In our article we will talk about the originality, symbolism of Russian folk tales, what they teach and how they differ from the tales of other peoples and civilizations.
There was no fairy tale without. Imagination, the dream is rooted in reality.
Konstantin Fedin.
Russian fairy tales are an encrypted message from our ancestors. Maybe that's why they have survived to this day. Now we can look at fairy tales familiar to us from childhood, in a completely different plane. In order to understand Russian fairy tales, it is necessary to return to our origins, to start remembering our ancient language and the meaning of each word, and then we will receive completely new information and knowledge left to us by our ancestors.
Flying ship.
Until the end of the 18th century, the intelligentsia and clergy attributed fairy tales to the category of superstitions of the common people, who were invariably portrayed as wild and primitive. The dominant philosophical and worldview direction of that era - classicism - was guided by antiquity, flavored by Christian censorship, and European rationalism. The nobleman had nothing to learn from the peasant.
However, at the beginning of the 19th century, along with the movement of romanticism, scientists, philosophers, and poets came to realize that the most ancient mythological consciousness largely determines the life and worldview of every person. You cannot get away from your roots, for breaking with them is like separating a river from its source.
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It was in the "golden age" of Russian literature that an intensive study of the legends preserved among the people began, and their deep value and ideological significance became obvious.
The value of a fairy tale for culture and art is largely determined by its connection with the worldview of people of a particular civilization. Fairy tales are based on historical events, myths, rituals and, in general, the algorithms of the life cycle of people. Since we all live on the same planet, it is natural that some fairy tales from different cultures are similar.
What are the symbols of Russian fairy tales
What do we know about the fairy tale today? A fairy tale is a means of forming a person's worldview.
Fairy tales carry their message in a symbolic, figurative form. They are able to touch our deepest feelings. Their immediate message is unambiguous: first, the problem is described, which at the end (always) finds a happy outcome.
Fairy tales provide clues to the tasks of life that each person will have to solve in his life. In fairy tales, it is shown how the smallest, stupid and weakest overcomes all problems and in the end comes out as a happy winner. Feelings in fairy tales make children bolder and stronger. Fairy tales help children cope with fear, overcome themselves and believe in their own strength; teach children that good will always be rewarded, and evil will be punished (teach children the laws of justice), the brave will win (courage), the patient will wait (endurance), honest work is appreciated (hard work), truth will prevail, etc. All this is in the cultural code of our civilization, and therefore in fairy tales.
Therefore, always, as soon as you have such an opportunity, read folk tales to children, because they are the source of correct, healthy and harmonious upbringing of a child.
Along with the explanation of moral values, fairy tales contain certain ideological attitudes, a certain picture of the world. This picture of the world has something in common with the cosmological models presented in the mythologies of different peoples of the world. These are the archetypes of the world mountain, the universal egg, the world tree, the motives of the hero's descent into the underworld or ascension into the higher worlds. But in every civilization they are colored by moral standards and ideals inherent in its representatives.
Numbers
The symbolism of numbers in Russian folk tales is very interesting. As you know, the number three and the number seven prevail in them. The issue of choosing three paths is indicative, when the hero finds himself near a fork, a stone at which offers him a choice of three paths.
Also in fairy tales there is often a mention of the number seven - "behind seven doors, behind seven locks …", "flower - seven-flower". The number seven is again a designation of the stages of the path to oneself, the keys to achieving the highest wisdom. These stages are: health of the physical body and unity with it; internal "spark"; acceptance and love for everything around; mind-mind; consciousness; superconsciousness. After passing all these stages, the highest level is revealed to a person - clairvoyance, this will be the key number seven. In numerology, the deep meaning of a person's knowledge of himself and the world is encrypted, and in Russian folk tales the issue of spiritual growth, gaining wisdom, striving for good and light is paramount.
Egg
In the most ancient cosmogony, the world egg is golden. In ancient cultures, the egg also personified the Sun as a source of spring rebirth and the creative forces of nature. In Russian fairy tales, according to some researchers of folklore, the Sun takes the zoomorphic image of the Firebird, which is abducted by the forces of Darkness or Winter in the form of a sorcerer or a sorcerer-king; however, the Firebird manages to lay a golden egg - the source of subsequent life, light and warmth.
That is why tales about the egg as the source of life and the Universe are widespread among many peoples. From ancient times comes the custom of presenting each other with eggs and praising them in sacred chants. Plutarch explains the ancient Roman custom of painting eggs by the fact that the egg depicts the creator of the World, enclosing it in itself. The Persians also knew the custom of greeting each other with a gift in the form of eggs painted in different colors. Eggs were laid in temples, buried in those places where construction was supposed to be (there is a legend that Naples was built on an egg). The coded formula "egg-world" was so persistent and ineradicable that it overpowered Christian dogma and penetrated into church literature - at first
in Byzantium, and then in Russia. In one old manuscript we read:
Mentions of the universal egg from which the world is born (option: the supreme deity or the ancestor god) are found in the myths and legends of many peoples. In most myths, an egg, often golden (the symbol of the Sun), floats in the waters of the World Ocean; in some legends, a mother bird also appears (as, for example, in the Egyptian myth). In Indian mythology, Brahma is born from Hiranyagarbha, the "golden fruit" ripening in the core of the World Egg (Brahmanda) floating on the waters, and from him Prajapati appears; the name of Martanda, supposedly a solar deity, means "born from a dead egg." The Orphic myth tells about the birth of the demiurge - the divine Phanes - from an egg floating in the sea. In the Finnish myth, the duck lays the egg, from which the universe arises, on a hill in the middle of the ocean (or on the knee of the maiden Ilmatar);in the Chinese legend, the universe was formerly something like a chicken egg, from which the progenitor of Pan-gu was born. Legends about the World Egg are found among the peoples of Europe, India, China, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, etc.
