Amateur creativity as a self-representative practice of Soviet culture 1930–60s

Abstract

The article retraces the formation of an extensive and inherently unique project known as «Soviet folklore» in sociocultural discourse of Belarus that served as a self-representative practice of soviet culture. The work describes archival materials that characterize social status of actors of Soviet oral tradition, their artistic and literary critical reflexion. In particular, an original legend by amateur author from West Polesie are analyzed in terms of how a person of traditional folk culture perceives and interprets the historical war events. The article makes conclusions about the nature of Soviet amateur oral tradition. It is being proved that it is based on deactivation of the collectivity as one of ontological characteristics of folklore and its replacing with an imaginary sole author role; it has emerged because of administration of folklore studies, and can be characterized by its citationality, reduced artistic reflection, and loss of ties with folklore and language tradition. The main provisions of the discussion in academic science of the 1950–60s, which was devoted to revealing the essence of Soviet folklore, are considered.