In Suffering an Element of Sanctity
Written: Oct 18 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A variety of Russian myths, folk tales and epics.
Cons: Brief.
The Bottom Line: A glimpse of pre-literate Rus.
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| panguitch's Full Review: Essential Russian Mythology Books |
Storytelling is what makes us human. Other distinctions have been proposed. But birds, otters, chimps, and many other animals use tools. And animals communicate at least as well as we do. Not only can birds imitate the human voice, but other methods, posture, proxemics, pheromones, color, can all be just as useful as vocalizations, often leaving less ambiguity. And religion? Souls? Who can say. The one thing humans do have a monopoly on is storytelling. The ability to tell of events or thoughts occurring in distant or unseen places, of words spoken long ago, or never. Of people who lived before, or never. The ability to communicate deeper than words. This is what makes us human.
And whether you agree with that or not, you can certainly agree that all humans tell stories. And always have. And I’m talking about stories here, not books. Writing is a new invention. And even now the vast majority of stories we tell are never frozen on the page. After all, writing is the death of storytelling in one view. It’s like the clichéd fear of a primitive for the camera. It steals life from the story. From the moment of transcription the story dies, bereft of its ability to flow and change from one teller to the next. Writing is the extinction of storytelling, the end of a story’s evolution.
But most stories are not immortal anyway. As they live their life in the ether between teller and listener and teller, evolving and spawning offspring, most tales go through a cycle of infancy, adolescence, maturity, middle-age, and eventually a slow graying and demise. They are forgotten. Writing cannot preserve their life, but it can preserve the memory of their life. Many such stories, which otherwise would have been lost, have been captured. And like a child looking through her great-grandparent’s photo album, humanity can remember the earlier incarnations of its tale through the mixed blessing of the written word.
The family album of Rus, the tales of old Russia, provide a link to the past, to a Rus separated from its European destiny by the Tatar (Mongol) Yoke. A past distilled to us through the evolution tales experienced under the Yoke and after, until transcription began to claim them in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These tales take different forms. Myth. Legend. Folklore. Sung epics. A survey of these creatures is entombed within Essential Russian Mythology.
Essential Russian Mythology by Pyotr Simonov
From the series Stories that Change the World
1997, Thorsons, 184 pages, ISBN: 1855384752
Simonov begins by introducing the concept of dual-faith: the merging of native with Christian traditions as the people of Rus gradually accepted Eastern Christianity. Dual-faith colors the evolution of all ancient Russian tales, but glimpses of what came before can still be found. Simonov touches on these glimpses in his introduction, sometimes waxing simplistically idyllic in his speculations. But his presentation is valuable to anyone interested in the soul of Rus, and the origins of Russian stories.
Like all agriculturalists, the Rus venerated ‘Moist Mother Earth’. Awe of death comes hand-in-hand. And clan, familial relation, binds all together. From these vague roots Simonov goes on to outline the sketchy pantheon of the ancient Slavs, making distinctions between Eastern and Baltic Slavs: Perun, Khors, Svarog, Dazhbog, Svarozhich, Stribog, Volos, Iarilo, Simargl, Mokosh, Sventovit, and Triglav. Minor spirits like the mischievous but dangerous Domovoi (house spirits), the alluring Rusalkas (drowned maiden spirits), and the Leshiis (tree spirits) are also mentioned.
This coverage of mythology is lamentably brief. Simonov follows with a description of the different types of stories he has compiled, and the book is sectioned accordingly.
Remnants of the Old Gods
A myth of Dazhbog the sun god and giver of wealth who steals Lada from her father the sea god, Tsar Mora, brings to mind similar motifs in more familiar mythologies, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse. The remainder of the section is comprised of ‘low mythology’. Tales of Domovoi, Rusalkas and Leshiis interacting with normal people. Again, I was greatly disappointed that so little mythology was presented.
Folk Tales
Here the relatively well-known and popular tales of “Koshchei the Deathless”, “Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga”, “Prince Ivan, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf” are recounted. In the same vein, the lesser known “Know Not”, a clever and lazy villager, leaves home and seeks his fortune. As it turns out, his strength is heroic and wins him a Tsar’s daughter. To keep his prize he must fend off the attacks of Saracen champions. “Ivan and Ivan, the Soldier’s Sons,” discovered their heroic strength when they decided to fight back against childhood bullies. When they grow up they receive miraculous horses and swords, and separate to live their lives happily. An evil witch seeking revenge for her brother the dragon, slain by one of the brothers, has other plans for them.
These tales can all be found in Afanasiev’s incomparable collection (http://www.epinions.com/content_76713725572) and in many other compilations of Russian folk tales.
Legends
The most likely source of later epics, legends surrounding Prince Vladimir and his men share interesting parallels with the oldest tales of King Arthur and his knights, both being reflections of the comitatus paradigm. Here Simonov relates legends about Vladimir turning from the old gods to Christianity, the messengers he sent into the world to find a new religion for Russia, and Boris and Gleb, the first Russian martyrs and saints. But even here dual-faith is reflected. The idea of martyrdom was not new to Russia with Christianity. Boris and Gleb are not killed because of their faith, but because they refuse to take up arms against their brother. While their death is in imitation of Christ, its non-religious nature points to an already existing Russian belief that there is “in suffering an element of sanctity”.
Epics
Verse memorized and chanted in the same mode that gave us both Beowulf and the Kalevala, Russian bylinas form the final section. Simonov begins with epics of the superhumans Volga, Mikula and Svyatogor, holdovers from times before Vladimir and Christianity. They are followed by the populous Kievan Cycle, dealing with the heroes of Vladimir’s court. Ilya of Murom, Baldak Borisievich, Dobrynya Nikitich, and Alyosha Popovich all win fame through dangerous exploits, defeating the land’s foes, both dragon and plainsman. Finally, a pair of epics from the Novgorod Cycle, concerning Vasili Buslayevich and Sadko the rich merchant, contrast with the heroics of Kiev by emphasizing cleverness and a self-awareness sometimes ironic.
As a last footnote Simonov includes the religious calendar of the ancient Slavs and a selected bibliography for further research.
Reactions and Recommendation
This is a little book. There’s only a tiny sampling of epics, not to mention the hundreds of folk tales not included. But the sampling is fairly representative and can give the newcomer to Russian folk tales and epics a decent introduction. Neither is this book in any way a comprehensive treatment of ancient Slavic mythology. But this is more forgivable, since there is less that has survived and could be included. Still, mythology is what I came to this book for, and it was like giving a starving man a single cracker.
The introduction wasn’t particularly insightful. It traded thoughtfulness for brevity in its quest to give an overview of the permutations of Russian stories and the play between heathen and Christian that underlies them.
Nevertheless, this book accomplishes very well what it sets out to do. It provides a survey of the various forms of pre-literate Russian storytelling, and a handful of essential keys in understanding such tales. Where most other texts focus solely on the folk tale, the epic, or myth, this book brings them together—an album spanning an extended family. Capturing these tales at the end of their evolution, just as their death impends, Essential Russian Mythology is like a glimpse through a glass coffin at the dearly departed Rus, who sprung from Moist Mother Earth with vigor so long ago.
- Panguitch
Recommended:
Yes
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