Oral folk art(folklore) is a collection of works of art created by the people in the process of oral, collective, non-professional creativity based on traditions. Oral folk art includes a fairy tale, heroic epic, proverbs and sayings, riddles, nursery rhymes, songs, etc. A fairy tale is a free retelling of a legend, an epic, just a story, somewhat simplified for perception, often devoid of some semantic aspects, supplemented by magic, miracles, mythical characters. The heroic epic (epics) is very reminiscent of a fairy tale, but unlike it, the epic contains not fictional, but real heroes (Ilya Muromets, Sadko, etc.). In the epic, the people sing of courage, courage, love for the Motherland. Proverbs and sayings are a spring of folk wisdom. They
reflect life, customs, very often echo fairy tales. This
trusted for thousands of years form of preservation of edification among the people,
morals, teachings, commandments.
The basis of ancient Russian culture was oral folk art. Slavic mythology and the most important historical events are most vividly reflected in oral folk art. So, fairy tales are replete with plots in which there are mythical creatures: mermaids, goblin, ghouls - representatives different levels Slavic pantheon. The epics reflected specific historical facts and figures. Epics, a very distinctive and extraordinary phenomenon of culture, provide evidence of cultural level masses of people, their education and literacy. There is a point of view on epics as a phenomenon of folklore, reflecting the most general processes of social and political life, and on epic heroes as on combining different chronological layers. But there is no reason to attribute the epics to a certain epic period earlier than the era of Kievan Rus. As established recently (I.Ya. Froyanov, Yu.I. Yudin), epics quite adequately reflect the democratic system of Kievan Rus. The most famous is the heroic epic cycle, in which folk heroes, the defenders of Rus' - Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikntich, Alyosha Popovich and others are sung.
The further development of oral folk art is connected with the struggle against the Mongols-Tatars. In the epic epic, almost no new plots appeared, but it was rethought. The Pechenegs and Polovtsy of ancient Russian epics now began to be identified with the Tatars, they began to be portrayed as stupid, cowardly, boastful rapists, and Russian heroes - smart, courageous, "very" defenders of Rus'. By the XIV century. refers to the emergence of a new folk genre - the historical song. An example of this is "The Song of Shchelkan Dudentevich". In her we are talking about the specific events of 1327 in Tver - the anti-Horde uprising of the townspeople.
Folklore of the 16th century differs from the previous one both in type and in content. Along with the existence of genres of previous eras (epics, fairy tales, proverbs, ritual songs, etc.), in the 16th century. flourishes the genre of historical song. Historical legends were also widespread. Songs and legends were usually dedicated to the outstanding events of that time - the capture of Kazan, the march to Siberia, wars in the West, or outstanding personalities - Ivan the Terrible, Yermak Timofeevich.
The historical song about the march to Kazan sings of the skill of Russian gunners who made a "cunning" dig under the city walls. As a smart ruler and commander, Ivan the Terrible himself is depicted in it. His folklore image is characterized by idealization. So, in one of the songs, the people bitterly mourn him as a people's intercessor: "You rise, rise, you, our Orthodox Tsar ... Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, you are our father!" However, other features of it were also reflected in folklore: cruelty, imperiousness, ruthlessness. In this regard, Novgorod and Pskov songs and legends are characteristic. In one of the songs, Tsarevich Ivan reminds his father: “And which street you were driving, father, all the seconds, and stabbed, and planted on a stake.”
In songs about the conquest of Siberia, which existed mainly among the Cossacks, the main character is Ermak Timofeevich - a daring and courageous ataman of free people, the leader of the people. In his image, the features of the heroic heroes of the Russian epic were combined with the features of the people's leaders who fought against social injustice.
Interesting songs about the heroic defense of Pskov during Livonian War. Having been defeated, the Polish king Stefan Batory vows on his own behalf and on behalf of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to ever attack Rus'.
A song about Kostruk was common during the time of Ivan the Terrible. It tells about the victory of an ignorant Russian man (“a peasant peasant”) over a foreign prince Kostruk, who boasted of his strength, but became a laughingstock for the whole people.
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The theme of oral folk art in Russian literature is extremely diverse, there are numerous genres and types of folklore. All of them were formed gradually, as a result of life and creative activity people, manifested for several hundred years. Currently, there are specific types of folklore in literature. Oral folk art is that unique layer of knowledge on the basis of which thousands of classical works were built.
Interpretation of the term
Folklore is oral folk art, endowed with ideological depth, highly artistic qualities, it includes all poetic, prose genres, customs and traditions, accompanied by verbal artistic creativity. Folklore genres are classified in different ways, but basically there are several genre groups:
- Labor songs - formed in the process of work, for example, sowing, plowing, haymaking. They are a variety of cries, signals, tunes, parting words, songs.
- Calendar folklore - conspiracies, signs.
- Wedding folklore.
- Funeral lamentations, recruiting accounts.
- Not ritual folklore- these are small folklore genres, proverbs, fables, signs and sayings.
- Oral prose - legends, bylichki and past stories.
- Children's folklore - pestles, nursery rhymes, lullabies.
- Song epic (heroic) - epics, poems, songs (historical, military, spiritual).
- Artistic creativity - magical, everyday tales and tales about animals, ballads, romances, ditties.
- Folklore theater - raek, nativity scene, disguise, performances with puppets.
Consider the most common types folklore in more detail.
labor songs
This is a song genre, a distinctive feature of which is the obligatory accompaniment of the labor process. Labor songs are a way of organizing a collective, community service, which sets the rhythm with a simple melody and lyrics. For example: "Wow, let's pull a little closer to make it more fun." Such songs helped to start and finish the work, rallied the working squad and were spiritual helpers in the hard physical labor of the people.
Calendar folklore
This type of oral folk art belongs to the ritual traditions of the calendar cycle. The life of a peasant working on the land is inextricably linked with weather conditions. That is why a huge number of rituals appeared that were performed to attract good luck, prosperity, a large offspring of livestock, successful farming, etc. The most revered holidays of the calendar were Christmas, Maslenitsa, Easter, Epiphany and Trinity. Each celebration was accompanied by songs, chants, incantations and ritual actions. Let us recall the famous custom of singing songs to Kolyada on the night before Christmas: “The cold is not a problem, Kolyada is knocking at the house. Christmas is coming to the house, it brings a lot of joy.
wedding folklore
Each separate place had its own types of folklore, but mostly they were lamentations, sentences and songs. Wedding folklore includes song genres, which accompanied three main ceremonies: matchmaking, farewell of parents to the bride and a wedding celebration. For example: "Your product, our merchant, is just a miracle!" The ritual of handing over the bride to the groom was very colorful and was always accompanied by long and short merry songs. At the wedding itself, the songs did not stop, they mourned the bachelor life, wished love and family well-being.
Non-ritual folklore (small genres)
This group of oral folk art includes all types of small genres of folklore. However, this classification is ambiguous. For example, many of the types belong to children's folklore, such as pestles, lullabies, riddles, nursery rhymes, teasers, etc. At the same time, some researchers divide all folklore genres into two groups: calendar-ritual and non-ritual.
Consider the most popular species small genres of folklore.
A proverb is a rhythmic expression, wise saying, which carries a generalized idea and has a conclusion.
Signs - a short verse or expression that tells about those signs that will help predict natural phenomena, weather.
A proverb is a phrase, often with a humorous bias, illuminating a phenomenon of life, a situation.
A sentence is a small verse-appeal to natural phenomena, living beings, surrounding objects.
A tongue twister is a small phrase, often rhymed, with words that are difficult to pronounce, designed to improve diction.
oral prose
Oral prose includes the following types of Russian folklore.
Legends - a story about historical events in folk retelling. The heroes of the legends are warriors, kings, princes, etc.
Legends - myths, epic tales of heroic deeds, people, fanned with honors and glory, as a rule, this genre is endowed with pathos.
Bylichki - short stories that tell about the meeting of the hero with some kind of "evil spirits", real cases from the life of the narrator or his friends.
Byvalshchina - summary actually happened once and with someone, while the narrator is not a witness
Children's folklore
This genre is represented by the most different forms- poetry, songs. Kinds children's folklore- what accompanied the child from birth to his growing up.
Pestushki - short poems or songs that accompany the very first days of a newborn. With the help of them, they nursed, nurtured children, for example: "The nightingale sings, sings, pretty, but pretty."
Nursery rhymes are small melodious poems designed to be played with kids.
Podushushki,
Rotok - talker,
Handles - grips,
Walker legs.
Calls - poetic, song appeals to nature, animals. For example: "Summer is red, come, bring warm days."
A joke is a short fairy tale poem sung to a child, a short story about the world around him.
Lullabies are short songs that parents sing to a child at night to lull them to sleep.
Riddle - poetic or prose sentences that require a solution.
Other types of children's folklore are counting rhymes, teasers and tall tales. They are extremely popular even today.
Song epic
The heroic epic demonstrates the most ancient types of folklore, it tells about the events that happened once in song form.
Bylina is an old song told in a solemn but unhurried style. Glorifies the heroes and tells about their heroic deeds for the benefit of the state, the Russian fatherland. about Dobryn Nikitich, Volga Buslaivaich and others.
Historical songs are a kind of transformation of the epic genre, where the style of presentation is less eloquent, but the poetic form of narration is preserved. For example, "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg."
Artistic creativity
This group includes epic and song genres created in the spirit of folk art.
A fairy tale is a short or long epic narrative, one of the most common genres of oral folk art about fictional events, heroes. All this is folklore, the types of fairy tales in it are the following: magical, everyday and reflect those ideas about the world, good, evil, life, death, nature that existed among the people. For example, good always triumphs over evil, and there are wonderful mythical creatures in the world.
Ballads - poetic songs, a genre of song- musical creativity.
Jokes - special kind an epic story about comic situations from people's lives. Originally they did not exist in the form in which we know them. These were stories complete in meaning.
Fiction is a short story about impossible, improbable events, something that was fiction from beginning to end.
Chastushka is a small song, usually a quatrain with humorous content, telling about events, incidental situations.
folklore theater
Street performances were very common among the people, the plots for them were various genres, but most often of a dramatic nature.
Nativity scene - a kind of dramatic work intended for street puppet theater.
Rayok is a kind of picture theatre, devices in the form of a box with changing patterns, the stories being told at the same time reflect the oral forms of folklore.
The presented classification is the most common among researchers. However, it should be understood that the types of Russian folklore complement each other, and sometimes do not fit into the generally accepted classification. Therefore, when studying the issue, a simplified version is most often used, where only 2 groups of genres are distinguished - ritual and non-ritual folklore.
1. The methods of epic poetics are
a) rhyme, allegory, syntactic parallelism
b) irony, rhythmization, reliable depiction of reality
c) retardation, hyperbolization, " common place»
2. The genres of winter ritual poetry include
a) drag songs, stubble songs, chants
b) carols, vineyards, podblyadnye songs
c) Russian songs, Trinity songs, Shrovetide songs
3. The genres of spring rituals include
a) vine songs, chants, stoneflies
b) shchedrovki, trinity songs, stubble songs
c) Kupala songs, drag songs, ovsen
4. The epics of the Novgorod cycle include
a) "Mikhailo Kazarenin", "The Marriage of Dobrynya"
b) "Sadko", "Vasily Buslaev"
c) "Volga and Mikula", "Skopin"
5. The "senior" heroes in Russian epics are
a) Volga (Volkh Vseslavievich), Svyatogor, Mikula Selyaninovich
b) Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich
c) Mikhailo Potyk, Sadko, Dyuk Stepanovich
6. Non-fairytale prose genres include
a) boring fairy tale, visitation, tale
b) byvalshchina, cumulative fairy tale, anecdote
c) legend
7. To genres wedding ceremony relate
A) boring tales, calls, oatmeal
b) drag songs, game choruses, ditties
c) songs like a monologue-imperative, lamentations, glorifications
8. The genres of the wedding ceremony include
a) reproachful songs, the sentence of a friend, lamentations
b) lullabies, conspiracy, nursery rhyme
c) pestle, bylichka, round dance songs
9. The genres of the wedding ceremony include
a) stories, grapes, choruses
b) glorifications, songs commenting on the acts of the rite, lamentations
c) a joke, vyunishnye songs, fables-shifters
10. The plots of the folk ballad are
a) “Sister and brothers are robbers”, “Husband destroys his wife”,
b) "Pigeon Book", "Death of Churila",
c) "The Dream of the Virgin", "Vavilo and buffoons"
11. The plots of the folk ballad are
a) "Agafonushka", "About Arakcheev",
b) "Ryabinka", "Well done and the princess"
c) "Battle of Poltava", "Tatar full"
12. The plots of the folk ballad are
a) "Petrov's recruits on Sparrow Hills", "Pop Emelya"
b) "On the War of 1812", "Archers and Peasants"
c) "Vanka the key-keeper", "Slandered wife"
13. The plots of historical songs are
a) "The Capture of Kazan", "Mikhailo Skopin".
b) “Forty kaliks with kaliks”, “Seven riddles”.
c) "Old Eagle", "Horse and Falcon".
14. The plots of historical songs are
a) "Prince Roman lost his wife", "Children of the widow".
b) "Well done and the Queen", "Vasily and Sophia".
c) "Avdotya Ryazanochka", "Son of Stenka Razin".
15. The plots of historical songs are
a) "Shchelkan Dyudentevich", "The execution of the archery ataman".
B) "The slandered wife", "The Wise Maiden".
C) "Dmitry and Domna", "Indrik the Beast".
16. The genres of children's folklore include
a) horror stories, teasers, nursery rhymes
b) pestles, boring tales, legend
c) incantations, epics, counting rhymes
17. The genres of children's folklore created by the children themselves include
18. The genres of children's folklore created by adults include
a) teasing, lottery collusion, underwear
b) lullabies, fables-shifters, pestles
c) calls, game choruses, counting rhymes
19. Tales about animals include:
a) “Tiny-Havroshechka”, “Zhikharko”, “Geese-Swans”, “Dog and Wolf”
b) "The Weeping Fox", "The Rolling Pin for the Goose", "The Cat and the Rooster"
c) "Ivan the dog's son", "Snow Maiden", "Priest's wife"
20. Cumulative tales are
a) "Baba" worse than hell”,“ A man and a master ”,“ Treasure ”
b) "The Wolf and the Seven Kids", "Sivka-Burka", "The Frog Princess"
c) "Teremok", "Kolobok", "Turnip"
21. Fairy tales include:
a) "Ice and Bast Hut", "Rocked Hen", "Animals in the Pit"
b) "Porridge from an ax", "Morozko", "Mashenka and the Bear"
c) "Ivan Tsarevich and Gray wolf», « Rejuvenating apples", "Firebird"
22. The saying is
a) "In archers, the rate of goodness, but dashing exhibition"
b) “A unfortunate soldier is worse than a bastard bast”
c) "Take care of honor from a young age"
23. The proverb is
a) "The road is a spoon for dinner, and an egg - for Christ's Day"
b) "When the cancer whistles on the mountain"
c) “Where Makar did not drive calves”
24. The saying is
a) “Hunger is not an aunt - she won’t slip a pie”
b) "Work is not a wolf"
c) “A hungry Frenchman is happy with a crow”
25. What genre of folklore does the following text belong to:
The golden damask is developing. Frets!
Someone is on their way. Frets!
To whom we sing, to that with good. Frets!
To whom it will come out, it will come true, it will not pass! Frets!
a) wedding ceremony
b) call
V) spy song
26. What genre of folklore does the following text belong to:
It's worth a lot of milk, Elijah!
The top is gilded. Or me!
To whom we sing, to him with good, Elijah!
Who will come true, will not pass. Or me!
That would live richly, Elijah!
Walk well and do nothing, Elijah!
Sitting on the stove, getting fat across. Or me!
a) a riddle
b) catchy song
c) conspiracy
27. What genre of folklore does the following text belong to:
I sit at the table, I drive with five. Glory!
I'll sit still, I'll still drive. Glory!
Who will get this song
To that it will be taken out, to that it will come true, it will not pass. Glory!
a) wedding ceremony
b) call
c) catchy song
28. What kind of lamentation does this fragment of the text belong to:
And you, my dear, come on, dear,
And my dear, mountain high,
Where are you going with me, grief, are you gearing up?
Where are you, my, but are you sending it?
a) wedding ceremony
b) recruiting lament
c) funeral lament
29. What kind of lamentation does this fragment of the text belong to:
gentlemen's friends,
gentle gentlemen,
Yes, heat the guy's baenka
Yes, not the first in my lifetime,
Yes, but not the last,
You are only the last
With honest maiden beauty,
Yes, with a free will
On the home side...
a) wedding ceremony
b) recruiting lament
c) funeral lament
30. What kind of lamentation does this fragment of the text belong to:
After all, they have enveloped you in white shrouds,
And they built a new chamber for you,
A new room, but without doors for you,
Without doors for you, my, without windows ...
a) funeral lament
b) wedding lamentation
c) recruitment
31. What genre of folklore does the following text fragment belong to:
They drank something, they drank boyar wine.
Vili something, vili falcon's nest.
Calls, Vasilyushka calls his wife,
Ivanovich is calling, calling his own.
a) wedding song
b) wedding lamentation
c) judgment
32. What genre of folklore does the following fragment of the text belong to:
"... By the oceanic sea there is a throne,
On the throne sits the Most Holy Mother of God,
In front of her stands a golden whisk.
I will ask her: "Come to my aid,
Take a whisk, sweep and put away the lessons, prize-winners ... "
a) conspiracy
b) legend
c) lamentation
33. What genre of folklore does the following fragment of text belong to:
"Chiry-vyrey,
There is no place for you on a white body,
There is a place for you in the tree.
As it dries, so dry the chiry"
a) dance song
b) teaser
c) conspiracy
34. What genre of folklore does the following fragment of text belong to:
The straight road is jammed,
The path has choked up, it has covered up;
Ay, on that straight path
Yes, no one walked by the infantry,
No one rode a good horse.
a) epic
b) non-ritual lyrical song
c) dance song
35. What genre of folklore does the following fragment of text belong to:
We drove through clean fields, green meadows.
We drove, let's go, we reached the rosstans,
Our horses got up - they wanted to eat.
a) counter
b) lyrical non-ritual song
c) a friend's sentence
36. What genre of folklore does the following text fragment belong to:
Who is sitting in our bench? ...
No mustache, no beard,
Yes, his hair is silk,
Yes, in three rows yes they are drawn,
Yes, they curl into three rings ...
a) bad song
b) game song
c) praise song
37. What epic story does the following fragment of text refer to?:
And to boast not to boast of countless gold treasury:
To my countless gold treasury
I will buy Novgorod goods,
Thin goods and kind!"
Before he could say a word,
Like the abbots of Novgorod
Hit on a big bet
About the countless golden treasury ...
a) "Vasily Buslaev"
b) "Mikhailo Potyk"
c) "Sadko"
38. What epic story does the following fragment of text refer to?:
We drove out into the expanse of pure field,
They heard shouting in the open field.
As the oratay whistles in the field,
The bipod at the orata creaks,
Omeshiki scratches on the pebbles.
We drove all day, from morning to evening,
We couldn't get to the oratay.
a) "Svyatogor"
b) "Mikula Selyaninovich"
c) "Three trips of Ilya Muromets"
39. What epic story does the following fragment of text refer to?:
Her frisky legs broke;
Vtapory Nightingale, he was quick-witted,
He threw his sonorous harp,
He grabbed the girl by the white hands,
Laid on a bed of ivory,
Yes, for those downy feather beds:
“What are you, Zapava, scared of?
We are both old."
“And I, de girl of marriageable age,
I've come to marry you."
a) "Nightingale Budimirovich"
b) "Ilya Muromets and the Nightingale the Robber"
c) "Sadko"
40. The "transitional" rites include
a) building a house, putting out a fire
b) caroling, the first cattle pasture
c) wedding, homeland
41. The "transitional" rites include
a) funeral, wedding
b) transition to new house, plowing
c) Trinity rites, dressing up
42. The "transitional" rites include
a) making an ordinary object, burning an effigy
b) bedbug burial, beard curling
c) homeland, funeral
a) A.N. Veselovsky
b) V.Ya. Propp
c) B.N. Putilov
a) A.N. Veselovsky
b) V.Ya. Propp
c) B.N. Putilov
a) A.N. Veselovsky
b) V.Ya. Propp
c) B.N. Putilov
Keys to the test
| 1 - in | 26 - b |
| 2 - b | 27 - in |
| 3 - a | 28 - in |
| 4 - b | 29 - a |
| 5 - a | 30 - a |
| 6 - in | 31 - a |
| 7 - in | 32 - a |
| 8 - a | 33 - in |
| 9 - b | 34 - a |
| 10 - a | 35 - in |
| 11 - b | 36 - in |
| 12 - in | 37 - in |
| 13 - a | 38 - b |
| 14 - in | 39 - a |
| 15 - a | 40 - in |
| 16 - a | 41-a |
| 17 - a | 42 - in |
| 18 - in | 43 - a |
| 19 - b | 44 - b |
| 20 - in | 45 - in |
| 21 - in | |
| 22 - in | |
| 23 - a | |
| 24 - b | |
| 25 - in |
Exam at the course "Oral folk art" involves the identification of possession of all types of competencies provided for by the main educational program bachelor of philology. Exam questions include extensive material on both general issues of folklore, and the history and theory of individual genres. At the exam, students are also offered a practical task on the analysis of folklore works.
Questions for the exam:
- The concept and subject of folklore.
- Folkloristics as a science. Problems of the origin of folklore.
- Syncretism, orality, collectivity, changeability and variability of folklore.
- The system of genres of oral folk art.
- Traditional folklore and mass culture. Literature and folklore.
- Christmas rites. Carols, vineyards, podblyudnye songs. Divination. Mummers.
- Maslenitsa rites and songs.
- Spring meeting. Stoneflies.
- Trinity-Semitsk rites and songs.
- Bath ritual.
- Zhivnye rites and songs. Cover.
- Typology calendar rites, their magical nature.
- Forms of marriage.
- Correlation of word and ritual action. Types of producing and prophylactic magic.
- The structure of the wedding ritual.
- Wedding ranks and their functions.
- Spell songs and songs of the imperative monologue type. Cleaving and glorious songs. Songs commenting on the acts of the rite.
- Wedding lamentations.
- Friend's sentence.
- The structure of the funeral rite.
- Funeral and recruiting lamentations.
- The structure of the birth ceremony.
- The relationship of the birth rite with other rites of the life cycle.
