Russian folklore is a collection of works of oral folk art, endowed with deep ideological meaning and characterized by highly artistic qualities. In the process of work and everyday life, people observed the world around them. Thanks to this, life experience was accumulated - not only practical, but also moral. Simple observations helped to understand complex things.

Origins

The word “folklore” (translated from English into Russian - “folk wisdom, knowledge”) denotes various manifestations of folk spiritual culture and includes all poetic and prose genres, as well as customs, rituals and traditions accompanied by oral verbal artistic creativity.

Before the emergence of writing and literature on the territory of Ancient Rus', folklore was the only type of artistic creativity, a unique method of transmitting folk memory and experience of generations, the “mirror of the soul” of the Russian people, expressing their worldview, moral and spiritual values.

Russian folklore is based on historical events, traditions, customs, mythology and beliefs of the ancient Slavic tribes, as well as their historical predecessors.

Large and small genres of Russian folk art

Russian folklore is distinguished by its unique originality and diversity, with vibrant national cultural characteristics. Fairy-tale, epic and small genres of folklore were collected on the basis of the life experience of the Russian people. These simple and wise expressions of folk art contain thoughts about justice, relationships to work and people, heroism and identity.

The following genres of Russian folklore are distinguished, which clearly illustrate the multifaceted aspects of the life of a Russian person:

• Labor songs. They accompanied any work process (sowing, plowing a field, haymaking, picking berries or mushrooms), had the form of various shouts, chants, parting words and cheerful songs with a simple rhythm, a simple melody and simple text, which helped to get into a working mood and set the rhythm , united the people and spiritually helped to carry out the hard, sometimes backbreaking peasant labor;
• Calendar ritual songs, chants, spells, performed to attract good luck and prosperity, increase fertility, improve weather conditions, increase the offspring of livestock;
• Wedding. Songs performed on the day of matchmaking, farewell of parents to the bride, at the handover of the bride into the hands of the groom and directly at the wedding;
• Oral prose works. Legends, traditions, tales, stories that tell about historical and epic events, in which the heroes are legendary Russian warriors, princes or tsars, as well as describing any unprecedented or unusual events that took place in the real life of a familiar narrator, and he himself is not was a witness to them and did not take part in them;
• Poetic folklore for children(jokes, nursery rhymes, nursery rhymes, teasers, riddles, counting rhymes, teasers, fables and lullabies). They were usually performed in a short poetic, comic form, understandable and interesting for children's perception;
• Song or heroic epic(epics, historical songs). They tell about historical events that once happened in the form of a song; they usually glorified the exploits of Russian legendary heroes and heroes, performed by them for the benefit of the Russian Land and its people;
• Artistic tales(everyday, magical, about animals) represent the most common type of oral creativity in which people talked about fictional events and characters in an interesting and accessible form, thus displaying their concepts of good and evil, life and death, poverty and wealth, the surrounding nature and its inhabitants. Also included in Russian artistic creativity are ballads, anecdotes, fables and ditties;
• Folklore theatrical performances of a dramatic nature (nativity scenes, paradise, booths and performances of buffoons at fairs, holidays and folk festivals).

In addition to large forms of folklore (songs, fairy tales, myths, etc.) in Russian oral folk art there is a number of small folklore genres or non-ritual folklore:

• Puzzles- questions describing an object, living creature or phenomenon in a figurative form (Two rings, two ends, and a carnation in the middle);
• Tongue twisters and tongue twisters- special phrases with repeated sounds and combinations of sounds, with the help of which diction is developed;
• Proverbs- apt edifying statements in poetic form (“Don’t open your mouth to someone else’s loaf”);
• Sayings- short, precise phrases that characterize the surrounding reality and people (“Two boots are a pair”); sometimes these are even parts of proverbs;
• Counting books- they were and are still used by children during games, when the role of each player is determined;
• Calls- calls for spring/summer/holiday in rhymed form;
• Nursery rhymes and pestushki, which were sung while a mother or another adult was playing with a small child (the clearest example is the game “Ladushki” with the nursery rhyme “Ladushki, ladushki, where were you...”).

Small folklore genres also include lullabies, games and jokes.

Folk wisdom and life

Any folklore (and Russian folklore in this regard is no exception) is a complex synthetic art, in the works of which elements of verbal, musical and theatrical creativity are often intertwined. It has a close connection with folk life, rituals, traditions and customs. This is precisely why the first folklorist scholars approached the study of this topic very broadly and recorded not only various works of oral folk art, but also paying attention to various ethnographic features and realities of the ordinary, everyday life of the common people, their way of life.

Pictures of folk life, traditions and rituals, various life situations were reflected in Russian songs, epics, fairy tales and other works of oral folk art. They tell about the appearance of a traditional Russian hut with a “rooster on a ridge”, with “slanting windows”, and describe its interior decoration: burners, cages, a red corner with icons, a nursing stove, beds, benches, porches, porch, etc. d. There is a bright and colorful description of the national costume of both women and men: warriors and kokoshniks for women, bast shoes, zipuns, foot wraps for men. Characters of Russian folklore sow wheat and grow flax, reap wheat and mow hay, eat porridge, eating it with pies and pancakes, washing it down with beer, honey, kvass and green wine.

All these everyday details in folk art complement and create a single image of the Russian people and the Russian Land, on which they live and raise their children.

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Folklore Every nation is unique, just like its history and culture.

Russian folklore- these are works of Russian folk art, a cultural heritage that was passed down through generations “by word of mouth.” Folklore works did not belong to a specific writer; the Russian people themselves were both the author and performer of various songs, dances, legends, fairy tales, epics, proverbs, charms, ditties and traditions. All of them had all-Russian features, and at the same time they could differ in their regional characteristics.

Folklore belongs to the title of the most ancient phenomenon of artistic culture. It originated even before the advent of writing and was closely connected with the work and life of the Russian people. Works of folk art colorfully reflected the spiritual development of society, its worldview and religious traditions.

