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The article deals with the main provisions of the theory of motive and plot of the outstanding Russian philologist A.N. Veselovsky (1838-1906) in the light of a folk tale. At the archaic stage, as the scientist believed, the composition of the fairy tale obeyed the laws of syncretic consciousness and dualistic worldview, which determined the specifics of not only its existence, but also the logical and semantic basis of the fairy-tale model. With the transition to the religious-historical paradigm of public consciousness, there is a semiotic and morphological reorganization of the plot of the fairy tale. The task is to find out how the scientific method of differentiated study of motive and plot allowed Veselovsky to prove that the operating system of the motive is strongly connected with apperception and suggestion, and the plot - with combination and discourse, that the motive is directly related to fiction, and the plot - to the idea, but at the same time their commonality is expressed by the ideological and artistic concept.

The article highlights the parts of A.N. Veselovsky’s biography that reflect his connections with Western European science, cites the facts from his personal and epistolary communication, and estimates his contribution to the major scientific activities of the second half of the 19th century in the context of perception of such works as Dante and the Symbolic Poeret of Catholicism (1865), Villa Alberti. New Materials for the Characterization of the Literary and Social Breakthrough in the Italian Life of the 14th–15th century (1870), Experiments on the History of the Development of the Christian Legend (1875–1877), From the History of the Novel and the Story (1886, 1888) and others. A.N. Veselovsky sought to expand contacts with Western European scholars to exchange information, new methodologies, and conceptual and theoretical models. He published about 40 articles in foreign languages and contributed to the introduction of Slavic and Byzantine material to the world science, as well as to promoting Russian philology abroad.

The novel Learning to Scream (Rotkäppchen muss weinen, 2009) by Beate Teresa Hanika is addressed to the adolescent reader. This is a novel about growing up, a novelinitiation which main character challenges life circumstances and finds the strength to put an end to the family abuse; from her early childhood, she was sexually abused by her own grandfather, a former Nazi who took part in the World War II, with the tacit consent of her grandmother. Sexual violence of minors in the family, a theme raised by B.T. Hanika was considered tabooed both in society and in juvenile literature up until the 21st century, when juvenile literature declared itself as literature without borders. Modern authors working with social-oriented fiction genres, make their characters experience their own, individual apocalypse, while at the same time, retain the right to the happy ending. Fairy tale techniques and allusions traditionally have created a special aesthetic and psychological climate for children and adolescents. By means of postmodernist literature, B.T. Hanika removes taboos from the grown-up audience topics and tells stories about traumatized childhood to adolescents without traumatizing them.

German settlements in Russia have been known since the ancient times, however larger settlements appeared only after the “Мanifesto” issued by Empress Catherine II. Settling in Volga Region, Novorossiya, Crimea, the Caucasus, and Siberia, German colonists preserved German language, customs, traditions, songs, tales, household items, musical instruments, costumes, and cuisine — all those identity and ethnic codes that tied them to their historical homeland and, at the same time, distinguished them from the neighboring nations. Autonomous and closed character of German settlements in Russia, their long-term isolation from their nation and its cultural and historical core as well as the impossibility of modernization in step with their historical motherland contributed to the preservation of language and elements of the immigrant traditional culture in the alien environment. Vegetation was carried out at the expense of inner resources and those of the neighboring nations leading to the transformation of “the national spirit and manners.” New sub-ethnic group of “Russian Germans” formed a considerable part of the pre-revolutionary Russian population but at the beginning of the 20th century, due to the unfavorable political and military circumstances, the state forced administrative sanctions on German population that led to further destruction of the ethnic area as well as of the cultural, social, and economic conditions necessary for its development. Later, this situation got worse due to the Stalin regime, Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, and general reluctance of the state to preserve this ethnic group in a favorable condition. In the 1990s, Russian Germans massively resettled in Germany. Over the past 20 years, the number of the settlers has decreased by seven times. In Germany, “Russian Germans” faced the question of self-identity. If until the beginning of the 20th century their heritage language had been one of the German dialects, at the end of the century, Russian language and culture have become heritage for Russian Germans. Germans living in Russia today actively integrate with Germany compensating for the loss of their unique identity in the 20th century