Fairy tales, songs, epics, street performances - all this different genres folklore, folk oral and poetic creativity. You can’t confuse them, they differ in their specific characteristics, their role in people’s life is different, and they live differently in modern times. At the same time, all genres of verbal folklore have common characteristics: they are all works of verbal art, in their origins they are associated with archaic forms of art, they exist mainly in oral transmission, and are constantly changing. This determines the interaction of the collective and individual principles in them, a unique combination of traditions and innovation. Thus, the folklore genre is a historically developing type of oral poetic work. Anikin V.P. gave his characteristics to folklore. Childbirth: epic, lyric, drama
Types: song, fairy tale, non-fairy tale prose, etc.
Genres: epic, lyrical, historical song, legend, etc.
Genre is the basic unit of study of folklore. In folklore, genre is a form of mastering reality. Over time, depending on changes in everyday life and the social life of the people, the system of genres developed.
There are several classifications of folklore genres:
Historical classification Zueva Tatyana Vasilievna, Kirdan Boris Petrovich Classification by functionality Vladimir Prokopievich Anikin Early traditional folklore Work songs, Fortune telling, spells. Classical folklore Rituals and ritual folklore: calendar, wedding, lamentations. Small genres of folklore: proverbs, sayings, riddles. Fairy tales. Non-fairy tale prose: legends, stories, tales, legends. Song epic: epics, historical songs, spiritual songs and poems, lyrical songs. Folklore theatre. Children's folklore. Folklore for children. Late-traditional folklore Chastushkas Workers' folklore Folklore of the Second World War Period Everyday ritual folklore 1. Work songs 2. Conspiracies 3. Calendar folklore 4. Wedding folklore 5. Lamentations World-wide non-ritual folklore 1. Proverbs 2. Oral prose: legends, incidents, tales, legends. 3. Song epic: epics, historical songs, military songs, spiritual songs and poems. Artistic folklore 1. Fairy tales 2. Riddles 3. Ballads 4. Lyrical songs 5. Children's folklore 6. Spectacles and folk theater 7. Romance songs 8. Ditties 9. Anecdotes
Starting to analyze each genre of folklore, let's start with fairy tales.
Fairy tales are the oldest genre of oral folk art. It teaches a person to live, instills optimism in him, and affirms faith in the triumph of goodness and justice.
A fairy tale is of great social value, consisting in its cognitive, ideological, educational and aesthetic meanings, which are inextricably linked. Like other peoples (Russians, perhaps, more clearly), a fairy tale is an objectified contemplation of the people’s heart, a symbol of their sufferings and dreams, hieroglyphs of their soul. All art is generated by reality. This is one of the foundations of materialist aesthetics. This is the case, for example, with a fairy tale, the plots of which are caused by reality, i.e. era, social and economic relations, forms of thinking and artistic creativity, psychology. It, like all folklore in general, reflected the life of the people, their worldview, moral, ethical, socio-historical, political, philosophical and artistic and aesthetic views. It is closely connected with folk life and rituals. Traditional Russian fairy tales were created and circulated mainly among peasants. Their creators and performers were usually people with extensive life experience, who walked a lot in Rus' and saw a lot. The lower the level of education of people, the more they talk about the phenomena of social life at the level of ordinary consciousness. Maybe that’s why the world reflected in fairy tales is formed at the level of everyday consciousness, on people’s everyday ideas about beauty. Each new era brings tales of a new type, new content and new form. The fairy tale changes along with the historical life of the people, its changes are caused by changes in the folk life, because it is a product of the history of the people; it reflects the events of history and features of folk life. Coverage and understanding of the history and life of the people in folklore changes along with changes in popular ideas, views and psychology. In fairy tales one can find traces of several eras. In the era of feudalism, social themes occupied an increasing place, especially in connection with the peasant movement: anti-serfdom sentiments were expressed in fairy tales. The 16th-18th centuries are characterized by the rich development of fairy tales. It reflects historical motifs (tales about Ivan the Terrible), social ones (tales about judges and priests) and everyday tales (tales about a man and his wife). In the fairy tale genre, satirical motifs are significantly strengthened - the first half of the 19th century. - The last stage of the existence of feudal-serf society. This time is characterized by the development of capitalist relations and the decomposition of the serfdom system. The fairy tale takes on an even more vivid social aspect. It includes new characters, most notably a smart and cunning soldier. In the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, which saw the increasingly rapid and widespread development of capitalism in Russia, great changes occurred in folklore. The satirical motives and critical orientation of the tale are intensified; the basis for this was the aggravation of social contradictions; The purpose of satire is increasingly becoming to expose the power of money and the arbitrariness of authorities. Autobiography occupied a greater place, especially in tales about going to the city to earn money. The Russian fairy tale becomes more realistic and acquires a closer connection with modernity. The illumination of reality and the ideological essence of the works also become different.
The cognitive significance of a fairy tale is manifested, first of all, in the fact that it reflects the features of real life phenomena and provides extensive knowledge about the history of social relations, work and life, as well as an idea of the worldview and psychology of the people, and the nature of the country. The ideological and educational significance of the fairy tale is that it is inspired by the desire for good, the protection of the weak, and victory over evil. In addition, a fairy tale develops an aesthetic sense, i.e. sense of beauty .
It is characterized by the revelation of beauty in nature and man, the unity of aesthetic and moral principles, the combination of reality and fiction, vivid imagery and expressiveness.
A fairy tale is a very popular genre of oral folk art, an epic genre, and a plot genre. A fairy tale differs from other prose genres (traditions and legends) in its more developed aesthetic side, which is manifested in its focus on attractiveness. The aesthetic principle, in addition, manifests itself in the idealization of positive heroes, a vivid depiction of the “fairy-tale world”, amazing creatures and objects, miraculous phenomena, and romantic overtones of events. M. Gorky drew attention to the expressions in fairy tales of people's dreams about a better life: “Already in ancient times, people dreamed of the opportunity to fly through the air - this is what the fairy tale speaks about, about the flying carpet. They dreamed of accelerating movement on the ground - the fairy tale about boots-walkers ..." .
In science, it is generally accepted to divide fairy tale texts into three categories: fairy tales, short story (everyday) tales and tales about animals.
Fairy tales were very popular among the people. Fiction in fairy tales has the nature of fantasy. The magical principle contains the so-called survival moments and, first of all, the religious and mythological view of primitive man, his spiritualization of things and natural phenomena, his attribution to these things and phenomena magical properties, various religious cults, customs, rituals. Fairy tales are full of motifs containing belief in the existence of the other world and the possibility of returning from there, the idea of death enclosed in some material object (egg, flower), a miraculous birth (from drinking water), and the transformation of people into animals and birds. The fantastic beginning of a fairy tale grows on a spontaneous-materialistic basis and remarkably correctly captures the patterns of development of objective reality.
This is what M. Gorky called “an instructive invention - the amazing ability of human thought to look ahead of the fact.” The origin of science fiction has its vital roots in the peculiarities of the way of life and in the dream of people about domination over nature. All these are just traces of mythological ideas, since the formation of the classical form of a fairy tale ended far beyond the historical boundaries of primitive communal society, in a much more developed society. The mythological worldview only provided the basis for the poetic form of the fairy tale.
The important point is that the plots of fairy tales, the miracles they talk about, have a basis in life. This, firstly, is a reflection of the characteristics of the work and life of people of the tribal system, their relationship to nature, and often their powerlessness before it. Secondly, a reflection of the feudal system, primarily early feudalism (the king is the hero’s opponent, the struggle for inheritance).
