What Wolves wrote for children. Alexander Volkov

VOLKOV Alexander Melentyevich (July 14, 1891, Ust-Kamenogorsk - July 3, 1977, Moscow) - Soviet children's writer, playwright, translator. In 1926 - 1929 lived in Yaroslavl.

Alexander Volkov was born into a military family (his father served as a sergeant major) and a dressmaker. The boy learned to read at the age of three. At the age of 6, he was immediately accepted into the second grade of the city school. He studied "excellently", moving from class to class only with awards, and at the age of 12 he graduated from school as the best student. At the age of 8, Volkov learned to bind books. The young bookbinder had no shortage of customers. And he not only bound, but also read the works of Mine Reid, Jules Verne and Charles Dickens. In 1904, after a preparatory course, Volkov entered the Tomsk Teachers' Institute, from which he graduated in 1910 with the right to teach all subjects except the Law of God in city and higher primary schools. At first, Volkov worked as a teacher in the city of Kolyvan in Altai, and then returned to Ust-Kamenogorsk and taught at a school, which he himself had once graduated from. He independently mastered the German and French languages.

In 1915, Volkov met Kaleria Gubina, a gymnastics and dance teacher at the Ust-Kamenogorsk gymnasium, at a New Year’s ball. Two months later they got married, a year later their son Vivian was born, three years later - Romuald. (In 1921, both died of infectious diseases. A few years later, the Volkovs again had two sons in succession, and they gave them the same names.)

Volkov began composing at the age of 12 under the influence of reading Robinson Crusoe. In 1917, his poems “Nothing Makes Me Happy” and “Dreams” were published in the Siberian Light newspaper.

After the revolution, he was elected to the Ust-Kamenogorsk Council of Deputies, participated in the publication of the newspaper of the teachers' union “Friend of the People,” and taught pedagogical courses. At the same time, Volkov wrote for the children's theater plays “Eagle Beak”, “In a Deaf Corner”, “Village School”, “Tolya the Pioneer”, “Fern Flower”, “Home Teacher”, “Comrade from the Center” (“Modern auditor") and "Trading House Schneersohn and Co."

In 1926 Volkov moved to Yaroslavl. Headed the Experimental Demonstration School named after. M. Gorky at the Yaroslavl Pedagogical Institute. At the same time, as an external student, he passed exams for a course in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Pedagogical Institute.

In 1929, Volkov moved to Moscow and worked as the head of the educational department of the workers' faculty. At the age of forty he entered Moscow State University, in seven months he mastered the entire five-year course of the Faculty of Mathematics and passed all the exams. For twenty-seven years he was a teacher (then associate professor) of higher mathematics at the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. There he taught an elective course in literature for students and did translations.

In the mid-1930s, Volkov, who already knew several foreign languages, decided to also learn English. As material for the exercises, he took L. Frank Baum's book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." He read it, told it to his two sons, and decided to translate it. But during his work, Volkov changed many storylines, came up with new characters and new episodes. The result was a transcription, not a translation. In 1936, Volkov showed the manuscript to S. Ya. Marshak and received approval and support from him. In 1939, the book "The Wizard of the Emerald City" was published. Black and white illustrations for the first edition were made by artist Nikolai Radlov. The book was published in a circulation of twenty-five thousand copies and immediately won the sympathy of readers. The following year a re-edition appeared, and by the end of the year it was included in the “school series”, the circulation of which was 170 thousand copies.

In 1937, Volkov also wrote the story “The First Aeronaut.” This is a historical story about the time of Elizabeth Petrovna. The main character of the story, the son of a merchant Dmitry Rakitin, was imprisoned forever in a fortress, where he invented the first hot air balloon in Russia and, with its help, escaped from captivity (the story was published in 1940 under the title “The Wonderful Ball”). In 1941 Volkov became a member of the USSR Writers' Union.

