Russian epic "Svyatogor"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The epic "Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovich" is a famous work of the ancient Russian epic. She talks about the famous giant hero.

Bogatyr Svyatogor

Epics about Svyatogor belong to East Slavic mythology. This is one of the most ancient cycles of the Russian epic epic. It is outside the popular Novgorod and Kyiv cycles. At the same time, it intersects with them in some epics dedicated to the meetings of Svyatogor with Ilya Muromets.

According to the widespread plot of the epic, Svyatogor was very difficult. So much so that the earth could not bear it. At the same time, he himself could no longer overcome the earth's thrust and went down with his feet into the ground. According to another legend, Ilya Muromets, together with Svyatogor, take turns trying on a coffin made of stone. They suddenly meet him on their way. In this epic, Svyatogor is a hero whose coffin fit just right.

However, once in the coffin, he finds out that he cannot get out of it, even the lid does not lift. Just before his death, Svyatogor manages to transfer part of his strength to Ilya Muromets through breathing. So the most famous epic defender of the Russian land becomes even stronger.

Description of Svyatogor

As a rule, in epics Svyatogor is described as a huge giant, of great strength. He is taller than the trees in the forest. He visits Holy Russia itself only occasionally. He mostly prefers to live on the high Holy Mountains almost completely alone.

When he finally leaves his home, the whole neighborhood becomes aware of it. The ground beneath him sways, trees sway, and rivers simply overflow their banks.

Svyatogor is the personification of the ancient Russian hero, the pre-Christian hero of the Slavic epic, who is the personification of the power of the Russian people and its divine destiny.

It is noteworthy that the father of the epic Svyatogor was a "dark", that is, a blind man. And this is a clear sign that he belonged to the creatures of the other world.

Giant forces of Svyatogor

In the summary of the epic about Svyatogor, there is often a plot in which he feels gigantic forces in himself. To prove this, he boasts that he is able to turn heaven and earth over if there were two rings: one in the sky and the other in the earth. Another famous epic hero named Mikula Selyaninovich heard about this. He then threw a bag on the ground, which contained all the "earthly burden".

In the epic "Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovich", a summary of which is given in this article, our hero makes unsuccessful attempts to somehow move this bag without getting offhorse, but fails. Then he dismounts and tries to lift the bag with both hands. But instead of raising it above his head, he himself sinks into the ground almost to his knees, because he cannot overcome the earth's thrust. So he ends his life, failing to confirm in practice the words about his strength and power.

There is another version of how the epic "Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovich" develops. Reading it in full, you can find out another ending to this story. In it, Svyatogor remains alive, and Mikula, taking pity on him, reveals the secret of his unbearable sum.

Epics with Ilya Muromets

In the epics about Svyatogor, the content of which is given in this article, perhaps the most famous Russian epic hero Ilya Muromets is often found.

The plot is well known, in which Ilya Muromets finds a real heroic bed almost in an open field, under an oak tree. It is 10 fathoms long and another 6 wide. The tired hero of the Russian epic falls asleep on it for three whole days.

In this epic, Svyatogor and Ilya Muromets meet on the third day, when Ilya is awakened by a horse. A noise is heard from the north side, which alarmed the animal. It is the horse that advises the hero to hide behind the oak.

Appearance of Svyatogor

At this moment, Svyatogor appears. He sits on a horse and holds a crystal casket in his hands. In it is his beautiful wife. Svyatogor himself lies down to rest on the heroic bed. While he sleeps his wife noticesIlya Muromets. She seduces him into love and puts him in the pocket of her giant husband so that he quietly continues his journey with them.

In this epic, Svyatogor and Ilya set off on a further journey, and one of them is unaware of the existence of the other. His horse begins to talk to Svyatogor, who complains that it is very difficult for him, because until now he has carried only one hero and his wife, and now there are two heroes. This is how the insidious plan of Svyatogor's wife is revealed.

The giant hero quickly finds Ilya in his pocket. Carefully and in detail asks how he got there. Upon learning of his wife's infidelity, Svyatogor, without any regret, kills her. With Ilya, he enters into a brotherhood. Together they continue on.

Stone at the crossroads

Near the North Mountain, the heroes meet the famous stone at the crossroads, which was later repeatedly encountered in other heroic epics. It says that only the one who is destined to lie there will end up in the coffin.

The heroes begin to try on a stone coffin. For Ilya, it turns out to be great, but Svyatogor fits just right. As soon as Svyatogor lies down in it, the lid immediately slams behind him. He is no longer able to lift it, he cannot get out and ends his life in this coffin. Having transferred part of his mighty strength, as well as his sword to Ilya Muromets, he asks Ilya to cut the hated coffin. But all in vain. With each blow, the coffin only becomes covered with a powerful iron hoop.

