White Swan

Original title: Belaya lebjodushka

33 illustrations are made in black and white lithography, and will certainly cause another discussion about whether a book with such pictures can be considered a children’s book. The artist himself said in one of his interviews that all his fairy-tale characters are the personification of the elements of nature. “In fairy tales, the same folklore character will make someone get lost in the forest, and, on the contrary, lead someone out of the thicket. The same with Baba Yaga, and with all the others.”

It is interesting that Boris Zabirokhin worked for a long time as an artist of popular science literature and only in the 90s began to illustrate fairy tales and epics. In addition to lithographs for Russian folk tales edited by I. Karnaukhova and A. Afanasyev, he worked on The Younger Edda (these illustrations were awarded the Image of the Book prize), The Song of the Nibelungs, the Book of Genesis, and created a series of illustrations for V. Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales.