Which Russian epic is the most ancient? Epic epic Russian epics as a monument to the Slavic heroic epic.
The genres of folk art include Russian (oral) epic: songs, tales, traditions of a narrative nature, works about events from the lives of heroes, which were created orally, performed and memorized by ear, passed on from generation to generation. The most ancient type of oral epic, preserved in people's memory for many centuries, were the so-called epics(in the popular environment in the 19th - 20th centuries they were called antiquities) - songs of large volume, consisting of several hundred, sometimes thousands of verses.
Reading epics, we are immersed in a special world, it is inhabited by characters who are unlike real people; extraordinary events take place in it that could not happen in the real world; it is full of things that have miraculous properties. This, from a modern point of view, is a fantastic world.
Symbolic meaning Epic images have repeatedly attracted the attention of Russian and Soviet writers, among whom we find the names of G.I. Uspensky and N.A. Nekrasov, A.P. Chekhov and A.M. Gorky.
In Russian historical and philological science, the epic aroused keen interest and became the subject of diverse research after the publication in 1818 of the epic songs of the famous 18th-century collection “Ancient Russian Poems Collected by Kirshei Danilov.” Publisher of the collection K.F. Kalaidovich sent him a preface, which was the first scientific work devoted to the study of epics and historical songs. Attention to the epic heritage has especially increased and intensified in connection with the discovery by P. N. Rybnikov of the fact of the existence and live performance of epics in the Russian European North in the mid-19th century. To date, the history of the scientific study of epic epics has more than one and a half years.
During this time, the main paths and most significant themes in the study of the epic were determined. 1 In connection with the study of singing schools, the notes and works of the very first collectors of epic songs show a great and persistent interest in the personality and talent of the storyteller. A F Hilferding makes an important observation about the relationship between traditions and personal initiative in the singing of Onega singers.
The correlation between the collective and individual principles in epic creativity continues to arouse interest in all subsequent folkloristics right up to the present day.
The epic is concentrated, poetically and philosophically meaningful, and artistically attests to the rich historical experience of the people.
This experience concerns the most diverse aspects of national life: the fight against foreign enslavers, the formation of the state, family relations, the social struggle of the people against their oppressors, social ideals, etc. In the course of this struggle, an idea of moral values was developed, a historical ideal of human behavior and way of thinking gradually took shape, an ideal type of Russian epic hero emerged, who embodied the people's ideas about personal dignity, humanism, love for their native land, love of freedom, social activity and fearlessness in the struggle for your goals.
At the center of the epic world are its heroes - heroes. The word “hero” itself was well known in Ancient Rus'. It appears repeatedly in chronicles, often with the epithets “glorious”, “wonderful”, “brave”, “great”.
1 A.M. .Astakhova. Epics. Results and problems of the study. M.-L., 1966.
It is not without reason that Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Sadko, Vasily Buslaevich appear to us not only as epic images brought to life by folk fantasy, but also as unique and deep symbols of people’s historical aspirations, strengths and possibilities.
For centuries, epics existed exclusively in oral tradition, so they are variable and multi-layered, they have preserved signs of different eras, in particular, pagan and Christian elements are combined.
All Russian epics can be divided according to the place of creation and the characteristics of their content into two cycles - Kiev and Novgorod. Kyiv epics are heroic songs about the exploits of heroes - warriors defending the Russian land from countless hordes of enemies. Novgorod epics talk about peaceful life, everyday life, trade, and the adventures of merchants.
Before judging epics as a whole, song genres should be determined. V.Ya. Propp singles out epics heroic, fairy-tale, novelistic, as well as those on the verge of ballad, spiritual verse, etc. 1 Heroic epics form the main backbone of the song folk epic. Heroic epics are characterized by a battle, an open clash, a heroic fight between a hero, a people's intercessor, a fighter for a national cause with the enemy. The enemy can be a monster (Snake, Nightingale the Robber, Tugarin, Idolishche). Fighting with him, the hero liberates Kiev, cleanses the Russian land from the rapist and the villain (epic stories about Dobrynya the serpent fighter, Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin, Ilya Muromets and the Nightingale the Robber, Ilya and the Idolishche). The enemy could be the Tatar-Mongol hordes, threatening the very existence of the Russian state. The main hero, liberating Kiev from the enemies who besieged it, is Ilya Muromets. A significant part of heroic songs is devoted to the theme of social struggle.
1 Propp V.Ya. Genre composition of Russian folklore //Russian literature. - 1964. - No. 4. - S., 58-76.
The hero of these songs fights with the prince and his boyar entourage for his trampled dignity (the epic about Sukhman), rebels against the power of the rich and noble, leading the protest of the poor and commoners (the epic about the rebellion of Ilya Muromets against Prince Vladimir; the plot about the struggle of Vasily Buslaevich with the Novgorodians) . Among the epics of this genre there are also songs about heroic matchmaking (for example, the epic about the Danube wooing a bride to Prince Vladimir). But matchmaking, the search for a wife, unless it is connected with the fight against foreign enemies, is usually no longer heroized in epic epics, although historically this was not always the case. Many stories about matchmaking have become a genre fabulous epic They are characterized by typical images and situations of a fairy tale. So, for example, in the epic about Sadko we meet a magical donor who sends Sadko from the bottom of the Ilmen lake a wonderful gift (magic remedy) - a fish with golden feathers. This gift allows the hero in a dispute to win a rich mortgage from Novgorod merchants. In this epic, like a fairy-tale hero. Sadko finds himself in another world, an underwater kingdom, where he is offered to choose a bride among the daughters of the sea king. The hero of another fairy-tale epic, Mikhail Potyk, is buried along with his dead wife. But, being buried, he prudently used metal rods to kill the snake trying to destroy him.
Bylinas have a special artistic form and method of poeticizing heroes. novelistic. There is no open battle, no battle, no military clash. There is an everyday episode of a meeting, dispute, matchmaking or some other incident. An example of a novelistic epic is the song about Mikula and Volga. The peasant-worker, the mighty plowman is contrasted in it with the feudal prince. The theme of another novelistic epic about Nightingale Budimirovich is matchmaking, but not related to the heroism of the fight against foreigners, not complicated by the hopelessly tragic discrepancy between the future spouses. The epic is light in nature, its tone is cheerful, and it ends with a happy union of lovers.
Epic tradition starting from the 111th-18th centuries. can serve as one of the sources of newly emerging genres of oral folk art, such as the ballad, for example. There are known epics that are, as it were, halfway to the ballad B Russian folk ballad tragic stories of love and family relationships are glorified 1 . The same, for example, is the song about Danil Lovchanin or the final part of the epic about the Danube and Nastasya, which tells how the hero, jealous of his warrior wife for his heroic glory, kills her as she awaits the birth of her son, and then commits suicide himself in a fit of despair
On the periphery of epic creativity are the epics are bland, which are united with other epic songs by the commonality of some poetic techniques. Their world is close to the mocking world of folk tales, satirical songs, and folk parodies.
But it is the heroic epics, both in their poetic form and content, that represent the most characteristic and specific type of song-epic creativity for the epic epic as a whole.
The epic is a unique phenomenon of Russian culture. It is not reproducible under new historical conditions. Its rich content could only be embodied in those original, archaic artistic forms, which in their totality make up the amazing and in many ways mysterious poetic world of the heroic epic song.
