Ebook: Soviet heroic poetry in context: folklore or fakelore

Soviet epic compositions of the 1930s and 1940s, the so-called noviny ("new songs"), have often been the subject of folkloristic controversy. This study tells the story of the rise and fall of the noviny in all its cultural richness and pathos, an instructive tale of the interaction of aesthetics and ideology.;Tampering with the folkloric evidence: famous and infamous European precedents -- Oral composition: early Russian observations and assumptions -- Engaging with the folk in pre-revolutionary Russia -- The making of the noviny -- The poetics and politics of the noviny -- Devaluing the noviny -- Late and post-Soviet folkloristic assessment of the noviny -- Conclusion.