The folklore of Nekrasov Cossacks about the Great Patriotic War: traditions and innovations

The Nekrasov Cossacks are the descendants of the Don Cossacks who, after the defeat of the Bulavin uprising, retired with ataman I.Nekrasov first to Kuban, and then to Turkey. Having lived more than two centuries in a foreign environment, in the XX century they returned to Russia in several groups. Isolated living of the group, limited contacts with the Slavic population, conscious protection of their customs and language from external influences have become the factors of preservation of the traditional view of the world and folklore consciousness. During the Great Patriotic War, all this caused the emergence of folk works created on the basis of old Nekrasov bylinas, lamentations, songs, fairy tales and legends.The lamentations about the war have a traditional compositional and figurative basis for this genre, but at the same time they reveal some innovative features, the main one being the change of the lyrical mood for the lyrical-epical one.Narrations on the Great Patriotic War are similar to the Don and Nekrasov bylinas in the structure of the verse, small, compared to the North Russian bylinas, size of the text, the depiction of characters and a number of other features.The events of 1941-1945 provoked the creation of songs about the war based on traditional military, historical and lyrical songs.Nekrasov tales on the Great Patriotic War actively use artistic and compositional techniques of old fairy-tale texts. However, there is blurring of traditional genre: on the one hand, they are closer to stories and legends, on the other - with parables. Being a unique phenomenon of folk culture, the considered works about the Great Patriotic War make it possible to draw conclusions not only about the state of the folklore tradition of the Nekrasov Cossacks group and its dynamics, but also about the laws of the development of folk literature in general.