Vladimir Propp is a Russian folklorist. Historical roots of fairy tales
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 basic 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 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.
We examined the fairy tale in the sequence of its component parts.
These components of the composition are the same for different subjects. They consistently flow from one another and form a certain whole. We have reviewed the sources for each such motive. But we have not yet compared these sources in their relation to each other. In other words, we know the sources of individual motives, but we do not yet know the source of their sequence.
ity in the course of the action, we do not know the source of the tale as a whole. A quick retrospective look at the sources reviewed shows that many of the fairy tale motifs go back to various social institutions, among which the rite of passage occupies a special place. Further, we see that ideas about the afterlife and travel to another world play a big role. These two cycles quantitatively provide the maximum number of motifs. In addition, some motives have a different origin.
If we list the results obtained, arranging them by sources or historical correspondences, we will get the following picture. The following motives go back to the initiation complex: taking or expelling children into the forest or abducting them by the forest spirit, hut, selling, beating heroes with yaga, cutting off a finger, showing the remaining imaginary signs of death, baking yaga, cutting and reviving, swallowing and spewing, obtaining a magical remedy or a magical assistant, travesty, a forest teacher and cunning science. The subsequent period before marriage and the moment of return are reflected in the motifs of a large house, a laid table in it, hunters, robbers, a sister, a beauty in a coffin, a beauty in a wonderful garden and palace (Psyche), in the motifs of the unwashed woman, a husband at his wife’s wedding, a wife at the wedding of her husband, the forbidden closet and some others.
These correspondences allow us to assert that the cycle of initiation is the most ancient basis of the fairy tale. All these motifs, taken as a whole, can be combined into countless different fairy tales.
Another cycle, a circle that shows correspondence with a fairy tale, is the cycle of ideas about death; This includes: the abduction of girls by snakes, types of miraculous birth, such as the return of the deceased, setting off on a journey with iron shoes, etc., the forest as an entrance to another kingdom, the smell of a hero, sprinkling of hut doors, a treat at the yaga, the figure of a ferryman-guide, a long journey on an eagle, horse, boat, etc., a fight with the guardian of the entrance, seeking to eat the stranger, weighing on scales, arrival in another kingdom and all its accessories.
The addition of these two cycles gives almost all (but still not all) of the main components of the tale. It is impossible to draw an exact boundary between these two cycles. We know that the entire initiation rite was experienced as a sojourn in the land of death, and, on the contrary, the deceased experienced everything that the initiate experienced: received an assistant, met a absorber, etc.
If you imagine everything that happened to the initiate and tell it sequentially, you will get the composition on which the fairy tale is built. If we tell sequentially everything that was believed to happen to the deceased, then
you will get the same core again, but with the addition of those elements that are not enough for the line of these rituals. Both of these cycles together provide almost all the basic constructive elements of a fairy tale.
What did we find? We found that the compositional unity of a fairy tale lies not in some peculiarities of the human psyche, not especially in artistic creativity, it lies in the historical reality of the past. What they tell now was once done, depicted, and what was not done was imagined. Of these two cycles, the first (rite) dies out earlier than the second. The ritual is no longer performed, ideas about death live longer, develop, and change without any connection with this ritual. The disappearance of the ritual is associated with the disappearance of hunting as the only or main source of existence.
Based on everything that has been said here, we must imagine the further formation of the plot in such a way that this core, once created, absorbs some new particulars or complications from a new, later reality. On the other hand, new life creates new genres (novelistic fairy tales), which grow on a different soil than the composition and plots of a fairy tale. In other words, development proceeds through layering, through replacement, rethinking, etc., on the other hand, through new formations.
Thus, the motive of the royal children imprisoned comes from the custom of isolating kings, priests, magicians and their children. This is layering. The motif of a deceased father or a grateful dead man giving the hero a horse functionally corresponds to the yaga giving a horse. Here, under the influence of the cult of ancestors, i.e. a later phenomenon, we have a rethinking and deformation of the figure of the donor while preserving the function of donation. Consequently, the question of motives not related to those cycles discussed above must be resolved in each case separately. This applies, for example, to the motive of marriage and the accession of the hero. In the image of the princess, on the one hand, we recognize an independent woman, the holder of the clan and totemic magic. She is the "Tsar Maiden". Further, she can be compared with the celestial wife of the shaman. She can also be compared with the widow or daughter of a king who is killed and eliminated by the heir.
