Bylinas are epic songs in which heroic events or individual episodes of ancient Russian history are sung. Bylinas took shape and developed during the period of early Russian statehood (in Kievan Rus), expressing national consciousness Eastern Slavs.
The epics artistically summarized the historical reality of the 11th-16th centuries, but they grew out of the archaic epic tradition, inheriting many features from it. Monumental images of heroes, their extraordinary feats poetically combined the real basis of life with fantastic fiction.
Epics were recorded mainly in the 19th and 20th centuries. in the Russian North - their main guardian: in the former Arkhangelsk province, in Karelia (former Olonets province), on the Mezen, Pechora, Pinega rivers, on the coast of the White Sea, in the Vologda region. Bylinas were recorded among the old-timers of Siberia, the Urals, the Volga and in the central Russian provinces.
People called epics “oldies”, “oldies”, “oldies”. The term “epic” is scientific; it was proposed in the first half of the 19th century. I. P. Sakharov. The term was taken from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and artificially applied to designate the folklore genre in order to emphasize its historicism. It is assumed that in ancient times epics were sung to the accompaniment of gusli.
In Russian epic, cycles are distinguished - according to the place of action (Kyiv, Novgorod) and according to the heroes. There are two groups of epics corresponding to two types of heroes: about senior heroes, in whose images mythological elements are strongly reflected (Volkh, Svyatogor, Sukhman, Danube, Potyk), and about younger heroes, in whose images mythological traces are insignificant, but historical features are strong (Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Vasily Buslaev).
The Kiev cycle includes epics whose events take place at the court of Prince Vladimir. The military power of Ancient Rus' was personified by heroes. Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich are nominated for first place. These main defenders of Rus' come from three classes: peasant, princely and priestly. Bylinas sought to present Rus' as united in the fight against enemies.
The main hero is Ilya Muromets. His image does not have a specific historical and geographical location. Ilya is an all-Russian hero, the head of other heroes, whose prototypes could be individual outstanding figures of the era. Ilya is a defender of the working people, “widows and orphans,” an ideal patriotic warrior, an unshakable guardian of the borders of the Russian land, a guardian of its unity and power. In this immortal image The Russian people typically generalized and artistically recreated their best spiritual and physical traits.
After Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich is most loved by the people. This hero is of princely origin, he lives in Kyiv. Dobrynya Nikitich has many virtues: educated, tactful, courteous, and skillfully plays the harp. The main work of his life was military service to Rus'.
Epic stories about Alyosha Popovich go back to the beginning of the 13th century. and are associated with the latest events of the pre-Mongol period. The death of the hero in the first terrible battle with the Tatars on the Kalka River is noted in the epic about the “Kama” massacre.
The name of Kyiv - “the mother of Russian cities” - was associated with the main heroic and patriotic themes of the folk epic, which had all-Russian significance. But along with this main theme, the themes of peaceful labor, rural and urban life were also sung. The epic created a majestic image of the ideal peasant plowman Mikula Selyaninovich, reflecting the creative power of the people, their dreams of joyful and blessed work. An epic about Solovy Budimirovich, tragic love Mikhail Potyk's treatment of his unfaithful wife approaches the type of epic short stories with everyday themes. In novelistic epics, marital fidelity and true friendship were glorified, and personal vices (bragging, arrogance) were condemned. Bylinas condemned social injustice and the arbitrariness of princely power.
Thus, the novelistic epics of the Kyiv cycle, like the heroic ones, reflected the historical reality of Ancient Rus'. “Mr. Veliky Novgorod” with its veche system, wealth, commercial life, and high culture made its significant contribution to the development of Russian epic. The population of Novgorod, remote in its own way geographical location from the incessant struggle with nomads on the southern borders of the state, he develops mainly plots of urban life in the epic.
This is the epic about Sadko, a wonderful guslar who charmed the “water king” himself with his playing, received countless riches from him, and in the end, after many adventures, built a magnificent church. Sadko is a representative of the democratic environment. Having accidentally become rich, he enters into a fight with the “weak people” and defeats the rich merchants in trade matters. The epic about Sadko dates back to the 12th century.
Another hero of the Novgorod epic is Vasily Buslaev, a prominent representative of the daring Novgorod freemen, violent ushkuiniks, an exponent of spontaneous social protest against the traditions of a hierarchical medieval society.
Novgorod epics did not develop military themes. They expressed something else: the merchant ideal of wealth and luxury, the spirit of daring travel, enterprise, sweeping prowess, courage. In these epics Novgorod is exalted, their heroes are merchants.
When it comes to the folk epic, scientists unanimously speak of its universality for all peoples. It follows from this that Ancient Rus' should also have had its own epic works. But we have practically no texts confirming this.
Attempts to fill this gap are being made very different people- from honest researchers looking in the surviving archives for at least some hints of irretrievably lost monuments of literature, to outright charlatans gaining popularity from forgeries. But what do we know for sure about the ancient Russian epic now? What genres of ancient Russian literature and what works can be called epic? Why today, in Russia of the 21st century, are people so keenly interested in these ancient monuments? To answer these questions, I turned to Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Department of History of Russian Literature of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, Professor of the UNESCO Department of MIGSU RANEPA under the President Russian Federation, Andrey Mikhailovich Ranchin.
Hello, Andrey Mikhailovich! Today we will talk to you about the ancient Russian epic. Nowadays there is a lot of different information on the Internet about the so-called “Old Russian epic”; the question arises whether it existed at all; many fakes appear. This, in fact, is the subject of our discussion. My first question concerns the most ancient monuments: do modern scientists have evidence or indications of the existence of some lost epic texts that arose before the Christianization of Rus'?
One clarification needs to be made here: are we talking about texts in the broad sense, that is, about works that existed orally, or only about written texts that were recorded or even compiled in written form. If we talk about some kind of oral pre-Christian epic tradition of the heroic epic, then there was undoubtedly something (a little later I will talk about this in more detail).
If we are talking about works recorded in writing in distant pre-Christian antiquity, or even created in written form, then, obviously, there are no such texts. The “Book of Veles”, which, sadly, has become very popular in recent years, is, of course, a fake of the 20th century; there are no “Russian Vedas” or anything like that, including those with a heroic plot, in ancient Russian monuments. Another thing is that there is a presentation of plots recorded in monuments of already Christian times, which, apparently, existed in oral form, in the form of either a song heroic epic, what can be called poetry, or an oral plot, relatively speaking, sagas. Although this is not a very accurate description, as the famous researcher and poetic critic M.L. Gasparov noted, in the early stages of Old Russian literature one can talk about the opposition (opposition) of spoken verse and recited verse, rather than poetry and prose. These are different things. But there was still a certain rhythmic orderliness.
This kind of epic obviously existed, and there are sufficient grounds to assume that there were songs dedicated to the campaigns of the first Russian princes, for example, or, perhaps, to the wars with the Greeks. Apparently, there was a story about the death of Prophetic Oleg from a horse (that is, from a snake). It is interesting that a plot almost coinciding (although not in everything) with it is known in the Scandinavian sagas. This The saga of King Odd, nicknamed the Arrow. True, Odd does worse than Oleg with his horse named Faxie - he is killed so that he does not bring death to the king, but, nevertheless, the coincidence is striking. And there are different versions of which plot is primary - Scandinavian or Old Russian.
Modern researcher Elena Melnikova believes that the plot originated in Rus', initially its hero was, apparently, Oleg (“Helgi” in the Scandinavian vowel), but at the same time, the plot appeared in Rus' in the Scandinavian environment, in the Varangian squad of Oleg, Igor, or subsequent rulers.
V. M. Vasnetsov. Oleg at the Horse Bones (1899)
It is interesting that some archaic layers are also found in Russian epics. In particular, these layers were analyzed by V. Ya. Propp, and not only him. An example of this is the snake-fighting plot. It's obvious that genre memory, the expression used by M. M. Bakhtin is very deep in Russian epics. But in existing form These, of course, are monuments of a completely different era. As is known, the recording of epics took place in the 18th - 19th centuries, and not at all in X, for example. But, of course, it is apparently impossible to deny the possibility of the existence of forms of heroic epic shortly before the Baptism of Rus'. Some songs are mentioned that were used to glorify princes, for example. What kind of songs these are is unclear, unfortunately. The "glorious singer of Methus" is mentioned in early XIII century in the Galician Chronicle. Who this Metusa was, however, is unknown. Along with the opinion that this is an epic storyteller (Metus was even considered to be the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” by some very passionate scholars), there is another point of view that “singer in this case means “church singer.”
Are the archaic and newer layers that you are talking about the division into archaic and classical epic that Meletinsky wrote about? Or is it something else?
Let's just say that these are layers that have a deep mythological basis and have preserved a certain mythological memory. In this sense, yes, this construction partly echoes what Meletinsky wrote about. Another thing is what to present in pure form in Ancient Rus', archaic epic and classical epic are impossible. Classic, if we are already talking about a literary historical epic, like Songs about Roland, which, according to Maurice Boura and other researchers, was already taking shape in written form, or Homer (here is the line between oral and written literature), or Virgil - the classic literary epic, Ancient Rus' does not know. Bylinas, in essence, are an echo of the archaic epic. Of course, these are monuments that are quite late and reflect in one form or another the historical realities of the medieval Christian era, but yes, they apparently have the features of an archaic epic.
Bylinas, in essence, are an echo of the archaic epic.
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I. Repin. Sadko (1876)
Folklorists, researchers of the archaic epic, for example, the same M. Boura, point out cases when, apparently, monuments of the heroic epic disappeared. This happened at different nations in different countries. M. Boura considers as examples Sweden, where heroic poetry was not preserved, Gaul, which lost its heroic poetry in the situation of Latinization, and gives a number of other examples. Although there is reason to believe that heroic epic these peoples could have.
