Alexander Afanasyev

Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (1826–1871) was a Russian folklorist and historian whose collection of Russian fairy tales, published between 1855 and 1863, became the standard source for the genre, often compared with the work of the Brothers Grimm. Working for the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow, he gathered more than six hundred tales from his own and others' collections and also published a large study of Slavic mythology, The Poetic Outlook of the Slavs on Nature. His bawdier tales could only be printed abroad. Afanasyev died poor, but his collections inspired generations of writers, composers and artists.