Dictionary East Slavic folklore gives. Folk art

It was bad with evil spirits in Russia. So many bogatyrs have recently divorced that the number of Gorynychs has plummeted. Only once flashed a ray of hope to Ivan: an elderly peasant who called himself Susanin promised to lead him to the very lair of Likha One-Eyed ... But he stumbled only on a rickety ancient hut with broken windows and a broken door. On the wall was scrawled: “Checked. Leech is not. Bogatyr Popovich.

Sergey Lukyanenko, Yuly Burkin, Ostrov Rus

"Slavic monsters" - you must admit, it sounds wild. Mermaids, goblin, mermen - they are all familiar to us from childhood and make us remember fairy tales. That is why the fauna of "Slavic fantasy" is still undeservedly considered something naive, frivolous and even slightly stupid. Now, when it comes to magical monsters, we often think of zombies or dragons, although in our mythology there are such ancient creatures, compared with which Lovecraft's monsters may seem like petty dirty tricks.

The inhabitants of the Slavic pagan legends are not a joyful brownie Kuzya or a sentimental monster with a scarlet flower. Our ancestors seriously believed in the evil spirits that we now consider worthy only of children's horror stories.

Almost no original source describing fictional creatures from Slavic mythology has survived to our time. Something was covered with the darkness of history, something was destroyed during the baptism of Russia. What do we have, besides vague, contradictory and often dissimilar legends of different Slavic peoples? A few references in the works of the Danish historian Saxo Grammar (1150-1220) - times. "Chronica Slavorum" by the German historian Helmold (1125-1177) - two. And finally, we should recall the collection "Veda Slovena" - a compilation of ancient Bulgarian ritual songs, from which one can also draw conclusions about the pagan beliefs of the ancient Slavs. The objectivity of church sources and annals, for obvious reasons, is in great doubt.

Book of Veles

The "Book of Veles" ("Book of Veles", Isenbek's tablets) has long been passed off as a unique monument of ancient Slavic mythology and history, dating from the period of the 7th century BC - 9th century AD.

Her text was allegedly carved (or burned) on small wooden planks, some of the "pages" were partially rotted. According to legend, the “Book of Veles” was discovered in 1919 near Kharkov by a white colonel Fyodor Izenbek, who took it to Brussels and handed it over to the Slavist Mirolubov for study. He made several copies, and in August 1941, during the German offensive, the plates were lost. Versions were put forward that they were hidden by the Nazis in the “archive of the Aryan past” under Annenerb, or taken out after the war to the USA).

Alas, the authenticity of the book initially caused great doubts, and recently it was finally proved that the entire text of the book is a falsification made in the middle of the 20th century. The language of this fake is a mixture of different Slavic dialects. Despite the exposure, some writers still use the "Book of Veles" as a source of knowledge.

The only available image of one of the boards of the "Book of Veles", beginning with the words "We dedicate this book to Veles."

The history of Slavic fairy-tale creatures may be the envy of another European monster. The age of pagan legends is impressive: according to some estimates, it reaches 3000 years, and its roots go back to the Neolithic or even the Mesolithic - that is, about 9000 BC.

There was no common Slavic fairy-tale "menagerie" - in different places they spoke about completely different creatures. The Slavs did not have sea or mountain monsters, but forest and river evil spirits were abundant. There was no megalomania either: our ancestors very rarely thought about evil giants like the Greek Cyclopes or the Scandinavian Etuns. Some wonderful creatures appeared among the Slavs relatively late, during the period of their Christianization - most often they were borrowed from Greek legends and introduced into national mythology, thus creating a bizarre mixture of beliefs.

Alkonost

According to the ancient Greek myth, Alcyone, the wife of the Thessalian king Keikos, having learned about the death of her husband, threw herself into the sea and was turned into a bird, named after her alcyone (kingfisher). The word "Alkonost" entered the Russian language as a result of a distortion of the old saying "Alcyone is a bird."

Slavic Alkonost is a bird of paradise with a surprisingly sweet, euphonious voice. She lays her eggs on the seashore, then plunges them into the sea - and the waves calm down for a week. When the chicks hatch from the eggs, a storm begins. In the Orthodox tradition, Alkonost is considered a divine messenger - she lives in heaven and descends to convey the highest will to people.

Asp

A winged snake with two trunks and a bird's beak. He lives high in the mountains and periodically makes devastating raids on villages. It gravitates towards rocks so much that it cannot even sit on damp ground - only on a stone. Asp is invulnerable to conventional weapons, it cannot be killed with a sword or arrow, but can only be burned. The name comes from the Greek aspis, a poisonous snake.

Auka

A kind of mischievous forest spirit, small, pot-bellied, with round cheeks. He does not sleep either in winter or in summer. He likes to fool people in the forest, responding to their cry "Ay!" from all sides. Leads travelers into a dense thicket and throws them there.

Baba Yaga

Slavic witch, popular folklore character. Usually depicted as a nasty old woman with disheveled hair, a hooked nose, a "bone leg", long claws, and several teeth in her mouth. Baba Yaga is an ambiguous character. Most often, she performs the functions of a pest, with pronounced inclinations towards cannibalism, however, on occasion, this witch can voluntarily help a brave hero by questioning him, steaming in a bathhouse and bestowing magical gifts (or providing valuable information).

It is known that Baba Yaga lives in a dense forest. There stands her hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a palisade of human bones and skulls. It was sometimes said that instead of constipation, there were hands on the gate to Yagi's house, and a small toothy mouth served as a keyhole. The house of Baba Yaga is enchanted - you can only enter it by saying: "Hut-hut, turn your front to me, and back to the forest."
Like Western European witches, Baba Yaga can fly. To do this, she needs a large wooden mortar and a magic broom. With Baba Yaga, you can often meet animals (familiars): a black cat or a crow helping her in witchcraft.

The origin of the Baba Yaga estate is unclear. Perhaps it came from the Turkic languages, perhaps it was formed from the old Serbian "ega" - a disease.

Baba Yaga, bone leg. A witch, an ogre, and the first woman pilot. Paintings by Viktor Vasnetsov and Ivan Bilibin.

Hut on kurnogs

A forest hut on chicken legs, where there are no windows or doors, is not fiction. This is how the hunters of the Urals, Siberia and the Finno-Ugric tribes built temporary dwellings. Houses with blank walls and an entrance through a hatch in the floor, raised 2-3 meters above the ground, protected both from rodents hungry for supplies and from large predators. Siberian pagans kept stone idols in similar structures. It can be assumed that the figurine of some female deity, placed in a small house “on chicken legs”, gave rise to the myth of Baba Yaga, who hardly fits in her house: her legs are in one corner, her head is in another, and her nose rests into the ceiling.

Bannik

The spirit living in the baths was usually represented as a little old man with a long beard. Like all Slavic spirits, mischievous. If people in the bath slip, get burned, faint from the heat, scald with boiling water, hear the crackling of stones in the oven or knocking on the wall - all these are the tricks of the bannik.

In a big way, a bannik rarely harms, only when people behave incorrectly (wash themselves on holidays or late at night). Most of the time he helps them. Among the Slavs, the bath was associated with mystical, life-giving forces - they often took birth or guessed here (it was believed that the bannik could predict the future).

Like other spirits, the bannik was fed - they left him black bread with salt or buried a strangled black chicken under the threshold of the bath. There was also a female variety of a bannik - a bannitsa, or obderiha. Shishiga also lived in the baths - an evil spirit that appears only to those who go to the bath without praying. Shishiga takes the form of a friend or relative, calls a person to bathe with her and can steam to death.

Bash Celik (Man of Steel)

A popular character in Serbian folklore, a demon or evil sorcerer. According to legend, the king bequeathed to his three sons to give their sisters to the one who first asks for their hand. One night, someone with a thunderous voice came to the palace and demanded the younger princess as his wife. The sons fulfilled the will of their father, and soon lost their middle and older sisters in this way.

Soon the brothers came to their senses and went in search of them. The younger brother met a beautiful princess and took her as his wife. Looking out of curiosity into the forbidden room, the prince saw a man in chains. He introduced himself as Bash Chelik and asked for three glasses of water. The naive young man gave the stranger a drink, he regained his strength, broke the chains, released his wings, grabbed the princess and flew away. Saddened, the prince went in search. He found out that the thunderous voices that his sisters demanded as wives belonged to the lords of dragons, falcons and eagles. They agreed to help him, and together they defeated the evil Bash Chelik.

This is how Bash Celik looks like in the view of V. Tauber.

Ghouls

The living dead rising from their graves. Like any other vampires, ghouls drink blood and can devastate entire villages. First of all, they kill relatives and friends.

Gamayun

Like Alkonost, a divine bird woman whose main function is the fulfillment of predictions. The proverb “Gamayun is a prophetic bird” is well known. She also knew how to control the weather. It was believed that when Gamayun flies from the direction of sunrise, a storm comes after her.

Gamayun-Gamayun, how long do I have left to live? - Ku. - Why so ma ...?

Divya people

Demihumans with one eye, one leg and one arm. To move, they had to fold in half. They live somewhere on the edge of the world, multiply artificially, forging their own kind from iron. The smoke of their forges carries with it pestilence, smallpox and fevers.

Brownie

In the most generalized view - a domestic spirit, the patron of the hearth, a little old man with a beard (or all covered with hair). It was believed that every house has its own brownie. In the houses they were rarely called "brownies", preferring the affectionate "grandfather".

If people established normal relations with him, fed him (left a saucer of milk, bread and salt on the floor) and considered him a member of their family, then the brownie helped them do minor housework, watched the cattle, guarded the household, warned of danger.

On the other hand, an angry brownie could be very dangerous - at night he pinched people to bruises, strangled them, killed horses and cows, made noise, broke dishes and even set fire to the house. It was believed that the brownie lived behind the stove or in the stable.

Drekavak (drekavac)

A half-forgotten creature from the folklore of the southern Slavs. Its exact description does not exist - some consider it an animal, others a bird, and in central Serbia there is a belief that the drekavak is the soul of a dead unbaptized baby. They only agree on one thing - the drekavak can scream terribly.

Usually drekavak is the hero of children's horror stories, but in remote areas (for example, mountainous Zlatibor in Serbia), even adults believe in this creature. Residents of the village of Tometino Polie from time to time report strange attacks on their livestock - it is difficult to determine what kind of predator it was by the nature of the injuries. The villagers claim to have heard eerie screams, so the drekavak must have been involved.

Firebird

An image familiar to us from childhood, a beautiful bird with bright, dazzling fiery feathers (“like the heat burns”). The traditional test for fairy-tale heroes is to get a feather from the tail of this feathered one. For the Slavs, the firebird was more of a metaphor than a real being. She personified fire, light, the sun, perhaps knowledge. Its closest relative is the medieval Phoenix bird, known both in the West and in Russia.

It is impossible not to recall such an inhabitant of Slavic mythology as the Rarog bird (probably distorted from Svarog - the blacksmith god). The fiery falcon, which may also look like a whirlwind of flame, Rarog is depicted on the coat of arms of the Rurikids (“Rarogs” in German) - the first dynasty of Russian rulers. The highly stylized diving Rarog eventually began to look like a trident - this is how the modern coat of arms of Ukraine appeared.

Kikimora (shishimora, mara)

An evil spirit (sometimes the brownie's wife), appearing in the form of a little ugly old woman. If a kikimora lives in a house behind a stove or in an attic, then he constantly harms people: he makes noise, knocks on walls, interferes with sleep, tears yarn, breaks dishes, poisons livestock. It was sometimes believed that infants who died without baptism became kikimora, or evil carpenters or stove-makers could let the kikimora into the house under construction. Kikimora, living in a swamp or in a forest, does much less harm - basically it only frightens stray travelers.

Koschei the Immortal (Kashchei)

One of the old Slavic negative characters well known to us, usually represented as a thin, skeletal old man with a repulsive appearance. Aggressive, vindictive, greedy and stingy. It is difficult to say whether he was the personification of the external enemies of the Slavs, an evil spirit, a powerful wizard, or a unique kind of undead.

It is indisputable that Koschey owned very strong magic, shunned people and often did the favorite thing for all the villains in the world - he kidnapped girls. In Russian science fiction, the image of Koshchei is quite popular, and he is presented in different ways: in a comic light (“Island of Rus” by Lukyanenko and Burkin), or, for example, as a cyborg (“The Fate of Koshchei in the Cyberozoic Era” by Alexander Tyurin).

Koshchei's "trademark" feature was immortality, and far from being absolute. As we all probably remember, on the magical island of Buyan (capable of suddenly disappearing and appearing in front of travelers) there is a large old oak tree on which a chest hangs. There is a hare in the chest, a duck in the hare, an egg in the duck, and a magic needle in the egg, where Koshchei's death is hidden. He can be killed by breaking this needle (according to some versions, by breaking an egg on Koshchei's head).

Koschey as presented by Vasnetsov and Bilibin.

Georgy Millyar is the best performer of the roles of Koshchei and Baba Yaga in Soviet movie fairy tales.

Goblin

Forest spirit, protector of animals. Appears as a tall man with a long beard and hair all over his body. In fact, not evil - he walks through the forest, protects him from people, occasionally shows himself, for which he can take on any appearance - a plant, a mushroom (a giant talking fly agaric), an animal or even a person. Leshy can be distinguished from other people by two signs - his eyes burn with magical fire, and his shoes are worn backwards.

Sometimes a meeting with a goblin can end badly - it will lead a person into the forest and throw it to be eaten by animals. However, those who respect nature can even befriend this creature and get help from it.

famously one-eyed

The spirit of evil, failure, a symbol of grief. There is no certainty about Likh's appearance - it is either a one-eyed giant, or a tall, thin woman with one eye in the middle of her forehead. Famously, they are often compared with the Cyclopes, although apart from one eye and high growth, they have nothing in common.

The proverb has come down to our time: "Do not wake Likho while it is quiet." In the literal and allegorical sense, Likho meant trouble - it became attached to a person, sat on his neck (in some legends, the unfortunate tried to drown Likho by throwing himself into the water and drowned himself) and prevented him from living.
Likha, however, could be disposed of - deceived, driven away by willpower, or, as it is occasionally mentioned, transferred to another person along with some kind of gift. According to very gloomy prejudices, Likho could come and devour you.

Mermaid

In Slavic mythology, mermaids are a kind of mischievous evil spirits. They were drowned women, girls who died near a reservoir, or people bathing at inopportune hours. Mermaids were sometimes identified with "mavki" (from the Old Slavonic "nav" - a dead man) - children who died without baptism or were strangled by their mothers.

The eyes of such mermaids burn with green fire. By their nature, they are nasty and evil creatures, they grab bathing people by the legs, pull them under water, or lure them from the shore, wrap their arms around them and drown them. There was a belief that the laughter of a mermaid could cause death (this makes them look like Irish banshees).

Some beliefs called mermaids the lower spirits of nature (for example, good "shorelines"), which have nothing to do with drowned people and willingly save drowning people.

There were also "tree mermaids" living in the branches of trees. Some researchers rank as mermaids middays (in Poland - lakanits) - lower spirits, taking the form of girls in transparent white clothes, living in the fields and helping the field. The latter is also a nature spirit - it is believed that he looks like a little old man with a white beard. Polevoi lives in cultivated fields and usually patronizes peasants - except when they work at noon. For this, he sends noondays to the peasants so that they will deprive them of their minds with their magic.