From November 1941 to October 1943, Volkov lived and worked in evacuation in Alma-Ata. Here he wrote documentary books “Invisible Fighters” (about mathematics in artillery and aviation) and “Planes at War”, a series of radio plays on a military-patriotic theme: “Counselor Goes to the Front”, “Timurovites”, “Patriots”, “Deaf at night”, “Sweatshirt” and others, historical essays: “Mathematics in military affairs”, “Glorious pages in the history of Russian artillery”, poems: “Red Army”, “Ballad of the Soviet pilot”, “Scouts”, “Young partisans” , “Motherland”, songs: “Marching Komsomol”, “Song of the Timurites”. He wrote a lot for newspapers and radio, some of the songs he wrote were set to music by composers D. Gershfeld and O. Sandler.

After the end of the war, Volkov wrote historical novels: “Two Brothers” (1950) from the time of Peter I about the fate of two Yegorov brothers - an inventor and a fighter for people's freedom; “Architects” (1954), dedicated to the builders of St. Basil’s Cathedral; “Wandering” (1963), in the center of which is the fate of Giordano Bruno. In the story “The Tsargrad Captive” (1969) he spoke about the times of the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, in the story “Journey to the Third Millennium” (1960) - about the construction of the Volga-Don Canal. The collection “Trace the Stern” (1960) is dedicated to the history of navigation, primitive times, the death of Atlantis and the discovery of America by the Vikings. In addition, Alexander Volkov published several popular science books about nature, fishing, and the history of science. The most popular of them, “Earth and Sky” (1957), introducing children to the world of geography and astronomy, has gone through multiple reprints.

In 1959, Alexander Volkov met the aspiring artist Leonid Vladimirsky, and “The Wizard of the Emerald City” was published with new illustrations, which were later recognized as classics. The book fell into the hands of the post-war generation in the early 60s, already in a revised form, and since then it has been constantly republished. The creative collaboration between Volkov and Vladimirsky turned out to be long-lasting and very fruitful. Working side by side for twenty years, they co-authored the sequel books to The Wizard: Oorfene Deuce and His Wooden Soldiers, The Seven Underground Kings, The Fire God of the Marrans, The Yellow Fog and The Mystery of the Abandoned Castle. .

Volkov was involved in translations of Jules Verne (“The Extraordinary Adventures of the Barsak Expedition” and “The Danube Pilot”), he wrote the fantastic stories “The Adventure of Two Friends in the Land of the Past” (1963, pamphlet), stories and essays “Petya Ivanov’s Journey to an Extraterrestrial Station”, “In the Altai Mountains”, “Lapatin Bay”, “On the Buzhe River”, “Birthmark”, “Lucky Day”, “By the Fire”, the story “And Lena was stained with blood” (1975) and many other works.

Years of life: from 07/14/1891 to 07/03/1977

Soviet writer, playwright, translator.

Alexander Melentyevich Volkov was born on July 14, 1891 in Ust-Kamenogorsk in the family of a military sergeant major and a dressmaker. The future writer was not even four years old when his father taught him to read, and since then he has become an avid reader. At the age of 6, Volkov was immediately accepted into the second grade of the city school and at the age of 12 he graduated as the best student. At the end of World War I, he passed the final exams at the Semipalatinsk gymnasium, and then graduated from the Yaroslavl Pedagogical Institute. In 1910, after a preparatory course, he entered the Tomsk Teachers' Institute, from which he graduated in 1910 with the right to teach in city and higher primary schools. Alexander Volkov began working as a teacher in the ancient Altai city of Kolyvan, and then in his hometown of Ust-Kamenogorsk, at the school where he began his education. There he independently mastered the German and French languages.

On the eve of the revolution, Volkov tries out his pen. His first poems “Nothing makes me happy” and “Dreams” were published in 1917 in the newspaper “Siberian Light”. In 1917 - early 1918, he was a member of the Ust-Kamenogorsk Soviet of Deputies and participated in the publication of the newspaper “Friend of the People.” Volkov, like many “old regime” intellectuals, did not immediately accept the October Revolution. But an inexhaustible faith in a bright future captures him, and together with everyone else he participates in building a new life, teaches people and learns himself. He teaches at the pedagogical courses that are opening in Ust-Kamenogorsk, at the pedagogical college. At this time he wrote a number of plays for children's theater. His funny comedies and plays “Eagle Beak”, “In a Deaf Corner”, “Village School”, “Tolya the Pioneer”, “Fern Flower”, “Home Teacher”, “Comrade from the Center” (“Modern Inspector”) and “ Trading House Schneersohn and Co. was performed with great success on the stages of Ust-Kamenogorsk and Yaroslavl.

