Motifs of the Twelve Great Feasts in Znamenny Chants

Olekhnovich Elena Igorevna External Doctoral Candidate,  the department of Old Russian Chanting Art, Saint Petersburg State Conservatory named after N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov 190068, г. Санкт-Петербург, ул. Глинки, д. 2, литер "А" svitenkova.@mail.ru

The culminating moments of the Orthodox liturgical year are concentrated in the holidays, among which the twelve most significant ^{[1, 2, 3]} stand out: the Nativity of the Theotokos (September 8), the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), the Introduction to the Temple of the Theotokos (November 21), the Nativity of Christ (December 25), the Epiphany (January 6), the Presentation of the Lord (February 2), the Annunciation of the Virgin (March 25), the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, Ascension, Pentecost (three holidays without an exact date), the Transfiguration of the Lord (August 6), the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15). By their number, the holidays were called "the twenties". Their integral body, having passed a long period of formation, finally formed by the XVII century ^{[3, p. 30]}, which was reflected in the liturgical singing books.

The plots of the Twelve Feasts describe the events of the earthly life of Jesus Christ and the Virgin. The themes of almost all the Lord's feasts, as well as some of the Theotokos' feasts — Candlemas (it refers to both the Lord's and Theotokos' feasts in content), the Annunciation, the Assumption — go back to the Gospel gospel. Other important sources of the plots of the Twelve Feasts are the Apocrypha and the Sacred Legend ^[4].

Researchers of the ancient Russian singing art, dealing with the poetics of the twelve-hundredth holidays, convincingly demonstrate the thoughtfulness and artistic integrity of the composition of each festive rite, revealing the events of Sacred History ^{[5, 6]}. On the other hand, within the whole complex of worship, each individual genre reflects the events of the holiday with different completeness and sets its own strategic goals (in the terminology of E. M. Vereshchagin "perlocative" ^{[7, p. 501]}) goals. For liturgical books, it is possible to designate several main singing genres that embody the themes of holidays in poetic texts: these are canons, stichera, troparia, kontakion, sedals, lamps, backstoppers, magnifications. Each of the genres performs its own function in the general dramaturgy of the presentation of the plot of the holidays. In this article, we have highlighted the stichera, which plays a leading role in the disclosure of plots.

The study of the stichera is an urgent issue of modern medieval studies. In the science of ancient Russian singing art, a methodology for analyzing the poetics of this genre among other hymnographic works is developed in detail ^{[8, 9, 5, 6, etc.]}, the history of the formation of some stichera is considered ^{[10, 5, 11, 12, 13 and others]}, attention is paid to certain aspects of their compositional organization within the framework of the order ^{[5, 6, 13, etc.]}. Important steps in the direction of studying this genre, in our opinion, have been made by researchers who, as the leading principle of organizing the composition of stichera, identify certain elements of borrowing from non-singing liturgical texts. For the first time, attention was drawn to the substantial diversity of hymnographic genres in the works of the 60s of the XX century. I. A. Gardner proposed conditionally differentiating hymns into dogmatic, narrative-historical, moral-didactic, service genres accompanying certain liturgical actions, and hymns ^{[14, pp. 60-64]}. In the 80-90s of the XX century, N. V. Ramazanova applied the terminology of homiletics when considering the dramaturgy of the Old Russian ritual ^[8]. A.N. Kruchinina, exploring the composition of the Passion service, after N. V. Ramazanova revealed the principle of unity of all parts of the dramaturgical whole inherent in Old Russian hymnography ^[9]. The work of these researchers marked the beginning of the application of one of the most important, in our opinion, methods in the study of compositional patterns of hymnographic genres — the comparison of Old Russian chants with works of hagiography (sermons, words, sacred texts and others) ^{[15,16, 17, 18]}.

However, the problem of implementing an integrated approach in identifying genre features of stichera still remains unresolved. In this article we will attempt to apply the methods of genre study described above in relation to the consideration of stichera. On the other hand, for the analysis of hymnographic texts, we consider it possible to use techniques developed in linguistics on the material of other genres of Church Slavonic literature. In particular, we will consider the manifestation of the content of poetic texts of stichera in specific compositional forms, depending on the goal set by the author to achieve a certain aesthetic impact.