A character in fairy tales is always a bearer of certain moral qualities. The hero of the most popular fairy tales is Ivan Tsarevich. He helps animals and birds, who are grateful to him for this and, in turn, help him. He is represented in fairy tales as folk hero, the embodiment of the highest moral qualities - courage, honesty, kindness. He is young, handsome, smart and strong. This is the type of brave and strong hero.
A significant place in fairy tales is occupied by female heroines who embody the folk ideal of beauty, intelligence, kindness, and courage. The image of Vasilisa the Wise reflects the remarkable features of a Russian woman - a beauty, majestic simplicity, gentle pride in herself, a remarkable mind and a deep heart full of inexhaustible love. To the consciousness of the Russian people, this is exactly how female beauty was imagined.
The serious meaning of some fairy tales provided grounds for judgment on the most important issues of life. Thus, some fairy tales embody the freedom-loving aspiration and struggle of the Russian people against tyranny and oppressors. The composition of a fairy tale determines the presence of characters who are hostile to the positive heroes. The hero's victory over hostile forces is the triumph of goodness and justice. Many researchers have noted the heroic side of the fairy tale and its social optimism. A.M. Gorky said: “It is very important to note that folklore is completely alien to pessimism, despite the fact that the creators of folklore lived hard, their slave labor was meaningless by the exploiters, and their personal lives were powerless and defenseless. But with all this, the collective seems to be characterized by the consciousness of its immortality and confidence in victory over all forces hostile to him." Fairy tales in which social and everyday relations are at the center of the action are called social and everyday tales. In this type of fairy tales, the comedy of actions and verbal comedy are well developed, which is determined by their satirical, ironic, humorous nature. The theme of one group of fairy tales is social injustice, the theme of another is human vices, in which the lazy, stupid, and stubborn are ridiculed. Depending on this, two varieties are distinguished in social and everyday fairy tales. Social and everyday tales arose, according to researchers, in two stages: everyday - early, with the formation of the family and family life during the decomposition of the clan system, and social - with the emergence of class society and the aggravation of social contradictions during the period of early feudalism, especially during the disintegration of the serfdom. and during the period of capitalism. The growing lack of rights and poverty of the masses caused discontent and protest, and were the basis for social criticism. The positive hero of social fairy tales is a socially active, critical person. Hard work, poverty, darkness, and often unequal marriages in terms of age and property status caused complications in family relationships and determined the appearance of stories about an evil wife and a stupid and lazy husband. Socially everyday fairy tales are distinguished by their acute ideological orientation. This is reflected, first of all, in the fact that the stories mainly have two important social themes: social injustice and social punishment. The first theme is realized in plots where a gentleman, merchant or priest robs and oppresses a peasant and humiliates his personality. The second theme is realized in stories where an intelligent and quick-witted man finds a way to punish his oppressors for centuries of lawlessness and makes them look ridiculous. In social and everyday fairy tales, people's aspirations and expectations, the dream of a socially just, happy and peaceful life, are much more clearly expressed. "In these tales one can see the life of the people, their home life, his moral concepts and this crafty Russian mind, so inclined to irony, so simple-minded in its craftiness."
Fairy tales, as well as some other genres of folklore prose, reflecting the strengths and weaknesses of peasant psychology, expressed the centuries-old dream of a happy life, of a certain “peasant kingdom.” The search for “another kingdom” in fairy tales is a characteristic motif. A fairy-tale social utopia draws folk material well-being, well-fed contentment; The man eats and drinks to his heart's content and has a "feast for the whole world." N. G. Chernyshevsky noted: “The poverty of real life is the source of life in fantasy.” The peasant judges a “happy” life for himself according to the example of those material goods owned by kings and landowners. The peasants had a very strong faith in the “good king,” and the fairy-tale hero becomes just such a king in many fairy tales. At the same time, the fairy-tale king, in his behavior, way of life, and habits, is likened to a simple peasant. The royal palace is sometimes depicted as a rich peasant courtyard with all the attributes of a peasant farm.
Tales about animals are one of the oldest types of folklore. Going back to ancient forms of reflecting reality in the early stages of human consciousness, fairy tales about animals expressed a certain degree of knowledge of the world.
The truth of fairy tales is that although they talk about animals, they reproduce similar human situations. The actions of animals more openly reveal inhumane aspirations, thoughts, and reasons for the actions committed by people. Animal stories are all stories in which there is room not only for fun, but also for the expression of serious meaning. In fairy tales about animals, birds and fish, animals and plants act. Each of these tales has a meaning. For example, in the fairy tale about the turnip, the meaning turned out to be that no amount of strength, even the smallest one, is superfluous, and it happens that it is not enough to achieve a result. With the development of human ideas about nature, with the accumulation of observations, tales include stories about man's victory over animals and about domestic animals, which was the result of their instructions. The identification of similar features in animals and humans (speech - cry, behavior - habits) served as the basis for combining their qualities with human qualities in the images of animals; animals speak and behave like people. This combination also led to the typification of animal characters, which became the embodiment of certain qualities (fox - cunning, etc.). This is how fairy tales acquired an allegorical meaning. Animals began to mean people of certain characters. Animal images became a means of moral teaching. In fairy tales, animals are not only ridiculed negative qualities(stupidity, laziness, talkativeness), but also condemns the oppression of the weak, greed, and deception for profit. The main semantic aspect of fairy tales about animals is moral. Fairy tales about animals are characterized by bright optimism; the weak always come out of difficult situations. The connection of the fairy tale with the ancient period of her life is revealed in the motives of the fear of the beast, in overcoming fear of it. The beast has strength and cunning, but no human intelligence. At a later stage in the life of a fairy tale, images of animals acquire the meaning of social types. In such variants, in the image of a sly fox, a wolf and others, one can see human characters that arose in the conditions of a class society. You can guess behind the image of the animal in them social relations of people. For example, in the fairy tale “About Ersha Ershovich and his son Shchetinnikov” a complete and accurate picture of ancient Russian legal proceedings is given. In the fairy tales of every nation, universal themes receive a unique national embodiment. Russian folk tales reveal certain social relationships, show the way of life of the people, their home life, their moral concepts, the Russian view, the Russian mind - everything that makes a fairy tale nationally distinctive and unique. The ideological orientation of Russian fairy tales is manifested in the reflection of the people's struggle for a wonderful future. Thus, we saw that the Russian fairy tale is a generalized, evaluative and purposeful reflection of reality, which expresses human consciousness, and in particular the consciousness of the Russian people. The old name of a fairy tale - fable - indicates the narrative nature of the genre. Nowadays, the name “fairy tale” and the term “fairy tale”, which began to come into use in the 17th century, are used among the people and in scientific literature. A fairy tale is a very popular genre of oral folk art, an epic, prose, plot genre. It is not sung like a song, but told. The fairy tale is distinguished by its strict form and the obligatory nature of certain moments. Fairy tales have been known in Rus' since ancient times. IN ancient writing there are plots, motifs and images reminiscent of fairy tales. Telling fairy tales is an old Russian custom. In manuscripts of the 16th - 17th centuries. Records of the fairy tales “About Ivan Ponamarevich” and “About the Princess and Ivashka the White Shirt” have been preserved. In the 18th century in addition to handwritten collections of fairy tales, printed publications. Several collections of fairy tales have appeared, which include works with characteristic compositional and stylistic fairy-tale features: “The Tale of the Thief Timoshka” and “The Tale of the Gypsy” in V. Levshin’s collection “Russian Fairy Tales” (1780-1783), “The Tale of Ivan the Bogatyr” , a peasant's son" in P. Timofeev's collection "Russian Fairy Tales" (1787). In the 60s of the XIX century. A.N. Afanasyev released the collection “Treasured Tales,” which included satirical tales about bars and priests. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. A number of important, well-prepared collections of fairy tales appear. They gave an idea of the distribution of works of this genre, its state, and put forward new principles of collecting and publishing. After October revolution the collection of fairy tales, like the collection of folklore in general, took on organized forms.
Mikhailova O. S. Considered: tales about animals. Historical roots of fairy tales about animals (animistic, anthropomorphic, totemistic ideas, folk beliefs). Evolution of the genre. Heroes of fairy tales about animals. Style. Absence of abstract fable allegorism. The satirical function of allegories. Irony. Paradoxical plot. Dialogue. Compositional features. Cumulative tales. Fairy tales. Miracle, magic as a fairy-tale-plot basis of fairy tales. Historical roots of fairy tales (mythological ideas, folk demonology, folk rituals, everyday prohibitions, magic, etc.). Poetic conventions of fairy tales. The main ideas of fairy tales. Compositional features. Features of the author's word. Dialogue. Fairy tales. Heroes and their functions. Fairytale chronotope. Everyday tales. The proximity of an everyday fairy tale to a short story. Ways of forming the genre of short story tales. Typology of everyday tales (family tales, about masters and servants, about the clergy, etc.). Poetics and style (everyday “groundedness”, entertaining plot, hyperbolization in the depiction of characters, etc.).
One cannot but agree with the opinion of V.P. Anikin that fairy tales seem to have subjugated time, and this applies not only to fairy tales. In each era they live their own special lives. Where does a fairy tale have such power over time? Let us think about the essence of the similarity that fairy tales have with equally stable, seemingly “timeless” truths expressed by proverbs. A fairy tale and a proverb are united by the extraordinary breadth of artistic generalization contained in them. Perhaps this property is most clearly revealed in allegorical tales.
The next genre is "epic". The word "epic" is raised to the word "byl"; it means a story about what once happened, what happened, the reality of which they believed. The word "epic" as a term denoting folk songs with a certain content and a specific artistic form. The epic is the fruit of artistic invention and poetic flight of imagination. But fiction and fantasy are not a distortion of reality. Epics always contain deep artistic and life truth. The content of the epic is extremely varied. Basically, this is an “epic” song, i.e. narrative in nature. The main core of the epic consists of songs of heroic content. The heroes of these songs are not looking for personal happiness, they are performing feats in the name of the interests of the Russian land. The main characters of the Russian epic are warriors. But the type of heroic epic is not the only one, although it is the most characteristic of the Russian epic. Along with heroic ones, there are epics of a fairy-tale-heroic or purely fairy-tale nature. Such, for example, are the epics about Sadko and his stay in the underwater kingdom. An epic narrative can also have a social-everyday or family-everyday character (novelistic epics). Some of these epics can be classified as a special group of ballad songs. It is not always possible to draw the line between epic and ballad songs.
In folklore collections, epics of both heroic, fairy-tale, and novelistic nature are usually placed side by side. Such a combination gives a correct idea of the breadth and scope of Russian epic creativity. Taken together, all this material forms a single whole - Russian folk epic . Currently, we have a huge amount of epic material, and the epic can be well studied. From the end of the 17th century. epic stories (“Ilya and the Nightingale the Robber”, “Mikhailo Potyk”, etc.) penetrate the handwritten story and are presented as entertaining reading material under the name “History”, “Word” or “Tale” [9]. Some of these stories are very close to the epic and can be divided into verses, others are the result of complex literary processing under the influence of ancient everyday literature, fairy tales, Russian and Western European adventure novels. Such "histories" were very popular, especially in cities where genuine epics were written in the 17th - 18th centuries. was little known. The first collection containing epics in the proper sense is the “Collection of Kirsha Danilov,” first published by A.F. Yakubovich in 1804 under the title “Ancient Russian Poems.” It was most likely created in Western Siberia. The manuscript contains 71 songs, with notes for each text. There are about 25 epics here. Most of the songs were recorded from voices, the recordings are very accurate, many features of the singers’ language have been preserved, and the texts are of very great artistic value. Kirsha Danilov is traditionally considered the creator of the collection, but who he is and what his role was in compiling this first collection of epics and historical songs in Russia is unknown. The first collector of epics was Pyotr Vasilyevich Kireevsky (1808 - 1856). Kireyevsky not only collected songs himself, but also encouraged his friends and relatives to do this work. Among Kireevsky's collaborators and correspondents were the poet Yazykov (his main assistant), Pushkin, Gogol, Koltsov, Dal, and scientists of that time. The epics were published as part of ten issues of "Songs collected by P.V. Kireevsky (1860 - 1874). The first five issues contain epics and ballads, the second half is devoted mainly to historical songs. The collection contains recordings of epics made in the Volga region, in some central provinces of Russia, in the North and in the Urals; these records are especially interesting because many of them were made in places where epics soon disappeared and were no longer recorded. One of the most remarkable collections of epics is a collection published by Pavel Nikolaevich Rybnikov (1832 - 1885). Being exiled to Petrozavodsk, traveling around the province as secretary of the statistical committee, Rybnikov began recording epics of the Olonets region. He recorded about 220 texts of epics. The collection was published under the editorship of Bessonov in four volumes, “Songs collected by P. N. Rybnikov" in 1861 - 1867. In addition to epics, this collection contains a number of wedding songs, lamentations, fairy tales, etc. The appearance of Rybnikov’s collection was a great event in social and literary life. Together with Kireevsky's collection, it opened up a new field of science. Ten years after the appearance of Rybnikov’s collection, Alexander Fedorovich Hilferding went to the same places specifically for the purpose of recording epics. In two months he managed to record more than 300 texts. Some epics were recorded by him later, from singers who came to St. Petersburg. The collected songs entitled “Onega epics recorded by Alexander Fedorovich Hilferding in the summer of 1871” were published in one volume. There are 318 texts in total. The songs are arranged by region, village and performer. The texts were recorded with all the care and precision possible for the collector. From now on, arranging material by performer became the practice of publishing epics and fairy tales and continues to this day. The sixties were years of special attention to the poetry of peasants. During these years, “Folk Russian Tales” by A.N. Afanasyev (1855 - 1864), “Great Russian Tales” by I.A. Khudyakov (1863), “Proverbs of the Russian People” by V.I. Dahl (1861) were published. With the onset of the reaction of the 80s, interest in folk poetry fell for some time. Only in 1901 A.V. Markov published a small collection of “White Sea epics”. Markov moved to the far north and visited the eastern shore White Sea. In total, the collection contains 116 epics. The plot, style and form of existence of epics turned out to be significantly different here than in the Onega region. Several new subjects were found. In all respects, Markov’s collection significantly expanded the existing scientific understanding of the epic. One of the largest and most significant expeditions was the expedition of A.D. Grigoriev to the Arkhangelsk province, which lasted three summers. Over three summers of collecting work, he recorded 424 texts, which were subsequently published in three volumes entitled “Arkhangelsk epics and historical songs” (1904 - 1910). As a result, Grigoriev’s collection became the largest and one of the most interesting in Russian folklore. The records are highly accurate. For the first time, recording epic tunes on a phonograph was widely used. A sheet music book is included with each volume. A detailed map of the North is attached to the entire publication, indicating the places where the epics were recorded. In 40 - 60 years. XIX century In Altai, the remarkable ethnographer Stepan Ivanovich Gulyaev recorded epics. Siberian records have great importance, since they often retain a more archaic form of plot than in the North, where epics have changed more. Gulyaev recorded up to 50 epics and other epic songs. His entire collection was published only in Soviet times. In the summer months of 1908 - 1909. brothers Boris and Yuri Sokolov made a folklore expedition to the Belozersky region of the Novgorod province. It was a well-organized scientific expedition. Its goal was to cover all folklore with recordings. of this region. The predominant genres turned out to be fairy tales and songs, but unexpectedly epics were also found. 28 texts were recorded. Bylinas were collected not only in the North, in Siberia and the Volga region. Their existence in the 19th - 20th centuries. was discovered in places of Cossack settlements - on the Don, on the Terek, among the Astrakhan, Ural, and Orenburg Cossacks.
The largest collector of Don Cossack songs was A.M. Listopadov, who devoted fifty years of his life to this work (starting from 1892 - 1894). As a result of multiple trips to Cossack villages Listopadov wrote down great amount songs, including more than 60 epics; his notes provide a comprehensive picture of the Don epic in the form in which it was preserved by the beginning of the twentieth century. The value of Listopadov’s materials is especially enhanced by the fact that not only the texts, but also the tunes were recorded.
As a result of collecting work, it became possible to determine the features of the content and form of the Cossack epic, its plot composition, manner of execution, and to imagine the fate of the Russian epic in the Cossack regions. The merit of Russian scientists in the field of collecting epics is extremely great. Through their efforts, one of the best assets of Russian national culture was saved from oblivion. The work of collecting epics was carried out entirely by individual enthusiasts who, sometimes overcoming various and very difficult obstacles, selflessly worked on recording and publishing monuments of folk poetry.
After the October Revolution, the work of collecting epics took on a different character. Now it is beginning to be carried out systematically and systematically by research institutions. In 1926-1928 The State Academy of Art Sciences in Moscow equipped an expedition under the slogan “In the footsteps of Rybnikov and Hilferding.” The epics of the Onega region are among the best, and the Onega region is among the richest in epic tradition. As a result of planned and systematic work, 376 texts were recorded, many of them in excellent preservation.
Long-term and systematic work was carried out by Leningrad scientific institutions. In 1926 -1929. The State Institute of Art History sent complex art history expeditions to the North, which included folklorists. In 1931 - 1933 work on the creation of folklore was carried out by the folklore commission of the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences in Petrozavodsk. A total of 224 texts were published in the collection. The publication is distinguished by high scientific level. For each of the epics, salts are given for all variants known in science. In subsequent years, expeditions were also organized to study the epic genre. The collecting work of Russian scientists was intensive and fruitful both in pre-revolutionary and Soviet times. Much is stored in archives and is still waiting to be published. The number of published epics can be estimated at approximately 2,500 song units.
The concept of epics was also considered by V.V. Shuklin.
Epics and myths, the ancient epic genre of epics (North Russian people called them antiquities) took shape in the 10th century. The word epic, i.e. "truth". "act". Found in The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Its author begins his song “according to the epics of this time, and not according to the thoughts of Boyan.” The appearance of epics under Prince Vladimir is not accidental. His warriors performed their feats not on long campaigns, but in the fight against nomads, i.e. in plain sight, so they became available for epic chanting.
Also Anikin V.P. said that among oral works there are those by which the significance of folklore in folk life is primarily judged. For Russian folk, these are epics. Only fairy tales and songs stand next to them, but if we remember that ballads were both spoken and sung, then their predominance over other types of folklore will become clear. Epics differ from songs in their solemnity, and from fairy tales in the grandeur of their plot action. An epic is both a story and a majestic song speech. The combination of such properties became possible because epics arose in ancient times, when storytelling and singing were not yet separated as decisively as they happened later. Singing gave the storytelling solemnity, and storytelling through singing gave it a resemblance to the intonations of human speech. The solemnity of the tone corresponded to the glorification of the heroic deed in the epics, and the singing put the story into measured lines so that not a single detail would disappear from people’s memory. This is an epic, a song story.
It is also worth noting one of the genres of folklore, “legends,” which were discussed by T. V. Zueva and B. P. Kirdant.
Legends are prose works in which fantastic understandings of events are associated with phenomena of inanimate nature, with the world of plants, animals, and people (planet, people, individuals); with supernatural beings (God, saints, angels, unclean spirits). The main functions of legends are explanatory and moralizing. The legends are associated with Christian ideas, but they also have a pagan basis. In legends, man turns out to be immeasurably higher than evil spirits
Legends existed both oral and written. The term “legend” itself comes from medieval writing and translated from Latin means “that which must be read.”
The following genres can be combined into one. Since they have a lot in common, these are proverbs and sayings. Kravtsov N.I. and Lazutin S.G. said that a proverb is a small non-lyrical genre of oral creativity; a form of saying that has entered into speech circulation, fitting into one grammatically and logically complete sentence, often rhythmic and supported by rhyme. It is characterized by extreme brevity and simplicity.
Sayings are closely related to proverbs. Like proverbs, sayings belong to small genres of folklore. In most cases they are even more concise than proverbs. Like proverbs, sayings are not specifically performed (they are not sung or told), but are used in real life. colloquial speech. At the same time, sayings differ significantly from proverbs in the nature of the content, in the form, and in the functions performed in speech.
The collection and study of sayings went simultaneously with the collection and study of proverbs. N. P. Kolpakova, M. Ya. Melts and G. G. Shapovalova believed that the term “proverb” began to be used to designate a type of folk poetry only from the end of the 17th century. Previously, proverbs were called "parables". However, the existence of proverbs as special sayings expressing popular judgments in figurative form can be noted in very distant times. folklore fairy tale epic riddle
Many specific historical events of ancient Rus' found echoes in proverbs. However, the historical value of the proverb lies not only in this, but mainly in the fact that it preserved many historically developed views of the people, for example, the idea of the unity of the army and the people: “Peace stands before the army, and the army stands before the world”; about the strength of the community: “The world will stand up for itself”, “You cannot win over the world”, etc. It is impossible not to emphasize the opinion of N. S. Ashukin and M. G. Ashukina. The proverb captures the high ethical ideals of the working people, their love for their homeland: “The native side is the mother, the foreign side is the stepmother”; deep respect for work, skill, skill, intelligence, courage, truth, honesty. Many proverbs have been created on these topics: “You can’t catch a fish out of a pond without labor,” “Across arable land and brush,” “Craft has its trade,” “ It's time, it’s time for fun,” “A person who is ugly is good in mind,” “Learning is better than wealth,” “Truth is more valuable than gold,” “Better poverty and honesty than profit and shame.” And, on the contrary, the proverb denounces laziness, deceit, drunkenness and other vices: “Laziness does no good, he dines without salt,” “Give him a flaky egg,” “It spreads with a leaf and aims to bite” (about duplicity), “I got drunk on honey, I got drunk on tears,” etc.
IN AND. Dahl also gave his own definition of a saying. A saying is a roundabout expression, figurative speech, a simple allegory, a circumlocution, a way of expression, but without a parable, without judgment, conclusion, application; this is the first half of the proverb.
Another major genre of folklore is the “riddle”. The object of a folk riddle is the diverse world of objects and phenomena surrounding a person.
The folk riddle also draws its images from the world of everyday objects and phenomena surrounding a person, which the worker encountered in the process of his activity.
The usual form of a riddle is short description or a condensed story. Each riddle includes a hidden question: who is it? What is this? etc. In a number of cases, the riddle is expressed in a dialogical form: “Crooked and crafty, where did it run? - Green, curly, - watch out for you” (fence).
The riddle is distinguished by its two-part construction; it always involves a solution.
Many of the riddles have rhyming endings; in some, the first part rhymes, but the second part maintains the meter. Some riddles are based on the rhyming of words alone; The riddle rhymes with the answer: “What kind of matchmaker is there in the hut?” (grasp); “What kind of Samson is in the hut?” (screen).
The riddle is still preserved among the people not only as a means of entertainment, but also as a means of education, the development of children's intelligence and resourcefulness. The riddle answers the child's questions: what comes from? what is made of what? what are they doing? what is good for what?
The systematic collection of Russian folk riddles began only in the second half of the 19th century. By the 17th century Only records made by amateur collectors apply.
(Poiché quanto sotto riportato è parte della mia tesi di laurea magistrale, se desiderate copiare il testo vi prego di citare sempre la fonte e l’autore (Margherita Sanguineti). Grazie.)
Folklore genres also differ in the way they are performed and in the different combinations of text with melody, intonation, and movements (singing, singing and dancing, storytelling, acting, etc.).
With changes in the social life of society, new genres arose in Russian folklore: soldiers', coachmen's, barge haulers' songs. The growth of industry and cities gave rise to romances, jokes, worker, school and student folklore.
There are genres in folklore productive, in the depths of which new works may appear. Now these are ditties, sayings, city songs, jokes, many types children's folklore. There are genres unproductive, but continue to exist. Thus, no new folk tales appear, but old ones are still told. Many old songs are also sung. But epics and historical songs are practically no longer heard live.
Depending on the stage of development, folklore is usually divided into early traditional folklore, classical folklore and late traditional folklore. Each group belongs to special genres, typical for a given stage of development of folk art.
Early traditional folklore
1. Labor songs.
These songs are known among all nations, which were performed during labor processes (when lifting heavy objects, plowing fields, manually grinding grain, etc.).
Such songs could be performed when working alone, but they were especially important when working together, since they contained commands for simultaneous action.
Their main element was rhythm, which organized the labor process.
2. Fortune telling and conspiracies.
Fortune telling is a means of recognizing the future. To recognize the future, one had to turn to evil spirits, therefore, fortune telling was perceived as a sinful and dangerous activity.
For fortune-telling, places were chosen where, according to the people, it was possible to come into contact with the inhabitants of the “other world”, as well as the time of day at which this contact was most likely.
Fortune telling was based on the technique of interpreting “signs”: randomly heard words, reflections in water, animal behavior, etc. To obtain these “signs,” actions were taken in which objects, animals, and plants were used. Sometimes actions were accompanied by verbal formulas.
Classic folklore
1. Rituals and ritual folklore
Ritual folklore consisted of verbal, musical, dramatic, game and choreographic genres.
The rituals had ritual and magical significance and contained rules of human behavior in everyday life and work. They are usually divided into work and family.
1.1 Labor rites: calendar rites
The observations of the ancient Slavs on the solstice and the changes in nature associated with it developed into a system of mythological beliefs and practical work skills, reinforced by rituals, signs, and proverbs.
Gradually, the rituals formed an annual cycle, and the most important holidays were timed to coincide with the winter and summer solstices.
There are winter, spring, summer and autumn rituals.
1.2. Family rituals
Unlike calendar rituals, the hero of family rituals is a real person. Rituals accompanied many events in his life, among which the most important were birth, marriage and death.
The wedding ceremony was the most developed; it had its own characteristics and laws, its own mythology and its own poetry.
1.3. Lamentations
This ancient genre folklore, genetically associated with funeral rites. The object of the lamentation image is the tragic in life, therefore the lyrical principle is strongly expressed in them, the melody is weakly expressed and in the content of the text one could find many exclamatory-interrogative constructions, synonymous repetitions, unity of beginning, etc.
2. Small genres of folklore. Proverbs.
Small folklore genres include works that differ in genre, but have a common external feature - a small volume.
Small genres of folklore prose, or proverbs, are very diverse: proverbs, sayings, signs, riddles, jokes, proverbs, tongue twisters, puns, well wishes, curses, etc.
3. Fairy tales(see § 2.)
3.1. Animal Tales
3.2. Fairy tales
3.3. Everyday tales
3.3.1. Anecdotal tales
3.3.2. Short story tales
4. Non-fairy prose
Non-fairy tale prose has a different modality than fairy tales: its works are confined to real time, real terrain, real persons. Non-fairy-tale prose is characterized by not being distinguished from the flow of everyday speech and the absence of special genre and style canons. In the very in a general sense we can say that her works are characterized by the stylistic form of an epic narrative about the authentic.
The most stable component is the character, around which all the rest of the material is united.
An important feature of non-fairy tale prose is the plot. Usually the plots have an embryonic form (single-motive), but can be conveyed both concisely and in detail.
Works of non-fairy tale prose are capable of contamination.
The following genres belong to non-fairy tale prose: tales, legends and demonological stories.
5. Epics
Bylinas are epic songs in which heroic events or individual episodes of ancient Russian history are sung.
As in fairy tales, epics feature mythological images of enemies, characters are reincarnated, and animals help the heroes.
The epics have a heroic or novelistic character: the idea of heroic epics is the glorification of the unity and independence of the Russian land; in the novelistic epics marital fidelity, true friendship were glorified, personal vices (bragging, arrogance) were condemned.
6. Historical songs
Historical songs are folk epic, lyric epic and lyrical songs, the content of which is dedicated to specific events and real persons of Russian history and expresses the national interests and ideals of the people.
7. Ballads
Folk ballads are lyric-epic songs about a tragic event. Ballads are characterized by personal, family and everyday themes. At the center of the ballads are moral problems: love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, crime and repentance.
8. Spiritual Poems
Spiritual poems are songs with religious content.
The main feature of spiritual verses is the contrast between everything Christian and the worldly.
Spiritual poems are heterogeneous. In oral existence they interacted with epics, historical songs, ballads, lyrical songs, and lamentations.
9. Lyrical non-ritual songs
In folk lyrics, word and melody are inseparable. The main purpose of songs is to reveal the worldview of the people by directly expressing their feelings, thoughts and moods.
These songs expressed the characteristic experiences of a Russian person in different life situations.
10. Folklore theatre.
Folklore theater – traditional dramatic creativity people.
Specific signs folklore theater– absence of a stage, separation of performers and audience, action as a form of reflection of reality, transformation of the performer into another objectified image, aesthetic orientation of the performance.
Plays were often distributed in written form and pre-rehearsed, which did not exclude improvisation.
Folklore theater includes: booths, traveling picture theater (rayok), folk puppet theater and folk dramas.
11. Children's folklore.
Children's folklore is a specific area of oral artistic creativity, which, unlike the folklore of adults, has its own poetics, its own forms of existence and its own speakers.
General, generic sign children's folklore - correlation of literary text with the game.
Works of children's folklore are performed by adults for children (mother's folklore) and by the children themselves (actually children's folklore)
Late traditional folklore
Late traditional folklore is a collection of works of different genres and different directions, created in peasant, urban, soldier, worker and other environments since the beginning of the development of industry, the growth of cities, and the collapse of the feudal countryside.
Late traditional folklore is characterized by a smaller number of works and a generally lower artistic level compared to classical folklore.
1. Ditties
A chastushka is a short rhyming folk song that is sung at a fast tempo to a specific melody.
The themes of the ditties are varied. Most of them are devoted to love and family themes. But they often reflect the modern life of the people, the changes that are taking place in the country, and contain sharp political hints. The ditty is characterized by a humorous attitude towards its characters, irony, and sometimes sharp satire.
2. Workers' folklore
Workers' folklore – oral folk works, which were created in the working environment or assimilated by it and processed so much that they began to reflect the spiritual needs of this particular environment.
Unlike ditties, workers' folklore did not turn into a national, all-Russian phenomenon. His characteristic feature– locality, isolation within a particular industrial territory. For example, workers in factories, factories and mines in Petrozavodsk, Donbass, the Urals, Altai and Siberia knew almost no oral works of each other.
Song genres predominated in workers' folklore. The songs depicted the difficult working and living conditions of a simple worker, which were contrasted with the idle life of the oppressors - enterprise owners and overseers.
In form, the songs are monologues-complaints.
3. Folklore of the period of the Great Patriotic War.
Folklore of the period of the Great Patriotic War consists of works of various genres: songs, prose, aphoristic. They were created by the participants in events and battles, workers of factories, collective farm fields, partisans, etc.
These works reflect the life and struggle of the peoples of the USSR, the heroism of the country's defenders, faith in victory, the joy of victory, fidelity in love and love betrayals.
In our work we will dwell in more detail on the folklore classical genre of fairy tales.
In the book by N.P. Kolpakova “Russian folk everyday song”, among others, “game” and “lyrical” are named. The term “everyday” is unfortunate because it inspires the idea that, in addition to everyday songs, there are some other, non-everyday songs. The term “household” should be completely removed from scientific use as too broad and therefore without any certain meaning. All songs are decidedly everyday songs, either because they live and are used in everyday life, or because they directly or indirectly reflect the life of the Russian village.
Carols can just as much be called everyday songs as soldiers' marching songs or lullabies; the only difference is which aspects of Russian life are directly or indirectly reflected in it. There are no songs outside of everyday life.
The division into “game”, on the one hand, and “lyrical”, on the other, is incorrect because lyricism is a broad concept, which includes the most diverse types of folk non-epic songs. This distribution is based on a narrow understanding of “lyrics” as an expression of deeply personal and intimate feelings. For folklore, such an understanding of “lyrics” is inapplicable.
Lyrics, along with epic and grammar, is a type of poetic creativity that expresses not only personal feelings of sadness, love, etc., but popular feelings of joy, sorrow, anger, indignation, and expresses it in a wide variety of forms. These forms constitute genres, while “lyrics” are not a genre. “Game” songs are one of the private forms of song performance; contrasting the concepts of “lyrical” and “game” songs and asserting their incompatibility is as wrong as talking about the incompatibility of the concepts of tree and birch.
The inability to distinguish genus and species, as well as to apply broader and narrower categories of classification, is generally very common. We can say that this method of distribution prevails in our country. The material is divided into categories without further subdivisions or ramifications, and phenomena of a very broad and very narrow nature fall into one row. The result is an enumeration without any divisions, without branches. Meanwhile, many errors could be avoided by using some signs for categories, others for subcategories, instead of combining them in one row, where they do not exclude each other.
It is quite obvious that as long as there are such erroneous ideas about the composition of Russian folklore, about the categories of this composition and about their relationships, the question of the genres of Russian song cannot be resolved.
How to get out of difficulties? We proceed from two theoretical premises. The first is that in folklore, with the unity or cohesion of content and form, the content is primary; it creates its own form, and not vice versa. This position remains true regardless of philosophical debates about what is meant by form and what by content.
The second premise is that different social groups create different, rather than identical, songs. Both of these premises are closely related. We believe that peasants, farm laborers, soldiers, workers will create songs with different content and that, due to this difference in content, their form will be different. This means that division on social grounds will not contradict division on poetic grounds. On the contrary, such a division will make it possible to introduce some system into the motley and varied world of song.
Without prejudging the question of what is called a genre in the field of lyric poetry and what is not, we will try to divide songs based on social affiliation. From this point of view, three large groups can be distinguished:
- songs of peasants doing agricultural work;
- songs of peasants separated from agricultural labor;
- workers' songs.
Let us first dwell on the songs of the peasants themselves.
The traditional division of peasant lyrics into ritual and non-ritual is logically and factually correct. It is also correct to divide ritual lyrics into calendar and family ritual lyrics.
The word “calendar songs” when applied to the lyrics is not entirely appropriate. These are songs of major national holidays that had a pronounced agricultural character. Therefore, it would be more correct to call the totality of these songs agricultural ritual lyrics.
Songs of this type are easily and naturally divided according to the holidays during which they were performed. At Christmas time, carols were sung - songs that glorified the owners and promised them a rich harvest, multiplication of livestock, health and prosperity. In gratitude for these promises (which were once credited with magical powers), the owners gave gifts to the carolers. On New Year's Eve they sang subbly songs. These songs accompanied fortune-telling, which consisted of placing several rings in a dish of water, and then short songs were sung, promising marriage, separation, death, travel, etc. During the songs, the rings were taken out, and the one to whom the ring belonged took a song to yourself.
Continuing the review, we can name Maslenitsa songs. Their number is very small and they are poorly preserved. These are funny songs about meeting and seeing off Maslenitsa. On Yegoryev Day in central Russia, for the first time after winter, cattle were driven out to pasture. On this occasion, special songs were sung, Yegoryev’s songs, the content of which was reduced to spells or conspiracies to protect livestock from wolves, deaths and lack of food. During the vernal equinox, the welcoming of spring was celebrated. On the day of this holiday, larks or waders were baked and given to children. Children tied them to twigs or trees, which was supposed to represent the arrival of birds, and sang special songs called stoneflies.
These songs called for spring and praised it. The birds seemed to bring spring on their wings. The seventh Thursday after Easter was called Semik. On this day, they decorated the birch tree, danced under it and sang songs in praise of the birch tree. The girls worshiped each other, and songs were also sung about this. These songs are usually called Semitic songs. In these songs, ritual motifs are intertwined with love ones. We know that special Kupala songs were sung during the summer solstice - on the day of Ivan Kupala, but the Russians did not preserve such songs. Finally, during the harvest, stubble songs were sung in this way.
They sang about the imminent completion of work and about the treat that awaits the reapers. Such songs were accompanied by glorification of the owner, in whose field the reapers helped to reap. We could highlight carols, sub-bread songs, Maslenitsa songs, vesnyankas, Yegoryevsk songs, Semitic songs, stubble songs. All of them belong to the field of ritual agricultural lyrics, but they have different content and different forms, are performed differently, at different times and differ in their tunes.
Each of these types constitutes a genre, that is, it has a common poetic system and is performed at the same times, in the same forms, by the same musical style. A more detailed division of them is possible. So, for example, it is possible to establish different types of carols, sub-bowl songs, stoneflies, but these types do not represent new genres.
Another large area of ritual poetry is family ritual songs. These include funeral and wedding songs.
Funeral cries, or lamentations, or, as they are sometimes called popularly, screams, accompany all moments of the funeral rite: the dressing of the deceased, farewell before being taken out, immersion in the ground, the moment of relatives returning home to an empty hut. Each of these moments can be accompanied by songs that are specific in their content, but they can also be mixed.
The metrical structure of laments differs from the metrical structure of all other types of folk lyrics. In the classical form of laments, the meter is trochaic with a dactylic ending, the lines are long, covering from four to seven feet for different performers. Each line is syntactically complete, after each line there is a long pause, during which the singer sobs and sobs.
Wedding poetry also mainly consists of laments. The bride laments, or, if she does not know how to do this, the mourner. The main moments of the wedding ceremony, such as the conspiracy, bachelorette party, wedding day and others, are each accompanied by their own lamentations. The bride asked not to give her away in marriage, to postpone the wedding day, she is afraid of life in a new house, where hard work and unkind treatment await her.
All this shows that wedding laments represent a completely different genre than funeral laments. The bride sang sad songs, while the rest of the youth sang happy songs. This includes wedding songs for the newlyweds, their parents and guests of honor. On the contrary, mocking songs were sung towards the groomsmen, matchmakers and matchmakers; to get rid of such ridicule, it was necessary to pay off with money. The friend also created fun. But he did not sing, but performed various sentences, the content of which was greetings. These greetings may be accompanied by ridicule directed at girls, children, or, for example, grumpy old women who are offered to be shoved onto the stove, etc.
Friend's sentences are not songs. They are performed in rhymed prose, interspersed with all kinds of witticisms and jokes. Thus, the lamentations of the bride, majestic wedding songs and sentences of the groomsmen and songs of ridicule constitute the main genres of wedding poetry.
We move on to consider non-ritual lyrics - the richest type of folk song creativity. Having touched on ritual lamentations, we must resolve the issue of non-ritual lamentations. We mean those lamentations or laments that are performed over various misfortunes and disasters with which peasant life was so rich. Do these laments belong to the same genre as funeral laments or not?
One of these disasters is the transfer of a guy to a recruit, and subsequently the conscription of recruits into the army. This moment was accompanied by lamentations or cries, which are commonly called recruiting lamentations. But cries and lamentations could be accompanied by any other sad moment in the life of a peasant: a fire, sending a patient to the hospital; on various occasions, farm laborers and orphans lamented about their lot; they cried as they reminisced about their past.
During the Great Patriotic War, women wailed when they received news of the death of their husband, son, or brother. Refugees cried when returning home, seeing their homes destroyed. It is generally accepted to combine all types of lamentations into one genre, distinguishing three main types: funeral, recruitment and wedding. We saw above that the bride’s wedding lamentations constitute a completely special genre.
There are more grounds for combining the laments of recruits and others with funeral laments. Indeed, the verse in both cases is sometimes completely the same, especially in the mouths of the same performers. Thus, the famous Irina Fedosova performed funeral and recruitment lamentations in exactly the same way. The difference here seems to concern only the subject matter, and this does not yet give grounds to talk about different genres.
From our point of view, the similarity of the metric system does not yet provide grounds for unification into one genre. Funeral laments are ritual poetry, with its roots going back to pagan times. The composition of ritual laments is determined by the course of the ritual, and therefore it is uniform, but the composition of non-ritual laments is as diverse as life itself is diverse. The world of ideas, images and vocabulary are also deeply different. They also differ in their everyday use, and this, as we have seen, is one of the signs of the genre.
We come to the conclusion that in the field of lamentations there are three genres: two ritual - wedding and funeral, and one non-ritual, which includes lamentations from recruits and others associated with wartime disasters, as well as laments associated with various misfortunes of the old peasant life.
V.Ya. Propp. Poetics of folklore - M., 1998
Folklore how special kind art is a qualitatively unique component of fiction. It integrates the culture of a society of a certain ethnicity on a special level historical development 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 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 theatre), dance, architecture, fine and decorative arts.
Folklore is creativity that does not require any material and where the means of realizing the artistic concept is the person 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 there is a minimum number of them. 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. Varying the network of one of the stimuli constant movement, the “breath” 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 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 the constant development and change of the work, during which the standard artistic image crystallizes. 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, work, 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 Theatre, 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 yards 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 are predetermined by the cycle human life. They are divided into maternity, wedding, recruiting and funeral.
Maternity rites sought to protect the newborn from hostile mystical powers, and also assumed the well-being of the infant 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, and a figurative structure of 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. ON THE. Dobrolyubov wrote that folk lyrical songs “express an 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 introduced a special artistic language and examples of high poetry into the national culture, 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 dramaturgy that have developed in Ancient Greece, - tragedies and comedies - go back to religious rituals. Medieval romances of chivalry, telling about 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. N.A. Nekrasov recreated the stylistic features of folk songs in his poems about the difficult lot of peasants.
Folklore not only influences literature, but also experiences the opposite effect. Many of the author's 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, it has a lot in common with folk drama, with the performances of 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 the 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, distinctive feature 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 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 are 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 evoke 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 animal ancestors. 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 on the basis of folklore, consonant with what we would like to implement in our days in the field of children's education and upbringing: “... 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 forming singing or playing musical instrument»
Oral folk art is the traditional verbal creativity of the people. It can be both ancient and new - created in our days. Its main feature is that this art of words is passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth.
There are a lot of genres in verbal folk art. These are legends, epics, epics, proverbs and sayings, riddles, ditties, fairy tales, songs... You can list them endlessly. The creator is not an individual, but a people. That is why not a single work has its own specific, single author.
Over the centuries, the creations of people have evolved into entire verbal forms, which subsequently form rhymes (“verses”). Thanks to this technique, the works were easier to transmit and remember. Thus, ritual, round dance, dance, and lullaby songs appeared.
The subject of folklore creativity completely depended and continues to depend on the culture, beliefs, history and region of residence of the people. But main feature Such creations were and remain a combination of a direct reflection of life and a conditional one. Simply put, in folklore there is not, and was not, a mandatory reflection of life in the form of life itself; convention is always allowed in it.
Genres of folklore
To better understand what oral folk art is, it is necessary to take a closer look at its genres, and there are a great many of them in this type of verbal art.
Proverbs and sayings
Let's start with those that we know well and sometimes use in everyday life - with proverbs and sayings. These types of oral art are one of the most interesting genres that have survived to this day.
No one knows for certain when these genres of oral creativity appeared. The undoubted fact remains how accurately and concisely, figuratively, logically complete, the saying expresses the people's mind and experience accumulated over many centuries.
Meanwhile, many of us have long been accustomed to thinking that proverbs and sayings are one and the same thing. Actually this is not true. A proverb is a complete sentence containing folk wisdom. It is written in simple, often rhyming language.
Example of Russian proverbs:
"God saves man, who save himself"
"Small spool but precious"
“A penny saves the ruble”
Then, as a saying, it is an established phrase or phrase. It is intended for decoration.
Example of Russian sayings:
“Stay with your nose” (be deceived)
“Disservice” (help that turns into harm)
“When the cancer whistles on the mountain” (never)
Signs
Signs are another folklore genre that has undergone quite a few changes, but still has not lost its wisdom and has reached modern people.
It appeared in ancient times, when our ancestors were very close to nature, when people observed it, the phenomena occurring around them, and found connections between events. Over time, people put their observations into words. This is how signs appeared, which through the centuries carry the collected knowledge of their ancestors.
Some examples of weather signs:
The larks fly to the warmth, the chaffinch to the cold.
A lot of sap flows from a birch tree - for a rainy summer.
Sparrows bathe in the sand - predicting rain.
Also, many old signs related to home and everyday life have survived to this day. The most common is: “Spilling salt means shedding tears.” It is believed that this sign appeared in mid-17th century century, during the times of riots and uprisings in Rus'. Back then, salt was literally worth its weight in gold. This is where the meaning came from - spilling such an expensive “seasoning” like salt will inevitably lead to a quarrel in the house.
A few more examples of everyday signs that are undoubtedly familiar to us:
“If you whistle at home, you’ll miss the money”
“Clothes inside out means hassle”
“If you sew on yourself, you will sew up a memory”
Belief
The desire of man to explain and organize the world around him, to comprehend his place in nature, surrounded by a variety of animals and plants, is reflected.
Fairy tales
Since ancient times, certain elements of children's folklore have been preserved -. Later, this genre of oral art changed greatly. This happened under the influence of aesthetic and pedagogical functions, but still it continues to exist.
However, some genres of verbal art “die out” over time, and humanity gradually forgets about them. This process is a natural phenomenon; it does not indicate the decline of folk art. On the contrary, the process of “dying away” is a sign that, due to changes in the conditions of human existence, the artistic collective creativity of the people is developing, as a result of which new genres appear and old ones disappear.
Epics
These genres include (or as they were also called - antiquities - Russian heroic-patriotic songs-legends, the main plot of which was important historical events or heroic deeds of heroes and warrior maidens). This genre arose in Ancient Rus', existed until the Middle Ages and gradually began to be forgotten by the 19th century.
In addition, ritual folklore can also be classified as almost forgotten genres. Let's look at its components a little closer.
Calendar folklore and annual song cycle
These small genres arose due to the need to monitor the agricultural cycle, as well as changes occurring in nature and religious holidays.
Many proverbs, signs, advice and prohibitions have developed in calendar folklore. Here are some of which have survived to this day:
“If it melts early, it won’t melt for a long time”
“March sows with snow and warms with sun”
Quite a few songs were composed by the people for the annual song cycle. So it was customary to bake pancakes, perform rituals of farewell to winter and sing ritual songs. This and some other old traditions have been preserved to this day.
Family folklore
It included such small genres as: family stories, lullabies, nurseries, nursery rhymes, wedding songs, funeral laments.
The name “Family Stories” speaks for itself, and this genre of verbal art has existed since time immemorial - perhaps as long as a person has lived in this world. It is noteworthy in that it is formed quite separately, as a rule, within the framework of the family and close circle.
In addition, this genre has its own peculiarity, it can form “certain expressions” that are understandable only to family members or people present during the event that led to the appearance of this phrase. For example, in the Tolstoy family there was such an expression as “the architect is to blame.”
The birth of this expression was preceded by an event: when Ilya Tolstoy was five years old, he was given the promised cup for the New Year. The happy child ran to show everyone his gift. While running across the threshold, he tripped and fell. The cup broke. Little Ilya, justifying himself, said that he was not to blame, but the architect who made this threshold was to blame. Since then, the family of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy has had its own expression equivalent to the winged one - “the switchman is to blame.”
Lullabies
Another equally interesting genre in family folklore were lullabies. In the old days, the ability to sing was considered a special art. During the game, mothers taught their daughters how to “cradle” correctly. This ability was necessary so that older girls, already at the age of six or seven, could look after the younger ones. That is why special attention was paid to this skill.
The purpose of lullabies was not only to calm, but also to protect the child. Many songs were “conspiracies.” They were designed to protect a small child from dangers that could await him in the future. Often lullabies were addressed to spirits and mythological creatures, carriers of sleep - Dream, Sleep. They were called to lull the baby to sleep. Currently, this genre of folk art is almost forgotten.
Pestushki and nursery rhymes
And nursery rhymes were short tunes. They helped the child in development and knowledge of the world around him. Perhaps someone remembers from childhood - “Magpie-Crow...”. Such small songs and sayings encouraged the baby to take action, instilled hygiene skills, developed fine motor skills and reflexes, and helped to explore the world.
Tongue Twisters
Based on the difficulty of pronunciation, especially when pronouncing them quickly. Examples of tongue twisters:
- The cap is sewn, the cap is delivered, but not in the Kolpakov style.
- The pig was stupid, dug up the whole yard, dug half a snout.
- Tur is stupid, slow-witted.
- A bull's lip is blunt.
- Whey from yogurt.
G.S. Vinogradov uses jokes and questions in his materials that are based on puns. “Can you throw a pickled cucumber over the dam?” - Of course I will. - “But you can’t transfer it.” The matter is clarified - the question means: “Can you throw a cucumber and Alena over the dam?”
Puzzling remarks are of the same nature. When approaching a girl or boy and pointing to the stitches, they say: “You have lice,” instead of “sewn in.” Or “how many lice” instead of “how many ladles.”
Wedding songs
Wedding songs were strikingly different from all other small genres of family folklore. Notable was the fact that these songs were not played outside the wedding ceremony. Moreover, from a functional point of view, they were extremely important, since they played a kind of “legal role” in this event. Along with wedding songs, lamentations played an important role in the ritual. They were an integral part of the holiday; they were lyrical narratives that described the experiences of the bride, parents and girlfriends.
Glorification also played a significant role. Guests used them in songs to praise the bride and groom and wish the newlyweds well-being and happiness. On top of that, not a single wedding could be complete without reproachful songs. This small component of the wedding ceremony consisted of comic songs. As a rule, they were addressed to matchmakers, because of whom the bride “left” her family, girlfriends and lost her maiden will.
Funeral lamentations or laments are another ancient folklore genre, the time and appearance of which no one knows for certain. It has survived only in “scraps” to this day, but from the name you can easily understand what we are talking about and what this genre served for.
The main feature of this oral creativity was that it had its own “formula”, or better yet, a strict sequence, which each mourner “decorated” with his own creative element - a story about the life, love or death of the deceased. Now, for example, part of the ritual, as well as crying, can be seen and heard in the film “Viy” (1967).
Occasional folklore
Folklore that does not correspond to generally accepted use. It had an individual character, determined by a specific situation and occasion. It included such small genres as chants, counting rhymes, and conspiracies.
Calls
Russian folklore is incredibly rich. They were small songs, often not devoid of humor and accompanied by playful actions. The plots of this small genre were very different: they could be chants about the weather and weather phenomena, about nature and the seasons, about animals and fairy-tale creatures...
Rain, rain! Rain, rain!
On me and on people!
A spoonful for me.
For people it’s okay.
And for the devil in the forest -
Lei a whole bucket!
Counting books
- another small genre of verbal folk art. It arose a long time ago, but has now almost disappeared from modern folklore. Meanwhile, no matter how surprising it may sound, in ancient times, counting rhymes were widely used by adults. Their main function was the distribution of work.
Yes Yes. After all, then many types of work were not only very difficult, but sometimes life-threatening. Therefore, few people of their own free will wanted to take on such a task. And the counting rhymes made it possible to distribute the work between the participants so that no one would be “offended.” Nowadays, this “important role” of counting rhymes has been lost, but they still exist and still perform their function in children's games.
CONSPIRACY
And finally, the most amazing, but far from the last, ancient genre of oral folk art, quite complex in its structure, which, oddly enough, continues to live in our time - conspiracy. The function has not changed since the emergence of this genre. He still continues to play the role of a “magic weapon” designed to fulfill the wish of the speaker. As mentioned above, this genre is quite original in its execution and is often complex in its design - this is its peculiarity.
We can talk about the genres of oral folk art for an infinitely long time, because all directions are interesting and unique in their own way. This article is intended only to acquaint the reader with the immense, multifaceted wealth of human culture and wisdom, which clearly reflects the experience of previous generations.