https:/orcid//org/0000-0002-0634-706X
E-mail: alyzlova@mail.ru
Tel.: +7 (814) 278-44-96
11, Pushkinskaya str., Petrozavodsk, 185910, Russian Federation
PhD in Philological Sciences, Senior Researcher, Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History, Karelian Scholarly Center, Russian Academy of Sciences
Svetlana V. Podrezova
https:/orcid//org/0000-0002-8885-4670
E-mail: podrezova@yandex.ru
Tel.: +7 (812) 328-19-01
4, Makarova emb., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
PhD in Art Studies, Senior Researcher, Institute of Russian Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkinskii Dom)
A. S. Lyzlova’s research was supported by the federal budget for the implementation of a state project by the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
S. V. Podrezova’s work was supported by the federal budget for the implementation of a state project by the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskij House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
This article is dedicated to the collection “Russian Folk Tales” by A. N. Afanas’ev, whose two hundredth anniversary is celebrated in 2026. Despite the fame of this major collection of fairy tales, a number of controversial issues remain concerning the idea for it as well as the process of its creation. Based on documents the authors discovered, including letters and protocols, they provide significant clarification of the history of the first edition and confirm the previously stated assumption that the initiative for the publication came from Afanas’ev, with the support of N. I. Nadezhdin, Chairman of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Geographical Society, and D. K. Kavelin, Afanas’ev’s teacher and friend, and full member of the Russian Geographical Society. The transfer of materials occurred in several stages, beginning in April 1854, and the preparation of the first volume took just over six months. Afanas’ev’s collection is distinguished by its scholarly approach, which consists of systematizing the materials according to a narrative principle which Afanas’ev adopted from the beginning, planning for a large anthology. For the first time, the authors identify several sources in the Scholarly Archive of the Russian Geographical Society that Afanas’ev consulted in preparing his collection
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