Culture of Ancient Russia

The culture of Ancient Russia, like the culture of any other country, is the totality of spiritual values and material that created mankind in the process of its social and labor practice. Material culture is the development of technology, machines, tools, construction, etc. Spiritual culture - literature, science, ideology, art, education.

The culture of Ancient Rus was distinguished by a high level of development. Unfortunately, many monuments did not reach us, but died in the fire of fires, wars, invasions. Mostly preserved literature, cathedrals, icons, objects of religious cults. The basis of culture is the cultural heritage left from the East Slavic tribes. Great influence on it had the Varangians, nomadic peoples, the adoption of Christianity, as well as the countries of Western Europe and, of course, Byzantium.

Writing in Rus appeared before the adoption of Christianity. At this point, the alphabet has already formed. And the very adoption of Christianity only contributed to the development of writing, enlightenment, and the spread of literacy.

On the very wide development in Ancient Rus writing testify to the inscriptions on various handicraft products: embroidery frames, clay vessels, boots. Over time, under Yaroslav the Wise , they even opened a school in Kiev.

Along with the development of written literature, oral folk art widely spread , and, first and foremost, epics, which tell us about the creative and military work of our people.

Material culture of Ancient Russia

A high level in the development reached the architecture. There are about 60 architectural monuments of the pre-Mongol period. Until the middle of the X century. The buildings were exceptionally wooden. It was the tree that was the main building material. It was used for erecting houses, palace buildings, city fortifications, churches. In these wooden buildings, the planning and volume structure was determined by a strong log structure and its natural parameters. But even with the "rigidity" of the building wooden system, the masters managed to plasticize it plastically and compositionally to diversify.

One of the earliest stone buildings was the Tithe Church. Later, the Golden Gate and St. Sophia Cathedral, other churches were built of stone. The walls inside the churches were richly decorated with frescoes, mosaics, icons. In many lands the main building material was a white stone. Its characteristic features are elegance, rich decorativeness, harmony of buildings, aspiration. From it, houses were built. Since the 14th century, defensive walls in cities have also been built.

In the stone cult building, the type of a flat cubic temple with parallel four naves in the interior space, with six fast-paced pillars, that support the domes and vaults, has forever established itself. In the presence of a constructive and similar volumetric structure, the cult Russian buildings present a picture of a variety of voluminous shapes and sizes, and means for processing the decor of structures. Most buildings were distinguished by the unity of the constructive solution and the organic nature, their internal structure consistently and clearly expressed in external forms.

Musical Culture of Ancient Russia

The musical culture of Ancient Rus developed in two directions: folk art, folklore, and church music.

The ancient Slavs worshiped idols, they were pagans. They performed in their honor rites, accompanied by dancing, singing, playing various musical instruments (harp, flute, ratchet).

Bright representatives of folk art - buffoons. These are professional wandering actors, who made fun of the people with songs and dances. With their art they actively contributed to the development of some literary genres - epic, drama, poetry. Skomorokhi owned impeccable mastery of entertainers - the organizers of the holidays, national funnies, acted as actors or musicians. Of course, the most important area in the musical art of that time was the folk song, especially that associated with the holidays of the agricultural calendar. The main genre of the epic is epic.

With the adoption of Christianity came church singing from Byzantium. Then the church musical culture of ancient Russia was represented by singing singing. The melody of the song was recorded from above on the line of the text using a system of special conventional signs that indicated only the direction of the melody, but not the exact pitch of the sounds.

Christianity played a big role in the formation of both the musical and the whole culture of Ancient Rus as a whole. It defined the prospect of its development for many centuries ahead.