UDC

821.161.1:801.81

Authors

Gleb K. Ol’khovoy
Moscow City Teacher Training University; 2-y Sel’skokhozyaystvennyy proezd 4, Moscow, 129226, Russian Federation; e-mail: gleb.olkhovoy@gmail.com

Abstract

Every epoch has its collectors of everyday culture, so-called cultural stalkers. The author of this article sees the work of Russian writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky in this way. His book Moscow and Muscovites contains not only documentary material, but also folklore that is characteristic of the late 19th and first third of the 20th century. This article describes Gilyarovsky’s work on folklore by singling out the texts and rites, collected and recorded by him. These folklore texts are unique due to the fact that they are included in the circumstances of their performance. Theorists of culture (B. Malinowski, B.N. Putilov) considered this method to be the most comprehensive and scientific. According to Putilov, the key task of folklore studies is to give back contextual relations to folklore texts. Gilyarovsky managed to solve this problem. Not being a scholar, he instinctively did what later became a requirement in folklore studies: he recorded not only what he heard and saw, but also the actions of the performer. This article singles out the following folklore fragments in Gilyarovsky’s book: family ritual, worker’s song, chastushka, family tale of everyday life, dramatic action (rayok, buffoonery, merrymaking), and narratives about mythologized historical characters. These and other folklore texts presented by Gilyarovsky are valuable in their inclusiveness, i.e. inclusion of folk culture in the general everyday life of the people.

Keywords

Vladimir Gilyarovsky, Moscow and Muscovites, cultural stalker, folklore in literature, inclusiveness of folklore texts

References

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