RUSSIAN FOLK TALES.

June 10, 2004 by 11 Comments

A 1903 book, Folk Tales From the Russian, has been put online. It has very nice Art Nouveau-ish illustrations and the translations are quaintly charming, but I confess the reason I’m memorializing it here is the name of the author, Verra Xenophontovna Kalamatiano de Blumenthal. She hereby replaces Astrid Pouppez de Ketteris de Hollaeken and the rest of the Belgian aristocracy in my onomastic affections. (Via Plep [9th June].)

Comments

  1. Qov says
    June 10, 2004 at 11:48 am

    A translator with the patronymic Xenophone! That’s marvellous.

  2. language hat says
    June 10, 2004 at 12:02 pm

    Very good. So let’s see, she’s True Foreign-speaker Blackeye of the Flowervalley. Impressive!

  3. Toby says
    June 10, 2004 at 7:14 pm

    Hat, stop showing off!!!

  4. Scott Martens says
    June 11, 2004 at 10:14 am

    That does put into perspective those exotic-sounding faux Native American names – “Dances with Daffodils”, “Little Broken Rubber” and the like.

  5. Tatyana says
    June 11, 2004 at 12:33 pm

    LH, you’re cheating: she’s Faith, daughter of Foreign-speaker… (and Blackeye in connection with Faith instead of Susan somehow doesn’t relate to the Flowervalley).
    And thank you (and Plep for hilarious link; go to the notes there- most refreshing. Also, the AN illustrations add to the fun (muzhik smoking a pipe, etc) – done by someone who’s name is L.F. Perkins

  6. language hat says
    June 11, 2004 at 2:40 pm

    Quite right — I was being silly. To make it up to you, I got you a book at the library sale.

  7. VERRA says
    January 12, 2006 at 5:41 am

    There’s a beautifully illustrated downloadable ebook of Russian Folk Tales that was first printed in 1903! The hard copy is no longer in print, but this is an electronic copy of the book. You can find it at http://www/uthrive.net

  8. language hat says
    January 12, 2006 at 7:28 am

    Your link doesn’t work.

  9. languagehat says
    September 25, 2024 at 5:10 pm

    You can see the 1886 marriage certificate of law student Павел Юльев Блюменталь, 21, and Вера Ксенофонтова Каламатьяно, 32, here (#57, at bottom). Also, I have belatedly realized VERRA’s link was to a spam site, so it’s just as well it didn’t work.

  10. PlasticPaddy says
    September 25, 2024 at 6:20 pm

    What is written is Ксенофонтова not Ксенофонтовна.

  11. languagehat says
    September 25, 2024 at 7:05 pm

    Good catch — I lazily took the names off the description here rather than verifying them with the document itself. I fixed the version in my earlier comment.

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