Russian epics in the light of occult science. Geographical distribution of epics

The study of epics by a person equipped with knowledge of spiritual science,
opens up completely unexpected for traditional methods
interpretation, a grandiose panorama of the development of the Russian People's Soul.
In this panorama there is a place for every epic and every hero,
as an exponent of the People's Soul in the corresponding cultural era:
Svyatogor, Volga Vseslavevich, Mikula Selyaninovich, Ilya Muromets,
Vasily Buslaev, Sadko, Stavr, Solovy Budimirovich and others.
For everyone interested in Russian epics and the spiritual history of humanity.

The author of the proposed lines is well aware that their publication may be met with bewilderment among people familiar with the existing extensive and rich literature on this issue. Without disputing its generally accepted significance and value for the study of everything related to Russian epics, he must, however, with all his modesty point out how burdensome and useless this literature turns out to be in any attempt to use it to understand the essence of epics or to penetrate into the meaning of their content. At the same time, the author would like to emphasize that he is very far from intending to make any new “contribution” to the existing literature on this issue, in the form of another new theory or formula for interpreting epics.

Not everything, in general, lends itself to interpretation, and the least accessible to him are the captivating and mysterious images Russian epics. They fade and wither at the first intrusion into the sphere of their mirage-like undulating life of clear and angular-sharp intellectual concepts and schemes, like a delicate flower corolla, forcibly opened by a rough hand. They require a careful and gentle attitude, not allowing for precise formulations and specific interpretations. The only possible method is "to imagine the true occult factors and then try to understand the pictures that arose from them and passed into the consciousness of people"*.

* See "Bibliography", No. 42. In the following presentation, numbers in the text refer to the corresponding numbers in the "Bibliography".

Following this principle, the author tries, within the narrow framework of this modest work, to give the main strokes of the grandiose panorama that reveals itself when studying epics in the light of Occult Science. He seeks to show that their content is based not on mythology, history, or images of foreign literature, but on spiritual factors and realities, reflected and refracted in the consciousness of generations that belonged to the period of the emergence of epics.

By criticizing generally accepted theories and hypotheses, the author is by no means trying to diminish the deep value of existing works. He admires the perseverance, ability to work, perseverance and insight of people who wandered, admittedly, in the dark, but gave the most valuable and highest of all that was available in that spiritually dark time. He is well aware of how immeasurably more valuable work compared to what is proposed could have been created by each of them, if the light of Occult Science had been available to them already at that time.

INTRODUCTION

Very little is known about Russian epics. Or rather, almost nothing is known about them.

Their origin is lost in the darkness of antiquity. One can only guess about their authors. There is endless debate about the identity of the “storytellers.” The content of the epics was subjected to repeated distortion. Many of them are undoubtedly lost altogether. The very name “epic” is put under a question mark.

The first collector of Russians folk epics there was an Englishman, Richard James, an Oxford bachelor, a priest at the English embassy in Russia, who was detained on his way to England by a shipwreck near Arkhangelsk. His manuscript, starting in 1619, included only Moscow epics. Only at the beginning of the next 18th century, Kirshey Danilov * wrote down the most famous epics of Kyiv and Novgorod, which, therefore, according to their handwritten age, are a hundred years younger than the Moscow ones. Kirsha Danilov’s manuscript, entitled “Ancient Russian Poems,” appeared in print for the first time in 1804. In addition, until the second quarter of the last century, epics, namely Moscow ones, were published, also from manuscripts, only in the songbooks of Chulkov (1770-1776), Popov (1792), Makarov (1803), etc. But from that time on, diligent recording of epics began from the lips of the people by several zealous collectors folk antiquity, mainly by P. V. Kireevsky (10 volumes of “Songs”, published 1860-1874), P. Rybnikov (4 volumes of “Songs”, published 1861-1874) and A. F. Hilferding (1 volume "Onega epics" in 1336 pages of close printing, published in 1873).

* The first collector of Russian epics, known under the name Kirshi Danilov (probably a Siberian Cossack), lived, as some think, at the beginning of the 18th century.

“Although epics are currently sung by “kalikas”, singers by profession, whose specialty is “spiritual poetry,” says V. Avenarius in his “Introduction to epics,” “but the real bearers and guardians of the folk epic are “storytellers” who do not make a living their singing, and those who practice it, like true artists, out of love for art. They are usually wealthy peasants." 1. According to the apt remark of another collector of epics, Hilferding, "epics, apparently, fit only in those heads that combine the natural mind with decency, which is also necessary for practical success in life." 19. In addition to the peasants, “good rhapsodes* are also found among some passing artisans, namely, between those engaged in the tailoring and shoemaking crafts” 1.

* With this term, V. Avenarius means “an inspired bearer of folk poetry; rhapsode is the Greek name for composers of epic songs, accepted in all literatures.”

This point of view is shared by V. Miller, who, however, repeatedly contradicts himself. “We didn’t have such (professional) training,” he points out in one place: “If we see that epics are passed down from grandfather to son and grandson, then this is not a school transmission, not based on careful special study, but only mechanical assimilation on occasion, as far as memory and diligence suffice. “Given such an accident in the tradition, due to the lack of professional singers, one can still be surprised that even in their modern form, our epics have retained so much antiquity in names, ancient everyday features and in the whole structure and mode.” 2. In another place, however, he comes to the opposite conclusion: “Quite naturally we come to the idea that we, like most peoples who have epic tales, had professional keepers of them, who processed them, performed them among the people and transmitted them in their midst, new generations of professional singers" 2. "The participation of professional petars is indicated by traditional jokes, which we often find either before the beginning or after the end of the epic... I assumed that such singers were mainly ancient Russian buffoons" 2. P. Rybnikov finds a compromise, pointing out that “the main keepers of epics in Zaonezhye and on the Pudozh coast are storytellers, and in the Kargopol side - kaliki. Storytellers sing out of hunting, out of love for art, and kaliki out of craft." 3.

It can be considered established that “the guardians of this wonderful heritage of antiquity are exclusively peasants; the upper classes already in the 18th century broke their connection with the folk epic and lost their keen interest in it” 3. It is especially remarkable that “they are called blind, even if they were completely sighted: a clear indication that this is a remnant of the ancient blind Kalik Perekhozhikh 8, as well as the fact that only “the smallest part of the singers is literate” 1. This circumstance, especially in connection with the fact that the epics were not written down anywhere, could not, of course , to promote the preservation of epics in pure form. Although “the performer should not have strived for originality at all, but, on the contrary, should have set traditionality as one of the indispensable conditions of his plan” 4 and, although “the peasants were only the guardians of antiquity in epic poetry, but did not develop it with new subjects” 2 - nevertheless, “folk poetry is unstable because human memory could not retain it otherwise, and the consciousness of a bookless and unwritten people could not preserve it and cherish it further” 4. Therefore, it is quite natural that “when transmitting such a work, much in it was altered and changed, many things were applied to certain living conditions; but it became known to everyone, and, passed on from generation to generation, survived the centuries" 5.

A. Pypin shares a similar opinion. “Neither the antiquity of epics nor the antiquity of the heroes can be doubted. Another question is in what form this antiquity has reached our time. It, no doubt, has been greatly updated over the centuries in the form and content of the epic, in the very characters and stories of the heroes, - but in both cases, the ancient foundation should have survived at the bottom, which served for further layers and modifications - these latter are often still obvious to observation." 12. Or in another place: "The external fate of folk poetry, its expulsion from the book, the lack of records , had the consequence that at present we have before us only a relatively late form of folk poetic legend - namely, although in modern song Echoes of very distant antiquity have often survived, but, on the other hand, we do not have what, for example, the 18th century knew... The folk song was reflected in various influences, more or less deeply or superficially concerning the whole fate of the people - the external and internal political events, changes in economic life, the everyday activities of the church, schools and books, international meetings, etc. "12.

I. Porfiryev joins this opinion of A. Pypin. “Since the works of folk literature remained unwritten for a very long time, it is very natural that many of them were completely lost, and those that survived were damaged and distorted. Passed on orally from one generation to another by people unfamiliar with education, they came to us with different errors and various changes and additions that they received at different times during the transition from one people to others. They contain many anachronisms or confusion different eras, persons and events."

In addition to these distortions, justified to a certain extent by the very nature of the execution and transmission of epics, it is necessary to take into account a number of changes consciously or unconsciously made to them by collectors. “In his collection of songs, Chulkov placed works of folk poetry next to the songs of various poets,” points out A. Borozdin 4, “and he did not hesitate to make amendments to the text of folk poetic creations, as can be seen from the following words of his “Pre-Notice”: “How much I worked in collection of these songs, those people who know our illiterate scribes know about this, who write, but what they write, they do not understand. I found their lack of art in almost every song, so that sometimes there was neither verse nor rhyme, it was beyond my thought to recognize It’s not possible; but I suspect that they themselves wouldn’t be able to explain it to me; for that I was forced to use a guess.” - “There were especially many such “guesses” or, rather, arbitrary corrections without any reservations,” continues A. Borozdin, “in “Russian Fairy Tales” *, which often seem to be an independent adaptation of Chulkov.”

* "Russian fairy tales containing the most ancient stories about glorious heroes."

“Even more arbitrariness was discovered by Chulkov’s collaborator, Mikhail Popov, who compiled the collection “Russian Erata, or a selection of the best newest Russian songs,” published in 1792. Having mixed all kinds of old and new songs, Popov frankly explained: “I did this with old songs way: after he made a very small selection from a huge flock, he tried to correct in some not only the discrepancy and measure in the verses, but also rearranged them in others from one place to another, so that the connection of their flow and meaning through that would be made smoother and more natural, which some of them were missing" 7.

Another publisher of songs, Makarov, considered it convenient to publish songs “completely altered, but which, according to him, would be consistent with the rule in everything, and which, so to speak, would contain the same essence, only in the best, most attractive form " 7.

If we add to all of the above that, probably, not all collectors were so open about the alterations they made, especially if the latter did not seem significant to them, then, unfortunately, we will have to admit that one part of the epics is completely lost to us, while the other, with few exceptions, it has come to us in a distorted form.

Nevertheless, “neither the antiquity of the epics, nor the antiquity of the heroes can be doubted” 12 and “one can still be surprised that even in their modern form, our epics have retained so much antiquity in names, ancient everyday features and in the whole structure and manner” 4.

Bylinas, in a broad sense, are songs about heroes. “By the nature of the content in our epic repertoire, two large sections are outlined: a) epics of a heroic character, in which the exploits of heroes are depicted... b) epics of a non-military nature, sometimes reminiscent of short stories... There are epics of a mixed character" 2. Heroic epics in in turn, can be divided into several main groups or “cycles”: 1) the oldest cycle - about the semi-mythical heroes of the pre-Vladimir era, the so-called. senior heroes, 2) the Kiev or Vladimirov cycle, and 3) the Novgorod 1. Epics of later origin "Moscow - Peter's, as well as the Cossack ones adjacent to them, can also be called historical songs. But these songs, both in content and in spirit and in their form, they already differ significantly from the songs ancient Rus'- Kyiv and Novgorod."

The origin of the word “hero” remains unclear to this day. Some consider it borrowed from the Turkic languages ​​(baghadur, bagatur, batur) or from Sanskrit (baghadhara - happy, successful). 9 Khalansky derives the original form bogatyr from “bogatyr” - Tatar governor 10. Shchepkin, Buslaev and others base it on the root “God”, “Rich”, i.e. “gifted with the highest divine qualities, demigod” 1. This is the it is more plausible that in the correct rhythmic melody of the epic the word “bogatyr” is most often pronounced “bogatyr”,

Opinions about the origin of the word “epic” itself are equally contradictory. On the one hand, there is the view that “these epic songs, despite their hyperbolic nature, despite all the exaggerations and fantastic inventions with which they were decorated, seemed to the people to be reality, because they really could have been, in ancient basis are confined to living persons and actual events. In this sense, these epic songs are popularly called epics. 3. F. Buslaev believes that “in the old days, the epic was called a word among us, among the people bylina or byliya, because, according to the proverb: “a fairy tale is a fold, and a song is a true story.” " 1. This opinion is shared by I. Porfiryev: "That’s why people call these songs “true”: “a fairy tale is a fold (fiction), and a song is a true story,” says one folk proverb, and some songs, namely heroic ones, are directly called epics" 7.

This point of view is fiercely disputed in other studies. “The very name “epic” is unknown among the people and, as E. Barsov says, it was artificially given to heroic songs, and their usual popular name is antiquity or old-fashioned” 4. “Scientists at the beginning of the century did not know, did not hear that people call heroic songs epics “, says V. Miller 2. Or in another place: “Simply from frequent repetition, the conviction has taken root that the people themselves call their heroic song an epic.” There are even indications that the only source of this term is “The Tale of Igor’s Host”, “which expression - according to the epics of this time, misinterpreted, served to enrich the scientific terminology regarding folk songs” 2. But “whether the name of the epic is successful or unsuccessful, over the past decades it has acquired the right of citizenship, has been established for the epic songs of the so-called Kiev and Novgorod cycles and can be conveniently used to distinguish them from historical songs.You just need to remember that this name, when applied to these songs, was not invented by the people themselves, but put into circulation by collectors and researchers of the Russian epic" 2.

Existing points of view on the issue of the origin and content of epics are even more contradictory. Depending on the underlying theories and hypotheses, three different directions or “schools” in the study of epics have emerged:

1. Mythological and poetic personifications.

2. Historical reflections.

3. Foreign borrowings.*

* In the following, also for brevity: 1) mythological, 2) historical, 3) borrowings.

The first school, mythological personifications, sees in epics mainly echoes of Russian-Slavic mythology and the personification of natural forces. “Afanasyev everywhere, by the way and inappropriately, explained myths with celestial phenomena, and especially with a thundercloud and lightning,” points out A. Pypin 12. According to A. Afanasyev, “in the image of the Nightingale the Robber, folk fantasy personified the demon of a stormy storm cloud. The name Nightingale was given on the basis of the ancient likening of the whistling of a storm to the thunderous singing of this bird... The epithet “robber” is explained by the destructive properties of the storm” 12.

For representatives of this school, heroes are mythological creatures. O. Miller sees forces hostile to people in older heroes

nature. For him, Svyatogor is clouds hugging the sky; younger heroes - beneficial natural phenomena; Kaliki - wandering clouds shedding rain 9. Mikula Selyaninovich - the personification of heavenly thunder; his filly is a thundercloud" 13. "The beer that Ilya Muromets drinks," says Afanasyev, "is an ancient metaphor for rain. Shackled by the winter cold, the hero thunderstorm sits quietly (without announcing himself in a thunderstorm) until he drinks living water, that is, until the spring warmth breaks the icy shackles and turns the snow clouds into rain clouds; only then does the strength arise in him to raise a lightning sword and direct it against dark demons 14. Or in another place: “The thirty-year relaxation of Ilya Muromets should mean the fading of the sun in winter for thirty weeks; the strength he received from drinking makes him see this drink as ... rain life-giving moisture. Its carriers are usually birds in fairy tales, mythically meaning rain-bearing clouds... Kaliki can be recognized as a new anthropomorphic myth for the same cloud... Elijah's horse can mean both thunder and wind. The road lay exactly thirty years - exactly the same as Ilya Muromets sits. The Nightingale - the Robber means a stormy cloud: the whistle and hiss and roar of the Nightingale is the endless sound of continuous, annoying, autumn and winter, murderous storms" 12.

