V.Y. Propp and C. Lévi-strauss on the myth and folktale

The article contains a textual and historical-philosophical analysis of V.Y. Propp and C. Lévi-Strauss’s debates regarding V.Y. Propp’s book entitled ‘The morphology of the folktale’. This dispute showed the incompatibility of seemingly related morphological and structural analyses of folklore materials and attracted much attention of ethnographers, semiologists and literary historians. According to the hypothesis put forward in this article, the fundamental difference between the two approaches is not their methods, which is usually suggested, but their understanding of the research subject and its boundaries. C. Lévi-Strauss criticized V.Y. Propp’s research model because it does not and cannot include the myth that is primary to the folktale. In his turn, V.Y. Propp reproached structuralism for not ‘seeing’ folktales. While analysing the debates of these scholars, the authors of the article have proved that the relationship of myths and folktales exceeds the scope of ethnography and