The history of the works` creation

Carlo Lorenchini, also known to the whole  world as Kollodi, his

literary name (the name of the suburb where he spent his childhood)

, began to write his famous fairytale at the age when discoveries

 seldom can be made� he was 50 years old. He lived professional

 philologist�s life filled with daily feverish work and giving not many

joys. The first successes came to Kollodi when he began to write for

 children.

 At first there were translations of Sharle Pierro�s

 fairytales, after that � several very successful books which were

written under the influence of the famous teacher and writer J.

 Parravachini� These books caught the fancy of readers but what�s

 really important � they prepared appearance of the �Pinokkio�.

 Thanks to the writer and his hero  the suburb Kollodi became

 famous. The  monument had been constructed there to the little

 wooden man, and the inscription had been carved on it : �To 

immortal Pinokkio � thankful readers at the age from 4 to 70�.The

influence of this book on Italian readers and writers isgreat

  because you know all writers were children  and the book about

 Pinocchio came to their life in numbers of their �first impressions�.

The publicationof the fairytale  under the title �The one fantoccini

  story� began in the first issue of the new weekly magazine �Child�s

 newspaper� which came out under the editorship of Fernando

 Martini  in Rome on 7th July in 1881.

After Pinokkio`s  hanging scene  the fairytale`s  end had been

 declared  but the children, obviously, had disagreed with such

 destiny oftheir beloved   and the author had been compelled to

 revive the wooden little man. Kollodi continued his work  by fits and

 starts. The newspaper publication had come to the end only in 1883

 and then there was a first separate edition - "Adventures of

 Pinokkio. History of one puppet" - with sixty two drawings of Enriko

 Mandzanti. To the beginning of the XX-th century the fairy tale

 (under some information)  had been republishedfive hundred (500!)

times.

In Russia the fairy tale "Adventures of Pinokkio" had been

 published  in 1906 by M.O.Volf's publishing house for the first time

and had been specified that the translation  was made from 480th

 Italian edition! The full translation into Russian had been carried out

 by Kazakevich (it was published in 1959).

  In 1924 in Berlin  the Russian version of  "Adventures of Pinokkio"

 by K.Kollodi appeared. The book was let out by publishing house

 "Nakanune" - body of those Russian emigrant circles which stood

 up for homecoming and thought of themselves as though already on

 the eve of returning.The cover read: " The translation from Italian

 by Nina Petrovskaya. Alexei Tolstoy altered and processed". The

 legendary history of "The little gold key" begins with this original

 book. Tolstoy  wished to edit only the  first  translation of "Pinokkio"

 which was executed by Petrovskaya. As a result there was not

 edited translation but artistically rethought alteration.

Tolstoy decided to retell the book of Karlo Kollodi in his own way. In

 the introduction  to the fairytale which he named "the little gold key,

 or Adventures of Buratino", the writer  declared that read "The

 adventures of Pinokkio" in his childhood, often retold the story of a

 wooden doll to his friends and invented such adventures which

 were not in the book . In the introduction it is told: "When I was

 small, - many, many years ago, - I read one book called "Pinokkio,

 or Adventures of a wooden doll "(a wooden doll in Italian - Buratino)

. Having supplied" the little gold key "with the preface the author

 had taken care of the history of the tale. Almost all who had written

about" the Gold key "refer to this preface.

 Really it`s not so. Tolstoy was already an adult person when he

 read for the first time a fairy tale about boy from a log. When the

 writer was working at retelling the "Pinokkio" remembered his own

 childhood, children's entertainments and dreams of unusual

 adventures that`s why his Buratino is very similar to Alesha Tolstoy

 himself in the childhood. Certainly the writer made up the history

 about the golden key but the temper of Buratino reminds his own

very much. Buratino - boy is awfully restless and curious. He

 pierced a canvas with the drawn centre in a closet of daddy Karlo

 by his long nose and he made out the secret door through a hole.

 The gold key fitted to it in the end of the tale! In the book "Adventure

 of Pinokkio" by Karlo Kollodi the burning centre was drawn in a

 closet of the hero`s father (whose name was not Karlo but

 Dzheppetto) too but the writer didn`t write anything more about it .

 And Alexei Tolstoy, reading the fairy tale of Kollodi, paid attention

 to this centre and decided to look into with the hero and as a result

there was a new fairy tale.  

Tolstoy's fantastic story "The golden key, or the adventures of

 Buratino" was published in the "Pionerskaya  pravda" in 1935  for

 the first time. The first edition of "golden key" came  out in

 Leningrad in 1936 (50 thousand copy) and was supplied by an

 inscription: "I Devote this book to Lyudmila Ilinichna Krestinskaya",

 and later "I Devote this book to Lyudmila Ilinichna Tolstaya".

It`s not clearly, which book("when he was small much time ago")

 Tolstoy read. It is not known also, in what language he read this

book. He did not know Italian then and  later either and Russian

 translations of   K.Kollodi`s tale  began to be published  since 1906

when he prepared for the first book of the verses, so we can`t speak

 about any "reading in the childhood". Tolstoy's   preface to "the

 golden key" - an author's legend about origin of the fairytale, small

 mystification of the storyteller. Tolstoy used mystification to

 explain by his own language, how it`s necessary to read it. The

 writer removed an inscription about "the novel for children and

 adults" and  replaced it with his introduction- the text treating about

  the same but in another way. Tolstoy's introduction  to "the golden

 key" is an author's interpretation of the genre, the developed genre

 definition, genre installation. Double addressing of a  tale is put in it

 as a creative method.

That`s why it`s believed that the fantastic story about Buratino  is in

full conformity with the warning of the writer. But peculiarities of his

 fantastic narration - a fruit of a prudent art instead of naive

 children's memory. The introduction moves  reader's perception

 purposefully. What this purpose about? It is not difficult to notice

 that the introduction aspires to obscure , weaken, erase the

 original date of the creation of a fairy tale � the 30th years of our

 century - and to date it  as the end of the  XIX-th century  when the

 writer was small. It was invented and  conditional but the date

 which was offered by the author  is necessary to consider and

 remember it. It`s  important as other, well-known date - "June,

 22nd, 1941", - finishing the trilogy "A long ordeal". Both datings are

 comparable on the art function, both demand not so much

historico-literary or biographic interpretation - but first of all -

 actually aesthetic one.