In the language of fairy tales. Well, everyone remembers this magnificent scene

", and research in the field of Karelian-Finnish and Sami folklore. On the occasion of the master's anniversary, we are talking about him - and about children's books, which would not exist without his work.

Strokina Anastasia Igorevna

CompassGuide

Dotsuk Daria

CompassGuide

Maisonneuve Emmanuel

CompassGuide: Lunar Tom

Sakarias Topelius was born on January 14, 1818 in the family of a folklore collector. The father regaled his son with countless stories, myths and impromptu fictions - it is not surprising that Sakarias grew up as a child with an extremely developed imagination and began to compose himself at an early age. Actually, Topelius also chose a profession that suited him: after graduating from the University of Helsingfors in 1840, he took the position of editor-in-chief of the Helsingfors News - and held it for twenty years, publishing books along the way.

He became one of the pioneers of children's literature in Finland - for example, under his leadership, the series “History of Finland in Drawings” was published seven times in a row, which systematized scientific data on this topic. Later, Topelius became a doctor of historical sciences and rector of the university - while continuing to compose original and touching fairy tales in his free time.

Zakaria Topelius. Knut the Musician

You can play only three songs on the sea princess's pipe, but they are magical! The first song - a playful one - will make the listeners laugh and amuse themselves, the second song - a lullaby - can put all the fish in the sea to sleep, the third song - a very sad one - will make even the stern snow king cry. Knut is a simple boy who lives with his grandmother in a small hut on the seashore. One day, the rich Mr. Peterman invites him to dinner. And, despite his grandmother’s warning, Knut decides to take a short route through the Kiikalsky forest to the dinner party.

Winter tales from around the world

Winter has come - it's time for cozy snowy fairy tales and magical icy adventures. Countries whose inhabitants are very familiar with snowdrifts and blizzards have given us stories from the life of Father Frost, the adventures of Merry Matty, the riddles of Lady Blizzard and a story from the life of a boy who wanted a New Year tree more than anything in the world. When a blizzard is creeping outside the window and cold stars are twinkling, there is nothing better than opening a thick book full of color pictures and finding yourself in a real fairy tale. Maybe you will meet not one, but two Frosts there. It turns out that this happens...

Anastasia Strokina

The young writer poetizes the Russian north: the Leningrad region, Karelia, the Komi Republic, Chukotka - all these amazing, unlike any other lands are acquiring a new mythology thanks to Anastasia Strokina. Okay, not so new: Anastasia processes genuine legends of the Aleuts, Karelians and other peoples, and even ordinary urban legends, of which there are so many in St. Petersburg, and creates wonderful fairy tales based on them - fascinating, kind, wise.

“A Whale Swims North” is Anastasia Strokina’s debut story, which every adult will read as a philosophical parable: a mysterious but cute-looking (thanks to the artist Irina Petelina) animal Mamoru is looking for his island, lost somewhere in the ocean. The island that is intended for Mamoru is only one in the world, and how can one find it in the endless space? A whale comes to the rescue, ready to go on a long, difficult journey, full of unexpected encounters.

“The Pocket Dwarf's Bead” is an Andersen story in spirit: the girl Vera rushes headlong into adventure in order to save her sister Varya. Numerous dangers and pleasant surprises await her along the way - and her best friends will help and support her: the dog Lille and a bird named Birdie. Oh, yes, an important detail: the magic medicine that will save Varya is owned by... a storyteller named Topelius. This is where Vera needs to get - along the way, meeting a couple of ghosts and a crowd of other amazing creatures.

Emmanuel Maisonneuve

Perhaps the French writer is not familiar with the work of the Finnish storyteller, but her works are in many ways similar to Topelius’s books: fictional and real creatures coexist peacefully in them, nature and the human world are also closely intertwined, animals, birds and insects too endowed with the gift of speech and thinking. And even more than that: in the forest there is a secret society of Velikoznaev, whose members have determined the rules of interaction between a variety of species, from worms to humans.

Moon Tom is a little man whom forest animals discovered in a potato, rescued from there and helped to understand his origin. It is truly mysterious: why is Tom similar to people, but so small? Why doesn't he remember how he ended up at the edge of the forest? Where did he learn to speak a language that everyone in the forest could understand? The baby, as usual, will go on an eventful journey, the result of which should be new knowledge about himself - and soon the second part of the story about Lunar Tom will be published by the CompassGuide publishing house.

Maria Boteva

The fairy tale genre is new for Maria Boteva, author of the popular book “Ice cream in waffle cups,” however, the first experience turned out to be extremely successful: the story “Lighthouse - look! "became one of the main hits of the KompasGid publishing house in 2017. There is something northern/Scandinavian in this story: either the image of a lighthouse, or the characteristic minimalism, or the feeling of light breaking through the eternal darkness, like a ray of sunshine finding its way to the ground through clouds and fog.

