Philosophical Tales by Hans Christian Andersen and Evgeny Klyuev
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2026-6-84-92
The fairy tales of Andersen and Evgeny Klyuev are a staple of children’s reading. The heroes of many of Andersen’s tales, and almost of Klyuev’s, are household items imbued with destiny, memory, and inner world. Identifying the philosophical meaning of fairy tales, and in particular, solutions to problems in understanding life, is relevant task. A comparative analysis of the authorial concepts of Andersen and Klyuev is undertaken for the first time. The tales of both authors, striving towards the parable genre, have a dual address, suggesting joint reading and discussion of the stories by a child and an adult. An adult must help a child understand the more general meaning contained in specific stories. An adult must help a child understand the more general meaning contained in specific stories. The practical significance of this study lies in identifying the parable-like meaning of fairy tales and highlighting their philosophical implications. The goal is to identify the specific genre variations of the two authors’ fairy tales (Andersen’s "stories" and Klyuev’s laconic parable-like tales), as well as to analyze the plot logic, compare the characters and the author’s positions. Based on the principles of comparative typological comparison, common features of the tales of the two authors are revealed: the formulation of the problem of moral choice, attention to minority subjects (household items), delving into the psychology of the hero, who undergoes a kind of initiation, the affirmation of the special mission of art as the keeper of life experience, the embodiment of memory. At the same time, within the context of a vast historical period, significant differences are also noticeable. Andersen wrote during the Romantic era; the goal of the heroes of his fairy tales was to harmonize with the world, to understand their place in society, and their usefulness to others. Klyuev, being an author of the post-classical (“chaographic”) era, gravitating towards the poetics of postmodernism, shows his hero’s confrontation with the stereotypes of mass consciousness and narrow pragmatism, asserting the intrinsic value of individuality, even if it violates the norms of “common sense”. The hero of Andersen’s “presentive” fairy tales does not choose his own destiny and is subject to external circumstances; Klyuev’s proactive, self-assured hero chooses his own course of action, striving to make every moment of his life rich and meaningful. The abundance of dialogue, the combination of elegiac and humorous intonation, and the playful use of language, characteristic of both authors, avoid the overt didacticism of the monologue (authoritative) language of the classic parable.
Keywords: fairy tales about things, author’s fairy tale, parable, children’s literature, literary tradition
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Issue: 6, 2026
Series of issue: Issue 6
Rubric: RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN LITERATURE
Pages: 84 — 92
Downloads: 1