Answered by: Guest
On the merits of the question: the epic "Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin Zmeevich" from the first lines plunges into the atmosphere of a valiant army. two "remote fellows" are looking for a worthy cause. entertainment is not for them, because they promise "bad glory", but to keep the defense in Kyiv is a matter for heroes. Alyosha Popovich and his young Ekim find themselves at the feast of Prince Vladimir of Kyiv. they respect him, but behave modestly, refuse places next to the prince, which speaks of their deep respect and admiration for Vladimir. The narrative in the epic is built on the opposition of good and evil. the forces of good are personified by heroes, and the embodiment of evil is Tugarin Zmeevich - an uninvited guest at the feast of the Kyiv prince. Tugarin's behavior is defiant: he takes a place next to the prince, eats carelessly. The climax of the epic is the battle between Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin Zmeevich. Alyosha Popovich goes there alone, not even on horseback, but on foot, because he has already come up with an ingenious plan on how to overcome the "filthy miracle." the return of the hero with a victory to the prince of Kyiv is colored with humorous notes. this is a kind of sigh of relief after a hard battle, a symbol of triumph and justice.
Answered by: Guest
Composition
Near the seaside there is a green oak;
Golden chain on an oak tree;
And day and night the cat is a scientist
Everything goes around in circles...
A. S. Pushkin
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin! The name of this greatest Russian poet accompanies us almost all our lives. These are his fairy tales - “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda”, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan ...”, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs” - our parents read to us in early childhood. Later, cartoons based on these fairy tales also became favorites. Until now, my parents remember with admiration the film "Ruslan and Lyudmila".
Of all the works of Pushkin that I have read to present moment, I love "the tale of the priest and his worker Balda" most of all. It's very funny and, most importantly, instructive tale, which speaks of a greedy and stupid priest who decided to get a free job, and a cunning, smart and savvy Balda, who managed to outwit not only the priest, but also the devil. The tale is so interesting that you don’t even notice how you seem to be picked up by a stream of rapidly changing events. And here it is, the end, where goodness and intelligence again - still defeat malice and stupidity!
In addition to fairy tales, Pushkin's stories also amaze me. lyric poems. In them, he opens for us the wonderful world of poetry. We remind you of the freedom-loving Russian soul, of its nobility, courageous struggle for happiness, peace and justice.
I think that the whole life of the people with all its joyful, funny, terrible and amazing events was reflected in the work of Alexander Sergeevich. And all this captivates and excites as if it is happening now, in fact, today!
Answered by: Guest
The novel "Fathers and Sons" ends like this: "No matter how passionate, sinful, rebellious heart hides in the grave, the flowers growing on it serenely look at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not only about eternal peace, about that great peace" indifferent" nature; they also speak of eternal reconciliation and endless life..." What are the key philosophical ideas contained in this phrase?
Compare this passage with Pushkin's lines:
And let at the coffin entrance
Young will play life
And indifferent nature
Shine with eternal beauty.
What unites them? Plan your response.Ask for more explanation Follow Mark violationOksana1111156970 28 seconds
IN Ancient Rus' it was believed that in reality there lived a fine fellow named Alyosha Popovich - the son of a Rostov priest, a brave, powerful and cheerful hero. And we have every reason to believe this. Chronicles tell about the brave Rostov hero Alexander Popovich. He died in 1223 in the famous battle with the Mongol-Tatars on the Kalka River, showing miracles of prowess and strength. The story of the Tver chronicler about the exploits of Alexander Popovich, famous in the Rostov land, was based on some local legends about the hero Alyosha Popovich. The names Alexander and Alexei have a common root. Alyosha is called in some epics the son of St. Leonty, the glorified Rostov saint, whose relics are still buried in the Assumption Cathedral of Rostov the Great. The fact that Alyosha Popovich was from Rostov is also said by the most important epic about this hero - “Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin Zmeevich”. It begins with the words "From the glorious city of Rostov ..." But the hero protects not only his hometown, but the entire Russian land. On the rise near the stone, the hero chooses from three roads the one that leads to the capital.
The first road to Murom lies
Another road is to Chernihiv-grad
The third is to the city to Kyiv ..
Alyosha Popovich, young, told him:
-It's better for us to go to the city to Kyiv
After all, the Kiev prince in the era of the unification of Russian principalities is the head of a single Russian land. The main feat of this hero is a duel with Tugarin, a dangerous oppressor of Rus', threatening her with death. Alyosha defends his homeland and takes revenge for all the disasters that Tugarin brought to Rus'. In the epic of many peoples, the struggle of heroes-heroes with mythological creatures, which represent a world hostile to people: snakes, dragons, monsters, is sung. In Russian epics, in the images of snakes, dragons and other monsters, the real enemies of Rus', foreign invaders who raided Rus' are depicted. They are endowed with both animal and human properties. So Tugarin, who is also called Zmeevich-chem, is depicted as a vile and dangerous monster. There are variants of the epic about Tugarin, where he is represented by a man - a fiery horseman, whose horse spews fire. Some researchers of epics believe that Tugarin is the Polovtsian Khan Tugor-kan. But the historical details in the epic indicate that the image of the Tugarin snake bears the generalized features of the Mongol-Tatar invaders. Prince Vladimir and the princess greet Tugarin with honor, because they are powerless to resist the ugly, disgusting monster.
Tugarin Zmeevich breathes fire, throws sparks.
Only Alyosha, without fear, watches Tugarin, who swallows a swan in one sitting, drinks half a bucket of wine. Alyosha is a hero who not only wields a sword well, but also does not miss a word. On his lips is always a well-aimed and sharp joke. Tugarin was enraged by these words. He threw a damask knife at Alyosha, but Alyosha managed to grab it. They go to the open field one on one to fight. Alyosha is strong, but he knows that the power of God is over everyone. He prayed all night with tears that the Lord would give rain, and the rain would come. The wings of the serpent got wet, and the vicious serpent could not fly. Not only courage, but also cunning helps the hero to defeat Tugarin. He distracts the enemy by asking:
"What kind of power are you leading?" Tugarin looked back...
Vtapory Alyosha jumped up, cut off his head.
And the head fell on the damp earth, like a beer cauldron.
The hero defeats the enemy not only by force, but also by the superiority of the mind. If it were not for the savvy hero, he himself would have died, and ruined the case. Alyosha Popovich is not as strong as Ilya and Dobrynya, but other qualities help him. As Ilya says: "Alyosha is not strong in strength, but he dared to attack." The boundless courage of this hero, lively, perky character, dexterity, resourcefulness help to destroy the invincible Tugarin.
Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich, despite the fact that they are so different, seem to form a single whole. They are cross brothers among themselves, they have a common desire: they do not know a higher goal than serving the motherland, for which they are ready to give their lives.
"Bogatyrs" - the largest, most significant picture of Viktor Vasnetsov - is a powerful epic song of Russia, its great past - a picture designed to express the spirit of the Russian people.
“I worked on the Bogatyrs, perhaps not always with due intensity ... but they were always relentlessly in front of me, my heart was always drawn to them and my hand reached out! They ... were my creative duty, an obligation to my native people ... ”, the artist recalled. Almost three decades passed between the first pencil sketch (1871), more than two decades - between the Parisian sketch and the canvas "Heroes" (1898), crowning the heroic cycle of the painter's works.
The image of the public defender in the minds of young viewers will now certainly be associated with numerous guards, “cops”, “brothers”, who are surprisingly similar to the “new Russian heroes”. Well, time puts forward new heroes ... Culture
Not in the city of Murom, not in the village of Karacharovo, not even in white-stone Moscow, but in the glorious city of St. Petersburg, there is a miracle studio “Melnitsa”. It doesn’t crush grain, it doesn’t bake bread, but it makes a movie fun: for children to enjoy, for adults to have fun. A merry movie all about Russian heroes ...
This is a saying, and now a fairy tale.
The need to create domestic full-length cartoons is long overdue. The American “Lion Kings”, “Aladdins” and “Shreks” have long and persistently been ousted from the shelves, as well as from the children's hearts of the native Vasilis, Matroskins, Gray Necks. Against the backdrop of the rise that Russian cinema is experiencing today, the absence of major animation projects looked somewhat strange until recently. And so it happened: the first full-length animated films of the new time can be called cartoons about Russian heroes: “Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin the Serpent” (2004), “Dobrynya Nikitich and the Serpent Gorynych” (2006), “Ilya Muromets and the Nightingale the Robber” (2007) , “Three bogatyrs and the Queen of Shamakhan” (2010) and “Three bogatyrs on distant shores” (2012). Creating works of art for children based on folk epics is a worthy task. And at first glance, it seems that the new films continue the old traditions of Soviet animated films and even go forward: from the first frames, golden domes of churches flash on the screen, red-cheeked girls in sundresses appear, an epic verse about invincible Mother Russia sounds. It seems that you can call the children and watch a family movie, sitting comfortably in an armchair, but, as usual in a fairy tale, it wasn’t there ...
About how the “brothers” became heroes
We are used to the fact that everything periodically needs to be updated. Teeth hurt - urgently pull out and implant new ones. Hair fell out - increase. Furniture broke - buy another on credit. Why should everything be different in the spiritual realm? Maybe it’s time to “renew” the old moral ideas a bit too, so that they look modern, like shining false teeth in the mouth?
