On Pushkin’s Synopsis of the Russian Version of Snow White

The essay compares Pushkin’s synopsis of a folk tale about the dead princess with a newly found early 18 th century manuscript “The Tale about A Tsar and His Daughter” using a similar plot. The analysis reveals the specificity of the early version of the AT 709 plot “Snow White” in Russia. An odd motif in Pushkin’s folklore record — the brave deed of the princess in the house of the seven brothers — has been hitherto considered as non-fitting for this type of fairy tale. However, an episode describing the princess putting to sleep the enemies of the brothers with the help of sleeping drops has a parallel in the newly found manuscript: in the latter, the princess defeats the dragon, the brothers’ enemy, with the help of poisoned drink. The search for similar motives led to a group of fairy tales about a girl and robbers represented in the late records of the 19 th and 20 th centuries where this motif constitutes the final part. The analyzed material reveals that the episode with the princess’s deed was characteristic of the early versions of the fairy tale AT 709 in Russia and, apparently, was lost in the oral tradition under the influence of Pushkin’s verse fairy tale and the version of the Brothers Grimm. Other common features of “The Tale about A Tsar and His Daughter” and Pushkin’s synopsis — a poisoned shirt, a high tomb and the prince’s falling in love with the dead princess — are preserved in the later Russian versions of the fairy tale AT 709.