For representatives of the school of historical reflections, epics reflect “the poeticized history of the people, told by themselves” 1. L. Maikov believes that “the epics in their content correspond to several gradually changing periods of the historical life of the Russian people” 15. Bezsonov sees in the heroes “a reflection that is truly living persons or the personification of everyday and historical phenomena in the life of the Russian people" 16. For representatives of this direction, "the activity of the squad, expressed in the exploits of its representatives - the heroes, is the subject of epics" 15. Nightingale the Robber, these are "robbers who were in Russian forests" 4. A. Bruckner believes that, “despite the lack of historical evidence, these epics reflect the spirit of history.” 17. He even tries to establish, based on epic descriptions, the typical features of the ancient Slavs, and puts their democracy in the first place: “Greek or The German hero, already by his divine origin, stands out from the masses. The Slavic hero merges with it" 17.

Between these two extreme currents - mythological and historical - the so-called. mixed. F. Buslaev, for example, believes that “in epics and poems, persons and events are glorified - either mythological and fabulous, generally fictional, fairy-tale, for example Svyatogor; or historical, for example, Prince Vladimir” 11. O. Miller considers evidence of antiquity epics the fact that “they depict a defensive policy, not an offensive one” 9.

Representatives of the third school believe that epics are not the result of the independent creativity of the Russian people, but a reflection of types of foreign literature, a more or less disguised borrowing that took root on Russian soil and took on a Russian appearance in terms of names, customs, etc. 16 These statements are supported by a number of parallels, sometimes very successful, between the exploits of Russian and foreign heroes. This is “the parallel between Vladimir the Red Sun and Princess Aprakseevna, on the one hand, and the Persian king Keykaus and his wife Sudabe, on the other” 4. “Svyatogor resembles the famous hero of the Persian epic, Rustem, who was so strong and heavy that he could not walk on the ground: as soon as he steps, he begins to fall through" 7. For representatives of this eastern theory of borrowings, to which V. Stasov belongs, 16 the primary source of epic stories is India and Persia, from where the Mongolian and Turkic tribes brought them to Russia.

But the same parallels can be drawn between the rich of the Russian and the German or Scandinavian epics. The meeting of Ilya Muromets with Svyatogor corresponds to the adventure of Thor with the giant Skrimir, etc. 7 Thus, the theory of borrowings from the west or from the north can also be justified. Finally, “much closer to our epic were the Slavic-Byzantine influences” 4. And Greece already knew the image of “god,” gifted with the ability to take any form,” like Loki, the Scandinavian god 18. But the Russian hero Volga Vseslavyevich also possesses this gift. the theory of borrowing from the southwest or south could also arise!

O. Miller finds a compromise here too, pointing out that foreign influences were reflected only in those epics, “which differ from the ancient Russian in their entire everyday structure.” 9. I. Porfiryev also believes that “the noticeable similarity in the epic tales of different peoples is not can always be evidence of their origin from one source, and very often can be a consequence of the unity of the basic laws underlying the development of life of each people... Consequently, it would be unfair to explain everything in epics from Indo-European mythology" 7.

It is not surprising, therefore, that all the existing contradictions led A. Brückner to the following conclusion: “These Russian epic songs managed to undergo all sorts of interpretations: sometimes a mystical element was found in them, and Ilya turned out to be the incarnate god of thunder, while Vladimir and Dobrynya were solar gods ; sometimes they were declared strictly historical, seeing in them a description of the victories and defeats of the “prophetic” Oleg or the Galician and Volyn princes; sometimes they revealed hidden social symbols and allegories, the transition from the Stone Age to the Metal Age or the victory over the wild elemental forces of nature through the plow and culture. Where one researcher saw the purest and most truthful embodiment of the Slavic spirit, another found only fragments of various eastern motifs, one - Caucasian, the other - Mongolian or Turkic tribes" 17.

Even if we expand the “mythological-historical” compromise allowed by F. Buslaev, as well as the “partial borrowing” proposed by O. Miller, even if we assume that in some cases the representatives of the mythological hypothesis are right, in others the followers of the historical school and, finally, thirdly, adherents of the theory of borrowings from the east, west, north or south; Even if we break the epic tale about each hero into a number of separate episodes and apply one of the existing theories to each of them separately, then the complete inconsistency of all of them, even with the most superficial criticism, becomes quite obvious to any unbiased study.

“Every epic has two components,” says A. Hilferding: “typical passages, mostly of a descriptive nature, or containing speech put into the mouths of the heroes, and transitional passages, which connect typical passages with each other and in which the story is told.” course of action" 19. These typical passages, which remain almost unchanged in all variants, include the firmly established image of the hero and the nature of his main exploits, so ingrained that there is no longer any hope of meeting any new type of hero" 2. At the same time, " the so-called typical part of the epics remained unaffected from ancient times; neither time nor folk imagination could shake it. This “skeleton" of the heroic song is performed now in the same way as in the old days. If you ask the storyteller what this or that dark place can mean, then receive a laconic answer: “we don’t know this - that’s how it’s sung” 20.

The theory of mythological personifications is based on one main feature, mainly external similarity or allegorical similarity, often very distant and artificial (see above in A. Afanasyev - the “thunderous” singing of a nightingale). At the same time, the main content of the epic, the development of the action, which at times reaches extreme dramatic tension, remains completely without consideration. According to mythological theory (see above):

Svyatogor, living on the holy (i.e., heavenly, cloudy) mountains 14, is the personification of either mountain forces or clouds covering the sky;

Mikula- personification of heavenly thunder; his filly is a thundercloud;

Ilya Muromets- hero thunderer;

Kaliki- wandering clouds pouring rain;

Younger heroes- beneficial natural phenomena;

Nightingale the Robber- autumn or winter blizzard, etc.

An attempt to apply these designations to the text of epics reveals the inconsistency of the mythological theory with complete clarity.

SVYATOGOR

"On the steep mountains, on the holy Mountains,

The giant hero Svyatogor sat,

Yes, he did not go to Holy Rus':

His mother did not wear cheese, the earth.

Once upon a time the hero wanted

Take a walk in the open field of Razdolitsa -

He saddled the hero's horse,

Drives out onto the path.

The brave heart perked up,

The strong girl began to play along the veins,

So it shimmers with life;

And it’s heavy for him from this power,

Heavy, as if from a heavy burden:

There is no one with whom the hero can measure his strength.

And he throws away his damask club

Above the cloud walking out of sight,

He picks him up again with his white hands;

" - If only I could find earthly traction,

I would establish a ring in the sky,

I would tie an iron chain to the ring,

I would pull the sky to mother earth,

I would turn the earth upside down,

And would mix the earthly with the heavenly! -

"He saw here in an open field

Good fellow, marching as infantry;

Behind the shoulders of a good fellow

There was a small saddle bag.

How he lets a good horse gallop

With all the horsepower -

A good fellow goes as infantry.

The heroic horse cannot catch him.

How he will travel in dashing freedom -

The good fellow does not advance.

"And Svyatogor called out to the good fellow:

"- Goy you, passer-by good fellow!

Just wait, wait a little bit,

How to gallop I will let a good horse run

With all my strength, with all my horsepower -

You go forward as infantry,

The heroic horse will not overtake you:

As I go in quiet ease -

You walk, you don’t step forward.

"A good fellow passer-by was waiting for him,

Believed from the shoulders of the mighty

On the ground a small saddlebag.

Svyatogor said to the good fellow:

Tell me, good fellow,

What kind of burden do you have in this bag? -

“The good fellow answers him:

"Ah, you glorious giant hero!

Try to take my bag

On your shoulders on the mighty ones,

Run with her across the open field.-

"The glorious giant hero descended

From a good horse to a small bag,

Took for a small handbag;

At first it was accepted with one finger -

This small saddle bag

It will not curl up on damp ground.

Then he took it with one hand -

This bag won't collapse.

Grabbed it with both hands -

Still, she won’t move from her spot.

Accepted with all my great strength,

He fell with his white heroic chest

To this small saddle bag,

Captured with all his great strength -

The ground is buried up to my knees in cheese,

There are no tears running down the white face - blood is flowing...

The brave heart was gone,

Only a small spirit managed to let in

Under that small saddle bag,

He speaks these words himself:

“- I haven’t lifted such a burden since I was born!

I have a lot of strength, but I can’t do it.

What's in your purse?

Who are you, a brave, good fellow,

What is your name and country? -

The daring, good fellow answers:

"- In my small saddlebag

All earthly traction is loaded,

And I myself am Mikula Selyaninovich. -"

Where Svyatogor sunk, he couldn’t get up,

This was where he ended.

This was, according to mythological theory, the meeting of “sky-lightening clouds” with “heavenly thunder.” What do these “clouds hugging the sky” have to do with “earthly cravings and the mixing of the “earthly with the heavenly”; how does this earthly craving end up in the “saddle bag” of thunder; what is the meaning of this epic in general, and what do all the particulars given in it mean? - these are questions to which mythological theory is powerless to give any satisfactory answer.This powerlessness is even more clearly reflected in the following epic.

ILYA MUROMETS AND SVYATOGOR

Oh, you goy esi, dashing hunter,

Old hero Ilyusha Muromets!

He flew, old, in an open field,

Lyuta caught the beast with a spear,

Sable martens and lowered to the ground.

An old man approaches the Holy Mountains,

The old man drove to the Holy Mountains,

I heard a great noise here:

Mother earth shook,

The dark forests staggered,

The fast rivers are muddied,

They overflowed from the steep banks.

The old man sees: on a good horse

The mountain hero rides at a pace,

Taller than a standing tree,

He rests his head on the sky,

He drives and sits dozing himself.

“What kind of miracle?” says Ilya:

“Did the hero fall asleep on his horse?

I could sleep in a white tent.

You know, it’s not a Russian hero, but an infidel”...

As the hero approaches, Ilya Muromets is increasingly overcome by fear, until finally he lets go of his horse and climbs the tall oak tree himself. From there, he managed to notice how Svyatogor pitched the tent and fell asleep. Svyatogor’s beautiful wife, whom he usually carried with him in a crystal casket, came out “and spotted Ilya on the damp oak tree. She says these words: “Oh, you, stout, good fellow! Come down from the oak cheese, come down and create love with me; If you don’t listen, I’ll wake up the hero Svyatogor and tell him that you forcibly led me into sin." Ilya has nothing to do: he can’t talk to the woman, and he can’t deal with Svyatogor; he got down from that oak cheese and did the commanded thing" 3.

Svyatogor wakes up. His wife hastily hides Ilya in a casket (according to other versions, in Svyatogor’s pocket). All three set off. Ilya sits in captivity for three days, until finally Svyatogor’s horse, burdened with an unbearable burden, tells everything in a human voice. Svyatogor kills his wife, takes out Ilya and fraternizes with him.

Here they exchanged crosses,

They called themselves brothers of the cross,

They began to drive around the cracks together,

Driving around and walking around the Holy Mountains.

And they came upon a wonderful miracle,

A wonderful miracle and a wondrous miracle:

In the middle of the path there is a great coffin,

It's all overlaid with red gold,

And on the lid there is a signature:

"For whom is this great tomb built?

That’s what he’ll do.”

Ilya descends into the coffin:

"...The great coffin was not wide and long..."

Then Svyatogor lowers himself into the coffin:

“How the great tomb was built on it;

The hero speaks these words:

“This great tomb was built for me;

It's good to live in a coffin here!

Listen to me, my little brother,

Just shut me up

That oak coffin lid."

Ilya Muromets answers his brother:

"I will not close you, my big brother,

That oak coffin lid.

You're making a big joke:

I was going to bury myself alive."

How the hero himself takes it here, he covers himself

That oak coffin lid -

And that lid by God's will

It merged with the coffin into one place.

And Svyatogor called out to Ilya from the grave:

No matter how hard I fight, no matter how hard I try,

I can't lift the lid above me!

Take hold of those oak boards,

Tear off one board at a time."

The old man took hold of those oak boards,

No board can be torn off:

I can't open any board."

"So take my glorious, heroic sword,

Cut the lid with a sharp sword."

The old one took on that glorious Svyatogorov sword,

I couldn’t lift my sword from the damp ground.

"Listen, my big brother,

I can’t even pick up a sword from the ground.”

"Listen, my little brother,

Bend over the lid of the grave,

Come to the small crack:

I will blow upon you the heroic spirit."

He bent over the lid of the tomb,

Came to a small crack:

Svyatogor blew on the old man

With that mighty heroic spirit,

And the old one sensed the strength in him

It has increased three times as much as before;

He lifted the heroic sword from the ground,

He began to chop at the lid of the grave,

From blows, from great ones, sparks fly,

An iron hoop is placed there.

The hero Svyatogor called again:

“It’s stuffy, it’s stuffy for me, my little brother!

You cut along the lid of the grave."

The old man chops along the lid along the grave,

Sparks fly from the blows,

And where will the heroic sword strike?

An iron hoop is placed there.

"I'm suffocating, my little brother!

Bend towards the lid, towards the grave,

Come to the small crack:

I will blow on you with all my heroic spirit,

I will give you all my heroic strength."

Ilya Muromets answers his brother:

“I’ll have a hard time, my big brother.

Will you give me all your heroic strength -

And mother earth will not carry me."

The hero Svyatogor says to Ilya:

"You did well, little brother,

That he didn’t obey the last order:

I would breathe my dead spirit on you,

You yourself would lie dead by the coffin.

And now goodbye, my little brother!

Apparently God has judged death for me here.

Take the heroic sword for yourself,

And leave the good horse to the owner,

Tie it to the heroic coffin:

No one can deal with him, stop me."

And passed out of the clear minds

His tears are burning,

And he folded his heroic hands

On white breasts, on heroic ones,

And he accepted a great death for himself,

And the dead spirit left the grave.

Here the old man said goodbye to the hero,

Svyatogor's good horse

Tied to the heroic coffin,

The glorious Svyatogorov girded the sword,

And I went to the open field in the expanse.

Is it here that they sing the glory of Svyatogor?

Note: Svyatogor carries his wife in a crystal casket (metaphor of a cloud) and unlocks it with a golden key (lightning)" 14.

Or, to paraphrase: “The cloud encircling the sky (Svyatogor) carries his wife (probably also a cloud) in the cloud (crystal casket), unlocking the cloud with lightning (the golden key) and killing her with lightning (the sword).”

Attempts by the mythological school to interpret this epic only confirm its complete helplessness. “Svyatogorov’s wife is given to Ilya Muromets, as a representative of Perun, and dies from a treasure sword, that is, she dies struck by lightning.

Here the mythological interpretation completely destroys any meaning of the entire event. Or in another place: “A coffin bound with iron hoops is a metaphor for a rain cloud, on which the winter cold has imposed its tightly squeezing chains.” 14. Here Svyatogor turns into a rain cloud *, and Ilya Muromets into the “winter cold”, while time, as before he was the “hero thunderer” or the personification of the Life-giving solar power.

* Elsewhere it is assumed that rain clouds are represented in epics in the person of Kalik-passers.

(Concerning the designation “thunder hero,” it is interesting to note the opinion of D. O. Shepping: “If there is no doubt that Elijah the Prophet, according to folk legends and superstitions, replaced our ancient thunder deity of the pagan period, it does not follow from this that that in absolutely everything one can identify Elijah with Perun. Such unceremonious distortions of folk legends, passing from one learned work to other, more popular books and textbooks, completely distort the legend itself" 21).

The whole inconsistency of the mythological theory is revealed even more clearly when applied to epics about the “younger” heroes. All the diverse events and complex intrigues at the court of Prince Vladimir, the love affairs of Apraksin, the allotments of the heroes among themselves, their struggle with each other and with enemies - all this cannot be interpreted with the help of clouds, thunder, lightning and a small set of natural forces. With such unfounded arbitrariness, the murder of Caesar can be transferred to the clouds, and the dagger will play the role of lightning; and the liberation of the peasants will turn out to be the revival of nature (or the plant world) from hibernation, not to mention life famous people(for example, Napoleon), where the hero himself can be replaced by the sun, his friends and relatives - by planets, battles - by thunder and storm, where each captive will represent nature, “shackled by winter cold,” etc.

The use of mythological theory can be allowed and partly justified only in relation to individual allegorical images, independent, self-contained, established, static, for example, in riddles**, in sayings and in some songs. For the interpretation of epics and legends - not only Russian, but also foreign ones - with their complex dynamics and drama, with their growing and unfolding events - even if we admit the presence of some mythological touch in them - then still applying mythological the theory as such, in its entirety, due to its complete inconsistency, must be unconditionally rejected.

** What burns without fire? - Dawn.

The same can be said about the theory of historical reflections, although at first glance it seems more substantiated and stable: on the one hand, actual geographical or historical names often appear in epics; on the other hand, the names of epic heroes are occasionally mentioned in chronicles or modern chronicles. This theory sees in epics “the poeticized history of the people,” and the content of epics corresponds to “several, gradually succeeding periods of the historical life of the Russian people ***. For her, Svyatogor

*** See page 7

A representative of the brute physical force of the nomadic period, which, as an independent element, in the strict order of civil life inspired by the moral principle no longer has a place and must die" 1. Mikula Selyaninovich - "representative of agricultural life, endurance" 9. Volga Vseslavyevich - "demigod hunter and a warrior who conquers all animate nature" 1. Prince Vladimir, Princess Apraxia, younger heroes, Novgorod daredevils - all this is "a reflection of people who actually lived or a personification of everyday and historical phenomena in the life of the Russian people" *.

*See page 7

The inconsistency of this theory becomes clear at the first attempt to apply it to one of the above epics. Why does Svyatogor turn out to be a representative of the “brute physical force of the nomadic period”? Ancient Rus' did not have high mountains within its borders at all, 1 and the image of a nomadic tribe cannot be associated with the type of hero who “does not carry the earth,” who “found a mountain for himself and lies on it.” What could Svyatogor’s “dozing” on a horse mean and his recognition that

"...It is not given to me to go to Holy Rus'."

The history of ancient Rus' does not know a period that could be symbolized by Svyatogor. And if we assume that Mikula Selyaninovich is indeed a reflection of “agricultural life and endurance” 9, then the image of Volga Vseslavich, who, being five years old,

"...I learned all sorts of tricks and wisdom:

Learned the first trick-wisdom -

Wrap yourself in a clear falcon;

Learned another trick-wisdom -

Wrap yourself in a gray wolf;

Learned the third trick-wisdom -

Wrapping yourself in a tour means golden horns..."

This image remains completely mysterious, and the attempt to see in it a reflection of the personality and activities of the “prophetic” Oleg only emphasizes all the powerlessness historical theory.

The Nightingale the Robber remains an equally incomprehensible figure, “representing the main internal enemies of the emerging state - gangs of robbers. Who has not experienced an involuntary trembling on a dark night in a remote place with an unexpected sharp whistle, which usually serves as a conventional sign for attackers? It is not surprising that the people's imagination was gifted the prototype of Russian robbers with the murderous nightingale whistle, from which he got his name" 1. Such an interpretation turns out to be completely unfounded on closer examination: Ilya Muromets more than once met with such "internal enemies", for which there is a completely definite term in epics:

"...We ran into the old villagers,

In our Russian - robbers..."

The difference between the Nightingale the Robber and the “stanishniks” remains unclear. True, he whistles like a nightingale, but then

"...It hisses like a snake,

Screams like an animal"

“His patronymic “Rakhmanovich” is derived from the word Rakhman or Brahman, i.e. Brahmin - an Indian priest and magician. Sometimes he is called the “Bird of Rakhmanna” 1. In addition, “the nightingale sits in a nest in the oak trees, and his house, where his whole family lives, it is called a nest here. The Nightingale's children are also mythical figures; his daughters, in fact, have heroic strength; the very name of the eldest of them, Neveya, is given, in ancient conspiracies for shaking, or fever, to the eldest of the sisters-shaking" 25; the sons of the Nightingale turn into black ravens, moreover, "with iron beaks" 22.

From further study of the epics, it becomes even more clear that the image of the Nightingale the Robber, which is closer to the type of sorcerer and sorcerer, is very far from the above-mentioned stanishnik-robbers and represents a mysterious figure, inaccessible to the interpretation of historical theory.

This theory turns out to be completely helpless when trying to apply it to the dramatic development of action in epics (for example, the episode with Svyatogor’s wife, Svyatogor’s death in the coffin, etc.). Even if geographical and historical names come across in epics about younger heroes, when checked, they all turn out to be far from reality. “Chernigov,” indeed, lies on the way from Murom to Kiev,” says F. Buslaev; in this case, the epic seems to contain a historical element. But in other versions, instead of Chernigov they name Bezhegov, Beketovets, Kidish, Kryakov and others 1, and the same F. Buslaev must admit that “here Chernigov is already mixed with some other city” 11. The same can be said about the rivers Safat, Izrai, Smorodina and others, about Latyr-Sea, about Tavor-mountain, about Prince Vladimir, about Princess Apraksin, etc. Already A. Borozdin notes that in the character of the epic Prince Vladimir himself, as well as his wife, one can find much more “fairytale” features than those corresponding to historical reality 4. Upon careful study and comparison of geographical and historical names mentioned in epics, a certainty arises, which becomes increasingly stronger and is confirmed as we study the text, that the storytellers took the first names that came to their minds for the designations they needed, using the most famous and popular ones due to their historical or geographical meanings. Thus, although in epics one cannot deny the presence of some historical element- like the above-mentioned mythological overlay - but the application to their interpretation of historical theory as such, as a whole, must be equally unreservedly rejected.

The theory of foreign borrowings is based on the undeniable similarity between certain types and exploits of Russian and foreign heroes. Due to the fact that the Russian epic is, comparatively, the youngest, there could be no doubt that it is a subject and not an object of borrowing, although “it remains a people's secret, to which the people themselves now have no key, just as the Indian Krishna and some other images later turned into Dobrynya, etc. 22.

This theory was repeatedly subjected to severe criticism, which found that “the noticeable similarity in the epic tales of different peoples” * can be successfully attributed not so much to later borrowings as to their prehistoric origin from the same source. A. Kotlyarevsky believes that “these legends (about Russian heroes) were the fruit of the entire previous life of the people, the swan song ... of folk creativity, still nourished by the juices of ancient legend. Separating in them everything accidental, introduced by subsequent centuries and formed under the influence of historical circumstances , one can understand their real character: we will meet here deep antiquity, which has not yet had time to acquire the sharp character of the exclusively Russian nationality, antiquity that directly points to the prehistoric era of the unity of Indo-European tribes." 22. For I. Porfiryev, the above similarity does not even stem from the presence a common primary source, but from “the unity of the fundamental laws underlying the development of every nation.” F. Buslaev adheres to the same view: “the laws of logic and psychology common to all humanity, common phenomena in family life and practical life, and finally, common paths in the development of culture, naturally, should have been reflected in the same ways to understand the phenomena of life and equally express them in myth, fairy tale, legend, parable, proverb" 24.

*See page 8

If we add to this that similar similarities are also found in religious and so on. legends (about paradise, the flood, etc.) as well as the rituals and customs of various peoples, and the impossibility of borrowing in many cases can be considered completely proven, and that each people experiences its history in its own way - depending on spiritual, psychological, ethnographic, geographical and so on. conditions; that the overwhelming majority of epics are of a national Russian, and, moreover, deeply Christian character, which is not in the alleged primary sources; that the theory of borrowing arbitrarily tries to belittle or deprive the Russian people of the ability of independent epic creativity, while all other types of creativity flow in full flow in people's life; that, finally, some minor foreign influences, along with mythological and historical ones, can still be admitted to a certain extent - then we will have to come to the conclusion that the theory of borrowings, as such, in its entirety, along with the mythological and historical theory, should be rejected, and that epics remain a great, deep and inexplicable mystery of Russian folk art.

Despite the fact that many epics have not reached us at all, and those that have survived have been subject to repeated distortions; despite the fact that they bear undoubted traces of mythological, historical and foreign influences, and that none of the existing theories can be applied to them - there is, nevertheless, one source that sheds bright light on the essence of epics, on the figures of heroes, on the meaning and significance of their exploits, illuminating both generalities and particulars equally. The source of this light is the Mysterious Science of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, and the application of this method to Russian epics, recreates step by step the stages of the spiritual path of the Russian people*.

* The author takes full credit for this. He alone bears full responsibility both for the application of this method to Russian epics and for the results obtained, as well as for the translation from German of quotes and excerpts from the works of R. Steiner. - From the passages given below, in relation to this topic, it is, of course, impossible to form an idea about Mystery Science as a whole.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORLD BEFORE ATLANTIS.
"Descent FROM THE MOUNTAINS" SVYATOGOR

In the works and lectures of Rudolf Steiner, a description is repeatedly given of the various states of the earth that it passed through on the path of its formation and prepared for its development in the future. Penetrating with his spiritual gaze the darkness of the past and the fog of the future, he leads us to the spiritual primary sources of the universe, embodying the results of his observations in images accessible to ordinary consciousness, and giving everyone the opportunity to form an idea - and then knowledge - about the most distant times and epochs 36.

The pre-time reverent sacrifice of the highest spiritual beings, pouring out a part of their own substantiality, creates, according to a wise and good destiny, the original spiritual foundation for the material universe. With the beginning of time and with the addition of a number of spiritual beings to the beginning of the world-creation, spiritual substantiality, remaining the same in its deepest essence, begins to be penetrated by physical laws, becoming denser and condensed to the state of substantial warmth 36, which subsequently manifests, in the form of flickering and glow, the first glimpses inner life. In these immeasurably distant times (the era of ancient Saturn)** the beginnings of the human body, a spiritual-physical machine-like acting phantom, manifesting and reflecting the experiences of the higher beings living out in it, were laid. - Then everything returns again to the original state of pure spirituality, dissolving into it for a long intermediate state of peace.

** From Occult Science it is known that the planet Saturn, which belongs to our solar system, was formed as a result of a process similar, to a certain extent, to that which took place in the era of ancient Saturn. This explains that this ancient era and the modern planet is given one name. A similar remark can be made about the ancient Sun and the ancient Moon.

As time passes, the formation of condensed-densifying elements begins again, reaching the previous degree of compaction and being able, as a result of new reverently sacrificial impulses of spiritual beings and thanks to being in pure spirituality during the above-described period of rest, to be brought to an even more material state. Substantial heat is condensed to a vapor-gaseous state, and the human embryo, perceiving the forces pouring into it, develops to the possibility of manifesting signs of independent life*, which is increasingly determined by the end of this period (the ancient Sun)**. - Then everything dissolves again into the original spirituality for a new period of peace.

* The physical body of man, as such, is a corpse, which, being left to itself, disintegrates into its component elements under the influence of external laws and forces of nature. During life, it is permeated with vital forces that determine the possibility of life processes in it and protect it from decay. This complex of vital forces is called in Secret Science the vital or etheric body.

** See note. page 21.

After this second pause, the process of physical world formation again comes into its own. Again, they are repeated again from the beginning before reaching the degree of compaction, but the process does not stop there and continues until thickening up to a liquid-gaseous and viscous-liquid state. A person rises to the possibility of inner experiences, likes and dislikes, joy and suffering***, and this inner life of him is in complex dependence on the spiritual beings around him. - Little by little, everything begins to return to a spiritual state, and this third period of cosmic formation (of the ancient Moon) **** also ends with a period of peace.

*** The physical body, permeated with life processes (the etheric body), characterizes mainly the modern plant kingdom. A person (like an animal) already has access to a complex set of sensations, which in Secret Science is called. felt or astral body. In addition, a person, unlike an animal, has the ability of self-consciousness, that is, consciousness of his individual “I” 36.

**** See note. page 19.

At the end of this period, the materializing elements begin to emerge from spirituality again, subsequently forming what constituted our present Earth*****. The first period of its development - the Polar Epoch, is an accelerated repetition at a higher stage of the period of ancient Saturn - with the formation of the rudiment of the physical human body. The second period - the Hyperborean era, repeats in the same way the state of the ancient Sun - with the emergence of life processes in the human embryo (etheric body). The third period - the Lemurian era, is a similar repetition of the ancient Moon, and a person receives the abilities of sensation and consciousness (astral body). The fourth period - the Atlantic era, no longer serves as a repetition of previous states and marks the emergence in man of self-consciousness - the consciousness of his own “I”.

***** Or rather: our current solar system.

During the entire time of this cosmic evolution, man follows exactly all the transformations of his kindred Earth. Just as at present his body is built from minerals and so on inherent in the earth. substances, so in the times of ancient Saturn, when the most material element was substantial heat, the human body was built from this thermal element; on the ancient Sun - it was vapor-gaseous; on the ancient Moon - liquid-gaseous and viscous-liquid. It goes through similar transformations in the Polar, Hyperborean and Lemurian eras, which are a repetition at a higher level of the ancient Saturn, the ancient Sun and the ancient Moon.

Rudolf Steiner gives the following description of the first periods of the Atlantean era: “At that time, man did not yet exist in a form accessible to observation by our modern senses. You would, however, imagine the spectacle of certain areas on the earth’s surface protruding in the form of islands from still liquid earth, covered with waters or wrapped in vapors... But these areas were not yet as hard as our present earth, but were blocks of soft earthen mass, with the element of fire raging between them... You would find that in some already existing areas, cooled to a certain extent, lived the ancestors of our present animal kingdom... But you would not have seen man, because at that time man did not yet have such a dense, solid physical body. You would have to look for man in completely different places, so to speak, in a watery and vaporous mass... You would have found the human physical body of that time in the region of watery vapor... The further you go back, the more transparent the man of this era becomes, more and more similar to the vaporous and watery masses surrounding him. Only during the Atlantean period does it become more and more dense; and if one could follow the entire process of formation with one’s eyes, one would see how man becomes more and more condensed from the waters and more and more descends to the earth*. So, in fact, it is quite true that physical person entered the surface of our earth relatively late" 37.

* This is not the place to prove that Occult Science does not contradict the fundamental principles of modern science, but deepens and complements them. The competence of science, in general, is limited to the description and study of the observed data; her repeated attempts to establish a priori the fundamental possibility or impossibility of any phenomenon invariably emphasized her myopia in this regard. - On the other hand, the data of Occult Science have repeatedly found confirmation from science and practical life.

This period in the history of mankind, which had not yet landed on solid ground, found a surprisingly accurate and picturesque reflection in the person of Svyatogor. His descent from the mountains and sinking into the ground corresponds to the descent of man from the heights of the air. This is expulsion from paradise, conveyed by Russian epic. For the biblical tale of the Fall and Paradise Lost is nothing more than a picture depiction of precisely this moment. “Despite all the searching,” says Rudolf Steiner, “paradise does not lie on the earth’s surface, but in the circumference of the earth. Man only subsequently descended from paradise to earth, after he had received his completed form.”38

Similar events and physical transformations were accompanied by changes in the field of human consciousness. "...At that time, before the Atlantean flood*, there was not yet such a sharp line between the day and night states of consciousness. When a person of that time fell into sleep, his inner experiences were not as dark and unconscious as they are now; but when the pictures of daily life plunged into darkness, pictures of spiritual life opened before him, and he was in the region of the spiritual world; and when in the morning he again plunged into his physical body, the experiences and truths of the divine-spiritual world went into darkness, and pictures appeared before him modern reality, modern mineral, plant, animal kingdom, etc." 37.

The described period of the Atlantean era was transitional for states of consciousness. Until this time, man was completely blind to the physical world, but completely conscious in the spiritual world; after this, i.e. closer to our time, he, on the contrary, is conscious of physical world and blind to the spiritual. During the mentioned transitional period, a person lost his spiritual consciousness, while acquiring physical consciousness to the same extent. But the latter could develop only as the spiritual withered away - and the wakefulness of Svyatogor, who had not yet completely lost it, was not, therefore, as complete as in later times. His consciousness, not yet being completely blind in the spiritual world, also did not reach the level of full wakefulness in the physical world, in which it was still in a half-awake, half-asleep state. - That’s why Ilya Muromets meets Svyatogor dozing on a horse.

The task of the Atlantean era was to introduce into man the ability of self-awareness, the consciousness of his “I” 37. For this, various organs were developed in man, mainly his brain. The latter was to become the bearer of waking consciousness, the present intellect, which is currently tightly chained to the brain. But at that transitional time, consciousness did not sink into the brain so deeply and only during the day, during a wakeful or semi-awake (for Svyatogor) state. During sleep, it was freed again, immersed in images and experiences of the spiritual world*. This brain in its cranium is presented in the form of Svyatogor’s crystal casket; His spiritual consciousness (wife) is imprisoned in a casket during trips through the mountains, i.e., during Svyatogor’s relative wakefulness, and is released during periods of his sleep. - At the end of the Atlantean era, when, with the development of the waking state of consciousness, the ability of spiritual consciousness should have disappeared, Svyatogor kills his wife. And then, with the destruction of Atlantis, he himself dies.

* Atlantis was gradually destroyed under the influence of grandiose air-water seismic disasters. Its final disappearance in the waters of the modern Atlantic Ocean dates back to the 10th century BC.

POST-ATLANTIC TIME.
SAMSON, MIKULA, VOLGA AND ILYA.

As is known from Occult Science, shortly before the destruction of Atlantis, the great Initiate, named Manu, with a group of his disciples left the doomed continent and went to a secluded region Central Asia in order to prepare them as leaders for future cultures of the post-Atlantean era. Seven Initiates of his students subsequently became teachers and leaders of those people who, in the first period of the post-Atlantean era, lived in the southern region of Asia - ancient India 36. There, a majestic ancient Hindu culture was created, the culture of the seven holy Rishis, the later echo of which are the amazing books of the Vedas 37. The main mood of this culture was the aspiration back to the spiritual world. People “felt that their homeland was in that world... They felt the supersensible world as true... and they tried with all their might to open for themselves the possibility of insight into this true world.” For people knew from legends and traditions that “there was a time when their ancestors looked into the spiritual world, when they lived in the circle of spiritual beings and gods, when they were in the sphere of deep spiritual reality” 37. And an irresistible inner aspiration based on living memories of the recent past, drew a person there, into this spiritual world, forcing him to neglect the physical world, to shun it, to avoid it, like a deceptive mirage, illusion, Maya,

A reflection of this ancient Hindu culture of the seven great Rishis is the hero Samson Samoilovich, with his “seven golden hairs on his head,” in Russian epics. Unfortunately, very little is known about him; so, he “travels, although reluctantly, to Polish” 1. In epics he is constantly confused with Svyatogor; The Svyatogor-Samson connection is often found in research. This is all the more natural because all the thoughts and views of ancient Hindu culture were directed back to the past, to the past era of Svyatogor; this culture sought to relive him, to be embodied in his personality. - It is not surprising, therefore, that in the epics some of Samson’s features were transferred to Svyatogor, in particular, the above-described main aspiration of ancient Hindu culture back to the spiritual world, expressed in Svyatogor in the desire to “turn the earth upside down, to mix the earthly with the heavenly.” - With all the above possible distortions in the text of epics, such a partial confusion of two adjacent eras seems at least harmless.

But the point further development consists in the fact that man gradually gets used to appreciating the value of the physical world into which he was placed in the post-Atlantean era. "A step forward compared to ancient India is the second cultural era, also prehistoric, which we call by the name of those peoples who subsequently inhabited these areas, the ancient Persian culture, again meaning not the later Persian, but the prehistoric culture" 37.

In its mood, its attitude, this second period differs significantly from the ancient Hindu period. While the Hindus strive to get away from the illusory world, to escape from it, the Persians “begin to appreciate Maya or illusion, and it becomes a field of activity for them. True, they still consider it something hostile that needs to be overcome, but with them there is hope that they will be able to introduce into it the powers of good deities... permeate it with divinely spiritual forces. Thus, the people of the ancient Persian culture begin to sense the reality of the physical world and work on it" 37.

The representative of this ancient Persian culture in Russian epics is Mikula Selyaninovich. The grandiose picture of the physical world, as a field for activity, for permeating it with a bright divine principle, was expressed in the image of a farmer cultivating the land, and the holes and suction cups that penetrate into the ground, unfolding and scattering it are made of “pure silver and red gold,” symbolizing spiritual forces . This motif of introducing gold and silver into the land is very close to the Russian folk spirit, which feels its kinship with the ancient Persian culture *, and comes across very often, as in songs,

"I'm burying gold, I'm burying it,

I bury pure silver, I bury it...",

so in fairy tales, along with the motives for stealing gold.

*See note. on page 40

Then comes the third cultural period, bringing us closer and closer to historical times - the Chaldean-Egyptian culture. Again a step forward has been taken in the sense of conquering the physical world. People no longer see it only as hostile or unnecessary. “A person already directs his gaze to the stars and says to himself: “These stars are not only Maya, not only appearance.” And he deepens into contemplation star trek, he studies the movements of the luminaries, the changes occurring in the constellations. And he says to himself: “This is the external expression of the gods who rule the world, these are the letters inscribed by the gods.” The external, observed by the senses, is not only an appearance, it is a revelation of the gods 38. What previously seemed an illusion, Maya, a deceptive mirage, began to undergo careful study. Thus “external science arises.

Man studies the thoughts of the gods, and he feels that he must create a connection between his own activities and what is in matter in the form of divine writings, that there must be harmony between what is happening in heaven and on earth" 37.

This mood is remarkably accurately conveyed in the image of the hero Volga Vseslavich, who is a representative of this (third) cultural period. At the beginning of the epic, when describing the events surrounding his birth, the connection between heavenly and earthly phenomena is clearly indicated:

"The red sun has set,

It rolled over the tall hills,

Beyond the deep and wide seas,

The stars were often scattered across the bright sky -

Was born on Mother Holy Rus'

Young hero Volga Vseslavevich..."

The emergence of external science is no less clearly indicated in that part of the epic where it is mentioned that the young Volga studied all sorts of “wisdom tricks”, which were then used for activities in the physical world. His werewolfism reflects the later period of decline of the Chaldean-Egyptian culture, expressed in the magnificent flowering of the worst manifestations of black magic 39.

Thus, people “descend more and more into Maya and permeate matter with what a person can achieve. In the fourth cultural period, Greco-Latin, man brings his inner being into the outer world... Man objectifies himself in matter, in forms.. He himself appears in the physical world and creates his image in it... In Roman culture, a person creates it in government institutions... Man descends to the understanding of matter, to the marriage between Maya and spirit... In this fourth cultural period of the post-Atlantean era, man is in complete harmony with the world around him. The emergence of Christianity coincided with this period. For only this time, when man seemed to have merged with external reality, was he able to comprehend that the divine can manifest itself in individual... Any previous time could easily understand anything other than this; it would feel that the divine is too high and sublime to manifest itself in an individual person... But Christianity could also arise only when people were not yet so embedded in matter as to overestimate it, to plunge headlong into it, as in our time, but they were still able to spiritualize it... Therefore, the entire history of mankind falls apart for the Christian consciousness into pre-Christian and Christian times. The God-man could be comprehended by man only at a certain time" 37.

The representative of this Greco-Latin culture in the epics is Ilya Muromets. This already follows from the words of the Kalik passers-by, who list and characterize Ilya Muromets’ heroes who are dangerous to him:

"...But just don't go out and fight

With Svyatogor the hero:

The earth carries it on itself through force;

Don't go fight with Samson the hero:

He has seven angelic hairs on his head;

Don’t fight with the Mikulov family either:

Mother earth loves him;

Don’t go to Volga Vseslavich yet:

He will not take it by force,

So with cunning and wisdom..."

Fourth culture era. Ilya Muromets "at the center of time."

It is worthy of attention that the Kaliki-passers (Jesus Christ himself, the two Apostles) list the heroes in Polish agreement with the order of the cultures they represent:

END OF THE ATLANTIC ERA*: SVYATOGOR.
POST-ATLANTIC ERA

1. Ancient Hindu culture: Samson Samoilovich.

2. Ancient Persian culture: Mikula Selyaninovich.

3. Chaldean-Egyptian culture: Volga Vseslavich.

4. Greco-Latin culture: Ilya Muromets.

* The heroes Danube Ivanovich, Sukhman and Kolyvan can be attributed to more distant periods of the Atlantic era (bylinas often call Svyatogor Kolyvanovich after his fatherland). Unfortunately, a more detailed acquaintance with the figures of these heroes is impossible due to lack of space.

These same instructions from the Kalik-passers were at one time used by researchers to divide the heroes into older ones - before Ilya Muromets, and younger ones - after him. We can say that, just as “the history of mankind splits into pre-Christian and Christian times,” so “the history of heroes splits into the period before and after Ilya Muromets.” Moreover, Ilya Muromets, as the first Christian hero, represents in his person the era of the emergence of Christianity, that is, epics with amazing accuracy attribute him to that very period in human history when

"...Jesus Christ himself, two apostles..."

indeed, historically, they walked on earth for the first time. The founding of Rus' dates back to the same period. - Rising from his bed by the grace of the Kalik-passers simultaneously with the birth of the Russian state, Ilya Muromets thereby turns out to be a representative of the Russian people, enlightened by the impulse of Christ.

Meetings of older heroes with each other are a reflection of the transitional stages from one cultural period to another. What happens over centuries is condensed in epics into a short-term encounter. The people contrast different cultural periods in their minds, giving them corresponding characteristics that are striking in their depth and accuracy.

"...I would turn the earth upside down,

And I would mix the earthly with the heavenly!..”

The meeting of Svyatogor-Samson with Mikula Selyaninovich contrasts the ancient Hindu culture with the ancient Persian.

The main aspiration of ancient Hindu culture was directed upward, away from the earth, from the physical world, which for the worldview of this culture was only a deceptive mirage, illusion, Maya. This mood is perfectly conveyed in the lines:

The next, ancient Persian culture was imbued with completely different sentiments: one should not run away from the earth, from the physical world, but overcome it, transform it with the help of a bright deity. An element of this beginning of overcoming was reflected in the epics in the image of a saddle bag containing earthly cravings, which a representative of the ancient Persian culture freely carries, but a representative of the ancient Hindu culture, who fled from the physical world and, therefore, remained powerless within its confines, was powerless to lift .

The meeting of Mikula Selyaninovich with Volga Vseslavich depicts the transition of ancient Persian culture into Chaldean-Egyptian culture. The ancient Persian culture spiritualized the physical world, exploded and plowed the earth with silver and gold, and with spiritual impulses overcame the inertia of the material mass. This culture still felt a living spirit of spirituality; in her worldview there was still a clear experience of the interaction between the spiritual and physical worlds.

It was not the same during the time of the next, Chaldean-Egyptian culture. The process of immersion in the material world continued non-stop. At the same time, such a vivid sense of spiritual realities, which was still possible for the previous culture, was gradually lost. The ancient Persian culture was just introducing the spiritual into the earth, striving to spiritualize the physical world; for her the spiritual was still separate and separable from the physical. The Chaldean-Egyptian culture already found this spiritual deep in the physical; she felt that the spirit had penetrated deeply into the physical world, that it was inseparable from it, merged with it, as if chained to it 38.

Mikula Selyaninovich's bipod, with silver nuts and a gold suction cup, depicts spirituality, loosening, overcoming physical materiality. For Mikula’s era, it was not yet difficult to separate these two principles: Mikula freely pulls the bipod out of the ground, throws it under the clouds and throws it behind the willow bush. The representative of the next culture, Volga Vseslavich, with all his retinue, is no longer able to move her from her place.

As can be seen from the above, most of the senior heroes are representatives of various cultural periods in their most characteristic and general manifestations. Not so Ilya Muromets: rising from his bed by the grace of the Kalik-passers - Jesus Christ himself and the two apostles - simultaneously with the birth of Christianity and the formation of the Russian state, he is not so much a representative of the then Greco-Latin era as a bearer of a purely Russian folk Christian element. Also, the younger heroes who follow him, while maintaining compliance with subsequent cultural periods, acquire more and more Russian national features.

The life and exploits of Ilya Muromets and the younger heroes provide a vivid picture of the spiritual path of the Russian people in the past and future. A particular difficulty in understanding these epics lies in the fact that they are presented completely in a special way characteristic of the creative consciousness of ancient times: speech can be about purely external facts and events, and then imperceptibly move on to internal mental experiences, without, however, the tone of the presentation changing in any way or there being any external hint that a similar transition takes place40. On the other hand, “for an occultist there is nothing only external, only material. Everything material is for him an expression of the mental and spiritual” 37... Therefore, many events in the life of Ilya Muromets can only be understood by simultaneously studying them from a variety of points of view.

It is known about Ilya Muromets that he “sat sitting” for thirty-three years without arms and legs, earnestly praying to God day and night, but constantly

"...both in a dream and in reality

Nightingale the Robber introduced himself -

And the damned one didn’t let him pray!..”

With these words, the epic clearly indicates from the very first lines what a significant role this ominous Nightingale the Robber played in the life of Ilya Muromets.

Then the crosswalkers, “Jesus Christ with two apostles,” appear. Elijah is healed. He jumps up, treats the Kalik to beer, then takes a sip himself, feels “great health in himself,” brings it to the Kalik a second time, drinks again himself, after which he feels in himself

"great strength:

If the pillar were from the ground to the sky,

A gold ring is confirmed in the pillar -

I would take it by the ring and turn the Holy Russian!”

The Kaliki say to themselves:

“Ilya has been given a lot of strength!

His mother-cheese earth will not carry him away,

It will be necessary to reduce his strength...":

Ilya serves the kalik for the third time and takes a sip again. He feels that his strength

"... seemed to have decreased by half..."

After this, the Kaliki give him instructions on how to get the hero’s horse, which heroes to fight and whom to avoid, and reveal to him something of his future fate. Ilya Muromets does everything said, gets himself a horse, takes his father’s blessing and goes to Kyiv

"...To pledge for Prince Vladimir,

Serve him with faith, truth,

Stand up for the Christian faith..."

On the way, he liberates Chernigov and captures Nightingale the Robber, who he then kills in the courtyard of Prince Vladimir. After this, his above-described meeting with Svyatogor takes place.

No matter how you look at the thirty-three-year-old seat of Ilya Muromets: whether from a physical point of view - considering him a paralytic, or from a spiritual point of view - in the sense of his complete helplessness and inactivity in the spiritual world, or allowing the simultaneous coexistence of both, the parallelism of spiritual and physical phenomena, according to the principle of Mysterious Science, that everything material, physical is only an external expression, an external revelation of the spiritual - there is still no doubt that Elijah rises from his bed for active activity precisely because of the impulse of Christ pouring out on him, he perceives it with his whole being - for the impulse of Christ permeates the whole person - and follows him. What is this impulse?

The mission of Christ, says Rudolf Steiner, is to “bring into man’s soul inner independence, the full power of the “I”*. The separate “I” should feel completely independent and separate, completely self-standing, and bring man closer together with man should only be love, brought in the form of a free gift. Through the Christ principle, love must enter into the earthly mission, more and more rising above the material and ever more ascending into the spiritual. Love arose from the lower forms associated with sensuality. In the first times of mankind those loved each other who were related by blood**, and it was considered extremely important that love should have this basis of consanguinity. Christ came to spiritualize love - in order, on the one hand, to snatch it from the bonds with which consanguinity binds it, on the other hand, to give strength, an impulse for spiritual love.Among the followers of the Old Testament we see fully expressed what can be called: belonging to a group soul, as the basis of individual “I”s in the collective “I”. We have seen that the expression “I and Father Abraham are one” has great meaning for the follower of the Old Testament; it denotes immersion in the consciousness that the same blood that flowed in the veins of Father Abraham also flows in him, a follower of the Old Testament; he felt immersed in the whole" 37.

