22.05.

2006

The Question of Genre in Byliny and Beowulf 1

By: Shannon Meyerhoff, 2006

Shannon Meyerhoff recently completed her BA in English literature and Russian studies at the University of
Pennsylvania. She will be working in Moscow beginning this summer, and plans to go to graduate school in the
near future.

While stories about Dobrynja Nikitič, Il'ja Muromec, and Sadko were being sung in Kievan Rus'
– the Slavic state dominated by the city of Kiev from the ninth until the twelfth centuries –
Anglo-Saxon, or Old English poetry had already extended from oral to written production in the
form of Beowulf.[1] Beowulf is a Christian reworking of oral folk tales, and was written, by an
unknown author, sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries.[2] In Beowulf’s
compositional structure there are many qualities of the oral poetry that was sung by the
Germanic tribes that settled in Britain beginning in the 5th century of the Common Era;[3] it is
generally understood that the Beowulf author wrote his poem as an embellishment of an already-
established oral tale. Unlike Russian folk epics, which did not enter literature as recorded texts
until the 18th century, when folklore enthusiasts traveled to remote parts of Russia to record
them, [4] Beowulf enhanced the oral tradition to achieve a degree of literariness, and status as
what we know to be the first medieval English epic.[5]
The most famous literary work produced by Kievan Rus' is The Lay of Igor’s Campaign.[6] This
tale, which describes Prince Igor’s unsuccessful campaign against the Kumans in 1185, is not so
much an epic, however, as “a lament over the feudal discord in medieval Russia.”[7] When
looking at the Russian tradition, a closer parallel with Beowulf can be found within the genre of
folk epic, or narrative songs with heroic themes. Scholars call these songs “byliny,” which is the
plural form of “bylina” and is derived from the past tense of the Russian verb “to be.”[8] The
term bylina was first introduced in the 1830s,[9] and the genre of byliny can be divided into three
general groups: mythological epics, which originated well before the founding of the Kievan
state; the Kievan or Vladimir cycle, which emerged between the tenth and fourteenth centuries
and which relate events taking place under the reign of Prince Vladimir the Great; and the
Novgorod cycle, with Sadko as its central hero.[10] Byliny are usually referred to as “epic
poetry,” and contain plots or subjects that occur in many epic traditions, including the birth and

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childhood of a hero, the fight of a father and son, a battle with a monster, and the imprisoned or
reluctant hero who at a critical moment emerges to save his city.
Byliny are replete with oral formulas that highlight important themes, and themes that provide
necessary structural functions in the tales – for example, the journeying of the hero from one
place to another. Finally, the story of the Russian bylina often begins in the royal court. The
opening of the bylina “Dobrynja Nikitič and Vasilij Kazimirovič” begins:
“At the palace of gracious Prince Vladimir,
Of our Sun, Vladimir Vseslav'evič,
There was a banquet, a feast of honor,
For many princes and boyars…
Vladimir treated them all and honored them all,
He, the Prince, greeted them all.”[11]
This scene involves an assembly with a speech, which is a recurring theme throughout Beowulf;
this theme, which is important to the tale’s structure – it occurs at both the tale’s beginning and
end, and is central to the plot – is one that Albert Lord, one of the foremost scholars of the oral
tradition, considers fundamental to the genre of oral epic.
Because byliny existed only as relatively short, disconnected songs, and were never combined to
form one long narrative – which is due, perhaps, to the disintegration of the Kievan state during
the period of Mongol invasion – byliny differ from the generally-accepted understanding of what
constitutes an “epic.” Aristotle defined “epic” structure as simply a structure with more than one
plot;[12] but when considering the epic – with the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid as some of
the best known examples – most scholars expect to encounter a long story of a teleological
nature, with human history and war at its center. In these stories the destiny of the hero is
understood to stand in for the destiny of his people.
Questions of literary analysis, particularly the question of genre, are often unclear in relation to
ancient medieval literature; regarding the nature of oral tales, there is what Albert Lord calls a
“terminology battle.”[13] He dislikes and refuses the term “folk epic,” because he believes that
“folk,” today, has a derogatory connotation – something simple, plain, parochial, and
uneducated. Also, since a limited number of documents have survived until the present day –
very few medieval Russian documents remained after the invasion and burning of several cities;
Beowulf represents ten percent of the Old English poetry that remains today – one encounters
difficulties when trying to impose a modern understanding of literature and literary production
on an earlier historical period. Russian folk tales have generally been avoided by scholars, due to
their oral nature and the difficulties encountered in trying to analyze and categorize them.[14]
Though Beowulf has achieved national epic status in Britain,[15] its identity as an epic is
sometimes questioned: in his famous essay, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” Tolkien
asserts that “Beowulf is not an ‘epic,’ not even a magnified ‘lay,’…[but] rather [an] elegy.”[16]
Regardless of the contention around the classification of medieval works as “epic,” a comparison
of Beowulf with byliny, particularly “Dobrynja and the Dragon” and “Dobrynja and Vasilij
Kazimirovič,” can highlight some of the themes and characterizations that are native to the epic
genre, and can help question or justify the modern classification of byliny as “epic poetry.”
The legend of Dobrynja Nikitič – the bogatyr, or warrior, who is known as the “dragon slayer” in
the Russian tradition[17] – strongly characterizes the Kievan cycle of byliny. “Dobrynja and the
Dragon” depicts Dobrynja’s battle against the enemy of Holy Russia – a monster that holds

