Genre: gothic, historical detective
Year of first edition: 1964
Translation: V. Shchedrin
Similar works:
Edgar Allan Poe "The Fall of the House of Usher" (novel)
Washington Irving (novella)
Arthur Conan Doyle "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (novel)
Vladimir Korotkevich is deservedly considered a classic Belarusian literature. A native of an old family, whose ancestors took part in popular uprisings more than once, created a whole layer historical literature, more than once referring to the history of their ancestors and flirting with such a rare Soviet literature genre of historical detective. In 1964, in one of the literary magazines, the story " wild Hunt King Stakh”, which became a real event both at home and throughout the USSR after the release of the film of the same name.
“Night, a child is crying, the horses are worried about something in the yard - apparently, a bear is passing close, over the tops of trees, over the forest ocean, frequent starry rain”.
The work is a stylization of a Gothic novel, atypical for the literature of that time - all the elements are in place, only instead of the gloomy swamps of Devonshire, Belarusian swamps, and the arrogant English aristocrats were replaced by the local gentry. The plot is quite simple - the main character, folklorist Andrey Beloretsky, travels around the country at the end of the 19th century, collecting folk tales and legends. One rainy night, he, miraculously avoiding the fate of drowning in the swamps, finds himself in the old estate of Bolotnye Yalyny, where he is met by a frightened, beautiful hostess. Her name is Nadia Yanovskaya; she is the last heiress of an ancient cursed family. Once her ancestor Roman Stary betrayed and killed his brother, the proud King Stakh, who fought for the independence of his land. There is a legend that before his death, Stakh promised his soul to the devil in order to return from the other world and exterminate the entire Yanovsky family to the twelfth generation. Two years before the events of the book, Nadia's father died, and now the ghosts of the dead riders have come to her soul. There is no peace even in the gloomy halls home. From a portrait in art gallery the ghost of the Blue Lady descends, footsteps are heard in the empty corridors, and the ugly Little Man of the Swamp Yalins peers through the windows. Intrigued by the legends and fascinated by the hostess, Beloretsky decides to stay at the estate and get to the bottom of the truth.
"I knew that the most black spots are found precisely in such swamps - they will swallow a wagon, and horses, and people, and it will never occur to anyone that someone was here, that a human being screamed here for several minutes, until brown porridge stuffed into his mouth, that now this creature lies with the horses at a depth of three sazhens".
The plot is really a small sample set of Gothic literature. Korotkevich does not hide this, tossing knowledgeable readers with references to the fantasy of “Madame Radcliffe” and constantly emphasizing the fact that such ridiculous events cannot be invented on purpose. However, stylization, although perhaps the strongest part of the story, is not main topic Korotkevich. First of all, he Once again shows pictures of the disasters that have befallen Belarusian people. As you may have noticed from the quotes, the author pumps up the atmosphere with broad sweeping strokes, on the forehead, and, most interestingly, it works - foggy swamps, impassable forests, impoverished estates rise before our eyes, together with Beloretsky we listen to the steps in the corridor, we are horrified by the vision in the window and are saved from the ghostly riders. The first part of the story, about a quarter, is almost perfect. “The Hound of the Baskervilles” pops up in my head: “Beware of walking along the peat bogs at night when the forces of evil reign supreme.”
“It began to seem to me that it was forever: these brown plains, bogs, people half-dead from fever, the park dying from old age - all this hopeless and yet motherland over which there are clouds during the day, and at night the wolf sun shines or an endless downpour pours ”.
However, the same effect does not work when the author begins a story about a people driven to despair. Yes, there are really powerful scenes when the main character, having attended a feast at the estate of Nadia's guardian, meets a girl from a plundered village with a child dying of hunger. But then the author simply changes the sense of proportion. So, we suddenly learn that the Belarusian gentry warmed up their frozen feet while hunting, hiding them in the insides of the open stomachs of the guilty serfs. Here even the translator does not hold back, noting that although she could do whatever she liked, there is not a single mention of such cases.
