Halaichuk O. Chivalry of the Princedom Period in the Ukrainian ritual folklore: motifs and images.

The paper is the first attempt in Ukrainian folkloristics to offer a complex analysis of relics of the Princedom period chivalry in ritual poetry and prove the existence of chivalry-retinue poetry, whose remarkable samples have been retained in calendar-ritual and family-ritual texts. The concepts of “chivalry” and “chivalry-retinue poetry” have been expanded to comply with the nature of the area of research. The methodological instruments employed to analyze the motifs and images of the Ukrainian folklore have been upgraded. The findings of research in other related areas of studies (literary studies, ethnoliguistics, ethnology, history) made it possible to handle the set tasks comprehensively. Eventually, when chivalry as an institution became a matter of the past, the memories thereof remained documented in heroic motifs and fixed epic cliché folmulas, samples of old Ukrainian literature, and also in various genres of oral lore (ritual and non-ritual poetry, dumas, bylinas, historical songs, fairy tales, legends and other narratives).