The Historical Context of Russian Epic Songs

Mark N. Orzech

Dr. Tatiana Filosofova

LANG 3000

12/8/2016
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The Historical Context of Russian Epic Songs

Every civilization has epic literature that reflects its cultural values and

identity and through which it recounts the heroic exploits and

accomplishments of its mighty founders or mythical ancestors, generally in

the form of songs or poems which are passed down orally from generation to

generation. While such poems often are made up of largely legendary and

fantastic folk material, there is always a kernel of historical truth around

which the tale is built, and it is this historical context that ties the hero and

his exploits to the national/ethnic identity of the people. Just as Homers Iliad

and Odyssey epically evoke Hellenic might and nobility in the period of the

Trojan wars, the genre of the Russian epic song, known as bylina, is deeply

tied to the turbulent political realities of late-Medieval Rus, where the tales

have their setting. In the chaos of the catastrophic Mongol invasion if the

early 13th century, every church, monastery, and major city, with the

exception of certain peripheral cities such as Novgorod, was razed to the

ground by the invading wave.1 This disaster forced the Russian people to

redefine their cultural identity in opposition to that of the invaders who, while

initially decentralized in their approach, were to later assume a much more

hands-on role in administering their newly absorbed territories. It is within

this context of bloodshed and tumult that most traditional Russian epic songs

have their origins, and as such certain themes in particular assume

paramount importance for the heroes of the songs, such as patriotic Russian

1 LANG 3000 Lecture Slides and Notes (National Epic Songs).

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nationalism, the supreme importance of the Russian Orthodox Church, and

hatred towards the invaders from Central Asia. This paper aims, after a brief

discussion of the history involved, to present examples from select epic

songs that indicate the historical setting of this period, and to discuss the

early Russian response to Tatar-Mongol rule and how these attitudes manifest

themselves in epic songs and other literature.

The roughly 200-year span of Tatar-Mongol hegemony stretching from the

13th to 15th centuries came on the heels of what is known as the Kievan

period. This era, beginning in the 9th century, marked the beginning of a

unified Russian identity as well as the Russian Orthodox Church, and was

characterized by the regional dominance of Kiev as a key religious and

political center for the Russian people.2 While Kievan Rus was composed of a

somewhat unified confederation of Slavic tribes, the death of the Grand

Prince Vladimir Monomakh in the early 12th century resulted in the fracturing

of this unity into smaller regions governed by local lords and princes. This

disunity left Russia ill-prepared for the explosive military expansion of the

Mongols as they burst forth from the Asian steppes in 1211 under the

leadership of the mighty Genghis Khan, who eventually invaded southern

Russia in 1223.3 4
While this first encounter between the Slavic tribes and the

fierce horsemen of the steppe did not result in the direct political

2 Charles Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval
Russian History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 7.

3 Suzanne Massie, Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia ( New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1980), 35.
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administration characteristic of later Tatar-Mongol rule in Russia, it

irreparably changed the political and social character of the Russian people.

After rapidly engulfing central Asia, China, and ultimately Russia, the initial

wave of Mongol forces retreated from the land of the Slavs as quickly as it

came, leaving the people wondering from where the destruction came, and

where it had gone.

When Genghis Khans successor died in 1236, the Slavic lands were

entrusted to his son Batu Khan.5 Under his leadership the Mongol armies

returned to Russia, giving no quarter and bringing with them destruction on

an unprecedented scale, thanks to the sophisticated siege and military

technology obtained in the conquest of China.6 Ultimately a segment of the

invading army, which by this time had conquered and conscripted into its

ranks people from many disparate Turkic and central Asian tribes, settled in

the area of the lower Volga River and established a capital city in Sarai.7

Later called the Golden Horde to differentiate it from the remainder of the

Mongol Empire, this army brought with it a unique ethnic identity, an

amalgam of the Islamic, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian cultures that it

absorbed. In recognition of this mixed cultural heritage, these successors to

4 Serge Zenkovsky., Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales (New York, NY:
E.P. Dutton, 1974), 193.

5 Ibid., 199.

6 Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, 74.

