When considering the intellectual situation of medieval Rus and Muscovy, scholars have offered either an over-enthusiastic view on the matter or a very negative perspective. In the first (typically Soviet) historiographical tradition, historians have been exaggeratedly praiseful of the intellectual creativity and achievements of the Rus and their successors. In the second, more pervasive interpretation in the West, historians have dressed a somber portrayal of the region, characterized by its "intellectual silence." While radically opposed in their conclusions, both perspectives considered the question on a large scale, as the subject was studied across the wide geographical area of Rus and Muscovy. Romanchuk's recent book offers a refreshing approach and an interesting re-assessment of the whole problem, in a successful attempt to uncover the reading and interpretive habits of one monastic community in the North of the Muscovite State, the Kirillo-Belozerskii monastery, in the course of the fifteenth century. The aims of the book are threefold: to offer a case-study of how and why an academic culture arises; to outline a micro-history of reading within the borders of the Byzantine Commonwealth; and to shed new light on the uses of the written word among the Slavs (xi-xii). More specifically, Romanchuk highlights how, at the Kirillov monastery, an interpretive approach inspired by the desert Fathers shifted to a more academic hermeneutics, which paralleled the evolution of the monastery's institutional structure. Inspired by Brian Stock's notion of textual community, here applied to the Kirillov monastery, the author convincingly shows how a common approach to the written word defined social cohesion at the monastery. The book is organized in two parts, with five chapters, an intermedium and an epilogue. In the first part, the author discusses historiography and the intellectual context in which the monastery arose and developed. The second part is strictly chronological and analyses the intellectual production of the Kirillov community from its foundation in 1397 to the death in 1501 of Efrosin, a prominent scribe and master of the monastery.
With the first chapter, Romanchuk emphasizes the importance of including translated works in his analysis and of limiting his focus in space and time, a consideration that was barely taken into account before. Chapter Two is more conceptual and analyses the textual interpretive strategies of monastic communities in Orthodox Christianity. Byzantine monastic pedagogy was based on a Neo-Platonic model of education, leading the student from ethics (moral practice), to physics (natural contemplation) and then to epoptics (contemplation of the divine). This tripartite structure is visible not only in John Climacus' Ladder of Divine Ascent, typical of desert hermeneutics, but also in John Damascene's Fountain of Knowledge, characteristic of academic pedagogy. Furthermore, the contemplative goals of desert pedagogy did not entail a rejection of reading or literacy, as has been claimed before, even though to reach a "bookless state," a union with God where books are no longer needed, the hesychast monk gradually restricted the number of books within his cursus (47). While in his works Climacus had ethical purposes in mind, Damascene in the Fountain of Knowledge approached hermeneutics through a heuristic inquiry inspired by the Aristotelian categories. In this academic trend, semantic categories offered the basic tools of natural contemplation. The fact that both traditions (desert and academic) co-existed in Byzantine pedagogy, and that a shift from one to the other occurred at Kirillov, illustrates how the existence of these two forms of hermeneutics--hermeneutics of reminiscence based on authorities (desert tradition) and hermeneutics of suspicion animated by skepticism (academic tradition), as defined by Paul Ricoeur and Brian Stock--cannot be understood as a conflict of interpretations.
Romanchuk distinguishes three main periods in the intellectual history of the Kirillov monastery, as well as an "intermediate" time, which match the rule of the monastery's hegumens and influential masters. The first, from 1397 to 1435, corresponds to the hegumenate of Kirill, the founder of the monastery; the second, to that of his successor Trifon (1435-1448); an intermediate period to that of Kassian, a time also characterized by power struggles within the monastery (1448- 1470); the scribe and master Efrosin (1470-1501) embodies the last period. These periods are interpreted in the light of a sharp analysis of the works available at the monastery's library, which aims at determining the way in which copies were adapted to the needs of the monks.
The Kirillov monastery was established in 1397 by Kirill, a disciple of St Sergius Radonezh, after receiving a call to leave the Simonov monastery in Moscow for the North. The lifestyle originally introduced at Belozero was strictly ascetic, in the tradition of the desert Fathers, while the organization of the monastery was modeled originally on the laura, a free association of monks around a hegumen. In a lavriote setting, teaching and social structure were attached to the abba's personality in interpreting the texts and leading the community. The library in its early period reveals how the monks were gradually drawn from the Apophthegmata of the desert Fathers towards more varied and advanced readings.
In the hegumenate of Trifon a coenobitic rule inspired by Athonite communities was introduced. With it came a new pedagogy, thus new books. This transition to a more rational organization did not happen without resistance, particularly among the older generation. The monastery started to show greater commitment towards secular affairs as well, which is partly reflected in the presence of more worldly and academic (rational) books linked to the Macedonian Renaissance of the ninth and tenth centuries. They constitute a corpus of secondary school textbooks of the trivium with a strong Bulgarian and Serbian component, notably Serbian translations elaborated on Mount Athos in the late fourteenth century. For instance, the Kir.-Bel. n. 10/1087, compiled at the time by Oleshka Palkin, consists of a grammar miscellany, with works of geography and history, as well as John Damascene's Dialectica. This codex emphasizes the concern for teaching the meaning of words, thus of texts. Glosses confirm this interest in defining vocabulary, historical characters and geographical places; the repetition of important passages in the copy confirms the pedagogical aim of the codex. After the departure of Trifon and in the hegumenate of Kassian, an intermediate period completes the transition from desert to academic pedagogy at the monastery. More manuscripts were compiled, notably short cosmographical compilations that circulated in the Byzantine world and were translated by the Serbs in the late fourteenth century. The Kirillov monastery, it seems, aimed at emulating Byzantine and Serbian pedagogy.
In the last decades of the fifteenth century, a new figure dominated the pedagogical scene. With Efrosin, the community expanded the corpus of texts (e.g. including historical works such as Flavius Josephus's Jewish Wars and the Alexander Romance) and their copies. The notes found in these new codices reveal that the texts circulated and were discussed among the monks. All in all, they show strong links to Byzantine miscellanies written with similar educative purposes in mind. Finally, the elaboration of bibliographic registers of codices, with information such as the title of texts, their incipit, foliotation and place in a miscellany, was probably aimed towards the needs of the school (for an easy access to common books) and/or of the monastery's liturgists. Romanchuk's rigorous analysis shows that academic interests within the monastery were not developed from the impulse of a secular patronage, but were in fact inherent to the teaching strategies of the monks. As such they also shaped the monastery as a coherent textual community. With such conclusions, the original goals of the book have been achieved successfully. Ultimately, beyond the Kirillov school per se, and in agreement with R.W. Southern's criteria to define "Scholastic humanism," Romanchuk also highlights the presence of a "scholastic moment in Byzantine humanism," one that was often considered absent in Byzantium and that is linked to the practices of secondary school education (267). It is stimulating to see how Byzantinists may generally take advantage from exploring the field of Slavic studies. It also points to a cruel gap in our knowledge of Byzantine humanism and education, a field that is now benefiting from a renewed interest.
The book ends with an extensive bibliography as well as a useful integrated index of names, places, works and concepts. This well- conceived study, although overly conceptual at times, offers a very refreshing perspective on the field of medieval Slavic history. Romanchuk's insistence on micro-history is fruitful and will, hopefully, inspire more works of this nature. His impressive study will benefit anyone interested in the intellectual and monastic culture of the medieval Slavs; in strategies of reading in the Byzantine and medieval Western traditions; and, more broadly, in the appearance and development of an academic (if not scholastic) culture.