F. B. Miller's fairy tales in the context of the Russian folklore tradition

The aim of this research is to determine the distinctive features of the poet and translator Fyodor Bogdanovich Miller's engagement with the material of oral folk art in creating his stylized and original fairy tales, as well as in his translation of the fairy tale "The Song of Ilya Volgovich" from the Czech language, within the context of the Russian folklore tradition. The article analyzes F. B. Miller's works in which fairy-tale motifs and images play a genre-forming role or are an important means of revealing the idea. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that it is the first to introduce into scholarly circulation and systematize, according to genre (epic, lyrical, and lyrical-epic) and degree of originality (stylized, original, and translated fairy tales), the works of F. B. Miller in which fairy-tale motifs and images play a key role. An attempt is made to systematize the artistic means that allow the analyzed works to be classified as texts that realize the traditions of oral folk art. The study reveals that the author's appeal to folklore material occurs at different levels of the artistic text: themes (dishonest court, condemnation of social injustice, relationships between masters and servants, morality, family life, everyday life, feat, struggle against the Mongol-Tatar yoke, hope for liberation) and motifs (heroism, battle of the strongest warriors, rescue of a beautiful swan princess, dragon slaying, a difficult path to a loved one, prayer, divine salvation, punishment for vices, magic, mystery), images (heroes Potok and Ilya Volgovich, the swan princess, the adversary-sorcerer, the mermaid, peasants Pakhom and Stepanida, a lucky peasant, a nobleman, a merchant and his wife), and expressive means.