Homesickness. A long-exposed confusion.

I don't care at all...

And yet, everything is the same.

But if a bush stands on the road, especially mountain ash ...

M. Tsvetaeva

Great sense of the motherland! Source of strength and inspiration. Unquenchable ardor of the soul. Joy and suffering. The courage and courage of those who defend the Fatherland, their native home and their parents, their king ... This is their native language, native culture, history ... Grief and longing for those who left their native places ...

But I would like to highlight one small issue in this immense topic, one side of love for one's native places. Why are people drawn to their native places like a bird? Why does a person return to his father's house? Why is he looking for fellow countrymen in a foreign land? There can be many answers, of course. I dare to touch the topic of memory ...

A whirlwind of questions arose after a small local airline plane made an emergency landing in a field somewhere in the Kurgan region. I went out, preoccupied with an unexpected flight delay, and suddenly ... turned into a child. No, not right away. Perhaps, at first I smelled some painfully familiar steppe wind. Warm, wormwood and full of childhood. For some reason, I found myself next to the horse, on a haystack. The horse is big, and the haystack is huge. Both creepy and joyful, and the tart taste of herbs tickles in the nostrils, giving a special taste to new sensations.

Having already sobered up from the first blow of smells, lying in the spikey grass, I firmly believed that I had been in childhood, about which I had not remembered anything for a long time (or maybe I didn’t know?). The steppe was stirred by the wind, touched the deep layers of memory, and from there, as from the silty bowels of a steppe lake, bubbles-memories began to rise and burst. Then I checked them with maternity hospitals and friends. Yes, no error, everything was accurate. I happened to be near the village where I was born ...

Secondarily, my interest in this phenomenon revived after a conversation with a Spaniard, who was taken to the USSR as a baby, in 1937.

I asked him how he felt when he first returned to his homeland, Spain? And he replied: the smell! Or rather, the smell. One - sea wind, and the other - soap, from a marble trough for public washing, which stood in the depths of the Spanish courtyard.

Well, what else? I went to Spain in a Zhiguli through all of Europe. The radio is on most of the time. Alien voices, music. But here in the Pyrenees, on some turn of the mountain road, unfamiliar music suddenly became familiar, and he, like a boy on his mother's breast, choked with tears of joy. And after was, native Spanish. music, there were songs familiar from childhood, but this feeling has not been repeated.

What is this, a simple coincidence of our intimate (and highly subjective) feelings?

But here I am reading Marcel Proust: “In Search of Lost Time”: “I ate my aunt's cookies, and my memory restored the pictures of childhood. Hermann Hesse describes such sensations in more detail, who devotes quite a lot of space to such a phenomenon in his biography: “My birth took place in the early evening on a warm July day, and the temperature of that hour is the one that I loved and unconsciously searched for all my life and the absence of which I perceived like deprivation. I have never been able to live in cold countries, and all the voluntarily undertaken wanderings of my life are directed to the south ... ”But still, most of the evidence is in favor of smells.

Sometimes these testimonies are firmly connected with a complex sense of beauty and closeness of one's native places. I. S. Turgenev: “I love these alleys, I love the delicate gray-green color and the delicate smell of the air under the arches ...” And here is the famous oak planted. Ivan Sergeevich as a child in a clearing behind the old Lutovinovsky house: “My favorite oak tree has already become a young oak tree. Yesterday, in the middle of the day, I sat in his shade on a bench for more than an hour. I felt very good. All around the grass was so cheerful; a golden light lay on everything, strong and soft ... "- Turgenev was constantly drawn to Spasskoye, from everywhere - from Moscow, I. Petersburg, Paris and Rome, Berlin and London, he again and again returned to where he spent most of his childhood, where he comprehended the soul of his people, absorbed his speech: “The air of the motherland has something inexplicable in it ...” “When you are in Spassky, bow from me to the house, garden, bow to my young oak, bow to the motherland,” he bequeaths.

And y A. Kuprin - “even flowers in their homeland smell differently. Their fragrance is strong, more spicy than flowers abroad." M. Prishvin and other writers have a lot of evidence of the connection between the feeling of the motherland and nature. But the letter of A. K. Tolstoy to his future wife Sofya Andreevna dated August 22, 1851 stands apart - in its clarity and certainty: “I have just returned from the forest, where I searched and found a lot of mushrooms. We once talked about the influence, smells, and to what extent they can recall what has been forgotten for many years. It seems to me that forest smells have this property most of all ... Now, smelling the saffron milk cap, I saw in front of me, as if in lightning, all my childhood in all details until the age of seven.

