Folklorism

Folklorism is the conscious use of folklore (images, motifs, genres, poetics, rhythmics) in professional artistic creation. Several types are distinguished: the direct quotation or stylization of a folk source, the creative reinterpretation of folk motifs, and the deep assimilation of the folk worldview. Folklorism was a programmatic feature of Romanticism (the Kharkiv school, the 'Ruthenian Triad') and remains productive to this day. Classic examples in Ukrainian literature: the ballads and poems of the early Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka's 'The Forest Song,' the stories of Marko Vovchok, the novellas of Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky ('Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors'), and the prose of Hryhir Tiutiunnyk. The theory of folklorism was developed by Mykhailo Drahomanov. Folklorism should be distinguished from folklore proper: the first is authorial reception, the second collective oral creativity.