There is not a single person in the world who would not like folk tales, songs and dances. You can find everything in them - spontaneity, the subtlest sadness and daring joy. And, perhaps, the most important thing that attracts in them modern man- the unique charm of antiquity and a certain nostalgic aroma of ancient times. So, folklore - what is it and what are its main features?
Basic definition
Folklore is called the collective creativity of the people, expressing its worldview and ideals, as well as serving as a complete reflection of its mentality. Usually this is oral creation - epics, tales, proverbs, conspiracies, riddles. Considering the question of folklore - what it is, one cannot fail to mention the very meaning of this word. Translated "Folk-lore" - literally " folk wisdom or "folk knowledge". This term was introduced into use in 1846 by the English researcher William Toms.
In our country, a huge contribution to the study of this area of culture was made by many enlightened people - M. Lomonosov, A.S. Pushkin, G. Derzhavin, N. Roerich, I.I. Shishkin and many other writers, artists, historians and scientists. After the revolution, great attention was paid to the question of folklore - what it is, Maxim Gorky paid. It was thanks to this main proletarian writer that the main problems of Soviet folklore were developed.
Main characteristics
So, folklore - what is it and what are its signs? Main distinctive features folk art can be called non-literacy, verbality, of course, collectivity and deep traditionalism. This, in fact, is the only area of culture on which the state and power cannot exert any influence at all. Tales, epics and legends have been passed down from father to son for centuries. In addition to the literary sphere, mentality and traditionalism are manifested in all other areas. folk art- in dance, music, etc.
Basic varieties and genres of folklore
The main folk art include epic, riddle, proverb and lamentation.
Oral tradition, dance, handicrafts and songs are the main varieties of folklore proper. At the same time, it is also worth highlighting its ritual types. This area of art usually has pagan roots and manifests itself as a kind of opposition new religion. However, this is not always the case. For example, during the years of the USSR, when any cults were banned, it was the Christian religion that showed itself very strongly. ritual folklore. In this light folk art can be considered a reflection of even a certain confrontation between the common people and the government, and any.
Folklore works reflect the experience of millennia. And no matter what stage social development This or that nation stands, fairy tales and epics are one of the most valuable sources of knowledge of its history. Perhaps the Russian minion of fate Ivan the Fool, the beautiful Vasilisa, the Greek villain Prometheus and Hercules, the German Freya, the Scandinavian trolls, etc. are able to tell about what events took place on earth in antiquity, much more than it might seem at first glance.
The development of society is based on the ability of each new generation to perceive the experience accumulated by people who lived before them. This applies to all areas of life. What is folklore? This is precisely such a creative experience that is passed on to posterity for preservation and further development.
Artistic traditions are strong in fine arts, in folk crafts, in music, dances. But the basis, which largely determines the national character, has always been oral folk art.
folk wisdom
The term "folklore" (other English folc lore - "folk wisdom") was introduced into circulation in the middle of the nineteenth century by William John Thoms, an English historian and archaeologist. Scientists various countries different understandings of what folklore is. Its definition as folk literature and forms of folk art associated with the word is accepted by our art critics. In the West, folklore refers to traditions in different sides household and cultural life: in housing, clothing, cooking, etc.
The common essence of these definitions is the artistic creative experience transmitted and preserved by many generations. This experience is based on real life and is closely related to working conditions and everyday life of people. Both epic stories and short proverbs- reflection folk concepts about the surrounding nature, about historical events, about the spiritual and material. Close connection with work and life - main feature folk art, its difference from the classical types of artistic activity.
Literature and folklore - the art of the word
There are differences in the understanding of what folklore is and what traditional literature is. One of the types verbal creativity exists in the memory of the people and is transmitted mainly orally, and the book is the means of storage and transmission of the literary text. In literature, the author of a work has a specific name and surname. And folk poetry is anonymous. The writer mostly works alone, a fairy tale or an epic is the result of collective creativity. The narrator is in direct contact and interaction with the audience, the influence on the reader is indirect and individual.
The novelty of ideas and innovation in views on reality - that's what is valued in the book. Traditions born by previous generations - that's what folklore is in literature. For each word in the story, story, novel, the writer found a single and exact place. Each new narrator makes his own changes to a fairy tale or anecdote, and this looks like an element of creativity.