The Russian hero in the traditional view is not just a person with unique physical strength. This is an ideal image of the defender of the Fatherland. He has qualities that even in those days went beyond the norm: readiness for self-sacrifice, refusal to personal life in the name of the good of his people, etc. “For days, months, years, decades, Ilya Muromets protected his native land, neither built a house for himself, nor started a family. Both Dobrynya and Alyosha - all in the steppe and in the open field ruled military service ... ”(From the transcriptions of Russian epics.) The authors of the cartoons about the new heroes place their heroes in the“ former ”historical era, but endow them with“ modern ”characters.
Thus, the “ideal image” is destroyed and a comic effect arises at the junction of two incompatible things. The hero becomes "funny".
Alesha Popovich, for example, barely born, he demonstrates his remarkable physical abilities: he bites off the baptismal cross, which immediately turns into a spear of Mars - a symbol of male power. If in the epics Alyosha Popovich, as the least strong of the heroes, is distinguished by ingenuity and ingenuity, then the “animated” just in everything reveals a clear lack of intelligence, which is more than compensated by pumped up muscles, as they say, there is strength ... In one of the many fights as maces Alyosha "for the simplicity of his soul" uses an old woman who has turned up under the arm. Walking through the forest, the hero, again “accidentally”, knocks down mushrooms, kicks off small animals. With the same ease with which he strikes people with varying degrees of severity, Alyosha admits his mistakes, they say, “I wanted the best, but it turned out ...”. They say that such simplicity is worse than theft, but by the end of the film it comes to theft. Having penetrated the enemy camp, Alyosha, under cover of night, tries to take away a bar of gold, and suddenly, halfway through, he catches himself: “What am I like a thief ?!” - and begins to thresh sleepy Tugars, saving his heroic reputation.
Also very different from his epic counterpart and Dobrynya. The lexicon of the “cartoon” hero is impressive: “Do I explain clearly?”, “Fell - push up”. As if not a hero in front of us, but a martinet. Dobrynya does not at all live as an anchorite in a distant outpost: he has a beautiful young wife who nags her husband endlessly: either she is bored, or give a new fur coat. But Dobrynya is in no hurry to put his wife in her place, but, on the contrary, fulfills “any whim”, unequivocally alluding to her masculine strength. I wonder why, in this case, Dobrynya has no children? And who at their far outpost deals with family planning, Baba Yaga?
In the cartoon, the rough carnal mental organization of the characters is endlessly emphasized. Such “heroes” are familiar to many, only not from epics, but from anecdotes. They are also found in modern life, and, I must say, not so rare. Thus, in the cartoon, on the one hand, the traditional image of a hero is reduced from a moral height. And on the other hand, the image of the public defender in the minds of young viewers will now certainly be associated with numerous guards, “cops”, “brothers”, who are surprisingly similar to “new Russian heroes”. Well, time puts forward new heroes ...
Bylina writes ... donkey
Now a few words about the heroines. Very little is said about women in folk epics. Basically, this is a faithful friend who is ready to love and wait forever, that is, just like the hero, she is ready for self-sacrifice. In cartoons, women behave in an uncommonly more active way. The fun that was proposed to the unloved begins to calculate, or maybe the unloved is not so bad, since he has a lot of money.
In general, the theme of money, venality, deceit occupies one of the key places in cartoons. Everyone loves money: the Baba Yaga, the Serpent Gorynych, the heroic horse, and even Prince Vladimir.
Because of their greed, these “heroes” get into the most ridiculous situations. But they quickly ask for forgiveness - and everyone forgives them. The authors seem to urge the viewer to be condescending to “little human weaknesses”, but what really needs to be treated with implacability is physical weakness.
The main objects for jokes of all kinds in cartoons are old men and old women: sometimes an arrow will pierce them in the ass, then a horse will kick, then something weighty will crush them, or even they themselves are often used instead of tools. And how famously the senile absent-mindedness and forgetfulness are famously ridiculed by the example of the aged hero Svyatogor, as if there could be no more terrible vice in a person!
The genre itself is also exposed to ridicule. folk epic: an epic chant sounded, a parchment scroll with “statutory” letters appears in the frame, and suddenly - either the author does not know which letter to put in the word, then it turns out that the epic is generally written by ... a donkey.
The epic about the fight between Alyosha and Tugarin closely adjoins the epic about Dobrynya's snake fighting. The relationship is so close that one cannot be understood without the other.
As we have seen, Dobrynya's fight with the serpent takes place twice. We have noticed a tendency to split this song into two with one fight in each of them. One battle takes place outside Kyiv and the Kyiv orbit - Dobrynya leaves Ryazan and runs into a snake - the second battle takes place already at the behest of Vladimir. We have something similar here too: Alyosha also fights the snake twice, and also for the first time on the way to Kiev, after leaving home, and for the second time in Kiev itself, helping Vladimir out of trouble. But these two fights, as a rule, are not combined into one song. Accordingly, there is no mercy for the enemy: he is killed from the first meeting, the second meeting with him is made impossible. The two different fights are two different versions of this song; In short, they look like this:
First version. Alyosha Popovich leaves Rostov with the lad Ekim. At the crossroads of three roads, they choose the road to Kyiv. On the way, they run into Tugarin's snake. Alyosha strikes him in battle, and brings his head to Kyiv.
Second version. Just as in the first version, Alyosha leaves Rostov with a lad and chooses the road to Kyiv at the stone. He arrives in Kyiv without any road encounters and adventures. At Vladimir's feast, he sees Tugarin, who gorges himself there and keeps himself at ease with the princess. Alyosha challenges him to a fight and kills him.
Applying the conclusions from the study of the epic about Dobrynya and the snake to the epic about Alyosha and Tugarin, we must raise the question of whether the first version does not represent the most ancient, pre-Kiev form of the plot, and the second - the latest, Kievan. An analysis of the epic will either confirm or refute such an assumption.
Even a cursory glance at the material shows that these two versions are mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, their connection occurs, but it is meaningless. So, at Kirsha Danilov's, Alyosha kills Tugarin on the way to Kyiv, and then it turns out that Tugarin is sitting in Kyiv as if nothing had happened, and Alyosha fights with him a second time. The singer, carried away by his singing (and the details in this recording are artistically very bright), forgets that Tugarin has already been killed. Here, two versions meet in one text. This text sometimes coincides verbatim with the entry made by Markov from Agrafena Matveevna Kryukova (Mark 47). As A. M. Astakhova showed, Kryukova knew the texts of Kirsha Danilov from reprints in the anthology of A. V. Oksenov “Folk Poetry”. A parallel comparison of the text by A. M. Kryukova with the text of Kirsha Danilov leaves no doubt as to which source this text goes back to, although Kryukova made a number of changes and discarded the entire second half as inconsistent with the first.
Three entries of the epic about Tugarin in Astakhova's collection go back to the book source, where there is also a combination of the first and second versions. The absurdity is avoided by the fact that here Alyosha meets for the first time (on the way to Kyiv) not Tugarin, but some other enemy (Neodolishche); the enemy is sometimes depicted as a giant and resembles Svyatogor or approaches the Nightingale the Robber. These notes already speak of the degeneration of the plot: two of them are conveyed in fabulous prose, one in corrupted verse. The version about Alyosha's meeting with Tugarin is ancient, rare and degenerate.
The second version is represented by over 20 entries of various denominations and character. This version is known in all areas where the epic exists, except for the White Sea region, where only the first version is known. The number of entries falling on each district is small. It is interesting to note that regarding the largest number records falls on Siberia (5 texts). In addition, there are fairy tales and an excerpt from an old handwritten story. These data show that the epic is on its way to extinction. As we will see below, the first version was superseded by the second, Kievan, and it itself was superseded by an epic on a similar plot, namely, an epic about Ilya Muromets and Idolishche, which shows no signs of fading. In Siberia, epic creativity was less intense, and therefore this epic was better preserved there, while the epic about Ilya and Idolishche is not there.
The hero of this epic is Alyosha Popovich. The first scientific and basically correct attempt to understand and define this image was made by Belinsky. The text of Kirsha Danilov, the only one that was in the hands of Belinsky, belongs in its composition to the most unsuccessful of all the recordings of this epic. As already mentioned, here Tugarin is killed twice. This explains that Belinsky could not recognize in this song (or rather, in this version of it) thoughts, although he recognizes in it "poetry", "meaning" and "significance". Alyosha Popovich, according to Belinsky's definition, is a completely national Russian hero, not at all like Western European knights. “There was no knighthood here; they did not hit the shoulder with a sword, they did not put on silver spurs. Alyosha does not fight for the lady of the heart, "not for beauty." According to Belinsky, Alyosha is "a hero more cunning than brave." As we shall see, this opinion requires very substantial amendments. Belinsky is also mistaken, considering Tugarin to be Russian. But he is right when he establishes that Alyosha is "more resourceful than strong." Belinsky emphasizes his cunning in the battle with Tugarin: for example, he pretends to be deaf, calls the enemy to him, and so on. But Belinsky does not draw conclusions from this that discredit Alyosha's moral character to any degree. On the contrary, Belinsky emphasizes Alyosha's intransigence towards his enemies. “Tugarin offers him to fraternize, but he did not attack such a one: Alyosha will not be deceived, out of knightly generosity.” Alyosha destroys a stronger enemy, defeating him with cunning. The high moral character of Alyosha is also determined by the fact that the struggle he wages against Tugarin, according to Belinsky, is a struggle against that "cold cynical debauchery" of which Tugarin is a representative.
