Folklore- artistic beginning
Mythological beginning
Folklore
folk literature
The main features of folklore:
There were allegories (they were sung)
3) Variation
student folklore
army folklore
Thieves' folklore
soldier folklore
Burlatsky
· Political prisoners
Lamentations (text wept)
9) Functionality
10) Inclusiveness
Ticket 2. The system of genres of Russian folklore from antiquity to the present.
The genre composition of Russian folk poetry is rich and varied, as it has passed a significant path of historical development and reflected the life of the Russian people in many ways. When classifying, it must be taken into account that in folklore, as well as in literature, two forms of speech are used - poetic and prose, therefore, in the epic genus, poetic types (epic, historical song, ballad) and prose (fairy tale, legend, tradition) should be distinguished. The lyrical genre of works uses only the poetic form. All poetic works are distinguished by the combination of words and melody. Prose works are told, not sung.
In order to present a general picture of the classification (distribution) of the types of works of Russian folk poetry, one should also take into account a number of other circumstances, namely: firstly, the attitude of genres to the so-called rites (special cult actions), and secondly, the attitude of the verbal text to singing and acting, which is typical for some types of folklore works. Works may or may not be associated with ritual and singing.
I Ritual poetry:
1) Calendar (winter, spring, summer and autumn cycles)
2) Family and household (maternity, wedding, funeral)
3) Conspiracy
II Non-ritual poetry:
1) Epic prose genres
A) fairy tale
B) legend
C) a legend (and a bylichka as its kind)
2) Epic poetic genres:
A) epic
B) historical songs (primarily older ones)
B) ballad songs
3) Lyrical poetic genres
A) songs of social content
B) love songs
B) family songs
D) small lyrical genres (chastushkas, choruses, etc.)
4) Small non-lyrical genres
A) proverbs
B) riddles
5) Dramatic texts and actions
A) dressing up, games, round dances
B) scenes and plays.
Ticket 3. Ancient (archaic) genres of folklore (labor songs, incantations, fairy tales etc.).
Folklore as a special form of art arises in ancient times. The process of its origin is difficult to restore due to the lack of materials of that time. The oldest (archaic) period of history human society- the period of its pre-class structure (primitive system). The folklore of the pre-class, primitive communal system among many peoples had common features due to the fact that the peoples of the world basically went through similar stages of historical development. The folklore of this social formation is distinguished by the following features:
It still clearly retains links with labor processes
· There are traces of thinking of the ancient era - animism, magical beliefs, totemism, mythology;
Real phenomena are intertwined with fictional, fantastic;
· Some features of realism develop: the concreteness of the image of nature and man; fidelity to reality in content and forms (the convention of the image appears later);
· Genera, types and genres gradually develop, of which the most ancient are proverbs, fairy tales, riddles, conspiracies, legends; at the last stage of the formation, the heroic epic and legends are born;
· The collective, choral beginning of creativity dominates, however, the singer or singer begins to stand out;
· Works do not yet exist in a stable traditional form, as in the later stages of the development of folklore, but have the form of improvisation, i.e. text generated during execution;
· Plots, figurativeness, expressive means, artistic forms are gradually enriched, which are becoming more and more traditional.
Animism manifested itself in the spiritualization of the forces and phenomena of nature, for example, the sun and the moon, in songs about their marriage, in the spiritualization of the earth (“mother of cheese earth”), water, plants, in the images of water and wood goblin, in the personification of Frost, Spring, Maslenitsa, Kolyada . In conspiracies - usually an appeal to the dawn of the dawn. In fairy tales, the Sea King, Month, Wind, Frost act. Magic was reflected in conspiracies and spells, in divination about the weather and harvest, in stories about sorcerers, in the transformation of a scallop into a forest, and towels into a river, in such wonderful items as a self-assembled tablecloth and a magic carpet. Totemism was expressed in the cult of the bear and in the image of the helper bear. In fairy tales and epics there are stories about the miraculous origin of heroes from animals, from a snake. In songs of the ballad type there are stories about talking plants growing on people's graves. In fairy tales (especially in fairy tales about animals, but not only in them), images of animals speaking and acting like people are not uncommon. The mythology of the ancient Russian tribes has already taken the form of a certain system of ideas. It included beings of two types: gods and spirits. For example, Svarog is the god of the sun, Dazhdbog is the god of life, Perun is the god of thunder, Stribog is the god of the wind, Yarilo is the god of light and warmth, Veles is the patron god of cattle. Spiritualizations of the forces and phenomena of nature were the water, the goblin, the field worker. The ancient Russian tribes had a widely developed ancestral cult associated with the tribal system. It manifested itself in the personification of the family and women in childbirth, to whom sacrifices were made, in funeral rites and commemoration of ancestors (radinitsa, rusalii, semik).
Slavic mythology was not as complete a system as the Greek one. This is due to the fact that the Slavs in their historical development passed the slave system, the reasons for which were the earlier development of agriculture and settled way of life, as well as frequent clashes with southern nomads, which required the creation of a feudal-type state. Therefore, in the mythology of the Slavs there are only the beginnings of dividing the gods into older and younger ones, according to the social system of the state. It is clear that in Old Russian folklore there were not only genres in which animism, totemism, magic and mythology were reflected, but also genres of a family and everyday nature, since there were personal relationships within the clan, pair marriage. Finally, labor and life experience was accumulated, which was imprinted in proverbs.
Classification
I According to the result
1) White - aimed at getting rid of ailments and troubles and containing elements of prayer (quackery)
2) Black - aimed at bringing damage, harm, used without prayer words (witchcraft associated with evil spirit)
II By topic
1) Medical (from the disease and disease state of people and domestic animals, as well as from spoilage.)
2) Household. (Agricultural, cattle-breeding, trade - from drought, weeds, for taming domestic animals, hunting, fishing.)
3) Love: a) love spells (prisushki); b) lapels (drying)
4) Social (aimed at regulating social and relations between people; to attract honor or mercy, to go to a judge, for example)
III In form
1) epic
Expanded, large
1.1 epic picture
1.2 conspiracy based on colloquial formulas
1.3 bartack (Amen = "so be it")
2) formulaic
short conspiracies, consisting of 1-2 sentences; they do not have bright images - an order or a request
3) conspiracies-dialogues
4) abracadabra
This is a 99 percent female tradition (because no normal man would do this). The conspiracy mafia is a secretive affair.
Characters:
1) human world
1.1 neutral (red girl)
1.2 Christian: a) real (Jesus, Mother of God), b) fictitious (Mother of God daughters, sons of Herod), c) characters of history (Nikolai Ugodnik), d) Christian evil spirits (devils)
1.3 fictional
2) fauna
2.1 recognizable
2.2 fantastic
Typical literary conspiracy techniques:
1) at the lexical, morphological and even sound levels (????????)
2) an abundance of epithets
3) comparison
4) stepwise narrowing of images or unfolding (gradation)
Classic legends.
1.1. cosmogonic
For example, about a duck that sank to the bottom of a reservoir, grabbed some water in its beak - spat it out - the earth appeared (or mountains - I can’t make it out in any way)
1.2. Etiological
Legends about the creation of the animal world. For example, there was a legend about the origin of lice. God often acts as a punishing force
Legends have always been believed.
A legend is an independent view of the world around. Most likely they used to be myths. Indian myths also have ideas about the origin of animals (for example, a kangaroo bag), but there are no religious motives, as in our legends.
1.3. Anthropological myths.
Here is some example of a legend about a sick man, but with God's soul (???). and about the dog that guarded the man and for this God gave her a fur coat or not
1.4. Hagiographic legends
Hagiographic legends
Hagiographic legends (about saints); for example, Nicholas of Myra (Wonderworker)
Common Orthodox Saints
locally venerated saints
General Christian
Orthodox
Saint Egoriy (George the Victorious)
Warrior/Saint
Patron saint of livestock and wolves
1.5. Eschatology.
One of the sections of church philosophy. Legends of the end of the world.
Features of classic legends:
1. The artistic time of classical legends is the time of a distant, indefinite, abstract past.
2. Artistic space is also abstract
3. In these legends we are talking about global changes (the emergence of the sea, mountains, animals)
4. All stories are told in the 3rd person. The narrator is not the hero of the legend.
Legend of the local region.
Heroes: local sacral (holy) natural objects. For example, holy springs, trees, stones, groves, or local icons, as well as locally revered elders and blessed ones.
! partly reminiscent of giving, but have a religious character.
For example, about Dunechka, who was shot by the Red Army. She is a fortune teller.
She sent a man to work in Arzamas, and not in Samara (he earned money, but those who went to Samara did not), that is, the predictions are mostly household
Pigeons hovered over the carriage in which Dunechka was taken to be shot, covering her from lashes
Nimbus over the head during the execution
After that, houses in that village began to burn - they decided to hold a commemoration 2 times a year - they stopped burning
Holy fools.
Blessed = holy fool who figuratively communicates with people.
Pasha Sarovskaya gave a piece of red fabric to Nicholas I and said "pants to my son"
about the time of glorification (St. Seraphim - comp.) She lived in Diveevo, famous throughout Russia. The sovereign with all the Grand Dukes and three metropolitans proceeded from Sarov to Diveevo. Predicted his death (9 soldiers, potatoes in uniform). She took out a piece of red cloth from the bed and said: "This is for your son's pants." predicted the appearance of a son.
The legend of a man.
At the heart of the legend of a man lies the meeting of a man with miraculous power. A typical example is a saint telling a man how to find his way through the forest.
The saint appears to people in a dream "the call of the saint"
Migrant pilgrims - the saint appears and calls to his monastery.
Ticket 8. Artistic space and time in a fairy tale. Hero types and composition.
Artistic space and time in fairy tales is conditional, as if another world is shown there. The real world and the world of fairy tales can be compared with paintings, for example, by Vasnetsov and Bilibin.
In a fairy tale, 7 types of characters (Propp) are distinguished:
1 . the hero is the one who does all the actions, and in the end gets married.
2 . antagonist, or antipode - the one with whom the hero fights and whom he defeats.
3 . wonderful helper.
4 . miraculous giver - one who gives the hero a miraculous helper or miraculous item.
5. princess - the one whom the hero usually marries and who, as a rule, lives in another country, very far away.
6 . king - appears at the end of the tale, the hero marries his daughter or at the beginning of the tale, as a rule, he sends his son somewhere.
7. false hero - assigns the merits of a real hero.
You can try to classify in a different way, but the essence remains the same. First of all, two groups of characters: negative and positive. The central place is the positive characters, as it were, “characters of the first row”. They can be divided into 2 groups: heroes-heroes and "ironic", which are promoted by luck. Examples: Ivan Tsarevich and Ivan the Fool. "Characters of the second row" - the hero's helpers, animated and not (magic horse, magic sword). "Third row" - antagonist. An important place is occupied by female heroines, the ideals of beauty, wisdom, kindness - Vasilisa the Beautiful or Wise, Elena the Beautiful or Wise. The antagonists often include the Baba Yaga, the serpent, and the immortal Koschey. The victory of the hero over them is the triumph of justice.
Composition is the structure, construction of a fairy tale.
1.) Some fairy tales begin with sayings - playful jokes that are not related to the plot. They are usually rhythmic and rhyming.
2.) The beginning, which, as it were, takes the listener into a fairy-tale world, shows the time, place of action, and the situation. Represents exposure. The popular beginning is “Once upon a time” (hereinafter - who, and what circumstances) or “In a certain kingdom, a certain state”.
3.) Action. Some fairy tales begin immediately with an action, for example, “The prince decided to marry ...”
4.) The fairy tale has an ending, but not always, sometimes with the completion of the action, the fairy tale also ends. The ending draws attention away from fairy world to the real.
5.) In addition to the ending, there may also be a saying, which is sometimes combined with the ending - “The wedding was played, they feasted for a long time, and I was there, I drank honey, it flowed down my mustache, but it didn’t get into my mouth.”
The narration in fairy tales develops sequentially, the action is dynamic, the situations are tense, terrible events can occur, threefold repetition is common (three brothers go to catch the Firebird three times). The unreliability of the story is emphasized.
Connection with the rite of initiation.
Hud space is abstract; there is a border/transitional space; spatial movements are not shown. Hood time is also abstract, closed, has no way out into reality; develops from episode to episode, retardation.
The fairy tale is the most archaic - initially it was not intended for children, in its origin it goes back to rituals. Rite of initiation. You can see superstitious ideas about the other world. For example, Baba Yaga: “the nose has grown into the ceiling”, “they rested their knee against the wall”, a bone leg - i.e. without meat - on the stove she lies like in a coffin
Those. she is a frontier character between the world of the dead and the living - between the world and the distant kingdom.
spring cycle.
Maslenitsa and Maslenitsa rites. In the center of the carnival holiday stands symbolic image carnival.
The holiday itself consists of three parts: a meeting on Monday, revelry or a break on the so-called broad Thursday and farewell.
Shrovetide songs can be divided into two groups. The first - meeting and honoring, has the form of greatness. They glorify the wide, honest Maslenitsa, its dishes and entertainment. She is called in full - Avdotya Izotievna. The nature of the songs is cheerful, perky. The songs accompanying the farewell are somewhat different - they talk about the upcoming fast. Singers regret the end of the holiday. Here Maslenitsa is an already overthrown idol, she is no longer magnified, but is called irreverently “a deceiver”. Maslenitsa was usually interpreted primarily as a celebration of the victory of spring over winter, of life over death.
Spring Post - Clean Monday- the beginning of the spring calendar rituals. They washed in the bathhouse, washed the house, washed all the dishes, comic actions with pancakes - hung on a tree, gave them to cattle.
Cross / Holy Week - the fourth after Lent; fasting breaks - baked lean cookies; fortune-telling - a coin - a coin in a cookie, in several crosses - a coin, a chip, a ring, crosses were given to cattle.
March 30 - the day of the forty martyrs (cookies in the form of larks); meeting of spring, arrival of the first birds; On March 17, on the day of Grigory Grachevnik, rooks were baked. Signs: many birds - good luck, snowdrifts - harvest, icicles - flax harvest. The first spring holiday - the meeting of spring - falls on March. These days, in the villages, figurines of birds were baked from dough and distributed to girls or children. Vesnyanki - ritual lyrical songs of the incantatory genre. The rite of "spell" of spring was imbued with the desire to influence nature in order to obtain a good harvest. Imitation of the flight of birds (tossing larks out of dough) was supposed to cause the arrival of real birds, the friendly onset of spring. Stoneflies are characterized by a form of dialogue or appeal in the imperative mood. Unlike a conspiracy, stoneflies, like carols. performed collectively.
