Zhong Yi, PhD Student, Saint Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya Embankment, 7/9, 199034, St Petersburg, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5270-3502
This article is devoted to exploring the features of the characterization in The Life of Irinarkh of Rostov, which is one of the works about the Time of Troubles of the early 17 th century. It is shown that the story combines the hagiographic narrative model and new methods of creating character images. On the one hand, traditional hagiographical topoi are used to portray Irinarkh as an ideal, great man who was given a mission by God to save the Tsardom of Russia from disasters. On the other hand, the introduction of historical reality and daily details into the narrative, highlighting the problems of alcoholism, the impoverishment of monasteries, and the unrighteous life of monks in the early 17 th century, partly violates the canons of the hagiographic genre and shows the “secular” features of Saint Irinarkh as a very ordinary man, far from the ideal of monasticism: his indecisiveness, weakness, and inability to fulfill the God’s commission. In addition, the objective realistic description of the interventionists and monks in the Borisoglebsky monastery individualizes the secondary characters, which breaks the one-sided description of evil and the strict division of characters into positive and negative.
The Life of Irinarkh of Rostov; characterization; hagiographic canon; realistic features; individualization of characters.
10.12.2024
20.01.2025
Zhong, Yi. “Features of the Characterization in The Life of Irinarkh of Rostov”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 2(68), 2025, pp. 66–84. (In Russ.)
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