ABSTRACT
Dunai is the main figure in four Russian songs: “Dunai and Nastasia,” “Dunai’s Fight with Dobrynya,” “Dunai the Matchmaker,” and “The Death of Dunai and Nastasia.” The last two themes almost always form a single, closely connected story that is called simply “Dunai” and that, as one of the most popular Russian epics, has been collected in over a hundred variants (Propp 1958b: 134–54). Briefly stated, the content of the song is as follows. At a feast attended by all social groups at court in Kiev, Prince Vladimir announces that he would like to get married. When Dunai suggests Apraxia, the younger daughter of the Lithuanian king, Vladimir agrees and sends Dunai along with Dobrynya to make a marriage proposal. After the king refuses, they take Apraxia by force and leave for Kiev. On the way, Dunai decides instead to track down and fight a Tatar bogatyr who, after being defeated, turns out to be Nastasia, a bogatyrka and the older sister of Apraxia. Dunai and Nastasia, who apparently knew each other when Dunai served her father several years before in Lithuania, agree to marry in Kiev. At the wedding feast, Dunai brags about himself, only to be challenged by his wife, who says she can shoot an arrow better than he can. After she proves this, he kills her and then commits suicide when he finds out that she was pregnant.
