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prototypes in literature. Heroes of Russian literature and their real prototypes

prototypes in literature. Heroes of Russian literature and their real prototypes

21.03.2019

The creation of types in literature, of course, is not complete without an artistic renewal of the picture of the world. genuine art is never exhausted by its mere reflection. And in brilliant artistic types there is always an area of meaning in which the character turns out to be a "familiar stranger" for us.

"Misanthropy" by Molière's Alceste (the comedy "The Misanthrope"), it would seem, paints in one color mental manifestations hero, dominating them as a mono-idea and mono-passion. But least of all it is a product of elemental contempt for man: if it were so, art would have nothing to do with such passion. This is the “misanthropy” of a high soul, stunned and suppressed by the imperfection of the world and human nature deeply suffering from it. The high ideal of man has broken in her, and she perceives this break as the collapse of the world. The "misanthropy" of Alceste is nothing more than a shadow cast by great love, and the giant outlines of this shadow only hint at the power of offended love. Here before us, in essence, is the tragedy of love, as if waking up from a beautiful-souled sleep and discovering that it fell asleep in the desert. This is essentially the real "misanthropy" of Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. Its inclusion in the realm of higher meanings and higher movements of the heart, which transforms the very essence of the dominant passion in Molière's Alceste, is the great artistic discovery of Molière, and the type he created is eternally recognizable and eternally new.

Thus, the paths to new knowledge about the world and the soul are by no means blocked for the literary type. Yet it is precisely in the creation of characters that the re-creating efforts artistic thought, spirit of discovery, proclamation new truth about a person manifest themselves in all their obviousness. The psychology of the perception of literary types is such that they awaken in us, first of all, the joy of aesthetic recognition, which, when perceiving characters, is overlaid with a sharp and exciting sense of novelty. Absorbing the truth of empirical reality, the characters created by great artists are no longer reducible to it: they cannot be “returned” to reality, re-projected onto it, decomposed into constituent elements life, caught in the crucible of artistic imagination. The truth embodied in them is no longer the truth that can be found in objective reality, primarily because the subjective truth of the creator is merged with it, leading to the circle of the author's consciousness. From the contact of these two worlds, ideal and real, internal and external, the horizons of our knowledge about man are widely expanded.

Even where, while creating a character, the writer's imagination takes a specific prototype as the starting point of its "flight", even there the created character often moves away from the original "material" to a great distance. Even absorbing the external background of the life of the prototype, the outlines of his fate, the character develops into a new spiritual essence, which did not exist in reality. The reader's "recognition" of such a character and its assessment from the standpoint of reality are most often based on only one layer of its content, close to the surface, in which it intersects with the topic of the day. But behind this surface in great works of literature is an immeasurable depth.

The literature on prototypes is vast and varied, sometimes entertaining enough to rival the fascination of adventurous stories. But not useless in terms of disclosure creative laboratory writer, it misses the mark in the sense that most often it does not bring us one step closer to understanding nature artistic nature. Just one example. Annenkov's memoirs capture the story of how Gogol, in the company of his acquaintances, listened to an anecdote, the eventual fabric of which in some way anticipated the plot of the not yet written "Overcoat". It was the story of an official who was fond of hunting, who long and passionately dreamed of a gun from the French company Lepage. Friends in the department, having arranged a clubbing, give him a coveted gun for his name day. Consumed by the passion of hunting, the official the next day goes to shoot ducks in the Gulf of Finland. But this is where trouble happens: when the boat is carelessly turned, the gun lying on the stern hits the water. The official's shock is so great that he falls ill with a fever. The disease recedes only when the hero's colleagues, overshadowed by his grief, once again organize a clubbing and buy him exactly the same gun.

