XI International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia
10th-14th July 2023
Erica Morale Camisa (University of Southern California, CA, USA), "Karion Istomin and the Dialectics Between Divine Wisdom and Human Knowledge"
In my paper, I analyse some of Karion Istomin’s poems, in particular his Panegyric and Book on Love — both written for Peter the Great — in order to demonstrate how his poetry exemplifies a broader phenomenon that is taking place in turn-of-the-century East Slavic culture, namely the shift from religious to a more secular culture. In this transition, religious and philosophical issues are at play that have seen old believers and reformers clash and that shape the subsequent opposition between Slavophiles and Westernizers. In examining Karion’s texts, I trace the evolution of the idea of wisdom from something that God located in the human heart—as typical of Medieval culture—into something that humans can achieve by increasing their knowledge through study and exercise—as typical of the Classical tradition. By examining the use of such terms as mudrost’, razum, and znanie, I engage with the studies by Lidiia Sazonova, Paola Cotta Ramusino, and Marina Kiseleva and contextualise Karion’s work within the groundbreaking changes that characterize turn-of-the-century East Slavic culture. Karion Istomin not only strengthened the ties between Russia and the Classical and European West or continued the legacy of the previous generation of poets—headed by his teacher, Simeon Polotskii. Karion has also contributed to establishing a new notion of culture as a human achievement and a new role of literature as the expression of such culture, thus foreshadowing the incoming Enlightenment culture that the next generations of poets will embrace.
