The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales

• The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
• About
• Get help in the Literature Group

Afanasyev, Aleksandr

Afanasyev, Aleksandr (1826–71),
Russian folklorist. Born in a provincial Russian town, he studied law at Moscow University, worked in state archives, and published numerous essays on Russian history and culture. From the 1850s his attention shifted towards Slavic mythology, and he started collecting and publishing Russian folklore. From 1855 to 1863 he published his world‐famous collection Russian Fairy Tales, in eight volumes, along with Russian Folk Legends in 1859 and Russian Fairy Tales for Children in 1870. Besides fairy tales, Afanasyev collected folk songs, proverbs, and parables. His major scholarly work, The Poetic Views of Slavic Peoples on Nature, was published in three volumes in 1865–9.

The significance of Afanasyev's contribution to the study of folklore is primarily his systematic collection, description, and classification of material. His Russian Fairy Tales, including 600...

[The entire page is 1146 words long]

Oxford University Press Titles

• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology
• The Oxford Dictionary of Economics
• The Oxford Companion to American Literature
• The Oxford Companion to American Military History
• The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
• The Oxford Companion to English Literature
• The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
• The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
• The Oxford Dictionary of Plays
• The Oxford Dictionary of Art
• Oxford Dictionary of Sociology
• Oxford Dictionary of World History
• Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology