HOW FICTION BECOMES ETHNOGRAPHY. THE CASE OF ONE QUOTATION

Abstract

The paper discusses the sources used by I.M. Snegirev in his work “Russian folk festivals and superstitious rites” (1839) for the description of the autumn commemorative rite in Lithuania and Belorussia. The authors reveal that Snegirev, along with in the narrow sense ethnographic, historical texts and Slavic dictionaries, used as a source the second part of the drama “Dziady” (1823) by Adam Mickiewicz (namely, its preface, poetic refrains and particular motives). Besides that, Mickiewicz’s “Dziady” served as a source for some other ethnographic works, e. g. for the article by A.O. Muchlińsky on folk rites in the Novogrudok powiat (1830), which was also used by Snegirev. From the other side, Mickiewicz’s drama displayed both ethnographic impressions of his own childhood and youth, and images of the armchair “national mythology” obtained from the literary sources. Mickiewicz combines motifs and formulas, referring to various folklore and mythological discourses (from one side, elements of the authentic rite, aimed at communication with ancestors’ souls, and formulas and motifs of balladic narratives concerning the “impure” dead from the other side). Snegirev, in his turn, goes even further and combines