Played the most important role folklore in the social life of Ancient Rus'. Ritual folklore, which reflected pagan beliefs, was especially developed. To this view folklore included calendar holidays, family customs, magical ritual songs, spells, round dances, etc.

It is impossible not to note the diversity of the epic genre, which included epics, mythical legends, fairy tales, legends and sayings.

Merry folk festivals, fairs with musical and theatrical performances, mummers and buffoons are also part of the ancient Russian folklore.

With the adoption of Orthodoxy and the establishment of Russian statehood, the repertoire of folk art expanded. The reaction of the Russian people to historical events was clearly reflected in epic and historical songs, romances and anecdotes, and folk dramatic works.

In the process of historical development of society and professional art, there was a gradual withering away of traditional Russian folk art. Folklore transformed and experienced the influence of mass culture, but still embodied various facets of the social and personal life of the ordinary Russian people.

Folklore, translated, means “folk wisdom, ethnic knowledge.” Folklore is ethnic creativity, artistic collective work of the people, reflecting their life, views and standards, i.e. folklore is the ethnic historical cultural heritage of every state in the world.
Works of Russian folklore (fairy tales, legends, epics, songs, ditties, dances, tales, applied art) can help recreate the characteristic features of the ethnic life of one’s own time.

Creativity in ancient times was closely connected with the working work of man and reflected fantastic, historical ideas, as well as the embryos of scientific knowledge. The art of the text was closely connected with other forms of art - music, dancing, decorative art. In science this is called “syncretism”.

Folklore was an art organically characteristic of the ethnic setting. The different purposes of the works gave rise to genres, with their different themes, types, and manners. In the ancient stage, most peoples had tribal legends, work and ritual songs, mythological stories, and plots. The decisive event that laid the boundary between mythology and folklore was the emergence of fairy tales, the plots of which were based on dreams, wisdom, and ethical invention.

In ancient and knightly society, a heroic epic was formed (Irish sagas, Russian epics and others). Legends and songs also appeared, reflecting all kinds of beliefs (for example, Russian spiritual poems). Later, historical songs were noticed, imitating real historical events and heroes, as they were preserved in ethnic memory.

Genres in folklore are also distinguished by the method of execution (solo, choir, choir and soloist) and different combinations of words with melody, intonation, movements (singing and dancing, storytelling and acting).

With changes in the social life of society, new genres appeared in Russian folklore: soldiers', coachmen's, barge haulers' songs. The rise of industry and human settlements brought to life: romances, funny stories, proletarians, student folklore.
At the moment, fresh Russian ethnic fairy tales are not being noticed, but old ones are still being told and cartoons and feature films are being made based on them. They sing almost all the old songs. But epics and historical songs are literally no longer heard performed live.
For 1000 years, folklore has been a single form of creativity among all peoples. The folklore of every nation is individual, for example, as is its situation, customs, and civilization. And some genres (not just historical songs) reflect the situation of the people left behind.
Russian ethnic musical civilization

There are a number of points of view that interpret folklore as an ethnic artistic culture, as oral poetic creativity and as a collective verbal, musical, gaming or artistic form of ethnic creativity. With all the abundance of regional and local forms, folklore is characterized by common features, such as anonymity, collective creativity, traditionalism, close association with work, environment, and the passing of works from generation to generation in oral tradition.

Ethnic musical art arose a long time before the advent of professional music in the Orthodox church. In the social life of ancient Rus', folklore played a much larger role than in later eras. Unlike knightly Europe, Old Rus' did not have secular professional art. In its musical culture, ethnic creativity of oral traditions developed, including all sorts of “semi-professional” genres (the art of storytellers, guslars, etc.).

By the time of Orthodox hymnography, Russian folklore already had a long-standing situation, an established system of genres and means of musical expression. Ethnic music and ethnic creativity have firmly entered into the environment of people, reflecting the various boundaries of public, home and personal life.
Scientists believe that the pre-state stage

(that is, before Old Rus' was formed), the Eastern Slavs already had a fairly developed calendar and family folklore, heroic epic and instrumental music.
With the adoption of Christianity, pagan (Vedic) knowledge began to be eradicated. The significance of the magical actions that gave rise to this or that picture of ethnic work was gradually forgotten. However, the purely external forms of ancient holidays turned out to be unusually stable, and some ritual folklore continued to exist, as if outside the connection with the ancient idolatry that gave rise to it.
The Christian church (not only in Rus', but also in Europe) had a very negative attitude towards classical ethnic songs and dances, believing them to be a manifestation of sinfulness and devilish seduction. This assessment is enshrined in many chronicle sources and in canonical church orders.

Provocative, cheerful ethnic celebrations with theatrical performances and the irreplaceable role of music, the origins of which are found in the footsteps of ancient Vedic rituals, were fundamentally different from temple holidays.
The most vast region of ethnic musical creativity of Ancient Rus' is shaped by ritual folklore, testifying to the highest artistic talent of the Russian people. It appeared in the depths of the Vedic picture of the world, the deification of natural elements. Calendar-ritual songs are considered more ancient. Their table of contents is related to ideas about the cycle of nature and the agricultural calendar. These songs reflect all kinds of milestones in the lives of grain growers. They were part of winter, spring, and summer rituals that correspond to turning factors in changing the years of the year. By performing this natural ritual (songs, dances), people believed that the mighty gods, the forces of Love, Family, Sun, Water, Mother Earth would hear them and healthy babies would appear, a good harvest would appear, livestock would be born, life in love would develop and consent.

In Rus', marriage has been played since ancient times. In every territory there was a personal custom of wedding actions, lamentations, songs, sentences. But with all the inexhaustible abundance, marriages were played according to the same laws. Poetic wedding reality modifies what is happening into a fantastic fairy-tale world. As in a parable, all the images are diverse, for example, the ritual itself, poetically interpreted, becomes a specific fairy tale. Marriage, being one of the most significant events of human life in Rus', sought a festive and solemn frame. And if you feel all the rituals and songs, delving into this mythical wedding world, you can feel the aching beauty of this ritual. What will remain “behind the scenes” are very beautiful clothes, a wedding train rattling with bells, a polyphonic choir of “singers” and mournful melodies of lamentations, the sounds of waxwings and buzzers, accordions and balalaikas - but the poetry of marriage itself restores the pain of leaving the parental home and the highest joy of the solemn state of mind - Love.
One of the most ancient Russian genres is round dance songs. In Rus', round dances were held throughout almost the entire year - on Kolovorot (New Year), Maslenaya (farewell to winter and welcoming spring), Green Week (round dances of young women around birches), Yarilo (sacred bonfires), Ovsen (harvest festivals). They were widespread. round dances-games and round dances-processions. At first, round dance songs were part of agricultural rituals, but over the centuries they became independent, but images of labor remained in many of them:

And we sowed and sowed millet!
Oh, Did Lado, they sowed, they sowed!

The dance songs that have survived to this day combined male and female dances. Men's - personified power, courage, courage, ladies' - tenderness, commitment, stateliness.
Over the centuries, the musical epic begins to be replenished with fresh themes and types. Epic tales appear telling about the struggle against the Horde, about travel to distant states, about the emergence of the Cossacks, and ethnic uprisings.
Ethnic memory has preserved almost all the magnificent ancient songs for a long time over the centuries. In the 18th century, during the development of professional secular genres (opera, instrumental music), ethnic art for the first time became the subject of research and creative implementation. The educational attitude towards folklore was clearly expressed by the excellent writer and humanist A.N. Radishchev in the heartfelt lines of his own “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: “Whoever understands the voices of Russian ethnic songs admits that there is something in them, a spiritual pain that means... In them you will find the education of the soul of our people.” In the 19th century, the assessment of folklore as the “education of the soul” of the Russian people became the basis for the aesthetics of composition in secondary educational institutions from Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, to Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Kalinikov, and ethnic song itself was considered one of the sources of the formation of the Russian state thinking.
Russian ethnic songs of the 16th-19th centuries - “like the golden mirror of the Russian people” Ethnic songs recorded in various regions of the Russian Federation are considered a historical monument to the life of the people, but also a documentary source that captures the formation of the ethnic creative thought of their time.

The fight against the Tatars, village putschs - all this left a mark on ethnic song traditions in any given territory, starting with epics, historical songs and up to ballads. Like, for example, the ballad about Ilya Muromets, which is associated with the Nightingale River, which flows in the territory of Yazykovo, there was a struggle between Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber, who lived in these parts.
It is known that Ivan Surov’s conquest of the Kazan Khanate played a role in the development of oral ethnic creativity; Ivan Surov’s campaigns marked the beginning of the final victory over the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which liberated almost all the thousand Russian prisoners from captivity. The songs of this time became the model for Lermontov’s epic “Song on the Theme of Ivan Tsarevich” - a chronicle of ethnic life, and A.S. Pushkin in his own works used oral ethnic creativity - Russian songs and Russian fairy tales.

On the Volga, not far from the village of Undory, there is a cape called Stenka Razin; there were songs from such a time: “On the steppe, the Saratov steppe,” “We had immaculate Rus'.” Historical actions of the late XVII - early XVIII centuries. captured in a compilation about the campaigns of Peter I and his Azov campaigns, about the execution of the archers: “It’s like walking on a blue sea,” “A young Cossack is walking along the Don.”

With the military reforms of the early 18th century, fresh historical songs appeared, these were no longer lyrical, but epic. Historical songs protect the ancient images of the historical epic, songs about the Russian-Turkish War, about recruitment and the war with Napoleon: “The French kidnapper boasted of taking the Russian Federation,” “Don’t make noise, you green oak mother.”
At this time, the epics about “The Severe Suzdalian”, about “Dobrynya and Alyosha” and the rather rare parable of Gorshen were preserved. Even in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Nekrasov, Russian epic ethnic songs and tales were used. The ancient customs of ethnic games, mummery and the special performing civilization of Russian song folklore remain.
Russian ethnic theatrical art Russian ethnic tragedy and ethnic theatrical art in general are the most interesting and important emergence of Russian state culture.

Dramatic games and performances at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 20th centuries formed an organic part of the solemn ethnic atmosphere, be it peasant gatherings, soldier and factory barracks, or fair booths.
The geography of distribution of ethnic drama is extensive. Collectors of our days have noticed special theatrical “hotbeds” in the Yaroslavl and Gorky regions, Russian villages of Tataria, on Vyatka and Kama, in Siberia and the Urals.
Ethnic tragedy, in spite of the view of some scientists, is a natural product of folklore tradition. It compresses the creative skill accumulated by dozens of generations of the broadest strata of the Russian people.
At city and later rural fairs, carousels and booths were set up, on the stage of which performances on fairy-tale and national historical themes were performed. The performances seen at the fairs did not have the opportunity to fully influence the aesthetic tastes of the people, but they expanded their magical and song repertoire. Popular and theatrical borrowings largely marked the originality of the plots of ethnic drama. However, they “lay down” on the ancient gaming customs of ethnic games, mummery, i.e. on the special performing culture of Russian folklore.

Generations of developers and artists of ethnic dramas have developed specific ways of plotting plots, character data, and manners. Developed ethnic dramas are characterized by strong attractions and insoluble incidents, continuity and swiftness of actions replacing each other.

A special role in ethnic drama is played by songs performed by the heroes at various times or sung in chorus - as comments on ongoing events. The songs were a specific emotional and psychological component of the performance. They were performed mostly in fragments, revealing the sensory meaning of the scene or the position of the character. Songs at the beginning and end of the performance were indispensable. The song repertoire of ethnic dramas is produced mostly from original songs of the 19th and early 20th centuries known in all strata of society. These are the soldiers’ songs “The snow-white Russian Tsar rode”, “Malbruk left on a campaign”, “Praise, praise for you, hero”, and the romances “I walked in the meadows in the evening”, “I’m heading off into the desert”, “What’s clouded, the clear dawn "and almost all others.
Late genres of Russian ethnic creativity - festivities

The heyday of the festivities occurred in the 17th-19th centuries, but certain forms and genres of ethnic art, which formed an obligatory accessory to the fair and city ceremonial squares, were formed and actively existed for a long time before these centuries and continue, often in a transformed form, to be present to this day. Such a puppet arena, bear fun, to some extent the jokes of traders, almost all circus acts. Other genres were born at the fairgrounds and died out when the festivities stopped. These are funny monologues of booth barkers, barkers, performances of booth theaters, dialogues of parsley clowns.
As a rule, during festivities and fairs, entire entertainment centers with booths, carousels, swings, and tents were erected in classical spaces, which sold everything from popular prints to songbirds and delicacies. In winter, cold mountains were added, access to which was absolutely free, and sledding from a height of 10-12 m brought incomparable pleasure.
With all its diversity and diversity, the city's ethnic holiday was regarded as something indivisible. This unity was created by the specific air of the solemn square, with its free text, familiarity, unbridled laughter, food and drinks; equality, fun, solemn perception of the world.
The solemn square itself

ala an unimaginable combination of various details. In accordance with this, outwardly it was a bright, echoing mess. Colorful, motley clothes of strollers, prominent, unusual costumes of “artists”, flashy signs of booths, swings, carousels, shops and taverns, handicrafts sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow and the simultaneous sound of barrel organs, trumpets, flutes, drums, exclamations, songs, cries of merchants , a booming smile from the jokes of “boothy old men” and clowns - everything merged into a single fair fireworks display that hypnotized and made people laugh.

The large, familiar festivities “under the mountains” and “under the swings” attracted many guest performers from Europe (many of them were owners of booths, panoramas) and including southern countries (magicians, animal tamers, strongmen, acrobats and others). Foreign speech and foreign wonders were commonplace at Namoskov festivities and huge fairs. It is clear why the city’s spectacular folklore often appeared as a mixture of “Nizhny Novgorod and French” of its own family.

The base, heart and soul of Russian state culture is Russian folklore, this is a treasure, this is what has filled Russian people from the inside since time immemorial, and this internal Russian ethnic civilization gave birth in the 17th-19th centuries to an integral constellation of great Russian writers, composers, designers , scientists, warriors, philosophers, whom the whole world understands and honors: Zhukovsky V.A., Ryleev K.F., Tyutchev F.I., Pushkin A.S., Lermontov M.Yu., Saltykov-Shchedrin M.E. ., Bulgakov M.A., Tolstoy L.N., Turgenev I.S., Fonvizin D.I., Chekhov A.P., Gogol N.V., Goncharov I.A., Bunin I.A., Griboedov A.S., Karamzin N.M., Dostoevsky F.M., Kuprin A.I., Glinka M.I., Glazunov A.K., Mussorgsky M.P., Rimsky-Korsakov N.A., Tchaikovsky P.I., Borodin A.P., Balakirev M.A., Rachmaninov S.V., Stravinsky I.F., Prokofiev S.S., Kramskoy I.N., Vereshchagin V.V., Surikov V. .I., Polenov V.D., Serov V.A., Aivazovsky I.K., Shishkin I.I., Vasnetsov V.N., Repin I.E., Roerich N.K., Vernadsky V.I. ., Lomonosov M.V., Sklifosovsky N.V., Mendeleev D.I., Sechenov I.M., Pavlov I.P., Tsiolkovsky K.E., Popov A.S., Bagration P.R., Nakhimov P.S., Suvorov A.V., Kutuzov M.I., Ushakov F.F., Kolchak A.V., Solovyov V.S., Berdyaev N.A., Chernyshevsky N.G., Dobrolyubov N. .A., Pisarev D.I., Chaadaev P.E., there are thousands of them, of whom, for example or in another way, the whole earthly world understands. These are universal pillars that grew up on Russian ethnic culture.

But in 1917, the second attempt was made in the Russian Federation to break the association of times, to break the Russian cultural heritage of ancient generations. The first attempt was made back in the years of the baptism of Rus'. But it did not work out in full, for example, how the power of Russian folklore was based on the life of the people, on their Vedic natural worldview. But already in some places by the sixties of the twentieth century, Russian folk folklore began to be gradually replaced by the popular pop genres of pop, disco and, as is customary at the moment, chanson (prison-thieve folklore) and other forms of Russian arts. But a definite blow was dealt in the 90s. The text “Russian” was secretly not allowed to be pronounced, as if this text meant inciting state hatred. This state is still preserved.
And the only Russian people disappeared, they were scattered, they were made drunk, and they began to exterminate them at the genetic level. At the moment in Rus' there is a non-Russian spirit of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and all other inhabitants of Asia and the Middle East, and in the Far East there are Chinese, Koreans, etc., and everywhere the functional, mass Ukrainization of the Russian Federation is being carried out.

Until the end of the 10th century, the Eastern Slavs, who had already created their own state - Kievo-Novgorod Rus - did not know writing. This period in the history of literature is called pre-literary. Only after the adoption of Christianity in 988 did the Russians acquire written literature. However, even after years and centuries, the bulk of the population remained illiterate. Therefore, not only in the pre-literary period, but also subsequently, many verbal works were not written down, but were passed on from mouth to mouth from generation to generation. These works began to be called folklore, or oral folk art.
The genres of Russian oral folk art include
- songs,
- epics,
- fairy tales,
- puzzles,
- legends,
- Proverbs and sayings.
Most folklore works exist in verse (poetic) form, since the poetic form made them easy to remember and passed on to many generations of people over several centuries.

SONG is a verbal-musical genre, a small lyrical or lyrical-narrative work intended for singing. Types of songs: historical, ritual, dance, lyrical. Folk songs express the feelings of an individual and at the same time of many people. The songs reflect love experiences, people's thoughts about their difficult fate, events in family and social life. Often in folk songs the technique of parallelism is used, when the mood of the lyrical hero is transferred to nature:
The night has no bright month,
The girl has no father...
Historical songs are associated with various historical events and personalities: “Ermak is preparing for a campaign in Siberia” - about the conquest of Siberian lands, “Stepan Razin on the Volga” - about the popular uprising led by Stepan Razin, “Pugachev in prison” - about the peasant war, which conducted by Emelyan Pugachev, “Under the glorious city near Poltava” - about the battle of the army of Peter I with the Swedes. In folk historical songs, the narration of certain events is combined with a strong emotional sound.

