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The Tale of Tsar Saltan year of writing. Tsar Saltan. The Green Bird and the Princess of Belle Etoile

“The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of his son, the glorious and mighty hero Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the beautiful Swan Princess” (shortened version of the title - "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" ) - a fairy tale in verse by A. S. Pushkin. Created in 1831, and first published a year later.

Initially, Pushkin wanted to alternate poetry with prose when writing a fairy tale, but later abandoned this idea. “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” is written in trochaic tetrameter with paired rhymes: in those days “imitations” of folk poetry were often written in this way.

Plot

One late evening three sisters were spinning. Talking to each other, they dream about what each of them would do if she suddenly became a queen. The first of them promises to arrange a feast for the whole world, the second promises to weave linen, and the third promises to give birth to a hero “for the father-king.” At this moment, Tsar Saltan himself enters the room. Before that, he overheard the sisters’ conversation under the window, and most of all he liked the dream of the last of them. It is to her that Saltan offers to become queen and bear him a son. He invites the other two sisters to move to his palace as a cook and weaver.

The elder sisters of the newly-minted queen were jealous of their younger sister. They wrote a letter to the king (while the latter was at war) that the queen gave birth to him “an unknown little animal.” The queen herself and the born baby are walled up in a barrel and thrown into the sea, citing a non-existent letter from the king.

However, the barrel soon ends up on a desert island. The queen and her already matured son, a young man of about twenty - Tsarevich Guidon, come out of the barrel. In order to feed his mother, Guidon makes a bow and arrow and goes to the sea to shoot birds. A picture opens before him: a kite attacked a white swan. The prince kills the kite, and in gratitude for saving his life, the swan promises him its help. A city appears on an empty island, and Guidon becomes its ruler.

Sea merchants sail past the island and admire the beauty of the new city. Upon arrival in the kingdom of Saltan, they tell the king about the wonderful city and invite him on behalf of Prince Guidon to visit. The prince himself, having turned (with the help of a swan) into a mosquito, sails with the merchants to his father and listens to this conversation.

But one of the envious sisters, the cook, tells Saltan about a new wonder of the world: a singing squirrel that lives under a spruce tree and gnaws nuts with emeralds and golden shells. Tsar Saltan, having heard about the new miracle, refuses to go to Prince Guidon. For this, the mosquito stings the cook in the right eye. After returning, Prince Guidon tells the white swan about the magic squirrel. Under the spruce tree a singing squirrel appears, for which he (that is, the prince) builds a crystal house.

The next time, the merchants tell Tsar Saltan about the singing squirrel and convey a new invitation from Prince Guidon. The prince himself, whom this time the swan turned into a fly, listens to another conversation. The Weaver talks about 33 heroes emerging from the sea, led by uncle Chernomor. Tsar Saltan, having heard about the new miracle, again refuses the trip, for which a fly stings the weaver in the left eye. At home, Prince Guidon tells the white swan about the 33 heroes, and they appear on the island.

And again the merchants tell Tsar Saltan about miracles, about 33 heroes and convey a new invitation from Prince Guidon. The prince himself, whom this time the swan turned into a bumblebee, listens to this conversation. The matchmaker, Babarikha, talks about a princess who eclipses “the light of God during the day,” with a moon under her braid and a burning star in her forehead. Tsar Saltan, having heard about the new miracle, refuses the trip for the third time. For this, the bumblebee stings Babarikha on the nose.

After returning, Prince Guidon tells the white swan about the beautiful princess. The Swan again fulfills the wish of Prince Guidon, because the princess with the star in her forehead is her. As a result, Tsar Saltan sets off on a journey to the island of Prince Guidon. Upon arrival, he recognizes his wife in the queen, and his son and daughter-in-law in the young prince and princess. To celebrate, he forgives the evil sisters. A cheerful feast is arranged for the whole world, and everyone lives happily and richly.

Origin of the plot

“The Tale of Tsar Saltan” is a free adaptation of a folk tale that was written down by Pushkin in two various options. The author did not follow any of them exactly, freely changed and supplemented the plot, while maintaining folk character content. The long title of the tale imitates the titles of popular popular print narratives common in the 18th century. The work itself used characters borrowed from folk tales. Such, for example, as the magical image of the Swan Princess, which has a response in the image of Vasilisa the Wise.

The plot of the tale resembles that of the "Tale of Constance" ("The Lawyer's Tale", "The Lawyer's Tale") from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The borrowing of this plot directly from Chaucer was proven in the work of E. Anichkova, however, this work caused negative criticism by M. K. Azadovsky (“Sources of Pushkin’s Fairy Tales”) and R. M. Volkov, who denied direct borrowing of the plot from Chaucer, but noted the similarities with him certain passages of Pushkin's fairy tale. Russian folk tale “Knee-deep in gold, elbow-deep in silver”, recorded by Alexander Afanasyev in 5 versions. In the comments to the 1984-1985 edition, L. G. Barag and N. V. Novikov describe the widest prevalence of this plot. In particular, Carlo Gozzi used (before Pushkin) this plot in the play “The Green Bird”.

On the 22nd, at noon, Pierre was walking uphill along a dirty, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the unevenness of the path. From time to time he glanced at the familiar crowd surrounding him, and again at his feet. Both were equally his own and familiar to him. The lilac, bow-legged Gray ran merrily along the side of the road, occasionally, as proof of his agility and contentment, tucking his hind paw and jumping on three and then again on all four, rushing and barking at the crows that were sitting on the carrion. Gray was more fun and smoother than in Moscow. On all sides lay the meat of various animals - from human to horse, in various degrees decomposition; and the wolves were kept away by the walking people, so Gray could eat as much as he wanted.
It had been raining since the morning, and it seemed that it would pass and clear the sky, but after a short stop the rain began to fall even more heavily. The rain-saturated road no longer absorbed water, and streams flowed along the ruts.
Pierre walked, looking around, counting steps in threes, and counting on his fingers. Turning to the rain, he internally said: come on, come on, give it more, give it more.
It seemed to him that he was not thinking about anything; but far and deep somewhere his soul thought something important and comforting. This was something of a subtle spiritual extract from his conversation with Karataev yesterday.
Yesterday, at a night halt, chilled by the extinguished fire, Pierre stood up and moved to the nearest, better-burning fire. By the fire, to which he approached, Plato was sitting, covering his head with an overcoat like a chasuble, and telling the soldiers in his argumentative, pleasant, but weak, painful voice a story familiar to Pierre. It was already past midnight. This was the time at which Karataev usually recovered from a feverish attack and was especially animated. Approaching the fire and hearing Plato’s weak, painful voice and seeing his pitiful face brightly illuminated by the fire, something unpleasantly pricked Pierre’s heart. He was frightened by his pity for this man and wanted to leave, but there was no other fire, and Pierre, trying not to look at Plato, sat down near the fire.

Talking among themselves, three sisters at a spinning wheel dream about what each of them would do if she suddenly became a queen. The first of them promises to arrange a feast for the whole world, the second promises to weave linen, and the third promises to give birth to a hero “for the father-king.” At this moment, Tsar Saltan himself enters the little room, who had previously overheard the sisters’ conversation under the window. He invited the third of them to become his wife, and the other two to become a weaver and a cook at court.

While the king was fighting in distant lands, the queen gave birth to a son - Tsarevich Guidon. However, out of envy, the young mother’s sisters wrote to the newborn’s father that the wife had given birth to an “unknown little animal.” Contrary to the expectations of the deceivers, the king is in no hurry to deal with his wife, but orders the decision to be waited until his return. The women, however, do not let up: they replace the genuine message from the king with a forged one, which supposedly contains an order “to secretly throw both the queen and the offspring into the abyss of water.” The boyars, not suspecting the deception, place the mother and baby in a barrel and throw them into the sea. The barrel is carried to a desert island, and Guidon emerges from it as an adult young man. To feed his mother, he makes a bow and arrow and goes to the sea to hunt. There he saves a white swan from a kite, and she promises to thank him. A city appears on an empty island, and Guidon becomes its ruler.

Merchants sail past the island and are surprised to see on the previously uninhabited island “a new golden-domed city, a pier with a strong outpost.” Guidon receives the merchants as dear guests, and at the end of the conversation he bows to Tsar Saltan. Upon arrival in Saltan's kingdom, they tell him about the wonderful city and invite him on behalf of Prince Guidon to visit.

The prince himself, having turned into a mosquito with the help of a swan, sails with the merchants to his father and listens to this conversation. But one of the envious sisters, the cook, tells Saltan about a new wonder of the world: a singing squirrel that lives under a spruce tree and gnaws nuts with emeralds and golden shells. Having heard about this, the king refuses to go to Guidon. For this, the mosquito stings the cook in the right eye.

After returning to his domain, Guidon tells the swans about the squirrel, and she moves it to his city. The prince builds a crystal house for the squirrel.

The next time, the merchants tell Saltan about the squirrel and convey a new invitation from Guidon. The prince, in the form of a fly, listens to this conversation. The Weaver tells about 33 heroes emerging from the sea, led by uncle Chernomor. Saltan, having heard about the new miracle, again refuses the trip, for which the fly stings the weaver in the left eye. Prince Guidon tells the swans about 33 heroes, and they appear on the island.

And again the merchants tell Tsar Saltan about miracles and convey a new invitation. Guidon, in the form of a bumblebee, eavesdrops. The matchmaker, Babarikha, talks about a princess who eclipses “the light of God during the day,” with a moon under her braid and a burning star in her forehead. Hearing about this miracle, Saltan refuses the trip for the third time. For this, the bumblebee stings Babarikha on the nose, sparing her eyes.

After returning, Guidon tells the swans about the beautiful princess and says that he wants to marry her. She again fulfills Guidon’s wish, because the princess with the star on her forehead is herself. The merchants once again come to Tsar Saltan, tell him about all the changes on the island and again convey Guidon’s invitation with reproach: “He promised to visit us, but still hasn’t gotten ready.”

As a result, Tsar Saltan sets off on a journey to Buyan Island. Upon arrival, he recognizes his wife in the queen, and his son and daughter-in-law in the young prince and princess. To celebrate, he forgives the evil sisters and his in-laws, after which he lets them go home. A cheerful feast is arranged for the whole world, and everyone lives happily and richly.

Bilibin's illustrations

Tsar Saltan eavesdrops under the windows

Saltan's farewell

The stars shine in the blue sky,
In the blue sea the waves are lashing

And marveling at myself
He sees the city is big

Flight of a mosquito

The shipbuilders responded:
We've traveled all over the world

Final Feast

History of creation

Pushkin mainly used folk tale « "(see below), which he wrote down briefly in two or three different options(depending on whether the 1828 prose entry is considered a draft or not). The work also used characters borrowed from other folk tales - for example, the magical image of the Swan Princess, which has a response in the image of Vasilisa the Wise (see below).

