"The Scarlet Flower": the story of the creation of the famous fairy tale.

Aksakov Sergey Timofeevich(1791-1859) - famous Russian writer.
The offspring of an old noble family, Aksakov undoubtedly had in his childhood vivid impressions of the proud family consciousness of this nobleness. The hero of his autobiography, grandfather Stepan Mikhailovich, dreamed of his grandson precisely as a successor " the famous family of Shimon"- a fabulous Varangian, the nephew of the King of Norway, who left for Russia in 1027. Sergei Timofeevich is the son Timofey Stepanovich Aksakov(1759 - 1832) and Maria Nikolaevna Zubova, daughter of an assistant to the Orenburg governor, was born in Ufa September 20, 1791. Love for nature- completely alien to his mother, thoroughly a city dweller - the future writer inherited from his father. In the initial development of his personality, everything fades into the background before the influence of the steppe nature, with which the first awakening of his powers of observation, his first sense of life, his early hobbies are inextricably linked. Along with nature, peasant life invaded the awakening thought of the boy. Peasant labor aroused in him not only compassion, but also respect; the courtyards were friendly not only legally, but mentally as well. The female half of the household, as always, the keeper of folk poetic creativity, introduced the boy to songs, fairy tales, and Christmas games. AND " The Scarlet Flower", written down many years later from memory of the story of the housekeeper Pelageya, is an accidental fragment of that huge world of folk poetry, into which the boy was introduced to the servant, the girl's, the village.
The young man Aksakov studied at Kazan gymnasium, then in university. In 1807 he moved to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg, worked as an interpreter for the commission for the drafting of laws.

The history of the creation of the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower"

An appendix to the story, but a completely independent work, is "The Scarlet Flower" - one of the kindest and wisest fairy tales. "The Tale of the Housekeeper Pelageya" - appears in the subtitle.

Once, before going to bed, the “village Scheherazade”, the housekeeper Pelageya, came to the little boy Serezha Aksakov, “prayed to God, went to the pen, sighed several times, saying every time, according to her habit: “Lord, have mercy on us sinners”, sat down by the stove, she sighed with one hand and began to speak a little in a singsong voice:

“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a rich merchant, an eminent person. He had a lot of wealth, expensive overseas goods, pearls, precious stones, gold and silver treasury; and that merchant had three daughters, all three beautiful women, and the smallest one is the best ... "Who was this Pelageya? Fortress peasant. In her youth during the Pugachev rebellion with her father, she fled from the cruel treatment of her landlord Alakaev from Orenburg to Astrakhan. She returned to her native places only twenty years after the master's death. Pelageya was the housekeeper in the Aksakovs' house. In the old days, the housekeeper was in charge of all food supplies in the house, she kept the keys to all the premises, and she was also in charge of domestic servants.

Pelageya knew many fairy tales and was a master of telling them. Little Seryozha Aksakov often listened to her stories in childhood. Subsequently, the writer, working on the book "Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson", recalled the housekeeper Pelageya, her wonderful tales and wrote "The Scarlet Flower".

Aksakov himself wrote to his son Ivan: “I am now busy with an episode in my book: I am writing a fairy tale that I knew by heart as a child and told everyone for fun with all the jokes of the storyteller Pelageya. Of course, I completely forgot about her; but now, rummaging through the pantry of childhood memories, I found a bunch of fragments of this fairy tale in a lot of different rubbish, and as soon as it becomes part of Grandfather's Tales, I began to restore this fairy tale.

Vladimir Soloukhin in his essay "Aksakov's Places" writes about the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower": "The main thing in it is kindness and love. And the fact that bad feelings: greed, envy, selfishness - do not triumph, and black evil is defeated. What is defeated? Love, Kindness, Gratitude. These qualities live in the human soul, they are the essence of the soul and its best motives. They are that scarlet flower that is sown in the soul of every person, it is only important that it germinates and blossoms.

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Anniversaries happen not only for poets and writers, but also for their books. So, this year the famous fairy tale by Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov "The Scarlet Flower" turns 160 years old. It is rightfully included in the golden fund of Russian fairy tales. Not a single generation of children is read by it, films and cartoons are made on it. It is used to be perceived as folk, and not all fans of the love story of the beauty and the monster know the history of writing this fairy tale.

For the first time, Russian readers got acquainted with The Scarlet Flower in 1858, when the famous writer S.T. Aksakov published his autobiographical book "Childhood of Bagrov-grandson", telling about his childhood spent in the South Urals. This book tells, in particular, about how, during an illness, the housekeeper Pelageya told him fairy tales. Among them is a magical story about a merchant who brought a scarlet flower to his daughter. In order not to interrupt the story, the writer did not include the text of the fairy tale, written down from the words of Pelageya, in the text of the book, but placed this story in an appendix.

The writer talked about it this way: “Insomnia interfered with my speedy recovery ... On the advice of my aunt, they once called the housekeeper Pelageya, who was a great craftswoman to tell fairy tales and whom even the late grandfather liked to listen to ... Pelageya came, middle-aged, but still white, ruddy ... sat down at stove and began to speak, a little in a singsong voice: "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state ...". Is it necessary to say that I did not fall asleep until the end of the tale, that, on the contrary, I did not sleep longer than usual? The very next day I heard another story about the Scarlet Flower. From then on, until my recovery, Pelageya told me every day one of her many fairy tales ... ".

Pelageya was the daughter of a serf in the Orenburg province. Because of the anger and cruelty of the owner, she fled to Astrakhan with her father. She lived there for 20 years, got married, and became a widow. She served in merchant houses, even with Persian merchants, where she heard oriental tales - including the famous "Thousand and One Nights". Upon learning that the old owner had died and the new owners were the Aksakovs, she returned to the estate. Pelageya had a special gift for telling fairy tales, she “literally processed” them and created her own. At the Aksakovs, Pelageya was given the keys to all the storerooms - she became the main person in the house. And for the skill of the storyteller, the gentlemen fell in love with her.

Little Seryozha Aksakov constantly listened to the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower" for several years - he liked it so much. As an adult, he told it himself - with all the jokes, groans, sighs of Pelageya. He shifted oral, truly folk speech into a story, preserving the melodiousness of the dialect. Aksakov's literary adaptation of The Scarlet Flower preserved the melodiousness and poetry of the folk language, making the tale truly bewitching.

Not everyone knows that in the first edition the tale was called "Olenkin's Flower" - in honor of the beloved granddaughter of the writer Olga.

Contemporaries considered Aksakov "the sorcerer of sweet Russian speech." Gogol himself many times advised him to take up the pen. And the great Pushkin admired the imagery and poetry of Aksakov's style.

Many believe that The Scarlet Flower is a plagiarism, a borrowing from Madame de Beaumont's fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, which was created back in 1756. In fact, the story is about a girl who was "hostage" by an invisible monster and fell in love with him for his kindness - very ancient and widespread since antiquity (for example, the story of Cupid and Psyche). The tale of an enchanted young man turned into a monster and a girl who, by the power of selfless love, saves him and returns him to his human form, is found in almost all nations.

In Italy, such a fairy tale is called "Zelinda and the monster." In Switzerland - "The Tale of the Bear Prince", in England - "The Big Dog with Small Teeth", in Germany - "Summer and Winter Garden", in Ukraine - "The Tsarevich and the Faithful Wife". In Turkey there is a legend about the daughter of a padishah and a pig, in China - about a magic snake, in Indonesia - about a lizard husband. The same plot is found in the tales of the southern and eastern Slavs. The names are different, but everywhere - the Beast, the selfless Beauty and, of course, the all-conquering and saving love.

The main characters of the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower" by S.T. Aksakov are the youngest daughter of a merchant and an ugly monster living in solitude in remote places. The merchant was a rich man, and, getting ready for his next trip, he called his three daughters and asked them what kind of gifts to bring. The eldest daughter asked for a wonderful crown, which itself glows in the dark. The middle daughter wished to receive a magical toilet, in the mirror of which she would always look young and beautiful. And the youngest daughter asked for a scarlet flower, but one that is more beautiful than all the flowers in the world.

The merchant traveled for a long time with his goods. Trade was going well for him. I found gifts for both the eldest daughter and the middle one. But the scarlet flower could not be found in any way.

On the way, trouble happened to him - robbers attacked the caravan, but the merchant managed to escape from them. Wandering through the dense forest, he came to a wonderful palace, in which there was no one. There were many unusual things in that palace. As soon as the merchant thought about food, a table with delicious dishes appeared in front of him, he wanted to sleep - and a golden bed with a luxurious bed appeared. Once the merchant was walking in a wonderful garden and saw a scarlet flower, just the kind that the youngest daughter asked for. To celebrate, the merchant picked a flower and immediately there was a terrible noise, a terrible monster appeared, which was angry with the merchant for the plucked flower and threatened him with death.

When the merchant explained for whom he picked the flower, the monster demanded that one of his daughters voluntarily agree to live in his palace, otherwise the merchant would not escape death. So that the merchant could get home, the monster provided the merchant with a magic ring that carried the person wherever he wanted.

And the merchant in an instant found himself in his native house, with all his belongings and gifts. The eldest and middle daughters were delighted with their gifts and could not stop looking at them, and the youngest only cried, looking at the scarlet flower. The merchant had to tell his daughters about the condition of the monster, and the youngest of the sisters agreed to go to live in an unusual palace. She put the magic ring on her finger and disappeared.

She found herself in a wonderful palace and began to live in it as a full-fledged mistress. The owner of the palace fulfilled her every desire. The monster did not show itself to the girl's eyes, fearing to frighten her with its appearance, and his speeches appeared on one of the walls of the palace in the form of inscriptions.

Over time, the girl wanted to communicate directly with the monster, and it yielded to her requests. At first, the girl got used to his terrible speech, and then she got used to his ugly appearance. And they became friends, talking to each other all day long.

And one day the merchant's daughter dreamed that her father was ill and she asked the monster to visit her home, to see her father and sisters. The monster did not refuse, but, in turn, asked not to stay longer than three days, otherwise it would die of longing for the girl.

With the help of a magic ring, the youngest merchant's daughter found herself in her native house, where everyone was delighted with her. Everyone admired her rich clothes and expensive gifts. The sisters envied her and moved all the hands on the clock one hour ahead so that she would be late for the return to the palace. When the girl returned to the monster, it was already lying lifeless. She began to cry and began to ask the monster to wake up, because she loves him like a groom. And a miracle happened - she found herself at a wedding feast, a handsome prince was sitting next to her, and her father and sisters were sitting at the same table. The prince explained to her that he was bewitched and turned into a monster, and only sincere love could disenchant him. They played a cheerful wedding and began to live happily.

This is the summary of the story.

The main idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower" is that real, sincere love can work wonders, making people more beautiful. A fairy tale teaches to think before taking any action. The merchant thoughtlessly plucked a scarlet flower and incurred the wrath of the monster. The fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower" also teaches to pay attention primarily to the soul and character of a person, and not to his external data.

In the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower" I liked the main character, the youngest daughter of a merchant. She agreed without hesitation to go to the palace to the monster in order to save her father from death. And while living with a monster, she was able to discern a kind, beautiful soul in an ugly creature and sincerely fell in love with the owner of the palace, thereby destroying the witch's spell.

What proverbs are similar to the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower"?

Seven times measure cut once.
The envious one dries up for someone else's happiness.
Love us black, and everyone will love red.

In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a rich merchant, an eminent person.

He had a lot of all sorts of wealth, expensive overseas goods, pearls, precious stones, gold and silver treasury, and that merchant had three daughters, all three beautiful women, and the smallest is the best; and he loved his daughters more than all his wealth, pearls, precious stones, gold and silver treasury - for the reason that he was a widower and there was no one to love him; he loved his older daughters, and he loved the younger daughter more, because she was better than everyone else and more affectionate to him.

So that merchant is going on his trading business overseas, to distant lands, to a distant kingdom, to a distant state, and he says to his kind daughters:

“My dear daughters, my good daughters, my handsome daughters, I’m going on my merchant business to distant lands, to a distant kingdom, a distant state, and you never know, how much time I’ll travel - I don’t know, and I punish you to live without me honestly and peacefully, and if you live honestly and peacefully without me, then I will bring you such gifts as you yourself want, and I give you a period to think for three days, and then you will tell me what kind of gifts you want.

They thought for three days and three nights and came to their parent, and he began to ask them what kind of gifts they wanted. The eldest daughter bowed at her father's feet and said to him first:

“Sir, you are my dear father! Do not bring me gold and silver brocade, nor black sable furs, nor Burmitz pearls, but bring me a golden crown of semi-precious stones, and so that there is such light from them as from a full moon, as from a red sun, and so that it is from it is light on a dark night, as in the middle of a white day.

The honest merchant became thoughtful and then said:

“Well, my dear daughter, good and handsome, I will bring you such a crown; I know a man across the sea who will get me such a crown; and there is one overseas princess, and he is hidden in a stone pantry, and that pantry is in a stone mountain, three fathoms deep, behind three iron doors, behind three German locks. The work will be considerable: yes, there is no opposite for my treasury.

The middle daughter bowed at his feet and said:

“Sir, you are my dear father! Do not bring me gold and silver brocade, nor black furs of Siberian sable, nor a necklace of Burmitz pearls, nor a semi-precious gold crown, but bring me a toilette made of oriental crystal, whole, immaculate, so that, looking into it, I see all the beauty of the heavenly and so that, looking at him, I would not grow old and my girlish beauty would increase.

The honest merchant became thoughtful and, thinking whether it was not enough, how much time, he said to her these words:

“Well, my dear daughter, good and handsome, I will get you such a crystal toilette; and the daughter of the king of Persia, a young princess, has a beauty inexpressible, indescribable and unexplained; and that tovalet was buried in a stone, high tower, and it stands on a stone mountain, the height of that mountain is three hundred fathoms, behind seven iron doors, behind seven German locks, and three thousand steps lead to that tower, and on each step stands a warrior Persian day and night with a naked damask saber, and the queen wears the keys to those iron doors on her belt. I know such a person across the sea, and he will get me such a toilette. Your work as a sister is harder, but for my treasury there is no contrary.

The younger daughter bowed at the feet of her father and said this word:

“Sir, you are my dear father! Do not bring me gold and silver brocade, nor Siberian black sables, nor Burmitsky necklaces, nor a semi-precious wreath, nor a crystal toilette, but bring me The Scarlet Flower, which would not be more beautiful in this world.

The honest merchant became more thoughtful than before. You never know, how much time he thought, I can’t say for sure; thoughtfully, he kisses, caresses, caresses his younger daughter, his beloved, and says these words:

“Well, you gave me a job harder than my sister’s: if you know what to look for, then how not to find it, but how to find what you yourself don’t know? It’s not tricky to find a scarlet flower, but how can I find out that there is no more beautiful one in this world? I will try, but don’t look for a hotel.”

And he let his daughters go, good, handsome, into their maiden chambers. He began to get ready to go, to the path, to distant overseas lands. How long, how much he was going to, I do not know and do not know: soon the fairy tale is told, not soon the deed is done. He went on his way, on the road.

Here an honest merchant travels on foreign sides overseas, in kingdoms unseen; he sells his own commodities at exorbitant prices, buys others' commodities at exorbitant prices, he exchanges commodities for commodities and the like, with the addition of silver and gold; The ships are loaded with gold treasury and sent home. He found a treasured gift for his eldest daughter: a crown with semi-precious stones, and from them it is light on a dark night, as if on a white day. He also found a treasured gift for his middle daughter: a crystal toilette, and in it all the beauty of the heavenly places is visible, and, looking into it, the girlish beauty does not grow old, but is added. He just cannot find the treasured gift for the smaller, beloved daughter - a scarlet flower, which would not be more beautiful in this world.

He found in the gardens of the royal, royal and sultan's many scarlet flowers of such beauty that one cannot say in a fairy tale or write with a pen; Yes, no one gives him guarantees that there is no more beautiful flower in this world; and he doesn't think so either. Here he is going along the road with his faithful servants through loose sands, through dense forests, and, out of nowhere, robbers, Busurman, Turkish and Indian, flew at him, and, seeing the imminent misfortune, the honest merchant abandons his rich caravans with his servants. faithful and flees into the dark forests. “Let the fierce beasts tear me to pieces, than to fall into the hands of robbers, filthy and live out my life in captivity in captivity.”

The most "folklore" of the works of S. T. Aksakov is the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower", written according to childhood memories for Olenka's granddaughter.1 This fairy tale is the first
once saw the light in 1858 as an appendix to the story “Childhood of Bagrov-
grandson." Part of an autobiographical story, the tale reflects ethical views
S. T. Aksakova.

Seryozha Bagrov is trying to comprehend all the features of the characters of the people he meets from the point of view of his childhood ideas about good things.
and bad. These performances are largely inspired by The Scarlet Flower.

2 The story of the work is told by Aksakov himself. It began in 1797 in the village of Novo-Aksakovo, where the parents of S. T. Aksakov moved to permanent residence after the death of the writer's grandfather Stepan Mikhailovich. “On the advice of my aunt,” recalls S. T. Aksakov, “once the housekeeper Palageya was called to put us to sleep, who was a great master of telling fairy tales and whom even the late grandfather liked to listen to. . . Palageya came, a middle-aged, but still white, ruddy and portly woman, prayed to God, went to the pen, sighed several times,
out of her habit, saying every time: “Lord, have mercy on us sinners,” she sat down by the stove, mourned with one hand and began to speak, in a singsong voice:

"In a certain kingdom, in a certain state ..." This was a fairy tale called
"The Scarlet Flower" ... This tale, which I heard over the course of several years more than a dozen times, because I really liked it, I subsequently learned by heart and told it myself, with all the jokes, antics, groans and sighs of Palagea.

For "a boy with shining eyes and a tender heart" there was only one source of the tale - the storyteller Palageya or Pelagia. In Pelagia's tale, the future writer seemed "worthy of attention" "a strange combination of eastern fiction, eastern construction and many, obviously, translated expressions, with techniques, images and our folk speech." How amazed he was when a few years later
discovered another similar fairy tale called "Beauty and the Beast", printed on the pages of the collection "Children's School" translated from French. “From the first lines,” recalls Aksakov, “she seemed familiar to me and the further, the more familiar; finally, I was convinced that it was a fairy tale, briefly known to me under the name“ Scarlet Flower ”, which I heard more than a dozen times in the village from our housekeeper Pelageya "(vol. 2, p. 38). "The content of "The Beauty and the Beast", or "The Scarlet Flower", - S. T. Aksakov notes, - was destined to surprise me again later. A few years later came I went to the Kazan Theater to listen and watch the opera “Zemira and Azor” - it was again “The Scarlet Flower” even in the very course of the play and in its details” (vol. 2, p. 39). What kind of works are meant here? - this is "Children's School, or Moral Conversations between a Reasonable Reader and Noble Students of Different Years, composed in French by Mrs. Le Prince de Beaumont" and published for the first time in French in 1756, and in Russian four years later. 4 Second the work is an opera by the French composer A.-E.-M. Gretry "Zemira and Azor", libret the one which was written in 1771 on the plot of "Beauty and the Beast" by J.-F. Marmontel. Characters of the opera -
Azor, Persian prince, king of Kamir, "having a terrible appearance", Sander, merchant,
Zemira, Fadli and Lnebe, his daughters, Ali, Sander's slave, spirits and sorceresses.
The action takes place either in the magical castle of Azor, or in the country house of the Persian merchant Sander. Russian readers of the 18th century knew another work on the same plot. This is a play by the French writer S.-F. Zhanlis "Beauty and the Beast", composed in 1779.6 There are only three characters in it: Fanor, "a spirit in a terrible way", Sirfeya and Fedima, friends abducted by a spirit from their parental home. The action takes place under the canopy of palm trees in Fanor's house, above the entrance to which was written: "Entrance for all the unfortunate."

In France at the end of the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries, during the transitional period from the classical era to the Enlightenment, interest in folk tales increased significantly, taking the place of medieval fables and legends. At that time, numerous collections of literary fairy tales were published, including: “The Tales of My Mother Goose” by C. Perrault (1697), fairy tales of fairies by J.-J. Léritier de Villeudon (1696),
Countess De Mura (1698), Countess D "Onua (1698), Mademoiselle De La Force (1698),
Abbot de Preshak (1698), Earl of Hamilton (1730), G.-S. Villeneuve (1740), J.-M. Le Prince de Beaumont (1757) and many others.7 In French folklore, there have long been tales of an enchanted prince or youth turned into an animal, and of a girl who, by the power of her love, disenchants him. These tales began to take literary form from the end of the 17th century. Such, for example, are the fairy tales of D "Onua" The Prince-Boar "and" The Baran ", C. Perrot" Hohlik ", as well as one of the" Sea Tales "G.-S. Villenev.8

