Tricking Up the Expansionist Plot: Vassian and Nigrin as “Classicist Magi” in Mikhail Kheraskov’s Rossiada (1779)

Abstract

In Mikhail Kheraskov’s Rossiada (Rossiad), praised (for a while) as Russia’s national epic, two characters, the mysterious hermit Vassian and the vicious sorcerer Nigrin, occupy a special place because of their capacity to do magic. This article explores whether these magi and their tricks have any historical basis – the Rossiada tells about the successful siege of Kazan’ in 1552 – and also examines the literary predecessors of the two magi have in the rich European epic tradition. Especially Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata and its parallel plot must have been a great source of inspiration. It turns out that the presence of magic in the Rossiada has little or nothing to do with Kheraskov’s potential interest in authentic Russian magic. Actually, it was the Aristotelian poetical concept of the marvellous which the classicist poet took into account when he constructed his epic plot.