It was bad with evil spirits in Rus'. Bogatyrev in Lately There were so many that the number of Gorynychs fell sharply. Only once did a ray of hope flash for Ivan: an elderly man who called himself Susanin promised to lead him to the very lair of Likh One-Eyed... But he only came across a rickety ancient hut with broken windows and a broken door. On the wall was scratched: “Checked. Likh no. Bogatyr Popovich."

Sergey Lukyanenko, Yuliy Burkin, “Rus Island”

“Slavic monsters” - you must agree, it sounds a bit wild. Mermaids, goblins, water creatures - they are all familiar to us from childhood and make us remember fairy tales. That is why the fauna of “Slavic fantasy” is still undeservedly considered something naive, frivolous and even slightly stupid. Nowadays, when it comes to magical monsters, we more often think of zombies or dragons, although in our mythology there are such ancient creatures, in comparison with which Lovecraft’s monsters may seem like petty dirty tricks.

The inhabitants of Slavic pagan legends are not the joyful brownie Kuzya or the sentimental monster with a scarlet flower. Our ancestors seriously believed in those evil spirits that we now consider worthy only of children's horror stories.

Almost no original source describing fictional creatures from Slavic mythology. Something was covered in the darkness of history, something was destroyed during the baptism of Rus'. What do we have except vague, contradictory and often dissimilar legends of different Slavic peoples? A few mentions in the works of the Danish historian Saxo Grammarian (1150-1220) - times. “Chronica Slavorum” by the German historian Helmold (1125-1177) - two. And finally, we should remember the collection “Veda Slovena” - a compilation of ancient Bulgarian ritual songs, from which one can also draw conclusions about the pagan beliefs of the ancient Slavs. For obvious reasons, the objectivity of church sources and chronicles is in great doubt.

Book of Veles

The “Book of Veles” (“Veles Book”, Isenbek tablets) has long been passed off as a unique monument of ancient Slavic mythology and history, dating from the 7th century BC - 9th century AD.

Its text was allegedly carved (or burned) onto small wooden strips, some of the “pages” were partially rotten. According to legend, the “Book of Veles” was discovered in 1919 near Kharkov by white colonel Fyodor Isenbek, who took it to Brussels and handed it over to the Slavist Mirolyubov for study. He made several copies, and in August 1941, during the German offensive, the tablets were lost. Versions have been put forward that they were hidden by the Nazis in the “archive of the Aryan past” under Annenerbe, or taken after the war to the USA).

Alas, the authenticity of the book initially raised great doubts, and recently it was finally proven that the entire text of the book was a falsification, carried out in the mid-20th century. The language of this fake is a mixture of different Slavic dialects. Despite the exposure, some writers still use the “Book of Veles” as a source of knowledge.

The only available image of one of the boards of the “Book of Veles”, beginning with the words “We dedicate this book to Veles.”

Slavic stories fairy-tale creatures another European monster might envy. The age of pagan legends is impressive: according to some estimates, it reaches 3000 years, and its roots go back to the Neolithic or even Mesolithic - that is, about 9000 BC.

The common Slavic fairy-tale “menagerie” was absent - in different areas they spoke of completely different creatures. The Slavs did not have sea or mountain monsters, but forest and river evil spirits were abundant. There was no gigantomania either: our ancestors very rarely thought about evil giants like the Greek Cyclops or Scandinavian Jotuns. Some wonderful creatures appeared among the Slavs relatively late, during the period of their Christianization - most often they were borrowed from Greek legends and introduced into national mythology, thus creating a bizarre mixture of beliefs.

Alkonost

According to ancient Greek myth, Alkyone, the wife of the Thessalian king Keik, upon learning of the death of her husband, threw herself into the sea and was turned into a bird, named after her, alkyon (kingfisher). The word “Alkonost” entered the Russian language as a result of a distortion of the ancient saying “alkion is a bird.”

Slavic Alkonost is a bird of paradise with a surprisingly sweet, euphonious voice. She lays her eggs on the seashore, then plunges them into the sea - and the waves calm down for a week. When the eggs hatch, a storm begins. IN Orthodox tradition Alkonost is considered a divine messenger - she lives in heaven and comes down to convey the highest will to people.

Aspid

A winged snake with two trunks and a bird's beak. Lives high in the mountains and periodically makes devastating raids on villages. He gravitates towards rocks so much that he cannot even sit on damp ground - only on a stone. The asp is invulnerable to conventional weapons; it cannot be killed with a sword or arrow, but can only be burned. The name comes from the Greek aspis - poisonous snake.

Auca

A type of mischievous forest spirit, small, pot-bellied, with round cheeks. Doesn't sleep in winter or summer. He likes to fool people in the forest, responding to their cry of “Aw!” from all sides. Leads travelers into a remote thicket and abandons them there.

Baba Yaga

Slavic witch, popular folklore character. Usually depicted as a nasty old woman with disheveled hair, a hooked nose, a "bone foot", long claws and several teeth in her mouth. Baba Yaga is an ambiguous character. Most often, she acts as a pest, with pronounced tendencies towards cannibalism, but on occasion, this witch can voluntarily help a brave hero by questioning him, steaming him in a bathhouse and giving him magical gifts (or providing valuable information).

It is known that Baba Yaga lives in a deep forest. There stands her hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a palisade of human bones and skulls. Sometimes it was said that on the gate to Yaga's house there are hands instead of locks, and a small toothy mouth serves as a keyhole. Baba Yaga's house is enchanted - you can enter it only by saying: “Hut, hut, turn your front to me, and your back to the forest.”
Like Western European witches, Baba Yaga can fly. To do this, she needs a large wooden mortar and a magic broom. With Baba Yaga you can often meet animals (familiars): a black cat or a crow, helping her in her witchcraft.

The origin of the Baba Yaga estate is unclear. Perhaps it came from Turkic languages, or perhaps derived from the Old Serbian “ega” - disease.

Baba Yaga, bone leg. A witch, an ogress and the first female pilot. Paintings by Viktor Vasnetsov and Ivan Bilibin.

Hut on kurnogi

A forest hut on chicken legs, where there are no windows or doors, is not fiction. This is exactly how hunters from the Urals, Siberia and Finno-Ugric tribes built temporary dwellings. Houses with blank walls and an entrance through a hatch in the floor, raised 2-3 meters above the ground, protected both from rodents hungry for supplies and from large predators. Siberian pagans kept stone idols in similar structures. It can be assumed that the figurine of some female deity, placed in a small house “on chicken legs,” gave rise to the myth of Baba Yaga, who can hardly fit in her house: her legs are in one corner, her head is in the other, and her nose rests into the ceiling.

Bannik

The spirit living in the baths was usually represented as a small old man with a long beard. Like all Slavic spirits, he is mischievous. If people in the bathhouse slip, get burned, faint from the heat, get scalded by boiling water, hear the cracking of stones in the stove or knocking on the wall - all these are the tricks of the bathhouse.

The bannik rarely causes any serious harm, only when people behave incorrectly (wash on holidays or late at night). Much more often he helps them. The Slavs associated the bathhouse with mystical, life-giving powers - they often gave birth here or told fortunes (it was believed that the bannik could predict the future).

Like other spirits, they fed the bannik - they left him black bread with salt or buried a strangled black chicken under the threshold of the bathhouse. There was also a female version of the bannik - bannitsa, or obderiha. A shishiga also lived in the baths - an evil spirit that appears only to those who go to the baths without praying. Shishiga takes the form of a friend or relative, invites a person to steam with her and can steam to death.

Bas Celik (Man of Steel)

A popular character in Serbian folklore, a demon or evil sorcerer. According to legend, the king bequeathed to his three sons to marry their sisters to the first one to ask for their hand. One night, someone with a thunderous voice came to the palace and demanded the youngest princess as his wife. The sons fulfilled the will of their father, and soon lost their middle and older sister in a similar way.

Soon the brothers came to their senses and went in search of them. The younger brother met a beautiful princess and took her as his wife. Looking out of curiosity into the forbidden room, the prince saw a man chained. He introduced himself as Bash Celik and asked for three glasses of water. The naive young man gave the stranger a drink, he regained his strength, broke the chains, released his wings, grabbed the princess and flew away. Saddened, the prince went in search. He found out that the thunderous voices that demanded his sisters as wives belonged to the lords of dragons, falcons and eagles. They agreed to help him, and together they defeated the evil Bash Celik.

This is what Bash Celik looks like as imagined by W. Tauber.

Ghouls

The living dead rising from their graves. Like any other vampires, ghouls drink blood and can devastate entire villages. First of all, they kill relatives and friends.

Gamayun

Like Alkonost, a divine female bird whose main function is to carry out predictions. The saying “Gamayun is a prophetic bird” is well known. She also knew how to control the weather. It was believed that when Gamayun flies from the direction of sunrise, a storm comes after her.

Gamayun-Gamayun, how long do I have left to live? - Ku. - Why so ma...?

Divya people

Demi-humans with one eye, one leg and one arm. To move, they had to fold in half. They live somewhere on the edge of the world, reproduce artificially, forging their own kind from iron. The smoke of their forges brings with it pestilence, smallpox and fevers.

Brownie

In the most generalized representation - a house spirit, the patron of the hearth, a little old man with a beard (or completely covered with hair). It was believed that every house had its own brownie. In their homes they were rarely called “brownies,” preferring the affectionate “grandfather.”

If people established normal relations with him, fed him (they left a saucer of milk, bread and salt on the floor) and considered him a member of their family, then the brownie helped them do minor housework, looked after the livestock, guarded the household, and warned them of danger.

On the other hand, an angry brownie could be very dangerous - at night he pinched people until they were bruised, strangled them, killed horses and cows, made noise, broke dishes and even set fire to a house. It was believed that the brownie lived behind the stove or in the stable.

Drekavac (drekavac)

A half-forgotten creature from the folklore of the southern Slavs. There is no exact description of it - some consider it an animal, others a bird, and in central Serbia there is a belief that the drekavak is soul of the dead unbaptized baby. They agree on only one thing - the drekavak can scream terribly.

Usually the drekavak is the hero of children's horror stories, but in remote areas (for example, the mountainous Zlatibor in Serbia) even adults believe in this creature. Residents of the village of Tometino Polie from time to time report strange attacks on their livestock - it is difficult to determine from the nature of the wounds what kind of predator it was. The peasants claim to have heard eerie screams, so a Drekavak is probably involved.

