. Having called his
wife to him, he blessed her, saying: "Serve our Lord God; glorify His
Most Holy name."
На четвертом году ее замужества Андрей Федорович заболел
«жаром», «горел»; вероятно, у него был тиф. За час до смерти к
больному вернулось сознание, он потребовал священника, испо-
ведовался, приобщился св. Таин и, подозвав жену, благословил
ее, сказав: «Служи Господу Богу нашему; славь Всеблагое имя
Его».52
A new image of St. Kseniia, along with a new understanding of certain details
of her life, emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad even before the
collapse of the Soviet Union.53 New hagiographies took up issues popularized
by Zhivotov's publication.54 They offer other variations on the circumstances
of her husband's death and the manner in which she was blessed for her holy
foolish vocation. The general conviction came to be that Andrei died without
managing to confess and receive communion,55 and that Kseniia was later
Orthodox Word 14: 4 (81) (1978): 153, 191-98; Pamiatka, posviashchennaia proslavleniiu
blazhennoi Ksenii Peterburgskoi (New York: Izdaniie fonda pamiati Bl. Ksenii Peterburg-
skoi, 1978).
5 כFor an early version of this episode, see "Blazhennaia Kseniia," 4; Pamiatka, 1; "The
blessed by a priest to spend her entire life atoning for his sins.56 Such a plot
would have shocked earlier hagiographers for whom her husband's "unex-
pected death" was a not uncommon event and conveyed no special implica-
tions about his own status as a Christian. Moreover, it was unheard of for a
priest to bless a fool into his/her mission. 57
A century ago, it would have been scandalous to think that someone
could atone for the sins of a fellow Christian by practically living his life for
him. According to common wisdom, relatives' prayer and alms could allevi-
ate the lot of the deceased; however, even if they themselves were saints (as in
the case of Kseniia), the notion that they could take the place of an assumed
sinner in this world would seem too extravagant. Moreover earlier hagiogra-
phies offer no evidence that Kseniia understood her works in this way.
The new versions of the vita that emerged in the emigre community of
the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad were picked up in post-Soviet hagiog-
raphy because these motifs had become topical: the husband's death without
confession, Kseniia's work of atoning for his sins, the necessity of a confes-
sor's blessing to take up holy foolery. They bear witness to serious changes in
current, twenty-first-century understandings of the nature of saintliness and
Christian works.58
Even a superficial familiarity with new hagiographies and hymns reveals
the presence of details and interpretations of the vita of St. Kseniia that had
not appeared earlier. The problem of who should bless Kseniia into fool-
ishness־for-Christ is interesting only for ecclesiastic circles. The story of
Andrei Fedorovich's death, in which his widow decides to atone for the uncon-
fessed sins of her spouse, is much more popular. It occurs in the materials of
the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church that canonized St. Kseniia, set-
ting a precedent for other post-Soviet narratives:
56 "The Life of Saint Xenia," 191; V. V. Shevtsov, "Sviataia Blazhennaia Kseniia Peter-
burgskaia," in Nebesnye pokroviteli Sankt-Peterburga, ed. Ol'ga Nadporozhskaia (St.
Petersburg: Neva, 2003), 85; Gippius, Kseniia Blazhennaia, 32-33.
57 It was traditionally understood that Kseniia received her blessing directly from God,
as no earthly person had the proper authority to bless someone for such a difficult and
unusual form of ascetic work. See, for example, Il'icheva, "Sviataia Khrista radi
iurodivaia," 65. Here the fool somewhat resembles a biblical prophet who also can
only be called up by the Lord. See Svitlana Kobets, "The Paradigm of the Hebrew
Prophet and the Russian Tradition of lurodstvo," in "Canadian Contributions to the
XIV International Congress of Slavists: Ohrid, Macedonia, 2008," special issue,
Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slaviste 50:1-2 (March-June 2008): 1-16.
58 For more on new trends in St. Kseniia hagiography, see Gordienko, Novye pravoslav-
nyesviatye, 244-51.
The Unmerry Widow 299
Indicators of these circumstances made their way into two of the three
akathistoi:
(Oikos 1) You lived like an angel on earth, blessed mother, after the
death of your husband, who passed away suddenly without Chris-
tian unction. You rejected your worldly life, praying to God to have
mercy on the soul of your husband, and having taken up the vocation
of holy foolishness, you gained spiritual perfection.
(Икос 1) Равноангельски на земли пожила еси, блаженная мати,
по успении мужа твоего, без приуготовления христианскаго вне-
запу скончавшегося, отвергла еси жизнь мирскую, молягци Бога
супруга твоего душу помиловати, подвиг юродства на себе при-
явши, стяжала еси совершенство духовное.60
six-year-old widow opened, and all the vanity and rottenness of the
transient world was revealed in full. Her heart burned with the sad-
ness that her husband might not find eternal salvation. For this she
herself died and lived his life for him, and gave herself to repentance
through suffering and unending prayer.
(Кондак 3) Сила Вышняго яве осени тогда Ксению, егда супруг ея,
здрав и крепок сый, внезапу, спасительнаго Таинства не прием,
скончася. Абие отверзошася тогда очи душевней двадесятошесто-
летней вдовице, и вся суета и тление привременнаго мира сего до
конца обнажишася. Сердце же ея печалию разгарашеся, еда како
вечнаго спасения супруг не улучит. Темже себе умрети, вместо
же того жити, покаяние приносягци в злостраданиих и молитве
непрестанней изволила еси).61
Her vita tells us that she was the wife of a court chorister. Their life
was happy and comfortable. But suddenly her husband dies, all of a
sudden, in the middle of wild revelry at a feast, consigning his soul to
God without having repented. For an Orthodox person this is a ter-
rible sign. Indeed, a person's life in eternity depends on how God
finds him in his final hour. "As one is found, so is he judged,"
warned God. We cannot know what that young widow suffered,
what torments her soul endured in those terrible days between her
husband's death and his funeral, what depths and secrets were
revealed to her then. We know only one thing: on the day of her hus-
band's funeral, she became dead to the world. She put on her
husband's clothing and called herself by his name, that is, she began
to live for him, in his place, in order to plead for his soul and save it.
Ее житие рассказывает нам, что она была женой придворного
певчего. Жизнь была счастливой и благоустроенной. Но вдруг
умирает муж. Скоропостижно, среди безумного веселья на пиру,
предав душу Господу без покаяния. Для православного человека
это грозный знак. Ведь от того, каким застанет Бог человека в
смертный час, зависит его жизнь в вечности. «В чем найду, в том
и сужу», — предупредил Господь. Что пережила молодая вдова,
через какую муку прошла ее душа в те страшные дни от смерти
до погребения дорогого человека, какие бездны и какие тайны
открылись ей тогда, этого мы не знаем. Знаем лишь одно: в день
похорон она умерла для мира. Она надела на себя одежду мужа
Some works, intended for a wide audience of varying familiarity with the
church, include additional dramatic details that solve the mystery of her
double identity and finish the process of demystification started by Zhivotov:
Almost all lay authors transmit this interpretation of St. Kseniia's holy
mission (Bobyshev, Brekhuntsova, Levanov, Semenova, Shvarts). For them,
the image of an unusual feat of ultimate love is much more understandable
than the traditional portrait of Kseniia as an urban holy fool. This interpreta-
tion also enjoys wide recognition among devotees of St. Kseniia who pay
special attention to relations between the living and the (sinful) dead.
64For early detailed descriptions of Kseniia's miracles, see Rakhmanin, Raba Bozhiia
Kseniia.
The Unmerry Widow 303
selected ones there, where you are now shining in eternal glory, ex-
tolling the All-Merciful Creator evermore. Amen.
О, святая всеблаженная мати наша Ксение! Обиды, поношения и
насмешки Христа ради претерпевшая и за муже твоего, без
христианскаго напутствия скончавшагося, непрестанно молив-
шаяся. Виждь тесноту души моея и скорбь о умерших без
покаяния и причащения Святых Таин сродниках и знаемых моих
(имена) и умоли данною тебе благодатию Человеколюбиваго
Владыку Христа Бога нашего, да простит им вся согрешения
вольная и невольная, из глубин адовых да изведет их, от мучений
лютых избавит и множеством милосердия Своего ко избранным
Своим сопричтет их, идеже ты ныне в незаходимей сияеши
славе, воспевая Премилосерда го Творца во веки веков. Аминь.65
The nature of Kseniia's sainthood in the nineteenth century did not en-
tirely fulfill the requirements of our contemporaries who now expect her to
intercede for relatives who died without confession. These believers see St.
Kseniia as a person who has been in a situation similar to their own. In con-
temporary post-Soviet Russia, women—more specifically, widows of unbe-
liever husbands—hope that their faith, their religiosity can be sufficient for
the salvation not only of their own souls, but also those of their relatives.
Kseniia's cult enables them to believe that all is not lost even when there
seems to be no possibility of remission. This specification of gender roles in
the religious life of the post-Soviet family led modern hagiographers to pro-
pose new interpretations of the pious feat of a long-dead Petersburg ascetic.
Yet this vivid and relatively new construction of Kseniia exists alongside
other modernizing representations. They also build on the basis provided by
Zhivotov, and remain faithful to the earlier representations of Kseniia as the
patron saint of common people seeking answers to their everyday problems.
Some versions of the vita and akathistos do not mention the circumstances of
her husband's death or explain her works as specifically oriented toward the
salvation of her deceased husband's soul. In these texts, she is less the
religious virtuoso, dedicating herself to the unique feat of atoning for an-
other's sins, and more a lonely woman devoting herself to God as the result of
a personal tragedy. Andrei Fedorovich quits the hagiographic text after his
death, leaving his widow only his name and uniform as he did a century ago.
In this reading of Kseniia's image, she plays the role of the patron of the
destitute of society. A number of church publications have presented St.
Kseniia's role as defender of "the poor" consistently enough to strengthen the
65 Ksen'iushka, rodnaia, pomogi! Zhitie, sluzhba, akafist, molitvy sviatoi blazhennoi Ksenii
impression that now the faithful have two Kseniias who meet their needs
more in the manner of saints than holy fools: the ״unmerry widow" who
gives up her rights to serve God and others, and the ideal Christian spouse
who sacrifices her identity to fulfill her duties to her husband even after his
death. Thus the attributes of her sainthood have undergone a variety of trans-
formations that reflect the changing faces of modernity. The erstwhile holy
fool has become a saint with many specialties. Either way, she remains a
pillar of faith: "Now she who is a widow indeed, and desolate, has her hope
set on God, and continues in petitions and prayers night and day" (1 Tim. 5:
5). The story of St. Kseniia of Petersburg helps to give the words of Paul the
Apostle new semantic nuances that reflect the evolving needs of the faithful.
(See figs. 23 and 24.)66
N. Iu. Bubnov
The Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople (hereafter VAndrew) occupies
a prominent place in Old Russian hagiographic literature, in the visual arts
tradition, and in the life of the Russian people.1 The Old Believers played a
dominant role in guaranteeing this vita's continuing impact because of their
desire to live according to Old Russian tradition and spirituality.2 The larger
community of Russian Old Believers up through the twentieth century were
intimately familiar with VAndrew. They had a particular interest in holy fool-
ishness as a means of individual and social protest to religious persecution.
"The holy fool was the only figure who had the moral right to criticize the
Church, for he did so without violating ecclesiality [sobornost']. He simultane-
ously was submerged in and existed outside of the ecclesiastical body of the
Church."3
This article will address the visual arts tradition of VAndrew, as reflected
in both iconography and in book miniatures of the Old Believer tradition.4
Our investigation will focus on the illustrations in a short redaction of
VAndrew compiled from the full redaction of VAndrew that occurs in an Old
1 On the dating of VAndrew to the mid-tenth century, see Lennart Ryden, "The Vision
of the Virgin at Blachemae and the Feast of the Pokrov," Analecta Bollandiana 94 (1976):
63-82. For the English translation accompanied by the Greek original, see Ryden, The
Life of St. Andrew the Fool, vol. 2, Text, Translation, and Notes. Appendices (Uppsala:
Uppsala Universitet, 1995). For the full Old Russian translation, see A. M. Moldovan,
Zhitie Andreia lurodivogo v slavianskoi pis'mennosti (Moscow: Azbukovnik, 2000).
2 On VAndrew's foundational role for Old Russian spirituality, see Priscilla Hunt, "The
Fool and the Tsar: The Vita of Andrew of Constantinople and Russian Urban Holy
Foolishness," pp. 149-224 in this collection.
3 S. A. Ivanov, Vizantiiskoe iurodstvo (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1994),
147.
4 Unfortunately, in the research catalogue of copies of the Old Russian translation of
VAndrew, the copies which belong to the Old Believers' manuscript tradition of the
eighteenth-twentieth centuries are not separated out; illustrated manuscripts are not
mentioned either. The incompleteness of the catalogue of manuscripts with the
VAndrew texts may be explained by the fact that in many of the libraries' manuscript
inventories which I consulted, information about the manuscripts, particularly the late
manuscript tradition, was insufficient.
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2 0 1 1 , 305-27.
306 N. lu. Bubnov
5 Among the favorite "genres" produced in Old Believer manuscript workshops were
the spiritual florilegia, starting from the middle of the seventeenth century. Many of
the Old Believers' spiritual florilegia were illustrated by folk artists/iconographers.
These miscellanies circulated principally among the lower levels of the population and
consisted of tales and stories of "redemptive" content; the most frequent were enter-
taining stories from other translated miscellanies, such as such as The Great Mirror and
the Eastern patericons, designed for Christian prayer books. Large compilations of-
fered material from the vitae of the saints and exotic romances (for example, from
"The Tale of Varlaam and Ioasaph"). The compilers thus used samplings and excerpts
for their "spiritual florilegia," and sometimes produced abbreviated redactions of a
given text as in the case of VAndrew.
6 Its title contains a reference to the date of this same feast: "Mesiatsa oktovriia vo 2
poluustav script and illustrated with 199 colored miniatures. A short redaction of
VAndrew is on fols. 234-90 and is illustrated with 33 miniatures. The miscellany's com-
position also includes the Vita of Aleksei the Man of God and tales from the Prologue and
the Patericons, the "The Great Mirror," the Vita of Nikolai Mirlikiiskii, and others. For a
description of the miscellany, see N. Iu. Bubnov, E. K. Bratchikova, and V. G. Pod-
kovyrova, eds., Litsevye staroobriadcheskie rukopisi XVIlI—pervoi poloviny XX vekov (St.
Petersburg: BAN, 2010), 10: 534-45.
8 See N. Iu. Bubnov, "Litsevye staroobriadcheskie tsvetniki (po materialam Biblioteki
Semenovich Kalikin, his sons Fedor, Ivan, and Grigorii and his daughter
Sofia copied texts from a variety of printed and handwritten originals of the
sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. They provided the texts with largely origi-
nal miniatures, reflecting the everyday life of the peasants and townspeople
of the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries.9
In the twentieth century these artists preserved a medieval vision. Books
created in the workshop were bound and sold to collectors in Moscow and St.
Petersburg, primarily by Old Believer merchants, and Anton Kalikin often
tried to pass off his homemade "forgeries" as genuine ancient books from the
seventeenth-eighteenth centuries.10 The workshop operated illegally until
1905, and its owner was prosecuted for spreading "dangerous" (from the offi-
cial point of view of the Orthodox Church and the state) religious literature
and Old Believer icons.
The family workshop of the Kalikin peasants is one of the last workshops
of the traditional medieval type operating in Russia.11 Judging by the extant
manuscripts, the workshop ceased to exist from the beginning of World War
I. Its production was geared towards wealthy Old Believer readers, aficio-
nados of Russian antiquity. The workshop used manuscripts that reflected the
traditions of the Pomortsy and Fedoseevtsy Old Believer Consents (soglasiia)
from the seventeenth-nineteenth centuries as models for the books it created,
several of which were illustrated; they were brought by the Kalikins (father
and son) from Northern Dvina. Information about the icons created in the
workshop has not survived.
The editor of BAN 19.2.26 apparently intended to give a short description
of St. Andrew's "feats of holy foolishness" that ennabled him to see with his
9 In general, the degree of originality of a given illustration and its possible source is
difficult to determine. Sources could include scenes depicted on ancient icons. In mod-
ern times (eighteenth-twentieth century) details from paintings exhibited in museums
and produced by secular painters could also serve as sources.
10He often used old (recycled) paper with eighteenth-early-nineteenth-century fili-
gree. However, the literary repertoire and artistic particulars of the compiled books
underwent minimal changes, since in Russia at the end of the nineteenth and begin-
ning of the twentieth centuries the Old Believer environment which dictated the
demand for Russian antiquities was extremely conservative. Several such books ended
up in the collections of Russian scholars and in scientific libraries
1 On the Kalikins' workshop, see A. A. Amosov, "Knigopisnaia masterskaia tarnog-
spiritual eyes heaven and other realities invisible to others, including the visi-
tation of the Most Holy Mother of God, and to communicate with saints and
angels. While the descriptive episodes of St. Andrew's "debaucheries" were
abridged and removed from the text, events devoted to the saint's contact
with higher spiritual beings were given much more attention. In the Old Be-
lievers ׳redaction of VAndrew less attention is given to the saint's general
philosophical and theological questions, sermons, and predictions in his con-
versations with his disciple Epiphanios. All of the episodes connected to the
life of St. Epiphanios are omitted as well, and the name of the latter is men-
tioned only once, in connection with the appearance of the Mother of God to
SS. Andrew and Epiphanios in the Blachemae Church, an event that was
viewed as the apotheosis of St. Andrew's life.12
As we shall demonstrate, the artist drew his illustrations from a variety of
sources, including the Prologue redaction of the vita as illustrated in later Old
Believer collections, vita icons of St. Andrew, and possibly other Old Believer
manuscripts of VAndrew, in full, and as excerpted in compilations such as
synodicons and florilegia.
