"The legend of deep antiquity, things have been done for a long time days gone by..." Every Russian-speaking person has heard, seen, and read these lines since childhood. This is how Alexander Pushkin began his work “Ruslan and Lyudmila.” Are his fairy tales really legends? To know for sure, you need to understand the concepts.
Poetry is poetry, fairy tales are fairy tales, but what does the word “legend” mean? We will consider the definition and special features of this phenomenon in our article.
Tradition as a genre
Your introduction to the world folk legends We'll start by defining the concept itself. So, various sources give us the following.
Tradition is a prosaic folklore genre, the plot of which is historical facts in the folk interpretation. People's legends are not associated with the fairy tale genre, although sometimes events resemble mythical or fairy tales.
Legends in literary theory are usually divided into two large groups according to the type of plot: historical and toponymic.
Legends are part of oral folk prose
We learned what legend is. The definition gave us general idea. Let's talk about one feature of this genre. It is noteworthy that legends are a genre of oral folk art. This means that the stories heard today were created hundreds of years ago and passed from mouth to mouth. By the time the legend was recorded on an information medium, dozens or even hundreds of transformations of the plot and images could have occurred.
Creations famous poet In Greece, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, having an incredible length, were also transmitted orally. They also described historical events, embellished and somewhat modified. This shows some similarity between these creations and newer legends.
As a genre of oral prose, legends delight in their long history. Fortunately, or maybe not, distributing them in recorded form is much easier these days. We should appreciate every word and legend that provides important spiritual knowledge about our ancestors.
Comparison with other folk prose genres
Traditions can sometimes be mistakenly defined as legends or epics. To avoid this, let's call this pattern: the plots of legends are aimed at explaining the origin of some cultural or natural phenomenon. They often give a certain moral assessment to the events described. A legend is a retelling of a story in a folk style with the participation of widely known or locally famous heroes.
The legends of the people differ in content from the epics, actors(historical figures: robbers, rulers, simple people, artisans), the participation of real personalities famous in a certain area who became mythological heroes.
Characteristic of this genre of folk prose is a third-person narration about events related to the past. The narrator of the legends was not an eyewitness to the events, but conveys a story heard from third parties.
Historical legends
Collective folk memory created ancient legends from real facts, about which we can read in a slightly different light in history textbooks. This is how they were created historical legends.
Historical legends include legends about Joan of Arc, Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Ataman Mazepa and others.
This also includes biblical stories about the creation of the world, the exit of the Israelites from Egypt in search of their land, and many others.
IN this group includes such legends that absorb people’s ideas about the creation of their world. All folklore units create a single historical and mythological world, reflecting a broad picture of the people's view of the surrounding reality.
The time frame covered by the legends is difficult to determine: this information ranges from biblical antiquity to the present.
Toponymic legends
Toponymic legends include legends that record events that became the basis for the origin of a particular name. Their heroes are, accordingly, local famous characters and events that have meaning only there. The study of such local stories is an interesting part of toponymic and ethnographic research.
Toponymic are the short legends about the Serpentine Shafts (from the Serpent), the city of Kyiv (about Kiy, his brothers and sister), the city of Orsha (Prince Orsh and his daughter Orshitsa), the city of Lvov and many other toponymic objects.
Prospects for Researchers
In every city, every village there are such short stories about where some local name came from. Collections of such legends can be compiled endlessly. There is still room for research today. Therefore, everyone who has discovered legends and found them an interesting object of activity has a job.
Publishing a collection of legends collected in a specific area is a very real prospect. New names are appearing today, right at this moment. Also in remote corners of Russia there are settlements in which folklore is actively developing. This means that new boundaries for ethnographic and folklore work are emerging.
It is noteworthy that nowadays more topographical legends appear. Historical ones are preserved from previous eras, since for some time all facts have been recorded immediately after their appearance.
Legends, myths and their historical basis
Tradition, which we have already defined, is sometimes associated with mythology. Thus, stories about the exploits of the Greek hero Hercules, according to researchers, could not have arisen without real historical facts. Those mythical events and heroes with which the probable real story The adventures of Hercules appeared over time.
Some facts from the Book of Enoch, which mentioned giants, were confirmed. In the same way, architectural monuments were found that could have witnessed the events that became the basis of the legend about the Flood.
conclusions
Thus we have learned that tradition is a devotee's word of mouth folk story about historical events. In the process of transmission, speakers tend to embellish the legend. Definition and features of this folklore genre now we know. We can easily distinguish it from legends and fairy tales.
