Repina A. S.

Biblical quotations in Prayer to the Lord God by Euphemia of Smolensk. Pp. 97–102.

UDC 821.161.1-1.09«16»

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2024.83.2.010

 

Abstract. The special place of poetic prayer in the system of genres of spiritual poetry of the 17th century is due to its emotional pathos and the possibility of personal rethinking of the biblical text. The prayer word does not lose sacred power for the authors and grows from a special language that M. Gardzaniti calls churchbook collective memory, formed to a greater extent in the liturgy. This method of studying biblical quotations underlies the interpretation of the concept of the Prayer to the Lord God, written by the Russian woman author of the 17th century, Euphemia of Smolensk, whose work, due to insufficient study, is conventionally described as belonging to the official (prikaznaya) poetic school (researchers V. K. Bylinin and A. A. Ilyushin). The present study uses the historical-genetic method of literary criticism as a tool for identifying specific sources of the work, as well as the mythopoetic method to describe the refraction of biblical images in the Prayer. In the course of analyzing the elements of the biblical text, their functions in the work are revealed. In addition to prayerful introductions and doxologies traditional for ancient Russian literature, the vivid images of the Psalter demonstrate the evolution of the author’s emotional state. Euphemia’s spiritual quest is organized into logical sequences based on New Testament stories. All this helps the author predict her own fate in hard life circumstances and is consistent with her religious worldview. Various ways of using biblical quotations in the Prayer to the Lord God form the subject of this article, identifying their functions and influence on the design of the work. The result of the study can be considered the identification of a number of motives in which quotations from the Holy Scriptures appear: imminent death, miraculous healing and God’s protection of children. The tragic mood of the collective lamentation at the beginning is contrasted with the prayer at the end, full of spiritual clarity, from which we can conclude that one of the intentions of the work is to gain mental balance and firm faith in the protection of God. The study can be used in a course on Russian literary history in the 17th century.

 

Keywords: biblical quotes, lamentation genre, poetic prayer.

 

Bibliography

 

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