Novoportsev, Abram Kuzmich

Born in the village of Yasashnoye Pryryaskino of the Stavropol district of the Simbirsk province (now the Starominsky district of the Ulyanovsk region ). In the 1870s, when fame came to Novopoltsev, his native village belonged to the Stavropol district of the Samara province, which is why it belongs to the Samara storytellers.

He was a landless peasant , worked as a shepherd, raised four sons. He lived in poverty. According to the memoirs of contemporaries Novoportsev was a tall, broad-shouldered old man. He loved to drink, pamper himself and tell fairy tales , which made him famous in the whole district.

He had to demonstrate his talent as a narrator in the neighboring village of Novikovka , in the estate of the local landowner Lazarev. Here he met the poet and collector of folklore Dmitry Sadovnikov , who in 1871 married the landowner’s daughter.

Sadovnikov recorded 72 fairy tales from Novopoltsev, which were included in the collection “Tales and Legends of the Samara Territory”. In the preface, Sadovnikov intended to tell about the life of the storyteller, but did not have time. The collection was published only a year after the death of the folklorist, and the manuscript of the preface was never found.

In his native village, the original talent of the countryman was not appreciated, he died in poverty, his grave was lost in a rural cemetery ^[1] . Not a single portrait of the storyteller. Researcher N. Zakharchev was able to establish that Avramiy Kuzmich’s grandson, Nikolai Ivanovich Novopoltsev, was also a famous narrator in the district. I.N.Novopoltsev died in 1948. The grave is located in a rural cemetery. [one]

There are no memorial signs in the Starominsky district of the Ulyanovsk region in memory of AK Novopoltsev.

Abram Novopoltsev is considered the most famous storyteller of the XIX century ^[2] . He is referred to as a type of fairy-tale story-tellers: he filled his tales with jokes, even gave serious situations a comic character, extensively used up-and-coming sayings, rhymed even narrative parts and dialogues of characters, liked to introduce tavern and tavern scenes into the narration. The mastery of the storyteller was also manifested in the rich vocabulary of the language, and the emphasized colloquial speech increased the dynamism of the narrative, giving a very intense pace to the narration.

Novoportsev masterfully told fairy tales of any genre: magic, household fairy tales, children's fairy tales about animals, historical legends and even jokes. However, the predominant species were fairy tales. 25 such fairy tales were included in Sadovnikov’s collection. Abram Kuzmich well mastered all the techniques of the classic fairy tale, using common places, repetitions, fabulous formulas, constant epithets.

Also a significant place in his repertoire consisted of satirical anti-Popov and anti-Bar tales.

Since 2003, the annual folk festival named after Abram Novopoltsev has been held in the Ulyanovsk Region ^[3] .

• Tales of Abram Novopoltsev / Ed. and entry Art. E. V. Pomerantseva .. - Kuibyshev, 1952.
• Azadovsky M. K. Abram Novoportsev // Russian fairy tale. Selected Masters: In 2 t. / Ed. and comments. M.K. Azadovsky. - (M .; L.): Academia, 1932. - T. I. - P. 131-135.
• Novopoltsev Abr. // Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary: In 3 t. - M .: Humanitarian. ed. center VLADOS: Filol. fact St. Petersburg state University, 2002
• N. Marianin. They stole the storyteller (Neopr.) (November 16, 2011). The appeal date is June 24, 2012. Archived on October 3, 2012.
• Zakharchev N. Novopoltsevy // Lenin spark. - 1990. - September 29th. - p. 3. The genealogy of the Novoportsev family.
• · Zakharchev N. The Taler from Yasashny Pryasyaskino // Monomakh. - 2005. - № 1. - p. 12–13
• Grandfather Abram from Pomryaskino. http://www.ul.aif.ru/legends/ded_abram_iz_pomryaskino

• .N. Zakharchev. "The genus of Russian narrator Avramiya Novopoltsev". Ulyanovsk. from "Master Studio".
• N. Zakharchev. There was a storyteller. http://rospisatel.ru/sobytija2016/158.htm