Overview of the elements of Russian Folklore

1. “Russian Folklore”
By
Shahzad Dastgir Nousherwani

2. Sequence
• What is Folklore?
• Russian Folklore as “National Character”
• Slavic mythology
• ‘Bylina’
• Fairy Tales
• Traditional Russian Music
• Folklore in the USSR
• ‘Barynya’ – video
• Q&A
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3. What is Folklore?
• ‘Lore’
– A body of traditions and
knowledge
– A virtual cumulative orally
transmitted archive
– Continuum with
Mythology
• ‘Folk’
– Commoners/Plebians
– Popular as opposed to
aristocratic
• Legends, Music, Fairy
Tales, Oral History etc.
3

4. Russian Folklore as ‘National
Character’
• Slavic peasants at the
crossroads
– Christianity, Mongols,
The Two Ivans,
Modernity
• National Character
– Big Nature
– Kind Soul
– Collectivism
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5. Slavic Mythology
• Eclecticism
– Old pagan mythology and
Christianity
– ‘dvoeverie’
• Christianity as
‘reconstruction’, not
‘replacement’
– ‘Perun’ becomes ‘St. Elijah
– the Thunderer’
– ‘Jare’ and ‘Ivanje’ become
Christian holidays
5

6. ‘Bylina’
• Traditional East Slavic epic
narrative poem
• ‘What was’ – mixing fact
with fiction
• Performed pieces
• Common themes
– ‘Bogatyrs’ – knights errants
– Birth/Childhood of a hero
– Battling
Monsters/Sorcerers
– Triumph of good over evil
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7. Fairy Tales 1/2
• Some are ‘bylina-like’
– Valor of Medieval
Russian heroic warriors
– Worship of Strength and
Power
– Typical Characters:
• Alyosha Popovich
• Dobrynya Nikitich
• Ilya Muromets
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8. Fairy Tales 2/2
• Stories with female
leads
– Baba Yaga
• Supernatural and ugly
witch
• Steals and eats people,
especially young naughty
children
– Vasilisa the Beautiful
– Vasilisa the Wise
• ‘Ivan’ stories – The ‘fool’
and the ‘Prince’
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9. Gusli
Traditional Russian Music
9

10. Gudok
Traditional Russian Music
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11. Treschotka
Traditional Russian Music
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12. Buben
Traditional Russian Music
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13. Folklore in the USSR
• Repression
– Fantastical ‘bourgeois nonsense’
• Gorky and Sukulov’s arguments
– Self-discovery leading to ‘belonging’
– Archetypical working class
• Reconstructed folklore as propaganda
• Abandoned quickly after Stalin’s death
– Pseudo-folklore
13

14. Q&A