In this post, we will see the book Beautiful Vasilisa: Russian Fairy Tales. Vasilisa the Beautiful is a well known Russian folktale.
About the book
The book is a collection of sixteen fairy tales from Russia. They include stories of Tsars, Princesses, witches, boys, girls, various animals, and magical creatures. There are several fabulous illustrations to go with the stories. Along with the story of Vasilisa, there are 15 other tales in the book.
Baba Yaga is here (not the John Wick one though;)!
The book was edited by Irina Zheleznova and was designed by Vladimir Minayev. The book was published by RAduga first in 1966, with four reprints in the subsequent years: 1974, 1981 and 1984. Different stories were translated by various translators as given in the contents.
The book was translated in Hindi and Marathi, at least what I know of. Since it was a popular title it might have been translated into more Indian languages. Please do let us know if you know/have translations in any other languages.
Links
(original scan of the Raduga 4th reprint)
(scan OCRed text made into an electronic document with the images, thanks to Guptaji)
Hindi Version – Roopvati Vasilisa – Rusi Parikathyein
Note: There is a bad scan of the Hindi version on the archive, which we have cleaned and added back (the link above), with a lot of effort and time. It took much longer to clean it than anticipated, yet the results are not that good or satisfactory. I thought of abandoning the cleaning midway several times, but since no other scan was available, it was indeed cleaned.
It is an appeal to people who scan books, to take some time and effort to scan them, (preferably using flatbed scanners) otherwise, it doesn’t do anyone any good. If you are taking photos with a camera make sure that noticeable warp is not there. Perhaps when one gets the physical copy of the book we will update this one, or if you have the book please scan and post the link.
Marathi Version – Sundar Vasilisa – Russian Parikatha
Bonus
There is also a Soviet-era cartoon film (in Russian, 1977) with the title Vasilisa Prekrasnaya (Vasilia the Beautiful) though this corresponds to story The Frog Tsarvena (Tsarevna Lyagushka) in the book. The visuals are amazing…
https://archive.org/details/VasilisaTheBeautifull1977VasilisaPrekrasnayaENES
Another Soviet era (1939) BW film I found with the title Vasilisa Prekrasnaya (Vasilia the Beautiful) again this corresponds to story The Frog Tsarvena (Tsarevna Lyagushka) in the book.
Contents
VASILISA THE BEAUTIFUL. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 5
TSAREVICH IVAN AND GREY WOLF. Translated by Bernard Isaacs 20
THE TWO IVANS. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 33
FENIST THE FALCON. Translated by Dorian Rottenberg 43
SISTER ALYONUSHKA AND BROTHER IVANUSHKA. Translated by Bernard Isaacs 57 CHESTNUT-GREY. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 63
FATHER FROST Translated by Irina Zheleznova 74
GO I KNOW NOT WHERE, FETCH I KNOW NOT WHAT. Translated by Bernard Isaacs 79 LITTLE GIRL AND THE SWAN-GEESE. Translated by Bernard Isaacs 109
THE SILVER SAUCER AND THE ROSY-CHEEKED APPLE. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 115
BY THE WILL OF THE PIKE. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 124
THE FROG TSAREVNA. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 135
WEE LITTLE HAVROSHECHKA. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 147
MARYA MOREVNA THE LOVELY TSAREVNA. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 152
IVAN-YOUNG OF YEARS, OLD OF WISDOM. Translated by Dorian Rottenberg 169
THE SEVEN SIMEONS-SEVEN BRAVE WORKINGMEN. Translated by Irina Zheleznova 201
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