For us, this evidence is especially important, since it is known that A. K. Tolstoy suffered from asthma. That is, he had a pronounced tendency to allergic reactions. Isn't this the source of such a clear vision of the whole picture of childhood from the smell of camelina alone?

Let us agree that all further discussions on this subject concern the purely biological side of the alleged connection between the feeling of native places and their natural environment. A person can have another, second, homeland, which he loves no less than the place of his birth. For people of our time, the determining factor in the feeling of the motherland is, of course, the psycho-emotional background that has been formed in accordance with the social conditions of life and upbringing.

But still:

You remember not a big country,

Which you traveled and learned

Do you remember such a Motherland,

How did you see her as a child?

K. Simonov

So. If we talk about the biochemistry of nostalgia, if we think that antigenic influences such as allergic reactions are to blame for its formation, then everything is explained quite harmoniously.

The essence of the matter lies in the fact that the very first encounter of the body, for example, with the influenza virus (and in humans during the epidemic years this usually occurs in infancy) produces such a strong immunological effect that the cells that form the counterbodies “remember” the pattern for life mosaics of the antigenic shell of the virus that first struck the child. Subsequently, when meeting with other influenza viruses, the body, along with new antibodies, continues to churn out antibodies to the “example-strain” of the virus.

A person throughout his life carries in the blood anti-bodies not only to viruses and bacteria, but also to any biological and chemical substances that can cause an immunological reaction. Such reactions can be allergic in nature, if their occurrence is based on the introduction into the body of a foreign protein or even inorganic substances that have allergenic properties.

What is an allergy? This term comes from two Greek words: "alloe" - different, and "ergon" - I do. Literal translation: "I do things differently." In modern immunology, allergy refers to an altered, most often hypersensitivity to a substance. Hence the “allergen”, which refers to a substance that can cause an allergic reaction.

Science knows at least five sources of "foreign" molecules. We have already mentioned microorganisms. The second source is food (here it is, the very aunt's gingerbread, which made me remember my childhood). The third is plant pollen (this is the most common allergen). Fourth - various chemicals (industrial hazards, household chemicals, such as washing powder, hair dye and mascara). Fifth - belongs to the organism itself. This may be an embryo - a fetus that has antigens not only of the mother, but also of the father (probably heard about the Rh factor of the blood of the father and mother, the immunological differences of which lead to a serious illness of the fetus). These are cells that have become "foreign" - "freaks" that have appeared as a result of genetic abnormalities or aging.

And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us
From the comedy "Woe from Wit" (1824) by A. S. Griboyedov (1795-1829). The words of Chatsky (act. 1, yavl. 7):
I am destined to see them again! You will get tired of living with them, and in whom can you not find spots? When you wander, you return home, And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us.
Griboyedov in his play quoted a line from the poem "Harp" (1798) by Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816):
We have good news about our side.
Fatherland and smoke are sweet and pleasant to us.
This Derzhavin line was also quoted by the poets Konstantin Batyushkov, Pyotr Vyazemsky and others.
The very idea of ​​the sweetness of the "smoke of the fatherland" belongs to the legendary poet of Ancient Greece Homer (IX century BC), who in his poem "Odyssey" (song 1, lines 56-58) says that Odysseus was ready to die , just to “see at least smoke rising from the native shores in the distance” (we are talking about the smoke of the hearths of Ithaca, the traveler’s native).
Later, the same idea was repeated by the Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovid Nason, 43 BC - 18 AD) in his Pontic Epistles. Being exiled to the Black Sea coast (in Greek - Pontus), he dreamed of seeing "the smoke of the domestic hearth." For "the native land attracts a person, captivating him with some inexpressible sweetness and does not allow him to forget about himself."
Apparently, on the basis of this verse by Ovid, the well-known Roman proverb arose: Dulcis fumus patriae (dulcis fumus patrie) - Sweet is the smoke of the fatherland.
In Derzhavin's time, this saying was widely known. For example, the title page of the Russian Museum magazine (1792-1794) was decorated with the Latin epigraph Dulcis fumus patriae. Obviously, Derzhavin was also inspired by the lines of Homer and Ovid, whose work he knew well.
Allegorically: about love, affection for one's fatherland, when even the smallest signs of one's own, native cause joy, tenderness.

