Paper short abstract:

The very idea of finding the ultimate source of fairy-tale is utopic; and different answers to the question reveal different cultural heritages of the national scholarships.

Paper long abstract:

While it has seemed that after the Structuralism the question of fairy-tale origins lost importance it had had in 19th century, we are on the contary witnesses of revived interest in the sources of the genre. Answers offered display a surprising diversity from quite opposite methodological standpoints. On one hand, so-called "new genealogical method" claims to discovery of the genre's origin in modern time and in print culture, reviving thus Gesunkeneskulturgut theory; on the other hand, there is a wave of neo-mythological approaches, especially in Slavic folkloristics, relying on Dumézil and Ivanov-Toporov theories. The very idea of finding the ultimate source of fairy-tale is utopic; and different answers to the question reveal different cultural heritages of the national scholarships.