Yaruga, Queen, reigned 1799-1800, sister of Uran
(q.v.); drowned in an ice-hole with her Russian lover during
traditional New Year's festivities, 681. (PF, Index)
Queen Yaruga (reigned 1799-1800) his great-great-granddam, was
half Russian; and most historians believe that Yaruga's only child Igor was not
the son of Uran the Last (reigned 1798-1799) but the fruit of her amours with
the Russian adventurer Hodinski, her goliart (court jester) and a poet
of genius, said to have forged in his spare time a famous old Russian
chanson de geste, generally attributed to an anonymous bard of the
twelfth century. (PF, Commentary, Line 681)
Yaruga means "a deep ravine." Yarugi (plural of
yaruga) are mentioned three times in The Song of Igor's
Campaign:
А мои ти Куряни свѣдоми къмети: подъ
трубами повити, подъ шеломы възлелѣяны, конець копія
въскръмлени, пути имь вѣдоми, яругы имъ знаеми.
(ll. 78-83)
Уже бо бѣды его пасетъ птиць по дубію;
влъци грозу въсрожатъ по яругамъ. (ll.
132-135)
Наступи (Святослав) на землю Половецкую, притопта хлъми и
яругы, взмути рѣкы и озеры, иссуши потокы и
болота. (ll.
360-364)
On the other
hand, Hodinski's profession and the circumstances of his (and Queen Yaruga's)
death remind one of prince Golitsyn's (a jester at the court of Empress
Anna Ioannovna) mock wedding with the Kalmuck woman Avdot'ya
Buzheninov described by Lazhechnikov in his historical novel Ledyanoy
dom (The Ice House, 1835).
Alexey
Sklyarenko