And in proppa are the historical roots of the fairy tale. Presentation: Historical roots of a fairy tale

Vladimir Propp is a famous scientist, researcher of Russian folk tales. He is the author of unique works on philology. Modern researchers consider him the founder of text theory.

Parents of the philologist

Vladimir Propp is a native Petersburger, he was born in April 1895. His real name is Herman Voldemar. His father was a wealthy peasant from the Volga region, a native of the Volgograd region. By education he was a philologist, a specialist in Russian and German literature. Graduated from Petrograd University.

Propp's father taught German to students at St. Petersburg higher educational institutions. When the First World War began, he took a direct part in it, working as an orderly and a brother of mercy.

Childhood and youth

After the October Revolution, the family moved temporarily to live on a farm. However, Vladimir Propp visited his parents only a few times. In 1919, his father died after a long illness. Vladimir came to the funeral, and then stayed for a while to work on the land in the farm itself. Not finding himself in peasant labor, he got a job as a school teacher in the village of Goly Karamysh, which was located 70 kilometers from the farm. Now this is the city of Krasnoarmeysk in the Saratov region. But soon Vladimir Propp returned to Leningrad.

In 1929, the Propp family was dispossessed. All property, the main owner of which at that time was his mother, Anna Fridrikhovna, was transferred as an ultimatum to the collective farm named after Stalin.

Teaching work

In 1932, Propp went to work at Leningrad University, after 5 years he became an associate professor, and in 1938 a professor. At this time he was working at the department of Romance-Germanic philology, folklore and Russian literature. From 1963 to 1964 he worked as head of the department. He also taught at the Faculty of History for about three years; his lectures were a success at the Department of Ethnography and Anthropology.

Morphology of a fairy tale

Vladimir Propp entered Russian philology as the author of a literary work. "Morphology of a Fairy Tale" was published in 1928. In it, the author examines in detail the structure of a magical work. This is perhaps the most popular study of Russian folklore in the 20th century. In his work, Propp breaks down the tale into its component parts and explores the relationship of each of them to each other. Studying folk art, he notes the presence of constant and variable quantities in fairy tales; the former include the functions inherent in the main characters, as well as the sequence in which they are implemented.

What is Vladimir Propp trying to say in his work? "Morphology of a Fairy Tale" formulates several basic principles. First, the main constituent parts are formed by permanent elements. They serve as functions for the actors. Secondly, the number of such functions in a fairy tale is strictly limited. Thirdly, they all develop in the same sequence. True, such a pattern is present only in folklore works, and modern works do not follow it. Fourthly, fairy tales are of the same type in their structure. Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp refers to variable quantities as the quantity and methods by which functions are realized. As well as the language style and attributes of the characters.

Functions of a fairy tale

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp argues that the functions of a fairy tale ultimately constitute a single composition, the core for the entire genre. Only the details of the plots differ. As a result of enormous work, Propp identifies 31 functions. All of them are present in Russian folk tales. Most of them are located in pairs, for example, a prohibition is always opposed by its violation, a struggle is always opposed to a victory, and after persecution there is always a happy salvation.

The number of characters in Russian fairy tales is also limited. There are always no more than 7 of them. Propp includes the main character, the saboteur (his antipode), the sender, the donor, the assistant to the main character, the princess and the false hero. Taking into account all these factors, in the end we get a classic work that has a name - a Russian fairy tale. Propp insists that they are all versions of a fairy tale.

Fairy tale

In 1946, another book by Propp, “Historical Roots of a Fairy Tale,” was published by the Leningrad publishing house. In it, he dwells in detail on the hypothesis expressed by the French ethnographer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Emile Nurri. According to it, in folk tales there are often references to the performance of a sacrament to which the main character undergoes, in other words, initiation. The very structure of most Russian folk tales has the same character.

Also, analyzing the “Historical roots of a fairy tale, Propp considers the meaning of the premises, looks for references to the social institutions of the past in the works, and finds a rethinking of many rituals. The Russian folklorist notes that the main task is to establish what the rituals described in the fairy tale refer to - to a specific stage of development of society, or they are not associated with a specific historical period.

Examples of initiations

The classic example Propp gives is totemic initiations. They were completely inaccessible to women, but at the same time, in Russian fairy tales such initiation occurs with Baba Yaga, an old witch, one of the main negative characters of folklore. Thus, this character fits into the hypothesis about the ritual genesis of Russian fairy tales. Baba Yaga in this case acts as an initiating hero.

