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From native American folklore to “scary” stories. Survey of research on American children’s folklore

https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-5294-2023-6-4-124-146

Abstract

In the Soviet science tradition the opening of the genre of children’s scary stories or “strashilki” is an event that has its own history, described by contemporaries. In 1970 at the all-union conference in Novgorod the first thematic report was announced by O.N. Grechina, who a few years earlier randomly recorded the first texts and introduced them into scientific circulation. In the American tradition in the 1960s scary stories became part of the research on children’s narrative and related narrative processes. In other words, they were woven into the popular at that time trend towards the study of spontaneous children’s fantasy, and scary stories, fear, fantasies about fear and have proven to be one of its key elements. This article describes the stages in the history of American science that preceded these events and formed an original tradition of studying children’s scary folklore in America.

About the Author

E. G. Matveeva
Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian Federation

Esta G. Matveeva

6, Miusskaya Sq., Moscow, 125047

 



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Review

For citations:


Matveeva E.G. From native American folklore to “scary” stories. Survey of research on American children’s folklore. Folklore: Structure, Typology, Semiotics. 2023;6(4):124-146. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-5294-2023-6-4-124-146

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