Svyatogor's wedding

Another popular plot of the Svyatogor epic is his marriage. In this epic, Svyatogor and Mikula talk about how to find out the future, their future destiny.

Mikula gives the hero good advice - to go to the Northern mountains. They are also called Siversky. There, according to him, lives a prophetic blacksmith who can give answers to all these questions.

Svyatogor comes to the blacksmith, who predicts to him that he will soon get married. His bride will be from a distant seaside kingdom. Svyatogor goes there and looks for the sick Plenka Pomorskaya, as the blacksmith predicted, she lies on a pus (as manure was called in Ancient Russia). Svyatogor puts 500 rubles near her, beats her in the chest with a sword and leaves.

From everything that happens, the girl wakes up and comes to her senses. She lay on the pus for 30 years, so awakening is difficult for her. During this time, her entire body was covered with an ugly bark. But as soon as she descends, it turns out that a written beauty was hiding under her. Rumors about the beauty of a beautiful stranger reach Svyatogor itself. He immediately comes back to this overseas kingdom and takes her as his wife.

Only after the wedding, Svyatogor discovers that his young wife has a scar on her chest. He recognizes the mark from his sword and realizes that this is exactly the woman who was destined for him by prediction.

Legends about Svyatogor

In the analysis of the ancient Russian epic, much attention is paid to the analysis of legends dedicated to Svyatogor. Their detailed study leads researchers to three fundamental conclusions.

Wo-First, they single out the motif of raising the bag. This plot is very common not only in Russian legends, but also among other peoples in legends about heroes and giants. For example, about Volga, Anika, Samson, Kolyvan. So, in the Yugoslav ancient poetry, the analogue of Svyatogor is the prince Marko. In the Caucasus, a similar situation happens to the folk hero Soslan.

Suma corresponds in other legends to a stone, for example, in epics about a stream. This, in turn, coincides with the story from the biography of the exploits of Alexander the Great. About how the inhabitants of the heavenly capital give him one stone each as a tribute. However, it turns out that this stone cannot be weighed or measured in any way.

In a symbolic interpretation, this amount corresponds to human envy. A similar legend is found among the ancient Scandinavian peoples - in the episode about the dispute between Thor and the giant.

Unfaithful wife

Secondly, researchers of the ancient Russian epic analyze in detail the situation with the marriage of Svyatogor and his unfaithful wife. They see parallel motifs among Persian authors in a book called "Tuti-name". This is a famous collection of short stories with humorous, didactic and even erotic content, which was extremely popular in ancient India.

Often, episodes with a wedding and adultery, similar to the story of Svyatogor, can be read in Buddhist fairy tales. Many reputable researchers are inclined to believe that this episode is of Eastern origin.

The very episode of the marriage of the hero Svyatogor most literary critics andhistorians are classified as folk tales, which at that time were based on popular medieval stories.

This is especially noticeable if you analyze these legends into details. So, a trip to the sorcerer-blacksmith to the north resembles an episode from the Kalevala epic. The wife, who has been lying on the pus for a long time, is also found in the old Russian story, in which the main character is Tsarevich Firgis.

At the moment, we have already managed to collect a lot of parallels in order to study in detail the personality of Svyatogor, but still there is a lot of obscure and incomprehensible in it. For example, it was not possible to unambiguously find the absolute prototype of the strong man Svyatogor. There are only a few hypotheses. For example, it could be Saint Christopher, with whom Wilhelm Wollner compares Svyatogora.

Folklorist Ivan Zhdanov believes that the real prototype of Svyatogor was the biblical strongman Samson. Literary critic Alexei Veselovsky puts forward a similar version.

But the historian of Russian literature Mikhail Khalansky notes the similarity of stories about Svyatogor with Russian folk epics. Most likely, his name is an epithet that comes from the name of the places in which he lived - the Holy Mountains.

Magic power

The famous researcher of Russian fairy tales and folklore Vladimir Propp also expresses his opinion on this issue. He believes that Svyatogor personifies a primal force that cannot be applied in ordinary standard life.

That is why she is doomed to failure and subsequent death.

Native of Chernigov

There is also a version that the epic aboutSvyatogor and Mikulu Selyaninovich, like other epic stories about this hero, originally developed in Chernigov.

The fact is that in one of the epics Svyatogor appears as a hero defending the Chernigov prince named Oleg Svyatoslavovich. On this basis, archaeologist Boris Rybakov puts forward a version that the epic originally developed precisely in the environment of the Chernigov prince. And this means that it could reflect much earlier legends, for example, the epic of the beginning of the 10th century.