About “The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda”
"The Tale of the Priest and of his Workman Balda" is a fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin. He wrote it on September 13, 1830, while staying at Boldino. The story is based on a Russian folk tale that Pushkin collected in Mikhaylovskoye. The tale contains 189 lines with varying syllable counts, ranging from three to fourteen, and is written in rhyming couplets. In 1831, Pushkin read the tale to Nikolai Gogol, who greatly enjoyed it. It was first published in 1840 by Vasily Zhukovsky after Pushkin's death, with changes made due to censorship. The character of the priest was replaced by a merchant in the published version. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)