Antropologicheskij forum, 2025, no. 65

RADOST (JOY) IN EAST SLAVIC FOLKLORE

Tatiana Agapkina

Institute of Slavic Studies, RAS
32-A Leninskiy Ave., Moscow, Russia
agapi-t()yandex.ru

Abstract: The word radost (joy) and its derivatives are presented in most genres of East Slavic folklore (in Russian epics, calendar songs, funeral and wedding lamentations, songs and sentences, folk lyrics, sayings, incantations, spiritual poetry, etc.). In folklore contexts radost forms a part of set phrases indicating ways, methods, purposes, reasons and emotional states related to the performance of certain actions. The meanings of the folklore word radost, changing from genre to genre, are quite diverse. Radost as a ‘feeling of pleasure’ is realised in almost all genres, except for funeral and recruitment lamentations and, to some extent, spiritual poetry. A large place in folklore is occupied by contexts where radost acquires the meaning of a certain value. In a wide variety of genres, radost is correlated with the birth, the appearance of a new person — the Infant Christ or an ordinary newborn baby. In calendar folklore, radost is associated with “material” values — koryst (profit) and dary (gifts) — and materialises in such events and objects as children’s weddings (promising an addition to the family), the offspring of cattle, etc. In epics and weddings, radost is understood as a certain “objectified” event and means a feast (and especially a wedding feast), treats, reception of guests, or, finally, just a holiday. Projected onto the axiological scale, in the overwhelming majority of cases derivatives of East Slavic rad- are associated with a complex of positive meanings, although in some genres (mythological stories, spiritual poetry, sayings) radost can gravitate towards the opposite pole, where it is perceived as a consequence of a person’s unrighteousness, accompanying his sinful behaviour, is induced by Satan and his minions, or is even attributed to the devil.

Keywords: East Slavic folklore, genres, incantations, epic, verbal magic, dialects, folklore concept.

To cite: Agapkina T., ‘Radost v vostochnoslavyanskom folklore’ [Radost (Joy) in East Slavic Folklore], Antropologicheskij forum, 2025, no. 65, p. 87–128.

doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2025-21-65-87-128

URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/065/agapkina.pdf