Folklore and literature are two types of verbal art. However, folklore is not only the art of speech, but also an integral part of folk life, closely intertwined with its other elements, and this is the significant difference between folklore and literature. But also as an art of words, folklore differs from literature. These differences do not remain immutable at various stages historical development, and yet the main, stable features of each of the types of verbal art can be noted. Literature is an individual art, folklore is a collective art. In literature there is innovation, and in folklore tradition comes to the fore. Literature exists in written form, a means of storing and transmitting an artistic text, a book serves as an intermediary between the author and his addressee, while a work of folklore is reproduced orally and stored in the memory of the people. A work of folklore lives in many variants; with each performance it is reproduced as if anew, with direct contact between the performer-improviser and the audience, which not only directly influences the performer (feedback), but sometimes also joins in the performance.
Anika the warrior and death. Splint.
Publications of Russian folklore.
The term “folklore,” which was introduced into science by the English scientist W. J. Toms in 1846, translated means “folk wisdom.” Unlike many Western European scientists who classify folklore as the most diverse aspects of folk life (even culinary recipes), including elements of material culture (housing, clothing), domestic scientists and their like-minded people in other countries consider oral folk art to be folklore - poetic works created by the people and existing among the broad masses, along with musical and dance folklore. This approach takes into account the artistic nature of folklore as the art of words. Folkloristics is the study of folklore.
The history of folklore goes back to the deep past of humanity. M. Gorky defined folklore as the oral creativity of the working people. Indeed, folklore arose in the process of labor, always expressed the views and interests of mainly working people, and in it, in the most varied forms, a person’s desire to make his work easier, to make it joyful and free was manifested.
Primitive man spent all his time on work or preparing for it. The actions through which he sought to influence the forces of nature were accompanied by words: spells and conspiracies were pronounced, the forces of nature were addressed with a request, threat or gratitude. This indivisibility various types essentially an artistic activity (although the creators-performers themselves set purely practical goals) - the unity of words, music, dance, decorative art - is known in science as “primitive syncretism”, traces of it are still noticeable in folklore. As a person accumulated more and more significant life experience, which needed to be passed on to subsequent generations, the role of verbal information increased: after all, it was the word that could most successfully communicate not only about what was happening Here And Now, but also about what happened or will happen somewhere And once upon a time or some day. The separation of verbal creativity into an independent form of art is the most important step in the prehistory of folklore, in its independent, although associated with mythological consciousness, state. The decisive event that paved the line between mythology and folklore proper was the appearance of the fairy tale. It was in the fairy tale that imagination - this, according to K. Marx, a great gift that contributed so much to the development of mankind - was first recognized as an aesthetic category.
With the formation of nations, and then states, a heroic epic took shape: the Indian Mahabharata, Irish sagas, Kyrgyz Manas, Russian epics. Lyrics not related to ritual arose even later: it showed interest in the human personality, in the experiences common man. Folk songs from the period of feudalism tell about serfdom, about the hard lot of women, about people's defenders, such as Karmelyuk in Ukraine, Janosik in Slovakia, Stepan Razin in Rus'.
When studying folk art, one should constantly keep in mind that people are not a homogeneous concept and are historically changeable. The ruling classes sought by all means to introduce into the masses thoughts, moods, works that were contrary to the interests of the working people - songs loyal to tsarism, “spiritual poems”, etc. Moreover, in the people themselves, centuries of oppression accumulated not only hatred for exploiters, but also ignorance and downtroddenness. The history of folklore is both a process of constant growth in the self-awareness of the people and an overcoming of what their prejudices were expressed in.
Based on the nature of the connection with folk life, folklore is distinguished between ritual and non-ritual. The folklore performers themselves adhere to a different classification. For them, it is important that some works are sung, others are spoken. Philological scholars classify all works of folklore into one of three categories - epic, lyric or drama, as is customary in literary criticism.
Some folklore genres are interconnected by a common sphere of existence. If pre-revolutionary folklore was very clearly distinguished by the social class of its speakers (peasant, worker), now age differences are more significant. A special section of folk poetry is children's folklore - playful (drawing lots, counting rhymes, various play songs) and non-fictional (tongue twisters, horror stories, changelings). The main genre of modern youth folklore has become the amateur, so-called bard song.
The folklore of every nation is unique, as is its history, customs, and culture. Epics and ditties are inherent only in Russian folklore, dumas - in Ukrainian, etc. The lyrical songs of every nation are original. Even the most short works folklore - proverbs and sayings - each nation expresses the same thought in its own way, and where we say: “Silence is golden,” the Japanese, with their cult of flowers, will say: “Silence is flowers.”
However, already the first folklorists were struck by the similarity of fairy tales, songs, and legends belonging to different peoples. At first this was explained by the common origin of related (for example, Indo-European) peoples, then by borrowing: one people adopted plots, motifs, and images from another.
A consistent and convincing explanation of all phenomena of similarity can only be provided by historical materialism. Based on a wealth of factual material, Marxist scientists explained that similar plots, motifs, and images arose among peoples who were at the same stages of socio-cultural development, even if these peoples lived on different continents and did not meet each other. Thus, a fairy tale is a utopia, a dream of justice, which developed among various peoples as private property appeared in them, and with it social inequality. Primitive society did not know fairy tales on any of the continents.
Fairy tales, heroic epics, ballads, proverbs, sayings, riddles, lyrical songs of different peoples, differing in national identity both in form and content, are at the same time created on the basis of laws common to a certain level of artistic thinking and established by tradition. Here is one of the “natural experiments” that confirms this position. French poet P. J. Beranger wrote the poem “The Old Corporal”, using as a basis (and at the same time significantly reworking it) a “complaint” - a special kind of French folk ballad. The poet V. S. Kurochkin translated the poem into Russian, and thanks to the music of A. S. Dargomyzhsky, the song penetrated the Russian folklore repertoire. And when, many years later, it was recorded on the Don, it was discovered that the folk singers had made significant changes to the text (and, by the way, to the music), as if essentially restoring the original form of the French “complaint,” which the Don Cossacks, of course, had never heard. This is reflected in the general laws of folk song creativity.
Literature appeared later than folklore and has always, although in different ways, used its experience. At the same time, literary works have long penetrated folklore and influenced its development.
The nature of the interaction between the two poetic systems is historically determined and therefore varies at different stages artistic development. On this path, what is done on sharp turns history, the process of redistribution of social spheres of action of literature and folklore, which is based on the material of Russian culture of the 17th century. noted by Academician D.S. Likhachev. If back in the 16th century. storytellers were kept even at the royal court, then a century and a half later, folklore disappears from the life and everyday life of the ruling classes, now oral poetry is the property of almost exclusively the masses, and literature - of the ruling classes. Thus, later developments can sometimes change the emerging trends in the interaction of literature and folklore, and sometimes in the most significant way. However, the completed stages are not forgotten. What began in the folk art of the time of Columbus and Afanasy Nikitin echoed uniquely in the quests of M. Cervantes and G. Lorca, A. S. Pushkin and A. T. Tvardovsky.
