ifteen theme groups. In one of the major generalizing works according to the German national song certain heads are devoted to the heroic ballad, the family ballad, the ballad based on a legend or on the legend, and, at last, the ballad-shvanku, ie the ballad based on comical incident. Already from the given examples of classification of ballads by the thematic principle it is visible that, facilitating systematization of all ballad fund, this principle is of no use for understanding of the main lines of the ballad, its differences from other epic or liriko-epic genres at the heart of which there can also be a tragic or drama conflict. Subjects and plots of ballads are so various that at desire it is possible with the big or smaller basis randomly to allocate any number the ballad of groups.of thematic approach forced scientists to look for other, more essential signs of the ballad. NI Kravtsov concerning Slavic ballads came to the following conclusion: In all versions there is the general: family and personal plots and family and personal aspect of covering of events. It is peculiar to ballads of all times and all people and therefore can be the main, steady sign of the ballad as a genre raquo ;. Really, a family as a public cell, changing, I kept many of the functions and within various public formations. And still NI Kravtsov s formulation suffers from an excessive categoriality. Plots European (including Slavic) folk songs far go beyond the family and personal conflicts. Literary ballads, finding indisputable continuity with national, in general similar classification isn t given in. Therefore, besides subject similarity (that is very important) it is necessary to look for also other signs characterizing the ballad as a genre.many methods of differentiation and definition of ballads by the most perspective known now the evolutionary approach developed in a number of researches Yu.I is. Smirnova. Without rejecting the historical principle formulated by Kravtsov it brings under it a new methodological basis. According to the scientist, first, each folklore work represents some set of options and versions between which there are certain interrelations needing disclosure and studying, and, secondly, each folklore text besides option and the version possesses also the form signs allowing to carry it to a certain genre version raquo ;. The offered approach gives the chance to consider at the same time a form, the contents and type of art fiction of each ballad text and by that the ballad layers allows researchers to be guided more or less freely in centuries-old, to distinguish late texts and their versions from the early. Evolutionary approach to ballads convincingly proves that from the point of view of plots and conflict situations only the most ancient layer of ballads reflecting variety of the kinship and family relations and relations between good and girl is absolutely really isolated. Smirnov calls this group of ballads actually ballads raquo ;. Time of emergence of these ballads in Europe can be defined very approximately in comparison to other genres of folklore. Thus it is important to remember that the oral national tradition in Europe never interrupted and its historically testified forms in some regions take away in the far millennia BCand actually ballads raquo ;, such what they could be at the moment of the initial emergence, didn t reach us because records however early they were, reflect already much later stages of development of a genre, having borne traces of the latest stratifications. Transformation of primary forms of the ballad consisted in strengthening of the lyrical beginning, expansion of a circle of plots, in complication and differentiation of forms. Speaking about art specifics of a folk song on the basis of the texts of the XIII-XVI centuries which reached us, it is possible to state such features of the ballad as dramatic nature of development of a plot, intermittence of the narration concentrating attention on culmination points, dialogue use as a syuzhetoobrazuyushchy factor, application of various forms of the repetition strengthening dramatic nature of a situation, and also the innuendo giving to ballads mystery or even mysteriousness. These features are not surely shown at the same time, along with them there can be also others, ballads peculiar to these or those national forms.of the European ballad at earlier stages is calculated allegedly - not so much on the basis of texts ( which remained only incidentally and fragmentary), how many by means of historical certificates. We will address to some of them.
2. Tradition of the ballad in the history of Europe
of early certificates of a continuity of national song tradition in the history of Europe are served by work of the Roman historian Cornelius Thucydides About an origin of Germans and location of Germany (98 ...
