러시아 민중 유토피아의 시공간성: 키테즈(Kitezh)와 벨로보지예(Belovodie) 전설을 중심으로

Abstract

Russian legends Kitezh and Belovodie are stories about “The Promised Land”, a utopia that Russian peasants had desired for. So, these two legends expressed classical utopias for the people in Russia. The purpose of this study is to summarize the contents of various versions of Kitezh and Belovodie legends and to analyze their characteristics in terms of time and space of a utopia. Russian Old Believers played a crucial role in the process of development and dissemination of these two legends because the essence of Old Believers’ faith was in the belief of eschatology and Millennium. Therefore, this study also examined the relationship between these two legends and Old Believer’s faith. As a result of the study, the temporal and spatial characteristics of Russian peasants’utopia described in these legends can be summarized as follows. First, Kitezh and Belovodie are examples of‘the regenerated space’of the prototype of heaven. In other words, it is a Russian embodiment of the belief in the Millennium Kingdom that heaven can also be here in this world. Second, the Russian Old Believers attempted to build their own community of faith that was independent from the repression and control of the state and the government. In this sense, Kitezh and Belovodie exemplified anti-spatial (i.e., a heterotopia of Michel Foucault) characteristic. Finally, the notion of time was absent in these utopian spaces. Rejecting the flow of historical time, the city Kitezh is a static space that exists in a transcendent space that has disappeared under the lake due to the invasion of pagans. Also, Belovodie, as a space isolated from the world that exists on the mountain or on the sea, is also a special space to resist the ‘arrow of time’, in order to keep the ideals of the early Christian church.