The connection between folk and traditional word creation is also obvious and significant. From recorded oral tradition the most ancient monuments of literature were born. Many forms of poetic and prose compositions are borrowed from folklore. The tales of Pushkin and Ershov, Tolstoy and Gorky, Bazhov's tales come from the collective art of the word. And what is folklore in literature today? Characters from folk art are present in Vysotsky's songs. “The Tale of Fedot the Archer” by Filatov is folk in form and language. That's an example mutual influence traditional literature and folklore. She was dismantled into quotes and "went to the people."
Genre richness
Like traditional literature, three types of folk prose and poetry are distinguished: epic (epics, tales, fairy tales, legends, traditions, etc.), lyrics (poems and songs different nature) and drama (nativity scenes, games, wedding and funeral rites, etc.).
It is customary to divide folklore genres according to their belonging to calendar and family rituals. The first include poetic accompaniment of New Year's, Christmas, carnival festivities, a meeting of spring, harvest festivals, etc. These are carols, fortune-telling, round dances, games, etc. The second - wedding poems and songs, toasts and congratulations on important dates and events, funeral laments, etc.
large group folk poetry associated with the functional environment. Songs, sentences, sayings, ditties help in work (craft, workers, peasants), it is easier to endure adversity with them (soldiers, prison camps, emigrants). Narrative prose is associated with this group: magical and household tales, stories, narratives, tall tales, etc.
Children's folklore is composed by adults for babies (lullabies, nursery rhymes, pestle) and by children for games and communication (counters, teasers, myrilla, horror stories, etc.). And what is folklore in small forms? Who does not know proverbs, sayings, tongue twisters? Who hasn't heard and told jokes? They have always been the most active and actual forms folk art.
Word and music
The origins of folk art go back to the time of prehistoric rituals. Then music, songs, dances constituted a single action that had a mystical or utilitarian meaning. Together with elements of arts and crafts: costumes, musical instruments, such rituals had a great influence on the development of art. And also to the formation of national identity.
Music played on folk instruments, occupies great place in the performing arts. But what is folklore in music if not an accompaniment to poetic compositions of various kinds? Russian guslars, French troubadours, oriental ashugs and akyns accompanied musical instruments epics and legends, legends and traditions.
Folk song is a phenomenon of world culture. In every language, in sorrow and in joy, songs composed in ancient times and understandable to our contemporaries. In processing classical composers, at grandiose rock concerts, folklore motifs are loved and relevant.
Soul of the people
In our global world folk art is one of the most important ways preservation of the national character, the soul of the nation. Russian folk art was born from Slavic mythology, Byzantine Orthodoxy. It is a reflection of national traits that have developed in the course of turbulent historical cataclysms. Nature, climate also undoubtedly left their mark on the Russian mentality. Addiction common man in large and small from the lordly or royal will accompanied him for many centuries. But this addiction did not kill his love for small homeland and awareness of the greatness of Russia.
Hence - the main features of the Russian character. Considering them, one can understand what Russian folklore is. Patience in work and perseverance in war, faith in goodness and hope for the best, grief without borders and fun without restraint - all this is inherent in Russian people and is reflected in folk poetry and music.
Until the spring runs dry
The art of the people is alive as long as the people are alive. It changes with it. Epics were composed about the heroes, now they are making cartoons. But to know what folklore is, how it affects the national and world art, to preserve and develop traditions, it is important for any generation.
Folklore is a kind of reflection of the people's consciousness. And this distinguishes it from other forms of linguistic art, including literature, in which folk wisdom is expressed by the lonely personality of the author. A literary work can also reflect a purely personal perception of the environment, while folklore combines a collective, public vision. Modern literary criticism increasingly refers to the phenomenon of mass literature and the peculiarities of its functioning within Russia. Authors of the 21st century in Lately tend to actively interpret the prey of traditional culture. The growth in the popularity of popular literature is ensured by the use by writers of the reader's ability to reproduce on a subconscious level the images and plots already known to him, presented in the work. Very often such a "base" is folklore.
