Folklore Texts Research Articles

The Biblical Theme in the Historical Monographs of Georgy P. Fedotov

The article stresses that Georgy P. Fedotov's systematic reference to the Bible enabled him in his historical monographs (Abelard, St. Filipp Metropolitan of Moscow, Saints of Ancient Russia, Spiritual Poems ) to reconstruct the spiritual reality of past eras and symbolically perceive the present. Fedotov intended to know The Gospel in History, Russian religiosity, exploring it on the material of hagiographies of saints, spiritual poems, folk faith, apocrypha, and prologues. Fedotov considered the history of Russian culture in terms of a "living chain," an integral phenomenon existing due to the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition. However, "The sacred tradition of the Church is included in the general stream of historical tradition, all complex, always muddy, human weaving truth and falsehood." Fedotov raised the question of the relationship between scientific criticism and biblical exegetics: how can we reconcile exegetics of sacred texts, which assume that the Bible is an inspired book, and historical criticism, which by its very nature cannot share such a position, being aimed at comprehending objective historical reality? He solved it convincingly practically through hermeneutic religious analysis of hagiographic monuments and spiritual verses. In his Spiritual Poems Fedotov explores folklore material compared to biblical texts, hagiographies, and apocrypha, to comprehend the peculiarity of religious "Weltanschauung" and popular orthodoxy. In spiritual verses, there was a transformation of biblical images (Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Last Judgment) under the influence of folk faith with pagan features. In folklore texts, Fedotov reveals how Christ, from savior and redeemer, turns into a king and dreadful judge. The image of the Mother of God merges in the popular consciousness with the image of the mother earth, suffering from people. Eschatological prophecies are based on impressions from icons, frescoes, and lubok pictures. Fedotov's historical monographs illuminate various aspects of Russian religious consciousness regarding Holy Scripture, considering dogmatic biblical exegetics and historical criticism. All the mentioned facts allow us to assert that Fedotov was the leading secular biblical scholar of the Russian diaspora.

Traditional formulas in serve versions of “Amiraniani”

The observation of the poetic varinats of the poetry of Amiran and the juxtapositional analysis allows us to underline transimissive aspects related to not only the funcioning of the text, but also, in general, its folkloric nature. The building material for the variants represents the “formulas” (traditional sintagmatic and paradigmatic elements). Some of them are spreaded as folk talkes, though most of them developed and settled in the tradition of the particular analitical texts.A comparison of the variants also showed that whatever consititutes to the development of the folkloric texts, also exists in tradition. It is the tradition that dictates the premade formulas, frame of the plot, model of the genre, to the author; these are what plays as a signifacent role in the constraction of the various texts. Therefore, folkloric texts serves not as an individual sample that needs to be memorised by heart, but it is a representation o the classes, types, and traditions.

Development of e-LKPD based on high order thinking skills (HOTS) to improve cultural literacy in folklore text material

This research aims to develop hots-based e-LKPD as teaching material for learners to be able to understand the text material of folklore well. The method used in this research is the development (RD) of Borg and Gall which is simplified into seven stages, namely (1) potential and problems; (2) data collection; (3) product development; (4) product evaluation; (5) revision; (6) product trials; and (7) final revisions. Expert validation results show this HOTS-based e-LKPD has been worth using with revisions. The results of the trial showed that as many as 70% of students were able to solve high-level questions, 80% of students solved moderate-level questions, and 90% of students solved low-level questions. The results of the response questionnaire showed e-LKPD in the high category so that the percentage of ministry was obtained by 87.4% with very interesting criteria on all aspects measured, namely material aspect 87.2%, presentation aspect 86%, and language aspect 89%. The overall number of such percentages reaches very high criteria so, it can be concluded that the e-LKPD developed is very interesting and makes it easier for students to understand the material.