* Based on the passages given here, which illuminate from a certain point of view the mission of Christ, in relation to the understanding of epics, it is, of course, impossible to create a complete idea of ​​Christosophy in the light of Occult Science.

** In this sense, you need to understand the book. Leviticus, XIX, 18: “Have no malice against the sons of your people, but love your brother as yourself.”

This characteristic belonging of ancient consciousness to the collective “I”, to the common group soul, was captured with remarkable insight by A. Kotlyarevsky. “In the era of the youth of nations,” he says, “when they have not yet stepped over their natural state, man is almost not aware of himself as separate personality, but calmly and without intention, without true knowledge and will - he acts as a member of a great whole and lives only by it, only in it and with it. The personality coincides with the totality of the entire people, disappears in it, and therefore both the consciousness of a person and his feelings themselves appear not in a special individual form, but collectively: what he is aware of and feels, all his fellow tribesmen are aware and feel" 23.

This stay in the bosom of the group soul was especially strengthened and deepened by the exclusion of aliens from its sphere, that is, people who did not belong to it by origin. This belonging was expressed in belonging to the same tribe, in the presence of common blood in the veins of each fellow tribesman; hence the strict observance of blood purity, marriages within a narrow circle. - At the very beginning of human development on earth, marriages took place, in general, only in the narrowest circles, in consanguineous families. “Intimate marriage was something that was followed at the beginning of human development” 37.

But brought in the form of a free gift, the purely Christian love of man for man, the development of which is the mission of the Earth, could arise only under the condition of a complete separation of man from the collective “I”... “There is no true love, where different “I”s are connected with each other within the framework of the group soul. Only after the separation that took place in humanity, after which one “I” stands before the other “I” as an independent unit, only after it did love become possible, as a free gift of one “I” to another “I”. Thus, an ever-increasing individualism was to begin on earth..." 38.

“Because of this,” Rudolf Steiner points out elsewhere, “the individual human “I” was liberated little by little from the group soul, from the group “I”; man gradually approached the awareness of his individual “I”... To give people something in which they needed to feel confident and secure in this single individual "I" - this is what the mission of Christ was. In this sense, the words must be accepted, which are so easily misunderstood: "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me, does not worthy of Me; and whoever loves a son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is unworthy of Me.”* This should be understood in the sense that the ancient blood relationship must, thanks to the acceptance of the Christ impulse, transform into new forms of human relationships, spreading regardless of the material basis from the soul to soul, from person to person" 38.

This struggle for the individual “I” is a struggle, for the impulse is given by Christ, but “the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it”, as well as the struggle for transformation, through the forces of the spiritualized individual “I”, the lower human nature - constitutes the content epics about Ilya Muromets and the younger heroes. Although this struggle, waged with alternating victories and defeats, takes place mainly in the mental and spiritual world, the tone of the narrative in epics does not change when moving from the description of events in the physical world to internal experiences, and only the data of Occult Science help to draw the line between the two .

The liberation of Ilya Muromets, under the influence of the Christ impulse, from the bonds of blood kinship is depicted in epics with extraordinary accuracy and with the preservation of all details. In the physical world, it is expressed in the fact that, having received strength from the Kalik-passers, Ilya leaves his parental home, on the way he transgresses the vows given to him and his father’s commandment, and thereby finally breaks with the past:

"...I wouldn't want my father to be an opponent,

I wouldn’t even want to transgress the commandment;

Yes, even though everyone laid down commandments,

But not everyone kept the commandments..."

But the main field of struggle does not lie in the physical world. The primary source of consanguinity, which lies in belonging to the group “I” (group soul), is located elsewhere. The most clearly expressed representative of the group "I" is at the present time the animal kingdom, with its group souls confined in the extraphysical world 37; The human individual “I” is located in the physical world. The process of development of self-awareness in individual individuals consists in peeling out their self-aware germ from the overcome group soul and growing it into the physical world. This process occurs slowly and gradually; but already the ancient peoples feel their belonging to the group soul by no means as intensely as this is the case in the animal kingdom; they sense the beginning of separation and disintegration of the ties that bind them and maintain their group connection through consanguineous marriages. - In the greater or lesser depth of immersion into matter of the individualized human “I” was the degree of difference between a person and a naked person. But even before the final separation from the group soul and complete descent into matter, the germ of the individual “I” had to be permeated with the Christ impulse, so as not to completely perish in it.

Where was the decisive battle supposed to take place between Ilya Muromets and the blood-related forces that bound him? Where do they manifest themselves with the greatest intensity and completeness? - In the area where a person breaks out of the group “I”, on the border of the physical and superphysical world, where the animal kingdom intersects with the human.

Occult science points to characteristic difference in the spatial relationship of humans, animals and plants. The plant receives nutrition mainly through the roots. “It directs this organ to the center of the earth; it raises its fertilization organs towards the sun, absorbing the chaste ray of the sun. Let us now imagine a person: it is not difficult to see an inverted plant in him - imagine a plant in an inverted position and you will get a person. His fertilization organs are inverted to the center of the earth, and the roots - into the world space. The animal is in the middle... Thus, a crest arises"38.

This significant cross, standing on the border of two worlds, is repeatedly found in epics in the form of the “Levanidov cross”. Near him, “heroes usually fraternize, and their heroic journeys begin from him. Then he ends up everywhere where some significant action begins.” 1. Often this meaning of the Levanid cross is even more emphasized by the fact that epics place it on the bank of the “river Smorodina" (Samorodina), which, like many other epic rivers, represents the border between the physical and spiritual worlds.*

* Similarly, the image of mountains reflects ideas about the sublime spheres of the spiritual world. Without settling on solid ground, Svyatogor lived in the air-water environment of the earth. At the same time, his consciousness was in the spiritual world.

What danger awaits Ilya Muromets near the Smorodina River, near the Levanidov Cross? The epic speaks clearly about this:

"...At that glorious river near Smorodina,

At that cross near Levanidov,

The thief sits on three oak trees and seven branches,

Nightingale the Robber son Rakhmanovich;

How he whistles like a nightingale,

The robber will hiss, like a snake,

The dog will scream like an animal -

That's why the nightingale whistled,

From that, from the snake's thorn,

Because of the cry of the beast

All the ant grasses are going around,

All the azure flowers are falling asleep,

The dark forests all bow to the ground,

And if there are people, they are all lying dead..."

Ilya Muromets will have to fight this terrible enemy near the Smorodina River, near the Levanidov Cross.

The Nightingale the Robber represents the powerful force of the group soul, blood-related ties that block a person’s direct path to his higher “I” (capital Kyiv - Prince Vladimir - Zabava Putyatichna). The tree on which the Nightingale the Robber sits is nothing more than a genealogical tree; it concentrates its power on the tree-like branches of the circulatory system, in the blood.

This particularly powerful manifestation of his power in the blood is clearly indicated by the name of one of his daughters, Neveah: this word was used to call fever “in ancient conspiracies for shaking, or fever” 25; the latter has its main point of manifestation in the blood. The very designation of the Nightingale the Robber’s dwelling with the word “nest” is very characteristic of a ancestral, family nest. The epic also points quite definitely to a blood relationship:

“...He will raise a son and give his daughter for him.

The daughter grows up and gives her for her son,

So that the Soloveykin family is not transferred..."

Therefore, the epics call his daughters “prophetic” 11 and say that “his sons or sons-in-law (since they are married to their own sisters) turn into ravens with iron beaks” 22.

On the subject of close marriages, the following remark can be found in Rudolf Steiner 41: “The further we go back into the depths of time, the more we find that people are strongly influenced by this consanguinity. Due to the fact that homogeneous blood flowed in the veins of people, in ancient times times, great magical powers were possible. A person who lived in those times and could trace far back a number of his ancestors, finding in their veins only related blood, had magically acting powers in his own blood * ".

* The acquisition of such powers through consanguineous marriages is impossible in our time.

This explains the magical element characteristic of the Nightingale the Robber and his entire family. The terrible power of its magical action permeates the entire being of a person: nightingale szist - the material elements of the physical body; animal roar - the entire system of life processes (ethereal body); snake thorn - the whole complex of conscious and subconscious sensations (astral body). That is why the fight against him turns out to be so dangerous, and the victory over him so difficult. But Ilya Muromets, by the power of the perceived impulse of Christ and his own firmness, overcomes the Nightingale the Robber and kills him in the face of his higher “I” - in the courtyard of Prince Vladimir, thereby consciously taking the first decisive step on his Christian spiritual Path.

This hard way is replete with temptations and dangers rooted both in the soul of man himself and in the spheres of the spiritual world surrounding him. Everything that secretly lurks and silently slumbers in the deepest layers of the mental organization, only occasionally echoing in the consciousness with a distant echo, suddenly wakes up and stands in all its magnitude before the person entering the spiritual Path. Everything that surrounds a person in the spiritual world, previously inaccessible to his perception and hostile to his spiritual development, suddenly falls upon him with all its force, frightening, seducing, destroying the fruits of his efforts.

At the first steps of the spiritual Path, when the impulse of Christ is not yet fully and deeply perceived by man, his young and fragile individual “I,” hatched from the group soul, feels painfully alone in the cold desert of the surrounding world. And his first impulse is the desire to escape from this world, to return to the familiar bosom he abandoned, to return back to the ancient times of the Holy Mountain, which the ancient Hindu culture so craved in its time. This mood also breaks through in Ilya Muromets, in the form of the first impulse after a miraculous healing. In his exclamation about the desire to “turn Svyatorussk” it is easy to recognize an echo of Svyatogorov’s words about turning “the earth upside down and mixing the earthly with the heavenly.” This aspiration, which is fundamentally contrary to the correct path of human evolution, is especially seductive and dangerous.

Ilya Muromets, after the destruction of Nightingale the Robber, must also take a certain position in relation to these atavistic calls of antiquity. In the depths of his soul, he must experience a meeting with Svyatogor and his wife - ancient, atavistic, nocturnal clairvoyance. Ilya Muromets turns out to be too weak to resist her; she does not even seduce, but forcibly forces him to submit. True, she soon dies; but the fruits of this weakness then manifest themselves in the form of a terrible, mortal danger in the person of Sokolnik, the product of this violent, fleeting connection, which grew unnoticed by Ilya Muromets himself in the deepest recesses of his soul**. Only with the help of the forces of the earth, permeated with the impulse of Christ ("...Ilyusha's lying strength tripled...") was he able to cope with this terrible enemy.

** At this point it should be recalled once again that Ilya Muromets is a representative of the Russian people.

As for Svyatogor himself, his death was prepared by the very course of normal earthly evolution. That's why he finds a coffin built on it. But Ilya Muromets does not kill him; on the contrary, he even tries to free Svyatogor. But the forces of his strengthened “I” (the treasury sword) are already beginning to manifest themselves and act independently of his lower will and fetter the coffin that encloses Svyatogor. And so deep is the hidden spiritual wisdom embedded in the epics that in this dramatic place victory is emphasized not with a sword, but with a cross: the iron hoops that bound the coffin formed the outline of a cross on it*.

* Svyatogor’s request, already contained in the coffin, to cut “along the lid along the coffin,” indicates that the first blows of Ilya Muromets were made across. The combination of a longitudinal hoop with transverse ones gives the outline of a cross.

From the struggle against the atavistic calls of antiquity, Ilya Muromets emerged victorious, largely tempered and strengthened, in possession of the treasure sword and part of Svyatogorov’s power transferred to him. From now on, he turns his face to the future, paving the way for himself to the coming Light and carrying towards it

spiritual heritage received from Svyatogor**.

** Ilya Muromets receives the germ of the human “I” laid down in the Atlantic era in order to spiritualize it, permeate it with the forces of the Christ impulse, the higher “I”. See page 29.

The Russian heroes at the court of the affectionate Prince Vladimir whiled away their time in abusive exploits and drunken revelry. Among them was also the old Ilya Muromets, the successor of the ancient senior heroes, “The two main senior heroes, about whom there are separate epics, Volga Vseslavyevich and Mikula Selyaninovich are no longer alive; others somehow live out their lives, without performing any heroic feats.” . The time of their active activity had long since passed, and their weak voice, like a distant echo of past ancient periods, was lost in the general chorus of living heroic voices.

The main representatives of the galaxy of younger heroes surrounding Ilya Muromets are Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich and Mikhailo Potyk. Each of them follows their own spiritual Path, independently fighting against opposing forces, and only in especially important cases do the heroes unite together, most often under the leadership of Ilya Muromets, to jointly fight against particularly strong enemies.

The most important feats of the younger heroes are their victories over demonic creatures: Dobrynya Nikitich kills the Serpent of Gorynchishch, and Alyosha Popovich kills Tugarin Zmeevich. The serpentine origin of both hostile forces clearly indicates their true nature: these are internal spiritual forces that impede the correct development of a person who has entered the spiritual Path (the Serpent Gorynchishch kidnaps and holds captive Zabava Putyatichna - the highest spiritual principle in man). One of the terrible manifestations of the power of the Nightingale the Robber also consisted in the hissing of a snake. The superphysical nature of these forces is also emphasized by the fact that the epics place them beyond the sphere of the physical world: Tugarin Zmeevich is found beyond the Safat River, the Serpent Gorynchishch - beyond the Puchai River 1. Alyosha Popovich and Dobrynya Nikitich correctly recognized the true nature of these monsters, they were able, therefore, deal with them and continue on your way. Mikhailo Potyk stumbled on his Path, not destroying a hostile force that he did not recognize, but giving it shelter in his soul (by marrying Avdotya Likhodeevna). The epic talks in detail about the cruel trials that resulted from this mistake*.

* Unfortunately, a deeper study of the details is not possible due to lack of space.

But time took its course, and the process of evolution invariably continued. The fourth post-Atlantean culture - Greco-Latin, had to gradually give way to the fifth, German-Anglo-Saxon, present one. The time of rational-materialism was approaching, with its complete spiritual blindness, with a decisive disregard and denial of everything spiritual, gradually receding into the background; knowledge about him was erased, love for him was lost. In the souls of the younger heroes - representatives of this passing cultural period, as well as in the soul of Ilya Muromets himself, this process of dimming of spirituality developed with full force. Characteristic signs he is cited in the epic about the quarrel between Ilya Muromets and Prince Vladimir, who offended his old hero.

"...To the old Cossack Ilya Muromets

It seemed like a great annoyance,

And he doesn't know what to do

Opposite that Prince Vladimir.

And he takes it like his tight bow, torn,

And he takes the red-hot arrows,

Ilya went out to Kyiv city,

And he began to walk around the city of Kyiv

And go to Mother of God's churches.

He broke the crosses in the churches,

He shot gilded poppies.

Yes, Ilya shouted at the top of his lungs,

“Oh, you drunken tavern shanks!

Yes, and go home from the taverns and drinking places

And so you rob the tops and the gilded ones,

Then take it to taverns and drinking houses,

Yes, you drink and have your fill of wine" 19

Here Ilya Muromets, this champion of the Christian faith, donor and builder of churches, is already so degraded that he breaks out crosses and robs gilded domes in order to drink them with “tavern goats.”** But the final completion of the above-mentioned process is described in the epic “How the heroes were transferred to Holy Rus'."

** Alcohol consumption enhances the process of dimming the spiritual world for human consciousness.

Seven heroes, including Ilya Muromets, went to the outpost on the Safat River and after some time noticed hordes of the “Infidel Force”:

"...A good fellow cannot outrun that force,

The wolf cannot sprinkle sulfur,

You can't fly around a black crow..."

The heroes completely destroyed their enemies and began to boast of their strength.

"...And Alyoshenka Popovich young will say:

"Give us at least heavenly strength:

We can cope with that strength, brothers!”

