(English folklore - folk wisdom) is a designation for the artistic activity of the masses, or oral folk art, which arose in the pre-literate period. This term was first introduced into scientific use by the English archaeologist W. J. Toms in 1846 and was broadly understood as the totality of the spiritual and material culture of the people, their customs, beliefs, rituals, various forms arts Over time, the content of the term narrowed. There are several points of view that interpret folklore as folk artistic culture, as oral poetic creativity and as a set of verbal, musical, game types folk art. With all the diversity of regional and local forms, folklore has common features, such as anonymity, collective creativity, traditionalism, close connection with work, everyday life, and the transmission of works from generation to generation by means of natural memory. Collective life determined the appearance among different peoples of the same type of genres, plots, such means of artistic expression as hyperbola, parallelism, various types of repetitions, constant and complex epithet, and comparisons. The role of folklore was especially strong during the period of predominance of mythopoetic consciousness. With the advent of writing, many types of folklore developed in parallel with fiction, interacting with it, influencing it and other forms of artistic creativity and experiencing the opposite effect.
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FOLKLORE
English folklore - folk knowledge, folk wisdom), folk poetry, folk poetry, oral folk art - a set of different types and forms of mass oral arts. creativity of one or several. peoples The term "F." introduced in 1846 archaeologist W. J. Toms, as a scientist. the term is officially adopted by English. folklore society "Folklore Society", main. in 1878. Originally "F." meant both the subject of research and the corresponding science. In modern historiography is a science that studies the theory and history of f. and its interaction with other types of art, called. folkloristics. The definition of F. cannot be unambiguous for all historians. stages, because its social and aesthetic. functions, content and poetics are directly dependent on the presence or absence in the cultural system of a given people of its other forms and types (handwritten or printed book, professional theater and stage, etc.) and in a variety of ways dissemination of literary arts. works (cinema, radio, television, sound recordings, etc.). F. arose in the process of the formation of human speech and in ancient times covered all forms of spiritual culture. It is characterized by comprehensive syncretism - functional and ideological. (F. contained the rudiments of artistic creativity, historical knowledge, science, religion, etc.), social (F. served all layers of society), genre (epic, fairy tale, legend, myth, song, etc. not yet differentiated), formal (the word appeared in inextricable unity with the so-called extra-textual elements - intonation, melody, gesture, facial expressions, dance, sometimes figurative art). Subsequently, in the process of social differentiation of society and the development of culture, various types and forms of f. arose, expressing the interests of the department. social strata and classes, folklore genres were formed that had various social and everyday purposes (production, social-organizing, ritual, gaming, aesthetic, cognitive). They were characterized by varying degrees of aesthetic development. beginning, various combinations of text and extra-textual elements, aesthetic. and other functions. In general, F. continued to remain multifunctional and syncretic. The use of writing to record text distinguished literature from the oral forms of literary arts that preceded it. creativity. From the moment of their inception, writing and literature turned out to be the property of the highest social strata. At the same time, literature at first, as a rule, was not yet a phenomenon. artistic (for example, chronicles and annals, diplomatic and journalistic works, ritual texts, etc.). In this regard, the actual aesthetic. The needs of society as a whole were satisfied for a long time mainly by oral tradition. The development of literature and growing social differentiation led to the fact that already in the late feudal period. F.'s period became predominant. (and among many nations exclusively) the property of the working people. the masses, because literary forms of creativity remained inaccessible to them. Social differences in the environment that created literary and folklore works led to the emergence of a definition. range of ideas and various arts. tastes. This was accompanied by the development of specific systems of literary (story, novel, poem, poem, etc.) and folklore (epic, fairy tale, song, etc.) genres and their poetics. The transition from oral forms of creation and transmission of art. works that are characterized by the use of natural elements. means of communication (voice - hearing, movement - vision), to fixing and stabilizing the text and reading it meant not only a more advanced way of accumulating and preserving cultural achievements. He was accompanied and determined. losses: a spatial and temporal gap in the moment of creation (reproduction) of art. the work and its perception, the loss of the immediate. contact between its creator (writer) and the perceiver (reader), loss of extra-textual elements, contact empathy and the possibility of making textual and other changes depending on the reaction of the perceivers. The significance of these losses is confirmed by the fact that even in conditions of universal literacy, not only traditional folklore, but also other oral and at the same time synthetic ones continue to exist and re-emerge. forms, and some of them are of a contact nature (theater, stage, readers, performances of writers in front of an audience, performance of poetry with a guitar, etc.). Characteristic features of f. in the conditions of its coexistence with literature and in opposition to it: orality, collectivity, nationality, variability, combination of words and arts. elements of other arts. Each work arose on the basis of poetics developed by the team, was intended for a certain circle of listeners and acquired its origins. life, if it was accepted by the team. Changes made by the department. performers could be very different - from stylistic. variations until a significant reworking of the plan and, as a rule, did not go beyond the boundaries of the ideology and aesthetics of the definition. environment. Collectiveness creative. process in F. did not mean its impersonality. Talented masters not only created new songs, fairy tales, etc., but also influenced the process of dissemination, improvement or adaptation of traditions. texts to the historically changed needs of the collective. Dialectical the unity of the collective and the individual was contradictory in f., as in literature, but in general tradition in f. was of greater importance than in literature. In social conditions. division of labor on the basis of oral tradition, in parallel with mass and unprofessional performance, which is characteristic of the arts of all peoples, unique professions arose associated with the creation and performance of poetic, musical and other works (Ancient Greek rhapsodes and aedas; Roman mimes and French jonglers; later Russian kobzars and chansons; In the early feud. period, performers who served the dominant social strata emerged. A transitional type of singer-poet arose, closely associated first with chivalry (French troubadours or German minnesingers), later with burghers (German troubadours). Meistersingers) or the clerical-student environment (French or German Vagants; Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian Vertepniks). In some countries and regions, in conditions of slow development, patriarchal-feudalism. way of life, transitional forms of a unique oral literature were formed. Poetic works were created specifically. persons, disseminated orally, there was a desire to stabilize their texts. At the same time, the tradition has preserved the names of the creators (Toktogul in Kyrgyzstan, Kemin and Mollanepes in Turkmenistan, Sayat-Nova in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, etc.). In Russian F. there was no developed professionalization of singers. We can only talk about the department. names mentioned in the writing of Ancient Rus' (singer Mitus; possibly Boyan). Each genre or group of folk genres fulfilled a specific purpose. social and household functions. This led to the formation of the department. genres of F. with their characteristic themes, images, poetics, and style. In the ancient period, most peoples had tribal traditions, work and ritual songs, mythological. stories, early forms of fairy tales, spells, incantations. Later, at the turn of the transition from pre-class society to class society, modern societies arose. types of fairy tales (magical, everyday, about animals) and archaic. epic forms. During the formation of the state, heroic epic, then epic. ballad and historical songs content, history legends. Later other classical genres. F. formed non-ritual lyrical. song and romance, later types of folklore. drama and even later - the genres of worker F. - revolutionary. songs, marches, satire. songs, oral stories. The process of emergence, development of department. genres of f., especially the duration of their productive period, the relationship of f. with literature and other types of professional arts. creativity are determined by the characteristics of history. the development of each people and the nature of its contacts with other peoples. Thus, tribal traditions were forgotten among some peoples (for example, among the Eastern Slavs) and formed the basis of history. legends from others (for example, Icelandic sagas from Icelanders). Ritual songs, as a rule, were timed to different periods of the agricultural, pastoral, hunting or fishing calendar, and entered into various relationships with the rituals of the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and other religions. The degree of connection between the epic and mythological ideas are determined by specific socio-economic. conditions. An example of this kind of connection is the Nart tales of the peoples of the Caucasus, Karelo-Fin. runes, ancient Greek epic Germanic languages left oral existence relatively early. and Western Roman epic. The epic of the Turkic peoples existed for a long time and acquired later forms. and east Slavs There are different genre versions of African, Australian, Asian and European fairy tales. peoples The ballad among some peoples (for example, the Scots) acquired clear genre differences, while for others (for example, the Russians) it is close to lyrical. or ist. song. The poetry of each people is characterized by a unique combination of genres and a specific role of each of them in the general system of oral creativity, which has always been multi-layered and heterogeneous. Despite the bright national coloring of folklore texts, many motifs, plots and even images of characters in F. different nations strikingly similar. Such similarities could arise as a result of the development of f. from a common source (common archaic features of f. the Slavs or Finno-Ugric peoples, which go back to the common Proto-Slavic or Proto-Finnish heritage), or as a result of the cultural interaction of peoples (for example, the exchange of fairy tale plots Russians and Karelians), or the independent emergence of similar phenomena (for example, common plots of fairy tales of American Indians and peoples of Central Europe) under the influence of general patterns of development social order , material and spiritual culture. In the late feudal period. time and during the period of capitalism in the people. lit. began to penetrate the environment more actively than before. works; some forms of lit. creativity acquired mass distribution (romances and songs of literary origin, so-called folk books, Russian “lubok”, German “Bilderbogen”, etc.). This influenced the plot, style, and content of folklore works. People's creativity storytellers acquired certain features of lit. creativity (individualization, psychologism, etc.). In socialist In society, the availability of education has provided an equal opportunity for the development of talents and professionalization of people, and a variety of modern technologies have become widespread. forms of mass literary arts. culture - amateur lit. creativity (including partly in traditional folklore forms), amateur club performances, folk song creativity. choirs, etc. Some of these forms are creative, others are performing in nature. Design of folkloristics in independent work. science dates back to the 30-40s. 19th century The formation of folkloristics and the beginning of scientific research. collecting and publishing F. was associated with three main. factors: lit. romanticism, which