“The Hero of the Tale”. 50 years after

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of E.M. Meletinsky’s research concepts that his first monography - “The Hero of the Tale” (1958; finished in 1948 but not published immediately due to the arrest and imprisonment of the author) - is based on. Analysis of the book 50 years after its first edition allows to evaluate the persisting topicality of the research dwelling upon the most general problem central to contemporary folklore studies: what is folklore and how is it related to the extra-textual reality, as well as upon possible perspectives concerning research areas outlined by Meletinsky’s work: typological and neo-evolutionist research.