THE RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES.

Russian folklore takes its roots in the beliefs of the ancient Slavs. They were called 'Sporoi' in olden times. Procopius, an Eastern Roman writer, derived the name from the Greek word 'Ottelpw' meaning "I scatter grain," because they populated the land with scattered settlements. Prior to becoming known to the Roman world, they were part of the many multi-ethnic confederacies of Eurasia, a combined continental landmass of Europe and Asia.
The word 'Slovenim' is usually considered a derivation from 'Slovo,' originally denoting "people who speaks the same language," (people who understand each other), in contrast to the Slavic word 'nemb' denoting German people that means "silent, mute people."
The present day Slavs are a group of people who speaks various Slavic languages of the Balto-Slavic language group. They are classified in East Slavs (Russia, Ukrainians, Bela-Russians), West Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks), and South Slavs (Serbs, Bulgarians, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins).
The Russian Fairy Tales is a collection of writings, collected by Alexander Afanasyev and published by him between 1855 and 1863. Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (July11,1826-October23,1871), a Russian Slavist published nearly 600 folktales and fairytales -one of the largest folk-tale collection in the world. He studied law at the University of Moscow, in which he attended the lectures of Konstantin Kavelin (historian, jurist, sociologist, liberalist) and Timofey Granovsky (he felt that Western history was superior to that of his own and became the 1st to deliver courses on medieval history of Western Europe). Alexander was appointed as librarian in the Archives of Moscow and stayed there for 13 years, and was dismissed in that year because of the scandal provoked by his publishing of the 'Russian
Popular Religious Legends,' which were a ferocious satire of the Orthodox clergy. He was very immersed in Old Russian and Slav traditions and stories, an area of study that did not exist at the time. His first mythological articles were: The Wizards and Witches, Sorcery in Ancient Russia, Legends about the Buyand Island, and were treated as a mine information for the study of more ancient legends.
In such an interpretation, he regarded the fairy tale 'Vasilisa the Beautiful' as depicting the conflict between the sunlight (Vasilisa), the storm (her stepmother), and dark clouds (her stepsisters). His works provides copious information, evidence, documents, and passages of the old chronicles that relates to ancient Slavic cultures, history and tradition, as well as other Indo-European languages, folklore and legends, in particular Germanic traditions since he knew to perfection German as well as Slav ancient languages.
Prior to Afanasyev's works in the 1850s, only a few attempts had ever been made to record or study the beliefs of peasant Russia. Though written Church Slavonic had existed since the 10th century, it was used solely by the church for written works. It was not until the 18th and 19th centuries that a sizable body of secular literature developed. Thus, Afanasyev's collections made a very high valuable contribution to the dissemination of Russian culture and folk belief. The influence of these tales can be seen in the works of many writers and composers, notably Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Sadko, The Snow Maiden) and Igor Stravinsky (The Firebird, Petrushka, and L'Histoire du soldat).
Some of the tales written by Afanasyev are:
The Death of Koschei the Immortal,
Vasilissa the Beautiful,
Vasilisa The Priest Daughter,
Father Frost,
Sister Alenushka, Brother Ivanushka,
The Frog Princess,
Vasilii the Unlucky,
The White Duck,
The Princess Who Never Smiled,
The Wicked Sisters,
The 12 Dancing Princesses,
The Magic Swan Geese,
The Feather of Finist the Falcon,
Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird, and the Gray Wolf,
The Sea King and Vasilisa the Wise,
The Bold Knight, the Apples of Youth, and the Water of Life,
Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What.
The Golden Slipper,
The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa,
The Wise Little Girl,
The Armless Maiden,
The Giant Turnip.