Libmonster ID: MD-1124
Author(s) of the publication: Yu. P. FESENKO

As is known, the first publication of The Tales of George the Brave and the Wolf (Biblioteka dlya Chteniya, 1836, vol. 14, ed. 1, pp. 133-144) differs very significantly from its second publication (There were also tales of the Cossack of Lugansky, St. Petersburg, 1839, Book 4, pp. 101-121). In particular, here

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there is a significant note to the title: "This fairy tale was told to me by A. S. Pushkin when he was in Orenburg and we went together to Berdskaya Stanitsa, the seat of Pugachev during the siege of Orenburg. It is clear that the very attraction of the Pushkin name required a more thorough artistic refinement of the work. However, in our opinion, there were other reasons for additional processing of the text.

In the Rare Book Section of the State Public Historical Library of Russia, there is a magazine print of the fairy tale, edited by Dahl and signed by the censor of the fourth book "Bylei i Nebylits" P. A. Korsakov, as V. I. Porudominsky (Prometheus. 1968. Vol. 5. p. 61). Unfortunately, for some reason, another important circumstance was omitted: the print is part of the author's bound convolute (collection) of various articles and brochures. On the spine of the binding, the content is replaced in gold by the initial letters of keywords in the titles of works. We will list them, leaving aside the marginalia found on the pages of the collection and omitting the detailed bibliographic commentary: "Podolyanka"; "The Tale of George the Brave and the Wolf"; "Etwas liber die Baschkiren"; " Bemerkungen uberL. Zimmerman's Entwurfdes Kriegstheaters Russlands gegen Chiwa, und die beigefugte Geographische Analysis ets. "Orenburg, 1840;" On a map of the Trans-Ural steppes published in Berlin";

"On omeopathy (Letter to Prince V. F. Odoyevsky)"; "Memorial book for the lower ranks of the Imperial Cossack troops". St. Petersburg, 1837; "Description of the bridge built on the Vistula River to cross the detachment of Lieutenant-General Riediger". St. Petersburg, 1833; doctoral dissertation on medicine, defended by Dahl in 1829 in Dorpat. From the dates given selectively, it is obvious that the convolute was composed no earlier than the beginning of the 1840s. Introduced into scientific use, it undoubtedly includes materials that are unforgettable in one way or another for Dahl and is of particular value for the future academic collection of the writer's works. Such a publication is, in our opinion, an urgent task of modern science. It seems that without understanding the creative heritage of Cossack Lugansky, whose 200th birthday we are celebrating today, it is impossible to have an in-depth understanding of the most pressing issues, including the preservation of national identity and ways to reform Russia.

As for Dahl's edit in the magazine print, it was made on the free margins of the sheets, as well as on three inserts between pages 134-135, 138-139, 142-143. Editing has two layers: pencil (earlier) and ink (later), because pen entries are always applied on top of the pencil. Some corrections eliminate obvious typos and various minor spelling and punctuation errors, while others change stylistic and semantic accents. Additional information-

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The second group of 16 items are numbered by Dahl's hand in the margins in pencil. Moreover, the numbers 2, 3, 4, 6, and 11 are not present at all, although the positions implied by them are easily detected in the text. The number 10 is marked with an ink insert. The numbers 5, 12, and 16 are crossed out with a pen. Probably, the crossing-offs are caused by fluctuations in determining the significance of a particular correction for the entire artistic structure of the fairy tale.

Let's reproduce the entire numbered edit. What is crossed out in the original is enclosed in square brackets, what is again introduced by the author is typed in italics, and the numbering that we are supposedly restoring is shown in angle brackets.

P. 134 (1.) " ... however, for the time being, [until death itself stumbles upon me, I don't want to be a fool], it is necessary to dodge with your mind, your tail, and throw it around the gags (that is, traps, traps - see fig. Dal V. I. Tolkovyi slovar zhivogo velikorusskogo yazyka [Explanatory Dictionary of the living Great Russian Language], Moscow, 1989, vol. II, pp. 117, 123-124.

(2.) " ... and he began to snap his teeth for fun and idleness, [making observations on his fur coat] rummage through the fur coat."

P. 135. (3.) " ... according to the encountered [unforeseen] unintentional, obstacles...".

(4.)"...who wants to lead and show mercy..."

P. 137. (5.) " ... [whether mutton or beef] beef or mutton..."

P. 138 (6.) " ... on satisfying the lawful wolf hunger [of his]".

(7.) "Having cursed the bull and all the voivodes of George as swindlers," [of course not aloud] but only to himself, " he went...".