Annunciation - April 7: "birds don't curl their nests, girls don't braid their hair"; you can’t turn on the light, work with the birthday earth; fracturing fracture - they removed the sled, took out the cart.
Palm Sunday (the last Sunday before Easter) - "the entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem." Willows were brought into the house and kept all year round at the icons, consecrated children; let the willow and icons into the water.
Holy Week is the week before Easter. Maundy Thursday (in religion - Friday) - the most terrible day; whitewashing the hut, getting rid of cockroaches by freezing the hut, clipping the wings of poultry, all water is holy.
Easter - dyeing eggs (no Easter cake, no Easter); they don’t go to the cemetery, only for the next red / fomin week - Tuesday and Saturday-radinitsa); The first egg was kept at the icon for a year.
Vyunishnye songs - songs that on Saturday or Sunday of the first post-Easter week congratulated the newlyweds. The content of the songs: wishing young people a happy family life.
May 6 - Egoriev's Day (George the Victorious); Egoriy - cattle god; the first time cattle were taken out into the field
Ascension (40 days after Easter)
Semitsky ritual songs - the 7th week after Easter was called Semitskaya. Thursday of this week was called Semik, and its last day (Sunday) - Trinity. Special rituals were performed, which were accompanied by songs. The main rite is the “curling” of a wreath. Dressed in holiday clothes, the girls went into the forest, looked for a young birch, tilted the birch branches and wove them with grass, after a few days they cut down the birch, carried it around the village, then drowned it in the river or threw it into the rye. From the tops of two birches, the girls wove an arch and passed under it. Then there was a ritual for divination with a wreath. the theme of marriage and family relationship occupies an increasing place in Semitsky songs.
Spirits day - you can not work with the earth.
Summer cycle.
Calendar rites were accompanied by special songs.
Trinity-Semitskaya week: Semik - the seventh Thursday after Easter, Trinity - the seventh Sunday. The girls, dressed smartly and taking treats with them, went to “curl” the birch trees - they wove them with grass. The girl's holiday was also accompanied by fortune-telling. The girls weaved wreaths and threw them into the river. Fortune-telling by wreaths was widely reflected in the songs performed both during fortune-telling and without regard to it.
Feast of Ivan Kupala (John the Baptist / Baptist) - the night of June 23-24. On Kupala holidays, they do not help the earth, but, on the contrary, they try to take everything from it. Medicinal herbs are collected on this night. Whoever finds the fern, it was believed, will be able to find the treasure. Girls put handkerchiefs on the dew and then washed themselves with them; they broke birch brooms for the bath; young people bathed at night, cleansed themselves, jumped over fires.
Trinity - 7th Sunday after Easter. Birch cult. Formation of a new wedding cycle. Formation of the layer of brides. Songs, round dances (choice of the bride and groom), song songs only for the Trinity. Meaning is duplicated at several levels - in action, in words, in music, in the subject. On the following Sunday after Toitsa, they celebrated the farewell to winter.
autumn cycle. ( just in case )
The autumn rituals of the Russian people were not as rich as the winter and spring-summer ones. They accompany the harvest. Zazhinki (beginning of harvest), dozhinki or obzhinki (end of harvest) were accompanied by songs. But these songs are not magical. They are directly related to the labor process. More varied in subject matter and artistic techniques dozhinochny songs. They tell about the harvest and the custom of refreshments. In dozhinochny songs there are elements of aggrandizement of rich owners who treated the reapers well.
It was believed that the crop should be protected, because. the evil spirit can take him away. Sheaves were placed in the form of a cross, from wormwood and nettle. Striga / Perezinakha - the spirit of the field, who took the harvest.
marking the first sheaf, they boiled the first porridge-novina, poured it on cattle and chickens. The last sheaf / last ears were left on the field, not reaped, tied in a bundle and called a beard. After finishing the harvest, the women rolled on the ground: "Reaper, reaper, give up your snare."
After that, many calendar rituals turned into holidays, which, in addition to the ritual function, also have a very important social function - the unification of people, the rhythm of life.
Ticket 14. Epics of the most ancient period. (Volkh Vseslavsky, Sadko, Danube, Svyatogor, Volga and Mykola)
Among Russian epics there is a group of works, which almost all folklorists consider to be among the more ancient ones. The main difference between these epics is that they have significant features of mythological representations.
1.) "Volkh Vseslavevich". The bylina about Volkh consists of 2 parts. In the first, he is depicted as a wonderful hunter with the ability to turn into an animal, a bird, a fish. By hunting, he gets food for the squad. In the second, Volkh is the leader of a campaign in the Indian kingdom, which he conquers and ruins. The second part almost went out of existence, since its theme did not correspond to the ideological essence of the Russian epic. But the first part has long existed among the people. Researchers attribute the image of a wonderful hunter to ancient times, however, historical features were layered on this image, linking the epic with the Kiev cycle, which is why Likhachev and other scientists compared the Volkh, for example, with Prophetic Oleg. The image of India is fabulous, not historical.
2.) Epics about Sadko. Epics are based on 3 plots: Sadko receives wealth, Sadko competes with Novgorod, Sadko visits the sea king. These three plots exist separately and in combination. The first story has 2 different versions. First: Sadko walked along the Volga for 12 years; having decided to go to Novgorod, he thanks the Volga, dropping bread and salt into it; The Volga gave him an order to boast of "the glorious Lake Ilmen"; Ilmen, in turn, rewarded him with wealth, advising him to fish, and the caught fish turned into coins. Another version: Sadko, a poor gusler, goes to the banks of the Ilmen, plays, and the king of the sea comes out to him and rewards him with wealth. This expresses the popular opinion of the value of art; utopia: the poor became rich. The second story: having received wealth, Sadko became proud, and decided to measure his wealth with Novgorod itself, but was defeated. In a rare variant, there is a plot with Sadko's victory. The third plot: Sadko got into the underwater kingdom, the sea fell in love with playing the harp, and the king decided to keep him and marry the girl Chernava; but Sadko deceived the tsar with the help of St. Nicholas of Mozhaisk, and escaped, built a church in honor of the saint, and stopped traveling on the blue sea. Epics about Sadko are distinguished by the completeness of each of the three parts, the dramatic intensity of the action. Propp attributed "Epics about Sadko" to epics about matchmaking, and considered the main plot - "Sadko at the sea king." Belinsky saw the main social conflict between Sadko and Novgorod. Fairytaleness is characteristic of the first and third epics.
3.) Epics about Svyatogor have special form- prosaic. Some of the scientists consider this proof of their antiquity, others - novelty. They contain a number of episodes: about the meeting of Ilya Muromets and Svyatogor, about the unfaithful wife of Svyatogor, about a bag with an earthly craving. These epics are ancient, as is the type of the hero Svyatogor, in which there are many mythical traces. Scientists consider this image as the embodiment of the old order, which should disappear, because the death of Svyatogora is inevitable. In the epic about Svyatogor and the coffin, first Ilya tries on the coffin, but it is great for him, and Svyatogor is just the right size. When Ilya covered the coffin with a lid, it was already impossible to remove it, and he received part of the power of Svyatogor. Propp said that here is a change of two eras, and Ilya Muromets came to replace the epic hero Svyatogor. Svyatogor is a hero of unprecedented strength, but in the episode with the earthly thrust that Svyatogor cannot lift, the existence of an even more powerful force is shown.