Verbal folklore in contemporary southern Italy: a not-so-distant mirror of cultural and environmental change

AbstractThe socio-cultural and environmental shifts that have taken place in southern Italy over the last 30 years can usefully be traced by their impact on folkloric texts which present modifications that tend to emerge progressively over time. An analysis of such modifications to a body of southern Italian folkloric texts – as used in practice over the last three decades – finds that these reflect and are driven by changes in the people's living environment denoting a cultural dilution and a growing distance between people and the natural world, particularly the land. These modifications also expose a shift of emphasis from ends (e.g. food) to means (e.g. money), indicating increased commercial dependence driven by socio-economic changes. These changes are also reflected in folkloric texts which demonstrate a decline of direct, physical experience of some aspects of the natural world while including references relating to the local environment. Understanding these processes allows us to gauge the extent to which verbal folklore connects contemporary societies to past knowledge.

Character Education Values in Buru’s Folklore

Buru’s folklore is a cultural product that reflects cultural messages related to the Buru people as individuals, social relations, belief systems, and community norms in Buru. In essence, Buru’s Folklore is a form of oral literature that contains substantial and functional meaning which is passed down from generation to generation in a unique and specific way. This reseaerch aims to describe the character education values in the folklore of the Buru island people. This research is qualitative. The data obtained are in the form of folklore texts, statements of informants, and facts in the field. The sources of the data are as follows: 4 informants − people of South Buru believed to be the owners of the folklore. The techniques of data collection include deept interview and recording. The data analysis is executed in the frame of spiral model proposed by Creswelll. The results showed that the Buru’s Folklore contains some remarkable character education values, i,e. courage, responsibility, loving one another, helping difficult people, and expecting sustenance from God. Thus, Buru’s Folklore is a socio-cultural representation of the community that is accumulated in the behavior, attitudes, character, and spoken in the story.

Pengembangan Bahan Ajar Menulis Teks Cerita Rakyat Berbasis Sosiokultural pada Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Indonesia Kelas X SMA

This study is a type of Research And Development (R&D) that refers to the steps of the research and development model and Gall (1983:772). It was limited from ten steps to five steps that include preliminary studies, product design planning, product development, validation tests by expert lecturers and product revisions. The instrument used in the study was the form of an assessment scale to determine the feasibility of the module and its validity, by using a Likert Scale and arranged in the questionnaire. The data analysis was carried out by collecting qualitative and quantitative data from material experts and design experts. The results of the study on the development of teaching materials for writing sociocultural-based folklore texts indicated that the module product is feasible to be used as learning material. It is based on the assessment score obtained through the assessment score from the material expert 1 is 141 or as 81% with the Very Eligible criteria, the assessment score from the material expert 2 is 132 or as 75% with the Eligible criteria, the assessment score from the design expert 1 is 83 or as 83% with the Very Eligible criteria, and the assessment score from design expert 2 is 100 or as 100% with the Very Eligible criteria. Based on the validaton results of material experts and design experts, it can be concluded that teaching materials for writing folklore texts based on sociocultural are very feasible to be used as teaching materials.

Trickster “Tipsy Lady” in Folklore of Taxi Drivers

The characteristic features of the trickster “tipsy lady”, formed in the folklore of taxi drivers, are investigated. The authors consider the modern type of rogue character, who plays the role of a tipsy taxi passenger and is a comic asocial character that performs both destructive and creative functions. Based on the analysis of the authentic material of urban folklore (the folklore of taxi drivers), the authors of this study for the first time identified the main features that determine this type. It is shown that by introducing dis-harmony and chaos into the “foreign” environment (the sphere of “habitation” of taxi drivers), the trickster “tipsy lady” tries to assert herself in it. It is noted that the character of oral stories and tales is characterized by unwillingness and inability to change her behavior that violates generally accepted moral norms. It is argued that the trickster “tipsy lady” performs the function of a conductor between social worlds. It has been established that she demonstrates the animal nature (lust) inherent in the representatives of the “primitive world”. It has been proven that the trickster “tipsy lady” is in a state of play and, finally, combines contradictory qualities — defiant self-confidence, on the one hand, and defenselessness, on the other. In their work, the authors of the article used historical-genetic, structural-typological methods, as well as a multi-level functional analysis of the folklore text.

