The reception and transformation of folklore plots of the indigenous peoples of Siberia in the tales 19 of A. Remizov

The article discusses 11 fairy tales written by Alexey Remizov, which are the artistically transformed plots of Siberian indigenous peoples' folklore. The author offers comparative, immanent and textual analysis of the sources, determines the specificity of folk texts representation. Remizov's work with the Siberian fairy tale plots was determined by his interest to the social customs, mythology and ethnographic aspects of the life ways of peoples of of Eastern Siberia, such as Manegrs, Karagasses, Tofalars, the Chukchi and Buryats. The specificity of the writer's processing of the legends and fairy tales stems from his special approach to folk plots, which became clear as early as 1903-1909, when he was paraphrasing Russian fairy tales in a literary manner. Remizov's specific method of work with "exotic" material was built upon the principle of transfer and interpolation of the unfamiliar cultural code to the Russian and European reader's mind. The writer reconstructed folk plots, preserving their national color, mythological and linguistic features, described everyday details, beliefs and superstitions of the indigenous people, while adapting their style, genre and content. As Remizov himself put it, he was "fitting someone else's legends to his own nationality" and translating someone else's terms into modern language. The Siberian text here is thought as local literature, full of mythological, ethnographic and cultural realia, and able to transfer the color of local life, the national consciousness and outlook of small East Siberian peoples. The value of the Siberian text lies in the preservation and transfer of these realia, the cultural code of indigenous peoples which is different from Russian mentality, traditions, lifestyle and history. Remizov's artistic transformation of the cultural traditions of the "Other" provides an opportunity to adapt these traditions to the understanding of the Russian reader, as well as the European one, who could imagine Siberia in the mid-20th century as a wild, cold and uncivilized country. The textual basis for comparing original plots with the ones transformed by Remizov is the manuscripts of Manegrian and Karagassian fairy tales, which were given to Remizov by the collectors of Siberian folklore D.K. Solovyev and A.G. Lepp, and are now stored in the Manuscript Department of the Russian National Library, as well as the original texts of Chukchi and Buryat fairy tales, published at the beginning of the 20th century. The author also uses the necessary factual material, which allows to demonstrate Remizov's interest in Siberia, and the history of the Siberian theme in his life and work, namely, Remizov's correspondence with his friends and collaborators V. Shishkov and G. Grebenshchikov in 1913-1914.

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