A folk tale is fraught with many mysteries. Not everything in it is clear to a modern person, and some moments even cause bewilderment. For example, why is Ivan - the protagonist of Russian fairy tales - certainly a fool?
There are people who see this as an occasion for accusations against the Russian people: in his tales, he belittles the mind! The superficiality of this view is obvious. A hero positioned as a “fool” always comes out victorious in the end, which allows one to think: is he really so stupid?
How Ivan the Fool wins
The fabulous Ivan the Fool is far from an epic hero. He has neither strength nor military prowess, and yet he emerges victorious, and for the same reasons that he is "foolish."
So, the plot about a fool falling into a stupid position is very common because he does everything as his mother tells him, not taking into account specific circumstances. Mother taught me to tell people loading grain on a cart: “If you could carry it, don’t carry it, carry it, you shouldn’t transport it!”, And my son took it and said this at a meeting with a funeral procession, for which he was beaten and called a fool. Indeed, what could be dumber than obeying your parents! Any confident young man is convinced of this, and from this point of view the hero really looks like a "fool."
But in another tale, Ivan, for the same reason, is in a winning position. A dying father gives three sons a seemingly meaningless task: to spend three nights on his grave. “Smart” older brothers, sensing danger, “wisely” run away, and only the younger fool remains faithful to his father’s last will, for which he receives wonderful gifts. The moral is obvious: be faithful to centuries-old traditional values, no matter how others relate to this, and you will preserve a kind of “treasure”.
The "stupidity" of this hero has another aspect: an unconventional approach to solving the problems presented by the outside world. Modern psychologists call this quality creativity - a universal ability for creativity, for finding something new. But the new is always perceived through the prism of prejudice, and as a result the hero is provided with the stigma of a "fool." So, in the fairy tale “Ivan the Best and Elena the Beautiful”, the tsarina’s servant receives an impossible task: to sew up a dress from such a thin fabric that it only spreads from the needle. Ivan the Fool comes to the rescue: he throws away the needle and begins to pull the threads with his hands. The maid laughs at him, but he manages to sew up the dress.
Another quality of this hero is kindness. A good person also often does not look very smart in the eyes of others. What could be more stupid than neglecting one’s own interests for the sake of strangers? But it is precisely such tactics that make it possible to acquire valuable allies. So, Emelya, who, though not named Ivan, but also belongs to the type of a fabulous fool, shows compassion. He lets go of the pike, which he could cook and eat, for which he receives gratitude in the form of a magic spell.
So, Ivan the Fool is a kind man, unconventionally thinking and loyal to the values of his ancestors. But only?
