Message on the topic Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovich. Mikula Selyaninovich - a collective image of a Russian farmer
Mikula Selyaninovich is one of the most beloved Russian heroes. And this is no accident: Mikula personifies the entire Russian peasant family.
This is a hero-plowman, who, together with his family, is very fond of Mother - Cheese Earth. He is closely connected with her, because he processes her, and she feeds him.
Therefore, it is impossible to fight Mikula and his relatives, they are under reliable protection forces of nature.
Peasant Warrior
According to one of the central epics about him, Mikula meets with Svyatogor - the most ancient hero, who has unearthly features of an archaic character in his appearance. Svyatogor is a fantastic hero, whose strength is unmeasurable.
To make sure of this, Mikula invites him to pick up a bag from the ground. However, Svyatogor cannot do this - as soon as he tries to raise the bag, he goes to the ground with his feet. And Mikula himself raises the bag with one hand and says that it contains all the "burden of the earth." This may mean that the Russian peasant is able to overcome even the elements of nature.
A similar motif can be traced in the epic about the meeting of Volga and Mikula. Volga is a prince who owns three cities and many villages. When the heroes meet, Mikula complains to Volga about the tax collectors who rob the peasants to the bone. Volga punishes the collectors, and takes Mikula to his squad. The army is going to fight, and then Mikula remembers that he forgot to pull his plow out of the ground.
Mikula Selyanovich and Volga photo
Volga sent his mighty warriors there several times, but they could not pull out the plow. Then Mikula himself went for the plow and easily pulled it out with one hand. Mikula Selyaninovich, for all his connection with Slavic mythology, is a rather late character. His image was formed when the Russian peasantry had already taken shape as an estate and opposed itself to the rest of the social classes in Russia.
The juxtaposition of Volga and Mikula is the juxtaposition of a noble prince, a relative of Vladimir, and a simple peasant, the former being put to shame and the latter exalted.
Mikula and Saint Nicholas
Some researchers believe that the image of Mikula arose on the basis of the most popular saint in Russian culture - Nicholas the Wonderworker. The writer P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky cites as an example the festivities at "Nikola Veshny", that is, at the spring religious holiday in honor of St. Nicholas; on this holiday, the people honor the "orata" Mikula Selyaninovich, in whose honor they even cook mash.
Most likely, the ancient prototype of Mikula had some other name, which later changed to a Christian one. Some scientists even suggest that the names of Nikolai and Mikhail came close in the name of Mikula. Such renaming of ancient deities and heroes is not uncommon in Russian and other cultures.
"Thunder" Perun was revered after baptism under the name of Elijah the Prophet; The agricultural god Veles "turned" into St. Blaise; Among the Serbs, the ancient hero Svyatogor was "reborn" into Marko Kralevich, the ruler, the protector of Christians from the Ottoman conquerors. Marco is a real historical figure, however, in the popular mind, his image merged with mythological heroes.
Early in the morning, in the early sun, Volta gathered to take tribute-taxes from the trading cities of Gurchevets and Orekhovets.
The squad mounted good horses, brown colts, and set off. The good fellows left for an open field, in a wide expanse and heard a plowman in the field. The plowman plows, whistles, the plowshares scratch over the pebbles. As if a plowman is leading a plow somewhere nearby. The good fellows go to the plowman, they go day to evening, but they cannot ride to him. You can hear the plowman whistling, you can hear the bipod creaking, the scraping of the plowballs, and you can’t even see the plowman himself.
The fellows ride the other day until evening, just as the plowman whistles, the pine creaks, the plowballs scratch, and the plowman is gone.
The third day goes to the evening, here only the good fellows have reached the plowman. The plowman plows, urges, hums at his filly. He lays furrows like deep ditches, twists oaks out of the ground, throws boulders aside. Only the plowman's curls sway, crumble like silk over his shoulders.
And the plowman’s filly is not wise, and his plow is maple, silk tugs. Volga marveled at him, bowed courteously:
- Hello, good man, worker in the field!
- Be healthy, Volga Vseslavevich. Where are you heading?
- I'm going to the cities of Gurchevets and Orekhovets, to collect tributes from trading people.
- Eh, Volga Vseslavievich, all the robbers live in those cities, tear the skin from the poor plowman, collect duties on the roads. I went there to buy salt, bought three sacks of salt, each sack a hundred poods, put it on a gray mare, and headed home. Merchant people surrounded me, they began to take travel money from me. The more I give, the more they want. I got angry, got angry, paid them with a silk whip. Well, who was standing, he is sitting, and who was sitting, he is lying. 
Volga was surprised, bowed to the plowman:
- Oh, you, glorious plowman, mighty hero, you go with me for a comrade.
