International Journal Of Literature And Languages
24
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijll
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue03 2025
PAGE NO.
24-27
10.37547/ijll/Volume05Issue03-07
The Peculiarity of The Specificity and Systematization of
Legends in Folklore Studies
Rakhmonova Makhbuba Ravshanovna
Doctor Of Philology (Dsc) Professor Of The Department Of Uzbek Language And Literature, University Of Tashkent For Applied
Sciences, Uzbekistan
Received:
03 January 2025;
Accepted:
05 February 2025;
Published:
12 March 2025
Abstract:
The article examines the genre nature of legends, the uniqueness of their poetics, and the scientific
description of the varieties of the genre in folklore studies. The diversity of the paradigm of folklore legends, their
constant interaction with other genres predetermine the introduction of new definitions and the clarification of
existing ones. At present, the plots of various legends in the global context are the most popular narrative and
content structures for expressing and transmitting personal religious feelings in modern oral folklore. Such stories
expand the boundaries of reality and allow a miracle to enter everyday life, transforming it, changing the person
himself.
Keywords:
Legends, worldview, semantics, folklore studies, images, motives, peoples.
Introduction:
Legend (from Middle Latin legenda "a
collection of liturgical passages for daily service") is one
of the varieties of non-fairytale prose folklore. A poetic
legend about some historical event. In a figurative
sense, it refers to glorious, admirable events of the
past. As a rule, it contains additional religious or social
pathos.
The complex, in many ways’ unique artistic world of
folklore legend attracts the attention of modern
researchers of folk spiritual culture. Meanwhile, the
problems of the genre essence and aesthetic nature of
the legend are far from solved, as are the closely
related issues of intra-genre classification of the
existing corpus of texts, published and archival. The
structural diversity of oral legend and its insufficient
study complicate the problem of genre definition. In
the works of folklorists, the term "legend" is most often
applied to religious narratives: apocryphal stories on
biblical themes, folk biographies of saints and stories
about posthumous miracles, the power of prayer, sin
and righteousness, desecration of shrines and
retribution. At the same time, legends also include a
wider range of prose folklore texts marked by the
aesthetics of the fantastic and miraculous.
Legend is an approximate synonym for myth; an epic
story about what happened in ancient times; the main
characters of the story are usually heroes in the full
sense of the word, often gods and other supernatural
forces directly participate in the events. Events in a
legend are often exaggerated, a lot of fiction is added.
Therefore, scientists do not consider legends to be
completely reliable historical evidence, without
denying, however, that most legends are based on real
events.
Legends are divided into religious and social. Legends
were usually oral stories, often set to music; Legends
were passed down by word of mouth, usually by
wandering storytellers. Later, many legends were
written down. Since when legends were composed
about someone, it meant public recognition of their
deeds, the word acquired an additional meaning: it is
used to refer to events and figures (for example,
"Legend of Rock") that have received recognition and
honor.
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
As for the stylistic features of legends, we proceed from
the thesis about the low expression of the aesthetic
attitude in folk non-fairy-tale prose (expressed in
speech stereotypes, formula city, the presence of so-
called "common places", entertainment, traditional for
song, fairy-tale, and game folklore), the absence of an
inseparable "connection between form and content in
the sense that artistic forms are unstable and optional
here" and, accordingly, about the prevalence of
information, colloquial rather than artistic speech, an
attitude
towards
reliability.
However,
their
identification, even conditional, leads to the blurring of
genre boundaries. Such an approach is capable of
leveling out significant semantic and structural
differences, value orientations of non-fairy-tale prose
genres of different origins. In the episodes of the
legend about a person's meeting with heavenly forces,
the key motive of a miracle and the events of the
storyline are conditioned by God's will with the aim of
helping people in a difficult situation. In mythological
prose, a person's contact with a demonic creature is
predetermined by the violation of the prohibitions of
everyday or ritual behavior of the protagonist, which
often leads to a tragic ending. For example, if the
prohibition to yearn for the deceased is violated, the
"evil spirit" in the guise of the deceased appears at
night in his house to destroy the orphaned family. A
short story often assimilates the features of a legend,
while retaining the characteristics of a mythological
story. A legend, to an even greater extent than short
stories and tales, is open to intergern influences - at all
stages of the genre's development. It initially contains
features of folklore and book genres (fairy tales,
apocrypha, hagiography, etc.), which does not
contradict its originality.