Mention should also be made of the crowberry - a kind of mermaid, a baptized drowned woman who does not belong to the category of evil spirits, and therefore is relatively kind. Vodyanitsy love deep pools, but most often they settle under the mill wheels, ride them, spoil the millstones, muddy the water, wash out the pits, tear the nets.

It was believed that the waterwomen were the wives of watermen - spirits appearing in the form of old men with a long green beard made of algae and (rarely) fish scales instead of skin. Buggy-eyed, fat, creepy, merman lives at great depths in pools, commands mermaids and other underwater inhabitants. It was believed that he rides around his underwater kingdom on catfish, for which this fish was sometimes called the "devil's horse" by the people.

The merman is not malicious by nature and even acts as the patron of sailors, fishermen or millers, but from time to time he likes to play pranks, dragging a gaping (or offending) bather under water. Sometimes the merman was endowed with the ability to shapeshift - turning into fish, animals, or even logs.

Over time, the image of the water as the patron of rivers and lakes has changed - he began to be seen as a powerful "sea king" living under water in a chic palace. From the spirit of nature, the water one turned into a kind of magical tyrant, with whom the heroes of the folk epic (for example, Sadko) could communicate, conclude agreements and even defeat him with cunning.

Vodyanyye as imagined by Bilibin and V. Vladimirov.

Sirin

Another creature with the head of a woman and the body of an owl (owl), which has a charming voice. Unlike Alkonost and Gamayun, Sirin is not a messenger from above, but a direct threat to life. It is believed that these birds live in "Indian lands near paradise", or on the Euphrates River, and sing such songs for the saints in heaven, upon hearing which, people completely lose their memory and will, and their ships are wrecked.

It is not difficult to guess that Sirin is a mythological adaptation of the Greek sirens. However, unlike them, the Sirin bird is not a negative character, but rather a metaphor for the temptation of a person by all sorts of temptations.

Nightingale the Robber (Nightingale Odikhmantievich)

The character of late Slavic legends, a complex image that combines the features of a bird, an evil wizard and a hero. The nightingale the robber lived in the forests near Chernigov near the Smorodina River and for 30 years guarded the road to Kyiv, not letting anyone in, deafening travelers with a monstrous whistle and roar.

The Nightingale the Robber had a nest on seven oaks, but the legend also says that he had a tower and three daughters. The epic hero Ilya Muromets was not afraid of the adversary and knocked out his eye with an arrow from a bow, and during their fight the whistle of the Nightingale the Robber knocked down the entire forest in the district. The hero brought the captive villain to Kyiv, where Prince Vladimir, for the sake of interest, asked the Nightingale the Robber to whistle - to check whether the rumor about the super-abilities of this villain is true. The nightingale, of course, whistled, so much so that he almost destroyed half the city. After that, Ilya Muromets took him to the forest and cut off his head so that such an outrage would not happen again (according to another version, the Nightingale the Robber later acted as an assistant to Ilya Muromets in battle).

For his first novels and poems, Vladimir Nabokov used the pseudonym Sirin.

In 2004, the village of Kukoboy (Pervomaisky district of the Yaroslavl region) was declared the "homeland" of Baba Yaga. Her "birthday" is celebrated on July 26th. The Orthodox Church came out with a sharp condemnation of the "worship of Baba Yaga."

Ilya Muromets is the only epic hero canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Baba Yaga is found even in Western comics, for example - "Hellboy" by Mike Mignola. In the first episode of the computer game Quest for Glory, Baba Yaga is the main plot villain. In the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, Baba Yaga is a vampire of the Nosferatu clan (distinguished by ugliness and secrecy). After Gorbachev left the political arena, she came out of hiding and killed all the vampires of the Bruja clan that controlled the Soviet Union.

* * *

It is very difficult to list all the fabulous creatures of the Slavs: most of them have been studied very poorly and are local varieties of spirits - forest, water or domestic, and some of them were very similar to each other. In general, the abundance of non-material beings greatly distinguishes the Slavic bestiary from more "mundane" collections of monsters from other cultures.
.
Among the Slavic "monsters" there are very few monsters as such. Our ancestors led a calm, measured life, and therefore the creatures that they invented for themselves were associated with elemental elements that were neutral in nature. If they resisted people, then, for the most part, only protecting mother nature and tribal traditions. The stories of Russian folklore teach us to be kinder, more tolerant, love nature and respect the ancient heritage of our ancestors.

The latter is especially important, because ancient legends are quickly forgotten, and instead of mysterious and mischievous Russian mermaids, Disney fish girls with shells on their breasts come to us. Do not be ashamed to study Slavic legends - especially in their original versions, not adapted for children's books. Our bestiary is archaic and in a sense even naive, but we can be proud of it, because it is one of the most ancient in Europe.

to u r s a

"SLAVIC FOLKLORE"

For philological faculties
public universities

Specialty - Slavic Languages ​​and Literature

The program was prepared by the Department of Russian Oral Folk Art
Faculty of Philology, Moscow University

Compilers: prof. ,
Assoc. ,
scientific collaborator

INTRODUCTION

The meaning and place of folklore in the culture of the Slavic peoples. General features of folklore (syntheticity, collective creativity, the unity of the collective and the individual, traditionalism, variability, orality). Folkloristics as a science, its relationship with literary criticism, linguistics, ethnography, history, musicology, art criticism. Terminology. Folklore as the art of the word. Folklore and religion. Folklore and art. Folklore and literature (similarity and difference). Folklore and life. The ratio of aesthetic and non-aesthetic in folklore. Artistic system of folklore.

Oral poetic creativity of the Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs. General and similar phenomena in it: in themes, genres, types of characters, compositional techniques, poetic imagery, language. Fundamentals of commonality and similarity: the common origin of the Slavic peoples, the kinship of languages, the similarity of socio-historical conditions of life, cultural ties. General patterns of development of the oral-poetic creativity of the Slavic peoples at the present stage. Comparative historical study of Slavic folklore. Its results at the international congresses of Slavists.

GENRE COMPOSITION OF SLAVIC FOLKLORE

Features of the genre composition of Slavic folklore. genre system. Its historical formation. Genetic connection of genres, stadial periodization of folklore genres. The incorporation of one genre into another. General processes in genres: the development of common features, the historical change of genres. Classification of genres and its principles. Ideological-aesthetic and non-aesthetic functions of genres.

RITUAL FOLKLORE

General features of ritual poetry. Verbal and non-verbal components of rituals. Polymorphism and polyfunctionality of the rite. Reflection in the ritual folklore of the mythological views of the ancient Slavs. The emergence of "dual faith" after the adoption of Christianity by the Slavs; manifestations of "dual faith" in rituals and ritual folklore. Church struggle with pagan rites.

Calendar ritual poetry. Its connection with the annual agricultural work. Winter, spring-summer and autumn cycles of ritual poetry. Winter cycle: songs of winter bypass rituals (carols, etc.), Christmas divination and youth songs, Shrovetide rites, choruses and songs. Spring-summer cycle: meeting of spring and spring calls among the Eastern Slavs; "carrying out (seeing off) Marena (death)" among the Western Slavs; the cycle of Yuryev rites among the southern and partly among the eastern Slavs; a cycle of Easter and Yuryev round dances and games among all Slavs; a cycle of Trinity-Kupala rites, round dances, games, fortune-telling and songs among all Slavs. Zhivnnye ceremonies and songs of all Slavic peoples. Features of the content, imagery and style of calendar ritual poetry, traces of pagan beliefs, Christian symbolism and imagery in calendar folklore.

Family ritual poetry. Its composition. Birthing rite and its poetry. Ukrainian and Belarusian songs of the maternity and baptismal rite. Images of the Woman in Childbirth, Orysnitsa. The wedding ceremony and its poetry. Reflection in it of the history of society and family, life and beliefs of the people. Stages of the wedding ceremony. Wedding songs, lamentations, glorifications, reproachful songs, sentences of wedding participants. Funeral rites and lamentations. Features of the content, imagery and style of family ritual poetry.

Conspiracies. Their magical nature, word and action in them. connection with rituals. Types of conspiracies and their use. Composition, figurativeness, verbal means. Evidence of ancient writing about conspiracies. Stability of texts of conspiracies. Conspiracies and other genres (fairy tale and epic). Performers of conspiracies: sorcerers, healers.

SMALL GENRES

Proverbs and sayings. Definition of a proverb and the difference between a proverb and a proverb; their function in speech. Thematic variety of proverbs. Reflection in them of the worldview, life experience and ideals of the people. Cognitive-historical, moral and aesthetic value of proverbs. The structure of proverbs and their artistic means. Generality and similarity of Slavic proverbs. Proverbs in the works of Slavic writers.

Riddles. Definition of a riddle. Reflection in the riddles of peasant labor and life. "Secret speech" (speech taboos) and the origin of riddles. Artistic means of riddles. General and similar in the riddles of the Slavic peoples. Riddle and proverb. Riddles in fairy tales and folk songs. Riddles in the works of Slavic writers.

PROSE EPIC GENRES

The concept of "oral folk prose". Her genres: fairy tales, legends, legends and bylichki. The style of fairy tale narration, memorial.

Fairy tales. The definition of a fairy tale. Relationship between fantasy and reality. Fairy tale and myth. Tales about animals, magical, social, short stories, fairy tales.

Tales about animals. Reflection in them of ancient ideas (animism, anthropomorphism, totemism). Tales about wild animals, domestic animals, birds, man. Real features of animals and birds. Allegory of fairy tales. Satire and humor in them. Common plots and heroes in Slavic fairy tales about animals and nationally peculiar plots and heroes.

Magic tales. Combination of real and fantastic. Ancient motifs and imagery. Morphology and historical roots of a fairy tale. Themes, plots, images, characters, chronotope, composition of Slavic fairy tales. Similar plots and images of Slavic fairy tales. Ivan the Fool, Yirzhik, Khlopek Rostropek, Sly Peter, Ero. Connection of primitive views with some features of medieval life. Victory of good over evil. Ideals of hard work, honesty and justice. Features of plots and images in fairy tales of individual Slavic peoples.

Social tales. Reflection of social and family relations, features of feudal life. Social satire: images of a gentleman, pan, merchant, priest. The triumph of a positive hero (peasant, worker, soldier). The image of a cunning, rogue, clever thief. Family stories. Images of husband and wife. Plot structure and poetics of social fairy tales. Traditional joke.

Traditions. Genre definition. Historical and toponymic legends. Plots of historical legends. Traditions in chronicles and ancient writing: about Czech, Lech and Rus; about Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv; about Krakus and Wanda; about Piast and Popiel; about Libush and Přemysl. Legends about the founding of cities. Correlation of legends and historical reality. Legends about Pan Tvardovsky. Features of the structure and narration in legends. Family legends.

Legends. Genre definition. Fabulat and memorial. types of legends. Stories about mythical creatures, about the creation of the world, the origin of animals, birds and fish and their features; biblical motifs and characters. Utopian legends. The plot of the search for a happy country. Other plots of legends common among the Slavs (about the great sinner, the wanderings of Christ on earth, the contract between man and the devil). Artistic features of legends.

Bylichki. Stories about brownies, goblin, mermen, mermaids, samodivas, exchangers, the damned, etc. Artistic features and stories.

POETRY EPIC GENRES

Types of poetic epic genres: mythological songs, epics, youth songs, haidutsky, zboynitsky, daring (robber) songs, thoughts, historical songs, spiritual poems, ballads. Their common features: plot, poetic form, typical (common) places, reflection of the history of the people in them. The heroic character of the main genres. The absence of the heroic epic among the Western Slavs and the attempts of its artificial creation by writers.

Mythological songs of the southern Slavs. The most ancient songs are about mythical creatures personifying natural elements (samodivs, samovils, pitchforks, yudes, mermaids, etc.), celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars), dangerous diseases (plague, fever). Foretellers of the fate of Orysnitsa. The relationship of mythical creatures with people ("Stoyan and Samodiva", "The Sun and Dobrinka", "Walker and the guy"). Mythological songs of the southern Slavs ("Two snakes and a lama", "Snake-groom", "Jova and Samovils"). Mythological motifs in the epic songs of the Eastern and Western Slavs (werewolf, the omen of misfortune, a wonderful pipe / violin, the marriage of a woman and a snake, etc.).

Epics. Definition of the genre, its main features. The term "epic". Epic performers. Epic classification. Kyiv and Novgorod cycles of epics. Themes and ideological essence of the main composition of epics. The hero is the main character. Typification and individualization of images. Images of senior heroes: Svyatogor, Mikula Selyaninovich, Volga; junior heroes: Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich. Composition and poetics of epics of the Kyiv cycle. Plots and heroes of epics of the Novgorod type. Images of Sadko and Vasily Buslaev. Artistic features of the epics of this cycle. Interpretation of epics by representatives of different scientific schools. Echoes of epics in Belarusian fairy tales about heroes.

Youth songs. Heroic epic of the southern Slavs. Youth song as a genre. Heroic stories and poetics. Cyclization of songs around the images of heroes: songs about Momchil, about Prince Marko, about Doychin. Cycles of Serbian songs about the Battle of Kosovo, about post-Kosovo heroes, about the liberation of Serbia.

Haydutsky and zboynitsky songs. Haidut songs of the South Slavs, the difference between Haidut and youth songs. The Zbojnice songs of the Western Slavs are a special type of heroic songs. Reflection of the struggle against foreign enslavers. The historical basis of the songs. Historical prototypes of heroes: Strahil-voivode, Stoyan, Manol, Novak, Gruica, Ivo Senyanin - the heroes of Haiduk songs. Janoshik, Ondras, Widowczyk, Adamek are the heroes of the Zbojnice songs. Images of Haidut Women in Bulgarian Songs: Boyana the Governor, Todorka, Rada. Compositional and stylistic features of songs. Gaiduk (zboynik) and nature. People and haiduk (robber). Russian remote (robber) songs.

Duma. Dumas as a genre of Ukrainian folklore. The term "thought". Doom performers are kobzars and bandurists. Patriotic character of thoughts. Pictures of foreign domination, the exploits of heroes in the fight against enemies. Plots about suffering in captivity and escape from captivity. The fight against the Turks and the Polish gentry. Heroes of thoughts: Golota (Netyaga), Samoilo Koshka, Fesko Andyber, Khmelnitsky, Marusya Boguslavka. Poetics of thoughts.

historical songs. Historical songs as a thematic group of works. Their varieties. The specific historical nature of the songs. Differences from epics, youth and haidut songs. Historical prototypes of heroes. The meaning of historical songs in the folklore of the Slavic peoples. General plots of Slavic historical songs: the struggle against the Tatar and Turkish invasion, peasant uprisings, wars of the 17th - 19th centuries. Russian historical songs about the capture of Kazan, about Ivan the Terrible, Stepan Razin and Emelyan Pugachev, Kutuzov and Platov. Ukrainian historical songs about Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Maxim Zheleznyak, Karmelyuk. Bulgarian and Macedonian historical songs about captivity, Turkish atrocities, forced Turkishization, Ivan Shishman, the fall of the Bulgarian kingdom. Slovenian songs are about King Mattiyash, Polish songs are about Yazdovets Castle, Slovak songs are about Belgrade, about the struggle against Austrian domination, Serbian songs are about the Battle of Kosovo, about the liberation of Serbia.

