On the historicism of folklore and methods of its study. Coursework Old Russian folklore as a means of expressing self-consciousness and a historical source


Introduction


Folklore is the main means of folk pedagogy. Folk pedagogy is a subject and type of activity of adults in educating the younger generation, a set and interconnection of ideas and ideas, views and opinions and beliefs, as well as skills and techniques of the people on the development of education and training of the younger generation, reflected in folk art. This is the mentality of the nation in relation to the younger generation, and educational traditions in the family and society, and the connection and continuity of generations.

Folklore is an invaluable national treasure. This is a huge layer of the spiritual culture of the Belarusians, which was formed by the collective efforts of many generations over many centuries. At the present stage of national revival, it is necessary to return to what was achieved by our ancestors.

Belarusian national folklore is one of the richest in the Slavic world. It is saturated with pedagogical experience and folk wisdom. On the basis of folklore, a huge layer of ethical and pedagogical ideas was created: respect for elders, diligence, tolerance, goodwill, tolerance for other people's opinions.

Tolerance, tolerance, virtue, as traditional Christian virtues, gradually became the hallmarks of Belarusians. Moreover, they coexist with such qualities as personal dignity, purposefulness, and activity.

Folklore with educational content, household traditions, holidays, Belarusian classical literature - these are the concepts that have a huge impact on the formation of a national character. It contributes to the creative development of children and youth in the world of epics, fairy tales, legends. Proverbs and sayings can serve as the basis for moral precepts, helping to develop thinking, logic, interest in the history and culture of the people.

Thus, folklore is the main source of knowledge about the principles of education that have developed in the culture of different peoples, its moral, religious and mythical foundations. The figurative and symbolic nature of artistic creativity, its impact on the emotional and sensory sphere of the individual makes it the most adequate means of unobtrusiveness and at the same time effective educational impact.

Consideration of this course topic is relevant and interesting at the same time.

The educational potential of folklore is unlimited. Today our society revives the forgotten traditions of antiquity, using folk experience, creating new models of educational theories and practices.

Attention to folklore, ancient layers of culture, tradition in general, as an inexhaustible source of education and development of a person, has been especially active in the socio-pedagogical environment in recent years. This is due to the functional features of the genres of folklore, with the deep spirituality and wisdom of folk art, with the continuity of the process of transferring national culture from generation to generation.

At the beginning of the new century, there is an increased interest in national culture, ethnic processes, traditional artistic creativity, to folklore. Scientists note a special growth of the historical and national self-consciousness of each nation, explaining this by socio-psychological, political reasons.

Preservation and development of national culture, its roots is the most important task, which requires careful attitude to historical and cultural monuments, to traditional folk art. The revival of folklore, folk customs, rituals and holidays, traditional arts and crafts and visual arts is a pressing problem of our time. Folklore, its genres, means, methods most fully fill the whole picture of people's life, give a vivid picture of the life of the people, their morality, spirituality. Folklore reveals the soul of the people, its dignity and features. From the point of view of science, folklore is a phenomenon that deserves special study and careful evaluation.

The purpose of the course work is to reveal the significance of folklore in the system of national education.

Objectives of the course work:

- to characterize the phenomenon of folklore and its educational value;

- to characterize the main genres of folklore, based on the educational potential of each;

- to show the practical application of the main folklore genres in education.

The object of this course is the multifaceted phenomenon of national folklore, and the subject is the genres of folklore and their educational potential.

Methods used in writing coursework - descriptive, comparative analysis, analysis of literary sources.

folklore educational genre



1. Folklore is a means of national education


1.1 The concept and essence of folklore


The term "folklore" (translated as "folk wisdom") was first introduced by the English scientist W.J. Toms in 1846. At first, this term covered the entire spiritual (beliefs, dances, music, woodcarving, etc.), and sometimes material (housing, clothing) culture of the people. In modern science there is no unity in the interpretation of the concept of "folklore". Sometimes it is used in its original meaning: an integral part folk life closely intertwined with its other elements. From the beginning of the 20th century the term is also used in a narrower, more specific sense: verbal folk art.

Folklore (English folklore) - folk art, most often it is oral; artistic collective creative activity of the people, reflecting their life, views, ideals; poetry created by the people and existing among the masses of the people (traditions, songs, ditties, anecdotes, fairy tales, epics), folk music (songs, instrumental tunes and plays), theater (dramas, satirical plays, puppet theatre), dance, architecture, fine and decorative arts.

Folklore is the collective and tradition-based creativity of groups and individuals, determined by the hopes and aspirations of society, which is an adequate expression of their cultural and social identity.

According to B.N. Putilov, there are five main variants of the meanings of the concept of "folklore":

1. folklore as a combination, variety of forms of traditional culture, that is, a synonym for the concept of "traditional culture";

2. folklore as a complex of phenomena of traditional spiritual culture, realized in words, ideas, ideas, sounds, movements. In addition to artistic creativity proper, it also covers what can be called the mentality, traditional beliefs, folk philosophy of life;

3. folklore as a phenomenon of the artistic creativity of the people;

4. folklore as a sphere of verbal art, that is, the field of oral folk art;

5. folklore as phenomena and facts of verbal spiritual culture in all their diversity.

The narrowest, but also the most stable of these definitions is the one that connects it mainly with the genres of oral folk art, that is, with verbal, verbal expression. This is indeed the most developed area of ​​folklore, which has made a huge contribution to the development of the science of literature - a direct descendant, "successor" of oral folk art, genetically associated with it.

The concept of "folklore" also means all areas of folk art, including those to which this concept is usually not applied (folk architecture, folk arts and crafts, etc.), since it reflects an indisputable fact, all types and genres of professional art have their origins in folk art, folk art.

The oldest types of verbal art arose in the process of the formation of human speech in the era of the Upper Paleolithic. Verbal creativity in ancient times was closely connected with human labor activity and reflected religious, mythical, historical ideas, as well as the beginnings of scientific knowledge. Ritual actions through which primitive sought to influence the forces of nature, fate, were accompanied by the words: spells, conspiracies were pronounced, various requests or threats were addressed to the forces of nature. The art of the word was closely related to other types primitive art- music, dancing, decorative arts. In science, this is called "primitive syncretism." Traces of it are still visible in folklore.

As humanity accumulated more and more significant life experience that needed to be passed on to the next generations, the role of verbal information increased. Selection verbal creativity into an independent art form is the most important step in the prehistory of folklore. Folklore was a verbal art, organically inherent in folk life. The different purpose of the works gave rise to genres, with their various themes, images, and style. IN ancient period most peoples had tribal traditions, labor and ritual songs, mythological stories, conspiracies. The decisive event that paved the line between mythology and folklore proper was the appearance of a fairy tale, the plots of which were perceived as fiction.

In ancient and medieval society, the heroic epic took shape. There were also legends and songs reflecting religious beliefs (for example, Russian spiritual verses). Later, historical songs appeared, depicting real historical events and heroes, as they remained in the people's memory. With changes in the social life of society, new genres arose in Russian folklore: soldier's, coachman's, burlak's songs. The growth of industry and cities brought to life romances, anecdotes, worker, school and student folklore.

For thousands of years, folklore has been the only form of poetic creativity among all peoples. But even with the advent of writing for many centuries, up to the period of late feudalism, oral poetry was widespread not only among working people, but also among the upper strata of society: the nobility, the clergy. Arising in a certain social environment, the work could become public property.


1.2 Specific features of folklore


One of the most important specific traits Folk oral art is collectivity. Each work of oral folk art not only expresses the thoughts and feelings of certain groups, but is also collectively created and distributed. However, the collectivity of the creative process in folklore does not mean that individuals did not play any role. Talented masters not only improved or adapted existing texts to new conditions, but sometimes created songs, ditties, fairy tales, which, in accordance with the laws of oral folk art, were distributed without the name of the author. With the social division of labor, peculiar professions arose associated with the creation and performance of poetic and musical works (ancient Greek rhapsodes, Russian guslars, Ukrainian kobzars, Kyrgyz akyns, Azerbaijani ashugs, French chansonniers, etc.). Collectivity is not a simple co-authorship, but a special long process of improving songs, fairy tales, legends, proverbs and sayings. Collectivity is most clearly manifested in the constant process of selection and polishing of works of folk poetry: of many works, the people choose and preserve the best, similar to their thoughts and aesthetic views. The collective beginning in folklore is not opposed to the individual. Folklore is characterized by an organic combination of the collective and the individual, while the collectivity does not interfere with the manifestation of the individual abilities of writers and performers.

The oral form of the existence of folklore is organically connected with the collectivity of folk art. Folklore appeared earlier than writing and originally existed only in oral transmission. The oral form of the existence of folk poetry leads to the appearance of variants of the same folklore work - this is another specific feature of folklore - variability.

Folklore works differ from fiction in the peculiarities of their artistic form. These features include, first of all, the traditional poetics developed by the people over the centuries. Traditional folk symbols, constant epithets, metaphors give folk art a specific flavor.

Folklore differs from written literature in the peculiarities of typification. Literature is characterized by the creation of typical characters in a typical setting. A typical character, reflecting the main features of his social environment and his era, manifests itself through the individual qualities of the hero, through an individual and unique appearance. Images of oral folk art do not have such individualization.


1.3 Functions and educational potential of folklore


Firstly, folklore contributes to the deepening of knowledge about the folk spiritual culture in its past and present. Folklore introduces the life, traditions, customs of one's own and the "neighboring people".

Secondly, with the help of folklore, the assimilation of moral and behavioral cultural norms and values ​​enshrined in the culture of a people is carried out. Moral and behavioral norms and values ​​are expressed in a system of images. Revealing the characters fairy tale characters, delving into the essence of their actions, the student understands what is good and what is bad, thereby easily determines his likes and dislikes, comprehends popular ideas about human beauty. Wise folk proverbs and sayings inform about behavioral norms.

Thirdly, with the help of folklore, it is possible to cultivate a respectful attitude towards the culture of one's own ethnic group, as well as a tolerant attitude towards other ethnic cultures. Studying folklore, the child realizes that the people are the creator, the creator of the cultural heritage that needs to be admired and proud of. Folklore - centuries old folk labor, which stores the history of the ethnic group.

Fourthly, folklore contributes to the development of aesthetic taste. The child feels the beauty of folk thought, he has a need to communicate with the people. He seeks to understand what means the people use in their work, and tries to apply them in the future.

Belarusian folklore occupies a special place in the national culture of Belarusians and performs the following functions:

1. aesthetic

2. educational

3. cognitive

aesthetic function Folklore lies in the fact that it forms an artistic taste in children, develops the ability to appreciate and understand beauty, and contributes to the formation of a harmoniously developed personality.

essence educational function lies in the fact that oral folk art, being a means of folk pedagogy, forms the qualities of a human character. Proverbs, sayings, fairy tales are filled with high moral and ethical meaning and give characterological assessments of a person from the standpoint of "good" and "bad".

The cognitive value of folklore It is concluded that this is a way of introducing the child to the outside world.


1.4 Genres of folklore


All folklore genres It is customary to group, as in literature, into three groups or three types: dramatic, prose and song.

Any folklore originates in small genres, which include riddles, proverbs and sayings.

A proverb is understood as a well-aimed figurative saying of an instructive nature, typifying the most diverse phenomena of life and having the form of a complete sentence.

Proverbs satisfied many spiritual needs of the working people: cognitive-intellectual (educational), production, aesthetic, moral, etc.

Proverbs are not antiquity, not the past, but the living voice of the people: the people retain in their memory only what they need today and will need tomorrow. When a proverb talks about the past, it is evaluated from the point of view of the present and the future - it is condemned or approved, depending on the extent to which the past reflected in the aphorism corresponds to the people's ideals, expectations and aspirations. (6; 36)

The proverb is created by all the people, therefore it expresses the collective opinion of the people. It contains the people's assessment of life, the observations of the people's mind. A successful aphorism, created by an individual mind, does not become a popular proverb if it does not express the opinion of the majority.

Folk proverbs have a form favorable for memorization, which enhances their significance as ethnopedagogical means. Proverbs are firmly embedded in memory. Their memorization is facilitated by a play on words, various consonances, rhymes, rhythm, sometimes very skillful. The ultimate goal of proverbs has always been education, since ancient times they have acted as pedagogical means. On the one hand, they contain a pedagogical idea, on the other hand, they have an educational impact, carry out educational functions: they tell about the means, methods of educational influence that correspond to the ideas of the people, give characterological assessments of the personality - positive and negative, which, in one way or another, determine the goals of personality formation. , contain a call for education, self-education and re-education, condemn adults who neglect their sacred duties - pedagogical, etc.

There is a lot of practical material in proverbs: everyday advice, wishes in work, greetings, etc.

The most common form of proverbs is admonitions. From a pedagogical point of view, teachings of three categories are interesting: teachings that instruct children and youth in good morals, including the rules of good manners; teachings that call adults to decent behavior, and, finally, instructions of a special kind, containing pedagogical advice, ascertaining the results of education, which is a kind of generalization of pedagogical experience. They contain a huge educational and upbringing material on the issues of upbringing. According to proverbs, positive and negative personality traits are presented as the goals of upbringing and re-education, suggesting an all-round improvement in the behavior and character of people. At the same time, it is noteworthy that all peoples recognize the infinity of human perfections. Any person, no matter how perfect he is, can climb one more step of perfection. This step leads not only man, but also mankind to progress. Many proverbs are motivated and reasoned calls for self-improvement.

In the "Literary Encyclopedia" the riddle is characterized as "an intricate poetic description of an object or phenomenon that tests the ingenuity of the guesser." The definitions of the riddle are based on the same signs:

- the description is often framed in the form interrogative sentence;

- the description is concise and the rhythm is inherent in the riddle.

Thus, a riddle is a brief description of an object or phenomenon, often in poetic form, containing an intricate task in the form of an explicit (direct) or supposed (hidden) question.

Riddles are designed to develop the thinking of children, to teach them to analyze objects and phenomena from various areas of the surrounding reality; moreover, the presence of a large number of riddles about the same phenomenon made it possible to give a comprehensive description of the object (phenomenon). But the significance of riddles in mental education is far from being exhausted by the development of thinking; they also enrich the mind with information about nature and knowledge from the most diverse areas of human life. The use of riddles in mental education is valuable in that the totality of information about nature and human society is acquired by the child in the process of active mental activity.

Riddles contribute to the development of the child's memory, his imaginative thinking, the speed of mental reactions.

The riddle teaches the child to compare the features of various objects, to find common things in them, and thereby forms in him the ability to classify objects, to discard their insignificant features. In other words, with the help of a riddle, the foundations of theoretical creative thinking are formed.

The riddle develops the observation of the child. The more observant the child, the better and faster he guesses riddles. A special place in the process of raising children is occupied by the diagnostic function of the riddle: it allows the teacher, without any special tests and questionnaires, to identify the degree of observation, ingenuity, mental development, as well as the level of creative thinking of the child.

A proverb - from the simplest poetic works, such as a fable or a proverb, can stand out and independently turn into living speech, the elements in which thicken their content; this is not an abstract formula of the idea of ​​the work, but a figurative allusion to it, taken from the work itself and serving as its deputy (for example, “a pig under an oak”, or “a dog in the manger”, or “he takes out dirty linen from a hut”)

A saying, unlike a proverb, does not contain a generalizing instructive meaning.

Proverbs and sayings are comparative or allegorical statements and contain the worldly wisdom of the people. From these two sprouts, metaphors (in riddles) and figurative comparisons (in sayings), folk poetry grows.

