On October 23, 1920, in the northern Italian town of Omegna, a boy, Gianni, was born into the family of the owner of a small bakery, who was destined to become one of best storytellers Italy. His father, Giuseppe Rodari, was the head of a large family and not a rich man at all - and all of Italy at the beginning of the 20th century was very far from prosperity. People had to go to work in neighboring countries - France, Switzerland, Germany. But baker Rodari managed to find his place in life, and somehow the family made ends meet.
The childhood of the future storyteller took place in loving family, but he was born weak and was often sick. Parents spent a lot of time communicating with their children, teaching them to draw and play the violin. Gianni's passion for drawing was so great that at one time he even dreamed of becoming an artist. He also wanted to become a toy maker, so that children would play with unusual and never boring mechanical toys that would never bore them. All his life he believed that toys for children were as important as books. Otherwise, children simply will not be able to relate correctly to the world around them and will not become kind.
Gianni was only nine years old when a terrible tragedy struck the family. It happened because of Giuseppe Rodari’s love for animals - in heavy rain he picked up a kitten on the street, pitiful and wet, and on the way home he got wet to the bone and caught a bad cold. It only took pneumonia a week to bring the cheerful and beloved father of the family to the grave. These are difficult times for the widow and children. In order to somehow feed the family, the mother got a job as a maid in a rich house. Only this allowed Gianni and his two brothers Mario and Cesare to survive.
The Rodari family could not afford a regular school, and therefore Gianni began studying at a theological seminary, where seminarians from poor families were taught, fed, and even clothed for free. The boy was very bored at the seminary. Rodari later said that he could not remember more boring days than studying at the seminary in his life, and argued that for such study you need to have the patience and imagination of a cow. All that interested Gianni in this educational institution- library. Here he was able to read many amazing books, which awakened the boy’s imagination and gave him bright dreams. Despite his love of drawing, Gianni's grades in this subject at the seminary were consistently poor. He, of course, did not become a real artist, but perseverance allowed him to develop amazing vigilance and literally grasp the essence of things on the fly. True, he embodied these pictures in words.
In 1937, Gianni Rodari graduated from the seminary and immediately got a job to bring money to the family. He began teaching at primary school, and at the same time attended lectures on philology at the University of Milan and with great interest independently studied philosophy and social science, mastering the works of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Lenin and Trotsky. In his lessons at school, Rodari tried to simplify learning for children and for this purpose he came up with instructive and funny stories. Under his guidance, students built houses from cubes with letters and, together with their teacher, came up with fairy tales. It is possible that Rodari, who loved children very much, would have become a world-famous teacher, but the Second World War broke many destinies. She also influenced Gianni Rodari.
True, he was not accepted into the army - he did not pass the medical examination, but many of Rodari’s friends and acquaintances were arrested, two of them died, and his brother Cesare ended up in a concentration camp. As a result, Rodari realized that it was necessary to fight what was happening in the world, and joined the Resistance Movement, and before the end of the war, in 1944, he became a member of the Italian Communist Party. The end of the war found Rodari at party work. He often visited plants and factories, villages and villages, and also took part in many rallies and demonstrations. In 1948, Gianni began working as a journalist for the newspaper Unita. He had to travel a lot around the country, getting news for his newspaper. After some time, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper suggested the young journalist a separate topic for Sunday issues dedicated to children, and Rodari began to lead “ Children's Corner" On these pages he places his own entertaining and funny poems and fairy tales, full of imagination and kindness. Later, many publications reprinted these stories, full of smiles and fiction.
The leaders of the Communist Party quickly appreciated Rodari’s talent and tenacity. He is given the task of organizing the magazine "Pioniere", intended for children, and becoming its editor. It was on the pages of Pioneer that the famous fairy tale “The Adventures of Cipollino” appeared in 1951. The fairy tale was not so much magical as it was everyday - in it the vegetable men and fruit men, although they lived in a fantasy state, but their life was very similar to real life poor Italians.
Rodari himself believed that he was deprived of the talent of a publisher, but he edited the new magazine for three whole years, after which he was transferred to the youth magazine of the Italian Communist Party, Avangard. After some time, he left this position and became an employee of the mass left-wing newspaper Paese Sera. Rodari’s feuilletons appeared almost daily on the pages of this newspaper, which made it even more popular. However, Rodari never occupied the chief’s chair again.
