The Culture of happy endings, the basic structure of narration, and Maks Fraj’s "Skazki starogo Vil'nûsa"

ENThe happy ending characterises modern fiction. If the happy ending is not simply viewed as the author’s narrative craftwork, but is viewed as a purposeful function, then, for the happy ending to occur, the plot must be brought to a logical conclusion. This draws attention to what a logical ending of a piece of fiction is and when it can occur. The finding of a basic structure of narration provides the answer. The basic narrative structure represents a logical framework along which the fiction’s plotline runs, if one may call it ‘narrative’. That framework consists of five stages to which the protagonists are subjected — the status quo, the peripety, the new values, the resumption, and the status quo plus. In an abbreviated form, it can also be just three stages (A–P–B). We then have a closer look at Maks Fraj’s seven-volume work Сказки старого Вильнюса [Fairy tales of old Vilnius], the 22 stories in volume five, and herein story № 6, ‘Simonas Daukantas Square’. In conclusion, there is an international cultural practice realised in the stories of volume five so that the 22 Fairy tales can be received regardless of what the reader knows about the cultural details represented or referenced.