Folklore is oral folk art. It represents the main part of culture, plays a huge role in the formation of Slavic literature and other arts. In addition to traditionally popular fairy tales and proverbs, there are also genres of folklore that are currently almost unknown to modern people. These are texts of family, calendar rituals, love lyrics, social creativity.

Folklore existed not only among the Eastern Slavs, which include the Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, but also among the Western and Southern ones, that is, among the Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians, Serbs, and other peoples. If you wish, you can find common features in the oral work of these peoples. Many Bulgarian fairy tales are similar to Russian ones. Commonality in folklore lies not only in the identical sense of the works, but also in the style of presentation, comparisons, epithets. This is due to historical and social circumstances.

First, all Slavs have a related language. It belongs to the Indo-European branch and comes from the Proto-Slavic language. The division of people into nations, the change in speech was due to the growth in numbers, the resettlement of the Slavs to neighboring territories. But the commonality of the languages ​​of the Eastern, Western, South Slavs is observed at the present time. For example, any Pole can understand a Ukrainian.
Second, the general geographic location influenced cultural similarities. The Slavs were mainly engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding, which was reflected in ritual poetry. The folklore of the ancient Slavs contains mostly references to the earth, the sun. These images still take place in the mythology of the Bulgarians and Serbs.

Thirdly, the similarity of folklore is due to a common religion. Paganism personified the forces of nature. People believed in spirits guarding homes, fields and crops, reservoirs. In the epic, images of mermaids, kikimors appeared, which could harm or help a person, depending on whether he observed the laws of the community or lived dishonestly. The image of a serpent, a dragon could come from the phenomena of lightning, meteors. The majestic phenomena of nature have found an explanation in mythology, in ancient heroic tales.

Fourthly, the similarity of folklore was influenced by close economic, social, and political ties. The Slavs have always fought together with enemies, therefore some heroes of fairy tales are collective images of all eastern, southern, western peoples. Close cooperation also contributed to the spread of techniques, epic plots, songs from one people to another. This is what largely influenced the related similarity of the folklore of the ancient Slavs.

All folk works known today originated in ancient times. People expressed in this way the vision of the world around them, explained natural phenomena, passed on experience to descendants. They tried to pass on the epic to the next generation unchanged. The storytellers tried to remember the song or fairy tale and retell it to others exactly. The way of life, the way of life and work of the ancient Slavs, the laws of their kind for centuries have formed their artistic taste in people. This is the reason for the constancy of the works of oral creativity that have come down to us through the centuries. Thanks to the invariability and accuracy of the reproduction of folklore, scientists can judge the way of life, the worldview of people of antiquity.

The peculiarity of folklore is that, despite its amazing stability, it is constantly changing. Genres appear and die, the nature of creativity changes, new works are created.

Despite the general similarity in plots and images, national customs and details of everyday life have a huge impact on the folklore of the ancient Slavs. The epic of each Slavic people is peculiar and unique.

Let us recall the system, about which I said that Slavic mythology consists, as it were, of three levels - higher, middle and lower. The highest level is the pantheon of gods established by Prince Vladimir in 980, the middle one is the gods of the Slavic tribe, seasonal gods (Kostroma, Yarila) and abstract gods (Krivda, Pravda, Dolya). The average gods now appear new, then disappear. Some believe that there were no such gods in Slavic mythology, in particular, there was no god Rod (as the founder of the Slavic family). But at that stage there was no written language either, then Slavic myths were not written down. On the contrary, Christians fought myths. The most important thing is that this mythology remained in artistic creation, remained as a worldview and aesthetic design of views. This must be taken seriously, because after the adoption of Christianity, the Slavs allegedly developed a dual faith. And this dual faith lasted almost a millennium, when in the end all faith was abandoned. Mythology is not yet faith. It is difficult to say how much the Slavs believed in their Perun. What they believed in was the lower gods. Superstition remained a powerful layer in the minds of not only the peasantry, but all groups of the population. But superstition is not faith. I advise you to read the encyclopedia "Slavic mythology" (Moscow, 1995) - from this book I took articles by V.V. Ivanov and his co-author V. Toporov. There is also a good article by N.I. Tolstoy on ritual and superstition .

Today I will briefly talk about oral folk art, which has survived for a millennium and which dries up, but still lives to some extent. Oral folk art is also associated with mythology, this is also part of a religious ritual. One of the largest researchers of Slavic oral folk art A.N. Veselovsky (1838-1906) wrote about ancient Slavic folklore. And he wrote that syncretism is inherent in this folklore, i.e. the indivisibility of poetry, magic, rituals, musical verbal rhythm in general, as well as choreographic performance (for example, a round dance in which they sang and pronounced some words). It is not known exactly to what extent this was so. Later Veselovsky established that in the X-XI centuries. syncretism disintegrates and ritual poetry comes to the fore, then lyrics and epics. This is also quite speculative. In fact, syncretism is not only a property of Slavic poetry. He is also present in Africa. To some extent, syncretism is a form of religious ritual with words, music and choreography. This form of the existence of folk art is the most primary, according to Veselovsky. This is the beginning of aesthetic creativity in general. And then there is a disintegration of these syncretic forms into epic, lyrical, as well as fairy forms (as in fairy tales and epics). There are many of these stable folklore genres in the Slavic and Old Russian folklore tradition. And they were recorded, of course, late - in the 18th – 19th centuries. This is primarily ritual folklore - calendar songs, lyric, comic, war songs, fairy tales, legends, epics and bylichs, folk epics, etc.

If we talk in more detail, then, probably, we need to start with epics. In terms of content, the Russian epic epic has no analogues in ancient European poetry. This is not an epic of the Skalds, it is not an epic that glorifies the exploits of Charlemagne in Old French. We have only two cycles - the Kiev cycle and the Novgorod cycle. The Kiev cycle is a well-known epic about Ilya Muromets, Dobryna Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, about Svyatogor and others. They were recorded in the 19th century. What actually remains of antiquity is difficult to say. Since there is a lot of Christianization of these epics, and there is little paganism. The Kiev cycle of epics is very patriotic in spirit and is completely imbued with the idea of ​​defending the Russian land, it is imbued with the antithesis of good and evil. There is a clear division into good heroes and evil Serpents of the Gorynychy who attack our land. The struggle between good and evil actually forms the basis of the Kiev cycle. In general, these epics are short (400-500 verses), but there are more than 1000 epics. They were supposedly very popular among the people. In fact, there are no such testimonies in the Russian chronicles, but this is evidenced by the fact that they have been preserved in the memory of the people.

Novgorod cycle of a different plan. It is dedicated primarily to the disclosure of the secret strength, power and secrets of wealth. Novgorod epics are epics about travels, about merchant guests, about feasts, about Slavic prowess, about the generosity of heroes. There is still a Scandinavian influence in the Novgorod cycle. There is no such patriotic pathos in it as in the Kiev epics. Kiev epics are epics, the action of which takes place in Kiev, and the epics themselves were composed in different places. The Novgorod cycle fully reveals the Russian national character. Sadko - breadth of soul, daring, generosity, interest in mystery, interest in travel (such a continental longing for travel that those who live on the seashore do not have). But in fact, the Russian national character is already a literary transformation of the Novgorod cycle. We know the opera "Sadko" - there is a special libretto and music. These are later layers. First, in all oral folklore, certain deep archetypes of the entire Slavs are presented. And the actual Russian character is a treatment of the 18th – 19th centuries. Heroes are both daring and generous, but unpredictable, which is supposedly typical of a Russian person. It was these epics that served as the basis for literary, musical and even symphonic adaptations. For example, there is a musical theme written in the north, and then expanded into a whole symphony. For example, at Arensky.

The fabulous Russian tradition - Russian fairy tales - is considered by many researchers to be the most archaic form in all of Europe. Apparently, this is due to the origin of the Slavs. Slavic Russians from the end of the 6th century. for a long time they were isolated and retained archaic forms in their work. Especially tales about living and dead water, about the resurrection of a dying hero, tales "go there - I don't know where", tales where the boundaries between two worlds are overcome. The territory occupied by Baba Yaga and her hut, which connects two worlds - the fabulous and the real, is such a border. This is a kind of third world - a neutral strip, as it were. There are not many such fairy tales in Europe. There is immediately an entrance to another world. In Russian folk tales there is a third world, mediated, between the witchcraft and the real world. And there is also the middle one, where you can get the key and find out the way to the enchanted world.