The majority of the extant "illuminated" (illustrated) manuscripts13 il-
lustrate texts specifically of the Prologue articles extracted from the larger
VAndrew and edited anew.14 15 These articles derive from selected separate
episodes of this vita. This process of selection occurred in the middle of the
twelfth century, when "tales" from VAndrew were incorporated into the earli-
est Old Russian translation of the Greek Prologue.13 These tales can be found
12 The date of St. Andrew's commemoration given in the Prologue coincides with the
Feast of the Intercession: Velikie Minei Chet'i (VMCh) (St. Petersburg, 1874), 2 Oktiabr׳,
col. 80-81 (ch. 1).
13The illustrated manuscripts in question are: 1) Rossiiskaia natsional'naia biblioteka
(RNB), OLDP. Q.54 (first half of the seventeenth century, fol. 8v and 278 (miniatures
depicting St. Andrew and St. Epifanii from the eighteenth century were glued to the
manuscript); 2) Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka (RGB), f. 722, no. 370, fols. 2-4
(last third of the seventeenth century). On the manuscript RNB, OLDP. Q.54, see Kh.
Loparev, Opisanie rukopisei imperatorskogo Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis'mennosti.
Chast'2-ia (St. Petersburg, 1893), 92, no. 54; 2.
14To the extent that I have been able to familiarize myself with the Slavic visual arts
tradition of VAndrew, it would appear that not a single extant medieval Slavic
illustrated copy of this text reflects the full Greek original. An exception is the BAN
miscellany Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo i Povest’ ob Afonskoi gore, Luk׳ian.42, which in-
eludes VAndrew and The Tale o f M t . Athos (4, poluustav, 258+Ш f.).
15 Archbishop Sergii (Spasskii) maintains that the commemoration to the saint appears
in the Russian Synaxarion only in the twelfth century. See Sergii, Archbishop of Vladi-
mir [Ivan Spasskii], Polnyi mesiatseslov vostoka, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Vladimir: Tipo-lit. V. A.
Parkova, 1901), 2: 306, 409-10. It is unclear when the full vita was translated into Old
Russian. Moldovan has posited that the oldest redaction (B) appeared "not later than
the beginning of the thirteenth century" (Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo, 46-49). However a
fragment of the vita from this translation is in the Izbornik Sviatoslava of 1073,
Illustrations to the V ita of A ndrew the H oly Fool of C onstantinople 309
in the Prologue articles dated 1-5, 8, 12, and 16 October; the second redaction
of the Prologue (fourteenth century) includes additional articles dated 6, 7,15,
and 25 October. Later, articles from the Prologue redaction were included in
literary miscellanies and began to be illustrated from the seventeenth century.
It is possible that at that time scenes from the Prologue redaction of the vita
ended up in the border scenes of the vita icons of St. Andrew the Holy Fool
and the Protection of the Mother of God. The titles of these Prologue articles
are included in Appendix 1.
Between the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Old Believers cop-
ied articles from the Prologue into spiritual florilegia and the literary portions
of their Synodicon.16 These represent the bulk of Old Believers' illustrations of
VAndrew. For instance, in the literary section of the Old Believers' illuminated
synodicon, the tale about how St. Andrew "sees the dead rich man" (vide
bogatogo umersha) is often depicted (from 15 October). In one early eighteenth-
century synodicon (BAN 25.7.6) this same story is illustrated by two minia-
tures.17 In a second early eighteenth-century synodicon (BAN, Kalikin 99), the
same story is illustrated with three miniatures.18 The same story is presented
in a third eighteenth-century synodicon (BAN. 17.8.31), illustrated by three
miniatures with partially preserved signatures.19 In BAN 19.2:26, two minia-
tures portray this story (min. 16-17). In the manuscript BAN Kalikin 99, the
episode of the grave robber taking off the clothing of a dead girl is also illus
suggesting either an earlier translation or the selective nature of the earlier transla-
tions. The oldest extant copy of this translation dates from the fourteenth century.
16 The synodicon or literary synodicon was a type of miscellany that developed in Old
47-48: 1) Andrew the Holy Fool is depicted on a cloud; below, two servants carry the
coffin of the dead "rich" man. People walk behind the coffin, demons rejoice: they kiss
the deceased, play their fifes, and beat their drums; 2) Andrew the Holy Fool is pray-
ing. An angel using a metal rod chases away from the coffin two fire-bearing demons
intending to burn it. See Bubnov et al., eds., Litsevye staroobriadcheskie rukopisi, 335-36.
18BAN, Kalikin 99: 1) St. Andrew, standing, converses with the savior angel of the
wealthy dead man. There are people behind them, towards the right servants carry a
coffin covered in patterned fabric; demons fly above the coffin; 2) St. Andrew is de-
picted in the center. Under him a devil from the nether world with a scythe and a
flame-filled cup stands by the coffin of the deceased and plans to torture him. Next to
him are devils; 3) St. Andrew converses with the young angel. Below them the coffin
of the deceased is depicted in hell. See BAN, Sobr. Kalikina 99. Sinodik—literaturnyi
sbornik, eighteenth century (1820-30), fol. 118, 119, 121, 122. See Bubnov et al., eds.,
Litsevye staroobriadcheskie rukopisi, 355.
19BAN. 17.8.31, fols. 86-88. See Bubnov et al., eds., Litsevye staroobriadcheskie rukopisi,
387-88.
310 N. lu. Bubnov
trated.20 In BAN 19.2:26, there are two corresponding miniatures (min. 12-
15).21
It is also entirely possible that the editor-artist, compiling excerpts from a
complete Slavic redaction of VAndrew, was guided by a collection of minia-
tures from the full VAndrew. A substantial number of texts contain the full
vita in the Old Believer tradition of book writing.22 In the first quarter of the
twentieth century, the Iaroslav artist A. A. Velikanov illustrated a copy from
the Old Believers' library in the Vygo-Leksinskii Monastery, itself from the
first quarter of the nineteenth century (1810-30). He provided it with eighty-
two colored miniatures of the complete VAndrew text (BAN, Sobr. Luk'ianova
42) 23
The border scenes of vita icons of St. Andrew were a possible resource
for the illustrations of BAN 19.2.26. For the most part these border scenes
include the same episodes that occur in the Prologue redaction of VAndrew;
however, they may also may include episodes not represented in the Pro-
logue redaction that were taken directly from Andrew's full vita.24 The illus-
trations of BAN 19.2.26 reflect many of the subjects of the eighteen border
scenes of an early sixteenth-century Novgorod icon described by Lazarev, ex-
tant in the Russian Museum (hereafter, Icon A).25 (See fig. 25 in the gallery of
illustrations following p. 224.) Major stylistic differences are observable since
this early icon is in the style of Dionisii and the comparable Old Believer
illustrations are not (see min. 2, 3, 4,17,18,19, 22, 24, 25, 33).
20See BAN, Sobr. Kalikina, 99, fol. 123. See Bubnov et al., eds., Litsevye staroobriad-
cheskie rukopisi, 355.
21 One often encounters the illustrated story "On the Demon of Lust" from the com-
vol. 1, Introduction, Testimonies, and Nachleben. Indices, Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 4,1
(Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1995), 196-99. He also discusses icons of the Protection
of
של
the Mother of God.
These subjects are represented by sixteen miniatures: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16,
21, 23, 27, 28, 30, and 31. See V. N. Lazarev, Moskovskaia shkola ikonopisi (Moscow:
Iskusstvo, 1980), 50-51, figures 81, 82. For a description of the subjects of the border
scenes on the vita icon, see also Ryden, The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 1:197-99.
Illustrations to the V ita of A ndrew the H oly Fool of C onstantinople 311
The fourteen border scenes of a Novgorodian vita icon of the late six-
teenth century described by Kondakov (hereafter Icon B) appear to be a likely
source for the illustrations of BAN 19.2.26. It is possible that Kalikin had a
copy or may have copied it himself.26 Twelve out of thirty-three miniatures
have analogs in its border scenes. Since Icon В is no longer extant, we know
these subjects only as Kondakov describes them. Based on his description,
comparable subjects to BAN 19.2.26 appear to be closer to the Old Believer
miniatures than the same subjects in Icon A (min. 1, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 16, 20, 23,
26, 29, 32).27
The Kalikin illustrations also include new scenes that more fully reflect
the content of the specific redaction of VAndrew in BAN 19.2.26 (min. 8,10,11,
14,15, 21, 27, 28, 30, and 31 appear to be without earlier models).28
In sum, one may hypothesize that the border scenes of the Novgorod
icons (or their copies) and the scenes that illustrate the Old Believer Prologue
redaction of the vita were the main sources of inspiration for the creation of
the illustrated abbreviated redaction of VAndrew of BAN 19.2.26.29
In the following description of the miniatures in BAN 19.2.26, I will cor-
relate them with 1) the eighteen border scenes of Icon A and the fourteen
border scenes of Icon B; and 2) the miniatures of Old Believer redactions of
episodes from VAndrew from the above-mentioned manuscripts of BAN; the
lines in the full Slavic redaction of VAndrew published by Moldovan;30 syn-
26 N. P. Kondakov, Russkaia ikona, vol. 4, pt. 2 (Prague, 1933), 308. Kondakov describes
the fourteen border scenes. See also Ryden, The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 1: 199-200,
where he refers to this icon as "Icon B." Its fate will be the subject of further research.
The Archbishop of Vologda, Feognost Lebedev, gave it to the Russian Museum. Anton
Kalikin's son, Fedor, was working at this museum and may have sent a photograph to
his father.
ל7 -
Six miniatures of BAN 19.2.26 have subjects in common to Icons A and В (mins. 6, 7,
9, 13,16, 23). The lively reflections of real life in Icon В are more in the spirit of the Old
Believer illuminations. See, for example, the following miniatures of Icon B: 6 (the
Grave Robber), 9 (Barbara and the Dove), 12 (Winter Storm) as compared to minia-
tures 12-15, 20, 27 in BAN 19.2.26. The subject of the grave robber is, for example, also
in Icon A, min. 10. However Icon A portrays the dead girl taking back her vest from
the robber, while the comparable scene in Icon В portrays her slapping his face, as
does min. 13 in BAN 19.2.26.
סר
Miniatures 11, 14, 15, 21, 27 are remarkable for their ethnographic content in the
portrayal of outfits, dogs, bast-shoes, and peasant dwellings. However, even scenes
with earlier analogs in vita icons may reflect the circumstances of the illustrator's daily
life.
99
Depictions of Andrew's disciple Epiphanios and his "apocalypse" of time's end are
missing from both icons' border scenes as well as from BAN 19.2.26.They are repre-
sented in other Old Believer compilations, such as BAN, Sobr. Kalikina, 44 (1750-60,
135 miniatures) f., 210iv, 211iv, 213iv. See Bubnov et al., eds., Litsevye staroobriadcheskie
rukopisi, 275-95; VMCh, 2 October, col. 114-17.
30 See Moldovan, Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo.
312 N. lu. Bubnov
opses of the text of the unpublished short vita that they illustrate. This
description is meant to introduce the reader to the illuminations and facilitate
research into their sources. An asterisk marks those illustrations that are
reproduced in this volume. (See figs. 26-35.)
Min. 1. The young Andrew is offered crowns, fol. 236. Moldovan, lines 109-
15. Icon B, N0.1.
Andrew (a youth with a halo) is standing "on the stage" (na pozor-
ishchi) "between two figures"; on the left are the winged holy men in
white chasubles (mnozhestvo inykh v belykh rizakh sviatykh muzhei), and
on the right are the winged demons led by the "black Ethiopian." The
light-filled angelic youth is carrying from heaven three wreaths or
crowns. The first crown is decorated with pure gold, the second with
large pearls, and the third is colorful and made from the branches of
heavenly trees. Andrew, wishing to receive even one of these crowns,
suggests that the young angel sell them to him. He offers in exchange
his master's gold. But the angel, laughing, replies that there is not
enough gold belonging to the "so-called master" (mnimyi gospodin),
but there is not even enough gold in the whole world to purchase
such heavenly crowns; those crowns can crown only those who
defeat the "black Ethiopans." The angelic youth suggests that
Andrew fight with their leader. Andrew agrees to the match, but asks
the youth to teach him "his tricks" (khistrosti ego). The youth assures
Andrew that the "Ethiopians" only appear "frightening and menac-
ing," but are by nature "feeble," and he tells Andrew not to fear them.
Nevertheless he does offer his "tricks": "do not fear him, but trip him
and you will see God's help" (ty ne uzhasnis׳, no zapni emu nogu i
uzrishi pomoshch ׳Bozhiiu).
Min. 2. Andrew fights the devil in single combat, fol. 238. Moldovan, lines
109-15. Icon A, no. 3 (see fig. 25) (the border scene combines the topics of
mins. 2 and 3 in the BAN manuscript).
Andrew (a youth without a halo) is fighting with the "black Ethi-
opian," who lifts Andrew up (voskhitiv) and turns him "around and
around." The Ethiopians begin to applaud, and the holy men in the
white chasubles and the bright youth holding the divine crown are
standing pale with fear for Andrew's fate.
Min. 3. Andrew defeats the demon by knocking his head on a rock, fol. 239,
Moldovan, lines 115-21.
St. Andrew (a youth with a halo) follows the advice of the angel and
trips up the "Ethiopian," who falls and hits his head on a rock. The
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople 313
Min. 4. Andrew initiated into holy foolishness, fol. 240. Moldovan, lines
122-29. Icon A, no. 3. (In the border scene, the youth who hands over the
wreaths to Andrew is depicted in a royal robe wearing a crown.)
The youth hands over the crowns to Andrew and instructs him to
carry on the feat of holy foolishness and "from now on you will be
our friend and brother." The defeated devil is lying on the ground.
The other devils are running. Andrew, having awoken, remembers
his miraculous vision, and begins to act the fool (sotvorisia iurod).
Min. 5. Andrew has a night vision of St. Anastasia and five women and an
old man in the Cathedral of Anastasiia, fol. 242. Moldovan, lines 176-93.
Icon B, no. 3.
The Holy Martyr St. Anastasiia (d. 290 or 304, during the reign of
Diocletian) appears to Andrew in a nightly vision. She is accompa-
nied by five holy women (with halos) and an old man (barefoot,
without a halo), whom Andrew later recognizes as St. John the Di-
vine. Andrew understands that St. Anastasiia is conducting her usual
rounds and "doctoring" the mentally ill there. St. Anastasia tells the
old man accompanying her that "[Andrew] needs no doctoring,"
since the Lord God has already healed him, by saying "let him be a
fool in Christ" (budi iurod Mene radi). And then Andrew understood
that his work was pleasing to God, and became more resolute in his
decision.
Min. 6. Demons attack Andrew in the Church of St. Anastasia, fol. 243.
Moldovan, lines 203-15. Icon A, no. 4; Icon B, no. 4.
Enchained in the Church of St. Anastasia for madness, during night
prayer in "the secret temple of his heart" (v tainom khrame serdtsa
svoego) Andrew sees the devil "visibly" (ochevidno) (depicted with a
scythe) and accompanied by "many devils" with knives, lances, and
hooks intending to kill him. St. Andrew appeals to John the Divine
for help.
Min. 7. The Support of St. John the Apostle־l. See Icon A, no. 4; Icon B, no. 4.
Through Andrew's prayer to his new master Jesus Christ and to John
the Divine, the latter comes to Andrew's aid with "many haloed
servants" and beats the defeated demons with chains taken from
Andrew's neck (on the left are the devils, on the right is a huge
314 N. lu. Bubnov
throng of saints). The devils say to each other: ״this is a sad hour,
when we were deceived (prel'stikhomsia) for John is fierce and would
like to torment us visciously." St. John locks them in the church and
then, having ״insulted" (oskorblennykh) them by the beatings, sends
them to "their father Satan."
Min. 8. The Support of St. John the Apostle2־. See Moldovan, lines 245-61.
St. John the Divine again places chains on the neck of "God's servant"
Andrew and tells him to be patient, promising that soon he will be
free and "will begin walking around freely wherever his eyes take
him."
Min. 9. Andrew and the Heavenly King: On the Bitter and the Sweet, fol.
247. Moldovan, lines 262-306, 348, 353-65, 429-31, 446-54 (the text has been
abridged and partly altered). Icon A, no. 5; Icon B, no. 5.
In this nighttime vision St. Andrew finds himself in royal chambers in
front of the King (Jesus Christ). He [Andrew] is adorned with a crown
and halo and is sitting on a throne "in great glory"; he drinks from
the goblet that the King gave him. According to the story, the King is
offering "something as bitter as wormwood" to eat that symbolizes
"the sorrowful path of those who work in this world," and then
"something whiter than snow and sweeter than manna" whereby "he
can rejoice after the initial bitterness." After waking, Andrew under-
stands that the bitter food symbolizes "patience [terpenie] in this
world," while the sweet food "represents eternal life." Offered a
choice, Andrew has chosen service to God in the world.
*Min. 10. Andrew throws coins to the beggars, fol. 249. Moldovan, lines 522-
34 (fig. 26).
This miniature illustrates the idea of secret alms. According to the
story, after keeping St. Andrew in confinement in the church hospital
for four months, his master ascertains the impossibility of curing him
and grants him "freedom." "And he [Andrew] began to run in the
streets, behaving as if he were a madman" (neistov" tvoriasia). Disguis-
ing his almsgiving as madness, Andrew throws to the beggars the
generous alms he himself has received, while pretending that he is
angry at the beggars and wants to beat them.
*Min. 11. Andrew sleeps with dogs, fol. 251. Moldovan, lines 2616-26 (with
additional text), 2627-48 (fig. 27).
Finding no shelter or food anywhere, persecuted by everyone, barely
able to cover his nakedness, St. Andrew sleeps with the dogs. But
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople 315
even the dogs, shrinking from the saint, bite him and chase him
away. In his service to Christ, Andrew imitates St. Symeon the Holy
Fool. He is lying "on the dung-heap like Lazarus." Subjecting himself
to the greatest degree of humiliation, the holy fool demonstrates to
the world his meekness and poverty (ubozhestvo).
