Alexander Afanasyev - Russian treasured tales. Forbidden tales of the Russian Empire

Propp sees in folk tales a reminder of totemic initiation rituals. The fairy tale does not describe a system of rituals of any specific stage of culture, but its initiation scenario expresses the ahistorical archetypal behavior of the psyche. In fairy tales there is no exact reminder of any culture: here various historical cycles and cultural styles mix and collide with each other. Here only patterns of behavior have been preserved that could exist in many cultural cycles and at different historical moments.

The typological correspondence between the fairy tale and the initiation rite, established by Propp in his 1946 book, was only just beginning to develop in the mid-70s in studies comparing folklore narratives and rites of “passage”.

29. Folk demonology. Bylichki.

Demonological stories are one of the types of non-fairy-tale prose, including fairy tales and stories; stories about supernatural beings and phenomena. The tales expressed ideas and concepts about supernatural forces, about the intervention of creatures from lower folk demonology. Bylichki - oral stories about goblins, brownies, merman, mermaids, kikimore, bannik, barn, fire snake, living dead/devils and in general about the intervention in human life of creatures from the world of folk religion. They are characterized by the narrator’s firm confidence in the existence of such forces, but unlike former events, the performer may have doubts. Little tales reflect the everyday likes and dislikes of their narrators. The division is made according to characters: about brownies, about goblins, etc.

30. Types of collections of fairy tales. Collection of Afanasyev.

The classification of fairy tales is given based on the research of the Finnish school and in particular A. Aarne, who divided fairy tales into three types - about animals, fairy tales themselves (magic) and anecdotes. Later, jokes were replaced by social and everyday tales. Tales about animals originated in ancient times. They reflected man's attempts to comprehend the laws of the animal world based on life experience. Propp, in the preface to Afanasyev’s collection of fairy tales, divides tales about animals into 1) tales about wild ones (“The Wolf and the Ice-hole”) 2) about wild and domestic ones (“Once upon a time there was a dog”) 3) about humans and wild ones (“The Man and the Bear” ) 4) about domestic animals (“About the Whacked Goat”) 5) about birds and fish (“The Fox and the Crane”) 6) tales about other animals and plants (“Kolobok”). The most important features: animism, anthropomorphism, totemism. In the depiction of animals, there is a desire for typification: the fox is always gray, the hare is cowardly, etc. - all this is the result of anthropomorphism in the explanation of nature. The main purpose of fairy tales about animals is explanatory and educational. They may explain why domesticated animals are domesticated or why a hare changes its skin. On the other hand, fairy tales often contain moral teachings (“The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats”). There are also so-called allegorical satirical tales (“The Fox and the Black Grouse”, in which, before eating the black grouse, the fox forces him to confess). In fairy tales about animals, convention is important, not fantasy. There is no magic in them - otherwise they become magical. The most important compositional feature of SOZH is the stringing of episodes in them - all meetings and actions are repeated many times - these tales are cumulative, i.e. have a chain structure (“Kolobok”, “Teremok”). The dialogues are expressed more strongly than in a fairy tale - various songs, sayings, etc.

Search. mythol. Russian roots fairy tales Integrity of options. Most of his corrections relate to the language and style of the tales. For the first time, folklore texts are presented in variants; some dialectal features of the performers' speech have been preserved; an extensive commentary has been prepared; Where possible, passport information about published texts was introduced. Let us note that from the point of view of modern requirements, not everything in the collection can satisfy us: Afanasyev did not see anything reprehensible in correct stylistic editing or in the creation of consolidated texts.

The collection “Russian Folk Tales” was compiled by A. N. Afanasyev in 1855-1864. For publication, 75 texts were extracted from the archives of the Russian Geographical Society. The remaining materials are collected from various sources. Afanasyev himself recorded no more than 10 fairy tales, mainly from his homeland - the Voronezh province. The largest number of texts belongs to the collection of V. I. Dahl. The largest number of fairy tales are fairy tales: animal tales (1-299), fairy tales (300-749), legendary tales (750-849) and novelistic tales (850-999).

Afanasyev's collection has some shortcomings. He depended on his correspondents, and therefore the quality of the recordings was uneven and varied. The places of occurrence of each fairy tale are not indicated.

RUSSIAN TREATED TALES

Collected by A.N. Afanasyev

“What a shame? Stealing is a shame, but saying nothing, anything is possible.”

("Strange Names").

A few words about this book

Preface by A.N. Afanasyev to the 2nd edition

Shy lady Merchant's wife and clerk

Doggy style

Marriage is a fool

Sowing X...EV

Wonderful pipe

Miracle ointment

Magic ring

Men and master

Good father

Bride without a head

timid bride

Nikola Duplyansky

Husband on balls

A man at a woman's work

Family conversations

Strange names

The soldier will decide

The soldier himself sleeps, and the fuck works

The soldier and the devil

Runaway Soldier

Soldier, man and woman

Soldier and Ukrainian girl

Soldier and Little Russian

The man and the devil

Soldier and pop

Hunter and goblin

Sly woman

Bet

Bishop's response

Laughter and grief

Dobry pop

Pop neighs like a stallion

The priest's family and the farmhand

Pop and farmhand

Pop, priest, priest and farm laborer

Pop and man

Piglet

Cow trial

Male funeral

Greedy pop

The tale of how a priest gave birth to a calf

Spiritual father

Pop and Gypsy

Bring on the heat

The Blind Man's Wife

Pop and trap

Senile verse

Jokes

Bad - not bad

The groom's first meeting with the bride

Two groom brothers

Clever housewife

Woman's tricks

Chatty wife

Mother-in-law and son-in-law are a fool

Pike head

Man, bear, fox and horsefly

Cat and fox

Fox and Hare

Louse and flea

Bear and woman

Sparrow and mare

Dog and woodpecker

Hot gag

P...and ass

Enraged lady

Notes

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THIS BOOK

“Russian Treasured Tales” by A.N. Afanasyev was published in Geneva more than a hundred years ago. They appeared without the name of the publisher, sine anno. On title page, under the title, it was only indicated: “Valaam. Typarian art of the monastic brethren. Year of obscurantism.” And on the counter-title there was a note: “Printed exclusively for archaeologists and bibliophiles in a small number of copies.”

Extremely rare already in the last century, Afanasyev’s book has become almost a phantom these days. Judging by the works of Soviet folklorists, only two or three copies of “Treasured Tales” have been preserved in special departments of the largest libraries in Leningrad and Moscow. The manuscript of Afanasyev's book is in the Leningrad Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences ("Russian folk tales not for publication, Archive, No. R-1, inventory 1, No. 112). The only copy of "Fairy Tales" that belonged to the Paris National Library, disappeared before the First World War. The book is not listed in the catalogs of the British Museum library.

By republishing Afanasyev’s “Treasured Tales,” we hope to acquaint Western and Russian readers with a little-known facet of the Russian imagination - “raunchy”, obscene fairy tales, in which, as the folklorist puts it, “genuine folk speech flows with a living spring, sparkling with all the brilliant and witty sides of the common people.” .

Obscene? Afanasyev did not consider them that way. “They just can’t understand,” he said, “what’s in these folk stories a million times more moral than in sermons full of school rhetoric."

“Russian Treasured Tales” is organically connected with Afanasyev’s collection of fairy tales, which has become a classic. Fairy tales of immodest content, like the tales of the famous collection, were delivered to Afanasyev by the same collectors and contributors: V.I. Dal, P.I. Yakushkin, Voronezh local historian N.I. Vtorov. In both collections we find the same themes, motives, plots, with the only difference being that the satirical arrows of “Treasured Tales” are more poisonous, and the language is in some places quite rude. There is even a case when the first, quite “decent” half of the story is placed in a classic collection, while the other, less modest, is in “Treasured Tales”. We are talking about the story "A Man, a Bear, a Fox and a Horsefly."

There is no need to dwell in detail on why Afanasyev, when publishing “Folk Russian Fairy Tales” (issues 1–8, 1855–1863), was forced to refuse to include that part, which a decade later would be published under the title “Folk Russian Fairy Tales Not for Printing” (the epithet “cherished” appears only in the title of the second and last edition of “Fairy Tales”). Soviet scientist V.P. Anikin explains this refusal this way: “It was impossible to publish anti-popov and anti-lord tales in Russia.” Is it possible to publish - in an uncut and uncleaned form - "Treasured Tales" in Afanasyev's homeland today? We do not find an answer to this from V.P. Anikin.

The question remains open of how immodest fairy tales got abroad. Mark Azadovsky suggests that in the summer of 1860, during his trip to Western Europe, Afanasiev handed them over to Herzen or another emigrant. It is possible that the publisher of Kolokol contributed to the publication of Fairy Tales. Subsequent searches, perhaps, will help illuminate the history of the publication of “Russian Treasured Tales” - a book that stumbled over the obstacles of not only tsarist, but also Soviet censorship.

PREFACE BY A.N.AFANASYEV TO THE 2nd EDITION

"Honny soit, qui mal y pense"

The publication of our cherished fairy tales... is almost a unique phenomenon of its kind. It could easily be that this is precisely why our publication will give rise to all kinds of complaints and outcries, not only against the daring publisher, but also against the people who created such tales in which popular imagination bright paintings and, not at all embarrassed by expressions, she deployed all the strength and all the richness of her humor. Leaving aside all possible complaints against us, we must say that any outcry against the people would be not only injustice, but also an expression of complete ignorance, which for the most part, by the way, is one of the inalienable properties of a flashy pruderie. Our cherished fairy tales are a one-of-a-kind phenomenon, as we said, especially because we do not know of another publication in which genuine folk speech would flow in such a living way in a fairy-tale form, sparkling with all the brilliant and witty sides of the common people.

A fairy tale is an amazing creation of the people; it elevates a person, entertains him, gives him faith in his own strength and in miracles. We become acquainted with this genre of literature, perhaps the most popular and beloved, in childhood, therefore, in the minds of many people, fairy tales are associated with something simple, even primitive, understandable and small child. However, this is a deep misconception. Folk tales are not as simple as they might seem at first glance. This is a multifaceted, deep layer of folk art that carries the wisdom of generations, enclosed in a laconic and unusually figurative form.

The Russian fairy tale is a special genre of folklore; it not only has an entertaining plot and magical heroes, but also the amazing poetry of language, revealing to the reader the world of human feelings and relationships; it affirms kindness and justice, and also introduces Russian culture, wise folk experience, and the native language.

Fairy tales refer to folk art, they do not have an author, but we know the names of the fairy tale researchers who carefully collected and wrote them down. One of the most famous and outstanding collectors of fairy tales was the ethnographer, historian and literary critic A. N. Afanasyev. In 1855–1864 he made the most complete collection fairy tales - “Russian Folk Tales”, which included about 600 texts recorded in different corners Russia. This book has become a model fairy tale literature and a source of inspiration for many Russian writers and poets.

The heterogeneity of fairy tales, the wide range of themes and plots, the variety of motives, characters and methods of conflict resolution make the task genre definition fairy tales are very complex. However there is common feature, inherent in all fairy tales, is a combination of fiction and truth.

Today, there is a generally accepted classification of fairy tales, in which several groups are distinguished: fairy tales, fairy tales about animals, social and everyday (or novelistic) and boring fairy tales. A. N. Afanasyev also singled out the so-called “cherished” fairy tales, known for their erotic content and profanity.

In our collection we included fairy tales about animals and fairy tales - as the most common, vibrant and beloved folk tales.

In fairy tales about animals, fish, animals, birds and even insects act; they talk to each other, quarrel, make peace and get married. However, there are almost no miracles in these fairy tales; their heroes are very real inhabitants of the forests.

Man has long been a part of nature, constantly fighting with it, he at the same time sought protection from it, which is reflected in folklore. When depicting animals, people gave these characters human traits, while at the same time maintaining their real habits and “way of life”. Subsequently, a fable, parable meaning was introduced into many tales about animals.

There are relatively few tales about animals: they occupy a tenth of the fairy tale epic. Main characters: fox, wolf, bear, hare, goat, horse, raven, rooster. The most common characters in fairy tales about animals are the fox and the wolf, who have constant characteristics: the fox is cunning and treacherous, and the wolf is angry, greedy and stupid. For other animal characters, the characteristics are not so sharply defined, they vary from fairy tale to fairy tale.

Reflected in the animal epic human life with all her passions, as well as realistic image human, in particular peasant life. Most fairy tales about animals are distinguished by a simple plot and brevity, but at the same time the plots themselves are unusually diverse. Tales about animals necessarily contain a moral, which, as a rule, is not stated directly, but follows from the content.

