Abstract
Expressing wishes as to how a person’s property was to be distributed at death was permitted by Old-Russian common law. At first, oral disposals had been practiced, whereas written wills became widespread only in the 14th century. Disposals of an estate were principally made by liege lords and church authorities, hardly ever by peasants. This article presents a study of 8 unique peasants’ wills from registers of the Solovetskiy Monastery of the 16th century. A pope was obligatorily in attendance when such documents were prepared. All analyzed wills referred to Christian ethics and values. The dispositions of personal property alternated with requests to pray for the testator’s salvation. It seems that the main purpose of the examined last wills was not to transfer of real estates and personal property to successors but to contain a testator’s understanding of dying and death, and to form a proper attitude towards them. Preparation of someone’s last will and getting rid of material goods constituted an act of contrition that closed the testator’s worldly existence and conditioned his eternal life after death.References
Almazov, A.I. (1894). Tajnaâ ispoved’ v Pravoslavnoj Vostočnoj Cerkvi, t. 2: Special’nye ustavy, otdel’nye molitvosloviâ i cerkovno-graždanskie postanovleniâ, otnosâŝiesâ k ispovedi. Odessa: Tipografiâ Štaba Odesskogo voennogo okruga.
Andreev, V.F. (1986). Novgorodskij častnyj akt XII–XV vv. Moskva: Nauka.
Bahrušin, S.V. (otv. ped.) (1950). Duhovnye i dogovornye gramoty velikih i udel’nyh knâzej XIV–XVI vv. Moskva–Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR .
Boros, L. (1977). Mysterium mortis. Człowiek w obliczu ostatecznej decyzji. Przeł. B. Białecki. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX.
Bronzov, A.A. (1900b). Hristianskaâ dobrodetel’ smirenie. „Hristianskoe čtenie”, № 3, s. 337–361.
Bronzov, A.A, (1900a). Hristianskaâ dobrodetel’ smirenie. „Hristianskoe čtenie”, № 2, s. 161–182.
Bulgakov, S. (1955). Žizn’ za grobom. Pariž: IMKA-Press.
Čerepnin, L.V. (otv. ped.) (1956). Pamâtniki russkogo prava, vyp. IV: Pamâtniki prava perioda ukrepleniâ Russkogo centralizovannogo gosudarstva XV–XVII vv. Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo ûridičeskoj literatury.
Gądecki, S. (2004). W imię Ojca i Syna i Ducha Świętego. „Przewodnik Katolicki”, nr 4, s. 15.
Liberzon, I.Z. (sost.) (1988). Akty social’no-èkonomičeskoj istorii Severa Rossii konca XV–XVI veka. Akty Soloveckogo monastyrâ 1479–1571 gg. Leningrad: Nauka.
Liberzon, I.Z. (sost.) (1990). Akty social’no-èkonomičeskoj istorii Severa Rossii konca XV–XVI veka. Akty Soloveckogo monastyrâ 1572–1584 gg. Leningrad: Nauka.
Lilienfel’d, F. (1962). O literaturnom žanre nekotoryh proizvedenij Nila Sorskogo. V: „Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoj literatury”, t. XVIII, Â.S. Lur’e (otv. red.), s. 80–98. Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR.
Otkrovenie Ioanna Bogoslova (1995). V: Novyj Zavet Gospoda Našego Iisusa Hrista. Moskva: Sinodal’naâ tipografiâ.
Puškareva, N.L. (1989). Ženŝiny drevnej Rusi. Moskva: Mysl’.
Russkaâ Pravda (prostrannaâ redakciâ) (2014). V: Hrestomatiâ po istorii otečestvennogo gosudarstva i prava, č. I, I.Û. Man’kovskij (sost.)., Barnaul: Izdatel’stvo Altajskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta.
Sirin, I. (2006). Slova podvižničeskie. Moskva. www.logoslovo.ru/forum/all/topic_7478/. 30.05.2017.
Smirnov, T. (1913). Drevnerusskij duhovnik: Materialy dlâ istorii drevnerusskoj pokaânnoj discipliny. Moskva: Sinodal’naâ tipografiâ.
Trauner, I. (1690). Geistliche Seelen-Jagd, Das ist: Underes Dominicale Oder Sonntägliche, und mit neuen Exordiis auff die Kirchweyhungen gerichte Predigen: Mit unterschidlichen, außerlesnen, und mehreren Theils auß Welschen Authoribus gezognen raren Concepten, annehmlichen neuen Historien und Gleichnussen, sittlichen…. Willingen: Verlag und Truckerey Johann Gaspar Bencards.
Uspienski, B. (1998). Historia i semiotyka. Przeł. B. Żyłko. Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria.
Valk, S.N. (otv. red.) (1949). Gramoty Velikogo Novgoroda i Pskova. Moskva–Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR.
License
Authors
The authors of the articles accepted for publication in the journal Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne are obliged to fill up the contract for providing the journal free licence (along with sub-licence CC) to works. The contract should be also signed by the authors and sent back to the editorial board of the journal.
Under the terms of the contract, the authors of the texts published in the journal “Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne” provide the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań with a non-exclusive free licence and allow the aforementioned institution to use the sub-licence Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0).
The authors hold the copyright for their texts.
Users
The Internet users are eligible for using the works published in “Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne” from 2015 under the following conditions:
- recognition of the authorship: the popularized work must contain information about the author, title, source (references to the original work, DOI) and licence.
- no derivative works may be created: the work must be preserved in its original form, the work’s translations or elaborations cannot be distributed without the author’s permission.
The copyright to the texts published before 2015 is reserved.
Other
The University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań holds the right for the entire journal (its segmentation, graphical form, title, cover design, logo, etc.).