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Russian and Christian people captive in his cave.[18] In Albert Lord’s analysis of the themes that
provide a necessary structural function in the oral epic, he writes, “the basic story patterns of epic
dragon-slaying, in which the hero fights the dragon who blocks the roads or guards the
treasure…[contrasts with] the dragon-slayer type in the folktale, in which the hero saves a
maiden about to be sacrificed to a monster.”[19] In “Dobrynja and the Dragon,” the act of dragon
slaying falls somewhere between the folktale and the epic, because the premise under which he is
sent to slay the dragon is to save a maiden, but the slaying of the dragon is important to the
society in which Dobrynja lives, and can be read as a Christian allegory.
At first, Dobrynja, as a character, looks very different from the traditional epic character. While
Aeneas is aware of his destiny as the founder of Rome, and Beowulf sets out with the clear aim
to kill Grendel and save the Danish people, Dobrynja’s journey away from home, to the
mountains where the dragons live, is without purpose; though it appears to be a quest for heroic
confrontation, unlike the epic quest, it is not a goal-oriented process. At first there appears to be
nothing that sets Dobrynja, who is of peasant birth, apart from the common man, or on par with
the epic hero. Though he disobeys his mother and rides to the Saracen Mountains, where he kills
little baby dragons, this adventure appears more as an adventure for its own sake, than as a quest
with historical necessity.
Likewise, the structure of “Dobrynja and the Dragon,” like the structure of all of the byliny in the
Dobrynja legend, begins without locating itself within human history. One of the primary
qualities associated with “epics” is that they typically represent the establishment and protection
of a civilization. The foundation of Rome is at the heart of Virgil’s Aeneid; at the heart of
Beowulf is the preservation of the Dane and Geat societies. An epic quality of Beowulf is its
relationship with history: the tale begins with a description of the rise of the Danes, and then
describes Grendel’s attacks on the Danish hall; it is not until line 344 of the text that the hero,
Beowulf, is introduced by name. Though this history is fictionalized, many people and events
described in Beowulf were probably real, dating from between 450 and 600 in Denmark and
southern Sweden. In contrast, “Dobrynja and the Dragon” begins without historical markers.[20]
Instead, the tale jumps into Dobrynja’s journey to the Puchai River and his encounter with the
accursed dragon. After the dragon deceives Dobrynja into not killing him, Dobrynja appears at
the court of Prince Vladimir, who then sends him on a mission to rescue the prince’s niece from
the dragon.
After Dobrynja leaves the court of Prince Vladimir, he laments to his mother: “Our Sun,
Vladimir of capital Kiev,/ Imposed a great service on me-/ I have to get Zabava, Putjata’s
daughter,/ From the cave, from the dragon’s cave.”[21] When Dobrynja encounters the dragon a
second time, the story goes:
He fought with the dragon for three whole days,
But he couldn’t kill the accursed dragon.
Finally Dobrynja wanted to ride away-
A voice from the heavens then announced to Dobrynja:
“Hail to you, my young Dobrynja, Nikita’s son!
You’ve fought the dragon for three whole days -
Fight with the dragon for three more hours.”[22]
It is at this point, in the middle of the story, that “Dobrynja and the Dragon” takes on some of the
attributes of the traditional epic. The only historical marker in the story, Prince Vladimir, singles

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out Dobrynja as the only man capable of rescuing his niece. The reliance of Vladimir on
Dobrynja can be compared with the reliance of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, on Beowulf. In
Beowulf it is written:
“far-famed in battle, the prince of Bright-Danes
and keeper of his people counted on Beowulf,
on the warrior’s steadfastness and his word.”[23]
Beowulf never doubts himself, never steps down from his duty, even when his battle will likely
lead to his death, as it does in the end of the poem. He is “the mightiest man on earth,/ highborn
and powerful,” and that distinction is never changed or lost.[24] When Beowulf decides to attack
the dragon that has been menacing his people, he announces:
“…I risked my life
often when I was young. Now I am old,
but as king of the people I shall pursue this fight
for the glory of winning.”
The author of the poem writes that this is Beowulf’s final boast, and this is the last time that he
will stand before his men, because his death is inevitable. This inevitability is characteristic of
the epic genre, because it is not the outcome of the epic that is important – it is generally known
from the beginning – but the relationship of that inevitable outcome to human history. In
contrast, though Prince Vladimir gives Dobrynja an epic task, Dobrynja is not brave or steadfast;
he is, instead, the reluctant hero. Even in the moment of battle, Dobrynja wants to step down
from his responsibility and abandon the challenge; it requires the intervention of a voice from the
heavens to keep him at his task.
When Dobrynja does finally kill the dragon, he leads the captives out of the dragon’s den, and
announces, “No longer will the dragon carry away Russian captives/ And Christian people.”[25]
It is in this role as a rescuer of Christian people, from the Kievan state as well as other countries,
that he can be understood to be an epic hero. The tale concludes with Dobrynja’s marriage to
Nastasia, the daughter of the Lithuanian king Nikula, who is then “brought into the Christian
faith.” Members of the historical school of folklorists, who study documents in an attempt to
align the figures and events of folk tales with actual figures and events, associate Dobrynja with
the historical Dobrynja, who was the uncle of Prince Vladimir I, the prince responsible for the
official Christianization of Kievan Rus'. This association supports the interpretation of
“Dobrynja and the Dragon” as an allegory of the baptism of Kievan Rus',[26] and the triumph of
Christianity over paganism. Though this interpretation is contested by those who do not
recognize sufficient Christian imagery in the story, the understanding of “Dobrynja and the
Dragon” as an allegory of Christianization gives the events of Dobrynja’s journey trans-personal
and collective significance. This significance points to Dobrynja’s role in the preservation of his
society, and is essential if “Dobrynja and the Dragon” is to be heard, or read, as an epic work.
In contrast with “Dobrynja and the Dragon,” “Dobrynja Nikitič and Vasilij Kazimirovič” appears
to be more closely aligned with the generic terms of the epic. The tale begins with Vasilij
Kazimirovič’s boast that he will go to Tsar Batur Batvesov, in the distant Polenetsian land, to
pay him the Kievan taxes. Many scholars associate the tale with the historical events of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when Russian princes were required to collect tribute from
their people and take it to the Tatar Khan; this was a dangerous mission that often led to the
deaths of the Russian envoys.[27] After making his boast, Vasilij roams the streets cheerlessly,

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regretting his proclamation, as he realizes that the trip will be perilous; Dobrynja sees his sullen
face and asks:
“Why are you coming so cheerless from the feast?
Why are you coming so cheerless and so joyless from the feast?..
Did you brag too much about riding somewhere?
I won’t betray you during battle
Or during a time of quick death.”[28]
The two men immediately enter into a brotherhood and reliance on each other, which can be
compared with the friendship of Oliver and Roland in The Song of Roland: Vasilij is loyal, but
Dobrynja is brave. Dobrynja decides that they will not, in fact, deliver the taxes to the tsar, but
“[they’ll] demand from the Dog Batur Batvesov,
[They’ll] demand taxes and tribute from him.”[29]
In this story, Dobrynja appears steadfast and resolute, and never questions himself. After three
challenges, Dobrynja defeats Tsar Batur, and the latter agrees to pay tribute to Russia. The final
scene is another feast in the court of Prince Vladimir, in which the prince announces:
“Thanks to you, my daring good youths!
You’ve served me with loyalty and truth,
With devoted loyalty and truth.”[30]
Though this event – forcing a Tatar ruler to pay taxes to Russia – does not have historical basis,
it can be seen to symbolize the power of Kievan Rus', a state that achieved a golden age before
being invaded by the Mongols. Dobrynja and Vasilij embody the characteristics – truth, loyalty,
and bravery – that the Rus' identified with the epic heroes.[31]
Many scholars read the genre of byliny as a prototype for the epic genre, the genre into which
they may have developed if Kiev, and its once golden culture, had not fallen prey to Mongol
conquest. Because of the disconnected nature of byliny, it is difficult to place them within the
context of epic poetry. If byliny had been combined to form full epics – if, for example, the
stories of Dobrynja had been combined into one narrative – then perhaps a true epic level would
have been achieved. It is possible, however, to look at an epic outside of its thematic qualities; to
define oral epic by its means of formulation – through a specific kind of singer – and by its use
of formulas to highlight themes. Though Albert Lord, in his Singer of Tales, does not discuss
Russian byliny, he uses these criteria to identify South Slavic oral epics.
Again, it is possible to discern these formulas in Russian byliny, but not within one bylina itself;
because of the short length of each bylina, it is necessary to compare several byliny with each
other to understand the scheme of their oral formulaic structure. Finally, another way to look at
the epic is from a historical standpoint: the epic is not concerned with the personal history of the
individual; the events of the hero’s journey have a non-personal significance and are of value to
the whole community. Through the hero’s journey an impersonal objective reality is revealed
behind the singular events of the hero’s life. In this sense, Beowulf, without question, deserves
the label of “epic.” The story of Beowulf is about the rise and fall of a civilization, about the
effect of time on human experience and the passing of an era, which occurs with Beowulf’s
death in old age, after decades of leading his people. When measured up against these last
criteria, it is difficult to determine that Russian byliny are, in fact, epic poems. While there are
glimpses of epic qualities in the Dobrynja tradition – the allegory of Christianization, the heroic

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deeds of Dobrynja in the names of Prince Vladimir and Kiev – the stories of the byliny are too
short and undeveloped to be read on their own as full examples of human concerns or efforts, or
as symbols of an age in Russian history.