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: "Lokid-Press". Vadim Serov. 2003 .

And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us

Quote from the comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" (1824), d. 1, yavl. 7, the words of Chatsky, who returned from a trip. Recalling old Muscovites with sarcasm, he says:

I am destined to see them again! You will get tired of living with them, and in whom can you not find spots? When you wander, you return home, And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us. Griboyedov's last verse is not a completely accurate quote from a poem by G.R. Derzhavin "Harp" (1798): Good news about our side is dear to us: Fatherland and smoke are sweet and pleasant to us.

Dictionary of winged words. Plutex. 2004

See what "And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us" in other dictionaries:

Wed The peasant population of the same faith to us, as soon as they hear the panting of our cheerful Tula fat-bellies and the fatherland spreading from them, will immediately understand who the real masters are here. Leskov. Russian democrat. 4. Wed. When you wander, ... ...

And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us- wing. sl. Quote from A. S. Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” (1824), d. 1, yavl. 7, the words of Chatsky, who returned from a trip. Remembering the old Muscovites with sarcasm, he says: I am destined to see them again by fate! You will get tired of living with them, and in whom ... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky

And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us. Wed The peasant population of the same faith as us, as soon as they hear the chugging of our cheerful Tula fat-bellies and the smoke of the fatherland rising from them, will immediately understand who the real masters are here. Leskov. ... ...

A (y), preposition. about the smoke, in the smoke; pl. smokes; m. 1. A set of small solid particles and gaseous products released into the air during the combustion of something l. From the chimney falls the village. Clouds of smoke over the conflagration. Tobacco village Powder village * And the smoke of the Fatherland to us ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

SMOKE, smoke, husband. 1. only units Volatile combustion products with small flying particles of coal. Smoke rose from the fire. Smoke comes out of the chimney. 2. Housing, separate house (original). Pay tribute or file with smoke. ❖ Smoke like a rocker (colloquial) noise, din, disorder ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

smoke- Smoke yoke (colloquial) noise, din, disorder. There was smoke in the Parliament. And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant for us, we easily forgive, excuse the shortcomings of our native country, our close environment [a proverbial verse from Woe from the mind of a riboyedov, ... ... Phraseological dictionary of the Russian language

smoke- a (y), suggestion; about the smoke / me, in the smoke /; pl. smoke/; m. see also. smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoky 1) ... Dictionary of many expressions

Love for the native ashes, Love for the fatherly coffins. A.S. Pushkin. Rough sketches. 10. See and the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us ... Michelson's Big Explanatory Phraseological Dictionary

Two feelings are wonderfully close to us: Love for the native ashes, Love for the fatherly coffins. A. S. Pushkin. Rough sketches. 10. See and the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us ... Michelson's Big Explanatory Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)

Books

• Woe from the mind. Audio performance (CDmp3), Griboyedov Alexander Sergeevich. This comedy is included in the golden fund of Russian classics. Schoolchildren still write essays on it, critics and literary critics still argue whether this satire on Moscow society contains ...

Quote from A. S. Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” (1824), d. 1, yavl. 7, the words of Chatsky, who returned from a trip. Recalling old Muscovites with sarcasm, he says:

I am destined to see them again!
You will get tired of living with them, and in whom can you not find spots?
When you wander, you return home,
And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us.

Griboedov's last verse is not a completely accurate quote from G. R. Derzhavin's poem "Harp" (1798):

We have good news about our side:
Fatherland and smoke are sweet and pleasant to us.

J. Grot in the notes to the academic edition of Derzhavin's works (vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1869, pp. 118-119) writes: “Even before Griboedov, this verse was used in various cases. In 1803 (“Bulletin of Europe”, part X, August, No. 16). You. Naz. Karazin used it at the beginning of his speech on the founding of a university in Kharkov. Batyushkov, in a letter to I. M. Muravyov-Apostol (1816), wrote:

In the Palmyra of the North, in the dwelling of noisy glory,
Derzhavin Kamsky recalled oak forests,
Homeland sweet smoke and the ancient city of the fathers.

Later, P. A. Vyazemsky in the poem "Samovar" (1840), taking the verse in question as an epigraph, concluded as follows:

“Fatherland and smoke are sweet and pleasant to us!” Isn't it a samovar - there is no doubt about it - Was our great poet inspired then? ..

