thumb|Ilya Muromets (1914) by [[Viktor Vasnetsov]]

Ilya Muromets or Murometz, also known as Ilya of Murom, is a bogatyr (hero) in a type of Russian oral epic poem called bylina set during the time of the Kievan Rus'.

The son of a peasant, Ilya was born in the village of Karacharovo, near Murom. He suffered a serious illness in his youth and was unable to walk until the age of 33.

According to another version, Ilya stemmed from modern-day (earlier known as Moroveysk), a village halfway between Kyiv and Chernihiv (Chernigov) in modern-day Ukraine. It is supported by the notes of Erich Lassota von Steblau, who in 1594 visited the Pechersk Monastery and described the hero (bohater) buried there as "Elia Morowlin" - "Elijah of Morov".

In 1988, Soviet archeologists exhumed Ilya Pechersky's remains, which were stored in the monastery, and studied them. Their report suggested that at least some parts of the legend may be true: the man was tall, and his bones carried signs of spinal disease at early age and marks from numerous wounds, one of which was fatal. The East Slavic Classification registers variants from Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian sources.

Depictions

thumb|Soviet 1988 stamp dedicated to Ilya Muromets

  • Catterino Cavos's 1807 opera Ilya Bogatyr (Ilya the Hero)
  • Foma Berennikov from Alexander Afanasyev's Narodnye russkie skazki. Features Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich, and Foma Berennikov assisting the Prussian king. Ilya ends up defending a city from an army of attackers.
  • Viktor Vasnetsov's 1898 painting ' (center figure).
  • Nicholas Roerich's 1910 painting Ilya Muromets
  • Reinhold Glière's 1911 Symphony No. 3 (Ilya Muromets) in B minor, op. 42
  • Viktor Vasnetsov's 1914 painting Ilya Muromets.
  • Aleksandr Ptushko's 1956 live action film Ilya Muromets (known in the U.S. as The Sword and the Dragon).
  • Konstantin Vasilyev's 1974 and 1977 paintings.
  • Ilya Muromets: the Prologue (1975) and Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber (1978), a duology of animated shorts by Ivan Aksenchuk.
  • Russian-French writer Antoine Volodine, writing under the pseudonym Elli Kronauer, reinvented the character in "Ilia Mouromietz et le rossignol brigand" (1999), the first of a series of books dedicated to the heroes of Russian byliny.
  • Juraj Červenák's historic fiction Bohatýr trilogy (2006–2008).
  • The Three Bogatyrs (2004–ongoing), an animated movie franchise by Melnitsa studio.
  • Several icebreakers have been named Ilya Muromets
  • Liz Williams's SF novel Nine Layers of Sky (2003) brings Ilya Muromets and Kyrgyz epic hero Manas to modern times.

Notes

References

  • Ilya Muromets at Tradestone Gallery's Russian Fairy Tales gallery
  • The evolution of Christianity, X. The History of Russia in the Context of the Evolution of the National Spirit and Orthodoxy
  • "The Sword and the Dragon" (1960) is the American English-dubbed version of Ptushko's 1956 film, "Ilya Murometz"