The Return of the Humpbacked Horse

15 hrs. 26 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Sergey Ilyichev

Narrator Mikhail Roslyakov

Description

The novellas presented for your attention—“The Archival Case of P. P. Ershov” and “The Younger One”—remind one of fairy tales for adults, or, if we use modern wording, something akin to fantasy, since the events unfold in a world recognizable yet fictional, created by the author, using mythical motives and fairy-tale heroes. The purpose of this kind of narration becomes clear right from the first pages: before us appears a genius of Russian fairy tales hitherto unknown—Pyotr Pavlovich Ershov—as well as his heroes and the heroes of other fairy tales that, at one time, Ershov himself wanted to unite into a single poetic tale in which the main character would be Ivan Tsarevich. The novella “The Great Storyteller” is already the author’s version of the writer and teacher P. P. Ershov’s vision of life and creativity. This is a biographical work—in terms of genre, a piece of fiction—where Sergey Ilyichev saw and presented our beloved writer in the context of Orthodoxy, as he interpreted the stages of creativity and Ershov’s spiritual search as the God-given talent.

What came of all this is up to you to judge. Especially since the author does not claim that it all was exactly as described, but he sincerely believes that it could have been so.

Contents:
The Archival Case of P. P. Ershov
The Great Storyteller
The Younger One