MODERN CITY FOLKLORE IN A CHANGING FOLKLORE PARADIGM

Abstract

The end of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century have disproved the thesis that folklore belongs only to the village, and that its protectors are the less educated or illiterate older generation. The concept of urban folklore was born, of course, in an article written by A. Dundes in 1965, which gave a definition of the people. With this article, the classical notion of the people was freed from a narrow framework and formed a new view. The viability of cities has led to the acceleration of urbanization and the gathering of various social groups and ethnic groups in cities, and this process has resulted in the emergence of a new subcultural folklore. Urban folklore differs markedly from the stadial and historical oral traditions of the peasants, as well as of the archaic societies. In an urban environment, folklore is ideologically liberated, as the basic ideological needs of urban residents are met in other ways (mass literature, cinema and other performances, media products) that are not directly related to oral traditions. In that case, urban folklore is a new folk literature with all its aspects. This is a change in the paradigm of folklore, a new content and form. In particular, the main issues that determine the emergence of urban folklore in Azerbaijani folklore are characterized by the following: economic hardship, the desire to find a job, a better life, a job in government, the desire of literary figures to be in a literary environment, deportation from Armenia and emigration from Karabakh, etc. Urban folklore has led to many paradigmatic changes. It has left the place of folklore created by face-to-face conversation to online folklore, and the place of verbal folklore to visual and virtual folklore.