Multi-vector study of fairy tales in the universal cultural paradigm (review of fairy tale studies by Professor O. Kyryliuk)

CONTEMPORARY HUMANITIES

Abstract

Professor Oleksandr Kyryliuk's monograph "Universals of Culture and Semiotics of Discourse. Fairy Tale and Ritual", the idea of which is based on the basic formula "life-death-immortality" proposed and substantiated by him, certainly became a "new word" in the structural study of the fairy tale.This idea was picked up and adopted by other well-known specialists, as evidenced by the fact that despite its rather "respectable" age, the monograph continues to be among the most cited works of the scientist. The main significance of this fundamental work lies in the substantiation Prof. O. Kyryliuk's position that the identical structuring of fairy tales and rituals is due not to direct borrowing, but to common cultural universals. In general, the fairy tale research of this author can be classified as a consideration of the transformation of later versions of fairy tales compared to their early versions, which allows restoring the already lost meaning of the latter. In other cases, O. Kyryliuk, through a return to the archaic prototype of a modern fairy tale, in which its folklore and ritual basis still remains transparent, reconstructs the already lost meaning of a later fairy tale. The third direction of this author's fairy tale research is a review of the usual interpretation of the fairy tale and its reinterpretation, which, in his opinion, does not distort, but rather reproduces its authentic content. The fourth vector of the professor's fairy tale studies is an appeal to the problem of creating literary fairy tales or other literary works based on folklore. The fifth direction of the fairy tale researcher's study is the consideration of analytical and descriptive languages of describing fairy tale narratives. That is, along with the substantive analysis of folklore and fairy tale material, O. Kyryliuk resorted to a certain "methodological reflection", when his attention was attracted not by the material itself, but by the scientific languages of its description. At the same time, a number of such languages of description, in particular V. Propp, he subjected to constructive criticism on the basis of the ideas of K. Popper. No less important for him was the desire to offer his own versions of solving the problem of classifying fairy tale material, in particular, the creation of an index of fairy tale motifs on universal-cultural principles. This is the sixth vector of the scientist's fairy tale research. An important feature of all these studies is the conceptual integrity of the applied methods of analysis, which is based on the author's idea of categories of boundary grounds and worldview codes as universals of culture, which has acquired and continues to have wide implementation in various fields of scientific knowledge and is developing in the works of famous scientists. This article is devoted to a general overview of the many years of work of Prof. O. Kyryliuk in fairy tale studies, which has been reflected in authoritative publications.