Min. 12. St. Andrew counsels the grave robber to give up his evil intention,
fol. 253. Icon A, no. 10; Icon B, no. 6 (the relevant border scenes in both icons
combine mins. 12 and 13).
According to the story, the grave robber decides to rob the recent
burial place of the suddenly departed young daughter of a rich aristo-
crat. Andrew, who has the gift of clairvoyance and "understood
through the spirit evil thoughts," warns him: "you will not see the
sun, you will not see the day, nor the face of man. The gates of your
house [the eyes] will be closed and will not open. Your day will turn
dark and it never will be light again." The robber is surprised that the
holy fool knows his thoughts. However he does not understand An-
drew's threats and does not believe him, saying "your words are
pointless." In this scene Andrew speaks in parables that can be
understood only by a wise man.
Min. 13. The robber removes the girl's clothing and receives a slap in the
face, fol. 254. Moldovan, lines 2649-61. Icon A, no. 10; Icon B, no. 6; BAN
Kalikin collection no. 99 (1720-30), fol. 123.
On the background of a conventional landscape is depicted a thief,
who has climbed into the grave, and a dead girl with her hand raised.
According to the story, the robber, entering into the tomb con-
taining the girl's coffin, removes her clothing. Not satisfied with the
stolen clothing and utensils, he returns to the deceased and takes her
shroud as well, leaving the body naked. However, the dead girl "by
God's will" suddenly comes to life and slaps the robber's face and he
becomes blind. Reproaching the robber for his godlessness and
shamelessness, the girl also accuses him of excessive greed, telling
him: "think what will happen if, during the Second Coming, you
make a mockery of me (tvoriti mia v smekh) before the other holy
maidens."
Min. 14. The blinded robber runs away, fol. 256. Moldovan, lines 2662-77.
The girl, taking away the shroud from the blinded robber, puts it on
again. The robber finds his way out of the tomb and runs away, and
the girl dies once again.
316 N. lu. Bubnov
Min. 15. The blinded robber asks for alms, fol. 257. Moldovan, lines 2679-93.
The blinded robber is sitting on a bench at the entrance to a house
and asking for alms. A passerby gives him bread. According to the
story, the robber is telling what happened to him and complaining
that he has had to give up his trade and beg for alms. He is surprised
by Andrew's providence and prophecy.
*Min. 16. Andrew sees how demons spread ashes over the dead rich man,
fol. 259, Moldovan, lines 2129-60. Icon A, no. 7: "The demons are flying over
the wealthy man's coffin, which is wrapped in a white shroud; St. Andrew
and an angel stand nearby. Icon B, no. 7: "Andrew sees the demons in front of
the tomb of the wealthy man, sprinkling him with hell's ashes." BAN 17.8.31,
f. 86 (first quarter of the eighteenth century), Kalikin no. 99. f. 118 (1720-30),
BAN 25.7.6, fol. 47 (first third of the eighteenth century).31 In all these BAN
manuscripts there is an additional miniature with another subject (Moldovan,
lines 2160-65). It portrays St. Andrew offering a prayer for the soul of the
dying sinner, which prevents the devils from burning his coffin. BAN 25.7.6,
fol. 48; BAN 17.8.31, fol. 88; Kalikin, no. 99, fol. 119. The iconography is
different in all of the manuscripts. Moldovan, lines 2160-65 (fig. 28).
The story goes as follows: Walking around the city one day, St.
Andrew met the funeral procession of a wealthy citizen. The coffin
with the body of the deceased is carried by the man's well-dressed
friends and relatives, "with many candles and incense." They are
crying bitterly. Nuns are singing spiritual songs over the deceased.
But the saint, with his "spiritual eyes" sees many Ethiopian demons
flying above the body and in front of the procession. They are
wailing: "Woe to him, woe to him!" The Ethiopians are pouring ash
on the people passing by. They are dancing and laughing. Some of
them are in the forms of animals: dogs and pigs bark and squeal. To
bum the dead man's body, the demons pour on sulfur and pitch. St.
31 On the dead rich man, see Moldovan, lines 2129-2209, and BAN 25.7.6, fols. 47-48
{Sinodik—literaturnyi sbornik: (Prolog, 15 oktiabria): 1) Andrew the Holy Fool is de-
picted on a cloud; below, two servants carry the coffin of the dead "rich" man. People
walk behind the coffin, while demons rejoice: they kiss the deceased, play their fifes,
and beat their drums; 2) Andrew the Holy Fool is praying, while an angel using a
metal rod chases away from the coffin two fire-bearing demons intending to burn it.
See also BAN, Sobr. Kalikina 99 (Literary Synodicon), fols. 118, 119, 121, 122: 1) St. An-
drew, standing, converses with the savior angel of the wealthy dead man. There are
people behind them. Towards the right servants carry a coffin covered in patterned
fabric, demons fly above the coffin; 2) St. Andrew is depicted in the center. Under him
a devil from the nether world with a scythe and a flame-filled cup stands by the coffin
of the deceased and plans to torture him. Next to him are devils; 3) St. Andrew con-
verses with the young angel. Below them the coffin of the deceased is depicted in hell.
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople 317
Andrew, seeing with spiritual eyes the sins of the deceased and the
rejoicing of hell as it awaits him, mourns his fate.
*Min. 17. "About the angels' tale" ("O povesti angelove"), fol. 262. Moldo-
van, lines 2166-2218. Icon A, no. 7, the demons are flying over the wealthy
man's coffin, which is wrapped in a white shroud; St. Andrew and an angel
stand nearby. BAN 17.8.31, fol. 87; Kalikin, no. 99, fol. 120 (fig. 29).
St. Andrew, dressed in rags, is talking to an angel. Andrew meets a
crying angel after the burial of the wealthy sinner who appears to
him in the form of a beautiful youth. First the saint mistakes the
youth for a relative of the deceased. He then understands from their
conversation that this is the guardian angel of the wealthy man and
that he [the angel] is crying because he was not able to keep the man
from sin. The angel tells Andrew about the many unrepented sins of
the deceased, and about the bitter fate of his soul. Andrew comforts
the angel and tells him that the deceased received his due and is not
worthy of pity. Later, when they part, St. Andrew himself prays for
the deceased, and his prayer is heard.
*Min. 18. Passersby chase St. Andrew with sticks (after he has been talking
to an angel while facing a wall), fol. 263. Moldovan, lines 2219-26. Here the
miniature adds the motif of Andrew's being beaten that derives from another
episode (that informs the next miniatures, 19 and 20): the attack on the saint at
the forum near the column of Constantine. Icon A, no. 15 (fig. 30).
"Seeing him standing alone and talking to himself" the beggars say,
"Look at this fool [iuroda sego], how he is making a scene [glumitsia]
and talking to the wall. Not understanding, they push him away and
chase him off, saying 'It is undignified to talk to a wall as if talking to
a man. "׳The beggars do not see the guardian angel with whom An-
drew is speaking; they only hear unintelligible muttering, which in
essence is the language of angels and is not comprehensible to others.
*Min. 19. "The demons stamp (with the mark of the Antichrist) those who
beat the saint," fol. 265. Moldovan, lines 4819-51. Icon A, no. 15 (fig. 31).
According to the story, St. Andrew is walking among the people in
the market place near the column of Emperor Constantine. The
woman, Barbara, "who was illuminated with God's grace" noticed
the saint in the image of "a brilliant flaming column." Others, walk-
ing by saw in St. Andrew simply an indigent idler, "who became a
holy fool and inveighs against the whole world because he doesn't
want to work for his lord." They push and beat him unjustly. The
demons around them ask God that they be permitted to mark the
318 N. lu. Bubnov
foreheads of those who beat the saint; they also ask that God not give
them another earthly enemy like Andrew. However Andrew defends
his persecutors and chases the demons away, undoing their work,
saying: "they are not worthy of being marked for beating me, and I
will pray to my Lord that this not be counted against them as a sin."
*Min. 20. "The woman sees a dove and swallows descending from heaven
onto St. Andrew," fol. 267. Moldovan, lines 4852-79. See Icon B, no. 9 ("a
dove and swallows fly down on the saint") (fig. 32).
This miracle is a continuation of the scene at the forum. Barbara sees
descending from paradise, "a dove white as snow holding a golden
olive branch in its beak." It addresses him in a human voice: "'accept
this branch, for it was sent to you from paradise by God as a sign of
His grace ... in that you have forgiven those who beat you and you
have mercy on them and pray that they not be held accountable for
this sin." When the saint requests that she keep his secret, Barbara
answers that she is forbidden "by God's mysterious power" to speak
about this miracle. The scene attests to Andrew's special, "trusting"
relationship with God.
Min. 22. "The Angel of the Lord beats the dying sinner with a fiery club,"
fol. 269. Moldovan, lines 2253-56 (text expanded). Icon A, no. 17.
In a continuation of the previous scene, the Angel of the Lord appears
to Andrew in a dream, "coming from the west." He is depicted with a
fiery club standing over the dead sinner, whose death (God's retribu-
tion for his sins) the saint foretold. In the Old Believer redaction of
this story people surround the dying man. They hear the angel's
accusing speech and the clubbing but they do not see the angel pun-
ishing the sinner. However, these people are absent in the miniature
illustrating this story. They are also not mentioned in the full vita, nor
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople 319
depicted in Icon A, no. 17: There, as in the BAN miniature, the angel
threatens the sinner, who is lying in bed. Andrew stands nearby.
Min. 23. About the avaricious monk. "St. Andrew sees a terrible snake on
the monk," fol. 271. Moldovan, lines 2738-66. Icon A, no. 12; Icon B, no. 10
At the market Andrew saw a monk who was praised for his virtuous
life by all who knew him. But the monk, receiving gold to distribute
to the beggars, kept it for himself rather than giving it away. The sec-
ond time Andrew met the monk he saw a black serpent around the
latter's neck, and he saw above the snake a writing in dark letters:
"the serpent of avarice is the root of all lawlessness'" (zmii srehroliu-
bivyi koren' vsiakomu bezzakoniiu). St. Andrew makes the monk aware
of the serpent around his neck, and advises him to free himself of it.
Min. 24. "The saint sees an angel and a demon arguing about the monk,"
fol. 272. Moldovan, lines 2767-77. See Icon A, no. 12. (There the angel and the
demon stand on either side of the monk with the snake around his neck.)
Turning around, St. Andrew sees "two young boys arguing among
themselves. One is a demon, dark with dark eyes; the other is God's
angel, white, like a heavenly light." The youths argue about the soul
of the monk, weighing the good deeds and the sins. They seem un-
able to come to agreement (priakhusia sitse oba a ne be mira mezhdu imi).
Andrew is surprised when the demon ends up "out-arguing" the
holy angel.
Min 25. "Andrew points out the Ethiopian demon to the monk," fol. 275.
Moldovan, lines 2814-18, 2825-30, 2853-2905, 2917-21. Icon A, no. 13 ("thanks
to Andrew the dragon of miserliness releases the monk and flies away in the
guise of a raven").32
Once again meeting the sinful monk, Andrew reproaches him for his
miserliness, and asks him to distribute his money among the beggars.
He points him to an "Ethiopian" standing at a distance. The monk's
inner eyes were opened and he saw the "black, animal-like Ethio-
pian." The monk gives away his hoarded gold to the poor. Visiting
him again, Andrew advises him to give alms with his own hands.
Moldovan, lines 2814-18, 2825-30, 2853-2905,2917-21.
*Min. 26. On winter's misfortune. "The beggars chase St. Andrew from
their dwellings," fol. 278. Moldovan, lines 640-52, 716-27. Icon B, no. 12
("Andrew freezes in the severe winter") (fig. 34).
Min. 27. "St. Andrew lies beside a dog," fol. 279. See Moldovan, lines 728^0.
Driven away by the beggars, St. Andrew found a sleeping dog, hop-
ing to be warmed by him. But the dog got up and walked away.
Andrew explains the dog's behavior by his own excessive sinfulness.
Min. 28. "The Angel of the Lord comes to St. Andrew with a branch from
paradise," fol. 280. Moldovan, lines 741-53.
An angel saves the frozen Andrew from death, striking his face with
a blooming, paradaisical branch. Andrew "smelled the fragrance of
the flowers that had entered into his heart, and it brought him back to
life and warmed up his entire body."
Min. 29. On the vision of paradise. "St. Andrew in the midst of a beautiful
paradise," fol. 282. Moldovan, lines 757-813. Icon B, no. 13.
After his encounter with the angel, Andrew has a "sweet dream"
where he sees himself in paradise in bright clothing with a crown of
flowers on his head and wearing a regal belt.
Min. 30. "St. Andrew in heaven kisses the honorable cross of Christ," fol.
284. Moldovan, lines 921-42. This scene, in which Andrew kisses a cross
behind four veils in a bright cloud, is present in the full vita but absent in this
short redaction.
In the Garden of Eden a youth appears to Andrew dressed in royal
purple with a halo, the same who on earth had struck Andrew with a
flowering branch. The young angel shows Andrew paradise.
Min. 31. "Andrew among the holy angels," fol. 286. Moldovan, lines 943-92
(abridged).
An angel brings St. Andrew to a "brilliant curtain" in front of which a
celestial army of angelic youths are standing. Andrew is "in the third
heaven."
Min. 32. St. Andrew at the feet of Christ, fol. 287v. Moldovan, lines 1005-18,
1064-74 (a paraphrase). Icon B, no. 14, "Andrew contemplates the
Pantocrator."
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople 321
*Min. 33. The Vision of the Mother of God at Blachernae, fol. 290.
Moldovan, lines 5013-41 (abridged). Icon A, no. 15 (fig. 35). (Unlike the minia-
ture, the border scene follows the traditional iconography of the Intercession
Feast.33)
In the miniature St. Andrew and St. Epiphanios (with a halo) are
depicted in the empty sanctuary of the Blachernae Church. Andrew
shows his disciple the Mother of God, who appears in a mandorla of
clouds with the veil in her arms, with angels proceeding behind her.
In a separate mandorla of clouds, Jesus Christ is holding the Gospels
in his hand. By contrast, miniature no. 15 of Icon A portrays An-
drew's vision of the Mother of God according to the full Russian vita,
i.e., at the ambo before she spreads her veil "at the altar."34 In the
border scene, she is standing behind the ambo with a white cathedral
in the background; Her hymnographer, Roman the Melode is under
her in the center. On the right and left are saints (with halos); Andrew
and Epiphanios are also on the right. In the full vita, the vision occurs
during the "continuous" (neusypaiushchaia) service in the Blachernae
Church where Andrew and St. Epiphanios often stayed until mid-
night or dawn. The Mother of God appears at the fourth hour of the * 14
33 See R)^n, The Life of Andrew the Fool, 1: 199, 201-02. In Icon B, the last border scene
(14) is devoted to Andrew's contemplation of his Maker, while the subject of the Pro-
tection of the Mother of God is completely absent. See Icon A (fig. 25), bottom row,
middle scene, as well as fig. 20, the Intercession icon, described in Hunt, "The Fool and
the Tsar," and fig. 40, discussed in Kobets, "An Illuminated Vita of Andrew of Con-
stantinople." In the last miniature (33) of BAN 19.2.26, Christ in a mandorla has been
added. The illustrator, looking at the final border scene of Icon В may have decided in
his own final miniature to fill out the subject of Andrew's contemplation by the
Mother of God with her train in a second mandorla. This would reflect the author's
desire to associate the Old Believer vita with the Feast of the Intercession. Could this
be an explanation for the absence of people in the church over whom the veil was sup-
posed to have been spread?
‘4 In the Greek version, she moves from the ambo to the sanctuary and spreads her
veil there. See Ryden, The Life of Andrew the Fool, 2:255.
322 N. lu. Bubnov
night, coming toward the ambo from the royal doors together with
her awe-inspiring retinue. She is supported on each side by John the
Baptist and the Son of Thunder (John the Divine). In front and behind
her are saints in white chasubles. After a prayer at the ambo, where
she faces towards the altar, she takes her veil and holds it above the
people in the sanctuary space.
The compilation's rendition of this story follows the full vita. St. Andrew
shows his disciple Epiphanios the appearance of the Mother of God in the
Blachernae Church. She is in the air with the prophets and the apostles and
with angels; when the fool sees her "covering the people with her honorable
veil, he tells Epiphanios: 'Do you see the Queen and Lady and Lord of All
praying? ׳Epiphanios responds: T see Her, holy father, and I am in awe( ׳״I
chestnym svoim amoforom liudei pokryvashe, iuzhe blazhennyi videv, reche
ко ucheniku svoemu Epifaniiu: "Videshi li Tsaritsu i Gospozhu Vsekh molia-
shchuiusia?" On zhe reche: "Vizhdu, sviatyi otche, i uzhasaiusia").
The miniatures give us insight into the understanding of VAndrezv in the
Kalikin workship. There are illustrations that appear to be original since no
visual analogs have been discovered (min. 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 21, 27, 28, 30, 31).
Some of them witness to the author's original vision. The miniatures are
organized chronologically and depict St. Andrew in the process of growing
up: min. 1 (a boy); min. 10 (a youth with the beginnings of a beard and
mustache, throwing coins to the beggars), min. 11-33 (an old man in torn
clothing). St. Andrew is depicted in heaven wearing tom rags (min. 29-32),
even though, in the vita, he is clothed "in bright clothing, as if spun by light-
ning" (vo odeianie presvetloe, aki molnii istkannoe), with a "tsar's belt" (poiasom
tsarskim), wearing a crown of heavenly flowers on his head.
There are numerous features of Russian daily life in the miniatures. The
miniaturist had a poor conception of Constantinople and the lives of its in-
habitants.33 The beggars and citizens are dressed in Russian single-breasted
shirts, which are belted with sashes, and they have boots on their feet (mins.
*10,12, 13,14,15, 18, 19, 26) or bark sandals or footcloths for the beggars (min.
