Note the literary hoaxes of Russian authors. Literary hoaxes with Russian roots (literary-historical miniature)

The history of world literature, knowing about the falsification of many of its monuments, tries to forget about it. There is hardly a single researcher who would argue that the classics of Greece and Rome that have come down to us were not mutilated by copyists.

Erasmus complained bitterly back in the 16th century that there was not a single text from the “Church Fathers” (i.e., the first four centuries of Christianity) that could be unconditionally accepted as authentic. The fate of literary monuments is perhaps equally unenviable. At the very end of the 17th century, the learned Jesuit Arduin argued that the ancient world belong only to Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, Pliny, Horace’s “Satires” and Virgil’s “Georgics”. As for the rest of the works of antiquity... they were all created in the 13th century AD.

It is enough to raise this question about the authenticity of the manuscripts of the classics in order to recognize the complete impossibility of establishing where in the past the “genuine” classic ends and the falsified one begins. In essence, the true Sophocles and Titus Livius are unknown... The most subtle and strict criticism of the texts is powerless to detect the later distortions of the classics. The traces that would lead to the original texts are cut off.

It is also worth adding that historians are extremely reluctant to part with even works whose apocryphal nature has been proven by themselves. They classify them in the category of so-called pseudepigraphic literature (pseudo-Clement, pseudo-Justus, etc.) and do not hesitate to use them. This position is absolutely understandable and is only a logical development of the general attitude towards “ancient” monuments: there are so few of them that it is a pity to exclude even the dubious ones from circulation.

Before the first printing press was operational in Italy in 1465, a few years later the history of literature registered the forgery of Latin authors.

In 1519, the French scientist de Boulogne forged two books by V. Flaccus, and one of the remarkable humanist scientists, Sigonius, published in 1583 previously unknown passages from Cicero. This simulation was made with such skill that it was discovered only two centuries later, and even then by accident: a letter from Sigonius was found in which he confessed to the falsification.

In the same century, one of the first German humanists to introduce Germany to the Roman classics, Prolucius wrote the seventh book of Ovid's Calendar Mythology. This hoax was partly caused by a scientific dispute about how many books this work of Ovid was divided into; Despite indications on behalf of the author that he had six books, some Renaissance scholars, based on compositional features, insisted that there should be twelve books.

At the end of the 16th century, the issue of the spread of Christianity in Spain was poorly addressed. To fill the annoying gap, the Spanish monk Higuera, after a lot of difficult work, wrote a chronicle on behalf of the never-existing Roman historian Flavius ​​Dexter.

In the 18th century, the Dutch scholar Hirkens published a tragedy under the name of Lucius Varus, supposedly the tragic poet of the Augustan era. Quite by accident, we managed to establish that the Venetian Corrario published it in the 16th century on his own behalf, without trying to mislead anyone.

In 1800, the Spaniard Marchena amused himself by composing pornographic arguments in Latin. From them he fabricated a whole story and connected it with the text of Chapter XXII of Petroniev’s Satyricon. It is impossible to distinguish where Petronius ends and Marchena begins. He published his excerpt with Petronian text, indicating in the preface the imaginary location of the find.

This is not the only forgery of Petronius' satires. A century before Marchen, the French officer Nodo published the “complete” Satyricon, supposedly “based on a thousand-year-old manuscript he bought from a Greek during the siege of Belgrade,” but no one had seen either this or the more ancient manuscripts of Petronius.

Also republished was Catullus, forged in the 18th century by the Venetian poet Corradino, who allegedly found Catullus's list in Rome.

The 19th century German student Wagenfeld allegedly translated from Greek to german history Phenicia, written by the Phoenician historian Sanchoniaton and translated into Greek by Philo of Byblos. The find made a huge impression, one of the professors gave a preface to the book, after which it was published, and when Wagenfeld was asked for the Greek manuscript, he refused to submit it.

In 1498, Eusebius Zilber published in Rome on behalf of Berosus, “a Babylonian priest who lived 250 years before Christ,” but “wrote in Greek,” an essay in Latin, “Five Books of Antiquities with Commentaries by John Anni.” The book went through several editions, and then turned out to be a forgery of the Dominican monk Giovanni Nanni from Viterboro. However, despite this, the legend of the existence of Berosus did not disappear, and in 1825 Richter in Leipzig published the book “The Extant Chaldean Stories of Berosus,” allegedly compiled from “mentions” about Berosus in the works of other authors. It is surprising that, for example, academician. Turaev has no doubts about the existence of Beroz and believes that his work is “highly valuable for us.”

In the twenties of our century, the German Sheinis sold several fragments from classical texts to the Leipzig Library. Among others was a leaf from the works of Plautus, written in purple ink; the curators of the manuscript cabinet of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, completely confident in the authenticity of their purchase, praised it: “The beautiful handwriting bears all the features characteristic of a very long period. It is clear that this is a fragment of a luxurious book; the use of purple ink suggests that the book was in the library of a wealthy Roman, perhaps in the imperial library. We are confident that our fragment is part of a book created in Rome itself.” However, two years later there followed a scandalous revelation of all the manuscripts presented by Sheinis.

Scientists of the Renaissance (and later times) were not content with the “finds” of manuscripts of writers already known to them; they informed each other about their “discoveries” of new, hitherto unknown authors, as Murea did in the 16th century when he sent Scaliger his own poems under the name of the forgotten Latin poets Attius and Trobeus. Even the historian J. Balzac created a fictional Latin poet. He included in an edition of Latin poems published in 1665 one in praise of Nero, allegedly found by him on half-decayed parchment and attributed to an unknown contemporary of Nero. This poem was even included in anthologies of Latin poets until the forgery was discovered.

In 1729, Montesquieu published a French translation of a Greek poem in the spirit of Sappho, saying in the preface that these seven songs were written by an unknown poet who lived after Sappho, and he found them in the library of a Greek bishop. Montesquieu later admitted to the hoax.

In 1826 Italian poet Leopardi forged two Greek odes in the style of Anacreon, allegedly written by hitherto unknown poets. He also published his second forgery - a translation of the Latin retelling of the Greek chronicle, dedicated to history church fathers and the description of Mount Sinai.

A famous forgery of ancient classics is the hoax of Pierre Louis, who invented the poetess Bilitis. He published her songs in Mercure de France, and in 1894 he released them separate publication. In the preface, Louis outlined the circumstances of his “discovery” of songs by an unknown Greek poetess of the 6th century BC. and reported that a certain Dr. Heim even found her grave. Two German scientists - Ernst and Willamowitz-Müllendorff - immediately dedicated articles to the newly discovered poetess, and her name was included in the “Dictionary of Writers” by Laulier and Gidel. In the next edition of the Songs, Louis placed her portrait, for which the sculptor Laurent copied one of the terracottas of the Louvre. The success was enormous. Back in 1908, not everyone knew about the hoax, since that year he received a letter from an Athenian professor asking him to indicate where the originals of Bilitis' songs were kept.

Let us note that almost all exposed hoaxes of this kind belong to modern times. This is understandable, because it is almost impossible to catch the hand of a Renaissance humanist who invented a new author. By all accounts, we should therefore expect that at least some of the “ancient” authors were invented by humanists.

Fakes of the new era

Closer to modern times, not only ancient authors were invented. One of the most famous falsifications of this kind are the poems of Ossian, composed by Macpherson (1736-1796), and the poems of Rowley Chatterton, although these forgeries were quickly exposed, but they artistic merit provide them with a prominent place in the history of literature.

There are known forgeries of La Fontaine, letters of Byron, Shelley, Keats, novels by W. Scott, F. Cooper and plays by Shakespeare.

A special group among modern forgeries consists of writings (mainly letters and memoirs) attributed to some celebrity. There are several dozen of them known (only the most famous).

In the 19th century, “antique” forgeries continued, but, as a rule, they were no longer associated with antiquity. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, a manuscript “found” by the Jerusalem merchant Shapiro, allegedly from the 1st millennium, telling about the wandering of the Jews in the desert after the exodus from Egypt, caused a sensation.

In 1817, philologist Vaclav Hanka (1791 -1861) in the church small town The Royal Court on the Elbe allegedly found a parchment on which were written in ancient letters epic poems and lyrical songs of the XIII-XIV centuries. Subsequently, he “discovered” many other texts, for example, an ancient translation of the Gospel. In 1819 he became the custodian of literary collections, and from 1823 - librarian of the National Czech Museum in Prague. There is not a single manuscript left in the library to which Ganka did not have a hand. He changed the text, inserted words, pasted in sheets of paper, crossed out paragraphs. He came up with a whole “school” of ancient artists, whose names he wrote down in the original ancient manuscripts that fell into his hands. The exposure of this incredible scale of falsification was accompanied by a deafening scandal.

The famous Winckelmann, founder modern archeology, became a victim of a hoax by the artist Casanova (brother of the famous adventurer), who illustrated his book “Ancient Monuments” (and Winckelmann was a professional archaeologist!).

Casanova supplied Winckelmann with three “ancient” paintings, which, according to him, were taken directly from the walls in Pompeii. Two paintings (with dancers) were made by Casanova himself, and the painting depicting Jupiter and Ganymede was by the painter Raphael Menges. To be convincing, Kazakova composed an absolutely incredible romantic story about a certain officer who allegedly secretly stole these paintings from excavations at night. Winckelmann believed not only in the authenticity of the “relics”, but also in all of Casanova’s fables and described these paintings in his book, noting that “Jupiter’s favorite is undoubtedly one of the most striking figures inherited from the art of antiquity...”.

Kazakova's falsification has the character of mischief, caused by the desire to play a trick on Winckelmann.

Has a similar character famous hoax Merimee, who, fascinated by the Slavs, decided to go to the East to describe them. But this required money. “And I decided,” he himself admits, “to first describe our journey, sell the book, and then spend the fee on checking how right I am in my description.” And so in 1827 he released a collection of songs called “Gusli” under the guise of translations from Balkan languages. The book had big success In particular, Pushkin in 1835 made a pseudo-back translation of the book into Russian, turning out to be more gullible than Goethe, who immediately sensed the hoax. Mérimée introduced the second edition with an ironic preface, mentioning those whom he managed to deceive. Pushkin later wrote: “The poet Mitskevich, a keen-sighted and subtle connoisseur Slavic poetry, did not doubt the authenticity of these songs, and some German wrote a lengthy dissertation about them.” In the latter, Pushkin was absolutely right: these ballads had the greatest success among specialists who had no doubt about their authenticity.

Other falsifications

Examples of forgeries, hoaxes, apocrypha, etc. etc. can be multiplied indefinitely. We talked only about the most famous ones. Let's give a few more scattered examples.

In the history of the development of Kabbalah, the book “Zohar” (“Radiance”) is well known, attributed to Tanai Simon ben Yochai, whose life is shrouded in the thick fog of legend. M.S. Belenky writes: “However, it has been established that its author was the mystic Moses de Leon (1250-1305). The historian Gren said about him: “One can only doubt whether he was selfish or a pious deceiver...” Moses de Leon wrote several works of a Kabbalistic nature, but they brought neither fame nor money. Then the unlucky writer came up with the right means to open hearts and wallets wide. He began writing under a false name, but one that enjoyed authority. A clever forger passed off his Zohar as the work of Simon ben Jochai... The forgery of Moses de Leon was a success and made a strong impression on the believers. The Zohar has been deified for centuries by advocates of mysticism as a heavenly revelation.”

One of the most famous Hebraists of modern times is L. Goldschmidt, who spent more than twenty years on the critical edition of the first full translation into German of the Babylonian Talmud. In 1896 (when he was 25 years old), Goldschmidt published a supposedly newly discovered Talmudic work in Aramaic, “The Book of Peacemaking.” However, it was almost immediately proven that this book was Goldschmidt’s own translation of the Ethiopian work Hexameron, pseudo-Epiphanius.

Voltaire found a manuscript commenting on the Vedas in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. He had no doubt that the manuscript was written by Brahmins before Alexander the Great went to India. Voltaire's authority helped publish in 1778 French translation this essay. However, it soon became clear that Voltaire had fallen victim to a hoax.

In India, in the library of missionaries, forged commentaries of the same religious and political nature on other parts of the Vedas, also attributed to the Brahmins, were found. The English Sanskritologist Joyce was misled by a similar forgery, when he translated the verses he discovered from the Purana, outlining the story of Noah and written by some Hindu in the form of an ancient Sanskrit manuscript.

The discovery of the Italian antiquarian Curzio caused a great sensation at the time. In 1637, he published Fragments of Etruscan Antiquity, allegedly based on manuscripts he found buried in the ground. The forgery was quickly exposed: Curzio himself buried the parchment he had written to give it an antique look.

In 1762, the chaplain of the Order of Malta, Vella, accompanying the Arab ambassador to Palermo, decided to “help” historians of Sicily find materials to cover its Arab period. After the ambassador's departure, Vella spread a rumor that the diplomat had given him an ancient Arabic manuscript containing correspondence between the authorities of Arabia and the Arab governors of Sicily. In 1789, an Italian “translation” of this manuscript was published.

Three Indias. In 1165, a Letter from Prester John to Emperor Emmanuel Komnenos appeared in Europe (according to Gumilyov, this happened in 1145). The letter was allegedly written in Arabic and then translated into Latin. The letter made such an impression that Pope Alexander III in 1177 sent his envoy to the presbyter, who was lost somewhere in the vastness of the east. The letter described the kingdom of Nestorian Christians somewhere in India, its miracles and untold riches. During the second crusade serious hopes were placed on the military assistance of this kingdom of Christians; no one thought to doubt the existence of such a powerful ally.
Soon the letter was forgotten, and they returned to the search for the magical kingdom several times (In the 15th century they searched for it in Ethiopia, then in China). So it was only in the 19th century that scientists came up with the idea to deal with this fake.
However, to understand that this is a fake, you don’t have to be an expert. The letter is full of details typical of European medieval fantasy. Here is a list of animals living in the Three Indies: “
“Elephants, dromedaries, camels, Meta collinarum (?), Cametennus (?), Tinserete (?), panthers, forest donkeys, white and red lions, polar bears, white whiting (?), cicadas, eagle griffins, ... horned people , one-eyed, people with eyes in front and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, giants, cyclops, the phoenix bird and almost all breeds of animals living on earth ... "
(quoted from Gumilyov, “In Search of an Imaginary Kingdom)

Modern content analysis has shown that the letter was composed in the second quarter of the 12th century in Languedoc or Northern Italy.

Protocols Elders of Zion . “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a collection of texts that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia and became widespread throughout the world, which was presented by its publishers as documents of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Some of them claimed that these were minutes of reports of participants in the Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. The texts set out plans for the Jews to gain world domination, penetrate the government structures of states, take non-Jews under control, and eradicate other religions. Although the Protocols have long been proven to be an anti-Semitic hoax, there are still many supporters of their authenticity. This point of view is especially widespread in the Islamic world. In some countries, the study of the Protocols is even included in the school curriculum.

The document that split the church.

For 600 years, the heads of the Roman Church used the Deed of Constantine (Constitutum Constantini) to maintain their authority as stewards of Christendom.

Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor (306-337) to convert to Christianity. It was claimed that he donated half of his empire in 315 AD. e. in gratitude for the acquisition new faith and miraculous healing from leprosy. The deed of gift, a document in which the fact of the donation was attested, gave the Roman diocese spiritual authority over all churches and temporary authority over Rome, all of Italy and the West. Those who try to prevent this, it is written in the Deed of Dedication, “will burn in hell and perish with the devil and all the wicked.”

The deed of gift, 3,000 words long, first appeared in the 9th century and became powerful weapon in the dispute between the Eastern and Western churches. The dispute culminated in the split of the church in 1054 into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Church.

Ten popes quoted the document, and its authenticity was not in doubt until the 15th century, when Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), the greatest theologian of his time, pointed out that the Bishop of Eusebius, a contemporary and biographer of Constantine, did not even mention this gift .

The document is now almost universally accepted as a forgery, most likely fabricated by Rome around 760. Moreover, the falsification was not well thought out. For example, the document transfers power over Constantinople to the Roman diocese - a city that did not yet exist as such!

It is not surprising that the French philosopher Voltaire called it “the most shameless and astonishing falsification that has dominated the world for many centuries.”

Hoaxer and joker Leo Taxil

In 1895, Taxil’s essay “The Secrets of Gehenna, or Miss Diana Vaughan *, her exposure of Freemasonry, the cult and the appearances of the devil” caused a lot of noise. Taxil, under the fictitious name of Hermanus, reported that Diana Vaughan, the daughter of the supreme devil Bitru, was engaged for ten years to the commander of 14 demonic regiments, the voluptuous Asmodeus, and made a honeymoon trip to Mars with him. Soon Dr. Hux demonstrated Diana Vaughan to a large clerical audience.

Having repented of her “error” and returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church, the “devil’s wife” Vaughan corresponded with major church leaders and received letters from Cardinal Parochi, who gave her the blessing of the pope.

On September 25, 1896, in the Italian city of Triente, on the initiative of Taxil, an international congress of the Anti-Masonic Union created by Leo XIII was held. There were 36 bishops and 61 journalists at the congress. Taxil's portrait hung on the podium among the images of saints. Diana Vaughan spoke at the convention as living proof of Masonic Lucifernism.

However, articles ridiculing the “devil’s wife” have already appeared in the press. In July 1896, Margiotti broke relations with his comrades, threatening exposure.

A few months later, an article by Hacks, who turned out to be the author of the anti-religious essay “Gesture,” appeared in German and French newspapers, which reported that “all revelations of Freemasonry were pure blackmail.” “When the papal epistle appeared against the Freemasons as allies of the devil,” Hux wrote, “I decided that it would help extort money from the gullible. I consulted with Leo Taxil and several friends and together we conceived “The Devil of the 19th Century.”

"When I was inventing incredible stories For example, about the devil, who in the morning turned into a young lady who dreamed of marrying a freemason, and in the evening turned into a crocodile playing the piano, my colleagues, laughing until they cried, said: “You are going too far!” You'll ruin the whole joke! I answered them: “This will do!” And it really did." Hux ended the article with the statement that he was now stopping all myth-making about Satan and the Freemasons, and with the money raised from the spread of anti-Masonic fables, he was opening a restaurant in Paris where he would feed sausages and sausages as plentifully as he fed the gullible public with his fairy tales.”

A few days later, Margiotti appeared in print and announced that his entire book, “The Cult of Satan,” was part of a hoax conceived by Taxil. On April 14, 1897, in the huge hall of the Paris Geographical Society, Taxil said that his anti-Masonic writings were the greatest hoax of modern times, aimed at ridiculing the gullible clergy. "The Devil's Wife" Diana Vaughan turned out to be Taxil's secretary.

The scandal turned out to be huge. Pope Leo XIII anathematized Taxil. In the same 1897, Taxil published a satire on the Old Testament - “The Funny Bible” (Russian translation: M., 1962), and soon its continuation - “The Funny Gospel” (Russian translation: M., 1963).

Reasons for falsification

The reasons for falsification are as diverse as life itself.

Little is documented about the incentives to falsify in the Middle Ages. Therefore, we are forced to analyze this issue using materials from modern times. However, there is no reason why the results obtained from this material general conclusions are not applicable to more distant times.

1. An extensive class of forgeries consists of purely literary hoaxes and stylizations. As a rule, if a hoax was successful, its authors quickly and proudly revealed their deception (a striking example is the Mérimée hoax, as well as the Louis hoax).

The passages from Cicero that Sigonius falsified apparently belong to the same class.

If such a hoax is done skillfully, but the author for some reason did not admit to it, it is very difficult to reveal it.

It’s scary to think how many such hoaxes were made during the Renaissance (as a bet, as a joke, to test one’s abilities, etc.), which were later taken seriously. However, one might think that this kind of “ancient” writings belonged only to “small-format” genres (poems, excerpts, letters, etc.).

2. Close to them lie falsifications, in which a young author tries to assert his “I” or test his strength in a genre that guaranteed him protection in case of failure. The forgeries of Macpherson and Chatterton, say, clearly belong to this class (in the latter case the rare pathology of complete identification with beloved ancient authors manifested itself). In response to the theater's lack of attention to his plays, Colonne responded with a fake of Molière, etc.

Let us note that, as a rule, the most well-known falsifiers of this type did not stand out for anything special in the future. Ireland, who forged Shakespeare, became a mediocre writer.

3. Even more malicious are the falsifications made by a young philologist in order to quickly become famous (example - Wagenfeld). More mature men of science falsified in order to prove this or that position (Prolucius) or fill gaps in our knowledge (Higuera).

4. “Filling in” falsifications also include biographies of fantastic personalities like “Saint Veronica”, etc.

5. Many falsifiers were driven (in combination with other motives) by political or ideological considerations (Ganka).

6. A special case of the latest falsifications should be considered the monastic falsifications of the “church fathers”, decrees of popes, etc.

7. Very often a book was apocryphal in antiquity because of its accusatory, anti-clerical or freethinking nature, when its publication was under own name was fraught with dire consequences.

8. Finally, last but not least important is the factor of basic profit. There are so many examples that they need not be cited.

Exposing falsifications

If the falsification is done skillfully, then its exposure presents enormous difficulties and, as a rule (if the falsifier himself does not confess), occurs purely by chance (for example, Sigonius). Since history tends to forget about its falsifications, as time passes, exposing the falsification becomes increasingly difficult (for example, Tacitus). Therefore, there is no doubt that many falsifications (especially humanistic ones) still remain unexposed.

In this regard, information about the circumstances of the finds of certain manuscripts is of particular interest. As we saw with the example of Tacitus and will see later with the example of many other works “discovered” during the Renaissance, this information is very scarce and contradictory. It contains almost no names, and only tells about “nameless monks” who brought priceless manuscripts “from somewhere in the north” that lay “in oblivion” for many centuries. Therefore, it is impossible to judge the authenticity of the manuscripts on its basis. On the contrary, the very inconsistency of this information leads (as in the case of Tacitus) to serious doubts.

It is very strange that, as a rule, there is no information about the circumstances of the finds of manuscripts even in the 19th century! Either they report unverifiable information: “bought at an oriental bazaar,” “found in the basement of a monastery secretly (!) from the monks,” or they are completely silent. We will return to this more than once, but for now we will just quote the famous scientist prof. Zelinsky:

“The year 1891 will long remain memorable in the history of classical philology; He brought us, not to mention small novelties, two large and precious gifts - Aristotle’s book on the Athenian state and Herodes’ everyday scenes. To what happy accident we owe these two discoveries - a stubborn and significant silence is observed about this by those who should know: only the very fact of the accident remains undoubted, and with the establishment of this fact, any need to ask oneself the question is eliminated ... "

And, really, it wouldn’t hurt to ask “those who should know” where they got these manuscripts from. After all, as examples show, neither high academic titles nor generally accepted honesty in everyday life guarantee against counterfeiting. However, as Engels noted, there are no more gullible people than scientists.

It is worth noting that the above is only very brief an excursion into the history of forgeries (and only literary ones, but there are also epigraphic, archaeological, anthropological and many, many others - several of them will be devoted to further posts), in which only a few of them are presented. In reality, they much more, and these are just the famous ones. And no one knows how many fakes have still not been revealed. One thing is certain - many, very many.

This is a literary hoax text or fragment of text, the author of which attributes its creation to a figurehead, real or fictitious. Literary mystification is the opposite of plagiarism: the plagiarist borrows someone else’s word without citing the author; the hoaxer, on the contrary, attributes his word to someone else. The main difference between a literary hoax and an ordinary text is the creation of an image of the author, within the imaginary boundaries of the mental, social and linguistic world which the work arises. the dummy author is embodied in the style of the text, therefore literary hoax always involves stylization, imitation of the literary language of a particular author or imitation of the style of the era, within the boundaries of which the social and cultural idiolect of the fictional author is created. Literary mystification, therefore, is a convenient form both for experimentation in the field of style and for inheriting a stylistic tradition. From the point of view of the type of false authorship, literary hoaxes are divided into three groups:

1. Imitating ancient monuments, the name of the author of which has not been preserved or has not been named (“Kraledvor Manuscript”);
2. Attributed to historical or legendary persons (“Wortingern and Rowena”, 1796, issued by W. G. Ireland for a newly discovered play by W. Shakespeare; continuation of Pushkin’s “Rusalka”, performed by D. P. Zuev; “The Poems of Ossian”, 1765, J. Macpherson );
3. Forwarded to fictional authors: “deceased” (“Belkin’s Tales”, 1830, A.S. Pushkin, “The Life of Vasily Travnikov”, 1936, V.F. Khodasevich) or “living” (Cherubina de Gabriak, E. Azhar); for the sake of credibility, the fictional author is provided with a biography, and the real author can act as his publisher and/or executor.

Some works, which subsequently gained worldwide fame, were performed in the form of literary hoaxes (“Gulliver’s Travels”, 1726, J. Swift, “Robinson Crusoe”, 1719, D. Defoe, “Don Quixote”, 1605-15, M. Cervantes; "History of New York, 1809, W. Irving).

An important property of a literary hoax is the temporary appropriation of someone else's name by its author.. The hoaxer literally creates the text on behalf of another; the name is the prototype of language and the only reality of the imaginary author. From here increased attention to the name and its internal form. The name in a literary hoax is connected, on the one hand, with the language and architectonics of the text (for example, the testimony of E.I. Dmitrieva about the rootedness of the name Cherubina de Gabriak in the poetic fabric of works written in her name), and on the other hand, with the name of the real author (anagram , cryptogram, double translation effect, etc.). The misconception of the reader and the discovery of a forgery, two stages of the reception of a literary hoax, follow not from the gullibility of the reader, but from the very nature of the name, which does not allow, within the boundaries of literary reality, to distinguish between its real and imaginary bearers. The goal is an aesthetic and/or life-creative experiment. This is what distinguishes it from forgeries, the authors of which are guided solely by mercantile considerations (for example, Gutenberg’s companion I. Fust sold the first Mainz Bibles at exorbitant prices in Paris, passing them off as handwritten books), and intentional distortions of a historical event or biography of a historical person. Fakes historical monuments(“The Tale of Two Embassies”, “Correspondence of Ivan the Terrible with the Turkish Sultan” - both 17th century) and biographical perjury (“Letters and notes of Ommer de Gelle”, 1933, composed by P.P. Vyazemsky) are quasi-mystifications.

