The history of the creation of the fairy tale Aibolit. TO

A terrible monster named PP

A few years ago, or more precisely, in 1992, two publishing houses simultaneously published the works of an author who until then was practically unknown to our general reader. These were books by Hugh Lofting from his series of essays, famous in other countries, about Dr. John Doolittle, who treated animals. Issues of different publishers slightly differed from each other in the intonation of the translation, the title of individual works, even the spelling of the doctor's name (Dolittle vs. Doolittle). And only one thing was common: in the prefaces to these editions, we were finally mercilessly revealed a terrible secret: the good doctor Aibolit Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky is a fraud. John Doolittle is the "real, genuine name" of Dr. Aibolit.
The preface, which is more modest, was limited to this significant wording, but several pages in the Sigma-F edition were given to grandfather Korney, as they say, "in full". The highly experienced author of malicious pages did not dare to write directly: “Stop the thief!”, But with extraordinary grace, Korney Ivanovich was caught on all counts: he did not translate the impeccable Englishman Lofting, but retelled it. Dab-Dub called the duck Kikoy, turned the eagle owl into an owl, simplified everything and generally “changed it”. And most importantly, having a “bad habit of having lunch every day,” he did all this, a bad person, for money! True, the commentator had to mention that, committing his shameful atrocities, the writer Chukovsky warned readers on the very first page that his book was made "according to Hugh Lofting." But don't you know: "Neither children nor their parents usually read these lines."
The reputation of the classic has been shaken. A terrible monster named PP, the terrible Ghost of Plagiarism, rose to its full black height and began to roam. First of all - in the "web".
Unlike the older “paper” comrades from the liturgical guards of the past century, the Internet generation was not ashamed of expressions: “Plagiarism is a form of existence”, “Nobody knows the author. They know the plagiarist…”, “The Stolen Sun and the Stolen Aibolit”… Together with Grandfather Korney, other literary authorities of the Soviet era also got hit in the head: there was nothing for A.N. Tolstoy to write off his Pinocchio from their Pinocchio, A.M. Volkov - to raise his hand to the wonderful foreign "Wizard of Oz", and this Schwartz, Evgeny Lvovich, too, you know, Cinderella was not invented by himself ...
In fairness, it should be recognized that Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky suffered public reproach and all kinds of harassment during his lifetime beyond measure. There was even the word "Chukivshchina", which was considered a curse among the then fighters for children's literature. Only under the worker-peasant regime was Chukovsky called a “bourgeois” writer, and now they are called “Soviet”. He himself wrote about this about seventy years ago: “What a humiliation a children's writer is in if he has the misfortune of being a storyteller! He is treated as a counterfeiter, and in each of his tales they seek out a secret political meaning.
Maybe it’s even good that Korney Ivanovich did not live to see the time when he was completely accused of literary theft under the guise of a totalitarian system? died in 1969 no less than at the age of 88.)
It becomes sad. And also a little scary and a little funny. I want to get out of this jungle with black monsters as soon as possible and return home to children's literature, where a lot of interesting things really happen.

"Source"

Hugh Lofting (in some English publications Hugh (John) Lofting) was born in 1886 and was a little - four years - younger than Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneichukov, who later became Korney Chukovsky. The little Englishman lived on a farm and from early childhood was very fond of all kinds of animals. He probably had a kind mother, because who else would have allowed the boy to keep a whole real “zoo” in an ordinary closet. But Lofting did not become a zoologist, biologist or veterinarian. He became a railway engineer, studied in England, in America, and then worked all over the world - first in South America, then in Africa.
The engineer Lofting was made a writer by the war, the First World War. True, even before that, his tiny stories with his own drawings sometimes appeared in magazines. But the famous Dr. Dolittle was born in the war. The fact is that Lofting had two children, a son and a daughter, Colin and Elizabeth. When their father, an Irish Guardsman, was taken to the front, the children were bored and afraid. And my father wrote letters to them. What can you write about to children from the battlefield? Courageous Lofting (he was generally a brave man) began to invent all sorts of cute funny stuff: an animal doctor, talking animals and birds, adventures and victories ... Then the war ended. Lofting survived, although he was wounded. Letters about the funny Dolittle also survived. The family moved from England to America, and there - they say, quite by accident! - the letters were seen by one publisher, who immediately became delighted and immediately ordered a book from Mr. Lofting.
The result was a whole epic - a dozen and a half fabulous, adventure, exciting novels for adults and children. The first - "The Story of Doctor Dolittle" - was released in America in 1920, and in England - in 1922. The writer stubbornly drew pictures only himself, and one can, smiling, assume that somewhere inside the elegant gentleman Hugh John Lofting, similar to the American "Senator from the movie," there was always a pot-bellied "animal healer" John Doolittle, whose nose is just a natural potato. This is how Lofting portrayed his hero.
This is what the facts look like. And then, like a tail after a bright comet, all sorts of words, assumptions and conjectures begin with Freudianism at the same time. Why are the animals in the book so good? Because Lofting is disillusioned with people. Why is the main character a doctor? Because Lofting was hurt. And in general, the work before us is philosophical, because after the First World War, the progressive intelligentsia was deeply shocked by the defenselessness of the weak. Here is Janusz Korczak, who, however, did not save animals, but children ...
In general, commentators are wonderful people. Recently, a cute little magazine publishing crossword puzzles (!), reported in passing with another crossword, that Albert Schweitzer, who was also a doctor and went to Africa, served as the prototype for Dr. Dolittle. You want to say that the philosopher, musician and doctor Schweitzer treated the locals? So what? Monkeys and hippos are also local residents ...
Now the question is: what does the literary critic, publicist, translator and public figure Korney Chukovsky have to do with it, who at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was a very prominent and absolutely “adult” figure in Russia?
Well, yes, in 1916, at the height of the First World War, as part of a delegation of Russian journalists invited by the British government, Chukovsky visited England. The delegation was received by King George V, then Korney Ivanovich personally met Conan Doyle, Herbert Wells ...
Why would such a respectable person begin to compose children's fairy tales, and even, like a petty thief, drag plots through the iron curtain that soon descended?

