Symbolism in the Russian folk art (on the example of romantic ballads)

Abstract

The subject of this research is the symbols characteristic to the genre of folk ballade. The object of this research is lyrics of the Russian folk ballads. The following compilations of ballads served as the material for this research: “Russian Ballad” (edited By V. I. Chernyshev, N. p. Andreev, 1936), “Folk Ballads” (edited by D. M. Balashov, A. M. Astakhova, 1963), “Russian Folk Ballad” (edited by D. M. Balashov, 1983), “Ballads” (edited by B. P. Kirdan, 2001), “Epics. Historical Song. Ballads” (edited by A. V. Kulagina, V. A. Kovpaka, 2008). The author carefully examines the peculiarities of ballad symbolism and its functions. In the course of research, the following conclusions were formulated: consistency of the genre order depends on the presence of the system of artistic visual means; central in the poetics of ballad belongs to symbolism, parallelism, antithesis, epithets, and metaphors; symbolism in the romantic ballads is presented quite extensively; often a symbolic situation becomes a part of psychological parallelism presented in many ballad concepts; syntactic parallelism can be placed in any thematic link and amplifies by antithesis. In certain instances, antithesis appears an important technique for creating a tragic effect. Ballad poetics is subordinated to explication of the overall genre trend, including the reflection of fundamental universals and principles. The novelty of this work consists in the attempt of textual analysis of the major compilations of ballads, as well as in selection of the symbols for their further analysis within the framework of implementation of genre characteristics.