It is believed that Pushkin made the first entry related to the plot of the future fairy tale in 1822 in Chisinau. (Although there is an opinion that this is a later (1824-1825 or 1828) insertion into the Kishinev notebook).

This is a short schematic entry, which is most likely a summary of a literary, probably Western European source (as evidenced by such details as “oracle”, “rook”, “storm”, declaration of war, etc.). It is difficult to understand this sketchy entry due to the confusion in the characters. (Mark Azadovsky comments: “A king who dies childless is undoubtedly the king of the country to which the exiled queen and her son arrived; “The princess gives birth to a son” is a new wife; the second time “princess” is referred to as the king’s first wife, and “queen” “-mother of the prince”).

Chisinau record

The king has no children. He listens to the three sisters: if I were a queen, I would [build a palace] every day, etc.... If I were a queen, I would start... The wedding is the next day. Envy of the first wife; war, king at war; [the princess gives birth to a son], messenger etc. The king dies childless. Oracle, storm, rook. They elect him king - he rules in glory - a ship is traveling - Saltan is talking about a new sovereign. Saltan wants to send ambassadors, the princess sends her trusted messenger, who slanders. The king declares war, the queen recognizes him from the tower

The following brief recording of the tale was made by Pushkin in 1824-1825, during his stay in Mikhailovskoye. This entry supposedly dates back to nanny Arina Rodionovna and is among the entries known under the code name “ Fairy tales of Arina Rodionovna».

Abstract of 1824

“A certain king planned to get married, but did not find anyone to his liking. He once overheard a conversation between three sisters. The eldest boasted that she would feed the state with one grain, the second that she would clothe her with one piece of cloth, the third that she would give birth to 33 sons in the first year. The king married the youngest, and from the first night she conceived.

The king left to fight. His stepmother, jealous of her daughter-in-law, decided to destroy her. After three months, the queen successfully gave birth to 33 boys, and 34 were miraculously born - knee-deep silver legs, gold arms up to the elbows, a star on her forehead, a month in the veil; They sent to inform the king about this. The stepmother detained the messenger on the way, made him drunk, and replaced the letter, in which she wrote that the queen was not a mouse, not a frog - an unknown animal. The king was very saddened, but with the same messenger he ordered to wait for his arrival for permission. The stepmother again changed the order and wrote an order to prepare two barrels: one for 33 princes, and the other for the queen with her wonderful son - and throw them into the sea. And so it was done.

The queen and the prince swam for a long time in a tarred barrel, and finally the sea threw them onto the land. The son noticed this. “My mother, bless me so that the hoops fall apart and we come out into the light.” - “God bless you, child.” - The hoops burst, they went out onto the island. The son chose a place and, with the blessing of his mother, suddenly built a city and began to live and rule in it. A ship is passing by. The prince stopped the shipmen, examined their pass and, learning that they were going to Sultan Sultanovich, the Turkish sovereign, turned into a fly and flew after them. The stepmother wants to catch him, but he doesn’t give in. The shipbuilding guests tell the king about the new state and about the wonderful youth - silver legs and so on. “Oh,” says the king, “I’ll go and see this miracle.” “What a miracle,” says the stepmother, “this is what a miracle: there is an oak tree by the sea of Lukomoria, and on that oak tree there are golden chains, and on those chains a cat walks: up it goes - it tells fairy tales, down it goes - it sings songs.” - The prince flew home and, with his mother’s blessing, moved a wonderful oak tree in front of the palace.

New ship. Same thing again. The Sultan has the same conversation. The king wants to go again. “What a miracle is this,” says the stepmother again, “this is what a miracle: there is a mountain beyond the sea, and on the mountain there are two hogs, the hogs are squabbling, and gold and silver are falling between them,” and so on. Third ship and so on. Also. “What a miracle, here’s a miracle: 30 youths emerge from the sea exactly equal in voice and hair, face and height, and they emerge from the sea for only one hour.”

The princess grieves about the rest of her children. The prince, with her blessing, undertakes to find them. “Mother, pour out your milk and knead 30 flat cakes.” - He goes to the sea, the sea shook, and 30 young men came out and an old man with them. And the prince hid and left one flatbread, and one of them ate it. “Oh, brothers,” he says, “until now we didn’t know mother’s milk, but now we know.” - The old man drove them into the sea. The next day they went out again, and they all ate the cake, and they knew their brother. On the third day they left without the old man, and the prince brought all his brothers to his mother. The fourth ship. The same. The stepmother has nothing more to do. Tsar Sultan goes to the island, recognizes his wife and children and returns home with them, and the stepmother dies.”

Initially, in 1828, when writing a fairy tale, Pushkin may have wanted to alternate poetry with prose, but later abandoned this idea. The original edition of the beginning dates back to this year (14 lines of poetry and a prose continuation). (Although there is a version that the prose fragment is material for further work. As a result, the fairy tale is written in trochaic tetrameter with paired rhyme (see below).

Recorded in 1828

[Three maidens by the window]
Spinning late at night
If I were a queen
One girl says
Then there is only one for the whole people
I would weave canvases -
If I were a queen
Her sister says<трица>
That would be for the whole world
I have prepared a feast -
If I were a queen
The third girl said
I am for Father Tsar
I would give birth to a hero.

As soon as they had time to utter these words, the door [of the room] opened - and the king entered without a report - the king had the habit of walking around the city late and eavesdropping on the speeches of his subjects. With a pleasant smile, he approached his younger sister, took her hand and said: Be a queen and give me a prince; then turning to the eldest and middle, he said: you be a weaver at my court, and you a cook. With this word, without allowing them to come to their senses, the king whistled twice; the courtyard was filled with soldiers and courtiers, and a silver carriage drove up to the very porch; the king got into it with the new queen, and his brother-in-law<иц>ordered to be taken to the palace - they were put in carts and everyone galloped off.

Pushkin's autograph with a recording of a fairy tale, 1828

The tale was completed in the summer-autumn of 1831, when Pushkin lived in Tsarskoe Selo at the dacha of A. Kitaeva. During this period, he was in constant communication with Zhukovsky, with whom he entered into competition, working on the same “Russian folk” material. Zhukovsky suggested that everyone write a poetic adaptation of a folk tale. He then worked on fairy tales and, and Pushkin composed “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” and “The Balda”.

Several manuscripts have survived. The fairy tale was rewritten (according to the note in the autograph "PBL" No. 27) on August 29, 1831. A draft revision of lines 725-728 was probably made in mid-September. And the clerk's copy of the tale was slightly revised by Pletnev and Pushkin after Nicholas I read it in September - December 1831.

Publication

The title page of Pushkin's collection, in which the fairy tale was first published (1832).

The fairy tale was first published by Pushkin in the collection “Poems of A. Pushkin” (Part III, 1832, pp. 130-181).

Some changes, probably of a censorial nature, were introduced into the text of the first edition of 1832. They are sometimes restored in modern editions - from reading the clerk's copy with amendments by the author and Pletnev in the censored manuscript.

An interesting remark at the end of the 1st edition: “Correction. IN The Tale of Tsar Saltan and so on. instead of the word Okiyan mistakenly printed everywhere Ocean"(that is, during printing, the fabulousness of this okiyan was mistakenly eliminated).

There was no separate publication of this tale during his lifetime.

Characteristics of the text

Perhaps at first Pushkin wanted to alternate poetry and prose, but in the end the tale was written in trochaic tetrameter with paired rhymes: in those days “imitations” of folk poetry were often written in this way.

As Pushkin scholars note, in this tale “he takes a new approach to the problem poetic form for the transmission of “folk tales”. If “The Groom” (1825) was written in the form of a ballad verse, then “Saltan” was written in trochaic tetrameter with adjacent rhymes - alternating male and female; a size that has since become firmly established in literary practice for the transmission of works of this kind.”

The poem contains 1004 lines and is divided typographically into 27 separate stanzas of unequal length (from 8 to 96 lines each).

The structure of the tale “is distinguished by its extreme genre saturation. “Tsar Saltan” is a doubly fairy tale, and this duality acts as the main structure-forming principle: two folklore plots are merged, two versions of one of these plots are combined, characters are doubled, functions are paired, parallel motivations are introduced, realities are duplicated. In “The Tale of Tsar Saltan,” two fairy-tale plots that exist separately in folklore seem to be superimposed on each other: one is about an innocently persecuted wife, the other is about a maiden who contributes to the victory of her betrothed. Pushkin's fairy tale tells how Tsar Saltan lost and then found his wife and son, and how young Guidon met the swan princess, his betrothed. The result is not just a sum - each of the heroes became happy both “horizontally” (the king, despite the machinations of ill-wishers, finds his wife again, Prince Guidon finds his princess), and “vertically” (father and son find each other, the king and the queen finds a daughter-in-law). Joy multiplies with joy." The principle of doubling, used in constructing the plot as a whole, also applies to the construction of individual images - the actions of the heroes (for example, the messenger), mentions of the squirrel, etc.

Folklore and literary sources of the plot

Illustration by Sergei Malyutin, 1899

The long title of the tale imitates the titles of popular popular narratives common in the 18th century, perhaps most notably “The Tale of the Brave, Glorious and Mighty Knight and Bogatyr Bove.”

“The Tale of Tsar Saltan” is a free adaptation of a folk tale “ Legs up to the knees in gold, arms up to the elbows in silver"(see below), which is believed to have been written down by Pushkin in various versions (see above). The poet did not follow any of them exactly; he freely changed and supplemented the plot, while maintaining the folk character of the content. Bondi writes that Pushkin freed the fairy tale “from plot confusion (the result of damage to the text in oral transmission), from crude non-artistic details introduced by storytellers.” They also notice the influence of the fairy tale “ " (see below). The first Russian publications of both varieties of fairy tale plot used date back to the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The most interesting options are in the collections of E. N. Onchukov (“Northern Tales” No. 5) and M. Azadovsky (“Tales of the Verkhnelensky Territory”, No. 2). Some of the recorded texts reflect, in turn, the storytellers' familiarity with the text of Pushkin's fairy tale. The lubok text of this tale is also known, and the lubok “ The Tale of the Three Princesses and Sisters"was very popular already in early XIX century. There is no doubt that Pushkin read printed texts of folk and book fairy tales - a small collection of them has been preserved in his library, and there is a mention that among them was the fairy tale “”, which has the same plot.

Bondi points out that Pushkin used the traditional theme in folk tales of the fate of a slandered wife and the successful resolution of this fate. The second theme introduced into the fairy tale by Pushkin himself is folk image an ideal, happy maritime state. In addition, “the theme of a baby traveling through the waves, in a basket, chest, box is one of the most common themes in folklore, including Russian. These wanderings are a metaphor for the “afterlife” wanderings of the setting sun through the other world.” Another researcher writes that the poet combines the motifs of fairy tales about a slandered wife (wonderful son) and about a wise (things) maiden. For structure and doubling of plots, see above.

As Pushkin scholars point out, the poet adheres very closely to the oral tradition, and only proper names ( Saltan, Guidon) taken from other sources.

Legs up to the knees in gold, arms up to the elbows in silver

Russian folktale " Legs up to the knees in gold, arms up to the elbows in silver"recorded by Alexander Afanasyev in 5 versions. In general, there are many versions of the story about wonderful children in European languages; there are also Indian, Turkish, African and recorded from American Indians. “Russian variants - 78, Ukrainian - 23, Belarusian - 30. The plot is often found in collections of fairy tales of non-Slavic peoples of the USSR in variants close to the East Slavic ones.” The fairy tale “” is similar to them.

4 entries of Afanasyev's fairy tale

In the first of these options, the sisters replace the first and second baby, who have a wonderful appearance (“the sun is on the forehead, and on the back of the head there is a month, on the sides there are stars”) with a kitten and a puppy, and only the third child ends up with the mother. Moreover, the queen’s eyes are gouged out, and her husband, whose name is Ivan Tsarevich, marries his older sister. The child also grows with amazing speed, but he performs miracles, including the return of his mother’s sight, saying “at the command of a pike.” The boy carries his brothers magically to the island, and they live wonderfully. Passers-by, poor elders, tell their father about the wonderful young men, he gallops off to visit them, reunites with his family, and rolls his new wife (the treacherous sister) into a barrel and throws it into the sea.

In another version, the spouses are called Ivan Tsarevich and Martha the Princess (she is also the daughter of the king), she gives birth to three wonderful sons (“knee-deep in gold, elbow-deep in silver”), but the villain in the fairy tale is Baba Yaga, who pretends to be a midwife and replaces children with puppies, taking the boys to her place. The next time the queen gives birth to six sons at once, and manages to hide one from Baba Yaga. The husband throws the mother with the hidden baby into the sea in a barrel; on the wonderful island everything is arranged according to their wishes. The poor elders tell their father-prince about a wonderful island and a young man with golden legs, he wants to go to visit him. However, Baba Yaga says that she has many such youths living with her, and there is no need to go for one. Having learned about this, the queen realizes that these are her sons, and the youngest son takes them from Baba Yaga’s dungeon. Having heard from the beggars that nine wonderful young men now live on the island, the father goes there and the family is reunited.

In the third version the heroine is youngest daughter King Dodon Marya, who promises to give birth to sons (“knee-deep legs in silver, but the elbow of the hand in gold, a red sun in the forehead, a bright moon on the back of the head”). Twice she gives birth to three sons, her sister replaces them with puppies and throws them on a distant island. For the third time, the queen manages to hide the only boy, but she and her son are thrown into the sea in a barrel. The barrel lands on that very island and the mother is reunited with her sons. After this, the family goes to the father and tells how he was deceived.

In the fourth version, three babies born in a row (“knee-deep in silver, chest-deep in gold, the moon is bright on the forehead, stars are frequent on the sides”), with the help of a midwife, the sister turns into doves and releases them into an open field. The fourth child is born without any miraculous signs, and for this the king, whose name is Ivan the Prince, puts his wife and child in a barrel. They find themselves on an island, where wonderful objects (a purse, a flint, a flint, an ax and a club) help them build a city. Merchants passing by tell their father about the wonderful island, but his sister distracts him with a story that somewhere there is “a mill - it grinds itself, it blows itself and throws dust a hundred miles away, near the mill there is a golden pillar, a golden cage hangs on it, and it walks around to that pillar is a learned cat: he goes down and sings songs, he goes up and tells fairy tales.” Thanks to wonderful helpers, it appears on the island. The merchants tell their father about a new miracle, but his sister distracts him with the story that somewhere there is a “golden pine tree, birds of paradise sit on it and sing royal songs.” The prince, arriving in the form of a fly, stings his sister on the nose. Then the story repeats itself: the king is distracted by the story that somewhere there are “three dear brothers - knee-deep in silver, chest-deep in gold, a bright moon in the forehead, stars on the sides,” and the insidious sister-storyteller does not know that these are the older nephews she kidnapped. The prince in the form of a mosquito bites his aunt on the nose. He finds the brothers, takes them to his island, then the merchants tell the king about them, and in the end the family is reunited. (The version was written after the publication of Pushkin’s fairy tale and bears traces of its influence, and not vice versa).

Singing tree, living water and talking bird

Fairy tale " Singing tree living water and the talking bird"(Aarne-Thompson No. 707) was recorded by Afanasyev in two versions. “The motif of imprisoning the slandered royal wife in a chapel (imprisonment in a tower, walling up in a wall) has a correspondence in Western, and in Belarusian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian versions. Just like the version of “Wonderful Children” that is especially characteristic of East Slavic folklore - “Knee-deep in gold...”, the version (variety) “The Singing Tree and the Talking Bird” developed on the basis of the East Slavic fairy-tale tradition, enriched with original details.”

2 entries by Afanasyev

In the first version, the king overhears the conversation of three sisters and marries the youngest. The sisters replace the queen's three consecutively born children (two boys and a girl) with puppies, and release them into a pond in a box. The husband sits the queen on the porch to beg, having changed his mind about executing her. The children are raised by the royal gardener. The brothers, growing up, go, provoked by a certain old woman, to look for a talking bird, a singing tree and living water for their sister, and die (“If blood appears on the knife, then I will not be alive!”). The sister goes to look for them and revives them. They plant a wonderful tree in the garden, then the king comes to visit them, the family is reunited, including the queen.

In the second version, the “guilty” queen is imprisoned in a stone pillar, and the children (“two sons - arms up to the elbows in gold, legs up to the knees in silver, a moon in the back of the head, and a red sun in the forehead, and one daughter, who will smile - pink flowers will fall down, and when she cries, expensive pearls will fall”), the general brings up. Brothers are looking for living water for their sister, dead water and a talking bird. Then everything happens the same as in the first version, with the exception that the king arrives at the house of his children to marry a girl, a famous beauty, and the talking bird tells him that this is his daughter.

The same tale was published in the collection of Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederic Crane (see The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird.

The Green Bird and the Princess of Belle Etoile

This story about the “slandered mother” and “wonderful children” is extremely common all over the world, and in similar to the two Russian versions described above.

The oldest recorded European texts are Italian. The tale dates back to 1550-1553 "Lovely green bird"(French "L'Augel Belverde") from Straparola's collection "Pleasant Nights" (night IV, tale 3), which played a significant role in the spread of tales about wonderful children in Western Europe until the 18th century.

The Tale of Straparola

The king overhears a conversation between three sisters: one boasts of quenching the thirst of the entire courtyard with one glass of wine, the other boasts of weaving shirts for the entire courtyard, the third boasts of giving birth to three wonderful children (two boys and one girl with golden braids, a pearl necklace on her neck and a star on her forehead) . The king marries the youngest. In the absence of the king, she gives birth, but envious sisters replace the children with puppies. The king orders his wife to be imprisoned and the children thrown into the river. Abandoned children are rescued by a miller. Having matured, they find out that the miller is not their father, go to the capital, get three miracles - dancing water, a singing apple and a green bird-soothsayer. While searching for these objects, misadventures await them - turning into stones and so on, but their sister saves them. The green bird she captured later reveals the whole truth to the king.

Illustration for the fairy tale “The Princess of Belle-Etoile” by Walter Crane

Motives from the fairy tale Straparola are used in the courtly fairy tale of the collection "Tales of Fairies"(French "Contes de fées") Baroness d'Aunois about the Princess Belle-Etoile 1688 ( "Princess Beautiful Star"), Where the main character becomes a daughter with a wonderful star, as well as in Carlo Gozzi’s play “ Green bird"(1765). In France, folk tales about this bird are known under names like “The Bird That Tells the Truth” (“L’oiseau de vérité”, “L’oiseau qui dit out”). Also, some similar motifs can be traced in the fairy tale of Baroness d’Aunois “The Dolphin” ( Le Dauphin), which in turn go back to the tale of Pietro the Fool from the collection of Straparola. Brief retelling fairy tale "Dolphin" is contained in the second part of the first volume of the "Universal Library of Novels" (the Pushkin library had a complete set - all 112 double volumes of this literary encyclopedia) .

In 1712 on French translation was published "A Thousand and One Nights", made by A. Gallan, which contained a similar tale "The story of two sisters who were jealous of the younger one"(fr. "Histoire des deux sœurs jalouses de leur cadette"). At the same time, there is no such text in the Arabic original, although some Asian analogues have been found for it. Thanks to this French “translation,” the fairy tale about wonderful children was published many times and became well known in Europe. A. N. Afanasyev, V. V. Sipovsky and E. E. Anichkova have already drawn attention to this parallel. The famous folklorist M.K. Azadovsky even named Western European subjects among the main literary sources of Pushkin’s work: “all these texts were, without a doubt, well known to Pushkin, whose library included Gallan’s translation of 1001 Nights and d’Aunois’ collection (French d 'Aulnoy)".

The motif of imprisoning heroes in a barrel appears in another Straparola fairy tale - “ Pietro is a fool"(night III, tale 1), as well as in the same type " Peruonto" - one of the fairy tales " Pentameron"(1634) Giambattista Basile (Peruonto, I-3).

Pushkin, according to researchers, was undoubtedly aware of the fairy tales of Baroness d’Aunois and “ Thousand and One Nights", and the text of the prose entry of 1828 is very close to the last of them. American fairy tale scholar S. Thompson, the famous compiler of the Aarne-Thompson Index of Fairy Tale Plots (AaTh), wrote that in general “this is one of the eight or ten most famous world plots. A quick scan of the available reference works reveals 414 versions, suggesting that a more thorough search could lead to the discovery of several hundred more versions."

The Canterbury Tales

The story is also believed to be reminiscent of Part 2 "The Man of Law's Tale" from " Canterbury Tales"(1387) by Chaucer. Pushkin could only know it in a French translation.

Constanza, the daughter of the Emperor of Rome, becomes the wife of the Syrian Sultan, who agrees to convert to Christianity for the sake of this marriage. At the wedding feast, the Sultan's mother kills the entire Roman embassy and her own son, as well as all the recently baptized courtiers. Constance is left alive, but is sent into an empty boat at the behest of the waves. As a result, her ship lands at a castle in Northumberland, which is run by a butler and his wife, who give her shelter. A certain knight burns with passion for Constanza, but since she refuses him, he kills the butler’s wife and puts a knife in Constanza’s hands. The owner of the castle, King Alla, administers justice, and when the knight swears his innocence, he is struck by God's wrath. Alla is baptized and marries the beautiful Constance, although his mother Donegilda is against it. When Constance gives birth to her son Mauritius, the mother-in-law drugs the messenger and replaces the letter, saying that the queen has given birth to a monster. The king orders them to wait until he returns, but the mother-in-law again drugs the messenger and in a forged letter orders Constanza and the child to be placed in that same boat. The returning king investigates, tortures the messenger and executes the mother. Meanwhile, the boat with Constance and the child is found by a Roman senator who takes her to her homeland (and the senator’s wife is her aunt, but does not recognize her niece). Alla arrives in Rome to repent, the senator takes him to a feast with a young boy, whose resemblance strikes Alla. The couple find each other and reconcile, then Constanza reveals herself to her father, the Roman emperor. Moreover, all the miracles in the story are accomplished through prayer.

The borrowing of this plot directly from Chaucer was proven in the work of E. Anichkova. She writes that Pushkin wrote his fairy tale based on his acquaintance with the works of Russian and foreign folklore (Caucasian, Tatar), where there are many plots very similar to Chaucer’s story of the lawyer, but that, having read it even before his own work was completed , Pushkin allegedly “recognized in it the plot of his fairy tale and completed it, bringing it closer to the English version of the story about Constance.”

However, Anichkova’s work provoked negative criticism from M.K. Azadovsky and R.M. Volkov, who denied direct borrowing of the plot from Chaucer, but noted the similarity of certain passages of Pushkin’s fairy tale with him.

Character Sources

Saltan and Guidon

Postcard by Boris Zvorykin with an illustration for a fairy tale

Pushkin adheres very closely to the oral tradition, and only proper names ( Saltan, Guidon) taken from other sources. The Tsar already appears in the preparatory records of 1822 and 1824 Saltan: there is a theory that this is the “Syrian Sultan” - the first husband of Chaucer’s heroine. Outside the context of a proper name, “Tsar Saltan” is the official wording used in the diplomatic correspondence of Russian tsars and the then documentation of ambassadorial and other orders in relation to the sultans of Islamic countries (“Turkish Tsar Saltan” is the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire).

The name of another hero of Pushkin's fairy tale - Guidon- the author borrowed from the popular print series about Beauvais the Prince, which was a Russian interpretation of the French chivalric novel. Bova's father is called Gvidon there. In these same popular prints, Bova’s opponent, the father of the hero Lukaper, also appears - Saltan, Sometimes Saltan Saltanovich(as in the fairy tale recorded by Pushkin). Italian name "Guido" - cf. French guide - means “leader”, “leader”. “Pushkin could not help but pay attention to the meaning of this name, especially since in popular prints about Beauvais, as in the French novel, the contrast of the “Western” Guidon with the “Eastern” Saltan is of significant importance.”

Swan Princess

With the rescue of the girl, Pushkin enriched the above-described plot of a slandered mother and a wonderful son - this detail is not found in any folklore or author's versions of this tale.

Although in folk tales the story owes its happy ending to a bird - it is a magical and sometimes green talking bird, and not a werewolf sorceress. The Swan Princess is entirely the author's image. He “absorbed, on the one hand, the features of the Russian Vasilisa the Wise, on the other, Sophia the Wise (the images, however, go back to the same archetype).” “The Swan Princess not only has the divine or magical wisdom of the organizer of the world (Proverbs 8-9), she also has ordinary worldly wisdom, an incredible motif for folklore.”

Pushkin could have taken the theme of “Swans” from the collection of Kirsha Danilov, well known to him - in the epic about the hero Potyk there are lines about the hero’s acquaintance with his future wife:

And I saw a white swan,
Through the feather she was all gold,
And her head is covered with red gold
And seated with pitched pearls (...)
And just about to release the red-hot arrow -
The white swan will tell him,
Avdotyushka Likhovidevna:
“And you, Potok Mikhailo Ivanovich,
Don't shoot me, white swan,
I’ll be of use to you at some point.”
She went out onto a steep bank,
The soul turned into a red maiden

In her appearance, Pushkin conveyed some of the features of a wonderful boy from a fairy tale he wrote down (“the moon shines under the scythe, and a star is burning in her forehead”) or the heroine from the fairy tale of Baroness d’Aunois. In addition, he made her the sister of 33 sea heroes, who in the tale are the brothers of the hero (see below). The connection with the sea element can also be traced in the fact that in Russian folk tales Vasilisa the Wise is the daughter of the sea king.

“The Maiden with a Golden Star in her Forehead” is a favorite image of Western European folklore, which is also found among the Brothers Grimm. The fact that there is some influence from a Western source is evidenced by the fact that in the draft Pushkin uses the word “sorceress” in relation to her.

It is curious that in Scandinavia, among the Arabs, Persians and Hindus (as well as China, Japan) you can find a swan maiden - the character fairy tale from other world. In Scandinavian mythology, there are swan maidens - Valkyries, who have the ability to take the form of swans.

Thirty-three heroes

33 heroes. Illustration by V. N. Kurdyumov.

33 heroes appear in the second summary of the folk tale, recorded by Pushkin, possibly from Arina Rodionovna. However, there they are the siblings of the main character, the prince, are kept under the supervision of a nameless uncle and, only after tasting their mother’s milk (kneaded into bread), they remember their kinship. They first appear in his work in 1828, in the famous preface “At Lukomorye there is a green oak” added to “Ruslan and Lyudmila”: “And thirty beautiful knights / In succession, clear waters emerge, / And with them is their sea uncle.”

Babarikha

Babarikha and Tsar Saltan. Illustration by Ivan Bilibin

The weaver and the cook are present in many fairy tales of this typology, but Babarikha appears only in Pushkin. He took it from folklore: Babarikha is a pagan character in Russian conspiracies, who has some sunny traits. “Babarikha holds a “hot, red-hot frying pan,” which does not burn her body, does not take her.” Azadovsky points out that Pushkin took this name from the collection of Kirsha Danilov, well known to him, from a humorous song about a fool: “ You are a good woman, / Baba-Babarikha, / Mother Lukerya / Sister Chernava!”.

Her punishment was a bitten nose, because she turned up her nose and stuck it in someone else’s business. The weaver and the cook were crooked, “In the Russian language, the word “crooked” not only means one-eyed, but is also contrasted with the word “straight,” just as truth is crooked; this opposition is archetypal. If blindness in myth is a sign of wisdom (Themis has a blindfold over her eyes so that she does not pay attention to the external, vain), good vision is a sign of intelligence, then one-eyedness is a sign of cunning and predation (one-eyed pirates, Cyclops, Dashing are also one-eyed).” .

It is unclear what exactly it is family connection with Guidon, although he regrets “his grandmother’s eyes.” Perhaps she is the mother of Tsar Saltan, then she is the matchmaker of the queen’s two sisters.

Squirrel

In the folk versions of the tale, the miracles that appear on the island are completely different. The motif of a squirrel gnawing golden nuts with emerald kernels is completely alien to Russian folklore; the source of its appearance is not clear.

In oral editions, there is usually a mention of a cat telling tales or singing songs: this detail is found in Pushkin’s recording, but was used by him for the “Prologue” to “Ruslan and Lyudmila” (1828).

Buyan Island

The island on which the barrel was thrown is located in the west, in full accordance with numerous mythological traditions, according to which the setting sun was considered the lord of the land of sunset; the islands of the blessed, the wonderful islands of immortality and eternal youth

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"" (shortened version of the name - " The Tale of Tsar Saltan") is a fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin, written in 1831 and first published the following year in a collection of poems.

The tale of Tsar Saltan, his glorious son and mighty hero Prince Gvidon Saltanovich and the beautiful Swan Princess

The fairy tale is dedicated to the story of the marriage of Tsar Saltan and the birth of his son, Prince Guidon, who, due to the machinations of his aunts, ends up on a desert island, meets the sorceress there - Princess Swan, with her help becomes a powerful ruler and is reunited with his father.

After returning to his domain, Guidon tells the swans about the squirrel, and she moves it to his city. The prince builds a crystal house for the squirrel.

Pushkin mainly used the folk tale " "(see below), which he wrote down briefly in two or three different versions (depending on whether the prose recording of 1828 is considered a draft or not). The work also used characters borrowed from other folk tales - for example, the magical image of the Swan Princess, which has a response in the image of Vasilisa the Wise (see below).

Chisinau record

Several manuscripts have survived [K. 1] . The fairy tale was rewritten (according to the note in the autograph "PBL" No. 27) on August 29, 1831. A draft revision of lines 725-728 was probably made in mid-September. And the clerk's copy of the tale was slightly revised by Pletnev and Pushkin after Nicholas I read it in September - December 1831.

The title page of Pushkin's collection, in which the fairy tale was first published (1832).

The fairy tale was first published by Pushkin in the collection “Poems of A. Pushkin” (Part III, 1832, pp. 130-181).

As Pushkin scholars note, in this tale “he takes a new approach to the problem of poetic form for conveying “folk tales.” If “The Groom” (1825) was written in the form of a ballad verse, then “Saltan” was written in trochaic tetrameter with adjacent rhymes - alternating male and female; a size that has since become firmly established in literary practice for the transmission of works of this kind.”

The poem contains 1004 lines and is divided typographically into 27 separate stanzas of unequal length (from 8 to 96 lines each).

The long title of the tale imitates the titles of popular popular narratives common in the 18th century, perhaps most notably “The Tale of the Brave, Glorious and Mighty Knight and Bogatyr Bove.”

“The Tale of Tsar Saltan” is a free adaptation of a folk tale “ Legs up to the knees in gold, arms up to the elbows in silver"(see below), which is believed to have been written down by Pushkin in various versions (see above). The poet did not follow any of them exactly; he freely changed and supplemented the plot, while maintaining the folk character of the content. Bondi writes that Pushkin freed the fairy tale “from plot confusion (the result of damage to the text in oral transmission), from crude non-artistic details introduced by storytellers.” They also notice the influence of the fairy tale “ " (see below). The first Russian publications of both varieties of fairy tale plot used date back to the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The most interesting options are in the collections of E. N. Onchukov (“Northern Tales” No. 5) and M. Azadovsky (“Tales of the Verkhnelensky Territory”, No. 2). Some of the recorded texts reflect, in turn, the storytellers' familiarity with the text of Pushkin's fairy tale. The lubok text of this tale is also known, and the lubok “ The Tale of the Three Princesses and Sisters"was very popular already at the beginning of the 19th century. There is no doubt that Pushkin read printed texts of folk and book fairy tales - a small collection of them has been preserved in his library, and there is a mention that among them was the fairy tale “”, which has the same plot.

Bondi points out that Pushkin used the traditional theme in folk tales of the fate of a slandered wife and the successful resolution of this fate. The second theme, introduced into the fairy tale by Pushkin himself, is the popular image of an ideal, happy maritime state. In addition, “the theme of a baby traveling through the waves, in a basket, chest, box is one of the most common themes in folklore, including Russian. These wanderings are a metaphor for the “afterlife” wanderings of the setting sun through the other world.” Another researcher writes that the poet combines the motifs of fairy tales about a slandered wife (wonderful son) and about a wise (things) maiden. For structure and doubling of plots, see above.

