The Parody of Russian Fairy Tales in Polish Children’s Literature after 1989: The Case of Jerzy Niemczuk (Trans. from French)

Abstract

The article examines two fairy tales present in Jerzy Niemczuk’s collection Mr. Disorder’s Fairy Tales: The Worm and the Fish (1989) and The Little Paunchy Horse (1993). These little known texts constitute interesting parodies of The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish by Alexander Pushkin and The Little Humpbacked Horse by Pyotr Yershov. Special attention is given to the political context of Niemczuk’s writings that appeared immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union. While they refer to the literary history of Pushkin’s and Yershov’s fairy tales in post-war Poland, these new fairy parodies appeared to be full of domestic political meaning reflecting events in Poland after 1989.

Keywords: Jerzy Niemczuk, Mr. Disorder’s Fairy Tales, The Worm and the Fish, The Little Paunchy Horse, Alexander Pushkin, The Tale of the Fiherman and the Fish, Pyotr Yershov, The Little Humpabacked Horse, parody, historical context, post-war Poland, Poland after 1989