A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections Part 2

Thrice shalt thou swear falsely by me, Only, by my name must thou not swear."

St. John flew back to the sunny slope, And the emperor emerged from the sea.

Again they played; again John flung his apple; Again it fell into the depths of the sea.

But Diocletian, the emperor, said to him: "Now, fear thou not, dear brother, Only carry thou my crown not away, And I will fetch thy apple."

Then did John swear to him by G.o.d, Thrice did he swear to him by G.o.d That he would not steal his crown.

The emperor threw his crown under his cap, Beside them left the bird of ill omen, And plunged into the blue sea.

St. John froze over the sea, With a twelve-fold ice-crust he froze it o'er, Seized the golden crown, flew on high to heaven.

And the bird of ill omen began to caw.

The emperor, at the bottom of the sea, divined the cause, Raced up, as for a wager, Brake three of the ice-crusts with his head, Then back turned he again, took a stone upon his head, A little stone of three thousand pounds, And brake the twelve-fold ice.

Then unfolded he his wings, Set out in pursuit of John, Caught up with him at the gate of heaven, Seized him by his right foot, And what he grasped, he tore away.

In tears came John before the Lord; The bright sun brought he to heaven, And John complained unto the Lord, That the emperor had crippled him.

And the Lord said: "Fear not, my faithful servant!

I will do the same to every man."

Such is the fact, and to G.o.d be the glory!

"Therefore," say the Servians, in conclusion of their version of this ballad, "G.o.d has made a hollow in the sole of every human being's foot."

The Epic Songs, properly speaking, are broadly divisible into three groups: the Cycle of Vladimir, or of Kieff; that of Novgorod; and that of Moscow, or the Imperial Cycle, the whole being preceded by the songs of the elder heroes. With regard to the first two, and the Kieff Cycle in particular, undoubtedly composed during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, authorities on the origin of Russian literature differ considerably. One authority maintains that, although the Russian epics possess a family likeness to the heroic legends of other Aryan races, the Russians forgot them, and later on, appropriated them again from Ural-Altaic sources, adding a few historical and geographical names, and psychical characteristics. But this view as to the wholesale appropriation of Oriental myths has not been established, and the authorities who combat it demonstrate that the heroes are thoroughly Russian, and that the pictures of manners and customs which they present are extremely valuable for their accuracy. They would seem, on the whole, to be a characteristic mixture of natural phenomena (nature myths), personified as G.o.ds, who became in course of time legendary heroes. Thus, Prince Vladimir, "the Fair Red Sun," may be the Sun-G.o.d, but he is also a historical personage, whatever may be said as to many of the other characters in the epic lays of the Vladimir cycle. "Sadko, the rich Guest of Novgorod," also, in the song of that t.i.tle, belonging to the Novgorod cycle, was a prominent citizen of Novgorod, who built a church in Novgorod, during the twelfth century, and is referred to in the Chronicles for a s.p.a.ce of two hundred years. In fact, the Novgorod cycle contains less of the personified phenomena of nature than the cycle of the Elder Heroes, and the Kieff cycle, and more of the genuine historical element.

A regular tonic versification forms one of the indispensable properties of these epic poems; irregularity of versification is a sign of decay, and a complete absence of measure, that is to say, the prose form, is the last stage of decay. The airs to which they are sung or chanted are very simple, consisting of but few tones, yet are extremely difficult to note down. The peasant bard modifies the one or two airs to which he chants his lays with astonis.h.i.+ng skill, according to the testimony of Rbnikoff, who made the first large collection of the songs, in the Olonetz government (1859), and Hilferding, who made a still more surprising collection (1870), to the north and east of Olonetz.

The lay of Sadko, above mentioned, is perhaps the most famous--the one most frequently alluded to in Russian literature and art. Sadko was a harper of "Lord Novgorod the Great." "No golden treasures did he possess. He went about to the magnificent feasts of the merchants and n.o.bles, and made all merry with his playing." Once, for three days in succession, he was bidden to no wors.h.i.+pful feast, and in his sorrow he went and played all day long, upon the sh.o.r.e of Lake ilmen. On the third day, the Water King appears to him, and thanks him for entertaining his guests in the depths. He directs Sadko to return to Novgorod, and on the morrow, when he shall be bidden to a feast, and the banqueters begin the characteristic brags of their possessions, Sadko must wager his "turbulent head" against the merchants' shop in the bazaar, with all the precious wares therein, that Lake ilmen contains fishes with fins of gold. Sadko wins the bet; for the Tzar Vodyanoy sends up the fish to be caught in the silken net. Thus did Sadko become a rich guest (merchant of the first cla.s.s) of Novgorod, built himself a palace of white stone, wondrously adorned, and became exceeding rich. He also held wors.h.i.+pful feasts, and out-bragged the braggers, declaring that he would buy all the wares in Novgorod, or forfeit thirty thousand in money. As he continues to buy, wares continue to flow into this Venice of the North, and Sadko decides that it is the part of wisdom to pay his thirty thousand. He then builds "thirty dark red s.h.i.+ps and three," of the dragon type, lades them with the wares of Novgorod, and sails out into the open sea, via the river Volkhoff, Lake Ladoga, and the Neva. After a while the s.h.i.+ps stand still and will not stir, though the waves dash and the breeze whistles through the sails. Sadko arrives at the conclusion that the Sea King demands tribute, as they have now been sailing the seas for twelve years, and have paid none. They cast into the waves casks of red gold, pure silver, and fair round pearls; but still the s.h.i.+ps move not. Sadko then proposes that each man on board shall prepare for himself a lot, and cast it into the sea, and the man whose lot sinks shall consider himself the sacrifice which the Sea King requires.

