Morphology of the Folktale (Morfologiya Volshebnoy Skazki)

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a prominent Russian philologist and professor at Leningrad University. He was one of the founders of the structural-typological approach to folklore studies, which later found wide application in literary criticism. Propp's works on folklore ('Morphology of the Fairy Tale,' 'Historical Roots of the Fairy Tale,' 'Russian Heroic Epic,' and 'Russian Agrarian Holidays') have become part of the golden fund of 20th-century world scholarship. In his books on fairy tales, Propp rejects traditional approaches to the study of oral folklore, first analyzing the genre's structural elements and then examining its origins. 'Morphology of the Fairy Tale' is his most famous work, first published in 1928. It became one of the most popular studies in the field of folklore studies, still relevant today, and brought its author worldwide fame.