Morphology of the Folktale

Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp in 1928.
Born	17 April 1895 St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	August 22, 1970(1970-08-22) (aged 75) Leningrad, USSR
Occupation	Folklorist, scholar
Nationality	Russian, Soviet
Subject	Russian folk tales, folklore

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (Russian: Владимир Яковлевич Пропп; 29 April [O.S. 17 April] 1895 – 22 August 1970) was a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.

Vladimir Propp was born on April 17, 1895 in Saint Petersburg to a German family. He attended Saint Petersburg University (1913–1918), majoring in Russian and German philology. Upon graduation he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and then became a college teacher of German.

His Morphology of the Folktale was published in Russian in 1928. Although it represented a breakthrough in both folkloristics and morphology and influenced Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes, it was generally unnoticed in the West until it was translated in 1958. His character types are used in media education and can be applied to almost any story, be it in literature, theatre, film, television series, games, etc.

In 1932, Propp became a member of Leningrad University (formerly St. Petersburg University) faculty. After 1938, he chaired the Department of Folklore until it became part of the Department of Russian Literature. Propp remained a faculty member until his death in 1970.

His main books are:

He also published some articles, the most important are:

First printed in specialized reviews, they were republished in Folklore and Reality, Leningrad 1976

Two books were published post mortem:

The first book remained unfinished, the second one is the edition of the course he gave in Leningrad university.