Lev Tolstoy

Tolstoy, Lev (1828–1910), Russian writer, most famous for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but also the author of many fairy tales for children. Tolstoy was an ardent educationalist and used the fairy‐tale form for didactic and educational purposes. In the 1860s and 1870s he opened several rural schools and published a number of school primers, which mostly contain retellings of folk and fairy tales from all over the world: fables, animal tales, magical tales, and some local aetiological tales. These collections were addressed to peasant children and are very simple in structure and style. When using well‐known plots, such as ‘Little Tom Thumb’, Tolstoy often followed Russian chapbooks rather than Perrault, and he always described Russian peasant settings in detail. However, he also included in his collections several oriental and Arabian fairy tales, retaining and accentuating their exotic settings. The source of many of his fairy tales are to be found in the collections of the famous Russian folklorists Afanasyev and Khudyakov. Some of the more complicated and original fairy tales, involving criticism of social injustice, such as ‘The Tale of Ivan the Fool’ (1885), were banned because of their disrespectful portrayal of Tsars, the state, and the clergy.

Tolstoy's most popular fairy tale, ‘The Three Bears’ (1872), is a version of ‘Goldilocks’, which also appears as a subtext in the novel Anna Karenina.

— Maria Nikolajeva