The epic "Volga and Mikula" is the most significant of the group of social and domestic epics. Its main idea is to oppose the peasant plowman and the prince. Social antithesis made it possible for some scientists to attribute the composition of the epic to later times, when social conflicts escalated, in addition, it was attributed to the Novgorod epics. But ridicule of the prince is not very characteristic of the Novgorod epics, and the conflict is placed in an atmosphere of early feudal times. Volga goes to collect tribute, he has a brave squad; Mikula is not a warrior, but a hero, he is powerful and surpasses the entire squad of Volga, who cannot pull his bipod out of the furrow; the prince and the squad cannot catch up with Mikula. But Mikula is opposed to Volga not only as mighty hero, but also as a man of labor, he lives not by extortion from the peasants, but by his own labor. Everything is easy for Mikula, he collects a rich harvest. The scientist Sokolov saw in this the dream of the peasantry, tired of excessive physical labor. In the epic, peasant labor is poeticized, the image of Mikula is the embodiment of the forces of the working people.
Ticket 1. The main features of folklore.
Folklore- artistic beginning
Mythological beginning
Folklore
Folklore was called folk poetry, but it's not (not everything is poetry)
At the end of the 19th century, the term folk literature(emphasis on the word - again not the correct definition, for example, the rite of making rain - killing a frog - without words)
In the 20th century - Russian folk art.
The main features of folklore:
1) Orality (oral system, culture, phenomenon) only in oral form
2) Sacred letters do not have written fixation - an exception
Written incantations, questionnaires, diaries (girl's album) demobilization album
There were allegories (they were sung)
3) Variation
Those. modification of one text
The downside is that we do not know which option was before
4) Locality (all texts and genres of folklore have local confinement)
Thus, Russian folklore is a set of genres and each locality has its own.
5) Folklore - folk culture; the people are the lower strata of the population (peasants)
student folklore
army folklore
Youth/informal groupings
Thieves' folklore
soldier folklore
Burlatsky
· Political prisoners
6) Folklore is a collective creativity. The creator of folklore is not one person.
7) Typification; most works and genres of folklore contain typical motifs, plots, verbal forms, types of characters
For example, number 3, red girl, heroes: all strong, beautiful, winners
8) Syncretism - (“uniting in itself”) the combination of different arts in one art.
For example, a wedding ceremony (songs, lamentations, wearing a Christmas tree (they dressed up a small Christmas tree and wore it around the village - like a bride like a Christmas tree))
Round dance (dance, song, costume + game)
People's Theatre: Petrushka Theater
Lamentations (text wept)
9) Functionality
Each genre has a specific function. For example, a lullaby served to rhythmize movements during the motion sickness of a child; lamentations - to mourn.
10) Inclusiveness
Folklore includes historical, family, labor, sound memory of the people
· Folklore itself is organically included in the working and economic life of the people.
Signs, properties of folklore
Researchers have noticed many signs and properties that are characteristic of folklore and allow one to get closer to understanding its essence:
Bifunctionality (a combination of practical and spiritual);
Polyelementity or syncretism.
Any folklore work is polyelemental. Let's use the table:
mimic element
Genres of oral prose
word element
Pantomime, mimic dances
Ritual action, round dances, folk drama
Verbal and musical (song genres)
dance element
Musical and choreographic genres
musical element
Collectivity;
Lack of writing;
Variant plurality;
Traditional.
For phenomena associated with the development of folklore in other types of culture, the name - folklorism - is accepted (introduced at the end of the 19th century by the French researcher P. Sebillo), as well as "secondary life", "secondary folklore".
In connection with its wide distribution, the concept of folklore proper, its pure forms, arose: thus, the term authentic (from the Greek autenticus - authentic, reliable) was established.
Folk art is the basis of all national culture. The richness of its content and genre diversity - sayings, proverbs, riddles, fairy tales and more. Songs have a special place in the work of the people, accompanying human life from the cradle to the grave, reflecting it in the most diverse manifestations and representing, on the whole, an enduring ethnographic, historical, aesthetic, moral and highly artistic value.
Features of folklore.
Folklore(folk-lore) is an international term of English origin, first introduced into science in 1846 by the scientist William Thoms. In literal translation, it means - "folk wisdom", "folk knowledge" and denotes various manifestations of folk spiritual culture.
In Russian science, other terms were also fixed: folk poetic creativity, folk poetry, folk literature. The name "oral creativity of the people" emphasizes the oral nature of folklore in its difference from written literature. The name "folk poetic creativity" indicates artistry as a sign by which a folklore work is distinguished from beliefs, customs and rituals. This designation puts folklore on a par with other types of folk art and fiction. one
Folklore is complex synthetic art. Often in his works elements are combined various kinds arts - verbal, musical, theatrical. It is studied by various sciences - history, psychology, sociology, ethnology (ethnography) 2 . It is closely connected with folk life and rituals. It is no coincidence that the first Russian scholars took a broad approach to folklore, recording not only works of verbal art, but also recording various ethnographic details and the realities of peasant life. Thus, the study of folklore was for them a kind of area of folklore 3 .
The science that studies folklore is called folklore. If by literature we mean not only written artistic creativity, and verbal art in general, then folklore is a special department of literature, and folklore, thus, is a part of literary criticism.
Folklore is verbal oral art. It has the properties of the art of the word. In this he is close to literature. However, it has its own specific features: syncretism, traditionality, anonymity, variability and improvisation.
The prerequisites for the emergence of folklore appeared in the primitive communal system with the beginning of the formation of art. The ancient art of the word was inherent utility- the desire to practically influence nature and human affairs.
The oldest folklore was in syncretic state(from the Greek word synkretismos - connection). The syncretic state is a state of fusion, non-segmentation. Art was not yet separated from other types of spiritual activity, it existed in conjunction with other types of spiritual consciousness. Later, the state of syncretism was followed by the separation of artistic creativity, along with other types of social consciousness, into an independent area of spiritual activity.
Folklore works anonymous. Their author is the people. Any of them is created on the basis of tradition. At one time, V.G. Belinsky wrote about the specifics of a folklore work: there are no "famous names, because the author of literature is always a people. No one knows who composed his simple and naive songs, in which the inner and outer life of a young people or tribe is so artlessly and vividly reflected. a song from generation to generation, from generation to generation; and it changes over time: sometimes they shorten it, sometimes they lengthen it, sometimes they remake it, sometimes they combine it with another song, sometimes they compose another song in addition to it - and now poems come out of songs, which only the people can call themselves the author. 4
Academician D.S. is certainly right. Likhachev, who noted that there is no author in a folklore work, not only because information about him, if he was, has been lost, but also because he falls out of the very poetics of folklore; it is not needed from the point of view of the structure of the work. In folklore works there can be a performer, narrator, narrator, but there is no author, writer as an element of the artistic structure itself.
Traditional succession covers large historical intervals - whole centuries. According to academician A.A. Potebnya, folklore arises "from memorable sources, that is, it is passed from memory from mouth to mouth as far as memory suffices, but it has certainly passed through a significant layer of people's understanding" 5 . Each carrier of folklore creates within the boundaries of the generally accepted tradition, relying on predecessors, repeating, changing, supplementing the text of the work. In literature there is a writer and a reader, and in folklore there is a performer and a listener. "The works of folklore always bear the stamp of time and the environment in which they lived for a long time, or "existed." For these reasons, folklore is called mass folk art. It does not have individual authors, although there are many talented performers and creators, to perfection owning the generally accepted traditional methods of saying and singing. Folklore is directly folk in content - that is, in terms of thoughts and feelings expressed in it. Folklore is folk in style - that is, in the form of conveying content. Folklore is folk in origin, in all signs and properties of traditional figurative content and traditional stylistic forms. 6 This is the collective nature of folklore. traditional- the most important and basic specific property of folklore.
