Aleksandr Nikolaevich Afanasev

Afanas’ev, Aleksandr Nikolaevich 

Born July 11 (23), 1826, in Boguchar, Voronezh Province; died Sept. 23 (Oct. 5), 1871. Russian historian and scholar in the field of literature and folklore.

Afanas’ev graduated from the law department of Moscow University. He wrote Russian Satirical Journals in the Years 1769–1774 (1859) and articles on N. I. Novikov, D. I. Fonvi-zin, and A. D. Kantemir. His work The Slavs’ Poetic View of Nature (vols. 1–3,1866–69) was based on the principles of the mythological school. One of Afanas’ev’s greatest contributions was the compilation of the collection Russian Popular Fairy Tales (issues 1–8, 1855–64), which includes about 600 texts. The collection Russian Popular Legends (1859) was banned by the censor until 1914. Afanas’ev’s collection Beloved Fairy Tales, published anonymously in Geneva in the 1860’s, includes fairy tales satirizing landowners and the clergy.

WORKS

Narodnye russkie skazki, vols. 1–3. Preparation of text, foreword, and annotations by V. Ia. Propp. Moscow, 1957.

REFERENCES

Pypin, A. N. Istoriia russkoi etnografii, vol. 2. St. Petersburg, 1891. Pages 350–74.
Dobroliubov, N. A. “Narodnye russkie skazki” (review). Sobr. soch. ν 9 tt., vol. 3. Moscow, 1962.
Azadovskii, M. K. Istoriia russkoi fol’kloristiki. Moscow, 1958.