Perhaps one more remark: there is a purely hypothetical consideration of the possibility of the existence of secular court literature in Ancient Rus' in the pre-Mongol period. If this is so, it is only possible to assume that the literary epic could already exist in some forms. There are practically no traces, except for the very controversial case with “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”. There is an example of a classical epic, but this monument is a translation from Greek - “The Deed of Deugene” (“Digenis Akritus”). This is a translation from pre-Mongol times (no later than the 12th century) of a Byzantine heroic poem. “The Deed of Devgenia” is rather a translation-arrangement - it does not quite correspond to the known Greek editions, it is not very clear whether this was another Greek edition that has not reached us, or whether these are innovations of an ancient Russian translator. But the monument was preserved in later lists, i.e. no earlier than the 17th century. The fact that it is ancient can be judged by the language: it is really the 12th century. Some draw parallels with “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (more linguistic than plot). There really was such a monument.
- In your opinion, how do epics and historical songs relate? Can they be called epic?
The problem is that the word “epic” has multiple meanings. The question is how we understand the epic. If we understand it as a kind of literature, we study it in the classification of all literary monuments into three literary genera, dating back to Aristotle, then in this case we can say that, in general, epics and historical songs, of course, belong to the epic. If the epic is understood as a genre, as heroic poetry, then in this case, historical songs are no longer quite epic. Although, for example, the same Bowra did not separate epics from historical songs at all, he considered them as a single whole: for him, Vladimir the Red Sun, Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great, for example, are the same characters of the Russian historical epic. But there is also an epic in the genre, narrow sense of the word in which Bakhtin understood it, an epic opposed to the novel, which is also epic genre in a classification dating back to Aristotle, although Aristotle did not recognize the novel as a genre. In antiquity, rhetoric ignored him, as is known - in the time of Aristotle there were no ancient novels.
If we talk about the heroic epic in a narrower sense of the word, it presupposes a certain type of character endowed with certain special exceptional properties, a heroic personality, so to speak. It suggests an epic distance between the implied present and the time depicted in the monument, something that is not found in historical songs. In them, the plot can be marked dotted. For example, the siege of Kazan is depicted, some archer appears with a monologue: “and then gunpowder was rolled up, lit, and the wall exploded.” There may be plots that are more reminiscent in their drama of a ballad like “Ivan the Terrible and His Son.”
If we talk about the heroic epic in a narrower sense of the word, it presupposes a certain type of character endowed with certain special exceptional properties, a heroic personality.
Although it is clear that the border is blurred, it depends, of course, on the terminology. If, for example, we consider Spanish romances as epics (I mean narrative, plot romances, not “The Song of My Sid”, but romances about Sid), then historical songs, at least some of them, can be considered as historical epic
My next question concerns “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” I have seen many mentions that “The Lay” can be called an epic. What do you think about this?
Yes, this point of view is quite widespread. Likhachev, for example, paid tribute to this (although he did not directly call it an epic or heroic poem), bringing “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” closer to chançon de geste, these heroic songs about exploits like “The Song of Roland.” And these rapprochements can really be traced: in both cases, the tragic end of the battle, Alda’s grief about Roland and Yaroslavna’s grief, “gray-bearded Karl, the mighty emperor” and Svyatoslav of Kiev, the senior Russian prince, with silver gray hair, the fight with foreigners-infidels and the motif of “filthy / Polovtsy." But, in fact, there are many features in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” that do not allow us to call this monument (at least in its existing form) a work of heroic epic.
First of all, the heroic epic is characterized by the self-sufficiency of the depicted world. The narrative is told sequentially, and everything we need to know about the characters we know from the work itself. And we don’t need some kind of foreknowledge, knowledge of the historical background. Moreover, this knowledge of the historical background can destroy the pictures created by the epic storyteller or author. If we learn that in fact, in 778, the rearguard of Margrave Orlando was ambushed, and it seems that it was not the Saracens, but the Basques who attacked him, and the campaign of Charlemagne was by no means a struggle for faith with the Saracens, but everything was, to put it mildly, much more difficult, it will destroy the picture.
We can correlate individual characters from Songs of the Nibelungs with historical figures from the era of the Great Migration, but what will this give?
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V. M. Vasnetsov. Guslars (1899)
This will give an understanding of the genesis Songs, but it is clear that this is a completely different reality, although it is being recreated as some kind of distant history. In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” it is not clear how many princes go on a campaign. Only from the mention at the end of the monument does it become clear that the son of the main character, Igor, Vladimir, took part in the campaign. But whether Igor’s nephew, Svyatoslav, the fourth participant in the campaign, is named is unknown, because the understanding of the phrase “young months Oleg and Svyatoslav” depends on how we arrange the punctuation marks. There are a variety of interpretations. Who are Gzak and Konchak? You need to know to understand. Who is Svyatoslav of Kyiv? What kind of campaign against Khan Kobyak was there a year before? Finally, what “falcon and red maiden” are Gzak and Konchak talking about as they gallop on the trail of Prince Igor? You need to know history, you need to know the chronicle in order to understand that we are talking about the engagement of Vladimir Igorevich to Konchak’s daughter and the later marriage and departure of Vladimir with Konchak and his son born in the Polish steppe to Rus'. Without this foreknowledge, the “Word” - dark forest, an incomprehensible, completely enigmatic, mysterious text. And there are many more such examples.