Song genres of folklore are represented by epic songs and ballads, ritual and lyrical songs, ditties, labor songs and improvisations. Lamentations also join the song genre.

The songs reflect the age-old expectations, aspirations and innermost dreams of the people. The songs are unique in their musical and poetic design of the idea - ethical, aesthetic, pedagogical. Beauty and goodness in the song act in unity. Good fellows, sung by the people, are not only kind, but also beautiful. Folk songs have absorbed the highest national values, focused only on good, on the happiness of man.

Songs are a more complex form of folk poetry than riddles and proverbs. The main purpose of the songs is to instill a love for the beautiful, to develop aesthetic views and tastes. The song is characterized by high poeticization of all aspects of folk life, including the upbringing of the younger generation. The pedagogical value of the song is that beautiful singing was taught, and it, in turn, taught beauty and kindness. The song accompanied all the events of folk life - work, holidays, games, funerals, etc. The whole life of people passed in a song that the best way expressed the ethical and aesthetic essence of the individual. Full song cycle is the life of a person from birth to death. Songs are sung to a baby in a cradle who has not yet learned to understand, an old man in a coffin who has already ceased to feel and understand. Scientists have proven the beneficial role of gentle songs in the mental development of a child in the womb. Lullabies not only lull the baby to sleep, but also caress him, soothe, and bring joy. Some categories of songs are designed for specific age groups, although, of course, most songs cannot be sharply demarcated and distributed by age. Small children sing other songs of adults with special enthusiasm. Therefore, we can only talk about the predominant performance of certain songs at a particular age.

Noteworthy means of educational influence are pestle And nursery rhymes. In them, the growing child completely occupies the attention of an adult. Pestushki got their name from the word to nurture - to nurse, to carry in their arms. These are short poetic refrains that accompany the movements of the child during nurturing.

Pestushki make sense only when accompanied by their tactile reception - a light bodily touch. Gentle massage, accompanied by a cheerful unpretentious song with a distinct pronunciation of poetic lines, causes a cheerful, cheerful mood in a child. In pestles, all the main points of the physical development of the child are taken into account. When he begins to stand on his feet, he is told one thing; a child taking the first steps is taught to stand firmly on its legs and at the same time other pests speak.

The pestles gradually turn into nursery rhymes that accompany the child's games with fingers, arms, legs. In these games, there is often also a pedagogical one - instruction in diligence, kindness, friendliness.

The song is a complex form of folk poetry. The main purpose of the songs aesthetic education. But they are aimed at the implementation of other aspects of personality formation, i.e. are a complex means of influencing the personality.

The songs reveal the external and inner beauty man, the meaning of beauty in life; they are one of the best means development of aesthetic tastes in the younger generation. Beautiful melodies enhance the aesthetic impact of the poetic words of the songs. The influence of folk songs on peasant youth has always been enormous, and their significance has never been limited to the beauty of verse and melody (external beauty, beauty of form). The beauty of thoughts, the beauty of content are also among the strengths of folk songs.

And the words of the songs themselves, and the conditions, and the nature of their performance contribute to the strengthening of health, the development of diligence. The songs glorify health, it is called happiness, the highest good. The people have always believed that songs develop the voice, expand and strengthen the lungs: “To sing loudly, you must have strong lungs”, “A sonorous song expands the chest”.

The importance of the song in the labor education of children and youth is invaluable. As mentioned above, the songs accompanied and stimulated the labor process, they contributed to the coordination and unification of the labor efforts of the workers.

Fairy tales are an important educational tool, worked out and tested by the people over the centuries. Life, folk practice of education convincingly proved the pedagogical value of fairy tales. Children and a fairy tale are inseparable, they are created for each other, and therefore acquaintance with the fairy tales of one's people must be included in the course of education and upbringing of each child.

The most characteristic features of fairy tales are nationality, optimism, the fascination of the plot, imagery and fun, and, finally, didacticism.

The material for folk tales was the life of the people: their struggle for happiness, beliefs, customs, and the surrounding nature. In the beliefs of the people there was a lot of superstitious and dark. This dark and reactionary is a consequence of the difficult historical past of the working people. Most of the fairy tales reflect the best features of the people: diligence, talent, loyalty in battle and work, boundless devotion to the people and homeland. The embodiment of the positive traits of the people in fairy tales made fairy tales an effective means of transmitting these traits from generation to generation. Precisely because fairy tales reflect the life of the people, their best traits, and cultivate these traits in the younger generation, nationality turns out to be one of the most important characteristics of fairy tales.

Many folk tales inspire confidence in the triumph of truth, in the victory of good over evil. As a rule, in all fairy tales, the sufferings of the positive hero and his friends are transient, temporary, joy usually comes after them, and this joy is the result of a struggle, the result of joint efforts. Optimism children especially like fairy tales and enhances the educational value of folk pedagogical means.

The fascination of the plot, imagery and amusingness make fairy tales a very effective pedagogical tool.

Imagery- an important feature of fairy tales, which facilitates their perception by children who are not yet capable of abstract thinking. In the hero, those main character traits that bring him closer to the national character of the people are usually very convex and vividly shown: courage, diligence, wit, etc. These features are revealed both in events and through various artistic means, such as hyperbolization. Thus, as a result of hyperbolization, the feature of industriousness reaches the maximum brightness and convexity of the image (in one night to build a palace, a bridge from the hero’s house to the king’s palace, in one night to sow flax, grow, process, spin, weave, sew and clothe the people, sow wheat , grow, harvest, thresh, grind, bake and feed people, etc.). The same should be said about such traits as physical strength, courage, courage, etc.

Imagery is complemented funnyness fairy tales. The wise educator-people took special care to make fairy tales interesting and entertaining. In the folk tale, there are not only bright and lively images, but also subtle and cheerful humor. All peoples have fairy tales, the special purpose of which is to amuse the listener.

Didacticism is one of key features fairy tales. Fairy tales of all peoples of the world are always instructive and instructive. It was precisely noting their instructive nature, their didacticism, that A.S. Pushkin at the end of his "Tale of the Golden Cockerel":

The tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it!

Good fellows lesson.

Due to the features noted above, fairy tales of all peoples are an effective means of education. Fairy tales are a treasure trove of pedagogical ideas, brilliant examples of folk pedagogical genius.

Folk theater, which exists in forms organically related to oral folk art, originated in ancient times: the games that accompanied the hunting and agricultural holidays contained elements of reincarnation. Theatricalization of the action was present in calendar and family ceremonies (Christmas costumes, weddings, etc.).

In the folk theater, a theater of live actors and a puppet theater are distinguished. The Russian theater of Petrushka was close to the Ukrainian nativity scene, the Belarusian batleika.

The most characteristic feature of the folk theater (as well as folklore art in general) is the open conventionality of costumes and props, movements and gestures; during the performances, the actors communicated directly with the audience, which could give lines, intervene in the action, direct it, and sometimes take part in it (sing along with the choir of performers, portray minor characters in crowd scenes).

The folk theater, as a rule, had neither a stage nor scenery. The main interest in it is focused not on the depth of disclosure of the characters of the characters, but on the tragic or comical nature of situations and situations.

The folk theater acquaints young spectators with verbal folklore, develops memory, figurative thinking. Comic characters ridicule the vices of people, dramatic ones teach empathy. By participating in their simple productions, the child learns to speak correctly and beautifully, to make a speech in front of the public, to overcome shyness.

Folk dance is one of ancient species folk art. The dance was part of folk performances at festivals and fairs. The appearance of round dances and other ritual dances is associated with folk rituals. Gradually moving away from ritual actions, round dances were filled with new content, expressing new features of life.

The peoples engaged in hunting, animal husbandry, reflected in the dance their observations of the animal world. The nature and habits of animals, birds, domestic animals were conveyed figuratively and expressively: the Yakut bear dance, the Russian crane, the gander, etc. grape). The folk dance often reflects the military spirit, valor, heroism, battle scenes are reproduced (Georgian horumi, berikaoba, Cossack dances, etc.). The theme of love occupies a large place in folk dance art: dances expressing the nobility of feelings, respectful attitude towards a woman (Georgian kartuli, Russian Baino quadrille).

Dance allows you to develop plasticity, special coordination of movements, methods of correlation of movement with music. Children learn to move rhythmically, to communicate with each other in motion (round dance, stream).

In folk arts and crafts, the non-voluminous, eternally living soul of the people, their rich practical experience and aesthetic taste are immortalized. Artistic woodworking, pottery, weaving, painting, weaving and embroidery were the most developed in Belarus.

In some features of folk art, the norms of work and life, culture and beliefs can be traced. The most common element is the ornament born in antiquity, which helps to achieve the organic unity of the composition and is deeply interconnected with the technique of execution, the sense of the object, the plastic form, the natural beauty of the material. Folk craftsmen have been highly valued since ancient times. The secrets of their craft were passed down from generation to generation, from father to son, combining the wisdom and experience of the past and the discovery of the present. Children from an early age were involved in work, helping their parents. Joint work helps children to better master the craft, learn from the experience of a mentor (parents), instills diligence.



2. The practice of using folklore and folklore genres in the system of national education


Folklore contributes to the creative development of children and youth in the world of fairy tales, epics, legends. Findings of the centuries-old history of spiritual traditions, systematized in folklore, should be used in the construction of a modern model of education.

Consider the practical application and potential proverbs in national education.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of labor education in the general system of folk pedagogy, it really is its core. From ancient times labor education children and youth was the most important responsibility of parents, and then of educational institutions and other public institutions. That is why there are a great many proverbs praising labor and ridiculing laziness among the peoples of the whole world.

Not the one who is good-looking is good, but the one who is good for business (Russian proverb).

Great in body, but small in deed (Russian proverb)

A small deed is better than a big idleness (Russian proverb)

If you like to ride - love to carry sleds (Russian proverb)

You have to bend down to drink from the stream (Russian proverb)

Gultay for work, and mazol by the hand (Belarusian proverb)

Love for the motherland native land- the most important topic in the education of patriotism.

That bird is stupid, which does not like its nest.

Motherland is a mother, know how to stand up for her.

Someone else's food has a different taste.

Each sandpiper praises his swamp.

Where the pine has grown, there it is red.

The steppe is useless for the swan, the lake for the bustard.

In his swamp, the frog sings.

Houses and walls help.

On his street and the dog is a tiger.

Pile hut, like a native uterus.

A special place in the system of aphorisms is occupied by proverbs that teach respect for elders.

Shanuy people, then i tsyabe plow. (4; 302)

Pavage the old one, pavuchay the little one.

Proverbs and sayings in artistic images recorded the experience of a lived life in all its diversity and inconsistency.

unraveling riddles develops the ability to analyze, generalize, forms the ability to independently draw conclusions, conclusions, the ability to clearly identify the most characteristic, expressive features of an object or phenomenon, the ability to clearly and concisely convey images of objects, develops in children a “poetic view of reality”.

Reflecting the picturesque landscapes of the motherland, full of colors, sounds, smells, riddles contribute to the education of aesthetic feelings.

fluffy carpet

Not hand-woven,

Not sewn with silk,

With the sun, with the moon

Shines silver (snow)

Riddles help children learn about the world around them, introduce them to the world of things.

Here are examples of riddles about household items.

Two rings, two ends, carnations in the middle (scissors)

I don’t have legs, but I walk, I don’t have a mouth, but I’ll tell you when to sleep, when to get up, when to start work (hours)

Riddles pay attention to the habits of animals, in riddles about vegetables and fruits, plants and berries, special attention is paid to the features of appearance.

Sleeps in winter, stirs hives in summer (bear)

Shaggy, mustachioed, prowling through pantries, looking for sour cream (cat)

I will get round, ruddy from the tree (apple)

Low and prickly, sweet and fragrant, you pick berries - you rip off all your hands (gooseberry)

The value of the riddle lies in the fact that in a highly poetic form it reflects the economic and labor activity man, his way of life, experience, flora, fauna, the world as a whole and before today is of great artistic importance in the upbringing of children.

Fairy tales, being works of art and literature, they were at the same time for the working people an area of ​​theoretical generalizations in many branches of knowledge. They are a treasury of folk pedagogy, moreover, many fairy tales are pedagogical works, i.e. they contain pedagogical ideas.

The great Russian teacher K.D. Ushinsky had such a high opinion of fairy tales that he included them in his pedagogical system. Ushinsky saw the reason for the success of fairy tales with children in the fact that the simplicity and immediacy of folk art correspond to the same properties of child psychology.

Fairy tales, depending on the topic and content, make listeners think, suggest reflections. Often the child concludes: “It doesn’t happen like that in life.” The question involuntarily arises: “What happens in life?” Already the conversation of the narrator with the child, containing the answer to this question, has a cognitive value. But fairy tales contain cognitive material directly. It should be noted that the cognitive significance of fairy tales extends, in particular, to individual details of folk customs and traditions, and even to household trifles.

For example, in the Chuvash fairy tale “He who does not honor the old, he himself will not see the good” tells that the daughter-in-law, not listening to her mother-in-law, decided to cook porridge not from millet, but from millet and not on water, but only on oil. What came of it? As soon as she opened the lid, millet grains, not boiled, but roasted, jumped out, fell into her eyes and blinded her forever. The main thing in the fairy tale, of course, is the moral conclusion: you need to listen to the voice of the old, take into account their worldly experience, otherwise you will be punished. But for children, it also contains educational material: they fry in oil, not boil it, therefore, it is ridiculous to cook porridge without water, in oil alone. Children are usually not told about this, because in life no one does this, but in a fairy tale children are instructed that everything has its place, that everything should be in order.

Here is another example. The fairy tale "A penny for a miser" tells how a smart tailor agreed with a greedy old woman to pay her one penny for each "star" of fat in the soup. When the old woman put oil, the tailor cheered her up: “Lay, put, old woman, more, do not spare oil, because I ask you not without reason: I will pay a penny for every “star”. The greedy old woman put more and more butter in order to get a lot of money for it. But all her efforts gave an income of one penny. The moral of this story is simple: don't be greedy. This is the main idea of ​​the story. But its educational value is also great. Why, - the child will ask, - did the old woman get one big "asterisk"?

In fairy tales, the idea of ​​the unity of education and upbringing in folk pedagogy is implemented to the maximum extent.

Folk lyric song significantly different from other genera and

types of folklore. Its composition is more diverse than the heroic epic, fairy tales and other genres. Songs were created at far from the same time. Each time composed its own songs. The duration of the life of each song genre is not the same.

Childhood songs are a complex complex: these are adult songs composed specifically for children (lullabies, nursery rhymes and pestles); and songs that gradually passed from the adult repertoire to the children's (carols, stoneflies, chants, game songs); and songs composed by the children themselves.

In infancy, mothers and grandmothers lull their children with gentle lullabies, entertain them with pestles and nursery rhymes, playing with their fingers, arms, legs, tossing them on their knees or on their hands.

Well-known: "Magpie-crow, cooked porridge ..."; “Okay, okay! Where were you? -

By Grandma…".

Pestushki - songs and rhymes that accompany the first conscious movements of the child. For example:

"Oh, sing, sing

Nightingale!

Ah, sing, sing

Young;

young,

Pretty,

Pretty."

Nursery rhymes - songs and rhymes for the first games of a child with fingers, arms, legs. For example:

"Sniffs, little pigs!

Rotok - talkers,

Hands are grasping

Legs are walkers."

Calls - children's song appeals to the sun, rainbow, rain, birds:

- Spring is red! What did you come for?

- On a bipod, on a harrow,

On an oatmeal sheaf

On a rye spike.

Sentences are verbal appeals to someone. For example, they say in the bath:

From gogol - water,

From a baby - thinness!

Roll off all.

A special place in song folklore is occupied by a lullaby.

The foxes are sleeping

All in pieces

The martens are sleeping

Everything is in mints,

The falcons are sleeping

All in nests

The sables are sleeping

Wherever they please

little kids

They sleep in cradles.

In lullabies, mothers talk about the surrounding reality, think aloud about the purpose and meaning of life, pronounce their worries, joys and sorrows. In a lullaby, a mother finds an outlet for her feelings, an opportunity to speak out to the end, speak out and get a mental release.

The lullaby is the greatest achievement of folk pedagogy, it is inseparably connected with the practice of raising children in the very same way. tender age when a child is still a helpless creature, requiring constant caring attention, love and tenderness, without which he simply cannot survive.

Folk songs contain joy and sorrow, love and hate, joy and sadness. The songs reveal the best features of the national character of the Belarusians: courage, courage, truthfulness, humanism, sensitivity, diligence.



Conclusion


The experience of public education among all ethnic groups, nations and peoples is very rich. As an analysis of the traditional culture of upbringing has shown, this experience is characterized by almost the same requirements for the qualities of the personality being formed and the system of means for its upbringing and education. It is a kind of (common to all mankind) folk wisdom, a system of universal values, proven over the centuries. But this does not mean that it is necessary to use the entire arsenal of folk remedies and upbringing factors without changes and critical evaluation. It is necessary to take those of them that work today and correlate with our ideas about humanism and universal values.

It is in vain to think that oral folk art was only the fruit of popular leisure. It was the dignity and mind of the people. It formed and strengthened his moral image, was his historical memory, the festive clothes of his soul, and filled with deep content his whole measured life, flowing according to the customs and rituals associated with his work, nature and veneration of fathers and grandfathers.

Folklore plays an important role in the education of children. Dividing it into genres allows at a certain age the child to enrich his spiritual world, develop patriotism, respect for the past of his people, the study of its traditions, the assimilation of moral and moral norms of behavior in society.

Folklore develops the oral speech of the child, affects his spiritual development, his imagination. Each genre of children's folklore teaches certain moral standards. So, for example, a fairy tale, by likening animals to people, shows the child the norms of behavior in society, and fairy tales develop not only imagination, but also ingenuity. Proverbs, sayings teach children folk wisdom, tested for centuries and has not lost its relevance in our time. The epic epic is a heroic narrative about the events that took place in antiquity. And although epics are not so easy for children to perceive, nevertheless they are aimed at cultivating respect for the past people, at studying the traditions and behavior of people at all times, at patriotism. Slavic people, who, in spite of everything, remained faithful to his homeland and defended it in every possible way. Song lyrics also have an impact on the upbringing of children. It is mainly used when the child is still very young. For example, lullabies are sung to a baby to calm him down, to put him to sleep. Also, the song lyrics include ditties, jokes, pestles, tongue twisters, counting rhymes. Here they are just aimed at the development of hearing and speech in children, since they use a special combination of sounds.

Thus, the introduction of a child to folk culture begins from childhood, where the basic concepts and examples of behavior are laid. Cultural heritage is passed down from generation to generation, developing and enriching the child's world. Folklore is a unique means for transmitting folk wisdom and educating children at the initial stage of their development.



Bibliography


1. Baturina G.I., Kuzina T.F. Folk pedagogy in the education of preschoolers. M., 1995.-S. 7–8.

2. Belarusian folklore. Reader. vyd. 2nd dap. Sklali K.P. Kabashnikau, A.S. Lis, A.S. Fyadosik, I.K. Tsishchanka Minsk, Higher School, 1977.

3. Bel. vusna - paet. creativity: Padruchnik for students fil. specialist. VNU / K.P. Kabashnikau, A.S. Lis, A.S. Fyadosik i insh. - Mn.: Minsk, 20000. - 512 p.

4. Belarusians. T.7. Vusnaya paetychnaya tvorchast / G.A. Bartashevich, T.V. Valodzina, A.I. Gursky i insh. Redkal. V.M. Balyavina i insh; In-t of craftsmanship, ethnagraphy and folklore. – Mn.: Bel. Navuka, 2004.-586 p.

5. Berezhnova, L.N. Ethnopedagogy: textbook. allowance for students. Higher Proc. institutions / L.N. Berezhnova, I.L. Nabok, V.I. Shcheglov. - M .: Publishing house. Center "Academy", 2007. - 240 p.

6. Volkov, G.N. Ethnopedagogy: Proc. for stud. avg. and higher ped. textbook institutions / G.N. Volkov - M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 1999. - 168 p.

7. Volodko, V.F. Education / V.F. Volodko; BNTU - Minsk: Law and Economics, 207 - 230 p.

8. Literary encyclopedia. M.A. Puzzles. M., 1964, v. 2, p. 970.

9. Chernyavskaya Yu.V. Belorussian: touches to a self-portrait. Ethnic self-image of Belarusians in fairy tales / Chernyavskaya Yu.V. - Minsk: "Four quarters", 2006. - 244 p.

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What do we mean by the term "folklore"? If we take the etymology of this word, then in translation from English we get: “folk” - people, people, “lore” - knowledge (knowledge in any field). Therefore, folklore is folk knowledge. In the etymology of this word, we see a deep meaning, very important for reasoning about the nature of folklore. Actually, folklore itself is “the knowledge of the people,” as the American folklorist F.J. Childe (281, p. 291).

The German philosopher I. Herder (see: 1, pp. 118-122; 91, pp. 458-467; 167, pp. 182-186) can be considered the founder of folklore as a science, although the term “folklore” that is familiar to us for he did not use the designations of folk art. I. Herder became not only one of the first collectors of folk poetry and songs, having published in 1778 the work “Voices of the Nations in Songs”, but also published scientific works “Fragments on German Literature”, “Critical Groves”, “On Ossian and songs of the ancients” and others, in which he put forward the principle of a historical approach to the phenomena of folk culture. He drew attention to the collection and study of folk poetry and songs, considering them the source of poetry in general. His external reasons for this were as follows.

In 1760-65. the poet and collector of old Scottish ballads and legends J. MacPherson, based on them, wrote poems under the general title "Songs of Ossian, son of Fingal." In the following century, the folkloric authenticity of Ossian's Songs proved to be problematic, but in that century his works aroused great public interest in folk poetry and antiquity.

In 1765, the Englishman, writer and publisher T. Percy, using a folk manuscript collection of the 17th century, also published a book of old English songs "Monuments of English Poetry", accompanying it with three scientific articles on the work of ancient bards and medieval minstrels.

I. Herder, interested in these publications, introduced the concept of “folk song” (Volkslied) into science, as he called the ancient and contemporary folk songs preserved in folk life, as well as poetry that existed among the people at that time. Noting the historical role of the people in the creation of national culture, I. Herder wrote that the poetry of each people reflects its customs, customs, working and living conditions. I. Herder has a great merit in defining folklore as a source for the creation of national literature and art, which was subsequently developed by romantic artists.

The term "folklore" was proposed in the middle of the 19th century. English cultural historian William John Thoms in the article "Folk-Lore", in the journal "The Athenaeum" in 1846 (published under the pseudonym A. Merton). In the article, W. J. Thoms called for the collection of folk art, and in the very title of the article he emphasized that folklore is “folk knowledge” (2, pp. 179-180). Later, in 1879, in the Folk-Lore Record, W. J. Thoms emphasized that folklore is the oral history of a people, the remnants of former beliefs, traditions, customs, etc. In defining the meaning of the term "folklore" W. J. Toms has a noticeable connection with the ideas of I. Herder and the aesthetics of the German romantics (F. Schelling, J. and I. Grimm, and others).

In 1870, the Folklore Society (“Folk-Lore Society”) was created in England. The Folk-Lore Record magazine gives the following meaning of the term: folklore is "the ancient customs, customs, rites and ceremonies of past epochs, turned into superstitions and traditions of the lower classes of civilized society", and in a broader sense - "the totality of forms of unwritten history people", and further: "It can be said that folklore covers the entire culture of the people, which was not used in the official religion and history, but which is and which has always been its own work." .

The spread of the term "folklore" and its introduction into scientific use is associated with the works of V. Manngardt, E. Tylor, E. Lang and others.

So the term "folklore" appeared in science as a designation of the totality of archaism, traditions and folk culture, with a clearly expressed "ethnographic" approach to folklore, and its boundaries were very wide.

In 1874, the American scientist F. J. Childe published in Johnson's Universal Encyclopedia the article "Poetry of the Ballad", where he did not use the terms "folk" and "folklore", using others instead - "people" (people) and "popular "(folk). With these themes, he characterized the folk culture as a whole. Expressing his attitude to the problem of the authorship of a ballad, he wrote that folk poetry "will always be an expression of the mind and heart of the people, as an individual, and never - the personality of an individual person" (281, p. 291).

F. J. Childe was the founder of the American school of folklore and separated his theory of folk poetry from the ideas of the German "romantic" school. In 1892, in Johnson's Universal Encyclopedia, a student of F. J. Child, V. Nevel, developing the ideas of F. Child, defined folklore as the formally universal customs and beliefs of an entire ethnic community, preserved through conservative and less educated classes. He noted as the main characteristic of folklore - " oral creativity”, “oral tradition”, an addition to literature.

Parallel to the term "folklore", in the science of Western countries, there were other names - Poesie populaire, Traditions populaires, Tradizioni populari (folk traditions), Volkdichtung (folk poetry), Volkskunde (folk art). Only in the XX century. the term "folklore" became common. In its broadest sense, i.e. as "folk traditions", "folk art", it began to be used by most scientists in Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the USA, Latin America and other countries. In the science of the Scandinavian countries and Finland, folklore is defined as a collective traditional knowledge transmitted through word and action.

In 1949-50. in the United States, a two-volume encyclopedic "Standard Dictionary of Folklore Mythology and Legends" was published. It contains more than 20 articles on folklore by scientists from different countries and scientific fields, which gave different definitions of folklore and methods of its research.

The Mexican scientist M. Espinoza defines that “folklore consists of beliefs, customs, superstitions, proverbs, riddles, songs, myths, legends, tales, ritual ceremonies, magic, both primitive and illiterate people, and masses of people in a civilized society ... Folklore may be called a direct and true expression of the memory of primitive man" ["Standard dictionary of folklore ...", p. 399].

Similar views are held in the aforementioned "Dictionary" and other authors. So, M. Barbier includes in folklore everything that relates to " traditional culture» - up to culinary recipes; B. Botkin writes that “everything in a purely oral culture is folklore” [ibid., p. 398].

Argentine folklorist K. Vega in 1960 published the work “Folkloristics. Subject and notes for its study in Argentina. K. Vega called folklore such manifestations of folk culture: myths, legends, fairy tales, fables, riddles, songs, games, rituals, beliefs; features of the national language, housing, furniture, utensils, etc.

K. Vega speaks of the presence of two different levels of culture, which correspond to the conditionally "enlightened classes" and the "people" proper. Folklore acts as a cultural "survival", which 50-100 years ago was common among the "enlightened" classes, but was gradually forced out into the masses, primarily rural, where it is preserved and continues to function (176, p. 174-192 ).

We believe that the aforementioned authors, firstly, take rather broad boundaries for defining folklore, linking it with ethnology; secondly, they underestimate the essence of the folklore-historical process, which ensures both the continuity of traditions and innovation, the renewal of the system of types and genres of folklore.

In domestic science in the XVIII-XIX centuries. such concepts as "folk poetry", "oral folk literature" were used. The concept of "folklore" was introduced only in the 1890s. - early 20th century E. Anichkov, A. Veselovsky, V. Lamansky, V. Lesevich, which expanded the subject of the study itself.

But even later, in Soviet folklore, the designation “oral folk art” was used for a long time, which limited the subject of research itself. Along with the importance of the oral transmission of folklore, the collective nature of its creation (or the anonymity of authorship) and variability have always been emphasized.

A common belief is that folklore is "folk art". It is possible that such an interpretation is appropriate in cases when it comes to concert performances of folklore. But this kind of "folklore art" is almost always presented in the arrangements and arrangements of professionals, but also "torn out" from the context of folk life.

Note that back in 1938-41. in the work "Russian folklore" Yu.M. Sokolov wrote about the impossibility, due to the close connection of folklore with folk culture, genetic connection with myth, etc., to interpret it only as art and apply the term “oral folk poetic creativity” to it (216, p. 7-8) .

An authority recognized in world science, V.Ya. Propp called folklore verbal creativity and musical-song genres. He wrote: “What is meant by folklore in Western European science? If we take the book of the German folklorist I. Meyer "Deutshe Volkskunde", then we see the following sections there: village, buildings, courtyards, plants, customs, superstitions, language, legends, fairy tales, folk songs. This picture is typical of all Western European science. We call folklore what in the West is called folk traditions, folk poetry. And what is called folklore in the West can be called "popular science homeland studies" [V.Ya. Propp. "Folklore and Reality", 1976, p. 17-18].

V.Ya. Propp wrote: “Folklore is understood only as spiritual creativity, and even already, only verbal, poetic creativity. Since poetic creativity is almost always associated with music, one can speak of musical folklore and single it out as an independent scientific discipline” [ibid., p. 18].

The works of domestic researchers of the 20th century reflect ideas about folklore as part of the traditional peasant culture, the remaining layers of culture in the peasant environment over subsequent periods in the history of society. (3. Chicherov V.I. winter period Russian folk agricultural calendar of the 16th-19th centuries. Essays on the history of folk beliefs. M., 1957; Propp V.Ya. Russian agricultural holidays. M., 1963; Rozhdestvenskaya S.B. Russian folk art tradition in modern society. M., 1981; Nekrasova M.A. Folk art as part of culture. M., 1983; Chistov K.V. Folk traditions and folklore. Essays on theory. L., 1986. Gusev V.E. Russian folk art culture. (Theoretical essays). SPb., 1993 and others).

M.S. Kagan associated folklore mainly with peasant creativity and therefore spoke of the extinction of folklore, considered it as pre-art, etc.

V.E. Gusev in the article "Folklore as an Element of Culture" and others writes that three main aesthetic approaches to folklore have now been identified:

1 - folklore is only oral folk art,

2 - folklore is a complex of verbal, musical, dance and entertainment-playing types of folk art,

3 - folklore - this is folk art culture in general, including fine and decorative arts.

The shortcomings of the first approach to folklore lie in the rupture of multifunctional ties that really exist in culture; its correlation only with the word, not noticing its non-verbal syncretic manifestations; studying the specifics of folklore only from the side of language, connections with literature, etc.

The second approach is based on the identification of the artistic specifics of folklore, differentiation between "pictorial" and "expressive" types of artistic activity. In "The Aesthetics of Folklore" V.E. Gusev classified folklore according to the epic, dramatic and lyrical types of art; verbal, musical, dance, theatrical types, etc. He determined the genre specifics of folklore by the artistic form, poetics, everyday use, connection with music, etc. .

In the third approach to folklore, we see the desire to unite in the concept of "folklore" the entire folk culture as a whole, blurring its specific and genre boundaries. Undoubtedly, folk costume (clothes, shoes, jewelry), ritual and ritual objects, musical instruments and even the manner of playing them play an important role in folklore creativity; folk architecture, for example, as a "pictorial and decorative background" on which the action takes place (Russian wedding, etc.). In this regard, we note that there is such a thing as "plastic folklore", that is, folk decorative and fine art (see: 236, 237).

The essential characteristic of folklore by domestic researchers was mainly determined, first of all, by its artistic features, its comparison with literature, which aimed researchers at characterizing it as a specific type of art - "folk art". really, its like art. But in such an approach to folklore, it must have all the specific features of art, as well as the completeness of its characterization as a form of social consciousness.

This leads to an underestimation of folklore, which has a specific connection with both the material and everyday, and with the spiritual and artistic spheres of the historical and cultural process. First of all, folklore is a folk everyday and artistic tradition with a variety of sociocultural functions. K.S. Davletov writes about the most important social function of folklore - "the function of folk history, folk philosophy, folk sociology" (65, p. 16).

Characterizing its sociocultural functions in the past, K.V. Chistov notes that folklore then satisfied not only the artistic needs of the people. “To put it in modern terms, he was oral book, and an oral magazine, and an oral newspaper, and a form of amateur art, and a way to consolidate and transfer historical, legal, meteorological, medical and other knowledge” [K.V. Chistov. Folklore and modernity //S.I. Mints, E.V. Pomerantsev. Russian folklore. Reader. M.: Vys. school 1965. p. 453].

We see the reasons for the approaches listed above in defining folklore in the difference in the methodological, philosophical and professional principles of researchers.

Folklore is characterized by a complex interweaving of artistic and non-artistic principles: with some properties it enters the sphere of art, with others it leaves it. Folklore is genetically related to myth in many ways. In addition, the cognitive, aesthetic, ritual and everyday functions in it constitute one syncretic whole, enclosed in a figurative and artistic form.

It is clearly insufficient to look at folklore as merely an oral tradition. The first recorded literature was always or almost always folklore, wrote V.Ya. Propp. Such are the ancient Greek "Iliad" and "Odyssey", the Indian epics "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana", etc. Medieval writers recorded the ancient German epic "The Song of the Nibelungs", the Old English "Beowulf", Celtic folk tales about King Arthur, Icelandic sagas; the fruit of knightly creativity are the epic "Song of Side", "Song of Roland", etc. With the spread of literacy, "folk" handwritten books, which were distributed and processed (“The Romance of the Fox”, “The Legend of Doctor Faust”, etc.).

The first Russian chronicles are associated with folklore traditions and legends. One can note the use of folklore symbols, images, etc. in chronicle sources. Such is the epic "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", discovered in a manuscript in 1792. Count Musin-Pushkin in one of the monasteries. (For Russian culture, the problem of his authorship is no less important than the famous question about the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.)

The writing of medieval Rus' (“the golden age of folklore”) was represented mainly by Christian literature, and only chronicles and folklore performed secular cultural functions. The chroniclers included both historical legends and folklore, even buffoons (for example, "The Prayer of Daniel the Sharpener"). Photius's Moscow annalistic code (XV century) included epics of the Kyiv cycle.

In Rus', a popular popular print was signed, for example, depicting a performance of buffoons: “a bear and a goat are chilling, they are amused by their music,” etc. By the 17th century. include handwritten stories "The Tale of Grief of Misfortune", "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn", "Shemyakin Court" and others that did not retain the names of the authors, and in essence, are handwritten folklore. In Russia, such a genre of folklore as spiritual poetry was recorded, and this tradition was preserved until the 20th century. Old Believers. Thus, in addition to oral transmission, the first recordings of Russian folklore arose.

This applies even more to the content of Russian folklore of the 18th-19th centuries, since, starting from the second half of the 18th century, peasant folklore was not only recorded, but also published, thanks to which it became widespread in the urban environment. Without limiting folklore to the peasant tradition, it should be recognized that at this time the genres of urban, soldier, etc. folklore were intensively developing.

In Russian folklore, along with the oral tradition, the collective nature of its creation was emphasized. However, talking about both the collective and individual nature of folklore creativity, or the absence of authorship, is a rather difficult problem. “The concept of collectivity, if we take into account real facts, writes K.S. Davletov, can only be applied to the content of folk art, to its quality, specificity, while the question of the dialectics of the individual and the collective, characteristic of folklore, inevitably arises.

The collective nature of folklore creativity does not exclude the personal creativity of ancient rhapsodists, bards, akyns, ashugs, storytellers, such Russian storytellers of epics as T.G. Ryabinin and others. Entire families of folk storytellers were found by M.K. Azadovsky in 20-30s. XX century in the villages of Siberia.

M.K. Azadovsky considered folklore creativity not as a relic of antiquity, a tradition of the past, but as a process of living individual creativity, developing within the framework of a folk collective. He noted that the literacy of storytellers is not an obstacle to the development of folklore, but, on the contrary, is a new stimulus for their creativity: “We break with impersonal ethnography, and enter the circle of master artists, where common work is marked by the seal of the bright individuals who create and lead it” . So is K.S. Davletov writes that folklorists have established the existence of quite definite authors for a number of songs, ditties, etc., “whose nationality cannot be denied by any theoretical bias.”

The problem of collective authorship in folk art is manifested in the following way. In folklore creativity, the personal, authorial principle dissolves in the general flow of folk art, when the individual work of a singer, poet, etc., which is transmitted, as folk, to the next generations. The essence of the folklore-creative process is that the new, most often, merges into traditional forms as processing, alteration of old material and then varied by other performers. In this way, folklore reflects the collective consciousness of the people. Collective national consciousness, as a community of "spirit" and subconscious artistic and creative impulses, prevail and therefore in the process of creativity are not divided into personal and general. The identity of the author, therefore, is anonymous, and his creation expresses the very "spirit of the people."

V.Ya. Propp noted that the historical development of folklore shows that there is folklore that arose in prehistoric times in the system of some ritual and survived in oral transmission to the present day, and has variants on an international scale, and folklore that arose in modern times as an individual creativity. , but circulating as folklore.

Of course, there is a significant difference between ritual folklore, which originates from pagan times, and a tourist song, literally transmitted “by ear”, there is a significant difference. In the first case, we see the earliest genres of folklore associated with mythological culture, in the second case, we see the modern folklore of amateur poets.

There are such examples of collective creativity as fairy tales, in which the individuality of the author is expressed in the skill of the narrator, his ability to vary, improvise, and perhaps, even in a new way, present its content to the audience.

Calendar and agricultural songs of Russian folklore are an example of collective creativity, historical songs are an example of the anonymity of an author or a group of authors, and lyrical songs, ditties are an example of an author's creative individuality.

Today, many popular songs among the masses, which we consider “folk” (folklore), can often turn out to be a reworking of the poems of one of the little-known (and even well-known) authors of the 19th century, which are set to music by the people and circulated as folklore, and follows them and being.

Genres such as the author's song, which are clearly gravitating towards folklore, reveal their authors when searching. For example, in 40-60 years. 20th century among the students, the songs “Brigantine” (poems were written by the young poet P. Kogan who died in the war) and “Globe” (only three initial stanzas belong to M. Lvovsky, the rest are anonymous authors) spread among the students. The music for these songs was composed by an amateur musician G. Lepsky. These songs were closely associated with self-consciousness and, of course, became the folklore of the 20th century. They are not forgotten today. (“When the soul sings.” The most popular songs XX century. Comp. SOUTH. Ivanov. Smolensk, 2004).

The very idea of ​​descending into the folklore of the "higher" cultural strata is not new. At one time in Russian folklore, the idea of ​​Vs. Miller about the creation of epics by princely retinue singers and supporting this idea in the 20-30s. 20th century V.A. Keltuyalu. However, this process still takes place in folklore, both European and domestic. P.G. also paid great attention to this circumstance. Bogatyrev in the article "Folklore as a special form of creativity" (27, p. 369-383). We would call this cultural process “folklorization” of everyday cultural material, as V.Ya. Propp.

One of the specific features of folklore is its connection with everyday culture and national professional art.

The problem of traditions in the folklore process and innovation in folklore means that an unambiguous solution to this issue is also impossible.

As we can see, the problem of the specificity of folklore "orality", as well as the "collectivity" of creativity, is closely related both to the problem of authorship and the problem of "folklorization" of literary and other sources. Literary works can also enter the sphere of folklore circulation. For example, children can be told and “played out” the fairy tale “Cinderella” by Ch. Perrault, which children read, and possibly saw in the cinema. The authorship of poems by N.A. is almost lost. Nekrasov, to which the people composed the song “Korobochka”, etc. But as soon as such fairy tales, songs, etc., begin to change among the people, are performed in different ways, variants are created, they already become folklore if they are fixed in folk practice. A characteristic sign of Russian folklore in the XX century. began the "folklorization" of mass choral songs (M. Zakharov, I. Dunaevsky, B. Mokrousov, M. Blanter, etc.), which were sung by the whole people.

Obviously, Russian historical songs, based on factual material and having many specific historical names (including Pugachev, Suvorov, Ataman Platov, and many others), initially had their own authors. It is possible that when writing a song, these authors wrote down their text. But later, as a result of oral transmission, acquiring changes, variants, such a song became folklore. However, the self-consciousness of the authors of these songs is characterized by the use of the plural - “we will intercede”, “we will win”, etc., and in relation to the historical personality - “he said”, etc. Collectivity is reflected in the very nature of the consciousness of folk authors .

So, the problem of collective creativity in folklore should be considered not so much as a problem of personal authorship, but as a problem of collective consciousness of the people. The collective nature of consciousness in folklore does not in any way exclude the presence of personal creativity of individual storytellers, singers, on the contrary, it presupposes it. Ancient legends speak of the creative power of Orpheus, Ossian, Boyan and other singer-poets.

At the same time, the creative power of folklore lies precisely in its collectivity. For example, unlike any theatrical performance, where on the one hand there is the author of the text, actors - performers, etc., and on the other - the audience, in such a folklore action as a traditional wedding ceremony, such a division does not and cannot have such differentiation . Despite the obvious distribution of the social roles of the groom, bride, matchmakers, boyfriends, numerous relatives, as well as the villagers present, they are not spectators, but participants in one traditional folk ritual. On it, the performance of songs, dances, etc., as a rule, is massive.

The French scientist Arnold van Genner noted that folklore is a universal object with a specific element, which is the definition of "folk" (Le folrlore. Raris, 1924, p. 21). The national image of the world reflects the people's mentality, which is the result of the ethnic group's heredity (genetic inclinations in the psyche) and the development of culture (established folk traditions, customs, the preferred choice of a particular religion), which include the historical experience of the ethnic group that has developed in the process of its long formation.

We do not deny the role of the development of social relations, material factors in the formation of the social psychology of the masses, the emergence of differentiated forms of social consciousness as culture develops, because even with respect to the “archetypes” and “symbols” that lie as the “collective unconscious” at the very foundation of culture, K. Jung believed that “only social experience reveals them, makes them visible” (270, p. 92).

K. Jung spoke about the "archetypes" and "symbols" that give rise to the myth, as a single psychobiological foundation that arose at the dawn of human history. The origin of such genres of folklore as a fairy tale, folk rituals and some other genres goes back to the problems of myth, magic and the preservation of the rudiments of mythological consciousness in folklore, paganism, which determine the design features of these folklore forms.

We note a long period of development of culture, and a significant difference in the manifestations of the national character of culture, already noted by ancient thinkers. With the similarity of myths among many peoples of the world (in particular, among the Indo-European peoples), we note that the most characteristic manifestation of the national principle in folklore is music, songs, dances, etc., since each ethnic group differs only in one inherent combination of temperament, such as thinking and worldview.

It seems to us that the entire nation, in the aggregate of its classes, estates, etc., is the bearer and custodian of its language, its folklore and original artistic culture, because only in the "ethnic field" does a constant process of folklore artistic creativity take place, which is preserved in the historical the memory of the people as having the specific features of their language, which differs from the folklore language of other peoples.

At the same time, the musical and other non-verbal components of folklore do not lag behind historically unchanged. For several centuries, the Negro population of America has so much transformed and synthesized both European and African elements in music, singing, and dance that this folklore began to be perceived as nationally significant for each of the peoples of those countries of America where they live.

V.Ya. Propp brings folklore genetically close not to literature, but to language, “which is also not invented by anyone” and has no authors. It arises and changes quite naturally and independently of the will of people, wherever appropriate conditions have been created for this in the historical development of peoples” (186, p. 22). We can talk about the metaphorical, artistic figurativeness of the folklore language (A.N. Afanasiev, A.N. Veselovsky and others), the specifics of the reflection in the language of folklore and fairy-tale time and space (D.S. Likhachev).

It should be noted that the artistic language of folklore in many cases, to one degree or another, is syncretic and has not only a verbal (verbal), but also a non-verbal sphere of its “I”, which reflects the specificity of the folk spirit within the boundaries of the artistic reflection of the world.

The concept of "language" can in no way be reduced to the oral and written speech of a person, to the word. It also includes various other ways and forms of receiving, fixing and transmitting non-verbal information (for example, the languages ​​of music, dance, facial expressions, gestures, colors, etc. in folklore), as well as the ability of a person to reproduce it. In the language of folklore, we mark both the verbal sphere (word) and non-verbal (music, dance, game, ritual, folk festival, etc.). A particularly striking ethnic dominant in folklore is its non-verbal linguistic sphere, which reflects the peculiarities of the national temperament, etc. as a result of the subconsciously sensory assimilation of the world. There is even a sensual-unconscious feeling of the Motherland, and a person’s stay in a foreign land causes “nostalgia”, including due to the lack of the usual sound of folk music, songs, dances, etc.

E. Sapir and B. Whorf, who put forward the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, spoke about the conditioning of perception and thinking by the specific structuralization of language (107, p.163). They believe that the language skills and norms of the unconscious determine the images (pictures) of the world inherent in the speakers of a particular language. The difference between these images is the greater, the further the languages ​​are separated from each other. The grammatical structure of the language imposes a way of articulating speech and a description of the surrounding reality. The role of language here is formative. The absence in the language of words to express a number of concepts does not mean the impossibility of their presence in the mind. G.D. also writes about national images of the world. Gachev (42).

Thus, in the communicative and information sphere of folklore creativity, ethnic features manifest themselves in a noticeable and recognizable shell, and one can note not only the verbal side of folklore, but also the specifics of the non-verbal one. Therefore, it is impossible to translate folk dance, music into “another” language (they can only be reproduced, stylized), just as inadequate is the translation of the verbal text of a folk song into another language, which will change its national specifics.

In connection with the above, the interpretation of folklore as oral folk art, with the syncretism of artistic elements and everyday functions of folklore, seems to us unjustified. In folklore, the word appears in synthesis with other elements, the word itself is poetic-rhythmic, musical-intonational, even if it is a narrative (epic recitative, fairy tale, etc.). In historical, drawn-out, lyrical Russian folk songs, the word is combined with a musical melody, a clear rhythm, and often instrumental accompaniment. In fast and dance songs, ditties, the word is all the more connected with motor rhythm, movement, dance, active facial expressions. The artistic syncretism of folklore is also present in the ornamentation of folk clothes, the symbolism of colors, in decorations that are associated with traditional national psychological attitudes. At the same time, syncretism should not be considered a specific feature of the artistic sphere of folklore, the combination of the verbal and non-verbal nature of its language. Folklore syncretism should be understood in a special "totality" of folklore phenomena with folk traditions, holidays, rituals, in which it manifests itself fully as a cultural and aesthetic phenomenon. Nevertheless, in the folk festival, the folklore "accurate" word is the leading component of the action. This is both a proverb and a saying, said at the right time. The word is also organically combined with music in song genres, a ditty, which is certainly associated with dance, in game genres. In addition to the word, expressive facial expressions, a successful gesture, as well as the observance of traditions are just as important.

For folklorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, as mentioned above, it is typical to oppose some kind of “pure” peasant folklore, patriarchal folk culture to “corrupting and corrupting” urban influence folklore. They sought to record such disappearing genres as epics and ritual folklore. Folklore theater "Petrushki", folk booths, petty-bourgeois ballad, everyday, gypsy and "cruel" romances, they considered the ditty to be phenomena of the "degeneration" of folklore. Recognizing the aesthetic value of only peasant traditional folklore, folklorists declared the historically inevitable connections with urban creativity and literature to be “disastrous” for it. However, the people loved both booths and puppeteers' rhymes, as the return of "buffoonery".

Folklore, despite long-term contacts with literature and other types of art, exists as a form of mass creativity, quite independently, forming through its specificity, reflecting through features folk psychology the “core” of artistic forms and traditions, which also makes up its specificity, which distinguishes it from other forms of social consciousness, including art. It should be noted that the development of folklore artistic consciousness reproduces not only the former forms and genres of folklore, closely related to folk life, but also gives rise to new creativity as a reflection of the changing forms of world perception.

At present, there are several forms of existence of folklore. There is a living form, and there is a historical form of its existence (that which functioned traditionally in the recent past) and has remained for us in the form fixed by folklorists - records, books, notes, objects of material and artistic culture. There is also such a form of today's functioning of folklore as reproduction, which has passed into concert halls, processed by professionals, including in folk choirs, etc.

Less noticeable and we study the folklore of the 20th century proper: the development of amateur creativity of the masses - amateur poetry and song (for example, student, army folklore), new ditties, amateur holidays of laughter, for example, humor, KVN, April 1 holiday, etc., anecdotes, bylichka stories - about poltergeists, drummers, folklorization of bard and mass songs, tourist songs, historical legends, memories of the heroes of the Civil and Great Patriotic War, etc. Obviously, in this case, one should say about a certain time distance necessary for so that one or the other new genre, the plot of folklore entered organically into the people's self-consciousness as a blood-native, was artistically polished among the masses.

Folklore exists as an unshakable foundation of the national mentality, a collective cultural and aesthetic experience, which is characterized by a special, sensual knowledge of the surrounding world and nature. The artistic specificity of folklore allows us to consider it in the context of the key categories of folk ethics and aesthetics.

All of the above allows us to draw the following preliminary conclusions about the phenomenon that we see behind the concept of "folklore":

Folklore is a manifestation of ordinary artistic consciousness and is characterized by the following level features: syncretism (connection with other forms of social consciousness - myth, religion, art, etc.), active and practical nature, close connection with collective social psychology, wide mass existence, traditional character of the main images and forms.

In this regard, it is necessary to see, first of all, the national identity of folklore artistic consciousness as a whole, which distinguishes it from other forms of social consciousness, including art as a specialized professional, supranational, "reference" form of social consciousness. If in art the forms of artistic expression (creation and reading of the text) are secondary and subject to aesthetic comprehension, then in folklore these two sides are more equivalent, inversion in their semantic interaction is possible.

The main features of the difference between folklore and art as a form of everyday consciousness are the ethnic principle, its qualitatively higher level of artistic and everyday syncretism, etc. In folklore, an aesthetic rethinking of many aspects of everyday consciousness and life is carried out, all of them are designed in the form of a traditional specific folklore text. In part, this circumstance makes folklore related to ritual-ritual, syncretic forms of magic and myth. Speaking about folklore consciousness, it is important to emphasize the special, transformative, formative role of the aesthetic function.

The specificity of folklore consciousness is determined by the regularities of the ordinary level of social consciousness. The identification of folklore artistic consciousness as a special form of social consciousness is possible only in connection with the recognition of the plurality of its aspects behind ordinary consciousness.

The question of the non-differentiation of folklore as a form of social consciousness should be reviewed in connection with the historical development of society, the emergence of class states, etc., therefore, the development of differentiated levels and forms of social consciousness among which it exists. Folklore, having actually arisen in a tribal-patriarchal society (as evidenced by the creation of myths, fairy tales, heroic-epic genres, etc.), gradually differentiates from myth, then from other forms of social consciousness, while maintaining its connection with them. It continues to develop and exist in new socio-cultural conditions (for example, antiquity, the Middle Ages, modern times and our days).

Speaking about the specifics of folklore, it is worth dwelling on such a feature of it as social consciousness, in which the collective consciousness prevails over the personal-individual. This allows us to include in the methodological aspect of the study such a phenomenon of social psychology as collective consciousness.

The essence of folklore can be considered not only as a social phenomenon (social consciousness), but also through the knowledge of the individual human psyche, in which there is a layer of the subconscious and the "collective unconscious". This may explain its genetic connection with myth and some of the unconscious impulses in folkloric activity.

It seems to us that folklore consciousness is a wider phenomenon than folklore itself (with its system of types and genres). Folklore consciousness as an artistic consciousness is manifested in all other forms of folk art: arts and crafts, folk crafts, folk architecture, etc.

Folklore is not only “cultural texts” (forms, genres), but also a way of creative folk activity for their creation, existence (traditions, rituals, etc.), mechanisms for their transmission from generation to generation (peculiar singing “schools” , craft artels, etc.). Folklore should be considered in the context of folk culture as an integral system, comprehended and regulated by folklore artistic consciousness as a whole.

In the XIX - early XX century. developed the basic methods of recording and studying folklore.

Method of "Included observation"(used in the stationary form of collecting work). When using this method, conditions for easy communication are created during the collection of material. Informants constitute the natural communicative environment of the collector. The specificity of the collection work is that the texts are recorded in the situation of a conversation, but not a specially organized interview, so in such an environment it is not always possible to use a voice recorder, some of the texts are recorded from memory. The advantages of the material collected in this way are that the texts are observed in a natural setting, the conversation with the informant is provoked only by the interest of the collector, and not by the questions of the questionnaire. At the same time, the context of the conversation, status, gender and age characteristics of the interlocutors are fixed. The disadvantages of collecting material by the method of "participant observation" include, firstly, a small number of texts, which is determined by the conscious inactive position of the collector, and secondly, the inaccuracy of fixing texts (both phonetic characteristics and designations of rhythmic periods of conversation, separate introductory words necessary for the analysis of illocutionary attitudes of the text.

Statistical method(was developed by B.K. Malinovsky) - is carried out on the basis of drawing up maps and tables.

System (complex) method involves a comprehensive study of folklore, in relation to certain everyday, ethnographic realities.

cartographic method aims to identify the geography of distribution of certain genres of folklore, the study of folklore phenomena "in space and time." This is a strategic method designed for long-term research. Mapping can be carried out according to ethnic, territorial, temporal principles and allows you to trace the prevalence and forms of existence of folklore genres among various peoples and ethnic groups in different periods their stories. The study of folklore by the method of mapping requires a lot of preparatory organizational and collecting work, and, as a rule, requires the unification and coordination of folklorists. Thus, a mapping program is preliminarily drawn up, work is carried out to identify and systematize the available materials, gaps are identified, special maps are compiled, and principles for applying materials to the map are developed.



In the XIX - early XX century. the main directions (schools) of researchers of folk art were formed.

founder mythological school became a folklorist f.I. Buslaev, who, following the brothers Grimm, established the connection between folklore, language, mythology, singled out the principle of the collective nature of the artistic creativity of the people.

School of Borrowing pointed out the amazing similarity of many folklore works among the peoples of the West and the East, raised the question of cultural and historical ties between the folk art of different peoples. The borrowing theory found many followers in Russia (G.N. Potanin, F.I. Buslaev).

The most influential in the XIX - early XX century. was historical school. The principles of the historical school finally took shape in the mid-1990s. HGH c. in the generalizing work of V. F. Miller “Essays on Russian Folk Literature”. So, the researcher of epics, for example, had to answer four basic questions: where, when, in connection with what historical events it was created and what poetic sources its creators relied on. They studied the monuments of folklore and ancient Russian literature, extracting numerous parallels from the annals with the real history of the people. This is how the prototypes were set up. epic heroes, names, as well as real events that formed the basis of the plot situations of epics.

Despite the harsh criticism of opponents who reproached scientists for the "theory of the aristocratic origin of epics", the traditions of the historical school in Russian folklore of the 20th century. developed.


So, B.A. Rybakov, answering his opponents, insisted on clarifying the deep connections of the epic with the specific history of Ancient Rus'. In his research, Rybakov made extensive use of chronicles, historical and archeological facts 14 .

Among the modern methods or approaches to the study of folklore, it is necessary to name typological, explaining not individual facts, but establishing patterns. Thus, typological similarity is manifested in the folklore of different peoples in a specific type of folk art (orality, collectivity, traditionalism, variability, etc.). Typologically similar forms and ways of being. Typology explains those striking facts of similarities and coincidences that cannot be explained either by borrowing or by the genetic relationship of peoples.

Thus, the variety of approaches in the study of folk art spoke of the attempts of folklore, which is undergoing its formation, to cover the entire subject as a complex system of many genres.

In the 20th century, for a number of folklorists, the methods of formal research became an alternative to the simplified sociological approach: structural-typological method analysis, involving the identification of invariant models of genres, plots, motives and historical-typological method, involving the study of folklore works in a historical and ethnographic context.

The processes of the history of folklore explores historical poetics, created as a special direction by A.N. Veselovsky. Within its framework, poetic genera, genres, stylistic systems are considered - both in general and in their specific manifestations. Historical poetics explores the connections of oral folk art with written literature, music, and visual arts.

IN Lately the trend of a comprehensive study of folklore, language, mythology, ethnography, folk art as components of a single culture of the people was clearly outlined.

Any method involves reliance on facts. New technologies have entered the life of folklorists that improve the accuracy and quality of records, simplify the mechanical operations of accounting and systematizing material, and finding the necessary information.

There are centers for philological, musicological, choreographic study of folk art, regional folklore centers and houses of folk art with their own archives, periodicals and scientific publications.

Studying folk choreography. A special problem is the study of Russian traditional dance. It should be noted that even today, in many respects, folklore dance remains poorly understood, and our ideas about it are more often based not on scientific facts, but on “myths”. The root cause of the current situation should be sought in the apparent insufficiency of expeditionary research practice. Comparing two closely related areas of ethnography: ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology, it is impossible not to notice a huge difference in their development. Over the past two centuries, thousands of folk songs have been recorded in Russia, hundreds of song collections have been published. During the Soviet period, a number of research centers appeared with extensive audio funds, which are systematically replenished and processed. Constant scientific research and discussions have allowed the formation of several schools of ethnomusicologists.

The situation with ethnochoreology was quite different. Recordings and publications of authentic dances were extremely rare. The descriptions of the dances were not given in exact accordance with the authentic originals, but in adaptations or in the author's interpretation and were often passed off as originals. There was practically no research on folk terminology. Specialists studying folk dance were not trained by any educational institution, which did not contribute to the emergence of an extensive and fruitful scientific discussion.

In 1987, the International Folk Dance Forum was held in Novgorod under the auspices of UNESCO. The forum participants from different countries adopted recommendations Russian choreographers, including 18 items. Here are some of the recommendations: “raising the question of the need for serious training of choreographers in folk traditions”; “organization of creative workshops and scientific symposiums”; "creation of a working group to clarify the terms used in folk choreography and choreology"; "creation of national archives of folk dances...".

All these questions remain relevant and practically unresolved today. To increase the level of knowledge of folk dance, the regional nature of traditional dance should become the basis for future research. In the all-Russian choreographic tradition, several

Rybakov B.A. Ancient Rus'. Legends. Epics. Chronicles. - M., 1963.


Original regional performing styles that differ in dance vocabulary, performance style and genre and repertoire composition. It is this originality of different regions that makes up the richness of Russian traditional dance.

However, recently there has been a positive trend in addressing the origins of Russian folk choreography, work has begun on finding and fixing authentic originals of folk choreography, which in the last five years has become the subject of expeditionary practice by many folklore and research teams. New repertory collections have appeared, scientific research in the field traditional choreography, a more active appeal of choreographers to folk themes give hope for the further development of research on folk choreography in Russia, including in the study of the entire spectrum of Russian regional dance styles.

Methods of studying folk art (arts and crafts and folk arts and crafts). The study of folk art is one of the youngest branches of the humanities. This branch of science takes shape in the second half of the 19th century. During this period, the foundations of folklore were laid, in parallel with the study of folklore, the collection of objects of Russian antiquity began. The first archaeological excavations and archival research are being undertaken. The concept of national heritage is expanding, the first publications appear. Of great importance are the works of the outstanding philologist, a brilliant connoisseur of Russian literature F. I. Buslaev, who turned to the most important problems of the origin, evolution, and also the nationality of Russian art. Buslaev raised the question of the close connection and interaction of folk poetry with folk art, publishing a number of interesting, previously unknown monuments.

I. E. Zabelin, who was among the scientists who first turned to the study of the history of the culture of our country, considered Russian art as a deeply original phenomenon. He owns the idea of ​​a national, original system of artistic thinking, inherent in Russian traditional art.

The founder of the science of Russian arts and crafts was V.V. Stasov, he first revealed artistic value contemporary peasant art, seeing in it deep connections with ancient culture, and sought to oppose the original beginning of ancient Russian art to Byzantine influence. For us, the significance of his works, in essence the first serious analytical work in the field of folk art, is extremely great. Stasov's innovation was also reflected in the fact that he considered works of folk art not only as objects for collecting: he suggested that contemporary artists use folk art in their practice as a genuine art with deep national traditions. However, defending the originality of Russian culture, Stasov attached too much importance to the influence of the cultures of the Middle and Near East on it.

At the end of the XIX century. interest in folk life and creativity is expanding more and more. There are various publications not only of ancient monuments, but also of works of contemporary folk art.

At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. the press reflects the attempts of a number of zemstvo figures, including artists who worked directly with handicraftsmen, to support the declining crafts, to preserve the treasures of folk art. So, S. A. Davydova left a number of works on women's folk crafts, in particular on Russian lace, the history of this traditional craft, production techniques, and individual lace-making centers. In the collection "Handicraft Industry of Russia" interesting information was published on such women's crafts as embroidery, gold embroidery, weaving.

During this period, zemstvo organizations played a very significant role in the fate of folk crafts. Surveys of handicraft industries undertaken by them, with the aim of providing them with real assistance, are recorded in reports, articles, reference books. The information carefully collected by Zemstvo figures on statistics, economics of crafts and production techniques is the most valuable factual material for scientific research. Zemstvo organizations published multi-volume illustrated collections of handicrafts throughout Russia and individual regions, descriptions of folk art exhibitions, and proceedings of congresses of handicraft industry workers.

At the beginning of the XX century. there are studies devoted to certain types of folk art production, which is revealed as a great national art.

So, during the years 1910-1912. 12 releases of the album by A. A. Bobrinsky were published, united by a common name. It was a great contribution of the author to the culture of Russia. Albums


introduced readers to the treasures of Russian art, and also served as material for the work of researchers and artists. Bobrinsky's work is the richest source of extensive material not only conscientiously collected, but also systematized by the author. Here, for the first time, an attempt was made to accurately indicate the places of existence of most of the products.

Along with such works generalizing a wide range of material as Bobrinsky's albums, publications appear devoted to individual folk crafts, with a description of the history of their occurrence and production techniques.

A prominent role in the study of folk art was played by N. D. Bartram, an artist by profession, the organizer of the Toy Museum, unique in its collection. In the past, a member of the Zemstvo, who worked with handicraftsmen, he paid great attention to the study of the economy of crafts. Among the artists - members of the "World of Art" association, who defended aesthetic views, an environment that seemed to be far from the problems of the development of folk art, there is the greatest interest in it. A. Benois, speaking about the originality of folk art, ardently protests against the forcible introduction of alien influences into the crafts, leading to the decline - artistic culture. The same thoughts are heard in the articles by I. Bilibin, I. Grabar, who speak of the need to save folk art at all costs from the death that threatens it.

At the end of the XIX century - the beginning of the XX century. museums are active. The Stroganov School, the Moscow Historical Museum and others systematically collect materials on national art organize expeditions to different regions of Russia. Among private collections, the unique collection of Russian costumes from different provinces and various items of folk arts and crafts by N. Shabelskaya are especially valuable. The publication of outstanding examples of folk art belonging to Shabelskaya was devoted to special issue magazine "Studio". Thus, in the second half of the nineteenth century at the beginning of the twentieth century. valuable material was collected, comprehended and partially published.

New stage in the study of folk art comes after the revolution. In the context of the development of Soviet culture, a new attitude to folk art is emerging, which contributed to the emergence of a branch of art criticism devoted to the problems of the art of folk crafts and the study of their origins. Domestic science of the Soviet period sought to actively intervene in the fate of crafts, its main goal was to promote the development of folk art. Many works of the 1920s and 1930s are a sharp controversy on the issue of restoring the foundations of folk art. Therefore, the issues of studying the best traditions of Russian art and their creative processing become especially relevant. Among the achievements of Soviet science is the organization of exhibitions in the State Historical Museum in 1922-1923, which for the first time widely familiarized the public with peasant creativity. These were the first scientifically built expositions, where extensive material was systematized. Strictly scientific selection of material allowed scientists to identify certain patterns in the development of folk art, to make a number of theoretical generalizations.

The work “Peasant Art” by V. S. Voronov, one of the leaders of expeditions and organizers of exhibitions in the Historical Museum, is of particular importance for domestic art history. In it, issues of local originality were scientifically developed. V. S. Voronov develops a convincing method for describing and analyzing monuments of folk art, which makes it possible to reveal its specificity. In the works of Voronov, devoted to carving and painting on wood, the provisions are further developed, only outlined in their time in the writings of Bobrinsky; Voronov gives a classification of folk ornament and establishes the existence of schools of artistic painting: Severodvinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Gorodets. This classification has been preserved in art history to the present day.

In the 1920s and 1930s, issues of folk art were of interest to a wide range of researchers. The works of archaeologists and ethnographers make a great contribution to the comprehensive study of folk art. Among the historical and archaeological works, an article by V. A. Gorodtsov is significant, devoted to the question of the origin of a number of ancient motifs preserved in folk art. His work contains detailed iconography of ancient images that have become traditional in folk art.

The works of ethnographers based on the field collection of material, containing detailed descriptions household items, techniques for their production, ornamental decorations. The most interesting and full coverage of issues related to folk clothing, in the works of N. P. Grinkova, M. E. Sheremetyeva, N. I. Lebedeva, E. N. Kletnova.


In the 1930s, along with extensive collecting and scientific activity, a great deal of practical work began directly with the existing folk crafts. During these years, the Handicraft Museum (now the Museum of Folk Art) launched an active activity, on the basis of which the Scientific Research Institute of the Art Industry (NIIKhP) was created in 1931, which carried out the artistic management of crafts. Such prominent scientists as V. S. Voronov, A. V. Bakushinsky, and later V. M. Vasilenko became the heads of the institute. The collection of material in museums and crafts was carried out by L. I. Sviontkovskaya-Voronova, the author of a serious work on carved bone, V. Ya. Yakovleva, Z. D. Kashkarova, and E. G. Telyakovsky.

This period was most vividly reflected in the works of the prominent scientist A. V. Bakushinsky, who combined scientific, literary work with practice. He found a new method of research and analysis of works of folk art.

Research methods and views of A. V. Bakushinsky are further developed in the works of V. M. Vasilenko, created on the basis of the extensive material he collected. M. Vasilenko in his works of the 30s, devoted to certain types of crafts, gives a vivid description of folk art, focusing on the art of the pre-Soviet period. His monograph "The Northern Carved Bone" is dedicated to the Kholmogory carvers.

As a result of the activities of the 1930s in the field of science and practical work with crafts, the Institute of Art Industry prepared a collection "Folk Art of the USSR in Artistic Crafts". A. V. Bakushinsky, V. M. Vasilenko, V. S. Voronov, G. V. Zhidkov, E. M. Schilling and others took part in writing the articles. Short story and characteristics of the fisheries, in an accessible and vivid form it was told about creative achievements masters of folk art for two decades of Soviet power.

A new stage in the development of art history is associated with the works of Russian scientists in the post-war period, which is characterized by an appeal to a much wider range of materials that were previously unknown.

A significant event in historical science was the publication of the work of B.A. Rybakov "The Craft of Ancient Rus'", summing up the long-term research work author in the field of archeology. Rybakov's extensive work introduced scientists to a whole group of previously unknown wonderful decorative items made by masters of the distant past. New archeological data made it possible to speak more confidently about the degree of development of folk crafts in ancient times, their prevalence and diversity.

The study of the origins of folk art made it possible to raise the question of its origin, development and specifics more broadly. Deepening the research of V. A. Gorodtsov, Rybakov pays great attention to the origin of folk ornament motifs, emphasizing their artistic significance and trying to find a link between the compositions that exist in modern embroidery and their ancient prototypes.

L. A. Dintses worked in the field of studying the roots of Russian folk ornament; his works “Ancient Features in Russian Folk Art”, “Russian Clay Toy” are devoted to this topic. Among ethnographers, E. E. Blomqvist, N. I. Lebedeva, G. S. Maslova dealt with issues related to folk art. The extensive material collected by them contains valuable and detailed information about people's dwellings, clothing, patterned weaving.

Thus, the fundamental works of historians and ethnographers, articles and publications in the journals "Soviet Ethnography" and "Soviet Archaeology" contained a lot of new data on the development of Russian culture.

In the 40-50s, the leading works in Soviet art criticism were the works of A. B. Saltykov. Working mainly in the field of ceramics, in his writings he touched upon a number of general problems in the development of folk art, continuing what Stasov, Voronov, Bakushinsky started. They were the first to pose many specific questions decorative arts. A. B. Saltykov focused on issues of tradition and innovation, wrote about the features of the solution artistic image in the work of folk masters, concerned the problem of synthesis, as a characteristic feature of decorative art.

A. B. Saltykov's method consisted in a creative approach to traditional art: he was looking for ways to use the traditions of the past in modern art, in relation to modern life.

For the Research Institute of the Art Industry, the post-war years were a period of intense activity for the further collection and publication of materials on


folk art and practical work with crafts. Begins teamwork on the creation of a series of books "Artistic crafts of the RSFSR". Thus, all modern Russian crafts were represented, many of which had not previously been covered in the literature. Processing expeditionary materials, comparing them with things from museum collections lead to new discoveries, make it possible to clarify the centers of crafts, to localize art schools. Particularly interesting results are obtained by complex expeditions of employees of institutes and museums: historians, architects, and art historians. I. E. Grabar played a leading role in organizing this work.

The State Russian Museum in Leningrad published a number of works dedicated to folk wooden sculpture, embroidery and lace.

It is necessary to mention the contribution to the science of folk art made by local collectors M. Rekhachev, D. V. Prokopiev, M. P. Zvantsev, I. N. Shatrov, who published a number of monographic studies on individual folk crafts in the prewar years and after the war.

Among scientific publications, the works of V. M. Vasilenko are significant. His monograph "The Art of Khokhloma" is devoted to the issue of stylistic artistic features Khokhloma painting. A great event was the organization in 1957 of the publication of the journal "Decorative Art of the USSR", on the pages of which articles are published on various issues of folk art. The first issue of the magazine was entirely devoted to folk art.

Big role The work of M. A. Ilyin “Russian Decorative Art” (M., 1959), translated into several foreign languages, played in the popularization of Russian folk art.

In 1960, the work of S. M. Temerin “Russian Applied Art” was published, highlighting the work of both craftsmen and industrial artists. The author paid great attention to the Soviet applied art of the 30s, which is very little touched upon in the literature, and characterized it from the standpoint of contemporary aesthetic views.

At the present stage, there are certain difficulties in the analysis of sources, since the newly published works are mainly of a highly specialized art criticism nature.

By studying the works of folk art created in different periods, one can identify in the techniques of craftsmanship, in plots and ornaments, a living connection with the centuries-old national culture. In the conditions of handicraft production, there was also an active assimilation of the achievements of simultaneously working masters. Technical improvements, inventions and new motifs, plots and compositions quickly became common property.

Common were not only the skills of work in the field of embroidery, weaving, painting and wood carving, but also the range of things created, their shape and the nature of the decorative design. As a result, the traditional circle of images and techniques of folk decorative art was continuously enriched with new themes, motifs and plots.

It can be assumed that at present art crafts are both an industry and an area of ​​folk art.

A combination of tradition and innovation, stylistic features and creative improvisation, collective beginnings and views of an individual, hand-made products and high professionalism are characteristic features of the creative work of craftsmen and artists.

In the age of technological progress, machines and automation, standard and unification, handicrafts, made mainly by hand, mostly from natural materials, have acquired special significance.

Thus, to date, the following issues of research into folk art have emerged:

1. Ethnological research, revealing the relationship of the traditional way of life, national character and the originality of the artistic creativity of a particular people.

2. Folklore studies, fixing samples of folk art and studying the history of Russian folklore.

3. Art studies aimed at analyzing the artistic and aesthetic features of amateur art (self-taught artists, amateur authors).

4. Sociological research that reveals the role and place of NHC in the life of an ethnic group, trends and social factors of development.

5. Pedagogical research of the NHC, helping to determine the spiritual and moral values ​​and creative abilities of the individual in the process of non-professional artistic activity.


Modern Russian scientists use a variety of scientific research methods:
empirical methods; questioning; observation; testing, conversations, sociometry; analysis
and content analysis; system analysis; pedagogical modeling; pedagogical

experiment, which allows them to carry out theoretical studies of NHC (revealing the essence, principles, functions, patterns of development of NHT) and applied research (study of specific processes and phenomena in the development of NHT).

Questions and tasks for self-examination:

1. Expand the essence of the concept of "folklore"

2. Tell us about the main stages in the development of Russian folklore.

3. Describe the research methods of folk art (arts and crafts).

4. List the main methods of collecting and studying folk art.

5. Prepare a report on the topic “Formation and development of Russian folklore”, “The first collections of folklore works in Russia”, “Creativity of outstanding collectors and researchers of folklore (Kireevsky, V.I. Dal, A.N. Afanasyev, G.S. Vinogradov , E. A. Pokrovsky, V. Y. Propp, B. N. Putilov and others, to choose from)”.

Bibliography

1. Azadovsky M.K. History of Russian folklore. - M.: Uchpedgiz, 1958. T. 1. - 479 s; 1963. V.2. -363 p.

2. Asafiev B.V. ABOUT folk music/ Comp. I.I. Zemtsovsky, A.B. Kunanbaeva. - L .: Music, 1987. -247 p: notes.

3. Banin A.A. Russian instrumental music folklore tradition. - M .: Publishing house of the state. rep. center of Russian folklore, 1997. - 247 p.: notes.

4. Bogatyrev Ts.G. Questions of the theory of folk art. - M.: Art, 1971. - 544 p.

5. Veselovsky A.N. Historical poetics / Ed., entry. Art. and note. V.M. Zhirmunsky. - L.: Goslitizdat, 1940. - 364 p.

6. East Slavic folklore: Dictionary of scientific and folk terminology / Ed. V.E. Guseva, V.M. Gatsak; Rep. ed. K.P. Kabashnikov. - Minsk: Navuka i tekhshka, 1993. - 478 p.

7. Gippius E.V. Review of the most important collections of musical recordings of Russian folk songs from the 60s of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century // Materials and articles for the 100th anniversary of the birth of E.V. Gippius / Ed.-ed.: E.A. Dorohova, O.A. Flank. M.: Composer, 2003. S. 59-111.

8. Gusev V.E. Russian folk art culture (theoretical essays) / St. Petersburg, Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography. - St. Petersburg, 1993. - 110 p.

9. Eremina V.I. ritual and folklore. - L.: Nauka, 1991. - 207 p.

10. Ivanova T.G. Russian folklore studies of the beginning of the 20th century in biographical sketches. - St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 1993.-203 p.

11. Mints SI., Pomerantseva E.V. Russian folklore: Reader. 2nd ed. - M.: Higher. school, 1971. -416s.

12. Putilov B.N. Folklore and folk culture. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1994. - 240 p.

13. Rudneva A.V. Russian folk musical creativity In: Essays on the Theory of Folklore. - M.: Composer, 1994. - 222 p.: notes.

14. Russian thought about musical folklore. Materials and documents / Comp. P.A. Wolfius. - M.: Music, 1979. - 367 p.: notes.

15. Russian folk poetry: Reader on folklore / Comp. SOUTH. Round. -M.: Higher. school, 1986. - 535 p.

16. Slavic Antiquities: Ethnolinguistic Dictionary: In 5 volumes / Ed. N.I. Tolstoy. - M.: International relations, 1995. T. 1: (A-G). - 584 s; 1999. Vol. 2: (D-K). - 704 s; 2004. V. 3: (K-P). -704 p.

17. Bibliographic series "Russian Folklore", founded by M.Ya. Meltz: Russian folklore: Bibliographic index. 1945-1959 / Comp. M.Ya. Meltz. - L .: Publishing House of the Library of the Academy of Sciences, 1961. - 402 s; Same. 1917-1944. L., 1966. - 683 s; Same. 1960-1965. L., 1967. - 539 p.; Same. 1901-1916. L., 1981. - 477 p.; Same. 1966-1975. L., 1984. Part 1. - 420 s; 1985. Part 2. - 385 s; Same. 1976-1980 / Comp. T.G. Ivanova. L., 1987. - 399 s; Same. 1881-1900. L, 1990. - 500 s; Same. 1981-1985. SPb., 1993. -


543 s; Same. 1800-1855. St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 1996. - 262 p.; Same. 1991-1995. SPb., 2001. -642 p.

18. From the history of Russian Soviet folklore. - L.: Nauka, 1981. - 277 p.

19. From the history of Russian folklore. - L .: Nauka, 1990. Issue. 3. - 278 s; Same. - St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 1998. Issue. 4-5. - 598 p.

20. Mapping and areal research in folklore: Sat. Art. / Comp. O.A. Flank. - M., 1999. - 220 p. (Proceedings of the State Russian Academy of Sciences named after the Gnessins; Issue 154).

21. Methods of studying folklore: Sat. scientific tr. / Rev. Ed.: V.E. Gusev. - L.: Lenizdat, 1983. - 154 p. (Folklore and folkloristics; Issue 7).

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    SPECIFICITY OF FOLKLORE

    1. The social nature of folklore. In our time, the problems of folklore are becoming more and more relevant. Not a single human science - neither ethnography, nor history, nor linguistics, nor the history of literature can do without folklore materials and research. We are gradually beginning to realize that the clue to many and very diverse phenomena of spiritual culture lies in folklore. Meanwhile, folkloristics itself has not yet defined itself, its tasks, the specifics of its material and its own specifics as a science. True, in our science there are a number of works of a general theoretical nature. However, life is moving forward at such a rapid pace that the propositions put forward in these works no longer satisfy, do not correspond to that extremely complex picture, which gradually revealed itself to us as a result of persistent research work. To determine the subject and essence of our science, to establish its place among other related sciences, to determine the specifics of its material has become a matter of urgent necessity. The correctness of methods and, consequently, of conclusions also depends on a correct understanding of the essence and task of science. The formulation of general theoretical questions has not only a general cognitive, philosophical significance, but also helps to concretely resolve the research problems that confront us.

    In Western Europe there is also no shortage of general theoretical work. However, these works as a whole satisfy us even less than the early Soviet works. Folkloristics is an ideological science. Its methods and attitudes are determined by the worldview of the era and reflect it. With the fall of the worldview, the principles of the science he created fall. We cannot be guided by scientific views created by romanticism or enlightenment or any other direction. Our task is to create science from the worldview of our era and our country.

    The specifics of folklore 17

    What is meant by "folklore" in the latest Western European science? To answer this question, it is enough to open any monograph under the appropriate title. So, if we take the book of the famous German folklorist Ion Meyer "Deutsche Volkskunde" (1921, "German Folklore"), then we will see the following sections there: village, buildings, courtyards; plants; customs; superstition; language; legends; fairy tales; folk songs; bibliography.

    Such a picture is typical of all Western European science, predominantly German and French, and to a lesser extent - for English and American. The same picture, but with more specialization, is given by magazines. Here, for example, the smallest details of buildings, architraves, shutters, princelings, the construction of furnaces, utensils, household items, vessels, cradles, spinning wheels, costumes, hats, etc., etc. are studied. Along with this, ritual life is studied, weddings, holidays, as well as the entire field of poetic creativity: fairy tales, legends, songs, traditions, sayings, etc.

    This picture is not accidental. It reflects a certain understanding by science of its tasks. The presuppositions or propositions on which this science is built may be reduced to the following:

    1) the culture of one stratum of the population is studied, namely, the peasantry;

    2) the subject of science is both material and spiritual culture;

    3) the peasantry of only one people serves as the subject of science, namely, in most cases, its own, the one to which the researcher himself belongs.

    None of these provisions can be accepted by us. Our science is entirely built on other foundations.

    We, firstly, separate the realm of material and spiritual creativity and make them the subject of different, albeit related, related, mutually connected and dependent sciences. The view that the material and spiritual creativity of the peasantry can be studied by one science is essentially a noble view. This is not done for the culture of the ruling classes. The history of technology and architecture, on the one hand, and the history of literature or music, etc., on the other, are different sciences, because here are the upper strata of society. On the contrary, as far as the peasantry is concerned, the construction of ancient stoves and the rhythm of lyrical songs can be studied by the same science. We know perfectly well that there is the closest connection between material and spiritual culture, and yet we share

    18 The specifics of folklore

    The area of ​​material and spiritual creativity is exactly the same > as it is done for the culture of the upper classes. Folklore is understood only as spiritual creativity, and even; already, only verbal, poetic creativity. Since poetic creativity is in fact almost always associated with music, one can speak of musical folklore and single it out as a special folklore discipline.

    Such an understanding of folklore has long been characteristic of Russian science. Thus, what we call folklore is not called folklore at all in the West. We call folklore that which in the West is called traditions populaires, tradizioni populari, Volksdichtung, etc., and which is not the subject of an independent science there. On the contrary, what is called folklore in the West, we do not consider science, but at best we recognize it as popular science of homeland studies. But whose poetic work is being studied? As we can see, peasant creativity is being studied in the West. To this it must be added that the modern peasantry is being studied, but only in so far as this modernity has preserved the past. Its subject is the "living antiquity" - an installation that we also kept for quite a long time.

    Such a point of view is unacceptable for us because we study every phenomenon as a process in its motion. Folklore existed before the peasantry appeared on the historical arena in general. Approaching the matter historically, we will have to say that for pre-class peoples we will call folklore the creativity of the totality of these peoples. All the poetic creativity of primitive peoples is entirely folklore and serves as the subject of folklore. For peoples who have reached the stage of class development, we will call folklore the creativity of all strata of the population, except for the dominant one, whose creativity belongs to literature. First of all, this includes the creativity of the oppressed classes, like peasants and workers, but also of intermediate strata, gravitating towards the social ranks. So, one can still talk about petty-bourgeois folklore, but it is no longer possible to talk, for example, about the folklore of the nobility.

    Finally, we see that in the West, folklore is understood as the peasant culture of one people, namely, in most cases, their own. The principle of selection here is quantitative and national. The culture of one people is the subject of one science, folklore, Volkskunde. The culture of all other peoples, including primitive ones, is the subject of another science, called very differently: anthropology

    The specifics of folklore 19

    Gia, ethnography, ethnology, ethnology - Volkerkun-de. There is no clear terminology.

    Although we fully recognize the possibility of a scientific study of national cultures, nevertheless, such a principle is completely unacceptable for us, and it is easy to bring it to the point of absurdity. Indeed: if, suppose, a French scientist studies French songs, then this is folklore. If this scientist studies, for example, Albanian songs, then this is already ethnography. We must clearly oppose our point of view to such an understanding: the science of folklore embraces the creativity of all peoples, no matter who studies them. Folklore is an international phenomenon.

    All of the above allows us to summarize our positions and say: folklore is understood as the creativity of the social lower classes of all peoples, at whatever stage of development they may be. For pre-class peoples, folklore is understood as the creativity of the totality of these peoples.

    Here the question naturally arises: what is folklore in a classless society, in the conditions of our socialist reality?

    It would seem that as a class phenomenon it would have to die out. However, after all, literature is a class phenomenon, but it does not die out. Under socialism, folklore loses its specific features as the work of the social rank and file, since we have neither the top nor the bottom, there is only the people. Therefore, folklore in our society becomes a national property in the full sense of the word. That which is inconsonant with the people in the new social situation dies off. The rest undergoes profound qualitative changes, approaching literature. What these changes are - this is yet to be shown by research, but it is clear that the folklore of the era of capitalism and the era of socialism cannot be the same.

    2. Folklore and literature. All the foregoing determines only one side of the matter: this determines the social nature of folklore, but nothing has yet been said about all its other features.

    The above features are clearly not enough to single out folklore as a special kind of creativity, and folkloristics as a special science. But they determine a number of other signs, already specifically folklore in essence.

    First of all, let us establish that folklore is the product of a special kind of poetic creativity. But poetry is also literature. Indeed, between folklore and literature, between folklore and literary criticism, there is the closest connection.

    20 The specifics of folklore

    Literature and folklore, first of all, partially coincide in their poetic genres and genres. True, there are genres that are specific only to literature and are impossible in folklore (for example, the novel), and vice versa: there are genres that are specific to folklore and impossible in literature (for example, conspiracy). Nevertheless, the very fact of the existence of genres, the possibility of classifying here and there into genres, is a fact that belongs to the realm of poetics. Hence the commonality of some tasks and methods of studying literary criticism and folklore.

    One of the tasks of folklore studies is the task of identifying and studying the category of genre and each genre separately, and this task is literary criticism.

    One of the most important and most difficult tasks of folklore studies is the study of the internal structure of works, in short, the study of composition, structure. A fairy tale, an epic, riddles, songs, conspiracies - all this has still little studied laws of addition, structure. In the field of epic genres, this includes the study of the plot, the course of action, the denouement, or, in other words, the laws of plot structure. The study shows that folklore and literary works are built differently, that folklore has its own specific structural laws. Literary criticism is unable to explain this specific regularity, but it can be established only by the methods of literary analysis.

    The same area includes the study of means of poetic language and style. The study of the means of poetic language is a purely literary task. Here again it turns out that folklore has means specific to it (parallelisms, repetitions, etc.) or that the usual means of poetic language (comparisons, metaphors, epithets) are filled with a completely different content than in literature. This can only be established through literary analysis.

    In short, folklore has a very special, specific poetics for it, different from the poetics of literary works. The study of this poetics will reveal the extraordinary artistic beauty inherent in folklore.

    Thus we see that not only is there a close connection between folklore and literature, but that folklore as such is a phenomenon of a literary order. It is one of the types of poetic creativity.

    Folkloristics in the study of this side of folklore, in its descriptive elements, is a literary science. The connection between these sciences is so close that between

    The specifics of folklore 21

    Folklore and literature and the corresponding sciences often put an equal sign in our country; the method of studying literature is wholly transferred to the study of folklore, and this is the end of the matter. However, literary analysis can, as we see, only establish the phenomenon and patterns of folklore poetics, but it is unable to explain them.

    In order to protect ourselves from such a mistake, we must establish not only the similarities between literature and folklore, their relationship and to some extent consubstantial, but also establish the specific difference between them, determine their difference. Indeed, folklore has a number of specific features that distinguish it so strongly from literature that the methods of literary research are not enough to solve all the problems associated with folklore.

    One of the most important differences is that literary works always and certainly have an author. Folklore works may not have an author, and this is one of the specific features of folklore.

    The question must be posed with all possible precision and clarity. Or we recognize the existence of the people; creativity as such, as a phenomenon of the social and cultural historical life of peoples, or we do not recognize it, we affirm that it is a poetic or scientific fiction and that only the creativity of individual individuals or groups exists.

    We stand on the point of view that folk art is not a fiction, but exists precisely as such, and that the study of it is the main task of folklore as a science. In this regard, we stand in solidarity with our old scientists, like F. Buslaev or O. Miller. What the old science felt instinctively, expressed still naively, clumsily, and not so much scientifically as emotionally, must now be cleansed of romantic errors and raised to the proper height of modern science with its thoughtful methods and precise techniques.

    Brought up in the school of literary traditions, we often still cannot imagine that a poetic work could arise in any other way than a literary work arises through individual creativity. We all think that someone had to compose or put it together first. Meanwhile, completely different ways of the emergence of poetic works are possible, and the study of them is one of the main and very complex problems.

    22 The specifics of folklore

    Folkloristics. There is no way to go into the full breadth of this problem here. It suffices to point out here only that folklore should be genetically close not to literature, but to language, which is also not invented by anyone and has neither an author nor authors. It arises and changes quite naturally and independently of the will of people, wherever appropriate conditions have been created for this in the historical development of peoples. The phenomenon of universal similarity is not a problem for us. It would be inexplicable for us that there is no such similarity. The similarity indicates a pattern, and the similarity of folklore works is only a particular case of a historical pattern leading from the same forms of production of material culture to the same or similar social institutions, to similar tools of production, and in the field of ideology - to the similarity of forms and categories of thinking, religious ideas, ritual life, languages ​​and folklore. All this lives, is interdependent, changes, grows and dies.

    Returning to the question of how to empirically imagine the emergence of folklore works, it will suffice here to point out at least that. folklore may initially constitute an integrating part of the rite. With the degeneration or fall of the rite, folklore is detached from it and begins to live an independent life. This is just an illustration of general position. Proof can only be given by specific research. But the ritual origin of folklore was already clear, for example, to A. N. Veselovsky in the last years of his life.

    The difference cited here is so fundamental that it alone forces us to single out folklore as a special kind of creativity, and folkloristics as a special science. The historian of literature, wishing to study the origin of a work, seeks its author. The folklorist, with the help of broad comparative material, establishes the conditions that created the plot. But this difference is not limited to the difference between literature and folklore. They differ not only in their origin, but also in the forms of their existence, their existence.

    It has long been known that literature is distributed by writing, folklore - by word of mouth. This difference is still considered a purely technical difference. However, this difference goes to the heart of the matter. It marks the deeply different life of these two types of poetic creativity. A literary work, once created, does not change. It works in the presence of two quantities:

    The specifics of folklore 23

    This is the author, the creator of the work, and the reader. The intermediate link between them is a book, manuscript or performance. If a literary work is unchanged, then the reader, on the contrary, is always changing. Aristotle was read by the ancient Greeks, Arabs, humanists, and we read it, but everyone reads and understands it differently. A true reader always reads creatively. A literary work can please, delight or revolt. He would often like to intervene in the fate of the heroes, reward or punish them, change their tragic fate to a happy one, and execute the triumphant villain. But the reader, no matter how deeply he may be moved by a literary work, is not able and has no right to make any changes to it to suit his personal tastes or the views of his era.

    What is the situation with folklore in this respect? Folklore also exists in the presence of two quantities, but quantities different from what we have in the literature. This is the performer and the listener, directly, or rather, directly opposed to each other.

    Let's focus our attention first on the performer. As a rule, he performs a work not created by him personally, but heard by him before. In this case, the performer can in no way be compared with the poet reading his work. But he is not a reciter of other people's works, not a reciter, accurately conveying someone else's work. This is a figure specific to folklore, full of the deepest interest for us and requiring the closest historical study from the primitive choir to the storyteller Kryukova and others. The performer does not repeat letter for letter what he heard, but makes his own changes to what he heard. Even if these changes are sometimes quite insignificant (but they can be very large), even if the changes that occur with folklore texts sometimes occur with the slowness of geological processes, the very fact of the variability of folklore works is important in comparison with immutability " works of literature.

    If the reader of a literary work is, as it were, a powerless censor and critic deprived of any authority, then every listener of folklore is a potential future performer, who in turn - consciously or unconsciously - will introduce new changes into the work. These i changes are made not by chance, but by known laws. Everything that is not in tune with the era, the system, new moods, new tastes, new ideology. These new tastes will be discarded.

    24 The specifics of folklore

    Sy will affect not only what will be discarded, but also in what will be reworked and added. A significant (although not decisive) role is played by the personality of the narrator, his individual tastes, outlook on life, talents, and creative abilities. Thus, a folklore work lives in constant movement and change. Therefore, it cannot be fully studied if it is written down only once. It must be written the maximum number of times. We call each such entry a variant, and these variants are a completely different phenomenon than, for example, editions of a literary work created by the same person.

    Thus, folklore works circulate, changing all the time, and this circulation and mutability is one of the specific features of folklore.

    But literary works can also be drawn into the orbit of this folklore appeal. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain is told like a fairy tale, Lermontov's Sail, Delvig's The Nightingale, etc., etc. are sung.

    How are we going to qualify this case? What do we have in this case - folklore or literature? The answer seems to be quite simple. If, for example, a lubok book, or life, etc., is recited by heart without any changes against the original, or “The Black Shawl” is sung exactly according to Pushkin, or from Nekrasov’s “Peddlers”, then this case is fundamentally not much different from a performance from the stage or wherever. But as soon as such songs begin to change, to be sung differently, to create variants, they already become folklore, and the process of their change is subject to the study of the folklorist.

    Obviously, however, there is something else. There is a significant difference between the folklore of the first kind, which often dates back to prehistoric times and has variants on an international scale, and the poems of poets, freely performed and transmitted further by ear, there is an essential difference. In the first case, we have pure folklore, i.e., folklore both in origin and in circulation and circulation. In the second case, we have folklore of literary origin, which includes only one of its features, namely, folklore only in circulation, but literature in origin.

    This difference should always be kept in mind when studying folklore. A song that we consider to be purely folklore, in fact, by origin, may turn out to be an author's, literary one. So, such, it would seem, purely folklore,

    The specifics of folklore 25

    Everyone famous songs, like "Dubinushka" or "Because of the island on the rod", belong to little-known poets, one - to Trefoleva, the other - to Sadovnikov. There are many such examples, and the study of these literary-folklore connections is one of the most interesting tasks of both the history of literature and folklore. In a broader aspect, this is a question about the book sources of folklore in general.

    But this case brings us back to the above question of authorship in folklore. We took only two extreme cases. The first is folklore, individually created by no one, which arose in prehistoric times in the system of some kind of ritual or otherwise, and has survived in oral transmission to the present day. The second case is clearly an individual work of modern times, circulating as folklore. Between these two extreme points, in the course of the development of both folklore and literature, all forms of transition are possible, which here can neither be foreseen nor analyzed. This is a matter of concrete consideration in each case separately.

    For any modern folklorist it is obvious that such questions are resolved, however, not descriptively, statistically, but in their development. The genetic study of folklore is only a part of its historical study, and this leads us to another question, to the question of folklore as a phenomenon not only of a literary, but also of a historical order, and of folklore as a historical, and not just a literary discipline.

    3. Folklore and ethnography. In our time, all the humanities can only be historical. We consider every phenomenon in its movement, starting from its inception, tracing its development, flourishing and, perhaps, degeneration, fall, disappearance. This, however, does not mean that we are on the evolutionary point of view. Evolutionary science, having established and traced the fact of development, is limited to this. Genuine historical science requires not only the establishment of the very fact of development, but also its explanation. Poetic creativity is a phenomenon of a superstructural order. To explain means to elevate a phenomenon to the causes that created it, and these causes lie in the sphere of the economic and social life of peoples.

    The science that studies the earliest forms material life And social organization peoples, there is ethnography. Therefore, historical folklore, which studies the origin of phenomena, their first link, is based on ethnography. Ta-

    26 The specifics of folklore

    Some study is the first link in genuine historical study. Therefore, between folklore and ethnography there is the closest connection. Outside of ethnography there can be no materialistic study of folklore.

    We still do not know exactly what exactly and to what extent is born in primitive society. In any case, a fairy tale, epic, ritual poetry, incantations, riddles as genres cannot be explained without the involvement of ethnographic data. And not only genres, but also many motifs (for example, the motif of a magical helper, marriage with an animal, the thirtieth kingdom, etc.) find their explanation in ideas and religious and magical practice at different stages of the development of human society. The involvement of ethnographic materials is important, however, not only for genetic study in the narrow sense of the word, but also for the study of initial development, because from forms of material and social life depends not only on the origin of genres, plots and motifs, but also on their further life and variability.

    The implementation of this principle is interesting and fruitful only if it is given to the full extent of the material, penetrating into the smallest details of both folklore and ethnographic materials. It is not enough to say that the motif of noble animals is of totemic origin, that the Edda was created at the stage of decomposition of the tribal system, etc. This must be shown in such a way that there is no doubt about this, that is, on a very broad concrete comparative material. . So, for example, to study the marriage of a hero (and matchmaking is one of the most common motifs of myth, fairy tale and epic), it is necessary to study the forms of marriage that existed at various stages of the development of human society. Moreover, we need knowledge, and, moreover, if possible, detailed knowledge, of marriage rites and customs. For example, we want and must know exactly at what stages of development and among which nations the bridegroom is tested and what is the nature of this test. Only then will we properly understand the corresponding phenomena in folklore.

    However, in the implementation of these principles, it is easy to fall into error, believing that folklore directly reflects social or everyday, or other relations. Folklore, especially at the early stages of its development, is not everyday life. The matter is extremely complicated and complicated by the fact that reality is not transmitted directly, but through the prism of certain thinking, and this thinking is so

    The specifics of folklore 27

    Personally, it is very difficult to compare many phenomena of folklore with anything else. Cause-and-effect relationships do not yet exist in the system of this thinking, other forms of connection predominate here, and which ones we often do not yet know. There are no generalizations yet, no abstractions, no concepts; the process of generalization here corresponds to some other, still little studied operations of thinking. Space and time are perceived differently than we perceive them. The categories of unity and plurality, the qualities of subject and object (identifying oneself with animals) play a completely different role than they play with us, in our thinking. What is recognized as real is what we never recognize as real, and vice versa. Primitive man sees the world of things differently than we do, and at different stages of development he sees it differently. Therefore, sometimes we will search in vain behind the folklore reality for everyday reality.

    In folklore, people act in this way and not otherwise, not because it was so in reality, but because it seemed so according to the laws of primitive thinking. And consequently, this thinking and the whole system of the primitive worldview must be studied. Otherwise, neither the composition, nor the plots, nor individual motifs can be understood, or we run the risk of either falling into a kind of naive realism, or we will perceive the phenomena of folklore as grotesque, exotic, free play of unbridled fantasy.

    There is no need to say here that one of the manifestations of this thinking are religious ideas, which have the closest connection with folklore.

    Here, not only religious phenomena and mental images are important, but religious and magical practice, the whole set of ritual and other actions by which a primitive person thinks to influence nature and protect himself from it, is important. Folklore here itself will turn out to be part of the system of religious ritual practice.

    From all that has been said, by the way, it is clear that the textual study of folklore, that is, the study of only texts taken without connection with the economic, social and ideological life of peoples, is a vicious method. Meanwhile, in the West, for the most part, only collections of texts are published; the scientific apparatus of such collections consists of indexes of motifs, plots, sometimes variants to them, but without any data about the people from whom it was collected, about the forms of existence and functions of folklore, about the specific conditions for performance and recording. All the above considerations are enough to see how close the connection between folklore and ethno-

    28 The specifics of folklore

    Graphics. Ethnography is especially important for us in the study of the genesis of folklore phenomena. Here ethnography forms the basis of the study of folklore, and without this base the study of folklore hangs in the air.

    4. Folkloristics as a historical discipline. It is quite obvious, however, that the study of folklore cannot be limited to genetic research, and that far from everything in folklore goes back to primitiveness or is explained by it. Innovation takes place throughout historical development peoples. Folklore is a historical phenomenon, and folklore is a historical discipline. Ethnographic study is, as it were, the first stage of such historical study.

    The task of historical study is to show, firstly, what happens to the old folklore under new historical conditions, and, secondly, to study the emergence of new formations.

    Here, of course, it is impossible to establish all the processes that take place in folklore during the transition to new forms of social order or even during development within a given order. These processes take place everywhere with surprising uniformity. One of them is that the inherited folklore comes into conflict with the old social system that created it, and denies it. He denies it, of course, not directly, but denies the images he created, turning them into their opposite or giving them a reverse, condemning, negative coloring. Once holy turns into hostile, great - into harmful, evil or monstrous. But at the same time, the old is sometimes preserved without any special changes, coexisting peacefully with the New images and relationships. This is how folklore comes into conflict with itself, and there are always a lot of such contradictions in folklore. Thus, folklore formations are created not as a direct reflection of everyday life (this is a relatively rarer case), but from contradictions, from clashes of two eras or two ways of life and their ideology.

    But the old and the new can be not only in a state of uncoordinated contradictions, but also enter into hybrid combinations. Both folklore and religious ideas are filled with such hybrid compounds. The dragon, the serpent is a combination of a worm, a bird and other animals. Marr showed how, with the domestication of the horse, the cult role of the bird passes to him. The horse becomes winged. Hence, flying ships, winged chariots, etc. become clear. Study

    The specifics of folklore 29

    The cult role of fire will show why the horse enters into union with fire, becoming a fiery horse, and how the idea of ​​a fiery chariot is created, etc. Such hybrid connections are possible not only in the field of visual images, they are deeply hidden in the field of the most diverse representations and relations. By transferring the new to the old, entire plots can be created. Thus, it can be shown that the plot about the hero who kills his father and marries his mother, i.e. the plot of Oedipus, was created as a result of the transfer of hostile relations to the daughter's fiancé, son-in-law-heir, to the heir-son, and the role of the daughter the king, as the transferor of the throne through marriage, to the king's widow. Such formation is not accidental and not isolated, it is in the nature of folklore.

    Finally, the old is simply rethought, and there are extremely many types of rethinking. Rethinking consists in changing the old according to the new life, new ideas, new forms of consciousness. Strictly speaking, transformation into its opposite is only one of the types of rethinking. The study of rethinking is not always an easy task, since changes can reach unrecognizability, and the disclosure of the original forms is possible only if there is a very large comparative material on different peoples and stages of their development.

    We call this kind of study staged study. Arranging the material according to the stages of development of peoples, understanding by "stage" the degree of culture, determined by the totality of signs of material, social and spiritual culture, we will have to get "historical poetics" in the true sense of the word, that historical poetics, the foundation of which was laid by Veselovsky.

    The path indicated here is the historical path leading the study from the bottom up, from the old to the new. It must be said that ethnography and history do not yet help us enough in this respect. We do not have a clear periodization of the stages of development. Morgan's scheme, backed up by Engels, has not yet been worked out by anyone on a broad basis, not developed, not carried to the end.

    Along with such a bottom-up study, our science has adopted the reverse path from top to bottom, i.e., the reconstruction of early "mythological" foundations by analyzing late materials. Such a paleontological study, shown by Marr for language, is fundamentally correct and quite possible for folklore. But this way is more risky and difficult. It is necessary and inevitable where there are no immediate materials for the early stages. It may turn out that folklore

    30 The specifics of folklore

    For some peoples it will be a precious historical source, according to which the ethnographer reconstructs both the social system and the ideas of the people. Folklore, requiring historical study, can thus itself turn out to be a precious historical and ethnographic source.

    The path of study outlined here represents the conquest of our science. In the West, the principle is still dominated not by stages, but by simple chronological study. The ancient material will always be considered older than the material recorded in our day. Meanwhile, from the stadial point of view, the ancient material may reflect a relatively late stage of the agricultural state, and the modern text - much earlier totemic | relationship.

    It is obvious that each stage must have its own social system, its own ideology, its own artistic creativity. But the fact is that folklore, like other phenomena of spiritual culture, does not immediately register the change that has taken place and for a long time under new conditions retains the old forms. Since every nation always goes through several stages of its development, and all of them are reflected in folklore, settle in it, the folklore of any nation is always multi-stage, and this is one of its characteristic phenomena. The task of science is to stratify this complex conglomerate, and thereby recognize and explain it.

    The process of reworking the old into the new is the main creative process in folklore, traceable to the present day. To say this does not at all mean to belittle the creative principle in folklore. The concept of "creativity" does not mean the creation of something completely new. The new naturally grows out of the old. Folklore is creatively active by its very nature and essence, but creativity is carried out on the basis of some laws, and not arbitrarily, and the task of science is to clarify these laws.

    We know what happens among peoples whose folklore has been recorded in our time, among peoples of the most diverse stages of development and living in the most diverse conditions of nature, we know. But there are stages that are not currently represented by any living peoples, stages that have irrevocably receded into the past, and of whose folklore we therefore know nothing directly. This is the stage of the early slave-owning agricultural state, different type and different natural and historical conditions, which in ancient times were the eastern states, Egypt, Greece, Rome. Folklorist who historically studies any material, whether it be a genre,

    The specifics of folklore 31

    Jet, motif or something else, here sees himself covered in nebula, for it is obvious that no one wrote down folklore in those days. This is all the more painful because this stage for the first time gives the right to talk about the formation of classes; this is a stage in the development of agriculture and agricultural cults, a stage in the formation of a new consciousness. It is obvious that profound changes must have taken place with folklore, about which we know nothing directly.

    However, where there are no direct sources, there are indirect sources, which to some extent and sometimes still hypothetically allow filling this gap. When social differentiation leads to the formation of classes, creativity is differentiated in the same way. With the emergence of writing, a new formation arises among the ruling classes, namely (writing, fiction, i.e. fixing the word through its recording. We now know that this early, first literature is entirely or almost entirely folklore. The beginning of literature is listed on writing folklore, "and therefore, the situation for the researcher is no longer hopeless. This means that the study of ancient literatures, like the Egyptian "Book of the Dead", the myth of Gilgamesh, myths ancient greece, ancient tragedy and comedy, etc. is a must for a folklorist. True, this is not just folklore, but folklore in reflections and refractions. If we have managed to correct for the priestly ideology, for the new state and class consciousness, for the specificity of the new literary forms developed and created by this consciousness, we will be able to see behind this motley picture its folklore basis.

    Here folklorist and literary critic will meet in their aspirations. What happens to folklore and literature at this stage of development is of the greatest importance for understanding the history of spiritual culture in general. Folklore is the bosom of literature, it is born from folklore. Folklore is the prehistory of literature. All the literature of the peoples of this stage can and must be studied on the basis of folklore. Thus, the transmission process basically goes from the bottom up; it can be traced in feudalism in all its varieties, it is clear in the folklore and literature of the Mongolian peoples, it becomes clear in the European Middle Ages as well. Already in other forms, we see the use of folklore sources in the literature of the late 18th and all of the 19th centuries, and it exists today. In this article there is no need to show this with examples, this is a matter of special investigations.

    32 The specifics of folklore

    This process is natural and historically conditioned. Therefore, any attempts to assert the opposite phenomenon, to depict folklore as a "descended cultural heritage" (that is, descended from the social elites) are not scientific. Such statements are usually based on the fact that the people sing songs created by the ruling class. Indeed, such songs are sung. But to raise this particular phenomenon into a general principle is the deepest mistake inherent in systems of worldview that are alien and hostile to us.

    Literature born from folklore soon leaves the mother who nursed it. Literature is the product of a different form of consciousness, which can conditionally be called individual consciousness. This does not mean that it is carried out through an individual cut off from the environment; this, on the contrary, means that the individual represents this environment and his people, but represents them in his individual, unique personal creativity.

    On the other hand, in the social ranks, creativity continues on the old foundations, sometimes in relationship with the creativity of the ruling class. It is passed from mouth to mouth, and we have already given its specific features above. It only needs to be added here that it (in our country right up to the October Revolution, and in the West up to the present day) is determined by other forms of consciousness than the creativity of the upper classes. If the old science called this creativity "unconscious" or "impersonal", then these terms may not be very precise and do not exhaust the essence of the matter, but they reflect some thought that is itself true. Suffice it to say that Marx even characterized Greek mythology as "nature and social" forms that have already received unconscious artistic processing in folk fantasy "(our detente). If Marx is not afraid of this word, then we have no reason to avoid it. Our business is to develop and clarify What is hidden under this, but we cannot get around this problem of the specifics of folk art, as an act of still little studied forms of consciousness.

    Like any genuine art, folklore has not only artistic perfection, but also a deep ideological content. The disclosure of this ideological content is one of the tasks of folklore. The old science in the person of Buslaev and his followers was again right when they saw in him the expression of the moral foundations of the people, although, perhaps, they saw these foundations and ideals not where we now see them. The ideological and emotional content of Russian folklore can be briefly reduced not to the concept of good, but to the category

    The specifics of folklore

    Rii fortitude. This is the same strength of spirit that leads our people to victory. The study of Russian folklore shows that Russian folk art is highly saturated with historical self-awareness. heroic epic, and on historical songs, later on songs from the times of the Civil and Patriotic Wars. A people with such an intensity of historical consciousness and with such an understanding of its historical tasks can never be defeated.

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

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

    History of folklore

    folklore theory

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

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

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

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

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



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

    The main problems of folklore:

    Question about the need to collect

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

    The question of its historical essence

    The question of the role of folklore in cognition folk character

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

    Ø - authenticity collected regional material;

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

    Ø - phenomenon contextuality folklore text or its absence;

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

    Ø - crisis variability;

    Ø - modern "live" genres;

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

    Ø - problems publications modern folklore.

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

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

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

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

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

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