Worker folklore
The growth of capitalism in Russia and the associated industrial revolution after the reform of 1861 historically determined a new stage in the development of poetic creativity. To mid-19th centuries, peasants were the bulk of the Russian people, they were also the creators of traditional peasant folklore. In the last thirds of the XIX century, an industrial proletariat begins to take shape, where its own conditions of life, work and life are gradually created, its own psychology and its own worldview emerge. The history of the working class, its life and work were reflected in his oral poetry. Two types of changes are taking place in Russian folklore: 1) the genres of old, traditional folklore have changed greatly, 2) new genres have emerged, naturally, on the basis of old ones or on a general folklore basis.
Changes in traditional genres were reflected in the fact that the area of their distribution narrowed, some genres (like historical songs) fell out of use; all genres began to respond more quickly to life changes; theme updated folk poetry, satirical motives intensified in it; in many genres the role of improvisation has increased, and the connections between folklore and literature have expanded. New phenomena in folklore include: the formation and rapid spread of genres that did not exist before (ditties); the widespread development of workers' folklore, the emergence and development of individual creativity (the emergence of poets and singers). In many genres there is an increase in realism; this feature can be noted even in fairy tales. The poetics of the fairy tale, although stable, is gradually becoming simpler, fairy tales of an everyday nature are approaching a tale or story, and the style of fairy tales is clearly decreasing.
The song genres of Russian folklore also experienced significant changes at this time. The song as a form was still stable in its poetics; but some groups of songs remained popular, others fell out of use. In folk songs, notes of discontent and protest are increasingly heard, social motives. In folk lyrics, the connection with literature, the entry and creative processing of literary songs into the folk environment is becoming more and more noticeable; the so-called “cruel” romances have become widespread.
Not all genres of traditional folklore turned out to be productive, moving into the working environment: there are no working conspiracies, ritual songs, epics and fairy tales, even everyday tale did not receive development. In workers' folklore the following has developed prose genre like a tale that differs significantly from a fairy tale. If a fairy tale is always based on fiction, then in a fairy tale there is reliance on reliable fact of life. The tale does not have rich fairy-tale rituals, compositional features and style. In its form, it is a story-memoir about events of the relatively recent past. In the working environment, new proverbs and sayings arise, in which the social and labor experience of the working person has received a certain generalization (“Like the master, so is the work”).
Many songs arise in the working environment, but they are all significantly different from the peasant ones; although they use some techniques of traditional lyrics, they experience significant influence book poetry. Regarding the songs of the Ural workers, G. Uspensky wrote: “The song about the life of a working man left a good impression: without any concealment, depicting his bitter situation, his poverty, hard labor, she portrayed a man in this caught up in black thankless work - a healthy man, with healthy mind, who knows how to illuminate his dark and difficult life with healthy and light humor.”
On the current state of children's folklore genres
O. Yu. Trykova
Modern children's folklore is now represented by a very wide range of genres. The oral repertoire records both works of historically established genres of oral folk art (lullabies, songs, nursery rhymes, chants, sayings, etc.), as well as texts of more recent origin (horror stories, anecdotes, “sadistic poems”, alterations-parodies, “ evocation”, etc.). However, the degree of prevalence of a particular genre varies. Fixing it, as well as observations on the development features of the main types of children's folklore in lately that is what this article will focus on.
Historically established genres in the oral repertoire, traditionally studied by folklorists and actively promoted by official culture, are on the verge of extinction. This is especially true for such a classic variety of oral folk art as lullabies. Unfortunately, we now have to admit a significant, almost complete loss of this folklore tradition. Changed living conditions, upbringing, even the customs of rocking a child to sleep are the reasons for the oblivion of old lullabies. At the same time, despite this, a certain need for the genre remains. This leads to semi-comical attempts to perform modern pop songs as lullabies (from “Vernissage” to Zemfira’s repertoire!).
They sat on the golden porch
Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry,
Uncle Scrooge and the Three Ducklings
And Ponka will drive!
This is the penetration of new images into traditional genres and texts are also typical for other varieties of children's folklore, which actively absorbs everything new that corresponds to the interests of modern child. Thus, during the period of the appearance of the first television series in various genres of children’s folklore, the slave Izaura, “just Maria,” and the heroes of “Santa Barbara” “received registration.” For example, a riddle appears: “Lip to the floor, plays polo” (Jose Ignacio - hero of the series “Simply Maria”). But several years pass, the number of television series is rapidly increasing. Now there are no longer those that the whole country watches, and, accordingly, they are losing their influence on mass consciousness, gradually being washed out of children's folklore. This is another feature of the oral children's repertoire of recent times.
Returning to analysis current state traditional genres of children's folklore, it should be noted that the existence of such genres remains almost unchanged in textual terms calendar folklore, as nicknames and sentences. As before, the most popular are appeals to the rain (“Rain, rain, stop…”), to the sun (“Sun, sun, look out the window…”), to ladybug and a snail. The half-belief traditional for these works is preserved, combined with a playful beginning. At the same time, the frequency of use of nicknames and sentences by modern children is decreasing, practically no new texts are appearing, which also allows us to talk about the regression of the genre.
Riddles and teases turned out to be more viable. Remaining still popular among children, they exist both in traditional forms (“I went underground, found a little red cap,” “Lenka-foam”), and in new variants and varieties (“In winter and summer in the same color” - Negro , dollar, soldier, menu in the canteen, nose of an alcoholic, etc.; “Yanka Lesbian”). Pseudo-erotic riddles are still popular, the peak of which was in the 80s of the 20th century. (“Why are you looking at me? Take off your clothes, I’m yours!” – the bed). Such an unusual type of genre as riddles with drawings is rapidly developing.
Folklore records of recent years contain a fairly large block of ditties. Gradually dying out in the adult repertoire, this type of oral folk art is quite readily picked up by children (this happened at one time with works of calendar folklore). Ditty texts heard from adults are usually not sung, but recited or chanted in communication with peers. Sometimes they “adapt” to the age of the performers, for example:
Girls offend me
They say that he is short in stature,
And I’m in Irinka’s kindergarten
Kissed me ten times.
Such historically established genres as pestushki, nursery rhymes, jokes, etc. almost completely disappear from oral use. Firmly recorded in textbooks, manuals and anthologies, they have now become part of book culture and are actively used by teachers, educators, and are included in programs as a source of folk wisdom, filtered over centuries, as a sure means of developing and raising a child. But modern parents and children use them very rarely in oral practice, and if they reproduce them, then as works familiar from books, and not passed on by word of mouth, which, as is known, is one of the main distinctive features folklore
Modern genres of children's folklore, which only relatively recently became the object of collection and study, are now at different stages of development.
Horror stories, whose popularity peaked in the 70-80s of the 20th century, in our opinion, are gradually moving into the “preservation stage”. Children still tell them, but practically no new stories appear, and the frequency of execution is also decreasing. Obviously, this is due to a change in life realities: during the Soviet period, when an almost total ban on official culture was superimposed on everything catastrophic and frightening, the need for the terrible was satisfied through this genre. Nowadays, there are many sources, in addition to horror stories, that satisfy this craving for the mysteriously frightening (from news broadcasts, various newspaper publications relishing the “scary”, to numerous horror films).
On the other hand, one of the main conditions for the prosperity of the genre is gradually being lost - the secrecy of its existence. From the hidden layer of children's subculture, horror stories are now becoming a subject of public domain. They are actively used modern writers(from E. Uspensky to L. Petrushevskaya), told on TV and radio, published in print. The relationship between parents and children is becoming more democratic, as they, no longer fearing misunderstanding, introduce adults to the previously forbidden area of their subculture. Even the word “horror story” itself is gaining extraordinary popularity in everyday speech - not as a definition of a genre, but as a designation of everything terrible and frightening (with a certain shade of condescending disdain).