This anecdote was often recalled by those who wrote about Gogol, but they recalled it mainly referring to its plot intersections with Gogol's "The Overcoat". Nevertheless, it is interesting to try to isolate in him that psychological "matter", those grains of the spiritual experience of the prototype, which were fused by Gogol into the character of the hero of "The Overcoat". This is where the "abyss of space" is revealed, separating the spiritual essence of Gogol's character from that vague, obscure in outline mental type, which is barely visible in the joke. If there was anything about his hero that could have alerted Gogol's attention, it was, no doubt, the tragicomic difference between the hot power of the dream and the prosaic ordinariness of its object (the gun). The official's illness is the anecdotally unexpected signal of this difference. Therefore, some facet of the psychological content contained in the prototype was nevertheless reflected in the spiritual essence of Gogol's character. But the fact of the matter is that it is only one facet.
The contrast between the power of the dream and the prosaic nature of its object is infinitely weakened in the anecdote in comparison with Gogol's story. A gun is still an ordinary thing, even if it is precious for a hunter who knows the value of a good gun. Yes, and the hunt itself is nothing more than a whim for an official from a joke, although, of course, a respectable whim. The overcoat for Gogol's Bashmachkin is not only an absolutely necessary attribute of existence, but, above all, a materialized symbol human dignity, trampled daily by the whole warehouse of being. Its very transformation from an ordinary thing into a universal sign of dignity, into an object life purpose and even the mission, at the foot of which the most passionate dreams are thrown—how much all this says in Gogol about the world and man.

The passion of the hero of the anecdote is a living passion, a sign of his connection with the natural principles of being. Bashmachkin's passion, for all its tragedy, is a phantom, the brainchild of a devastated spirit, a twisted inclination of the soul. This soul has not yet completely petrified in Gogol's character: from its secret depths, inaccessible to the consciousness of the hero himself, the voice of offended human dignity can still suddenly break through. But the living diversity of its manifestations has already been destroyed.

Finally, Gogol's Bashmachkin falls into a powerful stream of that artistic style, which Gogol himself called "the science of extortion." In the energy “field” emanating from the author, infinitely small psychological structures, of which the character is composed, almost reflex movements of the soul. And this is not a formal shell of character, but his artistic essence, moreover, the essence that follows from the tragic Gogol's sense of the disintegrating integrity of man.

Prototype(from the Greek protótypon - a prototype), a real person, the idea of which served as a fundamental principle for the writer when creating a literary type, the image of a person - the hero of a work

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See what "Character Prototype" is in other dictionaries:

- (from other Greek πρῶτος the first and τύπος imprint, impression; prototype, sample), Prototype: Prototype (cognitive psychology) an abstract image that embodies many similar forms of the same object or pattern, most ... ... Wikipedia

Prototype, specific historical or modern to the author the personality that served him as the starting point for creating the image. Gorky defines the process of processing, typification of the prototype as follows: “I recognize the right of the writer and even consider him ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

prototype- a, m. prototype gr. protos first + typos imprint. 1. Who or what l., which is the predecessor or model of the next. BAS 1. For this reason, in every educated state, it is accepted as a rule or law: 1) to have and maintain ... ... Historical dictionary gallicisms of the Russian language

prototype- y, part 1) A specific person, the fact of life aboriginal to the character of which is the basis for the image of a literary character. 2) special The primary look, the primary form of such an organ of an organism, from which further organs or organisms have historically evolved. ... ... Ukrainian glossy dictionary

M. 1. The person who served the writer as a source of creation literary character. 2. The original form, the form of any organ or organism, from which historically subsequent organs or organisms developed. 3. Who or something that is ... ... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language Efremova

prototype- (Greek prototypon prototype) real person or literary hero, which served as a model for the author to create the character. P. can appear in the work under the original (Pugachev in Captain's daughter A.S. Pushkin) or a fictitious name (prototype ... Dictionary of literary terms

PROTOTYPE- (from the Greek prōtótypon prototype), a real-life person who served as a prototype (model) for the author to create a literary character. The "reworking" of P., his creative transformation is an inevitable consequence of artistic development ... ... Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary

Castiel Misha Collins as Castiel Appearance Resurrection of Lazarus Info Nickname Cas Gender Male Age Unknown Occupation Messenger of God Number of episodes ... Wikipedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people with that surname, see Bulgakov. Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov Date of birth ... Wikipedia

Mihai Volontir in the role of Budula Information Nickname Russian Gypsy Gender male Age ... Wikipedia

Sapozhkova Taisiya.

aim research work was the search for prototypes of heroes known and studied in school curriculum literary works.

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Historical prototypes of literary heroes:

"There is no fiction without truth."

Almost every literary character has its own prototype - a real person. Sometimes it is the author himself, sometimes it is a historical figure, sometimes it is an acquaintance or relative of the author. Having often read this or that work, impressed by the events and characters described by the author, one wants to know if this person really existed, who this person really was without the writer’s fiction, and what character traits did the author attribute to him?

The purpose of my research work was to search for prototypes of the heroes of well-known and studied literary works in the school curriculum. But first, let's define what a prototype is.

