Collective artistic creative activity, reflecting the life of the ethnic group, its ideals, its views, has incorporated the folk art of Russia. From people to generation epics, fairy tales, legends were created and existed - this is a genre of poetry, original music sounded - plays, tunes, songs, theater plays were a favorite holiday spectacle - mainly it was a puppet theater. But dramas and satirical plays were staged there. Russian folk art also penetrated deeply into dance, fine arts, and decorative and applied arts. In ancient times, Russian dances were born. Folk art of Russia has erected a historical foundation for modern artistic culture, has become a source of artistic traditions, an expression of people's self-awareness.
Orally and in writing
Written literary works appeared much later than those oral gems that filled the precious box of folklore from pagan times. Those same proverbs, sayings, riddles, songs and round dances, spells and conspiracies, epics and fairy tales, which were cut to a brilliant brilliance by Russian folk art. The ancient Russian epos reflected the spirituality of our people, traditions, real events, life features, revealed and preserved the exploits of historical characters. So, for example, Vladimir Krasnoye Solnyshko, the beloved prince, served as a prototype for the real prince - Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, the hero Dobrynya Nikitich - the uncle of Vladimir the First Boyar Dobrynya. Types of oral folk art are extremely diverse.
With the advent of Christianity in the tenth century, the great Russian literature begins, its history. Gradually, with its help, the Old Russian language developed, which became one. The first books were handwritten, decorated with gold and other precious metals, gems, enamels. They were very expensive, because the people did not know them for a long time. However, with the strengthening of religion, books penetrated the most remote corners of Russian land, since the people needed to know the creations of Ephraim the Syrian, John Chrysostom and other religious translated literature. The original Russian literature of antiquity is now represented by annals, biographies of saints (lives), rhetorical teachings (“Words”, one of them is “The Word about Igor’s Regiment”), walks (or walking, travel notes) and many other genres, not so famous. The fourteenth century gave a number of exceptional monuments of folklore. Some types of oral folk art, such as bylina, passed into the category of written ones. So there were "Sadko" and "Vasily Buslaev", recorded for storytellers.
Examples of folk art
Oral creativity served as a fount of folk memory. The heroic confrontation of the Tatar-Mongol yoke and other invaders was chanted by word of mouth. It was on the basis of such songs that the stories that survived to this day were created: about the battle on Kalka, where the “seventy great and brave" get our freedom, about Evpatiya Kolovrat, who protected Ryazan from Batu, about Mercury, who defended Smolensk. The oral folklore of Russia preserved the facts of the uprising of Tver against the Baskak Shevkal, about Schelkan Dudentievich, and these songs were sung far beyond the principality of Tver. The compilers of the epics brought to the distant descendants the events of Kulikov Field, and the old images of Russian heroes were still used by the people for those dedicated to the fight against the Golden Horde of folk works.
Until the end of the tenth century, the inhabitants of Kiev-Novgorod Rus did not yet know the written language. However, this pre-literary period brought to our days the golden verbal works passed on by word of mouth and from generation to generation. And now Russian folk art festivals are being held, where all the same songs, tales and epics of a thousand years ago are heard. By sounding the ancient genres still include epics, songs, tales, legends, puzzles, sayings, proverbs. Most of the folklore works that have come down to us are poetry. The poetic form makes it easy to memorize texts, and therefore for many centuries, folklore works have been passed down through generations, changing to expediency, polishing from one talented storyteller to another.
Small genres
Small-volume works belong to small genres of folklore. These are parables: puns, tongue twisters, sayings, jokes, riddles, signs, sayings, proverbs, that which gave us oral folk art. Riddles are one of such artistic manifestations of folk poetry, which originated orally. A hint or allegory, bluntly, devious speech - an allegorical description in brief form of any subject - that’s what a riddle is according to V. I. Dahl. In other words, an allegorical depiction of the phenomena of reality or an object to be guessed. Even here provided for multivariance oral folk art. Riddles can be descriptions, allegories, questions, tasks. Most often, they consist of two parts - question and answer, riddles and guesses, interconnected. In terms of topics, they are diverse and closely connected with work and life: the animal and plant world, nature, tools and activities.
Proverbs and sayings that have survived to this day from the most ancient times are accurate expressions, wise thoughts. Most often, too, are two-part, where the parts are proportionate and often rhyme. The meaning of sayings and proverbs is usually direct and figurative, containing morality. Often we see in proverbs and sayings multivariance, that is, many variants of the proverb with the same morality. Proverbs are distinguished from proverbs by a generalizing meaning, which is higher. The oldest of them date from the twelfth century. The history of folk art in Russia notes that to this day, many proverbs have come down shortened, sometimes even losing their original meaning. So, they say: "He ate the dog in this matter, " implying high professionalism, but the old people in old times continued: "Yes, choked with the tail." That is, no, not so high.
Music
Ancient types of folk music in Russia are based primarily on the song genre. A song is a musical and verbal genre at the same time, either a lyrical or a narrative work, which is intended purely for singing. songs can be lyrical, dance, ritual, historical, and all of them express both the aspirations of the individual person and the feelings of many people, they are always in tune with the social internal state.