Spiritual verses. Spiritual poems as a thematic group of epic, lyric-epic and lyrical works on religious and Christian themes. The origin of spiritual verses and their sources (books of Holy Scripture, Christian canonical and apocryphal literature; pre-Christian mythology). The creators and performers of spiritual verses are “passing kaliki”, pilgrims to holy places, blind men (“maistras”). Popular rethinking of biblical themes, the lives of the saints. Affirmation of the idea of ​​the superiority of the spiritual over the material, glorification of asceticism, martyrdom for the faith, denunciation of the sinfulness of people, non-observance of God's commandments.

Russian poems reflecting ideas about the universe ("Pigeon Book"), on Old Testament subjects ("Osip the Beautiful", "Adam's Lament"). Belarusian and Ukrainian verses on gospel themes ("Crucifixion of Christ", "Ascension"). Polish, Czech, Slovak verses and cantes about the Mother of God and the Nativity of Christ. Czech spiritual songs of the era of the Hussite wars. Bulgarian verses about the Lord, angels and the sinless Yanka, about Abraham's sacrifice, Saint Elijah and sinful souls. Serbian verses about the baptism of Christ, about St. Sava, about finding the Cross of the Lord, the song of the blind (about the mother of St. Peter).

Images of snake-fighting heroes (St. George, Fedor Tiryanin), martyrs (Galaktion and Epistimia, Kirik and Julitta), ascetics (Alexey the Man of God), miracle workers, righteous people and sinners in the traditions of the Slavic peoples. Poems about the end of the world and the terrible judgment. Late poems and cantes of a literary warehouse. The poetics of spiritual verses, the influence of other epic songs and literary-Christian style on them. Features of their composition and poetic language.

Ballads. The term "ballad". The definition of the genre, its main features: epic, family and everyday stories, tragedy, antithetical. Historical and everyday ballads. Historical subjects: meeting relatives in captivity, escape from captivity, feudal despotism. Everyday scenes: tragic conflicts husband - wife, mother-in-law - daughter-in-law, brother - sister, stepmother - stepdaughter-orphan, etc. ”, Serbian -“, Slovenian - “Beauty Vida”, Bulgarian - “Lazar and Petkana”, Polish - “Pani Pana killed”, Czech - “Herman and Dorota”, Slovak - “Sworn Girl”). Social subjects: Pan Kanevsky and Bondarevna, Prince Volkonsky and Vanya the key-keeper, a serf and a noble's daughter. Ballads with mythological motifs (plots of transformation). Ballads of incest. The peculiarity of the ballads of the Bosnian Muslims ("Hasan-aginitsa", "Omer and Meirima"). Similarities and differences of Slavic ballads. New ballads, their connections with the old ones (thematic commonality) and differences.

LYRICAL GENRES

Folk lyric. her genres. Principles of classification of non-ritual lyrics (thematic, functional, formal). Love and family songs, military-everyday, driver's, barge songs. Small lyric genres. Classification of lyrical songs by theme and structure: frequent songs, their comic and satirical nature, dance rhythms; lingering songs, chanting, their dramatic nature, themes of personal relationships. There are two types of lingering songs: narrative songs and meditation songs. Compositional features and poetics of lyrical songs. Pictures of everyday life, nature, portraits of heroes. Psychological image, means of revealing the inner world of characters, creating generalized images. The role of symbolism and psychological parallelism (symbolism from the plant, animal world, the world of inanimate nature and celestial bodies). Similarities and differences of lyrical songs of different Slavic peoples.

Bulgarian songs of reapers, Russian artel labor songs, Polish, Czech and Ukrainian songs of raftsmen. Structural and stylistic features.

Household themes of songs. Two varieties (love and family). Main characters: well done - girl, husband - wife. The plot situation as the basis of song composition. Typical situations of love songs: meeting, separation, betrayal. Themes of happy and unhappy love, their symbolic expression. characteristic symbols. The role of narration, description, monologue and dialogue in a song. psychological parallelism. Expression of the character's inner world. Common Slavic motifs and symbols of love and family songs, the originality of songs among different Slavic peoples. Typical situations of family songs: the hard life of a woman in a strange family, conflicts mother-in-law - daughter-in-law, husband - wife. Topics of social and age inequality. Comic motives of songs: images of a lazy husband, obstinate wife, mother-in-law, cruel mother-in-law. The originality of the poetics and imagery of family songs.

Small lyric genres. Popularity in Slavic folklore of small lyrical genres-refrains: ditties, kolomyeks, Krakovyaks, Bechartsy. Simplicity of form, concise expression of thoughts, clarity of assessments, lively response to the phenomena of reality. The role of improvisation Jokes, humor, satire. Verbal text, chant and dance. Chorus songs. Russian ditties. Their varieties: actually ditties, dance, "Semenovna", suffering. The emergence and reasons for the popularity of ditties. Connection with dance songs. Variety of themes, the predominance of love themes. The composition of ditties, the role of parallelisms, symbolism and repetitions. Ukrainian kolomyiki. Origin of name. social satire. The theme of love relationships. The structure of the kolomyika. The nature of the rhythm. Polish Krakowiaks. Breadth of topics. Structure, rhythm and rhyme. Role in the composition of small genres of typical beginnings, endings, appeals and choruses. Serbian and Croatian Becharians.

DRAMA AND THEATER

Variety of dramatic forms in Slavic folklore. Theatrical-dramatic and game elements in calendar and family rituals, the correlation of words and actions in them. Games. Mummers. Dramatic scenes in the folklore of the Slavic peoples. Their social and everyday satire, bright comedy. Russian folk dramas "Boat" and "Tsar Maximilian". Puppet show. Two of its forms: nativity scene (betleyka, shopka) and puppet comedy (Petrushka, Kashparek). Religious and secular elements in the puppet theater. Artistic originality of folk dramatic forms.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVIC FOLKLORE

Historical change in folklore, the composition of genres, plots, themes, heroes, expressive means. Principles of chronological correlation of works. Folklore and history of the people. Difficulties in the historical study of folklore. General periodization of the history of Slavic folklore. Primitive communal system and folklore. Reflection in folklore of animism, anthropomorphism, totemism. The cult of ancestors, plants, animals. Primary forms of folklore. Syncretism. Folklore and mythology. Ancient forms of Slavic folklore. Traditions about the resettlement of the Slavs; the epic river Danube. Ancient origin of calendar poetry, fairy tales, proverbs, riddles. Early feudalism and the emergence of the heroic epic. The patriotic nature of the epic, the idea of ​​the unity of the native land. The struggle of the Slavic peoples with the Tatar-Mongolian, Turkish, German and other conquerors. The development of the heroic epos, genres of epics and youthful songs. Social contradictions and satire in folklore. The development of Haidut and Zbojnice songs, social fairy tales and satire in other genres of folklore. forms of folk drama. Expanding relationships with literature. The role of folklore in the era of national revivals in the Slavic countries and in the development of national literatures. Changing the traditional poetic system of folklore. Folklore of the city, artisans, soldiers. The death of traditional genres. Folklore response to important historical events and social processes of modern times. Folklore and the First World War. World War II: anti-fascist folklore, partisan folklore. The current state of Slavic folklore. Pan-Slavic phenomena and their interaction in the folklore of the Slavic countries.

GENERAL SLAVIC PHENOMENA IN FOLK POETIC WORKS AND NATIONAL ORIGINALITY OF FOLKLORE

Comparative historical study of folklore (typological, genetic, historical and cultural). Various scientific schools in folklore. Common and similar in the folklore of the Slavic peoples (development processes, genres, plots, types of heroes, poetics). The development of Slavic folklore at the present stage: new genres, plots, images and artistic means.

The originality of the folklore of individual Slavic peoples. Its historical background. The originality of the content and form of works. National self-consciousness of the people and its oral and poetic creativity. Images of native land, folk heroes, native nature. Folk life and its reflection in folklore. The originality of artistic means and language. Historical enrichment of the originality of Slavic folklore.

LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE

The great role of folklore in the development of Slavic literatures. Formation of national literatures and folk art. Ancient Slavonic Literature and Folklore. Chronicles and historical legends. Evidence of ancient writing about rituals, games, songs of the people. "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" and folklore. Gradual expansion of links between literature and folklore. The system of genres of ancient Russian literature and folklore. National revival of the Slavic peoples and the role of folk art in it. Romantic writers and folklore (Pushkin's early work; Mickiewicz, Chelakovsky, Erben, Stur, Vraz, Mazuranich, Preshern, Radicevic, Negosh, Botev, Yakshich, Kral). Realism and folklore (Pushkin, Gogol, Krashevsky, Nemtsova, Zmay). The heyday of realism (Nekrasov, democratic and populist writers, L. Tolstoy, Kondratovich, Ozheshko, Senkevich, Konopnitskaya, Neruda, Irasek, Vazov, Ashkerts, Zmai, Shantich). Literature of the 20th century and folklore (Gorky, Yesenin, Sholokhov, Platonov, Gashek, Olbracht, Elin-Pelin). Modern Slavic Literature and Folk Art. The impact of literature on folklore. Songs and ballads of romantics and realists in the folk repertoire, their folklorization. The development of stanza and rhyme of a literary type in the song genres of folklore. Expansion of the ideological and artistic influence of literature on folklore.

COLLECTING AND STUDYING SLAVIC FOLKLORE

Collectors of Russian folklore (R. James, Kirsha Danilov, Afanasiev, Dal, Kireevsky, Rybnikov, Hilferding, Shane), Polish (Zhegota Pauli, Dolenga-Khodakovsky, Kolberg, Fedorovsky), Czech and Slovak (Chelakovsky, Erben, Dobshinsky), Bulgarian and Macedonian (brothers Miladinov, Shapkarev, Stoin), Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian (Karadzic, Strekel). Bulgarian "Collection for national abstinence". Collecting activity in the Slavic countries in the XX century. Valuable publications.

The study of Slavic folklore. Mythological school: Afanasiev, O. Miller. School of borrowing: Buslaev, Shishmanov, Grafenauer. Historical school: Sun. Miller, folklorists of Yugoslavia. Comparative historical study of folklore: Polivka, Veselovsky, Arnaudov, Kshizhanovsky, Bystron, Moshinsky, Gorak. Modern Slavic folklorists: Sokolov, Bogatyrev, Kravtsov, Propp, Putilov, Gusev; Krzyzhanovsky, Chernik; Latkovich; Arnaudov, Dinekov, Romanska; Melikherchik.

New trends in Slavic folklore (typological study, structural, ethnolinguistic school). Appeal to the study of folklore literary critics, linguists, historians, musicologists, theater critics. Comprehensive study of folklore. The problem of folklore as the art of speech and the history of Soviet folklore. Achievements in folkloristics of individual Slavic countries. Inter-Slavic scientific cooperation in the study of folklore.

LITERATURE

Main

Kravtsov folklore. M. 1976.

Slavic folklore. Texts. Comp. , . M. 1987.

Calendar customs and rituals in the countries of foreign Europe. Winter holidays. M. 1973. S. 5 - 17, 204 - 283.

Calendar customs and rituals in the countries of foreign Europe. Spring holidays. M. 1977. S. 5 - 11, 202 - 295.

Calendar customs and rituals in the countries of foreign Europe. Summer-autumn holidays. M. 1978. S. 5 - 7, 174 - 243.

Slavic folklore and historical reality. M. 1965.

Slavic folklore. Sat. articles. Ed. , . M. 1972.

Epos of the Slavic peoples. Reader. Ed. prof. . M. 1959.

Slavic folklore. Essays and samples. Art. C. Romanska. Sofia. 1972.

Bulgarian folk tales. M. 1965.

Polish folk legends and fairy tales. M. 1965.

Tales of the peoples of Yugoslavia. M. 1956.

Songs of the South Slavs. Comp., intro. Art. . M. 1976.

Serbian folk songs and tales from the collection. M. 1987.

Slovak fairy tales. M. 1955.

Czech folk tales. M. - L. 1951.

The betrayal of the Slovenian people. Beograd. 1964.

Additional

Moszyński K. Kultura ludowa słowian. T. 1. Kultura materialna; T. 2. Cz. 1, 2. Kultura duchowa. Warsaw. 1968.

Bulgarian folk poetic creativity. Christomathy. Sofia. 1958.

Bulgarian folklore. Part 1. Sofia. 1972.

Latkoviћ V. Narodna kњizhevnost, 1. Beograd. 1967.

Putilov historical ballad. M. - L. 1965.

Putilov and the South Slavic heroic epic. M. 1971.

Bogatyrev the theory of folk art. M. 1971. S. 11 - 166 ("People's Theater of Czechs and Slovaks").

Kravtsov of Slavic folklore. M. 1973.

Lazutin oral folk art. M. 1983.

Kruglov folk poetry. L. 1987.

Kravtsov epic. M. 1985.

Bogatyrev epic stories and lyrical-epic songs (“zboynitsky” cycle). M. 1963.

Ukrainian thoughts. M. 1972.

Anthology of state slovenian folk lyrics. Nedi. Beograd. 1962.

Slovenian folklór. Zost. A. Melicherik. Bratislava. 1965.

Slownik folkloru polskiego. Warsaw. 1965.

Tolstoy and folk culture. Essays on Slavic mythology and ethnolinguistics. M. 1995.

Slavic Antiquities: Ethnolinguistic Dictionary in 5 vols. Ed. N. I. Tolstoy. T. 1. A - G. M. 1995. T. 2. D - K. M. 1999.

East Slavic folklore. Dictionary of scientific and folk terminology. Minsk. 1993.

Gora animals in the Slavic folk tradition. M. 1997.

A series of studies "Slavic and Balkan folklore". M. (1971, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1994, 1995)

Smirnov ballads and related forms. M. 1988.

Klyaus of plots and plot situations of incantatory texts of Eastern and Southern Slavs. M. 1997.

The legend of the Novgorod snake. "The fiery serpent about seven chapters over Novgorod"...

In 1728, a “fiery serpent with eight heads” appeared over Novgorod the Great. Feofan Prokopovich, Archbishop of Novgorod, reported to the Synod that Mikhail Iosifov, who was being held "on some business" in Moscow, in the cell office, "of the village of Valdai pop" announced the following. When he was kept "on the same case" in the Novgorod archbishop's house, "at discharge, in the office of schismatic cases under arrest," then his cell-attendant Yakov Alekseev came to him and said to him these words: a fiery serpent with seven heads would fly over the Novgorod cathedral church, which took from Ladoga and hovered over that church and over our house (Feofan Prokopovich - M.V.) and over Yuryev and over Klopsky monasteries, and then flew to Staraya Rusa. And in that de it will be both at home and at the monastery not without reason; which, de vision, many citizens saw, ”and who exactly did not say that ”...

The true story of the Frog Princess? Scythian version...

Are there many fairy tales in the world whose heroes would have been sculpted from stone or minted in metal thousands of years ago? Unbelievable, but true: it was the images of the princess - half-snakes, half-frogs that were found several decades ago by Russian archaeologists in the Black Sea and Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov regions in Scythian burial mounds dating back to the 5th-3rd centuries BC. This means that this character is two and a half thousand years old. Why were fairy tale characters, like gods, captured by an ancient master? Or maybe they actually existed?

How to find out if there is a brownie in the apartment?

In our crazy world of nanotechnology, people have completely stopped believing in other worlds. We are so interested in looking at the screens of our gadgets, sometimes we forget to notice the amazing and unusual things that happen to us. In this article, we will try to deal with some of the myths that quietly live in our homes...

According to one of the legends, unclean forces spread on Earth after the Lord, angry at the construction of the Tower of Babel, confused the languages ​​of people. “Depriving the instigators of the image and likeness of man, God sent for eternity to guard the waters, mountains, forests. Whoever was at home at the time of the curse - became a brownie, in the forest - a goblin ... ". Goblin began to host in the forest; water, swamp, kikimora live in rivers, swamps, lakes; The brownie, having landed in an open chimney, has since lived next to people ...

Siberian healer Natalya Stepanova teaches what will certainly make you, your children, and your entire family...

The origin of the image of Koshchei!

Koschey (Kosh, Koshcheishche, Kashchey, Mangy Bunyaka (in Volhynia), Malty Bunio (Podolia)) - God of the underworld, the underground sun. Opponent of Dazhbog. Husband of Mary.Kashchei the Immortal in East Slavic mythology is an evil sorcerer whose death is hidden in several magical animals and objects nested in each other:“There is an island in the sea on the ocean, on that island there is an oak, a chest is buried under an oak, a hare is in the chest, a duck is in the hare, an egg is in the duck”, in the egg is the death of Kashchei the Immortal. The main feature of Koshchei the Immortal, which distinguishes him from other fairy-tale characters, is that his death (soul, strength) is materialized in the form of an object and exists separately from it...

What do we know about this character? According to Russian epics, this is almost a monster of fabulous times. He built himself a nest on twelve oaks and, sitting in it, whistled so hard and loudly that he overthrew everything with his whistle. He laid the straight road to Kyiv for exactly thirty years: no man walked along it, the beast did not roam, the bird did not fly ...

Since ancient times, women have used various family conspiracies in family magic, such as a conspiracy to love a husband. Very strong conspiracies are made if the wife wants to bring peace and tranquility to the family and makes a conspiracy against her husband only with love for him. It often happens that the husband is unreasonably angry with his wife and arranges constant quarrels. To do this, you can use a love plot, which is also suitable if the husband has lost interest in his wife ...

Hut on chicken legs - a real house from the world of the dead? (folklore as a historical source)...

In the Museum of the History of Moscow, in addition to all sorts of spoons, there is an exposition, which presents a reconstruction of the so-called "house of the dead" of the Dyakovo culture ... "House of the Dead" is the same hut of Baba Yaga, on those same chicken legs! True, they are actually CHICKEN. An ancient funeral rite included smoking the legs of a “hut” without windows and doors, in which a corpse or what was left of it was placed...

Who is he, this Viy? And where does it come from?

It is difficult to find in the works of Russian classics a character more impressive and mysterious than Gogol's Viy. In a footnote to his story "Viy", Gogol wrote that he only retells the folk tradition with virtually no changes - "almost in the same simplicity as I heard" ...

Full versions of famous sayings!

No fish, no meat, [no caftan, no cassock]. They ate the dog, [choked on their tail]. Mind chamber, [yes the key is lost]...

Who was Koschei the Deathless really? A new version.

In the book of Viktor Kalashnikov "Russian Demonology" an attempt is made to systematize the characters and plots of Russian folk tales. This is done not because of the desire to create an encyclopedia of folklore, but in order to see how, behind the layers of epochs and cultures (Christianity, a secular state), the ancient Slavic epic was dissolved in children's fairy tales, the heroes of which were pagan gods and spirits...

Werewolves in the representation of the Slavs...

Volkodlak, volkolak, volkulak, vovkulak, in Slavic mythology, the wolf man; werewolf; a sorcerer who can turn into a wolf and turn other people into wolves. Legends about the werewolf are common to all Slavic peoples ...

Slavic magic. Where are pagan healers and healers preserved?

Magicians, magicians, sorcerers and witches were surrounded by an aura of mystery and superstitious fear, but at the same time they enjoyed great respect and were revered by the common people of small villages and towns long before Russia became a Christian state. The legends that were formed by the people about the amazing abilities and skills of the Slavic sorcerers formed the basis of many fairy tales, many of which have survived to this day almost unchanged ...

The best love spells for men and women!

Among the magical traditions of all peoples, love conspiracies occupy a large place: a conspiracy to love a man, a conspiracy to love a girl, a conspiracy to attract love. People have long considered it very important to meet and correctly identify your loved one, with whom you can live a happy and long family life. Family and family values ​​are important at all times...

Who is who in the epic world? Guide to the main characters (Sadko, Dobrynya, Svyatogor, Ilya Muromets, Khoten Bludovich, Vasilisa Mikulichna, Alyosha Popovich, Volkh Vseslavievich, Stavr Godinovich and others ...).

Guide to epic characters. Biographies, hobbies and character traits of all the main Russian epic heroes - from Ilya Muromets to Khoten Bludovich ...

The real prototype of Ivan Tsarevich!

Do you know who is the historical prototype of the fairy-tale hero Ivan Tsarevich

On February 15, 1458, Ivan III had his first child, who was named Ivan. All contemporaries predicted for him the throne of the Moscow kingdom after the death of his father, Ivan III. He accompanied Ivan III on campaigns against the Kazan Khanate, and from 1471 was already a co-ruler of his father...

Conspiracies and rituals for the wedding and marriage!

Very often, when a serious relationship already exists between a man and a woman, the man is in no hurry to propose and officially take on the duties of a husband. In order to speed up the desired event and feel like a beautiful bride at their own wedding, girls can use a wedding plot or a marriage plot ...

This is a very famous and simple way to remove the evil eye on your own. After sunset, sit at the table with the person from whom you need to remove the evil eye. Pour into a glass or cup of water. Place nine matches and boxes in front of you...

Who is Baba Yaga? Scientists' opinions.

According to scientists, the image of Baba Yaga sits firmly in our memory not by chance, reflecting deep fears that originate in the ideas of our ancestors about the frightening structure of the universe...

How did a French knight become an epic hero?

Bova Korolevich, aka Bova Gvidonovich, aka Bueve, aka Bovo from Anton (Buovo d'Antona). Today, this name (names) is unlikely to say anything even to fans of Russian folklore. And just a century ago, Bova Korolevich was one of the most "cult" characters, who in terms of popularity among the people far outstripped other "epic" heroes Ilia Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich...

Agrafena Kupalnitsa (July 6) and Ivan Kupala (July 7). Rites, signs and mystical essence!

July 6 in the folk calendar is called Agrafena-bathing. People say about Agrafena that she is the sister of Ivan Kupala, and therefore on this day all ritual actions are a kind of prelude to the rites of the next day of Ivan Kupala ...

Where is the Russian paradise Belovodie located?

In the view of the Old Believers, Belovodie is a paradise on earth, which can only be entered by those who are pure in soul. Belovodye was called the Land of Justice and Prosperity, but people still argue about where it is located ...

How to celebrate Trinity? Rituals, incantations, omens...

The Holy Trinity is one of the main Christian holidays. It is customary to celebrate it on the 50th day after Easter. In the Orthodox religion, this day is one of the twelve feasts that extol the Holy Trinity...

Myths about Russian mythology. Alexandra Barkova.

The mystery of life and death of Ilya Muromets!

In 1988, the Interdepartmental Commission conducted a study of the relics of Ilya Muromets. The results were amazing. He was a strong man who died at the age of 45-55, tall - 177 cm. The fact is that in the 12th century, when Ilya lived, such a person was considered quite tall, because the average height of a man was 165 cm ...

Krasnaya Gorka - it's time for fortune-telling and rituals for weddings and marriages!

Good Friday: Do's and Don'ts

GOOD FRIDAY, SIGNS CUSTOMS SPELLS...

Folk magic: guard sleep...

I propose three reliable ways to protect yourself during the night's sleep.

Sleep with wearable icon- this is your amulet (in this case, already lying in bed before going to bed, read in a whisper or mentally once the prayer "Our Father") ...

Pour in the first number: Believe it or not, in the old school, students were flogged every week, regardless of who was right and who was wrong. And if the "mentor" overdoes it, then such a spanking was enough for a long time, until the first day of the next month. All tryn grass

The mysterious "tryn-grass" is not at all some kind of herbal medicine that is drunk in order not to worry. At first it was called "tyn-grass", and tyn is a fence. It turned out to be "fence grass", that is, a weed that no one needs, an indifferent weed ...

Ancient Slavic conspiracies and rituals!

Slavic rituals and conspiracies are ancient and very effective magic used by our distant ancestors. Rituals helped a person in all aspects of his life, with their help, heart problems were solved, protection from the evil eye and any other evil was established, a variety of diseases were treated, luck and prosperity were attracted to the family, and much more ...

Rites and magic of Shrovetide...

If you were exaggeratedly praised or envied, or maybe they said something bad, and you are a suspicious person, read this amulet on the eve of Shrovetide ...

Who is Domovoy?

Brownie - a good Spirit, the keeper of the hearth. One of the ancestors, founders of a given Family or House. Scientists call Domovoy the Energy Substance of a house or apartment. Brownie is everywhere where people live. He looks after the household and order in the house. The Brownie was depicted as an Elder, wise by Experience. Figurines were made of wood, clay, and most often with a bowl in their hands for Treba. The maximum size is an arshin in height. And the minimum is two inches ...

Money conspiracies for Baptism!

On the eve of Epiphany (January 18), all household members should count money with the words:

The Lord God will appear to the world,

And the money will show up in my wallet.

Key, lock, tongue.

Amen. Amen. Amen."

Who was the real Ilya Muromets?

At the very beginning of October, according to legend, the legendary Ilya Muromets was born. But this is only a legend, his name is not mentioned in the historical chronicles, the exact place of his birth is unknown, and there is no data on the day of death. However, the hero really existed, but was buried in the deep caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, along with 68 other saints ...

Forest spirits of the ancient Slavs ... what do we know about them according to folklore?

Rituals, divination and conspiracies on the day of Paraskeva Friday...

On November 10, in the folk tradition, the day of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa is celebrated, which was the patroness of women, marriages and a healer of diseases, especially those arising from witchcraft. Holy Paraskeva Friday was especially revered by women. They visited the church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa and prayed for her soon marriage. Paraskeva Pyatnitsa had her own special prayer for marriage. The women's holiday of Paraskeva Friday overlapped with the holiday of the female Slavic goddess Makosha, who spun the threads of fate and who was also asked to marry...

Who is a kikimora and how to get rid of it?

Who was and when did Boyan, an ancient Russian poet-singer, live?

Boyan (XI century) - Old Russian poet-singer. As a "creator of songs" Boyan is named in the opening of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" (see Author of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign"): “Prophetic Boyanbo, if anyone wants to create a song, then his thoughts will spread along the tree, gray volk on the ground, shiz eagle under the clouds ...”. Boyan, the author of The Lay, recalls seven times in his work...

Bylina about Vasily Buslaev in the Icelandic saga!

The study of the so-called "Norman period" in Russia encounters great obstacles, since the sources at our disposal are relatively few; and these few monuments, most often, are separated from the events by a large geographical distance or a significant chronological gap ...

The ancient secrets of the "Bald Mountain" ... And how many "bald mountains" are there?

Where is Lukomorye located?

Lukomorye is one of the first geographical names that we learn in life. It is not found on modern maps, but it is on maps of the 16th century. There is a mention of Lukomorye both in the Tale of Igor's Campaign and in Russian folklore...

Folk magic: strong conspiracies for toothache ...

What does the phrase: "the first pancake is lumpy" mean?

Historical prototypes of epic heroes: who are they?

Folklore and its main forms. Orthodox literature

Slavs in the XI-XVI centuries. Modern Slavic Literature

The topic of folklore and Slavic literatures is touched upon in our manual only in connection with the Slavic verbal culture in general, and we do not delve into the details of this topic (in particular, into the discussion of the current state of folklore). There are many valuable manuals specifically devoted to folklore as such (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc. folk art), as well as similar manuals related to Russian and other Slavic literatures. We refer readers to them who are interested in an in-depth acquaintance with this topic.

The Slavic peoples created such an important folklore genre as fairy tales, and the richest set of fairy tale plots (magic, everyday, social, etc.). The most colorful human characters, endowed with folk ingenuity, appear in fairy tales - Ivan the Fool among the Russians, cunning Peter among the Bulgarians, etc.

According to the witty observation of F.I. Buslaeva, “The tale sings mostly of heroes, heroes and knights; the princess, who usually appears in it, is very often not called by name, and, having married a hero or knight, leaves the scene of action. But, yielding to men in heroism and glory won by military exploits, a woman in the era of paganism ... was a demigoddess, a sorceress ...

Quite naturally, a folk tale could add physical strength to a woman's spiritual strength. So, Stavrov's young wife, dressed up as an ambassador, defeated the wrestlers Vladimirovs " 175 .

Eastern Slavs developed epics. Among them are the Kyiv cycle (epics about the peasant Mikul Selyaninovich, the heroes Svyatogora, Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, etc.) and the Novgorod cycle (epics about Vasily Buslaev, Sadko, etc.). A unique genre of the heroic epic, Russian epics are one of the most important accessories of the national verbal art. Among the Serbs, the heroic epic is represented by stories about Milos Obilich, Korolevich Marko, and others. There are similar characters in the epos of the Bulgarians - Sekula Detence, Daichin-voivode, Yankul and Momgil, and others. 176 Among the Western Slavs, the heroic epic, for a number of complex reasons, did not show itself so impressively.

The epic is not a historical chronicle, but an artistic phenomenon. Russians usually well feel the distance between the real person of the Monk Elijah of Muromets and the epic image of the hero Ilya of Muromets. About the Serbian epic, its researcher Ilya Nikolaevich Golenishchev-Kutuzov(1904-1969), for example, wrote:

“Except for events that do not violate the boundaries of reliable,<...>in the songs about King Marko there are stories about winged horses speaking with a human voice, about snakes and mountain sorceresses-forks" 177 .

How expressively characterized the oral folk art of F.I. Buslaev, “The people do not remember the beginning of their songs and fairy tales. They are conducted from time immemorial and are passed from generation to generation, according to legend, like old times. Although the singer Igor knows some Boyan, he already calls the ancient folk legends “old words”. In "Ancient Russian Poems" a song, or a legend, is called "old times": "the old days ended with that," says the singer ... Otherwise, the song of the narrative content is called "epic", that is, a story about what It was.<...> Therefore, ending the song, sometimes the singer adds the following words in conclusion: “either “old”, then “deed”, expressing with this verse the idea that his epic was not only old, legend, but precisely the legend about the “deed” that actually happened. » 178 .

The Slavic peoples have preserved traditions related to their origin. Both Western and Eastern Slavs know the legend about the brothers Czech, Lech and Rus. Among the Eastern Slavs, the foundation of Kyiv is associated with the legendary Kiy, Shchek, Khoriv and their sister Lybid. The Poles, according to legend, in the name of Warsaw imprinted the names of the children of the forester who lived here: a boy named Var and a girl named Sava. Very interesting are the legends that carry a variety of information about prehistoric times, legends and legends about Libush and Přemysl, about the Maiden War, about the Blanic knights among the Czechs, about Piast and Popel, Krak and Wanda among the Poles, etc.

For example, the plot of the story about the Maiden's War brings to mind the struggle between matriarchal and patriarchal principles in the Slavic society of ancient times.

According to him, after the death of the legendary Czech ruler Libushi, who relied on girls and women and even kept a female squad, her husband Premysl began to rule. However, the girls, accustomed to rule, rebelled against the men, built the Devin fortress and settled in it. Then they defeated a detachment of men who thoughtlessly tried to capture the fortress - moreover, three hundred knights died, and seven were personally slaughtered by the leader of the female army, Vlasta (formerly the first warrior in the Libushi squad). After this victory, the women treacherously captured the young knight Tstirad, who rushed to save the beauty tied to the oak, and wheeled him. In response, the men united in an army and completely defeated the women, killing Vlasta in battle and capturing Devin. 179 .

The poetic genres of folklore among the Slavs are extremely diverse. In addition to epics and myths, this includes various songs - youthful and haidutsky among the southern Slavs, robbers among the Eastern Slavs, etc., historical songs and ballads, Ukrainian thoughts, etc. 180 The Slovaks are very interested in the cycle of folklore works about the noble robber Juraj Janoshik.

Many poetic works were performed to the accompaniment of various musical instruments (Russian gusli, Ukrainian bandura, etc.).

Small genres of folklore (proverb, saying, riddle, etc.) are of particular interest to philologists involved in semasiological problems. So, for example, A.A. Potebnya devoted in his work " From lectures on the theory of literature”a special section on “methods of turning a complex poetic work into a proverb”, emphasizing: “The whole process of compressing a longer story into a proverb belongs to the number of phenomena of great importance for human thought” (Potebnya called these phenomena “thickening of thought”) 181 .

Among the collections of Russian proverbs stand out " Russian folk proverbs and parables» (1848) I.M. Snegirev, " Russian proverbs and sayings» (1855) F.I. Buslaeva and " Proverbs of the Russian people» (1862) V.I. Dahl.

Among the collectors of Slavic folklore are the largest cultural figures (for example, A.I. Afanasiev and IN AND. Dal the Russians, Vuk Karadzic the Serbs). In Russia, talented enthusiasts like Kirsha Danilov and professional philologists were engaged in this business. P.N. Rybnikov, A.F. Gilferding, I.V. Kireevsky and others. Ukrainian folklore was collected, for example, ON THE. Tsertelev, M. Maksimovich, Ya. Golovatsky and others. The brothers did a great job among the southern Slavs Miladinovs, P.R. Slaveykov and others, the Poles Vaclav Zaleski, Zegota Pauli, Z. Dolenga-Khodakovsky etc., among Czechs and Slovaks F. Chelakovsky, K. Erben, P. Dobshinsky and other philologists.

Slavic literature is very diverse. Old Russian literature, a characteristic manifestation of the literatures of the so-called "medieval type", existed from the 11th century. Let us recall a few important points related to it.

Academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev(1906-1999) reasonably wrote: “Ancient Russian literature was not only not isolated from the literature of neighboring - Western and southern countries, in particular - from the same Byzantium, but within the limits until the 17th century. we can talk about the exact opposite - about the absence of clear national boundaries in it. We can justifiably speak of the commonality in the development of the literatures of the Eastern and Southern Slavs. There were unified literature(emphasis mine. - Yu.M.), a single script and a single (Church Slavonic) language among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), among the Bulgarians, among the Serbs among the Romanians ”(as mentioned above, the Romanians, as Orthodox, actively used the Church Slavonic language until the second half of the 19th century) 182 .

Expression D.S. Likhachev's "single literature" should not be absolutized. Further, he explains his idea: “The main fund of church-literary monuments was common. Liturgical, preaching, church-edifying, hagiographic, partly world-historical (chronographic), partly narrative literature was the same for the entire Orthodox south and east of Europe. Common were such huge literary monuments as prologues, menaias, ceremonials, triodies, partly chronicles, palea of ​​various types, "Alexandria", "The Tale of Barlaam and Joasaph", "The Tale of Akira the Wise", "Bee", cosmographies, physiologists, six days, apocrypha, individual lives, etc., etc. ” 183 .

Understandably, were not common " A word about Igor's regiment», « teaching» Vladimir Monomakh, "A word about the destruction of the Russian land», « Zadonshchina», « Prayer of Daniel the Sharpener”and some other works, perhaps the most interesting in ancient Russian literature to our contemporaries. However, for the medieval reader, whose heart turned primarily to God, and not to earthly human problems, they were not “the most important” among literary texts. No matter how difficult it may be to comprehend this fact for a person of the 21st century, but the Gospel, the lives of the saints, psalms, akathists, etc., and by no means “The Tale of Igor's Campaign” and similar masterpieces of fiction were in the center of attention of ancient Russian readers (precisely that is why the “Word” was so easily lost and was only accidentally discovered at the end of the 18th century).

After the explanations made above, it is impossible not to join the thesis of D.S. Likhachev that “Old Russian literature up to the 16th century. was one with the literature of other Orthodox countries" 184 . As a result, if one turns to manuals such as "Old Serbian Literature", "Old Bulgarian Literature", etc., the reader will immediately find in them many works known to him in the course of Old Russian literature.

For example, in the "History of Slavic Literature" academician Alexander Nikolaevich Pypin(1833-1904) and Vladimir Danilovich Spasovich(1829-1906) as Old Bulgarian (and not Old Russian!) appear mentioned above by academician Likhachev " Prologue», « Paley», « Alexandria" and etc. 185 Moreover, according to the authors, it was the Bulgarians who created in the Old Church Slavonic language "an extensive literature, which completely passed to the Russians and Serbs"; “Church relations between the Russians and the Bulgarians and with Athos, the close proximity of the Serbs to the Bulgarians established an exchange of manuscripts between them”; “as a result, the Serbian writer represents the general type that we see in the Bulgarian and ancient Russian writers of this kind” 186 .

In turn, I.V. Jagich in his "History of Serbo-Croatian Literature" stated the same trend: "Old Serbian original(emphasis mine. - Yu.M.) works constitute a very small part of the rest of literature" 187 .

I.V. Yagich admitted that "from our current point of view" "a thin notebook of medieval folk songs and the like" seems more important than "the whole huge stock of biblical-theological-liturgical works" translated by the Orthodox Slavs. However, he immediately emphasized that one should “lively imagine the views of those times, according to which there was no occupation more sacred than this” 188 .

Unfortunately, the real find of "thin notebooks" of this kind is an extremely rare thing. As a result, in the era of romanticism, some West Slavic patriots (in the Czech Republic) could not resist compiling such artistic hoaxes, as Kraledvor manuscript(1817, "discovered" in the town of Kralevodvor) 189 .

This "notebook" of "the latest works of ancient Czech literature", as V.I. Lamansky, is a collection of masterful stylizations for Slavic antiquity. The Kraledvor manuscript includes, for example, epic songs about knightly tournaments and feasts, about the victory of the Czechs over the Saxons, about the expulsion of the Poles from Prague, about the victory over the Tatars, etc. The lyrical poems present the usual love theme, and the influence of Russian folklore is noticeable.

The author of the texts was Vaclav Ganka(1791-1861), famous Czech cultural figure and educator. And soon the student Joseph Linda"found" a manuscript with "The Love Song of King Wenceslas I" (Zelenogorsk manuscript). Thinking in terms of romanticism, they both clearly wanted to elevate the historical past of their people, after the defeat of the Czechs in the Battle of White Mountain (1620), they were actually enslaved by the Austrian feudal lords.

Many people believed in the authenticity of the Kraledvor manuscript almost until the beginning of the 20th century. This beautiful hoax was exposed by philologists - linguists and paleographers, who found errors in verb tenses, endings, forms of letters that were impossible in ancient times, etc., as well as historians who pointed out actual inconsistencies. At the same time, there is no doubt that the stylizations of Ganka and Linda had a great positive impact on the literature of their time, bringing to life many bright artistic variations, images and plots revealed in them.

Approximately in the middle of the XVII century. Old Russian literature was replaced and surprisingly quickly - over the course of two generations - the literature of the new time was entrenched in society. Literature is meant in the narrow strict sense of the word - fiction, which has a system of genres familiar to us to this day (poem, poem, ode, novel, story, tragedy, comedy, etc.). Of course, such a rapid spread of new literature is due to the fact that the prerequisites for its appearance in Russia gradually took shape and invisibly accumulated over the course of several previous centuries.

It is not difficult to feel the difference between the literature of modern times and ancient Russian, comparing, for example, "The Life of Sergius of Radonezh" (written in the era of Dmitry Donskoy by Epiphanius the Wise) with Leo Tolstoy's novel (or even with "The Life of Archpriest Avvakum") or comparing the old Orthodox Christian akathist and spiritual ode to Derzhavin. In addition to clearly manifested specific genre and style differences, there were also global mutual differences.

The author of the life of the saint and the compiler of the chronicle, the author of the church akathist were engaged in sacred craft - the aesthetic principle, to the extent of personal talent, of course, entered into their works, but still as a side effect. In ancient Russian literature, there were separate creations, where, just like in the literature of modern times, the artistic side prevails (the aforementioned "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", "Instruction" by Vladimir Monomakh, "The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land", "The Prayer of Daniil Zatochnik", etc. ). However, they are not numerous and stand apart (although, we repeat, for the reader of the 21st century, it is precisely these works of art in the narrow sense of the word that are perhaps the most interesting and internally close).

The creative tasks of the chronicler, the author of a historical legend, the author of a pateriform life, a solemn church sermon, an akathist, etc., corresponded to a special (obscure to a person of our time without special philological training) "aesthetics of the canons" (or "aesthetics of identity").

Such an aesthetic professed fidelity to "divinely inspired" authoritative models and a sophisticated reproduction of their main features in one's own work (with subtle innovations in details, but not in general). Thus, the Old Russian reader of hagiography knew in advance how the author would describe the life of the saint - the genre of hagiography included a system of canonically strict rules, and hagiographic works resembled each other, like brothers, their content was predictable in a number of ways.

This feature of Old Russian literature, reflecting the socio-psychological characteristics of the people of the Russian Orthodox Middle Ages, as well as the essence of that complex cultural and historical phenomenon, which is now called "Old Russian literature", was replaced in the 17th century. alive to this day "aesthetics of novelty".

The writers of modern times are engaged not in the "sacred craft", but in art as such; aesthetic beginning - the first condition of their creativity; they care about fixing their authorship, strive to ensure that their works do not resemble the works of their predecessors, are “artistically original”, and the reader appreciates and considers the unpredictability of the development of artistic content, the uniqueness of the plot, as a natural condition.

New Russian literature at the initial stage was literature baroque. Baroque came to us through Poland and Belarus. The actual ancestor of the poetry of the Moscow Baroque Simeon Polotsky(1629-1680) was a Belarusian invited to Moscow by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Among the other most prominent representatives of baroque poetry, a Kievan can be named Ivan Velichkovsky, and at the beginning of the XVIII century. - St. Dimitri Rostovsky(1651 - 1709), Feofan Prokopovich(1681 - 1736), satirist poet Antioch Cantemir(1708-1744) and others. At the origins of the prose of the Baroque era is the powerful figure of the archpriest Avvakum Petrova(1620-1682).

It is necessary to take into account the special status in the cultural consciousness of the Baroque era of grammatical teachings. “Grammar,” according to F.I. Buslaev, - they considered the first step ... the ladder of sciences and arts. About the grammar of Smotrytsky, he recalls that “they studied it in the time of Peter the Great; she was also the gate of wisdom for Lomonosov himself. In addition to its literary and educational significance, it is still sacredly revered among schismatic Old Believers (Buslaev means its Moscow edition of 1648 - Yu.M.), because in the verses or poems attached to this book for example, the form Jesus is used - obviously, for verse and measure, vm. Jesus. This explains the extreme high cost of the 1648 edition. Further, Buslaev frankly laughs at such a religious honoring of grammar by the Old Believers, recalling that Smotrytsky "obeyed the pope and was a Uniate" 190 .

M. Smotrytsky, a graduate of the Jesuit Vilna Academy, in the future, indeed, a supporter of union with the Roman Catholic Church, from an early age came into contact with circles that cultivated typically Baroque ideas, ideas and theories (Baroque in Catholic countries originated much earlier than in Russia, and "Jesuit Baroque" was its real offshoot).

It should be noted that our baroque was closely connected, sometimes merged, with other arts. In other words, he was distinguished by a complex artistic synthesis. For example, the literary image is often closely intertwined in the works of this time with the pictorial image.

In the field of painting of the XVII century. literary changes took place. Here, secular painting is quickly taking shape - a portrait, a genre scene, a landscape (previously religious painting dominated here - an icon, a fresco, etc.). Iconography itself is evolving - authors appear who create the so-called "living-like" icons, and a sharp struggle flares up between them and supporters of the old style. 191 .

Verbal and text manuals for icon painters, the so-called "Originals", which existed earlier, acquire new qualities of real works of literature. Speaking about this phenomenon, F.I. Buslaev wrote:

“Thus, expanding its limits more and more, and drawing closer and closer to literary interests, the Russian artistic Original insensibly merges with the Alphabet, which for our ancestors was not only a dictionary and grammar, but also a whole encyclopedia. A more friendly, more harmonious harmony of purely artistic and literary interests is hard to imagine after this, so to speak, organic fusion of such opposites as painting and grammar with a dictionary. 192 .

Buslaev further analyzes an example of the pictorial “symbolism of letters” in the Original of the “epoch of syllabic verses” (that is, the Baroque era. - Yu.M.), where “on each page, in cinnabar, one of the letters is written in sequential order” of the name “Jesus Christ”, “and under the letter is an explanation in syllabic verses, namely:

І (the first letter of the name in the old orthography. - Yu.M.) in the form of a pillar with a rooster on top:

To the pillar Jesus Christ is our tied,

Always scourged from the torment of evil velmi.

With with the image inside his pieces of silver:

They bought Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

To be condemned to a wicked death.

At Church Slavonic, in the form of pincers:

Nails from hands, from legs were taken out with tongs,

They were always removed from the cross with their hands.

With with the image inside of his four nails.<...>

X with the image of a cane and a spear arranged in a cross.<...>

R bowl shaped...<...>

And like stairs...<...>

T in the shape of a cross...<...>

O in the shape of a crown of thorns...<...>

With with a hammer and instruments of punishment...<...>» 193 .

The picturesque beginning penetrated into literature and more deeply than in similar syllabic couplets. So, Simeon Polotsky, Ivan Velichkovsky and other authors created a number of poems-drawings (in the form of a star, heart, cross, bowl and other figures), they wrote such special semantically structured texts as palindromons, crayfish, labyrinths, etc. , they used letters of different colors for figurative and expressive purposes.

Here is an example of "cancer oblique" from Ivan Velichkovsky - in his words, a verse, "whose words, as you read it, are nasty (opposite in meaning. - Yu.M.) text express ":

Btsa With me, life is not the fear of death, Єvva

Do not die for me to live.

That is: “Life is with me, not the fear of death, Do not die by me to live” (Virgin Mary); “Death fear, not life with me, Die, undead by me” (Eve).