Propp concludes that fairy tales do not have a specific historical or cultural period. Styles and cycles in folk art constantly collide and mix with each other. At the same time, only classical patterns of behavior that could be present in many historical eras are preserved.

Evidence that fairy tales originate from oral traditions, which are passed down by word of mouth during initiation rites, is that the motives and functions of the characters are identical in the cultures of completely different peoples, often living thousands of kilometers from each other.

In addition, Propp cites ethnographic data as evidence. He was also directly related to this science. He demonstrates how oral traditions, passed from father to son, over time took shape into the tales we know so well. Thus, based on these ideas, he comes to the conclusion about the unity of the origin of all fairy tales among all peoples of the world. A striking example of this conclusion is Russian folk fairy tales.

Another important work for understanding the significance of Propp in Russian philology is “Russian Agrarian Holidays.” In this monograph, the author examines most Slavic holidays, customs and beliefs, coming to the conclusion that almost all of them are agricultural in nature.

Heroic epic

In 1955, Propp published a monograph entitled “Russian This is a very interesting and original study, which, however, was not republished for a long time after 1958. The work became available to a wide range of readers only in the 2000s. This is one of the author’s largest works in terms of volume Moreover, critics note not only its scientific, but also its moral significance.It was relevant at that time, and remains the same today.

"Russian heroic epic" is a comparison of the features of epics from different eras, a detailed analysis of epics. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that the basis of such works is the struggle for the spiritual ideals of the people themselves. A distinctive feature of epic works is their saturation with patriotic spirit and educational motives.

Authors from the people put the most important thing into epic works - morality, folk epic. It is a direct reflection of the moral consciousness of the society in which it was created. Propp insists that the basis of Russian epics is not foreign, but exclusively domestic stories and legends.

Another important aspect of the epic is its poetry. Thanks to her, the works are interesting and perceived by listeners and readers with any level of education. In a broad sense, for a people, epic is an integral part of its history. The epics personify the inner experiences of the people, their desire to live freely, independently and happily.

Propp's monograph allows you to get acquainted in detail with epic works, starting from ancient times. All unclear points are explained in detail here.

Major works

In addition to the above, among the main works of Vladimir Propp, literary scholars highlight the monograph “Russian Fairy Tale,” published only in 1984, a decade and a half after the author’s death.

It is also worth noting the work “Folklore and Reality”, published in the journal “Science” in 1989 and published in 1999 in the capital’s publishing house “Labyrinth”. In addition, the publication "Problems of comedy and laughter. Ritual laughter in folklore" was published. This work provides a detailed and thorough analysis of the tale of Nesmeyan with an unexpected literary interpretation.

At the end of life

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (1895-1970) is an outstanding philologist, Doctor of Science, who managed to do a lot during his life and is still considered the largest and most authoritative researcher of Russian fairy tales. His works and monographs are published in universities; literary scholars take them as a basis when creating their own studies and dissertations. Vladimir Propp lived all his life in Leningrad. He died in the city on the Neva on August 22, 1970 at the age of 75. After himself, he left many students and followers who still appreciate and remember his achievements. Among them: Cherednikova, Shakhnovich and Becker.

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Book: Propp, V.Ya. Historical roots of a fairy tale / V.Ya. Propp. - ed. 4th. - M: Labyrinth, 2000. - 336 p.

Annotation: Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp is a classic of the 20th century humanities, a folklorist, one of the founders of semiotics and structuralism. Studying fairy tales, V.Ya. Propp noticed that their plots follow the same pattern. The hero of a fairy tale leaves home, then meets a helper who gives him a wonderful gift, then the hero is harmed, he is given a difficult task, etc. Propp traced the genetic roots, the basis of this scheme, connecting it with ethnographic materials and primitive mythology. He saw this basis in initiation rites. He connected with them not individual plots, motifs or characters, but the entire genre of fairy tales as a whole. According to V.Ya. Propp, the plot scheme of a fairy tale goes back to the explanatory myth of initiation, and its “existence” - to the dramatization of myths when teaching beginners.

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Table of contents
PREFACE
Chapter I. BACKGROUND
1. Main question
2. Importance of premises
3. Highlighting fairy tales
4. A fairy tale as a phenomenon of a superstructural nature
5. Fairy tale and social institutions of the past
6. Fairy tale and ritual
7. Direct correspondence between fairy tale and ritual
8. Rethinking the ritual with a fairy tale
9. Conversion rite
10. Fairy tale and myth
11. Fairy tale and primitive thinking
12. Genetics and history
13. Method and material
14. Fairy tale and post-fairy tale formations
15. Prospects
Chapter II. TIE
I. Children in prison
1. Absenteeism
2. Prohibitions related to absence
3. Frazer on the isolation of kings
4. Isolation of the royal children in the fairy tale
5. The girl's conclusion
6. Motivation for the conclusion
7. Results
II. Trouble and opposition
8. Trouble
9. Equipment for the hero's journey
Chapter III. MYSTERIOUS FOREST
1. Further composition of the tale. Getting the Magic Remedy
2. Types of yaga
3. Rite of Passage
4. Forest
5. Hut on chicken legs
6. Fu, fu, fu
7. Gave me something to drink and feed
8. Bone leg
9. Yaga's blindness
10. Mistress of the Forest
11. Yaga tasks
12. Sleep test
13. Children expelled and taken into the forest
14. Kidnapped children
15. Lost
16. Bila-bila
17. Madness
18. Severed finger
19. Signs of death
20. Temporary death
21. Chopped and revived
22. Yagi oven
23. Tricky science
24. Magic gift
25. Yaga - mother-in-law
26. Travesty
27. Conclusion
Chapter IV. BIG HOUSE
I. Forest Brotherhood
1. House in the forest
2. Big house and small hut.
3. Set table
4. Brothers
5. Hunters
6. Robbers
7. Distribution of responsibilities
8. "Sister"
9. Birth of a child
10. Beauty in the coffin
11. Cupid and Psyche
12. Wife at her husband's wedding
13. Unwashed
14. Dunno
15. Bald and covered with a sheath
16. Husband at his wife's wedding
17. Prohibition of boasting
18. 3secret closet
19. 3 conclusion
II. Afterlife donors
20. Dead father
21. Dead mother
22. The Grateful Dead
23. Death's Head
24. Conclusion
III. Donor-helpers
25. Grateful animals
26. Copper Forehead
27. Ransomed captives, debtors, etc.
Chapter V. MAGIC GIFTS
I. Magic Helper
1. Assistants
2. Transformed hero
3. Eagle
4. Winged horse
5. Feeding the horse
6. Grave horse
7. Rejected and exchanged horse
8. Horse in the basement
9. Horse suit
10. Fiery nature of the horse
11. Horse and stars
12. Horse and water
13. Some other helpers
14. Development of ideas about the assistant
II. Magic item
15. Item and assistant
16. Claws, hair, skins, teeth
17. Items-tools
18. Items that summon spirits
19. Flint
20. Stick
21. Items that give eternal abundance
22. Living and dead, weak and strong water
23. Dolls
24. Conclusion
Chapter VI. CROSSING
1. Crossing as a compositional element
2. Crossing in the form of an animal
3. Sewing into the skin
4. Bird
5. On horseback
6. On the ship
7. On wood
8. By stairs or straps
9. With the help of a counselor
10. Conclusion
Chapter VII. BY THE RIVER OF FIRE
I. Snake in a fairy tale
1. The form of a serpent
2. Connection with water in a fairy tale
3. Connection with the mountains
4. 3mey the kidnapper
5. Snake Extortion
6. Serpent guardian of borders
7. Serpent-devourer
8. Danger of sleep
9. The Original Enemy
10. Fight
11. Literature about the snake
12. Prevalence of snake fighting
II. Serpent-devourer
13. Ritual absorption and coughing up
14. The meaning and basis of this ritual
15. Bird tongue
16. Diamonds
17. Absorber-transporter
18. Fighting fish as the first stage of snake fighting
19. Traces of absorption in late cases of snake fighting
20. Conclusion
III. Hero in a Barrel
21. Carrier boat
IV. Snake Snatcher
22. Form of a serpent
23. Death the Snatcher
24. Introducing an erotic moment
25. Abduction in myths
V. Water Serpent
26. Water nature of the snake
27. Extortion of the snake
28. Myths
VI. The serpent and the kingdom of the dead
29. Serpent Guardian
30. Kerber
31. Transfer of the serpent to heaven
32. The guard role of the heavenly serpent; Yakuts
33. Serpent in Egypt
34. Psychostasia
35. Connection of the serpent with birth
36. The death of the serpent from the serpent
37. Conclusion
Chapter VIII. FAR NINE EARTHS
I. The Thirtieth Kingdom in a fairy tale
1. Locality
2. Connection with the sun
3. Gold
4. Three Kingdoms
5. Theriomorphism of the thirtieth kingdom
II. That light
6. Early forms of the other world
7. The mouth and the pushing mountains
8. Crystal
9. Land of abundance
10. Solar kingdom
11. Antiquity
Chapter IX. BRIDE
I. Seal of the princess
1. Two types of princess
2. Branding a hero
II. Difficult tasks
3. Difficult tasks
4. National cry
5. Tasks in response to matchmaking
6. The tasks of the escaped and newly found princess
7. The tasks of the princess kidnapped by false heroes
8. Vodyanoy’s tasks
9. 3tasks of a teacher-sorcerer
10. Hostile father-in-law
11. Tasks given to the old king
12. Search tasks
13. Palace, garden, bridge
14. Bathhouse test
15. Food challenge
16. Competitions
17. Hide and seek
18. Find out what you are looking for
19. Wedding night
20. Preliminary conclusions
III. A Hero's Reign
21. Frazer on the change of kings
22. Succession to the throne in a fairy tale
23. Old age
24. Oracles
25. The killing of the king in a fairy tale
26. False Hero
27. Rope Bridge
28. Boiling milk
29. Conclusion
IV. Magical escape
30. Escape in a fairy tale
31. Escape with throwing a comb, etc.
32. Escape with transformations
33. Transformation of snakes into wells, apple trees, etc.
34. Flight and pursuit with successive transformations
35. Decisive obstacle
Chapter X. THE TALE AS A WHOLE
1. Unity of a fairy tale
2. Fairy tale as a genre

Textual commentary
Literature Cited
Abbreviations
Character Index

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The proposed work is provided with an introductory chapter, and therefore the preface can be limited to some technical remarks.

The book often contains references to fairy tales or excerpts from them. These excerpts should be considered as illustrations and not as evidence. Behind the example lies a more or less common phenomenon. When analyzing the phenomenon, one should give not one or two illustrations, but all available cases. However, this would reduce the book to an index that would be larger than the entire work. This difficulty could be circumvented by reference to existing indexes of plots or motifs. However, on the one hand, the distribution of fairy tales by plot and plot by motive, adopted in these indexes, is often very arbitrary; on the other hand, references to fairy tales appear several hundred times in the book, and it would be necessary to provide references to the indexes several hundred times. All this forced me to abandon the tradition of giving a type number for every plot. The reader will understand that the materials provided are samples.

The same applies to examples from the field of customs, rituals, cults, etc. All the given facts are nothing more than examples, the number of which could be arbitrarily increased or decreased, the given examples could be replaced by others. Thus, the book does not report any new facts, only the connection established between them is new, and it is the center of gravity of the entire book.

It is necessary to make another reservation regarding the method of presentation. The motifs of a fairy tale are so closely related to each other that, as a rule, not a single motif can be understood in isolation. It has to be presented in parts. Therefore, at the beginning of the book there are often references to what will still be developed, and from the second half - to what has already been stated above.

The book is one whole and should not be read from the middle for reference on individual topics.

In this book the reader will not find an analysis of many of the motives that he has the right to look for in such work. Much did not fit in it. The emphasis is on the analysis of the main, most important fairy-tale images and motifs, the rest has been partly published before and is not repeated here, and partly, perhaps, will appear in the form of separate essays in the future.

The work came out of the walls of the Leningrad Order of Lenin State University. Many of my workmates supported me, willingly sharing their knowledge and experience. I especially owe a lot to the corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, prof. Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoy, who gave me valuable instructions both on the ancient material I used and on general issues of the work. I offer him my deepest and sincere gratitude.

Chapter I. Background

1. Main question

What does it mean to specifically research a fairy tale, where to start? If we limit ourselves to comparing fairy tales with each other, we will remain within the framework of comparativism. We want to expand the scope of our study and find the historical basis that brought the fairy tale to life. This is the task of studying the historical roots of a fairy tale, formulated so far in the most general terms.

