What are the folklore genres in literature? Features of collecting and researching oral folk art in Russia

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Folklore genres also differ in the way they are performed and in the different combinations of text with melody, intonation, and 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.

There are genres in folklore productive, in the depths of which new works may appear. Now these are ditties, sayings, city songs, jokes, and many types of children's folklore. There are genres 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.

Depending on the stage of development, folklore is usually divided into early traditional folklore, classical folklore and late traditional folklore. Each group belongs to special genres typical for a given stage of development folk art.

Early traditional folklore

1. Labor songs.

These songs are known among all nations, which were performed during labor processes (when lifting heavy objects, plowing fields, manually grinding grain, etc.).

Such songs could be performed when working alone, but they were especially important when working together, since they contained commands for simultaneous action.

Their main element was rhythm, which organized the labor process.

2. Fortune telling and conspiracies.

Fortune telling is a means of recognizing the future. To recognize the future, one had to turn to evil spirits, therefore, fortune telling was perceived as a sinful and dangerous activity.

For fortune-telling, places were chosen where, according to the people, it was possible to come into contact with the inhabitants of the “other world”, as well as the time of day at which this contact was most likely.

Fortune telling was based on the technique of interpreting “signs”: randomly heard words, reflections in water, animal behavior, etc. To obtain these “signs,” actions were taken in which objects, animals, and plants were used. Sometimes actions were accompanied by verbal formulas.

Classic folklore

1. Rituals and ritual folklore

Ritual folklore consisted of verbal, musical, dramatic, game and choreographic genres.

The rituals had ritual and magical significance and contained rules of human behavior in everyday life and work. They are usually divided into work and family.

1.1 Labor rites: calendar rites

The observations of the ancient Slavs on the solstice and the changes in nature associated with it developed into a system of mythological beliefs and practical work skills, reinforced by rituals, signs, and proverbs.

Gradually, the rituals formed an annual cycle, and the most important holidays were timed to coincide with the winter and summer solstices.

There are winter, spring, summer and autumn rituals.

1.2. Family rituals

Unlike calendar rituals, the hero of family rituals is a real person. Rituals accompanied many events in his life, among which the most important were birth, marriage and death.

The wedding ceremony was the most developed; it had its own characteristics and laws, its own mythology and its own poetry.

1.3. Lamentations

This is an ancient genre of folklore, genetically related to funeral rites. The object of the lamentation image is the tragic in life, therefore the lyrical principle is strongly expressed in them, the melody is weakly expressed and in the content of the text one could find many exclamatory-interrogative constructions, synonymous repetitions, unity of beginning, etc.

2. Small genres of folklore. Proverbs.

Small folklore genres include works that differ in genre affiliation, but having a common external feature - small volume.

Small genres of folklore prose, or proverbs, are very diverse: proverbs, sayings, signs, riddles, jokes, proverbs, tongue twisters, puns, well wishes, curses, etc.

3. Fairy tales(see § 2.)

3.1. Animal Tales

3.2. Fairy tales

3.3. Everyday tales

3.3.1. Anecdotal tales

3.3.2. Short story tales

4. Non-fairy prose

Non-fairy tale prose has a different modality than fairy tales: its works are confined to real time, real terrain, real persons. Non-fairy-tale prose is characterized by not being distinguished from the flow of everyday speech and the absence of special genre and style canons. In the most general sense, we can say that her works are characterized by the stylistic form of an epic narrative about the authentic.

The most stable component is the character, around which all the rest of the material is united.

An important feature of non-fairy tale prose is the plot. Usually the plots have an embryonic form (single-motive), but can be conveyed both concisely and in detail.

Works of non-fairy tale prose are capable of contamination.

The following genres belong to non-fairy tale prose: tales, legends and demonological stories.

5. Epics

Epics are epic songs, in which heroic events or individual episodes of ancient Russian history are glorified.

As in fairy tales, epics feature mythological images of enemies, characters are reincarnated, and animals help the heroes.

The epics have a heroic or novelistic character: the idea of ​​​​heroic epics is the glorification of the unity and independence of the Russian land; in the novelistic epics marital fidelity, true friendship were glorified, personal vices (bragging, arrogance) were condemned.

6. Historical songs

Historical songs are folk epic, lyric epic and lyrical songs, the content of which is dedicated to specific events and real persons of Russian history and expresses the national interests and ideals of the people.

7. Ballads

Folk ballads are lyric-epic songs about a tragic event. Ballads are characterized by personal, family and everyday themes. At the center of the ballads are moral problems: love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, crime and repentance.

8. Spiritual Poems

Spiritual poems are songs with religious content.

The main feature of spiritual verses is the contrast between everything Christian and the worldly.

Spiritual poems are heterogeneous. In oral existence they interacted with epics, historical songs, ballads, lyrical songs, lamentations.

9. Lyrical non-ritual songs

In folk lyrics, word and melody are inseparable. The main purpose of songs is to reveal the worldview of the people by directly expressing their feelings, thoughts and moods.

These songs expressed the characteristic experiences of a Russian person in different life situations.

10. Folklore theatre.

Folklore theater is the traditional dramatic creativity of the people.

Specific features of folk theater are the absence of a stage, separation of performers and audience, action as a form of reflection of reality, transformation of the performer into another objectified image, aesthetic orientation representation.

Plays were often distributed in written form and pre-rehearsed, which did not exclude improvisation.

Folklore theater includes: booths, theater mobile pictures(rayok), folk puppet show and folk dramas.

11. Children's folklore.

Children's folklore is a specific area of ​​oral artistic creativity, which, unlike the folklore of adults, has its own poetics, its own forms of existence and its own carriers.

A common, generic feature of children's folklore is the correlation of the artistic text with the game.

Works of children's folklore are performed by adults for children (mother's folklore) and by the children themselves (actually children's folklore)

Late traditional folklore

Late traditional folklore is a collection of works of different genres and different directions, created in peasant, urban, soldier, worker and other environments since the beginning of the development of industry, the growth of cities, and the collapse of the feudal countryside.

Late traditional folklore is characterized by a smaller number of works and a generally lower artistic level compared to classical folklore.

1. Ditties

A chastushka is a short rhyming folk song that is sung at a fast tempo to a specific melody.

The themes of the ditties are varied. Most of them are devoted to love and family themes. But they often reflect modern life people, the changes that are taking place in the country contain sharp political hints. The ditty is characterized by a humorous attitude towards its characters, irony, and sometimes sharp satire.

2. Workers' folklore

Workers' folklore is oral folk works that were created in the working environment or assimilated by it and processed so much that they began to reflect the spiritual needs of this particular environment.

Unlike ditties, workers' folklore did not turn into a national, all-Russian phenomenon. Its characteristic feature is locality, isolation within a particular industrial territory. For example, workers in factories, factories and mines in Petrozavodsk, Donbass, the Urals, Altai and Siberia knew almost no oral works of each other.

Song genres predominated in workers' folklore. The songs depicted the difficult working and living conditions of a simple worker, which were contrasted with the idle life of the oppressors - business owners and overseers.

In form, the songs are monologues-complaints.

3. Folklore of the Great Period Patriotic War.

Folklore of the period of the Great Patriotic War consists of works of various genres: songs, prose, aphoristic. They were created by the participants in events and battles, workers of factories, collective farm fields, partisans, etc.

These works reflect the life and struggle of the peoples of the USSR, the heroism of the country's defenders, faith in victory, the joy of victory, fidelity in love and love betrayals.

In our work we will dwell in more detail on the folklore classical genre of fairy tales.

Genres of Russian folklore

Fairy tales, songs, epics, street performances - all these are different genres of folklore, folk oral and poetic creativity. You can’t confuse them, they differ in their specific characteristics, their role in people’s life is different, and they live differently in modern times. At the same time, all genres of verbal folklore are characterized by general signs: all of them are works of verbal art, in their origins they are associated with archaic forms of art, they exist mainly in oral transmission, and are constantly changing. This determines the interaction of the collective and individual principles in them, a unique combination of traditions and innovation. Thus, the folklore genre is a historically developing type of oral poetic work. Anikin V.P. gave his characteristics to folklore. Childbirth: epic, lyric, drama

Types: song, fairy tale, non-fairy tale prose, etc.

Genres: epic, lyrical, historical song, legend, etc.

Genre is the basic unit of study of folklore. In folklore, genre is a form of mastering reality. Over time, depending on changes in everyday life and the social life of the people, the system of genres developed.

There are several classifications of folklore genres:

Historical classification Zueva Tatyana Vasilievna, Kirdan Boris Petrovich	Classification by functionality Vladimir Prokopyevich Anikin
Early traditional folklore * Labor songs, * Fortune telling, conspiracies. Classic folklore * Rituals and ritual folklore: calendar, wedding, lamentations. * Small genres of folklore: proverbs, sayings, riddles. * Non-fairy prose: legends, stories, tales, legends. * Song epic: epics, historical songs, spiritual songs and poems, lyrical songs. * Folklore theatre. * Children's folklore. Folklore for children. Late traditional folklore * Ditties * Workers' folklore * Folklore of the Second World War period	Household ritual folklore 1. Labor songs 2. Conspiracies 3. Calendar folklore 4. Wedding folklore 5. Lamentations Worldview non-ritual folklore 1. Proverbs 2. Oral prose: legends, stories, tales, legends. 3. Song epic: epics, historical songs, military songs, spiritual songs and poems. Artistic folklore 2. Riddles 3. Ballads 4. Lyrical songs 5. Children's folklore 6. Spectacles and folk theater 7. Romance songs 8. Ditties 9. Jokes

Starting to analyze each genre of folklore, let's start with fairy tales.

Fairy tales are the oldest genre of oral folk art. It teaches a person to live, instills optimism in him, and affirms faith in the triumph of goodness and justice.