Belinsky was right when he proceeded from an examination of the appearance of the hero himself. At present, Alyosha's appearance can be described more fully and more accurately than Belinsky was able to do with the state of the materials of that time.
Of the three heroes of the Russian epic, Alyosha is the youngest. He is endowed not only with all the virtues of a hero, but also with some of the shortcomings inherent in youth. If, as we will see later, Ilya Muromets defeats his enemies with his calmness and experience, his wisdom, endurance, fearlessness and determination of a mature person, if Dobrynya, as we have seen, always surpasses the barbarian enemy with his culture, combined with the consciousness of the strength and invincibility of Russian culture , which he represents, Alyosha never weighs any obstacles and dangers. In his youth, he is frivolous and bold to the point of recklessness, and that is why he always wins: he takes with the speed of his onslaught. He is not depicted as having great physical strength. On the contrary, his weakness is often emphasized, and there are even songs in which he is portrayed as lame. But this shortcoming does not hinder him in the least. He is "brave" and this ensures his success. Dobrynya, complaining to his mother that he is not recognized as a hero, always says that with courage he would like to be born into Alyosha Popovich. Alyosha never loses his presence of mind and often defeats the strongest, but clumsy and ponderous enemy with his sharpness and resourcefulness. The people in their epic always highly regard military cunning, leading to the destruction of the enemy. Another quality of Alyosha is connected with courage and resourcefulness. In contrast to the stern Ilya and the restrained Dobrynya, Alyosha is portrayed as prone to ridicule and jokes. He is witty and cheerful. All this makes Alyosha a vivid exponent of the Russian national character. Severe and powerful Ilya, seasoned and cultured Dobrynya, cheerful and resourceful Alyosha express the heroic traits of the Russian people. In them, the people portrayed themselves. For all their differences, they are united by one feeling, one aspiration: they do not know a higher service than serving their homeland; for her they are always ready to give their lives.
As we have seen, Belinsky understood the national and heroic character of the image of Alyosha in the same way as the people themselves understand it. In later folkloristics there was another point of view, which must be refuted and rejected. A huge apparatus is set in motion to prove that Alyosha is a type of negative, immoral, immoral epic hero. So, Maikov writes: “While the epics in Ilya and Dobrynya depict two faces completely sympathetic to the people, they oppose Alyosha to these heroes, as the embodiment of several vicious properties.” According to Maykov, these properties are partly the hallmarks of the priestly class to which Alyosha's father belongs, and partly characteristic of him personally. Maikov knows and talks about some positive features Alyosha, but basically for him Alyosha is still "the embodiment of vicious properties"; he is opposed to Ilya and Dobrynya. The fact that in the popular mind all three heroes form, as it were, one whole, that they are cross brothers to each other, that they often act together and help each other out, does not matter to Maikov. For him, Alyosha is opposed to two other heroes.
What is the actual attitude of the heroes towards each other in the popular imagination, can be seen, for example, from such later epics as the epics about Alyosha and Dobrynya in a battle with a Tatar. Here it is said that Alyosha rescues Dobrynya from trouble and saves him from death, while Dobrynya promises him to remember this service all his life (Mark 63). In another epic, Alyosha alone liberates Kyiv from the hordes of Tatars who besieged it. Alyosha is proud that the fame of him will reach Ilya Muromets. Vladimir does not give Alyosha sufficient honor, does not put him at the table with him, and Alyosha returns to Rostov. The fame of Alyosha really reaches Ilya along with the news of his insult. Ilya travels to Kyiv and forces Vladimir to return Alyosha and arrange a feast in his honor. Vladimir does just that, but Alyosha refuses any awards (Tikh. and Mill. 31). So in fact, in the folk epic, the “opposition” of Alyosha to other heroes looks like. If Maikov's theory were correct, such epics could not have arisen at all. Another scientist, Dashkevich, who specially studied some epics about Alyosha, at the end of his work gives him following characteristic: he dared, but not daring, even a coward, he is empty-handed, intemperate in words. “Although he is devout, he is not averse to lying and loves immodest speeches.” “In the battle with the enemy, Alyosha does not observe due honor; with a penchant for love affairs, Alyosha resembles Churila, but is devoid of his grace and refinement; he is impudent and has received the name "woman's mockingbird". This assessment, as it were, is a conclusion from the entire work and is reported to the reader at the end, as a general result of the study. ABOUT positive qualities Alyosha is not mentioned here. Belinsky, who knew only one epic about Alyosha and Tugarin, nevertheless understood the image of Alyosha better than Dashkevich, who knew a lot of them. He saw that in the popular image and understanding through and through the healthy nature of Alyosha in the epic about Tugarin is outraged by the debauchery that he finds in the palace in the person of Tugarin and the princess. And if at the end of the song he scolds the princess with “bad words,” then this does not come from “love for immodest speeches,” as Dashkevich thinks, but because in the public mind these words are the very ones that the princess deserves. Alyosha here expresses the high and pure folk morality.
Dashkevich claims that the epic Alyosha is not a creation of folk fantasy, but goes back to the “brave” (that is, the knight) Alexander Popovich, repeatedly mentioned in the annals. Dashkevich is one of the creators of the concept, according to which there are two Alyoshas: one is a historical, also chronicle, image not created by folk fantasy; this Alyosha is a true hero and a brave man. The other Alyosha is the epic, epic Alyosha, the miserable, semi-comic figure outlined above. The second is derived from the first. The epic Alyosha supposedly represents the "reduced" Alyosha from the annals. This primitive and, as we shall see, fundamentally wrong theory was developed in the works of Vsevolod Miller, who is also convinced that the epic Alyosha goes back to the chronicle. But in establishing the process of "decrease" and "degeneration" of Alyosha, Miller goes further than Dashkevich. Miller can no longer deny the heroic qualities of Alyosha, but he is not interested in them, he does not study them, he refers them to the distant past. But with the greatest care and conscientiousness, he writes out from various epics all the places in which at least something bad is said about Alyosha. These “places”, taken out of context, torn off from the meaning and idea of the songs, are studied very carefully, and from their consideration and comparison, it is concluded that the image of Alyosha in the epic is degenerating. “It seems to me,” writes Vsev. Miller, - that from such places the conclusion can be drawn that in a certain period of our epic, some composers of epics had a desire to humiliate Alyosha Popovich, probably in connection with his alleged origin. Thus, the All. Miller already claims a double reduction: the epic Alyosha is reduced compared to the chronicle, the later epic, "novelistic" Alyosha is reduced compared to the ancient epic Alyosha.
This theory persisted until the Soviet era and was repeatedly repeated. Meanwhile, the arguments with which they try to justify such a view of Alyosha crumble to dust at the first critical touch to them. So, in the epics there really is a mockery of the priestly origin of Alyosha, there are such "places". Upon closer examination, however, it turns out that these ridicule takes place in the epic about the battle of Elijah with his son. In this epic, a boaster passes by the outpost. According to the very plan of the epic, only Ilya can and should enter into battle with this praiser. Therefore, if other heroes try to fight him, they fail, or they are not even allowed to fight with various unflattering comic jokes for individual heroes. In these cases, Alyosha gets for his priestly origin, other heroes for other in this case recalled shortcomings. But this does not mean that Alyosha, as the son of a priest, is a negative hero in the eyes of the people.
Alyosha really deceives the filthy Idolishche or Tugarin in battle. But this does not mean that he is a coward and a deceiver. He defeats a stronger opponent with the superiority of his mind. Anyone else in Alyosha's place would have perished himself and ruined the cause of defense, but Alyosha, thanks to his sharpness, always wins.
In the song about forty kalikas, Alyosha, in some versions, on the orders of Evpraksia, puts a silver charm into the bag of the pilgrim Kasyan Mikhailovich, which leads to a false accusation of Kasyan of theft. However, scholars who referred to this episode forget that this song is not an epic, but a spiritual verse on a biblical theme, and that in spiritual verses the heroes who perform military feats are humiliated at the expense of the heroes who perform feats of asceticism. The hero of this verse is not the brave, cheerful and cheerful Alyosha, but the ascetic and miracle worker Kasyan. Such songs have nothing to do with the heroic epic. In them secular heroes are deliberately humiliated.
Statements of this kind persisted in science for decades and created a misleading idea of the Russian epic and its heroes. In particular, the assertion was often repeated that Alyosha in the folk image is a seducer of women. How this is actually the case, we will see below, when considering the epics about the unsuccessful marriage of Alyosha and the epics about Alyosha and Elena Petrovichna.
The statement that the epic Alyosha is a fragment from the chronicle Alyosha was documented refuted in the doctoral dissertation of prof. D. S. Likhachev, dedicated to Russian chronicles. D.S. Likhachev, carefully comparing the chronicles in their chronological order, showed that the first mention of Alexander Popovich, who allegedly died at Kalka, appears in the so-called Vladimir Polychron in 1423. D.S. Likhachev also traced how this mention then bypassed other annals. The penetration of the image of Alyosha into the annals of the 15th century is not accidental. D. S. Likhachev opened historical reasons the process of penetration into the annals of epic heroes. This process is associated with the growing importance of Moscow as a state center and the growth of national self-awareness. All this completely refutes the conjectures of scientists who created and accepted the theory of the chronicle origin of the image of Alyosha and its “decrease” among the people. The case is just the opposite. The image of Alyosha was perceived by the chronicle precisely for its heroism and for its compliance with popular ideals and aspirations.
