Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor,Arctic state University of Murmansk, Murmansk, Russia [email protected]
Abstract. Literature of the Russian Saami, like any other national literature, originates from the folklore; however, the influence of folklore on Saami literature remains unstudied. The subject of the research is to study an oral-poetic tradition in the literary fairy tale of N. Bolshakova on genre, plot, imagery and motif levels as well as determination of folklore sources of the collection of fairy tales “A Gift of the Gull”. Literature fairy tale of N. Bolshakova maintains direct relation with the mythological and folklore sources and tradition of improvisation. Representations of the ancient Saami about the Universe, pre-Christian beliefs such as animism, totemism, shamanism, fetishism are reflected in fairy tales of the collection. Folk plots, folk-poetic images, motifs of folk sources and own imagination of the author constitute the originality of the art world of the fairy tales. Taken from folklore plots, religious and mythological representations of the people, the writer does not mechanically transfer an oral-poetic tradition into the context of the narrative, but subjects it to creative reinterpretation and literary and semantic reorganization. The article suggests a classification of fairy tales of the collection according to the degree of influence of the mythological and folklore traditions.
Key words: Saami literature, Russian Saami, mythological and folklore basis, literary fairy tale.