work
The Forest Rustles
"The Forest Rustles"
also: Лес шумит, The Forest Murmurs, A Polesie Legend
V. G. Korolenko's story subtitled "A Polesie Legend," excerpted here in the "Edited" section: a frame narrative in which an old forest-dwelling peasant tells the story of the forester Roman, his forced marriage to Oksana, and their dead infant, interwoven with folk belief in the forest spirit ("lesovik").
Reading notes
- Poems and Dubia (school-age and disputed juvenilia) §2308 (A POLESIE LEGEND)
Polesie is the vast forested marshland region straddling Ukraine/Belarus/Russia; Korolenko's story is framed as a legend collected from an old forester there, in the skaz style of reported peasant speech.
- To N. M. Yezhov, 28 January 1890. Petersburg. §7 you slip a little into Korolenko's manner ("The Forest Murmurs")
Vladimir Korolenko's story "Лес шумит" ("The Forest Rustles," rendered here as "The Forest Murmurs"), a frame narrative built around Slavic forest-spirit folklore; Chekhov cites it as a recognizable stylistic touchstone, flagging that Ezhov's telling of the water-nymph's father drifts toward Korolenko's manner rather than developing his own voice.