7 Ibid., 26.
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the initial Mongol invasions were called Tatars.8 The Mongols, while initially a

pagan power, were to accept Islam as their religion and as the unifying basis

of their social order beginning with the 14th century Ilkhanid Dynasty.9

Although the religion as practiced by the rulers and their Asian subjects was

often heavily colored by the themes and practices of Central Asian paganism,

even nominal conversion to Islam was enough to set the staunchly-Orthodox

Christian Russians and other Slavic peoples against the rising tide of Tatar-

Mongol hegemony. While pagan Mongol control was viewed by many as

uniquely tolerant of the major world religions of its followers, conversion to

Islam, seen by most of Christendom as the enemy of Gods true faith,

further incensed the Russians against their overlords. Defense of the Church

against the barbarous infidels thus plays an important role in later Russian

legendary accounts of the period. While these songs often contain highly

emotionally-charged religious and nationalistic sentiments, they most often

contain little in the way of solid history. Tales from different regions of

occupied Russia, however, do give hints as to how the period of Mongol yoke

was remembered by the medieval poets in these areas, and the differences

in these accounts are intrinsically tied to different historical conditions.

Chief among the many collections of Russian epic songs are the Kievan

Cycle and the Novgorod cycle. Both bodies of literature, named for the cities

with which they are primarily concerned, take place in the context of the

8 Massie, The Land of the Firebird, 37.

9 Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, 26.

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200-year period of Tatar-Mongol yoke, and are deeply influenced (in markedly

different ways) by the political and social realities of this period. Kiev was a

holy city in Russian Orthodoxy, and its destruction proved to be a traumatic

blow to Russian identity. The Kievan cycle thus naturally embodies a

romantic vision of heroic military resistance against the foreign invaders in

the name of the motherland. Russian identity in such songs is defined by

love and loyalty to the city-state of Kiev and whole-hearted devotion to the

cause of the Orthodox faith in Russia, which rose strong from the ashes of

invasion as the preserver of light for the believers in the darkness of the

majority animistic/shamanic, and later Muslim, Tatar rule. One character that

perfectly embodies the Russian hero is the mighty Cossack Ilya Muromets,

who in numerous songs serves as the champion of his beloved Russia against

unfathomable odds in a divinely-ordained one-man crusade of justice, similar

to the Knights of the Round Table in French and English lore.10 Canonized in

the Orthodox Church as a saint in 1643, the Muromets of legend may be

loosely modeled on a real historical figure, a 12th century peasant warrior-

turned-monk called Chobitko, whose relics remain enshrined in Kiev to this

day.11 If the attribution is true, this real historical figure embodied the two

most pronounced elements of the Ilya Muromets of song, namely his great

strength in battle and deep sense of duty to the church and Russia.

10 Massie, The Land of the Firebird, 30.

11 LANG 3000 Lecture Slides and Notes.

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The beginning of the song Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber

describes Ilyas victory over a great Mongol army surrounding the city of

Chernigov. The manner in which this enemy force is described clearly shows

the attitude of the songs authors towards their foreign overlords. The

Mongol army is described as black as a black raven, and characterized as a

crazed swarm of mindless and heartless demon-like beings, bringing with it

destruction and death.12 In another song, Ilya Muromets and Kalin Tsar, Ilya

looks out upon an invading force and is unable to see its end or limit,

emphasizing the incredible numbers and absolutely indomitable might of the

Mongol forces as perceived in the Russian popular imagination. As the

ultimate symbol of nationalistic liberation, Ilya, mounted upon his

supernaturally swift steed, naturally makes short work of these foes. The

song concerning Ilya Muromets Kalin and Tsar is a rare example of a direct

reference to the Golden Horde. In addition to descriptions of the infidel

Tatars and their cruel desires to destroy Kiev, this song may also shed light

on the relationship between Tatar and Russian rulers. For instance, the song

references letters sent by Kalin Tsar to Kiev, warning of imminent destruction

and urging surrender. The end of the song is also curious, with a defeated

Kalin Tsar being taken before Prince Vladimir and promising to pay tribute to

the Russians for years to come. This is a curious inversion of the

contemporary political relationship between the Tatars and Slavs, and likely

12 LANG 3000 Lecture Slides and Supplemental Readings: National Epic Songs (Ilya
Muromets and Nightingale the Robber)
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represents a wishful fantasy or hope for the future in which the nations roles

are reversed, and the Tatars must pay the Russians tribute or be destroyed.

