“The Snow Queen” in Russian Fan Fiction: Voices of Readers and Viewers

Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” might be considered as one of the most beloved fairy-tale plots in Russian culture and is surprisingly popular among contemporary Russian-speaking writers of fan fiction. In the article, fan fiction devoted to Andersen’s tale is analyzed through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in order to reflect on more general questions about the process of retelling. “The Snow Queen” stimulates fan-fiction authors to rethink the topic of love triangle. These authors propose their own visions of the conflict by concentrating on gender roles and unrealistic representations of human relationships. A semiotic perspective is employed to show the how metacommunication is a multistage process and a key mechanism of cultural dynamics.