The main part of Russian folklore consists of fairy tales - a unique type of adventure oral literature. In these tales we encounter the most incredible inventions, with the spiritualization of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world. These features are characteristic of fairy tales of all peoples of the world. Their heroes perform amazing feats, kill monsters, get living and dead water, free from captivity and save innocents from death; they are endowed with miraculous qualities: they turn into animals, walk along the bottom of the sea, fly through the air. They emerge victorious from all dangers and trials and always achieve what they set out to do. Fantastic, not for anyone similar heroes fairy tales are well known to everyone since childhood: Baba Yaga, Koschey, the Serpent Gorynych, the Frog Princess... And who among us does not sometimes dream of having a flying carpet, a self-assembled tablecloth or a magic ring that makes all wishes come true!

In a Russian fairy tale, the image positive hero is central, the entire interest of the story is focused on his fate. He embodies the popular ideal of beauty, moral strength, kindness, and popular ideas about justice. Numerous dangers, miracles, unexpected trials await the hero, and he is often threatened with death. But everything ends well - this main principle fairy tale, which reflected popular ideas about good and evil, and the heroes became the embodiment of fighters for age-old popular ideals.

The fantastic, magical form of Russian fairy tales reflects descriptions of national life, psychology and folk customs, which gives fairy tales additional cultural value. And the abundance of apt comparisons, epithets, figurative expressions, songs and rhythmic repetitions makes the reader, forgetting about everything, plunge headlong into magical reality.

All peoples of the world have fairy tales. We found it interesting to compare fairy tales that are found in world folklore and trace them national traits, differences and similarities, composition features. Based on the work of famous fairy tale researchers and our own observations, we included in this book comments on some fairy tales with so-called “wandering” plots.

What you see here is not just a collection of fairy tales, but a real chest with gems of folk wisdom, the colors and brilliance of which you can admire endlessly. Over the centuries, these imperishable jewels have taught us to love good and hate evil, inspire us with the heroism and resilience of heroes and can serve as real consolation and entertainment in any life situation.

Birds of Sirina. Popular illustration

Animal Tales

Cat and fox

Once upon a time there was a man; he had a cat, but it was so mischievous that it was a disaster! The guy is tired of him. So the man thought and thought, took the cat, put it in a bag, tied it up and carried it into the forest. He brought it and threw it in the forest: let it disappear! The cat walked and walked and came across a hut in which the forester lived; he climbed into the attic and lies down for himself, and if he wants to eat, he will go through the forest to catch birds and mice, eat his fill and go back to the attic, and he won’t have enough grief!

One day a cat went for a walk, and a fox met him, saw the cat and was surprised:

“I’ve been living in the forest for so many years, but I’ve never seen such an animal.”

She bowed to the cat and asked:

- Tell me, good fellow, who are you, how did you come here - and what should I call you by name?

And the cat threw up his fur and said:

“I was sent to you from the Siberian forests as a mayor, and my name is Kotofey Ivanovich.”

“Oh, Kotofey Ivanovich,” says the fox, “I didn’t know about you, I didn’t know; Well, let's go visit me.

The cat went to the fox; She brought him to her hole and began to treat him to various game, and she herself asked:

- What, Kotofey Ivanovich, are you married or single?

“Single,” says the cat.

- And I, fox, - maiden, marry me.

The cat agreed, and they began to feast and have fun.

The next day the fox went to get supplies so that she and her young husband could have something to live with; and the cat stayed at home.