- Definition of a conspiracy, its magical nature and connection with the rite. Types of conspiracies and their artistic originality.
- The poetic structure of the conspiracy. The connection of the plot with other genres of folklore.
- Proverbs. Sayings. Puzzles.
- The problem of defining the genre of a fairy tale. Problems of fairy tale classification.
- Tales about animals. The origin and development of the genre. Origin of fiction. ancient structure. Plots of fairy tales about animals.
- Magic tales. The character of the fantastic. art space and time. The structure of a fairy tale.
- Household novelistic tales. Structural originality of the genre. The social nature of the genre.
- The problem of classification of non-fairytale epic genres.
- Tradition. Genre features and definitions. Historical legends. Toponymic legends.
- Legend, genre definition and artistic specificity. Connection of legends with church literature.
- Bylichki and byvalschiny as a genre. Narrative forms. Demonological characters in bylichkas and past stories.
35. Definition and genesis of the epic. Collection history and distribution areas.
- Epics of the most ancient period, their plots, themes and images, connection with mythological representations.
- Heroic and novelistic epics. Selection principles.
- Epics of the Kyiv and Novgorod cycles, plots and images.
- Poetics of epics.
- The emergence, development and classification of historical songs.
- Songs about the Tatar invasion.
- Songs of the era of Ivan the Terrible.
- Songs of the era of Peter I.
- Songs about Russian generals.
- Soldier songs. Features of the artistic style.
Russian folklore
Folklore, translated, means " folk wisdom, popular knowledge. Folklore is folk art, the artistic collective activity of the people, reflecting their life, views and ideals, i.e. folklore is folklore cultural heritage any country in the world.
Works of Russian folklore (fairy tales, legends, epics, songs, ditties, dances, legends, applied art) help to recreate the characteristic features folk life of his time.
Creativity in antiquity was closely associated with labor activity human and reflected mythical, historical ideas, as well as the beginnings of scientific knowledge. The art of the word was closely connected with other types of art - music, dance, decorative art. In science, this is called "syncretism."
Folklore was an art organically inherent in folk life. The different purpose of the works gave rise to genres, with their various themes, images, and style. In the most ancient period, most peoples had tribal traditions, labor and ritual songs, mythological stories, conspiracies. The decisive event that paved the line between mythology and folklore proper was the appearance of fairy tales, the plots of which were based on a dream, on wisdom, on ethical fiction.
In ancient and medieval society, a heroic epic took shape ( Irish sagas, Russian epics and others). There were also legends and songs reflecting various beliefs (for example, Russian spiritual verses). Later, historical songs appeared, depicting real historical events and heroes, as they remained in the people's memory.
Genres in folklore also differ in the way of performance (solo, choir, choir and soloist) and in various combinations of text with melody, intonation, movements (singing and dancing, storytelling and acting out).
With changes in social life society in Russian folklore, new genres also arose: soldier's, coachman's, burlak's songs. The growth of industry and cities brought to life: romances, anecdotes, worker, student folklore.
Now there are no new Russian folk tales, but the old ones are still told and cartoons are made from them. art films. Many old songs are also sung. But the epics and historical songs in live performance almost do not sound.
For thousands of years, folklore has been the only form of creativity among all peoples. The folklore of each nation is unique, just like its history, customs, culture. And some genres (not only historical songs) reflect the history of a given people.
Russian folk musical culture
There are several points of view that interpret folklore as folk artistic culture as oral poetic creativity and as a set of verbal, musical, playful or artistic types folk art. With all the variety of regional and local forms, folklore has common features, such as anonymity, collective creativity, traditionalism, close connection with work, life, transmission of works from generation to generation in oral tradition.
Folk musical art originated long before the emergence of professional music of the Orthodox church. IN public life folklore played a much greater role in ancient Rus' than in subsequent times. Unlike medieval Europe, Ancient Rus' did not have a secular professional art. In its musical culture, folk art of the oral tradition developed, including various, including "semi-professional" genres (the art of storytellers, guslars, etc.).
By the time of Orthodox hymnography, Russian folklore already had centuries of history, the established system of genres and means musical expressiveness. folk music, folk art has firmly entered the life of people, reflecting the most diverse facets of social, family and personal life.
Researchers believe that the pre-state period (that is, before the formation of Ancient Rus') East Slavs already had a fairly developed calendar and household folklore, heroic epic and instrumental music.
With the adoption of Christianity, pagan (Vedic) knowledge began to be eradicated. The meaning of magical actions that gave rise to a particular species people's activity, was gradually forgotten. However, the purely external forms of ancient holidays proved to be unusually stable, and some ritual folklore continued to live, as it were, out of touch with the ancient paganism that gave birth to it.
The Christian Church (not only in Rus', but also in Europe) had a very negative attitude towards traditional folk songs and dances, considering them a manifestation of sinfulness, devilish seduction. This assessment is recorded in many annalistic sources and in canonical church decrees.
Cheerful, cheerful festivities with elements theatrical action and with the indispensable participation of music, the origins of which should be sought in the ancient Vedic rituals, were fundamentally different from temple holidays.
The most extensive area of folk musical creativity of Ancient Rus' is ritual folklore, which testifies to the high artistic talent of the Russian people. He was born in the depths of the Vedic picture of the world, the deification of the natural elements. The most ancient are calendar-ritual songs. Their content is connected with ideas about the cycle of nature, with the agricultural calendar. These songs reflect the various stages of the life of farmers. They were part of the winter, spring, summer rites, which correspond to the turning points in the change of seasons. Performing this natural rite (songs, dances), people believed that they would be heard by the mighty gods, the forces of Love, Family, Sun, Water, Mother Earth and healthy children would be born, a good harvest would be born, there would be an offspring of livestock, life would develop in love and harmony.
In Rus', weddings have been played since ancient times. Each locality had its own custom of wedding actions, lamentations, songs, sentences. But with all the endless variety, weddings were played according to the same laws. Poetic wedding reality transforms what is happening into a fantastically fabulous world. As in a fairy tale all images are diverse, so the rite itself, poetically interpreted, appears as a kind of fairy tale. A wedding is one of the most significant events human life in Rus', required a festive and solemn frame. And if you feel all the rituals and songs, delving into this fantastic wedding world, you can feel the aching beauty of this ritual. Colorful clothes, a wedding train rattling with bells, a polyphonic choir of “singers” and mournful melodies of lamentations, the sounds of waxwings and horns, accordions and balalaikas will remain “behind the scenes” - but the poetry of the wedding itself resurrects - the pain of leaving the parental home and the high joy of the festive state of mind - Love.
One of the most ancient Russian genres is round dance songs. In Rus', they danced round dances for almost the entire year - on Kolovorot (New Year), Maslenitsa (seeing off winter and meeting spring), Green Week (round dances of girls around birches), Yarilo (sacred bonfires), Ovsen (harvest holidays). Round dances-games and round dances-processions were common. Initially, round dance songs were part of agricultural rituals, but over the centuries they became independent, although the images of labor were preserved in many of them:
And we sowed millet, sowed!
Oh, Did Lado, sowed, sowed!
The dance songs that have survived to this day accompanied male and women's dances. Men's - personified strength, courage, courage, women's - tenderness, love, stateliness.
Over the centuries, the musical epic begins to replenish with new themes and images. Epics are born that tell about the struggle against the Horde, about traveling to distant countries, about the emergence of the Cossacks, popular uprisings.
