Fairy-tale heroes of Russian fairy tales: names and descriptions. Fairy-tale characters of Russian folk literature Folk tales where the main character is a girl

15.06.2019

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fairy tale names

fairy tale names- these are the names of the heroes of fairy tales beloved since childhood. Behind every fabulous name stands an image, character, fate. People remember the fairy tales they read in childhood all their lives, and they keep books with their favorite fairy tales for their children.

fairy tale names

Akella

Alyonushka

Alesha Popovich

baba yaga

Bagheera

Baloo

Barmaley

Baron Munchausen

Pinocchio

Vasilisa Mikulishna

Vasilisa the Beautiful

Barbara-beauty

Winnie the Pooh

Ugly duck

Gerda

Danila-master

Father Frost

Grandfather Mazai

Nikitich

Dr. Aibolit

Duremar

Thumbelina

Elena the beautiful

Elena the Wise

Zhiharka

goldilocks

Dragon

Cinderella

Ivan the Fool

Ivan Tsarevich

Ilya Muromets

Karabas Barabas

Carlson

Koschei the Immortal

Kolobok

The Little Humpbacked Horse

King Thrushbeard

Cat Basilio

Cat Leopold

Cat Matroskin

Purring cat

Puss in Boots

Little Red Riding Hood

Crocodile Gena

Hen Ryaba

fox alice

Luton

Malvina

Thumb boy

Mowgli

Mickey Mouse

Moidodyr

Marya the mistress

Marya Marevna

Morozko

chirping fly

Dunno

Nikita Kozhemyaka

Olle Lukoye

Papa Carlo

Pippi Longstocking

Cockerel-Golden Scallop

Princess on the Pea

Postman Pechkin

Pierrot

Prospero

bee maya

Piglet

Mermaid

Ruslan and Ludmila

Sadko

Svetogor-bogatyr

gray neck

silver hoof

Sivka-Burka-Veshchaya Kaurka

Sineglazka

scrooge

Snow Maiden

The Snow Queen

Blue Beard

sleeping Beauty

nightingale the robber

Suok

Three little pigs - Nif-nif, Naf-naf and Nuf-nuf

Tugarin snake

Fedot Sagittarius

Finist-clear falcon

Foca of all trades dock

Mistress of Copper Mountain

Brave little tailor

Swan Princess

Princess Frog

Princess Nesmeyana

Tsar-Pea

King Dodon

Tsar Saltan

Cheburashka

Turtle Tortilla

Chernavka

Chernomor

Chippolino

Miracle Yudo

Shamakhan queen

Shapoklyak

sherkhan

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fairy tale names

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The characters invented in Russia are symbols of the childhood of each of us, while in different countries of the world they are perceived in a completely different way. For example, if in Russian mythology Baba Yaga is evil spirits, then among the Scandinavians a similar character is the goddess of the kingdom of the dead, Hel.

Female images: "my light, mirror, tell me ..."

Vasilisa the Wise, Elena the Beautiful, Mary the Artisan, the Frog Princess, the Snow Maiden, Alyonushka are female images that possessed not only stunning female logic, but also kindness, wisdom, beauty, sincerity. The brightest of them are:

1 A fragile, little girl, Santa Claus's helper is a favorite New Year's guest, a role model for naughty children. From the middle of the 19th century, the image of a little granddaughter was replaced by a young beauty, with an obligatory kokoshnik or a fur hat, the preferred headwear of Russian women.

No country in the world can boast such a magical and romantic biography as the Russian Snegurka. In Italy, this is the fairy Befana, an old woman with a hooked nose, who flies to the kids on a broomstick, giving gifts. A kind of "Santa Claus" in a skirt. The Mongols call their Snow Maiden Zazan Ohin, the girl Snow. The heroine, by tradition, makes riddles and gives gifts only after she hears the answer. In the USA, Santa has only deer from his assistants, but there is no Snow Maiden.

It is curious that if you try to translate the word Snow Maiden into English using the Google translator service, the result will always be different. Yesterday, the Snow Maiden was translated as "Snow - boy" (literally - a snow boy). Today, the Snegurochka in the database of the service is translated as Snow-maiden (Made of snow).

2 Masha, a restless companion of the Bear, a naughty character of a 3D cartoon breaking all records.

The green-eyed fidget is fluent in hand-to-hand combat, loves to be capricious and hooligan, asks questions that are difficult to answer. The prototype of the animated series was the folklore heroine of the Russian folk tale. Director O. Kuznetsov borrowed character traits from the hero of O. Henry's story "The Leader of the Redskins". The team of creators of the series does not adapt native Russian characters for broadcast in various countries.