In the 20s, Volkov moved to Yaroslavl to become a school director. In parallel with this, he is taking exams as an external student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Pedagogical Institute. In 1929, Alexander Volkov moved to Moscow, where he worked as the head of the educational department of the workers' faculty. By the time he entered Moscow State University, he was already a forty-year-old married man, the father of two children. There, in seven months, he completed the entire five-year course of the Faculty of Mathematics, after which for twenty years he was a teacher of higher mathematics at the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. There he taught an elective course in literature for students, continued to expand his knowledge of literature, history, geography, astronomy, and was actively involved in translations.

Later, in his fifties, Alexander Melentyevich brilliantly graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics at Moscow University in just 7 months. And soon he becomes a teacher of higher mathematics at one of the Moscow universities. And here the most unexpected turn in the life of Alexander Melentyevich takes place. It all started with the fact that he, a great connoisseur of foreign languages, decided to study English. And for practice, I tried to translate the fairy tale by the American writer Frank Baum “The Wise Man from the Land of Oz.” He liked the book. He began to retell it to his two sons. At the same time, redoing something, adding something. The girl began to be called Ellie. Totoshka, having found himself in the Magic Land, spoke. And the Sage from the Land of Oz acquired a name and title - the Great and Terrible Wizard Goodwin... Many other cute, funny, sometimes almost imperceptible changes appeared. And when the translation, or, more precisely, the retelling, was completed, it suddenly became clear that this was no longer quite Baum’s “The Sage.” The American fairy tale has become just a fairy tale. And her heroes spoke Russian as naturally and cheerfully as they had spoken English half a century before.

Samuel Yakovlevich Marshak, having become acquainted with the manuscript of “The Wizard”, and then with the translator, strongly advised him to take up literature professionally. Volkov heeded the advice. "The Wizard" was published in 1939.

The incredible success of Volkov’s cycle, which made the author a modern classic of children’s literature, largely delayed the “penetration” of F. Baum’s original works into the domestic market; nevertheless, with the exception of the first story, Volkov’s cycle is the fruit of his independent imagination.

In addition to works for children, Volkov is the author of other works. The historical works of Alexander Melentyevich were very popular in the country - “Two Brothers”, “Architects”, “Wanderings”, “The Tsargrad Captive”, the collection “The Wake of the Stern”, dedicated to the history of navigation, primitive times, the death of Atlantis and the discovery of America by the Vikings.

In addition, Alexander Volkov published several popular science books about nature, fishing, and the history of science. The most popular of them, “Earth and Sky” (1957), introducing children to the world of geography and astronomy, has gone through multiple reprints.

Volkov translated Jules Verne (“The Extraordinary Adventures of the Barsak Expedition” and “The Danube Pilot”), he wrote the fantastic stories “The Adventure of Two Friends in the Land of the Past” (1963, pamphlet), “Travelers in the Third Millennium” (1960), short stories and essays “Petya Ivanov’s Journey to an Extraterrestrial Station”, “In the Altai Mountains”, “Lapatin Bay”, “On the Buzhe River”, “Birthmark”, “Lucky Day”, “By the Fire”, story “And Lena Was Stained with Blood” ( 1975, unpublished?), and many other works.

As a child, there were few books in his father’s house, and from the age of 8, Sasha began to skillfully bind neighbor’s books, while having the opportunity to read them.

Even as a child I read Mayne Reed, Jules Verne and Dickens; Of the Russian writers I loved A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Nikitin.

