Genre, Structure and Reproduction in Oral Literature (Bibliotheca Uralica, 5)

Cloth hardcover, 187 pages, NOT ex-library. Signs of gentle wear only, average dust jacket. Book is clean, mostly bright (a bit of uneven tanning on first pages), free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Edge-worn dust jacket (fraying, short tears, creases, scuffing), with several scratches and regular shelfwear. -- This volume brings together pioneering contributions from Finnish and Hungarian scholars following their first joint folkloristic symposium in Budapest (1977), offering a multifaceted investigation into oral literature with a focus on genre, structure, and reproduction. The collection opens with a historical overview of Finnish-Hungarian folkloristic collaboration and a theoretical outline by Gyula Ortutay, followed by in-depth analyses grounded in diverse traditions. Lauri Honko compares laments by two sisters to assess how individual variation may exceed regional differences, raising questions about stability and creativity in oral tradition. Aili Nenola-Kallio reveals how the vocabulary of Ingrian laments often presupposes prior familiarity with Kalevala-metre lyrical songs, highlighting genre interdependence. Imre Katona examines European lullabies in relation to theme, performer, poetic structure, and function, proposing a typology based on the singer's intention. Anna-Leena Siikala performs structural analysis on Chukchi shamanic songs using motifemic patterns, contrasting journey-based performance with spirit-possession strategies shaped by audience interaction. Mihály Hoppál investigates genre and context in narrative events, advocating verbal semiotics to analyse storytelling within communal settings. Ildikó Kriza explores legend ballads, distinguishing them from epics and romances by their lack of conflict and their place in a broader religious tradition. Pentti Leino proposes a structural theory of Karelian legends based on communication models and role distribution. Satu Apo tests Propp's morphological method on the tale repertoire of Marina Takalo, finding limits in its ability to handle non-heroic structures. Péter Hajdú examines text-melody interrelations in Nenets shamanic song, illuminating how rhythm and improvisation shape epic transmission. Anikó Balogh discusses the challenges of classifying sagas, stressing the importance of formal criteria and genre boundaries. Vilmos Voigt closes the volume with a groundbreaking framework for a communicative system of folklore genres, incorporating sender, receiver, encoding, message, and context, alongside an extensive bibliography on genre theory. Throughout, this collection highlights how oral literature is simultaneously rule-bound and dynamically reinterpreted, shaped by performance, audience, and transmission conditions. The symposium's dual focus on theory and case study bridges structuralist, semiotic, and ethnographic approaches, demonstrating the shared scholarly language that connects diverse Finno-Ugric traditions. This work anticipates later developments in performance theory and oral-formulaic analysis, offering a foundational reference for future comparative folklore research. -- Contents: Introduction; Die Gesetzmäßigkeiten der mündlichen Überlieferung und ihre Erforschung; The Lament: Problems of Genre, Structure and Reproduction / Lauri Honko; Two Genres for Expressing Sorrow: Laments and Lyrical Songs in Ingria / Aili Nenola-Kallio; Die Wiegenlieder der europäischen Völker; Two Types of Shamanizing and Categories of Shamanistic Songs: A Chukchi Case / Anna-Leena Siikala; Text and Melody in Samoyed Epic Songs (Theses); Gattungsprobleme der Legendenballade; Genre and Context in Narrative Event: Approaches to Verbal Semiotics; Kommunikative Funktion und Strukturmerkmale der Volksepik: Die karelische Legende; Structural Schemes of a Repertoire of Fairy Tales: A Structural Analysis of Marina Takalo's Fairy Tales Using Propp's Model; Einige Fragen zur gattungsmäßigen Sagaklassifikation; On the Communicative System of Folklore Genres.…