Creative principles of reinvention of folklore fairy-tale characters in Vasily Shukshin’s novella “Until the cock crows thrice”

Fairy-tale characters in Vasily Shukshin’s anti-bureaucratic satirical novella (or “anti-fairy tale”) “Until the Cock Crows Thrice” / “The Fairy Tale about Ivan the Fool, how He Traveled Beyond the Thrice-Ninth Kingdom to Acquire Some Wits and Wisdom” (such as Baba Yaga, the three-headed Snake Gorynych, devils, Nesmeyana or the Princess Who Never Smiled, and others), as well as the demonstrative anti-traditionality of the plot arouse the interest of readers and researchers. However, main principles of reinterpretation and modernization of folklore motifs and stock characters within the framework of a satirical genre of “old fairy tales in a new way,” as well as the origins of this eccentric literary experiment have been little studied. Shukshin played with diverse folklore cliches, mixed speech styles, and a wide range of postmodern techniques. Our analysis reveals the continuity of his expressive methods with the traditions of joke culture of Old Russia in general and the poetics of skomoroshinas (medieval wandering buffoons’ songs), which has clearly manifested in the buffoonish duel of Ivan with the false Wise Man (the Sage). When translating the novella into other languages (for example, into Chinese), translators will be able to use the practical recommendations and comments on how to adequately perceive the nuanced ironic subtexts and to adapt Russian cultural and historical realities and fairy-tale motifs from “Until the Cock Crows Thrice” for the foreign-cultural readers and deliver author’s point of view to their minds and souls. For instance, the possibility of using similar buffoonish features of poetics of skomoroshinas and Chinese traditions of street performers, masters of burlesque (huajixi yanyuan), plays in the genre of “fake official drama” (nongjiaguanxi), as well as techniques of the popular traditional oral performing genre (quyi / “melodious art”, shuochang yishu / “speaking and singing art”) and mythological parallels of an archetypal nature when translating Shukshin’s work from Russian into Chinese is noted.