Hagiographic literature and historical novel “The myrrhbearers” by archpriest Nicholas Agafonov

The novel “The Myrrhbearers” by archpriest Nikolas Agafonov harmoniously combines the poetics of the historical novel and the poetics of modern hagiographic literature, which have many common genre features. The known invariants of the historical novel, characteristic for modern hagiographic literature, are the crisis epoch as the time of action, the connection of motifs of public and private life, the opposition of representatives of different cultural and historical forces, the presence of historical reference. Both in fiction prose and in modern hagiographic literature, the power of the fact itself, the document, becomes the emotional climax of the narrative. The events known from the Gospel are authentic and reproduced accurately. As a novelist, Father Nicholas widely resorts to fiction, which is specifically stated in the preface; episodes and lines are composed that clarify for the reader the connection between the known events. Thus, from the prehistory of Mary Magdalene in the Gospels it is reported only that the Lord cast seven demons out of her; the novelist composes a story about how “seven demons entered” Mary as a result of a severe shock in her childhood, i.e. a severe form of the disease befell her, because in the language of Holy Scripture the number seven is a symbol of completeness. The stories of Mary’s preaching in Rome and Gaul are taken from European hagiography. The principle of documentality prevailing in modern hagiographic literature is also consistently applied in the historical novel “The Myrrhbearers”. The popular science Supplement makes it easier for the reader to study the historical basis of the novel. The writer briefly presents here information about the Myrrhbearers, and also encloses his outline of Bishop Michael Gribanovsky’s scholarly theological work “On the Gospel” (1896). Bishop Michael revealed the sequence of all the events of Sunday night known from the Gospel. Genuine historical information, as opposed to widespread speculation, broadens the reader’s horizons, which is characteristic of both the historical novel and contemporary hagiographic literature.