The Brothers Grimm and others: how famous storytellers looked and lived. Once upon a time there lived a storyteller... Once upon a time there lived a storyteller
We will not talk about Korney Ivanovich and Luntik, but about a book that was published at the very end of the year - “The Bead of a Pocket Dwarf” by Anastasia Strokina. Here, too, all cultural layers are mixed. There are trolls, and the life of an ordinary family from the outback, and the storyteller Sakarias Topelius from the 19th century, and the underground inhabitants responsible for the arrival of spring, and the ghosts of the bride and groom from the German settlement, and many other ghosts, not at all scary, but on the contrary, friendly and beautiful ones, and the fabulous Mount Rastekais, and the revived Angel from the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress, and the talking wolf mechanic...
“The storyteller took a bag of cranberries from his pocket and handed it to Vera:
Help yourself. The bird will like it too. And Angel. Angels love cranberries."
This fairy tale feels like the feeling of natural materials: wool, canvas, wood. It’s as if everything plastic, polyethylene, and synthetic has been taken out of the history of our time. They left only the essentials: a snowy winter, an icy beacon in the yard, faithful friends, a wise book, advice from an old archivist, a rocking chair by the fireplace, the sounds of a cello and a handful of dried cranberries for the birds.
All these are stages of a long journey, stops on the path of heroes. Their path, the goal of which at the beginning is completely clear, gradually turns into something completely different - the path from illness to recovery, from winter to spring, from childhood to adulthood.
If we wanted to imagine their journey geographically, we would take a red felt-tip pen and draw the route of the heroes' journey. Then its end point would be the estate of Sakarias Topelius, the same storyteller who once composed a fairy tale about the adventures of the Finnish boy Sampo. It is this storyteller that the heroes visit at the end of the journey. He died a long time ago, they don’t hide this from us - time gets mixed up again, but remains unchanged.
...The heroes are tired, exhausted, cold, and they are frightened by the upcoming meeting with an evil and vengeful troll. After all, it is unknown what to expect from him if he is capable of sending illness to a little girl. And then the storyteller appears and puts everything in its place. He guides them along the right path, but does not reveal the whole truth. He watches them, as if chuckling, he is not just a character here, he belongs to two worlds at the same time - as a hero and as a representative of a high caste of storytellers.
I am grateful to the author for this image. And for the precise understanding that the storyteller is also a character who travels to distant lands, wears seven pairs of iron shoes, and helps a comrade out of trouble. Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Korney Chukovsky - these names for a child sound the same as the names of the heroes of a fairy tale. And therefore it seems to children that folk tales were written by Ivan the Fool or Emelya.
Although children do not raise the question of authorship at all. It is we who insist: “Remember: Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak wrote this” or “Korney Ivanovich knew nothing about Luntik,” tearing the child out of a blissful state in which he has everything at once, and does not put it into categories.
In general, the impressions of the book can be expressed in the words of Anastasia Strokina herself: “He opened the envelope with a silver paper knife. And immediately multi-colored words flew out of it, circled around the Storyteller’s head for a few seconds, fell to the floor and disappeared.”
Natalia Vishnyakova
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Anastasia Strokina
"Pocket Dwarf Bead"
Artist Oleg Braude
Publishing house "CompassGuide", 2018
Once upon a time, children's films and cartoons were made based on his scripts, his plays were taken by the best theaters in the country...
Last year he became the best contemporary storyteller in Russia. But, despite his popularity, children's writer Yuri Kharlamov lives in a remote province, carries firewood from the plantings on a sled and claims that life is beautiful and amazing...
“We never thought that fate would turn out this way,” the writer’s wife Svetlana tells me and leads me into a low adobe hut. - We came to Generalskoye as a dacha, but lived in Dushanbe, in an elite apartment. In addition, we had decent savings, but the USSR collapsed, the money became worthless, and we moved here empty-handed...
"Moscow is not for me..."
A sagging ceiling, smoky walls, a small window through which sunlight barely breaks through. The Kharlamovs carry water from the well in buckets, but Yuri Ilyich does not complain.
“I learned to plant a vegetable garden, light a stove, and built a bathhouse,” he shows his possessions. - And in the summer, the birds sing and the smell of apples...
Last year, Yuri Kharlamov received the first literary prize named after Pyotr Ershov for books for children and youth. The Kharlamovs finally got gas for their bonuses. Now the family lives on small percentages that come from the Moscow Art Theater. Gorky, where Kharlamov’s play “High-Rise” has been staged for several years now...
By the way, I offered this same work to Rostov theaters, but no one was interested in it. And Tatyana Doronina liked it,” says the writer. - Perhaps they would have taken other manuscripts, but to be popular, you need to live in Moscow, move in bohemian circles, and this is not for me.
Despite his secluded lifestyle, fame still found Yuri Kharlamov in the Don outback. After the publication of “The Tales of Baba Grusha,” the writer received a letter: “Hello... Thank you for writing about me... I demand a continuation...” It so happened that the heroine of the series of fairy tales, Kharlamov Grusha, not only externally resembled a real woman, but also the stories that happened to her seemed to be taken from the life of the author of the letter..
Writers go into show business...
After receiving the prize, Kharlamov’s fairy tales were published in Ershov’s homeland, in the Tyumen region, and now his first book in the last fifteen years has been published here.
I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t knock out anything. It’s just that children in the library started asking for my fairy tales. And they remembered me. And here it is, the first edition,” Yuri Ilyich shows stacks of books on the floor. - They brought it a few days ago.
The storyteller is going to give away part of the circulation, which Kharlamov took in lieu of a fee, to the village children. After all, in the village they know that a writer lives in poverty in a small adobe house, but they have no idea what he wrote about.
The world has changed. People don't read much. And writers go into show business or write texts for comedians, says the storyteller. - There are no decent playwrights or children’s writers left...
But Kharlamov remained. And in children's literature, and in a small hut on the outskirts of Generalskoe. Every day he sits down at an old typewriter and goes into a world where good always triumphs over evil. After all, that’s why he’s a storyteller!
Svetlana Lomakina
An hour of good literature
(scenario of the event for the anniversary of E. Schwartz)
Design, equipment: exhibition of one author “Ready Portrait. Evgeniy Schwartz”, computer, TV, video: “Once upon a time there was a storyteller”
Scenario
Presenter 1: You know that 2016 in Russia is dedicated to cinema. But it’s impossible to imagine cinema without wonderful adaptations of Evgeniy Schwartz’s fairy tales! In addition, in October we celebrated the writer’s 120th birthday.
(video presentation: “Once upon a time there was a storyteller”)
The name of Evgeniy Lvovich Schwartz is surrounded by legend. The legend doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t tell the whole truth either. The legend is simple - life is complex, and “everything in it is wonderful and magnificently mixed up.” Schwartz entered literature as a children's writer; in the 20s he worked for the magazine "Hedgehog and Chizh", and then became a playwright and dramatized many fairy tales. Therefore, our acquaintance with the work of this writer sometimes begins not with books, but with films. Having seen the good old film “Cinderella” in childhood (it was filmed according to Schwartz’s script), we remember for the rest of our lives the amazing words of the little page: “I’m not a wizard, I’m just learning.” And in our youth, like a prayer, we repeat: “Only once in a lifetime does a lover get a day when they succeed in everything.” These are words from another amazing fairy tale by Schwartz, “An Ordinary Miracle.” Truly, Evgeny Lvovich can be called the ruler of the Fairytale Kingdom. What a variety of fairy tales : “The Snow Queen”, “The Naked King”, “Two Maples”, “The Tale of Lost Time”, “Cinderella” and many others.
Presenter 2:
“The Lord blessed me to go,
He ordered to wander without thinking about the goal.
He blessed me to sing along the way.
So that my companions may have fun...", -
This is what the writer said about himself.
Presenter 1: Evgeniy Lvovich Schwartz (1896 - 1958), writer and playwright.
Born on October 21, 1896 in Kazan in the family of a doctor. From Schwartz’s memoirs: “I learned to read early. How and when, I can’t remember. The first book I remember is fairy tales published by Stupin.” I remember my mother reading the book “The Prince and the Pauper.” And then I read it, first in pieces, then the whole thing many times in a row.” My mother really wanted me to become an engineer. "Who will you be?" - she once asked. I answered in a half-whisper: “A novelist.” In my confusion, I simply forgot that there was a simpler word “writer”.