Firebird

An image familiar to us from childhood, a beautiful bird with bright, dazzling fiery feathers (“they burn like heat”). Traditional test for fairy-tale heroes- get a feather from the tail of this bird. For the Slavs, the firebird was more of a metaphor than a real creature. She personified fire, light, sun, and possibly knowledge. Its closest relative is the medieval bird Phoenix, known both in the West and in Rus'.

One cannot help but recall such an inhabitant of Slavic mythology as the bird Rarog (probably distorted from Svarog - the blacksmith god). A fiery falcon that can also look like a whirlwind of flame, Rarog is depicted on the coat of arms of the Rurikovichs ("Rarogs" in German) - the first dynasty of Russian rulers. The highly stylized diving Rarog eventually began to resemble a trident - this is how the modern coat of arms of Ukraine appeared.

Kikimora (shishimora, mara)

An evil spirit (sometimes the brownie's wife), appearing in the form of a small, ugly old woman. If a kikimora lives in a house behind the stove or in the attic, then it constantly harms people: it makes noise, knocks on walls, interferes with sleep, tears yarn, breaks dishes, poisons livestock. It was sometimes believed that babies who died without baptism became kikimoras, or kikimoras could be unleashed on a house under construction by evil carpenters or stove makers. A kikimora that lives in a swamp or forest does much less harm - mostly it only scares lost travelers.

Koschey the Immortal (Kashchei)

One of the well-known Old Slavonic negative characters, usually represented as a thin, skeletal old man with a repulsive appearance. Aggressive, vindictive, greedy and stingy. It is difficult to say whether he was a personification of the external enemies of the Slavs, an evil spirit, a powerful wizard, or a unique variety of undead.

It is indisputable that Koschey possessed very strong magic, avoided people and often engaged in the favorite activity of all villains in the world - kidnapping girls. In Russian science fiction, the image of Koshchei is quite popular, and he is presented in different ways: in a comic light (“Island of Rus'” by Lukyanenko and Burkin), or, for example, as a cyborg (“The Fate of Koshchei in the Cyberozoic Era” by Alexander Tyurin).

Koshchei’s “signature” feature was immortality, and far from absolute. As we all probably remember, on the magical island of Buyan (capable of suddenly disappearing and appearing before travelers) there is a large old oak tree on which a chest hangs. There is a hare in the chest, in the hare there is a duck, in the duck there is an egg, and in the egg there is a magic needle where Koshchei’s death is hidden. He can be killed by breaking this needle (according to some versions, by breaking an egg on Koshchei’s head).

Koschey as imagined by Vasnetsov and Bilibin.

Georgy Millyar - best performer roles of Koshchei and Baba Yaga in Soviet fairy tales.

Goblin

Forest spirit, protector of animals. He looks like a tall man with a long beard and hair all over his body. Essentially not evil - he walks through the forest, protects it from people, occasionally shows himself, for which he can take on any form - a plant, a mushroom (a giant talking fly agaric), an animal or even a person. The goblin can be distinguished from other people by two signs - his eyes glow with magical fire, and his shoes are put on backwards.

Sometimes a meeting with a goblin can end in failure - he will lead a person into the forest and throw him to be devoured by animals. However, those who respect nature can even become friends with this creature and receive help from it.

Dashingly one-eyed

Spirit of evil, failure, symbol of grief. There is no certainty regarding Likh’s appearance - he is either a one-eyed giant or a tall, thin woman with one eye in the middle of his forehead. Dashingly is often compared to the Cyclops, although apart from one eye and tall stature, they have nothing in common.

The saying has reached our time: “Don’t wake up Dashing while it’s quiet.” In a literal and allegorical sense, Likho meant trouble - it became attached to a person, sat on his neck (in some legends, the unfortunate person tried to drown Likho by throwing himself into the water, and drowned himself) and prevented him from living.
Likh, however, could be gotten rid of - deceived, driven away by force of will, or, as is occasionally mentioned, given to another person along with some gift. According to very dark superstitions, Likho could come and devour you.

Mermaid

In Slavic mythology, mermaids are a type of mischievous evil spirits. They were drowned women, girls who died near a pond, or people swimming at inopportune times. Mermaids were sometimes identified with “mavkas” (from the Old Slavonic “nav” - dead man) - children who died without baptism or were strangled by their mothers.

The eyes of such mermaids glow with green fire. By their nature, they are nasty and evil creatures, they grab bathing people by the legs, pull them under the water, or lure them from the shore, wrap their arms around them and drown them. There was a belief that a mermaid's laughter could cause death (this makes them look like Irish banshees).

Some beliefs called mermaids the lower spirits of nature (for example, good “beregins”), who have nothing in common with drowned people and willingly save drowning people.

There were also “tree mermaids” living in tree branches. Some researchers classify mermaids as mermaids (in Poland - lakanits) - lower spirits who take the form of girls in transparent white clothes, living in the fields and helping the field. The latter is also a natural spirit - it is believed that he looks like a little old man with a white beard. The field dwells in cultivated fields and usually patronizes peasants - except when they work at noon. For this, he sends midday warriors to the peasants so that they will deprive them of their minds with their magic.

We should also mention the waterwoman - a type of mermaid, a baptized drowned woman who does not belong to the category of evil spirits, and therefore is relatively kind. Waterworts love deep pools, but most often they settle under mill wheels, ride on them, spoil millstones, muddy the water, wash out holes, and tear nets.

It was believed that waterwomen were the wives of mermen - spirits who appeared in the guise of old men with a long green beard made of algae and (rarely) fish scales instead of skin. Bug-eyed, fat, creepy, merman lives on great depth in whirlpools, commands mermaids and other underwater inhabitants. It was believed that he rode around his underwater kingdom riding a catfish, for which this fish was sometimes called “devil’s horse” among the people.

The merman is not malicious by nature and even acts as a patron of sailors, fishermen or millers, but from time to time he likes to play pranks, dragging a gaping (or offended) bather under the water. Sometimes the merman was endowed with the ability to shapeshift - transform into fish, animals or even logs.

Over time, the image of the merman as the patron of rivers and lakes changed - he began to be seen as powerful " sea ​​king"living underwater in a luxurious palace. From the spirit of nature, the merman turned into a kind of magical tyrant, with whom the heroes folk epic(for example, Sadko) could communicate, enter into agreements and even defeat him by cunning.

Mermen as presented by Bilibin and V. Vladimirov.

Sirin

Another creature with the head of a woman and the body of an owl (owl), with a charming voice. Unlike Alkonost and Gamayun, Sirin is not a messenger from above, but a direct threat to life. It is believed that these birds live in the “Indian lands near paradise,” or on the Euphrates River, and sing such songs for the saints in heaven, upon hearing which people completely lose their memory and will, and their ships are wrecked.

It's not hard to guess that Sirin is a mythological adaptation of the Greek Sirens. However, unlike them, the Sirin bird is not negative character, but rather a metaphor for the temptation of a person with various kinds of temptations.

Nightingale the Robber (Nightingale Odikhmantievich)

A character from late Slavic legends, a complex image combining the features of a bird, an evil wizard and a hero. The Nightingale the Robber lived in the forests near Chernigov near the Smorodina River and for 30 years guarded the road to Kyiv, not letting anyone through, deafening travelers with a monstrous whistle and roar.

The Robber Nightingale had a nest on seven oak trees, but the legend also says that he had a mansion and three daughters. The epic hero Ilya Muromets was not afraid of the adversary and knocked out his eye with an arrow from a bow, and during their battle, the whistle of the Nightingale the Robber knocked down the entire forest in the area. The hero brought the captive villain to Kyiv, where Prince Vladimir, out of curiosity, asked the Nightingale the Robber to whistle - to check whether the rumor about the super-abilities of this villain was true. The nightingale, of course, whistled so loudly that he almost destroyed half the city. After this, Ilya Muromets took him to the forest and cut off his head so that such an outrage would not happen again (according to another version, Nightingale the Robber later acted as Ilya Muromets’ assistant in battle).

For his first novels and poems, Vladimir Nabokov used the pseudonym "Sirin".

In 2004, the village of Kukoboi (Pervomaisky district of the Yaroslavl region) was declared the “homeland” of Baba Yaga. Her “birthday” is celebrated on July 26th. The Orthodox Church sharply condemned the “worship of Baba Yaga.”

Ilya Muromets is the only one epic hero, canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Baba Yaga is found even in Western comics, for example, “Hellboy” by Mike Mignola. In the first episode of the computer game "Quest for Glory" Baba Yaga is the main plot villain. In the role-playing game “Vampire: The Masquerade,” Baba Yaga is a vampire of the Nosferatu clan (distinguished by ugliness and secrecy). After Gorbachev left the political arena, she came out of hiding and killed all the vampires of the Brujah clan who controlled the Soviet Union.

* * *

It is very difficult to list all the fabulous creatures of the Slavs: most of them have been studied very poorly and represent local varieties of spirits - forest, water or domestic, and some of them were very similar to each other. In general, the abundance of immaterial beings greatly distinguishes Slavic bestiary from more mundane gatherings of monsters from other cultures
.
Among the Slavic “monsters” there are very few monsters as such. Our ancestors led a calm, measured life, and therefore the creatures they invented for themselves were associated with the elementary elements, neutral in their essence. If they opposed people, then, for the most part, they were only protecting Mother Nature and ancestral traditions. Stories of Russian folklore teach us to be kinder, more tolerant, to love nature and respect the ancient heritage of our ancestors.

The latter is especially important, because ancient legends are quickly forgotten, and instead of mysterious and mischievous Russian mermaids, Disney fish-maidens with shells on their breasts come to us. Do not be ashamed to study Slavic legends - especially in their original versions, not adapted for children's books. Our bestiary is archaic and in some sense even naive, but we can be proud of it, because it is one of the most ancient in Europe.

Folklore and its main forms. Orthodox literature

Slavs in the XI-XVI centuries. Modern Slavic literatures

The topic of folklore and Slavic literatures is touched upon in our manual only in connection with Slavic verbal culture as a whole, and we do not delve into the details of this topic (in particular, into a discussion of the current state of folklore studies). There are many valuable manuals specifically devoted to folklore as such (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc. folk art), as there are similar manuals related to Russian and other Slavic literatures. We refer readers to them who are interested in an in-depth acquaintance with this topic.

The Slavic peoples created such an important folklore genre as fairy tales, and a rich set of fairy-tale plots (magical, everyday, social, etc.). Fairy tales feature the most colorful human characters, endowed with folk ingenuity - Ivan the Fool among the Russians, the cunning Peter among the Bulgarians, etc.

According to the witty observation of F.I. Buslaeva, “The fairy tale glorifies mainly heroes, heroes and knights; the princess, who usually appears in it, is very often not called by name and, having married a hero or knight, leaves the scene of action. But, inferior to men in heroism and glory gained by military exploits, a woman in the era of paganism... was a demigoddess, a sorceress...

Quite naturally I could folk tale Add physical strength to a woman’s mental strength. So, Stavrov’s young wife, dressed up as an ambassador, defeated the Vladimirov wrestlers.” 175 .

The Eastern Slavs developed epics. Among them, the Kiev cycle stands out (epics about the peasant Mikul Selyaninovich, the heroes Svyatogor, Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, etc.) and Novgorod cycle(epic stories about Vasily Buslaev, Sadko, etc.). A unique genre of heroic epic, Russian epics constitute one of the most important accessories of the national verbal art. Among the Serbs, the heroic epic is represented by stories about Miloš Obilic, Korolevich Marko, and others. There are similar characters in the epic of the Bulgarians - Sekula Detence, Daichin the Voivode, Yankul and Momgil, etc. 176 Among the Western Slavs, the heroic epic, due to a number of complex reasons, did not show itself so impressively.

An epic is not a historical chronicle, but an artistic phenomenon. Russians usually feel well the distance between the real personality of the Monk Ilya Muromets and the epic image of the hero Ilya Muromets. About the Serbian epic by its researcher Ilya Nikolaevich Golenishchev-Kutuzov(1904-1969), for example, wrote:

“In addition to events that do not violate the boundaries of the reliable,<...>in the songs about Prince Marko there are stories about winged horses speaking in a human voice, about snakes and mountain sorceresses-forks" 177 .

How expressively characterized the oral folk art F.I. Buslaev, “The people do not remember the beginning of their songs and fairy tales. They have been carried on from time immemorial and are passed down from generation to generation, according to legend, like antiquity. Even though the singer Igor knows some Boyan, he already calls ancient folk legends “old words.” In “Ancient Russian Poems,” a song or legend is called “old times”: “that’s how the old days ended,” says the singer... Otherwise, a song with narrative content is called “bylina,” that is, a story about what was.<...> Therefore, when finishing a song, sometimes the singer adds in conclusion the following words: “then the “old thing”, then the “deed””, expressing with this verse the idea that his epic is not only an old thing, a legend, but precisely a legend about the “deed” that actually happened.” 178 .

The Slavic peoples have preserved legends related to their origin. Both Western and Eastern Slavs know the legend about the brothers Czech, Lech and Rus. Among the Eastern Slavs, the founding of Kyiv is associated with the legendary Kiy, Shchek, Khoriv and their sister Lybid. The Poles, according to legend, imprinted the names of the children of the forester who lived here in the name of Warsaw: a boy named Var and a girl named Sawa. Very interesting are the tales, stories and legends that contain a variety of information about prehistoric times about Libusz and Přemysl, about the Maiden's War, about the Blanice knights of the Czechs, about Piast and Popel, Krak and Wanda among the Poles, etc.

For example, the plot of the legend about the Maiden War makes us recall the struggle between matriarchal and patriarchal principles in the Slavic society of ancient times.

According to him, after the death of the legendary Czech ruler Libusha, who relied on maidens and women and even kept a female squad, her husband Přemysl began to rule. However, the girls, accustomed to rule, rebelled against the men, built the Devin fortress and settled in it. Then they defeated a detachment of men who frivolously tried to capture the fortress - three hundred knights died, and seven were personally stabbed to death by the leader of the women’s army, Vlasta (formerly the foremost warrior in Libushi’s squad). After this victory, the women treacherously captured the young knight Tstirad, who rushed to save the beauty tied to an oak tree, and wheeled him on the wheel. In response, the men united into an army and completely defeated the women, killing Vlasta in battle and capturing Devin 179 .

The poetic genres of folklore among the Slavs are extremely diverse. In addition to epics and myths, this includes various songs - youth and haidut songs among the southern Slavs, bandit songs among Eastern Slavs etc., historical songs and ballads, Ukrainian thoughts, etc. 180 The Slovaks have a very interesting cycle of folklore works about the noble robber Juraj Janosik.

Many poetic works were performed to the accompaniment of various musical instruments (Russian gusli, Ukrainian bandura, etc.).

Small genres of folklore (proverb, saying, riddle, etc.) are of particular interest to philologists who study semasiological problems. So, for example, A.A. Potebnya dedicated in his work “ From lectures on the theory of literature» special section “techniques for transforming complex poetic work into a proverb,” emphasizing: “The whole process of compressing a longer story into a proverb is one of the phenomena that is of great importance for human thought” (Potebnya called these phenomena “condensation of thought”) 181 .

Among the collections of Russian proverbs, “ Russian folk proverbs and parables"(1848) I.M. Snegireva, " Russian proverbs and sayings"(1855) F.I. Buslaeva and " Proverbs of the Russian people"(1862) V.I. Dalia.

Among the collectors of Slavic folklore are the largest cultural figures (for example, A.I. Afanasiev And IN AND. Dahl from the Russians, Vuk Karadzic among the Serbs). In Russia, talented enthusiasts like Kirsha Danilov and professional philologists were engaged in this matter P.N. Rybnikov, A.F. Hilferding, I.V. Kireevsky and others. Ukrainian folklore was collected, for example, ON THE. Tsertelev, M. Maksimovich, Y. Golovatsky etc. The brothers did a great job among the southern Slavs Miladinovs, P.R. Slaveykov et al. among the Poles Waclaw Zaleski, Zegota Pauli, Z. Dolenga-Chodakowski and others, among the Czechs and Slovaks F. Chelakovsky, K. Erben, P. Dobshinsky and other philologists.

Slavic literatures are very diverse. Old Russian literature, a characteristic manifestation of literatures of the so-called “medieval type,” existed from the 11th century. Let us recall several important points related to it.

Academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev(1906-1999) rightly wrote: “Ancient Russian literature was not only not isolated from the literatures of its neighbors - Western and southern countries, in particular - from the same Byzantium, but within the limits of the 17th century. we can talk about absolutely the opposite - about the absence of clear national boundaries in it. We can rightfully talk about the common development of the literatures of the Eastern and Southern Slavs. There were unified literature(italics mine. - Yu.M.), a single script and a single (Church Slavonic) language among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), Bulgarians, Serbs and Romanians" (as mentioned above, the Romanians, as Orthodox Christians, actively used the Church Slavonic language until the second half of the 19th century century) 182 .

Expression by D.S. Likhachev’s “unified literature” should not be absolutized. He further explains his thought: “The main fund of church and literary monuments was common. Liturgical, preaching, church-edifying, hagiographic, partly world-historical (chronographic), partly narrative literature was uniform for the entire Orthodox south and east of Europe. Common were such huge literary monuments as prologues, menaions, solemnities, triodions, partly chronicles, paleas different types, “Alexandria”, “The Tale of Barlaam and Joasaph”, “The Tale of Akira the Wise”, “The Bee”, cosmography, physiologists, six-day, apocrypha, individual lives, etc., etc.” 183 .

Obviously, they were not common " A Word about Igor's Campaign», « Teaching» Vladimir Monomakh, “The word about the destruction of the Russian land», « Zadonshchina», « Prayer of Daniel the Imprisoner"and some other works, perhaps the most interesting in ancient Russian literature to our contemporaries. However, for the medieval reader, whose heart was turned primarily to God, and not to earthly human problems, they were not “the most important” among literary texts. No matter how difficult it may be for a person of the 21st century to comprehend this fact, the Gospel, lives of saints, psalms, akathists, etc., and by no means “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and similar masterpieces of fiction, were in the center of attention of ancient Russian readers (namely that is why the “Word” was so easily lost and was only discovered by chance at the end of the 18th century).

After the above explanations, it is impossible not to join D.S.’s thesis. Likhachev, that “Old Russian literature before the 16th century. was united with the literature of other Orthodox countries" 184 . As a result, if you turn to manuals such as “Ancient Serbian Literature”, “Ancient Bulgarian Literature”, etc., the reader will immediately encounter in them many works known to him from the course of Old Russian literature.

For example, in the “History of Slavic Literatures” by academician Alexander Nikolaevich Pypin(1833-1904) and Vladimir Danilovich Spasovich(1829-1906) those mentioned above by Academician Likhachev appear as ancient Bulgarian (and not ancient Russian!) Prologue», « Palea», « Alexandria" and etc. 185 Moreover, according to the authors, it was the Bulgarians who created “extensive literature in the Old Church Slavonic language, which was completely passed on to the Russians and Serbs”; “the church relations of the Russians with the Bulgarians and with Mount Athos, the close proximity of the Serbs with the Bulgarians established an exchange of manuscripts between them”; “as a result, the Serbian writer represents the general type that we see in the Bulgarian and ancient Russian writers of this kind” 186 .

In turn, I.V. Jagić in his “History of Serbo-Croatian Literature” stated the same trend: “Ancient Serbian original(italics mine. - Yu.M.) works constitute a very insignificant part of the rest of the literature" 187 .

I.V. Yagich admitted that “from our current point of view” the “thin notebook of medieval folk songs and the like” seems more important than the “entire huge stock of biblical-theological-liturgical works” translated by the Orthodox Slavs. However, he immediately emphasized that one must “vividly imagine the views of those times, according to which there was no occupation more sacred than this.” 188 .

Unfortunately, the actual discovery of “thin notebooks” of this kind is extremely rare. As a result, in the era of romanticism, some West Slavic patriots (in the Czech Republic) could not resist compiling such artistic hoaxes, How Kraledvor manuscript(1817, “discovered” in the town of Kralevodvor) 189 .

This “notebook” of “the newest works of ancient Czech literature,” as V.I. ironically said. Lamansky, is a collection of masterful stylizations of Slavic antiquity. The Kraledvor manuscript includes, for example, epic songs about knightly tournaments and feasts, about the victory of the Czechs over the Saxons, about the expulsion of the Poles from Prague, about the victory over the Tatars, etc. The lyrical poems present the usual love themes, and the influence of Russian folklore is noticeable.

The author of the texts was Vaclav Hanka(1791-1861), famous Czech cultural figure and educator. And soon the student Josef Linda“found” a manuscript with “The Love Song of King Wenceslas I” (Zelenogorsk manuscript). Thinking in terms of romanticism, they both clearly wanted to elevate the historical past of their people, who, after the defeat of the Czechs at the Battle of White Mountain (1620), were actually enslaved by the Austrian feudal lords.