3 baba yaga- a witch, the heroine of Slavic mythology, endowed with magical powers. A negative character lures good fellows into his hut on chicken legs, without fail gives the heroes a fairy-tale horse and a magical navigator of those times - a ball of thread. The Russian witch is not always friendly, but if you are gifted with eloquence, she can help.

4 Firebird, a fabulous bird that heals the sick and restores sight to the blind, is the sister of the Western European bird Phoenix, which knew how to revive from the ashes. The father of the two fiery heroines, most likely, was Peacock.

Each heroine is an individual, embodying good or evil, her actions and deeds are directly related to her character and mission.

Male images: “the heroes have not yet died out on the Russian land!”

The top of positive male images is no less colorful, vividly conveying the spirit of a Russian person. The main images are always antagonistic: in contrast to the beautiful, there is sure to be a bad one. Without which male images Russian fairy tales are inconceivable:

1 Father Frost.

In the Russian version - Morozko, Studenets, the mighty lord of the winter blizzard. The character, adored by the children, rides on a troika of horses, fetters reservoirs and rivers with the sound of a staff, sweeps cities and villages with cold breath. In the New Year, together with the Snow Maiden, she gives gifts. During Soviet times, Grandfather was dressed in a red coat, the color of the country's flag. The image of the popular Grandfather, who "wanders through the forests and meadows" is played in different ways in different countries: Santa Claus, Joulupuki, Jouluvana.

This is interesting:

According to the most conservative estimates of scientists, Santa Claus is more than 2000 years old. For two thousand years, Santa Claus has repeatedly appeared in different images. First - in the guise of the pagan god Zimnik: an old man of small stature, with white hair and a long gray beard, with an uncovered head, in warm white clothes and with an iron mace in his hands. And in the fourth century, Santa Claus was reminiscent of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who lived in Asia Minor in the city of Patara.

Grandfather began to come to the house with gifts with the beginning of the celebration of the New Year in Rus'. Previously, he gave gifts to the obedient and smart, and beat the mischievous with a stick. But the years made Santa Claus more compassionate: he replaced the stick with a magic staff.

By the way, Santa Claus first appeared on the pages of books in 1840, when Vladimir Odoevsky's "Children's Tales of Grandpa Iriney" were published. In the book, the name and patronymic of the winter wizard, Moroz Ivanovich, became known.

In the twentieth century, Santa Claus almost disappeared. After the revolution, it was considered that celebrating Christmas is harmful for the people, because this is a real “priestly” holiday. However, in 1935, the disgrace was finally removed, and soon Father Frost and Snegurochka first appeared together for the Christmas tree holiday at the Moscow House of Unions.

2 Three heroes. Strong, courageous, cheerful heroes have long become a symbol of Russia, thanks to a series of full-length adventures by Alyosha Popovich, Dobrynya Nikitich and Ilya Muromets. In fact, the brave fellows never met in life, according to epics, they even lived in different centuries.

This is interesting:

In 2015, the 6th part of the saga, “Three Heroes: The Knight’s Move”, which was released on the screens, collected 962,961,596 rubles. Almost 1 billion rubles! Thus, the picture became the highest grossing animated film of the year. Although it all started modestly: the box office of the first part - "Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin the Serpent" (2004) - amounted to 48,376,440 rubles. Since then, fees have steadily increased.

3 Ivan the Fool(third son) - a character who embodies a special "magic strategy": the hero acts contrary to common sense and always succeeds! The fool perfectly solves riddles, defeats evil spirits and valiantly saves the main character.

Pinocchio, Crocodile Gena, Dr. Aibolit, Barmaley, Winnie the Pooh, Leopold the Cat and Matroskin the Cat are also some of the most popular and beloved heroes of Russian cinema, who rightfully occupy high positions in the rating of fairy-tale characters.

Undead: guardians of forests, swamps and houses

The largest group of Russian folk epic is made up of mythical creatures. Vodyanoy, Kikimora, Goblin, mermaids, Brownie, Baba Yaga are magical images that appeared along with inexplicable forces of nature. By their actions and character, these are more negative characters, but at the same time, they are charming and charismatic in modern films and cartoons, these include:

1 Koschei the Deathless. A character with supernatural powers. According to legend, this is an insidious old man who kills pets. The sorcerer often kidnaps the protagonist's bride in the hope of "mutual love".

This is interesting:

In Soviet cinema, Koshey was brilliantly played by actor Georgy Millyar. Basically, he played all sorts of evil spirits and had to put on complex makeup. But for the role of Koshchei the Immortal, makeup was practically not needed, since the actor himself resembled a living skeleton (after suffering from malaria, the actor's weight was only 45 kg).