On its historical path, Russian literature from the second half of the XIX century. managed to take the position of one of the world leaders. Already I.S. Turgenev, without saying a word, was named the best writer in Europe by the Goncourt brothers, George Sand, Flaubert. Soon he won colossal prestige all over the world as an artist and thinker L.N. Tolstoy. Later, readers around the world discovered F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov, A.M. Gorky, M.A. Sholokhov, M.A. Bulgakov...

The contribution of other Slavic literatures to the world literary process was not so global. So, writers of Little Russian (Ukrainian) origin in the XVIII - XIX centuries. most often they wrote in the Great Russian (Moscow) dialect, that is, they became figures Russian literature. It refers to Vasily Vasilyevich Kapnist(1757-1823), Vasily Trofimovich Narezhny(1780-1825), Nikolai Ivanovich Gnedich(1784-1833), Alexey Alekseevich Perovsky(1787-1836, pseudonym Anthony Pogorelsky), Orest Mikhailovich Somov(1793-1833), Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol(1809-1852), Nestor Vasilyevich Kukolnik(1809-1868), Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy(1817-1875), Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko(1853-1921) and others. 194

N.S. Trubetskoy noted: “Kotlyarevsky is considered the founder of the new Ukrainian literary language. The works of this writer ("Aeneid", "Natalka-Poltavka", "Moskal-Charivnik", "Ode to Prince Kurakin") are written in the common Little Russian dialect of the Poltava region and, in their content, belong to the same genre of poetry, in which the deliberate use of the common language is quite relevant and motivated by the content itself. The poems of the greatest Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, are written for the most part in the spirit and style of Little Russian folk poetry and, therefore, again, by their very content, motivate the use of the common language. In all these works, just as in the stories from the folk life of good Ukrainian prose writers, the language is deliberately folksy, that is, as if deliberately unliterary. In this genre of works, the writer deliberately limits himself to the sphere of such concepts and ideas for which ready-made words already exist in an artless folk language, and chooses a topic that gives him the opportunity to use only those words that really exist - and, moreover, precisely in this meaning - in live folk speech" 195 .

The Balkan Slavs, and in the west the Czechs and Slovaks, were under foreign oppression for several centuries.

The Bulgarians and Serbs did not undergo processes parallel to the Russians to replace medieval literature with a new type of literature. The case was quite different. Bulgarian and Serbian literature experienced more than four centuries of interruption in their development. This unfortunate cultural and historical phenomenon directly follows from the occupation of the Balkans by the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages.

Bulgarians are a Slavic people, but the name of this people comes from the name of a Turkic nomadic tribe Bulgar, in the 7th century n. e. under the leadership of Khan Asparuh, who occupied the lands of seven Slavic tribes on the Danube. On these lands Asparuh founded his Bulgarian kingdom with its capital in the city Pliska. Soon the conquerors were assimilated by the incomparably more numerous Slavic environment. 196 .

In 1371, the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman, after decades of increasingly weakening resistance, recognized himself as a vassal of the Turkish Sultan Murad I. Then, in 1393, the Turks took the then Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnovo. Three years later, the last pillar of Bulgarian statehood, the city of Vidin, was taken by storm (1396). A Turkish governor settled in Sofia.

Serbia fell under the Turkish yoke after its defeat in the battle with the Turks on Kosovo Field(1389), that is, approximately in the same years (in Russia, a battle with the Tatars on the Kulikovo field took place nine years earlier, which had a completely different outcome for the Russians).

The indigenous Bulgarian and Serbian population was engaged in peasant labor, paid excessive taxes to the Turks, but stubbornly resisted Islamization. However, the real picture of the subsequent vicissitudes of the history of both peoples was very ambiguous and complex. Feudal strife led to the fact that part of the Slavs from time to time found themselves in various military clashes against Catholic Christians on the side of the Muslim Turks. In relation to Serbian history, a number of facts of this kind were cited in his monograph "The Epic of the Peoples of Yugoslavia" by I.N. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, who wrote:

“Thus, from the end of the 15th to the end of the 18th century. Serbs were in both camps, fighting for the cause of Christian sovereigns and Turkish sultans ... there was no period in which the Serbian people would not have weapons. The idea of ​​an amorphous Serbian peasant mass ... does not correspond to historical reality.<...>

In the XV - XVII centuries in Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Dalmatia there was not a single area in which haiduks would not operate. 197 .

Some Serbs and Croats were still forcibly converted to Islam. Their descendants now make up a special ethnic group called " Muslims" (i.e. "Muslim") 198 . Some Orthodox monasteries survived among the Bulgarians and Serbs, where the rewriting and reproduction of literary texts continued (the Bulgarians did not yet know printing even in the 17th century) - on Athos, the Bulgarian Zograph and Serbian Hilendar monasteries, as well as Troyan, Rylsky (it was destroyed several times, but recovered) “The last center of national culture of the Serbs in the Middle Ages arose in the monastery of Manassia”: “There were workshops where they copied and decorated manuscripts in Church Slavonic, which was also a literary language. Serbian scribes were under the strongest influence of the destroyed Bulgarian school of the Old Slavonic language in Tarnovo. 199 .

The oppressed people gradually began to look at the old handwritten book as a national shrine.

Bulgarian and Serbian priests were in fact the only bookish (and generally literate) people in this difficult era for the cultures of the southern Slavs. They often left to study in Russia and then wrote in a language in which, in addition to the Church Slavonic basis, there were not only words from the folk language, but also Russianisms. 200 .

In 1791, the first Serbian newspaper " Serbian news". In 1806 the first printed Bulgarian work “ Weekly» Sophrony of Vrachansky.

Bulgarian monk Paisios in 1762 he wrote a history of the Bulgarians imbued with a desire for national independence, which was distributed for decades in manuscript, and was published only in 1844. In Serbia and Montenegro, the Montenegrin prince (and metropolitan) woke the people with his fiery sermons Petr Petrovich Iegosh(1813-1851). Montenegrin by origin and the greatest Romantic poet, he wrote the dramatic poem " mountain crown» ( Gorsky Vienac, 1847), which called the Slavs to unity and depicted the life of the Montenegrin people.

In the era of romanticism, fiction began to take shape among the Bulgarians and Serbs. Its origins in Bulgaria are poets Petko Slaveykov(1827-1895), Lyuben Karavelov(1835-1879) and Hristo Botev(1848-1876). These are revolutionary romantics, whose bright talent was objectively prevented from manifesting in full force only by the absence of the necessary national literary and artistic tradition behind them.

The great Bulgarian poet, prose writer and playwright worked under the great fruitful influence of Russian literature. Ivan Vazov(1850-1921), author of the historical novel " under the yoke» (1890) 201 .

Serbian poetic romanticism is represented by such poets as Jura Jaksic(1832-1878) and Laza Kostic(1841 - 1910), Montenegrins - for example, the work of the king Nikola I Petrovich(1841-1921). In the region of Vojvodina in the city of Novi Sad, a center of Slavic culture developed. There was a great educator here. Dositej Obradovic from Vojvodina (1739-1811), the actual founder of modern literature.

Later, a playwright with a sparkling satirical gift appeared in Serbian literature. Branislav Nusic(1864-1938), writer of comedies " Suspicious person"(Based on Gogol's "Inspector") (1887), " patronage"(1888)," Madam Minister"(1929)," Mister Dollar"(1932)," Saddened relatives"(1935)," Dr."(1936)," dead person"(1937) and others, as well as full of self-irony" Autobiographies».

Bosnian Serb won the Nobel Prize in 1961 Ivo Andric(1892-1975). Among his historical novels it should be noted first of all " Bridge on the Drina"(1945)," Travnik chronicle"(1945)," Cursed Yard"(1954) and others.

Czech and Slovak literature, the literature of the Balkan Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Macedonians, etc.), as well as the cultures of these Slavic peoples as a whole, in essence, survived the centuries-old break in development.

If we keep in mind the Czechs, this truly tragic collision is a consequence of the seizure of Czech lands by the Austrian feudal lords (that is, the Catholic Germans) after the defeat of the Czechs in the battle of Belaya Gora in the 17th century.

Medieval Czechs were a courageous and freedom-loving people. A century and a half before the reform movement of the Calvinists, Lutherans, etc. split the Catholic world, it was the Czechs who fought against Catholicism.

Great figure of Czech culture, preacher and church reformer Jan Hus(1371-1415), rector of the Bethlehem Chapel in the old part of Prague, and later rector of the University of Prague, in 1412 sharply opposed the Catholic practice of selling indulgences. Earlier, Hus had begun to read sermons in Czech, and not in Latin. He also criticized some other Catholic institutions relating to church property, the power of the pope, etc. Hus also wrote in Latin, using his knowledge to expose the vices nesting in the Catholic Church (“ About the six fornications»).

Acting as a people's educator, Jan Hus gave his strength to philological work. In his essay " About Czech spelling"He proposed superscripts for the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to convey the sounds characteristic of the Czech language.

The Catholics lured Hus to the cathedral in Constance. He received a safe-conduct, which, after his arrest, was brazenly disavowed on the grounds that the promises made to the "heretic" were invalid. Jan Hus was burned at the stake (he has not been "rehabilitated" by the Catholic Church to this day). The Czech people responded to this atrocity with a national uprising.

At the head of the Hussites stood a nobleman Jan Zizka(1360-1424), who turned out to be a remarkable commander. He fought at Grunwald, where he lost an eye. Zizka's army fought off several crusades organized by the Catholic knights against the Hussites. Jan Zizka created a new type of troops, moving on armored carts and having artillery. Wagons lined up in a row or in a circle and fastened with chains turned into a fortress on wheels. More than once the Hussites lowered heavily loaded wagons down the mountain, crushing and putting to flight the knights, who many times outnumbered them.

Having lost his second eye in battle, Zizka and the blind man continued to command the troops. Only when he died of the plague at the siege of Příbysław did the united Catholic forces succeed in curbing the Hussite movement, which had terrorized all of Europe for more than 20 years.

In the next 16th century, the Austrians infiltrated the throne in Prague. Of these, Archduke Rudolf II of Habsburg remained in history as a philanthropist and ruler prone to religious tolerance. Under him, the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Kepler worked in Prague, Giordano Bruno was hiding from the Inquisition. Protestantism spread in the Czech Republic.

In 1618 the Protestant Bohemia revolted against the power of the Austrian Catholics. This uprising ended in defeat at the Battle of Belaya Gora (1620).

Entering Prague, the victors staged a brutal massacre. The Slavic aristocracy was carefully destroyed. The Austrians made it their task now and forever to suppress the people's ability to resist. Even the tomb of Jan Zizka in 1623 (199 years after the death of the commander) was devastated by order of the Austrian emperor, and his remains were thrown away.

The era of the 300-year domination of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty in the Czech Republic began (it ended in 1918 after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of independent Czechoslovakia). The Austrian feudal lords and their henchmen systematically suppressed the national culture in the Czech Republic.

In the Czech Republic already in the XIV century. there was a developed medieval literature in the native language (chronicles, lives of saints, chivalric novels, dramatic works, etc.). The writings (sermons, epistles and other philosophical and theological works) of the great reformer Jan Hus were written in Czech. Bishop with great artistic talent Jan Amos Comenius(1592-1670), teacher and theologian, used Czech along with Latin. In Czech, for example, his allegory, distinguished by high literary merit, is written “ The labyrinth of the world and the paradise of the heart» (1631). However, J. Comenius died in exile in Holland. The Germans ruled at home.

In 1620, the written tradition itself was interrupted. From now on, Czechs began to write in German, and this was controlled by the winners with truly German punctuality. The victors were especially zealous in the destruction of the Slavic culture of the vanquished in the first century and a half. The counter-reformation, forced Germanization were carried out; The Jesuits burned Czech books at the stake. As a result, in the past, independent Czechs were reduced to the status of German serfs (serfdom was abolished here in 1848). The national nobility was destroyed (the surviving Slavic nobles mostly tried to mimic the "Germans").

In the peasant Slavic environment in the centuries of Austrian dominance, oral folk art continued to develop latently. But the writers of Slavic nationality, when they appeared, created their works in German. Baroque art in the conquered lands was cultivated by the Catholic clergy, did not produce significant works and was not directly related to the culture of the Slavs as such.

Only at the end of the XVIII century. patriotic philologist Joseph Dobrovsky(1753-1829) took up the grammatical description of the Czech language and issues of Czech literature, writing (in German) its history, scientifically substantiating the rules of syllabo-tonic versification for Czech poetry. The literary language had to be re-created. N.S. Trubetskoy describes this situation as follows:

“Thanks to the activities of Jan Hus and the so-called Czech brothers, the Czech language by the 16th century. took on a perfect shape. But unfavorable circumstances interrupted its further development, and the Czech literary tradition for a long time almost completely dried up. Only at the end of the XVIII and at the beginning of the XIX century. the revival of the Czech literary language began. At the same time, the figures of the Czech revival turned not to modern folk dialects, but to the interrupted tradition of the old Czech language of the late 16th century. Of course, this language had to be updated somewhat, but nevertheless, thanks to this adjoining to the interrupted tradition, the New Czech language received a completely peculiar look: it is archaic, but artificially archaic, so that elements of completely different epochs of linguistic development in it coexist with each other in artificial cohabitation " 202 .

The practical consequence of this is that the literary Czech language differs sharply from the spoken language. Having learned to fluently read works of Czech literature, a foreigner suddenly encounters the fact that he does not understand the living speech of the Czechs, and they do not understand him when trying to communicate.

Creativity in Czech began with romantic poets Frantisek Celakovsky(1799-1852), Vaclav Ganka(1791-1861), Karel Jaromir Erben(1811-1870) and others. Old Czech literary monuments began to be reprinted.

In the second half of the XIX century. the brightest poet and prose writer of the period of national revival appeared in the Czech Republic Svatopluk Czech(1846-1908). His defiantly bold " Slave songs» ( Pisne otroka) called the Czech people to fight for freedom. Historical poems from the glorious Czech past were rich in plot and also enjoyed great readership. satirical novels The true journey of Mr Brouchek to the moon» (« Pravy vylet pana Broucka do Měsice", 1888) and " Brouchek's new epochal journey, this time in the fifteenth century» (« Novy epochalni vylet pana Broučka, tentokrat do patnacteho stoleti» , 1888) anticipated the satirical prose of J. Hasek and K. Čapek 203 .

Contemporary of S. Cech Alois Irasek(1851 - 1930) started out as a poet, but, switching to prose with plots from Czech history, he became a classic of national literature (he also wrote historical dramas). He created a cycle of novels about the Hussites " Between currents» ( mezi proudy, 1887-1890), " Against everyone» ( Proti vsem, 1893), " Brotherhood» ( brotherhood, 1898-1908); plays about Jan Hus and Jan Zizka.

In Czechoslovakia, formed after the end of the First World War, the satirist and humorist were popular Yaroslav Gashek(1883-1923) with his anti-war novel The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik» ( Osudy dobreho vojaka Švejka za svetove valky, 1921-1923). Hasek was a communist and a participant in the Russian Civil War, which contributed to his fame in the USSR.

Karel Capek(1890-1938), playwright and prose writer, famous for his plays " Makropulos remedy» ( Vec macropulos, 1922), " Mother» ( matka, 1938), " R.U .R» ( Rossumovi Univerzalni Roboti, 1920) and others, novels " Absolute Factory» ( Tovarna na absolutno, 1922), " Krakatite» ( Krakatit, 1922), " Gordubal» ( Hordubal, 1937), " Meteor», « The Salamander War"(Valka's mloky, 1936) and others. Along with the Pole S. Lem Czapek can be recognized as a classic of philosophical fiction. Karel Capek died having survived the Munich agreement, which gave his homeland to the power of the Germans.

Centuries of slavish dependence on the Germans, apparently, did not pass without a trace for the Czechs as a nation, accustoming them to meekly accept the vicissitudes of fate. As you know, Hitler in 1939 in Poland met with desperate resistance. A year earlier, fascist troops had invaded the Czech Republic almost without firing a shot. The Czech Republic, at that time a powerful industrial country with an excellent defense industry and a strong army with the most modern weapons (much stronger than the Polish army), surrendered to the Germans. (Subsequently, Czech tanks fought during the Great Patriotic War against the USSR, and Czech soldiers abounded in Hitler's army.)

In 1938, some in the Czech Republic felt doomed that their usual owners had returned - the Germans ... These dramatic days are reminiscent of a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva, who loved Czechoslovakia with all her heart " One officer". The Russian poetess prefaced this work with the following epigraph:

“In the Sudetes, on the forested Czech border, an officer with twenty soldiers, leaving the soldiers in the forest, went out onto the road and began to shoot at the approaching Germans. Its end is unknown From the September newspapers of 1938)».

Tsvetaeva writes:

Czech forest -

The most forest.

Year - nine hundred

Thirty-eighth.

Day and month? - peaks, echo:

The day the Germans entered the Czechs!

The forest is reddish

Day - blue-gray.

twenty soldiers,

One officer.

Rough and chubby

The officer guards the border.

My forest, all around,

My bush, all around,

My house around

Mine is this house.

I won't sell the woods

I won't let you at home

I won't give up the edge

I won't give up!

Leaf darkness.

Hearts fright:

Is it a Prussian move?

Is it a heartbeat?

My forest, farewell!

My age, farewell!

My end, goodbye!

Mine is this land!

Let the whole region

To the enemy's feet!

I - under the foot -

I won't sell the stone!

The stomp of boots.

Germans! - sheet.

The roar of glands.

Germans! - the whole forest.

Germans! - peal

Mountains and caves.

Threw a soldier

One is an officer.

From the forest - in a lively manner

On the bulk - yes with a revolver!

suffered

Good news,

What is saved

Czech honor!

So the country

So not given up

Means war

Yet - it was!

My end, viva!

Eat it, Herr!

Twenty soldiers.

One officer.

Consequences of a break in cultural and historical development during the XVII-XVIII centuries. can already be seen from the obvious fact that Czech literature, unfortunately, has not shown itself very well at the international level. However, writers like A. Irasek and K. Čapek and other authors translated into foreign languages ​​worthily carry its ideas and themes to various countries. Russian readers treat Czech literature with great sympathy.

In the early Middle Ages, the lands of the Slovaks were part of Hungary, whose feudal authorities invariably and cruelly suppressed the Slovak national culture. However, in the XVI century. Hungarians lost their national independence. In Hungary, the German language was introduced, and the local feudal lords themselves had a hard time. Together with their old oppressors, the Hungarians, the Slovaks fell under the scepter of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, which soon swallowed up the Czechs. The nuance is that for the Slovaks, with this subordination to the Austrians, that is, the Germans, the cruel domination over them weakened Hungarians against which the Slovaks fought for centuries 204 . In addition, unlike the Czechs, the Slovaks were Catholics like the Austrians - that is, there was no religious confrontation here. And today, a noticeable majority of the citizens of the Slovak Republic formed in 1993 are Catholics (almost all the rest are Protestants, as in the Czech Republic).

(For the first time, the Slovak state was created - for political reasons - by Nazi Germany after its capture of Czechoslovakia. After the liberation of the Czechs and Slovaks, the united Czechoslovak Republic was restored (as a socialist) by Soviet troops. In other words, in the period 1918-1993, Slovakia was almost always in composition Czechoslovakia.)

Slovaks were greatly influenced by Czech culture in general and literature in particular. From the 16th century those Slovaks who became Protestants. In this environment, they willingly wrote in Czech - for example, poets Yuraj Palkovich(1769-1850), author of the book of poems The Muse of the Slovak Mountains (1801), and Bohuslav Tables(1769-1832), who published his collections "Poetry and Records" one after another (1806-1812). Tables also published an anthology of Slovak poetry of the 18th century. "Slovak poets" (1804) - also in Czech.

AT Catholic Slovak circles at the end of the 18th century. a philologically interesting attempt was made to create a system of Slovak spelling (the so-called "Bernolacchina" - after the name of its creator, a Slovak Catholic priest Antonina Bernolaka(1762-1813). A number of books were published at the "Bernolacchyna". Although this unwieldy system never caught on, Bernolak enlisted the efforts of national cultural figures in the creation of the Slovak literary language. However, N.S. Trubetskoy made a sharp and succinct observation:

“Despite the desire of the founders and main figures of Slovak literature to dissociate themselves from the Czech language, adherence to the Czech literary and linguistic tradition is so natural for Slovaks that it is impossible to resist it. The differences between the Slovak and Czech literary languages ​​are mainly grammatical and phonetic, while the vocabulary of both languages ​​is almost the same, especially in the field of concepts and ideas of higher mental culture. 205 .

Slovak began to write poetry Jan Kollar(1793-1852), who created odes, elegies, wrote a patriotic poem " Daughter of Glory» (1824).

Slovak by nationality was one of the largest philologists of the Slavic world Pavel Joseph Safarik(1795-1861). Living in Prague for many years, he wrote mainly in Czech. His most famous work is Slavic antiquities» (1837).

Philologist and Hegelian philosopher Ljudevit Stuhr(1815-1856) in the 30s of the XIX century. headed the department of Czechoslovak literature at the Bratislava Lyceum. He promoted the writer's fidelity to the spirit of the people, which is refracted in oral folk art.

Under the influence of Stuhr's ideas, a romantic poet was created Janko Kralj(1822-1876), which is characterized by rebellious motifs (for example, a cycle of his poems about the "Slovak Robin Hood" robber Janoshik) and prose writer Jan Kalinchak(1822-1871), who wrote historical stories about the struggle of the Slavs for independence - " Bozcovici"(1842)," Milko's grave"(1845)," Prince Liptovsky"(1847) and others.

In fact, these authors and some of their contemporaries played the role of the founders of the young (historically, and a century and a half later still quite young) Slovak literature. This literature is full of fresh vigor, but its entry into the broad international arena is a matter for the future.

The Polish people have been developing their culture in their own state for centuries. At the end of the XIV century. the Polish queen Jadwiga married the Lithuanian king Jagiello (later the military-political leader of the Battle of Grunwald). At the same time, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania retained its autonomy, but less than a century later (June 28, 1569) Union of Lublin according to which Poland and Lithuania have already become a single state. As a result of this union, Orthodox Belarusians and Ukrainians became dependent on Catholic Poles.

A few years later, a Catholic Hungarian was elected king of Poland. Stefan Batory(1533-1586), who led decisive military operations against Orthodox Russia Ivan IV. In parallel, Catholicism intensified its confessional offensive against Orthodoxy.

In 1574 a Jesuit Peter Skarga(1536-1612), a major Polish Catholic figure, published his famous book " About jednośći Kośćtioła Bożego” (“On the unity of the Church of God and on the Greek deviation from this unity”), in which he accused Orthodox priests of getting married and therefore immersed in a sinful worldly life, and they also know Latin poorly and therefore do not differ in the necessary theological learning. He especially attacked the Church Slavonic language, arguing that with it "no one can become a scientist." Church Slavonic allegedly has no grammar rules, and it is also poorly understood everywhere. Naturally, Skarga contrasted this depressing picture with Catholicism with its Latin - in which, it must be admitted, various methods of logical scholasticism and intellectual sophistry were subtly developed.

Replying to Peter Skarga, the Ukrainian monk from Athos Ivan Vishensky(1550-1623) pointed to the inspiration of the Church Slavonic language, "the most fruitful of all languages", but precisely because of this hated by the devil, who "has such envy for the Slovenian language." This language is “God’s favorite: it’s better without filthy tricks and guidelines, yet there is a grammarian, rhetorician, dialectician and their other conceited cunning, the ubiquitous devil” 206 .

In 1596, Catholic church circles, with the support of the Polish authorities, put into practice a religious union. According to this so-called Brest, Orthodox unions living in Poland were subordinate to the Pope, although they retained the right to conduct religious services in Church Slavonic.

The Little Russian and Belarusian masses did not accept the union. In many ways, it was the union that pushed the Ukrainian people to a series of armed uprisings against the rule of the Poles. In the end, this fight was led by Bogdan Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky(1595-1657) - ataman of the Zaporozhye army, later hetman of Ukraine.

The Patriarch of Constantinople, who arrived at his headquarters, called on Khmelnitsky to create an Orthodox state and abolish the union. However, the hetman understood that in his war with the Poles the forces were too unequal, and after major military defeats, on January 8, 1654, he gathered a council in Pereyaslavl, at which the people supported his intention to transfer to the citizenship of the “Tsar of Moscow”. The reunification of Ukrainians and Russians began with the Pereyaslav Rada, which continued until the end of 1991, that is, almost to the present day.

Poland survived in the XVII - XVIII centuries. a series of severe cataclysms. A few years after the Pereyaslav Rada, it was literally flooded with the so-called "flood" - the invasion of the Swedes. The country has not recovered from it. In 1703, the Swedes of Charles XII again occupied Poland, took Warsaw and even planted their protege Stanislav Leshchinsky as king.

In the XVIII century. unfavorable circumstances for the Commonwealth multiplied more and more. With growing aggressiveness, the gentry, defending their "democratic rights", entered into a struggle with King Stanislav Poniatovsky, who was supported by Russia, and formed a "confederation" against him. The king asked Russia for help. As a result of very turbulent events, the so-called first and second partitions of Poland between Russia, Austria and Prussia took place.

In 1794, the Polish confederates, led by an outstanding commander Tadeusz Kosciuszko(1746-1817) were utterly defeated Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov(1730-1800), and the third partition of Poland took place. Poland as a state ceased to exist. For the Poles as an original Slavic nation, this was a tragedy.

In Polish literature there were and are world famous authors (Adam Mickiewicz, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Stanislaw Lem, Czeslaw Miloš, Wislawa Szymborska and others).

Polish secular fiction transcended "Catholic Esperanto" (Latin) in the 16th century. N.S. Trubetskoy writes:

“The Old Polish language became literary much later than Czech, and since there was a rather lively cultural communication between Poland and the Czech Republic, and Polish and Czech languages ​​in the XIV century. were phonetically and grammatically much closer to each other than at present, it is not surprising that at the beginning of its literary existence, the Old Polish language experienced an extremely strong Czech influence. At its core, the Old Polish literary language developed from the spoken language of the Polish gentry, and this connection with a certain class, and not with a certain locality, was reflected in the fact that from the very beginning it did not reflect any specifically local, dialectical features and never coincided with with no local folk dialect: while, for example, the Russian literary language in terms of pronunciation can definitely be localized in the area of ​​Middle Great Russian dialects, the Polish literary language does not at all lend itself to localization on the dialectical map of ethnographic Poland. The literary tradition of the Polish language since the 14th century. never stopped, so that in terms of the duration and continuity of the literary tradition, the Polish language among the Slavic literary languages ​​occupies the next place after the Russian " 207 .

The Polish language was successfully used by the poet Nicholas Ray(1505-1569), author of moralizing poems (collection " Menagerie", 1562) the allegorical poem "A true image of the life of a worthy person, in which, as in a mirror, everyone can easily survey their actions" (1558), a book of short comic poems (" frashek») « funny stories"(1562) and others. Jan Kokhanovsky(1530-1584) was the largest poet of his time, the author of such works, didactic in tone, as " Susanna"(1562)," Chess"(1562-1566)," Agreement"(1564)," Satyr"(1564) and others. Poet who had little time to write Samp Shazhinsky(1550-1581) is considered a kind of predecessor of the Polish Baroque. One of the most famous representatives of the Baroque in Poland - Jan Andrzej Morshtyn(1621-1693), in whose work the Poles see the influence of a major figure in the Italian Baroque G. Marino (1569-1625).

Becoming at the end of the XVIII century. part of the Russian Empire, Slavic Poland experienced a strong and fruitful cultural and historical impact from its Russian brothers. In relation to literature, this fact is undoubtedly captured in the work of the classic of Polish romanticism Adam Mickiewicz(1798-1855), who was a personal friend of A.S. Pushkin and a number of contemporary Russian writers. Comparing the works of Mickiewicz and Pushkin more than once makes it possible to feel that the creative searches of these two great contemporaries (and at the same time the leaders of two Slavic literatures) were in many respects parallel to each other (they even both lived in Odessa, Moscow and St. Petersburg, both loved these cities).

« Crimean sonnets” (“Sonety krymskie”, 1826) by A. Mickiewicz are in tune with Pushkin's poems of the southern period. In turn, A.S. Pushkin brilliantly translated some of Mickiewicz's poems (" Budrys and his sons», « Governor"). Magnificent are the epic poems of Mickiewicz Konrad Wallenrod" (1828) and " Pan Tadeusz» (1834). In 1834, the poet also completed the dramatic poem " Dzyady”(its artistically the most powerful 3rd part), imbued with mystical-fictional motives and motives of Polish paganism, after which, unfortunately, almost ceasing to compose poetry. A. Mickiewicz wrote many sonnets, romances, lyrical poems and ballads. He also wrote a kind of romantic prose.

Among the Polish poets of the next generations, the most prominent are Juliusz Slovak(1809-1849), who also acted as a playwright and tragic Cyprian Norwid(1821-1883), who published little during his lifetime as a lyric poet and poet-philosopher.

In the second half of the XIX century. a whole galaxy of remarkable prose writers has matured in Poland.

Józef Ignacy Kraszewski(1812-1887) wrote prose, poetry and plays, leaving more than 500 volumes of writings (one of the most prolific European writers), but most of all he was glorified by 88 historical novels. Among them stand out " Countess Kozel"(1873)," Bruhl"(1874)," old legend"(1876) and others. Among the largest Polish prose writers of the 19th century. it was Kraszewski who first began to systematically poetize the historical past of Poland, at the end of the 18th century. lost state independence and dismembered.

Krashevsky lived in that (main) part of the former Commonwealth, which went to Russia, and was a contemporary of I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, N.S. Leskov and other major Russian prose writers. Since 1868, thinking mankind has become more and more widely acquainted with the great novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace", which influenced the work of historical novelists in various countries (as the romantic Walter Scott managed to do with his work earlier in the early 19th century). Kraszewski's novels established a powerful tradition of historical prose in Polish literature.

Alexander Glovatsky(1847-1912), writing under a pseudonym Boleslav Prus, he liked to joke that he used a pseudonym, as he was embarrassed by the nonsense coming out from under his pen. Despite such ironic self-criticism, Prus was a master of the pen. Starting as a humorist, he then became famous for realistic novels and short stories. outpost"(1885), "Doll" (1890), " emancipants"(1894) and others, as well as a wonderful historical novel" Pharaoh» (1895).

