Brynyak O. Christening songs in the system of family-ritual folklore of Ukrainians.

The dissertation is the first attempt in the history of the Ukrainian folklore study of generalizing investigations on the genre peculiarity of christening songs. In the thesis the organic unity of actional and verbal origins of the family-ritual cycle is established. Songs perform not only suggestive-protective, socializing, entertaining and aesthetical functions, but also illustrate in poetical manner the key actions of the ceremony. Peculiarities and functional application of tropes: epithets (descriptive, expressing), comparison, metaphor, metamorphosis, parallelism, hyperbole, litotes and stylistic methods (diminutive suffixes, medial and final formulas, which by thought concentration acquire the character of aphorisms) are found and analyzed. The genre symbolism is represented by the nature elements, plant and animal world, elements of food and drink. Christening poetry manipulates its own colors and numerology. The images of songs determine such fundamental concepts as being, motherhood, fertility, growth, development, health, beauty, prosperity and happy fortune. The archaic nature of birth songs-ritual complex proves the existence in its structure the relicts of the ancient Slavonic pagan beliefs (blacksmith-demiurge, Rod-crane, worship of water, fire, trees and birds). Owing to the investigation of the semantics of the key symbols it was possible to track the binary world perception of the Ukrainians - combination of pagan and Christian origins.