bylina

The tradition & historical record

A bylina (Russian: былина, IPA: [bɨˈlʲinə]; pl. былины, byliny), also popularly known as a starina (Russian: старина), is a type of Russian oral epic poem. Byliny deal with all periods of Russian history. Byliny narratives are loosely based on historical fact, but greatly embellished with fantasy or hyperbole. Byliny originate from the times of Kievan Rus', but had only survived in northern Russia by the time they were collected. In a strict academic sense, byliny can be defined as a specific verse meter known from certain Russian sung epics, ballads and humorous songs. ¹

The word bylina derives from the past tense of the verb "to be" (Russian: был, romanized: byl) and implies "something that was". The term most likely originated from scholars of Russian folklore (folklorists); in 1839, Ivan Sakharov, a Russian folklorist, published an anthology of Russian folklore, a section of which he titled "Byliny of the Russian People", causing the popularization of the term. Later scholars believe that Sakharov misunderstood the word bylina in the opening of The Tale of Igor's Campaign as "an ancient poem." The folk singers of byliny called their songs stariny (Russian: старины, IPA: [ˈstarʲɪnɨ]; sing. старина, starina) or starinki (Russian: старинки), meaning "stories of old" (Russian: старый, romanized: staryj). In the 18th and early 19th centuries, scholars and popular writers typically referred to byliny as skazki, since it "applied to any folk narrative, whether in prose or in verse". At this point, skazki were not classified into specific groups. In the second half of the 19th century, Vsevolod Miller classified skazki into three groups which are now commonly accepted: fairy tales, tales of everyday life, and animal tales. The acceptance of the term byliny in the mid-19th century for folk epics was due to increasing awareness of the differences between them and the fairy tales. According to Orest Miller: "The bylina connects the primal mythical base common to all folklore genres, with historical places and events. The skazka does not have such connections." ¹

According to Russell Zguta, byliny originate from the times of Kievan Rus'. Zguta describes the byliny as rooted in the heroic tales sung in a stately, sober manner by the Kievan gusliari or court poets. Following Christianization, both the gusliari and the Western-inspired, much more flamboyant Kievan skomorokhi or minstrel-entertainers were pushed out of Kiev by the puritan clerics. The two groups and traditions melted into one, with the new resulting skomorokhi bards, who entertained a much lowlier public than the former court poets, embellishing the gusliari repertoire with humour and fantastic elements. They had to flee to the more permissive regions to the north and north-east, such as Novgorod and Vladimir, where their byliny survived until modern times. This is, in Zguta's opinion, the reason why this type of heroic epic disappeared from the folklore of the area it originates from, i.e. the medieval territories which would become Ukraine, instead being adopted and preserved further to the north and north-east, in the modern territories of Russia. Alternatively, religious pilgrims or beggars known as kaliki may have brought them to northern Russia. Along with the skomorokhi, they appear as characters in byliny. As wanderers, the kaliki sung religious and other kinds of serious verses. Other hypotheses that explain its spread in northern Russia have also been proposed. According to one theory, the Novgorodians spread the bylina to areas they colonized in the far north, as well as in the Ural region. Another theory suggests that areas where ethnic Russians were in close contact with other peoples had preserved the bylina due to the other groups having their own epic traditions, and thus the Russians were encouraged to retain their own heritage. ¹

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the singing of byliny was preserved in northern Russia, particularly in the Onega, Pechora and Arkhangelsk regions. It belonged to non-professional performers and tended to be performed by poor people who needed additional work. As a result, both men and women could sing byliny. Since bylina-singing was long and required performance poetry, they were usually sung by one person. These performers typically sang at posidelki, which were courtship parties for young unmarried women. The living tradition of byliny declined due to modernization with the increasing availability of mass media and improved communications with northern Russia. The new Soviet government viewed byliny as heroic and able to fit Soviet ideals, with government-sponsored folklorists encouraging the composition of new epics known as noviny (новины), derived from the word novyy ("new"). Although unsuccessful in creating a new oral tradition, the government brought heroes from byliny into pop culture with films such as Sadko (1953) and Ilya Muromets (1956). ¹

According to Vsevolod Miller, the prototype of the Old Russian byliny were sacred northern legends, read according to a certain "bylinic technique", passed "from generation to generation, by the teacher to the student". Regarding the time of the origin of the byliny, Leonid Maykov wrote: ¹

All the content of byliny, including the most old traditions, is presented in such an edition, which can be dated only to the ancient historical period. The content of byliny was developed at a very early period, perhaps even before the formation of the Old Russian state. Finally, according to Orest Miller, the great antiquity of byliny is proved by the fact that they depict a defensive policy, not an offensive one. Anthologists played an important role in the narration and preservation of byliny. After Sakharov, there were numerous other anthologists who contributed to its development, particularly during the 18th century. For example, Kirsha Danilov produced a compilation of 70 byliny. His sources were believed to be miners living in the Perm area. The works of these folklorists provided insights into the transition of the Russian literary tradition from one that was focused on religious subjects to secular literature. The first transcriptions of byliny are attributed to Richard James, an Englishman who traveled to Russia from 1617 to 1619. The texts that he was able to record are now preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. There was also a known German translation of the byliny and this was published anonymously in 1819. Overall, interest in these epic poems continued to the point that comprehensive and wide-ranging materials were sourced from virtually all of Great Russia. ¹

The advent of the mythological school began in the 1860s and was represented by Alexander Afanasyev, Fyodor Buslaev, and Orest Miller. These scholars primarily interpreted byliny through the lens of mythology, seeking to trace the origins of folklore through pre-Christian mythic traditions. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Bylina”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

bylina is Russian folk epic song, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 13 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²