Oral folk art is the richest heritage of every country. Folklore existed even before the advent of written language; it is not literature, but a masterpiece of the art of oral literature. The genera of folklore creativity were formed in the pre-literary period of art on the basis of ceremonial and ritual actions. The first attempts to comprehend literary genera date back to the era of antiquity.
Types of folklore creativity
Folklore is represented by three genera:
1. Epic literature. This genus is represented in prose and poetry. Russian folklore genres of the epic kind are represented by epics, historical songs, fairy tales, tales, legends, parables, fables, proverbs and sayings.
2. Lyrical literature. All lyrical works are based on the thoughts and experiences of the lyrical hero. Examples of folklore genres of the lyrical direction are represented by ritual, lullabies, love songs, ditties, bayat, haivka, Easter and Kupala songs. In addition, there is a separate block - “Folklore lyrics”, which includes literary songs and romances.
3. Dramatic literature. This is a type of literature that combines epic and lyrical methods of depiction. The basis of a dramatic work is a conflict, the content of which is revealed through the acting of the actors. Dramatic works have a dynamic plot. Folklore genres of the dramatic kind are represented by family ritual songs, calendar songs, and folk dramas.
Individual works may contain features of lyrical and epic literature, therefore a mixed genre is distinguished - lyric-epic, which in turn is divided into:
Works with heroic characters, lyric-epic content (epic, duma, historical song).
Non-heroic works (ballad, chronicle song).
There is also folklore for children (lullaby, nursery rhyme, comfort, pestushka, fairy tale).
Genres of folklore
Folklore genres of folk art are represented in two directions:
1. Ritual works of UNT.
Performed during the rituals:
Calendar (carols, Maslenitsa activities, freckles, Trinity songs);
Family and household (birth of a child, wedding celebrations, celebration of national holidays);
Occasional works - came in the form of spells, counting rhymes, chants.
2. Non-ritual works of UNT.
This section includes several subgroups:
Drama (folklore) - nativity scenes, religious works, theater "Petrushki".
Poetry (folklore) - epics, lyrical, historical and spiritual songs, ballads, ditties.
Prose (folklore) in turn is divided into fairy-tale and non-fairy-tale. The first includes tales about magic, animals, everyday and cumulative tales, and the second is associated with famous heroes and heroes of Rus' who fought witches (Baba Yaga) and other demonological creatures. Also included in non-fairy tale prose are tales, legends, and mythological stories.
Speech folklore is represented by proverbs, sayings, chants, riddles, and tongue twisters.
Folklore genres carry their own individual plot and meaning.
Images of military battles, exploits of heroes and folk heroes are observed in epics, vivid events of the past, everyday life and memories of heroes from the past can be found in historical songs.
Stories about the actions of the heroes Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich are epic. The folklore genre of the fairy tale tells about the actions of Ivan the Tsarevich, Ivan the Fool, Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga. Family songs are always represented by characters such as mother-in-law, wifey, hubby.
Literature and folklore
Folklore differs from literature in its unique system of constructing works. Its characteristic difference from literature is that the genres of folklore works have starters, beginnings, sayings, retardations, and trinities. Also significant differences in style compositions will be the use of epithet, tautology, parallelism, hyperbole, synecdoche.
Just as in oral folk art (ONT), folklore genres in literature are represented by three genera. This is epic, lyric, drama.
Distinctive features of literature and CNT
Large works of literature, represented by novels, short stories, novellas, are written in calm, measured tones. This allows the reader, without interrupting the reading process, to analyze the plot and draw appropriate conclusions. Folklore contains a saying, a beginning, a saying and a chorus. The technique of tautology is the basic principle of storytelling. Hyperbole, exaggeration, synecdoche and parallelism are also very popular. Such figurative actions are not allowed in literature all over the world.
Small folklore genres as a separate block of CNT works
This system includes mainly works for children. The relevance of these genres continues to this day, because every person gets acquainted with this literature even before he begins to speak.
The lullaby became one of the first works of folklore. The presence of partial conspiracies and amulets is direct evidence of this fact. Many believed that otherworldly forces act around a person; if a child sees something bad in a dream, it will never happen again in reality. This is probably why the lullaby about the “little gray top” is popular even today.
Another genre is nursery rhyme. To understand what exactly such works are, we can equate it to a sentence song or a song with simultaneous actions. This genre promotes the development of fine motor skills and emotional health in a child; the key point is considered to be scenes with the play of fingers “Magpie-Crow”, “Ladushki”.
All of the above small folklore genres are necessary for every person. Thanks to them, children learn for the first time what is good and what is bad, and are taught order and hygiene.
Folklore of nationalities
An interesting fact is that different nationalities, in their culture, traditions and customs, have common points of contact in folklore. There are so-called universal desires, thanks to which songs, rituals, legends, and parables appear. Many peoples hold celebrations and chanting to obtain a rich harvest.
From the above, it becomes obvious that different peoples are often close in many spheres of life, and folklore unites customs and traditions into a single structure of folk art.
In this lesson we will learn how the concepts of “folklore” and “literature” are related, how these oral and written methods of speech development of the world interact.
Topic: Old Russian literature
Lesson: Folklore and Literature
In the last lesson, we looked at the concept of “literature” and found out that this concept is quite complex and developing. We have agreed to consider literature to be the verbal formulation of interaction in written or oral form. In this lesson we will look at a predominantly oral form of human interaction, which is called folklore.
Unlike the word literature, which appeared relatively recently in different languages and in different countries, the word folklore arose all over the world immediately and was very firmly entrenched in word usage. In 1846, the English scientist William Thomson used this word in a scientific article, which instantly spread throughout the world within 10-20 years. And this concept was legalized, formally, both among learned societies and among the authors of dictionaries, who included this word in all languages of the world at once.
Why did it happen? Why did the word folklore, which reflects a not so important part in our lives, conquer the whole world so quickly? There is no secret here. The fact is that in the middle of the 19th century there was a general passion for populism, and in different countries it was called differently, but everywhere this passion led to the fact that researchers of such creativity considered themselves the most outstanding, most consistent and advanced fighters for the very ideas of this time. The fact is that the word “people” at that time began to be understood in a very specific way, especially in Russia. The word “people” was used mainly to describe peasants and peasants, as a people, were contrasted with their landowners, people of the same language, basically the same culture, the same faith, the same religion, who felt some sense of guilt before their peasants. Russia was moving toward freedom from serfdom; Europe passed this path a little earlier.
But, nevertheless, the feeling of guilt before the people and the attempt to atone for this guilt before the peasants by paying attention to their peasant culture had a very long and very strong effect on several generations both in Europe and in Russia. However, the word “people” in modern language is gradually changing. The peasantry, as a huge, overwhelming mass of the population, ceased to exist almost throughout the world.
In addition to the peasants, artisans appeared, the philistinism also spread, and in the modern world that pure people who are identified with the peasantry no longer exists at all. And the most sensitive Russian writers felt this quickly enough. Already at the end of the 19th century A.P. Chekhov objected to the populists of that time, who fought for the people’s cause, and he wrote this: “We are all people, and the best of what we do is the people’s cause.” The spread of folklore as a science, as a sphere of study of folk life, continues to be studied for a century and a half. During this time, the word “folklore”, as a definition of oral folk art, was slightly rethought. We are increasingly talking about the fact that folklore exists among different groups of the population, as scientists say, among different social strata. There is peasant folklore, there is workers’ folklore, there is children’s folklore, there is women’s folklore, and there is also professional folklore. That is, in oral works there is no author and this is their main property.
A literary work is always written by someone, it has an author. Works of folk art are not signed and cannot be signed on the grounds that they do not have an author - the authors are everyone and no one. In relation to songs, fairy tales, epics, proverbs, sayings, and anecdotes, folklore remains an absolutely alive and real phenomenon for us.
The interaction between folklore and literature can be demonstrated using any example. Using the example of an anecdote that becomes Gogol’s most famous comedy, “The Inspector General.” An anecdote allegedly given by Pushkin, or overheard, or read in some magazine, but nevertheless, Gogol himself told this anecdote, moreover, he acted out the story of an auditor, posing as one when he was passing through small Russian towns for some purpose. city, he played an important official and saw the reaction of local mayors, local officials.
Rice. 3. N.V. Gogol “The Inspector General” ()
In essence, in this way he not only played, but also collected material for his comedy. Almost the same thing happens in any case when some story becomes the plot for a major literary work, and then the history of a major literary work turns into the stories of some small anecdotes.
As a matter of fact, here you need to abstract a little from real situations and imagine this process in its entirety. Imagine what it would look like if mathematicians or physicists wanted to describe the interaction of literature and folklore, then they would probably draw up a graph in which the development of folklore would be shown as one continuous and fairly even line, and the development of literature would be shown spasmodically, connected with different historical events, with different circumstances.
Rice. 4. Interaction of literature and folklore
A leap in literature is an earthquake, a flood, a fire, and a war. Sometimes the impetus for the appearance of a literary work, which is always born on the basis of folklore, comes from some personal circumstances in the life of a person, the author, or personal circumstances in the life of a character whom the author is forced to put in new conditions. The hero of a literary work must either be killed or married. And this, too, is, in essence, a folklore motif. Folklore is associated with the main moments of a person’s life - this is birth and his death, this is the rite of manhood, which scientists call initiation - this is the rite of turning young men into a man-warrior, and a wedding ceremony. In essence, all the plots of both world folklore and world literature are tied around these four events. Therefore, we can always talk about the interaction of literature and folklore using specific examples, or in general. Generally speaking, one can imagine that literature develops in very specific stages. It arises even in those times when there is no literature or folklore, but there is a common primitive syncretic action that a primitive man performs in his cave, he draws, and sings, and dances, and plays, he also plays sports. And the word that a person pronounces at this moment is not recognized as an artificial word, it is completely natural.
The next stage, which begins approximately ten thousand years ago, is the stage of the birth of myth. The following type of authorship is associated with it, such as mythical authorship - the most ancient phenomenon common to all world cultures. All the myths of all nations are extremely similar to each other, they have a myth about the creation of the world and a myth about the Flood, everyone has some idea about the end of the world, when everything must certainly end.
Let's consider the next stage - epic. The level of awareness of a person’s personality is even higher, he is even closer to understanding the meaning of the word, therefore at this stage the author is already talking about historical events more or less known to him, this is a legend, a legend, and later a historical story that exists orally. The author does not believe that he has the right to put his signature, does not believe that he has the right to give his name. Yes, he, in fact, does not believe that he is the author, he is just a copyist either of someone else’s speech, which he heard orally, or a copyist of someone else’s written speech, which was still based on someone else’s oral story.
The next type of authorship is the skaldic or storytelling type. The word "skaldic" comes from Icelandic myths composed by skalds. Nowadays there are also those Icelanders who consider themselves professional singers and they also do not consider it necessary to give their names. In its pure form, this type of authorship is present among those carriers of folklore, who until recently were difficult to find in remote villages, having specifically gone there for research.
And only the very last moment, historically very close to us, about a thousand years ago, literary authorship arose, when the author puts his signature under the text and pronounces the text on his own behalf.
It is easy to notice that every child goes through all these stages of becoming an author in the course of his development. Until one year of age, all children belong to a primitive syncretic culture, when everything is born together. The child cries and laughs at the same time, says and does something, without realizing, without distinguishing what is happening to him. From one to three years we can observe mythological authorship, when the child has a myth about dad and mom, about the main characters of this myth and about all the other people who are its characters. After three years, the stage of epic authorship begins, when the child enthusiastically retells some stories and invents them. This ends with the moment when many children begin to recognize themselves as authors of directly epic, storytelling, moving into the time of literary creativity, all this happens at the age of about fourteen. But from fourteen to twenty-one years, the most real modern literary authorship is already formed. Here there is already a desire to show oneself, and not just to look at others.
Everything listed above applies to all of humanity. And in each of us that child, who we were at one year, three years, seven years, fourteen and so on, does not go anywhere, he remains inside us and continues to act. The desire for mythologization is also present in adults. An adult is looking for a father, entire nations are looking for leaders - fathers of nations, and this is, in a sense, a natural, repeating process. When some leader in some state, no matter whether it is Equatorial Africa or European Germany, proclaims himself the father of nations and the process of myth begins around him, then, in essence, the people repeat the path that each of the people belonging to this people, took place in childhood. These are serious processes that sometimes make us think that humanity is returning to its past and can never part with it completely.
So, we have syncretic, mythical, epic, and skaldic literary authorship at the same time. Each of us, willingly or unwillingly, whether we want it or not, is a bearer of not only a common culture, but also a bearer of a certain subculture. People of different ages, different social status can root for their favorite team or can be fans of some star, musical, theatrical or some other world. This means that those subcultures that exist around us directly interact with the larger culture with which we live.
Quite close and well-known subcultures to us are the teacher subculture and the teacher folklore associated with it, as well as the student subculture and the student folklore associated with it. Therefore, a teacher’s joke will serve as an example for your future homework: The teacher comes home and says: “Well, what kind of students went, once I explained - they don’t understand, the second time I explained - they don’t understand, the third time I explained - I understood, but they don’t care.” do not understand". To some extent, this anecdote is completely oral, but on the other hand, it becomes a literary work. Because on any social network you can come across this anecdote, recorded and transmitted as the own composition of some network user.
And here is a student joke: Marya Ivanna gives the task:
Children,” she says, “please name two pronouns.” Here you are, Vovochka.
Well done, Vovochka!
And now the task. Let's exchange with you those works of folklore that are in your sight. We are waiting for your recordings with video or audio files in which you tell your jokes, school, student or children's. But next time we will talk about how oral folklore stories work together with literature in the historical process that has been continuing in Russian literature over the past centuries, approximately eight to nine centuries.
1. Korovina V.Ya., Zhuravlev V.P., Korovin V.I. Literature. 9th grade. M.: Education, 2008.
2. Ladygin M.B., Esin A.B., Nefedova N.A. Literature. 9th grade. M.: Bustard, 2011.
3. Chertov V.F., Trubina L.A., Antipova A.M. Literature. 9th grade. M.: Education, 2012.
1. Russian literature and folklore ().
1. Who and when was the concept of “folklore” used?
2. What is the difference between literature and folklore?
ST. PETERSBURG HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF TRADE UNIONS
TEST
discipline ______________________________
subject ___________________________________________________________________
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correspondence faculty
speciality
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Saint Petersburg
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signature surname clearly
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Student(s) of _____ course________________________________________________________________
(FULL NAME.)
correspondence faculty specialty__________________________________________________________
discipline___________
subject________________
Registration No.__________________ "_______"_______________________200______
date of submission of work to the University
ASSESSMENT____________________ “_________”________________________200_____g.
TEACHER-REVIEWER___________________________/_________________________________
signature surname clearly
1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….………………. 3
2. Main part…………………………………………………………………………………. 4
2.1 Genres of Russian folklore……………………………………………………………...4
2.2 The place of folklore in Russian literature………………………………………………………6
3. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12
4. List of references……………………………………………………….13
Introduction
Folklore – [English] folklore] folk art, a set of folk actions.
The relationship between literature and oral folk art is an urgent problem of modern literary criticism in the context of the development of world culture.
In recent decades, a whole direction of creative use of folklore has been defined in Russian literature, which is represented by talented prose writers who reveal the problems of reality at the level of intersection of literature and folklore. Deep and organic mastery of various forms of oral folk art has always been an integral property of true talent
In the 1970-2000s, many Russian writers working in a variety of literary directions turned to oral folk art. What are the reasons for this literary phenomenon? Why did writers of various literary movements and styles turn to folklore at the turn of the century? It is necessary to take into account, first of all, two dominant factors: intraliterary patterns and the socio-historical situation. Undoubtedly, tradition plays a role: writers have turned to oral folk art throughout the development of literature. Another, no less important, reason is the turn of the century, when Russian society, summing up the results of the next century, again tries to find answers to important questions of existence, returning to the national spiritual and cultural roots, and the richest folklore heritage is the poetic memory and history of the people.
The problem of the role of folklore in Russian literature on the threshold of the 21st century is natural because it has now acquired a special philosophical and aesthetic value.
Folklore is an archaic, transpersonal, collective type of artistic memory that has become the cradle of literature.
Main part.
Genres of Russian folklore.
Russian folk poetry has gone through a significant path of historical development and has reflected the life of the Russian people in many ways. Its genre composition is rich and varied. The genres of Russian folk poetry will appear before us in the following scheme: I. Ritual poetry: 1) calendar (winter, spring, summer and autumn cycles); 2) family and household (maternity, wedding, funeral); 3) conspiracies. II. Non-ritual poetry: 1) epic prose genres: * a) fairy tale, b) legend, c) legend (and bylichka as its type); 2) epic poetic genres: a) epics, b) historical songs (primarily older ones), c) ballad songs; 3) lyrical poetic genres: a) songs of social content, b) love songs, c) family songs, d) small lyrical genres (ditties, choruses, etc.); 4) small non-lyrical genres: a) proverbs; o) sayings; c) riddles; 5) dramatic texts and actions: a) mummers, games, round dances; b) scenes and plays. In scientific folklore literature one can find the question of mixed or intermediate generic and genre phenomena: lyric-epic songs, fairy tales, legends, etc.
However, it must be said that such phenomena are very rare in Russian folklore. In addition, the introduction of this type of work into the classification of genres is controversial because mixed or intermediate genres have never been stable; at no time in the development of Russian folklore were they the main ones and did not determine its overall picture and historical movement. The development of genera and genres does not consist in their mixing, but in the creation of new artistic forms and the death of old ones. The emergence of genres, as well as the formation of their entire system, is determined by many circumstances. Firstly, by the social need for them, and, consequently, by the tasks of a cognitive, ideological, educational and aesthetic nature that the diverse reality itself posed to folk art. Secondly, the originality of the reflected reality; for example, epics arose in connection with the struggle of the Russian people against the nomadic Pechenegs, Polovtsians and Mongol-Tatars. Thirdly, the level of development of the artistic thought of the people and their historical thinking; In the early stages, complex forms could not be created; the movement probably went from simple and small forms to complex and large ones, for example, from a proverb, a parable (short story) to a fairy tale and legend. Fourthly, the previous artistic heritage and traditions, previously established genres. Fifthly, the influence of literature (writing) and other forms of art. The emergence of genres is a natural process; it is determined both by external socio-historical factors and by the internal laws of the development of folklore.
The composition of folklore genres and their connection with each other are also determined by their common task of multilateral reproduction of reality, and the functions of the genres are distributed so that each genre has its own special task - the depiction of one of the aspects of life. The works of one group of genres have as their subject the history of the people (epics, historical songs, legends), another - the work and life of the people (calendar ritual songs, work songs), the third - personal relationships (family and love songs), the fourth - the moral views of the people and his life experience (proverbs). But all genres taken together widely cover everyday life, work, history, social and personal relationships of people. Genres are interconnected in the same way as different aspects and phenomena of reality itself are interconnected, and therefore form a single ideological and artistic system. The fact that the genres of folklore have a common ideological essence and a common task of multifaceted artistic reproduction of life also causes a certain commonality or similarity of their themes, plots and heroes. Folklore genres are characterized by a commonality of principles of folk aesthetics - simplicity, brevity, economy, plot, poeticization of nature, certainty of moral assessments of the characters (positive or negative). The genres of oral folk art are also interconnected by a common system of artistic means of folklore - the originality of the composition (leitmotif, unity of theme, chain connection, screensaver - a picture of nature, types of repetitions, commonplaces), symbolism, special types of epithets. This system, developing historically, has a pronounced national identity, determined by the peculiarities of the language, way of life, history and culture of the people. Relationships between genres. In the formation, development and coexistence of folklore genres, a process of complex interaction occurs: mutual influence, mutual enrichment, adaptation to each other. The interaction of genres takes many forms. It serves as one of the reasons for significant changes in oral folk art.
The place of folklore in Russian literature.
“The Russian people have created a huge amount of oral literature: wise proverbs and cunning riddles, funny and sad ritual songs, solemn epics - spoken in a chant, to the sound of strings - about the glorious exploits of heroes, defenders of the people’s land - heroic, magical, everyday and funny tales.
Folklore- This is folk art, very necessary and important for the study of folk psychology in our days. Folklore includes works that convey the basic, most important ideas of the people about the main values in life: work, family, love, social duty, homeland. Our children are still being brought up on these works. Knowledge of folklore can give a person knowledge about the Russian people, and ultimately about himself.
In folklore, the original text of a work is almost always unknown, since the author of the work is unknown. The text is passed on from mouth to mouth and survives to this day in the form in which the writers wrote it down. However, writers retell them in their own way to make the works easy to read and understand. Currently, many collections have been published that include one or several genres of Russian folklore. These are, for example, “Epics” by L. N. Tolstoy, “Russian folk poetry” by T. M. Akimova, “Russian folklore” edited by V. P. Anikin, “Russian ritual songs” by Yu. G. Kruglov, “Strings of Rumble: Essays on Russian Folklore” by V. I. Kalugin, “Russian Soviet Folklore” edited by K. N. Femenkov, “On Russian Folklore” by E. V. Pomerantseva, “Folk Russian Legends” and “People-Artists: myth, folklore, literature” by A. N. Afanasyev, “Slavic mythology” by N. I. Kostomarov, “Myths and legends” by K. A. Zurabov.
In all publications, the authors distinguish several genres of folklore - these are fortune telling, spells, ritual songs, epics, fairy tales, proverbs, sayings, riddles, tales, pestushki, chants, ditties, etc. Due to the fact that the material is very huge, and in a short time It is impossible to study it in time; I use in my work only four books given to me by the central library. These are “Russian Ritual Songs” by Yu. G. Kruglov, “Strings of Rumble: Essays on Russian Folklore” by V. I. Kalugin, “Russian Soviet Folklore” edited by K. N. Femenkov, “Russian Folk Poetry” by T. M. Akimova.
Modern writers often use folklore motifs in order to give the narrative an existential character, to combine the individual and the typical.
Oral folk poetry and book literature arose and developed on the basis of the national riches of the language; their themes were related to the historical and social life of the Russian people, their way of life and work. In folklore and literature, poetic and prose genres that were largely similar to each other were created, and types and types of poetic art arose and were improved. Therefore, creative connections between folklore and literature, their constant ideological and artistic mutual influence are quite natural and logical.
Oral folk poetry, having arisen in ancient times and reaching perfection by the time of the introduction of writing in Rus', became a natural threshold for Old Russian literature, a kind of “poetic cradle”. It was on the basis of the richest poetic treasury of folklore that the original Russian written literature arose to a large extent. It was folklore, according to many researchers, that introduced a strong ideological and artistic current into the works of ancient Russian literature.
Folklore and Russian literature represent two independent areas of Russian national art. At the same time, the history of their creative relationship should have become the subject of independent study by both folklore and literary studies. However, such targeted research did not appear in Russian science immediately. They were preceded by long stages of autonomous existence of folklore and literature without proper scientific understanding of the processes of their creative influence on each other.
Tolstoy's work, addressed to children, is vast in scope and polyphonic in sound. It reveals his artistic, philosophical, pedagogical views.
Everything Tolstoy wrote about children and for children marked a new era in the development of domestic and, in many ways, world literature for children. During the writer’s lifetime, his stories from “ABC” were translated into many languages of the peoples of Russia and became widespread in Europe.
The theme of childhood in Tolstoy's works acquired a philosophically deep, psychological meaning. The writer introduced new themes, a new layer of life, new heroes, and enriched the moral issues of the works addressed to young readers. The great merit of Tolstoy, a writer and teacher, is that he raised educational literature (the alphabet), which traditionally had an applied, functional nature, to the level of real art.
Leo Tolstoy is the glory and pride of Russian literature. 2 The beginning of Tolstoy’s teaching activity dates back to 1849. When he opened his first school for peasant children.
Tolstoy did not ignore the problems of education and upbringing until the last days of his life. In the 80s and 90s, he was engaged in publishing literature for the people, and dreamed of creating an encyclopedic dictionary and a series of textbooks for peasants.
Constant interest of L.N. Tolstoy to Russian folklore, to the folk poetry of other peoples (primarily Caucasian) is a well-known fact. He not only recorded and actively promoted fairy tales, legends, songs, and proverbs, but also used them in his artistic work and teaching activities. The 70s of the 19th century were especially fruitful in this regard - a time of intensive work on “The ABC” (1872), “The New ABC” and complementary books for reading (1875). Initially, in the first edition, “ABC” was a single set of educational books. Tolstoy summarized his teaching experience at the Yasnaya Polyana school and revised the stories for children published in the appendix to Yasnaya Polyana. First of all, I would like to note the serious, thoughtful attitude of L.N. Tolstoy to folklore material. The author of both “ABCs” strictly focused on the primary sources, avoided arbitrary changes and interpretations and allowed himself some adjustments only for the purpose of adapting folklore texts that were difficult to perceive. Tolstoy studied the experience of Ushinsky, spoke critically about the language of his predecessor’s educational books, which, from his point of view, was too conventional and artificial, and did not accept descriptiveness in stories for children. The positions of both teachers were close in assessing the role of oral folk art and the experience of spiritual culture in mastering the native language.
Proverbs, sayings, riddles in “ABC” alternate with short sketches, micro-scenes, small stories from folk life 3(“Katya went mushroom picking”, “Varya had a siskin”, “The children found a hedgehog”, “Bug was carrying a bone”). Everything about them is close to a peasant child. Read in the book, the scene is filled with special significance and sharpens observation: “They laid the stacks. It was hot, it was difficult, and everyone was singing.” “Grandfather was bored at home. My granddaughter came and sang a song.” The characters in Tolstoy's short stories are, as a rule, generalized - mother, daughter, sons, old man. In the traditions of folk pedagogy and Christian morality, Tolstoy pursues the idea: love work, respect your elders, do good. Other everyday sketches are executed so masterfully that they acquire a high generalized meaning and come close to a parable. For example:
“The grandmother had a granddaughter; Before, the granddaughter was small and kept sleeping, and the grandmother baked bread, chalked the hut, washed, sewed, spun and wove for her granddaughter; and then the grandmother became old and lay down on the stove and kept sleeping. And the granddaughter baked, washed, sewed, weaved and spun for her grandmother.”
A few lines of simple two-syllable words. The second part is almost a mirror image of the first. What's the depth? The wise course of life, the responsibility of generations, the transmission of traditions... Everything is contained in two sentences. Here every word seems to be weighed, emphasized in a special way. The parables about the old man planting apple trees, “The Old Grandfather and Granddaughter”, “Father and Sons” have become classic.