The entire range of motives associated with difficult tasks seems very difficult to analyze. It cannot be proven with certainty that the fairy tale here preserved the custom of testing the magical power of the heir. However, based on a number of indirect indicators, this can be stated with some degree of probability.
In what follows, this law of conservation of composition with replacement
The characters remain unshakable, and the further development of the tale follows this line. Everyday life, a changed life - this is where the material for replacement comes from. So, it turns out that behind a beggar woman you can recognize Baba Yaga, behind a two-story house with a balcony - a man’s house, etc.
This conclusion does not correspond to current ideas about the fairy tale. It is usually believed that certain elements of prehistoricity are interspersed into a fairy tale, and that the whole story is a product of “free” artistic creativity. We see that a fairy tale consists of elements that go back to phenomena and ideas that took place in pre-class society.
2. Fairy tale as a genre.
We have identified the sources of individual motives. We found out that the connection, their sequence, is also not a random phenomenon. But this does not yet explain the fact of the emergence of a fairy tale as such.
What is the oldest stage of storytelling? We already know from the previous one that during initiation the younger ones were told something. But what exactly?
The coincidence of the composition of myths and fairy tales with the sequence of events that took place during the initiation makes us think that they were telling the same thing that happened to the young man, but they were telling it not about him, but about an ancestor, the founder of the clan and customs, who, having been miraculously born Having visited the kingdom of bears, wolves, etc., he brought from there fire, magical dances (the same ones that are taught to young men), etc. At first these events were not so much told as they were depicted conventionally dramatically. They also served as objects of fine arts. It is impossible to understand the carvings and ornaments of many peoples without knowing their legends and “fairy tales”. The meaning of the events that took place over him was revealed to the initiate here. The stories likened him to the one they were talking about. The stories were part of the cult and were prohibited. These prohibitions serve as a second consideration in favor of the position that they were telling something that was directly related to the ritual.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of collections of stories of the so-called primitive peoples consist only of texts. We know nothing about the setting in which the stories were told, the circumstances surrounding the stories, etc. However, there are exceptions. In some cases, collectors not only provide texts, but also provide some details about how these stories exist.
A very complete account of how such tales are treated is given by Dorsey in the introduction to his collection Traditions of the Skidi-Pawnee (Dorsey 1904). He talks about the many ceremonies and dances, including
including the ceremonial transfer of sacred bundles (tbundles, bags, or bundles). These are a kind of amulets. They are kept in the house and represent its shrine. All well-being, luck in hunting, etc. depend on them. Their contents are different: they contain feathers, grains, tobacco leaves, etc. In short, we recognize in them the prototype of our “magical gifts.” “Each such ceremony and each dance was accompanied not only by its own ritual, but by a story about its origin” (X), says Dorsey. By the story about the origin of these amulets we should understand, as the collection shows, stories about how, for example, the first owner of this bundle went into the forest, met a buffalo there, was taken by him to the kingdom of buffaloes, received this amulet there, was taught to dance and returned, taught the people all this and became a leader. Such stories “were usually the personal property of the holder or owner of the knot or dance and, as a rule, were told immediately after the performance of the ritual or during the transfer of ownership of the knot or ceremony to its next owner” (XII) Thus, the story is part of the ritual, rite, it is attached to him and to the person who takes possession of the amulet. A story is a kind of verbal amulet, a means of magical influence on the world around us. “Thus, each of these stories was esoteric... That is why it is with the greatest difficulty that anything resembling an etiological story (origin-myth) can be obtained as a whole” (XIV).
There are two aspects to this testimony that are important. Firstly, as already indicated, stories exist along with the ritual and form an integral part of it. Secondly, we are here at the origins of a phenomenon that can be traced back to our days, namely the ban on storytelling. They prohibited and observed the ban not because of etiquette, but because of the magical functions inherent in the story and the act of telling. "By telling them, he (the narrator) gives away some part of his life, bringing it closer to the end. Thus, a middle-aged man once exclaimed: “I can’t tell you everything I know, because I’m not going to die yet.” Or, as the old priest put it: “I know that my days are numbered. My life is already useless. There is no reason why I should not tell everything I know" (XV).
