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In my last post I talked about American icons and folkheroes that pretty much every child who’s grown up in America knows or has heard of before. In this post I said I’d write about Russian folk heroes or iconic figures that most Russian children know about.
Problem is, I’m not Russian, so I don’t really know who or what is part of the national conciousness.
According to Wikipedia, these are the Russian mythical heroes: Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Svyatogor, and Nightingale the Robber. All of these characters are from bylina, the traditional, epic narrative poem of the early Slavs. (I guess the kind of stories like we have about Beowulf?)
Here’s a bit about each:
Ilya Muromets – “Along with Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich he is regarded as the greatest of all the legendary bogatyrs (i.e., medieval Russian knights-errant).” (Wikipedia) Born from a poor farming family and ill as a child, he was healed by some pilgrims and given super-human strength by a dying knight. He then ran around Russia, single-handedly defeating armies and enemies and resecuing people from evil. He’s like the Russian SuperMan! “Ilya Muromets’s name became a synonym of an outstanding physical and spiritual power and integrity, dedicated to the protection of the Homeland and People and over time has become a hero of numerous movies, pictures, monuments, cartoons and anecdotes.” (Wikipedia).
Dobrynya Nikitich is another or the bogatyrs (medieval Russian knights-errant) – kind of like the Knights of the Round Table, without the round table I suppose – who sometimes hung out with Ilya Muromets. He was a dragonslayer. Cool.
Alyosha Popovich is the trickster of the trio. There seems to be one in every set of folklore, doesn’t there? Apparently he defeated a dragon by trickery, although in other tales he defeated a Mongol Khan through the same tricks.
Svyatogor is a giant, and it is he who gives Ilya Muromets his power as he is dying.
Nightingale the Robber, also known as Solovey Odikhmantievich or Solovey the Brigand, was a famous villain who could kill people with his legendary whistle. Ilya Muromets (he’s everywhere!) killed him in a huge battle.
In part 3 I’ll talk about the “pagan” folk heroes/antiheroes in Russian culture.
