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received: 2023-10-21                   DOI 10.19233/ASHS.2023.31
WORLDS THAT MAKE STORIES AND STORIES THAT MAKE WORLDS: 
IMAGINED SOCIETIES OF FAIRY TALES AND FOLKTALES
Polona TRATNIK
Institute IRRIS for Research, Development and Strategies of Society, Culture and Environment, Čentur 1f, 6273 Marezige, Slovenia
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva cesta 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
e-mail: polona.tratnik@guest.arnes.si
ABSTRACT
That fact that fairy tales and folktales are produced in a certain time and space and intended for a spe-
cific audience has, until now, often been neglected. In the past they performed specific social or political 
functions, such as for instance, being a part of nation building, they were meant to discipline a certain 
population or educate. The author claims that fairy tales and folktales arise from social needs and tell of 
imagined societies. Their social and political functions can be analyzed through the relation between the 
structural features and the specificities of individual versions, considered in regard to social needs.
Keywords: fairy tale studies, folktale studies, critical theory, computational folktale studies, storytelling, formalism, 
structuralism, utopianism, social criticism, psychoanalytical studies, performance and communication studies
MONDI CHE CREANO STORIE E STORIE CHE CREANO MONDI: 
SOCIETÀ IMMAGINARIE DELLE FIABE E DEI RACCONTI
SINTESI
Spesso viene trascurato il fatto che le fiabe e i racconti popolari siano prodotti di determinati periodi 
e luoghi, destinati a un pubblico specifico. In passato, queste narrazioni svolgevano funzioni sociali o 
politiche specifiche, fungendo, per esempio, da supporto nel processo di costruzione della nazione, mezzi 
per disciplinare certe popolazioni o strumenti di educazione. L’autrice sostiene che le fiabe e i racconti 
popolari nascono da esigenze sociali e narrano di società immaginarie. Le loro funzioni sociali e politiche 
si possono comprendere attraverso un’analisi della relazione tra le caratteristiche strutturali e le specificità 
delle singole versioni, valutate in riferimento ai bisogni sociali.
Parole chiave: studi sulle fiabe, studi sui racconti popolari, teoria critica, studi computazionali sui racconti 
popolari, affabulazione, formalismo, strutturalismo, utopismo, critica sociale, studi psicoanalitici, 
scienze dello spettacolo e della comunicazione
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INTRODUCTION
The great social changes that took place in the 
transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Pe-
riod in Europe were reflected in the establishment 
of fairy tales as a genre.1 Fairy tales have played 
a significant role in shaping modern society. As 
a literary genre, fairy tales took shape in the late 
seventeenth century in France. “Contes de fee” 
arose from the culture of storytelling in salons. The 
emergence of the literary tale as a shorter story 
took place in fourteenth-century Florence, leading 
to various collections of stories called novelle in 
Italian and Latin, influenced by Boccaccio’s De-
cameron. Novelle were influenced by oral wonder 
tales, folktales, fabliaux, chivalric romances, epic 
poetry, and fables (Zipes, 2012a, 12). Jack Zipes 
connects the consolidation of literary fairy tales 
as a genre with the spread of the “civilizing pro-
cess” (a notion taken from Norbert Elias) in Europe 
(Zipes, 2012a, 33). To comprehend the meaning 
of this notion, the origin of the word civilité is 
significant as it was consolidated during the 
disintegration of chivalric society and acquired 
a special character of refinement and an educa-
tional function in the sixteenth century (in 1530 
Erasmus of Rotterdam published a treatise on the 
upbringing of boys De civilitate morum puerilium) 
(Elias, 2000, 47). By “civilizing process” Norbert 
Elias was referring primarily to 1.) systematic be-
havioral education and refinement (higher social 
classes in seventeenth century France), as well as 
2.) nation-building i.e. state building (the case of 
Germany and the introduction of the concept of 
culture in the nineteenth century). The develop-
ment of the press was an important factor in the 
consolidation of literary fairy tales as a genre and 
which facilitated their existence, development, 
distribution and popularity – and thus the function 
of “civilizing” society.
Literary theorists have interest in literary 
fairy tales that are considered to be canonized 
in the modern era (cf. Wanning Harries, 2001). 
Folklorists “make a distinction between wonder 
folk tales, which originated in oral traditions 
throughout the world and still exist, and literary 
fairy tales, which emanated from the oral tradi-
tions through the mediation of manuscripts and 
print, and continue to be created today in various 
mediated forms around the world” (Zipes, 2012b, 
2–3). However, the historical relations between 
the oral tradition of storytelling and the literary 
tradition of fairy tales are complex and connec-
1 The article was written within projects ”Political Functions of Folktales“ (ARIS N6-0268) and program ”The Practices of Conflict 
Resolution between Customary and Statutory Law in the Area of Today’s Slovenia and Neighboring Countries“ (ARIS P6-0435), 
supported by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency.
tions exist among them. The stories traversed geo-
graphically across different cultures, from literary 
genre to folklore and vice versa, as well as from 
different sorts of ancient tales to literary genres 
and folktales. Accordingly, literary fairy tales and 
folktales often share similarities amongst them-
selves and with other types of narratives, such as 
myths and legends, and other literary genres such 
as novellas and short stories. At times it is even 
difficult to differentiate between different genres, 
although attempts to do so frequently re-appear. 
In addition, certain fairy tales or parts of fairy tales 
and similar narratives appear in different cultural 
contexts and at different times. This fact has been 
acknowledged by evolutionary theory. Zipes 
introduced the theory of memetics and cultural 
evolution, inspired by genetically oriented evo-
lutionary theory. In his view, only some fairy tale 
memes, defined as a unit of cultural transmission 
that can be a motif or a plot, a simple idea, story, 
phrase, or key information, are capable of surviv-
ing cultural evolution – these are memes that are 
repeated and that we remember. These memes are 
universal as they are immediately understood by 
people in different cultural environments, which 
is why they persist (Zipes, 2006, 5).
The theory of memetics speaks of persisting ele-
ments that can be preserved over centuries and in 
different cultural environments, and acknowledges 
that other elements change in different social con-
texts, but it does not explain how or why this hap-
pens. At the same time, the concept of the meme 
is too broad, as it can refer to a motif (such as the 
lost shoe in Cinderella) or to the structure of the 
tale (such as that of the dragon slayer). Accordingly, 
evolutionary theory does not say much about why 
particular fairy tales were interesting in some social 
circumstances nor what role they played. However, 
this characteristic testifies to the fact that fairy tales 
are obviously a flexible matter in their essence, so 
that through certain adaptations they can serve dif-
ferent needs in different social circumstances. Some 
schools of thought saw this characteristic of fairy 
tales but failed to recognize that changes in narra-
tives are not arbitrary. The purpose of this article 
is to link fairy tales and folktales with cultural and 
political reality in order to show that it is precisely 
this flexibility of fairy tales and folktales that makes 
different societies adapt fairy tale narratives in such 
a way that through discourse they perform certain 
functions that are all related to building imagined 
societies, such as disciplining, nation-building, and 
education.
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A CRITICAL NOTE TO THE PSYCHOANALYTICAL 
STUDIES OF FAIRY TALES
The psychoanalytic method of studying fairy 
tales, introduced by Bruno Bettelheim (1976)
which emphasizes the importance of fairy tales 
to a child’s upbringing, has achieved great 
popularity, but also harsh criticism (Zipes, 2002, 
179–205). Fairy tales as models for navigating 
reality, helping children develop the brightness 
and courage they need in an adult-ruled world 
have also been studied by Maria Tatar (Tatar, 
1992), who has also psychoanalytically studied 
the darker dimensions of the tales written by 
the brothers Grimm (Tatar, 2003). The problem 
of the psychoanalytic approach introduced by 
Bettelheim is that it disregards the conditions of 
production and reception. Instead, it employs 
a universalist perspective which appears in the 
writing of another psychoanalytic scholar of 
fairy tales, Carl-Heinz Mallet, in the following 
statement: “Human beings per se are the focal 
point of the fairy tales, and people are pretty 
much alike no matter when or where they have 
lived” (Mallet, 1984, 38). A similar problem 
with universalization appears with the theory of 
archetypes. Jungian psychoanalysts tend to disre-
gard the fact that “archetypes” can have diverse 
meanings in different cultures, as the meanings 
of symbols vary in different cultures and can shift 
with cultural changes and advancements in sci-
ence. The view introduced by the psychoanalytic, 
archetypal, and anthroposophical-spiritualist 
(the Waldorf school) readers of fairy tales, of the 
folk and their world-view was thus informed by 
a universalizing tendency that completely disre-
gards social, historical, and cultural factors. This 
is again expressed by the thoughts of Carl-Heinz 
Mallet: “Fairy tales developed outside the great 
world, beyond the centers of political and cultural 
power. They absorbed nothing from these areas, 
no historical events, no political facts, no cultural 
trends. They remained free of the moral views, 
behavioral standards, and manners of the various 
epochs” (Mallet, 1984, 38). In accordance with 
this perspective, psychoanalysis tends to treat 
fairy tales regardless of the social circumstances 
of their origin or of whom they addressed. Bruno 
Bettelheim completely disregarded the fact that 
before the twentieth century, literary fairy tales 
were mostly not intended for children. The broth-
ers Grimm published seven editions of the tales 
between 1812 and 1857, which they censored, 
revised and reworked to conform to “positive” 
cultural values and adjusting in order to achieve 
popular approval (Tatar, 1997, 10), yet not as 
children literature, such as they were taken by 
Bettelheim. As reading for adults, their tales 
functioned as many genres later taken over by 
the culture industry within the process of indus-
trialization. Bettelheim treats fairy tales, such as 
those of the brothers Grimm, as universal factors 
in the growth of children and does not consider 
the primary functions they might also have had 
for those other than children in the circumstances 
of their origin, such as disciplining women, con-
solidating national identities, etc. His “point of 
view is problematic, because what he believes 
to be universal truths ultimately turns out to be 
the values of nineteenth-century Europe” (Haase, 
1993, 391).
Many, particularly early studies of fairy tales, 
neglect the fact that fairy tales and/or folktales ap-
pear in different cultural contexts in different ver-
sions and focus on particular versions of fairy tales 
that they proclaim to be classic – usually those from 
the seventh edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen 
of the brothers Grimm, ignoring the fact that the 
Grimms were changing details and editing each edi-
tion, most significantly the fifth edition from 1843, 
Figure 1: Illustration for Charles Perrault’s “Le Petit 
Poucet” from Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé: 
Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye (1697). Gustave Doré’s 
illustrations appear in an 1867 edition entitled Les 
Contes de Perrault. Seventh of eleven engravings 
(Wikimedia Commons).
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which they also Christianized, and the collection of 
fairy tales from Histoires ou contes du temps passé 
by Charles Perrault (cf. Opie & Opie, 1974; Tatar, 
2002). Studies of this kind reproduce cultural he-
gemony, as they give priority to cases from Western 
Europe. Recently, however, fairy tale studies have 
begun to pay more attention to the non-Western 
versions of the so-called classical fairy tales (cf. 
Teverson, 2019; Joosen & Lathey, 2014; Hennard 
Dutheil de la Rochère et al., 2016).
ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES OF TRADITIONAL AND 
COMPUTATIONAL FOLKTALE STUDIES
Because the “same” folktales appear in differ-
ent variants, folklorists have organized folktales 
into types. The type index of folktales or com-
monly known as the ATU index2 has become an 
internationally established classification system of 
narrative tradition. The type index could be taken 
as principally open to evidencing ever new versions 
of the registered tale types, the initial setting of 
the type index is essentially related to cultural he-
gemony. Although the last version of the type index 
upgraded by Uther has been significantly enriched, 
it still classifies folktales based on the supposedly 
“representative” versions of folktales, which as a 
rule originate from Western Europe. In such a man-
ner, it consolidates certain versions as the dominant 
ones, while at the same time ignores many others. 
The types are conceptualized around certain key 
features, such as enchantment, which might not be 
present in another version set as a mere variation of 
the dominant one or is even neglected.
The earliest studies of folktales appeared in the 
nineteenth century with the so-called “mythological 
theory” of folktales, which studied the mythological 
significance of folktales.3 At the end of the nine-
teenth century, however, younger folklorists divert-
ed research away from this theory and introduced 
more realistic approaches. Folklorists began to 
collect versions of the folktale types. Marina Roalfe 
Cox published a historical-geographical study of 
345 versions of Cinderella in 1893 (Roalfe Cox, 
1893), in which she listed many versions, mostly 
from western European countries. Soon after Aarne 
drafted the first type index, an extensive compara-
tive study of Grimm’s fairy tales was conducted by 
Johannes Bolte and Jiři Polivka (Bolte & Polivka, 
1912–32). The Cinderella variants were further ex-
amined by Anna Birgitta Rooth (Rooth, 1951). Her 
2 The Finns Kaarl Krohn and Julius Krohn promoted the comparative method, a student of this school Antti Aarne drafted a type index in 
1910 (Aarne, 1910) which was perfected in 1928 (Aarne & Thompson, 1928) and 1961 (Thompson, 1961) by an American, Stith Thomp-
son, and in 2004 by a German, Hans-Jörg Uther (2004).