Confusion

The first time Dr. Aibolit appeared in the fairy tale about Barmaley. He did not treat any animals there, but only with the help of the Crocodile he saved the naughty children Tanechka and Vanechka, who fled to Africa without asking. This story was published in 1925, which should be considered the "birthday" of the beloved doctor.
What follows is complete confusion. The most reputable bibliographers indicate a variety of dates, the names flash like balls in the hands of a juggler, and the head is spinning from the fact that the fairy tale "Limpopo" was also published under the name "Aibolit" and "Doctor Aibolit", and "Doctor Aibolit", in its own turn, was the name of the work, both poetic and prose. In a word, "Fish walk across the field, Toads fly across the sky ...", as Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky wrote in his program work "Confusion".
No, we didn't agree. It was a happy confusion, a free game of words and sounds, that the thirty-five-year-old respectable literary figure started when he wrote his first fairy tale. And so that it would not seem small to the descendants, he himself (at different times and under different circumstances) offered at least three options for explaining when and why this happened. The most convincing option is a child. The sick son, who was on the road, on the train, needed to be somehow distracted and entertained. It was then that the words allegedly sounded for the first time, with which many generations later grew up:
lived and was
Crocodile.
He walked the streets...
The year was 1917 outside. A children's fairy tale published some time later, they immediately began to twirl this way and that for literary parody and political overtones (but of course!), But all this was completely unimportant, because it was at that moment, having composed his "Crocodile", publicist and literary critic Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky went, figuratively speaking, to another country. While the idea of ​​parallel worlds was only hovering over thinking humanity, a certain Chukovsky, without leaving Petrograd anywhere, simply crossed a certain line and became a children's classic. Straightaway. From the first line.
In the next ten years, a fountain of poetic tales unprecedented in Russian literature fell upon astonished readers: "Moydodyr", "Cockroach", "Fly-Tsokotuha", etc. And so that our metaphors about parallel worlds do not seem deliberate, read Chukovsky’s article “How I Became a Writer”, and the good grandfather Korney will tell you about August 29, 1923 - the time is actually not the best time for reckless happiness. He will tell how a forty-year-old man ran and jumped around an empty Petrograd apartment, how he shouted at the top of his voice: “Fly, Fly-Tsokotuha, Gilded Belly,” and when “in a fairy tale it came to dancing ... he began to dance himself.”
"Aibolit" was one of the last volleys of this fireworks. Many years later, Chukovsky insistently emphasized that it was no longer the fruit of spontaneous inspiration, but a long and careful work on the word. How and why the savior of Tanechka and Vanechka turned into an animal doctor, we will probably never know. Bibliographers report that the Russian translation of the first of Hugh Lofting's books was published in 1924, and the evil plagiarizers even hint that the further distribution of this book did not happen due to the intrigues of the thief Chukovsky. Somehow strange... Why did a brilliant translator from English need to read Lofting in Russian?.. And the first, POETIC "Aibolit" appeared almost ten years after Lofting published his Dolittle. In general, no one undertakes to compare the "original source" with the POEMS of the "plagiarist". And no wonder. We would inevitably have to admit that the plot coincidences are outlined by a dotted line (doctor - animals - Africa), and the main thing in the fairy tale, as in all Chukovsky's poetic fairy tales, is the verses themselves. And there is no formalism here. It's just that for readers from two to five years old, the sound is a little more important than the meaning.
And then it was time for prose. In the thirties, Korney Ivanovich wrote the story "Sunny" (which also has a doctor, for children), the story "Gymnasium" (about his own youth), makes many translations, retellings and adaptations, including "Baron Munchausen" (according to Raspe) and - "Doctor Aibolit" (according to Gyu Lofting). This time, indeed, the Englishman John Doolittle is visible to the naked eye: the plot of the prosaic Aibolit is a very free retelling for kids of the first of fourteen books by Hugh Lofting. It differs fundamentally from poetic Aibolit, like the moon from the sun. Now this is not just a doctor who, at any cost, through snow and storm, must get to his tailed "patients". Now he is the hero of numerous adventures. He fights Barmaley and pirates, saves a little boy and his father, and all this, of course, is very interesting, but instead of the joyful and swift radiance of poetic lines, we have just a folding narrative.
You will be surprised, but the story with Aibolit does not end there. In the country of Chukovsky, both good and evil heroes always freely passed from fairy tale to fairy tale, as soon as the author called them. There was even an attempt to use old acquaintances in a real struggle for a real victory: in 1943, a book “Let's overcome Barmaley” was published in a very small circulation in the city of Tashkent. There, the terrible country of Ferocity, under the command of the cannibal Barmaley, attacked the good country of Aibolitia, but from the great power of Chudoslavia, Ivan Vasilchikov (who once defeated the Crocodile) arrived in time to help ... Is it any wonder that nothing good came of this venture.
To be honest, personally, all the long ups and downs in the fate of the famous character are not very interesting to me. I'm interested in the beginning. That tense second, or a happy occasion, or an insight from above (call it what you want!), When the writer Chukovsky removed the comma between the words “oh, it hurts!” and guessed that the new, whole word is the name of the doctor. In fact, he could do nothing else. Just take and write one line:
Good doctor Aibolit ...