Folk memory has long kept many beautiful ancient songs for centuries. In the XVIII century, during the formation of professional secular genres (opera, instrumental music), folk art for the first time becomes the subject of study and creative implementation. The enlightening attitude to folklore was vividly expressed by the remarkable humanist writer A.N. Radishchev in the heartfelt lines of his “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: you will find the education of the soul of our people.” In the 19th century, the assessment of folklore as the “education of the soul” of the Russian people became the basis of the aesthetics of the composer school from Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, to Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Kalinnikov, and the folk song itself was one of the sources of the formation of Russian national thinking.
Russian folk songs of the 16th-19th centuries - "like a golden mirror of the Russian people"
Folk songs recorded in various parts of Russia are historical monument the life of the people, but also a documentary source that captured the development of the people's creative thought of their time.
The struggle against the Tatars, peasant riots - all this left an imprint on folk song traditions for each specific area, starting with epics, historical songs and up to ballads. Like, for example, the ballad about Ilya Muromets, which is associated with the Nightingale River, which flows in the Yazykovo area, there was a struggle between Ilya Muromets and the Nightingale the Robber, who lived in these parts.
It is known that the conquest of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible played in the development of oral folk art, the campaigns of Ivan the Terrible marked the beginning of the final victory over the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which freed many thousands of Russian prisoners from the crowd. The songs of this time became the prototype for Lermontov's epic "Song about Ivan Tsarevich" - a chronicle of folk life, and A.S. Pushkin used oral folk art in his works - Russian songs and Russian fairy tales.
On the Volga, not far from the village of Undory, there is a cape called Stenka Razin; songs of that time sounded there: “On the steppe, steppe of Saratov”, “We had it in Holy Rus'”. Historical events of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. captured in the compilation about the campaigns of Peter I and his Azov campaigns, about the execution of archers: “It’s like the blue sea”, “A young Cossack walks along the Don”.
With the military reforms of the beginning of the 18th century, new historical songs appeared, these are no longer lyrical, but epic. Historical songs preserve the most ancient images of the historical epic, songs about Russian-Turkish war, about recruiting and the war with Napoleon: “The French thief boasted of taking Russia”, “Don’t make noise, you mother green oak tree.”
At this time, epics about "Surovets Suzdalets", about "Dobrynya and Alyosha" and a very rare tale of Gorshen were preserved. Also in the work of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Nekrasov, Russian epic folk songs and legends were used. The ancient traditions of folk games, disguise and a special performing culture of Russian song folklore have been preserved.
Russian folk theatrical art
Russian folk drama and folk theatrical art in general are the most interesting and significant phenomenon of Russian national culture.
Dramatic games and performances as early as the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 20th century constituted an organic part of the festive folk life, whether it was village gatherings, soldiers' and factory barracks, or fair booths.
The geography of the distribution of folk drama is extensive. Collectors of our days have found peculiar theatrical "centers" in the Yaroslavl and Gorky regions, Russian villages of Tataria, on Vyatka and Kama, in Siberia and the Urals.
Folk drama, contrary to the opinion of some scholars, is a natural product of the folklore tradition. It compressed the creative experience accumulated by dozens of generations of the widest sections of the Russian people.
At urban, and later rural fairs, carousels and booths were arranged, on the stage of which performances were played on fairy-tale and national historical themes. The performances seen at the fairs could not completely affect the aesthetic tastes of the people, but they expanded their fairy-tale and song repertoire. Lubok and theatrical borrowings largely determined the originality of the plots of folk drama. However, they "lay down" on the ancient playing traditions of folk games, disguise, i.e. on the special performing culture of Russian folklore.
Generations of creators and performers folk dramas developed certain techniques for plotting, characterization and style. Expanded folk dramas are characterized by strong passions and insoluble conflicts, the continuity and speed of successive actions.
A special role in the folk drama is played by songs performed by the characters at different moments or sounding in chorus - as comments on ongoing events. The songs were a kind of emotional and psychological element of the performance. They were fulfilled for the most part fragmentarily, revealing the emotional meaning of the scene or the state of the character. Songs at the beginning and end of the performance were obligatory. The song repertoire of folk dramas consists mainly of author's songs of the 19th and early 20th centuries popular in all sectors of society. These are the soldiers' songs "The White Russian Tsar Went", "Malbrook went on a campaign", "Praise, praise to you, hero", and the romances "I walked in the meadows in the evening", "I'm leaving for the desert", "What is clouded, clear dawn " and many others.
Late genres of Russian folk art - festivities
The heyday of the festivities falls on the 17th-19th centuries, although certain types and genres of folk art, which were an indispensable accessory of the fair and city festive square, were created and actively existed long before the indicated centuries and continue, often in a transformed form, to exist to this day. Such is the puppet theater, bear fun, partly the jokes of merchants, many circus numbers. Other genres were born from the fairground and died out with the end of the festivities. These are comic monologues of farce barkers, raeks, performances of farce theaters, dialogues of parsley clowns.
Usually, during festivities and fairs in traditional places, entire pleasure towns were erected with booths, carousels, swings, tents, in which they sold everything from popular prints to songbirds and sweets. In winter, ice mountains were added, access to which was completely free, and sledding from a height of 10-12 m brought incomparable pleasure.
With all the diversity and diversity of the city folk holiday perceived as a whole. This integrity was created by the specific atmosphere of the festive square, with its free speech, familiarity, unrestrained laughter, food and drinks; equality, fun, festive perception of the world.
The festive square itself amazed with an incredible combination of all kinds of details. Accordingly, outwardly, it was a colorful loud chaos. Bright, motley clothes of those walking, catchy, unusual costumes of "artists", flashy signboards of booths, swings, carousels, shops and taverns, handicrafts shimmering with all colors of the rainbow and the simultaneous sound of hurdy-gurdies, trumpets, flutes, drums, exclamations, songs, cries of merchants , loud laughter from the jokes of "farce grandfathers" and clowns - everything merged into a single fireworks fair that fascinated and amused.
A lot of guest performers from Europe (many of them keepers of booths, panoramas) and even southern countries (magicians, animal tamers, strongmen, acrobats and others) came to large, well-known festivities “under the mountains” and “under the swings”. Foreign speech and overseas curiosities were business as usual at metropolitan festivities and large fairs. It is understandable why urban spectacular folklore was often presented as a kind of mixture of "Nizhny Novgorod with French".
The basis, heart and soul of Russian national culture is Russian folklore, this is the treasure trove, this is what filled the Russian person from the inside from ancient times and this inner Russian folk culture ultimately gave rise to a whole galaxy of great Russian writers, composers, artists, scientists, military men, philosophers, whom the whole world knows and reveres:
Zhukovsky V.A., Ryleev K.F., Tyutchev F.I., Pushkin A.S., Lermontov M.Yu., Saltykov-Shchedrin M.E., Bulgakov M.A., Tolstoy L.N., Turgenev I.S., Fonvizin D.I., Chekhov A.P., Gogol N.V., Goncharov I.A., Bunin I.A., Griboyedov A.S., Karamzin N.M., Dostoyevsky F. .M., Kuprin A.I., Glinka M.I., Glazunov A.K., Mussorgsky M.P., Rimsky-Korsakov N.A., Tchaikovsky P.I., Borodin A.P., Balakirev M. .A., Rachmaninov S.V., Stravinsky I.F., Prokofiev S.S., Kramskoy I.N., Vereshchagin V.V., Surikov V.I., Polenov V.D., Serov V.A. ., Aivazovsky I.K., Shishkin I.I., Vasnetsov V.N., Repin I.E., Roerich N.K., Vernadsky V.I., Lomonosov M.V., Sklifosovsky N.V., Mendeleev D.I., Sechenov I.M., Pavlov I.P., Tsiolkovsky K.E., Popov A.S., Bagration P.R., Nakhimov P.S., Suvorov A.V., Kutuzov M. I., Ushakov F.F., Kolchak A.V., Solovyov V.S., Berdyaev N.A., Chernyshevsky N.G., Dobrolyubov N.A., Pisarev D.I., Chaadaev P.E. ., there are thousands of them, which, one way or another, the whole earthly world knows. These are world pillars that grew up on Russian folk culture.
But in 1917, a second attempt was made in Russia to break the connection between times, to break the Russian cultural heritage of ancient generations. The first attempt was made back in the years of the baptism of Rus'. But it did not succeed in full, since the power of Russian folklore was based on the life of the people, on their Vedic natural worldview. But already somewhere in the sixties of the twentieth century, Russian folklore began to be gradually replaced by pop-pop genres of pop, disco and, as it is customary to say now, chanson (prison thieves folklore) and other types of Soviet art. But a special blow was struck in the 1990s. The word "Russian" was secretly forbidden even to pronounce, allegedly, this word meant - inciting ethnic hatred. This position remains to this day.
And there was no single Russian people, they scattered them, they made them drunk, and they began to destroy them at the genetic level. Now in Rus' there is a non-Russian spirit of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and all other inhabitants of Asia and the Middle East, and in the Far East there are Chinese, Koreans, etc., and an active, global Ukrainization of Russia is being carried out everywhere.
It is a pity that much of all this wealth of Russian fantasy has not been preserved, not only because they began to write it down very late: the first collection of epics was published only in the 18th century, when much had already been lost.
The hostile attitude towards folklore on the part of the Russian Orthodox Church, which sought to eradicate the remnants of paganism by all means available to it. [Kryanev Yu.V., Pavlov T.P. Dual faith in Rus'. M-1988 p.366]
And yet, in spite of everything, it did not leave us without a trace. “From deep antiquity, folklore relentlessly and in a peculiar way accompanies history,” writes M. Gorky.
Significant place in folk art Rus' was occupied with ideas about nature, life and death, religious rites. All ceremonies were accompanied by songs and dances, fortune-telling and spells specially dedicated to this occasion.
Of course, the songs were especially widespread. People always sang at work and at holidays, at feasts and feasts, laments were part of the funeral rites. In conspiracies and spells, they saw a means of influencing the outside world. They turned to the forces of nature, to the spirits that contributed to recovery, harvest, successful hunting.
And fairy tales! Serpent Gorynych, Baba Yaga, Koschey, Leshy... All of them came to us from time immemorial. In all fairy tales eternal struggle good and evil. And good, of course, wins. This is the eternal desire of people by the power of words, conspiracies to influence spontaneous hostile forces. Can't Christian prayer be called a spell to some extent? Let it sound a bit rude, but prayer has the same character: requests for help, protection.
And in fairy tales, the dream of a good one is expressed, happy life. Hence the flying carpet, and walking boots, self-assembled tablecloth, palaces that grow in one night.
Knows and loves Rus' still proverbs and sayings, riddles. They are woven into written sources. In some cases, these are peculiar notes for the described historical events, in others - the sayings of historical figures.
RUSSIAN FOLK HOLIDAYS
Ritual folklore was, as already mentioned, closely associated with calendar and non-calendar holidays. They celebrated the meeting of winter - carols and seeing off - Maslenitsa. The holiday of Krasnaya Gorka and Radunitsa meant a meeting of spring, which they saw off for seven. There were summer holidays - Rusalia and Kupala.
For a long time in the villages lived three calendars. The first is natural, agricultural. The second - pagan also correlated with the phenomena of nature. And the third, latest calendar is Christian, Orthodox, in which there are only twelve great holidays, not counting Easter, and the rest cannot be counted.
Some Russian holidays have changed their dates more than once over the years.
For example, New Year in Rus' until the middle of the XIV century. celebrated March 1, and then moved to September 1, and in 1700. Peter I ordered to celebrate the New Year on January 1, and even with a Christmas tree. However, in ancient times winter holiday It was Christmas, not New Year's.
Especially mysterious was Christmas night, full, as it was believed, unusual phenomena. And under Christmas - Christmas time. They began on December 25 and ended on January 5, according to the old style. At this time, they gathered, arranged caroling, games of mummers, fortune-telling.
Fortune-telling at Christmas time was the main entertainment of the girls: they threw a slipper over the gate, so that by where the sock would point, to find out from which side the betrothed will come if he pointed to the house of a local fortune-teller, it means that he had to sit in girls for another year; they threw snow up and watched it fall: if it was even and loud, the girl would be married soon. One of the most common was fortune-telling. The girls, putting their rings in a dish and covering it with a scarf, sang prediction songs. After each such song, the dish was shaken and one ring was pulled out at random. The contents of the just performed song, predicting fate, belonged to its mistress.
Fortune-telling on candle wax, fortune-telling with a mirror and with a candle, fortune-telling from someone else's conversation, when, thinking about life in marriage, they went to eavesdrop under the windows of houses. If the conversation was heard cheerful, then life was expected to be boring, and the husband - kind and affectionate.
They went to Christmas carols. Stopping under the windows of someone's hut, they sang special songs - carols. Their content was traditional - the glorification of the owner, the wishes of his family and home of well-being and prosperity.
There was a reward for this. If the carolers did not receive it, then they sang songs of a different, threatening content, frightening the owners with crop failures and diseases of livestock. Among the carolers there was also a special carrier of a bag for gifts - mekhonosha.
Of course, the most pagan was the ancient Russian buffoon game of the game of mummers. Persecuted by the church and the authorities, this tradition nevertheless survived the centuries and became an inseparable part of the holidays. They dressed up in costumes and masks (hari), a fur coat turned inside out - a bear, the same fur coat with a poker inserted into the sleeve - a crane, the girls dressed up as boys, the boys as girls. Groups of mummers enjoyed particular success - a horse with a rider, a bear with a leader, and with him a wooden goat. The mummers went into the huts and had fun as best they could: somersaulting, fooling around, yelling in a voice that was not their own, and sometimes they played whole performances. [Ryabtsev Yu.S. Journey to Ancient Rus'. M-1995 pp. 197, 198, 199, 200]
On the first spring holiday of magpies (March 9, the day of the forty martyrs), children gathered in the gardens and brought with them sandpipers, which were baked from wheat or rye dough. Sometimes they were called larks. These waders were tied with threads to poles, which were stuck into odonki. The wind shook the waders, so that they seemed to be flying, and the children sang, calling for spring. [Andreev. Russian folklore. p.67]
And the noisiest holiday was, of course, Maslenitsa. It has also been known since pagan times as a holiday of seeing off winter and welcoming spring. In Christian tradition, she became a harbinger of Lent before Easter.
On Shrovetide week, it is no longer allowed to eat meat, but dairy products, including butter, which are abundantly poured over pancakes, are not yet banned.
In Rus' Maslenitsa was celebrated for a whole week. Each day had its own name: Monday - a meeting, Tuesday - flirting, Wednesday - gourmets, Thursday - revelry, Friday - mother-in-law evenings, Saturday - sister-in-law gatherings and, finally, Sunday - seeing off Maslenitsa, a forgiveness day.
On the first day of the holiday, a straw effigy was made - the personification of Maslenitsa. He was carried on a sleigh with songs and dances. This day ended with a fistfight: at the signal, wall to wall, two teams converged.
It was forbidden to use any weapon; There were also tragic outcomes, so at the end of the 17th century the tsar issued two decrees banning fisticuffs. However, this measure had no effect. Cruel fun existed almost until the beginning of the 20th century.
On Tuesday, for games, the boys and girls rode down the ice slides or in the sleigh. These rides were accompanied throughout the week. In the process, the guys looked after their brides, the girls - grooms.