folklore motifs
Folklore motifs sooner or later are used by all writers, both mass and elite literature, the difference lies in their function at that level. In popular literature, folklore is primarily a “factor in the formation of national literature”, that is, a guarantor of the correlation of the text with generally accepted standards of literature that the reader is ready to consume. Under such circumstances, literary scholars are trying to determine: what is folklore in literature, how do folklore motifs interact with works of popular literature and what are the features of their influence on the author's text, as well as the transformations that a folklore text experiences as it is included in the plane of a modern literary work and changes it traditional meanings. Researchers establish the limits of the occurrence of a folklore text in a literary text and trace the transformations of universal folklore archetypes. One of the main tasks will be to find out what folklore is in literature, to explore their mutual influence and connections in works of mass literature.
traditional folklore
The main task of the authors of mass literature when writing a work is to interest the reader. To do this, first of all, they strive for a masterful depiction of intrigue. Zofia Mitosek writes in the article "The End of Mimesis" that "the construction of intrigue is a game of tradition and innovation." And if by the concept of traditions we mean “the transmission from one generation to another of traditional forms of activity and communication, as well as the customs, rules, ideas, values that accompany them,” then for the reader, folklore is a worthy representative of tradition in literature. IN modern society it is necessary to instill in the younger generation the need to study traditional folklore.
School curriculum: literature (grade 5) - genres of folklore
The fifth grade is an important phase in the development of the language education of schoolchildren. The appeal to works with the use of folklore materials is due to the need for self-affirmation, the significant susceptibility of fifth grade students to folk art, the correspondence of folklore as a spoken word to the active speech of a child who is at the stage of constant development. Such education in high school gives the student a lesson in literature.
Genres of folklore to be studied in modern school:
Ballads and lyric songs
- Ballads.
- Family songs.
- Public songs.
- Shooting and rebel songs.
- Chastushki.
- Songs of literary origin.
Fabulous and non-fairytale historical prose
Folklore is a "genetic" element of the worldview
The artistic action in the plot of works of literature is most often simple and understandable, designed to respond to the ordinary consciousness of the reader. Folklore is a "genetic" element of the worldview and, as a rule, is laid in the mind with the first songs, fairy tales, riddles from childhood. So, at school features folklore works gives the student a lesson in literature (grade 5). Folklore makes the world clearer, tries to explain the unknown. Therefore, when the functions of folklore and literature interact, a powerful resource is created to influence the consciousness of the recipient, in which the text is able to mythologize human consciousness and even cause a transformation of the rational sphere of human thinking. The answer to the question “what is folklore in literature” is determined by the whole direction of the integral creative understanding and use. In works of folklore, the ideas of creativity are often revealed on the verge of intersection with literature. Perhaps this is also influenced by the original ritual folklore. Literature (grade 5) in the modern school is increasingly returning to the current topic of the spiritual and cultural revival, to the fundamental principle of the existence of our people, one of the main carriers of information about which is folklore.
Tradition of Analysis
In our time, there is already a certain tradition of analyzing what folklore is in literature, according to which equating creativity with standards mass culture considered inappropriate: despite the label of "mass" novels, they have their own style, creative manner and, most importantly, the theme of the works. They "regenerated" from the depths of the soul eternal themes, the reader's interest in which has been dormant from the beginning new era. The favorite themes of ancient authors are the village and the city, historical connection generations Mystic stories with a love-erotic coloring. On established historical images lining up modern manner"direct" description of events, traditional culture served in a modified version. The heroes of the works are characterized by the breadth of comprehension of life and psychological experience, descriptions of their characters are emphasized by reminiscences to the history and culture of our people, which are most often manifested in the author's digressions and remarks.
Desacralization of folklore
Emphasis is placed on the visualization of paintings, which is carried out with the help of increased dynamism of the presentation of events and the effect of understatement, which stimulates the reader to creative "cooperation". In each novel, the hero exists in a world created by the author himself, with its own geography, history, and mythology. But when reading, the recipient perceives this space as already known, that is, he penetrates the atmosphere of the work from the first pages. The authors achieve this effect by including various folklore schemes; that is we are talking about "imitation of the myth by a non-mythological consciousness", according to which folklore elements appear under their traditional context and acquire a different semantic meaning, but at the same time perform the function of identifying by the reader the ancient meanings already known to him. Thus, in the texts of mass literature there is a desacralization of traditions and folklore.
