Vepsian Literature as an Aspiration to the Revival of the People (“Up the Stairs Leading Down”?)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the development of the literature of the Vepsians of the early written people of Russia, whose language is included in the Red Book of the Languages of the Peoples of Russia (the number of people in 2010 was 5936 people). Despite the negative forecasts, the Vepsianlanguage literature is currently successfully developing. The most popular is poetry, represented by the poems of the national writer of Karelia Nikolai Abramov, known in the Finno-Ugric world and beyond. The first generation of authors developed the forms of Vepsian poetry, its rhyme and style, and young authors, first of all Olga Zhukova, Galina Baburova, proved that in urban conditions it is possible to find opportunities for poetry in their native language. The article shows the connection with oral folk art, mythology, philosophy of Vepsian life, which manifested itself in the Vepsian epic Virantanaz by Nina Zaitseva, in the verses of Alevtina Andreeva, reminiscent of a kind of conspiracies or prayers, and in the prose of Valentina Lebedeva. Creating in close collaboration with scientists who claim that the Vepsian language has perfectly preserved both its grammar and vocabulary, which is easily replenished thanks to the rich word-formation system of the Vepsian language, they strive, without discouragement, to go up the stairs leading down.

Keywords

• early written language
• folklore
• vepsian literature
• poetry
• prose
• epic
• translation