There is a fragment of narrative and an unexpected flashback to the past in two places. Before the description of the battle and after the description of the battle. This is a digression about Igor’s grandfather, Igor Goreslavich, and a digression about Vseslav of Polotsk, about the princely feuds of a hundred years ago. In addition, as B. M. Gasparov noted in his book “The Poetics of the Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” Igor as a character is more reminiscent of the hero of a certain adventurous narrative than an epic one. An epic hero must either win or die. Moreover, death is an even better end to life than a peaceful death in old age. In this sense, the ideal epic hero (as researchers have written about many times) is Achilles, who knows his fate, and follows it, and heroically accepts it. And here Igor declares at the very beginning: “It is better to be sweated than to be caught” (it is better to be killed than to be taken prisoner), but it is precisely he who ends up captured.
Without this foreknowledge, the “Word” is a dark forest, an incomprehensible, completely enigmatic, mysterious text.
Almost his entire army died, he escapes from captivity, comes to Rus' - “Look, rejoice, I have arrived.” They are happy, yes.
The first printed edition of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" (1800)
But this is not the behavior of a heroic character at all. The escape itself is pursued by the motive of werewolf and resembles more of a plot fairy tale, when the hero from the Far Far Away Kingdom returns to his native land, deceiving his pursuer. This motive does not exist in its pure form, but the tail can undoubtedly be traced here.
In the case of the “Word”, one can draw parallels of various kinds (I’m not talking about the degree of validity) - researchers such as Ricardo Pichio, for example, and B. M. Gasparov drew parallels with stories from the Old Testament (the campaign of Ahab and Asaphat, which ended in disaster), and with the parable of prodigal son and many others. The existing text of the Lay cannot be considered a monument to a heroic epic. I'm not even saying what a very controversial and complex issue the rhythmic organization of the Lay is. There is rhythm, but no one has indisputably established a single principle. There is no formula in The Lay, at least in the form that is characteristic of the heroic epic. Not all monuments contain such formulaicity; in some later ones there is almost none, for example, in “The Song of My Sid,” as Bowra notes, which is relatively late. But usually the heroic epic is characterized by the use of ready-made formulas to describe any situation, formulas that have a clearly fixed rhythmic position - the verse is occupied by a formula or hemistich.
Formulas in which they see the basis of the heroic epic, for example, Terry and Lord, American folklorists who studied, on the one hand, the epic songs of the Balkans, and on the other hand, the Homeric epic.
It is permissible to assume that the basis of “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” is indeed a certain “Song of Igor’s Campaign.” But in this case, the text that we know is a transformation of an initially different work. Maybe really folklore. Maybe he lived in a friendly court environment. Boyan, if we take his characterization literally, is a storyteller who sings to the harp. Parallels were drawn with King David, for example, playing the psalter. If taken literally, it turns out that Boyan is really an oral storyteller who sang certain songs to the princes of the previous (11th) century. With regard to “The Lay,” we can only say presumably that it had some kind of basis, perhaps a song, which can be called a heroic epic. In its current form, this work is unique.
I thought that this adventurous hero and the flashbacks were more reminiscent of the Odyssey. Were any parallels drawn between Homer's Odyssey and the Lay?
I don’t remember such parallels, although, in my own way, of course, it would be interesting to draw them. Precisely for the reason that, after all, the material led researchers in one direction: since there is a battle, we need to look for something from the Iliad, or maybe the “Ages of Trojan” - this is the memory of Troy - according to Byzantine chronicles, the plot of the siege of Troy in They knew ancient Rus'. We haven’t done any work with The Odyssey, although there are indeed fairy-tale elements there, they have been explored.
But in the Odyssey, the narrative of the past is introduced in a very specific way, which is characteristic of a heroic epic; it has a motivation. They ask and he tells. Odysseus tells what happened to him before. Demodok sings about some events. And here, quite suddenly, the author breaks off the narrative about the events of the present (about Igor’s campaign) and turns to the events of a hundred years ago.
That is, it is possible to explain the meaning of these retrospectives, and such attempts have been made, but this violation of the temporal sequence is completely uncharacteristic of the heroic epic, as is known. Homeric principle of narration - if we are talking about some event, and at the same time we need to talk about another, move on to another storyline(I'm not saying go back to the past), then we will stop the action here, and then start from the same moment. This is not the case in The Lay, a lot of things are cut off there, characters are introduced in such a way that we don’t know who they are. Who is Ovlur, who whistled the horse across the river? Only from the Ipatiev Chronicle, from the Tale of Igor’s Campaign, is it known that this is a Polovtsian (apparently a baptized Polovtsian, and according to F.B. Uspensky, his name is Laurus, and perhaps he was baptized by Igor himself), who helped escape from captivity. It is impossible to immediately understand what is happening.
V. G. Perov. Yaroslavna's Cry (1881)
The last question, taking us back to the beginning - why do we need it now? ancient Russian epic? Why are fakes happening now? It is clear why they arose in the 19th century. Why is there interest in this? Do we now need some kind of epic, obviously not in that form, but nonetheless?
The creation of any works in the spirit of a heroic epic was impossible before, and in the postmodern age, the epic remains only in the form of an ironic, perhaps in the form of an ironic poem or burlesque. There were examples from the 1920s and 30s. epic- new, what they were called (starinas are the classic name for epics by the performers themselves, and these became novelties), about Lenin and Stalin. But I would not dare to imagine such an epic about Putin, for example, or something similar, because the folklore tradition, as far as I understand (a question for folklorists, of course), has actually already died.
That is, it seems impossible to write down a full-fledged epic now; I had some fragments in student years heard on an expedition near Tarusa, for example, but now, it seems, this is practically impossible even in more remote places, somewhere in the North. In fact, she has already left. If we talk about a literary heroic poem, yes, this is possible precisely as a kind of experiment. Epic cannot exist as a serious genre now.
As for the interest or attempts to discover the ancient Russian pagan epic and the like, then, of course, they are associated with the problem of national self-identification and an attempt to establish deep-seated historical roots. “Why do the Greeks have it, but we don’t? Why is there Homer, but we don’t, how can this be? We should also have our own Homer,” for example. And with a certain awakening of some neo-pagan trends (although this, of course, is not very serious), which, although marginal, is quite a strong phenomenon. With an inferiority complex, and a cultural one at that (“Why is there no Homer?”). And with a feeling or perhaps trauma associated with a lack of heroism. It is clear that there is a Great Patriotic War, there are a number of other events, quite a lot of them, but the question arises: “Where is this source?” Need something like this Trojan War or the great battles that are described in the Mahabharata, or the battle in the Roncesvalles Gorge, for something like this to exist in Rus', and it should be a text not written by a church author like a chronicle, or elements of heroism in the lives (as in the Life of Alexander Nevsky), namely epic. I think the current interest in the epic is connected with this. With the desire to find something of our own, original, national and at the same time in no way inferior to the great works of other countries and peoples. I'm afraid that, unfortunately, I won't be able to find it.
- Thank you very much, Andrey Mikhailovich.
Thank you. ■
Prepared the interview
Elnara Akhmedova
Dictionary of Russian folklore terms
Course compiler Nikita Petrov about what an epic is, whether Ilya Muromets really existed and how Stalin became the hero of the epic / Course No. 14 “Russian Epic”
How does a fairy tale differ from an epic, who is the storyteller and what is an invariant? A dictionary of terms without which Russian folklore cannot be understood. Also in course #14: to be continued...
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Nikita Petrov - folklorist, anthropologist, candidate of philological sciences, associate professor at the Center for Typology and Semiotics of Folklore of the Russian State University for the Humanities, senior research fellow School of Current Humanitarian Research RANEPA. He became interested in the comparative study of the epic at the university after lectures by the researcher of epics Yu. A. Novikov, continued his studies in epic studies at the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities (now IVGI named after E. M. Meletinsky), then defended his dissertation at the Center for Typology and Semiotics of Folklore under the guidance of S. Yu. Neklyudova. The sphere of scientific interests today is folklore and mythology, anthropology of the city, epic studies, plot and motive indicators, narratology, anthropology of memory.
Author of the monograph “Bogatyrs in the Russian North” (M., 2008), one of the compilers of the collections of folklore prose texts “Kargopolye: folklore guide (traditions, legends, stories, songs and proverbs” (M., 2009), “Experts, sorcerers and warlocks: witchcraft and everyday magic in the Russian North" (M., 2013), author of articles in the encyclopedia "Myths of the Peoples of the World" (OLMA; St. Petersburg, M., 2014).
Heroic tales - archaic heroic epic that preceded the epics. The plot is based on the collisions of a “heroic biography” (a miraculous birth, a heroic childhood, heroic matchmaking, the loss and re-finding of a bride/wife, and so on). Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp called such a tale a “pre-state epic.”