We will return to prohibitions later, but for now we will consider the connection of such stories with ritual. One might argue that the phenomenon Dorsey is talking about is a particular, local phenomenon. This is apparently how Dorsey himself understands the matter; he does not provide comparative material. However, it is not. True, the connection between the story and the ritual cannot be strictly proven here. It must be shown on very large material. Here
Reference may be made to Boas's collection of Indian tales and to his study of the social organization and secret alliances of the Kwakiutl tribe. The collection contains only texts. These, from the point of view of traditional folkloristics, are “Indian versions” or “variants” of many fairy tales and motifs known in Europe. One gets the impression that these are fictional stories, and nothing more. But things change completely as soon as we begin to get acquainted not only with the texts, but with the social organization of at least one of the tribes. These texts suddenly appear in a completely new light. We see how closely they are connected with the entire structure of life of this tribe, so that neither the rituals nor the institutions of the tribe are intelligible without stories, “legends,” as Boas calls them, and vice versa: stories become understandable only from an analysis of social life, they are included in it not only as components, but in the eyes of the tribe they serve as one of the conditions of life, along with tools and amulets, and are guarded and guarded as the greatest shrine. “Myths constitute, literally speaking, the most precious treasure of the tribe. They belong to the very core of what the tribe reveres as a shrine. The most important myths are known only to the old people, who zealously guard their secret... The old guardians of this secret knowledge sit in the village, mute , like sphinxes, and decide to what extent they can, without incurring danger, entrust the knowledge of their ancestors to the younger generation and at what precise moment this transmission of secrets can be most fruitful..." (Lévy-Bruhl 262). Myths are not only components of life, they are parts of each person individually. To take away his story means to take away his life. Myth here has production and social functions, and this is not a private phenomenon, it is a law. Disclosure of a myth would deprive it of its sacred character, and at the same time of its magical or, as Lévy-Bruhl says, “mystical” power. Without myths, the tribe would be unable to maintain its existence.
Unlike a fairy tale, which in terms of the plot content is a relic, here we have a living connection with the entire reality of the people, with production, social system and beliefs. Animals met by the hero or ancestor of the initiate were depicted on pillars; the objects mentioned in these legends are worn and dressed during dances; in the dances they depict bears, owls, crows and other animals that have provided the initiate with magical power, etc.
The materials and considerations presented here answer the question of how a certain category of myth arises, but they still do not explain how our fairy tale arises.
In the first chapter we established that a fairy tale is not determined by
the system within which it exists. Now we can add some clarification to this. The plot and composition of a fairy tale are determined by the tribal system at that stage of its development, the representative of which we took as an example from the American tribes studied by Dorsey, Boas and others. We see here a direct correspondence between the base and the superstructure. The new social function of the plot, its purely artistic use, is associated with the disappearance of the system that created it. Externally, the beginning of this process, the process of the degeneration of a myth into a fairy tale, is reflected in the detachment of the plot and the act of storytelling from the ritual. The moment of this detachment from the ritual is the beginning of the history of the fairy tale, while its syncretism with the ritual represents its prehistory. This detachment could occur either naturally, as a historical necessity, or it could be artificially accelerated by the appearance of Europeans, the Christianization of Indians and the forced resettlement of entire tribes to other, worse lands, a change in lifestyle, a change in the method of production, etc. This detachment Dorsey is also already watching. Let us not forget that Europeans have ruled America for over 500 years and that here we often have only a reflection of the original situation, we already have its decomposition, fragments, more or less clear traces. "Of course, these myths about the origin of knots and dances do not always remain the exclusive property of the priests; they find their way to ordinary people, where they, being told, lose much of their original meaning. Thus, by a gradual process of corruption, they reach the point that they no meaning is assigned, and they are told as fairy tales are told" (Dorsey). Dorsey calls the process of detachment from the ritual corruption. However, a fairy tale, already devoid of religious functions, does not in itself represent something reduced in comparison with the myth from which it originated. On the contrary, freed from the bonds of religious conventions, the fairy tale breaks out into the free air of artistic creativity, driven by other social factors, and begins to live a full-blooded life.
This explains the origin of not only the plot in terms of its content, but the origin of the fairy tale as an artistic story.
We repeat that this position cannot actually be proven; it can be shown using a large amount of material, but this is impossible to do here. But still there is one more doubt. We are talking only about fairy tales. We found it possible to isolate them from others and study them independently. Having opened the contact, we now, at the end of the work, must close it again, because the study of other genres can make a change in our
This is a better idea of how the fairy tale came together.
