The culture of Ancient Russia, like the culture of any other country, is a combination of spiritual and material values that mankind created in the process of its social and labor practice. Material culture is the development of technology, machines, tools, construction, etc. Spiritual culture - literature, science, ideology, art, education.
The culture of Ancient Russia was distinguished by a high level of development. Unfortunately, many monuments did not reach us, but died in the fires of fires, wars, invasions. Mainly preserved literature, cathedrals, icons, objects of religious cults. The basis of culture is the cultural heritage left over from East Slavic tribes. The Varangians, nomadic peoples, the adoption of Christianity, as well as the countries of Western Europe and, of course, Byzantium, had a great influence on it.
Writing in Russia appeared even before the adoption of Christianity. At this point, the alphabet has already formed. And the very adoption of Christianity only contributed to the development of writing, enlightenment, and the spread of literacy.
Writings on various handicrafts: hoops, clay vessels, boots testify to a very wide development of writing in Ancient Russia. Over time, under Yaroslav the Wise even opened a school in Kiev.
Along with the development of written literature, oral folk art was widely distributed , and, first of all, epics telling about the creative and military work of our people.
Material Culture of Ancient Russia
Architecture has reached a high level of development. About 60 architectural monuments of the pre-Mongol period have been preserved. Until the middle of the X century. the buildings were exclusively wooden. It was the tree that was the main building material. It was used for the construction of residential buildings, palace buildings, city fortifications, churches. In these wooden buildings, the planning and volumetric structure was determined by a strong log structure and its natural parameters. But even with the "rigidity" of the wooden building system, the craftsmen managed to plastically revive it and diversify it compositionally.
One of the earliest stone buildings was the Tithes Church. Later, Golden Gate and St. Sophia Cathedral, other temples were built of stone. The walls inside the temples were richly decorated with frescoes, mosaics, icons. In many lands, the main building material was white stone. Its characteristic features are sophistication, rich decorativeness, harmony of buildings, aspiration up. Residential houses were also built from it. From the 14th century, defensive walls in cities began to be erected.
In stone cult construction, the type of an even cubic temple with parallel four naves in the inner space, six baptized support pillars that support the domes and arches was forever established. In the presence of a constructive and similar volumetric structure, iconic Russian structures present a picture of various volumetric shapes and sizes, means of processing the decor of structures. Most of the buildings were distinguished by the unity of the constructive solution and organicity, their internal structure was consistently and clearly expressed in external forms.
The musical culture of ancient Russia
The musical culture of Ancient Russia developed in two directions: folk art, folklore, and church music.
The ancient Slavs worshiped idols, were pagans. They performed rites in their honor, accompanied by dances, songs, playing various musical instruments (harp, pipe, rattles).
Bright representatives of folk art are buffoons. These are professional wandering actors who entertained people with songs and dances. By their art, they actively contributed to the development of certain literary genres - epic, drama, poetry. The buffoons possessed the impeccable skill of entertainers - organizers of festivals, folk entertainers, acted as actors or musicians. Of course, the most important area in the musical art of that time was the folk song, especially the one related to the holidays of the agricultural calendar. The main genre of the epic is epics.
With the adoption of Christianity came church singing from Byzantium. Then the church musical culture of ancient Russia was represented by unanimous singing. The melody of the song was recorded on top of the line of text using a system of special conventional signs that indicated only the direction of the melody, but not the exact pitch of the sounds.
Christianity played a large role in the formation of both the musical and the entire culture of Ancient Russia as a whole. It determined the prospect of its development for many centuries to come.