Stories about Lenin

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The stories about Lenin ( Russian Рассказы о Ленине / Rasskasy o Lenine , scientific transliteration Rasskazy o Lenine ) are a collection of short stories by the Soviet writer and satirist Mikhail Soschtschenko (1894–1958) from 1940 for "preschool children" to deliver various stories from the life of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and to reveal to the little reader the positive traits of the creator of Russian communism, the great leader of the working class.

Postage stamp for the 100th birthday of Soshchenko

The stories are a parody of moralizing stories about Lenin and all have a teasing, subtle irony. All the hero's actions and remarks show his human qualities. Every decision he makes is right and just. The stories range from episodes from his childhood and youth through the period of exile and emigration to the first years after the October Revolution . In the Soviet era, the stories were included in the list of compulsory reading for younger students, with no particular emphasis on Zoshchenko's authorship. The stories about Lenin served as the basis for a variety of jokes and parodies. Zoshchenko later fell out of favor. While his adult narratives were retired, the Lenin stories remained on the curriculum as an element of propaganda. The author of this work plays with the conventions of his time, whereby his satire resembles a book of fairy tales for children, if not to say the genre of the saint's life.

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Lenin in Switzerland (1916)
  • The carafe (Графин). In this story, for two months little Volodya had remorse over the fact that he broke a carafe while visiting an aunt in Kazan, but did not confess. Volodya later honestly admitted it to his mother so that he could fall asleep peacefully. She wrote her aunt a letter, who immediately forgave him and invited him again.
  • The gray goat (Серенький козлик). The story of how Lenin convinced his younger brother Mitya that children should be brave and not cry and be afraid.
  • How Lenin learned (Как Ленин учился). This story says that Lenin not only had tremendous intelligence and ability, he was also extremely efficient at doing so, and was also engaged in physical education.
  • How Lenin quit smoking (Как Ленин бросил курить). Lenin had an iron will. When he decided to quit smoking, he did it in one day.
  • How Lenin outwitted the gendarmes (Как Ленин перехитрил жандармов). When Lenin was in exile in Shushenskoye , gendarmes came to him to look for forbidden literature and documents that were kept on the lower shelf of the bookcase. As the gendarme approached the cupboard, the resourceful Lenin gave him a chair, and the gendarme began to look from above, did not look very closely at the lower shelf and found nothing.
  • Inkwell made of bread (Чернильница из хлеба). When Lenin was in prison trying to outsmart the guards, he wrote revolutionary texts with milk and his inkwell was made of bread. When the guard appeared, Ilyich quickly ate the inkwell.
  • How Lenin bought a boy a toy (О том, как Ленин купил одному мальчику игрушку). How Lenin took a nice stroll with an unknown boy and bought him a toy.
  • Lenin in the hairdressing salon (Ленин в парикмахерской). The story of how Ilyich refused to cut his hair without the queue showed his great modesty.
  • An assassination attempt on Lenin (Покушение на Ленина). After this story Lenin, who was shot by Kaplan, himself climbed the steep stairs to the third floor.
  • Lenin and the Sentry (Ленин и часовой). Lenin was not angry at the guard who asked for his papers, but on the contrary praised him because the rules were the same for everyone.
  • How Lenin donated a given fish (Как Ленину пытались подарить рыбу). It was the time of famine, and Lenin, like everyone else, subsisted on everything available. When a simple fisherman tried to give him a fish, he ordered the fish to be sent to children in an orphanage.
  • How Aunt Fedosiya spoke to Lenin (О том, как тётушка Федосья беседовала с Лениным). Lenin was concerned about a simple woman who came to Smolny to apply for a pension.
  • Lenin and the Oven (Ленин и печник). The story of how Lenin did not offend the rough stove-setter Benderin and thus left a very pleasant impression of himself.
  • The mistake (Ошибка). Lenin gave an inaccurate tip to a subordinate and then admitted a mistake because he was a fair person.
  • Lenin and the bees . The attentive Lenin guesses where the beekeeper lives by analyzing the direction of flight of the bees.
  • On the hunt (На охоте). Tells of how Lenin, despite his love of hunting, did not shoot the beautiful fox, which saved his life.

various

Not to be confused with this is a collection of stories by Alexander Kononow (1895–1957) from 1939, which bears the same title , is also a film.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the party decree of August 14, 1946 ("О журналах" Звезда "и" Ленинград "" "On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad").
  2. ↑ cf. Masha Gessen: The future is history: How Russia won and lost freedom. 2018 ( partial online view )
  3. ↑ The book cover text ( photo ) reports on the title story of the German translation ( Inkwells made of bread ):

    “The guard observes the detainee suspiciously. He peers through the peephole, examines his books and documents, but cannot discover anything suspicious. When he tries to reach for the inkwell, the prisoner quickly puts it in his mouth. The supervisor can't believe his eyes: Can you eat inkwells? "

  4. ↑ About fishing, which was badly off, it says that money was needed to repair boats and buy nets. "Otherwise the fish would wait in vain for Soviet nets and swim into English waters." (German translation) - The author plays with convention when he shows the hero as an ideal figure and without blemishes, as a root of virtues.
  5. ↑ See the poem of the same name ( Lenin i petschnik ) by Alexander Twardowski (1910–1971).
  6. ↑ cf. Ben Hellman: Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (1574-2010). Russian History and Culture 13. 2013, p. 403

literature

  • Зощенко, М. М .: Рассказы и повести 1923–1956 [Stories and short stories]. Л .: Советский писатель. 1960
  • Sostschenko, Michael: Inkwells made of bread: Tales about Lenin. Chaffinch books. The children's book publisher Berlin, Berlin 1977, 2nd edition. Translated from the Russian by Irina Belokoneva. Illustrations by Elizabeth Shaw.

Web links

Stories about Lenin (alternative names of the lemma)
Rasskasy o Lenine; Рассказы о Ленине; Rasskazy o Lenine; Stories about Lenin; Stories about Lenin