Ancient legends are a reflection of the deepest layers of culture and history of a certain people. By studying and comparing them with the facts of the history of certain nationalities, one can draw conclusions about the worldview of the people who lived at that time. The value of retellings for ethnology is also extremely high.
Every person has heard folk legends, historical and toponymic, but could not pay attention to this diamond, cut over the years of transmission from mouth to mouth. We can now appreciate what we know and hear about the cultural world around us. Let our article be useful to you and give you the opportunity to look at the creativity of the people from a different perspective.
What is "Tradition"? How to spell given word. Concept and interpretation.
Tradition Tradition TRADE (Ukrainian - opovіdannya, German - Sage, French and English - tradition, Greek - paradosis, in popular terminology - “pre-syulschina”, “byl”, “byvalshchina”) - “folk legend”, or rather those stories and memories that are not included in the circle of genres that are clearly distinguished: epics, historical songs, spiritual poems, fairy tales, legends and anecdotes. P. - a term applied to works oral creativity and by analogy transferred to the corresponding works of literature (monuments ancient writing, presenting unreliable events). The purpose of folk poetry is to consolidate the past in posterity, therefore in the appropriate environment it is usually treated with a certain trust (unlike, for example, fairy tales and anecdote, which are not believed in). The number of folk myths is unlimited, but according to their content they can be divided into several groups: 1. Mythical myths (see “Mythology”). These, in addition to stories about the gods, are stories about the sky and its phenomena, about the soul and body, about the struggle of spirits, about evil spirits, about the souls of the departed, about folk saints like Frol and Laurus, Friday, etc. 2. P. naturalistic: etiological legends about the origin of plants, animals, birds, fish, objects or their properties, about fantastic animals (Phoenix bird, Heat -bird, Leviathan), about wonderful peoples (one-eyed, dog-headed, Gogs and Magogs), etc. 3. Historical items, especially numerous. These include geographical legends (about the names of localities, cities, tracts: Kyiv from Kiy, Paris from Paris, etc.), about material monuments (treasures, monasteries, burial grounds, temples, etc.), about customs ( initiation rites among primitive peoples, marriage, funeral rites, etc.), about truly historical events (about the Tatars, about wars), about various historical figures (about Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Attila, Belisarius, Columbus, Joan of Arc), about the genealogy of nationalities or heroes (Franks from the Trojans, Danes from Odin, Rurik from Augustus, etc.), P. about mineral resources (for example, Herodotus about the wealth of the north in gold and amber off the coast of the North Sea). The class struggle captured historical legends into its whirlpool, making them either weapons of enslavement and deception of the oppressed classes (feudal legends about the Monomakh cap, the white hood, the nobility of the kings), or a focus for attracting sympathies, aspirations for liberation and a bright future among the oppressed classes (for example peasant P. about Stepan Razin, about Pugachev and other heroes of popular uprisings). October Revolution gave rise to a number of revolutionary legends about heroism civil war, about the Red partisans, about the leaders of the revolution, about the communists (Baku commissars, Chapaev, Dzerzhinsky, etc.), counter-revolutionary stories were also spread in a class-hostile environment (about the birth of the devil, the Antichrist, updated icons, etc.). Big circle P., which widely captured not only the USSR, but also the peoples of the East, was caused by the heroic personality of V.I. Lenin. Folk P., reflecting the features of production, everyday life, social and class relations of different stages of the past, represent the richest historical source. Folk songs are preserved among the general population, but there are special experts on them, people who sometimes have an enormous memory. The very telling of folk stories is not an end in itself, but occurs when the occasion is appropriate at gatherings, get-togethers, etc. The existence of folk stories occurs in waves: sometimes the story freezes, then under the influence of a socio-political impulse it comes to life again. There are P., wandering around the globe (about the flood, etc.), there are narrowly local P. Creative process the creation of P. continues to this day. Our ancient historical (chronicles, chronographs, paleas, etc.) and literary monuments(apocrypha, legends, stories, novels). P. serves as a rich source of stories and images of the world fiction(For example " The Divine Comedy"Dante, "The Decameron" by Boccaccio, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare, "Faust" by Goethe, "Pan Tadeusz" by