Worlds Apart

by Alexander Levitsky

  Marya Morevna, another very popular Russian folk tale, expresses three other major utopian folk themes. The first, man’s primordial wish to fly, is magically realized at the very beginning of the tale. The male protagonist, Prince Ivan, succeeds in marrying his three sisters to three brave knights, each of whom flies into his castle’s window in avian form—falcon, eagle and raven, respectively—as they seek his three sisters’ hands. Each has his wish granted and each carries his betrothed into his own land. Russia’s mythic fascination with the bird kingdom is strong, and instances of transmogrification into bird-like creatures abound in its tales and epics. The theme is also well represented in Russia’s oldest stone cathedral decorations, in objects of folk handwork, and in traditional cross-stitch embroidery designs. This powerful symbolic significance may be traced even in Russia’s choice of the Byzantine double-headed eagle as its national emblem. In this context it is perhaps natural that Russia’s foremost prose writer, N. V. Gogol, chose his pen-name from the bird kingdom—gogol’ in Russian is a goldeneye duck—and that one of Turgenev’s major novels is titled The Nest of Gentlefolk. By Turgenev’s time the word “nest” was mainly used as a metaphor for home comfort, but in Marya Morevna the nests inhabited by the Prince Ivan’s sisters are far closer to their avian counterparts’, and their raptor-husbands’ ability to fly plays an important role later in the tale. In many ways, then, Sputnik and Russia’s primacy in space exploration were the technological realization of a national folk dream.

  The second utopian motif in Marya Morevna, a theme closely connected with the ability to fly to distant reaches, is the innate human desire to overcome death. As opposed to Christian teachings which promise eternal life-after-death somewhere outside of temporal reality, this folk tale and many others advance the notion that the miracle of resurrection into temporal life can be achieved by a proper application of certain magic agents, available to those who seek them. This motif appears after Prince Ivan’s bride Maria Morevna has been kidnapped by Koschey the Deathless—the villain in this tale. Setting out to find her, the Prince leaves silver talismans (a spoon, a fork and a snuffbox) with each of his three brothers-in-law, all of whom can assume bird form at will. Twice the Prince rescues Maria Morevna but is overtaken—and spared—by Koschey, who warns him that a third attempt will mean his death.

  Once again Koschey the Deathless left the castle where he kept her. Once again the Prince came riding, begged Maria to come with him. “But Prince Ivan, he will catch us, hew you into little pieces.” “Let him do so-for I cannot live in happiness without you.” They made ready, left the castle as Koschey was wending homewards. In pursuit The Deathless galloped, overtook the Prince’s charger. Then he hewed the Prince in pieces, put them in a tar-daubed barrel, bound it well with hoops of iron, flung it in the deep blue ocean. At that very hour and moment, each small talisman of silver shone no more, grew black with tarnish. Eagle hurried to the ocean, seized the barrel, hove it shorewards. Falcon flew to fetch the Water That Gives Life. Likewise did Raven fetch the Water That Gives Death, and then the brothers broke the barrel, ranged the pieces all in order. Raven flecked them with the Water That Brings Death—they grew together. Falcon flecked the new-formed body with the Water That Brings Life—the Prince awakened. “Ah, how long have I been sleeping?” he inquired. “Longer had you slept without us,” Eagle answered.

  It must be noted that the hero in any tale may be revived only if he has helpers who can obtain the Water of Life and the Water of Death and who know how to use them. Above, had the brothers merely sprinkled the pieces of Prince Ivan’s body with the Water of Life each piece might have become animated, but would have then remained separate from all the others in a surrealist or neo-Boschian way.

