Apothegms

old collections of secular narrative literature, containing witty utterances or edifying stories about incidents from the lives of famous people. Apothegms were concerned with the behavioral standards of people in their personal and social lives. The authors of similar collections were, in particular, F. Petrarch and G. Boccaccio. At the end of the 16th century apothegms had penetrated into Polish manuscript literature and in the second half of the 17th century into Russian manuscript literature. The first printed edition of apothegms in Russia was published in 1711. At the end of the 18th century individual stories drawn from apothegms were included in N. G. Kurganov’s Letter-writer.