The variety of views of researchers of folk art on the problems of the genesis, nature and socio-cultural functions of mythology and folklore gave rise in the 19th century both in Russia and in foreign countries to a number of original research schools. Most often they did not replace each other, but functioned in parallel. There were no immutable boundaries between these schools, and their concepts often intersected. Therefore, the researchers themselves could classify themselves as belonging to one or another school, to clarify and change their positions, and so on.

The history of scientific schools is interesting for us today, first of all, because it clearly demonstrates the dynamics of research positions, shows well how the science of folklore was formed, what achievements or, conversely, miscalculations met on this thorny path.

An important role in the development of the historical and theoretical foundations of folklore was played by the mythological school. In its Western European version, this school was based on the aesthetics of F. Schelling, A. Schlegel and F. Schlegel and received its detailed embodiment in the well-known book by the brothers J. and F. Grimm "German Mythology" (1835). Within the framework of the mythological school, myths were considered as a "natural religion" and a sprout bud of artistic culture as a whole.

The founder and most prominent representative of the mythological school in Russia was F.I. Buslaev. His views are detailed in the fundamental work Historical Essays on Russian Folk Literature and Art (1861), and especially in the first chapter of this work, General Concepts on the Properties of Epic Poetry. The emergence of myths was explained here by the deification of natural phenomena. From myths, according to Buslaev's theory, fairy tales, epic songs, epics, legends and other folklore genres have grown. It is characteristic that the researcher tries to connect even the main characters of the Slavic epics with certain myths. And sometimes this was done conclusively, and sometimes with certain exaggerations.

Another typical representative of the Russian mythological school is A.N. Afanasiev. The mythological position is very characteristic of his books: "Folk Russian Tales" (1855), "Russian Folk Legends" (1860), and especially for the three-volume work "Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" (1865-1868). It is here that the quintessence of his mythological views is presented, in the context of which myths are considered as the basis for the development of various genres of folklore at subsequent stages.

To some extent, the mythological positions of F.I. Buslaev and A.N. Afanasyev corresponded with the views of A.A. Kotlyarovsky, V.F. Miller and A.A. Potebni.

The school of borrowing or migration theory, as it was also called, became the direction that caused especially a lot of controversy and discussion in Russia. The essence of this theory lies in the fact of recognition and substantiation of wandering folklore stories that spread around the world, moving from one culture to another.

Of the works of Russian researchers, the first edition written in this vein was the book by A.N. Pypin "Essays on the literary history of old Russian stories and fairy tales" (1858). Then the works of V.V. Stasov "The Origin of Russian Epics" (1868), F.I. Buslaev "Passing Tales" (1886) and the voluminous work of V.F. Miller "Excursions into the area of ​​the Russian folk epic" (1892), where a huge array of Russian epics was analyzed, and their connections with historical facts and folklore plots of other cultures were established. To a certain extent, the influence of the migration theory also affected the views of the author of "Historical Poetics" A.N. Veselovsky, who successfully explored fairy tales, epics, ballads, and even Russian ritual folklore.

It should be noted that the adherents of the school of borrowing had their pluses and minuses. In our opinion, it is legitimate to attribute the relatively folklore work done by them to the pluses. In contrast to the mythological school, where everything focused on the genesis of folk culture, the borrowing school left the purely mythological framework and focused not on myths, but on folklore works. As for the minuses, here it should be noted, first of all, a large number of obvious exaggerations in proving the main thesis regarding the decisive role of ethnographic migrations.

The so-called anthropological school or the school of spontaneous generation of plots had many adherents in Russian folklore. In contrast to the mythological theory, this theory explained the really common similarity in the folklore of different peoples, which grows out of the objective unity of the human psyche and the general laws of cultural development. The activity of the anthropological school has noticeably intensified in connection with the strengthening of general anthropology (E.B. Taylor, A. Lang, J. Fraser, and others). In European folklore, A. Dietrich (Germany), R. Marette (Great Britain), S. Reinach (France) worked in line with this school; we consider the author of "Historical Poetics" A.N. to be a representative of this school. Veselovsky, who in his research quite successfully supplemented the anthropological attitudes with separate provisions taken from the migration theory. Such an unusual approach turned out to be really productive, because it made it possible to avoid dangerous extremes and brought the researcher to the "golden mean". Somewhat later, this tradition in Russia was continued by V.M. Zhirmunsky and V.Ya. Propp.

The so-called historical school has become very significant in terms of the further development of Russian folklore.

Its representatives sought to purposefully explore folk art culture in connection with national history. They were interested, first of all, where, when, under what conditions, on the basis of what events a certain folklore work arose.

V.F. Miller is the author of a very interesting three-volume work "Essays on Russian Folk Literature" (the work was published in 1910-1924). “I am more concerned with the history of epics and the reflection of history in epics,” Miller described the essence of his approach to the study of Russian folklore. V.F. Miller and his associates - Hell. Grigoriev, A.V. Markov, S.K. Shambinago, N.S. Tikhonravov, N.E. Onchukov, Yu.M. Sokolov - made a huge contribution to the formation of the Russian science of folk art. They collected and systematized exceptionally large empirical material, identified historical parallels to many mythological and folklore texts, for the first time built the historical geography of the Russian heroic epic, and so on.

The works of the prominent ethnographer and specialist in folk art culture A.V. Tereshchenko (1806-1865) - the author of a large-scale study in 7 parts of "The Life of the Russian People".

The development of this issue turned out to be especially relevant due to the fact that the emerging science of folk art had to overcome the purely philological bias that narrowed it. As already noted, folklore never developed as a "stage art" and in its realities was directly linked to the festive and ritual culture. Actually, only in this incrossing it was possible to understand its essence, nature and features.

A.V. Tereshchenko did an enormous and very useful job. This work was evaluated by the public mostly positively. However, this has not been without criticism either. In 1848, the Sovremennik magazine published a detailed and rather sharp review of the Life of the Russian People by a well-known critic and publicist, Ph.D. Kavelin. Kavelin, as an ardent supporter of the so-called "professional culture", reproached Tereshchenko for the fact that although he had collected really rich empirical material, he had not been able to find the key to its scientific analysis and interpretation. Holidays, ceremonies and other everyday phenomena, according to Kavelin, it is wrong to consider only in the "home aspect": these are powerful mechanisms of a wider social life and they can only be truly analyzed in its context. In our opinion, there was indeed a lot of justice in this critical remark.

