Title of the article:

A PERSON IN A BESIEGED CITY: ON STUDYING THE “DEVIANT” TEXT IN A HISTORICAL NARRATIVE OF OLD RUSSIA

Author(s):

Demicheva, N.A.

Information about the author/authors

Natalia A. Demicheva — PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, Department of Old Slavic Literatures, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000‑0003‑0572‑4887
E-mail: natadem@bk.ru

Section

Philological sciences

Year

2024

Volume

Vol. 73

Pages

pp. 250–260

Received

June 18, 2024

Approved after reviewing

July, 05, 2024

Date of publication

September 25, 2024

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37816/2073-9567-2024-73-250-260

Index UDK

821.161.1

Index BBK

83.3 (2Рос=Рус) 4

Acknowledgements

The research was carried out with support of the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 24‑28‑00091, Available at: https://rscf.ru/en/ project/24‑28‑00091/) at IWL RAS.

Abstract

The paper analyzes the information recorded in Old Russian texts about the actions of people in the besieged city, contrary to the legal, social, moral norms of the time. The siege is considered as an extraordinary, extreme situation, which creates the ground for manifestations of deviance. The main types of deviant behavior reflected in the texts of this subject are revealed: eating what was considered unsuitable and/ or unacceptable in a normal situation (including anthropophagy); drunkenness; theft; violent and destructive actions. The study basing on the material of the historical narrative of Old Russia (the story in the Laurentian Chronicle about the capture of Torzhok by Vsevolod Yurievich in 1182, “Histories in memory of the previous generation…” by Avraamy Palitsyn, a long version of “The tale of Khan Tokhtamysh invasion of Moscow Tale”, the story of Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich’s campaign against the Volga Bulgars in 1220, the story of the capture of Jerusalem by Titus in the Hellenic and Roman Chronicler (EL-2) and Tikhonravov Chronograph) shows that the information about deviant deeds is not accidental, but is closely connected with the idea and poetry of the works. Formally, the information about such actions of people in the besieged city is divided into brief mentions and “deviant” texts (O.A. Tufanova’s term), which have a more complex structure. In the texts belonging to the second group, the author defines the initial situation (the siege of the city) and the trigger-motif associated with it (hunger), identifies the features of representation of deviant behaviors and analyzes the texts.

Keywords

Deviant Behavior, “Deviant” Text, Historical Narrative of Old Russia, Tales of the Siege of Cities.

Reference

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