certain framework
Afanasy Nikitin “Going beyond three seas”
“Going beyond the three seas of Afanasy Nikitin” (see its full text) – a description by a 15th century Russian man of his journey to far India.Afanasy Nikitin was a Tver merchant. In 1466, he joined the embassy of Grand Duke Ivan III, who was traveling to Azerbaijani Shemakha. Nikitin went to Shamakhi for commercial purposes, but on the way he was robbed by the Tatars, who took everything from him, even the Bible, which, as a very religious man, he never parted. Then he decided to try his luck and continue to trade: he did not want to return home empty-handed. So he made his trip “for three seas” (the Caspian, Black and Indian), and got by dry road to India before the famous navigator Vasco da Gama. Continue reading
Two crosses of Konstantin Batiushkov
This year marks the 230th anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov (1787–1855) and the 200th anniversary of the release of his only book, the two-volume book Experiments in Verse and Prose (1817). An outstanding personality – bright, heroic and tragic – the Russian poet Konstantin Batiushkov occupied a special place in the history of Russian literature. Pushkin considered him one of his teachers in poetry, recognized the works of Batiushkov as a poetic miracle and in this sense called him a “wonderworker”. Continue reading
“The Tale” by Abraham Palitsyna
The famous figure of the Time of Troubles, Avraham Palitsyn, described the circumstances of protection from the Polish troops of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and his personal exploits in a work entitled: “The Legend of the Troitsky Sergiyev Monastery siege from the Poles and Lithuania, and the insurgencies later in Russia, composed by the Holy Trinity Monastery Kelarem Abraham Palitsyn. This “Legend” is a monument, remarkable as much in literary as in historical terms and reveals in the author remarkable literary talent and not only the reading in books of theological content, but also familiarity with the facts of the history of civil and even philosophy. Continue reading
