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Cover: Viktor M. Vasnetsov, Copyright in the Public Domain. Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, Copyright in the Public Domain. Viktor M. Vasnetsov, Copyright in the Public Domain.
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ISBN: 978-1-62661-362-1 (pbk)/ 978-1-62661-363-8 (br) Contents
Preface vii By Thomas J. Garza
INTRODUCTION: ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN FOLKTALE 1
Th e Russian Magical World 3 By Cherry Gilchrist
STRUCTURAL APPROACHES: THE FORM OF THE FOLKTALE 13
Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity 15 By Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson
On the Boundary Between Studies of Folklore and Literature 25 By Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson
Fairy Tale Transformations 27 By Vladimir Propp
PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES: MEANING AND MIND IN THE TALES 43
A Method of Psychological Interpretation 45 By Marie-Louise von Franz FEMINIST APPROACHES: THE ROLES OF FEMALE FIGURES IN THE TALES 49
Feminist Approaches to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales 51 By Kay F. Stone
Go! Be a Beast: Beauty and the Beast II 57 By Marina Warner
Th e Mirror Broken: Women’s Autobiography and Fairy Tales 69 By Elizabeth Wanning Harries
SOCIO-POLITICAL APPROACHES: AGENDAS BEHIND THE TALES 79
Snegứrochka, Th e Snow Maiden: A Legend of Springtide 81 By Nikolay Ostrovsky; trans. by Frederick Martens
Marxists and the Illumination of Folk and Fairy Tales 111 By Jack Zipes
Who’s Afraid of the Brothers Grimm?: Socialization and Politicization through Fairy Tales 117 By Jack Zipes
Once Upon a Time Beyond Disney: Contemporary Fairy-Tale Films for Children 135 By Jack Zipes
Envy: If the Slipper Fits … 147 By Sheldon Cashdan
Sadko Libretto (Summary) 161 By N. Rimsky-Korsakov
THE RUSSIAN LITERARY FAIRY TALE 163
Erotic Russian Tales of Old Russia 165 By Aleksandr Afanas’ev; trans. by Yury Perkov Fairy-Tale Discourse: Towards a Social History of the Genre 169 By Jack Zipes
Tzarevich Ivan, the Glowing Bird and the Grey Wolf 179 By Vasily Zhukovsky
Tsar Saltan 187 By Aleksandr Pushkin; trans. by Walter Arndt
Th e Tale of the Golden Cockerel 211 By Aleksandr Pushkin
Th e Viy 217 By Nikolai Gogol
Out of Th eir Minds: Th e Fantasy Worlds of Viktor Vasnetsov and Ivan Bilibin 239 By David Jackson
Th e Story of Ivan the Fool 253 By Leo Tolstoy
MODERN VOICES IN RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES 271
Date with a Bird 273 By Tatyana Tolstaya; trans. by Antonina W. Bouis
Th e Princess with Lily-White Feet 281 By Ludmilla Petrushevskaya; trans. by Jane Taubman Preface
By Thomas J. Garza
airy tales seem to be so familiar and accessible to adult readers perhaps because, for most of us, they F have been part of our lives since childhood. Memories of gingerbread houses, poisoned apples, and giant beanstalks are indelibly imprinted in our collective imaginations. Contemporary popular culture, too, has contributed to keeping the genre and the tales themselves alive and relevant in the 21st century, with films like Enchanted (2004), Ella Enchanted (2007), Tangled (2010), Puss in Boots (2011), and Mirror, Mirror (2012), as well as television programs like “Grimm” and “Once upon a Time” filling our minds with retellings of the tales from the folklore tradition. And while many of us may already be familiar with the compilations of classic tales by the Brothers Grimm in Germany, Andrew Lang in Britain, and Charles Perrault in France, fewer readers of folk and fairy tales are familiar with the works assembled by Aleksandr Afanasiev in Russia. Russian fairy tales are many and varied, with subject matter ranging from the familiar (evil stepmoth- ers, magic flying carpets, and dark enchanted forests) to the fantastic (a witch who flies in a pestle, a hump-backed horse, and a snow maiden). As much of Russia relied on the oral tradition to relate stories until the 20th century, the total number of Russian tales is one of the largest in Western literature. Afanasiev alone assembled over six hundred tales in his multi-volume collection in the 1860s. Many of these tales became known the world over not simply as fairy tales, but as classical works of Russian opera and ballet, as some the great classical composers, including Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, and Stravinsky, all created memorable works of music, song, and dance – compositions based on the themes and characters of Russian fairy tales. This volume of readings, The Russian Fairy Tale, aims to help the reader of Russian folk and fairy tales better understand and appreciate the cultural and literary significance of these works. It is intended to
Preface | vii viii | The Russian Fairy Tale be used in conjunction with an available collection of Russian tales, such as Jack Haney’s An Anthology of Russian Folktales (M.E. Sharpe 2009), W.R.S. Ralston’s Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore (Kennsinger 2010), or Norbert Guterman’s translations of Afanasiev’s tales, Russian Fairy Tales (Pantheon 1976). Any of these collections can serve as the source of the tales that are discussed and ana- lyzed in this volume. The Russian Fairy Tale brings together a unique collection of articles and perspectives of scholars and contributors who examine fairy tales from particular critical vantages or methodologies. Four different methodologies are represented in the volume: structuralist, psychological, feminist, and socio-political. Each of these approaches provides the reader with a different lens through which the tales might be examined and enjoyed. Structuralist approaches, like those described by Jakobson and Propp, examine the actual form of the tale, how it is put together, and how the language, individual characters, and settings move the story forward. Psychological critics, such as Freud and Bettelheim, are interested in the motivations and effects of characters’ actions and environments on each other, while a feminist reading, like that of Stone or Warner, might reveal underlying issues of gender and the construction of female characters and bodies in the tales. Finally, Zipes’ and Cashdan’s socio-political readings of a tale allow the reader to uncover structures of power and subordination within it and between its characters. It is hoped that these various methodologies will assist the reader to uncover even more meaning and relevance in these beloved classic stories, while maintaining their integrity as cultural and literary works. The volume also contains a number of literary fairy tales written by some of the greatest writers of Russia’s Golden Age of Literature, including Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Gogol, and Ostrovsky. Several of these works take the original simple tales from the oral tradition and reimagine them in lyric verse appro- priate to the era. Others create completely new works of literature, complete with new characters and situation, but based on and replicating the tropes and conventions of the genre. The twentieth century is also represented by the modern fairy tale compositions of Tolstaya and Petrushevskaya. These tales demonstrate the enduring importance of the original folk and fairy tales as they occupy a place among Russia’s greatest works of prose and poetry. It is hoped that after becoming more familiar with Russian tales and the various ways available to examine and discuss them, readers will begin to revisit and reassess some of the texts and films already familiar to them, and be able to recognize the Russian sources that inspired them. Once familiar with the Russian tales, it is easy to see how so many of Disney’s classic animations, for example, were in- spired by the Russian tales. Viewers of Fantasia will immediately see the Russian inspiration for the scene to Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” as well as for the scarlet flower in Beauty and the Beast. Knowledge of the Russian tales will only serve to broaden and enrich ones established base of tales already known in English or another language. And so, with the Russian texts, we begin not with “Once upon a time,” but with “Zhili, byli …,” “There once lived, there once was …” With those words, we enter the thrice tenth kingdom and meet the third prince, Ivan Tsarevich, Baba Yaga, Koshchey the Deathless, and the grey wolf. These are the places and characters of the Russian fairy tale. These tales will carry the reader into the enchanted and magical Land of the Firebird, a place where not everyone lives happily ever after, but where everyone will live on in our memories forever. —TJG Austin, Texas