Snegurochka (Russian: Снегу́рочка), or The Snow Maiden, is a character in Russian fairy tales.
In one story, she is the daughter of Spring and Frost, and yearns for the companionship of mortal humans. She grows to like a shepherd named Lel, but her heart is unable to know love. Her mother takes pity and gives her this ability, but as soon as she falls in love, her heart warms and she melts.
This version of the story was made into a play by Aleksandr Ostrovsky, with incidental music by Tchaikovsky.
The modern Snegurochka is also depicted as the granddaughter and helper of Ded Moroz, the Russian version of Father Christmas.
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In 1878, the composer Ludwig Minkus and the Balletmaster Marius Petipa staged a ballet adaptation of Snegurochka titled The Daughter of the Snows for the Tsar's Imperial Ballet. The tale was also adapted into an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov titled The Snow Maiden. The story itself was adapted into two Soviet films: an animated film in 1952 with some of Rimsky-Korsakov's music, also called The Snow Maiden, and a live-action film in 1969 directed by Pavel Kadochnikov, with music by Vladislav Kladnitsky. Ruth Sanderson retold the story in the picture book The Snow Princess, in which falling in love does not immediately kill the princess, but turns her into a mortal human, who will die.
In a different version, such as the one collected by Louis Leger in Contes Populaires Slaves, an old couple make a girl out of snow, who turns into a living being.[1] She grows up quickly. A group of girls invite her for a walk in the woods, after which they make a small fire and take turns leaping over it; in some variants, this is on St. John's Day, and a St. John's Day tradition. When Snegurochka's turn comes, she starts to jump, but only gets halfway before evaporating into a small cloud. Andrew Lang included this in The Pink Fairy Book.[1] Tales of this type are Aarne-Thompson type 703* The Snow Maiden.[2] It compares to tales of type 1362, The Snow-child, where the strange origin is a blatant lie.[3]
The motherland of Snegurochka is Schelikovo near Kostroma.