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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2022. № 6 (168), 1448—

UDK [398.332.416:792.246](=161.2)”192/193/20″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2022.06.1448

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FIGURATIVE SYSTEM OF THE UKRAINIAN CHRISTMAS DRAMA. THREE KINGS — FROM THE BIBLICAL SAGES TO THE LEADERS OF THE UKRAINIAN NATION

PAPISH Maria

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2701-7841
  • Master of Philology,
  • Head of the Folklore Laboratory,
  • Ivan Franko Lviv National University,
  • 1, University St., 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: papishmarichka1@gmail.com

Abstract. The folk Christmas drama Nativity scene enriches and diversifies the folkloric tradition of the Ukrainians and it is one of the brightest spectacles at Christmas time in the modern world. That is why even today the scientists are interested in this folklore phenomenon. The relevance of the study of the Ukrainian folk nativity tradition is due, first of all, to its active presence in our time and the need to interpret the phenomenon of folk Christmas drama as a socially active and open phenomenon. In particular, the plot about the worship of the three kings in the folk context of the Christmas drama acquires a different connotation, a different semantic meaning.

The purpose of the scientific research is to reveal the functional features of the image of the three kings and their variations in the character composition of the national Christmas drama: from the biblical sages to the leaders of the Ukrainian people.

The object of investigation is the folk Christmas drama, and the subject is the modification of the religious plot about the three kings in the folk Christmas drama.

The subject and purpose of the research has led to the usage of the following research methods: structural — as the main one for a comprehensive analysis of the constituent elements of the story line about the three kings; comparative, which makes it possible to draw parallels to the established image of the three kings at different stages of the existence of the folk Christmas drama; historical and cultural — with the aim of establishing the specifics of the nativity scene and clarifying the socio-cultural dimensions of the influence on the folk Christmas drama. 

The article examines the figurative system of the plot about the three kings on the basis of the records of the 20s and 30s of the 20th century and modern fixations of folk Christmas dramas. The substantive basis of the plot and the ideological and substantive transformation of the images against the background of historical and social events of the 20th—21 st has been found out. A number of plot types, outlined through the prism of ideological and content load and functionality of traditional and actualized images of the three kings has been singled out, namely: 1) the three kings — the biblical sage kings; the Russ (ancient Ukrainian) princes; the leaders of the Ukrainian people of the different historical periods; the representatives of the different regions of Ukraine; the current Ukrainian politicians.

Keywords: the Ukrainian folk Christmas drama, the «vertep», the character system, three kings, actualization.

Received 15.11.2022

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