Not-Childish Tales of Death, Sex, and the End of the World. The Meanings of Well-Known Folk Texts

Ivan Tsarevich and Vasilisa the Beautiful, Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless, swan geese, rejuvenating apples, and the mysterious number «three» – all these are heroes and symbols of fairy tales that we have known since childhood.
The history of folklore texts goes back to deep antiquity, and their meanings seem absolutely obvious to us today. And it seems that there are no subtexts and cannot be any. But is it really so?
Ulyana Nizhinskaya – a philologist, researcher of folklore, blogger, and host of the program «Inside the Tales» on the radio «Silver Rain» in the book «Not-Childish Tales…» will tell us:
• what the dead princess and the seven heroes are silent about;
• where the swan geese fly;
• why Yaga put children on a shovel and who Koschei the Deathless is;
• how ancient fairy tales reflected the relationship between man and woman;
• where the female heroes that resemble the Greek Amazons came from in our folklore…
…and much more that was left unsaid in our childhood.