The struggle against arrogance as the underlying concept of the “The Nibelungenlied”

Mamukina Galina Ivanovna PhD in Sociology Associate professor, Department of Foreign Languages No.3, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics 115054, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Stremyannyi Per., 36 mamukina@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Minova Mariya Vladimirovna PhD in Philology Docent, the department of Foreign Languages No.3, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics 115054, Russia, Moscow oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Stremyannyi Per., 36 mariaminova543@gmail.com

Markova Anna Sergeevna Postgraduate student, Department of Theoretical and Historical Poetics, Russian State University for the Humanities 125993, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Miusskaya Pl., d.6, k.7, of. kab. 278 lirel@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The medieval epic "The Song of the Nibelungs" (Das Nibelungenlied), dating presumably from 1200, is one of the most mysterious works of German literature. Despite the fact that this text (captured in 33 manuscripts, preserved in three main editions and first presented to a wide range of readers by the Swiss philologist I. J. Bodmer in 1757) researchers have been actively engaged, it still harbors unresolved issues.

One of the key issues is the main idea of the work. Understanding the motivation of the characters of the epic depends on the answer to it, which, in turn, is also a significant philological problem. According to a study by the team of authors A. A. Sarakayeva, L. Zhou, I. V. Lebedeva, the early interpreters of the "Song", relying on the Christian paradigm, believed that their own crimes became an evil fate for the heroes ^{[17, p. 163]}. Later , the interpretation of T. M. took the leading place . Andersson (Theodore M. Andersson), according to which the characters of the poem are "heroes who have fallen into the traditional dead end of heroic deeds. They must die, because this is the general law of heroic literature, but they surpass their fate by demonstrating personal qualities" ^{[20, p. 165]}. In other words, the researcher sees in the death of all the characters – the canon of heroic literature.

This point of view prevails today. Arguing for it, A. Y. Gurevich is often quoted as saying that the actions of the hero seem to us to be an expression of his free will, since "he is not separated from his fate" ^[5]. If we turn to the theory of literature, we will find confirmation of this. In the heroic mode of artistry, the main character, a heroic personality, is proud "of his involvement in the superpersonal content of the world order and is indifferent to his own life" ^{[18, p. 57]}. However, the "Song of the Nibelungs" shows us something completely different: none of the heroes, including Siegfried, talks about his involvement in the world order, in the highest goal and service to the cause. Moreover, each of the heroes acts solely in their own interests, obeying a motive that is still a mystery to researchers. He is often associated with Providence or fate ^[8], however, the work itself is not devoid of irony (Gunther is twisted by his own bride on the wedding night and hung like a bale; Siegfried cannot explain to himself why he takes Brunhild's ring and belt; Brunhild's power causes fear among the mighty Burgundians, and they believe that he himself the devil could become the groom of such a virgin) allows us to assume a different motivation for the actions of the heroes.

We consider the main motive of the work to be arrogance, which becomes destructive not only for the characters themselves, but also for the former system of values, the gradual loss of which was perceived as a tragedy by the author of the "Song of the Nibelungs" and his contemporaries. We believe that this motif is common to the main characters of the "Song", which correlates with the category of the author in the monological (according to M. M. Bakhtin) world.

To confirm this thesis, it is proposed: 1) refer to the time of writing the work to identify the peculiarities of the worldview of people of that era; 2) to the system-monological context as a means of expressing the content of the work 3) to the category of mirroring, which becomes the structure-forming element of the work.

This approach will allow us to consider the "Song of the Nibelungs" in the context of the epoch, to identify the moral and didactic motive of writing the text, to analyze the role of the category of mirroring in the creation of characters.

Mythical consciousness and understanding of duty

The context of the epoch in the analysis of the work allows us to use the strategy of "antiquarianism" ^{[9, pp. 164-196]} in historical and cultural analysis. In other words, by reconstructing the picture of the world peculiar to the historical period under study, we are more likely to approach the motif of fixing the "Song of the Nibelungs" in handwritten form.

It should be noted that at that time the oral form of verbal creativity prevailed, and the transmission of text in writing was a long and laborious process (recall that this process was repeated at least thirty-three times with minor variations). Despite the fact that it is customary to associate this historical time with courtly culture, the aesthetic interpretation of ancient legends alone cannot be a stable motive for writing a work in that era.

As the medieval scholar M. Oldhuaus-Green notes, one should not assume that medieval literature arose as a result of the formal fixation of folk legends. The basis of the plot is the legends heard from the storytellers, but the medieval manuscripts themselves "show all the signs of purposeful literary construction" ^{[15, p. 63]}. According to the scientist, such texts are inextricably linked with the Christian didactic tradition.

Indeed, the didactic motive is very strong in the "Song". Moreover, we can say that the main message of writing the work is educational in nature.