At first glance, it seems that there is nothing new in the formulation of this problem. Historically, there have been attempts to study folklore before. Russian folkloristics knew a whole historical school headed by Vsevolod Miller. Thus, Speransky says in his course on Russian oral literature: “When studying the epic, we try to guess the historical fact that underlies it, and, starting from this assumption, we prove the identity of the plot of the epic with some event known to us or their circle "(Speransky 222). We will neither guess historical facts nor prove their identity with folklore. For us, the question is fundamentally different. We want to explore what phenomena (not events) of the historical past the Russian fairy tale corresponds to and to what extent it actually conditions and causes it. In other words, our goal is to find out the sources of the fairy tale in historical reality. The study of the genesis of a phenomenon is not yet the study of the history of this phenomenon. The study of history cannot be carried out immediately - this is a matter of many years, the work of more than one person, it is a matter of generations, a matter of the Marxist folkloristics that is emerging in our country. The study of genesis is the first step in this direction. This is the main question posed in this work.

2. Importance of premises

Each researcher proceeds from some prerequisites that he has before he starts work. Veselovsky, back in 1873, pointed out the need, first of all, to understand one’s positions and to be critical of one’s method (Veselovsky 1938, 83-128). Using the example of Gubernatis's book "Zoological Mythology", Veselovsky showed how the lack of self-examination leads to false conclusions, despite all the erudition and combinatorial abilities of the author of the work.

Here we should give a critical outline of the history of the study of fairy tales. We won't do this. The history of the study of the fairy tale has been outlined more than once, and we do not need to list the works. But if we ask ourselves why there are still no completely solid and universally accepted results, we will see that this often happens precisely because the authors proceed from false premises.

The so-called mythological school proceeded from the premise that the external similarity of two phenomena, their external analogy testifies to their historical connection. Thus, if the hero grows by leaps and bounds, then the hero’s rapid growth supposedly responds to the rapid growth of the sun rising on the horizon (Frobenius 1898, 242). Firstly, however, the sun does not increase for the eyes, but decreases, and secondly, an analogy is not the same as a historical connection.

One of the premises of the so-called Finnish school was the assumption that the forms that occur more often than others are also inherent in the original form of the plot. Not to mention the fact that the theory of plot archetypes itself requires proof, we will have occasion to repeatedly see that the most archaic forms are very rare, and that they are often replaced by new ones that have become widespread (Nikiforov 1926).

There are a lot of such examples that can be cited, and in most cases it is not at all difficult to find out the fallacy of the premises. The question arises: why didn’t the authors themselves see their mistakes, which were so clear to us? We will not blame them for these mistakes - the greatest scientists made them; the fact is that they often could not think differently, that their thoughts were determined by the era in which they lived and the class to which they belonged. In most cases, the question of prerequisites was not even raised, and the voice of the brilliant Veselovsky, who himself repeatedly revised his premises and retrained himself, remained a voice crying in the wilderness.

For us, this implies that we need to carefully check our premises before starting the study.

At the same time, there is a significant difference between the two approaches: Meletinsky proposes to consider action as the basis of motive; Propp starts from the properties of the creature or object being studied. In other words, Meletinsky considers motives as predicates of action, and Propp in “Historical Roots...” studies predicates of state. It can be noted that Propp's presentation corresponds to modern ideas that formed the basis of object programming (OP). In the OP, the main element of the program is not an action, but an object that can perform specified actions and has certain properties.

All of V. Ya. Propp’s works, as many researchers note, are written very clearly, logically and convincingly, which is greatly facilitated by the fact that the scientist constantly explains the methods he uses. For example, V.I. Eremina writes:

In the diversity of the material, in the variety of problems associated with its study, V. Ya. Propp always sought to reveal the unity, understand the system, and find the direction in which structural, genetic or historical research could be carried out. The method of analyzing folklore works emerges clearly from his works, and yet V. Ya. Propp considered it his duty to explain to the reader again and again the principles on which his research is based. It is no coincidence that almost every book or article of his begins with a question about the method**.

One can agree or argue with the specific results obtained by Propp. In his own words, “every solved problem immediately raises new problems.”***. The solutions to these new problems facing humanitarian knowledge are largely based and will continue to be based on the ideas and methods of V. Ya. Propp, proposed, in particular, in his works “The Morphology of the Fairy Tale” and “The Historical Roots of the Fairy Tale.”

