Non-Russian Mythology and Folklore in the Volga Travelogue of the 19th Century

Abstract

The Volga Travelogue is a large layer of travel essays in the 19th-century Russian literature. This layer has not become a subject of special research in literature studies. The “journey along the Volga” is distinguished by the wide diversity of issues and themes it discusses: the economic and industrial activities of the region, its cultural and historical sights, the uniqueness of the Volga region in an ethnographic perspective – of the multifaceted “Volga region resident”. One of the structural components of the travelogue is the Volga mythology and folklore: historical-geographical and cultural-ethnic information is supplemented with legends of the ancient Volga, Russian and non- Russian (Tatar, Mordovian, German, Kalmyk) legends. Describing the “non-Russian Volga”, writers refer to the national aspects of the life of different nationalities, the most important archetypes of their consciousness. A characteristic feature of N.P. Bogolyubov’s travelogue The Volga from Tver to Astrakhan is the non-Russian word as a marker of cultural identity: it is invariably present in the description of national customs. Telling about the “Mordovian places” of the Volga region, Bogolyubov describes specific rituals associated with the birth of a baby and with burials. The Muslim as a different national and cultural tradition of the Volga region particularly attracts writers’ attention. M.I. Nevzorov, in his Journey to Kazan, Vyatka and Orenburg in 1800, tells about the spiritual and religious experience of the Tatar people: writes about the ontological constants, acquaints the reader with epigraphic culture representing Muslims’ existential ideas about people and the universe. S. Monastyrsky, in his Illustrated companion along the Volga, presents Tatar legends about the winged snake Jilantau, about the “Black Chamber” and the khan’s daughter. These legends express the religious and poetic ideas of the people. Telling about the local cultural and mythological tradition is a characteristic feature of the Russian travelogue: an autochthon is represented by its ethnocultural identity. Folklore material functions in structural parallels – multilingual sources: V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, in his travelogue The Great River: Pictures from the Life and Nature on the Volga, gives two – Russian and Mordovian – versions of the legend about “Polonyanka”, and notes the particular poetry of the non-Russian text. In the combination of various – Tatar, Russian, Kalmyk – cultural and national constants of the lower Volga. German characterology is particularly expressed. A German legend associated with biblical material about the history of the prophet Elijah’s wandering through the desert to Sarepta of Sidon is fixed in the travelogues of Ya.P. Kuchin, S. Monastyrsky, and A.P. Valueva. The legend conveys the historical “memory of the place” – the foundation of the Sarepta colony. In the travelogues of V. Sidorov, N. Bogolyubov, descriptions of Buddhist Kalmyks, with their way of life, khuruls and gelyungs, are supplemented with Kalmyk legends about the Bogdo-Ola mountain. Folklore and mythology as categories of a non-native cultural text complicate the artistic system of the travelogue and contribute to the poetic comprehension of the poly-ethnic and poly-confessional Volga region.