Article

Name: Non-Fairytale Prose of Russian Siberian of Novosibirsk Region in the M. N. Melnikov Collection

Authors: Viktoria A. Goncharova

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract:

The article presents a historiographical and theoretical overview of the non-fairytale prose of the Russian settlers in Siberia, drawing primarily on manuscripts from M. N. Melnikov’s folklore collection.

A central theoretical challenge addressed is the genre classification of this prose. While genre differentiation is a universal concern in folklore studies, applicable to indigenous Siberian and East Slavic settlers alike, its resolution has its own nuances due to the nature of the materials studied. Thus, the Slavic cultural code synthesizes etiological, pagan and Christian ideas, and the varying proportions of these elements within folklore texts careful genre analysis.

At the moment, the experience of Siberian folklorists in the systematic classification of texts is already known. For instance, modern Omsk researchers I. K. Feoktistova and N. K. Kozlova, building upon V. Ya. Propp’s theoretical framework, identify the mythological component as a genre-forming constant in non-fairytale prose. This characteristic provides a basis for updating the philological terminology to encompass genres such as hystorical tales, legends, bylischka and byvalschina. M. N. Melnikov independently came to similar conclusions, based on the material of direct field sources. However, he did not fully develop these expedition observations to a full-fledged concept. Current accessibility to formerly censored foreign and domestic folklore scholarship enabls a more thorough understanding of this complex phenomenon, facilitating the development of appropriate analytical methods, as evidenced in recent folklore studies.

The article also provides information about M. N. Melnikov’s collecting expedition work. His expedition materials are now housed at the Regional Center of Russian Folklore and Ethnography and the State Archive of the Novosibirsk region.

Keywords: non-fairytale prose, mythological prose, folklore of Russian settlers, M. N. Melnikov Collection

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