The interaction of folk art with realistic literature reveals more fully than ever before the inexhaustibility of folklore as an eternal source of continuously developing art. The literature of socialist realism, like no other, relies not only on the experience of its immediate predecessors, but also on all the best that characterizes the literary process throughout its entire length, and on folklore in all its inexhaustible richness.
The law “On the Protection and Use of Cultural Historical Monuments”, adopted in 1976, also includes “recordings of folklore and music” among national treasures. However, recording is only an auxiliary means of recording folklore text. But even the most accurate recording cannot replace the living spring of folk poetry.
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Folklore Every nation is unique, just like its history and culture.
Russian folklore- these are works of Russian folk art, a cultural heritage that was passed down through generations “by word of mouth.” Folklore works did not belong to a specific writer; the Russian people themselves were both the author and performer of various songs, dances, legends, fairy tales, epics, proverbs, charms, ditties and traditions. All of them had all-Russian features, and at the same time they could differ in their regional characteristics.
Folklore belongs to the title of the most ancient phenomenon of artistic culture. It originated even before the advent of writing and was closely connected with the work and life of the Russian people. Works of folk art colorfully reflected spiritual development society, its worldview and religious traditions.
Played the most important role folklore in public life Ancient Rus'. Was especially developed ritual folklore, which reflected pagan beliefs. To this view folklore belonged calendar holidays, family customs, magical ritual songs, spells, round dances, etc.
It is impossible not to note the diversity of the epic genre, which included epics, mythical legends, fairy tales, legends and sayings.
Merry folk festivals, fairs with musical and theatrical performances, mummers and buffoons are also part of the ancient Russian folklore.
With the adoption of Orthodoxy and the establishment of Russian statehood, the repertoire of folk art expanded. The reaction of the Russian people to historical events clearly reflected in epic and historical songs, romances and anecdotes, and folk dramatic works.
In the process of historical development of society and professional art, there was a gradual withering away of traditional Russian folk art. Folklore transformed and influenced popular culture, but still embodied various facets of the social and personal life of the ordinary Russian people.
Folklore, translated, means “folk wisdom, ethnic knowledge.” Folklore is ethnic creativity, artistic collective work of the people, reflecting their life, views and standards, i.e. folklore is the ethnic historical cultural heritage of every state in the world.
Works of Russian folklore (fairy tales, legends, epics, songs, ditties, dances, tales, applied art) can help recreate the characteristic features of the ethnic life of one’s own time.
Creativity in ancient times was closely connected with the working work of man and reflected fantastic, historical ideas, as well as the embryos of scientific knowledge. The art of the text was closely connected with other forms of art - music, dancing, decorative art. In science this is called “syncretism”.
Folklore was an art organically characteristic of the ethnic setting. The different purposes of the works gave rise to genres, with their different themes, types, and manners. In the ancient stage, most peoples had tribal legends, work and ritual songs, mythological stories, and plots. The decisive event that laid the boundary between mythology and folklore was the emergence of fairy tales, the plots of which were based on dreams, wisdom, and ethical invention.
In ancient and knightly society, a heroic epic was formed (Irish sagas, Russian epics and others). Legends and songs also appeared, reflecting all kinds of beliefs (for example, Russian spiritual poems). Later, historical songs were noticed, imitating real historical events and heroes, as they were preserved in ethnic memory.
Genres in folklore are also distinguished by the method of execution (solo, choir, choir and soloist) and different combinations of words with melody, intonation, movements (singing and dancing, storytelling and acting).
With changes in the social life of society in Russian folklore New genres also appeared: soldiers', coachmen's, barge haulers' songs. The rise of industry and human settlements brought to life: romances, funny stories, proletarians, student folklore.
At the moment, fresh Russian ethnic fairy tales are not being noticed, but old ones are still being told and cartoons and feature films are being made based on them. They sing almost all the old songs. But epics and historical songs are literally no longer heard performed live.
For 1000 years, folklore has been a single form of creativity among all peoples. The folklore of every nation is individual, for example, as is its situation, customs, and civilization. And some genres (not just historical songs) reflect the situation of the people left behind.
Russian ethnic musical civilization
There are a number of points of view that interpret folklore as ethnic artistic culture, as oral poetic creativity and as collective verbal, musical, gaming or artistic forms of ethnic creativity. With all the abundance of regional and local forms, folklore is characterized by common features, such as anonymity, collective creativity, traditionalism, close association with work, environment, and the passing of works from generation to generation in oral tradition.
Ethnic musical art originated a long time before the advent of professional music in the Orthodox church. In the social life of ancient Rus', folklore played a much larger role than in later eras. Unlike knightly Europe, Old Rus' did not have secular professional art. In its musical culture, ethnic creativity of oral traditions developed, including all sorts of “semi-professional” genres (the art of storytellers, guslars, etc.).
By the time of Orthodox hymnography, Russian folklore had already had a long-term situation, an established system of genres and means musical expressiveness. Ethnic music and ethnic creativity have firmly entered into the environment of people, reflecting the various boundaries of public, home and personal life.
Scientists believe that the pre-state stage
(that is, before Old Rus' was formed), the Eastern Slavs already had a fairly developed calendar and family folklore, heroic epic and instrumental music.
With the adoption of Christianity, pagan (Vedic) knowledge began to be eradicated. The significance of the magical actions that gave rise to this or that picture of ethnic work was gradually forgotten. However, the purely external forms of ancient holidays turned out to be unusually stable, and some ritual folklore continued to exist, as if outside the connection with the ancient idolatry that gave rise to it.
The Christian church (not only in Rus', but also in Europe) had a very negative attitude towards classical ethnic songs and dances, believing them to be a manifestation of sinfulness and devilish seduction. This assessment is enshrined in many chronicle sources and in canonical church orders.
Provocative, cheerful ethnic celebrations with theatrical performances and the irreplaceable role of music, the origins of which are found in the footsteps of ancient Vedic rituals, were fundamentally different from temple holidays.
The most vast region of ethnic musical creativity of Ancient Rus' is shaped by ritual folklore, testifying to the highest artistic talent of the Russian people. It appeared in the depths of the Vedic picture of the world, the deification of natural elements. Calendar-ritual songs are considered more ancient. Their table of contents is related to ideas about the cycle of nature and the agricultural calendar. These songs reflect all kinds of milestones in the lives of grain growers. They were part of winter, spring, and summer rituals that correspond to turning factors in changing the years of the year. By performing this natural ritual (songs, dances), people believed that the mighty gods, the forces of Love, Family, Sun, Water, Mother Earth would hear them and healthy babies would appear, a good harvest would appear, livestock would be born, life in love would develop and consent.
In Rus', marriage has been played since ancient times. In every territory there was a personal custom of wedding actions, lamentations, songs, sentences. But with all the inexhaustible abundance, marriages were played according to the same laws. Poetic wedding reality modifies what is happening into a fantastic fairy-tale world. As in a parable, all the images are diverse, for example, the ritual itself, poetically interpreted, becomes a specific fairy tale. Marriage, being one of the most significant events of human life in Rus', sought a festive and solemn frame. And if you feel all the rituals and songs, delving into this mythical wedding world, you can feel the aching beauty of this ritual. What will remain “behind the scenes” are very beautiful clothes, a wedding train rattling with bells, a polyphonic choir of “singers” and mournful melodies of lamentations, the sounds of waxwings and buzzers, accordions and balalaikas - but the poetry of marriage itself restores the pain of leaving the parental home and the highest joy of the solemn state of mind - Love.
