The early usage cases of the “Russian world” notion in the old Russian literature

The concept of the “Russian world” has recently become especially relevant. It is analyzed by politicians, economists, cultural scientists, historians and is usually associated with modern political events. Its origins are already found in Russian medieval artistic and journalistic texts. This article is devoted to the analysis of one of the earliest uses of the phrase “Russian world”, which is found in the “Word for the renewal of the Tithe Church” and “The Message of the humble Bishop Simon of Vladimir and Suzdal to Polycarp, chernorizts Pechersk”. “Russian world” is used in both texts not in a geographical sense (like “Russian land”), but in a civilizational meaning, and the authors use this expression consciously. The concept of the “Russian world” is associated with certain motifs, images that are structurally forming for this topic in Russian literature: Christian faith, the motif of martyrdom, the image of a martyr who suffered for faith and Christ, the image of the church as a sacred place, the motif of cult veneration of saints, the motif of heavenly intercession and patronage. The Russian world as an integral phenomenon has a number of features, one of the key among which is the Orthodox Christian faith: at the initial stage of the development of the topic, the Russian world in the understanding of the Old Russian scribe is in many ways close to the world of Orthodox Christianity, but these concepts are not equal. Based on the analyzed examples, it is concluded that the theme of the “Russian world” in these texts is at the stage of formation, but it is stable already in the early monuments of ancient Russian literature.