Fairy tales are an integral part not only of Russian folklore, but of culture in general. The attitude towards this genre of folk art was different: until the beginning of the 19th century, fairy tales were considered the lot of the peasant, and high society did not pay attention to them. However, later the situation changed.
The nobles realized that they needed to stick to their roots in order to preserve their national identity, and therefore the interest in folk tales increased many times over.
Nevertheless, the meaning inherent in this genre of folklore became less and less clear over time, and for modern children and their parents, a fairy tale is now often just a form of entertainment. Really, in Russia, fairy tales were composed only for fun?
Of course, children were entertained with a fairy tale many years ago, but this was rather a secondary function. The child should, first of all, be raised and, most importantly, convey to him the concept of the world that his parents had.
Our ancestors preferred to instill their worldview not in an edifying form, but in a more accessible form for children - play. In other words, parents through a fairy tale explained to their child not only what is good and what is bad, but also why the sun rises or how our world appeared. And if we analyze the folklore works familiar to us from the point of view of the philosophy of those centuries, one can be very surprised.
Gingerbread man
At first glance, a fairy tale familiar to everyone teaches the young reader that you need to obey your elders, and vanity usually does not lead to good. However, the sacred meaning of "Kolobok", which apparently appeared in pagan times, was to explain to the child how the sun, which is symbolized by a round cake, travels through the sky (according to some researchers of folk art, animals on the way of Kolobok are constellations). The final devouring of the main character by a fox is nothing more than an eclipse: the ancients thought that the sun was being eaten by an evil spirit.
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Ryaba chicken
For a modern child, the moral of this fairy tale is transparent: you need to take care of what you have and enjoy simple things. But for our ancestors "Ryaba Hen" spoke about the creation of the world and the appearance of the Sun and the Moon in the Universe.
The mouse symbolized a dark spirit (it was believed that the animal appeared from under the ground, and therefore was associated with the underworld), which tried to take the Sun away from people. But instead of one luminary, people who were frightened of darkness received two at once from the chicken that comforted them.
Turnip
As you might guess, this tale is not only about the fact that one cannot cope with difficulties and one must always help each other. Indeed, "Turnip" also shows the continuity of generations and the connection between the world of people and the world of animals: when a person himself cannot do something, he calls for help from the forces of Nature.
The turnip itself, in one version, is the sun: only in harmony with the surrounding world can people receive benefits from it.
Other researchers argue that in the original version there were both father and mother, and the turnip symbolized the root of the genus that the ancestor planted - grandfather. True, why then it was necessary to pull out this root remains incomprehensible.
Thus, you can make out any folk tale and find interesting symbols and teachings in it. For example, Koschey symbolizes not only the pagan Chernobog, but also the cold of winter, which steals warmth (red maidens), Emelya is a person who has lost harmony with the natural world, and Baba Yaga is death from which the heroes need to escape.
However, scholars admit that due to the interest in folklore that has subsided for a while, some works are very difficult to interpret unambiguously. In addition, it is obvious that for modern children the sacred meanings of fairy tales will be incomprehensible, since now knowledge about the world has stepped far forward and the worldview has completely changed.
But this does not mean that it makes no sense to read works of folk art to a child in our time. After all, they have still retained the special magic necessary for the child's soul, and the child himself can discover something completely special for himself in fairy tales.
