The prospects for studying the legends of the “returning savior”

The relevance of the study is due to the need to develop a new strategy to continue scientific research on the issue of socio-utopian legends. The work is written on the material of theoretical studies devoted to folk ideas of the 18^th- 19^th centuries. The purpose of this article is to formulate a working hypothesis about a promising direction for studying the complex of socio-utopian legends about the "returning savior" based on the gaps in the studies outlined by the historiography of the issue. In order to achieve this goal, it is essential to identify the trends and necessary aspects of further study of the topic based on the analysis of previous scientific works. The first researcher who mentioned socio-utopian legends was V. Ya. Propp, who described a scheme for studying legends and fairy tales in his work "Morphology of the tale". V. V. Chistov, in his work entirely devoted to social and utopian legends, created a classification of legends and made a rough diagram of legends at the stage of development of this type of plot. According to the scholar, the hero of such a legend is not necessarily an impostor. The role of the religious messiah is no less characteristic. The applicability of the schemes outlined by V. Ya. Propp and K. V. Chistov to the research of specific socio-utopian legends about the "returning savior" has been convincingly proved by the studies of A. S. Mylnikov. The legend of the Staret Tsar attracts attention of many researchers. American researcher Barry Stone included this legend in the section on monarchs who retired from power. In his article "The typology of folklore texts about the Emperor Alexander I and Napoleon Bonaparte" N. N. Ivanov compared this legend with other folklore plots, but could not, on the basis of this, attribute it to a certain type. E. B. Gaidukova considered the history of this legend in literature from the position of philology. All authors have agreed on the assessment of the legend of the Staret Tsar as a unique phenomenon in Russian history and culture. Thus, further studies of the legend of the Staret Tsar should be considered in the context of typologically similar folklore plots of the 18^th- 19^th centuries. It seems that these are socio-utopian and religious legends about the “returning savior”. According to our concept, the legend about Fyodor Kuzmich is a kind of a legend about the "returning savior". It has many features similar to this type of legend: the hero is a ruler deprived of power or an unrecognized messiah hiding in a distant outback. There are also a lot of differences: the hero does not return to power but helps those around him with his advice and healing. It is possible that the story about the Staret Tsar-Alexander I under the name of Fyodor Kuzmich was formed under the influence of legends about the “returning savior”, but then acquired originality, having received its own unique meaning in the system of folk mentality. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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