Historical songs. Ideal female images in medieval Russia of the XI-XV centuries

Avdotya Ryazanochka Avdotya Ryazanochka is the heroine of an ancient epic. This simple woman lived with her family in Ryazan and once left the city on business. In her absence, the city was attacked by Tatar troops, who plundered and burned it, the princes and boyars were beaten, and the surviving inhabitants were driven away to the full. Historically, events are usually associated with the attack by the troops of Khan Batu in December 1237 or the devastation of Ryazan in the 15th century by the Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat. However, in the interval between these two dates, there were many other attacks on this city.

In one epic Onega tells about the bold act of Avdotya Ryazanochka, about her female loyalty. Avdotya managed to withdraw from Tatar captivity not only her relatives, people close to her: brother, son and husband (in other versions of the epic - son, daughter-in-law and mother), but the whole Ryazan is full. Some researchers attribute this dangerous journey to the Horde to the times of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, to the plundering of Ryazan in December 1237, although in some versions "King Bakhmet of Turkey" is mentioned.

It seems to us that this legendary event could take place both in the XIII century and in the XIV century. Probably, the replacement of Baty by Bakhmet could have occurred in the second half of the 15th century after the attack on Ryazan by the Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat.

Predatory detachments of the Tatar-Mongol Golden Horde, which began to disintegrate, constantly invaded the Ryazan principality. One of these detachments raided in exile, that is, unexpectedly, lightly, as a result of which the defenders of the city could not offer any serious resistance to the enemies, especially since the Ryazan army at that time set out on a campaign. The steppe marauders who attacked the city robbed and took away the entire population that remained alive.

As the song says about Avdotya Ryazanochka, Khan Bakhmet is Turkish:

He got the old Kazan-city under forest.
He stood under the city
With its strength, an army.
There was a lot of this pore, time.
Yes, he ruined Kazan-city under forest,
Ruined Kazan-de-city in vain.

And the noble princess
He took those alive in full.

He led him to his Turkish land.

For some reason, the city, subjected to devastation, is called Kazan in the text. But Kazan, which became part of the Moscow state in the second half of the 16th century, was never subjected to hostile invasions. Apparently, here we are dealing with the usual epic replacement of one city for another for northern storytellers:

But Kazan was burned like fire,
But Ryazan was completely taken;
I drove through Turkey and Sweden,
Kazan and Ryazan and Vostrakhan.

The epithets "old" and "underwood" found in the song are more consistent with Ryazan (with the epithet "old" Ryazan is also mentioned in the song "Ataman of the Polish": "Kirsha Danilov's Collection", No. 53). In the name of Tsar Bakhmet, perhaps, there are echoes of the name of Khan Akhmet, who ruined Ryazan in 1472. The name of this king as Turkish and the land of Turkey reflects, apparently, the influence of folklore of the 17th-18th centuries with a highly developed Turkish theme.

The unexpected news of the plundering of Ryazan caught Avdotya Ryazanochka at a time when she was on the other side of the Oka River, preparing hay for the winter in the flooded Oka meadows. Avdotya, like any Russian woman, quickly took matters into her own hands. Having cried her tears, and knowing that hardly anyone would help her in the given circumstances, she began to think how to improve the situation in which she found herself by tragic accident. Little hoping for a favorable outcome of her idea, she nevertheless got ready for the road, having prepared, just in case, memorial white shirts for relatives. It took Avdotya a very long time to reach the khan's headquarters and trampled on more than one pair of bast shoes, overcoming several enemy outposts-obstacles on its way:

The first great outpost -
Allowed rivers, deep lakes;
Another great outpost -
The fields are wide,
Becomes robber thieves;
And the third outpost - the forests are dark
He let the fierce beasts go.

Finally, the Ryazan woman came to the place where Turkish (Tatar) was full. There she was greeted unfriendly, but with undisguised curiosity.

What do you want, Russian woman? - said Tsar-King Bakhmet, amazed at the arrival of Avdotya Ryazanochka.

I want to return my relatives to the empty land, Ryazan, the eastern king, - answered Avdotya Ryazanochka.

King Bakhmet says to her:

You, Avdotya - Ryazanochka's wife!
When you knew how to walk the path and the road, -
So be able to ask for heads too
One of the three.
But you do not know how to ask for a little head, -
So I will cut your riotous head down to your shoulders.

Listen to me, oh great and wise ruler, and decide the matter in truth. I am still a very young woman, and I can get married again. It means that I will have a husband. And the husband will be, then I will give birth to a son. Only no one will return my brother, no one will give me a gift, so free my brother.

You speak the truth, you, Ryazanka Avdotya. Since you are so wise, then do the same. I give you three days and two nights so that you can find your relatives in my kingdom. But that is not all. Pick any flower from my tent, and until it withers for three days, no one touches you, but withers, then your last hour will come to you.

Avdotya came out of the tent, not herself, twisted, zogoryunitsya. She shook her head from side and side, fell on the grass, cried out, shedding tears:

My Russian Earth-mother, do not let your daughter disappear in the wrong side. Help me, mother, parent!

The Russian Land did not give her offense. The flower is sunny, golden, she put Avdotyushka Ryazanochka right in her hands, and the flower is called immortelle, it does not fade, not only for three days and three nights, but for three hundred and thirty and three days it will not fade, and maybe three thousand three hundred and three years with three months, with three weeks, with three days.

And the sun is leaning towards sunset, and the cavalry rushes to Ryazanochka Avdotya, the khan's command is being prepared to fulfill. Yes, how the Russian Polonyans ran out of the most extreme yurts, and among them a son with a husband and a brother, Yes, and there were Yelets, Bryanets, little to be, Moscow, and more of all Ryazan, Oka. Tatar riders galloped up to Avdotya Ryazanochka to knit, so the flower in her hands is burning with the sun, does not fade in any way. That's it!

Even though you are a khan, even a tsar-king, you have to hold back your word, encourage you to praise the forests and the seas, and the steppes with tulips-poppies. And the tsar-myr, the eastern sovereign, had to give up everything, let go to Ryazan, sow the Russian land, settle down.

Since then, Ryazan again settled down and settled down, and again began and was decorated, because Avdotya Ryazanochka:

Built Kazan-city nanovo,


Was Avdotino's name exalted in Kazan?

Another version speaks directly about Ryazan:

Yes, since then Ryazan has become glorious,
Yes, since then Ryazan has become rich,
Was Avdotino's name exalted in Ryazan?
And that was the end of it.

The woman's mind turned out to be so wise and cheerful: Avdotya brought the whole of Ryazan with her.
And they all praised Avdotya Ryazanochka with glory.

Returning home, Avdotya found that the city was burned, and her relatives were not among the survivors, nor among the dead. Realizing that her family members are in captivity, she makes an unheard-of decision at that time - to go to their rescue in the Horde. Not only that, before the headquarters of the khan, located on the territory of modern Kazakhstan. she needs to go several thousand kilometers, along the way there are a lot of rivers, robbers, wild animals.

After a long journey, the woman reaches the Khan's headquarters on foot and achieves a meeting with him. Struck by her courage, the khan allows her to choose only one of the relatives and she makes a choice not in favor of her son or husband, which would be more understandable, but in favor of her brother. When the khan asked how to explain her choice, the woman said that she was still young enough to marry again and give birth to new children, but she could never return her brother.

Khan allowed her to search for relatives, but limited it in time to the period until a freshly picked flower withers in her hands. If she does not have time to find her loved ones before this time, she will lose her head. The woman went out into the steppe and plucked an immortelle flower that never fades. According to some epics, the khan, amazed at her courage and wisdom, released with Avdotya not only her relatives, but also other captured Ryazan residents and even rewarded her. When these people returned, they rebuilt the city of Ryazan in a new place.

A simple and weak woman succeeded in what the princes and skillful warriors could not do with the help of weapons. The epic about Avdotya Ryazanochka has several variants, in which both the name of the khan and the name of the city change. In the future, a lot of legends appear in folklore using this plot, where other women play the main role. But the main participants are always the Woman, the Khan and the Immortelle flower.

Avdotya Ryazanochka

The heroism of a small defenseless woman who came to the Horde, famous for bloody raids, devastation and cruelty, made the Tatar king feel respect for her, and her wisdom conquered the storm of the Russian lands.

This epic is remarkable in that it was not a man-warrior, but a woman-worker who "won the battle" with the Horde. She defended her relatives, and thanks to her courage and intelligence, "went Ryazan out of the full."

PS: The famous historical ballad "Avdotya Ryazanochka" by the compiler does not refer to 1237 (the ruin of Ryazan by Batu), but following the recent article by A.O. Amelkin - to the events of 1505 in Kazan, when the vassal of Ivan III, who first conquered in 1487 Kazan, Khan Mohammed-Emin unexpectedly imprisoned the Russian ambassador, killed many Russian people who lived in this city and even violated the Russian borders, laying siege to Nizhny Novgorod. S. N. Azbelev points out that in the historical ballad the action takes place in Kazan and only the heroine's nickname connects her with Ryazan. This detail allows the researcher to join the point of view of A.O. Amelkin. Nevertheless, if we accept with interest the hypothesis of the researcher about the timing of songs about Ivan Vasilievich the Terrible to the 15th century, then this rendition of the song about Avdotya Ryaznochka seems unconvincing to us. Let's pay attention to the fact that in the few surviving versions of this song (the academic edition gives three lyrics of the song) the city where the heroine comes from is consistently called “old Kazan”. This is a clear echo of the written formula "Old Ryazan" (modern Ryazan is located several tens of kilometers from the city devastated by Batu); the epithet "old" in relation to Kazan is not registered in writing. The stable nickname of the heroine Ryazanochka leaves, in our opinion, no doubt that the content of this ballad should be associated with the historical events of the Russian city of Ryazan, and not the Tatar Kazan.

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MOSCOW STATE OPEN PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY NAMED AFTER M. A. SHOLOKHOV

As a manuscript

KOVYLIN ALEXEY VLADIMIROVICH RUSSIAN FOLK BALLAD: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE

Specialty 10.01.09 - folklore.

DISSERTATION for the degree of candidate of philological sciences

Scientific adviser Doctor of Philology, Professor A.A. Gugnin MOSCOW - 2003

INTRODUCTION ................................................. .................................................. .............. 3 THE FIRST CHAPTER Formation of the genre of the Russian folk ballad of the XIV centuries .......................... ............. 19 1. Historical preconditions for the formation of the genre of the Russian folk ballad 19 2. The cycle of ballads about girls-meadows .................. ............................................... 22 3. Adjacent forms. "Avdotya-ryazanochka" ............................................. ............... 41 4. "Kozarin" ............................. .................................................. ............................... SECOND CHAPTER Development of the genre of the Russian folk ballad of the XIV - XVII centuries ........ ......................... 1. Older ballads of the XIV - early XVI centuries ................ ............................................. 2. Changes in the genre structure ballads in the XVI century ...................................... 3. The cycle about the evil wife .. .................................................. ............................................. 4. The cycle of the timeless well done ................................................. ......................... 5. Historical song and ballad poetry .................. ........................................ 6. Revisions of the novelistic epic ..... .................................................. ..... CHAPTER THREE Genre changes in the Russian folk ballad of the 17th - 19th centuries ................ ..... 1. Types of cyclization of the genre of Russian folk ballad ..................................... 2. Lyricization of a folk ballad ............................................. .............................. CONCLUSION................... .................................................. .................................. BIBLIOGRAPHY ............... .................................................. ................................. INTRODUCTION The ballad genre is one of the most difficult and unexplored in Russian folk poetry. Lots of research works dedicated to the ballad, and yet it remains the most controversial and mysterious form for modern science. In the educational literature only in 1971 V.P.

Anikin was the first to introduce the theme of the ballad genre1. Until that time, the term ballad did not have sufficient theoretical justification in educational publications.

In the scientific world, one can note an increase in interest in the study of the specifics of the genre only since the late 50s of the twentieth century, since the publication of the collection of Russian epics by V.Ya. Propp and B.N. Putilova 2. Since the 60s. the specific features of the genre form of the ballad are established, attempts are made to trace the origins and fate of the genre, old collections are studied, new ones are published, active work is underway to collect ballad songs in the regions. However, the main, global issues of the genre remain unresolved. What is a ballad in a generic sense, why does the lyrics manifest themselves in the genre extremely unevenly and nevertheless the ballad turns into lyrical forms? How does a folk ballad arise, what are the reasons for its lyricization, as well as its transformation into the genre of a literary romantic ballad? Why is a ballad a flexible genre unit capable of reflecting the artistic needs of several historical formations, from the 14th to the 18th - 19th centuries? How are epic, lyrical and dramatic principles combined at specific historical stages in its genre structure, and does their presence determine the general laws of creating specific works in different periods of ballad creativity? What is the genre difference between a ballad of the 15th century and a ballad of the 16th century? What is the specificity of the interaction of the genre with other forms of folk poetry:

ritual, epic, lyrical, historical, spiritual songs?

In our work, we will try to trace the evolution of the genre of the Russian folk ballad and answer the questions posed. We should not ignore the fact that the Russian and European folk ballads are related. The folk European ballad is traditionally understood as narrative lyric songs of epic origin.

They have a common content and an undefined genre specificity. In the works of Western European scientists, the epic is the same ballad, since it has a plot, evokes certain emotions, feelings and reflects the private life of the hero. "Russian ballads," epics "or" antiquities "differ from all other ballads in Europe in form, style and theme" 3. Therefore, it seems appropriate to study the evolution of the genre, taking into account the national specifics of each ballad region. Only by collecting data on all ballad regions, it is possible to compare evolutionary chains, take into account national characteristics - in a word, conduct a comparative analysis of the ballad heritage of various European countries and determine the general model, genre type of the European folk ballad. This work is devoted to Russian folk ballads and is the material for such a generalizing study.

Before embarking on the study of Russian folk ballads, it is necessary to dwell on the general model of the genre's emergence in Europe. Until the 20th century, the theory of the origin of the ballad in the conditions of the primitive communal era was widespread. The term ballad comes from the Italian word ballata (the verb ballare means to dance). Ballad refers to songs performed to music in dance (FB Hammer, AS McKinsey, RG Malton, etc.) Dance is understood as the earliest form of primitive art, respectively, the ballad is one of the earliest forms of poetry ... "Inasmuch as dancing is the most spontaneous of all the arts, it may be regarded as the earliest."

"The ballad is a song made in the dance, and so by the dance" 4. In Russia, A.N. Veselovsky. "At the beginning of all development, the most ancient layer of choral, ritual poetry, songs in faces and dances will appear, from which lyric and epic genres have consistently emerged." The ballads "took their epic outline out of the choral action, they were performed mimically and dialogically, before their coherent text was formed, to which they continued to dance" 5. The ballad songs themselves "have become isolated from the cycle of spring songs" 6.

In the XX century, the theory of the origin of the ballad in the primitive era was defended by the famous scientist P.V. Lintour 7. One can note the opinion of G.A.

Kalandadze, who supported the tradition of the 19th century: "The emergence of the ballad is more directly related to the emergence and development of round dances, which date back to ancient times." The work of other researchers is more careful. Professor N.P. Andreev in the introductory article to the first collection of folk ballads, prepared by V.I. Chernyshev, notes: "One might think that some songs similar to the ballad existed before, but they have not survived to us in their original form." In the modern sense, the scientist attributes the ballad to the early feudal and feudal period9. This point of view prevailed throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Earlier, in 1916, V.M. Zhirmunsky, obviously influenced by the comparative historical method of A. N. Veselovsky, wrote about the English folk ballad: “... the ballad form retained features that make us attribute the emergence of this form to the era of poetic syncretism, to the choral song and dance. ... But this theory does not apply to real ballads that have come down to us, in their specific form our ballads do not claim to be so antiquity ”10.

Later, almost half a century later, in his epoch-making work "The People's Heroic Epic", the scientist will express with all certainty and clarity that the folk ballad is replacing the heroic epic simultaneously with the knightly novel in the 13th-14th centuries. This point of view should be recognized as promising, it can be traced in the overwhelming majority of European and Russian works on the ballad of the twentieth century. “The European ballad is a product of the social conditions by which it is defined, taking into account the precise constraints for each individual nation” 12. Modern science believes that the ballad, like any genre of oral folk art, is a poetic form of reflection of reality, in this case, the needs of medieval times.

“Speaking about the origin and flourishing of the ballad as a genre of folk poetry, it is necessary to establish ... the correspondence of this or that type of ballads to a certain stage of social development with its inherent attitude and way of thinking” 13. An ideological and artistic analysis of specific ballad plots leads to the conclusion that the ballad reflects conflicts and historical conditions of the medieval era.

Apparently, the folk ballad emerges as a genre in the general era of the Middle Ages in all European countries and has pronounced national characteristics. The origin of the genre is typological, in every country ballad songs appear as a completely independent genre. At an early stage of development, it closely interacts with developed similar genre forms, which can subsequently have a noticeable impact on the entire genre of the national ballad (experts distinguish the type of English and Scottish ballads, Scandinavian, German, French, Slavic ballads, Spanish romances, etc.). It should be noted the difference noted by researchers of the ballad genre, such as Slavic ballads from Western European ones (a special position is occupied by the Spanish region, in which the features of both types are historically justified). In all likelihood, originally a dance song was called a ballad, more precisely, it denoted a spring round dance song of love content. By the 13th century, such songs passed into solid literary forms and were widespread in Western Europe. “It is impossible not to notice that the romance form of the ballad, as soon as it became popular, immediately turned into a literary one” 14. “From a dance song, a ballad already in the 13th century in Italy, and then in France, turned into a literary genre with a certain metric form and purely lyrical content” 15.

The emergence of a new, ballad genre proper, the establishment of its aesthetic platform presupposes interaction with developed genre forms. The ballad borrows a certain type, form of performance of dance songs, thereby being included in the system of folklore genres and artistically fully reflects new modern conflicts. This is how the Scandinavian ballad borrows the custom of dance and the Romanesque poetic form. The famous researcher of Scandinavian ballad poetry M.I.