However, it seems to us that this motive is not so much connected with the Christian tradition as it does not contradict it. It stems from an older, archaic understanding of the world, is associated with a holistic picture of the world and is determined by mythical consciousness.

By mythical consciousness we mean a simultaneous syncretic perception of reality. Man in the Middle Ages did not separate himself from the natural world and followed the general laws of the universe, which were completely unknowable. The surrounding world contained many transcendent realities, on the primacy of which, according to A. F. Losev, the Middle Ages was based ^{[11, p. 168]}. The idea of a common beginning, which was and continues to exist as a special level of being ^{[6, pp. 276-314]}, was one of the key ones. It assumed the need for constant compliance with a certain standard, a canon – violation of the canon threatened with troubles and grave consequences.

The sense of destiny was so strong that vertical mobility of the individual was excluded. However, within the framework of his social role, a person not only had to formally correspond to his status, but also strive for an ideal – to understand his fate as a noble cause.

In such a system of values, the most terrible vice was pride (arrogance), which we have already written about earlier in the work "The National Code as the semantic core of the poem "Peasant Helmbrecht" by V. The Gardener" ^[14]. Pride presupposes a desire to gain benefits not according to one's merits, a vain desire to rise above others, to get a different fate for oneself. At that time, such aspirations pulled the individual out of the general, harmoniously arranged, integral world; opposed the individual to society and the world order. Arrogance promised disaster not only to the proud man himself, but also to everyone around him, since vice becomes a trigger for all subsequent events.

Siegfried's pride and bragging on arrival in Worms makes Gunther and Hagen perceive him as a potential enemy. The Burgundians understand that it is better not to provoke such a legendary warrior and try to offer him terms of friendship and peaceful neighborhood, but as soon as Kriemhild, already in the status of Siegfried's wife, openly declares her superiority over Brunhild, Siegfried turns from a potential threat into a real enemy. If the owner of the gold of the Nibelungs were equal to his heroic fate in the "Song of the Nibelungs", he would openly seek matchmaking and, having passed the tests, would find Kriemhild as a reward. Note that in the "Elder Edda" Sigurd, the great warrior, the Burgundians take oaths of allegiance and marry his sister, Gudrun.

Hunter's pride forces him to seek Brunhild's hand, although he understands that he will not be able to defeat the warrior maiden. No one can do this – Siegfried has to resort to the help of a magic cloak to surpass his rival in competitions.

Brunhild's pride forces Siegfried not only to resort to cunning during the matchmaking, but also to engage in a fight with her in the royal chambers. He wins and gives the virgin untouched to the Hunter. Having lost her strength in the arms of her husband, the proud warrior is subsequently ridiculed and publicly humiliated by Kriemhild. After Siegfried's death, Brunhild disappears from the narrative. In The Elder Edda, Brunhild, obsessed with a passion for Sigurd, forces her husband to kill the hero, and then commits suicide (at the same time, she condemns Gudrun, who is not so strong in spirit to follow her husband). But Brunhilde from the "Song of the Nibelungs" is not destined for a heroic fate, the character is abandoned to oblivion.

Hagen is correlated with his fate – the fate of a loyal vassal – until the moment when pride pushes him to appropriate the gold of the Nibelungs. By doing this, he wants to match the hero he defeated, but he will never become as legendary a warrior as Siegfried.

And finally, Kriemhild's arrogance not only leads to Siegfried's death, but also to the complete extermination of her own kind.

Thus, if we adhere to the strategy of "antiquarianism", we cannot exclude the perception of the epoch from the historical and cultural analysis. The Middle Ages were characterized by a mythical, integral consciousness, which assumed a predetermined human destiny, but at the same time required the individual to serve a noble cause. A person was equated with his fate and had to be worthy of his lot. Pride violated the general order of things, since a person's claims turned out to be broader than his role in the social and global order. Such claims and aspirations led to tragic consequences, as we see in the "Song of the Nibelungs".

Pride was not just blamed, but demanded awareness and struggle, which is one of the central ideas of the epic, which is confirmed at the levels of the organization of the text and the choice of lexical units, which will be discussed later.

System-monological context as a means of expressing the main idea of the "Song of the Nibelungs"

The heroes of the "Song of the Nibelungs" were well known long before the poem was written, historical events: the fall of the Burgundian kingdom in 437 and the death of the Hun leader Atilla in 453 – gave rise to an epic tradition that has existed for centuries in oral form. Later, the legends found their written completion in the "Songs about Heroes" of the Elder Edda, where Siegfried appears as Sigurd, Kriemhild as Gudrun, Brunhild as Brunhild, Gunther as Gunnar, Hagen as Hegni, Etzel as Atli. However, the eddic songs did not form a single plot, in addition, if we compare "Songs about Heroes" and "Songs about the Nibelungs", not only the characters and plots of these works will be strikingly different, but also the form of utterance itself.