Other references to Tatar-Mongol domination in the Kievan cycle are

more subtle, and very often deal with specific enemies that Ilya faces in his

travels, such as Nightingale the Robber. Living within a damp oak tree beside

the Black Swamp, Nightingale is described as being like a wild animal.

The robber is said to be the son of Odikhmanty, a patronymic that would

have evoked the fierce people of the steppes in the minds of the songs

listeners. By characterizing the villain specifically as a robber, I believe that

the composer of the epic is clearly expressing the Russian perception of the

Tatar rulers as thieves and usurpers who had stolen the land from its rightful

masters. The shriek of Nightingale is said to have great destructive power,

killing flowers and entangling fields. This, to me, seems to be a poetic folk

reference to the wave of death that radiated from the Tatar-Mongol hordes.

Ultimately, Nightingales daughters and their husbands become involved in

the conflict between him and Muromets, but before facing them in open

combat, Ilya rides straight to Kiev to alert the prince to the danger. This

shows the heros concern for the safety of Kiev above all other things.

Following an epic battle, Ilya, true to form, summarily beheads Nightingale

and brings peace again to the countryside.

Another Kievan song concerns the life of Ilyas own son Falconer who

was born to a foreign mother, a warrior maiden sometimes named

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Zlatygorka or Bogatyrka of Tatar-Mongol origins.13 From the outset, this

familial relationship establishes Ilya Muromets, and thus Russia itself, as

greater than the Mongols, and worthy of the latters respect and deference.

In the song, Falconer is distinguished in his youth by his superhumanly swift

growth. While often a hallmark of epic heroes, I believe this to be a reference

to the Mongol forces own swift appearance and rise to dominance seemingly

out of nowhere. It is said that Falconer amused himself in the field by playing

Tatar games, and the numerous references to his Tatar spears and other

combat and husbandry equipment associated with the Mongols further

enforces his association with Tatar rule. Falconer goes to the field, looks

towards Kiev, and makes known his intention to destroy the great city, slay

its steward Prince Vladimir, and take the beautiful princess Apraxia as his

bride. Like Nightingale and the other foes of the Kievan cycle, Falconer is

slain after a long and complicated exchange between himself and his father,

who brings about his death by throwing him a great height and letting him

crash back to earth. Among the many potential meanings in this song, I

believe the significance of the familial relationship between Ilya and Falconer

to be that for the hero of Kiev, loyalty to the Church and Russia is even

above bonds of blood and kinship. The depth of Ilyas love for his homeland

is also shown in his frequent conflicts with Prince Vladimir who even throws

Ilya in prison on a number of occasions. This shows that Ilyas loyalty is to

Russia herself, her people, and her Church, not to any given leader,

13 LANG 3000 Lecture Slides and Supplemental Readings: National Epic Songs (The
Birth of Falconer, His Departure, and His Fight with Ilya Muromets).
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reflecting a wariness of being ruled over. I believe this gives further valuable

hints as to the historical context of the song, and shows that it is the folk

hero of common origins, not the aristocratic ruler, who was beloved by the

people and looked to as a savior. This may be in part due to the failure of the

Russian princes and lords to repel foreign invasion.

In stark contrast to the martial heroism of Ilya Muromets and the

Kievan cycle, tales concerning the great western republic of Novgorod deal

less with avenging heroes single-handedly slaying the barbaric invader

hordes in the name of Russia and the Church, and more to do with

commercial realities of life under the Tatar-Mongol yoke. While Kiev was

leveled by the east-bound armies of Batu Khan, Novgorod was spared

destruction by the miraculously-timed thawing of the regions surrounding

swamps, which impeded the movement of the horse-bound Mongol army.14

Under the leadership of the much-praised Prince Alexander of Novgorod, who

had previously rebuffed attacks by both the Swedes in 1236 and the Teutonic

knights in 1242, the city avoided meeting the same fate as the other Russian

cities by paying tribute to the rulers of the Golden Horde. It is even said that

Prince Alexander travelled frequently to negotiate tribute and the sparing of

towns with Golden Horde leaders and administrators.15 By surviving the initial

Mongol invasions, Novgorod remained strong, culturally intact, and

economically relevant due to its continued contact with the West, which was

14 Massie, The Land of the Firebird, 36.

15 Ibid., 38.
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lost to the majority of Russia during most of the period of Tatar-Mongol yoke.

