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Legends, Tales and Fables in the Art of
Sogdiana The book of Dr. B.I. Marshak of the Hermitage Oriental Department is based on the lectures read by him at the University of London in 1995. The author at first took part and then for a quarter of a century headed the archeological excavations in Pendjikent, Tadjikistan. One of the important results yielded by the exploration of Pendjikent of the 5th-8th centuries by the joint expedition of the State Hermitage Museum, Russian Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences of Tadjikistan was the discovery of mural paintings in palaces, temples and private houses of the city. B.I. Marshak examines the rich repertoire of heroic legends, fairy tales, fables and even jokes illustrated by painters of the 6th-8th centuries (42 themes in total). The paintings portray many original scenes, including even a prototype of Ivan Krylov’s fable "Elephant and Pug". The book of B.I. Marshak is addressed to people interested in the history of Middle Asian culture, Iranian studies, comparative literature and folklore, history of the Silk Way and story-telling in fine arts. |
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