1. РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ПАМЯТИ В ДРЕВНЕГЕРМАНСКОМ ГЕРОИЧЕСКОМ ЭПОСЕ НА ПРИМЕРЕ «ПЕСНИ О ХИЛЬДЕБРАНТЕ»
- Author
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Калинин, Степан
- Abstract
The present article deals with the representation of the memory of the Migration Period in Old Germanic heroic epic. The basis of the research is the "Lay of Hildebrand" which can be called the unique written artifact in the Old High German language. The leading characters of "Lay of Hildebrand" are based on real historical prototypes, the kings of Germanic barbaric nations named Theoderic the Great and Odoacer. The plot of this epic verse is that Hildebrand, the Theoderic's warlord leading the army of Huns meets his son named Hadurbrand. Young Hadurbrand does not recognize his father and says to him that Hildebrand is "an old Hun" and offers Hildebrand to fight with him. The "Lay of Hildebrand" has no ending (it was probably lost through the ages), and we cannot surely state what the final events of this story are. The "Lay of Hildebrand" is the only example of the old pagan poetry created by continental Germanic tribes. The unique character of this folklore work is that there are a lot of relic Old High German words in the text. Also, the uniqueness of the "Lay of Hildebrand" is that there is a mix of Old High German and Old Low German verbs. The ways of the historical memory representation are shown. The differences of an epic hero (in our case - Hildebrand) in comparison with a hero of Eddaic mythological verses are demonstrated. It is stated that an epic hero is more romanticized than a hero of the Eddaic myth. The heroes of the Poetic Edda are more realistic than the epic poetry heroes, though the heroes of the Eddaic myths are not based upon the characters of real-living people. The Eddaic mythological characters are near to the central characters of modern realistic novels. In contrast, the characters of epic poetry, which have the real historical persons as their prototypes, are described as idealized persons. They are ever brave, courageous, they are not afraid of their enemies. But the personality of epic leading characters is not detailed; it is hard to describe some definite points of their personality. Also, it is declared that the Eddaic mythological images have a more complicated structure; especially they are symbolic images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015