Folklore Research Research Articles

Language in Louisiana: Community and Culture

Language in Louisiana: Community and Culture

СВЯТОЙ & ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЙ ДЕЯТЕЛЬ: МОНУМЕНТЫ "ДВОЙНОГО НАЗНАЧЕНИЯ" В КУЛЬТУРЕ ПАМЯТИ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ

Sculptural monuments to saints are a characteristic phenomenon of the religious and cultural landscape in new Russia. They have already become a mass tradition and moreover strategies of social interactions with monuments characteristic of the current urban environment have spread to them. The latter circumstance is recorded, among other things, in the latest scientific research of urban folklore and anthropology. The article deals with one specific group of monuments to saints which has not yet received special attention. These are monuments to secular persons who were awarded holiness after death, sometimes even after a long period of time. As a rule, these are statesmen or military leaders who have played a significant role in the history of Russia. Many of such monuments combine the features of a civil monument to the hero or the city and of an object of religious worship, accompanied by appropriate symbols and attributes. That combination allows them to perform the functions of ‘dual purpose’: they are used both as ‘Memory space’ in rituals associated with the formation of a certain historical identity and in Orthodox religious ceremonies. Such a duality is expressed not only in the mixing of elements of secular and church commemoration in the public consciousness, but also manifests itself in individual piety in which the representations of the ‘holiness’ of a particular historical person are transferred to the sculptural image.

Причинно-следственные полипредикативные конструкции алтайского языка (на материале художественных и научных текстов)

The structural and semantic types of causal polypredicative constructions of the Altai language and their functioning in artistic and scientific texts are considered. The study material includes artistic works of famous Altai writers and scientific monographs of researchers of folklore and literature in the Altai language. Compared to other conditionality relations, causal relations in the Altai language are expressed by the widest variety of means, including monofinite and bifinite polypredicative constructions. In total, 23 models of causal polypredicative constructions have been identified, with 11 models found in scientific texts. With all the multiplicity of causal indicators, the basic coding tools are constructions with general causal semantics. In literary texts, in oral speech, such construction is a participial construction with a causal-purpose postposition učun ‘because of, for’, in scientific texts - a construction with the causal union neniŋ učun deze ‘because of.’ Depending on the actualization of the semantics of cause or effect, two semantic blocks are distinguished: causal and investigative. Causal constructions are divided into proper causal and non-causal constructions. The actual causal constructions represent real relations that objectively exist regardless of the subject of the action. They include constructions with general causal semantics that can be neutral or complicated by positive or negative evaluative semantics. Non-causal constructions include alternative motivation, emotional and physical response to a stimulus, with the meaning of sanctions and with an inferential meaning. Special attention is paid to constructions conveying mainly temporary, conditional, target, explanatory relations, and only sometimes causal relations.

Teaching Fairy Tales

Teaching Fairy Tales

ГЕНДЕРНА ТА ВІКОВА СУБ'ЄКТНІСТЬ ФОЛЬКЛОРНОГО ТЕКСТОТВОРЕННЯ : ДО ПРОБЛЕМИ ЖАНРОВОГО ПАРАМЕТРУВАННЯ

The article regards gender and age subjectivity as a genre identifier of festive game texts in Ukrainian folklore. Drawing on the previous theoretical studies of the issue, the researchers introduce into folklore discourse little-known data that highlight the prerequisites for the transition of ritual folklore into the realm of cultural game practices. The article objectifies Arnold van Gennep's three-level structure of the rite of passage and studies Ukrainian ritual folklore, which proves that entering a festive event, going through its climax and returning to the profane everyday chronotope regulate a certain ritual marked with a distinct stereotypical behaviour of the actants in ritual practices. In addition, the researchers point out the nature of genre modifications caused by temporal changes in the functional paradigm, desacralized traditional meanings, digression from gender and age standards in relation to text relays, which entails changes of the folklore text. The study reveals the tendency to shift ritual practices, calendar and everyday folklore towards children's game subjectivity as well as the tendency towards the gradual loss of the initial sacral function of the syncretic text, the divergence from gender and age standards of actant in the ritual, the indiscriminate attitude to temporal and spatial parameters of ritual text actualization and simulacrization of the ritual inventory. These features of cultural practices enable the authors conclude that there is a transition from a ritual to a game (ritual → game). The authors extensively use the term 'space of a festive game text in Ukrainian folklore' since they insist on broadening the scope of folklore research as the fundamental branch within the humanities, as a specific dynamic literary system whose constituent categories are subjectivity of a people, a community, an individual as well as content semiotics, transmission of traditional meanings and text narrativity.

