Symeon of Polotsk

Simeon of Polotsk or Simeon Polotsky (Симеон Полоцкий) (born "Samuil Gavrilovich Sitnianovich-Petrovsky", Russian: Самуил Гаврилович Ситнянович-Петровский), December 12, 1629, Polotsk - August 25, 1680, Moscow) was an academically-trained Baroque Belarusian-Russian poet, dramatist, churchman, and enlightener who laid the groundwork for the development of modern Russian literature.

Life

A native of Polotsk, Symeon studied at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy and probably continued on to the Jesuit college of Wilno: the influence of Jesuit theology and school dramas was very pronounced in his mature work. He became an Orthodox monk in 1656.

His name became known later that year, when he presented to Tsar Alexis, then visiting his native Polotsk, several panegyrics in verse. The monarch was pleased to discover what looked like propaganda of the Third Rome doctrine in the modern Western style that would appeal to Ruthenian and Polish intellectuals alike. Symeon was recognized as an invaluable asset to Moscow's campaign to cast the Tsar as a champion of Orthodoxy in the region.

The Tsar invited Symeon to relocate to the Russian capital, where he founded the first Latin school in 1664. Apart from Latin, Symeon was the first to teach grammar, poetics, and rhetoric to the Russians. He revived the long-forgotten art of preaching, and his sermons proved quite popular with the Muscovite courtiers, such as Fyodor Rtishchev and Bogdan Khitrovo. His erudition made him famous in other Orthodox countries. At the request of the Oriental patriarchs, he delivered an address urging the promotion of Greek learning in the country.

Unsurprisingly, given his background, Symeon of Polotsk took a profound stand against clerical and literary conservatives, or the Old Believers. At the outset of the Great Schism of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was called upon to elaborate refutation of their tenets. It was he who drafted decisions of the church council that deposed Patriarch Nikon and anathemized his opponents.

In recognition of his wisdom and erudition, Symeon was charged with the task of educating the Tsar's children: the future Fyodor III, Regent Sophia, and Peter I. He died at the age of 50, while preparing the charter of the Slavic Greek Latin Academy, and was buried in the Zaikonospassky Monastery, where the Academy would be opened two years later.

Works

From the standpoint of literary history, Symeon Polotsky marks a watershed in the Russian literature. He is frequently cited as the first poet in the language, although the bulk of his work is either in Church Slavonic or Polish. As a poet, he clung to the principles of syllabic Polish versification which he learned as a youth. By adopting syllabic verse, he is said to have stultified Russian verse for over a century [Raffel, Burton. "Russian Poetry Under the Tsars". SUNY Press, 1971. ISBN 0873950704. Page xvi.] : there is no fixed stress in Russian, which makes it basically unsuitable for syllabic versification.

During his years in Moscow, Symeon continued to develop an imperial style of panegyrical verse, rife with protracted tirades, which were enlivened by occasional allusions to classical mythology. "With Simeon, a whole museum of ancient gods, muses, heroes, authors, and philosophers entered the Russian literature". ["The Cambridge History of Russian Literature" (ed. by Charles Moser). Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-521-42567-0. Page 34.] His extensive collection of poetry, "The Garden of Many Flowers", was not printed in his lifetime, but he did publish a verse translation of the Psalter, which was set to music within several years after his death. His works have been little read during the following centuries, though.

As a theologian, Symeon frequently quoted the Vulgate, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and other Latin authorities, which was perceived by his detractors as a deliberate attempt to westernize Orthodox religious thought. In fact, his faithful disciple Sylvester Medvedev was later condemned for having succumbed to the heresy of Catholicism. Symeon was also an amateur dramatist who imitated the Kievan school of stilted drama. From a European perspective, there is nothing original in his comedy "Action of the Prodigal Son" and the tragedy "On Nabuchadnezzar the King", but these rank among the first dramatic works in the Russian language.

References

;General

*Tatarsky I. "Simeon Polotsky, His Life and Activities" [Симеон Полоцкий, его жизнь и деятельность] . Moscow, 1886.
*"Simeon Polotsky and His Book-Publishing Activity" [Симеон Полоцкий и его книгоиздательская деятельность] . Moscow, 1982.

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Further reading

*Anthony Hippisley. "The Poetic Style of Simeon Polotsky", "Slavic Review", vol. 48, no. 2
* [http://imwerden.de/cat/modules.php?name=books&pa=last_update&cid=1 Online library of Symeon's works]