The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish

File:1975 CPA 4540.jpg

The fairy tale commemorated on a Soviet Union stamp

The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish (Russian: Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке, Skazka o rybake i rybke) is a fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin wrote the tale in autumn 1833 and it was first published in the literary magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya in May 1835. The tale is about a fisherman who manages to catch a "Golden Fish" which promises to fulfill any wish of his in exchange for its freedom. The storyline is similar to the Russian fairy tale The Greedy Old Wife (according to Vladimir Propp) and the Brothers Grimm's tale The Fisherman and His Wife.

Plot summary

In Pushkin's poem, an old man and woman have been living poorly for many years. They have a small hut, and every day the man goes out to fish. One day, he throws in his net and pulls out seaweed two times in succession, but on the third time he pulls out a golden fish. The fish pleads for its life, promising any wish in return. However, the old man is scared by the fact that a fish can speak; he says he does not want anything, and lets the fish go. When he returns and tells his wife about the golden fish, she gets angry and tells her husband to go ask the fish for a new trough, as theirs is broken, and the fish happily grants this small request. The next day, the wife asks for a new house, and the fish grants this also. Then, in succession, the wife asks for a palace, to become a noble lady, to become the ruler of her province, to become the tsarina, and finally to become the Ruler of the Sea and to subjugate the golden fish completely to her boundless will. As the man goes to ask for each item, the sea becomes more and more stormy, until the last request, where the man can hardly hear himself think. When he asks that his wife be made the Ruler of the Sea, the fish cures her greed by putting her back in the old hut and giving back the broken trough.

Adaptations

• 1866 - Le Poisson doré (The Golden Fish), "fantastic ballet", choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon, the music by Ludwig Minkus.
• 1917 - The Fisherman and the Fish by Nickolay Tcherepnin, op. 41 for orchestra
• 1937 - The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, USSR, animated film by Aleksandr Ptushko. [1]
• 1950 - The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, USSR, classic traditionally animated film by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky. [2]
• 2002 - About the Fisherman and the Goldfish, Russia, stop-motion film by Nataliya Dabizha. [3]

References

• Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study by A.D.P. Briggs, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1982.

External links

• (Russian) «Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке» available at Russian Virtual Library
• The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish (1950 film) available online in Russian with Esperanto subtitles
• [4] in English