The action takes place a little at sea, a little on land, and more in the heads of the characters: the brave and extravagant Edwin, the inept and inquisitive Elsa, the businesslike and extremely active Kaporyaks. Something is definitely happening in the head of the wolf Kulik-Soroka, but the reader learns the least about this - he, the reader, generally has a lot to imagine for himself. This is Maria Boteva’s signature style, which in this book has reached a new level: all the most important things remain behind the scenes, and the joy of guessing and thinking out the stronger the less the author says directly.

Daria Dotsuk

“The House on the Cliff” is more of a realistic story than a fairy tale or parable. The writer unfolds a large-scale psychological metaphor (we are talking about the emotional state in which Ksenchik is), weaving fantastic details into the everyday fabric - and so dinosaurs end up in the forest on the edge of a cliff, a neighbor turns into a werewolf, and butterflies and insects turn into good elves.

As children, we all have a rich imagination. But no fictional universe is like another, and that’s why immersion in someone else’s world is always so exciting. And it is all the more interesting the more clearly realities from the ordinary, earthly world appear between imaginary things and beings. When you’re eight, it’s not your fantasies that “spoil” reality—it’s exactly the opposite. After all, sometimes fiction is our most reliable defender.

Fairy tales are both the childhood of the people and their maturity. Trolls and elves, evil sorcerers and good wizards, brownies... once upon a time in Scandinavia they believed that these creatures lived in dense forests, foggy fjords, and meeting them could change a person’s fate. There were many amazing, magical stories about this that remained in the folklore of the northern countries.

What features do Finnish fairy tales have? Who are they, the most famous great storytellers of Suomi, who to this day lead their people from childhood to adulthood?

Sacarias Topelius (Zacharias Topelius, 1818-1898).

Poet, novelist, storyteller, historian and publicist. Topelius's works have been translated into more than twenty languages ​​of the world. The theme of love for nature, kindness and compassion runs through many of the writer’s works. The Finnish storyteller makes extensive use of the tales of his Sami neighbors.

For example, the action of the famous fairy tale “Sampo - Loparenok” takes place in Lapland. An inquisitive boy, having decided to go sledding, suddenly found himself far from home, in the domain of a ferocious mountain king. A deer with golden antlers helps Sampo escape and hide in the pastor's house. The mountain king wants to take Sampo away since he has not yet been baptized. But the pastor manages to quickly baptize him, and the giant is forced to leave with nothing.

Opinion

Archpriest Vyacheslav Kharinov, confessor of the St. Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy, rector of the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” (St. Petersburg).

Reading Finnish fairy tales, everyone will definitely discover the closeness of Finns to nature. People live in harmony with nature, depending on what it gives them. Finns have humanized nature. In Finnish fairy tales, everyone participates in the story - living and inanimate objects, and always animals. Everyone says. There are amazing things that coexist in Finnish fairy tales. This is Christianity and paganism. The peculiarity of Suomi fairy tales is the presence of something pagan, at the same time completely framed as Christian. Adaptation of fairy tales to Christian ideals and moral values: love, hope, self-sacrifice, fidelity, devotion...

What is surprising about Finnish fairy tales? A certain integration into the fairy tale of Christianity. This applies to folk and even author's fairy tales (the same can be found in Russian fairy tales). Christmas and Easter organically entered Finnish fairy tales. The presence of Christmas, the presence of a miracle, the presence of special forces associated with religious life, with a religious atmosphere, makes fairy tales true, beautiful, balanced precisely at certain moments of the church year. And he talks about the deep roots of Christianity in Suomi. Moreover, it seems, not very ancient, no older than the 17th century. The fact that it organically entered the popular consciousness, so that it was naturally reflected in literature.

The religious life of the Finns in fairy tales determines the character and subject of the story. Only for an unenlightened person does religion always seem like some kind of fairy tale. In fact, a fairy tale is a derivative product of people's religious ideas.

Christmas tales are a small story about a miracle. They are similar to a sermon and are able not only to convey a thought, but also to change a person.

Tove Jansson (Swedish: Tove Marika Jansson, 1914 - 2001).

She gained worldwide fame thanks to her books about the Moomins. She wrote in Swedish. At the heart of Tove Jansson’s artistic world is the image of a home in which the lights are always on, loved ones are waiting for you, delicious food and a warm bed are ready. This is an unshakable citadel of security and love, one thought about which allows you to overcome any adversity and where you can always return.