Many people believed in the authenticity of the Kraledvor manuscript almost until the beginning of the 20th century. This beautiful hoax was exposed by philological scientists - linguists and paleographers, who discovered errors in verb tenses, endings, letter forms impossible in ancient times, etc., as well as historians who pointed out factual inconsistencies. At the same time, there is no doubt that the stylizations of Ganka and Linda had a great positive impact on contemporary literature, giving rise to many bright artistic variations, imagery and plots revealed in them.

Around the middle of the 17th century. Old Russian literature was replaced and surprisingly quickly - over the course of two generations - the literature of modern times took hold in society. This means literature in the narrow strict sense of the word - artistic, having the system of genres familiar to us to this day (poem, poem, ode, novel, story, tragedy, comedy, etc.). Of course, such a rapid spread of new literature is due to the fact that the prerequisites for its appearance in Rus' gradually took shape and invisibly accumulated over the previous several centuries.

It is not difficult to feel the differences between modern literature and ancient Russian literature by comparing, for example, “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh” (written in the era of Dmitry Donskoy by Epiphanius the Wise) with the novel by Leo Tolstoy (or even with “The Life of Archpriest Avvakum”) or by comparing the ancient Orthodox Christian akathist and spiritual ode to Derzhavin. In addition to clearly visible specific genre and style differences, there were also global differences.

The author of the life of the saint and the compiler of the chronicle, the author of the church akathist were engaged in a sacred craft - the aesthetic principle, to the extent of personal talent, of course, entered into their works, but still as a side effect. In ancient Russian writing there were separate works where, just like in the literature of modern times, the artistic side prevails (the above-mentioned “The Tale of Igor’s Host”, “The Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh, “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land”, “The Prayer of Daniil the Zatochnik”, etc. ). However, they are few in number and stand apart (although, we repeat, for the reader of the 21st century, these works of art in the narrow sense of the word are perhaps the most interesting and internally close).

The creative tasks of the chronicler, the author of a historical tale, the author of a patericon life, a solemn church sermon, an akathist, etc. corresponded to a special (hardly understandable to a person of our time without special philological training) “aesthetics of the canons” (or “aesthetics of identity”).

This aesthetics professed fidelity to “divinely inspired” authoritative models and a sophisticated reproduction of their main features in one’s own work (with subtle innovations in detail, but not in general). Thus, the ancient Russian reader of hagiography knew in advance how the author would describe the life of a saint - the genre of hagiography included a system of canonically strict rules, and hagiographic works were similar to each other, like siblings; their content was in a number of ways predictable in advance.

This feature of Old Russian literature, reflecting the socio-psychological characteristics of the people of the Russian Orthodox Middle Ages, as well as the essence of that complex cultural and historical phenomenon, which is now called “Old Russian literature”, was replaced in the 17th century. alive to this day with the “aesthetics of novelty.”

Writers of modern times do not engage in “sacred craft”, but in art as such; the aesthetic principle is the primary condition for their creativity; they care about recording their authorship, strive to ensure that their works do not resemble the works of their predecessors, are “artistically original,” and the reader appreciates and considers the unpredictability of the development of artistic content and the uniqueness of the plot as a natural condition.

New Russian literature at the initial stage was literature baroque. Baroque came to us through Poland and Belarus. The actual founder of Moscow Baroque poetry Simeon of Polotsk(1629-1680) was a Belarusian invited to Moscow by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Among the other most prominent representatives of Baroque poetry can be named a resident of Kiev Ivan Velichkovsky, and at the beginning of the 18th century. - St. Dimitry Rostovsky(1651 - 1709), Feofan Prokopovich(1681 - 1736), satirist poet Antioch Cantemir(1708-1744), etc. At the origins of the prose of the Baroque era stands the powerful figure of the archpriest Avvakum Petrova(1620-1682).

It is necessary to take into account the special status of grammatical teachings in the cultural consciousness of the Baroque era. “Grammar,” according to F.I. Buslaev, - considered the first step... of the ladder of sciences and arts.” About Smotritsky’s grammar, he recalls that “they studied using it in the time of Peter the Great; it was also the gate of wisdom for Lomonosov himself. In addition to its literary and educational significance, it is still sacredly revered among schismatic Old Believers (Buslaev means its Moscow edition of 1648 - Yu.M.), because in the verses or poems appended to this book for example, the form Isus is used - obviously for verse and measure, vm. Jesus. This explains the extreme high cost of the 1648 edition.” Further, Buslaev openly laughs at such a religious celebration of grammar by the Old Believers, recalling that Smotritsky “submitted to the pope and was a Uniate” 190 .

M. Smotritsky, a graduate of the Jesuit Vilna Academy, in the future, indeed, a supporter of union with the Roman Catholic Church, from an early age came into contact with circles that cultivated typically Baroque ideas, ideas and theories (Baroque in Catholic countries arose much earlier than in Rus', and the “Jesuit Baroque” was its real offshoot).

It should be noted that our Baroque was closely connected, sometimes merged, with other arts. To put it differently, he was distinguished by his complex artistic synthesis. For example, the literary image is often closely intertwined in the works of this time with the pictorial image.

In the field painting XVII V. changes similar to those in literature occurred. Secular painting quickly takes shape here - portraits, genre scenes, landscapes (previously religious painting dominated here - icons, frescoes, etc.). Icon painting itself is evolving - authors appear who create so-called “life-like” icons, and a sharp struggle flares up between them and supporters of the old style 191 .

Verbal-textual manuals for icon painters, the so-called “Originals”, which existed before, acquire new qualities of real works of literature. Speaking about this phenomenon, F.I. Buslaev wrote:

“Thus, expanding its limits more and more, and getting closer and closer to literary interests, the Russian artistic Original insensitively merges with the ABC Book, which for our ancestors was not only a dictionary and grammar, but also an entire encyclopedia. It is difficult to imagine a more friendly, more harmonious agreement between purely artistic and literary interests after this, so to speak, organic fusion of such opposites as painting and grammar with a dictionary.” 192 .

Buslaev further examines the example of pictorial “symbolism of letters” in the Original of the “era of syllabic verses” (that is, the Baroque era. - Yu.M.), where “on each page, in cinnabar, one of the letters” of the name “Jesus Christ” is written in sequential order, “and under the letter there is an explanation in syllabic verses, namely:

І (the first letter of the name in the old spelling - Yu.M.) in the form of a pillar with a rooster on top:

Our Jesus Christ is tied to the pillar,

Velmi was always scourged from the torment of the evil ones.

WITH with the image inside his pieces of silver:

They bought a piece of silver for Jesus for thirty.

So that he would be condemned to death.

U Church Slavonic, in the form of pincers:

Nails were removed from hands and feet with pliers,

Sometimes they took it down from the cross with their hands.

WITH with a picture of his four nails inside.<...>

X with an image of a cane and a spear arranged in a cross.<...>

R in the form of a bowl...<...>

AND shaped like a staircase...<...>

T in the form of a cross...<...>

ABOUT in the form of a crown of thorns...<...>

WITH with a hammer and instruments of punishment...<...>» 193 .

The pictorial principle penetrated into literature more deeply than in similar syllabic couplets. Thus, Simeon Polotsky, Ivan Velichkovsky and other authors created a number of poems-drawings (in the form of a star, heart, cross, bowl and other figures); they wrote such semantically structured texts as palindromons, crayfish, labyrinths, etc. , they used letters of different colors for figurative and expressive purposes.

Here is an example of “controversial cancer” from Ivan Velichkovsky - in his words, a verse “whose words, when read in a flash, are disgusting (opposite in meaning. - Yu.M.) text express":

Btsa With me, life is not the fear of death, Evva

I will not die by living.

That is: “With me there is life, not the fear of death, by me you will not die” (Mother of God); “Fear of death, not life with me, Die, undead with me” (Eve).

On your own historical path Russian literature from the second half of the 19th century. managed to take the position of one of the world leaders. Already I.S. Turgenev, without saying a word, was called best writer Europe, the Goncourt brothers, George Sand, Flaubert. Soon L.N. gained enormous prestige throughout the world as an artist and thinker. Tolstoy. Later, readers all over the world discovered F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhova, A.M. Gorky, M.A. Sholokhova, M.A. Bulgakov...

The contribution of other Slavic literatures to the world literary process was not so global. Thus, writers of Little Russian (Ukrainian) origin in the 18th - 19th centuries. most often they wrote in the Great Russian (Moscow) dialect, that is, they became figures Russian literature. It refers to Vasily Vasilievich Kapnist(1757-1823), Vasily Trofimovich Narezhny(1780-1825), Nikolai Ivanovich Gnedich(1784-1833), Alexey Alekseevich Perovsky(1787-1836, pseudonym Anthony Pogorelsky), Orest Mikhailovich Somov(1793-1833), Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol(1809-1852), Nestor Vasilievich Kukolnik(1809-1868), Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy(1817-1875), Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko(1853-1921), etc. 194

N.S. Trubetskoy noted: “Kotlyarevsky is considered the founder of the new Ukrainian literary language. The works of this writer (“Aeneid”, “Natalka-Poltavka”, “Moskal-Charivnik”, “Ode to Prince Kurakin”) are written in the common Little Russian dialect of the Poltava region and in their content belong to the same genre of poetry, in which the deliberate use of the common language is quite appropriate and motivated by the content itself. The poems of the most important Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, were written for the most part in the spirit and style of Little Russian folk poetry and, therefore, again by their very content motivate the use of the common language. In all these works, just like in stories from the folk life of good Ukrainian prose writers, the language is deliberately vernacular, that is, as if deliberately unliterary. In this genre of works, the writer deliberately limits himself to the sphere of such concepts and ideas for which ready-made words already exist in the unsophisticated folk language, and chooses a topic that gives him the opportunity to use only those words that actually exist - and, moreover, precisely in this meaning - in living folk speech" 195 .

The Balkan Slavs, and in the west the Czechs and Slovaks, were under foreign oppression for several centuries.

The Bulgarians and Serbs did not experience processes parallel to the Russians in replacing medieval literature with literature of a new type. The situation was completely different. Bulgarian and Serbian literature experienced a break in their development of more than four centuries. This unfortunate cultural and historical phenomenon directly follows from the occupation of the Balkans by the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages.

Bulgarians are a Slavic people, but the name of this people comes from the name of a Turkic nomadic tribe Bulgars, in the 7th century n. e. under the leadership of Khan Asparukh, who occupied the lands of seven Slavic tribes on the Danube. On these lands Asparuh founded his Bulgarian kingdom with its capital in the city Pliska. Soon the conquerors were assimilated by the incomparably more numerous Slavic environment 196 .

In 1371, the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman, after decades of increasingly weakening resistance, recognized himself as a vassal of the Turkish Sultan Murad I. Then in 1393, the Turks took the then Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnovo. Three years later, the last pillar of Bulgarian statehood was taken by storm - the city of Vidin (1396). A Turkish governor settled in Sofia.

Serbia fell under the Turkish yoke after its defeat in the battle with the Turks on Kosovo Polje(1389), that is, approximately in the same years (in Rus', nine years earlier, the battle with the Tatars took place on the Kulikovo Field, which had a completely different outcome for the Russians).

The indigenous Bulgarian and Serbian population engaged in peasant labor, paid unaffordable taxes to the Turks, but stubbornly resisted Islamization. However, the real picture of the subsequent ups and downs of the history of both peoples was very ambiguous and complex. Feudal strife led to the fact that some of the Slavs from time to time found themselves in one or another military clashes against Catholic Christians on the side of the Muslim Turks. In relation to Serbian history, a number of facts of this kind were cited in his monograph “The Epic of the Peoples of Yugoslavia” by I.N. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, wrote:

“Thus, from the end of the 15th to the end of the 18th century. Serbs were in both camps, fighting for the cause of Christian sovereigns and Turkish sultans... there was no period in which the Serbian people did not have weapons. The idea of ​​an amorphous Serbian peasant mass... does not correspond to historical reality.<...>

In XV - XVII centuries in Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Dalmatia there was not a single area in which the haiduks did not operate" 197 .

Some Serbs and Croats were nevertheless forcibly converted to Islam. Their descendants now make up a special ethnic group called “ Muslims"(that is, "Muslim") 198 . The Bulgarians and Serbs survived some Orthodox monasteries, where the rewriting and reproduction of literary texts continued (the Bulgarians did not yet know printing even in the 17th century) - on Athos, the Bulgarian Zograf and Serbian Hilendar monasteries, as well as the Troyan, Rylsky (it was destroyed several times, but was restored); “The last center of national culture of the Serbs in the Middle Ages arose in the Manasseh monastery”: “There were workshops where they copied and decorated manuscripts in Church Slavonic, which was also the literary language. Serbian scribes were strongly influenced by the destroyed Bulgarian school of the Old Slavic language in Tarnovo" 199 .

To the antique handwritten book the oppressed people gradually began to look at it as a national shrine.

Bulgarian and Serbian priests were in fact the only bookish (and generally literate) people in this difficult era for the cultures of the southern Slavs. They often went to study in Russia and then wrote in a language in which, in addition to the Church Slavonic basis, there were not only words from the folk language, but also Russianisms 200 .

In 1791, the first Serbian newspaper began to be published in Vienna. Serbian Novini" In 1806, the first printed Bulgarian work “ Weekly» Sophrony Vrachansky.

Bulgarian monk Paisiy in 1762 he wrote a history of the Bulgarians, imbued with a desire for national independence, which circulated in manuscript for decades, and was published only in 1844. In Serbia and Montenegro, the Montenegrin prince (and metropolitan) awakened the people with his fiery sermons Petr Petrovich Iegosh(1813-1851). Montenegrin by origin and the greatest romantic poet, he wrote the dramatic poem “ Mountain crown» ( Gorskiy Vijenac, 1847), calling the Slavs to unity and depicting the life of the Montenegrin people.

In the era of romanticism, Bulgarians and Serbs began to develop fiction. Poets are at its origins in Bulgaria Petko Slaveykov(1827-1895), Lyuben Karavelov(1835-1879) and Hristo Botev(1848-1876). These are revolutionary romantics, whose bright talent was objectively prevented from manifesting itself in full force only by the lack of the necessary national literary and artistic tradition behind them.

The great Bulgarian poet, prose writer and playwright worked under the great fruitful influence of Russian literature Ivan Vazov(1850-1921), author of the historical novel " Under the yoke"(1890) 201 .

Serbian poetic romanticism is represented by such poets as Djura Jaksic(1832-1878) and Laza Kostic(1841 - 1910), among the Montenegrins - for example, the work of the king Nikola I Petrovich(1841-1921). In the region of Vojvodina, in the city of Novi Sad, a center of Slavic culture developed. A remarkable educator acted here Dositej Obradovic from Vojvodina (1739-1811), the actual founder of modern literature.

A playwright with a sparkling satirical gift later appeared in Serbian literature Branislav Nusic(1864-1938), author of comedies " Suspicious person"(based on Gogol's The Inspector General) (1887), " Patronage"(1888), " Madam Minister"(1929), " Mister Dollar"(1932), " Saddened relatives"(1935), " Dr." (1936), " Deceased"(1937), etc., as well as full of self-irony " Autobiographies».

Bosnian Serb won the Nobel Prize in 1961 Ivo Andric(1892-1975). Among his historical novels, it should be noted first of all “ Bridge on the Drina"(1945), " Travnica Chronicle"(1945), " Damn yard"(1954), etc.

Czech and Slovak literature, the literature of the Balkan Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Macedonians, etc.), as well as the cultures of these Slavic peoples as a whole, have essentially survived centuries break in development.

If we mean the Czechs, this truly tragic collision is a consequence of the seizure of Czech lands by Austrian feudal lords (that is, Catholic Germans) after the defeat of the Czechs in the Battle of White Mountain in the 17th century.

Medieval Czechs were a courageous and freedom-loving people. A century and a half before the reform movement of Calvinists, Lutherans, etc. split the Catholic world, it was the Czechs who fought against Catholicism.

Great figure of Czech culture, preacher and church reformer Jan Hus(1371-1415), rector of the Bethlehem Chapel in the old part of Prague, and later rector of the University of Prague, in 1412 he sharply opposed the Catholic practice of trading indulgences. Hus had already begun reading sermons in Czech rather than in Latin. He also criticized some other Catholic institutions relating to church property, the power of the pope, etc. Hus also wrote in Latin, using his knowledge to expose the vices nesting in the Catholic Church (“ About six fornications»).

Acting as a public educator, Jan Hus devoted his energy to philological work. In his essay " About Czech spelling“He proposed superscripts for the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to convey sounds characteristic of the Czech language.

The Catholics lured Hus to the Council of Constance. He received a safe conduct, which, after his arrest, was blatantly disavowed on the grounds that the promises made to the “heretic” were invalid. Jan Hus was burned at the stake (he has not been “rehabilitated” by the Catholic Church to this day). The Czech people responded to this atrocity with a national uprising.

A nobleman stood at the head of the Hussites Jan Zizka(1360-1424), who turned out to be a wonderful commander. He also fought at Grunwald, where he lost an eye. Zizka's army repulsed several crusades organized by Catholic knights against the Hussites. Jan Žižka created a new type of army that moved on armored vehicles and had artillery. The carts, lined up in a row or in a circle and secured with chains, turned into a fortress on wheels. More than once the Hussites brought down heavily loaded carts from the mountain, crushing and putting to flight knights who outnumbered them many times over.

Having lost his second eye in battle, Zizka continued to command the troops as a blind man. It was only when he died of the plague during the siege of Przybyslav that the united Catholic forces managed to curb the Hussite movement, which had terrorized all of Europe for more than 20 years.

In the next 16th century, the Austrians infiltrated the throne in Prague. Of these, Archduke Rudolf II of Habsburg remained in history as a philanthropist and ruler prone to religious tolerance. Under him, astronomers Tycho Brahe and Kepler worked in Prague, and Giordano Bruno was hiding from the Inquisition. Protestantism spread in the Czech Republic.

In 1618, Protestant Czechia rebelled against the rule of Catholic Austrians. This uprising ended in defeat at the Battle of White Mountain (1620).

Upon entering Prague, the victors carried out a brutal massacre. The Slavic aristocracy was diligently destroyed. The Austrians set themselves the task now and forever to suppress the people's ability to resist. Even the tomb of Jan Zizka in 1623 (199 years after the death of the commander) was destroyed by order of the Austrian emperor, and his remains were thrown out.

The era of 300 years of domination in the Czech Republic by the Austrian Habsburg dynasty began (it ended in 1918 after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of independent Czechoslovakia). Austrian feudal lords and their henchmen systematically suppressed national culture in the Czech Republic.

In the Czech Republic already in the 14th century. there was developed medieval literature in the native language (chronicles, lives of saints, chivalric novels, dramatic works, etc.). The works (sermons, epistles and other philosophical and theological works) of the great reformer Jan Hus were written in Czech. A bishop with great artistic talent Jan Amos Comenius(1592-1670), teacher and theologian, used Czech along with Latin. For example, his allegory, which is distinguished by its high literary merits, is written in Czech. Labyrinth of the world and paradise of the heart"(1631). However, J. Comenius died in exile in Holland. The Germans ruled the homeland.

In 1620 the written tradition itself was interrupted. From now on, the Czechs began to write in German, and this was controlled by the winners with truly German punctuality. The victors were especially zealous in destroying the Slavic culture of the vanquished during the first century and a half. Counter-Reformation and forced Germanization were carried out; Jesuits burned Czech books at the stake. As a result, in the past, independent Czechs were reduced to the status of German serfs (serfdom was abolished here in 1848). The national nobility was destroyed (the surviving Slavic nobles mainly tried to imitate themselves as “Germans”).

In the peasant Slavic environment, during the centuries of Austrian dominance, oral folk art continued to develop latently. But writers of Slavic nationality, when they appeared, created their works in German. Baroque art in the conquered lands was cultivated by Catholic clergy, did not produce significant works and was not directly related to the culture of the Slavs as such.

Only at the end of the 18th century. patriotic philologist Joseph Dobrowski(1753-1829) took up the grammatical description of the Czech language and issues of Czech literature, writing (in German) its history, scientifically substantiating the rules of syllabic-tonic versification for Czech poetry. The literary language had to be created anew. N.S. Trubetskoy talks about this situation like this:

“Thanks to the activities of Jan Hus and the so-called Czech brothers, the Czech language by the 16th century. took on a completely formed appearance. But unfavorable circumstances interrupted its further development, and the Czech literary tradition almost completely dried up for a long time. Only at the end of the 18th century early XIX V. The revival of the Czech literary language began. At the same time, the figures of the Czech Renaissance turned not to modern folk dialects, but to the interrupted tradition of the old Czech language of the late 16th century. Of course, this language had to be somewhat updated, but nevertheless, thanks to this connection with the interrupted tradition, the Modern Czech language received a completely unique appearance: it is archaic, but artificially archaic, so that the elements are completely different eras language development in it get along with each other in artificial cohabitation" 202 .

The practical consequence of this is that literary Czech is very different from spoken Czech. Having learned to read works of Czech literature fluently, a foreigner suddenly faces the fact that he does not understand the live speech of the Czechs, and they do not understand him when trying to communicate.

Romantic poets began their creativity in Czech Frantisek Celakovsky(1799-1852), Vaclav Hanka(1791-1861), Karel Jaromir Erben(1811-1870), etc. Old Czech literary monuments began to be republished.

In the second half of the 19th century. the most brilliant poet and prose writer of the period of national revival appeared in the Czech Republic Svatopluk Czech(1846-1908).His defiantly bold " Slave songs» ( Pisně otroka) called the Czech people to fight for freedom. Historical poems from the glorious Czech past were rich in plot and also enjoyed great readership. Satirical novels « Mr. Broucek's true journey to the moon» (« Pravy vylet pana Broučka do Měsice", 1888) and " A new epochal journey of Mr. Broucek, this time to the fifteenth century» (« Novy epochalni vylet pana Broučka, tentokrat do patnacteho stoleti» , 1888) anticipated the satirical prose of J. Hasek and K. Capek 203 .

Contemporary of S. Cech Alois Irasek(1851 - 1930) began as a poet, but, switching to prose with plots from Czech history, he became a classic of national literature (he also wrote historical dramas). He created a series of novels about the Hussites " Between the currents» ( Mezi proud 1887-1890), " Against all» ( Proti vsem, 1893), " Brotherhood» ( Bratrstvo, 1898-1908); plays about Jan Hus and Jan Zizka.

In Czechoslovakia, which was formed after the end of the First World War, the satirist and humorist was popular Jaroslav Hasek(1883-1923) With his anti-war novel " The adventures of the good soldier Schweik» ( Osudy dobreho vojaka Švejka za světove valky, 1921-1923). Hasek was a communist and a participant in the Russian Civil War, which contributed to his fame in the USSR.

Karel Capek(1890-1938), playwright and prose writer, famous for his plays " Makropoulos remedy» ( Vec Makropoulos, 1922), " Mother» ( Matka, 1938), " R.U .R.» ( Rossumovi Univerzalni Roboti, 1920) and others, novels " Factory of the absolute» ( Tovarna na absolutno, 1922), " Krakatite» ( Krakatit, 1922), " Gordubal» ( Hordubal, 1937), " Meteor», « War with the salamanders"(Valka s mloky, 1936), etc. Along with the Pole S. Lem, Capek can be recognized as a classic of philosophical fiction. Karel Capek died, having a hard time surviving the Munich Agreement, which handed over his homeland to the power of the Germans.

Centuries of slavish dependence on the Germans, apparently, did not pass without a trace for the Czechs as a nation, having taught them to humbly accept the vicissitudes of fate. As you know, Hitler met desperate resistance in Poland in 1939. A year earlier, fascist troops invaded the Czech Republic almost without firing a single shot. The Czech Republic, at that time a powerful industrial country with an excellent defense industry and a strong army equipped with the most modern weapons (much stronger than the Polish army), surrendered to the Germans. (Subsequently, Czech tanks fought during the Great Patriotic War against the USSR, and Czech soldiers abounded in Hitler’s army.)

In 1938, some in the Czech Republic felt doomed that their usual hosts, the Germans, had returned... A poem by Marina Tsvetaeva, who loved Czechoslovakia with all her heart, recalls these dramatic days “ One officer" The Russian poetess prefaced this work with the following epigraph:

“In the Sudetes, on the forested Czech border, an officer with twenty soldiers, leaving the soldiers in the forest, went out onto the road and began shooting at the approaching Germans. Its end is unknown ( From the September newspapers of 1938)».

Tsvetaeva writes:

Czech forest -

The most forested.

Year - nine hundred

Thirty-eighth.

Day and month? - peaks, echo:

The day the Germans entered the Czechs!

The forest is reddish,

The day is blue-gray.

Twenty soldiers

One officer.

Round-faced and round-faced

An officer guards the border.

My forest is all around,

My bush, all around,

My house is all around

This house is mine.

I won’t give up the forest,

I won't rent out the house

I won’t give up the edge,

I won’t give up an inch!

Leafy darkness.

Hearts are frightened:

Is it a Prussian step?

Is there a heartbeat?

My forest, goodbye!

My century, goodbye!

My land, goodbye!

This region is mine!

Let the whole region

At the enemy's feet!

I'm under your feet -

I won't give up the stone!

The clatter of boots.

Germans! - leaf.

The rumble of iron.

Germans! - the whole forest.

Germans! - peal

Mountains and caves.

Threw the soldier

One is an officer.

From the forest - in a lively manner

To the community - yes with a revolver!

Incurred

Good news,

What - saved

Czech honor!

So it's a country

So it’s not delivered,

Means war

Still - it was!

My land, vivat!

Bite it, Herr!

Twenty soldiers.

One officer.

Consequences of a break in cultural and historical development during the 17th-18th centuries. are already visible from the obvious fact that Czech literature, unfortunately, has shown little of itself in international level. However, writers like A. Irasek and K. Capek, and other authors translated into foreign languages, worthily carry its ideas and themes into the most different countries. Russian readers have great sympathy for Czech literature.

Even in the early Middle Ages, the lands of the Slovaks became part of Hungary, whose feudal authorities invariably and cruelly suppressed the Slovak national culture. However, in the 16th century. Hungarians lost their national independence. In Hungary it was introduced German, and the local feudal lords themselves had a hard time. Together with their long-time oppressors, the Hungarians, the Slovaks fell under the scepter of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, which soon absorbed the Czechs. The nuance is that for the Slovaks, with this subjugation of them to the Austrians, i.e., the Germans, the cruel rule over them weakened Hungarians, against which the Slovaks fought for centuries 204 . In addition, unlike the Czechs, the Slovaks were Catholics like the Austrians - that is, there was no religious confrontation here. And today, a noticeable majority of citizens of the Slovak Republic, formed in 1993, are Catholics (almost all others are Protestants, as in the Czech Republic).

(For the first time, the Slovak state was created - for political reasons - by Nazi Germany after its capture of Czechoslovakia. After the liberation of the Czechs and Slovaks by Soviet troops, the unified Czechoslovak Republic was restored (as a socialist one). In other words, in the period 1918-1993, Slovakia was almost always in composition Czechoslovakia.)

Slovaks were greatly influenced by Czech culture in general and literature in particular. From the 16th century those Slovaks who became Protestants. In this environment, people willingly wrote in Czech - for example, poets Juraj Palkovich(1769-1850), author of the book of poems “Muse of the Slovak Mountains” (1801), and Boguslav Tablitz(1769-1832), who published his collections “Poetry and Notes” one after another (1806-1812). Tablitz also published an anthology of Slovak poetry of the 18th century. “Slovak Poets” (1804) - also in Czech.

IN Catholic Slovak circles at the end of the 18th century. a philologically interesting attempt was made to create a system of Slovak spelling (the so-called “bernolacchina” - named after its creator, a Slovak Catholic priest Antonina Bernolaka(1762-1813). A number of books were published at Bernolaccina. Although this cumbersome system never caught on, Bernolak attracted the efforts of national cultural figures to create a Slovak literary language. However, N.S. Trubetskoy made a keen and capacious observation:

“Despite the desire of the founders and main figures of Slovak literature to dissociate themselves from the Czech language, adherence to the Czech literary and linguistic tradition is so natural for Slovaks that it is impossible to resist it. The differences between the Slovak and Czech literary languages ​​are mainly grammatical and phonetic, but the vocabulary of both languages ​​is almost the same, especially in the sphere of concepts and ideas of higher mental culture.” 205 .

Started writing poetry in Slovak Jan Kollar(1793-1852), who created odes, elegies, and wrote the patriotic poem “ Daughter of Glory"(1824).

Slovak by nationality was one of the largest philologists of the Slavic world Pavel Josef Safarik(1795-1861). Living for many years in Prague, he wrote mainly in Czech. His most famous work is “ Slavic antiquities"(1837).

Philologist and Hegelian philosopher Ljudevit Stuhr(1815-1856) in the 30s of the XIX century. headed the department of Czechoslovak literature at the Bratislava Lyceum. He promoted the writer's loyalty to the spirit of the people, which is refracted in oral folk art.

Romantic poets worked under the influence of Stuhr's ideas Janko Kralj(1822-1876), who is characterized by rebellious motives (for example, a cycle of his poems about the “Slovak Robin Hood” robber Janosik) and prose writer Jan Kalinchak(1822-1871), who wrote historical stories about the Slavic struggle for independence - “ Bozkovići"(1842), " Milko's grave" (1845), " Prince Liptovsky"(1847), etc.

In fact, the named authors and some of their contemporaries played the role of the founders of the young (in historical terms, and a century and a half later still quite young) Slovak literature. This literature is full of fresh energy, but its entry into the wider international arena is a matter of the future.

The Polish people have been developing their culture in their own state for centuries. At the end of the 14th century. Polish Queen Jadwiga married the Lithuanian King Jagiello (later the military-political leader of the Battle of Grunwald). The Grand Duchy of Lithuania retained its autonomy, but less than a century later (June 28, 1569) Union of Lublin, according to which Poland and Lithuania have already become a single state. As a result of this union, Orthodox Belarusians and Ukrainians became dependent on Catholic Poles.

A few years later, a Catholic Hungarian was elected king of Poland. Stefan Batory(1533-1586), who led decisive military actions against the Orthodox Rus' of Ivan IV. At the same time, Catholicism intensified its confessional attack on Orthodoxy.

In 1574 the Jesuit Petr Skarga(1536-1612), a major Polish Catholic figure, published his famous book « About jednośći Kośćtioła Bożego” (“On the unity of the Church of God and the Greek deviation from this unity”), in which he accused Orthodox priests of getting married and therefore immersed in a sinful worldly life, and also knowing Latin poorly and therefore not being distinguished by the necessary theological learning. He especially attacked the Church Slavonic language, arguing that with it “no one can become a scientist.” Church Slavonic supposedly has no rules of grammar, and it is also poorly understood everywhere. Skarga naturally contrasted this depressing picture with Catholicism with its Latin - in which, it must be admitted, various techniques of logical scholasticism and intellectual sophistry were sophisticatedly developed.

Answering Peter Skarga, the Athonite monk is Ukrainian Ivan Vishensky(1550-1623) pointed to the inspiration of the Church Slavonic language, “the most fruitful of all languages,” but precisely because it is hated by the devil, who “has such envy of the Slovenian language.” This language is “beloved to God: even without filthy tricks and manuals, yet there is a grammarian, a rhetorician, a dialectician and their other vain deceits, the universal devil.” 206 .

In 1596, Catholic church circles, with the support of the Polish authorities, implemented a religious union. According to this so-called Brest, Union, Orthodox Christians living in Poland were subordinate to the Pope, although they retained the right to conduct religious services in Church Slavonic.

The Little Russian and Belarusian masses did not accept the union. In many ways, it was the union that pushed the Ukrainian people into a series of armed uprisings against the rule of the Poles. In the end, this fight was led by Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky(1595-1657) - Koshevoy ataman of the Zaporozhye army, later hetman of Ukraine.

The Patriarch of Constantinople, who arrived at his headquarters, called on Khmelnitsky to create an Orthodox state and abolish the union. However, the hetman understood that in his war with the Poles the forces were too unequal, and after major military defeats, on January 8, 1654, he assembled a council in Pereyaslavl, at which the people supported his intention to transfer to the citizenship of the “Tsar of Moscow.” The reunification of Ukrainians and Russians began with the Pereyaslav Rada, which lasted until the end of 1991, that is, almost to the present day.

Poland experienced in the 17th - 18th centuries. a series of severe disasters. A few years after the Pereyaslav Rada, it was literally flooded by the so-called “flood” - the invasion of the Swedes. The country has never recovered from it. In 1703, the Swedes of Charles XII again occupied Poland, took Warsaw and even installed their protege Stanislav Leszczynski as king.

In the 18th century circumstances unfavorable for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth multiplied more and more. With growing aggressiveness, the gentry, defending their “democratic rights,” entered into a fight with King Stanislav Poniatowski, who was supported by Russia, and formed a “confederation” against him. The king asked Russia for help. As a result of very turbulent events, the so-called first and second partitions of Poland took place between Russia, Austria and Prussia.

In 1794, the Polish confederates, led by an outstanding commander Tadeusz Kosciuszko(1746-1817) were completely defeated Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov(1730-1800), and the third partition of Poland took place. Poland as a state ceased to exist. For the Poles, as a distinctive Slavic nation, this was a tragedy.

There were and are world-famous authors in Polish literature (Adam Mickiewicz, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Stanislaw Lem, Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska, etc.).

Polish secular fiction expanded beyond “Catholic Esperanto” (Latin) in the 16th century. N.S. Trubetskoy writes:

“The Old Polish language became literary much later than the Czech language, and since there was quite lively cultural communication between Poland and the Czech Republic, and the Polish and Czech languages ​​in the 14th century. were phonetically and grammatically much closer to each other than at present, it is not surprising that at the beginning of its literary existence the Old Polish language experienced an extremely strong Czech influence. At its core, the Old Polish literary language developed from the spoken language of the Polish gentry, and this connection with a certain class, and not with a certain locality, meant that from its very beginning it did not reflect any specifically local, dialectical features and never coincided not with any local folk dialect: while, for example, the Russian literary language in terms of pronunciation can definitely be localized in the area of ​​Central Russian dialects, the Polish literary language is not at all amenable to localization on the dialectical map of ethnographic Poland. Literary tradition of the Polish language since the 14th century. never stopped, so that in terms of the duration and continuity of the literary tradition, the Polish language among the Slavic literary languages ​​occupies the next place after Russian" 207 .

The poet successfully used the Polish language Nikolai Ray(1505-1569), author of moralizing poems (collection " Menagerie", 1562) allegorical poem "A true image of the life of a worthy person, in which, as in a mirror, everyone can easily review their actions" (1558), a book of short comic poems (" frashek») « Funny stories"(1562), etc. Jan Kokhanovsky(1530-1584) was the greatest poet of his time, the author of such didactic works in tone as “ Susanna" (1562), " Chess"(1562-1566), " Agreement" (1564), " Satyr"(1564), etc. A poet who had little time to write Samp Szazynski(1550-1581) is considered a kind of predecessor of the Polish Baroque. One of the most famous representatives of the Baroque in Poland - Jan Andrzej Morsztyn(1621-1693), in whose work the Poles see the influence of the major figure of the Italian Baroque G. Marino (1569-1625).

Becoming at the end of the 18th century. part of the Russian Empire, Slavic Poland experienced a strong and fruitful cultural and historical influence from its Russian brothers. In relation to literature, this fact is undoubtedly captured in the works of the classic of Polish romanticism Adam Mickiewicz(1798-1855), who was a personal friend of A.S. Pushkin and a number of contemporary Russian writers. A comparison of the works of Mitskevich and Pushkin more than once makes it possible to feel that the creative quests of these two great contemporaries (and at the same time the leaders of two Slavic literatures) were in many ways parallel to each other (they even both lived in Odessa, Moscow and St. Petersburg, both loved these cities).

« Crimean sonnets"("Sonety krymskie", 1826) by A. Mickiewicz are consonant with Pushkin's poems of the southern period. In turn, A.S. Pushkin brilliantly translated some of Mickiewicz’s poems (“ Budrys and his sons», « Voivode"). Mickiewicz’s epic poems are magnificent “ Conrad Wallenrod" (1828) and " Pan Tadeusz"(1834). In 1834, the poet also completed the dramatic poem “ Dziady"(her artistically strongest 3rd part), imbued with mystical-fantastic motifs and motifs of Polish paganism, after that, unfortunately, she almost stopped composing poetry. A. Mitskevich owns many sonnets, romances, lyric poems and ballads. He also wrote a kind of romantic prose.

Among the Polish poets of subsequent generations, they stand out primarily Juliusz Słowacki(1809-1849), who also acted as a playwright and tragic Ciprian Norwid(1821-1883), a lyric poet and poet-philosopher who published little during his lifetime.

In the second half of the 19th century. A whole galaxy of wonderful prose writers has matured in Poland.

Józef Ignacy Kraszewski(1812-1887) wrote prose, poetry and plays, leaving more than 500 volumes of essays (one of the most prolific European writers), but most of all he was glorified by 88 historical novels. Among them stand out “ Countess Kozel"(1873), " Bruhl" (1874), " Old legend"(1876), etc. Among the largest Polish prose writers of the 19th century. It was Kraszewski who first began to systematically poetize the historical past of Poland, at the end of the 18th century. lost its state independence and was dismembered.

Krashevsky lived in that (main) part of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which became part of Russia, and was a contemporary of I.S. Turgeneva, F.M. Dostoevsky, N.S. Leskov and other major Russian prose writers. Since 1868, thinking humanity has become increasingly familiar with the great novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace", which influenced the work of historical novelists in various countries (as the romantic Walter Scott had previously managed to achieve with his work at the beginning of the 19th century). Kraszewski's novels established a powerful tradition of historical prose in Polish literature.

Alexander Glovatsky(1847-1912), who wrote under a pseudonym Boleslav Prus, He liked to joke that he used a pseudonym because he was embarrassed by the nonsense coming from his pen. Despite such ironic self-criticism, Prus was a master of the pen. Starting out as a humorist writer, he then became famous for his realistic novels and stories " Outpost"(1885), "Doll" (1890), " Emancipants"(1894), etc., as well as the wonderful historical novel " Pharaoh"(1895).

Classic novelist, Nobel Prize laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz(1846-1916) also focused primarily on depicting Poland's great past. Novels " With fire and sword"(1883-1884), " Flood"(1884-1886), " Pan Volodyevsky"(1887-1888) constitute a trilogy dedicated to the military exploits of the Polish gentry of bygone times (in the novel "With Fire and Sword" the Poles fight their Ukrainian brothers, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky). Historical novel " Kamo is coming"("Quo vadis"), written in 1894-1896, takes the action to the first centuries of Christianity (the reign of Emperor Nero).

Sienkiewicz's best novel " Crusaders"(1900) depicts Poland on the brink of the 14th-15th centuries. The plot action is resolved by the Battle of Grunwald, in which the united forces of the Slavs inflicted a crushing defeat on the Teutonic Order.

Stefan Żeromski(1864-1925), who wrote prose and plays, became famous primarily for his historical novel from the era of the Napoleonic wars " Ash"(Popioły, 1904). Among his other works (as a rule, permeated with pessimistic intonations), the novel “ History of Sin"(Dzieje grzechu, 1908) and the trilogy " Fighting Satan"(Walka z szatanem, 1916-1919).

Works of a prose writer and playwright Stanislav Przybyszewski(1868-1927), the de facto leader of Polish modernism at the beginning of the 20th century, was appreciated by Russian symbolists. He created novels, plays, prose poems, essays, etc. Przybyszewski wrote many of his works in German (he grew up in the Prussian part of Poland), then translating himself into Polish. This includes " Homo Sapiens», « Children of Satan», « Deprofundis» and etc.

In the first decades of the 20th century. in Poland there was also a bright poetic galaxy. Poets belonged to her Boleslav Lesmyan(1877-1937), Leopold Staff(1878-1957), as well as younger authors who formed the Scamander group - Julian Tuwim(1894-1953), Yaroslav Ivashkevich(1894-1980), Kazimierz Wierzynski(1894-1969), etc. The revolutionary romantic poet joined this group Vladislav Bronevsky(1897-1962).

One of the greatest Polish poets of the 20th century was remarkably talented. Constants Ildefons Galczynski(1905-1953) - a wonderful lyricist, but also an ironic author, prone to fantasy and the grotesque, and on occasion a bright and strong satirist. Galczyński's pre-war lyrics are mainly united in " Utwory poetyckie"(1937). Captured by the Germans, the poet spent the years of World War II in a prisoner of war camp, where his health suffered. After the war, Galczynski published books of poetry " Enchanted droshky"("Zaczarowana dorożka", 1948), " Wedding rings"("Ślubne obrączki", 1949), " Lyric poems"("Wiersze liryczne", 1952), poem " Niobe"("Niobe", 1951) and a poem about the medieval Polish sculptor " Wit Stwosh"("Wit Stwosz", 1952). In the post-war years, the poet worked a lot as a satirist - he created the poetic cycle “ Letters with violet"("Listy z fiołkiem", 1948).

There is reason to believe that K.I. Galczynski, whose work is marked by traits of genius, was generally the last in chronology great Polish poet. Among the authors of subsequent generations, modernist attitudes generally prevailed, and creativity acquired a rather rationalistic character. 208 .

