Foundations and comparative analysis of the Russian epic

Abstract

The investigation of Russian folklore has not yet been fully institutionalized in literature, cinema, and theater. In Russian literature, for example, there are no novels about Koshchei the Immortal, Ivan the Prince, heroes of Slavic pagan culture and many other characters of this genre. Meanwhile, these are deep, colorful images organically integrated into an equally vivid context. Many great writers, such as Thomas Mann, have written about such gaps. The goal is to identify the main typological characteristics of the Russian epic, which, in our opinion, has been studied in this sense very one-sidedly. The methodology is a comparative analysis of various approaches (mythological, historical, structural, etc.) closely interconnected with the characteristic features and structure of epics. At the same time, considerable attention is the harmonious combination of various motifs of the epic: heroes, Kalik-passers-by, epic time, pagan influences, hyperbolization, etc. An attempt is made not to accept, but to take into account various influences on such studies (pre-revolutionary, post-revolutionary, inspired by the Marxist approach, structural analysis, which began to be used in the study of Russian epic since the 1970s). The Russian epic, thanks to a huge number of historical, social, and cultural connections, naturally interacts with the epics of the republics (union and autonomous) that were part of the former USSR, which opens up wide opportunities for comparative studies of various types. Paths are outlined for a comparative analysis of the Russian epic with the epics of the East Slavic peoples, as well as with the Yakut heroic epic Olonkho. The authors' further plans involve continuing the study of Russian folklore in the genre of fairy tales and the field of culture of Slavic paganism. The first of them has been studied quite fully, but the structural and systemic approaches to research need to be further developed. The culture of Slavic paganism is a little-studied area where there are still no established approaches, and there are different points of view on many issues. Here you can apply the methodological approaches outlined in our monograph “Philosophy of Olonkho”.

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