"YOUR SABERS AND SPADES WILL NOT TAKE ME, THEY WILL BEND!": THE CONCEPT OF VICTORY IN UKRAINIAN FAIRY TALES

Abstract

The multi-layeredness and evolution of folk prose is a reflection of the evolution of a person's ideas about themselves and the world around them. The folklore phenomenon "fairy tale" of each people is the matrix that measures the behavioral ideals of the creative people. At the same time, the "queen" of the subgenre paradigm of the fairy tale epic is the magical fairy tale, which to the highest degree reflects worldview orientations at various stages of the development of society. With this in mind, the research made an attempt to understand the concept of VICTORY in the Ukrainian folk fairy tale at the following levels: character, motif, symbol. The main ways of expressing victory by a "gooddoer" character are considered. Three main structures of fairy tales are distinguished, the basis of which is the victory of the "gooddoer" over the "evildoer": the hero acts alone; the hero goes to fight the "evildoer" with other characters, who in the end turn out to be either inactive or traitors; the hero does not act (his functions are performed by a woman). It is found that plot structures in which the hero acts alone demonstrate two types of such heroes: the hero who defeats the "evildoer" by force (strongman, quick-witted strongman), and the hero who wins with the help of cleverness. In the center of research attention is a duel / competition; strength / intelligence of the hero; magic ingredient; attributes of the protagonist; the role of female characters in the hero's victory; treatment of the defeated enemy (if he remains alive); manipulation of the remains of the "evildoer" (if he dies); actions of a fairy tale hero in relation to traitors. The conducted analysis allows us to come to a conclusion about the dominance in the Ukrainian fairy tale epic of reflections of the patriarchy, since the victory over the "evildoer" in the majority of examples (with certain exceptions that preserve the rudiments of gynecocracy) is won by a male character endowed with the qualities of an ideal hero. Indicators of the historical staging of the phenomenon of plots are: the characteristics of the character protagonist, the way the hero wins and the treatment of the body of the defeated antagonist. Chronologically, the oldest can be considered the plots in which the miraculously born hero defeats a serpent in a duel and destroys its body, which is a guarantee of the impossibility of its future resurrection or rebirth.