The seven underground kings

The Seven Underground Kings is the third book in the Emerald City series by the Russian author Alexander Volkov . The story was published in 1964 under the original title "Семь подземных королей". As with the books “The Magician of the Emerald City” and “The Cunning Urfin and His Wooden Soldiers”, the illustrations in this book are by Leonid Wladimirski . The translator of the long-used German version is Lazar Steinmetz .

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In the introduction, Alexander Volkov describes the creation of the magical land by the magician Hurrikap . This makes sense in that it is the first time that the reader is given the reason for the existence of the magic land as well as for its peculiarities. For example, in the magic land the animals can talk and there is only summer.

The first part describes Prince Bofaro's attempt to overthrow his father from the throne. This fails and he and his followers are banished to an underground cave by order of the king. This banishment applies for life to Bofaro and his descendants. The exiles built a city, fortified it and began to grow grain, mine ore and do all the work that made life in the cave possible. In doing so, they used the help of the animals that lived in the cave. The six-footed were tamed to pull the plows and the dragons were used as a means of transportation. Over time, a barter with the inhabitants of the magic land developed. The ore diggers exchanged copper, bronze, plows, harrows, glass and precious stones for grain, butter and fruit.

When King Bofaro died, he had seven children. Since he could not decide to whom to inherit the throne, he made them all his heirs. Everyone should rule for a month. This led to disputes over the order of rule. In the end, they agreed to rule according to age. Each king was represented by a color of the rainbow. They built a palace with seven towers and seven entrances to the kings' apartments.

A special day in the history of the underground land was the discovery of the sleeping water. Whoever drank from this magic water fell into a very deep sleep. By an incursion by the Keeper of Time, all the kings who were not ruling were gradually put to sleep. This regulation met with general approval. The kings only ruled for a month. Since they slept through the six months between the reigns, the craftsmen, farmers and other residents only had to work for one instead of seven royal courts per month. In this way the centuries passed. In the meantime, the events described in the first two books happened.

After Urfin was ousted , his first minister Ruf Bilan fled to the underground cave. When he got lost there, he smashed into a wall with a found pickaxe and dried up the source of sleeping water. For this act he was brought to justice in the city of the seven underground kings and had to work off his sentence. The drying up of the spring had a serious impact on the lives of the people in the cave. The food was running low, as all seven royal courts had to be supplied at the same time again.

In the second part of the story, Volkov describes the return and experiences of the girl Elli . During the holidays she went to see her uncle, her aunt and her cousin. She was accompanied by her dog Toto . When visiting a cave it collapsed behind the children and Toto. Since the way back was blocked, they kept going forward and after a dangerous journey arrived in the land of the seven underground kings. There Elli was recognized by Ruf Bilan. He told the kings that Elli was a sorceress and could bring back the water to sleep. Since this was not true, Elli needed help.

In the third part Volkov describes the attempts of the Scheuch and the Iron Logger to help Elli. Since the inhabitants of the Violet Land are gifted craftsmen, they managed to pump the water out of the ground again. The Scheuch had the idea to put all the kings and their employees back to sleep and to tell them when they woke up that they were craftsmen. In this way the reign of the seven underground kings ended. Elli, Toto and their cousin returned home on the back of the dragon Oicho .

Parallels to L. Frank Baum

Just like during the previous two volumes, Volkov took over for the third volume of his magic land-series some items from the Oz books by L. Frank Baum , without plagiarizing them. So z. B. the subterranean land at Volkov a little like the also subterranean land Mangaboo in Dorothy and the magician in Oz . This is also illuminated by a diffuse light. While Baum shines in all the colors of the rainbow, so that the color changes constantly, Wolkow assigns these colors to his kings, who change each time one of the seven kings takes office. Dorothy also experiences her underground adventure with her cousin Zeb at Baum.

Edition history

The German first edition appeared in the GDR in the early 1970s. For more than 30 years the book appeared almost unchanged in eastern Germany, only the external appearance was modified. From the 9th edition, in 2005, the volume then appeared in a new, greatly abbreviated text version and with a different layout. In order to fit the content into a given number of pages, the book has been massively shortened, so that some of the passages mentioned in the plot part, for example the story about the hurricane, are no longer included. The audio book, read by Katharina Thalbach, is based on this edition.

Radio plays / audio books

There are three German-language radio play productions for this book:

• The seven underground kings , director: Maritta Hübner, adaptation: Ernst Röhl , 50 minutes, Rundfunk der DDR, 1976

(with Arno Wyzniewski , Dieter Wien , Marianne Klussmann , Hans-Joachim Hanisch and others)

• The seven underground kings. Director: Dieter Scharfenberg, MC, ISBN 3-930319-84-5
• The seven underground kings. Director: Paul Hartmann, MC, ISBN 3-8291-0326-3

An audio book version was published in August 2006:

• The seven underground kings , read by Katharina Thalbach , Jumbo Neue Medien, 2CD, ISBN 3-8337-1668-1