3 Especially Jacob Grimm and Max Müller, while Theodor Benfey and E. B. Tylor, and initially also Andrew Lang, represented the anthro-
pological school; Andrew Lang then pointed out the similarity of folktales with Greek myths and myths, customs and habits of the indi-
genous peoples, similarly to Hermann Oldenberg and J. G. Frazer that also focused on ancient customs and primitive religions.
organization of Cinderella types was recently used 
to conduct a phylomemetic case study derived from 
computational biology to oral traditions with the 
aim to trace the mutation and diversification of folk 
narratives (Sakamoto Martini et al., 2023). Gerhard 
Lauer, the editor of a thematic volume of the journal 
Fabula (summer 2023) on computational folktale 
studies classified the articles into three blocks that 
also denoted three phases of computational folk-
tale studies: 1. collecting, which means building 
reliable databases, 2. annotating collected data and 
metadata and 3. analyzing the data with analytical 
methods and data visualizations (Lauer, 2023, 3). An 
ambitious collaborative program Transatlantic Dig-
ging into Data funded by the National Endowment 
for the Humanities (USA) and the European Union 
enabled three partner institutions (the Meertens 
Institute from Amsterdam, UCLA, and the University 
of Rostok/Wossidlo Research Center) to conduct the 
ISEBEL project: Intelligent Search Engine for Belief 
Legends (2017–2020), within which the research 
group harvested three databases of folktales: The 
Dutch Folktale Database (Meertens Institute), the 
Danish Folktale Database (UC Berkeley) and the 
Wossidlo Digital Archive (Rostock). The aim of the 
project was to create a European database with an 
intelligent search function and geographic visuali-
zations. To illustrate the capacities of ISEBEL as a 
research tool or “a platform to support research,” 
the research team presented the dispersion of mer-
maids and werewolves in the region of Denmark 
and Northeast Germany (Meder et al., 2023). There 
are further possibilities for the visual representation 
of different aspects of werewolf legends, such as 
narrative repertoire by motif, gender, place etc.
Marina Warner, Jan M. Ziolkowski and Graham 
Anderson traced selected fairy tale motifs to the 
ancient past. Warner drew connections with leg-
ends and myths, as well as with representations in 
the visual arts (Warner, 1994), while Ziolkowski 
searched for the roots of the modern fairy tales in 
the medieval past (Ziolkowski, 2007). Anderson 
finds variants of the “classical” modern fairy tales 
in ancient tales that were not meant for children 
(Anderson, 2000). Compared to the computational 
folktale studies, Warner, Ziolkowski and Anderson 
offer humanistic interpretations originating from a 
diachronic examination of motifs. The approach of 
the ISEBEL search engine is synchronic and does 
not assure qualitative interpretation. Instead, results 
from ISEBEL “can provide an alternative starting 
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point for the researcher” by “complementing tradi-
tional analysis with graph analysis techniques and 
clustering algorithms,” especially in the cases of 
larger corpuses composed of thousands of stories, 
when manual analysis becomes a challenge (Meder 
et al., 2023, 122). As computational studies do not 
provide final interpretations, combing traditional 
interpretative methods with contemporary compu-
tational folktale and fairy tale studies that basically 
provide quantitative results, promises to open the 
door for such innovative humanistic interpretations 
as were not possible before, especially because of 
the scope that can be much broader when using 
digital tools. Computational analysis might help 
surpass the issues with cultural hegemony, at least 
as long as reliable and equally qualitative databases 
can be digitally built for different regions. The task 
to conduct qualitative research remains for humani-
ties researchers. Still more, one can establish that 
with computational folktale studies it has become 
Figure 2: Hänsel and Gretel depicted by Alexander Zick (1845–1907), circa 1900 
(Zick, 1975, n. p. (4–5)).
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clearer what tasks a computer can do better than a 
human, and what the real research objectives of the 
humanities are.
DEFICIENCY OF THE FORMALIST AND 
STRUCTURALIST APPROACH
When Vladimir Propp examined wonder tales, 
he established that many legends, some animal 
tales and novellas have the same structure. Consid-
ered from the historical perspective, they merit the 
name “mythical tales” (Propp, 2009, 100). Many 
of the archaic myths present the same structure as 
wonder tales, thus this is the realm back to which 
the tale may be traced. At the same time, “the very 
same structure is exhibited, for example, by certain 
novels of chivalry. This is very likely a realm which 
itself may be traced back to the tale” (Propp, 2009, 
101). Propp differentiated between the structure 
of the tale, the theme (Rus. sjužét), composition 
and variants. The content can be summarized in a 
few sentences. The tale consists of constants and 
variables. The attributes of the dramatis personae 
change, while their actions and functions do not. 
“Function is understood as an act of a character, 
defined from the point of view of its significance 
for the course of the action” (Propp, 2009, 21). 
The functions of the dramatis personae are thus 
the constants and are to be considered the basic 
components of the tale. It often happens that iden-
tical actions are attributed to various personages. 
“This makes possible the study of the tale according 
to the functions of its dramatis personae” (Propp, 
2009, 20). The composition of the tale is set by the 
predicates. From the point of view of composition, 
it is irrelevant, whether a dragon kidnaps a princess 
or a devil a peasant’s daughter. The subjects, ob-
jects and other elements define the theme. “In other 
words, the same composition may lie at the base of 
various themes” (Propp, 2009, 113). A variant dif-
ferentiates from the theme. Another variant appears 
when a sequence or some sequences of the form are 
altered, while retaining all the others. The question 
of quantity turns to one of quality. It is impossible 
to draw a strict dividing line between the theme and 
variant. With his formalistic method, Propp studied 
the form of wonder tales that he ascertained can 
be linked to some ancient forms as wonder tales 
are reflections of myths and legends. He examined 
the inner structure and elements of the wonder tale, 
yet he did not continue by studying the meaning 
that the tales had for the societies that produced 
them: “Following the study of separate elements, 
there must be a genetic study of the axis on which 
all fairy tales are formed. Certainly the norms and 
forms of metamorphoses must be studied. Only after 
this can one proceed to the study of the question of 
how separate themes were formed, and what they 
represent” (Propp, 2009, 115).
