The Tale of Igor's Campaign
The Tale of Igor's Campaign or The Tale of Ihor's Campaign
The poem gives an account of a failed raid of
The Tale of Igor's Campaign was adapted by Alexander Borodin as an opera and became one of the great classics of Russian theatre. Entitled Prince Igor, it was first performed in 1890.
Content
The story describes a failed raid made in year 1185 by
The descriptions show coexistence between
The Tale has been compared to other
Discovery and publication
The only manuscript of the Tale, claimed to be dated to the 15th century, was discovered in 1795 in the library of the Transfiguration Monastery in Yaroslavl, where the first library and school in Russia had been established in the 12th century, but there is a controversy about its source.[5] Monastery superior Joel (Bykovsky) sold the manuscript to a local landowner, Aleksei Musin-Pushkin, as a part of a collection of ten texts. Aleksei realised the value of the book and made a transcription for the empress Catherine the Great in 1795 or 1796. He published it in 1800 with the help of Alexei Malinovsky and Nikolai Bantysh-Kamensky, leading Russian paleographers of the time. The original manuscript was claimed to have burned in the great Moscow fire of 1812 (during the Napoleonic occupation), together with Musin-Pushkin's entire library.
The release of this historical work into scholarly circulation created a stir in Russian literary circles, as the tale represented the earliest
The Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov translated the work into English in 1960. Other notable editions include the standard Soviet edition, prepared with an extended commentary, by the academician Dmitry Likhachev.
Authenticity debate
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According to the majority view, the poem is a composition of the late 12th century, perhaps composed orally and fixed in written form at some point during the 13th century. Some scholars consider the possibility that the poem in its current form is a
One of the crucial points of the authenticity controversy is the relationship between The Tale of Igor's Campaign and
Proponents of the forgery thesis give sometimes contradictory arguments: some authors (Mazon) see numerous
Current dialectology upholds Pskov and Polotsk as the two cities where the Tale was most likely written.[citation needed] Numerous persons have been proposed as its authors, including Prince Igor and his brothers.[citation needed] Other authors consider the epic to have emerged in Southern Rus', with many elements corresponding to modern Ukrainian language.[6]
Early reactions
After the only manuscript copy of the Tale was destroyed in the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, questions about its authenticity were raised, mostly because of its language. Suspicion was also fueled by contemporary fabrications (for example, the Songs of Ossian, proved to be written by James Macpherson). Today, majority opinion accepts the authenticity of the text, based on the similarity of its language and imagery with those of other texts discovered after the Tale.
Proposed as forgers were
Soviet period
The problem of the national text became more politicized during the years of the
In 1975, Olzhas Suleimenov challenged the mainstream view of the Tale in his book Az i Ya. He claimed to reveal that Tale cannot be completely authentic since it appeared to have been rewritten in the 16th century.[7][8]
Mainstream Slavists, including
criticized Az i Ya, characterizing Suleimenov's etymological and paleography conjectures as amateurish. Linguists such as Zaliznyak pointed out that certain linguistic elements in Slovo dated from the 15th or 16th centuries, when the copy of the original manuscript (or of a copy) had been made. They noted this was a normal feature of copied documents, as copyists introduce elements of their own orthography and grammar, as is known from many other manuscripts. Zaliznyak points out that this evidence constitutes another argument for the authenticity of Slovo. An anonymous forger would have had not only to imitate very complex 12th century orthography and grammar but also to introduce fake complex traces of the copying in the 15th or 16th centuries.Recent views
While some historians and philologists continue to question the text's authenticity for various reasons (for example, believing that it has an uncharacteristically modern nationalistic sentiment) (Omeljan Pritsak[citation needed] inter alios), linguists are not so skeptical. The overall scholarly consensus accepts Slovo's authenticity.