Ritual poetry and ritual songs (not only ritual, but also lyrical) - there is no such wealth in the Western European oral tradition. Even if you count it primitively, there are more than 3 thousand songs in ancient Russian lyrics. The ritual song is associated with a person's life, with his destiny. And all his life - from birth to death - a person is accompanied by songs. The second form of the ritual song is also very developed - these are calendar folk songs associated with agricultural work. I'm talking about songs that accompany a person through life. There are ritual songs, or rather, were dedicated to pregnancy. The man has not yet been born, but the song is already there. They are dedicated to keeping the child alive. And when a person is born, his life is accompanied by a whole cycle of songs. There are songs for children and teenagers. A huge cycle of wedding songs. They begin with matchmaking, then the songs of the groom, the songs of the bride, then the wedding itself, the marriage song. The end of the wedding is a spree. This cycle is well represented and recorded in different versions and forms in different provinces in the 19th century. Songs accompanying warriors going to battle, and glorious songs, and incantations, submachine, there are a lot of game, fortune-telling songs. There are just lyrical love songs. I will read you a small fragment of the spell, but this is already a spell transformed by Christianity. And there are, probably, purely pagan spells. Witchcraft with the help of words is a pagan form of influence on the human psyche. It still exists. Conspiracies against diseases, against enemies, enemies, conspiracies-suckers (there are about a hundred options for how to add a beloved) were distinguished by special emotional power. In conspiracies about love, there is always an ancient image of fire-flame, which symbolizes love and must ignite the heart, melt it and inspire a "yearning longing" on the soul. In these conspiracies, real ancient sorcery is heard. Magi are sorcerers. Let me give you an example. For example, a guy Ivan fell in love with a girl and went to the sorcerer or to an old woman who knows such creeps: “Pain her heart, burn her conscience, endure her fierce blood, fierce flesh. Languish in her thoughts day and night, and at dead midnight, and at clear noon, and at every hour, and at every minute about me, God's servant Ivan. Give her, Lord, a fiery game in the heart, in the lungs, in the liver, in sweat and blood, in the bones, in the veins, in the brain, in the thoughts, in the hearing, in the sight, in the sense of smell, in the touch, in the hair, in the hands , at the feet. Put in longing, and dryness, and anguish, pity, sorrow and care for me, God's servant Ivan. " The beginning here is usual: “I will become, blessed, I will go, crossing myself, from door to door, from gate to gate, into an open field ...”. But if there is “crossing over”, then there is already the influence of Christianity. But the very idea of ​​the spell is undoubtedly pagan. This kind of spells, spells, spells can be used in original creativity. Those who write poetry are well aware of this. I will give just one example of the brilliant use of this kind of spell in M. Voloshin's poem "The Curse on the Russian Land." It was written in 1919, during the Civil War, when the state was falling apart, everything crumbled and blood oozed everywhere. And here there is an image of reunification, restoration of the kingdom as a whole:

I will stand up praying

I will cross myself

Door to door

From gate to gate -

Morning trails

With fiery feet

In a clear field

On a white-flammable stone.

I will face the east,

To the west by a ridge,

Let's look at all four sides:

On the seven seas

Three oceans

For seventy-seven tribes,

For thirty-three kingdoms -

To the whole land of Holy Russian.

Do not hear people

See no churches

No white monasteries, -

Russia lies -

Ruined

Bloody, scorched.

All over the field -

Wild, great -

The bones are dry, empty

The dead are yellow.

With a saber,

Marked with a bullet,

The horses are trampled.

The Iron Husband walks across the field,

Hits the bones

With an iron rod:

- “From four sides,

From the four winds

Die, Spirit,

Bring the bone to life! "

The flame is not buzzing

It is not the wind that rustles

Rye does not rustle, -

Bones rustle

The flesh is rustling

Life flares up ...

How bone meets bone,

As the flesh dresses the bone,

How the living flesh is sewn up

As muscle gathers flesh, -

So - get up, Russia, get up,

Revive, gather, grow together, -

Kingdom to kingdom, tribe to tribe!

The blacksmith forges a crown with ash -

Forged hoop:

Kingdom of Russia

Collect, shackle, rivet

Tightly firmly

Tight-tight;

So that it is the Russian Kingdom

Did not crumble

Did not melt,

It didn't splash ...

So that we are his - the Russian Kingdom

They did not roam in the gulba,

They did not dance in the dance,

They did not terminate the auction,

They didn't talk in words,

They did not brag about bragging!

So that it is the Russian Kingdom

Rdelo - it was dawning

The life of the living

The death of the saints

In agony of the martyred.

Be my words strong and sculpting,

Solce salt

Burning flame ...

I will close the words

And I will omit the keys to the Sea-Ocean.

As you can see, paganism is alive, folk art is alive. Folklore, it turns out, can be used in beautiful art, and even in the most difficult historical situation. To this day, the collection of folk art continues, although there are already many pseudo-Russian spells, legends, and fairy tales. This is the tendency to restore paganism. One priest counted that in the entire former territory of the Soviet Union there are about 7 thousand sects of various kinds, but first of all with a pagan orientation. I draw your attention to this, because paganism never really died.

Calendar poetry is also very developed. It is associated primarily with agricultural labor. These are the spring trees when they are preparing for the spring sowing, this is a cycle of songs dedicated to summer works, autumn songs during the harvest. There are also winter songs when boring times come. They predict the future harvest.

The new topic - "The beginning of Slavic writing" - is important for us primarily for the reason that there was a short time (120-150 years) when Slavic unity was based on a single Slavic writing. But this unity was lost by the end of the 11th century. Those. Slavic writing was on the territory of modern Czech Republic, modern Slovakia, in the south of Poland. Let me remind you of the terms that we use in relation to the ancient Slavic languages. The term "Proto-Slavic language" is used only by linguists. As if it existed until the middle of the 1st millennium AD. (the beginning is unknown), and then disintegrated into separate Slavic languages. The concept of "Old Slavonic language" is the language of the oldest Slavic monuments that have come down to us. These are monuments of the 10th - early 11th centuries. There are very few of these monuments, only 17. And even this figure is controversial. Those. what Cyril and Methodius translated into the Old Church Slavonic language has not survived at all. And if it has survived, then only in copies of other monuments. Further, as it were, the continuation of the Old Church Slavonic language is traditionally considered the Church Slavonic language. This is an ancient Slavic literary language - the language of the Orthodox Church on a Slavic basis. The New and Old Testaments are written in this language. Actually, there was not much difference between Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic - the question is in terminology. A living Old Russian language is a different concept. There was the language of the church service, but there were living people who spoke their own language. When they received writing, they began to write down their conversations. A kind of second language appeared. On the one hand, Church Slavonic, and on the other, Old Russian. According to some concepts, bilingualism in Russia existed until the 17th century, other scientists object. The Church Slavonic language has survived to this day - services are conducted in it in our Orthodox churches. You know different trends in this regard, which are still considered heretical. There is an opinion that services should be conducted in modern Russian. Such churches are organized, but they are still heretical. This opinion leads to a split in our church, which is only being reborn.

I have already listed how the Slavs adopted Christianity. Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, Poles, Czechs. But Christian texts were needed for instruction in the faith. Such texts were in Greek. The Slavs did not understand them. But this problem is not the main one. The clergy could be taught the Greek language. In the West, they also taught the Christian faith in incomprehensible texts, using Latin texts. All Latin texts have been translated from Greek, and some from Hebrew. A well-known publicist of the XX century. Georgy Fedotov was very sorry that we accepted Christianity in the Slavic language. We would be much better educated if we studied religion in Greek. Compared to Rome, Byzantium pursued a more progressive policy - it allowed translations from Greek into other languages. It was allowed to make translations into Slavic languages, but there was no alphabet. And then the Slavic alphabet was created. With the help of the Byzantine Church in the 5th century. translations of the New Testament into Armenian were made. Armenians are pioneers in Christianity. Even before the Roman Empire, in 301, they made Christianity the official religion. This is the first state that made Christianity the state religion. They say that in the V century. and some translations of the New Testament have been made into Georgian (but this is already more controversial). And into other languages.

