In this article, we aimed to trace the development of the concept of "brownie" in various cultural traditions of the Russian and German people, to trace the similarities and differences of its expression in the collective consciousness. For this we used an interpretive method of text research, linguocultural analysis.
The image of the brownie has pagan roots. He is represented in poetry and fairy tales, folklore. As E. M. Vereshchagin and V. G. Kostomarov note, “… both the British and the Germans have analogs of the brownie, therefore information like“the deity of the hearth, the keeper of the house”, being exoteric in the intercultural sense, helps to correlate the brownie with house-spirit, hob, hob-goblin, puck or Hausgeist, Kobold. Much more important and in an ethnographic sense more interesting are esoteric, intra-cultural information that no longer has analogues. For example, an indication that the brownie is a direct descendant of pagan household gods of the Slavs Roda and Chura (see: Afanasyev, 1869). The word genus in the common sense continues to live and is actively used today, and pagan overtones are barely audible in the phrases of the type without clan and tribe, it is written in the clan …The word chur has passed into the category of interjections, but the exclamations in which it occurs have an obvious pagan connotation: mind me first! Mind this secret! Mind me!"
Probably, brownies reflect in the national consciousness of the Germans the existence of "artel" forms of labor, without a clearly expressed hierarchy. Among them, the main one is not highlighted, they work around the house harmoniously and amicably. This is confirmed by the lines from the poem by August Kopisch (1799-1853) "Die Heinzelmännchen zu Köln":
“Wie war zu Köln es doch vordem
mit Heinzelmännchen so bequem!
Denn war man faul, man legte sich
hin auf die Bank und p fl egte sich:
Da kamen bei Nacht, Promotional video:
ehe man's gedacht, die Männlein und schwärmten
und klappten und lärmten
und rupften und zupften
und hüpften und trabten
und putzten und schabten, und eh 'ein Faulpelz noch erwacht, war all sein Tagewerk - bereits gemacht!"
The speed and comprehensiveness of the actions of the little men around the house, as well as the fact that they work continuously, tirelessly, is characteristic of surreal beings, in contrast to humans. These qualities in German poetry are conveyed through linguistic means: the abundance of verbs ('schwärmten', 'klappten', 'lärmten', 'rupften', 'zupften', 'hüpften', 'trabten', 'putzten', 'schabten') and such a stylistic device as polysyndeton (Greek 'polysyndeton' many - union): 'und … und … und' …
Interesting is the original translation of this poem by A. Kopish by the poet Y. Korinets, who speaks of the deep cultural ties between Russia and Germany:
“And it will get dark -
At the door and at the window
The little men are in a hurry
Rummaging in the stove
Rustling, Melteshat, They clean and scrub -
As if playing.
The owner is still fast asleep
And everything in the house already shines!"
It is noteworthy that brownies help people of old working professions in a poem: carpenters, bakers, butchers, winemakers, tailors. This reflects the tradition of medieval Europe - the flourishing of artisan workshops.
The Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Die Wichtelmänner" ("Brownies") is known, where brownies appear at midnight: "Als Mitternacht war, kamen zwei kleine, niedliche nackte Männlein". The brownies in this German fairy tale are young and beautiful, not devoid of narcissism. As soon as the shoemaker and his wife gave them beautiful clothes, they stopped coming and working at night:
“Sind wir nicht knaben, glatt und fein?
Was sollen wir länger Schuster sein!.
Brownies in a fairy tale are characterized by extraordinary agility, they jumped, danced and jumped over chairs and benches, that is, these mysterious creatures are capable of causing considerable commotion: “Dann hüpften und tanzten sie und sprangen über Stühle und Bänke”.
People should not know about their life: the shoemaker and his wife spied on the magical little men by accident at night, the brownies in the fairy tale, bringing good luck to the shoemaker, disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared: “Von nun an kamen sie nicht wieder, dem Schuster aber ging es wohl, so lang er lebte, und glückte ihm alles, was er unternahm.
We find a similar motive for the disappearance of brownies after people discover their presence in a poem by August Kopisch: the tailor's wife decided to hunt down the mysterious assistants:
“Neugierig war des Schneiders Weib
und macht 'sich diesen eitvertreib:
streut Erbsen hin die andre Nacht.
In the translation of Y. Korinets we read:
The tailor's wife suddenly decided
See a brownie at night.
Having scattered peas on the floor, The old woman is waiting … suddenly someone crashes!"
Having slipped on the peas, the brownies were offended and left forever:
“Since then we don't wait for brownies, You will not see them in the afternoon with fire!"
Taking as a basis an old folk belief, August Kopisch deduces from it the moral principle, "morality":
“Oh weh, nun sind sie alle fort, und keines ist mehr hier am Ort:
man kann nicht mehr wie sonsten ruhn, man muss nun alles selber tun.
Ein jeder muss fein
selbst fl eißig sein
und kratzen und schaben
und rennen und traben
und schniegeln und bügeln
und klopfen und hacken
und kochen und backen.
Ach dass es noch wie damals wär '!
Doch kommt die schöne Zeit nicht wieder her.
