Soviet films: an animated film in 1952 with some of Rimsky-Korsakov's music, also called The Snow Maiden, and the live-action film The Snow Maiden (1968) directed by Pavel Kadochnikov, with music by Vladislav Kladnitsky. Ruth Sanderson retold the story in the picture book The Snow Princess, in which falling in love does not immediately kill the princess, but turns her into a mortal human, who will die. In February 2012, the Slovenian poet Svetlana Makarovič published a ballad fairy tale, titled Sneguročka ("Snegurochka"), which was inspired by the Russian fairy tale character. Makarovič has had great passion for Russian tradition since childhood. Artist and author Jonathon Keats's short story "Ardour" is a modern adaptation of this fairy tale, featured in Kate Bernheimer's 2010 anthology of contemporary tales based on classic archetypes, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. Granddaughter of Ded Moroz In the late Russian Empire Snegurochka was part of Christmas celebrations, in the form of figurines to decorate the fir tree and as a character in children's pieces. In the early Soviet Union, the holiday of Christmas was banned, together with other Christian traditions, until it was reinstated as a holiday of the Russian Federation in 1991. However, in 1935 the celebration of the New Year was allowed, which included, in part, the fir tree and Ded Moroz. At this time Snegurochka acquired a role of the granddaughter of Ded Moroz and his helper. In this role, she wears long silver-blue robes and a furry cap or a snowflake-like crown. She is a unique attribute of Ded Moroz, since similar characters in other cultures do not have a female companion with non-obvious blood relations, although, she can obviously be a daughter of the "resurrected" original Snegurochka of Ostrovsky's play, theoretically. However, Snegurochka of Christmas celebrations can be the same character as Snegurochca of play who's called by his father "granddaughter" because he's much older than her, a similar pattern was in folk tales with Snegurochka being a creation of an elderly couple. During the usual scripts of Christmas celebrations, Snegurochka's appearance is usually accompanied by the audience waiting for her and screaming "Sne-gu-roch-ka". See also Christmas in Russia References External links Snowflake, Lang's version Christmas characters Fairy tale stock characters Female characters in fairy tales Fictional Russian people Holiday characters Russian folklore characters Slavic legendary creatures Christmas gift-bringers ATU 700-749