New Tale

New Tale 

(full name, New Tale of the Glorious Russian Kingdom), a publicistic work written in Moscow by an anonymous author between December 1610 and January 1611, when the city was held by Polish interventionists.

The New Tale contains a fervent patriotic appeal for an armed revolt against the interventionists, praises the heroic defense of Smolensk, and condemns the traitors who cast their lot with the invaders, such as the boyar M. G. Saltykov and the wealthy merchant F. Andronov. The call to liberate the homeland is clothed in the traditional religious form of an appeal to defend the Orthodox faith. The New Tale eulogizes the patriarch Germogen, who, according to the author, strove to defend Orthodoxy and personified patriotism. The work was circulated in handwritten copies throughout Moscow and contributed to the strengthening of the national liberation movement.

REFERENCE

Droblenkova, N. F. Novata povest’ o preslavnom Rossiiskom tsarstve i sovremennaia ei agitatsionnaia patrioticheskaia pis’mennosl’. Moscow-Leningrad, 1960. (Includes text.)

A. M. SAKHAROV