The monograph is devoted to a comparative historical study of the folk heroic epic: Russian (epics) and South Slavic (Yunatsky and Gaidutsky songs). On the basis of modern comparative-typological methodology, the monograph examines the general historical and ethnographic foundations of the epic work of the Eastern and Southern Slavs, its genesis, connection with historical reality, features of content and form, reveals the historical originality of the epic of individual peoples. The book is intended for folklorists and Slavic ethnographers, as well as for a wide range of readers interested in the problems of the folk epic.