1 Propp V.Ya. Decree. op. pp. 63-65.
Description of the presentation Epic epic of Ancient Rus' Ancient Rus' on slides
Usually epics are divided according to the place of action: Kyiv and Novgorod. Classification of epics Also, according to heroes: old (Svyatogor, etc.), new (Dobrynya, etc.).
Kyiv epics 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.
Ilya Muromets The 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 features.
Dobrynya Nikitich The second most popular hero of the Russian folk epic after Ilya Muromets. He is often depicted as a serving hero under Prince Vladimir. Wife - Nastasya, daughter of Mikula Selyaninovich. Epics often talk about his long court service. Often the prince gives him instructions: to collect and transport tribute, to help out the prince’s niece, etc.; Often Dobrynya himself volunteers to carry out orders that other heroes refuse. Dobrynya is the hero closest to the prince and his family, carrying out their personal assignments and distinguished not only by his courage, but also by his diplomatic abilities.
Alyosha Popovich In the epics, Alyosha is not described as a hero with extraordinary strength. Quite the contrary - he is weak and limps. But God gifted him with ingenuity, cunning, and intelligence. Alyosha Popovich played the gusli well. He could deceive, he could brag and do things on the sly. His jokes could be funny, or they could be evil. In general, Alyosha Popovich is a very contradictory character: sometimes insidious and arrogant, sometimes kind and merciful.
The role of the Kiev cycle of epics The epics of the Kyiv cycle in the images of Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich show the mighty, indestructible strength and power of the entire Russian people, their ability to resist foreigners, to protect the Russian land from the raids of nomads. It is no coincidence that Ilya and Dobrynya are so beloved among the people. After all, for them, serving the Fatherland and the Russian people is the highest value in life.
Novgorod epics In the Russian epic, the Novgorod cycle of epics stands apart. The basis of the plots of these legends were not military feats and political events of the state, but incidents from the life of the inhabitants of a large trading city - Veliky Novgorod. The reasons are clear: the city and the veche republic formed around it have always occupied a separate place in life, and therefore in the culture of Rus'. The most famous epic heroes: Sadko, Stavr Godinovich and Vasily Busaev.
Sadko The most famous hero of Novgorod legends is Sadko. Having come from a poor background (either a psaltery player, or a simple merchant, or just a good fellow), he becomes very wealthy. Such a plot could not help but attract those keen on the idea of enriching the residents of the shopping center. In the plots of the epics about Sadko, three lines can be distinguished: about his enrichment, about the competition with the Novgorodians, and about the King of the Sea. Much attention was paid to ordinary everyday scenes of Novgorod reality, and the merchant environment was vividly depicted. In fact, all the legends about Sadok glorify the wealth of the lord of Veliky Novgorod himself.
Stavr Golinovich The apogee of the heyday of the Novgorod desire to obtain capital becomes the epic about Stavr. It tells the story of a noble Novgorod boyar-capitalist, engaged in profiteering and usury. The epic Stavr is imprisoned by Prince Vladimir - here you can see the clash and rivalry of Kyiv and Novgorod, and the prototype is Sotsky, imprisoned by Vladimir Monomakh. But all the narrator’s sympathies are clearly on the side of the Novgorod boyar.
Vasily Buslaev The favorite of the Novgorod residents was Vaska Buslaev - a daring fellow, a hero of the Novgorod ushuinism, dashing robberies in the Novgorod colonies, a lover of showing off and feasting. Unlike other epic heroes who walked around Rus', Novgorod Buslaev is famous not for military heroism, but for his daring in internal fights and conflicts of the restless republic.
THE ROLE OF THE NOVGOROD EPIC CYCLE Novgorod was a rich trading center, open to the cultural influences of the West and the East. At the same time, it always resembled a kind of hive, disturbed by the acute struggle of social groups. By his very character he formed a cult of wealth, luxury and overseas travel.
Collecting epics The first collection of Russian epics was published in Moscow in 1804. The first edition was very popular in Russian society, and after a few years the primary collection was significantly supplemented with new epics and reprinted several times.
Russian folk epic
oral epic works heroic character. Basic genres - epics and legends. U. refers to one of the c. rus. epic storytelling. The first recordings of epic works. made in the 18th century, they were first published in the collection. "Ancient Russian poems collected by Kirsha Danilov" (Danilov Kirsha). Basic Russian stories epics recorded in different forms in U.: “Svyatogor and Ilya Muromets”, “Healing of Ilya”, “Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich”, “Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin”, “Dobrynya Nikitich and the Serpent”, “Why did the heroes transfer to the Holy Rus'" and some others. Ur. The traditions of epic storytelling are distinguished by certain specific features. The most recorded in the U. later the performance of epics to the accompaniment of the gusli - in the South. U. and in the bass. R. Vishers. Rus. The epics were adopted by the Komi-Permyaks and were partially performed in classical language. language In the legends about the origin of the Polyud and Vetlan stones, there was a contamination of the plots of toponymic legends and Russian. epics, when the conflict develops between Ilya Muromets and Vetlan. Until the end of the 1980s, folklorists recorded the presentation of epic stories or their fairy-tale adaptations.
Lit.: Berkh V. Travels to the cities of Cherdyn and Solikamsk to find historical antiquities; Beloretsky G. The guslar storyteller in the Ural region // Russian wealth, 1902. No. 11; Kosvintsev G.N. Epics recorded in the city of Kungur, Perm province // Ethnographic Review, 1899. No. 4; Onchukov N.E. From Ural folklore // Fairytale Commission of the State Russian Geographical Society. L., 1928.
Shumov K.E.
Ural historical encyclopedia. - Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History and Archeology. Ekaterinburg: Academbook. Ch. ed. V. V. Alekseev. 2000 .
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Books
- Russian folk epic. Goslitizdat. 1947 Hard, embossed binding. Enlarged format. The summary text of the Russian folk epic offered to the reader is composed of options taken from the following collections: 1.…
From the very beginning of its discovery, the epic was considered a purely book and not a folklore genre. In fact, researchers treated it as a recording of some ancient historical events that had come down to us: the study of, say, the Homeric epic has always been guided by the findings of everyday historical realities in it.
“The Homeric epic was perceived as a certain history of Ancient Greece in a certain period of its time. Actually, the subsequent discovery of the European epic - this is both the “Song of the Nibelungs” and “The Song of My Side” - was studied in a similar way. Not as folklore and only as a certain book culture.”
Nikita Petrov
The discovery of the oral, so-called living epic happened only in the 19th century - including in Russia. In the middle of the 19th century, the exiled ethnographer Pavel Nikolaevich Rybnikov found himself in the Russian North - near the shores of Lake Onega. There he recorded about a hundred stories featuring strange characters - Prince Vladimir, Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich, Dobrynya Nikitich, Vaska Buslaev, Vaska the Drunkard and others.
“It was so surprising that this region was immediately called the Iceland of the Russian epic, since Icelandic sagas had recently been translated into Russian. But since the Icelandic sagas are still more history than folklore, the epics were perceived in a similar way.”
