A scholarly work that aims to be both broad enough in scope to satisfy upper-division undergraduates studying folk belief and narrative and detailed enough to meet the needs of graduate students in the field. Each of the seven chapters in Part 1 focuses on one aspect of Russian folk belief, such as the pagan background, Christian personages, devils and various other logical categories of the topic. The author's thesis - that Russian folk belief represents a "double faith" whereby Slavic pagan beliefs are overlaid with popular Christianity - is persuasive and has analogies in other cultures. The folk narratives constituting Part 2 are translated and include a wide range of tales, from the briefly anecdotal to the more fully developed narrative, covering the various folk personages and motifs explored in Part 1.
Biography
LINDA J. IVANITS studied at Pennsylvania State University and at the University of Wisconsin, where she received her Ph.D. in Russian literature. She is currently Associate Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University.Professor Ivanits is the author of a number of articles on literature, folklore, and related topics, including “Dostoevski’s Mar’ja Lebjadkina,” “Folk Beliefs about the Unclean Force in The Brothers Karamazov,” “Hagiography in Brat’ja Karamazovy,” “Sologub’s Fantasy Creatures,” “Fairy Tale Motifs in Sologub’s Dream on the Rocks,” and “The Grotesque in Sologub’s Novel The Petty Demon”