Mickiewicz, "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" by Gogol and many others. etc.). Bibliography: I. Russian P. texts are scattered across collections of fairy tales and legends, for example: D. N. Sadovnikov, Fairy tales and legends of the Samara region, St. Petersburg, 1884; Afanasyev A.N., Russian folk legends, M., 1859, and Kazan, 1914; Shein P.V., Materials for studying the life and language of the Russian population of the North-West. edges, vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1893; Dobrovolsky V.N., Smolensk ethnographic collection, part 1, St. Petersburg, 1891. Great stuff texts and studies on the history of the peoples of the USSR are found in folklore magazines and collections: “Living Antiquity”, “Siberian Living Antiquity”, “Ethnographic Review”, “Ethnographic Bulletin”, “Materials for describing the localities and tribes of the Caucasus”, “Ethnographic Collection” , “Izvestia Mosk. Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography”, etc. II. Folk literature was collected and studied unevenly. Original publications: Grimm, Br., Deutsche Sagen, 2 Teile, Berlin, 1816-1818, 4 Aufl., 1906; Danhardt O., Natursagen, eine Sammlung naturdeutender Sagen, Marchen, Fabeln und Legenden, Lpz., I-IV, 1907-1912; Wehrhan K., Die Sage, Lpz., 1908; Paul H., Grundriss der germ. Philologie, Bd II, 2 Aufl., Strasburg, 1901-1905. See also Mythology.III. There is no bibliography of Russian P. They must be searched for in general bibliographies of folklore, for example: Brodsky N., Gusev N., Sidorov N., Russian oral literature, L., 1924.
Tradition- TREND, Qia, cf. Passing from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, a story about the past, a legend. People... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
Tradition- in folk poetry, a narrative containing information about real persons and events...
tradition
-I
,
Wed Action by verb betray (in 2 and 3 meanings). The [goal] of our order is the preservation and transmission to posterity of some important sacrament. L. Tolstoy, War and Peace. The debate heated up. Some demanded a severe reprimand for Zavyalov, others - expulsion from the party and trial by a military tribunal. Sholokhov-Sinyavsky, Volgins. -I
,
Wed Oral history, history passed down from generation to generation generation. ...
TREND - a genre of folklore; an oral story that contains information about historical persons, events, and places passed down from generation to generation. Often arising from an eyewitness account, the legend, when transmitted, is subject to free poetic interpretation. Wed. with a legend. 1. Genre of folklore. TREND, in folk poetry, a type of legend containing information about historical persons, localities, and events of the past. Fiction in legends is different from fairy-tale fiction and legendary “miracles”. TRADE (Ukrainian - opovіdannya, German - Sage, French and English - tradition, Greek - paradosis, in popular terminology - “pre-syulschina”, “byl”, “byvalshchina”) - “folk legend”, or rather those stories and memories that are not included in the circle of genres that are clearly distinguished: epics, historical songs, spiritual poems, fairy tales, legends and anecdotes. P. is a term applied to works of oral creativity and, by analogy, transferred to corresponding works of literature (monuments of ancient writing that set out unreliable events). The purpose of folk poetry is to consolidate the past in posterity, therefore in the appropriate environment it is usually treated with a certain trust (unlike, for example, fairy tales and jokes, which are not believed in). The number of folk myths is unlimited, but according to their content they can be divided into several groups: 1. Mythical myths (see “Mythology”). These, in addition to stories about the gods, are stories about heaven and its phenomena, about soul and body, about the struggle of spirits, about evil spirits, about the souls of the departed, about folk saints... tradition Cm. history, fairy tale...
2. Freshness that is hard to believe.
3. A story about the past.
4. A story passed from mouth to mouth, a legend.
Tradition in folk poetry, a narrative containing information about real persons and events. Having arisen from the stories of eyewitnesses, P., when transmitted, moves away from the actual fundamental principle, being subject to free poetic interpretation; P. gets closer to the fairy tale (See Fairy Tale) and legend (See Legend) ,
although the fiction in it is different from fairy-tale fiction and legendary miracles. Without being confined to the framework of everyday narrative, P. includes social motives. There are historical (for example, about Joan of Arc, Ivan the Terrible, A.V. Suvorov) and toponymic (about the origin of names, for example, cities: Paris from Paris, Kyiv from Kiy). They were widely used in ancient Russian literature, in the works of A. S. Pushkin, N. S. Leskov, P. P. Bazhov and others. In science, a systematization of P. and b... tradition
TRADITION
1.
TRADITION see betray. 2.
TRADITION
; BETRAY, -I; Wed 1.