Nikita Petrov
To determine the genre of this find from the point of view of folkloristics, several things should be understood. Firstly, this is a fairly large epic, about a thousand lines, that you need to hold in your head. Secondly, the text is not told, but sung. And the third important aspect is the audience. The entire audience of the narrator knew the plot of the epic song and perceived it as a reliable event. It was this aspect—the audience and the focus on authenticity—that determined further trends in the study of the genre, which developed into the so-called historical school.
The followers of this school had a rather original approach to the study of epics: they tried to see in them echoes of ancient history, paying attention to the coincidence of toponyms, geographical names and names.
“No one will deny that in the epics there really is some kind of Kyiv. This Kyiv has streets and alleys. When Ilya Muromets beats an unfaithful force, he takes a club or an oak tree and puts down this very force. But he puts it in the streets and alleys. The understanding that the epic was created not in a peasant environment, but in an urban one, also led to the study of epics as a historical genre.”
Nikita Petrov
One example of the erroneous method of the historical school is an attempt to correlate the plot about the death of the giant hero Svyatogor with the funeral ritual of the Slavs, and his name with the specific burial place of a specific warrior who once existed.
“Svyatogor lies down in a huge tomb, and then it turns out that the coffin is just for him. A lid appears out of nowhere and slams shut. Ilya Muromets is trying to pull out his new brother-in-law, but nothing works - there are iron hoops around the coffin. It is important for us that Svyatogor died in the coffin intended for him. Scientists of the historical school, of course, are looking for the necessary details in this plot, they turn to archaeological data - and it turns out that in the 10th century in Rus' this type of log tombs was indeed very popular. And it is quite logical from the point of view of a historian who has archaeological skills and knowledge to assume that this plot is nothing more than a generalized reflection of the burial rite of the Rus in the 10th century.
Some go even further. They take a piece, such as the Svyatogorov cross, and find literal matches. That is, in one of the tombs there really is a skeleton, a horse and a pectoral cross. And they say that it was this one specific event that ended up in the epic. But here, of course, a number of questions arise. It is not very clear how this could happen? Why weren’t other specific burials included in the epic?”
Nikita Petrov
Comparative folkloristics interprets the plot completely differently and finds completely different coincidences. When different epic traditions are compared, the idea of a literal correlation between the plot and a specific historical event disappears. In fact, such coincidences have a deeper connection, which is more likely at the level of pro-epic. For example, other nations also have a story about a giant who lay down in the tomb intended for him.
“There is a hypothesis that the Indo-Europeans had some pro-epic forms. Or this is a general trend - this is how the epic genre developed. If there is a giant, then he will definitely put the hero in his pocket.”
Nikita Petrov
Abstract
The relationship of the Russian epic with the historical process is complex and ambiguous. It is impossible to separate one from the other. But it would be wrong to correlate the plots of epics with real historical events. The epic captures from history only those fragments of reality that correspond to its epic scheme. These may be names or echoes of real events. But this is not enough to talk about the historicity of the epic.
“As you remember from historical sources, Prince Vladimir did quite a lot, but the epic says nothing about his merits - only about how he walks around the upper room in Kyiv, throws feasts, shakes his yellow curls and shakes his rings. And in this case, the epic captures from historical reality only the name Vladimir, which then allows us to correlate the epic with history.”
Nikita Petrov
There is a story about Dobrynya and the Snake, which stands out quite strongly from other epic stories. After a completely ordinary beginning, something strange begins: while fighting the Serpent, who attacked Dobrynya in the river, the hero finds a cap of Greek soil on the shore and throws it at the serpent. He runs away howling, promises not to rob anything anymore, not to fly to Rus', and so on. If we compare the names and details of this epic with the history of the Baptism of Rus', a very interesting thing emerges. Dobrynya is mentioned in the epic - the same name in the chronicles of Prince Vladimir’s uncle, who actually baptized Rus' together with his nephew. There is a river - this detail is also important, since baptism always takes place in water. There is a snake - a symbolic embodiment of the pagan enemy. And finally, the strangest and most incomprehensible detail is the cap of the Greek land, with the help of which this very pagan serpent is defeated.
“And these analogies suggest a seditious thought: what if there really is something historical in the epic? The most reliable way to check this is to turn to typological parallels. If we look at the folklore of the peoples of the world, we will see that the motif of snake fighting is found in almost all traditions.”
Nikita Petrov
A logical question arises: does the epic reflect the historical reality reflected in the chronicles, or, conversely, does the chronicler collect all known plots, facts and rumors and combine them into some kind of chronicle? Most likely, it is the chronicle that borrows details and fragments from more ancient epic stories, selecting them on the basis of historical accuracy. If we talk about the historical approach to the study of the epic, we should mention the famous archaeologist and historian Boris Rybakov. It was he who instilled attention to detail in the historical school of Russian folklore, bringing epics closer in people's minds to the real course of history.
“Rybakov took all the epic stories and all the chronicle events and identified one with the other. As a result, in the minds of not only the average schoolchild, but also a person with a humanities education, there is a clear identification of the epic with real history, which in fact has no correlation with the epic.”
Nikita Petrov
Abstract
It is important to understand that folklore and partly epic exist in a special form, separate from the rest of literature. A writer can create several versions of his work, but there is always a final edition; In folklore this, of course, is impossible. There is no one model that the epic is oriented towards; each plot is unique. At the moment the plot is transferred from mouth to mouth, some details remain in the memory of the storyteller, while others disappear forever, never reaching the next storyteller.
“For example, if a storyteller has visited Ukraine, he may include something Ukrainian in the epic, but the epic will reject it. It is called . Folklore will not absorb everything, it will not devour any details. He will learn only what corresponds to the spirit of this genre or the narrative scheme of a particular epic.”
Nikita Petrov
Sometimes in the Russian epic you can find references to historical events and geographical realities, but it is interesting that the feelings of the ancient Russian man, his love relationships are reflected in the epics of that time.
Love in epics is always tragic. Of course, there are many different motives, but one of them can be called especially remarkable. This motif in epic studies is called “The Three Sciences of the Good”: epic characters deal with unfaithful wives and brides in a certain way. The main character asks the question: “Have you hugged the wrong person?” The woman replies: “I was hugging.” “Did you press your legs together?” - “Cuddled.” “Did you kiss with your lips?” - “Kissed.” Then he takes a knife and cuts off her arms, legs, and then her lips in succession.
“But the heroic heart became enraged, there was nothing to do, and Danube Ivanovich kills his wife. And he evaporates from her womb a child whose arms are in silver and whose legs are in gold. And he also says to him: “If you had waited a little, then in two or three days your son would have been born, that is, I, who would have been the strongest and most powerful hero in Rus'.”
Danube Ivanovich commits suicide, falls on a dagger, and the Danube River flows from his blood. Here's the story. As you understand, it most likely has nothing in common with history - this is such an obviously mythologically beautiful plot with an etiological ending, when an event associated with some kind of landscape occurs. In this case, with the river.”
Nikita Petrov
It is obvious that the epics do not have any clear correspondence with the real life history of Russian peasants, especially with the history of their love relationships. In most stories, the hero does not manage to marry happily at all.
There is a version that the popularity of the “Three Sciences are Well Made” motif is associated with the bookish church culture of Rus', where a woman was described as a vessel of the devil, who always leads a man into temptation. And for this, of course, she should always be punished.
