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The Upper Don Cossacks are Heroes of Fairy Tales

In the traditional sense Russian fairy tales are widely known. But fairy tales about Cossack life are very rare, even in Cossack regions including the Upper Don. Perhaps the Cossack mode of life did not make for a wide popularity of Cossack fairy tales.

However Cossacks had several popular fairy-tales. Besides, late in the XII– early in the XX centuries, there were enthusiasts trying to create fairy tales not only “with participation of Cossacks”, but also based on Cossack stories. These tales did not live long among the Cossacks.

At present, however, there are Cossack storytellers, individual enthusiasts. One of them is Vladimir Koghitin, a scientific ethnographer, Candidate in Historical Sciences, a writer from Volgograd. He is the author of the ethnographic collection books: “A Copper Ring”, “Tales Retold” and others. In 2011, his book “Fairy Tales of the Upper Don” was published and became a bibliographic rarity.

A journalist Elena Danilova said about “Fairy Tales of the Upper Don” in the “Volgogradskaya Pravda” of February, 29, 2013: “…the Cossacks from the fairy tales are brave men. Sometimes they get into trouble, but never surrender. And even if their power is running out, an occasion, a miracle or the God comes for the rescue”.

The fantastic stories of V.Koghitin are full of humour, unexpected changes of the plot, specific dialect words. Certainly, the work with dialects is a very sensitive area and perhaps not every reader will like this project, but, at least, the people of the Upper Don can understand practically everything here.

Vladimir Viktorovich lectured in the Volgograd State University, but for health reasons he had to retire and for several years he has lived in the nursing home for the elderly. His former students try to convey to the readers the works of the Don ethnographer. In one of the social networks a support team for Vladimir Koghitin is created to restore his copyrights for his books and audio performances published without listing a fee to the author.

Alexey Kochetov