However, the original thought of this expression does not belong to Derzhavin. On the title page of the magazine "Russian Museum" (1792-1794) put, without indicating where it came from, the Latin epigraph: "Et fumus patriae dulcis", that is, "And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet." For an explanation of the question of the original source of this Latin expression, Grot turned to the famous philologist K. A. Kossovich, who said that "the first poet who felt the sweetness in domestic smoke was Homer." In the first song of the Odyssey, Pallas begs Zeus to help Odysseus return to his homeland; Calypso tries to charm Odysseus and attract him to himself with insinuating and tender words; she wants him to forget his native Ithaca and stay with her forever; but "for him, death itself is sweet, if only in the sight of the smoke escaping from the roofs of his homeland." The echo of Homer's poems is in Ovid's Pontic Epistles (1, 3, 33). Longing for his homeland in exile, Ovid says: “Call it excessive sensitivity, call it weakness; I confess that my heart is soft as wax. He, like Odysseus, “craves to be able to see at least smoke from domestic hearths. The native land attracts a person, captivating him with some inexpressible sweetness, and does not allow him to forget about himself. From the poems of Ovid, apparently, the Latin proverb arose: "Dulcis fumus patriae" - "Sweet is the smoke of the fatherland." In Mikhelson's book "Russian Thought and Speech" (vol. I, p. 361), a Greek proverb is given as a distant source of Derzhavin's verse: "The smoke of the fatherland is better than fire in a foreign land." Derzhavin's verse entered into wide circulation, of course, as a quotation from Griboyedov's comedy.

What did you know besides bread and water,
With difficulties
moving from day to day!
Such a fatherland
such smoke
Is it really
so pleasant?
(V. V. Mayakovsky, Good, 9.)

A light fumes came from the kitchen, the plenipotentiary's sister-in-law was frying cakes there ... The smoke of the fatherland (L. Nikulin, Notes of a Sputnik, M. 1933, p. 228).

Words of the poem by G.R. Derzhavin, in which the lyrical hero, listening to the sounds of the harp, indulges in memories of his native Kazan, will eventually become a catch phrase. What lies behind the bright image? Smoke that hides the true outlines of objects and clouds the faces of people, restricts breathing and corrodes the eyes. But even he, a symbol of the native hearth, instills joy in the soul of a weary traveler, because it is in love for the coffins of the father that the human heart “gains food”.

That is why it seems by no means accidental that the monastery, founded in the 13th century by the disciple Anthony, 15 fields from Tikhvin, was called the “Monastery of Ontonia on Dymekh”, and Anthony himself became known as Dymsky: indeed, the history of the monastery itself and the memory of its reverend founder as if shrouded in a foggy veil and a haze of oblivion, the evidence of his Life was recognized as unreliable for a long time, and Anthony himself was considered an almost mythical, legendary person. And despite this, already in the mid-1990s, after the installation of a worship cross in the waters of Dymskoye Lake opposite the place where, according to legend, the monk prayed, the memory of the ascetic of bygone times began to revive in the hearts of the surrounding residents, and the path to the waters of the saint The lake widened day by day.

"Dedicating Yourself to God"

The historical Anthony was born in 1206 in Veliky Novgorod. The only thing known about the parents of Anthony (the secular name of the monk, presumably, has not been preserved) from the Life is that they were pious Christians and raised their son “in good punishment”, that is, literally the way Sylvester advises to do it, author of the famous Domostroy. Anthony spent his youth in Novgorod, diligently visiting churches and moving away from the noisy companies of his peers. During the service, a young parishioner stood aside in one of the aisles, avoiding conversations even with pious prayer books: a conversation with God did not require witnesses, and in the soul of a young man there was no place for everyday husks.

In this inner youthful concentration on prayer, in this self-sufficiency that does not feel awkward from its solitude, one can foresee the ease with which Antony later decided to leave a warm place within the walls of the monastery of tonsure, if circumstances required it from him. Here, perhaps, is the key to explaining the nature of the conflict that arose later between Anthony and the brethren of his native monastery: the inner freedom and emotional isolation of the monk evoked hostile feelings and turned the lesser brethren against him.

One day, having heard during the divine service the words of the Gospel about the need to take up the cross and follow Christ, Anthony leaves the world and becomes a monk in the Khutyn Monastery, taking tonsure from the hands of the illustrious abbot and founder of this monastery, Varlaam. The Life does not name Anthony's age at that moment, however, since the hagiographer does not point out any obstacles that could delay parting with the world, and at the same time does not focus on the youth of the ascetic, it can be assumed that Anthony was about 20 years old, that is this happened around 1226.

