article On Household-Novelistic Fairy Tales in Lazian

Abstract

The Laz folk fairy-tale epic is remarkably rich and varied. This ancient Kartvelian tribe produced and preserved every major subtype of the fairy-tale genre. The article examines the household-novelistic tales. Its scholarly value derives from the use of research material, drawn from fairy tales, collected from the Laz inhabitants of Sarpi, a village situated within the Republic of Turkey. This corpus provides a solid basis for a comprehensive analysis of the Laz fairy-tale epic—particularly the household-novelistic type, which encompasses nearly every aspect of social life—and facilitates well-substantiated conclusions about this centuries-old narrative tradition.

The characters in the household-novelistic tale are drawn from real life and represent virtually all social strata. These tales address the moral virtues and failings that have shaped human societies since their earliest days.

The themes of Laz household–novelistic folk tales are diverse and encompass nearly every aspect of social life, including marital fidelity and love, relationships between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law, brotherhood and friendship, the offering of prudent advice, the portrayal of moral shortcomings, and more. It is particularly significant that among the Laz people of Sarpi (on the Turkish side), who live within the Republic of Turkey, household–novelistic tales remain alive in their historical memory to this day. The moral maxims expressed in these tales represent some of the finest examples of traditional folk didacticism.

A close  examination of Laz household-novelistic tales indicates that this segment of ​​the folk tradition, together with other oral genres, forms part of the Common-Kartvelian cultural continuum.