ИЗ ИСТОРИИ "АРЕСТОВАННЫХ" ФОЛЬКЛОРНЫХ ТЕКСТОВ В 1930-Е ГГ.: СЛУЧАЙ ПЕСНИ О ЧЕЛЮСКИНЦАХ (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ СЛЕДСТВЕННЫХ ДЕЛ НКВД)

The article analyzes the content of the song about Chelyuskintsy (sung to the tune of “Murka”) and how it spread among the people. The lyrics were kept in the investigation cases initiated by the NKVD Department of the Sverdlovsk Oblast’ in the 1930s. NKVD operatives considered that song to be “counterrevolutionary” and arrested people with the lyrics written down. Analyzing the results of folklore research during Stalin’s day, the author determines the importance of the found archival materials within both the context of political communication of the 1930s and the scientific discussion of the heroic topicality of the Soviet mythology. Comparing the text versions of the song with each other as well as with other versions published earlier, the author identifies both common elements and differences of situational and/or personal nature. The analysis of the style and handwriting, personal and other data of the arrested, the stories of the text “circulation” in the testimonies of both the accused and the witnesses, supplemented by facts from other studies, allows us to conclude about the space and social environment for the “counterrevolutionary” work.

«Экосистемы сюжетов»: эмоциональные и когнитивные модели в современной фольклористике

The article deals with one of the central problems of folklore research, the problem of semantic and syntagmatic stability of narrative plots. Infuential 20th-century theories of folklore have not provided us with a clear and consistent solution. New perspectives for understanding of these processes could be discussed in the context of the ‘meme theory’. In the perspective of memetic approach, viability of tale types is determined by their ‘cognitive adaptability’ and social relevance, rather than stable semantics or ‘historical roots’. Examples from present day popular culture, including the dissemination of the so-called ‘happiness cakes’, seem to point towards a certain symbiosis of memes and biological entities. The paper considers elaboration of memetic approach to culture in relation to the actor-network theory, anthropology of emotions, and cognitive science.

Ethnomusicology of Ukraine at The Turn of XX–XXI Centuries (1991–2021):Centers, Pedagogy, Documentation

The restoration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991 created favorable conditions for the powerful development of domestic ethnomusicology. Ukrainian musical folklore research has a long tradition, but for a hundred years the research has been conducted in difficult historical and political realities. This did not contribute to the proper development of folk music research, especially in the Soviet period. The period 1991–2021 is quite interesting, although difficult and ambiguous. The revival of Ukrainian ethnomusicology began in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, not all initiatives have been continued. Many initiatives had to be stopped due to financial difficulties, political circumstances, lack of sufficient specialists and so on.
 This article was inspired by the need to summarize everything that has been done in Ukrainian musical folklore over the past 30 years, to consider the achievements of Ukrainian ethnomusicology in 1991–2021. Previously, there was no general research on this topic, because various Ukrainian scientists have written about certain aspects of ethnomusicological work and about different time periods in the history of musical folkloristics of the period of independence. The research will be published in two parts: in this issue of the yearbook the main Ukrainian ethnomusicological centers will be presented, the state of domestic ethno-pedagogy will be discussed, documentation (field and archival) of folk music will be considered. The next issue will analyze the scientific, publishing, conference, promotional activities of Ukrainian researchers of folk music.
 Kyiv and Lviv have been the main Ukrainian centers for the study of folk music since the early twentieth century. The same is true today: the basic Ukrainian ethnomusical centers are the Rylsky Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology (IAFE) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music of Ukraine and the Lysenko Lviv National Academy of Music. Research Scientific Laboratory of Music Ethnology and Departments of musical folklore were opened in both Academies in the early 1990s. Well-known scientists, doctors of science and PhD, and their junior colleagues work in these centers. Publishing activity is developing: encyclopedias, monographs, folklore collections, collections of articles, periodicals are published. Kyiv and Lviv higher music institutions publish the only in Ukraine purely ethnomusicological yearbooks of scientific articles and materials – «Problems of music ethnology» and «Ethnomusic». Regional ethnomusicological centers operate in many cities of Ukraine – Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, Sumy, Rivne, Uzhgorod, etc.
 During the period of Independence, ethnomusicological education was actively developing. The two main areas are the education of ethnomusicologists-theorists and ethnomusicologists-practitioners, leaders of folklore ensembles. The first ones are prepared mainly by Kyiv and Lviv Music academies, where various specialized disciplines are taught. The second is taught in higher educational institutions of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Rivne, Sumy.
 An important area of activity of almost all Ukrainian ethnomusicological centers in the period of Independence was the documentation of folk music: the collection of musical folklore, transcription and archiving. Folk music was most actively collected in the early 1990s, but over time this work has slowed down, in part because authentic tradition is dying out and living in the passive memory of performers. Today the largest archives of folk music are in IAFE and Kyiv and Lviv Music academies. Archival collections are actively digitized, some materials can be found on the Internet – both on special sites-archives of folk music, and YouTube channels, which usually refer to the different ethnomusical centers. The main prospect of Ukrainian archivists engaged in musical folklore is the creation of the Central Electronic Archive of Ukrainian Folklore