In the epic about the battle of Alyosha with Tugarin, his heroic qualities are extremely pronounced. It is advisable to consider two versions of it separately.
The beginning is the same in both versions. Alyosha leaves home. In this regard, singers sometimes give some information about his origin. Alyosha is from Rostov, and his father is a pop, sometimes called by name. Alyosha is the son of the cathedral priest Leonty or Theodore.
If the assumption about the princely origin of Dobrynya is not confirmed by the materials, then the priestly origin of Alyosha in the Russian epic is not subject to any doubt. He is always the son of a priest, and most often a priest of the Rostov Cathedral. In this origin, the people do not see anything shameful. The plot of serpent fighting is older than Christianity. The winner of the snake could become the son of a priest only shortly after the advent of Christianity. As a hero of Rostov, Alyosha became the son of priest Leonty, that is, “the famous saint Leonty, whose relics, resting in the Assumption Cathedral in Rostov, were discovered under Andrei Bogolyubsky in 1164. The name Theodore, borne in some versions by Alyosha's father, belongs to another Rostov saint, the first bishop of Rostov Theodore, whose relics lie in the same cathedral. This does not mean that Alyosha Popovich is a historical figure, the son of a historical priest. But these data show that Alyosha is depicted as the son of a saint in an era when Christianity was still a phenomenon of a progressive order in relation to recent paganism.
Alyosha's departure occurs without any external reason or reason. He takes with him the lad Ekim, his servant and comrade. From the mention that they do not find any animals or birds, we can conclude that they went hunting. But this is only an external reason for leaving. The inner meaning of the dispatch is revealed only when they run into a stone with an inscription indicating three roads, most often to Murom, Chernigov and Kyiv. The meaning of this stone was discussed above (see p. 65). Choosing the road to Kyiv, Alyosha forever determines his life path and your ministry. He will serve Kyiv and Vladimir, Rus', and not specific princes.
Nevertheless, in this version, he accomplishes his first feat even before his arrival in Kyiv and not on behalf of Vladimir. In general, one can notice that in the Russian epic, enemies of a mythical nature are destroyed by a hero who has left not from Kyiv, but from his native home. So, leaving the house, Dobrynya beats the snake, Alyosha - Tugarin, Ilya Muromets - the Nightingale the Robber. On the contrary, enemies bearing historical outlines are destroyed by a hero who has left Kyiv or, in any case, is in the service of Vladimir. This confirms the assumption that the fight against mythological monsters was known to the Russian epic even before the creation of the epics of the Kiev cycle, and then the epics about the fight against such monsters were attracted by this cycle, entered it, but were subjected to processing. Epics about the struggle against historical enemies should be considered as new formations in the full sense of the word.
In some records (K. D. 20; Mark. 47; Par. and Soim. 5), Alyosha and Ekim meet a Kalika on the way, who tells them that he saw Tugarin and describes him. Tugarin is not depicted as an enemy of either Kyiv or Vladimir. Only in the epic Pashkova (Par. and Soym. 5), which occupies an intermediate position between the two versions, Kalika warns that Tugarin's army surrounded Kiev - a clear transfer from the epics about the invasion of the Tatars, since in no other record Tugarin is depicted with army. The figure of Kalika is also transferred from another epic, namely from the epic about Idolishche and Ilya, which will be seen when considering this epic.
Alyosha usually sleeps in a tent. Note that he always makes a stop on the river: on the Safat River, the Ofrak (Euphrates?) River, the Puchay River, etc. Like the battle of Dobrynia, this battle takes place on the river bank.
The singers do not forget to mention that Alyosha, leaving the tent, washes himself with spring water and wipes himself with a clean towel. In one case, it is said: “That autumn night has passed” (K. D. 20). This reference, remarkable in its poetry and brevity, leaves the listeners' imagination to complete the cold autumn morning and the landscape of the river bank.
Ekim helps Alyosha saddle the horses, and they ride towards Tugarin. Having run into him, Alyosha immediately rushes into battle. The image of Tugarin is extremely interesting for us and indicative of the process of development that takes place with the epic. Although we have no more than five independent texts of this version, the image of Tugarin is so diverse and contradictory that this instability cannot be an accident. While the appearance of the snake in the epic about the serpent fight of Dobrynya, with all variations, is very stable and defined, in this epic it is not clear that the snake begins to lose its snake outlines and takes on human outlines: but this process has not reached its end, and Tugarin acquires mixed human and animal traits.
On the one hand, Tugarin appears as a snake. It is called "Snake Tugarishche" or "Tugarin Zmeevich". In one variant out of five, this name corresponds to the appearance. He flies under the clouds:
Tugarin flies high near under the clouds.
(Gilf. 99)
But his wings are no longer real, but paper, that is, artificial, attached. Belief in flying creatures like snakes has already been lost, and the ability to fly is seen as a tricky mechanic.
In four other versions, Tugarin is represented by a man, namely a fiery horseman. Fire, which is usually vomited by snakes, here is vomited by a horse. In its description, the image of the fiery horse of Russian fairy tales is used, with the difference that the fiery horse of fairy tales is a friend of the hero, the same horse is a monster.
From hailisch the flame blazes,
There is smoke from the ears.
(C. D. 20)
Tugarin is ugly. It's huge and disgusting. In Kirsha Danilov we find:
Is he, Tugarin, three fathoms high,
Between the shoulders oblique sazhen,
Between the eyes of a red-hot arrow.
(Ibid.)
From Agrafena Matveevna Kryukova:
After all, he is a snake Tugarishe,
Three fathoms of large printed ones,
As a nose, it’s like a wood splitting stick.
(Mark 47)
These cases show that in the Russian epic hyperbole is used to derisively describe the enemy. With Marfa Kryukova, the image of Tugarin is already completely humanized. It is borrowed from the epic about the battle of Elijah with his son and corresponds to the Sokolnik of this epic. Here Tugarin threatens Kyiv and Vladimir. In some versions, Tugarin is dressed unusually luxuriously: his dress is valued at one hundred thousand. At Kirsha Danilov's, Alyosha, after the victory, brings this dress in a suitcase to Kyiv. The dressing of the horse is such that he has no price at all. All this shows that the mythical image of the serpent began to fade and give way to enemies with a human appearance.
It is noteworthy that Tugarin is described only as an enemy encountered on the road in general, and not as an enemy of Kyiv and Vladimir. In Kryukova's version, it is true that he threatens Kyiv, but this, quite obviously, is transferred from the epics about the attack on Kyiv by the Tatars. Such an introduction, although it was made later, thereby reveals the lack of this ancient form of the epic. The hero here is fighting with the enemy, he met by chance, without any reason or reason. This form of hostile meeting is quite common in the pre-state epic, but almost completely forgotten in the Russian epic. This is also the reason why this plot in this form is almost forgotten and why it took on a different form, was cast into another version that supplanted this version.
It could be assumed that the features of Tugarin as an enemy of Kyiv simply disappeared here. But this contradicts the whole course of development of the epic; they have not fallen away, but have not yet developed. Tugarin of this version is a snake enemy, and nothing more. In another version of this epic, Tugarin is already outlined as the enslaver of Kyiv, and Alyosha as a liberator. Thus, the same process is observed here as in the epic about Dobrynya: having accomplished the feat of snake fighting outside the circle of the Kiev epic, Alyosha, with the entry of the epic into the stage of the Kiev cycle, performs it in a new way, which leads to the creation of another version.
According to the indefinite and dual form of Tugarin's appearance, the battle has a diverse form. At Ievlev, in the song of which Tugarin flies under the clouds, Alyosha prays to God that rain moistens Tugarin's wings; through Alyosha's prayer, this is how it happens.
There was a dark cloud
With frequent rain and lightning,
Wet Tugarin's paper porches,
Here Tugarin sank on the damp ground.
(Gilf. 99)
The picture of lightning and rain brought down on Tugarin's wings is reminiscent of the appearance of a snake in a cloud and lightning of the epic about Dobrynya the snake fighter.
Tugarin is no longer the embodiment of the power of the elements, but a helpless creature with paper wings. Alyosha controls the elements of rain and lightning, and they turn against Tugarin. It is possible that the rain was originally supposed to extinguish the fire, neutralize the fiery wings (so - in another version, in the variants of Grig. III, 334; Quiet and Mill. 29). However, in most cases, both versions feature not fiery, but paper wings.
Tugarin is no longer only a snake, but also a man. Contrary to formal logic, but in full accordance with the laws of the development of the epic, Tugarin, having descended to the ground, suddenly turns out to be no longer a snake, but a rider armed with a dagger and a sword. A squabble ensues between him and Alyosha, which turns into a fight. The fight is always very short. Alyosha pretends to be deaf and calls Tugarin closer, supposedly in order to better hear his curses, and when Tugarin approaches, he strikes him with a mace such a blow on the head that his head falls off. This is reminiscent of Dobrynya, kicking off the trunks of a snake. This is how the battle is depicted at Ievlev (Gilf. 99). Kirsha Danilov and Agrafena Kryukova have Tugarin not killed by a blow. He falls to the ground and begs for mercy. He, like the snake in the epic about the serpent fight of Dobrynia, offers fraternization.
Are you Alyosha Popovich young?