The history of the study of literary hoaxes began with their collection. The first experiments in cataloging literary hoaxes date back to the period of the late Middle Ages - the beginning of the Renaissance and are associated with the need to attribute ancient texts. Attribution experiments of ancient and medieval monuments laid the scientific foundations of textual criticism and textual criticism both in Europe (criticism of the “Donation of Constantine”) and in Russia, where partial examinations of manuscripts were carried out since the 17th century. By the beginning of the 19th century, extensive material had been accumulated for compiling reference books and classifying types of fictitious authorship: literary hoaxes, pseudonyms, plagiarism, forgeries. At the same time, it became clear that compiling an exhaustive catalog of literary hoaxes is impossible, the science of literature is powerless to verify its entire archive, and philological methods for determining the authenticity of a text, especially in the absence of an autograph, are extremely unreliable and can produce contradictory results. In the 20th century, the study of literary hoax ceased to be exclusively a problem of textual criticism and copyright law; it began to be considered in the context of the history and theory of literature. In Russia, E.L. Lann first spoke about literary mystification as a subject of theoretical research in 1930. Interest in literary mystification was stimulated by attention to the problem of dialogue, “one’s own” and “alien” words, which in the 1920s became one of the central philosophical and philological topics; It is no coincidence that in Lann’s book the influence of M. M. Bakhtin’s ideas is noticeable. Central problem Literary hoax in its theoretical light becomes someone else's name and a word spoken on someone else's behalf. Literary mystification is subject not only to change literary eras and styles, but also to changing ideas about authorship and copyright, about the boundaries of literature and life, reality and fiction. From antiquity to the Renaissance, and in Russia until the beginning of the 19th century, the history of fictitious authorship is dominated by forgeries of ancient manuscript monuments and literary hoaxes attributed to historical or legendary figures.

In Greece from the 3rd century BC. The genre of fictitious letters created on behalf of famous authors of the past is known: the “seven” Greek sages, philosophers and political figures (Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Plato, Hippocrates, etc.). The purpose of the forgery was more often pragmatic: apologetic (making political and philosophical ideas greater authority) or discrediting (for example, Diotima composed 50 letters of obscene content on behalf of Epicurus); less often didactic (exercises in rhetoric schools to acquire skills good style). Literary mystification had the same meaning in literature medieval Europe and in ancient Russian literature. During the Renaissance, its character changes significantly. Literary hoaxes appear and begin to predominate, attributed to fictitious authors, for which the hoaxer composes not only the text, but also the author, his name, biography, and sometimes a portrait. In modern times, the history of literary mystification consists of uneven bursts, the main of which occur in the eras of Baroque, Romanticism, and Modernism, which is associated with the feeling of the world as linguistic creativity inherent in these eras. Literary hoaxes in modern times can be deliberately humorous and parodic in nature: the reader, according to the author’s plan, should not believe in their authenticity (Kozma Prutkov).

From pseudonyms to friendly prank among Russian writers it turned out to be very close. At first, such pranks did not have the nature of a game and were simple “attempts” to present their works under someone else’s name. Here it is worth recalling the classic “Belkin’s Tales”, which belonged to Pushkin, and “Sensations and Remarks of Mrs. Kurdyukova” written by Myatlev. However, the real creators in these cases did not plan to “hide” from readers and put their real names on the covers. However, then real games and hoaxes began among domestic writers.

Thus, it is known that in the mid-19th century the publication of the poem “Woman’s Advocacy” appeared, signed by a certain Evgenia Sarafanova. The Pantheon publishing house publishes this poem, and then receives a letter from the “author”, in which the woman, happy with the publication of the work, thanks the publishing house and asks for some money, since she is in fact a “poor girl.” “Pantheon” sends the fee, and then the real author is announced - G.P. Danilevsky. Later, in order to debunk speculation about the authorship of this poem, he includes it in his collected works.

However, although Mr. Danilevsky was not the only hoaxer of this kind (indeed, there were many similar hoaxes during that period), we will focus only on the two largest hoax events, the scale of which exceeded all previously known attempts at hoaxes.

Kozma Prutkov - we play seriously!

This draw was carried out according to all the rules of a well-thought-out production and in accordance with the genre of urban folklore. This hoax included authors, directors, actors, who were also united by “blood relationship.” All of them were Tolstoy brothers: Alexey Konstantinovich (famous writer) and his three cousins- Alexander, Vladimir and Alexey (Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikovs), who chose one collective pseudonym - Kozma Prutkov.
True, at first Kozma, of course, was Kuzma. And it appeared for the first time as a creative experience of 4 authors in the Sovremennik supplement - “Literary Jumble”.

Literary scholars who subsequently analyzed this phenomenon came to the conclusion that Kozma Prutkov had not only a “collective” parent, but also a “collective” prototype, since in the prototype of the hero of this hoax the researchers saw both the lyrical poet of that time V.V. Benediktov and Fet , and Polonsky, and Khomyakov...

Prutkov, observing all the requirements and conventions of presence in literature, had both his own biography and social status.

So, this “writer” was born in 1803, on April 11. He served in his youth in a hussar regiment, then retired and entered the civilian field - service in the Assay Office, where he reached the rank of state councilor and the position of director. Prutkov appeared in print in 1850, and departed into another world in 1863 on January 13. That is, his literary activity is limited to only 13 years, but, nevertheless, Prutkov’s popularity is great.

The first “germs” of the revelation were already discovered in the biography, since although the Assay Chamber itself really existed, there was no position of director in it. In fact, the institution so called belonged to the department of the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs under the Ministry of Finance, where there were both the Moscow and St. Petersburg Chambers, which were engaged in testing and marking silver and gold. At the Assay Office Northern capital, of course, it also had its own legal address - 51 Catherine Canal Embankment. Moreover, this establishment existed there until 1980. However, the urban folklore of St. Petersburg has retained this name to this day - this is also the name of the Institute of Metrology, which is located on Moskovsky Prospekt, 19. Previously, it was the Chamber of Weights and Measures, and the corresponding samples were actually set there.

In addition to the invented “official data”, the writer Kozma Prutkov was endowed with the real traits of his “parents”, who at that time were already poets (mostly known to A.K. Tolstoy), belonged to the “golden youth” of the capital, and were known as “snarlers” and wits. These pampered people really had amazing tricks behind them that excited and amused the capital.

For example, one day Alexander Zhemchuzhnikov caused a stir when, dressed in an adjutant wing uniform, he visited all the major architects of the capital overnight and gave them orders to appear at the palace, because

He showed up to work in a perfect suit, patent leather boots and a starched collar. Among bohemians, he was known as the “arbiter of proper taste” and even ordered his employees to come to work in tailcoats. Such refined aesthetics and pretentious elegance could almost claim to be the norm in the culture of those years.

After listening to the homely lame woman, Makovsky rejects her poems...

Of course, in his ideas, the modern poetess had to be correlated with the image of an inaccessible and demonic lady, a socialite and a beauty.

It would seem that the plot is exhausted? Elizabeth is denied access to literature forever. But here fate intervenes in the form of another poet - Maximilian Voloshin. He was very talented and extraordinary person. For some time, Voloshin also collaborated with Apollo, although his editor-in-chief did not particularly like him personally. Voloshin was a resident of Kyivian, he worked part of his life in Moscow, part in Koktebel. This poet did not have an understanding with St. Petersburg; he did not like this capital. It was as if Voloshin was a stranger here. On the contrary, in his house in Koktebel he organized a completely different life - with pranks, jokes, caricatures and very sensitive meetings for his friends. However, Maximilian Voloshin deserves a separate and detailed story.

So it was Voloshin who came up with the idea to punish Makovsky for his snobbery and excessive aesthetics and thus protect Dmitrieva (by the way, legend says that the poet himself was not indifferent to this “ugly girl”). Thus, the genre of literary hoax, already half-forgotten since the time of Prutkov, was “resurrected” in the capital.

Together with Dmitrieva, Voloshin creates the image of a fatal beauty, necessary and “desired” for bohemia, who also has hereditary roots in South America! The name is made up of the name of the heroine (Garta-Cherubina) of one American writer and one of the names evil spirits- Gabriak. A beautiful romantic pseudonym came out - Cherubina de Gabriak.

The poems signed by this lady were written on beautiful and expensive paper, sealed with wax with the inscription on the seal - “Vae vintis!” or "Woe to the vanquished."

Voloshin hoped a little that this inscription would “open the eyes” of Makovsky. The goal of the hoaxers was to publish Dmitrieva’s poems, and it was achieved! The femme fatale became a literary sensation in the capital. As expected, all the writers were immediately fascinated and in love with the mysterious stranger. And even Makovsky sent the poetess luxurious bouquets. Everyone knew her poems, everyone talked about her, but no one saw her.

As usual, the hoax was not without love “adventures” and even a duel. About this romantic story we wrote in the section of literary duels. It was because of Cherubina that Voloshin and Gumilev met on the Black River. The first defended the lady's honor, the second longed for satisfaction for the slap he received from Max. The background to this duel includes Gumilev’s invitation to marry him, to which Cherubina refused, after receiving which Gumilev publicly speaks about the mysterious stranger in offensive and frank terms.

