Anna Astakhova
Encyclopedia
Anna Mikhaylovna Astakhova was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n scholar notable for her studies of the folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 (primarily bylina
Bylina
Bylina or Bylyna is a traditional Russian oral epic narrative poem. Byliny singers loosely utilize historical fact greatly embellished with fantasy or hyperbole to create their songs...

s) of the Russian North.

Astakhova was born in Kronstadt
Kronstadt
Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...

, close to Saint-Petersburg, in 1886, and graduated from the Women Pedagogical Institute in 1908. Until 1931, she worked as a schoolteacher, from 1931 as a researcher at the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography
Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography
The Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography or N.N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology is a Russian institute of research, specializing in ethnographic studies of cultural and physical anthropology...

. Astakhova then worked as a researcher at the Institute of Russian Literature
Pushkin House
The Pushkin House is the familiar name of the Institute of Russian Literature in St. Petersburg. It is part of a network of institutions affiliated with the Russian Academy of Sciences.- Establishment :...

 in Leningrad between 1935 and 1965. She earned the degree of a Doktor nauk
Doktor nauk
Doktor nauk is a higher doctoral degree, the second and the highest post-graduate academic degree in the Soviet Union, Russia and in many post-Soviet states. Sometimes referred to as Dr. Hab. The prerequisite is the first degree, Kandidat nauk which is informally regarded equivalent to Ph.D....

 (philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

) in 1945. Astakhova was a professor at the Pokrovsky Pedagogical Institute
Herzen University
The State Russian Herzen Pedagogical University is one of the largest universities in Russia. Located in Saint Petersburg, it operates 20 faculties and more than 100 departments. Embroidered in its structure are the Institute of Pre-University Courses, the Institute of Continuous Professional...

 in Leningrad (now Saint-Petersburg) between 1945 and 1950. Anna Astakhova died in Leningrad in 1971.

Between 1921 and 1935 and then in 1940s and 1950s, Astakhova and her students organized and perform a number of field studies on the White Sea coast, and also in the river basins of the Pinega
Pinega River
The Pinega is a river in Verkhnetoyemsky, Pinezhsky, and Kholmogorsky Districts of Arkhangelsk Oblast in Russia. It is a right tributary of the Northern Dvina River. It is long, and the area of its basin...

, the Mezen
Mezen River
The Mezen is a river in Udorsky District of the Komi Republic and in Leshukonsky and Mezensky Districts of Arkhangelsk Oblast in Russia. Its mouth is located in the Mezen Bay of the White Sea. Mezen is one of the biggest rivers of European Russia. It is long, and the area of its basin...

, and the Pechora
Pechora River
The Pechora River is a river in northwest Russia which flows north into the Arctic Ocean on the west side of the Ural Mountains. It lies mostly in the Komi Republic but the northernmost part crosses the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. It is 1,809 km long and its basin is 322,000 square kilometers...

. The goal of these expeditions was to write down the folklore samples such as bylinas. She published academic editions of bylinas, put forward a theory of the development of the genre, and classified the bylinas into types. She also was the first scholar to present a literary analysis of the Northern folklore, in particular, by Marfa Kryukova
Marfa Kryukova
Marfa Semyonovna Kryukova , Arkhangelsk Oblast|Primorsky District]], Arkhangelsk Governorate, Russia — January 7, 1954, Verkhnyaya Zolotitsa) was a Russian folklore performer and a storyteller....

.
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