We examined the rituals and myths of the so-called primitive peoples and linked them with modern fairy tales, but we did not study the tales of these peoples, we did not take into account the possibility of artistic tradition from the very beginning.
Although plots not related to fairy tales were not studied here, it seems that not only fairy tales, but also many others (for example, tales about animals) have the same origin. This can be proven by special monographs devoted to these genres, but it cannot be proven here. Studying collections of Indian fairy tales leads to the conclusion that this is entirely ritual material, that is, that a fairy tale in our sense of the word is still unknown here. This point of view will seem unconvincing to a folklorist, but ethnographers who are familiar with more than just texts are more likely to admit the possibility of such a situation. Neuhaus observed it in the former German New Guinea. They “knew only legends: they knew neither fairy tales nor fables. Stories that seem fabulous to us are for them the same legends as others” (Neuhauss 161). Lévy-Bruhl also considers this position established and cites this testimony as evidence (Lévy-Bruhl 267). This can also be confirmed by analyzing fairy tales about animals. So; for example, in North America, there is a special category of tales about "coyote". These are funny stories about the antics of a coyote. The Skidi Indians say of him: "Coyote is a magnificent fellow. He knows all things, and is simply impossible to destroy. Moreover, he is full of wild quirks and very cunning, can only be overcome with the greatest difficulties, and he is rarely completely defeated." . But these "tales" are told when some undertaking is to be undertaken, and the coyote's agility must pass to the teller. What we assert about American folklore, Bogoraz observes in Koryak-Kamchadal folklore. “Koryak-Kamchadal folklore is distinguished by its cheerful, mocking character. Many strange and funny stories are told about the raven Kukht about how he fought with mouse girls, how he set fire to his own house, etc. Kukht appears either in the form of a man or in the form of a raven . Folklore treats him completely disrespectfully. At the same time, Kukht is also the Creator Raven, who created the sky and the earth, Kukht created man, obtained fire for him, and then gave him animals for hunting" (Bogoraz-Tan 1936, 29). What Bogoraz sees as irreverence may actually be admiration for the raven's cunning, as Dorsey points out. In any case, if the raven about which such funny things are told is yours,
the rector of heaven and earth, and if stories are told before a hunt, then here too the sacred character of the story is undeniable, and thereby reinforces the idea of the sacred character not only of fairy tales. After all, initiation is far from the only rite; there were also seasonal hunting and field rites, and a whole series of other rites, and each of them could have its own originating myth. The connection of these rituals with myths and the connection of both of them with fairy tales has not yet been completely explored. To clarify this issue, it is necessary to study in detail the composition of the folklore of pre-class peoples. This would take us too far, and for our purposes it is not immediately necessary.
From all that has been said, it is clear that the “profanation” of the sacred plot begins very early (by “profanation” we mean the transformation of a sacred story into a profane one, that is, not spiritual, not esoteric, but artistic). This is the moment of birth of the fairy tale itself. But it is impossible to separate where the sacred story ends and the fairy tale begins. As D.K. Zelenin showed in his work “The Religious-Magical Function of Fairy Tales” (Zelenin 1934), prohibitions on telling and attributing magical influence on fairy tales to fairy tales persist to this day even among cultural peoples. We know the same about Vogul tales, about Mari, etc. But these are still relics, remnants. On the contrary, the Indian fairy tale is almost entirely a sacred story, a myth, but even here its separation from ritual begins, and in it the beginnings of a purely artistic story are visible, which is the modern fairy tale.
Thus, the fairy tale adopted their social and ideological culture from earlier eras. But it would be a mistake to say that the fairy tale is the only successor to religion. Religion as such has also changed and contains relics that are extremely ancient. All ideas about the afterlife and the fate of the dead, which were developed in Egypt, Greece and later in Christianity, arose much earlier. Here one cannot help but point out shamanism, which in the same way adopted many of the prehistoric eras preserved by fairy tales.
If you collect shamanic stories about their rituals, how the shaman went to another world in search of a soul, who helped him, how he crossed, etc., and compare them with the journey or flight of a fairy-tale hero, you will get a correspondence. We have traced this for individual elements, but for the whole there will be a coincidence. This explains the unity of the composition of a myth, a story about an afterlife journey, a shaman's story, a fairy tale, and later - a poem, an epic and a heroic song. With the emergence of feudal culture, elements of folklore became the property of the ruling class, based on
This folklore creates cycles of heroic tales, such as “Tristan and Isolde”, “The Song of the Nibelungs”, etc. In other words, the movement proceeds from the bottom up, and not from the top down, as some theorists claim.
