Bylina

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Ivan Bilibin. Dobrynya Nikitch rescues Zabava Putyatichna from the dragon Gorynych.

Bylina (Russian: были́на, also Byliny and Stariny) is a traditional epic, heroic narrative poetry of early East Slavs of Kievan Rus, the tradition continued in Russia and Ukraine.

Bylina comes from the Russian "byl'" (быль), a word which signifies a story of real events, as opposed to a fictional one and a cognate of the English verb to be.

Bylinas are kind of poetry without rhyme (blank verse), but with a characteristic rhythm, a kind of free verse. Most of bylinas were preserved in northern regions of Russia, and their style was imitated by several famous Russian poets.

There are quite a few bylina cycles. Bylinas may be roughly classified into the following series:

Of the older heroes (Volga Vseslavich, Mikula Selianinovich, Sviatogor)
Of Vladimir, prince of Kiev, tales of the Golden Age of Kiev, of Kievan Rus'. Here belongs the Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich and Dobrynya Nikitich cycle, being among the most popular ones.
Of Novgorod (Vasily Buslaev, Sadko the merchant)
Of Moscow (of Yermak Timofeyevich, Ivan the Terrible)
Of the Ukrainian cossack history (in Ukrainian language, of invasions of Turks and Tatars, of Haidamak uprisings)
Of cossack insurgents (Stenka Razin)
Of Peter the Great