Opinion

Eduard Uspensky about Tova Jansson:

- When I read Tove Jansson’s books, I see that many thoughts and ideas came to my mind much later than her.
- When Tova was given the Andersen Prize (small Nobel Prize), she said in her speech that in fairy tales there should always be something inexplicable, unspeakable, something that we can never depict. I myself think differently than she does. It is necessary that everything is clear to everyone, all the details are clear. The reader must know how the hero lives, what products he buys, what he eats and, in the end, how he will leave this earth.
- When Tove creates, then she does not follow any rules. At times, it feels like her text, which she writes passionately and tenderly, exists on some abstract level. And yet everything in him, in the end, everything one day becomes clear and understandable.

Writer Hannu Mäkelä:

During one of my meetings with Tove Jansson, I noted that Eduard Uspensky can never guess what she will write about on the next page, but still loves her books. She replied: “How nice, listen, if he wants to meet me, call and repeat what this Russian writer said about me. I will remember and accept you." And even then she didn’t accept almost anyone.

Materials used in preparing this article: s-skazka.org.ua

Tales of an old bookworm

Topelius, Sakarias. Royal ring. Stories of a paramedic: a novel / trans. with Swedish L. Braude, N. Belyakova; ill. K.U. Larsson. – St. Petersburg: publishing house “Russian-Baltic IC BLITs”, 1999. – 240 p., ill.
Topelius, Sakarias. Fairy tales/ retelling by A. Lyubarskaya, S. Khmelnitsky; ill. T. Yufa. – Petrozavodsk: Karelia, 1988. – 144 pp., color. ill.
Topelius, Sakarias. Ska Languages ​​of the Mountain King/ lane with Swedish L. Braude, M. Yasnova; ill. S. Lark. – St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2003. – 204 p., ill.
Topelius, Sakarias. Tales of the Sea King/ lane with Swedish L. Braude, M. Yasnova; ill. S. Lark. – St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2004. – 202 p., ill.

My friends!
Our conversation today is dedicated to the remarkable Finnish writer of the 19th century, a younger contemporary of the great Dane Hans Christian Andersen, Sakarias Topelius (1818 - 1898). And this is even symbolic, because this winter here is almost as cold as in those very northern regions that the famous storyteller talks about. Like Andersen, he is known in the world primarily for fairy tales, but his creative activity is far from being exhausted by them, for Topelius was an excellent poet, historical novelist, journalist and scientist - historian and philologist-folklorist. We, who do not know the Swedish language, can only guess what kind of poet Topelius was, and two or three decades ago we could only guess about what kind of storyteller he was, but I’ll tell you about that a little later.

Topelius wrote both prose and poetry in Swedish, which is not uncommon among Finnish authors, especially those who worked in the 19th century, when literary Finnish was just beginning. To make it clear to you why this is so, it is enough to say that the first secondary school in Finland with instruction in Finnish was opened only in 1858, and, by the way, I will tell you this fact: having conquered Finland at the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Emperor Alexander I planned to introduce Russian as the state language there, which would gradually supplant both Swedish and Finnish. However, the Russian Tsar is just a man - he makes assumptions, but does not have time for his assumptions, as Bulgakov said, for at least any long period of time. As is known, Alexander died at the end of 1825, less than eight years after the future classic of Finnish literature, writing in Swedish, Sakarias Topelius, was born in Nykarleby. After the death of Alexander, a Decembrist uprising took place in St. Petersburg, brutally suppressed by the younger brother of the late sovereign, Nicholas I, and the government had no time for Finnish problems. And at the end of the reign of Nicholas, after the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War and the accession to the throne of Alexander II, who had no time for the linguistic problems of the northern province, the experiment with the introduction of Russian as the state language in Finland was completely closed. Well, as I already mentioned, by the middle of the century the era of the Finnish language begins, gradually replacing Swedish.
Let's return to Topelius. His biography is quite typical for an armchair person - a scientist and writer. By the way, it is briefly and succinctly told by the translator Lyudmila Yulievna Braude in the preface to both “Tales of the Mountain King” and “The Royal Ring”. I hope that after our conversation you will read these books, so here I will say only a few words about the life of Topelius.
The writer's father, also Sakarias Topelius, was a doctor and collector of Finnish runes - ancient written and oral texts and songs. Topelius Sr. came from peasants, treated them, distributed vaccinations, but his main service to Finnish culture is that, having collected many records, he processed them and published, being already an elderly and seriously ill man, a five-volume collection “Ancient Runes of the Finnish People and the newest songs." It is this book, as reported by L.Yu. Braude, “paved the way for the great folk epic Kalevala,” published in 1849. “Kalevala” is a huge and very interesting poem - you can easily find it in any library; it has been published many times in Russian translation. I really hope that Topelius's tales will encourage you to get to know her. By the way, Henry Longfellow’s famous poem “The Song of Hiawatha,” which poetically retells the legends of the American Indians, was written under the influence of “Kalevala” and brilliantly translated into Russian by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, precisely in the meter of the Finnish epic.
Topelius Jr. grew up in an atmosphere of humanistic culture, as a child he listened to runes and fairy tales, and having learned to read, he discovered the beauty of not only Finnish runes and fairy tales and Swedish poetry, but fell in love with the romance of Walter Scott, the fairy tales and fables of La Fontaine, and most of all - in Homer's epic poems. Following the example of his father, he went to study to become a doctor, but ultimately received a liberal arts education. After graduating from the University of Helsingforg (now Helsinki), in 1841 Topelius headed the newspaper Helsingforg News, which he edited for almost two decades. He taught history at the gymnasium, in later years he was a professor of history at the main university of Finland and its rector. Awarded by the Swedish Academy a gold medal for literary merit. Topelius, among other things, is in a sense the creator of the national flag of Finland. He proposed a design for a flag that would feature three slanting blue stripes on a white background and a white star in the center. White color represented snow, and blue color represented lakes. The current flag of Finland retains the color symbolism proposed by Topelius.
Topelius began writing poetry as a child, but, unlike many of his brothers, he moved on to mainly in prose, did not part with poetry. Unfortunately, little of his poetry has been translated here, mainly only those poems that were included in his fairy tales. To get at least some idea about them, it is best to compare the same poetic inserts to fairy tales, made in Soviet times by S. Khmelnitsky, and in ours by Mikh. Yasnov.
Generally speaking, when reading Topelius’s tales, it is advisable to compare the translations of L.Yu. Braude with old retellings by A.I. Lyubarskaya. These are different stories. The point is not only that a retelling is not a translation, but, so to speak, a free essay on a given topic. It's also a matter of ideology. In Soviet times, one of the main tasks of the communist government was a merciless and, of course, senseless (Pushkin, who called the Russian rebellion “senseless and merciless” was absolutely right!) fight against religion. She, this power, wanted people to believe in her, having lost faith in God. Someone believed it, but it did not bring anything good to the believer.
So, Topelius was a deeply religious writer. Each of his tales is a hymn to the Christian faith. You can see this for yourself by reading the translations made by L.Yu. Braude. In almost every fairy tale, it is faith that helps the hero win. In Soviet times, such transfers were unacceptable and impossible. The then translator of Topelius, Alexandra Iosifovna Lyubarskaya, is well known to all of you for her three-fold abbreviated, but very vivid retelling “ Have a wonderful trip Nils with wild geese"Selma Lagerlöf, was forced to retell not what was written by the author, but what the publishers demanded, eliminating all religious passages from the text, and often adding connections and endings of her own in order to give a logical justification for the plot, which the author directly related to religion.
Have Topelius's tales been lost due to such vivisection? Yes and no. No - because Lyubarskaya’s retellings were real literature and because it never occurred to children raised in an atheistic society that a book could deceive them. Yes - because, reading A. Lyubarskaya’s text, we received a false idea about the writer she was translating.
Now justice has been restored; at the beginning of this century, the St. Petersburg publishing house "Amphora" published complete, accurate, professional and talented translations of Topelius's tales, made by the oldest, and now deceased, translator and philologist Lyudmila Yulievna Braude, whom we have already mentioned more than once in previous conversations. The fairy tales - not all, of course, written by Topelius - have been collected by the publishing house into two collections: “ Tales of the Mountain King" And " Tales of the Sea King" The names accurately reflect the theme of the fairy tales and at the same time the two elements surrounding the Scandinavian - northern, harsh and at the same time spiritually warm, somehow homely - way of life. The tales that make up the collections are quite diverse, partly they are literary processed folklore, and partly they are original texts. But the latter also firmly rely on Scandinavian legends and tales. I could not choose one collection over another, since each of them is good in its own way. Maybe it’s not worth mentioning some individual fairy tales that I particularly liked, such as, for example, the completely romantic story “The Old Brownie of Abo Castle” from the collection “Tales of the Mountain King” or the poetic cycle about Unda Marina from the collection “Tales of the Sea King.” They are all good, the only advice is to read slowly, understanding the text and taking breaks between reading fairy tales. Such reading will allow you to perceive each fairy tale in all its artistic richness and remember it forever.
As I already said, Sakarias Topelius began to compose fairy tales, inspired by the example of Andersen. That is, in some indirect, but most important sense, he was his student. That is why, of course, Topelius’s tales are in many ways similar to Andersen's - they are small in volume, very poetic, but, perhaps, not so varied and airy. While not generally reaching the level of the teacher, the student, however, achieved the main thing in literature - his fairy tales leave no one indifferent and decorate any fairy-tale collection. It is enough to name such short stories as “Sampo the Lover,” “Knut the Musician,” or “The Old Brownie of Abo Castle,” which long ago became classics of world children’s literature.
What distinguishes Topelius's tales from Andersen's tales is their greater realism. It’s not that there is much less magic in them, but rather that it coexists equally with reality. It is precisely in this regard that Topelius’s influence on later storytellers probably affected. But for some readers, it is the realism of the fairy tales of the Finnish classic that is their special advantage.
It is known that Andersen not only composed fairy tales, he also wrote novels. The same can be said about his Finnish student. Topelius penned historical-mystical and historical-folklore novels, or rather, perhaps, stories - they are not large in volume. In the Russian translation (by the same Lyudmila Braude), it seems that only one small book was published, representing the first trilogy from the series “Stories of a Paramedic” (the total volume of the cycle is 18 novels). It was released under the title " Royal ring"in 1999 and... did not become a noticeable phenomenon in the reading community.
It would be possible to reflect on the reasons, but, to save time, we will limit ourselves to just stating the fact and a short description of the work itself.
“The King’s Ring,” like the entire series “The Paramedic’s Tales,” was once popular in Scandinavia; it was highly valued, for example, by Selma Lagerlöf. The point, I think, is that in those days there was almost no decent historical fiction in Scandinavian literature, and historians did not have time to spoil the reader with any high-quality popular science works. And in the literature devoted to Finnish history, Topelius was, without a doubt, a pioneer. Judging by the “Royal Ring,” he used the achievements not only of his beloved Walter Scott’s childhood, but also a decade earlier, before Topelius began writing historical novels, when the new king, Alexander Dumas, ascended the literary throne. True, the stories of the Finnish romantic are more similar to Dumas' short stories than to his novels, and this is not only a matter of volume. Dumas was not just a master of a large genre, he had, so to speak, a broad, epic breath, and Topelius was, above all, a storyteller. Which is perhaps natural for a poet. It is at a short distance that a born short story writer is able to express himself with the utmost completeness.
What is “The Royal Ring” about? About European history, more precisely, about the history of European wars, in particular, the bloody Thirty Years War, about the Club War - the peasant uprising of the 16th century, about battles, about knights, but also about peasants, on whom, first of all, always and at all times, the war falls with all its unbearable weight.
In short, it was from Topelius’s novels that the Finns and Swedes of his time, for the most part, learned their national history. Probably, anticipating this, the author chose a special literary form for his works: like oral stories of an old, experienced paramedic in the evenings, surrounded by a few devoted friends. The paramedic tells them about what he himself experienced, as well as about what he heard from faithful people in his many years of wandering around Europe. It is clear that such stories for the evening cannot be too long; they should last about two to three hours and, accordingly, take 15-20 pages of text each. Then they will be easy to read and just as easy to remember, and besides, if the public likes them, they will demand continuations. Of course, Topelius wrote them for his newspaper, in the “feuilleton novel” genre, fashionable with the light hand of Dumas, Eugene Sue and other French fiction writers. Because the feuilleton was that such novels were published daily in the newspaper “basement” and, like today’s television series, kept the reader in suspense for many months, thereby bringing both the publisher and the author considerable profit, because when an exciting novel like “The Three Musketeers” was published in the newspaper, the circulation publications increased significantly.
The action of "The Royal Ring" takes place during the time of the famous Swedish warrior king Gustav II Adolf, that is, during the era of the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648). The main character - a knight without fear and reproach Bertel - is in fact not Bertel, but the peasant son of Bertil. He, a Protestant by religion, falls deathly in love with an Austrian aristocrat, an ardent Catholic, incited by the Jesuits to kill the main enemy of Catholicism of that time - King Gustav. But the fearless Gustav Adolf is, as it were, charmed from bullets and cannonballs. According to legend, because he wears a magic ring on his hand...
That’s where I stop, those who are quick-witted can guess what’s next, and those of you who love works in the spirit of Dumas and Sienkiewicz are already looking at their watches: will the bell ring soon and it will be possible to run to the library?..
I'm letting you go, my friends, run. Interesting reading and good health to you.
See you again!

