Sub-Genre Peculiarities of the Karachay-Balkar Household Fairy Tale

The article studies Karachay-Balkar fairy tales that constitute a considerable part of the national oral tradition. When defining the term “a household fairy tale”, the author reconsiders the accepted folkloristic views on the term “a novel fairy tale” which is also applied to household fairy tales with a considerable prevalence of plot elements depicting adventures of separate fairy tale characters - since due to its genre modification it cannot be referred to this type of folk prose. The paper also analyzes theoretical studies on household fairy tales and appraises a number of works by predecessor researchers (A. Z. Kholaev, A. I. Karaeva, F. A. Urusbieva, etc.). In terms of national folkloristics, the article provides the historically first sub-genre classification of the Karachay-Balkar household fairy tale which is a gem of the inherited folk oral and spiritual tradition. Thus, Karachay-Balkar household fairy tales can be subdivided as follows: 1) family and household fairy tales (about family relationship, women, unfaithfulness, guile and love); 2) fairy tales about padishahs, sultans, landowners (bai) and feudal lords; 3) fairy tales about wisdom, quickwittedness and inventiveness of a shepherd; 4) fairy tales about witches - turnskins (‘obhur’), daemons (shaytan) and forest spirits - Agach-Kishi and others; 5) legendary fairy tales about prophets and historical figures; 6) humorous fairy tales including compositions about mullahs, effendis; 7) fairy tales about morality in the family, community and everyday life; 8) fairy tales about the world of things and origins of home-cooked food. The conducted studies of approximately 100 texts have allowed for the conclusion that their content peculiarities explicitly designate every single composition as belonging to a definite sub-genre. Special attention is paid to the motifs of family, love, enmity and revenge within a rural community as well as those of morality and denunciation of sinful priests. The analysis of a vast range of materials concerning Karachay-Balkar fairy tales in comparison with diverse compositions of Oriental, Turkic and Caucasian peoples revealed both the similarities of plots, motifs and the ethnic peculiarities of the considered texts.

household fairy tale, genre peculiarity, classification, structure, modifi cation, motif, plot elements, composition, national specifi city, typology

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