In contrast to horror stories, the largely related, but significantly different genre of “sadistic rhymes” is experiencing an extraordinary flourishing. The “first generation” of performers of this genre grew up and became adults, with an increasing number of them reciting “poems about little boy" But, growing up, people (mostly young men) do not forget such works - and this is one of the distinctive features of the genre. At this stage, even numerous publications in newspapers, where sometimes even competitions of author’s and folklore “sadistic rhymes” are held, are unable to “kill” him. While maintaining the “classical” block of texts, sometimes going back to the work of Oleg Grigoriev (“I asked the electrician Petrov: “Why did you wrap the wire around your neck?” Petrov did not answer anything, he just quietly shook his hands with bots”), “sadistic poems” are actively replenished with new subjects , motifs and images. For example:
The boy stole his uncle's drill,
I spent a long time drilling an iron pipe.
A huge flame broke out immediately,
Five regions were left without gas.
Juliet's dad was arguing with the neighbors.
Dad won't be a grandfather for this.
Like other “living” varieties of folklore, this genre actively reacts to everything new, using the technique of “turning around” old schemes:
The children were playing pop music in the basement.
Aunt Alsou was brutally shot.
The reason for the popularity of the genre of “sadistic rhymes,” as it seems to us, is their comically reductive attitude towards everything terrible and frightening. Like horror stories, but in a completely different way, they, travestying the terrible, subjecting it to almost blasphemous ridicule, perform a kind of psychotherapeutic function, weakening the sacred fears of a child or teenager.
Children's jokes have recently also received official “registration” in the media, especially in the press. Along with specific “children’s” stories about Cheburashka and the crocodile Gena, about Kolobok, the Wolf and the Hare and other fairy-tale and literary characters, they actively absorb “adult” stories and images. Thus, back in 1997, there were no jokes about “new Russians” in children’s folklore, but today it contains a vast block of similar works:
“New Russian” says to his wife:
- Darling, did you want a mink for your birthday? I bought it for you, but you will have to clean up after it yourself.
Along with this, there are even more children’s jokes “about Vovochka,” for example:
- Vovochka, what will happen to your parents if they find out how you study?
- Mom’s heart will ache, and dad’s arms will ache.
Like other genres, the joke implements and plays on popular cinematic images:
Danila Bagrov, playing with a pistol:
- Tell me, man, what is the strength?
A man, shaking with fear:
- I think in money...
“So my brother says it’s about money.” And the force is in newtons!
Folklore adaptations and parodies are not yet so widely used by mass culture (although KVN performances, etc., are based on their principle, when a new text is invented based on a well-known motive, and a popular model of a poem or song is exploited for its own purposes). In turn, folklore adaptations - parodies generously use classical or popular works - from folk to pop.
Most often, the basis for the alteration becomes a textbook, usually familiar from childhood (for example, the fairy tale by K.I. Chukovsky “Fedorino Grief”), to which new content is introduced:
The pager bounces across the fields,
And the computer is in the meadows.
Behind the provider “Stinol”
I walked along the street.
Until now, the most popular adaptations are folklore versions of Pushkin’s “Lukomorye”, which appeared back in 1937, in the year of the 100th anniversary of the poet’s death (“At Lukomorye an oak tree was cut down...”). Poetic works are usually parodied, but there are also prosaic examples:
Fairy tale “The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats”
Once upon a time there was a goat, and she had seven kids. The goat left, he came gray wolf and began to sing in a thin voice: “Little goats, kids, open up, open up - your mother has come, brought milk. Milk flows down the scoop, from the scoop down the hoof, from the hoof into the cheese and into the ground.”
The kids opened the door and said: “Are you, wolf, crazy? What milk?! Our mother went to the store, we sent her to buy beer.”
Modern pop music continues to provide rich material for parodies, for example:
He rode away on a lawnmower
All that was left of the forest were stumps and sawdust
(based on the song by A. Apina “He drove away on the night train”).
The protest character inherent in many parodies, back in to a large extent characteristic of graffiti - a bright accessory youth subculture, which arose in antiquity, but is extremely popular at the present time. Graffiti - inscriptions and drawings on walls, fences, in school and student classrooms - have their own traditions, varieties and styles. They provide excellent material for studying the moods, interests and problems of young people, although they began to be studied by folklorists relatively recently. Nowadays, attempts are being made to “tame” this “wild” genre by allocating special places, organizing competitions and graffiti festivals.
Graffiti and girl's albums belong to a rare type of written folklore, while most works of folk art exist in oral form.
The girl's album, which flourished back in Pushkin's times, was modified over the years at least twice: from a notebook with poems, wishes and drawings around the second half of the 20th century. it is transformed into a “Songbook”, the main content of which consists of song lyrics, illustrated with clippings from magazines and even labels.
At the end of the 20th century. a new metamorphosis occurs: “Songbooks” turn into “Questionnaires”. Their communicative function sharply increases, and the album itself, under the guidance of the hostess, becomes the fruit of collective children's (mostly girls') creativity. Numerous questionnaires, fortune telling, horoscopes included in it are decorated with photographs of friends and artists, stickers, etc.
Another characteristic sign of the times is the production by enterprising printers of ready-made printed “Questionnaires” and “Albums” of various types and costs. Time will tell whether consumer goods will stifle this genre of folklore and amateur creativity.
One of the most popular and almost unexplored genres of children's folklore is “invocations”. Having an undoubted mythological nature, they firmly combine word and action, the combination of which should contribute to the appearance of one of the desired characters. Who do kids call today? The range of heroes is quite wide and varied. This is Baba Yaga (from a fairy tale), a brownie (from a fairy tale), a black spot (from a horror story), as well as gnomes, a “foul-mouthed king”, a “ruminant cow”, a drunken hedgehog, etc. It is necessary to carry out the ritual at night and in the absence of adults. Sometimes “invocations” are made for the sake of the “appearance” itself, the emotional shock that accompanies the action. Sometimes - in order to ask questions (then “invocations” are closest to girls’ fortune-telling and spiritualistic seances for adults). Sometimes those called are asked for something (for example, from a “ruminant cow” - chewing gum) (2).
The most popular “summoning” character and, at the same time, the most dangerous is the Queen of Spades. The origins of the image are in card fortune telling, in the story by A.S. Pushkin and the opera of P.I. Tchaikovsky. Almost the entire arsenal of magical paraphernalia is used in this ritual: a mirror, candles, drops of perfume, etc.
The most recent in terms of time of occurrence is the ritual of summoning (more precisely, even breeding) the little mermaid using a jar of water and a comb. In all likelihood, it originated as a response to the Disney cartoon.
So, having produced brief analysis the current state of traditional and relatively new genres of children's folklore, the following CONCLUSIONS can be drawn:
monitoring the modern folklore situation once again proves how dynamic and mobile children's folklore is: every year there are noticeable changes in it; Having monitored the situation over the past three to four years, it is already possible to identify certain patterns that are very symptomatic of the entire development of oral folk art as a whole;
as the genres of oral folk art die out in the oral repertoire, they gradually take root in fiction;
on the other hand, the “legalization” of folklore in popular culture, periodicals, etc. partly contributes to its washout from oral practice (the more ditties, anecdotes, “sadistic rhymes” are published, the more they are read... but the less they are told);
replenishment of the textual composition of historically established genres is due to the “modernization” of old texts, their “re-facing”;
the presence of this fact is a guarantee of the preservation of one or another “old” genre (riddles, counting rhymes, etc.);
in the emergence and development of relatively new types of children's folklore - prospects for the further existence of oral folk art.
Notes
The article was prepared based on materials from a folklore archive collected under the guidance of the author by students of the preschool department of the pedagogical faculty of Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University.
Recently, similar rituals have penetrated into student folklore: on the night before an exam, students catch “Freebies” with their record books.
References
To prepare this work, materials were used from the site http://www.yspu.yar.ru
Our guest was a folk singing teacher, head of the folklore studio “Nettle” at the interclub of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Katerina Karelina.
We talked about Russian folklore and the revival of interest in Russian traditional music.
A. Pichugin
– Hello, dear listeners, my name is Alexey Pichugin, I welcome you to the bright radio studio. Today, together with you and me, this hour, our “ Bright evening» will be conducted by Katerina Karelina, head of the folklore studio “Nettle” at the interclub of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, PFUR. Katerina is also a folk singing teacher at the Undiscovered Islands House of Creativity. Hello.
E. Karelina
- Hello.
A. Pichugin
- Well, now, look, we will talk, I think during the program, about Russian folklore and in general about what it is - the origins, why it is now a rather fashionable trend, recent years, it seems so to me, at least. Well, let's start with this. Nowadays there really is a love for folk art, for folk music, for traditional clothes is becoming more and more relevant. And some trends, festivals are constantly held, different groups emerge that perform in completely different halls and audiences. It seems to me that this is Russian folklore Now he has occupied his very good niche, large, quite extensive.
E. Karelina
- Yes, you are undoubtedly right. Because now it’s all being revived very well. And young people, it seems to me, that is, actually, really do a lot for this, because it becomes such a national interest, yes, to preserve their roots, preserve their traditions. And this is all done in all kinds of ways. That is, now, of course, as you noticed, there is a lot of clothing in this traditional style.
A. Pichugin
– Well, really a lot, you meet them all the time. Why, even I remember, a few years ago, walking around the city in an embroidered shirt, well, in jeans and an embroidered shirt.
E. Karelina
- Well, yes. Well, now there are even, as far as I know, such clothing lines, some designer ones, which are specially sewn and made in this ethnic, Russian folk style. And young people, it seems to me, are happy to buy such things now.
A. Pichugin
– Why is it only now, do you think, that interest has suddenly awakened there over the last five or six years? This was not the case before. Well, remember, 15 years ago, everyone would have laughed if they saw a girl in some kind of sundress, very folklore, but now it’s normal, it’s beautiful, it’s fashionable.
E. Karelina
- Well, firstly, it seems to me that this, of course, and the political situation influences, in principle, all over Russia throughout the world, that I want to somehow show, yes, that the Russian people are still great, and all the same it has a huge history with its own traditions and ways of life. And here it is, just the story, how to show it. This can be done, for example, through songs, through some things like this. Even through clothes, yes, to show that in our country nothing has been forgotten by anyone and in fact everything here is also very interesting, colorful, no worse than in other countries, yes. And folklore must somehow be preserved, multiplied, and then there will be some kind of peace on earth.
A. Pichugin
– How did you come to this yourself? As I understand it, if you head a studio at RUDN University, at the Peoples' Friendship University, then you probably studied or are studying there?
E. Karelina
A. Pichugin
E. Karelina
- Yes, it’s not so simple. I came when I was five years old, that is, I started studying... Well, no, I didn’t start studying vocals, I just happened to be in such a wonderful ethno-museum, so to speak, where I just fell in love with all this, with all the folklore , this originality, this sound was so specific then for me, the songs when women performed. That is, I realized that at five or six years old I somehow already felt that yes, this is mine, I need to do this.
A. Pichugin
– You already felt it when you were five years old?
E. Karelina
– You see, yes, I remember this feeling that I was simply shocked by what I heard and saw. And for me, this, it struck me so much that I wanted to do it. That is, at first, when I did not yet understand that there were some professions, like mine now, related to folklore, I thought that I would become some kind of archaeologist.
A. Pichugin
- ABOUT! Listen, I also dreamed of becoming an archaeologist. Well, I even go on archaeological expeditions.
E. Karelina
- Yes. That is, I really wanted to always do it at that time. I thought yes, this is mine. And then, when I began to get more and more familiar with this, I came to the so-called parties, which are always held, yes, by folklorists...
A. Pichugin
-What is this?
E. Karelina
- Evenings, that is...
A. Pichugin
– “Evening Moscow” newspaper, I know, it is also called “Evening Moscow”.
E. Karelina
– Of course, as you understand, they are held in the evening. And from time immemorial, parties used to be held, this is when, for example, in some hut, young people would gather, actually sing, dance, and play various traditional games. Actually, that’s why such parties were held - for dating, that is, where else. Now we can meet in clubs, like modern youth, somewhere else, in restaurants. And before, in one village, young people would unite like this to get acquainted, and then get married, and then a family would be formed.
A. Pichugin
- Well, yes, a lonely accordion wanders around on a bench in the evening.
E. Karelina
“The party had a very good influence on the lives of young people.
A. Pichugin
– So, getting back to the personal. Do you have a musical education?
E. Karelina
– Yes, that is, I am from Omsk myself, a Siberian. I graduated from school and institute there. Moved to Moscow.
A. Pichugin
– And all in some kind of music class?
E. Karelina
– Conductor of the folk choir.
A. Pichugin
- Yeah, I see.
E. Karelina
- Yes. And in fact, this is how my whole life began to be connected with this Russian folklore. And I fell in love with him, it turns out, like this for the rest of my life, I think. And in fact, I came to RUDN University quite by accident, on the advice that there was a so-called interclub there, where there were various...
A. Pichugin
- Well, as I understand it, the guys from different countries?
E. Karelina
- Of course, yes. The whole point is that I actually run such a folklore studio, on my initiative we somehow created it, which will be with just such a Russian folk bias, folklore. And everyone, that is, foreign guys, students, can calmly come to me, and we will teach them and get acquainted with this Russian culture of ours. And in RUDN University, it seems to me, this is very relevant, since different countries and different folklore are represented.
A. Pichugin
– Are they still represented? Because I had the impression - a number of my friends studied with me, some work at the Peoples' Friendship University - that this is its international component, it is slowly fading into the background, because there are a lot of Russian students. Well, it is slowly becoming such an ordinary Moscow large university.
E. Karelina
- Well, I think I don’t agree with you...
A. Pichugin
- No? Well, you know better from the inside, this is my external idea.
E. Karelina
– On the contrary, always foreigners, foreign students somehow they try to show and give them the opportunity to express themselves, there are various fraternities, yes, associations of guys from different countries, and somehow there is always support. And recently RUDN University went to Unesco, to Paris, we represented the university there. And actually in concert program The numbers of foreign students were mainly presented.
A. Pichugin
– Can we talk primarily about which countries your interstudios are in, which countries the guys are from? Or is it so truly everywhere that it’s difficult to isolate?
E. Karelina
– Precisely in “Krapiva”?
A. Pichugin
- In “Nettle”.
E. Karelina
– Well, mostly, of course, guys from Russia after all.
A. Pichugin
- Oh, yes? And you say interstudio.
E. Karelina
– Well, I’m talking about the interclub in general, there are also various studios where students from different countries go. But of course, still, probably, even before the advent of the folklore studio, my guys from Russia still lacked their own, so dear. When the studio opened, they gladly came to me - girls, boys - because, after all, yes, you can’t put yours anywhere, yes, in your soul you always want to sing so that your soul can unfold. But for the foreign guys, this is some kind of curiosity, so some kind of interest, curiosity comes: maybe it will work out, maybe it won’t work out.
A. Pichugin
– I want to see students from Guinea-Bissau who sing “Oh, it’s not evening.”
E. Karelina
- Well, this is interesting.
A. Pichugin
- For sure. Also in Russian folk costumes.
E. Karelina
- Yes, but there is also a studio and a dance room there, where Russians also dance folk dances. And everything looks very colorful, interesting and, of course, so funny, even at times.
A. Pichugin
– Did you create this studio yourself, “Nettle”? Or have you already arrived, did it exist?
E. Karelina
– No, on my initiative they created, that is, a folklore one. There are a lot of studios and different directions, but there was no such thing. And so the director supported me, the management supported me, and that’s how we somehow began our path.
A. Pichugin
- Let's continue after we listen to the song. What are we going to listen to now and whose is it?
E. Karelina
– Let’s listen to “Solstice” - a trio from the city of Yekaterinburg. “Wide Street” is a round dance song of the Bryansk region.
