Ukrainian Folklore, Past and Present: Interpretation, Adaptation, Resistance

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores Ukrainian folklore from multiple perspectives— textual analysis and interpretation, adaptation in literature and film, and role in present-day wartime Ukraine. Victoria Somoff analyzes the cumulative folktale in Ukrainian tradition, placing Ukrainian variants of international plots in a comparative context and examining folkloric narratives in relation to their literary adaptations. Olga Blackledge investigates how Ukrainian animators at Kyivnaukfilm (1960s–1990s) reimagined motifs and imagery from verbal, visual, and material folk art, translating them into the cinematic language of animated film. Nataliia Saltovska explores slogans as a genre of digital folklore, tracing their historical roots and analyzing their structure and function in contemporary Ukraine’s folklore of resistance. Together, these papers illuminate Ukrainian oral tradition and its study, situating it within both classic and contemporary folklore theory and examining its national, global, and comparative dimensions.

Sub Unit

• Folklore Studies

Chair

• Sabina Amanbayeva, Oklahoma City U

Papers

• Folk Apocalypse: Ukrainian Cumulative Tales in Comparative Perspective - Victoria Somoff, Dartmouth College

• From Stories to Images: Translating Ukrainian Folklore to the Animated Screen - Olga Blackledge

• Folklorized Small Communicative Forms in the Russo-Ukrainian War - Nataliia Saltovska

Discussant

• Valentyna Savchyn, Lund U (Sweden)