Bibliography

Cycle The Wizard of the Emerald City
The first book was based on the American children's writer Lyman Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
(1939)
(1963)
(1964)
(1968)
(1970)
(1975, published 1982)

Popular science books
How to catch fish with a fishing rod. Notes of a Fisherman (1953)
Earth and Sky (1972)
In Search of Truth (1980)

Poetry
Nothing Makes Me Happy (1917)
Dreams (1917)
Red Army
Ballad about a Soviet pilot
Scouts
Young partisans
Motherland

Songs
Marching Komsomol
Song of the Timurites

Plays for children's theater
Eagle beak
In a remote corner
Village school
Tolya the Pioneer
Fern flower
Home teacher
Comrade from the center (Modern auditor)
Trading house Shneersohn and Co.

Radio plays (1941-1943)
The counselor goes to the front
Timurites
Patriots
Dead of night
Sweatshirt

Historical essays
Mathematics in military affairs
Glorious pages in the history of Russian artillery

Translations
Jules Verne, Danube Pilot
Jules Verne, The Extraordinary Adventures of the Barsak Expedition

Film adaptations of works, theatrical performances

The Wizard of Oz:
1974 - Puppet cartoon (10 episodes), based on Volkov’s fairy tales “The Wizard of the Emerald City”, “Oorfene Deuce and His Wooden Soldiers” and “Seven Underground Kings”.
1994 - Film directed by Arsenov. The film has a star cast: Innocent and Innocent Jr., Pavlov, Varley, Shcherbakov, Kabo, Nosik.

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Biography, life story of Volkov Alexander Melentyevich

Volkov Alexander Melentievich - Russian writer, translator.

Childhood

Alexander Melentyevich Volkov was born on June 14, 1891. His place of birth is the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk. Alexander's father's name was Melenty Mikhailovich, he was a retired sergeant major.

Volkov’s passion for literature manifested itself in early childhood. At the age of 4, thanks to the efforts of his father, Alexander already knew how to read. Since then, books have become his faithful companions.

At the age of 6, Alexander began studying at the city school, and he was immediately accepted into the second grade. And at the age of 12, Volkov had already graduated from this educational institution.

Education, teaching

The year 1907 was marked for Alexander Volkov by entering the Tomsk Teachers' Institute. In 1910, having received a degree in mathematics, he worked for some time as a teacher in the village of Kolyvan (Altai Territory). A little later, he worked as a teacher in his native school in Ust-Kamenogorsk. At this time, Volkov independently mastered the German and French languages to perfection.

In the 20s of the 20th century, Volkov moved to the city of Yaroslavl, where he took up the post of school director, while simultaneously studying at the correspondence department of the Yaroslavl Pedagogical Institute.

Alexander Melentyevich arrived in Moscow in 1929. There they began to work as the head of the academic department of the working faculty. For seven months (instead of the required five years) he studied at Moscow University. By this time, Volkov was already married and had two sons.

In 1931, Alexander Volkov became a teacher and then an associate professor at the Department of Higher Mathematics at the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold.

CONTINUED BELOW

Volkov - poet and writer

Volkov’s first poems (“Dreams”, “Nothing Makes Me Happy”) were published in the newspaper “Siberian Light” in 1917. Immediately after the October Revolution, Alexander Melentyevich wrote many plays for the children's theater - “Village School”, “In a Deaf Corner”, “Fern Flower” and others. Productions based on his works were very warmly received by the audience.

As a teacher at the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold, Volkov decided to master the English language. To do this, Alexander Melentievich read a book by Lyman Frank Baum entitled “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Remaining impressed by what he read, Volkov tried to translate the fairy tale story into Russian. In the process of work, the Russian writer changed many aspects of Baum’s story, added some points, so the result was not a translation, but a reworking of the book. As a result, the fairy tale “The Wizard of the Emerald City” came out of Volkov’s pen. Alexander Melentievich showed his manuscript to a famous children's writer. He noted that the manuscript was very good, sent it to the publishing house, and advised Volkov not to give up his literary studies.

“The Wizard of the Emerald City” immediately became popular among readers. The success of this book encouraged Volkov to continue writing. His talent allowed him to become a member of the USSR Writers' Union in 1941.

Throughout his life, Alexander Melentyevich wrote more than 50 works, among which were poems, popular science books, historical essays, novels, plays, and stories...

