The Ancient Russian Poems compiled by Kirsha Danilov in Czech philology and literature of the first half of the 19th century
Abstract
F. L.
Chelakovskij introduced Czech community with Slav and Lithuanian folklore. He was the first who in 1825 began to compare Lithuanian and Russian folksongs and emphasized the similarity of their poetics.
The main attention was paid to the collection of Kirsha Danilov from the middle of 18th century. He was certain that the ancestors of Slavs and Lithuanians had heard bylinas during the common epoch of Slavs and Balts.
He searched the epic vocabulary in Lithuanian language. It was not chance that the information about the plan to translate Russian epic songs into Czech language was published in 1827 in "Lithuanian Folksongs".
The promised total translation was not published, but he printed the book of individual poems "The echo of Russian songs". Because of clear influence of Russian epic songs, his poems were taken for authentic Russian folklore first time.
The mystification of F. L.
Chelakovskij influenced the progress of Czech poetry in 19th century and caused stable interest to Russian folklore