Authors

Discussion

This contribution examines how scriptural and patristic references function as instruments of ideological rehabilitation in Prince Ivan Khvorostinin’s “Tales of the Days and Tsars and Prelates of Moscow,” written in the early 1620s. The work consists of a series of stylized and formulaic “portraits” of Muscovite rulers and ecclesiastical figures associated with the Time of Troubles, adhering to a high rhetorical register and conventional topoi. Yet within this fixed literary framework, Khvorostinin subtly weaves autobiographical and personal elements aimed at reshaping his public image.

Once a close companion of False-Dmitry I—an affiliation widely condemned and personally compromising—Khvorostinin had compelling motives to obscure his political past and rehabilitate his reputation. This study discusses how he strategically mobilizes scriptural authority, especially passages drawn from Genesis, Pauline epistles, and Eastern patristic sources (notably Dorotheus of Gaza), to construct a narrative of moral insight, humility, and repentance. These theological motifs lend credibility to claims of personal virtue embedded in the text, including his alleged public rebuke of the impostor and his purported recognition by Patriarch Hermogenes.

By examining the strategic interplay between scripture, rhetoric, and self-fashioning, this study explores how a politically compromised figure harnessed Orthodox theological discourse to craft both confessional identity and personal justification within the emerging ideological consensus of post-Troubles Muscovy.

The case of Khvorostinin’s literary rehabilitation offers broader insights into the mechanisms through which religious authority validates political legitimacy in early modern Russia, demonstrating how theological language could serve as both devotional expression and sophisticated tool of reputation management in times of political crisis and social reconstruction.