The Desyatinny Monastery () is an inactive monastery or convent in Veliky Novgorod (Russia), one of eight ancient monasteries of the Novgorod Republic.
The Desyatinny Monastery now has a regular square-shaped perimeter. The monastery's complex was developed over a lengthy period and now includes objects constructed in periods from the 14th to the 20th centuries. It was finally completed at the beginning of the 20th century but was closed in 1918 by the Soviet government. Some buildings, including both churches and part of the monastery wall, were lost in the 20th century during World War II and the anti-religious campaign, with the result that the monastery is preserved fragmentarily.
Never considered particularly important, it was subjected to rebuilding many times. Built to symbolize and immortalize the miracle of historical significance for the Novgorod Republic, until the present day, the monastery in fact has undertaken certain social functions affecting Novgorodian society. Its history is a story of ups and downs, of ruin and reconstruction. Almost nothing in the present monastery's exterior suggests how ancient the monastery really is.
Name
The formal name of the monastery is the monastery of the Nativity of Our Lady on the Desyatina, where Desyatina might be calqued into English with the word tithe. It is hard to establish exactly what the founder meant by Desyatina (“Tithe”), as it had several meanings in Old East Slavic, but the most widely accepted version is that the monastery was founded on an estate previously owned by the princes of Novgorod called Desyatina.: "Названiие Десятинскаго монастыря произошло, вѢроятно, от того, что мѢсто, на которомъ онъ поставлен, принадлежало къ княжеским имѢнiямъ, которыя назывались десятиною”) ("The name of the Desyatiski monastery is likely to originate from the fact that the place where the monastery is erected belonged to princely estate called Desyatina [“Tithe”]") (“Tithe”) In turn, Desyatinny is simply an adjectival form created by suffixes (it is remarkable, that the old-fashioned variant of the name is the adjective with another suffix: Desyatinski.) It is therefore assumed that the princes of Novgorod presented their land, glorified in 1170 by the miracle, to the church.
History
Founding It is not clear exactly when the monastery was established. The first written reference in the Novgorod First Chronicle states that in 1327 Moses the archbishop erected a church in honour of the Nativity of Our Lady on the Tithe. An extract from the official translation of the chronicle by Mitchell et al. is given below in comparison with the original text in the Old Novgorod dialect of Old East Slavic:
"Vladyka Moisei erected the church of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God in the Desyatina"
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"постави церковь святои Богородици Рождество владыка Моисеи в Десятине" (Old East Slavic language) -Novgorod First Chronicle
The reference simply shows that the monastery existed in 1327 but does not state when it was founded. Another fact which helps to establish when the monastery was founded is the icon called The Cloudy Assumption: it is accepted that this icon from the early 13th century was brought to Moscow from the monastery's iconostasis. It can therefore be concluded that the monastery was probably founded at the turn of the 12th century.
The version that links the period when the monastery was founded to the miracle which took place on its grounds is likely to be the most significant: in 1170, when Novgorod was besieged by the army of Andrei Bogolubsky, the citizens won a miraculous victory not far from the monastery (the particular site of the miracle, the rampart behind the monastery, is still preserved quite well). It is therefore probably that the monastery was founded soon after the miracle occurred, in order to symbolize and immortalize it.: "Under the legend, opposite to that place where Desyatinny Monastery was subsequently founded, Novgorod lord archbishop Ioann stood on city wall, holding wonder-working icon of Divine Mother of the Sign to avert Suzdal army from the city. The enemy arrow was stuck in the image, tears began to fall from Virgin's eyes and Suzdal army became blind" The subsequent history of the monastery is a story of ups and downs.
Early history: the republican period
There was no united Russian state when the monastery was founded, whatever the precise year happens to be. Instead, There were various East Slavic feudal states. The monastery was founded in the capital of the Novgorod Republic, the most economically, politically and socially developed of these. There are written sources in the Novgorod chronicles, inventory acts and other documents, which give an idea of the early history of the monastery. It can therefore be asserted that the monastery was not substantially developed from the time when its main church of stone was built in 1397 until the end of Swedish occupation of Novgorod in 1617.
In the republican period, the main church of stone was in the monastery's centre, with the remaining wooden buildings around it. The particular set of wooden buildings might have changed over the time but they seems to have included some separate abbess's apartments, some cells, auxiliary buildings and outbuildings (a kitchen, sheds, some stables), probably surrounded by a wooden fence. As in all European towns built of inflammable materials, the wooden buildings were burned down several times (most significantly in 1466 and 1541).The monastery was never considered particularly significant despite the fact that it was located in the capital of Novgorod Republic. As a result:
at that time (and later) it was not a large property comparable with important monasteries in Russia and in the West. It is known to have possessed two uyezds in Vodskaya pyatina (German name: Wattlande), the territory in the modern Novgorod and Leningrad regions of Russia; this is quite a modest estate compared to other monasteries; the monastic regulations initially were not strict; the monastery seems to have been an institution which assumed several other functions. For example, the report about damages caused by fire in 1466 tells us that an ambassador of Pskov Republic lived in the monastery at the time and, moreover, that there were wooden barracks for guards at the monastery. The monastery seems to have managed to maintain various functions to this day as it now serves artists and publicity interests.