was one of the forms of expression of the self-awareness of the emerging bourgeoisie. nations (for example, in Germany, France, Italy), national liberation. movement (for example, among the southern and western Slavs) and the spread of social liberation. and educational ideas (for example, in Russia - A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov; in Poland - A. Mitskevich, etc.). Romantics (German scientists I. G. Herder, L. Arnim and C. Brentano, brothers W. and J. Grimm, etc.; English - T. Percy and J. Macpherson, etc.; Serbian - V. Karadzic and others; Finnish - E. Lenrot and others) saw in F. an expression of nationalism. spirit and national traditions and used folklore works to reconstruct history. facts not reflected in written sources. Emerging within the framework of romanticism, the so-called. mythological school (German scientists A. Kuhn, W. Schwarz, W. Manhardt and others; English - M. Muller, J. W. Cox and others; French - A. Pictet and others; Italian - A . de Gubernatis and others; Russian - F. I. Buslaev, A. N. Afanasyev, etc.), based on the achievements of Indo-European. linguistics, believed F. European. peoples the heritage of the most ancient Proto-Indo-European. myth-making. Romantics in glory. countries saw F. as a general glory. inheritance, preserved to varying degrees by different branches of the Slavs, just like the Germans. Romantics saw modernism in F. German-speaking peoples share the common heritage of the ancient Germans. In the 2nd half. 19th century based on philosophy. positivism, evolutionary schools developed in folklore studies, which is associated with the growing awareness of the unity of the laws of development of F. and the recurrence of folklore plots and motifs in different ethnicities. environments So representatives of the so-called. anthropologist schools (E. Tylor, E. Lang and J. Fraser - in England; N. Sumtsov, A. I. Kirpichnikov, A. N. Veselovsky - in Russia, etc.) explained the global recurrence of folklore phenomena by the unity of people. psychology. At the same time, the so-called comparativism (comparative historical method), which explained similar phenomena more or less mechanically. borrowing or “migration of plots” (German - T. Benfey, French - G. Paris, Czech - J. Polivka, Russian - V.V. Stasov, A.N. Pypin, A.N. Veselovsky, etc. .), and the “historical school” (the most vivid expression in Russia - V. F. Miller and his students; K. and M. Chadwick in England, etc.), which sought to connect the history of each people with its history and did great job by comparison of sources documents and folklore stories (especially epic ones). At the same time, the “historical school” was characterized by a simplified understanding of the mechanism of art. reflection of reality in F. and (like certain other trends in bourgeois folklore studies of the late 19th - early 20th centuries) the desire to prove that people. the masses only mechanically perceived and preserved the arts. values created by the upper social strata. In the 20th century Freudianism (interpreting folklore stories as a subconscious expression of inhibited sexual and other complexes), ritualistic. theory (linking the origin of verbal art primarily with magical rites; French scientists P. Centiv, J. Dumezil, English - F. Raglan, Dutch - J. de Vries, American - R. Carpenter, etc.) and "Finnish school", establishing historical and geographical. areas of distribution of plots and developing the principles of classification and systematization of F. (K. Kroon, A. Aarne, W. Anderson, etc.). The origin of the Marxist trend in folklore studies is associated with the names of P. Lafargue, G. V. Plekhanov, A. M. Gorky. In the 20-30s. 20th century The formation of Marxist folklore studies continued in the USSR, after the 2nd World War of 1939-45 it became widespread in socialism. countries (B. M. and Yu. M. Sokolov, M. K. Azadovsky, V. M. Zhirmunsky, V. Ya. Propp, P. G. Bogatyrev, N. P. Andreev, etc. - in the USSR; P Dinekov, C. Romanska, S. Stoykova and others - in Bulgaria; M. Pop and others - in Romania; D. Ortutai and others - in Hungary; , J. Ex, O. Sirovatka, V. Gasparikova and others - in Czechoslovakia; V. Steinitz and others - in the GDR). She considers f., on the one hand, as the oldest form of poetic poetry. creativity, a treasury of arts. people's experience masses, as one of the components of the classic. heritage of the national arts culture of each people and, on the other hand, as the most valuable source. source. When studying the most ancient eras of human history, philosophy is often (together with archeology) an indispensable source of history. source, especially for studying history. development of ideology and social psychology of people. wt. The complexity of the problem lies in the fact that archaic. folklore works are known, as a rule, only in records of the 18th-20th centuries. or in earlier lit. processing (for example, German "Song of the Nibelungs"), or archaic. elements included in later aesthetics. systems. Therefore, the use of F. for history. reconstructions require great care and, above all, the involvement of comparisons. materials. The features of reflecting reality in various genres F., combining aesthetic, cognitive, ritual and other functions in different ways. Experience in studying genres that were perceived by performers as an expression of history. knowledge (prosaic historical traditions and legends, song historical epic), showed the complexity of the relationship between plots, characters, time, to which their actions are attributed, epic. geography, etc. and authentic history. events, their real chronological, social and geographical. environment. Development of artistic history the thinking of the people did not come from empiricism. and a specific depiction of events to their poeticization and generalization or legendary-fantastic. processing as events are forgotten, but vice versa - from the so-called. mythological epic, which is a fantastic reflection of reality in mythological categories (for example, the successes of mankind in mastering fire, crafts, navigation, etc. are personified in F. in the image of a “cultural hero” of the Promethean type), to heroic. epic and, finally, to history. songs, in which much more specific history is drawn. situations, events and persons, or history. ballads, in which nameless heroes or heroes with fictitious names act in a situation close to real-historical ones. In the department the same stories of history. legends or epic. songs are reflected largely non-empirically. ist. facts, but typical socialist. collisions, history state of politics and arts. consciousness of the people and folklore traditions of previous centuries, through the prism of which history is perceived. reality. At the same time, as in the historical legends, and in historical-epic songs. works often preserved the most valuable historical data. points of view details, names, geographical. names, everyday realities, etc. So, G. Schliemann found the location of Troy, using data from ancient Greek. epic songs "Iliad" and "Odyssey", although he did not accurately determine the location of the "Homeric" layer in the cultural layers of the Trojan excavations. The mechanism of reflection of the source is even more complex. in reality in vernacular fairy tales, lyrical and everyday songs. Songs of a ritual nature, conspiracies, etc., to a greater extent, reflect non-history. reality as such, and the everyday consciousness of the people themselves are facts of the people. everyday life That. F. as a whole did not passively reproduce the empirical. socio-economic facts and political reality or everyday life, but was one of the most important means of expressing people. aspirations. Great value also has F. to clarify the history of ethnicity. contacts, the process of formation of ethnographic. groups and historical-ethnographic. regions. Lit.: Chicherov V.I., K. Marx and F. Engels on folklore. Bibliographical materials, "Soviet folklore", 1936, No. 4-5; Bonch-Bruevich V.D., V.I. Lenin on oral folk art, "Soviet ethnography", 1954, No. 4; Friedlander G.M., K. Marx and F. Engels and questions of literature, 2nd ed., M., 1968 (chapter folklore); Propp V. Ya., Specifics of folklore, in the collection: "Proceedings of the anniversary scientific session of Leningrad State University. Section of Philological Sciences, L., 1946; his, Historical roots of a fairy tale, L., 1946; his, Folklore and reality, "Russian Literature", 1963, No. 3; principles of classification of folklore genres, "Sov. ethnography", 1964, No. 4; his own, Morphology of a fairy tale, 2nd ed., M., 1969; Zhirmunsky V.M., On the issue of folk art, "Uch. zap. Leningr. ped. Institute named after A. I. Herzen", 1948, t. 67; his, Narodny heroic epic, M.-L., 1962; Gusev V. E., Marxism and Russian. folkloristics of the late XIX - early. XX century, M.-L., 1951; his, Problems of folklore in the history of aesthetics, M.-L., 1963; his, Folklore. History of the term and its modernity. meaning, "Soviet ethnography," 1966, No. 2; by him, Aesthetics of Folklore, Leningrad, 1967; Putilov B.N., On the main features of people. poetic creativity, "Scholarship of the Grozny Pedagogical Institute. Ser. Philological Sciences", V. 7, 1952, No. 4; him, About the historical. studying Russian folklore, in the book: Rus. folklore, c. 5, M.-L., 1960; Cocchiara J., History of folkloristics in Europe, trans. from Italian, M., 1960; Virsaladze E. B., The problem of the specificity of folklore in modern times. bourgeois folklore, in the book: Literary Research of the Institute of History. cargo. lit., v. 9, Tb., 1955 (summary in Russian); Azadovsky M.K., History of Russian. folkloristics, vol. 1-2, M., 1958-63; Meletinsky E. M., Hero of a fairy tale, M., 1958; his, Origin of heroic. epic Early forms and archaic monument, M., 1963; Chistov K.V., Folklore and modernity, "Soviet ethnography", 1962, No. 3; his, Sovr. problems of textual criticism in Russian. folklore, M., 1963: his own. On the relationship between folklore and ethnography, "Soviet ethnography", 1971, No. 5; his, Specificity of folklore in the light of information theory, "Problems of Philosophy", 1972, No. 6; Folklore and ethnography, Leningrad, 1970; Bogatyrev P. G., Questions of the theory of people. Art, M., 1971; Zemtsovsky I.I., Folklore as a science, in: Slav. musical folklore , M., 1972; Kagan M.S., Morphology of Art, Leningrad, 1972; Early forms of art, M., 1972; Corso R., Folklore. Storia. Obbietto. Metodo. Bibliographie, Roma, 1923; Gennep A. van, Le folklore, P., 1924; Krohn K., Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode, Oslo, 1926; Croce V., Poesia popolare e poesia d´arte, Bari, 1929; Brouwer S., Die Volkslied in Deutschland, Frankreich, Belgien und Holland, Groningen-Haag., 1930; Saintyves P., Manuel de folklore, P., 1936; Varagnac A., Définition du folklore, P., 1938; Alford V., Introduction to English folklore, L., 1952; Ramos A., Estudos de Folk-Lore. Definic?o e limites teorias de interpretac?o, Rio de J., (1951); Weltfish G., The origins of art, Indianapolis-N. Y., 1953; Marinus A., Essais sur la tradition, Brux., 1958; Jolles A., Einfache Formen, 2 ed., Halle/Saale, 1956; Levi-Strauss S., La pendee sauvage, P., 1962; Bawra S. M., Primitive song, N. Y., 1963; Krappe A. H., The science of folklore, 2 ed., N. Y., 1964; Bausinger H., Formen der "Volkspoesie", B., 1968; Weber-Kellermann J., Deutsche Volkskunde zwischen Germanistik und Sozialwissenschaften, Stuttg., 1969; Vrabie G., Folklorue Obiect. Principle. Metoda, Categorii, Buc, 1970; Dinekov P., Bulgarian folklore, Parva chast, 2nd ed., Sofia, 1972; Ortutay G., Hungarian folklor. Essays, Bdpst, 1972. Bible: Akimova T. M., Seminar on Narratives. poetic creativity, Saratov, 1959; Melts M. Ya., Questions of the theory of folklore (materials for the bibliography), in the book; Russian folklore, vol. 5, M.-L., 1960; his, Modern folklore bibliography, in the book: Russian folklore, vol. 10, M.-L., 1966; Kushnereva Z.I., Folklore of the peoples of the USSR. Bibliographical source in Russian language (1945-1963), M., 1964; Sokolova V.K., Sov. folkloristics for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, "Soviet ethnography", 1967, No. 5; Volkskundliche Bibliographie, V.-Lpz., 1919-57; Internationale volkskundliche Bibliographie, Basel-Bonn, 1954-; Coluccio F., Diccionario folklorico argentino, B.-Aires, 1948; Standard dictionary of folklore, mythology and legend, ed. by M. Leach, v. 1-2, N.Y., 1949-50; Erich O., Beitl R., W?rterbuch der deutschen Volkskunde, 2 Aufl., Stutt., 1955; Thompson S., Motif-index of folk-literature, v. 1-6, Bloomington, 1955-58; his, Fifty years of folktale indexing, "Humanoria", N.Y., 1960; Dorson R. M., Current folklore theories, "Current anthropology", 1963, v. 4, No. 1; Aarne A. and Thompson S., The types of folktale. A classification and bibliography, 2 rev., Hels., 1961; Slownik folkloru polskiego, Warsaw. , 1965. K. V. Chistov. Leningrad.
