The study of bylinas (epics) is a perennial theme in Russian research discourse. This article criticizes several modern approaches to the study of bylinas, including the ethnographic approach. Taken to its logical conclusion, this approach leaves no place for historicism in bylinas, reducing everything to initiation rites. The foundations of this approach were laid by the classics of the genre, I. Ya. Froyanov and Yu. I. Yudin, whose works became a notable scholarly phenomenon during the “stagnation” era. However, they maintained a sense of proportion, interpreting epics not only from an ethnographic but also from a historical point of view, while rejecting a historical-factual perspective. This article supports this approach and provides examples of how epics vividly reflect some lineaments, essence, and course of ancient Russian history.