Stroganov, M. (2022). The Russian counting-out rhyme. Its genre, typology, and an index of subjects: A study and texts. Moscow: Literaturniy institut imeni A. M. Gorkogo. (In Russ.)

Abstract

The review is devoted to M. Stroganov’s latest installment in his series of folklore studies, which discusses the problems of genre-specific characteristics and classification of Russian counting-out rhymes. The first part of the book contains a monographic study with a conceptual argument in favour of the scholar’s unique function-based classification of the rhymes. In offering his reasons for the approach, Stroganov calls into question several premises made by the eminent 1920s scholar G. Vinogradov, which underlie modern folklorists’ ideas of the genre and classification of counting-out rhymes. Stroganov challenges the concept of an accidental relation between a verbal text and a children’s game, arguing a substantial relation instead. The second part of the book features a corpus of counting-out rhymes and examples of other folklore genres. Unique in terms of sheer volume, it is the fruit of years of field research and diligent reading of the classical folklore studies penned by distinguished Russian scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries.