This addition – both sweat and labor – is very significant, because after the discovery of the "Roman" barrel in the Volkhov waters in Novgorod, labor as construction, economic activity, prudent care for the brethren and gathering them, in a word, organization, but also love, moving everything, became the most important component of Anthony's activity. The "Legend" also informs about the location of the acquired treasure for the time being in the sacristy (for observance), and about the beginning of construction, and about the purchase of land near the monastery and fishing (for the needs of the monastery), and about the establishment of the boundaries of the monastery territory, and about the legal registration of this act (and demarcated the boundaries, gave the letter, and wrote in his spiritual charter). Summing up this period of Anthony's life, the compiler of the Life writes: "He began to labor unceasingly all day long, and applying labor to labor, and at night without sleep, standing on a stone and praying [...] And the brethren began to tidy up to the monk. And he received it with love. The reserved and "suffering" monk was replaced by an active, calculating, clearly seeing perspective leader, with whom he was always at his side, even in difficult earthworks, St. Nikita (... measure the place of the church [...] begin to put the church in your honest hands and dig). With pride and love, the author of the "Tale" tells about all the stages of the construction and growth of the monastery: and the church was laid in stone, and God made it, and the signatures decorated it with all kinds of decorations, the images and vessels of the church with gold and silver, and vestments, and divine books [...], as befitting the church of God; And then he laid the table of stone [...], and built the cells, and built the fence, and established with all the abundance of good, as in the year. And it is especially emphasized that all this was done at his own expense, on the "Roman" estate: the monk did not accept the estate from anyone, neither from the prince, nor from the bishop, nor from the nobles of the city, but only a blessing from the miracle-maker Nikita the bishop, but built everything from this barrel, even from Rome [...].

Anthony's further activity, although it takes much longer than that which has been discussed so far, is much less elucidated in the Tale. In fact, everything has already been said: the monastery is founded, built and flourishes, the brethren grow, spend their lives in righteous labors and prayers, the "Roman" Anthony has long since become Novgorodian, Russian. There remains to be said a few things that relate more to the life of the monk himself than to the theme of the "Roman-Novgorodian" and even more so Italian-Russian meetings.

Nicetas died, and this death was grieved by Anthony (the monk was in great sorrow and in tears over the repose of Saint Nicetas; for great was the spiritual counsel that had among themselves). The monastery continued to expand (to begin to expand, as it is said in the "Legend"). There was a need to elect an abbot, and Anthony began to consult with the brethren. Many of those who could become hegumen were consulted, and did not find such a person. There were no disagreements among the brethren – only Anthony should become hegumen. For this they all asked him: we beseech thee, hearken unto us beggars, that thou mayest receive the priestly rank, that thou mayest also be an abbot, that thou mayest offer an honest sacrifice to God, bloodless for our sin, that thy sacrifice may be acceptable to God in the most heavenly altar; For we know a little of thy labors and feats in this place, for a man can bear so many labors in the flesh, unless the Lord helps. Anthony said that he was unworthy of this choice (I am unworthy of a great rank), and he proposed to choose from among the brethren a man of good faith and worthy of such a cause. Brethren with tears – Holy Father, do not listen to us poor, but save us! Anthony agreed to act according to the will of God. God will, he said, whatever God wills, He will do it. Anthony and the brethren went to Niphon, who at that time occupied the episcopal throne (characteristic is the omission of Archbishop John Popian, who occupied the throne for twenty years, see the 1st New Years, under the years 1100 and 1130: Archbishop John came to Novgorod in the month of December on the 20th and in the same summer the Archbishop John of Novagorod departed; cf. Khoroshev 1980, 23–25, etc.). Niphon supported the choice of the brethren, for he loved the monk for his great virtue. Anthony was ordained a deacon, then a priest, and finally an abbot. During the 16 years of his abbotship, he fell into the flock of Christ. There is not a word about these years in the "Tale". On the other hand, the voice of Andrew is heard more clearly, telling that before his death the monk revealed his secret to him (see above), and about what Anthony said to the brethren immediately before his death. A prayer, a few words about the burial of Anthony, in which Niphon participated with a multitude of the people of that city, with candles, and with candila, with psalms, and stumps, and spiritual songs, the order of Niphon to set forth the life of the monk and the already mentioned curse by the Romans, who had departed from the Orthodox Greek faith and had been converted into the Latin faith, complete the "Tale".