Prototype - prototype, a specific historical or contemporary personality of the author, who served as the starting point for creating the image.

The process of processing, typification of the prototype Maxim Gorky defined as follows: "I recognize the writer's right and even consider it his duty to "think" a person." The process of "thinking" is the process of generalization, typification of the Prototype in an artistic image.

The processing of the Prototype into an image cannot be viewed only as an expression of the author's attitude towards this Prototype.

The value of researching a Prototype depends on the nature of the Prototype itself. The more striking the phenomenon of society and history is the Prototype, the more meaningful it becomes to study and compare with the image, because in this case we have a reflection in art of an extremely important, meaningful, typical phenomenon society.

In one of the most significant works of Russian literature"Eugene Onegin" (1823-1831), - novel in verseAlexander Sergeevich Pushkin, - against the broad background of Russian reality, the dramatic fate of the best people nobleintelligentsia. The novel, according to Pushkin, was "the fruit of the mind of cold observations and the heart of sad remarks."

Determining the prototypes of certain charactersher novel occupied both contemporary readers and researchers. In memoir and scientific literature accumulated extensive material devoted to attempts to connect the characters Pushkin's novel with some real person.

Having studied a large amount of materials of historians - literary critics, I was faced with the fact that there is no consensus about the personality of the prototype of the protagonist of the novel - Eugene Onegin . This gives reason to agree with the opinion that the image of the hero is collective. I will give only the most common names of possible prototypes of Eugene Onegin.

Alexander Pushkin called the main character of his novel in verse - Eugene - his friend. The poet even left a drawing, known to many, on which the poet depicted against the background Peter and Paul Fortress himself together with Onegin. In appearance, Evgeny is several years older than Pushkin, not thin, wears a mustache, he is wearing a bolivar, a standing collar is visible. This hand-drawn image is clearly not similar to the Onegin, which is considered a classic. The drawing was, according to the author's intention, to become the basis of the portrait, which would be placed on the cover of the first chapter of the novel. So he gave special meaning this image.

The prototype of the image of the protagonist in the novel "Eugene Onegin" isRussian poet, playwright, literary critic, translator, theater figure; MemberRussian Academy- Pavel Aleksandrovich Katenin.Guard colonel, combatant in Patriotic War 1812, Decembrist Pavel Katenin hated Alexander I and participated in the development of plans for his assassination, was a member of the Union of Salvation. In the summer of 1817 he headed one of the two branches of the secret Military Society - an intermediate organization that operated between the Union of Salvation and the Union of Welfare. His song about freedom became the anthem of the Decembrists, for which he was dismissed in September 1820.

The friendship of Katenin and Pushkin was a good nourishment for the work of Alexander Sergeevich.

P.A. Katenin was famous for his quarrelsome character and broke with the Decembrists, so he did not go to Senate Square. He was expelled from St. Petersburg in 1822 and settled on his estate in the Kostroma province, where he led a lonely life, engaged in literary activities.

Pavel Aleksandrovich Katenin

Others, even more famous prototype Eugene Onegin is considered to be Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev, a friend of Pushkin, mentioned by the poet in the first chapter of the novel. Onegin's story is reminiscent of Chaadaev's life.

Russian philosopher, publicist, P. Chaadaev was born in Moscow in noble family. His maternal grandfather was the famous historian and publicist Prince M. M. Shcherbatov. After early death Chaadaev's parents were raised by their aunt and uncle. In 1808, he entered Moscow University, where he became close to the writer A. S. Griboedov, the future Decembrists I. D. Yakushkin, N. I. Turgenev and other prominent figures of his time. In 1811 he left the university and joined the guards. Participated in the Patriotic War of 1812, in the foreign campaign of the Russian army. In 1814 in Krakow he was admitted to Masonic Lodge. Returning to Russia, Chaadaev continued military service.

In 1816, in Tsarskoye Selo, Chaadaev met the lyceum student A.S. Pushkin and soon became a beloved friend and teacher of the young poet, whom he called "a graceful genius" and "our Dant." Three poems by Pushkin are dedicated to Chaadaev, his features are embodied in the image of Onegin. Pushkin characterized the personality of Chaadaev with the famous verses “To the Portrait of Chaadaev”:

"He is by the highest will of heaven

Born in the fetters of the royal service;

He would be Brutus in Rome, Pericles in Athens,

And here he is a hussar officer.

Constant communication between Pushkin and Chaadaev was interrupted in 1820 due to Pushkin's southern exile. However, correspondence and meetings continued throughout life. On October 19, 1836, Pushkin wrote to Chaadaev famous letter, in which he argued with the views on the destiny of Russia, expressed by Chaadaev in the Philosophical Letter. For these letters, Chaadaev was officially declared insane and doomed to a hermitage in his house on Basmannaya Street, where he was visited by a doctor who reported monthly on his condition to the tsar. Chaadaev died in Moscow in 1856.

An important influence on the image of Onegin was made by Lord Byron and his "Byron Heroes", Don Juan and Childe Harold, who are also mentioned more than once by Pushkin himself.

Tatyana Larina - the prototype of Avdotya (Dunya) Norova, Chaadaev's girlfriend. Dunya herself is mentioned in the second chapter, and at the end of the last chapter, Pushkin expresses his grief over her untimely death. Due to the death of Dunya at the end of the novel, Anna Kern, Pushkin's lover, acts as the prototype of the princess, the matured and transformed Tatyana. She, Anna Kern, was the prototype of Anna Karenina. Although Leo Tolstoy copied the appearance of Anna Karenina from eldest daughter Pushkin, Maria Hartung, but the name and history are very close to Anna Kern. So, through the story of Anna Kern, Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" is a continuation of the novel "Eugene Onegin".

Another contender for the role of the prototype of Tatyana Larina was N.D. Fonvizina, the widow of a Decembrist general, who spent many years in Siberian exile with her husband.N.P. Chulkov wrote: “Tanya Fonvizina calls herself because, in her opinion, Pushkin wrote his Tatyana Larina from her. Indeed, in her life there were many similarities with the heroine of Pushkin: in her youth she had an affair with a young man who refused her (though for other reasons than Onegin), then she married an elderly general who was passionately in love with her, and soon met with the former object of her love, who fell in love with her, but was rejected by her.

It is also assumed that Tatyana Larina in contemporary Pushkin society could have another living prototype - a well-known secular lady, a beauty - the wife of the Governor-General of Novorossia, Count M.S. Vorontsova - Elizaveta Ksaveryevna, followed by one of Pushkin's friends - also the prototype of Eugene Onegin. Countess Vorontsova E.K. - a dazzling master of flirting, loving the company of brilliant gentlemen, enchanted everyone. Her beauty, lightness and alluring inaccessibility turned the head of the young poet. She, according to this version, becomes the prototype of Tatyana Larina, whose sketches the enamored Pushkin makes in Gurzuf. Elizabeth reciprocates and gives the famous ring - "talisman". Pushkin's heart affairs are full of passions and experiences. The son of General Raevsky - Nikolai - is himself fascinated by the countess and helps Alexander Sergeevich in every possible way in arranging his meetings with Elizabeth ...

Vladimir Lensky- Wilhelm Küchelbecker, Russian poet, writer and public figure, Pushkin's comrade at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. “I’m definitely German by my father and mother, but not by language; - until the age of six I didn’t know a word of German, my natural language is Russian ...” This is how Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker, a native of Estonia, wrote about himself. With the opening of the Lyceum, fate brought him together with Pushkin, Pushchin, Delvig, Malinovsky and other future celebrities. They loved Wilhelm, but at the same time they did not miss the opportunity to tease the lanky, deaf, stuttering, dreamy and very quick-tempered comrade.

No less recognizable characters act in the comedy of A. S. Griboyedov"Woe from Wit". Criticism most often associates the main character - Chatsky - with the name of Chaadaev (in the original version of the comedy, Griboyedov wrote "Chadsky"), although it agrees that the image of Chatsky is least of all a portrait of one or another real person, This collective image, social type era, a kind of "hero of the time." If you remember, the author of the "Philosophical Letters" suffered an unprecedented and terrible punishment: he was declared insane by a royal decree. It so happened that the literary character did not repeat the fate of his prototype, but predicted it.

Orlovsky is the prototype of Chatsky (I. Yakushkin). Withthey read Yakushkin (Ivan Dmitrievich) - one of the outstanding Decembrists. Born November 1793

To create images of the main actors great novel"War and Peace" Leo Tolstoy used the stories of the fates of his contemporaries, their worldview, character traits, and appearance.

Yes, prototypes Andrei Bolkonskythere were several. His tragic death was "written off" by Tolstoy from the biography of the real Prince Golitsyn. Dmitry Nikolaevich Golitsyn was born in 1786 into the family of the aristocrat Nikolai Alekseevich Golitsyn, who most spent his life at court and abroad, was ambassador to Sweden for 7 years, had the title of senator and the rank of privy councillor. He owned the Arkhangelsk estate near Moscow, where even the highest persons were received. Prince Dmitry was signed up for service in the Moscow archive of the Ministry of Justice. Soon, Emperor Alexander I granted him to the chamber junkers, and then to the actual chamberlains, which was equated to the rank of general. In 1805, Prince Golitsyn entered the military service and, together with the army, went through the campaigns of 1805-1807. During the Patriotic War of 1812, Golitsin participated in border battles as part of the 2nd Russian army of General Bagration, fought on the Shevardinsky redoubt, and then ended up on the left flank of the Russian orders on the Borodino field. Defended the Semyonov flushes. In one of the skirmishes, he was seriously wounded by a fragment of an enemy grenade. His brother-soldiers carried him from the battlefield. After an operation in the field infirmary, he was sent to Moscow to parental home. But they were already preparing to evacuate. It was decided to take the wounded man, whose condition inspired great concern to the doctors, to a safe place. Nizhny Novgorod. We made a stop in Vladimir. Major Golitsyn was placed in one of the merchant houses on a steep hill on the Klyazma in the parish of the Ascension Church. September 22, almost a month after the Battle of Borodino, Dmitry Golitsyn died.

Tatyana Bers was the most big love brother of the great writer Leo Tolstoy - Sergei, whom the future classic adored. How was it possible for Tolstoy to resist and not bring out Tanechka Bers in the image of his most charming heroine? Under his pen, an image was gradually born Natasha Rostova , charming young creation glowing from within with happiness and sincerity. The naturalness of manners, errors in French, the passionate desire for love and happiness inherent in the real Tatyana Bers, completed the image of Rostova.

Oddly enough, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol managed to create an image of Ukraine and its people without reproducing real events, no specific prototypes. In the story"Taras Bulba" Gogol poeticized the spiritual indissolubility of the individual and the people, thirsting for national and social freedom. According to Belinsky, the author "has exhausted the whole life of historical Little Russia and in a wondrous artistic creation imprinted her forever spiritual image". However, the story is conceived so organically and vividly that the reader does not leave the feeling of its reality. Indeed, Taras Bulba could have a prototype. At least there was a person whose fate was similar to the fate of the protagonist. And this person also bore the surname Gogol. Ostap Gogol was born in early XVII century, perhaps in the Podolsk village of Gogol, founded by an Orthodox gentry from Volhynia, Nikita Gogol. On the eve of 1648, he was a captain of the "panzer" Cossacks in the Polish army. At the beginning of 1654, he began to command the Podolsky regiment. In July 1659, Gogol's regiment took part in the defeat of the Muscovites near Konotop.

In 1664, an uprising broke out in Right-Bank Ukraine against the Poles and Hetman Teteri. Gogol supported the rebels, but then, as it happened more than once, he again went over to the side of the enemy. The reason for this was his sons, whom Hetman Potocki held hostage in Lvov.

At the end of 1971, the Crown Hetman Sobieski took Mogilev, Gogol's residence. During the defense of the fortress, one of the sons of Ostap died. The colonel himself fled to Moldavia and from there sent Sobieski a letter of his desire to obey. As a reward for this, Ostap received the village of Vilkhovets. The letter of salary of the estate served the grandfather of the writer Nikolai Gogol as evidence of his nobility. Colonel Gogol became hetman of the Right-Bank Ukraine. He died in 1979 at his residence in Dymer, and was buried in the Kiev-Mezhigorsky monastery near Kyiv.

As you can see, the analogy with the story is obvious: both heroes are Zaporozhye colonels, both had sons, one of whom died at the hands of the Poles, the other went over to the side of the enemy. Thus, the writer's distant ancestor most likely was the prototype of Taras Bulba.

