Newly Discovered Letters and Petitions of the Time of Trouble from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and its Patrimony

Abstract

Introducing into scholarship new sources of the Times of Troubles is determined by the demands and relevance of the research regarding one of the most significant periods in the history of Russian, the study of social-class relations, norms of everyday behavior, and family and kinship ties in Russia at the beginning of the 17th century. The discussion of the issue in the paper also stems from the necessity of extending linguistic knowledge and knowledge of sources about pre-national development of the cultural and linguistic situations, and their manifestation in real texts demonstrating variants of written and oral language culture of this epoch. The authors have analyzed and published three unknown letters from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius written during its siege by the Sapieha ‘s mercenary army in 1608–1610, and three petitions from the monastic estates captured by Sapieha`s supporters. The new documents recently found in well-known archival collections add to the “fund” of Trinity papers of the Russian archive of “thievish” hetman Jan Sapieha (1608–1611). The archive was reconstructed by the team of Volgograd scholars in 2005, which opened up opportunities for search of documents. The discovered sources confirm the correct application of methodology and make up for the existing informative “gaps” concerning the situation in the monastery. Details of different events which took place in the territories of Moscow areas occupied by the mercenaries are described in the letters and petitions. The authors examine both historical events assessed by their immediate participants, and information on private life and connections between various social groups. The observations allow for quite verifiable suggestions concerning the hardships experienced by both noble and ordinary people during the Time of Troubles. The paper also shows the tendencies of compiling documents according to the established formal and informal practice of written communication at the beginning of 17th century.