Жанрови проблеми на баладата-легенда
Genre Problems of the Ballad-Legend

Summary/Abstract: The works, called by the complex term ballad-legends, can be assigned to the genre of the ballad only in the broad sense of that word. In contrast to the classical ballad there is no conflict in them. The description of action or feeling brings them closer to epic songs and romances. The ballad-legends show genre kinship with the mediaeval literary genre of the legend. Ballad-legends are epic-lyrical works depicting supernatural religious action or a chain of events, and narrating the life and qualities of saints and biblical personages in a versified form. A mediaeval world outlook and the expression of the church's positions unite them. In a stylistic respect they are characterized by narration (announcement of an event) and their lyrical quality. The conflict is only fictitious, conventional and abstract. Descriptions of miracles add certain epic characteristics to the ballad-legends (the Hungarian ballad or The Flight into Egypt, which has international parallels, and is a real treasure-house of etiological sagas, is an example of this). The lyrical quality in the ballad-legends is very often sentimental, hence the closeness of this genre to the idyll. Sentimentality is combined with didacticism and moralizing. The artistic form of the ballad-legends bears traces of literary influences, and was built up not only along the inner rules of folklore creative work.

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