Myth and Reality in the Description of Indian Lands in Old Russian Sources (Before the end of the XV Century)

«Myth and reality in the description of the Indian lands in Old Russian sources (before the end of the XV century) ». The purpose of the work: to identify the features of human perceptions of ancient Russia about India, which were formed under the influence of an adapted and old Russian literature. The aims of the research were to: 1) compare the information about India, which is reflected in three different ancient literary works: “The legend of the Indian Kingdom”, “The story of Varlaam and Joseph” and “Walking beyond three seas”; 2) analyze the information of sources, which can be corresponded to the category of “real”; 3) analyze the information of sources, which can be corresponded to the category of “fantastic”; 4) identify a set of perceptions about India, which is formed in the view of an ancient human based on written sources. The results of the research: The comparative analysis of the data achieved in the result of the research, shows that three literary works of that time, probably, were written with different purpose and provide different semantic and informative meaning. Moreover, a human of ancient Russia did not intend to separate the real world from the fictional one. Myth is the part of the real world for this human. The studying of these plots will be helpful in explaining to pupils the difference between their “common sense” and “common sense” of our ancestors in order to show them that reading ancient texts can not be done through the understanding of out time. This will clarify the cultural and historical distance between us. Our ancestors are not more silly and wiser than we are. They just live in another world, in which fantastic is presented as “real”. One of the most important educational aim of school curriculum on history is to teach a child to understand the human from the past (and his contemporaries who are the representatives of other cultural traditions).