Characterizing the Illustrative and Narrative Peculiarities of Northern Russian Hagiography

The article examines the genre and stylistic features of the northern Russian hagiography. As a genre of literature, lives are characterized by a number of specific features. In addition, a genetic link of the original hagiography with translated lives and patristic literature was decisive in the formation of system of genre and stylistic parameters of hagiographic text. Basic principles of hagiographic text — the setting for the canon and following the tradition. Poetics of the lives as a literary genre is subject to literary etiquette, but the choice of artistic and visual tools are always motivated by the subject matter. The arsenal of literary means of the northern Russian hagiography is rather wide: stable (traditional) stylistic formulas, quotes from the Scripture, various metaphors, symbols, similes, epithets are widely used. The famous “ornamentation” of northern Russian lives should be noted too. This determines special rhythmic and syntactic organization of the text and the utmost attention to the word and its meaning (semantics of the word). Considered the most striking artistic and visual features of northern Russian lives of the XVI–XVII centuries find much in common with the stylistics of the lives of the XIV–XV centuries, which can be considered classic examples of ornamental prose.