Letter to Eloise

The first Russian translation of the Letter 5 from the correspondence of Abaelard and Heloise is based on the recent critical edition of Latin original, it is accompanied by an exhaustive literary and historical commentary. In his letter Abaelard exhorts Heloise to follow the path of quotidian ascese in order to expell their common sins, he stylizes him self as a kind of new Jeronimus, and his wife, and mother of their son, becomes a “sister in Christ.” Thus, the “rhinoceros indomitus” him self, the logi- cian and philosopher known to us by his treatises, is presented by his letter more like a preacher of monastic values. The translation gives to Russian readers the possibil- ity to look anew on the relationship between the two famous philosophers, as well as to appreciate stylistic peculiarities of love and friendship correspondence in the latin medieval West, in the moment of great flourishing of epistolary genre and spread of love lyric.