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Berserks and Heathens: Reviving Slavic Martial Arts in Russia
| Article
# : |
12024 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1994 |
2,171 Words |
| Author
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Elena Pavlova
Elena Pavlova is senior literary assistant for But Why? an
educational magazine published in Moscow. This essay is a
retelling of a legend first collected and recorded by the
Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasiev (1826--1871). |
Few people know the skills or history of Slavic wrestling. Nevertheless, enthusiasts in Moscow are striving to resurrect this Russian national wrestling tradition and even to create a modern version. "From time immemorial," says Alexander Belov, president of the National Club of Slavic Wrestling Styles (NCSWS), "fighting has been a part of Russia's national and folk culture. Consider the epics of ancient Russia. Stories tell that a single warrior on horseback could defeat an entire cohort of enemies. Rogdai--the Russian Hercules--single-handedly combated three hundred warriors, according to Nikon's chronicle,"
Today one can witness that the epics of ancient Russia are not mere fables or folktales. It is amazing to observe warriors in combat, slashing at one another with swords or axes. They wield real weapons and yet avoid injury. As they exchange blows, not even a single abrasion appears on their skins. Through such demonstrations, Belov and his associates bring new life to an important but little-known part of their national culture. The NCSWS members have successfully reconstructed several styles of Russian martial arts that are collectively called Slavic Hillside.
The club's work gained attention in 1988 when Belov's trainees appeared in a national-level competition in Moscow. The competition featured wrestling bouts and demonstrations of traditional regional styles such as kurash, practiced in the Tatar, Transcaucasia, and Uzbekistan regions; chidaoba, from Georgia; and trynta, from Moldova. Participants and audience alike were startled by the high degree of professionalism and elegance demonstrated by the NCSWS, a group previously unknown in Russian sporting circles.
"Today," declares Belov, "Russian youths are crazy about martial arts: Every one of them knows about karate. But karate was virtually unheard of--even in Japan---in the first half of the twentieth century. This is evident from Akira Kurosawa's film Sanjudo. By the 1960s we still knew nothing about wu tzu or kung fu. In Southeast Asia, the brothers Lee--who reconstructed the ancient Chinese wrestling style--pitted their strength against each other for lack of opponents. But Russian youths today know nothing about their own national style. Indeed, hardly anyone does, even though written descriptions of Slavic traditional and folk wrestling styles--consisting primarily of elbow and knee blows--can be found as recently as the sixteenth-century accounts given by Baron Sigizmund Gerberstein, the Austrian ambassador to Moscow."
Initially, the goals of the NCSWS were
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