Children are the main characters of Tolstoy's stories. Among his characters are children, simple children, peasant children and noble children. Tolstoy does not focus on social difference, although in each story children are in their own environment. The village little Filipok, wearing his father’s big hat, overcoming fear and fighting off other people’s dogs, goes to school. It takes no less courage for the little hero of the story “How I Learned to Ride” to beg adults to take him into the playpen. And then, without being afraid of falling, sit on Chervonchik again.
“I’m poor, I immediately understood everything. “I’m so clever,” says Filipok about himself, beating his name. There are many such “poor and clever” heroes in Tolstoy’s stories. The boy Vasya selflessly protects a kitten from hunting dogs (“Kitten”). And eight-year-old Vanya, showing enviable ingenuity, saves the lives of his little brother, sister and old grandmother. The plots of many of Tolstoy's stories are dramatic. A hero - a child must overcome himself and decide to act. The tense dynamics of the story “The Jump” are characteristic in this regard. 4
Children are often disobedient and do wrong things, but the writer does not seek to give them a direct assessment. The reader must make the moral conclusion for himself. A conciliatory smile can be caused by Vanya’s misdeed, secretly eating a plum (“Pit”). Seryozha’s carelessness (“Bird”) cost Chizhu his life. And in the story “Cow” the hero is in an even more difficult situation: the fear of punishment for a broken glass led to dire consequences for a large peasant family - the death of the wet nurse Buryonushka.
Famous teacher D.D. Semyonov, a contemporary of Tolstoy, called his stories “the height of perfection, as in the psychological. So it is in an artistic sense... What expressiveness and figurativeness of language, what strength, conciseness, simplicity and at the same time elegance of speech... In every thought, in every storyteller there is a moral... moreover, it is not striking, does not bore children, but is hidden in the artistic image, and therefore it asks for a child’s soul and sinks deeply into it” 5 .
A writer's talent is determined by the significance of his literary discoveries. What is immortal is what is not repeated and unique. The nature of literature does not tolerate repetition.
The writer creates his own image of the real world, not being satisfied with someone else's idea of reality. The more this image reflects the essence and not the appearance of phenomena, the deeper the writer penetrates into the fundamental principles of existence, the more accurately their immanent conflict, which is the paradigm of a genuine literary “conflict,” is expressed in his work, the more durable the work turns out to be.
Among the forgotten works are things that reduce the idea of the world and man. This does not mean that the work is intended to reflect a holistic picture of reality. It’s just that the “private truth” of a work must be connected with a universal meaning.
Question about nationalities of this or that writer cannot be fully resolved without analyzing his connection with folklore. Folklore is an impersonal creativity, closely related to the archaic worldview.
Conclusion
Thus, Tolstoy’s creation of the cycle of “folk stories” of the 1880s - 1900s was due in combination to both external and internal reasons: socio-historical factors, the laws of the literary process of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, the religious and aesthetic priorities of the late Tolstoy.
In the conditions of socio-political instability in Russia in the 1880-1890s, the tendency for a radical reorganization of society by violent methods, sowing discord and disunity among people, Tolstoy puts into practice the idea of “active Christianity” - a religious and philosophical doctrine of spiritual enlightenment based on Christian axiomatics, developed by him over a quarter of a century, and following which, in the writer’s opinion, should inevitably lead to the spiritual progress of society.
Objective reality, being unnatural, receives aesthetic condemnation by the writer. In order to contrast reality with the image of harmonious reality, Tolstoy develops a theory of religious art as the most appropriate to the needs of the day, and radically changes the nature of his own creative method. The method of “spiritual truth” chosen by Tolstoy, synthesizing the real and the ideal as a way of embodying harmonious reality, was most clearly realized in a cycle of works with a conventional genre definition of “folk stories”.
In the context of the growing interest of modern literary criticism in Christian issues in Russian classics, the study of “folk stories” in the context of spiritual prose of the late 19th - early 20th centuries seems promising, allowing us to present the spiritual literature of this period as an integral phenomenon.
Bibliography.
1. Akimova T. M., V. K. Arkhangelskaya, V. A. Bakhtina / Russian folk poetic creativity (a manual for seminar classes). – M.: Higher. School, 1983. – 208 p.
2. Gorky M. Collection. Op., vol. 27
3. Danilevsky I.N. Ancient Rus' through the eyes of contemporaries and their descendants (XI – XII centuries). – M., 1998. – P. 225.
5. Kruglov Yu. G. Russian ritual songs: Textbook. manual for teachers in-tovpospets "rus. language or T.". – 2nd ed., rev. and additional – M.: Higher. school 1989. – 320 p.
6. Semenov D.D. Favorite Ped. Op. – M., 1953
When exploring the relationship between book and folk poetry, we must not forget about the complexity of the nature of their connections, which were determined by the specific development of literature and folk poetry in a given period of national history. Therefore, the literary contribution to folk lyrics in one period or another could be greater or less, and the people’s attitude to the songwriting of Russian poets could also be different. The main criterion for the folklorization of author's poems was their compliance with the high principles of folk aesthetics.
The creative influence of book poetry of the 18th century on folk songs was a natural consequence of their parallel development in the historical conditions of Russia at that time. However, this did not mean that the variety of forms of book lyrics was equal in its influence on works of folk art that expressed the aesthetic and ethical quests of the people. As research shows, such forms of professional poetry as the solemn panegyrics of the Peter the Great era, which then replaced them for a long time with odes, did not pass on to the people; Neither did such varieties of chamber genres of classicist poetry as madrigals, sonnets, epigrams, epistles, eclogues, and “inscriptions” become a phenomenon of folklore.
Folk lyrics from the poetry of the 18th century partially absorbed what coincided with the interests of the people both in content and artistic style. Such works were some genres of pastoral poetry, sentimental romances and the so-called Russian song. Not only famous poets, but also a huge number of amateur poets, both from the noble society and from various middle and lower strata, including the philistinism and merchants, took part in the creation of these poems and songs. N.I. Novikov spoke about the mass nature of such works in his “Experience of a Historical Dictionary...” (Novikov 1964: 277-370). Calling many amateur poets - senators, actors, officers, society ladies, officials and others - "writers", he pointed out that each of them was often the author of only a few "songs".
Many songs created by amateurs, song improvisers, bore such features of undoubted poetic talent as lightness of verse, melodiousness, artistry, etc. In some cases, such “song sensitivity” was not found even among major poets of the 18th century. This was recognized by G.R. Derzhavin, who in his “Discourse on Lyric Poetry” wrote that “an excellent lyricist must sometimes yield to a flighty, cheerful lady in composing a song” (Derzhavin 1972: 610).
Along with a large number of anonymous authors, all famous poets took part in the creation of poems of song content and style, including Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Derzhavin, M. Popov, Bogdanovich, Kheraskov, Neledinsky-Meletsky, Dmitriev, Nikolaev and others. Through their joint efforts, a huge array of book lyric poetry was created, as evidenced by numerous printed and handwritten songbooks, which sometimes contained notes of individual works.