Epics- “sung with a voice”, usually poetic works (sometimes they could be told in prose). In epics, events take place around a hero, or an epic ruler, or a city (Kyiv, Novgorod). Epics are based on the opposition between “friends and strangers” and on a mythical or quasi-historical past. In some epics, heroes of extraordinary physical strength defeat ethnic or historical enemies (“Ilya Muromets and Kalin the Tsar,” “Alyosha and Tugarin”). Such epics are called heroic. In fairy-tale epics, the heroes do not defeat anyone, but, like the heroes of a fairy tale, descend into the underground or underwater kingdom (“Mikhailo Potyk”, “Sadko”). Another type of epic is ballad texts (“Alyosha and the Petrovich brothers”, “Churilo Plenkovich”, “Stavr Godinovich”). In them, heroes commit ordinary (often unseemly) actions, or their wives turn out to be heroes, using cunning to rescue their husbands from trouble.
The term "epic" began to be used first explorers in the 1840s. Apparently, the term is the result of an incorrect reading of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”: “Let these songs begin according to the epics of this time, and not according to the plans of Boyan” (“the epics” here are what actually happened). The performers of epics called these works “antiquities” or “old-timers”; in handwritten collections of the 17th - early XIX centuries, texts such as epics were called “histories” or “tales” about heroes, “ancient Russian poems"; critics also called them “fairy tales in verse”, “poems in a fairy tale kind”.
The epics existed in the oral environment until the second half of the 20th century. Most of the epics (about 3,000 texts) were recorded in the 19th–20th centuries in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk region, Karelia), in Siberia, the Urals and the Volga.
The chorus of the epic - the beginning of a text that is not directly related to the plot, but reveals the internal logic of the narrative.
The beginning of the epic - a fragment of text that introduces the listener to the setting of the action and the circle of characters.
Invariant of epic - a text that brings together all the common elements for one epic plot. This is not a really existing text, but a speculative construct created by folklorists. A specific performance (or recording) of an epic based on this plot is called a variant.
News- pseudo-folklore, but in fact original works, imitation of epics. The authors of new songs are not traditionalist storytellers who sing canonical epics, but improvisational storytellers. Novins were created in the 1930s–1960s either by storytellers on their own, after reading news about the “heroic present” of Soviet times, or as a result of the joint work of storytellers and folklorists who came to villages and brought Chapaev’s biography, newspaper clippings about CPSU congresses, and so on. In place of the heroes, Lenin, Stalin, Voroshilov, Papanin, Chkalov and other Soviet characters appeared in the news. Unlike epics, new stories are unproductive: they were not repeated by other storytellers. In all likelihood, the term “novina” was invented by the White Sea storyteller Marfa Kryukova, who could sing in the form of an epic and a history textbook. In total, more than 600 novel texts are known.
Epic characters. Plot roles: epic hero and his entourage, enemy (antagonist); epic lord; messenger and helper/savior; servant/squire; a messenger conveying a message/prediction/warning; bride. The main characters of the classical epic are heroes who usually do not use magic and sorcery, but who win with extraordinary strength and desperate courage, who have an overactive, willful, “frantic” character, sometimes even overestimating their strength. But there are also “heroes” who in some cases do not fall under these characteristics: Volkh Vseslavyevich, Churilo Plenkovich, Sadko and others. This is due to the fact that the epic does not create “pure” character schemes and each character can be assigned any, even episodic, role. So, there is a hero who appears for one action - to count the incorrect force:
The old elder and Ilya Muromets spoke here:
“You are a goy, son of Peresmet Stepanovich!
You should go with your and your nephew,
Just go to the open field, where the sholomya is dripping,
Now take a spyglass,
How can you recount and recount this great power,
Great unfaithful power."
Storytellers- professional and non-professional performers of the Russian epic, those who perform the text in a unique manner - they say using 24 chants of a recitative nature. The term began to be used in folklore starting from mid-19th century after its mention in the works of the first collectors of Russian epic, Rybnikov and Hilferding. The storytellers themselves called themselves “old-timers”, “storytellers”. The old-timers were mostly peasants, often Old Believers, both men and women. Men preferred to sing heroic epics(“Ilya and Idolishche”, “Alyosha and Tugarin”, “Ilya Muromets and Kalin the Tsar” and others), and the women are “old women” (“Churilo and Katerina”, “Dobrynya and Alyosha”). Folklorists have noticed that some storytellers strive for an extremely accurate reproduction of what they have learned - these are “transmitters”. Others - “interpreters” - create their own editions and versions of the plot. And the “improvisers” present the epic in a new way every time.
A fairy tale (and its difference from an epic). The hero of a fairy tale acts in his own interests or in the interests of his family; Having defeated his opponent, he always receives some kind of reward: he marries the princess, obtains material wealth. The hero of the epic song defends the interests of the people and the state. If a hero saves a brother or sister, then this happens by chance; relatives recognize each other after defeating the enemy (“Kozarin”, “Dorodovich Brothers”), while fairy tale hero From the very beginning he sets himself exactly this goal. The hero of a fairy tale wins with the help of magical power, in contrast to the epic, where the feat is achieved thanks to heroic exertion of strength. At the same time, some epic stories (“The Healing of Ilya Muromets”, “Sadko at the Sea King”, “Potyk”, “Dobrynya and Alyosha”) are based on collisions similar to fairy tales.
