How authentic is the beloved “A Thousand and One Nights” really? Thousand and One Nights.
Preface by translator from Arabic M. A. Salye to “1001 Nights”
Almost two and a half centuries have passed since Europe first became acquainted with the Arabian tales of the Arabian Nights in Galland's free and far from complete French translation, but even now they enjoy the constant love of readers. The passage of time did not affect the popularity of Shahrazad's stories; Along with countless reprints and secondary translations from Galland’s publication, publications of “Nights” appear again and again in many languages of the world, translated directly from the original, to this day. The influence of "The Thousand and One Nights" on the work of various writers - Montesquieu, Wieland, Hauff, Tennyson, Dickens - was great. Pushkin also admired Arabic tales. Having first become acquainted with some of them in Senkovsky’s free adaptation, he became so interested in them that he acquired one of the editions of Galland’s translation, which was preserved in his library.
It’s hard to say what attracts more in the tales of “The Arabian Nights” - the entertaining plot, the bizarre interweaving of the fantastic and the real, the vivid pictures of medieval city life Arab East, fascinating descriptions amazing countries or the liveliness and depth of experiences of the heroes of fairy tales, the psychological justification of situations, a clear, definite morality. The language of many stories is magnificent - lively, imaginative, rich, alien to circumlocutions and omissions. The speech of the heroes of the best fairy tales of the Nights is clearly individual; each of them has their own style and vocabulary, characteristic of the social environment from which they came.
What is “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights”, how and when was it created, where were Shahrazad’s tales born?
"A Thousand and One Nights" is not the work of an individual author or compiler - the entire Arab people is a collective creator. As we now know it, "A Thousand and One Nights" is a collection of tales in Arabic, united by a framing story about the cruel king Shahriyar, who took for himself every evening new wife and in the morning he killed her.
The history of the Arabian Nights is still far from clear; its origins are lost in the depths of centuries.
The first written information about the Arabic collection of fairy tales, framed by the story of Shahryar and Shahrazad and called “A Thousand Nights” or “The Thousand and One Nights,” we find in the works of Baghdad writers of the 10th century - the historian al-Masudi and the bibliographer an-Nadim, who talk about it how long ago and good famous work. Already at that time, information about the origin of this book was quite vague and it was considered a translation of the Persian collection of fairy tales “Khezar-Efsane” (“A Thousand Tales”), allegedly compiled for Khumai, the daughter of the Iranian king Ardeshir (IV century BC).
Evidence of the named writers about the existence in their time Arabic book tales of the Arabian Nights is confirmed by the presence of an excerpt from this book dating back to the 9th century. Further literary evolution The collection continued until the XIV-XV centuries. More and more fairy tales of different genres and different social origins were put into the convenient frame of the collection. We can judge the process of creating such fabulous collections from the message of the same an Nadim, who says that his elder contemporary, a certain Abd-Allah al-Jahshiyari - a personality, by the way, is quite real - decided to compile a book of thousands of fairy tales of the "Arabs, Persians , Greeks and other peoples", one for the night, each containing fifty sheets, but he died having managed to type only four hundred and eighty stories. He took material mainly from professional storytellers, whom he called from all over the caliphate, as well as from written sources.
Al-Jakhshiyari's collection has not reached us, and other fairy-tale collections called “One Thousand and One Nights,” which medieval Arab writers rarely mention, have also not survived. These collections of fairy tales apparently differed from each other in composition; they only had in common the title and the frame fairy tale.
In the course of creating such collections, several successive stages can be outlined.
The first suppliers of material for them were professional folk storytellers, whose stories were initially recorded from dictation with almost stenographic accuracy, without any literary processing.
A large number of such stories in Arabic, written in Hebrew letters, are kept in the State Public library named after Saltykov-Shchedrin in Leningrad; the oldest lists date back to the 11th-12th centuries.
Subsequently, these records went to booksellers, who subjected the text of the tale to some literary processing. Each fairy tale was considered at this stage not as component collection, but as a completely independent work; therefore, in the original versions of the tales that have reached us, later included in the “Book of the Thousand and One Nights,” there is still no division into nights. The text of fairy tales was divided into last stage their processing when they fell into the hands of the compiler who compiled the next collection of “A Thousand and One Nights”. In the absence of material for the required number of “nights,” the compiler replenished it from written sources, borrowing from there not only short stories and anecdotes, but also long knightly romances.
The last such compiler was that unknown named learned sheikh, who compiled the most recent collection of tales of the Arabian Nights in Egypt in the 18th century. Fairy tales also received the most significant literary treatment in Egypt, two or three centuries earlier. This edition of the XIV - XVI centuries "The Book of the Thousand and One Nights", usually called "Egyptian", is the only one that has survived to this day - is represented in the majority printed publications, as well as in almost all the Nights manuscripts known to us and serves as specific material for the study of Shahrazad’s tales.
From the previous, perhaps earlier, collections of “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights,” only single tales have survived, not included in the “Egyptian” edition and presented in a few manuscripts of individual volumes of “Nights” or existing in the form of independent stories, which, however, have a division at night. These stories include the most popular fairy tales among European readers: “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp”, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and some others; The Arabic original of these tales was at the disposal of the first translator of the Arabian Nights, Galland, through whose translation they became known in Europe.
