“WHEN YOU LOVE SOMEBODY, YOU LOOK AFTER THEM...”: MOTIF OF LOVE FOR CHILDREN IN THE WORKS OF РROTOPOPE AVVAKUM
Many of protopope Avvakum`s works are imbued with deep, sincere love for his children. According to protopope, the child`s birth in family is a great joy, while the death of young babies - is a greatest grief for parents. Not coincidentally Avvakum used to think back on the death of his two little sons. Insightful stories about this sad event in his “Life” and petitions to the tzar Alexey Mikhaylovich are imparted with implicit emotionality. Avvakum repeatedly notices that children died “in misery” which conceals rueful feelings of a father, first witnessing sufferings of his babies from starvation and then their death. Motif of love, not acting as a central neither in petitions nor in the correspondence with family or in “Life”, finds different ways of expression. Along with traditional means of emotional expression Avvakum`s works draw heavily upon the poetry of fact. His children`s destiny is connected with protopope`s struggle for Old belief and hence the narrative is charged with anguish. One of the most striking and contradictory episodes from the “Life” is a story of how his sons were near to death by hanging. As a preacher, through many works the protopope continuously encourages his children to be patient in adversities; as a father he feels pity for them, for their physical and moral sufferings and broken lives. His lifelong love for children shone in his works with heartfelt tenderness and paternal worry.