Initial Stages and Origins of the Theory of Folk Art

The article is devoted to understanding the origins of the formation and development of the theory of folk art. The relevance of the topic is determined by the existing contradiction: on the one hand, the positioning of folk art and traditional folk art crafts as an important part of the national artistic culture, an independent field of art criticism, which can be seen in legal documents, popular science literature and scientific works of the 20th century, and, on the other hand, the limited range of modern research in this area, insufficient development of the theoretical aspect of this issue.

Based on the analysis of a wide range of sources, the author identifies five stages of the formation of the theory of folk art (the beginning of the 18th century — 1870s; 1870—1910s; 1917—1930s; 1930—1990s; 1990—2020s), gives a brief description of them, and names the main results of studying each of the periods. The provisions of the theory of folk art were most fully and systematically formulated and justified by M.A. Nekrasova in the 1980s.

The article considers the process of forming interest in works of folk art in the middle of the 18th — the last third of the 19th century, and in the next period of “initial accumulation of facts” (until the 1910s), as the first experience of developing scientific approaches to the analysis of the specifics of folk art. The author reveals the significance of Peter the Great’s transformations in the field of culture for the formation of public interest in the traditions of Russian culture; defines the Russian folklore researchers’ contribution (songs, rituals, fairy tales) to drawing attention to the problems of preserving national features of Russian culture and their interpretation in works of literature; describes the activities of artists, critics, and public figures in creating the first collections of folk art, their analysis and description from a scientific point of view.

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