As Pushkin scholars point out, the poet adheres very closely to the oral tradition, and only proper names ( Saltan, Guidon) taken from other sources.

In the first of these options, the sisters replace the first and second baby, who have a wonderful appearance (“the sun is on the forehead, and on the back of the head there is a month, on the sides there are stars”) with a kitten and a puppy, and only the third child ends up with the mother. Moreover, the queen’s eyes are gouged out, and her husband, whose name is Ivan Tsarevich, marries his older sister. The child also grows with amazing speed, but he performs miracles, including the return of his mother’s sight, saying “at the command of a pike.” The boy magically transports his brothers to the island, and they live wonderfully. Passers-by, poor elders, tell their father about the wonderful young men, he gallops off to visit them, reunites with his family, and rolls his new wife (the treacherous sister) into a barrel and throws it into the sea.

In the third version, the heroine is the youngest daughter of King Dodon, Marya, who promises to give birth to sons (“knee-deep in silver, but the elbow in gold, a red sun in her forehead, a bright moon on the back of her head”). Twice she gives birth to three sons, her sister replaces them with puppies and throws them on a distant island. For the third time, the queen manages to hide the only boy, but she and her son are thrown into the sea in a barrel. The barrel lands on that very island and the mother is reunited with her sons. After this, the family goes to the father and tells how he was deceived.

Fairy tale " Singing tree, living water and talking bird"(Aarne-Thompson No. 707) was recorded by Afanasyev in two versions. “The motif of imprisoning the slandered royal wife in a chapel (imprisonment in a tower, walling up in a wall) has a correspondence in Western, and in Belarusian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian versions. Just like the version of “Wonderful Children” that is especially characteristic of East Slavic folklore - “Knee-deep in gold...”, the version (variety) “The Singing Tree and the Talking Bird” developed on the basis of the East Slavic fairy-tale tradition, enriched with original details.”

In the second version, the “guilty” queen is imprisoned in a stone pillar, and the children (“two sons - arms up to the elbows in gold, legs up to the knees in silver, a moon in the back of the head, and a red sun in the forehead, and one daughter, who will smile - pink flowers will fall down, and when she cries, expensive pearls will fall”), the general brings up. The brothers are looking for living water, dead water and a talking bird for their sister. Then everything happens the same as in the first version, with the exception that the king arrives at the house of his children to marry a girl, a famous beauty, and the talking bird tells him that this is his daughter.

This story about the “slandered mother” and “wonderful children” is extremely common all over the world, and in similar to the two Russian versions described above.

The oldest recorded European texts are Italian. The tale dates back to 1550-1553 "Lovely green bird"(French "L'Augel Belverde") from Straparola's collection "Pleasant Nights" (night IV, tale 3), which played a significant role in the spread of fairy tales about wonderful children in Western Europe until the 18th century.

Motives from the fairy tale Straparola are used in the courtly fairy tale of the collection "Tales of Fairies"(French "Contes de fées") Baroness d'Aunois about the Princess Belle-Etoile 1688 ( "Princess Beautiful Star"), where the main character is a daughter with a wonderful star, as well as in Carlo Gozzi’s play “ Green bird"(1765). In France, folk tales about this bird are known under names like “The Bird That Tells the Truth” (“L’oiseau de vérité”, “L’oiseau qui dit out”). Also, some similar motifs can be traced in the fairy tale of Baroness d’Aunois “The Dolphin” ( Le Dauphin), which in turn go back to the tale of Pietro the Fool from the collection of Straparola. A brief retelling of the fairy tale “Dolphin” is contained in the second part of the first volume of the “Universal Library of Novels” (the Pushkin library had a complete set - all 112 double volumes of this literary encyclopedia).

A translation was published in French in 1712 "A Thousand and One Nights", made by A. Gallan, which contained a similar tale "The story of two sisters who were jealous of the younger one"(fr. "Histoire des deux sœurs jalouses de leur cadette"). At the same time, there is no such text in the Arabic original, although some Asian analogues have been found for it. Thanks to this French “translation,” the fairy tale about wonderful children was published many times and became well known in Europe. A. N. Afanasyev, V. V. Sipovsky and E. E. Anichkova have already drawn attention to this parallel. The famous folklorist M.K. Azadovsky even named Western European subjects among the main literary sources of Pushkin’s work: “all these texts were, without a doubt, well known to Pushkin, whose library included Gallan’s translation of 1001 Nights and d’Aunois’ collection (French d 'Aulnoy)".

Pushkin, according to researchers, was undoubtedly aware of the fairy tales of Baroness d’Aunois and “ Thousand and One Nights", and the text of the prose entry of 1828 is very close to the last of them [K. 2]. American fairy tale scholar S. Thompson, the famous compiler of the Aarne-Thompson Index of Fairy Tale Plots (AaTh), wrote that in general “this is one of the eight or ten most famous world plots. A quick scan of the available reference works reveals 414 versions, suggesting that a more thorough search could lead to the discovery of several hundred more versions."

The story is also believed to be reminiscent of Part 2 "The Man of Law's Tale" from " Canterbury Tales"(1387) by Chaucer. Pushkin could only know it in a French translation.

With the rescue of the girl, Pushkin enriched the above-described plot of a slandered mother and a wonderful son - this detail is not found in any folklore or author's versions of this tale.

And I saw a white swan,
Through the feather she was all gold,
And her head is covered with red gold
And seated with pitched pearls (...)
And just about to release the red-hot arrow -
The white swan will tell him,
Avdotyushka Likhovidevna:
“And you, Potok Mikhailo Ivanovich,
Don't shoot me, white swan,
I’ll be of use to you at some point.”
She went out onto a steep bank,
The soul turned into a red maiden

It is curious that in Scandinavia, among the Arabs, Persians and Indians (as well as China, Japan) you can find a swan maiden - a character from a fairy tale from the other world. In Scandinavian mythology, there are swan maidens - Valkyries, who have the ability to take the form of swans.

It is unclear what exactly her family connection is with Guidon, although he regrets “the eyes of his grandmother.” Perhaps she is the mother of Tsar Saltan, then she is the matchmaker of the queen’s two sisters.

The island on which the barrel was thrown is located in the west, in full accordance with numerous mythological traditions, according to which the setting sun was considered the ruler of the land of sunset; the islands of the blessed, the wonderful islands of immortality and eternal youth, were also located in the west. “And again, Pushkin imposes some other reality on the archetypal basis. The blessed islands of myths are located at the very edge of the world, in the very west, and returning from there is impossible for a mere mortal - meanwhile, merchant ships regularly cruise past our island, they visit this island on the way back, returning from even more western countries, and each time they report to the king Saltan that “living overseas is not bad.” But the island of Guidon lies not just to the west of the kingdom of Saltan: in order to return home, guests should sail “past the island of Buyan With your flexible tongue and the magic of your chants!
Close your ears from praise and comparisons
Good friends;
Sing as you sing, dear nightingale!
Byron's genius, or Goethe's, Shakespeare's,
The genius of their sky, their morals, their countries -
You, who have comprehended the mystery of the Russian spirit and world,
Sing to us in your own way, Russian button accordion!
Inspired by the native sky,
Be in Rus' you are an incomparable singer.

A handwritten book with poems by the best Russian poets. 1834 Fairy tale page.

The autograph of the message with the indicated date was sent to Pushkin and published by I. A. Shlyapkin in his book “From the unpublished papers of A. S. Pushkin,” 1903, p. 169. Pushkin wanted to respond to Gnedich with a message, which for some reason was not completed (“You talked alone with Homer for a long time”).

Many critics reacted coldly to the fairy tales, arguing that they were a decline in Pushkin's talent. Thus, Polevoy considered “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” as an “imitation” of a folk model and found it inferior to the folk one. Belinsky repeatedly repeated that fairy tales were “unsuccessful experiments to imitate the Russian people”, called them “fake flowers”. N. M. Yazykov wrote about “Saltan” and “Balda”: “Pushkin’s fairy tales ‹…› are far worse than anything written in this way by Zhukovsky.” In October 1834, N.V. Stankevich wrote: “Pushkin invented this false genus when the poetic fire in his soul began to fade. But his first fairy tale ["Saltan"] of this kind still has something poetic, while others, in which he began to simply tell, without indulging in any feeling, are simply rubbish. Zhukovsky still knows how to get along with such trifles - but what kind of consolation is it for such a poet to be bearable? N.I. Nadezhdin in 1832 writes about “Saltan”: “On the one hand, one cannot but agree that this new attempt by Pushkin reveals a very close acquaintance with the external forms of the ancient Russian people; but its meaning and spirit still remained a mystery, unsolved by the poet. Hence, the entire work bears the stamp of a mechanical counterfeit of antiquity, and not a living poetic picture of it. (...) What a difference between “Ruslan and Lyudmila” and “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”! There, of course, there is less truth, less fidelity and similarity with Russian antiquity in external forms, but what fire, what animation! (...) Here, on the contrary, there is only dry, dead work - ancient dust, from which skillful patterns have been created with special care!..” Softer statements were also critical, for example, in 1832 E. A. Baratynsky wrote: “This is completely Russian a fairy tale, and this, it seems to me, is its drawback. What kind of poetry is it to bring Eruslan Lazarevich or the Firebird into rhyme word for word? (...) His tale is equal in dignity to one of our old tales - and nothing more.” Baron Rosen, however, praised the fairy tale at the same time: “Separated from rubbish, uncleanness and retaining only its gold, his Russian fairy tale meanders in golden-sounding verses through the wonderful realm of folk-romanticism.”

Subsequently, the fairy tale received deservedly high praise. Mirsky writes at the beginning of the 20th century: “...and the best of all [his fairy tales] The Tale of Tsar Saltan. The longer you live in the world, the more inclined you are to believe Tsar Saltan a masterpiece of Russian poetry. This is the purest art, free from irrelevant emotions and symbols - “pure beauty”, “eternal joy”. This is also the most universal art, because it is equally appealing to a six-year-old child and a sixty-year-old most cultured poetry reader. No understanding is required; it is perceived directly, undeniably, directly. The tale is not frivolous, not witty, not humorous; she is light, she is cheerful, she encourages. And there is a high seriousness in it, for what could be more serious than the creation of a world of perfect beauty and freedom, open to everyone?

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The Tale of Tsar Saltan - Pushkin A.S.

