Folklore sources of Viktor Pul’kin's book of tales The bronze horseman

The study analyzes folklore traditions in the collection of tales titled The Bronze Horseman written by Viktor Pul’kin. The purpose of the article is to conduct a comparative analysis of two tales with the same name published between 1972 and 2003. The relevance of the article is due to the insufficient study of the writer’s works. The absence of papers that would analyze The Bronze Horseman tales confirms the novelty of the study and determines its theoretical and practical significance. The object of the study is the tales from Viktor Pul’kin’s book The Bronze Horseman, as well as his folklore sources historical legends about Peter the Great recorded on the territory of the Olonets Province and in Karelia. The subject of the study is the folklore aspect of these works’ interpretation. The article uses the literary historical method and the comparative method. The study revealed that the plots of the two stories are different. The use of historical legends, fairy tales, proverbs, riddles, a set of folklore motifs, and various figurative and expressive means testifies to the influence of oral folk tradition on the artistic structure of The Bronze Horseman. Revealing the folklore character of the writer’s works opens up new possibilities for their interpretation.