* * *

Whether the compiler of Antony's Life believed that his hero was really a Roman, or whether he simply felt and understood that it was in the spirit of the times to consider Anthony a Roman, that invention and improvisation were not a sin, and that the end justified the means, remains not fully known. And, to tell the truth, and in a fairly broad perspective, not so important. If the compiler of the "Life" believed in the Roman origin of Antony, it means that this opinion was firmly rooted in rumor, became its legitimate property, and vox populi — vox Dei and rumor is not judged — especially since in this case it is probably of a venerable age. And they do not judge not only because it is "popular" and/or "God's", but also because rumor itself is always on the verge of true and untrue, genuine and inauthentic, past and non-existent, that it lives by this uncertainty, moreover, that this is a condition of its existence, and for this reason alone rumor cannot be called to judgment. If the idea of making Anthony a Roman arose consciously, for the sake of a certain concept or mood or fashion, then it is unlikely that the author of the Tale was its inventor: the compilation of a Life is too responsible and complex a thing to be based on such an unexpected invention (it is another matter that the Life can legitimize and make "official" a version that has already been circulating). Be that as it may, in this case, too, the "guilty" lived until the compilation of the Life of Anthony. And in the sixteenth century, Anthony was already well known as a Roman in Novgorod and, at least partially, outside of it, which is confirmed by other sources, apparently independent of the Tale. Moreover, even cases of apparent dependence on the "Life", as, for example, the icons of Anthony the Roman, beginning in the 16th century (cf. the icon from the collection of A. S. Uvarov or the icon from the collection of I. S. Ostroukhov, see Antonova-Mneva 1963, NoNo 369, 611, etc.) and reproducing the most diagnostically important motifs (Anthony on a stone, Anthony against the background of a monastery, or offering a church to the Mother of God), in principle, they can rely on sources common to them and to the "Legend" [in connection with the icons depicting Anthony the Roman, it is appropriate to assume that he himself was gifted aesthetically, and this was manifested not only in the mystical plane (the contemplation of the Most-Pure Mother of God by the intelligent eyes as a kind of "intelligent" drawing), but also in a completely practical one — in the decoration of the church: ... and the signature adorned it with all kinds of adornment..., as befitting the church of God, cf. above]. But even if the one who was the first, so to speak, to connect the "Roman" theme with the historical Anthony of the twelfth century were known exactly, then his "guilt" is by and large very relative. The tribute to history, as far as can be judged from the fact that it is verifiable, is generously given, in the small space of the text a number of unconditional historical figures are collected, placed in a sequence of which there is no reason to doubt. But no description that claims to depict the "historical" can, firstly, be complete and, secondly, completely free from the evaluation associated with the distance between the present day in which the describer finds himself and the day that is described (this time gap always inevitably leads to a kind of attraction, and the task is not to avoid or neutralize them, but to to understand them as an expression of the situation describing, if you will, the measures of its "subjectivity"). "He-continuity" and "subjectivity" are always present in historical description and cannot be ignored, and not as a necessary evil, but as a conditio sine qua non of a description that claims to be truly historic. In this context, it becomes clear that the historian, with the most resolute emphasis on the strictness of description, on factographic, on "objectivity", always has the freedom of conjecture, compositional construction, motivations, meaningful interpretation, etc. It is only important to realize that the measure of this freedom must be known to the describer himself, and that this measure is different in different epochs and in different traditions. An author of the sixteenth century or an even earlier period, who combined Anthony with the "Roman" theme, should hardly be considered a greater "fantasist" for his time (adjusted for the genre of the hagiography, in which the "historical" is only a co-present principle) than Karamzin for the beginning of the nineteenth century, who, according to the recognition of authoritative historians of our century, was nevertheless in many respects "historically" more accurate than Solovyov and Klyuchevsky precisely because that he was fully aware of "his" contribution to historical description, of "his" disturbing role as a describer.

Of course, it is very unlikely that Antony was Italian, although this possibility should not be completely ruled out. The argument according to which the definition of Anthony the Roman appears only in the sixteenth century does not have the force of absolute proof and, moreover, is generally doubtful: rumor, oral tradition, in particular the "grassroots", could have known Anthony as a Roman much earlier, and it was the "popularity" and "orality" of this tradition that could prevent the appearance of Anthony the Roman in written texts for a long time. Probably, the point of view according to which Anthony could be called a Roman on the grounds that he, a Russian man, a Novgorod merchant, traveled or sailed to Italy, perhaps even visited Rome (an exceptional event at that time, but not subject to complete exclusion) or some other country of the "Roman" ("Latin") faith. In old Russian texts, representatives of other peoples of Western Europe were often called "Latins" ("Romans"). Having visited Rome or the "Roman-Latins" in the broad sense and returned to his homeland, he could well be called "Roman" as a proper name (in our century after the First World War, many people who returned from German captivity were called, sometimes not without irony, according to the model of Vaska the German, etc.; in part, the same definition often "stuck" to the name of a proper person, immoderately fond of something foreign, cf. in the XVIII century the model "proper name (Russian) & French", etc.; cf. one of Pushkin's Lyceum nicknames).

But be that as it may, the very phantom of Antony as a Roman still has a certain relativity. And the point here is not only in the textual "reality" of this character, but precisely in the fact that real (albeit for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, although earlier examples are known) Russian-Italian encounters at the character level were encoded in the Tale by an equally real sign — Anthony the Roman. It is impossible not to appreciate the goodwill of the author, who made this meeting good and showed what needs to be done to make it so.

LITERATURE

Barsukov Η. P.

1882 Sources of Russian Hagiography. St. Petersburg.

Buslaev F. I.

1861 Historical Essays on Russian Folk Literature. T. 1–2. St. Petersburg.