The tale of Tsar Saltan, his son, the glorious and mighty hero Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and the beautiful Princess Swan, is based on the folk tale “Wonderful Sons.” Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin enriched folk piece new plot twists, characters and wonderful poetic presentation.
According to the plot of the fairy tale, the king marries a girl who gives birth to his son. But due to envy and betrayal on the part of the weaver and the cook, the princess and her child are chained in a barrel and sent into the sea. There the baby is growing by leaps and bounds. The barrel floats ashore and an adult prince comes out with his mother. He saves the swan from an evil kite, who turns out to be a villain, and the swan turns out to be an enchanted girl...

Read the Tale of Tsar Saltan

Three maidens by the window

We spun late in the evening.

“If only I were a queen,”

One girl says,

Then for the whole baptized world

I would prepare a feast."

“If only I were a queen,”

Her sister says,

Then there would be one for the whole world

I wove fabrics.”

“If only I were a queen,”

The third sister said,

I would for the father-king

She gave birth to a hero."

I just managed to say,

The door creaked softly,

And the king enters the room,

The sides of that sovereign.

During the entire conversation

He stood behind the fence;

Speech last on everything

He fell in love with it.

“Hello, red maiden,”

He says - be a queen

And give birth to a hero

I'm at the end of September.

You, my dear sisters,

Get out of the bright room,

Follow me

Following me and my sister:

Be one of you a weaver,

And the other one is the cook.”

The Tsar Father came out into the vestibule.

Everyone went into the palace.

The king did not gather for long:

Got married that same evening.

Tsar Saltan for an honest feast

He sat down with the young queen;

And then the honest guests

On the ivory bed

They put the young ones

And they left them alone.

The cook is angry in the kitchen,

The weaver is crying at the loom,

And they envy

To the Sovereign's wife.

And the queen is young,

Without putting things off,

I carried it from the first night.

At that time there was war.

Tsar Saltan said goodbye to his wife,

Sitting on a good horse,

She punished herself

Take care of him, loving him.

Meanwhile how far away he is

It beats long and hard,

The time of birth is coming;

God gave them a son in arshin,

And the queen over the child

Like an eagle over an eaglet;

She sends a messenger with a letter,

To please my father.

And the weaver with the cook,

With his in-law Babarikha,

They want to inform her

They are ordered to take over the messenger;

They themselves send another messenger

Here's what, word by word:

“The queen gave birth in the night

Either a son or a daughter;

Not a mouse, not a frog,

And an unknown animal."

As the king-father heard,

What did the messenger tell him?

In anger he began to perform miracles

And he wanted to hang the messenger;

But, having softened this time,

He gave the messenger the following order:

"Wait for the Tsar's return

For a legal solution."

A messenger rides with a letter,

And he finally arrived.

And the weaver with the cook,

With his in-law Babarikha,

They order him to be robbed;

They make the messenger drunk

And his bag is empty

They thrust another certificate -

And the drunken messenger brought

On the same day the order is as follows:

“The king orders his boyars,

Without wasting time,

And the queen and the offspring

Secretly throw into the abyss of water."

There is nothing to do: boyars,

Worrying about the sovereign

And to the young queen,

A crowd came to her bedroom.

They declared the king's will -

She and her son have an evil share,

We read the decree aloud,

And the queen at the same hour

They put me in a barrel with my son,

They tarred and drove away

And they let me into Okiyan -

This is what Tsar Saltan ordered.

The stars shine in the blue sky,

In the blue sea the waves are lashing;

A cloud is moving across the sky

A barrel floats on the sea.

Like a bitter widow

The queen is crying and struggling within her;

And the child grows there

Not by days, but by hours.

The day has passed, the queen is screaming...

And the child hurries the wave:

“You, my wave, wave!

You are playful and free;

You splash wherever you want,

You sharpen sea stones

You drown the shores of the earth,

You raise ships -

Don't destroy our soul:

Throw us out onto dry land!”

And the wave listened:

She's right there on the shore

I carried the barrel out lightly

And she left quietly.

Mother and baby saved;

She feels the earth.

But who will take them out of the barrel?

Will God really leave them?

The son rose to his feet,

I rested my head on the bottom,

I strained a little:

“It’s like there’s a window looking out into the yard

Should we do it? - he said,

Knocked the bottom out and walked out.

Mother and son are now free;

They see a hill in a wide field,

The sea is blue all around,

Green oak over the hill.

The son thought: good dinner

However, we would need it.

He breaks the oak branch

And bends the bow tightly,

Silk cord from the cross

I strung an oak bow,

I broke a thin cane,

He pointed the arrow lightly

And went to the edge of the valley

Look for game by the sea.

He just approaches the sea,

It’s like he hears a groan...

Apparently the sea is not quiet;

He looks and sees the matter dashingly:

The swan beats among the swells,

The kite flies over her;

That poor thing is just splashing,

The water is muddy and gushing all around...

He's already unfurled his claws,

The bloody beak pricked up...

But just as the arrow began to sing,

I hit a kite in the neck -

The kite shed blood in the sea,

The prince lowered his bow;

Looks: a kite is drowning in the sea

And it doesn’t moan like a bird’s cry,

The swan is swimming around

The evil kite pecks

Death is hastening near,

Beats with its wing and drowns in the sea -

And then to the prince

Says in Russian:

“You, prince, are my savior,

My mighty savior,

Don't worry about me

You won't eat for three days

That the arrow was lost at sea;

This grief is not grief.

I will repay you with kindness

I will serve you later:

You didn’t deliver the swan,

He left the girl alive;

You didn't kill the kite,

The sorcerer was shot.

I will never forget you:

You'll find me everywhere

And now you come back,

Don’t worry and go to bed.”

The swan bird flew away

And the prince and queen,

Having spent the whole day like this,

We decided to go to bed on an empty stomach.

The prince opened his eyes;

Shaking off the dreams of the night

And marveling at myself

He sees the city is big,

Walls with frequent battlements,

And behind the white walls

Church domes sparkle

And holy monasteries.

He will quickly wake up the queen;

She will gasp!.. “Will it happen? -

He says, I see:

My swan amuses itself.”

Mother and son go to the city.

We just stepped outside the fence,

Deafening ringing

Rose from all sides:

People are pouring towards them,

The church choir praises God;

In golden carts

A lush courtyard greets them;

Everyone calls them loudly

And the prince is crowned

Princes cap and head

They shout over themselves;

And among his capital,

With the queen's permission,

On the same day he began to reign

And he was named: Prince Guidon.

The wind blows on the sea

And the boat speeds up;

He runs in the waves

With full sails.

The shipbuilders are amazed

There are crowds on the boat,

On a familiar island

They see a miracle in reality:

The new golden-domed city,

A pier with a strong outpost;

The guns are firing from the pier,

The ship is ordered to land.

Guests arrive at the outpost;

He feeds and waters them

And he orders me to keep the answer:

“What are you, guests, bargaining with?

And where are you sailing now?

The shipbuilders responded:

"We've traveled all over the world,

Traded sables

Silver foxes;

And now our time has come,

We're going straight east

Past Buyan Island,

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan..."

The prince then said to them:

"Good journey to you, gentlemen,

By sea along Okiyan

To the glorious Tsar Saltan;

I bow to him."

The guests are on their way, and Prince Guidon

From the shore with a sad soul

Accompanying their long run;

Look - above the flowing waters

A white swan is swimming.

Why are you sad?” -

She tells him.

The prince sadly replies:

“Sadness and melancholy eats me up,

Defeated the young man:

I would like to see my father."

Swan to the prince: “This is the grief!

Well, listen: you want to go to sea

Fly behind the ship?

Be a mosquito, prince.”

And flapped her wings,

The water splashed noisily

And sprayed him

From head to toe everything.

Here he shrunk to a point,

Turned into a mosquito

He flew and squealed,

I caught up with the ship at sea,

Slowly sank

On the ship - and hid in a crack.

The wind makes a cheerful noise,

The ship is running merrily

Past Buyan Island,

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan,

And the desired country

It's visible from afar.

The guests came ashore;

Tsar Saltan invites them to visit,

And follow them to the palace

Our daredevil has flown.

He sees: all shining in gold,

Tsar Saltan sits in his chamber

On the throne and in the crown

With a sad thought on his face;

And the weaver with the cook,

With his in-law Babarikha,

They sit near the king

And they look into his eyes.

Tsar Saltan seats guests

At his table and asks:

“Oh, you, gentlemen, guests,

How long did it take? Where?

Is it good across the sea, or is it bad?

And what miracle is there in the world?”

The shipbuilders responded:

“We have traveled all over the world;

Living overseas is not bad,

In the world, here’s a miracle:

The island was steep in the sea,

Not private, not residential;

It lay as an empty plain;

A single oak tree grew on it;

And now it stands on it

New city with a palace,

With golden-domed churches,

With towers and gardens,

And Prince Guidon sits in it;

He sent you his regards."

Tsar Saltan marvels at the miracle;

He says: “As long as I’m alive,

I’ll visit the wonderful island,

I’ll stay with Guidon.”

And the weaver with the cook,

With in-law Babarikha,

They don't want to let him in

A wonderful island to visit.

“It’s a curiosity, really,”

Winking at others slyly,

The cook says, -

The city is by the sea!

Know that this is not a trifle:

Spruce in the forest, under the spruce squirrel,

Squirrel sings songs

And he keeps nibbling on nuts,

And nuts are not simple,

All the shells are golden,

The cores are pure emerald;

That’s what they call a miracle.”

Tsar Saltan marvels at the miracle,

And the mosquito is angry, angry -

And the mosquito just bit into it

Aunt right in the right eye.

The cook turned pale

She froze and winced.

Servants, in-law and sister

They catch a mosquito with a scream.

“You damned midge!

We you!..” And he through the window,

Yes, calm down to your destiny

Flew across the sea.

Again the prince walks by the sea,

He doesn’t take his eyes off the blue sea;

Look - above the flowing waters

A white swan is swimming.

“Hello, my handsome prince!

Are you sad about what?” -

She tells him.

Prince Guidon answers her:

“Sadness and melancholy eats me up;

Wonderful miracle

I'd like to. There is somewhere

Spruce in the forest, under the spruce there is a squirrel;

It’s a miracle, really, not a trifle -

The squirrel sings songs

Yes, he keeps nibbling on nuts,

And nuts are not simple,

All the shells are golden,

The cores are pure emerald;

But maybe people are lying."

The swan answers the prince:

“The world tells the truth about the squirrel;

I know this miracle;

Enough, prince, my soul,

Do not worry; glad to serve

I will show you friendship."

With a cheerful soul

The prince went home;

As soon as I stepped into the wide courtyard -

Well, under the tall tree,

He sees the squirrel in front of everyone

The golden one gnaws a nut,

The emerald takes out,

And he collects the shells,

Places equal piles

And sings with a whistle

To be honest in front of all the people:

Whether in the garden or in the vegetable garden.

Prince Guidon was amazed.

“Well, thank you,” he said, “

Oh yes swan - God bless her,

It’s the same fun for me.”

