У статті розглядаються питання, пов’язані зі специфікою східнослов’янських магічно-
сакральних текстів. Проаналізовано історію збирання, публікації та початок вивчення замовлянь як
фольклорного жанру. Основний акцент зроблено на першій монографії, присвяченій замовлянням.
Подано науковий портрет автора цієї монографії – М. В. Крушевського, схарактеризовано риси, які
зробили книгу класичною, її переклади та перевидання.
В статье рассматриваются вопросы, связанные со спецификой восточнославянских магико-
сакральных текстов. Проанализирована история их собирания, начало изучения заговоров как
фольклорного жанра и публикации по этой проблеме. Основной акцент сделан на первой монографии,
посвященной заговорам. Представлен научный портрет автора – Н. В. Крушевского, установлены
черты, сделавшие книгу классической, охарактеризированы ее переводы и переиздания.
The last four decades have affected the active interdisciplinary study of magically sacral texts by new
methodologies and trends of Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian researchers. Incantations, spells, prayers,
sheptannya, prymivky, curses, oaths are considered magically sacral texts. Our attention was drawn, because
of the hidden, deep forms of intellectual thinking contacts at the level of archetypes, and to stage
manifestations of ethnogenesis. Texts of incantations belong to the most ancient ones of the archaic genre of
oral folklore.
In Russia, interest for incantation texts as material for folk life and culture studies arose in the
eighteenth century and became the actual direction in the science of the next century. In the second half of the
nineteenth century collecting incantations have acquired a wide range according to organized Russian
Geographical Society. Its ethnographic department was coordinating center around which the united efforts of
local historians and lovers of antiquity, who lived across Russia, were joined. They constantly sent to the
Society’s archives their records and texts, found by them. At the same time, it became possible to study the
various issues related to the practice of magic, because there were collections of incantations by I. Sakharov,
A. Afanasyev, L. Maikov, P. Chubinskiy, P. Yefimenko. The first researchers of incantations had not strictly
scientific methods. Nevertheless, they have put forward and tried to resolve the issues that still remained
controversial.
History of incantation research is closely connected with the name of M. V. Kruszewski (in Russian
M. V. Kruszewski). The authors often refer to his work “Incantations as a kind of Russian folk poetry”, written
in the nineteenth century, but it is not quoted, since it has become a rarity. The work was written in the
Warsaw University and was represented as a philosophical and philological research. The author made the
first attempt of precise definition of incantation. Kruszewski has raised the question about the psychological
basics of the incantation, he aspired to link incantations to the peculiarities of human perception of the
surrounding reality, defined the language as the entity, contrasted this understanding of the nature of
language that was common in the nineteenth century to social agreement theory and tried to prove that the
language does not depend on the will and consciousness of its native speakers.
On the contrary, Kruszewski, who devoted the first scientific work to incantations, walked away from
the folklore perspective and focused exclusively on the comparative linguistics problems.
Theoretical understanding of the incantations in the second half of the XIX century led to the
identification of incantations in a single genre, which undoubtedly contributed to the first monographic work
of M. V. Kruszewski “Incantations as a kind of Russian folk poetry”. The subject of the studying and the level
of implementation continued to be in the center of attention of folklorists, linguists, psychologists, cultural
scientists. Kruszewski’s composition became the basis of ethnographic and folklore research of many
scientists, and it found the reflection in their scientific researches.
Reediting and translations into Polish and Ukrainian languages undoubtedly contribute to the
popularization of the Kruszewski’s works.
