ABSTRACT
Prince Igor, the “first heroic opera on a Russian theme,” embodied profound changes in concepts of nationalism and heroism. While Aleksandr Borodin worked on the opera in the 1870s, artists such as Viktor Vasnetsov, Vasilii Vereshchagin, Vasilii Surikov, and others were producing major works on themes of war, political conflict, and sacrifice, confronting the tragic events of their time. Women appeared in some of these works as witnesses and mourners, adding universality through their identification with the sorrowing land. Yet in his opera, Borodin introduced a powerful new voice in Iaroslavna, the wife of Prince Igor, who became the defender of her city; her aria at the end of the opera gave a new meaning to heroism. Vasilii Perov’s portrayal of the new heroine, in his painting Iaroslavna (1880), is strikingly different from images of women as victims, including in his own earlier works. This paper examines the significance of Iaroslavna for Borodin, Perov and their contemporaries.