The plot of the epic. Usually revolves around the biography of the hero and is divided into the following episodes: I. Heroic childhood. II. Gaining power/wealth/recruiting a squad. III. Military collisions. IV. Conflicts. V. Rivalry. VI. Matrimonial conflicts. VII. Adventures. VIII. Death of a hero. The plot of the epic is characterized by two main epic collisions: military (the hero is opposed to the enemy) and marriage (the hero is opposed to the bride).
Researchers have different opinions about how many main epic plots there are: some put the figure at 100–130 plots (as Propp believed, in particular), others, including the compilers of the Code of Epics in 25 volumes, believe that there are about sixty.
Orality in the epic- a system of rules that the storyteller uses to sing the epic. The concept of orality emerged from the study of Homer: according to the conclusions of some scholars, the Iliad and the Odyssey are of folklore origin, and their texts were formed as a result of repeated performances by storytellers. The storyteller, focusing on the plot, examples of style known to him and poetic vocabulary, composed an epic song by substituting formulas in a certain metrical position and combining themes. Formulas and themes formed the so-called epic knowledge and epic memory, the essence of which came down not only to the ability to memorize thousands of poems.
Epic cyclization - plots grouped around the figure of the main character: epics from one cycle can reflect different episodes of his life. There is also a cyclization of events and characters around a certain epic center (Kyiv) and an epic sovereign (Prince of Kyiv).
It is impossible to determine the exact age of this or that epic, because they took centuries to develop. Scientists began to record them en masse only after 1860, when a still living tradition of performing epics was discovered in the Olonets province. By that time, the Russian heroic epic had undergone significant changes. Like archaeologists removing one layer of soil after another, folklorists stripped texts of later “layers” to find out what epics sounded like a thousand years ago.
It was possible to establish that the oldest epic stories tell about the clash between a mythological hero and a Kyiv hero. Another early plot is dedicated to the matchmaking of a hero to a foreign princess. Svyatogor and Volkh Vseslavyevich are considered the most ancient heroes of the Russian epic. At the same time, people often introduced contemporary people into archaic plots. characters. Or vice versa: ancient mythological character by the will of the narrator, he became a participant in recent events.
The word “epic” came into scientific use in the 19th century. The people called these stories antiquities. Today, about 100 stories are known, which are told in more than 3,000 texts. Bylinas, epic songs about the heroic events of Russian history, as an independent genre, emerged in the 10th–11th centuries - during the heyday of Kievan Rus. On initial stage they were based on mythological stories. But the epic, unlike the myth, talked about the political situation, about the new statehood of the Eastern Slavs, and therefore, instead of pagan deities, historical figures acted in them. The real hero Dobrynya lived in the second half of the 10th - early 11th centuries and was the uncle of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich. Alyosha Popovich is associated with the Rostov warrior Alexander Popovich, who died in 1223 in the battle on the Kalka River. The holy monk lived, presumably, in the 12th century. At the same time, the merchant Sotko was mentioned in the Novgorod chronicle, who turned into a hero of Novgorod epics. Later, people began to correlate the heroes who lived in different times, with a single epic era of Prince Vladimir the Red Sun. The figure of Vladimir merged the features of two real rulers at once - Vladimir Svyatoslavich and Vladimir Monomakh.
Real characters in folk art began to intersect with the heroes of ancient myths. For example, Svyatogor supposedly came into the epic from the Slavic pantheon, where he was considered the son of the god Rod and the brother of Svarog. In the epics, Svyatogor was so huge that the earth did not support him, so he lived in the mountains. In one story, he met with the warrior Ilya Muromets (“Svyatogor and Ilya Muromets”), and in the other, with the tiller Mikula Selyaninovich (“Svyatogor and the Earth’s Thrust”). In both cases, Svyatogor died, but, remarkably, not in battle with young heroes - his death was predetermined from above. In some versions of the text, when he died, he transferred part of his power to the hero of the new generation.
Another ancient character is Volkh (Volga) Vseslavyevich, born of a woman and a snake. This werewolf, great hunter and sorcerer is mentioned in Slavic mythology as the son of Chernobog. In the epic “Volkh Vseslavyevich,” Volkh’s squad set off to conquer a distant kingdom. Having penetrated the city with the help of witchcraft, the warriors killed everyone, leaving only young women for themselves. This plot clearly refers to the era of tribal relations, when the ruin of one tribe by another was worthy of praise. In a later period, when Rus' repelled the attacks of the Pechenegs, Polovtsians, and then the Mongol-Tatars, the criteria for heroic prowess changed. The defender began to be considered a hero native land, and not the one who waged a war of conquest. In order for the epic about Volkh Vseslavyevich to correspond to the new ideology, an explanation appeared in it: the campaign was against the tsar, who allegedly planned to attack Kyiv. But this did not save Volkh from the fate of a hero of a bygone era: in the epic “Volga and Mikula,” the werewolf sorcerer was inferior in cunning and strength to the same peasant Mikula, who appeared in the epic about Svyatogor. New hero defeated the old one again.
By creating a heroic epic, the people presented outdated stories in a new light. Thus, the later epics of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries were based on the revised new way motive of matchmaking. In tribal relations, marriage was the main responsibility of a man who had entered into adulthood, as many myths and fairy tales told about. In the epics “Sadko”, “Mikhailo Potyk”, “Ivan Godinovich”, “Danube and Dobrynya woo a bride to Prince Vladimir” and others, the heroes married foreign princesses, just as in ancient times brave men “obtained” a wife from a foreign tribe. But this act often became a fatal mistake for the heroes, leading to death or betrayal. You need to marry your own people and generally think more about service, and not about personal life - such was the attitude in Kievan Rus.
Every event significant for the people was reflected in epics. The surviving texts mention realities from the era and, wars with Poland and even Turkey. But the main place in epics, starting from the 13th–14th centuries, was occupied by the struggle of the Russian people against the Horde yoke. In the 16th–17th centuries, the tradition of performing epics gave way to the genre of historical song. Until the 20th century, the heroic epic lived and developed only in the Russian North and in some regions of Siberia.
Russian heroic epic (epics) - a wonderful heritage of the past, evidence ancient culture and the arts of the people. It has been preserved in living oral history, perhaps in its original form of plot content and main principles of form. The epic got its name from the word “byl”, which is close in meaning. This means that the epic tells about what once really happened, although not everything in the epic is true. The epics were written down from storytellers (often illiterate), who adopted them according to tradition from previous generations. Epics have been recorded only in Russia, mainly in the North and Siberia.
In the southern regions - in the Volga region and on the Don - they found themselves in a greatly altered and dilapidated state. Meanwhile, it should be assumed that the bulk of the stories were created within the Kyiv state, that is, in the places that are depicted in them. But on the territory
In Ukraine, epics have not been found. There are no Ukrainianisms in their language either. The source of every heroic song was some historical fact. In the epic, as in folk tale, a lot of fiction. Bogatyrs are people of extraordinary strength, they gallop on mighty horses through rivers and forests, and lift weights on their shoulders that no man can bear. For example, this is how the hero is described
Syatogor in the epic “Svyatogor - the hero”, stated by L. N. Tolstoy:
...Did Svyatogor go for a walk in an open field,
He didn’t court anyone, Svyatogor,
Who would you like to compare your heroic strength with?
And he senses great strength within himself,
He smells it - it spreads like a living thing through his veins...
This is how N.M. Karamzin describes the hero Ilya Muromets:
...He is like tender myrtle:
Subtle, straight and dignified.
His gaze is faster than an eagle's,
And the month is brighter than clear.
Who is this knight? - Ilya Muromets.
The epic is an old song, and not everything in it is clear; it is told in a leisurely, solemn tone. Many Russian epics talk about the heroic deeds of the people's heroes. For example, epics about Volga Buslaevich, the conqueror of Tsar Saltan Beketovich; about the hero Sukhman, who defeated his enemies - nomads; about Dobrynya Nikitich. Russian heroes never lie. Ready to die, but not leave their native land, they consider service to the fatherland their first and holy duty, although they are often offended by princes who do not trust them. The epics told to children teach them to respect human labor and love their homeland. They united the genius of the people.
However, epics do not always tell about heroes. A very interesting epic is “About Avdotya Ryazanochka,” who was not afraid of the Khan of the Golden Horde himself and rescued from captivity not only her relatives - her husband, son and brother, but the entire city of Ryazan.
The heroes did not liken their loved ones to either Venuses or Dianas, whom they had never seen. They drew comparisons from the nature of the things they saw.
For example, when they wanted to praise the one they liked, they said that she had:
Falcon eyes,
Sable eyebrows,
Peacock gait;
Walking through the yard
Like a swan swims.
Historical songs are a separate genre of folklore. Their artistic originality remains insufficiently studied. In pre-revolutionary science, they were often recognized as a degradation of the heroic epic, similar to epics, and in this regard, their advantage was considered to be the motifs, images and stylistic devices common to the epics (as if residual phenomena).3
“Song about the prophetic Oleg”, “Songs about Stepan Razin” can be placed today on a par with “ captain's daughter", "The History of Pugachev" and other historical works. They also represent a huge artistic value. This is an expression of the historical self-knowledge of the people.
The Russian people realized their historical significance in their historical songs. The preservation of what is historically valuable in the epic (be it names, events, relationships) is the result of the conscious, historical attitude of the people to the content of the epic. The people in their creativity proceed from fairly clear historical ideas about time. Awareness of the historical value of what is being transmitted and the peculiar ideas of the people, and not just mechanical memorization, determine the stability of the historical content of the songs.
Although epics are huge in volume and children will not be able to immediately master this capacious material, this genre is still important for the development of children.