Russian Spiritual Verse as a part of the cultural and linguistic heritage of Russian and Serbian Spiritual Vocabulary

Maryanovich Daliborka ORCID: 0000-0001-9244-2073 Senior Lecturer; Institute of the Russian Language; P. Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6, Moscow, 117198, Russia daliborka.maryanovich@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Galoyan Nare Gareginovna ORCID: 0009-0007-7124-8133 PhD in History Assistant Professor; Institute of the Russian Language; P. Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6, Moscow, 117198, Russia galoyan_ng@pfur.ru

Russian spiritual verse, which is a unique poetic form, occupies a special place in the cultural and linguistic heritage of Russia and Serbia. This type of poetry, which originated in the context of the Orthodox tradition, not only serves as a means of expressing religious feelings and beliefs, but is also an important element of national identity and cultural memory. The spiritual verse, with its deep symbolism, rhythmic structure and melodiousness, reflects the spiritual quest and cultural values inherent in the Russian and Serbian peoples.

In the context of historical changes and cultural transformations, the Russian and Serbian spiritual vocabulary has undergone significant changes, but the spiritual verse has retained its roots, continuing to convey traditional ideas and images. The importance of this genre lies not only in its religious function, but also in its ability to unite people through common cultural and spiritual values, forming a unique experience of perceiving the world.

Interest in learning the language of the religious sphere, which includes both "intra-church communication" and "the speech of believers in other communicative contexts" ^[1], can be observed in the Balkans in connection with the active rethinking of the Serbian people's linguistic and cultural heritage. The Serbian language has a long history of forming literary norms, the origins of which are found in the Cyril and Methodius traditions of bookishness, reflected in the church literature of the Middle Ages. By the 12th century, numerous letters attesting to the high level of literacy of the population of Serbian and Croatian lands were found, informing about the adoption of monastic tonsure in the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mount Athos by the future founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Rastko Nemanich ^[2]. It is important to note that in Serbia the 18th century is considered the century of enlightenment and reinterpretation of language ^[3],[4].

The history of spiritual verse research begins with the first scientific works in the second half of the 19th century. During this period, collections by P.V. Kireevsky, V. Varentsov, and P.A. Bessonov appeared, which became an important beginning for researchers. The first scientific work on spiritual poems was the collection "Russian Folk Poems", which was published in 1848 as a separate book by P. V. Kireevsky.

Russian Russian Folk Poems, an 1848 collection by the Slavist P. V. Kireevsky, notes that spiritual verse is a unique phenomenon in Russian culture that requires the study of issues of existence, classification, and artistic features of spiritual poetry. The work of F. Buslaeva "Folk poetry. Historical Essays" from 1887 with a relatively complete analysis of folk spiritual verse as an intermediary between Christian and oral folk culture. Noting the uniqueness of the content and language of one of the "most important forms of folk poetry" ^[5], the author notes that "spiritual verse, in its religious content, stands outside the current minutiae of reality. He is no longer fun and leisurely passing of time, not an old-fashioned ritual that has merged with everyday habits. As a church book, it instructs the illiterate in faith, in sacred traditions, in goodness and truth. It even replaces prayer, especially in tender exclamations and edifying edifications" ^[6].

Spiritual verse is a unique and complex phenomenon in Russian culture. Preserving and deepening the study of such a valuable heritage is one of the most important tasks of modern Slavic studies, which may be reflected in folk poetry in educational literature in the future ^[7].

From a folkloristic point of view, spiritual verse can be considered as a set of musical culture of the people or "church singing art" ^[8].

The origins of spiritual verse texts are primarily literary. These are the Old and New Testaments, the lives of saints, and divine books that spread rapidly after the baptism of Rus at the end of the tenth century.

It is difficult to give accurate information about how spiritual verse was created and disseminated in Orthodoxy.

Researchers of spiritual verse, folklorists, musicologists, historians and linguists are of the opinion that this genre has stylistic and linguistic specifics and may include concepts of prayer and song speech ^[9]. The texts differ from classical heroic epic poems to the last syllabic-tonal iambic and chorea with a clear literary basis. The purpose of this article is to highlight the lexical features of Russian spiritual verses in the Serbian linguistic tradition and to demonstrate the relevance of this research.