“Here arises the same love conflict that we are considering. When Dobrynya turns back into a hero, Marinka complains to him: “And now who will take me as a wife?” Dobrynya replies: “Okay, I’ll take it.” He takes her as his wife, and then the motif “The Three Sciences Are Well Made” begins. He cuts off her lips, arms and legs. And sometimes he ties two horses to the tails and pulls them apart. Well, this is quite a steppe custom.
Thus, tragic love in the epic ends before it begins. It's not very clear why this happens. The number of stories where the hero - a hero, a character from an epic - cannot have a happy marriage with a woman is indeed very large. Much more than those in which there is a happy marriage.”
Nikita Petrov
Abstract
The epic as a genre tends to select from history only those facts that correspond to a certain epic plot scheme. Almost always epics are built on the simple principle of opposition: heroes are divided into friends and foes. The main character always stands on the side of good, does what is right, defends the Russian land, while the enemy only brings destruction, being essentially the complete opposite of pure good. This obvious distinction helps build the image of the main character and popularize him in culture.
“The opposition “friend - foe” plus patriotic heroism - this is how the image of a character is constructed in folklore and in mass culture in general.”
Nikita Petrov
One of the common options for plot composition in epics is its construction around one character. This cyclization around an individual hero is called biographical by epic scholars. We see an almost complete biography of the epic character.
Let's take, for example, Ilya Muromets. One of the main characters of Russian epics - there are many stories dedicated to his biography - over time becomes a full-fledged historical figure. Without being a real hero, he enters history. It was this cyclization that allowed Ilya Muromets to enter the so-called media world, into another cultural space, into our contemporary reality.
“In 1914, Igor Sikorsky’s bomber plane was named after Ilya Muromets. A little later - an armored train, and before that - a sailing frigate. As you know, ships and planes are named after real people. The story with Ilya Muromets shows how the cyclization of a plot around one character makes it possible to make it historical and thereby fit it into the context of history. And of course, most children in modern schools believe that Ilya Muromets existed, not to mention the Orthodox people for whom he was canonized.”
Nikita Petrov
The epic strives for historicity, but at the same time they begin to see history in the epics. This confusion leads to the fact that sometimes the image of an epic hero can greatly influence the formation of other images in Russian culture. The epic, on the one hand, takes what it needs, and, on the other hand, it integrates itself into historical reality, inventing and constructing a new character.
“In 1643, more than 50 different saints were canonized, including Ilya Muromets. And how is his life structured? Well, of course, exclusively based on epic episodes. This is how the canonization of a character occurs, which has no real prototype. That is, indeed, in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra there are some relics about which there were legends or, rather, even legends that it was a certain hero Chobotok. As a result, the image of Saint Elijah of Pechersk is built exclusively on the biography of the epic character.”
Nikita Petrov
Abstract
At the beginning of the 20th century, epics were still a fairly popular genre. The storytellers performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg and attracted huge audiences. This phenomenon did not go unnoticed by the Soviet authorities: folklorists were obliged to go to villages and record not only traditional folklore, but also songs about new, Soviet heroes.
Since Soviet folklore did not exist, it had to be created. This is how the pseudo-folklore, so-called “fakelore” genre of novelties appeared. They glorified the exploits and events of the heroic Soviet present. Specially trained folklorists visited village performers, showed them films, and carried out political work. Storytellers processed this material and created new works - those same novelties.
“Where the pines rustle giants,
Where mighty rivers flow
There are epics about Stalin the wise
The lumberjacks sing around the fires.”Karelian song about Stalin
Thus, the government tried to legitimize itself and its unprecedented exploits with the help of folklore tradition. Such activities at the beginning of the 20th century can easily be called propaganda.
“It was assumed that this epic would glorify the exploits of Soviet industry, the life of the leaders, and if it did not replace it, then it would stand next to the epics. But it didn’t work out that way, and the genre died in the 60s. It did not have any folklore characteristics - it was a one-time performance, few people adopted these texts further. But the phenomenon itself is very interesting.”
Nikita Petrov
Despite the efforts of folklorists (new stories were not only imposed, but also actively published), new tales did not take root. “Epics” about Stalin were replaced by songs of a different genre and format. The genre has outlived itself, since it included an ideology that is not characteristic of either epic or folklore.
“Epic is a genre that accumulates pseudo-historical events, passing them off as historical. The heroism and pathos of the epic can be used not by the bearers of folklore tradition, but, for example, by the state - for other, perhaps more important purposes. In addition, the epic allows us to consolidate what can be called Russianness. It is known that during the Great Patriotic War, novelties that storytellers wrote to soldiers at the front helped them go into battle. That is, they sang new songs and went to war.”
Nikita Petrov
The epic epic has been preserved for us mainly in its Northern Russian guise. True, Siberian and Central Russian epic texts (as opposed to Cossack - South Russian and Ural) are in principle close to Northern Russian ones and give the same type of epic songs. But the Siberian and Central Russian tradition has been preserved immeasurably worse, is represented poorer and receives its interpretation only in the light of the Northern Russian tradition. The chronological boundaries of this tradition are the XVII-XX centuries. They coincide with the chronology of our real knowledge of the Russian epic. Here is the source of many problems, difficulties, mysteries, and insoluble obstacles. Let us remember, however, that the scientific accounting of the epic tradition of any other people is in a similar (and more often than not, much more difficult) situation. We do not know of such cases when an epic tradition would have been recorded throughout its centuries-long development, in the form of successive stages. The epic of any people comes to us as something that has long been established, as a result, or, more precisely, as one of the moments of its historical development.
As a rule, literature or science discovered an epic when there was already a long and complex history behind it, and, as a rule, the pages of this history needed to be restored, reconstructed; it was simply inaccessible to read them. The epics, in their state as they were discovered in the Russian North, were an example of a living epic heritage. The time for the productive development of the epic tradition was already behind us; Folk art has moved forward in knowledge and in the depiction of reality and in the expression of the ideals that ruled the people. The environment, which continued to preserve and transmit epic poetry from generation to generation, perceived and interpreted it as a memory of the distant past, as the history of a “different” time, continuously connected with the present time, but qualitatively different from it. For all that, epics in the general composition of the Russian folklore repertoire were not an artistic anachronism. They fit quite naturally and harmoniously into this composition, revealing diverse - sometimes lying on the surface, sometimes deeply hidden - connections with other traditional genres of folk poetry and with other types of folk art.
Bylinas were perceived as a heritage more acutely and directly not only by their archaic content, by their “remoteness” from the times glorified in them, but also by their specific position in the functional system of folklore genres. Bylinas did not have a stable everyday function, like ritual songs, and they did not belong to the genres of mass and everyday life. However, the fact that epics could live and be preserved in the North only surrounded by a rich and diverse poetic tradition and that classical Russian folklore here was in many respects united and the fates of individual genres were interconnected can hardly be disputed. Science still has a lot to do to understand the general artistic processes that took place in Northern Russian folklore. Until now, in our opinion, in this work the strength and durability of artistic traditions that determined the nature and development paths of individual genres have not been sufficiently taken into account; the fact that not only epics, but also such genres as the fairy tale and the tale of animals, calendar songs and wedding songs, lyrical plangents, spells, riddles (and maybe some others), were inherited by the northern peasantry in the current state (in terms of genre features, genre structure ) form, in established artistic types, in a certain plot composition.
The prehistory of these genres is known to us as poorly as the prehistory of epics. But on the other hand, comparative material from other regions of Russia is presented much more fully and variedly, allowing us to talk about the differences between Northern Russian folklore and the folklore of the center and south of the country. The question remains open about the origins of these differences and the time when these differences emerged: should we recognize them as late, due to the peculiarities of folk life in different regions of the country, or do they already characterize the Russian folklore of ancient Rus'? It has long been established that northern storytellers contributed almost nothing new to the plot composition of the Russian epic. “New formations” known to science are few in number and are characteristic in one respect: the “material” for them was, as a rule, not events of reality, not facts of history, but fairy tales, book legends, i.e. the same folklore, but of a different artistic system . Epic creativity in this sense is not alone: there are a number of genres that, although widely circulated in the North, know almost no northern new formations, or know those that undoubtedly go back to folklore or literature (for example, fairy tales that came from lubok, songs of literary origin and etc.). Northern Russian folklore included genres that continued to develop productively, that is, those that gave rise to new works (for example, lamentations, legends, historical songs), and genres that basically completed their productive development, the creative life of which proceeded in a specific way, within the framework of the established and a gradually fading tradition.
The epics also belonged to these latter groups. Two questions, closely related to each other, are of particular interest:) in what relation to the previous tradition are the Northern Russian epics known to us?;) what is the essence of the processes that took place in the Northern Russian epic in the last approximately hundred years? I'll start with the second one. Apparently, extreme points of view on the fate of epics in the 19th-20th centuries have been quite convincingly refuted. According to one of them, which was expressed with particular harshness at one time by the most prominent representatives of the historical school (V. Miller, S. Shambinago), epics in the mouths of generations of northern storytellers were consistently destroyed, deteriorated and distorted. According to another, expressed by some modern researchers, northern storytellers creatively reworked ancient Russian epic poetry and reflected modernity in epics - not only the environment, nature, material conditions and life, but also the social conflicts of the era. “In the epics, if we take them as a whole, the complex of local life was fully reflected - socio-economic relations, material culture, way of life and views.”
The concept according to which the fate of the Russian epic in the North was determined by the dialectical interaction of three principles: the preservation of tradition, its fading, and its creative development seems to us to be immeasurably more justified and corresponding to reality. Collectors of the 19th-20th centuries. accumulated significant empirical material, the generalization of which made it possible to see quite concretely how the epic was preserved in the North, what life circumstances supported its life, what internal conditions determined the nature of the life of the tradition and how the process of its gradual and steady extinction took place. To understand the actual creative processes that took place in the epic, special monographic studies, analysis of a huge number of records, and a special study of the art of storytelling were needed. The most significant and convincing results in this area are associated with the works of A. M. Astakhova. The researcher herself admits that her work, polemically directed against the theory of the attenuation of the epic among the peasantry, contained some exaggerations and some one-sidedness. A. M. Astakhova established with great accuracy very important features of the creative work of storytellers on epics, while emphasizing the continuity of their creativity in relation to tradition.
The one-sidedness, in fact, was manifested not in the fact that the creative side came to the fore, as if overshadowing the process of degradation, but in the fact that the creative process appeared separated from this latter, opposed to it and little connected with it. The work of storytellers (especially good, talented ones) was given a certain self-sufficient role; their work was not sufficiently objectified and did not receive quite clear coverage from the point of view of the fate of epic art as an art with its own special laws. I think that it is possible to continue and deepen what A. M. Astakhova has done on the basis of studying the Northern Russian epic as an integral artistic system that underwent changes not only in individual components, but precisely in the system as a whole. Perhaps, for methodological purposes, it makes sense to free ourselves from the “magic” of the storyteller’s personality and try to look at epics from the point of view of the ideological and structural patterns inherent in the epic. After the well-known work of A. Skaftymov, which took little into account objective laws and endowed epics with ahistorical “effects” that supposedly determined their architectonics, science paid little attention to the problems of the artistic structure of the Russian epic.
Meanwhile, significant material has been accumulated within the framework of the epic creativity of different peoples, making it possible to identify the individual components of the epic structure in their historical development and thereby get closer to understanding the structure as a whole, also, of course, in its dynamics. However, in my opinion, studying the Northern Russian epic in any aspect without at least determining in a preliminary, working manner its relationship to the Old Russian epic is extremely difficult, if not fruitless. The scientist cannot help but decide for himself what he is dealing with: the fragments of a former whole? with its natural (successive) continuation and development? with a new artistic phenomenon that arose on the basis of the processing of an old epic? Our view of the possibilities, boundaries and effectiveness of interaction between northern epics and reality, and the very nature of their life, depends on this, in particular. So, let's return to the first question posed above: in what relation to the previous tradition are the Northern Russian epics known to us? The apparent diversity of views on this issue, although not always expressed clearly enough and carried out consistently enough, can be reduced to several fundamental concepts.
One of them developed in the depths of the historical school and constituted, one might say, the methodological basis of most of the specific studies carried out by representatives of this school. No matter what different conclusions the researchers came to about the time and place of the origin of the Russian epic as a whole and its individual cycles or about the historical associations of epic plots and characters, no matter how they imagined the complex history of the epic, they seemed to be unanimous in one thing: they was guided by the conviction that although the Northern Russian epics go back to the Old Russian “epics” (“main”, “original”, “first type”, etc.), they are qualitatively different from them in their content and the nature of their historicism. From the point of view of V.F. Miller, “prototypes of epics” and “modern epics” can only be similar in “poetic form.” “The forms, structure, and turns of language are generally more conservative than the content, which has been subjected to various layers and even radical reworking over the centuries.”
The “first editions” were based on historical legends and were historical epic songs, “sagas”, in which “the historical element naturally should have ... been much more significant”, or “historical songs of praise” composed in honor of the princes; they were composed by princely and druzhina singers and were imbued with the political interests of the time; in these songs “historical facts were processed under the influence of fantasy,” their plot contained a significant proportion of “wandering” folklore and literary material. The historical school recognized that already in the productive period of the epic’s life, i.e., in the conditions of ancient Rus', significant changes, “stratifications,” “replacements,” and plot “accumulations” took place in it. A significant role in the transformation of the epic was given to buffoons. It was also believed that already in ancient times epic songs could reach the “lowest layer of the people” and here they would be “distorted,” “just as modern epics that came to them from among professional petars are distorted among the Olonets and Arkhangelsk common people.”
Northern Russian epics are the result, on the one hand, of long and repeated creative revisions of the epic in changing historical, geographical, cultural and everyday conditions, and on the other, “damage” and distortions among the peasantry. According to the apt expression of V. Ya. Propp, for V. F. Miller “an epic is a spoiled narrative about a real event,” epics are “confused, forgotten and spoiled historical songs among the peasantry.” As a result, according to V.F. Miller, the Northern Russian epic retained only traces of the Old Russian epic, mainly in the form of elements of poetic form, names, personal and geographical, scattered everyday details and individual plot motifs. However, there was no consensus among researchers on the issue of the boundaries and volume of these traces. Certain contradictions can also be seen in their views. For example, V. Miller considered it necessary to emphasize the “considerable strength of plots, heroic types” as evidence “in favor of the remarkable strength of tradition.” Based on this position, he never missed the opportunity to see in the details of a particular plot a reflection of the facts recorded in the chronicle. It is well known to what exaggerations he resorted to.