Under the vigilant patronage of the Monk Varlaam, about ten years of Anthony's monastic life passed. During these years, the spiritual mind of the young monk grew, matured and strengthened: “From then on, Anthony gave everything to God to himself, obeying his mentor Barlaam in everything, and doing more than anyone else in that monastery.” All this time, says the Life, the monk "with diligence and humility in simplicity of heart" passed monastic services, not abandoning the cell and conciliar prayer rule.

Tsargrad

Ten years of Anthony in the Khutyn Monastery ended ... with a delegation of the monk to Tsargrad

Anthony's ten years in the Khutyn Monastery ended with a delegation of the monk in 1238 to Constantinople "for the sake of church wines." This honorary business trip of the monk was, on the one hand, a sign of high appreciation by the hierarchs (primarily Varlaam) of his monastic virtue, intelligence, and diplomatic abilities, on the other hand, it was an ordeal, fraught with many dangers and hardships. Seeing off his beloved student on the road, Varlaam strengthens his spirit, promising to prayerfully support him throughout his journey. The abbot does not hide the fact that the journey will be long and exhausting: “May God arrange your path, if this path is difficult and sorrowful for you, but behold, it is fitting for us to enter the Kingdom of God through a narrow and sorrowful gate.” Anthony himself strengthens himself by relying on him, who is strong to protect him from the “men of blood”, who usually attack merchant and pilgrimage caravans marching along the path “from the Varangians to the Greeks”: “Reverend Anthony, putting all this in his heart, to accept a new feat being obedient, having a cure for all embarrassment in the words of Christ the Savior in the Gospel, saying: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and then are unable to do anything else.”

Anthony spends about five years away from his native monastery, returning only in 1243. In Constantinople, Anthony is honored with an audience with the patriarch and receives instructions on how “in this many-rebellious world it is fitting to manage the ship of temporary life” and in all misadventures “with meekness and humility to be kind.” The monk, perhaps, could not even imagine how soon the spiritual precepts of the patriarch would become relevant for him.

"I betrayed his monastery"

On November 6, at the hour when the dying abbot Varlaam gathered his disciples around him in order to announce to them his will about a successor who should take up the abbot's rod after his death, Anthony passed the last miles of his many-day journey. Hail, snow, nakedness and the spirit of the storms met the monk, who had matured in the processions, on the outskirts of his native Novgorod. How different it was from what he had seen for the last five years under the hot Byzantine sky! More than one gray hair gleamed with moonlight in his hair and bushy beard. Since he, blessed by the hand of the Khutyn elder, set off for the noon side, more than once he had a chance to look into the eyes of death, into the eyes of those who do not know remorse and the pangs of repentance of the murderers ...

Varlaam's will was clearly expressed: Anthony should be the hegumen, and he was about to knock on the gates of the monastery

Varlaam’s will was expressed in an extremely clear, even ultimatum form: the abbot should be Anthony, who in these seconds, as Varlaam revealed to the astonished listeners, who, perhaps, did not even look forward to meeting the monk who left the monastery many years ago, enters the Holy Doors of the Transfiguration Monastery . By the fact that the continuation of this story was by no means complacent and Varlaam’s decision actually sowed discord among the brethren, one can judge how unpleasant a surprise the news of the hegumen about the imminent meeting with the deposed was for some of them was out of account in the struggle for power over the house of the All-Merciful Savior Anthony. Deathly silence hung in the cell of the dying elder, but it echoed in the hearts of those present with an even more deafening ringing, when the almost forgotten voice of Anthony was heard outside the door: “Through the prayers of our holy fathers ...” “Amen,” answered Varlaam, and crossed the threshold, shaking with a mantle of frosty dust, a 37-year-old priest. Varlaam, in the presence of Anthony, repeated his last will, arguing his choice by the fact that Anthony was his “peer”, and this despite the fact that, according to the most conservative calculations, he was forty years younger than his spiritual father and mentor!

Even if Varlaam uses the word “peer” in the sense of “like-minded”, “similar in spirit”, the apparent inconsistency of the context with the direct meaning of the word makes the hegumen’s statement paradoxical: Antony, Varlaam claims, being several decades younger than me, achieved spiritual prudence equal to me.

At the heart of the conflict between Anthony and the inhabitants of the Khutyn monastery, which will develop to the fullest a little later, lies, apparently, an ordinary human dislike for a pet treated kindly by the abbot: a monk who spent five years, albeit obeying the will of the abbot, away from the monastery, not knowing her current hardships and shortcomings, should not take the place of the abbot ...

In all likelihood, this decision of Varlaam seemed unfair to many, but no one dared to argue with the rector directly during his lifetime. Moreover, Varlaam foresees the doubts that should have arisen in Anthony himself, and addresses him in the presence of the cathedral of the monastery elders with the following enigmatic phrase: “The monastery was delivered into his hand, rivers like this: Your thought was before this holy place ”».

A ray of light on the enigmatic words of Varlaam is shed by the inscription on the shrine of one of his closest disciples and companions - the Monk Xenophon of Robeisky, according to which Xenophon himself and his friend Anthony Dymsky, while ascetic in the Lissitz Monastery, once saw pillars of light and “smoke” at a place called Khutyn. gloomy". The monks, the inscription says, together with their spiritual father Varlaam went to the side of a dense forest, where light so clearly fought with darkness, as if wanting to take a direct part in this metaphysical opposition of good to evil, and there Xenophon and Varlaam began to put their efforts on the foundation of a new monastery. The fact that Anthony, according to the chronology of his Life, could not have taken part in the founding of the Khutyn Monastery (the monk was born 15 years later), is clear, but the question is how this legend, reflected in two lives at once, could arise. Was Xenophon a friend of Anthony and did he share with him his memories of the signs that preceded the founding of the Khutyn Monastery? One way or another, but Varlaam was convinced that Anthony was connected with the Khutyn monastery by some kind of providential connection and, more than others, was worthy of taking care of its well-being.

Dymsky ascetic

Abbess Anthony in the Khutyn Monastery lasted less than a year due to the disturbances that arose inside the monastery, during which the rector managed, however, to complete the construction of the Transfiguration Cathedral in stone, since the work begun by Varlaam was cut short by his death in the middle of the path: the cathedral was built "to the highest Prague" , that is, only to the top of the doorway. Having built the stone cathedral to the end, Anthony considered it good to retire. And here, the instructions of the patriarch on keeping the vessel, swayed by demonic machinations, afloat were of the best use, and the axiom of monastic holiness - by no means every abbot experienced the hardships of a long journey, however, everyone went through the desert temptations of lonely prayer on their own experience - suggested the trajectory of the future. The soul of the saint longed for achievement.

Leaving everything in the monastery - books, treasury, utensils, vestments that could come in handy later, when a new monastery is built (think - acquisitive!), - Antony is alone, without companions and spiritual friends (the principle "walk along the unknown road yourself, and then others will pass along it "became central in his biography) went to the northeast, circled the ancient Tikhvin, walked another 15 miles and finally stopped in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe place later called Dymy, near the shore of Dymskoye Lake, not far from the mouth of the stream flowing into it Black Haze. Then, in the middle of the 13th century, this area was deserted, but for many subsequent centuries, the Anthony churchyard and its parish church of St. Nicholas were adjacent to the monastery and its churches of St. Anthony the Great and the Nativity of John the Baptist. However, after one of the ruins of the monastery, both churches were united: the Anthony Throne was located on the first floor, Nikolsky was placed higher - on the second. In one of the miracles of the Life of Anthony, the appearance in a dream to a Tikhvin merchant of the icon of the Mother of God with the Monk Anthony and St. Nicholas coming to her is described. Through the prayers of the patron saints of the Dymskoy monastery, the sufferer was healed of his illness.

Antony put an iron cap on the head, with which he did not part until the end of his days.

How did Anthony's life develop on the shores of Dymskoye Lake? According to the testimony of the Life, the monk came to Dymy even before he was 40 years old. Here the monk dug out a cave, in which he lived for the first time, imitating, perhaps, another famous in the history of Russian monasticism Anthony - the venerable founder of the Caves Monastery. Later, however, Antony emerged from the earth, building himself a cell "for the sake of bodily rest." The ascetic alternated daytime labors in cultivating the fields with nightly prayers, and Anthony placed an iron cap on the head, which he did not part with, apparently, until the end of his days. As you know, with your charter you can’t come only to someone else’s monastery (and Antony himself learned this the hard way, although the Khutyn monastery was not a stranger in the full sense of the word for him), but here Antony was already building his own monastery, in which the charter was determined his will.

