Some descriptions of prices found in various chronicles (Andrej Bogolubsky, Dmitri Donskoj, Roman of Galich) match to a certain extent literary topoi also found in the description of the bylinic hero, the bogatyr, in Russian oral epos. The PVL is one of the sources that undoubtedly should be taken into account in order to discern a possible literary model of a heroic princes in Rus’ and whether this pattern follows a diachronic, geographic or, simply, random pattern.
The PVL, in fact, is not very profuse in personal descriptions. The first physical description of a prince, is Mstislav’s (col. 150:15, sub anno 6544).1 Until then, the descriptions had been made through actions, by describing the actions of the characters themselves, despite retaining certain formulaic redaction (Oleg, 22:24 and Olga 58:12 the type of sentence “so and so gathered a druzhina/his men/ and went to/against certain place)
The quick style and direct speech in the narration of the actions leaves us most times without a proper description of the prince. Some of them, to my understanding, minor princes, are described in positive tones after their respective deaths: Rostislav (166:15) and Gleb Sviatoslavich (199:22), the above mentioned Mstislav and also Vsévolod Yaroslavic (215:27) All of them are described in similar fashion “lovers of the truth, God-faring, of beautiful face.” And then is Isislav, who is apparently described in the same terms, but in fact he needs such a long justification for what he did that one finds the description somehow difficult to believe.
The descriptions of the martyr princes, Boris and Gleb and, to a certain extent Yaropolk (206:1) have been deliberately left aside because they fulfil a different literary model, closer to that of Wenceslas of Bohemia, for example, but whose elements are different than the hero or the saint without martyrdom. For a start, they are never victorious.
I shall just mention a few more details of depictions of princes in the PVL which not only could find a parallel in the byliny, but which I think we should attribute to a literary topos of the description of the hero. The birth of Vseslav of Polotsk, the mentioning of Olga taking care of his son and his education and his gathering a small army from an early age match the canonical description of the infant hero. Another detail that repeats itself as a constant is the importance of the place of burial of the princes, and we will go back to it later.
Leaving aside the martyrs then, it would be interesting to find out how “personal” this model becomes, whereas, I would argue, tends more to the epic (national) model or to the heroic (individual) model, and how the hagiographic model, which certainly was probably better known and used, even in the PVL the descriptions of different religious people richer, could have influenced the prevalence of the heroic model over others. We might agree with Vodoff and think “Russia transformed the sacralisation of power in a cult of its bearers, the princes” finding thus a “practice that responded equally to the pagan conception of the prince, or military chief, assuming a sacral function.”2 Within this context, the relevance of burial places, within a process of sacralisation of the dynasties, was as relevant as finding the bones of any saint anywhere. Political power and religion were a pack, a compound that could explain the emergence of such god-fearing, law-abiding princely figures.
These are only preliminary conclusions and much work still remains to be done, but if the pattern in the PVL is diachronic, from less to more individualistic heroes, maybe we could try to match the growing of a whole new literary genre with other cultural expressions, the building policies, the cult of certain saints, which could help us understand better the self perception of the ruling elite.
1 All quotations are given according to Ostrowski, D.G., Birnbaum, D. J., Lunt, H.G.,and Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. The Povest’ vremennykh lět: An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis. 3 vols, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature. Texts; V. 10, Pts. 1–3. Cambridge, Mass., 2003.
2 Vodoff, V., Christianisme, Pouvoir et Société chez les Slaves Orientaux (X-XVII siècles), Paris, 2003