Real and Transcendental Worlds in the Story of the Founding of the Dormition Cathedral

The article discusses the real and transcendental worlds and their roles in the story of the founding of the Dormition Cathedral. Furthermore, the article contains an analysis of characters and places, demonstrating their influence on the plot and ideological content. The author describes the term “transcendental” in the context of the text, using the theories of Immanuel Kant (“The Critique of Pure Reason”) and the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas. Considerable attention is paid to the motif of the miracle and its connection with extra-textual reality as an ideological justification for preserving Kyiv’s primary political function. In this case, the author describes the influence of Western and Eastern models of Christianity through the prism of symbols. The presence of the transcendent in intertextual plots (biblical allusions) and at the level of ideas (the presence of the Mother of God in Kyiv) is also explored. Additionally, the intertextual plot includes texts from the XI–XVII centuries written by different authors and genres: “Tale of Bygone Years,” “Volodymyr,” “The Sermon on Law and Grace,” etc. Moreover, the article utilizes works written by historians of religion, fiction writers, and philosophers such as Mircea Eliade. The author is also interested in the problem of architectural discourse as a consequence of the influence of the transcendent on the real. Specifically, the real and transcendental worlds in this article are described through the role of numbers and dates. The information in this text can be useful both for humanitarians and people with technical education.