Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (11 July, 1826 – 23 October, 1871) was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
folkloristFolkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics...
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 GrimmThe Brothers Grimm , Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics who were best known for publishing collections of folk tales and fairy tales and for their work in linguistics, relating to how the sounds in words shift over time .They are among the best known story...
.
He was educated at a gymnasium in
VoronezhVoronezh is a large city in southwestern Russia, not far from Ukraine. It is located either side of the Voronezh River, twelve kilometers away from where it flows into the Don. Voronezh is the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast...
and studied law at Moscow university , in which he attended the lectures of
Konstantin KavelinKonstantin Dmitrievich Kavelin was a Russian historian, jurist, and sociologist, sometimes called the chief architect of early Russian liberalism....
and
Timofey GranovskyTimofey Nikolayevich Granovsky was a founder of mediaeval studies in the Russian Empire.Granovsky was born in Oryol, Russia. He studied at the universities of Moscow and Berlin, where he was profoundly influenced by Hegelian ideas of Leopold von Ranke and Friedrich Karl von Savigny...
.
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (11 July, 1826 – 23 October, 1871) was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
folkloristFolkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics...
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 GrimmThe Brothers Grimm , Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics who were best known for publishing collections of folk tales and fairy tales and for their work in linguistics, relating to how the sounds in words shift over time .They are among the best known story...
.
Life
He was educated at a gymnasium in
VoronezhVoronezh is a large city in southwestern Russia, not far from Ukraine. It is located either side of the Voronezh River, twelve kilometers away from where it flows into the Don. Voronezh is the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast...
and studied law at Moscow university , in which he attended the lectures of
Konstantin KavelinKonstantin Dmitrievich Kavelin was a Russian historian, jurist, and sociologist, sometimes called the chief architect of early Russian liberalism....
and
Timofey GranovskyTimofey Nikolayevich Granovsky was a founder of mediaeval studies in the Russian Empire.Granovsky was born in Oryol, Russia. He studied at the universities of Moscow and Berlin, where he was profoundly influenced by Hegelian ideas of Leopold von Ranke and Friedrich Karl von Savigny...
. His burgeoning career as a professor of history was cut short by denunciation of his work on the part of
Sergey UvarovCount Sergey Semionovich Uvarov was a Russian classical scholar best remembered as an influential imperial statesman....
. He then turned his attention to journalism and brought out a series of articles about leading personalities of the literary life of the previous century, including
Nikolay NovikovNikolay Ivanovich Novikov was a Russian writer and philanthropist most representative of his country's Enlightenment. Frequently considered to be the first Russian journalist, he aimed at advancing the cultural and educational level of the Russian public.Novikov belonged to the first generation...
,
Denis FonvizinDenis Ivanovich Fonvizin is a playwright of the Russian Enlightenment whose plays are still staged today. His main works are two satirical comedies which mock contemporary Russian gentry.- Life :...
, and Antiokh Kantemir.
Censured by the authorities for his contacts with Herzen and suffering from
tuberculosisTuberculosis is a common and often deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria...
, Afanasyev ended his life in penury, forced to sell his library to enable himself to eat. He died in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
aged 45.
Work
Afanasyev collected many Russian folk tales throughout the course of his career. He is said to have become acquainted with folktales from local women in his home town of
BobrovBobrov , or Bobrova is a Russian last name and may refer to:-People:*Alexander Bobrov , Russian surgeon*Fyodor Bobrov , Soviet army officer and Hero of the Soviet Union...
. He genuinely hoped that the revival of the native Russian fairy tales would promote the triumph of the Russian language over the
French languageFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
, which had been adopted by the Russian aristocracy.
It was in the 1850s that Afanasiev found his vocation in folklore studies. His first scholarly articles -
The Wizards and Witches,
Sorcery in the Ancient Rus,
Pagan Legends about the BuyanIn Russian folklore, Buyan is described as a mysterious island in the ocean with an ability to appear and disappear. Three brothers – Northern, Western, and Eastern Winds – live there. A lot of strange things are said to happen on this island...
Island - drew heavily upon the so-called Mythological school that treated folklore as a mine of information for the study of more ancient pagan mythology. His definitive work on the subject -
The Poetic Outlook on Nature by the Slavs - was published in three volumes between 1865 and 1869. In such an interpretation, he regarded the fairy tale
Vasilissa the BeautifulVasilisa the Beautiful is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.Another of the many versions of the tale also appears in A Book of Enchantments and Curses , by Ruth Manning-Sanders.Aleksandr Rou made this fairy tale into a film, Vasilisa the Beautiful in...
as depicting the conflict between the sunlight (Vasilissa), the storm (her stepmother), and dark clouds (her stepsisters).
In the course of his studies of the Russian folklore Afanasyev amassed a collection of more than 600 Russian folktales - some of them contributed by Vladimir Dahl, others taken from the archives of the
Russian Geographical SocietyThe Russian Geographical Society is a learned society, founded on 6 August, 1845 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Among its notable members were Kozma Spassky-Avtonomov, Aleksandr Kolchak and Maia Berzina...
and grouped by Afanasiev according to their themes, imagery, and style. He owes his prominent place in the history of Slavonic philology chiefly to
Narodnye russkie skazkiNarodnye russkie skazki , is a collection of Russian fairy tales, collected by Alexander Afanasyev and published by him between 1855 and 1863...
(Russian Fairy Tales), eight volumes modelled on the famous collection of the
Brothers GrimmThe Brothers Grimm , Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics who were best known for publishing collections of folk tales and fairy tales and for their work in linguistics, relating to how the sounds in words shift over time .They are among the best known story...
and published between 1855 and 1863.
Afanasyev edited several other compilations which included:
Russian Fairy Tales for Children comprising a set of animal, magic and humorous tales from his collection that were suitable to children;
Russian Folk Legends which was banned due to the harsh censorship in Tsarist Russia (the church thought the collection was blasphemous); and
Russian Forbidden Tales, an assortment of unprintable tales from Russia that had to be published in Switzerland anonymously. Their obscene and anticlerical subject matter made their publication in Imperial Russia unthinkable.
Significance
Prior to Afanasyev's works in the 1850s, only a few attempts had ever been made to record or study the folk beliefs of peasant Russia. Though a written Russian language (Church Slavonic) had existed since the 10th century, it was used almost solely by the church and only for parochial written works. It was not until the 18th and 19th centuries that a sizable body of secular literature developed in the vernacular Russian. Thus, Afanasyev's collections made a highly valuable contribution to the dissemination and legitimization of Russian culture and folk belief. The influence of these folk tales can be seen in the works of many writers and composers, notably Rimsky-Korsakov (
SadkoSadko is an opera in seven scenes by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto was written by the composer, with assistance from Vladimir Belsky, Vladimir Stasov, and others. Rimsky-Korsakov was first inspired by the bīlina of Sadko in 1867, when he completed a tone poem on the subject, his Op. 5...
, The Snow MaidenThe Snow Maiden–A Spring Fairy Tale is an opera in four acts with a prologue by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composed during 1880-1881...
) and Stravinsky (
The FirebirdThe Firebird is a 1910 ballet by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
, Petrushka, and L'Histoire du Soldat).
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