The duel was bloodless, but with the consequences of exposure. It is believed that Elizaveta Ivanovna began to be tormented by her conscience, and she decided to stop the hoax by confessing everything to Makovsky.

Cherubina confesses, Makovsky is stunned, but pretends that he was aware of the adventure.

Game over…

It's interesting that the life of a teacher primary classes with a modest salary in the future also remained a secret. So, no one knows for sure anything about her life or burial place. As if she died either in 1925, or in 1931, or in Turkmenistan, or on Solovki. It is known that in her marriage she is Vasilyeva, and allegedly she and her husband were sent into exile on the “Academic Case”. However, already in our time another collection of her poems was published under real name, and they turned out to be not at all mediocre...

August 3 in the New building of the Russian national library(Moskovsky Ave., 165) the exhibition “Under a False Name: Pseudonyms and Literary Hoaxes” began its work.

The exhibition presents the work of famous domestic and foreign writers who worked under pseudonyms or deliberately attributed authorship to a real person or passed off their works as folk art.

During the Renaissance, interest in ancient authors and their texts was so high that, together with previously unknown authentic works of ancient authors, numerous forgeries, so-called imaginary translations, began to appear. Many researchers call Homer's poems the first literary hoax. The personality of Homer, in their opinion, was invented, and the works attributed to him were the fruit of collective labor. Today it is difficult to find out which of the ancient works are real and which are Renaissance hoaxes.

The most famous master of passing off his own texts as someone else’s was English writer and publicist Daniel Defoe. Of the 500 books he wrote, only 4 were published under his real name, and the rest were attributed to historical and fictitious personalities. Defoe himself acted only as a publisher. So, for example, three volumes of “The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” were written by a “sailor from York”, “The History of the Wars of Charles XII, King of Sweden” - by a “Scottish officer in Swedish service”, “Notes of a Cavalier” were given to him as the memoirs of a nobleman, who lived in the 17th century, during the Great Rebellion, and “The Narrative of All the Robberies, Escapes and Other Deeds of John Sheppard” - for the suicide notes written in prison by the real-life famous robber John Sheppard. The exhibition features Daniel Defoe's richly illustrated two-volume work Robinson Crusoe and His Interesting Adventures, Narrated by Himself (with 200 drawings engraved on stone, 1870).

The literary hoax “The Song of Ossian”, created by the most talented English poet and literary critic George Macpherson, who wrote in 1760-1763 on behalf of the Scottish bard Ossian, who supposedly lived in the 3rd century, also entered history.

Among the popular hoaxers, it is worth mentioning Prosper Merimee, who secretly published a collection of plays “Gusli” (“Guzla”) with notes and a portrait of the “author”, a collector of folklore, a fictional guslar named Iakinf Maglanovich. The hoax turned out to be successful: Adam Mickiewicz and Alexander Pushkin, who translated 11 ballads into Russian for his collection “Songs”, took Gusli for real Slavic folklore Western Slavs". Pushkin, by the way, was no stranger to hoaxes, publishing the famous "Belkin's Tales", the poet himself acted only as a publisher.

In Russia over the past two hundred years, literary hoaxes and hoaxers have been encountered in abundance. The fictional Kozma Prutkov, created by Alexei Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers, was endowed with his own biography, personal qualities and literary reference points and was a parody of the literary official.

The book “Leaving the World Unsolved...” (2009) will introduce exhibition guests to the biography of the Russian poetess Elizaveta Vasilyeva (Dmitrieva) and the image of the mysterious beauty Cherubina de Gabriac, created by her and Maximilian Voloshin and which became the loudest hoax of the Silver Age.

Visitors will also learn about other literary hoaxers, including the American Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), the Frenchman Emil Azhar (Roman Leibovich Katsev), compatriots Andrei Bely (Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev), Sasha Cherny (Alexander Mikhailovich Glikberg) and Boris Akunin (Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili) ... What forced these and many other writers, undoubtedly talented and brilliant, to hide their faces behind someone else’s mask, giving up the rights to own works? Visitors to the exhibition will learn about the causes and consequences of such phenomena in world literature from such publications as “The History of Literary Hoaxes: “From Homer to the Internet” by Vitaly Vulf and Serafima Chebotar (2003), as well as from the book “Disguised Literature” by Valentin Dmitriev (1973 Among the publications that also deserve special attention, it should be noted the book "The illustrated Mark Twain" (2000). A literary mask, often completely replacing the personality of the writer, is a necessary element of hoax, the authors explain. According to researchers , play, as an unconditional condition for any creativity, takes on exaggerated proportions among hoaxers. The creator of a hoax can often create only in the mask he has invented, creating his own own world and the only inhabitant in it. The mask helps to move away from imposed restrictions - class, stylistic, historical... and the author, as it were, is born again.

Today, virtual reality, which has settled on the Internet, provides unlimited opportunities for various kinds of hoaxes, putting existing people and fictional characters. Both those and others only have email address and the ability to generate text...

Materials for the exhibition were provided by the Russian Book and Russian Magazine Funds, the Foreign Book and Foreign Magazine Funds, as well as the Central Reference Library, the Printmaking Department and the Microform Fund.

Admission with a library card.

A hoax is an attempt to mislead someone (readers, the public, etc.) by presenting a non-existent phenomenon or fact as real. Literary hoaxes are considered to be works whose authorship is attributed to another person (real or fictitious) or folk art.

The custom of encrypting your last name or replacing it with another dates back to time immemorial. Not always under literary work costs true surname its creator. For various reasons, authorship is often disguised. We invite you to learn more about the most striking literary hoaxes of the 20th century and the pseudonyms of writers.

Nickname Cherubina de Gabriac

Hoax In the fall of 1909, a letter in a purple envelope arrives at the editorial office of Apollo magazine. The editor of the magazine, esthete Sergei Makovsky, carefully opening the envelope, sees snow-white sheets of poetry, which are perfumed and arranged with dry leaves. The poems are signed very briefly - “H”. Makovsky convenes the entire editorial staff, consisting mainly of young men, and they read poetry together. Their lines are bright, spicy, and they decide to publish them immediately. Illustrations for them are made by Evgeny Lanceray himself, one of the leading artists of those years. A mysterious writer periodically calls the editor and reports something about herself. For example, that her name is Cherubina de Gabriac, that she is Spanish, but writes in Russian, that she is beautiful and deeply unhappy. Literary Russia is going crazy with delight, the entire editorial staff of Apollo is in absentia in love with a stranger.

Exposure Until her incognito identity was revealed, Elizaveta Dmitrieva, a teacher at the Petrovskaya Women's Gymnasium, wrote caustic critical notes on her own behalf about the poems of Cherubina de Gabriac and wondered if this was a hoax - provoking the literary community to conduct their own investigations and thereby fueling interest in the mysterious Spanish woman , that is, actually creating a “famous poetess” out of thin air. This is partly why everything was revealed quite quickly: already at the end of 1909, the poet Mikhail Kuzmin found out that it was Dmitrieva who spoke on the phone on behalf of de Gabriak, a very smart and talented girl, but not at all a beauty, and in addition, she was also lame. The St. Petersburg gentlemen who fell in love with the Spanish beauty in absentia were severely disappointed. At the end of 1910, another selection of Cherubina’s poems appeared in Apollo, with the final poem “Meeting,” signed with the poetess’s real name. The revelation turned into a severe creative crisis for Dmitrieva: after the break with Gumilyov and Voloshin and the scandalous duel between the two poets, Dmitrieva fell silent for a long time. However, in 1927, while in exile, at the suggestion of a close friend of recent years, sinologist and translator Yu. Shchutsky, she created another literary hoax - the seven-line cycle “The House under the Pear Tree”, written on behalf of the “philosopher Li Xiang Tzu”, exiled to a foreign land “for his belief in the immortality of the human spirit.”

The meaning of the hoax Maximilian Voloshin liked Dmitrieva’s poems, but when he brought the poetess to Makovsky, one of the publishers of Apollo, he was not impressed. Perhaps because Elizabeth herself seemed unsightly to him. Voloshin and Dmitrieva conceived the hoax in the summer of 1909 in Koktebel: a sonorous pseudonym and a literary mask of a mysterious Catholic beauty were invented.

Quote“I stand at a great crossroads. I left you. I won't write poetry anymore. I don't know what I'll do. Max, you brought out the power of creativity in me for a moment, but then took it away from me forever. Let my poems be a symbol of my love for you” (from a letter from Elizaveta Dmitrieva to Maximilian Voloshin).

Poetry

Alias ​​Max Fry

Hoax Since 1996, the St. Petersburg publishing house "Azbuka" began publishing books by the writer Max Frei. Genre: fantasy with elements of parody. The novels gradually gained popularity, and by 2001 Max Fry had become one of the most published Russian science fiction writers. Eventually, the author's popularity grew to such an extent that it became necessary to present it to the public: Fry became a real star.

Exposure Max Fry is not listed among foreign authors; for Russia such a first and last name is atypical - that means it is a pseudonym, everyone decided. The publisher joked that Max Fry was a blue-eyed black man. This continued until the fall of 2001, when on Dmitry Dibrov’s television program the host introduced Svetlana Martynchik to the audience as the real author of Max Frei’s books. And then a scandal broke out: Martynchik accused ABC of trying to register “Max Fry” as a trademark and get literary blacks to write for her.

The meaning of the hoax In the 1990s, against the backdrop of the flow of foreign science fiction pouring into the domestic market, Russian authors became somewhat lost. As a result, books of domestic origin began to appear, but under foreign names. Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky wrote on behalf of Henry Lyon Oldie, and Elena Khaetskaya became Madeline Simons. For the same reason, the pseudonym “Max Fry” was born. By the way, Fry’s books always bear the copyright of Martynchik herself. In fact, we are talking about a publishing, not a writer's, hoax: the figure of the author is carefully mythologized, and at the moment the pseudonym is revealed, if the author is still popular by that time, you can make good money.

Quote“After the story of the attempt to register the name Max Fry as a trademark was revealed, they [Azbuka publishing house] quickly suggested to me: let’s put the guys in prison, and they will write books - candidates philological sciences, not less! So, they will write a book per quarter, and for this they will pay me one hundred thousand rubles, also per quarter” (from an interview with Svetlana Martynchik).

P.S. You can take books from the series “Labyrinths of Echo” at central library, city children's and youth library, library named after L.A. Gladina.

Pseudonym Boris Akunin

Hoax In 1998, the detective novel “Azazel” was published about the adventures of the young St. Petersburg detective Erast Fandorin. The author is listed on the cover - Boris Akunin. The genre - “intelligent historical detective story” - turned out to be in demand, although not immediately. At the beginning of the 2000s, Akunin's books became bestsellers, and conversations began about film adaptations, which meant much more money for the author than just royalties for novels.

Exposure As Akunin's books became more popular and their audience wider, a variety of assumptions were put forward, including that the author was actually Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Tatyana Tolstaya. However, already in 2000 it became known that under this pseudonym was hiding a Japanese translator, deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine “Foreign Literature” Grigory Chkhartishvili. He himself admitted this, giving several interviews and beginning to appear in public not only as Chkhartishvili, but also as Akunin.

The meaning of the hoax Throughout the 90s, writing popular “low genre” books, that is, detective stories and thrillers, was considered an unworthy occupation. intelligent person: the author should not have been smarter than his works. Moreover, as the writer himself admitted in an interview, bookstore merchandisers would never have pronounced Chkhartishvili’s name anyway. But Boris Akunin speaks easily and immediately sets the school-graduated reader in the mood for the classics of the 19th century. "Aku-nin" means " bad person", "scoundrel." According to another version, this pseudonym was chosen in honor of the famous Russian anarchist Bakunin. Well, maybe.

Quote“I needed a pseudonym because this type of writing is very different from all my other activities. When Akunin sits down at the computer and starts pounding on the keyboard, his thoughts don’t work the same way as Chkhartishvili’s. writing an article or essay. We are so different. Akunin is significantly kinder than me. This is the first thing. Secondly, he, unlike me, is an idealist. And thirdly, he firmly knows that God exists, for which I envy him” (from an interview with Grigory Chkhartishvili).

P.S. You can borrow B. Akunin’s books from any library in Apatity.

NicknamesAnatoly Brusnikin, Anna Borisova

Hoax In the fall of 2007, all of Moscow was covered with advertisements for the novel “The Ninth Savior.” The author is an unknown Anatoly Brusnikin. According to rumors, in advertising campaign The AST publishing house invested up to a million dollars - colossal money even for the pre-crisis book market. It is unlikely that a little-known writer could qualify for such an investment. To the usual reviews in decent publications, suspiciously laudatory texts in the yellow press are added, and the writer Elena Chudinova claims that the plot of the book was stolen from her. In addition to “The Ninth Savior,” “Hero of Another Time” and “Bellona” were also released.

Exposure Suspicion quickly falls on Grigory Chkhartishvili: the action of the novel takes place at the end of the seventeenth century, and the book is written in the language of the nineteenth century, like the novels of Boris Akunin. Well, the pseudonym is painfully similar: both here and there “A. B." The search for the true author takes place mainly in the tabloids and is fueled by the publishing house itself: some facts are periodically leaked to the press, for example, an indistinct photograph of Brusnikin, where he either looks like Chkhartishvili, or doesn’t look like him. Meanwhile, at the beginning of 2008, the Atticus publishing group, which has much less financial resources, published the novel “There” by another unknown author, Anna Borisova (and also “The Creative” and “Vremena Goda”). Finally, in mid-January 2012, writer Grigory Chkhartishvili officially announced on his blog that Anatoly Brusnikin and Anna Borisova are him.

The meaning of the hoax By inventing Borisova and Brusnikin, Chkhartishvili set up an experiment - on himself and the publishing market. Can publishers promote an unknown writer from scratch and will readers accept this writer? How much money do you need for this? Which genres is the market ready to accept and which ones is not? In fact, the hoax turned into an entire marketing research.

Quote“I was occupied with the following business problem. Suppose there is some unknown writer, in which the publishing house is ready to seriously invest, because it firmly believes in the promise of this author. How to proceed? How much money should you invest in promotion so as not to remain in the red? What techniques should I use? What is the sequence of steps? I talked on this topic one-on-one with Jan Helemsky, head of the AST publishing house. I remember I was flattered that he said, without even reading the manuscript of Brusnikin’s first novel: “I’m in the game, I’m very interested in this”” (from Grigory Chkhartishvili’s blog).

P.S. You can borrow A. Brusnikin’s books “The Nine Savior” and “Hero of Another Time” in the central library, the city children’s and youth library, the library named after L.A. Gladina, and the family reading library. And A. Borisova’s books “There” and “Vremena goda” are in the central library and the family reading library.

Nickname: Holm van Zaitchik

Hoax Since 2000, seven novels have been published in Russian under common name“Eurasian Symphony” by a certain Dutch writer and humanist Holm van Zaichik about a utopian-sympathetic parallel historical reality in which China, the Mongol Empire and Rus' are united into one superpower Ordus. These stories simultaneously belong to the genres alternative history and a detective story, mixed with Chinese stylization, thickly flavored with political propaganda with the addition of love lines and a huge number of well-recognized quotes.

Exposure The mystery of Van Zaitchik was an open secret from the very beginning, although parody interviews were published in the name of the “humanist”. The fact that two St. Petersburg authors were hiding behind this pseudonym, which refers to the name of the Dutchman Robert van Gulik (one of the greatest orientalists of the twentieth century and the author of the famous detective stories about Judge Dee), became known a year later, when they began to receive money for their project. literary prizes at science fiction festivals, and then honestly admit in interviews that it’s them.

The meaning of the hoax The frankly ironic content of the work (a utopia parodying Russian history, and even many of the characters have real prototypes among friends and acquaintances of the authors) encouraged the co-authors to continue the game. At the same time, the serious science fiction writer Rybakov and the serious historian Alimov would look bad as authors on the cover of such a book. But the openly bantering van Zaychik is very good. At the turn of the millennium, literature gravitated towards dystopias, no one wrote utopias, and additional literary play was required to justify positive prose.

Quote“I love utopias. Their appearance is always a harbinger of a sharp historical breakthrough. We've eaten too much dystopia. Every appearance of utopias foreshadows leaps in development. The rejection of utopia is, in principle, the rejection of historical effort in general. Easy, accessible skeptical disbelief that things can and should be good here” (from an interview with Vyacheslav Rybakov).

P.S. You can borrow all of Holm van Zaitchik's books from the central library, the city children's and youth library, and the family reading library.

Pseudonym Mikhail Ageev

Hoax In 1934, the book “A Romance with Cocaine” was published in Paris - a confessional story of the protagonist’s coming of age in pre- and post-revolutionary Moscow against the backdrop of historical events. The novel was liked by most famous emigre authors and critics, including Merezhkovsky and Khodasevich. Even then it was believed that this was someone’s pseudonym, since no other texts (except for the story published along with the novel) were listed as Ageev’s, and the author of one book who appeared out of nowhere is an extremely suspicious phenomenon. In the 1980s, the novel was republished in the West, and it was a great success. In the 90s he reached Russia. Intelligent schoolchildren and students read to him, and perhaps it was he who influenced Pelevin when he wrote Chapaev and Emptiness.

Exposure For a long time there was popular version that Ageev is none other than Vladimir Nabokov: the biographical facts of Nabokov and the main character of “An Affair with Cocaine” coincided, structurally this thing was reminiscent of Nabokov’s early works, and finally, the names of the characters were often found in Nabokov’s texts. At the same time, the famous poetess Lydia Chervinskaya insisted that the author was a certain Marco Levi, but her version was not taken into account. Finally, in 1996, thanks to the efforts of literary scholars Gabriel Superfin and Marina Sorokina, it turned out that the author's name is really Levi, but not Marco, but Mark. The fact is that the novel quite accurately describes the Moscow private Kreiman gymnasium, where Mark Levy actually studied in the years described by the author. All questions were finally resolved in 1997, when letters from Levi himself were found and published, in which he negotiated the publication of his book.

The meaning of the hoax The biography of the real author of “A Romance with Cocaine” is full of blank spots. It is known that in the 1920s - 1930s he wandered around Europe, studied in Germany, worked in France, possibly collaborated with Soviet intelligence, exchanged Soviet citizenship for Paraguayan, and then returned Soviet citizenship. After the war he lived in Yerevan, where he died in 1973. Given such a biography and in that historical situation, publishing a confessional novel under a pseudonym seems a reasonable precaution: the author invented a “writer” who is not connected with the outside world by political, social or other obligations, and therefore is free to say whatever he wants.

Quote“In 1930, he (Levi. - “RR”) left Germany and came to Turkey, where he was engaged in teaching languages ​​and even literary activities. He wrote a book called “The Tale of Cocaine,” which was published in the Parisian emigrant publication “House of Books.” Levi points out that the book is harmless, it does not contain a single word directed against the USSR, and in general it is his forced work, written for the sake of its existence. From the conversations that took place, one could draw the conclusion that Levi, apparently, thought through and realized the depth of the mistake he made and is trying to make amends for it in practical work.” (From a certificate from the Soviet Consulate General in Istanbul).

P.S. You can borrow M. Ageev’s book “A Romance with Cocaine” at the central library and the library named after L.A. Gladina.

Nickname Abram Tertz

Hoax Since the early 1960s, works signed by a certain Abram Tertz began to appear in Russian-language foreign publications. One of the most famous was the story “Lyubimov” - about a small Soviet town in which a bicycle master seized power, became a dictator and began to build real communism. The same author published an ironic and caustic article on socialist realism.

Exposure In the USSR, Tertz’s texts were considered anti-Soviet and discrediting the “Soviet state and social system,” after which the KGB began searching for the author. It is not known exactly how Sinyavsky’s authorship was established - perhaps we are talking about someone’s betrayal or a graphological examination. In 1965-1966, a high-profile trial took place against Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel (he also published in the West under a pseudonym). And although collective letters were received in defense of the writers both from abroad and from many of their Soviet colleagues, nevertheless, the court found them guilty. Sinyavsky received seven years for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. In 1991, the case was reviewed and the verdict was overturned. But there remains a letter from Mikhail Sholokhov, in which he calls the books of Sinyavsky and Daniel “dirt from a puddle.”

The meaning of the hoax Pure precaution. To publish in the West, and even with texts that censorship would never have allowed in the USSR, under one’s own name was pure suicide. By publishing under pseudonyms, the authors tried to protect themselves and their loved ones. However, Sinyavsky continued to publish prose under the name of Abram Tertz even after his release from the camp and departure to emigrate. According to the version voiced by his wife Maria Rozanova after the writer’s death, the pseudonym was taken in honor of the hero of an Odessa criminal song - a pickpocket. By this, Sinyavsky seemed to admit that he was playing a dangerous game. And having become famous under this name, he no longer wanted to give it up: the fictional writer’s biography turned out to be more glorious and exciting than that of the real one.

P.S. You can borrow the collected works of A. Tertz (in 2 volumes) from the central library, city children's and youth library, family reading library, libraries No. 1 and No. 2.

Nickname Emil Azhar

Hoax In 1974, writer Emile Azhar published his debut novel, “Darling.” Critics receive it with a bang, and then the author who writes under this pseudonym is announced - the young writer Paul Pavlovich, nephew of the famous writer Romain Gary. His second novel, “The Whole Life Ahead,” receives the Prix Goncourt, the main literary award France. In total, Azhar has four novels coming out.

Exposure Gary claimed that it was he who discovered the talent of a writer in his nephew. However, some suspicions arose quite quickly: the novels of the debutant Pavlovich were too mature and skillful. However, until Gary’s suicide at the end of 1980, it was not known for certain who Azhar was. A few days before his death, the author completed the essay “The Life and Death of Emile Azhar,” which was published in the summer of 1981, in which he detailed the history of his hoax.

The meaning of the hoax By the mid-1970s, Romain Gary, once a favorite of the public and critics, winner of the Prix Goncourt, was considered worn out and exhausted. By creating a pseudonym, Gary wanted to prove to both his critics and himself that this was not so. As a result, he became the only person in French history to receive the Goncourt Prize twice. But it was the fame that went not to the writer himself, but to the Azhar he invented, that became the cause of a deep mental crisis, and then Gary’s suicide: if at first the writer laughed at the critics who began to chase a new star, then in the end it was someone else’s success, which, in theory , should have belonged to him, began to oppress him.

Quote“I was driven out of my domain. Another one has settled in the mirage I created. Having materialized, Azhar put an end to my ghostly existence in him. The vicissitudes of fate: my dream turned against me” (Romain Gary “The Life and Death of Emile Azhar”).

P.S. Books by R. Gary (“Kites”, “Promise at Dawn”, “The Dance of Genghis Khaim”, “The Light of a Woman”, “Pseudo” and “The Fears of King Solomon” - the last two novels were published under the pseudonym E. Azhar) you can borrow from the central library and other city libraries.

Writers' pseudonyms

Anna Akhmatova

Gorenko Anna Andreevna (1889-1966)

Russian poet. For her pseudonym, Anna Gorenko chose the surname of her great-grandmother, who descended from the Tatar Khan Akhmat. Later she said: “Only a seventeen-year-old crazy girl could choose a Tatar surname for a Russian poetess... That’s why it occurred to me to take a pseudonym for myself because my dad, having learned about my poems, said: “Don’t disgrace my name.” - “And I don’t need yours.” name!" - I said..." (L. Chukovskaya “Notes about Anna Akhmatova”).

Arkady Arkanov

Steinbock Arkady Mikhailovich (born 1933)

Russian satirist writer. In the early 1960s, Arkady Steinbock began to engage in literary activities, but not everyone liked his last name - it was too Jewish. As a child, Arkady's name was simply Arkan - hence the pseudonym.

Eduard Bagritsky

Dzyubin Eduard Georgievich (1895-1934)

Russian and Soviet poet, translator. He had a phenomenal memory and could recite poems by almost any poet by heart. It is unknown where the pseudonym comes from, but times were “crimson” then. He was also published in Odessa newspapers and humor magazines under the pseudonyms “Someone Vasya”, “Nina Voskresenskaya”, “Rabkor Gortsev”.

Demyan Bedny

Pridvorov Efim Alekseevich (1883-1945)

Russian and Soviet poet. Efim Alekseevich's surname is in no way suitable for proletarian writer. The pseudonym Demyan Bedny is the village nickname of his uncle, a people's fighter for justice.

Andrey Bely

Bugaev Boris Nikolaevich (1880-1934)

Russian poet, prose writer, critic, publicist, memoirist, leading theorist of symbolism. His teacher and mentor S.M. Soloviev suggested that he take the pseudonym Andrei Bely (white color - “complete synthesis of all mental abilities”).

Kir Bulychev

Mozheiko Igor Vsevolodovich (1934-2003)

Russian science fiction writer, film scriptwriter, historian-orientalist (Ph.D. historical sciences). Author of scientific works on the history of Southeast Asia (signed with his real surname), numerous science fiction stories, short stories (often combined into cycles), and the collection “Some Poems” (2000). The pseudonym is composed of the name of his wife (Kira) and the maiden name of the writer’s mother. As the writer admitted, the idea of ​​a pseudonym arose a long time ago, when he was still a graduate student at the Institute of Oriental Studies and wrote his first science fiction story. He was afraid of criticism and ridicule: “I skipped the vegetable depot! He didn’t show up to the trade union meeting... And he also indulges in fantastic stories.” Subsequently, the name “Kirill” on the covers of books began to be written in abbreviation - “Kir.”, and then the period was shortened, and this is how the now famous “Kir Bulychev” turned out.

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778)

French writer, philosopher and educator. One of the largest French enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century, poet, prose writer, satirist, publicist, founder of Voltairianism. The nickname Voltaire is an anagram of "Arouet le j(eune)" - "Arouet the younger" (Latin spelling - AROVETLI)

Arkady Gaidar

Golikov Arkady Petrovich (1904-1941)

Soviet writer, grandfather of Yegor Gaidar, one of the founders of modern children's literature. His most famous works are “The Fate of the Drummer” and “Timur and His Team”. There are two versions of the origin of the pseudonym Gaidar. The first, which has become widespread, is “gaidar” - in Mongolian “a horseman galloping in front”. According to another version, Arkady Golikov could take the name Gaidar as his own: in Bashkiria and Khakassia, where he visited, the names Gaidar (Geidar, Haydar, etc.) are found very often. This version was supported by the writer himself.

