Igor’ Eh. Ivanov, PhD Student of the Faculty of Philology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1st building of humanitarian faculties, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, GSP-1, 119991, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8192-2589
This article examines the rhetorical mastery of Dosifei Toporkov, a medieval Russian scribe and monk of the St Joseph Volotsky Monastery, as evidenced in his Funeral Oration for Joseph of Volotsk. In this composition, Dosifei actively employs techniques characteristic of Old Russian oratorical art, including morphological and lexical repetitions, syntactical devices, rhetorical forms of address, metaphors, antitheses, among others. The oration incorporates features of lamentation poetics, which is dictated by the author’s literary objective – to express personal grief for his departed spiritual mentor. Although Dosifei includes a brief vita of the ascetic in his work, this does not provide sufficient grounds to classify the Funeral Oration among hagiographic texts; rather, the analysis of its stylistic and rhetorical devices indicates its panegyrical nature. It is suggested that the elements of lamentation poetics in the oration anchor Dosifei’s work to the period immediately following the death of Joseph of Volotsk. This connection establishes the monument’s particular relevance to the second half of the 1510s. The relevance of this study is determined by the lack of scholarly literary research dedicated to the Funeral Oration for Iosif Volotsky and the literary craftsmanship of Dosifei Toporkov.
Joseph Volotsky; Dosifei Toporkov; Funeral oration; solemn eloquence; josephism; rhetoric
07.12.2025
15.01.2026
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