Any folklore work exists in large numbers options. Variant (lat. variantis - changing) - each new performance of a folk work. Oral works had a mobile variable nature.
A characteristic feature of the folklore work is improvisation. It is directly related to the variability of the text. Improvisation (it. improvvisazione - unexpectedly, suddenly) - the creation of a folk work or its parts directly in the process of performance. This feature is more characteristic of lamentations and cries. However, improvisation did not contradict tradition and was within certain artistic limits.
Considering all these signs of a folklore work, we will give an extremely brief definition of folklore given by V.P. Anikin: "Folklore is the traditional artistic creativity of the people. It equally applies to oral, verbal, and other fine arts, as to ancient art as well as to the new, created in the new time and created in our days." 7
Folklore, like literature, is the art of the word. This gives reason to use literary terms: epic, lyric, drama. They are called genera. Each genus covers a group of works of a certain type. genre- type art form(fairy tale, song, proverb, etc.). This is a narrower group of works than the genus. Thus, genus means a way of depicting reality, and genre means a type of artistic form. The history of folklore is the history of the change of its genres. In folklore, they are more stable than literary ones; genre boundaries in literature are wider. New genre forms in folklore do not arise as a result of creative activity individuals, as in literature, but must be supported by the entire mass of participants in the collective creative process. Therefore, their change does not occur without the necessary historical grounds. At the same time, genres in folklore are not unchanged. They arise, develop and die, are replaced by others. So, for example, epics appear in Ancient Russia, develop in the Middle Ages, and in the 19th century they are gradually forgotten and die off. With a change in the conditions of existence, genres are destroyed and forgotten. But this does not indicate the decline of folk art. Changes in the genre composition of folklore are a natural consequence of the process of development of artistic collective creativity.
What is the relationship between reality and its representation in folklore? Folklore combines a direct reflection of life with a conventional one. "Here there is no obligatory reflection of life in the form of life itself, conventionality is allowed." 8 It is characterized by associativity, thinking by analogy, symbolism.
The oral poetic creativity of the people is of great social value, consisting in its cognitive, ideological, educational and aesthetic values, which are inextricably linked. The cognitive significance of folklore is manifested primarily in the fact that it reflects the features of the phenomena of real life and provides extensive knowledge about the history of social relations, work and life, as well as an idea of the worldview and psychology of the people, about the nature of the country. The cognitive significance of folklore is increased by the fact that the plots and images of its works usually contain a broad typification, contain generalizations of the phenomena of life and the characters of people. Thus, the images of Ilya Muromets and Mikula Selyaninovich in Russian epics give an idea of the Russian peasantry in general, one image characterizes a whole social stratum of people. The cognitive value of folklore is also increased by the fact that its works not only present, but also explain pictures of life, historical events and images of heroes. So, epics and historical songs explain why the Russian people withstood the Mongol-Tatar yoke and emerged victorious in the struggle, explain the meaning of the exploits of the heroes and the activities of historical figures. M. Gorky said: “The true history of the working people cannot be known without knowing the oral folk art" Gorky M. Sobr. cit., vol. 27, p. 311. The ideological and educational significance of folklore lies in the fact that its best works are inspired by lofty progressive ideas, love for the motherland, striving for peace. Folklore depicts heroes as defenders of the motherland and evokes a feeling of pride in them. He poeticizes Russian nature - and the mighty rivers (Mother Volga, the wide Dnieper, the quiet Don), and the steppes, and the wide fields - and this brings up love for her. The image of the Russian land is recreated in the works of folklore. Folk art expresses the life aspirations and social views of the people, and often revolutionary sentiments. It played an important role in the struggle of the people for national and social liberation, for their socio-political and cultural development. Contemporary folk art contributes to the communist education of the masses. In all this, the ideological and educational significance of folk poetic creativity is manifested. The aesthetic significance of folklore works lies in the fact that they are a wonderful art of the word, they are distinguished by great poetic skill, which is reflected in their construction, and in the creation of images, and in language. Folklore skillfully uses fiction, fantasy, as well as symbolism, i.e. allegorical transmission and characterization of phenomena and their poeticization. Folklore expresses the artistic tastes of the people. The form of his works has been polished for centuries by the work of excellent masters. Therefore, folklore develops an aesthetic sense, a sense of beauty, a sense of form, rhythm and language. Because of this, he has great importance for the development of all types of professional art: literature, music, theater. The work of many great writers and composers is closely connected with folk poetry.
Folklore is characterized by the disclosure of beauty in nature and man, the unity of aesthetic and moral principles, the combination of real and fiction, vivid depiction and expressiveness. All this explains why the best works of folklore deliver great aesthetic pleasure. The science of folklore. The science of folklore - folkloristics - studies oral folk art, the verbal art of the masses. It poses and resolves a significant range of important questions: about the features of folklore - its life content, social nature, ideological essence, artistic originality; about its origin, development, originality at different stages of existence; about his attitude to literature and other forms of art; about the features of the creative process in it and the forms of existence of individual works; about the specifics of genres: epics, fairy tales, songs, proverbs, etc. Folklore is a complex, synthetic art; often in his works elements of various types of art are combined - verbal, musical, theatrical. It is closely connected with folk life and rituals, reflecting the features of various periods of history. That is why he is interested in and studied by various sciences: linguistics, literary criticism, art criticism, ethnography, history. Each of them explores folklore in various aspects: linguistics - the verbal side, the reflection in it of the history of the language and connections with dialects; literary criticism - common features of folklore and literature and their differences; art history - musical and theatrical elements; ethnography - the role of folklore in folk life and its connection with rituals; history is the expression in it of the people's understanding of historical events. In connection with the originality of folklore as an art, the term "folklore" in different countries invested in various content, and therefore the subject of folklore is understood differently. In some foreign countries, folklore is engaged not only in the study of the poetic, but also in the musical and choreographic aspects of folk poetic works, i.e., elements of all types of arts. In our country, folklore is understood as the science of folk poetry.
Folkloristics has its own subject of study, its own special tasks, its own methods and methods of research have been developed. However, the study of the verbal side of oral folk art is not separated from the study of its other sides: the cooperation of the sciences of folklore, linguistics, literary criticism, art criticism, ethnography and history is very fruitful. Genera, genres and genre varieties. Folklore, like literature, is the art of the word. This gives folklore a basis to use the concepts and terms that have been developed by literary criticism, naturally applying them to the features of oral folk art. Genus, species, genre and genre variety serve as such concepts and terms. Both in literary criticism and in folklore there is still no unambiguous idea about them; researchers disagree and argue. We will adopt a working definition, which we will use. Those phenomena of literature and folklore, which are called genera, genres and genre varieties, are groups of works that are similar to each other in structure, ideological and artistic principles and functions. They have developed historically and are relatively stable, changing only slightly and rather slowly. The difference between genera, genres and genre varieties is important both for performers of works, and for their listeners, and for researchers studying folk art, since these phenomena are meaningful forms, the emergence, development, change and death of which is an important process in history. literature and folklore.
