Egypt.
In the history of society, the creation of historical and cultural landscapes, and in particular the emergence gardening art, was noted in Ancient Egypt about 4 thousand years BC. Of special scope gardening art reached the heyday of the ancient capital of Egypt - Thebes. Luxurious villas surrounded by gardens were built in Thebes. Numerous plants were specially brought from other countries, in particular from Punt (the territory of modern Somalia).

The compositional center of the ensemble has always been the main building, located among a large number of reservoirs, often of impressive size (60x120 m). IN ponds aquatic plants grew, swam fish and birds. According to surviving documents, it is confirmed that all elements of the garden - ponds, alleys, vineyards, flower beds, open pavilions - were stylistically interconnected, which suggests that the gardens were created according to a pre-developed plan.

Mesopotamia.
With the general regularity determined by the irrigation system, the gardens of Mesopotamia were not divided into symmetrical quadrangles; the plantings were more freely arranged. The gardens at Nineveh, with their rich assortment of trees and shrubs, can be considered the prototypes of modern botanical gardens. The most famous ensemble - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, located on landscaped stepped terraces made of mud brick - was created during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar (VI century BC). Unfortunately, no traces remain of this grandiose device, however, this design technique has been found throughout history. gardening art in various countries and in slightly modified forms has survived to this day in the form of roof gardens.

Persia and India.
These states had a high level of development gardening art. And here the gardens were symbols of paradise; they were created for recreation at the royal residences and required large financial expenditures. The basis of their strictly geometric (regular) layout was the so-called “chor-bak” - four squares. The alleys, lined with slabs, intersected at right angles, and the space between them was filled with dense tree plantations or occupied by ponds and luxurious flower beds. The resulting large square was divided into four smaller squares and so on. This division of space was carried out not only by paths, but also by plants and a large number of small channels with water. The main and best part of the garden was occupied by trees and flowers of rare species, and the old powerful shady plane trees, on whose branches gazebos were built, are still particularly popular.

Ancient Greece.
In the ancient states of the European Mediterranean, various trends are observed in the compositional use of relief as a landscape component. They are associated with general differences in artistic culture. In particular, the Greek approach to architecture and art is characterized by a desire for harmony with nature, for the greatest possible unity with the surrounding landscapes. The acropolises and theaters of the Hellenistic cities of the Peloponnese and Asia Minor (the Acropolis of Athens, the amphitheaters of Ephesus, Priene, etc.), which formed the centers of urban compositions, often look like the sculptural completion of the rocks on which they are located. For example, the relief features of Priene were used especially expressively, where the mountainside naturally forms a terrace for squares and public buildings.

This layout is associated not only with the peculiarities of cultural traditions. It is known that initially the settlements of both the mainland of Ancient Greece and the islands were mainly located directly on the sea coast. But during periods of military raids, it was they who were subjected to devastation as the easiest prey. Therefore, cities began to be built at some distance from the coast in mountainous areas, which naturally implied the mandatory use of relief in urban planning. This trend can be seen mainly on the islands of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas in a later period (from the 6th-7th centuries AD) due to frequent Arab raids.

Thanks to the conquests of Alexander the Great, the society of ancient Greece was influenced by the culture and traditions of Egypt, India and Persia. Gardening art was no exception. The Greeks introduced a new trend into the design of cultural landscapes - a freer compositional solution. Since Greek art was initially characterized by a desire for harmony with nature, gardens and parks were likened to a living organism in close connection with the natural environment and man. In this context, it is worth noting the basic principles of urban planning by Aristotle (IV century BC), who believed that the design of both a settlement and a park should be considered not only as a set of technical issues, but also from an artistic point of view: “The city must be built so as to keep people safe and at the same time make them happy."

Ancient Rome.
In Ancient Rome, on the contrary, they proclaimed the idea of ​​​​contrasting the geometric and rectilinear forms of the artificial landscape with the free picturesqueness of the surrounding nature. The Roman tradition favored a regular layout not only of streets and squares, but also of country villas surrounded by extensive gardens. Villas, as a rule, were built in mountainous areas, so they had a stepped compositional design.

The garden of Roman villas was usually divided into three parts: an ornamental garden, an orchard and a vegetable garden. The decorative garden, in turn, also consisted of three parts: for walking, horseback riding and a park area. The walking part was located on the first terrace directly in front of the house. The alleys connected at right angles, dividing the garden into geometrically regular sections, rich in sculpture, fountains, cool decorative pools, intricately trimmed trees and shrubs, lawns and flower beds. The garden for horseback riding or stretcher rides consisted of shady groves separated by wide alleys. The surrounding landscapes were revealed from various vantage points. The park part of the garden included, in addition to a wooded area for walking, fish ponds and colossal multi-story poultry houses. Moreover, such parks often had very impressive sizes: up to 120 - 150 hectares. The orchard, vineyard and vegetable garden were located separately from the villa and also had a regular layout. Many fruit and ornamental plants were exported from the conquered countries, which contributed to the expansion and enrichment of gardening flora. In particular, cherry, apricot, peach, almond, quince, plum, fig, walnut, pomegranate, etc. were grown from fruit trees; from ornamental plants yew, oleander, jasmine, roses, daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, gillyflowers, etc. The variety of vegetables grown is hard to imagine.

The publication uses materials from the book by N.A. Nekhuzhenko "Fundamentals of landscape design and landscape architecture", St. Petersburg, Publishing House "Neva", 2004.

Mountains and rocks - people, animals, birds and fish – the most important elements of landscapes created by ancient architects

Let's talk now about the giant stone sculptures into which rocks and mountains were transformed. A couple of months ago, one reader sent me photographs of mountains on the islands of Santorini (Thira) and Corfu in the Ionian and Cretan seas, similar to male and female faces and a lion, and also told me about the mountain turtle, mountain hippopotamus and other mysterious mountains she had seen, in which man-made forms can be recognized.
In the highlands of Peru (Andes), 50 miles northeast of Lima, at an altitude of about 4 km, there is the mysterious Marcaguasi plateau, the rocks of which resemble the outlines of the heads of people of different races and images of animals (elephants, camels, lions, bears, horses, etc.), birds and fish, most of which do not live at such an altitude or disappeared from the American continent between 200 thousand and 10 thousand years ago (among animal figures, some researchers single out a dinosaur). This plateau became widely known in 1952, when Peruvian explorer Daniel Ruso discovered four giant heads on it.
In the Yazilikaya region, in the Phrygian Valley in northern Turkey, there is its own, Turkish Marcaguasi or “City of Midas”, whose mountains look like sculptures of people and animals.
In the Valley of Love in Cappadocia in Turkey, we also observed a large number of silhouettes of people and various animals and birds that formed rocks on both sides of the valley. True, as we approached them, the contours of the stone sculptures became less and less clear, and, coming very close to them, we saw only the bizarre remains of rocks. One might think that all this was a play of our imagination, if in one place in the Valley of Love we were not able to see and photograph bas-reliefs. Blurred by erosion, not sharp, but still quite distinct figures of people (women or warriors), as well as stone sculptures of the Marcaguasi plateau, the Phrygian Valley and the islands of Santorini and Corfu, testify to the incredible antiquity of these man-made landforms and the existence of a highly developed civilization that created them millions of years ago. But my research is precisely the age of the underground-ground megalithic complex.
Memories flash before my mind’s eye of a mysterious plateau visited during my student years (or immediately after graduation) in the Pekulney ridge in Chukotka, the numerous weathered remains of which were also surprisingly similar to people and animals. I heard that there are similar stone sculptures on the Anabar Plateau in Eastern Siberia. There are probably many more of them than you can imagine.

Man-made reliefs – some more important elements of landscapes created by ancient architects

Rocks and mountains that look like people, animals and birds or fish– the most important silent witnesses to the former greatness of the ancient civilizations that created them. But they only reveal half the question. It turns out that in addition to rocks, there are vast territories whose reliefs bear man-made features. I recently watched a film on REN TV in which the architecture of the city of Cusco in Peru was compared to a giant puma. A researcher and writer from the Urals sent me photographs of the Chusovaya River basin in the Perm region from space and showed in them that some elements of the Urals landscape (including part of the river valley) together constitute a huge World Utitsa. And this is already– landscape design, praised by E. Poe, with which I began my story.

The most ancient cities - landscape gardens and their successors

Thus, in fact, it turns out that the ancient inhabitants of the Earth built their cities and settlements in harmony with nature, starting from the distant Neogene period (underground-ground megalithic complex) until the time of the construction of cities such as Cusco. However, when this happened still remains unclear. According to most archaeologists, Cusco was built in the 1st millennium BC. However, historical Cusco most likely inherited the features of its ancient predecessor, built much earlier. As I showed in the work “Megalithic structures of Bolivia, Israel, Turkey and Russia - fragments of an underwater-underground-terrestrial megalithic complex covering the whole world", another megalithic city of South America– Tiahuanaco in Bolivia, existed at least 5 million years ago, and possibly 16 million years ago. Then it was completed about 40 thousand years ago and was used as a large settlement in historical times.
The situation is similar in Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. This area, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the most ancient known landscape parks in the world with Lion Rock (Sigiriya itself) at the center of the composition and a series of successive landscape gardens– terrace garden, boulder and cave garden and water garden.

The geometric shapes and general design of Sigiriya are amazing. The city is planned according to the square model. According to the architect's plan, it extended in different directions from the center of the palace complex on the top of the cliff. The eastern and western entrances are on the same axis with the center. The royal water gardens, moats and ramparts of the western territory are built on an “echo plan”, following both the north-south and east-west axis.
The general concept of the construction of Sigiriya represents a wonderful combination of the ideas of symmetry and asymmetry in the harmonious relationship of the geometric plan and natural forms(http://www.sri-lanka4u.narod.ru/sigiriya.html)

According to widespread belief, Lion Rock was once shaped like a giant lion, of which only its paws now remain (another view is that the giant stone staircase leading to the Sigiriya Plateau was shaped like a lion). Some researchers recognize a lion's head at the top of the rock. How long ago was this amazing structure built?– unknown.
Lankan legends identify Sigiriya with Lanka, the capital of the Rakshasa empire. The epic Ramayana says that Lanka existed in . According to Indian chronology, Treta Yuga began more than 2.5 million years ago and ended more than 1 million years ago. In the work "" I showed that the Treta Yuga covered the Oligocene and early Miocene epochs of the Paleogene and Neogene periods and lasted from 34 to 16 million years ago.
Well, it may well be. If Sigiriya really did have the shape of a lion before, then 20 million years is enough time for tectonic processes, water and atmospheric erosion (weathering) to give it its modern shape.
Like Cusco and Tiwanaku, Sigiriya was completed at a later time. According to some archaeologists, the landscape gardens of Sigiriya were built in the 3rd century. BC, according to others, most of them were built in the 5th century. AD It follows from this that the construction of cities - landscape gardens and parks - continued for a very long time. In Tiwanaku, Sigiriya, probably Cusco and many areas of the development of an underground-above-ground megalithic complex (studied by me in

The concepts of “landscape architecture” and “landscape design” entered our everyday life not so long ago, and while they themselves are very young, their essence is much more ancient. The creation of man-made landscapes can rightfully be considered one of the most ancient forms of art; it accompanies our civilization throughout the history of its existence.

Landscapes of the ancient world

Scientists date the creation of the most ancient monuments of landscape gardening art to the 4th century BC. These are the gardens of Thebes - the capital of Egypt. Even then, the luxurious villas of wealthy Egyptians were surrounded by stunningly beautiful gardens. Plants brought from distant places were grown on parched, poor soils, and vineyards and flower beds were planted. As a rule, the center of the garden composition was an artificial pond inhabited by various representatives of flora and fauna. The geometry of paths, flower beds and other elements of the garden gives scientists reason to believe that the gardens of wealthy residents of Thebes were created in accordance with pre-developed designs.

Mesopotamia occupies a special place in the history of landscape architecture. Her gardens, created in a style close to, were distinguished by rich collections of plants worthy of modern botanical gardens. The crown of Mesopotamian landscape art was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which rightfully took second place in the list of the Seven Wonders of the World. Despite the fact that the splendor created for the wife of King Nebuchadnezzar did not stand the test of time, the idea of ​​such landscaping in a somewhat transformed form is still relevant today.

Speaking about the landscape architecture of the ancient world, one cannot fail to mention the gardens of India and Persia. They were truly luxurious: the impeccable severity of the regular style was combined here with sublime symbolism - the gardens located next to the palaces were supposed to reproduce a piece of paradise. Huge amounts of money were invested in the creation of such landscapes: the gardens contained many rare plants, connected by canals, beautiful ponds paved with stone slabs.

The landscape architecture of ancient Greece was distinguished by its diversity, which was greatly facilitated by the difference in reliefs in different parts of the ancient state. The phrase “Greece has everything!” It can easily be classified as a local natural landscape; here you can find any landscape: from islands and the sea coast to mountains and cliffs. In this regard, the layout of Hellenic gardens was dominated by a free style, mostly tied to the features of the local topography. The center of the composition usually became some public or private building: a palace, a temple, an amphitheater, and gardens and parks combined unity with nature and the desire for beauty.

The landscape architecture of ancient Rome, on the contrary, gravitated towards a regular style, regardless of the reliefs. Particularly indicative in this regard were the gardens near the villas of the Roman nobility located in mountainous areas. The rigor of landscape planning was enhanced by multi-level terraces with clearly demarcated functions. The upper part of the garden, adjacent to the house, was for walking. The shady straight alleys were decorated with many sculptures, and most of the vegetation here was decorative. Fish ponds and multi-story poultry houses were installed in the park area. The lower terraces with vineyards and orchards were also planned in a regular style.

Landscape art of the Middle Ages

The departure from antiquity and the transition to feudalism significantly influenced all areas of the culture of European countries. Landscape architecture has not been left out either. The appearance of the gardens has lost the features of carelessness and craving for beauty; they have been replaced by utilitarianism and asceticism. Lands belonging to monasteries and wealthy feudal lords were supposed to bring maximum benefit. Orchards, berry fields, vineyards, and agricultural crops were planted on them.

Site planning typical early Middle Ages, could not help but leave a mark on the history of landscape design. In those days, very limited space was allocated for walking areas; simple plants typical of the area were planted in flower beds. and ponds were not an obligatory attribute of medieval parks - their decoration was most often limited to a crucifix, a well or a sundial in the center of the composition and a few simple benches in the alleys.

Another side of medieval park asceticism was the impeccable neatness of everything that was there. Strict geometry, symmetry, rows of trees planted at equal distances, carefully trimmed shrubs, well-groomed beds and flower beds - all this created a feeling of constant care for the garden and made it attractive. It is to this historical period that the appearance of such an element of landscape design as. Initially, trimmed bushes were used to form patterns similar to those that decorated the floors of castles and temples, then they were transformed into topiary labyrinths. Another element characteristic of monastery gardens were beds with spicy and medicinal herbs, whose pleasant aromas created an atmosphere of calm and tranquility, as if inviting visitors to stay longer in the garden.

However, the history of the development of landscape architecture does not stand still, and late medieval period can, with all reason, be called the heyday of European gardening art. The gardens created in those days still serve as hitherto unsurpassed role models, a standard of style in landscape architecture.

Among all the diversity, it is worth highlighting Italian garden styles: Renaissance landscapes and Baroque style. In the first case, it is small size, restraint, ideal proportions, complete harmony with the villa or palace to which the garden area adjoins. In the second case, this is an abundance of complex compositional techniques, symbolic and fantasy elements: pavilions, fountains, sculptures, etc. It was on them, and not on the flower beds and flower beds, that the attention of those strolling was focused. The Villas Borghese, Albani and Aldobrandini, created in those days, impress visitors to this day.

The landscape art of Italy influenced the landscape schools of other European countries. However, the climatic and relief features of different parts of Europe contributed to the transformation of styles, their adaptation to local conditions and vegetation.

A special phenomenon in the landscape art of the late Middle Ages was the French school, which was glorified by the court gardener of Louis XIV, Andre Le Nôtre, with his works. Among his works are the famous Tuileries Gardens, Fontainebleau, Chantilly, redesigned Champs Elysees and much more. And the crowning achievement of the genius landscape creator’s work was the garden and park ensemble of the Palace of Versailles - an unsurpassed example of the regular style in landscape art, arousing admiration among many generations of landscape design connoisseurs and ordinary visitors.

Its own style was formed in those times in England. Here, preference was given to immaculate, perfectly manicured landscapes, such as Darmera Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent Park and the standard of urban landscape style, London's Hyde Park.

The landscapes of Germany during the late Middle Ages are characterized by a romantic garden style. Its best examples include Muskau Park, Dresden Pilnitzpark, Putbuspark and Weimar Park, the creation of which was led by Goethe himself. The pearl of German romanticism in landscape art is the Potsdam palace and park ensemble of Sans Souci, rich in architectural structures - the result of the work of several generations of garden design masters.

In Russia, the experience of arranging gardens has been accumulated and implemented over many centuries and has its own rich history. Ancient Russian gardens served as places for folk festivals, and places for entertainment and recreation were built in them. In the times of Peter the Great, when Russia joined the pan-European cultural process, in the domestic gardening art, along with the traditional, the Baroque style, as well as regular styles, occupied a significant place. It should be said that Russian regular gardens are not at all an inheritance of European models - they are original, unique, inimitable. Evidence of this is the palace and park complexes in Pavlovsk, Gatchina, Yekateringhof and, of course, the delightful, unsurpassed monument of landscape architecture Peterhof.

Modern trends in landscape architecture

If in the Middle Ages gardens were mainly an attribute of palaces, monasteries and rich estates, then at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, during the period of industrialization and rapid urban growth, the need arose to create gardens and parks accessible to the general public. Public green areas were focused not so much on maintaining a certain landscape style, but on meeting the needs of citizens for recreation within cities.

There were many cultural and recreational parks in the Soviet country, but few of them met the high aesthetic requirements. Lack of thought and lack of style solutions have become the main problems of landscape architecture today. Therefore, large-scale work is now underway to correct errors in the planning and design of previously laid out parks, squares and city gardens.

However, urban landscaping is not limited to above-ground public space: the creation of green areas in high-rise buildings and vertical gardening can increasingly be found in large cities. Ideas borrowed from the ancient creators of gardens and coupled with modern technologies make it possible to revive and ennoble the concrete jungles of megacities.

Another direction of modern landscape architecture continues to be the arrangement of landscapes on personal plots. Most often, private gardens are geographically small, but the modern level of landscape design allows you to create real masterpieces even in a limited area.

Since the owners of their personal plots began to shift the emphasis of the garden towards aesthetics, the style palette of private gardens has expanded significantly, and almost all known styles and types of landscape architecture have begun to be used. In addition to the well-known garden images, oriental (and), Arabic, garden design styles are becoming popular, thematic, water gardens, monogardens and other landscape solutions are appearing. Meanwhile, the classics do not lose relevance.

Such diversity is good from all points of view: everyone can choose a garden style to their liking, collect a collection of their favorite plants, and create a comfortable environment around themselves. And the endlessly rich experience of many generations of gardeners who created magnificent landscapes at different times and in different countries will help in this.

LANDSCAPE IN ANCIENT

The proto-city of Arkaim, many other archaeological sites of the Sintashta culture dating back to the Bronze Age, existed, according to the climatic-stratigraphic scale, in the subboreal period of the Holocene: 4.8 thousand–2.6 thousand. years ago. At this time, the Trans-Ural steppes experienced a number of serious climatic and landscape changes.

The previous period of the Upper Pleistocene (2.58-0.0117 million years ago - the appearance of humans) is characterized by high dynamics of natural processes that led to a wide variety of landscapes in the periglacial zone. The vegetation cover was composed of wormwood and goosefoot groups; birch and pine forests grew on the northwestern slopes.

At the first stage of the Bronze Age, in the lower subboreal (4600-4100 years ago), there was a cold climate in the steppe Trans-Urals. The forest communities included pine and spruce, and meadows with mixed herbs and cereals dominated. In the middle subboreal (4100-3800 years ago), the climate became warmer and drier (it was during this period that the settlements of the Sintashta culture existed). Semi-desert shrubs began to predominate in plant communities.

In the late subboreal (3800-2500 years ago, Late Bronze Age), the climate becomes more humid. In the area of ​​the reserve, mixed forests with a predominance of light coniferous species (pine, larch) are recorded. In open spaces, forbs and grasses dominate. A sufficient amount of wood made it possible for people to create wooden structures, obtain heat, and melt metal. An increase in climate humidity contributed to an increase in the mass of plant cover, the water abundance of steppe rivers and, as a consequence, an increase in biodiversity.

Landscapes of the ancient times

According to climate stratigraphy, the proto-city Arkaim, and a great number of other archaeological artifacts of the Sintashta culture belonging to the Bronze Age, thrived in the Subboreal period of the Holocene, from 4800 to 2600 BCE. At that time, Trans-Ural stepspes experienced a series of significant climatic and geographical changes.

The preceding period of High Pleistocene (2.58-0.0117 mln years before present – ​​first humans) is characterized by the dynamics of natural processes, which resulted intensely in a wide variety of landscapes of the periglacial zone. Vegetation cover was formed by vermouth and goosefoot communities, with birch tree and pine forests growing on the north-western slopes.

At the first stage of the Bronze Age, in the Low Subboreal (4600-4100 BCE), the climate in the steppe Trans-Urals territory was cold. In forest communities, there would be pine and fir trees, meadows were predominantly mixed grass and gramineous plants. In the middle Subboreal (4100-3800 BCE), the climate grew warmer and drier (that was the period when the settlements of the Sintashta culture existed). Vegetation communities gave way to predominance of semi-desert shrubs.

Source: Chernov S.Z. Historical landscape of ancient Radonezh. Origin and semantics. In the book: Cultural monuments. New discoveries. Writing. Art. Archeology. M., 1989. All rights reserved.

The electronic version has been posted in the public domain: http://hotkovo.net.ru. All rights reserved.

Placement in the RusArch library: 2011

S.Z. Chernov
Historical landscape of ancient Radonezh.

Origin and semantics

Archaeological research in recent years and the study of oral tradition have made it possible to trace the appearance of ancient Radonezh. The discovered monuments were identified with temples, villages, roads and other historical realities of the 13th-16th centuries. The more fully these settlements revealed the contours of a once-existing picture, the more clearly one felt the authenticity with which they reflected some essential features of the early Muscovite culture, which left its deep mark here.
Perhaps none of the modern concepts conveys the memory of a culture so capaciously imprinted in the earth as the concept of historical landscape. The landscape carries only historical and geographical information, but represents an organic combination of elements of nature with the works of human thought and labor. This is an amazing phenomenon that synthesizes such far-flung areas of culture as the people’s attitude to the natural environment, their economic and social structure, artistic way of thinking and worldview, manifested in the organization of space. In light of the above, the historical landscape of Radonezh is a holistic monument that deserves comprehensive study and understanding.
The purpose of this publication is to identify and analyze materials relating to the early stage of the life of this monument of the 13th-14th centuries. Therefore, the question of the origin of the Radonezh landscape comes to the fore. For its correct formulation, it is necessary to note some features of the historical situation of that era.
Radonezh appears on the pages of Russian history in 1337 - the hundredth year after Batu’s invasion and the tenth year of the “great silence” in the Moscow principality. On the path that North-Eastern Russia traversed under the Horde yoke, the “great silence” (1327-1368) constituted a kind of watershed. The era of continuous invasions is a thing of the past. But the time has not yet come when people have gained confidence that “God will change Oda.” The period of “silence”, which began during the great reign of Ivan Kalita, was characterized by active economic development and the formation of feudal land ownership. The reign of Ivan Kalita was, however, not only a time of prosperity for the Moscow principality, but also an era of maximum inclusion of Rus' in the structure of the Jochi ulus1. It is no coincidence that the chronicle contains a comparison of “silence” with a certain dream (“And the death of Christians”)2, in which self-forgetfulness comes with relief. During the period when the confrontation between two cultures deeply penetrated the life of North-Eastern Rus', the outcome of the struggle depended on whether such foundations would be found in this life that would allow Russian culture to survive and maintain its independence.

The birthplace of Sergius of Radonezh - Radonezh lay at the origins of the spiritual movement that arose in the Trinity Monastery and had a profound influence on the formation of national identity3. This movement with its entire content was opposed to the Tatar-Mongol yoke and the “moral ruin” that it brought with it4. It is therefore important to trace in the historical landscape of Radonezh the influence of those ideas that took shape in the Trinity Monastery, and thereby better understand the peculiarities of the formation of the culture of that time.

Radonezh ceased to exist as a city after its destruction during the Time of Troubles, around 1608-1609. In 1616, the village, which received the name “Town of Radonezh” (from the beginning of the 18th century - the village of Gorodok), came into the possession of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and remained with it until the secularization of the monastic lands in 1764. Neither during this period, nor later here There were no large architectural ensembles associated with the veneration of Sergius of Radonezh. This veneration was expressed in the tradition of services that took place in the church. Vozdvizhensky during the Trinity campaigns of the sovereigns, and the dedication of the throne to St. Sergius in the temple of the village. Town5. In the 19th century - and, apparently - and at an earlier time - through s. The town ran along the path of pilgrims, which led from the Intercession Monastery on Khotkovo to the Chapel of the Cross in the Lavra.
The historiography of Radonezh is small, but unique. The brevity of ancient news about the city hampered its development6. The desire to look for new ways to study Radonezh arose only during periods marked by growing interest in the Russian Middle Ages. The study of Radonezh began with Z. Ya. Khodakovsky, who visited the village. The town in 1820. Method 3. D. Khodakovsky, based on a combination of archaeological observations, surveys of old residents and the use of data from the General Land Survey, was ahead of the development of science of that time7. In the 1840-1850s, the surroundings of the Trinity Lavra attracted the attention of I. M. Snegirev8.

A special place in the literature about Radonezh is occupied by “A Story from Village Life” by K. S. Aksakov, published in November 1857 in the magazine “Rumor”8. It reflected a living feeling that allowed K. S. Aksakov to see an unextinguished historical tradition in oral tradition. The dialogues with peasants conveyed with great care in the “Story” brought to us unique evidence. A new stage in the study of Radonezh was associated with the work of S. B. Veselovsky on the archive of the Trinity Lavra in the 1920-1930s. He studied the “Line Survey” of 1542/1543, which mentioned a number of lands that once belonged to the Radonezh princes, and studied the boyar estates of the Radonezh principality10. Archaeologically p. The town was surveyed in 1901 by Yu. G. Gendune11. In 1929-1931 excavations at the settlement and settlement were carried out by N.P. Milonov12. Later, exploration work was carried out repeatedly in Radonezh13. The research, begun by the author in 1976 in the area of ​​the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, included archaeological surveys, collection of microtoponymy materials and localization of data from written sources.14

In 1984-1985 work was concentrated in the vicinity of the village. The town with the aim of creating the project “Protection Zone of the Ancient City of Radonezh”15. As a result, 200 archeological monuments of the 13th-17th centuries were identified. (settlements, burial grounds, roads, ponds) and 450 landscape monuments (lands, tracts).
Actual news of the XV-XVI centuries. in the Radonezh region are few in number, so materials from the scribal books of V.I. Golenin 1 503/ 150416 are of particular value. R. D. Dashkova and F. G. Adashev 1542/1543 17 - documents compiled during the heyday of the city.

The next set of descriptions refers to the years 1570-159018. In 1617, according to a charter from Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the town of Radonezh was transferred to the Trinity Monastery. In this regard, on August 3, 1617, M. Tikhanov and D. Orlov “landmarked and measured... The town of Radonezh and the wasteland of Mogilitskaya behind the palace village of Zdvizhensky19. In the early 1620s, the Mogilitsky wasteland was annexed to the lands of the village. Vozdvizhensky, which was secured by land surveying N. II. Zasetsky and P. Ermolin March 24, 162320

Apparently, the next year, a nationwide description was carried out on the lands of Radonezh21 and its environs, which was carried out in the north of the Moscow district by L.A. Kologrivov and D. Skirin22.
Documents from the mid-16th, early 17th centuries. form the factual basis for studying the historical geography of the Radonezh region. Localization of data from these documents is possible, however, only with the involvement of the entire fund of later sources. An important place among them is occupied by drawings of 1660-166723 and boundary books of the 1680s, in which the length of boundaries is indicated in fathoms, which allows them to be transferred to modern maps with great accuracy. In 1680, A. 10. Bestuzhev and V. Domashev updated the border between the Trinity and sovereign lands, laid out back in 1542/1543 north of Radonezh. In addition, they described the southern border of the sovereign lands, which ran along the Torgosha and Vore rivers. In 1084, the data from this survey were supplemented with a description of the village and as a result, a scribal and survey book of Verderevsky and L. Yuryev arose.

The book of 1084, preserved in the original, is not only a legal document, but also a work that summarized the results of the centuries-old teaching of the Radonezh region and contained a huge amount of knowledge about its nature, toponymy, and land ownership25. Between 1680 and 1084 Almost along its entire length, the period of the General Land Survey (1768) was resumed26. In turn, geodetic justification courses were laid along the boundaries of the General Survey during the topographic survey of the 1930s27. This allowed the author to map data from 1680-1684. Thus, the way was opened to localizing data from 1617-1624, which became the basis for reconstructing the historical landscape of Radonezh in the 14th-15th centuries. (Fig. 5).
The oldest route along which the entire Radonezh region was settled was the river. Vorya, which flows into the river. Klyazma. In the 1st millennium AD in the middle reaches of the Vori there was a fortified ancestral village of the Finnish-speaking population. At the end of the XI-XII centuries. On the middle Vora, a group of settlements of the Slavs-Krivichi was formed, known in archaeological literature due to the well-preserved monuments of kurgan life. Most of these settlements perished during the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century. and was never renewed subsequently28.

The area of ​​Radonezh proper, which lay to the north, was not devastated in 1238-1240. It began to be populated, judging by archaeological data, in the second half of the 13th - first half of the 14th century. (Fig. 3). The custom of making mounds had already become a thing of the past, but mound ceramics and traditions dating back to pre-Mongol times were preserved. The name of the city, which comes from the Slavic name “Radong”, is also associated with Old Russian times.

Perhaps the village bearing this name existed since pre-Mongol times, but widespread settlement began later29.
The second, along with rivers, the historically established direction along which settlement took place, was the Pereyaslavskaya road. Since 1302, when Prince. Ivan Pereyaslavsky bequeathed his inheritance to the prince. Daniil Alexandrovich, and especially since 1328 this road became one of the most important in the Moscow principality. When she crosses the river. Pazhi (a tributary of the Vori) and the village arose. Radonezh. “[The village of Radonzhskoye] koyu” and the volost “[Radonzhskoe] are mentioned in the spiritual charter of Ivan Kalita in 133630.
In addition to the village, on the second. floor. XIII - first third of the XIV century. there were three settlements identified archaeologically: Golnevo, Mogilki and Belukhinskoye (Fig. 3). They were located within 3 km from Radonezh, and the bottom of the latter was near the Pereyaslavskaya road. The vast areas where the later principality was formed remained uninhabited.

The topography of the listed villages reflected the first signs of that radical change in the forms of settlement that soon swept North-Eastern Rus'. In contrast to the pre-Mongol period, when exclusively river banks were populated, in the second half of the 13th century. settlements began to penetrate the watersheds. In the vicinity of Radonezh one can trace the stages of this process. Golnevo, founded at the edge of the river terrace. Vori, also belongs to the pre-Mongol type.
The graves arose at a distance from the river, but with a natural source of water. Belukhinskoye, where the pond has been preserved, is a typical settlement “on dry land.”
In the forested watersheds, the settlers opened up vast spaces that had previously been used only as hunting grounds (Fig. 3). The natural landscape within which the village arose. Radonezhskoe was a moraine plain covered with spruce forests, which to the south of the village were replaced by spruce and pine forests. From the northeast to the village. Radonezh was adjacent to the landscape of a moraine upland. Its border is clearly visible even now when looking from the mountain mentioned in the chronicle “above Radonezh” on the village. A town lying on a plain. The hill was dissected by ravines, which, closing, divided the territory into separate hills, rising high above the valleys.

The marginal and low-lying areas of this landscape were occupied by spruce forests. In its central part, ancient linden-spruce and oak-spruce forests dominated, growing on more fertile soils. It was in this area, where sections of oak forests are still preserved, that the first villages of the Radonezh region were founded. The settlers, moving from the region of the Klyazminskaya Lowland to the north, up the river. Vore, we encountered forests on the tops of the moraine ridge, typical of the original zones of Slavic colonization. This circumstance, combined with the diversity of landscapes, attracted the population to the site of the future city31.

If with. Radonezh was the administrative and economic center of the district, then its sacred center, as one might assume, was the White Gods sanctuary. “Two versts from Vozdvizhensky,” wrote I.M. Snegirev in 1856, “there is a hillock in a pine forest called White Gods; according to the testimony of the local old-timers, there were some stones lying in the ravine, recently removed to look for treasure underneath, and an old legend says that St. Sergius erected a stone cross there in place of some idols that were worshiped by the surrounding residents32.

For the localization of the tract, the recording made by Z.Ya. is of great interest. Khodakovsky: “Having been in the village of Gorodok, which was formerly called Radonezhia,” he wrote, “I recognized a rare name. The local priest and several old-timers took me to the embankment town and told me about all the tracts around them. Finally, one of them says: ...there are White Gods near the Vozdvizhensky village, it is adjacent to us, no further than one mile from this Town. The young woman who brought me from the main road to this place also knew about these White Gods and took me to them. The excellent location is consistent with its name - it is close to an expanse or hollow, which is separated from the tract called “Mogiltsy”33.
Judging by this description, the White Gods were located south of the Trinity Road (from the village of Gorodok to the Lavra - Fig. 7, No. 50), beyond which the fields of the village began. Vozdvizhinsky. The eastern border of the territory within which the sanctuary was located is determined by Khodakovsky’s indication that the sanctuary is remote from the village. The town is “no further than one mile away.” It remains to outline the western and southern borders of this territory. The first is established on the basis of the story of K. S. Aksakov about his search for the place of the White Gods: “Leaving the carriage at the coppice34,” he recalled, “we walked through it, went out into the field and soon along a gentle slope we reached a ravine in which water was oozing . We began to search with all our might...35 Ovrazhek, or “Mochezhinka,” as K. S. Aksakova’s interlocutor, a peasant from the village, called it. The town is the Orzhavets stream, flowing 800 m east of the outskirts of the village. Town (Fig. 7, No. 229). Thus, the White Gods field was located east of Orzhavets, on its left bank.

According to Z. Ya. Khodakovsky, the White Gods field was separated by a hollow from the “tract... Migilitsa”. This indication allows us to determine the southern border of our search area. The location of the Mogilitsa tract is established with great accuracy based on the stories of old-timers (Fig. 7, No. 224, 225). The land survey of 1617 not only confirms this localization, but also reports that previously there was a “Mogilki village” here, which by 1588/1589 turned into the Mogilitsky wasteland (Fig. 6, no. 3)36. The site of the village of Mogilki was examined by the author in 1981 (settlement Leshkovo-2 - Fig. 5, No. 27). An excavation made here (48 sq. m) revealed a furnace pit (2.5X2.2 m; depth 0.6 m) of a residential building under a layer of plowing. From the nature of the location of the pit’s filling, it was clear that in front of us was a closed complex containing a set of things and ceramics that existed during the period of the structure’s existence37. These were finds much more archaic than those found in settlements known from acts of the 15th century. Coarse red clay ceramics of the 14th-15th centuries, typical of the latter, were absent here. Of the 105 identifiable fragments, 14 had an ornament in the form of an oblique wave along the neck of the vessel and represented a transitional version from gray to red clay ceramics. Gray ceramics predominated and about 5% belonged to kurgan pottery. An oval armchair from the second half of the 13th-14th centuries, a grinding stone, fragments of an adobe oven with fabric imprints, and part of a cylindrical spring lock38 dating from the second half of the 13th - early 15th centuries were also found. Taking into account the absence of red clay and the presence of burial mound ceramics (13th century and earlier), the date of the complex was narrowed to the second half of the 13th - first half of the 14th century.39

Having thus outlined the boundaries within which, according to legend, the White Gods were located, we can come to the conclusion that the settlement (Leshkovo-9 - Fig. 5, No. 32a) of the second half of the 13th-14th centuries, which was discovered, should be identified with the sanctuary 350 m north of the village of Mogilki on the left bank of the Orzhavets stream (Fig. 3).

A cross-vest with three-lobed creep-shaped ends and a diamond in the middle cross, dating back to the 14th century, was found at the village. (Fig. 3 inset)40. The village occupies a cape in the southern part of the Rzhavets field. From the west it is limited by the stream of the same name. Along the banks of the stream there are many springs, thanks to which it was called Orzhavets or “Mochezhinka”41. It was here, on the banks of the “Mochezhinka”, in the middle of the 19th century, according to the testimony of local residents, that the “white stones”42 lay. The area of ​​the springs of Orzhavets is one of the few places near Radonezh where in ancient times there were springs near oak groves43. Therefore, it can be assumed that the choice of this place was influenced by the Slavic custom of honoring old oak trees, near which springs flow. With the spread of Christianity, the oak began to be revered as an earthly reflection of the tree of paradise, which produces living water that heals ailments44.

The question of the cults of the Radonezh sanctuary can only be outlined in the most general form. “Bel God,” wrote I.M. Snegirev, “is revered... by the pan-Slavic supreme deity of heaven, light and life, sharing with his antithesis Chernobog, the demon of darkness, dominion over the universe. But, strictly speaking, Bel God is only an epithet for all “solar deities”45. “White Gods” and “Radonezh” - these words are recognized in the very first and immediate impression as semantically related. The considerations below show that parallels between them could have existed in ancient times.

The White Gods and the Mogilki tract lay east of Radonezh and were within sight of it. This location was hardly accidental: the direction to the east was thought of as the main axis of sacred space. The graves were located strictly east of Radonezh, and the residents of Radonezh could watch the sun rise over this tract on the equinox, which occurred at the end of the 13th-14th centuries. on March 11th. Moving towards the “summer sunrise,” as the place of the summer solstice was then called, the point of sunrise by April 1-2 moved to the cape on which the sanctuary was located46. Early spring in the Russian agrarian cycle of holidays was the time of the most pronounced commemoration of the dead. Considering that the toponym “Mogilki” dates back to the end of the 13th-14th centuries,47 one cannot exclude the connection of this name with the cult of remembrance. Funeral rites reached their apogee on Radunitsa, when the entire village of peasants went to the cemetery to the graves of their loved ones48. Rainbow was celebrated on Tuesday of St. Thomas Week (the second day after Easter) or on Easter (March 22 - April 25). These observations force us to pay attention to I.M. Snegirev’s assumption about the origin of the toponym “Radonezh” from the word “Radunitsa”49.

In a certain sense, it was confirmed in the records that were made in the villages surrounding Radonezh. In the village of Koroskovo, for example, there is a memory that in the old days “the village was called Radonitsa50. In the village of Leshkovo about the ancient settlement in the village. The town is told: “This Gorodina... Rade... Razhenets, or something, as they called... Radonets - the town is called this place”51. Variation in the pronunciation of the word “Radonezh” originates from the oral tradition of a very early time: it ceases to be observed in written sources already at the end of the 15th century. A variant spelling of the word “Radonezh” with a “u” is found in the spiritual letter of the prince, Vladimir Andreevich 1401-1408. “Radunezh beekeepers”52. Thus, it can be assumed that the toponym “Radonezh”, formed from a personal name, has been associated by folk etymology since ancient times with the word “radonezh” - All this suggests that the custom of commemorating ancestors played a large role in the ancient cults of Radonezh.

Even the little that is known about the initial stage of the formation of the Radonezh landscape speaks of the ancient population’s sensitive attention to nature - a feeling that connected man “with the spontaneous world life spilled around him”53. The organization of the landscape reflected ideas about inhabited space dating back to the early Middle Ages, which was perceived, in the language of a modern researcher, as heterogeneous and qualitatively oriented towards the centers that constitute the greatest value - the “eternally life-giving generic principle”54.

An important milestone in the history of Radonezh is the year 1337, when the boyar Kirill, father of Bartholomew (monastically Sergius), moved here from Rostov, impoverished from the Tatar devastation. “And such, for the sake of need, the servant of God Kiril,” narrates “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh,” “rose from the weight ... of Rostov; and he left with his whole house, and with all his family... and moved from Rostov to Radonzh”55. The period of life of Kirill and his family in Radonezh is estimated at four to five years. It was a short period, but it fell during the years of Bartholomew’s youth, a time when a person’s spiritual vision was unusually sharpened. Around 1341, together with his brother Stephen, Bartholomew erected a “little church”, which soon (at the beginning of the reign of Simeon the Proud) was consecrated “in the name of the Holy Trinity... from Metropolitan Theognostus.” On October 7, apparently 1342, Bartholomew was tonsured into the “angelic image” under the name Sergius56. During the 15 years of desert living that followed, Radonezh (in which Sergius’s brother Peter lived), which lay on the way from Trinity to Moscow, could not help but be perceived by Sergius and the monks of the monastery as a unique place of its kind where the “world” meets the “desert” 57. All this explains why in Radonezh so many legends are associated with the name of St. Sergius, which are confined to specific areas of the ancient landscape (Fig. 5, XIII).

Of particular interest are the legends relating to Poklonnaya Gora and its surroundings (Fig. 3). The guiding thread for their historical and topographical interpretation is the ancient Pereyaslavl road, about which a few words need to be said.
Poklonnaya Gora is located 3 km northeast of the village. Town. The road to it, now overgrown with forest, was called in the 19th century. Troitskaya (Fig. 7, No. 50). In 1617, this was the “Old Slobotskaya” road, that is, the path to Alexandrova Sloboda, which by that time had lost its significance (Fig. 6, No. 28). In 1542/1543, the road was called “Big Stogovskaya” and led to Pereyaslavl through the Stogov Monastery (on the Molokcha River) and Aleksandrova Sloboda, leaving the Trinity Monastery far to the west (Fig. 5. No. 6.19).

In light of these data, let us turn to the story of “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh” about Stephen of Perm. Around 1300, Stephen was heading “from Perm... to the ruling city of Moscow,” “But this path,” notes Epnchapius the Wise, “which is also the name of the bishop, is separated from the monastery of St. Sergius like 10 miles or more.” Not having time to visit the monastery, Stefan stopped on his way “opposite the monastery of the saint” and blessed Sergius, saying: “Peace be with you, spiritual brother!” Sergius, who was “at that hour” at the meal, “realizing... in spirit what Bishop Stephen had done,” answered him: “Rejoice, you too, shepherd of Christ’s flock.” Epiphanius further reports that Sergius “was the name and place” where Stefan stayed58. “The memory of the miraculous rapprochement of holy souls” was immortalized by the construction of a wooden cross and a chapel above it59, and the place was named Poklonnaya Gora. In the 17th century the chapel was built in stone. “On Poklonnaya Hill,” I.M. Snegirev wrote about it, “there is an old stone chapel with a tent roof, on mosquito nets protruding from four sides. An ancient huge eight-pointed cross made of oak beams, upholstered with linden boards, with an image of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ on one side, and St. Sergius on the other, was erected in it... Across the road is a holy pond, according to legend, dug by St. Sergius himself.”60. In 1932-1935. the chapel was destroyed. At present, only the surrounding grove and an overgrown pond have been preserved, near which a cultural layer of the 15th-16th centuries has been traced. (Fig. 5, no. 47; 7, no. 273).

Since the Bolshaya Stogovskaya Road in the 16th century. led to Pereyaslavl, through the Chapel of the Cross, leaving aside the Lavra; one can identify it with the path that Stefan of Perm walked from Pereyaslavl to Moscow. We find a description of that path in the story of Epiphapius the Wise about the surroundings of the Trinity Monastery in the first 15 years of its existence: “The great and wide path of all people is far away, not approaching the place of that (Trinity Monastery. - S. Ch.). ongoing. Epiphanius noted the absence at that time of a “extensive path” to the monastery: “I need to come to them along some narrow and painful path, like a pathlessness”61 (Fig. 3). Only in the second half of the 1350s - 1360s was a road built to the Trinity Monastery, which in the 15th century began to play the role of the main route from Moscow to Pereyaslavl (Fig. 5, No. 22, 23; Fig. 5, No. 30 ),

Now that the historical and geographical picture of the surroundings of Poklonnaya Gora in the 14th-15th centuries has been outlined, we can consider the legend about another tract, which also bore the name White Gods, but was located between the village. Gorodok and Poklonnaya Gora. In the report “On the tasks of the Sergiev Posad Society for the Study of the Local Region...” (1918), reflecting the results of research by P. A. Florensky and P. N. Kapterev, we read: “Near the same Poklonnaya Mountain, as well as ancient Radonezh there was a sacred tract of the ancient inhabitants of this region - “White Gods”. This name has survived to this day, and we found the place itself...”62. In 1983, a record was made from a resident of the village of Gorodok, Matryona Pavlovna Maslentseva, born in 1895. , which made it possible to establish the location of this tract. “My husband once told me this,” she recalled incidents dating back to 1922-1924. “He said: “Let’s go around there,” he said. road." It's called the Troitskaya Road. But before it was not called Zagorsk, but Trinity. Well, that means we went along the Trinity Road. It looked like it was a hillock. "Let's sit down and let the cow go. eat. And we will rest,” And on foot! He says: “Remember, he says, here are the White Gods.” “And this,” he says, “is what the White Gods were called here.” And I started asking him: “How are the White Gods? Which?" But he still knew how to read and write. “How,” he says, “such and such people had such faith. And that means, he says, they were demolished.”
The clearing to which the above story relates is located in the forest, 2.4 km from the village. Town, near the Trinity Road (Fig. 7, No. 60), along the route of which in the 14th century. the great path of all people ran through Pereyaslavl. There is a pond preserved in the clearing, and along its edge there are old birch trees - traces of the “large birch tree” that M. P. Maslentseva remembered. Blooming in June, the purple flowers of meadow geranium stand out beautifully among the dense vegetation. In August, the appearance of the clearing changes: the white inflorescences of forest oak rise to a height of more than a meter. This relict site, as archaeological research has shown, in its outline corresponds to the boundaries of the settlement identified here (Leshkovo-4 - Fig. 4). Excavations (6X8 m) were carried out in its center in 1984.

In the stripping of the mainland at a depth of 0.4 m. Traces of an above-ground residential building were identified: a log house wall exceeding 6 m in length and a utility pit (2.4X1.5 m; depth 0.4 m) were traced. Fragments of the stove and stones with traces of firing indicated that the building had an adobe stove. The set of ceramics closely corresponded to the composition of the Mogiltsy complex, which made it possible to date the construction to the second half of the 13th century - the first half of the 14th century. Judging by archaeological data, in the second half of the 14th century. the village was deserted. The wasteland that arose in its place, referred to as Belukhinskaya, in 1455-1456. was exchanged by the Trinity Monastery from the last Radonezh prince Vasily Yaroslavich64.
To interpret this monument of the 14th century. Of interest is one of the versions of the legend, according to which Sergius of Radonezh initially intended to build a monastery in the White Gods tract65. An entry made in 1985 by Polina Pavlovna Baranova, born in 1913, shows that this legend is associated with the described tract: “I remember where the pond was. As you go there, further along the clearing... to the end. And such a big, big clearing. And then there stood, what they said... some kind of guardhouse, or something, of St. Sergius... So you dug up the pillars, what kind of pillars did you find there?66 In the case under consideration, a direct comparison of the evidence of oral tradition with historical and archaeological materials can lead away from reading historical reality. At the same time, we have historical and topographical data at our disposal indicating that Sergius of Radonezh could visit a place called in the 15th century. Belukhinskaya wasteland. The road leading to it from the north appeared in the 14th century. a direct continuation of a precisely localized section of the “Old Pereyaslavskaya Road” (Fig. 5, No. 22-23). In this regard, it can be assumed that from the Belukhinsky village in the 1340s - mid-1350s, that “tight path” that initially connected the Trinity Monastery with Radonezh began (Fig. 3). If we accept this hypothesis, it is easy to explain the legend according to which the monastic brethren met Sergius near the Cross when he returned from Moscow67.

In the village The town named Sergius is connected by a settlement, two springs and an oak tree “on Caterpillars” (Fig. 7, No. 2, 7, 8, 10). The story about Sergius’ oak was recorded by M. P. Maslenetseva in 1980: “Here he (Sergius) followed the horse in stripes. There was an oak tree here. I haven’t seen the old oak tree myself. When my mother-in-law was young (1880-1890s - S. Ch.), the oak tree still stood. One day, near an oak tree, shepherds were hiding from the rain. We decided to make ourselves a teplyaku and burned the oak.” According to Matryona Pavlovna, four years ago she and the residents of the village. The town planted a new oak tree in place of the old one: “When we planted a small oak tree in the place of the old one, we found the roots of the old one. Then I came across an oak tree in the forest - I pulled it out and then planted it. Then I went in the fall - he started. And in the spring we went - it was cut down...68
Literary evidence also speaks of the reliability of the data on oak burning. In L. Yartsev’s guidebook, published in 1892, about the village. The town was informed: “There stood an oak tree here, planted, according to legend, by St. Sergius, but as they told us, not so long ago a shepherd carelessly burned it down.”69 M. V. Nesterov could still see Sergius’ oak tree: he lived near Trinity in the summer of 1888. , and in the fall of 1889 in the village of Mitino near Khotkov he worked on sketches for “The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew.” But there is no information about the artist’s acquaintance with this legend.70

The legend of the oak of Sergius was undoubtedly influenced by the story of the “Life” about the vision of the youth Bartholomew71. But this is only its first layer, which was intended to strengthen the meaning of the original legend. The veneration of oak trees, which dates back to semi-pagan antiquity in Radonezh, could not fail to receive additional meaning in the era of Sergius, connected with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. In the oak groves of Radonezh, their prototype was discerned - the oak grove of Mamre72; in the vision of the youth Bartholomew, the Epiphany of Mamre was glimpsed. The idea of ​​the life-giving beginning of the doctrine of the Trinity is imprinted in the legend about the planting of an oak tree by Sergius.
The legends about Sergius discussed above are associated with those areas of Radonezh in which the influence of the founder of the Trinity Monastery was felt directly and symbolically.

Now let's look at the historical environment of Radonezh in the 14th century. in its connection with economic life, social structure and consciousness of the era, that is, with everything that influenced it indirectly and really.
During the years of the “great silence,” the environs of Radonezh were covered with a network of villages. Epiphanius the Wise wrote about it this way: “They say that Onesimus and Protasius the thousand came to that same place, called Radonzh, where, far away, the prince is great and his little prince Andry. And they installed Terenty Rtishch as governor, and gave many benefits to the people, and the weakening of the same great date. For her sake, she gave up a lot of money”73. Ivan Kalita, in his spiritual charter of 1339, bequeathed the “Radonzhskoye” volost and the village of the same name to his wife Grand Duchess Ulyana, whose inheritance included the entire northeast of the Moscow principality.
According to archaeological data, in the middle of the 14th century. Ogafonovo settlements appeared in the basin of the Pazhi and Vori rivers. Dudenevo, Fomino, Maryina Gora, Semenkovo, Yakovlevskoye, Treskovo (Fig. 3, V). The development of not only the area of ​​deciduous forests on the hill, but also the moraine plateau, where spruce forests dominated. This became possible thanks to the emergence of land roads and ponds that provided villages with water. The occupations of the population were arable farming and beekeeping74. The nature of such a continuous settlement, in which settlers penetrated to the places most favorable for agriculture, was very accurately described by Epiphanius the Wise in relation to the surroundings of the Trinity Monastery: “Then Christians began to come and go around the monastery, all of them, and they loved to live there”75. The topographical type of the village also changed. If in the pre-Mongol period settlements were located on the edges of flat river terraces, then on those newly developed in the 14th-15th centuries. lands, houses began to be built on the gentle slopes of hills near the peaks. The huts and outbuildings were located at different levels, as if growing into the slope.

The main difference between the settlement system, which became dominant in the middle of the 14th century. There were few households in the villages and their dispersion; 1-3 household villages were founded among dense forests at a distance of 0.5-1 km. from each other. Unlike the pre-Mongol period, there were no burial grounds near the villages. The burials took place at the churches of Radonezh, Vozdvizhensky and Khotkov. This was due to the spread of Christian customs, as well as the strengthening of community ties. The internal organization of the Radonezh volost can be judged by the exchange charter of 1455-1458. to the already mentioned Belukhinskaya wasteland. The letter was drawn up on behalf of the “Radonezh volostel” Ivan Prokofiev, who served as prince. Vasily Yaroslavich. Among the rumors, it names officials of the princely-volost administration - “Loginko the centurion”, “Olfer the closer”, also “Malashko Radonezh city dweller”76. The volost allocated lands to newcomers, which were assigned to the peasant household for a long period. Such an organization of land use made it possible to combine the individual farming of homesteaders with the implementation of a wide range of works by the “peace” and with control over the use of land. This determined the stability of the settlement structure that developed in the 14th century. In order to better understand the semantics of the historical landscape of Radonezh, it is necessary to consider the question: to what extent did the environment from which Sergius of Radonezh came into contact with the rural life of the Radonezh volost? Epiphanius the Wise described Cyril’s resettlement this way: “And he came and moved near the church, named in the name of the Holy Nativity of Christ, and that church still stands to this day. And she lives with her family. This is not the only one, but with him many others have settled from the skeleton in Radonzh. And when they settled in lands alien from them, there is George, the son of the archpriests, with this family, John and Theodore, Thermosov’s family, Duden, his son-in-law, with this family, We will describe, his uncle, who later became a deacon.”77. The social status of the Rostov boyars in Radonezh can be judged retrospectively, based on data on the position and land ownership of their descendants. S. B. Veselovsky pointed in this regard to the mention of the Tormosovs as rumors in the acts of the 1400-1470s of the Verkhodubensky and Kipelsky camps, which were located north of Radonozh, in Pereyaslavsky district78. In the Korzenev camp adjacent to Radonezh from the east at the beginning of the 16th century. there was “a whole nest of the Tormosovs who were crushing the estates of the Tormosovs.”79 “Nothing is known about the estates of the Dudenevs,” wrote S. B. Veselovsky. “Apparently, they occupied an even lower social position than the Tormosovs.” Having brought news about Timofey Dudenev (1455-1456), Trinity servants Pavel and Ugrim Dudenev (1518 and 1530s) and about the Radonezh landowner Alexei Ivanov, son of Dudenev (1542/1543), who owned lands near the monastery “on Khotkovo” (Fig. 5, No. 64), S. B. Veselovsky concluded: “It is interesting to note how these descendants, who shattered and lost their estates, continue to gravitate to the place of resettlement of their ancestors for more than two centuries”80.

The ownership of the Dudenev family was traced near Radonezh itself. In the village The town of “Dudenevskaya” is the name of the road that leads through the forest to the north, to the confluence of the Podmysh river with the river. Pazhu (Fig. 7, No. 45). The maps of the General Land Survey (1768) show the “Dudeneva Pustosh of the village of Gorodok sacredly and clergy,” the western border of which was the “Dudenevskaya” road (Fig. 7, No. 46). In 1542/1543, there was the village of “Dudeneva Momyreva”, which belonged to the Trinity Monastery (Fig. 5, No. 57)81. The localization of the village near Radonezh allows us to connect it with the land ownership of Timofey Dudenev, who is mentioned in the exchange document for the Belukhinskaya wasteland as a servant-neighbor in 1455-145682. Judging by the fact that he is named in the document as the first among the rumors of the Radonezh volostel (before the centurion and closer mentioned above), it can be assumed that Timofey was one of the “servants under the court,” that is, he entered the courtyard of the prince. Vasily Yaroslavich, but did not have immunity rights. Apparently, the village of Dudeneva (Dyudeneva) belonged to the Duden family already in the 16th century.

Archaeological data allow us to judge what the village looked like. Dudeneva. Currently, the lands of the Dudeneva wasteland are covered with a dense spruce layer. In 1980, with the help of aerial photographs, the site where the village had been located since ancient times was discovered. Nowadays it is a clearing (50 X 30 m), in which an undisturbed cultural layer of the 14th-16th centuries has been preserved. (settlement Felimonovo-5, area 350 sq. m), pond (10X2.5 m), traces of an old road. Such clearings-settlements, called “touchstones” by local residents83, are one of the amazing phenomena of the historical landscape of Radonezh (Fig. 2).

The forest closed over the fields that once surrounded the village, and approached the very place of the courtyard, as if recreating the appearance of the village of Dudeneva at the time of its founding. The life of the inhabitants of this courtyard village, alone with harsh nature, far from Radonezh, was very difficult. But this was redeemed by its secrecy in case of a Tatar invasion and the proximity of various lands. In Dudenev, one involuntarily recalls the pages in the Life “dedicated to the first years of Sergius’s desert life - so much does this village resemble the picture of the monastery “in Makovets” drawn by Epiphanius. The example of Dudenev shows how the type of desert that had developed by the time of Sergius of Radonezh, its historical and landscape appearance, was deeply rooted in the life of the Moscow volosts of the first half of the 14th century. This kinship was not only external in nature, but also reflected deep internal connections recognized by contemporaries. One place in the Life speaks about this. Telling about “driving away demons with the prayers of a saint.” Epiphanius creates the image of a monastery-village - a place enlightened by the spirit and opposing the darkness of the demonic forces of nature: “The devil wanted to drive St. Sergius away from his vengeance... fearing... that he would fill the whole place (filled - S. Ch.) or that such a village will be inhabited, and like a city, a sacred monastery will be established and the settlement will become a place of praise and unceasing singing to God.”84

The heyday of Radonezh came with its transition in the early 1370s to Prince Vladimir Andreevich Serpukhovsky. During the reign of the prince's son. Vladimir Andrei Vladimirovich (1410-1425) Radonezh became the center of an independent principality85. In the last quarter of the XIV - first quarter of the XV century. The urban composition and settlement structure of Radonezh acquire completeness and perfection. This was due to two circumstances: the transformation of Radonezh into a city and the formation of villages visually connected with the temples of the specific capital (Fig. 5).
It can be assumed that after the construction of fortifications in Serpukhov in 1374, Prince. Vladimir Andreevich, erected ramparts in Radonezh86. During the years of his reign and during the reign of his son, the city's settlement grew approximately to the boundaries that are recorded archaeologically (Fig. 5). This is evidenced by the coincidence of the areas of red clay (XV century) and white clay (XVI century) ceramics on the territory of the settlement.

Reliable information about the three temples of Radonezh has survived to this day. The Church of the Nativity was located in the fortress. Around 1418, Epiphanius the Wise wrote about it as existing; it was preserved as early as 1669.87 300 m east of it, on the territory of the settlement, dominating the surrounding area, stood the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior. In 1616, at the request of Archimandrite Dionysius of the Trinity Monastery and cellarer Abraham Palitsyn, the sovereign ordered a “tumbler” from his yard in the village for its renewal. Vozdvizhensky88. The space between the churches was an elevated ridge, along which, according to excavations, there were residential buildings of the townspeople89. At the foot of this ridge and the floor rampart of the fortress ran the ancient Pereyaslavskaya road (“the path of all people”). A traveler moving along it from Moscow had a view of Radonezh from the watershed between Vori and Pazhi. The buildings of the city were hidden by forests, dominated only by tents and peaked roofs of churches. Further, the road descended through the forest to the Pazhi valley. Near the river, a full panorama of the city unexpectedly opened up: the fortress walls, the suburban development along the ridge of the hill, the churches of the Nativity and the Transfiguration.

