Russian Fairy Tales from the Skazki of Polevoi

Polevoi, P. (Petr), 1839-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesMar 2023

Rating 3.2

Word count: 339K words
Chapters: 34

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Russian Fairy Tales from the Skazki of Polevoi by P. PolevoiAuthor: Polevoi, P. (Petr), 1839-1902,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Dec 20, 2010

Editor's review

This English translation, drawn from Polevoi's collection of Russian folk tales, opens a window for Chinese readers onto Slavic folk narrative. The tales retain the plain rhythm and vivid figures of oral literature, with recurring motifs such as tests of wisdom, turns of fate, and animal transformation; read alongside Western European fairy tales, they reveal similar cultural concerns with good and evil, courage, and cunning. As a public-domain ebook, it is moderate in length and easy to obtain, making it suitable as introductory material for folk literature. It is best read as a cultural specimen rather than a modern children's book: some episodes carry the cruelty and punishment of an older era and should be understood in light of the period in which the book was compiled. Overall, its value lies in providing a comparable and extendable narrative text from another culture, suitable for classroom supplementation, casual reading by those interested in comparative literature, and extensive reading practice for English learners at a manageable length.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in Slavic folk literature and fairy-tale motifs
Supplementary readers for courses in comparative literature or folklore
Intermediate English learners seeking short English texts for extensive reading practice

Not a good fit for

Parents looking for gentle bedtime stories for young children
Readers who accept only modern retellings of fairy tales and are uncomfortable with the feel of older texts

Reading tips

Read two or three tales first to build a feel for the language, then return to compare character types and the logic of reward and punishment.
Keep notes on recurring motifs and set them against fairy tales you already know.
If using the book for English study, retell each tale's plot in two or three sentences after reading rather than checking every word.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for reading aloud to children?

Not recommended for reading aloud directly. The book preserves the punitive and cruel episodes of old folk tales, and some descriptions are too intense for young children. If you want to introduce it to children, select the tales yourself first, or discuss with them afterward why the plot is arranged that way, using it as a doorway into understanding the ideas of an older era.

How difficult is the English?

The text is an early English translation of folk tales, with sentence patterns that carry the rhythm of oral narrative. The vocabulary is not especially difficult, though old-fashioned expressions appear occasionally. Readers with intermediate English proficiency can attempt it; skip unfamiliar words and grasp the main plot rather than reading word by word.

How does it differ from common European fairy tales?

Tests of wisdom, animal transformation, and turns of fate are equally common, but the character arrangements and the ways rewards and punishments are meted out carry Slavic narrative features. Note the tales in which the protagonist prevails through cunning rather than status. Reading them in comparison reveals both the similarities and the differences in how different cultures conceive of courage, good, and evil.

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About the author

Polevoi, P. (Petr), 1839-1902 Author · Russian · 1839–1902

Polevoi, P. (1839–1902), a Russian literary historian and writer, was known for writing that combined literary research with historical narrative. He long engaged in the compilation and criticism of literary history and served as editor of Istoricheskii Vestnik (The Historical Herald), balancing archival scholarship with accessibility for general readers. His works include a history of European literature and several historical novels; he could both trace the broad development of literature systematically and portray characters and the atmosphere of an era through historical settings. The library holds one work by him, Russian Fairy Tales from the Skazki of Polevoi, which draws on the folk-tale collection “Skazki” and reflects his attention to, and editorial work on, the Russian folk narrative tradition. Overall, his writing combines scholarly rigor with readability for ordinary readers, giving him a place in the transmission of Russian historical literature and folk tales. Because public information is limited, details of his life and the full scope of his works remain to be further examined.