At the same time, V. Miller repeated more than once that Northern Russian epics retained names from antiquity, but not plots. “The names in our epic, as in other folk oral works, are older than the plots attached to them.” Therefore, V. Miller refused - on the basis of Northern Russian material - from attempts to restore the content of the “original” epics and did this only when he had literary data from the time of ancient Rus'. Skepticism regarding the degree of preservation of the living epic allowed representatives of the historical school to make any assumptions and conjectures about the historical content of the “original” epics: the inconsistency of this content with the nature of the northern epic was always attributed to the fragility of the epic plots. In the historical school (and more broadly, in Russian academic science at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, and then, in a somewhat transformed form, in Soviet science in the 1980s), the prevailing ideas were that the Russian epic had undergone a long and complex evolution from the historical epic itself to the epic that retained only scattered and obscure traces of former historicism, and the final stage of evolution, which most removed our epic from its historical foundations, was the northern period of its life.
True, such judgments often did not prevent scientists from highly appreciating the artistic and historical significance of the living epic. Thus, Yu. M. Sokolov wrote that “these ancient songs very clearly and fully reflected the most diverse aspects of the historical and everyday life of the Russian people.” At the same time, this did not prevent him from believing that “a wide variety of changes both in content and in... . . the form” to which epics were subjected “were not external in nature, but created a deep organic processing.” Based on the results of the work of the historical school, Yu. M. Sokolov attached individual epics to a certain era, “at least in terms of their origin.” But regarding other epics (for example, about Ilya Muromets), he believed that they “came to us in such a highly processed form that it is impossible to get to their origins. . . almost impossible". However, Yu. M. Sokolov attributed the internal processing of the epic to the time preceding the period of his northern life, and emphasized the national significance of the work of northern storytellers who preserved the ancient artistic heritage.
Also characteristic in this regard is the position of M. Speransky, who believed that the 16th century had the most decisive influence on the epic. “Detaminations of the 16th century. often so thick that from under them one can hardly see the older basis of the epic.” The later detachments are small and “easily removed,” so that “the entire range of everyday ideas and social relations in most epics does not generally extend beyond the 16th century.” or, in general, the old worldview of the time of the Muscovite kingdom.” Two initial methodological theses supported in our science the view of the northern epic as a fundamentally different stage in the history of the Russian epic: the theory of the aristocratic origin of the epic and the idea of the emergence of epics on the basis of isolated specific facts, of the creation of images of epic heroes based on real prototypes. Naturally, when the theory of the aristocratic origin of the epic was rejected as untenable, our science substantiated the view of the northern storytellers as the legitimate and natural successors of the centuries-old folk epic tradition.
The very chronological borders of the northern storytelling culture were pushed deeper - in accordance with the data on the colonization of the North. At the same time, material has accumulated, the generalization of which made it possible to more specifically establish what the Russian epic was like by the end of its productive period (XVI-XVII centuries). For us, the final conclusion about the relationship between the epics of the productive period and the northern period, made quite recently by A. M. Astakhova and based on a thorough comparative analysis of the texts of both, is very important. A. M. Astakhova establishes between the epics of two periods, i.e. between the medieval epic (in its form that took shape towards the end of the Middle Ages) and the Northern Russian epic (and more broadly - the epic of the 18th-20th centuries in general) a fundamental commonality in genre type, genre specificity , plot composition, structure and character of the plot, in the nature of the options, in the presence of motives not only heroic-patriotic, but also social, satirical, in the depiction of heroes and the characteristics of the main heroes.
Thus, under the pressure of facts, the wall between the Old Russian (“original”) and Northern Russian epics, erected by the efforts of the historical school, begins to collapse. Thus, we are approaching - on new factual and methodological foundations - to an understanding of the truth, which is not new in essence, that in its content, in its genre structure, and in the nature of its historicism, the Northern Russian epic is not something fundamentally, qualitatively new, different and that the ancient Russian epic in its origin and development remained an epic, and not a historical epic song. The question of the relationship between the Northern Russian epic (or more broadly, the peasant epic of the 18th-20th centuries) and the Old Russian epic has again become acute in recent years in connection with the revived discussion about the historicism of the Russian epic. Representatives of the neohistorical school tend to reconcile the thesis about the original concrete historical content of the epic with recognition of the high artistic and historical significance of epics of the 18th-20th centuries. In practice, this inevitably leads researchers to difficult-to-reconcile contradictions.
Thus, in the book by B. A. Rybakov it is emphasized that “folk epics are precious to us not only for their poetry and solemn melodiousness, but also for their historical truth, passed on from generation to generation for a whole thousand years.” “The history of a thousand years ago has survived in oral transmission as a folk textbook of the native past, in which the main thing in the heroic history of the people was selected.” But the “historical truth” discovered by the researcher during the analysis of individual plots appears in the form of complex puzzles, encrypted riddles; it turns out that the later epic did not preserve for us historically accurate almost a single name or geographical name, transformed the outline of events and rethought the nature of conflicts, and that in general it is “not about that.” One of two things: either if the “original” epics were historical in the sense in which B. A. Rybakov understands it, then the epics known to us from later records cannot in any way be considered the “history of a thousand years ago” that has survived to us; or, if we recognize this historical significance for them, we need to reconsider the chronicle-historical nature of the ancient epic. The views of the historical school were partly revised, partly supported and developed in the works of D. S. Likhachev. From his point of view, the epic is “not a remnant of the past, but a historical work about the past.” “The historical content of epics is conveyed by storytellers consciously.”
The epic preserves what is “historically valuable”: not only names, events, but also “partially... the very social relations of deep antiquity.” The epic reveals the past within a single epic time, which is identified with the time of Kievan Rus. The historical past in the epic is not distorted, but artistically generalized. D. S. Likhachev can be understood in such a way that epics preserve precisely the “historically valuable”, “historical basis” in the form of direct reflections and artistic generalizations. As for the rest - in the plot, language, poetic form - from the 10th to the 17th centuries. significant changes have occurred. D. S. Likhachev returned to these questions in his recent article, expanding and deepening some of the previously expressed considerations. He pays special attention to the attitude of the bearers of the epic epic themselves to the historical essence of the works they perform. “For the narrator and his listeners, the epic tells, first of all, the truth. Artistry, of course, does not contradict this truth, but allows it to be better revealed.” This thesis is substantiated by numerous facts gleaned from collectors and convincingly indicating that the storytellers (and their audience) believe “in the reality of the events told in the epic.”
A believing storyteller “sees in the epic a “single historical fact” and specific historical names.” The people of the Middle Ages saw the same thing in the epic, including chroniclers, who had no doubt that “the epic tells about events that actually took place and about people who really existed.” ". " On this basis, D. S. Likhachev refuses to consider the epic as an artistic fiction and proposes the following scheme: "The artistic generalization in the epic, as in Russian medieval literature, came from a single historical fact, from a specific historical person and a specific historical event. Epic the work at first told only about what happened. It could be a historical legend, a historical song, glory to a hero, lament for a hero, etc. Already in these first historical works there was a share of artistic generalization and comprehension of history... Then, over time events and historical figures were increasingly transformed, more and more overgrown with fiction.The work moved into another genre with a different degree and with a different quality of artistic generalization. An epic appeared. But the epic was still perceived as “truth.” The people strove to carefully preserve names, geographical names, and the historical outline of the story.”
I cited this long excerpt to show, firstly, how D. S. Likhachev understands the distance between the “original” epic and the epic known to us, and secondly, how he manages to eliminate (though only in appearance) the insurmountable barrier between an ancient epic, with an open, concrete historicism supposedly inherent in it, and a late epic, which has preserved only dubious traces of such historicism. However, the only serious factual argument that D.S. Likhachev uses is the “faith” of the storytellers, in our opinion, which serves not to support, but to refute the main thesis of the article. I will note first of all that the storytellers who preserved the epic believed in reality, if you like - in the historicity of the epic world as a whole, with all its characters, typical situations, relationships, with the struggle of various forces taking place in it, with the fantasy, miraculous or everyday and psychological unreliability. To think that the storytellers believed in this world because it artistically generalized actual facts, that is, because it can be traced back to chronicle history and this latter can be explained, we have absolutely no grounds. The storytellers themselves did not think that behind this epic world there was some other, “real” story; for them, it was this epic story that existed and was reality, the unusualness and improbability of which was removed in their minds by the distance from their time and their experience.
Following the historical school, D. S. Likhachev argues that “the people sought to carefully preserve names, geographical names, and the historical outline of the story.” But is this the essence of epics? Are the epics “Ilya and the Nightingale the Robber”, “Ilya and the Idolishche”, “Mikhailo Potyk”, “Sadko and the Tsar of the Sea” and dozens of others valuable as a “historical outline of the story”? And are names really so carefully preserved if in order to identify epic characters in our days we have to mobilize data from a number of historical disciplines? And what is the preservation of other geographical names worth if storytellers place the corresponding cities, rivers and even countries on an epic map, which would have been considered fantastic even in the Middle Ages? The storytellers treated the epic as a whole with care (although this does not mean that they did not change it), since they absolutely equally believed in the reality of all its constituent elements. But in this sense, epics are not alone. The environment that preserved the epic believed in the reality of other phenomena of folk poetry and pre-Christian mythology that it inherited. It is unlikely, however, that we will begin to look for “single facts” behind these phenomena. Rather, we will try to explain them based on the general processes of the life of the people and their consciousness. Why can’t this be done in relation to epics?
“Faith” is an organic and unique property of the epic environment, but not an objective function of the epic itself. Otherwise, we would have to admit that mythology, which also has a lot of “historical” in it, grew up as a generalization of “individual facts.” According to D.S. Likhachev, it turns out that up to a certain point, fiction in folklore is possible only as a result of the evolution of empirical (in epics - chronicles) facts. At the same time, he refers to ancient Russian literature as an analogy. But the laws of literature cannot be applied by analogy to folklore. Let us not forget that the folklore tradition, which was subjected to processing and transformation under appropriate conditions, served as an intermediate basis and mediating material for the reflection of reality in folklore. Folklore, in particular historical folklore, went through a long path of development before a specific fact became the starting point for the content of epic songs, the constructive core of their plot. The latest comparative historical studies have shown that the general general path of epic creativity goes from the mythological epic through the heroic tale to the heroic epic in its various standard forms and that historicism as an artistic defining quality is gradually, through a series of stages, formed in the epic.
Concrete historicism is the conquest of folk epic at relatively late stages of its development. The epic comes to him, and does not begin with him. In relation to the Russian epic, this means that it did not open with historical songs, but ended with them. The epic epic represents one of the natural stages in the movement of folk art towards true history, and not a manifestation of a departure from it. To understand the relationship of the Northern Russian epic to the Old Russian epic, it seems to me essential to pay attention to the following fundamental points related to the structure itself, to the artistic essence of that epic epic, which is known to us from the records of the 18th-20th centuries. . The study of the epic in comparative historical terms reveals to us in northern epics significant and diverse connections with the archaic (pre-state) epic tradition. These connections are completely organic and permeate the epic epic - its plot, imagery, character of heroism, depiction of the outside world, poetic structure. These connections in a certain way characterize the epic consciousness of the creators of Russian epics, that is, the complex of ideas about reality contained in them. If we believe that the epics known to us from records dating back to the 18th (and even the 17th century) arose as a result of the evolution of historical songs, then we will have to admit that the epic archaism is of a secondary nature.
But where and how could it have appeared, how could it have formed as an integral system? It, of course, could not be reproduced, repeated, or fantasized. Neither fairy tales nor international plots could bring it in this form and in such integrity. It could appear in only one way - as a result of the natural and logical assimilation, processing and negation of the previous epic system of pre-state epic. The northern epic correlates with the pre-state epic not directly, not directly; it represents a fairly distant continuation of the archaic tradition on the basis of the heroic (“state”) epic. There is an undoubted continuity between the archaic epic in its “pure” form and the archaic elements of epics, but there is also a considerable distance, during which the birth and development of the Russian heroic (“state”) epic took place. The successful results of the comparative historical study of folk epic, achieved on the basis of the application of the methodology of historical-typological analysis, make it possible to quite reasonably imagine - at least in principle - the nature of the archaic connections of the ancient Russian epic and their gradual evolution to the forms of northern epic known to us. In particular, significant material in this regard is provided by the research of V. Ya. Propp.
The continuity of the Northern Russian epics with the archaic epic tradition reveals itself with particular clarity in the plot. “Storylines change more and faster than names and titles. This is one of the specific features of epic creativity,” with these words D. S. Likhachev agrees with one of the provisions of the historical school. Modern comparative historical studies have shown that the main composition of epic plots can be correlated according to the principle of typological continuity with the plot typical of archaic epics. All the main plot themes that developed in the depths of the pre-state epic are known - in the forms of the “state” epic - to our epics: snake fighting and the hero’s struggle with monsters, heroic matchmaking, the conflict of heroic generations, dramatic meetings of relatives who do not know about their kinship, battles with external enemies, invaders.
Here we find typical epic situations and motifs that originate from archaic epics: the miraculous birth, miraculous growth and miraculous death of the hero; ideas about “other” worlds; miraculous transformations, magic, the ability to foresee and predict events, heroic fights, etc. It is important to emphasize that typological continuity is manifested not simply in the commonality or similarity of themes, motives, ideas, etc., but in their specific development, in specific artistic expression. Direct analysis of the relevant material leads to the conviction that the likelihood of simple coincidences and random repetitions is excluded here. Before us is a complete system that could not have been formed by changing the previous storylines, i.e., as representatives of the historical and neo-historical schools believe, the “original” songs built on a specific historical outline. This system could only emerge as a result of reworking - on new historical foundations - the plot of the pre-state epic and the centuries-long development of the new plot of the “state” epic.
