Historical Roots of the Wonder Tale (Istoricheskie Korni Volshebnoy Skazki)

The world of fairy tales is rich and unpredictable. Do we know why each fairy tale is structured the way it is? What is the Far Far Away Kingdom? Who is Baba Yaga really? Why does the hut on chicken legs keep turning? How are the characters' actions connected to ancient rituals and beliefs? Who was the prototype for Ivan the Fool, and is Vasilisa the Beautiful really as kind as we've come to believe? Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp, a distinguished Russian philologist and one of the founders of the structuralist approach to folklore studies, which later found widespread application in literary criticism, will answer all our questions about fairy tales. His book, 'The Historical Roots of the Fairy Tale,' has become one of the most popular and influential studies of folklore and humanities in the 20th century.