''Russian Fairy Tales'' (, variously translated; English titles include also ''Russian Folk Tales'') is a collection of nearly 600

fairy A fairy (also called fay, fae, fae folk, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Cel ...

and folktales, collected and published by

Alexander Afanasyev Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (; – ) was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer best known for publishing nearly 600 East Slavic and Russian fairy and folk tales, one of the largest collections of folklore in the world. This collection was ...

between 1855 and 1863. The collection contained fairy and folk tales from Ukraine and Belarus alongside Russian stories. In compiling the work, Afanasyev's editing was informed by the German ''

Grimm's Fairy Tales ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'', originally known as the ''Children's and Household Tales'' (, , commonly abbreviated as ''KHM''), is a German collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, Jacob Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm, first publish ...

,'' Slovak tales collected by

Pavol Dobšinský Pavol Dobšinský (16 March 1828 – 22 October 1885) was a Slovak collector of folklore and writer belonging to the period of Romanticism and the Štúr generation. He is perhaps best known for creating the largest and most complete collection o ...

, Božena Němcová's work,

Vuk Karadžić Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...

's Serbian tales, and other Norwegian, French, and Romanian research.

Vladimir Propp Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (; – 22 August 1970) was a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analysed the basic structural elements of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible structural units. Biography Vladimir Propp was ...

drew heavily on this collection for his analyses in his '' Morphology of the Folktale''.

Fairy tales

Some of the tales included in these volumes: * The Death of Koschei the Immortal * Vasilisa the Beautiful * Vasilisa the Priest's Daughter * Father Frost * Sister Alenushka, Brother Ivanushka * The Frog Princess * Vasilii the Unlucky * The White Duck * The Princess Who Never Smiled * Snegurochka, or The Snow Maiden * The Wicked Sisters * The Twelve Dancing Princesses * The Magic Swan Geese * The Feather of Finist the Falcon *

Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" () is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in '' Russian Fairy Tales''. It is Aarne-Thompson type 550, the quest for the golden bird/ firebird. Others of this type include " ...

The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise () is a Russian fairy tale published by author Alexander Afanasyev in his collection of ''Russian Fairy Tales'', numbered 219. The tale features legendary characters Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise. The tale is ...

* The Bold Knight, the Apples of Youth, and the Water of Life *

Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What (, Transliteration, translit. ''Poydi tuda, ne znau kuda, prinesi to, ne znau chto'') is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in ''Narodnye russkie skazki''. Synopsis A royal ...

* The Golden Slipper * The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa * The Armless Maiden * The Gigantic Turnip * Emelya the Simpleton * Dawn, Midnight and Twilight * The Fiend or The Vampire (''Upyr'') * The Lute Player * The Language of the Birds * The Norka * The Maiden Tsar * Sivko-Burko * Donotknow

References

Publications

*, 3 vols, (first edition 1859) **alt link
vol. 1vol. 2vol. 3
;Translations :Extracts of limited selections of stories from the books have been used several times in translation, these include : * * *Alexander Afanasyev. ''Russian Fairy Tales''. Translated by Norbert Guterman. NY: Pantheon, 1973, 672p.
The table of contents is available in the sample

External links

*, lists and descriptions of editions of the work
Русские народные сказки
e-texts of "Russian fairy tales" Collections of fairy tales 1855 books Slavic folklore Slavic fairy tales Belarusian folklore {{Europe-myth-stub