Prince for the squirrel later

Built a crystal house

The guard was assigned to him

And besides, he forced the clerk

A strict account of nuts is the news.

Profit for the prince, honor for the squirrel.

The wind blows across the sea

And the boat speeds up;

He runs in the waves

With sails raised

Past the steep island,

Past the big city:

The guns are firing from the pier,

The ship is ordered to land.

Guests arrive at the outpost;

Prince Guidon invites them to visit,

He feeds and waters them

And he orders me to keep the answer:

“What are you, guests, bargaining with?

And where are you sailing now?

The shipbuilders responded:

"We've traveled all over the world,

We traded horses

All by Don stallions,

And now our time has come...

And the road lies far ahead for us:

Past Buyan Island,

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan..."

The prince then tells them:

"Good journey to you, gentlemen,

By sea along Okiyan

To the glorious Tsar Saltan;

Yes, say: Prince Guidon

He sends his regards to the Tsar.”

The guests bowed to the prince,

They went out and hit the road.

The prince goes to the sea - and the swan is there

Already walking on the waves.

The prince prays: the soul asks,

So it pulls and carries away...

Here she is again

Instantly sprayed everything:

The prince turned into a fly,

Flew and fell

Between sea and sky

On the ship - and climbed into the crack.

The wind makes a cheerful noise,

The ship is running merrily

Past Buyan Island,

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan-

And the desired country

Now it’s visible from a distance;

The guests came ashore;

Tsar Saltan invites them to visit,

And follow them to the palace

Our daredevil has flown.

He sees: all shining in gold,

Tsar Saltan sits in his chamber

On the throne and in the crown,

With a sad thought on his face.

And the weaver with Babarikha

Yes with a crooked cook

They sit near the king,

They look like angry toads.

Tsar Saltan seats guests

At his table and asks:

“Oh, you, gentlemen, guests,

How long did it take? Where?

Is it good or bad across the sea?

And what miracle is there in the world?”

The shipbuilders responded:

“We have traveled all over the world;

Living overseas is not bad;

In the world, here’s a miracle:

An island lies on the sea,

There is a city on the island

With golden-domed churches,

With towers and gardens;

The spruce tree grows in front of the palace,

And below it is a crystal house;

A tame squirrel lives there,

Yes, what an adventure!

The squirrel sings songs

Yes, he keeps nibbling on nuts,

And nuts are not simple,

All the shells are golden,

The cores are pure emerald;

The servants are guarding the squirrel,

They serve her as servants of various kinds -

And a clerk was appointed

A strict account of nuts is the news;

The army salutes her;

A coin is poured from the shells,

Let them go around the world;

Girls pour emerald

Into the storerooms, and under cover;

Everyone on that island is rich

There are no pictures, there are chambers everywhere;

And Prince Guidon sits in it;

He sent you his regards."

Tsar Saltan marvels at the miracle.

"If only I'm alive,

I’ll visit the wonderful island,

I’ll stay with Guidon.”

And the weaver with the cook,

With in-law Babarikha,

They don't want to let him in

A wonderful island to visit.

Smiling secretly,

The weaver says to the king:

“What’s so wonderful about this? Here you go!

The squirrel gnaws pebbles,

Throws gold into piles

Rakes in emeralds;

This won't surprise us

Is it true or not?

There is another wonder in the world:

The sea will swell violently,

It will boil, it will howl,

It rushes onto the empty shore,

Will spill in a noisy run,

And they will find themselves on the shore,

In scales, like the heat of grief,

Thirty-three heroes

All the handsome men are daring,

Young giants

Everyone is equal, as if by selection,

Uncle Chernomor is with them.

It's a miracle, it's such a miracle

It’s fair to say!”

The smart guests are silent,

They don't want to argue with her.

Tsar Saltan marvels,

And Guidon is angry, angry...

He buzzed and just

sat on my aunt's left eye,

And the weaver turned pale:

"Ouch!" and immediately frowned;

Everyone shouts: “Catch, catch,

Yes, push her, push her...

That's it! wait a little

Wait..." And the prince through the window,

Yes, calm down to your destiny

Arrived across the sea.

The prince walks by the blue sea,

He doesn’t take his eyes off the blue sea;

Look - above the flowing waters

A white swan is swimming.

“Hello, my handsome prince!

Why are you as quiet as a stormy day?

Why are you sad?” -

She tells him.

Prince Guidon answers her:

“Sadness and melancholy eats me up -

I would like something wonderful

Transfer me to my destiny.”

“What a miracle is this?”

Somewhere it will swell violently

Okiyan will raise a howl,

It rushes onto the empty shore,

Splashes in a noisy run,

And they will find themselves on the shore,

In scales, like the heat of grief,

Thirty-three heroes

All the handsome men are young,

Daring giants

Everyone is equal, as if by selection,

Uncle Chernomor is with them.

The swan answers the prince:

“What, prince, confuses you?

Don't worry, my soul,

I know this miracle.

These knights of the sea

After all, my brothers are all my own.

Don't be sad, go

Wait for your brothers to visit."

The prince went, forgetting his grief,

Sat on the tower and on the sea

He began to look; the sea suddenly

It shook around

Splashed in a noisy run

And left on the shore

Thirty-three heroes;

In scales, like the heat of grief,

The knights are coming in pairs,

And, shining with gray hair,

The guy is walking ahead

And he leads them to the city.

Prince Guidon escapes from the tower,

Greets dear guests;

People are running in a hurry;

The uncle says to the prince:

“The swan sent us to you

And she punished

Keep your glorious city

And go around on patrol.

From now on every day we

We will definitely be together

At your high walls

To emerge from the waters of the sea,

So we'll see you soon,

And now it's time for us to go to sea;

The air of the earth is heavy for us.”

Everyone then went home.

The wind blows across the sea

And the boat speeds up;

He runs in the waves

With sails raised

Past the steep island,

Past the big city;

The guns are firing from the pier,

The ship is ordered to land.

Guests arrive at the outpost.

Prince Guidon invites them to visit,

He feeds and waters them

And he orders me to keep the answer:

“What are you, guests, bargaining with?

And where are you sailing now?

The shipbuilders responded:

“We have traveled all over the world;

We traded damask steel

Pure silver and gold,

And now our time has come;

But the road is far away for us,

Past Buyan Island,

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan."

The prince then tells them:

"Good journey to you, gentlemen,

By sea along Okiyan

To the glorious Tsar Saltan.

Yes, tell me: Prince Guidon

I send my regards to the Tsar.”

The guests bowed to the prince,

They went out and hit the road.

The prince goes to the sea, and the swan is there

Already walking on the waves.

The prince again: the soul is asking...

So it pulls and carries away...

And again she him

Sprayed everything in an instant.

Here he has shrunk a lot,

The prince turned like a bumblebee,

It flew and buzzed;

I caught up with the ship at sea,

Slowly sank

To the stern - and hid in the gap.

The wind makes a cheerful noise,

The ship is running merrily

Past Buyan Island,

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan,

And the desired country

It's visible from afar.

The guests came ashore.

Tsar Saltan invites them to visit,

And follow them to the palace

Our daredevil has flown.

He sees, all shining in gold,

Tsar Saltan sits in his chamber

On the throne and in the crown,

With a sad thought on his face.

And the weaver with the cook,

With in-law Babarikha,

They sit near the king -

All three are looking at four.

Tsar Saltan seats guests

At his table and asks:

“Oh, you, gentlemen, guests,

How long did it take? Where?

Is it good or bad overseas?

And what miracle is there in the world?”

The shipbuilders responded:

“We have traveled all over the world;

Living overseas is not bad;

In the world, here’s a miracle:

An island lies on the sea,

There is a city on the island,

Every day there is a miracle there:

The sea will swell violently,

It will boil, it will howl,

It rushes onto the empty shore,

Will splash in a quick run -

And they will remain on the shore

Thirty-three heroes

In the scales of golden grief,

All the handsome men are young,

Daring giants

Everyone is equal, as if by selection;

Old uncle Chernomor

With them comes out of the sea

And takes them out in pairs,

To keep that island

And go around on patrol -

And there is no more reliable guard,

Neither braver nor more diligent.

And Prince Guidon sits there;

He sent you his regards."

Tsar Saltan marvels at the miracle.

"As long as I'm alive,

I will visit the wonderful island

And I’ll stay with the prince.”

Cook and weaver

Not a word - but Babarikha

Smiling, he says:

“Who will surprise us with this?

People come out of the sea

And they wander around on patrol!

Are they telling the truth or lying?

I don't see Diva here.

Are there such divas in the world?

Here goes the rumor that is true:

There is a princess beyond the sea,

What you can't take your eyes off:

During the day the light of God is eclipsed,

At night it illuminates the earth,

The moon shines under the scythe,

And in the forehead the star is burning.

And she herself is majestic,

Swims out like a peahen;

And as the speech says,

It's like a river babbling.

It is fair to say,

It’s a miracle, it’s such a miracle.”

The smart guests are silent:

They don’t want to argue with the woman.

Tsar Saltan marvels at the miracle -

And although the prince is angry,

But he regrets his eyes

His old grandmother:

He buzzes over her, spins -

Sits right on her nose,

The hero stung his nose:

A blister appeared on my nose.

And again the alarm began:

“Help, for God's sake!

Guard! catch, catch,

Push him, push him...

That's it! wait a little

Wait!..” And the bumblebee through the window,

Yes, calm down to your destiny

Flew across the sea.

The prince walks by the blue sea,

He doesn’t take his eyes off the blue sea;

Look - above the flowing waters

A white swan is swimming.

“Hello, my handsome prince!

Why are you as quiet as a stormy day?

Why are you sad?” -

She tells him.

Prince Guidon answers her:

“Sadness and melancholy eats me up:

People get married; I see

I’m the only one who’s unmarried.”

Who do you have in mind?

You have? - “Yes in the world,

They say there is a princess

That you can't take your eyes off.

During the day the light of God is eclipsed,

At night the earth lights up -

The moon shines under the scythe,

And in the forehead the star is burning.

And she herself is majestic,

Protrudes like a peahen;

He speaks sweetly,

It's like a river is babbling.

Just, come on, is this true?”

The prince waits with fear for an answer.

The white swan is silent

And, after thinking, he says:

"Yes! there is such a girl.

But the wife is not a mitten:

You can’t shake off the white pen,

You can't put it under your belt.

I'll give you some advice -

Listen: about everything about it

Think about it,

I wouldn’t repent later.”

The prince began to swear before her,

That it's time for him to get married,

What about all this

He changed his mind along the way;

What is ready with a passionate soul

Behind the beautiful princess

He walks away

At least distant lands.

The swan is here, taking a deep breath,

She said: “Why far away?

Know that your destiny is near,

After all, this princess is me.”

Here she is, flapping her wings,

Flew over the waves

And to the shore from above

Sank into the bushes

Started up, shook myself off

And she turned around like a princess:

The moon shines under the scythe,

And in the forehead the star burns;

And she herself is majestic,

Protrudes like a peahen;

And as the speech says,

It's like a river babbling.

The prince hugs the princess,

Presses to a white chest

And he leads her quickly

To your dear mother.

The prince is at her feet, begging:

“Dear Empress!

I chose my wife

Daughter obedient to you,

We ask for both permissions,

Your blessing:

Bless the children

Live in advice and love."

Above their humble head

Mother with a miraculous icon

She sheds tears and says:

“God will reward you, children.”

The prince did not take long to get ready,

He married the princess;

They began to live and live,

Yes, wait for the offspring.

The wind blows across the sea

And the boat speeds up;

He runs in the waves

On full sails

Past the steep island,

Past the big city;

The guns are firing from the pier,

The ship is ordered to land.

Guests arrive at the outpost.

Prince Guidon invites them to visit,

He feeds and waters them

And he orders me to keep the answer:

“What are you, guests, bargaining with?

And where are you sailing now?

The shipbuilders responded:

"We've traveled all over the world,

We traded for a reason

Unspecified product;

But the road lies far ahead for us:

Head back to the east,

Past Buyan Island,

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan."

The prince then said to them:

"Good journey to you, gentlemen,

By sea along Okiyan

To the glorious I give to Saltan;

Yes, remind him

To my sovereign:

He promised to visit us,

And I haven’t gotten around to it yet -

I send him my regards."

The guests are on their way, and Prince Guidon

Stayed home this time

And he did not separate from his wife.

The wind makes a cheerful noise,

The ship is running merrily

Past Buyan Island

To the kingdom of the glorious Saltan,

And a familiar country

It's visible from afar.

The guests came ashore.

Tsar Saltan invites them to visit.

Guests see: in the palace

The king sits in his crown,

And the weaver with the cook,

With in-law Babarikha,

They sit near the king,

All three are looking at four.

Tsar Saltan seats guests

At his table and asks:

“Oh, you, gentlemen, guests,

How long did it take? Where?

Is it good across the sea, or is it bad?

And what miracle is there in the world?”

The shipbuilders responded:

“We have traveled all over the world;

Living overseas is not bad,

In the world, here’s a miracle:

An island lies on the sea,

There is a city on the island,

With golden-domed churches,

With towers and gardens;

The spruce tree grows in front of the palace,

And below it is a crystal house;

The tame squirrel lives in it,

Yes, what a miracle worker!

Squirrel sings songs

Yes, he keeps nibbling on nuts;

And nuts are not simple,

The shells are golden

The cores are pure emerald;

The squirrel is groomed and protected.

There's another miracle:

The sea will swell violently,

It will boil, it will howl,

It rushes onto the empty shore,

Will splash in a quick run,

And they will find themselves on the shore,

In scales, like the heat of grief,

Thirty-three heroes

All the handsome men are daring,

Young giants

Everyone is equal, as if by selection

Uncle Chernomor is with them.

And there is no more reliable guard,

Neither braver nor more diligent.

And the prince has a wife,

What you can't take your eyes off:

During the day the light of God is eclipsed,

At night it illuminates the earth;

The moon shines under the scythe,

And in the forehead the star is burning.

Prince Guidon rules that city,

Everyone praises him diligently;

He sent you his regards,

Yes, he blames you:

He promised to visit us,

But I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

At this point the king could not resist,

He ordered the fleet to be equipped.

And the weaver with the cook,

With in-law Babarikha,

They don't want to let the king in

A wonderful island to visit.

But Saltan does not listen to them

And it just calms them down:

"What am I? king or child? -

He says not jokingly: -

I’m going now!” - Here he stomped,

He went out and slammed the door.

Guidon sits under the window,

Silently looks at the sea:

It doesn’t make noise, it doesn’t whip,

Only barely, barely trembles,

And in the azure distance

Ships appeared:

Along the Okiyan plains

Tsar Saltan's fleet is on its way.

Prince Guidon then jumped up,

He cried loudly:

“My dear mother!

You, young princess!

Look there:

Father is coming here."

The fleet is already approaching the island.

Prince Guidon blows the trumpet:

The king is standing on deck

And he looks at them through the pipe;

With him is a weaver and a cook,

With his in-law Babarikha;

They are surprised

To the unknown side.

The cannons were fired at once;

The bell towers began to ring;

Guidon himself goes to the sea;

There he meets the king

With the cook and the weaver,

With his in-law Babarikha;

He led the king into the city,

Without saying anything.

Everyone now goes to the wards:

The armor shines at the gate,

And stand in the eyes of the king

Thirty-three heroes

All the handsome men are young,

Daring giants

Everyone is equal, as if by selection,

Uncle Chernomor is with them.

The king stepped into the broad courtyard:

There under the tall tree

The squirrel sings a song

The golden nut gnaws

Emerald takes out

And puts it in a bag;

And the large yard is sown

Golden shell.

Guests are far away - hurriedly

They look - well, the princess is a miracle:

The moon shines under the scythe,

And in the forehead the star burns;

And she herself is majestic,

Performs like a peahen

And she leads her mother-in-law.

The king looks and finds out...

Zealousness surged within him!

"What I see? what's happened?

How!" - and the spirit began to occupy him...

The king burst into tears,

He hugs the queen

And son, and young lady,

And everyone sits down at the table;

And the merry feast began.

And the weaver with the cook,

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Tsar Saltan is a generous and naive ruler who appeared in a fairy tale. The author created the image of a big child, stamping his feet, blindly believing the courtly licks and dreaming of simple happiness.

History of creation

Alexander Pushkin worked on one of his most famous fairy tales for several years, jotting down notes for the future work in notebooks and thinking about the form of presentation. The writer even thought about telling the story of Tsar Saltan in prose. As an artistic framework, the author took the folk tale “Knee-deep in gold, elbow-deep in silver”, added stories from nanny Arina Rodionovna and tales overheard from common people. During the languid years of exile in Mikhailovskoye, deprived of the freedom to choose his place of residence, the poet communicated a lot with the people - whiled away the evenings in the company of peasants and servants.

By the summer of 1831, Pushkin took part in an undertaking that invited several writers to try their hand at folk art. Alexander Sergeevich entered “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” into a “competition”, although he later rewrote it again. The first person to hear the creation from the author’s mouth was. In 1932, it appeared as part of a collection of the writer’s essays.

The solemn and long title “The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of his glorious and mighty hero Prince Guidon Saltanovich and the beautiful Swan Princess” was chosen in imitation of popular popular narratives. When coming up with a name for the main character, Pushkin wittily remade the double title “Tsar-Sultan”, resulting in a colorful name, indicating eastern roots, but with a Slavic connotation.

Critics greeted the work coldly, among them there were those who suspected that Pushkin was losing his talent. The poet was hit with a barrage of accusations that he had failed to convey the flavor of Russian folklore, producing only a pitiful semblance of a folk example. Only in the 20th century did critics begin to sing odes of praise to the work.

Plot

One day, Tsar Saltan overhears a dreamy conversation on the topic “if I were a queen” between three sisters, who were spinning near the window in the evening. The sovereign especially liked the promise of one girl, because she was going to give birth to a hero. To celebrate, Saltan marries her, sends the remaining two dreamers to serve at court and leaves for distant countries to fight in the war.

In his absence, the promised hero, the son Guidon, was born, but the envious sisters of the woman in labor cunningly got rid of the queen and her offspring. Guidon and his mother were locked in a barrel and thrown into the sea. This unusual ship delivered the heroes to the shores of the uninhabited island of Buyan, which became their new place of residence. Here the young man founded a wonderful city, and she helped him in this beautiful swan, saved by Guidon from a kite.

Guidon, who wants to see his father, with the help of merchants who have visited his domain, invites Tsar Saltan to visit. However, the sovereign is more attracted by the news of the miracle squirrel, which gnaws gold and emerald nuts and can sing. Then the prince decides to settle this fabulous animal on his island, building a crystal house for it.

The second time, the king again refused the invitation, having learned about the thirty-three heroes, and then a naval army led by a man appeared on Buyan Island.

And for the third time, Guidon failed to lure his father to visit - he found out about the beautiful Swan Princess, who outshines God’s light with her face. Guidon was so impressed by the news that he was going to marry the girl. Rushing to the swan for help, he was surprised to discover that she was the same princess.

Tsar Saltan finally arrived on the island, where his whole family was waiting for him - his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Pushkin ended the tale on a positive note - the women who plotted intrigues were forgiven, and the sovereign threw a feast for the whole world.

Characteristics of Tsar Saltan

The main character of the work is presented in a comic manner. The hero has a royal appearance - a solid beard, appropriate attire, consisting of red boots and a long cloak with elegant patterns, embroidered with gold. However, the character is not at all autocratic.

Tsar Saltan and Babarikha

Tsar Saltan, trusting, good-natured and fair, is the ideal Tsar-Father for the Russian people. He is easily deceived by his surroundings, but his innate ability to forgive forces the hero to close his eyes to everyone and live in a world of illusions.

In culture

At the end of the 19th century, the composer wrote a magnificent opera based on the fairy tale, which went through many productions.

In our time, music was used Olympic champion in the author’s performance on the water “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, which is still touring around Russia. A water fairy tale is a mix of sports and art, where circus actors, choreographers, champions in synchronized swimming, diving and aquabike take part. In an interview, Maria Kiseleva noted:

“We write original music for each performance. Now we have moved on - in the new show we will hear classical music Rimsky-Korsakov, which was specially written for “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, but in an original adaptation. It will fit perfectly with the action on set.”

The work is also included in the cinematic heritage. For the first time, Pushkin’s creation was captured on film in 1943. Directors Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg created a black and white cartoon in which Saltan speaks in the voice of an actor. The color cartoon was released much later - in 1984. This picture became last job the legendary director's tandem of Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Lev Milchin. Saltan was voiced by Mikhail Zimin.

In 1966, Alexander Ptushko took on the plot of the fairy tale, filming Feature Film. On film set(Tsarina), (Guidon), Ksenia Ryabinkina (Princess Swan) worked. The role of Saltan went to.

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Plot

Origin of the plot

History of creation

Publication

Characteristics of the text

Folklore and literary sources of the plot

Legs up to the knees in gold, arms up to the elbows in silver

Singing tree, living water and talking bird

The Green Bird and the Princess of Belle Etoile

The Canterbury Tales

Character Sources

Saltan and Guidon

Swan Princess

Thirty-three heroes

Babarikha

Squirrel

Buyan Island

The Tale of Tsar Saltan - Pushkin A.S.

Read the Tale of Tsar Saltan

Diary of a bear cub - Tsyferov G.M.

Rain - Donald Bisset

History of creation

Plot

Characteristics of Tsar Saltan

In culture

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