Tarasov A.E. “A great paradise for all people”: on the sense of nature of the Russian Medieval scribe (historiographical notes)

Abstract: The article is a study on the sense of nature in the Medieval man. The given research problem is a particular topic in the larger scientific problem – the research of mentalities, i.e. the socio-psychological setting, habits, consciousness, ways of thinking of people of one or another period. In a larger context the study of the perceptions of nature is one of the possible means to understanding the outlook of a person from the past. For the purpose of this analysis only one aspect of this question was chosen that of the development of historiographical perceptions of the sense of beauty in nature before Peter the Great in Russia. The first part of the article contains a general theoretic-methodological survey, illuminating the problem of the Medieval individual’s perception of the outside world. It is shown that the study of the relations towards nature in that period was tied with certain difficulties, which were caused by the particularities of the sources. The reconstruction is based on the analysis of book-learning and partially figurative material, i.e. it reflects not so much the general perception of society, as much as of a narrow group of “creators” of elitist culture. At the same time, the very character of the sources allows to make the conclusion that that perception of nature differed with the modern one: the questions of outlook attracted a lot more attention than interest in specific points of space, landscape. The emotional-aesthetic experience of nature also existed, however it was most likely of secondary importance. In the second part of the article, the author demonstrates the becoming of the historiographical outlook in relation to the study topic. It shows the main milestones in the development of scientific understanding of the relationship between the Russian Medieval individual and nature from the time of N. M. Karamzin and up to modernity.

Keywords: