Abstract
Introduction. Bylina is an ancient Russian epic song about the life and heroic deeds of Russian heroes, as well as about events or remarkable episodes in the national history of the 11th–16th centuries. Cycles of epics about Ilya Muromets are formed on the basis of ancient legends, united by the origin and character of the main character. It is not the name of the hero, but artistic plots inherited from the distant past that form the basis on which the historical epic develops. The purpose of the article is to identify the conditions for the formation and transformation of epic stories about Ilya Muromets. Material and methods. Classic works of Russian literary criticism and folkloristics, individual plots of the Russian epic and the epic of neighboring peoples are analyzed. Comparative-historical and historical-functional research methods were used. Results. The scientific work examines the history of the development of the image of the Russian hero Ilya Muromets as a gradual “democratization” of the hero of the ancient Russian epic. A wide range of works of Russian, Belarusian, Serbian, Adyghe, Georgian, Ossetian folklore is analyzed. The points of view of folklorists of the 19th–20th centuries on the history, existence, methods and means of broadcasting the poetic biography of Ilya Muromets are presented and interpreted.; their scientific methods and approaches. Epic plots are traced, united by the name of Ilya and having not only an “external” but also a deep internal connection, determined by folk ideas about the hero, his entire appearance, growing on the basis of the entire set of artistic plots. The Conclusion is drawn about the “reworking” in Russian epics of the motifs of magical-heroic fairy tales, the heroic epic of the peoples of the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia and other ethnic groups.
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