Plots of Russian Ballads of the First Third of the 19th Century (Based on the “Dictionary of Plots and Motifs of Russian Literature”)

This article is an excerpt from the forthcoming publication of the “Dictionary of Plots and

Motifs of Russian Literature” devoted to genre plots. It presents a list of ballad plots and motifs from the First Third of the 19th Century. The selection is drawn from ballads and lyrics

by ten poets of the Golden Age (V. A. Zhukovsky, K. N. Batyushkov, P. A. Vyazemsky,

P. A. Katenin, K. F. Ryleyev, A. S. Pushkin, E. A. Baratynsky, N. M. Yazykov, K. K. Pavlova, M. Yu. Lermontov). Some texts by other authors are also mentioned; poems and prose by

the authors listed above have been apart for now. Ballad plots are divided into groups, the

most distinct of which form lists of traditional ballad plots with a folkloric basis and are noted

in folklore indexes (such as “dead groom”, “dead bride”, “robber groom”, “dead man’s revenge,” etc.).

In identifying a particular plot, we focused on research into the little plots of specific texts and

on the sources of the plots referred in commentaries to academic publications. A single work

may contain several plots, or a single plot line may be interpreted differently, so the same text

may be classified under several groups of plots and motifs.