This is the same golden egg that Ryaba Chicken will lay in the famous Russian fairy tale (here the entire mythological entourage evaporated, only the encoded image-symbol remained, passed from generation to generation and assimilated by the child almost one of the first). In general, the tale of Ryaba Chicken is a very strange tale:
Grandfather and grandmother, it seems, should be happy that the testicle broke, because that is what they wanted, but they are crying. Why is that? What algorithm is encrypted in this simplest tale? Maybe it was the grandfather or grandmother who had to break the testicle? And why is the mouse such an important character as in another Russian fairy tale?
Turnip
Another mysterious Russian fairy tale is the "Turnip", known to everyone from childhood. The turnip itself, being yellow and round, can be a symbol of the Sun, which must be rescued from the captivity of the underworld so that it can shine on people again, but in the fairy tale the sequence of calling different participants for help is interesting. On the one hand, it symbolizes a strong connection between different generations, which jointly solve generic problems, but, on the other hand, it also shows the relationship of generations of people with the biosphere. After all, when "humanity" in the person of grandfather, grandmother and granddaughter lacks their strength, they begin to call the Bug, Murka and the mouse. But the mystery remains: why are the granddaughters' mother and father absent in the fairy tale? To enhance the effect of the connection between generations, to show who should interact with whom to the greatest extent - grandparents with grandchildren? After all, our grandparents always look after the children. Or maybe they are not for the same mysterious reason why Santa Claus does not have a daughter, but has a granddaughter?
We do not have a ready-made answer to these questions, as well as to others that will be raised in the article. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Chests are a symbol of interdependence
One of the most frequent subjects in Russian fairy tales is the concealment of the secret of the death of the main villain - Koshchei the Immortal, who cannot be killed by usual means. The heroes are looking for a chest, which is most often located on the branches of an oak - the symbol of the World Tree.
Inside the chest is a Russian nesting doll made of animals, hiding an egg, inside of which Koschei's death is in the form of a needle.
A similar plot of concealment is found in the ancient Egyptian fairy tale "Satni-Hemois and the Mummies", where the main character is looking for a secret book in which divine knowledge is hidden, which can be freed to bring misfortune to the earth.
The chests, nested one inside the other, also resemble the chest that stores the death of Koshchei. Only the contents of the chests are diametrically opposite. In the Russian fairy tale, the chest keeps the root of evil, and in the Egyptian - wisdom, the laws of the universe. The steps of concealment are similar, but different in content. To kill Koshchei the Immortal, you need to knock down the oak on which the chest hangs, open the lid, catch the hare and the duck, break the egg and break the needle. Nesting levels in Russian fairy tales are from the biosphere, and in Egyptian ones - man-made chests from the technosphere nested inside each other.
According to A. K. Bayburin, this principle of "nesting dolls" is characteristic of the depiction of death, and its vivid illustration is a coffin in a house (a house in a house). That is, in such a structure there is clearly a symbolism of death (cf. the ancient Egyptian funeral rite, which is characterized by the placement of the mummy in several nested sarcophagi).
Needle symbolism
A needle, a pin - in folk culture, a talisman and at the same time a weapon of damage. The symbolism of a needle is based on its properties such as sharpness, small size, the ability to penetrate or deep into objects, and it is also easy to get lost (disappear). According to East Slavic and Polish ideas, a witch, a snake or a fiery snake can turn into a needle, so it was not advised to pick up the found needle - "it is unclean throws over", especially the needle that lay with the tip to the finder, and if someone picks up the needle, hairpin or bar from the floor, must immediately break them and throw them into the gap in the floor to avoid a domestic quarrel. In Polish legends, it is told how evil spirits fell out of their mouths in the form of small pins, which immediately disappeared into the grass, among "spoiled" by evil spirits brought to the holy place.
Russian and Egyptian myths are similar in form, but very different in content, we can say that they are opposite.
In general, the mythology of all peoples (especially the Eurasian ones) is built from one common myth. And the relationship of the Egyptian with the Russian myth is very indicative in this regard. Scientists have established that once the ancestors of the Slavs, Iranians, Indians, Europeans lived together, were a single people with a common culture and worldview. Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev, in the preface to his book "Russian Folk Tales", wrote:
But since the understanding of the meaning of life is different in different civilizations, then the life ideals of representatives of different civilizations also differ, which is also expressed in fairy tales, possibly similar in form, but different in semantic content.
Firebird
In this regard, the main fabulous symbol of the resurrection is significant - the Firebird (in Western civilization - the Phoenix bird, which is reborn from the ashes again and again). The image of the Phoenix is considered a mythological reflection of the process of sunrise and sunset, but if you look deeper, the Phoenix in the Western view is a symbol of the inner purification of a person in the process of constant spiritual growth and overcoming the material world in favor of deeper and more important values.
