"The one who was Helladic today becomes a hyperborean..." To the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Maximus the Greek to Russia

In this article the author describes one of the formative stages of Russian medieval publicism on the basis of works written by Maximus the Greek. The aim is to represent Maximus the Greek as the first Russian publicist. In Russian culture XVI century was a period when literature and reality in the art of writing history made a strong alliance. The air of hesitation, searching for the answers, polemics, courts, church councils, and a race for power are the outstanding characteristics of that time. The works of Maximus the Greek who arrived to Moscow from Afon in March, 1518, were formed in the context of three cultures: Italian Renaissance, Byzantian Orthodoxy and Russian reality. His life in Italy was connected both to the prominent representatives of humanitarian culture and Dominican priest Savonarola, and it provided for his artistic potential. Studying patristics in Vatopedi monastery formed the basis of his writing practice, there he took the monastic vows and spent ten years, during which he wrote several early essays. In Russia his creative work succeeded, Maximus the Greek created about 150 essays of different genres on topical questions of social and cultural life in Muscovia. Maximus the Greek brought to Russia a new culture of word based on the achievements of Byzantian literature tradition and capture of Italian Renaissance language. The inestimable contribution of Maximus the Greek is that he introduced the experience of humanitarian philology and text criticism practice in Rus, thus providing the development of art of word rational theory. Main achievements of the medieval writer include his work on restoration and promotion of patristics in Rus, his translation and education works, and big various manuscript heritage. In this research the author points out the expression of writer's pragmatist position. High self-awareness, dignified self-esteem, concern about the impression from his works, representation of his words as an invincible weapon in polemics with unorthodox, which becomes his heritage, active work of a confined monk on social opinion formation concerning several topical questions in ideology and moral theology make Maximus the Greek an outstanding author among the church writers of that time. The establishment of publicism as an independent kind of literary creation in Russia happend due to the influence of Maximus the Greek. He should be accepted as the first publicist in Russia, which a bit eliminates his role of a preacher. Author's codices for Russian readers written by Maximus the Greek assure us that the learned monk recognized himself as a writer of unwillingly obtained Orthodox motherland where both tsar's will and Divine Providence prepared for him a dramatic fate that predestined the immortality.