The Countess of Beaumont, nee Le Prince, borrowed the basis of her fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" from Villaneuve, adding moral instructions and a number of details to it. and Beaumont has Mademoiselle Bonnet, who tells
their fairy tales for educational purposes Lady Spiritual and Lady Sense, as well as children from aristocratic families. "Magasin des enfants" was a popular reading for children in Europe. It is not surprising that he was also translated in Russia. The Age of Enlightenment, the second half of the 18th century, was marked in Russia by an increased interest in Russian folk and
literary tale. Then numerous fairy-tale collections were published:
"Mockingbird, or Slavic Tales" by M. D. Chulkov (1766-1768), "Slaven Antiquities, or Adventures of Slavic Princes" by M. I. Popov (1770-1771), "Russian Tales" by V. A. Levshin (1780- 1783); fairy tales about Bova-Korolevich, Yeruslan Lazarevich, Shemyakin Court, Ersh Ershovich, Polkan, etc., were published in separate editions; many writers tried their hand at the literary fairy tale genre (I.A. Krylov, Evgraf Khomyakov, Catherine II, Sergei Glinka, N.M. Karamzin, etc.).
chivalric romance and fairy tales about fairies grew out of folk tales, and therefore elements of folk art formed the basis of the rapidly developing fiction at that time, among the genres of which the literary fairy tale occupied a prominent place.11

In the second half of the 18th century, the Beaumont fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" became widespread in Russia, not only in printed editions, but also in manuscripts. Three years before the publication of Pyotr Svistunov's translation, in 1758, this tale had already been translated into Russian by Khponia Grigorievna Demidova, the daughter of the owner of the Ural factories, Grigory Akinfievich Demidov. .13 The tale became part of the well-known in the manuscripts “The Conversation of Mrs. Blagorazumova, Ostroumova and Vertoprakhova” 14 and served as the source of the hand-written French literary fairy tale into Russian literature and even folklore was not uncommon. So, in the 18th century, French legends about the saint
Genevieve is being remade into the popular Tale of the Three Princes and the Tale of Durnne-Sharin, and the French fairy tale Catherine La Sotte is being transformed into a Russian one.
a fairy tale about Katerina.16

How did the French fairy tale become known to the simple Russian peasant woman Pelageya, not
who could neither read nor write? We can restore the biography of Pelageya from the words of Aksakov. During the peasant war of 1773-1775, under the leadership of Emelyan Pugachev, the father of Pelageya, a serf of the landlords of the Alakaevs, fled from the owners with his daughter to Astrakhan. There Pelageya got married, then became a widow, served in merchant houses, including those of Persian merchants, and in 1796 returned to the heir of the Alakaevs, S. M. Aksakov, in Novo-Aksakovo. “Pelageya,” Aksakov recalls, “in addition to leisure in household chores, she brought with her an extraordinary talent for speaking
fairy tales, which knew countless. It is obvious that the inhabitants of the East spread in Astrakhan and among the Russians a special desire to hear and
telling fairy tales. In the extensive ska catalog of Pelageya, along with everyone
Russian fairy tales contained many oriental tales, including several
from "A Thousand and One Nights. Grandfather was delighted with such a treasure, and as he was already beginning to fall ill and sleep poorly, Pelageya, who still had the precious ability not to sleep for whole nights, served as a great consolation to the sick old man. It was from this Pelageya that I heard plenty of fairy tales on long winter evenings. The image of a healthy, fresh and portly storyteller with a spindle in her hands behind a comb indelibly cut into my imagination, and if I were a painter, I would paint her this minute, as if alive.

So, it was in Astrakhan in the 70-90s that Pelageya developed her own fairy-tale repertoire, which, according to Aksakov, included Russian folk tales “The Tsar Maiden”, “Ivanushka the Fool”, “The Firebird”, “The Serpent -Gorynych", as well as some oriental tales from "A Thousand and One Nights" and, finally, "The Scarlet Flower". The Arabic tales "A Thousand and One Nights" translated from French were widely distributed in the democratic manuscript literature of the 18th century,18 numerous editions of translations were also known.19 Little Seryozha read fairy tales
Scheherazade, which P. I. Chichagov, an acquaintance of his mother, gave him to read (see vol. 1,
with. 459-460). Therefore, the book orientalism of The Scarlet Flower, which manifests itself, for example, in such phrases as “Arabian gold”, “Eastern crystal”, “crimson cloth”, in the description of the palace of the Forest Beast, the miracle of the sea and its garden, in the story about “ tuvaleta" of the daughter of the Persian king, in the mention of the robbers "Busurmai, Turkish and Indian, filthy infidels", etc., should be attributed both to Pelageya and to Aksakov, who are familiar with Arabic and Persian fairy tales. The French fairy tale probably reached Pelageya in the following way: translation
from the "Children's School" was assimilated by Russian folklore either through
manuscripts, or through printed sources, and became known to Pelageya in Astrakhan in retelling. In Russian folklore, a similar tale has long existed. Here, one (book) material could be superimposed on another (purely folklore).

Pelageya could well be the co-creator of this particular version of the tale: she blossomed the main plot with purely Russian fairy tale motifs, folk turns of speech, jokes, jokes, proverbs and sayings.

