To the collection "Interesting": Interesting facts from the history of literature. Amazing facts from the works of Russian writers The most interesting facts about literature

12.08.2020

Illustration: Elizabeth Clover

The creators of the heritage of Russian literature evoke a lot of conflicting feelings, both with their works and personal successes. Sometimes the authors inspire, sometimes they disappoint, often make them laugh, sometimes they upset or make them sympathize with their plight. Disputes around the biographies of writers, as well as around their works, have not subsided for more than a dozen years. No matter how confusing the lives of writers or the motives of their creations, only one thing is certain: Russian literature is famous for a huge number of interesting facts framing immortal works.

Griboyedov and his grief from a sharp mind

A comedy in verse by Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" made the writer a classic of Russian literature. It is interesting to know that the interjection "Oh!" occurs on the pages of the work 6 times, and the exclamation "Ah!" Griboedov used 54 times.

The first to see the comedy was the fabulist Krylov. The writer was afraid of Ivan Andreevich and highly appreciated his point of view, therefore he considered it necessary to appear with a literary masterpiece before Krylov. The man grumblingly accepted the work from Griboyedov's hands, and at the end of the reading he said that the censors would not be able to appreciate this work, moreover, Alexander Sergeevich was threatened with a "ticket" to Siberia for what he had written.

Many-sided Pushkin

Illustration: Khozatskaya Ekaterina

Interest is not only life, but also creative fruits. Few people know that the reader could never see the famous Mermaid on chains, Koshchei and the Cat. After all, the writer supplemented the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” with the poem “At the Lukomorya, a green oak” only 8 years after the first publication.

No less entertaining for researchers is "Eugene Onegin". In the work there is an expression "... looked out the window and crushed flies."

"He settled in that peace,
Where is the village old-timer
For forty years I quarreled with the housekeeper,
He looked out the window and crushed flies.

This phrase should not be taken literally. We weren't talking about pesky insects here.

Crushing a fly has at least two meanings:

drink wine, get drunk...
an image of the stagnant life of a noble pastime and dull entertainment.

Most likely, the ironic metaphor used by Pushkin here illustrated a typical characteristic of a person who likes to drink. In modern language there is a definition of "being under the fly", in other words - "not being in a sober state." And this version is more appropriate. But what Pushkin had in mind, we will never determine with absolute certainty ...

In another Pushkin work, The Queen of Spades, an attentive reader must have noticed that the protagonist has no name, only his surname Hermann is known. An important nuance here is the double "n" at the end. When the story was presented in the opera of the same name, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky changed his surname to the main name of the character, calling him Herman, with one "n" at the end.

Surprisingly, it is The Queen of Spades that is considered one of the first works in Russian that were successful in Europe.

By the way, the plot of The Queen of Spades was prompted to Pushkin by the young Prince Golitsyn, who, having lost, regained what he had lost by placing, on the advice of his grandmother, three cards once prompted to her by Saint-Germain. This grandmother is the “mustachioed princess” N. P. Golitsyna, well-known in Moscow society, nee Chernysheva, the mother of the Moscow governor D. V. Golitsyn.

Immediately after its publication in 1834, the mystical story finds remarkable success with the reading public. From Pushkin's diary entry:

“My Queen of Spades is in big fashion. Players ponting for three, seven, ace.

Pushkin wrote more than 70 epigraphs to his works. For comparison: the number of epigraphs by Gogol and Turgenev is 20 for each.

Anna Karenina in the painting by G. Manizer

It is noteworthy that Pushkin's eldest daughter, M. A. Gartung, became one of the main prototypes of Anna Karenina for the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. The writer met Maria Alexandrovna in 1868 in the house of General A. A. Tulubyev and, under the impression, described some features of her appearance: dark hair, white lace and a little purple pansy garland.

Mystery of prose writer Nikolai Gogol

Remembering the mystical, but at the same time very topical writer Nikolai Gogol, it is worth noting that this man was passionate about needlework. He enjoyed knitting, cutting, sewing. The man skillfully made neckerchiefs, scarves, dresses for his sisters. Surely such a contradictory nature of Nikolai Vasilyevich pulled the creative inclinations of the master of the pen.

Fans of Russian literature will be interested to know that the play "The Government Inspector" is based on real events. Alexander Pushkin told Gogol about what happened in the Novgorod province. It was this writer who insisted on completing The Inspector General, despite the fact that Gogol was going to stop the story. However, the play was destined to live. The result still pleases readers to this day.

The whole life of Nikolai Vasilyevich is a tangled mystery. Mysticism followed the author, and even after his death, the heirs and researchers were left with more mysteries than answers. The grave of Nikolai Vasilyevich was covered with a stone, which was popularly called Golgotha for its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When the time came to “relocate” the cemetery, the stone was moved to the grave of another mystic, Mikhail Bulgakov. Surprising in this story is Bulgakov's phrase, which he repeated more than once to Gogol: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."

Dragonfly Krylova

In the fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant", the fabulist Krylov describes the dragonfly as a singing creature, but everyone knows that this insect does not do vocals. It turned out that earlier the dragonfly was a common name for several species of insects, and Krylov actually wrote about the grasshopper.

Chukovsky is banned

The name, the master of children's Russian literature, was actually different. The real name of the writer is Nikolai Ivanovich Korneichukov. It is noteworthy that the real name and surname in this bundle are. There is no patronymic in the birth certificate of the poet. He was illegitimate. Being already old enough, Chukovsky asked to be called simply Kolya.

