The Nature of the Heroic in Chechen Heroic-Epic Songs – Illi

Abstract

The study examines the essence of the heroic reflected in Chechen mythopoetic works. The material for the study is primarily Chechen oral folk art, such as illi, heroic-epic songs. The author proposes a conceptual approach to the heroic as a peculiarity of Chechen philosophical thinking. The author sees the ontology of the heroic in Chechen folk culture as a historical and philosophical analysis that reveals the axiology of the heroic and interprets the concept of the hero as an emerging reality of the medieval epoch. The heroic is understood as a system of values and meanings, and the hero concept as one of the key values in Chechen ethno-regional culture. The analysis into the foundations of the category of the heroic, linked to the philosophy of the feat and the ideology of the national understanding of this phenomenon, illustrates overcoming (temptation, sacrifice, injustice for the common good). Overcoming the disharmony of profane time is determined by the freedom of spiritual ascent of the folk hero. Despite the fact that each epoch constructs its own logical scheme pattern of the hero, each of them traces the archaic symbolism of the heroic. The author concludes that the heroic (deed) is comparable to the act of establishing balance – justice, replacing the disharmony of profane time. The intension of the heroic is determined by the fundamental idea of the hero's personal responsibility to all things. The philosophical nature of the heroic in Chechen culture reflects the central conventional unit of the folk worldview, defined by the spectrum of spiritual values - nobility, honour, courage, bravery, patience, etc. In the folk worldview, the nature of the heroic is linked to the deeds of a subject capable of self-sacrifice.