When studying the Arabian Nights, each tale should be considered separately, since there is no organic connection between them, and before inclusion in the collection for a long time existed independently. Attempts to group some of them into groups based on their supposed origin - India, Iran or Baghdad - are not well founded. The plots of Shahrazad's stories were formed from individual elements that could penetrate Arab soil from Iran or India independently of one another; on your new homeland they were overgrown with purely native layers and from ancient times became the property of Arab folklore. This, for example, happened with the framing fairy tale: having come to the Arabs from India through Iran, it lost many of its original features in the mouths of the storytellers.
More appropriate than an attempt to group, say, according to a geographical principle, should be considered the principle of combining them, at least conditionally, into groups according to the time of creation or according to belonging to social environment where they lived. The oldest, most enduring tales in the collection, which may have existed in one form or another already in the first editions in the 9th-10th centuries, include those stories in which the element of fantasy is most strongly manifested and in which supernatural beings actively intervene in the affairs of people. Such are the tales “About the Fisherman and the Spirit”, “About the Ebony Horse” and a number of others. During their long literary life, they apparently were subjected to literary adaptation many times; This is evidenced by their language, which claims to have a certain sophistication, and by the abundance of poetic passages, undoubtedly interspersed into the text by editors or copyists.
Of more recent origin is a group of tales reflecting the life and everyday life of a medieval Arab trading city. As can be seen from some topographical details, the action in them takes place mainly in the capital of Egypt - Cairo. These short stories are usually based on some touching love story, complicated by various adventures; the persons acting in it belong, as a rule, to the trade and craft nobility. In style and language, fairy tales of this kind are somewhat simpler than fantastic ones, but they also contain many poetic quotations, mainly erotic content. It’s interesting that in urban novels, the brightest and strongest personality is often a woman who boldly breaks the barriers that harem life puts in front of her. A man, weakened by debauchery and idleness, is invariably rendered a simpleton and doomed to second roles.
Other characteristic This group of tales is a sharply expressed antagonism between the townspeople and the Bedouin nomads, who are usually the subject of the most caustic ridicule in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.
TO the best examples urban short stories include "The Tale of the Lover and the Beloved", "The Tale of Three Apples" (including "The Tale of the Vizier Nur-ad-din and his brother"), "The Tale of Kamar-az-Zaman and the Jeweler's Wife", as well as most of the stories united by "The Tale of the Hunchback".
Finally, the most recent in time of creation are fairy tales picaresque genre, apparently included in the collection in Egypt, when it was last revised. These stories also developed in an urban environment, but they reflect the life of small artisans, day laborers and poor people doing odd jobs. These tales most vividly reflected the protest of the oppressed sections of the population of the medieval eastern city. The curious forms in which this protest was sometimes expressed can be seen, for example, from the “Tale of Ghanim ibn Ayyub” (see this edition, vol. II, p. 15), where a slave, whom his master wants to set free, argues that referring to the books of lawyers that he does not have the right to do this, since he did not teach his slave any craft and by freeing him he condemns the latter to starvation.
Pictorial tales are characterized by the caustic irony of depicting representatives of secular power and the clergy in the most unsightly form. The plot of many of these stories is a complex fraud, the purpose of which is not so much to rob as to fool some simpleton. Brilliant examples of picaresque stories are “The Tale of Delilah the Cunning Man and Ali-Zeybak of Cairo,” replete with the most incredible adventures, “The Tale of Ala-ad-din Abu-sh-Shamat,” “The Tale of Maruf the Shoemaker.”
Stories of this type came into the collection directly from the mouths of the storytellers and were subjected to only minor literary processing. This is indicated first of all by their language, not alien to dialectisms and colloquial turns of speech, the saturation of the text with dialogues, lively and dynamic, as if directly overheard in the city square, as well as the complete absence of love poems - the listeners of such tales, apparently, were not hunters of sentimental poetic outpourings. Both in content and form, the picaresque stories represent one of the most valuable parts of the collection.
In addition to the tales of the three categories mentioned, the Book of the Thousand and One Nights includes a number of large works and a significant number of small anecdotes, undoubtedly borrowed by the compilers from various literary sources. These are the huge knightly novels: “The Tale of King Omar ibn al-Numan”, “The Tale of Adjib and Gharib”, “The Tale of the Prince and the Seven Viziers”, “The Tale of Sinbad the Sailor” and some others.
In the same way, edifying parables and stories, imbued with the idea of the frailty of earthly life ("The Tale of the Copper City"), edifying stories-questionnaires such as "Mirrors" (the story of the wise girl Tawaddud), anecdotes about famous Muslim mystics-Sufis, etc. .P. The small stories, as already mentioned, were apparently added by the compilers to fill the required number of nights.
Fairy tales of a particular group, born in a certain social environment, naturally had the greatest distribution in this environment. The compilers and editors of the collection themselves were well aware of this, as evidenced by the following note, rewritten in one of the later manuscripts of “Nights” from an older original: “The storyteller should tell in accordance with those who listen to him. If they are common people, let him convey the stories from One Thousand and One Nights about ordinary people- these are the stories at the beginning of the book (obviously meaning fairy tales of the picaresque genre - M.S.), and if these people belong to the rulers, then they should be told stories about kings and battles between knights, and these stories - at the end books."
We find the same indication in the text of the “Book” itself - in “The Tale of Seif-al-Muluk”, which appeared in the collection, apparently, at a rather late stage of its evolution. It says that a certain storyteller, who alone knew this tale, yielding to persistent requests, agrees to let it be rewritten, but sets the following condition for the scribe: “Do not tell this tale at a crossroads or in the presence of women, slaves, slaves, fools and children. Read it from emirs, kings, viziers and people of knowledge from
interpreters of the Koran and others."
In their homeland, Shahrazad's tales have been met with different attitudes in different social strata since ancient times. If in wide the masses Fairy tales have always enjoyed enormous popularity, but representatives of Muslim scholastic science and the clergy, guardians of the “purity” of the classical Arabic language, invariably spoke of them with undisguised contempt.
Even in the 10th century, an-Nadim, speaking about “A Thousand and One Nights,” disdainfully noted that it was written “fluidly and tediously.” A thousand years later, he also had followers who declared this collection an empty and harmful book and prophesied all sorts of troubles to its readers. Representatives of the progressive Arab intelligentsia look at Shahrazad's tales differently. Fully recognizing the great artistic, historical and literary value of this monument, literary scholars of the United Arab Republic and other Arab countries are studying it in depth and comprehensively.
The negative attitude towards “A Thousand and One Nights” by reactionary Arab philologists of the 19th century had a sad effect on the fate of its printed editions. A scholarly critical text of the Nights does not yet exist; the first complete edition of the collection, published in Bulaq, near Cairo, in 1835 and reprinted several times subsequently, reproduces the so-called “Egyptian” edition. In the Bulak text, the language of fairy tales underwent significant processing under the pen of an anonymous “scientific” theologian; the editor sought to bring the text closer to classical norms literary speech.
To a somewhat lesser extent, the work of the processor is noticeable in the Calcutta edition, published by the English scientist Macnaghten in 1839-1842, although the Egyptian edition of “Nights” is also presented there.
The Bulak and Calcutta editions are the basis for the existing translations of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. The only exception is the above-mentioned incomplete French translation Gallan, carried out in the 18th century based on handwritten sources. As we have already said, Galland's translation served as the original for numerous translations into other languages and for more than a hundred years remained the only source of acquaintance with the Arabian tales of the Arabian Nights in Europe.
Among other translations of the “Book” into European languages, mention should be made of the English translation of part of the collection, made directly from the Arabic original by the famous expert on the language and ethnography of medieval Egypt, William Lane. Len's translation, despite its incompleteness, can be considered the best existing English translation in accuracy and conscientiousness, although its language is somewhat difficult and stilted.
Another English translation, completed in the late 80s of the last century by the famous traveler and ethnographer Richard Burton, pursued very specific goals that were far from science. In his translation, Burton in every possible way emphasizes all the somewhat obscene passages of the original, choosing the harshest word, the most rude option, inventing
and in the field of language, extraordinary combinations of archaic and ultra-modern words.
Burton's tendencies are most clearly reflected in his notes. Along with valuable observations from the life of the Middle Eastern peoples, they contain great amount“anthropological” comments, verbosely explaining every obscene allusion that comes across in the collection. By piling up dirty anecdotes and details characteristic of the contemporary morals of jaded and idle European residents in Arab countries, Burton seeks to slander the entire Arab people and uses this to defend the whip and rifle policy he advocates.
The tendency to emphasize all the more or less frivolous features of the Arabic original is also characteristic of the sixteen-volume French translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, completed in the first years of the 20th century by J. Mardrus.
Of the German translations of the Book, the newest and best is the six-volume translation by the famous Semitic scholar E. Liggmann, first published in the late 20s of our century.
The history of studying translations of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights in Russia can be outlined very briefly.
Before the Great October revolution There were no Russian translations directly from Arabic, although translations from Galland began to appear already in the 60s of the 18th century. The best of them is the translation by Yu. Doppelmayer, published in late XIX century.
Somewhat later, a translation by L. Shelgunova was published, made with abbreviations from the English edition of Len, and six years after that an anonymous translation from the edition of Mardrus appeared - the most complete collection of “The Thousand and One Nights” that existed at that time in Russian.
The translator and editor tried, to the best of their ability, to maintain in the translation closeness to the Arabic original, both in terms of content and style. Only in those cases where the exact rendering of the original was incompatible with the norms of Russian literary speech, did this principle have to be deviated from. Thus, when translating poetry, it is impossible to preserve the obligatory rhyme according to the rules of Arabic versification, which must be uniform throughout the entire poem; only the external structure of the verse and rhythm are conveyed.
Intending these tales exclusively for adults, the translator remained faithful to the desire to show the Russian reader “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights” as it is, even while conveying the obscene passages of the original. IN Arabian tales, as in the folklore of other peoples, things are naively called by their proper names, and most of the obscene, from our point of view, details do not have a pornographic meaning, all these details are more of a rude joke than deliberate obscenity.
