Alyosha Popovich

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Alyosha Popovich (Russian: ), alongside Dobrynya Nikitich and Ilya Muromets, is a bogatyr (i.e., a medieval Russian knight-errant).

The three of them are represented together at Vasnetsov's famous painting Bogatyrs.

In Byliny (oral stories) he is described as a crafty priest's son who wins by tricking and outsmarting his foes. He defeated the dragon Tugarin Zmeevich by trickery. In later versions the dragon was transformed into the figure of a Mongol Khan.

References

This article is based on material from the public domain 1906 Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary.

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