Methodological Essential Principles of the Folklore Fixing in the Maksym Rylskyi Concept and Its Relevance for Modern Folkloristics

Author

ShalakOksana

a Ph.D. in Philology, a leading scientific editor of the editorial staff of scientific editions of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine). ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8275-6703

Methodological Essential Principles of the Folklore Fixing
in the Maksym Rylskyi Concept and Its Relevance for Modern Folkloristics

Abstract

M. Rylskyi has considered the topical issues of the investigation of the heroic epos, comparative study of folklore, performance, the fundamental principles of folklore publication, the trends of the Folkloristics development in his scientific researches, reviews and reports.

He has revealed the problems of folklore samples recording in many of his articles, prefaces to folklore collections. These methodological principles, which build a kind of author’s concept, are relevant today mostly. He has raised, first of all, the problem of methods of modern folklore collecting by the way of expeditions and permanent records. The scientist has paid peculiar attention to certain genres those are priority-driven for him, their fixing (dumy, fairy tales, songs of literary origin, workers’ folklore). M. Rylskyi has distinguished the theme of the folklore of the Second World War («the period of the hardest trials and the greatest feats» (according to him)) and records from various regions among the others. Despite the ideological layering of certain postulates marked by the influence of time, they are basically verified methodologically and important for today’s scientific principles of folklore recording.

The problem of methodological foundations of folklore recording, priorities in folklore genres fixing is one of the most important in Ukrainian Folkloristics. M. Rylskyi, raising numerous aspects of this issue, has left valuable remarks for science developed later. Methodological principles of a scientist are considered as his original concept, foundations, which are relevant mostly even today. Priorities in recording certain understudied genres: fairy tales, dumy, songs of literary origin, workers’ folklore, recording and study of modern, new, folklore, records from various regions, study of folk life and everyday life, on the basis of which the versions appear, are the most important guidelines of M. Rylskyi. He has introduced the concept of modern mirror-folklore. This image, on the one hand, assumes a similar reflection, on the other hand, it is not selfsame to the real one. On the one hand – truthfulness, on the other – mirror, i.e. inverted, artistic truthfulness.

Keywords

Folklorіstics, folklore genres, methods of recoding, folklore sample.

References

1. BRITSYNA, Oleksandra. The History of a Textual Discussion and Its Modern Response. In: Maksym Rylskyi and the Global Culture in Terms of Modernity. An International Conference (Kyiv, March 16–17, 1995): Abstracts of Lectures and Communications. Kyiv, 1995 [in Ukrainian].
2. KYRCHIV, Roman. From Folkloric Regions of Ukraine: Essays and Articles. NAS of Ukraine’s Institute of Ethnology. Lviv: Playbill, 2002, 352 pp. [in Ukrainian].
3. RYLSKYI, Maksym. Introduction [To the Collection Ukrainian Dumas and Historical Songs, Ukr. State Pub. House, 1944]. In: Maksym RYLSKYI. Collected Works: in Twenty Volumes. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 1987, vol.16: Folklore, Translation Theory, and Linguistics, pp. 9–13 [in Ukrainian].
4. RYLSKYI, Maksym. The Voice of the People. In: Maksym RYLSKYI. Collected Works: in Twenty Volumes. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 1987, vol.16: Folklore, Translation Theory, and Linguistics, pp. 38–40 [in Ukrainian].
5. RYLSKYI, Maksym. Closing Remarks (At the All-Union Session on the Issue of Epics of the East Slavic Peoples in Kyiv on May 28, 1955). In: Maksym RYLSKYI. Collected Works: in Twenty Volumes. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 1987, vol.16: Folklore, Translation Theory, and Linguistics, pp. 61–63 [in Russian].
6. RYLSKYI, Maksym. Gold Placers of Folk Lore. In: Maksym RYLSKYI. Collected Works: in Twenty Volumes. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 1987, vol.16: Folklore, Translation Theory, and Linguistics, pp. 64–82 [in Ukrainian].
7. RYLSKYI, Maksym. Songs of the People of Soviet Ukraine. In: Maksym RYLSKYI. Collected Works: in Twenty Volumes. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 1987, vol.16: Folklore, Translation Theory, and Linguistics, pp. 34–37 [in Russian].
8. RYLSKYI, Maksym. Poetry and Folk Art on the Reunification of the Ukrainian People in a Single Ukrainian Soviet State. In: Maksym RYLSKYI. Collected Works: in Twenty Volumes. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 1987, vol.16: Folklore, Translation Theory, and Linguistics, pp. 41–54 [in Ukrainian].
9. RUDA, Tetiana. Folklore in Maksym Rylskyi’s Scientific and Artistic Heritages. In: Hanna SKRYPNYK ed.‑in‑chief, The Slavic World: Collected Scientific Papers. On the Occasion of the XVth International Congress of Slavicists. An Annual. Kyiv: Maksym Rylskyi IASFE, 2011, iss. 9, pp. 7–28 [in Ukrainian].