Koschey the Immortal - Georgy Millyar
  • Article
© flickr.com/photos/sofi01

Folklorist Varvara Dobrovolskaya about two types of fairy-tale heroines, the ideal of a woman and the origin of Baba Yaga.

All female characters of Russian fairy tales are divided into two large groups: characters of this world, that is, the world of a fairy tale hero, and characters of another world, that world where the fairy tale hero goes, where there are wonderful curiosities, where enemies live, where the Serpent takes the beautiful royal daughters .

Varvara Dobrovolskaya- Candidate of Philology, Head of the Folklore and Ethnographic Department of the Center for Russian Folklore, doctoral student at the Institute of World Literature named after A.I. A.M. Gorky, Scientific Secretary of the State Republican Center of Russian Folklore.

Typology of female images in Russian fairy tales

In the world of the hero, women are innocent, oppressed by all heroines - these are stepdaughters who are offended by stepmothers; wives who are slandered by the husband's relatives; women being turned into animals by witches, and so on. Another group is made up of beloved royal daughters, clever and beautiful women, whom loving fathers protect from the harmful influence of the world. This excessive guardianship leads to the fact that sooner or later the king has to announce a competition for the hand of his daughter and come up with difficult tasks for potential suitors, the most famous of which is a horse jump to the princess's window. In another case, the girl turns out to be completely unprepared for the vicissitudes of fate, and she is kidnapped right from under the care of mothers and nannies by a large and terrible Serpent.

Of course, there are other, smaller varieties of women of this world, but they are all distinguished by their beauty and absolute unsuitability for life. The exception is devoted wives who go in search of their husbands, as, for example, the heroine of the fairy tale "Finist - the Clear Falcon", or with their all-consuming love revive the deceased lover, as in the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower". Finally, there are heroines who marry an alien creature and then, after his murder by relatives, turn into birds that mourn their beloved all their lives, as in the fairy tale "Cancer Husband".

The characters of the other world are significantly richer. They operate in the hero's world, but in fact they are creatures of another world. These are witches and sorceresses who somehow come into contact with the hero or heroine. This is a stepmother who is actually endowed with magical abilities and is even a relative of otherworldly creatures in a number of fairy tales. These are all sorts of wonderful virgins that somehow appear in the life of a hero. The king-maiden, who sails to the seashore, where the hero sleeps; this is a beautiful princess, whose existence the hero learns from a portrait brought from overseas countries, or from the words of a friend who, in combination, turns out to be the brother of such a girl.

The hero can find a wife at the border of the worlds, where she resides in animal form. So, the hero finds a frog in a swamp, which at night turns into Vasilisa the Wise, carrying out all the instructions of the hero's father with the help of her wonderful helpers. Another lucky man finds his wife in the forest, where she sits on a birch in the form of a dove. Taking the bird home, the hero receives not only three hot meals a day, but also a good adviser and assistant in the fight against the tsarist regime. Finally, Ivan the merchant's son, having shown some ingenuity, steals the duck girl's dress and agrees to exchange it only for a wedding ring, and with her help he not only deceives the sea king, but also safely returns to his kingdom-state.



But more often, the hero is simply told about girls from another world. Usually such heroines are the subject of a hero's search. He follows them into the thirtieth kingdom, descends into the underworld, descends to the bottom of the sea-ocean. These can be completely independent and wealthy heroines who have not only their own kingdom-state, but also a garden with wonderful rejuvenating apples and a well with living and dead water.

It should be noted that in fairy tales there is a small group of characters who live on the border between the worlds. First of all, this is Baba Yaga, a wonderful old woman, and all those various assistants to the hero, all sorts of old women who appear on the road and help him with advice.

The image of a girl in Russian fairy tales

In a Russian fairy tale, the age of the hero is often indeterminate. Speaking about the fact that the hero is a boy and the heroine is a girl, the storyteller will not necessarily talk about children. So, everyone is used to the fact that a girl acts in the fairy tale “Little-havroshechka”, but at the end of the fairy tale she marries the king’s son, that is, we are not dealing with a child, but with a marriageable girl. A similar story is with my sister Alyonushka, who also, despite her goat brother, is happily getting married.

Most likely, the girl heroine appears in a small number of fairy tales. The child hero is a rather rare type for Russian fairy tales, most often it is a boy. The girl can be found in several fairy tales: this is the Snow Maiden - a girl fashioned from snow and melted under the rays of the sun or from the heat of a fire. Probably, as a girl, one can consider the heroine from the tales of the reed on the grave, in which friends or sisters kill the youngest girl because of a jug of berries. Finally, most likely, the heroine of the fairy tale "Geese-Swans" can be considered as a child.

The girl is very rarely found in Russian fairy tales, which is understandable, because a child cannot be a hero as such. He can either be distinguished by a miraculous birth, and then the fairy tale is worried about the problem of what will happen next when he grows up and begins to perform feats, or this miraculous birth becomes the main one - the Snow Maiden melts.

The ideal of a woman in Russian fairy tales

The Russian fairy tale does not give detailed descriptions, this is not typical for the genre, respectively, and there is no ideal woman in the fairy tale. In fairy tales, a certain conditional portrait is given, that is, we can guess what kind of woman could be. Whatever you like at the moment, this is how she appears in the fairy tale. We don't even know her hair color. She is simply beautiful and, of course, smart - both Elena the Beautiful and Elena the Wise. This does not mean that one is beautiful and the other is smart. She is beautiful and smart at the same time, just depending on what the hero needs more at this particular moment: for the wife to be smart or for the wife to be beautiful - depending on the needs of the fairy tale plot, it is precisely this image of a woman that will be realized in a fairy tale.

Sometimes there are some wonderful elements of the portrait of the heroine, such as, for example, "she is so beautiful that her cerebellum shimmers from bone to bone." We can assume that her skin is so thin that we can see all her insides. It's hard to say if it's beautiful or not. But to the storyteller at the time of telling the tale, this seems to be an indicator of extraordinary beauty. If Western princesses are usually golden-haired, then our fairy-tale heroines can be dark-haired. But even such a detail as hair color is rarely mentioned in a fairy tale.

The origin and features of the image of Baba Yaga

This is a mythological character who got into a fairy tale already during the destruction of the mythological system. It is associated with the image of a priestess in initial and funeral rites. Its origin is usually associated with the chthonic characters of the underworld, the world of the dead, most often with snakes.

We can talk about it based on her name. The root "-yag-" in a number of dialects was used to designate snakes. One can speak about the snake origin of the yaga by some features of her appearance, preserved in fairy tales. For example, Baba Yaga never walks - she jumps. She has a bone leg. Most likely, this is the only leg of the character, and she does not have a second leg. If we understand in more detail, referring to the mythological origins of this image, it becomes clear that the only leg of the yaga is not a leg, but a snake's tail. Baba Yaga refers to the so-called snake deities who are the masters of the forest and the world of the dead. In some fairy tales, Baba Yaga is dominated by animals and birds.


Illustration by Ivan Bilibin (1876–1942)


She can be depicted as a corpse, she is in a hut, which in itself resembles a coffin, she "lies from corner to corner", "her nose has grown into the ceiling." In some tales, pieces of rotten flesh may stick out of her body. That is, she is a half-decomposed corpse. Being closest to the world of death, she acts as the first dead, the character who first passed through death, who knows how to get through the world of the dead. That is why she helps the hero-seeker to overcome the difficulties of another world, to obtain secret knowledge and treasures that are there.

But, as you know, they do not return from the world of the dead, and the hero arrives safely home. The reason for this is that the tale is associated not only with ideas about funeral practices, but also with rites of an initial nature, in which the participant goes through death in order to receive a new life and new social qualities. This is most clearly seen in the tales of the boy and Baba Yaga, when the hero, with the help of cunning, avoids falling into the furnace. The tale in this case involved the motif of the hero's rebirth through rebirth, since the stove in mythology is synonymous with the female womb. Baba Yaga helps the hero to be reborn in a new quality, to acquire new knowledge, that is, she, as it were, performs the rite of initiation.

Russian fairy tale

How was the fairy tale genre formed? What is the audience for a fairy tale? What are the origins of the image of Baba Yaga? And what myth underlies the image of the fabulous Serpent? Varvara Dobrovolskaya, candidate of philological sciences, tells about this.

Once upon a time, all women were little girls, and with rapture they listened to fairy tales that their mother or grandmother read to them at night. And, of course, everyone had their favorite heroines in the fairy-tale world. But psychologists have found out that according to what kind of fairy tales your daughter likes to listen to, you can guess who she will grow up in the future and how her future fate will be.

Cinderella

If it was this heroine that attracted you in childhood, then it is likely that your personal life is not going well now. However, running to the registry office with the first person you meet is also not worth it - wait, and the prince will certainly find his Cinderella. You just need to gain confidence in yourself: visit a beauty salon, go to a perfume store, go to a makeup artist. When you feel your own attractiveness, then everything will work out.

