What was the name of the uncle of the heroes from Pushkin's fairy tale?

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

The famous fairy tale of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin about Tsar S altan includes a mention of such an interesting character as the uncle of 33 heroes. Let's discuss a little historical roots of his name.

The vicissitudes of word formation

For starters, let's remember the name of the uncle of the heroes. The answer, through the efforts of the great poet, is familiar to all readers - young and old. Yes, his name was Chernomor. However, few thought about the true origin of this seemingly uncomplicated proper name. The simplest association is, of course, the Black Sea. Indeed, 33 heroes and uncle Chernomor in a fairy tale got up from the sea. What sea do we associate with black? The answer is on the surface.

But… If you delve a little into the history of the Russian nation, and also take an interest in Pushkin's knowledge of these very depths, very unusual details appear that I would like to dwell on.

Plague

So, the name Chernomor, as the uncle of the heroes was called, goes back to such an important and catastrophic phenomenon in Russian reality as an epidemic of bubonic plague that visited our venerable Motherland back in 1352. Which in Russia was called, as is known from the annals, the black pestilence.

Contradiction

However, let's consider the whole incredibly entertaining sequence, based on which this name appeared in the fairy tale, by the way, introduced there by the obviously ironic pen of the great creator. The 33 bogatyrs and uncle Chernomor present an interesting contrast, since in the presence of a clearly heroic raid on the last character, at least in this tale, a contradiction with his prototype is revealed. After all, Chernomor in folklore works is painted clearly negatively. His incarnation is known as an evil sorcerer who kidnaps women of fairy-tale heroes. So here's our first hint with a bunch of subtexts from a prodigy of the Russian literary workshop.

Origins of the name

But we're back to the bubonic plague. Answering the question about the name of the uncle of the heroes, one should recall the historical path of this name to folklore. So, the plague was brought from China to Italy by the Great Silk Road. Having first mowed down the population of this proud country, she set off on her black route to Germany, covering the territory of almost all of Europe. Even Sweden got it, from where it safely reached Novgorod, Pskov and rushed through the territory of our vast camp.

And now the s alt of the story. During the siege of the fortress of Kafu - the one that is now called Theodosia - our answer to the Trojan horse was used. For the walls of the fortress with the help of a catapult, the corpse of the deceased from this very bubonic plague was thrown. The Genoese, who were defending at that time,Naturally, they contracted a terrible disease. As a result, the survivors had to leave the fortress, and "Uncle Chernomor" remained in folklore as a symbol of weapons successfully used to win the next conquest of the flow of history.

Finally, we can note one more interesting allusion used by Pushkin. So, “in scales, like the heat of grief” is a completely obvious allusion to the fever that occurs in a plague patient, but scales are nothing more than buboes or ulcers that appear on the body of an infected with this terrible disease.

In general, the whole work about the glorious Tsar S altan can be considered from the point of view of numerous interesting allusions used by the unsurpassed master of metaphors. Take at least a hint of the Crimean peninsula (Buyan Island) and the war raging on it for the right to own the territory in the distant fourteenth century. But that's a completely different story. And we can only wonder that from the name of the uncle of the heroes in Pushkin's uncomplicated fairy tale, you can pull out a whole historical elephant.