Trojan by Angela

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

1 - ON THE PATH TO TROJAN n divine name echoes to us from deepest antiquity,
without him knowing it means a lot. It is a god - or perhaps a hero - called
Trojan. The ancient poets often quoted in bold metaphors, indicating
II - TROJAN: INTERPRETATIONS
Enigmatic figure of the pantheon paleorusso, Trojan has been written about very
much and were the most advanced different interpretations, without
arriving at any conclusion.
In the Song of Igor's Campaign 'the name of the god appears, as we have seen,
four times, often in contexts that refer to a time perceived as a remote
past now, and always with a sense of nostalgia, more or less
pronounced:' Path Trojan ',' Trojan Times ',' Land of Trojan, "" Seventh age of Trojan. "
If the "Land of Trojan" is probably the Rus', it is clear that the 'Trojan
Times' (Song of Igor's Campaign' [36]) are the good old days, when the
state of Kievan Rus' was prosperous and there was unity among the Russian princes, and disputes and internal rivalries. As
the 'seventh age of Trojan "(Song of Igor's Campaign' [84]), in which
the sorcerer-prince of Vseslav Brjačislavovič Polock he reached his
questionable companies, needless to say that this expression has a lot
to think about the performers . It is probably symbolic numbers. Eridanus
Bazzarelli think that the term indicates the last days of paganism and
translates the passage "on the last time Trojans' (Bazzarelli 1991).
The simplest interpretation would be to consider the symbol as a Trojan, or the hero of the ancient history of Rus'. You think what that translates Dmitry Lichačëv Zemlya Trojanju with "Russian land" (Lichačëv 1982, Bazzarelli 1991).
But Trojan is probably a Slavic god (though a possible Scythian origin),
whose name could possibly be related to the number three. It was therefore a god with three heads or faces. The bottom is filled with Slavic pantheon of divine figures policefale. Trojans, in particular, may correspond to the god worshiped by the Slavs Triglav island of Rügen (Bazzarelli 1991).
What Trojan is a god, however, seems proved by the Virgin's Descent into
hell, where Trojan appears with Perun, Veles and CHorse, and all are
said to be demons and evil that the people ignorant fool would worshiped
as gods. The mere presence of his name in a list
of divine names entitles us to claim that Trojan was originally a real
deity, or a character of great importance in ancient Slavic mythology
even later deified or however mistaken for divine figures.
Another theory is the figure of Trojan derived from the Roman Emperor Trajan,
whose reign were founded and leveled the city streets in Dacia and
Thrace, and that is still remembered in many legends and folk songs in
Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia . The
phonetic evolution [a]> [or] should have already been in ancient
times, before the Slavs began their expansion into the Balkans (Magdearu
2002). "Land of Trojan 'is therefore in this
case, the Rus' southwest and Bessarabia, which retain many place names
in the memory of the Roman emperor. However,
even if the idea of god as a Trojan slave is the most likely, it is
possible the extension of the divine image to the memory of Trajan
(Bazzarelli 1991, Bell 1994).
Note that Trajan was also a person's name in the Balkans. A Bulgarian prince (son of the last Tsar Ivan Vladislav who reigned in 1015-1018) was called Traian. The name Trojan is also evidenced by Macedo-Romanians during the sixteenth century.
Among other theories proposed, some see in Trojan traditions and a personification of epic songs that reflect the Trojan War. Renato Poggioli, in his rendering of the song Igor, translated each time the
Trojan name with the word "Trojan", justifying the translation with an
alleged confusion between the Polovtsian, which were of Turkish origin,
the Trojans Homeric epic (Balch 1954 ).
Kazakh writer Olžas Sulejmenov proposed instead a reading of the Song of
Igor's Campaign 'that completely eliminates the Trojan name, as this is
merely a contraction of the name Tmutorokan' (Sulejmenov 1975). The hypothesis, although interesting, is nevertheless considered too daring (Bazzarelli 1991).


