Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics) Read Online Free

following him down the furrow he was ploughing.
      9 .     Propp,
ibid
., p. 69 (translation adapted by R.C.).
      10 .   A longer version of this serves as an introduction to a forthcoming collection of tales about Baba Yaga: Sibelan Forrester, Helena Goscilo and Martin Skoro,
Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Folklore
.
      11 .   Sokolov,
Russky fol’klor
, pp. 306–7.
      12 .   The American Slavist Linda Ivanits writes in the preface to her excellent
Russian Folk Belief
that this mini-encyclopaedia of Russian folklore began as a set of background notes for the students on her Dostoevsky course.
      13 .   Though Angela Livingstone’s translation of
The Ratcatcher
(Tsvetaeva’s retelling of the Pied Piper legend) is one of the finest translations into English of any Russian poetry.

PART ONE

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin
    (1799–1837)
    Aleksandr Pushkin composed the first significant works in a great variety of literary genres. He was also the first Russian poet to pay serious attention to the folktale or
skazka
.
    Our first clear evidence of Pushkin’s interest in folklore is from his period in exile in Mikhailovskoye, his mother’s family estate in northern Russia. The person he saw most during these two years of isolation was Arina Rodionovna
,
a household serf who had once been his nurse and who always remained something of a mother to him. In 1824, in a letter to his brother Lev, Pushkin described how in the evenings he would listen to Arina Rodionovna telling folktales: ‘I thus compensate for the shortcomings in my cursed upbringing. How charming these tales are! Each one is a whole poem …’
1
According to Jack Haney, the versions of these tales that Pushkin recorded are ‘the oldest surviving versions of tales in Russian taken down from popular storytellers in something akin to the popular language’.
2
These versions are concise summaries rather than transcripts, but Pushkin reproduces both the tales’ rhythmic structure and the vividness of the language. Pushkin’s grasp of the language of folk poetry and folktale seems to have been nearly perfect; he once gave Pyotr Kireyevsky (Vasily Zhukovsky’s great-nephew) a file containing his own imitations of folksongs together with genuine folksongs that he had transcribed, challenging Kireyevsky to figure out which were which. Kireyevsky – an acknowledged authority in this field – was unable to do this.
    Pushkin’s attitude towards folk literature was respectful. He did not see it merely as a source of raw material to exploit, but he seems to have understood that a verbatim transcription isnot always enough to convey its power and vitality. As if to compensate for the loss of the immediacy of living speech, he composed all his own
skazki
in verse, and their rhythmic energy is one of their most striking features. Pushkin’s
skazki
(the Russian word can be applied both to true folktales and to literary adaptations) have always been popular with children, and illustrated editions continue to be published in large print-runs. They have also inspired paintings and provided librettos for operas. Rimsky-Korsakov composed operas based on ‘The Tale of Tsar Saltan’ and ‘The Golden Cockerel’, and Shostakovich wrote the music for a never-completed cartoon film based on ‘A Tale about a Priest and his Servant Balda’.
    Pushkin seldom, if ever, repeats himself, and his six
skazki
differ greatly from one another. For this collection I have chosen the two that are most obviously Russian in both style and content. ‘A Tale about a Priest and his Servant Balda’ is based on one of the tales Pushkin recorded from Arina Rodionovna. The deftness with which he reproduces folktale rhythms, images and turns of phrase is remarkable; many of his most brilliant inventions are now often taken for genuine traditional sayings. Pushkin wrote this
skazka
in September 1830, during the first of his astonishingly creative ‘Boldino