Concerning one composition of Simeon of Polotsk

The work of Simeon of Polotsk, preserved with an inaccurate title - “Instructions to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich” - is of interest to researchers of Russian culture in many ways. First of all, it is a kind of poetic declaration of pedagogical doctrine, in which secular education acquires a leading, including a religiously significant, position. The section of catechetical content in the “Instruction” is interesting for its anthropologically oriented interpretation of traditional Christian ideas. Until now, the scholarly literature has not paid attention to the fact that an essential part of the “Instruction” contains a text not belonging to Simeon of Polotsk, “Napisaniia o gramote” (“Writings about Literacy”), which dates back to the end of the 15th century and is closely related to the circle of literature of the “Judaizers”. The correlation and connection in the above-mentioned literature of problems of a religious, scientific, especially moral, anthropological and political nature is quite consistently echoed by the signs of the semantic paradigm of the Renaissance. Thus, the work of Simeon of Polotsk turns out to be a clear illustration of the combinations and interactions of Renaissance and Baroque motives characteristic of Russian culture in the 17th century. A fairly capacious circle of philosophical, theological and cultural-historical issues, actualized in the “Instruction”, is considered in the context of specific social circumstances.