Claude Lévi-Strauss structurally studied myth. 
He ascertained that:
 
Whether the myth is re-created by the indi-
vidual or borrowed from tradition, it derives 
from its sources – individual or collective 
(between which interpenetrations and ex-
changes constantly occur) – only the stock 
of representations with which it operates. But 
the structure remains the same, and through 
it the symbolic function is fulfilled. If we add 
that these structures are not only the same for 
everyone and for all areas to which the func-
tion applies, but that they are few in number, 
we shall understand why the world of symbol-
ism is infinitely varied in content, but always 
limited in its laws. There are many languages, 
but very few structural laws which are valid 
for all languages. (Lévi-Strauss, 1963, 203)
 
Myth is, like the rest of language, made up of 
constituent units, wherein each gross constituent 
unit consists of a relation. Within the structure of a 
myth, essential are the relations between the gross 
constituent unit, so that Lévi-Strauss concluded: 
“The true constituent units of a myth are not the 
isolated relations but bundles of such relations, and 
it is only as bundles that these relations can be put 
to use and combined so as to produce a meaning” 
(Lévi-Strauss, 1963, 211). Claude Lévi-Strauss con-
nected the structure of a fairy tale to that of a myth. 
He compared the American Ash-Boy cycle with 
the Indo-European Cinderella and found out that 
the trickster plays the role of mediator in a similar 
manner as the emergence of myth “provides us with 
a series of mediating devices, each of which gener-
ates the next one by a process of opposition and 
correlation” (Lévi-Strauss, 1963, 226).
Formalist and structuralist theory considered the 
concept of an inner or underlying structure deter-
mined by internal relationships and functionalities 
of the elements. The notion of such a structure can 
explain the fact that different fairy tales have a 
uniform general structure, a composition structured 
by the actions a character takes, the predicates, 
although some sequences might be altered or 
subjects change. Formalism and structuralism open 
the realm of fairy tales so as to connect it to other 
kinds of narratives, such as myths and legends. Both 
schools consider the structure as universal, i.e. that 
it always remains the same, only the content (Lévi-
Strauss) or the theme (Propp) change. Although 
Claude Lévi-Strauss avoided this issue to a certain 
degree, as he primarily studied myth, both schools 
disregard the fact that the needs for narratives 
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such as folktales differ with societies. Both schools 
acknowledged that narratives such as folktales and 
wonder folktales do change as regards the contents 
or themes, but they did not question, why this takes 
place nor did they study what different functions 
these narratives play in different social contexts. 
This relationship between the underlying structure 
and the theme on the one hand and the function the 
particular variant or group of variants of a certain 
type of narrative played in a particular society on 
the other, was neglected by formalist and structural-
ist scholars. They simply did not pay attention to the 
social circumstances that are key to understanding 
why a particular narrative appeared at a certain 
time. They did not study the need for these narra-
tives in societies nor their social function.
Figure 3: Arthur Rackham illustration of Hansel and Gretel which appeared in 
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm (1909): The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Transla-
ted by Edgar Lucas. London, Constable & Company Ltd. (Wikimedia Commons).
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SOCIAL ORDER AND UTOPIANISM 
AS SOCIAL CRITICISM
Scholars originating from various disciplines have 
analyzed how fairy tales and folktales reflect the way 
of living, social order and roles, as well as social 
changes. Lewis Seifert analyzed representations 
of sexuality, masculinity and femininity in the late 
seventeenth-century French fairy tales. He acknowl-
edged the rise of literary fairy tales and interest in 
the marvelous was related to the establishment of 
the awareness of the importance of motherhood as 
a sign of deeper social change at the decline of the 
reign of Louis XIV (Seifert, 1996). Ruth Bottigheimer 
connected the origin of the modern fairy tale hero-
ine with the declining control of women over their 
own fertility, which appears simultaneously with the 
rise of capitalism. Around 1700, modern attributes 
Figure 4: Illustration of Hansel and Gretel in front of the witch’s house by Otto 
Kubel (1868–1951) from 1930 (Wikimedia Commons).
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of femininity were formed that were understood as 
normal until recently (Bottigheimer, 2000, 64). Holly 
Tucker connected scientific research and marvelous 
fictions of early-modern France in order to illuminate 
the gender politics underlying dramatic changes in 
reproductive theory and practice (Tucker, 2010). 
Monika Kropej Telban analyzed folklore and culture 
as the way of living as represented in the folktales 
from the legacy of the collector Karel Štrekelj 
(1859–1912) (Kropej, 1992). Folktales can inform 
their audience regarding diseases and epidemics in 
times of medical deprivation.4 Jack Zipes illuminated 
the cross-cultural connections of the “classical” fairy 
tales (Zipes, 2001).
Anja Mlakar analyzed religiosity and national-
ism as reflected in nineteenth-century Slovenian 
4  Mojca Ramšak studied how the nineteenth and early twentieth century folktales from Pohorje thematize “human mortality 
in all of its’ physical and mental decline, with ageing and dying, disabled, injured and defective bodies, social stigmatizing 
of disabled people, times without disability, pension or old-age insurance, dependence from the goodwill of the relatives 
or the community, hard work until the very end, mutual help, the social outcasts because of their physical or mental im-
pairment and Christian values together with the patriarchal notions of gender roles. Stigma attached to the disabled and 
impaired in the past, is a niche into the process of assigning or denying social values and managing identity” (Ramšak, 
2022, 675).
literary folklore (Mlakar, 2022), the role of religion 
in the legends of Turkish attacks (Mlakar, 2021) 
and the representation of the Other as a mysterious 
stranger and a demonic enemy in the Slovenian 
literary folklore (Mlakar, 2019). Maria Nikolajeva 
showed how Russian fairy tales promoted commu-
nist ideas (Nikolajeva, 2002).
Fairy tales and folktales often express utopian 
aspirations. In Ernst Bloch’s view, magical wish-
fulfillment and utopian fantasies make folktales 
essentially utopian as a genre: “the future that 
folklore tells about, as it is in prophecy, is a to-
tally false one” (Bloch, 1988, 104). The utopian 
longing is however relevant for the present time: 
“possibility as a philosophical category must be 
regarded seriously, and both Bloch and Adorno 
Figure 5: Illustration of Janko and Metka at the witch’s house by Milko Bambič, which appeared in 1932 Alojzij 
Bolhar’s translation of selected tales from Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Grimm, 1932, 8–9).
602
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agreed that the utopian wish-image, even when 
it is false, conveys a critique of what is present 
and points at the same time to what could and 
should be” (Zipes, 2015, 189). Giovan Francesco 
Straparola’s fairy tale type rags-to-riches no 
longer spoke of the restoration of royal social 
status as did many ancient and medieval tales, but 
“his newly invented tales were the first to address 
the aspirations of an urban artisanal readership” 
(Bottigheimer, 2002, 2), as they depicted marriages 
between people from low and high social classes 
that were not allowed in the context of the sixteenth 
century Venetian Republic. The utopian element has 
remained relevant in the culture industry, which has 
taken over the motto that anyone can succeed in 
an upward social rise, having become a constituent 
part of the myth of the American dream. One im-
portant role fairy tales play in societies is that they 
convey subversive criticism. For instance, writers 
from the Weimar Republic recovered the utopian 
spirit of fairy tales and fables for the present (Zipes, 
1997b, 3). Furthermore, two-thirds of the published 
late seventeenth century fairy tales were written by 
women. As male authors were more interested in 
other, “higher” literary forms, women appropriated 
this genre as their own and used it for social criti-
cism, to question the representation of gender roles 
in the context of royal absolutism and materialism 
(Hannon, 1998). The representations of gender roles 
by female writers were often quite different than 
the dominant cultural and political setting of the 
gender roles in the court society as women were 
often keen on attributing autonomy in actions to 
heroines. Contes de fées expressed nostalgia that 
also served “subversive utopian longings expressed 
through the marvelous” (Seifert, 1996, 222).
THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING 
IN SOCIAL COHESION
Folktales and fairy tales shape identities and 
build communities. They play a vital role in the so-
cialization of individuals, since they build values 
as the foundation of culture and, therefore, of soci-
ety, thus being distinctly socially cohesive. “From 
the very beginning, thousands of years ago, when 
all types of tales were told to create communal 
bonds in the face of inexplicable forces of nature, 
to the present, when fairy tales are written and 
told to provide hope in a world seemingly on the 
brink of catastrophe, mature men and women have 
been the creators and cultivators of the fairytale 
tradition” (Zipes, 2007, 1). Before industrialization 
5 Fairy tales are often regarded as fiction literature (cf. Nikolajeva, 2000), while wonder tales (according to Propp) are expected to contain 
wonders. According to Jakobson, there is no difference between fiction and truthful reporting as concerns the definition of the referential 
function. Still more, the most common primary communication function of fiction literature is referential.
and the dominance of mass media, the practice of 
oral distribution and reception of folktales was the 
dominant means for conveying ideas that speak of 
the proper social order. In rural parts of Slovenia 
and its neighboring countries, oral storytelling was 
preserved until recently. A renowned folktale col-
lector Milko Matičetov noticed, when he lived in 
Ter (Slavia Friulana) for a month in 1940, that no 
one held a book, nor did people read newspapers. 
The only book he saw in Ter was The Tenth Brother, 
the first Slovenian novel written by Josip Jurčič 
(Matičetov, 1948, 3). Reading was not widespread, 
while on the contrary, the practice of storytelling 
was very popular and had a significant role in 
community building. A known Resian storyteller 
Valentina Pielich Negro (born in 1900) also known 
as Tina Wajtawa from Solbica in Resia died not 
long ago, that is in 1984.
Considering fairy tales and folktales as a means 
of communication, their primary communication 
function, understood according to classification of 
communication functions of language by Roman 
Jakobson (Jakobson, 1981), is not the referential 
function, which is to speak of or report on histori-
cal events in a truthful manner. This is not the case 
because of the fictional dimensions,5 as fairy tales 
and folktales also speak of society in their themes, 
as well as they speak of the society that produced it. 
Historian Robert Darnton even claimed that “folk-
tales are historical documents” (Darnton, 1999, 
13). Fairy tales and folktales need to be considered 
a discourse, within which they convey relevant 
messages from one social subject to another by 
addressing the recipients and thus also directing 
them to certain behavior. Accordingly, the cona-
tive function is a very relevant feature of fairy tales 
and folktales, which especially comes to the fore 
when telling a story. The moment of performance 
arises from the need for counsel and lessons from 
the preceding generations on the one hand and the 
urge to convey those counsels and lessons con-
densed in the community lore on the other, under 
special social, technical and other conditions that 
enable the tale’s oral distribution. A storyteller 
is not the ultimate source, the origin of the nar-
ration. A “folk” storyteller is, however, not to be 
considered an unconscious mediator between the 
truth and the community. In folklore, the personal-
ity, the ability to narrate and perform, aesthetic 
qualities, the overall integrity of the storyteller are 
factors in storytelling, as well as are the specifics 
of language, culture, the message conveyed, the 
counsel, the individual and collective wisdom. 
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Figure 6: Illustration of Janko and Metka eating the house of Grandma and Grandpa by Roža Piščanec, which 
first appeared in 1963 edition of Janko and Metka written by France Bevk (Bevk, 1975, n. p. (5)).
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All these radiates from a tale told by an excellent 
“folk” storyteller and co-creates the outcome. The 
renowned folktale collector Milko Matičetov be-
lieved that a genuine “folk” storyteller holds more 
aesthetic sense and authenticity than an educated 
writer. He took an example of storyteller Regina 
Karmaro and compared her virtues of storytelling 
to the professional skills of educated author Josip 
Jurčič. The barriers of folklore, wrote Matičetov, 
partly accept, partly deny the ancient tradition that 
they are familiar with, and creatively reshape it 
by adding their own experiences and experiences 
of their contemporaries, or even create the stories 
anew – in any case they mediate their inner rich-
ness to their surroundings and in such a manner 
to future generations (Matičetov, 1948, 10–11). Ac-
cording to Walter Benjamin, the storyteller conveys 
“counsel” to his audience, wherein the storyteller is 
the one that first has to tell the story. “Counsel wo-
ven into the fabric of real life is wisdom. The art of 
storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side 
of truth, wisdom, is dying out” (Benjamin, 2007, 
86–87). Storytellers had relevance in transmitting 
knowledge and experiences from past to future 
generations of active social subjects. Folktales thus 
invoke the “underlying cognitive matrices through 
which the political community traditionally thinks 
itself” (Horvat, 2022a, 620).
INDUCING POLITICAL IDEOLOGY THROUGH 
FAIRY TALES
Folktales and fairy tales can be a relevant po-
litical means. A very generalized theoretical view 
could differentiate between the bottom-up practice 
of folklore storytelling that represents the unmedi-
ated communication of community members to 
other community members on the one hand, and 
the top-down distribution of fairy tales, which 
means the production (writing and publishing) of 
fairy tales controlled or directed by the dominant 
power forces on the other. The obvious case of the 
latter is the culture industry and especially obvious 
is the case of fairy tale production in totalitarian 
political regimes, when the government directs 
cultural production through a mechanism of con-
trol, although one might not neglect that different 
sorts of appropriation and ideological adaptation 
are at work also in democratic regimes. In practice, 
the boundary between the former and the latter is 
difficult to draw as critical voices can also appear 
in the dominant production, such as in the case 
of the “feminist” voices of the French salon fairy 
6 According to Jacques Rancière, the “distribution of the sensible” is “the system of self-evident facts of sense perception that si-
multaneously discloses the existence of something in common and the delimitations that define the respective parts and positions 
within it” (Rancière, 2004, 12).
tale culture, as well as fairy tales written with a 
tendency to build society as imagined by the ruling 
elite, could also be written with genuine intentions 
to contribute to building a better society and later 
taken as a means to foster certain political ideolo-
gies (such as in the case of the brothers Grimm; 
cf. Bottigheimer, 2009, 40). Given the importance 
that fairy tales played in the German socialization 
process, particularly the Grimms’ tales, it was not 
by chance that the occupation forces, led by the 
British, banned the publication of fairy tales in 
1945 (Bastian, 1981).
The socio-political circumstances condi-
tion the production of folktales and fairy tales. 
Folktales and fairy tales are cultural products 
which are distributed according to the politics 
of aesthetics, composed of a priori laws which 
condition what is possible to produce. The distri-
bution of the sensible delimits forms of inclusion 
and exclusion in a community, and the politics of 
aesthetics define the ideological inclinations and 
erasures.6 When translated into other languages 
and cultures, the narrative is adjusted to the spe-
cific cultural context in which it appears in order 
to play a role in building the society as imagined 
by the community members or leaders. Totalitar-
ian regimes were explicit, but not exclusive in 
adjusting the “classical” tales to their needs in the 
sense of censoring and erasing elements they con-
sidered improper for the imagined communities. 
Nike Kocijančič Pokorn paid attention to how the 
production of children’s literature was directed in 
the context of the Socialist Federal Republic of 
Yugoslavia and how the translations of fairy tales 
by the brothers Grimm were cleansed of addi-
tions considered unhealthy (Kocijančič Pokorn, 
2012). Marijana Hameršak related the politics of 
the early translations of the Grimms’ fairy tales 
into Croatian, such as omitting the authors, with 
the ambitions to build a society of its own kind 
(Hameršak, 2014).
A short survey of the translations and adapta-
tions of Hansel and Gretel into Slovene shows how 
the tale was adjusted to correspond to the needs 
of the changing political regimes. The Grimms’ 
tale Hansel and Gretel was first translated into 
Slovene as Janezek and Jerica in 1887 (trans. 
J. Markič), while in 1932 (trans. A. Bolhar) the 
names were changed to Janko and Metka, which 
remain to the present day. The early translations 
of the Grimms’ tales were quite literal, while in 
the Socialist Republic of Slovenia the religious 
elements were removed in the translations by 
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Figure 7: Illustration of Janko and Metka meeting the witch in front of her house by Jelka Godec Schmidt from a 
comprehensive edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen translated to Slovene by Polonca Kovač (Grimm, 2012, 52).
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Fran Albreht and Jože Zupančič. They however 
returned in 1993 with the literal translation by 
Polonca Kovač. The translators of the socialist 
era censored content not considered appropri-
ate for a socialist society. From 1954 onwards, 
the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of 
Slovenia (SAWPS) established various commit-
tees that monitored publishing activity. Each 
publishing house in Slovenia was obliged to have 
a publishing council, whose members were se-
lected by the SAWPS printing committee, and the 
decision-making positions in these councils were 
given to trustworthy party members. The main 
goal of the publishing councils was to approve 
the yearly publishing program (Gabrič, 1995, 
72–73). In addition, a sui generis version of Janko 
and Metka was written by renowned writer France 
Bevk and published as a picture book equipped 
with illustrations by Roža Piščanec in 1963 by 
Mladinska knjiga, a socialist publishing house 
covering the domain of children’s literature. In 
France Bevk’s fairy tale Janko and Metka there is 
no mother or step-mother, but only a father who 
takes care of the children and does not abandon 
them, while this motif is central to the Grimms’ 
fairy tale. There is no witch that wants to eat the 
children and who the children kill and rob as in 
the Grimms’ version. The analysis of this tale by 
Bruno Bettelheim does not apply to France Bevk’s 
version, nor can it be classified as a tale of magic 
under the type ATU 327A, which refers to Hansel 
and Gretel.
Translation is a process of familiarization, of 
appropriation of someone else’s language (Zipes, 
1997a, 198). Zipes considers translation in a very 
broad sense, thus facilitating a discussion on how 
some memes survive in different cultural contexts. 
Translation could still be considered a transfer-
ence of texts produced in one cultural context 
into texts that appear in another cultural context. 
In other words, a certain version of the tale is 
transferred to another cultural context, where 
it is made understandable to a different social 
group. The translation is, in this case, supposed 
to preserve the message of the tale that is being 
translated. However, as the case of the transla-
tions of the Grimms’ tales into other languages, 
especially in the context of socialism shows, 
translation is more than making a certain story 
taken from one cultural context understandable 
to another social group. The decision to translate 
a narration and the mode of translating it are 
defined by the politics of aesthetics dominat-
ing the context of its production. Translation is 
7 Zipes classifies basic types of these tales: 1. the social satire, 2. utopian, 3. pedagogical, 4. feminist, 5. comic parody and 
6. spiritual.
thus related to the social function of the product 
distributed to a certain population. The cultural 
context into which a tale is translated might be 
different to such a degree from the one in which 
the tale being translated was produced that both 
tales can no longer play the same social role. For 
instance, the Grimms fulfilled various functions 
by the publications of their fairy tales. Their tales 
were not (only) meant to be instructive for chil-
dren, but were also interesting for adults because 
of the entertaining manner in which they were 
written, later adopted by the culture industry. 