The tale represents a great public value, consisting in its cognitive, ideological, educational and aesthetic values, which are inextricably linked. Like other peoples (Russians, perhaps, more clearly), a fairy tale is an objectified contemplation of the people’s heart, a symbol of their sufferings and dreams, hieroglyphs of their soul. All art is generated by reality. This is one of the foundations of materialist aesthetics. This is the case, for example, with a fairy tale, the plots of which are caused by reality, i.e. era, social and economic relations, forms of thinking and artistic creativity, psychology. It, like all folklore in general, reflected the life of the people, their worldview, moral, ethical, socio-historical, political, philosophical and artistic and aesthetic views. It is closely connected with folk life and rituals. Traditional Russian fairy tales were created and circulated mainly among peasants. Their creators and performers were usually people with extensive life experience, who walked a lot in Rus' and saw a lot. The lower the level of education of people, the more they talk about the phenomena of social life at the level of ordinary consciousness. Maybe that’s why the world reflected in fairy tales is formed at the level of everyday consciousness, on everyday ideas people about beauty. Each new era brings tales of a new type, new content and new form. The fairy tale changes along with the historical life of the people, its changes are caused by changes in the folk life, because it is a product of the history of the people; it reflects the events of history and features of folk life. Coverage and understanding of the history and life of the people in folklore changes along with changes in popular ideas, views and psychology. In fairy tales one can find traces of several eras. In the era of feudalism, an increasing place is occupied by social topics, especially in connection with the peasant movement: fairy tales expressed anti-serfdom sentiments. The 16th-18th centuries are characterized by the rich development of fairy tales. It reflects historical motifs (tales about Ivan the Terrible), social ones (tales about judges and priests) and everyday tales (tales about a man and his wife). In the fairy tale genre, satirical motifs are significantly enhanced.

XYIII - first half of the 19th century. - The last stage of the existence of feudal-serf society. This time is characterized by the development of capitalist relations and the decomposition of serfdom. The fairy tale takes on an even more vivid social aspect. It includes new characters, most notably a smart and cunning soldier. In the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, which saw the increasingly rapid and widespread development of capitalism in Russia, great changes occurred in folklore. The satirical motives and critical orientation of the tale are intensified; the basis for this was the aggravation of social contradictions; The purpose of satire is increasingly becoming to expose the power of money and the arbitrariness of authorities. Autobiography occupied a greater place, especially in tales about going to the city to earn money. The Russian fairy tale becomes more realistic and acquires a closer connection with modernity. The illumination of reality and the ideological essence of the works also become different.

The cognitive significance of a fairy tale is manifested, first of all, in the fact that it reflects the characteristics of phenomena real life and provides extensive knowledge of history public relations, work and life, as well as an idea about the worldview and psychology of the people, about the nature of the country. The ideological and educational significance of the fairy tale is that it is inspired by the desire for good, the protection of the weak, and victory over evil. In addition, a fairy tale develops an aesthetic sense, i.e. sense of beauty .

It is characterized by the revelation of beauty in nature and man, the unity of aesthetic and moral principles, the combination of reality and fiction, vivid imagery and expressiveness.

A fairy tale is a very popular genre of oral folk art, an epic genre, and a plot genre. A fairy tale differs from other prose genres (traditions and legends) in its more developed aesthetic side, which is manifested in its focus on attractiveness. The aesthetic principle, in addition, manifests itself in the idealization of positive heroes, a vivid depiction of the “fairy-tale world”, amazing creatures and objects, miraculous phenomena, and romantic overtones of events. M. Gorky paid attention to the expressions in fairy tales of folk dreams about a better life: “Already in ancient times people dreamed of the opportunity to fly through the air - this is what the fairy tale talks about, about the flying carpet. We dreamed of accelerating movement on the ground - a fairy tale about running boots...”

In science, it is generally accepted to divide fairy tale texts into three categories: fairy tales, short story (everyday) tales and tales about animals.

Fairy tales were very popular among the people. Fiction in fairy tales has the nature of fantasy. The magical principle includes the so-called survival moments and, first of all, the religious-mythological view of primitive man, his spiritualization of things and natural phenomena, the attribution of magical properties to these things and phenomena, various religious cults, customs, and rituals. Fairy tales are full of motifs containing belief in the existence of the other world and the possibility of returning from there, the idea of ​​death enclosed in some material object (egg, flower), a miraculous birth (from drinking water), and the transformation of people into animals and birds. The fantastic beginning of a fairy tale grows on a spontaneous materialistic basis and remarkably correctly captures the patterns of development of objective reality.

This is what M. Gorky called “an instructive invention - the amazing ability of human thought to look ahead of the fact.” The origin of science fiction has its vital roots in the peculiarities of the way of life and in the dream of people about domination over nature. All these are just traces of mythological ideas, since the formation of the classical form of a fairy tale ended far beyond the historical boundaries of primitive communal society, in a much more developed society. The mythological worldview only provided the basis for the poetic form of the fairy tale.

An important point is that the stories fairy tales, the miracles they talk about have a vital basis. This, firstly, is a reflection of the characteristics of the work and life of people of the tribal system, their relationship to nature, and often their powerlessness before it. Secondly, a reflection of the feudal system, primarily early feudalism (the king is the hero’s opponent, the struggle for inheritance).

A character in fairy tales is always a bearer of certain moral qualities. The hero of the most popular fairy tales is Ivan Tsarevich. He helps animals and birds, who are grateful to him for this and, in turn, help him. He is presented in fairy tales as folk hero, the embodiment of the highest moral qualities - courage, honesty, kindness. He is young, handsome, smart and strong. This is the type of brave and strong hero.

A significant place in fairy tales is occupied by female heroines who embody the folk ideal of beauty, intelligence, kindness, and courage. The image of Vasilisa the Wise reflects the remarkable features of a Russian woman - a beauty, majestic simplicity, gentle pride in herself, a remarkable mind and a deep heart full of inexhaustible love. To the consciousness of the Russian people, this is exactly how female beauty was imagined.

The serious meaning of some fairy tales provided grounds for judgment on the most important issues of life. Thus, some fairy tales embody the freedom-loving aspiration and struggle of the Russian people against tyranny and oppressors. The composition of a fairy tale determines the presence of characters who are hostile to the positive heroes. The hero's victory over hostile forces is the triumph of goodness and justice. Many researchers have noted the heroic side of the fairy tale and its social optimism. A.M. Gorky said: “It is very important to note that folklore is completely alien to pessimism, despite the fact that the creators of folklore lived hard, their slave labor was meaningless by the exploiters, and personal life powerless and defenseless. But with all this, the collective seems to be characterized by the consciousness of its immortality and confidence in victory over all forces hostile to it.” Fairy tales in which social and everyday relations are at the center of the action are called social and everyday tales. In this type of fairy tales, the comedy of actions and verbal comedy are well developed, which is determined by their satirical, ironic, humorous nature. The theme of one group of fairy tales is social injustice, the theme of another is human vices, in which the lazy, stupid, and stubborn are ridiculed. Depending on this, two varieties are distinguished in social and everyday fairy tales. Social and everyday tales arose, according to researchers, in two stages: everyday - early, with the formation of the family and family life during the decomposition of the clan system, and social - with the emergence class society and the aggravation of social contradictions during the period of early feudalism, especially during the disintegration of the serfdom and during the period of capitalism. The growing lack of rights and poverty of the masses caused discontent and protest and were the basis social criticism. The positive hero of social fairy tales is a socially active, critical person. Hard work, poverty, darkness, and often unequal marriages in terms of age and property status caused complications in family relationships and determined the appearance of stories about an evil wife and a stupid and lazy husband. Socially everyday fairy tales are distinguished by their acute ideological orientation. This is reflected, first of all, in the fact that the stories mainly have two important social themes: social injustice and social punishment. The first theme is realized in plots where a gentleman, merchant or priest robs and oppresses a peasant and humiliates his personality. The second theme is realized in stories where an intelligent and quick-witted man finds a way to punish his oppressors for centuries of lawlessness and makes them look ridiculous. In social and everyday fairy tales, people's aspirations and expectations, the dream of a socially just, happy and peaceful life, are much more clearly expressed. “In these fairy tales one can see the way of life of the people, their home life, their moral concepts and this crafty Russian mind, so inclined to irony, so simple-minded in its craftiness.”

In fairy tales, as well as in some other genres of folklore prose, which reflected the strengths and weaknesses of peasant psychology, the centuries-old dream of happy life, about a certain “peasant kingdom”. The search for “another kingdom” in fairy tales is a characteristic motif. A fairy-tale social utopia depicts the people's material well-being, well-fed contentment; The man eats and drinks to his heart's content and has a "feast for the whole world." N. G. Chernyshevsky noted: “The poverty of real life is the source of life in fantasy.” The peasant judges a “happy” life for himself according to the example of those material goods owned by kings and landowners. The peasants had a very strong faith in the “good king”, and fairy tale hero becomes just such a king in many fairy tales. In the same time fairy tale king in his behavior, way of life, habits, he is likened to a simple peasant. The royal palace is sometimes depicted as a rich peasant courtyard with all the attributes of a peasant farm.

Tales about animals are one of the oldest types of folklore. Going back to ancient forms of reflecting reality in the early stages of human consciousness, fairy tales about animals expressed a certain degree of knowledge of the world.