"Glory to the good doctors!"

A good fabulous image is like a crystal glass. Every time she pours her own wine into it (well done, beautifully said!). Ever since the cinema won, this principle can be neither tested nor proven. While near-literary commentators are trying to distinguish malicious plagiarism from the natural germination of an idea, the cinema takes its toll without a word, releases some kind of remake sequel - and that's it. Is it possible to come up with a more desirable image for a patient of the 20th century than the smiling face of a kind doctor? ..
Almost simultaneously (in 1967), the Russian-speaking audience saw a film about Dr. Aibolit, and the English-speaking audience saw a film about Dr. Doolittle.
For people who were not yet born at that time, I can come up with reminiscences: Rolan Bykov's film "Aibolit-66" really hit the bull's-eye. Now we can only talk about this, but then the body itself literally began to breathe deeper, and if we could jump into the screen, we would probably stand next to Chichi the monkey and Avva the dog, only to go anywhere after Oleg Efremov as Aibolit. He was not a "free thinker" - he was free. Well, of course, everyone there is kind, brave, but most importantly - smart. Optimistically intelligent, which is extremely rare in general. He sang a beautiful song: "It's very good that we feel bad for now!". And the song almost turned into an unofficial anthem. American cinema failed at the first attempt. They say that because they lacked a sense of humor, which, alas, for some reason the Americans usually do not go beyond the barracks. But in 1998, persistent Americans made a new version, and it justified itself. He justified it so much that a sequel appeared already in 2001 (the same sequel to the remake), and, according to the Internet, this funny comedy looks literally “with a bang”. Eddie Murphy plays the title role in Doctor Dolittle 2 (Lofting would have been surprised in his 1920!). The film is dedicated to... And what can a film made at the beginning of our century be dedicated to if animals act in it? Right. It is about ecology. American directors, as you know, are people on a grand scale, so 250 different animals frolic around the modern Dr. Dolittle. 70 species are represented: wolves, giraffes, opossums, raccoons, dogs, owls... And in the center of events is a romantic story of a bear and a she-bear, the successful conclusion of which is taken care of by kind Eddie Murphy. After all, the surname "Doolittle" is also, as you understand, speaking. Well, something like this: “doing little”, someone even wrote - “doing little”. But we know that it is the modest people who do their seemingly modest deeds well that sometimes turn out to be more important for humanity.
Of course, the good doctor Aibolit provided illustrators and animators with a great opportunity to show themselves - you just need to open at least a web search engine. We can (on behalf of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky) give you advice on how to distinguish a good illustration for his texts from a bad one. Chukovsky told the artists: “more whirlwind…”, “generally more whirlwind”. Agree that this is a wonderful criterion.
And what a brand! Kindergartens, sweets, pharmacies, a bunch of clinics, clinics and medical centers named after the wonderful "veterinarian". What about the Aibolit computer service? And even a car service!
Chukovsky lived, as has already been said, for a long time and unconditional, nationwide glory of his good doctor, fortunately, he waited. And we were even more fortunate: without delving into any investigations and without blaming anyone for anything, we can now read poetry, prose, retelling, and a thorough translation of the “original source” (sorry for the quotes!), And Mr. Lofting, and a joyful whirlwind of young "Chukovsky" poems, when any occasion is suitable for singing.

Aibolit is a fairy tale by Korney Chukovsky about a kind doctor who helped everyone who would not turn to him. And then one day a telegram came to Aibolit from Hippo, who called the doctor to Africa to save all the animals. The doctor repeats “Limpopo, Limpopo, Limpopo”, and wolves, a whale, eagles help him along the way. The good doctor Aibolit cures everyone.