Possible ways to solve the problem of developing a comprehensive method of considering stichera, we will outline, focusing on the study of the stichera of the singing book Holidays.

The sources of the study were more than 40 manuscripts of the singing book Holidays of the XVII – early XVIII centuries from the manuscript collections of the Russian National Library (RNB), the Russian State Library (RSL), the Library of the Academy of Sciences (BAN), the State Historical Museum (GIM).

The collection of the Twelve-Hundredth holidays in the book as a single cycle was carried out in several stages ^{[19, From 19-22]}. The first was the fixation in the XII–XIV centuries of the hymns of the movable and immobile Twelve-Day feasts in Stichirar, Minea, Triodi. The second was the grouping of the Twelve-Hundredth Holidays into special sections without violating the annual service circle within these singing books. The third stage was marked by the separation of movable and stationary holidays into one book that took place in the middle of the XVI century ("Holiday Stichera of mixed type" ^{[19, p. 22]}). The final milestone in the formation of the corpus of the twelve holidays was the allocation of an independent singing book Holidays at the beginning of the XVII century ^{[19, pp. 22-23]}.

The main content of the events is revealed in the verses. In the structure of each of the services, the stichera of the little Vespers (on "Lord, invocations" and on the verse), the great Vespers (on "Lord, invocations", on the litany and on the verse), matins (on the fiftieth psalm and on the praises) are recorded. Some holidays may include additional stichera: on the Exaltation of the Cross — stichera for kissing the Cross, on the Epiphany — stichera "for the consecration of water", in the Week of the Holy Day — stichera for kissing the Gospel, on Pentecost — stichera of the kneeling vespers (on "Lord, invocation" and on the verse). A special place in the Holidays is occupied by the following troparia of the Royal Hours of the Nativity of Christ and the Epiphany.

The Stichera of the Holidays describe events with varying completeness, consistency, imaginative and artistically expressive fullness. The holidays inside the singing book are arranged not according to the order of their sequence in Sacred History, but according to the calendar principle (in particular, after the Nativity of the Virgin, her Introduction to the Temple chronologically followed, and not the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord, as it is recorded in the book). However, in our opinion, such a sequence is not the result of formal logic. Let's highlight the principles of the composition of holidays inside the book.

Stichera organize the events of the holiday in different ways. Depending on the goal set, the "author" of the text uses certain techniques, the sum of which E.M. Vereshchagin, on whose works we will rely, defined the term "speech-behavioral tactics": "this is <...> a uniform line of behavior of the addressee in intent and implementation, which is included in his efforts to achieve a strategic perlocative effect" ^{[7, P. 515]}. The analysis of the speech-behavioral tactics used in the texts allows us to determine the content of the text and the principles of its organization. Depending on the techniques used to implement the plots of the Twelve-Hundredth Holidays in the texts of the stichera, we distinguish three main types of composition: monomotor, multi-motive, as well as mono- or multi-motive composition with elements of a foreign genre inclusion. The term motive in literary studies is understood as "the ultimate stage of artistic distraction from the specific content of the work, fixed in the simplest verbal formula" ^{[20, p. 594]} Thus, by the term motif in relation to the composition of stichera, we understand a certain semantic content to which the appellatives of this particular text refer. Speaking about the motive in the chanting of stichera, we will take this term in quotation marks.

Let's consider these types of stichera composition sequentially.

A multi-motional composition. To implement it, a speech—behavioral tactic of allusion is used - "a reference to the primary text or in general to the background knowledge assumed by the addressee by naming the minimum stimulus capable of evoking the corresponding memory" ^{[7, p. 533]}. In the texts of the stichera, such a minimal incentive can be the tropes naming Christ and the Virgin, as well as various mentions of Old Testament prophecies, inclusion of allusions to other events of Sacred history, etc. Trope – in poetics "the use of a word in its figurative (not direct) meaning to characterize a phenomenon with the help of secondary semantic shades inherent in this word and no longer directly related to its main meaning" ^{[21, p. 427]}. A striking example of a composition meaningfully implemented by the speech—and-speech tactics of allusions is the stichera of the Annunciation of the Great Vespers on "Lord, Invocations" "The Eternal Council" in the composition of which each line includes images that give rise to allusions to the texts of Holy Scripture.

