Plagiarism or fanfiction? 5 children's Soviet fairy tales with a borrowed plot

What is considered plagiarism in literature

There is an opinion that plagiarism in literature is only a situation when one author takes the work of another and puts his name on the cover. And everything else is artistic borrowing, which is quite acceptable. And in general, there are a limited number of plots, so it is not surprising that different books intersect.

This is not entirely true. A work written based on motives is also plagiarism to some extent. Especially if these "motives" induce to significantly duplicate the plot, just with different names. And if someone takes familiar characters and puts them in different circumstances, this is definitely a copyright infringement. For example, if you meet the main character Erast Fandorin in a work not written by Boris Akunin, everything will be obvious to you.

At the same time, there are references and homages, wandering plots that are developed by everyone and sundry. For example, it would be strange to consider Pushkin's "The Tale of the Dead Princess" or Zhukovsky's "Sleeping Princess" as a plagiarism of the "Snow White" by the Brothers Grimm. They themselves borrowed this folklore plot.

Finally, there is the gray area of ​​fanfiction. The authors take the already existing literary world, heroes and invent their own stories. However, they do not hide the fact that they use other people's developments. But they do it for fun, without earning anything, so it's usually overlooked.

In general, borrowing in literature is a complicated thing. But it is worth talking about them - at least for the general development. Otherwise, under the article about the film "Pinocchio" the following comment may appear in all seriousness:

What does the Soviet writers have to do with it

Plagiarism and a kind of fan fiction existed at any time. But something interesting happened to children's literature in the USSR in the first half of the 20th century. Many of the works that became incredibly popular were, to put it mildly, not entirely original.

Soviet authority deployedWhen the ability to read and write became the accepted norm / Culture. RF great campaign to eradicate illiteracy. But people who suddenly learned read, it was necessary to provide literature. But not just any, but ideologically correct. In September 1933 was organizedAbout the publishing house / Publishing house "DETGIZ" children's state publishing house - "Detgiz". It produced not only author's fairy tales of Soviet writers, but also translations. Moreover, often the original was added, altered - in other words, adapted. And then sometimes appropriated. How this happened, let's look at examples.

What Soviet children's works were inspired by foreign

1. The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio

• Author: Alexey Tolstoy.
• Year of first edition: 1935.
• Literary basis: The Adventures of Pinocchio. History of the Wooden Doll by Carlo Collodi. The story was published in 1883. Published in Russia in 1906.

It’s worth starting with the story that is mentioned in the screenshot above. Namely, from the "Adventures of Pinocchio", which seem so familiar. In fairness, it should be noted that the book is provided with a preface from the author, who tells where the fairy tale's legs grow from.

This is, of course, a slightly romanticized version. In 1923 Tolstoy edited the translation of Collodi's tale. Even then, he made various edits to the original. In October 1933, he signed an agreement with Detgiz for his own translation of the story about a wooden doll, but in the end he turned the wrong way.

The plot of the two tales has many similarities, but the difference is significant. So, in "Pinocchio» there is no golden key, and the girl with blue hair is a fairy, not a doll. The action of "Pinocchio" takes place over six days, it is a fun adventurous tale. The hero fights the rich but evil Karabas-Barabas. And in the end, he opens his own puppet theater and frees artists from slavery. Pinocchio, on the other hand, is waiting for a long story full of suffering so that he survives a moral rebirth and becomes a real boy. And Collodi has a lot of really violent scenes. If you sympathized with Pinocchio when he was locked in a closet and hung upside down, then Pinocchio will be perceived as a real thriller.

In general, despite the borrowings, these are very different fairy tales in spirit. Moreover, Pinocchio is more focused on a children's audience. It is not surprising that readers liked it so much, and based on it, cartoon, cinema and many performances.

(By the way, Nikolai Nosov copied another scene from Pinocchio in Dunno on the Moon. The one where, from an excess of entertainment, the boys turned into animals. So it turned out to be an inspiration.)

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2. Three pigs

• Author: Sergei Mikhalkov.
• Year of first edition: 1937.
• Literary basis: novelization of the cartoon "The Three Little Pigs".

In the introduction, we agreed not to consider the transcriptions of fairy tales as plagiarism or borrowing. But here we need to dig a little deeper.

The first edition of the book was published in 1937 with the note “Translated and edited by Sergei Mikhalkov. Text and drawings by Walter Disney Studios. And they didn’t deceive: the illustrations duplicate the cartoon of the same name by Walt’s studio Disneywhich came out in 1933. More precisely, this is a translation of a book that was published in the same year with the same pictures.

Later, the book was published with different illustrations and without recognizable Disney moments. For example, piglets no longer play musical instruments, the wolf does not try to deceive them by dressing up as a seller of brushes. And the story is positioned as an author's work based on an English fairy tale.

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3. The Wizard of Oz

• Author: Alexander Volkov.
• Year of first edition: 1939.
• Literary basis: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum. The book was published in 1900.

The 1939 edition names the main character Ellie instead of Dorothy, but the book is almost an exact copy of the original with minor differences. In later versions, the girl's dog begins to talk, and new details and plot twists appear in the story. But in general, even after the changes, the literary basis in The Wizard... is quite recognizable.

Volkov himself did not hide the authorship, but believed that he had improved the work.

However, already in the first edition, Volkov was noted as an author, and not as a translator.

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4. Dr. Aibolit

• Author: Korney Chukovsky.
• Year of first edition: 1936.
• Literary basis: "The Story of Dr. Dolittle" by Hugh Lofting. Original published in 1920.

Chukovsky's story is inspired by Lofting, but does not duplicate it. The difference is visible not only in names, but also in events and characters. Unlike The Wizard of Oz, where Baum was not mentioned on the title page, the first edition of Doctor Aibolit is signed "According to Gyu Lofting". And in general, the author does not forget about his inspirer and subsequently.

On the other hand, the book was accompanied by an afterword: “A very strange thing happened a few years ago: two writers at two ends of the world wrote the same tale about the same person. One writer lived across the ocean, in America, and the other lived in the USSR, in Leningrad. One was called Gyu Lofting, and the other was Korney Chukovsky. They had never seen each other or even heard of each other. One wrote in Russian, and the other in Englishone in verse and the other in prose. But their fairy tales turned out to be very similar, because in both fairy tales the same hero is a kind doctor who heals animals. How this got along in the minds of readers is unclear.

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5. Old Man Hottabych

• Author: Lazar Lagin.
• Year of first edition: 1938.
• Literary basis: "Copper jug" F. Anstey, the story was published in 1900.

Sam Lagin assuredJutta Ahlbeck, Päivi Lappalainen, Kati Launis and Kirsi Tuohela. Childhood, Literature and Science: Fragile Subjectsthat the idea to write a story about a genie, the bottle with which a Soviet pioneer found, was inspired by The Tale of the Fisherman from the Thousand and One Nights cycle. However, his daughter said that the home library had a translation of F. Ansty.

In any case, what the works have in common is the sudden appearance of the genie in the modern world. So "Hottabych" is difficult to consider not only as plagiarism, but even as a text "based on". However, it is interesting to know about the existence of a literary support.

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