Steblin-Kamensky notes: “The ballad poetic form, as well as the custom of dance accompanied by singing, were presented in the era when the ballad arose, outside Scandinavia, and above all in France. ... As is usually assumed, from France, apparently in the first half of the 12th century, the custom of dancing accompanied by singing penetrated into Scandinavia, and first of all, into Denmark ”16. In other countries, the ballad was most often not associated with dance, and in the Slavic region (especially among the southern and eastern Slavs) it has tonic versification, since the songs of the heroic epic, which were popular at that time and had a significant impact on the new genre, had such a form.

Of fundamental importance is the question of the genre structure of the ballad.

V.Ya. Propp proposed to define the folklore genre by the totality of "its poetics, everyday use, form of performance and attitude to music" 17.

V.V. Mitrofanova pointed out the need to analyze the ideological and thematic unity, commonality of plots and situations18. Scientists note the complexity of the classification of the genre of folk ballads, since it does not have a clear form of performance, does not have stable everyday use (ballads are performed mainly from time to time, sometimes on famous holidays), and "the rhythmic structure of the ballad opens up space for the most peculiar musical possibilities." 19. Apparently, the ballad is determined by its own genre specificity, and researchers establish the general features of the ballad genre. The ballad has an orientation towards portraying the world of private people, “the world of human passions, interpreted tragically” 20. "The world of the ballad is the world of individuals and families, scattered, falling apart in a hostile or indifferent environment." The ballad focuses on the disclosure of conflict. “For centuries, typical conflict situations have been selected and cast in ballad form” 22. The ballads contain “sharp, irreconcilable conflicts, good and evil are opposed, truth and untruth, love and hate, positive and negative characters, and the main place is given to the negative character. Unlike fairy tales, it is not good that wins, but evil, although negative characters suffer moral defeat: they are condemned and often repent of their actions, but not because they realized their inadmissibility, but because at the same time with those whom they wanted to destroy , the people they love are also perishing ”23. The conflict is revealed dramatically, and, it should be noted, the drama literally permeates the entire ballad genre. “The artistic specificity of the ballad is determined by its drama. The composition, the method of depicting a person, and the very principle of typing life phenomena are subordinated to the needs of dramatic expressiveness. The most characteristic features of the composition of the ballad:

one-conflict and conciseness, discontinuity of presentation, an abundance of dialogues, repetition with increasing drama ... The action of the ballad is reduced to one conflict, to one central episode, and all the events preceding the conflict are either presented extremely briefly ... or are completely absent ... "The images of the ballad characters are also revealed by dramatic principle: through speech and action. It is the attitude toward action, toward disclosing a personal position in a conflictual relationship that determines the type of ballad hero.

“The creators and listeners of ballads are not interested in personalities. They are primarily concerned about the relations of the characters with each other, transferred, epically copying the world of consanguineous and family relations ”25. The actions of the heroes of the ballads have a universal meaning: they determine the entire plot basis of the ballad and have a dramatically tense character, paving the way for a tragic denouement. "Events are conveyed in a ballad in their most intense, most effective moments; there is nothing in it that does not relate to action." “The action in a ballad, as a rule, develops rapidly, in leaps, from one vertex scene to another, without connecting explanations, without introductory characteristics. The characters' speeches alternate with narrative lines. The number of scenes and characters is kept to a minimum. … The whole ballad is often a kind of preparation for the denouement ”27. Scientists note the plot incompleteness of the ballad genre; almost any ballad can be continued or expanded into a whole novel.

“Mysteriousness or understatement arising from the compositional properties of the ballad is inherent in the ballads of all peoples” 28. As a rule, the ballad has an unexpected and violent ending. The heroes perform actions that are impossible in ordinary, everyday life, and they are prompted to perform such actions by an artistically built chain of accidents, usually leading to a tragic ending. "Motives of unexpected misfortune, irreparable accidents, terrible coincidences are common in ballads."

The presence of these features allows us to assert that “ballads have such a specific character that we can speak of them as a genre” 30.

At present, four theories can be distinguished for determining the genre of a ballad.

1. Ballad is an epic or epic-dramatic genre. Supporters of this position include N. Andreev, D. Balashov, A. Kulagina, N. Kravtsov, V. Propp, Yu. Smirnov. “A ballad is an epic (narrative) song of a dramatic nature” 31. The source of the emotionality of the narrative is the dramatic beginning, the author's presence in the ballad is not expressed, which means that the lyrics as a generic feature of the genre are absent. The lyrical beginning is understood as a direct expression of the author's attitude to reality, the author's mood32.

2. Ballad is a lyrical kind of poetry. At the moment in the development of science, this point of view should be considered abandoned. Its origins date back to the 19th century. It was believed that the ballad in literary form reflects the folk form and easily correlates with such lyric genres as romance and elegy. Pavel Yakushkin, one of the famous collectors of folk poetry, wrote: “The ballad so easily turns into an elegy and, on the contrary, an elegy into a ballad, that it is impossible to strictly distinguish between them” 33. They differ only in the number of options presented more in the ballad34. This theory does not stand up to serious criticism; much earlier V.G. Belinsky wrote about the belonging of the ballad, which emerged in the Middle Ages, to epic works, although in general it should be considered, according to the critic, in the section of lyric poetry35.

3. Ballad is a lyric-epic genre. This point of view is shared by A. Veselovsky, M. Gasparov, O. Tumilevich, N. Elina, P. Lintur, L. Arinstein, V. Erofeev, G.

Kalandadze, A. Kozin. Until recently, this theory was considered classical. There is every reason to believe that it arises from the assumption of the lyrical composition of the ballad, which was widespread in the 19th century. Scientists note a kind of lyricization of a folk ballad: “If for epics the main path of transformation is the transition to prose, in the form of a wide set of prosaic forms, ... then for a ballad, the main path of transformation is a transition to lyrics, in the form of, perhaps, a wider set of epic and lyrical forms "36. Considering such lyric-epic ballads of the 18th - 19th centuries, researchers come to the rightful conclusion that the leading principle in the structure of the genre is precisely the lyric. Unfortunately, in defining the specific manifestation of the lyric beginning, the term lyricism itself, general, mostly non-genre grounds are given. We are talking about a special emotional perception, lyrical empathy of the audience in the content of ballads, their sympathy for the suffering and death of the heroes. Also, as a shortcoming of this concept, it should be pointed out that there are no works devoted to the genre evolution of ballads: maybe the ancient form of ballad songs is not constant, changes over time and does not quite correspond modern look ballads.

4. Ballad is an epico-lyre-dramatic genre. This approach to defining a ballad is now taking the lead. Supporters of this concept are M. Alekseev, V. Zhirmunsky, B. Putilov, A. Gugnin, R. Wright Kovaleva, A. Mikeshin, V. Gusev, E. Tudorovskaya. "A folk ballad is an epic lyrical song with pronounced dramatic elements" 37. In principle, Russian folklore studies have been moving towards this definition for a long time and independently, but it is possible to establish links with the analytical works of German poets and collectors of folk poetry of the 18th - 19th centuries, who created a type of romantic ballad. I.V. Goethe believed that "the singer uses all three main types of poetry ... he can start lyrically, epic, dramatically and, changing the form at will, continue ..." 38. In the definition of a ballad as a symbiosis of three poetic genera I.G. Herder added another mythological element. The dramatic beginning is one of the leading elements that form the ballad genre. The dramatic presentation of the series of events, the dramatic conflict and the tragic outcome determine not the lyrical, but the dramatic type of emotionality of the ballad genre. If the lyrics in folklore means the subjective attitude of the author to the events depicted, then the dramatic beginning is the attitude of the heroes to the events taking place, and the ballad genre is formed in accordance with precisely this approach39.

The latter group of scholars believes that the dramatic beginning is an indispensable feature of the genre and has an equal role with the epic and lyrical. In a particular song of the epico-lyre-dramatic type, they can be used to varying degrees, depending on the needs of the historical time and the ideological and artistic setting of the work.

This position, in our opinion, seems to be the most promising and fruitful in relation to the study of the genre of the folk ballad.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that there are only a few works devoted to the origin and development of the genre of Russian folk ballad. V.M. Zhirmunsky in his article "English Folk Ballad" in 1916.

proposed to divide ballads into genre varieties (epic, lyric-dramatic or lyrical) 40, thereby removing the question of the problem of the evolution of the ballad genre as such.

In 1966, a study was published “The history of the development of the genre of Russian folk ballad” by D.M. Balashov, in which the author, using specific material, shows the thematic character of the change in the ballad in the 16th-17th centuries, and in the 18th century notes signs of the destruction of the genre as a result of the development of an extra-ritual lyrical lingering song and “absorption of the epic fabric of the ballad by lyrical elements” 41.

N.I. Kravtsov summarized all the available experience and proposed to approve four groups or cycles of ballads in the educational literature: family, everyday, love, historical, social42. In 1976, in the scientific work "Slavic Folklore", the scientist noted the evolutionary nature of these groups43.

In 1988, Yu.I. Smirnov, analyzing East Slavic ballads and forms close to them, presented the experience of an index of plots and versions, where he subjected to justified criticism the artificiality, conventionality of the division of ballads into fantastic, historical, social, etc. "Such an artificial division breaks natural ties and typological relations between plots, as a result of which related or close forms are disconnected and considered in isolation." The scientist clarifies the rules for constructing an evolutionary chain45 in relation to ballad material, highlighting five derivatives of the genre (from a drawn-out or "voiced" song intended for choral performance to literary ballad songs that are common among the people) 46.

In general, there is a general picture of the evolution of the folk ballad genre from the epic form to the lyric one. In this work, particular, practical questions about the ways and reasons for the modification of the genre elements of the ballad are solved, connections are established between disparate plots and the genre specificity of specific texts is determined. In our work, we use the method of text reconstruction, the foundations of which were laid in the works of the historical-typological school of V.Ya. Propp and B.N. Putilova.

With regard to the ballad genre, it has its own specifics and is realized in the following aspects.

It is assumed that the ballad genre is organized in certain cycles, which contribute to the maximum disclosure of all genre features of the ballad. The cyclization of the ballad genre is, first of all, a plot-variable realization of one conflict. In ballad cyclization, the fundamental element will be the dramatic element, which in practice consists in creating a) options for a dramatic situation (early cycles), then the resolution of the conflict;

b) versions of a dramatic situation, conflict.

A version of a ballad cycle is a song that repeats a given conflict model, but has the goal of maximizing its full storytelling. The version is a qualitative change in the text, the creation of a new conflict on the basis of a developed cycle or a separate ancient ballad ("Omelfa Timofeevna helps out her relatives" and "Avdotya-ryazanochka", "Tatar is full" and a cycle about girls-polonians). Cycles are studied in their direct interaction, internal evolutionary connections, and it is also traced how the principles of popular cyclization change over time.

The study of the composition of the cycle presupposes a genre analysis of the plot-variable series of songs. Particular attention is paid to the study of the main components of the genre specificity of the ballad. The author analyzes the type of cyclization and formularity, the type of hero and the level of conflict, the nature of the folk / author's assessment and the dialogical / monologic speech of the characters, the use of folklore and intra-genre traditions, the type of convention and reflection of the aesthetics of the artistic / direct case, the role of formal plot logic, the category of miraculous and symbolic ... The features of the poetic language and artistic techniques of the ballad stylistics are investigated. The influence on specific plots of the tradition of related ballad forms and ritual, epic, lyric, historical songs, as well as spiritual poems is especially noted. All the results of analytical work are brought in line with the requirements of the historical time, so the approximate time of demand for ballad cycles is determined.

Ultimately, the typological features of the ballad genre are established at each historical stage. The character and features of genre changes in the ballad in its generic and artistic aspects are revealed, general principles its evolution. Ballad cycles are considered in their direct connection and receive more or less accurate dating.

As a result of the analysis of the ballad material in the Russian region, it is established that the ballad is a flexible, mobile unit of an epic-lyric-dramatic character, which has certain stable typological features at each historical stage of its development from the end of the 13th to the beginning of the 14th centuries. to the XVIII - XIX centuries. Initially, the lyrics are drawn in the form of tradition and have no significant role in the genre structure of the ballad.

Gradually, the lyrical beginning changes the genre of the ballad, which ultimately leads to the lyricization of the genre or its transformation into literary counterparts. The ballad worldview, as it were, prepares the ground and contributes to the emergence of personal and historical artistic consciousness, which determined the development of forms of extra-ritual lyric and historical poetry. Subsequently, the ballad genre cannot fully reflect the conflicts of the new era. Competing with historical and lyrical songs in the 16th - 17th centuries, strengthening the role of the lyric element in its genre structure, the ballad gradually dissolves, as it were, in the lyrical element, which is more consistent with the reflection of all the depth and contradictions of the era that has come. At best, the original ballad remains external form, a kind of ballad style of presentation or ballad plot (a type of bourgeois ballads). The original genre of folk ballads was preserved in the 19th - 20th centuries. The most famous ballad plots that are relevant to a particular locality are preserved. They are given a lyrical form, they are lyrically processed, but certain stable typological features remain unchanged (cf. a similar process that began earlier in epic creativity). Such ballad songs are gradually disappearing as the literacy of the population grows, the spread of books and the disappearance of the ballad storytellers and performers themselves.

In the work on the dissertation, we were guided, first of all, by the concept of the historical-typological school (V.Ya. Propp, B.N. a single process of the formation of the genre of European ballads. The analysis of the genre structure of specific ballad songs is carried out taking into account the requirements of V.Ya.

Propp to the study of the genre composition of Russian folklore as an integral system. It also takes into account the connections of the genre of the Russian folk ballad with Western European and Slavic samples (works of scientists of the comparative historical school A.N. Veselovsky, P.G. Bogatyrev, V.M. Zhirmunsky, N.I. Kravtsov). On the other hand, we support the opinion of D.M. Balashov on the independent role of the genre of the Russian ballad, its national originality and the leading role in Russian oral folk art from the 13th to the 16th - 17th centuries.

The main object of research is Russian folk ballads presented in the collections of M.D. Chulkova, Kirsha Danilova, P.V. Kireevsky, P.A. Bessonova, P.N. Rybnikova, A.N.

Sobolevsky, V.I. Chernysheva, D.M. Balashova, B.N. Putilova, S.N. Azbeleva.

Internal connections of disparate songs, a model of their evolutionary development are established. Stable typological features are determined that allow to give a clear definition of the genre. Finally, a general idea of ​​the fate of the ballad and its place in the system of genres of song folklore is given.

Thus, the relevance of the work is determined by understanding, on the basis of specific observations, the problems of the evolution of the genre system of the Russian folk ballad, its place in the system of genres of Russian oral poetry, and the further prospects for the transition to literary analogies through the type of German romantic ballad.

The solution to these problems involves considering the Russian ballad heritage a) as dynamic system, which has its own logic and specificity of development, interacting with similar forms of folk poetry;

b) in the context of historical changes in the artistic consciousness of the people, which influenced the aesthetics and fate of the entire genre;

c) taking into account the theory of the origin and development of the genre of the European ballad.

Based on the above, specific tasks theses became:

1. Systematization and analysis of ballad plots presented in the Russian region.

2. Establishing the genre specificity of the Russian folk ballad, typological features at specific historical stages, the totality of which can give a clear definition of the genre.

3. Determination of specific genre changes in the Russian folk ballad from the time of its inception to the transition to lyrical forms and literary analogues.

4. Comprehension of the place and significance of the genre of folk ballads in the system of genres of Russian song folklore.

5. Establishing the time of the emergence and existence of both individual ballad plots and cycles as a whole.

The method of analysis is based on the principles of the historical-typological method, the basis of which is the comparison of possible variants of the ballad, its ideological and artistic analysis with the requirements of the relevance of the historical era in which it arises and develops, as well as the establishment of the typological similarity of the ballad creativity of different peoples as a general pattern of a single process and, at the same time, as its various national variations.

The following provisions are brought to the defense:

1. The Russian folk ballad is an epico-lyre-dramatic genre in which, depending on the historical expediency and necessity, in strict accordance with the evolutionary theory, these beginnings can acquire a different role.

2. The history of the development of the Russian folk ballad presupposes the emergence of the genre from the end of the 13th century as an epic-dramatic song. The ballad takes on a lyrical form in the 18th - 19th centuries.

3. Ballad is initially a mobile and flexible genre system that allows reflecting the conflicts of various historical formations.

4. Establishing the internal genre connections of the Russian ballad heritage presupposes the organization of all ballad material in cycles.

Scientific novelty dissertation is determined by an integrated approach to the study of the genre of Russian folk ballad. The cycles of the Russian ballad heritage are restored and analyzed, which are built into a clear evolutionary model that establishes specific dates for the emergence and existence of ballad songs.

Structure and scope of work... The dissertation consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, notes, and a bibliography including titles.

In the first chapter the time of the formation of the genre of the Russian ballad from the end of the 13th to the beginning of the 16th centuries is considered, an attempt is also presented to determine the genre specificity of the oldest ballad songs and the prospects for their development.

In the second chapter the genre changes of the Russian folk ballad from the 16th to the 17th centuries, the interaction of the ballad genre with epic and historical poetry are studied, the typological features of the genre during its heyday are established.

In the third chapter the reasons and peculiarities of the process of lyrization of a ballad and its transition into literary analogs are analyzed.

In custody summarizes the genre evolution of the ballad, its significance as a type of oral folk poetry, defines the general concept of the history of the ballad genre, outlines the prospects for further research into the causes and ways of the transition of the folk form of the ballad to the author's literary counterparts.

Basic Provisions dissertations were tested in reports at interuniversity conferences of MGOPU: “Russian and foreign literature:

history, modernity and interconnections "1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, as well as in the monograph and articles:

1. Russian folk ballad: the origin and development of the genre. M., 2002.

(Monographs Scientific Center for Slavic-Germanic Studies 5.). P.180.

