Everywhere you look these days in the entertainment world, you see superheroes. And although we may (finally) be getting to a state of “superhero fatigue,” it won’t last long. The idea of the superman, the perfect hero, has always fascinated people. Interestingly, what seems to really fascinate people now is not so much the “super” part, but the “human” part.
Fallible superheroes are the order of the day. We have the Dark Knight, a self-doubting Superman, and the greatest guilt-ridden doubter of them all–Daredevil. These guys are fascinating for their humanity, even as we root for them to use their superpowers to beat the bad guys.
You might be interested to know that some of the most fallible superhuman warriors of all time are found in Russian fairy tales. The great warriors, the bogatyrs, are a staple of the Russian literary imagination. But they are often very human characters who strive for goodness, but are not quite able to achieve it. Some of them are flat out terrible people, but most are an accurate reflection of the inners struggle in the heart of everyone. The struggle to be decent, rather than super.
My own novels play with the idea of the self-doubting bogatyr. I try to follow the old Russian models in exploring the failings, the humanness, of these superhuman warriors, while examining them in a more contemporary light. That’s one of the great things about fantasy as as genre, by the way. You can set your stories in an ancient and mythical time, but the problems that your characters encounter are universal and often relevant for today.
Where did the bogatyrs come from?
The epic poems of their exploits, part of Russia’s rich oral tradition, were first written down in the 19th century. Before that, they were passed on, usually from grandfather to grandson. Each storyteller had his own version of the tales. Generally, historians recognize two categories of these tales—the “elder” tales and the “younger” tales. The elder tales are ancient, belonging to the pre-Christian period. In these tales, the bogatyrs are basically gods, warriors, or shape-shifters with superhuman strength.
The “younger” bogatyrs, though they are very strong, are human. Nearly all of them live in that half-legendary time of Kievan Rus when Prince Vladimir reigned (980-1015). This is the period, by the way, that informs my own novels.
Sviatogor—the Giant Warrior
A terrifying giant, the oldest of the “young” bogatyrs, Sviatogor is as large as a mountain. In most of the tales, he has grown so huge that the earth can no longer hold him, and he lies half-buried, waiting for death. There are reasons to believe that Sviatogor is a Russianization of the Biblical Sampson, although it’s difficult to determine exactly what his origins are. His most important purpose in the stories is to pass on the ancient power of the “old” bogatyrs to the most popular representative of the new—Ilya Muromets.
In my third novel, The Garden in the Heart of the World, I imagine a race of warriors who belong to the old order of the world, the order of earth-magic. Essentially, they are the pagan holdovers in a land that is quickly learning to become monotheistic. Although they are more than mere giants (they are also shapeshifters and, essentially, dragons in human form), their human appearance is reminiscent of Sviatogor.
Mikula Selianinovich
Mikula appears in two stories, one with Sviatogor, and another with Volga Sviatoslavich. He’s remarkable not so much for his strength as for his limitless endurance. He is the first peasant bogatyr, a great warrior-ploughman. His great endurance, together with Sviatogor’s titanic strength, indicate that their story probably came from old myths about the god of the earth and the patron-god of farmers. But if Sviatogor is a representative of the old, “mythic” world of the gods, Mikula is very human. He’s a kind of personification of the beauty of the farming lifestyle, into which he pours his considerable strength.
The fact that he is a warrior only secondarily is something I find interesting. There are elements of this sort of warrior in the character of Tarin in my first novel, The Song of the Sirin.
Ilya Muromets
Ilya Muromets is the most important protector of the Russian land against enemies (most of whom were nomadic Asian tribes that harassed Rus for centuries). Although he is definitely a historical character, his story is still steeped in myth.
As the tale goes, he sat paralyzed for thirty years, then received his power from Sviatogor directly. In addition to his physical strength, he has remarkably strong morals. He is calm, firm, simple, non-acquisitive, fatherly, restrained, generous, independent. Even so, he has a temper that sometimes gets the better of him.
In one famous story, he gets angry at Prince Vladimir and retaliates by knocking the crosses off of St. Sophia Cathedral with an arrow. In the cycle of his stories, his character’s religiosity begins to take center stage later. Perhaps he was trying to atone for the sin of defacing the church? The historical Ilya did, eventually, become canonized as a monk-saint.
This aspect of Ilya Muromets is something that fascinates me personally. One of the “bogatyr” character in my novels, Voran son of Otchigen, follows that traditional trajectory from warrior to monk.
Dobrynia Nikitich
He is the bogatyr with the gentle heart. Even his name hints at his gentleness. Though he has great physical strength, he “will never insult a fly,” he is “the protector of the widows and the orphans, and of all damsels in distress.” Dobrynia is also an artist—he has a beautiful singing voice and plays the gusli (Russian harp). He is also one of the only noble-born bogatyrs, a model of the prince who is also master of the druzhina (warrior band).
He also has a fascinating relationship with his wife, who was herself a warrior. I write about that in more detail in this post.
Alyosha Popovich
Alyosha is often connected in the popular imagination with Ilya Muromets and Dobrynia Nikitich. He is, as it were, the youngest of the “young” bogatyrs. Therefore, he’s not quite as much a superman as the rest of them. He is cunning, egotistical, and likes to make money for himself.
On the one hand, he is remarkably bold and courageous. On the other, he is proud, meddlesome, crude. He likes to provoke people and is easily angered. Ultimately, he becomes a slave of his shortcomings. In particular, if Dobrynia is a protector of women, Alyosha tends to take advantage of them, though he is never a particularly successful lover.
Of all the bogatyrs, he ends up the most pitiful.
Mikhailo Potyk
One of the lesser known warriors, he is best known for killing dragons. Of all the bogatyrs, he is perhaps the only one that may be associated with hagiographic literature (there was a Bulgarian saint, Michael from Potuka, who was one of many warrior-saints to have battled a serpent and won).
He is a restless man, a wanderer and a pilgrim. It’s possible that his name was originally “potok,” which in the old Russian means “landless” or “nomadic.” In some ways he is an idealized pilgrim, an image that holds an important place in the Russian imagination. There is also a version of the tale written by Alexei Tolstoi that imagines Mikhailo as a time-traveling warrior.
In my own first novel, The Song of the Sirin, the Pilgrim-wanderer is a major character. As often happens with bogatyrs of this kind, he is definitely not who he seems to be.
Churila Plenkovich
Other than the “elder” and “younger” bogatyrs, there’s another category of supermen that were “out-of-towners” or mercenaries. Churila is one of these. Their names always indicate the place they come from. In the case of Plenkovich, he comes from Surozh, on the Crimean Peninsula. Unlike nearly all other bogatyrs, Churila is a fop, an old Russian Don Juan. The tales describe him as having “skin like snow, eyes like a falcon’s, eyebrows black as sable.” To keep his complexion pleasingly pale, he actually has a servant following him around with a parasol, to protect him against the sun.
The famous Russian critic Vissarion Belinski noted that Churilo was the most “humane” of all the “young” bogatyrs, especially with respect to women. It seems he has dedicated his life to them. He never utters a single crude word or expression. On the contrary, he acts in some ways like the traditional knight of the Western troubadour tradition.
Women-storytellers used to prefer his tales to nearly all others.
So what about the stories themselves?
These wonderful tales are available in very limited fashion in English. Are they something you’d like to read for fun? Because of my future projects may be a collection of these tales retold in English. Let me know by email or in the comments section if you’d be interested in that!
A lot of my own fiction is inspired by Russian fairy tales. If you’d like to explore my writing, I invite you to enter your email address below so I can send you a free copy of my recent novella, The Son of the Deathless.