Sadko's lot persists in sinking, whether he makes it of hop-flowers or of blue damaskeened steel, four hundred pounds in weight; and all the other lots swim, whether heavy or light. Accordingly Sadko perceives that he is the destined victim, and taking his harp, a holy image of St.

Nicholas (the patron of travelers), and bowls of precious things with him, he has himself abandoned on an oaken plank, while his s.h.i.+ps sailed off, and "flew as they had been black ravens." He sinks to the bottom, and finds himself in the palace of the Sea King, who makes him play, while he, the fair sea-maidens, and the other sea-folk dance violently.

But the Tzaritza warns Sadko to break his harp, for it is the waves dancing on the sh.o.r.e, and creating terrible havoc. The Tzar Morskoy then requests Sadko to select a wife; and guided again by the Tzaritza's advice, Sadko selects the last of the nine hundred maidens who file before him--a small, black-visaged maiden, named Tchernava. Had he chosen otherwise, he is told, he would never again behold "the white world," but must "forever abide in the blue sea." After a great feast which the Sea King makes for him, Sadko falls into a heavy sleep, and when he awakens from it, he finds himself on the bank of the Tchernava River, and sees his dark red s.h.i.+ps come speeding up the Volkhoff River.

Sadko returns to his palace and his young wife, builds two churches, and roams no more, but thereafter takes his ease in his own town.

Between these cycles of epic songs and the Moscow, or Imperial Cycle there is a great gap. The pre-Tatar period is not represented, and the cycle proper begins with Ivan the Terrible, and ends with the reign of Peter the Great. Epic marvels are not wholly lacking in the Moscow cycle, evidently copied from the earlier cycles. But these songs are inferior in force. Fantastic as are some of the adventures in these songs, there is always a solid historical foundation. Ivan the Terrible, for instance, is credited with many deeds of his grandfather (his father being ignored), and is always represented in rather a favorable light.

The conquest of Siberia, the capture of Kazan and astrakhan, the wars against Poland, and the Tatars of Crimea, and so forth, are the princ.i.p.al points around which these songs are grouped. But the Peter the Great of the epics bears only a faint resemblance to the real Peter.

Perhaps the most famous hero of epic song in the seventeenth century is the bandit-chief of the Volga, Stenka Razin, whose memory still lingers among the peasants of those regions. He was regarded as the champion of the people against the oppression of the n.o.bles, and "Ilya of Murom, the Old Kazak" is represented as the captain of the brigands under him. To Stenka, also, are attributed magic powers. From the same period date also the two most popular dance-songs of the present day--the "Kamarnskaya" and "Barynya Sudarynya," its sequel. The Kamarnskaya was the district which then const.i.tuted the Ukraina, or border-marches, situated about where the government of Orel now is. The two songs present a valuable historical picture of the coa.r.s.e manners of the period on that lawless frontier; hence, only a few of the lines which still subsist of these poetical chronicles can be used to the irresistibly das.h.i.+ng music.

The power of composing epic songs has been supposed to have gradually died out, almost ceasing with the reign of Peter the Great, wholly ceasing with the war of 1812. But very recently an interesting experiment has been begun, based on the discovery of several new songs about the Emperor Alexander II., which are sung by the peasants over a wide range of country. All these songs are being written down with the greatest accuracy as to the peculiarities of p.r.o.nunciation and accentuation. If, in the future, variants make their appearance, containing an increasing infusion of the artistic and poetical elements, considerable light will be thrown upon the problem of the rise and growth of the ancient epic songs, and on the question of poetical inspiration among the peasants of the present epoch. One of these ballads, written down in the Province of the Don, from the lips of a blind beggar, says that Alexander II., "burned with love, wished to give freedom to all, kept all under his wing, and freed them from punishment.

He reformed all the laws, heard the groans of the needy, and himself hastened to their aid." "So the wicked killed him," says the ballad, and proceeds to describe the occurrence, including the way in which "the black flag" was lowered on the palace, and "they sent a telegram about the eclipse of our sun." In the far northern government of Kostroma, on the Volga, two more ballads on the same subject have been taken down on the typewriter, so that the bard could readily correct them. The first, ent.i.tled "A Lay of Mourning for the Death of the Tzar Liberator,"

narrates how "a dreadful cloud of black, bloodthirsty ravens a.s.sembled, and invited to them the underground, subterranean rats, not to a feast-ball, not to a christening, but to undermine the roots of the olive-branch." Naturally this style demands that the emperor be designated as "the bright falcon, light winged, swift eyed." It describes the plot, and how the bombs were to be wrapped up in white cloths, and the conspirators were "to go for a stroll, as with watermelons." When the bombs burst, "the panes in the neighboring houses are shattered," and "the dark blue feathers" of the "bright falcon" are set on fire. "As there were no Kostroma peasants on hand to aid the emperor--no Komisaroffs or Susanins," adds the ballad, with local pride (alluding to the legend of Ivan Susanin saving the first Romanoff Tzar from the Poles in 1612, which forms the subject of the famous opera by Glinka, "Life for the Tzar"), "he laid himself down in the bosom of his mother (earth)." The second ballad is "The Monument-Not Made-with-Hands to the Tzar Liberator"--the compound adjective here referring to that in the t.i.tle of a favorite _ikona_, or Holy Picture, which corresponds to the one known in western Europe as the imprint of the Saviour's face on St. Veronica's kerchief. There are four stanzas, of six lines each, of which the third runs as follows:

He is our Liberator and our father!

And we will erect a monument of hearts Whose cross, by its gleaming 'mid the clouds, Shall transmit the memory to young children and the babes in arms, And this shall be unto ages of ages So long as the world and man shall exist!

In southwestern Russia, where the ancient epic songs of the Elder Heroes and the Kieff Cycle originated, the memory of them has died out, owing to the devastation of southern Russia by the Tatars in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the decay of its civilization under Lithuanian sway in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century the population of southern Russia reorganized itself in the forms of kazak communes, and fabricated for itself a fresh cycle of epic legends, which replaced those of Kieff; and there the _kobzars_ (professional minstrels who accompany their songs on the _kabza_, a mandolin-like, twelve-stringed instrument) celebrate the deeds of a new race of kazak heroes. But in the lonely wildernesses of the northeast, whither the Tatar invasion drove the descendants of those who composed and sang the great epic songs, no more recent upheavals have brought forward heroes to replace the historic paladins, who there hold undisputed sway to the present time.

Of the songs still sung by the people, the following favorite (in the version from the Olonetz government) may serve as a sample. It is not rhymed in the original.

Akh! Little guelder-rose, with pinkish azure bloom, And merry little company, where my dear one doth drink; My darling will not drink, until for me he sends.

When I, a maiden, very young did dally, Tending the ducks, the geese, the swans, When I, a young maid, very young, along the stream-bank strolled, I trampled down all sickly leaves and gra.s.s, I plucked the tiny azure flowerets, At the swift little rivulet I gazed; Small was the hamlet there, four cots in all, In every cot four windows small.

In every little window, a dear young crony sits.

Eh, cronies dear, you darlings, friends of mine, Be ye my cronies, one another love, love me, When into the garden green ye go, then take me, too; When each a wreath ye twine, twine one for me; When in the Danube's stream ye fling them, drop mine, too; The garlands all upon the surface float, mine only hath sunk down.

All your dear lover-friends have homeward come, mine only cometh not.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. How was Christianity introduced into Russia?

2. In what two important centers was it finally established?

3. How was the Greek Church able to supply these converts with a Slavonian translation of the Bible?

4. Who were Kyrill and Methody? Describe their work.

5. Why was "Ancient Bulgarian" not the original language of the Bulgarians?

6. In what language was Russian literature written up to the time of Peter the Great?

7. Where, according to tradition, did the early Slavonians settle in Europe?

8. How are the forces of nature represented in the ancient marriage songs?

9. What custom is ill.u.s.trated in "The Sowing of the Millet"?

10. What connection is there between the funeral wails of modern and of ancient Russia?

11. What was the festival of Kolyada?

12. What Christian character has been given to the ancient "Glory Song"?

13. Why is pork commonly used at the Russian New-Year?

14. What different dates have been observed for the opening of the New-Year?

15. What remarkable fact is true of the preservation of the Russian epic songs?

16. How were the religious ballads brought before the people?

17. Describe some of the characteristics of these ballads.

18. Into what three groups do the epic songs naturally fall?

19. What is the Lay of Sadko?

20. What are the favorite subjects of the songs of the "Imperial Cycle"?

21. What interesting discovery of modern epic songs has recently been made?

22. Why have the songs of the Kieff Cycle died out in their own country?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

_The Epic Songs of Russia._ Isabel F. Hapgood.