Talk:Russian fairy tale

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 March 2019 and 29 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Amayarz, Dmastronardi, Mlazarus14.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:14, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Article to be moved and / or restructured

This article should be restructured logically. There must be a section on classification of Russian fairy tales (e.g. by Propp). Parallels are to be drawn between Russian and similar Western plots showing the difference. Section on the history of fairy tales is to include possible brodyachiye sujety - universally known plots possibly travelling between nations - and distinguish them from more likely purely Russian ones.

There should be a separate section on the history of studying them.

Probably the article can be merged into the worldwide fairy tale article, as the notion of "skazka" itself is NOT a Russian realia, unlike matroshka. It is just a fairy tale, a universal notion. GregZak (talk) 16:14, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

This is a very good start to your project but the beginning sentence is a bit off, you should mention what term you're referring to from the start in order to make it more clear. Other than that everything else looks good. Larainal (talk) 14:22, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposed Changes

The following proposed changes are for my college writing course. My groups consists of myself, Daniela Mastronardi, Marissa Lazarus, and Doug Sitt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amayarz (talk • contribs) 14:37, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Heading text Influences

In Russia, the fairy tale is one sub-genre of folklore and is usually told in the form of a short story. They are used to express different aspects of the Russian culture. In Russia, fairy tales were propagated almost exclusively orally, until the 17th century, as written literature was reserved for religious purposes. In their oral form, fairy tales allowed the freedom to explore the different methods of narration. The separation from written forms led Russians to develop techniques that were effective at creating dramatic and interesting stories. Such techniques have developed into consistent elements now found in popular literary works; They distinguish the genre of Russian fairy tales. Fairy tales were not confined to a particular socio-economic class and appealed to mass audiences, which resulted in them becoming a trademark of Russian culture.

Russian Formalism

In the 1910s through the 1930s, a wave of literary criticism emerged in Russia called Russian Formalism. The term Russian formalism originated from critics of the new school of thought.

Morphology

Analysis

Many different approaches of analyzing the morphology of the fairy tale have appeared in scholarly works. Differences in analyses can arise between synchronic and diachronic approaches. Other differences can come from the relationship between story elements. After elements are identified, a structuralist can propose relationships between those elements. A paradigmatic relationship between elements is associative in nature whereas a syntagmatic relationship refers to the order and position of the elements relative to the other elements.

A Russian Garland of Fairy Tales

Motif Analysis

Before the period of Russian formalism, Alexander Veselovksky called the motif the "simplest narrative unit." Veselovsky proposed that the different plots of a folktale arise from the unique combinations of motifs.

Motif analysis was also part of Stith Thompson's approach to folkloristics. Thompson's research into the motifs of folklore culminated in the publication of the Motif-Index of Folk Literature.

Structural Analysis

In 1919, Viktor Shklovsky published his essay titled "The Relationship Between Devices of Plot Construction and General Devices of Style". As a major proponent during Russian formalism, Shklovsky was one of the first scholars to criticize the failing methods of literary analysis and report on a syntagmatic approach to folktales. In his essay he claims, "It is my purpose to stress not so much the similarity of motifs, which I consider of little significance, as the similarity in the plot schemata."

Syntagmatic analysis , most notably championed by Vladimir Propp, is the approach in which the elements of the fairy tale are analyzed in the order that they appear in the story. Wanting to overcome what he thought was arbitrary and subjective analysis of folklore by motif, Propp published his book Morphology of the Folktale in 1928. The book specifically states that Propp finds a dilemma in Veselovsky's definition of a motif; it fails because it can be broken down into smaller units, contradicting its definition. In response, Propp pioneered a specific breakdown that can be applied to most Aarne-Thompson type tales classified with numbers 300-749. This methodology gives rise to Propp's 31 functions, or actions, of the fairy tale. Propp proposes that the functions are the fundamental units the story and that there are exactly 31 distinct functions. He observed in his analysis of 100 Russian fairy tales that tales almost always adhere to the order of the functions. The traits of the characters, or dramatis personae, involved in the actions are second to the action actually being carried out. This also follows his finding that while some functions may be missing between different stories, the order is kept the same for all the Russian fairy tales he analyzed.

