A POEM ABOUT KIRIK AND ULITA IN THE FOLK EPIC TRADITION

The article deals with an extremely rare epic spiritual poem of the oral tradition. Only three of the recordings of this poem, which were made in the second half of the 19th century, are known. Deriving from hagiographic literature, the plot of this poem reflects the period of the persecution of Christians in the early 4th century during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. This article identifies the similarities and differences between the verse variants of the poem. Moreover, it establishes the connections of the poem with epic spiritual poems of other plots that also reflect the theme of holy martyrdom, such as the verse about Yegor the Brave. Despite the paucity of the available material, a comparison of the three recorded texts of Kirik and Ulita allows us to identify two different versions of this spiritual verse. One of these versions is found in a variant that was recorded in the Olonets province from Vasily Petrovich Shchegolenok, a famous performer of byliny. The other is represented by two similar texts that were recorded by collectors in the Vyatka province, one of which was recorded from an oral performance.