The economic prosperity of Novgorod is evident from the themes of the

songs belonging to the Novgorod cycle. A century before the first

introduction of paved streets in Paris, oaken roadways were commonplace in

the prosperous Novgorod, which is unique among Russian city-states for its

emphasis on democratic self-government, exercised through town

assemblies (known as veche).16 The relations between Tatars/Mongols and

Russians presented in these songs also differs significantly from the

perpetual warfare depicted in the Kievan cycle.

The epic Sadko of the Novgorod cycle perfectly demonstrates the

radical difference in tone and theme from the Kievan odes. This fanciful tale

tells the story of a musician who, with the help of the Sea Tsar, becomes a

fabulously wealthy merchant and journeys to the spiritual undersea realm. 17

With such fantastic concerns and a different geographical context than the

Kievan songs, references to Tatar-Mongol hegemony in this entry of the

Novgorod cycle are remarkably few. Rather than the hated enemies to be

slain by a Russian folk hero, the Golden Hordes single unambiguous

appearance in the song is as a trading partner of Novgorods merchants,

reflecting the economic prosperity and connection in regional commerce that

set Novgorod apart from the rest of the mostly decimated Russian

16 Ibid., 33.

17 LANG 3000 Lecture Slides and Supplemental Readings: National Epic Songs
(Sadko).
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countryside. The rest of the tale seems relatively unconcerned with the

destruction that preoccupied the musicians and poets in the area around

Kiev, and indicates either that Novgorod was insulated from the decimation,

or that such information is intentionally left out. I believe that the situation

may well be a mix of both. Novgorod was spared destruction and grew to a

position of economic prominence, allowing the people to focus on other

things such as writing amusing fantastic tales. At the same time, the

seemingly deliberate failure to even mention the ruling Tatar-Mongol yoke

implies a reticence to admit the full implications of the Mongol invasion.

The 200-year period of Tatar-Mongol yoke is often associated with a

subsequent East-West gap, which cut off Russia from the development of

Western Europe, leaving it behind culturally and intellectually for years to

come.18 In the popular imagination, Mongol expansion is viewed as viciously

barbaric slaughter and exploitation of the lands that fell to its armies.

Historians, however, indicate that this is considerably more nuance to the

period of Tatar-Mongol rule than many Russian epic songs let on. How did

the contemporary Russian population, particularly literate lords and

intellectuals, respond to this domination, and were there positive elements to

Tatar rule that are not often focused on? While it has been shown that Tatar-

Mongol yoke is present and acknowledged in both the Kievan and Novgorod

cycles, the invasion and political domination of Rus is rarely (if ever) spelled

out in a clear and unambiguous acknowledgement of defeat. Tatar political

18 LANG 3000 Lecture Slides and Notes.

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domination is never admitted, rather the enemies are seen as bandits and

animals, as if there were no difference between the Mongol invasion and

the myriad tribal wars that came before it. Even many songs of the Kievan

cycle only hint at the Tatar-Mongol identity of their villains, which I believe

may be out of fear that open popular criticism of the Golden Horde would

provoke reprisal and further violence. It seems that the composers of

Russias folk epics may have actually been more willing to discuss Tatar-

Mongol yoke, even in a limited way, than other Russian historians and

chroniclers of the period. Uniquely, while intellectuals of the other

civilizations that succumbed to Mongol authority devised intellectual and

theological explanations justifying their submission, the lettered elite of

Russia remained silent on the matter, not passing judgement, or even truly

acknowledging a significant change in the political status of Russia. This

attitude, called by scholars the Ideology of Silence, seems to have

dominated in the early years after the invasion. Some records fail to mention

the Mongols at all, while others obliquely reference trips made by Russian

princes to Sarai or other political centers to receive documents allowing

them the rights to retain their principalities, while conveniently failing to

mention either the Tatar conquest or why such permission should be

necessary.19 When writing about the political happenings of their times, 12th

and 13th century Russian aristocrats would use the same language and

terminology to refer to the occupying Tatars that was used in reference to

19 Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, 66.

