Evgeny Schwartz is a famous Soviet writer, poet, playwright and screenwriter. His plays have been filmed more than once, and also staged on the stages of leading theaters, and many fairy tales are still popular not only among young but also among adult readers. A feature of his works is a deep philosophical subtext with the apparent simplicity and even recognizability of the plots. Many of his works have become original interpretations of stories already familiar to readers, which he remade so interestingly that new works made it possible to revise well-known fairy tales.

Youth

Evgeny Schwartz was born in Kazan in 1896 in the family of a doctor. His childhood was spent in numerous travels, which was associated with the work of his father. In 1914, the future famous writer entered the law faculty of Moscow University. Already at this time, he was greatly carried away by the theater, which predetermined his future fate. During the First World War, he served in the army, was promoted to ensign.

After the February revolution, Yevgeny Schwartz entered the Volunteer Army, took part in the hostilities of the white movement. After demobilization, he began to work in a theater workshop.

Carier start

In 1921, the future playwright moved to Petrograd, where he began to play on stage. Then he established himself as an excellent improviser and storyteller. His literary debut took place in 1924, when the children's work "The Tale of an Old Balalaika" was published. A year later, Evgeny Schwartz was already a regular employee and author of two well-known children's magazines. The 1920s were very fruitful in his career: he composed several works for children, which came out in separate editions. 1929 was a landmark year in his biography: the Leningrad theater staged a play by the author "Underwood" on its stage.

Features of creativity

The writer worked hard and fruitfully. He not only composed literary works, but also wrote librettos for ballets, invented funny captions for drawings, made satirical reviews, and recapitulations for the circus. Another characteristic feature of his work was that he often took as a basis for his already familiar classical stories. So, Schwartz wrote the script for the cult movie "Cinderella", which was released in 1946. The old tale under the pen of the author began to play with new colors.

For example, Eugene Schwartz carefully prescribed those characters that remained impersonal in the original work. The prince became a mischievous and funny young man, the king amused the audience with his witty remarks and sweet innocence, the stepmother turned out to be not so much evil as a boastful and ambitious woman. The figure of the heroine's father also acquired the real features of a caring and loving parent, while his image usually remained unclear. So, the writer could breathe new life into old works.

Military theme

The works of Evgeny Lvovich Schwartz amaze with the variety of topics. During the war, he remained in besieged Leningrad and refused to leave the city. However, after a while he was nevertheless taken out, and in Kirov he wrote several essays about the war, among them - the play "One Night", which was dedicated to the defenders of the city. The work "Distant Land" tells about evacuated children. Thus, the author, like many of his contemporaries, composed a number of his works about the terrible days of war.

Film work

The tales of Evgeny Schwartz have been filmed several times. It has already been said above that it was he who became the author of the script for the famous "Cinderella". In addition to this work, the general viewer will probably still remember the old film "Mary the Master", also based on his work.

The writer again, in his characteristic subtle and philosophical manner, retells in a new way the story, familiar to everyone from childhood, about an evil water man who kidnapped a beautiful young woman. The author's undoubted success is the introduction of the child into the narrative as one of the main characters. After all, previous fairy tales with a similar plot were treated, as a rule, with two positive characters (the abducted princess and her liberator) and one negative. The author also expanded the scope of the plot, which was good for the film.

"An ordinary miracle"

Eugene Schwartz's books are notable for their complex intellectual overtones, which soon became the author's main device. Some of his works, sometimes, even with all their apparent simplicity of the plot, turned out to be difficult to understand. The author has been working on his, probably, the most famous play "An Ordinary Miracle" for ten years. She came out in 1954 and was soon staged on stage. Unlike his other tales, this work has no specific historical attachment; the text contains only a mention that the owner's estate is located in the Carpathian Mountains. The characters in the play turned out to be very ambiguous: the king, for all his cruelty, recklessly loves his daughter, the hunter, who is initially shown as a comedic hero, agrees to kill the hundredth bear. The characters constantly reflect and carefully analyze their actions from a psychological point of view, which was not at all typical for traditional fairy tales.

Productions and film adaptations

Evgeny Schwartz created almost all of his works for children. In this series, the play "An Ordinary Miracle" stands out, which is more likely intended for an adult reader. Criticism, as a rule, bypassed the performances. Some authors of the articles noted the originality of the play, however, they reproached the author for the fact that his characters did not fight for their happiness, but completely rely on the will of the wizard, which is not entirely fair, since the Princess and the Bear, on the contrary, behave in the most unexpected for the Master himself.

The first productions, however, were warmly received by the public, as well as by some other writers who appreciated the subtle philosophical humor and originality of the characters. Also at different times were made screen versions of this play: black and white E. Garin and color M. Zakharova. The latter acquired the status of a cult due to its stellar cast, excellent director's production, wonderful music, original interpretation of the characters, as well as colorful scenery.

"Shadow"

The biography of Yevgeny Schwartz is inseparably connected with his work for the theater, for which he wrote several famous plays. The one mentioned in the subtitle was created in 1940. It was composed especially for the stage production. Along with some other works of the playwright, he is distinguished by some pamphlet. This is a very specific story that tells about an unusual incident that happened to a scientist who lost his shadow. After a while, the latter took his place and caused him a lot of harm.

