How to Survive a Russian Fairy Tale

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This is a fairly short introduction to the genre of Russian Fairy Tales. Since most Americans or speakers of English, are absolutely unfamiliar with the subject, this book is fascinating as revealing a different set of traditions than the one we are familiar with. American culture is essentially Western European. Eastern Europe is just a bit too far out there for us to be entirely comfortable with.

This book gives a fairly shallow and cursory overview of the subject. It really doesn't take a deep dive into any of the stories, which often leaves the impression that Russian Fairy Tales are outre (as opposed to the talking animals of the stories we are familiar with.) Thus, we find out that Russians begin their fairy tales with Pre-stories” which are bits of nonsense that serve to disorient the listener into an attitude more accepting of the fantastic.

We get an introduction to Babi Yaga, who is not the Boogeyman described in the John Wick movies, but instead a kind of demigod who sits on the edge of the real and the fantastic and lives in a hut that walks on a pair of chicken legs. There are cycles of stories based on the Bogatyrs, the heroic Russian warriors, who engage in fantastic epic adventures. The author, Nicholas Kotar, gives a brief explanation of the tropes in Russian fairy tales and their symbolic significance.

The conceit that ties this book together is the notion that the reader is caught in a Russian fairy tale and what he or she might expect to come up against. This is actually a minor part of the presentation and doesn't particularly advance or retard the exposition.

All in all, this is a good introduction to a world that is exotic and generally unknown.