Not everything created by poets passed into folklore, and this was primarily due to the fact that folk poetry reached its peak at the end of the 18th century. It was characterized by a poetic style and language that had developed over centuries; it had access to a huge arsenal of original poetics, established genre and compositional forms, with which it was not easy for mass book lyrics to compete. And the book lyrics of the 18th century were still in a state of formation, heterogeneous and multi-style searches. Developing primarily according to its own canons, often far from folk poetry, book lyrics, moreover, during the period of the dominance of classicism, transferred many genres of European song poetry to Russian soil. This, of course, could not help but separate folk and book poetry from each other.
This is the background to the development of Russian poetry on the eve of its entry into a new century - the 19th century, when the processes of mutual influence and interrelation between the book and folk poetic traditions manifested themselves especially visibly and fruitfully. Moreover, the interaction between folk songs and book lyrics did not at all repeat the previous stage, when book poetry of the 18th century sometimes went into the folk element. At the beginning of the 19th century, poets more actively used folk poetry in their work. This determined the qualitative enrichment of Russian poetry in general and the work of many poets in particular, whose poems became folk songs. This is how the relationship between folk and book lyrics changed historically along the path of the transition of Russian poetry to the position of realism, which was finally confirmed by the work of A.S. Pushkin.
This final turning point in the history of the development of Russian literature was undoubtedly facilitated by the events of the early 19th century and, above all, by the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Decembrist uprising.
The national triumph experienced by all of Russia in 1812, the brilliant victories of Russian weapons, which liberated not only Russia, but also the peoples of Europe from Napoleon’s invasion, put forward as a priority the question of the need to develop Russian literature on a national-national basis. The leading writers of Russia focused on the problems of their attitude to the history of the people, to their language and poetry, to folk ethics and aesthetics. This entailed heated discussions on many issues relating primarily to the life of the people, the heavy burden of serfdom, and the future political structure of Russia. In other words, in the depths of the social and literary life of that time, the ideas of Decembrism matured, which became the program of the first stage of the liberation movement in Russia.
The era of Decembrism qualitatively influenced the very nature of the development of Russian literature, giving it special features of citizenship and political freedom, which found the most vivid expression in the works of Decembrist writers and Pushkin. It was the connection with the liberation movement that determined in the work of the great Russian poet a new method of studying and reproducing reality, which later received the name critical realism, one of the main methods in Russian literature of the 19th century. And this is natural, because the ideas of the fight against serfdom in the conditions of the post-December reaction became even more urgent, acute, and found their continuation and development in the works of leading Russian writers - Lermontov, Gogol, Herzen, Nekrasov, Turgenev and others. In their work, advanced Russian literature of the 19th century increasingly acquired the character of national historical content and high ideological content, which the great Russian critic V.G. Belinsky discovered and brought to light in it.
Pushkin’s creation of the Russian literary language contributed not only to the further flourishing of Russian culture, but also to its recognition throughout the world. The progressive features characteristic of Russian literature as a whole were also expressed in various genres of lyric poetry. The appeal to national folk life also predetermined the new relationship between the poets’ creativity and the world of folk song.
Realism as an artistic method found its further development in the works of the most prominent Russian poets of the 19th century. Their poetry finally overcame outdated aesthetic norms and, based on Pushkin’s experience, acquired the features of realism, which created the preconditions for a stronger impact of the poets’ creativity on the entire culture of Russian song art.
In the pre-Pushkin era, lyrical works, especially works of “small” chamber genres, were created mainly on personal themes, and among them themes of love experiences occupied an important place (in the works of Sumarokov, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, representatives of “light poetry”, songwriters, motifs especially prevailed love). This was poetry for a narrow circle of readers, mainly from the nobility. Pushkin decisively breaks this tradition and becomes a collector and researcher of folk songs with the goal of understanding “folk thought.” The Decembrist poets also followed Pushkin’s principle. Relying on the traditions of folk poetry, they created propaganda songs, using them in the propaganda of socio-political ideas. The appearance of songs of this kind radically changes the nature of the artistic study of life and gives the song social functions. They cease to be only a means of everyday entertainment among the nobility and become the most important instrument of public revolutionary propaganda, addressed not only to the advanced nobility and democratic intelligentsia, but also to the common people. The novelty and variety of themes, democratic and freedom-loving motives in Russian lyrics, the realistic depiction of life and human experiences in it aroused active and lively interest in the song creativity of poets among the masses, and opened up a new poetic world for the people, which enriched them ideologically and artistically.
The poetry of Pushkin, Lermontov, Koltsov, Ogarev, Nekrasov, and especially those of their works in which the people were the hero, spiritually influenced the folk song repertoire and stimulated the own poetic creativity of the masses.
As in all Russian literature of the early 19th century, in poetry one can feel the desire of artists to become closer to the real truth of life. Therefore, the conventional “Peisan” use of folk poetry, typical of pastoral song-sentimental lyrics, was increasingly replaced by the conscious interest of many poets in folk life and truly folk songs: their content, poetic language and artistic imagery. This is how the connection between book and folk poetry is increasingly realized, the next stage of which is the course for further development and qualitative improvement of the genre of “Russian songs”. Primitive and naive forms of external imitation of folk songs, typical methods of using them in the late 18th and early 19th centuries - imitation of the “voices” and rhythms of folk songs, borrowing the first lines and stanzas from them - give way to the free creative work of poets on folk poetic sources. Russian book songs of the first half of the 19th century essentially become original works. And if some poets still paid tribute to the traditions of sentimental lyrics, then the poems of Pushkin, Koltsov, Lermontov, for all their closeness to song and poetic sources, were original and unique.
Following Pushkin and the poets of his time, Russian poetry increasingly actively and creatively mastered folk song lyrics in all its genre diversity. Thus, already in the first quarter of the 19th century, Russian poetry included pictures of the life of various social strata of society. The songs conveyed the characteristic features of a particular environment, the motives of work and life, the beauty and anger of the soul and will of the people. Together with Pushkin, many poets of this time turned not only to love folk songs, but also to songs of soldiers, coachmen, bandits and others. Some original songs were dedicated to the themes of folk rituals, holidays and celebrations. Some original songs were dedicated to the themes of folk rituals, holidays and celebrations. The author's variations of folk poetry genres were the most numerous and varied.
The expansion of topics made the genre of Russian song richer both in content and in its artistic embodiment. The poeticization of various aspects of the life of the people gave modern lyrics the character of a realistic work. Having broken with the artistic practice of literary “landscape painting” in the past, Russian poetry of the 20-40s managed to take a big step forward, beginning a new stage in the realistic depiction of people’s life. The result of this advancement was the great popularity of book poetry among the people. And there is every reason to say that the historical merit of Russian poets was their active influence on the social and aesthetic consciousness of the people. Herzen wrote about the relationship between book and folk poetry, about the inevitability of interaction between the creativity of poets and folk songs, pointing out that in the 19th century “folk poetry grew from the songs of Kirsha Danilov to Pushkin...” (Herzen 1965: 24).
The spread of book poetry among the people in those years was facilitated by cheap songbooks and popular print sheets, published for a wide range of readers. All this was associated with the growth of cities, industry and trade and gave rise to new forms of propaganda of song poetry: poems set to music by famous composers began to penetrate the people. In towns and villages, book poetry was performed by professional musicians, artists, singers and choirs of serf theaters. The interest of the general reader in poems created on the basis of folk songs in the 20-40s was quite natural. The themes and poetics of folk songs were close to the mass reader, brought up in the traditions of folklore. Many poems of book poetry, thematically based by poets on songs of love, robbers, prison, soldiers, coachmen and others, aroused interest in the fortress village, where they, in the form of new songs, received a long life and had the widest distribution. It was from book poetry that Ryleev’s thoughts “Ivan Susanin” and “The Death of Ermak”, which are so consonant in their content with cycles of folk songs about beloved historical heroes, and poems on “prison” and “robber” themes - Pushkin’s “Prisoner”, came to the people. “What is clouded, the clear dawn” by A.F. Veltman, F.B. Miller, as well as works on “coachman” themes - “Through the Wavy Fogs” by Pushkin.
All this testified to the increased interest of the masses in new poetic phenomena of our time. Among the people themselves, at this time, their traditional songs were already supplemented by work songs and songs created as everyday “romances” among the urban social lower classes.
a set of texts of Russian folk culture, transmitted mainly orally, having the status of authorless, anonymous and not belonging to certain individual performers, although the names of some outstanding master performers are known: the narrator of epics T. G. Ryabinin, the screamer I. A. Fedosova, the storyteller A. K. Baryshnikova, singer A.I. Glinkina. These texts are sung or narrated and have a more or less large form (historical song or proverb), are associated with rituals (calendar songs-spells, lamentations) or, on the contrary, are completely independent of them ( ditties, epics). The most important qualities of works of Russian folklore are determined by the cultural memory of the ethnos, the given ideological and religious traditions and the everyday pragmatism of the social structures in which they exist. The concept of “Russian folklore” is associated with the idea of traditionalism, although the quantitative accumulation of gradual changes leads to the emergence of new phenomena. The folklore tradition has both all-Russian features and local, regional ones, introducing into the general folklore fund an abundance of variants and features of the existence of each individual work, custom, ritual, etc. In the process of historical development, a gradual and natural dying of traditional folklore is observed. The most ancient forms of Russian folklore are rituals and ritual folklore, which include calendar holidays and rituals, ritual songs (carols, Maslenitsa, Trinity-Semitic, Kupala, stubble, etc.) and spell songs (sub-bowl songs, vesnyanka, Yegoryevsk songs, round dances etc.), incantations, lamentations, poetry of funeral and wedding rites. As the Russian state is being formed, the genre repertoire of Russian folklore is expanding significantly.
FOLKLORE AND LITERATURE:
THE ORAL AND WRITTEN WORD
Despite disagreements among folklorists about what to call folk poetry, everyone will probably agree that it has such defining features as collectivity, traditionality and the oral nature of the works. Moreover, each of the components may be present in other types of creativity, but in folklore they are necessarily in an indissoluble unity.
The collectivity of folk art is, first of all, a community of generations, which manifests itself at a variety of levels: the community of generations of a family, a village, a region, a nationality, humanity (let us remember in connection with the latter the world’s wandering stories). In other words: collectivity is inseparable from the tradition of transmitting works from one generation to another, and this transmission must necessarily be carried out orally.
Without detracting from the importance of tradition and collectivity in defining folk art, we intend to devote the article specifically to the oral factor of works of verbal folklore and, in this regard, look at the history of the relationship between Russian folklore and Russian literature.
When poetic folklore is called the art of words, it must be added that this word must necessarily be oral. It is very important. This is its fundamental difference from literature - the art of the written word.
The spoken word has its own special artistic possibilities: facial expressions, gesture, timbre of voice, intonation and other means that literature cannot use (or uses limitedly). The transmission of the spoken word into writing will always remain a surrogate. Any written recording of a fairy tale or song is in the nature of an imitation, which, for all its usefulness (even necessity), cannot replace the original, just as a photograph cannot replace a living object. The life of any piece of folklore takes place in many oral versions, similar in their core, but at the same time different from each other. Folklore is unthinkable without improvisation. This is the beauty of the art of spoken word: each text is unique and unrepeatable in its own way. Every time a miracle of art takes place directly before our eyes, in our presence.
16 Slavic traditional culture
At one time, voices were heard that folklore would inevitably perish, that it would be supplanted by literature. The “logic” was as follows: folklore is the art of the illiterate population, primarily rural, its oral character is determined mainly by the lack of education. If a storyteller graduates from school and learns to write, he will cease to be a storyteller and turn into a writer. The author of these lines fifty years ago himself defended such an incorrect position; incorrect for many reasons. Folklore was recognized only among the illiterate classes; the fact that fairy tales, anecdotes, gossip and rumors, songs, proverbs and sayings existed among the nobility and intellectuals was not taken into account. But most importantly, it was ignored that folklore has its own special artistic field, inaccessible to literature, to which it can only approach. There have always been masters of the spoken word, “beautiful storytellers,” whose art was not recorded in their time. This is how D.I. admitted to everyone. Fonvizin, who had the gift of “showing people”, as I.L. did in our time. Andronikov, how Ariadna Efron, daughter of Marina Tsvetaeva, entertained her cellmates. The oral stories of M.S. Shchepkin delighted A.S. Pushkin. An interesting narrator was N.K. Zagryazhskaya, from her Pushkin and P.A. Vyazemsky recorded many legends of the 18th century. There are memories of M. Gorky as a talented storyteller who loved to tell and listen to others.
But the art of the spoken word is not necessarily folklore. It becomes one only when both components meet - the oral word and tradition, that is, when the transmission of oral material has a traditional basis and is combined with the transmission of certain traditions.
The oral tradition arose and began to develop when there was no written language yet and therefore there could be no comparison with literature or opposition to it.
