This section is devoted to the history of East Slavonic literature formation and to the specific role of the Byzantine literature in this process. The terms "transplantation" and "mediating literature" introduced by Dmitry Likhachev are considered. The highly developed spoken speech standards that existed in Rus' made it possible to perceive the Byzantine book-learned culture and create within a short period of time an original, genuine literature that was based on both the Byzantine and popular literary traditions.