GREAT RUSSIA	355
cycles of Kiev and Novgorod, and, by endowing the heroes with
historic names, has coloured the whole genre with an elusive
historicity. The Novgorod cycle contains three pieces and is un-
connected with Vladimir of Kiev. The remaining adventures are
supposed to take place in the Kiev of the tenth or eleventh century
even when they are palpably modern or when they bear internal
evidence of having originated in Galicias Volynia, or even Novgorod.
At Kiev they are now unknown. Kiev is in the Ukraine (or Little
Russia), and the fcbyliny' are a Great Russian genre. Their hero is
Vladimir, but there is nothing to show whether the Saint or
Vladimir Monomah is intended, since the actions described are
not appropriate to either. Dobrynja bears a historical name, and
so does Prince Rornan3 but there were several wearers of those
names in the period in question, and there is nothing in Dobrynja's
or Roman's actions that corresponds to one model rather than to
another. At other times scholars are able to suggest expeditions
or sieges as possible bases for ballad incidents, but the identifica-
tion remains vague. The 'byliny' tell us almost nothing that is cer-
tainly true of the old principate, and they tell us much that is
palpably fabulous; they have all suffered revision in the light of
Muscovite prejudices, and their common background is memories
of the Tatar domination from Batu's invasion to Ermak's conquest
of Siberia.
In these circumstances it is well to fix oor eyes first on some
undoubted Kievite poetry, so that we may know in what manner
actual events would have been treated by contemporaries. Prince
Igor's Expedition1 must be our guide. It is not a 'bylina', and it is
not quite an epic. The author is fully conscious of his authorship^
which he parades by parodying the style of an older poet named
Bojan.2 Igor, who died in 1202, was alive when this poem was
made, since its author speaks of the Kievite princlpate as lasting
from old Vladimir's time to present-day Igor (ot starogo Madimira
^Eugene Liatzky, Le Dit iTIgor, Prague, 1934; Sloro o palku Igorece (with
three Russian modernizations), Moscow, 1934. G. Storm's rendering has
numbered lines.
2 'Nacati ze sja tQi pesni po bylinam sego vremeni, a ne po zamysleniju
Bojanju* seems to mean 'to begin the song on the events of his own time, and
not in Bojan's manner*. About 1860, scholars took the word fcbylina* to be the
name of a genre, and this use of 'bylina* is now estabHshed, though the peasants
say 'starina* 'old song*. If we remember its rather stupid origin as a technical
term, we shall not be tempted to beg the question of ballad or epic priority, as
its originators did.