(8.) " It is clear [there was a legal obstacle] you didn't know how to ask in a human way, continued George the Brave:

(9.) it can be seen [not so summed up the certificate] and there only ruffled and cheered up!"

P. 139. (10.) " All people are like people, you alone are a shaitan; [you keep submitting petitions to us, but you demand a legal decision] climbs like a wasp in your eyes..."

(11.) " Go to the ram of old age, and ask it out of honor to feed you, and get rid of me; [or I will have you declared a scammer and take a subscription from you that you will not seek satisfaction in any matter in advance] have you heard or not?"

P. 142. (12.) "I know that you [with your mind and knowledge of the laws] are always full of your mind and trump art..."

P. 143. (13.) "... but they say [that the wolf was very meek, humble, and kind, and everyone favored him, and invited him to visit them, and appointed him a member of various charity committees] that he was a terrible-looking, fierce beast, not a match for a dog, not a brother to chekalu; but he was meek and humble with a temper. That I waited and expected judgment and reprisals from George,

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by superiors. And so our gray man skipped his fur coat, exchanged pistons for bast shoes, and got better from bench to bench."

(14.) " Now neither [any rogue] coy jester won't shy away from you..."

(15.) " Now [the civil servants] all went to sew caftans in this style..."

P. 144. (16.) " ... and to him, in someone else's [boots] harem trousers and someone else's doublet, bad fun..."

All the changes introduced are oriented towards folklore paroemias and vernacular, which is especially noticeable in positions 1-5, 7. In positions 14-16, the obscured meaning is clarified: it is more convenient for a jester, and not a rogue, to communicate with a" disguised " person - but not in boots, namely in trousers and a camisole - a wolf; everyone, and not just civil servants, wants to dress beautifully. In items 8-13, redundant designations of state and bureaucratic realities are consistently eliminated: legal obstacle, submit a certificate, submit a petition, legal decision, order to announce, take a subscription, seek satisfaction in a case, knowledge of the law, member of charity committees. As a result of such exemptions, position 7 is enlarged, because only wolf hunger is recognized as essentially legal. It is difficult even to assume that the unsurpassed expert on the Russian language Dahl initially allowed such a number of peripheral turns and clerical phrases in a very small work.

In "Tales and Tall Tales", this edit is radically rethought. Positions are being withdrawn 3, 7, 8, 9, 12. Positions 2, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 they are subject to changes (search for their fur coat-105; sticks to the throat with a knife-113, do not bother that the patient is a podlekar - 113; and they say that there was a terrible one - 119; now no one will be afraid of you-119; now you see the fashion for such a style has gone-199; and to him in other people's trousers, bad reprisal-120). It is appropriate to speak only about the relative safety of position 4, where only the closest verbal environment has changed (who is grooming and mercy - 107), and 5, where everything is limited to the permutation of nouns (lamb or beef - 110-111). With such a frontal discrepancy, it is difficult to consider the corrected impression as an intermediate revision of the work.

In our opinion, Dahl's edit on a separate print restores the original text of the fairy tale, submitted to the "Library for Reading", but revised by the editor of the magazine O. I. Senkovsky. Later, in a letter to M. P. Pogodin dated November 19, 1840, Dahl reported that he refused to cooperate in the "Library" because of the constant distortion of his works (Correspondence between V. I. Dahl and M. P. Pogodin. Part 1 / A. A. Ilyin - Tomich's Publ. / / Litsa. M. - SPb., 1993. Issue. 2. p. 295).

It is much more difficult to judge the reasons for this edit. Apparently, the corrected impression was intended to be shown to Pushkin.

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The fact is that the reference to Tsar Saltan contained in the "library" version and the transparent parallels with the "Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", which we have already had to talk about (Russkaya rech. 1999. N 2. pp. 40, 45), clearly linked the general idea of Dalevsky's work with the fabulous work of Pushkin. Obsessive references to modern social relations bordered on an open challenge to those in power. Who refused to cooperate in the" Library "in the spring of 1835 (after the publication of "Tales of the Fisherman and the Fish") Pushkin could have formed a false impression of Dal, who, we recall, in September 1833, in a friendly way helped him collect materials for the" History of Pugachev " in Orenburg region. Hence the desire to return the text to its original form and number the most significant corrections. That is why the lines we have quoted from the article "V Vsyuslozhanie", completed by Dahl in Orenburg on October 16, 1836 and sent to Pushkin's Sovremennik, acquire a very specific meaning: "How can the article that I will write, in which I will pour my thoughts, concepts, feelings, (...) how is it that this article is signed by me in such a form that it contains hints and phrases that I deliberately avoided, that it is imbued with a spirit in which I have never written and will never write ... " (Ibid., pp. 40-41). By the way, just below Dahl directly condemned Senkovsky's public boast of relentless "improvement" of the author's manuscripts: "And now, my benevolent brethren, the seventeenth book of the Library is published, and it is no longer hidden, it does not speak other words, (...) she takes off her disguise and says so: The Library editor is a real editor, that is, he reworks all the articles of employees in his own way. (...) Is there really even one reader in our vast kingdom who would not throw the book out of the highest degree of indignation... "(Russian Archive. 1880. Book 3. pp. 475-476).

In the context of our discussion, it becomes clear why someone with an unquestionable authority for Pushkin should have verified the truth of the edit. That is why he took part in the restoration of the original version of Korsakov's fairy tale. Back in 1817, he published Pushkin's verse in the Northern Observer, and in late 1836 - early 1837, he was in a confidential business relationship with him. In turn, Pushkin highly appreciated Korsakov's professionalism as a censor and writer (see: Vatsuro V. E., Hillelson M. I. Through the "mental dams", Moscow, 1986, pp. 333-348). His signatures are, as V. I. Porudominsky rightly noted, on the inserts and at the end of the text, as well as, in addition, in various variations - Kors, Prices, P - on each right field of an odd page. This is clear evidence of a very thorough recheck of Dahl's edit. Having subsequently censored the book "Tales and Tall Tales", Korsakov thereby, in fact, confirmed the truthfulness of the information reported in the Dalevsky note.

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The original fairy-tale text-and this can almost be said in the affirmative - was restored shortly after the article "Publicly" was written. Probably, this happened during Dahl's arrival from Orenburg to St. Petersburg on official business in early 1837. Otherwise, the controversy with the "Library" and the very fact of printing the fairy tale were pushed too far into the past and lost their relevance.

However, it is also obvious that when editing the fairy tale, Senkovsky did not pursue exclusively malicious intent. Presumably, he only put into practice his eclectic theory of colloquial speech, which caused objections from both Dahl and Pushkin (see: Dahl V. I. Stories. Stories. Essays. Skazki, Moscow-L., 1961, pp. 32, 447). Otherwise, Dahl simply would not have resumed cooperation in the "Library" and would not have published the novel "Bacchus Sidorov Chaikin" here in 1843.

Although Senkovsky's editorship was generally rejected by Dahl, he did reproduce it in part. With a slight clarification, the line that was crossed out in position 1 was restored in "Byli I fables" (the Lord tolerates my sins for a generation, death itself did not come upon me, I do not want to be a fool - 104-105), and in position 6 the word of the wolf was inserted (107). Dahl, of course, deeply analyzed the original version of the fairy tale and could not help but admit that Senkovsky only primitively directly reinforced the global parallels inherent in the text: fiction (past) - reality (present), the animal world - human society. But in the end, the author's idea of generalizing what is depicted was fragmented into a number of allegories and personifications. The parable has largely become a fable. Therefore, in" Byli I fytytakh " Dahl creates, in effect, a new version of the fairy tale.

If in the" Library "George called his wards by their positions: tour bay-voivode, tarpan-okolnichy, ram-headman, pig-desyatskaya, then in the second version, tour bay is "demoted" to centurion, and the ranks of other animals are omitted. However, each reader has the right to speculate on all sorts of titles and ranks. Moreover, the text introduces a passage about George, who established "some routine, indicated the punishment, painted and ordered the shoulder masters, volost heads, clerks, sotsky and desyatsky, in a word, did everything as it should be and should be" (109), and then an immortal commentary on what was said: "... there was still no real organization or order, although there were already various officials, sotsky, tysyatsky and volost ... " (115). And then the wolf's visionary reflection, absent from the "Library", appears, a peculiar view from the future: "They don't even know their letters," the gray one thought to himself, " and the correspondence doesn't start, and what hooks and delays they throw out for verbal reprisals! Well, what else would it be if I gave them this letter?"

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By the way, in the text there is almost the only place with a pronounced clerk's letter: "He (that is, the wolf. - Yu. F.) approached the red bull and asked, on the verbal order of George the Brave, to make whatever routine would follow, as stated in the order line, to satisfy its legitimate hunger "(111).