With the aim of creating the alphabet, the brothers Constantin and Methodius were sent from Constantinople to Great Moravia (the state that was located on the territory of modern Slovakia, on the Morava River). Their arrival date is 863. This date is considered the beginning of Slavic writing. Perhaps they invented this alphabet while still at home, in Constantinople. It is believed that they were also Slavs. They were philosophers, great scientists. The Slavic alphabet was created based on the Greek alphabet. Actually, we are talking about two alphabets - first, the Glagolitic alphabet was invented (a very complex alphabet, it went out of use, but the texts on it were preserved) and then the Cyrillic alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet came into use after the death of Cyril, but traditionally it is called the Cyrillic alphabet. Inventing the alphabet was only the beginning of Slavic writing. It was necessary to translate the most complex texts from Greek into Old Slavonic. Cyril and Methodius, with the help of their disciples, translated the entire New Testament and some fragments from the Old Testament (in particular, the Psalter). They translated, creating a new literary Slavic language. With literal translation, word by word. It was a continuous tracing. As we read, starting from the first union, and so on, word by word. It so happened that Church Slavonic and Old Church Slavonic, and thus Russian, are very similar to Greek. Most of all, Russian is similar to Greek in syntax. Compound words are also borrowed from Greek. Now this principle of compound words is losing its force, fading away. If in the XV and even in the XVII century. 500 words with a word were recorded good (wellbeing, blessing etc.), now our dictionary records about 75 such words. This principle also exists in the German language. But we copied it from Greek. So, the most important merit of Cyril and Methodius is not so much that the alphabet was invented, but that translations were made, a written language was created. Church sources tell a lot about the life of the great Slavic enlighteners. There is the life of Constantine (died in 869), the life of Methodius (died in 885). There are historical sources. There are enough materials here.

There is one difficult question related to Slavic writing. Now they talk and write a lot about whether the Slavs had a written language before Cyril and Methodius? There are some enthusiasts who believe that it was. In particular, in the life of Constantine it is said that during his passage through the Russian land, he saw Russian letters. Historians say this is not true. It is difficult to prove anything here. But you can fantasize. About 20 years ago, a young writer Sergei Alekseev wrote a novel called "The Word". It said that there was an ancient Russian script, and then it was destroyed by Christian priests. The entire plot of the novel is based on the search for sources of ancient Slavic writing before Cyril and Methodius. Pseudo-texts such as "Veles's Book" created in the XX century are also used as arguments. They say that it was written in the 5th century. in the ancient Slavic language.

I want to say that the struggle for the Slavic writing is the spiritual struggle of the Slavic peoples for their native sacred language and for their writing. Before that, there were three sacred languages ​​- Hebrew, Greek and Latin. In these three languages, inscriptions were scrawled on the Cross on which Christ was crucified. But the Bible was translated into Latin only at the end of the 4th century. Blessed Jerome translated from ancient Greek into Latin both the New Testament and the Old Testament at the end of the 4th century. And then, a thousand years later, at the Council of Trent in 1545, Latin books were canonized. Only from this time did the Latin text become sacred. And our church did not consecrate the Slavic text. The sacred language of the Slavs did not work out. In the Church Slavonic language, the full text of the Bible - all 77 books - were collected only at the very end of the 15th century. Archbishop Gennady, this is the so-called "Gennady's Bible" (1499). The official text, in which the Bible was read by Lomonosov, Pushkin, and Dostoevsky, was created under Elizabeth Petrovna in 1751–1756. During this five-year period, this translation was completed, edited and published in a typographic way. There were great objections to the Russian translation for a very long time, for about 40 years the Bible was translated into Russian. The final date for the translation of the Bible into Russian is 1876.

The Bible was translated into English with great difficulty. The King James translation in 1611 is the most important. Before him there were 5-6 translations into English. One translator was even burned. Luther translated the Bible into German in the 16th century. In total, the Bible was translated into 1,400 languages, including such exotic languages ​​as the Chukchi language, into the languages ​​of all the peoples of Siberia. Among all these languages ​​let us not forget the translation into the Church Slavonic language in 863. This translation actually created for us the writing, the Church Slavonic, and the literary language, which brought us the benefits of civilization. From here, with the adoption of Christianity and writing, our civilization began - the civilization of Ancient Russia and Russia. This is the date of the beginning of our civilization.

Most likely, this refers to the book: Tolstoy N.I. Language and Folk Culture: Essays on Slavic Mythology and Ethnolinguistics. M., 1995.

Most likely, we are talking about the works of Anton Stepanovich Arensky (1861-1906), who composed musical fantasies on Russian themes by the folk singer, storyteller of epics Trofim Grigorievich Ryabinin.

k u r s a

"SLAVIC FOLKLORE"

For philological faculties
public universities

Specialty - Slavic languages ​​and literature

The program was prepared by the Department of Russian Oral Folk Art
Faculty of Philology, Moscow University

Compiled by prof. ,
Assoc. ,
scientific. sotr.

INTRODUCTION

The meaning and place of folklore in the culture of the Slavic peoples. Common features of folklore (synthetics, collectivity of creativity, unity of the collective and the individual, tradition, changeability, orality). Folkloristics as a science, its relationship with literary criticism, linguistics, ethnography, history, musicology, art history. Terminology. Folklore as the art of words. Folklore and Religion. Folklore and art. Folklore and literature (similarities and differences). Folklore and everyday life. The ratio of the aesthetic and extra-aesthetic in folklore. The artistic system of folklore.

Oral poetic creativity of the Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs. General and similar phenomena in it: in themes, genres, types of heroes, methods of composition, poetic imagery, language. Foundations of commonality and similarity: the common origin of the Slavic peoples, the kinship of languages, the similarity of socio-historical conditions of life, cultural ties. General patterns of development of oral and poetic creativity of the Slavic peoples at the present stage. Comparative historical study of Slavic folklore. Its results at international congresses of Slavists.

GENRE COMPOSITION OF SLAVIC FOLKLORE

Features of the genre composition of Slavic folklore. Genre system. Its historical formation. Genetic connection of genres, stadial periodization of folklore genres. Incorporation of some genres into others. General processes in genres: development of common features, historical change of genres. Classification of genres and its principles. Ideological-aesthetic and non-aesthetic functions of genres.

Ritual folklore

General features of ritual poetry. Verbal and non-verbal components of rituals. Polymorphism and polyfunctionality of the rite. Reflection in ritual folklore of mythological views of the ancient Slavs. The emergence of "dual faith" after the adoption of Christianity by the Slavs; manifestations of "dual faith" in rituals and ceremonial folklore. The Church's Struggle Against Pagan Rites.

Calendar ritual poetry. Its connection with annual agricultural work. Winter, spring-summer and autumn cycles of ritual poetry. Winter cycle: songs of winter bypass rituals (carols, etc.), Christmas divination and youth songs, Maslenitsa rituals, choruses and songs. Spring-summer cycle: the meeting of spring and spring calls from the Eastern Slavs; "Carrying out (seeing off) Marena (death)" among the Western Slavs; the cycle of the Yuryev rituals among the southern and partly among the eastern Slavs; a cycle of Easter and St. George's round dances and games for all Slavs; a cycle of Trinity-Kupala rituals, round dances, games, fortune-telling and songs among all Slavs. Stubble rites and songs among all Slavic peoples. Features of the content, imagery and style of calendar ritual poetry, traces of pagan beliefs, Christian symbolism and imagery in calendar folklore.

Family ritual poetry. Its composition. The birth ceremony and its poetry. Ukrainian and Belarusian songs of the baptismal ceremony. Images of the Woman in Childbirth, Orisnitsa. The wedding ceremony and its poetry. Reflection in it of the history of society and family, life and beliefs of the people. Stages of the wedding ceremony. Wedding songs, lamentations, glorifications, cory songs, sentences of wedding participants. Funeral ceremony and lamentation. Features of the content, imagery and style of family ritual poetry.

Conspiracies. Their magical nature, word and action in them. Connection with rituals. Types of conspiracies and their use. Composition, imagery, verbal means. Evidence of ancient writing about conspiracies. Stability of conspiracy texts. Conspiracies and other genres (fairy tale and epic). Performers of conspiracies: sorcerers, healers.