Some scholars believe the Tale has a purpose similar to that of Kralovedvorsky Manuscript.[11] For instance, the Harvard historian Edward L. Keenan says in his article, "Was Iaroslav of Halych really shooting sultans in 1185?" and in his book Josef Dobrovsky and the Origins of the Igor's Tale (2003), that Igor's Tale is a fake, written by the Czech scholar Josef Dobrovský.[12]
Other scholars contend that it is a recompilation and manipulation of several authentic sources put together similarly to
In his 2004 book, the Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak analyzes arguments and concludes that the forgery theory is virtually impossible.[14] It was not until the late 20th century, after hundreds of bark documents were unearthed in Novgorod, that scholars learned that some of the puzzling passages and words of the tale were part of common speech in the 12th century, although they were not represented in chronicles and other formal written documents. Zaliznyak concludes that no 18th-century scholar could have imitated the subtle grammatical and syntactical features in the known text. He did not believe that Dobrovský could have accomplished this, as his views on Slavic grammar (as expressed in his magnum opus, Institutiones) were strikingly different from the system written in Igor's Tale. In his revised second edition issued in 2007, Zaliznyak was able to use evidence from the posthumous edition of Zimin's 2006 book. He argued that even someone striving to imitate some older texts would have had almost impossible hurdles to overcome, as mere imitation could not have represented the deep mechanics of the language.[15]
Juri Lotman supports the text's authenticity, based on the absence of a number of semiotic elements in the Russian Classicist literary tradition before the publication of the Tale. He notes that "Russian Land" (русская земля) was a term that became popular only in the 19th century. A presumed forger of the 1780s–1790s would not have used such a term while composing the text.[16]
Orality
Robert Mann (1989, 2005) argues that the leading studies have been mistaken in concluding the Tale is the work of a poet working in a written tradition. Mann points to evidence suggesting that the Tale first circulated as an oral epic song for several decades before being written down, most likely in the early 13th century. He identifies the opening lines as corresponding to such an oral tradition: "Was it not fitting, brothers, to begin with the olden words of the heroic tales about the campaign of Igor..." The narrator begins by referring to oral epic tales that are already old and familiar. Mann has found numerous new parallels to the text of the Tale in wedding songs, magical incantations, byliny and other Old Russian sources. He was the first researcher to point out unique textual parallels in a rare version of the Tale of the Battle against Mamai (Skazanie o Mamaevom poboishche), published by N.G. Golovin in 1835. It contains what Mann claims is the earliest known redaction of the Skazanie, a redaction that scholars posited but could not locate.
Based on byliny and Old Russian sources, Mann has attempted to reconstruct an early Russian song about the
Editions and translations
- Aleksei Musin-Pushkin, Alexei Malinovsky and Nikolai Bantysh-Kamensky, Ироическая пѣснь о походѣ на половцовъ удѣльнаго князя Новагорода-Сѣверскаго Игоря Святославича, писанная стариннымъ русскимъ языкомъ въ исходѣ XII столѣтія съ переложеніемъ на употребляемое нынѣ нарѣчіе. Moscow, in senatorial typography. (1800)
- Mansvetus Riedl, Szozat Igor hadjaratarul a paloczok ellen (1858)
- Leonard A. Magnus, The Tale of the Armament of Igor (1915)
- Eduard Sievers, Das Igorlied (1926)
- Karl Heinrich Meyer, Das Igorlied (1933)
- Henri Grégoire, Roman Jakobson, Marc Szeftel, J. A. Joffe, La Geste du prince Igor, Annuaire de l'Institut de philologie et ď histoire orientales et slaves, t. VIII. (1948)
- Dmitry Likhachev, Слова о полку Игореве, Литературные памятники (1950)
- Vladimir Nabokov, The Song of Igor's Campaign: An Epic of the 12th Century (1960)
- Dimitri Obolensky, The Lay of Igor's Campaign — of Igor the Son of Svyatoslav and the Grandson of Oleg (translation alongside original text), in The Penguin Book of Russian Verse (1962)
- Robert Howes, The Tale of the Campaign of Igor (1973)
- Serge Zenkovsky, "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", in Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales (Revised edition, 1974)
- Dmitry Likhachev, Слова о полку Игореве, (Old Russian into English by Irina Petrova ), (illustrated by Vladimir Favorsky), "The Lay of the Warfare Waged by Igor", Progress Publishers (Moscow, revised edition, 1981)
- J. A. V. Haney and Eric Dahl, The Discourse on Igor’s Campaign: A Translation of the Slovo o polku Igoreve. (1989)
- J. A. V. Haney and Eric Dahl, On the Campaign of Igor: A Translation of the Slovo o polku Igoreve. (1992)
- Robert Mann, The Igor Tales and Their Folkloric Background (2005)
See also
- Prince Igor
- Prince Igor (1969 film)
- Old East Slavic language
- Solar eclipse of 1 May 1185
- Musin-Pushkin House (Saint Petersburg)
Notes
- ISBN 9780810878471. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
- elder Vladímirup to our contemporary Ígoŕ" (отъ стараго Владимера до нынѣшняго Игоря), indicating composition before Svyatoslavich's death in 1202.