One of the important figures in the field of Russian ethnography and folklore can also rightly be considered Ivan Petrovich Sakharov (1807-1863). After graduating from the medical faculty of Moscow University, he worked for a long time as a doctor at the Moscow City Hospital and at the same time taught in Moscow lyceums and schools, paleography, which was completely different from the main profession - the history of writing on Russian monuments. Sakharov was an honorary member of the Geographical and Archaeological Societies and knew well the work of his contemporaries, who dealt with the problems of folk art culture. He was actively supported by V.O. Odoevsky, A.N. Olenin, A.V. Tereshchenko, A.Kh. Vostokov and others, as he said, "good people." Among the main books of Sakharov should be called "Songs of the Russian people", "Russian folk tales", "Journeys of Russian people to foreign lands". A special place in this series is occupied by the capital two-volume work "Tales of the Russian people about the family life of their ancestors", published in 1836. Suvorin. One of the most important parts of this popular book is the first systematic compilation of the Russian folk calendar for all its holidays, customs and rituals.

At the same time, it should be noted that I.L. Sakharov was a representative of the early stage of Russian folklore, where, along with undoubted achievements, there were many unfortunate miscalculations. He was often reproached (and, judging by everyone, rightly) in some folklore liberties, when, in the absence of data on the place and time of recording in many cases, texts, and especially dialects, were “corrected” into the modern common language, recklessly mixing collecting with literary writing. . In this sense, Sakharov was clearly inferior to his main opponent I.M. Snegirev, whose works were distinguished by much greater punctuality, evidence and reliability. But I.L. Sakharov also had his merits: losing to other researchers in accuracy and analyticity, he surpassed many in terms of beautiful figurative and poetic language, and also won over readers with selfless admiration for the greatest talents of the Russian people.

Among the folklorists of the middle of the 19th century, the colorful figure of Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev (1826-1871), already mentioned by us, stands out. He began publishing his folklore and ethnographic articles in the journals Sovremennik, Otechestvennye Zapiski, and also in the Vremennik of the Society for Russian History and Antiquities while still a student at Moscow University. Since 1855, his "Russian folk tales" began to be published. In 1860, the book "Russian Folk Legends" was published. In 1860-69. his main three-volume work "Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" was published. Afanasiev himself called his works "the archeology of Russian life." Emphasizing the Indo-European origins of Russian folk art, he highly valued Slavic mythology and qualified it as the basis of all further folklore.

A. N. Afanasiev was one of the first among Russian folklorists who, with exceptional courage, invaded previously untouched layers of the so-called Russian "mischievous" folklore. This attempt received mixed reviews at the time. The collections "Russian folk tales" already mentioned by us were published with very serious friction. A ban was imposed on the second edition of the collections, and the third book of the collection cycle "Russian cherished tales" was published only abroad (1872) and after the death of the collector. The content of some of the fairy tales and folk stories presented by him came into serious conflict with the official state ideas about the religiosity of the Russian people. Some critics saw in them a clear distortion of the traditional image of the domestic clergyman. Others made claims to the moral side of the published texts, etc. The assessment of "cherished fairy tales" remains ambiguous even today. However, in any case: it is impossible not to note the commendable desire of Afanasiev in his collecting and publishing activities to show Russian folklore as it is, without omissions and embellishments.

A major step forward was made by Russian folkloristics at the stage when a talented philologist, art critic and folklorist, Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev joined in active scientific and creative activity. The undoubted advantage of Buslaev's scientific research was his attempt to skillfully analyze the richest array of folklore works accumulated by that time, to classify it, to streamline the conceptual apparatus used in folklore of that period. According to the number of references to them in subsequent years, the books of Academician Buslaev, without a doubt, are in one of the first places. He is rightfully considered the founder of the university science of folklore.

F.I. Buslaev became one of the first domestic researchers who seriously dealt with the issues of periodization of the processes of development of folk culture. Each of the periods singled out in this case - mythological, mixed (dual faith), actually Christian, received a detailed qualitative description in his writings.

The peculiarity of Buslaev's methodological position was that he, in essence, did not adjoin either the Slavophiles or the Westernizers, and in his own views he always remained on that desirable band, which is called the "golden mean."

Buslaev surprisingly retained the romantic views formed in his youth and at the same time became the initiator of a new critical direction in ethnography, folklore and literature, different from the romantics. He was not always understood and accepted by the readership. There were many sharp collisions with magazines. At the same time, the undoubted advantage of Buslaev has always been the ability to look closely at new views, concepts, assessments and never turn into a person who is conserved in his once developed postulates. It suffices to note his serious interest in the work of researchers with such different views as Mangardt Benfey, Taylor, Paris, Kosken, the Brothers Grimm, and others.

In his works on culture, F.I. Buslaev addressed not only the issues of folk literature. The circle of his interests was much wider. We find here publications on general aesthetics, literature, history. Excellent erudition helped the researcher to approach the study of ethnographic and folklore phenomena of Russian life from a variety of positions. Readers of his works are always amazed by the variety of topics developed by this author. Here we find essays about the heroic epic, spiritual poems, domestic and Western mythology, "wandering" stories and stories, Russian life, beliefs, superstitions, language features, etc.

F.I. Buslaev was one of the first in Russian folklore to make interesting comparisons of Russian folklore with the folklore of other countries. For example, when analyzing the epics of the Kiev-Vladimir cycle, he uses many references to such artistic samples as the Odyssey, the Iliad, romances and Side, songs of Hellas, etc. In this sense, Buslaev is a connoisseur of the highest class.

F.I. Buslaev managed to put the idea of ​​forming a people's worldview at the center of the study of folk art. A new stage in the development of Russian ethno-artistic knowledge is undoubtedly associated with the publication of two of his fundamental researches - "Historical Essays on Russian Folk Literature and Arts" (St. Petersburg, 1861) and "Folk Poetry. Historical Essays" (St. Petersburg, 1887).