A. Pichugin
- So. Here, look at the geographical assortment at once: the trio “Solstice” from the Sverdlovsk region sing a Bryansk song. What is your relationship to them?
E. Karelina
“I just really like her.”
A. Pichugin
- Oh, well, let's listen then.
A. Pichugin
– Let me remind you, dear listeners, that our guest today is Katerina Karelina. Katerina runs the folklore studio “Nettle” at the interclub of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, RUDN University. And she is also a folk singing teacher at the “Undiscovered Islands” House of Creativity. Which interesting name: “Undiscovered islands” sounds beautiful.
E. Karelina
A. Pichugin
– Before the broadcast, you said that this House of Creativity is located in Mitino.
E. Karelina
- Yes, that's right.
A. Pichugin
– In general, now we have, I see, even some kind of renaissance of the Houses of Creativity, Houses of Culture. And for a long time there were none at all. I only remember from childhood, they took me to draw, English and something else in the House of Scientists. And now I look, a lot. It's for kids or not for kids.
E. Karelina
- Yes, of course, it is being reborn.
A. Pichugin
- What kind of kids are they?
E. Karelina
- Oh, mine?
A. Pichugin
- Yes, here in “Undiscovered Islands”.
E. Karelina
– I have a folklore studio “Grushitsa”.
A. Pichugin
- Is it called “Grushitsa”? Beautiful name.
E. Karelina
– Yes, and children who live nearby go there, since this is such a large area of Mitino. Now it is growing, and there are many new young families, new houses. And in fact, they somehow want to attract children to something so good and interesting so that they develop. And these are the “Islands”, that is, “Undiscovered Islands”, there are just four islands there. And they are located in different...
A. Pichugin
– Well, what is the difference in creativity between what you do at RUDN University and what you do at “Undiscovered Islands”? I understand that ages are completely different. How old do you say the kids from the “Islands” are?
E. Karelina
- There starting from three...
A. Pichugin
E. Karelina
– And ending at 12.
A. Pichugin
– Well, it’s clear that the repertoire is completely different.
E. Karelina
- Well, yes, there different groups, that is, different ensembles. And at RUDN there are students...
A. Pichugin
- It's clear.
E. Karelina
– Adults are already people. And actually, if in “Undiscovered Islands” I do such traditional vocals, that is, I give voice to children, I put on voices using traditional methods, we learn children’s repertoire, we sing, we perform at concert competitions, then at RUDN University I probably still have more in this regard, creativity, some kind of freedom. That is, the young students who come to me have probably never encountered such singing, and have not sung, and have not even studied vocals. Actually, here is such a field for creativity, for new ideas. And everyone comes to me like this - in fact, I am very grateful to all my students - very ideological, ready for some experiments.
A. Pichugin
- Are there many of them?
E. Karelina
– Well, now, I think that probably not such a large number.
A. Pichugin
– How long has the studio been in existence?
E. Karelina
A. Pichugin
- Year. I don’t even know if this is a lot or a little by the standards of a university studio?
E. Karelina
– Well, there are studios there that have existed for 45 years.
A. Pichugin
- Well, you see.
E. Karelina
- Yes, we are still young. And everyone, when they ask why we are “Nettle”, yes...
A. Pichugin
– Why “Nettle”, by the way?
E. Karelina
– We say that, firstly, youth is somehow associated with greenery, yes. That is, we are young, as green as nettles, one might say. Secondly...
A. Pichugin
– People are usually afraid of nettles.
E. Karelina
- Yes, and we always say that we are very fiery...
A. Pichugin
- Ambitious.
E. Karelina
– Yes, ambitious, bright, juicy, like greenery. And in fact, in all this, our character of such creativity is manifested - that is, we, like nettles, are ready to burn, but at the same time, they are useful nettles, you know, from them...
A. Pichugin
- Well, of course, I know, as a child my grandmother always made something from nettles.
E. Karelina
– And that’s why we are useful, we still bring, I don’t know, I believe, I think, in people, here at the Russian Peoples’ Friendship University for foreigners we bring this traditional Russian folk culture to the masses, we educate, we somehow tell...
A. Pichugin
– So you say, you have mostly Russian guys.
E. Karelina
- Yes, well, actually, we are with the Russians...
A. Pichugin
– Oh, and in this way you educate students from other countries who study at RUDN University.
E. Karelina
- Yes, the students are looking at us.
A. Pichugin
– How many people do you have in the studio?
E. Karelina
- Ten.
A. Pichugin
- Ten people. Are these all people who study at RUDN, or can anyone come to you from the street?
E. Karelina
- Well, actually, it’s not forbidden to come from the street, but...
A. Pichugin
- Well, maybe one of our listeners will want it, it will become interesting.
E. Karelina
- Yes, come, I know that you already want it.
A. Pichugin
- Yes, quite. I just got kicked out of 1st grade music school someday, maybe...
E. Karelina
- Great.
A. Pichugin
– Tell me, please, are there any recordings of your wards and you too, and what you do in “Nettle”?
E. Karelina
– There is a recording, yes, of the ensemble itself.
A. Pichugin
– Ensemble “Nettle”, actually. Can we listen to this?
E. Karelina
- We can.
A. Pichugin
- Here. And this fragment, I want to say, rocks, yes. Is this how you interpret folklore?
E. Karelina
– We somehow decided that we needed to move in this direction, to combine the incompatible.
A. Pichugin
– Why incompatible? It seems to me that many people successfully combine some folk things with modern ones. Well, as with modern ones, well, yes, with the same rhythm.
E. Karelina
– A DJ set, yes. Well, this is actually very relevant now. Well, just within the walls of, say, the RUDN University, yes, for some it’s so interesting, how is this even possible.
A. Pichugin
– Do you remember the group “Ivan Kupala”?
E. Karelina
- Well, it exists, yes. They also do a lot of these things.
A. Pichugin
– And there was a group called “Baba Yaga”, I remember, you probably remember too.
E. Karelina
A. Pichugin
– The Hungarian rock band and our Russian folk choir, which in general folk songs, but only in the rock and roll style it was all.
E. Karelina
– Well, you just understand, a student came from Africa, and then he heard, for example, this song of ours performed in this way, and of course, for him it’s something new and interesting. Maybe he once heard, even his parents told him there, and he was just interested in the fact that such Russian folklore exists...
A. Pichugin
– Well, it’s unlikely that he somewhere in distant Nigeria knew about this.
E. Karelina
– Perhaps, yes, I never listened. But in this way we introduced him to such a wonderful song, and at the same time he liked it, because there was such a beat.
A. Pichugin
– Have you ever thought about combining some musical component from, let’s say absolutely, Nigeria, with a Russian folk text?
E. Karelina
– Yes, we constantly have this kind of creative search, a lot of ideas and plans in this regard. Because it can be combined with drums and with different instruments. We are trying it all, it’s all in progress.
A. Pichugin
– And this is very cool, I think.
E. Karelina
- Very, yes, great.
A. Pichugin
– Do you have concerts?
E. Karelina
- Here we are planning. Since we are still young after all, we are only a year old, I think we have grown very well this year, this is how we found each other, first of all. Those students came who are now my kind...
A. Pichugin
- Students? Only girls?
E. Karelina
– No, there are some students, but they’re just mostly girls. And just like that, we somehow united and found each other. Got it. in what mood and generally in what direction to move. And now we will all little by little implement this and make some notes. It's not that fast, it's not that easy, but we're trying.
A. Pichugin
- So, what are we listening to?
E. Karelina
– Let’s listen to Vasilisa Veterok.
A. Pichugin
– What is this, who is Vasilisa?
E. Karelina
– This is a song again, which I really like, “Oh, you are my eagle.”
A. Pichugin
- OK. So, we will listen to the program today at Katerina’s request. Let me remind you that our guest today is Katerina Karelina, she runs the folklore studio “Nettle” at the interclub of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. Katerina is also a folk singing teacher at the Undiscovered Islands House of Creativity. I'm Alexey Pichugin. We listen to the song, take a short break, and a few minutes later we meet again in this studio. Don't go anywhere.
