NORTHERN FAIRY-TALES AND FOLKLORE

The Arkhangelsk north is known as the birthplace of great poets and as a treasury of oral creativity of the Russian people. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine that the development of all kinds of applied arts, wooden and stone architecture here would not be accompanied by folk rites, songs, fairy tales, legends, figurative colloquial speech.

The importance of the Russian North in the fate of national epic poetry (first of all, bylinas’ impact) is widely known. On the territory of Arkhangelsk Governorate, in places connected mainly with the Novgorod settlers, the largest centers of epic creativity were found in the middle of the 19th century. A large number of records of epic texts in the best integrity possible were made.

The Arkhangelsk North puts artists like Maria Krivopolenova and the Kryukov family among the famous performers of bylinas. The original performing art of the northern storytellers revealed a whole world of folk images and contained new musical themes, unique melodies and rhythms. It had a strong influence on the work of Russian composers, artists, and writers.

The plots and melodies of the northern bylinas became the primary basis of some of the works of Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakirev, Arensky; it entered the works of Repin, Vasnetsov, Konenkov alongside with Nekrasov’s poetry and Gorky’s prose. The northern bylinas — folk classics — contributed to the birth of Russian classical art. And this is also their significance as a monument of national culture.

 

Northern fairy tales — a legendary epic — unlike bylinas were not the heritage of the north alone and were noted everywhere. Perhaps that is why the most complete collections of northern fairy tales come only from the beginning of the 20th century. Scientists have long noted that the Russian North gave its own northern versions of the all-Russian fairy tales. The tales are so distinctive and so vividly reflect the colors of the north, the personality, life and work of the northerners that they inspired works of professional creators. It was the origins of northern fairy tale that nourished the creativity of innumerous unique first-class writers such as Mikhail Prishvin, Boris Shergin, Stepan Pisakhov.

The Russian North is widely known for its songwriting. Song lyrics have lived a full life here at all times. It is not by chance that samples of historical, ritual and everyday songs of the Arkhangelsk Governorate were included in the all-Russian collection of folk songs and then in the well-known corpus «Great Russia in its songs, rituals, customs, beliefs, fairy tales, legends». In the period after the October Revolution the need to preserve traditional northern song increased. As a result of extensive expedition work new publications of texts appeared, proving the richness of the song genre. In some villages of Leshukonye, Mezen and Pinega old soldiers’ songs condemning Peter’s decrees on 25-year-old soldiering have been preserved. These are historical songs that uniquely reflect the social and economic life of the north in the past.

Interest in the folklore of Arkhangelsk North is natural. Here, traditional folklore works that have lived with the people for centuries are not only monuments of the past, something obsolete. They exist to this day, entering the spiritual life of our contemporaries alongside with modern art.

Photo credits to: I. Minina, E. Terpilko ("Novitsa")

Information was prepared by the staff of the Arkhangelsk Regional Scientific Library named after N.A. Dobrolyubova, more information on the website http://cultnord.ru/