Further - worse. Andrey Beloretsky, an educated scientist, a creative intellectual with a sensitive soul, suffering for the people, should evoke sympathy, be our alter ego in this story. And at first everything is true, but the further, the more annoying the hero causes. Overwhelmed with hatred for the gentry (“They brought the country, I would have killed the bastards”), Beloretsky behaves like a hypocrite and a hypocrite throughout the book. He vilifies petty tyrants who are ready to flog serfs for any wrongdoing, but he himself admits, irritated by a conversation with the manager of the Yanovskys, that “in his soul there is a growing desire to hit this porcelain, sluggish, weak-willed face.” Separately, it is worth mentioning the scene in the art gallery, where the hero examines the portraits of Nadia's ancestors. All the women on them seem to him “voluptuous” and “lustful”, he begins to mentally count the number of their lovers and imagine how the aristocrats went to the scaffold for their crimes. It seems that Freud, if he met Beloretsky, would have said something like: “Go your own way, young man, everything is clear with you, not even interesting.” By the end of the scene, you expect a memetic bear to pop out of a thicket near Bolotnye Yalin and resound over the Belarusian woodland: “Sluoyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...”
Other "positive" characters are no less impressive. At Nadia's ball, Beloretsky meets a young, naive student named Svetilovich. He is also a descendant of an ancient family, but - and this exalts him in the eyes of the protagonist - the student is ready to "release all the magnate blood from his veins." Andrei notices that Svetilovich "with the same sincere white-toothed smile will approach the tyrant and put a bullet in him." Charming boy, isn't he? No less colorful is the hunter Rygor, personifying the indomitable folk spirit, outwardly severe, but a kind person at heart. At the end of the story, this “kind” uncle will stab a teenager lying on the ground with a pitchfork, arguing that he, they say, is also sorry, but a “new old bastard” will grow out of the boy. Main character nods and says: “I understand, it is necessary that not one of them survive!”
This is where, for the first time in the entire book, it gets really scary. The English language has a brilliant term for such people - “self-righteous”, “self-righteous”. Such people are capable of any abominations, hiding behind bright ideals and declaring: “this is not us, this is such a life, they were the first to start, brought the country, we already have them ...” And we must empathize with these moral freaks!
As already mentioned, the best part story is the beginning, where the contrast between the harsh historical life and supernatural horror is still very skillfully sustained. As the mysteries begin to unravel, the atmosphere fades and we are left with a rather mediocre and predictable detective making visits to the territory of Kafkaesque bureaucratic absurdity in the backdrop of Saltykov-Shchedrin and Gogol. The apotheosis of everything is a popular revolt, senseless and merciless, but fully supported by the author's position. It is clear that it was written in Soviet times by a patriotic author who worries about his people and his ancestors, but now such cannibalistic ferocity, presented as “our cause is just,” looks inappropriate, and in some places simply nauseating, dragging a completely fascinating story to the bottom.
“But even now I sometimes dream of gray moorlands, stunted grass over gaps, and the wild hunt of King Stach galloping through the bog. The bits do not tinkle, dumb horsemen sit straight in their saddles. The wind blows their hair, cloaks, horses' manes, and a single star burns over their heads. In an eerie silence, King Stach's wild hunt gallops wildly above the ground..
Frame from the film of the same name (1979, dir. Valery Rubinchik).
King Stach's Wild Hunt - historical tale Belarusian writer Vladimir Korotkevich with elements of mysticism, first published in the Maladost magazine in 1964. It is considered a classic of Belarusian literature.
Plot
The story takes place in late XIX century. A young folklorist Andrei Beloretsky, having lost his way during a storm, ends up in the family castle of the Yanovskys - Bolotnye Yaliny ( Swamp Fir). He is received by the mistress of the castle, Nadia Yanovskaya, the last representative of her family. She tells Beloretsky that the Yanovsky family is cursed because of the betrayal committed by her ancestor, Roman the Old, for twenty generations. Nadeya is a representative of the twentieth generation, she expects an imminent death, with which the Yanovsky family will also end. She talks about the ghosts, the appearance of which heralds her death - the Wild Hunt, the Little Man, the Blue Woman.
Beloretsky remains in the castle to protect Nadia and unravel the tangle of events. He sees the Little Man - a creature of small stature, with a very long fingers, which looks into the windows at night; Blue Woman who descended from old portrait, which Nadia is very similar to. Gradually, Beloretsky gets acquainted with the rest of the inhabitants - the relatives of Yanovskaya Svetilovich, Berman, Dubotovka, the hunter and tracker Rygor. One evening in the swamp, he is pursued by the Wild Hunt - a group of silent riders on horses who ride silently, move freely through the bog, make huge jumps and leave traces of ancient horseshoes. Beloretsky miraculously manages to hide in the castle and with redoubled energy continues to search for people hiding behind the Wild Hunt. Together with Rygor, they reveal the secret of the death of Nadya's father, who was driven into the swamp by the Wild Hunt two years before Beloretsky's arrival. Gradually, they also reveal the secret of the Wild Hunt - it was organized by Dubotovk in order to bring the girl to madness or death and take possession of the castle. All the riders are on guard and killed by local men, the horses - representatives of the endangered breed of dryants - drowned in the swamp. The ghosts of the castle also disappear. The Little Man turns out to be Berman's brother, an insane cripple whom Berman let out of secret corridors, and the Blue Woman turns out to be Nadia herself, who wanders around the castle in her sleep.
Beloretsky marries Yanovskaya and takes her away from Bolotnye Yalin. Over time, she is cured of constant fear and sleepwalking, they have a child.
Location and characters
The story is told on behalf of the main character, Andrei Beloretsky, who is 96 years old. The story itself took place during his youth, in the autumn of 1888, somewhere in the remote swampy area of the M-sky (that is, Minsk or Mogilev) province. At the beginning of the book there is a link to provincial city M.
Characters
- Andrey Beloretsky(Andrei Belaretsky) - main character on whose behalf the story is being told. A young folklorist collecting ancient Belarusian legends. Accidentally enters the Yanovsky estate during a storm.
- Nadezhda Yanovskaya(Nadzeya Yanoўskaya) - a fragile 18-year-old girl, the last descendant of the ancient noble family of Yanovsky, who lives in family estate after the strange death of his father, Roman Yanovsky. Due to being in constant fear, he suffers from sleepwalking.
- Ryhor Dubotovk(Ryhor Dubatovk) - a distant relative of the Yanovskys, a gentry. A cheerful grandfather-joker, a joker, knows how to win over people, speaks Belarusian well. Subsequently, however, it turned out that this mask hides a cunning and ruthless man, main villain, who came up with a wild hunt in order to destroy the Yanovskys and get their castle and property.
- Ales Crow(Ales Varona) - a young gentry, very arrogant and quick-tempered, an accomplice of Dubotovka, a rider of the wild hunt, who has a deep personal dislike for Beloretsky. At one time, he proposed to Nadezhda, but was refused.
- Andrey Svetilovich(Andrei Svecilovich) - a student at Kyiv University, expelled for participating in the unrest. Bright, naive, open, but determined person, with young years unrequitedly in love with Hope. Becomes a friend and reliable colleague of Beloretsky, but dies at the hands of a wild hunt.
- Ignas Berman-Gatsevich(Іgnas Berman-Hatsevich) - outwardly resembling a doll, a lover of books for 35 years. Subsequently, it turned out that he was also a distant relative of the Yanovskys, and also claimed the estate, for which he invented the Little Man, with the same goal as Dubotovk - to drive the mistress crazy.
- Ryhor- a peasant, a hunter who knows the local forests well. Outwardly severe, but in the soul very a kind person. Helps Beloretsky and Svetilovich defeat the wild hunt.
Screen adaptations
The film of the same name was made in 1979.
Korotkevich did not particularly like the film version of his work, since one of the key themes of the story was practically absent in the film - sadness about hard fate Belarusian people.
Theatrical performances
It was staged several times by various Belarusian directors on the stages of various theaters.
Translations
The story was translated into Russian by Valentina Shchedrina in 1980, in the wake of the popularity of the film of the same name.
There is also a translation into English language by Mykola Khalezin, and into Ukrainian by K. Skripchenko.
