Статьи из Fioretti di San Francesco в русском сборнике Великое Зерцало как exemplum

Abstract

Studying the Western European collection Speculum Maius (the Great Mirror) translated into Russian at the end of the 17th century involves identifying its plot-thematic connections with the ancient Russian written culture. Seven stories about Francis of Assisi († 1226) and his companions were discovered in the collection that were included in the medieval florilegium - he legends about the founder of a mendicant order called Fioretti (14th century). Their thematic and motif content and use of medieval genre forms in the narratives about the first Franciscans are close to the instructive accounts of ascetics from the translated and domestic paterics, the Prologue, the Menalogies for reading collections and hagiography, which, like the “floral” narratives, were in line with the material demanded in the moral and religious instructions of Christians. The articles from Fioretti in the Great Mirror have a small volume, a minimal number of characters, narrate the connection and interchange of the earthly and heavenly worlds. This brings them closer to the exemplum - the most famous Latin written culture phenomenon, serving as an instructive “basis” of medieval sermons and being an important part of collections of religious and secular content such as “zertsalo.” Summarizing theoretical experience, the author follows modern foreign and domestic scholars and understands an “exemplum” as a narrative of a small volume implemented in didactic discourse, with its reception using signs of medieval genres. “Flower” articles-exempla of the Russian Great Mirror, devoid of personalization and topological references, embody a universal order in a typical and generalized event.