“The Twa Corbies”: The reception of the Scottish folk ballad in Russian and Ossetian literature (A. S. Pushkin, G. M. Tsagolov)

Abstract

The aim of the work is to confirm the idea of the progressiveness of intercultural interactions in the system of full-fledged development of artistic thinking using the example of the transformation of the ideosphere of the Scottish folk ballad “The Twa Corbies” (“Two Ravens”) in Russian (A. S. Pushkin) and Ossetian (G. M. Tsagolov) literature. The article focuses on the similarities and differences in the interpretations of the original narrative by Pushkin and Tsagolov and the introduction by them of an additional semantic field into the traditional figurative structure of the original text. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the joint study of the Scottish ballad, the poems of A. S. Pushkin and G. M. Tsagolov, focusing on the identical value series and the convergence of folklore traditions in literary, author’s work. For the first time in the history of Ossetian scientific thought, Tsagolov’s work is highlighted in the context of interliterary connections and influences and becomes the subject of a comprehensive literary analysis. The presented texts reveal the need to preserve the main structural and figurative elements of the ballad and, in parallel, introduce additional nuances, both semantic and figurative, to enrich the ideosphere of the analyzed works. As a result of the research, the statement is presented that interest in folklore traditions in artistic creativity is one of the basic attitudes for the continuous development of both world literature and national literature; that eternal, archetypical themes raised in the presented poems (“treason/fidelity”) acquire additional connotative layers, are enriched with new symbols and acquire semantic depth, modernizing in the context of constantly changing cultural norms and traditions.