The modern theoretical consensus that “all transmission equals transformation” has become an influential axiom in twentieth-century folklore studies and literary theory. From structuralism to performance theory and post-structuralism, the claim has been repeated multiple times: no act of retelling is neutral; every repetition alters its object. Yet this position, while analytically powerful, risks becoming reductive when it forecloses the possibility of meaningful continuity, stylistic fidelity, intentional reconstruction or even instrumental preservation. Against the dominant view that retelling is merely a form of reception, we could argue that the attempted reconstruction, though theoretically contested, retains both epistemological and cultural legitimacy and value.
The transformation thesis emerges most clearly in the shift from
nineteenth-century folkloristics to twentieth-century theory. Early scholars up
to Arnold van Gennep conceived folklore as survivals – remnants of earlier
cultural stages preserved unevenly within modern societies. This view,
associated with evolutionist anthropology, implicitly assumed that tradition
could be transmitted with a degree of stability, even if gradually eroded. However,
the rise of structuralism and later performance theory displaced this model. In
structural anthropology, myth is not a fixed narrative but a system of
relations, endlessly transformed across variants, in dynamic relation with the
real world. Individual tellings are not any more degrading copies of an
original but social instantiations of a generative aesthetic and ethic structure.
The very notion of an “authentic version” becomes theoretically redundant.
This move is reinforced by linguistic anthropology and performance
studies. Folklore is reconceptualized as an event rather than a text or
document, dependent on outside conditions, audience, and situation. Each
performance is unique, shaped by pragmatic conditions and communicative
intentions. Under this paradigm, any attempt to “preserve” folklore as a stable
object from antiquity appears misguided. The act of recording or retelling
necessarily removes the narrative from its performative matrix, thereby
altering its role, function and meaning. Even the most faithful transcription
cannot reproduce gesture, tone, timing, and social interaction. Poststructuralist
thought radicalizes this position further by undermining the very notion of
origin. If meaning is always deferred, if texts are constituted and
reinterpreted through endless chains of difference, then the idea of returning
to an authentic source becomes philosophically untenable and opens up
opportunities for an authoritarian use while the attempts at fidelity remain defined
by language, ideology, and historical context. From this perspective,
“authentic reconstruction” appears as a nostalgic illusion or a desire for
origin that can never be satisfied.
Yet the above described dominant framework has its limitations. Its
central weakness lies in the tendency to collapse all forms of transformation
into equivalence. If every transmission is transformation, then the distinction
between careful reconstruction or vulgar rewriting, recombination of elements
or pastiche becomes analytically invisible. The theory also cannot adequately
account for the observable differences between, for instance, a highly stylized
literary rewriting that imposes modern sensibilities and a philologically
informed retelling that seeks to approximate the features of oral narration.
This is where the notion of reconstruction reenters the discussion. It
does not claim to recover an original in a naïve sense, nor does it deny the
inevitability of mediation. Rather, it posits that within the field of possible
transformations, some are better founded than others. The task is not to
eliminate transformation, an impossible goal, but to improve current
accessibility, intellectual affinity, emotional contact, or simply diversification
through attention to form, motif, rhythm, narrative logic, reader perception
and preparedness, without the necessary imposing of an omnipresent narrator.
One can draw an analogy with translation theory. It is widely accepted
that translation is not neutral and that perfect equivalence is unattainable.
Nevertheless, distinctions are made between more and less faithful
translations, adding also formal, pragmatic or literary criteria. There are
translations that preserve syntactic structure, semantic nuance, and stylistic
tone, and those that freely adapt or domesticate the text. To argue that all
translations are transformations does not entail that all translations are
equally valid or equally distant from their source. Similarly, in the retelling
of folklore, the impossibility of neutrality does not negate the possibility of
fidelity.
Hermeneutic philosophy provides a more balanced framework for
understanding this issue. Interpretation is always situated within a historical
horizon, but this does not preclude the possibility of understanding through
time or exercising an influence. Authenticity, in this sense, is not an
ontological property but turns out to be a mode of relation to tradition – one
characterized by attentiveness, restraint, orientation and responsiveness to heritage.
Furthermore, the dismissal of such reconstruction often overlooks the role of
intentionality and craft. Not all retellings are produced under the same
conditions or with the same aims and results. In certain traditions,
particularly in Eastern Europe, writers have developed highly refined
techniques for reproducing the features of oral narrative. Identification of
invariant functions implicitly supports this claim: if structural constants
exist, then they can, in principle, be preserved across multiple media. These
are not arbitrary choices but the result of sustained engagement and an attempt
to translate tradition.
Critics may argue that such efforts inevitably produce homogenization or
even vulgarization, eliminating the variability that characterizes oral
tradition. This objection is valid to a point. Any act of writing imposes
selection and coherence. However, variability is not the only dimension of
folklore worth preserving. There are also structural and stylistic constants
that can be meaningfully transmitted or even borrowed by other genres like
contemporary fantasy. The loss of performative context could be interpreted as
a change and does not directly entail loss of properties and degradation.
Indeed, without some degree of stabilization, these properties might disappear
entirely from active cultural memory.
Another important consideration is the cultural function of retellings.
In societies where oral tradition has been disrupted by historical dynamics and
convulsive modernization, retellings often serve as mediators between past and
present. They do not function only as a replacement of living tradition but
also compensate for its absence, providing access to narratives that would
otherwise become inaccessible. To dismiss them as a mere degraded reception is
to ignore their sustainable role. They operate not within the original
communicative context but within a new one, addressing different audiences
while maintaining a link with the past and guaranteeing continuity.
The charge of kitsch, self-glorification and exhaustion through commercialization,
often directed at such works, is therefore also too indiscriminate. It fails to
distinguish popular abuse and informed preservation, contextual instrumentality
and superficial imitation. While it is true that some retellings sentimentalize
or distort their sources, others achieve a high degree of artistic and
scholarly integrity, therefore evaluation needs to be case-specific.
