The vitae of St. Nicholas and his hagiographical icons in Russia

Abstract

The medieval Russian literary works and icons devoted to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker are best studied in their relationship to one another. Without a detailed knowledge of literary texts it is often impossible to determine the subject of the icon representation, on the other hand, particular pictorial renditions can point to a specific literary text.

This study is devoted to a detailed analysis of various phenomena related to St. Nicholas in Russia. After a short historical introduction of the saint (Chapter I), the following subjects are discussed or described: the most important literary texts pertaining to the Wonderworker (Chapter II); the hagiographical icon as a genre and the data on the saint found in the pattern books (Chapter III); the most famous wonderworking icons of Nicholas in Russia (Chapter IV); various minor sources (oral tales and legends, broadsides, spiritual verses, heroic epics, etc.) revealing the popularity of the saint in Russia (Chapter V); the catalogue of researched icons (Chapter VI); and, finally, the iconography and the literary sources of 44 scenes representing the events from the life of Nicholas, as well as his posthumous miracles (Chapter VII).

The dissertation is accompanied by an appendix containing 111 illustrations of 22 complete hagiographical icons and 89 single scenes, and by a bibliography.

The work was based primarily on the Old Russian manuscripts and paintings, but made use of important and numerous materials published in the last two hundred years, and relevant to the study of the Wonderworker.