One of the most ancient Russian genres is round dance songs. In Rus', round dances were held throughout almost the entire year - on Kolovorot (New Year), Maslenaya (farewell to winter and welcoming spring), Green Week (round dances of young women around birches), Yarilo (sacred bonfires), Ovsen (harvest festivals). They were widespread. round dances-games and round dances-processions. At first, round dance songs were part of agricultural rituals, but over the centuries they became independent, but images of labor remained in many of them:
And we sowed and sowed millet!
Oh, Did Lado, they sowed, they sowed!
The dance songs that have survived to this day combined male and female dances. Men's - personified power, courage, courage, ladies' - tenderness, commitment, stateliness.
Over the centuries, the musical epic begins to be replenished with fresh themes and types. Epic tales appear telling about the struggle against the Horde, about travel to distant states, about the emergence of the Cossacks, and ethnic uprisings.
Ethnic memory has preserved almost all the magnificent ancient songs for a long time over the centuries. In the 18th century, during the development of professional secular genres (opera, instrumental music), ethnic art for the first time became the subject of research and creative implementation. The educational attitude towards folklore was clearly expressed by the excellent writer and humanist A.N. Radishchev in the heartfelt lines of his own “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: “Whoever understands the voices of Russian ethnic songs admits that there is something in them, a spiritual pain that means... In them you will find the education of the soul of our people.” In the 19th century, the assessment of folklore as the “education of the soul” of the Russian people became the basis for the aesthetics of composition in secondary educational institutions from Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, to Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Kalinikov, and ethnic song itself was considered one of the sources of the formation of the Russian state thinking.
Russian ethnic songs of the 16th-19th centuries - “like the golden mirror of the Russian people” Ethnic songs recorded in various regions of the Russian Federation are considered a historical monument to the life of the people, but also a documentary source that captures the formation of the ethnic creative thought of their time.
The fight against the Tatars, village putschs - all this left a mark on ethnic song traditions in any given territory, starting with epics, historical songs and up to ballads. Like, for example, the ballad about Ilya Muromets, which is associated with the Nightingale River, which flows in the territory of Yazykovo, there was a struggle between Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber, who lived in these parts.
It is known that Ivan Surov’s conquest of the Kazan Khanate played a role in the development of oral ethnic creativity; Ivan Surov’s campaigns marked the beginning of the final victory over the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which liberated almost all the thousand Russian prisoners from captivity. The songs of this time became the model for Lermontov’s epic “Song on the Theme of Ivan Tsarevich” - a chronicle of ethnic life, and A.S. Pushkin in his own works used oral ethnic creativity - Russian songs and Russian fairy tales.
On the Volga, not far from the village of Undory, there is a cape called Stenka Razin; there were songs from such a time: “On the steppe, the Saratov steppe,” “We had immaculate Rus'.” Historical actions late XVII early XVIII centuries. captured in a compilation about the campaigns of Peter I and his Azov campaigns, about the execution of the archers: “It’s like walking on a blue sea,” “A young Cossack is walking along the Don.”
With the military reforms of the early 18th century, fresh historical songs appeared, these were no longer lyrical, but epic. Historical songs protect the ancient images of the historical epic, songs about the Russian-Turkish War, about recruitment and the war with Napoleon: “The French kidnapper boasted Russian Federation take”, “Don’t make noise, you green oak mother.”
At this time, the epics about “The Severe Suzdalian”, about “Dobrynya and Alyosha” and the rather rare parable of Gorshen were preserved. Even in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Nekrasov, Russian epic ethnic songs and tales were used. The ancient customs of ethnic games, mummery and the special performing civilization of Russian song folklore remain.
Russian ethnic performing arts Russian ethnic tragedy and ethnic theatrical art in general are the most interesting and important emergence of Russian state culture.
Dramatic games and performances at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 20th centuries formed an organic part of the solemn ethnic atmosphere, be it peasant gatherings, soldier and factory barracks, or fair booths.
The geography of distribution of ethnic drama is extensive. Collectors of our days have noticed special theatrical “hotbeds” in the Yaroslavl and Gorky regions, Russian villages of Tataria, on Vyatka and Kama, in Siberia and the Urals. 
Ethnic tragedy, in spite of the view of some scientists, is a natural product of folklore tradition. It compresses the creative skill accumulated by dozens of generations of the broadest strata of the Russian people.
At city and later rural fairs, carousels and booths were set up, on the stage of which performances on fairy-tale and national historical themes were performed. The performances seen at the fairs did not have the opportunity to fully influence the aesthetic tastes of the people, but they expanded their magical and song repertoire. Popular and theatrical borrowings largely marked the originality of the plots of ethnic drama. However, they “lay down” on the ancient gaming customs of ethnic games, mummery, i.e. on the special performing culture of Russian folklore.
Generations of developers and artists of ethnic dramas have developed specific ways of plotting plots, character data, and manners. Developed ethnic dramas are characterized by strong attractions and insoluble incidents, continuity and swiftness of actions replacing each other.
A special role in ethnic drama is played by songs performed by the heroes at various times or sung in chorus - as comments on ongoing events. The songs were a specific emotional and psychological component of the performance. They were performed mostly in fragments, revealing the sensory meaning of the scene or the position of the character. Songs at the beginning and end of the performance were indispensable. The song repertoire of ethnic dramas is produced mostly from original songs known in all strata of society XIX beginning XX centuries. These are the soldiers’ songs “The snow-white Russian Tsar rode”, “Malbruk left on a campaign”, “Praise, praise for you, hero”, and the romances “I walked in the meadows in the evening”, “I’m heading off into the desert”, “What’s clouded, the clear dawn "and almost all others.
Late genres of Russian ethnic creativity - festivities
The heyday of the festivities occurred in the 17th-19th centuries, but certain forms and genres of ethnic art, which formed an obligatory accessory to the fair and city ceremonial squares, were formed and actively existed for a long time before these centuries and continue, often in a transformed form, to be present to this day. Such a puppet arena, bear fun, to some extent the jokes of traders, almost all circus acts. Other genres were born at the fairgrounds and died out when the festivities stopped. These are funny monologues of booth barkers, barkers, performances of booth theaters, dialogues of parsley clowns.
As a rule, during festivities and fairs, entire entertainment centers with booths, carousels, swings, and tents were erected in classical spaces, which sold everything from popular prints to songbirds and delicacies. In winter, cold mountains were added, access to which was absolutely free, and sledding from a height of 10-12 m brought incomparable pleasure.
With all its diversity and diversity, the city's ethnic festival was regarded as something indivisible. This unity was created by the specific air of the solemn square, with its free text, familiarity, unbridled laughter, food and drinks; equality, fun, solemn perception of the world.
