A speech made by F.I. Buslaev, as an Associate Professor of Russian Literature and Language, on January 12, 1859, at the official meeting of the Imperial Moscow University, was a short declaration of the basic subjects of his research (comparative mythology, comparative linguistics, folklore, Old Russian culture, folk religion).
In his speech, on the base of the mythological theory by J. Grimm and the language theory by W. Humboldt, B. shaped the main ideas of his own theory of myth. He considered that the ‘folk poetry’ (folklore) of Christian peoples passed three stages: mythological, combined, and Christian ones. The mythological period of development of the ‘folk poetry’ was common for all Indo-European peoples. Then, under the influence of various factors, their folklore developed in different ways. According to B., the ‘combined’ period of their cultural development was characterized with religious syncretism (‘double-faith’). The Slavic epic was growing on the base of the common Indo-European substratum, and its typical feature was in a heroic (Yunak) character; the epic plots were shaped through their connections to the historical reality.
In that speech, B. described a complicated process of shaping of the Old Russian literature as a process of interaction of the oral tradition and the written one. The art of Old Rus’ was described by B., as a visual manifestation of those two traditions. In that speech, as well as in his other works, he argued for comparative studies of the Old Russian culture.
The initiative of studying folk religion (‘superstitions’) as a complex of multilayered religious ideas and practices was an important impulse for Russian research community made by B.
First publication: Moskovskie vedomosti, 1859, January 13, # 11, p. 78 — 80; January 14, # 12, p. 86 — 88; January 15, # 13, p. 93 — 96; January 16, # 14, p. 102 — 103.
Buslaev F. I. On the Folk Poetry in the Old Russian Literature // Historical Essays on the Russian Folk Literature and Art: Vol. 2 / Works by F. Buslaev. St. Petersburg, D.Е. Kozhanchikov’s Publishing House, 1861. P. 1 — 63. In Rus.