Folklore and literary connections in the works of Viktor Pul'kin (analysis of the novel The azure jacket)

The article analyzes Viktor Pul'kin's novel The Azure Jacket and its folklore sources (legends about Peter I and Vytegra dwellers) in order to dwell upon the issue of relationship between folklore and literature. The aims of the article are to trace the directions and methods of literary processing of folklore traditions, and to describe the cases of rearranging semantic accents in the early and later versions of the story. The author comes to the following conclusions: the source for The Azure Jacket was a cycle of legends about the stolen royal clothing and about Peter I and the Obryadin family, more specifically - the text recorded by N. A. Krinichnaya and V I. Pul'kin in Vytegra in 1971. The literary adaptation of the story preserved the main features of the folklore text: its composition, the sequence of motifs, characters, linguistic framework, and style. The title “The Azure Jacket” does not exist in the folklore tradition and was the product of the writer's imagination. The literary adaptation also places topographic accents differently in comparison with the folklore source. With the help of more active use of verse-like fragments, elements of colloquial and dialect vocabulary or interjections the humorous cultural context of the plot was reinforced in the literary texts. The later version of the story contains more details; it has a more complicated composition and is decorated with ornamental elements. For example, the description of Peter's physical appearance is shaped by the legends about historical figures, while the indication of the narrator's profession (a carpenter) is introduced in a literary text. The source of this detail is the biography of the writer himself. The later version of the story also focuses on the opposition between the corporeal and the spiritual, between the perishable and the eternal; and enhances the theme of historical memory.