Veche Novgorod bell. Veche bell of Novgorod

Ivan III« collector of Russian lands» , the first of the Moscow rulers began to call himself« sovereign of all Russia» , and he had good reason for this: a year after accession to the throne, he bought out the possessions of the Yaroslavl princes, then made a campaign against Novgorod and Pskov, as a result of which Muscovy seized part of the Novgorod lands, then undertook a second campaign against Novgorod, and the local« freemen» recognized the power of Moscow; in 1485, Tver was annexed, four years later - Vyatka, and a year later - part of the principality of Smolensk.

The Power Book tells about the results of the second campaign against Novgorod.

The wise pious zealot, the praiseworthy adversary winner and gatherer of the primordial fatherland granted to him by God, Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of Vladimir and Novogradsky and autocrat of all Russia returned to Moscow with a great victory, so did all his brethren, and princes and boyars, and all governors, and all their army with much self-interest ... The Grand Duke came to his glorious city of Moscow, having defeated his adversaries, executed those who resisted him and did not want to obey him, the cruel apostates of the Novogradskys, he brought them all to his will with the help of God, and received much wealth, and great glory acquired ... When the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia, Veliky Novograd, completely brought to his full will, then ... the honest relics of the great miracle worker Peter the Metropolitan were transferred ... When they were transferred, his white dove was visible above the coffin, loftily soaring, after covering the relics of the saint and so invisible became ... And the Church of the Annunciation of the Most Pure Theotokos was erected and consecrated in the courtyard of the Grand Duke.<...>

In confirmation« humility» Novgorod, Ivan Vasilievich deprived the city of its symbol - the veche bell, which was transported to Moscow.

And ordered (Grand Duke. - Red.) lower the eternal bell and ruin the veche ... Neither the posadniks, nor the thousands, nor the veche will be in Novgorod, and the veche bell was taken down and taken to Moscow ... And it was brought (the bell) to Moscow, and raised it to the bell tower in the square, with other bells to ring.<...>

With the transportation of this bell, which went quite well, there is a legend about the origin of the Valdai arch bells. As if« captive bell» he never made it to Moscow: on the slope of the Valdai Hills, the sleigh on which he was being carried rolled down, the bell fell off and shattered. However, a miracle happened - small fragments began to turn into bells, which locals picked up and began to cast their own in their likeness. Another version of the legend mentions specific names - the Valdai blacksmith Thomas and the wanderer John. veche bell fell off the mountain and shattered into small pieces. Foma, having collected a handful of fragments, cast a ringing bell out of them. The wanderer John begged this bell from the blacksmith, put it on his neck and, sitting on his staff, flew around all of Russia, spreading the news about the freemen of Novgorod and glorifying the Valdai masters.

Poet K. A. Sluchevsky retold the legend in verse:

Yes, there were executions of the people ...

Already six weeks burning ends!

Back to Moscow on your trip

The royal archers gathered.

Make people laugh

Ivan sent a bishop

So that, sitting on a white filly,

He beat tambourines and amused.

And the Novgorodians, without saying a word,

They looked at the pale crowd,

Like a brass bell from their evening

By the will of the king removed down!

The prickly forest shines with spears,

The royal wagon is being driven;

Behind her a melodious bell

The bending ones are carried on poles.

Hills and swamps! Wilderness forest!

And that blurred ... How can I be here?

And the king, having reached Valdai,

The order was given: to break the bell.

They broke the bell, they broke it!

Valdai raked copper rubbish

And the bells were cast

And they're still pouring...

And an old prophetic story,

In the silence of the steppes, in the wilderness of the forest,

That bell, languishing,

Buzzing and beating under the arc.

In fact, later the Novgorod veche bell was placed on the belfry of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, and in 1673, as the legend says, it was poured into« flashy» , otherwise« alarm» a bell that was rung to warn of a fire. Eight years later, this bell was exiled to the Nikolo-Karelsky Monastery - because its ringing in the night scared Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich.

On the wide Vadimova Square,
The bell hums mournfully.
Why does he convene Novgorod?
Are the posadniks being changed again?
Doesn't Chud the recalcitrant worry?
Did the Swedes break in or the knights?
Isn't it time to call the hunters
Take by force or will from Ugoria
Are silver and furs precious?
Did the Hanseatic goods come,
Ali again high-ranking ambassadors
From the Grand Duke of Moscow
Have you come for a rich tribute?
Not! The bell hums sadly...
Sings a feast for freedom sad,
Sings a farewell song with the fatherland...

"Forgive me, dear Novgorod!
Do not call you to the veche to me,
Do not buzz me still:
Who is on God? Who is in Novgorod?
Forgive me, temples of God,
My oak towers!
I sing for you for the last time
I'm giving you a farewell bell.
Come on, you terrible storm,
Tear out my cast-iron tongue,
You break the edges of my copper,
So as not to sing in Moscow, far from me,
Is it about my bitter grief,
Is it about my tearful fate,
So as not to amuse with a sad song
I have Tsar Ivan in the tower.

Forgive me, my named brother, my exuberant Volkhov, forgive me!
Without me you celebrate joy, without me you are sad.
This time has flown by... not to return it to us,
Like joy, and grief, we shared in half!
How many times you muffled my sad ringing with waves,
As more than once you danced to my roar, my exuberant Volkhov.
I remember how you made noise under the boats of Yaroslav,
Like a farewell prayer, I buzzed your waves.
I remember how Bogolyubsky ran from our walls,
How we thundered with you: "Death to you, Suzdalians, or captivity!"
I remember: you saw off Alexander to Izhora;
I met the winner with my laudatory ringing.
I thundered, it used to be sonorous, - well done gathered,
And foreign merchants trembled for goods,
The Germans in Riga turned pale, and, hearing me,
Lithuanian drove a wild swift horse.
And I am a city, and I am free with a sonorous voice
Now to the Germans, then to the Swedes, then to Chud, then to Lithuania!
Yes, the holy time has passed: the time of troubles has come!
If I could, I would melt into rivers of copper tears, no!
I'm not you, my violent Volkhov! I don't cry, I sing!
Will anyone exchange tears for a song - for mine?
Listen... today, my old friend, I'll swim on you,
Tsar Ivan is taking me to hostile Moscow.
Gather all the waves, all the boulders, all the jets -
Smash into fragments, into chips you are Moscow boats,
And hide me at the bottom of your sandy blue waters
And call me more often with a silvery wave:
Maybe from the deep waters you suddenly heard my voice,
And for liberty and for the veche, our native city will rise.

Over the river, over the foamy Volkhov,
On the wide Vadimova Square,
The bell hums mournfully;
Volkhov splashes and beats and foams
O sharp-chested boats of the Muscovites,
And on pure azure, in the skies,
Heads of the temples of saints, white stone
Glowing with golden tears.

Veche Novgorod bell

There are many legends about the fate of the veche bell. In his fate, in addition to the obviously fictional, fantasy or strongly rethought over the centuries, there is a lot of real, historically justified. In 1478, wanting to deprive Novgorod of its independence and seeking to annex its vast possessions to Moscow, Ivan III approached the Lord Veliky Novgorod with an army and laid siege to it. At the same time, the Moscow prince raised the question of the veche system with all severity: “I’ll keep the bell ... don’t be, the posadnik won’t be, but keep the state for us” ... And if the “black people” stood up for the veche system, then the boyars tried to come as “complaintants” to the king. As N.M. Karamzin wrote: “The boyars did not stand for either the veche bell or the posadnik, but they stood for their estates.”

The events of this time in the annals are described literally by the day.

On December 14, as the Sophia Second Chronicle reports, “Novgorod ambassadors taught to beat with their foreheads, and the bell was put aside, so that the sovereign would lay down his heart and give up dislike, and would not teach a conclusion, and would not stumble into their estates in the lands and waters and in their stomachs them".

The chronicler also indicates the price that the Novgorod boyars demanded for the refusal of the veche bell - the inviolability of the estates, the refusal to "withdraw" from the Novgorod land, and the release from the border service.

On January 10, 1478, accepting this “salary,” Ivan III demanded that the Novgorodians liberate Yaroslav's Court, where the veche and veche institutions were located.

On January 18, the leaders were browing about serving the Moscow sovereign, and a document confirming this is no longer adopted at the veche, but at the council of the lords, at the Vladychny Court. The chronicler remarks: "On that day, there would be no eternity in Novgorod."

“On March 5, the great prince came to Moscow ... And after himself the prince commanded great from Novgorod and bring their eternal bell to Moscow, and he was brought and brought it to the bell tower in the square with other bells to ring.”

But with such a decision of the fate of the most free bell of Russia, popular rumor did not want to agree. And a legend was born (or rather, many legends) that the Novgorod eternal, sent to Moscow, did not appear there, contrary to the sovereign will - it crashed on the steep slopes of Valdai and gave life to the famous Valdai bells, which from the moment of their miraculous birth are destined to wander forever for long Russian roads, to sing about liberty, now, disturbing the souls of people, now, consoling, and wait for the time to return to Novgorod (and they will return only when freedom does not come to Russia), in order to merge again into a veche bell. Then a free ringing will float over Russia, and all our troubles and troubles will end.

What is the legendary veche bell?

The miniature from the Illuminated Chronicle shows a veche bell tied with ropes (like a prisoner), loaded on a sleigh and prepared for shipment to Moscow. And above - a panorama of Novgorod with St. Sophia Cathedral and St. Sophia Belfry, the bells of which are overshadowed by the head with a cross. Nearby is a belfry with a single bell - the veche Sofiysky, above which there is no cross, since it was civil, secular, and not church. The miniature depicts two veche bells. And there is nothing strange in this, because in Novgorod there were two vechas: on Yaroslav's court and on the Sofia side.

On another image from the Ancient Chronicler of the Illuminated Chronicle, one can see the simultaneous convening of two veche meetings, at each of which its own veche bell sounds. For all the conventions of the picture, the peculiarity of ringing in a swinging, chape bell is still visible. Both Veche Novgorod bells were swinging.

In principle, little outwardly distinguished these two bells. True, the court bell was, apparently, the earlier and most popular - chronicles about it are found constantly from the 12th to the 15th centuries. and much more often than about Sofia.

Researchers of the 19th century called the veche bell "the Korsun bell", thus emphasizing not only that it was cast by a European master, but also that the ringing techniques were the same as in Europe. And the very tradition of using civil bells along with church bells is European. Gradually, it weakened in Russia in connection with the destruction of the system of veche government, the strengthening of a single centralized state power and a special role in it Orthodox Church, but most importantly in connection with the development of their own peculiar view of the nature of the bell.

The bell hums mournfully.

Why does he convene Novgorod?

Are the posadniks being changed again?

Doesn't Chud the recalcitrant worry?

Did the Swedes break in or the knights?

Isn't it time to call the hunters

Take by force or will from Ugoria

Are silver and furs precious?

Did the Hanseatic goods come,

Ali again high-ranking ambassadors

From the Grand Duke of Moscow

Have you come for a rich tribute?

Not! The bell hums sadly...

Sings a feast for freedom sad,

Sings a farewell song with the fatherland...
"Forgive me, dear Novgorod!

Do not call you to the veche to me,

Do not buzz me still:

Who is on God? Who is in Novgorod?

Forgive me, temples of God,

My oak towers!

I sing for you for the last time

I'm giving you a farewell bell.

Come on, you terrible storm,

Tear out my cast-iron tongue,

You break the edges of my copper,

So as not to sing in Moscow, far from me,

Is it about my bitter grief,

Is it about my tearful fate,

So as not to amuse with a sad song

I have Tsar Ivan in the tower.

On the wide Vadimova Square,

The bell hums mournfully;

Volkhov splashes and beats and foams

O sharp-chested boats of the Muscovites,

And on pure azure, in the skies,

Heads of the temples of saints, white stone

Glowing with golden tears.

EVENING BELL OF NOVGOROD.
(Legends and Reality)

Everything related to the Novgorod Veche Republic, Veche, Veche Bell still excites the imagination and is overgrown with legends. The purpose of the presented material is to try to recreate the paintings historical fiction and historical realities. Materials are published in compliance with all publication rules historical documents, with the exception of hard characters in the spelling of words and the change in their endings (without affecting the quoted texts).

EVENING BELL.

Among the historical names and historical relics that the history of the Russian land left to posterity, two of them, far from large, both as a name and as a relic, undoubtedly fell to a fairly large fame.

Who does not know that name and that relic that I understand? - This name is Martha Boretskaya, the widow of one of the former Novgorod posadniks, better known under the name of Martha the posadnitsa, and the relic is a veche bell.

What were the special reasons as a result of which these two, far from large, historical magnitudes were reflected, almost equally and inseparably, by historical immortality? Why are these values so vividly cut into our common memory?

The events with which these historical figures are connected belong to the 15th century, which is very distant from us and far from bright in the history of the Russian land. All this century was rather colorless, without historical reliefs, for which human memory easily clings and carries them with it to immortality; The fourteenth century gave us more prominent historical reliefs; The sixteenth too, and even very bright ones. In the 14th century, such historical events as the Battle of Kulikovo, the invasion of Tokhtamysh, Tamerlane stand out vividly. In the 16th century, they stand out in relief against the general background of the history of the Russian land: the conquest of the Astrakhan kingdom, the capture of Kazan - these subsequent witnesses of domination over the Russian land Tatar yoke, the appearance of a printing press on Russian soil, the legendary conquest of the Siberian kingdom by the same legendary historical figures(Ermak, Ring).

Nothing like this, apparently, represents the 15th century, so loud in the history of the whole world (the martyrdom of Hus, the burning of Joan of Arc, the beginning of printing, the discovery of America, the sea route of Vasco de Gama; and how many bright names! ) In the history of the Russian land, this century is a complete colorlessness.

But out of this colorlessness, only one event stands out brightly - the conquest of Novgorod, and in the focus of this event are, like bright points, those two historical quantities that I named above. It is unlikely that anyone will dispute that these two relatively small, even insignificant, quantities in our imagination obscure such, undoubtedly, a very large value in the history of the Russian land, as Moscow Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich III, the conqueror of Novgorod, who advanced to the height of historical immortality and this very Marfa, and this insignificant bell, which would now seem miserable in any Russian village.

