Folklore as an oral folk art is an artistic collective thinking of the people, which reflects its basic idealistic and life realities, religious worldviews. Such creativity is created by the whole people and is reflected in poetry, folk theater, architecture, dance, as well as in decorative, applied and artistic creativity.
Examples of folklore find themselves in many areas of modern human life, from the humming of lullabies to the creation of clothing collections.
Examples of folklore in oral speech are for the most part ditties, proverbs, sayings, in a word, speech turns used by people in the everyday sphere daily.
The main Russian folklore genres
Folklore is divided into three types, each of which is systematized according to its subjective and objective orientation, as well as the means of artistic expression.
The first folklore type is the epic, which is a work that reflects objective assessments of the world around, denounced in a narrative form. Poetic examples of folklore of this kind are various epics, ballads, historical songs and spiritual poems.
The prosaic epos is divided into fabulous and fairy-tale prose, the first includes tales of animals and magic, anecdotes; to the second - tales, legends and traditions.
The second type is lyrics reflecting subjective experiences and the inner world of a person. These are works of folklore, examples of which are revealed in lamentations, ditties and songs. All these works can be divided into ritual and non-ritual texts according to their intended purpose.
The third folk type is a dramatic work that conveys an attitude to reality through play actions. Examples include theater performances, a puppet theater, a picture theater, ceremonial and dramatic games.
The fourth type is the folklore of speech situations - sayings, proverbs, curses, benevolence, teasers, tongue twisters and riddles.
Russian ritual folklore
It is divided into calendar and family. The calendar type is a huge layer of traditional practical rituals and beliefs designed to help people, ensure the survival of the clan and the village, and increase productivity in livestock and agriculture. Calendar folklore was formed and reproduced all year round. An example is Pancake Week, following the rules of which took a Russian person a week.
Examples of folklore oriented to the family ritual type are lamentations, conspiring songs, fortune telling, as well as magical ritual actions aimed at attracting future spouses and love. Any action related to weddings and weddings was also accompanied by a whole set of ritual folklore elements - hand-made, conspiracy, matchmaking and others.
Features of the folklore theater
Examples of Russian folklore can be given in the field of theater. Researchers share the dramatic folk art in its temporary evolutionary stages into theatrical and theatrical.
Vivid examples of Russian folklore can be seen in calendar rites and games, for example, in the processes of dressing, making puppets of Maslenitsa, Yarila, Kupala, and acting out the actions with them. These elements of theatrical actions are also present in family wedding ceremonies, for example, in the redemption of the bride or the acting out of her friends by her friends.
Theatrical forms of folk art developed in Russia only by the middle of the 17th century. This, in fact, is a dramatic theatrical work in its modern sense.
A separate group of representatives of folk art, which is part of the theatrical game folklore, should include buffoons - comedians, trainers, dancers and musicians.
Characteristics of folk poetry
The poetic works of folklore, examples of which are numerous, are included in the Russian school curriculum on literature and native speech. Such folk works are epics, spiritual poems, historical songs, literary fables, ballads, ditties and children's poetic songs. All these examples of folklore of oral folk art, transmitted from generation to generation, form the basis of folk ideology and mythology. For example, in epics describes the image of a national hero, in a historical song reveals his strategic and tactical talents; ditties and children's songs form a sense of humor and situational resourcefulness; in fables in a playful and comic form the negative qualities of heroes are ridiculed.
Fairytale folklore prose
This genre is a written and oral form of prose that stands out from the myth and tells the story of fictional events that happened with real heroes. Folk tales are available for all peoples of the world. They represent several typical lines - fairy tales about animals, about objects and inanimate nature, about fooling evil spirits, about magic. This folklore genre also includes fables, jokes and cumulative chain tales. It is worth saying that the fairy-tale genre can either flow from the genre of mythological poetry, and can be transformed into it back.
Examples of fairy-tale folklore in oral speech are more varied than in written, due to the subjective perception of the narrator. These are variants of the cumulative chain tale "Kolobok" and "Turnip", "Fox and Crane", "Cat, Rooster and Fox", "Fox and the Wolf". Among the tales of evil spirits, one can recall the "Geese-swans", "Koschey the Immortal."