2. "Folk and literary ballad: the relationship of genres" // Problems of the history of literature. Sat. articles. Third edition. M., 1997.S. 54-65.

3. “Ballad as a poetic genre. (To the question of generic traits in a ballad) "// Problems of the history of literature. Sat. articles. Seventh edition. M., 1999.S. 23-29.

4. “Formation of the Russian folk ballad. Article one "// Problems of the history of literature. Sat. articles. Tenth edition. M., 2000.S. 13-18.

5. “Formation of the Russian folk ballad. Article two: "Avdotya-ryazanochka".

(To the question of the genesis of the genre of the folk ballad) "// Problems of the history of literature. Sat. articles. Eleventh edition. M., 2000.S. 17-35.

6. “Formation of the Russian folk ballad. Article three: A cycle of ballads about girls-meadows "// Problems of the history of literature. Sat. articles. Thirteenth edition. M., 2001.S. 14-37.

7. “Formation of the Russian folk ballad. Article four: Once again to the question of a plot riddle (Epic about Kozarin) // Problems of the history of literature. Sat. articles. Fourteenth edition. M., 2001.S. 107-114.

Anikin V.P. Ballad songs // Russian oral folk art. M., 1971.P. 190-204.

Epics. Vol. 1.2. M., 1958.

Entwistle W.I. European Balladry. Oxford, 1939. P. 354.

Quoted from Pound L. Poetic Origins and the Ballad. New York, 1921. P. 5, 7.

Veselovsky A.N. Historical poetics. L., 1940. P.281.

Veselovsky A.N. Historical poetics. M., 1989. P.189.

P.V. Lintur Ballad song and folk tale// Slavic folklore. M., 1972.S. 181.

Kalandadze G.A. Georgian folk ballad. Tbilisi, 1965, p. 11.

Andreev N.P. songs-ballads in Russian folklore // Russian ballad. M., 1936. C.XIX.

Zhirmunsky V.M. English folk ballad // English and Scottish ballads. M., 1973. P.101.

Zhirmunsky V.M. Folk heroic epic. Comparative historical sketches. M.-L., 1962.S. 179.

Entwistle W.I. European Balladry. P. 91.

Elina N.G. The development of the Anglo-Scottish ballad // English and Scottish ballads. M., 1973.

Gugnin A.A. Folk and literary ballad: the fate of the genre. P.79.

Elina N.G. The development of the Anglo-Scottish ballad. S.! 05.

Steblin-Kamensky M.I. Ballad in Scandinavia. // Scandinavian ballad. L., 1978.S. 223 - 224.

Propp V.Ya. Principles of classification of folklore genres // Poetics of folklore. M., 1998.S. 177.

Mitrofanova V.V. On the issue of violation of unity in some genres of folklore // Russian folklore. T.17, L., 1977.C.36.

Zhirmunsky V.M. English folk ballad. P.98.

Propp V.Ya. Poetics of folklore. P.41.

Balashov D.M. The history of the development of the genre of the Russian ballad. Petrozavodsk, 1966, p. 12.

Smirnov Yu.I. Songs of the South Slavs // Songs of the South Slavs. T.11, M., 1976.C.17.

Kravtsov N.I. Slavic folklore. M., 1976.S. 193.

Balashov D.M. Russian folk ballad // Folk ballads. M.-L., 1963.S. 8.

Smirnov Yu.I. Songs of the South Slavs. P.18.

Balashov D.M. The history of the development of the genre of the Russian ballad. C.6.

Steblin-Kamensky M.I. Ballad in Scandinavia. S.238-239.

Balashov D.M. Russian folk ballad. C.11.

Putilov B.N. Typological commonality and historical ties in Slavic songs-ballads about the fight against the Tatar and Turkish yoke // History, folklore, art of the Slavic peoples. M., 1963.S. 425.

Propp V.Ya. Poetics of folklore. P.44.

Balashov D.M. Russian folk ballad. C.7.

For more details see N.I. Kravtsov. Slavic folk ballad // Problems of Slavic folklore M., 1972.

Russian songs collected by Pavel Yakushkin. SPb.,. 1860.C.8.

In the same place. P.13.

Belinsky V.G. The division of poetry into genera and types. // Belinsky V.G. Collected works in three volumes.

T. 2, M., 1948. S. 50.

Smirnov Yu.I. East Slavic ballads and related forms. The experience of indexing plots and versions.

M., 1988.S. 7.

Gusev V.E. Folklore aesthetics. L., 1967.S. 137.

Goethe I.V. About the ballad // Aeolian harp: Anthology of ballads. M., 1989.S. 554.

A. V. Kovylin Ballad as a poetic genre (to the question of generic traits in a ballad) // Problems of the history of literature. Issue 7, M., 1999. P.23-28.

Zhirmunsky V.M. English folk ballad. S.91-95. The scientist violated the principle of division by including a special group of national ballads about Robin Hood.

Balashov D.M. The history of the development of the genre. P.45.46.

Kravtsov N.I., Lazutin S.G. Russian oral folklore. M., 1977.S. 198-201.

Kravtsov N.I. Slavic folklore. P.189.

Smirnov Yu.I. East Slavic ballads. P.10.

Smirnov Yu.I. Slavic Epic Traditions: Problems of Evolution. M., 1974.S. 153-161.

Smirnov Yu.I. East Slavic ballads. P.6-7.

First chapter Formation of the genre of the Russian folk ballad of the XIV-XV centuries.

1. Historical preconditions for the formation of the genre of Russian folk ballad.

The ballad "Avdotya-Ryazanochka", a cycle about girls from the meadow, is traditionally regarded as the first examples of the ballad genre. Before studying the actual ballad creativity, specific ballad songs, one should keep in mind that the new genre goes back to more ancient traditions and poetic forms, undergoes a sufficiently long development path to crystallize into a more distinct genre unit.

The ballad is definitely a story song. Therefore, first of all, we will be interested in the peculiarities of the plot of the early epic: how the nature of the plot changed up to the time of the creation of the first examples of the ballad genre. Unfortunately, the early forms of the Russian epic, as noted by V. Propp1, are not known to us. However, analyzing the epic heritage of other peoples of the pre-state stage of development, V. Propp came to the conclusion that the epic was created in the era of the decay of the primitive communal system2, that is, its poetics is directed against the ideology of the tribal structure of society, against mythology as a system of worldview. The mythical plot of early primitive creativity is being modified. In terms of ideological content, the new poetic forms of the pre-state epic are opposed to the ideology of the clan, the dominant plot will be getting a wife in order to fight for a new ideal - for the founding of a family. Such radical changes could not have taken place in the artistic system. The new epic poetry chooses the main element in the poetics of the mythological era and, shifting the emphasis of its functionality, gradually changes the entire poetic system. This element is the image of the hero, or rather his functionality. The hero becomes a public hero, “his activities are aimed at the welfare of people” 3, and not at achieving his own goals. "... The new concept of heroism invades the old compositional system and begins to violate it" 4. The whole structure of the songs will gradually change. The plot about getting a wife will be replaced by plots about various exploits of the hero.

In the era of the state system, in the era of the unification of tribes, the hero again changes his functionality: he becomes a unifying center that no longer connects characters, but various plots. As a result, the composition of the songs changes. The so-called process of epic cyclization takes place: various plots are united around the main inactive center (this is the hero - the sovereign). The plots themselves are losing their former complexity and are dedicated to the exploits of the heroes. The epic becomes multi-character and more specific in terms of expression. We can talk about the creation of a historical background in epics, the heroes of which, however, are still associated with the heritage of the mythological era and latently reflect the mythical ideas of the people.

The invasion of the Tatar-Mongol troops and the long yoke that followed the enslavement of the Russian feudal principalities served as a turning point that changed the old epic thinking of the singers. Specific historical events of this magnitude have changed the consciousness of the people, a special tragic vision of the world has emerged. V this era the need for the creation of two fundamental genres in Russian poetry is outlined: an epic of a new type and another genre form, later known as "old woman's", and now - a ballad. The first line is characterized by the preservation of the integrity of the poetics of the previous heroic songs, however, old plots can acquire new features. First of all, the system of images changes again: the hero receives a specific historically motivated functionality: defense of the homeland, Russian statehood;

enemies from mythical creatures become more historical. The background of such epics is historical, although the laws of epic convention are still unshakable.

The second type of piece is a ballad. A special tragic vision of the world or a ballad worldview is manifested in the fact that the epic ideal of a mighty hero is replaced by a private, typical person, sometimes weak, helpless before the forces of external evil. Therefore, it is no coincidence that a woman becomes a favorite ballad hero. The new poetics builds on a long tradition of modifying the genre system: first, the hero's functionality changes. Bogatyr Ancient Rus turns into a type of private person. Correspondingly, the poetic form of the new epic poetry will change: the goal will no longer be to create an image of an epic hero, which requires a sufficiently detailed narrative, but a short tense dramatic event depicting a private person in all his defense against the forces of external evil.

The main thing to note is that the new genre has formulated a fairly clear principle: it is based on a short, entertaining, dramatically intense plot that fully reveals a typical private person. A new type of thinking appears, which has already radically departed from the heritage of the mythological worldview - this is plot thinking. Now the main place is occupied not by the hero, but by the plot, the event that reveals the inability to be heroic. The ballad opens up new horizons:

the dramatic plot, which exposed the powerlessness of a person in the world around him, is more consistent with the formation of the type of a separate, private, disconnected person.

The genre of Russian folk ballad has as its immediate predecessor songs of the heroic epic, epics. The elements of the old poetics are rebuilt, the songs take on a completely new look and sound - this is how the artistic contradictions that arise when the old poetics are used in order to create a new image of the hero are smoothed out.

The ballad genre is looking for genre correspondences, it summarizes the entire experience of folklore, where such contradictions found certain solutions. As a tradition, the ballad draws on the genres of fairy tales (adjacent forms) and lyrical non-ritual poetry. Folklore tradition means the reliance of a new genre education on the artistic system of another genre, the processing and use of elements of one kind of works to meet the needs of an exclusively borrowing kind in order to more effectively solve artistic problems or approve new genre discoveries. As soon as matches are found, the ballad introduces them into the genre structure, processes them and forms their new meaning.

The ballad genre, at its very appearance in the cycle about girls, uses the tradition of lyrical non-ritual songs.

The heroic image of the polonyanka is based on the tradition of creating the image of a red girl. This is how the lyrical element is latently embedded in the genre structure of the epic ballad.

Thus, even before its inception, the ballad goes a long way. The mythological plot of the pre-state epic is replaced by the epic in the Russian heroic epic and the epic-dramatic in the ballad genre. The mythical hero is transformed through the image of a hero into a transitional type of a heroic woman (like Avdotya-ryazanochka or Marya Yurievna) or into a ballad type of a good fellow or a red maiden, whose figurative system goes back to a lyric song. When creating a new genre, the legacy of the epic and lyrics was actively used. The ballad is an epic form of poetry, but already at the formation of the genre in the cycle about girls-meadows, the genre attracts lyrical forms of poetry as a tradition. We will move on to the study of this issue in the next chapter.

2. A cycle of ballads about girls-meadows.

The cycle about meadow girls presents the most ancient ballad songs.

This point of view is generally accepted. Also known is the position in which such ballads date back to the 16th century and their appearance is associated with historical events in southern Russia.5 In terms of genre, the cycle about meadow girls also evokes ancient traditions and poetic forms, undergoes a sufficiently long development path to crystallize the following questions: D. Balashov recognizes it as ballad, most scholars are inclined to believe that historical events caused the emergence of the cycle, therefore such songs should be classified as historical. Currently, B. Putilov's point of view is widespread, defining songs about meadow women as historical ballads.

Historical events do not have an autonomous meaning, they are used as an everyday background, clearly and concretely showing the tragedy of human destinies6.

The cycle of ballads about meadow girls has a long development. It appears in the XIII century, in the XVI it receives a new impetus for development in the south of Russia. For such a long time, the ballad has undergone genre changes. Therefore, songs dating back to the 13th century will differ markedly from their own reworkings of the 16th - 17th centuries.

The ballads about grasshoppers are as heterogeneous as the cycle itself. You can trace how the ballad cycle arises at the dawn of its development. The ballad opens a new type of hero - this is a heroic woman who has found herself in a hopeless tragic situation, but is actively fighting for her personal and thus national independence. According to the purpose of the concept, this is an epic image, the formation of the cycle also has an epic setting: the songs are organized around one center - around the meadow girl. However, it would be an imprudent step to recognize the ballad cyclization as an epic one proper. The epic concept in the ballad genre is transformed: the heroic image of a woman is fully revealed through the use of the dramatic situation in which the hero finds himself. It is the dramatic situation that shows the hero's defenselessness in front of the forces of external evil and determines the manifestation of true heroism by the girl-polonyanka.

Initially, the ballad cycle organizes the songs according to the general dramatic situation.

The goal of the storytellers, who felt the contradictions of the new era and the inability to fully illuminate them with the artistic means of the heroic epic, was to create a positive female image that heroically, but unsuccessfully, as in reality, would resist the forces of external evil, the Tatar-Mongol domination. This image was suggested by the tragic reality itself, a more successful embodiment of such a plan could not be found. This image of a meadow girl, her very status indicated the tragedy and hopelessness of the situation, therefore, initially, the songs of this cycle did not provide for any active actions on the part of the hero.

Priority is given entirely to depicting a dramatic situation. Therefore, the early ballad cycles do not focus on the actions of the hero, like the subsequent ones - the image itself was too well chosen from the artistic point of view. So in the early ballad "The Girl Taken Captive by the Tatars" only the situation of capturing the girl was developed, later in various versions of this song (of which it should be noted that the "Robber Duvan" and the ballad versions of "Kozarin" that exist as independent texts), the girl will take active steps for the release ... Such actions will be dictated by the very logic of the development of the ballad as a genre form: the emphasis from the dramatic situation will shift to the plan of action, to the plan of the hero's functionality. Since that time, the leading artistic device of the genre has been developed - dialogue.

We see that in the ideological and artistic terms, the formation of the image of the meadow woman is opposed to the epic. The ballad is not interested in the hero-hero, showing his qualities in actively and successfully overcoming epic obstacles, the ballad is interested in the priority of the dramatic situation over the hero. The ballad hero is determined first through being in a dramatic situation, then through active actions, a tragic choice, showing the defenselessness and weakness of an active and heroic person in his actions, in front of the forces of external evil. Thus, the goal of creating the cycle is epic, but the emphasis is shifted: the epic vision of the world is modified.

The dramatic principle of text organization is introduced into the genre structure of the ballad and in its own way models the worldview of ballad songs. The dramatic vision of the world is gradually coming to the fore.

The role of lyrics as a genre-forming element in ballad song at an early stage of development, therefore, will be negligible. Lyrics acts as a tradition that does not give way to a new genre. The means of its expression is the very new image of the hero that the ballad should form. Indeed, the ballad hero is a generalized typical person who, in specific conditions, reveals his tragic position in the world. Lyrics had a similar type of hero; in the genre of lyrical non-ritual songs, a generalized typed person also specifically expressed his feelings about the current, mostly tragic, situation. The lyrical image of the hero gives confidence that the new type of ballad hero rests on solid folklore ground, that a similar type of hero has already taken place in the folklore tradition. Therefore, at the initial stage of ballad formation, lyric and ballad forms will be characterized only by the formal side of the similarity: the songs are distinguished by a shortened form. The very same artistic means of creating an image will go back to the epic, since the purpose of its formation is epic.

Thus, the lyric song became that genre unit, like a fairy tale in the creation of adjacent forms, in which the ones put before the ballad were already solved. tasks: external forces suppress the hero. Therefore, in the formation of the image of the protagonist, a line is laid that corresponds to the aesthetics of the lyrics:

generalization, typification of the hero's image is given through his namelessness. In this regard, the statements about the formation of the "red girl" and the "good fellow" as lyrical images are true. However, to make such a situation absolute seems to be an unjustified position. Just as Avdotya the Ryazanochka is not a fairy-tale character, but an epic one, so the Polyanka is not a lyrical image, but basically an epic one. The namelessness of the hero has a specific function:

if in a lyric song the goal is to reveal the feelings and experiences of the hero, merged together with the world around him, then in the ballad the feelings of the hero are not important. The goal will be dramatic at the core and epic in the way of expression: to convey the conflict of the era and to show the powerlessness of man, his tragic break with the world around him.

Lyrics as a genre beginning has an indirect impact on the ballad genre at its inception and is expressed in the similarity of the figurative system of works. With the development of the category of popular assessment, the main motives and meanings inherent in the genre system of lyric songs will pass into the ballad genre. A red girl can be perceived as a bride, a good fellow as a groom. In the ballad "The Red Girl Runs Out of the Full", the river can be interpreted in the tradition of wedding songs as a symbol of marriage. Only gradually does the ballad move closer to lyrical forms, and as the category of evaluation matures and develops in the ballad genre, the figurative system becomes that element in the structuring of the work that will lay the principle of mobility in the genre structure of the ballad.

Ballad songs as plot works already at the stage of their emergence show an original type of plot in comparison with the epic and lyrical forms of poetry. In the epic, plot is understood as a means of revealing an image, therefore, the memory of the singer is guided by the so-called formulaic typical places. In a lyric song, plot plays a secondary role. Most likely, under the influence of the ballad genre, lyric songs are organized sufficiently with a plot, so that "a lyric song is not very clearly distinguished from a folk ballad" 8.

The logic of the development of thoughts and feelings of the lyric hero determines the connection of the picture of events. "All vital material in a lyric work is passed through the prism of the thoughts and feelings of the lyric hero in the connection and sequence in which it is necessary for the fullest and most vivid expression of these thoughts and feelings." Therefore, formularity receives the leading artistic device - allegory. Metaphors, less often comparisons become formulaic10, the memory of the narrator is guided by them. In the ballad genre, plot is understood dramatically, as a means of disclosing a conflict.

The modern understanding of the plot as a sequence of actions that reveals the character of the hero11 has not yet existed, moreover, in the emerging cycle of ballads about grasshoppers, plot is understood as a means of revealing a dramatic situation, therefore outwardly it may seem that the plot in a ballad is not important, which corresponds to the principles of a lyric song. In fact, the memory of the narrator is organized by plot, and conflict situations (initially, a dramatic situation) acquire formularity. The ways to resolve them can be different, they have the right to exist, therefore the ballad can manifest itself in full measure and significance only in the cycle. It should be noted that the plot organization of the text according to the dramatic principle leads to the artistic inferiority of most ballad songs in comparison with the epic and lyrical heritage.

A prosaized verse, unsuccessful turns of speech justify themselves only in terms of the earliest possible achievement of a conflict situation, which forms the basis of a ballad song. It is the creation of a plot series of a dramatic situation or later a conflict that is the specificity of the ballad genre, therefore all ballad material is organized cyclically.

Initially, the basis of the cycle about girls-meadows is formed by one dramatic situation: flight. It is about the most popular ballad "The Red Girl Runs Out of the Full". Ballads about captivity, being in captivity, undoubtedly, arose later.

"The Red Girl Runs Out of the Full" is a ballad that has preserved the most oldest features forming a cycle. The ballad begins with a negative comparison technique.

"Not a white winch in flight flies - Red girl runs from full." The reception of negative comparison in this song cannot go back to the artistic system of lyric forms of poetry. First of all, it should be noted that there is no song inception or lyrical appeal characteristic of folk lyrics. We present an authoritative statement by V.

Proppa: “a folk song does not start directly from the main content, but gradually leads to it” 12. This, according to the scientist, is the poetic law of the composition of lyric songs. The aesthetics of the ballad genre does not provide for a gradual approach to action, in the best ballads an exceptional dramatic situation is conveyed immediately, without preparation, as in the ballad "Prince Roman Lost His Wife", as in the song "The Red Girl Runs Out of the Full".

The negative comparison in this ballad most convincingly reveals the drama of the situation and goes back, as you can see, to epic means.

“A negative comparison meets all the strictest requirements of folk poetics. It contains allegorical imagery, but at the same time preserves the correspondence to reality. Perhaps that is why it is one of the favorite techniques of folklore, and in particular of the epic, and is used in the most crucial, dramatic places in the narrative ”13. The technique of negative parallelism serves as an epic setting: to show the most concrete quality of the depicted object, focusing on the dramatically colored speed of movement of the grasshopper.

The following lines speak directly to this:

“Under it, the good horse stretches out, The horse's tail and mane are spread, The girl's fur coat swells up ...” The task of the narrator, when adding ballads about meadow women, was to create a heroic female image. In the earliest ballad of the cycle, the image of the red girl is equivalent to the image of the hero of the heroic epic and uses the epic means of its embodiment. Positive traits heroes are characterized as concretely as possible through specific objects. For the heroes, this is military equipment, for the red girl, this is rich decoration.

"On the girl, the kunya's fur coat swells, On a white chest, a stingray of pearls will roll out, On a white hand, a golden ring burns like heat."

The crossing, according to most researchers, in this song is interpreted under the influence of wedding songs as a symbol of marriage, the image of a red girl as a bride14. Of course, under the influence of the author's assessment of the image, the initial ideological and artistic connections of the text are further rethought, and ultimately the ballad is lyricized. According to the initial concept of the song, the crossing was interpreted as an epic obstacle that the hero must overcome. Therefore, the red girl turns to the river in an epic way.

“A red girl was standing on a steep bank, She cried in her familiar voice:

Are there still small fords for you?

Still have viburnum bridges for you?

Are there any other fishing girls for you?

Are there any other carriers for you? " However, the tragedy of the situation lies in the fact that all the power of the heroic female image can be embodied only in the richness of the decoration. The red girl cannot overcome the obstacle on her own - in this, according to the oldest storyteller, the whole drama of this situation is manifested.

Apparently, due to its popularity, this ballad was reworked many times15. This explains the late replacement of the epithet "loud" by "gentle". The image of a red girl departs from the ancient epic meaning, the heroine, according to formal plot logic, cannot order the carrier, she must ask him.

“She spoke in her gentle voice,“ Take me to the other side, To the father to the mother, to the family-tribe, To the family-tribe, to holy Russia! ” The epithet "gentle" hints at the subsequent processing of this text, the role of the carrier, the lyrical comprehension of the plot. However, it should be admitted: without such a replacement, the ballad turned out to be complete and complete.

The situation, given to strengthen the dramatic beginning in the form of an exceptional event, is artistically completed, the image of the heroine is sustained to the end in an epic style. Epithets convey an accurate and specific characterization;

indeed, a red girl is red because there simply cannot be another16. "Good horse", "loud voice", "small fords", "Holy Russia" - all these epithets of the epic system of the world. Accurate epithets convey the epic generalized significance of the female image: "red girl", "white winch", "white chest", "white hand", "stingray pearls", "gold ring", "kunya fur coat".

Later, the constant epithet "red girl" will become dead, frozen.

The radical reworking of our ballad is associated with the design in the ballad genre of the leading artistic device for organizing the text - dialogue. The formal plot logic of the text appears, and it is necessary to describe the female image in more detail, to additionally motivate the already incomprehensible epic behavior of the polonyanka. Motivation occurs due to the description of the heroine's wealth, which she offers in the form of ransom (this motivation is distinguished from the fairytale aesthetics only by the epic nature of the appeal itself and its focus on a specific person, and not to the river, as in the original idea of ​​the song). The system of dialogue will elucidate the tendency in the ballad genre towards the dominance of the dramatic principle. In particular, it will manifest itself in the freedom to use tenses - for a ballad, such an artistic device will be justified as the perfection of the dramatic principle of organizing the text through dialogue. The combination of the past and the present intensifies the drama of the conflict and fully corresponds to the already established ballad aesthetics of the dramatic vision of the world.

“Oh you goy thou, mother Daria-river!

Are there still small fords around you? ”;

"Take me to the other side ...".

The type of equal heroes discovered with the development of the ballad genre had a decisive influence on the structure of our song. The carrier as an episodic person is already becoming equal to the red maiden. There could not be a successful transition to such a turn of the dramatic situation, therefore, in this part of the later motivation of the red girl's answer, the rhythm was violated, the previously leading poetic device in the organization of the text - syntactic parallelism - is violated by the introduction of dialogue.

And will you go, red maiden, to marry me? " - "Princes and boyars wooed me, So will I go for you, for Mordovich?" It should be noted that the dramatic principle of narration used in dialogic speech reduces these shortcomings; moreover, syntactic parallelism is restored at the end of the ballad through the use of incremental repetition, as the personification of a new growing conflict, and sounds like a harmoniously summarizing result.

"Two drivers ran after the girl, Two drivers, two Tartars, Spread a red girl a kunya fur coat, A red girl threw herself into the Darya River, A red girl was drowning, like a key to the bottom." The denouement is given in the past tense, since the main attention here is paid to the dialogue: the ballad is no longer interested in the dramatic position of the image, but in its functionality, its action. An epic character in such a situation cannot act epic, he is placed in the conditions of choice:

one bondage must replace the other. The tragic choice of the heroine modifies her image, it is no longer epic - it is a ballad character. The image of a red girl approaches lyrical forms. The carrier himself is interpreted as a groom - this is a symbolic image of wedding songs.

The symbolism of ritual poetry makes the two images equivalent, motivates the penetration of the lyrical principle in the form of popular assessment. The heroine makes her choice, tragically defending her freedom, thus a new type of ballad hero appears before us - this is a tragic hero. Thus, two dramatic situations are introduced into the structure of one conflict - the conflict of the girl's heroic struggle for freedom. That is why the ballad became so widespread and widespread: the image of a meadow girl passed through different epochs, preserving and deepening the main conflict of the work.

The type of tragic hero is fully embodied in a very rare, known in two recordings and rather strange ballad "Miraculous Salvation". With the exception of the allegorical ending, the song is an example of a developed ballad genre. The narrator's attention is focused only on the actions of the heroine, on the words reflecting the act of such an action. The hero is fully functional, the heroic conflict reveals his position to the end. The developed system of dialogue, the method of repeating an epic obstacle, which enhances the drama of the situation, the active type of the hero, a clear popular assessment expressed in the action of Annushka - all this testifies to the existence of the text not earlier than the 15th century. Such a text is completely subordinate to the goal of the ballad cycle about meadow women and is an integral part of it. However, we are confused by two points: why the ballad has an unusual allegorical ending and why it was not widely adopted. The answer lies in the figurative system of the text.

Brother and sister, as equal heroes, entered the ballad genre by the 16th century. However, the image of the brother in this text is secondary, it serves as a characteristic of the functionality of the protagonist: to show the tragic impotence of Annushka and, conversely, to emphasize the power of external evil, which is conveyed in a generalized form - in the type of the Crimean king. Epic obstacles are erected in order to show the strength of the enemy, the reception of repetition with an increase shows the futility of any struggle and resistance to external evil.

“The king of the Crimean struck about Yurya's gate.

Yes, distant guardians Yes, a mustache scattered, Yes, a distance of nine oak doors, Mustache unraveled, Yes, three miles of golden locks. Mustache opened, Yes, three miles of stone chambers.

The enemy image is generalized, but it is an epic enemy. If in epics he approaches the city, surrounds it with incalculable power, waiting for the appearance of a hero as an epic obstacle to test his own power, then here the epic obstacle will be like a fabulous one - this is a system of obstacles. However, the aim of the Crimean tsar, who generalizes in his image all the power of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, is not to subjugate the heroic image of the protagonist, not to prey on a woman. The image of the enemy is introduced in order to show the heroism of a Russian woman actively fighting for freedom. This is the hero winner. He breaks castles, destroys stone chambers, shows his undeniable power and puts the heroine in an exceptional drama of the situation. The aesthetics of the heroic epic shifted to opposite side: It is not the Russian hero-hero that wins, but the epic enemy. All the main character can do is hide behind obstacles. Therefore, such a ballad does not receive distribution, the people cannot sing praises of the victorious enemies, while simultaneously singing the feats of the Russian heroes in a heroic epic. In the 15th century, the narrator's attention is transferred to the image of the hero, to his actions, but these actions in this song, even while defending Annushka's inner freedom, only emphasize the power of the historical enemy, his full-fledged and equal image. The absence of the epic grotesque in the depiction of the image of the enemy, its more individual disclosure speaks of the formation of a new type of hero - a formidable, wise foreign king (cf.

the development of such an image in the subsequent adjacent form "Avdotya-ryazanochka"). This discovery of a full-fledged image of the enemy in the cycle about girls-meadows will be used by ballad aesthetics in the future in other cycles of ballads, when the historical enemy disappears, it will be replaced either by family members or by the aesthetics of chance.

This ballad could have developed following the tradition of creating adjacent forms, such as Avdotya-Ryazanochka, Prince Roman and Marya Yurievna. She could change the imaginative system, Annushka really should become the main character. Therefore, genres are attracted to the rescue, where the hero wins without resorting to an epic confrontation. Thus, the task is to reduce the image of the enemy, to focus on the heroine. Evaluative suffixes are actively introduced, everything that relates to the heroine gets an affectionate meaning: a white pebble, arms and legs, a wild head, brother Yuryuchka, sister Annushka. Raw White stone receives a symbolic meaning18, the meaning of a sacred and inevitable, fatal action;

based on the aesthetics of lyric songs, the very image of Annushka receives a lyrical assessment, the very beginning of the song is a lyrical song that tunes the listener to a lyrical mood.

"Yes, we cherish, we cherish!" However, the artistic means of a lyric song are clearly not enough.

The tragic ballad choice of the heroine emphasizes not only her freedom, but also the power of the epic enemy. It was necessary to rebuild the image of the heroine so that the only possible victory remained behind her, thereby reducing the epic power of the Crimean king. The popular assessment of the heroine was embodied in the idea of ​​her holiness, only a holy hero can defeat an epic enemy. This is the aesthetics of spiritual poetry: Annushka turns into holy Russia, moreover, she is embodied concretely.

“Ida Annushka fell - There the church has fallen, Idea arms and legs - There are trees, suckers, Where a wild head - There are steep hills, Where a blond braid - There are dark forests, Ida colored dresses - There is a green forest, Ida shed blood - There are blue seas ".

The genre basis of the allegory was also a fairy tale. There have already been such situations in the fairy tale: the saving girl turned into a church. This is a genre support, a tradition that does not allow the introduction of new artistic techniques, but justifies their appearance in other genre forms.

Thus, an expansion of the figurative structure is observed in the song, an additional assessment is introduced: the heroine is a saint. The image of the enemy is leveled, the attention of the narrative is focused on the disclosure of the image of Annushka, the concrete embodiment of the idea of ​​her holiness, so the parts of the heroine's body are transformed into concrete objects. Only a mobile genre could reflect such an approach to the figurative system of the work: it completely changes.

The significance of the contiguous form, Miraculous Salvation, was enormous. The principle of equality of heroes, the type of equivalent characters, was approved in a related form.

Moreover, in the figurative system of the ballad, a tendency was laid to move away from the epic, from the epic means of embodying the characters. The image of the enemy could not be epically illuminated, the two heroes had to have really equal importance, and the tragedy had to be derived precisely from their dramatic relationship, and not from their epic confrontation. The distance from the epic contributed to the strengthening of the role of the dramatic principle in the construction of the genre and the subsequent convergence of ballad songs, starting with the cycle about girls-meadows, with lyrical forms.

The latest in time of occurrence and the most widespread (there are over forty recordings made in all regions of Russia) is the cycle of ballads "Tatar is Full". Here we are faced with a very interesting loop-in-loop problem. "Tatar is full" is included as component cycle about girls-polonians, but this song forms its own rather wide and varied range of options and versions. In addition to the most varied options and plot developments, one can note such ballad versions and plot calls as “Pan brings a Russian meadow to his wife”, “The king and the girl”, “Three sons-in-law”, and the contamination of “Salvation of the meadow”. Moreover, in Slavic folklore we find many parallels, classic options such ballads about polona date back to the 15th - 17th centuries. First of all, we are faced with solid, equal heroes. Both mother and polonyanka are equal, and there is a dramatic conflict in their relationship. However, we are faced with some contradictions: the beginning of the song represents a dramatic situation already developed in the cycle about meadow women - captivity. The leading conflict of the cycle about the girls in the meadow - the heroic struggle of the girl for freedom - is absent. There is a clear decrease in conflict and its transfer to another plane - to the plane of personal relations between mother and daughter. The meaning of the dramatic situation is reduced to the level of an artistic background, which more vividly outlines the real conflict that lies in the relationship between mother and daughter. Hence the development of the leading artistic device of the cycle - dialogue. What explains such an innovation, such an unexpected reduction in the conflict situation, its transfer to the plan of personal relationships and, most importantly, a completely unbalanced stable motive of a happy ending? How is the cyclization of such songs manifested?

By the 16th century, the dramatic situation - the captivity of the meadow woman - ceased to interest folk storytellers. Ballads of captivity were widely circulated and developed. These are numerous reworkings of the epic about Kozarin, and the later versions of the song "The girl was taken prisoner by the Tatars." Later, with the development of the cycle "Tatar is Full", with the loss of ideological and artistic connections, plot versions may be created that develop the initial dramatic situation of captivity for the cycle. As an example, we can point to the song "Pan brings a Russian meadow to his wife", which presents the plot beginning of the cycle "Tatar is full".

The constant, stable motives of this cycle are that the daughter always makes her mother work and always recognizes her afterwards.

Recognition can happen in different ways: both in the lullaby song over the grandson, and according to special signs - the main thing is that the daughter always recognizes the mother and always feels guilty before her. The image of the Tatar as an enemy is leveled, it is intended - as the driving center of the first dramatic situation - captivity - to serve as a background, to set off the relations of a Russian foreign girl and her mother, a Polonya, which have become aggravated to the limit.

The translation of the conflict from a concrete action into the plane of personal relationships is associated with the tradition of the formation of female images in ballad art. In Avdotya-Ryazanochka, the motive of longing for her relatives, for her homeland makes the heroine go to a foreign land and seek her happiness, performing a feat and asserting herself in terms of forming a new type of hero. The motive of longing for her relatives, for her homeland, makes a happy Russian woman living in a foreign land return, in order to lead to tragedy, to the realization of the impossibility of happiness in a foreign land, far from her homeland ("Sister and Brothers Robbers"). In the cycle "Tatarsky is Full", this attitude is rethought.

The daughter lives happily in a foreign land, she does not return home. The ballad is no longer interested in how the Russian girl got to the Tatar, she acts as a happy wife. The conflict lies in the fact that the homeland itself, in the person of its most dear representative - the mother - comes to her, forcibly taken prisoner by her Tatar husband. The artistic sense of a daughter's happiness cannot be destroyed, we find such a version in the ballad Sister and Brothers-Robbers.

Here, the goal is to show the competence of the hero to achieve happiness in a foreign land, so the song will always have a happy ending. Therefore, the dramatic conflict is reduced, it is transferred to the psychological plane - the daughter feels guilty due to late recognition.

“You are my darling mom, What have you not said so far?

I would meet you outside the gate, I would not make you work to work, I would not make you rock the cradle, I would not force you to weave leather, I would not make the geese graze.

I would have started to give you food and drink. Yes, I would carry you in my arms.

Only in the Ukrainian versions of this song, the mother does not forgive her daughter.

Mother's curses are connected with the relevance for the Ukrainian people of the topic of foreign evil, historical bloody raids of external invaders. The cycle will be simplified later. The choice of the heroine between happiness in a foreign land and returning to her homeland in the ballad "Three sons-in-law" 20 will be interpreted equally: both as the impossibility of happiness for a Tatar, and vice versa, as the only possible happiness.

In the late ballad "The King and the Girl", the ideological content of the songs of "Tatarsky Full" is rethought. The main conflict will develop into family relationships brother and sister in their homeland.