Today the tales as they had been published by the 
Grimms have lost the function of entertainment 
and their pedagogical role has decreased, while 
their historical and even archeological value has 
increased. However, their tales are repeatedly 
recycled by the culture industry to fulfill various 
entertainment functions such as horror, romance, 
and adventure. In addition to translating, there are 
also other sorts of cultural appropriation at work 
in producing fairy tales. The goal is often not to 
transfer a certain version of the tale to another 
audience, to familiarize it, but adaptations of the 
tales could range from subversions to complex 
political appropriations, where the messages the 
tales convey could radically change. Zipes has 
shown how far the revisions of the Grimms’ tales 
reached in the FDR and GDR after 1966, espe-
cially after the 1970’s radical break in the recep-
tion of the Grimms’ fairy tales, related in West 
Germany to the student movement, rediscovery 
of the radical left-wing writers of the Weimar 
period, the interest of publishing houses in pro-
gressive children’s literature and the emergence 
of a new generation of young teachers, as well 
as the desire to produce new radical fairy tales,7 
and how much those depended on the political 
context (Zipes, 1993). Such “recycling” does not 
only mean “translating” certain fairy tales from 
one language to another. The case of the FDR 
and GDR speaks of the difficulties the Germans 
had with the legacy of the Grimms’ fairy tales, 
which were considered in relation to building the 
nineteenth and early twentieth century German 
nation, as well as of the post-second World War 
nations to build a different kind of society.
 Fairy tales that “stick,” to borrow a term 
from Zipes and his theory of cultural evolution, 
are often quite newly designed according to the 
anticipated reception and the intention related to 
its production. Additionally, there are also the in-
terests of publishing houses or other parties con-
cerned involved in the production. These could 
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be political, economic or other. The messages and 
social functions can change in the distribution of 
the sensible, which is conditioned by the politics 
of production and the anticipated reception. In 
those cases, fairy tales may begin to perform dif-
ferent social functions than the earlier versions, 
which, though serving as a reference or these 
new ones, cannot be considered the “original” 
versions.
The writer’s and publisher’s motives and 
intentions, as well as the anticipation of the ad-
dressee are relevant factors for the production of 
particular variants of fairy tales and folktales. The 
interests of publishing houses and other parties 
involved, such as the state or sponsors, also play 
a role in the production of a fairy tale edition. 
These interests may be political economic or 
social. The messages and social functions can 
change in the distribution of the sensible, which 
is conditioned by the politics of production and 
the anticipated reception. In the cases of transla-
tions or appropriations, fairy tales may begin to 
perform different social functions than the earlier 
versions, which, though serving as a reference for 
these new ones, cannot be considered the “origi-
nal” versions, as each edition is unique. Scholars 
highlighted the relevance fairy tales had in nation 
building (Snyder, 1951; Crowther, 2022; Norberg, 
2022; Zima, 2022).8 Jack Zipes analyzed aspects 
of socialization and politicization through fairy 
tales, especially in reference to the brothers 
Grimm, paying regard to the social atmosphere 
that conditioned the production of their fairy 
tales (Zipes, 2012a). Different regimes aimed to 
induce specific views of society (cf. the case of 
the Soviet Union in Balina et al., 2005) and used 
folktales to legitimate socio-political transforma-
tion (for Yugoslav self-governing socialism, cf. 
Horvat, 2022b).
Fairy tale narratives create heroes for political 
needs. With Martin Krpan (1858), Fran Levstik 
intentionally created “a national literary character 
that would constitute a foundation for both further 
literary creation and the national political strug-
gle” (Darovec, 2021, 457). Martin Krpan corre-
sponded to Levstik’s political agenda to implement 
an outlaw hero, Martin Krpan, for the needs of 
Slovenia’s nation-building process. In 1954 Walt 
Disney created the all-American hero Davy Crock-
ett, a frontier fighter who became a pop culture 
symbol in the context of the cold war. In addition, 
the culture industry appropriates “classical” fairy 
tales, such as when Walt Disney production took 
8 While on the other hand the case studied by Cristina Fossaluzza shows that the decision to use the form of a fairy tale to 
“mythologize the social” in times of historical urge for cultural production to serve political needs, such as in war, seems 
to be “a conscious stand against the culture and society of the time” (Fossaluzza, 2022, 730).
Cinderella and Snow White from Charles Perrault’s 
legacy, and re-created them according to the 
socio-political needs. Walt Disney announced that 
in March 2024 they plan to release a remake of 
the 1937 animated film Snow White, this time in 
a movie with real actors, a racially diverse set of 
actors to play the dwarves with only one actor who 
has dwarfism and a Hispanic actress Rachel Zegler 
depicting the titular princess. The movie makers 
claim the product will be modernized, the princess 
is not going to be saved by the prince and she is not 
going to dream about true love, but she is dreaming 
of becoming a leader. The critics claim the produc-
ers have racialized the characters to check every 
box they can. The remakes of the known fairy tales 
are becoming increasingly “woke” for embracing 
diverse casting and feminist themes and turning 
off many fans. According to critics, in doing so, 
they also further divide people (Murray, 2023). 
However, the production of modernized remakes 
of classical fairy tales is obviously considered a 
profitable business (Reid, 2023).
CONCLUSION: APPROPRIATING FAIRY 
TALE STRUCTURES ACCORDING TO 
THE NEEDS OF COMMUNITIES
If fairy tales were considered only children’s 
literature, the role of which is to introduce a minor 
to the world of the adult, as is the current, wide-
spread understanding of this genre, the variety of 
roles that fairy tales and folktales played in socie-
ties would be neglected. Fairy tales and folktales 
can perform important political functions. They are 
important factors in building imagined communi-
ties – not only nations, as analyzed by Benedict 
Anderson (Anderson, 2006), but also as other sorts 
of communities that understand themselves as 
communities. Analyzing fairy tales and folktales 
can provide insight into how a particular society 
understood itself, which were the issues of people’s 
concern and what messages they aimed to transmit 
to the members of their community and to their 
ancestors. Folktales and fairy tales have a double 
social functionality: 1. They reflect society or they 
can be understood as texts that show how society 
understands itself. 2. They address social subjects 
and thus direct them to certain behavior, they are 
didactic tools, not only for children, but also for 
adults (cf. Toplak, 2022).
