In the 1970s, American publishers found it undesirable for authors to publish more than one book a year. Stephen King, who wanted to publish more, began to write some works under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. In 1984, a bookstore clerk suspected a similarity literary styles authors and found a record in the Library of Congress that King was the author of one of Bachman's novels, notifying King's publishers of his discovery. The writer himself called this seller and offered to write a revealing article, agreeing to an interview. It resulted in a press release announcing the death of Richard Bachman from "pseudonym cancer".
The literary heritage of Sherlock Holmes is not limited to the stories and novellas of Arthur Conan Doyle. Only officially published works about a brilliant detective from writers different levels fame is in the hundreds. Among these authors are Conan Doyle's son Adrian, Isaac Asimov and Neil Gaiman, Mark Twain and Stephen King, Boris Akunin and Sergei Lukyanenko.
When the first Harry Potter book came out, the publisher insisted on putting JK Rowling's name on the cover with only initials - such a trick should not scare away the boys from buying, for the most part not book lovers female authors. And since the writer did not have a middle name from birth, she chose the name of her grandmother Kathleen for her initials, and since then she has been known in the west as J. K. Rowling.
Victor Hugo in 1862, while on vacation, wanted to know about the reaction of readers to the newly published novel Les Misérables and sent his publisher a telegram of one character "?". He sent a telegram in response, also from the same character - "!". It was probably the shortest correspondence in history.
The phrase "We all came out of Gogol's overcoat", which is used to express humanistic traditions Russian literature. Often the authorship of this expression is attributed to Dostoevsky, but in fact the first to say it was the French critic Eugene Vogue, who talked about the origins of Dostoevsky's work. Fyodor Mikhailovich himself quoted this quote in a conversation with another French writer, who understood it as own words writer and published them in this light in his work.
One of the most famous representatives Scottish family Lermontov - who lived in the 13th century, the poet, singer and seer Thomas Lermont, also known as Thomas the Rhymer. Although it is impossible to say unequivocally whether he real person or just a hero of legends, his image had a noticeable impact on Scottish and not only culture. Captive lieutenant Georg Lermontov entered the service in Russia in the 17th century, converted to Orthodoxy and became Lermontov, and the poet Mikhail Lermontov is among his descendants. An ancestor of George Byron named Gordon in the 16th century was married to Margaret Lermont, which gave the poet reason to rank Thomas the Rhymer among his family tree. Finally, poetry moral world Byron had a noticeable influence on the work of Lermontov, and one can talk about their relationship not only in the literary, but also (hypothetically) in the literal sense.
Stevenson's wife burned the first manuscript of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Biographers have two versions of why she did this: some say that she considered such a plot unworthy of a writer, others that she was unhappy with the incomplete disclosure of the topic of a split personality. Nevertheless, Stevenson, ill with tuberculosis, rewrote this novel in three days, which became one of his most commercially successful works and allowed his family to get out of debt.
IN Soviet time it was very difficult to get access to religious literature. Korney Chukovsky in the 1960s requested permission to publish biblical traditions adapted for children famous writers and writers under his editorship. The project was allowed with a caveat: God and Jews should not be mentioned in the book, so they came up with the pseudonym “Magician Yahweh” for God. Despite this, the entire circulation of the book " tower of babel and Other Ancient Legends, published by the Children's Literature publishing house in 1968, was destroyed, and the book was reprinted only in 1990.
IN famous song from Stevenson's Treasure Island, it says, "Fifteen men for a dead man's chest. Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! It is logical to assume that "Yo-ho-ho" is the laughter of pirates, but this is not so. Such an exclamation was used by English sailors when they needed to simultaneously make efforts in some kind of work - in Russian it corresponds to the phrase “One, two, they took it!”.
Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" begins with the phrase: "Everything happy families similar to each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Based on this aphorism, the so-called Anna Karenina principle is derived, which is used to describe systems in different sciences. For example, Jared Diamond explains with his help why so few animals have been domesticated by man - for successful domestication, several factors must coincide, and the absence of one of them makes domestication impossible. Economists use the Anna Karenina principle when talking about adapting systems to external environment and their behavior during a crisis: all well-adapted systems have the same features, and all unadapted systems do not cope with adaptation in their own way.
JK Rowling completed her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in 1995. The literary agent who agreed to represent her sent the manuscript to 12 publishers, but it was rejected everywhere. Only a year later the manuscript was accepted by the small London publishing house Bloomsbury, although his Chief Editor even after the book was approved, he was sure that Rowling would not earn much from children's books, and advised her to find a permanent job for her.
The source of the plot for Gogol's play "The Inspector General" was a real case in the city of Ustyuzhna, Novgorod province, and Pushkin told the author about this case. It was Pushkin who advised Gogol to continue writing the work, when he more than once wanted to quit this business.
