“Twisting the glory of both halves of this time...”: on the spatio-temporal and mythological manifestation in “The Lay of Igor’s Host”

The article puts forward a hypothesis about the existence of the goddess of the ancient Slavs Slava in the “Lay of Igor’s Host”. Some “dark places” have been translated. When analyzing the work, a search for text parallels was used. Revealed and substantiated the relationship between separate Old Russian and Church Slavonic vocabulary. The semantic shades of the words “mind”, “heart”, “time”, “path”, contained in “dark places” are considered. An attempt was made to understand the peculiarities of the manifestation of space-time forms in the “Lay of Igor’s Host”. The coexistence of the present and the past tense in “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” is explained by the timeless forms of being, the recognition by the ancient Russian scribe of two spaces. The “duality” in “The Lay of Igor’s Host” is manifested in the use of ancient pagan images, “old words” and “epics of this time”. The Church Slavonic word, dating back to the text of the Bible, contains many semantic shades, the explanation of which can reveal the depth and richness of the Old Russian text. The expressions that go back to the theme of Christianity are analyzed. At the end of the work, the emerging joyful attitude of the author of “The Lay of Igor’s Host” to the hero who destroyed his army and escaped from captivity is regarded as Christian. Willfulness and the fulfillment of God’s will are present in the character of Prince Igor, in his actions. Christian images in “The Lay of Igor’s Host” and the author’s kind attitude to the defeated prince tell the reader about the new established Christian world, which, however, is in a difficult relationship with the world of former words, ancient pagan Slavic images.