Glorification of the Ancestors. Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

My sir!

Accept from a Russian a sincere gratitude for the fact that under the title you are working to publish a very useful book in terms of its content, but in the style of your pen a very pleasant book.

Continue to vigilantly point out to us the mores and deeds of our ancestors, which we have more to be magnified than to be ashamed, we have a reason.

Continue to convict foreign writers of false opinions about us. You are absolutely right: if you write out from their books all the places where they talk about Russia, then we will find nothing in them but blasphemy and contempt. Everywhere, and especially until the time of Peter the Great, they call us wild, ignorant and barbarians.

We ought to have led them out of this error; show them that they are being deceived; to make them feel the antiquity of our language, the power and eloquence of our sacred books and many of the remaining monuments. We ought to find, collect, present in the aggregate various faithful testimonies scattered in the annals and other ancient narratives that our ancestors were not wild, that they had laws, morality, intelligence, reason and virtues. But how can we do this when, instead of loving our language, we turn away from it in every possible way? Instead of delving into our own repositories, we delve only into fairy tales about us woven in foreign languages and become infected with their false opinions? Peter the Great, foreigners say, transformed Russia. But does it follow from this to conclude that before him everything was disorder and savagery? Yes, under him Russia rose and lifted up her head high; but in the most ancient times it had its own merits: her only tongue, this solid monument of copper and marble, cries out loudly into the ears of those who have ears with them.

Life descriptions and testimonies do not cease to exist through the fact that they are not read, and unless they are led out of a false opinion, who avert both their mind and hearing from them.

Looking at the portrait of my ancestor, I see that he does not look like me: he has a beard and no powder, and I am without a beard and powdered; he is in a long and serene dress, and I in a narrow and short one; he is wearing a hat, and I am wearing a hat. I look at him and smile; but if he suddenly came to life and looked at me, then of course, for all his importance, he could not refrain from laughing loudly.

External views do not show the dignity of a person and do not testify to the true enlightenment in him.

A pious heart, sound mind, righteousness, selflessness, courageous meekness, love for one's neighbor, zeal for family and common good: this is the true light! I do not know if we can boast of those before our ancestors, whom foreigners, and we after them, call ignorant and barbarians.

Recently it happened to me in a book called to read a letter from the Pskovites, written at the beginning of the thirteenth century to the Grand Duke Yaroslav. The style and way of thinking of our compatriots are so memorable that I will write this letter here.

Novgorod and Pskov (Pleskov) were in ancient times two republics or two special governments. They obeyed the Grand Duke of Russia. And Pskov, as the newest and younger republic, respected and obeyed the older one, that is, Novgorod. However, each of them had its own rulers, its own troops. Their connection and subordination was a kind of voluntary, not so much on the power of autocracy as on consent and friendliness based. Each of the republics could rely on its own forces, could be torn away from the other; but the goodwill, the given word, the feeling of brotherhood did not allow it to break. So a unanimous family, accustomed by parental authority from childhood to agree, although it will then lose its father, but the kinship between themselves keeps inviolable. The fulfillment of such virtues shows righteousness and kindness of morals combined with piety. We will see what the Pskovites were like.

In 1228, Prince Yaroslav, without warning, went to Pskov, under the guise of going to war against the residents of Riga and the Germans. But in fact, as they suspected, he wanted, having entered Pskov, to reforge all the mayors and send them to Novgorod. The Pskovites, hearing that Yaroslav was carrying chains and fetters to them, locked up the city, and they did not let him in.

Yaroslav, seeing such disagreement, returned to Novgorod and, having convened a veche, complained about the Pskovites (pleskovich), saying that he did not think of any grudge against them, and did not have iron for forging, but brought gifts and cloth to them in boxes, brocade. For this he asked for councils on them, and in the meantime he sent to Pereslavl for his troops, always pretending that he wanted to go to the residents of Riga and the Germans, but in fact thinking of revenge on the Pskovites for their stubbornness. The Yaroslavovs' regiments came to Novgorod and stood around in tents, in yards and in the marketplace. The Pskovites, hearing that Yaroslav had brought troops to them, fearing him, made peace and an alliance with the Rigans, turning off Novgorod from it and putting it this way:

Such a quick and sudden reconciliation with the everlasting enemies required, of course, skill and intelligence in political affairs. Moreover, what is this alliance based on? For the general benefit, because the people of Riga help them in any case, the Pskovians do not help them against the Novgorodians. So, even during their defense from the Novgorodians, they did not forget, in a special alliance from them, to observe the respect and love they deserve. Such an act is very far from barbarism and ignorance. But let's follow the narrator further.

Novgorodians, he says, having learned about that, began to grumble against Yaroslav that he wanted to fight in Pskov for no reason. Then Yaroslav changed his violent intention and, having sent Misha Zvonets to the Pskovites, ordered them to say:

Let's see how the Pskovites responded to such reproach. True, their letter does not look like the empty bloom of many current scriptures, there is no play on words that hide real feelings and thoughts, but the naked truth and in simple words bare both the soul and the heart. Here's the answer:

This is what the morals of the former people were like! The whole society defended a truthful person, and rather agreed to suffer for him, rather than betray him for diligence! The Pskovites continue:

Do barbarians think so? Do the ignorant think so? Would the tolerance of faith, which in the eighteenth century Voltaire and other writers defended with such zeal and fervor, here, with such opinions and morals, need to be defended? they say to Novgorodians. To you! What a family connection! So a well-behaved brother or son turns away from vice, so that by his lack of glory he does not decame his brother or father.

They further say:

What confidence in ourselves and in our virtues! They were not afraid of damage to their morality from an alien people, they were not afraid to humiliate themselves and become their monkeys, but they thought that other peoples, seeing their condition from them, would be enlightened, from them they would become good-natured.

They finish their letter like this:

Can you say more respectful, sensible, more sensitive? What a strong bond and respect for compatriots! What restraint and restraint of natural anger in the midst of resentment and grief! What deep respect and submission to your oldest self!

Let's repeat these words. It is not enough to repeat them once. They can be repeated a thousand times, and always with new pleasure. Lord foreigners! Show me, if you can, I do not speak in the wild nations, but in the midst of you, the enlightened, similar feelings!

Without a doubt, the Pskovites, expressing such submissiveness, knew the customs of their brethren and compatriots, knew that expression could keep them from any unjust actions. The word was then much more terrible than it is now.

This incident alone shows what kind of morality our ancestors had, and how far they were from the barbarians and the wild, long before the time from which foreigners us, and after them we began to consider ourselves among the people.

Fragment from the book "Slavic Russian Korneslov"