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the ceaseless petty conflicts between the Slavic and central Asian tribes that

had gone on for centuries, as if no significant change had occurred.20

According to historian Charles Halperin, admitting the effective non-

existence of a free Russia represented a profound threat to the Orthodox

Church and its conviction that Russia was a holy land given by God. Suffering

for the Russian people was considered to be a beneficial thing according to

Orthodox doctrine, and was seen as purification from sin and the bonds of

this world. In the perpetual battles with their neighboring tribes, Russians in

the Kievan period believed each victory to be a sign of Gods favor and truth,

while a defeat was simply punishment for their sins.21 All-out conquest, as

was carried out by the Tatars, signaled a change in the rules of this back-and-

forth game, and meant that Gods chosen people had truly been bested.22

Thus, chroniclers described the Tatars in complex and ambiguous terms, and

the problem was most often glossed over and referred to only vaguely.23 One

would assume that this focus on suffering would lead to admission of

conquest being an easy thing, but this evidently was not the case. Given the

choice between questioning Gods omnipotence and asserting that the

20 Ibid., 65.

21 Zenkovsky., Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales, 80-83.

22 Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, 20.

23 Ibid., 73.
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Mongol invasion must have been Gods will, Russian intellectuals simply

chose not to choose.24

While it is true that Tatar-Mongol yoke included brutal destruction, it also

fostered international commerce, bringing Russia into communication with

the rest of the Mongol empire and the other great empires of Central Asia

and the Middle East. Accounts of Russians being cut-off from the world

during this time can be explained, I believe, by a number of factors. Social

barriers such as poverty and serfdom may have led to a situation in which

only upper class Russians benefited from the Golden Hordes international

connections. In addition, this isolation may simply refer to being cut off from

Western Europe which, as the heart of Christendom, must have been

preferable to Russians over the Muslim empires of Asia. Still, evidence

indicates that Russia benefited economically from connections with other

Mongol lands. Rather than the crazed hordes of bandits described by Russian

lore, historians such as Halperin write that Tatar-Mongol rule was

characterized by very efficient and standardized diplomatic, administrative,

and social offices, features typical of the great Muslim empires of the Middle

East and North Africa at the time. While in the 13th century the Mongols

borrowed from and assimilated elements of nearly every culture and religion

that they came across, by the height of Tatar power this had solidified into a

unifying cultural identity distinct from the surrounding Slavic tribes over

which they ruled. Thus, rather than assimilating Russian culture into the

24 Ibid., 63.
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burgeoning Tatar identity, historians suggest that it was the invaders that

influenced Russia far more than the opposite.25 One of the most profound

influences was in economics and commerce, and Russian language retains

many terms for commercial items that were introduced through Tatar trade

routes.26 Even physical features such as the almond-shaped eyes

characteristic of the Mongols and other Asiatic peoples were introduced by

marriage to the population of blue-eyed Russians, and can still be seen to

this day. Finally, one of the most enduring influences of Tatar-Mongol yoke in

Russia was the role played by the Golden Horde in informing the political

organization of the subsequent Muscovite state that would rise after its

decline, which was characterized by many of the same conditions as Mongol

rule, such as centralized autocracy and serfdom.

It is clear from the preceding points that the Russian response to

Mongol ascendency is considerably more nuanced and complicated than the

folk songs, understandably more concerned with national and religious

preservation, let on. While refusing to directly accept the reality of Tatar

political control, Russian literature references the foreign rulers and their

armies in vague ways, and differences in this presentation are often tied to

very real differences in relations between the Russians and Tatars in different

areas. By all accounts, the Mongol invasion was brutally violent, but while

destruction and despotism are certainly legacies of the 200-year period of

25 Ibid., 127.

26 Massie, The Land of the Firebird, 54.

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Tatar-Mongol yoke, certain positive economic and cultural contributions

should not be forgotten.

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References

Zenkovsky, Serge E., ed. Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and

Tales. New York, NY: E.P. Dutton, 1974.

Halperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol

Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1985.

Massie, Suzanne. Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980.

UNT LANG 3000 Class Lecture Slides (Weeks 7-8: National Epic

Songs), Supplemental Readings, and Class notes.