On Wednesday, mothers-in-law invited their sons-in-law to pancakes, demonstrating mutual love and respect.
On Thursday came the very height of the holiday: again they carried a scarecrow, accompanied by a sleigh train with mummers. They sang, played, grimaced.
Often organized collective feasts - brothers.
On Friday, it was the sons-in-law's turn to treat their mother-in-laws with pancakes. And the next day, sister-in-law gatherings, the young daughter-in-law hosted her husband's relatives.
Associated with Maslenitsa is the vine - the custom of praising the young. The fact is that in the winter, the time free from agricultural work, there were many weddings in the villages, so they honored the young - the bindweed and the bindweed, who had recently married. Friends came to visit them and sang health resorts to them.
On the last day of Shrovetide, it was customary, and it is still customary, to ask each other for forgiveness. Seeing off Shrovetide was arranged. Again they carried the straw effigy around the village, and outside the outskirts they burned it and went home. Shrovetide revelry stopped, on Monday Great Lent came:
"Every day is not Sunday!". [Ryabtsev Yu.S. Journey to Ancient Rus'. M-1995 pp. 201, 202, 203, 204]
Even in the spring, around the end of April, in Rus', yarylka was celebrated in many places. Already this holiday was associated with paganism directly. Yarilo is a solar god, strong, emotional, bringing fertility. He was represented as a young man. And the image of the head that Yarilo held was probably associated with the fact that he, like the Egyptian Osiris, belongs to the annually dying and resurrecting gods of fertility. [Semenova M. We are Slavs! S-P-1997]
His influence was so strong that for many centuries after the baptism of Rus', the rites associated with the name of Yarila survived until the 19th century. In addition, this word has also penetrated into our lexicon: rage, ardent, furious - means a character with demands that know no obstacles, aspirations without limits.
In pagan myth, Yarilo can be described as something that belongs to spring and its beneficial effect on nature. It is no wonder that the beginning of the year in ancient times was spring, because it was then that nature revived.
In Kostroma for a long time there was a custom to bury Yarila in the all-holy incantation. So, for example, some poor man, a beggar, took on the task of burying a man’s doll, with extremely developed accessories of productivity, placed in a coffin, and drunk, and sometimes maybe sober, but very superstitious women saw off this coffin and wept unfeignedly.
There was also a Yarily feast near Galich. Even at the beginning of the XIX century. there they still acted like this: they soldered the peasant and joked with him as they wanted, demanding that he pretend to be Yarilo.
Not everywhere the Yarilin holiday was designated by one number. In the villages of the Ryazan and Tambov provinces, he was timed to coincide with the day of all saints, then on Peter's day. In Vladimir on the Klyazma - on Trinity Day, in the Nizhny Novgorod province, the Yarila holiday on June 4 was connected with the fair.
In Tver, this holiday began on the first Sunday after Peter's Day. It took place in the Three Saints Garden, where young people gathered in the evening. They sang, danced blanja (dance of 8 couples). Taking advantage of this, many families sent their daughters there to be married. There, this holiday was destroyed by archpastors Methodius and Ambrose in the 19th century.
In Voronezh until 1763. annually celebrated Yarila's folk games before Petrovsky Lent. There was a fair on the city square, a person chosen by society for the role of a deity was decorated with flowers, ribbons, bells. In this outfit, he walked around the city. All this was accompanied by games and dancing, drunkenness and fisticuffs.
These holidays continued until the Monk Tikhon destroyed the holiday forever. [Zabylin M. Russian people. His customs, rituals, traditions, superstitions and poetry. M-1989, pp. 80-83]
Among spring and summer holidays three people were especially revered - Semik, Trinity and Ivan Kupala. Trinity is still celebrated on the 50th day after Easter, and Semik was celebrated the day before - on Thursday. Since it was the seventh post-Easter week, the holiday was called “semik”. He was associated with the cult of nature. Houses, yards, temples these days were decorated with flowers and branches of trees, mostly birches. Trinity week in Rus' was called “green”.
Wildflowers collected for the Trinity were dried and kept behind the icons in the red corner, placed in barns from mice, in attics, protecting houses from fires. The girls, wearing their best outfits, went to the birch grove, found a beautiful young birch, curled its branches, decorated them with ribbons and flowers, danced round dances, sang songs praising the birch.
A rite of passage was performed. Girls twisted wreaths, exchanged them, and this meant that they became the best and most faithful friends.
Gossips gave each other colored eggs, exchanged rings, earrings, guessed. They threw wreaths on the water. A wreath floats calmly - it will happily fold, spin - the wedding will be upset, it will sink - there will be trouble, someone close will die. Here is one of the legends confirming the popular sign: “In the vicinity of the ancient town of Aleksin, lovers, having decided to get married, threw wreaths into the Oka. At first they swam calmly, then suddenly the water swirled and pulled to the bottom. A guy and a girl rushed into the river to save their happiness, but drowned themselves. They say that on the same day, drowned wreaths emerge from the bottom of the river. [Ryabtsev Yu.S. Journey to Ancient Rus'. M - 1995, p. 204, 205, 206]
In the village of Shelbov, the former Yuryevsky district of the Vladimir province, on Trinity Day, a ceremony was performed, which was called the "spikelet". Only girls and young women participated in it. They took hands in pairs, forming tight squares from their hands. All the couples stood side by side, and a girl of twelve years old, dressed in an elegant sundress and decorated with multi-colored ribbons, walked along their hands. The couple that the girl passed passed forward, and thus the procession moved towards the winter field. The girl was brought to the field, she picked a handful of rye, ran to the church and threw the plucked ears near it (before, when the church was wooden, the ears were placed under it. [Andreev. Russian folklore. p.70]
The holiday of Ivan Kupala was celebrated by almost all peoples of the world. It falls on the time of the summer solstice - June 24, the eve of the Christian holiday of the birth of John the Baptist. Kupala is a pagan holiday of human worship of water elements. Two of them, fire and water, participated in the festive ceremony.
It was believed that fire cleanses a person, and water washes, so they always kindled fires and arranged bathing. Fire certainly had to be obtained in an ancient way - by friction. Among the favorite games were jumping over the fire. It was believed that if a guy and a girl did not open their hands, they would soon get married. They also believed in another sign: the higher you jump, the better the bread will be born.
In some places they made a straw doll - Kupala. They dressed her up in a women's dress, decorated her. By folk beliefs, the bathing night is a mysterious time: the trees move from place to place and talk to each other, the river is covered with a mysterious silvery sheen, and witches flock to the sabbath. And at midnight, a magical fern flower blooms.
It lasts only one moment, everything around is illuminated by a bright light. Anyone who manages to catch this moment and pick a flower acquires the magical power to find treasures. They also searched for a magical gap-grass, which, supposedly, destroyed iron and opened any locks. [Ryabtsev Yu.S. Journey to Ancient Rus'. pp.206-207]
And here is the legend associated with this holiday: “One guy went to look for Ivanov's color, to Ivan Kupala. He hid the Gospel somewhere, took a sheet and came to the forest, to the clearing. He outlined three circles, spread out a sheet, read prayers, and exactly at midnight the fern blossomed like an asterisk, and these flowers began to fall on the sheet. He picked them up and tied them in a knot, while he himself reads prayers. But where the bears come from, the storm has risen .... The guy doesn’t let everything out, he reads to himself. Then he sees: it was dawning, and the sun had risen, he got up and went. He walked, walked, and holds a bundle in his hand. Suddenly he hears - someone is driving behind; looked around: rolling in a red shirt, straight at him; flew in, but how he would hit from all over the place - he dropped the bundle. Looks: again the night, as it was, and he has nothing. [Andreev. Russian folklore. p.138]
Thus, on a pagan holiday, a person went with the Gospel, on a Christian one, he worshiped nature and wondered. And after that, someone else will argue that paganism was not a serious part of the ancient Slavic culture and died out at the time of the adoption of Christianity.
SUPERSTITIES IN Rus'.
What can be attributed to the fact that not only in Rus', but throughout Europe, there are so many superstitious concepts and beliefs? They can neither be forgotten nor destroyed, from century to century one generation passes on to another with all the little things, often attributing incomprehensible properties to completely insignificant things.
From time immemorial, all imaginary miracles were done with the help of knowledge inaccessible to the people and were kept in the hands of priests or shamans of ancient tribes.
When Christianity came into its own, the former system and way of life of the peoples changed, and a struggle ensued over a new dogma. Then there were favorable conditions for the development of everything miraculous and supernatural. At the fall of paganism, the priests, who were the main guardians mystical secrets, expelled and desecrated, spread their knowledge all over the world.
But in their jurisdiction were, if you can call it that, scientific knowledge ancient Slavs. For example, where did the recipes of traditional medicine come from?
Don't we know that: "Whoever sweats will drink, and from that the disease will pass - a spoonful of sheep's milk, and bear bile the size of a pea grain, and drink it on a vain heart, fermenting it twice"; or from a toothache: “Get the living snake, take out the living bile from it; but if the snake is alive without bile from that smear, and at that hour the worms (worms) will disappear. [Zabylin M. Russian people. His customs, rituals, traditions, superstitions and poetry. M-1989 pp. 417, 418]
Where did the brownie come from? People have always believed that someone is guarding their homes. Brownie is the soul of the hut, the patron of the building and the people living in it.
There were all sorts of myths about its origin. Here, for example, as in the Voronezh province, there was a story about the appearance of brownies, intertwined with a biblical legend: forever to guard waters, forests, mountains, etc. Whoever was in the house at the time of punishment became a brownie. [Zabylin M. Russian people. His customs, rituals, traditions, superstitions and poetry. M-1989 With. 245]
According to other legends, the brownie was born from the souls of trees cut down and used for construction. Brownies also had wives and children: therefore, a brownie for a new home could also be born “naturally”.
If you do not respect, offend the soul of the hut with something, the little owner will build all sorts of dirty tricks until you obey. However, he himself sometimes played pranks, crossed the boundaries of what was permitted. In this case, he had to be persuaded: “Why are you, grandfather-neighbor, throwing a cat to the ground! What is a household without a cat?
Perhaps such exhortations will also have an effect on the modern drummer, or in German, “noisy spirit” - a poltergeist. And then there will be peace and prosperity in the house. [Semenova M. We are Slavs! S-P-1997 With. 54, 55]
And now about bread. Everyone had to hear the words that bread is the head of everything. This is not easy because a lot of work goes into making bread, and the point is that now few people remember the deep mythological roots that our views on bread have.
In the visual arts of ancient cultures, a sown field was depicted with the same sign as a pregnant woman. This sign (a rhombus divided into four parts, in each of which there is a dot) has survived to our times in traditional embroideries on clothes. From this it follows that bread was a sacred gift for the Slavs. It was forbidden, by the way, to hit the table with a fist: the table is God's palm!
And in order to cook the simplest porridge, you need to ensure the "union" of Fire, Water and Grain - a product of the Earth. Sweet (boiled with honey) porridge seasoned with wild berries was the oldest pagan ritual food, it carried a powerful idea of fertility, victory over death, the eternal return of life.
Is it any wonder that pagan porridge, having perfectly fit into Christian rituals, still lives under the name of kutya, which I treat at the wake. Except now they put sugar instead of honey, raisins instead of wild berries, and rice instead of whole wheat. [Semenova M. We are Slavs! S-P-1997 pp.63, 65]
Of course, many superstitions were associated with the animation of inanimate nature and its gifts. So, for example, if God spared a peasant from all kinds of misfortune, and good bread was born, it was harvest time. The people called it "zazhinki" and accompanied it with ancient rituals. The first sheaf, “lighter”, like the last, autumn, was decorated with flowers and ribbons, brought into the house and placed in a red corner. Later, this sheaf was the first to be threshed, and miraculous powers were attributed to its grains. [Ryabtsev Yu.S. Journey to ancient Rus'. M-1995 pp.164-165]
Wedding traditions, too, were distinguished by their original primitiveness.
For example: the bride and groom, going to get married in the church, were stuck in a dress, in a shirt, in a collar and in a hem, headless and headless needles and pins, and scraps of a hemstitch were wrapped around the body. All this was done so that the newlyweds would not be spoiled during the wedding. It is impossible for any healer to spoil a person who has headless and earless needles and pins, and even more so if he has a cape on his body, on which there are countless knots.
During the wedding, when a fly is laid under your feet - a canvas or a scarf, then the one who steps forward on it will be the big one - the big one in life. And for one of the spouses, the candle burns out sooner, and that must die first. During the wedding, one should not look at each other, and if they, in particular, look into each other's eyes, they will not love each other, or someone will cheat in married life. [Andreev. Russian folklore.]
And here are the superstitions associated directly with Christian holidays.
More precisely, not superstition, but folk signs. So, in the Monthly Book, compiled by V.I.Dal, all Russian holidays are traced and this is what happens: “On the Epiphany night, before the morning, the sky opens. Snow flakes - for the harvest. Clear day - to crop failure. Starry night on Epiphany - Harvest for peas and berries ";
or: “At the meeting, winter met summer. Sun for summer, winter for frost.
At the Meeting of Drops - a crop of wheat" [V.I. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people. GIHL-1957]
Here, you have the animation of inanimate nature and interweaving with the Christian tradition. And everything in this is so well coordinated that it seems wonderful how two such different things merge so beautifully and harmoniously with each other.
In general, the variety of pagan customs that have survived almost to the present day (although, who knows, maybe they have survived) is amazing. Moreover, they not only survived, but also did not change for centuries. Is it really necessary to talk about the adaptation to Christianity of such a custom as veneration of stones. Such a phenomenon took place for a long time, for example, in the Odoevsky district, Tula province. There were two stones (and perhaps still are) Bash and Bashikha or Bashi, which were honored around Peter's day. It was believed that these were people, a man and a woman who quarreled among themselves and Bashikha for disobedience to his Bash, received a blow with a boot. From this blow for a long time even the imprint of the foot and nails of the heel is visible. However, in Bashikha, in addition to revenge for an insult, they also noticed miraculous power. For this, in the summer, around Peter's Day, people flocked to the village in droves, first they served a prayer service to the Mother of God - Tenderness, and then they went to bow to the stones. Things, money, etc. were left at the stones, and then the church elder collected them, and these donations went to the church. [Zabylin M. Russian people. His customs, rituals, traditions, superstitions and poetry. M-1989 With. 87]
Is this not proof of the vitality of paganism and at the same time its unity with the Christian tradition.
A. N. Tolstoy. wrote: “The Russian people created a huge oral literature: wise proverbs and tricky riddles, cheerful and sad ritual songs, solemn epics, - spoken in a singsong voice, to the sound of strings, - about the glorious deeds of heroes, defenders of the land of the people - heroic, magical, everyday and funny tales. It is vain to think that this literature was only the fruit of popular leisure. She was the dignity and mind of the people. It formed and strengthened his moral image, was his historical memory, the festive clothes of his soul, and filled with deep content his whole measured life, flowing according to the customs and rituals associated with his work, nature and veneration of fathers and grandfathers.