The plots of ancient Russian epics owe their origin and design not to isolated chronicle facts, but to the collision of archaic epic consciousness with a historical reality new to the people, with a new consciousness and new ideals. In this sense they are fictional. D. S. Likhachev incorrectly interprets our understanding of epic fiction as a kind of conscious creative act, as a frank attitude. In his opinion, there could be nothing in the epic that did not already exist in empirical reality. “The people did not know modern forms of artistic invention, just as medieval scribes did not know them.” The whole point is that the people knew other forms of fiction that had developed in the depths of primitive folklore, which they themselves did not recognize as fiction, but nevertheless objectively were such. The plot of the ancient Russian epic, based on the transformation of archaic plots, was, of course, fiction in relation to reality, since it did not repeat it empirically. The epic world, built on the basis of real experience, ideal ideas, illusions and artistic tradition, was fictional, although its creators believed in its reality.
Fiction in the epic is not opposed to history, but it is not subordinate to chronicle empiricism and does not proceed from it. Thus, in my opinion, the plot content of epics - with its typical typical features and deep traditionality - is not “another genre, with a different degree and with a different quality of artistic generalization” (in relation to the ancient Russian “primary” songs), but natural and an organic continuation of the ancient Russian epic plot. The task is to reveal as fully and definitely as possible the dynamics of development in the epic plot from the time when it began to acquire a historical character until the time when the living process was completed. . In epics we are faced with a peculiar world in which everything is unusual - not only from the point of view of the northern singer, but also from the point of view of the historian, and this unusualness is not of the kind and scale that could be brushed aside, neglected at least for a moment. time, attribute it to later fantasy, “overgrowth with fiction.” Everything here is unusual - the geographical and political picture of the world, spatial and temporal concepts, social relations, social institutions, human capabilities, the people themselves, finally.
The unusual merges with the ordinary, interacting freely. The historical school repeatedly tried to isolate the empirical principle in later epics, but invariably failed, since it mechanically approached the relationship between real history and fiction in the epic. In his works, D. S. Likhachev tried to expand the range of traditional historical comparisons in epics. He came to the conclusion that epics not only reflect “individual historical events or individual historical persons,” but also “partially reproduce the very social relations of ancient times, transfer them to the setting of Kievan Rus.” However, in the actual argumentation of this assertion, D.S. Likhachev is wrong. In particular, there are no sufficient grounds to see the relationship between the prince and the heroes in epics as the relationship between the prince and the squad in history. The discrepancies between the epic and empirical history are original and organic, and they are explained in the light of modern scientific ideas about the typology of epic creativity. There is no reason to deny the significance of “single facts” for the epic.
But they must be understood in the general system of the epic, in the system of epic historicism, which in its development has gone through natural stages and the evolution of which is characterized not by a weakening, but, on the contrary, by a strengthening of the concrete historical principle. The epic world (epic world) arose and dynamically developed as a complex whole. Comparative historical analysis makes it possible with a certain certainty to identify the “original”, the most archaic, in it and to trace its evolution. The epics known to us from the records of the 18th-20th centuries undoubtedly reflected the process of blurring the colors that characterized the ancient Russian epic. Its historical content was eroded, but not in the sense that the historical school thought. Epic historicism evolved and changed, and ideas about the epic world and the relations prevailing in it evolved. It is this evolution in its specific and diverse representations that is most important to identify for understanding the Northern Russian epic. . Epic creativity is characterized by its own artistic laws, which together constitute a complex and relatively integral system.
The epic world, which was mentioned above, was created according to these laws; it is a manifestation of the artistic system of the epic. The words of D. S. Likhachev that “the inner world of a work of art also has its own interconnected patterns, its own dimensions and its own meaning as a system” are especially applicable to epic creativity. Especially because epic, art by its nature pre-realistic and rooted in primitiveness, is associated with the laws of collective, impersonal creativity and the specifics of collective thinking of relatively early historical eras. The epic as a phenomenon of art has a mystery that stems from its inconsistency with the real world and real relationships in it, from its artistic multidimensionality. The aesthetic system of the epic reveals itself in the unity of the epic world and artistic structure, poetics, and genre specificity of the epic. The study of epics shows that they are characterized by certain structural features, certain genre characteristics, and poetic qualities. The historical school understood the epic form purely mechanically and therefore, while declaring fundamental changes in the content of epics, at the same time allowed the preservation of their form.
Meanwhile, the epic developed and changed as a system. The northern storytellers inherited precisely the system, although, probably, as some preliminary observations show, its individual elements did not evolve synchronously and in the same way. The epic system corresponded to the consciousness of the environment that created the epic, and to a certain extent developed along with the development of this consciousness. I say “to a certain extent” because the artistic system has internal strength and is based on a powerful tradition; There is no sufficient reason to think that the epic easily changed depending on the turns of history and the ideological quests of the masses. Northern peasants were no longer the creators of the epic in the proper sense, they were its guardians. The consciousness of the singers was in complex interaction with the epic consciousness that dominated the inherited epic. There was a certain balance here, determined primarily by the narrator’s deep faith in the authenticity of the epic world. But here, undoubtedly, there were also disturbances in this balance, due to the ever-increasing distance between the time when the northern storytellers lived and the era when the epic was created in its fundamentals. The storytellers inherited and preserved the epic, but not mechanically, but according to their concepts about it.
It is necessary to study the Northern Russian epic from the point of view of the evolution of the genre structure of the epic in such its most essential components as plot structure, compositional principles, categories of space and time, the structure of the images of epic heroes, stylistics, and the structure of the epic as a song-improvisational genre. Contrary to the statements of the historical and neohistorical schools, we rightfully consider the Northern Russian epic as the final and logical stage in the centuries-old, completely organic and natural process of Russian epic creativity. The northern epic is in no fundamental respect the result of qualitative genre transformations of the ancient Russian epic (although serious changes could have been made within the system) - it continues and completes it. The fundamental features of the Russian epic as a genre - with its characteristic plot, historicism, heroism and ideals, the range of characters, the “epic world” - were inherited by the North in their well-known, historically established diversity and in their dynamics. The epic as a system here in the North was preserved, changed and gradually collapsed.
These three dynamic qualities determine (in their unity) the character of the entire Northern Russian epic heritage as a whole, and individual plots or plot cycles, and individual texts. The methodological basis for the study of Northern Russian epics in their relation to the Old Russian epic should be a comparative analysis, conditioned by the patterns of the historical typology of the folk epic discovered by modern science and based on extensive data that expressively characterize this or that type of epic in its dynamic state. One of the conclusions suggested by modern research and of no small methodological importance is that the process of epic creativity is, in principle, irreversible: systems that arise at certain stages and are characterized by typological certainty could be supported, preserved, gradually disintegrate or transformed into new systems, but they cannot, naturally, be created a second time, anew; Oedic creativity cannot return to the typologically passed stages; archaism cannot be restored in the natural flow of epic creativity. Another conclusion is that the various elements of the system do not live at the same pace; their development occurs unevenly. In some areas, the archaic may linger more strongly, in others it can be overcome faster and more organically. The Northern Russian epic does not represent something unified at all its levels. This, of course, complicates the analysis, but it also allows us to hope to obtain conclusions that can to some extent reflect the complexity of real processes in the Russian epic.
