Abstract: The paper elaborates on the European fairy tale literature as an outstanding literary phenomenon This genre has evolved for a long time, and it is considered within the national cultural code. A fairy tale is an inexhaustible source that allows us to realize the national and cultural identity within various linguistic cultures; to deliver the ethnic, historical, and national flavor. The paper provides a diachronic consideration of the evolution of the European fairy-tale literature, exemplified by Italian, French, German, English, and Spanish magical stories. A special emphasis is made on Italian folk tales and fables as a prototypical genre of the European fairy-tale literature. The research describes the development stages of the European fairy-tale literature, the history of its generating, and resulted in identifying specific features of this genre in European literature, in discovering national differences in the European fairy tale, in defining development patterns for European magical story plots. The authors have specified the role of a fairy tale as a unique sociocultural phenomenon, its contribution to the development of European society. As a result of the research there have been analyzed similarities and differences between European literary fairy tales. It has been proven that European magical stories have a lot in common, which make them accessible and understandable to people of other linguistic cultures. The obtained results confirm the fact that a fairy tale mirrors the language picture of the world and cultural identity of the nation.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the analysis of fairy tales as a special genre of children's fiction literature with unique features and a long history. In the course of this work, the author gives definitions to the key concepts; examines correlation between the literary fairly tale and folk fairy tale, evolution of fairy tale genre, namely the works of Brothers Grimm. The article the stages of establishment of fairy tales as an independent genre in the history of literature. An attempt is made to determine the genre similarities that make fairy tales comprehensible within the framework of other linguocultures. Special attention is turned to the specificities of national cultural adaptation in translation of fairy tales from German into Russia, taking into account the peculiarities of translation transformations. The conducted analysis allows concluding that children’s fairy tale literature is a reflection of the national linguistic worldview, and largely depends on the existing in the society national cultural traits, mentality and perception of the world. These facts indicate that translation and adaptation of fairy tale literature requires the translator to understand the uniqueness of worldview of the people affiliating to different cultures, as well as convey the national cultural identity and specificities of foreign perception and mentality of the representatives of various linguocultures.