Interaction between oral folk tradition and written culture in Siberian Mordvin folklore

Oral traditions are influenced by certain types of written culture (canonical Orthodox Christian writings, literary poetry) and media culture (radio, television). To reveal the interaction between oral folk traditions and written culture Erzya and Moksha folklore texts are studied. Self-recorded texts reflecting the unique traits of oral folklore works are analyzed as additional sources for understanding the processes of interaction between oral traditions and written culture. For the purpose of preliminary classification of texts functioning within oral traditions, we distinguish the following two groups of texts: according to their form (written texts, self-recorded texts, spoken texts, and sung texts) and their type (folklore or literary texts). The paper considers various types of borrowed texts found within the Siberian Mordvin oral tradition - namely, borrowed literary and traditional poetic works. Native Siberian Mordvin folklore performers use written literary Erzya-Mordvin texts (works by poet and folklore performer S. M. Lyulyakina) in order to broaden their repertoire. Moreover, published Erzya-Mordvin folklore works are also used in their repertoire. To analyze song texts, we compared published texts, self-recorded texts, and oral texts. When describing the borrowed literary texts, we discovered an increase in phonetic changes shifting from published to oral texts. The analysis of borrowed traditional poetry (from published sources and media) shows these texts to undergo a process of adaptation to oral performance needs. Being integrated with oral traditions, published literary texts undergo a relatively small number of changes (mostly concerning the phonetic level, as well as some technical lexical changes for the sake of preservation of syllable number), whereas the phonetic changes in adapted folklore texts are minimal. However, the number of changes in words and word combinations increases significantly, and unregulated repetitions, changes in the order of lines, as well as changes in structure and form of verses may also be observed. The use of literary or traditional Mordvin texts borrowed from printed or media sources by traditional folklore performers activates the role of their native language and ethnic culture and is of great importance for the process of ethnic identity formation.

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