How a French knight turned into a Russian hero. Return of the Valiant Knight - review of Andrei Usachev’s book “Bova the Prince”

Since there is an ocean, everything is connected. Here is a medieval gesture, a song about deeds, a typical example of the French heroic epic, traveling across Europe, reflected in the mirrors of the English, Irish, and Welsh languages. By the end of the 12th century, the knight “Bev of Anton” reaches Italy, where in the Venetian dialect he turns into “Bovo d'Antona”.

And Usachev managed to update the language of the fairy tale in the same way. It reads like a ready-made script for a puppet theater; the rhythmic prose with poetic inserts fits so clearly into the format of the folk theater that I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere the actors have already stolen the roles. So I’m reading “Bova” to my son and waiting for “Eruslan Lazarevich” from the same author and in the same publishing house..ru.

“Bova the Prince” is a modern poetic retelling of the heroic story about the valiant knight Bova Gvidonovich. Having run away from home from his evil mother Militrisa and stepfather King Dadon, Bova ends up with King Zenziwei and falls in love with his daughter Druzhneva. In her honor, he performs miracles of courage and alone defeats the insidious contenders for Druzhneva’s hand - kings Markobrun and Lukoper.

The roots of this story go back to the medieval heroic epic of European peoples. In our country in the 17th-19th centuries, the adventures of Bova the Prince were very popular both among the people and among the educated class. Even Radishchev and Pushkin addressed this story.

In a modern book about Beauvais the Prince published by Rosman, Andrei Usachev retold the ancient story in modern language, and Larisa Ryabinina, in her illustrations for the book, masterfully conveyed the intricacy and simplicity of the Russian popular print.