A. Pichugin
– We return to the light radio studio. Let me remind you that Ekaterina Karelina is here with you today. Ekaterina runs the folklore studio “Nettle” at the interclub of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, PFUR. And Ekaterina is also a folk singing teacher at the “Undiscovered Islands” House of Creativity. I continue to be touched by the name “Undiscovered Islands” - I really like it. Besides everything else, as far as I know, you also teach Sunday school.
E. Karelina
A. Pichugin
- That's how much it is. Moreover, in Sunday school, our regular listeners probably know this place: we have one of probably the most frequent guest priests of our “Bright Evening” program, Father Dmitry Kuvyrtalov, rector of the Church of the Archangel Michael in Letov. This is New Moscow along the Kaluga Highway not far from the Moscow Ring Road. There is a Sunday school there, which I didn’t know about or forgot about.
E. Karelina
– We have it, yes.
A. Pichugin
– Katerina teaches at this Sunday school. Please tell me. After all, as I understand it, your teaching in Sunday school is also connected with folklore.
E. Karelina
- Yes. But this is probably not even teaching anymore, it’s something like an amateur club, you can even call it, where children go, somehow even adults went, but then the adults have little time there, they have small children, and they don't have time. But for a year now, it turns out, this ensemble has existed. And now you will also be glad to have this name, because we are called “ kind soul».
A. Pichugin
- “Kind soul.” Well, “Kind Soul”... Here are “Undiscovered Islands”!
E. Karelina
- Well, no, in fact, it’s a very name that really, it seems to me, gives us such strength, unites us with the children. And we are really becoming so huge, big, real Russian kind soul. Actually, there, in this ensemble, I have children who come to church on Sunday for services. And after the service, we gather in the office and learn various Russian folk songs.
A. Pichugin
– Where do you perform with the children who are in Sunday school?
E. Karelina
– Directly in Sunday school, of course, we perform at various holidays and fairs. And so they performed at a festival dedicated to the Day Slavic writing, called " Slavic gift" We performed there, our first such performance was a serious one, a competition. And we are actually waiting for the results.
A. Pichugin
- Great. Well, let's listen to another musical fragment. What will it be?
E. Karelina
- It will be folklore ensemble“Between” is called “On the Blue Sea.”
A. Pichugin
– The fragment was heard, and I immediately have a question. Do you somehow, well, besides doing this in Moscow, go on some folklore expeditions to villages, communicate with representatives of this, in fact, direction that you represent?
E. Karelina
– You know, it seems to me that I would love to do this, but my schedule is such a work one, touring...
A. Pichugin
- Well, I understand very much, yes, judging by the three places...
E. Karelina
– It doesn’t allow me to somehow go to the village and communicate directly with the native speakers, but I would really like to. It's always interesting, of course. I did this a couple of times as a child. That is, we communicated, and even sang songs to us, and we recorded them. And they gave some of their old things. It was very interesting. And so I would love to do the same now, but somehow Moscow life, the Moscow rhythm does not allow me to break out into some village like that.
A. Pichugin
– And as far as I understand, you study the song traditions of different regions of Russia in general. And how does this happen without visiting the place, without communicating with, relatively speaking, grandmothers?
E. Karelina
– Well, let’s just say, I’ve probably already studied more. Now I’m not studying, now I’m already putting it into practice.
A. Pichugin
- It's clear. How did you study it? That's when we went, right? Which regions come first? The Omsk region is probably my homeland.
E. Karelina
- Well, of course. My favorite tradition is the Siberian tradition of the old-timers, which I actually studied during the time when I studied at the Omsk Music College. Even teachers who are well versed in this Siberian tradition, Olesya Gennadievna Sidorskaya, Yulia Aleksandrovna Parfenova and Victoria Yuryevna Bagrintseva, instilled it. And you know, Olesya Gennadievna once told me something that I remembered for the rest of my life and now, in fact, I understand it. That is, she told all of us, guys, that enjoy yourself now, that you are singing the Siberian tradition, enjoy this time. Because indeed the Siberian tradition is very rich and interesting; nowhere else they sing like they do in Siberia. And we sang mostly, yes, various such works, Siberian songs. Because after some time you will disperse to different cities, and perhaps you will do some kind of work there pedagogical activity, and you won’t sing Siberia like that anymore. And I realize this now, when I arrived in Moscow, when I teach children and students. Of course, I take some Siberian things with pleasure and quite often, but I still want to introduce them to different traditions, and there are such basic ones, there are seven of them by region, and therefore I want to take this song and that beautiful one and sing it. But Siberia still doesn’t have much to eat. I love Siberia very much, I always remember these traditions, this traditional singing.
A. Pichugin
– And besides Siberia... Well, I understand that in Siberia, of course, all this was better preserved. By the way, it’s not even entirely clear why it was preserved there, but here it’s not that they forgot, now we were listening to a fragment of a small group from the Tver region. As I understand it, the songs themselves also took shape there, and these are some kind of traditions going on, passed on from generation to generation in the villages of the Tver region, some part of it. But in Siberia it really is better preserved. What can you relate this to?
E. Karelina
- Oh, you know, it probably affects a lot of things. Firstly, and some various wars, when they were, they also had a great influence. There were a lot of immigrants, in fact, in Siberia it was preserved even more due to the fact that yes, after all, there were a lot of immigrants there - both Belarus and Ukraine influenced there, and from some other regions. That is, it all became so saturated, accumulated, that the tradition became so straightforward, well, already complex and fundamental. And it was very difficult to somehow lose it, destroy it. And... I don’t even know.
A. Pichugin
- Well, you see, it turns out interesting. I always give this example when it comes to folklore, you know the story of Ilya Muromets?
E. Karelina
A. Pichugin
– The fact that nowhere are these Russian epics, which we now perceive as rooted, which took place there huge amount- well, this, by the way, confirms the correctness of your words - they have lived through centuries, about Ilya Muromets, about Dobrynya Nikitich, about Alyosha Popovich, it would seem that they have reached us over thousands of years, even more from Medieval Rus'. But in fact, they were found for the first time in the 19th century in the Arkhangelsk province. Well, you probably know, I’m already telling my listeners this. In the Arkhangelsk province, but for some reason in others, in Kyiv, here in Russia, this, even in Murom this is all the revival and restoration of traditions, and no one there knew or remembered about Ilya Muromets . And for sure, yes, this is precisely because the difficult tragic events different centuries yes, that's it Tatar-Mongol invasion, which has already crowded out much of the people's memory. These are the wars of the time of Ivan the Terrible, and subsequent events. Yes, this affected Siberia to a much lesser extent. But in general, besides Siberia, do you somehow have to communicate, find, hear some folklore things from other regions? Well, we listened to the Tver region, but besides this?
E. Karelina
- Of course, yes. And directly I always listen to some different songs from different regions, I like it. There are very rich traditions - Central Russian traditions, and some southern, and Cossack traditions, that is, they are always to everyone’s liking. I really love it when I'm on tour somewhere. Just recently we went with “Nettle” to the city of Uryupinsk, where the Cossacks themselves, yes, were there, and got acquainted with their creativity, with their folklore. There was a wonderful ensemble there, “Ataman,” who performed their songs, and we even learned some of their songs. And it was all so interesting. And then, for example, I sang some of my Siberian songs. And this is so different, but still it is united by some kind of love for this Russian traditional song.
A. Pichugin
– So, “The Sea of Life”, as I understand it, is the “Sirin” ensemble, well known to us, generally well known in Russia. These are Nekrasov Cossacks, right?
E. Karelina
- Yes, the chant of the Nekrasov Cossacks.
A. Pichugin
- The chant of the Nekrasov Cossacks. Very interesting, it’s all Old Believer. Let's listen.