Death

Volkov Alexander Melentyevich died in Moscow in 1977 on July 3 at the age of 86 years. A street in his hometown of Ust-Kamenogorsk is named in his honor.

Alexander Volkov was born on July 14, 1891 in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk in the family of a military sergeant major and a dressmaker.

In his memoirs about the celebration in Ust-Kamenogorsk in honor of the coronation of Nikolai Romanov in October 1894, Volkov wrote: “I remember standing at the gates of the fortress, and the long barracks building was decorated with garlands of colored paper lanterns, rockets were flying high into the sky and scattering colorful balls there, fiery wheels spin with a hiss..."

Volkov learned to read at the age of three, but there were few books in his father’s house, and from the age of 8, Sasha began to skillfully bind neighbors’ books, while still having the opportunity to read them. He read Mine Reed, Jules Verne and Dickens. Among the Russian writers I liked to read were Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov and Nikitin. In elementary school he studied with excellent marks, moving from class to class only with awards. At the age of 6, Volkov was immediately accepted into the second grade of the city school, and at the age of 12 he graduated as the best student. In 1904, after a preparatory course, he entered the Tomsk Teachers' Institute, from which he graduated in 1910 with the right to teach in city and higher primary schools. Alexander Volkov began working as a teacher in the ancient Altai city of Kolyvan, and then in his hometown of Ust-Kamenogorsk, at the school where he began his education. There he independently mastered the German and French languages.

On the eve of the revolution, Volkov tried to start writing. His first poems “Nothing makes me happy” and “Dreams” were published in 1917 in the newspaper “Siberian Light”. In 1917 - early 1918, he was a member of the Ust-Kamenogorsk Council of Deputies and participated in the publication of the newspaper "Friend of the People". He began teaching at the pedagogical courses that were opening in Ust-Kamenogorsk at the technical school, and at the same time he wrote a number of plays for the children's theater. His funny comedies and plays “Eagle Beak”, “In a Deaf Corner”, “Village School”, “Tolya the Pioneer”, “Fern Flower”, “Home Teacher”, “Comrade from the Center” (“Modern Inspector”) and “ Trading House Shneersohn and Co” were successfully performed on the stages of Ust-Kamenogorsk and Yaroslavl.

In Ust-Kamenogorsk.

In the 1920s, Volkov moved to Yaroslavl and worked as a school director. In parallel with this, he passed exams as an external student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Pedagogical Institute. In 1929, Alexander Volkov moved to Moscow, where he worked as the head of the educational department of the workers' faculty. By the time he entered Moscow State University, he was already a forty-year-old married man, the father of two children. There, in seven months, he completed the entire five-year course of the Faculty of Mathematics, after which for twenty years he was a teacher of higher mathematics at the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. There he taught an elective course in literature for students, continued to expand his knowledge of literature, history, geography, astronomy, and was actively involved in translations.

The most unexpected turn in the life of Alexander Melentyevich began with the fact that he, a great connoisseur of foreign languages, decided to also study English. As material for exercises, he was given the book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. He read it, told it to his two sons, and decided to translate it. True, the end result was not a translation, but an arrangement of a book by an American author. The writer changed some things and added some things. For example, he came up with a meeting with a cannibal, a flood and other adventures. His dog Toto started talking, the girl began to be called Ellie, and the Sage from the Land of Oz acquired a name and title - the Great and Terrible Wizard Goodwin... Many other cute, funny, sometimes almost imperceptible changes appeared. And when the translation, or, more precisely, the retelling, was completed, it suddenly became clear that this was no longer quite Baum’s “The Sage.” The American fairy tale has become just a fairy tale. And her heroes spoke Russian as naturally and cheerfully as they had spoken English half a century before. Alexander Volkov worked on the manuscript for a year and entitled it “The Wizard of the Emerald City” with the subtitle “Reworkings of a fairy tale by the American writer Frank Baum.” The manuscript was sent to the famous children's writer Marshak, who approved it and handed it over to the publishing house, strongly advising Volkov to take up literature professionally.

Black and white illustrations for the text were made by artist Nikolai Radlov. The book was published in a circulation of twenty-five thousand copies and immediately won the sympathy of readers. Therefore, the following year a re-edition appeared, and by the end of the year it was included in the so-called “school series”, the circulation of which was 170 thousand copies. Since 1941, Volkov became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR.

Drawing by Nikolai Radlov.

During the war, Alexander Volkov wrote the books “Invisible Fighters” (1942, about mathematics in artillery and aviation) and “Planes at War” (1946). The creation of these works is closely connected with Kazakhstan: from November 1941 to October 1943, the writer lived and worked in Alma-Ata. Here he wrote a series of radio plays on a military-patriotic theme: “Counselor Goes to the Front”, “Timurovites”, “Patriots”, “Dead of Night”, “Sweatshirt” and others, historical essays: “Mathematics in Military Affairs”, “Glorious Pages” on the history of Russian artillery”, poems: “The Red Army”, “The Ballad of the Soviet Pilot”, “Scouts”, “Young Partisans”, “Motherland”, songs: “Marching Komsomol”, “Song of the Timurites”. He wrote a lot for newspapers and radio, some of the songs he wrote were set to music by composers D. Gershfeld and O. Sandler.

Drawing by Leonid Vladimirsky.

The creative collaboration between Volkov and Vladimirsky turned out to be long-lasting and very fruitful. Working side by side for twenty years, they practically became co-authors of books - sequels to The Wizard. Leonid Vladimirsky became the “court artist” of the Emerald City, created by Volkov. He illustrated all five Wizard sequels.

Drawing by Leonid Vladimirsky.

The incredible success of Volkov’s cycle, which made the author a modern classic of children’s literature, largely delayed the “penetration” of F. Baum’s original works into the domestic market, despite the fact that subsequent books were no longer directly connected with F. Baum, only occasionally appearing in them partial borrowings and alterations.

"The Wizard of the Emerald City" caused a large flow of letters to the author from his young readers. The children persistently demanded that the writer continue the tale about the adventures of the kind little girl Ellie and her faithful friends - the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion and the funny dog Totoshka. Volkov responded to letters with the books “Oorfene Deuce and His Wooden Soldiers” and “Seven Underground Kings.” But reader letters continued to come with requests to continue the story. Alexander Melentyevich was forced to answer his “pushy” readers: “Many guys ask me to write more fairy tales about Ellie and her friends. I will answer this: there will be no more fairy tales about Ellie...” And the flow of letters with persistent requests to continue the fairy tales did not decrease. And the good wizard heeded the requests of his young fans. He wrote three more fairy tales - “The Fire God of the Marrans”, “The Yellow Fog” and “The Secret of the Abandoned Castle”. All six fairy tales about the Emerald City have been translated into many languages of the world with a total circulation of several tens of millions of copies.

Alexander Volkov and Leonid Vladimirsky.

Based on “The Wizard of the Emerald City,” the writer in 1940 wrote a play of the same name, which was staged in puppet theaters in Moscow, Leningrad, and other cities. In the sixties, Volkov created a version of the play for theaters for young spectators. In 1968 and subsequent years, according to a new script, “The Wizard of the Emerald City” was staged by numerous theaters across the country. The play “Oorfene Deuce and His Wooden Soldiers” was performed in puppet theaters under the titles “Oorfene Deuce”, “The Defeated Oorfene Deuce” and “Heart, Mind and Courage”. In 1973, the Ekran association produced a ten-episode puppet film based on A. M. Volkov’s fairy tales “The Wizard of the Emerald City,” “Oorfene Deuce and His Wooden Soldiers” and “Seven Underground Kings,” which was shown several times on All-Union Television. Even earlier, the Moscow Filmstrip Studio created filmstrips based on the fairy tales “The Wizard of the Emerald City” and “Oorfene Deuce and His Wooden Soldiers.”