The impossibility of happiness with a Tatar already in his homeland is explained by the narrator's comments, written down by E.E. Tomilin: “He took his sister out into the street, put her head on the block, - he began to chop. She thought that the Big King would intercede, but he looked and went away ”21. The image of the heroine is tragic, the name Annushka therefore hints at her innocence, shifting the emphasis to the severity of the sin of the Tatar who deceived her.

"Do not chop me, brother, in the gorenka, Chop me off, brother, on the street, So that everyone is on the divine, The Big King is a shame, That the brother chopped off the sister's head."

The impossibility of happiness with the enemy is the meaning of the ballad, therefore the ballad has no formal end. The enemy is exposed, and it doesn't matter how the brother dealt with the sister22. Therefore, the main leading artistic principle of the formation of the ideological attitude of the song will not be the specific action of the hero, but a developed system of dialogue that reveals the true background of subsequent events.

In the cycle "Tatar is Full" great importance is assigned to the system of dialogue. The dialogue of equal heroes reveals the conflict of testing and affirming the heroine's happiness in a foreign land, but also strengthens the role of the final, final action. The meaning of the denouement acquires the function of departing from the original intention in the cyclization of ballad songs. The cyclization of the internal artistic connections of the conflict or, at the beginning, of the dramatic situation is gradually giving way to the cyclization of the external, the cyclization of the denouement. Thus, "Tatar is Full" reflects a qualitatively different type of cyclization of ballad art associated with the development of the formal logic of the plot. The idea of ​​the work, the conflict situation will remain unshakable, the genre becomes more stable, but the external formal plot acquires greater freedom. Variants with different endings will be created while maintaining the ideological meaning of the work. Therefore, the variant of the ballad cycle will be perceived not as a variant of a dramatic situation, but primarily as a variant of resolving the conflict. The cycle will narrow and acquire the features of a stable plot, to which the memory of the narrator will be primarily oriented. This principle of cyclization is reflected in a single song, but the ballad itself can rise into a larger cycle. For example, cycles about the superiority of a girl over a fellow, about poisoning will reflect the tradition of modifying female images in ballad art. Basically, the path of the ballad in the future is the creation of separate singular songs, developing separate cycles of variants of interchanges, although they are, of course, connected by common motives, ideological attitudes with the ballads of previous samples.

Thus, the ideological basis of the cycle "Tatar is Full" will remain unshakable. The influence of such ballads as "Avdotya-Ryazanochka", "Sister and Brothers Robbers", the subsequent reduced version of "The King and the Girl" stipulates in the songs "Tatar is Full" the stable unchanging idea of ​​affirming the happiness of a private family abroad. The active existence of this cycle is characteristic of the 16th - 17th centuries. One can also note the special popularity of the cycle "Tatar is Full" in the south of Russia as a result of the prevailing historical conditions.

The cycle under consideration about girls-polonians led us to the conclusion about changes in the principle of genre structuring of ballads. The epic setting of the cycle being created is replaced by a dramatic approach to text modeling. The figurative system of the ballad is modified, the main epic hero turns into a dramatic type of equivalent characters.

Moreover, a popular assessment is introduced into the image of the hero, which later generates into the author's one. This brings the genre structure of the ballad closer to lyric songs as opposed to the epic legacy. The principles of song cyclization become clearer: with the discovery of the type of equivalent heroes. With the opening of dialogue as the leading artistic principle that creates a model of song conflict, the ballad cycle is understood as the creation of conflict options. However, the songs do not lose touch with the previous samples, they are closely related to each other. The memory of storytellers is focused on the conflict, but with the development of formal plot logic, more attention will be paid to the external manifestation of the conflict, therefore, the cyclicality of ballads is perceived as creating options for a denouement. This feature is stable throughout the development of the genre and approaches the formation of cyclicality in lyric songs, where the creation of variants does not lead to genre transformation, but mainly reflects the changed requirements of the era.

3. Adjacent forms. "Avdotya-Ryazanochka" The ballad genre forms adjacent forms. The formation of related forms is an indicative sign of the creative productivity of the genre, its ability to further development... The ballad interacts with other developed genres of folklore, creates transitional forms and shows the prospects for the development of certain artistic elements of the genre system. This interaction can occur when trying to compare different solutions to a common problem. Only "long-term coexistence of genres and their interaction leads to the transition of one genre to another or the transition of works from one group to another" 23. In the XV –XVI centuries. the development of the Russian heroic epic and ballad genre led them to convergence and the creation of related forms. The first example of this kind of works is Avdotya-Ryazanochka.

The genre basis of Avdotya-Ryazanochka has not yet been determined. D.

Balashov takes it for a ballad, V. Zhirmunsky, focusing on the collections of A. Hilferding and R. Trautmann, refers it to epics. B. Putilov defines "Avdotya-Ryazanochka" as a historical ballad, in educational literature it is customary to refer it to the category of historical songs. "Avdotya-ryazanochka" traditionally dates back to the XIII century, since the content of the song reflects, as it is assumed, a historical event: the ruin of Ryazan by Batu in 1237. Based on this work, B. Putilov restores the so-called "Ryazan cycle" of historical or historical ballads that have not come down to us. songs. In variants, the city of Ryazan is often called Kazan, the scientist explains this fact by the convention of toponymy of late northern origin24. According to new research by specialists from the historical school, the text of Avdotya-Ryazanochka can go back to the 16th century as a response to the defeat of the Mikhail Klyapik embassy in Kazan in 1505.25 The relatively recent ruin of Ryazan by Khan Akhmet in 1472 is also taken into account (the foreign king in our song is called Bakhmet Turkish), later Kazan in 1552.

"Avdotya-Ryazanochka" is known only in three records. Researchers have not found any analogies in the Slavic regions of this song26. The songs of the Ryazan cycle, about Evpatiy Kolovrat, are restored only hypothetically. It is necessary to determine the genre specificity of the song in order to answer the question of why only one work has come down to us from an extensive cycle, which does not form a single version, with the exception of the later ballad version "Omelfa Timofeevna Rescues Relatives".

The 13th century was a transitional period for Europe, when the heroic epic was replaced by the chivalrous romance and ballad. The prerequisites for such a development were already beginning to appear in Russia, if not for the beginning of cultural isolation associated with the invasion of the Tatar-Mongol troops at that time. As a result, we see a new rise in the heroic epic of the 13th - 15th centuries, the creation of epics with a fundamentally new type of historicism. The Russian heroic epic selects a significant part of European ballad plots for itself (a similar process is observed among the South Slavic peoples). Thus, the Russian ballad is faced with the limitation of the content structure and develops a special tragic vision of the world.

The time of the Tatar-Mongol invasion required the creation of heroic characters, and the ballad genre solves the tasks in a special way.

The epic hero, the defender of the Russian statehood, finds its parallels in the ballad genre - this is the type of a meadow girl from the ancient ballad "The Red Girl Runs Out of the Full". Techniques for creating such a type are rooted in the epic tradition of raspberries, female heroes. According to the idea of ​​folk singers, this is how the whole tragedy of the situation manifests itself: there are no heroes in life. The choice of the hero's image at an early stage is narrowed and gets a special tragic completeness in the type of a defenseless, but actively fighting for independence woman. In epics, under the influence of the aesthetics of the ballad genre, a tragic type of heroes appears: the Danube, later Sukhman and Danilo-Lovchanin. Thus, the first achievement in the genre relation of the Russian ballad is the creation of a female image27, which at an early stage of development bears a heroic character. This is the influence of the heroic epic, heroic epics, the influence that the ballad genre will experience throughout the entire stage of its formation.

"Avdotya-Ryazanochka" cannot be unconditionally included in the ballad genre. The narrator's attention is paid not to the conflict of the song, not to various options for its full disclosure, but to the epic goal - the creation of a new type of heroic character - a woman who does not have the status of a hero, but overcomes a formidable enemy. This is an epic type of hero, Avdotya ryazanochka goes to meet danger - and defeats an invincible enemy. This is an epic feat, the only thing is that an unusual character performs it - not a raspberry, but an ordinary woman. Therefore, Tsar Bakhmet is not an equal hero, he only emphasizes, is a means of revealing heroism ordinary woman- Avdotya-ryazanochki. Thus, the image of the hero combines epic and ballad aesthetics. But there is also a genre tradition that influenced this song.

In Avdotya-Ryazanochka, formless verse prevails. In relation to the epic legacy, such an artistic technique is clearly perceived as unsuccessful. The epic verse consists of several traditional poetic combinations - formulas. The task of the epic singer is to skillfully construct the verse to the given end of the line. Therefore, "the storyteller's skill is not to memorize thousands of epic poems by someone else, but to learn how to recreate them in the course of telling the epic" 28. The formless verse of Avdotya-Ryazanochki is expressed in a series of proseisms. Subordinate constructions are often used, while the poetic language of folklore seeks to simplify its structure as much as possible.

"In the dark forests, he let forth fierce beasts, So that no one can pass or pass.";

* * * When you ravaged the old Kazan-city under forest, You filled the people with forty thousand ... ";

* * * "When you knew how to walk the path and the road, So be able to ask for the little heads Of the three as one ..." the principle of constructing the text:

When I ruined your side, Kazan-city under forest, Then they killed my dear brother of my darling ... "Prose text is facilitated by the form of the verbal participle, the use of which in folklore means the gradual transition from one action to another29:

“Tsar Bakhmet Turkish, Walking from Kazan from the city, Let all the rivers-lakes deep ...” Also, the presence of explanatory structures complicates the text, makes the style of presentation cumbersome and unwieldy.

"Clear fields - robbers about midnight passed (About midnight robbers hold the opochin), Dark forests - fierce animals - about noon passed (About midday the beasts and opochin hold)".

A competent distribution of lines according to the principle of syntactic parallelism, the repetition of such inconvenient sentences in artistic speech prevents the text from becoming prosaic. Using the replay technique usually emphasizes the full significance of the episode, so incremental replay is sometimes used. As Yu. Lotman wrote, since the aesthetics of identity lies at the heart of folklore, repetition will be absolute and unconditional, and not dialectically complex30. The main functions of repetition in the epic are subject to this law.

In Avdot'e-Ryazanochka, repetition has an additional function: it serves the rhythmic organization of the text. The repetition acts as a formula verse, thanks to which the singer memorizes the text. Thus, the prosaic language of Avdotya-Ryazanochka unexpectedly reveals its poetic merits: stylistically cumbersome constructions are poeticized with the help of syntactic parallelism and repeated repetition of such parts of the text. This was a pioneering technique for creating a new type of song.

Such a formulaic verse is not compositionally stable when creating a version. You can compare this option with its later version, discovered by A. Grigoriev 40 years later, in the city of Pinega, "Omelfa Timofeevna helps her relatives." The later revision changes the text, makes it more story-driven. Repetition as a leading poetic device disappears along with proseism, the dialogue takes on a vivid dramatic coloration. Due to the compactness of the form and the focus of the narrator's attention on the conflict situation, the version seems to be ballad, here the image of the heroine does not bear national heroism.

Omelfa Timofeevna appears as a private typical person, the conflict is transferred to the family sphere. However, there can be no ballad interpretations of the plot. Too obvious influence of the previous sample, the artistic means of which are subordinated to the creation of the heroic image of Avdotya Ryazanochka, depreciates this version from a ballad point of view. Omelfa Timofeevna performs a private feat;

ballad aesthetics, if it describes the feat of a private person, then necessarily shows his tragic break with the world around him, the superiority of the forces of external evil.

We observe a violation of the compositional structure of the song. The ballad conflict, the denouement is given in the first part, the second part reveals the heroic image of Omelfa Timofeevna. This continuation is only logical from a plot point of view.

“Says Omelfa and Timofeevna, The Orthodox Tsar says to her and everything:

“How did you go and all the dark forests?

How did the rivers go so fast?

Who else was there even a comrade with you?

Who else are your carriers? " Omelfa da Timofeevna answers:

"I have comrades and burning tears, Carriers and fishermen."

How Omelfa went, boasted:

"I went alone, but five went."

In terms of genre, the two-part, the two-part ballad is unacceptable. The conflict loses its meaning, it repeats the conflict model in Avdotya-Ryazanochka, devaluing the ballad sound of the version. The formal meaning of the repetition in the song "Omelfa Timofeevna helps her relatives" disappears, the ballad is perceived as a plot, acts as a plot version of an ancient model. With the development of the ballad genre, we will not find works where the technique of repetition will have a formulaic meaning. There is every reason to suppose that the formularity of repetition is unique in the song "Avdotya-Ryazanochka" and is unstable in terms of the development of the genre. Such instability, simultaneity testifies to the fact that these poetic combinations are based not on epic aesthetics, but on the aesthetics of a fairy tale.

Indeed, the elements of the construction of the verse can be taken from the samples of the heroic epic, but in this case the narrator's thinking goes back not to the epic, but to the fairy tale. The storyteller processes the material taken from the epic heritage and presents it in a fabulous way. Ideally, the singer's task is to try to create a new heroic image; the solution to this issue is achieved with the help of fairy-tale poetics. New type the hero must prove the legitimacy of his claims. The singer and the audience must make sure that the heroine is a truly heroic image, rightfully replacing the hero of Russian epics. The task is further complicated by the fact that new heroes appear in the parallel developing epic: Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich - and they are especially popular at this time: the Russian heroic epic is going through a new fruitful stage of its development.

Therefore, the song introduces various tests of the hero in order to verify the authenticity of his status. Overcoming obstacles, emphasizing the complexity of these tests with the help of three-fold repetition, the introduction of special prosaized explanatory constructions go back to fairy poetics. The fairytale hero also overcomes obstacles to achieve the intended goal. And the very nature of the obstacles in the song is fabulous.

“You are Avdotya's wife Ryazanochka!

How did you get along the way?

I had all the rivers-lakes deep, And robbers were set up along the roads, And in the dark forests wild beasts were let loose, So that no one could pass or pass. "

Apparently, the dialogue in this song cannot be traced back to ballad aesthetics. The emphasized drama of situations is clothed in the form of a fabulous question-and-answer system, serving the purpose of testing the status of the heroine: is Avdotya worthy of being a new type of hero or not. By its genesis, it is a system of intricate riddles and wise answers. On this basis, it can be assumed that the image of Avdotya-ryazanochka finds its parallels in the poetics of creating images of fairy-tale wise girls31. However, the goals are completely different: if plot amusement is important in a fairy tale, then in this song all fairy tricks are used in order to test the status of the heroine, to test the legal capacity of the heroic type of the hero. Therefore, in artistic terms, Avdotya-ryazanochka approaches the type of heroes of the heroic epic: the constant use in the text of the stable epithets of the appendices: "Avdotya's little wife Ryazanochka" finds its parallels in epics.

This is the epithet "Holy Russian hero". In the song being analyzed, this once again emphasizes the main idea: the epic and the ballad at a certain stage of development converge and create new samples in terms of genre.

Thus, fairytale poetics also determines the artistic organization of the text. The image of the main character has parallels in the figurative system of fairy-tale wise virgins. The entire text is repeated three times, describing the heroine's fabulous trials. The wise answer of Avdotya-ryazanochka to the proposed riddle, which carries the functions of a heroic battle in an epic:

“But you don’t know how to ask for a little head, So I will cut off your riotous head by the shoulders” - leads to a happy ending, and there can be no other end32. Even the most pro-saized beginning of the song, the use of the conjunction "and" in complex constructions, though artistically softened by syntactic parallelism, resembles a fabulous beginning.

“King Bakhmet of Turkey received mulberries, And he ravaged the old Kazan-city under the forest, And he filled the people with forty thousand, He took them all full into his land.” This line can be traced more clearly in the adjacent form "Prince Roman and Marya Yurievna". You can compare the beginning and end of a given text and determine the use of fairytale genre aesthetics.

“Once upon a time there was a prince Roman Mitrievich, He slept with his wife, and she was pinched at night ...” in all churches. "

"Avdotya-ryazanochka" is a new genre form (we will call it adjacent, since it reflects the aesthetics of different genres, different forms visions of the world, subordinate to one dominant goal). Its plots go back not to ballad aesthetics, but to fabulous;

the dramatic conflict is not expressed, since it is subordinated to the idea of ​​creating a new heroic female image capable of defeating the forces of external evil. The singers' task is not to reflect the conflict in all its possible consequences, but to create a heroic image of a new era. This task is epic in essence and reflects the aesthetics of the heroic epic. Therefore, the happy ending of the adjacent forms "Avdotya Ryazanochka", "Prince Roman and Marya Yurievna", "Kozarin" is not subject to variation: you need to change the artistic goal in order to create a ballad.

In the ballad genre itself, such a goal already exists: it is the creation of not a heroic, but a tragic female image. As an example, you can point to the ballad "Sister and Brothers-Robbers".

“Sister and Brothers-Robbers” is a ballad in the external logic of events about incest, and here all attention is focused on the conflict of the incest that has taken place. This motive is international even in the absence of similar plots from the neighbors. Moreover, connections with the Slavic ballads of this text can be established not only by the presence of the theme of incest, but also by solving a more ancient motive: violation of the ban on returning home33. The ballad, as a later historical genre formation, cannot directly reflect the action of such a motive; it is transmitted indirectly, through epic overtones. The conflict in an ancient ballad cannot be based on chance34; an unrecognized meeting of brothers and sisters had to take place. Even in later versions, the motive of longing is constantly mentioned, which prompts the heroine to return to her homeland, home. Meeting brothers should be motivated. And there is such motivation:

the heroine returns home from a strange side, her sister wants to see her family. It is the violation of the prohibition, as well as the new tragic outlook in matters of personal and family life, that lead to a denouement that does not imply the possibility of a happy ending35. However, much earlier we find a song with a similar conflict resolution. We are talking about "Avdotya-Ryazanochka" and the tradition of creating female images in a ballad. The motive of longing for relatives, for their homeland, makes the heroic victorious woman go to a foreign land and perform a feat. On the contrary, the tragic woman in the ballad about robbers lives in a foreign country, lives happily, without conflicts - and this alone may indicate that her happiness in her homeland will be destroyed. In the period of national tolerance for the Tatars, another storyline arises:

a woman married off to a foreign land, in a foreign land, and remains, living happily.

