p Evidently the Mongol-Tatar invasion also engendered the poetic Tale of the Ruin of the Russian Land, discovered in the 1870’s by K. G. Evlentiev and published in 1892 by Kh. M. Loparev. A new copy was found in the late nineteen-forties by I. N. Zavoloko and published by V. I. Malyshev, a scholar employed in the Old Russian literature section of Pushkinsky Dom.

p The Tale of the Ruin of the Russian Land is filled with lofty patriotism. The central image is the Russian land, “bright beyond all brightness”, and “beautifully adorned”. Our unknown author composed a hymn in honour of his native land. He speaks of its natural beauties and resources, and its pride—the great cities, marvellous villages, monastery gardens, and churches. Rus’ glory was forged by mighty princes, honorable boyars and many’noblemen. The author speaks of the might of Vsevolod (Big-Nest), his father Yury Dolgoruky, and grandfather Vladimir Monomakh.

p Like the author of the Igor tale, our author compares the former grandeur of Rus with its present decline: “And in these days, Christians suffer, from Great Yaroslav and to Vladimir, and to today’s Yaroslav and his brother Yury, Prince of Vladimir.” This appears to be an attempt to divide Russian history into periods, as if continuing parallel attempts in the Igor tale whose 163 author connected the flourishing of political might with “old Yaroslav" and then spoke of the “sorrowful year" of princely strife and internecine war which led to the strengthening of pagan forces. Our author seems to further develop the idea of the great singer: from “Great Yaroslav”, that is, Yaroslav the Wise, to Vladimir Monomakh, he tells, strife between princes continued to devastate the Russian land. Monomakh stopped the civil wars and united the forces of Rus for a struggle against the nomads of the steppe whom he dealt a killing blow. For this reason Monomakh’s image is given heroic, epic resonance in The Tale of the Ruin of the Russian Land. After Vladimir to today’s Yaroslav and his brother Yury the period of princely civil wars continued which lead to the ruin of the land of Rus, that is, its Tatar captivity.

p If we compare the Tale with the chronicles we note that people began to speak of the ruin of Rus only after Batu seized Kiev, which for the people remained the centre of the Russian land (as seen in bylinas). For this reason we may assume that the Tale was probably written no earlier than 1240, after the Tatars took Kiev, by a Southerner who had resettled in North Rus. The author’s purpose was to sow courage, boldness and pride in the land in his readers’ hearts; he wanted to inspire them in their struggle against the enemy which could be won only if the evils of the time, princely strife and civil warfare, could be overcome.

Over 150 studies of this work have been written.   [163•1  Scholars have expressed interesting, at time contradictory, opinions about the time and place of this work’s writing and its connection with the vita of Alexander Nevsky. As we see it the Tale was originally an independent work and only later was affixed to the life of Alexander Nevsky.