The monograph was written in line with the folkloristic ideas of the remarkable Russian researcher V.Ya. Proppa, whose 100th birthday the scientific community celebrated in 1995. It is devoted to the plot-semantic analysis of the fairy tale narrative (primarily in the Russian tradition) using structural-semiotic methods that entered the arsenal of our science more than thirty years ago. At the same time, work began on this monograph, but it was not possible to complete it at that time (due to the emigration of one of the co-authors). However, the first published parts (in Tartu's "Works on Sign Systems" of 1969 and 1971) had a rather great resonance (1971 Pitre International Prize for the best work on folklore; translations into all major European languages: English - 1974, Italian - 19761977, German - 1986, French - 1992) and entered the main fund of fairy tale literature, although they have long become a bibliographic rarity in Russia. For cultural historians and a wide range of readers.