A Comparative Analysis of the "Kievan Caves Patericon" (Russia).

Abstract

The Kievan Caves Patericon (KCP) has been a source of controversy in Russian scholarship for at least 150 years. Early arguments centered on the authorship, dating and textual history, but as time progressed, other elements such as genre and thematic categories became the subjects of contention. Recently, the work's reliance on the translated Byzantine patericons--once almost assumed--has been questioned and it has even been suggested that the KCP is not truly a patericon, but an original Russian hybrid. The present work, cognizant of past and present controversies, first examines the provenience and textual history of the KCP. Next, the stories are analyzed in terms of structure, character, style and genre in order to identify the basic features which define the collection. Because it is an ensemble work, the KCP is treated both as a single unit bound together by a series of unifying elements, and as a group of separate stories, the components of which may exist independently. After discussing the most prominent sources of the KCP, particularly those identified in the text, the focus of the study shifts to the question of its relationship to the translated patericons. As they have not all been published in their Slavic versions, reliable manuscripts are frequently employed in the analysis and the Greek versions are also consulted. Each of the six translated patericons--the Skitskij, Sinajskij, Egipetskij, Rimskij and Azbucno-Ierusalimskij--is examined in accordance with the criteria utilized in the investigation of the KCP. Several basic features common to all of them emerge and these characteristics are compared with the results of the analysis of the Caves Patericon. Comparison reveals that though early investigators who called the KCP an imitation of the translated patericons were surely wrong, the view held by some contemporary scholars which denies a significant relationship between the two is also inaccurate. When one considers the basic features and characteristics of the patericon genre as revealed in the present study, it becomes evident that the KCP is a successful attempt to create a genuine patericon on Russian soil.