Recall that the forms of utterance include: singing, speech and narrative. Singing is the most ancient of them. It is "one of the sacred forms of speech production" ^{[19, p. 29]}, as it is built on inversion, voice change. The subject of the utterance did not separate himself from the "other". This phenomenon, writes V. Ya. Malkin, was defined by S. N. Broitman as subjective syncretism, "the indistinguishability of the author (narrator) and the hero from each other, which is expressed in an apparently unmotivated transition from the first person to the second and third, and vice versa: the generative principle that caused the originality of the archaic form of authorship inherent in syncretism poetics" ^{[13, p. 257]}.

Subjective syncretism is inherent in the songs of the "Elder Edda". No matter how one remembers the refrain from the "Divination of the Velva" that has already become canonical: "She knows a lot / I foresee everything / the fate of the mighty / and glorious gods" ^{[3, pp. 188-189]}. There is also subjective syncretism in songs about heroes, in particular, in the "Greenlandic speeches of Atli": "I am ready to go / to tell Atli – / you will learn the whole truth from the daughter of Grimhild ..." ^{[3, C. 324]}. In this case, subjective syncretism is associated with kenning, that is, with an expression synonymous with the heroic concept.

In other words, the songs of the "Elder Edda" go back to the archaic, to the syncretic era, while the "Song of the Nibelungs", to which the word "legend" is applicable, since in this case "a prosaic, non-song or poetic transmission of the plot is meant" ^{[4, p. 3]}, refers to a more late time. To be more precise, to a different era – eidetic poetics, which implies the presence of the author as a category of text.

This author endowed the work with an idea that in the monological world (it is not necessary to speak about polyphony that arose at a later time, in the era of artistic modality, in this context) must necessarily be expressed. At the same time, it does not matter which of the heroes, since none of them is its carrier. According to M. M. Bakhtin, the idea itself "tends to some impersonal system-monological context, in other words, to the system–monological worldview of the author himself" ^{[2, p. 117]}.

This idea confirms the thesis that the "Song of the Nibelungs" has a central idea that does not and cannot belong to any of the characters, but permeates the entire work. And we find confirmation that the main idea is the fight against arrogance, at the levels of text organization and the choice of lexical units.

The organization of the text of the "Song of the Nibelungs" is closely related to the category of the author. It is the nameless author who arranges the parts into a whole (there is no single plot in the songs of the Elder Edda), rethinks the legends and endows the characters with characters. So, Brunhild ceases to have a passion for Siegfried, and her motive for her revenge becomes a publicly inflicted insult. Kriemhild, unlike Gudrun, is aware of her importance and self-worth as the first beauty (which, even before meeting Siegfried, causes the inglorious death of many brave men who realized the futility of their efforts). And Hagen (unlike Hegni) longs for the glory of the great war and is even ready to go to death for this. Obeying the will of the author, the characters of the "Song of the Nibelungs", although they do not lose their charm, by their behavior and actions they give out the proud arrogance characteristic of all of them.

We also find an emphasis on pride and arrogance at the lexical level. E. V. Lushnevskaya in her research drew attention to the frequent use of the word ?bermut in the German-language version of the poem, which translates as arrogance, pride. This epithet haunts the heroes: Hagen, when he refuses to hand over his weapons at Etzel's court; Siegfried characterizes Brunhild and Hagen in this way; Siegfried's father warns his son against going to Worms, talking about Hagen's arrogance and that he "jealously cares about royal honor" ^{[3, p. 365.]}. It is also the word is often found in the context of the poem: "as a rule, warriors are endowed with such a disposition: die ?berm?eten helde ("arrogant men"); s? ?berm?eten ("always so proud"); die ?berm?eten degene ("proud fighters")" ^{[12, p.10]}.

It follows from the above that the category of the author, which arose in the eidetic era, organizes the text, guided by a system-monological worldview. This approach assumes the presence of a central idea in the text, which cannot be identified with any of the characters, but becomes decisive for the whole work as a whole. For the "Song of the Nibelungs", such an idea is to expose arrogance, which is reflected at the level of the organization of the text (the presence of a common plot, purpose, characters), and at the lexical level.

Next, we will turn to the category of mirroring, so that, using the example of the key figures of the "Song of the Nibelungs", we can be convinced of the author's deliberate emphasis on arrogance as a destructive feature of the heroes of the epic.

The category of mirroring as a structure-forming element of the "Songs of the Nibelungs"

In the article "On the visibility of Meaning", Yu. V. Podkovyrin asks the question, "how does the visual (sensory reality) of the world of a literary work and its meaningfulness relate" ^{[16, p. 176]}. In relation to the "Song of the Nibelungs", the visual design of the images seems symbolic.

