AfTeR - Kun, N.A.: African Folktales

Author

Kun, Nikolai Al’bertovich (1877-1940)

Title

Skazki afrikanskikh narodov, Moskva 1912² (first edition: 1910)

African Folktales

Keywords

Central Africa, Children’s Literature, Fiction, Illustrations, Kun

Summary

The book is divided into nine major chapters, each devoted to the folktales of a specific ethnic group. Each chapter opens with a brief paragraph detailing the characteristics of the given ethnicity. In the introduction, Kun explains that he intends to introduce his “young readers” to “negro tales”, which “tell of monsters, sorcerers, witches and cannibals, and all sorts of marvellous adventures. They tell about animals […]. Negroes also have stories taken from everyday life […]. Especially interesting are those tales in which the negro, not possessing scientific knowledge, tries to give an answer to those phenomena in his life and in nature, which attract his attention”. He also warns that “some of the tales bear a tinge of cruelty, but this is due to the fact that the negro is still at a low stage of development and it is impossible to make the same demands on him as we make on Europeans. But still, despite the naivety of the tales, the cruelty of some of them, we must recognise in the negro the ability not only to work as a slave, as the Europeans thought until very recently, but also the ability to develop and improve. Many negro tales clearly show how unjust the Europeans were in denying the negro all human feelings and talents for so long”.

Interestingly, even more so since it is a book aimed at children, the tales are accompanied not by drawings translating into pictures their contents, but by ethnographic portraits showcasing the various “negro types”.

Bio

Nikolai Kun was a Russian historian, pedagogue and writer. He graduated from Moscow University in 1903; after teaching in a women’s seminary in Tver’, he spent a year working at Berlin University and the Ethnological Museum under the supervision of professor Eduard Meyer. He continued his teaching career in Russia, both in higher education institutes for the people, and at different universities (among which MGU). He was mostly famous, in Soviet times, for his role as editor of the ancient history section of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia and Small Soviet Encyclopaedia, as well as for the book Greek Myths and Legends.