FOLKLORE
(English folklore - folk knowledge, folk wisdom), folk poetry, folk poetry, oral folk art - a set of different types and forms of mass oral arts. creativity of one or several. peoples The term "F." introduced in 1846 archaeologist W. J. Toms, as a scientist. the term is officially adopted by English. folklore society "Folklore Society", main. in 1878. Originally "F." meant both the subject of research and the corresponding science. In modern historiography is a science that studies the theory and history of f. and its interaction with other types of art, called. folkloristics.
The definition of F. cannot be unambiguous for all historians. stages, because its social and aesthetic. functions, content and poetics are directly dependent on the presence or absence in the cultural system of a given people of its other forms and types (handwritten or printed books, professional theater and pop music, etc.) and various methods of dissemination of literary arts. works (cinema, radio, television, sound recordings, etc.).
F. arose in the process of the formation of human speech and in ancient times covered all forms of spiritual culture. It is characterized by comprehensive syncretism - functional and ideological. (F. contained the rudiments of artistic creativity, historical knowledge, science, religion, etc.), social (F. served all layers of society), genre (epic, fairy tale, legend, myth, song, etc. not yet differentiated), formal (the word appeared in inextricable unity with the so-called extra-textual elements - intonation, melody, gesture, facial expressions, dance, sometimes figurative art). Subsequently, in the process of social differentiation of society and the development of culture, various types and forms of f. arose, expressing the interests of the department. social strata and classes, folklore genres were formed that had various social and everyday purposes (production, social-organizing, ritual, gaming, aesthetic, cognitive). They were characterized by varying degrees of aesthetic development. beginning, various combinations of text and extra-textual elements, aesthetic. and other functions. In general, F. continued to remain multifunctional and syncretic.
The use of writing to record text distinguished literature from the oral forms of literary arts that preceded it. creativity. From the moment of their inception, writing and literature turned out to be the property of the highest social strata. At the same time, literature at first, as a rule, was not yet a phenomenon. artistic (for example, chronicles and annals, diplomatic and journalistic works, ritual texts, etc.). In this regard, the actual aesthetic. The needs of society as a whole were satisfied for a long time mainly by oral tradition. The development of literature and growing social differentiation led to the fact that already in the late feudal period. F.'s period became predominant. (and among many nations exclusively) the property of the working people. the masses, because literary forms of creativity remained inaccessible to them. Social differences in the environment that created literary and folklore works led to the emergence of a definition. range of ideas and various arts. tastes. This was accompanied by the development of specific systems of literary (story, novel, poem, poem, etc.) and folklore (epic, fairy tale, song, etc.) genres and their poetics. The transition from oral forms of creation and transmission of art. works that are characterized by the use of natural elements. means of communication (voice - hearing, movement - vision), to fixing and stabilizing the text and reading it meant not only a more advanced way of accumulating and preserving cultural achievements. He was accompanied and determined. losses: a spatial and temporal gap in the moment of creation (reproduction) of art. the work and its perception, the loss of the immediate. contact between its creator (writer) and the perceiver (reader), loss of extra-textual elements, contact empathy and the possibility of making textual and other changes depending on the reaction of the perceivers. The significance of these losses is confirmed by the fact that even in conditions of universal literacy, not only traditional folklore, but also other oral and at the same time synthetic ones continue to exist and re-emerge. forms, and some of them are of a contact nature (theater, stage, readers, performances of writers in front of an audience, performance of poetry with a guitar, etc.).
Characteristic features of f. in the conditions of its coexistence with literature and in opposition to it: orality, collectivity, nationality, variability, combination of words and arts. elements of other arts. Each work arose on the basis of poetics developed by the team, was intended for a certain circle of listeners and acquired its origins. life, if it was accepted by the team. Changes made by the department. performers could be very different - from stylistic. variations until a significant reworking of the plan and, as a rule, did not go beyond the boundaries of the ideology and aesthetics of the definition. environment. Collectiveness creative. process in F. did not mean its impersonality. Talented masters not only created new songs, fairy tales, etc., but also influenced the process of dissemination, improvement or adaptation of traditions. texts to the historically changed needs of the collective. Dialectical the unity of the collective and the individual was contradictory in f., as in literature, but in general tradition in f. was of greater importance than in literature. In social conditions. division of labor on the basis of oral tradition, in parallel with mass and unprofessional performance, which is characteristic of the arts of all peoples, unique professions arose associated with the creation and performance of poetic, musical and other works (Ancient Greek rhapsodes and aedas; Roman mimes and French jonglers; later Russian kobzars and chansons; In the early feud. period, performers who served the dominant social strata emerged. A transitional type of singer-poet emerged, closely associated first with chivalry (French troubadours or German minnesingers), later with the burghers (German meistersingers) or the clerical-student environment (French or German vagantes; Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian . nativity scenes). In some countries and regions, in conditions of slow development, patriarchal-feudalism. way of life, transitional forms of a unique oral literature were formed. Poetic works were created specifically. persons, disseminated orally, there was a desire to stabilize their texts. At the same time, the tradition has preserved the names of the creators (Toktogul in Kyrgyzstan, Kemin and Mollanepes in Turkmenistan, Sayat-Nova in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, etc.). In Russian F. there was no developed professionalization of singers. We can only talk about the department. names mentioned in the writing of Ancient Rus' (singer Mitus; possibly Boyan).
Each genre or group of folk genres fulfilled a specific purpose. social and household functions. This led to the formation of the department. genres of F. with their characteristic themes, images, poetics, and style. In the ancient period, most peoples had tribal traditions, work and ritual songs, mythological. stories, early forms of fairy tales, spells, incantations. Later, at the turn of the transition from pre-class society to class society, modern societies arose. types of fairy tales (magical, everyday, about animals) and archaic. epic forms. During the formation of the state, heroic epic, then epic. ballad and historical songs content, history legends. Later other classical genres. F. formed non-ritual lyrical. song and romance, later types of folklore. drama and even later - the genres of worker F. - revolutionary. songs, marches, satire. songs, oral stories. The process of emergence, development of department. genres of f., especially the duration of their productive period, the relationship of f. with literature and other types of professional arts. creativity are determined by the characteristics of history. the development of each people and the nature of its contacts with other peoples. Thus, tribal traditions were forgotten among some peoples (for example, among the Eastern Slavs) and formed the basis of history. legends from others (for example, Icelandic sagas from Icelanders). Ritual songs, as a rule, were timed to different periods of the agricultural, pastoral, hunting or fishing calendar, and entered into various relationships with the rituals of the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and other religions. The degree of connection between the epic and mythological ideas are determined by specific socio-economic. conditions. An example of this kind of connection is the Nart tales of the peoples of the Caucasus, Karelo-Fin. runes, ancient Greek epic Germanic languages left oral existence relatively early. and Western Roman epic. The epic of the Turkic peoples existed for a long time and acquired later forms. and east Slavs
There are different genre versions of African, Australian, Asian and European fairy tales. peoples The ballad among some peoples (for example, the Scots) acquired clear genre differences, while for others (for example, the Russians) it is close to lyrical. or ist. song. The poetry of each people is characterized by a unique combination of genres and a specific role of each of them in the general system of oral creativity, which has always been multi-layered and heterogeneous.
