What kind of heroic tales are there? Genre classification of Russian folk tales

Funny and sad, scary and funny, they are familiar to us from childhood. Our first ideas about the world, good and evil, and justice are associated with them.

Both children and adults love fairy tales. They inspire writers and poets, composers and artists. Based on fairy tales, plays and films are staged, operas and ballets are created. Fairy tales came to us from ancient times. They were told by poor wanderers, tailors, and retired soldiers.

A fairy tale is one of the main types of oral folk art. Fictional storytelling fantastic, adventure or everyday character.

Folk tales are divided into three groups:

Tales about animals - the most ancient look fairy tales. They have their own circle of heroes. Animals talk and behave like people. The fox is always cunning, the wolf is stupid and greedy, the hare is cowardly.

Everyday fairy tales - the heroes of these fairy tales - a peasant, a soldier, a shoemaker - live in real world and they usually fight with a master, a priest, a general. They win thanks to resourcefulness, intelligence and courage.

Fairy tales - heroes of fairy tales fight tooth and nail, defeat enemies, save friends when faced with evil spirits. Most of these tales involve the search for a bride or a kidnapped wife.

Tales about animals.

Young children, as a rule, are attracted to the animal world, so they really like fairy tales in which animals and birds act. In a fairy tale, animals acquire human traits - they think, speak, and act. Essentially, such images bring to the child knowledge about the world of people, not animals.

In this type of fairy tale, there is usually no clear division of characters into positive and negative. Each of them is endowed with one particular trait, an inherent character trait, which is played out in the plot. Yes, traditionally main feature foxes are cunning, wolves are greedy and stupid. The bear has a not so clear image; the bear can be evil, and sometimes kind, but at the same time it always remains a klutz. If a person appears in such a fairy tale, then he invariably turns out to be smarter than the fox, the wolf, and the bear. Animals in fairy tales observe the principle of hierarchy: everyone recognizes the strongest as the most important. It's a lion or a bear. They always find themselves at the top of the social ladder. This brings fairy tales about animals closer to fables, which is especially evident from the presence in both of them of similar moral conclusions - social and universal.

Among the tales about animals, there are some quite scary ones. A bear eats an old man and an old woman because they cut off his paw. Furious beast with wooden leg, of course, seems terrible to kids, but essentially he is the bearer of fair retribution. The narrative allows the child to figure out a difficult situation for himself.

Russian folk fairy tales, their features.

This is the most popular and most loved genre by children. Everything that happens in a fairy tale is fantastic and significant in its purpose: its hero, finding himself in one or another dangerous situation, saves friends, destroys enemies - fights for life and death. The danger seems especially strong and terrible because its main opponents are not ordinary people, and representatives of the supernatural dark forces: Serpent Gorynych, Baba Yaga, Koschey the Immortal, etc. By winning victories over these evil spirits, the hero, as it were, confirms his high human beginning, his closeness to the bright forces of nature. In the struggle he becomes even stronger and wiser, makes new friends and receives every right fortunately - to the satisfaction of little listeners.

In the plot of a fairy tale main episode- this is the beginning of the hero’s journey for the sake of one or another important task. On his long journey, he encounters treacherous opponents and magical helpers. He has very effective means at his disposal: a flying carpet, a wonderful ball or mirror, or even a talking animal or bird, a swift horse or a wolf. All of them, with some conditions or without them at all, in the blink of an eye fulfill the requests and orders of the hero.

Russian folk social and everyday life fairy tales and their features.

The everyday (satirical) tale is closest to Everyday life It doesn’t even necessarily include miracles. Approval or condemnation is always given openly, the assessment is clearly expressed: what is immoral, what is worthy of ridicule, etc. Even when it seems that the heroes are simply fooling around, amusing the listeners, their every word, every action is filled with significant meaning and is connected with important aspects of a person’s life.

The constant heroes of satirical fairy tales are “ordinary” poor people. However, they invariably prevail over a “difficult” person - a rich or noble person. Unlike the heroes of a fairy tale, here the poor achieve the triumph of justice without the help of miraculous helpers - only thanks to intelligence, dexterity, resourcefulness, and even fortunate circumstances.

