The article examines the phenomenon of the enduring popularity of the songs of the rock band "Korol i Shut" ("The King and the Jester") among children. Although the band's work is traditionally classified as punk rock and the lyrics are replete with "scary" stories about dead men, goblins, and werewolves, children easily remember and sing them. The purpose of the study is to identify the reasons for this phenomenon by analyzing the formal features of Andrey Knyazev's poetry (the band's primary lyricist) in comparison with the commandments for children's poets formulated by Korney Chukovsky in his book "From Two to Five". The material includes the most famous compositions from the album "Best Songs" (2009), as well as the lyrics of "Lesnik" ("The Forester"), "Medved" ("The Bear"), "Kukla kolduna" ("The Sorcerer's Doll"), "Eli myaso muzhiki" ("The Men Were Eating Meat"), "Pomnyat s gorechyu drevlyane" ("The Drevlyans Remember with Grief"), and "Utoplennik" ("The Drowned Man"). The methodological framework includes literary and versification analysis, the comparative method, and reliance on Chukovsky's theoretical principles. The first part of the work discusses the features of Russian rock poetry as a literary phenomenon – its intertextuality and logocentricity – which are equally inherent in Knyazev's work. The connection of his poetics with folklore (bylichkas, fairy-tale motifs) and the tradition of the absurd (OBERIU) is shown. The second part consistently analyzes the compliance of Knyazev's texts with Chukovsky's eleven commandments. It is revealed that such requirements as orientation toward folk poetry (hyperboles, repetitions, onomatopoeia), graphicality (the ability of the text to be illustrated), musicality, proximity of rhymes and their semantic load, as well as the autonomy of each line, are largely fulfilled in the analyzed works. For example, the song "Lesnik" clearly demonstrates narrative quality and paired rhyming; "Medved" – comedy and an absurd ending; "Pomnyat s gorechyu drevlyane" – the semantic completeness of couplets. At the same time, certain commandments (euphony, avoidance of epithets, preference for trochee, focus on play) are only partially fulfilled or not fulfilled at all, which is explained by the rock-specific nature of Knyazev's poetry, not originally intended for a children's audience. The conclusion states that the poet's intuitive adherence to the basic laws of children's versification (rhythmic clarity, vivid imagery, reliance on folklore) creates the effect of "safe initiation": a child, through a scary tale, experiences an emotional experience and overcomes fear. However, due to complex phonetics, an abundance of "adult" themes, and a lack of playful orientation, Knyazev's poetry cannot be fully classified as children's literature; it represents a hybrid phenomenon, borderline between rock culture and the folk-fairy-tale tradition.

rock poetry; Andrey Knyazev; band "Korol i Shut"; Korney Chukovsky; children's literature; commandments for children's poets; versification; folklore; scary tale; absurdist poetry; intertextuality; logocentricity; imagery; rhyme

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