The ceremonial defeat square itself
ala an unimaginable combination of various details. In accordance with this, outwardly it was a bright, echoing mess. Colorful, motley clothes of strollers, prominent, unusual costumes of “artists”, flashy signs of booths, swings, carousels, shops and taverns, handicrafts sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow and the simultaneous sound of barrel organs, pipes, flutes, drums, exclamations, songs, cries of merchants , a booming smile from the jokes of “boothy old men” and clowns - everything merged into a single fair fireworks display that hypnotized and made people laugh.
The large, familiar festivities “under the mountains” and “under the swings” attracted many guest performers from Europe (many of them were owners of booths, panoramas) and including southern countries (magicians, animal tamers, strongmen, acrobats and others). Foreign speech and foreign wonders were commonplace at Namoskov festivities and huge fairs. It is clear why the city’s spectacular folklore often appeared as a mixture of “Nizhny Novgorod and French” of its own family.
The base, heart and soul of Russian state culture is Russian folklore, this is a treasure, this is what has filled Russian people from the inside since time immemorial, and this internal Russian ethnic civilization gave birth in the 17th-19th centuries to an integral constellation of great Russian writers, composers, designers , scientists, warriors, philosophers, whom the whole world understands and honors: Zhukovsky V.A., Ryleev K.F., Tyutchev F.I., Pushkin A.S., Lermontov M.Yu., Saltykov-Shchedrin M.E. ., Bulgakov M.A., Tolstoy L.N., Turgenev I.S., Fonvizin D.I., Chekhov A.P., Gogol N.V., Goncharov I.A., Bunin I.A., Griboedov A.S., Karamzin N.M., Dostoevsky F.M., Kuprin A.I., Glinka M.I., Glazunov A.K., Mussorgsky M.P., Rimsky-Korsakov N.A., Tchaikovsky P.I., Borodin A.P., Balakirev M.A., Rachmaninov S.V., Stravinsky I.F., Prokofiev S.S., Kramskoy I.N., Vereshchagin V.V., Surikov V. .I., Polenov V.D., Serov V.A., Aivazovsky I.K., Shishkin I.I., Vasnetsov V.N., Repin I.E., Roerich N.K., Vernadsky V.I. ., Lomonosov M.V., Sklifosovsky N.V., Mendeleev D.I., Sechenov I.M., Pavlov I.P., Tsiolkovsky K.E., Popov A.S., Bagration P.R., Nakhimov P.S., Suvorov A.V., Kutuzov M.I., Ushakov F.F., Kolchak A.V., Solovyov V.S., Berdyaev N.A., Chernyshevsky N.G., Dobrolyubov N. .A., Pisarev D.I., Chaadaev P.E., there are thousands of them, of whom, for example or in another way, the whole earthly world understands. These are universal pillars that grew up on Russian ethnic culture.
But in 1917, the second attempt was made in the Russian Federation to break the association of times, to break the Russian cultural heritage of ancient generations. The first attempt was made back in the years of the baptism of Rus'. But it did not work out in full, for example, how the power of Russian folklore was based on the life of the people, on their Vedic natural worldview. But already in some places by the sixties of the twentieth century, Russian folk folklore began to be gradually replaced by the popular pop genres of pop, disco and, as is customary at the moment, chanson (prison-thieve folklore) and other forms of Russian arts. But a definite blow was dealt in the 90s. The text “Russian” was secretly not allowed to be pronounced, as if this text meant inciting state hatred. This state is still preserved.
And the only Russian people disappeared, they were scattered, they were made drunk, and they began to exterminate them at the genetic level. At the moment in Rus' there is a non-Russian spirit of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and all other inhabitants of Asia and the Middle East, and in the Far East there are Chinese, Koreans, etc., and everywhere the functional, mass Ukrainization of the Russian Federation is being carried out.
Folklore as a special type of art is a qualitatively unique component of artistic culture. It can be considered as the core of artistic culture, a special layer in the culture of society. It can be stated that folklore is the oldest layer of folk artistic culture.
It integrates the culture of a society of a certain ethnicity at a special stage in the historical development of society. You can consider Russian folk culture as a spiritual archetype of the Russian people, which arose in early stage its development. Folklore is ambiguous: it reveals both boundless folk wisdom and folk conservatism and inertia. In any case, folklore embodies the highest spiritual powers of the people and reflects elements of national artistic consciousness. Folklore is a special artistic integrity; it is constantly developing, changing, but at the same time evolving very slowly.
Unfortunately, there is no unambiguous definition of the concept of folklore. Folklore translated from in English(English folklore) means - folk knowledge, folk wisdom, folk poetry, folk poetry, oral folk art - a set of different types and forms of mass oral arts. creativity of one or more peoples.
This term is understood in different ways: sometimes it refers to any folk art - dancing, music, wood carving and even beliefs. Russian scientists traditionally call only verbal creativity folklore.
Literature appeared much later than folklore, and has always, to one degree or another, used its experience: themes, genres, techniques - different in different eras.
Musical folklore includes folk songs and dances, epics and instrumental tunes. Unlike professional music, folklore does not know its authorship. The work lives in oral tradition, passed on from one performer to another, and sometimes modified. Therefore, folklorists (studying folk art) in different places from different performers sometimes record very different versions of the same song or epic. “Folk songs, like musical organisms, are by no means the compositions of individual musical and creative talents, but the work of an entire people,” the prominent Russian composer and music critic A. N. Serov once wrote.
Genres in folklore also differ in the method of performance (solo, choir, choir and soloist) and various combinations of text with melody, intonation, movements (singing, singing and dancing, storytelling, acting, etc.). With changes in the social life of society, new genres arose in Russian folklore: soldiers', coachmen's, barge haulers' songs. The growth of industry and cities gave rise to romances, jokes, worker, school and student folklore.
In folklore there are productive genres, in the depths of which new works can appear. Now these are ditties, sayings, city songs, jokes, and many types of children's folklore. There are genres that are unproductive, but continue to exist. Thus, no new folk tales appear, but old ones are still told. Many old songs are also sung. But epics and historical songs are practically no longer heard live. But folklore is not only folk wisdom. This is also a manifestation of the soul of the people.
Folklore is very diverse. There is traditional and modern folklore; peasant and urban folklore.
Traditional folklore is those forms and mechanisms of artistic culture that are preserved, recorded and passed on from generation to generation. They capture universal aesthetic values that retain their significance outside of specific historical social changes.
Modern folklore reflects the current stage of development of folk art. It incorporates modern aesthetics, issues and artistic images. It is also a non-literate culture, the carriers of which are often marginalized sections of society. In structure modern folklore we can distinguish the so-called neofolklore. This is household artistic creativity of an informal leisure nature, including simultaneously forms of folklore, mass and professional art, amateur performances, distinguished by aesthetic diversity, stylistic and genre instability, and acting as the “second” wave in modern folk culture.
Peasant folklore belongs to the peasant subculture. This is a fairly stable art system. It contains the labor, ethical, family, marriage and aesthetic values of farmers. Its archaic layers that have reached us represent in spirit and meaning the value system of the agricultural calendar and the culture of the peasantry, which combines the features of paganism and Christianity.
Urban folklore appeared in a later period; its widespread use dates back to the 18th century. It developed in constant interaction, on the one hand, with original art in its written (printed) forms, and on the other, with peasant folklore. The processes of borrowing from one layer of culture to another were very characteristic. They occurred through bourgeois folklore, ideas, images and artistic techniques which were decisive for urban folklore.
Thus, we can state a wide variety of interpretations of the concept “folklore”. Nevertheless, the definitions of folklore in the narrow and broad senses gradually became dominant: as oral folk art and as the totality of all types of folk art in the context of folk life.
(English folklore - folk wisdom) is a designation for the artistic activity of the masses, or oral folk art, which arose in the pre-literate period. This term was first introduced into scientific use by the English archaeologist W. J. Toms in 1846 and was broadly understood as the totality of the spiritual and material culture of the people, their customs, beliefs, rituals, and various forms of art. Over time, the content of the term narrowed. There are several points of view that interpret folklore as folk artistic culture, as oral poetry and as a set of verbal, musical, game types of folk art. With all the diversity of regional and local forms, folklore has common features, such as anonymity, collective creativity, traditionalism, close connection with work, everyday life, and the transmission of works from generation to generation by means of natural memory. Collective life determined the emergence of similar genres, plots, and such means among different peoples. artistic expression, like hyperbole, parallelism, various types of repetitions, constant and complex epithet, comparisons. The role of folklore was especially strong during the period of predominance of mythopoetic consciousness. With the advent of writing, many types of folklore developed in parallel with fiction, interacting with it, influencing it and other forms of artistic creativity and experiencing the opposite effect.
Great definition
Incomplete definition ↓
FOLKLORE
English folklore - folk knowledge, folk wisdom), folk poetry, folk poetry, oral folk art - a set of different types and forms of mass oral arts. creativity of one or several. peoples The term "F." introduced in 1846 archaeologist W. J. Toms, as a scientist. the term is officially adopted by English. folklore society "Folklore Society", main. in 1878. Originally "F." meant both the subject of research and the corresponding science. In modern historiography is a science that studies the theory and history of f. and its interaction with other types of art, called. folkloristics. The definition of F. cannot be unambiguous for all historians. stages, because its social and aesthetic. functions, content and poetics are directly dependent on the presence or absence in the cultural system of a given people of its other forms and types (handwritten or printed books, professional theater and pop music, etc.) and various methods of dissemination of literary arts. works (cinema, radio, television, sound recordings, etc.). F. arose in the process of the formation of human speech and in ancient times covered all forms of spiritual culture. It is characterized by comprehensive syncretism - functional and ideological. (F. contained the rudiments of artistic creativity, historical knowledge, science, religion, etc.), social (F. served all layers of society), genre (epic, fairy tale, legend, myth, song, etc. not yet differentiated), formal (the word appeared in inextricable unity with the so-called extra-textual elements - intonation, melody, gesture, facial expressions, dance, sometimes figurative art). Subsequently, in the process of social differentiation of society and the development of culture, various types and forms of f. arose, expressing the interests of the department. social strata and classes, folklore genres were formed that had various social and everyday purposes (production, social-organizing, ritual, gaming, aesthetic, cognitive). They were characterized by varying degrees of aesthetic development. beginning, various combinations of text and extra-textual elements, aesthetic. and other functions. In general, F. continued to remain multifunctional and syncretic. The use of writing to record text distinguished literature from the oral forms of literary arts that preceded it. creativity. From the moment of their inception, writing and literature turned out to be the property of the highest social strata. At the same time, literature at first, as a rule, was not yet a phenomenon. artistic (for example, chronicles and annals, diplomatic. and journalistic works, ritual texts, etc.). In this regard, the actual aesthetic. The needs of society as a whole were satisfied for a long time mainly by oral tradition. The development of literature and growing social differentiation led to the fact that already in the late feudal period. F.'s period became predominant. (and among many nations exclusively) the property of the working people. mass, because literary forms creativity remained inaccessible to them. Social differences in the environment that created literary and folklore works led to the emergence of a definition. range of ideas and various arts. tastes. This was accompanied by the development of specific systems of literary (story, novel, poem, poem, etc.) and folklore (epic, fairy tale, song, etc.) genres and their poetics. The transition from oral forms of creation and transmission of art. works that are characterized by the use of natural elements. means of communication (voice - hearing, movement - vision), to fixing and stabilizing the text and reading it meant not only a more advanced way of accumulating and preserving cultural achievements. He was accompanied and determined. losses: a spatial and temporal gap in the moment of creation (reproduction) of art. the work and its perception, the loss of the immediate. contact between its creator (writer) and the perceiver (reader), loss of extra-textual elements, contact empathy and the possibility of making textual and other changes depending on the reaction of the perceivers. The significance of these losses is confirmed by the fact that even in conditions of universal literacy, not only traditional folklore, but also other oral and at the same time synthetic ones continue to exist and re-emerge. forms, and some of them are of a contact nature (theater, stage, readers, performances of writers in front of an audience, performance of poetry with a guitar, etc.). Characteristic features of f. in the conditions of its coexistence with literature and in opposition to it: orality, collectivity, nationality, variability, combination of words and arts. elements of other arts. Each work arose on the basis of poetics developed by the team, was intended for a certain circle of listeners and acquired its origins. life, if it was accepted by the team. Changes made by the department. performers could be very different - from stylistic. variations until a significant reworking of the plan and, as a rule, did not go beyond the boundaries of the ideology and aesthetics of the definition. environment. Collectiveness creative. process in F. did not mean its impersonality. Talented masters not only created new songs, fairy tales, etc., but also influenced the process of dissemination, improvement or adaptation of traditions. texts to the historically changed needs of the team. Dialectical the unity of the collective and the individual was contradictory in poetry, as in literature, but in general tradition in poetry was more important than in literature. In social conditions. division of labor on the basis of oral tradition, in parallel with mass and unprofessional performance, which is characteristic of the arts of all nations, unique professions arose associated with the creation and performance of poetic, musical and other works (Ancient Greek rhapsodes and aedas; Roman mimes and French jonglers; later Russian kobzars and chansons. In the early feud. period, performers who served the dominant social strata emerged. A transitional type of singer-poet emerged, closely associated first with chivalry (French troubadours or German minnesingers), later with the burghers (German meistersingers) or the clerical-student environment (French or German vagantes; Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian . nativity scenes). In some countries and regions, in conditions of slow development, patriarchal-feudalism. way of life, transitional forms of a unique oral literature were formed. Poetic works were created specifically. persons, disseminated orally, there was a desire to stabilize their texts. At the same time, the tradition has preserved the names of the creators (Toktogul in Kyrgyzstan, Kemin and Mollanepes in Turkmenistan, Sayat-Nova in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, etc.). In Russian F. there was no developed professionalization of singers. We can only talk about the department. names mentioned in the writing of Ancient Rus' (singer Mitus; possibly Boyan). Each genre or group of folk genres fulfilled a specific purpose. social and household functions. This led to the formation of the department. genres of F. with their characteristic themes, images, poetics, and style. IN ancient period Most peoples had tribal traditions, work and ritual songs, mythological. stories, early forms of fairy tales, spells, incantations. Later, at the turn of the transition from pre-class society to class society, modern societies arose. types of fairy tales (magical, everyday, about animals) and archaic. epic forms. During the formation of the state, heroic epic, then epic. ballad and historical songs content, history legends. Later other classical genres. F. formed non-ritual lyrical. song and romance, later types of folklore. drama and even later - the genres of worker F. - revolutionary. songs, marches, satire. songs, oral stories. The process of emergence, development of department. genres of f., especially the duration of their productive period, the relationship of f. with literature and other types of professional arts. creativity are determined by the characteristics of history. the development of each people and the nature of its contacts with other peoples. Thus, tribal traditions were forgotten among some peoples (for example, among the Eastern Slavs) and formed the basis of history. legends from others (for example, Icelandic sagas from Icelanders). Ritual songs, as a rule, were timed to different periods of the agricultural, pastoral, hunting or fishing calendar, and entered into various relationships with the rituals of the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and other religions. The degree of connection between the epic and mythological ideas are determined by specific socio-economic. conditions. An example of this kind of connection is the Nart tales of the peoples of the Caucasus, Karelo-Fin. runes, ancient Greek epic Germanic languages left oral existence relatively early. and Western Roman epic. The epic of the Turkic peoples existed for a long time and acquired later forms. and east Slavs There are different genre versions of African, Australian, Asian and European fairy tales. peoples The ballad among some peoples (for example, the Scots) acquired clear genre differences, while for others (for example, the Russians) it is close to lyrical. or ist. song. The poetry of each people is characterized by a unique combination of genres and a specific role of each of them in the general system of oral creativity, which has always been multi-layered and heterogeneous. Despite the bright national The coloring of folklore texts, many motifs, plots, and even images of characters in the folklore of different peoples are strikingly similar. Such similarities could arise as a result of the development of f. from a common source (common archaic features of f. the Slavs or Finno-Ugric peoples, which go back to the common Proto-Slavic or Proto-Finnish heritage), or as a result of the cultural interaction of peoples (for example, the exchange of fairy tale plots Russians and Karelians), or the independent emergence of similar phenomena (for example. , general plots of tales of American Indians and peoples Center. Europe) influenced general patterns development of the social system, material and spiritual culture. In the late feudal period. time and during the period of capitalism in the people. lit. began to penetrate the environment more actively than before. works; some forms of lit. creativity acquired mass distribution (romances and songs of literary origin, so-called folk books, Russian “lubok”, German “Bilderbogen”, etc.). This influenced the plot, style, and content of folklore works. People's creativity storytellers acquired certain features of lit. creativity (individualization, psychologism, etc.). In socialist In society, the availability of education has provided an equal opportunity for the development of talents and professionalization of people, and a variety of modern technologies have become widespread. forms of mass literary arts. culture - amateur lit. creativity (including partly in traditional folklore forms), amateur club performances, folk song creativity. choirs, etc. Some of these forms are creative, others are performing in nature. Design of folkloristics in independent work. science dates back to the 30-40s. 19th century The formation of folkloristics and the beginning of scientific research. collecting and publishing F. was associated with three main. factors: lit. romanticism, which was one of the forms of expression of the self-awareness of the emerging bourgeoisie. nations (for example, in Germany, France, Italy), national liberation. movement (for example, among the southern and western Slavs) and the spread of social liberation. and educational ideas (for example, in Russia - A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov; in Poland - A. Mitskevich, etc.). Romantics (German scientists I. G. Herder, L. Arnim and C. Brentano, brothers W. and J. Grimm, etc.; English - T. Percy and J. Macpherson, etc.; Serbian - V. Karadzic and others; Finnish - E. Lenrot and others) saw in F. an expression of nationalism. spirit and national traditions and used folklore works to reconstruct history. facts not reflected in written sources. Emerging within the framework of romanticism, the so-called. mythological school (German scientists A. Kuhn, W. Schwarz, W. Manhardt and others; English - M. Muller, J. W. Cox and others; French - A. Pictet and others; Italian - A . de Gubernatis and others; Russian - F. I. Buslaev, A. N. Afanasyev, etc.), based on the achievements of Indo-European. linguistics, believed F. European. peoples the heritage of the most ancient Proto-Indo-European. myth-making. Romantics in glory. countries saw F. as a general glory. inheritance, preserved to varying degrees by different branches of the Slavs, just like the Germans. Romantics saw modernism in F. German-speaking peoples share the common heritage of the ancient Germans. In the 2nd half. 19th century based on philosophy. Positivism developed evolutionary schools in folklore studies, which is associated with a growing awareness of the unity of the laws of development of folklore and the recurrence of folklore plots and motifs in different ethnic groups. environments So representatives of the so-called. anthropologist schools (E. Tylor, E. Lang and J. Fraser - in England; N. Sumtsov, A. I. Kirpichnikov, A. N. Veselovsky - in Russia, etc.) explained the global recurrence of folklore phenomena by the unity of people. psychology. At the same time, the so-called comparativism (comparative historical method), which explained similar phenomena more or less mechanically. borrowing or “migration of plots” (German - T. Benfey, French - G. Paris, Czech - J. Polivka, Russian - V.V. Stasov, A.N. Pypin, A.N. Veselovsky, etc. .), and the “historical school” (the most vivid expression in Russia - V. F. Miller and his students; K. and M. Chadwick in England, etc.), which sought to connect the history of each people with its history and did great job by comparison of sources documents and folklore stories (especially epic ones). At the same time, the “historical school” was characterized by a simplified understanding of the mechanism of art. reflection of reality in F. and (like certain other trends in bourgeois folkloristics of the late 19th - early 20th centuries) the desire to prove that people. the masses only mechanically perceived and preserved the arts. values created by the top social strata . In the 20th century Freudianism (which interpreted folklore stories as a subconscious expression of inhibited sexual and other complexes), ritualism, became widespread. theory (linking the origin of verbal art primarily with magical rites; French scientists P. Centiv, J. Dumezil, English - F. Raglan, Dutch - J. de Vries, American - R. Carpenter, etc.) and "Finnish school", establishing historical and geographical. areas of distribution of plots and developing the principles of classification and systematization of F. (K. Kroon, A. Aarne, W. Anderson, etc.). The origin of the Marxist trend in folklore studies is associated with the names of P. Lafargue, G. V. Plekhanov, A. M. Gorky. In the 20-30s. 20th century The formation of Marxist folklore studies continued in the USSR, after the 2nd World War of 1939-45 it became widespread in socialism. countries (B. M. and Yu. M. Sokolov, M. K. Azadovsky, V. M. Zhirmunsky, V. Ya. Propp, P. G. Bogatyrev, N. P. Andreev, etc. - in the USSR; P Dinekov, C. Romanska, S. Stoykova and others - in Bulgaria; M. Pop and others - in Romania; D. Ortutai and others - in Hungary; , J. Ex, O. Sirovatka, V. Gasparikova and others - in Czechoslovakia; V. Steinitz and others - in the GDR). She considers f., on the one hand, as the oldest form of poetic poetry. creativity, a treasury of arts. people's experience masses, as one of the components of the classic. heritage of the national arts culture of each people and, on the other hand, as the most valuable source. source. When studying the most ancient eras of human history, philosophy is often (together with archeology) an indispensable source of history. source, especially for studying history. development of ideology and social psychology of people. wt. The complexity of the problem lies in the fact that archaic. folklore works are known, as a rule, only in records of the 18th-20th centuries. or in earlier lit. processing (for example, German "Song of the Nibelungs"), or archaic. elements included in later aesthetics. systems. Therefore, the use of F. for history. reconstructions require great care and, above all, the involvement of comparisons. materials. The features of reflecting reality in various genres of fiction, which differently combine aesthetic, cognitive, ritual, and other functions, are also taken into account. Experience in studying genres that were perceived by performers as an expression of history. knowledge (prosaic historical traditions and legends, song historical epic), showed the complexity of the relationship between plots, characters, time, to which their actions are attributed, epic. geography, etc. and authentic history. events, their real chronological. , social and geographical. environment. Development of artistic history the thinking of the people did not come from empiricism. and a specific depiction of events to their poeticization and generalization or legendary-fantastic. processing as events are forgotten, but vice versa - from the so-called. mythological epic, which is a fantastic reflection of reality in mythological categories (for example, the successes of mankind in mastering fire, crafts, navigation, etc. are personified in F. in the image of a “cultural hero” of the Promethean type), to heroic. epic and, finally, to history. songs, in which much more specific history is drawn. situations, events and persons, or history. ballads, in which nameless heroes or heroes with fictitious names operate in a situation close to real-historical ones. In the department the same stories of history. legends or epic. songs are reflected largely non-empirically. ist. facts, but typical socialist. collisions, history state of politics and arts. consciousness of the people and folklore traditions of previous centuries, through the prism of which history is perceived. reality. At the same time, as in the historical legends, and in historical-epic songs. works often preserved the most valuable historical data. points of view details, names, geographical. names, everyday realities, etc. So, G. Schliemann found the location of Troy, using data from ancient Greek. epic songs "Iliad" and "Odyssey", although he did not accurately determine the location of the "Homeric" layer in the cultural layers of the Trojan excavations. The mechanism of reflection of the source is even more complex. in reality in vernacular fairy tales, lyrical and everyday songs. Songs of a ritual nature, conspiracies, etc., to a greater extent, reflect non-history. reality as such, and the everyday consciousness of the people themselves are facts of the people. everyday life That. F. as a whole did not passively reproduce the empirical. socio-economic facts and political reality or everyday life, but was one of the most important means of expressing people. aspirations. F. is also of great importance for elucidating the history of ethnicity. contacts, the process of formation of ethnographic. groups and historical-ethnographic. regions. Lit.: Chicherov V.I., K. Marx and F. Engels on folklore. Bibliographical materials, "Soviet folklore", 1936, No. 4-5; Bonch-Bruevich V.D., V.I. Lenin on oral folk art, "Soviet ethnography", 1954, No. 4; Friedlander G. M., K. Marx and F. Engels and questions of literature, 2nd ed., M., 1968 (chapter folklore); Propp V. Ya., Specifics of folklore, in the collection: "Proceedings of the anniversary scientific session of Leningrad State University. Section of Philological Sciences, L., 1946; his, Historical roots of a fairy tale, L., 1946; his, Folklore and reality, "Russian Literature", 1963, No. 3; principles of classification of folklore genres, "Sov. ethnography", 1964, No. 4; his, Morphology of a fairy tale, 2nd ed., M., 1969; Zhirmunsky V.M., On the issue of folk art, "Uch. zap. Leningr. ped. Institute named after A. I. Herzen", 1948, t. 67; his own, Folk heroic epic, M.-L., 1962; Gusev V. E., Marxism and Russian folkloristics late XIX- beginning XX century, M.-L., 1951; his, Problems of folklore in the history of aesthetics, M.-L., 1963; his, Folklore. History of the term and its modernity. meaning, "Soviet ethnography," 1966, No. 2; by him, Aesthetics of Folklore, Leningrad, 1967; Putilov B.N., On the main features of people. poetic creativity, "Scholarship of the Grozny Pedagogical Institute. Ser. Philological Sciences", V. 7, 1952, No. 4; him, About the historical. studying Russian folklore, in the book: Rus. folklore, c. 5, M.-L., 1960; Cocchiara J., History of folkloristics in Europe, trans. from Italian, M., 1960; Virsaladze E. B., The problem of the specificity of folklore in modern times. bourgeois folklore, in the book: Literary Research of the Institute of History. cargo. lit., v. 9, Tb., 1955 (summary in Russian); Azadovsky M.K., History of Russian. folkloristics, vol. 1-2, M., 1958-63; Meletinsky E. M., Hero of a fairy tale, M., 1958; his, Origin of heroic. epic Early forms and archaic monument, M., 1963; Chistov K.V., Folklore and modernity, "Soviet ethnography", 1962, No. 3; his, Sovr. problems of textual criticism in Russian. folklore, M., 1963: his own. On the relationship between folklore and ethnography, "Soviet ethnography", 1971, No. 5; his, Specificity of folklore in the light of information theory, "Problems of Philosophy", 1972, No. 6; Folklore and ethnography, Leningrad, 1970; Bogatyrev P. G., Questions of the theory of people. Art, M., 1971; Zemtsovsky I.I., Folklore as a science, in: Slav. musical folklore, M., 1972; Kagan M.S., Morphology of Art, Leningrad, 1972; Early forms of art, M., 1972; Corso R., Folklore. Storia. Obbietto. Metodo. Bibliographie, Roma, 1923; Gennep A. van, Le folklore, P., 1924; Krohn K., Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode, Oslo, 1926; Croce V., Poesia popolare e poesia d´arte, Bari, 1929; Brouwer S., Die Volkslied in Deutschland, Frankreich, Belgien und Holland, Groningen-Haag., 1930; Saintyves P., Manuel de folklore, P., 1936; Varagnac A., Définition du folklore, P., 1938; Alford V., Introduction to English folklore, L., 1952; Ramos A., Estudos de Folk-Lore. Definic?o e limites teorias de interpretac?o, Rio de J., (1951); Weltfish G., The origins of art, Indianapolis-N. Y., 1953; Marinus A., Essais sur la tradition, Brux., 1958; Jolles A., Einfache Formen, 2 ed., Halle/Saale, 1956; Levi-Strauss S., La pendee sauvage, P., 1962; Bawra S. M., Primitive song, N. Y., 1963; Krappe A. H., The science of folklore, 2 ed., N. Y., 1964; Bausinger H., Formen der "Volkspoesie", B., 1968; Weber-Kellermann J., Deutsche Volkskunde zwischen Germanistik und Sozialwissenschaften, Stuttg., 1969; Vrabie G., Folklorue Obiect. Principle. Metoda, Categorii, Buc, 1970; Dinekov P., Bulgarian folklore, Parva chast, 2nd ed., Sofia, 1972; Ortutay G., Hungarian folklor. Essays, Bdpst, 1972. Bible: Akimova T. M., Seminar on Narratives. poetic creativity, Saratov, 1959; Melts M. Ya., Questions of the theory of folklore (materials for the bibliography), in the book; Russian folklore, vol. 5, M.-L., 1960; his, Modern folklore bibliography, in the book: Russian folklore, vol. 10, M.-L., 1966; Kushnereva Z.I., Folklore of the peoples of the USSR. Bibliographical source in Russian language (1945-1963), M., 1964; Sokolova V.K., Sov. folkloristics for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, "Soviet ethnography", 1967, No. 5; Volkskundliche Bibliographie, V.-Lpz., 1919-57; Internationale volkskundliche Bibliographie, Basel-Bonn, 1954-; Coluccio F., Diccionario folklorico argentino, B.-Aires, 1948; Standard dictionary of folklore, mythology and legend, ed. by M. Leach, v. 1-2, N.Y., 1949-50; Erich O., Beitl R., W?rterbuch der deutschen Volkskunde, 2 Aufl., Stutt., 1955; Thompson S., Motif-index of folk-literature, v. 1-6, Bloomington, 1955-58; his, Fifty years of folktale indexing, "Humanoria", N.Y., 1960; Dorson R. M., Current folklore theories, "Current anthropology", 1963, v. 4, No. 1; Aarne A. and Thompson S., The types of folktale. A classification and bibliography, 2 rev., Hels., 1961; Slownik folkloru polskiego, Warsz., 1965. K. V. Chistov. Leningrad.
Folklore(folk-lore) is an international term of English origin, first introduced into science in 1846 by the scientist William Toms. Literally translated, it means “folk wisdom”, “folk knowledge” and denotes various manifestations of folk spiritual culture.
Other terms have also become established in Russian science: folk poetry, folk poetry, folk literature. The name “oral creativity of the people” emphasizes the oral nature of folklore in its difference from written literature. The name “folk poetic creativity” indicates artistry as a sign by which a folklore work is distinguished from beliefs, customs and rituals. This designation puts folklore on a par with other types of folk art and fiction. 1
Folklore is complex, synthetic art. His works often combine elements of various types of art - verbal, musical, theatrical. It is studied by various sciences - history, psychology, sociology, ethnology (ethnography) 2. It is closely connected with folk life and rituals. It is no coincidence that the first Russian scientists approached folklore broadly, recording not only works of verbal art, but also recording various ethnographic details and the realities of peasant life. Thus, the study of folklore was for them a unique area of national studies 3 .
The science that studies folklore is called folkloristics. If literature is understood not only as written artistic creativity, but as verbal art in general, then folklore is a special branch of literature, and folkloristics is thus part of literary criticism.
Folklore is verbal oral creativity. It has the properties of the art of words. In this way he is close to literature. However, it has its own specific features: syncretism, traditionality, anonymity, variability and improvisation.
The prerequisites for the emergence of folklore appeared in the primitive communal system with the beginning of the formation of art. Ancient art words were inherent utility- the desire to practically influence nature and human affairs.
The oldest folklore was in syncretic state(from the Greek word synkretismos - connection). A syncretic state is a state of unity, indivisibility. Art was not yet separated from other types of spiritual activity; it existed in conjunction with other types of spiritual consciousness. Later, the state of syncretism was followed by the separation of artistic creativity, along with other types of social consciousness, into an independent field of spiritual activity.
Folklore works anonymous. Their author is the people. Any of them is created on the basis of tradition. At one time V.G. Belinsky wrote about the specifics of a folklore work: there are no “famous names, because the author of literature is always a people. No one knows who composed his simple and naive songs, in which the internal and external life of a young people or tribe was so artlessly and vividly reflected. And he moves on the song from generation to generation, from generation to generation; and it changes over time: sometimes they shorten it, sometimes they lengthen it, sometimes they remake it, sometimes they combine it with another song, sometimes they compose another song in addition to it - and then poems come out of the songs, of which only the people can call themselves the author." 4
Academician D.S. is certainly right. Likhachev, who noted that there is no author in a folklore work not only because information about him, if he existed, has been lost, but also because he falls out of the very poetics of folklore; it is not needed from the point of view of the structure of the work. In folklore works there may be a performer, a storyteller, a storyteller, but there is no author or writer as an element of the artistic structure itself.
Traditional succession covers large historical periods - entire centuries. According to academician A.A. Potebny, folklore arises “from memorable sources, that is, it is transmitted from memory from mouth to mouth as far as memory lasts, but it has certainly passed through a significant layer of popular understanding” 5 . Each bearer of folklore creates within the boundaries of generally accepted tradition, relying on predecessors, repeating, changing, and supplementing the text of the work. In literature there is a writer and a reader, and in folklore there is a performer and a listener. “Works of folklore always bear the stamp of time and the environment in which they lived for a long time, or “existed.” For these reasons, folklore is called mass folk art. It has no individual authors, although there are many talented performers and creators who are perfect mastering generally accepted traditional techniques of saying and singing. Folklore is directly folk in content - that is, in the thoughts and feelings expressed in it. Folklore is folk in style - that is, in the form of conveying the content. and the properties of traditional figurative content and traditional stylistic forms." 6 This is the collective nature of folklore. Traditionality- the most important and basic specific property of folklore.
Any folklore work exists in large quantities options. Variant (lat. variantis - changing) - each new performance of a folklore work. Oral works had a mobile variable nature.
A characteristic feature of a folklore work is improvisation. It is directly related to the variability of the text. Improvisation (Italian improvvisazione - unforeseen, suddenly) - the creation of a folklore work or its parts directly in the process of performance. This feature is more characteristic of lamentations and crying. However, improvisation did not contradict tradition and was within certain artistic boundaries.
Taking into account all these signs of a folklore work, we present an extremely brief definition of folklore given by V.P. Anikin: “folklore is the traditional artistic creativity of the people. It equally applies to oral, verbal, and other fine arts, both to ancient creativity and to new, created in modern times and created in our days." 7
Folklore, like literature, is the art of words. This gives grounds to use literary terms: epic, lyric, drama. They are usually called childbirth. Each genus covers a group of works of a certain type. Genre- type of artistic form (fairy tale, song, proverb, etc.). This is a narrower group of works than the genus. Thus, by genus we mean a way of depicting reality, by genre - a type of artistic form. The history of folklore is the history of changes in its genres. They are more stable in folklore compared to literary ones; genre boundaries in literature are wider. New genre forms in folklore do not arise as a result creative activity individuals, as in literature, but must be supported by the entire mass of participants in the collective creative process. Therefore, their change does not occur without the necessary historical grounds. At the same time, genres in folklore are not unchanged. They arise, develop and die, and are replaced by others. So, for example, epics arise in Ancient Rus', develop in the Middle Ages, and in the 19th century they are gradually forgotten and die out. As living conditions change, genres are destroyed and consigned to oblivion. But this does not indicate decline folk art. Changes in the genre composition of folklore are a natural consequence of the process of development of artistic collective creativity.
What is the relationship between reality and its reflection in folklore? Folklore combines a direct reflection of life with a conventional one. “Here there is no obligatory reflection of life in the form of life itself; convention is allowed.” 8 It is characterized by associativity, thinking by analogy, and symbolism.
