«Slovo o nestroenijach i bezčinijach» Maksima Greka. K istočnikam Plača Vasilii

The Discourse on instability and chaos by Maxim the Greek. At the sources of Vasilija’s lamentation The article suggests that the protagonist of the Lamentation, supposedly written in the mid-17th century, is an allegorical personification of "power", a woman named Vasilija, dressed in widowhood and surrounded by wild beasts. Her lamentation contains numerous references to the prophecies of the Old Testament prophets and aims to illustrate the situation of chaos of the present epoch. The character evokes the image of the "virgin caste" of Pauline origin (2 Cor. 11, 1–2), used by Savonarola in his canzone De Ruina Ecclesiae. Maxim elaborates this Savonarolian model, taking into account the canzone De Ruina Mundi, on the basis of a complex and neatly orchestrated biblical exegesis that highlights the allegory, not only in relation to the Russian State but as projected on universal history, illustrating the relationship between earthly power and the "kingdom of heaven" in eschatological terms.