- Well, I'll go, Volga Vseslavevich, I need to give them a mandate - do not offend other peasants.
The plowman removed the silk tugs from the plow, unharnessed the gray filly, sat on her astride and set off.
Well done galloped half the way. The plowman says to Volga Vseslavevich:
- Oh, we did something wrong, we left a plow in the furrow. You sent fellow vigilantes to pull the bipod out of the furrow, shake the earth out of it, put the plow under the willow bush.
Volga sent three vigilantes.
They turn the bipod this way and that, but they cannot lift the bipod from the ground.
Volga sent ten knights. They turn the bipod in twenty hands, but they cannot tear it off.
Then Volga went with the whole squad. Thirty people, without a single one, clung to the bipod from all sides, strained, went knee-deep into the ground, but did not move the bipod even a hair's breadth.
Here the plowman himself got down from the filly, took hold of the bipod with one hand, pulled it out of the ground, and shook the earth out of the ploughshares. Cleaned the plowshares with grass.
The deed was done and the heroes went further along the way.
So they drove up to Gurchevets and Orekhovets. And there people are cunning merchants: when they saw a plowman, they cut oak logs on the bridge over the Orekhovets River.
The squad almost climbed onto the bridge, oak logs broke, the good fellows began to drown in the river, the brave squad began to die, horses began to go to the bottom, people began to go to the bottom.
Volga and Mikula got angry, got angry, whipped their good horses, jumped over the river in one gallop. They jumped onto that bank and began to honor the villains.
The plowman beats with a whip, says:
- Oh, you greedy trading people! The peasants of the city feed them with bread, give them honey to drink, and you spare them salt!
Volga favors with a club for combatants, for heroic horses.
The Gurchevets people began to repent:
- You will forgive us for villainy, for cunning. Take tribute from us, and let the plowmen go for salt, no one will demand a penny from them.
Volga took tribute from them for twelve years, and the heroes went home.
The plowman Volga Vseslavevich asks: 
- You tell me, Russian hero, what is your name, called by your patronymic?
- Come to me, Volga Vseslavevich, to my peasant yard, so you will know how people honor me.
The heroes drove up to the field. The plowman pulled out a pine, plowed up a wide meadow, sowed it with golden grain ...
The dawn is still burning, and the plowman's field is rustling like an ear.
The dark night is coming - the plowman is reaping bread. In the morning he threshed, by noon he blew it out, by dinner he ground flour, started pies. By evening, he called the people to a feast in honor. People began to eat pies, drink mash, and praise the plowman:
- Oh, thank you, Mikula Selyaninovich!
In the early morning, in the early sun, Volga gathered to take tribute, taxes from the trading cities of Gurchevets and Orekhovets.
The squad mounted good horses, brown colts, and set off. The good fellows left for an open field, in a wide expanse and heard a plowman in the field. The plowman plows in the field, whistles, plowshares scratch over the pebbles. As if a plowman is leading a plow somewhere nearby. The good fellows go to the plowman, they go day to evening, but they cannot ride to him. You can hear the plowman whistling, you can hear the bipod creaking, the scraping of the plowballs, and you can’t even see the plowman himself.
The fellows ride the other day until evening, just as the plowman whistles, the pine creaks, the plowballs scratch, and the plowman is gone.
The third day goes to the evening, here only the good fellows have reached the plowman. The plowman plows, urges, hums at his filly. He lays furrows like deep ditches, twists oaks out of the ground, throws boulders aside. Only the plowman's curls sway, crumble like silk over his shoulders.
And the plowman's filly is not wise, and his plow is maple, silk tugs. Volga marveled at him, bowed to the plowman:
Hello, good man, worker in the field!
Be healthy, Volga Vseslavevich. Where are you heading?
I am going to the cities of Gurchevets and Orekhovets, to collect tribute-taxes from trading people.
Eh, Volga Vseslavievich, all the robbers live in those cities, skinning a poor plowman, collecting tolls on the roads. I went there to buy salt, bought three sacks of salt, each sack a hundred poods, put it on a gray mare, and headed home. Merchant people surrounded me, they began to take travel money from me. The more I give, the more they want. I got angry, got angry, paid them with a silk whip. Well, who was standing, he is sitting, who was sitting, he is lying.
Volga was surprised, bowed to the plowman:
Oh, you, glorious plowman, mighty hero, you go with me for a comrade.
Well, I'll go, Volga Vseslavievich, I must give them an order - do not offend other peasants.
The plowman removed the silk tugs from the plow, unharnessed the gray filly, sat on her astride and set off.
Well done galloped halfway. The plowman says to Volga Vseslavevich:
Oh, we did something wrong, we left a plow in the furrow. You sent the young vigilantes to pull the bipod out of the furrow, shake out the earth from it, put the plow under the willow bush.
