Kaliki passers - what is it? We meet a strange phrase, as a rule, re-reading old Russian epics. Here the potions come to Ilya Muromets, who has been sitting on the stove for many years, and offer him “honey-drink”, after which he feels a powerful power in himself. Here Ilya changes clothes with a pot so that unrecognized people come to Kiev and knock out the idolish filthy from the princely chambers. But Kalyka-hero, defender of the capital city ...
So what does “Kalika transition” mean? The most common interpretation is a beggar who went home and asked for alms “for Christ’s sake”. But everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance ... This article will tell about what the “Kalyka passer” means.
Kaligi - footwear for legionnaires and pilgrims
The word "Kalika" brings to mind another, similar in sound - "cripple", as well as jargon "Kalik", which is used in a contemptuous sense and means "defective", "inferior", "wretched".
But there is another, real meaning of the word "Kalika the passage". This word comes from the Latin caligae - caligi, or leather sandals.
For the first time, Caligi, who were also called “Roman boots”, appeared in Ancient Rome, where they were worn by both ordinary soldiers - legionnaires and officers - centurions. The higher ranks preferred to wear closed shoes, the so-called "calcei".
Outwardly, the Kaligi were sandals with an open toe, with the upper part made of interwoven strips of leather, and a durable heavy sole. Such soles well protected the legs even when crossing the hot desert. To make the Kaligi even stronger and more stable, they were knocked down with shoe nails.
Legionnaires could wear leather stockings under their sandals to protect their lower legs, or woolen socks if they served in cold places - for example, in Britain.
Two thousand years ago, the Roman army, shod in Kalig, marched throughout Europe and northern Africa, forcing the local peoples to submit to the power of their Caesar. Several centuries have passed. The empire has fallen. Now in Europe there were new rulers, and another religion - Christianity. And the sandals that the military once wore were on the feet of wanderers walking to Jerusalem to the Holy Sepulcher.
Pilgrims, Pilgrims, Kaliki
Already in the first centuries of Christianity, in Jerusalem, which was considered a holy city, crowds of pilgrims flowed. In the West they were called pilgrims (from the Latin peregrinus - "wanderer").
The term "pilgrim" in Russian comes from the word "palm". From their wanderings, these people brought palm branches. According to the Gospel, it was them who were held in the hands of the people, greeting Christ in Jerusalem. Finally, wanderers were called caliki transitions. What it is? These are people shod in caligi. The most ancient texts in which this word can be found belong to the 11th century.
Monastic Brotherhood
It is worth noting that a trip to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages was not easy. Firstly, then Palestine was inhabited by Muslims who considered Christians to be enemies, and crusaders from Europe - they treated the Orthodox as heretics. And those and others, having met a pilgrim from Russia, could not let him go alive.
Secondly, the pilgrimage was costly - without money the wanderer risked starving to death, never reaching the Holy Land. Of course, the church eagerly sponsored the “good deed,” but still few traveled alone. More often pilgrims gathered in monasteries and went to wander in large groups - it was safer. This is also the story of epics. Here, for example, “Forty Kalik with Kaliko”:
And from the desert was Efimiev,
From the monastery of Bogolyubov
Began the pottery dress up
To the holy city of Jerusalem ...
What were they like at first?
Obviously, the real Kaliki wanderers who went to the Holy Land in the Middle Ages did not at all resemble the image that developed in the mind of a modern person. What is it - Kaliki passers in the days of Kievan Rus?
Among these people there were almost no beggars, but there were many prosperous - merchants or boyars. Such people could afford expensive clothes - sable coats, shoes with semiprecious stones. In the epics, the staff of the "fish tooth" - walrus tusk is also mentioned. Many of them were experienced warriors, and even strongmen. Often, the Kaliki carried weapons with them, which was very handy in Palestine, which was jam-packed with enemies.
Of course, the people's memory could not but capture these heroes in epics. Among such epics, there is one that tells about the potions of the passers going to Jerusalem - “Forty Kalik with the potato.” But she is far from being as famous as those in which it is about the life of Ilya Muromets and his exploits.
Ilya Muromets and Kaliki passers-by
This hero has long been loved by the people, and no other epic hero had such glory as he did. Particular love was caused by the fact that he was by origin a man, a simple peasant. Sometimes in the epics Ilya was called the "Cossack." He was a real person, or a collective character, it is unclear - here the researchers have not yet come to a consensus.
In the first epic storyline, Ilya is a peasant son who spent all his life sitting on the stove. Two wanderers, the “Kalik of the passers-by," came to him and gave him a drink of the "bear's drink", which endowed him with the "great might." Before this, a major miracle happened: although Ilya could not take a single step for many years, he got to his feet, opened the gate and let the wanderers into the house. After healing Ilya, the Kaliki passers-by ordered him to become a hero and find a horse, after which they disappeared, as if they were not there - “lost”.
In the epic "Ilya of Muromets and the Filthy Idolische," the hero changes his clothes with a wicket passing Ivanishch. Here the wanderer himself is described as a man of great growth and heroic strength, smartly dressed ("Gunya Sorochinskaya", Greek hat, silk bast shoes with precious stones, a hook "ninety pounds", "pouches of velvet dug up). He tells how he went from Jerusalem through Kiev, in which the Idolische is ruled, because there were no heroes in Kiev and there was nobody to protect the city. Having changed clothes with a pot, Ilya comes to Kiev, where he expels the Idolische from Russian land. In another version of the epic, he liberates Constantinople (Constantinople).
From kalik to cripples
Times have changed, and with them the image of the Kaliki pilgrim has changed. There came a time when wanderers who went from village to village and asked for an overnight stay were called caliki. To earn a living, they sang spiritual songs, psalms, recited poems and epics - because they did not have a penny. Some of these wanderers requested alms for Christ's sake. Most often they were old people, crippled or blind - in the latter case they were led by a guide.
In Ukraine and Belarus, wandering singers carried with them a local version of the lute - kobzu, or wheeled lyre. In those parts they were called kobzars. It was Kobzar who pretended to be pan Zagloba, the hero of the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz “Fire and Sword”, when he was leaving the Cossacks of Khmelnitsky. The people of such singers loved, willingly fed and considered blessed.
Now, to the question of what it is, kaliki passers-by, people would answer that they are poor tramps, crippled, and, as a rule, old. So gradually the word "Kalika" began to mean a disabled person, and eventually turned into a "cripple." The old image of the Kaliki-hero, who puts the cross “in writing,” and beats the enemies no worse than Ilya Muromets himself, remained only in epics.