Terminological Arsenal of Ukrainian Folkloristics: the Contribution of Oleksii Dei (On the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Scholar’s Birthday)

The article is dedicated to the centenary of birthday of an outstanding Ukrainian scholar Oleksii Dei. His biography, contribution to the research of folklore are reflected. It is emphasized on the formation of a young scientist as a researcher of I. Franko’s folkloristic activity. The significance of O. Dei as an organizer of scientific studies, instructor of projects, head of the Folkloristics Department of IASFE, editor-in-chief of the journal Folk Art and Ethnography is described briefly. Such aspects of scientist’s activity are called, as participation in international symposiums, forums of slavists, conferences; training of scientific cadres, official opponing of theses, creation of Kyiv scientific academic school of folkloristic researches. O. Dei work as a member of Scientific and the Specialized Scientific Councils at the M. Rylskyi IASFE of the AS of Ukraine, T. Shevchenko KSU is shown. O. Dei as a compiler and editor has taken an active part in the preparation and publication of literary heritage and works of I. Franko in 50 volumes, Lesia Ukrainka in 12 volumes, M. Rylskyi in 20 volumes, Ukrainian Literary Encyclopedia in 5 volumes, publication of the series Folk Art of the Dnipro Publishing House in 15 volumes, the series Ukrainian Folk Songs Recorded by the Writers in 20 collections. He is the author of chapters and articles in the History of the Ukrainian SSR, Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia. O. Dei has promoted actively Ukrainian folklore in periodicals, on the radio, in a special program about Ukrainian folk songs Word – Song on Ukrainian TV. O. Dei has devoted many pages of his scientific works to the figure, literary and artistic heritage of T. Shevchenko, the image of the poet in folklore, the problem of folklore and literature. The scholar’s interpretation of folkloristic terms legend, traditional story, ballad is considered. Attention is paid to O. Dei views on the problems of classification of Ukrainian folklore, songs of Slavic peoples, history of Ukrainian Folkloristics. His contribution to the voluminous series Ukrainian Folk Art as the editorial board’s chairperson, editor-in-chief, compiler is analyzed. His monographic works Poetics of Ukrainian Folk Song, Ukrainian Folk Ballad, which are still relevant in the scientific folkloristic discourse, are mentioned.

Lexical meanings and folklore interpretation of stones in Boris Ukachin's Poetry

The article is devoted to the study of the names of stones in the Altai language and its dialects; the lexical and semantic classification of stones is identified and described; folklore research and interpretation of stones in the literary texts of Altai writers, in particular in the poem by Boris Ukachin, is carried out. Based on the material of his poem, a historical and linguistic analysis of the ethnocultural vocabulary of the Altai language is given. The cult of stones is one of the most ancient in the history of mankind. This problem has been little studied and requires further research. There are about fifty types of stones in the Altai language. All of them have names depending on their purpose, use. In many Altai legends and legends, they play an important role, have magical and medicinal properties. According to the authors, the names of stones are widely and variously represented in the work of B. Ukachin. Many of them are common for the vast majority of Turkic languages, which is quite justified historically and testifies to cultural traditions