Many researchers pay attention to the codependency of images. Y. N. Buchilina notes the juxtaposition of characters: Siegfried correlates with a heroic image, and Hagen appears as a trickster, a hero "inside out"; Kriemhild at the beginning of the work embodies the secular principle, Brunhild – natural, demonic ^{[4, p. 90]}. But with all the evidence of this opposition, researchers have questions: why is the name of the antagonist Hagen translated from Old Norse as "great son", which promises its owner a noble fate [1. p. 328]; why Kriemhild, according to a set of epithets, and the description of totem animals and linden tree identified with Freya ^{[7, p. 254]} and along with Brunhilde is a natural beginning; why does a heroic character, whose matchmaking and trials should precede a happy ending, ingloriously perish ^{[8, pp. 102-111]}.

The mirroring category allows you to get closer to the answers to them. As is known, "the mirror is inherent in the principle of symmetry" ^{[10, p. 279]}, which, in turn, determines harmony and proportionality. In the visual arts, the principle of symmetry is one of the main ones. However, it should be noted that the object and the reflection of the object are always represented as phenomena of the same order.

Can we say that Hagen can be equal to the handsome Siegfried, who knows no defeats in battle? Or can the militant Brunhild, ready to execute anyone who fails the test, be like the meek Kriemhild?

However, all the characters have one thing in common – arrogance, which provokes the aggression of a conditional double. Siegfried, arriving in Worms, behaves defiantly, openly defies Gunther, despite his father's warning. To which Hagen immediately reacts: "Like every vassal of yours / I am offended by our guest" ^{[3, p. 372]}. And Hagen is forced, as a vassal, to resolutely defend the honor of his master. But Hagen becomes broader than his fate when he drowns a treasure in the Rhine ^{[3, p. 487]}. He personally makes such a decision. The treasure of the Nibelungs turns into the same trophy for Gunther's vassal as Brunhild's ring and belt became for Siegfried ^{[14, p. 201]}.

Adventure XIV ^{[3, p.451]} about the quarrel of two queens is entirely devoted to the dispute. Kriemhild wins by publicly insulting her rival, but it is this event that will lead to subsequent tragedies.

Note that in the Middle Ages, a mirror as an object had various connotations in works of art: from an attribute of the Virgin Mary to a symbol of pride and debauchery ^{[10, p. 278]}.

In the Song of the Nibelugs, the mirror does not appear as an object, but the category of mirroring itself allows not only to contrast the characters with each other, but also to show that they are phenomena of the same order. So, it is the category of mirroring that creates a certain optics that helps to see in both Brunhild and Kriemhild the same passion for elevation (if the former was proud of her prowess, then the second was proud of her husband's greatness); in Siegfried and Hagen – a common thirst to get a trophy and a common audacity to challenge fate; it is the category of mirroring (along with open warnings the author and looking ahead) foreshadows a tragic ending.

The category of mirroring clearly illustrates the changes in the mode of the epic. The heroic mode gives way to the tragic one, where the hero is "wider than his allotted place in the world order" ^{[18, p. 62]}. The redundancy of the inner reality of being becomes a consequence of the possibility of choice. Not the fate itself, but the attitude towards it, the understanding of one's place in the world. Heroic, self-forgetful pride (deep satisfaction with his share) is replaced by the search for personal gain (Siegfried helps Hunter with matchmaking in order to get Kriemhild as a wife), vassal service turns into theft of treasure, and a marriage union because of female vanity and pride predicts trouble.

The "Song of the Nibelungs" was intended not to condemn villains and not to exalt heroes, it was supposed to serve as a warning and illustration for contemporaries. Perhaps that is why today it does not lose its relevance.

Thus, the category of mirroring allows us to look at the characters of the "Song of the Nibelungs" as phenomena of the same order, the actions of the conditional protagonists become a trigger for the antagonists' retaliatory actions, good and evil are not clearly differentiated, each hero can be understood. Especially if we take into account the main motivation inherent in the key characters – arrogant self-aggrandizement, which leads to a tragic ending in particular and to a change in the mode of artistry in general.

Conclusions

To sum up, the strategy of "antiquarianism" allows us to consider the "Song of the Nibelungs", written in the XIII century, as a work that has a historical and literary basis consistent with the spirit of its time: with a holistic worldview and with the canon of the Eidetic era. "The Song of the Nibelungs" has the category of the author, has a clear structure and a well-formed plot, the main idea, which does not belong to any of the characters, but becomes an important, common part of the work. This idea is reflected in the choice of lexical means, in the organization and completion of the artistic whole and in the category of mirroring, thanks to which we find that the vain actions of some characters become a trigger for the reaction of their counterparts. To implement the idea, the author changes the mode of the work from heroic to tragic, emphasizing the idea of moral and moral choice.

The idea of fighting arrogance for a holistic (mythical) consciousness becomes a call to devote your life to a noble cause, a moral and moral attitude. It defined a system of values and found its embodiment in the "Song of the Nibelungs".