“Not” death motive in Russian ethnography and Romanticism fiction

Abstract

The folklore motifs and images in the works by V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol are considered in the perspective of slavonic notions of fate, “not” death, “laid” deads (the term by the ethnographer D.K. Zelenin). According to ethnographic data, these ideas brought to life the images of Russian lower mythology (mermaids, water, brownies, etc.). It's well-known that appeal to folk consciousness was an important part of European romanticism project. But it was in Russian literature that the folk beliefs and images were expressed in the most accurate and even ethnographically authentic way. In the first half of 19th century Russia the traditional peasant culture was still preserved in its wholeness and authenticity so that the “high” culture could perceive it as quite alive. The proposed perspective allows to understand why Russian romanticism was much closer to the folk consciousness than romanticism in Western literature.