“About the Finnish Andersen – storyteller and historical novelist Sakarias Topelius”
Year of publication: 2004

Good health to you, dear residents of the Kiikal forest! Yes, yes!.. It turns out that a wonderful, true fairy tale was written a long time ago, in the 19th century, about all of us. It’s strange that it was not written by Saltykov-Shchedrin! And it looks like it!.. It accurately names our historical homeland - that very “bad Kiikalsky forest”, and satirically portrays us - all its inhabitants - as glorious Kiikalians!

The Finnish storyteller Zacharias Topelius compiled a most accurate psychological portrait of every ordinary Kiikalian! I wonder if you recognize yourself in some of the respected Kiikals?

You can, of course, not be so harsh on yourself...

And then we need to look at this satirical tale from a different angle. Then it will turn out that we are in it - a good little boy - Knut the Musician, and the Kiikalians are only ours... nasty enemies and tormentors, who sometimes themselves do not realize what they are doing to us!

***
Well, if we take a scientific, Jungian look at the fairy tale, we will come to a more correct conclusion:

- each of us (both you and me, of course!) is simultaneously ambivalent: both a Kiikalian and a little musician - Knut! Just wondering, who is there more in us? Or this: in what form do we most often appear in relationships with people?..

Long road through the Kiikalsky forest

Start

But Knut’s grandmother warned him! Take the long and lonely road to Mr. Petersen's manor - the road along the edge of the sea! So it takes twice as long, but still don’t go through the Kiikal forest! There are nasty evil spirits there, and everything there is “not human”!

No, Knut did not listen to his grandmother. And he was right in his own way - you can understand him too... The child was too HUNGRY. Everyone noticed that he was somehow emaciated. It's no joke - I haven't had a dinner spoon in my mouth since yesterday! No, it’s better to take the risk, but through the Kiikalsky forest: the road there is clearly half as long! Well, what about its inhabitants? I’ll talk to them somehow - maybe they won’t eat me!

The shortest distance from point A to point B

Here it is – a projection onto real society! We do not enter into communication with “difficult” (vile) people (that is, Kiikalians) and go our own sweet, long, lonely road - the sea, where no one touches us with their hands, does not lead us astray, does not powder our brains, does not grow up there is a wall in front of us and does not “teach us how to live.” He doesn’t feed us his own (inedible for us!) food...

But, alas, not every Hero who follows his own Path can afford this luxury (not communicating with someone with whom communicating is “not fun” or is generally dangerous for the soul and body). And then: do they still want to take a shorter route? This is precisely what banal logic and flat “geometry” insist on.

There are such cramped, hungry, poor, catastrophic circumstances when we are FORCED to take OTHER people into account, to feel in our own skin their character, their vices, their neuroses, their fanaberies, to participate in their plans of scum and in general - to sit with them in the same room.

We are forced to enter into communication with Kiikals - brutal neurotics, narcissists and psychopaths - we, unfortunately, cannot escape them: after all, we are poor orphans, who can barely cope with one grandmother, we are dependent on Mr. Petersen, we have crumbs in our mouths since yesterday did not have. Our legs are giving way...

Stop!.. Or maybe it just seems so to us? After all, Knut found the strength in himself to fight every evil spirit. With a real Threat, a second wind finally opened...

So why not immediately take the long route?.. Ah! For this we all need Hard Life Lessons! (How good it is that they are given - fairy tales, thereby shortening our experiences of rapidly flowing individual existence).

And now we are sadly and cowardly raving: “Ah! Well, I can’t handle that beautiful and proud and “psychologically healthy” road by sea - with my own route and twice as long. I’ll go through the Kiikal forest!”

Okay, go ahead. Besides, we were all there. And some people just live there...

***
But let's get acquainted with ordinary Kiikals!

Topelius derived 4 generalized Types. Four recipes for sickening “Demyan’s fish soup” for the hungry and skinny little Knut: a Hero making His own Path through life.

Treasures of Wisdom acquired over the years. “Songs of Lonely Experience” (First type of Kiical)

The first one is boring The Kiikalian was a very old man - lonely and abandoned. He could barely stand on his feet and could do nothing to harm Knut.

Knut simply kicked off with his young heels, without even resorting to the help of a witch's pipe...

What a sweet, kind, sincere grandfather! My daughter is getting married, no one remembers about him! Why shouldn’t a well-bred boy please his grandfather and share his lonely meal with him?

Moreover, grandpa has prepared the sweetest delicacies! He knows from experience what food is tastiest and healthiest! He is not evil and not greedy! He sees how thin the boy has become!

