- Project Runeberg -  Impressions of Russia /
192

(1889) [MARC] Author: Georg Brandes Translator: Samuel Coffin Eastman - Tema: Russia
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language, indicated clouds, rain, and air, become Russian
mountains like the Ural, Russian rivers like the Dnieper,
and Russian seas like the Caspian Sea. In like manner,
Ave see Ilia also individualized. It is related of him that,
before he makes his appearance as Bogatyr, he sits for
thirty years (the constant expression for a very long
time) immovable and lame. Then two celestial old men
who come to Murom call him up from his sleep of death.
It is in vain that he answers that he can move neither
hand nor foot. When they call to him again, he is able
to raise himself and open the door to them. They give
him a strengthening drink, and he feels an immense
power suddenly rippling through his limbs. Here Ilia
is evidently the same thing as nature, which is
awakened from its long winter sleep.

Ilia is thus roused to action, and his first exploit is to
cultivate the Russian soil; with superhuman strength
he tears up a whole oak forest and tranforms it to arable
land. After that he sallies forth to free peasants, as a
hero of the fields to protect this Russian earth against
monsters, robbers, and heathens. We have seen how in
these conflicts he appears as the God of Thunder. He
shoots an arrow from his bow against an oak, and the
oak is entirely split to pieces as if struck by lightning;
he swings the club like Perun, the hammer like Thor.

But then we see him like a true Russian hero
travelling from Murom to Tchernigof to free the land from
robbers who were exhausting it. We see him reject the
money and the sovereignty which the muzhiks of
Tchernigof would confer upon him, and hasten to Kief to
Vladimir, to aid the national prince against his many
enemies. And he becomes chief Ataman over Vladimir’s
forces. In some of the bîlinî, at this point, he
develops in entire consistency with the popular ideal.

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