You are Alyosha Popovich young,
Let's fraternize with you.
(C. D. 20)
In contrast to Dobrynya, Alyosha never succumbs to the “lyas” of a snake.
Vtapory Alyosha did not believe the enemy,
Cut his head off.
(Ibid.)
At Agrafena Kryukova, Alyosha responds to Tugarin's request to spare him:
I won’t let you into the light of the living here!
He chopped off, took, cut off and violent head.
(Mark 47)
From Ievlev, he takes Tugarin's head with him to Kiev, from Marfa Kryukova, who describes the battle in great detail and hyperbolically (the earth is shaking, etc.), he takes Tugarin's heart with him, after rinsing it well in the Puchai River.
This epic is essentially over. Three versions contain one more final episode, which, in fact, is redundant and violates the integrity of the composition of this otherwise extremely integral and harmonious epic. Alyosha puts on Tugarin's one hundred thousandth colored dress and, showing off in it, returns to Ekim. But this joke costs Alyosha dearly: Ekim takes him for Tugarin and inflicts a terrible blow on his head with a club or even cuts off his head. By the cross, he recognizes Alyosha and brings him to his senses with an overseas drink or revives him with living water, which, by the way, ended up at the Kalika. This episode, which delays the development of the course of action, well characterizes Alyosha's temper. After this misunderstanding, Alyosha and Ekim go to Kyiv.
It is characteristic that, having arrived in Kyiv, Alyosha never, in any case, boasts of his feat and does not even mention it. At Kirsha Danilov's he was received kindly by Vladimir. Vladimir invites him to choose any place at the feast, but not for a feat that Alyosha is silent about, but because he is the son of a Rostov cathedral priest.
By patronymic, sit down in a large place, in the front corner.
(C. D. 20)
But Alyosha does not sit on the "big place", but on the "ward beam", showing by this that he neglects the honors of Vladimir. At Ievlev’s, he doesn’t go to Vladimir at all, but frightens Tugarin’s head with women-porters who wash clothes on the river, accompanying their joke with sharp but harmless words and expressing the cheerfulness of their temper.
This is how the song ends. Her special interest lies in the heroic appearance of Alyosha. But the action itself cannot fully satisfy the listener, and this can explain the low prevalence of this version. The meeting with Tugarin in this version is an interesting adventure, and nothing more. This meeting does not stand in connection with the decision that Alyosha makes at the stone: he does not serve Kyiv with his feat. We now understand why the people developed a different version, with the same actors, but more perfect in form and deeper in its ideological orientation.
In this new version, the beginning usually coincides with the beginning of the first version. Alyosha leaves the house with his servant Ekim. But, unlike the first version, Alyosha arrives in Kyiv without hindrance and without any road encounters and adventures and immediately gets to the feast of Vladimir. Less often, the epic begins directly with a feast, at which Alyosha is also, and the singers do not tell how he got here. We must recognize this form of beginning as not entirely successful. In order for the artistic concept of this epic to be fully realized, Alyosha must arrive in Kyiv. To understand what happened next, we must clearly imagine with what feelings, aspirations and goals Alyosha and Ekim arrived in Kyiv. They want to serve Vladimir and Kyiv. How will Vladimir take them? What will they see in Kyiv, where the eyes of all the people are turned?
Alyosha and Ekim see a brilliant picture, but this picture is still not entirely to their liking and, apparently, does not fully meet their expectations. Vladimir is surrounded by princes and boyars - these are sitting near Vladimir; but there are still some other people who are modestly sitting somewhere behind, on benches, beams or on the stove. This circumstance is somewhat unexpected for Alyosha, and different singers force Alyosha to act differently. In some cases, Alyosha, in the consciousness of his dignity and heroism, demands a place of honor for himself. In the Pechora epic, Vladimir does not want to receive guests at all:
I don’t have a place for you, non-poor,
If only all my places were rightly occupied.
However, Alyosha's keen eye looks out that there are empty places: one is against Vladimir, another is near him, and the third is on the stove. With the words "God be with you", that is, with the expression with which annoying petitioners are escorted away, Vladimir shows the heroes a place on the stove (Onch. 64). But this case is rarer. More often, Vladimir simply invites them to choose any place and even points them to a place near him. In such cases, the heroes never follow Vladimir's invitation and do not sit in the front seats, but sit on the stove or some kind of beam, from where they observe what is happening.
I won't sit next to you
I will not sit in a place opposite you,
Yes, I will sit in a place of nuisance, I myself want to,
Let me sit on the stove on the ant,
Under the red well under the pipe window.
(Onch. 85)
It has already been said here that in other epics it will be developed in more detail: that the environment of Vladimir is heterogeneous and partly hostile to the heroes. But in this epic this circumstance does not yet play a decisive role.
What is Kyiv preparing for the heroes, where they were so attracted to? The spectacle that they see strikes them as extraordinary and monstrous. The doors open, and on a golden board carried by 12 or even 60 heroes, someone or something is brought in that cannot yet be seen. Sometimes Alyosha asks one of his neighbors who it is, and learns that "the beast Tugarishche has come to us" (Grig. I, 50). The appearance of this monster here does not surprise anyone, except for Alyosha and Ekim: they have long been accustomed to him here. Tugarin is not always brought in: sometimes he enters himself, without bowing to anyone, without closing the doors behind him, and immediately sits down “at the head of the table”, between Vladimir and Evpraksia. Everyone bows to him, Vladimir goes to meet him, carpets and tablecloths are laid out for him, and he is received with the greatest honor. He is so fat that he can hardly walk. “Yes, lazat that filthy tsyudo” (Onch. 85). Twice it is called "legless loon" (Rybn. 27; Par. and Soim. 5). In some variants, Tugarin appears differently. He enters the yard on a horse with a noise or flies into the chamber with a whirlwind, knock and thunder, that is, he appears either as a rider or a flying creature. After Tugarin sat down between Vladimir and Evpraksia, the feast begins.
What Alyosha sees next may be even more surprising than the appearance of Tugarin: Tugarin, in the presence of guests and Vladimir himself, behaves with Evpraksia so freely that the true nature of their relationship leaves no doubt. The singers talk about it very succinctly and expressively. Apparently, everyone has also become accustomed to this at the feast, and this does not surprise or outrage anyone: on the contrary, Evpraksia herself shows signs of obvious favor and disposition towards Tugarin.
This is the beginning of the feast. The doors open again, and on the dishes they bring in the sumptuous food usual at feasts; the imagination of the Russian peasants with respect to sumptuous food is so little tempted that it does not go further than swans, huge carpets of bread, standing meads and foreign wines, also brought in huge quantities. Food is sometimes collectively called "sugar", since sugar in peasant life was the ultimate luxury. The continuation of the feast corresponds to the beginning. Tugarin immediately grabs a whole swan or a whole carpet and puts them on the cheek. He is quite adapted to this, as he is huge and has a head the size of a beer cauldron.
Alyosha and Ekim are watching all this while sitting on the stove. Until now, Alyosha behaved "decently", that is, like everyone else, without giving any signs about himself. But he can't stand it for long. “Alyosha couldn’t stand the baking” (Onch. 85). When Tugarin, overeating, sends a whole swan into his mouth, Alyosha, turning to Ekim, but speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear it, reminds Ekim of his native Rostov and the priest's yard, where there was a dog that rummaged through the slops and choked on a swan bone . He expresses fear that the same thing will happen to Tugarin. The remarks made by Alyosha from the stove are one of the most popular elements of the song and are much loved by the performers. There are a large number of variations, but for all their diversity, Alyosha's remarks are always defiant and witty, Alyosha also jokes about Tugarin's exorbitant drinking. Loud enough for Tugarin to hear him well, Alyosha reminds Ekim of a cow that got drunk on bard and burst. In some cases, Alyosha's jokes are accompanied by threats. Of a cow that has drunk, he says:
The grandmothers themselves share.
(Ibid.)
All this characterizes the style of the epic. Her style is not pathetically heroic, but very cheerful and realistic, which, however, not only does not suffer from the heroic content, but acquires the character of even greater artistic and life truthfulness.
Tugarin thinks to immediately punish and silence the uncomfortable "settlement". He throws a fork from the table at him, or a knife, or a dagger. This blow could have been fatal, but Alyosha, and in some cases even more so Ekim, has a precious and very useful quality: evasiveness and dexterity. Ekim catches a knife on the fly and begins to examine it. The knife turns out to be not bad, sometimes even precious, and Ekim thanks Tugarin for it. The knife has a silver handle, and Ekim announces that he will drink this handle. If the knife is bad, nevertheless “that knife is suitable for mother even scraping kneading” (Grig. I, 212).
The listener sees how the conflict and battle is brewing. That Ekim and Alyosha are completely unanimous in their decision is evident from the fact that Ekim asks Alyosha whether he himself will give Tugarin away or whether he orders him, Ekim, to do it. But Alyosha restrains Ekim: you can joke in Vladimir's ward, but you can't shed blood here.
I myself will not leave and I will not order you,
There is nothing to bloody the white-stone chamber.
(Quiet and Mill. 28)
And not honor, praise me well done
I bloody princes' chambers.
(Par. and Soim. 5)
The fight is scheduled for the next day. Sometimes, however, they do not wait until the next day, but immediately run out into the street or into an open field.