SMALL GENRE

Proverbs and sayings. Definition of a proverb and the difference between a proverb and a proverb; their functions in speech. Thematic variety of proverbs. Reflection in them of the worldview, life experience and ideals of the people. Cognitive, historical, moral and aesthetic value of proverbs. The structure of proverbs and their artistic means. Commonality and similarity of Slavic proverbs. Proverbs in the works of Slavic writers.

Riddles. Definition of the puzzle. Reflection in the riddles of peasant labor and everyday life. "Secret speech" (speech taboos) and the origin of riddles. Artistic puzzle means. Common and similar in the mysteries of the Slavic peoples. Riddle and proverb. Riddles in fairy tales and folk songs. Riddles in the works of Slavic writers.

PROSE EPIC GENRE

The concept of "oral folk prose". Her genres: fairy tales, stories, legends and stories. Fantastic storytelling style, memorat.

Fairy tales. Definition of a fairy tale. The ratio of fabulous fiction and reality. Fairy tale and myth. Fairy tales about animals, fairy tales, social and everyday life, short stories, fairy tales, fables.

Fairy tales about animals. Reflection in them of ancient ideas (animism, anthropomorphism, totemism). Tales of wild animals, domestic animals, birds, man. Real features of animals and birds. The allegory of fairy tales. Satire and humor in them. Common plots and heroes in Slavic animal tales and nationally peculiar plots and heroes.

Fairy tales. A mix of the real and the fantastic. The most ancient motives and imagery. Morphology and historical roots of the fairy tale. Themes, plots, images, characters, chronotope, composition of Slavic fairy tales. Similar plots and images of Slavic fairy tales. Ivanushka the Fool, Yirzhik, Khlopek Rostropek, Sly Peter, Ero. Combination of primitive views with some features of medieval life. The victory of good over evil. Ideals of hard work, honesty and justice. Features of plots and images in fairy tales of individual Slavic peoples.

Social and everyday tales. Reflection of social and family relations, features of feudal life. Social satire: images of the master, master, merchant, priest. The triumph of the positive hero (peasant, worker, soldier). The image of a cunning, rogue, clever thief. Family and household plots. Images of a husband and wife. Subject structure and poetics of social and everyday fairy tales. Traditional anecdote.

Legends. Definition of the genre. Historical and toponymic legends. Plots of historical legends. Legends in chronicles and ancient writing: about Czech, Lech and Ruse; about Kiy, Shchek and Khorev; about Krakus and Wanda; about Piast and Popel; about Libuš and Přemysl. Legends about the founding of cities. Correlation of legends and historical reality. Legends about Pan Tvardovsky. Features of structure and narration in legends. Family legends.

Legends. Definition of the genre. Fabulat and Memorat. Types of legends. Stories about mythical creatures, about the creation of the world, the origin of animals, birds and fish and their features; biblical motives and characters. Utopian legends. The plot of the search for a happy country. Other plots of legends common among the Slavs (about the great sinner, Christ's wanderings on earth, the contract between man and the devil). The artistic features of the legends.

Bylichki... Stories about brownies, goblin, mermaids, samodivs, exchangers, the damned, etc. Artistic features and bulls.

POEM EPIC GENRE

Types of poetic epic genres: mythological songs, epics, youthful songs, haidutsky, zboynitsky, daring (robbery) songs, thoughts, historical songs, spiritual poetry, ballads. Their common features: plot, poetic form, typical (common) places, reflection of the history of the people in them. The heroic character of the main genres. The lack of a heroic epic among the Western Slavs and attempts to artificially create it by writers.

Mythological songs of the South Slavs. The most ancient songs about mythical creatures personifying natural elements (samodivs, samovils, pitchforks, yudas, mermaids, etc.), heavenly bodies (sun, moon, stars), dangerous diseases (plague, fever). The fortune tellers of Orisnitsa. The relationship of mythical creatures with people ("Stoyan and Samodiva", "The Sun and Dobrinka", "Brodnitsa and the Guy"). Mythological songs of the South Slavs ("Two Serpents and a Lama", "The Serpent-Bridegroom", "Job and Samovily"). Mythological motives in the epic songs of the Eastern and Western Slavs (shape-shifting, foreshadowing of misfortune, a wonderful pipe / violin, marriage of a woman and a snake, etc.).

Epics. Definition of the genre, its main features. The term "epic". Performers of epics. Classification of epics. Kiev and Novgorod cycles of epics. Subject and ideological essence of the main composition of epics. The hero is the main character. Typification and individualization of images. Images of senior heroes: Svyatogor, Mikula Selyaninovich, Volga; junior heroes: Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich. Composition and poetics of the epics of the Kiev cycle. Plots and heroes of epics of the Novgorod type. Images of Sadok and Vasily Buslaev. The artistic features of the epics of this cycle. Interpretation of epics by representatives of different scientific schools. Echoes of epics in Belarusian fairy tales about heroes.

Youth songs. Heroic epic of the South Slavs. Yunatskaya song as a genre. Heroic plots and poetics. The cyclization of songs around the characters' images: songs about Momchil, about the king Marko, about Doychin. Cycles of Serbian songs about the Battle of Kosovo, about the post-Kosovo heroes, about the liberation of Serbia.

Gaidutskie and zboynitskie songs. Haidutsky songs of the South Slavs, the difference between the Haydutsky songs and the youthful ones. Zboynitsky songs of the Western Slavs are a special type of heroic songs. Reflection of the struggle against foreign enslavers. The historical basis of the songs. Historical prototypes of the heroes: Strahil the voivode, Stoyan, Manol, Novak, Gruitsa, Ivo Senyanin - the heroes of Haiduts' songs. Janosik, Ondrash, Widowchik, Adamek are the heroes of zboynitsky songs. Images of women-gaidutok in Bulgarian songs: Boyana-voivode, Todorka, Rada. Compositional and stylistic features of songs. Haiduk (zboynik) and nature. The people and the hayduk (zboynik). Russian daring (robber) songs.

Duma. Dumas as a genre of Ukrainian folklore. The term "duma". Doom performers are kobzari and bandura players. The patriotic character of doom. Pictures of foreign domination, heroic deeds in the fight against enemies. Plots about suffering in captivity and escape from captivity. Fight against the Turks and the Polish gentry. Heroes of dumas: Golota (Netyaga), Samoilo Koshka, Fesko Andyber, Khmelnitsky, Marusya Boguslavka. Poetics of doom.

Historical songs. Historical songs as a thematic group of works. Their varieties. The specific historical character of the songs. Differences from epics, youthful and Haiduts songs. Historical prototypes of heroes. The value of historical songs in the folklore of the Slavic peoples. Common plots of Slavic historical songs: the struggle against the Tatar and Turkish invasions, peasant uprisings, wars of the 17th - 19th centuries. Russian historical songs about the capture of Kazan, about Ivan the Terrible, Stepan Razin and Emelyan Pugachev, Kutuzov and Platov. Ukrainian historical songs about Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Maxim Zheleznyak, Karmelyuk. Bulgarian and Macedonian historical songs about captivity, Turkish atrocities, violent torture, Ivan Shishman, the fall of the Bulgarian kingdom. Slovenian songs are about King Matiyash, Polish songs are about Yazdovetsky Castle, Slovak songs are about Belgrade, about the struggle against Austrian rule, Serbian songs are about the Battle of Kosovo, about the liberation of Serbia.

Spiritual verses. Spiritual poems as a thematic group of epic, lyric-epic and lyric works on religious-Christian themes. The origin of spiritual verses and their sources (books of Holy Scripture, Christian canonical and apocryphal literature; pre-Christian mythology). The creators and performers of spiritual poems are "kaliki perekhozhny", pilgrims to holy places, blind people ("majstras"). Popular rethinking of biblical themes, lives of saints. Confirmation of the idea of ​​spiritual superiority over material, glorification of asceticism, martyrdom for faith, exposure of the sinfulness of people, non-observance of God's commandments.

Russian poems reflecting ideas about the universe ("The Dove Book"), on the Old Testament subjects ("Osip the Beautiful", "Lament of Adam"). Belarusian and Ukrainian poems on gospel themes ("The Crucifixion of Christ", "Ascension"). Polish, Czech, Slovak poems and cants about the Mother of God and the Nativity of Christ. Czech spiritual songs from the era of the Hussite wars. Bulgarian verses about the Lord, angels and sinless Yanka, about Abraham's sacrifice, Saint Elijah and sinful souls. Serbian verses about the baptism of Christ, about Saint Sava, about finding the Cross of the Lord, songs of the blind (about the mother of Saint Peter).

Images of heroes-snake-fighters (Saint George, Feodor of Tiryanin), martyrs (Galaktion and Epistimia, Kirik and Ulita), ascetics (Alexei God's man), miracle workers, righteous and sinners in the traditions of the Slavic peoples. Poems about the end of the world and the last judgment. Late poems and cants of the literary warehouse. The poetics of spiritual poetry, the influence on them of other epic songs and literary Christian stylistics. Features of their composition and poetic language.

Ballads. The term "ballad". Definition of the genre, its main features: epic, family and household plots, tragedy, antithetical. Historical and everyday ballads. Historical plots: meeting relatives in captivity, escape from captivity, feudal despotism. Everyday subjects: tragic conflicts husband - wife, mother-in-law - daughter-in-law, brother - sister, stepmother - orphan stepdaughter, etc. (Russian ballad "Dmitry and Domna", Ukrainian - "Yavor and Birch", Belarusian - "Gay, there on the road ", Serbian -" ", Slovenian -" Beauty Vida ", Bulgarian -" Lazar and Petkana ", Polish -" Pani killed the lady ", Czech -" Herman and Dorota ", Slovak -" The sworn girl "). Social subjects: Pan Kanevsky and Bondarevna, Prince Volkonsky and Vanya the housekeeper, a slave and a gentleman's daughter. Ballads with mythological motives (transformation plots). Incest ballads. The originality of the ballads among the Bosnian Muslims ("Hasan-Haginitsa", "Omer and Meirima"). Similarities and differences of Slavic ballads. New ballads, their connections with the old ones (plot-thematic community) and differences.

LYRIC GENRE

Folk lyrics. Her genres. The principles of classification of non-ritual lyrics (thematic, functional, formal). Love and family songs, military household, coachman, burlak songs. Small lyric genres. Classification of lyric songs by subject and structure: frequent songs, their comic and satirical character, dance rhythms; lingering songs, chanting, their dramatic character, themes of personal relationships. Two types of lingering songs: narration songs and meditation songs. Compositional features and poetics of lyric songs. Pictures of everyday life, nature, portrait of heroes. Psychological image, means of revealing the inner world of characters, the creation of generalized images. The role of symbolism and psychological parallelism (symbolism from the plant, animal world, the world of inanimate nature and celestial bodies). The similarities and differences of lyric songs of different Slavic peoples.

Bulgarian songs of reapers, Russian artisan labor songs, Polish, Czech and Ukrainian songs of raftsmen. Structural and stylistic features.

Household themes of songs. Two varieties (love and family). Main characters: well done - girl, husband - wife. The plot situation as the basis of song composition. Typical situations of love songs: meeting, separation, betrayal. Themes of happy and unhappy love, their symbolic expression. Characteristic symbols. The role of narration, description, monologue and dialogue in a song. Psychological parallelism. Expression of the character's inner world. Common Slavic motives and symbols of love and family songs, the originality of songs among different Slavic peoples. Typical situations of family songs: the hard life of a woman in a strange family, conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, husband and wife. Themes of social and age inequality. Comic motives of songs: images of a lazy husband, obstinate wife, mother-in-law, cruel mother-in-law. The originality of the poetics and imagery of family songs.

Small lyric genres. Popularity in Slavic folklore of small lyrical genres-chorus: ditties, kolomyyk, krakovyak, becharts. Simplicity of form, concise expression of thoughts, clarity of assessments, lively response to the phenomena of reality. The role of improvisation. Joke, humor, satire. Verbal text, chant and dance. Singing chorus. Russian ditties. Their varieties: actually ditties, dancing, "Semyonovna", suffering. The emergence and reasons for the popularity of ditties. Connection with dance songs. The variety of themes, the predominance of love themes. The composition of the ditties, the role of parallelisms, symbolism and repetitions. Ukrainian kolomyykas. Origin of name. Social satire. Love relationship theme. The structure of the kolomyyka. The nature of the rhythm. Polish Krakowiaks. The breadth of the subject. Structure, rhythm and rhyme. Role in the composition of small genres of typical beginnings, endings, addresses and choruses. Serbian and Croatian Becharts.

DRAMA AND THEATER

The variety of dramatic forms in Slavic folklore. Theatrical, dramatic and game elements in calendar and family rituals, the ratio of words and actions in them. Games. Ryazheniya. Dramatic scenes in the folklore of the Slavic peoples. Their social and everyday satire, bright comic. Russian folk dramas "Boat" and "Tsar Maximilian". Puppet show. Its two forms: a nativity scene (betleyka, shopka) and a puppet comedy (Petrushka, Kashparek). Religious and secular elements in the puppet theater. Artistic originality of folk dramatic forms.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVIC FOLKLORE

Historical change of folklore, composition of genres, plots, themes, heroes, means of expression. The principles of chronological correlation of works. Folklore and history of the people. Difficulties in the historical study of folklore. General periodization of the history of Slavic folklore. Primitive communal system and folklore. Reflection in folklore of animism, anthropomorphism, totemism. The cult of ancestors, plants, animals. Primary forms of folklore. Syncretism. Folklore and mythology. The oldest forms of Slavic folklore. Legends about the settlement of the Slavs; epic Danube river. Ancient origin of calendar poetry, fairy tales, proverbs, riddles. Early feudalism and the emergence of the heroic epic. The patriotic character of the epic, the idea of ​​the unity of the native land. The struggle of the Slavic peoples against the Tatar-Mongol, Turkish, German and other conquerors. The development of the heroic epic, genres of epics and youthful songs. Social contradictions and satire in folklore. Development of Haiduts and Zboynitsky songs, social and everyday tales and satire in other genres of folklore. Forms of folk drama. Expanding relationships with literature. The role of folklore in the era of national revivals in the Slavic countries and in the formation of national literatures. Change in the traditional poetic system of folklore. Folklore of the city, artisans, soldiers. The withering away of traditional genres. The response of folklore to important historical events and social processes of modern times. Folklore and the First World War. World War II: anti-fascist folklore, partisan folklore. The current state of Slavic folklore. Common Slavic phenomena and their interaction in the folklore of the Slavic countries.

GENERAL SLAVIC PHENOMENA IN FOLK POETIC CREATIVITY AND NATIONAL SELF-IMAGE OF FOLKLORE

Comparative historical study of folklore (typological, genetic, historical and cultural). Various scientific schools in folklore. Common and similar in the folklore of the Slavic peoples (development processes, genres, plots, types of heroes, poetics). The development of Slavic folklore at the present stage: new genres, plots, images and artistic means.

The originality of the folklore of individual Slavic peoples. Its historical foundations. The originality of the content and form of works. National consciousness of the people and its oral and poetic creativity. Images of the native land, folk heroes, native nature. Folk life and its reflection in folklore. The originality of artistic means and language. Historical enrichment of the originality of Slavic folklore.

LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE

The great role of folklore in the development of Slavic literatures. Formation of national literatures and folk art. Old Slavic literature and folklore. Chronicles and historical legends. Testimonies of ancient writing about rituals, games, songs of the people. "The Word about Igor's Host" and folklore. Gradual expansion of links between literature and folklore. The system of genres of ancient Russian literature and folklore. National revival of the Slavic peoples and the role of folk art in it. Romantic and folklore writers (early work of Pushkin; Mitskevich, Chelakovsky, Erben, Shtur, Vraz, Mazuranich, Preshern, Radichevich, Njegosh, Botev, Yaksic, Kral). Realism and folklore (Pushkin, Gogol, Krashevsky, Nemtsova, Zmai). The flowering of realism (Nekrasov, writers-democrats and populists, L. Tolstoy, Kondratovich, Ozheshko, Senkevich, Konopnitskaya, Neruda, Irasek, Vazov, Ashkerts, Zmay, Shantich). XX century literature and folklore (Gorky, Yesenin, Sholokhov, Platonov, Gashek, Olbrakht, Elin-Pelin). Contemporary Slavic literature and folk art. The impact of literature on folklore. Songs and ballads of romantics and realists in the folk repertoire, their folklorization. Development of literary stanza and rhyme in song genres of folklore. Expansion of the ideological and artistic influence of literature on folklore.

COLLECTION AND STUDY OF SLAVIC FOLKLORE

Collectors of Russian folklore (R. James, Kirsha Danilov, Afanasiev, Dal, Kireevsky, Rybnikov, Hilferding, Shein), Polish (Zhegota Pauli, Dolenga-Khodakovsky, Kolberg, Fedorovsky), Czech and Slovak (Chelakovsky, Erben, Dobshinsky), Bulgarian and Macedonian (brothers Miladinov, Shapkarev, Stoin), Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian (Karadzic, Strekel). Bulgarian "Collection for the peoples of the mind". Gathering activity in the Slavic countries in the XX century. The most valuable publications.

Study of Slavic folklore. Mythological school: Afanasyev, O. Miller. School of borrowing: Buslaev, Shishmanov, Grafenauer. Historical School: Sun. Miller, Folklorists of Yugoslavia. Comparative historical study of folklore: Polivka, Veselovsky, Arnaudov, Kshizhanovsky, Bystron, Moshinsky, Gorak. Contemporary Slavic folklorists: Sokolov, Bogatyrev, Kravtsov, Propp, Putilov, Gusev; Kshizhanovsky, Chernik; Latkovich; Arnaudov, Dinekov, Romanska; Melikherchik.

New directions in Slavic folklore studies (typological study, structural, ethnolinguistic school). The study of folklore by literary scholars, linguists, historians, musicologists, theater experts. Comprehensive study of folklore. The problem of folklore as the art of words and the history of Soviet folklore. Achievements in folklore of individual Slavic countries. Inter-Slavic scientific cooperation in the study of folklore.

LITERATURE

The main

Kravtsov folklore. M. 1976.

Slavic folklore. Texts. Compiled by ,. M. 1987.

Calendar customs and ceremonies in the countries of foreign Europe. Winter holidays. M. 1973.S. 5 - 17, 204 - 283.

Calendar customs and ceremonies in the countries of foreign Europe. Spring Holidays. M. 1977.S. 5-11, 202-295.

Calendar customs and ceremonies in the countries of foreign Europe. Summer and autumn holidays. M. 1978.S. 5 - 7, 174 - 243.

Slavic folklore and historical reality. M. 1965.

Slavic folklore. Sat. articles. Ed. ,. M. 1972.

Epic of the Slavic peoples. Reader. Ed. prof. ... M. 1959.

Slavic folklore. Essays and samples. Съст. Ts. Romanska. Sofia. 1972.

Bulgarian folk tales. M. 1965.

Polish folk legends and tales. M. 1965.

Tales of the peoples of Yugoslavia. M. 1956.

Songs of the South Slavs. Comp., Entry. Art. ... M. 1976.

Serbian folk songs and tales from the collection. M. 1987.

Slovak fairy tales. M. 1955.

Czech folk tales. M. - L. 1951.

A betrayal of the Slovenian people. Beograd. 1964.

Additional

Moszyński K. Kultura ludowa słowian. T. 1. Kultura materialna; T. 2. Cz. 1, 2. Kultura duchowa. Warszawa. 1968.

Balgar folk poetry creativity. Christomathy. Sofia. 1958.

Български folklore. Part 1. Sofia. 1972.

Latkoviћ V. Narodna kњizhevnost, 1. Beograd. 1967.

Putilov is a historical ballad. M. - L. 1965.

Putilov and the South Slavic heroic epic. M. 1971.

Bogatyrev theories of folk art. M. 1971. P. 11 - 166 ("The National Theater of the Czechs and Slovaks").

Kravtsov of Slavic folklore. M. 1973.

Lazutin folklore. M. 1983.

Kruglov folk poetry. L. 1987.

Kravtsov epic. M. 1985.

Bogatyrev epic stories and lyric-epic songs ("zboynitsky" cycle). M. 1963.

Ukrainian thoughts. M. 1972.

Anthology jugoslovenske folk lyric poetry. Nedi. Beograd. 1962.

Slovenský folklór. Zost. A. Melicherčík. Bratislava. 1965.

Słownik folkloru polskiego. Warszawa. 1965.

Tolstoy and folk culture. Essays on Slavic mythology and ethnolinguistics. M. 1995.

Slavic Antiquities: Ethnolinguistic Dictionary in 5 vols. Ed. N.I. Tolstoy. T. 1. A - G. M. 1995. T. 2. D - K. M. 1999.

East Slavic folklore. Dictionary of scientific and folk terminology. Minsk. 1993.

Gura of animals in the Slavic folk tradition. M. 1997.

Series of studies "Slavic and Balkan folklore". M. (1971, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1994, 1995)

Smirnov ballads and forms close to them. M. 1988.

Klyaus plots and plot situations of conspiracy texts of the Eastern and Southern Slavs. M. 1997.

The folk art of the Eastern Slavs represents a vast and specialized field of study. Within the framework of the general course, only the most basic of its phenomena can be touched upon. The variety of forms of folk art of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and the high artistic perfection of many of his works are such that only a few other peoples of the Soviet Union can argue with them in this regard.

Oral folk art (folklore, folk literature) of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians reveals a complex combination of old, traditional and new forms. Former folklorists considered oral folklore exclusively as a monument of antiquity, believing that in the modern era, starting with the penetration of capitalism into the countryside, it is doomed to decline and disappear. But Soviet folklorists have established that this is not true: folk art does not dry up even today, moreover, in the Soviet era, some traditional genres of folklore are reviving, penetrating with new content, and completely new ones are developing. "Folklore," says one of the prominent Soviet folklorists Yu. M. Sokolov, "is an echo of the past, but at the same time a loud voice of the present."

The traditional genres of East Slavic folklore include: ritual songs, lyric songs, folk theater, fairy tales, proverbs, sayings and riddles, epic poetry - epics and historical songs, spiritual poems.

Ritual songs are perhaps the oldest form of folk poetry. They accompanied various ceremonies from the calendar cycle, from Christmas to stubble. Together with these rituals, they arose in a distant era on the basis of the spontaneously materialistic labor attitude of the farmer to the natural environment, but they were also colored with magical ideas. Other ritual songs were associated with family rituals - these are wedding songs, funeral laments (laments, laments); of the latter, the northern ones are especially interesting. At the present time, this ritual poetry, with a few exceptions, has become a thing of the past.

Lyric folk poetry is extremely diverse. It is dominated by sad motives generated by the hard share of the working people in the past. There are singled out love and family songs, then songs about recruitment and soldiery, about serfdom, burlak, coachman, prison, comic-satirical and others. In addition to songs of peasant origin, from the 18th century. the industrial poetry of workers began to emerge, which, however, retained close ties with village poetry.

The folk theater was once quite widespread. For the Eastern Slavs, this is mainly a puppet theater,
known in several forms. The most famous among Russians is the "Petrushka" theater (dolls put on and moved on the fingers); the main character of the performances is Petrushka, a brave, resourceful, witty hero who enters into a struggle with a merchant, policeman, doctor and overcomes everyone; in this image the spontaneous protest of the people against social oppression found expression. Among the Ukrainians and Belarusians, another type of theater was better known - the “nativity scene”, where the dolls moved through the slits in the floor of the stage; the content of the performances was part of church plots, part of everyday satirical scenes. The third type of theater is “paradise” among Russians: these are different pictures that were shown to the audience by rewinding between two rollers, and the raeshnik gave comic rhymed explanations.

The theater of live actors was much less widespread. Only a few plays of this folk theater are known that arose around the 18th century: these are Tsar Maximilian, The Boat, The Naked Master, etc.

In the old days in Russia there were wandering professional actors - the so-called buffoons. But the government and the church persecuted them for satirical statements against those in power, and already in the 18th century. buffoons have died out.

The fairytale epic of the Eastern Slavs is extremely rich. It is customary to divide folk tales into types: animal tales, magic tales, legends, everyday tales, anecdotes, and short stories. Fairy tales with an element of the miraculous are generally more ancient. But the opinion of former researchers, especially supporters of the mythological school, is erroneous, that a myth or a religious idea lies at the heart of every fairy tale, and above all else. Soviet folklorists and ethnographers came to the conclusion that from the very beginning the fabulous creativity of the people existed independently from religious and mythological ideas, although, of course, there was a mutual crossing of both. It is noted that (P.G. Bogatyrev), the images of fairy tales among the Eastern Slavs - such as Baba Yaga, the immortal koschey, the firebird - are not found at all in popular beliefs (that is, the people do not believe in their existence) and, on the contrary, objects of folk beliefs - goblin, water, brownie, etc. - almost never appear in fairy tales. Fairy tales of everyday life are connected with social themes, often have a satirical coloration and almost do not contain elements of fantasy: here there are plots about the priest and his worker (the priest is always drawn with negative features), about a stupid gentleman and lady, about a soldier, etc. in fairy tales, the people captured their enmity towards the exploiters and sympathy for the disadvantaged.

Proverbs and sayings are extremely numerous. They also express popular wisdom, popular ideas about morality, a critical attitude towards the exploiting system. It is known how widely used and are using folk proverbs of the classics of literature, how often politicians use them in their speeches.

One of the most specific types of Russian folklore is the heroic epic, the so-called epics. Unlike other types of folklore, their distribution is limited: they have survived almost exclusively in the north - in the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions, in Pechora, in some places in Siberia. But by their origin, epics are associated with the ancient centers of Russia - mainly with Kiev, Novgorod, less with Moscow. They were created, according to most experts, between the 12th and 17th centuries. Soviet folklorists have established that epics, like other types of folk poetry, are not a half-forgotten fragment of antiquity, but still live a full-blooded life, change, even enrich themselves with new details. However, the main content of the epics is the exploits of the ancient heroes. Of these, the most beloved is the peasant hero Ilya Muromets, next to him are Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Volga Svyatoslavich, Mikula Selyaninovich and others. These are the heroes of the Kiev cycle. Sadko and Vasily Buslaevich stand out from the Novgorod cycle. The word "epics" is not a popular word, it was introduced by folklorists, of which the first was I. I. Sakharov. The people call these works more often "antiquities". They are performed by special specialists - "storytellers", talented singers with a huge memory, because you have to remember thousands of lines of text in a row. The most famous Storytellers are the Ryabinin family, the Kryukov family (deceased in 1954, Marfa Kryukova is an order bearer and a member of the Union of Soviet Writers). Bylinas are performed in a chant, their motives are often heard in the works of Russian classical music.

"Historical songs" are close to epics. They are dedicated to historical figures - Ivan the Terrible, Stepan Razin, Pugachev, etc., and convey historical events closer. They are usually shorter in size.

The Ukrainians also have historical songs. But a special genre of folk historical poetry, the so-called "thoughts", gained great importance among them. In terms of content, most of the thoughts are devoted to historical events, the struggle of the Ukrainian people with the Tatars, Turks, Poles; but there are also thoughts of everyday content. A characteristic feature of dumas is the presence in them, along with purely folk art, also of elements of bookish, intellectual writing. Dumas were usually sung by blind lyricists, kobzars, bandura players.

Spiritual poetry is an obsolete form of folk poetry. In the Middle Ages, they reflected the sentiments of the dissatisfied strata of the population who adhered to various "heresies"; but later this "heretical" spirit of them disappeared. Spiritual poems were sung by various pilgrims, blind beggars, pilgrims who stayed near monasteries. It was a kind of religious propaganda that intoxicated the minds of the people.

But the bulk of the works of traditional East Slavic folklore is of great ideological value. VI Lenin was interested in them. Having familiarized himself with the recordings of Russian folklore texts, he once said to one of the interlocutors: “What an interesting material ... I skimmed through all these books and I see that there is obviously not enough hands or the desire to summarize all this, to view it all from a socio-political point of view ... Indeed, this material could be used to write an excellent study about the aspirations and expectations of the people. Look ..., in Onchukov's tales, which I leafed through, there are wonderful places here. This is what our literary historians should pay attention to. This is genuine folk art, so necessary and important for the study of folk psychology today "

Tolstaya S.M., Tolstoy N.I. and others - Slavic and Balkan folklore.

Folklore. Epic. Mythology

Description:
For the 1978 compilation:
The works investigate the origins of the folklore tradition of the Slavic and Balkan peoples, consider rituals, customs and symbols associated with the Slavic archaic folk culture, give genetic research in the field of Slavic folklore, provide many new folklore records made on the territory of Polesie.
Presented by:

Slavic and Balkan Folklore: Genesis. Archaic. Traditions. M .: Publishing house "Science", 1978.
Slavic and Balkan Folklore: Rite. Text. M .: Publishing house "Science", 1981.
Slavic and Balkan folklore: Spiritual culture of Polesie on a common Slavic background / Otv. ed. N.I. Tolstoy. M .: "Science", 1986.
Slavic and Balkan folklore: Reconstruction of the ancient Slavic spiritual culture: Sources and methods / Otv. ed. N.I. Tolstoy. M .: "Science", 1989.
Slavic and Balkan Folklore: Beliefs. Text. Ritual. M .: "Science", 1994.
Slavic and Balkan Folklore: Ethnolinguistic Study of Polesie. M .: Publishing house "Indrik", 1995.
Slavic and Balkan Folklore: Folk Demonology. M .: Publishing house "Indrik", 2000.
Slavic and Balkan Folklore: Semantics and Pragmatics of the Text. M .: Publishing house "Indrik", 2006.

1) Slavic and Balkan folklore: Genesis. Archaic. Traditions / Resp. ed. I. M. Sheptunov. M .: "Science", 1978.

Introduction
L. N. Vinogradova. Conjuring formulas in the calendar poetry of the Slavs and their ritual origins
V.V. Usacheva. Ritual "polaznik" and its folklore elements in the area of ​​the Serbo-Croatian language
V.K.Sokolov. Shrovetide (its composition, development and specificity)
A.F. Zhuravlev. Protective rituals associated with the death of livestock, and their geographical distribution.
N.I. and S.M. Tolstoy. Notes on Slavic paganism. 2. Making rain in Polesie
S. M. Tolstaya. Materials for the description of the Polissya Kupala rite
E. V. Pomerantseva. Interethnic community of beliefs and stories about noon
A. V. Gura. Hare symbolism in Slavic ritual and song folklore
F.D. Klimchuk. Song Tradition of the West Polessian Village of Simonovichi

2) Slavic and Balkan folklore: Rite. Text / Resp. ed. N.I. Tolstoy. M .: "Science", 1981.

Yu. I. Smirnov. The focus of comparative research on folklore
L. N. Vinogradova. Maiden's fortune-telling about marriage in the cycle of Slavic calendar rituals (West-East Slavic parallels)
N.I. and S.M. Tolstoy. Notes on Slavic paganism. 5. Protection from hail in Dragachev and other Serbian zones
A. V. Gura. Weasel (Mustela nivalis) in Slavic folk performances
O. A. Ternovskaya. To the description of some Slavic representations associated with insects. One system of rituals for removing domestic insects
L. G. Barag. The plot about snake fighting on the bridge in the tales of the East Slavic and other peoples
N.L. Ruchkina. Genetic links between the Akritic epic and Kleft songs
Yu. I. Smirnov. Epica Polesie (according to the records of 1975)
Appendix - Indexes to the article by N. I. and S. M. Tolstykh “Notes on Slavic paganism. 5"

3) Slavic and Balkan folklore: Spiritual culture of Polesie on a common Slavic background / Otv. ed. N.I. Tolstoy. M .: "Science", 1986.

