Kurbski Andrei Mikhailovich

(1528-1583) - prince, boyar, writer, publicist. After the flight to Lithuania made a whole series of literary and journalistic writings. The main difficulty was the 'History of the Grand Prince of Moscow', . in which the specific examples, he convinces Polish readers not to consent to the possible participation of Ivan IV in the election of the new Polish king because of his personal qualities: brutality, . unprincipled, . perfidy and t,
. n. In addition, he wrote three open letters to Ivan IV, which they said. The messages are given not only criticism of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, in very Kurbsky and presentation of the ideal state structure.
Born in October 1528, Mr.. At 21-m, participated in 1 hike near Kazan, then was voivod in Pronsk. In 1552, Mr.. He defeated the Tatars in Tula, and was wounded, but after 8 days was already back on the horse. During the siege of Kazan Kurbski commanded the right hand of the whole army and, together with his younger brother, has shown outstanding bravery. Two years later he defeated the Tatars and the rebels Cheremisses, for which he was appointed boyar. At this time Kurbski was one of the closest people to the king, even more, he became friendly with the party Sylvester and Adasheva. When did failure in Livonia, the king appointed the head of the Livonian Kurbsky troops, who soon won over the Knights and the Poles number of victories, when he was voivod in Yuriev Livonia (Dorpat). At this time, had already begun the persecution and punishment supporters Sylvester and Adasheva and shoots endangered royal disgrace to Lithuania. Although Kurbski no guilt, except sympathy disgraced, no, he had every reason to think that he is in danger. King Sigismund-August and the Polish nobles written Kurbsky, urging him to go over to their side with promises affectionate reception. Battle of Nevel (1562) was unsuccessful for the Russian, but after it Kurbski province in Yuriev, the king, reproaching him for his failure, does not attribute her change. Could Kurbski fear of liability and for an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city Gelmetom: if the matter was of great importance, the king would put him in the guilt Kurbsky in his letter. Yet Kurbski was confident in the proximity of disaster and, after a fruitless motion episcopal ranks, decided to run away "from the land of God". In 1563, Mr.. (other news - in 1564) Kurbski, with the help of his faithful servant Vaska Shibanova, fled to Lithuania. The service of Sigismund Kurbski came with a crowd of followers and servants, and was granted several names (among other things - the city of Kovel). Kurbski ran them through their sergeants of Muscovites. Already in September 1564, Mr.. Kurbski fighting against Russia. After the flight Kurbsky heavy fate befell the people close to him. Kurbski later wrote that King "mi mother and wife and otrochka one my son is in confinement were closed, Trosky Pomorie, my brethren, edinokolennyh princes of Yaroslavl, various smertmi Pomorie, my possessions, and their spoiled". In justifying his rage the king could give only the fact of treason and violation of the Cross kissing. Two of his other charges, if Kurbski "wanted to Yaroslavl gosudaresti, and though he took his wife, Anastasia, invented by them, obviously, only to justify their hatred in the eyes of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility. Kurbski ordinarily resided in the 20 miles of Kovel, in the town Milyanovich. Judging by the numerous processes, . acts which have reached us, . quickly assimilated Moscow nobleman and royal servant with the Polish-Lithuanian magnates and between violent was in any case not the most humble: fought with landowners, . seized estates, . royal envoys scolded "Moscow obscene words"; his chiefs, . hoping for his defense, . extort money from the Jews,
. In 1571, Mr.. Kurbski married a rich widow Kozinskaya, nee Princess Golshanskoy, but soon divorced her and married, in 1579, the third time on a poor girl Semashko and with her was, apparently, happy, had from her daughter and son, Dimitri. In 1583, Mr.. Kurbski died. As soon died and the executor of his authority, Konstantin Ostrozkiy, the government, under various pretexts, has been selected possession of the widow and son Kurbsky and, finally, robbed and Kovel. Demetrius Kurbski subsequently received a portion of the selected and converted to Catholicism. Opinion on Kurbski as a politician and man are different. Some see it as a narrow conservative, . rights restricted, . but samomnitelnogo, . Boyar supporter and opponent of sedition monocracy, . explain the betrayal of his calculations on the practical benefits, . and his behavior in Lithuania considered a manifestation of unbridled tyranny and crass selfishness; even suspect the sincerity and usefulness of his work on the maintenance of orthodoxy,
. According to the other, Kurbski - intelligent, honest and sincere person, always standing on the side of goodness and truth. Since the controversy Kurbsky and the Terrible, together with other products of the literary activity Kurbsky still insufficiently investigated, then the final judging Kurbski, more or less which is able to reconcile the contradictions, it is premature. From the works Kurbsky known: 1) "History of the Grand Prince of Moscow on the case slyshahom ordeal and have reliable husbands and our ordeal videhom ochima". 2) "Four letter to the Terrible". 3) "Letters" to different persons, of whom 16 entered in the 3rd edition of "The Legend of Prince Kurbsky" H. Ustryalov (St. Petersburg, 1868), a letter issued by Sakharov in Moskvityanin "(1843,? 9) and three letters - in the Orthodox interlocutors" (1863, Books V - VIII). 4) "Preface to the New Margarita"; published for the first time H. Ivanisheva in the collection of acts: "The life of Prince Kurbsky in Lithuania and in Volhynia" (Kiev, 1849), reprinted in Ustryalov "The Legend". 5) "Introduction to the Book of Damascus" Heaven "(issued by Prince Obolensky in" Bibliography Notes ", 1858, No. 12). 6) Notes (the margin) to translations of Chrysostom and Damascus "(published by Professor A. Archangel in the "Supplement" to "Essays on the history of western Russian literature", in "Readings Society East. and ancient. ", 1888, # 1). 7) "History of Florence Cathedral," a compilation, published in "The Legend" Page. 261 - 268; about her sm. 2 articles S.P. Shevyrov, "Journal of the Ministry of National Education", 1841, Book I, and Moskvityanin ", 1841, t. III. In addition to selected works of Chrysostom ( "Margarit New"; cm. about it "Slavic-Russian manuscript Undolskogo, Moscow, 1870), translated the dialogue Kurbski patriarch Gennady, Theology, dialectics, and other works of Damascus (cm. A story. Archangel in the Journal of the Ministry of National Education, 1888? 8), some of the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, excerpts from Eusebius and others. And in one of his letters to Ivan inserted into large fragments of Cicero ( "Legends", 205 - 209). Kurbski himself describes as his "beloved teacher" Maxim the Greek, but the latter was both old and depressed by the persecution in a time when Kurbski the threshold of life and direct his disciple Kurbski could not be. Even in 1525, Mr.. Maxim was very close Vasily Mikhailovich Tuchkov (mother Kurbsky - nee Tuchkova), who has probably a strong influence on Kurbsky. Like Maxim, Kurbski is with deep hatred for the self-satisfied ignorance, while very popular, even in the highest class of the Moscow State. Dislike of books from which the supposedly "Come chelovetsy, in other words bezumiyut, Kurbski considers pernicious heresy. Above all, he puts the Holy Scriptures and the Church Fathers, . his commentators, but he respects and external or Gentry science - grammar, . rhetoric, . dialectic, . natural philosophy (physics, etc.), . nravonakazatelnuyu philosophy (ethics) and the terms of the heavenly treatment (astronomy),
. He himself was studying at odd moments, but learning to life. Voivod in Yuriev he had the entire library of, and after the flight, already gray hair, "he endeavor" of the Latin language priuchatisya sake, MOO I could prelozhiti in their own language that is not ultimately offer ". According to the Kurbsky, public disasters occur from neglect of teaching, and the state where education is firmly put in words, not only do not perish, but growing and turning heretics to Christianity (as the Spaniards - The New World). Kurbski shares of Maxim the Greek dislike of "Osiflyanam" to the monks that "acquiring broach likes" and they in his eyes "really all Katoff (butchers) bitterer". He pursues the Apocrypha, denounces "the Bulgarian fable" pop Eremeev, "abo Pace Babskii nonsense", and especially rises to the gospel of Nicodemus, the authenticity of which were willing to trust people, well-read in the Holy Scriptures. Exposing the ignorance of contemporary Russia and readily acknowledging, . that in his new homeland and science is more common in high esteem, . Kurbski proud of its natural purity of the faith citizens, . blames Catholics for their wicked innovations and vacillation, and deliberately did not want to separate them from the Protestants, . Although knowledge concerning the biography of Luther, . civil wars, . arising as a result of his preaching, . and iconoclasm of the Protestant sects,