The truth of fairy tales is that although they talk about animals, they reproduce similar human situations. The actions of animals more openly reveal inhumane aspirations, thoughts, reasons for the actions committed by people. Animal stories are all stories in which there is room not only for fun, but also for the expression of serious meaning. In fairy tales about animals, birds and fish, animals and plants act. Each of these tales has a meaning. For example, in the fairy tale about the turnip, the meaning turned out to be that no amount of strength, even the smallest one, is superfluous, and it happens that it is not enough to achieve a result. With the development of human ideas about nature, with the accumulation of observations, tales include stories about man's victory over animals and about domestic animals, which was the result of their instructions. The identification of similar features in animals and humans (speech - cry, behavior - habits) served as the basis for combining their qualities with human qualities in the images of animals; animals speak and behave like people. This combination also led to the typification of animal characters, which became the embodiment of certain qualities (fox - cunning, etc.). This is how fairy tales acquired an allegorical meaning. Animals began to mean people of certain characters. Animal images became a means of moral teaching. In fairy tales about animals, negative qualities are not only ridiculed (stupidity, laziness, talkativeness), but also the oppression of the weak, greed, and deception for profit are condemned. The main semantic aspect of fairy tales about animals is moral. Fairy tales about animals are characterized by bright optimism; the weak always come out of difficult situations. The connection of the fairy tale with the ancient period of her life is revealed in the motives of the fear of the beast, in overcoming fear of it. The beast has strength and cunning, but no human intelligence. At a later stage in the life of a fairy tale, images of animals acquire the meaning of social types. In such variants, in the image of a sly fox, a wolf and others, one can see human characters that arose in the conditions of a class society. Behind the image of the animal in them one can guess the social relations of people. For example, in the fairy tale “About Ersha Ershovich and his son Shchetinnikov” a complete and accurate picture of ancient Russian legal proceedings is given. In the fairy tales of every nation, universal themes receive a unique national embodiment. Russian folk tales reveal certain social relationships, show the way of life of the people, their home life, their moral concepts, the Russian view, the Russian mind - everything that makes a fairy tale nationally distinctive and unique. The ideological orientation of Russian fairy tales is manifested in the reflection of the people's struggle for a wonderful future. Thus, we saw that the Russian fairy tale is a generalized, evaluative and purposeful reflection of reality, which expresses human consciousness, and in particular the consciousness of the Russian people. The old name of a fairy tale - fable - indicates the narrative nature of the genre. In our time, the name “fairy tale” and the term “fairy tale”, which began to come into use in the 17th century, are used among the people and in scientific literature. A fairy tale is a very popular genre of oral folk art, an epic, prose, plot genre. It is not sung like a song, but told. The fairy tale is distinguished by its strict form and the obligatory nature of certain moments. Fairy tales have been known in Rus' since ancient times. In ancient writing there are plots, motifs and images reminiscent of fairy tales. Telling fairy tales is an old Russian custom. In manuscripts of the 16th - 17th centuries. records of the fairy tales “About Ivan Ponamarevich” and “About the Princess and Ivashka the White Shirt” have been preserved. In the 18th century In addition to handwritten collections of fairy tales, printed publications began to appear. Several collections of fairy tales have appeared, which include works with characteristic compositional and stylistic fairy-tale features: “The Tale of the Thief Timoshka” and “The Tale of the Gypsy” in V. Levshin’s collection “Russian Fairy Tales” (1780-1783), “The Tale of Ivan the Bogatyr” , a peasant’s son” in P. Timofeev’s collection “Russian Fairy Tales” (1787). In the 60s years XIX V. A.N. Afanasyev published a collection “Treasured Tales”, which included satirical tales about bars and priests. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. A number of important, well-prepared collections of fairy tales appear. They gave an idea of ​​the distribution of works of this genre, its state, and put forward new principles of collecting and publishing. After the October Revolution, collecting fairy tales, as well as collecting works of folklore in general, took on organized forms.

Mikhailova O. S. Considered: tales about animals. Historical roots of fairy tales about animals (animistic, anthropomorphic, totemistic ideas, folk beliefs). Evolution of the genre. Heroes of fairy tales about animals. Style. Absence of abstract fable allegorism. The satirical function of allegories. Irony. Paradoxical plot. Dialogue. Compositional features. Cumulative tales. Fairy tales. Miracle, magic as a fairy-tale-plot basis of fairy tales. Historical roots of fairy tales (mythological ideas, folk demonology, folk rituals, everyday prohibitions, magic, etc.). Poetic conventions of fairy tales. The main ideas of fairy tales. Compositional features. Features of the author's word. Dialogue. Fairy tales. Heroes and their functions. Fairytale chronotope. Everyday tales. The closeness of an everyday fairy tale to a short story. Ways of forming the genre of short story tales. Typology of everyday tales (family tales, about masters and servants, about the clergy, etc.). Poetics and style (everyday “groundedness”, entertaining plot, hyperbolization in the depiction of characters, etc.).

One cannot but agree with the opinion of V.P. Anikin that fairy tales seem to have subjugated time, and this applies not only to fairy tales. In each era they live their own special lives. Where does a fairy tale have such power over time? Let us think about the essence of the similarity that fairy tales have with equally stable, seemingly “timeless” truths expressed by proverbs. A fairy tale and a proverb are united by the extraordinary breadth of artistic generalization contained in them. Perhaps this property is revealed most clearly in allegorical tales.

The next genre is “epic”. The word “epic” is raised to the word “byl”; it means a story about what once happened, what happened, the reality of which they believed. The word "epic" as a term denoting folk songs with a specific content and specific artistic form. The epic is the fruit of artistic invention and poetic flight of imagination. But fiction and fantasy are not a distortion of reality. Epics always contain deep artistic and life truth. The content of the epic is extremely varied. Basically, this is an “epic” song, i.e. narrative in nature. The main core of the epic consists of songs of heroic content. The heroes of these songs do not seek personal happiness, they perform feats in the name of the interests of the Russian land. The main characters of the Russian epic are warriors. But the type heroic epic- not the only one, although it is the most characteristic of the Russian epic. Along with heroic ones, there are epics of fairy-tale-heroic or purely fairy-tale character. Such, for example, are the epics about Sadko and his stay in underwater kingdom. An epic narrative can also have a social-everyday or family-everyday character (novelistic epics). Some of these epics can be classified as a special group of ballad songs. It is not always possible to draw the line between epic and ballad songs.

In folklore collections, epics of both heroic, fairy-tale, and novelistic nature are usually placed side by side. Such a combination gives a correct idea of ​​the breadth and scope of Russian epic creativity. Taken together, all this material forms a single whole - Russian folk epic. Currently, we have a huge amount of epic material, and the epic can be well studied. From the end of the 17th century. epic stories (“Ilya and the Nightingale the Robber”, “Mikhailo Potyk”, etc.) penetrate into the handwritten story and are presented as entertaining reading material under the name “History”, “Word” or “Tale” [9]. Some of these stories are very close to the epic and can be divided into verses, others are the result of complex literary processing under the influence of ancient everyday literature, fairy tales, Russian and Western European adventure novels. Such “histories” were very popular, especially in cities where genuine epics were written in the 17th - 18th centuries. was little known. The first collection containing epics in the proper sense is the “Collection of Kirsha Danilov,” first published by A.F. Yakubovich in 1804 under the title “Ancient Russian Poems.” It was most likely created in Western Siberia . The manuscript contains 71 songs, with notes for each text. There are about 25 epics here. Most of the songs were recorded from voices, the recordings are very accurate, many features of the singers’ language have been preserved, and the texts are of very great artistic value. Kirsha Danilov is traditionally considered the creator of the collection, but who he is and what his role in compiling this first collection of epics and historical songs in Russia is unknown. The first collector of epics was Pyotr Vasilyevich Kireevsky (1808 - 1856). Kireyevsky not only collected songs himself, but also encouraged his friends and relatives to do this work. Among Kireyevsky's collaborators and correspondents were the poet Yazykov (his main assistant), Pushkin, Gogol, Koltsov, Dal, and scientists of that time. The epics were published as part of ten issues of “Songs collected by P.V. Kireevsky (1860 - 1874). The first five issues contain epics and ballads, the second half is devoted mainly to historical songs. The collection contains recordings of epics made in the Volga region, in some central provinces of Russia, in the North and in the Urals; These records are especially interesting because many of them were made in places where epics soon disappeared and were no longer recorded. One of the most remarkable collections of epics is a collection published by Pavel Nikolaevich Rybnikov (1832 - 1885). Having been exiled to Petrozavodsk, traveling around the province as secretary of the statistical committee, Rybnikov began to write down epics of the Olonets region. He recorded about 220 epic texts. The collection was published under the editorship of Bessonov in four volumes “Songs collected by P.N. Rybnikov” in 1861 - 1867. In addition to epics, this collection contains a number of wedding songs, lamentations, fairy tales, etc. The appearance of Rybnikov's collection was a great event in social and literary life. Together with Kireevsky's collection, it opened up a new field of science. Ten years after the appearance of Rybnikov’s collection, Alexander Fedorovich Hilferding went to the same places specifically for the purpose of recording epics. In two months he managed to record more than 300 texts. Some epics were recorded by him later, from singers who came to St. Petersburg. The collected songs entitled “Onega epics recorded by Alexander Fedorovich Hilferding in the summer of 1871” were published in one volume. There are 318 texts in total. The songs are arranged by region, village and performer. The texts were recorded with all the care and precision possible for the collector. From now on, arranging material by performer became the practice of publishing epics and fairy tales and continues to this day. The sixties were years of special attention to the poetry of peasants. During these years, “Folk Russian Tales” by A.N. Afanasyev (1855 - 1864), “Great Russian Tales” by I.A. Khudyakov (1863), “Proverbs of the Russian People” by V.I. Dahl (1861) were published. With the onset of the reaction of the 80s, interest in folk poetry fell for some time. Only in 1901 A.V. Markov published a small collection of “White Sea epics”. Markov moved to the far north and visited the eastern shore of the White Sea. In total, the collection contains 116 epics. The plot, style and form of existence of epics turned out to be significantly different here than in the Onega region. Several new subjects were found. In all respects, Markov’s collection significantly expanded the existing scientific understanding of the epic. One of the largest and most significant expeditions was the expedition of A.D. Grigoriev to the Arkhangelsk province, which lasted three summers. Over three summers of collecting work, he recorded 424 texts, which were subsequently published in three volumes entitled “Arkhangelsk epics and historical songs” (1904 - 1910). As a result, Grigoriev’s collection became the largest and one of the most interesting in Russian folklore. The records are highly accurate. For the first time, recording of epic melodies on a phonograph was widely used. A sheet music book is included with each volume. A detailed map of the North is attached to the entire publication, indicating the places where the epics were recorded. In 40 - 60 years. XIX century In Altai, the remarkable ethnographer Stepan Ivanovich Gulyaev recorded epics. Siberian records are of great importance, since they often retain a more archaic form of plot than in the North, where epics have changed more. Gulyaev recorded up to 50 epics and other epic songs. His entire collection was published only in Soviet times. In the summer months of 1908 - 1909. brothers Boris and Yuri Sokolov made a folklore expedition to the Belozersky region of the Novgorod province. It was well organized scientific expedition. Its goal was to cover all folklore with recordings. of this region. The predominant genres were fairy tales and songs, but unexpectedly epics were also found. 28 texts were recorded. Bylinas were collected not only in the North, in Siberia and the Volga region. Their existence in the 19th - 20th centuries. was discovered in places of Cossack settlements - on the Don, on the Terek, among the Astrakhan, Ural, and Orenburg Cossacks.

The largest collector of Don Cossack songs there was A.M. Listopadov, who devoted fifty years of his life to this work (starting from 1892 - 1894). As a result of multiple trips to Cossack villages Listopadov recorded a huge number of songs, including more than 60 epics; his notes provide a comprehensive picture of the Don epic in the form in which it was preserved by the beginning of the twentieth century. The value of Listopadov’s materials is especially enhanced by the fact that not only the texts, but also the tunes were recorded.

As a result of collecting work, it became possible to determine the features of the content and form of the Cossack epic, its plot composition, manner of execution, and to imagine the fate of the Russian epic in the Cossack regions. The merit of Russian scientists in the field of collecting epics is extremely great. Through their efforts, one of the best assets of Russian national culture was saved from oblivion. The work of collecting epics was carried out entirely by individual enthusiasts who, sometimes overcoming various and very difficult obstacles, selflessly worked on recording and publishing monuments of folk poetry.

After the October Revolution, the work of collecting epics took on a different character. Now it is beginning to be carried out systematically and systematically by research institutions. In 1926-1928. The State Academy of Art Sciences in Moscow equipped an expedition under the slogan “In the footsteps of Rybnikov and Hilferding.” The epics of the Onega region are among the best, and the Onega region is among the richest in epic tradition. As a result of planned and systematic work, 376 texts were recorded, many of them in excellent preservation.

Long-term and systematic work was carried out by Leningrad scientific institutions. In 1926 -1929. The State Institute of Art History sent complex art history expeditions to the North, which included folklorists. In 1931 - 1933 work on the creation of folklore was carried out by the folklore commission of the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences in Petrozavodsk. A total of 224 texts were published in the collection. The publication is distinguished by a high scientific level. For each of the epics, salts are given for all variants known in science. In subsequent years, expeditions were also organized to study epic genre. The collecting work of Russian scientists was intensive and fruitful both in pre-revolutionary and Soviet times. Much is stored in archives and is still waiting to be published. The number of published epics can be estimated at approximately 2,500 song units.

The concept of epics was also considered by V.V. Shuklin.

Epics and myths, the ancient epic genre of epics (North Russian people called them antiquities) took shape in the 10th century. The word epic, i.e. "truth". "act". Found in The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Its author begins his song “according to the epics of this time, and not according to the thoughts of Boyan.” The appearance of epics under Prince Vladimir is not accidental. His warriors performed their feats not on long campaigns, but in the fight against nomads, i.e. in plain sight, so they became available for epic chanting.

Also Anikin V.P. said that among oral works there are those by which the significance of folklore in folk life is primarily judged. For Russian folk, these are epics. Only fairy tales and songs stand next to them, but if we remember that ballads were both spoken and sung, then their predominance over other types of folklore will become clear. Epics differ from songs in their solemnity, and from fairy tales in the grandeur of their plot action. An epic is both a story and a majestic song speech. The combination of such properties became possible because epics arose in ancient times, when storytelling and singing were not yet separated as decisively as they happened later. Singing gave the storytelling solemnity, and storytelling through singing gave it a resemblance to the intonations of human speech. The solemnity of the tone corresponded to the glorification of the heroic deed in the epics, and the singing put the story into measured lines so that not a single detail would disappear from people’s memory. This is an epic, a song story.

It is also worth noting one of the genres of folklore, “legends,” which were discussed by T. V. Zueva and B. P. Kirdant.

Legends are prose works, in which fantastic understandings of events associated with phenomena inanimate nature, with the world of plants, animals, and people (planet, people, individuals); with supernatural beings(God, saints, angels, unclean spirits). The main functions of legends are explanatory and moralizing. The legends are associated with Christian ideas, but they also have a pagan basis. In legends, man turns out to be immeasurably higher than evil spirits

Legends existed both oral and written. The term “legend” itself comes from medieval writing and translated from Latin means “that which must be read.”

The following genres can be combined into one. Since they have a lot in common, these are proverbs and sayings. Kravtsov N.I. and Lazutin S.G. said that a proverb is a small non-lyrical genre of oral creativity; a form of saying that has entered into speech circulation, fitting into one grammatically and logically complete sentence, often rhythmic and supported by rhyme. It is characterized by extreme brevity and simplicity.

Sayings are closely related to proverbs. Like proverbs, sayings belong to small genres of folklore. In most cases they are even more concise than proverbs. Like proverbs, sayings are not specifically performed (they are not sung or told), but are used in lively colloquial speech. At the same time, sayings differ significantly from proverbs in the nature of the content, in the form, and in the functions performed in speech.

The collection and study of sayings went simultaneously with the collection and study of proverbs. N. P. Kolpakova, M. Ya. Melts and G. G. Shapovalova believed that the term “proverb” began to be used to designate a type of folk poetry only with late XVII V. Previously, proverbs were called “parables.” However, the existence of proverbs as special sayings expressing popular judgments in figurative form can be noted in very distant times. folklore fairy tale epic riddle

Many specific historical events of ancient Rus' found echoes in proverbs. However, the historical value of the proverb lies not only in this, but mainly in the fact that it preserved many historically developed views of the people, for example, the idea of ​​​​the unity of the army and the people: “Peace stands before the army, and the army stands before peace”; about the strength of the community: “The world will stand up for itself”, “You cannot win over the world”, etc. It is impossible not to emphasize the opinion of N. S. Ashukin and M. G. Ashukina. The proverb captures the high ethical ideals of the working people, their love for their homeland: “The native side is the mother, the foreign side is the stepmother”; deep respect for work, skill, skill, intelligence, courage, truth, honesty. Many proverbs have been created on these topics: “You can’t catch a fish from a pond without labor,” “Across the fields and through the brush,” “Crafts have their trade,” “ It's time, fun time”, “Ugly in face but good in mind”, “Learning is better than wealth”, “Truth is more valuable than gold”, “Poverty and honesty are better than profit and shame.” And, on the contrary, the proverb denounces laziness, deceit, drunkenness and other vices: “Laziness does no good, it dines without salt”, “Give him a flaky testicle”, “He spreads a leaf and aims to bite” (about duplicity), “He got drunk on honey , hung over with tears,” etc.

IN AND. Dahl also gave his own definition of a saying. A saying is a roundabout expression, figurative speech, a simple allegory, a circumlocution, a way of expression, but without a parable, without judgment, conclusion, application; this is the first half of the proverb.

Another major genre of folklore is the “riddle”. The object of a folk riddle is the diverse world of objects and phenomena surrounding a person.

The folk riddle also draws its images from the world of everyday objects and phenomena surrounding a person, which the worker encountered in the process of his activity.

The usual form of a riddle is a short description or a condensed story. Each riddle includes a hidden question: who is it? What is this? etc. In a number of cases, the riddle is expressed in a dialogical form: “Crooked and crafty, where did it run? - Green, curly, - watch out for you” (fence).

The riddle is distinguished by its two-part construction; it always involves a solution.

Many of the riddles have rhyming endings; in some, the first part rhymes, but the second part maintains the meter. Some riddles are based on the rhyming of words alone; The riddle rhymes with the answer: “What kind of matchmaker is there in the hut?” (grasp); “What kind of Samson is in the hut?” (screen).

The riddle is still preserved among the people not only as a means of entertainment, but also as a means of education, the development of children's intelligence and resourcefulness. The riddle answers the child's questions: what comes from? what is made of what? what are they doing? what is good for what?

The systematic collection of Russian folk riddles began only in the second half of the 19th century. By the 17th century Only records made by amateur collectors apply.

Proverbs and sayings

The collection and publication of proverbs began in the 17th century. However, in ancient collections Along with folk ones, proverbs of book origin were also included. The compilers discarded popular proverbs that were hostile to religion and the authorities. The most democratic tendencies in the selection and publication of folk proverbs appeared in N. Kurganov’s “Pismovnik” (1769), where the compiler included 908 proverbs.

In 1848, I. M. Snegirev published “Russian folk proverbs and parables.” His collection was dominated by genuine folk proverbs. Following Snegirev, in 1854. Proverbs were published by F. I. Buslaev. In a special article “Russian life and proverbs,” he commented on them from the point of view of mythological theory. In 1861 V. I. Dahl’s great work “Proverbs of the Russian People” was published, which included about 30,000 proverbs, sayings and other small genres of folk poetry. The most important collections of proverbs of the second half of the 19th century. and the beginning of the 20th century. there were collections: “Winged Words” by S. V. Maksimov (1890), “Aimed and Walking Words” by M. I. Mikhelson (1894), “The Life of the Russian People in their Proverbs and Sayings” by I. I. Illustrov (1915). Kravtsov N.I., Lazutin S.G. They believed that both proverbs and sayings, and riddles belong to the small (aphoristic) genres of folklore.

Riddles have a lot in common with proverbs and sayings in content and artistic form. However, they also have specific features and represent an independent genre of folklore.

The term “riddle” is of ancient origin. In the Old Russian language the word “guess” meant “to think”, “to reflect”. This is where the word “mystery” comes from. The riddle gives a substantive description of some phenomenon, the recognition of which requires considerable thought. Most often, riddles are allegorical in nature. Anikin V.P. said that the riddle emphasizes the variety of forms, the brightness of the colors of the world surrounding the peasant: “Red, round, oblong leaves” (rowan). Some riddles create a sound image: “I listen, I listen: sigh after sigh, but not a soul in the hut,” says the riddle about the dough, which makes a sound similar to a sigh during fermentation. Sound images appeared especially often in riddles about peasant work.

The world around us is a mystery constant movement: “Grayish, toothy, prowling around the field, looking for calves, looking for guys” (wolf); “The small, hunchbacked one crossed the whole field, went through all the paddocks” (reap); “Five sheep eat up the stack, five sheep run away” (hands and tow).

I would like to say a little about “tradition.” Folklorists have not yet given a sufficiently satisfactory and substantiated definition of legends. Often in scientific literature, traditions and legends are mixed, although these are different genres. This is explained by proximity, as well as the presence of transitional forms, some of which are closer to legends, while others are closer to legends.

Legends are popularly called “bylya” and “byvalshchina”. They are characterized by historical themes. The legends are close to historical songs, but have a prosaic form, not a poetic one.

Legends - epic, i.e. narrative, plot genre. The collection of Russian folk legends was not carried out systematically.

You also cannot miss such a genre of folklore as “ditties”. Zueva T.V. and Kirdant B.P. emphasize that the most developed genre of late traditional folklore are ditties.

Chats are short rhymed lyrical songs that were created and performed as a lively response to various life phenomena, expressing a clear positive or negative assessment. Many ditties contain jokes or irony. The earliest ditties had six lines. The main type - four-line - was formed in the second half of the 19th century; it was performed with and without dance. The dance ditties themselves are also four-line, which are performed only to dance (for example, to a square dance).

In addition, there are two-line ditties: “suffering” and “Semyonovna”.

The chastushkas have varied, but repetitive, stable melodies, both drawn-out and fast. It is typical to perform many texts in one tune. In live existence, ditties are sometimes characterized by recitativeness.

Chastushki finally took shape in the last quarter of the 19th century. Simultaneously in different parts of Russia: in the center, middle and lower Volga region, in the northern, eastern and southern provinces.

Chatushki is the main genre of peasant lyrics in later traditional folklore. And finally, I would like to consider a few more genres of folklore—all varieties of “songs.” Which are described in detail by S.V. Alpatov, V.P. Anikin, T.B. Dianova, A.A. Ivanova, A.V. Kulagina. Definition of the genre and the question of the limitation of the term “historical song”. The difference between a historical song and an epic. Continuity of historical songs with epics. Historical song as a stage in the development of epic creativity. Principles of selective, interested depiction of events and persons in historical songs. A historical song as a work relevant for its time and the question of the subsequent transformation of its meaning and images. Early examples of historical songs: a song about Avdotya Ryazanochka, about the murder of Shchelkan Dudentievich, Polonyanki (“Mother meets daughter in Tatar captivity”, etc.). The diversity of early historical songs and the question of later changes in them. A cycle of songs about Ivan the Terrible and the events of his reign (“The Capture of Kazan”, “Temryuk-Mastryuk”, “The Wrath of Ivan the Terrible on His Son”, “Raid of the Crimean Khan”, etc.), about Ermak (“Ermak in the Cossack Circle”, etc. .), about the Time of Troubles (“Grishka Otrepyev”, “The Cry of Ksenia Godunova”, “Skopin-Shuisky”, “Minin and Pozharsky”), etc. The people’s view of historical figures and understanding of the meaning of their activities. Cossack historical songs about Stepan Razin (“Razin and Cossack circle " “Razin’s March to Yaik”, “Sonny”, “Razin near Astrakhan”, “Song of the Razins”. “Esaul reports on the execution of Razin”). Poeticization of Razin as the leader of the Cossack freemen. Condemnation of Razin by the Cossack circle. The lyrical beginning as a factor transforming the epic narrative. A special lyrical-epic structure of the songs. Historical songs about Peter the Great and the events of his reign (“The Tsar judges the archers.” “About the beginning of the Northern War”, “Well done going to Poltava”, “Tsar Peter on the ship”, etc.). Historical songs about the events of the Patriotic War of 1812 (“Napoleon writes a letter to Alexander”, “Kutuzov calls to defeat the French”, “Napoleon in Moscow”, “Cossack Platov”, etc.). Question about songwriters. Reflection of the thoughts and feelings of soldiers in songs. The idea of ​​defending the fatherland. New themes in soldier and Cossack historical songs in comparison with songs from other cycles. Types of characters in historical songs: folk hero, king, commander. Image of the people. Poetics and style of historical songs. Genre varieties: epic songs (with a detailed plot, one-episode), lyric-epic songs. Collections of historical songs of the XIII - XIX centuries. four books published in the series “Monuments of Russian Folklore”, Institute of Russian Literature Ak. Sciences, 19601973. Ballad songs. The term “ballad” and its history (Provençal dance songs of the 11th-17th centuries; Anglo-Scottish ballads; literary romantic ballads). Russian folk names for ballad songs: “verse”, “song”. Definition of the genre, its characteristics. The most important properties of ballad songs: epicness, family and everyday themes, psychological drama, the art of the tragic. Origin of ballad songs. The question of the time of their origin is debatable: a look at the appearance of ballads in the era of the decomposition of ancient syncretism (A. N. Veselovsky), in the early period of written history (N. P. Andreev), in the Middle Ages (V. M. Zhirmunsky, D. M Balashov, B. N. Putilov, V. P. Anikin). Ballad songs about the Tatar (later Turkish) Polon: “The girl was taken prisoner by the Tatars”, “Russian girl in Tatar captivity”, “The red girl is running from the Polon”, “The rescue of the Polonyanka”, “Prince Roman and Marya Yuryevna”, “Two slaves” ", "Escape of slaves from captivity." Later adaptations of ballads about polon: “Young Khancha”, “Pan brings Russian polonyanka to his wife”. Plots of ballad songs of the 14th-16th centuries: “Vasily and Sophia”, “Dmitry and Domna”, “Rowanka”, “Prince Mikhailo”, “Widow’s Children”, etc. Love ballads: “Dmitry and Domna”, “Cossack and tavern ”, “The kidnapping of a girl”, “A girl defends her honor”, ​​“A nun drowns a child”. Family and everyday ballads: “Prince Roman was losing his wife”, “The husband was ruining his wife”, “Rowan”; “Fedor Kolyshatoy”, “Alyosha and the sister of two brothers”, “Brother, sister and lover”, “Sister-poisoner”, “Daughter of a thousand-man”, “Forcible tonsure”. Incest theme: “Hunter and his sister”, “Brother married his sister”, “Ivan Dorodorovich and Sophia the princess”, etc. Ballads of the 17th-18th centuries: “The slandered wife”, “The wife of her husband stabbed to death”, “The Robber Brothers” and sister”, “The Robber’s Wife”, etc. The crisis of the traditional ballad genre. Appearance at the end of the 18th century the beginning of the nineteenth V. new ballads. Ballads: o social inequality: “Well done and the princess”, “Prince Volkonsky and Vanya the key-keeper”, “The princess and the chamberlain”, “The girl dies from the love of the voivode’s son”; about poverty and grief: “Grief”, “Well done and grief”, “Well done and the Smorodina River”, etc. Features of the composition and plot of ballads: open course of action, predicted fatal outcome, tragic recognition. The role of monologues and dialogues. Dramatic. Single-conflict. Dynamics of action development. Characteristics: destroyer, victim. Fantastic motifs: metamorphosis, werewolf, talking animals and birds, magical (living and dead water as a means of healing). The art of psychological depiction. Poetic language, allegory. Connections between ballads and epics, historical songs, spiritual poems, lyrical songs). New ballads, their connections with old ones (plot and thematic similarities and differences). History of collecting ballads. Collection by N. P. Andreev and V. I. Chernyshev, collection by D. M. Balashov.

Lyrical songs. Definition genre features non-ritual songs as a type of folk lyrics: their freedom from ritual, relative non-confinement to the time of performance, the predominance of poetic functions over pragmatic ones, the use of a peculiar metaphorical and symbolic language for versatile life content and revealing the inner world of a person. The possibility of lyrical non-ritual songs being included in rituals and work cycles and the diversity of folk terminology explained by this. Genetic connection of non-ritual songs with ritual lyrics (spells, magnifications, lamentations, game songs) and ballads. Continuity and processing of artistic traditions in the process of style formation. Problems of classification of non-ritual lyrical songs. A variety of principles of systematization: by theme (love, family, recruiting, daring), by the social environment of creation and existence (soldiers, burlats, coachmen, Cossacks, etc.), by the predominant composition of performers (male and female), by the forms of melody and intra-syllable chants (frequent and drawn-out), by connection with movement (stepping, marching, dancing), by emotional dominant (comic, satirical). A combination of several principles when creating scientific classifications (V. Ya. Propp, N. P. Kolpakova, T. M. Akimova, V. I. Eremina). System of artistic images of non-ritual lyrics. Diversity folk characters and social types in songs, depicting diverse relationships between people. Images of nature, everyday life, social phenomena. The place of conditionally generalized images of love, longing, grief, will, separation, death and others in the artistic system of folk lyrics. Characteristic features of combining diverse images in the creation of symbolic pictures that form the subject-content basis of non-ritual songs. Techniques for portraying characters: idealization, humor, satire. Features of the composition of non-ritual songs. Their structure is based on their belonging to the lyrical genre. Figurative-symbolic parallelism and its forms (A. N. Veselovsky), the technique of stepwise narrowing of images (B. M. Sokolov), the principle of chain-associative connection (S. G. Lazutin), the juxtaposition of autonomous thematic and stylistic formulas (G. I Maltsev). N.P. Kolpakova, N.I. Kravtsov about the main types and forms of composition. Poetic language of non-ritual lyrics: functions constant epithets, comparisons, metaphors, antithesis. Stereotypical stable verbal complexes in songs. The originality of the rhythmic-syntactic structure of folk song verse (repetition system, syllable breaks, intra-syllabic chants, stanzas, meter). The use of lexical and phonetic expressiveness of oral speech in lyrics. Collection of folk songs. Activities of P. V. Kireevsky. Folk lyrics as part of the collection of P. V. Shein, a collection of folk songs by A. I. Sobolevsky “Great Russian folk songs.” Types of publications of songs of local traditions.

Spiritual poems. Definition of spiritual poems as a complex of epic, lyric-epic and lyrical works, the unifying principle of which is the concept of “spiritual,” religious-Christian, opposed to the worldly, secular. Popular names for the genre: “poems”, “antiques”, “psalms”, “cants”. Origin of Spiritual Poems and Sources: Books Holy Scripture(Dilapidated and New Testament), Christian canonical and apocryphal literature that penetrated into Rus' after Baptism from the end of the 10th century. (lives, biblical stories, moral stories, etc.), church sermons and liturgy. Senior spiritual poems (epic) and junior (lyrical). The creators and performers of spiritual poems are kaliki (cripples) travelers, pilgrims to holy places. Folk rethinking of biblical and evangelical themes, lives, apocrypha. “Spiritual poems are the result of the people’s aesthetic assimilation of the ideas of Christian doctrine” (F. M. Selivanov). The main idea of ​​spiritual verses: affirmation of the superiority of the spiritual over the material, physical, glorification of asceticism, martyrdom for the faith, denunciation of sinfulness, non-observance of God's commandments. Reflection of cosmogonic ideas in older spiritual verses. Main themes and plots: poems about the universe (“Pigeon Book”); on biblical Old Testament stories (“Osip the Beautiful”, “Lamentation of Adam”); evangelical (“The Nativity of Christ”, “The Massacre of the Innocents”, “The Dream of the Virgin Mary”, “The Crucifixion of Christ”, “The Ascension”); about heroes-snake fighters (“Fedor Tiron”, “Egory and the Serpent”), martyrs (“Egory and Demyanishche”, “Kirik and Ulita”, “Galaktion and Epistimia”, “About the Great Martyr Barbara”), ascetics (“Josaph and Varlaam ”, “Alexey the man of God”); miracle workers (“Mikola”, “Dmitry of Thessaloniki”); righteous and sinners (“Two Lazaruses”, “About Mary of Egypt”, “About the Prodigal Son”, “Anika the Warrior); about the end of the world and the Last Judgment (“Mikhailo the formidable archangel judge”, “Archangels Mikhailo and Gabriel - carriers across the fiery river”). Echoes of pagan beliefs in poems about the raw mother earth (“The Cry of the Earth”, “The Unforgivable Sin”, “The Rite of Farewell to the Earth before Confession”). Edifying poems about worldly temptations and salvation in the desert, the need for repentance (“Friday and the Hermit,” “Poem about laziness,” “Basily of Caesarea”). Poems based on stories from ancient Russian history(“Boris and Gleb”, “Alexander Nevsky”, “Mikhail and Fedor of Chernigov”, “Dmitry Donskoy”). Younger spiritual poems (psalms, cants) on themes from Old Believer history (XVII-XI centuries): “About Nikon”, “Verse about the Antichrist”, “Mount Athos” and songs of sectarian mystics (Skoptsy, Khlysty). Poetics. General folklore properties of spiritual poems, allowing them to be correlated with epics, ballads, historical and lyrical songs. The influence of literary Christian stylistics, the widespread use of Church Slavonicisms. Spatio-temporal characteristics of the artistic world of spiritual poems. The specificity of the miraculous, associated in them with Christ and the saints (healing of the sick, invulnerability during torture, resurrection from the dead, etc.). Composition (a chain of episodes of a particular event or the life of a character). Monologue poems (“The Lamentation of Joseph the Beautiful”), the role of dialogues (“The Dream of the Virgin Mary”). Poetic language (epithets, parallelisms, comparisons). Image of the earth after the Last Judgment. Description of the separation of the soul from the body, crossing the fiery river, etc. History of the collection (P.V. Kireevsky, V.G. Varentsov, T.S. Rozhdestvensky and M.I. Uspensky). Study of spiritual verses. Mythological direction (F. I. Buslaev, A. N. Afanasyev, O. F. Miller); cultural and historical direction (research by A. N. Veselovsky, A. I. Kirpichnikov, V. P. Adrianova); historical and everyday life (“Materials on the history of the study of Russian sectarianism and schism (Old Believers)” edited by V. D. Bonch-Bruevich (St. Petersburg, 1908-1911), four issues). Resumption of research in the early 70s of the twentieth century. : articles by Yu. A. Novikov, S. E. Nikitina, F. M. Selivanov and others.

This is folk art, covering all cultural levels of society. People's lives, their views, ideals, moral principles - all this is reflected both in artistic folklore (dance, music, literature) and material (clothing, kitchen utensils, housing).

Back in 1935, the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky, speaking at the First Congress of Writers of the USSR, accurately described folklore and its significance in public life: “... the most profound artistic images of heroes exist in folklore, the oral creativity of the people. Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovich, Vasilisa "The wise, ironic Ivanushka the Fool, who never loses heart, Petrushka, who always conquers everyone. These images were created by folklore and they are an inseparable part of the life and culture of our society."

Folklore (" folk knowledge") is a separate scientific discipline, on which research is carried out, abstracts are created, dissertations are written. In Russian literature of the 19th century, the terms “folk poetry” and “folk literature” were widely used.

Oral folk art, folklore genres

Songs, fairy tales, legends, epics - this is not a complete list. Oral folk art is a vast layer of Russian culture that has been formed over the centuries. The genres of folklore are divided into two main directions - non-ritual and ritual.

• Calendar - Maslenitsa songs, Christmas carols, vesnyanka and other examples of folk song creativity.
• Family folklore - wedding songs, lamentations, lullabies, family stories.
• Occasional - spells, counting rhymes, incantations, chants.

Non-ritual folklore includes four groups:

1. Folk drama - religious, nativity scene, Parsley theater.

2. Folk poetry - ballads, epics, spiritual poems, lyrical songs, ditties, children's songs and poems.

3. Folklore prose is divided into fairy-tale and non-fairytale. The first includes fairy tales about animals, everyday life, fairy tales, and chain fairy tales (for example, the story of Kolobok). Non-fairy tale prose is stories from life telling about human encounters with images of Russian demonology - mermaids and merman, sorcerers and witches, ghouls and ghouls. This subcategory also includes stories about shrines and miracles of the Christian faith, about higher powers. Forms of non-fairy tale prose:

• legends;
• mythological stories;
• epics;
• dream books;
• legends;

4. Oral folklore: tongue twisters, well wishes, nicknames, proverbs, curses, riddles, teasers, sayings.

The genres of folklore, examples of which are given here, are considered basic.

Folklore genres in literature

These are poetic works and prose - epics, fairy tales, legends. Many literary forms are also classified as folklore, which reflects three main directions: dramatic, lyrical and epic. Of course, the genres of folklore in literature are not limited to this, there are many more of them, but the categories listed are a kind of empirics that have been developed over the years.

Dramatic images

Dramatic folk art includes folk dramas in the form of fairy tales with unfavorable developments and happy ending. Any legend in which there is a struggle between good and evil can be dramatic. The characters defeat each other with varying degrees of success, but in the end good triumphs.

Genres of folklore in literature. Epic component

Russian folklore (epic) is based on historical songs with extensive themes, when guslars can spend hours telling stories about life in Rus' under quiet strings. This is genuine folk art passed down from generation to generation. Except literary folklore with musical accompaniment there is oral folk art, legends and epics, traditions and tales.

Epic art is usually closely intertwined with the dramatic genre, since all adventures epic heroes Russian lands are in one way or another connected with battles and exploits for the glory of justice. The main representatives of epic folklore are Russian heroes, among whom Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich, as well as the imperturbable Alyosha Popovich, stand out.

Genres of folklore, examples of which can be given endlessly, are built on heroes fighting monsters. Sometimes a hero is helped by an inanimate object that has fabulous powers. This could be a treasure sword that cuts off dragon heads in one fell swoop.

Epic tales tell about colorful characters - Baba Yaga, who lives in a hut on chicken legs, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Ivan Tsarevich, who is nowhere without Gray wolf, and even about Ivan the Fool - a happy fairy-tale character with an open Russian soul.

Lyrical form

This folklore genre includes works of folk art, mostly ritual ones: love songs, lullabies, funny ditties and lamentations. Much depends on intonation. Even sentences, spells, bells and whistles with the aim of bewitching a loved one, and those can sometimes be classified as folklore lyrics.

Folklore and authorship

Works of a fabulous literary genre(author's) often cannot be formally classified as folklore, such as, for example, Ershov's "The Tale of the Little Humpbacked Horse" or Bazhov's tale "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" due to their being written by a certain writer. However, these stories have their own folklore source, were told somewhere and by someone in one form or another, and then transferred by the writer into book form.

Genres of folklore, examples of which are well-known, popular and recognizable, do not need clarification. The reader can easily figure out which of the authors came up with their own plot and who borrowed it from the past. It’s another matter when genres of folklore, examples of which are familiar to most readers, are challenged by someone. In this case, specialists must understand and draw competent conclusions.

Controversial art forms

There are examples when fairy tales by modern authors, in their structure, literally ask to be included in folklore, but it is known that the plot does not have sources from the depths of folk art, but was invented by the author himself from beginning to end. For example, the work of Eduard Uspensky “Three in Prostokvashino”. There is a folklore outline - the postman Pechkin alone is worth something. And the story itself is fabulous in essence. However, if authorship is determined, then folklore affiliation can only be conditional. Although many authors believe that differences are not necessary, art is art, regardless of form. Which genres of folklore coincide with literary canons can be determined by a number of characteristics.

The difference between folklore works and literary works

Literary works, such as a novel, short story, story, essay, are distinguished by their measured, unhurried narration. The reader gets the opportunity to analyze what he read on the go, while delving into the idea of ​​the plot. Folklore works are more impulsive, and besides, they contain only them inherent elements, such as a saying, a beginning, a saying or a chorus. Often the narrator slows down the action for greater effect, using duality or trinity of the narrative. In folklore, open tautology is widely used, sometimes even accentuated. Parallelisms and exaggerations are common. All these techniques are organic for folklore works, although they are completely unacceptable in ordinary literature.

Different peoples, incompatible in their mentality, are often united by factors of a folklore nature. Folk art contains universal motifs, such as the common desire for everyone to reap a good harvest. Both the Chinese and the Portuguese think about this, although they live on different ends of the continent. The population of many countries is united by the desire for a peaceful existence. Since people everywhere are the same by nature, their folklore is not much different, if you do not keep in mind the external signs.

The geographical proximity of different nationalities contributes to rapprochement, and this process also begins with folklore. First of all, cultural ties are established, and only after the spiritual unification of the two peoples do politicians come to the fore.

Small genres of Russian folklore

Small folklore works are usually intended for children. The child does not perceive a long story or fairy tale, but listens with pleasure to the story about the Little Gray Top, who can grab a barrel. In the process of raising children, small genres of Russian folklore appeared. Each work of this form contains a special grain of meaning, which, as the narrative progresses, turns into either a moral or a small moral lesson.

However, most small forms of the folklore genre are chants, songs, and jokes that are useful for the development of a child. There are 5 genres of folklore that are successfully used in raising children:

• A lullaby is the oldest way to lull a child to sleep. Usually the melodic melody is accompanied by rocking of the cradle or crib, so it is important to find a rhythm when singing.
• Pestushki - simple rhymes, melodious wishes, affectionate parting words, soothing lamentations for a newly awakened child.
• Nursery rhymes are recitative songs that accompany playing with the baby’s arms and legs. They promote the development of the child, encourage him to act in an unobtrusive playful way.
• Jokes are short stories, often in verse, funny and sonorous, which mothers tell their children every day. Growing children need to be told jokes in accordance with their age so that children understand every word.
• Counting books are small rhymes that are good for developing a child’s arithmetic abilities. They are an obligatory part of collective children's games when lots need to be drawn.

Oral folk art is the traditional verbal creativity of the people. It can be both ancient and new - created in our days. Its main feature is that this art of words is passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth.

There are a lot of genres in verbal folk art. These are myths and legends, epics, epics, proverbs and sayings, riddles, ditties, fairy tales, songs... The list of them can be endless. The creator is not individual, and the people. That is why not a single work has its own specific, single author.

Over the centuries, the creations of people have evolved into entire verbal forms, which subsequently form rhymes (“verses”). Thanks to this technique, the works were easier to transmit and remember. Thus, ritual, round dance, dance, and lullaby songs appeared.

Subjects folklore creativity completely depended and continues to depend on the culture, beliefs, history and region of residence of the people. But the main feature of such creations was and remains the combination of a direct reflection of life with a conventional one. Simply put, in folklore there is not, and there has not been, a mandatory reflection of life in the form of life itself; convention is always allowed in it.

Genres of folklore

To better understand what oral folk art is, it is necessary to become more familiar with its genres, and in this form verbal art, a great many.

Proverbs and sayings

Let's start with those that we know well and sometimes use in everyday life - with proverbs and sayings. These types of oral art are one of the most interesting genres that have survived to this day.

No one knows for certain when these genres of oral creativity appeared. The undoubted fact remains how accurately and concisely, figuratively, logically complete, the saying expresses the people's mind and experience accumulated over many centuries.

Meanwhile, many of us have long been accustomed to thinking that proverbs and sayings are one and the same thing. Actually this is not true. A proverb is a complete sentence containing folk wisdom. It is written in simple, often rhyming language.

Example of Russian proverbs:

"God saves man, who save himself"

"Small spool but precious"

“A penny saves the ruble”

Then, as a saying, it is an established phrase or phrase. It is intended for decoration.

Example of Russian sayings:

“Stay with your nose” (be deceived)

“Disservice” (help that turns into harm)

“When the cancer whistles on the mountain” (never)

Signs

Signs are another folklore genre that has undergone quite a few changes, but still has not lost its wisdom and has reached modern people.

It appeared in ancient times, when our ancestors were very close to nature, when people observed it, the phenomena occurring around them, and found connections between events. Over time, people put their observations into words. This is how signs appeared, which through the centuries carry the collected knowledge of their ancestors.

Some examples of weather signs:

The larks fly to the warmth, the chaffinch to the cold.

A lot of sap flows from a birch tree - for a rainy summer.

Sparrows bathe in the sand - predicting rain.

Also, many old signs related to home and everyday life have survived to this day. The most common is: “Spilling salt means shedding tears.” It is believed that this sign appeared in the middle of the 17th century, during the times of riots and uprisings in Rus'. Back then, salt was literally worth its weight in gold. This is where the meaning came from - spilling such an expensive “seasoning” like salt will inevitably lead to a quarrel in the house.

A few more examples of everyday signs that are undoubtedly familiar to us:

“If you whistle at home, you’ll miss the money”

“Clothes inside out means hassle”

“If you sew on yourself, you will sew up a memory”

Fairy tales

Since ancient times, certain elements of children's folklore - fairy tales - have also been preserved. Later, this genre of oral art changed greatly. this happened under the influence of aesthetic and pedagogical functions, but still it continues to exist.

However, some genres of verbal art “die out” over time, and humanity gradually forgets about them. This process is a natural phenomenon, it does not indicate the decline of folk art. On the contrary, the process of “dying away” is a sign that, due to changes in the conditions of human existence, the artistic collective creativity of the people is developing, as a result of which new genres appear and old ones disappear.

Epics

These genres include epics (or as they were also called - antiquities - Russian heroic-patriotic songs-legends, the main plot of which was important historical events or heroic deeds of heroes and warrior maidens). This genre originated in Ancient Rus', existed until the Middle Ages and gradually began to be forgotten by the 19th century.

In addition, ritual folklore can also be classified as almost forgotten genres. Let's look at its components a little closer.

Calendar folklore and annual song cycle

These small genres arose due to the need to monitor the agricultural cycle, as well as changes occurring in nature and religious holidays.

Many proverbs, signs, advice and prohibitions have developed in calendar folklore. Here are some of which have survived to this day:

“If it melts early, it won’t melt for a long time”

“March sows with snow and warms with sun”

Quite a few songs were composed by the people for the annual song cycle. So on Maslenitsa it was customary to bake pancakes, perform rituals of farewell to winter and sing ritual songs. This and some other old traditions have been preserved to this day.

Family folklore

It included such small genres as: family stories, lullabies, nurseries, nursery rhymes, wedding songs, funeral laments.

The name “Family Stories” speaks for itself, and this genre of verbal art has existed since time immemorial - perhaps as long as a person has lived in this world. It is noteworthy in that it is formed quite separately, as a rule, within the framework of the family and close circle.

In addition, this genre has its own peculiarity, it can form “certain expressions” that are understandable only to family members or people present during the event that led to the appearance of this phrase. For example, in the Tolstoy family there was such an expression as “the architect is to blame.”

The birth of this expression was preceded by an event: when Ilya Tolstoy was five years old, he was given the promised cup for the New Year. Happy child ran to show everyone his gift. While running across the threshold, he tripped and fell. The cup broke. Little Ilya, justifying himself, said that he was not to blame, but the architect who made this threshold was to blame. Since then, the family of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy has had its own expression equivalent to the winged one - “the switchman is to blame.”

Lullabies

Another equally interesting genre in family folklore were lullabies. In the old days, the ability to sing lullabies was considered a special art. During the game, mothers taught their daughters how to “cradle” correctly. This ability was necessary so that older girls, already at the age of six or seven, could look after the younger ones. That is why special attention was paid to this skill.

The purpose of lullabies was not only to calm, but also to protect the child. Many songs were “conspiracies.” They were called upon to protect small child from the dangers that could await him in the future. Often lullabies were addressed to spirits and mythological creatures, carriers of sleep - Dream, Dream. They were called to lull the baby to sleep. Currently, this genre of folk art is almost forgotten.

Pestushki and nursery rhymes

Pestushki and nursery rhymes were short melodies. They helped the child in development and knowledge of the world around him. Perhaps someone remembers from childhood - “Magpie-Crow...”. Such small songs and sayings encouraged the baby to take action, instilled hygiene skills, developed fine motor skills and reflexes, and helped to explore the world.

Wedding songs

Wedding songs were strikingly different from all other small genres of family folklore. Notable was the fact that these songs were not played outside the wedding ceremony. Moreover, from a functional point of view, they were extremely important, since they played a kind of “legal role” in this event. Along with wedding songs, lamentations played an important role in the ritual. They were an integral part of the holiday; they were lyrical narratives that described the experiences of the bride, parents and girlfriends.

Glorification also played a significant role. Guests used them in songs to praise the bride and groom and wish the newlyweds well-being and happiness. On top of that, not a single wedding could be complete without reproachful songs. This small component of the wedding ceremony consisted of comic songs. As a rule, they were addressed to matchmakers, because of whom the bride “left” her family, girlfriends and lost her maiden will.

Funeral lamentations or laments are another ancient folklore genre, the time and appearance of which no one knows for certain. It has survived only in “scraps” to this day, but from the name you can easily understand what we are talking about and what this genre served for.

The main feature of this oral creativity was that it had its own “formula”, or better yet, a strict sequence, which each mourner “decorated” with his own creative element - a story about the life, love or death of the deceased. Now, for example, part of the ritual, as well as crying, can be seen and heard in the film “Viy” (1967).

Occasional folklore

Folklore that does not correspond to generally accepted use. It had an individual character, determined by a specific situation and occasion. It included such small genres as chants, counting rhymes, and conspiracies.

Calls

Russian folklore is incredibly rich. They were small songs, often not devoid of humor and accompanied by playful actions. The plots of this small genre were very different: they could be chants about the weather and weather phenomena, about nature and the seasons, about animals and fairy-tale creatures...

Rain, rain! Rain, rain!

On me and on people!

A spoonful for me.

For people it’s okay.

And for the devil in the forest -

Lei a whole bucket!

Counting books

Counting tables are another small genre of verbal folk art. It arose a long time ago, but has now almost disappeared from modern folklore. Meanwhile, no matter how surprising it may sound, in ancient times, counting rhymes were widely used by adults. Their main function was the distribution of work.

Yes Yes. After all, then many types of work were not only very difficult, but sometimes life-threatening. Therefore, few people of their own free will wanted to take on such a task. And the counting rhymes made it possible to distribute the work between the participants so that no one would be “offended.” Nowadays this " important role"counting rhymes have been lost, but they still exist and still perform their function in children's games.

CONSPIRACY

And finally, the most amazing, but far from the last, ancient genre of oral folk art, quite complex in its structure, which, oddly enough, continues to live in our time - conspiracy. Function, since its inception of this genre, has not changed. He still continues to play the role of a “magic weapon” designed to fulfill the wish of the speaker. As mentioned above, this genre is quite original in its execution and is often complex in its design - this is its peculiarity.

We can talk about the genres of oral folk art for an infinitely long time, because all directions are interesting and unique in their own way. This article is intended only to acquaint the reader with the immense, multifaceted wealth of human culture and wisdom, which clearly reflects the experience of previous generations.

The theme of oral folk art in Russian literature is extremely diverse; there are numerous genres and types of folklore. All of them were formed gradually, as a result of life and creative activity people, manifested over several hundred years. Currently, there are specific types of folklore in literature. Oral folk art is that unique layer of knowledge on the basis of which thousands of classical works were built.

Interpretation of the term

Folklore is oral folk art, endowed with ideological depth and highly artistic qualities; it includes all poetic and prose genres, customs and traditions, accompanied by verbal artistic creativity. Folklore genres are classified in different ways, but basically there are several genre groups:

1. Labor songs - formed in the process of work, for example, sowing, plowing, haymaking. They represent a variety of shouts, signals, chants, parting words, and songs.
2. Calendar folklore - conspiracies, signs.
3. Wedding folklore.
4. Funeral lamentations, recruiting lamentations.
5. Non-ritual folklore is small folklore genres, proverbs, fables, signs and sayings.
6. Oral prose - traditions, legends, tales and incidents.
7. Children's folklore - pestushki, nursery rhymes, lullabies.
8. Song epic (heroic) - epics, poems, songs (historical, military, spiritual).
9. Artistic creativity - magical, everyday tales and tales about animals, ballads, romances, ditties.
10. Folklore theater - raek, nativity scene, mummers, performances with dolls.

Let's look at the most common types of folklore in more detail.

Labor songs

This is a song genre, the distinctive feature of which is the obligatory accompaniment of the labor process. Labor songs are a way of organizing collective, social work, setting the rhythm using a simple melody and text. For example: “Wow, let’s get a little more friendly to make it more fun.” Such songs helped to start and finish work, united the working team and were spiritual helpers in difficult times. physical labor people.

Calendar folklore

This type of oral folk art belongs to the ritual traditions of the calendar cycle. The life of a peasant working on the land is inextricably linked with weather conditions. That is why a huge number of rituals appeared that were performed to attract good luck, prosperity, large offspring of livestock, successful farming, etc. The most revered holidays of the calendar were considered Christmas, Maslenitsa, Easter, Epiphany and Trinity. Each celebration was accompanied by songs, chants, incantations and ritual actions. Let us remember the famous custom of singing songs to Kolyada on the night before Christmas: “Cold is not a problem, Kolyada is knocking on the house. Christmas is coming to the house, bringing a lot of joy.”

Wedding folklore

Each place had its own types of folklore, but mostly they were lamentations, sentences and songs. Wedding folklore includes song genres that accompanied three main rituals: matchmaking, farewell of parents to the bride and wedding celebration. For example: “Your product, our merchant, is simply a miracle!” The ritual of handing over the bride to the groom was very colorful and was always accompanied by both drawn-out and short cheerful songs. At the wedding itself, the songs did not stop; they mourned their single life, wished for love and family well-being.

Non-ritual folklore (small genres)

This group of oral folk art includes all types of small genres of folklore. However, this classification is ambiguous. For example, many of the types relate to children's folklore, such as pesters, lullabies, riddles, nursery rhymes, teasers, etc. At the same time, some researchers divide all folklore genres into two groups: calendar-ritual and non-ritual.

Let's consider the most popular types small genres of folklore.

A proverb is a rhythmic expression, wise saying, which carries a generalized thought and has a conclusion.

Signs - a short verse or expression telling about those signs that will help predict natural phenomena and weather.

A proverb is a phrase, often with a humorous slant, illuminating a life phenomenon or situation.

A saying is a short verse addressing natural phenomena, living beings, and surrounding objects.

A tongue twister is a small phrase, often rhymed, with words that are difficult to pronounce, designed to improve diction.

Oral prose

The following types of Russian folklore belong to oral prose.

Traditions are stories about historical events in folk retelling. The heroes of legends are warriors, kings, princes, etc.

Legends are myths, epic stories about heroic deeds, people covered with honors and glory; as a rule, this genre is endowed with pathos.

Bylichki are short stories that tell about the hero’s meeting with some kind of “evil spirits”, real incidents from the life of the narrator or his friends.

Happened - summary something that really happened once and with someone, while the narrator is not a witness

Children's folklore

This genre is represented in a variety of forms - poetic, song. Types of children's folklore are what accompanied the child from birth until he grew up.

Pestushki are short rhymes or songs that accompany the very first days of a newborn. With the help of them they nursed and nurtured children, for example: “The nightingale sings, sings, pretty, and pretty.”

Nursery rhymes are small melodious poems intended for playing with children.

Stretch, stretch,

Rotok - talker,

Handles - grips,

Walking legs.

Calls - poetic and song appeals to nature and animals. For example: “Red summer, come, bring warm days.”

A joke is a short fairy tale poem sung to a child, a short story about the world around him.

Lullabies are short songs that parents sing to their child at night to lull him to sleep.

Riddle - poetic or prose sentences that require solving.

Other types of children's folklore are counting rhymes, teasers and fables. They are extremely popular in our time.

Song epic

The heroic epic demonstrates the most ancient types of folklore; it tells about events that once happened in song form.

An epic is an old song told in a solemn but leisurely style. Glorifies the heroes and tells about their heroic deeds for the benefit of the state, the Russian fatherland. about Dobrynya Nikitich, Volga Buslaivaich and others.

Historical songs are a kind of transformation of the epic genre, where the style of presentation is less eloquent, but the poetic form of the narrative is preserved. For example, “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg.”

Artistic creativity

This group includes epic and song genres created in the spirit of folk and artistic creativity.

A fairy tale is a short or long epic narrative, one of the most common genres of oral folk art about fictional events and heroes. All this is folklore, the types of fairy tales in it are as follows: magical, everyday and reflect those ideas about the world, good, evil, life, death, nature that existed among the people. For example, good always defeats evil, and there are wonderful mythical creatures in the world.

Ballads are poetic songs, a genre of song and musical creativity.

Anecdotes are a special type of epic narration about comic situations in people's lives. Initially they did not exist in the form in which we know them. These were stories that were complete in meaning.

Fables - a short narrative about impossible, incredible events, something that was fiction from beginning to end.

A chastushka is a small song, usually a quatrain with humorous content, telling about events and incidental situations.

Folklore theater

Street performances were very common among the people; the subjects for them were various genres, but most often of a dramatic nature.

A nativity scene is a type of dramatic work intended for street puppet theater.

Rayok is a type of picture theater, a device in the form of a box with changing drawings; the stories told reflect oral types of folklore.

The presented classification is the most common among researchers. However, it is worth understanding that the types of Russian folklore complement each other, and sometimes do not fit into the generally accepted classification. Therefore, when studying the issue, a simplified version is most often used, where only 2 groups of genres are distinguished - ritual and non-ritual folklore.