“A legend about the dead soldier” by B. Brecht: to the question of the genre evolution

The article is dedicated to the problem of comprehension of the nature of the First World War in the ballad written by B. Brecht “Legend about the Dead Soldier”. The contributor analyses the use of genre traditions by B. Brecht and writing experiences of his predecessors (I. Leven, G. A. Burger, G. Heine, K. Tsedlits) who touched upon military topics in their ballads. The novelty of the author's idea is determined by the definition of the archtypical models and their reconsideration factoring in realities of the military time. The obtained results of the analysis can be useful in the study of the German literary ballad genre.