Modern history: under the crown of All Rus
A black stripe in the monastery's history starts with the dawnfall of Novgorod Republic in 1470. It is known that the monastery lost all its land when it was appropriated by Ivan III of Russia personally. In 1495 the monastery still owned a small estate in the modern Parfinsky District of Novgorod Oblast. A hundred years later, Moscow undertook the bloody massacre in Novgorod in 1570, and all the monasteries in Novgorod, including this one, were subjected to defeat by Ivan the Terrible and his men, the monks - to violence and humiliation:
"Every day he [ Ivan the Terrible ] mounted and moved to another monastery, where he indulged his savagery. His men took money, ransacked cells, tore down bells, destroyed equipment, and slaughtered cattle. They beat abbots and elders on their heels with sticks [...] demanding extra from them. The sack ruined the monks, and the priceless artifacts of St. Sophia cathedral went into Ivan's fisc. [...] He confiscated treasure in twenty-seven of the oldest monasteries"-Sergei Soloviev, Anthony Rheinlander. History of Russia: The Reign of Ivan the Terrible, Kazan, Astrakhan, Livonia, the Oprichnina and the Polotsk Campaign
Unfortunately, it was not the end. The greatest defeat in the monastery's history took place during the Swedish occupation of Novgorod in 1611 – 1617. As far as can be ascertained, the Swedes defeated the monastery, burned all buildings of wood, including fence and cells, and destroyed the only building of stone - the church of the Nativity:
"The church of stone is defeated and collapsing [now], and there're no cells, no fence"
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"Церков каменная разорена и разваливается, а келий, ограды нет" (Early Modern Russian language)-The inventory of Novgorod, 1617
A new period for reconstruction and development came with the new dynasty which favoured the monastery. After the defeat by the Swedes, in 1618 Euphrosyne the abbess visited Moscow to ask Michael I of Russia, the first sovereign from the new dynasty, for funding. The visit resulted in a positive decision: the tsar provided not only money but new land tenures. That was likely to be a lesson taught by the monastery – Oulita, the next abbess, was a very influential woman from a rich family, who had important contacts at the royal court, resulting in a period of prosperity during the reign of Alexis of Russia. In 1671, in response to Oulita's request, the tsar provided the monastery with further benefits:
guards to protect the monastery's land tenures from neighbouring landowners; release from taxes and duties for the nuns; a vehicle for an abbess visiting Moscow, and funding of travel expenses from the Moscow treasury; funding to repair the church.
One other rich inhabitant who settled in the monastery at the same period was a boyar from an ancient Novgorodian family of nobles. It was the widow Agatha Anichkova, who granted to the monastery all her estate (over 2,000 tithes as well as about 400 serfs). This greatly improved the monastery's humble stocks of 340 tithes and 400 serfs, and allowed the monastery modest means for undertaking reconstruction of the main church in 1679. As before, the monastery renewed its social activity, taking in old and disabled people who arrived from all over Russia. From the 18th century, a women's prison was located within the holy walls, and women-prisoners under the surveillance of guards lived together with the nuns.
The prosperity did not last long. The monastery again lost all its land tenures when in 1764 Catherine II issued the act on secularization of monastery estates. The only exception for the monastery were two windmills near Novgorod together with the monastery's continued right to catch fish in the Msta river. To some extent, this was attenuated by the decision to merge the Desyatinny and the Varvarinsky monasteries (the unpreserved monastery in Novgorod). As a result, all the assets of the Varvarinky monastery were transferred to the Desyatinny monastery. This also brought about a sharp increase in population: there were nine sisters in the monastery before the reform but in 1864 there were as many as 17. (and the total population including 53 novices is 140)
Gradually, up to the beginning of the 20th century, the monastery became better-off. Assessed in 1764 as second-class, its status later improved. In 1864 its annual income was 5,255.65 roubles (quite a large sum) and it had 24,000 roubles in its bank account. One more profitable deal was made with the Russian government in the 20th century: after the monastery had transferred some of its land tenures to the government to house a military settlement, it was given an additional grant of 1,000 roubles a year. Financial stability provided for renewal of the monastery's architecture at the turn of the century.
The revolution in 1917 put an end to the monastery's development as a religious institution as well as an architectural site as a result of the anti-religious campaign undertaken by the new government in 1919.
Contemporary history
After the October Revolution the monastery shared the fate of other Russian monasteries. Funds in its bank accounts were appropriated by the government in 1918. Not yet realizing the scale of what occurred, the sisters applied to different institutions, proposing the creation of a body called the Union of monasticism's adherents: