In Slav songs the fair falcon symbolizes a young man, the dove a maiden and the swan a kind-hearted young woman according to the book “Folklore of Slav people” written by Professors of Greek Studies Larisa V. Sokolova and Rafael Guzmán Tirado.
The volume, published by the University of Granada, also includes the parallelisms that compare feelings with natural phenomenons in the lyrical songs of Slav folklore; a parallelism called “psychological” since it transmits the mood of the protagonists of the song: anguish, sadness, etc.
The book reports the main theoretical concepts of Slav folklore, as well as mythology, ethical aspects, ritual poetry, prose genres and epic and lyrical poetry at the time as it can be a guide for readers both on concepts and ideas of different folklores. Larisa Sokolova and Rafael Guzmán highlight that “Slav folklore is the oral poetry of Slav people, which together with Romance and Germanics, belong to the Indo-European family”.
Love, epic, historical, dance, ballads and ritual songs; proverbs, riddens, tales, traditions and legends are the genres of the Slav folklore, very rich and varied according to the authors of this book, which dedicates a whole chapter to mythology. The authors highlight that “it is essential to emphasizw that the conceptions of life and death in Slav mythological representations are characterized by the balance principle: Nothing separates the world of the living from the world of the dead, to the contrary, this last is a continuation of the world of the living, and death is just the passing from one life to another; that is why the dead characters have the same characteristics than the living ones in tales”.
Wedding rituals also have an outstanding position in the book. The authors say that these are the most complex, poetic and invariable of family rites and they have three parts in all the Slav countries which refer to: the acts before the wedding, the wedding and later acts. During the wedding, the friends of the recently married woman sing after having helped to the preparations the days before.
According to the authors of this book, the wedding day “the bride gets up, tidies herself up and puts special clothes on the occasion. Her friends help her and intone songs. While she is getting dressed, she puts some flax and wool under her right hand and pieces of sweet bread in her chest; flax and wool symbolize the bride´s wish for wearing always good clothes; and bread, abundance in her husband´s house. Afterwards, the bride intones sad songs with pleas and reproachs for her father and mother, regretting to leave her home.”
Reference: Professor: Larisa V. Sokolova.
Department of Greek Studies.
University of Granada.
Phone number: 958 246386
Professor: Rafael Guzmán Tirado.
Department of Greek Studies. University of Granada.
Phone number: 958 246393.
E-mail: rguzman@platon.ugr.es