Combat mostly takes place in the same forms as in the first version. Tugarin takes off under the clouds on paper wings, Alyosha brings down rain, Tugarin falls, and Alyosha cuts off his head. In those cases when Tugarin is depicted as a rider, Alyosha sometimes uses a trick: under some pretext (as if Tugarin has a whole army behind his back, etc.), he makes him look around and at that moment inflicts a mortal blow on him. This is a military cunning, a method of fighting the weak against the stronger, the smart against the narrow-minded. It is on this that the opinion is based that Alyosha “does not observe due honor in the battle with the enemy” (Dashkevich). All in. Miller pointed out that there is a similar episode in the Serbian "Alexandria". With this technique, Alexander the Great slays King Por. But speaking of Alexander the Great, bourgeois scholars do not conclude that the battle was unfair. Such a conclusion is made only for the Russian Alyosha Popovich. Alyosha also uses other tricks: for example, he hides behind a horse or under a horse and inflicts a fatal blow from behind the horse's mane.
He puts Tugarin's head on a spear, brings it to the city and throws it in the yard. And here Alyosha is not boasting, but again joking: he invites Vladimir to make some vessel out of Tugarin's head.
Oh, you are, Vladimir of Stolno-Kiev!
Bud you don’t have a beer boiler now,
Yes, those are Tugarinov's violent head;
If you don’t have large beer bowls,
Duck here those Tugarinov's eyes are clear;
If you don’t have big platters,
Duck here Tugarinov big ears.
(Onch. 85)
Singers do not always report whether Vladimir is happy with his deliverance. In some variations, Vladimir kisses Alyosha, accepts him into service, and now offers him the best seat at the feast, which Alyosha always refuses. Eupraxia, on the contrary, in those cases when she is mentioned at all in the course of the action (which happens far from often), always reproaches Alyosha:
You are a rustic, a village,
Separated me from a dear friend,
With the young Serpent Tugaretin.
(C. D. 20)
To which Alyosha, not at all embarrassed, calls her the words she deserves.
Thus ends this wonderfully bright and colorful epic. Its general historical meaning, its ideological orientation are revealed when considering the content. But the question can also be raised about the reflection in it of more specific historical events or relationships.
True, we cannot follow Vsev. Miller to claim that Svyatopolk Izyaslavovich was bred in the person of Vladimir, and in the battle of Alyosha with Tugarin - the victory of the Russians over the Polovtsians in 1096. However, rejecting the point of view of a formal, mechanical correspondence between the plot of the epic and historical events, we cannot deny that the echo of the Polovtsian name Tugor-kan has been preserved in the name of Tugarin. In this case, the epic should reflect the attitude of the people to what happened under the Polovtsians. When considering the epic, it is easy to see that it is directed not only against Tugarin, but also against Vladimir. If the name of the Polovtsian khan is really preserved in the epic, then the people's anger is directed against the policy of rapprochement with him, which was conducted by the princes. As we know, Svyatopolk was married to the daughter of Tugor-kan, and the specific princes used his services and the services of the Polovtsian troops in their internecine wars. Such an attitude towards the enemy is perceived by the people as a shame, and Alyosha finds such a shame in Kyiv. The shame lies in the fact that the enemy is received with honors, feels like a master, and the Russian Grand Duke grovels and grovels before him.
If the fact of the battle is not historical, as it is depicted in the epic, then the ambivalent attitude of the Russian princes towards the primordial enemy, with whom they enter into an agreement and before which they humiliate themselves, instead of destroying it, is quite historical. That is what the people's anger is aimed at. The people force their hero, the brave, fearless and resolute Alyosha, to put an end to such a disgrace with one blow, to cut off the head of the monstrous Tugarin and throw this head at the feet of Vladimir.
The people express their condemnation by those artistic means which were then at his disposal. He had and kept in his memory songs about fighting monsters. These monsters now take on a historical name and human form, while remaining monsters at the same time. Mythology is being replaced by history, fantasy is being replaced by reality.
There remains the question of Eupraxia's behavior. It clearly does not go back to any political history, and representatives of the so-called historical school could not explain it in any way. All in. Miller declares the whole episode with Eupraxia to be "later stratification", and such, according to Miller, always means deterioration and distortion. In fact, this is not the latest layering, but, on the contrary, the oldest, not yet completely obsolete relic. Of all the published records of this epic, Tugarin's rape of Evpraksia is available in seven cases. In the rest it is not, we can safely say - no longer. The figure of the serpent in folklore has been a thief of women and a rapist over them since ancient times. With the transfer of the plot to the conditions of the Kyiv epic, he becomes the seducer of Vladimir's wife, and this is done meaningfully, as it emphasizes and enhances the humiliation of Vladimir, from which Alyosha saves him.
Thus, we see that this epic perfectly reflects the movement and development of the epic. Some elements disappear, others develop and grow. At this stage of its development, this story stopped. On its basis, a new epic was created, namely, an epic about the meeting and battle of Ilya Muromets with the filthy Idolishche. It is to this epic that we must now turn.
Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin Zmeevich
The young hero Alyosha Popovich and his servant Ekim drive up to a stone on which it is written where three roads lead: to Tugarin, to Vuyandin and to Prince Vladimir of Kyiv. Well done decide to go to Vladimir.
Vladimir is having a feast in Kyiv. The prince places Alyosha in a place of honor. Alyosha Popovich sees thirty bogatyrs being carried to Tugarin's house. He is seated next to the wife of Prince Vladimir, and Tugarin puts his head on her chest.
Tugarin and Alyosha are brought half a bucket of wine each. Alyosha drinks slowly, and Tugarin drinks in one go. Alyosha Popovich is served a white swan on a platter and Tugarin too. The hero eats little and gives half to his servant, and Tugarin Zmeevich swallows the swan in one fell swoop. Turning to the servant, Alyosha Popovich recalls that his father, priest Leonty of Rostov, had a voracious dog that choked on a swan bone and died. And with Tugarin, Alyosha concludes, tomorrow it will be the same. Alyosha also recalls his father's greedy cow - she also choked on a bone. And again he says that the same thing will happen to Tugarin. Tugarin Zmeevich, hearing these words, with annoyance throws a damask knife at Alyosha, but the nimble servant Ekim picks up the knife on the fly. The bogatyr challenges Tugarin to a fight.
The whole city vouches that Tugarin will win, but Prince Vladimir vouches for Alyosha.
The hero asks the servant to see if Tugarin has already left for the field. Ekim sees that Tugarin is flying on paper wings, and around - fire snakes. Alyosha goes to church and prays to God that the rain will wet Tugarin's paper wings.
A menacing cloud comes, and Tugarin Zmeevich falls to the ground: his wings are wet. Alyosha Popovich drives up to Tugarin, and he threatens to burn the hero with fire, suffocate him with smoke. In response, Alyosha reproaches Tugarin: “Why are you, Tugarin, leading the force behind you?” Surprised, Tugarin Zmeevich turns around and Alyosha cuts off his head.
The hero sticks Tugarin's head on a spear, mounts his horse and rides to the city. The princess, Vladimir's wife, seeing Alyosha from afar, expresses the hope that it was Tugarin who won and is taking Alyosha's head with him.
Arriving at the prince's chambers, Alyosha Popovich throws his head out the window and mockingly shouts to the princess to take Alyosha's head. The prince offers honors to the hero. Alyosha replies to this that if the prince and princess had not been his uncle and aunt, he would have called the prince a pimp, and the princess - even worse.
Alyosha and sister Zbrodovich
There is a feast at Prince Vladimir of Kyiv. Princes, boyars, heroes, Cossacks, barge haulers and peasants are sitting at the feast. Having eaten and drunk, everyone begins to brag: some have a “golden treasury”, some have a “wide courtyard”, some have a “good horse”, and the unreasonable boast of a “young wife” and a “sister”.
Only two brothers of Petrovich-Zbrodovich sit and do not brag. Prince Vladimir himself asks the brothers why they do not boast of anything. Then the Petrovichs talk about their beloved sister Olenushka Petrovna, who is sitting in the back room, the extra people do not see her and the sun does not bake her.
Hearing this, the hero Alyosha Popovich declares that he lives with Olenushka "like a husband and wife." The brothers are annoyed, but Alyosha invites them to check the veracity of his words: throw a snowball at Olenushka through the window and see what happens. The brothers do it. Olenushka opens the window and lowers a long white sheet from it.
The brothers, making sure that Alyosha did not lie, order his sister to put on a black dress: they want to take Olenushka to the field and cut off her head there. Upon learning of this, the sister tells the Petrovich-Zbrodovichs that the wife of the eldest of them lives with the hero Dobrynushka, and the youngest with Peremetushka. The brothers do not believe these accusations and take Olenushka to the field. But then Alyosha Popovich appears. He takes Olena Petrovna to the crown, and finally throws the same accusation about their wives, Dobrynushka and Peremetushka, to the brothers.
Alesha Popovich- folklore collective image of the hero in the Russian epic epic. Alyosha Popovich, as the youngest, is the third in importance in the heroic trinity, along with Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich. In Ukrainian thoughts, the character Aleksey Popovich is also found.