Oral history; a story passed down from generation to generation. P. says. Store p. Biblical paragraph Family, folk item Ancient p. Living p.(the tradition that is alive in the mouths of the people is not forgotten). Go into the realm of legends(to cease to exist, to be used;... Genre of folklore: an oral story that contains information about historical persons, events, places, passed down from generation to generation. Often arising from an eyewitness account, it is subject to free poetic interpretation during transmission. Like a legend. TRADITION An oral story about an event, kept among the people from generation to generation; once written down, P. can serve as a significant contribution to Russian history.
The main purpose of legends is to preserve the memory of national history. Legends began to be written down before many folklore genres, as they were an important source for chroniclers. IN large quantities legends exist in oral tradition even today.
Genre varieties of legends
Scientists identify different genre varieties of legends
. Among them are legends
historical,
toponymic,
ethnogenetic,
about the settlement and development of the region,
about treasures,
etiological,
cultural
- and many others. All known classifications conditional, since it is impossible to offer a universal criterion.
Legends are often divided into two groups:
historical and toponymic.
However, all legends are historical (by their genre essence); therefore, any toponymic legend is also historical.
By indication of influence of form or content of other genres
Among the legends there are groups
transitional, peripheral works.
Legendary tales- These are legends with a miracle motif, in which historical events are interpreted from a religious point of view.
Another phenomenon - fairy tales , dedicated to historical figures.
Features of legends
Legends have their own ways to portray heroes . Usually the character is only named, and in the episode of the legend one of his traits is shown. At the beginning or end of the story, direct characteristics and assessments are allowed, which are necessary for the image to be correctly understood. They act not as a personal judgment, but as a general opinion (about Peter I: That’s the tsar - so the tsar, he didn’t eat bread for nothing; he worked better than a barge hauler; about Ivan Susanin: ... after all, he saved not the tsar, but Russia!) .
Portrait The (appearance) of the hero was rarely depicted. If a portrait appeared, it was laconic (for example: robbers are strong, handsome, stately fellows in red shirts). Portrait detail (for example, a costume) could be related to the development of the plot: the unrecognized king walks around dressed in a simple dress; The robber comes to the feast in a general's uniform.
Collectors of Lore
Legends and traditions born in the depths of Russian folk life, have long been considered separate literary genre. In this regard, the famous ethnographers and folklorists A. N. Afanasyev (1826–1871) and V. I. Dal (1801–1872) are most often mentioned. The pioneer of collecting ancient oral stories about secrets, treasures and miracles and the like can be considered M. N. Makarova (1789–1847).
Some stories are divided into the most ancient - pagan (this includes legends: about mermaids, goblins, water creatures, Yaril and other gods of the Russian pantheon). Others belong to the times of Christianity, explore folk life more deeply, but even those are still mixed with a pagan worldview.
Makarov wrote: “Tales about the failures of churches, cities, etc. belong to something unmemorable in our earthly upheavals; But the legends about towns and settlements are not a pointer to the wanderings of the Russians across the Russian land. And did they belong only to the Slavs? He came from an old noble family and owned estates in the Ryazan district. A graduate of Moscow University, Makarov wrote comedies for some time and was involved in publishing. These experiments, however, did not bring him success. He found his true calling in the late 1820s, when, as an official for special assignments under the Ryazan governor, he began to record folk legends and traditions. It was during his numerous official trips and wanderings throughout the central provinces of Russia that “Russian Legends” took shape.
During the same years, another “pioneer” I. P. Sakharov (1807–1863), then still a seminarian, while doing research for Tula history, discovered the charm of “recognizing the Russian people.” He recalled: “Walking through villages and hamlets, I peered into all classes, listened to the wonderful Russian speech, collecting legends of long-forgotten antiquity.” Sakharov’s type of activity was also determined. In 1830–1835 he visited many provinces of Russia, where he was engaged in folklore research. The result of his research was the long-term work “Tales of the Russian People.”
An exceptional for his time (a quarter of a century long) “going to the people” in order to study their creativity and life, was carried out by a folklorist
“The tradition of deep antiquity, the deeds of days gone by...” Every Russian-speaking person has heard, seen, and read these lines since childhood. This is how Alexander Pushkin began his work “Ruslan and Lyudmila”. Are his tales really legends? To know for sure, you need to understand the concepts.
Poetry is poetry, but what does the word “tradition” mean? We will consider the definition and special features of this phenomenon in our article.
Tradition as a genre
We will begin our acquaintance with the world of folk legends with the definition of the concept itself. So, various sources give us the following.
