East Slavic Varieties of the Plot about Marko the Rich (AaTh 930) in Siberian Texts

The article presents the results of a study of East Slavic Siberian texts of a folk narrative about Marko the Rich (АaТh 930): predictions (which later came true) to the rich man that his successor and future son-in-law was to be a poor-man's son and the following attempts of the rich man to eliminate the threat. This plot is well known in the East Slavic folk tradition (Comparative Catalogue of Plots 930=461), it is also a popular narrative in Siberia. The author compared the revealed Siberian texts (published and archival) with the previously examined variants from the European territory of historical Russia. She found two forms, associated with Slavic notions of predestination of fate, of the introductory episode in such narratives (“A Legend about Christ Visiting a Muzhik” and “Marko on a Lodging for the Night”); two varieties of their plot (“there is no flying from fate” and a variant with an episode of traveling to the Serpent); and regularity in the combination of the forms of the introductory episode and the variants of the plot of the subsequent narration (the initial episode “Marko on a Lodging for the Night” can be combined only with a variation of the plot “there is no flying from fate”; the initial episode “A Legend about Christ” can be combined with the variation “there is no flying from fate” and with the variation with the Serpent). Siberian texts have variants of special - “mixed” - versions of such stories; they combine elements of two different types of narration. This Siberian mixed form of the stories about Marko the Rich can be considered as the author's version of plot AaTh 930. The emergence of this version, unknown from the records of other territories, is associated with the peculiarities of the settlement of the region. Settlers were people from different regions of historical Russia. As a result, the new settling population was diverse; people could exchange their folklore repertoire and mix traditions. This is confirmed by information the collectors reported about their narrators. The blended versions of the story about Marko the Rich are of special interest from the standpoint of the study of folk art mechanisms in Siberia where, as researchers note, variants of Russian folk tales have a strong tendency of blending and complicating narratives, which is a result of the influence of the “vagabond” or new settler element in the Siberian storytelling as stated by M.K. Azadovsky.

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