Alyosha Popovich is the son of the Rostov priest Levonty (rarely Fedor). [ source not specified 529 days ]
Alyosha Popovich is distinguished not by strength (sometimes his weakness is even emphasized, his lameness is indicated, etc.). He is characterized by daring, onslaught, sharpness, resourcefulness, cunning. He knew how to play the harp. Alyosha is ready to deceive even his named brother Dobrynya, infringing on his marital rights (Alyosha spreads a false rumor about the death of Dobrynya in order to marry his wife Nastasya Nikulishna). In general, Alyosha is boastful, puffy, crafty and evasive; his jokes are sometimes not only cheerful, but also insidious, even evil; his comrades-heroes from time to time express their censure and condemnation to him. In general, the image of Alyosha is characterized by inconsistency and duality.
Sometimes the traits characteristic of Volga Svyatoslavich are transferred to Alyosha: his birth is accompanied by thunder; Alyosha the baby asks to swaddle him not with swaddling clothes, but with chain mail; then he immediately asks his mother for blessings to walk around the wide world: it turns out that he can already sit on a horse and wield it, use a spear and a saber, etc. Alyosha Popovich’s cunning and dexterity is akin to Volga’s “cunning-wisdom”, and his jokes and tricks are close to Volga's magical transformations.
Alyosha Popovich's wife in epics about him and the sister of the Zbrodovichs (Petrovichs, etc.) becomes Elena (Petrovna), she is also Elenushka, Alena, Alyonushka (Volga's wife is also called Elena). This female name it seems to match up with the name of Alyosha Popovich (variants of Olyosha, Valyosha and Yeleshenka) - Elena and Alyonushka, and thus the "eponymous" married couple is formed. In one version of the epic about Alyosha and the sister of the Zbrodovichs, the brothers cut off Alyosha's head for disgracing their sister (in other versions of this plot, Alyosha is also in danger, but everything ends well).
The most archaic story associated with Alyosha Popovich is his battle with Tugarin. Alyosha Popovich strikes Tugarin on the way to Kyiv or in Kyiv (a variant is known in which this duel occurs twice). Tugarin threatens Alyosha Popovich to suffocate him with smoke, cover him with sparks, burn him with fire-flames, shoot him with firebrands or swallow him alive. The fight between Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin often takes place near the water (Safast River). Sometimes, having defeated Tugarin, Alyosha cuts and scatters his corpse across the open field. A variant of the plot about the fight between Alyosha and Tugarin is a rare epic "Alyosha kills the Skim-beast", where Alyosha Popovich's opponent in many ways resembles Tugarin.
Origin of the image
It is usually believed that the Rostov boyar Alexander (Olesha) Popovich served as the historical prototype of Alyosha Popovich. According to the chronicles, this was the famous "brave" (selected warrior), who first served Vsevolod the Big Nest, and then his son Konstantin Vsevolodovich against his brother and contender for the Vladimir table, Yuri Vsevolodovich, and Alexander Popovich defeated several of Yuri's best warriors in fights. With the death of Constantine and the reign of Yuri (1218), he left for the Kyiv Grand Duke Mstislav the Old and died with him in the Battle of Kalka in 1223.
This identification, however, is being questioned by some scholars: they believe that the actualization of the theme of Alexander Popovich in later chronicles may reflect familiarity with epics about Alyosha Popovich. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov note characteristic archaic relics in the descriptions of Alyosha Popovich himself; in their opinion, his once closer ties with the chthonic element shine through in the character. On the other hand, there is nothing unusual in the fact that the famous warrior, who somehow struck the imagination of his contemporaries, broke away from his historical soil as the epic developed and replaced a much more ancient mythological hero.
In the epics "Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin" and "Dobrynya and the Serpent" Alyosha Popovich has a patronymic Leontyevich, and in the epic "Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin" it is indicated that he is "the son of the priest Leonty of Rostov." And then, according to the manuscripts of Artynov, mentioned by Titov in the description of the Rostov district, the birthplace of Alyosha Popovich is the village of Selishche, Rostov district, Yaroslavl region.
15.Epics about Sadko and Vasily Buslaev. The image in them of the image of Novgorod. Bylinskiy about the idea and the hero.
Battle with the Novgorodians
Buslay has been living in Novgorod for ninety years. He does not argue with anyone and does not quarrel: neither with Novgorod, nor with Pskov, nor with Moscow. When Buslay dies, he leaves behind a son, Vasily. When Vasily turns seven years old, he begins to walk around the city, enter the princely court and “joke” with other children: “Whoever is pulled by the hand - hand away, whose leg - foot away.”
Vasily's mother, Mamelfa Timofeevna, many complain about her son's behavior, and she does not let Vasily walk around Novgorod. When a young man turns seventeen, he makes himself a harness and sets a feast. At this feast, Vasily chooses a squad - thirty fellows without a single one.
Then Vasily Buslaev feasts with the Novgorod princes. There he calls the whole of Novgorod to battle.
Mamelfa Timofeevna, having learned about this, takes her son out of the princely feast and puts him in deep cellars. And on the Volkhov bridge, the men of Novgorod converge with Vasily's squad. They start the fight. The advantage is on the side of the Novgorod peasants.
The yard girl Mamelfa Timofeevna goes out to the Volkhov with iron yokes. She sees that Vasily's squad is defeated. The girl grabs the yoke and starts beating the Novgorodians with it.
And then the black girl runs to the cellar and tells Vasily that his squad is in trouble. Vasily asks the girl to open the door. When she releases Vasily Buslaev, he grabs a cart axle, goes to the Volkhov bridge and kills many people with this axle. There are very few Novgorod men left, but the battle continues.
Novgorod princes they go to Mamelfa Timofeevna and ask her to appease her son. Mother herself is afraid of Vasily. She advises turning to Starchish Pilgrimish, the godfather of Vasily Buslaev. He lives in the Sergius Monastery. The princes go there, begging the Elder Piligrimishche to come to the Volkhov Bridge and persuade Vasily to stop the battle. The elder, heeding their requests, comes and tries to appease Vasily, but he kills him with an iron axle.
The princes of Novgorod again go to Mamelfa Timofeevna with the same request. The mother guesses that it is necessary to approach her son not from the front, but from behind. She hugs Vasily by the shoulders and asks to stop the fight.
Vasily drops the axle. He praises his mother for the fact that she came from behind - otherwise she would have been unhappy. Now Vasily Buslaev stops the battle.
The princes of Novgorod fall at Vasily's feet, invite him to visit them and ask him to remove the bodies of the dead. Vasily orders to remove the corpses. He goes home to treat his brave squad.
Vasily Buslaev went to pray
Vasily Buslaev asks his mother, Mamelfa Timofeevna, for blessings to go to Jerusalem to take a donation. Mother warns Basil that the road to Jerusalem is dangerous, and says that you can save your soul here. But Basil asks for a blessing for the second and third time, says that he wants to venerate the Lord's tomb, and in the end declares that he will go without a blessing. Then the mother blesses him to go.
Vasily equips the ship, takes his brave squad with him. When they swim up to the Sorochinskaya mountain, Vasily sees a cross on its top. He orders the ship to be stopped to pray to the cross. But when Vasily Buslaev climbs the mountain, the cross is not there. Vasily finds only a human skull and kicks it with his foot. The skull says that he also used to be a hero, and predicts: Vasily Buslaev will not return home, but will be buried next to him. But Vaska does not believe in it.
The ship sails for Jerusalem. Well done, they kiss the Lord's tomb, make a contribution - forty thousand. Then Basil goes to the Jordan River and bathes in it with his naked body. Passes by old woman. She tells Vasily that one cannot swim naked here, and predicts to him that he will not return home. But Vaska only spits in her direction, not believing these words.
With his retinue, Vasily sets off on his way back. Again they drive up to the Sorochinskaya mountain, and again Vasily sees a cross on its top. The whole squad goes up the mountain. But they do not find the cross, but they see "a gray-combustible stone." Vaska offers his friends a fun: to jump across the stone, back and forth. And then - along the stone. Vasily Buslaev falls and crashes. Before his death, he asks the squad to put the skull lying on this mountain with him in the coffin. The squad does his will. A cross is placed over the grave, and an inscription is made on it about two heroes lying here. As a sign of grief, the squad removes all decorations from the ship.
In Novgorod, Vasily Buslaev's mother, Mamelfa Timofeevna, is expecting her son. She looks through a spyglass and sees a ship that is no longer decorated. Mother cries: she understands that there is no owner on the ship either.
Mamelfa Timofeevna goes to church to serve a memorial service for Vasily Buslaev.
Sadko is a young gusler from Veliky Novgorod. At the beginning of the story, he is poor, proud and proud. His only asset is the harp harp, on which he plays, moving from one merry feast to another.
However, the day comes, and after it another, third, when Sadko is not invited to an honest feast. The pride of the hero is hurt, but he does not show resentment to anyone. He goes alone to Ilmen-lake, sits on a white-flammable stone on the shore and takes out the cherished harp. Sadko plays, taking away the soul in music. From his play, the water in the lake “swelled”. Not paying attention to this, Sadko returns back to the city.
Soon history repeats itself. Sadko is again not invited to the feast - one, two, three. He again goes to Ilmen-lake, again sits down on a combustible stone and begins to play. And again the water in the lake sways, foreshadowing something.
When Sadko comes to Lake Ilmen for the third time, a miracle happens. After his playing on the harp, the waters part and the sea king himself appears from the depths of the lake, who addresses the hero with the following words:
Oh, you, Sadko Novgorodsky!
I don't know how to welcome you
For your joys for the great,
Al countless gold treasury? ..
The sea king gives Sadko advice: to bet with the merchants that he will catch fish in the lake - golden feathers. The tsar promises to throw these fish into the seine to Sadko.
At the next feast, the musician follows this advice. In the circle of heavily tipsy merchants, he proposes a dispute, boasting that he knows "a wonderful miracle in Lake Ilmen." He offers his rivals, who laugh at his stories:
Let's hit the big bet:
I'll lay my wild head
And you patch up the red goods shops.
Three of the merchants agree. The dispute ends with a complete victory for Sadko. Throwing a net three times, he pulls out three goldfish. Merchants give him three shops of expensive goods.
From that moment on, Sadko begins to grow rich rapidly. He becomes a successful merchant, receives "great profits." His life is changing, he is overgrown with luxury, giving free rein to whimsical fantasy. In his white-stone chambers, Sadko arranges “everything in a heavenly way”:
The sun is in the sky and the sun is in the chambers,
There is a month in the sky and a month in the chambers,
There are stars in the sky and stars in the chambers.
He sets a rich feast, to which he invites the most eminent citizens of Novgorod. At the feast, everyone gorges themselves, gets drunk and begins to boast to each other - who is a valiant prowess, who is an countless treasury, who is a good horse, who is a noble kinship, who is a beautiful wife. Sadko keeps silence for the time being. The guests are finally wondering why the host "doesn't boast" of anything. Sadko solemnly replies that his superiority is now too obvious to indulge in an argument. And as proof of his power, he declares that he is able to buy up all Novgorod goods.
He does not have time to say this, as all the guests strike with him "on a great bet", offended by such exorbitant pride. They decide that if Sadko does not keep his word, he will give thirty thousand rubles to the merchants.
The next day, Sadko wakes up at dawn, wakes up his brave squad, gives each warrior a lot of money and a single order: to go to the mall and buy everything in a row. He himself also goes to the living room, where he buys everything indiscriminately.
The next morning, the hero again gets up early and again wakes up the squad. In the shopping and living rooms they find goods twice as much as before, and again they buy up everything that comes to hand. Shops and collapses are empty - but only until a new day. In the morning, Sadko and his warriors see an even greater abundance of goods - now there are three times, and not twice as much as before!
Sadko has no choice but to think about it. He understands that it is not in his power to buy goods in this wonderful trading city, he admits that overseas goods will also arrive in time for Moscow goods. And no matter how rich the merchant is, glorious Novgorod will be richer than anyone. So the vain hero gets a good lesson in time. After the loss, Sadko humbly gives thirty thousand to his rivals, and builds thirty ships with the remaining money.
Now Sadko - reckless and daring - decides to see the world. Through the Volkhov, Ladoga and Neva, he goes to the open sea, then turns south and swims to the possessions of the Golden Horde. There he successfully sells the Novgorod goods he took with him, as a result of which his wealth multiplies again. Sadko pours barrels of gold and silver and turns the ships back to Novgorod.
On the way back, the caravan of ships gets into a terrible storm. Waves hit the ships, the wind tears the sails. Sadko understands that this is fooling his old acquaintance - the king of the sea, who has not been paid tribute for a long time. The merchant addresses his squad with an order to throw a barrel of silver into the sea. But the elements do not calm down. Ships cannot move due to the storm. They throw a barrel of gold - the same result. Then Sadko understands: the sea king demands "a living head in the blue sea." He himself invites his warriors to cast lots. They throw twice, and both times the lot falls on Sadko.
And now Sadko the merchant gives the last orders before sinking to the bottom. He bequeaths his estates - to God's churches, a young wife and a poor brethren, and the rest - to his brave combatants. Saying goodbye to his comrades, he takes an old harp harp and remains on the waves on one board. At the same moment, the storm subsides, the ships take off and disappear into the distance.
Sadko falls asleep on his raft right in the middle of the sea. He wakes up in the domain of the sea king. In the white-stone underwater palace, he meets with the king himself. He does not hide the celebration:
For a century you, Sadko, traveled by sea,
I, the king, did not pay tribute,
And nony all came to me in gifts.
The king asks the guest to play the harp for him. Sadko begins a dance melody: the tsar, unable to stand it, starts dancing, getting more and more excited. Sadko plays for a day, then the second and third - without a break. The king continues his dance. A terrible storm arose from this dance on the sea. Many ships sank and crashed, flooded the banks and villages. The people everywhere prayed to Mikola Mozhaisk. It was he, the saint, who pushed Sadko on the shoulder, quietly and sternly explaining to the harpman that it was time to end the dance. Sadko objected that he had an order and that he could not disobey the tsar. “And you pull out the strings,” the gray-haired old man taught him. And he gave this advice. If the sea king orders to marry, do not argue with him. But out of hundreds of proposed brides, choose the latest - Chernavushka. Yes, on the wedding night, do not commit fornication with her, otherwise he will forever be destined to remain at the bottom of the sea.
And with one movement, Sadko tears the cherished strings and breaks his favorite harp. The storm subsides. Grateful for the music, the sea king invites Sadko to choose a bride for himself. Early in the morning Sadko goes to the bride. He sees three hundred written beauties three times, but he misses all of them. Behind everyone goes, with downcast eyes, the girl Chernavushka. Sadko calls her his betrothed. After the wedding feast, they are left alone, but Sadko does not touch his wife. He falls asleep next to Chernavushka, and when he wakes up, he discovers that he is in Novgorod, on the steep bank of the Chernava River. On the Volkhov, he sees his suitable intact ships. There, his wife and squad commemorate Sadko. They do not believe their eyes when they see him alive, meeting them in Novgorod.
He hugs his wife, then greets his friends. He unloads his wealth from the ships. And he builds the cathedral church of Nikolai Mozhaisky - as his saint asked about it.
Since then, “Sadko no longer traveled to the blue sea, / Sadko began to live in Novigrad.”
It is no coincidence that the epic is a heroic folk song about the feat of the defenders of the Russian land.
However, epics depict not only the heroic deeds of heroes, enemy invasions, battles, but also everyday life. human life in its social manifestations and historical conditions. This is reflected in the cycle Novgorod epics. In them, the heroes differ markedly from the epic heroes of the Russian epic. Epics about Sadko and Vasily Buslaev include not only new original themes and plots, but also new epic images, new types of heroes who do not know other epic cycles. The Novgorod bogatyrs, unlike the bogatyrs of the heroic cycle, do not commit feats of arms. This is explained by the fact that Novgorod escaped the Horde invasion, the hordes of Batu did not reach the city. However, Novgorodians could not only rebel (V. Buslaev) and play the harp (Sadko), but also fight and win brilliant victories over the conquerors from the West.
Novgorod hero appears Vasily Buslaev. Two epics are dedicated to him. One of them talks about political struggle in Novgorod, in which he takes part. Vaska Buslaev rebels against the townspeople, comes to feasts and starts quarrels with “rich merchants”, “men (men) of Novgorod”, enters into a duel with the “old man” Pilgrim, a representative of the church. With his squad, he "fights, fights day to evening." The townspeople "submitted and reconciled" and pledged to pay "three thousand every year." Thus, the epic depicts a clash between the rich Novgorod posad, eminent peasants and those citizens who defended the independence of the city.
The rebelliousness of the hero is manifested even in his death. In the epic “How Vaska Buslaev went to pray,” he violates prohibitions even at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, bathing naked in the Jordan River. There he dies, remaining a sinner. V.G. Belinsky wrote that "Vasily's death comes directly from his character, daring and violent, who seems to be asking for trouble and death." 9
One of the most poetic and fabulous epics of the Novgorod cycle is the epic "Sadko". V.G. Belinsky defined the epic "as one of the pearls of Russian folk poetry, a poetic apotheosis of 10 Novgorod." eleven Sadko- a poor harpman who became rich thanks to the skillful playing of the harp and the patronage of the Sea King. As a hero, he expresses infinite strength and infinite prowess. Sadko loves his land, his city, his family. Therefore, he refuses the untold riches offered to him and returns home.
So, epics are poetic, works of art. They have a lot of unexpected, surprising, incredible. However, they are basically true, they convey the people's understanding of history, the people's idea of duty, honor, and justice. At the same time, they are skillfully built, their language is peculiar.
The only one who expressed the most natural point of view on this epic, namely, that it was originally and typically Novgorodian, that this was its entire interest and that it should be studied in this direction, was Belinsky.
Belinsky first of all raises the question of the political system of ancient Novgorod and trade as the main source of its wealth, that is, it does not proceed from names and private facts, but from the historical soil that created this epic. This also determines the main idea of the epic: "It is the poetic apotheosis of Novgorod as a trading community." Sadko fights against Novgorod. In this epic "two heroes: one is visible, Sadko, the other is invisible, Novgorod". This means that Belinsky raises the question of the dramatic conflict in the epic and the historical nature of this conflict. It could arise only in commercial Novgorod. Novgorod Belinsky recognizes everything mythological images. The image of the sea king could only be created by seafarers. This image is not only completely Russian, but also Novgorodian. Belinsky especially admires the dance of the sea king. This epic is a wonderful monument of national culture. Belinsky establishes that Sadko's face is expressed completely national character. There is a Russian scope in Sadko when, for example, he immediately mortgages all his property. There is Russian prowess in him, when, having tried all means to save himself by cunning (also a Russian trait), and seeing that it comes to death, he is not afraid of death, but fearlessly throws himself into the abyss of the sea.