Household satirical tale has been absorbed for centuries character traits the life of the people and their relationship to those in power, in particular to judges and officials.

Animal characters sometimes appear in everyday fairy tales, and perhaps the appearance of such abstract characters, like Truth and Falsehood, Woe and Misfortune. The main thing here is not the selection of characters, but the satirical condemnation of human vices and shortcomings.

Sometimes such a specific element is introduced into a fairy tale children's folklore, like a shapeshifter. In this case, a shift in real meaning occurs, encouraging the child to correctly arrange objects and phenomena. In a fairy tale, the shapeshifter becomes larger, grows into an episode, and already forms part of the content. Displacement and exaggeration, hyperbolization of phenomena give the child the opportunity to laugh and think.

“Fairy tale” comes from the word “to show.” Modern meaning The concept of “fairy tale” acquired in the 17th century. Before this, the word "fable" was used.

As a rule, fairy tales are intended for children. This epic works magical character. The ending of a fairy tale is usually happy. A fairy tale helps a child in the process of learning the rules and purpose of life, the need to protect their family values, treating others with dignity.
At the same time, a fairy tale carries enormous information, passed on from generation to generation, which helps shape a person’s character and which is based on respect for one’s ancestors.
By origin, fairy tales are either folklore or original.

Folklore tales

Folklore tales were created by people of different countries. This is a prosaic (sometimes poetic) oral story about fictional events at one time or another. A fairy tale does not claim to be authentic (unlike, for example, a myth, epic or legend). A folk tale historically precedes a literary one; it is anonymous (does not have a specific author).
A folk tale has its own specific poetics and cliche(stamps). For example, the beginning of “Once upon a time...”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state...”, etc.
Since a folk tale is a work of oral folk art, the plot folk tale may be repeated in many texts. It allows improvisation by the performer of the tale. Therefore, the texts of one fairy tale may have variations.

Literary tales

Literary fairy tales are closely related to folk tales, but they have a specific author. Their content is new and has no verbal variations.

Author's fairy tales

In terms of the originality of the plot, the author's fairy tales are close to literary ones. But they may be processing of the known folklore plot, which the author uses at his own discretion: changes the course of action, adds characters, etc. Usually the term " author's fairy tale" is used for those fairy tales that have an author, i.e. and for literary ones.

Main genres of fairy tales

Animal Tales

Kolobok. A park forged figures(Donetsk)
Author: Sigismund von Dobschütz – own work, from Wikipedia
In these fairy tales, the main characters are animals, birds, fish, as well as plants, natural phenomena or objects (“Tereshechka”, “Kolobok”, “Ryaba Hen”, “Teremok”, etc.). Often fairy tales about animals are also magical - in Russian fairy tales, popular characters are magical animals that can talk and help the main character (“Baba Yaga”, “Geese-Swans”, “Po pike command" and etc.).

Fairy tales

V. M. Vasnetsov “The Frog Princess” (1918)
The plot of a fairy tale is based on a story about overcoming some obstacles with the help of miraculous means or magical helpers. Typically a fairy tale has the following composition: exposition(the beginning of the main events in the work), the beginning actions, plot development, climax And denouement. Climax – highest point development of action in the work. The culmination of a fairy tale consists of the hero’s victory over his opponent or circumstances (“Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf,” “Morozko,” etc.).

Social and everyday tales

N. Matorin “Tom Thumb” (postcard)
Fairy tales of this genre have the same composition as fairy tales, but are more connected with reality. In them there is only the earthly world, the features of everyday life are realistically conveyed, and main character – a common person, fighting for justice and achieving his goal with the help of ingenuity, dexterity and cunning.

Anecdotal tales

Such tales are an expanded narration of an anecdote.

A young man went fishing, and his wife went to accompany him; I walked a mile and started crying.

Don't cry, wife, I'll be there soon.

Am I crying about this? My feet are cold!