Despite the bright national The coloring of folklore texts, many motifs, plots, and even images of characters in the folklore of different peoples are strikingly similar. Such similarities could arise as a result of the development of f. from a common source (common archaic features of f. the Slavs or Finno-Ugric peoples, which go back to the common Proto-Slavic or Proto-Finnish heritage), or as a result of the cultural interaction of peoples (for example, the exchange of fairy tale plots Russians and Karelians), or the independent emergence of similar phenomena (for example, common plots of fairy tales of American Indians and the peoples of Central Europe) under the influence of general patterns of development of the social system, material and spiritual culture.
In the late feudal period. time and during the period of capitalism in the people. lit. began to penetrate the environment more actively than before. works; some forms of lit. creativity acquired mass distribution (romances and songs of literary origin, so-called folk books, Russian “lubok”, German “Bilderbogen”, etc.). This influenced the plot, style, and content of folklore works. People's creativity storytellers acquired certain features of lit. creativity (individualization, psychologism, etc.).
In socialist In society, the availability of education has provided an equal opportunity for the development of talents and professionalization of people, and a variety of modern technologies have become widespread. forms of mass literary arts. culture - amateur lit. creativity (including partly in traditional folklore forms), amateur club performances, folk song creativity. choirs, etc. Some of these forms are creative, others are performing in nature.
Design of folkloristics in independent work. science dates back to the 30-40s. 19th century The formation of folkloristics and the beginning of scientific research. collecting and publishing F. was associated with three main. factors: lit. romanticism, which was one of the forms of expression of the self-awareness of the emerging bourgeoisie. nations (for example, in Germany, France, Italy), national liberation. movement (for example, among the southern and western Slavs) and the spread of social liberation. and educational ideas (for example, in Russia - A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov; in Poland - A. Mitskevich, etc.). Romantics (German scientists I. G. Herder, L. Arnim and C. Brentano, brothers W. and J. Grimm, etc.; English - T. Percy and J. Macpherson, etc.; Serbian - V. Karadzic and others; Finnish - E. Lönrot and others) saw in F. an expression of nationalism. spirit and national traditions and used folklore works to reconstruct history. facts not reflected in written sources. Emerging within the framework of romanticism, the so-called. mythological school (German scientists A. Kuhn, W. Schwarz, W. Manhardt and others; English - M. Muller, J. W. Cox and others; French - A. Pictet and others; Italian - A . de Gubernatis and others; Russian - F. I. Buslaev, A. N. Afanasyev, etc.), based on the achievements of Indo-European. linguistics, believed F. European. peoples the heritage of the most ancient Proto-Indo-European. myth-making. Romantics in glory. countries saw F. as a general glory. inheritance, preserved to varying degrees by different branches of the Slavs, just like the Germans. Romantics saw modernism in F. German-speaking peoples share the common heritage of the ancient Germans. In the 2nd half. 19th century based on philosophy. positivism, evolutionist schools in folklore studies developed, which is associated with a growing awareness of the unity of the laws of development of folklore and the recurrence of folklore plots and motifs in different ethnic groups. environments So representatives of the so-called. anthropologist schools (E. Tylor, E. Lang and J. Fraser - in England; N. Sumtsov, A. I. Kirpichnikov, A. N. Veselovsky - in Russia, etc.) explained the global recurrence of folklore phenomena by the unity of people. psychology. At the same time, the so-called comparativism (comparative historical method), which explained similar phenomena more or less mechanically. borrowing or “migration of plots” (German - T. Benfey, French - G. Paris, Czech - J. Polivka, Russian - V.V. Stasov, A.N. Pypin, A.N. Veselovsky, etc. .), and the “historical school” (the most vivid expression in Russia - V. F. Miller and his students; K. and M. Chadwick in England, etc.), which sought to connect the history of each people with its history and did a lot of work by comparison of sources documents and folklore stories (especially epic ones). At the same time, the “historical school” was characterized by a simplified understanding of the mechanism of art. reflection of reality in F. and (like certain other trends in bourgeois folklore studies of the late 19th - early 20th centuries) the desire to prove that people. the masses only mechanically perceived and preserved the arts. values created by the upper social strata. In the 20th century Freudianism (which interpreted folklore stories as a subconscious expression of inhibited sexual and other complexes), ritualism, became widespread. theory (linking the origin of verbal art primarily with magical rites; French scientists P. Centiv, J. Dumezil, English - F. Raglan, Dutch - J. de Vries, American - R. Carpenter, etc.) and "Finnish school", establishing historical and geographical. areas of distribution of plots and developing the principles of classification and systematization of F. (K. Kroon, A. Aarne, W. Anderson, etc.).
The origin of the Marxist trend in folklore studies is associated with the names of P. Lafargue, G. V. Plekhanov, A. M. Gorky. In the 20-30s. 20th century The formation of Marxist folklore studies continued in the USSR, after the 2nd World War of 1939-45 it became widespread in socialism. countries (B. M. and Yu. M. Sokolov, M. K. Azadovsky, V. M. Zhirmunsky, V. Ya. Propp, P. G. Bogatyrev, N. P. Andreev, etc. - in the USSR; P Dinekov, C. Romanska, S. Stoykova and others - in Bulgaria; M. Pop and others - in Romania; D. Ortutai and others - in Hungary; , J. Ex, O. Sirovatka, V. Gasparikova and others - in Czechoslovakia; V. Steinitz and others - in the GDR). She considers f., on the one hand, as the oldest form of poetic poetry. creativity, a treasury of arts. people's experience masses, as one of the components of the classic. heritage of the national arts culture of each people and, on the other hand, as the most valuable source. source.
When studying the most ancient eras of human history, philosophy is often (together with archeology) an indispensable source of history. source, especially for studying history. development of ideology and social psychology of people. wt. The complexity of the problem lies in the fact that archaic. folklore works are known, as a rule, only in records of the 18th-20th centuries. or in earlier lit. processing (for example, German "Song of the Nibelungs"), or archaic. elements included in later aesthetics. systems. Therefore, the use of F. for history. reconstructions require great care and, above all, the involvement of comparisons. materials. The features of reflecting reality in various genres of fiction, which differently combine aesthetic, cognitive, ritual, and other functions, are also taken into account. Experience in studying genres that were perceived by performers as an expression of history. knowledge (prosaic historical traditions and legends, song historical epic), showed the complexity of the relationship between plots, characters, time, to which their actions are attributed, epic. geography, etc. and authentic history. events, their real chronological, social and geographical. environment. Development of artistic history the thinking of the people did not come from empiricism. and a specific depiction of events to their poeticization and generalization or legendary-fantastic. processing as events are forgotten, but vice versa - from the so-called. mythological epic, which is a fantastic reflection of reality in mythological categories (for example, the successes of mankind in mastering fire, crafts, navigation, etc. are personified in F. in the image of a “cultural hero” of the Promethean type), to heroic. epic and, finally, to history. songs, in which much more specific history is drawn. situations, events and persons, or history. ballads, in which nameless heroes or heroes with fictitious names act in a situation close to real-historical ones.
In the department the same stories of history. legends or epic. songs are reflected largely non-empirically. ist. facts, but typical socialist. collisions, history state of politics and arts. consciousness of the people and folklore traditions of previous centuries, through the prism of which history is perceived. reality. At the same time, as in the historical legends, and in historical-epic songs. works often preserved the most valuable historical data. points of view details, names, geographical. names, everyday realities, etc. So, G. Schliemann found the location of Troy, using data from ancient Greek. epic songs "Iliad" and "Odyssey", although he did not accurately determine the location of the "Homeric" layer in the cultural layers of the Trojan excavations. The mechanism of reflection of the source is even more complex. in reality in vernacular fairy tales, lyrical and everyday songs. Songs of a ritual nature, conspiracies, etc., to a greater extent, reflect non-history. reality as such, and the everyday consciousness of the people themselves are facts of the people. everyday life That. F. as a whole did not passively reproduce the empirical. socio-economic facts and political reality or everyday life, but was one of the most important means of expressing people. aspirations. F. is also of great importance for elucidating the history of ethnicity. contacts, the process of formation of ethnographic. groups and historical-ethnographic. regions.
