Neskol'ko zamečanij o vospriâtii vizantijskoj literatury na Rusi na osnove "O žytel'stve ot svâtyh pisanij" prp. Nila Sorskogo (1433-1508)

The article puts forward the thesis that the impressive achievement of Old Russian literature in the form of the literary heritage of St. Nil Sorsky is testimony to the creative continuation of Byzantine religious literature and the assimilation of the hagiographic stylistic patterns developed by the Veliko Tyrnovo School and its successors within the Eastern Slavic areas in the 14th and 15th centuries. The research is based on the texts: "Admonitions for Spiritual Children" and "The Rule of Skit". Both are considered the most representative works of the spiritual leader of the Elders beyond the Volga. The analyses demonstrated the genre‑stylistic specificity of the above mentioned texts, expressing a Byzantine‑Slavic mystical discourse, one today known as Hesychasm. The text "The Rule of Skit" appeared to be unique in the history of East Slavonic utterances, presenting a comprehensive and integrated spiritual process leading to Hesychia. We are dealing with a treatise whose counterpart in Byzantine literature is "The Ladder of Paradise" by St. John of Sinai – this is a genre of Hesychastic literature, i.e. a kind of strategy for use in spiritual warfare leading from the state of sinfulness to deification, or holiness. In addition, attention has been drawn to the great care within the Hesychastes for the quality of texts expressing a mystical and ascetic current or serving liturgical purposes. New translations of Greek literature, which took into account the achievements of the fourteenth‑century Hesychastic Councils and testify to the development of a philological and translation technique among the Orthodox Slavs, one that enabled the emergence of Slavic patristic syntheses, and to which St. Nil Sorsky’s works are recognized as the highest achievement.