FOLKLORE SUBJECTS INCORPORATED IN ORAL MEMOIRES ABOUT THE FAMINE OF 1932–1933

The article aims to find out the folklore origin of individual subjects incorporated into memoires about the famine. The methodology is based on comparative & typological method. The scientific novelty. There are three most common subjects found in many stories. The author submits a number of proofs they are folklore texts. This includes presence of variants and their existence in very remote regions as well as almost complete identity of poetic samples they contain. Conclusions. In the foreground is the image of a folk singer who performed anti-Soviet songs and ballads in public and forfeited life or was persecuted for that. Such cases were not rare. The author considers these stories contain not real memories, but a typical folklore subject. Its’ development is similar, but this is also true about a song text performed by a kobzar when being led to the police station. The stories about these cases were folklorized and gradually turned from memoir into fabulat close to anecdote. This subject has survived to the present day. Those who tell a story and those who listen and writes it have confidence in its credibility. Such a scheme is typical for all the subject variants. Only ending changes. To substantiate this hypothesis, the author provides different versions of the subject recorded at different times and in different Ukraine regions. It is suggested the versions telling about a kobzar’s death should be considered the later ones. The existence of a series of monostrophe poems about horses’ death during the famine gave rise to another folklore subject about a horse carrying a poster / note / plate on its neck / at a tail / in a mane. A political poem was written on it. No doubt, that subject was generated by quite real events. Obviously, it was very popular. It is also close to anecdote by its content. The laughable element is embedded in the poem included in the subject. In fact, at the first stage of this fabulat creation the poem “invented” the subject. Monostrophe was a stable element remaining virtually unchanged. However, later during translation process a prose part became a creating element for the subject. The author provides striking examples of folklore creation. The third original subject is about a chicken used by its owner to demonstrate a protest against excessive food taxes. This narrative is also typologically related to the previous one and resembles anecdote with a tragic content. It was recorded in Ukraine different regions as well, being not only a prose, but also a musical-verbal text