Lit.: Chicherov V.I., K. Marx and F. Engels on folklore. Bibliographical materials, "Soviet folklore", 1936, No. 4-5; Bonch-Bruevich V.D., V.I. Lenin on oral folk art, "Soviet ethnography", 1954, No. 4; Friedlander G.M., K. Marx and F. Engels and questions of literature, 2nd ed., M., 1968 (chapter folklore); Propp V. Ya., Specifics of folklore, in the collection: "Proceedings of the anniversary scientific session of Leningrad State University. Section of Philological Sciences, L., 1946; his, Historical roots of a fairy tale, L., 1946; his, Folklore and reality, "Russian Literature", 1963, No. 3; principles of classification of folklore genres, "Sov. ethnography", 1964, No. 4; his own, Morphology of a fairy tale, 2nd ed., M., 1969; Zhirmunsky V.M., On the issue of folk art, "Uch. zap. Leningr. ped. Institute named after A. I. Herzen", 1948, v. 67; his own, Folk heroic epic, M.-L., 1962; Gusev V. E., Marxism and Russian folklore of the late XIX - early XX centuries, M. -L., 1951; his, Problems of folklore in the history of aesthetics, M.-L., 1963; History of the term and its modern meaning. ethnographic.", 1966, No. 2; his own, Aesthetics of Folklore, L., 1967; Putilov B.N., On the main features of folk poetic creativity, "Uch. zap. Groznensky ped. in-ta. Ser. philological Sciences", v. 7, 1952, No. 4; his, On the historical study of Russian folklore, in the book: Russian folklore, v. 5, M.-L., 1960; Cocchiara J., History of folklore in Europe, transl. from Italian, M., 1960; Virsaladze E. B., The problem of the specificity of folklore in modern bourgeois folklore, in the book: Literary research of the Institute of History, vol. 1955 (summary in Russian); Azadovsky M. K., History of Russian folklore, vol. 1-2, M., 1958-63; Meletinsky E. M., Hero of a fairy tale, M., 1958; same, The origin of the heroic epic. Early forms and archaic monument, M., 1963; Chistov K.V., Folklore and modernity, "Sov. ethnography", 1962, No. 3; his own, Contemporary problems of textual criticism of Russian folklore, M., 1963: his own. On the relationship between folklore studies and ethnography, "Sov. ethnography", 1971, No. 5; his, Specifics of folklore in the light of information theory, "Vopr. philosophy", 1972, No. 6; Folklore and ethnography, L., 1970; Bogatyrev P. G., Questions of the theory of folk art, M., 1971; Zemtsovsky I. I., Folklore as a science, in the collection: Slav. musical folklore, M. S., Morphology of art, L., 1972; Corso R., Storia. Bibliographie, Roma, 1923; A. van, Le folklore, P., 1924; Krohn K., Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode, Oslo, 1926; , Poesia popolare e poesia d'arte, Bari, 1929; Brouwer S., Die Volkslied in Deutschland, Frankreich, Belgien und Holland, Groningen-Haag., 1930; Saintyves P., Manuel de folklore, P., 1936; Varagnac A ., Definition du folklore, P., 1938; Alford V., Introduction to English folklore, L., 1952; Ramos A., Estudos de Folk-Lore. Definicão e limites teorias de interpretacão, Rio de J., (1951) ; Weltfish G., The origins of art, Indianapolis-N., 1953; Marinus A., Essais sur la tradition, Brux., 1958; Einfache Formen, 2 ed., Levi-Strauss. S., La pendee sauvage, P., 1962; Bawra S. M., Primitive song, N. Y., 1963; Krappe A. H., The science of folklore, 2 ed., N. Y., 1964; , B., 1968; Weber-Kellermann J., Deutsche Volkskunde zwischen Germanistik und Sozialwissenschaften, Stuttg., 1969; Vrabie G., Folklorue Obiect. Categorii, Buc, 1970; , 2nd ed., Sofia, 1972; Ortutay G., Hungarian folklor. Essays, Bdpst, 1972.
Bibliography: Akimova T. M., Seminar on Narratives. poetic creativity, Saratov, 1959; Melts M. Ya., Questions of the theory of folklore (materials for the bibliography), in the book; Russian folklore, vol. 5, M.-L., 1960; his, Modern folklore bibliography, in the book: Russian folklore, vol. 10, M.-L., 1966; Kushnereva Z.I., Folklore of the peoples of the USSR. Bibliographical source in Russian language (1945-1963), M., 1964; Sokolova V.K., Sov. folkloristics for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, "Soviet ethnography", 1967, No. 5; Volkskundliche Bibliographie, V.-Lpz., 1919-57; Internationale volkskundliche Bibliographie, Basel-Bonn, 1954-; Coluccio F., Diccionario folklorico argentino, B.-Aires, 1948; Standard dictionary of folklore, mythology and legend, ed. by M. Leach, v. 1-2, N.Y., 1949-50; Erich O., Beitl R., Wörterbuch der deutschen Volkskunde, 2 Aufl., Stutt., 1955; Thompson S., Motif-index of folk-literature, v. 1-6, Bloomington, 1955-58; his, Fifty years of folktale indexing, "Humanoria", N.Y., 1960; Dorson R. M., Current folklore theories, "Current anthropology", 1963, v. 4, No. 1; Aarne A. and Thompson S., The types of folktale. A classification and bibliography, 2 rev., Hels., 1961; Slownik folkloru polskiego, Warsz., 1965.
K. V. Chistov. Leningrad.
Soviet historical encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ed. E. M. Zhukova. 1973-1982 .
Synonyms:See what “FOLKLORE” is in other dictionaries:
- (in the cultural aspect) in the “broad” sense (all folk traditional peasant spiritual and partly material culture) and “narrow” (oral peasant verbal artistic tradition). Folklore is a collection of... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies
Word " folklore"borrowed from English and translated literally as a folk song. Folklore is, firstly, a collection of texts of various genres: fairy tales, epics, conspiracies, laments and lamentations, ritual and non-ritual songs, historical songs, urban romance, ditties, anecdotes. Secondly, folklore refers to fine folk art and music, traditional toys, and folk costumes. Folklore is everything that is created by the people. At the same time, the people are the collective creator of folklore works. This means that folklore works do not have a specific author. They were created and formalized over a long period of time collectively. As a result, a folklore tradition was developed.
Heroes and symbols of folklore
Tradition- This is a key concept for folklore. All folklore works are called traditional. Tradition is a certain established pattern, developed over a long time, according to which individual folklore works are created.
Tradition is closed. For example, a fairy tale has only six possible characters: the hero (Ivan Tsarevich), the sender (the king, the father), the desired character (the bride), the antagonist (Koschei, the serpent Gorynych), the giver (the character who gives something to the hero) and the helper (usually animals that help the hero). This is where her isolation manifests itself. There can't be any other characters here.
Folklore is a means, an instrument for consolidating, preserving and transmitting folk wisdom from generation to generation. This means that the performance of fairy tales, epics, and songs is initially necessary in order to convey traditional cultural information and experience from parents to children. For example, fairy tales convey moral standards that every member of society must comply with: the hero of fairy tales is brave, hardworking, respects parents and the elderly, helps the weak, wise, noble. IN heroic epics it says that you need to defend your homeland: the hero-defender is strong, brave, wise, ready to stand up for the Russian land.
Folklore is symbolic. This means that folk wisdom is transmitted in symbolic form. A symbol is a sign, the content of which in folklore is the traditional folklore meaning. For example, a drake, a dove, an eagle, an oak are symbols denoting a good fellow. A dove, a duck, a swan, a birch tree, and a willow tree are symbols that represent the red maiden.
Folklore should not be taken literally. It is necessary to learn to see traditional folklore meanings behind symbols. The gold and silver bridle of a heroic horse does not at all mean that it is made of gold and silver. These metals symbolically denote the folklore meaning of “rich, noble.”
Who studies folklore?
Folklore reflects traditional folk culture. Russian traditional folk culture is a fusion of pagan and folk-Orthodox views on nature and society. In works of folklore, the characters are often animals and forces of nature (wind, sun). This reflects the pagan worldview of the people who spiritualized nature, believed in wonderful creatures, and prayed to them. Along with this, there are Christian characters (Virgin Mary, saints) - these are Orthodox Christian traditions.
Folklore is studied by folklorists. They go on expeditions to record works of oral folk art. After this, the symbolism of these works, their content and structure are examined. Outstanding folklore researchers are V.Ya. Propp, A. N. Afanasyev, S. Yu. Neklyudov, E. M. Meletinsky, B.T. Putilin.
Immense oral folk art. It has been created for centuries, there are many varieties of it. Translated from English, "folklore" is " national significance, wisdom." That is, oral folk art is everything that is created by the spiritual culture of the population over the centuries of its historical life.
Features of Russian folklore
If you carefully read the works of Russian folklore, you will notice that it actually reflects a lot: the play of the imagination of the people, the history of the country, laughter, and serious thoughts about human life. Listening to the songs and tales of their ancestors, people thought about many difficult issues of their family, social and work life, thought about how to fight for happiness, improve their lives, what a person should be, what should be ridiculed and condemned.
Varieties of folklore
Varieties of folklore include fairy tales, epics, songs, proverbs, riddles, calendar refrains, magnification, sayings - everything that was repeated was passed on from generation to generation. At the same time, the performers often introduced something of their own into the text they liked, changing individual details, images, expressions, imperceptibly improving and honing the work.
Oral folk art for the most part exists in a poetic (verse) form, since it was this that made it possible to memorize and pass on these works from mouth to mouth for centuries.
Songs
A song is a special verbal and musical genre. It is a small lyrical-narrative or lyrical work that was created specifically for singing. Their types are as follows: lyrical, dance, ritual, historical. Folk songs express the feelings of one person, but at the same time of many people. They reflected love experiences, social and family life, reflections on a difficult fate. In folk songs, the so-called parallelism technique is often used, when the mood of a given lyrical character is transferred to nature.
Historical songs are dedicated to various famous personalities and events: the conquest of Siberia by Ermak, the uprising of Stepan Razin, the peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev, the battle of Poltava with the Swedes, etc. The narration in historical folk songs about some events is combined with the emotional sound of these works.
Epics
The term "epic" was introduced by I.P. Sakharov in the 19th century. It represents oral folk art in the form of a song of a heroic, epic nature. The epic arose in the 9th century; it was an expression of the historical consciousness of the people of our country. Bogatyrs are the main characters of this type of folklore. They embody the people's ideal of courage, strength, and patriotism. Examples of heroes who were depicted in works of oral folk art: Dobrynya Nikitich, Ilya Muromets, Mikula Selyaninovich, Alyosha Popovich, as well as the merchant Sadko, the giant Svyatogor, Vasily Buslaev and others. The basis of life, at the same time enriched with some fantastic fiction, constitutes the plot of these works. In them, heroes single-handedly defeat entire hordes of enemies, fight monsters, and instantly overcome vast distances. This oral folk art is very interesting.
Fairy tales
Epics must be distinguished from fairy tales. These works of oral folk art are based on invented events. Fairy tales can be magical (in which fantastic forces are involved), as well as everyday ones, where people are depicted - soldiers, peasants, kings, workers, princesses and princes - in everyday settings. This type of folklore differs from other works in its optimistic plot: in it, good always triumphs over evil, and the latter either suffers defeat or is ridiculed.
Legends
We continue to describe the genres of oral folk art. A legend, unlike a fairy tale, is a folk oral story. Its basis is an incredible event, a fantastic image, a miracle, which is perceived by the listener or storyteller as reliable. There are legends about the origin of peoples, countries, seas, about the sufferings and exploits of fictional or real heroes.
Riddles
Oral folk art is represented by many riddles. They are an allegorical image of a certain object, usually based on a metaphorical rapprochement with it. The riddles are very small in volume and have a certain rhythmic structure, often emphasized by the presence of rhyme. They are created in order to develop intelligence and ingenuity. The riddles are varied in content and theme. There may be several versions of them about the same phenomenon, animal, object, each of which characterizes it from a certain aspect.
Proverbs and sayings
Genres of oral folk art also include sayings and proverbs. A proverb is a rhythmically organized, short, figurative saying, an aphoristic folk saying. It usually has a two-part structure, which is supported by rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and assonance.
A proverb is a figurative expression that evaluates some phenomenon of life. It, unlike a proverb, is not a whole sentence, but only a part of a statement included in oral folk art.
Proverbs, sayings and riddles are included in the so-called small genres of folklore. What is this? In addition to the above types, these include other oral folk art. The types of small genres are complemented by the following: lullabies, nurseries, nursery rhymes, jokes, game choruses, chants, sentences, riddles. Let's take a closer look at each of them.
Lullabies
Small genres of oral folk art include lullabies. People call them bikes. This name comes from the verb "bait" ("bayat") - "to speak." This word has the following ancient meaning: “to speak, to whisper.” It is no coincidence that lullabies received this name: the oldest of them are directly related to spell poetry. Struggling with sleep, for example, the peasants said: “Dreamushka, get away from me.”
Pestushki and nursery rhymes
Russian oral folk art is also represented by pestushki and nursery rhymes. At their center is the image of a growing child. The name “pestushki” comes from the word “to nurture”, that is, “to follow someone, raise, nurse, carry in one’s arms, educate.” They are short sentences with which in the first months of a baby’s life they comment on his movements.
Imperceptibly, the pestles turn into nursery rhymes - songs that accompany the baby's games with his toes and hands. This oral folk art is very diverse. Examples of nursery rhymes: “Magpie”, “Ladushki”. They often already contain a “lesson”, an instruction. For example, in “Soroka” the white-sided woman fed everyone with porridge, except for one lazy person, although he was the smallest one (his little finger corresponds to him).
Jokes
In the first years of children's lives, nannies and mothers sang songs of more complex content to them, not related to play. All of them can be designated by the single term “jokes.” Their content is reminiscent of short fairy tales in verse. For example, about a cockerel - a golden comb, flying to the Kulikovo field for oats; about the rowan hen, which “winnowed peas” and “sowed millet.”
A joke, as a rule, gives a picture of some bright event, or it depicts some rapid action that corresponds to the active nature of the baby. They are characterized by a plot, but the child is not capable of long-term attention, so they are limited to only one episode.
Sentences, calls
We continue to consider oral folk art. Its types are complemented by slogans and sentences. Children on the street very early learn from their peers a variety of calls, which represent an appeal to birds, rain, rainbows, and the sun. Children, on occasion, shout out words in chorus. In addition to nicknames, in a peasant family any child knew the sentences. They are most often pronounced one by one. Sentences - appeal to a mouse, small bugs, a snail. This may be imitation of various bird voices. Verbal sentences and song chants are full of faith in the powers of water, sky, earth (sometimes beneficial, sometimes destructive). Their utterance introduced adult peasant children to the work and life. Sentences and calls are combined into a special department called “calendar” children's folklore". This term emphasizes existing connection between them and the time of year, holiday, weather, the whole way of life and the structure of life in the village.
Game sentences and refrains
Genres of oral folk art include playful sentences and refrains. They are no less ancient than calls and sentences. They either connect parts of a game or start it. They can also serve as endings and determine the consequences that exist when conditions are violated.
The games are striking in their resemblance to serious peasant activities: reaping, hunting, sowing flax. Reproducing these cases in strict sequence with the help of repeated repetition made it possible to instill in the child from an early age respect for customs and the existing order, to teach the rules of behavior accepted in society. The names of the games - "Bear in the Forest", "Wolf and Geese", "Kite", "Wolf and Sheep" - speak about the connection with the life and way of life of the rural population.
Conclusion
Folk epics, fairy tales, legends, and songs contain no less exciting colorful images than in the works of art of classical authors. Original and surprisingly accurate rhymes and sounds, bizarre, beautiful poetic rhythms - like lace are woven into the texts of ditties, nursery rhymes, jokes, riddles. And what vivid poetic comparisons we can find in lyrical songs! All this could only be created by the people - great master words.
Folklore as a special type of art is a qualitatively unique component fiction. It integrates the culture of a society of a certain ethnicity at a special stage in the historical development of society.
Folklore is ambiguous: it reveals both boundless folk wisdom and folk conservatism and inertia. In any case, folklore embodies the highest spiritual powers of the people and reflects elements of national artistic consciousness.
The term “folklore” itself (from the English word folklore - folk wisdom) is a common name for folk art in international scientific terminology. The term was first coined in 1846 by the English archaeologist W. J. Thomson. It was first adopted as an official scientific concept by the English Folklore Society, founded in 1878. In the years 1800-1990, the term came into scientific use in many countries of the world.
Folklore (English folklore - “folk wisdom”) - folk art, most often oral; artistic collective creative activity people, reflecting their life, views, ideals; poetry created by the people and existing among the masses (legends, songs, ditties, anecdotes, fairy tales, epics), folk music(songs, instrumental tunes and plays), theater (dramas, satirical plays, puppet theater), dance, architecture, fine and decorative arts.
Folklore is creativity for which no material is required and where the means of embodiment artistic design is the man himself. Folklore has a clearly expressed didactic orientation. Much of it was created specifically for children and was dictated by the great national concern for young people - their future. “Folklore” serves the child from his very birth.
Folk poetry reveals the most essential connections and patterns of life, leaving aside the individual and special. Folklore gives them the most important and simple concepts about life and people. It reflects what is generally interesting and vital, what affects everyone: human work, his relationship with nature, life in a team.
The importance of folklore as an important part in education and development in the modern world is well known and generally accepted. Folklore always responds sensitively to people's needs, being a reflection of the collective mind and accumulated life experience.
Main features and properties of folklore:
1. Bifunctionality. Each folklore work is an organic part of human life and is determined by practical purpose. It is focused on a specific moment in people's life. For example, a lullaby - it is sung to calm and put a child to sleep. When the child falls asleep, the song stops - it is no longer necessary. This is how the aesthetic, spiritual and practical function of a lullaby is manifested. Everything is interconnected in a work; beauty cannot be separated from benefit, benefit from beauty.
2. Polyelement. Folklore is multi-elemental, since its internal diversity and numerous relationships of an artistic, cultural-historical and socio-cultural nature are obvious.
Not every folklore work includes all artistic and figurative elements. There are also genres in which they minimum quantity. The performance of a folklore work is the integrity of the creative act. Among the many artistic and figurative elements of folklore, the main ones are verbal, musical, dance and facial expressions. Polyelementity manifests itself during an event, for example, “Burn, burn clearly so that it doesn’t go out!” or when studying a round dance - the game “Boyars”, where movements take place row by row. In this game all the main artistic and figurative elements interact. Verbal and musical are manifested in the musical and poetic genre of the song, performed simultaneously with choreographic movement (dance element). This reveals the polyelement nature of folklore, its original synthesis, called syncretism. Syncretism characterizes the relationship, integrity of the internal components and properties of folklore.
3.Collectivity. Absence of author. Collectivity is manifested both in the process of creating a work and in the nature of the content, which always objectively reflects the psychology of many people. Asking who composed a folk song is like asking who composed the language we speak. Collectivity is determined in the performance of folklore works. Some components of their forms, for example, the chorus, require the mandatory inclusion of all participants in the action in the performance.
4. Illiteracy. The orality of the transmission of folklore material is manifested in the unwritten forms of transmission of folklore information. Artistic images and skills are transferred from the performer, the artist, to the listener and viewer, from the master to the student. Folklore is oral creativity. It lives only in the memory of people and is transmitted in live performance “from mouth to mouth.” Artistic images and skills are transferred from the performer, the artist, to the listener and viewer, from the master to the student.
5.Traditionality. The variety of creative manifestations in folklore only outwardly seems spontaneous. Over the course of a long time, objective ideals of creativity were formed. These ideals became those practical and aesthetic standards, deviations from which would be inappropriate.
6.Variability. Variation network is one of the stimuli of constant movement, the “breathing” of a folklore work, and each folklore work is always like a version of itself. The folklore text turns out to be unfinished, open to each subsequent performer. For example, in the round dance game “Boyars”, children move “row by row”, and the step may be different. In some places this is a regular step with an accent on the last syllable of the line, in others it is a step with a stamp on the last two syllables, in others it is a variable step. It is important to convey the idea that in a folklore work creation - performance and performance - creation coexist. Variability can be considered as the changeability of works of art, their uniqueness during performance or other forms of reproduction. Each author or performer complemented traditional images or works with his own reading or vision.
7. Improvisation is a feature of folklore creativity. Each new performance of the work is enriched with new elements (textual, methodological, rhythmic, dynamic, harmonic). Which the performer brings. Any performer constantly introduces his own material into a well-known work, which contributes to constant development, a change in the work, during which the standard artistic image is crystallized. Thus, the folklore performance becomes the result of many years of collective creativity.
In modern literature, a broad interpretation of folklore as a set of folk traditions, customs, views, beliefs, and arts is widespread.
In particular, the famous folklorist V.E. Gusev in his book “Aesthetics of Folklore” considers this concept as an artistic reflection of reality, carried out in verbal, musical, choreographic and dramatic forms of collective folk art, expressing the worldview of the working masses and inextricably linked with life and everyday life. Folklore is a complex, synthetic art. His works often combine elements of various types of art - verbal, musical, theatrical. It is studied by various sciences - history, psychology, sociology, ethnography. It is closely connected with folk life and rituals. It is no coincidence that the first Russian scientists approached folklore broadly, recording not only works of verbal art, but also recording various ethnographic details and the realities of peasant life.