The name of the third church of Radonezh was preserved in the name of Afanasov Field. According to the memories of residents, which are confirmed by descriptions from 1622-1624, the church stood on the site of the current Pogost tract, in the northern part of the field (Fig. 7, No. 4,5, 21; Fig. 5). Considering its dedication to Saints Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria (Fig. 6, No. 36), it can be assumed that the church was consecrated in honor of the birth of the prince’s son in 1389. Vladimir Andreevich Yaroslav-Afanasy90. Data about the burial ground in the Pogost tract91 and the fact that the Pereyaslavskaya road was oriented towards the Church of Athanasius testify to the antiquity of the southern part of the settlement.
The legend recorded by I.M. Snegirev speaks of the existence of seven churches and two monasteries in Radonezh. He wrote about this: “Judging by the previous way of life and everyday life, this was possible, because churches and monasteries were built very small, secluded”92. K. S. Aksakov, resident of the village. The town indicated the sites of at least two temples. In one of them we can assume the Church of Athanasius. The oral tradition has now lost the memory of the site of another temple. Based on the tracing of ancient roads and the general outline of the settlement, we can assume that this, the fourth in our account, church of Radonezh was located approximately in the center of the modern village, and the fifth - perhaps in the northern part of the settlement, on the territory that in 1708 was listed as “church land” (Fig. 7, No. 63; Fig. 5).

During the heyday of the city, roads were laid from Radonezh to neighboring cities and volosts. In the north-western direction there were roads to the volosts of Teshili, Dmitrov, the monastery “on Khotkovo” and the Dmitrov volost of Inobozh. To the north there was a road to the villages of Morozovo and Nikolskoye-Poddubskoye, to the southeast to the town of Sherpa and to the Stromynsky Monastery, founded in honor of the victory over Mamai, to the south - to the villages of Vozdvizhenskoye, Muromtsevo and the Voryu volost (Fig. 5, 6).

Villages began to take shape in the Radonezh district in the middle of the 14th century, during the period of the dominance of princely-volost land ownership. This is how the news was preserved that the village. Kiyasovskoye belonged to Prince. Vladimir Andreevich (Fig. 5; 6; 7, No. 106a). Apparently, the village arose at the same time. Vozdvizhenskoe. In the second half of the 14th century. with the development of patrimonial land ownership, villages appeared that belonged to the boyars and servants of the Radonezh princes: p. Morozov boyars Kuchetsky, Semenkovo ​​- Skobeltsyn, Koroskovo and Skrylevo - Voroshcha Stepanov, Borisov - Boris Kopnin (Fig. 5). The village of Morozovskoye was founded on the top of a hill, from which there was a view of the Transfiguration Church of Radonezh. Vozdvizhenskoe and Skrylevo also had visual connections with the city. Borisovskoe arose on a unique place from an urban planning point of view, from which there was a view of both Radonezh and the monastery “on Khotkovo” (Fig. 5, no. 71). The fields around the settlements were much smaller than they are now, and the temples of Radonezh were visible against the backdrop of a continuous forested area. This determined the special flavor of the landscapes of that era: the hill on which the village was located was usually almost completely hidden by the forest, so that only the village itself and the temple remained visible. Calculation of the “pools” of visibility from the bell tower of the Church of the Transfiguration showed that villages and churches were founded with great skill within these small “pools,” such as the Cathedral of the Khotkov Monastery94.
The compositional and specific structure of the environs of Radonezh could not have developed without the influence of those views on the role of the temple in the surrounding space that were formed already in the 1350s in the Trinity Monastery. After the introduction of the communal rules of St. Sergius of Radonezh, “he erected a larger monastery, ordered to create cells in four shapes, in the middle of them was a church in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity, from everywhere it was visible like a mirror”95. The temples of Radonezh, Khotkov and the villages surrounding them were also thought of by contemporaries as “mirror” models.

In order to make sure that this conclusion is not based on a superficial analogy, it is necessary to touch upon the religious, social and artistic connections that existed between the Trinity Monastery and Radonezh. In the life of the book. For Vladimir Andreevich, the spiritual leadership of Sergius of Radonezh played an important role. It is no coincidence that the twenty-year-old prince, building the capital of his fief and planning to create a “mantis,” invites Sergius96 to found it. Visits to the Trinity Monastery were in the habit of Vladimir Andreevich, who could not help but be impressed by the fact that the lamp of monasticism of Moscow Rus' was within his domain97. The influence of the monastery also extended to the area of ​​the prince’s artistic tastes98. The influence of the Trinity Monastery was felt among the boyars and service people of Radonezh. A striking example of this is the story of the owner of the village. Morozovsky - the Kuchetsky family99, from which came the Trinity monk Ambrosia - an outstanding master of wood carving and jeweler of the 15th century.
Observations of the historical landscape of Radonezh indicate the existence of an inextricable relationship between its formation and those emerging in the 14th century. ideas about the natural and man-made environment around humans. These ideas organically absorbed the idea of ​​sacralization of space (the White Gods sanctuary and its surroundings), which goes back to pagan cults. The ancient veneration of oak forests found its development in the legend of the oak of Sergius, in which the doctrine of the Life-Giving Trinity was symbolically expressed. The perception of the landscape as a certain meaningful system was embedded in the traditional knowledge of nature, economic structure and beliefs of the post-Mongol volost.

Christianity brought an understanding of the religious value and meaning of the “God-created” world: “intact” nature, “chaste”, ascetic life of man. “A place appeared for the feeling of nature,” which was conceived not as an element indifferent to man, subject to cultural overcoming, but as “God’s creation,” internally related to people100. Thanks to this, the space was perceived as full of deep moral meaning101. Grace scattered everywhere, according to the views of that era, manifested itself with special force in righteous places, where even with eyes darkened by sin the “pure core of God’s creation” was visible102. Here it is appropriate to recall the image of one of these places enlightened by spiritual energy: a picture of a monastery-village founded “in words and incessant singing to God,” written by Epiphanius the Wise with such genuine feeling that we seem to hear this singing, drowning out the “animal howl” of the “world” this” and spreading, like a candle, the darkness of the night.

The Mongol invasion, which brought the “abomination of desolation” to a “vengeance”, seemed to have to extinguish faith in the reality of earthly lamps of eternal life. But this faith not only did not weaken, but sharpened, which was greatly facilitated by familiarity with the achievements of Byzantine theological thought, especially its hesychast direction. So, in the XIV century. The teaching of Dionysius the Areopagite about “patterns” or ideas-volitions, through which created things “participate” in creative divine energies, became widespread103. According to Gregory of Sinaite, “those who have risen to God, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, see, as if in a mirror, all creation as light-like”104. The influence of the doctrine of “models” manifested itself in the erection by Sergius of the Trinity Church, visible from everywhere “like a mirror,” which, in turn, had an impact on the entire compositional and visual structure of Radonezh.
To study the ideas of the 14th century that underlay the organization of space, the story of the founding of the Vysotsky Monastery is of great interest. The story reports that at the request of Prince. Vladimir Andreevich Sergius of Radonezh “laid the foundation of the church with his laborious hands and designated the monastery,” that is, he designated and consecrated the site of the future monastery 105. The foundation of the temple was thought of as recognition of the “divine meaning” in nature. Like the “denominators” who lay out the outlines of a future fresco, the people of that era “arranged” the nature around them.

The signification consisted of making the sign of the cross over the object being consecrated. Thus, during land surveying, a notch-mark in the shape of a cross (“banner”) was made on a tree, placing even this simplest element of the landscape in connection with the entire hierarchical structure of space meaningful by man106. At the highest levels of this structure there were consecrated places: according to legend, Sergius of Radonezh “laid a cross” on one of the stones of the White Gods sanctuary107. An important form of semantic reading of the landscape was also the toponymic system that developed in Radonezh in the 14th-15th centuries. The landscape, thus, was introduced into the hierarchy of real analogies, and in which, in the words of Dionysius the Areopagite, “each order... to the extent of its strength takes part in Divine affairs, accomplishing with grace and power bestowed from God what is in the Divinity natural and supernatural"108.

The sign of the cross had, in turn, the meaning of “imprinting,” that is, the imposition of signs by the spirit on inert matter. The theory of sphragidation was developed by Gregory of Nyssa. “According to this theory,” noted P. A. Florensky in a letter to I. I. Vernadsky in 1929, “the individual type of a person, like a seal and its imprint, is imposed on the soul and on the body so that the elements of the body, at least they were scattered, they can again be recognized by the coincidence of their imprint and the seal belonging to the soul. Thus, spiritual power always remains in the particles of the body formed by it, no matter where and how they are scattered and mixed with other matter.”109.

Under the conditions of the rule of the Horde, when the very existence of North-Eastern Rus' was under threat, the idea of ​​the true reality of the world of Christian culture as a whole and each of its images separately (be it a temple, a village, a votive cross or their name) was a necessary basis for resistance to the yoke and strengthening national identity. Only the unprecedented openness to everything internally beautiful, which the religious consciousness of the 14th century achieved, made it possible to understand and love the harsh and meager nature of the Russian North-East. This worldview encouraged us to preserve the memory of the deeds of our ancestors and gave birth to a historical vision of life that permeates the culture of the 14th century. Because of this and in the context of early Moscow culture, the landscape environment of Radonezh carried truly historical content.

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