A Poetics of Silence and Colonial Discourse: Repurposing African Folklore in Imperial Russia

The paper examines the reception and repurposing of African folklore in late imperial Russia through two case studies: Dmitrii Koropchevskii’s Fables and Tales of Savage Peoples (1874) and Nikolai Kun’s African Folktales (1912). Highlighting the mechanisms of circulation of colonial knowledge, the study reveals a dual dynamic: on the one hand, a steady estrangement of the Russian versions from the originals through a poetics of silence affecting both the African and the European voices; on the other, the preservation (and appropriation) of colonial tropes and discourse.