*In the Forests* and *On the Mountains* — an epic dilogy by the Russian writer and ethnographer Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov-Pechersky (1818–1883), Nizhny Novgorod Province. The first part, *In the Forests*, was written in 1874; the second, *On the Mountains*, completed the dilogy. The works were created on the basis of the author's many years of observation of Trans-Volga Region and brought him worldwide renown.[1]
Contents and Themes
*In the Forests* is a multi-layered historical narrative about the life of the Old Believer population of the Zavolzhye region, peasant crafts, merchant life, and schismatic hermitages. In *On the Mountains*, Melnikov-Pechersky provided an extended characterization of the Pyana River: "In other parts of our Rus' you will rarely find rivers like the Pyana… The very first Russian settlers named it the Pyana because it staggers and sways in all directions, just like a drunken woman, and, having wound five hundred versts through bends and twists, it runs back toward its source and empties into the Sura almost right beside it."[2] Komarovsky Skit (Old Believer Hermitage) — one of the oldest Old Believer hermitages in the Nizhny Novgorod area, situated on the Kerzhenets River — is the dominant spatial image of the dilogy; along with other Kerzhenets hermitages that existed in the Kerzhenets and Chernoramensky forests of Semenovsky Uyezd of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, it survived the Pitirim's Devastation, the persecutions of the 1850s under Nicholas I, and was finally abolished in the 1930s. The dilogy mentions a legend recorded by the author, according to which the elder Fotinia, venerated on the Kerzhenets, was supposedly Tsarevna Sophia Alekseyevna, who had fled to the hermitages.[2][3] The depiction of Zavolzhye unfolds against a backdrop of poetic natural landscapes and extensive ethnographic and folkloric material.[1] The Nizhny Novgorod region — the author's native land and the principal subject of his creative and scholarly study — forms the geographical and cultural foundation of both books.[1]
Connection to Nizhny Novgorod
Melnikov-Pechersky was born and died in Nizhny Novgorod; in the second half of the 19th century he owned the village of Lyakhovo, now part of the city's Prioksky District. It was precisely his long-standing knowledge of the Nizhny Novgorod Zavolzhye — its customs, dialect, and religious way of life — that formed the basis of the dilogy: the writer used the pen name "Andrey Pechersky," a reference to Pechyory (Nizhny Novgorod, nnov.ec).[1]
Editions and Recognition
The dilogy belongs to the canon of 19th-century Russian classical literature. *In the Forests* runs to approximately 1,300 pages; it has been reprinted numerous times and released in audio format read by several narrators. The dilogy inspired the Nizhny Novgorod artist Mikhail Nesterov to paint *In the Forests*, *On the Mountains*, *A Nightingale Sings*, and *Beyond the Volga*.[2] In 2021, for the Celebration of the 800th Anniversary of the Founding of Nizhny Novgorod, the Russian Museum of Photography, together with the Russky Mir Foundation, presented the exhibition "Inspired by the Books of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky: *In the Forests* and *On the Mountains*" as part of the VI Russian Photography Festival *Svetopis-2021*; the photographs were by Sergey Potapov (Moscow) and Sergey Lotarev (Nizhny Novgorod).[4] In the 1990s, the study of the Komarovsky Hermitage, along with other Kerzhenets hermitages, was undertaken by the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Manuscript and Early Printed Books, established on the initiative of Academician D. S. Likhachev; the institute carried out a documentation survey of the hermitages and the cemeteries venerated by Old Believers in Semenovsky District.[3][1]
Sources
- litres.ru — In the Forests — Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky Public Domain — Litres — In the Forests Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky Public Domain — download the book for free in fb2, epub, pdf… (archive)
- proto.nnov.ec — Melnikov-Pechersky Pavel Ivanovich — Nizhny Novgorod Encyclopedia — The dilogy *In the Forests* and *On the Mountains* inspired the Nizhny Novgorod artist Mikhail Nesterov to paint…
- sciup.org — The Locus of the Komarovsky Hermitage in P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky's Dilogy *In the Forests* and *On the Mountains* (archive)
- fotomuseum.nnov.ru — Russian Museum of Photography — Exhibition "Inspired by the Books of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky: *In the Forests* and *On the Mountains*" — In 2021, for the 800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod, the Russian Museum of Photography… (archive)