The Battle Of Igor's Campaign Sparknotes

The renowned Russian Empire that stretches from the Eastern Europe of Poland to the eastern shore of Sea of Okhotsk was once a federation of city-states called Kievan Rus, and the greatest literary work done in that period is the Lay of Igor's Campaign, which chronicles an unsuccessful military expedition lunched by Igor Svyatoslavovich, against the nomadic tribe of Polovtsy in 1185. In comparison, the other piece of Russian literature The Zadonshchina tells a tale of the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 led by Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy, and considered by the contemporaries to be a masterpiece during the late 14th century. Both equally important literatures described two different military campaigns with two Russian princes, regardless of the differences
Undeniably The Zadonshchina mirrors the Igor Tale in both style and structure, yet the writings in two literatures have certain differences. The first is composed in the form of poetry and read as a tale, whereas the latter is written in tone of a war propaganda that is considered to be a literary monument. To sum up, the work of On Igor’s Campaign which entails a story of a major defeat of Russian armies can be broken down into forty-five separated passages, and each passage contains numerous metaphors and implicit phrases that vaguely conveys the message in the sentences. For example, “Early the second day blood in the sky heralds the light; black clouds come from the sea with blue lightning flashing within; they will cover the four suns; there shall be great thunder.” The author used the image of an approaching storm to describe the inevitable peril of Kievan-Rus’ future, and the four suns represents the four defeated Russian princes against the Polovtsian. On the other hand, the story of The Zadonshchina is about a successful campaign led by Dmitry Ivanovich the grand duke of Moscow, subsequently gained the dominant and unifying role as the Moscow prince inside the loose federation followed by the defeat of Mongolian-Tatar coalition. The Zadonshchina is an extremely emotional and lyrical response to the victory won at the Kulikovo battle, especially which the context is a lot more straight and easy to read in comparison to Igor’s Campaign. Since it has been more than a century past the time of Igor’s reign, the Russian culture have been deeply intertwined with the Orthodox faith after the reformation of religion, consequently the inevitable change in way of life, writing and