A history of wandering fairy tale stories

The boundless sea of wandering fairy tales, their whimsical combinations, combinations and disintegration century after century inspire scholars to study them. In the book by G.Z. Imaeva the history of fairy tale plots, which typologically combines in literary and folklore fate of trickster, becomes the subject of a special study for the first time. The study covers more than 150 fairy tale variants. The author determines the presence (or absence) of a common layer of fairy tale culture among different peoples in the field of repertoire, style, poetics as a result of their historical development and contacts. The way of a comparative-historical analysis of the plots allows to establish the uniquely original and self-valuable nature of fairy tales; the poetic concreteness of motives, images and vivid pictorial means developed in the fairy tales of different peoples is revealed. The work applies contemporary means and methods of analyzing fairy tales and literary texts, which enable the reader to draw conclusions about the existence of fairy tale plots and their literary treatments, providing solid grounds for making generalizations of a historical-typological and genetic nature. The book may be of interest to folklorists, philologists, literary scholars, and a wide range of fairy tale admirers.