Russian skazki

Tue Aug 10 21:40:21 UTC 2010

The snake husband occurs in Russian tales, primarily in a negative form, in which the woman/wife must use magic to drive him off before he sucks her dry and kills her. However, Zelenin also includes a tale similar to the Ukrainian one in his 1915 collection, in which the snake husband is killed by her mother, and the wife becomes a cuckoo to mourn him, also transforming her children by him into animals, so that they (and the humans who see them) will remember (pominat') the dead snake husband.

The beast motif does occur in Russian tales as well, as in the Snotty Goat, to name one. The exact plot varies from Beauty and Beast, but does occur, along with beastly brides like the Frog Princess, and beautiful animal brides and grooms (Swan Maiden/Finist).
*********************************
Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby
Professor of Russian, Folklore, and Linguistics
Director of the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference
Department of Modern and Classical Languages
Division of Russian and Eastern Studies
1055 Patterson Office Tower
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY  40506
(859) 257-1756
j.rouhier at uky.edu
www.uky.edu/~jrouhie
Skype contact name: Jeanmarie Rouhier
________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Alina Israeli [aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 4:00 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Russian skazki

If they are for general readership, I don't think you should look at
the original tales as told by story tellers. The language is far from
literary and the reading is not easy for those who do not do it
professionally. Besides, all of us grew up on tales "v obrabotke",
often by A.N. Tolstoy. Same thing goes for Grimm tales, and Perrault
tales, they are not the "original" tales but their take on them.

A snake-husband does not sound like a Russian tale, although I could
be mistaken. The Beauty and the Beast motive (and the related issue
of incest) does not appear in Russian folklore to my knowledge
(Alen'kij cvetochek is by Aksakov), and the snake-husband seems to be
a variation on the beast (although I don't know the whole tale of
course, so I could be mistaken).

AI

On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:39 PM, Robert Chandler wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am compiling a collection of  Russian Magic Tales for Penguin
> Classics,
> for a general readership.  I do not intend to be strict with regard to
> genres, and I shall be including both narodnye and avtorskie skazki.
>
> I have decided which avtorskie skazki to include and I have a fair
> idea of
> what I shall include from Afanasyev.  But I have read very little
> indeed of
> the other collections – Onchukov, Kupryanikha, etc.
>
>
> I also have a more specific question.  Natalie Kononenko summarizes a
> wonderful Ukrainian version of the Snake Husband on pages 27-29 of her
> Slavic Folklore Handbook.  It ends tragically, with the heroine
> turning
> herself into a cuckoo so she can forever lament her murdered snake-
> husband.
> Does anyone know where I can find a Russian version of this?
>

Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387  fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------