* Meletinsky E.M. Paleo-Asian mythological epic: The Raven Cycle. M" 1979. P. 146. See also the listing of archetypal fairy tale motifs in the monograph: Meletinsky E. M. On literary archetypes. M., 1994.

** Eremina V. I. The book of V. Ya. Propp “Historical. roots of a fairy tale” and its significance for modern research of fairy tales // Propp V. Ya. Historical roots of a fairy tale. L., 1986. P. 6.

*** Propp V. Ya. Historical roots of a fairy tale. L., 1986. P. 361.

Scientific reprinting of a book is not an easy task. Moreover, the republication of a world-famous author’s works, especially in the collection of WORKS, which in itself implies a certain academic accuracy. Just how to determine the level and quality of this accuracy... It would seem that if a work has already been published two or three times, then it is worth taking the latest edition, where, logically, there should be a multiply verified corpus of texts, all errors, typos, etc. etc. In reality, as our experience of working with reprints of Russian humanitarian classics has taught us, every subsequent edition not only improves, but also worsens the text. Editors correct pseudo-typos and pseudo-errors, improve the author’s style, make opportunistic (i.e., determined by general political considerations, and sometimes a particular scientific understanding of the subject) corrections, not to mention additional typographical errors of their own. Therefore, a painstaking textual verification of all available publications is required. To somehow avoid subjectivity, We We usually present almost all divergent places in the text in a special page-by-page commentary.

In relation to this volume, the textual problem was aggravated by the fact that the publication of two of the most famous works of V. Ya. Propp in one binding is being carried out for the first time: being repeated in its parts, the work as a whole turns out to be new. Here we directly follow the equally directly expressed will of the author: “Morphology and Historical Roots are like two parts or two volumes of one large work. The second directly follows from the first, the first is a prerequisite for the second” (Propp 1998, 214 ). By the way, in the just cited work there is also a justification for the clarified title of the first part of the dilogy: “... another violation of the author’s will was committed not by the translator, but by the Russian publishing house that published the book; its title was changed. It was called “Morphology of a Fairy Tale”" ( 212) The clarified title also indirectly emphasizes the dilogical nature of the entire work.

But parts of the duology had different publishing fates. "Morphology" was published twice during the author's lifetime. It seems that there can be no questions about the author’s last will, but anyone familiar with the Soviet publishing system clearly understands that there can be no talk of any absolute author’s will (however, it cannot exist under any publishing system, but the Soviet one is a special case : the Brezhnev era is the era of editing). Therefore, there is absolutely no confidence that the text of 1969 fully reflects the will of the author. In addition, the book, apparently, is specially adapted for reading in isolation from “Historical Roots”. Some edits say this. Reconciliation with the 1st edition (1928, in a sense, was more liberal in terms of published works) turned out to be necessary.

As for “Historical Roots,” the only lifetime edition was published in the harsh year of 1946, which explains the incompleteness of the reference apparatus and possible opportunistic insertions. They tried to eliminate these shortcomings in the second edition of the book (responsible editors V. I. Eremina and M. N. Gerasimova):

“This book is the 2nd edition of V. Ya. Propp’s study “Historical Roots of a Fairy Tale,” published in 1946. The author, who completed the work during the war years, did not have the opportunity to once again turn to primary sources to check quotations and clarify the bibliographic apparatus , he was forced to use extracts made earlier or indicate source data from memory.The complex and painstaking work of restoring the book’s reference apparatus was done by M. Ya. Melts, for which the editors express their deep sincere gratitude to her.

In this edition, quotations have been clarified and footnotes have been checked and supplemented. They are designed in accordance with new publishing standards. Thus, numerous references to various fairy tale collections were again verified, errors in quoting fairy tale texts and numbering of fairy tale variants were corrected.<...>References to D. Frazer's study "The Golden Bough" are also given according to the latest edition (Moscow, 1983), except in cases where there is no corresponding citation in the latest translation. The spelling of foreign words and names is checked, their translation is given in the text. Abbreviations have been expanded and clarified. The latest editions of the literature cited by V. Ya. Propp are indicated.<...>

The editors sought to treat the text of the first edition as carefully as possible: single and minor cuts concern only those parts of the book that were a tribute to the time when the study was published. They do not in any way affect the content of the study. In some cases, the text contains outdated ethnographic terms and geographical names, which are given according to the first edition" (V. Ya. Propp. Historical roots of a fairy tale. A., 1986, p. 4).

We continued to verify and clarify the bibliographic apparatus, but almost everywhere, if it did not concern quotations, we restored Propp’s author’s text according to the first edition (where the correction of the second edition was adopted, this is specifically stated in the page-by-page comments). For example, in some cases, when the editors of the second edition combined Propp's text with Frazer's new translation, part of Propp's text was omitted. We consistently restore in such places both the old translations and Propp’s dialogue with them according to the 1st ed.

Now about the bibliographic notes. In both books Propp used two ways: 1) in brackets gave abbreviations of the bibliographic description with a number indicating the number of the volume, part, etc. and with a number indicating the page (if there was a need), or 2) placed a bibliographical (rarely other) footnote at the bottom of the page. We leave first method only for bibliographic footnotes, together with the abbreviations used by Propp, using the surname of the author of the work mentioned, and, if in the list of cited literature there was more than one title of the work of a given author, the year of publication, and, if the year was the same for different works, a small Russian letter alphabet, its order showing the place of work in the list. In consecutive references to the work just mentioned in the text, only page numbers were given. Second the method is reserved for non-bibliographical or non-exclusively bibliographical footnotes.

We always keep punctuation according to the last lifetime editions.

niyam, removing only commas before “as” in the meaning “as”. The Russian version of the spelling of the surname “Levi-Strauss” has been unified (also written with two “s” at the end) both in Propp’s texts and in the comments.

The fonts distinguish between our commentary and the text of the book of different editions; in bold, for clarity, in some places the versions of the first (1st ed.) and second edition (2nd ed.) are distinguished.

P. 5: 1st ed. begins like this: The word "morphology" means the study of forms. In botany, morphology is understood as the study of the constituent parts of a plant, their relationship to each other and to the whole, in other words, the study of the structure of the plant.

But “morphology of a fairy tale”—hardly anyone thought about the possibility of such a concept.

And yet, consideration of the forms of a fairy tale is possible with the same accuracy as the morphology of organic formations is possible.

If this cannot be asserted about the fairy tale as a whole, in its entire volume, then in any case this can be asserted about the so-called fairy tales, about fairy tales “in the proper sense of the word.” The real work is dedicated to them only.

Vladimir Propp

Historical roots of the Fairy Tale

Preface

The proposed work is provided with an introductory chapter, and therefore the preface can be limited to some technical remarks.

The book is one whole and should not be read from the middle for reference on individual topics.

Chapter I. Background

1. Main question

2. Importance of premises

For us, this implies that we need to carefully check our premises before starting the study.

3. Highlighting fairy tales

We want to find and explore the historical roots of a fairy tale. What is thought of as historical roots will be discussed below. Before doing this, it is necessary to define the term “fairy tale”. The fairy tale is so rich and varied that it is impossible to study the entire phenomenon of the fairy tale in its entirety and among all peoples. Therefore the material must be limited, and I limit it to fairy tales. This means that I have the premise that there are some special fairy tales that can be called magical. Indeed, I have such a premise. By fairy tales I will understand those fairy tales whose structure I studied in “Morphology of Fairy Tales.” In this book, the fairy tale genre is highlighted quite accurately. Here we will study the genre of fairy tales that begins with the infliction of some kind of damage or harm (kidnapping, exile, etc.) or with the desire to have something (the king sends his son for the firebird) and develops through the hero’s departure from home, meeting with a donor who gives him a magical remedy or an assistant with the help of which the object of the search is found. In the future, the fairy tale gives a duel with the enemy (its most important form is snake fighting), return and pursuit. Often this composition gives a complication. The hero is already returning home, his brothers throw him into the abyss. Subsequently, he arrives again, is tested through difficult tasks and becomes king and marries either in his kingdom or in the kingdom of his father-in-law. This is a brief schematic presentation of the compositional core that underlies so many and varied subjects. Fairy tales that reflect this scheme will be called fairy tales here, and they form the subject of our study.

So, the first premise says: among fairy tales there is a special category of fairy tales, usually called fairy tales. These tales can be isolated from others and studied independently. The very fact of isolation may raise doubts. Isn't the principle of connection in which we must study phenomena violated here? However, in the end, all the phenomena of the world are interconnected, meanwhile, science always distinguishes the phenomena that are subject to its study from among other phenomena. It's all about where and how the border is drawn.