Ilya Muromets is a textbook character of ancient Russian culture. He is considered their hero by both Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian researchers. Many legends are associated with his name: in at least 14 stories he is mentioned as a real acting character. But who is the prototype of Ilya Muromets - the epic hero and defender of Russia? Let's try to figure it out.
The origin of the hero
According to legend, the first 33 years of his life, Ilya Muromets was disabled - did not get up from the stove and was a huge burden for his parents. After the visit of the mysterious “Kalik passers-by”, Ilya got on his feet and “poured strength”, that is, he became a hero. This plot is repeated in variations in various legends and has only small changes among different peoples.
Such a multifaceted hero, whose reality was proved by reliable information, could not have a real prototype. Ilya Muromets was searched in all cities and towns of Kievan Rus, but there was practically no real evidence of his birthplace. With a certain degree of certainty, you can only indicate the burial place of the epic hero: Near Caves of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. There, the prototype of Elijah of Murom rests under the name of St. Elijah, along with 69 other holy saints. It is these remains that have become the object of study of historians.
This or that?
The researchers compared the remains of St. Elijah with the information set forth in the epic about Ilya Muromets. A real prototype must have the same physical characteristics as the epic hero. This is partially confirmed by the survey: Ilya was tall for that time - 177 cm. In those days, tall men barely reached 165 cm. The bones of the saint had developed tuberosity in place of the muscles - this additionally indicates a well-developed physical system.
In addition, the remains of the saint must show signs of the disease that Muromets suffered during the first stage of his life.
Joint disease
As mentioned above, in the first part of his life, Ilya was disabled. Only after healing in the 33 year of his life did Illya return strength and he became a retinue of the prince of Kiev.
An X-ray study confirmed that the prototype of Ilya Muromets, an epic hero whose relics are stored in the laurel, did suffer from spondylarthrosis, which in a progressive stage can impede the patient’s movement. This disease is characterized by loss of mobility of the vertebrae of the lumbar and cervical spine and can lead to complete immobilization of a person.
Miraculous healing
One of the most effective treatments for spondylarthrosis is massage. A good manual therapist can really restore the patient's motor functions with massage and vertebrae reduction. So the mysterious “cross stitches” could really help restore the health of the prototype of Ilya Muromets.
The hero and the saint
It is interesting to compare the epic of Ilya with Ilya the holy saint. To begin with, let’s walk through the merits of a saint. Oddly enough, there is no canonical life of the Monk Ilya - it is obvious that he did not devote so much time to spiritual matters. They can tell a little about him: that after a glorious military career, Ilya took tonsure and ended his days as a monk of Theodosius Monastery.
Much more attention is paid to the worldly life of the hero. According to various sources, the place of his birth was not modern Murom and its environs, but a small town in the Chernihiv region. Then, Ilya’s rather quick path from her native village to the capital cities is explained - according to various sources, the trip took three to four days.
The legends say a lot about the military exploits of the hero. This is the clearing of trade routes to Kiev, and the victory over the Nightingale the Robber. A fairly free presentation of all the battles with the participation of Muromets and his comrades was not so long ago set forth in the cartoon of the Mill studio.
The last years of the hero
The glory of Ilya Muromets spread far beyond the borders of Russia. His name, for example, is found in Germanic legends. But the end of his life in legends is practically not reflected. It is believed that the prototype of Ilya Muromets ended his military career before the age of 50 - by that standards, he was already a gray-haired old man. It is possible that the hero took tonsure during the time of the Mother Superior of St. Polycarp.
Judging by the surviving records, Ilya did not go to monks for long. Probable death befell the old man in 1204, when the monastery in which he lived was attacked by Polovtsy.
Identification
The first scientific attempts to identify the relics of the Monk Ilya date back to the 19th century, although before this period the identity of the relics of the Monk Ilya and the epic hero was not questioned. For example, the pilgrim Leonty, who lived in the 18th century, when visiting the Lavra, does not doubt that he saw the tomb of Ilya Muromets, and he also paid attention to the death of the hero from a wound in the heart. In Soviet times, little attention was paid to the opinion of pilgrims: the communist ideology sought to make an Orthodox hero a simple Russian hero, removing from the annals entire layers of legends about the divine gift of Ilya. So, nowhere in the Soviet encyclopedias is it mentioned that those same Kalyks in Christianity were identified with the apostles, and Ilya owed God with his unusual strength and wisdom.
Church position
The church never hindered the study of the relics of an epic hero. From the point of view of Orthodoxy, any miracle - even a miracle of healing - must be confirmed by material evidence: from confirmation of facts, a miracle will not cease to be a miracle. Particular importance is attached to the fact that Elijah’s fingers were folded in a prayer position as the Church now prescribes — three fingers together, and two bent to the palms. This additionally indicates the continuity of modern church rites, which derive from the Orthodox traditions of ancient Russia.
Serious work to identify the remains of St. Ilya was conducted by Ukrainian scholars in 1988: an interdepartmental examination conducted a serious forensic analysis of the monastery remains. To obtain reliable data, we used the most modern methodology and equipment at that time. The results were amazing. The age of the deceased was determined with an accuracy of five years, congenital defects of the bones and spine were confirmed. The death of the hero dates back to 11-12 centuries.
conclusions
Summing up, we can say that all the conclusions made in the process of researching the remains of St. Elijah, completely fit into the outline were about the ancient hero. It is highly probable that the prep. Ilya is the prototype of Ilya Muromets - all the stories about his miraculous healing are fully confirmed by scientific facts, so the question of who is the prototype of Ilya Muromets, the epic hero can be considered closed.