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Folklore and Politics in the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Felix J. Oinas
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The golden era of the study of folklore in the Soviet Union was the first decade after the Revolution, when the party and government, occupied with more urgent tasks, let the literary scholars and folklorists do their work relatively undisturbed. In 1925 the so-called “magna charta libertatis” for Soviet writers was issued by the Central Committee of the party, which permitted “free competition of various groups and currents.” As a result, the 1920s turned out to be rich and fruitful in literary scholarship, including folkloristics. In the study of folklore, different trends could freely coexist and thrive side by side. The most important of them were the historical school, Formalism, and the so-called Finnish school. The historical school continued the traditions of its leader Vsevolod Miller, whose first concern had been to find reflections of concrete historical reality in Russian byliny (epic songs). Thus the tendencies of the historical school are found in the commentaries to some bylina collections in 1918 and 1919, and also appeared strongly in the works of the brothers Boris and Iurii Sokolov, both of them disciples of Miller.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 45 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1973

References

1. Gleb, Struve, Russian Literature Under Lenin and Stalin, 1917-1953 (Norman, Okla., 1971), p. 89.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., p. 221.

3. Alois Schmaus, Probleme und Methoden der sowjetischen Folkloristik, Wissenschaftliche Informationen zur Volkskunde, Altertumskunde und Kulturgeographie aus dem östlichen Europa, vol. 4 (Munich, 19S9), pp. 13-14.

4. Literature and Life : A Selection from Writings of Maxim Gorki, trans. Edith Bone (London, 1946), p. 136.

5. Ocherki russkogo narodnopoeticheskogo tvorchestva sovetskoi epokhi, ed. A. M. Astakhova et al. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1952), p. 192.

6. Astakhova, A. M., “Voprosy izucheniia russkogo fol'klora v gody 1917-1944,” in Mel'ts, M. Ia., comp., Russkii fol'klor : Bibliograficheskii ukazatel', 1917-1944 (Leningrad, 1966), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

7. M. K., Azadovsky, “Sovetskaia fol'kloristika za 20 let,” Sovetskii fol'klor, 6 (1939) : 9.Google Scholar

8. Some of them are cited in Felix J., Oinas, “Folklore Activities in Russia,” Journal of American Folklore, 74 (1961) : 365–66.Google Scholar

9. Sokolov, Y. M., Russian Folklore (Detroit, 1971), p. 141.Google Scholar

10. M. Sh., “Fol'kloristika v SSSR,” Sovetskii fol'klor, 1936, no. 4/5, p. 430.

11. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, p. 147.

12. For a detailed discussion of the theory of the aristocratic origin of byliny and the dramatic events leading to its refutation in the Soviet Union see Felix J. Oinas, “The Problem of the Aristocratic Origin of Russian Byliny,” Slavic Review, 30 (1971) : 521.

13. Ocherki, pp. 223-24.

14. Schmaus, Probleme und Methoden, pp. 411-17.

15. For Kriukova's noviny see Karl Hartmann, “Die Rhapsodin M. S. Krjukova, ihre sowjetischen Volkspoeme und deren Verhältnis zur Tradition des grossrussischen Heldenliedes,” Die Welt der Slaven, 2 (1957) : 394-418.

16. [ Kriukova, M. S.], Noviny Marfy Semenovny Kriukovoi, ed. Popov, Viktorin (Moscow, 1939), p. 96 Google Scholar. Translation : “Stalin began walking in the middle of the hall, / Waving his white hands about, /Shaking his black curls, /And he thought a strong thought./He summoned his friends and companions….“

17. Kriukova, Noviny, p. 35. Translation : “And on the horse sits a wondrous knight, / He holds the reins in his left hand, /In his right hand he holds a telescope./And on the horse sits our bright falcon, /And his name is Klim Voroshilov, our light.” (Sokolov, Russian Folklore, p. 679.)

18. Kriukova, Noviny, p. 75. Translation : “His horse hammered the earth with its right foot, /Mother moist earth heaved up, /In the dark forests the trees swayed, /The waters in the Caspian Sea spread out in billows.“

19. Alexander, Kaun, Soviet Poets and Poetry (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1943), pp. 185, 189.Google Scholar

20. Astakhova, “Voprosy,” p. 28.

21. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, pp. 676-77.

22. Ocherki, pp. 319-23.

23. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, p. 677.

24. Ocherki, pp. 194-96.

25. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, p. 681.

26. Dorson, Richard M., “Concepts of Folklore and Folklife Studies,” in Folklore and Folklife : An Introduction, ed. Dorson, Richard M. (Chicago, 1972), p. 18 Google Scholar.

27. Hartmann, “Die Rhapsodin M. S. Krjukova,” p. 413, n. 66.

28. Astakhova, “Voprosy,” pp. 45-47; V. K., Sokolova, “Sovetskaia fol'kloristika k 40- letiiu oktiabria,” Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1957, no. 5, pp. 76–77.Google Scholar

29. Struve, Russian Literature, pp. 358 ff.

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32. Struve, Russian Literature, p. 363.

33. Astakhova, A. M., “Voprosy izucheniia russkogo fol'klora v poslevoennyi period (1945-1959),” in Mel'ts, M. Ia., comp., Russkii fol'klor : Bibliograficheskii ukazatel', 1945-1959 (Leningrad, 1961), pp. 33–34.Google Scholar

34. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, p. 122.

35. See, for example, Azadovsky, M. K., “Revoliutsionno-demokraticheskaia fol'kloristika,” in Bogatyrev, P. G., ed., Russkoe narodnoe poeticheskoe tvorchestvo, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1956), p. 90.Google Scholar

36. Propp, V. Ia., Russkii geroicheskii epos (Leningrad, 1955), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

37. See, for example, Astakhova, A. M., Byliny : Itogi i problemy isucheniia (Moscow and Leningrad, 1966), p. Leningrad.Google Scholar

38. Felix J., Oinas, “Folklore in Russia,” Journal of American Folklore, 70 (1957) : 191–92.Google Scholar

39. Nechaev, A. N., “O tozhdestve literatury i fol'klora,” in Voprosy narodnopoeticheskogo tvorchestva : Problemy sootnosheniia fol'klora i deistvitel'nosti (Moscow, 1960), p. 140.Google Scholar

40. Novikov, Iu. A., “K voprosu ob evoliutsii dukhovnykh stikhov,” Russkii fol'klor, vol. 12 (Leningrad, 1971), pp. 208, 209, 211Google Scholar, and passim.

41. This theory was outlined in Zhirmunsky's paper given in 1958 at the Fourth International Congress of Slavicists and later was republished, in a slightly reworked form, in his Narodnyi geroicheskii epos (Moscow and Leningrad, 1962), pp. 75-194; see especially pp. 130 ff. The same theory had been applied by D. S. Likhachev to Old Russian literature some time earlier; see his Vozniknovenie russkoi literatury (Moscow and Leningrad, 1952), p. 143 and passim.

42. Journal of the Folklore Institute, 1 (1964) : 130-44