Tales

Fables (non-fiction) - fairy tales built on nonsense. They are small in volume and often take the form of rhythmic prose. Fables are a special genre of folklore that is found among all nations.
“He used to live, he would put an ax on his bare foot, he would girdle himself with an ax, he would chop wood with a sash... Zhona was a beauty... she would look out the window and the dogs would bark for three days...” (fragment from “Northern Tales” by N.E. Onchukov).

Oskar Herrfurth "Baron Munchausen and his chopped horse"
IN fiction Examples of fables include the adventures of Baron Munchausen as told by Erich Raspe, the adventures of the heroes of Rabelais’ novel “Gargantua and Pantagruel,” and the poem “Confusion” by Korney Chukovsky.

Fairy tale collectors

The first collector folk tales was in Europe French poet And literary critic Charles Perrault (1628-1703).

F. Lallemald “Portrait of Charles Perrault” (1665)
In 1697, he published the collection “Tales of Mother Goose.” The collection included 8 prose fairy tales, now world famous:

"Cinderella"
"Puss in Boots"
"Little Red Riding Hood"
"Tom Thumb"
"Fairy Gifts"
"Rike-Khokholok"
"Sleeping Beauty"
"Blue Beard".

In 1704-1717 an abridged edition was published in Paris Arabian tales"One Thousand and One Nights", prepared by Antoine Galland for King Louis XIV. But these were single collections. But the beginning of the systematic collection of fairy-tale folklore was laid by representatives of the German mythological school in folklore studies - first of all, members of the circle of Heidelberg romantics Brothers Grimm: Wilhelm and Jacob.

Elizabeth Yerichau-Bauman "The Brothers Grimm"
In 1812-1814. they published the collection “Home and Family German fairy tales”, which included the still popular fairy tales “Snow White”, “ The Bremen Town Musicians", "The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats" and many others. After the collection appeared, writers and scientists from other European countries showed interest in their native folklore.
The Brothers Grimm had predecessors in Germany itself: back in 1782-1786. German writer Johann Karl August Muzeus compiled a 5-volume collection, “Folk Tales of the Germans,” which was published only in 1811.
In Russia, Russian ethnographer Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev was the first to collect Russian folk tales.

Fairy tales are different:
Told and not told...

Let's start with the fact that I will give you the most famous classifications of fairy tales.

So, There are fairy tales: folk and . Folk tales are those that do not have a specific author; the tale was passed down among the people by word of mouth and no one will say who it was originally written by. An author's tale is a fairy tale that has a specific author. For example, "Black chicken or Underground inhabitants"is copyrighted because its author is known. This is Antony Pogorelsky.

Next classification concerns not the authorship, but the content of fairy tales. According to this characteristic fairy tales are divided into:

1. Tales about animals;

2. Magical;

3. Social and everyday (satirical and everyday).

Animal Tales

These are the very fairy tales that should be read very first (up to 5-6 years). They involve permanent characters (wolf, fox, etc.). Basically, the constant characteristics of animals are indicated (fox - cunning, bear - strong, cat - smart, hare - timid, etc.). Of these fairy tales, the most notable ones are the covulative ones - selected according to the principle of plot connection (“Turnip”, “Kolobok”, “Teremok”). Many of them have a childish language connotation (mouse-norushka, cat-little white tummy).

Fairy tales

They involve romantic heroes, in which the most best qualities person. Required for this tale: image positive hero+ helpers + . The main thing in such fairy tales is: the struggle for love, for truth, for good. They are characterized by rich language, colorful definitions, negative characters– fantastic (Baba Yaga, Leshy, Kikimora, Zmey-Gorynych). As for the structure of fairy tales, there must be a fairytale beginning (once upon a time), a middle (the morning is wiser than the evening, how long is it short) and an ending (and I was there, I drank honey and beer).

Social and everyday tales

They are showing real life, social content, ridiculing negative human qualities. High moral qualities belong not to the rich and people of high rank, but to representatives of the people (soldier, old man). It is not strength that wins, but intelligence and skills. Are given spicy negative characteristics master, priest, king and others. Such tales appeared when there was a desire to change social system, and they expressed the democratic spirit of the people (the author). In social fairy tales, puns, humor, reversals, laughter, and satire are widely used.

In addition to all of the above, other types of fairy tales appear: personalized- about a specific person who is not invented by the author, but actually exists. Therapeutic– which help correct children’s behavior and habits (for example, stop biting nails).

It is possible that there are other types of fairy tales, but these are the only ones I know. If you know more about what kind of fairy tales there are, I ask you to add to this list in the comments.

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A fairy tale is a specific phenomenon that combines several genres. Russian fairy tales are usually divided into the following genres: about animals, magical and everyday (anecdotal and novelistic). Historically, fairy tales are a rather late phenomenon. The prerequisite for their creation in every nation was the decomposition of the primitive communal system and the decline of the mythological worldview. The most ancient are tales about animals; later, fairy tales and anecdotal tales arose, and even later, novelistic tales.

Basic artistic feature fairy tales - their plot. The plot arose thanks to the conflict, and the conflict was generated by life. The basis of a fairy tale is always the antithesis between dream and reality. In the world of fairy tales, dreams triumph. Always appears in fairy tales main character, the action unfolds around him. The victory of the hero is a mandatory setting of the plot; the fairy-tale action does not allow violation of chronology or development parallel lines, it is strictly sequential and unilinear.

Fairy-tale plots can be combined into one narrative. This phenomenon is called contamination (from the Latin contaminatio - “mixing.”

Fairy-tale plots have the usual epic development: exposition - plot - development of action - climax - denouement. Compositionally fairy tale plot consists of motives. A fairy tale usually has a main, central motive. Fairy tale motives are often subject to tripling: three tasks, three trips, three meetings, etc. This creates a measured epic rhythm, a philosophical tonality, and restrains the dynamic speed of the plot action. But the main thing is that the triplications serve to reveal the idea of the plot. Elementary plots consist of only one motive (this was probably the case in ancient myths). More complex look are cumulative plots (from the Latin cumulare - “increase, accumulation”) - resulting from the accumulation of chains of variations of the same motif. When telling fairy tales, they used traditional beginnings and endings - initial and final formulas. They were used especially consistently in fairy tales. The most typical are: In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived...(beginning); They made a feast for the whole world. And I was there, I drank honey-beer, it flowed down my mustache, but it didn’t get into my mouth.(ending). The beginning took listeners away from reality into the world of a fairy tale, and the ending brought them back, jokingly emphasizing that a fairy tale is the same fiction as that very mead beer, which It didn't get into my mouth.

Tales about animals (or animal epics) are distinguished by the main feature that their main characters are animals. Structurally, the works of animal epic are varied. There are single-motive tales ("The Wolf and the Pig", "The Fox drowns the jug"), but they are rare, since the principle of repetition is very developed. First of all, it manifests itself in cumulative plots different types. Among them is a three-time repetition of the meeting (“Bat and Ice Hut”). There are known plots with multiple lines of repetition ("The Fool Wolf"), which can sometimes pretend to develop into evil infinity ("The Crane and the Heron"). But most often, cumulative plots are presented as repeatedly (up to 7 times) increasing or decreasing repetition. The last link has the resolving capability.

For the composition of fairy tales about animals great importance has contamination. Only a small part of these tales present stable plots; for the most part, the index reflects not plots, but only motives. Motives are connected to each other in the process of storytelling, but are almost never performed separately.

The genre form of the fairy tale was determined in folklore quite late, only after the decline of the mythological worldview. The hero of a fairy tale is an ordinary person, morally and economically disadvantaged as a result of the historical reorganization of everyday life. The fairy-tale conflict itself is a family one; it is in it that the social nature of the fairy tale genre is revealed. Two conflicts of different historical depth - mythological and family - were united within one genre thanks to the image of the main character, who in all his modifications combines mythological and real (everyday) features.

From mythology, the fairy tale inherited two types of hero: “tall” (hero) and "low" (fool); the fairy tale itself generated the third type, which can be defined as “ideal” (Ivan Tsarevich). A hero of any type, as a rule, is the third, younger brother and is named Ivan.

Most ancient type the hero is a hero, miraculously born from a totem. Endowed with enormous physical strength, it expresses the early stage of human idealization. Around the extraordinary power of the hero. The main role of the heroine of a fairy tale is to be an assistant to the groom or husband. A fairy tale is one of the largest narrative forms of classical folklore. All its plots retain the traditional uniformity of composition: your kingdom - road to another kingdom - V another kingdom - road from another kingdom - your own kingdom. According to this narrative logic, a fairy tale combines a chain of motifs into a whole (plot).

In the construction of fairy-tale plots, traditional style played a certain role: beginnings, endings, as well as internal formulas of a compositional nature.

The presence of formulas is a clear sign of the style of a fairy tale. Many formulas are figurative in nature, associated with wonderful characters, and are their unique markings.

The fairy tale actively used what was common to many folklore genres poetic stylistics: comparisons, metaphors, words with diminutive suffixes; proverbs, sayings, jokes; various nicknames for people and animals. Formulas depicting the wonderful horse, Baba Yaga, are widely known. Some fairy-tale formulas go back to conspiracies; they retain obvious signs of magical speech (summoning a wonderful horse,

Everyday tales. Everyday fairy tales express a different view of man and the world around him. Their fiction is based not on miracles, but on reality, people's everyday life.

Events everyday tales always unfold in one space - conventionally real, but these events themselves are incredible. Thanks to the improbability of events, everyday fairy tales are fairy tales, and not just everyday stories. Their aesthetics require an unusual, unexpected, sudden development of action. In everyday fairy tales, purely fantastic characters sometimes appear, such as the devil, Woe, Share. The plot develops thanks to the hero's collision not with magical powers, but with difficult life circumstances. The hero comes out unscathed from the most hopeless situations, because a happy coincidence of events helps him. But more often he helps himself - with ingenuity, resourcefulness, even trickery. Everyday fairy tales idealize the activity, independence, intelligence, and courage of a person in his struggle in life.

The artistic sophistication of the narrative form is not characteristic of everyday fairy tales: they are characterized by brevity of presentation, colloquial vocabulary, and dialogue. Everyday fairy tales do not tend to triple the motives and generally do not have such developed plots as fairy tales. Fairy tales of this type do not know colorful epithets and poetic formulas.

Of the compositional formulas, the simplest principle is common in them Once upon a time, there were as a signal for the beginning of a fairy tale. It is archaic in origin

Artistic framing of everyday fairy tales with beginnings and endings is not mandatory; many of them begin right from the beginning and end with the finishing touch the plot itself.

Anecdotal tales. Researchers call everyday anecdotal tales differently: “satirical”, “satirical-comic”, “everyday”, “social everyday”, “adventurous”. They are based on universal laughter as a means of resolving conflict and a way to destroy the enemy. The hero of this genre is a person humiliated in the family or in society: a poor peasant, a hired worker, a thief, a soldier, a simple-minded fool, an unloved husband. His opponents are a rich man, a priest, a gentleman, a judge, a devil, “smart” older brothers, and an evil wife.

No one accepts such stories as reality, otherwise they would only cause a feeling of indignation. An anecdotal tale is a cheerful farce, the logic of the development of its plot is the logic of laughter, which is the opposite of ordinary logic, eccentric. The anecdotal tale developed only in the Middle Ages. It absorbed later class contradictions: between wealth and poverty, between peasants. Fairy tales use realistic grotesque - fiction based on reality. The fairy tale uses the technique of parody, comic word creation. Anecdotal tales can have an elementary, single-motive plot. They can also be cumulative (“A complete fool”, “Good and bad”). But their especially characteristic property is their free and mobile composition, open to contamination.

Novella fairy tales. Everyday short story tales introduced a new quality into narrative folklore: interest in inner world person.

The theme of fairy tales and short stories is personal life, and the characters are people related to each other by premarital, marital or other family relationships. The heroes of short story tales are separated lovers, a slandered girl, a son expelled by his mother, an innocently persecuted wife. According to the content in this genre, the following groups of plots are distinguished: about marriage ("Signs of a Princess", "Unsolved Mysteries"); about testing women (“Dispute about wife’s fidelity”, “Seven Years”); about robbers (“The Robber Bridegroom”); about the predetermined nature of the predicted fate (“Marko the Rich”, “Truth and Falsehood”). Often the plots are “stray”, developed in different time and among many nations.

In Russian fairy tales, many novelistic plots came from folk books XVII-XVIII centuries together with extensive translated literature - chivalric novels and stories. Short story tales have a structure similar to fairy tales: they also consist of a chain of motifs of different content. However, unlike fairy tales, short stories do not depict the entire life of the hero, but only some episode from it.

Funny and sad, scary and funny, they are familiar to us from childhood. Our first ideas about the world, good and evil, and justice are associated with them.

Fairy tale- one of the main types of oral folk art. A fictional narrative of a fantastic, adventure or everyday nature.

Folk tales are divided into three groups:

Tales about animals are the most ancient type of fairy tale. They have their own circle of heroes. Animals talk and behave like people. The fox is always cunning, the wolf is stupid and greedy, the hare is cowardly.

Everyday fairy tales - the heroes of these fairy tales - a peasant, a soldier, a shoemaker - live in the real world and usually fight with a gentleman, a priest, a general. They win thanks to resourcefulness, intelligence and courage.

Fairy tales - heroes of fairy tales fight tooth and nail, defeat enemies, save friends, when faced with evil spirits. Most of these tales involve the search for a bride or a kidnapped wife.

Fairy tale composition:

1. Beginning. (“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state there lived…”).

2. Main part.

3. Ending. (“They began to live - to live well and make good things” or “They arranged a feast for the whole world...”).

Heroes of fairy tales:

Favorite hero of Russian fairy tales - Ivan Tsarevich, Ivan the Fool, Ivan - peasant son. He is fearless, kind and noble hero who defeats all enemies, helps the weak and wins happiness.

An important place in Russian fairy tales is given to women - beautiful, kind, smart and hardworking. This is Vasilisa the Wise, Elena the Beautiful, Marya Morevna or Sineglazka.

The embodiment of evil in Russian fairy tales is most often Koschey the Immortal, the Serpent Gorynych and Baba Yaga.

Baba Yaga is one of the most ancient characters in Russian fairy tales. This is a scary and evil old woman. She lives in the forest in a hut on chicken legs, rides in a mortar. Most often it harms the heroes, but sometimes it helps.

Serpent Gorynych - a fire-breathing monster with several heads, flying high above the ground - is also very famous character Russian folklore. When the Serpent appears, the sun goes out, a storm rises, lightning flashes, the earth trembles.

Features of Russian folk tales:

In Russian fairy tales there are often repeated definitions: good horse; Gray wolf; red maiden; good fellow, as well as combinations of words: a feast for the whole world; go wherever your eyes lead you; the riotous man hung his head; neither to say in a fairy tale, nor to describe with a pen; soon the tale is told, but not soon the deed is done; whether long or short...

Often in Russian fairy tales the definition is placed after the word being defined, which creates a special melodiousness: my dear sons; the sun is red; written beauty...
Short and truncated forms of adjectives are characteristic of Russian fairy tales: the sun is red; the riotous man hung his head; - and the verbs: grab instead of grabbed, go instead of go.

The language of fairy tales is characterized by the use of nouns and adjectives with various suffixes, which give them a diminutive and affectionate meaning: little-y, brother-et, cock-ok, sun-ysh-o... All this makes the presentation smooth, melodious, emotional . Various amplifying-excretory particles also serve the same purpose: this, that, what, what... (What a miracle! Let me go to the right. What a miracle!)

Since ancient times, fairy tales have been close and understandable to the common people. Fiction intertwined with reality in them. Living in poverty, people dreamed of flying carpets, palaces, and self-assembled tablecloths. And justice has always triumphed in Russian fairy tales, and good has triumphed over evil. It is no coincidence that A.S. Pushkin wrote: “What a delight these fairy tales are! Each one is a poem!”