It is known that the writer's work was subjected to very strict censorship. Chukovsky's diary most honestly displayed the full picture of the horror of that time. They are literally full of references to the desperate struggle with censorship, which from time to time banned almost everything that was written by the poet. Fairy tales were banned, whole pages from articles and books were thrown out. Today, it is very difficult to believe the arguments of officials who have gone crazy from autocracy:

so, in "Moydodyr" for the words "God, God," Chukovsky went to explain himself to censorship. In "Cockroach" they saw an anti-Stalinist subtext.

"Stash" by Raskolnikov

A huge contribution to the treasury of Russian literature was made by

We have collected the most amazing facts about books for you.

Google counted the number of all artistic, journalistic and scientific papers in the world. It turned out that the total number of books on Earth is 129,864,880.

One of the most unusual books in the world is The Divine Comedy» Dante, written by the Benedictine monk Gabriel Celani on a sheet of paper measuring 80 by 60 cm. All 14,000 verses can be easily read with the naked eye, and if you look at the sheet from a distance, you see a colorful map of Italy. Chelani spent four years on this work.

One of the largest fees was paid to the poet Oppian by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. For each line of his two poems about fishing and hunting, he received a gold coin. The total number of lines in the two poems was twenty thousand.

One of the most expensive books in the world is the Codex Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci. This scientific treatise on "water, earth and celestial bodies" is printed in mirror type, so to read it, you must be armed with a mirror. Codex Leicester is currently owned by Bill Gates, who purchased the book for twenty-four million dollars.

The most expensive book is currently considered the unique "Apocalypse", published by the Frenchman Joseph Fauré. The book is valued at 100 million old francs. It is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

"The Only and Deepest Secrets of the Medical Art" is the title of a 100-page sealed book that was found among the belongings of the famous Dutch doctor Herman Boerhaave after his death in 1738. The book was auctioned off for $10,000 in gold. After the seal was opened, it was found that its pages were clean. Only on the title page was the inscription: "Keep your head cold, your feet warm, and you will make the best doctor poor."

Literary scholars have calculated that in Shakespeare's books the word "love" is mentioned 2259 times, while "hate" is pronounced only 229 times.

Among the most books read in the world, the first place, no doubt, belongs to the Bible. Its total circulation is six billion copies. In second place is Mao Zedong quotes, and third place went to The Lord of the Rings.

When you read about yawning, you start yawning yourself.

In the past, books were placed on the shelf the other way around, with the spine against the wall and the front edge facing out.

Studies show that 4-6 years old is the most favorable age for teaching a child to read. After 6-7 years, it is more difficult to teach to read.

On average, people spend 6.5 hours per week reading.

According to a Yale University study, three-quarters of students who read badly in third grade will remain so in high school.

It takes an average of 475 hours to write a novel.

Among the books that were written or conceived behind bars are "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan, "Prison Confession" by Oscar Wilde, "The Prince" by Nicolo Machiavelli.

In the public libraries of medieval Europe, books were chained to shelves. Such chains were long enough to remove the book from the shelf and read, but did not allow the book to be taken out of the library. This practice was common until the 18th century, due to the great value of each copy of the book.

On average, a bookstore shopper spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.

Half of all books sold today are bought by people over the age of 45.

Adults who regularly read literature are more than 2.5 times more likely to do volunteer or charitable work and more than 1.5 times more likely to take part in sports activities.

Most readers lose interest in the book at page 18.

The longest team reading marathon lasted 224 hours and was completed by Milton Nan, Silvina Carbone, Carlos Anton, Edith Diaz, Yolanda Baptista and Natalie Dantaz in mall Mac in Paysandu, Uruguay, September 13-22, 2007.

Penguin paperbacks were created to make books as affordable as cigarettes, and the first Penguin paperbacks were distributed in churches.

A bibliocleptomaniac is a person who steals books. One of the most famous bibliocleptomaniacs is Steven Bloomberg, who stole over 23,000 rare books from 268 libraries. To assemble his collection, estimated at about $20 million, Bloomberg used a wide variety of methods: sometimes he made his way to the library through ventilation system and even an elevator shaft.

The term "bookworm" comes from tiny insects that feed on the spines of books.

The prisoners of the Bastille were not only people. Once the famous French Encyclopedia, compiled by Diderot and d'Alembert, was imprisoned. The book was accused of harming religion and public morality.

The largest dictionary in the world is the Deutsches Wortetbuch, started by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm in 1854. It was completed in 1971. The dictionary, the volume of which amounted to 34519 pages, was published in 33 volumes. To date, the dictionary is worth 5425 German marks. The largest dictionary of the English language is the 20-volume The Oxford English Dictionary. It has 21728 pages.

The oldest printed work is the Dharani scroll, or sutra. The text was printed from wooden clichés. The scroll was found on October 14, 1996 in the foundation of Bulguksa Pagoda in South Korea. The sutra was found to have been printed no later than 704 AD.

Most Expensive Letter: On December 5, 1991, the Historical Portraits Museum in Beverly Hills, USA, purchased a letter written by Abraham Lincoln on January 8, 1863 at Christie's in New York for $748,000.

The longest novel "People good will» Louis Henri Jean Farigoule, aka Jules Romain (France), was published in 27 volumes in 1932-1946. AT English translation the novel was published in 14 volumes in 1933-1946. This 4,959-page work was published by Peter Davies. There are approximately 2,070,000 words in the novel (not counting the 100-page index). And Sohachi Yamaoka's novel "Tokugawa Iyasu" has been published in Japanese daily newspapers since 1951. If published now that the novel is completed, it would be a 40-volume edition.

According to the materials of the portal nashabiblio.

Who used the "Albanian language" at the beginning of the 20th century?

In 1916, the futurist Zdanevich wrote a play without observing the normative rules of spelling and using the "Albanian language". The language of padonks that appeared in the 2000s, whose spelling is built according to similar principles, is sometimes called the “Albanian language”, but the coincidence with the experience of Zdanevich is accidental.

Which book was published under different titles in different countries formed on the basis of exchange rates?

In 2000, Frederic Begbeder's novel "99 francs" was published, recommended for sale in France at exactly that price. This same principle led publications in other countries to come out under a different name, corresponding to the exchange rate: "39.90 marks" in Germany, "9.99 pounds" in the UK, "999 yen" in Japan, etc. In 2002, the book was republished in connection with the introduction of the euro and was called "14.99 euros". After some time, the peak of the book's popularity passed, and it was discounted to the title and the corresponding cost of "6 euros".

What circumstances led mathematician Alexander Volkov to become a writer?

The fairy tale "The Wise Man of Oz" by the American writer Frank Baum was not published in Russian until 1991. In the late 30s, Alexander Volkov, who was a mathematician by training and taught this science at one of the Moscow institutes, began to study English language and for practice I decided to translate this book in order to retell it to my children. Those liked it very much, they began to demand continuation, and Volkov, in addition to translating, began to invent something from himself. This was the beginning of his literary path, which resulted in The Wizard of the Emerald City and many other fairy tales about the Magic Land.

from here: shkolnymir.info

In what work was the Kasparo-Karpov system mentioned long before Kasparov and Karpov became known to the world?

In the story of the Strugatsky brothers "Noon, XXII century" the Kasparo-Karpov system is mentioned - a method that was used to make a "copy" of the brain and build its mathematical model. The story was published in 1962 - Anatoly Karpov was then only 11 years old, and Garry Kasparov had not yet been born.

Where does the word miniature come from?

The word "miniature" comes from the Latin name for red paint "minium" and in the original refers to ancient or medieval paintings in the genre of illuminated manuscript. Because of small size of these paintings and the presence of the prefix "mini" in the word, an etymological metamorphosis later occurred, as a result of which any small drawings, especially portrait miniatures, began to be called miniatures. From painting, the term also penetrated into literature, where it refers to works of a small format.

Who came up with the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo?

Alexandre Dumas, when writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks." Among them, the most famous is Auguste Maquet, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made a significant contribution to The Three Musketeers.

Auguste Maquet - from here: vedicpalmistry.org

What is the name of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades"?

The main character of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" is not Herman. His name is generally unknown, and Hermann (namely with two n) is the surname of the hero, a German by origin, which is quite common in Germany. But in the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky removed one "n", turning the surname Hermann into the name Herman.

How was a French novel translated into Russian, in which there is not a single letter e?

In 1969, French writer Georges Perec's novel La disparition was published. One of the key features of the novel was that it did not contain a single letter e - the most common letter in French. By the same principle - without the letter e - the book was translated into English, German and Italian. In 2005, the novel was published in Russian, translated by Valery Kislov under the title "Disappearance". In this variant, you cannot meet the letter o, since it is it that is the most frequent in the Russian language.

Georges Perec, from here: modernista.se

What literary hero began to use many methods of forensic science before the police?

Arthur Conan Doyle in the stories about Sherlock Holmes described many methods of forensic science that were still unknown to the police. Among them, collecting cigarette butts and cigarette ashes, identifying typewriters, looking through a magnifying glass for traces at the scene. Subsequently, the police began to widely use these and other methods of Holmes.

How did Dostoevsky's real walks around St. Petersburg reflect in the novel "Crime and Punishment"?

Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the places in his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, the description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides things stolen by him from the pawnbroker's apartment, he composed from personal experience- when one day, walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard in order to relieve himself.

Where and when did Baron Munchausen live?

Baron Munchausen was a very real historical person. In his youth, he left the German town of Bodenwerder for Russia to serve as a page. Then he began his career in the army and rose to the rank of captain, after which he went back to Germany. There he became famous for telling extraordinary stories about service in Russia: for example, entering St. Petersburg on a wolf harnessed to a sleigh, a horse cut in half in Ochakovo, fur coats that went berserk, or a cherry tree that grew on a deer's head. These stories, as well as completely new ones attributed to the baron by other authors, led to the emergence of Munchausen as a literary character.

from here: http://community.livejournal.com/towns_stories/3173.html

Where and when was a concept book sold with only blank pages?

When asked what 5 books you would take with you to a desert island, Bernard Shaw replied that he would take 5 books with blank pages. This concept was embodied in 1974 by the American publishing house Harmony Books, releasing a book called "The Book of Nothing", which consisted exclusively of 192 blank pages. She found her buyer, and subsequently the publishing house reprinted this book more than once.

Bernard Shaw, from here: http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/spacesite/rubric/1140180/

What literary character Dumas was invented only to increase the fee?

When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers in the format of a serial in one of the newspapers, the contract with the publisher stipulated line-by-line payment for the manuscript. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions exclusively in monosyllables, in most cases “yes” or “no”. The continuation of the book called "Twenty Years Later" was already paid by the piece, and Grimaud became a little more talkative.

Alexandre Dumas, from here: hy.wikipedia.org

Which Kipling characters changed gender in Russian translation?

In the original The Jungle Book, Bagheera is a male character. Russian translators changed the gender of Bagheera, most likely because the word "panther" - female. The same transformation took place with another character of Kipling: the cat became in the Russian translation "The cat that walks by itself."

R. Kipling, from here: flbiblioteka.ru

Which writer got the stone that lay on Gogol's first grave?

Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery lay a stone, nicknamed Golgotha because of its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, when reburial in another place, they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave. And the same stone was subsequently placed on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase is noteworthy, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."

Gogol, artonline.ru

Elena and Mikhail Bulgakov, from here: chesspro.ru

What famous English-language literary dystopia contains many words of Russian origin?

