Osorina, Yulianya Ustinovna

views updated

OSORINA, YULIANYA USTINOVNA

(d. 1604), noblewoman, local saint of Murom.

Yulianya Osorina is known through the Life [or Tale] of Yulianya Lazarevskaya, a remarkable document of the seventeenth century. Written by the saint's son Druzhina Osorin in the 1620s or 1630s, it stands out among vitae (lives of saints) in that it is tied to precise historical time and events. Most striking is its subject: an ordinary laywoman, the only Russian saint who was not a martyr, ruler, or nun.

Yulianya was born into a family of the upper ranks of the service nobility. Her father, Ustin Nedyurev, was a cellarer of Ivan IV; her mother was Stefanida Lukina from Murom. Orphaned at the age of six, Yulianya was brought up by female relatives and proved to be a serious, obedient, and God-loving child. At the age of sixteen she was married to the wealthy servitor Georgy Osorin. The Life throws some light on the wide scope of duties expected of a noblewoman of that time. Osorina's parents-in-law passed on to her the supervision of all household affairs; in the frequent absence of her husband she ran the estate and managed family affairs: for instance, giving an adequate burial and commemoration to her mother- and father-in-law. The Life shows no trace of the alleged seclusion that has been usually postulated for Muscovite women of some status.

Yulianya began helping widows and orphans in her youth and continued the commitment after marriage. During her widowhood she intensified the charity work, giving away all but the most basic material necessities. Having donated all her belongings in the years of the terrible famine (1601–1603), she died in poverty on January 2, 1604.

The genre of the Life has been disputed widely. In 1871 Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky was the first to describe it as a secular biography. The Soviet scholar Mikhail Osipovich Skripil shared this view and chose for his 1948 edition the title Tale of Ulianya Osorina, abolishing traditional headings such as Life of Yulianya Lazarevskaya. On the other hand, Western scholars T. A. Greenan and Julia Alissandratos, as well as the Russian philolologist T. R. Rudi, insist on the hagiographic character of the work. Different signs of saintliness can be found in the Life : For instance, when Yulianya died, "everyone saw around her head a golden circle just like the one that is painted around the heads of saints on icons." When in 1615 her son was buried and her coffin opened, "they saw it was full of sweet-smelling myrrh," which turned out to be healing. According to Greenan, the Life is firmly rooted in Russian religious tradition, especially in the popular fourteenth-century collection Izmaragd, which emphasizes the possibility of salvation in the world, a central theme in the Life.

The Life was meant both to edify and to advance the cause of Yulianya. Though there is no indication of an official sanctification, she has been worshipped as a saint since the latter half of the seventeenth century in and around the village of Lazarevo, near Yulianya's burial site in Murom. She is commemorated on October 15 and January 2. Her relics are preserved in the Murom City Museum.

See also: hagiography; religion; saints