In this edition, the translation edited by I. Yu. Krachkovsky is printed without significant changes, while maintaining the main goal of being as close as possible to the original. The translation language has been somewhat simplified - excessive literalism has been softened, and in some places idiomatic expressions that are not immediately understandable have been deciphered.
Notes
1. Emir - military leader, commander.
It is also reported that among the caliphs from the descendants of al-Abbas there was no caliph more knowledgeable in all sciences than al-Mamun.
And every week he had two days when he arranged disputes between scientists, and the competitors, from among the lawyers and theologians, sat in his presence, according to their ranks and ranks. And one day, when he was sitting with them, a stranger in white, worn-out robes suddenly entered the meeting and sat among them. last people, sitting behind the lawyers, in an inconspicuous place. And the debate began and difficult questions began - and their custom was that the question was asked to those present at the meeting in turn, one after another, and anyone who had a subtle word or an outlandish joke told it. And the question went around in circles until it came to that stranger, and he spoke and gave an answer better than the answers of all the lawyers. And the Caliph approved of his words..."
They say that in ancient times and past centuries there was a merchant from among the merchants in the lands of Khorasan, whose name was Majd-ad-din.
And he had a lot of money, and slaves, and slaves, and servants, but only he reached sixty years of life, and he did not get a child. And after that Allah sent him great son, and he named him Ali. And when the boy grew up, he became like the moon on the night of fullness. When he reached the age of husbands and acquired all the qualities of the perfect, his father fell ill with a fatal illness and called his son to him and told him;
It is also said that the Commander of the Faithful, Harun al-Rashid, was restless one night and had difficulty falling asleep, and he kept tossing and turning from side to side due to severe anxiety. And when this weakened him, he called Masrur and said to him: “O Masrur, think of someone who will entertain me during this insomnia.” And Masrur replied: “O lord, would you like to go to the garden that is next to the house and see what kind of flowers there are, and look at the Stars, how well they are arranged, and at the moon shining over the water?” “O Masrur, my soul does not strive for anything like that,” answered the Caliph. And Masrur said: “O lord, you have three hundred concubines in your palace and each concubine has a room. Order the two of them to retire to their rooms, and go and look at them when they don’t moan.” “O Masrur,” said the Caliph, “The palace is my palace, and the slaves are my property, but my soul does not strive for anything like that.”
They also say that the Commander of the Faithful, al-Mamun, was in his palace one day, and he called all the persons of his state and the nobles of the kingdom, and also called poets and table-goers to him. And among his companions there was one companion named Muhammad al-Basri. And al-Mamun turned to him and said: “O Muhammad, I want you to tell me something that I have never heard.” - “O Commander of the Faithful, do you want me to tell you the story that I heard with my ears, or tell you what I saw with my eyes?” - Muhammad asked, and al-Mamun replied: “Tell me, O Muhammad, what is most amazing.”
They also say that the Caliph, Commander of the Faithful Harun ar-Rashid, experienced great anxiety one night and fell into great thought. And he rose from the bed and began to walk around his palace, and came to one room with a curtain and lifted this curtain and saw a bed on a raised platform, and on the bed something black, similar to a sleeping man, and to the right of it was a candle and to the left candle. And the caliph looked at this and was surprised. And suddenly he saw a bottle filled with an old face, and a bowl next to it, and when the Commander of the Faithful saw this, he was amazed and said to himself: “Does such a thing happen to the likes of this black one?” And then he approached the bed and saw a sleeping woman on it, covering herself with her hair. And the Caliph opened her face and saw that she was like the moon on the night of its fullness. And then the Caliph filled the cup with wine and drank it to the roses of the woman’s cheeks, and his soul bowed to her, and he kissed the spot that was on her face. And the woman woke up from her sleep and said: “Friend of Allah, what happened here, tell me?” And the caliph replied: “This is a guest knocking, who has come to your flock, so that you will receive him before dawn.” And the girl said: “Okay, both my sight and hearing are yours!”
They also say that one man’s debts increased, and his position became difficult, and he left his relatives and family and went wherever his eyes led him.
And he walked without stopping, and after a while he approached a city with high walls and large buildings, and he entered there humiliated and defeated, and his hunger intensified, and the journey tired him. And he walked through the square and saw a crowd of nobles who were riding, and he went with them, and they entered a room similar to the chambers of a king, and this man entered with them. And they walked until they came to a man sitting on an elevated place, he was magnificent in appearance and very noble, and he was surrounded by servants and eunuchs, as if he were one of the sons of the viziers. And, seeing those who had come, this man rose to meet them and received them with respect.
They also say that there was a wali named Husam ad-din in the fortress of al-Iskanderiya, and when he was sitting one evening in his hall, one soldier suddenly approached him and said: “Know, O our lord, wali, that I have entered into this city stopped this evening in such and such a khan, and slept there until a third of the night, and when I woke up, I found my bag cut open and a purse with a thousand dinars disappeared from it.”
And the soldier had not yet finished his words when the Vali sent for the guards and ordered them to bring everyone who was in the khan, and ordered them to be imprisoned until the morning.
It is also said that al-Malik an-Nasir called on one day three wali - the awali of Cairo, the wali of Bulak and the wali of Old Misr and said to them: “I want each of you to tell me about the most amazing thing that happened to him while he was gone..."
