Political legend in the historical narratives of the first third of the 17th century

The article deals with the literary form of a political legend unusual for the writings devoted to the events of the Time of Troubles, by which is meant the legendary political episode with a specific set of formal features. The analyzed options demonstrate two processes. In the second edition of “Chronograph”, the legend has the form of a historical fact by analogy with other notes of the transfer of power in connection with the approaching death of tsar. For us is an undeveloped plot, reduced by type of presentation to the traditional chronicle genre form of chronicle notes, and therefore almost devoid of emotionality. But this fact is legendary because it doesn’t occur in earlier texts and has a specific set of structural components. The most important among them are the motif for the absence of a direct heir to the throne, the motif of naming the successor, the motif of kinship, the transfer of power to a distant relative, the motif of evil suffering instead of receiving the gift royal crown. In the Pskov story “The Tsar Election to Moscow State” and in the “Tale of Moscow State Victories”, the legend takes a different literary form, which found expression in the composition: the beginning - actually the text of the legend, imprinted in the form of a prophetic prediction - an extensive ending. All the leading motifs found in the “Chronograph” are reproduced in two other versions of the legend, although in a transformed form. In the “Tale of Moscow State Victories”, in contrast to the two other texts, the prophetic prediction takes the form of tsar monologue. In general, this literary form goes back to the Old Russian tradition of predicting the fate of a person, but it has its own compositional and thematic canon, due to a specific political order - the need to justify in different ways the legitimacy of Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov’s power.