In the dystopian A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess put into the mouths of teenage characters a jargon he made up called Nadsat. Most of the words nadsata were of Russian origin - for example, droog (friend), litso (face), viddy (see). The word Nadsat itself is formed from the ending of Russian numerals from 11 to 19, its meaning is the same as that of the word teenager (“teen-ager”). The translators of the novel into Russian faced the difficulty of how to adequately convey this slang. In one version of the translation, such words were replaced by English words written in Cyrillic (men, face, etc.). In another version, the jargon words were left in their original form in Latin letters.

Anthony Burgess, from here: russianwashingtonbaltimore.com

Which writer, at the end of his life, acknowledged the harm done to nature by his own work?

Peter Benchley, author of Jaws, later adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg, last years life has become an ardent defender of sharks and the marine ecosystem as a whole. He wrote several works in which he criticized the negative attitude towards sharks, inflated in the mass consciousness, including thanks to Jaws.

Peter Benchley, from here: thedailygreen.com

What words from Pushkin's poem "Monument" were cut out by censors in 1949?

In 1949, the 150th anniversary of Pushkin was celebrated. Konstantin Simonov made a report on his life and work on the radio. In one Kazakh town, a large number of Kalmyks, deported here from their historical homeland, gathered at the loudspeaker. Somewhere in the middle of the report, they lost all interest in him and left the square. The thing was that when reading Pushkin's "Monument" Simonov stopped reading right at the moment when he should have said: "And a friend of the steppes is a Kalmyk." This meant that the Kalmyks are still in disgrace and censorship excludes all mention of them even in such harmless cases.

Konstantin Simonov, from here: rian.ru

James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - the boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14 and remained forever young in his mother's memory.

James Barry, from here: pl.wikipedia.org

Who is awarded the Ig Nobel Prize and for what?

At the beginning of October of each year, when the Nobel Prize winners are named, a parody Ig Nobel Prize is presented in parallel for achievements that cannot be reproduced or there is no point in doing so. In 2009, among the laureates were veterinarians who proved that a cow with any nickname gives more milk than an unnamed one. The literature award went to the Irish police for issuing fifty traffic tickets to a certain Prawo Jazdy, which in Polish means "driving license". And in 2002, the prize in the field of economics was awarded to Gazprom for the application of the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers in the field of business.

What did the old woman from the fairy tale about the Golden Fish of the Brothers Grimm want to be?

Pushkin's Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish was based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife. Pushkin's old woman finds herself with nothing after she wanted to become the mistress of the sea, and her German "colleague" at this stage became the Pope. And only after the desire to become the Lord God was left with nothing.

Brothers Grimm, from here: nord-inform.de

How did Jung Richard Parker repeat the sad fate of his literary namesake?

In Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 story "The Tale of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym" there is an episode when a ship is caught in a storm and four sailors are rescued on a raft. Having no food, they decide to eat one of them by lot - and this victim was Richard Parker. In 1884, a real yacht sank, and four people on one boat also survived. They probably didn't read that story, but they ended up eating a cabin boy named Richard Parker.

Edgar Poe, from here: amcorners.ru

Why is Isaev not the real name of Stirlitz?

The real name of Stirlitz is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, but Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. Isaev is the first operational pseudonym of a scout, introduced by Yulian Semyonov in the first novel “Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, and Stirlitz is already the second pseudonym. This is not reflected in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".

Yulian Semyonov, from here: merjevich.ru

What kind of insect is actually a dragonfly from Krylov's fable?

In Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant" there are lines: "The jumping dragonfly sang red summer." However, it is known that the dragonfly does not make sounds. The fact is that at that time the word "dragonfly" served as a generalized name for several species of insects. And the hero of the fable is actually a grasshopper.

Ivan Andreevich Krylov, from here: rudata.ru

What violent scenes were removed from folk tales Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm?

Most of the fairy tales known to us under the authorship of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and other storytellers originated among the people in the Middle Ages, and their original plots are sometimes distinguished by the cruelty and naturalness of everyday scenes. For example, in the tale of the Sleeping Beauty, the foreign king does not kiss her, but rapes her. The wolf eats not only Granny, but half the village into the bargain, and Little Red Riding Hood then lures him into a pit of boiling tar. In the fairy tale about Cinderella, the sisters still manage to try on a slipper, for which one of them cuts off her finger, the other - her heel, but then they are exposed by their singing pigeons.

Charles Perrault, from here: nnm.ru

What topic in Soviet science fiction was so hackneyed that stories on it were not accepted by magazines for publication?

The theme of the Tunguska meteorite was very popular with Soviet science fiction writers, especially beginners. In the 1980s, the literary journal "Ural Pathfinder" even had to write in a separate paragraph in the requirements for publications: "Works that reveal the secret of the Tunguska meteorite are not considered."

Why do we have a tradition of signing book spines from bottom to top, while Europeans do the opposite?

AT Western Europe and America, book spines are signed from top to bottom. This tradition goes back to the days when there were few books: if the book is on the table (or in a small pile), the reader should be able to read the title comfortably. And in Eastern Europe and Russia, the tradition has taken root to sign spines from the bottom up, because it is more convenient to read when the books are on the shelf.

Where did the expression "and a no brainer" come from?

The source of the expression “And a no-brainer” is a poem by Mayakovsky (“It is clear even to a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread first in the Strugatsky story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited teenagers who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I). The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, two-year students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year, the expression "no brainer" was very relevant.

What book was imprisoned in the Bastille?

How did Lenin's phrase about the cook and the state really sound?

“Any cook is capable of running the state,” Lenin never said that. This phrase was attributed to him, taking from Mayakovsky's poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". In fact, he wrote this: “We are not utopians. We know that any unskilled worker and any cook are not able to immediately enter into government ... We demand that education in the matter of public administration be carried out by conscious workers and soldiers and that it be started immediately.

Which science fiction writer wrote reviews of non-existent books?

Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a collection of short stories "Absolute Void". All stories are united by the fact that they are reviews of non-existent books written by fictitious authors.

from here: nnm.ru

How did Leo Tolstoy feel about his novels?

Leo Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent Fet a letter: "How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose rubbish like War." An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: "People love me for those trifles - War and Peace, etc., which seem to them very important."

What is the meaning of the word peace in War and Peace?

In the title of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, the word world is used as an antonym to war (pre-revolutionary "mir"), and not in the meaning of "the world around" (pre-revolutionary "mir"). All lifetime editions of the novel came out under the title "War and Peace", and Tolstoy himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". However, due to misprints in different publications at different times, where the word was written as “mir”, disputes about the true meaning of the novel’s title still do not subside.

Which writer encouraged readers to punctuate themselves?

American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with very peculiar language and lack of any punctuation. In response to reader outrage, in the second edition of the book, he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking.

Why did the poets not like Mayakovsky for writing poems with a ladder?

When Mayakovsky introduced his famous poetic "ladder", fellow poets accused him of cheating - after all, then the poets were paid for the number of lines, and Mayakovsky received 2-3 times more for poems of a similar length.

What pessimist died of laughter?

The Cuban poet Julián del Casal, whose poetry was deeply pessimistic, died of laughter. He was having dinner with friends, one of whom told a joke. The poet began an attack of uncontrollable laughter, which caused aortic dissection, bleeding and sudden death.

What was the name of the city where Anna Karenina threw herself under a train?

In the novel by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this village became a city and was renamed Zheleznodorozhny.

Where was the radio play mistaken for a real Martian invasion?

On October 30, 1938, a radio show based on HG Wells' novel The War of the Worlds was broadcast in New Jersey as a parody of a radio report from the scene. Of the six million people who listened to the broadcast, one million believed in the reality of what was happening. There was a mass panic, tens of thousands of people abandoned their homes (especially after the call of alleged President Roosevelt to remain calm), the roads were clogged with refugees. Telephone lines were paralyzed: thousands of people reported supposedly seeing Martian ships. Subsequently, it took the authorities six weeks to convince the population that the attack had not taken place.

What is the real name of Korney Chukovsky?

Korney Chukovsky's real name was Nikolai Vasilievich Korneichukov.

from here: nnm.ru

Who preserved Kafka's works for the whole world?

Franz Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after his death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.

Franz Kafka, from here: germanstudiesblog.wordpress.com

How long did Robinson Crusoe spend in Russia?

The novel about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe has a continuation in which the hero is shipwrecked off the coast of Southeast Asia and is forced to travel to Europe through all of Russia. In particular, he waits out the winter in Tobolsk for 8 months.

When did the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” appear?

Pushkin wrote the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” of the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” for its second edition, released 8 years after the first publication.

What book did the writer ask to sell for exactly the price of a bottle of vodka?

When the poem "Moscow - Petushki" was published as a separate book, at the request of the author Venedikt Erofeev, the price of 3 rubles 62 kopecks was set for it. That is how much a bottle of vodka cost at the time of writing the poem.

How did Andrey Bitov learn about a new word in his work?

According to Andrei Bitov, he first learned about Zen Buddhism at the age of thirty, having read the dissertation of an English literary critic called "Zen Buddhism in the Early Works of Andrei Bitov."

The first official publication of the poem "Moscow - Petushki" by Venedikt Erofeev in the USSR took place in the journal "Sobriety and Culture".

Who came up with the name Svetlana?

The name Svetlana is not originally Slavic. It was invented and first used by the poet Vostokov in the romance "Svetlana and Mstislav", and gained wide popularity after the publication of Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana" in 1813.

Who predicted the death of the Titanic in a literary work?

14 years before the sinking of the Titanic, Morgan Robertson published the story that became her prediction. In the story, the Titan, much like the Titanic in size, also collided with an iceberg on an April night, and most of the passengers died.

Why was Winnie the Pooh so named?

Winnie the Pooh got the first part of his name from one of the real toys of Christopher Robin, son of the writer Milne. The toy was named after a London Zoo bear named Winnipeg, who got there from Canada. The second part - Pooh - was borrowed on behalf of the swan acquaintances of the Milne family.

Where did the expression "this thing smells like kerosene" come from?

Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.

Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?

In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.

Which writer wrote a story about a religious feat based on a story about a campaign for vodka?

In Leskov's story, an Old Believer passes from one bank of the river to the other along the chains of an unfinished bridge during a stormy ice drift in order to return an icon confiscated from the Old Believers from the monastery. According to the author, the plot is based on real events, only a bricklayer appears there, and he went not for an icon, but for cheaper vodka.

Who valued books more than people?

In 267, the Goths ravaged Athens and killed many of the inhabitants, but did not burn the books.

How did Bernard Shaw react to the Nobel Prize?

In 1925, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."

What pornographic scene is in Woe from Wit?

In the 19th century, actresses refused to play Sophia in Woe from Wit with the words: “I am a decent woman and do not play in pornographic scenes!”. They considered such a scene a night conversation with Molchalin, who was not yet the husband of the heroine.

Literature is the most interesting topic that connects almost all people and nations. Every country has its favorite writers, fashion magazines, news papers. But there are books and writers who have become a legend. They belong to the world, they are read all over the world, they are translated.

And interesting facts about literature

The most big selection all over the internet.

Gone with the Wind is Margaret Mitchell's only book. After working as a journalist and remarrying, she became a housewife and really missed her old job, then she began to write this book. The book took about 10 years to complete.

In Western Europe and America, book spines are signed from top to bottom. This tradition goes back to the days when there were few books: if the book is on the table (or in a small pile), the reader should be able to read the title comfortably. And in Eastern Europe and Russia, the tradition has taken root to sign spines from the bottom up, because it is more convenient to read when the books are on the shelf.

Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita in total over 10 years. Hidden dating is also contained in the indication of the age of the Master - the most autobiographical of all the heroes of the novel. The master is “a man of about thirty-eight years of age”. Bulgakov himself turned the same number of years on May 15, 1929. 1929 is also the time when Bulgakov began work on The Master and Margarita.

In 2000, Frederic Begbeder's novel "99 francs" was published, recommended for sale in France at exactly that price. The same principle led publications in other countries to come out under a different name, corresponding to the exchange rate: "39.90 marks" in Germany, "9.99 pounds" in the UK, "999 yen" in Japan.

The first newspaper, very similar to modern ones, is considered the French "La Gazette", which was published from May 1631. The value of "Le Gazette" was very great, King Louis XIII himself wrote in it, Cardinal Richelieu, it was in it that they began to place paid advertising.

Alexandre Dumas, when writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks". Among them, the most famous is Auguste Maquet, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made a significant contribution to The Three Musketeers.

Audiobooks are a voiced work of art, a lecture, an excursion, recorded on any medium, read by a professional actor or their group for the purpose of further distribution and listening. There are different opinions about when exactly the first audiobook appeared. Many believe that the prototype of the first audiobook appeared in 1933, when the anthropologist J. Harrington (J.P. Harrington) recorded the stories and legends that were told in the Indian tribes. Talk about creating books for the blind in the sound version was carried out in the early 1930s in the United States. The first such attempts were made in 1931 by the US Congress. The first audiobooks were produced by the American Foundation for the Blind in 1932, and in 1934 the free distribution of audiobooks was approved by Congress. Commercial audiobooks were launched by Dylan Thomas, who in 1952 recorded his audiobook A Children's Christmas in Wales on cassette. This book has not received too much circulation, but a start has already been made.

Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva. When the poetess emigrated to Berlin, they began to correspond. This correspondence was like a novel in letters. They met already in Moscow, after many years. Pasternak constantly financially helped Tsvetaeva. Collecting it for evacuation, he joked about the packing rope, that you can hang yourself on it, it will withstand. Then it turned out that it was on this rope that Tsvetaeva committed suicide in Yelabuga.

Virginia Woolf wrote all her books standing up.

Founded in 1892, Vogue is probably one of the oldest fashion magazines in the world. This American super cult fashion magazine is published once a month in 23 different regions of national and local importance. The American version of Vogue magazine was founded as a weekly newspaper by Arthur Turnure. Anna Wintour has been the editor-in-chief of American Vogue since 1988.

Three novels by Franz Kafka - "America", "The Trial" and "The Castle" - remained unfinished. But if the “Process” and “Castle” are understatement, according to by and large, is only beneficial, then the open ending of "America" seems like a cruel joke.

From 1912 to 1948 medals Olympic Games were awarded not only to athletes, but also to artists. As far back as the end of the 19th century, Pierre de Coubertin, proposing to revive the Olympics, expressed the idea that it was necessary to compete both in sports disciplines and in various fields of art, while the works should be related to sports. There were five main medal nominations in total: architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. However, after the 1948 Olympics, it became clear that almost all participants in such competitions were professionals who earn money from art, and it was decided to replace such competitions with simply cultural exhibitions.

Larousse Gastronomique (1938) is the world's premier encyclopedia of gastronomy, the undisputed number one on any list of food-related books. The editor-in-chief of Larousse Gastronomique was Prosper Montagne, the great French chef-educator. At the time of the first edition of the book, the king of French cuisine, Auguste Escoffier, was still alive, who wrote the preface to the encyclopedia (and did not hesitate to point out that Montagne borrowed a lot from his own Culinary Guide). However, this was the first attempt to create a book of this kind, and it turned out to be unusually successful - the encyclopedia has become, in fact, a living monument of haute French cuisine.

The Library of Congress is the national library of the United States, the largest library in the world. Founded April 24, 1800, when US President John Adams (John Adams) signed into law the transfer of the state capital from Philadelphia to Washington (Washington). Among other things, this law also contained a provision for the allocation of $ 5,000 (then a very significant amount) "for the purchase of books that Congress may need, and the creation of an appropriate facility for their storage." More than 5,500 incunabula (including the Gutenberg Bible), book collections of T. Jefferson and a number of other US presidents, collections of Chinese (330 thousand volumes) and Japanese (450 thousand volumes) literature, a collection of rare American publications (60 thousand vols.), 14.5 million books and brochures, 132,000 volumes of bound newspapers, 3.3 million units of musical literature, etc.

One of Marquez's last literary works, "Remembering My Sad Whores", was published in 2004 by Random House Mondadori. Shortly before the presentation, book "pirates" managed to get hold of the manuscript and illegally put the book on sale. In response to this unfortunate event, Marquez changed the ending of the story, and a million copies were sold out in record time. The counterfeit products were soon confiscated by the police, and now these copies are the object of the desire of many collectors.

Albert Camus smoked throughout his life. It is difficult to find photographs where he is depicted without a cigarette. He even named his cat Cigarette.

Alchemist - Paulo Coelho was published in more than 117 countries of the world, translated into 67 languages. In 2002, the Portuguese Journal of Letrache, an authoritative publication in the field of local literature and the literary market, announced that the number of copies sold of The Alchemist exceeded the number of copies sold of any other book written in Portuguese in the history of the development of this language.

Franz Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after his death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but, on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.

George Byron created a completely new direction - "gloomy selfishness."

Byron and Lermontov are distant relatives. His ancestor Gordon, who lived in the sixteenth century, was married to Margaret Learmonth. She had the roots of a famous Scottish family, which gave rise to the origin of Mikhail Yuryevich himself.

In the novel by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this village became a city and was renamed Zheleznodorozhny.

Most readers consider the suppression of individuality through government censorship to be the main theme of the novel Fahrenheit 451, but Ray Bradbury himself states that such a perception is incorrect. The main message of the author lies in the danger of television, which destroys interest in reading literature, replacing it with entertainment, and deep knowledge with superficial "factoids".

In 2002, a "new" Harry Potter book by an anonymous author called "Harry Potter and Bao Zulong" was published in China. It was an exact translation of Tolkien's The Hobbit, in which all the characters were replaced with characters from the works of JK Rowling. Rowling's lawyers were only able to obtain from the Chinese publishing house a press apology and a fine of $3,400, and the book was sold in millions of copies.

Writer Ian Fleming, who created James Bond, was also an amateur ornithologist. Therefore, it is not strange that it was the ornithological reference book of the American James Bond "The Birds of the West Indies" that gave the name to the most famous spy in the world.

The most widely read is Komsomolskaya Pravda. Founded back in 1925, it has not lost popularity for many years. After "Komsomolskaya Pravda" in the rating is the newspaper "Arguments and Facts". It is read in more than sixty countries. In 1990, this tabloid got into the Guinness Book of Records for the fact that its circulation exceeded thirty-three million copies, and the number of readers exceeded one hundred million. In America, several newspapers can be called the most popular at once - these are the New York Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Daily News, etc.

The Little Prince is considered the most widely read and translated book in French and has been translated into 250 languages and dialects, including Braille for the blind. More than 140 million copies of the fairy tale have been sold worldwide since 1943.

The Reader's Digest magazine covers many topics from various areas of life, being a companion of any person.

Mark Twain crossed the Atlantic Ocean 29 times, visited Palestine and Odessa, wrote 30 books and more than 50 thousand letters. In his black-and-white era, he only wore white suits, and he had more than two dozen of them in his wardrobe. Plus the obligatory white hat and red socks.

The literary heritage of Sherlock Holmes is not limited to the stories and novellas of Arthur Conan Doyle. Only officially published works about a brilliant detective from writers of different levels of fame number in the hundreds. Among these authors are Conan Doyle's son Adrian, Isaac Asimov and Neil Gaiman, Mark Twain and Stephen King, Boris Akunin and Sergei Lukyanenko.

The Little Prince was an atypical work for Exupery; before that, he had not written children's books. The tale was written in 1942 in New York shortly before the writer's death. In 1943, he achieved a return to the front, and in the summer of 1944 he went on a reconnaissance flight in his Lightning P-38 aircraft and did not return.

The writer Sergei Dovlatov in the last ten years of his work deliberately avoided sentences with words starting with one letter. According to him, this rule helped him discipline himself, saving him from verbosity and emptiness. The works of Dovlatov with this principle include "Suitcase", "Reserve", "Branch" and others.

Cosmopolitan was founded as a literary magazine in 1886 and first published as a women's magazine in 1965.

In 1925, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."

Once Chuck Palahniuk was resting in nature and quarreled with a neighboring camp, after which he was beaten hard. Returning to work with a bruised face, Palahniuk saw that none of his colleagues asked what had happened. Then he had the idea of the novel "Fight Club".

The world-famous Harry Potter series was first published in 1995, although it was written in 1992? Joan Rowling, having written the first part of the series, for a very long time could not attach her work to the publishing house for printing. All publishers refused to print this book, not believing that it could be successful.

James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - a boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14 and remained forever young in his mother's memory.

The novel "The Three Musketeers" was originally published chapter by chapter in the magazine Le Si?cle from March to July 1844. This is a traditional novel with a continuation, a feuilleton novel: the chapter ended at the most interesting place so that the reader was looking forward to continuing. The protagonist d'Artagnan was a real person and his name was Charles de Batz de Castelmore.

Ken Kesey in his novel "Over the Cuckoo's Nest" did not just choose people with mental disabilities as his heroes. In 1959, while at Stanford University, Kesey went to work as a psychiatric assistant at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital to earn money. There he voluntarily participated in experiments to study the effects on the body of LSD, mescaline and other psychedelics.

Wife of Mark Twain. Even in her youth, Laivy became disabled after she fell on the ice. Twain carefully took care of his wife and always helped her in everything. He was madly in love with Livey until her death in 1904. Twain hardly endured this loss and never fully recovered until the end of his life. He just did not want to live in the world without Livey.

about UNESCO statistics, Jules Verne is the most "translated" author in the world. His books have been printed in 148 languages. In the 60s of the XIX century in Russian Empire The publication of Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth was banned, in which spiritual censors found anti-religious ideas, as well as the danger of destroying confidence in the Holy Scriptures and the clergy.

Friedrich Nietzsche never married and had no children. Of course, there were women in his life, and he proposed more than once, but was refused. Nietzsche wrote: “There were only four women in my life. The two that made me even a little happier were prostitutes. Elizabeth (sister) was smart enough (and even too smart sometimes), but refused to marry me.

In the 1950s in the United States, best-selling book lists were compiled not only by actual sales, but also by inquiries from buyers in bookstores. Radio host Gene Shepard decided to ridicule this system and asked listeners of his show to ask in stores for the book "I, Libertine" by a fictional writer Frederick Ewing. This giveaway put the book on the official New York Times bestseller chart. After some time, the book with this name and pseudonym was indeed published, however, after the hoax was exposed.

The English artist and poet Dante Rossetti buried his wife in 1862, placing his unpublished poems in the coffin. A few years later he was offered to publish a book, but the poet could not restore the poems from memory. Then friends persuaded him to exhume the body of his wife, and the poems were published.

Among the newspapers, perhaps the most authoritative, popular and influential is the American edition of The New York Times. This name is known to almost everyone. The number of copies published on weekdays is more than one million one hundred thousand, and on holidays and weekends - more than one million six hundred thousand.

The world-famous book "Kama Sutra" includes not only a description of sexual positions, but also reflections on the relationship between a man and a woman and life in general? In fact, only one fifth of this Indian book is devoted to sexual positions (15 chapters out of 64). Much of the book is about love in general, about girls, about men, about relationships between the sexes, about courtship and charm.

Robert Louis Stevenson. In 1908, the first film adaptation of the book "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was filmed, since then it has been filmed more than 60 times. And our viewers are more familiar with the film adaptations of the novels Treasure Island (the 1988 cartoon of the same name is especially popular).

The dramatic searches of the founder of cubism, Pablo Picasso, were inspired by his work on scenery and costumes for surrealistic performances. Deciding to try himself not only as an artist and decorator, Picasso wrote two absurdist plays in the 1940s - Desire Caught by the Tail and Four Little Girls.

Scientists from Yale University decided to test whether there is a link between reading books and life expectancy. They relied on data from a large national study (more than 3,000 people over 50 participated in it, whose health was monitored for several years). All participants were divided into three groups: those who do not read at all, those who read up to 3.5 hours a week, and those who read more than 3.5 hours a week. On average, the love of reading extended life by two years, regardless of gender, income level, education and human health.

The name of Ray Bradbury's novel "451 degrees Fahrenheit" was chosen because, supposedly, paper ignites spontaneously at this temperature (and according to the plot of the novel, the government is trying to seize and burn all the books from the population). In fact, paper ignites spontaneously at temperatures just above 450 degrees Celsius. According to Bradbury, the error was caused by the fact that when choosing a name, he consulted with a specialist from the fire department, who confused the temperature scales.

The merry fellow and drunkard Hasek would have become a symbol of Czech literature even without Schweik. He has about 1,500 stories, pamphlets and other essays to his credit. The book "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik" was supposed to consist of six parts, but Hasek managed to finish only three and proceed to the fourth. Death interrupted the work of the author on The Adventures, and when the 39-year-old rebel was buried, the publisher asked Karel Vanek, a friend of Hasek, to finish the book.

Arthur Conan Doyle, in the stories of Sherlock Holmes, described many forensic techniques that were still unknown to the police. Among them, collecting cigarette butts and cigarette ashes, identifying typewriters, looking through a magnifying glass for traces at the scene. Subsequently, the police began to widely use these and other methods of Holmes.

William Shakespeare is recognized as the most "filmed" classic. Only "Hamlet" was transferred to the screens 21 times! During the first years of the 20th century, films based on the works of Shakespeare were made in England and France, Germany and Italy, Denmark and America.

All the most interesting things about literature, books, newspapers, magazines and writers are the most Interesting Facts updated: December 31, 2017 by: website

Reading is a favorite pastime of intellectuals. Hiding in a blanket by the fireplace, you can spend hours following the adventures of the heroes of your favorite novel, turning the pages of a slightly shabby book.

We have collected for you a few facts about this lesson that will allow you not to reproach yourself for the time spent, and perhaps they will remind you of hundreds of books that you have not read and will force you to take a new volume from the shelf.

1. Reading keeps a person physically healthy

In order to put letters into words, to understand the main idea of the work, to find your own explanation for everything - you need to do serious work, which is called gymnastics for the brain and is an excellent prevention of some of its diseases.

By the way, it doesn't matter what you read. For mental exercises, not only a voluminous tome with tasks is suitable. The light bestseller, which causes a lot of positive emotions and excites the imagination, will also cope well with this task.

2. Good books heal the soul

Time spent with a good book helps develop wonderful spiritual qualities: kindness, compassion, fortitude. Fiction and fantasy books form the ability to dream, better understand people different races and the world in general.

3. Teaching children to read is better before school.

Young children learn new things very quickly. Reading is no exception. Experts came to the conclusion that it is better to start training at the age of 4 to 6 years. In this case, less effort will be required than after 7 years. There are experts (for example, the authors of the book "Read before talking" Natalya Sozonova and Ekaterina Kutsina) who are sure that teaching preschoolers to read helps to cope with serious speech therapy problems and start talking.

4. Reading helps you be more successful.

Books not only develop the imagination, entertain and replenish vocabulary. They teach you to focus. A trained reader can easily delve into their favorite pastime in transport, and for many it is not difficult to watch several programs at once, switching channels, and keep several important things in mind.

5. Reading speed of great people

The average person reads books at a speed of 200-250 words per minute. This is approximately 2 pages of the book. The rate of reading speed among the greats is interesting: the great French commander Napoleon read 2000 words per minute, Balzac literally swallowed a 200-page novel in half an hour. Thomas Edison easily memorized the text in pages.

6. Speed reading is a handy technique

Speed reading is a very useful technique that anyone can master. It allows you to significantly reduce the time for studying printed materials and increase the reading rate from 200 to 3000 characters per minute without compromising the understanding of what is written. The simplest technique is to isolate the main thing from the text, skipping the "water", not to pronounce what you have read to yourself. Many great people used speed reading. Among them: Theodore Roosevelt, John Kennedy, the classic of proletarian literature Maxim Gorky.

7. Books used to be chained

Medieval libraries have come down to us, in the funds of which shelves with books on chains have been preserved. This protected funds from theft, because many copies were very expensive. In order to prevent the chains from getting tangled, the publications were stacked on the shelf with the spine away from us, which is not very common for us. This practice existed before the beginning of mass printing, until the 1880s.

8. Luggage of books read by a college graduate

The average American, after graduating from college, reads only 5 books in his life!