[1] While there are other heroic poems of the same period as Beowulf that have survived until today, Beowulf is the
longest, and considered the most important. Alfred Lord, in The Singer of Tales, focuses on Beowulf’s qualities as a
work of oral formulaic.
[2] Though the “Christian” allusions in the text are only to the Old Testament, it is believed that the writer of the text
was Christian.
[3] Niles, 90. “Tradition and Design in Beowulf.”
[4] Wosien, 14.
[5] Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as an early form of the English
language. The English people are descendants of Germanic tribes called the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Jutes and
northern Saxon tribes came from what is now southern Denmark and northern Germany. Thus, Beowulf tells a story
about the old days in their homeland.
[6] Even though the authenticity of the lay is debated, most scholars consider it authentic.
[7] Zenkovsky, 168.
[8] Although folklorists disagree about the precise generic classification of Russian epics and their relationship to
other narrative songs, they nevertheless delineate several epic subgenres largely according to thematic distinctions.
Heroic epics are usually concerned with fighting the enemies of Kiev. Many other byliny include themes of bride
taking, confrontation with a monster, etc. There are other subgenres, including religious verse, which involve saints’
lives blended with folklore, historical songs which became fully developed in the 16th century and relate events of
actual historical persons in Muscovite Russia.
[9] By I. P. Sakharov.
[10] These three groups apply to medieval epics, and do not include byliny about Peter the Great, Lenin, etc.
[11] “Dobrynja Nikitič and Vasilij Kazimirovič,” lines 1-8.
In this small passage from the text, it is possible to see the repetitions that occur repeatedly throughout the byliny.
On sentences, events, or characterization that are important, the lines are usually repeated for emphasis, and to stress
the important themes; in The Singer of Tales Lord identifies this formulaic structure as central to oral epic.
[12] Aristotle’s Poetics. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, page 106.
[13] The Singer of Tales, 6.
[14] Ivanova, 69.
[15] A national epic is an epic poem or similar work which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or
spirit of a particular nation; not necessarily a nation-state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to
independence or autonomy. National epics frequently recount the origin of a nation, a part of its history, or a crucial
event in the development of national identity.
[16] Beowulf, 127. An elegy can be understood as a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos; a reflection on the
death of someone or on a sorrow generally.
[17] Bailey, 81.
[18] “Dobrynja and the Dragon,” lines 75-77.
[19] Epic Singers and Oral Traditions, 200.
[20] No bylina includes the “back story” that one finds at the beginning of Beowulf. Though some of the byliny have
more clear historical markers, including references to princes (that may or may not be exact references; often

6
“Prince Vladimir” just refers to an unspecific prince), all of the byliny begin in the moment, without first describing
the past.
[21] Lines 159-62.
[22] “Dobrynja and the Dragon,” lines 263-9.
[23] Beowulf, 609-11.
[24] Beowulf, 197-8.
[25] Lines 320-1.
[26] Which occurred in 988, under Prince Vladimir the Great.
[27] Baily, 107.
[28] 93-100.
[29] 126-7.
[30] 372-4.
[31] Propp, 6.

Works Cited
Astaf'eva, L. A. Sjužet i Stil' Russkix Bylin. Moskva, 1993.
Baily, James and Tatyana Ivanova. An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics. London, England: M. E.
Sharpe, 1998.
Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. New York: Norton and Company, 2002.
Ivanova, T. G. “Malye” Očagi Severnorusskoj Bylinnoj Tradicii. S. Peterburg, 2001.
Kalugin, Viktor. Geroi Russkogo Eposa. Sovremenik: Moskva, 1983.
Lord, Albert B. Epic Singers and Oral Tradition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Lord, Albert B. The Singer of Tales. New York: Atheneum, 1965.
Niles, John ed. Old English Literature in Context. New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.
Propp, Vladimir. Russkij Geroičeskij Epos. Moskva: Labirint, 1999.
Wosien, Maria-Gabriele. The Russian Folk-Tale: Some Structural and Thematic Aspects. Verlag
Otto Sagner: Munich, 1969.
Zenkovsky, Serge A. ed. Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles and Tales. New York: Meridian,
1974.
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Eds. Leitch, Cain, Finke, Johnson, McGowan,
and Williams. New York, New York: Norton Company, 2001.