The existing studies have illuminated fairy tales 
and folktales as an incredibly rich domain, worthy 
of study, contrary to the obsolete prejudice that 
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they are less scientifically interesting than the 
aesthetically “superior” forms of literature, written 
by esteemed authors. A fairy tale is embedded in 
society, it is interwoven with diachronic and syn-
chronic connections to the related tales, and at the 
same time it radiates the spirit of its age and social 
context, which is the one that establishes the real 
need for it. What Roland Barthes wrote about what 
is a text, applies to the structural logic of fairy tales 
or folktales: a “text is not a line of words releasing 
a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the 
Author-God) a multi-dimensional space in which a 
variety of writings, none of them original, blend 
and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn 
from the innumerable centres of culture” (Barthes, 
1977, 146). It makes no sense to look for the origin 
of fairy tales, to search for the beginning, as each 
version is original in terms of its embeddedness 
and the function it has in society. Fairy tales or 
folktales lead not to one, but to numerous refer-
ences. This is exactly the opposite of the methods 
that look for the final reference, as Fredric Jameson 
critically reads Claude Lévi-Strauss’s insistence 
on the underlying deep narrative structure and 
Vladimir Propp’s deep structure of the fairy tale 
that rejoin Northrop Frye’s perspective (Jameson, 
2002, 108). According to Frye in Jameson’s reading, 
“the oral tales of tribal society, the fairy tales that 
are the irrepressible voice and expression of the 
underclasses of the great systems of domination, 
adventure stories and melodrama, and the popular 
or mass culture of our own time are all syllables 
and broken fragments of some single immense 
story” (Jameson, 2002, 91). These methods tend to 
subsume all fairy tales or similar narratives to one 
grand underlying narrative, rather than in terms of 
a synchronic system (Jameson, 2002, 108).
Folktales have historical dimensions. Their psy-
chological dimension is not to be denied, however 
they also reflect social mentalities and show how 
they changed, precisely because of the characteristic 
of folktales to re-appear in different cultural contexts 
in different variants: “They have evolved over many 
centuries and have taken different turns in different 
cultural traditions. Far from expressing the unchang-
ing operations of man’s inner being, they suggest that 
mentalités themselves have changed” (Darnton, 1999, 
13). If we connect them diachronically with earlier 
versions of that type of tale or similar tales from the 
past, some folktales and fairy tales might not change 
their inner structure, yet they do change the themes 
and their subjects. There could be synchronic links 
established among similar tales appearing in differ-
ent cultural contexts, in different geographic regions. 
Both diachronic and synchronic perspectives enable 
one to make comparisons, to detect similarities and 
differences, elements that persist and those that are 
specific. The narrative of the dragon slayer could be 
traced back to the ancient mythological past and to 
modern popular films. These connections might not 
be relevant in order to understand the meaning a 
particular version had for those who produced it and 
those whom it addressed. The variety of otherwise 
similar tales played very different social functions. 
The Mesopotamian myth of the dragon slayer ex-
plained the formation of the world and civilization 
in particular. In Christian legends of Saint George or 
Saint Michael, the dragon slayer served to promote 
Christianity, while in the pre-Enlightenment Carni-
ola region, it served the needs of building memory 
and the local community’s identity. In the context of 
the national revival, it was used in nation building. 
The tales of the dragon slayer might be similar or 
one might refer to an earlier one and that to the one 
preceding, but they do not repeat one and the same 
message. Each singular tale brings its own references 
and thoughts. Each singular version matters, as “It 
matters what matters we use to think other matters 
with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other 
stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what 
thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe 
descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories 
make worlds, what worlds make stories” (Haraway, 
2016, 12).
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SVETOVI, KI USTVARJAJO ZGODBE, IN ZGODBE, KI USTVARJAJO SVETOVE: 
ZAMIŠLJENE DRUŽBE PRAVLJIC IN LJUDSKIH PRIPOVEDI
Polona TRATNIK
Inštitut IRRIS za raziskave, razvoj in strategije družbe, kulture in okolja, Čentur 1f, 6273 Marezige, Slovenija
Univerza v Ljubljani, Filozofska fakulteta, Aškerčeva cesta 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
e-mail: polona.tratnik@guest.arnes.si
POVZETEK
Dosedanje raziskave pravljic so vse prepogosto spregledovale dejstvo, da pravljica vselej nastane v določe-
nem času in prostoru, da izhaja iz družbe in je namenjena družbi. Avtorica v prispevku zagovarja tezo, da so 
pravljice izvajale specifične družbene in politične funkcije, kot na primer, da so prispevale h grajenju naroda, 
bile so sredstvo discipliniranja in izobraževalno orodje. Pravljice izhajajo iz družbenih potreb in pripovedujejo 
o zamišljenih družbah. Čeprav se folkloristika ukvarja z evidentiranjem različic istega tipa pravljice, nastalih v 
različnih družbenih okoliščinah, pa se ne posveča družbenim potrebam po določenih sporočilih, ki jih prinaša 
posamična inačica. Evolucijska teorija sicer razlaga, da se skozi čas in v različnih okoljih ohranjajo le določeni 
memi, toda ne pojasni, zakaj družbe uporabijo določene meme. Literarna zgodovina umesti pričetek literarne 
pravljice v novi vek, ko se ta žanr kanonizira. Toda literarne pravljice se bogato navezujejo na ljudske pripovedi, 
antične mite in legende ter srednjeveške romance. Formalistična in strukturalistična teorija sta iskali spodaj 
ležečo strukturo, ki opredeljuje vse pravljične inačice. Pri tem pa sta zanemarili diskurzivno analizo variant, ki bi 
pokazala posebnosti inačic. Te so tiste, ki govorijo o vsebinah in problematikah, ki zanimajo določeno družbo, 
v kateri so nastale in ki so jo nagovorile. Avtorica v prispevku zagovarja tezo, da lahko družbene in politične 
funkcije pravljic razumemo na podlagi primerjave različic, ki pokaže strukturne podobnosti, pa tudi vsebinske 
posebnosti posamičnih inačic. Prek opredelitve strukture s temeljnimi notranjimi funkcijami, ki se razbere na 
osnovi primerjave različic, obravnave posebnosti inačice z metodo diskurzivne analize ter analizo konativne 
funkcije te inačice v kombinaciji z analizo družbenih potreb je moč podati razlago družbene funkcije, ki jo je 
imela določena inačica pravljice v družbi, ki ji je bila podana.
Ključne besede: študije pravljic, študije ljudskih pravljic, kritična teorija, računalniške študije ljudskih pravljic, 
pripovedništvo, formalizem, strukturalizem, utopizem, družbena kritika, psihoanalitične študije, študije performansa 
in komunikacije
610
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