However, the devotion of the girl who loves him helped him overcome all trials. This work was filmed by N. Kasheverova, and the two main roles were played by the famous Soviet artist O. Dal.

Other works

In 1944, Schwartz wrote the philosophical tale The Dragon. In this work, he again resorted to his favorite trick: he remade already familiar folk plots, but this time, as the initial basis, he was based on the folklore motives of the Asian peoples about the terrible dragon, which no one can kill, because at one time the winner also turns into dictator. In this play, the author made the idea that people prefer to be content with a tolerable life under a dictator than to risk it in the struggle for freedom. None of them are able to feel truly free, and therefore the main character, the knight Lancelot, having defeated the monster, turns out to be a loser, because he could not change the psychology of people. The work was filmed by M. Zakharov in 1988.

The fairy tales that Evgeny Schwartz composed at one time are still popular. "Lost Time" (more precisely, "The Tale of Lost Time") is a work intended for children. In this story, the author carries out the idea of ​​the need to value every minute of time and not waste it in vain. Despite the recognizability of the plot, the composition, nevertheless, is distinguished by originality, since this time the writer transferred the action of the work to the modern era. The story tells about unlucky children who lost many precious watches stolen by evil wizards who turned into teenagers at this expense, and the main characters became old people. They had to go through a lot of tests before they managed to regain their familiar appearance again. The tale was filmed by A. Ptushko in 1964.

Personal life of the writer

The first wife of the author was an actress of the Rostov-on-Don theater. However, after a while, he divorced her and married a second time to Ekaterina Zilber, with whom he lived until death. However, they never had children. Everyone called Evgeny Schwartz an extremely romantic person, prone to eccentric actions. So, for example, he achieved consent to the marriage of his first wife by jumping into the cold water in winter. This first marriage turned out to be happy: the couple had a daughter, Natalya, who was the meaning of life for the writer.

However, the playwright's second love turned out to be much stronger, so he decided to go for this break. The author died in 1958 in Leningrad. The cause of death was a heart attack, as he had previously suffered from heart failure for a long time. In our time, the work of the writer is still relevant. Films-adaptations can often be seen on television, not to mention theatrical performances based on his works. The school curriculum provides for the reading of some of his fairy tales and plays.

Only concreteness and historically accurate coverage of life facts in the works of a true artist can serve as a springboard to the broadest generalizations. In world literature of various eras, frankly topical pamphlets, as you know, reached the heights of poetic generalization and did not lose anything in their immediate political acuteness. It can even be argued that the political acuteness did not so much interfere with their universal human content, but rather strengthened it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the psychological analysis in Schwartz's tales is, in most cases, a social analysis. For from the point of view of the storyteller, human personality flourishes only where it knows how to coordinate its interests with the interests of those around it, and where its energy, its mental strengths serve the good of society. These motives can be heard in a variety of Schwartz's tales.

The objective historicism of thinking did not kill the storyteller in Schwarz, but gave his fantasies a high irrefutability and philosophical depth. Historical concreteness and even objectivity have never and in no way prevented the creations of art from rising above time. The more precisely, subtly and deeper Evgeny Schwartz fulfilled his historically-specific mission of a pamphleteer, the more, naturally, the broader artistic significance his creations acquired both for their time and for all future times. This, of course, is nothing new or paradoxical. The distance between the present and the eternal is shortened both by the depth of thought and talent of the artist, and it would be naive to think that they can be opposed to each other within the same artistic biography. The greatness of artistic insight and understanding raises the present to the heights of the eternal, just as, however, the pettiness of the artist's intentions, his ideological and moral short-sightedness reduce the eternal to the level of instantly transient.

All this, perhaps, would not be worth talking about if the attempt to oppose Schwartz, the “angry pamphleteer, the passionate, irreconcilable son of his century, to some invented“ universal ”storyteller did not carry the poison of a very ambiguous aesthetic demagoguery. look back at how an ideologically emasculated and blissful Christmas grandfather will face you, deliberately excommunicated from the social conflicts dominant in life and deeply alien to the everyday life of our historical development. Such an interpretation of Schwartz's work does not help, but prevents the wonderful storyteller from confidently going into the future. "

Already during the war, in 1943, Schwartz returned to this idea in the play "Dragon", the anti-fascist and anti-war orientation of which was realized in a pamphlet full of anger and indignation, humanistic passion and inspiration. The idea of ​​this play came to the writer a long time ago, long before the Nazis attacked our country. Pondering over the events, the general meaning of which did not cause any doubts, the writer turned to their psychological mechanism and to the consequences they leave in the human mind. Asking himself a question that for many years worried millions of people - how could it happen that Hitlerism found such a massive support in Germany - Schwartz began to peer into the very nature of philistine opportunism and conciliation. It was the nature of this adaptability that explained a lot to him in what happened in Germany over the years after Hitler came to power.

The great political and satirical load did not deprive the fairy tale created by Schwartz of poetic ease, and it is not for nothing that Leonid Leonov once referred to this play as a fairy tale that "is very elegant, full of great pamphlet poignancy, great wit." Poetry and political depth, topicality and literary subtlety came together here hand in hand and in complete agreement with each other.