Tales where the protagonist is a wizard, with the participation of magical animals or objects, are, for example, Finist Yasen Sokol, Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf, and Pike. Plants and natural phenomena with their own magic are found in almost every fairy tale - talking apple trees, rivers and the wind, striving to hide the main character from the chase, save from death.
Folklore prose is the key to Russian demonology
The second layer of folklore prose is indescribable. It is represented by stories or incidents that tell of a person’s contacts with representatives of otherworldly forces - witches, devils, kikimors, spirits, and so on.
It should be noted that all these creatures came to the present with unconscious images from the depths of centuries and are of pre-Christian pagan origin.
The category of fairy-tale prosaic folklore also includes stories about shrines, miracles, and saints who create them - here the theme of the communication of higher forces and a person who came to the Christian faith is revealed.
The prosaic examples of folklore related to the fairy-tale bed are quite diverse - these are legends, traditions, tales, and tales of a dream.
Contemporary Russian folklore
It consists of two layers coexisting and periodically flowing into each other.
The first layer consists of folk traditions and beliefs, transferred to modern realities. They are current sayings, religious and daily rites, signs. Examples of Russian folklore, characteristic of modern life, can be observed both in everyday life (the location of a broom with a broom up to attract wealth) and on holidays. Ritual festive folklore elements are including Christmas carols.
The second layer of modern urban folklore is much younger and represents a belief in technogenic scientific theories, framed in accordance with human beliefs and fears.
Modern urban folklore
It acts as an egregor of collective images of fears and beliefs of people living in cities, originates from the period of industrialization, when harsh living conditions and technological progress were superimposed on the ancient layer of old Russian beliefs.
Examples of folklore that reflects modern Russian realities, for the most part, are focused on several types of human fears. Most often these are songs, rituals and gestures intended to call otherworldly forces ("Queen of Spades" of gnomes, etc.): ghosts, spirits of various historical personalities, as well as for the manifestation of Divine providence and various entities.
Some elements of folklore are included in science-oriented theories of an industrial nature.
Examples of urban folklore, used in modern legends, have flooded the Internet - these are stories about stations and metro lines that are closed to visitors, about abandoned bunkers and various kinds of unfinished buildings with accompanying stories about mysterious rooms, devices and living things.
Literary folklore - from chronicles to the present
Russian literature, replete with folklore elements, is divided into two layers: it has come down to us from the period of 12-16 centuries, which is a support for the construction of any later symbolic images; created from the 17th to the 19th centuries, using these images in its plots. Accordingly, examples of folklore in the literature are found in the works of both periods. Consider the most famous of them below.
Examples of folklore in “The Tale of Igor's Campaign” consist mainly of metaphorical comparisons of the main characters with pagan gods, for example, Boyan is called the grandson of Veles, princes are called grandchildren of Dazhdbog, and winds are called Stribogsky grandchildren. The author’s appeal to the Great Horse was also recorded.
In modern literature, folklore elements are used by the main characters in the process of their daily lives.
Examples of folklore in the poem "To whom it is good to live in Russia" come from the field of small and lyrical folklore clans, including sayings, ditties, sayings ("praise the grass in the stack, and the gentleman in the grave"), appeal to folk signs (chapter "Peasant Woman" , where Matryona’s fellow villagers see the reason for the crop failure as ““ I put a clean shirt on Christmas ... ”), as well as inserting Russian folk songs (“ Barshchinnaya ”,“ Hungry ”) and the use of sacred digital symbols ( seven peasants, seven owls).
Small folk genres
They single out the type of small folklore works that have been part of human life since birth. These are small genres of folklore, examples of which can be observed in the communication of the mother with the child. So, in petals (poems of a poetic form), nursery rhymes (proverbial songs using gestures of the fingers of the child’s arms and legs), jokes, calls, counters, tongue twisters and riddles, the necessary rhythm of body movement is set and simple storylines are transmitted.
The first folklore genres in human life
Lullabies and petals are of ancient origin. They are part of the so-called maternal poetry, included in the life of the child from the moment of his birth.
Petals are rhythmic short sentences accompanying the activities of the mother and newborn. In them, along with the content, rhythm is important.
The lullaby with its text and tune is focused on the child reaching a state of sleep and does not require the use of any musical instrument. In this genre, there are always elements of a talisman that protects the newborn from hostile forces.
Small genres of folklore, examples of which are given above, are the oldest layer of folk art.