children's folklore verse/Weiss's article

[Alexandra Smith]

See also http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/SEEFA/DRAZNILK.HTM.
> Bob Rothstein

Dear Professor Rothstein,

Thank you very much for pointing out an interesting article on  
children's folklore verse (draznilki) (written by Halina Weiss). I  
enjoyed reading it.
It brings to the fore a few very useful points related to various  
theoretical approaches. I was also intrigued by the references to  
children's satirical and sadistic poetry. I think that it might be  
identified as something that stands close to "strashilki" genre. The  
example in the end of the article comes from a very typical form of  
children's sadistic verse that sometimes is labeled as "sadistskie  
kuplety" or "sadistskie chastushki". It's a pity  that Halina Weiss  
didn't elaborate on her point that the genre "sadistkie stishki"  
represents an urban genre and something that is relatively new. It  
would be interesting to see more analysis of this type of verse in  
terms of its contextual links with other urban forms of folklore  
(zhestokii romans and bylichki, for example). If you happen to know of  
any meaningful study that investigates children's folklore poetry in  
the context of urban culture please let me know. I'll be very grateful  
for any references that relate to "modern" forms of  children's  
folklore (especially pre-Soviet ones).
   Although children's "sadistic verse" happens to be a very popular  
genre today, I think that it just coexist with "draznilki" and  
competes with it.
  The roots of sadistic verse (and strashilka) might be found both in  
Russian and German folklore and literary sources. See, for example,  
Borisov's article on the evolution of black humour in Russia  
(http://ruthenia.ru/folklore/borisov7.htm) that also touches upon  
strashilki, sadistic verse and Kharms's stories; several articles on  
sadistic verse of schoolchildren are included in the collection of  
essays "Shkol'nyj byt i fol'klor" (Tallinn, 1992) (there are many  
interesting examples that are provided by Andrey Topokov who has also  
a wonderful collection of children's parodic poetry; a few years ago I  
enjoyed reading his brilliant article on various schoolchildren  
parodies that feature the Queen of Spades, too!); "Russkii shkol'nyj  
fol'klor" (Moscow, Ladomir, 1998) and Lyskov's article on sadistskie  
stishki (http://ruthenia.ru/folklore/lyskov1.htm). Lyskov defines  
sadistic verse as an example of linguistic game.
Of course, many Kharms's poems  employ a lot of borrowings from  
children's sadistic verse and might be seen as a literary version of  
this type of poetry. Does it mean then that it was a popular genre in  
the 1910-30s, too? Edward Lear's nonsensical poetry  also evokes  
English nursery rhymes that are often very cruel and also contain many  
elements of linguistic game. But in Lear's case we could probably say  
that he defamiliarises some conventional and traditional forms...

Once again, thank you for sharing Halina Weiss's article with the  
SEELANGs list readers.

PS. Andrey Toporkov's own example of student urban folklore was his  
chastushka written for one of our KAPUSTNIKI performances at the  
HERZEN Pedagogical University (performed in 1979 or 1980):
"Immanentnaia struktura, semiotika, /Prevratila menia - dura!- v idiotika".

All best,
Alexandra Smith



==================================
Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
Lecturer in Russian
School of European Languages and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
David Hume Tower
George Square
Edinburgh EX8 9JX
UK


tel. +44-(0)131-6511381
fax: +44- (0)131- 650-3604
e-mail: Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk

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