In different cultures, the image of the Firebird has acquired its own details and shades, depending on the ideals of the entire civilization and the specific people living in it.
The Slavs associated the Firebird with gold and treasures, believing that it is the bird that points to them. Where it descends, there are treasures in the earth and are hidden. It was sometimes said that on the Kupala night the Firebird descends to the ground, and it is its radiance that is mistaken for a fern flower. According to the Russian fairy tale, each feather of her
The golden color of the Firebird, its golden cage, is associated with the fact that the bird flies from another ("thirtieth kingdom"), from where everything that is colored golden comes from. The Firebird can act as a kidnapper, approaching in this case with the Fiery Serpent: she takes the mother of the hero of the fairy tale "beyond the distant lands". Comparative analysis suggests an ancient connection between the Firebird and the Slovak “firebird” with other mythological images that embody fire, in particular, with the fiery horse-bird.
The Egyptians believed that Bennu (Ben-Ben) - an analogue of the Phoenix - is the soul of the god Ra. The name is associated with the word "weben", which means "to shine". Bennu is a link between the divine plan and the embodiment of the plan in life, recalls the divine creation and revival of life.
According to legend, Bennu appeared from a fire that burned on a sacred tree in the courtyard of the Ra temple. According to another version, Bennu escaped from the heart of Osiris. He was depicted as a gray, blue or white heron with a long beak and a tuft of two feathers, as well as a yellow wagtail or an eagle with red and gold feathers. There are also images of Bennu as a man with the head of a heron. Symbolized the beginning of the sun. Bennu personified the resurrection from the dead and the annual floods of the Nile. The Egyptian Book of the Dead says:
the rivers, which took the history of the Phoenix from Egypt, believed that the life of the Bird is cyclically connected with world history and depends on the course of the planets (the Sun, Moon and other planets return to their "former" places). The Stoics, in support of this, said that the world, like the Bird, perishes and is born in fire, and there is no end to this transformation.
The Iranians knew another name for this bird - Simurg. The bird had the gift of foresight, but its nature was twofold, containing in itself "good" and "harmful" halves.
In Sufism, Simurg symbolizes the Perfect Man, possessing the knowledge of the Divine Essence. This Entity, like the legendary bird, cannot be seen.
Jews who call the miracle bird Milham said that only she refused to eat the forbidden fruit, and for this God granted her immortality.
In the early Christian apocrypha of Baruch, it was written about the Bird:
The Chinese fiery Fen-huan was one of the four sacred creatures, and symbolized immortality, perfection and generosity. The appearance of such a bird, even in a dream, meant a turning point in a person's life, the need to commit a significant act or the birth of a child endowed with special talents.
The alchemists of medieval Europe considered the Phoenix to be a symbol of rebirth, the completion of the Great Work. For them, it also meant purifying and transforming fire, the chemical element sulfur and red.
The description of the Bird is very similar for different peoples.
- "The air bloomed with all the colors of the rainbow, beautiful sounds came from the feathers and wings of the bird, - it was said about the wonderful bird Simurg in the Arab treatise of the 13th century - a pleasant smell emanated from it …"
- “There is another sacred bird there,… and her name is Phoenix,” Herodotus wrote. "Her appearance and become very much like an eagle, and her feathers are partly golden, partly red."
- "The cinnabar bird, the substance of the flame", "its color is pleasing to the eye, - said the Chinese, referring to Feng-huang, the ruler of the South - his comb expresses righteousness, his tongue is sincere."
- Bird-fire, - the Slavs believed, meaning the Firebird, - you can easily burn yourself about its plumage. Each feather glows like a multitude of candles, and is sharp, stronger than bulat. And she herself shines with blue, then crimson light.
- "O Atum-Khepri, - the words of the ancient Egyptian Hymn about the creation of the world sound - you shone [in the image of] Ben on the eternal Ben-Ben Hill …"
Not created by anyone, the original bird flew over the waters of the ocean, until it finally made a nest for itself on the Ben-Ben hill. Or maybe it was not Bennu at all, but the beautiful white goose the Great Gogotun, who laid on the same hill the egg from which the sun god was born? However, many peoples tell stories that a bird took part in the process of creating the world.
It is unlikely that people knew exactly who created the world, but the image of a dazzling bird remained in myths and legends, and the obelisks on the memorial hill near Heliopolis shone, reflecting the sun.
Internal search and the most important test in Russian fairy tales
Heroes of fairy tales often find themselves in front of a riddle:
And they go there, "I don't know where." What does this mean? “There, I don’t know where” is, first of all, the inner, spiritual journey of the hero inside himself. And during this journey, the heroes usually reached the fork where the roadside stone stood.
Russian epics and fairy tales about the hero's trips, in accordance with the instructions on the roadside stone or on the advice of Baba Yaga, in essence, tell about the passage of the good fellow of tests to identify the type of his psyche structure - his inner essence, which is the core of his personality, since all knowledge and skills - only a dowry to the type of structure of the psyche of the individual.
"You go to the left - to be killed." This is a test of subservience to the self-preservation instinct. There is an opportunity to immediately refuse and not go in the indicated direction, admitting your cowardice. If you go, the robbers or someone alone, like the Nightingale the Robber, attack. If the hero is not a disguised one, but a real one, possessing the art of conquering opponents superior in strength, then he passes this test.
