Russian Fables

1 hr. 42 min.

Children's Books, Audio Fairy Tales & Poems

Language Russian

Narrator Alexander Bordukov

Description

The first translation of Aesop’s fables into Russian was printed in Amsterdam in 1700.

The publication drew the attention of Russian writers, and soon there appeared poetic renderings of Aesop’s fables made by Kantemir and Trediakovsky. But these early attempts were not distinguished by great poetic merit. Much more interesting were the fables by Ivan Ivanovich Khemnitzer, which gave Russian fable its features of independence, artistic quality, and folk character. After him came the fables of G.R. Derzhavin, I.I. Dmitriev, and A.E. Izmailov, but the pinnacle of Russian fable was reached in the work of I.A. Krylov.

Gogol called Krylov’s fables “a book of wisdom of the very people,” and Belinsky, speaking about the work of the famous fabulist, noted: “Krylov’s fables, besides poetry, have another merit that makes you forget that they are fables and makes him a great Russian poet: we are talking about the folk nature of his fables. He fully exhausted and fully expressed, through them, an entire side of the Russian national spirit…“