Three hundred and forty-third night.
When the three hundred and forty-third night came, she said: “It has come to me, O happy king, that al-Malik-an-Nasir said to the three wali: “I want each of you to tell me about the most amazing thing that happened to him.” while he was gone."
They also say that one of the money changers had a wallet full of gold. And one day he passed by thieves, and one of them said: “I can take this purse.” - "How will you do it?" - they asked him, and he said: “Look!” And then he followed the man to his dwelling, and the money changer came in and threw the purse on the bench. And he wanted to urinate, and he entered the house of rest to satisfy the need, and said to the slave: “Give me a jug of water!” And the slave girl took the jug and followed the money changer into the house of rest, leaving the door open, and the thief entered and took the purse, and went to his companions, and informed them of what had happened ... "
And the morning overtook Shahrazad, and she stopped her permitted speech.
They also say that Ala-ad-din, Wali Kusa, was sitting one night in his house, and suddenly a man, beautiful in appearance and appearance and perfect in appearance, came to him at night, and with him was a servant with a chest on his head. And this man stopped at the gate and said to one of the emir’s servants: “Go in and notify the emir that I want to meet with him on one matter.”
And the servant entered and reported about this man, and the emir ordered him to be brought in. And when he entered, the emir saw that his appearance was magnificent and his appearance was beautiful. And he sat him down next to him and gave him a place of honor and asked: “What is your business?” And the one who came answered: “I am a man from those who cross the road and I want to repent and return to the great Allah through your hands, and I want you to help me in this, since I am under your eyes and under your gaze. I have this chest with me, and in it are things that cost about forty thousand dinars.
September 5th, 2011
A long time ago, as usual, a certain Antoine Gallant translated several short stories from Arabic into publicly available European-French, compiling them into an almanac called “1001 Nights.” The almanac suddenly became very popular.
All the stories in the almanac were united by one thing: the Sultan (in some subsequent versions "padishah", "shah" and even "king") Shahriyar (possibly Shah Riyar) acquired the habit of having a virgin in the palace, and in the morning cutting off her head.
In those bloodthirsty times, this did not seem something strange, but the girls were running out, and none of the fathers and grooms expressed a desire to offer alternative options. The reason for the Sultan’s behavior was the infidelity of his wives (his and his brother), but this has nothing to do with our story. But somehow I came across another virgin named Scheherazade (Scheherazade, Shahrazade).
Instead of normal sex, he fed the Sultan a fairy tale, leaving the final twist for the next night, without even spoiling the ending. Shahryar barely survived the day to find out in the evening who actually killed Laura Palmer. I found out, but the nasty Scheherazade immediately started new story, which broke off at the most interesting place, thus giving birth new genre- series. Approaching the last season, Scheherazade had three children from the Sultan (the Sultan was able to do this). The 1001st episode has ended, cutting off a head is somehow ridiculous, and Shakhriyar decided to marry the one who had been blowing his mind for three years. 
Half-naked women, depraved sultans, disguised caliphs, energetic genies and the smoke of hookahs blew the public's head off worse than the sultan's executioners. Europe stirred up, Goethe wrote his “West-Eastern Divan”, Mozart composed “The Abduction from the Seraglio”, and our Antoine Galland decided that a couple of new volumes of the almanac would not do any harm. All the fairy tales and tales that he heard in the Ottoman Empire (where he was on a business trip) were used. Fairy-tale heroes The East boldly changed reality for exoticism, new names and characters appeared: Al ad-Din, Sinbad, Ali Baba (and, of course, his forty thieves). In total, 10 volumes were published, which became the quintessence of the Fairytale-East-that-we-lost. 
However, the version about Gallan’s cunning is just a hypothesis; he probably fell victim to local hoaxes and intrigues.
A hundred works are dedicated to Scheherazade, including Rimsky-Korsakov's suite of the same name.
The cinematograph examined the storyteller almost immediately.
Le palais des mille et une nuits
France, 1905.
Director: Georges Melies
18 minutes of restless flickering. 
There is a suspicion that the Great Mute and Lame did not pass by such a character again, but we did not find any more mentions. We will be glad if any are found.
In 1921:
La Contes des mille et une nuit
France, 1921.
Director: Victor Turzhansky.
Whether Scheherazade was in the film or not is, alas, not clear. 
Only in 1928 did she appear on the screen again.
Geheimnisse des Orients / Scheherazade
Germany-France, 1928.
Director: Alexander Volkov
Cast: Marcella Albani, Alexander Vertinsky, D. Dmitriev. 
Sheherezade
USA, 1941.
It’s hard to call it a film, more like a clip (songs and dances for 3 minutes). But let it be.
Arabian Nights
USA, 1942.
Director: John Rawlins
Played by: Maria Montez
4 Oscar nominations: Interior Design, Cinematography, Music and Sound.
A film about brother caliphs who cannot share power and a dancer. 
In 1947, the Swedes remove
Ballongen / Balloon
Sweden, 1947.
Director: Göran Gentele, Nils Poppe
Played by: Marianne Gyllenhammar
A film about the Swedes and their representation of the East. 
In 1948, the film "Song of Scheherazade" was released in the USA, but it is dedicated to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, so we move on.
The Desert Hawk
USA, 1950.
Director: Frederick De Cordova
Played by: Yvonne De Carlo 
Thief of Damascus / Damascus thief
USA, 1952.
Director: Will Jason
Played by: Jeff Donnell 
Invitation to the Dance
USA, 1956.
Director: Gene Kelly
Dances led by the director. People and cartoons dance.
Carol Haney, Kelly's wife, danced for Scheherazade. 
Scheherezade
USA-UK, 1956.
Director: Harold Huth
Played by: Maya Koumani
Episode "Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents" (1953-1957) 
Las mil y una nights
Mexico, 1957.
Director: Fernando Cortes
Starring (presumably): Maria Antonieta Pons 
Sheherazade
France-Italy-Spain, 1963.
Director: Pierre Gaspard-Huit
Role: Anna Karina
The Sultan loves Scheherazade, who loves the Hero who serves the Sultan.
Anna Karina was Godard's wife at the time of filming. 
Sen"ya ichiya monogatari
Japan, 1969.
Director: Eiichi Yamamoto
Cartoon erotica 
Up the Chastity Belt
Great Britain, 1971.
Director: Bob Kellett
Played by: Eartha Kitt
In addition to Scheherazade, the film features Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood.
Eartha Kitt is better known as Catwoman in Batman. 
Sheherazade
France, 1971.
Director: Pierre Badel
Played by: Claude Jade 
Quando i califfi avevano le corna
Italy, 1973.
Director: Amasi Damiani
Played by: Giorgia Tani
A comedy whose title makes it clear that even caliphs grow horns. 
The Vanishing Lady
USA, 1973.
Director: Marvin J. Chomsky
Played by: Lenore Kasdorf
Episode "The Magician".
We’re not sure if we’re talking about an oriental storyteller, but the character is present.
Lenore Kasdorf played in "Valilon 5", "Star Trek", "Magnum", "Santa Barbara". 
Arabian naitsu: Shinbaddo no bôken
Japan, 1975.
Director: Fumio Kurokawa, Kunihiko Okazaki
Animated series. 
Fairy Tales
USA, 1978.
Director: Harry Hurwitz
Played by: Nai Bonet
Erotica. About a prince who, on his coming of age, goes in search of his woman. 
Several appearances: Patrizia(1981, Jennifer Jones), I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later(1985, Dody Goodman), Le casseur de pierres(Tunisia, 1989, Moufida Zran).
Sheherazade
France, 1980.
Director: Susan Casey, Nancy Naschke
Cartoon.
...and another night of Scheherazade
USSR, 1984.
Director: Tahir Sabirov
Role: Elena Tonunts
1001 fairy tales were not enough, the eastern almanac “Caravan” by Wilhelm Hauff was harnessed to take the rap. 
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New Tales of Scheherazade
USSR-Syria, 1986.
Director: Tahir Sabirov
Role: Elena Tonunts 
And completes the theme of Soviet cinema
Scheherazade's last night
USSR-Syria, 1987.
Director: Tahir Sabirov
Role: Elena Tonunts 
The Magic of Aladdin
Canada, 1989.
Played by: Karen Kain
Dancing.
The actress danced the Genie of the Ring in the same film. 
Les 1001 nuits
France-Italy-Germany, 1990.
Director: Philippe de Broca
Played by: Catherine Zeta-Jones 
Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights
USA, 1994.
Director: Jun Falkenstein, Joanna Romersa
Transvestite cartoon. Scooby-Doo's friend dresses up as Scheherazade and tells the Sultan his version of the fairy tales. 
A Kid in Aladdin's Palace
USA, 1998.
Director: Robert L. Levy
Played by: Rhona Mitra 
Sheherazade
France, 1995.
Director: Florence Miailhe, Marie Desplin
Cartoon. 
Princesse Shehérazade
France, 1996.
Director: Philippe Mest 
She appeared in the Italian TV series "Pepe Carvalho" in the episode "Alla ricerca di Sheherazade" (1999, Manuela Arcuri). 
Arabian Nights
USA, 2000.
Director: Steve Barron
Played by: Mili Avital
Fairy tales as a remedy for fear and despair. 
Scheherazade
Switzerland, 2001.
Director: Riccardo Signorell
Nobody knows anything else about this film. Swiss banks are reliable.
Arabian Nights
USA, release date unknown.
Director: Chuck Russell
About saving Sh. from figs, who knows.
values
Fairy tales thousand and one nights (هزار و يك شب hezār o yek šab; كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة kitāb "alf layla wa layla) - a monument of medieval Arabic and Persian literature, a collection of stories framed by the story of the Persian king Shahryar and his wife named Shahrazad (Scheherazade).