The satirical sound of the work does not weaken, but increases. Dahl limits the wolf's aggressiveness only to the need to eat quickly, describes his suffering from cruel reprisals in much more detail, and emphasizes his humility in fulfilling the good instructions of George. In the deceived and betrayed by all, sewn up in a dog's skin by crooked Taraska, "istom martyr of primitive and primordial times" evil dogs unmistakably smell the impostor. This word, which casually hints at the significant role of imposture in the peasant uprisings of the XVII-XVIII centuries, is not accidentally, of course, introduced into the book text. After all, the newly-appeared impostor speaks and thinks in Tatar, Kalmyk, and Russian, as if embodying the hopes of the multinational social base of Russia for a better fate.

The narrative is simultaneously about the past, present, and future, and is built up to prehistoric "primordial times". Using the mythological potential inherent in the plot, Dahl offers a comprehensive explanation of state regulations, "who to strangle whom and who to fear; who to walk with a skin, who without a skin, who to be fed, and who to be hungry." In the whole picture of the world created, nature and society are not separated from each other, animalistic and anthropological touches are intertwined.

The worldly gathering called by George to restore order, which is described in the exposition of the fairy tale, and the subsequent development of events emphatically correlate with the main provisions of the treatise of J.-J. Rousseau "On the Social Contract". The entire narrative confirms, in particular, the following idea of the philosopher: "In fact, laws always benefit the haves and harm those who have nothing... "(Rousseau J.-J. Treatises. Moscow, 1969, p. 167). But there can be no question of any primordial moral perfection of the "novozdants", "novices of our world", if only because the wolf learns about the legislative "veche", "herd", "herd" from the fox running by "with a chicken in its teeth". According to folklore paroemias, the free-roaming fox and the truth-seeking hungry wolf are sharply contrasted: The fox is always more satiated than the wolf (or: lives); The wolf-starve, the fox-dainty, (see: Dal V. I. Proverbs of the Russian people: In 2 volumes, Moscow, 1989. Vol. 2. p. 155). By the way, the entire event canvas of the fairy tale goes back to the wandering folklore story about the "wolf shepherd" (see: Azadovsky M. K. A fairy tale told by Pushkin to Dahl / / Pushkin. Vremennik Pushkinskoi komissii [Provisional Journal of the Pushkin Commission], Moscow, 1939, vol. 4-5, p. 488.

From direct reminiscences, it should first of all be noted:-

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to quote a paraphrase of I. A. Krylov's fable "The Wolf in the Kennels": "The wolf did not go to the kennels or to the sheepfold; he just got into the barracks, (...) ran right into the trash "(Cf. in the original: "The wolf at night, thinking to get into the sheepfold, Got to the kennel" - Krylov I. A. Soch.: In 2 volumes. Moscow, 1984. Vol. 2. P. 491). In other words, the text involves various cultural and historical layers, which enriches the narrative with a huge number of additional associations.

The myth of a just system is outlined in the seemingly reasonable advice of George and the humble habits of the wolf, but each time it is destroyed when faced with reality. Gray might be happy to comply with the new regulations, but it means certain starvation for him. Gradually, another truly prophetic myth is gaining strength about the transformation of a law-abiding wolf into a predator indignant at the hypocrisy and arbitrariness of the authorities. The resulting image manifests an insurmountable contradiction between a handful of oppressors and the destitute masses, and becomes an ominous emblem of Russia's historical development.

And if, when addressing George first, the wolf bowed his "humbly clumsy and submissive neck" (in the "Library" there was a clumsy neck ), then as the next bitter lessons progressed, he was ready to eat George himself, because he lost "all faith in the bossy reprisal" (in the "Library" there was truth and reprisal).. That is why a new ending appears in "Byli I fablitsy": "From this time, from this moment, they say, our gray man's neck has become a stake; it does not bend and does not turn over, because it is pulled into someone else's collar." This is exactly how the fairy tale told to Dahl by Pushkin appears, socially acute, at the same time final and prophetic.

Lugansk

Ukraine


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Yu. P. FESENKO, To the creative history of "Tales of George the Brave and the Wolf" by V. I. Dahl // Chisinau: Library of Moldova (LIBRARY.MD). Updated: 30.07.2024. URL: https://library.md/m/articles/view/To-the-creative-history-of-Tales-of-George-the-Brave-and-the-Wolf-by-V-I-Dahl (date of access: 19.03.2025).

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