However, the reason for this brightness still remains unclear to us. What is she in? It is in our imagination, in our historical reflexes. But why does our imagination not stop at the conquest of Pskov? After all, his fate was no less tragic, like the fate of the Lord of Veliky Novgorod. Isn't this lamentation of the chronicler about the death of his city deeply touching? - “About the most glorious city of Pskov the Great Why do you complain and cry? And the beautiful city of Pskov answered: why don’t we complain, why don’t weep and mourn our desolation? For a multi-winged eagle flew at me, full of wings of lion nails, and three cedars of Livanov were taken from me - and my beauty, and riches, and my children, I let God for our sins, and created an empty land, and ruined our city, and my people captivity. and digging up my marketplaces, and other markets with horse feces, and scouting our father and brethren, where our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have not been, and there our fathers and brothers and our friends have led us, and our mothers and sisters in desecration dasha. And some in the city many are tonsured into blacks, and wives into blacks, and go to monasteries, not wanting to go in full from their city to other cities ”(Pskov, years [inventory] I, 287).

And, meanwhile, this tragic moment remains in the fog, and the same moment in the life of Novgorod attracts both our imagination and our sympathies.

Why does the artist's imagination rest on the latter, and why does his pencil draw this gray-haired Martha, a pitiful old woman, and this pitiful bell carried on wood? Why does the artist’s brush not reproduce the stern image of the triumphant himself, in whose victorious procession, at the tail of this solemn procession, they dragged this gray-haired old woman, and this disgraced bell, turned into the shameful seat of a Moscow driver?

I will not be mistaken, it seems to me, if I allow myself to assert that in early youth we all wept over the fate of this poor old woman and this disgraced bell, and if we did not weep, then we deeply sympathized, all the same, with them.

Who at one time did not read Karamzin's "Martha the Posadnitsa"? - This is where, in our opinion, the source of popularity of both the unfortunate posadnitsa and the bell - the "eternal bell", as the chronicler calls it.

Undoubtedly, no one will dare to deny Karamzin the vast, monumental knowledge of the history of the Russian land and its historical and everyday coloring. Whoever brought our entire historical past out of the darkness of the archives into the light of God, who for decades had as his interlocutors the sheets of annals and archival scrolls faded from time to time, he could not help but be imbued with the spirit of that distant life and not absorb its living, for us dead, speech. .

And, meanwhile, he makes Martha the posadnitsa say such an oratorical word:
“The hour of our liberty will soon strike, and the veche bell, its ancient voice, will fall from the tower of Yaroslav and be silent forever! .. Then, then we will envy the happiness of peoples who have never known freedom. Her formidable shadow will appear to us like a pale dead man, and torment our hearts with useless remorse!.. But know, O Novgorod! that with the loss of freedom, the very source of your wealth will dry up: it enlivens diligence, refines sickles and makes the fields golden; she draws foreigners into our walls with the treasures of trade; it also inspires the ships of Novgorod, when they rush over the waves with a rich cargo ... Poverty, poverty will punish unworthy citizens who did not know how to preserve the heritage of their fathers! Your glory will fade, O Great City, your populous ends will be empty; wide streets overgrown with grass, and your splendor, having disappeared forever, will be a fable of the nations. In vain, a curious wanderer among the sad ruins wants to look for the place where the veche gathered, where the house of Yaroslav and the marble image of Vadim stood: no one will point them out to him. He will ponder sadly and will only say: Novgorod was here! ..

In another place, during the funeral of the Novgorodians who fell in the Battle of Shelon, Karamzin puts into the mouth of Martha the posadnitsa such an ornate speech:

“Honor and glory to the brave! shame and reproach to the timid! Here lie famous knights; their deeds were accomplished; they have calmed down in the grave and no longer owe the fatherland anything, but the fatherland owes them eternal gratitude. O warriors of Novgorod! who among you does not envy this lot? The brave and the cowardly die; blessed is the one whose faithful fellow citizens regret and whose death they are proud of! Look at this old man, the father of Mikhailov: bent by years and illnesses, childless at the end of his life, he thanks heaven, for Novgorod buries his great son. Take a look at this young widow: marriage singing is combined for her with the hymns of death; but she is firm and generous, for her husband died for the fatherland... People! is it pleasing to the Almighty to preserve your existence; if a formidable cloud will dissipate over us and the sun will still illuminate the triumph of freedom in Novgorod, then this place will be sacred to you! Let famous wives decorate it with flowers, as I now decorate with them the grave of my dearest of my sons ... (Martha scatters flowers) ... and a brave knight, once an enemy of the Boretskys; but his shadow reconciled with me: we both loved the fatherland!.. Let the elders, men and young men glorify the death of the heroes here and curse the memory of the traitor Demetrius! ..

No matter how sentimental all this is and no matter how false, in the sense of the color of the time in which the described took place, however, perhaps, as a result of this precisely, the speeches of Martha the posadnitsa, smacking of romanticism, and tragic fate Veche bells indelibly cut into the soul of young readers, and because of this Marfa the posadnik and the veche bell became, one might say, the property of public sympathy more, perhaps, than historical events and persons of a much higher category.