САД І ПЛОДОВІ ДЕРЕВА У СВІТОГЛЯДІ БАЛТІВ

The aim of the article is to explore the expression of garden and fruit trees growing therein in the Baltic worldview on the basis of the data from the 16th–17th centuries. written sources, such as folklore texts of various genres, calendar customs and family holiday traditions, as well as through the customs, folklore and beliefs of the neighbouring Slavic peoples. The first reliable data on individual fruit trees or gardens were recorded in written monuments only in early 16th century. By the end of the 16th century, gardens had been already present not only in monasteries, but also in manors and parsonages. The time of cultivation of gardens more or less coincides with the mention of deities patronizing gardens (Kirnis, Mother of Gardens, Bibcziu Bobelis) in written monuments. Even though fruit trees were still very rare in the homesteads of the poor in the middle of the 19th century, many different beliefs, magical acts, prohibitions, which aimed to ensure that the planted fruit trees grow well and have a harvest, were recorded late 19th – early 20th centuries. Gardens and individual fruit trees became important symbols of calendar and family holidays as well as folklore texts that were used to express the ideas of fertility, marriage, birth, and death. Some of the beliefs and magical acts related to garden trees were probably borrowed, from other countries (Greeks, Romans, Slavs) at various times, while part of the symbolic meanings comes from the archetypal tree concept common to all Baltic peoples.

Фольклорное произведение: правомерность использования термина

The purpose of the article is to provide essential justifications for the validity of the definition of “folklore work”. The main sources were the works of philosophers, culturologists, art historians, and folklorists in the field of definitional analysis of the “work of art” category and directly folklore texts. The research methodology includes a structural and functional approach to the analysis of the features of the existence of artistic texts, a phenomenological and anthropological interpretation of folklore artifacts with the inclusion of elements of textual analysis. The question of terminology in the Humanities is quite acute. The use of terms without an exact designation of their subject field can lead not only to discrepancies, but also to significant errors in understanding the essence of phenomena. Moreover, this may lead to claims that the use of certain terms is incorrect. This is the case with the term “folklore work”, which is used in scientific terms. A number of studies, primarily of art criticism, deny the validity of its application on the grounds that the status of stability of works of art contradicts the variant character of folklore texts. This contrast between constancy and variability is explained by a somewhat simplified view of the phenomena being compared. The basis of the folklore work is avantext, which generates equal variants, but performs the function of a stable image structure. It should be interpreted quite broadly: as a kind of conditional matrix within which elements vary without changing the cultural meaning. This is why folklore works are recognizable, preserved and recreated in each case. This variation, in turn, expands the set framework, filling the tradition with relevant content, enriching it with new artistic images, etc. A similar situation occurs with the author's works of art, which for a long time included improvisational fragments. It is the execution and perception of a literary text (and not just the fact that it is fixed in a sign system) that turns it into a work itself, with the inevitable variability. Of course, these changes are not as obvious as in the case of folklore works, but they do not exclude them. Thus, any work of art does not act as a constant system, but as a phenomenon that is quite mobile in the dynamics of cultural activity. In addition, it should be remembered that a work of art is always the result of a specific activity for the production of artifacts. In this case, any created artifact acts as a work of art or, more generally, a work of culture. Therefore, the creation of an artifact in the sphere of folklore culture is the same artistic production as creativity in the sphere of author's musical culture, literature, painting, etc. The use of the term “folklore work” is not only quite justified, but also corresponds to the essential structural, functional and semantic characteristics of this phenomenon.

Сюжет корякской сказки о мышатах, подвешенных к дереву: генезис и этнографический контекст

This paper presents an analysis of one of the popular plots of the Itelmen-Koryak folklore. The focus of the study is the tale about mice that were caught in pants and hung on the tree. According to the classification of E. Berezkin and Duvakin, the plot motif of this tale is L42J “The tree bends (children in the ogre’s bag).” Consideration was given to 21 versions of the tale recorded from 1901 to 2017 from the Itelmen and Koryaks of Kamchatka. The Koryak narrative tradition allows the narrator to present the folklore text in his own way. With the main line of the plot preserved, the episodes sometimes are expanded, indicating not so much the peculiarities of the local tradition as the individual narrative style of the narrator, his authorial activity, and even his life position. The analysis of different variants of the tale about mice clearly demonstrates the evolution of the plot that is part of the Big Raven cycle. The archaic anecdotal nature of the narrative is replaced by edification. Alogical episodes based on tricks of the trickster are lost. Specification of episodes changes according to the new reality. The system of character interaction is changing. Though not being typical of archaic folklore tradition, the elements of psychologism start to appear. At the same time, modern recordings of folklore texts sometimes retain archaic narrative elements, once formed as a result of figurative interpretation of natural phenomena, traditional way of life, or ritual practices.

“Good Night” by Byron and Kozlov as a Russian Folk Song

The article reveals the way of transformation of an excerpt from George Gordon Byronʼs poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage into a Russian song that has become a folk song. The author analyzes the process of adaptation of the author’s translation made by Ivan I. Kozlov to the folk environment and its further distribution and functioning as a folklore text. Attention is drawn to the changes in the figurative system, subject and composition of the original source.

Traditions as a Folklore Text: “Verkhoyansk” Locus from G.V. Ksenofontov to A.A. Savvin

Traditions as a Folklore Text: “Verkhoyansk” Locus from G.V. Ksenofontov to A.A. Savvin

Женские образы нижнего мира в традиционных мифологических представлениях удмуртов

The article is carried out within the framework of an anthropological and ethnographic study of the traditional Udmurt mythology. The article describes two categories of female mythological characters localized in the underground-underwater, forest world — the patron goddesses of the natural elements (Vumumy'and Muzemmumy) and forest spirits (kukri-baba, obyda, egypecha, telkusyos wife, kalmyk-kyshno, munchomurt-woman, vumurt-kyshno). The basis for the publication was field materials collected in 1997-2020 among the rural and urban Udmurts, as well as folklore texts and research works of XIX-XX centuries. Ideas about the appearance of female characters of the underworld in the Udmurt traditional worldview have been preserved in different ways. The appearance of the mumy is almost impossible to trace, which is due to the cultural archaic nature of the images. The degree of expression of these images in the modern verbal tradition is also quite low. Being the embodiment of the natural elements, they are maximally sacralized and move away from human everyday life. Forest spirits-kyshno, on the contrary, quickly adapt to modern social realities. They are more connected to the most important social function of initiation, which leaves them more intimate.

IMAGE OF THE GYPSY IN UKRAINIAN FOLKLORE: CONSTANTNESS VS PLASTICITY

The proposed article is devoted to the study of the image of a gypsy as one of the foreign ethnic characters in Ukrainian folklore. It is known that the study of the relations between the representatives of ethnic minorities develops in the system of the coordinates "OWN – OTHERS". Necessity to study such relationships is especially intensified in the periods of existential challenges, one of which is the war. The impetus for writing this article was a real fact that happened after russian military aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, when ethnic Roma stole an enemy tank. The author of the article aims to investigate whether the image of the gypsy has been transformed in modern folklore, if compared with classical folklore texts. The study of the image of the gypsy in Ukrainian folklore has been the focus of attention of many scientists for a long time. The collections of the folklorists who recorded the texts in which the gypsy appears, are mentioned. The works, which highlighted the image of the gypsy in folklore, are analyzed. In addition to fairy-tale and non-tale prose, the image of the gypsy is also characteristic of ritual folklore, both calendar and family. The expediency of considering memes and «photo frogs in the coordinate system of folkloristics is substantiated. The features, that are characteristic of memes as the latest folklore creations, are indicated, and their main functions are also mentioned. It is confirmed that constant behavioral markers and character traits inherent to Roma remain basic for the formation of the image of the gypsy: villainy, cunning, tendency, etc. It is shown that the nomadic way of life formed a special attitude of the gypsies to the means of transportation (previously horses, now – "iron horses"), which is reflected in the folklore texts. It is noted that in modern folklore forms a certain transformation in the treatment of nonethnic characters can be traced, which is a consequence of the reinterpretation of axiological guidelines, as well as those real events which take place in the society. So, we can talk about the slow change of the stereotypical ideas that were formed by the mythological tradition.

Folklore and Reproach: The Experience of Sentiment Analysis Based on Constructions

This article presents a pilot experiment to identify reproach in folklore material. The theoretical core of the work is the idea that reproach, like all linguistic phenomena, should have formal expression in language. From which it follows that reproach can be identified in the text on the basis of its formal characteristics, relying on the tools of construction grammar, and not only with the help of semantics and context. Concrete examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the method, its reliability and evidence-based nature in comparison with approaches based on context and pragmalinguistic content. Thus, the study faced two tasks. Firstly, it presents the experiment to conduct sentiment analysis in the absence of any academic corpus of folklore texts at the time of writing the article. Although the volume of fundamental editions of folklore texts is more than significant, the natural absence of specialized lexical and grammatical tagging in such texts, which allows creating corpus queries that are heterogeneous in structure, returns a researcher to manual processing of folklore material without hope of automating the procedure. At the same time, the existence of recognized electronic texts allows you to make accurate queries using the interface of programs for editing and reading documents in PDF and DJVU formats. Secondly, the method of identifying reproach on the basis of constructions and the results of using this method in the form of concrete examples of the reproach in folklore texts are demonstrated. The advantages and disadvantages of working with precise queries in interfaces of PDF-Xchange and DJVU-reader programs are analyzed. The analysis of the obtained results is proposed, as well as the “bottlenecks&8j1; and prospects of such research are discussed.

Русская лексика рекрутской обрядности в языке и фольклоре (на материалах XX–XXI вв.)

The article analyzes Russian vocabulary of recruit rites in language and folklore based on the materials of the 20th–21st centuries. This lexical layer is practically not studied in Russian science. The purpose of the work is to explore the etymology of the words rekrut, nekrut (i.e. a recruit, a novice) and the functioning of lexemes used to denote a young man going into the army and his wife (bride). The chronological approach of the study allows us to trace the functioning of the terms of recruit rites from the moment of their appearance in the language and folklore in the 18th century to the present. The analysis is based on data from folklore sources, field materials of ethnographic expeditions, official documents, and fiction. The entire lexical array was divided into four thematic blocks: 1) the word rekrut <recruit> and its derivatives in language and folklore; 2) the word soldat <soldier> and its derivatives in language and folklore; 3) lexemes denoting the wife (bride) of a man who has left for the army; 4) other lexemes denoting those who have left for the army. The first block examines the etymology of the word rekrut and its derivatives, the peculiarities of the functioning of these lexemes in Russian dialects and folklore sources. The second block contains an analysis of the word soldat and the set expressions ukhodit’/otdavat’ v soldaty (can be literally translated as to leave to be a soldier/ to send somebody to be a soldier) as used in folklore texts. The third block examines the lexemes denoting the wife (bride, widow) of a soldier in Russian dialects. The fourth block contains other lexemes denoting a person who has left for the army – prizyvnik, novobranets (i. e. a conscript, newly drafted recruit) etc., and the features of their use in Soviet Russia.