With the Baptism of Rus', literature began to develop, and already in the 12th century such a wonderful monument as “The Tale of Bygone Years” appeared, where the oral tradition of legends, traditions and even anecdotes was widely used. When the majority of society was illiterate, the social divide did not pass, as in later times, along the opposition: oral literature for the common people - writing for the upper classes. Social predilections could manifest themselves both in literature and folklore. An example is the various legends about Kiya the Prince and Kiya the Carrier. Probably, the legend of Kiev the Carrier in ancient times had a certain sacred character, which was lost by the 11th century. Then the legend about Prince Kiya appeared. Both are recorded in the Tale of Bygone Years, but at that time the legend of Kiya the carrier was already perceived as the legend of Kiya the commoner. In ancient Russian literature one can find works identical in ideological content to the oral tradition: the Life of Peter and Fevronya, democratic satire, etc.
The literary language at that time was the Church Slavonic language of the Great Russian edition. Oral spoken language could not be the object of writing. Modern philologist B.A. Uspensky calls this situation “Church Slavic-Russian diglossia,” in which there is a bookish language system associated with the written tradition and a non-bookish system associated with everyday life. Under these conditions, according to the scientist, no one uses the bookish language system as a means of conversational communication" (B.A. Uspensky. Brief outline of the history of the Russian literary language (XI-XIX centuries) M., 1994, p. 5) The division of literature and folklore then proceeded according to genres: some belonged to the written word (church official texts, lives, chronicles, stories, etc.), while others belonged to the oral word (fairy tales, songs, proverbs, sayings). proverbs and sayings in handwritten monuments, although collections of them already exist in the 17th century. If they appear in the chronicles, then only as a foreign quotation, and not in the language of the author (“Pogibosha, aki obre,” “Trouble, aki in Rodna,” etc. .d.).
While the majority of society remained illiterate, only the element of colloquial speech, which everyone knew, was open to it, and with it songs and fairy tales - oral traditional poetry. Elizaveta Petrovna, still a Grand Duchess, when she was threatened with a monastery, sang a song in the evening on the porch of her palace: “Oh, my life, my poor life.” A soldier standing nearby on guard heard this and told his neighbor in the barracks. But he was not surprised: “What’s strange here, the woman sings like a woman.” At that time there was no social opposition: “folklore - non-folklore,” but there was: “women’s songs – men’s songs.” The fact that the future empress sang songs known to ordinary peasant women is a characteristic feature of the time.
When in the 18th century. When a noble intelligentsia began to be created, at first it tried to fence itself off from folklore, which was well known to it from the stories of serf uncles and nannies, seeing in it only ignorance. Now in most cases they remember how Fonvizin masterfully mastered the elements of colloquial speech, knew proverbs and sayings. But who speaks in his comedies with proverbs and sayings? - Skotinin and Prostakovs! The playwright uses folk aphorisms in the language of his negative characters as a sign of rudeness and ignorance. Mitrofan and Skotinin listen to the “stories” (fairy tales) of the henkeeper Agafya. According to the tradition of the 19th century. one should be touched and talk about the closeness of Skotinin and Mitrofan to folk poetry. But for Fonvizin it’s different. For him, this is a sign of darkness and lack of culture, shameful for a nobleman.
V.F. Odoevsky has such an episode in the fairy tale “Town in a Snuff Box”. The bell boy explains: “This is our saying.” And the main character Misha objects: “Daddy says that it’s very bad to get used to sayings.” In the noble culture of the first half of the 19th century. the proverb and saying bore the stamp of some taboo.
A new attitude towards oral poetry as “folk wisdom” arose at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries. in the works of A.N. Radishchev, N.M. Karamzin and, finally, A.S. Pushkin. It is in his works that the “oral” is most clearly marked as “folk”. By this time, “scissors” had already arisen between the people and the intelligentsia, highly educated people appeared who had little knowledge of oral literature. Very soon they saw in this “the lack of their damned education” (A.S. Pushkin - L.S. Pushkin, November, 1824). It was then that the view of oral tradition as folk arose. It was at this time that literature and folklore became socially divided. With the works of Pushkin, the citation of folklore begins as a sign of connection (or the desire for such a connection) with the people, and specifically with the common people, the understanding of oral tradition as a special “folk wisdom”. Let us remember the images of Pugachev, Savelich, Varlaam with their songs, sayings and jokes.
Approximately with A.P. Chekhov, the situation changes radically. We are all people, and all the best that we have comes from the people,” he wrote. The division between folklore and literature is losing its social basis. Chekhov uses proverbs and sayings absolutely freely, without dividing the addressees of his letters into those for whom it is possible and those to whom it is indecent to use folk aphorisms in letters (in Pushkin this division is very clearly visible).
And A.A. Blok uses folklore images as personal, and not opposed to his speech practice (“My beloved, my prince, my groom...”).
In the works of poets of the twentieth century. images of traditional oral poetry often appear in the author's speech. At the same time, they are attracted not by social nature, but by artistic expressiveness.
B. Pasternak: ...where Makar didn’t send his calves...
A. Tvardovsky: When serious reasons
The chest is ripe for speech,
The usual complaint begins,
If there are no words, don’t get me started.
Everything is words - for every essence,
Everything that leads to battle and labor,
But repeated in vain
They lose weight like flies die.
The term of folk poetics “beginning”, the proverbs about Makar and dying flies, poets use as images known to everyone. These images are the public domain, and therefore the property of the poets. And poets treat them as their own property, allowing themselves to use them in their own way, in a slightly modified, but recognizable form (“didn’t drive” - instead of “didn’t drive”).
Today, folklore, like literature, serves the entire society; we can talk about nationwide oral creativity. The class division was replaced by a division into social groups: tourist folklore, student folklore, miners' folklore, prison folklore, etc.
There is a constant mutual influence of folklore and literature, but it is no longer of the same nature as it was in the 19th century. This is the mutual influence of two related arts of speech - oral and written, in both cases the art of figurative words.
Folklore as an art of the spoken word will live as long as oral speech will live. In this sense it is eternal. Genres change. The epics are gone, the “long” songs are gone; ditties, non-fairy tale prose, adaptations of literary songs, anecdotes, proverbs, sayings are actively alive.
In ancient times, the oral tradition contained the entire sum of human experience, it was comprehensive - this includes religion, science, meteorology, medicine, agronomy, ethics, and aesthetics. That is why the epic works of the distant past are so majestic. The division of labor also affected oral tradition. Science, theology, jurisprudence and other areas of knowledge emerged as independent activities. All that remains to modern folklore is the art of the spoken word. Therefore, neither epics nor the Iliad are possible today - their time has passed. But a ditty, a proverb, a saying carry a great poetic charge, which is necessary in our difficult life today.
There should be a very attentive and careful attitude towards the passing folklore. You can’t help but admire him, you can’t help but love him. It can (and should) be heard from the stage, on radio and television - but still it will not replace modern folklore. And modern folklore is being created today: on the basis of tradition or on the basis of breaking tradition - descendants will figure it out. Our duty to them is to protect and preserve, record and record everything. Experience has shown that posterity can overestimate our records and what seems valuable today will not be of interest to anyone tomorrow. And vice versa.
