Russian fairy tale
A Skazka – (Russian: Сказка) (Russian fairy tale or Russian folktale) is a Russian word literally meaning "story", but used to mean fairy tale or a fantasy tale.
Overview
The term can be used in many different forms to determine the type of tale or story being told. A volshebnaya skazka [fairy tale] is considered a magical tale. Skazki o zhivotnykh [tales of animals] are tales about animals, and bytovye skazki [household tales] are tales about everyday life. These variations of skazki give the term more depth, giving it more meaning than just fairy tales.
Similarly to Western European tradition, especially the German collection, published by the Brothers Grimm, Russian folklore started to be collected by scholars and systematically studied in the 19th century. Russian fairy tale & folk tales were cataloged (compiled, grouped, numbered and published) by Alexander Afanasyev in his 1850s Narodnye russkie skazki. His compendium is still referred to by folklore scholars when citing the number of a skazka plot. An exhaustive analysis of the stories describing the stages of their plots and classification of the characters based on their functions was developed later, in the first half of the 20th century by Vladimir Propp.
Writers and collectors
Alexander Pushkin wrote several skazka in the 1820s and 30s :
- 1820 — Ruslan and Ludmila (Russian: Руслан и Людмила, tr. Ruslan i Ludmila}
- 1825 — The Bridegroom (Russian: Жених, tr. Zhenikh), variant of the german tale The Robber Bridegroom
- 1830 — The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda (Russian: Сказка о попе и о работнике его Балде)
- 1830 — The Tale of the She-Bear (Russian: Сказка о медведихе) (unfinished)
- 1831 — The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Russian: Сказка о царе Салтане)
- 1833 — The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish (Russian: Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке)
- 1833 — The Tale of the Dead Tsarevna and of the Seven Bogatyrs (Russian: Сказка о мёртвой царевне и о семи богатырях», tr. Skazka o myortvoy tsarevne i o semi bogatyryakh
- 1834 — The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (Russian: Сказка о золотом петушке)
Between 1855 and 1863, Alexander Afanasyev completed a collection of nearly 600 folk tales and variants in his three volume work entitled Narodnye russkie skazki [National Russian Tales] (For translations see Alexander Afanasyev § Works)