“Intellectual Silence” and Intellectual Endeavor in Medieval Slavia Orthodoxa

Abstract

This survey of intellectual endeavor in medieval Slavia orthodoxa proposes a different way to think through the problem of the “intellectual silence of Old Rus′,” first set forth by Georges Florovsky and explored by George Fedotov, Francis Thomson, Simon Franklin, and now Donald Ostrowski. It examines the resources and opportunities for secondary schooling and their apparent outcomes in Kyivan Rus′ from the eleventh through the thirteenth century, among South Slavs on Mount Athos in the later fourteenth century, and at the Kirillo-Belozerskii (Kirillov) Monastery in northern Russia in the later fifteenth century. It concludes that intellectual endeavor is not necessarily bound to an international language of scholarship (e.g., Greek), one the one hand, or to a particular religious mentalité (e.g., that of the Western Church), on the other. Rather, it is cultivated by “schematizing” (educational) institutions oriented upon academic (heuristic) interpretive strategies and—most importantly—supported by textbooks and teachers.