Masterfully this idea of the poet was conveyed by Y. Korinets:
“You have to do everything yourself,
There is no indulgence for anyone.
Any neighbor
It gets up a little light.
Everyone without end
In the sweat of my brow
Scratching, Sweeps, And chops and fries
And saws and cooks …"
Both in Russian and in German culture, brownies love those who clean the room, keep order in the home, they bring them happiness. For example, in the Brothers Grimm's second fairy tale about brownies, they generously presented gold to a poor female worker (das Dienstmädchen). Little people (die Kleinen) invited her into the mountain, where they lived themselves.
Brownies should be treated with respect, as they guard the hearth. They often turned to the domovoi with a request for the well-being of the home, an example of this is found in
A. S. Pushkin:
The estates of the peaceful invisible patron, I pray to you, my good brownie,
Keep the village, the forest and my wild garden
And my humble family home."
A description of one of the rituals associated with the transfer of a brownie to a new home, stored in the popular mind, can be found in M. Gorky (Childhood): “When we were moving to an apartment, my grandmother took an old bast shoe on a long hoop, threw it into the heat and, sitting down squatted, began to call the brownie:
- Little house-builder, here's a sleigh, come with us to a new place, for another happiness ….
In German literary texts, cases are recorded when brownies are a danger to humans. In the third fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm “Die Wichtelmänner”, the brownies almost played a cruel joke with the woman: they stole the child from her cradle, and instead of him they planted a big werewolf with a big head (Wechselbalg)., and the brownies returned the child to her.
Scary stories with brownies, along with other magical entities, are mentioned in the fairy tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann “Der Sandmann”: “Nichts war mir lieber, als schauerliche Geschichten von Kobolden, Hexen, Däumlingen usw. Zu hören oder zu lesen; aber obenan stand immer der Sandmann.
The illness of the hero Nathanael from the novel by E. T. A. Hoffman appears as a consequence of the difficult experiences of childhood, when the old nanny instilled in the child that the Sandman is an evil, cruel person who comes for children.
At the level of dictionary lexemes, the names of brownies have a positive connotation ('die Heinzelmännchen, die Wichtelmänner' - it is recorded in the dictionaries that these are good house spirits), 'der Geist, das Gespenst, der Hausgeist, der Kobold' - in these cases, the dictionary contains neutral connotation (spirit, ghost, spirit of the house, brownie), lexeme 'Wechselbalg' (werewolf) carries a negative assessment).
According to GG Slyshkin, “associations, fixed in the form of codified (dictionary) meanings of linguistic units, constitute the core of the concept. The periphery of the concept is formed by a set of occasional associations. " In the case of the Sand Man, the negative connotation of the concept prevailed in E. T. A. Hoffman, the choice of which is not a whim of the author, but comes from the folk tradition of interpreting the concept. The fact is that the concept "Sandman, or Sandman" had variants of use with different assessments: "The Sandman is a character from German folk tales, sometimes - especially in performances of a fairground puppet theater - portrayed as a terrible monster, in other cases - as a prankster who in the evenings pours sand into the eyes of children, making the eyes stick together. " In modern times, the Sandman is a completely harmless character,appearing in a German program similar to the program “Good night, kids!”, that is, tradition prevailed with a positive connotation of perception of this fictional creature.
Mysterious little creatures in German fairy tales often demand for their service a child who will be born soon (“Rumpelstilzchen” by the Brothers Grimm). “Rumpelstilzchen” can be translated as “Trash.” He spun a heap of straw into golden yarn for a miller's daughter, thereby The image of Rumplestiltskin bears echoes of pagan traditions: a man jumps over a fire, which was also typical of Slavic tribes: “vor dem Haus brannte ein Feuer, und um das Feuer sprand ein gar zu lächerliches Männchen umcher, hüpfte a” …
In Goethe's poem “Der Zauberlehrling,” the sorcerer's apprentice cannot calm the kobold brownie, into whom the broom has turned:
“Seht, da kommt er schleppend wieder!
Wie ich mich nur auf dich werfe, Gleich, o Kobold, liegst du nieder.
Krachend trifft die glatte Schärfe.
Wahrlich! brav getroffen!
Seht, er ist entzwei!
Und nun kann ich hoffen,
Und ich atme frei!"
So, the brownie is a significant figure in German and Russian culture. Along with a certain similarity of images, we observe significant differences due to ethno-specific features. Among the brownies in German folklore, as a rule, the main one is not singled out, they appear and act as a "team", together, while in the Russian tradition the brownie appears alone in artistic reality. He is the “master” in the house, but the master is alone in the house (here the influence of patriarchal principles is strong). In folklore, one can also trace the layering of different historical eras - from the tribal system to the feudal one. The well-coordinated work of the brownies, the mention of the old working professions: carpenters, bakers, butchers, winemakers, tailors - all these are echoes of the traditions of medieval Europe, the flourishing of artisan workshops. The core of the concept 'brownie' is markedbased on codified (dictionary) meanings of linguistic units and its periphery, which is formed by a set of occasional associations. We have seen that the motives of folk tales and legends with the image of a brownie were actively used by both Russian and German great poets and writers.
E. A. Kovaleva