Vladimir KOROTKEVICH
KING STACH'S WILD HUNTING
I am old, I am very an old man. And no book will give you what I saw with my own eyes, Andrei Beloretsky, a man of ninety-six years old. They say that long life fate usually gives fools to replenish their lack of intelligence with rich experience. Well, I would like to be twice as stupid and live as much more, because I am an inquisitive subject. How many interesting things will happen on earth in the next ninety-six years!
And if they tell me that tomorrow I will die, well, then, rest is also a good thing. Someday people will be able to live much longer than me, and they will not be bitter for life: everything was in it, every life was a shovel, I knew everything - what is there to regret? He lay down and fell asleep, calmly, even with a smile.
I am alone. Remember what Shelley said:
Darkness crushed
The warmth of violin tones.
If two are forever separated,
You don't need kind words.
She was a good person, and we lived, as the fairy tale says, "happily for a long time, until we died." However, enough to tear your heart with sad words - I said, my old age is my joy - I'd rather tell you something from my distant, young years. Here they demand from me that with my story I finish my memories about the Yanovsky family and its decline, about the extinction of the Belarusian gentry. Apparently, I need to do this, because, in fact, what kind of story will it be without an end.
In addition, she touches me closely, and no one can tell about it - only me. Would you be interested in hearing amazing story and then say that it is very similar to fiction.
So, before I start, I'll say that all this is true, pure truth, although you will have to rely only on my word for this.
Chapter first
I was traveling from the provincial town of M. to the most remote corner of the province in a hired cart, and my expedition was coming to an end. There were still some two weeks left to spend the night in the hayloft or right in the cart under the stars, to drink water from the wells, from which the teeth and forehead ache, to listen to the lingering songs of the women on the rubble, like Belarusian grief. And there was enough grief at that time: the damned eighties were coming to an end.
Do not think, however, that at that time all we did was cry out and ask the peasant: “Where are you running, peasant?” and “Will you wake up full of strength?…”
This came later - real suffering for the people. A person, as you know, is most honest until the age of twenty-five, at this time he organically cannot stand injustice, but young people listen to themselves too much, it is new and curious for them to observe how new feelings (she is sure that no one has experienced this) fills the soul.
And only then do sleepless nights come over a piece of newspaper, on which is printed in the same letters as everything else, that today they took three to the gallows, you understand, three, alive and cheerful. Then comes the desire to sacrifice oneself. All of us, myself included, have gone through this.
But at that time, in the depths of my soul (although I was considered “red”), I was convinced that not only from the gallows forests grow on the ground (which, of course, was correct even in the time of Iosafat Kuntsevich and the Belarusian “proven” inquisition) and not only moaning is heard in our songs. For me at that time it was much more important to understand who I was, what gods I should pray to. I was born, as they said in those days, with a “Polish” surname - although I still don’t know what was so Mazovian in it - in a gymnasium (and this was when the trustee Kornilov, an associate of Muravyov, had not yet been forgotten) called us, taking the language of the fathers as a basis, " ancient branch Russian tribe, purebred, truly Russian people. So, even more Russian than the Russians themselves! If they had preached this theory to us before the beginning of this century, Belarus would certainly have destroyed Germany, and the Belarusians would have become the first rapists on earth and would have gone to win back the living space from the Russians, who are not real Russians, especially if the good God had given us horns.
I was looking for my people and began to understand, like many at that time, that they were here, nearby, only in two centuries the ability to understand this was thoroughly knocked out of our intelligentsia. That is why I chose an unusual job for myself - the study, knowledge of this people.
I graduated from high school, university and became a folklorist. At that time, this matter was just beginning and was considered among those in power as dangerous for the existing order.
But everywhere - and only this made my work easier - I met with attention and help. And in the face of a poorly educated volost clerk, who later sent notes of fairy tales to me and Romanov, and in the face of a village teacher trembling for bread, and (my people lived!) Even in the face of the governor, extremely good man, a real white crow; He gave me letter of recommendation, in which he ordered, under the threat of severe penalties, to provide me with all kinds of assistance.
Thank you Belarusian people! Even now I pray for you. What to say about those years ...
