An Anthology Of Russian Folktales

This anthology gathers a broad selection of Russian folktales, legends, and anecdotes, and includes helpful features that make them more accessible and engaging for English-language readers. Editor Jack V. Haney has selected some of the best tales from his seven-volume "Complete Russian Folktale" collection and added examples of anecdotes and the long 'serial tales' told in the far north.The 114 tales included here represent every genre found in the Russian tradition. They date from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries and come from all geographic regions of the Russian-speaking world. The collection is enhanced by a detailed introduction to the folktale and its types, brief introductions to each grouping of tales, head notes with interesting background for individual tales, and a glossary explaining Russian terms.

Enter a world of magic and adventure in this stunning series based on traditional Russian folklore. Collected into a beautiful new paperback edition for the first time! Alexander Utkin's Gamayun Tales are fresh and modern adaptations of familiar Russian folktales, teamed with bold and beautiful illustrations that take inspiration from classical mid-century Disney animation. Jam-packed with stories of magical quests and talking animals, golden chests that turn into palaces and encounters with terrifying Water Spirits, there's no end to the adventure in these books! A great introduction to Slavic folklore for kids who have already read everything on Egyptian and Greek mythology.

Publisher Description

A beautiful illustrated collection of fairy tales about the most iconic and active of Russian magical characters

In the Russian winter, in the depths of the forest, a whole village gathers together by the blazing fire. Then the storyteller arrives and the whole audience listens with bated breath. The award-winning novelist, James Riordan, has collected and translated some of these stories from original sources and retold them for children. Here are stories about flying ships, snow maidens, fire birds, frog princesses, Misha the Bear, Ivan the Fool, and Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch. With evocative pictures by Andrew Breakspeare, this is a book that will transport you into the world of Russian myths and magic.

This book is indeed a collection of Russian folktales, and the principal source for them is the great collection of Afanáśev, a coeval of Rybnikov, Kirěyevski, Sakharov, Bezsonov, and others who all from about 1850 to 1870 laboriously took down from the lips of the peasants of all parts of Russia what they could of the endless store of traditional song, ballad, and folk-tale. Featured titles in this book are Bába Yagá and Zamorýshek, Egóri the Brave and the Gipsy, as well as Márya Moryévna.

A scholarly work that aims to be both broad enough in scope to satisfy upper-division undergraduates studying folk belief and narrative and detailed enough to meet the needs of graduate students in the field. Each of the seven chapters in Part 1 focuses on one aspect of Russian folk belief, such as the pagan background, Christian personages, devils and various other logical categories of the topic. The author's thesis - that Russian folk belief represents a "double faith" whereby Slavic pagan beliefs are overlaid with popular Christianity - is persuasive and has analogies in other cultures. The folk narratives constituting Part 2 are translated and include a wide range of tales, from the briefly anecdotal to the more fully developed narrative, covering the various folk personages and motifs explored in Part 1.