The Artistic World of Kalmyk Household Fairy Tales

Abstract

The fairy tale genre constitutes quite a fruitful part of Kalmyk folklore. Along with the epic, myths, legends and proverbs, fairy tales are integral to the centuries-old spiritual culture. And household fairy tales are especially signifi cant to the Kalmyk fairy tale repertory. Despite the fact that - as is evident from historiography of Kalmyk fairy tale studies - corresponding texts have been recorded and collected since long ago, the internal genre diversity of Kalmyk folklore still remains understudied. Household fairy tales have not yet been subject to special folklore studies though it is widely recognized that those are compositions of high artistic merit. Their well-defi ned specifi city manifests itself in peculiar plots, the system of images and characters, defi nite artistic pictorial means. The article studies the artistic world of Kalmyk household fairy tales which is usually based on alogism and expressed by certain pictorial means to reveal the typical identifi cations of characters and ideological content of the fairy tales. The theoretical and methodological foundation for the paper is constituted by works of Russian scholars, such as V. Gatsak, L. Barag, E. Pomerantseva, V. Anikin, V. Propp, Yu. Yudin and others. The introductory part contains brief historiographic data on how the fairy tales have been collected, published and studied. The body of the article - with reference to classifi cation schemes of the Russian scholars - divides Kalmyk household fairy tales into certain plot and thematic groups and examines most complete variants of plots from the categories. The considered materials are characterized by brevity of narration and evident social orientation as well as a comic and ironical style resulting from the whole content, themes and satirical means applied. Dialogue - i. e. short, felicitous and witty remarks of the characters in response to their opponents’ answers - is the main form of speech within the structure of household fairy tales. Qualities of a dialogue largely depend upon the talent of a taleteller, his or her acting abilities and profi ciency in expressing satirical components within amusive story lines of the fairy tales. The traditional adherence to ‘formulas’ inherent to, e. g., magic fairy tales is not usually the case of household ones (except for some initial and median formulas); constant median formulas and triplings are episodic. Artistic means of satirical denunciation are diverse enough: irony, contrast, exaggeration, antithesis. Laughter serves a special means to express the main idea, it conveys the specifi city of household tales based on description of unusual situations and events. When it comes to the portrayal of characters, contrast and exaggeration are usually applied; otherwise some feature of the main character is depicted in detail. The investigated fairy tales contain elements of magic tales, anecdotes, legends; those also refl ect the national history, with special attention paid to ethno-local peculiarities of economy and different ways of life. The artistic specifi city of Kalmyk household fairy tales helps conceive the folk talent and wisdom, beauty and accuracy of the language, contributes to further understanding the aesthetic and spiritual wealth of the nation.