In his folklore research, F.I. Buslaev very successfully used a methodological technique, according to which "native epic poetry" (Buslaev's term) is analyzed in constant comparison with what he called "artificial epic poetry." On the same described object, according to his expression, there are two types of epic, which look, as it were, with different eyes, and for this reason they are valuable as sources of historical and cultural knowledge. Within the framework of folklore, the "leading singer", according to Buslaev, being a wise and experienced storyteller, narrates about the old days experimentally, without getting excited ... He is "simple-hearted", like a child, and tells about everything that happened, without further ado. In ancient Russian songs, fairy tales, epics, descriptions of nature do not occupy a self-sufficient place, as we often see in novels and stories. Here, the focus of the whole world for the folk author and performer is the person himself.

Folk poetry always gives the first place to man, touching on nature only in passing and only when it serves as a necessary complement to the deeds and character of the individual. these and many other judgments of Buslaev about Russian folklore clearly testify to the extraordinary ability to consider the object under study in a peculiar, original way.

A very important role in the development of Russian folklore was played by the historian, writer, corresponding member of the Petersburg A.N. Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov, the author of two truly remarkable books "On the Historical Significance of Russian Folk Poetry" and "Slavic Mythology".

This talented person's passion for folklore began in his student years. Growing up at the junction of two great cultures - Russian and Ukrainian, from a young age he was fond of the books of Sakharov, Maksimovich, Sreznevsky, Metlinsky and other Russian-Ukrainian researchers of folk art. As a novice historian, folklore attracted Kostomarov with its juiciness, vitality, spontaneity, and the official history with which he got acquainted surprised with unfortunate indifference to the life and aspirations of the common people.

“I came to such a question,” he later wrote in his Autobiography, “why is it that in all stories they talk about outstanding statesmen, sometimes about laws and institutions, but as if they neglect the life of the masses of the people? as if it does not exist for history; why does history not tell us anything about his life, about his spiritual life, about his feelings, the way his joys and seals manifest? Soon I came to the conclusion that history should be studied not only from dead chronicles and notes, but also in a living people. It cannot be that the centuries of a past life are not imprinted in the lives and memories of descendants: you just need to start looking - and you will surely find a lot that has so far been missed by science.

In his research, N.I. Kostomarov skillfully used the method that many Russian folklorists later resorted to. Its meaning lies in the movement from the essence of folklore images to the system of folk thinking and the folk way of life embedded in them. “True poetry,” Kostomarov wrote in this regard, “does not allow lies and pretense; minutes of poetry are minutes of creativity: people test them and leave monuments, he sings; his songs, works of his feelings do not lie, they are born and formed then, when people don't wear masks.

Kostomarov's folklore studies were not without certain shortcomings. He was known, as he was called, as one of the "last romantics", and the influence of the romantic approach was felt in all his works. His idols were Schlegel and Kreutzer. Actually, the very key Kostomarovsky concept of "symbolism of nature" also came from these idols. In terms of his ideological and political ideas, Kostomarov was a consistent monarchist, for which he was repeatedly reprimanded by members of the democratic community. The works of this researcher are characterized by deep religiosity. She is especially noticeable in his "Slavic Mythology" (1847). Here N.I. Kostomarov set as his main goal to show mythology as an anticipation of Christianity that came to Rus' later. For him, in essence, there was no what others called "dual faith." In the context of a religious sense of reality, he perceived everything holistically and harmoniously. And this left an indelible imprint on his understanding of ethnography and folklore.

Creative activity of N.I. Kostomarova has become another example of the active involvement of Russian historians in the development of problems of the development of folk culture. On this path, he successfully continued the remarkable tradition of N.K. Karamzin and his followers.

The talented Russian historian Ivan Egorovich Zabelin (1820-1892) made a major contribution to the further multiplication and systematization of materials on leisure, everyday life, and folk art. He began his career as an employee in the Armory, then worked in the archives of the Palace Office, then moved to the Imperial Archaeological Commission. In 1879 Zabelin became Chairman of the Society for History and Antiquities. In 1879 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences; and in 1892 - an honorary member of this Academy. I.E.Zabelin is the author of such unique books as "History of Russian life from ancient times", "A great boyar in his patrimonial household", "Experiences in the study of Russian antiquities", "Home life of Russian tsars and queens". His undoubted merit is that, based on the analysis of the richest archival manuscripts and other previously unknown materials, he was able to show the leisure and living environment of Russian society with exceptional scrupulousness and reliability. This is what Russian ethnography and folklore studies lacked at that time.

During the period under review, the creative activity of another prominent representative of Russian science, Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Alexander Nikolayevich Pypin, developed widely. According to his ideological convictions, Pypin remained a man of democratic views all his life.

A close relative of N.G. Chernyshevsky, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of the Sovremennik magazine and took an active part in its activities. Specialists in the field of philology highly appreciate the fundamental work of A.N. Pypin - a four-volume "History of Russian Literature", where, along with philological issues, much attention is paid to the problems of folk art, and in particular to the issues of the relationship and mutual influence of folklore and ancient Russian literature. In the same vein, his book "An Essay on the Literary History of Old Russian Tales and Tales" was written.

In essence, Pypin managed to establish in his writings a largely updated interpretation of folklore. Following Buslaev, whom HE highly valued and respected, A.N. Pypin vehemently opposed everyone who tried to squeeze folk art out of the cultural field and considered this work as some kind of primitive with little artistic value. Folklore, in his opinion, complements the history of a nation in a very important way, making it more specific, detailed and reliable, helping to see the true tastes and interests, predilections of a working person. It can be rightly asserted that the excellent knowledge of folk art helped A.N. Pypin to lay the foundations for a factually updated Russian ethnography.

What was valuable in Pypin's works was, first of all, that folklore theory and practice were presented here as a kind of history of the development of people's self-consciousness. The author managed to connect the problems under consideration with the real issues of Russian public life. For the first time, within the framework of national ethno-artistic knowledge, folk art was analyzed in close connection with the development of the production, labor, social, and leisure spheres of Russian society.

Largely thanks to the works of Pypin, Russian science managed to overcome the original, purely philological approach to folklore. He was one of the first to show the organizing role of production and ritual culture, within which most of the ethno-artistic works were born and functioned.

A contemporary of F.I. Buslaev Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Alexander Nikolaevich Veselovsky. A well-known philologist, a representative of comparative literature, a connoisseur of Byzantine Slavic and Western European culture, all his life he paid close attention to the problems of the development of world and domestic folklore.