The phenomenon of modification of the past and present
The phenomenon of modification of the past and present can be traced even in the nature of the construction of almost all works. The texts are replete with proverbs and sayings, which makes it possible to convey the centuries-old experience of the people in a compressed, condensed form. The main thing in the works is that they act as elements of the monologues and dialogues of the hero - most often, elderly characters, carriers of wisdom and morality, are used in this. Signs and sayings also perform the function of hinting at tragic fate heroes of that time. They carry deep meaning, one sign can tell everything life path hero.
Folklore is the harmony of the inner world
So, a certain mythologization and reference to folklore in the works is a natural and as integral part of the created world as the specificity of the peasantry, ethnic coloring and live, real broadcasting. mass literature is built on the "basic models" of the reader's consciousness given people(which are based on "initial intentions"). In works such “initial intentions” are precisely folklore elements. By using folklore motifs there is closeness to nature, harmony inner world, and other functions of folklore fade into the background, there is a simplification of sacredness.
The content of the article
FOLKLORE. The term "folklore" (translated as "folk wisdom") was first introduced by the English scientist W.J. Toms in 1846. At first, this term covered the entire spiritual (beliefs, dances, music, woodcarving, etc.), and sometimes material (housing, clothing) culture of the people. IN modern science there is no unity in the interpretation of the concept of "folklore". Sometimes it is used in its original meaning: component folk life, closely intertwined with its other elements. From the beginning of the 20th century the term is also used in a narrower, more specific meaning: verbal folk art.
The oldest types of verbal art arose in the process of the formation of human speech in the era Upper Paleolithic. Verbal creativity in ancient times was closely connected with human labor activity and reflected religious, mythical, historical ideas, as well as the beginnings of scientific knowledge. Ritual actions through which primitive sought to influence the forces of nature, fate, were accompanied by the words: spells, conspiracies were pronounced, various requests or threats were addressed to the forces of nature. The art of the word was closely related to other types primitive art- music, dancing, decorative arts. In science, this is called "primitive syncretism." Traces of it are still visible in folklore.
The Russian scientist A.N. Veselovsky believed that the origins of poetry are in folk ritual. Primitive poetry, according to his concept, was originally a song of the choir, accompanied by dance and pantomime. The role of the word at first was insignificant and entirely subordinated to rhythm and facial expressions. The text was improvised according to the performance, until it acquired a traditional character.
As humanity accumulated more and more significant life experience that needed to be passed on to the next generations, the role of verbal information increased. Separation of verbal creativity into an independent art form - major step in the history of folklore.
folklore was verbal 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 a fairy tale, the plots of which were perceived as fiction.
In ancient and medieval society, a heroic epic took shape ( Irish sagas, Kyrgyz Manas , Russian epics, etc.). There were also legends and songs reflecting religious beliefs (for example, Russian spiritual verses). Later appeared historical songs depicting real historical events and heroes, such as they remained in the people's memory. If ritual lyrics (ceremonies accompanying the calendar and agricultural cycles, family rituals associated with birth, wedding, death) originated in ancient times, then non-ritual lyrics, with its interest in an ordinary person, appeared much later. However, over time, the boundary between ritual and non-ritual poetry is blurred. So, ditties are sung at a wedding, at the same time, some of the wedding songs turn into a non-ritual repertoire.
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, singing and dancing, storytelling, acting out, etc.)
With changes in the social life of society, new genres arose in Russian folklore: soldier's, coachman's, burlak's songs. The growth of industry and cities brought to life romances, anecdotes, worker, school and student folklore.
There are productive genres in folklore, in the depths of which new works can appear. Now these are ditties, sayings, city songs, anecdotes, many types of children's folklore. There are genres that are unproductive but continue to exist. Yes, new folk tales does not appear, but the old ones are still told. Many old songs are also sung. But the epics and historical songs in live performance almost do not sound.
The science of folklore - folkloristics - all works of folk verbal creativity, including literary ones, are classified into one of three genera: epic, lyrics, drama.
For thousands of years, folklore has been the only form of poetic creativity among all peoples. But even with the advent of writing for many centuries, up to the period of late feudalism, oral poetic creativity was widespread not only among the working people, but also among higher strata society: nobility, clergy. Having arisen in a certain social environment, the work could become a national property.
Collective author.