This will, however, turned out to be very attractive for those monks who came to Anthony, as the Life testifies, from other monasteries, despite the fact that traditionally the monasteries were replenished mainly at the expense of the laity, who, having heard about the feat of the monk, left everyday life and came to the ascetic in search of spiritual guidance. What could attract ordinary monks to an old man who settled in the impenetrable forests of the Obonezhskaya Pyatina? What kind of spiritual deficit did the Dymsky prayer book manage to fill? Probably, Anthony attracted other monks with his emphasized asceticism.

The monk arranged his monastery far from the urban centers of civilization - and this was an innovation for the monasticism of that time: it is widely known that the monasteries of the pre-Mongolian and early Mongolian times were urban or at least suburban. Anthony practiced wearing chains, direct asceticism, was a supporter and, perhaps, even an ideologist of the "cruel life". No wonder he was subsequently called one of the first Russian hesychasts. The monk more than once retired to an island on Dymskoye Lake, where he spent time in contemplation and prayer. In addition, Anthony became famous as a disciple of the Monk Barlaam, whose name became a household name already in the years of the life of the ascetic himself: many spiritually gifted chicks flew out of his nest.

Through the veil of years

The Dymskaya monastery settled down quite well during the lifetime of its founder, and after his death in 1273 continued its existence through the centuries of Russian history. This centuries-old path of the Antoniev Monastery was reflected with diligent diligence in the Life of its founder by the hagiographer. Thus, the birth of the monk takes place during the reign of Mstislav Udatny in Novgorod, the blessed charter for the establishment of the monastery is presented to Anthony by the grandson of Mstislav Alexander Nevsky, whom the monk met, probably at the funeral of his teacher Varlaam, and the first acquisition of his relics occurs during the years of the reign of Dimitry Donskoy, it was then that the local canonization of Anthony took place, perhaps the first life is being created. Describing the tragic events of the Time of Troubles, the hagiographer bitterly laments the deposition of Vasily Shuisky by the seditious, which led to pernicious anarchy and brought countless troubles to the inhabitants of the Muscovite kingdom: Vasily Ioannovich, the Swedes, having captured Novgorod, plundered and devastated many monasteries and churches.

The evidence of Antoniev's Life supplements historical documents. So, the scribal book of the Obonezhskaya Pyatina of 1496 tells about the “Ontonyevsky churchyard in the Dymsky Grand Duke of the village”, the refuse book of 1573 already mentions the peasants of the Dymsky monastery, and the scribal book of the clerk Semyon Kuzmin for 1583 tells about the churchyard with a wooden church of St. Anthony and a refectory the church of John the Baptist, thirteen cells and a wooden fence, behind which there were a stable and a cowshed.

The monastery survived the ruin in 1408, during the campaign of Edygei, when many other monasteries of the Muscovite kingdom also suffered. In those days, when the Monk Nikon of Radonezh, together with the Trinity brethren, took refuge in the dense Yaroslavl forests, the monks of the Anthony monastery saved the shrines of the monastery in the waters of Dymskoye Lake, plunging to its bottom the famous iron cap, which the monk had once consecrated with his feat. During the Time of Troubles, the well-maintained Dymsky Monastery sheltered within its walls the monks of the Valaam Monastery, expelled from the place of their heroic deed by foreign invaders.

In the middle of the 17th century, the stone construction of the churches of the monastery began. The year 1764, tragic in the history of modern Russian monasticism, when a parish community was organized on the site of the monastery, briefly interrupted the course of monastic deeds within the walls of the ancient monastery: already at the end of the same century, the monastery was renewed. Throughout the 19th century, the monastery was visited by crowds of pilgrims, in 1864 alone there were more than 25 thousand of them ...

For so many centuries, could a monastery remote from big cities, a monastery associated with the veneration of a mythical person and a legendary character, as it was considered in scientific literature quite recently, could flourish, renew each time after another historical blow and attract crowds of pilgrims from all of Russia? It seems the answer is obvious.

The image of St. Anthony is clearly drawn in the smoky sky over the contours of the monastery buildings, because it was his paternal intercession that made possible this centuries-old prayer standing of his monastery. So the smoke that enveloped the "Ontonian churchyard" and the temple buildings of the ancient monastery gradually dissipates, and the truth appears before the readers of the ancient Life in its holy simplicity.