Tale Aibolit download:

Fairy tale Aibolit read

1 part

Good Doctor Aibolit!

He sits under a tree.

Come to him for treatment.

Both the cow and the wolf

And a bug, and a worm,

And a bear!

Heal everyone, heal

Good Doctor Aibolit!

part 2

And the fox came to Aibolit:

"Oh, I got stung by a wasp!"

And the watchdog came to Aibolit:

“A chicken pecked on my nose!”

And the hare came running

And she screamed: “Ai, ai!

My bunny got hit by a tram!

My bunny, my boy

Got hit by a tram!

He ran down the path

And his legs were cut

And now he's sick and lame

My little hare!”

And Aibolit said: “It doesn’t matter!

Give it here!

I'll sew him new legs,

He'll run down the path again."

And they brought him a bunny,

Such a sick, lame,

And the doctor sewed on his legs.

And the hare jumps again.

And with him the hare-mother

She also went to dance.

And she laughs and screams:

“Well, thank you, Aibolit!”

part 3

Suddenly from somewhere a jackal

Rode on a mare:

"Here's a telegram for you

From Hippo!"

"Come, doctor,

Go to Africa soon

And save me doctor

Our babies!"

"What's happened? Really

Are your kids sick?

"Yes Yes Yes! They have angina

scarlet fever, cholera,

diphtheria, appendicitis,

Malaria and bronchitis!

Come soon

Good Doctor Aibolit!

"Okay, okay, I'll run,

I will help your children.

But where do you live?

On a mountain or in a swamp?

"We live in Zanzibar,

In the Kalahari and the Sahara

On Mount Fernando Po,

Where hippo walks

Along the wide Limpopo.

part 4

And Aibolit got up, Aibolit ran.

He runs through the fields, through the forests, through the meadows.

And only one word repeats Aibolit:

"Limpopo, Limpopo, Limpopo!"

And in his face the wind, and snow, and hail:

"Hey, Aibolit, come back!"

And Aibolit fell and lies on the snow:

And now to him because of the Christmas tree

Furry wolves run out:

"Sit down, Aibolit, on horseback,

We will take you alive!”

And Aibolit galloped forward

And only one word repeats:

"Limpopo, Limpopo, Limpopo!"

part 5

But here is the sea in front of them -

Raging, noisy in space.

And a high wave goes to the sea,

Now she will swallow Aibolit.

"Oh, if I drown,

If I go to the bottom.

With my forest animals?

But here comes the whale:

"Sit on me, Aibolit,

And like a big ship

I'll take you forward!"

And sat on the whale Aibolit

And only one word repeats:

"Limpopo, Limpopo, Limpopo!"

part 6

And the mountains stand in his way

And he starts to crawl over the mountains,

And the mountains are getting higher, and the mountains are getting steeper,

And the mountains go under the very clouds!

"Oh, if I don't get there,

If I get lost along the way

What will become of them, the sick,

With my forest animals?

And now from a high cliff

Eagles flew to Aibolit:

"Sit down, Aibolit, on horseback,

We will take you alive!”

And sat on the eagle Aibolit

And only one word repeats:

"Limpopo, Limpopo, Limpopo!"

part 7

And in Africa

And in Africa

On black

Sitting and crying

Sad Hippo.

He's in Africa, he's in Africa

Sitting under a palm tree

And on the sea from Africa

Looks without rest:

Doesn't he ride in a boat

Dr. Aibolit?

And roam along the road

Elephants and Rhinos

And they say angrily:

“Well, there is no Aibolit?”

And next to the hippos

Grabbed their tummies:

They, the hippos,

Belly hurts.

And then the ostriches

They squeal like pigs.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry

Poor ostriches!

And measles, and they have diphtheria,

And smallpox, and bronchitis they have,

And their head hurts

And my throat hurts.

They lie and rave:

“Well, why doesn’t he go,

Well, why doesn't he go?

Dr. Aibolit?"

And crouched next to

toothy shark,

toothy shark

Lies in the sun.

Oh, her little ones

The poor sharks

It's been twelve days

Teeth hurt!

And a dislocated shoulder

At the poor grasshopper;

He does not jump, he does not jump,

And he weeps bitterly

And the doctor calls:

“Oh, where is the good doctor?

When will he come?"

part 8

But look, some bird

Getting closer and closer through the air rushes.

On the bird, look, Aibolit is sitting

And he waves his hat and shouts loudly:

"Long live dear Africa!"

And all the children are happy and happy:

“I have arrived, I have arrived! Hooray! Hooray!"

And the bird circling above them,

And the bird sits on the ground.

And Aibolit runs to the hippos,

And slaps them on the tummies

And all in order

Gives you chocolate

And puts and puts them thermometers!

And to the striped

He runs to the tiger cubs,

And to the poor hunchbacks

sick camels,

And every gogol

Every mogul,

Gogol-mogul,

Gogol-mogul,

He will treat you with mogul-mogul.

