The fairy tale commemorated on a Soviet Union stamp
''The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish'' (russian: «Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке», Skazka o rybake i rybke) is a
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
in verse by
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
, published 1835.
The tale is about a fisherman who manages to catch a "Golden Fish" which promises to fulfill any wish of his in exchange for its freedom.
Textual notes
Pushkin wrote the tale in autumn
1833
Events January–March
* January 3 – Reassertion of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (1833), Reassertion of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
* February 6 – His Royal Highness Prince Otto ...
[ and it was first published in the literary magazine ''Biblioteka dlya chteniya'' in May ]1835
Events
January–March
* January 7 – anchors off the Chonos Archipelago on her second voyage, with Charles Darwin on board as naturalist.
* January 8 – The United States public debt contracts to zero, for the only time in history.
...
.
English translations
Robert Chandler has published an English translation, "A Tale about a Fisherman and a Fish" (2012).
Grimms' Tales
It has been believed that Pushkin's is an original tale based on the Grimms' tale,[ "]The Fisherman and his Wife
"The Fisherman and His Wife" (Low German: ''Von dem Fischer un syner Fru'') is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 (KHM 19). The tale is of Aarne–Thompson type 555, about dissatisfaction and greed. It may be classified as ...
".
Azadovsky wrote monumental articles on Pushkin's sources, his nurse "Arina Rodionovna", and the "Brothers Grimm" demonstrating that tales recited to Pushkin in his youth were often recent translations propagated "word of mouth to a largely unlettered peasantry", rather than tales passed down in Russia, as John Bayley explains.[
Still, Bayley"s estimation, the derivative nature does not not diminish the reader's ability to appreciate "The Fisherman and the Fish" as "pure folklore", though at a lesser scale than other masterpieces.][ In a similar vein, emphatically accepted Azadovsky's verdict on Pushkin's use of Grimm material, but emphasized that Pushkin still crafted Russian fairy tales out of them.
In a draft version, Pushkin has the fisherman's wife wishing to be the ]Roman Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
,[ thus betraying his influence from the Brother Grimms' telling, where the wife also aspires to be a she-Pope.
]
Afanasyev's collection
The tale is also very similar in plot and motif to the folktale "The Goldfish" russian: Золотая рыбка which is No. 75 in Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (Afanasief, Afanasiev or Afanas'ev, russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Афанасьев) ( — ) was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer who published nearly 600 Russian fairy and folk ta ...
's collection (1855–1867), which is obscure as to its collected source.
Russian scholarship abounds in discussion of the interrelationship between Pushkin's verse and Afanasyev's ''skazka
A Russian fairy tale or folktale (russian: ска́зка; ''skazka''; "story"; plural russian: ска́зки , translit = skazki) is a fairy tale from Russia.
Various sub-genres of ''skazka'' exist. A ''volshebnaya skazka'' ''. Pushkin had been shown Vladimir Dal">олше́бн ...
''. Pushkin had been shown Vladimir Dal's collection of folktales. He seriously studied genuine folktales, and literary style was spawned from absorbing them, but conversely, popular tellings were influenced by Pushkin's published versions also.
At any rate, after Norbert Guterman's English translation of Asfaneyev's "The Goldfish" (1945) appeared,