Geographical Distribution of the Traditional Dance Culture in Mezőség

Abstract The exact definition of the Mezőség/Câmpia Transilvaniei/Transylvanian Plain, hereafter Plain, as a region with an independent folk culture having a coherent internal structure is still a subject of debate among ethnographers. Some of them regard certain small regions (Borsa/Borșa Valley, Kis and Nagy Szamos/Someșul Mic și Someșul Mare etc.) as belonging to the Mezőség/Plain, while others do not. I distinguish a central group of the villages in the Mezőség/Plain region (Belső-Mezőség or Central Plain: e.g. Visa/Vișea, Magyarpalatka/Pălatca, Katona/Cătina, Pusztakamarás/Cămăraşu) from the rest of the territory, similarly to György Martin, István Pávai and László Barabás, relying on material culture and folklore research, as well as my own investigations. When advancing outward from this core area, the concentric circle of so-called peripheral areas follow (the West, North, East and South Plain/Mezőség), reaching the boundaries on the edges of the region: Nagy Szamos/Someșul Mare Valley, Lápos/Lăpuș Valley, Sajó/Șieu Valley, Maros/Mureş Valley, Marosszéki1 Mezőség/Mureș Seat Plain, Erdőalja/Sub Pădure area, Borsa/Borșa Valley, and Kis Szamos/Someșul Mic Valley. A further, smaller group of villages can be distinguished in the area of Belső-Mezőség/Central Plain by their dance and music culture; for the regular weekend dance events of these villages, organised by local youths in the 1960s, Roma musicians of Magyarpalatka/Pălatca would play the music. I assign the name Palatka dance district to this area in my paper.

The untold subgenre

Abstract The history of international folklore research has seen several attempts to systematise the folklore texts. The (fairy) tale research has been the most productive, with nearly one hundred national tale catalogues available as well as the international tale catalogue at its fourth, improved edition. In contrast to tale and other epic genre (ballad, exemplum), the last 110 years of legend research have resulted in only a handful of books that systematised the folk heritage of the genre. Apart from a dozen of catalogues of aetiological and belief legends, until the publication of the Hungarian book series The Catalogue of Hungarian Historical Legends I‒XI, 2018, no comprehensive type- or motif index of national legends was available. This study is a review of the international pursuits in the European folklore research directed to systematise historical legends, which, to date, due to various reasons, have been only partially successful.

Initial Stages and Origins of the Theory of Folk Art

The article is devoted to understanding the origins of the formation and development of the theory of folk art. The relevance of the topic is determined by the existing contradiction: on the one hand, the positioning of folk art and traditional folk art crafts as an important part of the national artistic culture, an independent field of art criticism, which can be seen in legal documents, popular science literature and scientific works of the 20th century, and, on the other hand, the limited range of modern research in this area, insufficient development of the theoretical aspect of this issue.Based on the analysis of a wide range of sources, the author identifies five stages of the formation of the theory of folk art (the beginning of the 18th century — 1870s; 1870—1910s; 1917—1930s; 1930—1990s; 1990—2020s), gives a brief description of them, and names the main results of studying each of the periods. The provisions of the theory of folk art were most fully and systematically formulated and justified by M.A. Nekrasova in the 1980s.The article considers the process of forming interest in works of folk art in the middle of the 18th — the last third of the 19th century, and in the next period of “initial accumulation of facts” (until the 1910s), as the first experience of developing scientific approaches to the analysis of the specifics of folk art. The author reveals the significance of Peter the Great’s transformations in the field of culture for the formation of public interest in the traditions of Russian culture; defines the Russian folklore researchers’ contribution (songs, rituals, fairy tales) to drawing attention to the problems of preserving national features of Russian culture and their interpretation in works of literature; describes the activities of artists, critics, and public figures in creating the first collections of folk art, their analysis and description from a scientific point of view.

MORE ON THE STUDY OF THE FOLKLORE TRADITION OF KARELIANS

The article is a review of scholarly works by Karelian folklore researcher, Cand. Sci. (Philology), Merited Scientist of Karelia Alexandra Stepanovna Stepanova. Her biography is briefly presented, the collecting and scientific activity of the researcher is examined, the contribution to the study of the Karelian lamentation tradition and folk culture as a whole is analyzed in the article. A. S. Stepanova made more than fifty expedition trips to the various regions of Karelia during her working at the ILLH KRC RAS, she recorded language and folklore-ethnographic material from representatives of all groups of Karelians living both in the Republic of Karelia and in the neighbouring territories. She is the author of a number of scientific collections, monographs and more than 50 articles. She introduced the samples of the Karelian lamentations into the scientific circulation for the first time, as well as their translations into Russian. A special merit of A. S. Stepanova consists in compiling the “Dictionary of the language of Karelian lamentations”, the appearance of which has set a new direction in Karelian science - linguistic folkloristics. Nowadays, the researcher’s scientific works stay relevant among the scientific community both in Russia and abroad. The honorary titles of a foreign corresponding member of the Society of Finnish Literature (Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura), of the Kalevala Society (Kalevalaseura), of the Finno-Ugric Society (Suomalais-ugrilainen seura) are the evidences of this. Scientific collections and anthologies on Karelian folklore are actively used for the study of the native (Karelian) language, oral folk art and folk culture in the universities and schools of the Republic of Karelia. In addition, Stepanova’s books are popular among all the people who express the interest in the folk culture.