This applies even to such major figures as the Polish-Lithuanian poet who received the Nobel Prize (1980). Czeslaw Milosz(1911-2004), who had been in exile since 1951, and Tadeusz Ruzewicz(1921) with his strict program of saving figurative means (refusal of rhyme, poetic rhythm, etc., that is, a transition to vers libre, refusal of metaphors, etc.). Even more revealing in this regard is the work of famous poets of later generations - for example, Stanislav Baranczak(1946), acting in parallel with writing poetry as a literary theorist, and Waldemar Zelazny(1959).

In 1996, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to a Polish poet. Wislawa Szymborska(1923). This act of somewhat belated official recognition prompts us to point to this poetess as a classic woman of modern Polish literature.

The true pride of modern Polish culture is its multifaceted creativity Stanislav Lem(1921-2006). Since 1961, when his science fiction novels were published one after another " Solaris», « Return from the Stars», « Diary found in the bathtub" And " Book of Robots", it became clear what kind of writer (prose writer, philosopher-essayist, critic) appeared in one of the Slavic countries. S. Lem was an innovator who updated the genre system native literature. Known all over the world and widely influencing world literary fiction, Lem's work has enormous artistic significance.

If we summarize all of the above, it is deeply obvious that the Slavic world has made a powerful contribution to world verbal culture. The Slavs created the most important literary monuments of the Middle Ages. Slavic writers (primarily Russians) confidently occupy leadership positions in a number of areas of world literary development.

FOLK TRADITIONS AS RESIDUAL RELIGION

Our interest in the research and writings of Yuri Mirolyubov (1892-1970), which are presented in his book “The Sacred of Rus'” recently published in Russia, is due to the fact that Mirolyubov is perhaps one of the first Russian scientists who spoke about Russian folk customs , folklore and language as a residual ancient Slavic RELIGION. Mirolyubov, in accordance with the accepted tradition, calls this ancient Russian religiosity either “Slavic mythology” or “paganism”, but puts into these concepts already new meaning. He acts not as a materialist mythologist, but as a religious person. He sees in the customs of his ancestors, first of all, genuine faith, and draws the attention of his readers to the fact that the form of belief of the ancient Slavs was monotheism. The closeness of the Slavic languages ​​to Sanskrit should naturally prompt a search for the similarity of the ideological systems of the Vedic Aryans and the Slavs of antiquity. The existence of such a relationship is obvious, but research into the ideology of the Slavs in this direction has not been developed for various reasons. There was even a pessimistic idea that little had survived from the pre-Christian religion of the Slavs, or even that this religion in general was extremely primitive. Mirolyubov, illustrating his reasoning with historical, philological and religious arguments, argues that the religion of the Slavs was, on the contrary, very advanced and was “spoiled Vedism,” and the Vedic Aryans, therefore, were the ancestors of the Slavic peoples.

The main and original material used by Mirolubivy for his arguments is Ukrainian folklore, which he heard and collected in the early 20th century. Among Vedic sources, Mirolyubov mainly used the Rig Veda. Polemicizing with Slavists of the 19th and 20th centuries, Mirolyubov, in the spirit of Lomonosov's patriotism, enthusiastically defends the ancient Russian tradition. Naturally, scientists now have a much larger selection of information sources at their disposal. This also applies to those translated into Russian and other European languages ancient Indian sources, the same applies to materials on Slavic mythology.

This material with Slavic-Vedic parallels actually lay in the most prominent place, but suddenly became visible to Mirolyubov and some other scientists for the following reasons. The ideological guidelines of official pre-revolutionary Russia and the atheistic guidelines of the Soviet state did not allow us to show that the concept " folk traditions" is a euphemism that hides residual religiosity. But Russian scientists in exile and in post-Soviet Russia were able to allow themselves to look at folk traditions from a different perspective, free from ideological blinders. Nothing stopped Mirolyubov from making a bold, but completely natural comparison of the “Vedic” and Slavic mythologies, and discover “almost identity.” Of course, Soviet Indology and Soviet Slavic studies always stipulated the kinship of the Slavic and Vedic spiritual cultures, but fragmentarily, and from the perspective of an invisible, artificially reconstructed “PRORELIGION.” Mirolyubov simply stops at the fact that there is no reconstruction. there is no need to make Indo-European and Proto-Slavic religions. Literally, he says this: “Why are we turning specifically to Vedism? Because this is the ancient PRAINDOI-ROPEAN RELIGION. There is no need to look for it, as German scientists do by restoration, it IS" (2, 18).

PAGAN AND ORTHODOX FOLKLORE OF THE EASTERN SLAVS

“Old people,” writes Mirolyubov, “speaking of any plans for the future, these days they added: “Yak Did will want!”... It is clear that “Did” is Svarog, the Grandfather of the Universe." What is striking in Mirolyubov’s views is the fact that the meaning of the “relic” ideology has not become dead at all, the meaning has been completely preserved, and it was lost only by the atheistic storytellers of the “Soviet era” “Grandfather and Baba” - these are the Slavic God-Villers from the places where he lived and recorded his folklore observations. Peace-loving, they understood that Grandfather is the Grandfather of the Universe, Svarog. Of course, these are taboo, “conspiracy” names, but the material collected and studied by Peace-loving shows that the “old people” also remembered hidden, “sacred” names and did not just remember. , but also offered “strava” (sacrificial treats) to their ancient gods. That is, the so-called “oral folk art” at the beginning of this century in its archaic village “genres” not only contained remnants of ancient religiosity, but was even ancient religiosity. . Another side of this discovery by Mirolyubov is his view of “Orthodox folklore.” He devotes an entire monograph to this, “Russian Christian Folklore. Orthodox Legends.”

It's no secret that under many Orthodox rites and holidays, scientists discover "pre-Christian" rituals. Usually, scientists talk about a Christian “compromise” with Russian paganism. “Ilya barks, but I give rain” (1, 142). In this Ukrainian proverb, Dazhdbog is preserved almost entirely, and the thunderer Perun is replaced by Ilya. Scientists considered such “paganism” of Orthodox rituals as proof of their natural-scientific interpretations of the origin of religion. The clergy could look at this as an ignorant popular prejudice. But Mirolyubov feels, understands and interprets naturally, remaining “on the side of the people.” For example, he writes: “The cult of St. Nicholas the Merciful in Rus' cannot be explained by anything other than the fact that it overshadowed another belief, even more ancient, even more pagan. Being Svarog, Kolyada, Perun, he at the same time is probably still and Lado, and maybe Kupala, Sivy and Kolyada, he is at the same time Savitri, Varuna-Soma, for he BRINGS Grass, Green POWER, he is Khoros, for he shows two Half-Kols, and besides everything, he is Indra, for. protects, preserves, like Vishnu, and helps, like the Prisny" (1, 396).

Along with the fact that Mirolyubov discovers at the beginning of the 20th century (!) direct and conscious forms of worship of the “old people” of the ancient “Vedic” Deities, he not only discovers (this was known before him), but shows that the Orthodox common people worshiped the saints, understanding them the same way as their ancients Slavic Gods. Thus, “grassroots” Orthodoxy was syncretic and also remained to a certain extent “Vedic”. Apparently, this understanding of the Orthodox saints constituted a well-known “compromise” in the initial spread of Christianity in Rus'. Mirolyubov is primarily a folklorist who saw and gave a fundamentally religious understanding of the phenomena he discovered. But in his reasoning on this matter he does not seek to maintain “scientific” detached objectivity. He, as is common among many Russian thinkers, philosophizes and theologizes, sincerely emphasizing his ethnic motivation. And although Mirolyubov does not build any harmonious or broad philosophical or theological systems, nevertheless, he has a fairly holistic spiritual worldview, on the basis of which he conducts his scientific search.

Folklore is oral folk art. It represents a major part of culture and plays a huge role in the development of Slavic literature and other arts. In addition to traditionally popular fairy tales and proverbs, there are also genres of folklore that are currently almost unknown modern people. These are texts of family, calendar rituals, love lyrics, creativity of a social type.

Folklore existed not only among the Eastern Slavs, which include Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, but also among the Western and Southern Slavs, that is, among the Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians, Serbs, and other peoples. If you wish, you can find common features in the oral works of these peoples. Many Bulgarian fairy tales are similar to Russian ones. The commonality in folklore lies not only in the identical meaning of the works, but also in the style of presentation, comparisons, and epithets. This is due to historical and social circumstances.

Firstly, all Slavs have a related language. It belongs to the Indo-European branch and comes from the Proto-Slavic language. The division of people into nations, the change in speech was due to the growth in numbers and the resettlement of the Slavs to neighboring territories. But the commonality of the languages ​​of the Eastern, Western, and Southern Slavs is still observed today. For example, any Pole can understand a Ukrainian.
Secondly, similarities in culture were influenced by common geographical position. The Slavs were mainly engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding, which was reflected in ritual poetry. The folklore of the ancient Slavs contains mostly references to the earth, the Sun. These images still have a place in the mythology of the Bulgarians and Serbs.

Thirdly, the similarity of folklore is due to a common religion. Paganism personified the forces of nature. People believed in spirits protecting homes, fields and crops, and reservoirs. In the epic, images of mermaids and kikimoras arose, which could harm or help a person, depending on whether he followed the laws of the community or lived dishonestly. The image of a serpent, a dragon could come from the phenomena of lightning and meteors. Majestic natural phenomena found explanations in mythology and ancient heroic tales.

Fourthly, the similarity of folklore was influenced by close economic, social, and political ties. The Slavs always fought their enemies together, which is why some heroes of fairy tales are collective images all eastern, southern, Western peoples. Close cooperation also contributed to the spread of techniques, epic plots, and songs from one people to another. This is exactly what to a greater extent influenced the family similarity of the folklore of the ancient Slavs.

All folk works known today originated in ancient times. People expressed in this way their vision of the world around them, explained natural phenomena, passed on experience to descendants. They tried to pass the epic on to the next generation unchanged. The storytellers tried to remember the song or tale and retell it to others exactly. The life, way of life and work of the ancient Slavs, the laws of their family for centuries formed their artistic taste. This is what determines the constancy of the works. oral creativity that have reached us through the centuries. Thanks to the immutability and accuracy of folklore reproduction, scientists can judge the way of life and worldview of ancient people.

The peculiarity of folklore is that, despite its amazing stability, it is constantly changing. Genres arise and die, the nature of creativity changes, and new works are created.

Despite the general similarity in plots and images, national customs and everyday details have a huge influence on the folklore of the ancient Slavs. Everyone's epic Slavic people original and unique.