"You go straight - to be married". This is a test of subservience to sexual instincts. It is also possible not to go, suspecting a catch and refusing to call the circumstances. But there is an opportunity to believe, wishing for a quiet existence in family life, relax, thereby disarming yourself, and go. If you go, then the hero will come to the tower, where the beauties are already waiting for him, in which it is customary to gently lure the traveler into luxury, disarm, caress, feed, give intoxicate, and then rob the sleepy one, sell into slavery or kill. But you cannot take a real Russian hero (although pretending to be a Russian hero can be taken as a fake "girl"): he will go in the proposed direction, reach the tower, will be met by beauties, but he smells the catch a mile away, and when he meets, he sees through everything their designs, and therefore will wind the braids around the fist,and will kill the evil fools without a twinge of conscience.
"You go to the right - to be rich." This is a test of subservience to the traditions of the demonic culture of crowd- “elitism”. There are few people willing to give up wealth that is floating by itself into the hands. But if you go, then the hero will get to the city, where they will meet him with bread and salt, offer reign and wealth. The righteous hero accepts wealth and gives it to the destitute, after which he leaves the city, giving its residents the opportunity to manage their affairs themselves: there is no worse job than grazing fools, and this is not part of the moral duty of the Russian knights, who were rich not for the sake of gaining wealth, self-affirmation or favor of the "beautiful lady" (this distinguishes the Russian heroic epic from Western ballads about guys with their heads stuck in "teapots").
These are all tests. The first test cannot be passed when the psyche is close to the animal, when the behavior of the individual in the overwhelming majority of life situations is subordinated to various instinctive urges of the fearful hare type. The second is impossible to pass with any other animal structure of the psyche. The third is impossible to pass with the demonic structure of the psyche (when they live according to the principle of "what I want, I turn it over", reveling in their own intellect) and the structure of the zombie psyche (when behavior is most often determined by accumulated stereotypes of behavior): a demon or zombie will remain on the reign and drown in the courtiers intrigues or will be killed in them.
The third test shows that our ancestors were not interested in the difference between a biorobot and a demon, and in essence they were right, since both are automata, but with a differently organized algorithm of their behavior.
But there is one more test:
"If you go to such and such a forest, you will lose your horse." This is the most important test, although it seems to many, at first glance, the least significant: a heroic horse, although expensive, is still not a hero himself, in which case another horse will be found later. But this particular trip is a test for the human structure of the psyche. The hero rides in the indicated direction, and a wolf attacks the horse under him. The wolf, who has already lifted more than one horse under many heroes, stops the attack, obeying the word and will of an accomplished person, and begins to serve the hero.
The fourth test is possible to pass with such a result, only being a successful person. This is not a test for the authority of a magician and the qualifications of a trainer: the hero of magic is not trained and does not possess its means of influencing a wild beast. He commands the beast simply as an accomplished person:
And the beast serves him, submitting to the harmony predetermined from Above in Nature, disturbed by the present human appearance of people whose civilization is inhuman. A humanoid subject who has deviated from the measure of being predetermined for him, to a beast living in harmony with Nature, is not a decree: such a subject will not only lose his horse, but may also lose his life.
That is, fairy tales and epics belong to the system of implicit learning, focused on achieving a humane type of mental structure. Unfortunately, today's highly civilized societies build their education systems in accordance with a qualitatively different goal-setting, in which other moral and ethical principles are expressed.
Gingerbread man
Another educational Russian fairy tale is Kolobok, although for many this fairy tale seems to be almost a horror film with a bad ending.
Let us briefly recall the plot for those who have not read it for a long time: Grandfather asked to bake a bun - the woman baked it and put it on the window to freeze. The gingerbread man drove off into the forest. In the forest, he meets and sings his song to various animals, from which he then "runs away" and finally meets a fox, which ate him.
I must say that the original version of this tale was somewhat different: there were more animals and each of the animals also bit off a piece from the kolobok:
And now - an explanation.
The fairy tale, familiar to everyone from childhood, takes on a completely different meaning and a much deeper essence when we discover that this fairy tale is a figurative description of the astronomical observation of the ancestors' movement of the month across the sky from full moon to new moon.
Kolobok's "kneading" - the full moon, in this tale, takes place in the Hall of Virgo and Race (roughly corresponds to the modern constellations of Virgo and Leo) in the Svarozh circle. Further, starting from the Hall of the Boar, the Month begins to wane, i.e. each of the meeting Halls (Swan, Raven, Bear, Wolf) - "eat" part of the Month. Nothing remains from Kolobok to the Fox Hall - the Earth completely closes the month from the Sun.
Thus, the children received basic knowledge in astronomy and the study of the star map (note, practically from the cradle). Confirmation of this interpretation of Kolobok can be found in Russian folk riddles from the collection of V. Dahl:
"A blue scarf, a red bun: rolling on the scarf, grinning at people (the movement of the sun across the sky)."
And the word "calendar" itself comes from the splicing of the name of the calendar "Kalyady Dar", which literally means a gift from the god Kalyada (Kolyada).
An Apple
The apple in Russian folk tales is a symbol of immortality and eternal youth. In "The Tale of Apples for Rejuvenation and Living Water" apples are a universal "medicine" for old age. In other fairy tales, apples also had magical properties that transform human life, symbolizing wisdom and youth.
