FOOTNOTES BY PYOTR ALEXEYEVICH BESSONOV TO KIRSHA DANILOV’S COLLECTION

The article analyzes the editor’s remarks about 25 epic texts from Kirsha Danilov’s collection, which were included in the Songs Collected by Pyotr Vasilievich Kireevsky, published and edited by Pyotr Alexeyevich Bessonov. Bessonov’s numerous footnotes contain comments and interpretations of the meanings of words and phrases. This article introduces this material to a scholarly audience for the first time. The author emphasizes that Bessonov’s dictionary of epic texts was created earlier than the dictionaries of Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl and Pavel Nikolayevich Rybnikov. The article makes clear that as the editor of Kirsha Danilov’s collection, Bessonov is to be lauded for his meticulous work. The dictionary and commentaries he created should be considered yet another independent publication of the famous collection of Russian folk songs, along with the publications of A. F. Yakubovich, K. F. Kalaidovich, P. N. Schaeffer, S. K. Shambin, A. P. Evgenieva, B. N. Putilov, and A. A. Gorelov.