Приказките на Марко Цепенков
The Folktales of Marko Tzepenkov

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the two basic trends forming the specific quality of Marko Tzepenkov’s personality – a talented improvising story-teller whose merits were thoroughly displayed through the folk story, on the one hand, and one of our skilful collectors of folklore, on the other. His activities were in line with his social deeds and with the social and historical environment, in which folkloristic interests and pursuits were an essential component of the national liberation movement. Folktales constitute the greater part of Marko Tzepenkov’s recordings, the largest number of them being tales of the supernatural. However, Tzepenkov proved also one of the best collectors of non-folktale narratives. His texts are marked by variety in themes and genres, presence of archaic motifs, accuracy and skill in their recording. They have not only preserved their informative function. They also make a strong impression by their distinctly marked aesthetic qualities. The folktales were told chiefly by middle-aged men and bear the features typical of a man’s manner of narration – a broad and circumstantial exposition of the story, more complex speech constructions, pretensions to literariness. The variety in subjects and the richness in ideas and images is also determined by the difference in the educational qualifications, by the social adherence and the varied nationality of his informers. The author dwells on the stylistic peculiarities of the folk narratives collected by Marko Tzepenkov and points out the factors and processes, which had influenced the development of his creative personality – a personality which is completely revealed in his art as a folk story-teller.

• Details
• Contents