In literary and folklore terminology, in our time, the concept and term "view" have almost gone out of use; most often they are replaced by the concept and the term "genre", although they were previously distinguished. We will also accept as a working concept "genre" - a narrower group of works than genus. In this case, by gender we will understand the way of depicting reality (epic, lyrical, dramatic), by genre - the type of artistic form (fairy tale, song, proverb). But we have to introduce an even narrower concept - "genre variety", which is a thematic group of works (tales about animals, fairy tales, social fairy tales, love songs, family songs, etc.). More can be highlighted small groups works. So, in social fairy tales there is a special group of works - satirical tales. However, in order to present a general picture of the classification (distribution) of the types of works of Russian folk poetry, one should take into account a number of other circumstances: firstly, the relation of genres to the so-called rites (special cult actions), secondly, the relation of the verbal text to singing and action, which is typical for some types of folklore works. Works may or may not be associated with ritual and singing.
Folklore is the basis on which individual creativity develops. Outstanding figures in various fields of art of the past and present clearly realized the importance of folklore. M. I. Glinka said: “We do not create, the people create; we only record and arrange” \ A. S. Pushkin at the beginning of the 19th century. wrote: “The study of old songs, fairy tales, etc. is necessary for a perfect knowledge of the properties of the Russian language. Our critics needlessly despise them. Addressing writers, he pointed out: "Read folk tales, young writers, in order to see the properties of the Russian language."
The creators of classical and modern literature, music, and fine arts have followed and continue to follow the precept of turning to folk art. There is not a single prominent writer, artist, composer who would not turn to the springs of folk art, because they reflect the life of the people. The list of musical works that creatively develop the art of the people is huge. On the folk stories such operas as "Sadko", "Kashchey" and others were created. Images and plots of folk art entered the fine arts. Vasnetsov's paintings "Bogatyrs", "Alyonushka", Vrubel's "Mikula", "Ilya Muromets", Repin's "Sadko", etc., entered the treasury of world art. A. M. Gorky pointed out that the basis of the generalizations created by an individual genius is the creativity of the people: “Zeus created the people, Phidias embodied it in marble.” It is argued here that the art of a writer, artist, sculptor only reaches heights when it arises as an expression of the ideas, feelings, views of the people. Gorky did not belittle the role of the individual artist, but emphasized that his strength of talent and mastery give special expressiveness and perfection to the form of creating the collective creativity of the masses.
The connection between literature and folklore is not limited to the use by writers of the content and form of individual works of folk art. This connection expresses an incomparably broader and more general phenomenon: the organic unity of the artist with the people, and of art with the creative experience of the people.
Consequently, both individual and collective creativity only then acquire an enormous ideological and aesthetic significance in the life of society when they are connected with the life of the people and truly, artistically perfectly reflect it. But at the same time, it is necessary to take into account that, firstly, the nature and correlation of collective and individual creativity at different stages of the development of human society are different and, secondly, the fact that collective and individual creativity are unique historically emerged ways of creating a work of art.
A. M. Gorky rightly said that the collective creativity of the masses was the mother's womb for individual creativity, that the beginning of the art of the word, literature - in folklore. In the early periods of history, the closeness of literature and folk art was so great that it was impossible to clearly distinguish between them. The Iliad and the Odyssey with good reason are considered works of ancient literature and at the same time the most beautiful creations of collective folk art, relating to the "infant period of the life of human society." The same non-delimitation of individual and collective creativity is noted in a number of works of many peoples.
In the initial period of its existence, literature had not yet completely separated from the collective folk art. With the development of class society, the division between individual and collective creativity gradually deepens. But, of course, the very concepts of collective and individual creativity cannot be interpreted abstractly, equally and invariably for all times and peoples. Individual and collective art have features determined by historical reality.
In a pre-class society, collective creativity was an artistic and figurative reflection of the reality of that time, a generalization of the views and ideas of the tribe, the primitive community, from which the individual had not yet emerged. In conditions when the tribe remained the boundary of a person both in relation to a stranger from another tribe, and in relation to himself, when an individual was unconditionally subordinate in his feelings, thoughts and actions to the tribe, the clan / collective creativity was the only possible form of artistic activity of individual individualities. The participation of the entire mass of the tribe in the generalization of life experience, the general desire to understand and change reality were the basis of the pre-class epic, which has come down to us mainly in later revisions. An example of such epic tales, which originated even in the conditions of a pre-class society, can be at least the Kalevala runes, Yakut oloiho, Georgian and Ossetian tales about Amiran, North Caucasian and Abkhaz tales about Narts, etc.
In pre-class society, the collectivity of creativity not only merged with individuality, but subordinated it. Here, even the most outstanding person was perceived as the embodiment of the strength and experience of the whole tribe; this is how the image of the masses of the people, characteristic of the epic and early literary work, through the image of the hero (Weinemeinen, Prometheus, Balder, later - Russian heroes and other images of heroic legends) was born.
The development of class relations could not but change collective creativity. With the advent of a class society, the ideology of antagonistic classes is clearly reflected in the different interpretations of images, plots of legends and songs. Examples from the epos of the peoples of the USSR confirm this. Discussion of the ideological essence of the Kyrgyz legends about Manas, the Buryat and Mongolian epic "Geser", discussions on the problems of the epic revealed the facts of anti-people distortions by feudal circles of the creativity of the working masses.
There is a constant interaction of literature and folklore. Folklore and literature, collective and individual artistic creation accompany each other in a class society. So, Russian folk art of the XI-XVII centuries. had a huge impact on the works of ancient Russian literature, as eloquently evidenced by "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia", "Zadonshchina". At the same time, the images of fiction were increasingly becoming part of the everyday life of oral poetry. In the future, this process became even more intense. Lermontov, Gogol, JI. Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Gorky believed that folklore enriches the individual creativity of a professional artist. At the same time, all the outstanding masters of Russian literature emphasized that the writer should not copy folklore, should not take the path of stylization. True artist boldly invades the oral-poetic creativity of the people, selects the best in it and creatively develops it. To be convinced of this, it is enough to recall the fairy tales of A. S. Pushkin. “He decorated a folk song and a fairy tale with the brilliance of his talent, but left their meaning and strength unchanged,” wrote A. M. Gorky
The interaction of folklore and literature proceeds in different forms. For example, professional artist often uses and enriches the themes, plots, images of folklore, but he can use folklore without directly reproducing its plots and images. Genuine artist is never limited to reproducing the form of folklore works, but enriches and develops the traditions of oral poetic creativity, revealing the life of the people, their thoughts, feelings and aspirations. It is known that the best, most progressive representatives of the ruling classes, exposing social injustice and truthfully depicting life, rose above class limitations and created works that met the interests and needs of the people.
The living connection between literature and folklore is confirmed by the work of the best writers of all peoples. But no matter how palpable the connection between the works of writers and folk poetry in the conditions of a class society, collective and individual creativity is always distinguished by the method of creating works of art.
In a class society, differences have developed in the creative process of creating works of literature and mass folk poetry. They consist primarily of the following: a literary work is created by a writer - whether he is a writer by profession or not - individually or in collaboration with another writer; while the writer is working on it, the work is not the property of the masses, the masses join it only after it receives the final edition, fixed in the letter. This means that in literature the process of creating the canonical text of a work is separated from the direct creative activity of the masses and is associated with it only genetically.
Another thing is the works of collective folk art; here, the personal and collective principles are united in the creative process so closely that individual creative individuals dissolve in the team. Works of folk art do not have a final edition. Each performer of a work creates, develops, polishes the text, acts as a co-author of a song, a legend belonging to the people.
Russian folklore
Folklore, in translation, means "folk wisdom, folk knowledge." Folklore is folk art, the artistic collective activity of the people, reflecting their life, views and ideals, i.e. Folklore is the folk historical cultural heritage of any country in the world.
Works of Russian folklore (fairy tales, legends, epics, songs, ditties, dances, legends, applied art) help to recreate character traits folk life of his time.
Creativity in antiquity was closely associated with labor activity human and reflected mythical, historical ideas, as well as the beginnings scientific knowledge. The art of the word was closely connected with other types of art - music, dance, decorative arts. In science, this is called "syncretism."
Folklore was an art organically inherent in folk life. The different purpose of the works gave rise to genres, with their various themes, images, and style. In the most ancient period, most peoples had tribal traditions, labor and ritual songs, mythological stories, conspiracies. The decisive event that paved the line between mythology and folklore proper was the appearance of fairy tales, the plots of which were based on a dream, on wisdom, on ethical fiction.
In ancient and medieval society, the heroic epic (Irish sagas, Russian epics, and others) took shape. There were also legends and songs reflecting various beliefs (for example, Russian spiritual poems). Later, historical songs appeared, depicting real historical events and heroes, as they remained in the people's memory.
Genres in folklore also differ in the way of performance (solo, choir, choir and soloist) and in various combinations of text with melody, intonation, movements (singing and dancing, storytelling and acting out).
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, student folklore.
Now there are no new Russian folk tales, but the old ones are still told and made into cartoons and feature films. Many old songs are also sung. But the epics and historical songs in live performance almost do not sound.
For thousands of years, folklore has been the only form of creativity among all peoples. The folklore of each nation is unique, just like its history, customs, culture. And some genres (not only historical songs) reflect the history of a given people.
Russian folk musical culture
There are several points of view that interpret folklore as folk art culture, as oral poetry and as a combination of verbal, musical, playful or artistic types of folk art. With all the variety of regional and local forms, folklore has common features, such as anonymity, collective creativity, traditionalism, close connection with work, life, transmission of works from generation to generation in oral tradition.
Folk musical art originated long before the emergence of professional music of the Orthodox church. IN public life folklore played a much greater role in ancient Russia than in later times. Unlike medieval Europe, Ancient Russia had no secular professional art. In her musical culture folk art of the oral tradition developed, including various, including "semi-professional" genres (the art of storytellers, guslars, etc.).
By the time of Orthodox hymnography, Russian folklore already had a long history, an established system of genres and means of musical expression. Folk music, folk art has firmly entered the life of people, reflecting the most diverse facets of social, family and personal life.
Researchers believe that the pre-state period (that is, before the formation of Ancient Russia), the Eastern Slavs already had a fairly developed calendar and household folklore, heroic epic and instrumental music.
With the adoption of Christianity, pagan (Vedic) knowledge began to be eradicated. The meaning of the magical actions that gave rise to this or that type of folk activity was gradually forgotten. However, the purely external forms of ancient holidays proved to be unusually stable, and some ritual folklore continued to live, as it were, out of touch with the ancient paganism that gave birth to it.
The Christian Church (not only in Russia, but also in Europe) had a very negative attitude towards traditional folk songs and dances, considering them a manifestation of sinfulness, devilish seduction. This assessment is recorded in many annalistic sources and in canonical church decrees.
Fervent, cheerful folk festivals with elements of theatrical action and with the indispensable participation of music, the origins of which should be sought in ancient Vedic rites, were fundamentally different from temple holidays.
The most extensive area of folk musical creativity of Ancient Russia is ritual folklore, which testifies to the high artistic talent of the Russian people. He was born in the depths of the Vedic picture of the world, the deification of the natural elements. The most ancient are calendar-ritual songs. Their content is connected with ideas about the cycle of nature, with the agricultural calendar. These songs reflect the various stages of the life of farmers. They were part of the winter, spring, summer rites, which correspond to the turning points in the change of seasons. Performing this natural rite (songs, dances), people believed that they would be heard by the mighty gods, the forces of Love, Family, Sun, Water, Mother Earth and healthy children would be born, a good harvest would be born, there would be an offspring of livestock, life would develop in love and harmony.
In Russia, weddings have been played since ancient times. Each locality had its own custom of wedding actions, lamentations, songs, sentences. But with all the endless variety, weddings were played according to the same laws. Poetic wedding reality transforms what is happening into a fantastically fabulous world. As in a fairy tale all images are diverse, so the rite itself, poetically interpreted, appears as a kind of fairy tale. The wedding, being one of the most significant events of human life in Russia, required a festive and solemn frame. And if you feel all the rituals and songs, delving into this fantastic wedding world, you can feel the poignant beauty of this ritual. Colorful clothes, a wedding train rattling with bells, a polyphonic choir of “singers” and mournful melodies of lamentations, the sounds of waxwings and horns, accordions and balalaikas will remain “behind the scenes” - but the poetry of the wedding itself resurrects - the pain of leaving the parental home and the high joy of the festive state of mind - Love.
One of the most ancient Russian genres is round dance songs. In Russia, they danced round dances for almost the entire year - on the Kolovorot ( New Year), Shrovetide (seeing off winter and meeting spring), Green Week (round dances of girls around birches), Yarilo (sacred bonfires), Ovsen (harvest holidays). Round dances-games and round dances-processions were common. Initially, round dance songs were part of agricultural rituals, but over the centuries they became independent, although the images of labor were preserved in many of them:
And we sowed millet, sowed!
Oh, Did Lado, sowed, sowed!
The dance songs that have survived to this day accompanied male and women's dances. Men's - personified strength, courage, courage, women's - tenderness, love, stateliness.
Over the centuries, the musical epic begins to replenish with new themes and images. Epics are born that tell about the struggle against the Horde, about traveling to distant countries, about the emergence of the Cossacks, and popular uprisings.
Folk memory has long kept many beautiful ancient songs for centuries. In the XVIII century, during the formation of professional secular genres (opera, instrumental music), folk art for the first time becomes the subject of study and creative implementation. The enlightening attitude to folklore was vividly expressed by the remarkable humanist writer A.N. Radishchev in the heartfelt lines of his “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: you will find the education of the soul of our people.” In the 19th century, the assessment of folklore as the “education of the soul” of the Russian people became the basis of the aesthetics of the composer school from Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, to Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Kalinnikov, and the folk song itself was one of the sources for the formation of Russian national thinking.
Russian folk songs of the 16th-19th centuries - "like a golden mirror of the Russian people"
Folk songs recorded in various parts of Russia are a historical monument to the life of the people, but also a documentary source that captures the development of folk creative thought of its time.
The struggle against the Tatars, peasant riots - all this left an imprint on folk song traditions for each specific area, starting with epics, historical songs and up to ballads. Like, for example, the ballad about Ilya Muromets, which is associated with the Nightingale River, which flows in the Yazykovo area, there was a struggle between Ilya Muromets and the Nightingale the Robber, who lived in these parts.
It is known that the conquest of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible played in the development of oral folk art, the campaigns of Ivan the Terrible marked the beginning of the final victory over the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which freed many thousands of Russian prisoners from the crowd. The songs of this time became the prototype for Lermontov's epic "Song about Ivan Tsarevich" - a chronicle of folk life, and A.S. Pushkin used oral folk art in his works - Russian songs and Russian fairy tales.
On the Volga, not far from the village of Undory, there is a cape called Stenka Razin; songs of that time sounded there: “On the steppe, steppe of Saratov”, “We had it in Holy Russia”. Historical events of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. captured in the compilation about the campaigns of Peter I and his Azov campaigns, about the execution of archers: “It’s like the blue sea”, “A young Cossack walks along the Don”.
With the military reforms of the beginning of the 18th century, new historical songs appeared, these are no longer lyrical, but epic. Historical songs preserve the most ancient images of the historical epic, songs about the Russian-Turkish war, about recruiting and the war with Napoleon: “The French thief boasted of taking Russia”, “Don’t make noise, you mother green oak forest”.
At this time, epics about "Surovets Suzdalets", about "Dobrynya and Alyosha" and a very rare tale of Gorshen were preserved. Also in the work of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Nekrasov, Russian epic folk songs and legends were used. The ancient traditions of folk games, disguise and a special performing culture of Russian song folklore have been preserved.
Russian folk theatrical art
Russian folk drama and folk theatrical art in general are the most interesting and significant phenomenon of Russian national culture.
Drama games and performances still in late XVIII and at the beginning of the twentieth century they were an organic part of the festive folk life, whether it was village gatherings, soldier and factory barracks or fair booths.
The geography of the distribution of folk drama is extensive. Collectors of our days have found peculiar theatrical "centers" in the Yaroslavl and Gorky regions, Russian villages of Tataria, on Vyatka and Kama, in Siberia and the Urals.
Folk drama, contrary to the opinion of some scholars, is a natural product of the folklore tradition. It compressed the creative experience accumulated by dozens of generations of the widest sections of the Russian people.
At urban, and later rural fairs, carousels and booths were arranged, on the stage of which performances were played on fairy-tale and national historical themes. The performances seen at the fairs could not completely affect the aesthetic tastes of the people, but they expanded their fairy-tale and song repertoire. Lubok and theatrical borrowings largely determined the originality of the plots of folk drama. However, they "lay down" on the ancient playing traditions of folk games, disguise, i.e. on the special performing culture of Russian folklore.
Generations of creators and performers of folk dramas have developed certain methods of plot construction, characterization and style. Expanded folk dramas are inherent strong passions and irresolvable conflicts, the continuity and speed of successive actions.
A special role in the folk drama is played by songs performed by the characters at different moments or sounding in chorus - as comments on ongoing events. The songs were a kind of emotional and psychological element of the performance. They were performed mostly in fragments, revealing the emotional meaning of the scene or the state of the character. Songs at the beginning and end of the performance were obligatory. The song repertoire of folk dramas consists mainly of author's songs of the 19th and early 20th centuries, popular in all sectors of society. These are the soldier's songs "The White Russian Tsar Went", "Malbrook went on a campaign", "Praise, praise to you, hero", and the romances "I walked in the meadows in the evening", "I'm leaving for the desert", "What is clouded, clear dawn " and many others.
Late genres of Russian folk art - festivities
The heyday of the festivities falls on the 17th-19th centuries, although certain types and genres of folk art, which were an indispensable accessory of the fair and city festive square, were created and actively existed long before the designated centuries and continue, often in a transformed form, to exist to this day. Such is the puppet theater, bear fun, partly the jokes of merchants, many circus numbers. Other genres were born from the fairground and died out with the end of the festivities. These are comic monologues of farce barkers, raeks, performances of farce theaters, dialogues of parsley clowns.
Usually, during festivities and fairs in traditional places, entire pleasure towns were erected with booths, carousels, swings, tents, in which they sold everything from popular prints to songbirds and sweets. In winter, ice mountains were added, access to which was completely free, and sledding from a height of 10-12 m brought incomparable pleasure.
With all the diversity and variegation, the city folk festival was perceived as something integral. This integrity was created by the specific atmosphere of the festive square, with its free speech, familiarity, unrestrained laughter, food and drinks; equality, fun, festive perception of the world.
The festive square itself amazed with an incredible combination of all kinds of details. Accordingly, outwardly, it was a colorful loud chaos. Bright, motley clothes of those walking, catchy, unusual costumes of “artists”, flashy signboards of booths, swings, carousels, shops and taverns, handicrafts shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow and the simultaneous sound of hurdy-gurdies, trumpets, flutes, drums, exclamations, songs, cries of merchants , loud laughter from the jokes of "farce grandfathers" and clowns - everything merged into a single fireworks fair that fascinated and amused.
A lot of guest performers from Europe (many of them keepers of booths, panoramas) and even southern countries (magicians, animal tamers, strongmen, acrobats and others) came to large, well-known festivities “under the mountains” and “under the swings”. Foreign speech and overseas curiosities were commonplace at capital festivities and large fairs. It is understandable why urban spectacular folklore was often presented as a kind of mixture of "Nizhny Novgorod with French".
The basis, heart and soul of Russian national culture is Russian folklore, this is the treasury, this is what filled the Russian person from the inside from ancient times, and this internal Russian folk culture eventually gave rise to a whole galaxy of great Russian writers, composers, artists, scientists in the 17th-19th centuries , military, philosophers who are known and revered by the whole world:
Zhukovsky V.A., Ryleev K.F., Tyutchev F.I., Pushkin A.S., Lermontov M.Yu., Saltykov-Shchedrin M.E., Bulgakov M.A., Tolstoy L.N., Turgenev I.S., Fonvizin D.I., Chekhov A.P., Gogol N.V., Goncharov I.A., Bunin I.A., Griboyedov A.S., Karamzin N.M., Dostoyevsky F. .M., Kuprin A.I., Glinka M.I., Glazunov A.K., Mussorgsky M.P., Rimsky-Korsakov N.A., Tchaikovsky P.I., Borodin A.P., Balakirev M. .A., Rachmaninov S.V., Stravinsky I.F., Prokofiev S.S., Kramskoy I.N., Vereshchagin V.V., Surikov V.I., Polenov V.D., Serov V.A. ., Aivazovsky I.K., Shishkin I.I., Vasnetsov V.N., Repin I.E., Roerich N.K., Vernadsky V.I., Lomonosov M.V., Sklifosovsky N.V., Mendeleev D.I., Sechenov I.M., Pavlov I.P., Tsiolkovsky K.E., Popov A.S., Bagration P.R., Nakhimov P.S., Suvorov A.V., Kutuzov M. I., Ushakov F.F., Kolchak A.V., Solovyov V.S., Berdyaev N.A., Chernyshevsky N.G., Dobrolyubov N.A., Pisarev D.I., Chaadaev P.E. ., there are thousands of them, which, one way or another, the whole earthly world knows. These are world pillars that grew up on Russian folk culture.
But in 1917, a second attempt was made in Russia to break the connection between times, to break the Russian cultural heritage of ancient generations. The first attempt was made back in the years of the baptism of Russia. But it did not succeed in full, since the power of Russian folklore was based on the life of the people, on their Vedic natural worldview. But already somewhere in the sixties of the twentieth century, Russian folklore began to be gradually replaced by pop-pop genres of pop, disco and, as it is customary to say now, chanson (prison thieves folklore) and other types of Soviet art. But a special blow was struck in the 1990s. The word "Russian" was secretly forbidden even to pronounce, allegedly, this word meant - inciting ethnic hatred. This position remains to this day.
And there was no single Russian people, they scattered them, they made them drunk, and they began to destroy them at the genetic level. Now in Russia there is a non-Russian spirit of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and all other inhabitants of Asia and the Middle East, and in the Far East there are Chinese, Koreans, etc., and an active, global Ukrainization of Russia is being carried out everywhere.