Gradually I realized who I am.
What made me do it?
Maybe, warm lights villages, the names of which still enter my heart with some kind of warm pain: Lipichno, Forty Tatars, Birch Volya, the Broken Horn tract, Pomyarech, Dubrava, Vaverki?
Or maybe at night, when fairy tales are told and drowsiness sneaks up to you under a sheepskin coat along with the cold? Or the heady smell of new hay and stars through the torn roof of the hayloft? Or even not that, but just pine needles in a teapot, smoky, black huts, where women in andaraks spin and sing an endless song that looks like a moan.
It was mine. For two years I went around and traveled around the Mensk, Mogilev, Vitebsk, part of the Vilna province. And everywhere I saw blind beggars, I saw the grief of my people, more precious than which - I now know this - I had nothing in the world.
Then there was an ethnographic paradise here, although the fairy tale, and especially the legend, as the most unstable products of folk fantasy, began to climb deeper and deeper into the backwoods.
I went there too, I had young legs and a young thirst for knowledge. And what have I never seen!
I saw a ceremony with a hall, nettle Christmas, a rare even then game of "lizard". But more often I saw the last potato in the bowl, bread black as earth, a sleepy "ah-ah-ah" over the cradle, huge weeping eyes of women.
It was Byzantine Belarus!
It was the land of hunters and nomads, black tar smokers, the quiet, so pleasant from a distance ringing of churches over the bog, the land of lyre players and darkness.
At that time, the long and painful process of the extinction of our gentry was coming to an end. This death, this rotting alive lasted a long time, almost two centuries.
And if in the eighteenth century the gentry died violently, with duels, died on straw, having squandered millions, if at the beginning of the nineteenth their dying was still fanned by the quiet sadness of forgotten palaces in birch groves, then in my times it was no longer poetic and not at all sad, but disgusting, sometimes even terrifying in its nakedness.
It was the dying of bobaks that sewn themselves into their holes, the dying of beggars, whose ancestors were marked by the Gorodelsky privilege; they lived in dilapidated palaces, walked almost in homespun clothes, but their arrogance was boundless.
It was savagery without enlightenment: disgusting, sometimes bloody deeds, the cause of which could only be sought at the bottom of their close or too far-set eyes, the eyes of fanatics and degenerates.
They stoked stoves lined with Dutch tiles, chipped fragments of priceless Belarusian furniture of the seventeenth century, sat like spiders in their cold chambers, looking into the boundless darkness through the window, on the panes of which flotillas of drops ran obliquely.
Such was the time when I went on an expedition to the remote N-sky district of the province. I chose a bad time for the expedition. In the summer, of course, the folklorist feels good: it is warm, there are attractive landscapes all around. However, our work gives the best results on dull autumn or winter days.
This is the time for games with songs, gatherings with endless stories, and a little later - peasant weddings. This is our golden age.
But I managed to go only at the beginning of August, when there is no time for fairy tales, but only drawn-out stubble songs are heard over the fields. I traveled through August, September, part of October, and only just hooked on dead autumn - when I could hope for something worthwhile. Urgent business awaited in the province.
. . 139 minutes.
Genre: / / .
Director: Valery Rubinchik.
Screenplay: Vladimir Korotkevich, Valery Rubinchik
Operator: Tatyana Loginova,
Composer: Evgeny Glebov
Starring: Boris Plotnikov, Elena Dimitrova, Roman Filippov.
Cast: Alexander Kharitonov, Igor Klass, Boris Khmelnitsky, Valentina Shendrikova and others.
Interesting Facts about movie:
Filming of the ancient palace was carried out in the Podgoretsky castle, which is located in Lviv region, Ukraine.