The main aspects of the content of folk culture include: the worldview of the people, folk experience, housing, costume, labor activity, leisure, crafts, family relationships, folk holidays and rituals, knowledge and skills, artistic creativity. It should be noted that, like any other social phenomenon, folk culture has specific features, among which we should highlight: an inextricable connection with nature, with the environment; openness, the educational nature of Russian folk culture, the ability to contact with the culture of other peoples, dialogicality, originality, integrity, situationality, the presence of a targeted emotional charge, preservation of elements of pagan and Orthodox culture.
Traditions and folklore are a wealth developed over generations and conveying historical experience and cultural heritage in an emotional and figurative form. In the cultural and creative conscious activity of the broad masses, folk traditions, folklore and artistic modernity merge into a single channel.
The main functions of folklore include religious - mythological, ceremonial, ritual, artistic - aesthetic, pedagogical, communicative - informational, social - psychological.
Folklore is very diverse. There is traditional, modern, peasant and urban folklore.
Traditional folklore is those forms and mechanisms artistic culture, which are preserved, recorded and passed on from generation to generation. They capture universal aesthetic values that retain their significance outside of specific historical social changes.
Traditional folklore is divided into two groups – ritual and non-ritual.
Ritual folklore includes:
· calendar folklore (carols, Maslenitsa songs, freckles);
· family folklore (wedding, maternity, funeral rites, lullabies, etc.),
· occasional folklore (spells, chants, spells).
Non-ritual folklore is divided into four groups:
· folklore of speech situations (proverbs, sayings, riddles, teasers, nicknames, curses);
Poetry (ditties, songs);
· folklore drama (Petrushka Theater, nativity scene drama);
· prose.
Folklore poetry includes: epic, historical song, spiritual verse, lyrical song, ballad, cruel romance, ditty, children's poetic songs (poetic parodies), sadistic rhymes. Folklore prose is again divided into two groups: fairy-tale and non-fairytale. Fairy-tale prose includes: a fairy tale (which, in turn, comes in four types: a fairy tale, a fairy tale about animals, an everyday tale, a cumulative fairy tale) and an anecdote. Non-fairy tale prose includes: tradition, legend, tale, mythological story, story about a dream. The folklore of speech situations includes: proverbs, sayings, well wishes, curses, nicknames, teasers, dialogue graffiti, riddles, tongue twisters and some others. There are also written forms of folklore, such as chain letters, graffiti, albums (for example, songbooks).
Ritual folklore is folklore genres performed as part of various rituals. Most successfully, in my opinion, the definition of the ritual was given by D.M. Ugrinovich: “Rite is a certain way of transmitting certain ideas, norms of behavior, values and feelings to new generations. The ritual is distinguished from other methods of such transmission by its symbolic nature. This is its specificity. Ritual actions always act as symbols that embody certain social ideas, perceptions, images and evoke corresponding feelings.” Works of calendar folklore are dedicated to annual folk holidays that were of an agricultural nature.
Calendar rituals were accompanied by special songs: carols, Maslenitsa songs, vesnyankas, Semitic songs, etc.
Vesnyanka (spring calls) are ritual songs of an incantatory nature that accompany the Slavic ritual of calling out spring.
Carols are New Year's songs. They were performed during Christmas time (from December 24 to January 6), when caroling was going on. Caroling - walking around the courtyards singing carols. For these songs, carolers were rewarded with gifts - a festive treat. The main meaning of the carol is glorification. Carolers give an ideal description of the house of the person being celebrated. It turns out that before us is not an ordinary peasant hut, but a tower, around which “stands an iron tyn”, “on each stamen there is a crown”, and on each crown “a golden crown”. The people living in it are a match for this tower. Pictures of wealth are not reality, but a wish: carols perform, to some extent, the functions of a magic spell.
Maslenitsa is a folk holiday cycle that has been preserved by the Slavs since pagan times. The ritual is associated with seeing off winter and welcoming spring, lasting a whole week. The celebration was carried out according to a strict schedule, which was reflected in the name of the days of Maslenitsa week: Monday - “meeting”, Tuesday - “flirt”, Wednesday - “gourmet”, Thursday - “revelry”, Friday - “mother-in-law’s evening”, Saturday - “mother-in-law’s gatherings” ", resurrection - "seeing off", the end of Maslenitsa fun.
Few Maslenitsa songs have arrived. According to theme and purpose, they are divided into two groups: one is associated with the rite of meeting, the other with the rite of seeing off (“funeral”) Maslenitsa. The songs of the first group are distinguished by a major, cheerful character. This is, first of all, a majestic song in honor of Maslenitsa. The songs accompanying the farewell to Maslenitsa are in a minor key. The “funeral” of Maslenitsa meant farewell to winter and a spell, welcoming the coming spring.
Family and household rituals predetermined by the cycle of human life. They are divided into maternity, wedding, recruiting and funeral.
Maternity rites sought to protect the newborn from hostile mystical forces, and also assumed the well-being of the baby in life. A ritual bath of the newborn was performed, and health was charmed with various sentences.
Wedding ceremony. It is a kind of folk performance, where all the roles are written and there are even directors - a matchmaker or a matchmaker. The particular scale and significance of this ritual should show the significance of the event, play out the meaning of the ongoing change in a person’s life.
The ritual educates the behavior of the bride in her future married life and educates all participants in the ritual. It shows the patriarchal nature of family life, its way of life.
Funeral rites. During the funeral, various rituals were performed, which were accompanied by special funeral lamentations. Funeral lamentations truthfully reflected the life, everyday consciousness of the peasant, love for the deceased and fear of the future, the tragic situation of the family in harsh conditions.
Occasional folklore (from the Latin occasionalis - random) - does not correspond to generally accepted use, and is of an individual nature.
A type of occasional folklore are conspiracies.
CONSPIRACIES - a folk-poetic incantatory verbal formula to which magical power is attributed.
CALLS - an appeal to the sun and other natural phenomena, as well as to animals and especially often to birds, which were considered the harbingers of spring. Moreover, the forces of nature were revered as living: they make requests for spring, wish for its speedy arrival, and complain about winter.
COUNTERS – view children's creativity, small poetic texts with a clear rhyme-rhythm structure in a humorous form.
The genres of non-ritual folklore developed under the influence of syncretism.
It includes folklore of speech situations: proverbs, fables, signs and sayings. They contain a person’s judgments about the way of life, about work, about higher natural forces, and statements about human affairs. This is a vast area of moral assessments and judgments, how to live, how to raise children, how to honor ancestors, thoughts about the need to follow precepts and examples, these are everyday rules of behavior. In a word, their functionality covers almost all worldview areas.
RIDDLE - works with hidden meaning. They contain rich invention, wit, poetry, figurative structure colloquial speech. The people themselves aptly defined the riddle: “Without a face in a mask.” The object that is hidden, the “face,” is hidden under a “mask” - an allegory or allusion, a roundabout speech, a circumlocution. Whatever riddles you can come up with to test your attention, ingenuity, and intelligence. Some consist of a simple question, others are similar to puzzles. Riddles are easily solved by those who have a good idea of the objects and phenomena in question, and also know how to unravel the hidden meaning in words. If a child looks at the world around him with attentive, keen eyes, noticing its beauty and richness, then every tricky question and any allegory in the riddle will be solved.
PROVERB - as a genre, unlike a riddle, is not an allegory. In it, a specific action or deed is given an expanded meaning. In their form, folk riddles are close to proverbs: the same measured, coherent speech, the same frequent use of rhyme and consonance of words. But a proverb and a riddle differ in that a riddle needs to be guessed, and a proverb is a lesson.
Unlike a proverb, a PROVERB is not a complete judgment. This is a figurative expression used in an expanded sense.
Sayings, like proverbs, remain living folklore genres: they are constantly found in our everyday speech. The proverbs contain a capacious humorous definition of the inhabitants of a locality, city, living nearby or somewhere far away.
Folklore poetry is an epic, a historical song, a spiritual verse, a lyrical song, a ballad, a cruel romance, a ditty, and children's poetic songs.
EPIC is a folk epic song, a genre characteristic of the Russian tradition. Such epics are known as “Sadko”, “Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber”, “Volga and Mikula Selyaninovich” and others. The term “epic” was introduced into scientific use in the 40s of the 19th century. folklorist I.P. Sakharov. The basis of the plot of the epic is some heroic event, or a remarkable episode of Russian history (hence the popular name of the epic - “old man”, “old woman”, implying that the action in question took place in the past).
FOLK SONGS are very diverse in composition. In addition to songs that are part of the calendar, wedding and funeral rites. These are round dances. Game and dance songs. A large group of songs are lyrical non-ritual songs (love, family, Cossack, soldier, coachman, bandit and others).
A special genre of song creativity is historical songs. Such songs tell about famous events in Russian history. The heroes of historical songs are real personalities.
Round dance songs, like ritual songs, had a magical meaning. Round dance and game songs depicted scenes from wedding ceremonies and family life.
LYRICAL SONGS are folk songs that express the personal feelings and moods of the singers. Lyrical songs are unique both in content and in artistic form. Their originality is determined by their genre nature and specific conditions of origin and development. Here we are dealing with a lyrical kind of poetry, different from epic in the principles of reflecting reality. N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote that folk lyrical songs “express inner feeling, excited by the phenomena of ordinary life,” and N.A. Radishchev saw in them a reflection of the people’s soul, spiritual sorrow.
Lyrical songs are a vivid example of the artistic creativity of the people. They contributed to national culture a special artistic language and examples of high poetry reflected the spiritual beauty, ideals and aspirations of the people, and the moral foundations of peasant life.
