E-mail: Nikolavna@inbox.ru
Tel.: +7 (499) 181-58-69
4, 2nd Sel’skokhozyaystvennyy pas., Moscow, 129226, Russian Federation
PhD (Philology), associate professor, department of Russian Literature, Moscow City University
Among numerous zoomorphic, ornithomorphic, ichthyomorphic etc. images of Russian children’s folklore the image of Bunny (the hare) is one of the most frequent, but also multifacet. Bunny turns into bonny lad and starts courting a girl suddenly, but more usually he is seen running, jumping, cradling a baby, hiding and disappearing. Implementations of Bunny image are considered as exemplified in texts of both nurturing poetry of adults and own children’s folklore, which differ by genre (from lullaby songs, nursing rhymes, sayings to children games with counting-rhymes) or are manifested in cross-genre way. Scrutiny is focused on origin, function, poetic features of Bunny character and its interaction with familiar images of folklore, traditional and professional culture of adults. Dynamics of the hare image is traced until its modern modifications, i. e. Bunny of virtual web space. There in Russian children’s folklore the image of Bunny is plastic, ambivalent, and “elusive” in general.
Diverse semantic and symbolic features incorporated into children’s folklore Bunny image are obtained from a variety of sources, primarily from adult traditional culture and folk mythological beliefs, and transformed under influence of a child’s logic and psychology. From genre to genre, from variant to variant of the text bizarre metamorphoses happen to the hare: it turns into a fellow fiance, a cat, “Chizhik-Pyzhik” the bird, even devil’s relative, an ermine, the moon, and… after all he’s gone away. Image of Bunny reflects general patterns of interaction between children’s and adult folklore tradition.
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