E-mail: alyzlova@mail.ru, Tel: +7 (8142) 78-18-86
11, Pushkinskaya str., Petrozavodsk, 185910, Russian Federation
PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History, Karelian Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences
The study was funded from the federal budget as part of the state project assigned to the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
2025 is forty years since the publication of the volume entitled “Biserinka,” а book of fairy tales compiled by T. I. Tumilevich, the well-known folklorist from Rostov-on-Don. The edition appeared after the release of the Russian Comparative Index of Plots (or CIP, compiled by L. G. Barag et al., 1979) and so is not included in the list of works and plots it covers. “Biserinka” is a collection meant for younger readers and includes twelve fairy tales recorded over thirty years in the second half of the twentieth century (from 1954 to 1984), when the fairy tales could still be heard in active use. The texts fit the general Russian folktale tradition and belong to several genres (tales of magic, animal tales, realistic/romantic tales) that differ in plots and linguistic features; these are documented in the dictionary included in the book. Many tales in the volume reiterate elements of the wedding ceremony and its attributes or reflect the daily life of the Don Cossacks (primarily fishing). The texts contain unique information about Cossack holiday and everyday clothing and jewelry. This article undertakes to examine each tale in “Biserinka” in reference to the Comparative Index of Plots and may be regarded as an addition to it.
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Grevtsova T. E. (2022) Svadebnyi obryad donskikh kazakov: areal’noe issledovanie [The Wedding Rite of the Don Cossacks: A Spacial Study]. Rostov-on-Don: Izd-vo YUNTS RAN. In Russian.
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Korepova K. E. (2012) Russkaya lubochnaya skazka [The Russian Lubok Fairy Tale]. Moscow: FORUM. In Russian.
Krasheninnikova Yu. A. (comp.) (2021) Russkie svadebnye prigovory v arkhivnykh kollektsiyakh XIX — pervoi treti XX v. [Russian Wedding Sentences in Archival Collections of the Nineteenth — First Third of the Twentieth Century]. Moscow: Indrik. In Russian.
Kuznetsova V. P. (1993) Prichitaniya v severnorusskom svadebnom obryade [Lamentations in the Northern Russian Wedding Rite]. Petrozavodsk: Karel’skii nauchnyi tsentr. In Russian.
Lyzlova A. S. (2019) Skazki o trekh tsarstvakh (mednom, serebryanom i zolotom) v lubochnoi literature i fol’klornoi traditsii [Fairy Tales about Three Kingdoms (Copper, Silver and Gold) in Lubok Literature and the Russian Folk Tradition]. Problemy istoricheskoi poetiki [Problems of Historical Poetics]. 2019. Vol. 17. No. 1. Pp. 26–44. In Russian.
Lyzlova A. S. On Fairy Tales Not Covered in the CIP: “Biserinka” (1985), the Collection by T. I. Tumilevich. Traditional Culture. 2025. Vol. 26. No. 1. Pp. 153–163. In Russian.