There are many definitions of the legend genre, often
significantly different from each other. Meanwhile,
positive trends are observed. Modern folklorists
(following pre-revolutionary scientists) focus on the
religious component of the folklore legend, its
THE CATEGORIES BY WHICH
FOLK LEGENDS ARE DIVIDED
INTO THREE TYPES CAN BE
PRESENTED AS FOLLOWS:
themes and problems of legends
semantic connections of the
characters of legends with each other
the position of the narrator in
relation to the eventful world of the
legend, his detachment or
involvement in it
the artistic space and time of legends
the form of existence of the text
(established plot narrative,
memorandum)
the connection of the oral legend
with written monuments of religious
motives
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
significant property. Based on her own research in the
field of legend, Yu. M. Shevarenkova formulates the
result of the study and her vision of this genre as "a set
of popular religious ideas expressed by a plot
narrative". V. P. Anikin polemically asserts: there are no
legends "free from the Christian faith". The plot-
forming concepts of the legend genre are highlighted
by L. V. Fadeeva: "A legend as a genre of non-fairy-tale
prose unites a wide range of texts narrating about
events that occur in the world of people (the created
world) by the intervention of the will of God (the
Creator). The basis of the legend is the idea of a miracle
- a phenomenon incomprehensible to the human
mind".
Thus, if we proceed from the analysis of texts and the
history of the genre study, a folklore legend is a story of
religious and moral content, dating back to the
traditions of the Bible, hagiography, apocrypha, and
other book and folklore sources. The legend has a
moral and didactic focus on educating a person, which
is due to the artistic task of the genre: to give an idea of
good and evil in its Christian understanding. The legend
is characterized by a spiritual dominant of the plot
narrative, a kind of chronotype and a special system of
characters: these are celestials (God, the Mother of
God, apostles, angels, saints) and people, as well as
other earthly beings. The key concept of a miracle is
structured by mythological ideas about the dual world,
that is, about the reality revealed to man and the
invisible essence of being and the interaction between
them. The paradigm of varieties of folklore legends is
characterized by diversity and variability, therefore a
critical analysis of established opinions is required, it is
necessary to introduce new definitions. Eschatological
legends are distinguished by the emotionality of style,
categorical assessments and forecasts. Today's
storyteller-preacher is not embarrassed by the fact that
a mere mortal is not given to comprehend the secret
meanings of the symbolic conceptual sphere of the
Revelation of the Saints. Folklore narratives about the
end of the world constitute an oral analogy to scientific
literature on this problem. Folk interpretations of the
Apocalypse in their own way complement these works
and oppose them with the mythologist of the
expressed thoughts and feelings.
Hagiographic legends are singled out as a separate type
in most works on folk prose. Folklorists consider them
to be the most important component of the analyzed
genre. Legends about saints are stories about the
secular or monastic life of saints, about posthumous
miracles and other deeds of God's saints. Folklore
hagiography most often precedes the creation of
church lives and is an indispensable source for the book
tradition. The corpus of folklore legends about saints is
a special structural integrity with its own system of
characters, the originality of the chronotype, and a
specific plot basis for the narrative. Hagiographic
legends are linked to all genres of folklore prose,
interact with Old Russian literature, apocrypha and
church literature. They model a picture of the world in
which geographical and spiritual space, historical time
and eternity constitute a single whole. Rooted in the
traditions of Byzantine book writing, canonical and
folklore lives create a voluminous image of holiness or
"bringing the ideal and divine into human life". Much
attention is paid in modern studies not only to the lives
of saints, but also to the history of popular veneration
of natural sacred objects associated with the memory
of the heavenly patrons of peoples. An analysis of
almost unstudied legends about locally revered and
pan-Christian saints revered in various countries has
revealed an unusual combination of miraculous and
historical layers in the structure of the texts. The
legends reflect ideas about the extreme importance of
patronage, intercession of higher powers for
immigrants from different parts of the world, who by
the will of fate found themselves in a foreign land. Thus,
in the local traditions of hagiographic legends, features
of local originality are clearly manifested. Meanwhile,
the folklore legend acquires ideological and artistic
concretization and life truthfulness.