From 1912 to 1948 medals Olympic Games were awarded not only to athletes, but also to artists. As far back as the end of the 19th century, Pierre de Coubertin, proposing to revive the Olympics, expressed the idea that it was necessary to compete both in sports disciplines and in various fields of art, while the works should be related to sports. There were five main medal nominations in total: architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. However, after the 1948 Olympics, it became clear that almost all participants in such competitions were professionals who earn money from art, and it was decided to replace such competitions with simply cultural exhibitions.
Interesting Facts about literatureInteresting facts about age in literature:
. Juliet was 14 and Romeo was 16.
. Juliet's mother, Senora Capulet, was 26 years old at the time of the events described in the play.
Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin's Snowstorm was no longer young: "She was in her 20s."
. « Balzac age”is 30 years old.
From the notes of 16-year-old Pushkin: “An old man of about 30 entered the room” (it was Karamzin).
. Ivan Susanin at the time of the feat was 32 years old (he had a 16-year-old daughter for marriageable age).
Anna Karenina at the time of her death was 28 years old, Vronsky was 23 years old, the old husband of Anna Karenina was 48 years old (at the beginning of the events described in the novel, everyone is 2 years less).
The old man, Cardinal Richelieu, was 42 years old at the time of the siege of the fortress of La Rochelle described in The Three Musketeers.
. But the old woman Nilovna (play "Mother" by Maxim Gorky) - 40.
Tynyanov: "Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those present. He was thirty-four years old - the age of fading"
What circumstances led mathematician Alexander Volkov to become a writer?
Fairy tale "The Wise Man of Oz" American writer Frank Baum was not published in Russian until 1991. In the late 30s, Alexander Volkov, who was a mathematician by training and taught this science at one of the Moscow institutes, began to study English language and for practice I decided to translate this book in order to retell it to my children. Those liked it very much, they began to demand continuation, and Volkov, in addition to translating, began to invent something from himself. That's how it started literary path, the result of which was The Wizard of the Emerald City and many other fairy tales about the Magic Land.
In what work was the Kasparo-Karpov system mentioned long before Kasparov and Karpov became known to the world?
In the story of the Strugatsky brothers "Noon, XXII century" the Kasparo-Karpov system is mentioned - a method that was used to make a "copy" of the brain and build its mathematical model. The story was published in 1962 - Anatoly Karpov was then only 11 years old, and Garry Kasparov had not yet been born.
Where does the word miniature come from?
The word miniature comes from Latin name red paint "minium" and in the original designates antique or medieval paintings in the genre of illuminated manuscript. Due to the small size of these paintings and the presence of the prefix "mini" in the word, an etymological metamorphosis later occurred, as a result of which any small drawings, especially portrait miniatures, began to be called miniatures. From painting, the term also penetrated into literature, where it refers to works of a small format.
Who came up with the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo?
Alexandre Dumas, when writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks". Among them, the most famous is Auguste Maquet, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made a significant contribution to " Three Musketeers».
What is the name of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades"?
The main character of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" is not Herman. His name is generally unknown, and Hermann (precisely with two n) is the surname of the hero, a German by origin, which is quite common in Germany. But in the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky removed one n, turning the surname Hermann into the name Herman.
How translated into Russian french novel, which does not contain a single letter e?
The novel was published in 1969 French writer Georges Perec "La disparition". One of the key features of the novel was that it did not contain a single letter e - the most used letter in French. By the same principle - without the letter e - the book was translated into English, German and Italian. In 2005, the novel was published in Russian, translated by Valery Kislov under the title "Disappearance". In this variant, you cannot meet the letter o, since it is it that is the most frequent in the Russian language.
Which literary hero began to use many methods of forensic science before the police?
Arthur Conan Doyle in the stories about Sherlock Holmes, he described many methods of forensic science that were still unknown to the police. Among them, collecting cigarette butts and cigarette ashes, identifying typewriters, looking through a magnifying glass for traces at the scene. Subsequently, the police began to widely use these and other methods of Holmes. 
Which book was published under different titles in different countries formed on the basis of exchange rates?
In 2000, Frederic Begbeder's novel "99 francs" was published, recommended for sale in France at exactly that price. This same principle led publications in other countries to come out under a different name, corresponding to the exchange rate: "39.90 marks" in Germany, "9.99 pounds" in the UK, "999 yen" in Japan, etc. In 2002, the book was republished in connection with the introduction of the euro and was called "14.99 euros". After some time, the peak of the book's popularity passed, and it was discounted to the title and the corresponding cost of "6 euros".
How did Dostoevsky's real walks around St. Petersburg reflect in the novel "Crime and Punishment"?
Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the places in his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, the description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides things stolen by him from the pawnbroker's apartment, he composed from personal experience- when one day, walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard in order to relieve himself.
Where and when did Baron Munchausen live?
Baron Munchausen was quite real historical figure. In his youth, he left the German town of Bodenwerder for Russia to serve as a page. Then he began his career in the army and rose to the rank of captain, after which he went back to Germany. There he became famous for telling extraordinary stories about service in Russia: for example, entering St. Petersburg on a wolf harnessed to a sleigh, a horse cut in half in Ochakovo, fur coats that went berserk, or a cherry tree that grew on a deer's head. These stories, as well as completely new ones attributed to the baron by other authors, led to the emergence of Munchausen as a literary character.
Where and when was a concept book sold with only blank pages?
When asked what 5 books you would take with you to a desert island, Bernard Shaw replied that he would take 5 books with blank pages. This concept was embodied in 1974 by the American publishing house Harmony Books, releasing a book called "The Book of Nothing", which consisted exclusively of 192 blank pages. She found her buyer, and subsequently the publishing house reprinted this book more than once.
Which literary character Dumas was invented only to increase the fee?
When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers in the format of a serial in one of the newspapers, the contract with the publisher stipulated line-by-line payment for the manuscript. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions exclusively in monosyllables, in most cases “yes” or “no”. The continuation of the book called "Twenty Years Later" was already paid by the piece, and Grimaud became a little more talkative.
Which Kipling characters changed gender in Russian translation?
IN original work The Jungle Book Bagheera is a male character. Russian translators changed the gender of Bagheera, most likely because the word "panther" - female. The same transformation took place with another character of Kipling: the cat became in the Russian translation "The cat that walks by itself."
Which writer got the stone that lay on Gogol's first grave?
Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery lay a stone, nicknamed Golgotha because of its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, when reburial in another place, they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave. And the same stone was subsequently placed on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase is noteworthy, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."
What famous English-language literary dystopia contains many words of Russian origin?
In a dystopia Clockwork orange Anthony Burgess put into the mouths of the teenage heroes a jargon he invented called Nadsat. Most nadsat words had Russian origin- for example, droog (friend), litso (face), viddy (see). The word Nadsat itself is formed from the ending of Russian numerals from 11 to 19, its meaning is the same as that of the word teenager (“teen-ager”). The translators of the novel into Russian faced the difficulty of how to adequately convey this slang. In one version of the translation, such words were replaced English words, written in Cyrillic (men, face, etc.). In another version, the jargon words were left in their original form in Latin letters.
Which writer, at the end of his life, acknowledged the harm done to nature by his own work?
Peter Benchley, author of Jaws, later adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg, last years life has become an ardent defender of sharks and the marine ecosystem as a whole. He wrote several works in which he criticized the negative attitude towards sharks, inflated in the mass consciousness, including thanks to Jaws.
What words from Pushkin's poem "Monument" were cut out by censors in 1949?
In 1949, the 150th anniversary of Pushkin was celebrated. Konstantin Simonov made a report on his life and work on the radio. In one Kazakh town at the loudspeaker gathered big number Kalmyks deported here from their historical homeland. Somewhere in the middle of the report, they lost all interest in him and left the square. The thing was that when reading Pushkin's "Monument" Simonov stopped reading right at the moment when he should have said: "And a friend of the steppes is a Kalmyk." This meant that the Kalmyks are still in disgrace and censorship excludes all mention of them even in such harmless cases.
Why did the author of Peter Pan endow him with the property of never growing up?
James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - a boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14 and remained forever young in his mother's memory.
Who is awarded the Ig Nobel Prize and for what?
At the beginning of October of each year, when the Nobel Prize winners are named, a parody Ig Nobel Prize is presented in parallel for achievements that cannot be reproduced or there is no point in doing so. In 2009, among the laureates were veterinarians who proved that a cow with any nickname gives more milk than an unnamed one. The literature award went to the Irish police for issuing fifty traffic tickets to a certain Prawo Jazdy, which in Polish means "driving license". And in 2002, the prize in the field of economics was awarded to Gazprom for the application of the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers in the field of business.
What did the old woman from the fairy tale about the Golden Fish of the Brothers Grimm want to be?
Pushkin's Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish was based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife. Pushkin's old woman is at broken trough after she wanted to become the mistress of the sea, and her German "colleague" at this stage became the Pope. And only after the desire to become the Lord God was left with nothing.
How did Jung Richard Parker repeat the sad fate of his literary namesake?
In Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 story "The Tale of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym" there is an episode when a ship is caught in a storm and four sailors are rescued on a raft. Having no food, they decide to eat one of them by lot - and this victim was Richard Parker. In 1884, a real yacht sank, and four people on one boat also survived. They probably didn't read that story, but they ended up eating a cabin boy named Richard Parker.
Why Isaev is not real name Stirlitz?
The real name of Stirlitz is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, but Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. Isaev is the first operational pseudonym of a scout, introduced by Yulian Semyonov in the first novel "Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", and Stirlitz is already the second pseudonym. This is not reflected in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".
What kind of insect is actually a dragonfly from Krylov's fable?
In Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant" there are lines: "The jumping dragonfly sang red summer." However, it is known that the dragonfly does not make sounds. The fact is that at that time the word "dragonfly" served as a generalized name for several species of insects. And the hero of the fable is actually a grasshopper.
What violent scenes were removed from folk tales Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm?
Most of the fairy tales known to us under the authorship of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and other storytellers originated among the people in the Middle Ages, and their original plots are sometimes distinguished by cruelty and naturalness. domestic scenes. For example, in the fairy tale about the Sleeping Beauty, the foreign king does not kiss her, but rapes her. The wolf eats not only the grandmother, but also half the village in addition, and before eating Little Red Riding Hood, he first raped her. Our folklore could not bear such a thing, and this detail has disappeared. Little Red Riding Hood then lures him into a pit of boiling tar. In the fairy tale about Cinderella, the sisters still manage to try on a slipper, for which one of them cuts off her finger, the other - her heel, but then they are exposed by their singing pigeons.
What topic in Soviet science fiction was so hackneyed that stories on it were not accepted by magazines for publication?
Subject Tunguska meteorite was very popular with Soviet science fiction writers, especially beginners. In the 1980s, the literary journal "Ural Pathfinder" even had to write in a separate paragraph in the requirements for publications: "Works that reveal the secret of the Tunguska meteorite are not considered."
Why do we have a tradition of signing book spines from bottom to top, while Europeans do the opposite?
IN Western Europe and America, book spines are signed from top to bottom. This tradition goes back to the days when there were few books: if the book is on the table (or in a small pile), the reader should be able to read the title comfortably. And in Eastern Europe and Russia has taken root the tradition of signing the spines from the bottom up, because it is more convenient to read when the books are on the shelf.
Where did the expression "and a no brainer" come from?
The source of the expression “And it’s clear to a hedgehog” is Mayakovsky’s poem (“It’s clear even to a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread first in the Strugatsky story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited teenagers who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I). The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, two-year students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning school year the expression "no brainer" was very relevant.
What book was imprisoned in the Bastille?
The prisoners of the Bastille were not only people. Once the famous French Encyclopedia, compiled by Diderot and d'Alembert, was imprisoned. The book was accused of harming religion and public morality.
How did Lenin's phrase about the cook and the state really sound?
“Any cook is capable of running the state,” Lenin never said such a thing. This phrase was attributed to him, taking from Mayakovsky's poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". In fact, he wrote this: “We are not utopians. We know that any unskilled worker and any cook is not capable of immediately entering into government ... We demand that training in the business government controlled was carried out by conscious workers and soldiers and that it should be started immediately.
Which science fiction writer wrote reviews of non-existent books?
Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a collection of short stories "Absolute Void". All stories are united by the fact that they are reviews of non-existent books written by fictitious authors.
How did Leo Tolstoy feel about his novels?
Leo Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent a letter to Fet: "How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose rubbish like "War" again." An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: "People love me for those trifles - War and Peace, etc., which seem to them very important."
What is the meaning of the word peace in War and Peace?
In the title of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, the word world is used as an antonym to war (pre-revolutionary "peace"), and not in the sense of " the world"(pre-revolutionary" world "). All lifetime editions of the novel came out under the title "War and Peace", and Tolstoy himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". However, due to typographical errors in various editions in different time, where the word was written as “mir”, disputes about true meaning the title of the novel.
Which writer encouraged readers to punctuate themselves?
American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with very peculiar language and lack of any punctuation. In response to reader outrage, in the second edition of the book, he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking.
Why did the poets not like Mayakovsky for writing poems with a ladder?
When Mayakovsky introduced his famous poetic "ladder", fellow poets accused him of cheating - after all, poets were then paid for the number of lines, and Mayakovsky received 2-3 times more for poems of a similar length.
What pessimist died of laughter?
The Cuban poet Julián del Casal, whose poetry was deeply pessimistic, died of laughter. He was having dinner with friends, one of whom told a joke. The poet has an attack uncontrollable laughter which caused aortic dissection, bleeding and sudden death.
What was the name of the city where Anna Karenina threw herself under a train?
In the novel by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this village became a city and was renamed Zheleznodorozhny.
Where was the radio play mistaken for a real Martian invasion?
On October 30, 1938, a radio show based on HG Wells' novel The War of the Worlds was broadcast in New Jersey as a parody of a radio report from the scene. Of the six million people who listened to the broadcast, one million believed in the reality of what was happening. There was a mass panic, tens of thousands of people abandoned their homes (especially after the call of alleged President Roosevelt to remain calm), the roads were clogged with refugees. Telephone lines were paralyzed: thousands of people reported supposedly seeing Martian ships. Subsequently, it took the authorities six weeks to convince the population that the attack had not taken place.
What is the real name of Korney Chukovsky?
Korney Chukovsky's real name was Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneichukov.
Who preserved Kafka's works for the whole world?
Franz Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after his death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but, on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.
How long did Robinson Crusoe spend in Russia?
The novel about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe has a sequel in which the hero is shipwrecked off the coast South-East Asia and forced to get to Europe through all of Russia. In particular, he waits out the winter in Tobolsk for 8 months. She also teaches English to local children. Eats crackers, drinks kvass. Poor…
When did the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” appear?
Pushkin wrote the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” of the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” for its second edition, released 8 years after the first publication.
What book did the writer ask to sell for exactly the price of a bottle of vodka?
When the poem "Moscow - Petushki" was published as a separate book, at the request of the author Venedikt Erofeev, the price of 3 rubles 62 kopecks was set for it. That is how much a bottle of vodka cost at the time of writing the poem.
How did Andrey Bitov learn about a new word in his work?
According to Andrey Bitov, he first learned about Zen Buddhism at the age of thirty, having read the dissertation of an English literary critic called "Zen Buddhism in early work Andrey Bitov.
Who came up with the name Svetlana?
The name Svetlana is not originally Slavic. It was invented and first used by the poet Vostokov in the romance "Svetlana and Mstislav", and gained wide popularity after the publication of Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana" in 1813.
Who predicted the death of the Titanic in a literary work?
14 years before the sinking of the Titanic, Morgan Robertson published the story that became her prediction. In the story, the ship "Titan", which was very similar in size to the Titanic, also collided with an iceberg. April night, And most of passengers died.
Why was Winnie the Pooh so named?
Winnie the Pooh got the first part of his name from one of the real toys of Christopher Robin, son of the writer Milne. The toy was named after a bear. London Zoo named Winnipeg, which got there from Canada. The second part - Pooh - was borrowed on behalf of the swan of the acquaintances of the Milne family.
Where did the expression "this thing smells like kerosene" come from?
Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.
Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?
In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.
Which writer wrote a story about a religious feat based on a story about a campaign for vodka?
In Leskov's story, an Old Believer passes from one bank of the river to the other along the chains of an unfinished bridge during a stormy ice drift in order to return an icon confiscated from the Old Believers from the monastery. According to the author, the plot is based on real events, only a bricklayer appears there, and he did not go for an icon, but for cheaper vodka.
Who valued books more than people?
In 267, the Goths ravaged Athens and killed many of the inhabitants, but did not burn the books.
How did Bernard Shaw react to the Nobel Prize?
In 1925 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."
Who used the "Albanian language" at the beginning of the 20th century?
In 1916, the futurist Zdanevich wrote a play without observing the normative rules of spelling and using the "Albanian language". The language of the padonks that appeared in the 2000s, whose spelling is built according to similar principles, is sometimes called the “Albanian language”, but the coincidence with the experience of Zdanevich is accidental.
What pornographic scene is in Woe from Wit?
In the 19th century, actresses refused to play Sophia in Woe from Wit with the words: “I am a decent woman and do not play in pornographic scenes!”. They considered such a scene a night conversation with Molchalin, who was not yet the husband of the heroine.
How were books kept in libraries?
Historical fact: in Europe until the 18th century, all library books were chained to shelves. To not be taken away.
Why did Daria Dontsova get a deuce in essay?
Daria Dontsova, a well-known detective, is the daughter of the famous Soviet writer Arkady Vasiliev. She was acquainted with V. Kataev, the author of the book "The lonely sail turns white". When it was necessary to write an essay on this work, Dasha turned to him for help - and as a result she received a deuce with the words: "Kataev did not think about this at all when he wrote the book."
Illustration: Elizabeth Clover
The creators of the heritage of Russian literature evoke a lot of conflicting feelings, both with their works and personal successes. Sometimes the authors inspire, sometimes they disappoint, often they make me laugh, sometimes they upset or make me sympathize with their plight. Disputes around the biographies of writers, as well as around their works, have not subsided for more than a dozen years. No matter how confusing the lives of writers or the motives of their creations, only one thing is certain: Russian literature is famous for a huge number of interesting facts framing immortal works.