The Dragon depicted a country exhausted under the rule of an evil and vengeful monster, whose real name did not cause any doubts. Already in the remark describing the appearance of the Dragon in the house of the archivist Charlemagne, it was said: "And now an elderly, but strong, youthful, blond man with a soldier's bearing enters the room without haste. Hair is a hedgehog. He smiles broadly" (p. 327). “I am a son of war,” he openly recommends to himself. “The blood of the dead Huns flows in my veins, it is cold blood. In battle I am cold, calm and accurate” (p. 328). He could not have held out for a day if not for the tactics he chose. His tactic is that he attacks suddenly, counting on human disunity and on the fact that he has already managed to dislocate, in the words of Lancelot, their souls, poison their blood, kill their dignity.

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Dramatic art by Evgeny Schwartz. A look from the 21st century.

In 2016, Evgeny Lvovich Schwartz turned 120 years old. For a long time, his name was undeservedly forgotten, books with his works were not reprinted, and what was printed moved deeper on the bookshelf.

Meanwhile, E. Schwartz can rightfully be called a "healer of human souls", because he gave readers and viewers an opportunity to delve into the meaning of life ("What do you live for? For what?" as if addressing us), helped to destroy the germs of evil in their souls. His plays are for children, but not only, and maybe not so much for children. He “tried to touch everyone,” writes M. Sinelnikov in his article “On the beauty of human faces” (6, p. 369).

Dramatic art is a complex kind of literature with its own specific characteristics, requiring its reader, serious, thoughtful, demanding. It can be very difficult for the author of a dramatic work not to leave us indifferent, to make us involved in the life of other people, the heroes of the play, and also to cause emotional uplift, “to wake up, take out from under the wrath of everyday life, dormant like fire under ash, our feelings and thoughts, sharpen them, kindle them, give them cognitive power ... ”(1, p. 36). In this regard, W. Channing, an American preacher and writer of the 18th - 19th centuries, said well: "Every person is a whole volume, if only you know how to read it." Apparently, E.Shvar tried to “read” people, to find in everyone “something alive” and, as the Scientist says from the play “Shadow”, “to touch the quick, and that's it”.

The ability to “hit the hardest” possessed and still possesses the plays of E. Schwartz, and he himself, as a real talent, makes us clearly, figuratively imagine those people who are brought into them, to grasp the essence of the conflicts that arise between these people, and most importantly, evaluate them on their own, without prompting: after all, comments in plays, as a rule, are kept to a minimum.

The desire to devote himself to theatrical art appeared in E. Schwartz during his years of study at the law faculty of the Moscow People's University. Shanyavsky at the beginning of the 20th century. At first it was something unconscious, distant, but the decision turned out to be unshakable, despite the fact that by that time he had not yet written a single line, and the letters of his handwriting “look like dying mosquitoes” (5, p. 89).

In his diaries E. Schwartz writes: “Childhood and youth are a fateful time. The guessed right determines the whole life. " And it seems to us that he himself determined his path correctly. The choice was made. All that remained was to realize what was conceived, to say your weighty word in literature.

Later, in the 40s, Schwartz had an idea for the play "The Flying Dutchman", which the writer did not realize. But among other working notes for this play, a poem remained, which undoubtedly reflects the position of E. Schwartz:

God blessed me to go

Brest ordered, not thinking about the goal,

He blessed me to sing along the way,

So that my companions cheer up.

I walk, delirious, but I don't look around,

So as not to break God's command,

So as not to howl like a wolf instead of singing,

So that the heartbeat does not suddenly stop in fear.

I am human. And even a nightingale

Closing her eyes, she sings in her wilderness.

The dramaturgy of E. Schwartz was born in the harsh atmosphere of the 20s - 30s, when children's literature was taken under suspicion, and “opponents of anthropomorphism (endowing material and ideal objects, objects and phenomena of inanimate nature, animals, plants, mythical creatures with human properties ), argued that even without fairy tales, the child has difficulty in learning about the world. " But for himself the writer decided: “It's better to write fairy tales. Plausibility is not connected, but there is more truth ”(5, p. 6).

It all started with G.H. Andersen, C. Perrault and folk tales. E. Schwartz skillfully uses scenes familiar from childhood and creates his own original plays with lively stage characters.

"Underwood" is one of the first fairy tales, staged in 1929 by the Leningrad Youth Theater. About this production, Schwartz wrote: "For the first time in my life I experienced what success is ... I was stunned, but I remembered the special, obedient animation of the audience, I enjoyed it ... I was happy" (5, p. 321).

Even then, Schwartz was very demanding of himself, doubts about his talent constantly fought in him. After the success of Underwood, a little time passed, and “life went on as if there had been no premiere. And in my experience, nothing seems to have been added. I took up the new play as the first - and so all my life ”(5, p. 322). Undoubtedly, such an attitude to their work commands respect.

In October 1933, the premiere of "The Treasure" took place. The action takes place in the mountains, where students help adults find abandoned copper mines. The success was unexpected and complete. A basement appeared in Literary Leningrad: “The Youth Theater found a treasure” (5, p. 395).