Ten nights Aibolit

Doesn't eat or drink or sleep

ten nights in a row

He heals the unfortunate animals,

And puts and puts them thermometers.

part 9

So he cured them

Limpopo! Here he cured the sick,

Limpopo! And they went to laugh

Limpopo! And dance and play

And Shark Karakula

Right eye winked

And laughs, and laughs,

Like someone is tickling her.

And little hippos

Grabbed by the tummies

And laugh, pour -

So the mountains are shaking.

Here's Hippo, here's Popo,

Hippo Popo, Hippo Popo!

Here comes the Hippo.

It comes from Zanzibar

He goes to Kilimanjaro -

And he screams, and he sings:

“Glory, glory to Aibolit!

Glory to the good doctors!

Aibolit character

Older children and adults are often interested in how it was possible to come up with such unusual fairy-tale characters? However, it is likely that Chukovsky's characters are not entirely fiction, but a simple description of real people. For example, the well-known Aibolit. Korney Chukovsky himself said that the idea about Dr. Aibolit came to him after meeting Dr. Shabad. This doctor studied in Moscow at the Faculty of Medicine, and spent all his free time in the slums, helping and curing the poor and destitute. For his modest means, he even gave them food. Returning to his homeland, Vilnius, Dr. Shabad fed poor children and did not refuse to help anyone. They began to bring him pets and even birds - he helped everyone disinterestedly, for which he was dearly loved in the city. People respected him so much and were grateful that they erected a monument in his honor, which is still in Vilnius.

There is another version of the appearance of Dr. Aibolit. It is said that Chukovsky simply took the character from another author, namely, from Hugh Lofting of his doctor Doolittle, who treated animals and could speak their language. Even if this version is true, in any case, Dr. Aibolit Chukovsky is a unique work for young children that teaches cleanliness and order from an early age, justice, love and respect for our smaller brothers.

It is not difficult to guess that the alarming cry of the patient “Ai! Hurts!" turned into the most affectionate name in the world for a fabulous doctor, very kind, because he heals with chocolate and eggnog, rushes to help through snow and hail, overcomes steep mountains and raging seas, selflessly fights the bloodthirsty Barmaley, frees the boy from pirate captivity Penta and his father, a fisherman, protects the poor and sick monkey Chichi from the terrible organ grinder ... while saying only one thing:

"Oh, if I don't get there,
If I get lost along the way
What will become of them, the sick,
With my forest animals?

Of course, everyone loves Aibolit: animals, fish, birds, boys and girls...

Dr. Aibolit has an English "predecessor" - Dr. Dolittle invented by the writer Hugh Lofting .

HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF FAIRY TALES

Each book has its own fascinating story.

"Dr. Aibolit" K.I. Chukovsky written on the basis of the plot of fairy tales by an English writer Hugh Loftinga about Dr. Doolittle ("The Doctor Dolittle Story", "The Adventures of Doctor Dolittle", "Doctor Dolittle and his Beasts" ).

THE PLOT OF A FAIRY TALE

To the good doctorAibolitu come for treatment and "and a cow, and a she-wolf, and a bug, and a worm, and a bear". But suddenly the children got sick Hippo, And Dr. Aibolit goes to Africa, reaching which, he repeatedly risks his life: either the wave is ready to swallow him, or the mountains "go under the clouds". And in Africa, the animals are waiting for their savior - Dr. Aibolit .

Finally he is in Africa:
Ten nights Aibolit
Doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't sleep
ten nights in a row

He heals the unfortunate beast
And puts and puts them thermometers.
And so he cured them all.
Everyone is healthy, everyone is happy, everyone is laughing and dancing.

A Hippo sings:
“Glory, glory to Aibolit!
Glory to the good doctors!

PROTOTYPE OF DOCTOR AIBOLIT

1. What animals lived with Dr. Aibolit?

(There are hares in the room, a squirrel in the closet, a crow in the cupboard, a hedgehog on the sofa, white mice in the chest, Kiki the duck, Abba the dog, Oink-oink the pig, Korudo the parrot, Bumbo the owl.)

2. How many animal languages ​​did Aibolit know?

3. From whom and why did Chichi the monkey run away?

(From the evil organ grinder, because he dragged her everywhere on a rope and beat her. Her neck hurt.)

The story of the emergence of Dr. Aibolit resembles the story of a puppet man named Pinocchio, who originates from a wooden doll named Pinocchio from an Italian fairy tale, or the story of the wizard of the Emerald City, which arose as a result of a retelling of a fairy tale by Frank Baum. Both Pinocchio and Goodwin with the company "outplayed" their predecessors in terms of artistic expression. The same thing happened with Dr. Aibolit.

The first image of an animal doctor was invented by the Englishman Hugh Lofting in The History of Doctor Doolittle (the first book with this hero was published in 1922). Doctor Dolittle (Dolittle) literally means "Doctor Relieve (pain)" or "Doctor Reduce (pain)". Doolittle is very fond of animals, which live in many in his house. Because of this, he loses all his former patients and livelihood. But then his pet parrot teaches him the language of animals, and he becomes the best veterinarian in the world. One day, the doctor receives a message that monkeys are seriously ill in Africa, and sets off on a journey to help them. On the way, he has to survive a shipwreck, he is captured by the black king, but in the end everything ends well.

