Fantastic Ms. Fox

Lev Tokmakov from Fairy Tales about Animals, 1973 

from a wonderful post on A Journey Round My Skull

K. and I. Ershov from Kolobok, thanks to Svetlana's Library things

Russian folk tales often feature animals embodying human qualities and human behaviours. 

Fox is one of these main characters together with wolf, followed by bear, rooster, rabbit, he-goat, 

she-goat, and many others. While wolf is generally portrayed as a greedy, angry and stupid male 

(in Russian wolf is volk, a masculine noun), fox is a sly, witty, calculating female (in Russian fox 

is the feminine noun lisa). As you can imagine, fox loves playing tricks on everyone

but especially on Wolf, who gets fooled and duped everytime.

V.Vakidin, The SIster Fox and the Wolf, 1938

 Yevgeny Rachev, 1954 book cover and illustration from The Fox and the Wolf

two covers by Yuri Vasnetsov, 1950s

A. Repnikov, LISA I RAK (The Fox and the Crayfish), 1938

at Russian Art and Books

M. Zherebchevsky from The fox and the bear, 1977, via detbokk.ru

Igor Oleynikov

Two illustrations by Boris Kalaushin, discovered thanks 

to the always appreciated Kickcan & Conkers.

(you can show Deborah your love and vote for her blog here)

sorry, can't locate this one... found here

For a while I have been collecting my beloved Russian foxes as I find them, 

so I was very pleased to discover the recent post featuring 

different pictures of the same subject on Library things,

Svetlana's blog devoted to vintage Russian illustration and literature.

And she also runs HannaRivka, a wonderful little shop selling vintage children's books on Etsy!