Kalyazin’s petition
The “Kalyazin petition” depicts the life and customs of the monks of the Kalyazin monastery, who “beat the brow” of Simeon, Archbishop of Tver and Kashin, complaining of the new abbot Gabriel. He broke their “carefree life”: “tomit” with a long service, “the treasury does not protect, incense burns incense and candles”, the monks “do not let them through the gate, they do not order to go out into the settlements to see the barns of the courtyard.” Demanding the replacement of the archimandrite, who “broke in the back” with their backs, ordered to feed the turnip with parsed and radish dried, Kalyazin monks dream about the time when it will be possible to “take the garments and books in the dryer, shut the church” and “lying wine and beer drink”.
The position of the author of the “Kalyazin petition” can be judged by the general intonation of the work, full of
Why Kalyazinsky monastery became the object of a satirical image? To answer this question, the researchers turned to the study of documentary sources, trying to identify the concrete historical basis of the work. IG Ponomareva, for example, found in the archive a number of petitions, testifying to a real litigation in the monastery at the turn of 1670-1680’s. Archimandrite Gabriel complained to Archbishop Makary Zlobin, who allegedly “drinks and keeps the company, monastery and fiefdoms ruined”.
Using temporal anarchy, the Kalyazin monks with their unworthy behavior caused a new wave of petition. It was not accidental: it is known from documents that only in the 1670s. at least 13 people were exiled to the Kalyazinsky Monastery. “The monks” were accused of drinking, “frenzy and outrage”; and it was on them that Gabriel relied in his struggle against the cellar. It becomes clear why the choice of the satirist fell on Kalyazinsky monastery. In addition, the monastery was one of the largest Russian monasteries, where from the very beginning of its existence there was a strict cenobitic charter, which allowed the author, on the one hand, to emphasize the typical nature of what is happening, and on the other, to show the depth of the moral fall of the monks.
Thus, both the content and form of the “Kalyazin petition” are suggested to the author by a real reality. In the title of two lists of satires dated 1677, however, scientists believe that it arose later – not before the 1680’s. because it has historical inaccuracies, and the very situation of litigation appears in an inverted form: the zealot of morality is the abbot of the monastery, and not his cellar.
Written in the form of a parody on the petition, in style, the work is close to a lively spoken language, rich in everyday vocabulary, rhymed verbiages and jokes: “It’s like making a profit to the treasury, and not to save yourself in the moshna, and shirts to drink off because it’s easier will walk “; “And to us, your worshipers, and so it is not sweet: a rat and a horse-radish, but a vulture Elder Ephraim.”
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