A. Pichugin
– Let me remind you that Katerina Karelina is visiting Radio Vera. Katerina runs the folklore studio “Nettle” at the interclub of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. And Katerina is also a folk singing teacher at the “Undiscovered Islands” House of Creativity. Listen, such a beautiful song just sounded, I sat there enjoying every second while it was playing. Ensemble "Sirin". I think that all our listeners, and indeed in Russia in general, he is so famous, Andrei Kotov is his founder. And the song “The Sea of Life,” this chant of the Nekrasov Cossacks, the Old Believers, sounded very beautiful just now. We also wanted to talk to you about the stereotypes that are now in society regarding folklore, folk traditions. At the beginning of the program, we talked about how fashionable it is, about the fact that now any girl in Moscow is already something like that, even moved into the category of hipster, forgive the hackneyed word. All these folk sundresses in the summer - linen, natural fabrics, it's all cool and healthy. But all the same, apparently, since the 90s, there remains some kind of urban snobbery in relation to folk art: they say, well, it’s the grandmothers in the village who sing, well, yes, I went to the dacha there as a child, they sing they sat and sang on the bench. Is there such a thing?
E. Karelina
- Eat. Without a doubt.
A. Pichugin
- But yes, Katerina is sitting, modern girl, which deals with folklore.
E. Karelina
- Yes. By the way, when I start singing or doing something like that, everyone is very surprised why I look like this, but I sing like this...
A. Pichugin
-Where is the kokoshnik?
E. Karelina
- Yes, yes! You just said about the most important, probably, stereotype in Russia and generally abroad, that if this is Russian folk art, Russian folk costume, then this is certainly a kokoshnik up to the ceiling.
A. Pichugin
- So I have a lot good friend, a former colleague with whom we hosted programs there many years ago on other radio stations. When she heard something like this, Russian folk, she said: Pichugin, I can just feel how my kokoshnik is sprouting.
E. Karelina
– Yes, yes, well, unfortunately, this is so. And it probably started from Soviet times only later, when such Russians appeared folk choirs, where girls, grandmothers, women put on a kokoshnik. And this is completely wrong. And even recently, in fact, I have an ensemble, when we perform, we put on suits and sometimes we put on scarves, and we tie them like this in the front. And one man somehow came up to us and said: why are we wearing scarves?
A. Pichugin
-Where is the kokoshnik?
E. Karelina
- Terrible! You look like old women, it doesn’t suit you! And they didn’t wear it like that at all. Did they wear headscarves before? Only worn by married women. And this is actually wrong and untrue.
A. Pichugin
-Who wore it?
E. Karelina
- Naturally, they were worn by women. But they wore the scarf in a completely different way. And actually, under the scarf, they could still have a headdress, the so-called magpies, warriors...
A. Pichugin
-What is this? Once you say it, please explain
E. Karelina
– The kind of hats that I could already afford to wear married woman. Under this warrior, for example, she tied two braids. Because when the girl was still unmarried, she was allowed to wear one braid with ribbons.
A. Pichugin
- Oh, that's what it is! I just opened the Internet. And the first thing, by the way, that the search engine gives is: warrior - buy. That is, it’s probably all still there.
E. Karelina
- Well, yes, of course, they produce and sew all this. But actually a married woman could wear a warrior. She had two braids on her head, she folded everything under this warrior, and then put on a scarf on top. And she tied it so that no hair or anything was visible. That is, it was immediately possible to distinguish that she was married. And young girls could put on a headscarf when, for example, they went to haymaking or worked in the fields. The sun is shining, of course, now we put on a cap, a panama hat, and so the girls put on a headscarf. And in the second case, when the girls put on a scarf, it was when, well, let’s say, the father brought a scarf from some other province, from another region, it was embroidered, interesting, but in our village there is no such thing. Why don’t I wear it to the party, when I go to show myself to my future grooms, the groom, I’ll be so beautiful in a scarf. It was actually a decoration even for a girl. And there should be no opinion that grandmothers only wore it.
A. Pichugin
– Well, I partly understand, I don’t share, but I understand the origins and roots of this snobbery that we are talking about. Because in the 90s it was quite vulgarized. All Moscow city holidays, city days, some other general public events, not one of them was complete without people there in colorful dresses, scarves, sundresses, all this is completely out of different styles, they did round dances and so on - wow, there’s something there, and the peasants with an accordion danced with the bear. Well, it really looked very vulgar, and that’s where, apparently, this attitude partially came from.
E. Karelina
- Well, yes. I'm already saying this, this Soviet era. And in fact, when some grandmothers or older women say that oh, young people don’t remember their roots, don’t remember our culture, and so on, sometimes I want to ask them like this, what about you? remember? For that matter, they remember the Soviet times, when they stood in these kokoshniks, these belted dresses, and sang all sorts of “Kalinka-Malinka.” It's not bad, it's...
A. Pichugin
- But no one remembers. In fact, I come to the conclusion that this is truly what it looks like even in the 18th century. Maybe now, of course, it is possible to reconstruct it, although I don’t know how or on what basis. I just remember the episode when Nicholas Roerich, who then, naturally, left, yes, his whole Eastern history began, and at the beginning of the 20th century he was very interested in this known fact, - Russian folk culture, and he traveled around the Ivanovo region - then, sorry, there was no Ivanovo region, he traveled through the Vladimir province. And he was looking for a traditional Russian costume for a very long time, because it was no longer available anywhere by that time, this is 1903, excuse me for a second. And they told him that there is one village that is located a little further, in the distance. There, in chests somewhere, according to rumors, local residents have preserved it. And he went to this village, the village was called Torki, but even there he found nothing. This is a very good indicator. Maybe it’s not like that in Siberia, I don’t know. But in the provinces surrounding Moscow, all this disappeared there already at the beginning of the 20th century. And what we see, again, yes, if we look for the origins of this snobbery, this is probably such a vulgar reconstruction, because we cannot imagine how it could be.
E. Karelina
- Well, perhaps I agree with you. But even the bearers of the tradition themselves, some grandmothers in the villages right there, firstly, they lived and lived, here they are, she embroidered a shirt for her wedding, then she wore it there for many years. Well, it’s like it’s just an ordinary shirt for her. And at the same time it is richly embroidered, richly made in general. And once they even told me such cases: expeditions arrived, yes, they entered the house, but such an embroidered shirt was lying with rags on the floor. And actually for grandma she doesn’t mean anything like that anymore.
A. Pichugin
- A rag is a rag.
E. Karelina
- Yes, it was a common thing for her, regular clothes. But now, yes, we give it this great value. And now there are very few places where you can find some such valuable things in the villages. Because at some point, even the same grandmothers realized that you can make good money on this, yes, why an extra penny... That is, ethnologists are looking for these clothes, for them it is very valuable. Once upon a time they simply gave it away as a gift, but then they started selling it. And now it costs so much money.
A. Pichugin
- Well, then, look, after all, in Soviet times they worked on collective farms, in villages, they wore clothes, well, obviously not some very popular clothes, but what could be found somewhere in the regional center. And we will be finishing our program, unfortunately, time is up. Very nice, Katerina Karelina, head of the folklore studio “Nettle” at the interclub of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, teacher of folklore singing at the House of Creativity “Undiscovered Islands”. Thank you very much for visiting us today.
E. Karelina
- Thank you.
A. Pichugin
- Let's listen to the song one last time. Which one?
E. Karelina
– We will listen to the Omsk ensemble, it’s called “Bereginya”. “You are a wormwood.” Performed, by the way, by my teachers.
A. Pichugin
- Well, that’s great. And with this we will complete our program. Thanks a lot. Katerina Karelina, I am Alexey Pichugin, we say goodbye to you. Best wishes. And be healthy.
Over time, folkloristics becomes an independent science, its structure is formed, and research methods are developed. Now folkloristics is a science that studies the patterns and features of the development of folklore, the character and nature, essence, themes of folk art, its specifics and common features with other types of art, features of the existence and functioning of oral literature texts at different stages of development; genre system and poetics.
According to the tasks specifically assigned to this science, folkloristics is divided into two branches:
History of folklore
Folklore theory
History of folklore is a branch of folkloristics that studies the process of emergence, development, existence, functioning, transformation (deformation) of genres and the genre system in different historical periods in different territories. The history of folklore studies individual folk poetic works, productive and unproductive periods of individual genres, as well as an integral genre-poetic system in synchronous (horizontal section of a separate historical period) and diachronic (vertical section of historical development) plans.
Folklore theory is a branch of folkloristics that studies the essence of oral folk art, the characteristics of individual folklore genres, their place in the holistic genre system, as well as the internal structure of genres - the laws of their construction, poetics.
Folkloristics is closely connected, borders and interacts with many other sciences.
Its connection with history is manifested in the fact that folklore, like all humanities, is historical discipline, i.e. examines all phenomena and objects of study in their movement - from the prerequisites for emergence and origin, tracing the formation, development, flourishing to withering away or decline. Moreover, here it is necessary not only to establish the fact of development, but also to explain it.
Folklore is a historical phenomenon, and therefore requires a staged study, taking into account historical factors, figures and events of each specific era. The objectives of the study of oral folk art are to identify how new historical conditions or their changes influence folklore, which exactly causes the emergence of new genres, as well as in identifying the problem of historical correspondence of folklore genres, comparison of texts with real events, historicism individual works. In addition, folklore itself can often be historical source.
There is a close connection between folklore with ethnography as a science that studies the early forms of material life (life) and social organization of the people. Ethnography is the source and basis for the study of folk art, especially when analyzing the development of individual folklore phenomena.
The main problems of folkloristics:
Question about the need to collect
· The question of the place and role of folklore in the creation of national literature
· The question of its historical essence
· The question of the role of folklore in knowledge folk character
Modern collecting of folklore materials poses a number of problems for researchers that have arisen in connection with the peculiarities ethnocultural situation the end of the twentieth century. In relation to regions, these problems the following:
Ø - authenticity collected regional material;
(i.e. the authenticity of the transmission, the authenticity of the sample and the idea of the work)
Ø - phenomenon contextuality folklore text or its absence;
(i.e. the presence/absence of a condition for the meaningful use of a particular linguistic unit in speech (written or oral), taking into account its linguistic environment and the situation of verbal communication.)
Ø - crisis variability;
Ø - modern "live" genres;
Ø - folklore in context modern culture and cultural policy;
Ø - problems publicationsmodern folklore.
Modern expeditionary work faces a major challenge authentication regional model, its occurrence and existence within the area being surveyed. Certification of performers does not bring any clarity to the issue of its origin.
Modern mass media technology, of course, dictates its tastes to folklore samples. Some of them are regularly played by popular performers, others do not sound at all. In this case, we will record the "popular" sample at the same time in large quantities places from performers of different ages. Most often, the source of the material is not indicated, because assimilation can occur through magnetic recording. Such “neutralized” options can only indicate adaptation of texts and fancy integration of options. This fact already exists. The question is not whether to recognize it or not, but how and why this or that material is selected and migrates regardless of the place of origin in some invariant. There is a risk of attributing to modern regional folklore something that in fact is not such.
Folklore how specific context has currently lost the qualities of a stable, living, dynamic structure. As a historical type of culture, it is experiencing a natural reincarnation within the developing collective and professional (author's, individual) forms of modern culture. There are still some stable fragments of context within it. On the territory of the Tambov region, these include Christmas caroling (“autumn clique”), the meeting of spring with larks, certain wedding rituals (buying and selling a bride), nurturing a child, proverbs, sayings, parables, oral stories, and anecdotes live in speech. These fragments of folklore context still allow us to judge quite accurately the past state and development trends.
Living genres Oral folk art in the strict sense of the word remains proverbs and sayings, ditties, songs of literary origin, urban romances, oral stories, children's folklore, anecdotes, and conspiracies. As a rule, there are short and succinct genres; the conspiracy is experiencing revival and legalization.
Encouraging availability paraphrase- figurative, metaphorical expressions that arise in speech on the basis of existing stable oral stereotypes. This is one of the examples of real reincarnations of tradition, its actualization. Another problem is aesthetic value such paraphrases. For example: a roof over your head (patronage of special persons); the tax inspector is not a dad; curly, but not a ram (a hint at a member of the government), just “curly.” From the middle generation we are more likely to hear variants of periphrases than variants of traditional genres and texts. Variants of traditional texts are quite rare in the Tambov region.
Oral folk art is the most specific poetic monument. It already exists as a grandiose recorded and published archive, folklore, again as a monument, as an aesthetic structure, “animated”, “comes to life” on stage in the broad sense of the word. A skillful cultural policy favors the preservation of the best poetic examples.
What is "folklore" for modern man? These are songs, fairy tales, proverbs, epics and other works of our ancestors, which were created and passed on from mouth to mouth once upon a time, and now remain in the form of beautiful books for children and the repertoire of ethnographic ensembles. Well, maybe somewhere unimaginably far from us, in remote villages, there are still some old women who still remember something. But this was only until civilization arrived there.
Modern people do not tell each other fairy tales or sing songs while they work. And if they compose something “for the soul,” then they immediately write it down.
Very little time will pass - and folklorists will have to study only what their predecessors managed to collect, or change their specialty...
Is this true? Yes and no.
From epic to ditty
Recently, in one of the LiveJournal discussions, a sad observation flashed school teacher, who discovered that the name Cheburashka meant nothing to his students. The teacher was prepared for the fact that the children were unfamiliar with either Tsar Saltan or the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. But Cheburashka?!
All of educated Europe experienced approximately the same feelings about two hundred years ago. What had been passed down from generation to generation for centuries, what seemed to be dissolved in the air and what seemed impossible not to know, suddenly began to be forgotten, crumble, disappear into the sand.
Suddenly it was discovered that everywhere (and especially in the cities) a new generation had grown up, to whom the ancient oral culture was known only in meaningless fragments or was unknown at all.
The response to this was an explosion of collecting and publishing examples of folk art.
In the 1810s, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm began publishing collections of German folk tales. In 1835, Elias Lenroth published the first edition of “Kalevala,” which shocked the cultural world: it turns out that in the most remote corner of Europe, among a small people who never had their own statehood, there still exists a heroic epic comparable in volume and complexity of structure to ancient Greek myths! The collection of folklore (as the English scientist William Toms called the entire body of folk “knowledge” existing exclusively in oral form in 1846) grew throughout Europe. And at the same time, the feeling grew: folklore is disappearing, its speakers are dying out, and in many areas nothing can be found. (For example, not one of the Russian epics has ever been recorded where their action takes place, or indeed in the historical “core” of Russian lands. All known recordings were made in the North, in the lower Volga region, on the Don, in Siberia, etc. e. in the territories of Russian colonization of different times.) You need to hurry, you need to have time to write down as much as possible.
In the course of this hasty collection, more and more often something strange was found in the records of folklorists. For example, short chants, unlike anything that was previously sung in the villages.
Precise rhymes and the correct alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables made these couplets (the folk performers themselves called them “ditties”) related to urban poetry, but the content of the texts did not reveal any connection with any printed sources. There was serious debate among folklorists: should ditties be considered folklore in the full sense of the word, or is it a product of the decomposition of folk art under the influence of professional culture?
Oddly enough, it was this discussion that forced the then-young folklore studies to take a closer look at the new forms of folk literature emerging right before our eyes.
It quickly became clear that not only in villages (traditionally considered the main place of folklore), but also in cities, a lot of things arise and circulate that, by all indications, should be attributed specifically to folklore.
A caveat must be made here. In fact, the concept of “folklore” refers not only to verbal works(texts), but in general to all phenomena folk culture transmitted directly from person to person. A traditional, centuries-old embroidery pattern on a towel in a Russian village or the choreography of a ritual dance African tribe– this is also folklore. However, partly for objective reasons, partly due to the fact that texts are easier and more complete to record and study, they became the main object of folkloristics from the very beginning of the existence of this science. Although scientists are well aware that for any folklore work, the features and circumstances of performance are no less (and sometimes more) important. For example, a joke necessarily includes a telling procedure - for which it is absolutely necessary that at least some of those present do not already know this joke. A joke known to everyone in a given community is simply not performed in it - and therefore does not “live”: after all folklore work exists only during execution.