I just said a foolish word,

Two opponents appeared

"Come on, let's fight with us!

Don’t look that there are two of us and seven of you.”

The heroes did not recognize the opponents,

Young Alyoshenka flared up at their words,

Sped up the horse Retivago,

flew into opponents,

Cuts them in half from the entire shoulder:

There are now eight - and everyone is alive.

Dobrynyushka Nikitich young flew at them,

Old Ilya Muromets swoops in,

Cuts them in half from all over the shoulder:

It became twice as painful - and everyone is alive.

All the heroes rushed to force,

They began to stab the silushka - chop -

And that power keeps growing and growing,

He goes to fight against the heroes...

They fought for three days and three hours,

Their brave shoulders waved,

Their damask swords have become dull -

Their good horses were leaving.

And that power keeps growing and growing,

He goes to fight against the heroes.

The mighty heroes were afraid,

We ran to the stone mountains,

To the caves, to the dark ones;

The first one just ran up to the mountain,

As if in place and petrified;

The other one just ran up to the mountain,

As if in place and petrified;

The third just ran up to the mountain,

As if he was petrified on the spot.

Since then the mighty heroes

And they transferred to holy Rus'!..”

* A very characteristic passage, clearly indicating how much spiritual vision was already atrophied at that time.

FIFTH CULTURAL AGE.
VASILY, CHURILO AND SADKO.

Thus ended the fourth - Greco-Latin cultural period, which was replaced by the fifth, current, German-Anglo-Saxon. The heroes who retained in themselves any knowledge or memory, even a very vague one, about the spiritual world had to disappear and give their place to others who did not have any conscious idea about it. The time of complete spiritual blindness was approaching, from which, by the end of this fifth period, man would again be able to rise to the spiritual, this time as an independent individual, permeated with Christian spiritual impulses. - Representatives of this fifth cultural period in epics are mainly Vasily Buslaev, Churila Plenkovich and Sadko, the rich guest.

In these epics one comes across completely new motifs that were not known in previous times. The younger heroes of the Greco-Latin period, due to the evolution that fascinated them, gradually turned away from the spiritual world; but from time to time they received news of him and the influence of his impulses through people who were ahead of them in their development and who had already risen again to a certain level of spiritual knowledge. These people, homeless Kaliki - transients, reflect in themselves the image of those people who are called in Mystery Science "people without a homeland" 37. The meaning of this designation is that, on the path of their spiritual development, they have outgrown the framework imposed on a person by belonging to to any one people or race, and rose to universal Christian love, which they spread throughout the world. This was symbolically indicated in ancient times by the fact that they had to undertake long journeys 37. In the epics of the Kiev cycle, these Kaliki-passers always turn out to be stronger than the younger heroes, lending them their clothes and “travelling clothes” when the heroes begin to be timid and are afraid of appearing before the enemy in its usual form.

Nothing of this remained by the beginning of the fifth, now present, cultural period. Its representative, Vasily Buslaev, remarkably accurately reflects the nature of modern spiritual life. He does not believe “neither in sleep nor in choh,” he mockingly kills the “Old Purer Pilgrimishche” (an echo of the ancient Kalik-passers), blasphemes and finally dies while trying to forcibly break into the spiritual world (by virtue of which he However, he does not believe and does not take into account the laws of which) with his own arbitrariness arising from his violent nature. Only before his death does he experience a moment of enlightenment.

"...We stopped by Mount Favor...

We saw a great stone here,

Great white-flammable stone...

There is a signature on the stone:

"Who will amuse himself at a stone,

Amuse and have fun,

Stone along and jump over -

Break that violent man's head."

The brave heart flared up,

Vasily son Buslaevich says:

"Come on, brothers, let's have fun,

Amuse yourself and have fun:

You jump across the stone,

Across the stone and in front of your face,

I myself jump along backwards with my face."

This great white-flammable stone is nothing more than the Alatyr stone 4, representing the highest spheres of the spiritual world*. An attempt to jump along it - not only contrary to the inscription made on it - but also "facing backwards" perfectly characterizes the aspirations and attitudes towards the spiritual world of our cultural period, on the one hand - not wanting to take into account spiritual laws and neglecting them, but trying - on the other hand, to master them at will and blindly. This attempt costs Vasily Buslaev his life:

"...Vasily himself ran along the stone and jumped,

Along the stone he jumped backwards with his face -

And he touched the stone with his morocco boot,

I hit my head on the ground with cheese,

And then it began to end right there.

Dying, he punished the brothers:

"You tell my dear mother, brothers,

That Vasily wooed on Mount Tabor,

That he married that white-flammable pebble..."

* See A. Blok: “This Alatyr, Latyr or Alatr-stone, white, flammable, light, blue, silver, glows in the center of the mass of spells and has miraculous power. It lies on the Sea - Oksana, on the island of Buyan... " 4. The author was lucky enough to establish that in the image of the Alatyr stone, in epics, fairy tales, etc., the highest spheres of the spiritual world are reflected, reflected in the physical world in the form of a day or night luminary. “Buyan Island” is nothing more than the circle of the zodiac, reflecting in the physical world for some the lower spheres of the supersensible world (astral plane). "Sea - Ocean" is the celestial - cosmic expanse.

Thus, at the end of the fifth cultural period, reconciliation, mystical reunification, and marriage of man with the spiritual world takes place.

The later period of this culture found its true reflection in the image of Churila Plenkovic. On the one hand, in clashes with Kyiv peasants, he clearly displays the traits of violent daring, bringing him closer to Vasily Buslaev:

"...Then a crowd of peasants appeared,

All men are fishermen,

And everyone was beaten and wounded,

Heads are pierced with clubs,

The wild ones are tied with sashes*;

They bow to the prince, they worship,

They hit you with their foreheads and make a complaint:

"Hello, darling Prince Vladimir!

Grant us, sir, a righteous judgment,

Give Plenkovich's son to Chu rila...

This period of the latter’s activity dates back to the beginning of the fifth culture, marked by fights and battles also in the epics about Vasily Buslaev. The peasants complain to Prince Vladimir about Churila Plenkovich and his friends, who

"...They scared the white fish,

We caught pike and crucian carp,

The small fish was squeezed out..."

"...All the clear falcons were snatched away,

All the swan geese were caught,

All the gray ducks were shot..."

"...We caught a coon and a fox,

The black sable was squeezed out,

Turov, the deer were shot..."

* Then, in an equally deplorable form, “men-bird-catchers” and “men-hunters-catchers” appear with similar requests!

From the data of Occult Science it is known that the fifth culture is in a certain sense related to the third, Chaldean-Egyptian, whose representative in epics is Volga Vseslavich*. This kinship is unambiguously emphasized in the epics by the fact that the above “feats” of Churila Plenkovich exactly repeat those of Volga Vseslavich, who

"...Driven martens and foxes into a snare,

All sorts of wild animals and black sables;

There is no escape for either the bear or the wolf..."

"...I wrapped geese-swans in a net,

Gray ducks and little birds..."

"...I scared the fish out of their deep holes,

Wrapped a salmon fish, a white salmon,

Dear sturgeon fish,

He also took a puppy, a small piece of flesh..."

* Occult science does not share the view of some eastern schools, that the process of world formation is a “cycle of rhythmic repetitions, in the form of a constant return to starting points. - The internal connection between the future, present and past lies in the fact that impulses laid down in the form of tender shoots during one cultural period ascend, in the form mature fetus, in the corresponding related period.

From this diagram, indicating the sequence of cultural periods in the post-Atlantean era, the relationship of the third period with the fifth, the second with the sixth and the first with the seventh becomes clear. But in each of recent periods The sprouts laid in the first ones ripen. This is the passage of similar states, but at a higher level.

True, while Volga Vseslavich resorted to werewolf for this, turning into a “fierce beast”, then a “clear falcon”, then a “pike fish”, Churila Plenkovich used methods more appropriate to his cultural period, i.e. beating men and punching their heads.

But, on the other hand, it already partially shows the influence of the approaching next cultural period. Churila Plenkovich does not rebel against spiritual laws, like Vasily Buslaev; on the contrary, it strictly agrees with them:

"The sun in the sky is the sun in the mansion,

The stars in the sky are also the stars in the mansion.

A star will roll across the sky -

In the mansion, stars will fall; -

Everything is heavenly in the mansion..."

However, Churila Plenkovic has not yet risen high enough to finally find his spiritual self. He cannot even stay at the court of Prince Vladimir, but becomes only a herald of the coming cultural period, becoming an “affectionate barker” and inviting guests to “an honorable feast” to Prince Vladimir. - Thus, at the pass of the fifth cultural period, the spiritual world makes an appeal to the physical world.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT.
STAVR, NIGHTINGALE AND DUKE.

In the further normal course of evolution. The sixth post-Atlantean period marks the magnificent flowering of Slavic culture and represents in a known way, a revival at a higher level of the ancient Persian period, reflected in the person of Mikula Selyaninovich. The connection between these two periods is clearly indicated by the fact that the representative of the upcoming sixth cultural period, Staver Godinovich, is married to the daughter of Mikula Selyaninovich, Vasilisa Mikulichna. She has already been significantly transformed spiritually and highly developed intellectually:

"...As if the moon was bright in her forehead,

Along the braids there are frequent stars...

He will sell all of you, prince-boyars, and redeem them;

And it will drive you, Vladimir, crazy."

Thanks to this, she manages to save her husband from the cold dungeon, where Prince Vladimir imprisoned him for boasting.

(That’s not what another daughter of the same Mikula Selyaninovich, Nastasya Mikulichna, the wife of Dobrynya Nikitich, was like. She did not rise to the level of development of her sister, Vasilisa. Her husband himself, Dobrynya Nikitich, speaks of her with disdain:

"...I do not marvel at a woman's intelligence:

A woman's hair is long, her mind is short...

Despite Dobrynya Nikitich's request to marry anyone other than Alyosha Popovich in the event of his death, she still marries the latter. Her personality reflects the still unprocessed, atavistic offspring of the spirituality of the second cultural period; that is why she is unable to save Dobrynya Nikitichna from petrification).

The further flourishing of the sixth cultural period is reflected in the person of Solovy Budimirovich, a transformed and spiritualized hero, spreading great spiritual impulses throughout the world (Budimir). The direct path leads him to the court of Prince Vladimir, for the latter’s niece, Zabava Putyachnaya.

Nightingale Budimirovich builds a magical tower for her:

"...The sun in the sky is the sun in the mansion,

A month in the sky is a month in the mansion,

The stars in the sky are the stars in the mansion,

Dawns in the sky - dawns in the mansion too,

And all the beauty of heaven..."*

*See page 45

What was still inaccessible to other heroes, he succeeds without much difficulty. Solovey Budimirovich seeks the hand of Zabava Putyatichny. They

"...We got engaged with gold rings,

Were married with golden crowns..."

and then left together

"...To that green seaside,

Yes, to the glorious land of Vedenetsky."

Thus, the sixth - Slavic cultural period is called upon to embody a great spiritual ideal on earth.

The representative of the seventh post-Atlantean culture is Duke Stepanovich. According to the data of Occult Science, this culture has a certain relationship with the ancient Hindu one, as is clearly indicated by the first lines of the epic:

"...Like in that rich India...

It’s not feather grass that sways in the wind,

Not at all white birch dies-

son with dear mother says goodbye

Young boyar Duke Stepanovich

With the honest widow Mamelfa Timofeevna..."

One can get an idea of ​​the greatness and beauty of this cultural period, which, however, has a somewhat unique character, from the description of the extraordinary fabulous wealth that Duke Stepanovich has at his disposal. Being the mature fruit of all previous cultures, this period, which closes the cycle of the post-Atlantean era, no longer contains new principles for further spiritual development.

CONCLUSION

Thus, in the account of Occult Science the outlines of the grandiose problem of the universal humankind in general - and Russian in particular - of the spiritual Path contained in the epics are clearly outlined. The entire cycle of epics folds into one harmonious and majestic whole, in which each epic and each hero finds its proper place, in which all its component parts are in harmony both with each other and with the whole, further emphasizing the weakness of existing rational-materialistic theories and hypotheses. - Despite all the distortions that have penetrated into the text of the epics, despite all the diverse influences reflected in them, not only did the integrity of the spiritual worldview contained in them not suffer in its main features, but also the essential details were preserved, in most cases, in their correct answer: but this proves how deeply the people have become related to the inner being of epics, reflecting in picture form enduring spiritual realities. In this sense, the noticeable similarity of epic tales among different peoples becomes understandable; they all go through similar, to a certain extent, stages of spiritual development, which are captured in more or less similar forms, depending on characteristic properties the refracting consciousness inherent in a given people, and from the characteristics of its creative genius.

But the initial, basic process of creating epics, the composition of the entire epic epic, cannot at all be attributed to the people as a whole, as a certain collective. At the first stages of human development, when people still had a pictorial consciousness, the spiritual Teachers and leaders of mankind outlined the spiritual reality and patterns accessible to their direct contemplation in images and pictures that corresponded to the stage of general development and the nature of the consciousness of the masses; These teachings have deeply penetrated the masses of the people and have reached our time in the form of epics, legends, traditions, some apocrypha, fairy tales, etc. But other forms of knowledge are characteristic of our intellectual time; it is based not on pictorial descriptions, but on intellectual concepts; the spiritual world should be revealed to human consciousness not in picturesque and dramatic forms, but in the form of Spiritual Science.

This Spiritual Science, which opens to every person “the path of knowledge, striving to bring the spiritual in man to the spiritual in the universe 43, of which Occult Science is an integral part, was created by Dr. Rudolf Steiner. His works, covering the world, are currently known to a relatively small circle of his disciples and followers; but their number is constantly growing and will increase every year, as the masses penetrate into the understanding of the goals indicated by Rudolf Steiner 43, and as the sphere of spiritual quests, unsatisfied and unsatisfied by modern rational-materialism, deepens and expands in humanity. of us who think seriously about the meaning of current events, in particular the one that occupies the center of public attention tragic fate Russia, and, moreover, put at the forefront not the desire to express in one way or another their personal attitude to what is happening, but want to achieve its understanding - they can achieve this only with the help of the same source of light that so brightly illuminates the entire depth of spiritual wisdom inherent in Russian epics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. V. Avenarius. "Book of epics". Moscow. 1893.

2. V. Miller. "Essays on Russian folk literature." Moscow. 1897.

3. P. Rybnikov. "Russian folk songs". Moscow, 1861.

4. "History of Russian Literature", ed. E. Anichkova, A. Borozdina and D. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky. Moscow. 1908.

5. P. Polevoy. "History of Russian Literature". Moscow. 1900.

6. V. Miller. "Assyrian spells and Russian folk spells."

7. I. Porfiryev. "History of Russian Literature". Kazan. 1913.

8. P. Bezsonov. "Kaliki-walkers." Moscow. 1.861.

9. Oh Miller. "An experience of historical review of Russian folk literature." Moscow. 1897.

10. V. Khalansky. "Great Russian epics of the Kiev cycle." Warsaw. 1885.

11.F. Buslaev. "Russian Reader". Moscow. 1888.

12. A. Pypin. "History of Russian Literature". St. Petersburg. 1898.

13. O. Miller. "Ilya Muromets and the heroism of Kiev." St. Petersburg. 1869.

14. A. Afanasyev. "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature", Moscow. 1868.

16. V. Stasov. "The origin of Russian epics."

17. A. Brueckner. The spiritual development of Russia in the mirror of its epic. Tübingen. 1908.

18. A. Rimbaud. Russian epic. Paris. 1876.

19. A. Hilferding. "Onega epics". St. Petersburg. 1893.

20. A. von Reingold. "History of Russian Literature". Leipzig. 1886.

21. D. Shepping. "Our written sources O pagan gods Russian mythology". Voronezh. 1889.

22. "Russian folk epics;". St. Petersburg. 1883.