In the publication of A. M. Volkov’s second book, “The Wonderful Ball,” which the author in its original versions called “The First Aeronaut,” Anton Semenovich Makarenko took a large part, who at that moment moved to live in Moscow, where he devoted himself entirely to scientific and literary work. “The Wonderful Ball” is a historical novel about the first Russian aeronaut. The impetus for its writing was a short story with a tragic ending, found by the author in an ancient chronicle. Volkov’s other historical works were no less popular in the country - “Two Brothers”, “Architects”, “Wanderings”, “The Tsargrad Captive”, the collection “The Wake of the Stern” (1960), dedicated to the history of navigation, primitive times, the death of Atlantis and discovery of America by the Vikings.

But his books about the Magic Land are tirelessly republished in large editions, delighting new generations of young readers... In our country, this cycle became so popular that in the 90s its sequels began to be created. This was started by Yuri Kuznetsov, who decided to continue the epic and wrote a new story - “Emerald Rain” (1992). Children's writer Sergei Sukhinov, since 1997, has published more than 12 books in the “Emerald City” series. In 1996, Leonid Vladimirsky, an illustrator of books by A. Volkov and A. Tolstoy, connected his two favorite characters in the book “Pinocchio in the Emerald City.”

Author's works

Novels

1940 - Wonderful Ball
1950 - Two brothers
1954 - Architects
1954 - Wandering

Stories

1960 - Travelers into the third millennium
1963 - The Adventures of Two Friends in the Land of the Past
1969 - Captive of Constantinople

Fairy tales

1939 - The Wizard of the Emerald City
1963 - Oorfene Deuce and his wooden soldiers
1964 - Seven Underground Kings
1968 - Fire God of the Marranos
1970 - Yellow Fog
1975 - The Mystery of the Abandoned Castle (published 1982)

Popular science books

1953 - How to catch fish with a fishing rod. Notes from a fisherman
1957 - Earth and Sky: Entertaining stories on geography and astronomy
1960 - Wake astern
1980 - In Search of Truth

Translations

Jules Verne. Danube pilot
Jules Verne. The extraordinary adventures of the Barsak expedition

Filmography and film adaptations

197. - The Wizard of the Emerald City

(1891-1977) Russian writer

For most readers, Alexander Melentyevich Volkov is the author of one work. Everyone knows the fairy tale “The Wizard of the Emerald City,” but few know that this author authored several dozen works written in a variety of genres.

Volkov was born in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk in the family of a retired non-commissioned officer. Alexander spent his childhood in the village of Sekisovka, where his maternal grandfather lived. He was an Old Believer nachitchik, that is, a reader of sacred books, and taught his grandson to read when he was five years old.

When Sasha Volkov grew up, he, as the son of a soldier, was accepted into the Ust-Kamenogorsk school. In 1903, he graduated with a certificate of merit and was admitted to the Tomsk Teachers' Institute for state kosht (maintenance). In 1909 he received a diploma as a primary school teacher.

For several years, the young teacher worked in rural schools, teaching literature, geography, history and mathematics. At the same time, Volkov tried to write for the first time, rather out of necessity: the village children needed books they could understand to read, as well as plays for the school theater. In 1916, a collection of his plays was published, which became the first publication of the young writer.

After the revolution, Alexander Volkov moved to Yaroslavl, where he continued to work at a school. By that time, he already clearly knew that his calling was mathematics. Volkov enters the mathematics department of the Yaroslavl Pedagogical Institute. Having completed it, he works for some time in Yaroslavl - teaching mathematics and physics, and then submits documents to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow State University in order to deepen his knowledge - to receive serious theoretical training.

Alexander Volkov completed the five-year course in seven months, combining his studies with work at the Department of Higher Mathematics of the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. Here he attends an English language club. One day, during one of the classes, Volkov came across a book by the American writer F. Baum, “The Wizard of Oz.” Alexander Volkov liked it so much that he began reading it to his children, and then made an authorized translation.

At that time, foreign children's books came to little Russian readers through retellings by T. Gabbe, L. Lyubarskaya, Korney Chukovsky. In living language, based on realities understandable to children, the writers told entertaining stories from the lives of peoples of different countries.

