Moscow in the middle of the seventeenth century had a distinctly
apocalyptic feel. An outbreak of the plague killed half the
population. A solar eclipse and comet appeared in the sky, causing
panic. And a religious reform movement intended to purify spiritual
life and provide for the needy had become a violent political
project that cleaved Russian society and the Orthodox Church in
two. The autobiography of Archpriest Avvakum—a leader of the Old
Believers, who opposed liturgical and ecclesiastical
reforms—provides a vivid account of these cataclysmic events from
a figure at their center. Written in the 1660s and ’70s from a
cell in an Arctic village where the archpriest had been imprisoned
by the tsar, Avvakum’s autobiography is a record of his life,
ecclesiastical career, painful exile, religious persecution, and
imprisonment. It is also a salvo in a contest about whether to
follow the old Russian Orthodox liturgy or import Greek rites and
practices. These concerns touched every stratum of Russian
society—and for Avvakum, represented an urgent struggle between
good and evil. Avvakum’s autobiography has been a cornerstone of
Russian literature since it first circulated among religious
dissidents. One of the first Russian-language autobiographies and
works of any sort to make use of colloquial Russian, its language
and style served as a model for writers such as Tolstoy,
Dostoevsky, and Gorky. The Life Written by Himself is not only an
important historical document but also an emotionally charged and
surprisingly conversational self-portrait of a crucial figure in a
tumultuous time.
General
| Imprint: |
Columbia University Press
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Release date: |
July 2021 |
| Authors: |
Avvakum Petrov
|
| Translators: |
Kenneth Brostrom
|
| Editors: |
Michael Gluck
|
| Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 24mm (L x W x T) |
| Format: |
Hardcover
|
| Pages: |
208 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-231-19808-0 |
| Subtitles: |
Russian
|
| Categories: |
Books
|
| LSN: |
0-231-19808-6 |
| Barcode: |
9780231198080 |
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