E-mail: arinamozgerina@gmail.com
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Research Curator of Artworks, Union of Artists of Russia
This article examines female images in illustrations to fairy tales from A. N. Afanas’ev’s collection within the context of the transformation of the visual language of Russian book illustration from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The study approaches illustration not as a subsidiary element of the literary text, but as an autonomous artistic statement that generates a distinct interpretation of the folkloric narrative. Central to the analysis is the relationship between two key motifs — salvation and fatal predetermination — and their visual embodiment in representations of fairy-tale heroines.
Based on works by E. D. Polenova, I. Ya. Bilibin, K. Rostov, and N. Goltz, the article traces the evolution of the female image from a fragile, liminal figure embedded within the natural and ornamental rhythms of the fairy tale to a conditional, sign-based, and archetypal embodiment of the feminine principle. Attention is paid to changes in artistic means — composition, line, color, and degrees of conventionality — as indicators of broader cultural and aesthetic shifts of the period.
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Mozgerina A. I. Women’s Images in Nineteenth-Twentieth Century Illustrations to Fairy Tales from A. N. Afanas’ev’s Collection:Between Salvation and Fatal Predetermination. Traditional Culture. 2026. Vol. 27. No. 2. Pp. 56–65. In Russian.