Authors
- Samodelova Elena A. D. Sc. (Philology)
Annotation
The relevance of the problem lies in the fact that «Mermaid Tales» by Alexey N. Tolstoy, issued around 1910, had not previously been studied in terms of floral
symbolism. The study aims at identifying those writer’s fairy tales that are essentially the plots relying on etiological myths about flowers. These flowers, known to any reader or only to a small group, are represented by mythological herbs. All Tolstoy’s fairy tales were checked for the flowering plants depicted in them, later on to be systematized. The leading approach to studying the problem is to show that the mythical flowers introduced into Tolstoy’s fairy tales are used in rituals or included in important folklore formulas that are relevant for various genres of oral folk art. Since childhood, Tolstoy studied articles and scientific books on folklore, made extracts from them in a separate notebook and thus gathered materials for future works, including literary fairy tales. He also got to know folk beliefs about flowers from local residents of the Samara province. The research results presented in the article show that Tolstoy did not include flowers in every fairy tale; there are works without them. However, those fairy tales that feature flowers in them, the latter play a key role as mythological plants, influencing the chararcters’ fates, adding a hint of archaism
to the Silver Age works, stylizing them as fairy tales or non-fairy prose, correlating them with popular beliefs, and filling them with symbols. The conclusions made in the article confirm the importance of Russian and, more broadly, Slavic folklore for Tolstoy, the writer’s wide use of it in literary fairy tales, and reveal the trend of interest
in old mythology. Flowers were essential to Tolstoy not for showing the beauty of the world, but for demonstrating the witchcraft of mythological heroes and the mysterious forces of nature. In some cases, the blossoming of plants indicates the onset of spring or the height of summer, being a means of typifying the landscape as well.
How to link insert
Samodelova, E. A. (2024). «MERMAID TALES» BY ALEXEY N. TOLSTOY AS AUTHORS ETIOLOGICAL MYTHS ABOUT FLOWERS Bulletin of the Moscow City Pedagogical University. Series "Pedagogy and Psychology", 2 (54), 22. https://doi.org/10.25688/2076-913X.2024.54.2.02
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