The axiological approach as implemented in epic studies: value analysis of Russian folk epics in the second half of the twentieth century. Part 3, the 1980th

The article concludes a cycle of publications dedicated to «value» analysis of Russian folk epics as implemented in the second half of the twentieth century1. Consequently, the works of Russian bylina scholars published during the 1980th are examined in the present paper. It is noted that the scholarly books and articles written by B. N. Putilov, B. A. Uspensky, D. V. Machinsky, I. Ya. Froyanov, Yu. I. Yudin, N. G. Chernyaeva, etc. bear the numerous marks of the structural approach, according to which bylina literary plots should be reduced to the mere plot schemes, being thus divested of their spiritual values and brought into correlation with reconstructed primordial rites of the Slavs. It was argued by the mentioned authors that the folkloric (and particularly the epic) worldview presupposed a certain fictitious, anachronistic world model - the one devoid of any spiritual values, comparable with that worldview of the Russian people which had been quite real and actual at the times the still current byliny had been recorded by scholars. The attempts to disprove this theory were made by V. P. Anikin in his works representing the historical school of bylina studies. According to the scholar, much attention should be paid to the moral values of Russian folk epics-as well as to the analysis of value-normative plot dimension. However, the conclusions made by V. P. Anikin were predetermined by the need to attribute to the epic worldview certain ideologically “correct” values (for example, patriotism, loyalty to the national interests, and the struggle for the unity of the Russian lands), which resulted in his constant inattention to the Christian values as rendered in the epic view of the world. Other representatives of the mentioned historical school (S. N. Azbelev, etc.) underestimated the axiological approach, which caused certain erroneous assertions in a number of scholarly and educational editions on folk literature published during the 1980th (A. I. Kretov, V. P. Anikin and Yu. G. Kruglov, etc.). The representatives of the initiation (or the neomythological) school of bylina studies (B. N. Putilov, Yu. I. Yudin, I. Ya. Froyanov, etc.) also divested Russian folk epics of their spiritual meaning, thus transforming byliny into “trivial illustrations” of ancient-or, more correctly, just reconstructed - Slavonic rites. According to the initiation school, the hero should be treated as a certain actor, a performer of a ritual role, whose personality and dynamic psychology are irrelevant to the rite. For the first time in the 1980th, the methods of bylina substantive axiological analysis were fully implemented by F. M. Selivanov (the concepts of power, glory, and donation), which provided the impetus for contemporary studies on spiritual values as mirrored in Russian folk epics.