Alexander Herzen

Yakovlev Alexander Ivanovich (1812-1870)

Russian writer, philosopher, revolutionary. Author of the novel "Who is to Blame?" and the essay "The Past and Thoughts." Herzen is the illegitimate son of a Russian writer, philosopher, revolutionary. The author of the novel by landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and German Henrietta-Wilhelmina Louise Haag. The surname Herzen - “child of the heart” (from German Herz - heart) was invented by his father.

Grigory Gorin

Ofshtein Grigory Izrailevich (1910-2000)

Maksim Gorky

Peshkov Alexey Maksimovich (1868-1936)

Russian writer, public figure, literary critic, publicist, first Chairman of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. The first story was published in 1892 under the pseudonym Gorky, which characterized the difficult life of the writer, and this pseudonym was used in the future. At the very beginning of his literary activity, he also wrote feuilletons in the Samara Newspaper under the pseudonym Yehudiel Khlamida. M. Gorky himself emphasized that the correct pronunciation of his last name is Peshkov, although almost everyone pronounces it as Peshkov.

Irina Grekova

Elena Sergeevna Ventzel (1907 - 2002)

Russian prose writer, mathematician. Doctor of Technical Sciences, author of numerous scientific works on problems of applied mathematics Pridvorov Efim Alekseevich (1883-1945), a university textbook on probability theory, a book on game theory, etc. Like Lewis Carroll, she published her scientific works under her real name, and her novels and stories under a “mathematical” pseudonym (from the name of the French letter “y”). As a writer, she began publishing in 1957 and immediately became famous and loved; her novel “The Pulpit” was literally read to the gills.

Alexander Green

Grinevsky Alexander Stefanovich (1880-1932)

Ilya Ilf

Fainzilberg Ilya Arnoldovich (1897-1937)

Veniamin Kaverin

Zilber Veniamin Alexandrovich (1902-1988)

Soviet writer, most famous work- novel "Two Captains". The pseudonym "Kaverin" was taken from a hussar, a friend young Pushkin(brought by him under his own name in “Eugene Onegin”).

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898)

English mathematician and theologian, as well as a writer, author of the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland". Magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yates advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and in Dodgson's Diaries an entry appears dated February 11, 1865: “Wrote to Mr. Yates, offering him a choice of pseudonyms: 1) Edgar Cutwellis (the name Edgar Cutwellis is obtained by rearranging the letters from Charles Lutwidge ); 2) Edgard W. C. Westhill (the method of obtaining a pseudonym is the same as in the previous case); 3) Louis Carroll (Louis from Lutwidge - Ludwick - Louis, Carroll from Charles); 4) Lewis Carroll (by the same the principle of "translation" of the names Charles Lutwidge into Latin and the reverse "translation" from Latin into English)". The choice fell on Lewis Carroll. Since then, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson signed all his “serious” mathematical and logical works with his real name, and all his literary works with a pseudonym.

Eduard Limonov

Savenko Eduard Veniaminovich (born 1943)

Infamous writer, journalist, social and political figure, founder and head of the liquidated National Bolshevik Party. Since July 2006, he has been an active participant in the “Other Russia” movement in opposition to the Kremlin, the organizer of a number of “Dissent Marches”. The pseudonym Limonov was invented for him by the artist Vagrich Bakhchanyan (according to other sources - Sergei Dovlatov).

Alexandra Marinina

Alekseeva Marina Anatolyevna (born 1957)

Author of numerous detective novels. In 1991, together with her colleague Alexander Gorkin, she wrote the detective story "Six-Winged Seraphim", which was published in the magazine "Police" in the fall of 1992. The story was signed by the pseudonym of Alexander Marinin, compiled from the names of the authors.

Evgeniy Petrov

Evgeny Petrovich Kataev (1901-1942)

Russian and Soviet writer, brother of the writer Valentin Kataev, co-author (together with I. Ilf) famous novels“Golden Calf”, “12 Chairs”, etc. The pseudonym Petrov is a surname derived from the patronymic, since one Kataev, i.e. his brother Valentin was already a famous writer.

Kozma Prutkov

Alexey Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers - Alexey, Alexander and Vladimir.

Prutkov is a fictional writer, a one-of-a-kind literary phenomenon. Two talented poets, Count A.K. Tolstoy and Alexey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov, together with Vladimir Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov and with some participation of Zhemchuzhnikov’s third brother, Alexander Mikhailovich, created a type of important complacency and self-confidence of the St. Petersburg official (director of the assay office), who, out of vanity, practiced various types of literature. Famous quotes: “If you want to be happy, be happy,” “Look at the root!”, “Do not cut everything that grows!”, “It is more useful to walk the path of life than the entire universe,” “An egoist is like someone who has been sitting in a well for a long time,” “Genius is like a hill rising on a plain”, “Death is placed at the end of life in order to more conveniently prepare for it”, “Do not take anything to the extreme: a person who wants to eat too late risks eating the next day in the morning”, “Do not I completely understand why many people call fate a turkey, and not some other bird that is more similar to fate?”

George Sand

Aurore Dupin (1804-1876)

French writer. Since it was almost impossible for a woman to get published at that time, Aurora Dupin took a male pseudonym.

Igor Severyanin

Lotarev Igor Vladimirovich (1887-1941)

Poet of the "Silver Age". The pseudonym Northerner emphasizes the poet’s “northern” origin (he was born in Vologda province). According to another version, in his youth he went with his father on a trip to the Far East (1904). This trip inspired the poet - hence the pseudonym Northerner. For most of his literary activity, the author preferred to write Igor-Severyanin. He perceived the pseudonym as a middle name, not a surname.

Nadezhda TEFFI

Lokhvitskaya Nadezhda Alexandrovna (1872-1952)

Russian writer, poetess, author of satirical poems and feuilletons. She was called the first Russian humorist of the early 20th century, the “queen of Russian humor,” but she was never a supporter of pure humor, always combining it with sadness and witty observations of the life around her. She explained the origin of her pseudonym as follows: she knew a certain stupid man named Stefan, whom the servant called Steffy. Believing that stupid people are usually happy, she took this nickname for herself as a pseudonym, shortening it “for the sake of delicacy” to “Taffy.” Another version of the origin of the pseudonym is offered by researchers of Teffi’s creativity, according to whom the pseudonym for Nadezhda Alexandrovna, who loved hoaxes and jokes, and was also the author of literary parodies and feuilletons, became part of literary game aimed at creating an appropriate image of the author. There is also a version that Teffi took her pseudonym because her sister, the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya, who was called the “Russian Sappho,” was published under her real name.

Daniil Kharms

Yuvachev Daniil Ivanovich (1905-1942)

Russian writer and poet. Yuvachev had many pseudonyms, and he playfully changed them: Kharms, Haarms, Dandan, Charms, Karl Ivanovich Shusterling, etc. The pseudonym "Kharms" (a combination of the French "charme" - "charm, charm" and the English "harm" - "harm" ") most accurately reflected the essence of the writer's attitude to life and creativity.

Vasily Yan

Yanchevetsky Vasily Grigorievich (1875-1954)

Dmitriev V. G. Invented names: (Stories about pseudonyms) / V. G. Dmitriev. - M.: Sovremennik, 1986. - 255 p.

The book talks about the reasons for the appearance of pseudonyms and cryptonyms, the methods of their formation, the role they played in the work of a number of outstanding Russian and foreign writers, and explains the semantic meaning of many foreign language pseudonyms. Fascinating stories will introduce the reader to other methods of disguising the author, to the invented names that writers gave to their literary opponents and book characters. Separate chapters are devoted to the pseudonyms of artists, theater and circus performers.

First story. Why do you need a pseudonym?

Second story. How pseudonyms were created.

Third story. Ancient times.

Story four. At the dawn of Russian literature.

Fifth story. Lyceum "cricket".

Story six. Pechorin's acquaintance.

Story seven. From the beekeeper Rudy Panka to Konrad Lilienschwager.

The eighth story. From Savva Namordnikov to Nikanor Zatrapezny.

Ninth story. How the "Iskraists" signed.

Tenth story. Antosha Chekhonte and his contemporaries.

Story eleven. "Sespel" means snowdrop.

Twelfth story. Why is there a double surname?

Story thirteen. The nickname serves as a mask.

Story fourteen. Pseudonyms of revolutionaries.

Story fifteen. Artists' pseudonyms.

Story sixteen. Stage names.

Location of the book: central city library.

Dmitriev V.G. Those who hid their name: From the history of pseudonyms and anonyms / Dmitriev, Valentin Grigorievich, Dmitriev, V.G. - M.: Nauka, 1970. - 255 p.

The book talks about the origin of pseudonyms, reveals their semantic meaning, methods of their formation, makes an attempt to systematize some facts from this interesting area of ​​literary criticism, and provides the most striking examples from Russian and foreign literature.

Location of the book: library named after L.A. Gladina.

Osovtsev, S. What's in my name for you? // Neva. - 2001. - No. 7. - P. 183-195.

Sindalovsky N.A. Pseudonym: legends and myths of the second name // Neva. - 2011. - N 2. - P.215-238.