Supervisors info:
Μαριάνθη Καπλάνογλου, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια Λαογραφίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Μηνάς Αλ. Αλεξιάδης, Ομότιμος Καθηγητής Λαογραφίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Βασιλική Χρυσανθοπούλου, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Λαογραφίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Translated title:
The oral art of Marina Papadogiorgaki, a folk storyteller from the village Agia Marina, Heraklion, Crete
Summary:
The present paper attempts a two-pronged approach of the folktale, both as a historical object and with reference to the cultural present, through the study of stories told by a folktale narrator coming from a local society, where storytelling continues to be a living tradition. It focuses on the folk tales narrated by Mrs Marina Papadogiorgaki, who comes from Voni, a village in Heraklion, Crete. The folk-story material was gathered through extensive on-site research using a methodology of recorded interviews and participant observation during a four-month period (October 2016-January 2017).
The paper highlights the interplay between oral tradition, its human vehicles and their social environment in these accounts. In this context, it studies the construction of stories and the ways in which they depart from Greek and international traditions (through pattern connections and transformations, narrative techniques and the storyteller’s performance), as well as the various aspects of the narrative process (places where folk tales are circulated, the opportunities and conditions for storytelling, narrators and audiences). The original material, the folk tales themselves, as told by the storyteller, was also included in the paper.
Two research methodologies, the historical and the folkloric approach, were combined in an attempt to elucidate the transformations of folk tales with reference both to their history and international development and to their social and cultural function in specific narrative conditions. The latest edition of the catalogue of international tale types was an important aid for the study of the international development and diffusion of folk tales, and the catalogue of Greek magic folktales (the so-called «megas catalogue»), part of which was published by the Historical Archive of Greek Youth, was a valuable guide for studying the diffusion and transformations of the folk tales in the Greek territory. The insitu study of folktales, in relation to the narrating person in a local community context, is an other small contribution to the study of folktale transformations at the national and international levels.
The term folktale was used in its wider meaning, as approached by the folklore theory of folk narrative types; therefore, the study comprises two different sub-types, drawn among the diverse first-hand material as told by the storyteller: magic folktales and animal tales. The criterion for this choice was the singular character of these narratives, which, on one hand, are characteristic of both the wider Greek and local Cretan traditions and, on the other hand, combine these very elements with the personality and experiences of the narrator.
As illustrated in the example of Mrs Maria Papadogiorgaki, the narrative act undertaken by the story teller is not a mechanical repetition fan inherited tradition; it is based on a series of conscious choices, resulting in a re-creation of the traditional material through oral speech. Accordingly, the narrative material was approached not as a written and thus fixed text, but in its continuous transformations in relation to its human actors and social environment.
A nun interrupted and rich oral narrative tradition and one person (the story teller) interact each and every time for the creation of a folktale. It emerges that the young women in Marina’s stories, initially victimized, manage in the process, through their moral strength, intellectual ability and good fortune, to overcome obstacles and find happiness. They are women of courage, mirroring perfectly the life events and experiences of the narrator.
Keywords:
folktale, animaltales, Greek and international variations, storyteller, listener
