"The Wizard of the Emerald City" is the name of the fairy tale by Alexander Volkov, published in 1939 and becoming one of the favorite books of several generations of Soviet children. The tale was created on the basis of the book by American Baum, which tells about Dorothy's adventures in Oz.
"The Wizard of the Emerald City" is a cycle of children's fairy tales by the Soviet writer A. Volkov. The first three books were based on Baum's original fairy tale "The Amazing Wizard of Oz", and the rest of the cycle is a continuation of the adventures of the main and secondary characters of the fairy land, already written by Volkov himself.
Main characters
Ellie is a little girl, about 9 years old, brought in by a terrible hurricane to the Magic Land. Ellie is very kind, selfless and sympathetic, a little naive and trusting, always coming to the aid of friends.
Totoshka is Ellie's faithful dog, who began to talk when he got to the Magic Land. It was because of him that the girl got into that ill-fated hurricane, but then Totoshka became an indispensable assistant to his mistress, obtaining Silver Shoes for her, exposing the adventurer Goodwin and providing many other useful services.
The Scarecrow is one of Ellie's companions, a straw scarecrow who dreams of becoming smart. But he was not very good at thinking - after all, there was only straw in his head. Traveling with Ellie, he received brains from Goodwin and later became a wise, kind and benevolent ruler of the Emerald City.
The Tin Woodman is a lumberjack once a common man who fell victim to the evil spell of Gingema. His ax, cursed by the witch, cut off the woodcutter's arms, legs and head, but the blacksmith did not let his friend die, making him parts of iron instead of the lost ones. Becoming completely iron, the lumberjack dreamed of regaining a heart capable of love, and Ellie helped him to make this dream come true.
The Lion is very Cowardly at first, and then, after meeting Goodwin, the Brave Lion meets the girl and her friends in the forest. Plucking up courage, Leo tried to swallow Totoshka, but he, after a minute of confusion, frightened the predatory animal with his barking. In desperation, Leo admitted to the company that he was very cowardly, but that he wanted to get courage from Goodwin.
Goodwin is the very main Wizard of the beautiful Emerald City, who conquered the entire Magic Land with his magic. In fact, this is just a cunning magician from the circus, an ordinary person who got from our world to a magical land in almost the same way as the main character Ellie.
The content of the tale
Ellie lived with her mom and dad in Kansas, but one day, during a strong hurricane, which, as it turned out, was caused by a very evil witch Gingema, she was transported in a van together with Totoshka to the magical world through high mountains and lifeless deserts. The kind sorceress Willina, competing with Gingema, was able to direct the van so that it fell on the head of the evil sorceress and crushed her.
Willina tells Ellie how the girl can return home - for this she needs to go to the Emerald City, find the local ruler, the great wizard Goodwin, and ask him to fulfill one wish. But there is also a condition - Ellie must help three creatures to make their dreams come true.
On the way, Ellie meets the Scarecrow, the Woodcutter and the Lion, who have become her faithful companions. The scarecrow wants to be smart, the Lumberjack wants to get a living heart, and Leo wants to get rid of innate cowardice.
The road to Goodwin turns out to be long and filled with amazing adventures. Ellie's three companions themselves do not notice how they demonstrate all those sides of character that they dream of having, helping each other, saving Ellie, Totoshka and the others, finding brilliant solutions to the difficulties that arise.
Goodwin agrees to fulfill the wishes of his friends, but on one condition - if Ellie and the company free the inhabitants of the Violet Country from Bastinda, Gingema's sister, an even more cruel and evil sorceress. At first, friends think that they will not cope with such a difficult task, but they succeed.
Returning to Goodwin with a victory, they find out that behind the mask of a powerful wizard hides a circus artist from the world of Ellie, who does not possess any magic. However, Goodwin convinces Leo, the Scarecrow and the Lumberjack that he still learned something in the Magic Land and gives them what they want, and he is going to return with Ellie to their home world in a balloon, appointing the Scarecrow as the new ruler of the Emerald City.
However, the wind breaks the rope and only Goodwin flies home, who has already managed to climb into the basket of the balloon. Ellie thinks that now she will never see her home, but on the advice of Dean Giora, the friends hit the road again - this time to the Pink Land, where the good sorceress Stella lives, in order to find a solution for Ellie. And it was found! The very Silver Gingema shoes found by Totoshka on the first day in the Magic Land are able to transfer their owner to any place, you just need to click his heels.
about the author
Alexander Volkov was born in the summer of 1891 in Ust-Kamenogorsk. After the revolution he moved to Yaroslavl, where he headed the school for a long time. In 1929, Alexander Melentyevich moved to Moscow, where he graduated from the university, and soon became first a teacher and then an assistant professor of the department of higher mathematics at the capital's institute. Despite his dedication to mathematics, Volkov never stopped writing prose, starting his first novel at the age of 12.
Alexander began to publish since 1916, wrote several plays for provincial theaters, and already at the end of the 30s became a famous literary figure. His stories and novels, real historical research with a light touch of fiction, were published in various languages in many countries of the world, and their total circulation exceeded 25 million copies. Alexander Melentyevich can be safely put on a par with A. N. Tolstoy and A. R. Belyaev, pioneers of Russian science fiction.
Volkov's first children's story was released in 1940, and then many other children's stories and stories followed. Nevertheless, Volkov is familiar to the general public precisely as the author of the fairy tale "The Wizard of the Emerald City", a remake of the American fairy tale that gave him popular love.
Plagiarism reasons
In those years, Soviet children's literature was just beginning to develop, and many things were translated by "new classics" from foreign prose. However, the Party demanded conformity to ideology and was sensitive to the principles of the upbringing of the younger generation.
Children's works were not supposed to have philistinism, propaganda of capitalism and the Western way of life, and violence, cruelty and primitive methods of manipulating emotions were also very discouraged. A Soviet child had to read interesting books, inspiring to help others, good deeds, work, filled with personal examples of heroism. And therefore, during translations, the plot of any children's book was significantly modified in accordance with the principles of a socialist society.
A. M. Volkov was fascinated by the fairy tale "The Wizard of Oz", a work of the American classic of children's literature, Lyman Baum, who was discovered for him by the English teacher Vera Nikolic. More than once he undertook to read it to his children and retell it to his acquaintances, opening for them an amazing, kind and magical world that a girl named Dorothy visited.
However, the publishers were not satisfied with the ideology of translation, and therefore Volkov had to significantly revise the content of the tale. Each chapter took on a completely different shape, the names of the heroes were changed. Because of this, the publication of The Magician was delayed - having sent the manuscript to the Detgiz publishing house in 1937, the writer waited for the book to be published only in 1939. and the author of the original was indicated in the book. And then the sequels of the quickly popular fairy tale followed, which had already come out of the pen of Volkov himself.
