Supernatural beings in Russian and Japanese folklore: comparative analysis

For a long time, Russia and Japan did not have common cultural contacts, and the folk art of the two countries developed separately from each other. However, cross-cultural analysis of folklore and its works allows us to take a new look at the culture of the two countries and identify some fundamental concepts of culture, which makes this topic very promising for research. The similarity or difference of such an aspect of folk culture as fairy tales can become an important detail in cultural integration, since it is here that the common, basic values and concepts of the people are expressed. Neither politics, nor Economics, nor any other artificially created construction can explain how similar or different the people of the two countries are, as folk tales do. Thus, the purpose of this research is to compare and analyze the folklore characters of Russia and Japan, as well as the fairy tales in which they are mentioned. Although the culture of these countries is analyzed more and more every year (Igaue, 2004; Petkova, 2012), the literature on this topic is not fully prepared and can not answer all the questions. The analysis of fairy tales will be carried out using a simplified method proposed by the Soviet philologist V. Ya. Propp (Propp, 1928), since this method is of great importance for folklore studies as a science. The results of the analysis of fairy-tale works of both countries will be compared. This will show how similar Russian and Japanese folklore and their characters are, how different the peoples of these countries are, and how these differences can be overcome.