Transgressions of legendary fairy tale characters against the norms of traditional religion and their effects

This paper is devoted to sinful acts committed by characters of Russian legendary folktales and the consequences of the mentioned offences. The research methodology places an analysis of this issue in the context of an axiological system specific to both Christian and traditional culture, which has worked out its own meaning of sin, largely different from the teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to Svetlana Tolstaya, we will consider a violation of any law by man as sinful, particularly, a violation of God’s commandments, social norms of behavior, and the rules governing the relationship between humans and nature. The most common offences should be classified as avarice and greed, envy, sexual misconducts, disrespecting one’s parents, murder, drunkenness, breaking the fast, and practicing witchcraft. Since the sinful behavior of fairy tale characters implies consequences, resulting in the lack of balance in the cosmic order, therefore, they never remain unpunished. It is also worth pointing out that in such tales, with which we are concerned, there is both personal and collective responsibility for acts committed by the characters, which allows for interpreting the mentioned narrations as a testimony of a popular understanding of God’s justice. As a rule, the supernatural punishes the character, but it also happens so that the other person or even the protagonist, becoming aware of his own sin, administers justice. The specific order of events allows for performing of the didactic and moral potential of the legendary folktales, teaching a life lesson to therecipient.