Now we need to turn to the records of fairy tales in Russian, East Slavic,
and perhaps in world folklore in order to test our main thesis: a fairy tale like "The Scarlet Flower" already existed before Aksakov. The first fact is the following: not later than in the 30s of the 19th century, such a fairy tale was written down by V.I. Dahl and entered the 7th edition of A.N.
that A.N. Afanasiev received from V.I. "Scarlet flower", I saw
light in 1863, just in the 7th issue.21 According to the indexes of fairy tale plots by Aarne-Andreev and Aarne-Thompson, Baraga and others, the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower" is considered as an offshoot of the 425th type of fairy tales "Search for the Lost Husband" where the husband or groom is magically turned into a monster.22
type 425 prototype - "Cupid and Psyche" from the "Miletian Tales" by Aristides of Miletus
(II-I centuries BC).23 "The Scarlet Flower" belongs to the subtype 425 C, its peculiarity is in a happy ending: 1) returning from his home to the palace
or to the house of the enchanted groom, the girl finds him lifeless, 2) she
revives him and breaks the spell with a hug and a kiss, promising to marry him
married.24 A tale of type 425 was distributed throughout Europe, in Siberia, on
Philippine Islands, Haiti, Martinique, Antilles, Brazil,
but the subtype 425 C, according to the study of the Swedish folklorist Jan-Oyvind Sven,26 is found only in the French writers of the mid-18th century Villeneuve and Beaumont, as well as in late folklore - Russian, German 26 and Greek.27 The Czech writer Bozena Nemcova has one such tale - "Furry Monster" or "Rosebud",28 most likely taken by her from Beaumont. The subtype 425 C according to Swan is derived from the subtype 425 B and is entirely of literary origin. But this subtype 425 C does not lose its significance. On the contrary, it acquires even greater value, as it provides an opportunity to study the problems of interaction between folklore and literature.

A tale of subtype 425 B according to Sven of Breton origin. From the Bretons it goes to the Irish Celts and the French, from the latter to the Germans, Italians and Russians.29

According to the latest reference book - "Comparative index of plots of the East Slavic fairy tale", currently 17 variants of the fairy tale are known.
subtype 425 C in Russian folklore, 5 - in Ukrainian, 2 - in Belorussian. So,
have nothing to do with 425 From the fairy tale "Annushka the Nesmeyanushka" from the records
I. A. Khudyakova, 31 “Tsarevich Bear” from the notes of G. Bondar, 32 “The Sea King and the Merchant’s Daughter” in the publication of A. M. Smirnov, 33 “A Saucer and a Filled Apple” from the records of Vl. Bakhtin34 and V.P. Kruglyashova,36 “The Mare’s Head” from G.Ya. from Karelian fairy tales (Karelia. Almanac of the Union of Soviet Writers. Petrozavodsk, 1938, p. 110-112). In the Comparative Index of Plots, one of the tales in the entry
P. P. Chubinsky is classified as Ukrainian, but in fact it is Belarusian and recorded
in the Grodno province.38

So, now we have 10 Russians (Dal-Afanasiev, Gerasimov, Smirnov,
Kovalev, Korguev, Chernyshev, Tumilevich, Balashov, Sokolova, Mitropolskaya), 3 Ukrainian (Levchenko, Lintur, Pupiik) and 2 Belarusian (Chubnskny) records or versions of the tale 425 C. Let's compare their texts with each other, as well as with fairy tales
Beaumont and Aksakova.

The oldest of the surviving texts of the records - the version of Dalia-Afanasiev - is entitled "The sworn prince." Comparing it with "The Scarlet Flower" shows the following: "The Sworn Tsarevich" was not the source of a literary tale. The text of the tale is short, the style is undecorated; unlike the scarlet flower Aksakov

or the rose branch of Beaumont

the flower here has no name, instead of a terrible and furry monster, the Beast
forest, the miracle of the sea Aksakov or the Beast Beaumont appears here as an "ugly
winged serpent with three heads, the kidnapper of women of traditional Russian
folklore. There are also discrepancies: for Aksakov and Beaumont, the monster doesn’t care which of the daughters the merchant sends to him, and in the Russian fairy tale the snake sets the condition: “Whoever meets you first upon arrival home, give it to me for the whole life.” And one more thing: for Aksakov and Beaumont, the Beast is a kind owner of the palace and garden, a faithful slave of his mistress, the youngest daughter of a merchant, and in a Russian fairy tale, the snake is sovereign
master, he orders the girl to make a bed for him next to her bed, and on the third night he demands: “Well, fair girl, now I will lie down on the same bed with you.” “It was terrible for the merchant’s daughter to sleep on the same bed with such an ugly monster,” the fairy tale says, “but there was nothing to do - she strengthened her heart and lay down with him.”

At Aksakov and Beaumont's, Beauty returns home on a visit with the help of a magical
a ring, and in a Russian fairy tale - in a carriage, moving instantly from the snake's palace to the merchant's yard. At Aksakov's, the Beast of the Forest was found by a girl lifeless on a hillock where a scarlet flower grew, at Beaumont, the Beast rushed out of grief into a canal, in a Russian fairy tale - into a pond. At Aksakov and Beaumont, the Beauty embraces the Beast and confesses
him in love, in a Russian fairy tale - she hugs the snake's head and kisses him tightly -
firmly, the snake immediately turns into a good fellow, Aksakov and Beaumont - into a prince.

Another proof of the existence of a fairy tale in folklore is “The Scarlet Flower”, recorded by A. Y. Nechaev in the 1930s, according to the famous White Sea storyteller M. M. Korguev. According to the author of the commentary A. N. Nechaev, “our version is very close to Aksakov’s The Scarlet Flower. The main difference is Korguev’s desire to give the fairy tale a traditional fairy tale character: the invariable trinity of action (for example, the merchant sets sail three times
behind a flower, and not one, as in other variants). An even more interesting point is the transfer of the action of the tale to the Pomeranian environment. So, every year a merchant goes abroad on his ships for goods; cannot find a flower for a long time, because it is expensive to pay for a demurrage in the port, it is necessary to go home; promises to take her daughter abroad next year, etc.”40

Let us point out those details that bring Korguev's text closer to Aksakov's. These are mentions of a scarlet flower, a magic ring, with the help of which the heroes move to a fairy-tale kingdom, a description of the riches of the palace and the wonders of the garden, the free life of the heroine there, a description of the circumstances of the girl’s return to her father’s
house on leave, death of the Beast in the garden with a scarlet flower in its paws, release
Charevich" from the spell of Sanechka, faithful to him. The motif of preparing a bed for a monster, which is present in Dalia-Afanasiev's variant, is absent from Korguev, as well as from Aksakov-Beaumont. We add to this that the merchant's ships, which are not in the tales of Aksakov and Dalya-Afanasyev, are either Korguev's tribute to the Pomeranian tradition, or an ascent to the folklore source, where, like Beaumont, the sea and ships figured.

Two more versions of the tale - from the Tersky coast of the White Sea and from the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov - have the names "Scarlet Flower". The first of them, recorded by D.M. Balashov from the words of the storyteller O.I. Here, instead of a merchant, an old man acts, his daughters ask to bring them not a crown and a toilet, but dresses as a gift. The old man forgets to buy a scarlet flower, walks past an unfamiliar garden, picks a rose, and then suddenly a terrible Beast appears and demands to bring one of his daughters to him. The old man comes home, distributes gifts to his daughters and tells them everything. “And this, you know, terrible Beast - was he a king, so he had a son,” the fairy tale says, “and he was turned into a terrible beast. Whoever loves him - hitherto, but does not love, do not turn him around. 42

The texts of Aksakov and Samokhvalova coincide in the details of the plot: the inscriptions on the wall, with the help of which the Beast talks to the heroine, a description of the wealth of the palace and the splendor of the garden, as well as the free life of the girl there, the story of returning home for a three-hour visit, and the act of the sisters who turned the arrow hours ago, etc.

The second tale with the same name, written down not so long ago by F. V. Tumilevich among the Nekrasov Cossacks,43 reveals in details a deviation from the main plot. Probably, new characters of the fairy tale appeared in the Cossack tradition: the merchant and his son Vasily, a handsome man; instead of a merchant with three daughters, a poor hunter with three daughters operates here, the youngest of them is called Tanyusha. Vasily and Tanyusha fell in love with each other
friend, but the merchant bewitched his son, turning him into a camel, built a house for him in the forest, planted a garden with a scarlet flower in it. The tale tells that the poor man bought gifts for his daughters in the market: a sundress and a hoodie, which
tovur and a bundle, but he could not find a scarlet flower anywhere for the youngest. Tanyusha
she goes in search of the treasured flower, finds a beautiful house in the forest and
garden, settles in it, mysterious servants feed her and give water, in a dream she appears
Vasily and asks to pick a scarlet flower that has grown taller than a human
growth. The girl manages to pick a flower and disenchant her fiancé. The story ends with a wedding.

One version of the same tale from the western foothills of Altai has the name "Scarlet Rose".44 Here the well-known plot is also given in abbreviation and without a happy ending, as in subtype 425 V. Instead of a merchant, an old man acts in the tale, he buys boots and shoes at the market for two older daughters, and for the younger one, he cannot find a scarlet rose anywhere. Finally, he finds and plucks her in a deserted garden, a terrible voice tells the old man to give his daughter to the owner of the garden. The old man agrees and, with the help of a magic ring, finds himself at home. His youngest daughter using the same ring (as
in the Aksakov-Bomop text) moves to the fairy-tale realm. The owner of the garden talks to the girl without showing herself to her, and soon lets her go home on a two-hour visit; the girl was late, and her lover, out of grief, "decided." She finds him dead in a hole. There is no happy ending, which is not typical for Russian fairy tales of this type. We assume that the Altai variant is a truncation of the original subtype 425 C.

A close dependence on Aksakov's text is found in the fairy tale “The Miracle of the Sea, the Beast of the Forest”, recorded by I.F. Kovalev, a storyteller from the village. Shadrppo, Voskresensky district, Gorky region.15 So, for example, in response to the request of the middle daughter to bring her a crystal toilet, the merchant replies: “I know, my dear daughter, from the Persian queen, so I will get it for you.” Only in the Aksakov-Pelagen variant there is a Persian theme and this story about the “toilet”: “Well, my dear daughter, good and handsome, I will get you such a crystal that jack; and the daughter of the king of Persia, a young princess, has an indescribable, indescribable beauty
and unexpected; and that tovalet was buried in a stone tower, high, and it stands on a stone mountain, the height of that mountain is three hundred fathoms, behind seven iron doors,
behind the seven castles of the German, and three thousand steps lead to that tower, and on each step stands a Persian howl day and night, with a saber drawn
damask, and the keys to those iron doors are worn by the queen on her belt. I know such a man overseas, and he will get me such a toilette. Your work as a sister is harder: yes, there is no opposite for my treasury ”(vol. 1, p. 584). Text by Kovalev
goes back to the Aksakov-Pelagen text: they completely coincide with the main plot line and many details.

There are also differences: in Kovalev's fairy tale, a scarlet flower grows on a hillock in a golden
goblet; the prince tells the girl his story like this: the uncle-wizard bewitched the son of the king out of envy of his wealth; Masha is the first of thirteen girls to fall in love with the enchanted prince. An offshoot of the original plot of The Scarlet Flower, its processing is the fairy tale "The Walnut Branch", known in three records: from the Pushkin Mountains of the Pskov region, from the Ryazan region, among the Russian population of Lithuania.46

Here, instead of a rose, there is a walnut branch, instead of the Beast of the Forest, a miracle of the sea - a bear, instead of a palace - a cave in the forest. The end of the tale is traditional: the bear is disenchanted and turns into a prince. The story ends with a wedding.

Ukrainian and Belarusian options do little to restore the fundamental principle
Russian fairy tale subtype 425 C, so we do not consider them. As a result of studying the entire East Slavic tradition of the tale of subtype 425 C, we can come to the following conclusion: this tale existed in folklore before Aksakov. Another thing is the exact dating and localization of the tale. Obviously, contrary to the conclusions of J.-O. Sven, a fairy tale of subtype 425 C existed in Russian folklore before Beaumont, that is, before the middle of the 18th century. In the second half of the 18th century, in the Russian democratic environment, handwritten versions of the French literary fairy tale Beaumont became widespread, which led to the fact that in folklore the old folklore text was combined with the Beaumont fairy tale and was recorded in this form around 1797 by Pelageya. S.T. Aksakov later took this contaminated text as the basis for his literary fairy tale, which ultimately explains the closeness of Aksakov's text to Beaumont's. Undoubtedly, the writer added a lot "on his own", and omitted a lot. He created
in the spirit of the Russian fairy tale tradition, but not without a book orientation. As a result
a completely new text came out from under his pen, not repeating the fairy tale of Pelageya and
yet extremely close to her. We are currently unable to separate
in this text, what belongs to Aksakov, from what belongs to Pelageya.
A comparison of two texts - the text of Pelageya-Aksakov and the text of Beaumont - shows that
that the first borrowed from Beaumont the main plot line, the main characters and the main contours of the composition. The style, however, has undergone great changes. In essence, a completely new work of verbal art was created with concrete images, without allegorism; there is only one fantastic creature in the work - this is the enchanted prince. In the text of Pelageya-Aksakov, everything superfluous that interfered with the development of the main plot was cut. So, the Russian text does not mention the three sons of the merchant and does not say about their readiness to fight the Beast.
for the father; there is no story about the ruin of the merchant and the moving of the merchant family to the village,
where she was forced to subsist on a peasant farm for a year.
labor; no news of receipt of a letter announcing that one ship
the merchant escaped and arrived at the port with goods; misbehavior of two is not emphasized
sisters Beauty, their arrogance, mental limitations, moral emptiness, callousness, malice, etc.; there is no news of two noblemen, suitors of the sisters of Beauty, and of their unhappy marriages; it does not tell about the virtuous behavior and diligence of the Beauty in her father's house; it is not reported that the girl came to the Beast with her father; there is no mention of the sorceress who appeared to the girl in a dream on the first night of her stay in the palace of the Beast; it is not emphasized that Beauty at first feared that the Beast might kill her; it is not told that the Beast from the very beginning tested the girl with his terrible appearance; there is no Beauty's maxim that “it is not the beauty and not the mind of a husband that can amuse a wife, but a fair disposition, virtue and courtesy; and the Beast has all these good qualities”; 47 says nothing about the transformation of the two evil sisters into statues.

Compared with the French text of Beaumont, the following changes were made to the Russian text of Pelageya-Aksakov: the merchant’s conversation with his three daughters about gifts is widespread, the French text briefly speaks of a rich dress, headdresses and “other trifles”; the merchant finds gifts for his daughters in foreign countries, and not in the palace of the enchanted prince,

And a branch with roses

named by Aksakov "scarlet flower"; the merchant gets into the palace of the Beast by chance, getting lost in the forest, after he was attacked by robbers; the merchant and then his daughter enter the magical kingdom with the help of a ring or ring, and not on a horse, as in a French fairy tale; the scarlet flower itself, as if by magic, grows to the former stem on the ant hillock where it used to grow; The beast of the forest writes letters to the merchant's daughter in fiery words on the marble wall, in the same way she corresponds with her family (this is not in the French fairy tale); The Beast lets the girl go home for three days, not a week, and she is several hours late, not a week; The beast falls lifeless on a hillock, clasping a scarlet flower in its paws, and not on the bank of a canal; with the final words, the prince himself addresses his deliverer, and not the sorceress. Throughout the text in Russian
literary fairy tale is notable for its stylistic amplification with excessive
the use of comparisons, personifications, epithets in postposition, metaphors, etc. And at the same time, despite the significant literary processing that gave the work a bookish character, it does not break its connection with folklore, retaining a number of features inherent in a folklore work. This is a special fairy-tale form of narration, fairy-tale ritual, manifested by stability, stereotyping of the fairy-tale style, in the repetition of the same motifs, in numerical symbolism, in the method of increasing the effect, in the parallelism of fairy-tale images and motifs. Relationship
folklore and literary poetic series in "The Scarlet Flower" by Aksakov
quite obvious.

Thus, on the example of the history of one plot, we observe how the initial
myth (fairy tale) is transformed into a literary work - a psychological fairy tale, which was one of the genres of Russian fiction in the second half of the 18th century.