Is there a Russian version of Snow White? Disney princesses and their Russian counterparts

How we matched the pairs

Folklorists sort folk tales by plot in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU) index. Russian scholars also use the East Slavic index (SUS), which often shares the ATU numbers: the Frog Princess is type 402 in both. Stories with the same number are versions of one tale type. Stories with different numbers can still share a motif, such as a frog spouse or an enchanted sleep.

A shared type doesn't mean one story copied the other: the same tale types turn up in many countries.

The pairs at a glance

Snow White and the Dead Princess: one tale type

Pushkin wrote "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights" in autumn 1833; it was published in 1834. He drew on Russian folk versions of the story. Two recorded versions appear in Afanasyev's collection as "The Magic Mirror" (Nos. 210 and 211). The Grimms published "Snow White" in 1812 as tale 53, and Disney's film followed in 1937.

Both stories have a queen questioning her mirror, a stepdaughter sent into the forest, a home shared with seven (dwarfs in one, bogatyr knights in the other), a poisoned apple and a see-through coffin. Pushkin's princess has no personal name. She is already engaged to Prince Yelisei, who asks the Sun, the Moon and the Wind where she is, then wakes her by breaking the coffin.

Gentle warning: in Pushkin's poem the knights' dog swallows the poisoned apple and dies. For a 4-year-old, say the dog warned the knights and stop there.

Cinderella and Vasilisa the Beautiful: shared motifs, different types

In Afanasyev's tale, a dying mother leaves her 8-year-old daughter Vasilisa a small doll with her blessing. A stepmother and two stepsisters load Vasilisa with work, and the doll helps. Sent to Baba Yaga's hut for fire, Vasilisa completes the witch's tasks with the doll's help. Later her fine weaving reaches the tsar, who marries her.

Cinderella has the stepfamily and the chores too, but her story turns on a ball, a glass slipper and, in Disney's film, a fairy godmother. Scholars file the tales separately: Cinderella is ATU 510A, "Persecuted Heroine," while Vasilisa's tale is East Slavic type 480B*, "Stepmother and Stepdaughter," where a doll helps the heroine sent for fire.

Gentle warning: Baba Yaga's fence is made of bones, and the skull lantern Vasilisa brings home burns up her stepfamily. For young children, end with Vasilisa bringing the light home. She is not the same heroine as Vasilisa the Wise.

Tiana, the Frog Prince and the Frog Princess: who is the frog?

In the Grimms' "The Frog Prince" ("The Frog King" in German), tale 1 of their 1812 collection (ATU 440), the frog is the groom; he becomes a prince again when the princess throws him against a wall. Disney's The Princess and the Frog (2009) credits that tale and E. D. Baker's 2002 novel The Frog Princess, and Tiana turns into a frog herself.

The Russian Frog Princess is type ATU 402, "The Animal Bride." Prince Ivan's arrow is caught by a frog in a swamp, and he must marry her. In the best-known versions she is Vasilisa the Wise, who outdoes the other brides at baking and weaving. When Ivan burns her frog skin too soon, she vanishes and he has to find her. More in The Frog Princess vs The Princess and the Frog.

For your child: "In the German tale the frog is the prince. In the Russian tale the frog is the bride. At Disney, both end up as frogs."

Aurora and the Dead Princess: an enchanted sleep

Sleeping Beauty is a different type, ATU 410, known from Perrault (1697), the Grimms (1812) and Disney's 1959 film. It shares one motif with Pushkin's tale: a princess in a deathlike sleep until the one who loves her arrives. Aurora sleeps under Maleficent's curse. Pushkin's princess lies in a crystal coffin after biting the apple, and when Yelisei breaks it she says, in our translation, "How long I have slept!"

Ariel and Vasilisa the Wise, daughter of the Sea Tsar

Vasilisa the Wise appears in more than one Russian tale. In "The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise," No. 219 in Afanasyev's collection (ATU 313, "The Magic Flight"), she is the eldest of the Sea Tsar's twelve daughters. When her father sets a human prince impossible tasks, she does them with her magic, makes sure he picks her from her identical sisters and helps him escape. When the Sea Tsar gives chase, she turns them into a duck and a drake.

Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989) is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 story. Ariel's father, King Triton, rules the sea and forbids contact with humans, and she trades her voice for legs. Both heroines leave a sea kingdom for life with a human prince. No source we found puts them under one type, so this pair shares a setting and a motif.

Mulan, Merida and Marya Morevna: princesses who fight

In Afanasyev's tale, Marya Morevna is a warrior princess who marries Prince Ivan. Leaving for war, she tells him not to open a certain door; he does, frees Koschei the Deathless, and Koschei carries her off. Ivan wins her back with help from his sisters' bird-husbands and a horse from Baba Yaga.

Mulan (1998) comes from the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, who takes her father's place in the army. Brave (2012) is an original story credited to Brenda Chapman. What links them is the image of a princess who fights; they share no tale type. Marya Morevna starts as the commander and then needs rescuing, while Mulan and Merida drive their stories to the end.

Gentle warning: in the folk tale Koschei kills Ivan, and his brothers-in-law bring him back to life. Marya Morevna for kids shows how to soften it.

Nesmeyana: no Disney match

"The Princess Who Never Smiled," No. 297 in Afanasyev's collection, is type ATU 559, "Making the Princess Laugh." A humble worker who once gave his coins to a mouse, a beetle and a catfish slips in the mud by the palace. The animals rush to help him, and the sight finally makes the princess laugh. None of the 13 official Disney princesses has this plot. Try it as a game: the princess who never smiled.