Legends about rubdowns are oral stories about visiting
the “other world”, stories
about rapture into another
world and wanderings of the human soul during
lethargic sleep. Some folklorists consider these folklore
narratives to be legends. They undoubtedly reveal the
basic components of the genre: a religious basis,
obvious connections with the book tradition of visions
of the other world and a clearly expressed
instructiveness. These legends actualize Christian ideas
about the structure of the universe, the afterlife, sin
and righteousness and the salvation of the human soul.
In the semantics and structure of this type of legend, a
visually perceived series of images and events is of
great importance. The picture of what was seen in the
otherworldly space of a dream is transformed into a
verbal form, into a plot narrative, which is a unique
feature of the poetics of legends about rubdowns.
The XX century gave birth to a huge number of stories
about the fate of a person in an anti-Christian world,
the author notes the archaic origin of stories about
retribution, their relevance, large number and
widespread existence. Indeed, this disaster affected
almost every family in the XX century, so legends of this
type are of national importance. E. E. Levkievskaya puts
forward an important argument in favor of identifying
a new genre: "The public thirst for justice, the need for
justice - this is the main nerve of stories about
International Journal Of Literature And Languages
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
retribution." Not having received a satisfactory solution
in the legal state system, this problem "is explicated by
public consciousness in oral tradition and receives its
solution at the sacred level." The common structural
element of these stories is, according to folklorists, the
motive of retribution from God, and not from people,
"punishment from higher powers, the other world".
Along with legends of retribution, folklorists offer a
thematic systematization of modern world legends.
Themes about faith and unbelief are highlighted; works
about icon veneration and post-revolutionary
iconoclasm; about the prayerful connection of man
with God; about the granting of a miracle through
prayer; about righteousness and holiness; about sin,
punishment, repentance and forgiveness; about
predictions and signs; about Moscow churches; about
incidents from the lives of saints. These thematic
groups are known from other regional traditions and,
most likely, can be supplemented.
Unlike legends about extinction and retribution,
cosmogonic legends have a solid history of study. They
form a contrastingly symmetrical pair to eschatological
plots: they tell not about the final fate of the world, but
about its creation. However, both are directly linked to
the book tradition of religious dogmas and apocrypha,
have religious content and an edifying focus. This study
presents extensive literature on the issue and provides
a scientific paradigm for more specific varieties of these
legends. The author consistently examines the plots of
the creation of land, the creation of angels and
demons, the overthrow of Satan from heaven, the
creation of the first man in the context of religious
books and the apocryphal tradition. The selection of
etiological legends is substantiated in the works of
folklorists and other researchers. However, it must be
acknowledged that the plots of the creation of the
world and man in cosmogonic legends and the origin of
the characteristics of animals, birds, fish and other
objects of the world created by God have significant
differences. Etiological plots are informative and
cognitive in nature, which is predetermined by the
meaning of the term, the installation on explaining the
causes and conditions of the emergence of something.
Etiologist is organically inherent in myths, archaic fairy
tales and short story, etiological stories. In folklore
prose, religious plots and images are often assimilated
with ancient mythological ideas. But if we turn to
specific plots of etiological legends, it often turns out
that they have only an etiological ending. For example:
sparrows jump because their legs are tangled as a
punishment for the fact that they brought nails when
Christ was crucified. However, the main thing in the
content of most similar legends is the folk
interpretation of the Bible, the theme of sin and
retribution, the edifying function. Thus, it is revealed
that the terminological designations, dominant
features and plot composition of etiological legends
still require in-depth and comprehensive study.
Thus, folk legends have conveyed to us the greatest
spiritual values, they continued to live, filled with new
themes and plots in the twentieth century, during the
decades of persecution of religious life. The legends are
distinguished by their richness of content and variety of
plots. They are filled with cultural concepts, historical
information and the realities of everyday life. The
modern tradition of oral legend testifies to the viability
and demand for the genre in the spiritual culture of the
people.
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