Folklore is a collective art. Each work of oral folk art not only expresses the thoughts and feelings of certain groups, but is also collectively created and distributed. However, collectivity creative process in folklore does not mean that individuals played no role. Talented masters not only improved or adapted existing texts to new conditions, but sometimes created songs, ditties, fairy tales, which, in accordance with the laws of oral folk art, were distributed without the name of the author. With the social division of labor, peculiar professions arose associated with the creation and performance of poetic, and musical works(Ancient Greek rhapsodes, Russian guslars, Ukrainian kobzars, Kyrgyz akyns, Azerbaijani ashugs, French chansonniers, etc.).
In Russian folklore in the 18–19 centuries. there was no developed professionalization of singers. Storytellers, singers, storytellers remained peasants, artisans. Some genres of folk poetry were widespread. The performance of others required a certain skill, a special musical or acting gift.
The folklore of each nation is unique, just like its history, customs, culture. So, epics, ditties are inherent only in Russian folklore, thoughts - in Ukrainian, etc. Some genres (not only historical songs) reflect the history of a given people. The composition and form of ritual songs are different; they can be timed to coincide with the periods of the agricultural, pastoral, hunting or fishing calendar, enter into various relationships with the rites of the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or other religions. For example, the ballad from the Scots acquired clear genre differences, while among Russians it is close to a lyrical or historical song. Some peoples (for example, Serbs) have poetic ritual lamentations, while others (including Ukrainians) have them in the form of simple prose exclamations. Each nation has its own arsenal of metaphors, epithets, comparisons. So, the Russian proverb “Silence is gold” corresponds to the Japanese “Silence is flowers”.
Despite the bright national coloring of folklore texts, many motives, images and even plots different peoples are similar. Thus, a comparative study of the plots of European folklore led scientists to the conclusion that about two thirds of the plots of the fairy tales of each nation have parallels in the fairy tales of other nationalities. Veselovsky called such plots "stray", creating a "theory wandering plots”, which has been repeatedly criticized by Marxist literary criticism.
For peoples with a common historical past and speaking related languages(For example, Indo-European group) this similarity can be explained common origin. This similarity is genetic. Similar features in the folklore of peoples belonging to different language families, but have long been in contact with each other (for example, Russians and Finns) are explained by borrowing. But in the folklore of peoples living on different continents and probably never communicated, there are similar themes, plots, characters. So, in one Russian fairy tale it is said about a clever poor man who, for all his tricks, was put in a sack and is about to be drowned, but he, having deceived the master or the priest (they say, huge shoals of beautiful horses graze under water), puts him in a sack instead of himself. The same plot exists in the tales of Muslim peoples (stories about Khadja Nasreddin), and among the peoples of Guinea, and among the inhabitants of the island of Mauritius. These works are independent. This similarity is called typological. At the same stage of development, similar beliefs and rituals, forms of family and social life are formed. And therefore, both ideals and conflicts coincide - the opposition of poverty and wealth, intelligence and stupidity, hard work and laziness, etc.
From mouth to mouth.
Folklore is stored in the memory of the people and reproduced orally. The author of a literary text does not have to directly communicate with the reader, while a work of folklore is performed in the presence of listeners.
Even the same narrator voluntarily or involuntarily changes something with each performance. Moreover, the next performer conveys the content differently. And fairy tales, songs, epics, etc. pass through thousands of mouths. Listeners not only influence the performer in a certain way (in science this is called feedback), but sometimes they themselves are connected to the execution. Therefore, any work of oral folk art has many options. For example, in one version of the tale Princess Frog the prince obeys his father and marries the frog without any talk. On the other hand, he wants to leave her. In different ways in fairy tales, the frog helps the betrothed to complete the tasks of the king, which are also not the same everywhere. Even such genres as epic, song, ditty, where there is an important restraining beginning - rhythm, chant, have great options. Here, for example, is a song recorded in the 19th century. in the Arkhangelsk province:
Sweet nightingale,
You can fly everywhere
Fly to merry countries
IN glorious city fly Yaroslavl...
Approximately in the same years in Siberia they sang to the same motive:
You are my rassy little dove,
You can fly everywhere
Fly to foreign countries
To the glorious city of Yeruslan…
Not only in different territories, but also in different historical eras the same song could be performed in versions. So, songs about Ivan the Terrible were remade into songs about Peter I.
