Who was the legendary Boyan from "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", and how he turned into a musical instrument button accordion

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Two centuries ago in Russia was found and published "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" - a unique ancient Russian poem that turned our understanding of the level and depth of the culture of our ancestors. At the very beginning of its text, an unknown author mentioned the old singer Boyana, and soon the previously unheard of name became known throughout the country. As a result, Boyan turned into a brand and almost a trade mark, giving his name to the musical instrument button accordion.

Who is Boyan

In the text of The Lay of Igor's Regiment, Boyan is mentioned only a few times, and information about him is rather scanty. For example, here is a small fragment from a poem translated by Nikolai Zabolotsky:

The image of a poet and singer known in Ancient Russia interested historians, because earlier they did not find any information about him in chronicles or other sources. Except that another literary monument, Zadonshchina, again casually spoke about Boyana, but this was explained by the fact that the author of Zadonshchina borrowed a lot of turns and techniques from The Lay of Igor's Host.

If we assume that Boyan is a contemporary of the author of The Lay of Igor's Host, then it turns out that he lived in the second half of the 11th century and sang songs of his own composition at the court and squad of the Kiev prince. He did this to the accompaniment of a gusli-type plucked string instrument.

The image of Boyan appealed to the readers of the Lay. Pushkin made him one of the characters in his poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila", and thanks to her, the name "Boyan" was given the spelling through "a" - "Bayan":

Disputes and discussions

Skeptics wondered if there could actually exist a person, about whom only one ancient Russian author spoke. Some scholars have suggested that it was invented for "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" to decorate the work. Boyan was considered to be a name of Bulgarian origin, which means that it could be borrowed from some story or legend of a related Slavic people.

Other critics thought boyan was a kind of synonym for bard and troubadour. They tried to translate the name, for example, as "bystander", "krasnobay", that is, "who knows stories", "who knows fables." Accordingly, Boyan is just a generalized name for an invented character, like the Master in Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita.

Later finds refuted doubts: Boyans lived in Russia, and there were many of them. On the wall of the Sophia Cathedral, an inscription was found about the purchase of "Boyanova land" (land holdings of some Boyan) by the widow of Prince Vsevolod Olgovich. Several people named Boyan were mentioned in the birch bark letters of Novgorod and Staraya Russa. And in Novgorod itself in the Middle Ages there was "Boyana Ulka" - Boyana Street. A fragment of this street was even given back its historical name in 1991.

So, most likely, a court singer under the name Boyan could really exist. Unfortunately, the facts about his namesakes did not add information about him. But who knows what discoveries historical science will bring in the future …

From singer to musical instrument

The popularity of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" and Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila", as well as the opera of the same name by Mikhail Glinka, made Boyan's name famous throughout Russia. If the conventional Old Russian chronicler was inevitably associated with the name of Nestor, then the Old Russian musician and singer - with Boyan. Antique fashion has transformed a name into a brand. For example, several Russian ships were named after Boyan - first a small corvette, and then a couple of cruisers.

At the end of the 19th century, the word "Bayan" was added as the trade name for the manual clarinet harmonica. The name began to be added to various types of harmonics.

But a full-fledged button accordion as a musical instrument appeared thanks to the Petersburg master Peter Sterligov. In 1907, for the talented accordionist Yakov Orlansky-Titarenko, he made a special construction of the harmonica, and it was with this instrument, which they began to call simply "button accordion", that Orlansky-Titarenko began touring the country.

Today, few accordionists think that they owe the name of their profession to the hero "The Lay of Igor's Host." However, if the legends are to be believed, the talented Boyan would have easily retrained and could perform his songs to the accompaniment of Russian harmonica.