Panegyric praise of for Yoasaf Krokovskyi

The author analyzes a long and complex panegyric poem dedicated to Yoasaf Krokovskyi, a key figure in Ukrainian cultural life and Orthodox Church of the late 17th — early 18th centuries (he was elevated to the three prominent Orthodox ecclesiastical posts in the Hetmanate: rector of the Kyiv Mohyla Collegium, archimandrite of the Kyivan Cave Monastery, and metropolitan). The poem was written in 1699 when Krokovskyi held the post of the Kyivan Cave Monastery archimandrite. Since the main goal of poetry at the time was contributing to the education of pious men and loyal subjects, panegyric poetry was one of the principal genres of Mohylanian poetics. Indeed, the best way to achieve this goal was to represent exemplary human actions that would constitute models worthy of emulation. The didactic function of praise was all the more effective when the characters being praised were familiar to the students.  The analyzed poem is found in the 1699 manual of poetics “Hymettus extra Atticam”, whose author was Yosyf Turoboiskyi, a Mohylanian professor who steadily entered the history of Russian culture due to his celebratory works in honor of Peter I, while in Ukrainian literature he is almost unknown. The central theme of the analyzed poem, written on the occasion of Krokovskyi’s birthday, is a virtue of the addressee and wisdom that inspires him. These themes reveal, on one side, the author’s intention to insert the personality of archimandrite and future metropolitan into what N. Pylypiuk saw as a project, initiated in the 1690s, of portraying Mazepa and Yasynskyi with visual and textual means as protectors and benefactors of Wisdom’s abode, that is the Collegium and St. Sophia. On the other, they reflect the idea of wisdom as it was characterized by the Renaissance; it is mirrored in the Erasmian definition of wisdom as “virtus cum eruditione liberali conjuncta”. This fact, expanding the topic of epic poetry to all activities related to the intellect, reflects the Renaissance approach to the ‘heroicum carmen’ and testifies to the influence of Humanism and Renaissance on the Ukrainian literature.