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The Problem of the Aristocratic Origin of Russian Byliny

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Felix J. Oinas
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Extract

Among the theories about the origin of the Russian heroic epic songs (byliny), the theory of their aristocratic origin has aroused the greatest controversy. This theory was advanced by the main representative of the so-called historical school, Vsevolod Miller, at the turn of this century. In the introduction to his Ekskursy he compared the byliny to grandiose ruins, in whose upper chambers and towers princes once lived, but in whose sheds that were still habitable some unpretentious Olonets peasants had finally settled. Miller dealt with this problem in greater detail in his Ocherki, stressing first that the byliny sang of princes and retainers and their military feats. He argued that “they were created and disseminated among the population that was, in its development and social standing, close to the princely court and retinue, belonging, according to contemporary notions, to the ‘intelligentsia.'” The byliny were, according to Miller, composed among the cream of the society, where the pulse of life throbbed more strongly, where there was affluence and leisure, and where there was a demand for songs.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 1971 , pp. 513 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1971

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References

1. Vsevolod, Miller, Ekskursy v oblasf russkogo narodnogo eposd, vols. 1-8 (Moscow, 1892), p. vi Google Scholar.

2. Miller, V. F., Ocherki russkoi narodnoi slovesnosti, vol. 3 (Moscow and Leningrad, [1924]), p. 28 Google Scholar; cf. Astakhova, A. M., Byliny: Itogi i problenty izucheniia (Moscow and Leningrad, 1966), pp. 52–56 Google Scholar.

3. Miller, , Ocherki, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1897), pp. 52 ffGoogle Scholar.

4. For a detailed, though vehemently partial, survey of the development of the theory of the aristocratic origin of byliny, see I. Dmitrakov, “Teoriia aristokraticheskogo proiskhozhdeniia fol'klora i ee reaktsionnaia sushchnost',” Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1950, no. 1, pp. 155-69.

5. Sokolov, B. M., Russkii fol'klor, part 1 (Moscow, 1929), pp. 9–13 Google Scholar, 63-66; Sokolov, B, “Byliny,” in Literaturnaia entsikhpediia, 2 (1929): 15–34 Google Scholar.

6. Pravda, Nov. 14, 15, 20, 21, Dec. 3, 1936; cf. Iu. M., Sokolov, Russkii fol'klor (Moscow, 1941), p. 117 Google Scholar.

7. Sokolov, Iu, “Russkii bylinnyi epos (Problema sotsial'nogo genezisa),” Literaturnyi kritik, 9 (1937): 171–96Google Scholar.

8. Ibid., p. 194.

9. Astakhova, , Byliny, p. 60 Google Scholar.

10. V. I. Chicherov, “Itogi rabot i zadachi izucheniia russkikh bylin i istoricheskikh pesen,” in Vinogradov, V. V. et al., eds., Osnovtiye problemy eposa vostochnykh slavian (Moscow, 1958), p. 18 Google Scholar.

11. Gudzy, N. K., Istoriia drevnerusskoi literatury, 7th ed. (Moscow, 1966), p. 20 Google Scholar. On the fervent attempts made to transplant the Soviet theory into Yugoslavia, see Oinas, F. J., “The Study of Folklore in Yugoslavia,” Journal of the Folklore Institute (The Hague), 3 (1966): 406–7 Google Scholar.

12. Malyshev, V. I., Povesf o Sukhane (Moscow and Leningrad, 1956), p. Leningrad Google Scholar.

13. Propp, V. la. and Putilov, B. N., eds., Byliny, vols. 1 and 2 (Moscow, 1958)Google Scholar. Subsequent references in the text are to volume and page numbers of this work.

14. Malyshev, , Povesf o Sukhane, p. 16 Google Scholar.

15. [Rybnikov, P. N.], Pesni sobrannye P. N. Rybnikovym, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1861), pp. 75–60 Google Scholar.

16. Roman Jakobson and Marc Szeftel, “The Vseslav Epos,” in Jakobson, Roman and Simmons, Ernest J., eds., Russian Epic Studies, Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. 42 (Philadelphia, 1949), pp. 53 Google Scholar ff,

17. Ibid., p. 74.

18. There are a number of byliny in which only one of these themes (i.e., hunting or fighting) occurs, combined with other themes. Hunting appears in the byliny about Mikhaila Potyk, Churila Plenkovich, and others (.Byliny, 2: 38-49, 240-46).

19. The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, trans, and ed. Samuel H. Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge, Mass., 19S3), pp. 211, 215, 210.

20. Ibid., pp. 214-15,

21. Likhachev, D. S., Chelovek v literature drevnei Rusi (Moscow and Leningrad, 1958), p. 53 Google Scholar (my italics).

22. Soloviev, S. M., htoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1960), p. 14 Google Scholar; George, Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (New Haven, 1959), p. 1959 Google Scholar.

23. Sokolov, Iu. M., Russkii fol'klor, p. 252 Google Scholar; Ukhov, P. D., “Byliny,” in Bogatyrev, P. G., ed., Russkoe narodnoe poeticheskoe tvorchestvo, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1956), pp. 329–30 Google Scholar; Chicherov, “Itogi rabot,” p. 34; Karl Stif (Carl Stief), “Vzaimootnosheniia mezhdu russkim letopisaniem i russkim narodnym eposom,” Scando-Slavica (Copenhagen), 4 (1958): 59; T. M. Akimova, “Byliny,” in Novikova, A. M. and Kokorev, A. V., eds., Russkoe narodnoe poeticheskoe tvorchestvo (Moscow, 1969), p. 206 Google Scholar.

24. Byliny, 1: xxix.

25. See, for example, Roman Jakobson, “The Serbian Zmaj Ognjeni Vuk and the Russian Vseslav Epos,” in his Selected Writings, vol. 4: Slavic Epic Studies (The Hague and Paris, 1966), p. 378.

26. Astakhova, , Byliny, p. 52 Google Scholar.

27. Iu. Sokolov, “Russkii bylinnyi epos,” p. 193. On the princes’ and boyars’ retinues see Grekov, B. D., Kievskaia Rus1 (n.p., 1953), pp. 338–46Google Scholar