I really enjoyed Sophie’s discussion of the fairytales in her post — her arguments resonated with me. The tales were my favorite of the core work for this week because they left me analyzing society in the deepest way (which is a tad ironic, I think). Our class discussions were great, and I’m still left pondering the cultural reasoning behind the stories’ nature. Though they weren’t quite as shocking as Frol Skobeev, they were nowhere near as watered down and painfully unrealistic as the Hollywood “Happily Ever After”, and they strayed from the typical religious undertones of prayer and suffering leading to salvation. Instead, these strange tales echoed themes of fated situations of strife — usually familial — in which protagonists invoked the help of magical creatures. Tsarevich Ivan and the Grey Wolf piqued my interest the most, though, because the moral seems to read: “if you’re going to misbehave, misbehave well.” Tsarevich Ivan must appease his father (by and large the greatest consistency through all the stories) by stealing; and yet, when his siblings steal his spoils (as he did) AND quite literally murder him, the happy ending is the reversal. The grey wolf revives him, he returns home, and his ending is cold and emotionless: “Tsarevich Ivan told him [Tsar Berendei] how the Grey Wolf had helped him, and how his brothers had killed him while he slept and Grey Wolf had torn them to bits. At first Tsar Berendei was sorely grieved, but he soon got over it,” (54). I laughed when I read that, because it’s absolutely ridiculous, and yet, it pokes fun at fratricide, great expectations, and settling into stealing when you must. The moral compromises of this tale were far more satisfying to me than everyone turning out A-OK in the end. As Pushkin says in his dedication for Ruslan and Liudmila, “And no one’s praises do I ask from fate, but shall be pleased to thank it”… The Russians know how to settle into a less-than-splendid situation when push comes to shove.