Pasărea Alkonost – Simbol și mit la rușii lipoveni / Alkonost Bird – Symbol and Myth at Lippovan Russians

Abstract

The article is a brief description of a popular myth from the Slavic mythology, Alkonost -heaven''s bird. Alkonоst is frequently found in medieval Byzantine and Russian legends as the bird of heaven ; half woman, half bird, bearer of luck. The legend of Alkonost bird was brought from across the seas by merchants and quickly took root in the land of ancient Russia. The Alkonost bird symbol is common in Russian chronicles and depictions of this creature is found in the manuscriptbooks, on the jewelry of Kievan Russia, in the sculptures of white stone churches of Kiev, Vladimir and Suzdal. This fairy tale bird became known in ancient Russian literature of the fourteenth century, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it is found in alphabetical dictionaries. Very common are also the drawings made on paper of lower quality ( lubocinie cartini). In Romania paintings representing the Alkonost bird were rarely found in Lippovan Russian homes in Dobrogea, and a copy of an impeccable artistic execution can be admired by the visitors of the Jurilovca museum unit, located in the National Village Museum in Bucharest.