"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh PalThe book entitled Kumauni Lokkathaen tatha Dantkataen (Kumauni Folk Tales and Legends) has been translated into Hindi from Russian which is the work of the Russian Indologist Ivan Pavlovich Minaev who visited India 140 years back in the year 1875. During that visit he also went to Almora (Uttarakhand) where he spent three months. During his stay there Minaev collected folk tales and legends of Kumaun, and after returning back to Russia he translated them into Russian. The present book is a translation of that book from Russian into Hindi.
The book consists of 48 folk tales and 22 legends of Kumaun. Besides this, the book also includes the Introduction written by Minaev. This Introduction gives a vivid picture of the Kumaun region and the Kumaunis. A short travelogue “The Singers of Kumaun” published in Vestnik Evropy (June, 1876) has also been translated for this book. This short travelogue acquaints us with the views of Minaev about Kumaun and India. A biography of Minaev also forms a part of this book which tells about the range of work done by Minaev as an Indologist.
Translated by Hem Chandra Pande (From Russian to Hindi)
Ivan Pavlovich Minaev (1840-1890)
I.P.Minaev was the founder of Indology in Russia. He was a scholar of Pali and Sanskrit languages. Minaev had visited India thrice. During his long visits he travelled not only in India, he also visited Lanka (Srilanka), Burma (Myanmar) and Nepal going to even small places there. Minaev was a specialist in Buddhism. He was the first Russian who took interest in Indian folk tales. He had collected the Kumauni folk tales and legends as narrated to him by common people directly in Kumauni, and then he translated them into Russian. That is why this work of Minaev is unique in its very nature.
Hem Chandra Pande (1943)
Kumauni folk tales and legends presented in Russian by I.P.Minaev have been translated into Hindi by the well-known scholar of Russian Hem Chandra Pande who has taught Russian for a long period in Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (Nashik) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi). Hem Chandra Pande has published several books and articles on Russian Language, Russian Indology, Linguistics, Theory of Translation, Russian-Hindi Contrastive Grammar, Language and Thought, Russian Literature etc. He has also translated some of the best writings of contemporary Russian literature into Hindi. Hem Chandra Pande has also compiled a Russian-Hindi dictionary.