In his approaches to folk art, Veselovsky persistently opposed the method of rigorous historical research to mythological theory. He was convinced that the epic was incorrectly derived directly from myth. The dynamics of epic creativity is closely connected with the development of social relations. Compared with the archaic culture of primitive society, where myth really stands at the center of worldview structures, the epic is a new form of emerging national consciousness. It is on these starting points that A.N. Veselovsky's research "On the Mother of God and Kitovras", "Tales of John the Terrible", and especially his main work "Historical Poetics" are built.

A characteristic feature of A.N. Veselovsky his consistent patriotism. Veselovsky's "Notes and Works" contains a very sharp criticism of the concept of V.V. Stasov on the origin of Russian epics. He himself did not exclude certain borrowings that take place in the folklore of any people. However, Veselovsky made the main emphasis in this case on an even more important factor in the creative adaptation of someone else's experience. For Russian folk literature, in his opinion, this phenomenon is especially characteristic. Here, processes were gradually going on not of elementary borrowing, but of creative processing of "wandering themes and plots."

“Explaining the similarity of myths, fairy tales, epic stories among different peoples,” Veselovsky emphasized, “researchers usually diverge in two opposite directions: the similarity is explained either from the general foundations to which similar legends are supposedly built, or by the hypothesis that one of them borrowed its content from another. In essence, none of these theories is applicable separately, and they are only conceivable together, because borrowing presupposes in the perceiver not an empty place, but counter currents, a similar direction of thinking, similar images of fantasy. Veselovsky became the author of a new research principle, according to which the basis for the study of folk art is the study of the soil that directly gave rise to folklore works. He introduced a productive historical-genetic approach to the analysis of artistic culture into Russian folklore. The works of Veselovsky were of very important methodological significance - they answered many controversial questions and to a large extent determined the main path for the further development of Russian folklore.

Vsevolod Fedorovich Miller, a Russian folklorist and ethnographer, professor at Moscow University and academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, became widely known in the second half of the 19th century. Miller is famous for the fact that, according to folklorists, he made a very important contribution to the study of the bygone epic. This is precisely the main meaning and content of his main works - "Excursions into the field of the Russian folk epic" and "Essays on Russian folk literature".

Along with constant attention to Russian folklore, Miller showed a keen interest in the epic, literature and languages ​​​​of the Indo-European East - Sanskrit, Iranian linguistics, etc. all his life. It is very significant that he simultaneously considered his teachers, on the one hand, F. I. Buslaev, and on the other hand, A.D. Kun, who once held a two-year internship abroad. He was unique as a linguist, literary critic and folklorist. However, as often happens, abundant erudition sometimes gives rise in his writings to a clear overload of hypotheses, risky parallels, and a noticeable "change of milestones" in each successive book. In this sense, in our opinion, he was quite rightly criticized by A.N. Veselovsky and N.P. Dashkevich.

Even more (and, in our opinion, justifiably) went to VF Miller for the unexpectedly put forward concept of the aristocratic origin of the Russian epic epic. For clarity, here are a few excerpts from his "Essays on Russian Folk Literature": "Songs were composed by princely and retinue singers where there was a demand for them, where the pulse of life beat stronger, where there was prosperity and leisure, where color was concentrated nations, i.e. in rich cities, where life is freer and more fun ...

Singing of princes and warriors, this poetry was of an aristocratic nature, was, so to speak, elegant literature of the highest, most enlightened class, more than other segments of the population imbued with national self-consciousness, a sense of the unity of the Russian land and political interests in general. "Sometimes, Miller believes, something from the circles composed in the princely retinue circles it reached the common people, but this poetry could not develop in the "dark environment", "just as modern epics are distorted in the Olonets and Arkhangelsk common people, which came to him from the environment of professional petari who performed them earlier for a richer and more cultured class". Concrete examples related to the scientific work of V.F. Miller clearly indicate that the development of Russian folklore was a rather complex process with the inevitable clash of very contradictory trends. This becomes especially noticeable at subsequent stages.

Numerous publications devoted to the problems of the development of skomorosh art in Rus' occupy a special place in the general mainstream of domestic folklore research. Of the most significant publications of the 19th century, it is legitimate to note here the books of such researchers as P. Arapov "Chronicle of the Russian Theater" (St. Petersburg, 1816), A. Arkhangelsky "The Theater of Pre-Petrine Rus'" (Kazan., 1884), F. Berg " Spectacles of the 17th century in Moscow (Essay) "(St. Petersburg, 18861, I. Bozheryanov "How the Russian people celebrated and celebrate Christmas, New Year, Epiphany and Shrovetide" (St. Petersburg, 1894), A. Gazo "Jesters and buffoons of all times and peoples" (St. Petersburg, 1897), N. Dubrovsky "Shrovetide" (M., 1870), S. Lyubetsky "Moscow ancient and new festivities and amusements" (M., 1855), E. Opochinin "Russian theater, its beginning and development" (St. Petersburg, 1887), A. Popov "Brother's Pies" (Moscow, 1854), D. Rovinsky "Russian Folk Pictures" (St. Petersburg, 1881-1893), N. Stepanov "folk holidays on Holy Rus'" (SP b., 1899), A. Faminitsyn "Buffoons in Rus'" (St. Petersburg, 1899), M. Khitrov "Ancient Rus' in great days" (St. Petersburg, 1899).

As emphasized in many of these studies, the main feature of buffoonery was that, in its context, the features of non-professional and professional art were intricately intertwined. Many authors believe that in the history of buffoonery we see the first and rather rare attempt to achieve creative interaction between two artistic streams. Due to certain circumstances, such interaction remained nothing more than an attempt, but this does not detract from its historical, cultural and socio-artistic value of buffoonery.

Judging by the documents that have come down to us, professionalization among Russian buffoons was rare and appeared clearly in very weak, rudimentary forms. The bulk of the buffoons were, according to our today's concepts, typical amateur artists. In this sense, one cannot but agree with the talented specialist in the history of Russian buffoonery A.A. Belkina, who believes that in villages and villages the need for buffoons was felt mainly on holidays, of which folk games were an integral part. The rest of the time, the buffoons differed little from the rest of the villagers. Some part of the buffoons who lived in the cities led a lifestyle similar to that of the village, doing things typical of the townspeople - crafts, trade, etc. during the periods between holidays. But at the same time, the conditions of city life provided more opportunities for professional buffoonery.

Indeed, life itself selected the most talented people here and pushed them onto the stage. There was no special training of artistic personnel yet. People learned the skill either in the family, or learned from each other. In essence, there was an ordinary folklore process, traditionally based on "cultural and household synergetics".

An important feature of buffoon art is, according to many researchers, its entertaining-playful and satirical-humorous orientation. This life-affirming art was one of the popular forms of folk laughter culture.

There is every reason to believe that buffoons took an active part in the performance and composition of folklore works. They performed using what had already been created by the people, what the people liked and in which they themselves could take part, as was the case at all festive games, brotherhoods, weddings and other traditional entertainments. But, apparently, from buffoons, a lot of new things also entered into the context of such amusements. After all, these were the most artistically talented people who had higher creative and performing experience. Through them and with their help, there was a noticeable enrichment of the content and forms of folklore as a whole.

Unfortunately, the problem of such influence is rather poorly reflected in our folklore. Meanwhile, there is every reason to assert that many of the most ancient works of Slavic and Russian folklore were born precisely in a buffoon environment. Buffoons in Rus' were not only active participants in rural festivities and games. Until the well-known royal decree of 1648, these cheerful people took a direct part in liturgical performances, for example, in such as "Walking on a Donkey", "Stove Action" and other dramatizations of biblical and gospel stories. It is difficult to overestimate the buffoonish contribution to the development of folk music. This is about them, as excellent masters of playing the domra, gusli, bagpipes, horns, is often mentioned in ancient Russian chronicles. In general, buffoon performances were quite rightly regarded by many researchers as a kind of transitional step from free and, in fact, very poorly organized folklore to performances already made according to a certain textual canvas, subjected to a certain setting and to some extent pre-rehearsed. Such representations, although the principles of active involvement of the public in developing actions were also realized here in a pronounced form, to a greater extent than purely everyday forms of artistic performance, they assumed the presence of artists and spectators.

Publication date: 2014-11-02 ; Read: 2055 | Page copyright infringement | Order writing work

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Over time, folklore becomes an independent science, its structure is formed, research methods are developed. Now folklore- this is a science that studies the patterns and features of the development of folklore, the nature and nature, essence, themes of folk art, its specificity and common features with other types of art, the features of the existence and functioning of texts of oral literature at different stages of development; genre system and poetics.

According to the tasks specially set for this science, folklore is divided into two branches:

History of folklore

folklore theory

History of folklore- This is a branch of folklore that studies the process of emergence, development, existence, functioning, transformation (deformation) of genres and the genre system in different historical periods in different territories. The history of folklore studies individual folk poetic works, productive and unproductive periods of individual genres, as well as an integral poetic genre system in the synchronous (horizontal section of a separate historical period) and diachronic (vertical section of historical development) plans.

folklore theory- this is a branch of folklore that studies the essence of oral folk art, the features of individual folklore genres, their place in a holistic genre system, as well as the internal structure of genres - the laws of their construction, poetics.

Folkloristics is closely connected, borders and interacts with many other sciences.

Its connection with history is manifested in the fact that folklore, like all humanities, is historical discipline, i.e. considers all phenomena and objects of research in their movement - from the prerequisites for the emergence and origin, tracing the formation, development, flourishing to death or decline. And here it is required not only to establish the fact of development, but also to explain it.

Folklore is a historical phenomenon, therefore, it requires a stage-by-stage study, taking into account historical factors, figures and events of each specific era. The objectives of the study of oral folk art are to identify how new historical conditions or their change affect folklore, what exactly causes the emergence of new genres, as well as to identify the problem of historical correspondence of folklore genres, comparison of texts with real events, the historicism of individual works. In addition, folklore can often itself be a historical source.

There is a close connection between folklore with ethnography as a science that studies the early forms of material life (everyday life) and the social organization of the people. Ethnography is a source and base for the study of folk art, especially when analyzing the development of individual folklore phenomena.

The main problems of folklore:

Question about the need to collect

The question of the place and role of folklore in the creation of national literature

The question of its historical essence

The question of the role of folklore in the knowledge of folk character

The modern collecting work of folklore materials poses a number of problems for researchers that have arisen in connection with the peculiarities ethnocultural situation end of the twentieth century. For regions, these Problems the following:

Ø - authenticity collected regional material;

(i.e. the authenticity of the transmission, the authenticity of the sample and the idea of ​​the work)

Ø - phenomenon contextuality folklore text or its absence;

(i.e., the presence / absence of a condition for the meaningful use of a particular language unit in speech (written or oral), taking into account its language environment and the situation of speech communication.)

Ø - crisis variability;

Ø - modern "live" genres;

Ø - folklore in the context of modern culture and cultural policy;

Ø - problems publications modern folklore.

Modern expeditionary work faces a major challenge authenticating regional model, its occurrence and existence within the area that is being surveyed. Certification of performers does not bring any clarity to the issue of its origin.

Modern mass media technology, of course, dictates its tastes to folklore samples. Some of them are played regularly by popular performers, others do not sound at all. In this case, we will record a "popular" sample at the same time in a large number of places from performers of different ages. Most often, the source of the material is not indicated, because assimilation can proceed through the medium of magnetic recording. Such "neutralized" variants can only testify to the adaptation of texts and quirky integration of options. This fact already exists. The question is not whether to recognize it or not, but how and why this or that material is selected and migrates, regardless of the place of origin, in some invariant. There is a risk of attributing to modern regional folklore something that, in fact, is not.

folklore like specific context has now lost the qualities of a stable, living, dynamic structure. As a historical type of culture, it is undergoing a natural reincarnation within the developing collective and professional (author's, individual) forms of modern culture. There are still separate stable fragments of context in it. On the territory of the Tambov region, these are Christmas caroling (“Autumn clique”), meeting spring with larks, individual wedding ceremonies (purchase and sale of the bride), nurturing a child, proverbs, sayings, parables, oral stories, anecdotes live in speech. These fragments of the folklore context still make it possible to fairly accurately judge the past state and development trends.

Living genres oral folk art in the strict sense of the word remain proverbs and sayings, ditties, songs of literary origin, urban romances, oral stories, children's folklore, anecdotes, conspiracies. As a rule, there are short and capacious genres; the conspiracy is experiencing a revival and legalization.