"Two captains"

Closely followed the events of our time and Russian Soviet writers. Veniamin Kaverin spoke about the prototype of his hero as follows: “He was a man in whom ardor was combined with straightforwardness, and perseverance with an amazing definiteness of purpose. He knew how to achieve success in any business. A clear mind and the ability for deep feelings were visible in his every judgment ". The writer met Georgy Lvovich Brusilov for the first time in 1932, when the scientist was preparing his Ph.D. thesis for defense. The details of his biography are very clearly written out in the novel, but the prototype itself never aspired to the glory of a hero. Even the son of Brusilov, reading the novel "Two Captains" in childhood, did not compare its plot with the fate of his father. Brusilov, leader of the expedition on the "St. Anna" (the prototype of the ship "St. Maria") - the prototype of the famous polar explorer Sedov. The prototype of the Sledge - the famous polar pilot Sigismund Alexandrovich Levanevsky - one of the first Heroes Soviet Union. He died on August 12, 1937, when on a four-engine bomber N - 409 he flew from the USSR to the USA through North Pole. After 20 hours of flight, communication with the crew was cut off. In search of H - 409, 24 aircraft and one airship were thrown, but all efforts were in vain. The airship eventually crashed, and the rescuers on board were killed.

I have given only a few episodes of the results of my research.

The meaning of the word PROTOTYPE in the Dictionary of Literary Terms

PROTOTYPE

- (Greek prototypon - prototype) - a real person or a literary hero who served as a model for the author to create a character. P. can act in a work under a real name (Pugachev in A.S. Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter) or a fictitious name (P. A. Bakhmetyev was the prototype of Rakhmetov in N.G. Chernyshevsky’s novel What Is To Be Done?). Often the author "focuses" in the literary hero traits different people or groups of people (for example, Vasily Terkin in poem of the same name A.T. Tvardovsky - a collective image of a Russian soldier). However, not all characters in works of art have P..

Dictionary of literary terms. 2012

1. Sherlock Holmes

Even the author himself admitted that Sherlock Holmes has a lot common features with his mentor Joe Bell. On the pages of his autobiography, one could read that the writer often recalled his teacher, spoke of his eagle profile, inquisitive mind and amazing intuition. According to him, the doctor could turn any business into an accurate, systematic scientific discipline.

Often, Dr. Bell used deductive methods of inquiry. Only by one type of person could he tell about his habits, about his biography, and sometimes even made a diagnosis. After the release of the novel Conan Doyle corresponded with the "prototype" of Holmes, and he told him that perhaps this is how his career would have developed if he had chosen a different path.

2. James Bond

Literary history James Bond began with a series of books written by spy Ian Fleming. The first book in the series - "Casino Royale" - was published in 1953, a few years after Fleming was assigned to follow Prince Bernard, who had defected from German service to British intelligence. After long mutual suspicions, the scouts began good friends. Bond took over from Prince Bernard to order a Vodka Martini, while adding the legendary "Shake, don't stir."

3. Ostap Bender

The man who became the prototype of the great combinator from the "12 chairs" of Ilf and Petrov at the age of 80 still worked as a conductor on railway on the train from Moscow to Tashkent. Born in Odessa, Ostap Shor, from tender nails, was prone to adventures. He presented himself either as an artist, or as a chess grandmaster, and even acted as a member of one of the anti-Soviet parties.

Only thanks to his remarkable imagination, Ostap Shor managed to return from Moscow to Odessa, where he served in the criminal investigation department and fought against local banditry. Probably, hence the respectful attitude of Ostap Bender to the Criminal Code.

4. Professor Preobrazhensky

Professor Preobrazhensky from the famous Bulgakov novel " dog heart"There was also a real prototype - a French surgeon of Russian origin Samuil Abramovich Voronov. This man at the beginning of the 20th century made a splash in Europe, transplanting monkey glands to humans to rejuvenate the body. The first operations showed a simply amazing effect: in elderly patients, there was a resumption of sexual activity, an improvement in memory and vision, ease of movement, and mentally retarded children gained mental alertness.

Thousands of people underwent treatment in Voronova, and the doctor himself opened his own monkey nursery on the French Riviera. But very little time passed, the patients of the miracle doctor began to feel worse. There were rumors that the result of the treatment was just self-hypnosis, and Voronov was called a charlatan.

5. Peter Pan

The boy with the beautiful Tinker Bell fairy was presented to the world and to James Barry himself, the author of the written work, by the Davis couple (Arthur and Sylvia). The prototype for Peter Pan was Michael, one of their sons. fairy tale hero received from real boy not only age and character, but also nightmares. And the novel itself is a dedication to the author's brother, David, who died a day before his 14th birthday while skating.