This cycle of ballads "Mother-in-law in captivity of her son-in-law" or "Tatar is full". In the ballad "Sister and Brothers-Robbers" in one of the versions, the heroine is directly called "the little ryazanochka":

“The lesser robber does not sleep, does not lie, Does not sleep, does not lie, he thinks, He asks the little ryazanochka:

"Tell me, little ryazanochka, from which hordes ..." This name indirectly confirms the idea of ​​a woman's status not as a sister, but as a foreigner who cannot return home. Therefore, the original version of the ballad is not occupied by the theme of incest, a destroyed family, it is the later interpretation of the song by the performers, but the image of the heroine returning from a foreign land. For this reason, the ballad did not form an extensive cycle: such a character must carry either a negative attitude or a negative meaning. The emergence of the image of the "little ryazanochka" makes it possible to reconstruct the ballad "Sister and Brothers-Robbers" and attribute it to the end of the 15th century. However, the presence of additional signs, such as:

the absence of an active popular assessment in action, a successful attempt to shift the conflict into the area of ​​family feelings about the incest that had taken place36, the introduction of the motives of repentance and collective forgiveness in the mother - refers the active existence of the song to the 16th - 17th centuries.

Avdotya-Ryazanochka is not exclusively a response to a historical event. In this song, the narrator's task was to create a new image of a heroic woman-victor, and the salvation of the city, conceived in the later version as the salvation of the family, is an act of heroism. The song could not be created later than the 15th - 16th centuries, since during this period the character of the heroic beginning of the female image changes: this is not the passivity of the 16th century, but the absence of national heroism of the time of the Tatar-Mongol yoke and its reduction into a personal plan of love or family content.

"Avdotya-Ryazanochka" forms the tradition of adjacent forms in the ballad genre. As a direct continuation of it, the song "Prince Roman and Marya Yurievna" should be considered, which contaminates both dramatic situations and, undoubtedly, is of late origin. Both works presumably date from the 15th - early 16th centuries, since the time of existence of both songs actually coincides.

When creating the heroic image of Marya Yurievna, one should not underestimate the role of the ballad cycle about girls in the meadow. The epic setting to create a heroic image is complicated by the ballad: the singers are interested in the conflict between the heroic struggle of the girl and foreigners. Personal freedom reflects national freedom, therefore Marya Yuryevna is a nationwide image of a heroic Russian woman. The heroic principle of the female image must be tested, as in "Stavr" and "Avdotya-Ryazanochka". In this case, this is a test of the heroine's right to escape, and again the fairy tale comes to the rescue as a genre that has the experience of solving the assigned tasks. The heroine defends her right to flee, and this receives a popular assessment, similar in character to The Miraculous Salvation.

In the contiguous form "Prince Roman and Marya Yuryevna" "the memory of the singer is guided by the external logic of the plot, therefore we will not find repetition as the leading poetic device. In the ballad genre, the formal plot logic of the text has been laid since the 16th century. This principle of storytelling goes back to fairy-tale poetics37 and is subordinate to the goals of entertainment. It will organically form the basis of the designs created in the 16th - 17th centuries.

novelistic epics, therefore there is every reason to assume that the epic about Stavr, "Avdotya-Ryazanochka" and "Prince Roman and Marya Yurievna" were the predecessors in the development in Russian folklore of the tradition of creating novelistic epics, the main function of which went back to the amusement of the chivalric novel in the West.

4. "Kozarin" The epic about Kozarin had a significant impact on the development of the ballad genre. The history of the study of this song is a fairly small number of works. Orest Miller carried the idea of ​​incest as the most ancient basis of the song, A.S. Yakub noted the real background of the event described by the epic, Vs. Miller clarified this thesis by pointing to a more specific fact38. In Propp, in the book "Russian Heroic Epic", he examines this song in detail; in 1965, an analytical article by B.

Putilova about "Kozarin" 39.

The question of the genre structure of "Kozarin" remains open. On the one hand, the song is interpreted as an integral part of the cycle about girls in the meadow, on the other hand, it retains the peculiarities of the poetics of the heroic epic. V. Propp speaks of the semi-ballad character of the epic40, B. Putilov clarifies this position, arguing about two ways of the development of the plot: the path of the heroic epic and the ballad.

The criterion for differentiation is, according to the scientist, the functionality of the image of the protagonist. In the epic version, Kozarin is the main character;

in the ballad, he is an episodic character and has a plot goal - the release of the polonyanka41.

The second circle of problems arises when posing the question of the genesis of the genre.

According to V. Propp, the source of the addition or processing of the epic was the ancient plot, which the scientist raised to the circle of epics about matchmaking. B. Putilov sees in the creation of "Mihajla Kozarin" the influence of the development of a folk poetry tradition, which creates youthful songs about Mark or ballads about meadow women and incest. The scientist defines the studied epic as a tendency to cyclization about girls-polonians42.

Let us briefly outline the currently dominant point of view of V.

Proppa. The scientist considers the song to be an epic of semi-ballad character.

The researcher convincingly proved the absence of a connection between Kozarin and the epics of the Kiev cycle. The main conflict, according to the scientist, lies in the confrontation between the old ideology of the prehistoric epic (Mikhail's father) and the new positive epic hero. Kozarin triumphs over the clan (according to V. Propp) and over fate and fate, leading him to commit incest (according to B. Putilov). The epic plot is the most archaic among the epic plots in the Russian heroic epic: a hero rescues a kidnapped woman. Therefore, the influence of the circle of the most ancient epics about matchmaking on the plot of "Kozarin" is very likely. Tatars go back to monsters (in some versions, which experienced a fabulous influence, zoomorphic creatures are called kidnappers);

sister also has the ancient meaning of bride / wife. However, the epic has its content not in incest, but in overcoming the old tradition of the prehistoric epic, so the hero is not disappointed, but rejoices that he saves his sister, and does not find a wife.

The area of ​​distribution of the epic is not quite common. As V.

Propp, "Kozarin" was recorded the greatest number of times on Pinega43. This is the area, according to S.I. Dmitrieva44, is ballad, songs of a ballad character are presented here most widely.

Indeed, the impact of the ballad genre on the epic is noticeable.

The similarity is evident in the composition of the song itself. On the one hand, it is closed and self-sufficient like most Russian epics. However, the principles of the ballad cyclization of the text are also evident: only the totality of equal options, versions of the plot illuminates from all sides the ideological and artistic significance of the work. The same idea was expressed by V. Propp, who was not satisfied with any, even the most complete version of the song:

"Only the combination of these interpretations in different versions gives a complete picture of the people's plan" 45. However, none of the options gives us a case of incest that has taken place. In a folk ballad, a stable motive of a happy ending is impossible, since the ballad genre seeks to illuminate all sides of the conflict and therefore works out all possible options for resolving the conflict situation. Apparently, in this case, the ballad conflict is not the basis of the song.

The epic about Kozarin glorifies the non-dramatic relationship of a young man and a girl. Mikhailo Kozarin is an epic hero. The entire appearance of the protagonist in versions describing his birth, childhood, corresponds to a typical heroic image. Kozarin is not a private person, not a good fellow as a type of ballad hero, it is an integral image that has its own character in the epic marking of heroism. In the heroic epic, the heroes are always marked and have their main feat, but the truly heroic characters of the warrior epic have several plots, several feats. Kozarin is a hero of a non-military cycle about the struggle against the Tatar-Mongol invasion, he is of a different era.

His name is not transferred to other heroes, on the contrary, later, due to the one-sided interpretation of the image by folk performers, Kozarin may be replaced by Alyosha Popovich. Our hero has only one plot, only one feat. The functionality of the whole image of Kozarin is determined by this plot. Only rare heroes of the heroic warrior epic can have such a stable connection only with their plot, such heroes denote either a passing era (Svyatogor) or a negative type (Danube) 46.

The formation of the image of Mikhail Kozarin was significantly influenced by the aesthetics of ballad songs. The very name Kozarin, as is commonly believed, reflects the Khozar origin. This is an alien name, moreover, it means a tribe hostile to the Russian people. It can be assumed that the stable motive of the hero's alienation serves as a reinforcement to the main characteristic of the image, clearly marking the hero. This is a mark of a ballad character, a ballad worldview - Kozarin's inferiority determines his entire image.

Kozarin is homeless, he does not belong to his family. The motive of expulsion from one's family is stable for all versions of the epic. Kozarin is an exile, his whole life is an exile, he is a hero without heroism, a hero of one plot, a hero of one heroic deed. The functionality of the heroic image is entirely subordinated to the sphere of aimless wandering, as Svyatogor once wandered without a thirst for exploits and glory. If it were not for the heroic nature of Kozarin, we would have easily recognized in him the type of "timeless fellow", which at one time became the most popular image of folk ballads, a bright representative of which is reflected in the ballad "Well done and the Smorodina River".

Nevertheless, Kozarin performs a heroic feat - he saves the meadow woman from the hands of the Tatars. The song does not have the main content of incest, otherwise the cause of the family conflict would have been, as B. Putilov47 pointed out, a warning about incest. However, even with a successful outcome, the conflict escalates: the father does not forgive his heroic son who saved his sister. As V. Propp correctly noted: “Fathers in the life of the heroes of the Russian epic, as a rule, do not play any role” 48. In this case, the ideological confrontation between the father as the head of the family and the son determines the conflict of the song.

Kozarin somehow interferes with the happiness of his family, and even a perfect feat in the name of its preservation cannot remove the tragic guilt from him. His fault lies in the fact that he is a hero.

Mikhailo Kozarin was born not in his era, he was born into a private family, which in most cases has many children. In D. Balashov's collection "Folk Ballads" there is a variant where the rescued sister tells the savior:

“I am not a greater family, no less, Which was the same to the princely family.

Like my father had nine sons, And I am ten, bitter.

Four brothers serve the king, And four brothers pray to God, And the ninth brother is a hero in poly. "

Kozarin is opposed to his family by his heroic origin, for this reason the father cannot recognize him as his blessed son. The family acts as a norm of life. Therefore, the hero, rejected by the family, is perceived as rootless (a type of ballad hero), he is a hero without genuine heroism, heroism, which is manifested not in one heroic deed, but in the whole integral and meaningful life. The rootlessness of Mikhail Kozarin is understood as his inferiority, a hero like Svyatogor once is denied by the new ballad aesthetics. The time of the heroes is gone, it is not the heroic deed of a hero that is needed, the heroic deed of a private person is needed, for today's heroes a place in exile. Therefore, Kozarin is deliberately perceived as not entirely Russian, therefore, the song about such a hero has a single and isolated existence - the hero performs a private feat for the sake of establishing a private family, but as a hero of a national scale he is not needed, from a historical point of view, this is a negative hero.

"Kozarin" is one of the first attempts to create the image of a tragic hero who has not found a place for himself either in the epic tradition or in the new system of the world. The image of a tragic hero, subject to ballad aesthetics, will then find its embodiment in such heroes as Sukhman and Danilo Lovchanin.

This song, according to its design, is a product of epic creativity and does not have a ballad attitude. However, the impact on the epic of the aesthetics of the ballad genre is undeniable. The epic itself is so much in line with the ballad outlook that later "Kozarin" was re-made into ballad versions. First of all, "Kozarin" comes close to the cycle about girls in the meadows. New variants are being created, where the figure of the clearing becomes the central figure. They also get a ballad interpretation of the song with the main character Kozarin, but the heroic beginning will disappear. The ballad will represent a type of private tragic hero who will find full artistic justification in a parallel cycle about incest. On the basis of the old plot, songs with a tragic ending will appear.

Thus, the ballad aesthetics and plot proximity of Kozarin to the cycle about meadow girls predetermined the features of the further fate of the song. The epic came closer and closer to the ballad cycle, ballad versions appeared that overshadowed the original epic. And already, not without reason, these options are considered as an integral part of the cycle about meadows. The image of the main character, a rootless hero, a hero of one heroic deed, is also reflected in the ballad type of a rootless young man, rejected by the new ideal of the coming era - a typical private family.

According to the artistic conception, "Kozarin" is an epic, experiencing a significant impact of the ballad genre and representing a new stage in the formation of the heroic epic. The hero is thought of as opposed to the ideology of a new coming era, and Kozarin's heroic principle will not allow him to find his place in the world of private conflicts of private people. "Kozarin" presents an artistic interpretation of a turning point in the history of the Russian heroic epic. The emergence of the song can be dated no later than the 16th, and, most likely, the 15th century, at the time of the convergence of the ballad and the heroic epic and the creation of the so-called adjacent forms.

Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic M., 1999 p. 31.

In the same place. P.32.

In the same place. P.46.

In the same place. P.47.

Sokolova V.K. Russian historical songs of the 16th - 18th centuries M., 1960.S. 142-143.

Putilov B.N. Russian historical song // Folk historical songs. M.-L., 1962.S. 15.

Putilov B.N. Russian historical song folklore of the 13th - 16th centuries. M.-L., 1960. P.109.

Propp V.Ya. About Russian folk lyric song // Folk lyric songs. L., 1961. P.54.

Lazutin S.G. Composition of Russian folk lyric song (on the specificity of genres in folklore) // Russian folklore. T.5. M.-L., 1960. P.212.

Astafieva-Skalbergs L.A. A symbolic character (object) and the forms of its image in a folk song // Questions of genres of Russian folklore. M., 1972. P.31.

Only the genre of the historical song will interpret the plot as the actions of the hero, reflecting his image, forming the initial concepts of the term "character", also the cycles of Western European ballads reflect such aesthetics, cf. ballads about Robin Hood Propp V.Ya. About Russian folk lyric song P.53.

Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic. P.520.

See in more detail: Putilov B.N. Russian historical song folklore. S.109-110.

Wed version of this ballad "The death of a young man at the ferry", where the original idea, invested in the song, is completely lost.

Wed similar reasoning about the constant epithet "kind" in relation to the young man by V. Propp. Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic. P.527.

According to A. Amelkin's research, such a character will take shape by the 16th century. Amelkin A.O. About the time of the emergence of the song about "Avdotya-Ryazanochka". // Russian folklore. T. 29, SPb., 1993.

According to the observations of L. Astafieva-Skalbergs, the images-symbols in folk songs are stable and ambiguous. Astafieva-Skalbergs L.A. A symbolic character ... P.33.

Putilov B.N. Reality and Fiction in the Slavic Historical Ballad // Slavic Folklore and Historical Reality. M., 1965. P. 166.

The third daughter, given to a foreign land, will always be unloved. This is the only motive that recalls the ancient tradition of prohibiting returning home, as well as a negative attitude towards the foreign side.

“The father of the mother gave birth to three daughters:

Two daughters are happy, and the third is unhappy. " Wed an option that is opposite in its ideological attitude and has a similar motive.

What auntie, what a widow had There were three daughters:

Two were loved ones, the third daughter was disgusting. "

Folk ballads. M.-L., 1963.S. 393.

It should be noted that in the ballad genre the past tense denotes the perfection of the action even in the dialogic or monologue speech of the hero (cf. the ballad "Threats of a Girl to a Young Man", discussed below). In this case, the use of the past tense in the words of the heroine means the bloody denouement of the ballad and gives the whole work a special tragic sound.

Kravtsov N.I. The system of genres of Russian folklore. M., 1963.S. 27.

Putilov B.N. Russian historical song folklore. P.65.

Amelkin A.O. "About the time of the emergence of the song about" Avdotya-ryazanochka "// Russian folklore. T. SPb. 1996.S. 80-85.

V. Zhirmunsky, referring this song to short stories about the release of a husband from captivity by his wife, draws a parallel with the German song "Count of Rome" of the 16th century, accordingly, assuming a rather late origin of "Avdotya-Ryazanochka" itself Zhirmunsky V.M. Folk heroic epic.

Comparative historical sketches. M., L., 1962.S. 182-183, 191.

V. Propp, in his materials on the ballad, believed that the main feature of a ballad is a woman, and her absence means that the work is not ballad. Propp V.Ya. Poetics of folklore. M., 1998.S. 138.

Putilov B.N. The art of an epic singer (from textual observations of epics) // Principles of a textological study of folklore. M., L., 1966.S. ​​231., For more details see 232-236.

G.L. Venediktov Extra-logical beginning in folk poetics // Russian folklore. T.14. L 1974.C.225.

Lotman Yu.M. Lectures on structural poetics // Lotman Yu.M. and the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. Moscow 1994. S.223-224.

It should also be noted the influence of the heroic epic in the formation of the image of Avdotya. In the heroic epic, in particular in the epics about the reflection of the Tatars, such a heroic female image already existed. We are talking about Princess Apraks (Eupraxia), the wife of Prince Vladimir. “The new heroic struggle and the heroic era create the image of a heroic Russian woman, and this is how Apraksa was depicted in the epic. She is opposed to Vladimir. She always holds the hand of the heroes against Vladimir. " Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic.

The choice of the heroine fell on her brother, and here it is legitimate to consider the influence of family relations, already incomprehensible to the new generation of singers. In fairy tale poetics, the model of the world is preserved, where members of the collective are considered primarily as the successors of the family. In this song, this idea has no development and is limited to the poetics of the fairy tale.

V. Eremina writes: “... the origins of many ancient motifs reflected in folklore, especially when it comes to late folklore genres, should be sought not in the rite, but in the ritual forms of thinking, in the ideological foundations lost by the ritual, which turn out to be much more stable and more conservative than the ritual itself. " Eremina V.I. Ritual and folklore L., 1991.S. 194. Analyzing the Slavic ballads ("Daughter-bird", "Bird-avenger", "Sister and brothers-robbers", "The wife of a robber", "The arrival of a dead brother"), their archaic layer, the researcher comes to the conclusion about their late origin: " ... a fairy tale, a ballad are completely independent genres, initially not attached to the rite, tracing ancient ritual relations, their living meaning, sometimes significantly retain not only the notions that have become obsolete in the ritual, but their motivation ”. In the same place. P. 195. It should be noted here that V. Eremina considers the rite as a later history education, while ballads reflect a more archaic complex of representations associated with the prohibition of returning to the family and the violation of this prohibition.

