“The ancient duel of Mstislav…”: the story of “The Russian Primary Chronicle” in a V. Sosnora’s poem “The battle of Mstislav with Rededya” (1959)

Abstract

This paper deals with the poem by V. Sosnora, “The Battle of Mstislav with Rededya” (1959). The poem is based on the story of “The Russian Primary Chronicl” under 6530 (1022) devoted to the event mentioned in the title. According to the poet, when writing his “historical” poems, he “re-imagines” the material of ancient Russian monuments and brings it closer to the modern reader. The poet’s creative method was often misunderstood by critics and satirists who referred to his “irreverent” treatment of history. In terms of literary criticism, “re-imagining” implies using a rich palette of poetic means of allusions and associations, a deliberate mixture of ancient and modern, and others. Addressing the named story of “The Russian Primary Chronicl,” as well as to other chronicle stories and “The Song of Igor’s Campaign,” Sosnora creates a poetical plot. This plot emphasizes the dynamics of the duel of chronicle characters, marks individual features of their appearance, hides by default an important detail for the chronicle narrative (knife), and introduces a dialogue (an expressive squabble before the battle of the title characters), reworking the chronicle event to give the battle scene “visual”, “cinematic” effect. This could not be the case in Old Russian narration subordinated to literary etiquette. By arranging the semantic and rhythmic accents under his idea, the poet seems to offer a fantastic reconstruction of one of the Boyan’s songs.