And then one by one rework-transcriptions were born: "The Naked King" (1934), "Little Red Riding Hood" (1937), "The Snow Queen" (1938). But the familiar heroes under the pen of E. Schwartz acquired new features and easily fit into the context of the modern era. For example, the Atamansha in "The Snow Queen" says: "Children must be pampered, then real robbers grow out of them." Don't you think that this is relevant now, in the 21st century, when spoiled youth allow themselves to commit acts that violate the norms of morality and law !?

In 1940 E. Schwartz creates the play "Shadow". It is filled with irony, wit, deep wisdom and humanity, “seduces ... deep philosophical thought slipping here and there, clothed in the elegant form of a fairy-tale joke” (5, p. 739).

The tale includes problems, conflicts and the very atmosphere of the drama is quite "serious", "adult". The hero of the tale is an ingenuous soul, "a simple, naive person", as his influential enemies certify the Scientist (which, by the way, they see as a danger to themselves). He can be ranked among the galaxy of literary eccentrics and even associated with some reservations with the same Chatsky, Hamlet, Don Quixote. Christian Theodore, recommended as a friend of Andersen himself, “did not win a confident victory over the Shadow, this creature of the circulating world, the embodiment of antiquities” (3, p. 763), he simply escaped from the former fairy-tale country, where magic retreated before reality, mimicking, adapting to her. In this country, friends betrayed friends, indifference and pretense triumphed. The scientist leaves the country with the final remark: "Annunziata, let's go!" It resembles Chatsky's not at all optimistic cry: "Carriage to me, carriage!"

Much of what happens in the play fits very organically not only in the era of the early 20th century. We can easily apply much of what the heroes of this work say to our life today.

For example, the words of the Scientist have not lost their relevance at all: “Your country - alas! - similar to all countries in the world. Wealth and poverty, nobility and slavery, death and misfortune, reason and stupidity, holiness, crime, conscience, shamelessness - all this is mixed so closely ... ”. People like the journalist Caesar Borgia from the same play meet quite often in our country. “I want power, honor, and I am terribly short of money. For the secret of my complete success, I am ready for anything, ”says this hero.

You can achieve success in life, climb the career ladder in different ways, including the way that Majordomo talks about, teaching his assistant: “... my lower back bends by itself when tall persons approach. I still don’t see them and I don’t hear them, but I am already bowing. That is why I am in charge ”. A very familiar situation!

The Minister of Finance has a very clear position: “Prudent people transfer gold abroad, and foreign business circles are worried about their foreign reasons and transfer gold to us. That's how we live". Changes are not included in the plans of officials, they cannot stand it, as the same Minister states.

Everyone is afraid of exposure. For example, the ladies of the court from the play "The Naked King" do not want to hear the truth about themselves, which is broadcast by the Nose. At the royal supper the Duchess stuffed sandwiches, cutlets, pies and other food into her sleeves; The countess saves money and has been dining at a party for a whole month, and the baroness has made CHICKEN cutlets from KONINA for the guests. Of course, this can affect your reputation. Although what can we say about a state in which the Poet prepares a welcoming speech for the King, where questions and ... answers to them (!?) Are provided, and the King believes that his “nation is the highest in the world. All the others are good for nothing, we are great. " Here, you must agree, smacks of nationalism!

The King's meeting with the crowd involuntarily resembles the meeting of our citizens with high leadership. The First Minister openly warns: "You can open your mouth only to shout 'hurray' or sing a hymn." There is a clear exaltation of the person in power. The same First Minister says: “He (the king) is suddenly so close to you. He is wise, he is special! Not like other people. And such a miracle of nature is suddenly two steps away from you. Marvelous!"

It is said about officials in the play "The Shadow" that they "are indifferent to everything: life, death, and great discoveries," they are "a terrible force." Do you need comments?

As in the days of E. Schwartz, and now it is very troublesome with people simple and naive, who are often considered worse than blackmailers, thieves, adventurers, cunning and dodgy. That is how they looked at the hero of the play "Shadow" of the Scientist, who could not watch this crazy, unhappy world through his fingers, could not give up everything, as the Doctor advised him. The hero says about the Scientist: “He is healthy. But things are not going well. And they will go even worse, until he learns to look at the world through his fingers, until he gives up on everything, until he masters the art of shrugging his shoulders. "

The Scientist has his own opinion: “Do not believe anything - but this is death! To understand everything is also death. Everything is indifferent - but this is even worse than death! "

AP Chekhov wrote about this: "Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, premature death." Unfortunately, even now there are many people who are fencing themselves off from external problems associated with the life of society. It is very risky to break their peace, you can get into an unpleasant story.

The Great Patriotic War began. During the siege of Leningrad, E. Schwartz was assigned to the Radio Center. The book about the work of the radio of that time says: “The tales and sketches of Yevgeny Schwartz were the most interesting and significant. Each visit to the radio of this great artist becomes an event ... Around E. Schwartz there has always been an atmosphere of creativity and goodwill. The inclusion in Radio Chronicle of such tales of the playwright as "The Minister's Dream", "Diplomatic Conference", "Allies" made other materials of the chronicle more demanding. Bitingly and wittyly written by E. Schwartz "The Adventures of the Fascist Devil" (5, p. 733).

