THE FOLK HERO IN RUSSIAN AND UZBEK HISTORICAL PROSE: STEPAN RAZIN AND NAMAZ

Abstract

Problem. Comparative literary scholarship on historical prose from the post-Soviet space has long overlooked parallels between the folk hero archetypes shaped within Russian and Uzbek national literary traditions. While the figure of Stepan Razin has received considerable attention from Russianists, and while Namaz has been studied sporadically within Uzbek literary criticism, no systematic cross-cultural comparison has been attempted. This gap limits our understanding of how different peoples deploy strikingly similar narrative strategies when mythologizing rebellion, justice, and collective memory through fiction. Aim. The present study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the folk hero archetype as realized in Vasiliy Shukshin’s novel I Have Come to Give You Freedom (1971) and Khudoyberdi Tukhtabaev’s novel Namaz (1994), identifying common typological features and culturally specific divergences in the portrayal of the rebel-hero. Results. The analysis reveals that both novelists construct their protagonists along convergent lines—emphasizing the hero’s organic bond with the common people, a tragic conflict with centralized authority, the transformation of a historical person into a mythic figure, and an underlying philosophy of popular justice. At the same time, significant differences emerge in narrative voice, ethnopoetic traditions of oral folklore incorporated into the prose texture, the spiritual and religious dimensions of heroism, and the ideological frameworks within which each author operated. The study contributes a new typological model for comparing folk hero narratives across post-Soviet literatures and demonstrates that the rebel-hero archetype functions as a universal mechanism for articulating national identity through historical fiction.