Alexander Melentyevich Volkov for a long time did not dare to show his creation to professional writers. Only after E. Permitin approved his tale did he take the manuscript to Samuil Marshak. Samuil Yakovlevich liked the fairy tale, he gave a positive review, and the Children's Literature publishing house began work on the book.

The publication was published with wonderful drawings by N. Radlov, one of the best book artists of that time.

It immediately became one of the most popular and widely read and quickly disappeared from bookstore shelves. In just over a year, two more editions of The Wizard of the Emerald City were published, which sold out just as quickly as the first.

In Alexander Volkov's adaptation, Baum's rather boring narrative began to sparkle with all the colors of life: the moralizing tone and instructive intonation disappeared, but an adventure plot emerged, thanks to which the action of the fairy tale unfolds rapidly, captivating both the characters and the readers.

Volkov fulfilled the readers' order, but only twenty years later. During this time he published several historical novels.

The first work, “The Wonderful Ball,” is written in the genre of an adventure story about how the merchant’s son Dmitry Rakitin escapes from prison in a hot air balloon. The novel “Two Brothers” is dedicated to the events of Peter the Great’s time, where the writer introduces us to little-known pages of the history of Russia, the beginning of the eighteenth century.

While working on his works, Alexander Volkov had to study a lot of materials, rummage through archives, and visit museums in order to become better acquainted with the culture of the time in which his heroes would act.

It was necessary to capture the realities of the past, fill the works with the flavor of the era and create a reliable historical background for the events depicted.

Alexander Melentyevich Volkov fully demonstrated these qualities in the novel “Architects”. In it, the admiring author talks about the ancient masters who built one of the wonders of the world on Borovitsky Hill - the Moscow Kremlin and the fabulous St. Basil's Cathedral.

The reader - and the book is intended primarily for the attention of the younger generation - appears majestic, simple-minded, hard-working and cheerful Moscow of the mid-16th century. Volkov paints bright, emotionally rich pictures of Moscow life.

The writer knew perfectly well the psychology of his audience and masterfully built the plot, adding dynamism to the plot and authenticity to the images. Therefore, his books stand on a par with the works of such recognized masters of the genre as Alexei Tolstoy, A. Chapygin, O. Forsh.

Having become a famous writer, Alexander Volkov did not forget about his teaching profession. He continues to act in this field, but as a popularizer.

In the fifties, he published several collections containing entertaining stories on astronomy, physics, and geography. They are based on articles for the Children's Encyclopedia, which he planned to create back in the 30s.

But this does not exhaust the literary interests of Alexander Volkov, a man of high erudition - he is also engaged in translations. In particular, he was one of the leading translators of the works of J. Verne, which were included in the collected works of the French science fiction writer.

However, the writer himself considered the fairy tale about Ellie and her friends to be the main work of his life. The story of the adventures of this girl once magically transformed a modest physics teacher into a famous and beloved writer by children.

Alexander Volkov continued the story about Ellie. He took the wishes of his correspondents very seriously, incorporating their suggestions into the plot outline. From his pen came “Oorfene Juss and his wooden soldiers”, “Seven Underground Kings”, “Fiery God of the Marrans”, “Yellow Fog”, “The Secret of the Abandoned Castle”.

Of course, the writer used traditional techniques common to the author's fairy tale. Along with real characters, folklore creatures act in his fairy tales: talking animals, wizards, monsters. And of course, despite all the vicissitudes that befall the heroes, good ultimately triumphs over evil.

At the same time, the writer listens sensitively to the trends of the time, expanding the scope of the genre by introducing new forms that have just appeared in literature. Thus, “The Secret of the Abandoned Castle” is written in a fantasy style, representing a symbiosis of traditional fairy tales and science fiction. Much to the delight of the children, who, due to their age, gravitate towards technical innovations, in this fairy tale, among the traditional characters there is a robot - Tilly-Willy.

The diversity and versatility of Alexander Volkov’s creative heritage allows us to consider him a leading master of children’s literature, who determined its development in various fields.

The works of Alexander Melentyevich Volkov occupy a strong place in the repertoire of children's theaters and cinema, as evidenced by numerous productions and cartoons. Volkov's books have been translated into many foreign languages.