Tradition is a prosaic plot in which historical facts are presented in a popular interpretation. People's legends are not associated with the fairy tale genre, although sometimes events resemble mythical or fairy tales.
Legends in literary theory are usually divided into two large groups according to the type of plot: historical and toponymic.
Legends are part of oral folk prose
We learned, Definition gave us a general idea. Let's talk about one feature of this genre. It is noteworthy that legends are This means that the stories heard today were created hundreds of years ago and passed from mouth to mouth. By the time the legend was recorded on an information medium, dozens or even hundreds of transformations of the plot and images could have occurred.
The works of the famous Greek poet Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which have an incredible size, were also transmitted orally. They also described historical events, embellished and somewhat modified. This shows some similarity between these creations and newer legends.
As a genre of oral prose, legends are admired for their long history. Fortunately, or maybe not, distributing them in recorded form is much easier these days. We should appreciate every word and legend that provides important spiritual knowledge about our ancestors.
Comparison with other folk prose genres
Traditions can sometimes be mistakenly defined as legends or epics. To avoid this, let's call this pattern: the plots of legends are aimed at explaining the origin of some cultural or natural phenomenon. They often give a certain moral assessment to the events described. A legend is a retelling of a story in a folk style with the participation of widely known or locally famous heroes.
People's legends differ from epics in their content, characters (historical figures: robbers, rulers, ordinary people, artisans), and the participation of real personalities known in a certain area who have become mythological heroes.
Characteristic of this genre of folk prose is a third-person narration about events related to the past. The narrator of the legends was not an eyewitness to the events, but conveys a story heard from third parties.
Historical legends
Collective folk memory created ancient legends from real facts, which we can read about in a slightly different light in history textbooks. This is how historical legends were created.
Historical legends include legends about Joan of Arc, Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Ataman Mazepa and others.
This also includes biblical stories about the creation of the world, the exit of the Israelites from Egypt in search of their land, and many others.
This group includes such legends that absorb people’s ideas about the creation of their world. All folklore units create a single historical and mythological world, reflecting a broad picture of the people's view of the surrounding reality.
The time frame covered by the legends is difficult to determine: this information ranges from biblical antiquity to the present.
Toponymic legends
Toponymic legends include legends that record events that became the basis for the origin of a particular name. Their heroes are, accordingly, local famous characters and events that have significance only there. The study of such local stories is an interesting part of toponymic and ethnographic research.
Toponymic are the short legends about the Serpentine Shafts (from the Serpent), the city of Kyiv (about Kiy, his brothers and sister), the city of Orsha (Prince Orsh and his daughter Orshitsa), the city of Lvov and many other toponymic objects.
Prospects for Researchers
In every city, every village there are such short stories about where some local name came from. Collections of such legends can be compiled endlessly. There is still room for research today. Therefore, everyone who has discovered legends and found them an interesting object of activity has a job.
Publishing a collection of legends collected in a specific area is a very real prospect. New names are appearing today, right at this moment. Also in remote corners of Russia there are settlements in which folklore is actively developing. This means that new boundaries for ethnographic and folklore work are emerging.
It is noteworthy that nowadays more topographical legends appear. Historical ones are preserved from previous eras, since for some time all facts have been recorded immediately after their appearance.
Legends, myths and their historical basis
Tradition, which we have already defined, is sometimes associated with mythology. Thus, stories about the exploits of the Greek hero Hercules, according to researchers, could not have arisen without real historical facts. Those mythical events and heroes that surrounded the probable real story of the adventures of Hercules appeared over time.
Some facts from the Book of Enoch, which mentioned giants, were confirmed. In the same way, architectural monuments were found that could have witnessed the events that became the basis of the legend about the Flood.
conclusions
Thus, we learned that tradition is a folk story about historical events from mouth to mouth. In the process of transmission, speakers tend to embellish the legend. The definition and features of this folklore genre are now known to us. We can easily distinguish it from legends and fairy tales.
Ancient legends are a reflection of the deepest layers of culture and history of a certain people. By studying and comparing them with the facts of the history of certain nationalities, one can draw conclusions about the worldview of the people who lived at that time. The value of retellings for ethnology is also extremely high.
Every person has heard folk legends, historical and toponymic, but could not pay attention to this diamond, cut over the years of transmission from mouth to mouth. We can now appreciate what we know and hear about the cultural world around us. Let our article be useful to you and give you the opportunity to look at the creativity of the people from a different perspective.