Alexander Nikiforov, like Shklovsky and Propp, was a folklorist in 1920s Soviet Russia. His early work also identified the benefits of a syntagmatic analysis of fairy tale elements. In his 1926 paper titled "The Morphological Study of Folklore", Nikiforov states that "Only the functions of the character, which constitute his dramatic role in the folk tale, are invariable." Since Nikiforov's essay was written almost 2 years before Propp's publication of Morphology of the Folktale, scholars have speculated that the idea of the function, widely attributed to Propp, could have first been recognized by Nikiforov. However, some sources claim that Nikiforov's work was "not developed into a systematic analysis of syntagmatics" and failed to "keep apart structural principles and atomistic concepts". Nikiforov's work on folklore morphology was never pursued beyond his paper.
Mlazarus14 (talk) 14:49, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, nearly all proposed text does not belong to this article, because it not about fairy tales, but about folkloristics, i.e., a more general subject. The subject of --this-- article are (1) Russian (2) fairy tales. Please stick to the subject. For expmple you may descrjbe how folcloristics research was use to analyze Russian fairy tales. Please try to understand the "hyperlinked" foundation of wikipedia, which makes its articles very different from, say, phd thesis or college essay: not all eggs in one basket. Also, if some aspect of "russian fairy tales" grows large, it may be split into a new article, see wikipedia:Summary style. You may also want to find some other wikipedia articles about folkloristics which may be enriched with the information you presented. By the way, do you have wikipedia advisers or something? - Altenmann >talk 06:49, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

They are used to express different aspects of the Russian culture - False or incorrectly formulated statement. Please remember, each statement must be verifiable from some source cited. Now, what is the source for the highlighted sentence?- Altenmann >talk 07:15, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

References

Other proposals

We propose to improve the "Writers and collectors" section of the page by expanding the information on the two authors already included, Afanasyev and Pushkin. For each author, their contributions to Russian fairy tales as well as the impact of their work will be presented. Alexander Pushkin's collection of work that has already been included in the article will remain included with the changes. Dmastronardi (talk) 14:51, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

We propose to add a History section between the Overview and the Writers and collectors headings. The history section would give a brief summary that discusses the emergence of Russian fairy tales and their evolution throughout the different literary periods. In addition, we propose to add a subheading under the History section, titled "The Communism Effect" which would follow the numerous effects Joseph Stalin's reign had over literature, specifically fairy tales. This section would discuss the changes in the intended messages that the tales would offer children. In addition, the section will discuss how Stalin restricted fairy tale writers from creating certain content that did not portray his personal beliefs. Amayarz (talk) 14:52, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I am going to add the influences on Russian Fairy Tales. The influences of Russian Fairy tales stem from complete imagination and are unique. They were written with no facts behind it, just pure entertainment to the reader. I will further explain the influences of Russian Fairy Tales. Dougsitt (talk) 14:53, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I strongly recommend y'all to start with small additions changes all over wikipedia in articles related to your research interests, not just crowding here. Experience shows that a group of novices who do not fully fathom how wikipedia is structured, usually creates a well-meaning mess, difficult to untangle.

Please remember, our goal here is to create an encyclopedia, and not to earn edu credits (nothing against the latter, but I thoroughly despise people who dump a wall of text and then disappear, and nobody can answer questions about their contribution, so often it eventually just gets reverted, with credits pocketed :-).

Once again, think big, but start small. Smaller contributions are easier to discuss and correct .- Altenmann >talk 07:15, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

By the way, in talk page, each issue must be discussed in a separate section, with meaningful header, dont dump all into one pile. So , please split yourselves. I have questions for you, but please make some structure first. - Altenmann >talk 07:15, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Whether or not you agree with students generating Wikipedia content for course credit, these students are partnered with the Wikipedia Education Foundation and have been mentored by a Wikipedia admin over the course of one semester. At least one of the students in this group has taken an entire class on Russian fairytales, and all of them have done exemplary research for this project. While it may be true that this subject could benefit from a division between the concepts of Russian folklore and fairytale, until such a page division exists, this the best place they found to put their research. While it is challenging to have editors that come and go, it is hardly "info-dumping" for college students to contribute substantial content based on their research to benefit a page that hasn't been touched since 2011 and which remains a start-class article. If you have larger issues with the project, I suggest you take them up with the Wikipedia Education Foundation instead of snarking at my students.Tcravy (talk) 15:07, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Bug off. Your foundation has no authority in wikipedia, nor you. Either you follow wikipedia guidelines and traditions or your original research will be eventually removed. - Altenmann >talk 00:34, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Altenmann, Tcravy! I wanted to step in and try to mediate! If I'm not mistaken, here are each of your viewpoints:

Altenmann: The students proposed several changes to the article. You're concerned that this is too general for the specific topic of Russian fairy tales. If I understand you correctly, Altenmann, your concern is that folkloristics is a very general topic, of which fairy tales is a facet. So with this in mind, this is comparative to someone writing about general fiction in an article about a specific genre such as fantasy or horror. You then saw that they created a new topic section about creating another new part of the article without responding to your prior concerns. So essentially, you have two concerns here. The first is your concerns over the fairy tales vs folkloristics content. The second is that they are going to post large amounts of content without responding to issues (potential or otherwise) raised on the article's talk page. Basically, they're just dumping content without responding to feedback.

Tcravy: You're concerned that Altenmann is saying that they should only make minor edits and not post beyond smaller edits. The class is monitored by Wiki Education, so they're coming in with more knowledge than a general new editor would. There is also no article for Russian folkloristics on Wikipedia, so there's no other place to put this at this point in time. You may or may not be concerned that there isn't enough content for this to be spun off into a new article.

My take on this is basically that while the students did let people know about the edits on the talk page, they didn't actually engage in a discussion with Altenmann when he voiced his concerns. While they're not absolutely required to, it's considered to be good form on Wikipedia to directly respond to criticisms raised about any current or potential additions, even if it's just to say that you'll work on it and/or ask for more feedback. I don't think that Altenmann meant for this to be taken badly, just that he has concerns that aren't being addressed. I also don't think that the students are deliberately not answering you in favor of a grade either, as they may just be nervous about responding. If this is the case, then they should definitely feel free to discuss and ask questions at will - there's nothing wrong with content being questioned and the instructor isn't going to dock grades because you have to go back and edit or remove content from the article.

I hope that this all helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:32, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Y'all better take courses in reading comprehension before writing. I did not say "only small changes". I said "start with small changes". This is a natural way of practicing in trade. Of course if your only goal is to quickly type something, get your grades, and done with it, then my advice is misdirected.

We do not need article on russian folkloristics just as we dont have an article on russian mathematics. We do have folkloristics. We also have Russian folklore. If one does not see the duferences between folkloristics, and folklore, and fairy tale, and wants to write everything in the same page without listening for advice nor asking for it, then I highly doubt their expertise.

If the students don't discuss my advice, I am out of here until this crowd is gone. This is not the first article I see messed up by people who do not care about wikipedia but about something else. Almost always when they get their grades, they are gone forever. The strength of wikipedia is in volunteers not in drive-by editors.

Finally, if wikiEd does not explain that wikipedia is about cooperation, hence about communication, I have nothing more to say. I wrote my comments over 2 weeks ago. No response but from bureaucrats. Telling of the attitude. - Altenmann >talk 00:34, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Sorry for revisiting this so late. I will review our training modules and try to see what can be done to emphasize that students should communicate more with others and respond to posts directed specifically to them. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:28, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

grishka and the astronaut

This is neither fairy tale nor folklore.

The section about fairy tales in the soviet union does make sense. however its title shows perfectly the level of american education, what americans know of russia: FUI in reality there was no Communism, neither in russia nor anywhere else.

Sleeping Beauty is not russian fairy tale.

Singer was not speaking about russian fairy tales.

Afanasyev was not a "popular fairy tale writer", contrary to the caption.

By the way, there is a significant split of fairy tales into two major categories (with a possible gray zone) not highlighted in the article. What is it? Tell me, experts. - Altenmann >talk 01:23, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

reference

I removed the ref Oinas, Felix J. “Folklore and Politics in the Soviet Union.” Slavic Review, vol. 32, no. 1, 1973, pp. 45–58. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2494072. and the weirdly looking text footnoted by it. However the reference is an interesting article and will try to make some use of it later elsewhere, probably in Russian folklore. - Altenmann >talk 22:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

P.S. Oops, it is already used there in the way I intended. - Altenmann >talk 22:53, 14 November 2023 (UTC)