According to the authors, the genre of spiritual verse is presented as an integral phenomenon in Russian culture. In addition, this definition indicates the relevance of this study.

As you know, Russian and Serbian are similar not only in terms of grammar, but also in the context of the spiritual life and connections of these peoples.

Spiritual verse originated as a kind of poetic study of Christianity. The main feature of the spiritual verse is the juxtaposition of the Christian and secular sides of life. According to the chronology, the oldest spiritual verse was written in the 12th century ("Adam's Lament"). The widespread distribution of spiritual verses in Russia began in the XV century. In the 19th century, P.V. Kireevsky took the first steps in a deep study of spiritual verses. Such famous Slavists as V. Varentsov, G. Fedotov, P. Bessonov, A. Veselovsky, A. Afanasyev, I. Sreznevsky, N. Tikhomirov and others paid great attention to the study of territorial use, classification and literary features of spiritual poetry. In the work of F. Buslaeva "Folk poetry. Historical Notes" (St. Petersburg, 1887) provides a fairly complete analysis of folk spiritual poems. F.I. Buslaev wrote: "According to the religious content, the spiritual verse comes out of the momentary petty worries of life. She is no longer a pastime or an ordinary activity, not an obsolescence mixed with everyday habits. As a religious book, it teaches an illiterate person holy traditions, faith, truth and goodness. In addition, it could serve as a prayer, especially during holy lamentation, and as a useful edification for the soul" ^[10]. If before the revolution of 1917 the boundaries of the content of various plots were "firmly fixed by tradition," then under the influence of works of other genres of folklore, the language of spiritual poetry was quickly leveled ^[11], freed from book elements: "It is not by chance that folk singers first of all abandoned endings saturated with moralistic maxims... the so-called "praises to the saints", in which Church Slavonic and book expressions were especially often used" ^[12]. Spiritual verse is a special folk genre with its own peculiarities, language and structure. It has no specific genre definitions due to its dissimilarity. It was considered to belong to different song genres as a kind of song lyrics. In her verbal creative life, she mixed with epics, historical songs, ballads, lyrical songs and lamentations. The primary source of spiritual poems is the Christian canonical literature. At the same time, the spiritual poem was influenced by various types of ancient Russian literature: the Bible, hagiographic and moral narratives, and "miracles."

The genre of spiritual poetry is considered to be a complex, multicomponent, but at the same time integral phenomenon for Russian and Serbian cultures. The study of the Russian language was connected with its inclusion in the curriculum of the Belgrade Theological Seminary in 1843, including to compensate for the numerous lexical losses due to the wars in the former Yugoslavia. There is an extensive borrowing of vocabulary from ancient Russian literary and spiritual sources. It is noteworthy that the Psalter, intended for use in Serbian Christian worship, was first printed in Moscow in 1761 ^[13].

The purpose of spiritual verse is primarily didacticism. It reflects the spiritual experiences of the performer and the listener. A spiritual verse is a song of a religious nature, reflecting the religious image of the hero of the people.

The folk religion reflected in the spiritual verses is based on Orthodoxy and its structure consists of ancient paganism, canonical church precepts and modern national traditions of holiness.

The spiritual verse is internally contradictory, as is all folklore. Firstly, it is a reflection of folk superstitions and primitive ideas. Secondly, it is a path to basic moral values from the standpoint of Orthodox moral theology ^[14].

The purpose of creating spiritual poetry is, first of all, morality and didactics. They reflect the spiritual experiences of the performers and their listeners, being songs of a religious nature, which embody the "religious genius of the peoples" ^[15]. The religion of the people, so peculiarly reflected in spiritual verses, was based primarily on the Orthodox religion, which structurally consisted of three parts: the ancient religion of paganism, the canonical church charter and the modern folk tradition of holiness. The favorite topics here are the Flood, the Last Judgment, reflections on old age and death, and praise of the hermit life. Lyrical in nature, and often rhymed, poems have a stanza structure with a predominance of three lines, they contain many rhetorical questions and exclamations, and the presence of Church Slavonic words and phrases is not expressed in them.

The main recipients of spiritual verses are the Lord, the Virgin, the Guardian Angel, and the Holy Great Martyrs. In this case, the verses are structured as a prayer that calls for higher spiritual forces.: You are my mother, the queen of heaven...; My God, why are you suffering so much?; My Most Holy Angel of the Lord ...; We fervently resort to you, holy light Nicholas ... . Most often this prayer itself is very simple and uncomplicated.

It happens that a verse appeals to a mass listener, and then it does not have a specific or specific addressee: Do not grumble at the harsh fate ...; Repent, people, repent ... .

An important part of folk spiritual poems is constructed as a narrative about divine miracles and the lives of the righteous. It can also be an arrangement of biblical stories, parables. Such poems have a special beginning that precedes the development of the plot: an epic one (In the distant land of Palestine / The Jordan River flows, / St. John of Christ comes out onto the bank of that river); song (In a low hut / The light is on, / There's an old lady there / He lies dying); chastushechny (You, my cell, my cell, / My quiet cell!).

The language of spiritual verses is simple and artless. This is a kind of combination of the book and folk song language. The impact of Christian folk songs is mainly related to the emotionality of the performer and the high religiosity of the listeners.

According to the frequency of use of many visual and expressive means in spiritual verses, epithets occupy the first place ^[16].

It should be noted that the peculiarities of the language of folk spiritual verses are influenced by the Bible, oral folk art and fiction, therefore, the epithets that are present in them can be roughly divided into some groups.:

- constants that are characteristic of folklore genres (wet earth, red sun, burning tears; in the Serbian text – suffering in the Kosovo battle ^[17], are also found in "Kosovo poems" ^[18],[19].

- religious ones that are borrowed from Christian literature (Holy Nativity, Pure Virgin, heavenly father);

- high, bookish (sorrowful age, thorny path, earthly labors);

- general literary works that can be considered a sign of the times, the result of the influence of modern life (inconsolable sadness, tearful cross, cherished cross).

Rare metaphors (our life is a fleeting spring flower; grief is the medicine of the soul; God will invisibly be with you, the speedy doctor, the healer of the soul), personifications (the heavens tremble with fear; the keys cry; the earth breathes); comparisons (life has spun me like a chip; everything has faded like the green of mown grass) They help the performers of the verses to convey both pain, suffering, and penitential prayer.

The frequent use of rhetorical questions that appeal to higher powers determines the high degree of emotionality of the text of spiritual verses. Their goal is to influence the addressee, to make contact with a conceivable interlocutor. Rhetorical questions express the state of mind of believers, which overwhelm their feelings.: There is a narrow, narrow, deplorable path here, / Can I walk it? / My indomitable guardian, / Can You save me?; Guide me, Mother, to the true path... / And how will I stand, great sinner, / At the terrible judgment of God? / What is my answer?

In some verses, rhetorical questions are addressed to the speaker himself, to his soul: Where do you sleep, soul? / What is in your garden?; What is there to grieve for? / What should I crash about? / What are we crying about? They express thoughts, doubts, and the search for answers to difficult life questions.

Despite the religious content of the spiritual verses, some of the church vocabulary in them is not so significant. These are mainly the names of objects of worship (lamp, cell, robe, cross, icon, iconostasis, myrrh); religious practices and rituals (penance, baptism, prayer, Sunday); spatial names of the real and spiritual world (Mount Athos, Bethlehem, etc.; quiet harbor, eternal shelter, kingdom of heaven); the categories that carry the Christian perception and awareness of sin and virtue (sin, sorrow, suffering, mercy, grace).

A huge role in spiritual verses is played by Christian ideas about the triune God in a number of synonymous names that express different hypostases: Christ, Jesus, Creator, Savior, Lord, Supreme, Master, Father, Judge, Son, Almighty, Creator, Friend and Teacher.

The concept of the soul in the spiritual verse embodies the ideas of the Russian Orthodox person. This is a natural reality that is connected to both the spirit and the body.

