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The aim of the book is to introduce the reader to all forms of Russian sainthood. At its core are extant original Lives of the Saints (hagiographies). Most have been translated from Church Slavonic by scholars of the Section for Old Russian Literature at Pushkin House (St Petersburg) under the direction of Academician Likhachev. From the seventeenth century onwards, very few such lives were written; biographical data and memoirs have therefore been compiled here into new ‘lives’ for this period. The book also includes modern martyrs: the children of tsar Nicholas II, the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna, Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov). A first edition of 100,000 was published in Russia in 1992 and sold out immediately. This, the second edition, contains an Introduction by Academician Likhachev, commentaries, and is illustrated with rare icons of the Russian saints and portraits of the twentieth-century martyrs. |
