KOMI EXPERT IN FOLKLORE YURIY GERASIMOVICH ROCHEV

It would be difficult to present history of the Komi folklore studies without the name of the discoverer of Komi children’s folklore Yuriy Rochev (1936–1995). The 7th of March 2016 would marked his 80th anniversary. PhD in folklore studies, Yu. G. Rochev has made a great contribution to recording, publication, studying and promoting of Komi folklore. In his PhD thesis on the Komi children’s folklore Yu. Rochev systematized disjoint materials and revealed thematic, figurative and composition features for the first time. Further on the researcher considered children’s games as well as genre specifics and classification fairy tales and prose oral narratives, performed among the Komi, improvisation and variability of folk lyrics. He studied folklore interrelations of the Komi with their neighbors —  the Russians, the Nenets, the Khanty and the Mansi, as well as use of folklore in literature works of the Komi writers. Besides, the scholar has started studies of children’s literature of the Komi, having revealed its formation and development from the middle of 19th century up to the 1970s. He prepared several folklore collections and collective monographs, over130 papers are published. A personal fund of Yu. G. Rochev in the archive of the Komi scientific center of the Uralic Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been established in honor of his special merits in the field of Komi philological scholarship.