6. Dorian Gray

Annoying, but main character novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" significantly spoiled the reputation of his life original. John Gray, who in his youth was Oscar Wilde's protégé and close friend, was handsome, solid, and had the appearance of a 15-year-old boy. But their happy union came to an end when journalists became aware of their relationship. Enraged, Gray went to court, got an apology from the editors of the newspaper, but after that his friendship with Wilde ended. Soon John Gray met Andre Raffalovich - a poet and a native of Russia. They converted to Catholicism, and after a while Gray became a priest at St. Patrick's Church in Edinburgh.

7. Alice

The story of Alice in Wonderland began on the day Lewis Carroll walked with the daughters of the rector of Oxford University, Henry Lidell, among whom was Alice Lidell. Carroll came up with a story on the go at the request of the children, but the next time he did not forget about it, but began to compose a sequel. Two years later, the author presented Alice with a manuscript consisting of four chapters, to which was attached a photograph of Alice herself at the age of seven. It was entitled "Christmas present for a dear girl in memory of a summer day."

8. Karabas-Barabas

As you know, Alexei Tolstoy only planned to present "Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodio in Russian, but it turned out that he wrote an independent story, in which analogies with cultural figures of that time were clearly drawn. Since Tolstoy had no weakness for the Meyerhold theater and its biomechanics, it was the director of this theater that got the role of Karabas-Barabas. You can guess the parody even in the name: Karabas is the Marquis of Carabas from Perro's fairy tale, and Barabas is from the Italian word for swindler - baraba. But no less speaking role the seller of leeches Duremar went to Meyerhold's assistant, who worked under the pseudonym Voldemar Luscinius.

9. Lolita

According to the memoirs of Brian Boyd, the biographer of Vladimir Nabokov, when the writer was working on his scandalous romance"Lolita", he regularly scanned the newspaper columns, which published reports of murders and violence. His attention was drawn to the sensational story of Sally Horner and Frank LaSalle, which took place in 1948: a middle-aged man kidnapped 12-year-old Sally Horner and kept her for almost 2 years until the police found her in a common California hotel. Lasalle, like the hero of Nabokov, passed off the girl as his daughter. Nabokov even casually mentions this incident in the book in the words of Humbert: "Did I do to Dolly what Frank Lasalle, a 50-year-old mechanic, did to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in '48?"

10. Carlson

The history of the creation of Carlson is mythologized and incredible. Literary critics claim that possible prototype this funny character was Hermann Goering. And although the relatives of Astrid Lindgren refute this version, such rumors still exist today.

Astrid Lindgren met Göring in the 1920s when he was organizing an air show in Sweden. At that time, Goering was just "in his prime", a famous ace pilot, a man with charisma and an excellent appetite. The motor behind Carlson's back is an interpretation of Goering's flight experience.

Adherents of this version note that for some time Astrid Lindgren was an ardent admirer of the National Socialist Party of Sweden. The book about Carlson was published in 1955, so there could be no direct analogy. Nevertheless, it is possible that the charismatic image of the young Goering influenced the appearance of the charming Carlson.

11. One-legged John Silver

Robert Louis Stevenson in the novel "Treasure Island" portrayed his friend Williams Hansley not at all as a critic and poet, which he was in fact, but as a real villain. As a child, William suffered from tuberculosis, and his leg was amputated to the knee. Before the book hit store shelves, Stevenson told a friend, “I have to tell you, Evil-looking but kind-hearted, John Silver was based on you. You're not offended, are you?"

12. Bear cub Winnie the Pooh

According to one version, known to the whole world Teddy bear got its name in honor of the favorite toy of the son of the writer Milne Christopher Robin. However, like all the other characters in the book. But in fact, this name is from the nickname Winnipeg - that was the name of the bear who lived in London Zoo from 1915 to 1934. This bear had a lot of kids-admirers, including Christopher Robin.

13. Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise

Despite the fact that the main characters in the book are called Sal and Dean, Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road is purely autobiographical. One can only guess why Kerouac abandoned his name in the famous book for beatniks.

14. Daisy Buchanan

In the novel The Great Gatsby, its author Francis Scott Fitzgerald described Ginevra King, his first love, deeply and penetratingly. Their romance lasted from 1915 to 1917. But due to different social statuses they separated, after which Fitzgerald wrote that "poor boys should not even think of marrying rich girls". This phrase was included not only in the book, but also in the film of the same name. Ginevra King also inspired Isabelle Borge in Beyond Paradise and Judy Jones in Winter Dreams.

Especially for those who like to sit up for reading. If you choose these books, you won't be disappointed.