Abstract
The “verbal art” works which was used prior to the emergence of folklore or the term “folklore” in Russian folklore history is divided into two as “pre-revolution period” and “Soviet folklore”. The interest in folklore in Russia and the people who are viewed as its creator was first started to be seen in the 18th century. The changes occurring in the consciousness of the European peoples expand to Russia. The great interest in the terms “people”, “populism”, “nation”, “nationalism” and especially the “people’s soul” term of Herder followed by Ossian’s poems in Russia, increases attention towards the people who are the conveyers of culture. Academic attention to folklore starts during the 1840s and 1850s with the mythologist M. Buslayev who in the history of Russian folklore is seen as the follower of Grimm Brothers and who established the first folklore professorship in Russia. The breadth of the field of folklore research carried out in Russia, the versatile and comparative research conducted by researchers without being exposed to any political pressure, the close follow-up of folklore studies carried out in Europe provide the emergence of different methods and different trends in this discipline. The 1917 October Revolution is accepted as the beginning date of the period called Soviet era folklore. However, a perspective similar to the nations policy of pre-revolution Tsarist Russia implicitly structures these studies. The basic principles of Soviet folklore, on the other hand, have become evident since the 1930s. In this framework, first of all, the basic elements of folklore have been tried to be classified by distinguishing the terms folklore (research material) and folkloristics (discipline that studies folklore). In the first decade following the October Revolution, many institutions continued to exist and provided the necessary conditions for folklore studies, albeit with difficulty. During the radical political changes in all areas of life due to the Revolution in the 1920s, especially Y.M. Sokolov's contribution is great. Author of Russian Folklore, which is the first folklore textbook published in Russia, folklore consultant of the First Congress of Soviet Authors, Y.M. Sokolov also tried to build a bridge between the academic world and politics. The Soviet administration radically changed the content and working principles of folklore as a tool to "affect the masses". The nature of new folklore products is “traditional in form, new in content.” expressed in words. In particular, the use of oral folk art to spread the Soviet ideology provides the emergence of new folklore contents within twenty years. It has been observed that the feature of folklore that can influence and direct the masses of the people is used to strengthen the socialist society and the cult of Stalin. Despite everything, the Soviet folklore period, which constitutes the content of folklore reflecting a period and continued to develop until the death of Stalin, is considered as the decline period of the studies of Russian folklore. Therefore, folklore and folklore products are redefined according to the dominant ideology. At the meeting of the Union of Soviet Authors, the functions of folklore and folklore products for the Soviet society are discussed and the method of folklore studies is determined in the light of these discussions. In this period, both the concept of folklore, folklore products and folklore studies gain a new content according to the Soviet ideology.