Volga sent three vigilantes. They turn the bipod this way and that, but they cannot lift the bipod from the ground.
Volga sent ten knights. They turn the bipod in twenty hands, but they cannot tear it off.
Then Volga went with the whole squad. Thirty people, without a single one, clung to the bipod from all sides, strained, went knee-deep into the ground, but did not move the bipod even a hair's breadth.
Here the plowman himself got down from the filly, took hold of the bipod with one hand, pulled it out of the ground, shook the earth out of the plows, picked it up, and waved it at the willow bush. The plow flew up to the cloud, the plow fell behind the willow bush, and went into the damp earth up to the handle.
So they drove up to Gurchevets and Orekhovets. And there people are cunning merchants: when they saw a plowman, they cut down oak logs on the bridge across the Orekhovets River. The squad almost climbed onto the bridge, oak logs broke, the good fellows began to drown in the river, the brave squad began to die, horses began to go to the bottom.
Volga and Mikula got angry, got angry, whipped their good horses, jumped over the river in one gallop. They jumped onto that bank, and began to honor the villains.
The plowman beats with a whip, says:
Oh you greedy trading people! The peasants of the city feed them with bread, give them honey to drink, and you spare them salt!
Volga favors with a club for combatants, for heroic horses.
The Gurchevets people began to repent:
You will forgive us for villainy, for cunning. Take tribute from us, and let the plowmen go for salt, no one will demand a penny from them.
Volga took tribute from them for twelve years, and the heroes went home.
The plowman Volga Vseslavevich asks:
You tell me, Russian hero, what is your name, called by your patronymic?
Come to me, Volga Vseslavyevich, to my peasant yard, so you will know how people honor me.
The heroes drove up to the field. The plowman pulled out a pine, plowed up a wide meadow, sowed with golden grain ...
The dawn is still burning, and the plowman's field is rustling like an ear.
The dark night is coming - the plowman is reaping bread. In the morning you threshed, by noon you blew it out, by lunchtime you grinded flour, started pies. By evening, he called the people to an honorable feast. People began to eat pies, drink mash, and praise the plowman.
(wife Dobrynya Nikitich)
Mikula Selyaninovich- legendary plowman - hero in Russian epics Novgorod cycle.
Etymology
The name Mikula is a folk form of the name Nikolai; possibly the result contamination named Michael.
The image of the hero-plowman
The hero personifies the peasant strength; you can’t fight him, because “the whole Mikulov family loves Mother Earth Cheese ».
According to one of the epics, he asks the giant Svyatogora pick up the bag that has fallen to the ground. He is not up to the task. Then Mikula Selyaninovich lifts the bag with one hand, saying that it contains "all the burden of the earth."
Mikula Selyaninovich, according to folklore, had two daughters: Vasilisa And Nastasya(wives Stavra And Dobrynya Nikitich respectively), who are also the central heroines of epics.
Epics dedicated to Mikula: “Volga and Mikula Selyaninovich”, “Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovich”.
Mikula and Nicholas the Wonderworker
Connection of a Christian saint Nicholas the Wonderworker with the epic hero Mikula Selyaninovich. An interesting version of the connection with the day folk calendar Nikola vernal leads P. I. Melnikov in 1874 :
The smerd (peasant, farmer) honored Mikula most of all ... He, the drinker, he, the gracious breadwinner, and he celebrated holidays more honestly and more often ... He was honored feasts- dining on marriages-Mikulshchina.
Like reverence Thunder Rattlesnake with the introduction of Christianity, they transferred us to veneration Ilya Gromovnik, and reverence hair, the cattle god, - on the saint vlasia, and the honoring of oratay Mikula Selyaninich was transferred to a Christian saint - Nicholas the Wonderworker. That is why in Russia most of all Nicholas the Merciful is celebrated. Spring holiday to Nicholas the Wonderworker, which the Greeks do not have, was borrowed by the Russians from the Latins in order to coincide with the holiday of the Mother of the Raw Earth, who loves "Mikula and his kind." Mikule's celebration coincided with Mother Earth's name day. And until now, two folk holidays converge side by side: the first day " Mikula with food"(May 9 O.S.), another day (May 10 O.S.)" name day of Mother Raw Earth ».
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Notes
Literature
- Melnikov-Pechersky P.I. . - 1874.
- / Petrukhin V. Ya. // Mythological dictionary/ Ch. ed. E. M. Meletinsky . - M. : Soviet Encyclopedia, 1990. - S. 358. - ISBN 5-85270-032-0.
Links
- . Retrieved March 16, 2009. .
- // Biographical Dictionary. 2000.