In order to memorize and retell or sing some work (sometimes quite voluminous), the people developed techniques polished over the centuries. They create a special style that distinguishes folklore from literary texts. In many folklore genres there is a common beginning. So, the folk storyteller knew in advance how to start a fairy tale - In some kingdom, in some state... or Lived once…. The epic often began with the words As in a glorious city in Kyiv…. In some genres, endings are repeated. For example, epics often end like this: Here they sing glory to him…. A fairy tale almost always ends with a wedding and a feast with a saying I was there, I drank honey-beer, it flowed down my mustache, but it didn’t get into my mouth, or And they began to live and live and make good.
There are other, most diverse repetitions in folklore. Individual words may be repeated: Past the house, past the stone one, // Past the garden, the green garden, or the beginning of the lines: At dawn it was at dawn, // At the dawn it was at morning.
Entire lines are repeated, and sometimes several lines:
He walks along the Don, walks along the Don,
A young Cossack walks along the Don,
And the maiden cries, and the maiden cries,
And the maiden weeps over the swift river,
And the maiden weeps over the swift river.
In the works of oral folk art, not only words and phrases are repeated, but also entire episodes. On the triple repetition of the same episodes, epics, fairy tales, and songs are built. So, when Kaliki (wandering singers) heal Ilya Muromets, they give him a “honey drink” to drink three times: after the first time he feels a lack of strength in himself, after the second - an excess, and only after drinking the third time, he receives as much strength as he needs.
In all genres of folklore there are so-called common or typical places. In fairy tales - the rapid movement of the horse: The horse runs - the earth trembles. "Vezhestvo" (politeness, good breeding) epic hero always expressed as: He laid the cross in the written way, but he led the bows in the learned way.. There are beauty formulas - Not in a fairy tale to say, not to describe with a pen. Command formulas are repeated: Stand before me like a leaf before grass!
Repeated definitions, the so-called permanent epithets that are inextricably linked to the word being defined. So, in Russian folklore, the field is always clean, the moon is clear, the girl is red (red), etc.
Others help with listening comprehension artistic techniques. For example, the so-called method of stepwise narrowing of images. Here is the beginning of the folk song:
There was a glorious city in Cherkassk,
New stone tents were built there,
In the tents, the tables are all oak,
A young widow is sitting at the table.
A hero can also stand out with the help of opposition. At a feast at Prince Vladimir:
And how everyone is sitting here, drinking, eating and boasting,
But only one sits, does not drink, does not eat, does not eat…
In a fairy tale, two brothers are smart, and the third ( main character, winner) for the time being a fool.
For certain folk characters enduring qualities. So, the fox is always cunning, the hare is cowardly, the wolf is evil. There are certain symbols in folk poetry: the nightingale - joy, happiness; cuckoo - grief, trouble, etc.
According to researchers, from twenty to eighty percent of the text consists, as it were, of finished material that doesn't need to be remembered.
Folklore, literature, science.
Literature appeared much later than folklore, and always, to one degree or another, used his experience: themes, genres, techniques are excellent in different eras. Yes, stories ancient literature based on myths. Author's fairy tales and songs, ballads appear in European and Russian literature. Due to folklore is constantly enriched literary language. Indeed, in the works of oral folk art there are many ancient and dialect words. With the help of affectionate suffixes and freely used prefixes, new expressive words are created. The girl is sad You are my parents, destroyers, my killers…. Guy complains: Already you, darling-twist, cool wheel, twirled my head. Gradually, some words enter the colloquial, and then into literary speech. It is no coincidence that Pushkin called: "Read folk tales, young writers, in order to see the properties of the Russian language."
Folklore techniques were especially widely used in works about the people and for the people. For example, in Nekrasov's poem Who lives well in Rus'? - numerous and varied repetitions (situations, phrases, words); diminutive suffixes.
In the same time literary works penetrated into folklore and influenced its development. As works of oral folk art (without the name of the author and in various options) the rubies of Hafiz and Omar Khayyam were distributed, some Russian stories of the 17th century, Prisoner And Black shawl Pushkin, beginning Korobeinikov Nekrasov ( Oh, the box is full, full, // There are chintz and brocade.// Have pity, my sweetheart, //Molodetskogo shoulder…) and much more. Including the beginning of Ershov's fairy tale The Little Humpbacked Horse, which became the beginning of many folk tales:
Beyond the mountains, beyond the forests
Beyond the wide seas
Against heaven on earth
An old man lived in a village.