In spiritual verses, a commonly used set of words plays an important role, since it is the words known to everyone that are more accessible to both readers and listeners. However, in the process of analyzing the vocabulary of spiritual verses, there were also such words, the lexical meaning of which differs from the usual one recorded in dictionaries. Such words usually have additional lexical meaning, establish new synonymous antonymic connections.

So, in the excerpt:

The virgin said to me: He is crying because

That Adam and Eve were captured by the enemy,

And that the image of God given to their souls,

Devoted to the vilification of the most vicious demons.

She cries that the children do not love their Creator,

The Creator is defiled by the sins of the soul and heart...

The words enemy and children have a special, biblical meaning.

Adam and Eve are called children of the Creator because, according to the biblical legend, they were created by God. Therefore, they, like all mankind, were considered by pagan poets to be the offspring of God. In the sources of Christianity God's (the Lord's) children began to be called only believers who, thanks to the atonement, came out of their fallen state and were born again in their souls. The pagan idea of God's children has been preserved in the verse.

The word enemy in folk spiritual verses is synonymous with the biblical Satan (devil), that is, it denotes the main enemy of God. It can be noted that in spiritual verses, instead of biblical expressions, taboo names are used: the evil one and the tempter.

The analysis of the vocabulary of folk spiritual poems once again confirms the idea that this genre of folk art is distinguished by its originality and uniqueness, it is an organic fusion of folklore, Christian and modern fiction.

F. I. Buslaev called passers-by, pilgrims who walked or had already visited the Holy Land for the purpose of worshipping Christian shrines, the established keepers and performers of spiritual verses.

Drawing the attention of scientists to the importance of communicating with the keepers of spiritual verses, D. S. Likhachev noted: "It is not easy to communicate with the elderly. That's clear. But you need to communicate, and you need to make this communication easy and simple... Old people are not only grumpy, but also kind, not only talkative, but also excellent storytellers, not only deaf, but have a good ear for old songs ... . The experience of the old ones can be very useful. And experience, and wisdom, and humor, and stories about the past, and moral teachings" ^[15].

In modern times, spiritual poems form a very significant part of the general culture of the people due to the historical development of Russia. Russian Russian folklore history without spiritual verses is just as incomplete as the history of Russian culture without the history of the Orthodox Church.

The existence of spiritual verses indicates that a certain part of modern society needs a national and cultural ideal that gives out both religious and secular interpretations. The study of folk spiritual poems as part of the cultural heritage in connection with the increasing role of religion and the church in society cannot but deserve attention.

As a result of the research, we came to the conclusion that the genre of spiritual verse is a complex, multicomponent, but at the same time integral phenomenon in Russian culture, which consists of folk songs and church singing works. This is confirmed by the classification, which allowed us to show all the spiritual verses. It is based on the definition of the conditions of existence and the dominant socio-cultural environment for the dissemination of spiritual verses. Folklore spiritual poems are singled out, which form the most numerous group of works with predominantly oral performance among the Kalik people, peasants, and then the urban population who profess official Orthodoxy. Ecclesiastical spiritual verses that were originally intended to be performed in church life, and then through manuscripts that spread among literate Russians.

Spiritual verse has a number of unique properties, which include the religious and national-heroic themes of the works, their textual and musical form of existence, emotionality, subjectivity, educational orientation and allowing it to act as a single genre and an integral phenomenon in culture. These properties give spiritual verse the opportunity to perform important educational and educational functions. By informing and convincing listeners through emotional, psychological, lyrical, subjective and other means, the necessary conditions are created for the inner spiritual self-development of a person, his moral principle.

Spiritual verse plays an important role in promoting and preserving the foundations of Christianity not only in Russian culture, but also in Serbian culture, as well as in preserving the unique, peculiar vocabulary and "spiritual landscape" of cultures ^[20], which can positively affect the mental, cultural and historical community of peoples, which contributes to the development of cooperation between the two countries in areas of scientific cooperation, socio-philosophical, cultural and spiritual ties ^[21]. The genre of spiritual verse is one of the most connecting links of the common cultural and historical heritage, part of the dominant socio-cultural environment, which seems to be such a complex, multicomponent and at the same time integral phenomenon for Russian and Serbian cultures.