“The Great Troubles in Moscow” of 1648: Depictions of Rebels in Old Russian Literary Monuments

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Category: Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature: Issue 25
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Abstract:

The objective of the study is to identify and characterize specific means of depicting rebels, as well as the narrative and presentation features of information about the event in Old Russian literary monuments. An analysis of accounts of the Time of Troubles of 1648 in Moscow in Pskov Third Chronicle, New Chronicler based on the manuscript of M.A. Obolensky, Chronicle of Many Rebellions, Chronograph of the third edition based on the manuscript of V.M. Undolsky, and a manuscript corpus from count F.A. Tolstoy’s collection revealed that the main techniques for creating the image of rebels in them are lists and verb sequences. These texts do not employ traditional figurative and expressive means of creating the image of rebels, such as epithets, similes, and metaphors. Instead, the emphasis is on cause-and-effect relationships. The omission of logical connections in a number of monuments leads to the creation of a negative image of the rebellious people, implementing a deviant behavioral scenario in solving their problems. The image of the rebels is shaped by the authors’ overall approach—to portray “turmoil” as an acute socio-political conflict or as an ontological confrontation, to demonstrate deviance as one of the characteristics of the people’s “character” or as a temporary, spontaneous consequence of the refusal of a petition. A story in a manuscript corpus from count F.A. Tolstoy’s collection stands apart from this, as its author rejects the depiction of “the world and the whole earth” as a deviantly leading mass and instead presents an ideal scenario for interaction between the people and the authorities in a specific conflict situation.
Keywords: The Pskov Third Chronicle, New Chronicler, Chronicle of Many Rebellions, Count F.A. Tolstoy’s collection, Chronograph of the third edition, rebel, conflict, deviant behavior, depiction techniques
Author: Olga A. Tufanova
Information about the author:

Olga A. Tufanova, DSc in Philology, Director of Research, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25А, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2254-7969

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For citation:

Tufanova, O.A. “ʽThe Great Troubles in Moscow’ of 1648: Depictions of Rebels in Old Russian Literary Monuments.” Germenevtika drevnerusskoi literatury [Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature]. Issue 25. Ed.-in-chief O.A. Tufanova, sci. ed. M.V. Kaplun. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2026, pp. 393–410. https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2026-25-393-410 (In Russian)
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/QVXMAM
UDC: 821.161.1.0
Publication Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2026-25-393-410

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