Monomotor composition. It is characterized by the presence of a central image ("motif") in the text, its example is the stichera of the Transfiguration of the Little Vespers on the verse "The Sun makes the earth clear", organized as a stanza consisting of two lines united by semantic parallelism. The common motive for the stichera is the enlightenment of the world through the Transfiguration of Christ. The unfolding of the enlightenment motif is carried out by means of a parallel antinomic comparison of the images of Christ ("Christ with glory has enlightened the world on the mountain") and the Sun ("The Sun, clarifying the earth, sets"). If the sun "clarifying the earth" sets, then Christ is like the sun, but higher than it, because "having covered the world on the mountain, He enlightened it." In this case, there is a comparison of Christ with the sun, while simultaneously denying their similarity as the "Sun of Truth" and the sun — the heavenly luminary. The method of appeal to the words of Christ is also used: "I am the light of the world: walk on me, not to walk in darkness, but to receive the animal light" (John. 8:12), which reveal a number of tropes associated with the naming of Christ: "The Light is Unapproachable", "The Light is Brighter" and so on. Thus, this stichera is organized as a monomotor composition.

Composition with elements of foreign genre inclusions, that is, the use of text organization techniques borrowed from other genres in stichera:

a) from the scriptural genre (that is, the genre of Holy Scripture). The composition of this type of stichera contains a minimal number of allusions to other texts, except for the central fragment of the Holy Scripture set forth in it. To implement it, the speech-behavioral tactic of "appeal" is used. "Appeal" is the tactic of "references, reliance on primary (sacral-authoritative) texts (Sacred. The Scripture. <...>, the Symbol of Faith, conciliar rules, judgments of the Holy fathers, etc.) and the addressee's references to them" ^{[7, p. 521]}. We will single out five similar stichera in the Holidays: the Slavnik of the Week on the Litiya "Before the six Days of Easter", the stichera of the Week of the Great Vespers on "Lord, Proclamations" "Before the six days of Easter", the stichera of the Week on the praises of the "Multitude of the People, Lord", the stichera of the Assumption of the Virgin of the Little Vespers on the stichovna "Cathedral of the People, Lord", stichera of the Nativity of Christ on the litany of the "Volsvi Persia". Let us consider the stichera of the Week of Waii on "Lord, we cry." The poetic text is given according to the list of the RSL, f. 304. I No. 450 (Example 1).

EXAMPLE 1

The text is based on two Gospel fragments, the coincidences with which we have italicized in the text of the stichera: 1) «But Jesus before the six days of Passover priide to Bethany, where Lazarus died, he was raised from the dead" (John 12:1); 2) "and the ambassadors of Peter and John, reck: going to prepare for us the Passover, yes pits. She also recosted him: where are we going to prepare;He also says ima: behold, Vama is ascending into the city, he is shaking you are a man carrying water in a skudelnitsa: you walk into the house on it, you enter it, and tell the house of the lord: the teacher says to you: where there is a monastery, we will take the Passover with my disciples" (Luke 22:8-11). The stichera quite closely describes the Gospel events with significant fragments of borrowing the text of the original source. The structure of the stichera, devoid of an introduction to the narrative, is also characteristic of the text of Holy Scripture, which emphasizes that "the true beginning of the text lies beyond it" ^{[22, p. 29]}. At the same time, like the texts of Holy Scripture, the text of the stichera is filled with euphony ^{[23, p. 493]} and verbal instrumentation, which contributes to the poetization of the narrative. Among the most striking techniques of sound recording , we note the following:

· assonances in the second line (repetition of the vowel "And": "Pr yi de and sus in V and fan and yu"), and in the fourth line ("t and yast and"), which are highlighted in the stichera by changing the order of words relative to the Gospel text;

· assonances in the seventh line (vowel "u" and vowel "e": "After e d u yt e e m u and dom u and vladyts e rtsyt e"). Let's compare this fragment with a similar Gospel one, where there are no assonances: "one goes into the house through it, enters it, and rtsyte."

· alliteration in the third-sixth lines (consonants "sh/sh": "And his disciples come to Him, I say,"; "where is he?"; "and you will find a man carrying a scanty amount of water"; and also "ts": "vladi ts e r ts yte").

Thus, the composition of stichera, which includes techniques of organization from the scriptural genre, is in many ways close to the presentation of the Holy Scriptures, but also has features peculiar to Euchographic texts.

b) from the preaching genre. This type implies the construction of a composition according to the principles of homilia. The main features of homilia are: 1) content – explanation of the texts of "Holy Scripture (especially Evangelical and Apostolic conception), various rites of church worship, church sacraments and rites, liturgical texts <...>, etc." ^{[24, pp. 23-39.]}; 2) structure: "the main part (explanation) and moral application" ^{[24, Pp. 23-39]}. Sometimes an introductory section "proposal" is added to it. Most often, this principle is used to create a composition of groups of stichera (microcycles), but individual stichera can be arranged in accordance with the structure of homilia. An illustrative example of the use of the principles of the structure of the sermon in a euchographic work is the stichera "World Joy" of the Nativity of the Theotokos of the Great Vespers on Stichovne (Example 2).

EXAMPLE 2

The first four lines of the stichera tell about the event of the Nativity of the Virgin, which is narrated by the apocryphal Proto-Gospel of James ^{[4, p. 3]} (the speech-teaching tactic of "appeal"). From the righteous Joachim and Anna, joy "ascended to us" – the Most Pure Virgin. In this fragment, the thesis "The Mother of God is a universal joy" is put forward. If we draw an analogy with the composition of an artless sermon, then it will correspond to the sentence. Lines 5-8 explain the idea put forward in the opening lines of the stichera, resorting to the verbal tactics of alternation ^{[7, p. 517]}: To describe the purity of the Virgin, the trope "Temple of God" is applied to her, which at the same time is endowed with alternative semantics, not peculiar to the temple building, but pointing to the Most Pure Virgin — "animated". This fragment, which develops the thesis about the "all-praise" of the Virgin, is conventionally designated by the term homily "explanation". The final fragment of the stichera (lines 9-11) is a prayer appeal to Christ, expressed by the stencil formula "peace of the world and great mercy to our souls", which is correlated by function with the moral application in the composition of the sermon. Thus, in this stichera, a composition peculiar to the genre of homilia clearly emerges.

c) from the doctrinal genre. The poetic texts of a number of festive stichera contain the dogmatic content stated in a concise form ^{[25, p. 60]}. This group includes Sihira, the Pentecostal slavnik on the "Lord, invocations" "Come people" of the 8th voice, in the poetic text of which the first and final lines contain etiquette formulas of conversion ("Come people") and prayer conclusion ("Holy Trinity, glory to You!"). Between them, a step-by-step disclosure of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is introduced, preceded by the assertion of the Triipostacy of the Deity ("To the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit") and expounded in the form of two synonymous dogmatic constructions.

Some stichera may include features of several types at the same time. For example, the stichera of the Annunciation of the Theotokos of the Great Vespers on "Lord, the invocations" of "Manifest as a man" on the one hand, is organized as an appeal to the Gospel, that is, it is a composition with a foreign genre inclusion, but at the same time, according to the saturation of images in the text, it refers to a monomotor composition.

All types of composition can be implemented at the levels: stichera, microcycle, holiday and book in general.

The types of stichera compositions identified on the material of poetic texts were applied by us to their chants.