Korney Chukovsky borrowed from Hugh Lofting the very figurative idea of ​​an animal doctor and some plot moves; in addition, individual characters moved from Dr. Doolittle's sofa and closet to Dr. Aibolit's sofa and closet. But as a result, the artistic shift turned out to be so strong that it is impossible to even talk about retelling. Chukovsky's prose story about Dr. Aibolit is a completely new work, although it was written based on the fairy tales of Hugh Lofting. And this story is valuable not only for the exciting adventures described in it. It also contains an absolutely integral concept of the world order, which a child of five to eight years old is able to comprehend.

There are many different animals in the fairy tale. This is how Dr. Aibolit's house is “arranged”: “Hares lived in his room. There was a squirrel in the closet. There was a crow in the buffet. A prickly hedgehog lived on the sofa. White mice lived in the chest. This list is not exhaustive, because "of all his animals, Dr. Aibolit loved most of all the duck Kiku, the dog Avva, the little pig Oink-Oink, the parrot Karudo and the owl Bumba." But this is not all, because new ones are added to the permanent inhabitants of the house all the time (and become active acting characters).

In other words, Dr. Aibolit's house is full of different animals, and they all coexist there in peace and harmony. I would say, in an implausible peace and harmony. Nobody eats anybody, nobody fights anybody. Even the crocodile “was quiet. I didn’t touch anyone, I lay under my bed and thought about my brothers and sisters, who lived far, far away in hot Africa.”

The inhabitants of the house are united by love and gratitude to Dr. Aibolit, who is said to be very kind. Actually, the tale begins like this: “Once upon a time there was a doctor. He was kind." "Kind" is the main and most important characteristic of the protagonist of this story. (By the way, the main distinguishing feature of Dr. Doolittle is that he “knew a whole bunch of all sorts of useful things” and was “very smart.”) All decisions and actions of Dr. Aibolit stem precisely from his kindness. In Korney Chukovsky, kindness manifests itself in activity and is therefore very convincing: a good doctor lives for the sake of others, serves animals and poor people - i.e. for those who have nothing. And his healing abilities border on omnipotence - there is not a single character that he would undertake to heal and did not cure. Almost all the animals acting in the story, in one way or another, owe the doctor their lives, their return to life. And of course, he understands animal language. But if Hugh Lofting in his story explains in detail how Dr. Doolittle mastered him, then the author only briefly reports about Aibolit: “I learned a long time ago.” Therefore, his ability to speak with animals in their language is perceived almost as primordial, as evidence of special abilities: he understands - that's all. And the animals living in the house obey the doctor and help him do good deeds.

What is this if not a children's analogue of paradise? And the image of the doctor's evil sister named Barbara, from whom impulses hostile to the doctor's world constantly emanate, is easily correlated with the image of a snake. For example, Varvara demands that the doctor drive the animals out of the house (“from paradise”). But the doctor does not agree to this. And this pleases the child: the “good world” is strong and stable. Moreover, he constantly seeks to expand his boundaries, turning more and more new animals into Dr. Aibolit's "faith": rhinos, tigers and lions (which at first refuse to participate in good deeds, but after their cubs get sick and the doctor heals them, they gratefully join to everyone else).

However, the children's "paradise", as it should be in mythology, is opposed by another place - the source of suffering and fears, "hell". And the absolutely good "creator" in Chukovsky's fairy tale is opposed by the absolute villain, the "destroyer" - Barmaley. (This image of Korney Chukovsky came up with himself, without any prompting from Lofting.) Barmaley hates the doctor. Barmaley seems to have no obvious, “rational” motives to persecute Aibolit. The only explanation for his hatred is that Barmaley is evil. And the evil one cannot bear the good, he wants to destroy it.

The conflict between good and evil in Chukovsky's story is presented in the most acute and uncompromising form. No halftones, no "psychological difficulties" or moral torment. Evil is evil, and it must be punished - this is how it is perceived by both the author and the child. And if in the story “Doctor Aibolit” this punishment is indirect (Barmaley loses his ship for pirate raids), then in the continuation, in the story “Penta and the Sea Robbers”, the author cracks down on evil characters in the most ruthless way: the pirates find themselves in the sea, and their sharks swallow. And the ship with Aibolit and his animals, safe and sound, sails further to their homeland.

And, I must say, the reader (small) meets the end of the robbers with a "sense of deep satisfaction." After all, they were the embodiment of absolute evil! The wise author spared us even a hint of the possible existence of Barmaley's "inner world" and a description of some of his villainous thoughts.

