THE UST-TSILMA FOLK TALES ABOUT ILIA MUROMETS PERFORMED BY MARFA ALEKSEEVNA SEMENOVA AS A PART OF THE LOCAL TRADITION

The article examines four recordings of a tale about Ilia Muromets that was narrated by Marfa Alekseevna Semenova (1917–1997) in the Pechora River basin of the Ust-Tsilma District of the Komi Republic. The recordings were made in the years 1980–1990. Three recordings are kept in the Folklore Archive of the Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University, and one is preserved in the Archive of the Department of Folklore of Moscow State University. The later was published in the first volume of the Svod russkogo folklora as a version of a bylina about the main hero of the Russian epic. If considered as a retelling of the bylina, Semenova’s tale noticeably differs from other epic versions. The text narrated by Semenova is much larger and combines stories about the healing of Ilia Muromets, his victory over Solovei-Razboinik and the deliverance of Kiev from the pagans. This study compares the four recordings of Semenova’s narration with each other and with other Ust-Tsilma variants of the byliny and tales about this hero. The article comments on the most interesting peculiarities of the construction of the plot and the implementation of motives and images in Semenova’s tale. Special attention is paid to the rare motive for the hero to receive a name — Ilia Muromets zamuromil (i. e., dammed up) the river — and to the atypical reason for his imprisonment in the cellar. The study also notes such features as overlapping and varying fragments that are based on traditional formulas and others that are expressed in prose, relate to the familiar environment of the narrator, and are conveyed in ordinary language. The article includes a description of the performer’s repertoire and a discussion of the possible sources of her folklore knowledge. The study led to the conclusion that Semenova learned the tales by ear and that she was well aware of the distinction between a folk tale and a bylina.