E-mail: dobrovolska@inbox.ru
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6–1, Petrovskiy side-str., Moscow, 107031, Russian Federation
PhD (Philology), head of Research Department, State Center of Russian Folklore, Cultural Strategies
and Project Management Center, Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation
The paper discusses the existence of the plot No. 425А (“Cupid and Psyche”) of the "Comparative Index of Plots: East-Slavic folk-tale" in the Russian fairy-tale tradition. The analysis of this plot allows us to show its distribution on Russian territory, to identify variations of this plot, the ranges of its “fairy activity” within local traditions and to detect inaccuracies in the attribution of fabulous texts. Analysis of the available sources allows the author to specify that three texts traditionally ascribed to this plot type do not belong to it while certain four additional texts do. The article notes that 425A type does not function as independent composition. In most cases, it is contaminated with CIP 432, suggesting that 425A and 432 are subtypes of the same plot type / cluster. Supplement of other plots into the texts of fairy-tales we’ve considered, has nothing to do with mechanistic agglutination of narrative elements familiar to the story-teller, but we are dealing with natural and elaborated contamination, which can indicate not only the performer’s skills, but deeply traditional nature of these solutions. Most of relevant texts were recorded in Karelia, Arkhangel’sk and Murmansk regions, which may indicate the text’s popularity both in Karelian and Norwegian traditions and influence of tales of neighboring peoples on Russian fabulous repertoire.
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