- ^ "Слово о полку Игореве ⋆ краткое содержание, о произведении". СПАДИЛО (in Russian). Retrieved 2022-08-11.
- ^ Likhachev. "'Слово о полку Игореве'", p. 16.
- ^ Kotlyar, M. A word about the Igor's Army (СЛОВО О ПОЛКУ ІГОРЕВІМ). Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine.
- ^ Dragomanov M. Little Russia in its literature (Малороссия в ее словесности: Малороссия /Южная Русь/ в истории ее литературы с XI по XVIII век Й. Г. Прыжова. Воронеж, 1869. // Вестник Европы. - 1870.)
- ^ (in Russian) Сон Святослава. Татарская электронная библиотека.
- ^ (in Russian) Царь Додон и Геродот. Татарская электронная библиотека.
- Likhachev, Dmitri S."'Слово о полку Игореве' в интерпретации О.Сулейменова" in Русская литература (Russian Literature). Leningrad: Nauka, 1985, p. 257.
- ^ (in Russian) Baskakov, Nikolay A. "Слово о полку Игореве" in Памятники литературы и искусства XI-XVII веков (Literary Monuments and Art in the Eleventh to Seventeenth Centuries). Moscow, 1978, pp. 59–68.
- ^ Pospíšil, Ivo: Slovo o pluku Igorově v kontextu současných výzkumů, Slavica Slovaca, Volume 42, No. 1, 2007, pp. 37–48.
- ^ Keenan, E. L.: Josef Dobrovský and the Origins of the ‘Igor Tale’, Harvard University Press, 2003.
- ^ (in Russian) "Проблема подлинности 'Слова о полку Игореве' и 'Ефросин Белозерский' Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine" (The Problem of the Authenticity of 'A Word about the Leader Igorev' and 'Efrosin Belozerskij'), Acta Slavica Iaponica, Issue: 22, 2005, pp. 238–297.
- ^ (in Russian) Zaliznyak, Andrey. Слово о полку Игореве: взгляд лингвиста (Языки Славянской). Moscow: Kultura Publishing, 2004.
- М.: «Рукописные памятники Древней Руси», 2008.
- ^ Ю. М. Лотман «СЛОВО О ПОЛКУ ИГОРЕВЕ» И ЛИТЕРАТУРНАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ XVIII — НАЧАЛА XIX в.
- ^ See Mann, Robert; Lances Sing: A Study of the Old Russian Igor Tale. Slavica: Columbus, 1989.
- ^ Mann, Robert. The Igor Tales and Their Folkloric Background. Jupiter, FL: The Birchbark Press of Karacharovo, 2005.
Further reading
- Magnus, Leonard Arthur. The Tale of the Armament of Igor. Oxford University Press, 1915. The first English translation.
- Mann, Robert. Lances Sing: A Study of the Old Russian Igor Tale. Slavica: Columbus, 1989.
- Mann, Robert. The Igor Tales and Their Folkloric Background. Jupiter, FL: The Birchbark Press of Karacharovo, 2005.
- Mann, Robert. The Silent Debate Over the Igor Tale. Oral Tradition 30.1:53-94, 2016. Link to article
- (in Russian) Pesn' o polku Igoreve: Novye otkrytiia. Moscow: Iazyki Slavianskoi Kul'tury, 2009.
External links
- The original edition of 1800
- Roman Jacobson's edition
- Vladimir Nabokov's edition
- 1800 edition, plus 4 more contemporary Russian language translations
- Old East Slavic text and various Russian and Ukrainian translations and interpretations
- Leonard Magnus English translation of 1915, parallel English/Russian
- Katherine Owen, "The Lay of Igor’s Campaign and the Works It Has Inspired", Analysis of artistic adaptations
- The House of Count Aleksei Musin-Pushkin (1744-1818) in St. Petersburg. Here was stored the Tale of Igor's Campaign