Фолклорът в контекста на литературното обучение (според действащата учебна програма по литература за V клас)

The article aims to present basic theoretical problems connected with studying folklore in the secondary stage of Bulgarian schools. The first part offers a brief diachronic review of the theoretical paradigm of Bulgarian folklore research, presenting the transition from the narrow philological understanding of folklore as “national poetic creativity” towards its wide sociological interpretation as “a type of creative culture”. In the second part of the article two curricula for the fifth grade, in which folklore is a key component, are analysed and compared – the one from 2007/2010 academic years and the current one, implemented since 2016/2017. The main goal of this part is to demonstrate how and how much the Literature curricula offer an opportunity for studying folklore in alignment with current theoretical stipulations in Bulgarian folklore research.

“The people’s wisdom” and the 2011 Egyptian Revolution: folklore, colloquial poetry, and subalternity in Shaima’ al-Sabbagh’s praxis

This virtually inaugural scholarly study of the activist Shaima’ al-Sabbagh (1983–2015) documents and analyzes three areas of her production in relation to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The argument is made that her colloquial poetry, folklore research and support of subalternity worked in synergy together. Foregrounding the folk imaginaries that the revolution drew on, al-Sabbagh identified a fundamental gap in that event between bourgeois intellectuals/activists and subalterns. Seminal pedagogies she was in the process of devising to close that gap and creative projects to empower labor actors are analyzed in relation to Antonio Gramsci’s views on folklore and his “philosophy of praxis.” These projects benefited from al-Sabbagh’s apprenticeship in the popular, at both the grassroots and academic levels, including her involvement in aragoz (hand-held puppet theater). Al-Sabbagh’s texts, among them manuscripts, as well as video and audio recordings of her, are cited; additionally, interviews about her have been conducted.

Web Platform for Folklore Research Based on Domain Ontology

In this paper, we take a close look at a web platform that provides the tools necessary for working with folklore materials and conducting scientific research based on them. Folklore studies consist of working with audio and video materials, which contain the reproduction of elements of folk art in national languages, creating specific text recordings with translation and comments, written in a public language, and building a picture of the worlds based on available resources. To structure and present this content, we use an ontology-based approach, which allows linguists to describe not only the resources, but also subject knowledge in the Semantic Web style, i.e. using hierarchies of classes, objects and relationships between them. The main feature of folklore research is the need for synchronization of translations, which is achieved by creating a parallel corpora of texts, and the ability to label texts with entities of the subject area, which is called semantic markup. Moreover, each corpus is connected with a certain nationality and has both its own national language and unique system of concepts of the world around it. Such representation imposes many non-standard requirements for the platform, such as working with arbitrary languages, supporting many ontologies, ensuring the creation and editing of national subject ontologies, semantic text markup, presentation, navigation, and search across heterogeneous resources. The developed platform provides all the necessary tools for research, including tools for the development of ontologies in specific national subject areas and manual annotation of texts in real time by several specialists. Resources of the web-platform are located in the resource ontology, which includes such concepts as corpus, video resource, audio resource, graphic image, person, geographical location, genre of text, etc. Ontologies of subject areas are presented in the form of a hierarchy, where the ontology of universals, common to all folklore studies, is located at the top level. At the same time, inherited ontologies are specialized for each represented national corpus. The web application is built with Python Django framework and the TypeScript React library. Data storage is implemented using the Postgres database.

Candi Merak: Antara Peninggalan, Pelestarian, dan Harapan (Sebuah Kajian Filologi)

Many folk stories are recorded in book form (manuscripts), but some are still in verbal form (oral stories). To facilitate and increase the provision of data sources on local wisdom in the form of books (manuscripts), it is necessary to carry out an inventory of these texts, one of which is an inventory of the legend of the origin of the name Merak Temple which is located in Karangnongko District, Klaten Regency. Departing from the above statement, this study aims to inventory the folklore about the origin of the name Merak Temple which is located in Candi Dukuh, Karangnongko Village, Karangnongko District, Klaten Regency. This research uses qualitative methods, namely research conducted to understand what is experienced by research subjects holistically, descriptively in the form of words and language, in a natural and scientific context. This method is used to analyze the legendary text of the origin of the name of the Merak temple. This research is a folklore research. Basically, this research begins with an inventory of the legendary stories in the form of manuscripts. Furthermore, the legend manuscript becomes the object of research, from reading the text of the legend of the origin of the peacock temple, it can be described the data which is the source of local wisdom in it, namely pamali (taboo / taboo) and recommendations contained in the text. The results showed that pamali or taboo is an expression of prohibition that arises in connection with the existence of the Merak Temple in Pura Karangnongko Hamlet. Pamali is trusted and believed by the hamlet community around Candi Merak as a rule that must be obeyed. Pamali found regarding the existence of the Merak Temple in the dukuh community was the prohibition of acting immoral or saying dirty, disrespectful words, spitting, throwing garbage (feces) around the temple. If the prohibition is violated, it will result in the person concerned being injured / unluck.
 Keywords: merak temple, local wisdom, folklor, pamali

In Search of Folk Wedding Songs: A Woman Researcher’s Challenges in Family Folkloric Studies

This research gives an insight into the difficulties of doing family folkloric research in documenting folk wedding songs in the Rajput community of Bhakkar, Pakistan. I have gathered and analyzed 84 folk wedding songs taken from women of that community-majority by those who are my relatives. To overcome these drawbacks, I employed certain strategies like compromise, collaboration, and negotiation. These tactics would often prove very important to maintain rapport while doing research with people when research is going on in relation to folklore. The findings discuss challenges that are encountered in the process of folklore studies with the family context, which "require an adaptable approach." In this study, my experience in family folklore research has been very inclusive of unique challenges such as research encounters and developed insights on how to cope with them effectively in such situations.

Folklore and Politics: Inherent Connections and Entrenched Stigmas

The author of the article tackles the long-neglected issue of relationship between folklore and politics. This problem is so heavily underresearched in Lithuanian folkloristics that one can draw only on the works by foreign colleagues or on interdisciplinary studies. This poses the main question to deal with in the current article: why is political nature of folklore and its research ignored or even stigmatized in the Lithuanian folklore studies?“Everyone has known since the Grimms that folklore is politics”, Linda Dégh stated over two decades ago (1999: 527). True, folklore as a notion and as a discipline appeared along with the concept of nationalism, both serving the independence of oppressed nations. The development of folklore collection, publication, archiving, and promotion, along with related institutions, was initially meant to serve formation of the national states and fostering of their identity. Therefore, these processes have been quite similar in different countries, especially those of the Central and Eastern Europe, characterized by similar history and economic development. Indeed, popular traditions and historic folklore may be conceived as product of agrarian-pastoral culture; creative forms an expressions elaborated by peasants have been for decades considered the only and true folklore. However, only educated people, descendants of the enriched peasant class, were able to shape the traditions of their ancestors into a coherent whole to serve the national ideology and use it as means of gaining power.Power relations have come into play especially from the middle of the 20th century, when folklore was selectively used by authoritarian regimes (including Nazis, Soviets, and others) to serve their needs, primarily – to legitimize their existence and policies by demonstrating that these regimes were “natural climax of a historical process” (Mugniani 2016: 25). Numerous abuses and distortions of folklore by authoritarian regimes in many ways tarnished it in the eyes of the contemporaries and descendants; e.g., even the term “folk” has acquired negative significance in many post-Soviet countries. According to the author, the current negative attitude towards any associations of folklore with politics (or ideology) in Lithuania may partly be the result of the previous abuse of folklore by the Soviet authorities.Another reason for this stigmatization of politics in the context of folklore research may be a misconstrued striving for scholarly objectivity: folklore researchers are supposed to display maximum impartiality in collecting and analyzing their data. However, this imperative is practically impossible to implement; as shown by the author, folklore is part of the current media and social discourse in many ways. Its nature is dialogical, discursive, so it can be used or adapted to argue for or against various relevant issues, to educate society, to shape its attitudes and opinions, or simply to liven up communication. Folklore has always been means of cultural communication, and its ambivalent functioning can be properly appreciated only by taking into account the multiple power relations in a given society.