UKRAINIAN APOCRYPHAL LEGEND IN THE RECORDS OF OLEXANDRA BILOZERSKA-KULISH

An apocryphal legend is an original genre of non-fairytale folk prose. It was investigated by M. Kostomarov, V. Myloradovych, A. Svydnytskyi, A. Onyshchuk, P. Kulish, P. Chubynskyi, O. Rozdolskyi, I. Franko etc. Oleksandra Bilozerska-Kulish (Hanna Barvinok) has also made a significant contribution to the study of the apocryphal legend. She recorded folk poetry for half a century in Chernihiv Polissya and Poltava region. Folklore material, collected by herself in different periods, served as the basis of her literary work. Oleksandra Bilozerska-Kulish is considered to be the first Ukrainian woman folklorist. However, the samples of the fairy tales and legends, collected by herself, have not been sufficiently studied yet. At the same time the manuscript material, stored in the archives of Hanna Barvinok (Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Chernihiv Literary Memorial Museum-Reserve of Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi), and their array "Folk records of Hanna Barvinok" (1995) shed light on the creative laboratory of the writer-folklorist. The aim of the research is to find unique and widespread in different parts of Ukraine and abroad variants of the apocryphal legend in the little-known records of Oleksandra Bilozerska-Kulish. The object of the article is the apocryphal legends, recorded by Oleksandra Bilozerska-Kulish. The subject of the article is the plot-forming and character features of the apocryphal legends in the records of Oleksandra Bilozerska-Kulish. An attempt to study the author's scientific principle of the reproduction of the "folklore dialect" and the peculiarities of the editorial practice of the folklore material is made in the research. Taking into account previous theoretical developments on the issue of the genesis of the genre, the authors of the article attach the little-known data to the folklore discourse.