The culture of Ancient Rus, like the culture of anyanother country, is the totality of spiritual values and material that created mankind in the process of its social and labor practice. Material culture is the development of technology, machines, tools, construction, etc. Spiritual culture - literature, science, ideology, art, education.
Культура Древней Руси отличалась высоким уровнем development. Unfortunately, many monuments did not reach us, but died in the fire of fires, wars, invasions. Mostly preserved literature, cathedrals, icons, objects of religious cults. The basis of culture is the cultural heritage left from the East Slavic tribes. Great influence on it had the Varangians, nomadic peoples, the adoption of Christianity, as well as the countries of Western Europe and, of course, Byzantium.
Writing in Russia appeared before the adoptionChristianity. At this point, the alphabet has already formed. And the very adoption of Christianity only contributed to the development of writing, enlightenment, and the spread of literacy.
On a very broad development in ancient RussiaWritten inscriptions on various handicraft products: embroidery, clay vessels, boots. Over time, under Yaroslav the Wise, they even opened a school in Kiev.
Along with the development of written literature, oral folk art widely spread, and, first and foremost, epics, which tell us about the creative and military work of our people.
Material culture of Ancient Russia
A high level in the development reached the architecture.About 60 architectural monuments of the pre-Mongol period were preserved. Until the middle of the X century. the buildings were exclusively wooden. It was the tree that was the main building material. It was used for erecting houses, palace buildings, city fortifications, churches. In these wooden buildings, the planning and volume structure was determined by a strong log structure and its natural parameters. But even with the "rigidity" of the building wooden system, the masters managed to plasticize it plasticically and compositionally to diversify.
One of the earliest stone buildings wasChurch of the Tithes. Later, the Golden Gate and St. Sophia Cathedral, other churches were built of stone. The walls inside the churches were richly decorated with frescoes, mosaics, icons. In many lands the main building material was a white stone. Its characteristic features are refinement, rich decorativeness, harmony of buildings, aspiration to the sky. From it, houses were built. Since the 14th century, defensive walls in cities have also been built.
In the stone cult construction foreverthe type of a flat cubic temple with parallel four naves in the interior space, six fast-pinned pillars supporting the domes and vaults was established. In the presence of a constructive and similar volumetric structure, the cult Russian buildings present a picture of a variety of voluminous shapes and sizes, and means for processing the decor of structures. Most buildings were distinguished by the unity of the constructive solution and the organic nature, their internal structure consistently and clearly expressed in external forms.
Musical Culture of Ancient Russia
The musical culture of Ancient Russia developed in two directions: folk art, folklore, and church music.
The ancient Slavs worshiped idols, they were pagans. They performed rites in their honor, accompanied by dances, songs, playing various musical instruments (harp, flute, ratchet).
Bright representatives of folk art -buffoons. These are professional wandering actors, who made fun of the people with songs and dances. With their art they actively contributed to the development of some literary genres - epic, drama, poetry. Skomorokhi possessed impeccable skill of entertainers - organizers of holidays, national funnies, acted as actors or musicians. Of course, the most important area in the musical art of that time was the folk song, especially that associated with the holidays of the agricultural calendar. The main genre of the epic is epic.
With the adoption of Christianity came the church singingfrom Byzantium. Then the church musical culture of ancient Russia was represented by a singalong singing. The melody of the song was recorded from above on the line of the text using a system of special conventional signs that indicated only the direction of the melody, but not the exact pitch of the sounds.
Christianity played a big role in the formation of both the musical and the whole culture of Ancient Rus as a whole. It defined the prospect of its development for many centuries ahead.
