“Beloberezhskiy paterik”: composition, sources, genre

“Beloberezhsky Paterik” is preserved in the manuscript of the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library (P. N. Tikhanov collection, no. 214) and consists of materials related to the Beloberezhskaya hermitage, founded in the early 18th century in the White Shore tract near Bryansk. The main purpose of the article was to determine the conformity of the “Beloberezhsky Paterik” to the genre canon. The work analyzes the genre composition, configuration, principles of material organization, and establishes the sources and time of compiling the collection . The analysis was carried out with regard to the tradition of ancient Russian patericons and the development of late patericography. As the study demonstrated, the constant features of the genre organically manifested themselves in the “Beloberezhsky Paterik.” Thus, the complex composition of the collection allowed to consider it as an ensemble that includes traditional patericon forms: legends about icons, parochial chronicles, patericon Lives, the Life of the founder of the monastery and the hermit's Life, miracles and visions. The “memory of the genre” also manifested itself on other levels: unification of material by topographical feature, cyclization and the chronological principle of data organization, simplicity of the narrative style, themes and motives traditional for the patericon Life (the theme of hermitage, the motives of martyrdom and temptation) are realized. The ideological and thematic unity of the collection, as the analysis of the works that comprise it has revealed, is organized by two themes - the Beloberezhskaya hermitage as “the house of the Mother of God” and “the second Jordan.” The sources of the patericon were archival materials and publications in magazines of religious and moral content (“Kormchiy,” “Emotional Reading,” “Wanderer”). It was also established that the Paterik was compiled between 1894 and 1905, but it is not yet possible to name its compiler.