An excerpt characterizing Mikula Selyaninovich
- Semyon! Do you know Danila Kupor?It was the count's favorite dance, danced by him in his youth. (Danilo Kupor was actually one Anglaise figure.)
“Look at dad,” Natasha shouted to the whole hall (completely forgetting that she was dancing with a big one), bending her curly head to her knees and bursting into her sonorous laughter throughout the hall.
Indeed, everyone in the hall looked with a smile of joy at the cheerful old man, who, next to his dignitary lady, Marya Dmitrievna, who was taller than he, rounded his arms, shaking them in time, straightened his shoulders, twisted his legs, slightly stamping his feet, and with a more and more blossoming smile on his round face he prepared the audience for what was to come. As soon as the cheerful, defiant sounds of Danila Kupor, similar to a merry rattler, were heard, all the doors of the hall were suddenly forced on one side by male, on the other side by female smiling faces of courtyards who came out to look at the merry gentleman.
- Father is ours! Eagle! the nanny said loudly from one door.
The count danced well and knew it, but his lady did not know how and did not want to dance well. Her huge body stood straight with her powerful hands(she handed the reticule to the countess); only her stern but beautiful face danced. What was expressed in the whole round figure of the count, with Marya Dmitrievna was expressed only in a more and more smiling face and a twitching nose. But on the other hand, if the count, more and more dispersing, captivated the audience with the unexpectedness of deft tricks and light jumps of her soft legs, Marya Dmitrievna, with the slightest zeal in moving her shoulders or rounding her arms in turns and stomping, made no less impression on the merit, which was appreciated by everyone at her corpulence and everlasting severity. The dance became more and more lively. The counterparts could not draw attention to themselves for a minute and did not even try to do so. Everything was occupied by the count and Marya Dmitrievna. Natasha tugged at the sleeves and dresses of all those present, who already did not take their eyes off the dancers, and demanded that they look at papa. During the intervals of the dance, the count took a deep breath, waved and shouted to the musicians to play faster. Quicker, faster and faster, more and more and more, the count unfolded, now on tiptoe, now on heels, rushing around Marya Dmitrievna and, finally, turning his lady to her place, made the last step, raising his soft leg upward from behind, bending his sweating head with a smiling face and roundly waving right hand among the roar of applause and laughter, especially Natasha. Both dancers stopped, breathing heavily and wiping themselves with cambric handkerchiefs.
“This is how they danced in our time, ma chere,” said the count.
- Oh yes Danila Kupor! ' said Marya Dmitrievna, letting out her breath heavily and continuously, and rolling up her sleeves.
While the sixth anglaise was being danced in the Rostovs' hall to the sounds of tired musicians who were out of tune, and the tired waiters and cooks were preparing dinner, the sixth stroke took place with Count Bezukhim. The doctors announced that there was no hope of recovery; the patient was given a deaf confession and communion; preparations were made for the unction, and the house was full of fuss and anxiety of expectation, common at such moments. Outside the house, behind the gates, undertakers crowded, hiding from the approaching carriages, waiting for a rich order for the count's funeral. The Commander-in-Chief of Moscow, who constantly sent adjutants to learn about the position of the count, that evening he himself came to say goodbye to the famous Catherine's nobleman, Count Bezukhim.
The magnificent reception room was full. Everyone stood up respectfully when the commander-in-chief, after being alone with the patient for about half an hour, came out of there, slightly answering the bows and trying as soon as possible to get past the eyes of doctors, clergy and relatives fixed on him. Prince Vasily, who had grown thinner and paler these days, saw off the commander-in-chief and quietly repeated something to him several times.
After seeing off the commander-in-chief, Prince Vasily sat alone in the hall on a chair, throwing his legs high over his legs, resting his elbow on his knee and closing his eyes with his hand. After sitting like this for some time, he got up and with unusually hasty steps, looking around with frightened eyes, went through a long corridor to the back half of the house, to the elder princess.
Those who were in the dimly lit room spoke in an uneven whisper among themselves and fell silent every time, and with eyes full of question and expectation looked back at the door that led to the chambers of the dying man and made a faint sound when someone left it or entered it.
“The human limit,” the old man, a clergyman, said to the lady who sat down next to him and naively listened to him, “the limit is set, but you can’t pass it.”
– I think it’s not too late to unction? - adding a spiritual title, the lady asked, as if she did not have any opinion on this matter.
“The sacrament, mother, is great,” answered the clergyman, running his hand over his bald head, along which lay several strands of combed half-gray hair.
- Who is this? Was he the commander in chief? asked at the other end of the room. - What a youthful! ...
- And the seventh decade! What, they say, the count does not know? Wanted to congregate?