*26). In miniature 10, St. Andrew is dressed in a floor-length "coat" (komzol)
with patches and red boots on his feet. The woman, Barbara, is depicted
wearing a kerchief and a long, closed dress cut in "Old Believer" fashion
(min. *20); the boyar is dressed in a short satin coat with a fur collar and fur
trimming, "in a cape" (v nakidkn) and fur-trimmed hat, and a floor-length caf-
tan (min. *21); the monk is wearing a green chasuble with a mantle over it, 35
35The action is placed "During the days of the great Greek emperor Leo the Wise
(886-912), who was the son of Emperor Basil of Macedonia" (Pri velikom tsare
grechestem L've Premudrom syne tsaria Vasiliia Makedona). In the full vita, the action
is placed in the reign of Leo the Great, who lived in the fifth century. See Moldovan,
Zhitie, 159, lines 11-12.
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople 323
and on his head a cowl of the old "pre-Nikonian" (pre-reform) style (min. 23,
25); the beggars wear peasant shirts (min. *26); a city-dweller is sitting on a
bench and next to him is a wicker box or basket (min. 15); the people in the
funeral procession are depicted in floor-length, embroidered caftans, and the
incense-bearing priest with them is dressed as an Old Believer teacher (min.
*16). Even the angels are dressed in floor-length crimson chasubles—as St.
Andrew sees them (mins. *17, *18, 22, 24, 28, 30, 31, 32). In the city (Constanti-
nople), there are Russian log homes with wooden roofs (mins. 15, *18, *26).
The depiction of Andrew's experience through the prism of contempo-
rary life reflects the larger process of russification of the vita. The Russian
translation of VAndrew identified him as a Slav. From ancient times, Russian
readers of the post-Byzantine period, including twentieth-century Old Believ-
ers saw Andrew as a national saint.
The entire cycle of miniatures is constructed to bring the reader to the
main miracle: the appearance of the Mother of God on earth, who "came to
help humanity" (prishedsei pomogati chelovekom) in the Blachemae church (min.
*33). The illustrator adds the image of Jesus Christ with the Gospels in his
hand to enhance this episode's significance. This scene reflects the belief that
Holy Rus' was under the protection of the Most Holy Mother of God, the
intercessor for the Orthodox people before her Son. It depicts Andrew not
only as the chosen one of God and His divine Mother, but also as an interme-
diary between her and the Orthodox readers of the manuscript, who impli-
citly dwell with him within the universal Church. For the radical Fedoseevtsy
group in particular, this aspect of Andrew's holy foolishness had special sig-
nificance. The Fedoseevtsy looked to St. Andrew as a cosmic channel connect-
ing them with the Deities since they were priestless Old Believers, i.e., with-
out their own hierarchy, broken away from the official "Nikonian" Church.
The illustrations of Andrew's holy foolishness lay bare the moral under-
pinnings of the priestless Old Believers withdrawal from the world. Their
ability to "speak" reflects the visual aspect of holy foolish behavior itself,
aimed at provoking the conscience, rousing awareness, leading the viewer out
of the habitual stream of everyday existence by revealing hidden vices that
they often were not aware of themselves.36
The illustrations express many characteristics of holy foolishness that can
be summarized by the following topoi: 1) distinctive behavior that sets them
apart from other people; insane acts (from the outside point of view), where-
by the holy fool' "plays" with the viewing public. His spectacle provokes the
viewers into active participation. Their response is meant to make them better
by bringing to light heretofore hidden spiritual and moral qualities. An exam-
pie is the episode at the forum where his unkempt wild appearance provokes
his spectators to beat him (min. *18); invisible devils place their marks on his
persecutors (min. *19); but he frees them of these marks by his own prayer,
36
On this theme in VAndreiv, see Hunt, The Fool and the Tsar," 193.
324 N. lu. Bubnov
whereby God rewards him with the descent of the dove (min. *20); 2) a dis-
tinctive costume (ideally nakedness or dress symbolizing nakedness, or a spe-
dal kind of white shirt (mins. *11, *26); 3) specific language (ideally muteness
and the language of gestures) with which the holy fool communicates with
people, God and angels, and trusted individuals (min. *17); 4) a double life
divided into time of day: during the day he interacts with people, and during
the night he prays, communicates with God and other-worldly forces of light
(saints and angels) as well as receiving miraculous visions from them (min.
*33).37 He brings this information about good from above to the people in his
specific way.
These miniatures reflect the Old Believer tradition of reading Andrew's
holy foolishness as an exemplary form of social protest. As О. V. Gladkova
noted (echoing Panchenko's "Holy Foolishness as Social Protest"), "Behind
the public humiliation of the holy fool and his appearance of madness are a
reproach and an instruction given to the world in memory of Christ and the
conscience.38 ״According to Panchenko, holy foolishness in Russia reached its
culmination in the third quarter of the seventeenth century—the time of the
Church Schism, when all holy fools supported the side of the Old Believers in
their struggle against the reformed Church. As early as the 1650s-60s, when
the Schism was emerging, the public supported holy fools in their resistance
to persecution. Holy foolishness was a response to social upheaval, strife and
a reaction to a repressive regime.39 The Archpriest Avvakum not only at-
tracted the holy fools Avraamii and Fedor to his propaganda, but himself in
his writing and reported behavior exhibited holy foolish play.40
VAndrew also gave the Fedotseevtsy the opportunity to express their pro-
test against the world. Min. *19 reflects their radical belief that the world is in
the hands of the Antichrist, and that worldly power cannot be trusted since it
is a form of idolatry.41 In min. *19, the Devil marks the people with the sign of
the Antichrist, even though, in the written version, this sign is taken away
through Andrew's prayers. Min.*21 expresses the Fedotseevtsy militancy to-
wards the world when it shows Andrew spitting on the boyar instead of the
slova, Rostovskogo iurodivogo, '״Drevniaia Rus'. Voprosy medievistiki, no. 4 (2001): 81-
88.
39 See Panchenko, "Laughter as Spectacle," 100,118-23 in this volume.
40See Priscilla Hunt, "Avvakum's 'Fifth Petition' to the Tsar and the Ritual Process,"
Slavic and East European Journal 46: 3 (2003): 483-510; for a revised version, see the
more recent "Piataia chelobitnaia Avvakuma к tsariu i ritual'nyi protsess," Germenev-
tika drevnerusskoi literatury 14 (2010): 652-90; Hunt, "The Holy Foolishness in the ׳Life׳
of the Archpriest Avvakum and the Problem of Innovation," Russian History, ed. L.
Langer and P. Brown 35: 3-4 (2008): 275-309.
41 On idolatry and VAndrew, see Hunt, ״The Fool and the Tsar,189 ״n. 122.
Illustrations to the Vita of Andrew the Holy Fool of Constantinople 325
boyar spitting on him. Thus the illustrations of BAN 19.2.26 show that Old
Believers were still seeing VAndrew as an exemplary model of their own
worldview in the twentieth century.
The connection between Old Russian medieval book miniatures and icon
painting is still insufficiently studied, and Old Believers' visual arts tradition
has received even less attention. There is almost a complete absence of schol-
arly descriptions of the numerous illustrated Old Believer codices housed in
Russia's repositories. Now, with the publication of the BAN Illuminated Old
Believer Manuscripts of the 18th to the First Half of the 20th Centuries, the possibil-
ity of a comparative study of a vivid medieval visual arts tradition, preserved
in Russia right up to the beginning of the twentieth century becomes much
more feasible.42
42Bubnov et al., eds., Litsevye staroobriadcheskie rukopisi. The author wishes to thank
Priscilla Hunt for her editorial and scholarly contributions to this article.
N. lu. Bubnov 326
Appendix. Articles of the Prologue (11-14th cc.) relating to Andrew the Fool
1 October: "The Protection of the Mother of God. About the vision of SS.
Andrew and Epiphanios, and how they see the Mother of God in the air"
("Pokrov sviatii bogoroditsy. О videnii sviatogo Andreia i Epifaniia, как
videsta na vozduse sviatuiu Bogoroditsu");1
2 October: "The Tale of St. Andrew, how he became a fool in Christ" ("Slovo о
sviatem Andrei, kako sia emu s״tvori Khrista radi pokhab'stvo");2
3 October: "The Tale of St. Andrew the Holy Fool" ("Slovo о sviatem Andree
iurodivom") [about the beginning of the feat of holy foolishness];3
4 October: "The Tale of the same Andrew, and how Christ spoke to him in a
vision about holy foolishness and eternal life" ("Slovo о tom zhe Andrei, как
v prividenii glagola emu Khristo о urod'stve i о vechnei zhizni");4
5 October: "The Tale of St. Andrew about the grave robber" ("Slovo sviatogo
Andreiia о tati grobnem");5
6 October: "The Tale from The Vita of our Holy Father Andrew and
Epiphanius" ("Slovo ot Zhitiia sviatogo ottsa nashego Andreiia i Epifaniia")
[about St. Epiphanius's deliverance by St. Andrew from the devil's net];6
1 Velikie Minei Chet'i, 1-5 Oktiabr( ׳St. Petersburg: Izd. Arkheograficheskoi komissii,
1870), stlb. 4-5.
2 Ibid., stlb. 42-45.
3 Ibid., stlb. 239-40.
4 Velikie Minei Chet'i, 4-18 Oktiabr( ׳St. Petersburg: Izd. Arkheograficheskoi komissii
12 October: "The Tale about the Alms of St. Andrew" ("Slovo о milostyni
sviatogo Andreiia");8 9
15 October: "The Tale about St. Andrew, how he saw the rich dead man"
("Slovo о sviatem Andrei, как vide bogatogo umersha");10
16 October: "The Tale about St. Andrew, how he prayed to God for those who
were mistreating him and how he saw paradise. Beginning: When St. Andrew
was walking among the crowds in the marketplace near the column which
Constantine erected..." ("Slovo о sviatem Andrei, kako moliashesia
Gospodevi za tvoriashchi emu pakosti, i kako vide rai. Nach. Khodiashchemu
ubo sviatomu Andreiu posredi liudii na torgu bliz stolpa, ego zhe tsar׳
Kostiantin postavi...)11
25 October: "The Tale about St. Andrew, the fool in Christ, and about the
dead harlot" ("Slovo sviatogo Andreia, izhe Khrista radi urodivago, о
nekoem bludnitse umershem").12
8 Ibid., stlb. 866. Only the title and the beginning are included. The text of the tale is in
the complete redaction of the VAndrew. See stlb. 177-78.
9 Ibid., stlb. 937-38.
10
Ibid., stlb. 1046. Only the title and the beginning are included. The text of the tale is
in the complete redaction of the VAndrew. See stlb. 1034-37.
11 Ibid., stlb. 1059.
12 Velikie Minei Chet'i, 19-31 Oktiabr' (St. Petersburg: Izd. Arkheograficheskoi komissii,
Svitlana Kobets
The illuminated vita of a saint is a special genre, which differs from the genre
of "vita per se" as, in addition to the text that relates the story, it contains im-
ages that do not simply supply its interpretation but can also be seen as a
story in its own right. The latter is influenced by the period of its creation, the
artist's milieu, and other socio-cultural factors. Because of that, illuminated
vitae present special interest to scholars of the culture that produced it. What
follows is a preliminary description of the manuscript of the illuminated Vita
of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople (Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo), found in the
manuscript SPEC.OSU.HRL.SMS.2. While Andrei Bubnov's article, which
appears earlier in this volume, offers an in-depth interpretation of another
illuminated manuscript of the Vita of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople, this
paper was conceived as a manuscript description which would present the
reader with yet another artistic interpretation of this text that is seminal for
studies of holy foolishness as well as for studies of Russian culture.
The illuminated Vita of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople constitutes a
major part of the Illuminated Miscellany found in the Hilandar Research
Library (HRL) at Ohio State University, which is identified as the manuscript
SPEC.OSU.HRL. SMS.2. This manuscript was acquired by the HRL in 1994 in
New York as one of the group of seventeen* 1 original manuscripts,2 all of
The author thanks Predrag Matejic, Curator of the Hilandar Research Library and
Director of the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies at The Ohio State Uni-
versity, and his wonderful library staff, Lyubomira P. Gribble, Assistant Curator of the
HRL, and Helene Senecal, Center Coordinator at the RCMSS, as well as Harry H.
Campbell, Book and Paper Conservator of the OSU Libraries, and Lisa D. Iacobellis,
Assistant Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, for permission to publish minia-
tures from manuscript SPEC.OSU.HRL.SMS.2, for preparing them for publication, and
for facilitating and funding the research on this manuscript.
1 The original offer comprised nineteen manuscripts, two of which, reflecting Old
ography classes taught by Predrag Matejic, Curator of the HRL at the Ohio State
University. As one of the group projects in the "Practical Slavic Paleography" class,
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,329-36.
330 SVITLANA KOBETS
which reflect the Russian tradition. The manuscript has a brown leather jacket
that covers wooden planks and has yellow metal fastenings. The leather cover
has stamping. The text is written in later liturgical semi-uncial script. It has
several types of paper and several handwritings. Some parts of the text,
including the table of contents, were added later and left unfinished. There
the capital letters starting each new line are missing. Cyrillic letter ink
numbering in the right-hand upper comer does not correspond to the bottom
of the page numbering marked by pencil. The pencil numbering, which looks
recent, is inconsistent. Most of the time verso pages are neither numbered nor
counted, yet sometimes there are numbers on each page of the folio.
Miniatures do not have subtitles. In most cases they reflect the subject matter
of the chapters on the following or preceding folios. Some illuminated folios
are sewn in, whereas others are glued in. Folios differ in color: there are
several blocks with bluish paper; most folios are yellowish. Several
miniatures are painted on a different paper, smaller in format and thinner—
19.4 cm. (7.7 inches) x 32.8 cm. (12.8 inches). The HRL manuscript claims a
considerable antiquity. While the subject matter of Bubnov's discussion, the
Vita of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople found in the BAN archives, reflects the
twentieth-century Old Believer tradition, Pozdeeva's preliminary appraisal
dates the HRL manuscript two centuries earlier.
In the following description the illuminations are numbered consecu-
tively; numbers are put in parentheses:
these manuscripts, including the illuminated Vita of Andrew the Fool of Constantinople,
were studied and described by the OSU students. The initial examination and a brief
description of these manuscripts were done by a noted Russian paleographer, Irina V.
Pozdeeva. These works remain unpublished.
An Illuminated Vita of Andrew the Fool 331
(20) fol. 96v. Andrew is talking to a fornicator who hit him for his foolish
behavior. Andrew castigates him for his spiritual numbness as he com-
pares him to the pagan idols placed on the building of the ancient
Forum.
(21) fol. 98r. About the sinful Ioann. Two youths, Epiphanios (with a halo)
and Ioann the fornicator, are sitting on the ground. Ioann is talking to a
woman. Epiphanios is looking away.
(22) fol. 105r. Andrew (left) is talking to Epiphanios (next to him) and show-
ing him hell, which is depicted as five niches under the earth where
sinners suffer. There is an inscription, "An eternal dwelling place and
necessary torment of Ioann Kalestison" (Обитель вечная и мука нуж-
ная Иоанна сына Калестисоня).
(23) -fol. 110г. Andrew (right) is talking to a miserly nobleman in rich outfit
(left) against an urban background.
(24) fol. 113r. In a cell, Epiphanios (left) prays to an icon of the Savior while a
demon (right) stands behind his back. There is an urban background
with a church and a building.
(25) fol. 116v. Andrew (right) and a nobleman (left) are conversing in front of
a church. Andrew is castigating the latter for fornicating with his wife on
a holy day, Sunday.
(26) fol. 119r. St. Andrew (left) edifies Epiphanios (right) about human souls.
Red and green vegetation in the foreground; urban background, includ-
ing city wall and city gate. Epiphanios is bowing slightly to Andrew.
(27) fol. 122r. St. Andrew (right) is talking to Epiphanios (left). They are sit-
ting in a cell attached to a church.
(28) fol. 124r. Same as 27. Slightly different position of hands.
(29) fol. 128v. Same as 27 and 28. Slightly different position of hands.
(30) fol. 131 r. St. Andrew (left) and Epiphanios (right) are standing in the bot-
tom right-hand comer of a church. Andrew is showing Epiphanios his
vision of the Intercession. In the upper right-hand comer there is the
Savior looking down in a position of prayer. Right below is the Mother
of God, who is holding her protective veil and standing on a red cloud
with John the Baptist and other saints who are behind her. Right below
her stands a woman in royal golden outfit (St. Anastasia?). To her left
stands St. Nicholas (?) and to her right stand St. Andrew and Epiphanios
(fig. 40).
(31) fol. 133r. St. Andrew is sitting in a cell within a church and talking to
Epiphanios. A demon is standing behind Epiphanios.
(32) fol. 135v. Deacon Raphael, wearing a green robe, is lying on his death-
bed. His red tongue is stuck out to indicate that he is barking. Epipha-
nios is praying above him. Next to the bed there are two demons and
two angels. In the background are demons who dance as they weigh
Raphael's sins on the scales.
334 SVITLANA KOBETS
(33) fol. 138r. A depiction of a rich man's funeral. The coffin with the dead
man is in the center. In the foreground there is a funeral procession with
a priest. Demons are dancing at the sides of this procession. In the upper
left-hand corner St. Andrew is talking to a crying angel (fig. 41).
(34) fol. 143r. A rich man who was a fornicator is lying on his deathbed. Two
angels are beating him with fiery sticks. The third angel, with a fiery
stick, stands by. There is a church in the background.
(35) fol. 145r. In the foreground St. Andrew is talking to and stepping away
from a prostitute, who pulls him by the clothes. Two smaller pictures,
presenting episodes from the same chapter, are in the upper part. In the
upper left-hand corner Andrew stands naked, surrounded by five prosti-
tutes who took his clothes. In the upper right-hand corner prostitutes
tease and tempt St. Andrew. The devil, who is standing among the pros-
titutes, rejoices at the sight (fig. 42).
(36) fol. 148v. St. Andrew (left) is standing in front of and talking to a miserly
rich man. Three youths are sitting at the table and clapping their hands.
A demon of avarice, resembling a monkey, is sitting on the miser's
shoulder (fig. 43).
