Article

Name: VARIATIONS IN THE PLOT OF TAKING THE TOWN SIBIR IN 17TH CENTURY'S CHRONICLES

Authors: L. I. Zhurova

History Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section

Abstract: By virtue of several literature monuments of ancient and medieval ages, the topos of taking a town is of great renown. The town Sibir was the capital of Kuchum's kingdom, when russian cossaks came. This plot must be destinguished from the large chronicle of conquering the country of Sibir. In the historical literature the plot of cossaks with their chieftain Yermak conquering Siberia has engulfed the story of taking the capital town. The Cossaks march is a dominant idea of regional chronicles. It is usually either a core of meaning in the epic texts in 17th century's chronicles, or a prologue to the Siberian chronicles. Events set out in sequence form the story line of taking the town. The great amount of events defines special particularities of the plot. The eloquent episodes expand the timeframe of the plot, being separate chapters of the chronicles, i.e. the story of a Tatar Tauzak, who told Kuchum about the power of russian weapons; battle of Cossaks and Mametkul on the river Babasan; Cossaks' victory near the village Karachi; the battle beneath mount Chuvash; the russian army entering the empty town of Sibir; the death of Yermak and the Cossaks leaving the town; the town being taken by tatar princes; the Tatars fleeing the town after Danila Chulkov, the voevode from Tobolsk, captured Sejdyak Bekbulatovich. Being abandoned three times, the town of Sibir is a historical symbol of Kuchum's kingdom being ruined step by step. The empty town is opposed to the idea of founding new towns everywhere in the siberian lands by voevodes from Moscow. The Rumyancevskij chronicle, the Esipovskaya chronicle in different kinds and editions of 17th century, the Pogodinskij chronicle tell the story with different details. The emphases are placed differently in the story about Russian weapons breathing fire that Tauzak frightened Kuchum with. Rumyancevskij chronicler presents the details of testing the weapons that the Cossaks demonstrated the captive Tatar. Savva Esipov left those details out according to his concept that the conquest of Siberia was prophecied. Also, episodes including the battle of Yermak and tatar princes Karacha and Mametkul are different in several editions of the Esipovskaya chronicle (Zabelinskaya, Lihachyovskaya, Abramovskaya) because of small insertions, presumably oral in their origin. These insertions are considered to be due to constant interest to the events that happened a hundred years ago. The variations of the plot of taking Sibir are tend to idealize and poeticize historical characters during all 17th century.

Keywords: the town of sibir, plot, story line, edition, taking a town, siberian chronicles, the conquest of yermak, tatar princes

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