Unfortunately, the listed works of the writer are not familiar to the majority of modern readers and viewers.

The beginning of the Patriotic War, Schwartz "marks" the play "Under the Lindens of Berlin", written together with M. Zoshchenko. During the war years he creates plays "One Night", "Distant Land" and others. The play "One Night" was planned for staging at the Bolshoi Drama Theater in 1942, but was not staged. Schwartz himself wrote with bitterness: "I am not particularly accustomed to the fact that my plays are staged" (4, p. 6).

In 1942, the writer leaves for the town of Kotelnich in the Kirov region, then in Orichi, where the children's institutions evacuated from Leningrad were located. The material was collected, and in September of the same year E. Schwartz finished work on the play "Distant Land", staged later in many Youth Theaters.

In 1944 the play-pamphlet "The Dragon" was completed, which was "dragged" for several decades, being removed from the stage and forbidden. After all, killing the Dragon is an attempt on the very power! It was a fairy tale, but it was classified as a "harmful fairy tale." Harmful and dangerous. The author never saw his creation in print.

It is generally accepted that the plays "The Naked King", "The Shadow" and "The Dragon" constitute a trilogy that is Schwartz's reaction to the totalitarian regime. But one must think that Schwartz in no way aimed at Stalin, especially since “the topic - a maniac at the head of state - as applied to the USSR did not yet possess public consciousness (3, p. 763). The skill of the writer lies in the apoliticality of his heroes, because they preach the eternal laws of good, love, friendship, truth. Any normal society should strive for the triumph of these laws. The hero of the play "The Naked King" Christian exclaims: "The power of love has broken all obstacles ... Greet love, friendship, laughter, joy!" These words are so relevant for our time, when people are often angry, hostile to each other.

When at one time the famous English playwright Bernard Shaw was asked, in connection with different interpretations of one of his plays, what his own convictions were, he replied: “I do not have my own convictions. I have the convictions of my characters ... ”(1, p. 33). These words can be attributed to E. Schwartz, although, undoubtedly, he had his own convictions. But we think that these words can be interpreted as follows: “I am a playwright and, creating different human figures and characters, I must depict them with the greatest objectivity, believability, and for this I need to become“ each of them ”(2, p. 34).

"A real person is the one who wins," says the heroine of the play "The Shadow" singer Julia Julie about the Scientist. We believe that this is about E. Schwartz himself, and in general about people living with peace and goodness in their souls.

In 1947, the children's theater got acquainted with the play by Schwartz "Ivan the Honest Worker". Two versions of it have been preserved in the archives. Despite the fact that in the early 70s it was discussed at a meeting of the artistic council, it was accepted for staging, but, unfortunately, was not staged.

In 1949, Schwartz wrote the play The First Year. After repeated alterations, it was named "The Tale of Young Spouses".

The painstaking work of E. Schwartz on his works is evidenced by the fact that, for example, the scene of the meeting of a disguised princess with a bear (the play "Bear", the first act of which was written in 1944, the last - in 1954), the author rewrote six times. “I loved this play very much, lately I have touched it with caution and only on days like this when I felt like a human being,” Schwartz wrote in his Diary on May 13, 1952. Even the title of the work has been in the search stage for a long time: "The Merry Wizard", "The Obedient Wizard", "The Mad Bearded Man", "The Naughty Wizard" and, finally, a very simple but succinctly "Ordinary Miracle".

Back in 1924 S.Ya. Marshak became a teacher for E. Schwartz. Listening to him, the young writer began to understand "how to write and what to write ... when the work is finished, when it has become a discovery, when it can be published." Marshak literally "hammered into the student the consciousness that the work on the manuscript is a matter of divine importance" (5, p. 88).

Great respect is evoked by such a character trait of E. Schwartz as the sincerity with which he writes about himself: “I don’t know how to work as a real professional writer is supposed to ... And I don’t feel calmer over the years. I start each new thing as the first one ”(5, p. 14, 22, 25). And at the same time - the belief that "everything will be fine." “What if life will go easier? What if I start to work in a row, in large quantities and successfully? What if I don't die soon and have time to do something else? " (5, p. 24). Are there many people now who want to leave behind something durable and essential ?!

All his life, Evgeny Schwartz went to the "freedom of the artist", and, having visited the exhibition of P. Picasso in December 1956, he wrote: "He does what he wants", envying his "freedom." Internal. " (3, p. 764).

The skill of a playwright is largely determined by how skillfully and subtly he uses language, which requires precision and, if possible, brevity. There should be no unnecessary words in it. Each word of the play, each monologue "must be subordinated to the main task - to promote the development of action, to express feelings and thoughts, states of mind and intentions of the characters at different turns of the plot" (1, p. 90).

With regard to the dramaturgy of Schwartz, this definition perfectly characterizes the linguistic manner of his plays, since it is in unity with their ideological and figurative content. The language here serves, “and does not lie like models in a showcase. He serves, acts ... You feel and understand that he is precious, alive! " (2, p. 31).

The tales of E. Schwartz are characterized by the importance of content, the purity of the moral atmosphere. Under the pen of the writer, hatred of evil and violence, love of good and freedom acquire a new quality and a new color, become clearly and deeply in tune with the thoughts of our contemporaries.

Schwartz's fabulous images have "psychological depth, plasticity, volume, realistic completeness, and vital reliability" (5, p. 185).

Ideological content, realistic full-bloodedness make E. Schwartz's plays equally the property of young and adult spectators.

The young viewer will find in them the romance of miracles, learn from them about good and evil. They will give an adult food for thought about the problems of our era.

On his 60th birthday, Evgeny Schwartz received more than two hundred telegrams from writers, artists, artists, in which words of gratitude to him, “the good wizard,” as VF Panova wrote. IG Ehrenburg cordially congratulated "a wonderful writer, gentle to man and evil to everything that interferes with life." Zoshchenko, who was present at the anniversary of E.L. Schwartz on October 20, 1956 in the House of Writers. Mayakovsky, in his welcoming speech he said: “Over the years, I began to appreciate in a person not his youth, and not a celebrity, and not talent. I value decency in a person. You are a very decent person, Zhenya! " (7, p. 142).

In 1957, II Shneiderman, summing up the life activity of E. Schwartz, wrote to him in a letter: “... But to see life, to be so sober - and to keep faith in good, this is given only to great people. Or really simple people on whom the whole life rests. You have both, the heart of a common man, the talent of a great man. It is easier to live in the world when you know that there are people like you. "

Getting deeper and deeper into the work of Evgeny Lvovich Schwartz, we sincerely confirm the validity of these words.

We understand that the presented study of E. Schwartz's drama is far from complete. There is still a lot of work to be done for the name of the talented writer to deservedly take its place among the classics of Russian literature.

List of used literature.

1.Apushkin Ya.V. Dramatic magic. - M .: "Young Guard" 1966.

2. Osnos Y. In the world of drama. - M .: Soviet writer, 1971.

3. Russian writers of the 20th century: Bibliographic dictionary / Ch.Red. and comp. PA Nikolaev.-M: Great Russian Encyclopedia; Rendezvous - AN. 2000.

4. Symphony of the mind. Aphorisms and sayings of domestic and foreign authors. Composition by V. Vorontsov. -M., "Young Guard", 1976.

5. Schwartz E.L. I live restlessly ...: From the diaries. -L., Soviet writer, 1990.

6. Schwartz E.L. An ordinary miracle: Plays.-SPb .: Limbus Press, 1998.

7. Stock I.V. Stories about playwrights.-M., 1967.

I.L. Tarangul

Visiting the food about the formation of the interaction of the traditional plot-like material and the original author's reappraisal. The pre-release is held on the materials of creativity by Є. Schwartz ("The Naked King") and the literary decline of G.-H. Andersen. Looking at the problems of genre transformation of the prelude to creativity. Those who, as a result of the interconnection of both plots, are to be found, in a universal context on the basis of the text, the problems of dramatic processes of the era of the 30-40th rr. XX century

Key words: drama, traditional plots and images, genre transformation, pidtext.

The article covers the problem of the forms of interaction of traditional plots and images and their author "s original reinterpretation. The author investigated Eu. Shwarts" s work "The Naked King" and H. Ch. Andersen literary heritage. The article focuses on genre transformations and the author considers the thought that as a result of plots interaction in the universal context on the sub-text level various questions of the dramatic processes of the period 1930-1940 have been raised.

Key words: traditional plots and images, genre transformations, drama.

In the literature of the twentieth century, full of critical historical cataclysms, the problem of the moral self-assessment of the individual, the choice of the hero, placed in an extreme situation, is actualized. To comprehend this problem, writers turn to the cultural heritage of the past, to classical models containing universal moral guidelines. Transforming the cultural heritage of other peoples, writers strive, through the prism of comprehending the causes of the tragic processes of our time, to feel the deep connections of epochs distant from each other.

The appeal to centuries-old cultural traditions provoked the appearance in the Russian drama of the twentieth century many works that significantly transform well-known plots, are actualized by new problems (G. Gorin "That very Munchausen", "Plague on both your houses"; S. Aleshin "Mephistopheles", " Then in Seville "; V. Voinovich" Again about the naked king "; E. Radzinsky" Continuation of Don Juan "; B. Akunin" Hamlet. Version "; A. Volodin" Dulcinea Tobosskaya "; L. Razumovskaya" My sister the Little Mermaid ", "Medea"; L. Filatov "Lizistrata", "Hamlet", "New Decameron, or Tales of the Plague City", "Once again about the naked king", etc.).

One of the writers who created the original versions of the traditional plot-like material was E. Schwartz ("Shadow", "An Ordinary Miracle", "The Naked King", "Little Red Riding Hood", "The Snow Queen", "Cinderella", etc.).

The playwright argued that "before every writer who is carried away by a fairy tale, there is an opportunity either to go into the archaic, there, to the fabulous origins, or to bring the fairy tale to our days." It seems that this phrase rather succinctly formulates the main ways of rethinking traditional fairy-tale structures in national literatures, which have not lost their formal content significance in modern literature. Comprehending the reality of his day, E. Schwartz was looking for support to reject her existential hopelessness in the universal humanistic codes created and comprehended by folk poetry. That is why he turns to the genre of the fairy tale, which provided a wide scope for the analysis of the tragic contradictions of the era.

All of the most significant fairy tales-plays by E. Schwartz are "twice literary tales". The playwright, as a rule, uses fairy tales that have already been processed by literature (Andersen, Chamisso, Hoffmann, etc.). "Someone else's plot, as it were, entered my blood and flesh, I recreated it and only then released it into the light." These words of the Danish writer Schwartz took as an epigraph to his "Shadow" - a play in which Andersen's plot is reworked. This is how both writers declared the peculiarity of their work: the creation of independent, original works based on borrowed plots.

At the heart of Schwartz's play is a conflict that is traditional for the genre of romantic fairy tales and is characteristic of many of Andersen's works. It is a conflict between a fairytale dream and everyday reality. But the fairy-tale world and reality in the play of the Russian playwright are fundamentally special, since their formal meaningful interaction is carried out taking into account the genre multi-layeredness of the play, which is complicated by the "provocative" associative-symbolic subtext.

Based on the philosophical orientation of Schwartz's plays, researchers attribute his works to the genre of intellectual drama, highlighting the following distinctive features: 1) philosophical analysis of the state of the world; 2) increasing the role of the subjective principle; 3) gravitation towards convention; 4) artistic proof of the idea, appeal not so much to feelings as to reason. The combination in the play of the genre features of a magical folk tale, artistic forms of a romantic fairy tale and the principles of artistic modeling of the world in an intellectual drama provokes a genre synthesis in which fairy tale and reality, the conventional world and modernity are as close as possible. Through such a synthesis, those moral values ​​that help an individual (hero) to withstand the tragic circumstances of modern reality are "isolated" from the fairy tale. Thanks to the fabulous convention of depicting reality, the world of The Naked King turns out to be quite real at the same time.

According to M.N. Lipovetsky, "passing through literature, a fairy tale that embodies the dream of truly human values ​​must be saturated with the experience of history in order to really help a person to withstand, not to break down in modern times full of tragic trials and cataclysms."

The central collision of the play "The Naked King", like a number of his other plays, is a person under the rule of tyranny, a person who resists dictatorship, defending his spiritual freedom and the right to happiness. Under the conditions of the realization of the monstrous moral alogism of the totalitarian regime, when the person is subjected to dehumanization, Schwartz proclaims in the play the concept of "basic life" characteristic of a fairy tale in which the main thing is a solid sense of the moral norm. It is in The Naked King that the concept of “basic” and “false” life, their uneasy relationship, is revealed with special force. To convey these thoughts to the reader (viewer), Schwartz uses in his plays the motives of the famous Andersen's fairy tales. The traditional, well-known fairytale situation in the plays of E. Schwartz somewhat reduces the reader's interest in the plot basis, allegory becomes the main source of amusement.

Contaminating the motives of G.-H. Andersen ("The Princess and the Swineherd", "The Princess and the Pea", "The King's New Dress"), E Schwartz places his characters in fundamentally new conditions, consonant with his era. The beginning of the play is quite recognizable, the main characters are a princess and a swineherd, but the functional characteristics of both are significantly different from the fabulous prototypes. Schwartz ignores the problem of social inequality in the relationship between the protagonists. At the same time, the image of Princess Henrietta undergoes a greater transformation. Unlike Andersen's heroine, Princess Schwartz is devoid of prejudice. However, for Schwartz, the relationship between the characters is not particularly important; the meeting of two young people serves as a starting point for the main action in the play. The union of lovers is opposed by the will of the king-father, who is going to marry his daughter to the neighboring ruler. Heinrich decides to fight for his happiness and this desire ties up the main conflict of the play.

The second picture of the first act introduces us to the orders of government of a neighboring state. With the arrival of the princess, the main issue of interest to the king is the question of her origin. The nobility of the princess's origin is checked with a pea placed under twenty-four feather beds. Thus, the motive of Andersen's fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea" is introduced into the play. But here, too, Schwartz rethinks the proto-plot, including in the plot development the motive of a contemptuous attitude towards social inequality. The main character is capable of neglecting her high origin if it interferes with her love for Heinrich.

The question of the "purity of blood" in the play becomes a kind of response from the writer to contemporary events at the time of writing the play. Evidence of this is the many remarks of the characters in the play: "... our nation is the highest in the world ..." ; "Valet: Are you Aryans? Heinrich: For a long time. Valet: That's good to hear" ; "King: What a horror! Princess jewish" ; "... they began to burn books in the squares. In the first three days they burned all really dangerous books. Then they began to burn the rest of the books indiscriminately". The order of the" highest state in the world "resembles a fascist regime. But at the same time, the play cannot be considered a straightforward anti-fascist response to events in Germany. The king is a despot and tyrant, but one cannot see the features of Hitler in him. all the time he attacked his neighbors and fought ... now he has no worries. Neighbors took away all the land that could be taken from him"The content of the play is much broader," the mind and imagination of Schwartz were absorbed not by private issues of life, but by the fundamental and most important problems, the problems of the fate of peoples and mankind, the nature of society and human nature. " in the play, an artistically convincing universal model of tyranny.The writer comprehended the tragic conditions of the social life of his country in the 1930s and 1940s, treating the problem of fascism only as another “proof of the repetition of many bitter life patterns.” A keen awareness of the contradictions and conflicts of his modern era compel the playwright to put forward as the main theme of the preservation of personality in a person, focusing on the ontological dominants of well-known material. That is why Henrietta is alien to the world of a "militarized state", which she refuses to accept: " Everything is under the drum here. The trees in the garden are lined up in platoon columns. Birds fly by battalion ... And all this cannot be destroyed - otherwise the state will perish ...". The militarized order in the kingdom has been brought to the point of absurdity, even nature must obey the military regulations. In the" highest state in the world, "people, on command, tremble in reverence for him, turn to each other." on the ascending line"flattery and hypocrisy flourish (let us compare, for example, the dystopian world created by Shchedrin's Gloom-Grumblev).

The struggle of the socially "low" Henry for his love leads him to a rivalry with the king-groom. So the plot of the play includes the motive of another Andersen's fairy tale "The King's New Dress". As in the borrowed plot, the heroes dress up as weavers and in a certain situation "reveal" the true essence of their ruler and his retinue. The kingdom, in which the king benefits from knowing only the pleasant truth, rests on the ability of his subjects to reject the obvious and recognize the non-existent. They are so used to lying and being hypocritical that they are afraid to tell the truth, " tongue does not turn". At the junction of the fabulous image of the" highest state in the world "and the realistic-conditioned model of tyranny and despotism, a special world of the state appears, in which the false, the non-existent becomes quite real. Therefore, everyone who examines the fabrics, and then the" sewn "outfit of the king, is not deceived, but acts in accordance with the "charter" of the kingdom - creates a kind of mystified reality.

In his fairy tale, Andersen examines the problem of the admissibility of a person in power, whose personality is exhausted by one characteristic - a passion for outfits (a similar characteristic is used, for example, by G. Gorin in the play "That very Munchausen"). The storyteller examines the stupidity and hypocrisy of his subjects primarily from a moral and ethical point of view. Schwartz, on the other hand, brings to the fore the social and philosophical questions, in a peculiar form he explores the nature and causes of tyranny. Exposing evil, despotism, stupidity, petty tyranny, philistinism is the main problem of the work, which forms the system of collisions, their active interaction with each other. One of the heroes states: " Our entire national system, all traditions are based on unshakable fools. What will happen if they tremble at the sight of the naked sovereign? Foundations will shake, walls will crack, smoke will go over the state! No, you can't let the king go naked. Splendor is the great prop of the throne". The development of the plot gradually clarifies the reasons for the confident reign of the tyrant. They lie in the slavish psychology of the philistine, who is not able, and does not want to critically comprehend reality. The prosperity of evil is ensured by the passive, philistine attitude of the crowd to the realities of life. In the scene on the square, a crowd of onlookers gathered once again admire the new dress of their idol. The townspeople are delighted with the outfit in advance, even before the king appears on the square. Seeing their ruler really naked, people refuse to objectively perceive what is happening, their life is based on the habit of total tyranny and blind conviction of the need for the power of a despot ...

Hints at the topical contradictions of modernity can be seen in E. Schwartz at all levels: in figurative characteristics, replicas of characters, and most importantly, in the writer's desire to depict modernity at the level of associative-symbolic subtext. In the final scene of the play, Heinrich declares that " the power of love broke all obstacles", but, given the complex symbolism of the play, such a finale is only an external ontological shell. The absolutization of tyranny, the passive philistine attitude of people to life, the desire to replace reality with a mystified reality remain intact. However, it is also obvious that Schwartz was able to rethink Andersen's plot, which acquired a completely new meaning in the play.

Literature

1. Borev Yu.B. Aesthetics. 2nd ed. - M., 1975 .-- 314 p.

2. Bushmin A. Continuity in the development of literature: Monograph. - (2nd ed., Add.). - L .: Art. lit., 1978 .-- 224 p.

3. Golovchiner V.E. On the question of E. Schwartz's romanticism // Scientific. tr. Tyumen University, 1976. - Sat. 30 .-- S. 268-274.

4. Lipovetsky M.N. Poetics of a literary tale (Based on the material of Russian literature of the 1920s-1980s). - Sverdlovsk: Ural Publishing House. University, 1992 .-- 183 p.

5. Neamtsu A.E. Poetics of traditional subjects. - Chernivtsi: Ruta, 1999 .-- 176 p.

6. Schwartz E. An ordinary miracle: Plays / Comp. and entered. article Skorospelova E. - Chisinau: Lit artistika, 1988. - 606 p.

7. Schwartz E. Fantasy and reality // Questions of literature. - 1967. - No. 9. - P.158-181.

The article was overtaken by the rare school on November 16, 2006.

Keywords: Evgeny Schwartz, Evgeny Lvovich Schwartz, criticism, creativity, works, read criticism, online, review, feedback, poetry, Critical articles, prose, Russian literature, 20th century, analysis, E Schwartz, drama, naked king