Believe it or not, yesterday (December 7th) was Bear Day …
There is such a day. First Sunday in December. Did you think not? There is!
It was noticed: at the time this bear climbs into the den, and on Spiridon - on the solstice on December 25 - it turns from side to side, but on the Annunciation it gets out of the den.
If they don't wake you up earlier.
Sleep and get up.
This is indispensable.
Think about the bear.
In southern dialects - Vedmid, Vedmid and Medvid. In the general Russian language, the essence is the same - he loves honey (an expert on honey, not otherwise). In fairy tales - that of the Little Russian South Russian, that of the all-Russian - the bear is called "the owner", "Mikhail", and also "clubfoot", well, "Potapych".
In the West, they once thought that the symbol of Russia was a bear. A marker of Russian civilization is now perceived there. Well, okay, we don't mind: a powerful beast. On the coats of arms of the cities of Holy Rus - from Subcarpathian Rus (now the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine) to Khabarovsk and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
Interestingly, initially in the West, a negative meaning was not put into the image of Russia-bear. In a medieval manuscript (15th century, the authorship is attributed to Jan Glogovchik) there is an allegorical depiction of Europe in the form of a Dragon, which is opposed by the Bear-Asia. The central place on the Medved is occupied by the word "Muscovy". The European theologian, creating an allegory at the time of John III, the collector of the Russian lands, seemed to sympathize with the upcoming Eurasian project. Jan of Glogow was a forecaster and is said to have predicted a "black monk" (Luther) in Europe who would split the Western Church. If so, the image of Europe in the form of the fiend of hell is a prophetic view. The bear is a force opposing the world's evil, the enemy of the human race, the seducer, the apocalyptic beast.
The myth that bears in Russia easily roam the streets, inadvertently originated from the "Notes on Moscow Affairs" ("Notes on Muscovy") of the Austrian ambassador Sigismund Herberstein, who visited Moscow under Vasily III. He knew the Slavic language and was extremely conscientious in collecting various information about Russian life. Describing the frost of 1525 (which he did not witness when he arrived in Moscow in March of the following year), Herberstein reports: “That year the cold was so great … then many vagrants were found dead on the roads, who in those parts usually lead bears trained to dance … It was also said that the bears themselves, driven by hunger, left the forests, ran everywhere in the neighboring villages and burst into houses; when the crowd saw them, the peasants fled from their attack and died out of the house from the cold in the most miserable death. It is clear that an exceptional phenomenon is being described - a catastrophic natural anomaly. At the same time, the expression "also told" seems to indicate some distrust of what was heard. The author first published the Notes in 1549 in Latin. But, as the researchers note, when republishing "Notes" in German 8 years later, Herberstein "suddenly removed" from this passage the expression: "they also told" and "driven by hunger." “As a result,” the researchers note, “the appearance of bears in villages and towns in winter began to be perceived as a regular event and quite typical for Russia as a whole. This is how all later readers and scribes understood him. " "Notes on Muscovy" have been translated and republished in Europe for hundreds of years dozens of times, rewritten and quoted.
This is how the myth was born, this is how the cliché arose.
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It is logical that in the proud and laughable West cartoons appeared in their hour, in which Russia is represented by a bear. The pictures highlighted the feelings of Europe about the Russian-Turkish wars and armistices, the Polish question, Novorossiya and Crimea, the Napoleonic wars, the European World War, the Crimea again … Note that the developed algorithm is correct to this day in detail. Each Russian at its own point in time to answer the same questions that were answered by Potemkin, Suvorov, Nakhimov, Gorchakov …
Starting with Anna Ioannovna, all Russian sovereigns were portrayed by the West (that is, as we remember, the Dragon) in the form of a bear (Catherine the Great, of course, a bear) - now a terrible and terrible beast, now miserable, now good-natured. Of course, all Soviet secretaries general, and in modern history also presidents, did not escape the "bear fate", did not violate the European view of the "Russian bear."
Russia does not particularly object to this view. Sometimes it supports.
Here we had an Olympic Bear, seeing off which the whole world squelched. And to this day it stands on the highway at the entrance to Kiev from the Borispol airport. And he flaunts near the good hotel "Lybed" …
And recently, President Vladimir Putin put it cheerfully, talking about Crimea and "neighboring affairs": "The bear will not ask anyone for permission … And he is not going, I know for sure, to move somewhere to other climatic zones, he is uncomfortable there. But he will not give his taiga to anyone …"
Arseniy Yatsenyuk reacted: “A bear is a good animal in Ukrainian fairy tales. But in reality it is better to keep the bear in the zoo. " It's about Russia. And Senya even showed what a solid fence-net he intends to fence off the "Russian bear", they say, he can't beat it with wire cutters! Against my will, I thought: the rabbit is a scientist animal in European fairy tales, but in reality in Russia - Great, Small and White - they make economical hats from them.
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In Russia, since 2006, there has been a project "Russia as a Bear" (author - art critic Andrei Rossomakhin, St. Petersburg), within the framework of which research on our topic is published. For example: "Bears, Cossacks and Russian Frost: Russia in English caricature before and after 1812" (joint work of VM Uspensky, AA Rossomakhin and DG Khrustalev). At the end of 2013, a special issue of the Labyrinth magazine with the theme “Bear and Russia” (editors - O. Ryabov and A. de Lazari) was released - a joint project of the Center for Ethnic and National Studies of the Ivanovo State University and the network scientific publication Labyrinth.
It seems that researchers have missed the Russian version of the origin of the concept of "Russian bear". Let's remember.
Our great Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov-Pechersky, in his incomparable "In the woods" and "On the mountains", describing the free life of the Volga region, conveys such a funny story: "In the Sergach district, up to thirty villages fed on bear fishing … They bought bear cubs, taught them all bear wisdom: "like a woman in an unheated room got mad, like little guys stealing peas, like Mishenka's head hurts from a hangover." Sergachs used to go with their pets wherever they looked …”Perhaps Herberstein wrote about them. And later, during the time of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, the authorities wanted to suppress this buffoonery, but they did not cope.
But let us continue the quote: “When the French from the Moscow fire fell into the Russian frost (1812), then they were taken prisoner quite often, and those polonyanniks were sent to different cities to live. And in Sergach there were some officers, even one colonel. For the winter, the landowners gathered in the city, got acquainted with the French and, due to their Russian good nature, gave them shelter, took a sip … And the prisoners got into conversation with their hospitable hosts about what to expect in the summer. "They say, Napoleon will not forget his shame, he will save a new army, he will again descend upon Russia, and everything is exhausted with you, all the young people are taken into the regiments - you cannot get it, you cannot cope."The police captain happened to be here, he says to the French: "Your truth, a lot of people went to war with us, but this is not a big problem, we will send regiments of bears to the French." The prisoners laugh, and the police chief assures them: he himself has been ordered to train the regiment of bears by the spring, and that his recruits are a little used to the service - they are throwing away the military article. The day after tomorrow, you are welcome to me for pancakes, I will present you a bear battalion for a look "… They brought animals about a thousand, put them in rows, began to force them to throw sticks on their shoulders, to show how small the guys were stealing peas. and they learn to crawl like a jaeger."
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And the bear is also a joy in Holy Russia.
In the Life of the Monk Seraphim, the Wonderworker of Sarov, who at his hour received a blessing for his exploit in life in Kiev, we read the story of Elder Matrona Pleshcheyeva: “Approaching a distant desert, I suddenly saw that Father Seraphim was sitting near his cell, on a block, and beside him stands a terrible-sized bear. I died from fear, shouting at the top of my voice: "Father, my death!" And she fell. Father Seraphim, hearing my voice, removed the bear and waved his hand to him. Then the bear, like a reasonable one, immediately went in the direction where the elder waved to him - into the denseness of the forest. Seeing all this, I trembled with fear, and even when Father Seraphim came up to me with the words: "Do not be horrified and do not be afraid", I continued to shout as before: "Oh, my death!" To this the elder answered me: "No, mother, this is not death, death is far from you, but this is joy." And then he led me to the same deck on which, after praying, he sat me down and sat down himself. Before we had time to sit down, suddenly the same bear came out of the thick forest and, going up to Father Seraphim, lay down at his feet. But I, being near such a terrible beast, at first was in the greatest horror and trembling, but then, seeing that Father Seraphim treated him without any fear, like a meek sheep, and even fed him from his hands with the bread that he brought with him in the bag, little by little I began to be quickened by faith. The face of the great old man seemed especially wonderful to me then: it was joyful and light, like an angel's …"
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And also a bear is a toponym, rare enough. Recently Ayu-Dag (Bear Mountain) returned to its limits. On a general scale, he is, of course, not a Bear, but a Bear Cub. Welcome back, Mishutka!
Down and Out trouble started. Russia returns to its limits.
Happy Bear Day!
