The Experience of Reading the “Parafolklore” Text from I.P. Sakharov’s “Tales of the Russian People”

Abstract

The article analyzes one of the “parafolklore” texts published by Ivan Petrovich Sakharov (1807–1863) in his edition “Tales of the Russian people about the family life of their ancestors.” It is about a song which is interpolated into the description of the ritual “opahivanie,” designed to protect the village from the epizootic and expel the “Cow Death” from it. It has been established that the description of the rite of “ploughing” itself was created by I.P. Sakharov based on the description of this rite published twice by V.B. Bronevsky in 1827 and 1828, and I.P. Sakharov stylistically “decorated” and expanded the text of his predecessor. The song, absent in Bronevsky’s composition, is compiled by Sakharov himself, we believe, on the basis of some real “opahivaniye” songs with addition of some motives, borrowed from authentic works of Russian folklore and from “parafolklore” works of Sakharov himself. In the case of such works we are dealing with a special kind of literary stylization, involving the reworking of authentic folklore texts or composing original works on a folklore basis. At the same time, the composer pays attention not only to the form and content of his texts, but also to special techniques of misleading the reader about their origin (in this case, the “parafolklore” text is interpolated into a description of a real rite).

Keywords

• folklore
• ivan petrovich sakharov
• literary stylization
• hoax
• forgery
• ritual song.