But let's return to modern folklore. As soon as researchers took a closer look at the material, which they (and often its bearers and even creators themselves) considered “frivolous”, devoid of any value, it turned out that
“new folklore” lives everywhere and everywhere.
A ditty and a romance, an anecdote and a legend, a rite and a ritual, and much more for which there were no suitable names in folklore. In the 20s of the last century, all this became the subject of qualified research and publications. However, already in the next decade, a serious study of modern folklore turned out to be impossible: real folk art categorically did not fit into the image of “Soviet society.” True, a certain number of folklore texts themselves, carefully selected and combed, were published from time to time. (For example, in the popular magazine “Crocodile” there was a column “Just an Anecdote”, where topical jokes were often found - naturally, the most harmless ones, but their effect was often transferred “abroad” just in case.) But research modern folklore actually resumed only at the end of the 1980s and especially intensified in the 1990s. According to one of the leaders of this work, Professor Sergei Neklyudov (the largest Russian folklorist, head of the Center for Semiotics and Typology of Folklore of the Russian State University for the Humanities), this happened largely according to the principle “if there was no luck, but misfortune helped”: without funds for normal collecting and research expeditions and student practices, Russian folklorists transferred their efforts to what was nearby.
Omnipresent and many-sided
The collected material was primarily striking in its abundance and variety. Each one, even the most small group people, barely realizing their commonality and difference from all others, immediately acquired their own folklore. Researchers were already aware of the folklore of individual subcultures: prison, soldier, and student songs. But it turned out that their own folklore exists among climbers and parachutists, environmental activists and adherents of non-traditional cults, hippies and “goths”, patients of a particular hospital (sometimes even a department) and regulars of a particular pub, kindergarteners and students junior classes. In a number of these communities, the personal composition changed rapidly - patients were admitted and discharged from the hospital, children entered and graduated from kindergarten - and folklore texts continued to circulate in these groups for decades.
But even more unexpected was the genre diversity of modern folklore
(or “post-folklore,” as Professor Neklyudov suggested calling this phenomenon). The new folklore took almost nothing from the genres of classical folklore, and what it took, it changed beyond recognition. “Almost all the old oral genres are becoming a thing of the past - from ritual lyrics to fairy tales,” writes Sergei Neklyudov. But more and more space is occupied not only by relatively young forms (“street” songs, jokes), but also by texts that are generally difficult to attribute to any specific genre: fantastic “historical and local history essays” (about the origin of the name of the city or its parts, about geophysical and mystical anomalies, about celebrities who visited it, etc.), stories about incredible incidents (“one medical student bet that he would spend the night in the dead room ...”), legal incidents, etc. Into the concept of folklore I had to include both rumors and unofficial toponymy (“we’ll meet at the Head” - that is, at the bust of Nogin at the Kitay-Gorod station). Finally, there is a whole series of “medical” recommendations that live according to the laws of folklore texts: how to simulate certain symptoms, how to lose weight, how to protect yourself from conception... At a time when it was customary for alcoholics to be sent for compulsory treatment, the technique was popular among them “stitching” - what needs to be done to neutralize or at least weaken the effect of the “torpedo” implanted under the skin (capsules with Antabuse). This rather sophisticated physiological technique was successfully transmitted orally from old-timers of “labor treatment centers” to newcomers, i.e., it was a phenomenon of folklore.
Sometimes, right before our eyes, new signs and beliefs are formed - including in the most advanced and educated groups of society.
Who hasn’t heard about cacti that supposedly “absorb harmful radiation” from computer monitors? It is not known when and where this belief arose, but in any case, it could not have appeared before the widespread use of personal computers. And it continues to develop before our eyes: “not every cactus absorbs radiation, but only those with star-shaped needles.”
However, sometimes in modern society It is also possible to discover well-known phenomena - however, transformed so much that in order to see their folklore nature, special efforts are needed. Moscow researcher Ekaterina Belousova, having analyzed the practice of treating women in labor in Russian maternity hospitals, came to the conclusion: the notorious rudeness and authoritarianism of the medical staff (as well as many restrictions for patients and the obsessive fear of “infection”) is nothing more than modern form birth rite - one of the most important “rites of passage” described by ethnographers in many traditional societies.
Word of mouth over the Internet
But if in one of the most modern social institutions Under a thin layer of professional knowledge and everyday habits, ancient archetypes are suddenly revealed, is it really so fundamentally different between modern folklore and classical folklore? Yes, the forms have changed, the set of genres has changed - but this has happened before. For example, at some point (presumably in the 16th century) new epics stopped being composed in Russia - although those already composed continued to live in the oral tradition until the end of the 19th and even until the 20th century - and they were replaced by historical songs. But the essence of folk art remained the same.
However, according to Professor Neklyudov, the differences between post-folklore and classical folklore are much deeper. Firstly, the main organizing core, the calendar, fell out of it. For a rural dweller, the change of seasons dictates the rhythm and content of his entire life, for a city dweller - perhaps only the choice of clothing. Accordingly, folklore is “detached” from the season – and at the same time from the corresponding rituals, and becomes optional.
Secondly,
In addition to the structure of folklore itself, the structure of its distribution in society has changed.
The concept of “national folklore” is to some extent a fiction: folklore has always been local and dialectal, and local differences were important for its speakers (“but we don’t sing like that!”). However, if previously this locality was literal, geographical, now it has become rather socio-cultural: neighbors on the landing can be carriers of completely different folklore. They don’t understand each other’s jokes, they can’t sing along to a song... Independent performance of any songs in a company is becoming a rarity today: if a few decades ago the definition of “popularly known” referred to songs that everyone can sing along, now - to songs that everyone has heard at least once.
But perhaps the most important thing is the marginalization of the place of folklore in human life.
All the most important things in life - worldview, social skills, and specific knowledge - a modern city dweller, unlike his not-so-distant ancestor, does not receive through folklore. Another important function of human identification and self-identification has almost been removed from folklore. Folklore has always been a means of claiming membership in a particular culture—and a means of testing that claim (“ours is the one who sings our songs”). Today, folklore plays this role either in marginal subcultures that are often opposed to the “big” society (for example, criminal ones), or in very fragmentary ways. For example, if a person is interested in tourism, then he can confirm his belonging to the tourist community by knowing and performing the corresponding folklore. But in addition to being a tourist, he is also an engineer, an Orthodox Christian, a parent - and he will manifest all these incarnations of himself in completely different ways.
But, as Sergei Neklyudov notes,
A person also cannot do without folklore.
Perhaps the most striking and paradoxical confirmation of these words was the emergence and rapid development of the so-called “network folklore” or “Internet lore”.
In itself, this sounds like an oxymoron: the most important and universal feature of all folklore phenomena is their existence in oral form, while all online texts are, by definition, written. However, as Anna Kostina, deputy director of the State Republican Center of Russian Folklore, notes, many of them have all the main features of folklore texts: anonymity and collectivity of authorship, polyvariance, traditionality. Moreover: online texts clearly strive to “overcome the written word” - due to the widespread use of emoticons (which allow at least to indicate intonation), and the popularity of “padon” (intentionally incorrect) spelling. At the same time, computer networks, which make it possible to instantly copy and forward texts of significant size, offer a chance for a revival of large-scale narrative forms. Of course, it is unlikely that something similar to Kyrgyz will ever be born on the Internet heroic epic"Manas" with its 200 thousand lines. But funny nameless texts (like the famous “radio conversations of an American aircraft carrier with a Spanish lighthouse”) are already widely circulating on the Internet - absolutely folklore in spirit and poetics, but unable to live in a purely oral transmission.
It seems that in the information society, folklore can not only lose a lot, but also gain something.