Materials for the Polesie ethnolinguistic atlas. Experience in mapping

Foreword (N. T., S. T.)
The sun plays (S.M. Tolstaya)
Ritual atrocities of youth (S.M. Tolstaya)
Trinity Green (N. I. Tolstoy)
Plowing rivers, roads (S.M. Tolstaya)
Frog and other animals in the rituals of making and stopping rain (S.M. Tolstaya)
Sretenskaya and Thursday candle (S.M. Tolstaya)
Rain during a wedding (A. V. Gura)
The Invocation of Spring (T.A. Agapkina)
The daughter-in-law became a poplar in the field (N.I.Tolstoy)

O. A. Pashina. Calendar songs of the spring-summer cycle of southeastern Belarus
V.I. Kharitonov. Polissya tradition of lamentation in Polissya against an East Slavic background

Articles and Research

V.E. Gusev. Driving "arrows" ("sula") in East Polesie
T. A. Agapkina, A. L. Toporkov. On the problem of the ethnographic context of calendar songs
L. N. Vinogradova. The mythological aspect of the Polissya "Rusal" tradition
N.I. Tolstoy. From observations of the Polissya conspiracies

Materials and publications

A. V. Gura. From Polissya wedding terminology. Wedding ranks. Dictionary: N - Svashka
S. M. Tolstaya. Polissya folk calendar. Materials for the ethnodialect dictionary: K - P
Yu. I. Smirnov. Epica Polesie

4) Slavic and Balkan folklore: Reconstruction of the ancient Slavic spiritual culture: Sources and methods / Otv. ed. N.I. Tolstoy. M .: "Science", 1989.

N.I. Tolstoy. Some thoughts on the reconstruction of Slavic spiritual culture
V.N.Toporov. On the Iranian element in Russian spiritual culture
V.V. Martynov. The sacred world "Words about Igor's regiment"
V. V. Ivanov. Ritual burning of a horse's skull and wheel in Polissya and its Indo-European parallels
M. Matichetov. About mythical creatures among Slovenes and especially about Kurent
L. N. Vinogradova. Folklore as a source for the reconstruction of the ancient Slavic spiritual culture
L. Radenkovich. Color symbolism in Slavic conspiracies
S.E. Nikitina. On the relationship between oral and written forms in folk culture
E. Horvatova. Traditional youth unions and initiation rites among the Western Slavs
Z. Michael. Ethnolinguistic methods in the study of folk spiritual culture
T.V. Tsivyan. On the linguistic foundations of the model of the world (based on the material of the Balkan languages ​​and traditions)
M. Wojtyla-Svezhovska. The terminology of agrarian rituals as a source of study of the ancient Slavic spiritual culture
S. M. Tolstaya. Terminology of rituals and beliefs as a source of reconstruction of ancient spiritual culture
T. A. Agapkina, A. L. Toporkov. Sparrow (rowan) night in the language and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs
A.A. Potebnya. About the origin of the names of some Slavic pagan deities (Preparation of the text by V. Yu. Franchuk. Notes by N. Ye. Afanasyeva and V. Yu. Franchuk)
On the work of A.A. Potebnya dedicated to the origin and etymology of the names of Slavic pagan deities (V. Yu. Franchuk)

5) Slavic and Balkan folklore: Beliefs. Text. Ritual / Resp. ed. N.I. Tolstoy. M .: "Science", 1994.

N.I. Tolstoy. Once again on the topic "clouds - beef, rain - milk"
L. N. Vinogradova, S. M. Tolstaya. On the problem of identification and comparison of characters in Slavic mythology
O. V. Sannikova. Polish mythological vocabulary in the structure of folklore text

T.A. Agapkina. South Slavic beliefs and ceremonies associated with fruit trees in a general Slavic perspective
S. M. Tolstaya. Mirror in traditional Slavic beliefs and rituals
I. A. Sedakova. Bread in the traditional ritual of the Bulgarians: homelands and the main stages of child development

N.I. Tolstoy. Vita herbae et vita rei in the Slavic folk tradition
T. A. Agapkina, L. N. Vinogradova. Goodwill: ritual and text
G.I. Kabakov. The structure and geography of the legend of the March old woman
V.V. Usacheva. Vocative formulas in traditional medicine of the Slavs
N. A. Ipatova. Werewolf as a property of fairy-tale characters
E. E. Levkievskaya. Materials on Carpathian demonology

Correctional additions to the article by N. I. Tolstoy "Vita herbae et vita rei in the Slavic folk tradition"

6) Slavic and Balkan folklore: Ethnolinguistic study of Polesie / Otv. ed. N.I. Tolstoy. M .: "Indrik", 1995.

N.I. Tolstoy. Ethnocultural and linguistic study of Polesie (1984-1994)

I. Polissya ethnolinguistic atlas: research and materials
T.A. Agapkina. Essays on the spring rituals of Polesie
A. A. Plotnikova. The first pasture of cattle in Polesie
L. N. Vinogradova. Regional features of Polissya beliefs about brownies
E. E. Levkievskaya, V. V. Usacheva. Polessky water on a common Slavic background
L. N. Vinogradova. Where do children come from? Polissya formulas about the origin of children
V.L.Svitelskaya. An experience in mapping the Polissya burial rituals
M. M. Valentsova. Materials for mapping the types of Polesie Christmastime fortune-telling
M. Nikonchuk, O. Nikonchuk, G. Orlenko. Deyaki termi of material culture in the govirki of right-bank Polissya
O. A. Parshina. Calendar cycle in the northwestern villages of Sumy region

II. Ethnolinguistic dictionaries. Publications

S. M. Tolstaya. Polissya folk calendar. Materials for the ethnodialect dictionary: Р - Я
A. V. Gura. From Polissya wedding terminology. Wedding ranks. Vocabulary (Christmas Eve - W)
F.D. Klimchuk. Spiritual culture of the Polesie village of Simonovichi

III. Applications

N.P. Antropov, A.A.Plotnikova. Chronicle of Polesie expeditions

List of settlements of Polesie ethnolinguistic atlas

Abbreviations of the names of regional centers and districts

7) Slavic and Balkan folklore: Folk demonology / Otv. ed. S. M. Tolstaya. M .: "Indrik", 2000.

Foreword

N.I. Tolstoy. "Without four corners, a hut is not built" (Notes on Slavic paganism. 6)
L. N. Vinogradova. new ideas about the origin of evil spirits: demonologizing the deceased
S. M. Tolstaya. Slavic mythological ideas about the soul
E. E. Levkievskaya. Mythological characters in the Slavic tradition. I. East Slavic brownie
Dagmar Klimova (Prague). Hospodářík in the beliefs of the Czech people
T.V. Tsivyan. On one class of characters in lower mythology: "professionals"
N. A. Mikhailov. To one Balto-South Slavic folklore ritual formula: lit. laimė lėmė, lts. laima nolemj, svn. sojenice sodijo
L.R. Khafizova. Buka as a character of children's folklore
T.A. Agapkina. Demons as characters of calendar mythology
A. A. Plotnikova. The mythology of atmospheric and celestial phenomena among the Balkan Slavs
V.V. Usacheva. Mythological ideas of the Slavs about the origin of plants
A. V. Gura. Demonological properties of animals in Slavic mythological representations
V. Ya. Petrukhin. "Gods and demons" of the Russian Middle Ages: family, women in labor and the problem of Russian dual faith
O. V. Belova. Judas Iscariot: from the gospel image to the mythological character
M. M. Valentsova. The demon saints Lucius and Barbara in West Slavic calendar mythology
Polissya and Western Russian materials about the brownie

8) Slavic and Balakan folklore: Semantics and pragmatics of the text / Otv. ed. S. M. Tolstaya. M .: "Indrik", 2006.

Foreword

Pragmatics of the text
T.A. Agapkina. The plot of the East Slavic conspiracies in a comparative aspect
O. V. Belova. Slavic biblical legends: verbal text in the context of the rite
E. E. Levkievskaya. The pragmatics of the mythological text
L. N. Vinogradova. Socioregulatory function of superstitious stories about violators of prohibitions and customs
S. M. Tolstaya. Posthumous walk motive in beliefs and ritual

Text and rite
A. V. Gura. Correlation and interaction of actional and verbal codes of the wedding ceremony
V.V. Usacheva. Verbal magic in the agrarian rites of the Slavs
A. A. Plotnikova. Spring incantatory formulas for "expulsion" of reptiles among the South Slavs (in areal perspective)

Vocabulary and phraseology and their role in generating text
M. M. Valentsova. Calendar pairs of the Western Slavs
E. L. Berezovich, K. V. Pyankova. Food code in the text of the game: porridge and kvass
A. V. Gura. Moon spots: ways of constructing a mythological text
O. V. Chekha. Linguistic and cultural image of the lunar time in the Polissya tradition (young and old month)
E. S. Uzeneva. Correlation between chrononym and legend (feast of St. Tryphon in areal perspective)