Russian Folk-Tales

by Alexander Afanasyev, Leonard Arthur Magnus (Translator)

The stories are not neatly rounded off into consequential and purposive stories. The incidents follow almost haphazard; and at the end, the persons mentioned at the beginning may be forgotten; the stories are often almost as casual as real life. The stories relate experiences in succession, attempt no judgment, do not even affirm their own credibility. Things simply happen; our exertions may sometimes be good; we can only be quietly resigned. But, unlike the Arabian Nights, there is no positive fatalism; for that would imply a judgment; a warping of facts to suit a theory. These stories have been translated direct from the Russian of Afanasev; the selection is intended to represent, as completely as possible, the varieties of Russian folk-tale. As far as an analytic language, like modern English, can render so highly inflected a tongue as Russian, the translator has tried to keep strictly to the style and diction of the originals, which are the undoctored traditional stories.

Genres: Folklore, Russia

368 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1916

About the author

Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (Russian: Александр Николаевич Афанасьев) was a Russian folklorist who recorded and published over 600 Russian folktales and fairytales, by far the largest folktale collection by any one man in the world. His first collection was published in eight volumes from 1855-67, earning him the reputation of a Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm.

Born in 1826 in Boguchar, in Voronezh Governate, he grew up in Bobrov, becoming an early reader thanks to the library of his grandfather, a member of the Russian Bible Society. He was educated at the Voronezh gymnasium and from 1844-48 he studied law at the University of Moscow. Despite being a promising student, he did not become a professor, due largely to attacks upon his work by the conservative Minister of National Enlightenment, Count Sergey Uvarov.

Afanasyev worked for thirteen years at the Moscow's Main Archive Directorate under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, during which time he also amassed a huge library and published numerous articles and reviews. In 1862 he was fired from his position, because of his association with philosopher Alexander Herzen. Jobless for a number of years thereafter, he sold his library in order to support his family, eventually finding work as a secretary at the Moscow City Duma and at the Moscow Congress of Justices of the Peace.

Afanasyev wrote a large theoretical work (three volumes of 700 pages each) – "The Poetic Outlook of Slavs about Nature" (Поэтические воззрения славян на природу) – which came out between 1865 and 1869. In 1870 his Русские детские сказки (Russian Children's Fairy Tales) were published. He died in poverty in 1871, at the age of forty-five.

(source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Amalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review on "The Enchanted Tsarévich" pp. 283-86.

"The Enchanted Tsarévich" is a Russian version of "Beauty and the Beast". In The Enchanted Tsarevich, the father is again a merchant with three daughters.

The beast in this tale however has three heads and lookes like a winged snake.

Most of these versions have similarities and differences. However, in all, the father hands over a youngt daughter to some sort of monster, after picking a flower for her in the monster’s garden/paying a debt. In all, the daughter marries the monster in the end. Upon agreeing to marry the monster, he is transformed into a prince in all three versions. This repetition may be the result of the concerns of the day in which the tale arose. At that time, fathers made the decision who they would “give” their daughter to in marriage. Young women frequently had not seen their husbands prior to the wedding and learned to love their husbands in time.