I consider it superfluous to evoke in the reader's memory all the vicissitudes of Novgorod's tragic struggle for its autonomy. I will only recall the outcome of this struggle.

The ultimate goal of the desires of Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich III, "collector of the Russian land", was - the destruction of the last remnants of local autonomies, which at that time were still in Novgorod and Pskov. And he deftly led this business. Taking advantage of the personal enmity of two noble Novgorodians. Zakhar Ovinov and Podvoisky Nazar, who came to Moscow to sue, Ivan Vasilievich showed an air that he considered them ambassadors from all of Novgorod. Novgorod protested. Then the Grand Duke sent an army against him, but in order not to be suspected of violence, of violating the age-old rights of a powerful republic, he deftly forced what he wanted from Novgorod.

Thinking that guilt would divert the storm from them, the Novgorodians transferred the guilt of Nazar and Zakhar to the whole of Novgorod.

- We are guilty of that, - said the Novgorod ambassadors with Bishop Theophilus at the head: - that they sent Nazar and Zakhar.
“And if you, lord and all my fatherland, Veliky Novgorod, have shown themselves guilty before us, the Grand Dukes,” answered Ivan Vasilyevich: “and now you testify to yourself, and ask: what kind of state do we want, then we want such a state in our Fatherland Veliky Novgorod, as we have in Moscow.

Novgorodians did not ask about any state!

Veche sends a new embassy - to propitiate the Grand Duke with increased tribute. But Ivan Vasilievich does not need that: the tribute will not leave him. And he needs the Novgorodians to call him their sovereign, instead of the master, as they have called him hitherto.

“I told you,” he repeated to the new embassy, “that we want such a state as in our lower land, in Moscow.

Novgorodians still did not want to understand what was required of them. Then Ivan Vasilyevich spoke directly.

- You hit me with your forehead so that I show you how our state should be in our fatherland (that is, in Novgorod). So know! - our state is like this: I’m sure there won’t be a bell in Novgorod! posadnik - not to be! and the lands that are behind you - give us, so that all this is ours.

Then the last cry of despair was heard in Novgorod.

- Let's go fight! Let's die for Saint Sophia!

But it was already too late. Exhausted by hunger and siege, Novgorod surrendered. On January 15, 1478, Novgorodians swore allegiance to the Grand Duke, and soon the arrests of more prominent representatives of Novgorod society began. All of them were taken to Moscow in chains.

The veche bell was removed from the veche tower, and soon Martha the posadnitsa was also taken.

The drawings of the artist A.P. Ryabushkin attached here show: on the title vignette - the removal of the bell from the tower, and on a separate sheet - the train of the bell and Martha Boretskaya, taken away along the snowy road to Moscow.

What is particularly striking in this event is the unusually stern tone with which Muscovite contemporaries treated Novgorod and its impotent attempts to retain at least a faint shadow of the former autonomy. Reading the Novgorod and Sofia chronicles, which then replaced public opinion and the press, which did not yet exist at that time - chronicles, the pages of which are full of merciless accusations of Novgorodians in "treason", in "Latinism", in "godlessness" - you do not believe that pious monks wrote this, and you involuntarily wonder why these bilious Philippics are called "Novgorod" and "Sofia" chronicles. Throughout the tone, it is clear that both the Moscow hand and the Moscow heart were leading the chronicler's pen. In some places, only in the Moscow text of the annals, timid insertions from the annals actually written in Novgorod, and written not with bile, like Moscow, but with tears, seemed to accidentally fall. In one place in Sofia I chronicle these tears, as it were, involuntarily poured out of the eyes of a Novgorodian, and only due to an oversight of the Moscow chronicler were left not erased: Moscow, and captivate Novgorod land ... otherwise I would write something, and I have nothing to write from many complaints ”(Sophia I, 19).

The immortal Karamzin, studying the chronicles for his immortal work, guessed with the artist's instinct which side the truth was on, and therefore he gave all his sympathies to Novgorod in his also immortal story - Marfa the Posadnitsa.

In essence, what then did Muscovites accuse Novgorod in general and Marfa Boretskaya in particular? If we translate the chronicle into modern language, it turns out that Moscow then accused Novgorod of what it now accuses Kyiv of - of separatism. But if this was in reality, then impartiality obliges us to assert that Novgorod was forced to this precisely by Moscow, and, moreover, with an unconcealed, albeit disguised by it, intent. That Moscow's accusations were insincere was expressed much earlier than Karamzin by people almost contemporaries of the events about which in question- people for whom there was no calculation either to flatter Novgorod, which had long ceased to exist politically, or to slander Moscow and its people, with whom they personally and thoroughly got acquainted. In this case, Herberstein's testimony acquires the significance of the historical importance of a large size. He says: "Navagardia gentem guogue peste moscovitica, duam eo commeantes mosci secum invexerunt, corruptissima est." “The Moscow infection, which the Muscovites brought to the Novgorod land, turned this most humane and most honest people into the most depraved,” is a very strong word.

I repeat, no matter how much tragedy in history recent years existence of Veche Novgorod, however, these tragic years, no doubt, would have remained one dark, colorless page in the history of the gathering of the Russian land, if not for the artistic genius of Karamzin.

Indeed, what do the chronicles give us about these years of agony in one of the brilliant republics of the Slavic north? – Very few, especially local chronicles. In them, Martha Boretskaya herself is a completely colorless person. It is as if they are afraid to talk about her, or, if they are not afraid, then they talk little, because they considered it superfluous to talk about a person who is too well known to everyone. So the chroniclers speak about the capture of the famous Novgorod citizen as if in passing. One: .... "and Marfa Isakov and her grandson led (the Grand Duke) to Moscow." This is what the 1st Sofia Chronicle says. The chronicler of the II Sofiysky said a little more: “On the same day (February 2), on Monday, in Novgorod, the great prince ordered to capture the noblewoman of Novgorod Marfa Isakov” (II Sof., 220). Only the day of Boretskaya's arrest was precisely determined - Monday; this Monday was truly difficult for Martha.

For this, the Moscow accuser did not spare paints to denigrate the unfortunate woman who, in the struggle for the sacred rights of her motherland, lost two adult sons-heroes and was left with only one granddaughter. He refers to her face the most abusive epithets: according to him, it was a demon woman who seemed to turn the whole of Novgorod, to his detriment, and to the demon (probably Moscow) for joy, which allegedly inclined everyone to Latinism, moreover - I wanted to get married - an old woman! - for Prince Mikhail Olelkovich, to reign in Novgorod and Kyiv at once, since after death Kyiv prince Simeon Olelkovich, the throne of Kyiv went to his brother, Mikhail.

Consequently, the annals give us only a negative, or rather a disapproving assessment of the famous Russian woman. And, despite all the philippics of Moscow Demosthenes, the personality of Martha passed into the memory of posterity as the most sympathetic; even more - she alone brightened up the unsightly pages of the history of the fifteenth century of the Russian land.

The chroniclers also speak a little about the Veche Bell, but there was a lot of touching in this little.

And led; (Grand Duke), - says one chronicler, - lower the eternal bell and ruin the veche "... (Soph[iyskaya] I, 33).

... “do not be in Novgorod,” says another chronicler, “neither a posadnik, nor a tysetsky, nor a veche, and the eternal bell was taken down and brought to Moscow” ... (Soph[iyskaya] I, 19).

But the mention of the further fate of this shrine of the Lord of Veliky Novgorod is especially touching:

... "and brought byst (this is a bell) to Moscow, and lifting it to the bell tower, in the square, with other bells to ring" ...

"With other bells!" - Why, there were many such "other bells" in Novgorod; but they were not taken and not with them they hung the veche bell to ring, but with the Moscow ones. This is what the Novgorodian heart bleeds over, and the chronicler cannot write behind tears - "from many complaints."

I hope that now the idea that I expressed above is becoming more conclusive - the idea that strengthening in our public memory historical events and faces are greatly helped not only by history, but also by its “illegitimate child” - a historical novel.

The most gifted of Russian historians, Karamzin, brilliantly proved this with his “Marfa the Posadnitsa” and the veche bell, inseparable from her name. It is not surprising: the "illegitimate child of history" is the child of the love of the beautiful Clio.

D. Mordovtsev.

On February 2, 1918, members of the Novgorod Society of Lovers of Antiquities gathered for their regular meeting in the library of the Novgorod Gubmuseum. The agenda included whole line question and one of them was called like this: “Message by P. Gusev “Veche bell”. Only four years later (in 1922) did this message appear on the pages of the second issue of the provincial journal of post-revolutionary Novgorod, the Novgorod Veche. But not only the article was a mystery, but also the name of its author.

As it turns out, few people knew and saw P. Gusev. The question about him arose in 1975 in the correspondence of Novgorod historians, museum workers Nikolai Grigoryevich Porfiridov, the first director of the Novgorod Provincial Museum (20-30 years of the twentieth century) and Sergei Mikhailovich Smirnov, a friend and colleague of Porfiridov in the museum. Here is what N.G. wrote about P. Gusev. Porfiridov: “What you quote about P.L. Gusev from his article, it is really somewhat strange: “the man is a mystery”, “no one has ever seen his image and we don’t even know how the initials of his name and patronymic are deciphered.”

For us, dear, characteristic Petr Lvovich, head of the Library Archaeological Institute, the invariable "summer resident" of Novgorod every summer, a member of both Novgorod pre-revolutionary scientific societies - a living, concrete figure, with his long-brimmed old-fashioned, "redipole", long "half-meter" mouthpiece. Somewhere I also have a photograph of him in the hall of the Ancient Storage, but I’m wondering - but I’m sure I haven’t seen him anywhere biographical information about him, where and when was he born? What connected him with Novgorod so tightly? No one, perhaps, now and find out. (OPI NGOMZ. F. 11. Op. 1. Item 45. L. 1.rev. - 2.)

P. Gusev is a member of the Novgorod Society of Antiquity Lovers.

Novgorod veche bell.
History reference.

In the pre-Mongolian period, veche meetings, apparently, were distributed throughout all the principalities of the Russian Slavs. At least, the famous place in the Laurentian Chronicle under 1176 definitely testifies that "from the beginning, Novgorodians, and Smolnyans, and Kyyans, and Polochans, and all the authorities, as if on a thought, converge forever." But under the influence of the growing princely power, these meetings gradually lost their significance everywhere, except Novgorod land, in which the constitution of 1017 (Yaroslav's letters), on the contrary, gave the veche establishment an advantage over princely power. Thus, it was only in Novgorod that veche assemblies subsequently received the force of a permanent state institution.

Like any institution that has vital beginning The Novgorod veche experienced its evolution over the course of four and a half centuries of its existence. It did not immediately develop into those forms that we see significantly developed in the XIV-XV centuries. The same can be assumed about the moment of convening the veche, i.e., precisely about the subject on which our reference will be treated.

In the 1st Novgorod[od] chronicle, which is the most authoritative for us, as it was preserved for the most part in the synodal list of the times of independence, it first speaks of the convening of a veche in different expressions: sometimes the initiative of the meeting still comes from the prince, as, for example [er]: “Mstislav (Udaloy) called a veche (1214), Mstislav create a veche (1215), Yaroslav (Vsevolodovich) create a veche (1228, 1230). G.)"; and sometimes the Novgorodians on their own "make a veche (1209), create a veche (1228), make a veche (1291)". Nothing is said about the use of the bell to alert citizens. But for the first time, in the same chronicle, under 1270, it is written: “phoned the veche in Yaroslavl’s court” and then, in the XIV century, “Fyodor and Ondreshko called another veche” (1342), Novgorodians called the veche (1346 .). Does this mean that the Novgorodians only in the second half of the XIII century. they began to use the bell to convene a veche, and earlier they gathered citizens by means of verbal notification - one cannot say, but one can assume. It is impossible to assert because church bells were in Novgorod already in the 11th century: Vseslav of Polotsk removes the bells from St. Sophia in 1066. But, on the other hand, the veche bell was special, not a church bell, but the only one in all of Novgorod, belonging to the veche ritual at Yaroslav's Court, although St. Nicholas Cathedral stood right next to it, which had its own bell, but not a veche . And this particular, ritual bell could have been wound up not from the very beginning of Novgorod independence, but later, with the development of the veche institution in general.

Church bells were borrowed by the Novgorodians not from Byzantium, where there were no bells at all (beats were used instead), but from the West, perhaps from Germany. Let's remember that St. Anthony the Roman, in early XII c., according to legend, he brought a bell with him. Bells were not cast in Russia until the 14th century, and when Archbishop Vasily of Novgorod in 1342 decided to cast his own bell for St. Sophia, then “bring the master from Moscow” (II and III Novgorod [gorod] chronicle [isi]), and this master, according to the Nikon chronicle, was Boris - a Roman. This means that the veche bell was of the Western, Catholic type, and therefore not very large. Even the very custom of calling popular assembly the ringing of a famous bell could have been brought from the West, since we know that in London, for example (the news is in Traill's book), a popular assembly was convened in the fence of the Cathedral of St. Paul, at the sound of a large bell.

What appearance was the Novgorod veche bell? And how did they call him? About this we have archaeological site not really High Quality, is a miniature of the "Royal Chronicler" late XVI v., reproduced in the Collection of the Novgorod [od] society of lovers of antiquity, vol. 2nd, fig. 8th, which shows how in 1342 Onciphorus and Matthew rang the veche at St. Sophia (above), and Fedor and Andrey rang the veche in Yaroslavl Dvor (below). It can be seen that the ringing of bells was made not by swinging the tongue, as now, but by swinging the bell itself, as they still ring in Western Europe. It would be tempting to assume that the convocation of the veche was carried out in precisely this way by ringing, swinging the bell itself; then such ringing would be sharply distinguished from the church ringing by swinging the tongue. But the fact is that in some places in Russia church bells are still preserved, set in motion by swinging, and even in the same facial “Royal Chronicler”, in part of it dedicated to the end of the reign of Vasily Ivanovich and the beginning of the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, there is, by the way, a drawing, a copy of which is attached to the article by F.I. Buslaev. For the history of Russian painting of the 16th century. (Historical essays on folk literature and art, vol. II, p. 312, fig. 13). This drawing is explained by the text: “then I, in the spring, the month of June 3, began to preach the evangelism, and the ears broke off at the bell at the evangelist, and fell from the wooden bell towers, and did not break. And the faithful king commanded to attach iron ears to him; and attaching ears to it after the great fire, and placing it on the same wooden bell tower, in the same place, near St. Ivan under the bells, and the ringing voice in the old way. (Royal book, according to the list of the patriarchal library, St. Petersburg, 1769, pp. 136–137). Here they also ring the bell by means of a special wooden lever attached to the beam on which the bell hangs, which sways with the tongue, according to Western custom. It turns out that everywhere in Russia, before the construction of large bells, which could no longer be swung, small bells were rang not with the tongue, but by swinging the entire bell. It is true that all the illustrations of the huge codex, known as the "Royal Chronicler", are extremely handicraft, template work, probably by the masters of the royal school of icon painters in Moscow. Retrieve the devil's life even Moscow XVI in. of these illustrations is very difficult, and for more ancient period downright dangerous. Therefore, in response to the question we posed, we can only say that the veche bell was not large, apparently hung on a special bell tower, and they rang it by swinging the bell itself along with the tongue; how its sound differed from other city church bells cannot be determined at present.

During the liquidation of the veche order in Novgorod in 1478, there is some chronicle news about the bell. “February 8 at the gathering, the great prince ordered the eternal bell to be lowered and the veche to ruin” (Soph[iyskaya] I-I [chronicle]) and further: “March 5, the great prince came to Moscow on Thursday for 5 weeks of fasting. And after himself, the prince ordered great ones from Novgorod, and bring their eternal bell to Moscow; and brought to be, and they carried him to the bell tower in the square with the other bells to ring. (Sof[iyskaya] II-I [chronicle]). Karamzin understood this news somewhat differently. “They brought to Moscow the glorious veche bell of the Novgorodskaya,” he says, “and raised it to the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral, on the square” (History of the State). Russian [Russian], VI, 81).

The further history of the bell is already based on legends and obscure documents. Guessing is possible, but nothing definitive.

One legend indicates that the veche bell was poured under Grozny and placed not on the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral, but in the Kremlin, but on the wall at the Spassky Gate, in a special small turret and served for the alarm, and then Tsar Feodor Alekseevich was sent to Nikolo- Korelsky monastery, 34 versts from Arkhangelsk.

This tradition has its grounds in the testimony of the History of the Russian Hierarchy. There, in the description of the Korelsky Nikolaev Monastery, when transferring royal letters to the monastery, it is said: in addition, this sovereign (i.e., Feodor Alekseevich) granted a bell to the monastery, with the following inscription: “In the summer of 7182 July, on the 25th day, pour out this alarm bell The Kremlin of the city of the Spassky Gate, weighing 150 pounds. Below that inscription is carved: “7189 March, on the 1st day of the Named Great Sovereign and Grand Duke Feodor Aleksievich, all the great and small and white autocrats of Russia by decree, this bell is given to the sea in the Nikolaev Korelsky Monastery for the sovereign’s long-term health and for his sovereign parents in eternal remembrance is indispensable for Abbot Arseny. - In this document there is no mention of the veche Novgorod bell, and the whole guess arose, apparently, from the fact that the bell was sent precisely to the Korelsky monastery, founded by a certain Dvina noblewoman, Martha, who until recently was identified with the famous Martha Boretskaya.

Another legend is based on the same cast bell, which is still in the Moscow Armory.

Even Karamzin, in the 182nd note to the VI volume of his history, noted that “in the Kremlin Arsenal they show an alarm bell, cast in 1714 from an old alarm bell: they assure that this last one was the veche Novgorod one.”

In the inventory, the Moscow Armory Chamber (part VII, vol. 10th M. 1893), in the category " miscellaneous items”, under No. 9434, the following is registered: “alarm bell”, with the inscription: “1714 (July?) On the 30th day, pour this alarm bell, which crashed, of the Kremlin of the city to the Spassky Gate. It weighs 108 pounds in it. Entered the Chamber from the Moscow Arsenal in 1821. Despite the official nature of this inventory, the accuracy of the inscription given here cannot be particularly trusted. M.I. Polyansky, in his “Memo” (Art. 6. Vechevoy and ancient church bells, p. 57) assures that he personally saw the inscription on the bell in this form: “July 1714, on the 30th day, pour this alarm bell from the old the same bell that was broken. Kremlin of the city to the Spassky Gates. Weight in it is 108 pounds. Lil sey k o l o k o l m a s t e r i v a n m o t o r i n .

Not being able to accurately establish the continuity of the bell poured in 1714 from the ancient Novgorod veche, nevertheless, we have to admit that this bell has the greatest right to originate from Novgorod. At least in Moscow, at the very beginning of the last century, until 1812, in the Arsenal, Karamzin was given this bell as cast from the Novgorod Veche.

P. Gusev's message to Novgorod. "Vech[eva] Kolokol" was heard at a meeting of the Novgorod Society of Lovers of Antiquity on February 2, 1918.