Aleksandr Afanas'ev
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Aleksandr Nikolaevich Afanas'ev (Александр Николаевич Афанасьев, 1826-1871) was a Russian ethnographer in the 19th century. He is most famous for recording and publishing nearly two hundred Russian folktales and fairytales. In this respect, he is often considered to be the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm. His first collection was published in 1866.
[edit] Significance to Literary Tradition
Prior to Afanas'ev's works in the late 1860s, only a few attempts had ever been made to record or study the folk beliefs of peasant Russia. Though a written Russian language (Church Slavonic) had existed since the 10th century, it was used almost solely by the church and only for parochial written works. It was not until the 18th and 19th centuries that a written tradition began to develop in the vernacular Russian. Thus, Afanas'ev's collections made a highly valuable contribution to the dissemination and legitimization of Russian culture and folk belief. The influence of these folk tales can be seen in the works of some of Russia's greatest writers and poets, like Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov.