Whether there are love experiences, thoughts about fate, a description of social or family life, this should always be interesting to the audience, and without introducing the state of mind into the song as many people as possible will not listen to the singer. The people love the parallelism technique when the mood of the lyrical hero is transferred to nature. “What are you standing, swinging, a thin mountain ash”, “There is no bright month on the nightie, ” for example. And almost rarely comes across a folk song in which this parallelism is absent. Even in historical songs - "Ermak", "Stepan Razin" and others - he constantly meets. From this, the emotional sound of the song becomes much stronger, and the song itself is perceived much brighter.
Bylina and the tale
The genre of folk art took shape much earlier than the ninth century, and the term "epic" appeared only in the nineteenth century and meant a heroic song of an epic nature. We know epics that sang in the ninth century, although they were probably not the first, they simply did not reach us, lost for centuries. Each child knows well the epic heroes - heroes who embodied the ideal of national patriotism, courage and strength: the merchant Sadko and Ilya Muromets, the giant Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovich. The story of the epic is most often filled with vital situationality, but it is also significantly enriched with fantastic fiction: they have a teleport (they can instantly cover distances from Murom to Kiev), they will defeat the army alone (“if you wave right, there will be a street, or if you wave left, there is a side street”), and, of course, monsters: three-headed dragons - Serpents of the Mountain. Types of folk art of Russia in oral genres are not limited to this. There are also fairy tales and legends.
Epics differ from fairy tales in that in recent events they are completely fictional. Tales come in two forms: domestic and magical. In everyday life, the most diverse, but ordinary people are depicted - princes and princesses, kings and kings, soldiers and workers, peasants and priests in the most ordinary conditions. And fairy tales necessarily attract fantastic powers, produce artifacts with wonderful properties and so on. The tale is usually optimistic, and this differs from the plot of other genre works. In fairy tales, only good usually prevails, evil forces always fail and ridicule in every way. A legend, unlike a fairy tale, is an oral story about a miracle, a fantastic image, an incredible event, which should be perceived by the narrator and listeners as authenticity. Pagan legends have come down to us about the creation of the world, the origin of countries, seas, peoples, about the exploits of both fictional and real heroes.
Today
The contemporary folk art of Russia cannot represent precisely ethnic culture, since this culture is pre-industrial. Any modern settlement - from the smallest village to the metropolis - is an alloy of various ethnic groups, and the natural development of each without the slightest mixing and borrowing is simply impossible. What is now called folk art, rather, is a deliberate stylization, folklore, behind which is professional art, which was inspired by ethnic motifs.
Sometimes this is amateur art, such as mass culture, and the work of handicraftsmen. In fairness, it should be noted that the most pure and still developing can only be recognized as folk crafts - arts and crafts. There is still present, in addition to professional, ethnic creativity, although production has long been put on the conveyor and the opportunities for improvisation are scanty.
People and creativity
What do people mean by the word people? The population of the country, nation. But, for example, dozens of distinctive ethnic groups live in Russia, and folk art has common features that are common to all ethnic groups. Chuvash, Tatars, Mari, and even the Chukchi - do not musicians, artists, architects borrow from each other in contemporary works? But their common features are comprehended by an elitist culture. And therefore, in addition to Russian dolls, we have a certain export product, which is our joint business card. The minimum of contrast, the maximum of general unification within the nation, this is the direction of contemporary creativity of the peoples of Russia. Today it is:
- ethnic (folklorized) creativity,
- amateur art
- creativity of the common people,
- amateur creativity.
The craving for aesthetic activity will be alive as long as a person lives. That is why art continues to flourish today.
Art, hobby creativity
An elite, professional culture is engaged in art, where outstanding talent is required, and works are an indicator of the level of aesthetic development of mankind. It has very little relation to folk art, except for inspiration: all composers, for example, wrote symphonies using melodies of folk songs. But this is by no means her, not a folk song. The achievement of traditional culture is creativity as an indicator of the development of a collective or an individual. Such a culture can develop successfully and multilaterally. And the result of mass culture, as the masters pattern, presented to the people for feasible repetition, is a hobby, aesthetics of this kind, which is designed to relieve tension from the mechanics of modern life.
Here you can notice some signs of the primordial beginning, in folk art, drawing themes and means of expression. These are quite common technological processes: weaving, embroidery, carving, forging and molding, decorative painting, chasing and so on. True folk art did not know the contrasts of changes in artistic styles for a millennium. Now it is significantly enriched in contemporary folk art. The degree of stylization changes in the same way as the nature of the comprehension of all old rented motifs.
Arts and crafts
From the very hoary antiquity the folk arts of Russia are known. This is perhaps the only species that has not undergone fundamental changes to this day. With these objects, from time immemorial, home and social life have been decorated and improved. Rural craft mastered even quite complex designs, quite suitable in modern life.
Although now all these items carry not so much practical as aesthetic burden. This is jewelry, and toy whistles, and interior decorations. Different areas and regions had their own types of art, crafts and needlework. The most famous and vibrant are the following.