EPIC (the term was introduced in the 19th century by I.P. Sakharov) - a heroic song of an epic nature. It arose in the 9th century as an expression of the historical consciousness of the Russian people. The main characters of the epics are heroes who embodied the people's ideal of patriotism, strength and courage: Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Mikula Selyaninovich, as well as the giant Svyatogor, the merchant Sadko, the brawler Vasily Buslaev and others. The plot of epics is based on a vital basis, enriched with fantastic fiction: heroes fight monsters, defeat hordes of enemies alone, and instantly overcome long distances.

Epics should be distinguished from FAIRY TALES - works based on fictional events. Fairy tales can be magical (with the participation of fantastic forces, with the acquisition of wonderful objects, etc.) and everyday ones, in which ordinary people are depicted - peasants, soldiers, workers, kings or kings, princes and princesses - in an ordinary setting. The fairy tale differs from other works in its optimistic plot: good always wins, and evil forces are either ridiculed or defeated.

Unlike a fairy tale, a LEGEND is an oral folk story based on a miracle, a fantastic image, an incredible event, which is perceived by the narrator and the listener as reliable. There are legends about the origin of countries, peoples, seas, about the exploits or sufferings of real or fictional heroes.

RIDDLE - an allegorical image of an object or phenomenon, usually based on a metaphorical rapprochement. The riddles are extremely short and have a rhythmic structure, which is often emphasized by rhyme. (“The pear is hanging - you can’t eat it”, “Without arms, without legs, but it opens the gate”, “The girl is sitting in prison, and the scythe is on the street”, etc.).

PROVERB - a short, rhythmically organized figurative folk saying, an aphoristic statement. It usually has a two-part structure, supported by rhythm, rhyme, assonance and alliteration. (“As you sow, so shall you reap”, “You can’t pull a fish out of the pond without difficulty”, “Like the priest, such is the parish”, “The hut is not cut with corners, but red with pies”, etc.).

A PROVERB is a figurative expression that evaluates some phenomenon of life. Unlike a proverb, a saying is not a whole sentence, but a part of a statement (“Seven Fridays in a week,” “Rake in the heat with someone else’s hands,” “Put your teeth on a shelf”).

MYTHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT SLAVS

Myth (from the Greek mythos - “tradition”) is a form of consciousness of ancient man, his attempt to explain the structure of the world, reflected in legends and rituals.
Myth is the basis of pagan religion, i.e. belief in many gods, each of whom personified a natural phenomenon or was the patron of human life. The term “paganism” itself goes back to the Old Slavonic word “language” (people).
The mythology of the ancient Slavs has been little studied, because in the pre-Christian period in Rus' (i.e. until the 10th century) it was not literary processed, and after the baptism of Rus' in 988, paganism began to be supplanted, and this violated the integrity of Slavic mythology. However, many pagan traditions did not completely disappear and have survived to this day in rituals, fortune telling, and signs.

The ideas of the ancient Slavs about the world consisted of the following images-symbols:

1) SPACE EGG. The Slavs believed that the starry sky surrounds the Earth just as the shell surrounds the contents of an egg. Just as many people are now interested in whether there is a God and how the world came into being, so the ancient Slavs were interested in the origin of the cosmic egg. The egg does not appear on its own, but is laid by a laying hen. Consequently, the cosmic egg must have its own creator. The most common plot is the creation of the world by a duck that swims across the vast oceans of the world. Sometimes the role of a duck was played by a swan, a goose or a chicken (for example, Chicken Ryaba). The cosmic egg was not simple, but golden, and it contained the whole world (Ukrainian fairy tale “Katigoroshek”). One mythological tale details how the world came out of an egg:
From the egg, from the lower part, came mother earth, raw;
From the egg, from the upper part, a high vault of heaven rose.
From the yolk, from the upper part, the bright Sun appeared,
From the white, from the upper part, a clear moon appeared;
From the egg, from the motley part, the stars became in the sky.
The egg was considered a symbol of life, therefore in the fairy tale “Vasilisa the Wise,” death, or rather, Koshchei’s life, is in the egg.
There are many rituals associated with this symbol. From ancient times there is a custom of giving gifts of eggs painted in different colors (pysanky) and calling them in sacred chants. On the Semitic-Trinity holidays, they fried eggs, always with fried eggs, so that there was a “sun” in the center, i.e. yolk. Eggs were laid in temples, buried in those places where construction was planned.
An ordinary person cannot break a cosmic egg, which is why in the fairy tale “Ryaba Hen” this role is played by a mouse (it is one of the animals of the eastern calendar): “The mouse ran, waved its tail - the egg fell and broke.”

2) SPACE WHEEL. The word “wheel” comes from the Old Slavonic “kolo”, i.e. circle. Etymologically, the word “kolo” goes back to such words as wheel, ring, outskirts, well, kolobok, chain mail. The wheel symbolizes the eternal cycle in nature (solstice - spring, summer, autumn, winter, day and night). The wheel is a model of the Sun: there is a circle in the center, and the spokes are rays. Many holidays and rituals are associated with the worship of the Sun. For example, eating pancakes on Maslenitsa. The pancake is a symbol of the Sun, which is mentioned in Christmas songs: it is also round, yellow and hot. Kolyada holiday: carols were sung when the length of the day began to increase, it was the holiday of the “Nativity of the Sun.” The round dance symbolized the movement of the Sun.
In mythology, the circle is associated with the production of bread - bagels, bagels, rolls. Eating these foods was a ritual of Sun worship. During Christmas time during fortune-telling, girls sang “circular songs.” Weaving wreaths for the holiday of Ivan Kupala was symbolic. The production of all kinds of amulets, amulets, and talismans is also associated with the worship of the Sun. Sun signs were depicted on the patterns of towels and spinning wheels.
The pagans built temples to the glory of the gods (temples), also in the shape of a circle. This tradition has been preserved to this day, and the word “church” itself (as well as the word “circus”) comes from the German Zirkel - “circle”.

3) A TREE is a symbol of development. In the popular consciousness, the birch tree was a symbol of youth and femininity (the song “There was a birch tree in the field”). The apple tree acted as a symbol of health, strength and fertility, and this motif was preserved in the fairy tales “Rejuvenating Apples” and “Swan Geese”. The oak is an eternal and invincible tree (it is on the oak tree that the casket where Kashchei’s death is located hangs).
The tree grew through three main worlds (kingdoms): heavenly, earthly and underground. Each of the three worlds through which the Tree grew had its own gods. The word "god" comes from the Sanskrit Bhaga, which means "happiness, well-being." The ancient Slavs, like all pagans, worshiped many gods. However, Rod is considered the supreme god and ancestor of the Slavic gods. He is also called the progenitor of the world, who created everything living and nonliving. It is no coincidence that the root “clan” underlies many words: people, homeland, nature, harvest, spring, etc. Since ancient times, it was believed that the clan is the keeper of the Book of Fates (there is a saying “What is written in the clan cannot be avoided”).

The HEAVENLY WORLD is personified by Svarog (translated from Sanskrit svar - “sky”), who was considered the lord of the celestial elements, and above all the wind. Subsequently, Svarog began to be identified with Stribog, and in science there is no consensus on whether these are different gods or two names of one god. In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” written at the end of the 12th century, the author calls the winds “the grandchildren of Stribog.” The world-building gods also live in the heavenly world: Khors, Dazhbog, Perun, who were three hypostases of the Sun (this is why the heroine of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” Yaroslavna calls the Sun “three-bright”, and in Christianity there is a postulate about the triune God). Horse personified the solar ball, so the ritual of worshiping the Sun was a round dance. Dazhbog is the personification of the sun's rays and the fertility bestowed by the Sun. In ancient Greek mythology, it corresponded to Helios. Perun is the Russian Zeus, the god of thunder, thunderstorms, lightning and the element of fire, riding across the sky on a fiery chariot. Fire was considered a particle of the Sun, a gift from God, and therefore was called sacred. For a long time, among some tribes, Perun played the role of the god of war, because he was considered the patron saint of the prince and his squad. Faith in Perun was so strong that even after the baptism of Rus', many continued to worship him. The priests of Perun were the Magi mentioned in the “Song of the Prophetic Oleg”.
In addition to the gods, wonderful birds lived in the heavenly world. Stratim is a mysterious and powerful bird of Russian mythology, the progenitor of the entire bird world, living in the sea-ocean. As soon as she wakes up, a storm begins. She can tame the storm. At night, Stratim hides the sun under his wing in order to present it to the world again in the morning. He can hide the Earth under his wing, saving it from universal troubles.
The Firebird personifies the fire-light element and the cosmic beginning of the Universe encoded in it. The firebird flies from across the blue sea from a wonderful country where life flows according to laws different from those on earth. The location of that country is also encoded in stable fairy-tale images and concepts. It happens that in fairy tales she is the thief of wonderful apples, but she flies from the “thirtieth kingdom”.
Phoenix is ​​a bird that lives for many hundreds of years, burning itself in its nest before dying. And here a new Phoenix is ​​reborn from the ashes. Ancient authors considered Egypt to be the birthplace of the Phoenix. In Russian folklore, the plot of the fairy tale “The Feather of Finist Yasna Falcon” is known, the hero of which, a good fellow-werewolf, combines two initial principles: 1) a clear (solar) falcon and 2) the Phoenix bird, to which the name Finist goes back.
Gamayun is a prophetic bird with a human (female) face. The name of this bird comes from the words “hustle” and “gomon”, so it was perceived as a prophet, a herald, and a messenger of the ancient pagan gods. She was considered the keeper of the secrets of the past, present and future of the Universe.
Alkonost and Sirin are two birds of paradise with female faces. They are always inseparable, so they were often depicted sitting on a tree opposite each other. Alkonost is a bird of joy; a person who hears it forgets everything in the world with delight. Sirin is the bird of sadness, which with its singing enchants and kills people. The Alkonost bird (according to legend) lays eggs on the seashore, and until the chicks hatch, the weather is calm. "Sirin" is a Russian word meaning owl, eagle owl. The owl was revered as the bird of wisdom.

THE EARTHLY WORLD was located in the crown of a tree. Here, according to the ideas of the ancient Slavs, lived gods associated with the earthly life of man, as well as half-spirit creatures. Lad and Lada were considered the father and mother of the earthly gods. Their names are associated with words such as “lad” (i.e. peace, harmony), “okay”. Lel is the god of love, the Slavic analogue of the ancient Roman Cupid. According to some assumptions, Lel was the son of Lada. The warrior god Semargl was depicted with seven swords in his belt. Mokosh (or Makosh) is the mother goddess, patroness of the human race, guardian of the family hearth. The cult of Mokoshi dates back to the era of matriarchy, when a woman was the head of the family due to the fact that she was assigned the role of continuer of the family. Veles (or Volos - from the word “ox”) is the patron of pastures and livestock. The veneration of Veles did not stop even after the introduction of Christianity: he was “replaced” by Saint Blaise. The six most significant gods of the Slavic “pantheon” were dedicated to certain days of the week for worship. For example, Mokoshi was given two days – Wednesday and Friday, Perun – Thursday.
Half-spirits also lived in the earthly world.
The brownie was considered the patron of the house, so it was customary to cajole him in every possible way and address him affectionately. If the brownie left the home, the owners were inevitably threatened with misfortune. On certain days, the brownie was supposed to be fed porridge, leaving it behind the stove. The brownie, like all half-spirits, was invisible. If a person happened to see it, it foreshadowed death.
Kikimora is the wife of a brownie, the unkind spirit of a peasant hut. He usually lives behind the stove, where he creaks and knocks, scaring small children. Likes to play pranks with a spinning wheel, knitting, or started yarn.
Bannik is a small, toothless old man with long hair and a scraggly beard who lives in a bathhouse. This is an evil spirit: it can splash boiling water or steam you to death. You can appease the bannik if you leave him a broom, water in a tub and a piece of soap. Bannik loves to wash, but does it after all the people (during the fourth steam, when all the evil spirits wash).
Mermaids are mythological creatures in the form of women with green hair and a fish tail, living in lakes and ponds. It was believed that girls who drowned from unhappy love, or who died before the bride's wedding, became mermaids. But mermaids don't always live in water. In the summer, when the rye begins to bloom, they come out to the ground, swing on birch branches and lure careless fishermen and lonely travelers. This time is called “mermaid week”. At this time, no one dares to go into the forest: the mermaids will either tickle you to death or drag you to the bottom. In order to somehow appease the mermaids, the girls weave wreaths for them and leave them in the forest.
Leshy is the spirit of the forest. This is an old man with a green beard in animal skin (sometimes with horns and hooves), to whom all wild birds and animals obey. The goblin can laugh, hoot, whistle and cry, like a person, and can imitate the voices of birds and animals. The goblin loves to joke and play pranks: to let in fog and lead astray or lead into a remote thicket (“The goblin is circling”). In general, goblins are not evil creatures, but once a year (October 4) they become dangerous: people say that they go berserk. People used the name of the goblin as an insult (“Go to the goblin”, “The goblin will take you away”).
Vodyanoy is an evil spirit of the waters in the form of an old man with a long gray or green beard who lives in river whirlpools, pools or swamps. He also likes to settle under the wheel of a water mill, which is why in the old days all millers were considered sorcerers. During the day, the merman hides under water, and at night it swims to the surface in the form of a log or large fish. Knowing that a merman could drown a person or break fishing nets, millers and fishermen tried to appease him: they threw bread into the water, sacrificed some black animal (cat, dog, rooster), and the fishermen released the first fish they caught back into the water .

THE UNDERWORLD - the world of the dead, the otherworldly world, the abode of dark forces - was located in the roots of the tree. The earthly and underground worlds were connected by a trunk: ancient people believed in a close connection between life and death. In fairy tales, the connection between the worlds of the living and the dead was carried out by Baba Yaga, an old forest sorceress who helped the hero pass through the kingdom of the dead. Baba Yaga has long been considered the gatekeeper between the world of the dead and the living (it is no coincidence that she has one leg, like a skeleton), and her hut is the gateway to the otherworldly kingdom. Ancient riddles also reflected the connection between life and death: “It warms in winter, smolders in spring, dies in summer, then comes to life” (snow), “From the living - dead, from the dead - alive” (hen - egg - chicken). Death in Slavic mythology was embodied in the image of Morena (or Marana), whose name came from the Sanskrit mara - “death” and echoed the name of the Buddhist Satan, the god of death, whose name was Mara. Morena embodied the ideas of the ancients not so much about the death of an individual person, but about the mortal principle in nature: the death of the Sun, light is the onset of night, the death of the “life-giving” seasons is the onset of winter. Thus, Morena personified the universal dying in nature, but death was not irreversible, for night always comes with a new day, and after winter comes spring. Therefore, Morena herself was considered mortal. The ancient ritual of burning an effigy of Morena (which later became known as Maslenitsa), jumping over the fire symbolized the fight against death and darkness. The underground world was also inhabited by werewolves, ghouls (vampires) and ghouls.

Our distant ancestors also believed that a person is related by blood to some animal. This belief was called TOTEMISM. Each ancient tribe had its own animal patron, it could be a wolf, a bear, a hare, one of the birds, etc. The sacred animal of most Slavic tribes was the bear, whose secret name - Ber (this is where the word “den” comes from - Ber’s lair) was not allowed to be pronounced out loud by the Slavs. The word "bear" was a euphemism, i.e. replacement for a forbidden name. The Germans call the bear Bar, the British - bear. In folk tales, a bear is sometimes a stupid creature, but kind and harmless, unlike, for example, a wolf or a fox.
After the baptism of Rus', pagan holidays and rituals received a Christian interpretation. The holiday of the birth of the Sun, celebrated at the end of December, when the length of the day began to increase, became the holiday of the Nativity of Christ. The original pagan holiday of Maslenitsa has survived almost unchanged to this day as a holiday to welcome spring. The day of the summer solstice, the “top of summer” - the holiday of Ivan Kupala - became the day of John the Baptist. Pagan ideas about the world were also entrenched in a number of everyday traditions, in the plots of fairy tales, legends and songs.
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In the illustration: Slavic pagan temple (temple)

Introduction

Folklore is a type of folk art that is 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.

Folklore is a synthetic art form. His works often combine elements of various types of art - verbal, musical, choreographic and theatrical. But the basis of any folklore work is always the word. Folklore is very interesting to study as an art of words. In this regard, the study, knowledge and understanding of the poetics of folklore is of paramount importance.

The purpose of this course work is to study the poetic heritage of the folk artistic culture of the Russian people.

The goal involves solving the following tasks:

Conduct an analysis and summarize materials from educational, scientific, and fiction literature on this topic;

Consider the features of poetic folklore works of the Russian people;

Consider the genre structure and features of the genres of Russian folk poetry.

The theoretical basis of the course work was the works of S. G. Lazutin, V. M. Sidelnikov; T. M. Akimova and other researchers of Russian folklore.

The structure of the course work includes an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

Oral folk art of the Russian people

Russian folklore: concept and essence

Folklore (English folklore - folk wisdom) is a designation for the artistic activity of the masses, or oral folk art, which arose in the pre-literate period. This term was first introduced into scientific use by the English archaeologist W. J. Toms in 1846. And it was broadly understood as the totality of the spiritual and material culture of the people, their customs, beliefs, rituals, and various forms of art. Over time, the content of the term narrowed.

There are several points of view that interpret folklore as folk artistic culture, as oral poetry and as a set of verbal, musical, game types of folk art. With all the diversity of regional and local forms, folklore has common features, such as anonymity, collective creativity, traditionalism, close connection with work, everyday life, and the transmission of works from generation to generation in the oral tradition.

Collective life determined the appearance among different peoples of the same type of genres, plots, such means of artistic expression as hyperbole, parallelism, various types of repetitions, constant and complex epithet, and comparisons. The role of folklore was especially strong during the period of predominance of mythopoetic consciousness. With the advent of writing, many types of folklore developed in parallel with fiction, interacting with it, influencing it and other forms of artistic creativity and experiencing the opposite effect.

Researchers believe that even in the pre-state period (that is, before Kievan Rus was formed), the Eastern Slavs had a fairly developed calendar and family ritual folklore, heroic epic and instrumental music.

People's memory has preserved many beautiful ancient songs for centuries. In the 18th century, folk art for the first time became a subject of study and creative implementation. The educational attitude towards folklore was clearly expressed by the wonderful writer, humanist A.N. Radishchev, in the heartfelt lines of his “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: “Whoever knows the voices of Russian folk songs admits that there is something in them that signifies spiritual sorrow... In in them you will find the formation of the soul of our people.”

As a rule, at the time of creation, a work of oral folk art experiences a period of particular popularity and creative flourishing. But there comes a time when it begins to become distorted, destroyed and forgotten. New times require new songs. The images of folk heroes express the best features of the Russian national character; the content of folklore works reflects the most typical circumstances of folk life.

Living in oral transmission, the texts of folk poetry could change significantly. However, having achieved complete ideological and artistic completeness, works were often preserved for a long time almost unchanged as the poetic heritage of the past, as cultural wealth of enduring value.

Oral folk art (folklore) is a set of artistic works created by the people in the process of oral, collective, non-professional creativity based on traditions. Oral folk art includes fairy tales, heroic epics, proverbs and sayings, riddles, nursery rhymes, songs, etc. A fairy tale is a free retelling of a legend, an epic, just a story, somewhat simplified for perception, often devoid of some semantic aspects, supplemented with magic and miracles , mythical characters. The heroic epic (epics) is very reminiscent of a fairy tale, but unlike it, the epic contains not fictitious, but real heroes (Ilya-Muromets, Sadko, etc.). In the epic, the people glorify bravery, courage, and love for the Motherland. Proverbs and sayings are a source of folk wisdom. They
reflect everyday life, customs, and very often echo fairy tales. This
a form of preserving edification among the people, trusted for thousands of years,
moral teachings, teachings, commandments.

The basis of ancient Russian culture was oral folk art. Slavic mythology and the most important historical events are most clearly reflected in oral folk art. Thus, fairy tales are replete with plots in which mythical creatures are present: mermaids, goblins, ghouls - representatives of different levels of the Slavic pantheon. The epics reflect specific historical facts and figures. Epics, a very original and extraordinary cultural phenomenon, provide evidence of the cultural level of the masses, their education and literacy. There is a point of view on epics as a phenomenon of folklore, reflecting the most general processes of social and political life, and on epic heroes as combining different chronological layers. But there is no reason to attribute epics to some epic period earlier than the era of Kievan Rus. As has been established recently (I.Ya. Froyanov, Yu.I. Yudin), epics quite adequately reflect the democratic system of Kievan Rus. The most famous is the heroic epic cycle, in which folk heroes and defenders of Rus' are glorified - Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikntich, Alyosha Popovich and others.

The further development of oral folk art is associated with the fight against the Mongol-Tatars. Almost no new plots appeared in the epic epic, but it was subject to rethinking. The Pechenegs and Polovtsians of ancient Russian epics now began to be identified with the Tatars, they began to be portrayed as stupid, cowardly, boastful rapists, and the Russian heroes - as smart, brave, “vehement” defenders of Rus'. By the 14th century refers to the emergence of a new folklore genre - historical song. An example of this is “Song about Shchelkan Dudentievich.” It talks about specific events of 1327 in Tver - the anti-Horde uprising of the townspeople.

Folklore of the 16th century differs from the previous one both in type and content. Along with the existence of genres of previous eras (epics, fairy tales, proverbs, ritual songs, etc.), in the 16th century. The genre of historical song blossoms. Historical legends were also widespread. Songs and legends were usually dedicated to outstanding events of that time - the capture of Kazan, the campaign in Siberia, wars in the West, or outstanding personalities - Ivan the Terrible, Ermak Timofeevich.

The historical song about the campaign against Kazan glorifies the skill of Russian warrior-gunners who made a “cunning” tunnel under the city walls. Ivan the Terrible himself is portrayed in it as an intelligent ruler and commander. His folklore image is characterized by idealization. So, in one of the songs, the people bitterly mourn him as the people's intercessor: “You rise, rise, you, our Orthodox Tsar... Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, you are our father!” However, folklore also reflected other features of it: cruelty, power, ruthlessness. In this regard, Novgorod and Pskov songs and legends are characteristic. In one of the songs, Tsarevich Ivan reminds his father: “And on the street you were driving, father, you whipped everyone, and stabbed them, and put them on stakes.”

In songs about the conquest of Siberia, which existed mainly among the Cossacks, the main character is Ermak Timofeevich - a daring and brave ataman of free people, the people's leader. His image combined the features of the heroic heroes of the Russian epic with the features of people's leaders who fought against social injustice.

Interesting songs about the heroic defense of Pskov during the Livonian War. Having been defeated, the Polish king Stefan Batory swears on his own behalf and on behalf of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to ever attack Rus'.

A song about Kostryuk was widespread during the time of Ivan the Terrible. It tells about the victory of an ordinary Russian man (“a hillbilly peasant”) over the foreign prince Kostryuk, who boasted of his strength, but became a laughing stock for the entire people.

Previous materials: The most ancient roots of the culture of the Eastern Slavs. Decorative and applied art of the Eastern Slavs and pagan Rus'. The influence of the adoption of Christianity on Russian culture.