Faithful wives and keepers of the hearth love to listen to this fairy tale in childhood. Men cannot find a better life partner, she can handle everything, such a woman will be support, support, not only for her husband, but also for her parents, children, friends.

Gerda

The brave girl from The Snow Queen attracts those women who are eager to save and help out in the real world. If you loved listening to this fairy tale as a child, then today, most likely, you will be the first to come to the rescue in any trouble.

Snow Maiden

Lovers of such a fairy tale as "The Snow Maiden", in adulthood, often cannot find personal happiness, they are simply afraid of love. Exposure to stress, self-doubt - that's what distinguishes these women. They, like Cinderellas, need emotional support and understanding. People like them are more likely to look for advice in a women's online magazine than make a decision themselves.

However, love for certain fairy tales can only suggest a direction for personal development. An analysis of favorite works can explain why certain problems arise in communication, in personal life. To get rid of them, come up with a happy ending for your story, and create your own fairy tale.

The mermaid is one of the most controversial images. Information about him differs significantly in the complex of beliefs of the Russian North (as well as the Urals and Siberia) in comparison with the data of the Ukrainian-Belarusian and South Russian demonological systems.

The first of these complexes is characterized by the following features: firstly, the scarcity of stories about a female character called a mermaid; secondly, the rapprochement of this image with the more popular characters for the northern Russian tradition, defined by the terms vodynikha, joker, leshachikha, devil, etc.; thirdly, a noticeably accentuated connection between the “mermaid” and the water element.

In the Northern Russian materials, the fact of a single (and not a group) appearance of mermaids is noted; predominantly a terrible appearance, the appearance of a naked woman with saggy breasts or a long-haired, shaggy woman (less often - women in white). Here there are stories about their appearance in the winter in the hole, or that a mermaid in the form of a naked woman is chasing the sleigh of a peasant who was driving through the forest in winter.

In this tradition, bylichki about the cohabitation of a mermaid with a man represent the development of a plot about an “imaginary wife”: a werewolf woman visits a hunter in a forest hut under the guise of his wife, gives birth to a child from him, and when the hunter recognizes evil spirits in a werewolf, the mythical “wife” tears her child in two and throws him into the water (the same plot is typical for the images of the goblin, the devil, the forest girl).

The situation is different with the “mermaid” complex of beliefs characteristic of the Ukrainian-Belarusian and South Russian demonology. In many places, the appearance of mermaids is described inconsistently either as young beauties, or as a neutral female image, or as old, terrible-looking women.

Mermaids became: dead unbaptized children; brides who did not live to see their wedding; children and girls who died as a result of violent death. When asked about the appearance of mermaids, one often heard that they walked the earth in the same form in which unmarried dead girls are usually buried: in a wedding dress, with loose hair and a wreath on their heads. This is how, according to folk custom, the dead girls were dressed up, as if arranging a symbolic wedding for them. It was believed that the souls of people who died before marriage could not finally go to the "other world" and from time to time invade the world of the living.

The second most important feature of the "mermaid" image should be recognized as the seasonality of stay on earth. It is widely believed that Rusal Week is a “mermaid holiday”; it was then that they allegedly appeared from the afterlife and frolicked all week in the fields, forests, in places near the water (sometimes they penetrated into the houses of their relatives). At the end of this period, the mermaids returned "to their places" (went into the water, into the graves, to the "other world").

According to East Slavic beliefs, mermaids appear in a cereal field during the flowering of rye; among the southern Slavs, it was believed that mermaids, mermaids reside in places of abundant flowering of the plant "rosen". Apparently, it is this circle of beliefs that clarifies the etymology of the “flower” name of the mermaid (associated with the name of the flower “rose”), since it is known that the ancient holiday rosalia, dies rosae was timed to coincide with the period of rose bloom and was a funeral rite in honor of the untimely deceased young people.

Attention should be paid to the significant differences between the folklore mermaid and the literary image of the same name. A list of all the "mermaid" images created in fiction would make a very long list. All of them are depicted as drowned women and inhabitants of the waters, endowed with the features of insidious beautiful maidens, women with a fish tail, luring their victims into the water, looking for the love of earthly youths, taking revenge on unfaithful lovers, etc. Such a standard image has become firmly established not only in fiction, but also in everyday consciousness, and in many scientific dictionaries and encyclopedias. Its source turned out to be not so much authentic data of folk demonology, but similar characters of ancient and European mythology (nymphs, sirens, naiads, undines, melusines and other water and forest mythical maidens) that have become popular in the book tradition.



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