Fairy-tale fantasy in Russian handwritten fiction of the late 17th - first third of the 18th centuries

The paper analyzes the changes in interpreting magic, fairytale fiction that occurred in translated and original stories of the late 17th - first third of the 18th centuries. A number of fiction works of this period show representations of magic closely linked to the Christian worldview, with some works appearing referring to magic and sorcery as a non-judgmental category. The first Russian translations of fairy tales by M.-C. d’Aulnoy’s made in the Petrine era contributed to the appearance of pure genre fiction free from judgment. These were “The Tale of Florine” (1700 - late 1710s, “L’oiseau bleu”) and “The History of Prince Adolf” (1720-1730s, L’Ile de la Félicité). A fairy was an entirely unfamiliar character to the Russian reader. In The Tale of Florine, the word “fée” was translated by “ega baba” (“yaga baba”) commonly used to refer to women with demonic forces. Magical abilities were designated by “vorozhenie” (divination) and “yagina mudrost’” (yaga’s wisdom). In the manuscripts of The History of Prince Adolf, fairies appear as “goddesses” and “gods”, and magical abilities - “l’esprit de féerie” - as “divine spirit”. When describing magical actions, Russian translators of French fairy tales use everyday vocabulary related to the sphere of folk magical beliefs or associated with the Russian folklore and book tradition. In the period under study, we observe the formation of the genre category of fairy-tale magic and a gradual replacement of the category of “miracle” by a genre-conditioned understanding of magic.

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