  The final utopian aspect of Marya Morevna worth noting is found in its projection of gender equality. Unlike Vasilisa the Beautiful, in which most of the participants are female, Marya Morevna presents its characters in an equilibrium of the sexes. Prince Ivan’s three sisters get three male-bird husbands, Ivan himself marries Marya Morevna, and even Baba Yaga, who in this tale returns to her normal villainous ways, is paired with an evil male counterpart, Koshchei the Deathless (apparently a Russian folk-tale progenitor of the Skeletor character in TV cartoons). Marya Morevna is introduced as a famed female warrior, and in both the evil and the good agencies of the tale the female character is at least as strong as the male. Even if it is Prince Ivan who rescues Marya Morevna from Koshchei the Deathless and who finishes the villain off with his mace, it is noteworthy that at the tale’s outset it was Marya Morevna who had captured Koschey and kept him chained in her dungeon. The Russian folk belief in the innate worth of both genders also finds expression in numerous iconic representation of twin male and female saints. It recurs repeatedly in written literature, for example in The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum. The fact that this ideal was not realized in Russia’s developing industrial society is clearly expressed in Chernyshevsky’s novel What is to be Done.

  Russian folk epics, however, are nearly entirely dominated by male heroes and some folklore specialists find their genesis around the tenth century, during the creation of a Christian Russian statehood. The oldest of them center around the court of Prince Vladimir of the Riurik dynasty who christianized Russia in 988 AD. His court had its seat in Kiev, the capitol of modern-day Ukraine, which is regarded as the ancient locus of Russian culture. Kiev—a city situated on the edge of the northern forest zone and the southern steppes—enjoyed fame as early as the ninth century. Kievan princes controlled much of the territory all the way to the Black Sea, conquering individual nomadic tribes and threatening at times to conquer Constantinople. Kiev’s day came to an end in 1237 when the city was sacked by the Mongol hordes. Heroic exploits of Kievan princes were recorded by the folk of these regions in the epic songs, called byliny.8 Unlike the Igor Song, most of these byliny were not recorded before the 19th century. They interweave factual and mythical elements in fantastic ways, and their protagonists exhibit superhuman strength.9 Some, such as Volkh Vseslavyevich (a child of a human mother and a serpent), adopt animal forms to achieve their ends (Volkh can, for instance, shift his shape to become a falcon when he needs to cover great distances, or an ant, when he needs to crawl under the gates), others rely on their gigantic size. Some byliny are not without irony relative to this attribute, as in the case of Svyatogor, one of Russia’s oldest epic heroes or bogatyrs:

  High is the height under the heavens, deep is the depth of the ocean sea,

  Wide is the plain across the whole earth,

  Swift must be the rider attempting to cross it.

  Not far, not far away in the open field,

  A cloud of dust was swirling in a column,

  As Svyatogor, the mighty Russian bogatyr appeared

  In the wide golden steppe:

  His shoulders were wider than two yards,

  And his steed was like a fierce animal.

  He was riding in the field and amused himself

  By throwing his steel mace into the skies:

  Higher than the towering forest, yet lower than the moving clouds.

  When the mace would come down, he would catch it with one hand.

  Then he came across a tiny skomorokh’s (minstrel’s) bag in the open plains.

  He didn’t dismount his good steed

  And wanted to lift the purse with his whip,

  But the little bag wouldn’t be moved.

  He now dismounted his good steed and wanted to lift it with his one hand,

  But the little bag wouldn’t be budged.

  He then grabbed it with his both hands

  And strained with his all bogatyr’s strength,

  But the little bag wouldn’t be lifted.

  Instead he sank into Mother Damp Earth up to his knees

  And couldn’t move.

  Svyatogor then muttered to himself,

  “I have ridden much around the wide world,

  But I have never seen such a won
der:

  This tiny bag won’t give way to all my bogatyr’s strength;

  My death must be near.”

  He then implored his horse:

  “Hail to thee, my faithful bogatyr steed!

  Now come and save your master.”

  He took hold of the gilded girth and held fast by the silver stirrup.

  His mighty steed then strained and pulled Svyatogor

  Out of the damp sinking earth.

  He then mounted his good steed

  And rode through the open fields toward the Ararat mountains.

  But as he was tired from the skomorokh’s little bag,

  He fell asleep on his good steed,

  A bogatyr’s deep sleep it was under the height of the open heavens.

  Irony permeates the ultimate fate of Svyatogor, which is related to the metaphoric significance of his name, literally the Sacred Mount. Sviatogor is destined to die on a mount, as is recorded in the second major bylina about him, to which the passage quoted above serves as a preamble, and which introduces one of the most popular heroes of the Russian folk epos, Ilya of Murom. Ilya has many byliny composed solely about himself, but in this older tale, of which the following is a summary in prose, he is presented as not yet fully experienced, but as a worthy heir to Sviatogor’s strength:

  Ilya comes from out of the wide plains and cannot stand seeing the giant Sviatogor, sleeping on his horse as if wanting to sneer at Ilya. Ilya attempts to wake Sviatogor by striking him with a mighty mace. This first and the second blow have no affect and the giant continues to sleep, as “size clearly matters” in this bylina. With the third blow Ilya wounds his own hand, whereupon Sviatogor wakes up and complains “how badly Russian flies can bite.” When he sees Ilya he seizes the young warrior by the hair and pockets him. As he rides on toward Mount Ararat, his horse begins to stumble and to complain about having to carry two bogatyrs and another bogatyr’s horse. Only then does Svyatogor notice Ilya as a potential peer and invite him to test his strength in an open combat. Ilya wisely declines, asking instead to become his sworn brother. Sviatogor agrees and the warriors exchange their gold baptismal crosses. Now as brothers, they journey on and reach the Mount of Olives, where they see an oaken coffin. Sensing this as an omen, Svyatogor asks Ilya to try it first. It is clearly too big for Ilya, and Svyatogor then tries it himself. The coffin is exactly to Svyatogor’s measure and he asks Ilya to close its lid so that he can admire it from the inside. Ilya does so, but in a short while Svyatogor complains that he can no longer breathe. Ilya attempts but fails to raise the lid again. Svyatogor now understands that it is his destiny to remain in the coffin. Before he dies, he wants to breathe his spirit into Ilya and give him his horse. Ilya, however, declines, saying that if Svyatogor’s strength were added to his, Mother Earth could not bear him. Thereafter they say farewell to each other, Svyatogor now lying forever in the damp earth with his horse by his side on the Mount of Olives, and Ilya riding back to Holy Rus, to the city of Kiev.

  Annointed by Svyatogor as his successor, Ilya becomes the central hero of the Russian epic, whithin the tradition of which he has the most complete biography. Several versions exist of his becoming a bogatyr, but nearly all record the following miracle:

  In the great city of Murom, in the village of Karacharovo,

  There sat upon the stove-ledge a peasant lad, Ilya of Murom,

  Up this ledge he sat and sat, paralyzed, for thirty long years.

  One day his good father and mother set off to labor in the fields.

  The while two pilgrims came to his window and begged admittance.

  “I cannot throw open our wide gates dear elders,” replied Ilya,

  “These thirty years I have been unable to stand, I am not master of my arms and legs.”

  “Rise up, Ilya,” repeated the pilgrims,

  And lo—Ilya rose up at once on legs now swift and strong,

  He flung open the wide gates, and let them in.

  Making the sign of the cross and and bowing, as custom demanded,

  They entered and offered what they had brought, a rare draught brewed with honey.

  “Drink, Ilya,”—they said—”and you will become a great bogatyr’.”

  Ilya, downing the beaker, on the instant felt a great strength flowing through his veins.

  The belief that a true Russian-born hero shall arise from slumber in time of need—struck a most responsive cord in Russia, as legends of King Arthur’s return have in England. Indeed, in many byliny the tenth-century hero Ilya—now displaced in time—becomes the principal warrior challenging the invading Tartar hordes of the thirteenth century. His encounters with any heathens are handled in the following manner, with some topoi of the genre interchangeable with other byliny:

  Ilya attended matins in Murom and resolved to see vespers in the great city of Kiev.

  On the way he rode up to the famous city of Chernigov.

  Near it a vast army had been assembled, as black as the blackest of ravens.

  No man might pass there on foot, none could pass on a good steed,

  No bird flew by and no grey beast scoured past.

  But no bright falcon flew by, swooping down on small birds of passage—

  Ilya of Murom rode up to this great black army,

  Attacked it, trampled it with his steed, and crushed it with his mace.

  A famous nineteenth-century Russian writer, I. A. Goncharov, devoted a whole novel, entitled Oblomov, to a very likable and gentle protagonist who spends nearly a third of the novel’s narrative in one place—his bed, from which he is trying to get up. This work is generally understood as Goncharov’s satire on the laziness of the Russian landed gentry and their inability to cope with the advent of western civilization and industrialization. Yet by naming his protagonist Ilya and giving him a disability virtually identical to that of Ilya of Murom, Goncharov might also have been implying that Oblomov’s times were unworthy of miracles and heroic deeds.

  It must be noted that while neither folk tales nor folk epics can ever be properly called travelogues, they nearly always involve—just as their written counterparts noted earlier—a great deal of travel. Here again is Ilya continuing on his ride to Kiev:

  Having defeated the black army, he rode up to the famous city of Chernigov,

  The men of this city invited him to be their commander, hailing him as a great bogatyr of Holy Russia.

  Ilya, declining, asked only to be shown the straightest path to Kiev.

  The men of Chernigov replied that the straight-traveled road to Kiev was overgrown with grass

  And no man might pass it on foot, nor yet ride there on a good steed.

  By the Black Swamp and the crooked birch, by the Lingonberry stream, near to the cross of Lebanon,

  Sits Nightingale the Robber—Odikhmanty’s son—in a green oak tree,

  The villainous robber whistles and shrieks like a wild beast, and at that whistle and shriek,

  All the grasslands and meadows become entangled, all the azure flowers loose their petals,

  All the dark woods bend down to the earth, and all the good people lie dead.

  The straight-traveled road was five hundred versts, but the round-about road was a whole thousand.

  Ilya urged on his good steed and rode along the straight road to Kiev.

  Deep are the pools of the Dnieper River, long are the reaches of the Lingonberry Stream,

  Miraculous is the cross of Lebanon, dark are the forests, and black are the swamps past Chernigov …

  Ilya’s most memorable deed in this popular bylina is bagging the man-bird creature, Nightingale the Robber, whose whistling can conjure up storms, and finally bringing him to the court of Vladimir. But the narrative space devoted to his travel over the enchanted landscapes from Murom to Kiev is at least as memorable as his deeds on the way to his ultimate destination. This can be perhaps explained by what the famous Russian cultural historian and theorist Yuri Lotman (1922-1993) called the semiosphere (a concep
t that he developed especially in his essay “Symbolic Spaces”). Medieval Russian thought understood locality and travel to have a religious and moral significance unknown to modern geography. Travel was a way to prove oneself in heroic deeds, to attain Utopia or Paradise (almost exclusively to be found in the East, the South, or in the high mountains) or to set off on a path to sanctity usually found in a monastery. Since social ideals were imagined to exist in geographical space—the idea of the travel itself had, as he would term it, a semiospheric significance.

  Russia had looked primarily South and East for seven centuries of organized statehood, Kiev being Russia’s southernmost capital ever founded. After its utter devastation by the Mongol hordes in 1237, Russia was effectively sealed off from the West as well as from its former southern reaches. Kiev, the strategic center founded by the Riurik princes, continued to exist as a resplendent city only in the folk epos. A new center founded by the descendants of the Riurik line gradually arose within the northern forests, namely Moscow. It was nearly a century and a half before one of its princes, Dmitrii, could wage the first successful battle against the Golden Horde in 1380. This prince, unlike Ilya of Murom, was a real historical personage. But since his victory was just as vital for the Russian nation as any of Ilya’s exploits, he received the appellation Dmitrii of the Don in the epic realm of Russian history. The Don was the same river on whose banks his ancestor, Prince Igor (see The Lay above), had waged his unsuccessful campaign against a different foe two centuries earlier. It would be two centuries before another Prince from the same dynasty could take control of those lands formerly subordinated to Vladimir. Ivan the Awe-wielding (or the Terrible, as he is known in English, due to a mistranslation) would even expand these territories, but now under Muscovy.