Meilės istorijos – šiuolaikinio mergaičių folkloro atmaina

Abstract

Love stories are a genre of teenage girls’ written folklore. It has not been researched by anyone in Lithuania. Love stories, analyzed in this article, were collected at the end of 20th century – the beginning of 21st century and are kept in the Depository of Manuscripts at Department of Ethnology and Folklore of Vytautas Magnus University. Love stories are discussed from perspectives of attribution to genre and origin. It is proposed that in the system of folklore genres they should be attributed to the genre of stories. It is noted that some love stories are translations from Russian, while part of them were originally created in Lithuania. Models of writing are presented. Variety of plot structure of epical writings and specificity of lyrical works is shown. Characters (heroes, antagonists, bystanders) are introduced; means of constructing an image of a hero are discussed in greater depth. A link between love stories and reality is shown; essential archetypical structures are highlighted. It is emphasized that the moment of accentuation of death allows associating love stories with rituals of initiation