 
III - A ROMAN EMPEROR IN SOUTH-EAST EUROPEAN MYTHOLOGY?
On the presence of Trajan in the folklore of southeastern Europe has devoted a full study of Romania's Alexandru Madgearu. The following summarizes the data supplied by it, its analysis and its conclusions (Magdearu 2002).
The medieval mythology has a legendary hero of the Roman emperor Trajan, in East and West. This trend, begun by the same propaganda the Roman Empire, the emperor who
assimilated to historical and mythical heroes such as Hercules or
Alexander the Great, Trajan turned into a kind of civilizing hero. The main function of the Hellenistic and Roman monarch was to ktistes or conditor of the manufacturer. Hence
this model ideal as a conquering hero Emperor [philostratiotes] and
founder [philopolis], upon which the mythology of the construction of
Trajan, widespread in south-eastern Europe.
The cycle of legends grew up, about Trajan, initially revealed in the Latin
spirit of justice of the emperor (one was also included in the
Purgatorio of Dante). During the eighth and ninth
centuries was the widespread myth that Pope Gregory the Great would have
prayed to God for the redemption of the soul of Trajan, the only pay he
has received such a favor (Watley 1984). The Byzantine literature gave other legends that speak of the justice of Trajan.
In the traditions of the south-eastern Europe the image of Trajan was
characterized on the reality that the emperor was also a great builder. Several
cities and fortifications, many roads and some bridges, from Romania to
the Balkan Peninsula, were built during the reign of Trajan, and many
still bear his name.
The city of Augusta Traiana Traiana and Tropaeum, outburst erected during his reign. The same is true of the famous bridge over the Danube in Drobeta. A step and a city along the road between Oescus Philippopolis and, in the Bulgaria, called today called Trojan. The important Roman road, also used in the Middle Ages, linking Singidunum
[Belgrade] and was named Constantinople Trojanova put by the Bulgarians
and Turks Trajan Jol. This route passed
through a ravine near Ihtiman, where there was a Roman fort called
Trojanova Vratsa "port of Trajan ', a name which has continued to be
used even after the destruction of the fort itself. On
the same street, next to Tatar-Pazarcik, the bridge that crosses the
river is called Topolná Trojanova Most "bridge of Trajan." The ruins of Hissar, north of Plovdiv, named after Trojanova-grad. More ruins and streets named for Trojans totaled Lomech, Razgrad and near Sofia. Two cities and calls Trojanovgrad Trojanskigrad are attested in Serbia. In Mostar, in Bosnia, a bridge is considered the work of Trajan. Also in Croatia, the ruins of the Roman city of Burnum [Ivoševci] are called Trojanski-grad. According
to Procopius of Caesarea, a fortification of the Rhodope Mountains was
called in the sixth century tou hagíou Traianoû (Buildings [IV: 11]),
although not sure if the name refers to the emperor or a saint who would
have lived in Macedonia in the fourth century (Graf 1883).
In the end the popular tradition attributed to Trajan ended up almost
every ancient monumental construction, so that eventually attributed to
him were almost all Roman ruins abound along the Danube valley.
The curious thing is that while in the Western tradition and the Byzantine
emperor Trajan is an exemplar of virtue, Slavic and Balkan legends
sometimes appears as a character quite different, and demonic traits
titanic. Already in the nineteenth
century, the writer and historian Bogdan Romania Petriceicu Hasdeu and
watched the Slavs had transformed into an evil character Optimus
Princeps (Hasdeu 1973), and Louis Léger pointed out that in the popular
tradition attributed to the ruins of Trajan were inhabited by demons and lemurs (Léger 1897).
According to certain traditions, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian, Trajan had a
beak or ears of an ass, as the King Midas of Greek legend. It
was also the writer hints Byzantine Ioannes Tzetzes (XII century), who
wrote, "it says that Trajan had the ear of a goat, a fact that I did not
find in books" (Historiae). In 1433 the traveler
Bertrandon de la Broque relates a legend that the city of Traianopolis
was founded by an emperor "who had, as they say in Greek, a ram's ear"
(Léger 1897). It is possible that this tradition
has arisen for paraetimologico juxtaposition between the name Trajan
Tragos and the Greek word "goat."
According to Bosnian legend, the citadel of Trojanovgrad near the Sava river,
reigned in the past a Trojan czar, described as a three-headed (Troje in
Serbian means "three") which was every night by his mistress to Sirmium
[Mitrovica]. Could not stand the sunlight, he was crushed when he returned home too late (Léger 1897). The narrative is similar to certain legends on the so-called Rumanian Roua de Domnul. (Magdearu 2002).
Bulgaria and Serbia inherited the traditions on Trajan probably Romanized Dacians from the north-Danubian region. The documentation is vast Romania. The legends and folk tales handed down a rich tradition of Romania
regarding the figure of Trajan, of which the study of Madgearu is
necessarily forced to choose only some of the more interesting.
In the legends of Romania, the emperor Trajan, who here takes the name of
Traian or Trojan, it appears as a purely mythical character, a sort of
great leader and hero of the past, the winner of dragons and giants, and
was said to ride a horse with hooves the
size of the head and a silver horseshoe, capable of crossing the Danube
with a jump, so much so that they used to indicate the sign of the
hooves on the banks of the River. (Magdearu 2002).
In a first round of legends from the region of Braila, Galati, Neamt and
Argeş, Traian is attributed to the destruction of a race of mighty
giants who, at the dawn of time, infested the world. These
giants were described as beings whose height was no less powerful for
their wickedness, linked to natural elements and the ancient pagan
world. Defeating the people titanic Traian ushered in the age of men. (Magdearu 2002).
"Iovan Iorgovan slaying the dragon" - Sculpture on wood Romulo Lade
(1901-1970) Variations Traian won not remember how the Giants, but the
Tartars, cynocephali or other pagan peoples. To
quote some oral traditions collected in the territory of Romania:
"Older people who lived there know the cynocephali, the Tartars and the
giants and that the emperor Traian conquered them and chased them away"
(region of Neamţ) "Traian kicked off bad men from all over the country and even the Tartars "(region of Vâlcea). Very
interesting is a testimony to the effect that Traian fought against the
Tartars: "Soldiers of Traian had horses with shoes on the contrary made
to deceive the enemy on their direction (Prahova region). This
is why the rods placed on the contrary it is typical of the legends of
Negru Voda, the national hero of Wallachia, also dealing with these
struggles against the Tatars. It is clear that the traditions of Traian Negru Voda and derive from some common archetype. On the other hand, popular mythology paints them both as founding heroes of the land. (Magdearu 2002).
Other legends reveal particular aspects of the image of Romania Trajan. For example, the collection by Constantin Rădulescu-Codin early twentieth
century in the region of Mehedinţi: Traian fought with a dragon in the
land which left a great track called Brazda Traian him. The
hero was able to chop off the head of the dragon, but the head came out
some flies, called mustela columbace in Romania, which began to infest
the herds of cattle die by the beasts (Rădulescu Codin-1910). This legend can be derived from the cycle of heroes and Romanians Novac Iovan Iorgovan, who also fought against a dragon. Novac and Iovan Iorgovan were civilizing heroes. They were also credited with the victory over the Giants or the Tartars. Moreover,
according to tradition, the invention of agriculture is primarily the
work of which Novac, digging ditches, taught men how to plow and plow
the fields (Fochi 1982). However, although Traian
was considered the author of several ditches all over Romania, seems not
to have received features if not the first farmer in nineteenth-century
literary reworkings of popular songs.
In another cycle of legends of Romania, Traian was guilty of incest. According to a certified legend in the region of Gorj, Vâlcea Mehedinţi and
Traian married his daughter, which allowed him to build a bridge across
the Danube. But after construction, the daughter fell into the River. Moreover, there are also traditions which Romania Traian is a demonic character. In
regions close to the Danube you can admit Bulgarian influence in
regions close to the Danube, as a legend from the region Teleorman,
where Traian is described as a sort of evil tyrant, whose heels emitting
smoke. He had a long road paved with bricks and pregnant women also carried their three bricks to the baby she was carrying. This path is one that is still called him Drumul Trojans (the Roman Limes Transalutanus). (Magdearu 2002).

 
IV - possible conclusions

From these reports it seems clear that, in the development of Rumanian
folklore, the figure of the Emperor Trajan had to overlap with that of
some local hero, who probably had its roots in ancient tradition dacha. We know very little of the mythology of the Dacians, except that it too had its origin from the common Indo-European fund. It
is very little to decipher the few names that have been passed on and
to understand the nature of the ancient heroes that we see against the
Romanians through folk songs.
It's a little 'too in the case of Traian. As you know, some historical figures that strike the popular imagination
tend, over time, to attract upon himself the mythical legacy reasons, to
become the core of major epic cycles. We
remember the stories about medieval Alexander the Great, in which even
the myths and traditions came together in the first formulations of
Gilgamec dall'Epopea even come to us, or semi-historical figure of
Arthur, an obscure Roman-British leader who won a few victories against the
invading Saxons, but that in the epic reworking, eventually attract to
itself a huge number of elements originally independent (the Sword in
the Stone, Merlin, the Round Table, the Grail, etc.). to become the hub
of a vast myth cycle.
Hard to know what was the ancient mythical character who was overshadowed by the emperor Trajan. Maybe some sort of Herakles or Θraētaōna Dacian, who cleared the land by
giants and monsters, inaugurating a new age of the world. Perhaps
this could explain certain expressions in the Song of Igor's Campaign
', such as "Trojan Trail," "Trojan Times," "Land of Trojan," "Seventh
age of Trojan." A reference to a primordial time
when it was just working on the transition from an age dominated by the
titans to the present world, the time of humans.

But is it really? Impossible to say. Remains the charm of a beautiful hypothesis.


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