Tales From the Urals: Of The Lady and The Stone Masters (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798345147689)

Tales from the Urals, set in the early XIXth century in imperial Russia, explore the boundaries between reality and magic. Their characters are simple villagers with an acute sense of beauty and true love for their land. They emerge from the Slavs' collective consciousness as a strife for freedom in a world full of vanity and greed. The Urals' tales do not offer happy endings; yet, they compel the reader to see beyond the materialistic and appreciate the nature around us and the moments we have with each other.
The tales were originally collected and published by Pavel Bazhov, a Russian writer and publicist. Victoria F?, his compatriot and colleague, chose to translate some of them but, in the process of her work, found that out one of the stories needed a sequel. Hence, in addition to the five translated folktales, the reader gets to experience Victoria F?'s original writing style in "The Malachite Necklace," the last story in the collection.