Alexander Pushkin’s Ballad “The Song of the Sage Oleg” in the Artistic Rendition of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Vasily Vasnetsov
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Abstract
The article examines two archaic plotlines – the “death from the horse” and the “cleavage of
the hill.” Both of them lie at the basis of “The Song of the Sage Oleg” by Alexander Pushkin.
The main subject of the article is formed by their rendition in musical and artistic texts (Rimsky-
Korsakov’s cantata and Vasnetsov’s set of illustrations). The aforementioned plotlines possess
the distinguishing feature of the motive of “victory in death” typical for the national-historical
ballad and the genre-generating situation of “the meeting of two worlds.” It is shown how that
the structuraldramaturgical organization of the text is subservient to the principles of the ballad’s
mythopoetics. Substantiation is made of the appearance of the main protagonist’s double (the
Sorcerer – the Sage Oleg), and the conditions of passing through the boundaries of the worlds
is examined as one that is relevant for the warrior’s rite of initiation. Based by the research of
literary critics the ritual meaning of the “cleavage” of the boundary between the world is disclosed.
Accentuation is made on the significance of the storyline situation of bidding farewell to the
horse: the loss of the horse is synonymic to the ritual death of the hero. The role is shown of the
“symmetrical” plotline turn of the meeting with the horse the acquisition of the horse makes Oleg
a member of Odin’s warrior host and, thereby, revives the Warrior’s lost heroic status. The latter
circumstance endows the text with a sacred meaning, preventing the reduction of the hero’s death
to the level of an unfortunate accident.
On the basis of bringing in a culturological approach with the use of methods stemming
from various branches of scholarly knowledge – musicology, literary criticism, art studies;
comparativistics, genre-related and iconological analysis, the conclusion is arrived at that the
artist and the composers have «adjusted» precisely to the genre boundaries of Pushkin’s text. This
is proved by the analysis of the ballad imagery, the particularities of the intonational intricacies
of the leitmotifs and principles of dramaturgical development in the musical and artistic opuses.
In conclusion, an evaluation is given to the innovative quests of Rimsky-Korsakov in the sphere of
the ballad genre, leading to an artistic reevaluation of his cantata.
Keywords: “The Song of the Sage Oleg,” the national-historical ballad, mythopoetics, Alexander
Pushkin, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Vasily Vasnetsov.
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