Българската литература в контекста на балканския фолклор
Bulgarian Literature within the Context of Balkan Folklore

Summary/Abstract: The relationships between folklore and literature represent diverse typological models and aesthetical and historical structures. They are most clearly revealed – as if in a peculiar „experimental laboratory” – within the culture of the Balkan region. The continuous survival of folklore in this area allows for the tracing of some common regularities in the development of the folk verbal art, as well as in its attitude towards literature. The folk epic in the Balkans, e.g. gave material for a new elucidation of the written/oral relation in poetry (M. Parry, A. Lord). Other similar possibilities are discussed by the author. He considers some concrete transitional forms between folklore and literature – the mystification and its specific features within the South Slavic domains, the aesthetic phenomenon „between folklore and literature”. What is characteristic is that literary processes were observed in the Balkan folklore whereas the young Balkan literatures inherited folklore phenomena and carried them through to completion. The interrelations between literature and folklore are traced on the level of models of development and on the level of stylistic structures with particular attention upon the ballad and the so-called „skaz”. The existence within Balkan folklore of the Bulgarian literature in particular, and of the South Slavic literatures as a whole, presents a dynamic relation, in which single elements and entire structures of folklore origin became active and functional in literature. The development of the novel where fairy-tale patterns could be found is a good example in this direction.

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