23. A. Kotlyarevsky. Essays. St. Petersburg. 1889.

24. F. Buslaev. "Russian Folk Poetry". St. Petersburg. 1861.

25. L. Vetukhov. "Conspiracy, spells, amulets and other types of folk healing based on faith in the power of words." Warsaw. 1907.

26. A. Veselovsky. "South Russian epics". St. Petersburg. 1881.

27. Kirsha Danilov. "Drsvnia Russian Poems", Moscow. 1878.

28. M. Speransky. "History of ancient Russian literature". Moscow. 1921.

29. B. Sokolov, “About epics recorded in the Saratov province.” Saratov. 1921.

30. A. Veselovsky. "Research in the field of Russian spiritual verse." St. Petersburg. 1889.

31. "Songs collected by P. Kireevsky." Moscow, 1868.

32. A. Veselovsky. Collected works. St. Petersburg. 1913.

33. "Epics" ed. A. Chudinova. St. Petersburg. 1893.

34. A. Galakhov. History of Russian literature.

35. G. Potanin. Eastern foundations of the Russian epic epic.

36. R. Steiner. Essay on occult science. Dornach. 1925. (Bible No. 13).

37. R. Steiner. Gospel of John. Dornach. 1928. (Bib. No. 103).

38. R. Steiner. World, Earth and Man. Dornach. 1930. (Bib. No. 105).

39. R. Steiner. Gospel of Mark. Dornach. 1930. (Bib. No. 139).

40. R. Steiner. Turning points of spiritual life. Dornach. 1927. (From the Bible Nos. 60 and 61).

41. R. Steiner. The Gospel of John in relation to the other three Gospels - especially the Gospel of Luke. Dornach. 1928. (Bib. No. 112).

42. R. Steiner. Egyptian myths and mysteries. Dornach. 1931".

43. Dr. K. Unger. "What is Anthroposophy?" Paris. 1932.

PUBLISHER'S AFTERWORD

Who is the author of this book? The title is D. Barlen. We are forced to limit ourselves to the initial because we do not know the full name. In Germany they say Dieter, but it is possible that the author’s real name is Dmitry. Because the book was published once, the only time in the 30s in Paris in Russian and, perhaps, its author is one of the many sons of Russia scattered around the world by fate or their descendant, who lost his physical homeland and there, in exile, found Russia as spiritual homeland. How did this happen? What was his path to spiritual science? We are sure that knowing this would be interesting and instructive for us.

Maybe over time we will find the answer to these questions. Perhaps with the help of our readers. And then, when republished, we will tell you more about the author. For now we publish it as it is. Despite the lack of complete information about the fate of the author and his book, despite the growing high cost of paper and printing services, and the poor quality of the copy we have. It cannot be reproduced as a reprint, but letterpress It is impossible to repeat the old spelling: the Linotype does not have the necessary characters.

But we mustn't hesitate. This book is needed today. Today, when the Russians are looking for Russia and when many of these searches, due to an inept approach, are being led into the past, turning into its prisoners. Captured by the past, they cannot understand the present and create the future. Our past is great and beautiful, but it cannot and should not become our future or replace it.

But it is also true that without knowing the past, we will not be able to correctly understand the present and the future. And on this path through true knowledge of our spiritual history into the future, Barlen’s book can provide us with invaluable help.

I.

Stasov, Vladimir Vasilievich

- son of Vasily Petrovich S., archaeologist and writer in the field of fine arts, b. in 1824. Completed a course at the Imperial School of Law. He served first in the survey department of the government Senate, then in the heraldry department and in consultation with the Ministry of Justice. Having retired in 1851, he went to foreign lands and until the spring of 1854 lived mainly in Florence and Rome. In 1856, he entered the service of the commission for collecting materials about the life and reign of Emperor Nicholas I, which was under the direction of Baron M. A. Korf, and wrote, based on authentic documents, several historical works, including research: “The young years of Emperor Nicholas I before his marriage”, “Review of the history of censorship during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I”, “Review of the activities of the III Department of His Majesty’s Own Chancellery during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I”, “History of the Emperor Ivan Antonovich and his family", "History of attempts to introduce the Gregorian calendar in Russia and in some Slavic lands" (compiled on the basis of data from the state archive and printed, by order of the Highest, only in a small number of copies not intended for circulation in the public). All these studies were written specifically for Emperor Alexander II and entered his personal library. Since 1863, S. was a member of the general presence of the II department of E.V.’s own chancellery for about 20 years. From 1856 to 1872 he took part in all work in the art department of the Imperial Public Library, and in the fall of 1872 he took up the position of librarian of this department. In the early 1860s, he was editor of the Izvestia of the Imperial Archaeological Society, as well as secretary of the ethnographic department of the Imperial Geographical Museum, which he established in collaboration with V. A. Prokhorov. On behalf of the Academy of Sciences, he wrote analyzes of the works of: D. A. Rovinsky “On the history of Russian engraving” (in 1858 and 1864), Archimandrite Macarius - on Novgorod antiquities (in 1861), S. A. Davydova - about the history and technology of Russian lace (in 1886), etc. Since 1847, he published articles in more than fifty Russian and foreign periodicals and published several essays as separate books. The most important of these articles and publications are: a) in archeology and ucmopui art-- "Vladimir Treasure" (1866), "Russian Folk Ornament" (1872), "The Jewish Tribe in the Creations of European Art" (1873), "Catacomb with Frescoes in Kerch" (1875), "Capitals of Europe" (1876), "Arc and the Gingerbread Horse" (1877), " Orthodox churches western Russia in the 16th century" (1880), "Notes on Old Russian clothing and weapons" (1882), "Twenty-five years of Russian art" (1882--83), "Brakes on Russian art" (1885), "Coptic and Ethiopian architecture" ( 1885), "Paintings and compositions hidden in capital letters ancient Russian manuscripts" (1884), "The Throne of the Khiva Khans" (1886), "Armenian manuscripts and their ornamentation" (1886); in addition, critical articles about the works of artists I. Repin, M. Antokolsky and V. Vereshchagin and the works of D. A. Rovinsky; b) biographies artists and artistic figures - K. Bryullov, A. A. Ivanova, Al. and Iv. Gornostaev, V. Hartman, I. Repin, V. Vereshchagin, V. Perov, I. Kramskoy, V. Schwartz, V. Sternberg, N. Bogomolov, V. Prokhorov, V. Vasnetsov, E. Polenova, as well as a champion of the domestic education by P. D. Larin; V) articles on literature studies and ethnography --“The Origin of Russian Epics” (1868), “The Oldest Tale in the World” (1868), “An Egyptian Fairy Tale in the Hermitage” (1882), “About Victor Hugo and His Significance for France” (1877), “About the Russians of Ibn Fadlan” (1881). In 1886, by order of the Highest, with funds from the state treasury, S. published an extensive collection of drawings under the title: “Slavic and Oriental Ornament Based on Manuscripts from the 4th to the 19th Century” - the result of thirty years of research in the main libraries and museums throughout Europe. He is currently preparing for publication an essay on Jewish ornament, with the appendix of an atlas of chromolithographed tables - a work based on drawings of Jewish manuscripts stored in the Imperial Public Library of the 10th-14th centuries. S.'s collected works were published in three volumes (St. Petersburg, 1894). In his numerous articles on Russian art, S., without touching upon the artistic technique of execution at all, always put the content and nationality of the works of art he examined in first place. His beliefs, although contested, were always sincere. IN Lately He especially tried to counteract with his articles the new trends in painting, which received the general name of decadence.

A.S.

In the history of Russian science, S.’s work on the origin of epics played a particularly important role. It appeared at a time when populist sentimentality or mystical and allegorical interpretations reigned in the study of the ancient Russian epic. Contrary to the opinion that epics represent an original national work, a repository of the most ancient folk legends, S. argued that our epics were entirely borrowed from the East and provide only a retelling of his epic works, poems and fairy tales, moreover, the retelling is incomplete, fragmentary, which is always the case with an inaccurate copy, the details of which can only be understood when compared with original; that the plots, although Aryan (Indian) in essence, came to us most often at second hand, from the Turkic peoples and in Buddhist adaptation; that the time of borrowing is rather later, around the era of the Tatars, and does not relate to centuries of long-standing trade relations with the East; that in terms of characters and depictions of personalities, Russian epics did not add anything independent and new to their foreign basis, and did not even reflect the social system of those eras to which, judging by proper names heroes, they relate; that between an epic and a fairy tale there is generally no difference that is assumed in them, seeing in the first a reflection of the historical fate of the people. This theory made a big splash in the scientific world and caused a lot of objections (among other things, A. Veselovsky in the “Journal of Min. Nar. Pr.”, 1868, N11; Buslaev in the “Report on the 12th Uvarov Awards” (St. Petersburg, 1870 ); Hilferding in the newspaper "Moscow"; I. Nekrasov in the "Act of the Novorossiysk University", 1869; Vsevolod Miller in "Conversations of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature" (issue 3, M., 1871), Orest Miller, etc.) and attacks that did not stop even before suspecting the author’s love for his native Russian. Not entirely accepted by science, S.'s theory, however, left deep and lasting traces in it. First of all, it moderated the fervor of mythologists, contributed to the elimination of sentimental and allegorical theories, and generally caused a revision of all previous interpretations of our ancient epic - a revision, and now not completed. On the other hand, she outlined a new fruitful path for historical and literary studies, a path based on the fact of communication between peoples in the matter of poetic creativity. Some of S.'s particular conclusions and instructions (about the fragmentary nature of the presentation, the lack of motivation in some epics borrowed from someone else's source; about the impossibility of considering the class characteristics of various epic heroes as historically accurate, etc.) were confirmed by subsequent researchers. Finally, the idea of ​​the eastern origin of some of our epic plots was again expressed by G. N. Potanin and systematically pursued, albeit with a completely different apparatus, by V. F. Miller. An enemy of all false patriotism, S. in his literary works acts as an ardent fighter for the national element, in the best sense of the word, constantly and persistently points out where Russian art can find Russian content and convey it not in an imitative, alien, but in an original national manner . Hence the predominance of critical and polemical elements in his works. S.'s musical and critical activity, which began in 1847 ("Musical Review" in "Notes of the Fatherland"), spans more than half a century and is a living and vivid reflection of the history of our music during this period of time. Having begun in a dark and sad time of Russian life in general and Russian art in particular, it continued in the era of awakening and a remarkable rise in artistic creativity, the formation of a young Russian music school, its struggle with routine and its gradual recognition not only in Russia, but also in West. In countless magazine and newspaper articles [Articles up to 1886 were published in the “Collected Works” of S. (vol. III, “Music and Theater”, St. Petersburg, 1894); for a list of articles published after (incomplete and reaching only up to 1895), see the "Musical Almanac Calendar" for 1895, ed. "Russian Musical Newspaper" (St. Petersburg, 1895, p. 73).] S. responded to every somewhat remarkable event in the life of our new music school, passionately and confidently interpreting the meaning of new works, fiercely repelling attacks from opponents of the new direction. Not being a real specialist musician (composer or theorist), but having received a general musical education, which he expanded and deepened with independent studies and acquaintance with outstanding works Western art (not only new, but also old - old Italians, Bach, etc.), S. went little into a specifically technical analysis of the formal side of the musical works being analyzed, but with all the greater fervor he defended their aesthetic and historical significance. Guided by a fiery love for his native art and its best workers, a natural critical instinct, a clear awareness of the historical necessity of a national art direction and an unshakable faith in its ultimate triumph, S. could sometimes go too far in expressing his enthusiastic passion, but comparatively rarely made a mistake in overall assessment everything significant, talented and original. With this, he connected his name with the history of our national music in the second half of the 19th century. In terms of sincerity of conviction, selfless enthusiasm, fervor of presentation and feverish energy, S. stands completely apart not only among our music critics, but also among European ones. In this respect, he partly resembles Belinsky, leaving aside, of course, any comparison of their literary talents and significance. S.'s great merit to Russian art should be given to his unnoticeable work as a friend and adviser to our composers [Starting with Serov, whose friend S. was for a long number of years, and ending with representatives of the young Russian school - Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, Glazunov, etc.], who discussed with them their artistic intentions, details of the script and libretto, fussed over their personal matters and contributed to the perpetuation of their memory after their death (a biography of Glinka, the only one we have for a long time, biographies of Mussorgsky and our other composers, the publication of their letters, various memoirs and biographical materials, etc.). S. did a lot as a historian of music (Russian and European). European art his articles and brochures are devoted to: "L"abb I Santini et sa collection musicale 1 Rome" (Florence, 1854; Russian translation in the "Library for Reading", 1852), a lengthy description of the autographs of foreign musicians belonging to the Imperial Public Library ( "Domestic Notes", 1856), "Liszt, Schumann and Berlioz in Russia" ("Northern Bulletin", 1889, NN 7 and 8; extracted from here "Liszt in Russia" was published with some additions in the "Russian Musical Newspaper" "1896, NN 8--9), "Letters of a Great Man" (Fr. Liszt, "Northern Bulletin", 1893), " New biography Liszt" ("Northern Bulletin", 1894), etc. Articles on the history of Russian music: "What is beautiful demesne singing" ("News of the Imperial Archaeological Society", 1863, vol. V), description of Glinka's manuscripts (" Report of the Imperial Public Library for 1857", a number of articles in Volume III of his works, including: "Our music for the last 25 years" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1883, N10), "Brakes of Russian art" (there same, 1885, NN 5--6) and others; biographical sketch "N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov" ("Northern Bulletin", 1899, N12), "German organs among Russian amateurs" ("Historical Bulletin", 1890, N11), "In memory of M. I. Glinka" ("Historical Bulletin", 1892 , No. 11 and seq.), "Ruslan and Lyudmila" by M. I. Glinka, for the 50th anniversary of the opera" ("Yearbook of the Imperial Theaters" 1891--92 and seq.), "Glinka's Assistant" (Baron F. A Rahl; "Russian Antiquity", 1893, No. 11; about him, "Yearbook of the Imperial Theatres", 1892-93), biographical sketch of C. A. Cui ("Artist", 1894, No. 2); biographical sketch of M. A. Belyaev ("Russian Musical Newspaper", 1895, No. 2), "Russian and foreign operas performed at the Imperial Theaters in Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries" ("Russian Musical Newspaper", 1898, No. 1, 2, 3, etc.), “Work attributed to Bortnyansky” (project for printing hook singing; in “Russian Musical Newspaper”, 1900, No. 47), etc. S.’s editions of letters from Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, Serov are important , Borodin, Mussorgsky, Prince Odoevsky, Liszt, etc. The collection of materials for the history of Russian church singing, compiled by S. in the late 50s, is also very valuable. and transferred by him to the famous musical archaeologist D.V. Razumovsky, who used it for his major work on church singing in Russia. S. cared a lot about the department of musical autographs of the Public Library, where he donated many different manuscripts of our and foreign composers. See "Russian Musical Newspaper", 1895, NN9 and 10: F., "V.V.S. Essay on his life and work as a musical writer."

WITH. Bulich.

Text source: Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron .

II.

