2. The History of Creating Russian Folk Tales

The literary study of Russian folk tales began in the second half of the XVIII century. One of the first scientists who understood the value of folk tales, was a historian V.N. Tatishchev, who saw a reflection of history and life of Russian people in tales. Later some other writers showed their interest in studying fairy tales, V. G. Belinsky appreciated the historic significance of folk tales. In his view, the tale was very important for the study of folk concepts, attitudes and language. A tale about “Shemyakin court” and “Ruff Ershoviche” he considered to be “precious historical documents”.

In the XIXth century Russian liguists began to form the first scientific school to study folklore. They paid much attention to folk tales. The so-called mythological school was founded by A. N. Afanasyev¹. The myth came from, "primeval" speech, it was rich in metaphors The main drawback of the mythological school's approach to the tale was the following: it didn;t revial real life of Russian people. A prominent historian of the middle of the XIXth century F. A. Buslaev² suggested a theory of borrowing. He found a whole series of similar plots and motifs scattered throughout the world in the boundless variations on common themes. F. A. Buslayev underlined that most plots of Russian folk tales were taken from East and West. But such writers as N. G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin disaagreed with the idea of borrowings. The believed that Russian folk tales were very poetic and many famous Russian poets created their tales on the base of Russian folk tales. A.N. Wess-Maxwellian studied the origin, history, structure and typology of plots in

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tales. Especially valuable were his views on the structure of the tale and its main elements.

Different classifications of the tales were given in the works of such linguists as V. Bobrov³, A. Smirnov ⁴ and S. Savchenko.⁵ Maxim Gorky expressed important ideas about fairy tales in many articles, letters, reports, and particularly at the First Congress of Soviet Writers Gorky. He emphasized their connection with life. “Tales born reality”, noted Gorky. In fact, a tale about a magic carpet, h explained the people”s dream about the possibility of flying by air.

In the fiirst part of the XX th century such prominent folklorists as Y. M. Sokolov⁶, M. K. Azadovsky⁷ published a numder of articles about tales of different territories of Russia. They underlined individual creativity of storytellers.

The attemption to classify folk tales was made in the first half of the XIXth century. And later I. P. Sahkarov divided them by characters but he didn’t take into account the tales about animals, fairy tales and tales of every day life.

1. N. Afanasyev divided Russian tales into three sections:

• tales about animals

• fairy tales

• every day life tales.

At the end of the XIXth century. P.V. Vladimirov⁸ identified animal epic tales, myths and everyday work. But myths were not fairy tales, in addition, not all fairy tales are mythical creatures, and finally, not all fantastic images were considered to

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be mythical, for instance, the Firebird. So, this classification was not included in the scientific research.

In conclusion I should say the classification suggested by A. N. Afanasyev was the best.

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