V. Propp, referring to this ballad, believes that its action is based on pure chance. Propp V.Ya. Poetics of folklore. P.317. The randomness of the ballad's actions is also implied by D. Balashov as a manifestation of the aesthetics of a direct case, although the scientist primarily means the lack of motivation and primacy of the action in the ballad genre. Balashov D.M. The history of the development of the genre of the Russian ballad.

Petrozavodsk, 1966, p. 41.

Variants that do not contain the theme of the committed incest are flawed and late reworkings of the original ballad. They are mainly of southern origin. These include the ballad "Robbers and Sister" from the "Collection of Songs of the Samara Region, compiled by V. Varentsov."

B. Putilov believes it is true. without naming specific dates, the later introduction of the image of the horror of incest. As a consequence, the disappearance of the incest motive itself is indicated, as the reason is the desire to soften the content of the song. Putilov B.N. Reality and fiction in the Slavic historical ballad // Slavic folklore and historical reality. M., 1965. P. 165.

It should be noted the role of the epic "Soloman and Vasily Okulovich", which influenced the song "Prince Roman and Marya Yurievna". V. Propp and B. Putilov attribute it to epics of fabulous content and place it in the second volume of their collection. Epics. T. 1-2 M., 1958.

For more details see V.Ya. Propp. Russian heroic epic. S.568-569.

Putilov B.N. The story of one plot riddle (epic about Mikhail Kozarin) // Questions of folklore.

Tomsk, 1965.

Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic. P.156.

Putilov B.N. The story of one plot riddle. S.20-21.

Putilov B.N. Russian historical song folklore of the 13th - 16th centuries. P.105.

Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic. S.156-157.

Dmitrieva S.I. Geographical distribution of epics in the Russian North // Slavic folklore.

M., 1972. P.67.

Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic. P.164.

Mikhailo Potyk and Ivan Godinovich have similar plots, and also cannot be recognized as completely positive heroes. In the same place. P. 134., Putilov B.N. The story of one plot riddle. P.17.

Propp V.Ya. Russian heroic epic. P.186. The only exception is the fairy tale about the healing of Ilya Muromets.

Chapter two.

The development of the genre of Russian folk ballad in the XIV - XVII centuries.

1. Older ballads of the XIV - early XVI centuries.

From the older ballads of the XIV - early XVI centuries. a rather small number of songs have survived. This includes the cycles about the mother-in-law of the daughter-in-law and the murder of the wife by her husband1, and the cycle about the girls of the meadow continues to develop. At this time, the ballad genre finds new ways of its development.

A folk ballad develops conflicts in family life, such songs become so popular over time that the use of family household themes is now considered a national feature of the Russian ballad genre. In science, the circle of such songs is called "family household" ballads.

The cycle about the mother-in-law's extermination of the daughter-in-law is, of course, the oldest and is represented by ballads about Prince Mikhail. It has strong intra-genre connections with the cycle about meadow girls, but at the same time generalizes and develops all the accumulated experience of the ballad genre.

The cycle of ballads about meadow girls forms a heroic female image, tragic in essence. The dramatic situation in which the heroine finds herself determines the tragic meaning of her image. A truly tragic ballad image is formed in the ballad about Prince Mikhail. It is in the family sphere that such conflicts are found: the position of a woman in a peasant environment, relations with her mother-in-law reveal a truly tragic image. The heroine's type is modified. The social heroism, which carries the type of the meadow girl, is reduced to a minimum, the tragedy of her position develops in the status of a victim. It is the status of a victim for the image of a woman that fully reflects the idea of ​​the ballad genre about the defenselessness of a private, isolated person in front of the forces of external evil. The status of a defenseless victim exacerbates the conflict of relations between the characters as much as possible, and the new genre builds its poetics on the dynamics of such an aggravation, on the cyclization of the conflict situation. Such aggravated conflicts, more specific and closer to reality than the dramatic situations of the cycle about girls-polonians, can be easily found in family life.

The dramatic situation that forms the type of clearing plays a leading role in the formation of a new ballad hero. The priority of the dramatic situation in the formation of the type of hero leads to the creation of a passive female image, the image of a victim. The functionality of the tragic image of the daughter-in-law as a victim is narrowed as much as possible, down to a simple mention in the older ballads. The concentration of artistic means reflects the new poetics of the genre: it is not the hero himself that is important, but his image, but the function for which he is intended is important. The image of the victim reflects the type of passive hero, such a hero cannot manifest himself in action, therefore, his role in the compositional structure of the song should be minimized. Therefore, in the older ballads, the daughter-in-law, the hero's wife, is mentioned sporadically, although, undoubtedly, she is one of the main characters. The meaning of her image is determined and stable - this is a tragic hero who is a victim of the cruelty of the world around him.

Of particular interest in terms of their formation are the main characters: Prince Mikhailo and his mother. The mother of the hero, in contrast to the heroic epic, in the older ballads always has a negative meaning, she is called the mother-in-law and is opposed to the daughter-in-law, positive image... The image of the mother-in-law goes back to the image of the enemy from the cycle about girls in meadows. In the folk poetry tradition, it reflects the images of Tatars, cruel and bloody rapists2 who play an active role in ballads about meadow women, developing a dramatic situation of captivity. The mother-in-law is thought of as an enemy, as a manifestation of the forces of external evil, therefore, neither the motivation for actions, nor the punishment for the destruction of the family will apply to this image. The aesthetics of the ballad genre assert that evil cannot be eliminated or a complete physical victory over it. Evil will always be active, always manifested through concrete actions. The reprisal against an innocent daughter-in-law will be extremely cruel and described with maximum concreteness.

Thus, the image of the negative hero is revealed according to the dramatic principle - through his actions, active actions.

The image of the protagonist - Prince Mikhailo - will retain the principles of the formation of the heroic image of the girl from the meadow. However, his development will differ significantly from the type of the hero-victim, although in the future the ballad genre creates such variants where the male and female characters converge in the status of the victim ("Vasily and Sophia"). In the older ballads, the male character must represent the active type of hero, perform active actions. This is the aesthetics of the epic: the active hero is responsible for the family, he is its owner and head;

according to the same laws, the ethics of family life of Russian medieval society is formed.

Prince Mikhailo wants to prevent a misfortune, which he learns about most often from the epic messenger. Absent according to the law of epic convention, as in classical examples of epics, the hero, upon his return, actively searches for his wife until he is faced with the fact of her murder by his own mother.

However, the whole tragedy of the situation will lie in the fact that he is powerless before the forces of external evil, which the image of his evil mother embodies. The tragedy of the image of Prince Mikhailo, like the tragedy of the image of a meadow woman, forms a dramatic situation - the hero cannot do anything, cannot correct the hopeless situation. Prince Mikhailo is not a hero, he is a private person. He understands that his mother is evil incarnate, against whom it is pointless to fight, so the ballad ends, as the dramatic situation is completely exhausted.

In the XV - XVI centuries. on the basis of songs about Prince Mikhail, a cycle of ballads about the murder of a wife by a husband is created. This includes songs such as "The Slandered Wife", "The Princess and the Elderly", "Ryabinka", "Prince Roman Lost His Wife", "Dmitry and Domna". The development of the cycle about the mother-in-law's torture of the daughter-in-law is continued by the early editions of the ballads "Vasily and Sophia" and "Children of the Widow". In artistic terms, such works create a new level of conflict - a conflict of relations between equal heroes, revealed according to the model: enemy and victim. The dramatic situation loses its dominant meaning, it fades into the background and gives way to the glorification of the conflict. In the 15th century, with the development of such songs, a special kind of ballad formality appears, which is expressed in the cyclization of conflict situations. The singer remembers specific forms of conflict, at an early stage, their conventional typical motivations and builds a ballad based on them. Therefore, the original variability, instability of the content structure of the work is laid in the text.

In the ballad Slandered Wife, the functionality of the male image changes. The dramatic situation that determines its type in the ballad "Prince Mikhailo" is transformed into a conflict situation. The type of hero changes accordingly. Unlike the heroic epic, where the hero reflects the people's faith in the boundless forces of man, the ballad hero fully recognizes the power of the boundless forces of tragic reality over himself. And only by becoming an accomplice of these forces, an involuntary instrument of them, the male image can embody the type of active hero, characteristic of the older ballads. The husband will always be decisive in reprisals against his wife, he will not give a chance to justify the heroine, to reveal her position. The plot represents "a kind of poetic condensation of the picture of the Domostroy economic structure" 3.

Most likely here we are seeing the result of the development of a passive female image - a victim. The Domostroevsky laws of society in the 15th century4 have not yet caused such aggravated conflicts, decisive protests that were characteristic of the subsequent era. The heroine herself has no right to dialogue, her image is perfect and complete. The reasons for such an easy belief of a husband in slandering his wife reflects a certain type of conventionality of the ballad. The blame is shifted onto the hero himself, artistically motivates his active actions and tragic type. The conflict of the ballad is escalated to the limit, and the traditional dramatic situation with which the work ends serves only to intensify the conflict. The hero discovers the innocence of his ruined wife - and can do nothing. He is an unwitting accomplice of the evil forces of the surrounding reality, he is on a par with his mother, he is a negative hero. The conflict of the ballad is over, the events that follow are not important for the older ballads. Therefore, the motive of punishing the elders in the northern interpretation of the plot "The Prince and the Elderly" must be considered later, formed under the influence of the development of the formal plot logic of the narrative.

This is the aesthetics of "a kind of chance" or an artistic case: logically all conflicts can be avoided, but the goal of the ballad is the opposite - just to show the maximally aggravated conflict situation. This is the artistic logic of events, a certain convention in their presentation. This is an epic convention, and by the nature of the motivation / non-motivation of the characters' actions, a lot can be said about the time of the origin of this text.

It is possible to clarify V. Propp's formulation that a well-motivated work appears or is processed later than a poorly motivated one5. A well-motivated work from the point of view of its artistic logic appears earlier than a poorly motivated one, based, so to speak, on direct chance due to the loss of the original artistic idea of ​​the ballad.

If you like stories about mysterious events, about the fate of fearless heroes, the reserved world of spirits, if you are able to appreciate noble knightly feelings, female devotion, then, of course, you will love literary ballads.

In literature classes this school year, we got acquainted with several ballads. I was amazed by this genre.

These poems, which combine elements of lyricism, epic and drama, are a kind of "universal" poetry, according to the famous 19th century poet Wordsworth.

The poet “choosing events and situations from the most everyday life of people, tries to describe them, if possible, in the language in which these people actually speak; but at the same time, with the help of imagination, give it a color, thanks to which everyday things appear in unusual lighting. ".

The topic "Features of the genre of a literary ballad" seemed interesting to me, I continue to work on it for the second year.

The topic is undoubtedly relevant, as it allows you to show independence and develop the critic's abilities.

2. Literary ballad: the emergence of the genre and its features.

The term "ballad" itself comes from the Provencal word meaning "mysterious song", ballads arose in the harsh times of the Middle Ages. They were created by folk storytellers, transmitted orally and in the process of oral transmission they were greatly modified, becoming the fruit of collective creativity. The plot of the ballads was Christian legends, knightly novels, ancient myths, works of ancient authors in a medieval retelling, the so-called "eternal" or "wandering" plots.

The plot of the ballad is often built as a disclosure, recognition of a certain secret that keeps the listener in suspense, makes him worry, worry about the hero. Sometimes the plot breaks off and is essentially replaced by dialogue. It is the plot that becomes the feature that distinguishes the ballad from other lyrical genres and begins its rapprochement with the epic. It is in this sense that it is customary to speak of a ballad as a lyric genre of poetry.

In ballads, there is no border between the world of people and nature. A person can turn into a bird, tree, flower. Nature enters into dialogue with the heroes. This reflects the ancient idea of ​​the unity of man with nature, of the ability of people to turn into animals and plants, and vice versa.

The literary ballad owes its birth to the German poet Gottfried August Burger. The literary ballad was very similar to the folk ballad, since the first literary ballads were created as an imitation of the folk. So the folk ballad at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries was replaced by a literary ballad, that is, an author's one.

The first literary ballads arose on the basis of stylization, and therefore it is very often difficult to distinguish them from genuine folk ballads. Let's turn to table # 1.

A literary ballad is a lyrical epic genre based on a plot narration with dialogue included in it. Like a folk ballad, its literary sister often opens with a landscape opening and closes with a landscape ending. But the main thing in a literary ballad is the author's voice, his emotional lyrical assessment of the events described.

And now we can note the peculiarities of the difference between literary and folk ballads. Already in the first literary ballads, the lyrical position of the author is manifested more clearly than in folk works.

The reason for this is understandable - folklore is guided by the national ideal, and the literary ballad contains the author's personal attitude to the popular ideal itself.

At first, the creators of literary ballads tried not to go beyond the themes and motives of folk sources, but then they more and more often began to turn to their favorite genre, filling the traditional form with new content. Fairy-tale ballads, satirical, philosophical, fantastic, historical, heroic ballads along with family, "terrible", etc. began to appear. A broader theme distinguished the literary ballad from the folk one.

There were also changes in the form of a literary ballad. This primarily concerned the use of dialogue. A literary ballad much more often resorts to hidden dialogue, when one of the interlocutors is either silent or takes part in the conversation with short remarks.

3. Literary ballads by V. A. Zhukovsky and M. Yu. Lermontov.

The wide poetic possibilities of the Russian ballad opened up to the Russian reader thanks to the literary activity of V.A.Zhukovsky, who worked at the beginning of the 19th century. It was the ballad that became the main genre in his poetry, and it was she who brought him literary fame.

Zhukovsky's ballads were usually based on Western European sources. But VA Zhukovsky's ballads are also a major phenomenon of Russian national poetry. The fact is that, translating English and German literary ballads, he used artistic techniques and images of Russian folklore and Russian poetry. Sometimes the poet went very far from the original source, creating an independent literary work.

For example, an excellent translation of the literary ballad of the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe "The King of the Elves", written on the basis of German folklore, conveys the inner tension of the fantastic ballad and the lyrical attitude of the author (J.W. Goethe) to the events described. At the same time, Zhukovsky in his ballad "The Forest Tsar" describes a forest that is surprisingly similar to Russian, and if you do not know that we have a translation before us, you can easily take this work for created in the Russian tradition. "The Forest Tsar" is a ballad about fateful fate, in it there is an eternal dispute between life and death, hope with despair, hidden by an ominous plot. The author uses various artistic techniques.

Let's refer to table # 2.

1. In the center is not an event, not an episode, but a human personality acting against a particular background - this is a colorful landscape of the forest kingdom and oppressive reality.

2. Division into two worlds: earthly and fantastic.

3. The author uses the image of the narrator to convey the atmosphere of what is happening, the tonality of the depicted: lyrically, a terrible tonality at the beginning with an increase in the feeling of anxiety and hopelessly tragic at the end.

4. Images of the real world and a newcomer from the "other" world.

5. The characteristic rhythm of the ballad is the beat of a horse associated with the chase.

6. Use of epithets.

There are many bright colors and expressive details in Zhukovsky's ballads. The words of A.S. Pushkin about Zhukovsky are applicable to them: "No one has had and will not have a syllable equal in its power and diversity to its syllable."

"The Judgment of God over the Bishop" is a translation of the work of the English romantic poet Robert Southey, a contemporary of VA Zhukovsky. "The judgment of God over the bishop" - written in March 1831. Published for the first time in the edition of "Ballads and Tale" in 1831. in two parts. Translation of the ballad of the same name by R. Southey, based on medieval legends about the miser Bishop Gutton of Metz. According to tradition, during the famine of 914, Gutton insidiously invited the hungry to a "feast" and burned them in the barn; for this it was eaten by mice.

This time the Russian poet very closely follows the original of the "terrible" ballad, describing the cruelty of a foreign bishop and his punishment.

1. You will not find such a beginning in a folk ballad: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description natural disaster briefly and vividly, a picture of the people's grief is created.

2. In R. Southey's ballad there is no dialogue either. The poet introduces only lines into the narrative, but the characters do not address each other. The people are amazed at Gatton's generosity, but the bishop does not hear the people's exclamations. Gutton thinks to himself about his atrocities, but his thoughts can only be recognized by God.

3. This ballad of retribution and redemption. In it, the Middle Ages appears as the world of the opposition of earthly and heavenly forces.

The tragic tonality remains unchanged in this ballad, only the images and the narrator's assessment of their position change.

4. The ballad is built on the antithesis:

“There was a famine, the people were dying.

But the bishop by the grace of heaven

The barns are full of huge breads "

The general misfortune does not touch the bishop, but at the end the bishop “calls God in a wild frenzy”, “the criminal howls”.

5. In order to evoke sympathy from the reader, the author uses one-man management.

“Both summer and autumn were rainy;

The pastures and fields were sunk "

Zhukovsky always chose to translate works that were internally in tune with him. Good and evil, in sharp opposition, figure in all ballads. Their source is always the human heart and the otherworldly mysterious forces that govern it.

"Smalholm Castle, or Midsummer's Evening" is a translation of Walter Scott's ballad "St. John's Eve". The castle was located in the south of Scotland. Belongs to one of the relatives of Walter Scott. The poem was written in July 1822. This ballad has a long history of censorship. Zhukovsky was accused of “blasphemous combination of a love theme with the theme of Ivanov's evening. Ivanov's evening is the eve of the Kupala national holiday, rethought by the church as a celebration of the birth of John the Baptist. Censorship demanded a radical rework of the ending. Zhukovsky filed a complaint with the censorship committee to the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod and the Ministry of Public Education, Prince A. N. Golitsyn. The ballad was printed, changing "Ivanov's Day" to "Duncan's Day."

Of the ballads I have read, I would like to highlight the ballads of M. Yu. Lermontov.

The ballad "The Glove" is a translation of a knightly ballad by the German writer Friedrich Schiller. Lermontov - the translator relies on Zhukovsky's experience, so he seeks to convey not so much the form of the work as his emotional attitude towards the treacherous woman who, for the sake of fun, subjects her knight to a fatal test.

1. The landscape opening depicts the crowd in the circus, gathered in anticipation of a spectacle, dangerous fun - a fight between a tiger and a lion.

2. In the ballad there is a dialogue: there is an appeal of Kunigunda to the knight, there is also his answer to the lady. But the dialogue is broken: the most important event takes place between the two remarks.

3. The tragic tone is replaced by the general fun.

4. An important element composition is its brevity: it is like a spring, compressed between the tie and the denouement.

5. In the field of artistic speech, the generosity of metaphors is noted: "The choir of the beautiful ladies shone", "but the slave before his master grumbles in vain and gets angry", "cruel vexation blazing in the fire"

A heroic ballad glorifying feat and intransigence towards enemies was widespread in Russia.

One of the best patriotic poems created by Russian poets is M. Yu. Lermontov's ballad "Borodino".

1. 1. The whole ballad is based on a detailed dialogue. Here the element of the landscape beginning ("Moscow, burnt by fire") is included in the question of the young soldier, with whom the ballad begins. Then follows the answer - the story of a participant in the Battle of Borodino, in which the replicas of the participants in the battle are heard. It is these remarks, as well as the speech of the narrator himself, that allow the poet to convey a truly popular attitude towards the Motherland and its enemies.

2. This ballad is characterized by polyphony - many voices sound. For the first time in Russian poetry, truthful images of Russian soldiers, heroes of the famous battle, appeared. The soldier begins the story of the day of the Battle of Borodino with a call, which the commander-colonel addresses with flashing eyes. This is the speech of an officer, a nobleman. He easily calls the old honored soldiers "guys", but he is ready to go into battle and die as their "brother".

3. The ballad depicts the fight beautifully. Lermontov did everything so that the reader could see the battle with his own eyes.

The poet gave a great picture of the Borodino battle using sound writing:

"Damask steel sounded, buckshot squealed"

"I prevented the kernels from flying

Mountain of bloody bodies "

Belinsky highly appreciated the language and style of this poem. He wrote: "In every word one can hear the language of a soldier who, without ceasing to be rudely ingenuous, is strong and full of poetry!"

In the 20th century, the ballad genre is in demand by many poets. Their childhood and youth passed in difficult times of great historical upheavals: the revolution, the civil war, the Great Patriotic War brought blood, death, suffering, devastation with them. Overcoming hardships, people reshaped their lives anew, dreaming of a happy, fair future. This time, swift like the wind, was difficult and cruel, but it promised to make the wildest dreams come true. The poets of this time do not have fantastic, family or "terrible" ballads, in their time heroic, philosophical, historical, satirical, social ballads are in demand.

Even if the work tells about an event from ancient times, it is experienced as today in D. Kedrin's ballad “The Architects”.

K. Simonov's ballad "The Old Song of a Soldier" ("How a Soldier Served") is tragic.

The newspaper excerpt, which gives the work a publicity, is preceded by the "Ballad of Poaching" by E. Yevtushenko. Its text includes a monologue of salmon, appealing to the human mind.

Noble solemnity and severity distinguish the "Ballad of Struggle" by V. Vysotsky, the lines appear in my memory:

If, cutting the path with the father's sword,

You wound salty tears on your mustache

If in a hot battle you experienced what for how much, -

This means that you read the necessary books as a child!

The ballad "The Architects" by D. Kedrin is the pride of Russian poetry of the first half of the 20th century, written in 1938.

In the "Architects" Kedrin's understanding of Russian history, admiration for the talent of the Russian people, belief in the all-conquering power of beauty and art were manifested.

In the center of the poem is the story of the creation of the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on Red Square in Moscow, known as the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed.

The temple was built in 1555 - 1561 in honor of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. Skilled architects Postnik and Barma conceived and implemented an unprecedented deed: they combined eight churches into one - according to the number of victories won near Kazan. They are grouped around the central ninth tent camp.

There is a legend about the blinding of the builders of St. Basil's Cathedral. The atrocity was allegedly committed at the behest of Tsar Ivan IV, who did not want a cathedral like this to appear anywhere. There is no documentary evidence of the legend. But what is important is that the legend arose, that it was passed down from generation to generation, already by the fact of its existence, testifying to the fact that in the popular consciousness such cruelty of the autocrat was possible. Kedrin gave the topic a generalizing meaning.

1. This poem tells about an important historical event. There is a plot, and we see here a typical ballad technique - “repetition and build-up”. The Tsar twice appeals to the architects: "And the benefactor asked." This technique enhances the swiftness of action, thickens the tension.

2. The dialogue is used, which in the ballads is driven by the plot. The characters of the heroes are outlined prominently, in relief.

3. The composition is based on antithesis. The poem is clearly divided into 2 parts, which are opposed to each other.

4. The story is being conducted as if on behalf of the chronicler. And the annalistic style requires impassivity and objectivity in depicting events.

5. There are very few epithets at the beginning of the text. Kedrin is stingy with paints, he is more concerned with the tragic nature of the fate of the masters. Speaking about the giftedness of the Russian people, the poet emphasizes with epithets their moral health and independence:

And two came to him

Unknown Vladimir architects,

Two Russian builders,

When the "chronicler" comes to describe the "terrible royal favor", his voice suddenly trembles:

Falcon eyes

If they have an iron awl

For white light

They could not see.

They were branded with a stigma

They were flogged with batogs, sick,

And threw them

To the cold bosom of the earth.

The form of the mourning of the people is emphasized here by folklore "constant" epithets.

The poem contains several comparisons that emphasize the beauty and purity of the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos:

and, marveling at how a fairy tale,

I looked at that beauty.

That church was -

Like a bride!

What a dream!

There is only one metaphor here (they are out of place in the annals):

And at the feet of the building

The shopping plaza was buzzing

6. The rhythm is suggested by the phrase "the chronicler says the tale": the measured, impressive voice of history itself. But the rhythm in the poem changes: the stanzas associated with the presence of the sovereign sound solemn and dignified. When it comes to unfortunate blinded architects, emotional tension dictates a sharp change in intonation, rhythm: instead of solemnity - the sound of one piercing-sharp note in a whole line:

And in the gluttony row,

Where the barn tavern sang,

Where it smelled like a booze

Where it was dark from a couple

Where the clerks shouted:

"The sovereign's word and deed!"

Masters for Christ's sake

They asked for bread and wine.

The tension of the rhythm is also created by the anaphora (where, where, where), which builds tension.

7. Archaisms and historicisms enter the work organically, they are always understandable in context.

Thief - a thief, circled - a tavern, torovato - generous, pravezh - punishment, petty - beauty, very - very, velma - very, smerd - a peasant, zane - because

At the end of Kedrin, the expression "popular opinion" sounds:

And a forbidden song

About the terrible royal favor

Sang in secret places

Guslars across wide Russia.

August 29, 1926 "Komsomolskaya Pravda" published "Grenada" - and Svetlov overnight became the most popular Soviet poet. V. Mayakovsky, having read "Grenada", memorized it and recited it at his recitals. For some reason it seems to everyone that this ballad is about the Spanish Civil War. In fact, the war began a few years after the poem appeared. The lyrical hero simply dreams of fanning the world fire.

The poem "Grenada" grew out of one word. What fascinated the poet with this word? Why did it become the song of a Ukrainian lad, a soldier-cavalryman who died in the civil war? Of course, Mikhail Svetlov first of all liked the sound of the word Grenada. There is so much energy in him, and there is absolutely no aggression, rudeness; in its sound at the same time, and strength, and tenderness, and the distinctness of reality, and the fragility of a dream, and the swiftness of the impulse, and the tranquility of the end of the road. In the mouth of a young fighter, this beautiful name becomes a sound symbol of his dream of a new life for everyone.

1. The landscape beginning depicts the wide expanse of the Ukrainian steppes. The ballad tells about the fate and heroic death of a young soldier.

3. M. Svetlov sharpens the rhythm of the ballad, breaking the quatrains into eight lines. In this rhythm, the rhythm of the movement of the equestrian detachment is clearly heard:

He sang looking around

Native lands:

"Grenada, Grenada,

Grenada is mine! "

The word Grenada itself reproduces the size of the ballad: it has three syllables and the stress falls on the second syllable.

4. The tragic tone is replaced by the ringing melody of the resurrection of a dream.

Wot over the corpse

The moon has gone down

Only the sky is quiet

Slid down after a while

On the velvet of the sunset

Teardrop of rain

Personalization and metaphor indicate how great the event is, its meaning cannot ease the pain of loss.

Vysotsky wrote 6 ballads - "Ballad of Time" ("The Castle of Time is Torn Down"), "Ballad of Hatred", "Ballad of Free Shooters", "Ballad of Love" ("When the Water of the World Flood"), "Ballad of Two Perished Swans "," Ballad of the Struggle "(" Among the swollen candles and evening prayers ") for Sergei Tarasov's film" The Arrows of Robin Hood ".

“I wanted to write a few songs for the youth who will watch this picture. And he wrote ballads about struggle, about love, about hatred - only six rather serious ballads, not at all similar to what I did before, ”the author writes.

Finally, he made a direct speech - as they say, without a pose or a mask. Only "The Song of Free Shooters" is conditional, role-playing, or something. And the rest - without a playful split, without hints and implications. There is some kind of anti-irony here: brave directness, like a blow of a sword, crushes ironic smirks, cuts off the head of any cynicism

But the ballads were banned and Vysotsky's recordings were later used by Tarasov in the film "The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe".

1. The origin in "The Ballad of Time" is interesting: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description of an ancient castle "hidden by time and wrapped in a delicate blanket of green shoots", a picture of the past with campaigns, battles and victories is created.

2. In V. Vysotsky's ballad, the dialogue is hidden. The form of a dramatic monologue is used. The poet introduces into the narrative only his own lines - appeals to descendants, the characters do not address each other, in front of us, like on the screen, there are tournaments, sieges, battles

3. This ballad of eternal values. In it, the Middle Ages appears as a world built on an antithesis:

Enemies fell into the mud, shouting for mercy

But not everyone, staying alive,

We kept our hearts in kindness,

Protecting your good name

From the deliberate lie of the scoundrel

4. The solemn tonality remains unchanged in this ballad. The author uses one-man management:

And the price is the price, and the wine is the wine,

And it's always good if honor is saved

“These six ballads set forth the poet's position in life. This is deeper than at first glance. It’s like his inspiration, a testament, ”wrote one of V. Vysotsky's friends.

The term "ballad" comes from a Provencal word and means "dance song". Ballads arose in the Middle Ages. By origin, the ballads are associated with legends, folk legends, combine the features of a story and a song. Many ballads about a folk hero named Robin Hood existed in England in the XIV-XV centuries.

Ballad is one of the main genres in the poetry of sentimentalism and romanticism. The world in ballads appears mysterious and enigmatic. They feature bright heroes with clearly defined characters.

The genre of the literary ballad was created by Robert Burns (1759-1796). The basis of his poetry was oral folklore.

In the center of literary ballads there is always a person, but the poets of the 19th century, who chose this genre, knew that the strength of a person does not always provide an opportunity to answer all questions, to become the sovereign master of his own destiny. Therefore, literary ballads are often a plot poem about a fateful fate, for example, the ballad "The Forest King" by the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

The Russian ballad tradition was created by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, who wrote both original ballads ("Svetlana", "Aeolian Harp", "Achilles" and others), and translated Burger, Schiller, Goethe, Uhland, Souti, Walter Scott. In total, Zhukovsky wrote more than 40 ballads.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin created such ballads as "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg", "The Bridegroom", "The Drowned Man", "The Crow Flies to the Crow", "There lived a poor knight in the world ...". Also, his cycle "Songs of the Western Slavs" can be attributed to the ballad genre.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov has some ballads. This is the "Airship" from Seydlitz, "The Sea Princess".

The genre of the ballad was also used in his work by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy. He calls his ballads on the themes of his native olden days bylinas ("Alyosha Popovich", "Ilya Muromets", "Sadko" and others).

Whole sections of their poems were called ballads, using this term more freely, A.A. Fet, K.K. Sluchevsky, V.Ya.Bryusov. In his "Experiences", Bryusov, speaking about the ballad, points to only two of his traditional lyro-epic ballads: "The Abduction of Bertha" and "Divination".

A number of comic ballads-parodies were left by Vladimir Soloviev ("The Mysterious Sexton", "Autumn Walk of the Knight Ralph" and others)

The events of the turbulent XX century once again brought to life the genre of literary ballad. The ballad by E. Bagritsky "Watermelon", although it does not tell about the turbulent events of the revolution, was born precisely by the revolution, the romance of that time.

Features of the ballad as a genre:

the presence of a plot (there is a climax, an outset and a denouement)

combination of real and fantastic

romantic (unusual) landscape

mystery motive

the plot can be replaced by dialogue

brevity

a combination of lyrical and epic principles

Avdotya Ryazanochka

With the invasion of Batu and the devastation of Ryazan in 1237, two outstanding artistic images created by the genius of the people are associated - Evpatiy Kolovrat and Avdotya Ryazanochka. The legend about Avdotya Ryazanochka, formed, apparently, in the middle of the XIII century, has been preserved in the oral song tradition, it has been preserved and carried through the centuries by the people's memory. One of the songs about Avdotya Ryazanochka was recorded on August 13, 1871 at Kenozero by A.F. Hilferding from the sixty-five-year-old peasant Ivan Mikhailovich Lyadkov. Known "Avdotya Ryazanochka" and in the arrangement of the wonderful Russian writer Boris Shergin.

By its genre features, as well as by its content, "Avdotya Ryazanochka" can be attributed both to ballads (it is plotted), epics (it "affected" as an epic), and to historical songs (it is historical in its essence, although specific historical realities have not been preserved in it).

But its main merit lies in the fact that it is in this work of oral folk art that the heroic image of a Russian woman was created.

The song begins with a picture of the Tatar invasion.

Glorious old Turkish king Bahmet

He fought on the Russian land,

He got the old Kazangorod under forest.

He stood under the city

With its strength-army

There was a lot of this time, time,

And Kazan ruined "the city under forest,

Ruined Kazan-de-city to nothing.

He knocked out all the boyar-princes in Kazan,

And the noble princess

Took those alive.

He filled the people with many thousands,

He led the Turkish people to his land.

There are at least two anachronisms here. The first one is “the Turkish king” and “the Turkish land”, the second one is “Kazan podlesnaya”. These are the late replacements of the Tatar king and the Tatar land and Ryazan. The ancient song was a response to the invasion of Batu's hordes and the devastation of Ryazan in 1237. Ryazan was the first to take upon itself the blows of the invasion, was subjected to a terrible defeat - this event was described in the book "The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu", where, along with accurate chronicle details, folk songs were also found. The story ended with a story about the revival of Ryazan: Prince Ingvar Ingorevich "renew the land of Ryazan, and build churches and monasteries, and comfort the aliens, and gather people." In a folk song, the same feat is performed by a simple "young woman" Avdotya Ryazanochka (by the way, the name "Ryazanochka" speaks of the places where the events took place). But she does it in a completely different way. There is a lot of fabulous and extraordinary in the song. On the way back, the enemy king sets up “great outposts”: deep rivers and lakes, “wide open fields, robber thieves” and “dark forests” filled with “fierce beasts”. Avdotya Ryazanochka was left alone in the city. She goes to the "Turkish land" - "full of asking." She manages to overcome obstacles in an almost miraculous way. “She lays a cross according to what was written, And obeisances, you veda in a learned way,” and turns to Bakhmet:

I stayed alone in Kazan,

I have come, sir, to you I have deigned,

Will it not be possible to release some of the captives to my people,

Would you like your kind-tribe?

Further dialogue between the "king" and the "young woman" develops in the spirit of the old epics. The king was amazed that Avdotya passed all the "great outposts", overcame all obstacles and was not afraid to appear before him, and the king set her a task:

“- Oh, you, young lady Avdotya Ryazanochka!

Yes, she knew how to speak with the king,

Yes, be able to ask the king for a full head,

Yes, which little head for more than a century will not amassed. "-

The "young woman" copes with this task, showing the properties of a fabulous or epic "wise virgin".

"But I can't get me that little head,

Yes, dear beloved brother.

And I won't see my brother forever and ever. "

Here is the key to solving a difficult problem: all relatives can be "amassed" - except for a sibling. Avdotya's answer is not only correct, but, it turns out, affects Bakhmet himself: he admits that his beloved brother died during the invasion of Russia. The Tatar Tsar was surprised by a courageous woman from the land of Ryazan, her ability to speak, reason, he let all the Ryazan husbands go: “Yes, you, young lady Avdotya Ryazanochka,

You take your people, full of them,

Yes, take them to Kazan to the last.

He let him go on the condition that a song about Avdotya would be composed and the Horde would be mentioned in a good way. The heroism of a simple defenseless woman who came to the Horde, famous for bloody raids, devastation and cruelty, made the Tatar king feel respect for her, and her wisdom conquered the storm of the Russian lands. Not a male warrior, but a female hard worker "won the battle" with the Horde. She stood up to protect her family, and thanks to her courage and intelligence

“Yes, she built Kazan-city nanovo,

Since then Kazan has become glorious,

Yes, since then Kazan has become rich,

But here in Kazan Avdotino's name has been exalted ... "

The image of Avdotya-Ryazanochka is the immortal image of a woman-savior, ready for the sake of her neighbors to overcome any obstacles, go through any trials, showing complete selflessness and fearlessness in the face of danger. She combines the wisdom of a woman and courage worthy of a warrior, and embodies the people's ideas about female deeds, about female heroism, and about the possibility of defeating the enemy not by physical strength, but by the strength of spirit, selflessness and love.