Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/429

Rh investigation of folklore was given on the eve of the "epoch of great reforms" of the sixties by the growth of interest among educated Russians in the life of the people. Many well-known ethnographers set about collecting material throughout the country, such as V. Dahl, V. Kiryeevsky, P. Shein, P. Rybnikov, and others,—and presented us with rich and valuable collections of songs, tales, traditions, poems, proverbs, etc., and descriptions of rites, customs, arts, etc. Meanwhile many of the theories of solar mythology were discredited by new investigations based upon so-called "historical" and "borrowing" theories (L. Maikov, V. Stasov, etc.). The study of the literature of the people was extended, and attention was concentrated not only on the interpretation of myth, but on research work on beliefs, ritual, customs, traditions, etc. The problems of folklore were investigated, especially in the works of Professors A. Potebnya and Alexander Veselovsky and their disciples. This movement resulted in the establishment of several official and private institutions and societies, of which the labour produced a very extensive literature largely dealing with the folklore of the Russian people. But the study of folklore was still interwoven with that of the other allied sciences, in particular of ethnography, anthropology, and archæology, and up to the present time the science of folklore in Russia has not won its own place in the ranks of the cognate branches of learning. However, in the early sixties of last century was founded the "Moscow Society of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography," the transactions and publications of which have ever since conducted work similar to that carried on in England and Germany by societies and journals devoted exclusively to folklore. Among the present members of this Society the leading place belongs to Prof. V. Miller, who is actively engaged in research on myth and tradition. Although the scientific study of folklore is a thing of recent growth in Russia, nevertheless much has been done in this branch of learning. There is a vast mass of folklore material scattered in many archives and museums, and over a wide literature, and the efforts to collect the ancient traditions of the Russian people have never been discontinued, and even quite lately resulted in the publication of valuable editions of the epic poems (byliny) collected particularly in the