The Giant Cockroach

The Giant Cockroach or The Roach (as translated by Miriam Morton, 1958) or Cock-The-Roach (as translated by Tom Botting, 1981), also popularly known by its Russian name Tarakanishche (lit. 'Тараканище'), is a popular Russian children's fairy tale poem written by poet Korney Chukovsky in 1921. The poem was later published by Raduga Publishers in 1923 and is regarded as a cultural poetic heritage among Russophones. It tells the story of an overgrown cockroach who assumed power over mankind and animals by bullying and threatening them, only to fall prey to a sparrow in the end.