Reassuring presence paraphrase- figurative, metaphorical expressions that arise in speech on the basis of existing stable oral stereotypes. This is one of the examples of real reincarnations of tradition, its actualization. Another problem is aesthetic value such paraphrases. For example: a roof over your head (protection of special persons); the tax inspector is not a dad; curly-haired, but not a ram (an allusion to a member of the government), just "curly-haired". From the middle generation, we are more likely to hear variants of paraphrases than variants of traditional genres and texts. Variants of traditional texts are quite rare in the Tambov region.

Oral folk art is the most specific poetic monument. It already exists as a grandiose recorded and published archive, folklore, again as a monument, as an aesthetic structure, is "animated", "comes to life" on the stage in the broadest sense of the word. Skillful cultural policy favors the preservation of the best poetic examples.

Literature and library science

The main problems of modern folklore. Modern folkloristics has the same problems as new academic schools. Problems: the question of the origin of folklore. problems of studying new non-traditional folklore.

11. The main problems of modern folklore.

Modern folklore studies inherit the wealth of academic schools, while removing exaggerations.

Modern folkloristics has the same problems as academic schools + new ones.

Problems :

The question of the origin of folklore.

Storyteller problemcorrelation of individual and collective beginnings in folklore.

Was placed in XIX century, but decided in XX century.

Dobrolyubov: “The principle of the vital principle is not observed in Afanasyev’s book” - it is not known who and when wrote down the folklore text.

There are different types of storytellers.

In XX the problem was dealt with by M.K. Azadovsky

- the problem of interaction between literature and folklore.

Folklore is necessary for an adequate perception of a literary text.

D.N. Medrish

- the problem of studying various folklore genres and specific works.

The problem of collecting folkloreit is necessary to have time to collect what is still remembered; new genres of folklore appear.

- problems of studying new, non-traditional folklore.

Non-traditional folklore:

Children's

School

Girls' and demobel albums

- "colloquial" folklore talking on the phone, talking in public transport.

student folklore.

After the collapse of the USSR, magazines about folklore began to appear again:

"Living Antiquity"

Arbem mundi "("World Tree")

In XX century, problems were solved from the point of view of either the mythological or historical school.

State of modern folklore.

Many young people, living in our age of rapid development of science and technology, ask themselves the question "What is modern folklore?".

Folklore is folk art, most often it is oral. It implies the artistic collective creative activity of the people, which reflects its life, views, ideals. And they, in turn, are created by the people and exist among the masses in the form of poetry, songs, as well as applied crafts, fine arts.

Fairy tales, epics, legends, proverbs and sayings, historical songs are the heritage of the culture of our distant ancestors. But, probably, modern folklore should have a different look and other genres.

Modern people do not tell fairy tales to each other, do not sing songs at work, do not cry and lament at weddings. And if they compose something “for the soul”, then they immediately write it down. All works of traditional folklore seem incredibly far from modern life. Is it so? Yes and no.

Nowadays there are different genres of folklore. We conducted a survey among students of different ages. The following questions were asked:

1. What is folklore?

2. Does it exist now?

3. What genres of modern folklore do you use in your life?

All respondents were divided into three age groups: junior schoolchildren, middle schoolchildren, senior schoolchildren.

80% of junior schoolchildren were able to give a complete answer to the first question, 70% - middle schoolchildren, 51% - senior schoolchildren.

The second question was answered positively by 90% of all respondents.As for the use of folklore in everyday life, unfortunately, almost all the children surveyed, namely 92%, answered that they do not use folklore. The rest of the respondents indicated that they occasionally use riddles and proverbs.

Folklore, translated from English, means "folk wisdom, folk knowledge." Thus, folklore must exist at all times, as the embodiment of the consciousness of the people, their lives, ideas about the world. And if we do not come across traditional folklore every day, then there must be something else, close and understandable to us, something that will be called modern folklore.

The survey showed that students are aware that folklore is not an invariable and ossified form of folk art. It is constantly in the process of development and evolution: Chastushki can be performed to the accompaniment of modern musical instruments on modern themes, folk music can be influenced by rock music, and modern music itself can include elements of folklore.

Often the material that seems frivolous to us is the "new folklore". Moreover, he lives everywhere and everywhere.

Modern folklore is the folklore of the intelligentsia, students, students, philistines, and rural residents. [2 , p.357]

Modern folklore has taken almost nothing from the genres of classical folklore, and what it has taken has changed beyond recognition. “Almost all the old oral genres are becoming a thing of the past - from ritual lyrics to fairy tales,” writes Professor Sergei Neklyudov (the largest Russian folklorist, head of the Center for Semiotics and Typology of Folklore at the Russian State University for the Humanities). [3]

Of course, modern life makes its own adjustments. The fact is that a modern person does not associate his life with the calendar and the season, since in the modern world there is practically no ritual folklore, only signs are left for us.

Today, non-ritual folklore genres occupy a large place. And here, not only modified old genres (riddles, proverbs), not only relatively young forms (“street” songs, anecdotes), but also texts that are generally difficult to attribute to any particular genre. For example, now there are urban legends (about abandoned hospitals, factories), fantastic "historical and local history essays" (about the origin of the name of the city or its parts, about geophysical and mystical anomalies, about celebrities who visited it, etc.), stories about incredible incidents, legal incidents, etc. Rumors can also be included in the concept of folklore.

Sometimes, right before our eyes, new signs and beliefs are formed - including in the most advanced and educated groups of society. Who hasn't heard of cacti supposedly "absorbing harmful radiation" from computer monitors? Moreover, this sign has a development: "not every cactus absorbs radiation, but only with star-shaped needles."

At present, the structure of the distribution of folklore in society has also changed. Modern folklore no longer carries the function of self-consciousness of the people as a whole. Most often, the carriers of folklore texts are not residents of certain territories, but members of some sociocultural groups. Tourists, goths, parachutists, patients of one hospital or students of one school have their own signs, legends, anecdotes, etc. Each, even the smallest group of people, barely realizing their commonality and difference from all others, immediately acquired their own folklore. Moreover, the elements of the group may change, but the folklore texts will remain.

