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1000th ANNIVERSARY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE. THE TALE OF IHOR'S CAMPAIGN. 1185.
SLOVO O POLKU IHOREVI (full title: Slovo o polku Ihorevi, Ihoria syna Sviatoslavlia, vnuka Ol’hova [The Tale of Ihor's Campaign, Ihor the Son of Sviatoslav, Grandson of Oleh]). An epic poem (see Epic poetry) of the late 12th century written by an anonymous author.
The original was discovered in 1795 by Graf A. Musin-Pushkin, ober-prokuror of the Holy Synod (1791 – 1796), in the archives of Yoil, the archimandrite of the Transfiguration Monastery in Yaroslavl (Russia), and was published in Saint Petersburg in 1800 with the assistance of the paleographers A. Malinovsky and Mykola Bantysh-Kamensky. The original manuscript and many printed copies perished in the Moscow fire of 1812.
The want of an original allowed a number of skeptical critics in the early 19th century (I. Belikov, I. Davydov, Mikhail Kachenovsky, O. Senkovsky, and others) to consider the work a falsification of a later date. Subsequent skeptics included the French SlavistsLouis-Paul-Marie Léger and André Mazon (who believed that either Yoil or Bantysh-Kamensky wrote the work) and the Russian A. Zimin. Contemporary scholars postulating that the Slovo is a late 18-century falsification include E. Keenan and George Grabowicz. Keenan’s extensive study attributing the authorship of the Slovo to the Bohemian scholar and priest Josef Dobrovský was published by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in 2003. The majority of scholars, however, believe it to be authentic. In 1818 K. Kalaidovich noticed an epigraph taken from the Slovo in the Pskov Apostolos of 1307. In 1829 R. Tymkovsky published a 15th-century manuscript, Zadonshchina (Past the Don [River]), that was modeled on the Slovo (plagiarized, according to Mikhail Speransky).
In the 19th century the poem served as the subject of studies by the Russians E. Barsov, Vsevolod Miller, N. Tikhonravov, Aleksandr Veselovsky, and P. Viazemsky. Ukrainian academics, apart from Maksymovych, who published works on the Slovo included Omelian Ohonovsky, Oleksander Potebnia, and Pavlo Zhytetsky.
In the 20th century more than 700 major studies of the Slovo have been published in a variety of languages, including works by Dmytro Chyzhevsky, Mykola Hrunsky, Volodymyr Peretts, and Omeljan Pritsak. In the late 1930s, work on the subject was halted in the Ukrainian SSR and was limited to Russian-language studies commissioned by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Research devoted to the Slovo resumed in post-Soviet Ukraine with the publication of a collection of Russian-language studies of the epic in 1990 and Ye. Pavlenko’s new translation of the work accompanied by his controversial interpretation of the Slovo not as praise, but as a condemnation of Ihor Sviatoslavych and the descendants of Volodymyr the Great in general for the destructive results of their policies in Kyivan Rus’. A study of the Slovo by Mykhailo Braichevsky that examined its specific features and its author's ideological position within a broad sociocultural context of Kyivan Rus’ was published posthumously in 2005.
The subject of the poem is the unsuccessful campaign mounted in the spring of 1185 by Ihor Sviatoslavych, prince of Novhorod-Siverskyi, against the Cumans. Its central theme is the fate of the territories of Kyivan Rus’. In addressing that theme the author condemns the various princes for their feuding and their selfishness at the expense of the general good.
The poem begins with an invocation of Boian, who sang the praises of princes of the 11th century. The author of the Slovo promises to emulate Boian's style and to join the glories of the past with those of the present. After a description of preparations for the campaign, of the three-day battle, and of Ihor Sviatoslavych's defeat the author proceeds to analyze the reasons for the decline of the Rus’ land. After a description of Ihor's escape from captivity the work concludes with praise of the 'ancient princes' Ihor andVsevolod Sviatoslavych and of the 'younger ones', represented by Volodymyr Ihorovych.
The poem is particularly rich in epithets, similes, metaphors, the use of metonymy, and hyperbole. The author frequently personifies nature and represents it as a conscious being that either aids or harms humans. The Slovo's poetic form lends itself to a wide scope of expression and can incorporate many different rhythms depending on the theme and mood.

Sviatoslav Hordynsky, Marko Robert Stech. www.encyclopediaofukraine.com

Denomination: 150 Rubles Year: 1988 Material: Platinum Description: Commemorative coin 'The Tale of Ihor's Campaign'. Obverse: National arms, denomination, date of issue. Reverse: 1000-ЛЕТИЕ ДРЕВНЕРУССКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ. СЛОВО О ПОЛКУ ИГОРЕВЕ. 1185. (1000th ANNIVERSARY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE. THE TALE OF IHOR'S CAMPAIGN. 1185). Chronicler writing epic about Grand Duke Igor. 999 standard platinum. Diameter – 28.60 mm., weight – 15.55 g. Edge – incised. Artist and sculptor: A.V. Baklanov. Put in circulation since: 13.09.1988. Mintage: 16 000. The coin was struck at the Leningrad Mint (ЛMД). FMM hasn't got this coin. Country or town: USSR

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