Griboyedov and his grief from a sharp mind
A comedy in verse by Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" made the writer a classic of Russian literature. It is interesting to know that the interjection "Oh!" occurs on the pages of the work 6 times, and the exclamation "Ah!" Griboedov used 54 times.
The first to see the comedy was the fabulist Krylov. The writer was afraid of Ivan Andreevich and highly appreciated his point of view, therefore he considered it necessary to appear with a literary masterpiece before Krylov. The man grumblingly accepted the work from Griboedov's hands, and at the end of the reading he said that the censors would not be able to appreciate this work, moreover, Alexander Sergeevich was threatened with a "ticket" to Siberia for what he had written.
Many-sided Pushkin
Illustration: Khozatskaya Ekaterina Interest is not only life, but also creative fruits. Few people know that the reader could never see the famous Mermaid on chains, Koshchei and the Cat. After all, the writer supplemented the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” with the poem “At the Lukomorya, a green oak” only 8 years after the first publication.
No less entertaining for researchers is "Eugene Onegin". In the work there is an expression "... looked out the window and crushed flies."
"He settled in that peace,
Where is the village old-timer
For forty years I quarreled with the housekeeper,
He looked out the window and crushed the flies.
This phrase should not be taken literally. We weren't talking about pesky insects here.
Crushing a fly has at least two meanings:
- drink wine, get drunk...
- an image of the stagnant life of a noble pastime and dull entertainment.
Most likely, the ironic metaphor that Pushkin used here illustrated typical characteristic a person who likes to drink. IN modern language there is a definition of "being under the fly", in other words - "not being in a sober state." And this version is more appropriate. But what Pushkin had in mind, we will never determine with absolute certainty ...
In another Pushkin work, The Queen of Spades, an attentive reader must have noticed that the protagonist has no name, only his surname Hermann is known. An important nuance here is the double "n" at the end. When the story was presented in opera of the same name, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky changed his last name to the main name of the character, calling him German, with one "n" at the end.
Surprisingly, it is The Queen of Spades that is considered one of the first works in Russian that were successful in Europe.
By the way, the plot of The Queen of Spades was suggested to Pushkin by the young Prince Golitsyn, who, having lost, regained what he had lost by betting, on the advice of his grandmother, three cards once prompted to her by Saint-Germain. This grandmother is the “mustachioed princess” N. P. Golitsyna, well-known in Moscow society, nee Chernysheva, the mother of the Moscow governor D. V. Golitsyn.
Immediately after its publication in 1834, the mystical story finds remarkable success with the reading public. From diary entry Pushkin:
“My Queen of Spades is in big fashion. Players ponting for three, seven, ace.
Pushkin wrote more than 70 epigraphs to his works. For comparison: the number of epigraphs by Gogol and Turgenev is 20 for each.
Anna Karenina in the painting by G. Manizer It is noteworthy that eldest daughter Pushkin - M. A. Gartung, became one of the most important prototypes of Anna Karenina for novel of the same name Lev Tolstoy. The writer met Maria Alexandrovna in 1868 in the house of General A. A. Tulubyev and, under the impression, described some of her features appearance: dark hair, white lace and a small purple pansy garland.
Mystery of prose writer Nikolai Gogol
Remembering the mystical, but at the same time very topical writer Nikolai Gogol, it is worth noting that this man was passionate about needlework. He enjoyed knitting, cutting, sewing. The man skillfully made neckerchiefs, scarves, dresses for his sisters. Surely such a contradictory nature of Nikolai Vasilyevich pulled the creative inclinations of the master of the pen.
Fans of Russian literature will be interested to know that the play "The Government Inspector" is based on real events. Alexander Pushkin told Gogol about what happened in the Novgorod province. It was this writer who insisted on completing The Inspector General, despite the fact that Gogol was going to stop the story. However, the play was destined to live. The result still pleases readers to this day.
The whole life of Nikolai Vasilyevich is a tangled mystery. Mysticism followed the author, and even after his death, the heirs and researchers were left with more mysteries than answers. The grave of Nikolai Vasilyevich was covered with a stone, which was popularly called Golgotha for its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When the time came to “relocate” the cemetery, the stone was moved to the grave of another mystic, Mikhail Bulgakov. Surprising in this story is Bulgakov's phrase, which he repeated more than once to Gogol: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."
Dragonfly Krylova
In the fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant", the fabulist Krylov describes the dragonfly as a singing creature, but everyone knows that this insect does not do vocals. It turned out that earlier the dragonfly was common name for several types of insects, while Krylov actually wrote about the grasshopper.