Well, everyone remembers this magnificent scene:

“The courtiers are busy with preparations for the wedding - there is no one to take care of my dinner. I had to go to the pantry.
“But you brought some kind of iron,” said Knut.
- Not just any kind, my boy, but a leaf one, the best variety. Tastier than iron ore! Have you ever eaten white-hot sheet iron?
“I don’t remember,” Knut answered.
- Well, now you’ll find out! - said the king. - Look, I’m putting two iron sheets in the oven. In three minutes they will be completely white. Then climb straight into the oven and bite off a piece of freshly hot iron.
“Thank you,” said Knut, “but I would prefer bread and curdled milk.”
- Look! The boy doesn't understand food at all! Get into the oven, the iron is ready!
- No, I won’t go into the oven. It's not very pleasant to burn like a chip!
- What nonsense! Ordinary room temperature.

Grabbing Knut by the collar, the old man dragged him to the blazing stove. Here Knut did not hesitate: with all his strength he rushed out of the old man’s hands and ran. Fortunately, he immediately found a way out of the cave.”

“I will make a real snow globe out of you - strong and round!” “Army” and “corporate charter” (Second type of Kiicalts)

Second type the evil spirits were already much more dangerous. He already threatened! And he didn’t even really feed me. He just educated, educated, educated.

The paramilitary Santa Claus with his snowman sergeants simply wanted to make Knut an ordinary soldier - in order to make him a “man” there, in the barracks. And most likely: one more – a subject.

He reasoned like this:

“You shouldn’t get excited, young man! I am the snow king and I demand composure from all my subjects. That’s why they make real snow globes, strong and round. And I will also make you round, like a ball... Hey, Snow Scarecrow! Dip this little guy into ice water seven times and hang him on a twig - let him freeze thoroughly!”

Well, some of us break down on this adventure. They remain forever in the Kiikal forest.

But is it really bad to become a real snow globe - strong and round? Then you were “nobody” and there was no way to call you, but now you became at least someone. And you have just the right boss – the Snow King.

From the outside, his subjects seem to people like “clumsy snow scarecrows,” but this is all the machinations of their enemies.

Real snow globes – strong and round – don’t listen to their enemies!..

However, the boy Knut is a real Hero, so he did not succumb to the “charm of corporate aesthetics”...

Airy, “spiritual” and ephemeral... ( Third type kiikaltsa)

As you know, elves are a dangerous people, although they are cute in appearance.

The whip seemed to them...too rude, material and down-to-earth. Eating too much! They decided to teach him (more precisely, She decided to teach him...) how to eat “correctly.”

- “Give him a poppy dewdrop and a mosquito leg!”

- “Oh, my little bunny! (Thought Dudar-Knut). Better give me a leg of lamb and a liter of good beer!”

But... is it possible for “spiritual” beings to object to anything?! The fairy tale clearly states what happens to those who do not listen to the “air creatures” - in little red skirts, feeding on a mosquito leg and a drop of dew:

– Hey, forest SPIDERS! Here! Get to work!

And immediately thousands of long-legged spiders descended from the trees. They surrounded Knut on all sides and began to entangle him in webs. Knut tried to break the web with his hands, but his hands seemed to be stuck to his jacket. He wanted to run away, but he couldn’t take a single step: it was as if he had been swaddled! His eyes were covered with thick cobwebs, and he ended up falling into the grass as if he had been knocked down.

Isn’t that how people end up in totalitarian and near-totalitarian sects, friends?..

“Eat what they give you, I have nothing else to eat” ( Fourth type kiikaltsa)

Knut offended, offended the old woman - an ancient spruce tree overgrown with moss (snoring day and night). All she had to eat was moss!

This fourth type of Kiical is “very dull people” who offer us their “very dull” style of being.

One catch... These people - themselves - do not consider themselves sad at all! They see themselves as Kings and Queens! And they see their possessions as castles and palaces of royalty!

Here's what it looks like in real life:

– At the edge of the swamp lay a huge old spruce tree, apparently fallen by a storm. Ah, it's you, Knut the Musician! Don't you know where you are? I am the queen of the forest. My domain stretches for seven miles around. Do you see how beautiful my palace is? Knut looked around, but for seven miles around nothing was visible except a wild, impenetrable thicket.

Psychological training for residents and guests of the Kiikalsky forest

I make a proposal: at every training session dedicated to fairy tale therapy, role-play a reading of this fairy tale!

Let your seminarians imagine how indignant, how sincerely offended and offended the forest evil spirits are when the little man Knut does not want to follow “their” path and rejects their good advice, food and holy values!

Maybe someone will recognize themselves, and healing will occur during the training? After all, you will act out a psychodrama - directly according to the Moreno method!

***
What about small children? And young children need to read this fairy tale - from childhood, so that their Unconscious develops a strong immune system as early as possible! About what? About: not letting Kiikals into your life with their advice, with their view of the world and their “correct diet”!

So that the child never feels that he “lost time and energy” just because he “had to go an extra two miles” on his way...