Here a historical explanation is given for a phenomenon that has always been considered difficult to explain, the phenomenon of the worldwide similarity of folklore stories. The similarity is much wider and deeper than it seems to the naked eye. Neither the theory of migration nor the theory of the unity of the human psyche put forward by the anthropological school resolves this problem. The problem is resolved by the historical study of folklore in its connection with the production of material life.
The problem, which remained so difficult, nevertheless turned out to be solvable. But every solved problem immediately raises new problems. The study of folklore can go in two directions: in the direction of studying the similarities of phenomena and in the direction of studying the differences. Folklore, and in particular fairy tales, is not only uniform, but despite its uniformity it is extremely rich and diverse. The study of this diversity, the study of individual plots, seems more difficult than the study of compositional similarity. If the resolution proposed here really turns out to be correct, then it will be possible to begin in a new way the study of individual plots, the problem of their interpretation and their history.
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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 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 cannot 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 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).
The book publishes works by outstanding Russian scientists A. S. Orlov and V. Ya. Propp, dedicated to the heroic theme in Russian folklore and book sources.
Heroism has been a favorite theme of Russian folklore since ancient times, and stories about military exploits attracted special attention of Russians not only as adventures interesting for their drama, but were understood as selfless work for the good and glory of the Russian land.
In folklore and literature, our ancestors developed paintings full of great images and created beautiful monuments of Russian heroism “in memory of previous generations.”
Morphology of a fairy tale
For the first time, the famous dilogy about a fairy tale is published as a single work (as intended by the author).
Extensive commentary articles, a bibliography, a name index, and an index of characters turn the book into a textbook and reference book on fairy tales, and the unusually wide coverage of humanitarian material, the depth of its mastery and an intelligible style of presentation have long ago introduced its constituent works into the global cultural fund of a modern educated person.
Unknown V.Ya. Propp
The book includes not the scientific, well-known works of V.Ya. Propp, the greatest folklorist, one of the classics of the humanities of the 20th century, but his literary works, part of his epistolary heritage and a diary of the last years of his life.
Published for the first time is the autobiographical story “The Tree of Life,” poetry and correspondence with friend V.S. Shabunin reveals the origins of the formation and development of an extraordinary personality, the formation of the multifaceted interests of V.Ya. Propp, whose research had a strong influence on world philological science.
“The Diary of Old Age,” striking in its openness and sincerity, reflects the moral experiences of the current and past life, the uncompromising scientific positions, and the spiritual nobility of a remarkable scientist. The Appendix contains memories of V.Ya. Proppe of his colleagues and students.
Poetics of folklore
The volume that opens the complete collection of works of V.Ya. Propp, includes most of the remaining unpublished archival materials.
Key issues in the theory and history of Russian folklore are discussed here. The systematic consideration associated with the unity of concept (the monograph “The Poetics of Folklore”) makes the book necessary not only for folklorists, but also for humanities scholars of various directions, and the precise and intelligible style of presentation turns it into an indispensable textbook on folklore for philology students.
Problems of comedy and laughter
Work by V.Ya. Propp's “Problems of the comic and laughter” about the comic is the last and in many ways not fully completed study of this scientist. The author focuses here on determining the specifics of the comic, as well as on the problem of the psychology of laughter and the perception of the comic.
It should be noted that V.Ya. Propp conducts his analysis on a large amount of factual material from fiction and folklore close to his range of interests.
Russian fairy tale
In the next volume of the complete collected works of V.Ya. Propp includes his final work on the fairy tale, which is a kind of popular encyclopedia of fairy tales: a collection of information about the collection, study, structure (“morphology”) and development, the form of existence of all types of fairy tales.
It is intended not only for philologists and students, but also for school students and all those who are interested in the essence and structure of a fairy tale.
Russian agricultural holidays
Experience of historical and ethnographic research.
The abundance of factual material and systematic analysis make the book, dedicated to the cycle of traditional agricultural holidays, useful not only to specialists in folklore, but also to those who master folk and Christian culture.
Russian heroic epic
The work, included in the next volume of the complete collection of works of V.Ya. Proppa, has not been reprinted since 1958.
“Russian Heroic Epic” is the largest work by V.Ya. Proppa has not only scientific significance, but also has great moral potential, which has not lost its relevance at all.