But in the Western tradition with an apple, not everything is so simple. If you cut it into two equal halves, you will see the seed pods folded in the form of pentagrams (five-pointed star), which is very common in Western culture and in turn is a sign of knowledge and initiation.
Apple (due to its spherical appearance, in ancient times) - Eternity without beginning and without end.
Northern and Celtic myths about apples are close to Slavic ones. In the myths of the northern peoples, apples are a symbol of eternal youth. Legends say that the goddess Iduna guarded magical golden apples that helped the gods stay forever young. But after the god Loki allowed Iduna to move to the kingdom of the giants, the gods began to turn gray and age. The gods forced Loki to bring Iduna back. Celtic myths also mention the apple as the fruit of the gods and the source of immortality.
Apples have a special place in many Greek myths. Hera, the queen of the gods, owned several very valuable apple trees, which she received as a gift from Gaia, mother of the Earth. These apple trees were cared for by the Hesperides, daughters of Evening, and guarded by a fierce dragon. The apples from these trees were golden, like in Russian fairy tales, tasted of honey and possessed magical powers. They could heal, self-renew (reappear) when they were eaten, and if such an apple is thrown at someone or somewhere, it always hit the target and returned back to the one who threw it.
Myths say that in his 11th feat, Hercules had to get some of these apples. After an arduous long journey through North Africa, Hercules enlisted the help of the giant Atlas, who entered the garden, tied the dragon, and fished for apples. Hercules delivered apples to Greece, but Athena returned them to the Gesferids.
But then the apple acquires different properties. Stolen from Hera's garden, the apple spawned the Trojan War, one of the key events in Greek mythology (and history).
Eris, the goddess of strife, was angry that she was not invited to the wedding feast. Arriving at the celebration without an invitation, she threw one of the apples, marked “for the most beautiful,” on the table. Hera, Athena and Aphrodite - each of them thought that the apple was meant for her. They asked Paris, the Trojan Prince, to resolve the matter, and he handed the apple to Aphrodite. In revenge, Hera and Athena supported the Greeks in the war that led to the fall of Troy. Until now, people use the stable expression "apple of discord".
In the Christian tradition, which grew out of the ancient, the apple also has a dual meaning, but already with a preponderance of negative. On the one hand, it means evil (in Latin malum) and is the fruit of the seduction of Adam and Eve, which the devil presented to them. On the other hand, depicted with Christ or the Virgin Mary, it points to the new Adam and salvation. A monkey with an apple in his mouth means the fall. In the Christian tradition it is associated with temptation. To offer an apple means to make a declaration of love. Like the orange blossom (a symbol of fertility), the apple blossom was used as a decoration for brides. Symbolism is possibly related to the fact that the core of an apple in longitudinal section resembles a vulva. The fruit of the tree of life, a symbol of life itself, as a real image means success in life and enjoyment of success. The apple plays a key role in the life of the biblical civilization. No wonder the symbol of one of the most successful Western corporations is the apple bitten by Eve.
Feeling the role that the apple plays in the mythology of the West, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin plays this very unusually in his work.
A. S. For his activities, Pushkin received various very flattering definitions from other people: the Sun of Russian poetry, the organ of the “gods”, the guardian angel of the Russian civilization, but he brought himself out in the form of the dog “Sokolko” in the tale “About the Dead Princess and the Seven Heroes”.
It should be noted that Pushkin acted in some way as a programmer of the future, since, taking both Western and Russian fairy tales as a basis, he reformatted them, thereby changing those matrices (multivariate or not very scenarios of behavior) that were supported by these fairy tales, passed down by generations of people.
One of the main tales of the West, which is still played out in the art of the West, is the tale of the sleeping beauty. Pushkin reformatted the matrix of the tale, filling it with Russian content.
The apple is a symbol of biblical Western culture. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, like the dog Sokolko in seven heroes from a fairy tale, showed us the poisoned essence of this "apple" - that is, the ideological inconsistency of globalization in the West. And many are still ideologically poisoned and poisoned like a princess by these "apples" of biblical culture. And how many people who understand / have understood the perniciousness of "apples", for various reasons, have not / will not be able to "reach out" to the poisoned / poisoned people?
This dog pointed out to everyone the poisonous biblical apple and the vicious concept contained in it, about which Pushkin himself wrote long before that in the poem "Gabrieliad":
So Pushkin, having "run into" the Western institution of prophets, entered the process of reformatting the entire biblical concept, which he had been doing in essence all his life. The poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" became, in a way, the crown of the fabulous creativity of Alexander Sergeevich. Here are a few verses from there, showing its relevance today:
But among Pushkin's fairy tales there is one amusing fairy tale that, in fact, saved the Russian Orthodox Church from a very cruel popular reprisal, since it reformatted the plot of the folk tale "About the priest and the laborer."
The farm laborer Balda
The plot about a greedy priest and a farm laborer who outwitted and punished him is very common in folk tales. In his processing, Pushkin strengthened the social meaning of this antipopic tale and cleared it of some algorithms.
Pushkin's concise recording of a folk tale on this plot
Pushkin removed from his version of the scenario of the development of the event laid down in the fairy tale, for example, the episode about how Balda cured the demon-possessed royal daughter, excluded the scene of Balda's drive from the forest to the bear's ass, which speaks of Balda's extraordinary physical strength. He kept only the story about collecting the rent from the devils in favor of the priest (the "business" connections of the church minister - with the devils!). Pushkin developed the image of Balda's worker, emphasizing not only his cunning and intelligence, but also diligence ("works for seven"), his ability to earn the love of everyone around him (except for the priest). But most importantly, Pushkin changed the ending. If in folk versions of a fairy tale, then I get drowned, then both the priest, and I get, and in some versions the farm laborer (who later became Balda) impales, then Pushkin has completely different relationships:
and another outcome of the tale:
Pop does not die, as in other folk versions of the tale, but survives, only jumps to the ceiling, becomes silent and loses his mind. The priest's family also survives.
It turns out that Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin saved the Russian Orthodox Church from disappearing in a stormy stream of revolution and popular anger, the accumulation of which was shown by other versions of the tale about the priest and his farm laborer.
Such interweaving of fairy tales and real history is inherent not only in our times, but also in ancient times.
Reflection of the ancient history of Russia in folk tales
Usually, the main fairy-tale motifs and plots are certainly associated with the most important rituals of the human life cycle, which, having only superficially changed, remain essentially the same. This allows the fairy tale not to lose its appeal and relevance in our days. Such continuity allows the fairy tale, flowing from the past, to be in the present and build a bridge to the future.
An example of this is the emergence in the 17th century of a literary tale, the traditions of which are successfully developing in our century. Based on the fairy tale "Cinderella" E. Schwartz wrote the script for the film. Modern "dream factory" - Hollywood, uses myths to create their fairy tales. For example, she made the image of the modern Cinderella one of the symbols of the American dream, distorting it beyond recognition in the film Pretty Woman.
But there are plots and characters that are rooted in antiquity, reflecting long past events that have remained in the people's memory only as collective images of some social groups and phenomena, as well as the algorithms of their interaction.
When reading Russian folk tales, we often come across such characters as the Serpent Gorynych, Tsar Gorokh, Tsar Maiden, Baba Yaga, Koschey the Immortal. These symbolic images have been created by folk fantasy over many generations, and we are used to thinking that these are just fairy tales that have nothing to do with actual events.
But it turns out that in this case, Russian fairy tales tell the truth, since all of the above characters are absolutely real - in our long history they had their physical embodiment. Over time, the events of ancient times were forgotten, overgrown with legends and turned into a folk epic - our native fairy tales. Many Slavic scholars spoke about the direct relationship of folk tales and real events, in particular such leading figures in the history of ancient Russia as academicians G. S. Grinevich and B. A. Rybakov.
From generation to generation, stories about the events of bygone days were passed down, thus turning into fairy tales. But behind the incredible miracles and the poetic beauty of our fairy tales, they always have a guiding thread connecting us with the real past. It stores the integral informational-algorithmic experience of civilization in the form of fairy tales. No wonder they say:
It contains not only our civilizational ideals, dreams, the mores of society, the national character, but also the history of the fatherland (its algorithmic part).
King Peas
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus mentions that a certain Targitai was the first Slavic unifying king. He also notes that according to legend, the parents of Targitai were: Zeus (Perun the Thunderer - in Russian); and the daughter of the Borisfen River (Dnieper) - (Dana, goddess of waters).
In Slavic tales, Targitai is known to us under the name of Tarkh Tarkhovich or Gorokh. And when today we say that “it was still during the reign of Tsar Pea”, this means not only a symbolic time distance, but also about the 2nd millennium BC, when the Pre-Slavs settled in central Europe. However, some Slavic scholars argue that the history of the Proto-Slavs is even more ancient.
Zmey Gorynych
Our distant ancestors lived surrounded by many other peoples: the Taurus lived in the Crimea, the Meots settled on the shores of the Black Sea, and Indo-Iranian tribes, the ancestors of the Cimmerians, Scythians and Sarmatians, roamed in the east (beyond the Don). By the XI century BC. the ancient Slavs achieved great success in construction, trade, blacksmithing and foundry. In this century, the Slavic land experienced a dawn, but …
It is known that the pagan Cimmerians, in addition to many other gods, especially revered the serpent god.
Marginal notes
The totem of the Cimmerians was a snake, or a snake. But this totem was characteristic of all Indo-Aryans in general, which can be observed even in present-day India by the characteristic deification of the snake. Sacred snake-nagas still enjoy unheard of honor and respect there, and are an object of religious worship. The Indian fakirs-snake charmers are widely known. And the ancient authors of myths depict the Cimmerians as people with snakes instead of legs - serpentines. The heirs of the ancient Indo-Aryan traditions of the sacred Serpent, the descendants of the Cimmerians, Savromats and Beloyars, the Udmurts and Kazan Bulgars (“Tatars”) and still (like a number of other peoples) have a characteristic element in the women's national costume - monista, necklaces collected from coins like snake scales …
For 300 years, with varying success, the Cimmerian Serpent ruined the land up to the Danube and Vistula. The Taurus in the Crimea, the Caucasian tribes were conquered, and the entire VIII century BC. The "Fire Serpent" plundered Urartu, Assyria, Lydia and Palestine. Under the onslaught of the "peoples of the sea" mentioned by ancient historians, who are the Cimmerians, the Hittite state fell.
The Slavs at this time also repelled the constant attacks of the nomads on their lands. Heroic outposts, defensive structures were built, they dug deep ditches and poured high ramparts, called the Zmievs, after the name of the enemy against whom they were erected. For many kilometers stretched known to us from history "Serpent Shafts" - these powerful fortifications that defended ancient Russia (according to a late medieval legend, this name was given because Dobrynya Nikitich plowed the land on the Serpent). But the VIII century BC. brought to our land the secret of making iron swords, which were much more effective than the old bronze ones. And finally, at the beginning of the 7th century BC. our ancestors broke the back of the snake monster.
Marginal notes
There is an interesting legend about the origin of the Serpent Shafts. They say that the ramparts appeared after the victory of the mighty hero over the Man-eating Serpent. The hero defeated the Serpent, pulled him into a plow and made him plow huge furrows, the dump of which formed the Serpent's shafts, and the Serpent from this overwhelming work got sick and died. Much can be seen in this legend. The serpent in Russian folklore is the personification of the nomadic Steppe, let us recall at least Tygarin Zmeevich. The plowing hero is a farmer who took on the brunt of the work, difficult even for the fabulous Ogre-Snake, but crowned with success - the Snake died!
The Slavic land did not rest for long. To replace the old one, a young Serpent flew in - nomadic Scythian tribes with the best cavalry at that time. In the 7th - 6th centuries BC. The Scythians (albeit related to the Slavs-Skolots) also plundered the Slavic lands, the Caucasian kingdoms, Asia Minor, imposed a tribute on Media and destroyed the mighty Assyria, after which the latter ceased to exist.
However, ancient Russia was accumulating strength, and soon the Scythian campaigns ended.
At the end of the 6th century BC. the Slavs and Scythians entered into an alliance - the peaceful existence of Dubrav and the Steppe contributed to the general prosperity. The interpenetration of customs has intensified, cities, villages, weapons, clothes and crafts of artisans have become similar to each other. It is not without reason that Herodotus unites the Skolots-Slavs and Scythians-Indo-Iranians under the common name “Scythians”; by his time it was already one people.
Baba Yaga
In the III century BC. the Steppe began to move again. Baba Yaga galloped on horseback at the head of the hordes that covered the edge of the sky with clouds. From the Volga expanses gushed through the Don "wife-ruled" Sarmatians, nomadic tribes akin to the Scythians, although the same Cimmerians had the cult of the Mother Goddess. The "Maiden Kingdom" of the Sarmatians settled in the northern Black Sea region. The Sarmatian Tsar Maiden from Russian fairy tales forces Ivan Tsarevich to marry her, threatening his father:
For almost five hundred years, "Baba Yaga" kept all neighboring nations in subjection, shaking out tribute and devastating the land.
But at the beginning of the 1st century A. D. Russia strengthened again and pacified its "wife-governed" neighbors, after which a Slavic-Sarmatian alliance was formed; and already from the II century A. D. ancient historians mix in the annals of the Skolots-Scythians and Sarmatians, not seeing the differences between them. So, thanks to the interpenetration of cultures, an ancient Slavic ethnos was formed over time.
Koschei the Deathless
Such a colorful figure of folk tales as Koschey the Immortal is very remarkable. Most researchers of Russian folklore agree that the latter personifies the Khazar or the supreme ruler, the Khagan. Khazaria, located on the steppe expanses between the Don and the Volga, began to coexist with Russia starting from the 5th century AD. Let's remember that the bony old man Koschey is depicted in black colors, he is surrounded by numerous servants (fabulous evil spirits), he lives in a castle on a high rock, often on an island. The secret of his life (needle) is hidden far away:
This may reflect the symbolic inaccessibility of the enemy camp. Indeed, the palace of the ruler of the Khazar Kaganate was located on an island in the middle of the Volga River; around lay a city of tents - the capital of Itil. Likewise, the Khazar fortress Sarkel (after: Belaya Vezha), was located on an island in the middle of the Don. It is “there Koschey withers over the gold,” the tale says; which also has a real basis. We know from history that, while ordinary citizens of Khazaria professed local polytheism and Islam, the ruling elite adhered to Judaism, which is based on the global economic doctrine of usury - acquisitiveness written in the cultural code of the Jews - books under the general title "Old Testament". And someone perceives this as pragmatism and super-thrifty attitude to money, and someone - as a parasitism on the lives of others.
In fairy tales, Koschey turns people into stone statues and takes a beautiful princess to his castle - this is how fairy tales symbolically tell about 400-year-old raids of nomads, when the Khazars took prisoners deep into their kingdom. The secret of Koshchei's death was in the very lair of the enemy: the irrepressible prince Svyatoslav in 969 defeated Koshchei, destroying Sarkel and Itil, after which Khazaria ceased to exist as a state. Thousands of prisoners were released.
Of course, it would be a mistake to identify absolutely all the characters in all folk tales with real historical events in Russian history. A significant part of fairy-tale characters and adventures was created by a rich folk fantasy and is only an allegorical retelling of favorite folk motives. But on the contrary, one should not indiscriminately deny the real relationship of fairy tales with the history of the fatherland …
A very interesting study of the relationship between folk epic and history was made by Lev Prozorov in the book "In the footsteps of epics into the depths of time", which we recommend reading.
Ancient homeland
In Russian folk tales, two spaces of action of characters are clearly manifested, two worlds - an ordinary world and a "different" very distant world.
This world, the territory where various miracles begin to happen to the hero, in fairy tales is most often the Thirtieth Kingdom. And if we consider that in fairy tales more attention is paid to him, the main part of all actions and adventures takes place there, then we can conclude that this territory in the fairy world is more important than the ordinary one, from where the hero sets off.
A journey to the Far Away Kingdom opens up a lot of new knowledge to the hero, for example, the ability to see and hear the unknown and previously unknown.
In the fairy tales of the West, the transition to the "other" world is abrupt, like death and therefore symbolizes the death of the hero, a certain initiation rite (as it happens in various orders of the West - he got into the order - he died for his past life), while in Russian fairy tales and worldview in general, there is no clear border, and the transition from one world to another is gradual, imperceptible and open to everyone who wishes it. From the fairy tale "Tsar Maiden":
Although the transition between worlds in fairy tales is often described as very time consuming. From the fairy tale "The Frog Princess":
But it may so happen that the far-off kingdom is a really existing state. And the complexity and duration of getting there are indicated by the things with which the hero passes into the "other world" - iron bread, staff, boots.
It is interesting that both in Russian legends and in Indian legends there is information about a certain land in the far north, which in the European tradition is called Hyperborea. In his centuri, Michel Nostradamus calls the Russians "a Hyperborean people," that is, who came from the far north. According to many descriptions, it turns out that the climate in the north used to be different, as evidenced by the finds of fossilized tropical plants in the northern latitudes.
M. V. Lomonosov, in his geological work "On the Layers of the Earth", wondered where in the Far North of Russia:
One of the ancient scholars, Pliny the Elder, wrote about the Hyperboreans as a real ancient people who lived near the Arctic Circle and genetically linked to the Hellenes through the cult of Apollo Hyperborean. His "Natural History" (IV, 26) literally says:
This place in Russian folklore was called the Sunflower Kingdom. The word Arktika (Arktida) comes from the Sanskrit root Arka - the Sun. Recent studies in the north of Scotland have shown that 4 thousand years ago the climate at this latitude was comparable to the Mediterranean and there were many thermophilic animals. Russian oceanographers and paleontologists also established that between 30 and 15 thousand BC. the Arctic climate was mild enough. Academician A. F. Treshnikov came to the conclusion that the underwater rock formations - the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges - rose above the surface of the Arctic Ocean 10 - 20 thousand years ago, and there was a zone of temperate climate.
Hyperborea on the map of Gerardus Mercator, 1569.
There is also a map by the famous medieval cartographer Gerard Mercator, dated 1569, in which Hyperborea is depicted as a huge arctic continent of four islands with a high mountain in the middle. This universal mountain is described both in Hellenic myths (Olympus) and in the Indian epic (Meru). The authenticity of this map is confirmed by the fact that it already depicts the strait between Asia and America, which was "discovered" again by Semyon Dezhnev only in 1648 and began to be named after V. Bering only in 1728. Obviously, this map was compiled according to some unknown ancient sources. According to some Russian scientists, there is indeed a seamount in the waters of the Arctic Ocean, which practically reaches the ice shell. Scientists suggest that she, like the aforementioned ridges,plunged into the depths of the sea relatively recently. Hyperborea is also marked on the map of the French mathematician, astronomer and geographer O. Finey in 1531. It is also featured on one of the late 16th century Spanish maps held in the Madrid National Library.
This disappeared ancient land is mentioned in the epics and tales of the northern peoples. The journey to the Sunflower Kingdom (Hyperborea) is described by an ancient legend from the collection of the folklorist P. N. Rybnikova:
Moreover, it is interesting that this "airplane eagle" has fixed wings: "a bird flies and does not flap its wing", are these strange details for a fairy tale?
Indian scientist Dr. Gangadhar Tilak in his work "Arctic homeland in the Vedas" quotes from an ancient source (Rig Veda), stating that "the constellation" Seven Great Sages "(Ursa Major) is right above our heads." If a person is in India, then, according to astronomy, the Big Dipper will be visible only above the horizon. The only place where it is directly overhead is in the area beyond the Arctic Circle. So the characters of the Rig Veda lived in the north? It is hard to imagine Indian sages sitting in the middle of snowdrifts in the Far North, but if you raise the sunken islands and change the biosphere (see above), then the descriptions of the Rig Veda take on meaning.
Conclusion
What a delight these fairy tales are!
The use of genres of folk art was a characteristic feature of the work of many Russian writers. A. S. also contacted them. Pushkin, and M. Yu. Lermontov, and N. V. Gogol, and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. But all the same, the fairy tale demonstrates the originality of folklore and its unity on a worldwide scale brighter and more revealingly, reveals the common features inherent in man and humanity.
As you can see, Russian folk tales provide us with a huge space for research and new unexpected discoveries. This is a fascinating and interesting process, because fairy tales are not divorced from reality, they are the keepers of a huge amount of information about the Russian people, their customs, beliefs, ideas and the past. Sometimes it seems that the fairy tale has answers to all questions.
Perhaps it is.
After Word
Write in the comments your versions of how certain tales are deciphered. We have not touched on much, but you probably cannot cover everything in one article.