. Satisfied, he is also the language and the purity of the Slavic and contrasts his "Polish Barbara. He clearly sees the danger threatening the Orthodox subjects of the Polish crown by the Jesuits, and beware of their machinations of Constantine himself Ostrozky: it is to deal with them, he would like science to prepare their co-religionists. Kurbski grimly looks at his time, seeing it as 8-S-thousand years, the "age of the animal," "If ye are not born yet, and the Antichrist, all already on the Prague doors wide and prosmelyh". In his political views Kurbski belonged to an opposition group of boyars, princes who defended their right to be essential staff and advisers to the emperor. However, he advised the king to seek advice and simple vsenarodstva. In general, the mind quickly Kurbsky can be called solid, rather than a strong and original (well, he sincerely believes that during the siege of Kazan Tatar old men and women with their enchantments sowed "plyuviyu", ie rain, the Russian army). In this respect, his royal opponent far exceeds its. Not inferior to Grozny Kurbsky in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, . first centuries of church history and the history of Byzantium, . but less well-read in his fathers church and much less experienced in the ability to clearly and literature to express their thoughts, . Yes, and "many fury and ferocity" to prevent a lot of the correctness of his speech,
. On the content of the correspondence Grozny Kurbski - a precious literary monument, the world outlook of the leading Russian human XVI century is revealed here with great frankness and freedom, and two outstanding minds operate with a higher voltage. In the "History of the Grand Prince of Moscow" (summary of events from childhood to the Terrible in 1578), . which is rightly considered the first time a monument of Russian historiography thoroughly consistent with the trend, . Kurbski is a writer even more: all the parts of his monograph is strictly thought out, . presentation orderly and clear (except for those places, . where the text is defective), he cleverly uses the figures of exclamations and questing, . and in some places (eg, . in the depiction of suffering Metropolitan Philip) comes to the true pathos,
. But in the "History" Kurbski can not rise to a specific and original outlook, and here it is only an imitator of good Byzantine samples. Now he rises at velikorodnyh, . but the battle lazy, . proves, . that the king should seek good advice, not only will have advisers, . but also in a popular man ", . it exposes the king, . that he "clerks" elect me "not of the gentry family", . "but more so from Popovichev or from simple vsenarodstva",
. He constantly lard his story with unnecessary fine words, intercalary, not always reaching to the point and not well-aimed aphorisms composed by speeches and prayers and monotonous reproach to old enemy of the human race. Language Kurbsky places handsome and strong, sometimes pompous and prolix, everywhere littered with foreign words, obviously - not out of need, but for the great literary. In a great number of words taken from the Greek language unfamiliar to him, even greater - a Latin word, somewhat less - the words of German, an author known or in Livonia, or through the Polish language. - Literature on Kurbski extremely extensive: every, . who wrote about the Terrible, . could not escape and Kurbski; his story and his letter with one hand, . transfers and the controversy over orthodoxy - with another, . so large facts in the history of Russian intellectual life, . that no researcher writing before Peter could not avoid them, almost every description of Slavic manuscripts Russian depositories is material for the history of literary activity Kurbsky,
. The Legend of Prince Kurbsky "published by H. Ustryalov in 1833, 1842 and 1868 respectively. (A. Kirpichnikov). At present edition of the works commenced Kurbsky Imperial Archaeography Commission. In volume XXXI "Russian Historical Library" published "History of the Grand Prince of Moscow" and letters Kurbsky to different persons ". About working with. Gorsky Prince п?.п?. Kurbski "(Kazan, 1858) cm. Article N.A. Popov "On the biographer. and criminal elements in history "(Athenaeum, 1858, h. VIII,? 46). A number of articles NW. Oppokov (Prince п?.п?. Kurbski ") printed in Kiev of University Izvestia for 1872, No 6 - 8. Articles Professor M. Petrovsky (M. P-sky), "Prince Kurbski. Regarding his tales "published in Studies of the University of Kazan, in 1873,. See. more "Researches on the life of Prince Kurbsky in Volyn," said. L. Matseevich ( "Ancient. and the New Russia ", 1880, I);" Prince Kurbski in Volyn "Yul. Bartoshevich ( "Historical Journal", VI); AN. Jasinski The Works of Duke Kurbsky as historical material "(Kiev, 1880); G.Z. Kuntsevich "Act Lithuania metrics of the flight of Prince Kurbsky" ( "Proceedings of the II branch of the Imperial Academy of Sciences", 1914).