E-mail: sorokinasp@mail.ru
Tel.: +7 (495) 690-50-30
25a, Povarskaya str., Moscow, 121069, Russian Federation
PhD (Philology), senior researcher of the Folklore Department, Institute of World Literature named
after A.M. Gor'kiy, Russian Academy of Sciences.
“Malanka” (or “Melanka”) is spread widely in some regions of Ukraine and on the north of Moldova. “Malanka” was formed initially among Ukrainians as one of New Year procession rituals, marked with a complex of magical tasks of agricultural and matrimonial character, typical for such ritual. There are many different phenomena called “Malanka” in Moldova. “Malanka”, which is published here, is an original version of folk drama “Maximilian the Tsar”. After several transformations it has become a part of Christmas ritual cycle, which has appeared in the village of Ocnita of Donduşeni (now – Ocnita) district of Moldova. The text was recorded in 1962 in Russian from an inhabitant of the village I. Carelunge, aged 66. Primordially, as far as inhabitants of the village have remembered, “Malanka” was performed only in Russian. After the Second World War it was translated into Moldavian. The author of publication received this text from famous scholar V. M. Gatsak in 2009. The ways of moving of Russian army has determined appearance of folk drama in remote parts of the Russian Empire and even abroad. This recording of “Maximilian the Tsar”, which has transformed into “Malanka”, is very interesting because it shows possibility of Russian folk drama to spread out of East-Slavic region and its further adaptation in alien ethnical and language milieu. The fact of penetration of “Maximilian the Tsar” into the Moldavian Yuletide ritual cycle demonstrates wonderful flexibility of folklore tradition which can adopt foreign phenomena for own necessity and the flexibility of drama to be adopted by different folklore tradition and to serve different social and cultural inquiries.
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