The age of devotion is a descriptive designation for the period commonly labelled medieval, when the majority of literary texts were produced for devotional purposes. In the Russian context this extends roughly to the mid-seventeenth century. This chapter outlines and illustrates three approaches to the study of this literature: synchronic, diachronic, and dynamic. The synchronic approach emphasises features that are broadly characteristic of the age as a whole, such as the religious milieu (Orthodox Christianity), the language of high culture (Church Slavonic, in various interactions with East Slavonic), the medium of transmission (manuscript rather than print), and the problem of authorship (the prevalence of anonymity, the role of the scribe). The diachronic approach has produced various attempts to identify distinct periods in literary development. The dynamic approach emphasises the mutability of literary texts, such that it is necessary to view a work as a field of variously realised textual possibilities.

Mongol rule in Rus′ was profound, especially in the administration of taxes and tribute, which were adapted to the traditions of Rus′ian princely governance. The thirteenth century was a “dark age” when Rus′ was subjected to severe Mongol attacks and tribute was imposed under the supervision of basqaqs. The Rus′ian church, however, was exempted from paying tribute. Through the bestowal of a yarligh, the Mongols designated the rulers of Rus′ian principalities, including the grand prince of Vladimir, titular head of the Rus′. The fourteenth century saw the rise of Moscow, as its princes gradually monopolized the collection of the tribute. By the first quarter of the fifteenth century, Mongol rule had weakened as the effects of plague, civil wars within the Golden Horde, Tamerlane’s attacks, and the fracturing of the Golden Horde into separate khanates took their toll. By 1480 and the Battle of the Ugra River, Mongol rule was effectively over.

The Novgorod genocidal massacre of 1570 is one of the major events of the reign of Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584). It shows the tyranny of the tsar in terms of the 16th century and has been used in the historiography for 200 years to show how a tsar who had reigned for 20 years as a reformer could change and commit the most horrible crimes against his own people before turning back to his normal reign again. Supposing the Novgorodians were planning treason, the tsar and his army went secretly to Novgorod, shamed the Archbishop and began a massacre among the population as well as forcibly looted the town and its environments. The sources all tell the same story, as if they were from the same eyewitness. Also, contemporary sources appeared only in Western Europe from 1570 on, 17th ct. Russian sources betray a textual relationship to the Western sources so that the conclusion is that the Russian history of the Novgorod genocidal massacre derives rather from the Western than from native eyewitnesses’ descriptions.

The Moscow principality was the scene of an intense battle over succession in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. After its end Prince Vasilii II designated his son Ivan as his successor. Ivan III’s two marriages created a problem. Ivan Ivanovich, his son by the first wife, died, leaving a son Dmitrii as a possible heir. Ivan III’s second wife, Sophia Palaiologina, had a son, Vasilii. In 1497 Ivan chose Dmitrii as his heir, but soon changed his mind. The designated heir was his son Vasilii. Vasilii in turn had no children by his first wife, Solomoniia Saburova, so he sent her to a convent and married the Lithuanian princess Elena Glinskaia. During this time the ceremonial oaths of loyalty came to include not just the Grand Prince but his wife and family.