For example, once being in field conditions, I came across such a sign. During the campfire, many joked that if the girls dry their hair by the fire, the weather will be bad. The whole campaign of the girls was driven away from the fire. Having got on a hike some time later with completely different people and even instructors, I found that the omen is alive and they believe in it. Girls are also driven away from the fire. Moreover, new opposite signs appear: if you dry your laundry by the fire, then the weather will improve, even if one of the ladies nevertheless broke through with wet hair to the fire. Here, not only the birth of a new folklore text in a certain group of people is evident, but also its development.

The most striking and paradoxical phenomenon of modern folklore can be called network folklore. The main and universal feature of all folklore phenomena is the existence in oral form, while all network texts are, by definition, written.

Folklore is an example of the existence and development of man in society. Without it, one cannot imagine modern life. Let everything around change, but without creativity a person cannot exist, which means that folklore also develops, albeit in forms that are unusual for us.

Literature

1. Cherednikova M.P. Modern Russian children's mythology in the context of the facts of traditional culture and child psychology. - Ulyanovsk, 1995, 392c

2. Zhukov B. Folklore of our time.Modern people do not tell each other fairy tales, do not sing songs at work // "What's new in science and technology" № 3, 2008

What is modern folklore and what does this concept include? Fairy tales, epics, legends, historical songs and much, much more - this is the heritage of the culture of our distant ancestors. Modern folklore should have a different appearance and live in new genres.

The purpose of our work is to prove that folklore exists in our time, to indicate modern folklore genres and to provide a collection of modern folklore compiled by us.

In order to look for signs of oral folk art in modern times, you need to clearly understand what kind of phenomenon it is - folklore.

Folklore is folk art, most often it is oral; artistic collective creative activity of the people, reflecting their life, views, ideals; poetry, songs created by the people and existing among the masses, as well as applied crafts, fine arts, but these aspects will not be considered in the work.

Folk art, which originated in ancient times, is the historical basis of the entire world artistic culture, the source of national artistic traditions, and the spokesman for national identity. Folklore works (fairy tales, legends, epics) help to recreate the characteristic features of folk speech.

Folk creativity everywhere preceded literature, and among many peoples, including ours, it continued to develop along with and alongside it after its emergence. Literature was not a simple transfer and consolidation of folklore through writing. It developed according to its own laws and developed new forms that were different from folklore ones. But its connection with folklore is obvious in all directions and channels. It is impossible to name a single literary phenomenon, the roots of which would not go into the centuries-old layers of folk art.

A distinctive feature of any work of oral folk art is variability. Since for centuries the works of folklore were transmitted orally, most folklore works have several variants.

Traditional folklore, created over the centuries and which has come down to us, is divided into two groups - ritual and non-ritual.

Ritual folklore includes: calendar folklore (carols, Shrovetide songs, stoneflies), family folklore (family stories, lullabies, wedding songs, etc.), occasional (conspiracies, incantations, spells).

Non-ritual folklore is divided into four groups: folk drama (Petrushka theater, vet drama), poetry (chastushkas, songs), folklore of speech situations (proverbs, sayings, teasers, nicknames, curses) and prose. Folklore prose is again divided into two groups: fairy tale (fairy tale, anecdote) and non-fairy tale (legend, tradition, bylichka, story about a dream).

What is "folklore" for modern man? These are folk songs, fairy tales, proverbs, epics and other works of our ancestors, which were created and passed from mouth to mouth a very long time ago, and have come down to us only in the form of beautiful books for children or literature lessons. Modern people do not tell fairy tales to each other, do not sing songs at work, do not cry and lament at weddings. And if they compose something “for the soul”, then they immediately write it down. All works of folklore seem incredibly far from modern life. Is it so? Yes and no.

Folklore, translated from English, means "folk wisdom, folk knowledge." Thus, folklore must exist at all times, as the embodiment of the consciousness of the people, their lives, ideas about the world. And if we do not come across traditional folklore every day, then there must be something else, close and understandable to us, something that will be called modern folklore.

Folklore is not an invariable and ossified form of folk art. Folklore is constantly in the process of development and evolution: Chastushki can be performed to the accompaniment of modern musical instruments on modern themes, folk music can be influenced by rock music, and modern music itself can include elements of folklore.

Often the material that seems frivolous is "new folklore". Moreover, he lives everywhere and everywhere.

Modern folklore has taken almost nothing from the genres of classical folklore, and what it has taken has changed beyond recognition. “Almost all the old oral genres are becoming a thing of the past - from ritual lyrics to fairy tales,” writes Professor Sergei Neklyudov (the largest Russian folklorist, head of the Center for Semiotics and Typology of Folklore at the Russian State University for the Humanities).

The fact is that the life of a modern person is not connected with the calendar and the season, so in the modern world there is practically no ritual folklore, only signs are left for us.

Today, non-ritual folklore genres occupy a large place. And here, not only modified old genres (riddles, proverbs), not only relatively young forms (“street” songs, anecdotes), but also texts that are generally difficult to attribute to any particular genre. For example, urban legends (about abandoned hospitals, factories), fantastic "historical and local history essays" (about the origin of the name of the city or its parts, about geophysical and mystical anomalies, about celebrities who visited it, etc.), stories about incredible incidents, legal incidents, etc. Rumors can also be included in the concept of folklore.

Sometimes, right before our eyes, new signs and beliefs are formed - including in the most advanced and educated groups of society. Who hasn't heard of cacti supposedly "absorbing harmful radiation" from computer monitors? Moreover, this sign has a development: "not every cactus absorbs radiation, but only with star-shaped needles."

In addition to the structure of folklore itself, the structure of its distribution in society has changed. Modern folklore no longer carries the function of self-consciousness of the people as a whole. Most often, the carriers of folklore texts are not residents of certain territories, but members of some sociocultural groups. Tourists, goths, parachutists, patients of one hospital or students of one school have their own signs, legends, anecdotes, etc. Each, even the smallest group of people, barely realizing their commonality and difference from all others, immediately acquired their own folklore. Moreover, the elements of the group may change, but the folklore texts will remain.

As an example. During a campfire hike, they joke that if the girls dry their hair by the fire, the weather will be bad. The whole campaign of the girls is driven away from the fire. Once on a hike with the same travel agency, but with completely different people and even instructors a year later, you can find that the omen is alive and they believe in it. Girls are also driven away from the fire. Moreover, there is opposition: you need to dry your underwear, and then the weather will improve, even if one of the ladies still broke through with wet hair to the fire. Here, not only the birth of a new folklore text in a certain group of people is evident, but also its development.

The most striking and paradoxical phenomenon of modern folklore can be called network folklore. The main and universal feature of all folklore phenomena is the existence in oral form, while all network texts are, by definition, written.

However, as Anna Kostina, deputy director of the State Republican Center for Russian Folklore, notes, many of them have all the main features of folklore texts: anonymity and collective authorship, variability, traditionalism. Moreover, online texts clearly strive to "overcome writing" - hence the widespread use of emoticons (allowing to indicate intonation), and the popularity of "padon" (deliberately incorrect) spelling. Funny untitled texts are already widely circulating on the net, absolutely folklore in spirit and poetics, but incapable of living in a purely oral transmission.

Thus, in the modern information society, folklore not only loses a lot, but also gains something.

We found out that in modern folklore there is little left of traditional folklore. And those genres that remained have changed almost beyond recognition. New genres are also emerging.

So, today there is no longer ritual folklore. And the reason for its disappearance is obvious: the life of modern society does not depend on the calendar, all ritual actions that are an integral part of the life of our ancestors have come to naught. Non-ritual folklore also highlights poetic genres. Here are urban romance, and courtyard songs, and ditties on modern topics, as well as such completely new genres as chants, chants and sadistic rhymes.

Prose folklore has lost fairy tales. Modern society makes do with already created works. But anecdotes and many new non-fairy genres remain: urban legends, fantastic essays, stories about incredible incidents, etc.

The folklore of speech situations has changed beyond recognition, and today it looks more like a parody. Example: "He who gets up early - he lives far from work", "Do not have one hundred percent, but have one hundred clients."

In a separate group, it is necessary to single out a completely new and unique phenomenon - network folklore. Here and "padonsky language", and network anonymous stories, and "letters of happiness" and much more.

Having done this work, we can say with confidence that folklore did not cease to exist centuries ago and did not turn into a museum exhibit. Many genres simply disappeared, those that remained changed or changed their functional purpose.

Perhaps, in a hundred or two hundred years, modern folklore texts will not be studied at literature lessons, and many of them may disappear much earlier, but, nevertheless, new folklore is a representation of a modern person about society and about the life of this society, its identity and cultural level. A remarkable richness of ethnographic details characterization of various social groups of the working population of Russia in the middle of the 19th century was left by V. V. Bervi-Flerovsky in his book The Condition of the Working Class in Russia. His attention to the peculiar features of the life and culture of each of these groups is found even in the very titles of individual chapters: "Worker-tramp", "Siberian farmer", "Trans-Ural worker", "Worker-prospector", "Mining worker", "Russian proletarian ". All these are different social types representing the Russian people in a specific historical setting. It is no coincidence that Bervi-Flerovsky considered it necessary to single out the characteristics of the “moral mood of the workers in the industrial provinces”, realizing that this “mood” has many specific features that distinguish it from the “moral mood”<работника на севере», а строй мыслей и чувств «земледельца на помещичьих землях» не тот, что у земледельца-переселенца в Сибири.

The era of capitalism and especially imperialism brings new significant transformations in the social structure of the people. The most important factor that has a tremendous impact on the entire course of social development, on the fate of the entire people as a whole, is the emergence of a new, most revolutionary class in the history of mankind - the working class, whose entire culture, including folklore, is a qualitatively new phenomenon. But the culture of the working class must also be studied concretely historically, in its development, its national, regional and professional characteristics must be taken into account. Within the working class itself there are different strata, different groups, differing in the level of class consciousness and cultural traditions. In this regard, the work of V. I. Ivanov “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” retains great methodological significance, which specifically examines the various conditions in which the formation of working class detachments took place in industrial centers, in the industrial south, in an atmosphere of “special life” in the Urals. .

The development of capitalist relations in the countryside is breaking up the rural commune, splitting the peasantry into two classes—small producers, some of whom are constantly being proletarianized, and the rural bourgeois class—the kulaks. The idea of ​​a single supposedly peasant culture under capitalism is a tribute to petty-bourgeois illusions and prejudices, and an undifferentiated, uncritical study of the peasant creativity of this era can only strengthen such illusions and prejudices. The social heterogeneity of the people in the conditions of the struggle of all the democratic forces of Russia against the tsarist autocracy and serf-owning remnants for political freedom was emphasized by V. I. Ivanov: "... the people fighting the autocracy consists of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat." It is known from the history of society that the social structure of the people who made the anti-feudal revolution in England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy was just as heterogeneous. It is also known that, having taken advantage of the gains of the people, the bourgeoisie, having come to power, betrays the people and itself becomes anti-people. But the fact that at a certain stage of historical development it was one of the constituent elements of the people, could not but be reflected in the nature of the folk culture of the corresponding era.

Recognition of the complex, constantly changing social structure of the people means not only that the class composition of the people is changing, but also that the relationships between classes and groups within the people are developing and changing. Of course, since the people are primarily the working and exploited masses, this determines the commonality of their class interests and views, the unity of their culture. But, recognizing the fundamental commonality of the people and seeing, first of all, the main contradiction between the exploited masses and the ruling class, as V.I. Ivanov, "demands that this word (people) does not cover up a lack of understanding of class antagonisms within the people."

Consequently, the culture and art of the people in a class society, "folk art" is class in nature, not only in the sense that it opposes the ideology of the ruling class as a whole, but also in that it is itself complex and sometimes contradictory in its nature. its class and ideological content. Our approach to folklore, therefore, involves the study of the expression in it of both the nationwide ideals and aspirations, and not all the coinciding interests and ideas of individual classes and groups that make up the people at different stages of the history of society, the study of reflection in folklore as contradictions between the whole people and the ruling class and possible contradictions “within the people”. Only such an approach is a condition for a truly scientific study of the history of folklore, the coverage of all its phenomena and understanding them, no matter how contradictory they may be, no matter how incompatible they may seem with the "ideal" ideas about folk art. Such an approach serves as a reliable guarantee both against the false romantic idealization of folklore and against the arbitrary exclusion of entire genres or works from the field of folklore, as happened more than once during the dominance of dogmatic concepts in folklore. It is important to be able to judge folklore on the basis of not speculative a priori ideas about folk art, but taking into account the real history of the masses and society.