Chukovsky is banned
The name, the master of children's Russian literature, was actually different. The real name of the writer is Nikolai Ivanovich Korneichukov. It is noteworthy that the real name and surname in this bundle are. There is no patronymic in the birth certificate of the poet. He was illegitimate. Being already old enough, Chukovsky asked to be called simply Kolya.
It is known that the writer's work was subjected to very strict censorship. Chukovsky's diary most honestly displayed the full picture of the horror of that time. They are literally full of references to the desperate struggle with censorship, which from time to time banned almost everything that was written by the poet. Fairy tales were banned, whole pages from articles and books were thrown out. Today, it is very difficult to believe the arguments of officials who have gone crazy from autocracy:
so, in "Moydodyr" for the words "God, God," Chukovsky went to explain himself to censorship. In "Cockroach" they saw an anti-Stalinist subtext.
"Stash" by Raskolnikov
Huge contribution to the treasury domestic literature did
In comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" interjection "Oh!" used 54 times and exclamation "Oh!" occurs 6 times on the pages of the work.
Pushkin wrote the prologue "At the Lukomorye a green oak ..." of the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" for its second edition, which was released 8 years after the first publication.
In the novel "Eugene Onegin" there are lines: "He settled in that peace // Where the village old-timer // Scolded for forty years with the housekeeper, // He looked out the window and crushed flies." The word fly in this context is not used in direct meaning, but for the metaphor of alcohol. There is also another metaphor used to refer to a drunk person - "under the fly", where the word fly is used in the same sense.
Pushkin wrote more than 70 epigraphs to his works, Gogol used at least 20, Turgenev used almost the same number.
The name of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" is unknown. In the work, the author used his surname Hermann (precisely with two n). This German surname which is quite common in Germany. And the name Herman (with one n) began to dominate in the work after Tchaikovsky removed one n during the production of the opera The Queen of Spades, turning the surname Hermann into the name Herman. 
In Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant" there are lines: "The jumping dragonfly sang red summer." However, it is known that the dragonfly cannot make sounds. The fact is that at that time the word "dragonfly" served as a generalized name for several species of insects. And the hero of the fable is actually a grasshopper.
Korney Chukovsky's real name was Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneichukov.
Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery lay a stone, nicknamed Golgotha because of its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, it was decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave during the reburial. And the same stone was subsequently placed on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase is noteworthy, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."
Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the places in his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, he compiled a description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides things stolen from the pawnbroker's apartment from personal experience - when one day, walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard.
When Mayakovsky introduced his famous poetic "ladder", fellow poets accused him of cheating - after all, poets were then paid for the number of lines, and Mayakovsky received 2-3 times more for poems of a similar length.
Prototype main character the novel "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy served as M.A. Hartung is the daughter of A.S. Pushkin: not by character, not by life, but by appearance. The author himself admitted this.
Daria Dontsova, whose father was Soviet writer Arkady Vasiliev, grew up surrounded by creative intelligentsia. Once at school, she was asked to write an essay on the topic: “What was Valentin Petrovich Kataev thinking about when he wrote the story “The lonely sail is whitening”?”, And Dontsova asked Kataev himself to help her. As a result, Daria received a deuce, and the literature teacher wrote in her notebook: “Kataev didn’t think about that at all!”
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1. "Ten Little Indians" - Agatha ChristieThe works of Agatha Christie "Ten Little Indians", which she herself considered her own the best work, very few places are published under their own original title. Basically, the novel is called "And there was no one" - according to last phrase from the famous rhyme:
"The last Negro looked tired,
He hanged himself, and there was no one.”
The initiators of this tradition were the Americans - they could not publish a novel under that name for reasons of political correctness, and the name "Ten African Americans" somehow did not sound. Negroes throughout the text, including in the counting rhyme, were replaced by little Indians. And in some countries, little soldiers, and even little sailors, began to die in the counting rhyme.
2. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury once "invented" the most popular headphone format today - the so-called "droplets". In the acclaimed book Fahrenheit 451, he wrote: “In her ears are tightly inserted miniature Shells, tiny thimble-sized radio plugs, and an electronic ocean of sounds—music and voices, music and voices—washes over her shores in waves. awake brain. The novel was written in 1950, you yourself understand what headphones were at that time!
3. "Inspector" - N.V. Gogol
The source of the plot for Gogol's play "The Inspector General" was a real case in the city of Ustyuzhna, Novgorod province, and Pushkin told the author about this case. These great classics were good friends. It was Pushkin who advised Gogol to continue writing the work, when he more than once wanted to quit this business. Throughout the entire time of writing The Inspector General, Gogol often wrote to Pushkin about his work, telling him what stage it was in. By the way, Pushkin, who was present at the first reading of the play, was completely delighted with it.
In the translation of the play into Persian, the mayor's wife was replaced by a second daughter, since courtship married woman in Iran is punishable by death.
4. "The Master and Margarita" - Mikhail Bulgakov
The first edition of the novel contained (now almost completely lost) a detailed description of Woland's signs 15 handwritten pages long, as well as opening the first "Yershalaim" chapter detailed description meeting of the Sanhedrin at which Yeshua was condemned.
In one of the editions, the novel was called "Satan".
Woland in the early editions of the novel was called Astaroth. However, this name was later changed, apparently due to the fact that the name "Astaroth" is associated with a specific demon of the same name, other than Satan.
The Variety Theater does not exist in Moscow and has never existed. But now several theaters sometimes compete for the title at once.
According to the writer's widow, Elena Sergeevna, last words Bulgakov about the novel "The Master and Margarita" before his death were: "To know ... To know."
5. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" - Arthur Conan Doyle
At the time of the writing of the Sherlock Holmes stories, the house at 221b Baker Street did not exist. When the house appeared, a flood of letters hit this address. One of the rooms of this building is considered the room of the great detective. Subsequently, the address of Baker Street, 221b was officially assigned to the house, which houses the Sherlock Holmes Museum. And for this even had to break the order of numbering houses on the street.
In the first version of the novel, there was no Holmes at all; instead, the crime was investigated by Ormond Sacker. Then Doyle nevertheless removed Saker and inserted Sherlock Holmes into the book, but in the second version, the detective's name was not Sherlock, but Sheringford. The writer borrowed his surname from his favorite American writer and physician Oliver Holmes. At first, Doyle planned to give the deductive method, which Holmes became famous for, to the doctor Watson - namely, the name Watson sounds in English - but then he changed his mind and endowed Sherlock Holmes with an amazing ability to investigate crimes.
6. "1984" - George Orwell
The famous formula "two times two equals five", which George Orwell repeatedly emphasized in the dystopian novel "1984", came to his mind when he heard the Soviet slogan "Five-year plan - in four years!".
Most of the features of Orwell's totalitarian community from his prototypes are Soviet Union during Stalin's dictatorship and Nazi Germany. The personality cult of Big Brother, a black-haired and black-moustached middle-aged man, is identified by most commentators with the cult of Stalin in the USSR.
Orwell portrayed in his novel the bleak future of humanity. A society in which there is no right to free thought, the search for truth or privacy is doomed to decay. Attempts to describe the evil that carries the power of totalitarianism and censorship ended in a ban on the book.
7. "Three Musketeers" - Alexandre Dumas
When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers in the format of a serial in one of the newspapers, the contract with the publisher stipulated line-by-line payment for the manuscript. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions exclusively in monosyllables, in most cases “yes” or “no”. The continuation of the book called "Twenty Years Later" was already paid by the piece, and Grimaud became a little more talkative.
Dumas, who constantly used the work of literary blacks, worked on The Three Musketeers together with Auguste Maquet (1813-1886). The same author helped him in the creation of The Count of Monte Cristo, The Black Tulip, The Queen's Necklace. Macke later sued and demanded that the 18 novels he co-authored with Dumas be recognized as his own works. But the court recognized that his work was nothing more than preparatory.
8. "Woe from Wit" - Alexander Griboyedov
In the 19th century, actresses refused to play Sophia in Woe from Wit with the words: “I am a decent woman and do not play in pornographic scenes!”. They considered such a scene a night conversation with Molchalin, who was not yet the husband of the heroine.
9. "Kolobok"
The fairy tale "Kolobok" is known not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders. The plot of "Kolobok" has analogues in the tales of many other peoples: from eastern Uzbek and Tatar, to western - English, German and Scandinavian. According to the Aarne-Thompson plot classifier , the fairy tale belongs to the type of 2025 - “running pancake". Since the 19th century, in world culture, the most common "colleague" of Kolobok can be called the Gingerbread Man from the USA (pictured below). He first appeared in print in 1875 and since then it has been one of the most famous Anglo-Saxon fairy tales.By the way, although according to the fairy tale, he ran away from other animals and animals, the American was also eaten by a fox.Our Kolobok appeared in print a little earlier than the American one - in 1873, but some researchers claim that the tale of the kolobok was included in Slavic folklore from the II-III century AD
10. "Notre Dame Cathedral" - Victor Hugo
Before the novel was published, the Cathedral in France was not so famous, they even wanted to demolish it. The novel was written by Hugo with the intent of portraying as the protagonist the Gothic cathedral of Paris, which at the time was about to be demolished or modernized. He wrote in the preface: "One of my main goals is to inspire the nation with love for our architecture."
Following the release of the novel in France, and then throughout Europe, a movement began for the preservation and restoration of Gothic monuments.
