St. Alexander Nevsky as an Ideal Image of the Ruler in the Later Versions of his Life

Abstract

The article examines the initial version and later interpretations of the life of the Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky, i.e. the editions of the Great Menaion of the Chetya (Vladimirskaya), the Book of Degrees and Iona Dumin — particularly, the narrative fragments of evaluative orientation concerning the personality of the prince. The latter make it possible to reconstruct the underlying notions of the saint as a ruler and a man and, undoubtedly, reflect the ideal of harmony of social relations, which was especially relevant in the epoch of centralization of power and strengthening of autocracy. This ideal, embodied in the image of Alexander Nevsky, seems to have been also declared (but without regard to the personality of the prince) by Russian publicists of the 16th century — Maxim the Greek, Ivan Peresvetov, Zinovy Otensky and, in part, Joseph Volotsky, Nil Sorsky, Andrei Kurbsky, Matvey Bashkin. Being ontologically connected with the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus Christ, this ideal, at the same time, was identical with the folk poetization of the ‘good tsar’ as well as the humanism as a direction of thought which was emerging in the Russian society.