Schwartz spent his teenage years in Maikop. He studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (1914-1916).
First appeared in print in 1923; collaborated in children's humor magazines "Hedgehog" and "Chizh". Since 1926 he kept diaries. In the late 20s - 30s. worked in Leningrad as head of the children's editorial office of the State Publishing House and the Raduga publishing house, and prepared radio broadcasts. For some time he was K.I. Chukovsky’s secretary. Schwartz’s stories “The Adventures of Shura and Marusya,” “Alien Girl” (both 1937), “First-Grader” (1948) are marked by a subtle understanding of child psychology, humor, and a lively sense of the poetry of early life.
Presenter 2: Eccentric fiction and witty play with words appeared in Schwartz's first plays ("Underwood" - typewriter staged in 1929, published in 1930; "Treasure", staged in 1933, published in 1934; satirical comedy "The Adventures of Hohenstaufen", 1934). The writer used the plots of folk tales, as well as the fairy tales of H. C. Andersen to create his own artistic world (the plays “The Naked King”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “The Snow Queen”, “Shadow”). During the Great Patriotic War, Schwartz created the anti-fascist pamphlet play “Dragon” (1944, staged in 1962 by director M. N. P. Akimov at the Leningrad Comedy Theater). In the post-war years, his dramaturgy increased attention to the psychological and everyday details of the life of a modern person (the plays “An Ordinary Miracle”, 1956; “The Tale of Young Spouses”, 1958). The films “Cinderella” (1947), “Don Quixote” (1957; based on the novel by M. de Cervantes) and others were shot based on Schwartz’s scripts.
Presenter 1:And now, after viewing the slides and getting acquainted with the biography and work of the writer, I invite you to guess from the proposed names of fairy tales, plays and film scripts which ones belong to the pen of the storyteller:
· Two maples
· Adventures of Dunno
· A Tale of Lost Time
· Cunning Hunter
· Frog traveler
· New adventures of Puss in Boots
· Tale of a Witch
· Naked King
· Khavroshechka
· The Snow Queen
· Two brothers
· Tsar Maiden
· Cinderella
· Dr. Aibolit
· Shabarsha
· An ordinary miracle
· Marya the Mistress
Presenter 2: Now remember the film based on the script by Evgeniy Schwartz: “Cinderella”. I will read phrases from a movie fairy tale, and you must say which character said them.
Tasks:
1. And he also put on a crown (stepmother)
2. It’s a pity the kingdom is too small, I have nowhere to roam. It’s okay, I’ll quarrel with my neighbors - I can do that (stepmother)
3. Good people, where are you? Good people, and good people? (Cinderella)
4. I'm leaving! To hell, to hell, to the monastery! Live as you please (King)
5. I'm not a wizard, I'm just learning, but friendship helps us do real miracles (page boy)
6. My little ones, follow me! (stepmother)
7. Connections are connections, but in the end she must have a conscience (king)
8. It's terribly harmful not to go to balls when you deserve it (fairy)
Presenter 1: Next task based on the fairy tale: “Two Brothers”
1. What were the names of the brothers in the fairy tale? (Senior and Junior)
2. What did the boys' father do? (forester)
3. What phrase did the Elder say when he pushed the Younger out into the yard and locked the door behind him? ("Leave me alone")
4. In which room of the hall was Great-Grandfather Frost's Younger Brother locked? (49)
5. Who helped the boys escape from Great-Grandfather Frost's house (squirrels and birds)
"The Tale of Lost Time"
Now I will show you pictures from another wonderful fairy tale, and you will tell me what it is called. There is a famous film by Alexander Ptushko, shot in 1964 based on the play of the same name by E. Schwartz. Who watched the movie or cartoon, or read it? Which one of you can easily answer our questions:
Quiz based on the book by E. Schwartz "The Tale of Lost Time"
1. “What a lonely, unhappy old man I am. No mother, no children, no grandchildren, no friends... And most importantly, I didn’t have time to learn anything. Real old people are either doctors, or masters, or academics, or teachers. Who needs me when I’m just a 3rd grade student?”
