Communicative Strategies in the 13th-Century Tolstovskiy Sbornik

Abstract

The article discusses communicative strategies in the Old Russian Tolstovskiy Sbornik dating back to the 13 th century (National Library of Russia, F.p.I.39), a general type of Panegyric, which includes the texts of the triode and menaean cycles. The author considers how individual works and the collection as a whole interact with the addressee and finds out that the collection implements the strategies of explicit and implicit influence. The first is inherent in the homiletic and catechetical genre and implies a direct appeal to the reader or listener. The addressee can also be imaginary (this communicative situation is realized only in the Parable of Wisdom). The speech means characteristic of this strategy are imperative verb forms and personal pronouns. The second strategy involves the addressee indirectly, representing the dialogical interaction between the characters. It unites texts of different genres: the panegyric words of Cyril Turovsky, the hagiographic "memory" of Basil the Great, the apocryphal Tale of Aphroditian. Dialogues between the characters either provide a framework for the biblical story, or function as "engines" of the plot. The interaction of dialogical structures with each other and with the narrative can be quite complex: one dialogue can be inside another, the participants of dialogues can be storytellers, and the communication of characters can be both verbal and non-verbal. Both communicative strategies, in their unity, serve the tasks of informing and educating Christians (acquaintance with the biblical history and the formation of an ethical ideal).