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Conference Report 

The Poetics of Folklore:  Seminar in Memory of B. N. Putilov 
 

A scholarly seminar entitled “The Poetics of Folklore” and dedicated to the memory of B. N. 

Putilov (1919-1998) was held from the first to the third of March in St. Petersburg. He is known to 

specialists on folklore in many countries, but primarily in Slavic.  

Most of Putilov’s monographs (more than 500 works came from under his pen) are devoted to the 

epic poetry of the Slavs. They begin with the bylina, that is, with one of its earliest genres, and end with its 

rather late manifestations in the Russian historical song. Slavic historical ballads and the heroic songs of the 

Montenegrins also formed part of his interests in this field.  

Putilov was attracted to the most acute problems in the study of Russian folklore, problems which 

many historians, philologists, and ethnographers sought to solve. In regard to study of  “the epic and real 

historical fact” he occupied a position close to that of V. Ia. Propp. Putilov considered that the past, which 

lies at the basis of the bylinas, “is not the past of the chronicles and is not even an idealized historical time.” 

The most archaic links of the bylina are represented by numerous “ethnographic motifs which lead to 

mythology, paganism, and magical practices . . . .” (This is cited according to Putilov’s last formulations of 

this problem in his book “Ekskursy v teoriiu i istoriiu slavianskogo eposa” [Excursions into the theory and 

history of the Slavic epic], St. Petersburg, 1999, pp. 93, 96).  

Putilov perceived the method for his work on epic texts to lie in historical typology. He provided 

an original treatment of this theory although he emphasized his dependence on V. M. Zhirmunskii. The 

ideas of M. Parry and A. Lord found a response in Putilov’s scholarly activities. He was one of the initiators 

of a series of conferences which were dedicated to the memory of A. Lord and which took place in various 

cities of the former USSR. He also was the author of an extensive afterward to the Russian translation of the 

book “Skazitel” [Singer -- “Singer of Tales] and of an article entitled “Shkola Parry-Lorda v mirovom 

eposovedenii” [The Parry-Lord school in the study of world epics] (“Zhivaia starina,” no. 2, 1994).  

It is difficult to evaluate the true significance of Putilov if one does not know a particular 

circumstance. Having begun his career during the “struggle with formalism,” he turned out to be one of 

those who consistently and progressively turned the Soviet view of the folklore text into something 

independent from the then current requirements to seek in folklore the “correct” views of events and 

adherence to the canons of “socialist realism.” It is true, however, that in the routine conditions of academic 

institutes where Putilov worked his whole life, such impulses did not acquire the same impetus and did not 

provoke the same social resonance that the activity, for example, of the Tartu semiotic school achieved.  

The Seminar did not include many reports about the epic. The majority of the talks were connected 

with a different sphere of Putilov’s interests: Traditional culture and folklore as one of its parts. (In this 

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regard I refer to his book “Folklor i traditsionnaia kultura” [Folklore and traditional culture], St. Petersburg, 

1994, which is still pertinent to the present day situation in Russian folkloristics. The reflection of passing 

or departed reality formed the basic question of the seminar and was examined in three aspects. First:  a 

refraction of lexicographic problems. As S. E. Nikitina (Moscow) claims, “A frequency count of the 

folklore language produces dubious results as an indicator of traditional mentality if, when compiling a 

frequency dictionary of folklore, you do not consider genre.”  Second: relationship to individual themes and 

images in folklore. All reports about the bylina (T. A. Bernshtam, A. A. Gorelov, E. L. Madlevskaia), and 

reports about archaic conceptions connected with the use of salt in christening ceremonies (A. K. Baiburin) 

and with the kinship system reflected in non-ritual lyric songs (S. I. Zhavoronok) were devoted to this 

second aspect. Third: the individual narrative unit. M. L. Lur’e, on the basis of demonological stories 

(“bylichki”), devoted her talk to one of these units --the motif.  

Reports about traditional space conceptions emerging through the tale (K. E. Korepova - Nizhny 

Novgorod), through fragmentary historical legends (V. V. Vinogradov), or through those enrooted entirely 

in contemporary life (I. A. Razumova - Petrozavodsk;  A. F. Belousov, I. S. Veselova) formed a special part 

of the Seminar’s program.  

In the spirit of Putilov’s interest in the way Parry and Lord studied the transmission of an oral epic, 

at the Seminar reports were presented about the learning of funeral laments in the Russian North (S. B. 

Adon'ieva), and about the types of vocal timbers and performance devices in Byelorussian ritual songs (G. 

V. Tavlaj). Several talks were concerned with various aspects of folklore poetics and stylistics: a general 

view of the controversial sides of this topic, about the cumulative principle in incantations (I. F. Amroian - 

Toliatti), about the still debated concept of the “formula” in folkloristics (Iu. A. Kleiner), and about song 

stanzas (M. A. Lobanov). A. F. Nekrylova talked about the poetics of the formulation of signs or tokens 

(“primeta”). In his communication G. A. Levinton clarified some points in the study of epic verse by N. S. 

Trubetzkoy and R. O. Jakobson.  

The Seminar was supplemented with communications about folklore phenomena that were little 

known to the assembled audience: pre-Islamic ritual songs (N. N. Abubakirova),  folklore genres 

accompanying the funerals of the Udmurt pagans (T. M. Miniiakhmetova - Izhevsk/Tartu), and 

Azerbijanian proverbs connected with the epic hero Kior-ogly (F. Cheleby).  

The sessions of the Seminar took place in the Russian Institute for the History of the Arts and in St. 

Petersburg University. The Petersburg Linguistics Society (with support from the Soros Fund), the Propp 

Center, and the above named institutions organized the Seminar. 

M. Lobanov 

Russian Institute for the History of the Arts, St. Petersburg 

(Translated by James Bailey) 

SEEFA Journal 2001, Vol. VI No. 1