The Life Written by Himself - Couverture souple

Petrov, Archpriest Avvakum

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0231198094 ISBN 13 : 9780231198097

Editeur : Columbia University Press, 2021

Synopsis

Moscow in the middle of the seventeenth century had a distinctly apocalyptic feel. An outbreak of the plague killed half the population. A solar eclipse and comet appeared in the sky, causing panic. And a religious reform movement intended to purify spiritual life and provide for the needy had become a violent political project that cleaved Russian society and the Orthodox Church in two. The autobiography of Archpriest Avvakum--a leader of the Old Believers, who opposed liturgical and ecclesiastical reforms--provides a vivid account of these cataclysmic events from a figure at their center.

Written in the 1660s and '70s from a cell in an Arctic village where the archpriest had been imprisoned by the tsar, Avvakum's autobiography is a record of his life, ecclesiastical career, painful exile, religious persecution, and imprisonment. It is also a salvo in a contest about whether to follow the old Russian Orthodox liturgy or import Greek rites and practices. These concerns touched every stratum of Russian society--and for Avvakum, represented an urgent struggle between good and evil.

Avvakum's autobiography has been a cornerstone of Russian literature since it first circulated among religious dissidents. One of the first Russian-language autobiographies and works of any sort to make use of colloquial Russian, its language and style served as a model for writers such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Gorky. The Life Written by Himself is not only an important historical document but also an emotionally charged and surprisingly conversational self-portrait of a crucial figure in a tumultuous time.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

True

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Columbia University Press
• Date d'édition: 2021
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0231198094
• ISBN 13: 9780231198097
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 208
• Éditeur: Gluck Michael
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible