N. V. Gogol dedicated only fifteen lines to Viy in his story. But whoever has read them at least once in his life will never forget such a bright, unusual, impressive image. Perhaps one of the reasons here lies in the special mysteriousness, incomprehensibility of Viy. How did this image come about, where did it come from? Who is Viy and what do we know about him?
To begin with, we will quote Gogol: - Bring Viy! Follow Viy! - the words of the dead man rang out.
And suddenly there was silence in the church; a wolf howl was heard in the distance, and soon heavy footsteps sounded across the church; glancing sideways, he saw that they were leading some squat, stout, clubfoot man. He was all in the black earth. Like sinewy, strong roots, his legs and arms, covered with earth, stood out. He stepped heavily, stumbling every minute, his long eyelids drooping to the ground. Khoma noticed with horror that his face was iron. They brought him under the arms and put him directly to the place where Khoma was standing.
- Raise my eyelids: I don't see! - said Viy in an underground voice, - and the whole host rushed to raise his eyelids.
"Don't look!" - whispered some inner voice to the philosopher. He could not bear it and looked.
- Here he is! - Viy shouted and stared at him with an iron finger. And everyone, no matter how it was, rushed at the philosopher. Breathless, he crashed to the ground, and immediately the spirit flew out of him from fear."
It is difficult to find in the works of Russian classics a character more impressive and mysterious than Gogol's Viy. Obviously referring to the heroes of folklore and fabulous, he also stands out among them for his special showiness and inexplicable, hidden power. “Viy is a colossal creation of the common people's imagination,” wrote Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in a footnote to his story. - This is the name of the head of the dwarfs among the Little Russians, whose eyelids go to the very earth. This whole story is a folk tradition. I didn’t want to change it in any way and I tell it almost in the same simplicity as I heard it.” Considering that in 1835, when the story was written, Slavic folkloristics as a science was still in its infancy and we knew no more about our own mythology than, for example, about Chinese, then there is nothing surprising.that Gogol did not give a more meaningful explanation regarding the "boss" of the Little Russian "gnomes."
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Today we can look into Viy's eyes without fear and tell about him everything that even his literary father did not know.
So, who is Viy? If, according to Gogol, he is a hero of folk legends, then his image should be found in the works of folklore. However, there is no fairytale hero with that name. But where did the name itself come from - Viy? Let's turn to the dictionary. In the Ukrainian language, the name of the character of Little Russian legends Viy comes, apparently, from the words “viya”, “viyka” is an eyelash (and “poviko” is an eyelid). After all, the most memorable and characteristic feature of Viy is huge eyelids, so it is quite natural that his name came from them.
And although there is no Viy as such in Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Russian fairy tales, there are often enough images that almost completely coincide with Gogol's description of Viy: stocky, hefty, which means strong, covered with earth, as if the devils got him out of dungeons. In the tale about Ivan Bykovich, recorded by the famous collector and researcher of Slavic folklore A. N. Afanasyev, it is said that after Ivan first defeated three multi-headed monsters on the Smorodina River, and then destroyed their wives, a certain witch, now losing her daughters and sons-in-law, dragged Ivan to the owner of the underworld, her husband:
"On you, he says, our destroyer!" - And in the fairy tale the same Viy appears before us, but in the underworld, at home:
“The old man lies on an iron bed, sees nothing: long eyelashes and thick eyebrows completely close his eyes. He summoned twelve mighty heroes and began to order them:
"Take an iron pitchfork, raise my eyebrows and black eyelashes, I will see what kind of bird he is that killed my sons."
Both in Gogol and in the tale recorded by Afanasyev, the presence of iron attributes is not surprising. Gogol's Viy has an iron face, an iron finger, the fairytale has an iron bed, an iron pitchfork. After all, iron ore is mined from the earth, which means that the ruler of the underworld, Viy, was a kind of master and patron of the earth's interior and their wealth. Apparently, therefore, N. V. Gogol ranks him among the European gnomes, keepers of underground treasures. For ancient people, at the time of the folding of Slavic mythology, iron, a durable metal, difficult to extract and difficult to process, indispensable in the economy, seemed to be the greatest value.
The fairytale hero Afanasyev with his long eyebrows and eyelashes fully matches the appearance of Viy. However, in Slavic mythology, for the owner of the underworld, the presence of exactly long eyebrows or eyelashes was apparently not necessary. His distinguishing feature is just long hair, and what it is, eyelashes, eyebrows or beard, is not important. It can be assumed that exorbitant eyelids are a later distortion of popular tradition. The main thing is not eyelids, but just long eyelashes, hair. One of the Belarusian fairy tales describes “Tsar Kokot, a beard about an elbow, an iron whip of seventy arshins, a bag of seventy ox skins” - an image similar to the master of the underworld. Also known is the fabulous old man "Himself from a nail, a beard from an elbow", the owner of exorbitant strength and a huge herd of bulls. In his service was a three-headed serpent,and he himself was hiding from the heroes pursuing him underground. But there is one among the Belarusian fairy tales, where Koshchei, like Viyu, was lifted by the maid, "five poods each." This Koschey "as he looks at someone - so he will not leave him, even though he will let go - all the same, everyone will come back to him."
So, that's why you can't look Viy in the eye, what will take him, drag him into the underground, into the world of the dead, which, in fact, happened to poor Khoma in Gogol's Viy. This is probably why in Christian apocryphal legends Saint Kasyan was identified with Viy, who was considered by the people to be the embodiment of a leap year and the personification of all misfortunes. They thought that Kasian, like the master of the underworld, lived deep underground, in a cave where daylight did not penetrate. Kasyan's gaze is destructive for all living things and entails troubles, illness, and even death. The apocryphal Judas Iscariot was also endowed with some features of Via, who, as punishment for the betrayal of Jesus Christ, allegedly lost his sight due to overgrown eyelids.
So where did such a strange image of Viy come from in Slavic mythology and folklore? The main signs of our character help to find the answer: hairiness, the possession of herds of bulls and involvement in the underworld. These signs make us remember one of the most ancient and, moreover, the main East Slavic gods of the times of paganism - Veles (Volos). Before people learned how to cultivate the land, he patronized hunters, helped to get the beast, which, according to many researchers, determined the name of the deity. It comes from the word "hair", that is, fur, skin of hunting prey. Veles also personified the spirits of the killed animals. Hence the idea that this deity is associated with death, the world of the dead. “Initially, in the distant hunting past, Veles could mean the spirit of a killed beast, the spirit of hunting prey,that is, the god of that only wealth of the primitive hunter, which was personified by the carcass of a defeated beast. " This is how Academician B. A. Rybakov wrote about Veles-Volos.
But time passed, and agriculture and cattle breeding became an integral part of the economy of ancient people. Hunting has lost its former significance, while Veles became the patron saint of livestock. That is why the old man "Himself with a fingernail, a beard from an elbow" has bull herds, and anyone who encroaches on them runs the risk of experiencing the hefty strength of the herd owner. The number of livestock in ancient times is the main indicator of the wealth of a family. Livestock gave a man almost everything he needed: it was draft power, it was fur, leather, wool for clothing and other household needs, milk, dairy products and meat for food. It is no coincidence that the custom of measuring wealth in the "heads" of cattle survived until the Middle Ages. The word "cattle" denoted not only the actual cattle, but also all the property, the wealth of the family. The word "bestiality" was used in the meaning of "greed", "greed". Financial officer post,standing between the mayor and the headman, was called the "cattle", since the "cowgirl" is the treasury (hence another meaning of Veles as a deity: in charge of income and wealth).
It is no coincidence that Veles was opposed to Perun - the god of heavens, thunderstorms and war. After all, wealth, prosperity and war, entailing ruin, are incompatible. The giver of thunderstorms Perun lived in heaven, in the transcendental kingdom of the gods. Veles also contacted the underworld of the dead, “that light”. Until the beginning of the 20th century, there was a custom after the harvest to leave a bunch of uncompressed ears in the field - "Veles on the goatee". The peasants hoped to earn by this the favor of their ancestors resting in the land, on whom the next year's harvest depended. Trees, bushes, grasses were called "hair of the earth" by the people. Thus, it is not surprising that the owner of the underworld, Veles, whose name was forgotten through the centuries, was portrayed as a hairy old man and subsequently received the name Viy because of this. (However, the name Viy is similar in origin to the name Veles:both come from the words "hair", "eyelashes".)
With the onset of Christianity, the role of the patron saint of livestock Veles passed to Saint Blasius (most likely because of the consonance of names), the day of which fell on February 11 (24th in the new style). In many places in Russia Vlasyev day was celebrated as a great holiday. For example, in the Vologda province, residents of neighboring volosts gathered for the festival, a solemn crowded prayer service was served, during which loaves of bread were consecrated. At home, the hostesses fed chunks of consecrated bread to livestock, hoping thereby to protect them from diseases for the whole year. From that day on, livestock trades began in the bazaars. They turned to Saint Blaise with a prayer for the safety and health of the livestock: “Saint Blaise, give happiness to the smooth heifers, to the fat bulls, so that they would walk and play from the yard and ride from the field”. Icons of the saint were hung in cowsheds and barns to protect livestock from all kinds of misfortunes.
But the function of Veles, who dominates the underworld, was apparently taken over by the image of Viy - a character of a purely negative, "evil spirit". In other words, with the adoption of Christianity, the image of the pagan Veles gradually divided into two hypostases: positive - Saint Blasius, the patron saint of cattle and negative - Viy, an evil formidable spirit that rules in the underworld, the personification of death and grave darkness, the leader of evil spirits.
“There was a cock crow. This was already the second cry; the dwarfs heard first. Frightened spirits rushed, whoever at random, through the windows and doors in order to fly out as soon as possible, but that was not the case: they remained there, stuck in the doors and windows. The entered priest stopped at the sight of such a shame of God's shrine and did not dare to serve a panikhida in such a place. So forever the church remained with monsters stuck in the doors and windows, overgrown with forest, roots, weeds, wild thorns; and no one will find a way to her now. " This is how Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol ends his story "Viy".