Actually, the good doctor also does not think about anything. Everything we know about him follows from his actions or words. From this point of view, Chukovsky's story is "anti-psychological". But the author did not intend to immerse us in the inner world of the characters. His task was to create just such a polar picture of the world, to present personified good and evil in relief. And the definition of good and evil in the fairy tale is extremely clear: good means to heal, give life, and evil means to torment and kill. Who among us can object to this? Is there anything that conflicts with this formula?

Good and evil in a fairy tale fight not for life, but for death, so the story about Dr. Aibolit turned out to be tense, exciting and sometimes scary. Thanks to all these qualities, as well as the clear opposition of good and evil, the story is very suitable for children aged five to eight years.

Around the age of five, children begin to master rational logic (the period of explaining that “the wind blows because the trees sway” is over). And rationality initially develops as thinking by the so-called "dual oppositions", or clear opposites. And now the child does not just learn from the words of an adult, “what is good and what is bad”, but also wants to motivate, justify, explain actions and deeds, i.e. wants to know why it's good or bad. At this age a child? he is also a tough moralist, not prone to looking for psychological difficulties. He will discover the existence of complexity, duality and even reciprocity of some meanings later, at the age of 9-10.

As for the “terrible” characteristic, this is exactly what a child after five years of age also really needs. By this age, his emotional world is already quite mature. And a five-six-year-old differs from younger preschoolers in that he learns to manage his emotions. Including the emotion of fear. The child's request for scary things, including scary tales, is associated with the need for emotional "training" and an attempt to determine their tolerance threshold. But he will have to put these experiments at full power on himself in adolescence.

Viktor Chizhikov's illustrations, however strange it may sound, are in some contradiction with the tension and "scaryness" of the tale. The images in the illustrations are funny, funny. Dr. Aibolit is so round, rustic. Most of the characters have their mouths stretched into a smile. And even the most dramatic moments - the attack of pirates, the clash of pirates with sharks - are depicted cheerfully, with humor. There is not a drop of humor in the story itself. There is nothing fun about the battle between good and evil. It’s not even clear at what point in the story you can smile. So Chizhikov's drawings, as it were, reduce the degree of drama and thus give the reader a break. Well, and to think that maybe everything is not so scary.

Marina Aromshtam

You can read about the experiment with covers of different editions of "Doctor Aibolit" in the article

Good Doctor Aibolit

In the autumn of 1924, Chukovsky and Dobuzhinsky were walking around St. Petersburg and wondered where the name “Barmaleeva Street” came from. "Who was this Barmaley?" Chukovsky asked. Dobuzhinsky replied that Barmaley was a robber, a famous pirate, "in a cocked hat, with such mustaches." He drew a terrible robber and invited Chukovsky to write a fairy tale about him. And the fairy tale was written, and almost immediately a positive character got into it - Dr. Aibolit from Hugh Lofting's tale retold by K. I., endowed, however, with the traits of a Russian intellectual most dear to Chukovsky's heart.

In order not to confuse the reader, we will explain right away: “Doctor Aibolit” is a retelling of Lofting, published in a separate edition in 1936. It’s just that “Aibolit” is a completely original poetic fairy tale by Chukovsky, published in 1929. There is some relationship, but only a distant one. "Barmaley", where Dr. Aibolit tries to save Tanya and Vanya from a robber, was written in 1924. Regardless of the time of publication, all these tales date back to the early 1920s, when Chukovsky read and retold Lofting.

And copyright issues in Soviet Russia were solved simply. When Chukovsky shared with Mr. Keaney of the ARA his plans for publishing World Literature, the American asked: "What about copyright?" Chukovsky was embarrassed and could not really explain that in Soviet Russia copyright is considered a bourgeois relic. To him, this position seemed wild, and on the prosaic "Doctor Aibolit" he honestly pointed out: "According to Gyu Lofting." Why not "Lofting in Chukovsky's translation"? Now we'll see.

Lofting writes (interlinear translation is mine. - I. L.):

"Many years ago, when our grandfathers were young, there was a doctor, and his name was Doolittle - John Doolittle, MD (MD. - I. L.)."D. m." means he was a proper doctor and knew quite a lot.

He lived in the town of Luzhinsk-on-the-Bolot Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All people - both old and young - knew him by sight. And when he walked down the street in his top hat, everyone said: “Here comes the doctor! He is very clever!" Both dogs and children ran up and followed him, and even the ravens that lived in the belfry croaked at him and nodded their heads.

The house in which he lived on the outskirts of the city was rather small; but the garden is rather large; it had a spacious lawn and stone benches over which weeping willows hung. His sister, Sarah Doolittle, managed his household, but the doctor looked after the garden himself.

He was very fond of animals, and many lived in his house. In addition to the goldfish in the pond at the back of the garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in the piano, a squirrel in the linen closet, and a hedgehog in the basement. He also had a cow and a calf, and an old lame horse twenty-five years old, and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But most of all he loved Dub-Dub the duck, Jeep the pigeon, Gub-Gub the pig, Polynesia the parrot, and Tu-Tu the owl.

And here is what Chukovsky did from this:

"Once upon a time there was a doctor. He was kind. His name was Aibolit. And he had an evil sister, whose name was Varvara.

