Propp, Vladimir Yakovlevich

Born April 16 (28), 1895 in St. Petersburg in a family of Volga Germans . Father - Yakov Filippovich Propp (1858-1919), a prosperous Volga peasant born in the village of Gussenbach (now the village of Linevo , Volgograd Region). Mother - Anna Elizaveta Fridrikhovna, nee Beisel (? -1942).

In the years 1914-1918. studied Russian and German philology at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Petrograd . Subsequently, he taught German at universities in Leningrad. During the First World War, he voluntarily worked in the hospital as a nurse, and then a brother of mercy.

In the post-revolutionary years, during the Civil War and somewhat later (from 1917 to 1929 ), the Propp family lived in their house on the Propp farm ^{[3] [5]} . During this time, Vladimir Yakovlevich was on his father’s estate several times. At the end of 1918 he visited his sick father ^[3] , in March 1919 he arrived at the funeral of Yakov Filippovich, after which he stayed here for some time and worked on the field ^[3] , along with his relatives, then he got a job as a school teacher in the village of Galy Karamysh ^[3] , located 70 kilometers from the farm. Then V. Ya. Propp returned to Petrograd. In the summer of 1923 he came to his former estate with his wife ^[3] . On December 20, 1929, dekulakization took place in the German colony of Hussenbach in the Canton of Medveditsky ^[3] . According to the act drawn up by the shock brigade under the Hussenbach Village Council, the property of Anna Friedrichovna Propp was transferred to the collective farm to them. Stalin ^[3] .

Since 1932, V. Ya. Propp taught and conducted scientific work at Leningrad University (Leningrad State University) . From 1937 he became an assistant professor , from 1938 - professor at the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad State University , successively at the departments of Romano-Germanic philology, folklore and, until 1969 , Russian literature; in 1963 - 1964 held the post of acting head of the department.

During the period of “the struggle against cosmopolitanism ” from 1949 to 1952 he taught at the Department of Ethnography and Anthropology of the History Department .

He was twice married. From the marriage with Serafima Pavlovna Sokolova there were daughters Maria and Elena. From marriage with Elizabeth Yakovlevna Antipova (1905-1979) - son Mikhail (1937—2018), hydrobiologist, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation.

He died on August 22, 1970 in Leningrad at the age of 75. He was buried in the Northern cemetery .

The scientist's most famous work is “The Morphology of a Tale ” (Leningrad, 1928 ). Propp identifies the repeating constant elements - the functions of the actor (31 in total), laying the foundation for a structural-typological study of narrative . Propp's work had a significant impact on the development of structuralist studies of mythological, folklore, and literary texts.

In the work “The historical roots of a fairy tale” (Leningrad, 1946 ), Propp develops a hypothesis developed by Pierre Centiva (pseudonym Emil Nurri ). Propp sees in folk tales a reminder of totemic initiation rituals. It is obvious that the structure of fairy tales has the character of initiation. But the whole problem is to find out whether the fairy tale describes a system of rites related to any particular stage of culture, or whether its initiation scenario is “imaginary”, in the sense that it is not connected with any historical and cultural context but expresses rather the extra-historical archetypal behavior of the psyche. As an example, Propp refers to totemic initiations; this type of initiation was categorically inaccessible to women, but the main character of Slavic tales is just a woman: the old witch, Baba Yaga . However, Baba Yaga acts as the initiating senior in terms of the hypothesis of the ritual origin of the tale. And the initiator, although always a man, had symbolic signs of both sexes, or even only women ^[6] .

In other words, in fairy tales there is no exact reminder of any particular stage of culture: here various historical cycles and cultural styles mix and clash with each other. Here, only behavioral patterns that could exist in many cultural cycles and at different historical moments have been preserved.

Confirmation of the assumption about the origin of fairy tales from oral traditions told during the initiation is the similarity of the motives and functions of the characters in the tales of various nations. In addition, Propp provides ethnographic data showing the process of decomposition of the ancient totemic religion and the transformation of sacred once oral traditions into fairy tales. Considering ethnic groups that have not yet parted with totemism (and do not have fairy tales as such), are in the process of its decomposition, and modern tales of "cultural" peoples, Propp comes to the conclusion that the origin of the fairy tale is the same.

Another work by V. Ya. Propp is the monograph Russian Agrarian Holidays, where the author, on the basis of enormous folklore material, points out the agrarian (agricultural) character of many Slavic holidays and beliefs, such as Maslenitsa , Semik , for which the work largely served as a basis J. Fraser "The Golden Branch" ^[7] .

• Monomith
• Aarne, Antti Amathus
• Chicherov, Vladimir Ivanovich

• Morphology of a fairy tale . - L .: Academia, 1928.
• Russian fairy tale. - L., 1984.
• The historical roots of a fairy tale . - L .: Publishing house of Leningrad State University , 1986.- 364 p.
• Folklore and reality. - M .: Nauka , 1989 .-- 233 p.
• Russian heroic epic. - Labyrinth, 2006 .-- 624 p. - ISBN 5-87604-051-7 .
• The problems of comic and laughter. Ritual laughter in folklore (about the tale of Nesmeyan). (Collected tr. V. Ya. Proppa.) Scientific. ed., comm. Yu.S. Rasskazova. - M.: Labyrinth, 1999.

• Berkov P.N. Method for the study of folk art in the works of V. Ya. Propp (on the occasion of his 70th birthday) // Bulletin of Leningrad State University . A series of literature, language and history. 1966. Issue. 1, No. 2.
• Typological studies on folklore. Collection of articles in memory of V. Ya. Propp (1895-1970). M., 1975.
• Unknown V. Ya. Propp. “The tree of life. Diary of old age. Correspondence ”/ Foreword, comp. A. N. Martynova; Prep.text, comment. A.N. Martynova, N.A. Prozorova. - SPb .: Aleteyya , 2002. - ISBN 5-89329-512-9 .
• Warner E.E. Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp and Russian folklore. Publishing House of St. Petersburg State University, 2005. - ISBN 5-8465-0092-7 .
• Reinhard Breymayer: Vladimir Jakovlevič Propp (1895-1970) - Leben, Wirken und Bedeutsamkeit . B: Linguistica Biblica 15/16 (1972), 36-77 (67-77 Bibliographie).
• Serena Grazzini: Der strukturalistische Zirkel. Theorien über Mythos und Märchen bei Propp, Lévi-Strauss, Meletinskij. Wiesbaden 1999 (DUV: Literaturwissenschaft).
• Vilmos Voigt: Propp, Vladimir Jakovlevič . In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens , Volume 10 (2002), 1435-1442.

• Putilov B.N. Propp, Vladimir Yakovlevich // Brief Literary Encyclopedia / Ch. ed. A.A. Surkov . - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia , 1962-1978.
• The historical roots of a fairy tale
• Morphology of a fairy tale
• Morphology of a fairy tale, L., 1928 (on the site feb-web.ru)
• The problems of comic and laughter .
• Olshansky D. The Birth of Structuralism from the Analysis of a Fairy Tale / Toronto Slavic Quarterly, No. 25
• The article " Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp and his beloved Linevo ", wolgadeutsche.ru
• Vladimir Propp (1895-1970) / Literary Encyclopedia (2008)
• Biography of Vladimir Propp in the Gallery of Russian Thinkers (International Society of Philosophers, 2007)
• About the propp center
• V. Ya. Propp's structural
• Vladimir Propp on the portal "Culture"
• Kogut K.S. Unknown Propp