Folklore as historical and cultural legacy of the Lower Volga region in the first third of the XXth century: B.S. Laschilin, A.M. Listopadov

In the present article the question of the folklore phenomenon in the folk art of the Lower Volga Region in the first third of the 20th century is considered. In the course of research high emphasis was placed on the Cossack subject matter. The role of B.S. Laschilin and A.M. Listopadov in collecting and publishing folk art, the folklore of the Don Cossacks, is revealed. Boris Stepanovitch Laschilin’s work left a great impact in the artistic life of our region. In B.S. Laschilin’s books, that were published in Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Stalingrad-Volgograd, contained tales, fairy tales, bylinas, legends, songs, ditties, proverbs, sayings, ancient dramas of the first Russian folk theatres, exorcisms. Boris Stepanovitch kept selecting songs and ditties, chastooshkas for Voronezh Folk Choir “Voronezh girls”, which are still in the repertoire of the Pyatnitsky Russian Folk Chorus. Folklorist and musician Alexander Mikhailovich Listopadov, who collected and studied folk songs from his youth up, and recorded them in the Don Region hamlets and Cossack villages, spent more than 50 years of his life on the research of the Don Cossack’s musical culture. Alexander Mikhailovich Listopadov’s heritage made an important contribution to the native musical folklore study. Folklore compositions is a unique source of knowledge of history, way of life, moral and other national concepts, which allows us to reconstitute a linguistic personality of a definite historical epoch.