RUSSIAN FOLK TALES by A. N. AFANASYEV - a fundamental publication, the first in Russian. science code rus. fairy tales (including also Ukrainian and Belarusian fairy tales). First edition in 8 issues. in 1855-63, the most recent scientific. ed. 1984-85 (series "Lit. monuments"). Contains approx. 580 texts various. genre types of Eastern Slav. fairy tales recorded in more than 30 lips. Basis Sat. compiled notes from Afanasyev himself, local amateur collectors, texts from the Rus archive. geogr. association (more than a third), former printed publications, as well as the collection of V. Dahl - approx. 200 texts. Proposed by Afanasyev during the second edition. (1873) classification (fairy tales about animals, fairy tales, novelistic, satirical, anecdotes) retained the practical. meaning to this day. The question of the extent and nature of Afanasyev’s work - ed. over the texts remains open (certainly we can talk about editing the language and style of fairy tales). Sat. caused a great response in science. environment, in lit. criticism. Simultaneously it became for a long time (and to a certain extent remains to this day) the main thing. a source for introducing the general reading public in Russia and abroad to Russian. classic adv. a fairy tale. In 1870 Afanasyev published "Russian Children's Fairy Tales", book. was recognized by the censorship committee as harmful, but she took an honorable place in the circle children's reading, having gone through more than 25 editions. This Sat. served as material for artists: it was illustrated by I. Bilibin, G. Narbut, Yu. Vasnetsov, T. Mavrina and others. Since 1873, N.R.S. has been published in the lane. on plural European languages.
A. N. Afanasyev in 1855-1863. The collection “Russian Folk Tales” is published in eight editions. In the first edition there was no distribution of fairy tales by thematic sections
The second edition of the collection of fairy tales (posthumous) in four books (volumes) was prepared by Afanasyev himself. The tales are divided into thematic sections (tales about animals, fairy tales, short stories, everyday satirical tales, anecdotes), the notes made up the fourth volume, which also included popular folk tales.
Soon after the first edition of Russian Folk Tales, Afanasyev was going to print a lightweight illustrated collection of Russian Children's Fairy Tales for family reading. It included 61 fairy tales: 29 tales about animals, 16 fairy tales and 16 everyday tales from the main collection. However, censorship put all sorts of obstacles to this endeavor and the collection was published only in 1870. The head of the censorship committee and member of the council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, P. A. Vaqar, in a submission to the press department, stated that all departments having educational institutions, that the content of the 24 fairy tales in the children's collection is unacceptable and harmful: “What is not depicted in them, not to mention the main basic idea of ​​almost all these fairy tales, that is, the triumph of cunning aimed at achieving some selfish goal, in some carry personified outrageous ideas, as, for example, in the fairy tale “Truth and Falsehood,” which proves that “it’s hard to live by the truth in the world, what kind of truth can you get in Siberia these days?”
Negative feedback from censorship led to the fact that the next, second, edition of “Russian Children's Fairy Tales” was published only in 1886. In total, this book went through more than twenty-five editions.
The meaning of the book[edit | edit source text]

About the educational value of collected folk tales(even the main collection), wrote to Afanasyev in 1856-1858. N. A. Elagin (brother of P. V. Kireevsky): “children listen to them most willingly moral stories and stories."
Illustrations from editions of the book “Russian Children's Fairy Tales” were included in the golden fund of Russian painting: the collection was illustrated by I. Ya. Bilibin, Yu. A. Vasnetsov, N. N. Karazin, K. Kuznetsov, A. Kurkin, E. E. Lissner, T. A. Mavrina, R. Narbut, E. D. Polenova, E. Rachev and others.
In his collection, Afanasyev systematized the voluminous material of Russian fairy tales first half of the 19th century century, providing them with extensive scientific commentary. The system adopted by Afanasyev is the first attempt to classify fairy tales in general.

“The Treasured Tale” about a toothy bosom and a pike head
from Afanasyev's collection

Bibliothèque nationale de France

In the 1850s, folklore collector Alexander Afanasyev traveled through the Moscow and Voronezh provinces and recorded fairy tales, songs, proverbs and parables local residents. However, he managed to publish little: like French fabliaux, German Schwanks and Polish facets, Russian fairy tales contained erotic and anticlerical plots, and therefore Afanasyev’s collections were censored.

From the prohibited texts, Afanasyev compiled a collection entitled “Russian Folk Tales Not for Printing” and secretly transported it to Europe. In 1872, many of the texts included in it were published in Geneva, without the name of the compiler, under the title “Russian treasured tales.” The word “treasured” means “protected”, “secret”, “secret”, “holy kept”, and after the publication of “Russian cherished proverbs and sayings” collected by Vladimir Dahl and Pyotr Efremov, and Afanasyev’s “Treasured Tales” it began to be used in as a definition of a corpus of obscene, erotic folklore texts.

In Russia, Afanasyev’s collection was published only in 1991. Arzamas publishes one of the texts included in it.

Pike head

Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman, and they had a daughter, a young girl. She went to harrow the garden; harrowed and harrowed, and they just called her into the hut to eat pancakes. She went, and left the horse completely with the harrow in the garden:
- Let him stand while I toss and turn.
Only their neighbor had a son - a stupid guy. He had long wanted to hook this girl, but he couldn’t figure out how. He saw a horse with a harrow, climbed over the fence, unharnessed the horse and led him into his garden. Although he left the harrow
in the old place, but stuck the shafts through the fence towards him and harnessed the horse again. The girl came and marveled:
- What would it be like - a harrow on one side of the fence, and a horse on the other?
And let's beat your nag with a whip and say:
- What the hell got you! She knew how to get in, know how to get out: well, well, take it out!
And the guy stands, looks and chuckles.
“If you want,” he says, “I’ll help, just give me...
The girl was a thief:
“Perhaps,” she says, and she had in mind an old pike head,
she was lying in the garden with her mouth open. She lifted that head, stuck it in her sleeve
and says:
“I won’t come to you, and you shouldn’t come here either, so that no one will see, but let’s better go through this gap.” Hurry up and put the gag in, and I’ll instruct you.
The guy jerked the gag and stuck it through the tyn, and the girl took the pike's head, opened it and sat it on the bald head. He pulled and he scratched his *** until it bled. He grabbed the gag with his hands and ran home, sat in the corner and kept quiet.
“Oh, her mother,” she thinks to herself, “how painfully her ***** bites!” If only *** healed, otherwise I’ll never ask any girl!
Now the time has come: they decided to marry this guy, they matched him with a neighbor’s girl and married him. They live a day, and another, and a third, they live for a week, another
and the third. The guy is afraid to touch his wife. Now we need to go to my mother-in-law, let's go. The dear young woman says to her husband:
- Listen, dear Danilushka! Why did you get married and what are you doing with me?
don't have it? If you can’t, what was the point of wasting someone else’s life for nothing?
And Danilo told her:
- No, now you won’t deceive me! Your ***** bites. My gag has been hurting for a long time since then, and it was difficult to heal.
“You’re lying,” she says, “I was joking with you at that time, but now
don't be afraid. Go ahead and try it on the road, you’ll love it yourself.
Then the hunt took him, he turned up her hem and said:
“Wait, Varyukha, let me tie your legs, if it starts to bite, I can jump out and leave.”
He untied the reins and twisted her bare thighs. He had a decent instrument, how he pressed Varyukha, how she screamed with good obscenities,
and the horse was young, got scared and started mooing (the sleigh was going here and there), threw the guy out, and Varyukha, with bare thighs, rushed to her mother-in-law’s yard. The mother-in-law looks out the window, sees: it’s her son-in-law’s horse, and she thought, right, it was he who brought beef for the holiday; I went to meet her because it was her daughter.
“Oh, mother,” he shouts, “untie him quickly, no one has seen Pokedov.”
The old woman untied her and asked her what and how.
-Where is your husband?
- Yes, his horse fell out!
So they entered the hut, looked out the window - Danilka was coming, approached the boys who were playing at grandmothers, stopped and looked at them. His mother-in-law sent his eldest daughter for him.
She comes:
- Hello, Danila Ivanovich!
- Great.
- Go to the hut, you’re the only one missing!
- And you have Varvara?
- With us.
“Has her bleeding stopped?”
She spat and left him. His mother-in-law sent his daughter-in-law for him, and this one pleased him.
“Come on, let’s go, Danilushka, the blood has long since subsided.”
She brought him to the hut, and his mother-in-law met him and said:
- Welcome, dear son-in-law!
- And you have Varvara?
- With us.
“Has her bleeding stopped?”
- I stopped a long time ago.
So he pulled out his gag, showed it to his mother-in-law and said:
- Look, mother, this was all sewn in her!
- Well, well, sit down, it's time for lunch.
They sat down and began to drink and eat. When they served scrambled eggs, the fool wanted them all
eat her alone, so he came up with the idea, and deftly pulled out the gag and hit
over his bald head with a spoon and said:
- That was all that was wrong in Varyukha! - and began to stir the scrambled eggs with his spoon.
There’s nothing to do here, everyone climbed out of the table, and he ate the scrambled eggs alone
and began to thank his mother-in-law for the bread and the salt.