UCLA

Having produced a number of works on historiography and veneration of early Russian saints, the scholarship of medieval Russian literature, until recently, had often overlooked their hymnography. Modern day academia does witness an increasing interest in church services, yet in most cases it focuses on textual analysis. This dissertation presents a liturgically-based approach to studying the manuscripts. The investigation of 30 services to SS. Feodor, Davyd, and Konstantin of Iaroslavl’ (13–14th centuries) from the earliest in 1468/9 to the most recent ones and the analysis of the correlations between their four variants is carried out on three levels. The textual source search reveals how the services originated and which associative principles were used in their making. The liturgical analytical approach demonstrates the evolution and changes in the saints’ cult over the centuries. The socio-historical observations and inferences are drawn from investigating the selective wording of the hymns. Contributing to the previous scholarship, I propose an updated reconstructed chronology of the liturgical veneration of the holy princes and the historical development of their veneration. As Iaroslavl’ joined Muscovy in the 1480s, the cult of the holy princes enjoyed a rapid rise while simple early services were replaced by the solemn ones. Their popularity spread across the new realm can be seen from the growing number of 16th century manuscripts. While the festal rank was later slightly downscaled to make this service more accessible to broader Russian congregations, the original hymns to SS. Feodor, Davyd and Konstantin were edited to invoke them as pan-Russian intercessors rather than solely the patrons of their town, thus promoting Iaroslavl’ as an important center for the Moscow tsardom. The practical significance of this dissertation is in the methodologies employed hereby that may provide a model for future scholarly research of the unstudied services to early Russian saints, thus contributing to a better understanding of the hymnographic creativity and adaptation in medieval Rus’.