(37) fol. 150v. Epiphanios (right, with a halo) is standing in front of an elder
(no halo) in a beautiful garden. Behind them there is a big tree with red
fruit and a marvelous bird. There are three more smaller birds sitting on
that tree. (This drawing is on a smaller folio and thinner paper. Most
likely it was added later.)
(38) fol. 158v. Epiphanios (right) is talking to a young man in a short green
dress. (This drawing is on a smaller folio and thinner paper. Most likely
it was added later.)
(39) fol. 162v. A woman (left) from the Neorion is sitting at the table and talk-
ing to an old man, the magician Vigrinos, who is standing in front of her.
They are in her house. There is a man with a knapsack in the
background.
(40) fol. 172r. St. Andrew's vision of David the prophet with a numerous
escort holding palm branches in the St. Sophia Cathedral. David is sit-
ting in the center and playing harp. St. Andrew stands in the bottom
right-hand corner and observes his vision.
(41) fol. 174r. St. Andrew (left) is talking to a miserly rich man. Russian urban
background with a church.
(42) fol. 177r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are standing and talking inside of a house.
(43) fol. 179r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are standing and talking inside of a house.
(44) fol. 189r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are standing and talking inside of a house.
An Illuminated V ita of A ndrew the Fool 335
(45) fol. 194v. St. Andrew is standing on the left and watching demons danc-
ing around a man in a short red robe and striped stockings. This man
blasphemed against the icons of St. Thyrsos. Urban background (fig. 44).
(46) fol. 199v. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting on a bench and talking. An icon of the Mother of God
hangs above. Urban landscape. There is a book under the feet of each of
them.
(47) fol. 201v. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting and talking under an icon of the Mother of God.
Urban landscape. The feet of each of them rest on a book.
(48) fol. 204r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting and talking under an icon of the Mother of God.
Urban landscape. The feet of each of them rest on a book.
(49) fol. 207r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting and talking under an icon of the Mother of God.
Urban landscape. The feet of each of them rest on a book.
(50) fol. 209r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting and talking under an icon of the Mother of God.
Urban landscape. The feet of each of them rest on a book.
(51) fol. 218r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting and talking under an icon of the Mother of God.
Urban landscape. The feet of each of them rest on a book. There is an
open book in front of Epiphanios.
(52) fol. 222r. In a palace, a nobleman is sitting on a throne. His feet rest on a
book. A young man, the Martyr Theodor of Antioch, wearing a red robe
and a green coat, stands in front of him. There are people behind his
back.
(53) fol. 225v. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting and talking at the table. They are sharing a meal.
Urban landscape in the background. The feet of each of them rest on a
book.
(54) fol. 228r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and
Epiphanios are sitting and talking at the table. They are sharing a meal.
Urban landscape in the background. The feet of each of them rest on a
book.
(55) fol. 232r. An illustration to Questions and Answers. St. Andrew and Epi-
phanios are sitting and talking at the table. They are sharing a meal.
Urban landscape in the background. The feet of each of them rest on a
book.
(56) fol. 239v. St. Andrew and Epiphanios are praying in a church, bowing to
an icon of Christ.
(57) fol. 245r. An ornament of a vase with flowers.
336 SVITLANA KOBETS
St. Andrew's vita is followed by two more illuminated texts, a short tale (or a
vision) about the hellish punishment of a maiden who fornicated and con-
cealed her sin from her spiritual father, and a description of a righteous life,
the Vita ofNifont, Bishop of Constantsia, the city of Cyprus.
The Pathos of Holy Foolishness in the Leningrad Underground
Marco Sabbatini
During the 1950s-70s, after Stalin's death, unofficial literature emerged and
thrived in Leningrad. The majority of its representatives were young poets
who came from a variety of backgrounds and did not belong to the Soviet
Writers' Union. On the one hand, these writers exhibited provocative, sub-
versive, and drunken behavior, on the other, they initiated original philo-
sophical debates and aesthetic experiments that revived interest in religious
topics. The goal of this article will be twofold. First, it will explore common
tendencies in the critical approach to the question of religion in unofficial
Leningrad culture of the second half of the twentieth century. Second, it will
show different examples of "holy foolishness" in the behaviors and works of
the poets of the "Leningrad underground." lurodstvovanie, or pretending to be
a fool, comprises a very important component in the culture code1 of
contemporary Russia.2 While in the specific context of the Leningrad under-
ground the term "holy foolery" deviates from its initial religious meaning—
1 The concept of a cultural code and its application to the explication of the concept of
iurodstvo is found in Iu. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspenskii, "New Aspects in the Study of
Early Russian Culture," trans. N. F. C. Owen, in The Semiotics of Russian Culture, ed.
Lotman and Uspenskii (Ann Arbor: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures,
University of Michigan, 1984), 36-52.
2 For a discussion of the concept of iurodstvo and its different interpretations in con-
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,337-52.
338 Marco Sabbatini
׳5
A. M. Panchenko, "Smekh как zrelishche," in Smekh v Drevnei Rusi, ed. D. S. Likha-
chev, Panchenko, and N. V. Ponyrko (Leningrad: Nauka, 1984), 73.
4 T. F. Efremova, ed., Sovremennyi tolkovyi slovar' russkogo iazyka (Moscow: Russkii
2006), 5.
6 M. N. Epshtein, Novoe sektantstvo: Tipy religiozno-filosofskikh umonastroenii v Rossii
meno della sacra follia a Bisanzio (secc. IV-XIV) e in Russia (secc. XI-XVII)" (Ph.D.
diss., University of Bologna, 2008), 13-16.
13Boris Ivanov, ed., Istoriia leningradskoi nepodtsenzurnoi literatury: 1950-1980-e gody.
2010), 92-93.
340 Marco Sabbatini
Street" started getting together near the Public Library; the bohemians gath-
ered in cafe "Saigon." The participants of those gatherings cultivated a theat-
rical vision of the world and drew on the tradition of city folklore. According
to Iuliia Valieva, for the "saigonauts," or the representatives of the "Saigon
group," "It is not the text as such that is important. It is the situation that
caused its birth, or the author, in celebration of whose memory it is important
to preserve the energy of turbulence, 'the spirit of madness.'"16 The "holy
madness of Saigon"17 brought together the existential poverty and spiritual
wealth which characterize the underground culture. Poets such as Leonid
Aronzon, Vladimir Erl', Konstantin Kuz'minskii, Aleksandr Mironov, Evgenii
Venzel', and Tamara Bukovskaia sensed the imminence of the new time, the
time of inner independence, and because of that behaved "freely" and "fooled
around." Protest motifs in their work were nurtured not only by the Futurist
legacy, but also by that of the OBERIU writers. Their works featured many
analogs to the "black," absurd, and cynical humor of Kharms, Vvedenskii,
and Oleinikov.18 Examples include the debauchery of Oleg Grigoriev19 and
the dramatic shows of the Khelenuktov avant-garde group (Mironov, Erl',
and others), the aesthetic sensuality of David Dar, who openly cursed and
anathematized those in power, and the eccentric behavior of his student,
Konstantin Kuz'minskii, who used to strip naked in the middle of the street
and who often rebuked his friends: "I'm hungry. I'm poor and naked / The
word is my only friend."20 At the end of the 1960s the "obscene sage" Kuz־׳
minskii became one of Leningrad's most active and scandalous non-
conformists, while his small apartment turned into the center of "unofficial
culture." Up until his emigration to the United States in 1975, extravagant lit-
erary evenings occurred there along with artistic exhibits and various samizdat
(self-published) and tamizdat (published abroad) publishing projects. The
most eloquent evidence of Kuz'minskii's active role in the movement was his
enormous and unique publishing project, the five volumes of The Blue Lagoon
Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (1980-86).21
Kuz'minskii's emigration, just like that of Brodskii (1972), inflicted a
heavy blow on the literary movement of the sixties. At that time, the concept
16Iuliia Valieva, "Ot sostavitelia," in Sumerki ״Saigona׳, ״ed. Valieva (St. Petersburg:
vols. (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1980-86). See also the web site
http://kkk-bluelagoon.ru/ (accessed 16 November 2010).
The Pathos of Holy Foolishness in the Leningrad Underground 341
Like the light of the early Christian apostles, the spirit of the
underground culture,
Glimmers in windows, spouts from black basements.
דד
Aleksandr Stepanov, "Zhivoe vse odenu slovom": Zametki о poetike Leonida
Aronzona," in Sobranie proizvedenii, by L. L. Aronzon, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg: Izd-vo
Ivana Limbakha, 2006), 1: 52-54.
23 Lygo, Leningrad Poetry, 115-30.
24 Marco Sabbatini, "Leningradskii tekst i ekzistentsializm nezavisimoi kul'tury 1970-
GOD
But God is not a golden ghost
Nor [is he] a beast, nor a starry glow
Fie is just a naked ball
Genderless and hollow
He's floating in the room
Right under the ceiling
From whence he downwards looks
With an invisible gaze
יי/
В. I. Ivanov, "Viktor Krivulin — poet rossiiskogo Renessansa (1944-2001)," Novoe
literaturnoe obozrenie 68 (2004): 270-85.
27 Their allegiance to Christianity was both thematic and existential; it is noteworthy
that in the 1970s, for the majority of the representatives of unofficial culture, the rite of
baptism became the most important and deeply symbolic step toward Christianity.
See Viktor Krivulin, "Spiritual'naia lirika vchera i segodnia: К istorii neofitsial'noi
poezii Leningrada 60-80-kh godov," in Ivanov, ed., Istoriia leningradskoi nepodtsenzur-
noi literatury, 105.
28See also Liudmila Zubova, "Svoboda iazyka i vykhod iz vremeni," in Ivanov, ed.,
Istoriia leningradskoi nepodtsenzurnoi literatury, 161; and M. Sabbatini, Quel che si metteva
in rima: Cultura e poesia underground a Leningrado (Salerno: Europa Orientalis, 2008),
243-76.
The Pathos of Holy Foolishness in the Leningrad Underground 343
БОГ
А Бог — не призрак золотой
Не зверь, не звездный жар
Он только голый шар
Бесполый и пустой
Он в комнате повис
Под самым потолком
И смотрит, смотрит вниз
Невидимым зрачком
Мои чернила, стол
Он превратил в тюрьму
Я все отдам ему
А сам останусь гол.
Soviet reality kept the poet's lyrical "I" in terror, yet by ridding himself of
everything —the ascetic step of the holy fool's radical non-possession—he also
liberates himself from fear, thus "finding human dignity."30 Stratanovskii's
religious pathos and pathetic tone31 stand out in the last line of this poem,
"Remaining stark naked." There the poet shows the spiritual nature of the
"naked underground man," which conforms to the "ideal costume of the holy
fool."32
To further explore this topic, let us turn to Tat'iana Goricheva (a quite
active philosopher in the Leningrad underground and an ex-wife of the poet
unique formal meaning in this poem. See M. L. Gasparov, Metr i smysl (Moscow: Izd-
vo Rossiskogo gosudarstvennogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, 2000), 98-99.
32 In his study of Russian holy foolishness Panchenko states that "the holy fool's ideal
Viktor Krivulin),33 who wrote that the holy fool's nakedness is "the absence of
false protection from a false world."34 An underground man in the Soviet
Union did not accept any false world. He would rather be covered by sores
and scabs, remain in his hearth and home to continue crying: "My Lord! Why
have You forsaken me?" Leningrad underground poetry came to embrace not
only the poetical but also existential "nakedness" of the iurodivyi as reflected
in the alienation, homelessness, and asceticism of non-conformist existence.35
In the beginning of the seventies, religious-philosophical seminars once
again re-entered Petersburg tradition. The first meetings of the famous
Religious-Philosophical Seminar, which for many Leningrad underground
writers was a ground-breaking event, took place in 1973. Its initiators in-
eluded Goricheva and Krivulin, Stratanovskii and Evgenii Pazukhin, and its
meeting place was Krivulin's apartment, number 37 (Kurliandskaia ulitsa,
dom 20). Representatives of different worldviews and confessions—Ortho-
dox, Baptist, Catholic, Krishna, Gnostics, and agnostics—met there. Topics of
the papers included early Christianity and the Church Fathers (Gregory of
Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, Aphanasius the Great), biblical exegesis,
Gnosticism, Existentialism, and Russian philosophers (Sergei Bulgakov, Pavel
Florenskii, Nikolai Berdiaev, Lev Shestov, Vasilii Rozanov, Nikolai Fedorov).
In addition, Goricheva offered several papers on Western philosophers: Jas-
pers, Kierkegaard, Barthes, Tillich, Heidegger, Camus, Russell, and others. In
the spring of 1976, when apartment number 37 was targeted by the KGB,
Krivulin and Goricheva put a stop to the seminars.36 After that Goricheva as-
sumed a more Orthodox Christian position and became an active participant
33 It is interesting to note that initially Goricheva was more into German and French
existentialism than Christianity. She carried on a secret and prolific correspondence
with Martin Heidegger, who, she writes, "discovered for European thought mystical
fear and nothingness." See T. Goritcheva, Nous, convertis d’Union sovietique (Paris:
Nouvelle cite, 1983), 18: "Je lus Nietzsche a 19 ans (j'ai ignore l'Evangelique jusqu'a 26
ans), je fus eprise de lui, comme de Sartre, de Camus et de Heidegger, de leur
philosophic ׳existentielle' de la revolte qui m'etait tres proche. A l^poque, dans les
annees de liberalisation sous Khrouchtchev, ces penseurs ёtaient en partie autorises,
leurs traductions circulaient en samizdat; dans les cafes et les autobus !'intelligentsia
discutait du probleme de !׳existence absurde et nauseeuse."
34 T. M. Goricheva, "Iurodivye ponevole," Beseda, no. 2 (1984): 63.
35 For a discussion of the non-conformist position in the light of the concept of Chris-
tian asceticism, see Svitlana Kobets, "The Subtext Of Christian Asceticism in Alek-
sandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich," Slavic and East European
Journal 42: 4 (1998): 669.
36 T. M. Goricheva, Pravoslavie i postmodernizm (Leningrad: Izd-vo Leningradskogo
One can say that in the works of Elena Shvarts "holy foolish tones" are
frequently present.44 The poetess often embarked on fights with God like a
37
T. M. Goricheva, Docheri lova: Khristianstvo i feminizm (St. Petersburg: Alga Fond/
Stupeni, 1992).
38 Kuz'minskii, ed., Antologiia, 5b. See also http://kkk-bluelagoon-2.nm.ru/tom5b/femin1.htm
Aleteiia, 2009), 257. See also Vadim Kulakov, "Bronzovyi vek russkoi poezii," in
Poeziia kakfakt (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 1999), 103.
43 Shvarts, Sochineniia, 2:140-45.
44T. M. Goricheva, "Tkan ׳serdtsa rassteliu Spasiteliu pod nogi...," Grani, no. 120
(1981): 201.
346 Marco Sabbatini
The poet's behavior, like the holy fool's, expresses his rejection of the
sinful world of Soviet reality, which violates the divine order.50 51 According to
Boris Uspenskii, "anti-behavior—backward, topsy-turvy behavior—both
makes its practitioner a part of the other world and exposes the untruth of
this one."54
It is also noteworthy that, as if reflecting the paradigm of holy foolish-
ness, laughter in the poems of Mironov occupies an ambivalent position in-
between the comical and serious worlds.52 * At the same time, according to
Spectacle," 60,106-09.
348 Marco Sabbatini
55 D. Ia. Dar, "Leningrad. Sud'ba. Poet," Grani, no. 110 (1978): 44-51.
56 Oleg Okhapkin, "Stikhi," Grani, no. 110 (1978): 56.
57 Krivulin, "SpirituaTnaia lirika," 104.
58 O. A. Okhapkin, Stikhi (Paris-Leningrad: Beseda, 1989), 160.
350 Marco Sabbatini
Oleg Okhapkin did not get to be published in the 1970s. Soviet publishers
harshly rejected his poetry again and again. Once a Party pen pusher from
The Soviet Writer (Sovetskii pisateP) publishing company said to him, "Who
needs your poetry about the soul and God? Go work at a factory....'09 A
homeless beggar, Oleg Okhapkin took part in various cultural gatherings and
finally was sent to a psychiatric hospital, thereby sharing the tragic fate of
many other underground "prophets" and "judges" (such as Rid Grachev and
Vasilii Filippov).59 60 Okhapkin's poetry, like Stratanovskii's, features fear of
God, which the holy fool and the prophet opt to instill in the society. In the
work of these two poets, the "active side" of holy foolishness ("berating the
world") occurs under the guise of self-exposure.61 Other elements of the holy
fool paradigm in their lives and poetry are the unmasking of the "proud
world," extreme asceticism, self-abasement, apparent madness, and the abuse
of the flesh.62
The use of biblical citations is one of the most salient lexical markers of
1970s underground poetry. Stratanovskii notes that "by mixing Soviet chan-
eery jargon with biblical citations [one] linguistically recreates an atmosphere
of anxiety and spiritual tension."63 At the end of 1979 Stratanovskii published
a samizdat collection of poems In Fear and Trembling. This biblical citation
echoes Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling."64 Yet if for the Danish philoso-
pher, "fear" is a necessary condition for man's movement toward God, for the
poet Stratanovskii, "fear and trembling" refer primarily to the hopelessness of
human existence. Fear in Stratanovskii's poetry brings to the fore the absurd-
ity of a commonplace man vis-a-vis history and eternity. His fate is akin to the
spiritual and physical suffering of Job before the face of God.65 "Maybe, God
is getting through to me / as He bestows on me atoms of pain" (1978).66
According to E. Pazukhin, "the poet's consciousness would like to be
atheistic (and know nothing about God), but it cannot, because it constantly
experiences Him as a terrible, hostile reality."67 This summarizes Stratanov-
skii's "poetic justification of the commonplace" (poeticheskoe opravdanie obyden-
nosti).68 The poet's conflict-ridden religious consciousness finds expression in
the poem "The Dispute" ("Disput," 1979), which metaphorically stands for
the religious "disputation" of that entire era and of his generation of intellec-
tuals. There are sixteen participants, among whom we find a mystic, a mathe-
matidan, a farmer, a theologian, and a "holy foolish" alcoholic:
65 Viktor Krivulin, "Skvoz' prizmu boli i uzhasa," in T'ma dnevnaia, ed. S. G. Stratanov-
skii (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2000), 175-81.