The stichera "The Eternal Council" refers to the 6th voice and is the first stichera of the microcycle of stichera on "Lord, invocations", which has an indication of a similar "All hope". This means that the composition of the stichera of this microcycle should presumably follow the specified pattern — the stichera of the Holy Silverless Cosmas and Damian on "Lord, call" "All hope in heaven". The chant of the stichera "The Council of the Eternal" has certain similarities with the specified stichera-a sample (similar). By analogy with the analysis of the poetic text of the stichera, we will call this technique a "musical appeal", which refers the addressee, on the one hand, to a specific intonation-poetic image of the stichera of the Holy Silverless Cosmas and Damian, on the other — to the circle of all texts performed on this similar (on Holidays similar "All Hope" is used for chanting stichera of a similar section of the divine service of the Exaltation of the Cross). Another musical appeal of the stichera "The Council of the Eternal" is the use of the voice model of the 6th voice, to which this stichera belongs. Thus, the main "motif" of the composition of the stichera is similar to "All Hope" within the intonations of the 6th voice. The connection between the poetic text of the stichera and the like in this case is implicit (the images used in the stichera by Saint Cosmas Damian are not found in the stichera of the Annunciation "The Eternal Council"). The same is noted in the ratio of poetic motifs of the stichera, connected by an indication of the like "All Hope" (microcycles of the stichera of the Great Vespers on the "Lord, invocations" of the Annunciation and the Exaltation of the Cross). Similar determines the structure of the stichera "The Council of the Eternal" (13 poetic lines), as well as the melody of the chant, that is, the sequence of the use of vocal chants in the stichera (if the number of singing and poetic lines does not match) and the location of the musical emphase — the location of the fit (with incomplete borrowing of the fit chants themselves). The similarity of the melody of the corresponding lines of the stichera and similar is limited to the first three lines, then in the chant of the stichera there are significant differences from the specified sample. Let's compare the schemes of the chants of the stichera "The Council of the Privechny" and the similar "All Hope", designating the lines that differ in chant with different letters, with the same letters marked "stroke" — the lines that are close in chant. (Example 3).

EXAMPLE 3

As follows from Example 3, the coincidence of the corresponding singing lines between the like and the stichera occurs only at the beginning of the chants, in the rest of the chant, the stichera has its own structure, preserving some lines of the like in an arbitrary arrangement.

The chant "The Council of the Eternal" divides the poetic text into nineteen singing lines (as opposed to thirteen poetic ones), organized into four sections, each of which makes up a musical stanza. The signal for structuring the melody of the stichera is the regular repetition of the first line, as well as the varied preservation in each subsequent stanza of the songs from the previous section. The first stanza (lines A' B J C' in Example 3) combines lines of poetic content, which are a reference to the theme of the Eternal Council and inform about the Gospel of the Mother of God: "The Eternal Council, revealing to You the Maiden Gavril Predsta." From a musical point of view, this is a statement of the main "motif" of the stichera (the chant of the first musical stanza, which will vary in the future). The second stanza (lines A' K J' C"H D' in Example 3) in the poetic text includes a number of tropes appealing to the Old Testament prototypes of the Virgin: "To You, I kiss and prophesy: rejoice in the unseeded earth, rejoice in the burning bush, rejoice in the deeply invisible." When analyzing the poetic text earlier, we also indicated a special grouping of this fragment due to rhetorical figures. In the chant, a varied repetition of the melody of the first stanza sounds (the coincidence of the lines A'J' C" in Example 3), changes in which at the level of structure create newly included lines (K H D' in Example 3).The third stanza (lines A"'L M D" in Example 3) groups the paths related to the motif of the prototype of the Jacob's ladder: "rejoice at the bridge to heaven and the ladder is high in the form of Jacob." The musical text contains a variation of the second stanza while preserving the intonation of the initial and final lines (A"'D" in Example 3). The fourth, final stanza (lines A"" C"'N O P in Example 3) completes a series of Old Testament appeals. Melodically, the section uses the intonations of the first two lines of the initial stanza (A""C"' in Example 3) and new songs for the stichera to the text "rejoice, the resolution of the oath, rejoice Adam's proclamation, the Lord is with You" (lines N O P in Example 3).

Thus, in the stichera "The Council of the Eternal", with the help of musical techniques, a chant composition is created, which, by analogy with the typologization of poetic texts of stichera, we will designate as monomotor. Its central "motive" will be the chant of the initial stanza of the stichera, and the allusive source is like "All Hope", defined by the Charter. The compositional division of the stichera into sections is justified by the logic of the poetic text. On the other hand, the variation of the main "motif" of the stichera is carried out through the enrichment of the chant with new musical images (singing lines), that is, the inclusion of multi-motive.

A monomotor composition in a chant can manifest itself at various levels — inside a separate stichera, a microcycle of stichera, a circle of stichera of one holiday, a book as a whole. In accordance with this principle, many microcycles are organized that have an indication of the like, for example, microcycles of the Nativity of the Theotokos of the Little Vespers on the Verse, the Weeks of the Little Vespers on the Verse and on "Lord, invocations", etc. All these microcycles in their composition use the principle of monomotor, set by a common like. Most of the microcycles have as a prototype a chant similar to the "House of Euphrates" of the 2nd voice and belong to one section of the divine service - the little Vespers on the verse. A comparison of the chants of the stichera with the indicated similar showed their intonational similarity. This allows us to conclude about the musical unity of this section at the level of the book for the holidays of the Nativity of the Virgin, the Week of the Holy Week, the Annunciation and the Assumption of the Virgin.

The multi-motional composition is also typical for the singing of festive stichera. At the level of a separate stichera, it is most vividly traced in the chants-polyphonic ^{[26, 27, 28]}, built on the principle of composing a melody from discordant fragments with a certain order of alternation of vowels: for example, the osmoglasniki of the Presentation "Who is on the Cherubim", the Assumption "By a Divine wave", the quatrain of the Assumption "Come to the idle cathedral". The change of vowels in the chants is at the same time the boundary of the change of sections of the stichera. Fragments of the chant, representing different vowels, can be designated as separate musical "motifs" of the stichera, forming a multi-motional structure.

Other examples of the implementation of a multi-motional composition in a chant arise at the level of microcycles. Thus, many stichera on lithium, thanks to the inclusion of stichera of various vowels, combine several intonational "motifs" within the microcycle.

Multi-motional compositions can also arise as a result of superimposing their own chant structure of each of the microcycle stichera on a common voice composition, that is, the scheme of the intonations used, common to the stichera of one voice. In the microcycle of the great Vespers on the "Lord, invocations" of the 6th voice, the "All Hope" of the Annunciation is similar, which includes the stichera "The Council of the Eternal" (the first stichera), the compositions of all the stichera differ. Melodically, they are united by a number of intonationally close fragments, which are concentrated in the middle of the chant. The beginning lines and the endings of the stichera differ in many ways.

The chant of the stichera is always formed according to two main parameters that remain unchanged — it is belonging to the znamenny chant of the osmoglasia system and the intonation fund of the specified voice. Occasionally in manuscripts there are examples of non-standard combination of different styles of chanting within one chant ^[29], however, such samples are exceptional. Thus, there are no compositions of "non-genre" inclusions in the chants of festive stichera, but often one of the compositions discussed above (mono- and-multi-motive) includes inclusions that change its structure. Here are some examples. The microcycles of the Introduction of the Theotokos of the Great Vespers on "Lord, Invocations", the Epiphany on Praises, the Weeks of the Great Vespers on "Lord, Invocations", the Ascension of the Great Vespers on "Lord, Invocations", the Assumption of the Great Vespers on verses are organized as multi-motional compositions with the inclusion of a varied repetition of the first line (for example, the chant of the microcycle of the Ascension of the Great Vespers on "Lord, the cry" can be presented in the form of a scheme: A A' B C D E). A varied repetition in the middle of the line is present in the multi—motional composition of the microcycle of the Introduction of the Virgin on lithium (the chant scheme is A B B' C D). The microcycles of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Great and Small Vespers on "Lord, invocations", and a number of others have monomotor compositions with the inclusion of a contrasting conclusion (for example, the scheme of the chant of the microcycle of the Annunciation of the Virgin of the Little Vespers on "Lord, Invocations": A A'A" B).

Thus, when analyzing the poetic text and the chant of the stichera of the twelve holidays, common compositional types were identified, depending on the principles of disclosure of the motifs present in them: monomotor composition, multi-motive composition and composition with elements of foreign genres inclusions. All three types of composition manifest themselves at different levels of the organization of stichera (a separate chant, a microcycle of stichera, the stichera of the holiday and the stichera of the whole book as a whole). Understanding the compositional patterns of the implementation of the plots of the Twelve Holidays is an important step in the further study of the genre of festive stichera.