So that from childhood the child understands the correct geometry of the correct Hero’s Path:

“And this road turned out to be half as long as the road through the Kiikalsky forest.”

P.S. How else can you defeat the Kiikals?

You remember that Knut the Musician was the owner of a magic pipe? Actually, the reed pipe washed ashore by the sea is almost the “main character” of the fairy tale... The sea is our Unconscious. His gifts are mysterious and prophetic...

As you remember, the pipe controls human emotions (the element of water!), penetrates to the depths of souls: it knows how to make people cry, it knows how to cheer up and make people laugh, and make other people’s feet dance.

And it also puts you directly into a hypnotic sleep! Dudochka - what kind of metaphor is this? Yes, it’s very simple!

The playing of Knut the musician on the pipe is knowledge of human psychology! Make them dance to your tune if they are deaf to the arguments of human words!

Good, advanced knowledge! Up to the ability to induce hypnosis and trance!

This is what Knut needs when he communicates with the Kiikals! He must be a “good psychologist”!..

And note: not in order to “get enough” from the Kiikalians - they have NOTHING to get enough of for a Man!

(Knut never satisfied his hunger in the bad Kiikalsky forest!) Know psychology - just in order to get away on time without damaging your skin!.. Oh, what a sad skill...

***
So maybe, instead of becoming a “good psychologist” from the camp of crazy wolves, we should - right away - listen to our grandmother and choose a longer and more independent - but the right path?..

In this material we will tell you about Finnish fairy tales and their famous authors. Every work has its own hero, and all events take place around him. He is looking for his happiness, and other characters help or hinder him. Every nation has its own legends and its favorite heroes. They themselves and their actions are the embodiment of ideals that have existed in society for centuries. Therefore, in order to get to know the mentality of the people better, it is not necessary to go on a trip. Often fairy tales tell even more. They are a powerful cultural layer and keepers of wisdom. And Finnish fairy tales are rightfully considered one of the most amazing and original.

Why? Because, having listened to the end, you ask the question: “Where was the morality?” If there is one, then it is not presented in the way that a person brought up on Russian epics is accustomed to. And in order to understand it completely, you first need to study the Finnish culture and mentality, and only after that you begin to understand the essence. However, many adults enthusiastically enjoy stories about trolls and elves living in cold fjords.

In ancient times, the Finns really believed that these fantastic characters existed and that in the dense forest you could meet an evil old sorcerer. Trouble cannot be avoided, but somewhere out there, by the lake, a good wizard is waiting, ready to dispel the evil spell. These stories are surprisingly reminiscent of our works. Note that Finns are very attached to nature. They idolize her and this is one of them. For example, all Finnish children know the fairy tale “Good Advice”. The main character walked through the forest for a long time and was very hungry. But, seeing a bird stuck in a forest trap, he let it go and after that lived a happy life.

This creation teaches you how to help everyone out of trouble, regardless of your interests and desires. Because of the reverence for nature, in Finnish fairy tales all the characters, even inanimate ones, talk. This is one of the differences, including the cartoons based on them. The heroes have universal human values: responsiveness, loyalty, justice and kindness. They are a person’s life guides and the authors are trying to convey this to the reader or listener. The narrative from the first word is permeated with the expectation of a miracle. Not only good qualities are praised, but bad ones are also ridiculed. Like here in Russia, Finland has folk tales. One of the most popular is called “Jolly Matty”.

Famous Finnish writers

In Sacarius Topelius, the main characters are forced to fight legions of evil. But in the end, goodness and justice will surely triumph. They teach children to love nature, value friendship, and achieve goals, even despite the obstacles that arise. The author builds each of his works on the basis of some narrative of the ancient Sami. And the love of this people for nature and the power of worship of it truly knows no bounds. The most interesting Finnish fairy tales that tell about Mumiy Trolls were created by the famous writer Tove Janson.

The moral is that there is nothing more important than home, it is our fortress, it is always cozy there, they are waiting for you and love you there. There is always a special atmosphere in the Mummies' house. Everyone is welcome here, everyone will be warmed and fed, and the mission of the heroes is to embody the best qualities inherent in human nature. Tove Janson's fairy tales are very optimistic and filled with good humor. If we talk about literature in general, it is impossible to ignore a special period in the history of books in this country. The 80s of the last century became a real discovery of picture books for children.

In those years, a group of talented illustrators appeared. They taught children to think and imagine. The kids barely had time to get enough of a story before the authors released the next one. Moreover, the age range was very wide: from those who were just learning to walk and talk to primary schoolchildren. Well, now is the time to read a fairy tale, and this time it’s definitely a Finnish one. In our next article we will tell you which is a national treasure of Finland.