66 Stratanovskii, Stikhi, 97.
67 E. Pazukhin, "V poiskakh," 142.
68Nikita Eliseev, "Klerk-solovei," in Ivanov, ed., Istoriia leningradskoi nepodtsenzumoi
literatury, 123.
352 Marco Sabbatini
69
Stratanovskii, Stikhi, 101-02.
Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture
Per-Arne Bodin
Canonization and Holy Foolishness: Studies in Postsoviet Russian Culture and the Orthodox
Tradition (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2009).
2 See, for example, Harriet Murav, Holy Foolishness: Dostoevsky's Novels & the Poetics of
Cultural Critique (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992); and Tatiana Nedo-
spasova, Russkoe iurodstvo XI-XVI vekov (Moscow: Izd-vo "Pushkinskogo fonda,"
1997).
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,353-72.
354 Per-Arne Bodin
Likhachev and Panchenko, as well as many other thinkers and scholars found
Bakhtin's contrast between two cultures instructive — the hierarchic, harmo-
nious high culture and the carnivalesque and folk low culture. Although
postmodern scholars have focused on other facets of iurodstvo, the influence
of Bakhtin and Likhachev and Panchenko is still significant, as will be dis-
cussed below.
Many other contemporary Russian scholars and cultural philosophers
concerned with iurodstvo were strongly influenced by Michel Foucault's His-
ton! of Madness.5 According to Foucault, before the Age of Reason "madness"
3 M. M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Нё1ёпе Ivolsky (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1984); Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaia kul'tura srednevekov'ia i
Renessansa, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1990).
4 D. S. Likhachev, A. M. Panchenko, and N. V. Ponyrko, Smekh v Drevnei Rusi (Lenin-
don: Routledge, 2006). I will give only one example: L. Iangulova, "Iurodivye i
umalishennye: Genealogiia inkartseratsii v Rossii," in Michel' Fuko v Rossii, ed. O.
Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture 355
was viewed simply as a way of speaking the truth. Madmen were thought to
have a unique genius. Afterwards they were viewed as suffering from "men-
tal illness." Initially, madmen were part of society, but in the Age of Reason
they were isolated in institutions. Seen against this background, the medieval
way of viewing madness continued much later in Russia than in Western Eu-
rope as concerns fools in Christ. Nonetheless, contemporary Russian scholars
defined iurodstvo through the prism of both a work on Western European
cultural conditions and the thought of a famous French cultural historian of
the twentieth century.
The passage below from Bakhtin's book on Dostoevsky is significant for
postmodern discourse in Russia in the thirty years after Likhachev and Pan-
chenko's study. It transfers the phenomenon of iurodstvo from the sacred to
the aesthetic sphere when it equates iurodstvo with the "word" of the protag-
onist in Notes from Underground:6
modern sense of the word), and anguish are shared by iurodstvo and by the
"word" of the underground man.
In another context, Bakhtin contrasts ordinary saints with fools in Christ
and perceives a crucial difference: "iurodstvo is individual in character and is
marked by an inherent element of conflict" (ibo iurodstvo individual'no i emu
prisushch chelovekoborcheskii moment).8 Bakhtin appears to focus on the indivi-
dualistic and on the critical, and even provocative, traits in iurodstvo, traits
that also define aspects of modernism and postmodernism. The striving by
fools for freedom and an erasure of boundaries bears comparison to the
movement away from authoritarian discourse in recent Russian literature and
culture.
Postmodernism
о
M. M. Bakhtin, Estetika slovesnogo tvorchestva (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1979), 161; Bakhtin,
"Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity," in Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical
Essays, ed. Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov, trans. Vadim Liapunov (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1990), 185.
9 Tat'iana Goricheva, Pravoslavie i postmodernizm (Leningrad: Izd-vo Leningradskogo
universiteta, 1991).
10 Ibid., 48.
11 See also M. Sabbatini, "The Pathos of Holy Foolishness in the Leningrad Under-
Panchenko. Dissidents are equivalent to holy fools for her. In fact, the Soviet
regime often labeled its critics as mentally ill, and gave many the diagnosis of
schizophrenia. Quoting the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari, she claims that iurodstvo embodies the revolutionary potential of
mental illness in a uniquely Russian way that also has universal signifi-
cance.12 Thus she too sees the Russian phenomenon of iurodstvo partly
through a Western prism.
For Goricheva, "The fool is the most contemporary, postmodern form of
holiness" (Iurodivye—samaia sovremennaia, postmodernistskaia forma svia-
tosti).13 Quoting the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdiaev, she calls it "bril-
liant holiness and creative Christianity."14 As such iurodstvo is integral to the
cultural milieu in Russia in the 1990s, especially among artists. As with most
scholars discussed here, Goricheva is both defining iurodstvo and using iurod-
stvo to define postmodernism. As seen through this prism, postmodernism is
not merely an epoch after modernism but also a cultural condition indepen-
dent of time and historical development.
Apophatism
Apophatic theology, that is, the "negative theology" of the Orthodox Church,
defines God through what he is not. As such it is similar to the understanding
of iurodstvo in post-Soviet Russian culture.15 Goricheva maintains that laugh-
ter is an apophatic phenomenon since it denies all conventional truths. It has
an epistemological aspect that is essential to understanding modem European
culture.16 Apophaticism is characteristic of holy fools:
The holy fool does not simply deny the objectivized, inert, menda-
cious world, and he does not simply propose an alternative to this
world: he is an elusive fool, incalculable and evasive. He truly points
to the Other, entirely invisible, completely apophatic God.
Kenosis
For Mark Lipovetskii, perhaps the best known postmodern scholar outside
Russia, holy foolishness and the postmodern condition share both a kenotic
element and a sense of chaos. Kenosis is a key theological term that denotes
the "self-emptying of Christ," who voluntarily gave up his divine power for
the sake of saving man. Chaos for Lipovetskii seems to represent the negative
condition of postmodernism, as reflected in modem chaos theories in physics.
Similarly,
The fool's dialog with chaos is associated in his mind with the chaos or
fragmentation of postmodern works of art and reality. Lipovetskii seems to
view postmodernism through Bakhtin's opposition between the carnival-
esque and the well-ordered, hierarchical worlds, just as Likhachev and Pan-
chenko viewed iurodstvo. Lipovetskii noted in personal communication that
he was influenced by Goricheva when he described iurodstvo as postmodern-
ism and postmodernism as iurodstvo in life strategy, literary style, and
narrative technique.
18 Ibid., 57.
191 am here indebted to the article of Maria Engstrom, "Apofatika i iurodstvo v
sovremennoi russkoi literature," Slovo (Uppsala), no. 51 (2010): 129-40.
20 Lipovetskii, "Russkii postmodernizm," 176.
Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture 359
Theatricalization
Brener clearly manifested his ambition to enter the political field. But
this made him fall into his own trap. The action took place not far
from the very spot where the notorious Vasilii the Blessed used to sit.
The crux consists in this, that the only possible role for the artist who
has stopped digging into his own existence and entered onto the
political field is that of the fool in Christ, blessed, covered with scabs
and clanging his shackles. Yet, it is worth noticing that the cynical
aspect is totally absent in Brener's cynicism: however hysterical his
outbreaks, he always leaves open the possibility to declare that he is
only joking.
Brener, when performing, situated himself in the exact spot where Vasilii, the
most famous of all Russian holy fools could be seen in the sixteenth century,
according to his vita. Brener, however, did not take the role as seriously as
holy fools did. In contrast to Vasilii, Brener could suddenly maintain that
everything was a joke. Much more was at stake for holy fools, whose per-
formance could have serious consequences. According to the critic, holy fools
art/b/brener/kovalyov.htms, 19-06-2011.
360 Per-Arne Bodin
were, in fact, more trustworthy and authentic than the modern performance
artists.
A recent review of Christian rock-mu sic represents one more interesting
example of the use of iurodstvo in secular culture:
How to change the world, to transform it? The answer from many of
the Russian rockers goes as follows: by changing themselves (repen-
tance in Greek is "change of mind"). But change is possible, as many
musicians think, only if there is a God... And in the end what we
have before us is a modern form of holy foolishness in the name of
Christian ethics.
The crux for Nikolaeva, and perhaps for the whole discussion, is what the
postmodernist artists and their work represent. Do they represent merely
themselves, as Nikolaeva maintains, or do they represent the world of God, as
argue the postmodern scholars who identify the artists and their works more
or less with holy fools.
In a situation where the ideas of God, the Church, and faith are
profaned, iurodstvo is a means of attaining the sacred. In the world of
simulacra, it is so impossibly difficult to find reality that it becomes
necessary to overcome all generally accepted norms, conventions,
and even morals to acquire a "taste of life," a sense of reality. It
would, of course, be wrong to say that the fool in Christ in the full
meaning of the word as understood in ancient Rus' is at the center of
contemporary art, but we can find certain of his traits in the hero of
today's art, who is often a person who has fallen away from the over-
all system and consciously or unconsciously violated behavioral and
moral norms. The holy fool evokes laughter, horror, and disgust.
Contemporary art now focuses on the aesthetics of ugliness, and writ-
ers turn to what evokes horror and revulsion.
166-84.
362 Per-Arne Bodin
Malen'kikh further bases her discussion on the notion of the death of God,
maintaining that postmodern literature attempts to resurrect God again
through foolishness-in־Christ. The sacred and the real are identical, as are the
profane and the simulacrum. Malen'kikh, thus responds to Baudrillard's idea
that divine reality is non-existent. She maintains that foolishness-in-Christ
overcomes simulacra. Just as reality and the sacred can be grasped through
holy fools, so also can they be grasped through postmodern art.28
Olesia Nikolaeva, on the contrary, objects to the way in which postmod-
emism fragments and dissolves reality even as it proclaims the "death of the
author." Like Malen'kikh, she maintains that the death of God is an important
theme in the works of postmodern writers and artists. The insight does not
lead to any new faith, however, and she holds postmodern scholars re-
sponsible for this "death." Switching from cultural into apocalyptic discourse,
Nikolaeva, criticizes postmodernism for producing and not overcoming
simulacra:
The kingdom not of this world preached by fools in Christ and the
world of postmodern simulacra are hardly capable of coming into
contact with each other. The world of simulacra is basically a fiery
hell in which there is no God, where reality and meaning, appearance
and essence, and signifier and signified have parted ways forever. It
is a place full of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
97
S. Malen'kikh, "Popytka iurodstva как odna iz strategii sovremennoi kul'tury," in
Religiia i nravstvennost' v sekuliarnom mire: Materialу nauchnoi konferentsii 28-30 noiabria
2001 goda, ed. Iu. N. Solonin (St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskoe filosofskoe
obshchestvo, 2001), 54-56, available at Antropologiia, http://anthropology.ru/ru/texts/
malenk/secular_l 3.html, 30-06-2009 (accessed 30 September 2011).
28 For Baudrillard, Orthodox icons are only simulacra. His argument harkens back to
the dispute about icons in the eight and ninth centuries (Baudrillard, Selected Writings,
166-84).
Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture 363
The questions of reality and simulacra are also the focus of debate in the fea-
ture film, The Island (Ostrov), directed by Pavel Lungin, perhaps the best artis-
tic representation of iurodstvo. This film had the highest ratings on Russian
television in December 2006 when it was broadcast, second only to Putin's
New Year's speech of that year.
The film opens during World War II in the Arctic. Germans board a So-
viet vessel with two men on board, a captain and his stoker. They are hiding
in the bunkers, but the Germans find the stoker and beat him. He reveals
where the captain is hiding out of fear for his life. The Germans promise that
his life will be spared only if he shoots the Captain, and he actually commits
this heinous act.
The rest of the film is set in 1976. By then the stoker is a monk, Father
Anatolii. He resides in a small monastery located in the vicinity of the place
where he committed his crime more than thirty years previously. He is still a
stoker and is now in charge of the monastery's enormous boiler. He has
become a fool in Christ, widely known for his miraculous abilities. He exhib-
its the traditional conduct of a fool in Christ, according to the vitae. Father
Anatolii behaves provocatively and sometimes threateningly. He performs in-
comprehensible acts, which are later revealed to have been prophetic. He
provokes sinners to repent. At one point, Father Anatolii throws a piece of
wood at another monk. He plays with bark boats and disturbs the church 29
29Ibid.
364 Per-Arne Bodin
service. Everything that occurs in the movie turns out to have an explanation
and a deeper meaning. He provokes the other monks, claiming that they
ought to give themselves totally to Christ and have no other aspirations. For
example, he throws on the fire boots to which the abbot is especially attached
and tosses in the water the abbot's warm, soft blanket to teach him to think of
his salvation instead of worldly matters.30
At the end of the film a Soviet admiral comes to the monastery with his
insane daughter. Father Anatolii cures her insanity in a classic scene of exor-
cism common in horror films. Of course, this episode also fits well into the
genre of a holy fool's vita. By cackling like a hen, Father Anatolii finds a
common language with the girl who is obsessed by the devil. He then reads
prayers over her to exorcise the evil demons, and she is miraculously cured. It
turns out that the admiral is none other than the man whom Anatolii believes
he had killed but in fact had only injured. After reconciling with the admiral,
Anatolii is ready to die. One critic has called the performance of Mamonov,
the main actor, a case of "absolute authenticity."31 Another critic calls him the
"absolutely documentary Mamonov" (absoliutno dokumental'nii Mamonov).32
Lipovetskii, on the other hand, considers the film a new variant of Soviet
propaganda, meaning that it represents a simulacrum of eternity and does not
represent holiness at all:
The debate about the film consistently focused on the question of authenticity,
a key issue in the depiction of any religious experience, but especially of
30 For literature on the film Ostrov and an analysis of the film, see my article "The Holy
Fool as a TV Hero: About Pavel Lungin's film The Island and the Problem of Authen-
titity," Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 3 (2011), http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/
jac/issue/current (accessed 21 June 2011).
31 Iuliia Liderman, "Samorefleksiia dlia vnutrennego rynka i vneshnego nabliudatelia:
The avant-garde movement takes the same path as Christ to the lower depths
of existence in a kind of kenosis: "Art becomes impoverished in order to par-
take of God's fate, to follow his path of degradation and mockery" (Iskusstvo
vpadaet v ubozhestvo, chtoby prichastit'sia uchasti Bozhestva, proiti vsled
nim put ׳pozora i osmeianiia).36 As for the avant-garde's blasphemies, Epstein
concludes that they are "not a denial of faith but a denial through faith" (Eto
ne otritsanie very, no otritsanie veroi).37
When considering postmodernism, Epstein focuses on the Russian con-
ceptualists and compares their behavior to that of holy fools:
סר
M. Epstein, After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian
Culture (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), 65.
39 Dmitrii Shalin, "The Shalin-Epstein Exchange on Russian Postmodernism," 31
to travel by commuter train from Moscow to a suburb. Epstein sees the alco-
holic as a fool in Christ.40 Lipovetskii sees him as a Christ figure whose
mixture of unintelligible and obscene utterances are not drunken blather but
the enigmatic and vulgar speech of a holy fool.41 The hero's crazy behavior is
similarly seen in a sacred context, an analysis that is supported by the nu-
merous biblical references in the text. In these critics' view, Erofeev has
attempted to depict a fool in Christ from within to show how he thinks, some-
thing the vitae never do. Another cultural scholar, Sergei Medvedev, sees
Erofeev's novel as one in a long series of literary works with a joint base in
iurodstvo and postmodernism:
Language
Postmodernists also refer to the deformed language of the holy fool in discus-
sions of twentieth-century literary language. In public places, holy fools pro-
voked the public not only by their appearance, which caused offense and
disgust, but also by their behavior and speech. They performed a strange one-
man theater, where they were both actors and directors of the spectators.
Their speech consisted of parables, riddles, obscure utterances, and disjointed
phrases. Many of the fools uttered only an inarticulate "aaaa," or they used
Kseniia
47 Epstein, After the Future, 55. He is quoting Panchenko, "Laughter," 67, in this
volume.
48 See the article by Sergei Styrkov on Kseniia in this book: "The Unmerry Widow: The
spouse but also to the holy Andrew of Constantinople, the most famous fool
in Christ in Byzantium and the very prototype of the holy fool in the Ortho-
dox tradition.
The narrative about Kseniia combines the perspectives of iurodstvo and
postmodernism. The fragmentation of her vita into a series of anecdotes and
the utter ambiguity of her character suit contemporary Russian scholars and
writers. The character and phenomenon of Kseniia can also be viewed from
the perspective of modern queer theory, which might explain her great popu-
larity today. She assumed both masculine and feminine roles, and her appear-
ance as well as her behavior challenged traditional gender divisions. Her
madness is, in fact, based on the question of gender boundaries. The question
of what she meant by her gender reversal, of whether she really thought of
herself as a man, is also relevant here. The relation to "queerness" broadens
the notion of iurodstvo so that it embraces much of the cultural philosophy of
today.51 * In her case, the paradox of iurodstvo can be understood and inter-
preted not only as an extremely Russian phenomenon but also as a universal
postmodern phenomenon.
Conclusion
There are a significant number of writers who connect holy foolishness and
postmodernism. As early as 1994 a critic in the journal Novoe literaturnoe oho-
zrenie, O. Dark, commented that iurodstvo is a persistently recurring motif in
recent Russian literature:
51See the already classic definition of "queer" in Judith Butler, Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999).
Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture 371
Dark's article discusses the important inherent national motif in the phenom-
enon of iurodstvo. This phenomenon that was once on the periphery of Ortho-
dox tradition has moved to the center of Russian culture, where it will no
doubt remain for a long time. Its highly ambiguous character perhaps ex-
plains its endurance and continued significance.
Iurodstvo in postmodern culture is commonly interpreted as a way to
challenge appearances and is a reflection of the possibility of reaching reality,
spirituality, and depth. In fact, in iurodstvo there is a strong tension between
what is true and what is false. It thus occupies a logical place in a postmodern
discussion centering on whether it is possible today to represent a divine
reality or any reality at all.
There are both strictly religious and cultural uses of the concept of iurod-
stvo in postmodern discourse. The religious use is associated, in turn, with a
national one, and iurodstvo is often perceived as a special Russian phenome-
non. As noted by the Russian philosopher, Lev Shestov, "Male iurodivye and
female shriekers have not disappeared from Russia, nor, it must be assumed,
will they disappear any time soon" (Iurodstvo i klikushestvo. Muzhchiny-
iurodivye, zhenshchiny-klikushi nikogda ne perevodilis ׳v Rossii i, nuzhno
dumat׳, ne skoro eshche perevedutsia).53 Shestov actually expresses a view of
Russia that appears as early as the mid-nineteenth century: Russia represents
the "irrational" and "mystical" as opposed to the "rational" West.
The reflections on iurodstvo by postmodern scholars attempt to follow the
line taken by Shestov while positioning iurodstvo in Western postmodern
thought. Epstein argues that the very contrast between simulacra and reality
is fundamental to the understanding of Russian and Soviet culture in general.
The central role of the simulacrum is, according to Epstein, evidenced by
Potemkin villages and by the socialist realism, denounced by sotsart.54 While
the question of the real and authentic is and has been crucial for Christians in
דיש
О. Dark, "Novaia russkaia proza i zapadnoe srednevekov'e," Novoe literaturnoe obo-
zrenie 8 (1994): 288.
03L. Shestov, "Derznoveniia i pokornosti," in Izbrannye aforizmy iz knig Apofeoz bespoch-
vennosti. Vlast' kliucheu Na vesakh Iova. Afiny i Ierusalim, http://svnesterov.boom.ru/shestov.
html (accessed 20 July 2009).
54Epstein, After the Future, 195-200. Sotsart is the art from the 1970s and later that
variously quotes and satirizes the methods of socialist realism.
372 Per-Arne Bodin
every era, it is also crucial for the postmodern man. This question is what
makes the concept of iurodstvo so extremely important in Russian culture
today.
Laura Piccolo
1 See, for example, Natalia Ottovordemgentschenfelde, Jurodstvo: Eine Studie zur Phd-
nomenologie und Typologie des Narren in Christo. Jurodivyi in der postmodernen russischen
Kunst. Venedikt Erofeev Die Reise nach Petuski, Aktionismus Aleksandr Breners und Oleg
Kuliks (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 2004); and L. Piccolo, "L'ombra dello jurodivyi
nella letteratura russa contemporanea: Genesi e sviluppo di un tipo sociale e letter-
ario" (Ph.D. diss., Sapienza University of Rome, 2006). See also, in this volume, Pris-
cilia Hunt's introductory article, "Holy Foolishness as a Key to Russian Culture" (1-
14); and Svitlana Kobets, "Lice in the Iron Cap: Holy Foolishness in Perspective" (15-
40).
2 The first iurodivyi characters in fact appear in theater as early as the 1700s and above
all in the first three decades of the 1800s, culminating with Pushkin's Boris Godunov.
See, for example, V. A. Bochkarev, Tragediia A. S. Pushkina ״Boris Godunov" i otechest-
vennaia literaturnaia traditsiia (Samara: Izd-vo SamGGPI, 1993), 74 ff. On this subject,
see also A. M. Panchenko, "Smekh как zrelishche," in D. S. Likhachev, Panchenko,
and N. V. Ponyrko, Smekh v drevnei Rusi (Leningrad: Nauka, 1984), translated in this
volume by Priscilla Hunt, Svitlana Kobets, and Bethany Braley as "Laughter as
Spectacle," 100.
3 See, for example, Ewa M. Thompson, Understanding Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian
Culture (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), 125ff.; Thompson, "II Folle
Sacro e le sue trasformazioni nella letteratura russa," Strumenti critici, no. 2 (1975): 157-
81; Harriet Murav, Holy Foolishness: Dostoevsky's Novels and the Poetics of Cultural Cri-
tique (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992); I. V. Moteiunaite, Vospriiatie
iurodstva russkoi literaturoi XIX-XX vekov (Pskov: n.p., 2006); and P.-А. Bodin, Language,
Canonization and Holy Foolishness: Studies in Postsoviet Russian Culture and the Orthodox
Tradition (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2009).
Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives. Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, eds.
Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011,373-89.
374 Laura Piccolo
tolii Zverev, for example4) during the Soviet era. The paradigm of holy
foolishness not only enters into the cultural code that gives rise to the heroes
of post-Soviet literature, but also becomes a structural feature of Russian
postmodernism.5
This essay investigates the cultural paradigm of iurodstvo in Russia during
the 1990s as manifest in the activity of two artistic groups: Moscow Actionism
(Moskovskii aktsionizm) and Blue Noses (Sinie nosy). This article will show
that their performances embody a transition from "stylization" to "parody" as
described by Tynianov:
The stylization of iurodstvo that occurs in Moscow Actionism (late 1990s) per-
formances becomes parody with the Blue Noses (1998), dissolving into the
conglomerate of postmodern voices.
In the creative vacuum which followed the fall of the USSR and the subse-
quent ruin of Soviet totalitarian culture, the discourses opposing the govern-
4 See, for example, M. Fotiev, "Pri svete, na noch' gliadia: Rasskaz о khudozhnike
Anatolii Zvereve," Izvestiia, 14 July 1990, p. 3; and N. Grigor'eva, "Strana svoikh
iurodivykh ne slyshyt... (o khudozhnike Anatolii Zvereve), ״Strelets, no. 1 (1992): 257-
79.
51. S. Skoropanova, Russkaia postmodernistskaia literatura (St. Petersburg: Nevskii
Prostor, 2002), 63. On Russian postmodernism, see also Mark Lipovetskii, Russkii post-
modernizm: Ocherki istoricheskoi poetiki (Ekaterinburg: Ekaterinburgskii uralskii gosu-
darstvennyi universitet, 1997); M. N. Epshtein, Postmodern v Rossii: Literatura i teoriia
(Moscow: LIA Elinina, 2000); V. Kuritsyn, Russkii literaturnyi postmodernizm (Moscow:
OGI, 2001); and О. V. Bogdanova, Postmodernizm v kontekste sovremennoi russkoi litera-
tury (60-90-e gody XX veka - nachalo XXI veka) (St. Petersburg: Filologicheskii fakul'tet
S-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2004). See also the bibliography in
this volume.
6 Iu. Tynianov, "Dostoevsky and Gogol: Towards a Theory of Parody. Part One: Styli-
zation and Parody" (1921), in Dostoevsky and Gogol: Texts and Criticism, ed. P. Meyer
and S. Rudy (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1979), 104, translated from Iu. Tynianov, "Dosto-
evskii i Gogol' (k teorii parodii)," in Poetika. Istoriia literatury. Kino (Moscow: Nauka,
1977), 201.
From Stylization to Parody 375
Uttering a single and continuous cry, "ekh," Vova subjugates I and kills his
wife. In Genrikh Baranovskii's staging of this work, iurodstvo is reduced to a
thin rubber mask to be worn whenever needed, by anyone.10 The implication
is that each of the protagonists of world history, whose celebratory busts ap-
n
For a definition of discourse, see J.-F. Lyotard, La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le
savoir (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1979); and Viktor Erofeev, "Pominki po sovetskoi
literature," in Russkaia literatura XX veka v zerkale kritiki: Khrestomatiia (Moscow-St.
Petersburg: Academia, 2003), 36-44.
8 That is, a chaosmos, "self-organized and self-regulated chaos," itself a metaphor of
postmodern literature in which the disorder of fragments quoted from the past finds a
new position, including juxtaposition with their opposite. See Mark Lipovetskii, "Iz-
zhyvanie smerti: Spetsifika russkogo postmodemizma," Znamia, no. 8 (1995): 205; and
Lipovetskii, Russkii postmodernizm, 40.
9 Viktor Erofeev, Life with an Idiot, trans. A. Reynolds (London: Penguin Books, 2004),
3; Viktor Erofeev, "Zhizn ׳s idiotom," in Zhizn's idiotom: Rasskazy molodogo cheloveka
(Moscow: Eksmo-ZebraE, 2002), 11.
0 The work is the basis for the opera of the same title set to music in 1992 by Alfred
Schnittke and first staged in Amsterdam in the same year. In 1993 Aleksandr Rogozh-
kin based on this story his eponymous film (with Anatolii Romantsov, Viktor Kho-
ziainov, and Anzhelika Nevolina).
376 Laura Piccolo
pear on stage, can wear this mask, even as their words—or grunts, as in
Vova's case—evoke immediate submission.
Sapped of its substance and emptied of meaning, the term is reduced to a
hollow shell, recycled by Russian postmodernism together with other histori-
cal and cultural topoi. It is in this form that the concept of iurodstvo reappears
in New God's Fools, or the Pathology of Performance (Novye iurodivye, ili patologiia
performansa, 1999). This original artistic experiment by the Siberian group Blue
Noses reduces the paradigm of holy foolishness to an empty husk whose
function in a variegated postmodern mosaic is as iconic as it is lexical.
Moscow Actionism
Actionism was the breeding ground that produced the Blue Noses. It was a
label that cultural criticism has attributed, by analogy with Viennese Action-
ism, to a series of artists working in Moscow in the 1990s.11 Action was the
foundation of their art, clearly a legacy of the avant-garde: the very essence of
the work of art is present only when it irrupts into reality and makes contact
with the audience. Actionism thus falls within the current of conceptual art
with its successive developments, ranging from Body Art to the Happening.12
11 Wiener Aktionizm was founded in 1962 by Gunter Brus, Amulf Rainer, Rudolph
Schwarzkogler, Otto Miihl, and Hermann Nitsch. These artists aimed to move beyond
the boundaries of figurative tradition through a creative act, a synthesis of life and art,
which often brought to life violent performances that prefigure the sado-masochistic
techniques later used in body art and behavioral art. After the 1970s, the artists fol-
lowed individual artistic paths; Brus, Muehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler: Writings of the
Vienna Actionists, trans. and ed. Malcolm Green (London: Atlas Press, 1999). The artists
themselves prefer to define themselves as representatives of radical art. See A. Osmo-
lovskii, "Iskusstvo prostoe как mychanie," Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, no. 26-27 (1999),
http://www.guelman.ru/xz/362/xx26/x2611.htm (accessed 1 March 2010).
12In Body Art—a form of performance art—the body becomes the bearer of a
message, of the Word, as one of the most famous Body Art performers, Gina Pane
(1939-90), observes: "Vivre son propre corps veut dire dgalement decouvrir sa propre
faiblesse, la tragique et impitoyable servitude de ses manques, de son usure et de sa
precarite. En outre, cela signifie prendre conscience de ses fantasmes qui ne sont rien
d'autre que le reflet des mythes crees par la soci6te ... le corps (sa gestualite) est une
6criture a part entiere, un systeme de signes qui represented, qui traduisent la re-
cherche infinie de l'Autre"; G. Pane, in Museum of Contemporary Art in Geneva,
http://www.mamco.ch/artistes.o-s/pane.g.html (accessed 3 April 2010). Unlike Actionism,
Body Art does not seek the public's reaction or engagement but concentrates exclu-
sively on the artist's emotion and his body, by following precise rituals and schemes of
representation. The boom in Body Art coincided with 68׳, and was inaugurated by the
performances of Yves Klein and Carolee Schneemann (creator in 1964 of Meat Joy, a
performance in which the artists are covered in animal blood and carcasses). The Hap-
pening came into being with 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, a spectacle-event by Allan
Kaprow at the Reuben Gallery (New York) in 1959. In the invitation to the event the
From Stylization to Parody 377
artist declared his desire to confer responsibility on the spectator by making him an
active part of the event: "you will become a part of the happenings; you will simulta-
neously experience them"; R. Goldberg, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present
(New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001), 128. Each spectator received an envelope direct-
ing him to a room that had been created by dividing the gallery space with plastic
panels, where the different happenings took place. Today the Happening can be con-
sidered a genuine artistic current in which the artwork is the result of a project which
engages the spectator, an essential and active element. The need to capture an audi-
ence leads the artist to invade the city space, thus interrupting the everyday routine by
means of an extemporaneous and provocative event, often accompanied by music or
scenic or theatrical events. The Happening is often documented in photographs or
film.
13 On conceptual art in postmodern discourse, see also Per-Arne Bodin's article in this
is proof of his sincerity."16 To do this, the artist engages first and foremost in
provocation (of himself and of his audience). In 1991, members of the group
E.T.I (Ekspropriatsiia Territorii Iskusstva — Art Territory Expropriation), led by
Osmolovskii, used their own bodies by lying down in Red Square to spell a
three-letter Russian curse word.
In the early 1980s, similar performances were characteristic of Andrei
Monastyrskii's group Collective Actions (Kolletktivnye deistviia). They were,
however, held in isolated little towns.17 Other examples can be found in the
performances of such groups as Mukhomory or again the Chempiony Mira,
"World-Peace Champions."18 Their vandalistic acts, as the members them-
selves acknowledged, eventually were no part of their artistic conception.
Moscow Actionism was born during perestroika, when young poets once
again started to recite their verses in town squares, almost 40 years after the
Khrushchev Thaw. E.T.I. itself arose out of Osmolovskii and Dimitrii
Pimenov's previous grouping, "Ministry PRO URSS" (Ministerstvo PRO
SSSR, 1988). There the original poetic message presented through various al-
lusions to the Absurd, to French Structuralism as well as to the work of the
Tel quel and Oulipo groups was quickly obscured by the scandal that occurred
at the readings.19 At first, E.T.I.'s initiatives aimed to transform everyday ac-
tions into artistic performances. Subsequently, the individual sphere was ex-
tended into the public realm during the cinema festival Explosion of a New
Wave (House of Medicine Workers, Moscow): at the end of a screening of L.
Malle's Zazie dans le metro (1960), the E.T.I. group actually staged the ending
16 "In this sense the logical procedures, the intellectual structures become obsolete....
The level of communication becomes pre-discursive ... a-logical"; V. Miziano, Con-
ferenza sull'arte russa contemporanea, http://www.undo.net/Visual/Corso/layconferenzekos/
misiano.htm (accessed 13 May 2010).
17See A. Monastyrskii et al. (Gruppa "Kollektivnye deistviia"), Poezdki za gorod (Mos-
cow: Ad Marginem, 1998); and E. Degot', Russkoe iskusstvo XX veka (Moscow: Trilist-
nik, 2000), 188 ff.
18 Mukhomory refer to Amanita muscaria, a poisonous mushroom. See "Gruppa
of the film. They involved the audience in the final fight at the restaurant with
a pie-throwing free-for-all, and it was thus that the group's public adventure
began.
From this point on, performances were more properly defined as Moscow
Actionism. The group No Title (Bez nazvaniia), whose members included
Brener, Mamonov, and Litvin, started the trend.20 The first performance, The
Yellow Devil at GUM (Zheltyi d'iavol v GUMe), took place in December 1993, on
the occasion of the centenary of Mao Zedong's birth: one part of the group
moved about Red Square showing pictures of Mao, while Brener performed
gymnastics in their midst to the rhythm of military slogans, reproduced by a
tape recorder. Their next work, Tongues (lazyki), took place after they bought
ice-cream and condiments at McDonald's on Tverskaia Street. The artists
spread them over Brener's body, which was tied and hung at the entrance,
and then licked them off him while he emitted inhuman howls. The same
group performed an action entitled Plagiarism (Plagiat) at the Pushkin Muse-
um: Brener defecated in his trousers in front of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, chant-
ing the words "Vincent, Vincent" as if repeating a mantra.21
After that event, the group No Title broke up. Brener tended to invest his
performances with political significance: in 1994, when Yeltsin declared war
on Chechnia, he appeared in Red Square in a pair of boxing shorts and gloves,
challenging the then president to a boxing match by shouting "Boris, come
out here!"22
The performances of the aktsionisty reached Europe as well. Kulik ex-
ported the scene of his metamorphosis into a dog which had already been put
to the test in his earlier performance Reservoir Dog (Reservoir dog, 1994).23 Dur-
ing the days of the exhibition dedicated to the Georgian primitivist artist Niko
Pirosmanishvili (1862-1918) at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Kulik pretended to
be the museum's watchdog, snarling and gnashing his teeth at visitors and
preventing them from entering the museum to the point of actually biting
some of them.24 In 1997, Brener entered into a personal "dialogue" with Male
20On Brener in postmodern discourse, see also Per-Arne Bodin, "Holy Foolishness
and Postmodern Culture," 351 in this volume.
On fools and defecation, see Panchenko, "Laughter as Spectacle," 64-65.
22See P. Gel'man, "Brener zdes' bol'she ne zhivet," Russkii zhurnal, 19 August 1997,
on all fours, held on a leash by Brener, who chanted, "stupid art for stupid people in a
stupid country." The motif of the artist-dog is a recurrent topos for other performers as
well, such as Sled v sled (2001) by A. Litvin at Kiev's Gel'man Gallery; see "Litvin i
sobaka," Tribuna, 18 May 2004, http://tribuna.com.ua/news/2004/05/18/9927/ (accessed 15
April 2010).
24 The reaction of the Swiss was rather curious: they called the veterinary division of
the police to stop the artist. On the link between holy foolishness and the ancient
Greek cynics' "dog life," see N. I. Tolstoi, "Russkoe iurodstvo как forma sviatosti," in
380 Laura Piccolo
vich when he drew the dollar sign on the canvas Suprematizm 1920-1927
{White Cross), which was being exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum of Modern
Art in Amsterdam.25
The actions of Advei Ter-Ogan׳ian and Oleg Mavromatti were, on the
other hand, offensive to the point of being blasphemous. In 1998, at Moscow's
Manezh exhibition Art-Manezh-98, Ter־Ogan׳ian held an iconoclastic perform-
ance entitled Young Atheist (lunyi bezbozhnik): acting like a modem Vasilii Bla-
zhennyi, he chopped up icons with an axe and invited the audience to
participate. Ter-Ogan'ian was accused of "stirring religious tension": he fled
to Prague, where he obtained political asylum.26 A similar fate befell Mavro-
matti, who, during the making of the film Uzhe slishkom (the story of an artist
who transforms his own death into his last performance) in 2000, crucified
himself in front of the churches of St. Nicholas and of Christ the Savior.27
Ocherki slavianskogo iazychestva (Moscow: Indrik, 2003), 489. See also S. A. Ivanov,
Vizantiiskoe iurodstvo (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1994).
25The action cost him ten—later reduced to five—months in Dutch prisons. Yet
Brener's risk was a calculated one. See R. Ganahl, "Brener and Flash Art: Terrorism
and Naivete," Zingmagazine, no. 4 (1997), http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing4/reviews/
24brener.html (accessed 12 May 2010).
26 This is similar to an episode in the life of Vasilii Blazhennyi (d. 1557), in which the
saint destroyed a miracle-working icon to reveal the devil painted underneath. Cf. 1.1.
Kuznetsov, "Zhitie i zhizn ׳v krattse skazanie о chudesiakh sviatogo i pravednogo
Vasiliia blazhennogo Moskovskogo chudotvortsa," in Sviatye blazhennye Vasilii i Ioann,
Khrista radi Moskovskie chudotvortsy, Zapiski arkheologicheskogo instituta 8 (Moscow:
Tip. A. Snegirevoi, 1910), 86-87.1 would like to thank Svitlana Kobets for bringing this
episode to my attention. See also Panchenko, "Laughter as Spectacle," 83.
2 See V. Sal'nikov, "Kul'tura ili kult?" Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, no. 32 (2001), http://
jurodivyi e la citta," Europa Orientalis 25 (2006): 83-111. See also Priscilla Hunt, "The
Fool and the Tsar: The Vita of Andrew of Constantinople and Russian Urban Holy
Foolishness" in this volume," including 154-55.
From Stylization to Parody 381
actions.29 Like the iurodivyi, the performers violate the most basic forms of
decency: Brener's masturbation on the edge of the Moscow Swimming Pool,
or his lascivious poses with his partner at the foot of Pushkin's monument
imitate the hagiographic topoi of the holy fool congregating with prostitutes
(St. Andrew, St. Simeon) and his going to women's bathhouses (St. Simeon) or
brothels (St. Vitalios).30
The body is at the center of these provocations. It is transformed into a
wax tablet inscribed with calculated self-inflicted wounds that convey a mes-
sage to the art world. As in Body Art, the mortification of the body has
affinities with the martyrdom of saints. The French artist Gina Pane, for ex-
ample, in Action sentimental (1973) or La chaire ressuscitee (1988) consciously
plays with the analogy between a saint's "passion" and the artist's perform-
ance. The use aktsionisty make of the body, and above all of nudity, as well as
their heedlessness of the cold, has analogies in the vitae of iurodivye.31 In the
contemporary artistic world, nudity is heavily loaded with semiotic signifi-
cance as a metaphor of the truth "revealed" which goes against all the men-
dacity of appearances, and beyond the rules of good manners. The action at
the entrance to McDonald's, where the artist made improper use of food by
smearing himself with it, is reminiscent of iurodivye and emblematic of the de-
personification and commercialization of Russia.32
The provocations of the aktsionisty were first and foremost a revolt against
the art establishment, a protest against the wider commercialization of art and
of the dwindling role of the intellectual as a consequence of the economic lib
29 Except for initiatives attacking religion or those performed abroad, the artists have
never been convicted for their actions. On this role and the fool's immunity, see
Panchenko, "Laughter as Spectacle," 99-100,121.
30See, for example, the Life of Simeon of Emesa, Russian edition by S. V. Poliakova and
177,186.
32 The holy fool has in fact reached a state of apatheia, or complete indifference to bod-
ily functions and needs. He thus not only pays no heed to pain or cold, but is utterly
indifferent to hunger. See Panchenko, "Laughter as Spectacle," 55. His relationship
with food becomes a way to violate the norms both of society and the church. The holy
fool, therefore, may eat meat on Fridays; he drinks in taverns and does not observe
fasts (while performing devotional duties at night). One symbolic use of food is men-
tioned by J. Fletcher, who describes Nikola of Pskov's gift of raw meat during Lent to
the tsar, who was about to pillage the city. When the tsar expressed his amazement at
the unusual gift, Nikola replied that he found it surprising that "it is unlawfull to eate
a piece of beast flesh in Lent and not to eate up so much mans flesh, as hee hath done
already"; Giles Fletcher, Of the Russe Common Wealth or Manner of Governement by the
Russe Emperour, Commonly Called Emperour of Moscovia, with the Manners and Fashions of
the People of that Country (London, 1591), reprinted in Early Exploration of Russia, 12
vols., ed. Marshall Poe (New York: Routledge, 2003), 1: 91. See also Panchenko,
"Laughter as Spectacle," 140-42.
382 Laura Piccolo
The performances of the aktsionisty thus revived some elements of the iu-
rodstvo paradigm: these elements nevertheless do not reflect the substance
and value of the ascetic practice of iurodstvo. It seems, then, that the perform-
ances of the aktsionisty represent a conscious attempt to stylize the iurodstvo
paradigm. Beyond the superficial level of their performances, at a more pro-
found level, are numerous affinities with the behavior of the iurodivye. There
is no comical motivation in the relation between the first and second levels of
It is precisely because of this that in the last ten years Russia has not
created anything new in art. The so-called "radical art" or—as it is
erroneously called—"Moscow Actionism," openly referred to the
beginning of the century, to Russian Futurism.
In this sense, the aktsionisty are the heirs of an avant-garde that has now
faded away. It seems truly misleading to suggest, for example, that Kulik is
an "artist-shaman" as do those who see this movement by analogy to the
sacred act of the holy fool. Nor is it appropriate to imagine him as a being in-
vested with a "messianic creed."38
י׳/
On this subject, see, for example, E. Zamfir, "Iurodivyi," in Avangardnoe povedenie:
Sbornik materialov (St. Petersburg: Charmizdat, 1998), 171-82. "To есть поступке, рас-
считанном на внешний эффект, но жесте не спонтанном, а всесторонне и глубоко
осмысленном," V. Bogomiakov, Contemporary-art (2001), http://xoy.lenin.ru/teoriya/
bogomyakov/t4-4.html (accessed 12 May 2010). On holy foolishness and the avant-garde,
see also Panchenko "Laughter as Spectacle," 76, 78; and Bodin, "Holy Foolishness,"
361.
<УП
A. Osmolovskii, "Как bylo i как budet?" Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, no. 25 (1999),
http://www.guelman.ru/xz/362/xx25/x2505.htm (accessed 1 October 2009).
38 On shamanism and holy foolishness, see Thompson, Understanding Russia, 97-125.
On the fool's messianism as expressed through his prophetic powers, see Panchenko,
"Laughter as Spectacle," esp. 99. See also Hunt, "The Fool and the Tsar," 209, 211. In
his reconstruction of the connections between Kulik and the American artist for the
project I bite America and America bites me (1997), Fritz identifies a questionable sha-
manic and messianic vein in both artists. See N. Fritz, "Man Bites Dog," Broadsheet, no.
1 (2005): 33.
384 Laura Piccolo
Blue Noses
event using images of the Blue Noses' performances. A similar situation occurred on
the occasion of the conference "Redefining Identities: Russian Contemporary Art in
the Age of Globalisation" at the Tate Modern Gallery (London, February 2003).
41 "At this time, when the entire nation is going through the experience of the war in
Chechnia, witnessing the arrests of the oligarchs, and seeing pensioners deprived of
their pensions, current events are rarely found in the work of trendy young contem-
porary artists. Work as a theme, which until a short time ago was still predominant in
socialist realism, has completely disappeared from these works. Why do we practically
never find the hands of the workers which create all the wealth of the world on the
From Stylization to Parody 385
way, creating an impression of hilarity and merriment that infects even the
person behind the film camera. Their set choices—which might be a flat, a
piazza, a street—as well as their involvement of friends or relatives and their
׳Tow-tech" performances also contribute to this effect. Their amateurish style
is far from the "bombastic glamor of the new video art."42 The provocation of
these artists does not spill out beyond the frame of the photographic space. It
remains within a two-dimensional sphere perceptible in the video, where the
three-dimensional nature of the subject is flattened out and transformed into
an animated cartoon.
The Blue Noses take their use of the absurd from the futurists and the
Oberiu group models, together with the experimentalism of the FEKS
(Fabrika ektsentricheskogo aktera — The Factory of the Eccentric Actor), who
in the 1920s attempted to introduce into theater and cinema Viktor Shklov-
skii's ostranenie (make-it-strange) and the search for a new point of view in the
depiction of ordinary life. The Blue Noses are also closer to the modus operandi
(and name!) of Boris S. Iuzhanin's Blue Blouse (Siniaia Bluza) and his satirical
"living newspapers" in which news events were staged using chastushki and
acts featuring athletic ability as well.43
The Blue Noses, with serene and ironical detachment, have become part
of the current context where their creativity is tied up with real life: art be-
comes life and life in its turn becomes art. In 1998 Shaburov (who joined the
group after its founding) received a grant from the Soros Foundation for the
action project Dentistry and Denture (Lechenie zubov khudozhnikom Shaburovym
na den'gi Sorosa): the artist went to the dentist and afterwards good-naturedly
displayed the results in a series of exhibitions.
The Blue Noses reworked mechanisms of deconstruction, specific to soc-
art and conceptualism, into a naif parody that borders on kitsch and which
inexorably strikes at everyone, from Lenin brought back to life by the angel of
death in Wake up, Il'ich! (Il'ich prosnis'! 2005), to Bin Laden, Bush, and Putin in
a state of undress and contortions in Mask Show (Political Dances) (Maski-shou
[politicheskie tantsy], 2005).
covers of the glossy magazines? In their new project the artists Mizin and Shaburov ...
decided to weave glamor together with the blood and sweat of Russian workers."
Kollekt proekta "Art-bazar," Как sozdavat' sovremennoe iskusstvo na obshchestvenno-
znachimye temy, http://www.art-bazar.ru/index.php?id=info&news_id=45 (accessed 1 October
2009). In January 2004 at the Tretiakov Gallery, the Blue Noses presented the photo-
graphic cycle Do I Look Like a Loser? (Razve ia pokhozh na neudachnika?), in which,
dressed as the capital's vagrants and standing alongside the status symbols of the new
Russians, they denounce the contrast between the country's rich and poor.
42 L. Beatrice, "Dalla Russia senza pudore," Linus, 20 September 2005, http://www.linus.
Strategies of deconstruction are brought into play in The New Holy Fools, or the
Pathology of Performance (1999). A cycle of photographs-performances based
on an Andrei Erofeev's project, it depicts the contemporary artist as a new
iurodivyi:
And we were trying to figure out what kind of work would be suit-
able for the "New (Holy) Fools" exhibition. And trying to find a way
to illustrate the title of the exhibition—that is we, the contemporary
artists who are the new iurodivye of today.
47For a definition of code, see Iurii Lotman's "StaFi po semiotike i tipologii kul'tury,"
in Izbrannye stat'i v trekh tomakh (Tallin: Aleksandra, 1992), 1: 26ff.; as well as Umberto
Eco's many studies on codes and cultural signs. For a definition of iconical code, see in
particular Eco, "I codici visivi," in La struttura assente, 107-30. See also Eco, La struttura
assente, 66.
48 On the way in which architectonic codes function, cf. Eco, La struttura assente, 228 ff.
49 The four functions of the titles recognized by Genette include the "deductive" one,
which in the title anticipates the characteristics of the text itself, thus including the
para text in the play of allusions and repetitions. See G. Genette, Seuils (Paris: Seuil,
1987), 54-97.
50 G. Genette, Palimpsestes: La Litterature au second degre (Paris: Seuil, 1982).
51 V. Mizin, in Erofeev, "Molodye khudozhniki."
388 Laura Piccolo
the former with the evident purpose of deconstructing them.52 The result is an
allusive process orchestrated with wholly postmodern instruments of par-
ody.53 By deconstructing the artist-iurodivyi paradigm through irony, the Blue
Noses find a way to "recover" from their "Pathology of Performance."54 Thus
we see accomplished the passage from the stylization that characterized Mos-
cow Actionism to the parody inherent in the way the Blue Noses manipulate
the paradigm of the holy fool.
In the Pathology of Performance, the Blue Noses revealed the "bankruptcy
of the paradigm" of holy foolishness.55 They thus sanctioned its entry into the
postmodern parody game. The Blue Noses reject the holy foolish attitude as
an approach to the problems of society through art. If anything, they put on
the coxcomb of the Shakespearean fool who mocks the king (Putin, Bush), or
the street clown's mask. They thus move into the carnival world, closer to the
circus clown than to the holy fool, as is also indicated by the synecdoche of
their name. The mechanical nature of their gestures amplifies the comic effect
of their acts, that already had something of the camivalesque about them 56
The carnival staged by the Blue Noses apparently puts an end to the mes-
sianic holy foolishness that the Moscow Actionism had subjected to abuse. At
the same time it points to new possibilities for the regeneration of the holy
foolish paradigm in the current mosaic of references. There, where contrasts
are diminished and contradictions fade away, the figure of the iurodivyi со-
exists with its own parody, awaiting entrance into the next "circuit of
meaning."57
דש
See L. Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (New York:
Routledge, 1988), 140.
53See, in particular, L. Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody: The Teaching of Twentieth-Century
Art Forms (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). About Blue Noses and parody,
see also L. Piccolo, "Meccanismi citazionali postmoderni: I Sinie Nosy e la tradizione
dello jurodstvo," Quaderno del Dipartimento di Letterature Comparate 2 (2006): 489-506.
54"Dans cet usage moderne, la parodie implique [...] une distance critique entre le
texte d'arriere-plan qui est parodie et le nouveau texte enchassant, une distance ordi-
nairement signalee par l'ironie. Mais cette ironie est plus euphorisante que devalori-
sante, ou plus analytiquement critique que destructrice"; L. Hutcheon, "Ironie et par-
odie," Poetique 36 (1978): 468.
55 Z. Bauman, II disagio della postmodernitd (Milano: Mondadori, 2002), 130.
56The motif of death, for example, appears both as the inevitable end and as the
prelude to resurrection: in The Ways Some Will Die (Kto как umret, 1998). Shaburov,
lying in a coffin, listens to the funeral eulogies of his friends, and the scene exhibits the
characteristics of carnival laughter, which, according to Bakhtin, is "ambivalent [...]
gay, triumphant, and at the same time mocking, deriding. It asserts and denies, it
buries and revives"; M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. Helene Iswolsky
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 11-12.
7 Genette, Palimpsestes, 453.
From Stylization to Parody 389
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Figure 17. Cross on platform, Hagia Sophia (A. Lidov, lerotopiia: Prostranstsvennye
ikony i obrazy-paradigmy v vizantiiksoi kul'ture [Moscow: Theoriia, 2009], 211).
Figure 18. Open Gospel text, Hagia Sophia (A. Lidov, Ierotopiia: Prostranstsvennye
ikony i obrazy-paradigmy v vizantiiskoi kul'ture [Moscow: Feoriia, 2009], 169)
Figure 19. John II Komnenos (H. C. Evans and W. D Wixom, eds., The Glory of
Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A.D 843-1261 [New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997], 187)
Figure 20. Intercession icon (Samoilova, ed., Vera i vlast', 151).
Figure 21. Icon of St. Kseniia, Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA)
Figure 22. Plastic icon of St. Kseniia, Smolensk Cemetery, St. Petersburg
Figure 23. Worshipers inside St. Kseniia's chapel, St. Petersburg
Figure 24. Worshipers outside St. Kseniia's chapel, St. Petersburg
Figure 25. Icon A, early 16th-century Novgorod
icon of Andrew's vita, described by Lazarev
Figure 27. Min. 11. Andrew sleeps with dogs (fol. 251))
Figure 26. Min. 10. Andrew throws coins to beggars (fol. 249))
Figure 29. Min. 17. About the angel's tale (fol. 262)
Figure 28. Min. 16. Andrew sees how
demons spread ashes (fol. 259)
Figure 31. Min. 19. Demons stamp with
mark of Antichrist (fol. 265))
Figure 30. Min. 18. Passersby chase Andrew (fol. 263)
Figure 33. Min. 21. Andrew spits on a boyar (fol. 268)
Figure 32. Min. 20. The woman sees a dove (fol. 267)
Figure 35. Min. 33. The Vision of the
Mother of God at Blachemae
Figure 34. Min. 26. On winter's misfortune (fol. 278)
Figure 37. An angel offers Andrew
three wreaths (fol. Hr.)
Figure 36. Andrew praying to the New
Testament Trinity (fol. lv.)
Figure 39. Andrew on a cloud gazes into the
abyss of the sea (fol. 43r.))
Figure 38. St. Andrew with miserly monk
and demon of avarice (fol. 16v.))
Figure 41. A rich man's funeral (fol. 138r.)
Figure 40. St. Andrew shows Epiphanios
his vision of intercession (fol. 131r.)
Figure 43. St. Andrew talks to a
miserly rich man (fol. 148v.)
Figure 42. St. Andrew and the prostitutes (fol. 145r.)
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Figure 44. St. Andrew watches demons dancing around a man who blasphemed against the icons of St. Thyrsos (194v., with 195r.)
Figure 45. Sinie Nosy, ili patologiia performansa
(photograph courtesy of Aleksandr Shaburov)
Figure 46. Vasilii Blazhennyi. 18th-century icon. (N. Budur,
comp., Russkie ikony. Moscow: Olma-Press, 2003, p. 226).
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