The plot of the Princess Olga’s baptism in the Ukrainian baroque prose

Abstract

The problem of the literary reception of the plot about the baptism of Princess Olga is of topical importance with regard to the experience of solving the dilemma of choosing the civilizational strategy of Rus'-Ukraine, reflected in this episode. The early modern period in the history of Ukraine is characterized by a dramatic confrontation between two vectors of development: integration into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth while preserving its own identity or union with the Moscow Tzardom on the basis of confessional identity.

The article aims to show how the biased interpretation of Princess Olga's choice between Rome and Constantinople became an essential tool for Ukraine's exit from the European civilizational space into the web of the “Russian world”.

The author operates using the method of deconstruction of literary stereotypes and historical mythologies.

The chronicle interpretation of Princess Olga's adoption of Christianity, presented in “The Tale of Bygone Years” under the year 6463 (955), became one of the factors consolidating the Kyiv Metropolis in the sphere of influence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, inspired by the church schism of 1054. In the course of the polemics over the jurisdictional affiliation of the Kyiv Metropolis, which unfolded after the proclamation of the Union of Brest in 1596, Princess Olga's acceptance of baptism in Constantinople from the hands of the patriarch with the participation of the emperor is used as an argument in favor of the Ukrainian Church's original affiliation to the sphere of influence of the Hellenistic East. Meanwhile, historical sources refute the very possibility of the princess's stay in Constantinople in 955. Instead, the curious plot of ”The Tale of Bygone Years” about Olga's baptism is very appealing to the playful conceptualism of Baroque discourse and fits quite naturally into it. Although it was in the 17th century that a critical analysis of hagiographic sources began, carried out primarily by the Bollandist congregation, Ukrainian authors, paying tribute to the comparative analysis of ”The Tale of Bygone Years” and other historical monuments, sought to preserve the anti-Western basis of the plot of the baptism of Princess Olga. Dimitriy Tuptalo reinforces the Byzantine accents, looking for parallels between the Ruthenian princess and the Roman empress in the choice of the Christian name “Helena”, with whose name a number of far-reaching initiatives from the era of establishing Christianity as a legal religion are associated.

The conclusion from the observations is the fatal role of the Baroque mythologizing of the episode of Princess Olga's baptism in the self-identification of Ukrainian Christians and their determination of Rus’-Ukraine’s place in the civilizational space of Europe.