Heroism as a National Manifestation of the Pre-Christian Russia in the Works of A.K. Tolstoy

The aim of the article is to consider the archetype of heroism in A.K. Tolstoy's works as part of a Slavic microimage. This aim is solved on the material of ballads (“Dragon Tugarin”, “Ilya Muromets”, “Alyosha Popovich”, “Courtship”, “Others' Grief”, “Mound”), poems (“Hero”, “Stream-Hero”), and letters the analysis of which has allowed to find out the mythological, national, philosophical, esthetic constants of heroism in the writer's works. The article is based on a compound approach to Tolstoy's creative work combining comparative and typological, mythopoetic, historical and genetic, historical-literary methods. In the course of the research, the center of the “heroic text” of the writer has been specified - the ballad “Dragon Tugarin”. In the work embodying the Golden Age of the Kiev statehood, Tolstoy recreates the “eternal” components of the Russian great power statehood and Russian ethnos: love of freedom, the unity of the prince, heroes and people, the Slavic veche, the union of Russians and Varangians, honor. These are the components of the Slavic image of the world that the heroes of Prince Vladimir protect by force and wisdom. In the poems “Ilya Muromets”, “Alyosha Popovich”, “Courtship”, the first signs of the fading of the heroic spirit connected with the conflict of “young” and “old” combatants, the prevalence of the intimate and personal sphere over the heroic one are traced. The ballad “Others' Grief” represents a hero for whom misfortunes of the home land are “others'” misfortunes, and therefore he is unworthy of being called a hero (the author designates him as a “knight”). The poem “Hero” fixes the disappearance of the true spirit of heroism from the Russian life, creates the image of antiheroism. In the ballad “Hill”, the satire “Stream-Hero” heroism, according to Tolstoy's concept, appears to be an eternal, non-exterminable energy which is condensed and kept by the elements of the earth. The main conclusions of the authors of the article can be designated as follows. The heroism archetype is inseparably linked with Tolstoy's concept of the Russian statehood. The writer allocated two stages: “Kiev” and “Moscow”. For Tolstoy, it is the Golden Age of the Russian statehood and the time of its decline. The peak and the decline of heroism, according to the writer's concept, predetermine the historical development of the country. Heroism for Tolstoy is a deep ancient force connected with the mythologeme of the earth. The writer affirms the heroism archetype as a creative beginning, the manifestation of the gift-talent of the Russian people (the characters of ballads dance, sing, play the gusli, are skillful masters of words, have secret knowledge), at the same time the military features of the characters act as elements of a second order.

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