In the early 1960s, director Grigory Kozintsev, actor Innokenty Smoktunovsky and other members of the film crew of the film "Hamlet" based on the tragedy of the same name by William Shakespeare came to Kronborg Castle in the town of Helsingor. After all, Helsingor is Shakespeare's Elsinore.
"Between the Baltic and the North Seas lies an old swan's nest, and it is called Denmark …" - said the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. In the center of this lovely "nest" lies the island of Zealand, and on its northern shore rises the majestic royal castle of Kronborg. “It stands on the shores of Øresund Bay, where hundreds of large ships sail every day. Among them there are English, Russian, and Prussian. All of them greet the ancient castle with cannon volleys - boom-boom, and the guns of the castle also answer them - boom-boom,”says Andersen.
Land of pirates and robbers
In fact, according to most researchers, the historical Hamlet has never been here - his homeland and possessions were located further south, in Jutland.
For the first time, the legend of Hamlet was expounded by the chronicler Saxon Grammaticus in Acts of the Danes - a collection of the oldest sagas and historical events that took place in Scandinavia before 1185. Saxon writes about the Danish kings as notorious pirates and robbers, whose passion was to sink other people's ships and plunder other people's coasts. Among them was the Duke of Jutland Horvendill - the father of Prince Amlet, as Shakespeare's Hamlet was actually called.
The story of Hamlet's father - a king who was killed by his wife's lover - gained popularity in Shakespeare's homeland after the execution in 1587 of Elizabeth Tudor's rival, Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland. Rumor accused Mary of conspiring with her lover to send her husband to the next world. Popularity was promoted by the translation and printed edition of the chronicle of Saxon Grammar, as well as the retelling of events in the "Tragic stories" by François de Belforest, published in 1576.
Shakespeare knew these writings well. From Belforest taken from Hamlet's meeting with his father's ghost. From Saxon - the prince's break with the girl he loved (Shakespeare's - Ophelia), a loyal friend (Horatio), spies (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern), a comparison of Hamlet with Hercules and his famous mysterious character. It is well known that the English playwright often had to redo old and other people's plots, and he saw nothing shameful in this.
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Ferocious prince
Events of the distant past, revived by the will of a genius, took place in the harsh northern region in the 9th-10th centuries, and certainly not in the 16th century. In the middle of the 10th century, Jutland, as Saxon writes, presented a sad picture: "The country was devastated by raids: many Vikings sailed around Denmark." The real Amlet was one of them, a fierce, brave and insane warrior in battle.
Shakespeare remembers this. In the sea that washes the walls of the castle in Elsinore, pirates operate, boarding battles take place there. It is not surprising that in Shakespeare, Hamlet also does terrible things - he kills almost all the main characters in the tragedy. "Now I could drink living blood and am capable of deeds, from which I will recoil during the day … Without atrocities, heart!" - the hero repeats.
As you know, warriors who, in the heat of battle, went into a rage and crushed everything in their path, were called berserkers in Scandinavia. According to legends, at night the berserker turned into a wild beast - a bear or a wolf. It is no coincidence that Shakespeare's Hamlet was especially ready at night to succumb to "atrocities."
It is interesting that Shakespeare's Denmark maintained close contacts with Russia, since real Vikings also went to Russia. The heroes of the tragedy eat caviar and dress in Russian furs. “To the devil, mourning. I will walk in sables,”says Hamlet.
Shakespeare calls Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, “a woman of the imperial family,” and the playwright's contemporaries understood what kind of “emperors” they were talking about. According to the Acts of the Danes, the historical Geruta (Gertrude), the mother of Amlet, was the daughter of the Danish king Rurik (Hreik), who, according to many researchers, is the prince of Novgorod, the founder of the Russian grand-ducal dynasty.
Hence, the Danish prince Hamlet is the grandson of Rurik, the nephew of Prince Igor and the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga, the cousin of Svyatoslav and the uncle of the Baptist of Russia, the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir!
Mikhail EFIMOV