К вопросу об аналитических конструкциях и синтетических формах в тувинском языке

Verbal analytical constructions are a significant part of the Tuvan verb morphology and largely determine the specifics of the language, being highly productive and implemented at the lexical and syntactic levels. They are actively used as a word-forming tool. In a simple sentence, analytics functions at the level of sentence members, with an analytical predicate most actively used, expressing the phase and aspectual characteristics of an action. Analytical construction also is significant in bipredicative constructions that are mostly built by means of analytical bonds, unions, particles. Analytic construction is a combination of the main (full-valued) and one or more auxiliary (service) words. In the Tuvan language, analytical forms of the predicate with a chain of particles are widely used not only in folklore texts, fairy tales, and stories, characterizing the individual style of the narrator, but also in modern novels. The common trend is an increasing frequency of analytical constructions in fiction and journalism compared with folklore sources. Unlike analytical constructions, synthetic forms are characterized by the inextricable connection of the basis with the formants representing the grammatical category. Both analytical constructions and synthetic forms are distinguished at different levels of the language. The synthetism is found at the syntactic level if a sentence member is expressed in one word form without service or semiservice words. The main difference between syntactic analytical construction and free syntactic combination is its semantic indecomposability. Due to linguistic dynamics, the ratio of analytic and synthetic units in linguistic subsystems never remains stable.

Жемчуг in Russian Folklore

Pearls are some of the most frequently encountered gems in Russian folklore. This reflects their importance for Russian culture, where from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and up to the nineteenth century, they were among its symbols. Pearls were not only gems representing the highest strata of society and the highest clergy. They were relatively easily accessible to the common people, and even to the peasantry, especially in the Russian North, the territory of their extraction in Russia (the poor peasantry used imitations). The rootedness and high value of pearls in folk life contributed to the fact that words from the word-formation family жемчуг can be found in almost all genres of Russian folklore. This article aims to give a general idea of the relevance of the image of pearls in the texts of Russian folklore. The objectives of the article are also to highlight the genre breadth within which this image functions; to mention the themes and motifs in which there are references to pearls; to reveal the symbolism of pearls in folklore texts; to note the textual partners that most often accompany the appearance of pearls in folklore. The article mostly refers to Songs Collected by P. N. Rybnikov; collections of lamentations by E. V. Barsov and B. B. Efimenkova; collection of fairy tales by A. N. Afanasyev; song collection by A. I. Sobolevsky and some other collections of local and all-Russian folklore.

The Image of the Pole in the Folk Discourse of the Sebezh District of the Pskov Region

The article studies the perception of Poles by Russians in the ethnocultural border zone in different historical periods, which was reflected in folklore texts. Over the centuries-old history of Polish-Russian relations, a fairly stable negative stereotype of the Pole has formed, supported by the memory of military conflicts and stabilized in the texts of legends. At the same time, there was a tendency in the “mass” consciousness to learn the truth about another culture and overcome its negative perception. The development of this tendency resulted in the transformation of the national stereotype of the Pole (from “alien” to “other”).

Механизмы циклообразования в эпическом тексте (на материале героического эпоса)

This paper focuses on studying the principle of epic cycle formation used to create large-scale cyclical structures through the accumulation of contextually conditioned works. The principal method of analysis is comparative-typological, and the object of study is the multi-ethnic epic. The variants of multi-part works from the world culture, the epic tradition of the Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, and the collections of Nart legends of the North Caucasian peoples are given as characteristic examples. The author outlines the prerequisites for the formation of a multi-level epic narrative and justifies epic features in folklore texts. A significant vector of research is identifying the structural specific features of the heroic epic and determining the intertextual relations to illustrate the mechanisms of cycle formation in pre-literary samples. The analysis of the poetics of the North Caucasian Nart epic confirms that the texts forming its integrity thematically go back to the original source, continuing the previously outlined narrative line. The study concludes the ethnolinguistic versions of the “Nartiada” to be the result of improvised adaptations through the oral form of text transfer. Such complexly organized cyclical structures guaranteed the preservation of the oral-poetic heritage of the ethnos, synthesizing a colossal amount of information. This integrity encompasses a flexible scheme of epic unfolding, allowing the source material to be altered by additional micro-inclusions. The richness of the Karachays’ and Balkars’ heroic epic testifies to the evolution of the epic thinking of the people, outlining the prospects for the development of cycle formation in the literary genres.