Social Status and Legal Personality of Russian Folk Tales Characters

The paper deals with the problem of human rights reflection in Russian folk tales. The author states that the subject’s status, his right to personal freedom, basic rights and obligations with regard to other individuals, his place in social hierarchy, personal rights, property rights, rights and obligations with regard to state powers, possible ways to defend his rights act as elements of legal personality. The author concludes that Russian folk tales are highly personified: there is always a character who possesses a wide range of personal features and whose description is lively and colorful. Russian fairy tales demonstrate a striking contrast to the archetypes of communality (sobornost) and symphonic personality. The author substantiates a thesis on the well-formed personal origin in Russian fairy tales, which indicates the inclusion of Russian culture (and legal culture, in particular) in pan-European culture. The phenomenon of universal human rights (expressed in modern language and with indulgence for immaturity of this institution at early stages of human development) is reflected in Russian tales to the full. The analysis of the tales’ plots allows the author to argue that social differentiation and the volume of legal personality of characters largely depend on the genre of a fairy tale.