Stasov Vladimir Vasilievich

-- art and literary historian, musical and art critic and archaeologist. Son of the famous architect V.P. Stasov. He completed a course at the Imperial School of Law. S.'s scientific and critical activities are very diverse (Russian history, folklore, art history). S.'s main historical and literary work - "The Origin of Russian Epics" - caused great controversy in scientific circles. In it, S., relying on Benfey’s theory, developed the idea that Russian epics do not have anything truly Russian in them and are a transfer of eastern (Indian, etc.) themes and motifs to Russian soil through the mediation of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples. The main goal of the work, as the author himself indicated, is the fight against the Slavophile interpretation of the images of epic heroes as embodiments of the truly Russian folk soul. The work caused fierce attacks on the author (Hilferding, O. Miller, Bessonov, etc.). But S.’s point of view found support from V.F. Miller and especially from G.N. Potanin. S. really overestimated the importance of eastern motifs in epics, often allowing superficial and schematic similarities between Russian works and eastern ones. However, his work at one time played a major role in destroying the Slavophil interpretation of Russian folklore, showing the need to take into account international connections when studying the history of Russian oral poetry. In numerous critical articles covering the field of music, theater, painting and literature, S. always put the ideological content and truthfulness of the work in the first place. An enemy of all external effects, S. considered the artist’s main task to recreate “those characters, types, events of daily life that Gogol was the first to teach to see and create.” In accordance with this, S. was the leading exponent of the artistic ideology of the “new Russian musical school,” which he nicknamed the “mighty handful,” whose creative practice contained elements of populism and realism. In the field of painting, S. was an ardent defender of Wandering. In literature, S. rated Tolstoy highly and severely criticized the early Turgenev for “the lukewarm water of meekness and humility,” although he mistakenly rated his subsequent works, in particular Nov, very highly. A supporter of the national originality of Russian art, S., although he was alien to the reactionary Slavophil interpretation of originality, was, however, at the same time hostile to its revolutionary-democratic understanding. Therefore, Stasov could not understand the true nature of Russian folk epic poetry.

Bibliography:

I. Collected works, vol. I--IV, St. Petersburg, 1894--1901; Selected Works in two volumes, ed. "Art", vol. I, M. - L., 1937. II. Vl. Karenin, Vladimir Stasov. Essay on his life and work, parts 1 and 2, ed. "Thought", L., 1927; Leo Tolstoy and V.V. Stasov. Correspondence. 1878--1906. Ed. and notes by V. D. Komarova and L. B. Modzalevsky, ed. "Surf", L., 1929.

N.L.

Text source: Literary encyclopedia: In 11 volumes - [M.], 1929--1939. T. 11. - M.: Khudozh. lit.,1939 . - Stb. 15--16. Original here: http://feb-web.ru/feb/litenc/encyclop/leb/leb-0151.htm

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They remain unattached to the Vladimirov cycle, but resemble its heroes Surovets-Suzdalets and Saur Levanidovich.

Surovets sometimes called Suzdalets. The epics about him remind us of the epics about Mikhail Kazarin. At the beginning there is a common wandering motif about a meeting with a wonderful animal (raven), which in a human voice indicates how to gain fame and prey; then comes the victory over the Tatars. Veselovsky takes Surovets out of the Crimean Surozh-Sudak. Sun. Miller is inclined to see in it echoes of historical memories of Suzdal. In addition to Surovets-Suzdalets, the epics mention the “Suzdal brothers”, in which Vs. Miller sees princes Yuri Dolgoruky and Yaroslav the Wise.

Saur Levanidovich (v. Saul), father of Surovets. The name Saur is apparently of Turkic origin and means "bull". The main plot of the epics about Saur is his fight with Surovets, which is one of the many options about the fight between father and son, attached to very different names and, by the way, to the Persian Rustem and our Ilya.

The Novgorod cycle consists of epics about Sadka and Vaska Buslaev.

The origin of Sadko's image is apparently quite complex. In the Novgorod Chronicle under 1167. mentions the founding of the Church of Boris and Gleb by a person named Sedko Sytinich. It is difficult, however, to establish whether this Sedko has anything to do with the epic. Veselovsky points out that the novel “Tristan et Geonois” tells about the nephew of Joseph of Arimathea, Zadok, who during a storm was thrown by lot into the sea, escaped and spent three years on an island with a hermit. Veselovsky explains this similarity by the existence of some Jewish story, which formed the basis of both the epic and the French novel. Stasov points out a number of parallels in eastern legends. They note the similarity of some motifs in the epics about Sadok with the Finnish myth about the water deity; There are some similarities between the epics about Sadok and the Little Russian Duma about Oleksiy Popovich. All this indicates the presence of wandering motifs in the epics, but next to them there are a lot of everyday features of old Novgorod, and in this sense the historicity of the epics is undoubted.

Vasily Buslaevich . There are even more everyday Novgorod features in the image of Vaska Buslaev, the most real and typical figure of the Russian epic. The sources of this image, however, are also heterogeneous. The content of epics about Vaska Buslaev comes down to two plots:

Zhdanov notes, on the one hand, mentions in the chronicle of the name of Vasily Buslaevich, on the other hand, parallels to the epics about Vaska in the tales of Robert the Devil. The similarity between Vaska and Robert, however, is quite distant and hardly allows us to establish a genetic connection between these images.

Buslaev, "Epic Poetry" ("Hist. Pt.", I);

Buslaev, “Traces of the Russian heroic epic in the mythical legends of the Indo-European peoples” (“Philological Notes”, 1862, issues 2 - 3);

Buslaev, "Russian heroic epic" ("Russian Bulletin", 1862, 3, 9, 10);

L. Maikov, “On the epics of the Vladimir cycle” (1862);

Stasov, "The origin of Russian epics" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1868 and " Complete collection essays");

A. Veselovsky, “On the comparative study of the Russian epic” (Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1868, II);

O. Miller, “Ilya Muromets and the heroism of Kiev” (1869);

Buslaev and Schifner, "Report on the 12th Uvar Prize" (about Stasov's book);

Kvashnin-Samarin,"Russian epics in historical and geographical terms" ("Conversation", 1871, 4 - 5);

Potanin, "The Mongolian legend about Geser Khan" ("Bulletin of Europe", 90, No. 9);

him,"Stavr Godinovich Geser" ("Ethnographic Review", 1891, No. 3);

Veselovsky, “Kaliki travelers and Bogomil wanderers” (“Bulletin of Europe”, 1872, No. 4);

Buslaev, "Analysis of Miller's book" (in the "Report on the 14th Prix. Uvar. Prize");

Kirpichnikov, "The experience of comparative study of Western and Russian epics. Poems of the Lombard cycle";

Veselovsky, "Excerpts of the Byzantine epic in Russian" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1875, No. 4);

Petrov, “Traces of the Northern Russian epic in Southern Russian folk literature” (Proceedings of the Kyiv Theological Academy, 1878, No. 5);

Or. Miller, “On Great Russian epics and Little Russian thoughts” (“Proceedings of the III Archaeological Congress”);

Dashkevich, “On the question of the origin of Russian epics” (Kyiv University News, 1883, No. 3 - 5);

Zhdanov, "TO literary history Russian epic poetry";

Sumtsov, “An experience in explaining the Little Russian song about Zhuril” (“Kyiv Starina”, 1885, July); Sozonovich, “Songs about a warrior girl and epics about Stavr” (Warsaw, 1886);

Veselovsky, “Small notes about epics” (Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1889, No. 5);

Sobolevsky, “On the history of Russian epics” (Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1884, No. 7);

Khalansky, "Great Russian epics of the Vladimir cycle" (1885);

Sun. Miller, "Excursions into the field of Russian epic" (1892);

Khalansky,"South Slavic tales about Mark Kralevich in connection with the works of the Russian epic epic";

Dashkevich, "Analysis of Miller's Excursions" (in the "Report on the 34th edition of the Uvar. Prize");

Sun. Miller,"Essays on Russian folk literature" (volume I, 1897);

Zhdanov, "Russian epic epic" (1895); Khalansky, “On the history of poetic tales about Oleg the Prophet” (Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1902, No. 8, and 1903, No. 10);

Box, "Tales about the tracts of the Ovruch district and epics about the Volga" ("News of the Department of Russian Language and Literature", volume XIII, book 2);

Chambinago, “Ancient stories about Svyatogor and a poem about Kalevipoega” (Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1902, No. 1);

Markov, "Everyday features of Russian epics" ("Russian Thought", 1904); his, “From the history of the Russian epic” (“Ethnographic Review”, 1904, No. 2 - 3; 1905, No. 4);

Veselovsky, “Russians and Viltins in the saga of Thidrek Bernsky” (News of the Russian Language Department, volume XI, 3);

Yakub, "To the epic about Sukhman" ("Ethnographic Review", 1904, No. 1); his, “Towards the epic about Mikhail Kazarin” (“Ethnographic Review”, 1905, No. 2 and 3);

Sun. Miller,"Essays on Russian folk literature" (volume II, 1910). For detailed indications of Veselovsky’s articles in which he deals with epics, see the index to his works. Review of the study of epics in Loboda's book "Russian heroic epic" (Kyiv, 1896). - Marthe, "Die russische Heldensage" (1865);

Bistrom, "Das russische Volksepos" ("Zeitschr. fur Phychol.", 1867 - 68);

Ralson, "The Songs of the Russian people" (1873);

Jagic, "Die christlich-mythologische Schicht in dem russische Volksepos" ("Archiv fur sl. Phil.", 1875, 1);

Rambo, "La Russie epique" (1876);

Wollner, "Untersuchungen uber die Volksepik der Grossrussen" (1879);

Veselovsky, "Analysis of Wollner's book" (in "Rssische Revue", 1882);

Damberg, "Versuch einer Geschichte der rus. Heldensage" (Helsingfors, 1886).

See also articles:

Alesha Popovich;
Vasily Buslaevich;
Volga Svyatoslavovich;
Danilo Lovchanin;
Nikitich;
Danube (Don);
Duke Stepanovich;
Ivan Godinovich;
Ilya Muromets;
Mikula Selyaninovich;
Mikhailo Kozarinov;
Mikhailo Potyk;
Sadko;
Saur Vanidovich;
Svyatogor;
Solovey Budimirovich;
Stavr Godinovich;
Surovets (Surog, Suroven);
Sukhman (Sukhan);
Hoten Bludovic;
Churilo Plenkovic.

© KOLIBRI Studio, 1998, Internet version 1999
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Writers' concepts of the language of folk songs are much more erroneous. This is such a mixture of all sorts of things that no one has ever thought to correct them. Our songs are new, we have no old ones - here general opinion. Is this fair? What is it based on? Where is the evidence of their renewal? Where are the indications of their news phenomenon? None of the Russians thought about this. It seems, at first glance, that it is so easy to figure out that it shows itself; but this will only be good for desk work, where experienced judgments that require verification are not needed. Incredible, incredible work lies ahead for those who would like to judge from the language of folk songs the time of their composition. To do this, you need to have an understanding of the state of the Russian language in different centuries; you need to know Russian regional dialects in detail,

Every writer considers it necessary to say something about the language of folk songs, but all these stories ended with general expressions - the old is gone, everything is newly composed. All mistakes have occurred and will continue to occur due to ignorance of regional dialects. Folk songs in language belong to the Moscow regional dialect, colloquial... .

I.I. Sreznevsky

Work and opinions of N.V. Berg regarding folk songs // IORYAS. T. IV. Vol. 7. 1855

It would be in vain to talk about the literary, historical and philological importance of folk songs, these, so to speak, natural works of literature, composed among the people without the help of literacy and the educational rules of rhetoric and literature, appreciated by the people's feelings without the help of learned critics, and yet sometimes reaching to such a degree of artistry that a work of literary art can never reach. Recognition of the importance of folk songs expresses the successes of science of our time to the same extent as recognition of the need to study language only as a natural product and use it only according to the laws of its nature, and not according to the rules of arbitrarily invented theories.

...There is, by the way, folk songs, in lists from the 10th to 13th centuries, which clearly confirm the degree of deviation of the modern vernacular language from the language spoken 900 and 500 years ago.

All Slavs have their own language of songs, modern language that those remnants of the ancient language that were noticed in the songs do not belong exclusively to the language of the songs...

From this, of course, it still cannot be concluded that all the current songs of the Slavs, without any exception, were originally composed already at a time when the language of the people was in its present position: a song, perhaps composed even in antiquity, could little by little change in relation to the language . But if we allow modifications in the language of the song, then why not admit that its content was modified to the same extent by various omissions and insertions? And having admitted this, we cannot look at a single song from among those that are now preserved in the people's memory, as a monument of antiquity or even antiquity, in no way changed by time.

Nevertheless, it is true that folk songs were and are composed by individuals, and among the people they are only being settled and rearranged... A song is folk only because the only personality depicted in it is the people themselves, their poetic mood, their poetic customs, etc. P. .

A. Grigoriev

Russian folk songs from their poetic and musical side // Otechestvennye zapiski. 1860. T. 129, March

One song leads to another, somehow fits in with another, somehow vegetatively clings to another: one word in one song brings to mind new song, some general epic forms connect several dissimilar songs: in the same way, motives, apparently completely different, flow one after another, completely separate, and yet connected with each other by a common plant life.

...A song is not only a plant, a song is the very soil on which it lies layer by layer, removing layers, comparing options, sometimes in a new song you can get to the first, pure layers. There are songs, also about something completely new, often even absurd to the point of disgrace, but their melody is developed with such completeness, with such richness and power that the thought involuntarily comes to mind whether a new layer of text has been laid here on top of the old one: who is looking for only older songs, he will turn away from such text with contempt and will be wrong. Our song has not been archived: it still lives among the people, it is created according to the old laws of their original creativity, a new feeling, new content sometimes fits into ready-made, ordinary, old forms, the old does not die, it lives and continues in the new, sometimes it remains completely untouched, sometimes it grows, sometimes, perhaps, distorted, but in any case it lives.

A.A. Afanasiev

Regarding the VI edition of the ethnographic collection // Book Bulletin. St. Petersburg, 1865

Folk riddles have preserved for us fragments of an ancient metaphorical language. The whole difficulty and the whole essence of the riddle lies precisely in the fact that it tries to depict one object through the medium of another, in some way analogous to the first. The apparent meaninglessness of many riddles surprises us only because we do not comprehend that the people could find similarities between various objects, apparently so different from each other; but as soon as we understand this similarity caught by the people, there will be neither strangeness nor nonsense.

Vlad. Stasov

The origin of Russian epics // Bulletin of Europe. 1868. T. IV. Book 7

The Russian folk language, as we know, contains many features that give it extraordinary picturesqueness and unique coloring, and at the same time extraordinary strength and softness. The same features belong to the language of our epics, and, one might say, here they received even more development, variety and prominence, since nowhere have they encountered such frequent and extensive use.

All these peculiar features of the language of epics<…>contain so many features that, in combination with the original versification of epics and the ever-present accuracy, strength, imagery and humor of Russian expression, they give the epics a completely exceptional, original physiognomy.

P. Glagolevsky

Syntax of the language of Russian proverbs. St. Petersburg, 1873

Grammar not only could and should learn a lot from proverbs, but it should be based on them, in many parts, again revised.

(V.I. Dal, Proverbs of the Russian people. Naputnoe, p. XXVIII)

Proverbs were created, passed on from generation to generation and are still preserved almost exclusively among simple people who have not yet experienced the influence of European education. As for the educated class, then, in the words of Mr. Dahl, it “has no proverbs; we come across only weak, crippled echoes of them, transferred to our morals, or corrupted by a language other than Russian, and bad translations from foreign languages” (Naputn., to Proverbs of the Russian People, V). Moreover, it is certain that most of proverbs appeared at a time when the so-called educated class had not yet been distinguished from the people and when all the people spoke the same language. Therefore, the language of proverbs can rightly be called a language in the narrow sense folk But if we compare the folk language of proverbs with the language of other works of folk art, such as epics, fairy tales, songs, etc., it turns out that the former differs significantly from the latter in one important feature. A distinctive feature of the language of proverbs is a special love for elliptical expressions. Proverbs were always born and lived in living, colloquial speech: they were not invented, not composed, but burst out of the mouth as if involuntarily, by chance, in the heat of a lively, fascinating conversation. In live, conversational speech, many words are often left unsaid, replaced by tone of voice, facial expression and body movement. Therefore, the language of Russian proverbs represents all the features colloquial language of the Russian people.