History of creation
The question of the origin and development of “1001 Nights” has not been fully clarified to this day. Attempts to look for the ancestral home of this collection in India, made by its first researchers, have not yet received sufficient justification. The prototype of the “Nights” on Arab soil was probably made in the 10th century. translation of the Persian collection “Khezar-Efsane” (A Thousand Tales). This translation, called “A Thousand Nights” or “A Thousand and One Nights,” was, as Arab writers of that time testify, very popular in the capital of the Eastern Caliphate, Baghdad. We cannot judge his character, since only the story that frames him, which coincides with the frame of “1001 Nights,” has reached us. In this convenient frame they were inserted into different time various stories, sometimes - whole cycles of stories, in turn framed, such as “The Tale of the Hunchback”, “The Porter and the Three Girls” and others. Individual tales collections, before their inclusion in the written text, often existed independently, sometimes in a more widespread form. It can be reasonably assumed that the first editors of the text of fairy tales were professional storytellers who borrowed their material directly from oral sources; Under the dictation of storytellers, tales were written down by booksellers seeking to satisfy the demand for manuscripts of “1001 Nights.”
Hammer-Purgstall hypothesis
When researching the question of the origin and composition of the collection, European scientists diverged in two directions. J. von Hammer-Purgstall argued for their Indian and Persian origin, citing the words of Mas'udiya and the bibliographer Nadim (before 987) that the old Persian collection “Hezar-efsane” (“A Thousand Tales”) has a different origin Achaemenid, or Arsacid and Sasanian, was translated by the best Arab writers under the Abbasids into Arabic and known under the name “1001 nights”. According to Hammer’s theory, the translation of the Persian “Hezar-efsane”, constantly rewritten, grew and accepted, even under the Abbasids, into its convenient frame new layers and new additions, mostly from other similar Indian-Persian collections (among which, for example, “Sinbad’s book") or even from Greek works; when the center of Arab literary prosperity moved in the 12th-13th centuries from Asia to Egypt, 1001 Nights was intensively copied there and, under the pen of new scribes, again received new layers: a group of stories about the glorious past times of the caliphate with central figure Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809), and a little later - his local stories from the period of the Egyptian dynasty of the second Mamelukes (the so-called Circassian or Bordjit). When the Ottoman conquest of Egypt undermined Arab intellectual life and literature, 1001 Nights, according to Hammer, ceased to grow and was preserved in the form in which the Ottoman conquest found it.
De Sacy's conjecture
A radically opposite view was expressed by Sylvester de Sacy. He argued that the whole spirit and worldview of “1001 Nights” is thoroughly Muslim, the morals are Arab and, moreover, quite late, no longer of the Abbasid period, the usual scene of action is Arab places (Baghdad, Mosul, Damascus, Cairo), the language is not classical Arabic , but rather common people, with the manifestation, apparently, of Syrian dialectical features, that is, close to the era of literary decline. From here de Sacy concluded that “1001 Nights” is a completely Arabic work, composed not gradually, but all at once, by one author, in Syria, around the middle of the 15th century; death probably interrupted the work of the Syrian compiler, and therefore “1001 Nights” was completed by his successors, who attributed to the collection different endings from other fairy-tale material that circulated among the Arabs - for example, from the Travels of Sinbad, Sinbad’s book about female cunning etc. From the Persian “Hezar-efsane”, according to de Sacy, the Syrian compiler of the Arabic “1001 Nights” took nothing except the title and frame, that is, the manner of putting tales into the mouth of Scheherazade; If, however, some locality with a purely Arab environment and customs is sometimes called Persia, India or China in “1001 Nights,” then this is done only for greater importance and as a result only gives rise to amusing anachronisms.
This book is called “1001 Nights”. One of the secret purposes of his work was to destroy another gentleman (who wore the same dark and curly Moorish beard) who compiled a gigantic compendium in England and died long before Burton destroyed him. It was Edward Lane, the Orientalist, the author of a rather thorough translation of The 1001 Nights, which replaced Galland's translation. Lane translated to the pike of Gallan, Burton - to the pike of Lane; to understand Burton. it is necessary to comprehend their hereditary enmity.
I'll start with the founder of the dynasty. Jean Antoine Galland is a French Arabist who brought from Istanbul a modest collection of coins, a monograph on the preparation of coffee, an Arabic copy of the Nights and (as an appendix) a certain Maronite, distinguished by a memory no less inspired than Scheherazade. To this mysterious assistant - whose name I don’t even want to remember, but they say his name was Hannah - we owe some important fairy tales, unknown to the original: about Ala-ad-din, about the Forty Thieves, about Prince Ahmad and the genie Peri-Banu, about Abu-l-Hasan, sleeping in reality, about the night adventure of Harun ar-Rashid, about two envious sisters and their younger sister. A simple listing of these names is enough to make it clear: by introducing stories that over time became indispensable and which subsequent translators - his opponents - did not dare to omit, Gallan established the canon.
There is another indisputable fact. The most famous and successful panegyrics of “The 1001 Nights” - Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, Stendhal, Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, Newman - belong to the readers of Gallan's translation. Two hundred years and ten wonderful translations have passed, but if a European or American reader thinks about “1001 Nights,” he thinks about this translation. The epithet “a thousand and one nights” (“a thousand and one nights” suffers from creolism, “a thousand and one nights” suffers from eclecticism) has nothing to do with the learned nonsense of Burton or Mardrus, but is entirely connected with the charm and magic of Galland.
