Volkovicher T. Verbal Texts on Folk Embroideries (the End of the 19th – the First Half of the 20th Century): Genesis, Semantics, Pragmatics

A phenomenon of epigraphic embroidery (the end of the 19th century – the first half of the 20th century) as a part of folk culture has been discovered. It belongs to those creations of folk culture which have been ignored by researchers and collectors for over a hundred years. A rather significant material has been collected (1605 items), which the author introduces into scientific circulation for the first time. The author has clearly proved that the embroidered products with using cross-stitch papers had not been “mechanic copies”, but they had been rethought and often transformed. During this process a printed pattern which is a product of mass culture was becoming a tradition formula (or it was returning to folk culture in modified form, as the creators of cross-stitch papers had frequently taken the plots and inscriptions from the folklore). Furthermore, the formula theory in Folklore Studies has been developed. We have applied this theory systematically both to the verbal and visual material. The formula transformations types which are elements substitution, reduction, amplification and contamination have been demonstrated. We have given and analyzed the concrete examples in two cases: with the change of semantics and pragmatics and without it. The examples of rethinking the texts without any formula transformations have been shown. The result of collecting and analyzing the material is The Interactive index of embroidered verbal and visual texts filed as an Appendix A to the paper and is available on my own website: http://volkovicher.com (the password: 2707). The value of this author’s elaboration is in the collected material itself (the amount of which allows us to make certain scientific findings concerning the whole phenomenon in general, but not only about its separate samples), as well as in its structure and working principle which may be useful to train professionals in learning formulas of folk texts by example of embroidered verbal and iconic texts.