Alyosha Popovich

From famous Rostov two riders set out shoulder to shoulder, stirrup pressed against stirrup, and the song compares them to a pair of bright falcons. One is Alyosha, the priest’s son. The other is his companion Akim Ivanovich, the one who can read. When they reach three roads meeting on the steppe and a burning stone with writing on it, Alyosha has Akim climb down and tell him what it says. The roads run to Murom, to Chernigov and to Kiev. Alyosha picks Kiev, and the Russian epic gains its youngest and least respectable hero.

The byliny, the old heroic songs of Russia, give Kiev’s court three champions. Ilya Muromets is the strong, grave elder. Dobrynya Nikitich is the dragon-slayer and diplomat. Alyosha Popovich comes third, and the songs never let anyone forget it. One Russian encyclopedia sums him up as a hero who takes his victories “not so much by strength as by deceit and insolence”, with envious eyes, a boastful mouth and a weakness for women. The singers themselves call him a *babiy peresmeshnik*, a mocker of women, and in the same breath still call him bold. His very name is half a joke. *Popovich* means son of the *pop*, the parish priest, and Isabel Hapgood, who translated the songs into English in 1886, thought the priestly surname shaped his character more than any real man ever did, since Russian tales had little love for priests and their families. In one song his father is the aged priest of the cathedral in Rostov; in the same text he is Pope Fedor; other singers call him Levonty.

The deed that made him is the killing of Tugarin Zmeyevich, “Dragon’s Son”. The fullest early text sits in the collection of Kirsha Danilov, a manuscript set down in the mid-eighteenth century, probably in the Urals, and first printed in 1804. On the road to Kiev, beside the Safat river, the two friends meet a wandering psalm-singer, a *kalika*, in silk shoes soled with silver and a mantle of sable, carrying a cudgel of lead that weighs fifty *pood*. He has seen Tugarin. The creature stands three fathoms tall, a fathom across the shoulders, with an arrow’s length between his eyes; flames flash from his throat and smoke rises from his ears. Alyosha does not ride out to meet this in armour. He trades clothes with the pilgrim, takes the lead staff and a damascened dagger, and goes to the river dressed as a beggar.

Tugarin is there, roaring so hard that the green oaks shake. He asks the ragged stranger whether he has seen young Alyosha, whom he means to spear and burn. “Come nearer,” says the pilgrim, “for I hear not what thou sayest.” Tugarin leans in, and the staff comes down on his head. Alyosha kneels on the monster’s black breast, refuses his offer of sworn brotherhood, cuts off his head and puts on his flowered robes, worth a hundred thousand rubles. It goes less well afterwards. Akim, seeing Tugarin’s clothes galloping toward him, hurls a thirty-pood mace over his shoulder and knocks his friend out of the saddle, and only the gold cross glinting on the fallen man’s chest stops him finishing the job.

Then the song does something odd. It walks both men into Prince Vladimir’s hall, and Tugarin, evidently not dead at all, is carried in by twelve heroes on a sheet of pure gold and seated beside Princess Apraxia. Scholars read the bylina as three separate tellings stitched together, which is why its monster dies twice.

Alyosha refuses the honoured seats the prince offers and settles with Akim on the beam above the stove, where he can watch. Tugarin eats like a siege. He crams a whole monastery loaf into one cheek, drains a cup that holds a bucket and a half, and lays his hands on the princess. Alyosha remarks aloud that his father once had an old dog that choked on a bone under the table and was thrown out of the yard by its tail. When Apraxia cuts her hand carving a white swan and says she would rather gaze at sweet Tugarin anyway, and Tugarin swallows the swan whole, Alyosha tells the story of his father’s old cow that broke into the kitchen, drank a keg of spiced beer and burst. The hall hears both anecdotes. So does Tugarin, who turns black as an autumn night and throws his steel dagger. Alyosha ducks; Akim catches it.

Alyosha will not throw it back. He stakes his own head on single combat the next day, and every prince and noble in the hall bets against him, down to the peasants with their five rubles and the foreign merchants who wager three ships. Only the ruler of Chernigov backs the priest’s son. Tugarin mounts, spreads a pair of paper wings and flies off through the air.