Literally, Galland's translation is the worst, it is the least accurate and the weakest, but it was the most readable. Whoever was alone with him experienced happiness and delight. His Orientalism, which today seems flat to us, inflamed many tobacco lovers and writers of five-act tragedies. Between 1707 and 1717, twelve elegant volumes appeared, translated into various languages, including Hindi and Arabic. We, simple readers-mythomaniacs of the 20th century, feel in them the sweetish aftertaste of the 18th century, and not the vague oriental aroma that determined its novelty and fame two hundred years ago. No one is to blame for this non-meeting, least of all Gallan. In part, he was let down by the development of language. In the preface to German translation In 1001 Nights, Dr. Weil wrote that whenever the captious Gallant's merchants have to cross the desert, they stock up on “a suitcase of dates.” It may be argued that in 1710 the mention of dates was enough to erase the image of a suitcase, but this is not at all necessary: a “valise” at that time was a kind of saddlebag.
There are other inaccuracies. In one insane panegyric included in Morceaux choisis (1921), Andre Gide (whose candor cannot be compared with his reputation) reproaches Galland for his self-will in order to quickly deal with Mardrus for literalism, as typical of the fin de siècle as Galland’s is of XVIII century, and much less accurate.
Galland's inserts are down to earth; they are inspired by decency, not morality. I will reproduce a few lines from the third page of his “Nights”: “Il alla droit a appartement de cette princesse, qui, ne s"attondant pas a le revoir, avait reсu dans son lit un des derniers officiers de sa maison.” Burton specifies this as follows nebulous "officier"; "a black cook, shiny with fat and soot." Both are distorted in different ways: the original is not as cutesy as Galland, and not as greasy as Burton. ( back side decency: in the latter’s moderate prose, the former’s expression “recevoir dans son lit” sounds like rudeness.)
Ninety years after the death of Antoine Galland, a new translator of “Nights” is born - Edward Lane. His biographers never tire of repeating that he is the son of Dr. Theophilus Lane, Canon of Hereford. This genealogical fact (and the terrible Rule of mentioning it) is perhaps enough. The Arabized Lane lived in Cairo for five years of exploration, “almost exclusively among the Muslims, communicating with them in their language, adapting himself with the greatest care to their customs, and being accepted by them as an equal.” Certainly not for long Egyptian nights, neither luxurious black coffee with cardamom beans, nor frequent literary discussions with experts in the law, nor a venerable muslin turban, nor the habit of eating with his fingers did not cure him of British shame - the refined loneliness characteristic of the masters of the world. Therefore, his most learned translation of the Nights turned out to be (or gave the impression of) an ordinary Puritan encyclopedia. There is no intentional stupidity in the original; Galland corrects occasional absurdities that seem to him to be the result of bad taste. But Lane seeks them out and pursues them like an inquisitor. His integrity cannot remain silent; he prefers a series of frightened explanations typed in petite, confusingly explaining: “Here I release one reprehensible episode. The disgusting explanation is omitted at this point. The line here is too crude and untranslatable. If necessary, I’ll omit one more story. From this place onwards there is a row of banknotes. The mediocre story about slave Bukhait does not deserve translation.” To cripple does not mean to leave alive: some fairy tales were thrown out completely, “because they cannot be corrected without distortion.” This reasoned and categorical refusal does not seem to me devoid of logic: sanctimonious resourcefulness is what I condemn. Lane is a virtuoso of resourcefulness, an undoubted harbinger of amazing Hollywood modesty. In my notes I found a number of examples: on the 391st night, one fisherman brings a fish to the king of kings, and he wants to know whether it is a male or a female, but they tell him it is a hermaphrodite. Lane tries to soften this unacceptable episode; he translates that the king asks what kind of creature this is, and the resourceful fisherman answers him that it is of a mixed gender. The 217th night tells about the king and his two wives: one night he slept with one wife, the other with another, and they were happy. Lane explains to us the happiness of this monarch, explaining that he treated women “impartially...”. The thing is that Lane intended his work “to be read at the living room table,” where they usually read and discreetly discussed things of quite harmless content.
The most distant and casual carnal hint is enough for Lane to immediately forget about his dignity and resort to copious distortions and concealment. There is no other fault on him. When he does not fall into this strange temptation, he is remarkably accurate. It doesn't have any installations, which is definitely an advantage. He does not set himself the goal of strengthening, like Captain Burton, the barbaric flavor, much less forgetting about it or softening it, like Gallan. The latter tamed his Arabs so that they would not frighten Paris with obscene dissonance; Lane is not a scrupulous Mohammedan. He despised literal accuracy; Lane explains his interpretation of each questionable word. He referred to a certain ghostly manuscript and to a deceased Maronite; Lane indicates edition and page. He didn't care about the apparatus; Lane accumulates a mass of explanations, which, when collected together, form a separate volume. Discrimination is what his predecessor demands. Lane copes with this requirement: he considers it sufficient not to shorten the original.
Intended as an "amulet (or talisman) against boredom and despondency," Burton's translation is a stylistically refined compilation of the English translation by John Payne (1882 – 1884); taking advantage of the fact that Payne's translation was published in a limited edition of 500 copies... Burton edited it and in 1885 published it in a circulation of 2 thousand copies. under his own name: while negotiating with Payne, he mystified the process of working on the text. Upon the release of his version, another hoax was revealed: instead of the name of the London suburb where the printing house was located, “Benares” was put on the cover of the book (in the Deer Park of which Buddha preached his first sermon).