CHASTUSHKA is one of the youngest folklore genres. These are small poetic texts of rhymed verses. The first ditties were excerpts from large songs. Chatushka is a comic genre. It contains a sharp thought, an apt observation. The topics are very diverse. The ditties often ridiculed what seemed wild, absurd, and disgusting.
CHILDREN'S FOLKLORE is usually called both works that are performed by adults for children, and those composed by the children themselves. Children's folklore includes lullabies, pesters, nursery rhymes, tongue twisters and chants, teasers, counting rhymes, nonsense, etc. Modern children's folklore has been enriched with new genres. These are horror stories, mischievous poems and songs (funny adaptations of famous songs and poems), jokes.
There are different connections between folklore and literature. First of all, literature traces its origins to folklore. The main genres of drama that developed in Ancient Greece - tragedies and comedies - go back to religious rites. Medieval romances of chivalry, telling of travels through imaginary lands, fights with monsters and the love of brave warriors, are based on the motifs of fairy tales. Literary lyrical works originate from folk lyrical songs. The genre of small action-packed narratives - short stories - goes back to folk tales.
Very often, writers deliberately turned to folklore traditions. Interest in oral folk art and passion for folklore awoke in the pre-romantic and romantic eras.
The tales of A.S. Pushkin go back to the plots of Russian fairy tales. Imitation of Russian folk historical songs - “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich...” by M.Yu. Lermontov. Style features folk songs N.A. Nekrasov recreated in his poems about the difficult lot of peasants.
Folklore not only influences literature, but also experiences the opposite effect. Many original poems became folk songs. The most famous example is the poem by I.Z. Surikov “Steppe and steppe all around..”
Folklore drama. These include: Parsley Theater, religious drama, nativity scene drama.
VERTEP DRAMA got its name from the nativity scene - a portable puppet theater in the shape of a two-story wooden box, whose architecture resembles a stage for performing medieval mysteries. In turn, the name, which came from the plot of the main play, in which the action developed in a cave - nativity scene. Theater of this type was widespread in Western Europe, and it came to Russia with traveling puppeteers from Ukraine and Belarus. The repertoire consisted of plays with religious themes and satirical scenes - interludes that were improvisational in nature. The most popular play is "King Herod".
PETRUSHKA THEATER – glove puppet theater. The main character of the play is the cheerful Petrushka with a large nose, a protruding chin, a cap on his head, with the participation of which a number of scenes are played out with various characters. The number of characters reached fifty, these are characters such as a soldier, a gentleman, a gypsy, a bride, a doctor and others. Such performances used techniques of folk comic speech, lively dialogues with play on words and contrasts, with elements of self-praise, using action and gestures.
The Petrushki Theater was created not only under the influence of Russian, Slavic, and Western European puppet traditions. It was a type of folk theater culture, part of the extremely developed entertainment folklore in Russia. Therefore, a lot of things unite it with folk drama, with speeches by farce barkers, with the verdicts of the groomsmen at the wedding, with amusing popular prints, with the jokes of the raeshniks, etc.
The special atmosphere of the city's festive square explains, for example, Petrushka's familiarity, his unbridled gaiety and indiscriminateness in the object of ridicule and shame. After all, Petrushka beats not only class enemies, but everyone in a row - from his own fiancée to the policeman, often beats him for nothing (a blackamoor, an old beggar woman, a German clown, etc.), in the end he gets hit too: the dog mercilessly tugs at his nose. The puppeteer, like other participants in the fair, square fun, is attracted by the very opportunity to ridicule, parody, beat, and the more, louder, more unexpected, sharper, the better. Elements of social protest and satire were very successfully and naturally superimposed on this ancient basis of laughter.
Like all folklore entertainments, “Petrushka” is filled with obscenities and curses. The original meaning of these elements has been studied quite fully, and how deeply they penetrated into the folk culture of laughter and what place swearing, verbal obscenity and demeaning, cynical gestures occupied in it, is fully shown by M.M. Bakhtin.
Performances were shown several times a day in different conditions (at fairs, in front of booths, on city streets, in the suburbs). "Walking" Parsley was the most common use of the doll.
For the mobile folk theater, a light screen, dolls, miniature backstage and a curtain were specially made. Petrushka ran around the stage, his gestures and movements creating the appearance of a living person.
The comic effect of the episodes was achieved using techniques characteristic of folk culture of laughter: fights, beatings, obscenities, the imaginary deafness of a partner, funny movements and gestures, mimicking, funny funerals, etc.
There are conflicting opinions about the reasons for the extraordinary popularity of the theater: topicality, satirical and social orientation, comic character, simple play that is understandable to all segments of the population, the charm of the main character, acting improvisation, freedom of choice of material, the sharp tongue of the puppet.
Parsley is a folk holiday joy.
Parsley is a manifestation of popular optimism, a mockery of the poor at the powerful and rich.
Folklore prose. It is divided into two groups: fairy tale (fairy tale, anecdote) and non-fairy tale (legend, tradition, tale).
FAIRY TALE is the most famous genre of folklore. This is a type of folklore prose, the distinctive feature of which is fiction. Plots, events and characters in fairy tales are fictitious. The modern reader of folklore works also discovers fiction in other genres of oral folk art. Folk storytellers and listeners believed in the truth of tales (the name comes from the word “byl” - “truth”); the word “epic” was invented by folklorists; Popular epics were called “old times.” Russian peasants who told and listened to epics, believing in their truth, believed that the events depicted in them took place a long time ago - in the time of mighty heroes and fire-breathing snakes. They did not believe fairy tales, knowing that they told about something that did not happen, does not happen and cannot be.
It is customary to distinguish four types of fairy tales: magical, everyday (otherwise known as novelistic), cumulative (otherwise known as “chain-like”) and fairy tales about animals.
MAGIC TALES differ from other fairy tales in their complex, detailed plot, which consists of a number of unchanging motifs that necessarily follow each other in a certain order. These are fantastic creatures (for example, Koschey the Immortal or Baba Yaga), and an animated, human-like character denoting winter (Morozko), and wonderful objects (a self-assembled tablecloth, walking boots, a flying carpet, etc.).
Fairy tales preserve the memory of ideas and rituals that existed in ancient times. They reflect ancient relationships between people in a family or clan.
EVERYDAY TALES tell about people, about their family life, about the relationship between the owner and the farmhand, the gentleman and the peasant, the peasant and the priest, the soldier and the priest. A commoner - a farm laborer, a peasant, a soldier returning from service - is always more savvy than a priest or a landowner, from whom, thanks to cunning, he takes money, things, and sometimes his wife. Usually, the plots of everyday fairy tales are centered around some unexpected event, an unforeseen turning point that occurs thanks to the hero’s cunning.
Everyday tales often satirical. They ridicule the greed and stupidity of those in power. They do not talk about wonderful things and travels to the distant kingdom, but talk about things from peasant everyday life. But everyday fairy tales are no more believable than magical ones. Therefore, the description of wild, immoral, terrible actions in everyday fairy tales does not cause disgust or indignation, but cheerful laughter. After all, this is not life, but a fable.
Everyday fairy tales are a much younger genre than other types of fairy tales. IN modern folklore The heir to this genre was the anecdote (from gr.anekdotos - “unpublished”
CUMULATIVE TALES built on repeated repetition of the same actions or events. In cumulative (from Latin Cumulatio - accumulation) fairy tales, several plot principles are distinguished: accumulation of characters in order to achieve the necessary goal; a heap of actions ending in disaster; a chain of human or animal bodies; escalation of episodes, causing unjustified experiences of the characters.
The accumulation of heroes helping in some important action is obvious in the fairy tale “Turnip”.
Cumulative tales are a very ancient type of fairy tale. They have not been studied enough.
TALES ABOUT ANIMALS preserve the memory of ancient ideas, according to which people descended from ancestors - animals. Animals in these fairy tales behave like people. Cunning and cunning animals deceive others - the gullible and the stupid, and this trickery is never condemned. The plots of fairy tales about animals are reminiscent of mythological stories about heroes - rogues and their tricks.
Non-fairy tale prose is stories and incidents from life that tell about a person’s meeting with characters of Russian demonology - sorcerers, witches, mermaids, etc. This also includes stories about saints, shrines and miracles - about the communication of a person who has accepted the Christian faith with forces of a higher order.
BYLICHKA is a folklore genre, a story about a miraculous event that supposedly happened in reality - mainly about a meeting with spirits, “ evil spirits» .
LEGEND (from Latin legenda “reading”, “readable”) is one of the varieties of non-fairy tale prose folklore. A written legend about some historical events or personalities. Legend is an approximate synonym for the concept of myth; an epic story about what happened in time immemorial; The main characters of the story are usually heroes in the full sense of the word, often gods and other supernatural forces are directly involved in the events. Events in the legend are often exaggerated, and a lot of fiction is added. Therefore, scientists do not consider legends to be completely reliable historical evidence, without denying, however, that most legends are based on real events. In a figurative sense, legends refer to the events of the past, covered in glory and arousing admiration, depicted in fairy tales, stories, etc. As a rule, they contain additional religious or social pathos.
Legends contain memories of ancient events, an explanation of some phenomenon, name or custom.
The words of Odoevsky V.F. sound surprisingly relevant. remarkable Russian, thinker, musician: “We must not forget that from an unnatural life, that is, one where human needs are not satisfied, a painful state occurs... in the same way, idiocy can occur from inaction of thought..., a muscle is paralyzed from an abnormal state of the nerve, “In the same way, a lack of thinking distorts artistic feeling, and the lack of artistic feeling paralyzes thought.” In Odoevsky V.F. you can find thoughts about the aesthetic education of children based on folklore, consonant with what we would like to bring to life these days in the field children's education and education: “... in the field of human spiritual activity I will limit myself to the following remark: the soul expresses itself either through body movements, shapes, colors, or through a series of sounds that form singing or playing a musical instrument”