The term
skazcomes from the Russian verb
skazat'(to tell) and such words as
rasskaz(short story) and
skazka(fairy tale). It is also a word used of (traditional or “folk”) oral narratives, and has occasionally been used of works to suggest their origin in terms of such an oral context (as in the full title of Leskov's
Levsha, or “Tale of the squint-eyed, left-handed man from Tula and the steel flea”, 1881). The word has therefore essentially to do with “telling”.
The designation skaz was subsequently adopted by the Formalist school of Russian criticism (in the years just before and just after the Revolution) as a term denoting a type of narrative technique, which emphasizes oral speech, thus invigorating literary discourse (usually first-person) with elements from living
809 words
Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Skaz Narrative". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 June 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1561, accessed 03 October 2024.]