More than anything, the doctor loved animals. Hares lived in his room. There was a squirrel in his closet. A prickly hedgehog lived on the sofa. White mice lived in the chest.

But of all his animals, Dr. Aibolit loved most of all the duck Kiku, the dog Avva, the little pig Oink-Oink, the parrot Karudo and the owl Bumba.

What happens to the text? All the details that give the doctor nationality, concreteness, social status fall out. A small house with a typical English garden, weeping willows and a pond is lost, even the top hat disappears and the main thing remains: “Once upon a time there was a doctor. He was kind." If you compare this work on the text with a diary, you can immediately see: Chukovsky is trying to tell this tale to the four-year-old Murochka, who does not care at all whether the doctor had stone benches in the garden or not, she is interested in something else: “Is he kind?” (A diary entry dated July 15, 1924 reads: “In the evening on the terrace I retold The Golden Goose to Moura - and every time a new character appeared in the fairy tale, she asked:“ Is he kind? ”She needs to know whether to sympathize with him or not, whether to spend your love on him: - “And now he sees a hungry old man sitting in the forest by the road.” - “Is he kind?” - “Yes.” - “Well, I feel sorry for him.”) And my sister the doctor (Varvara, not Sarah) was evil, Chukovsky immediately sets the coordinate system; Lofting does not say anywhere about Sarah that she was evil. She simply made claims to the doctor within the framework of common sense: the waiting room is full of mice and hedgehogs, the best patients have turned away from you, what will you live with?

By the way, even new names of animals have been invented for Murochka. “Abba” in her infantile language meant “dog”, “Bumba” she called Chukovsky’s secretary Maria Nikitichna Ryzhkina, who wrote under the pseudonym “Pambe” ...

The text is reduced, only the backbone remains of it - the most important thing is that the baby is not lost in an abundance of details - even funny ones (the doctor's rheumatic patient sat on a hedgehog in the waiting room and has not come to him since). The main thing remains: the kindness of the doctor, the ability to heal any patient, knowledge of animal language and heroism. A specific English doctor with a first name and a scientific degree, with a housekeeper sister Sarah, with a linen closet and a piano, completely turned into a fabulous doctor for children from two to five.

Interesting in the Aibolite-Barmaley cycle are the images of good and evil in the Chukovsky way: evil is personified by Barmaley - big, rude and cruel, and good is a cozy, intelligent, merciful doctor, kindred in spirit to Chekhov in the understanding of K. I. If you read Chekhov's description in " Contemporaries" and compare him with Dr. Aibolit - the type is undoubtedly the same: a delicate, selfless intellectual-unmercenary with a strong inner core. It's not that Chukovsky copied his doctor from Chekhov or from the Vilna doctor Shabad, as he himself said; it’s just that for him, both the one and the other, and the third doctor are the best personification of the forces of good. The article about Chekhov was written much later than Aibolit, and it is unlikely that Chukovsky himself thought about the relationship of the two doctors he described, but the clearer the relationship and the clearer What Chukovsky could oppose the hard-headed, bow-legged, mediocre, crude evil, which does not even have the rudimentary ethical ideas.

Here Chekhov, sick and exhausted, goes to Sakhalin "with the sole purpose of bringing at least some relief to the disenfranchised, outcast people, at least a little to protect them from the arbitrariness of the soulless police system":

“He was shaking so cruelly all the way, especially starting from Tomsk, that his joints, collarbones, shoulders, ribs, vertebrae ached ... his arms and legs were numb from the cold, and he had nothing to eat, since, due to inexperience, he did not capture with the necessary food ... "

“... making his way through the spring flood in a cart, he wet his boots and had to jump into the cold water in wet boots every minute to hold the horses.”

But Dr. Aibolit goes to Africa to help sick animals:

And in his face the wind, and snow, and hail:

"Hey, Aibolit, come back!"

And Aibolit fell and lies on the snow:

But Dr. Chekhov does not stop: "And yet he makes his way on and on."

And Dr. Aibolit does not stop:

And Aibolit galloped forward

And only one word repeats:

"Limpopo, Limpopo, Limpopo..."

And so Chekhov spends the night in a hut on the floor in wet clothes, and goes around the huge island on foot to compile a census of its population, and here Aibolit “does not eat, drink or sleep for ten nights in a row / Ten nights in a row / He treats the unfortunate animals / And he puts and puts thermometers for them ... ".

On November 9, Chukovsky writes in his diary: “I don’t like Barmaley at all, I wrote him for Dobuzhinsky, in the style of his pictures.” He calls it a "verbal operetta", created specifically to awaken in children a sense of poetic rhythm. He called "Barmaley" and an adventurous novel for the little ones. However, adventure novels - for both small and large ones - were out of place and out of time. Time wanted to build and live in a continuous fever of everyday life.

Good advice As I looked into the water. Several days pass, I meet in the yard ... who would you think? Well, Kozlovsky, of course. "Old man," he crouched to my left ear, "do you know where I was?"