That night by the Safat, Alyosha does not sleep. He prays with tears for a black cloud with rain and hail. The cloud comes, the rain soaks the paper wings, and Tugarin drops out of the sky and hits the wet earth “like a dog”. The grounded monster offers his enemy a choice of burning, trampling or the lance. Alyosha answers that Tugarin made a wager to fight him in single combat. Tugarin glances back over his shoulder, and Alyosha takes his head. It falls to the ground like a beer kettle. He threads a cord through its ears, ties it to his saddle and drags it into the prince’s courtyard, and Vladimir asks him to stay in Kiev and serve. Apraxia calls him a village lout for parting her from her sweet friend. Alyosha tells her he nearly called her by the name she deserved.

That is his best day. His worst comes in the song of Dobrynya’s wife. Leaving on a long campaign, Dobrynya tells his wife Nastasya to wait twelve years and then marry anyone she likes, prince, noble or robber, but never his sworn brother Alyosha, “that scoffer at women”. Alyosha returns from the plain with a vivid lie: Dobrynya lies dead in the grass, birds nesting in his curls, ravens at his eyes. When Nastasya still refuses, Prince Vladimir forces the match. A pair of doves carries the news to Dobrynya, whose horse brings him home in three hours, and at the wedding feast he hauls Alyosha across the oak table by his yellow curls and beats him with a cudgel. Alyosha leaves Kiev in shame for a distant land.

Behind the songs may stand a real man. Under the year 1224 the Nikon Chronicle records that “Alexander Popovich with his servant Torop”, together with Dobrynya Golden Belt of Ryazan and seventy brave warriors, fell fighting the Mongols at the Kalka river. Hapgood matched Torop with Akim. Nora Chadwick accepted the warrior as historical in 1932; later critics suspect the chronicle entry was itself coloured by the epic. The historian Boris Rybakov traced Tugarin to the Polovtsian khan Tugorkan, whom Kievan princes fought in the 1090s.

Alyosha’s gifts all follow from who he is: a young man of the clergy caste among warriors of the plain. He can pray down a storm, borrow a disguise and find the one sentence that will shame a monster in public. He wins by making the enemy look away. His weaknesses come from the same place. He cannot hold his tongue or his appetites, and in Dobrynya’s hall no trick saves him from a heavier man’s cudgel. Viktor Vasnetsov painted him in 1898 as the youngest of the three riders on the famous *Bogatyrs* canvas, beside Ilya and Dobrynya.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Alyosha Popovich?

Alyosha Popovich is the youngest of the three great bogatyrs, or epic heroes, of the Russian byliny, alongside Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich. He is a priest’s son from Rostov who serves Prince Vladimir of Kiev. The songs present him as bold but cunning, boastful and a mocker of women.

How does Alyosha Popovich defeat Tugarin?

Alyosha Popovich defeats Tugarin Zmeyevich by trickery and prayer rather than strength. In the Kirsha Danilov version he prays all night for a rain cloud, the rain soaks Tugarin’s paper wings, and the monster falls to earth. When Tugarin glances over his shoulder, Alyosha cuts off his head.

What does the name Popovich mean?

Popovich means “son of the priest”, from the Russian pop, a parish priest. Alyosha is a pet form of the name Alexander or Alexei. The translator Isabel Hapgood argued in 1886 that this priestly surname shaped Alyosha Popovich’s sly, unheroic reputation in the songs.

Why did Dobrynya Nikitich beat Alyosha Popovich?

Dobrynya beat Alyosha because Alyosha tried to marry Dobrynya’s wife Nastasya while he was away. Alyosha falsely reported that Dobrynya was dead, and Prince Vladimir forced the wedding. Dobrynya returned during the feast, dragged Alyosha across the table by his yellow curls and beat him, and Alyosha left Kiev in shame.

Was Alyosha Popovich a real person?

Alyosha Popovich may be based on a real warrior. The Nikon Chronicle, under the year 1224, records that Alexander Popovich and his servant Torop died with seventy warriors at the Battle of the Kalka against the Mongols. Some historians accept this warrior as real, while others suspect the chronicle entry was influenced by the epic songs.

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Tugarin Zmeyevich, Zmey Gorynych, Koschei, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Baba Yaga, Loki