: Bad adaptation of a great book
Korotkevich's novel is an amazing find. This is a real Belarusian gothic: an exhausted girl cannot leave her family estate, besieged by the ghostly warriors of the long-faithful and murdered King Stakh, who ominously rush through the swamps and kill people. Fog creeps across the terrible empty swamps, and ghosts wake up with it, noiselessly rushing to the dying estate on horses of a long-extinct breed. Dying of the people, dying of the nobility, natural longing. Everything here is images, time, main character- unexpectedly harmonious and restrained. "Is there love?" - asks panna. "It happens," the guest replies, not knowing what to say. "It can't be that people are lying. But there's none of that here. It's quagmire and dark. There are wolves here... wolves with glowing eyes. On nights like this, it seems to me that nowhere, nowhere on earth is there sun.""Hunt" is at the same time a very energetic detective, revealing pictures of human meanness from an unexpected angle. This is also a wonderful literature, striking in language, unusual description of images, purity of relations and courage, a sense of justice of the protagonist. He is surrounded by a terrible web, but gradually understands it and is ready to break it in order to simply save a person, having no plans or personal interest. The novel leaves an uplifting feeling, bewitches. I recommend reading it: http://flibusta.net/b/28838 .
The film is shot in a completely different tone. The first thing that strikes him is the absolutely unmotivated demonstration of Panna Yanovskaya's bare (!) Breasts. In the book, this is a stern, almost frightened child, a young, clean girl, whose questions amaze with the frankness of a guest who is not accustomed to such behavior. All relationships are built on sincere respect, on an unvoiced pact of assistance, which, without planning it in any way, the hero begins to provide along the way. This is a connection, but a platonic connection, not formalized in any way, a community of those in trouble. And, of course, there are simply no uninhibited scenes, because Korotkevich remains within the framework of a gothic novel, when a distant, unearthly woman becomes the one at whose feet the knight brings the heads of enemies, not even dreaming of touching it.
In the cinema, in the first five minutes, the hero goes out into the corridor, having heard the whisper of some grandmother, and sees how buried in feathers (!) naked girl enough, reading slander, vile old woman. Especially for the viewer, the old woman pushes back the feathers and demonstrates bare chest young, unattainable heroine. The scene gave me a complete stupor. Those. If I were to make a top 100 unmotivated display of naked flesh in a movie, this scene would definitely top it. Incredible dissonance, and not achieving any effect other than bewilderment. Why undress an innocent romantic heroine in the first minutes of the film? Rus' does not answer.
The author of the film adaptation can very freely retell the book, however, every change must always have a reason. Something is expensive to shoot, something is inconvenient, something lengthens the narrative too much, something lacks skill. However, changes that are not motivated by anything cause only rage. In the book there is a scene of the coming of age of the heroine, on which the hero appears. He aptly imprints in his mind the decrepit "aristocracy", somehow dragging their amorphous bodies, notes the traces of degeneration on their faces, the traces of old age and poverty on their outfits. When one of the impudent gentry, Pan Vorona, touches him with his shoulder, the hero makes an irritated remark about politeness, which almost ends in a duel. Book hero - a common person, however, this is a man with dignity, courage, stubbornness. In the film, the quarrel looks completely different. The pop-eyed nerd stands and looks around in emotion, pan Crow comes up to him and says a couple of insulting phrases. "You do it to me?" - the nerd blinks his eyes, and then gets comically excited. For what?
As a result, from a sublime, mystical, extremely fascinating novel, the director makes a slow, drawn-out art-house story about dumb smerds from the outback, in which only foggy scenes with swamps are successfully filmed. He devotes more time to a walk-through meeting with a local crazy woman than important details. For what? What is the tendency to get carried away with madness, decay to the detriment of the main thing? There is a separate conversation about an insane woman, this is the type of "St. Petersburg crazy":
Shooting swamps and wastelands is really impressive. There is a mesmerizing chase scene. I even think that for a person who has not read the original source, the remnants may be enough to like the film. But what an incredible contrast to the novel! What a waste of great material! What a perversion of the final fight. When a person takes a book and tries to hide behind it for the sake of demonstrating his own ideas, it looks at least strange.
The ending of the book "King Stakh's Wild Hunt" leaves behind a feeling of hot, rolling relief and pleasure. Here, scenes with rogue children and the watery eyes of an actor performing leading role. Complete disappointment.
Plot
The story takes place at the end of the 19th century. A young folklorist Andrei Beloretsky, having lost his way during a storm, ends up in the family castle of the Yanovskys - Bolotnye Yaliny ( Swamp Fir). He is received by the mistress of the castle, Nadia Yanovskaya, the last representative of her family. She tells Beloretsky that the Yanovsky family is cursed because of the betrayal committed by her ancestor, Roman the Old, for twenty generations. Nadeya is a representative of the twentieth generation, she expects an imminent death, with which the Yanovsky family will also end. She talks about the ghosts, the appearance of which heralds her death - the Wild Hunt, the Little Man, the Blue Woman.
Beloretsky remains in the castle to protect Nadia and unravel the tangle of events. He sees the Little Man, a being of small stature, with very long fingers, who peers through the windows at night; The Blue Woman, descended from an old portrait, to which Nadeya is very similar. Gradually, Beloretsky gets acquainted with the rest of the inhabitants - the relatives of Yanovskaya Svetilovich, Berman, Dubotovka, the hunter and tracker Rygor. One evening in the swamp, he is pursued by the Wild Hunt - a group of silent riders on horses who ride silently, move freely through the bog, make huge jumps and leave traces of ancient horseshoes. Beloretsky miraculously manages to hide in the castle and with redoubled energy continues to search for people hiding behind the Wild Hunt. Together with Rygor, they reveal the secret of the death of Nadya's father, who was driven into the swamp by the Wild Hunt two years before Beloretsky's arrival. Gradually, they reveal the secret of the Wild Hunt. All the riders are on guard and killed by local men, the horses - representatives of the endangered breed of dryants - drowned in the swamp. The ghosts of the castle also disappear. The Little Man turns out to be Berman's brother, an insane cripple whom Bergman let out of secret corridors, and the Blue Woman turns out to be Nadia herself, who wanders around the castle in her sleep.
Beloretsky marries Yanovskaya and takes her away from Bolotnye Yalin. Over time, she is cured of constant fear and sleepwalking, they have a child.
Location and characters
The story is told on behalf of the main character, Andrei Beloretsky, who is 96 years old. The story itself took place during his youth, in the autumn of 1888, somewhere in the remote swampy area of the M-sky (that is, Minsk or Mogilev) province. At the beginning of the book there is a reference to the provincial town of M.
Characters
- Andrey Beloretsky(Andrei Belaretsky) - the main character on whose behalf the story is being told. A young folklorist who collects ancient Belarusian legends. Accidentally enters the Yanovsky estate during a storm.
- Nadezhda Yanovskaya(Nadzeya Yanoўskaya) - a fragile 18-year-old girl, the last descendant of the ancient gentry family of the Yanovskys, who lives in the family estate after the strange death of her father, Roman Yanovsky. Due to being in constant fear, he suffers from sleepwalking.
- Ryhor Dubotovk(Ryhor Dubatovk) - a distant relative of the Yanovskys, a gentry. A cheerful grandfather-joker, a joker, knows how to win over people, speaks Belarusian well. Subsequently, however, it turned out that this mask hides a cunning and ruthless man, the main villain who came up with a wild hunt in order to destroy the Yanovskys and get their castle and property.
- Ales Crow(Ales Varona) - a young gentry, very arrogant and quick-tempered, an accomplice of Dubotovka, a rider of the wild hunt, who has a deep personal dislike for Beloretsky. At one time, he proposed to Nadezhda, but was refused.
- Andrey Svetilovich(Andrei Svecilovich) - a student at Kyiv University, expelled for participating in the unrest. A bright, naive, open, but determined person, from a young age unrequitedly in love with Nadezhda. Becomes a friend and reliable colleague of Beloretsky, but dies at the hands of a wild hunt.
- Ignas Berman-Gatsevich(Іgnas Berman-Hatsevich) - outwardly resembling a doll, a lover of books for 35 years. Subsequently, it turned out that he was also a distant relative of the Yanovskys, and also claimed the estate, for which he invented the Little Man, with the same goal as Dubotovk - to drive the mistress crazy.
- Ryhor- a peasant, a hunter who knows the local forests well. Outwardly severe, but in the soul a very kind person. Helps Beloretsky and Svetilovich defeat the wild hunt.