Poet M.Isakovsky and composer M.Blanter wrote a song Katyusha(Blooming apple and pear trees...). The people sang it, and about a hundred different Katyushas appeared. So, during the Great Patriotic War sang: Apple and pear trees do not bloom here ... The Nazis burned apple and pear trees…. The girl Katyusha became a nurse in one song, a partisan in another, and a signalman in the third.
In the late 1940s, three students - A. Okhrimenko, S. Christie and V. Shreyberg - composed a comic song:
In an old and noble family
Lived Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy,
He ate neither fish nor meat,
I walked barefoot through the alleys.
It was impossible to print such poems at that time, and they were distributed orally. More and more versions of this song began to be created:
Great Soviet writer
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy,
He didn't eat fish or meat.
I walked barefoot through the alleys.
Under the influence of literature, rhyme appeared in folklore (all ditties are rhymed, there is rhyme in later folk songs), division into stanzas. Under the direct influence of romantic poetry (), in particular ballads, a new genre of urban romance arose.
Oral folk poetry is studied not only by literary critics, but also by historians, ethnographers, and culturologists. For the most ancient, pre-literate times, folklore often turns out to be the only source that conveyed to the present day (in a veiled form) certain information. So, in a fairy tale, the groom receives a wife for some merits and exploits, and most often he marries not in the kingdom where he was born, but in the one where his future wife comes from. This detail of a fairy tale, born in ancient times, suggests that in those days a wife was taken (or abducted) from another kind. Is in fairy tale and echoes of the ancient rite of initiation - the initiation of boys into men. This rite usually took place in the forest, in the "men's" house. Fairy tales often mention a house in the forest inhabited by men.
Late time folklore is the most important source for studying the psychology, worldview, and aesthetics of a particular people.
In Russia at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries. increased interest in the folklore of the 20th century, those aspects of it that not so long ago remained outside the boundaries of official science (political anecdote, some ditties, folklore of the Gulag). Without studying this folklore, the idea of the life of the people in the era of totalitarianism will inevitably be incomplete and distorted.
Ludmila Polikovskaya
Folklore. Genres of folklore
Folklore(from English folk- people, lore- wisdom) - oral folk art. Folklore arose before the advent of writing. Its most important feature is that folklore is the art of the spoken word. This is what distinguishes it from literature and other forms of art. Another important distinguishing feature of folklore is the collectivity of creativity. It arose as a mass creativity and expressed the ideas of the primitive community and clan, and not of an individual.
In folklore, as in literature, there are three types of works: epic, lyrical and dramatic. At the same time, epic genres have poetic and prose form(in the literature, the epic genus is represented only prose works: story, story, novel, etc.). Literary genres And folklore genres differ in composition. In Russian folklore epic genres include epics, historical songs, fairy tales, legends, tales, proverbs, sayings. Lyrical folklore genres are ritual, lullabies, family and love songs, lamentations, ditties. Dramatic genres include folk dramas. Many folklore genres have entered literature: song, fairy tale, legend (for example, Pushkin's fairy tales, Koltsov's songs, Gorky's legends).
Genres of folklore each have their own content: epics depict feats of arms heroes, historical songs - events and heroes of the past, family songs describe the everyday side of life. Each genre has its own heroes: heroes Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich act in epics, Ivan Tsarevich, Ivan the Fool, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Baba Yaga act in fairy tales, wife, husband, mother-in-law in family songs.
Folklore differs from literature in a special system means of expression. For example, the composition (construction) of folklore works is characterized by the presence of such elements as the chant, the beginning, the saying, the slowing down of the action (retardation), the trinity of events; for style - constant epithets, tautologies (repetitions), parallelisms, hyperbole (exaggerations), etc.
The folklore of different peoples has much in common in genres, artistic means, plots, types of heroes, etc. This is due to the fact that folklore as a type of folk art reflects the general patterns community development peoples. General features in the folklore of different peoples can arise due to the proximity of culture and life or long-term economic, political and cultural ties. Big role also play the similarity of historical development, geographical proximity, movement of peoples, etc.