Classical prose writer, Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz(1846-1916) was also focused primarily on depicting Poland's great past. Novels " With fire and sword"(1883-1884)," The flood"(1884-1886)," Pan Volodyevsky”(1887-1888) make up a trilogy dedicated to the military exploits of the Polish gentry of bygone times (in the novel “With Fire and Sword” the Poles fight the Ukrainian brothers, led by hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky). Historical novel " Camo coming” (“Quo vadis”), written in 1894-1896, transfers the action to the first centuries of Christianity (the reign of Emperor Nero).

The best novel by Sienkiewicz crusaders"(1900) depicts Poland on the verge of the XIV-XV centuries. The plot action is resolved by the Battle of Grunwald, in which the combined forces of the Slavs inflicted a crushing defeat on the Teutonic Order.

Stefan Zeromsky(1864-1925), who wrote prose and plays, became famous primarily for his historical novel from the era of the Napoleonic Wars " Ash» (Popioły, 1904). Among his other works (usually permeated with pessimistic intonations), the novel " History of sin"(Dzieje grzechu, 1908) and the trilogy" Fight with Satan"(Walka z szatanem, 1916-1919).

Creativity of the prose writer and playwright Stanislav Pshibyshevsky(1868-1927), the de facto leader of Polish modernism at the beginning of the 20th century, was valued by Russian symbolists. He created novels, plays, poems in prose, essays, etc. Przybyszewski wrote many works in German (he grew up in the Prussian part of Poland), then translating himself into Polish. These include " Homo sapiens», « children of satan», « Deprofundis» and etc.

In the first decades of the XX century. in Poland there was also a bright poetic galaxy. Poets belonged to her Boleslav Lesmyan(1877-1937), Leopold Staff(1878-1957), as well as younger authors who formed the Scamander group - Julian Tuwim(1894-1953), Yaroslav Ivashkevich(1894-1980), Kazimierz Wierzyński(1894-1969) and others. A revolutionary romantic poet joined this group Vladislav Bronevsky(1897-1962).

Remarkably talented was one of the greatest Polish poets of the 20th century. Constants Ildefons Galczynski(1905-1953) - a wonderful lyricist, but moreover, the author is ironic, prone to fantasy and the grotesque, on occasion a bright and strong satirist. Galczynski's pre-war lyrics are mostly combined into " Utwory poetyckie» (1937). Taken prisoner by the Germans, the poet spent the years of World War II in a prisoner of war camp, where he undermined his health. After the war, Galczynski published a book of poems Enchanted droshky"("Zaczarowana dorożka", 1948), " Wedding rings"("Ślubne obrączki", 1949), " Lyric poetry"(" Wiersze liryczne ", 1952), the poem " Niobe"(Niobe, 1951) and a poem about a medieval Polish sculptor" Wit Stwosh» («Wit Stwosz», 1952). In the post-war years, the poet worked a lot as a satirist - he created the poetic cycle " Letters with violet"("Listy z fiołkiem", 1948).

There is reason to believe that K.I. Galchinsky, whose work is marked by features of genius, was generally the last in chronology great Polish poet. Among the authors of subsequent generations, modernist mindsets generally prevailed, creativity acquired a rather rationalistic character. 208 .

This has to be attributed even to such major figures as the Nobel Prize (1980) Polish-Lithuanian poet Cheslav Milos(1911-2004), who has been in exile since 1951, and Tadeusz Ruzewicz(1921) with his strict program of saving figurative means (rejection of rhyme, poetic rhythm, etc., that is, the transition to vers libre, rejection of metaphor, etc.). Even more indicative in this regard is the work of famous poets of later generations - for example, Stanislav Baranchak(1946), acting in parallel with writing poetry as a literary theorist, and Waldemar Zelazny(1959).

In 1996, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to a Polish poet Wislava Szymborska(1923). This act of somewhat belated official recognition prompts us to point to this poetess as a woman classic of modern Polish literature.

The true pride of modern Polish culture is multifaceted creativity Stanislav Lem(1921-2006). Since 1961, when his fantasy novels were published one after another Solaris», « Return from the stars», « Diary found in the bath" and " Book of Robots”, it became clear what kind of writer (prose writer, philosopher-essayist, critic) appeared in one of the Slavic countries. S. Lem was an innovator who updated the system of genres of his native literature. Known throughout the world and widely influenced by world literary fiction, Lem's work is of great artistic significance.

To summarize all of the above, it is deeply obvious that the Slavic world has made a powerful contribution to the world's verbal culture. The Slavs created the most important literary monuments of the Middle Ages. Slavic writers (primarily Russians) confidently occupy leadership positions in a number of areas of world literary development.

The oral poetic work (folklore) of the ancient Slavs has to a large extent be judged hypothetically, since its main works have come down to us in the records of modern times (XVIII-XX centuries)

It can be thought that the folklore of the pagan Slavs was associated mainly with labor rites and processes. Mythology took shape at an already fairly high level of development of the Slavic peoples and was a complex system of views based on animism and anthropomorphism.

Apparently, the Slavs did not have a single higher pantheon like the Greek or Roman one, but we know evidence of the Pomeranian (on Rügen Island) pantheon with the god Svyatovid and the Kiev pantheon.

The main gods in it were considered Svarog - the god of sky and fire, Dazhdbog - the god of the sun, the giver of blessings, Perun - the god of lightning and thunder, and Veles - the patron of farming and livestock. The Slavs made sacrifices to them. The spirits of nature among the Slavs were anthropomorphic or zoomorphic, or mixed anthropomorphic-zoomorphic in the form of mermaids, divas, samodivs - goblin, water, brownies.

Mythology began to influence the oral poetry of the Slavs and greatly enriched it. In songs, fairy tales and legends, the origin of the world, man, animals and plants began to be explained. Wonderful, human-speaking animals acted in them - a winged horse, a fiery serpent, a prophetic raven, and a man was depicted in his relationship with monsters and spirits.

In the pre-literate period, the culture of the artistic word of the Slavs was expressed in the works of folklore, which reflected social relations, life and ideas of the communal-tribal system.

An important part of the folklore was labor songs, which often had a magical meaning: they accompanied rituals associated with agricultural work and the change of seasons, as well as with the most important events in a person’s life (birth, marriage, death).

In ritual songs, the basis is requests to the sun, earth, wind, rivers, plants for help - for the harvest, for the offspring of livestock, for good luck in hunting. The rudiments of drama arose in ritual songs and games.

The most ancient folklore of the Slavs was diverse in genres. Fairy tales, proverbs and riddles were widely used. There were also toponymic traditions, legends about the origin of spirits, inspired both by oral tradition and later tradition - biblical and apocryphal. The echoes of these legends have preserved for us the most ancient chronicles.

Apparently, heroic songs also arose early among the Slavic peoples, which reflected the struggle of the Slavs for independence and clashes with other peoples (when advancing, for example, to the Balkans). These were songs to the glory of heroes, outstanding princes and ancestors. But the heroic epic was still only in its infancy.

The ancient Slavs had musical instruments, to the accompaniment of which they sang songs. In the South Slavic and West Slavic written sources, harps, horns, pipes, pipes are mentioned.

The oldest oral poetry of the Slavs largely influenced the further development of their artistic culture, but it itself underwent historical changes.

With the formation of states, the adoption of Christianity and the emergence of writing, new elements entered folklore. In songs, fairy tales and especially legends, old pagan mythology and Christian ideas began to be combined. Christ, the Mother of God, angels, saints appear next to witches and divas, and events take place not only on earth, but also in heaven or hell.

On the basis of the worship of Veles, the cult of St. Blaise arose, and Elijah the prophet took possession of the thunders of Perun. New Year's and summer rituals and songs were Christianized. New Year's rites were attached to the Nativity of Christ, and summer rites to the feast of John the Baptist (Ivan Kupala).

The creativity of peasants and townspeople experienced some influence of the culture of feudal circles and the church. Among the people, Christian literary legends were reworked and used to denounce social injustice. Rhyme and strophic articulation gradually penetrated into folk poetic works.

Of great importance was the dissemination in the Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian lands of legendary and fairy-tale stories from Byzantine literature, the literature of Western European and Middle Eastern countries.

Slovenian folk art already in the IX-X centuries. learned not only literary plots, but also poetic forms, for example, a ballad - a genre of Romanesque origin. So, in the X century. in the Slovenian lands, a ballad with a tragic story about the beautiful Vida became popular.

A song about her arose in Byzantium in the 7th-8th centuries. and then through Italy came to the Slovenes. This ballad tells how an Arab merchant lured the beautiful Vida onto his ship, promising her medicine for a sick child, and then sold her into slavery. But gradually, the motives reflecting reality and social relations intensified in the songs (ballads “Imaginary Dead”, “Young Groom”).

Songs about the meeting of a girl with overseas knights, the fight against the "infidels", which was obviously a reflection of the Crusades, were popular. There are also traces of anti-feudal satire in the songs.

A new and important phenomenon of Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian folk art in the XII-XIV centuries. was the emergence and development of epic songs. This process went through two stages: first, everyday songs arose, reflecting the uniqueness of social relations and the life of the early feudal society, and heroic songs were formed almost simultaneously with them.

Subsequently, with the creation and strengthening of the state, with the beginning of the struggle against Byzantium and the Turks, youthful heroic songs began to be created and gradually took first place in the epic. They were formed by folk singers shortly after the events sung in them.

The South Slavic epic was created with the creative cooperation of all Balkan Slavs, as well as with the participation of individual non-Slavic peoples. The epic songs of the southern Slavs are characterized by common plots, which are based on the events of the struggle with neighboring peoples, common heroes, common expressive means and forms of verse (the so-called ten-syllable). At the same time, the epic of each nation has its own distinctive features.

The Serbo-Croatian epic is historical in its essence. Despite the presence of anachronisms, fantasy and hyperbolization, the texts that have come down to us also contain historically correct information. The songs reflected the features of early feudal relations, the political system and culture of that time. In one of the songs Stefan Dusan says:

I curbed the governor of the obstinate,

Subjugated them to our royal power.

The songs express thoughts about the need to maintain state unity, the attention of the feudal lords to the people. Stefan Dechansky, dying, bequeathed to his son: "Take care of the people like your own head."

The songs vividly depict feudal life, relations between the prince and his squads, campaigns, battles and duels, military competitions.

The earliest songs, the so-called pre-Kosovo cycle, are dedicated to the events of the reign of the Serbian princely (since 1159) and then royal (since 1217) Nemanjić dynasty. They are religious in color and tell about the "holy deeds" and "righteous life" of the Serbian rulers, many of whom were canonized by the church as saints: feudal strife and civil strife are condemned in the songs.

Many songs are dedicated to Savva, the founder of the Serbian church. These earliest songs are a valuable cultural monument. They give a vivid artistic generalization of the fate of their native land, they are distinguished by a great content of plots and images, and a remarkable mastery of the poetic word.

Unlike the folklore of the Eastern and Southern Slavs, the Western Slavs - Czechs, Slovaks and Poles, apparently did not have a heroic epic in such developed forms. However, some circumstances suggest that heroic songs probably also existed among the Western Slavs. Among the Czechs and Poles, historical songs were widespread, and the forerunner of this genre is usually the heroic epic.

In a number of genres of Czech and Polish folklore, especially in fairy tales, one can find plots and motifs that are characteristic of heroic epos among other peoples (fight-duel, obtaining a bride): individual West Slavic historical figures became heroes of South Slavic heroic songs, such as Vladislav Varnenchik.

In the historical chronicles of Poland and the Czech Republic (Anonymous Gaul, Kozma of Prague, etc.) there are plots and motifs, apparently of epic origin (legends about Libush, Krak, about the sword of Boleslav the Bold, about the siege of cities). Historiographer Kozma of Prague and others testify that they drew some materials from folk legends.

The formation of a feudal state, the idea of ​​the unity of Polish lands and patriotic goals in the fight against foreign invaders determined the popularity of historical traditions, the appeal to them by chroniclers, thanks to whom these traditions are known to us.

Gall Anonymous pointed out that he used the stories of old people, Abbot Peter, the author of the Henrykovsky Book (XIII century), called the peasant Kverik, nicknamed Kika, who knew many legends about the past of the Polish land, which the author of this book used.

Finally, the chronicles record or retold these legends themselves, for example, about Krak, the legendary ruler of Poland, who is considered the founder of Krakow. He freed his people from a cannibal monster that lived in a hole. Although this motif is international, it has a clear Polish flavor.

Krak dies in the struggle with his brothers, but his daughter Wanda inherits the throne. The legend about her tells how the German ruler, fascinated by her beauty, tried with gifts and requests to persuade her to marry. Not having reached the goal, he started a war against her. From the shame of defeat, he commits suicide, throwing himself on a sword and cursing his compatriots for having succumbed to female charms (“Greater Polish Chronicle”).

The victorious Wanda, not wanting to marry a foreigner, rushes to the Vistula. The legend of Wanda was one of the most popular among the people. Both its patriotic meaning and the romantic nature of the plot played a role in this. Dynastic traditions also include legends about Popiel and Piast.

Popel - the prince of Gnezno, according to legend, died in a tower in Krushvitsy, where he was bitten by mice; a similar motif is common in medieval literature and folklore. Piast, the founder of the Polish royal dynasty, according to legend, a peasant-wheeler.

The chronicles mention songs to the glory of princes and kings, songs about victories, the chronicler Vincenciy Kadlubek speaks of "heroic" songs. The Wielkopolska Chronicle retells the legend about the knight Walter and the beautiful Helgund, which testifies to the penetration of the German epic into Poland.

The story about Walter (Valgezha Udalom) from the Popel family tells how he brought the beautiful Helgunda from France, whose heart he won by singing and playing the lute.

On the way to Poland, Walter killed a German prince who was in love with her. Arriving in Poland, he imprisoned Wiesław, who plotted against him. But when Walther went on a two-year campaign, Helgunda freed Wiesław and fled with him to his castle.

Walter, on his return from the campaign, was put in prison. He was saved by his sister Wiesława, who brought him a sword, and Walter took revenge on Helgunda and Wieslaw by chopping them to pieces. Literary historians suggest that the legend of Walther and Helgund goes back to the poem about Walter of Aquitaine, which was brought to Poland by shpilmans, participants in the crusades.

However, in Polish folklore there were stories that were original works in terms of plot, type of characters and form.

Chronicles and other sources have attested to the existence of songs about historical characters and events. These are songs about the funeral of Boleslav the Bold, songs about Casimir the Renovator, about Boleslav Kryvoust, about the battle of the latter with the Pomeranians, songs from the time of Boleslav Krivousty about the attack of the Tatars, songs about the battle of the Poles with the Galician Prince Vladimir, songs about the Polish knights who fought against the pagan Prussians. The report of the chronicler of the 15th century is exceptionally valuable.

Jan Dlugosh about songs about the battle of Zavykhost (1205): “the meadows sang this victory [...] in various kinds of songs that we still hear to this day.”

The chronicler noted the emergence of songs shortly after the historical event. At the same time, historical ballads, or thoughts, began to appear. An example is the thought of Ludgard, the wife of Prince Przemysław II, who ordered her to be strangled in the Poznań castle because of her infertility.

Długosz notes that even then a “song in Polish” was composed about this. Thus, Polish folklore is characterized not by heroic songs such as epics and South Slavic youth songs, but by historical legends and historical songs.

History of world literature: in 9 volumes / Edited by I.S. Braginsky and others - M., 1983-1984