In 1952, Rodari was first invited to Soviet Union. Here he communicated with children's writers and poets, and already in next year translated versions of the poems of the Italian storyteller and his famous “Cipollino” appeared in the Soviet press. Translations were performed by Samuil Marshak. Simultaneously with the release of The Adventures of Cipollino in the Soviet Union, Gianni Rodari married Maria Teresa Ferretti. The Rodari couple's daughter Paola was born four years later, in 1957. In the same year, another thing happened in Rodari’s life. an important event- He passes the exam and receives the title of professional journalist.
When Paolina's father first took him to the Soviet Union, she asked to show her toy stores. Imagine Rodari’s surprise when he saw in the windows “ Children's world» characters from their own fairy tales - Cipollino, Prince Lemon, Signor Tomato and others. For the writer, such a spectacle was more valuable than any triumph - the heroes of his fairy tale became real toys!
Gianni Rodari wrote many more fairy tales, including “Gelsomino in the Land of Liars”, “The Adventures of the Blue Arrow”, “Cake in the Sky”, “Tales by Telephone”, but he considered himself not a writer, but a journalist. And in his native Italy, his popularity remained extremely low for a very long time, and we can say that the world learned about the wonderful storyteller through another country - the Soviet Union. Only in 1967 Gianni Rodari was announced best writer in his homeland, but this happened after his book “Cake in the Sky” was awarded a pan-European prize and a gold medal. Rodari's works began to be included in school curriculum, and also make animated films based on them art films.
For adults, he wrote only one book - “The Grammar of Fantasy,” subtitled “An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories.” As the author himself joked, this book was read “by mistake” by many children, and it ceased to belong to adults. Although Rodari composed it only to teach parents how to invent magical stories for their children.
Gianni Rodari's triumph took place in 1970, when for all his works he was awarded the International Hans Christian Andersen Gold Medal, the highest award in the field of literature for children.
The great Italian storyteller Gianni Rodari died of a serious illness on April 14, 1980, in Rome. For many, this death came as a surprise - after all, he was not even sixty years old. Thousands of telegrams of condolences came from all over the world to his wife and daughter.
If you believe the words of the ancient Greek sage that people live in the books they write, then Gianni Rodari will live forever - in his wonderful heroes and in the hearts of the children who loved them.
This book contains most of my stories written for children over fifteen years. You will say that this is not enough. In 15 years, if I wrote only one page every day, I could already have about 5,500 pages. This means that I wrote much less than I could. And yet I don’t consider myself a big lazy person!
The fact is that during these years I was still working as a journalist and doing many other things. For example, I wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, dealt with school problems, played with my daughter, listened to music, went for a walk, and thought. And thinking is also a useful thing. Maybe even the most useful of all others. In my opinion, every person should think for half an hour a day. This can be done everywhere - sitting at the table, walking in the forest, alone or in company.
I became a writer almost by accident. I wanted to be a violinist, and I studied the violin for several years. But since 1943 I have not touched it anymore. The violin has been with me ever since. I'm always planning to add strings that are missing, fix a broken neck, buy a new bow to replace the old one, which is completely disheveled, and start the exercises again from the first position. Maybe I'll do it someday, but I don't have time yet. I would also like to be an artist. True, at school I always had bad grades in drawing, and yet I always really loved using a pencil and painting in oils. Unfortunately, at school we were forced to do such tedious things that they could make even a cow lose patience. In a word, like all the guys, I dreamed about a lot, but then I didn’t do much, but did what I least thought about.
However, without even knowing it, I spent a long time preparing for my writing career. For example, I became a school teacher. I don't think I was very good teacher: I was too young and my thoughts were very far from school desks. Perhaps I was a cheerful teacher. I told the guys different funny stories- stories without any meaning, and the more absurd they were, the more the children laughed. This already meant something. In the schools I know, I don't think they laugh much. Much that could be learned laughing is learned with tears - bitter and useless.
But let's not get distracted. Anyway, I have to tell you about this book. I hope she will be as happy as a toy. By the way, here is another activity that I would like to devote myself to: making toys. I always wanted toys to be unexpected, with a twist, so that they would suit everyone. Such toys last a long time and never get boring. Not knowing how to work with wood or metal, I tried to make toys from words. Toys, in my opinion, are as important as books: if it weren't, kids wouldn't love them. And since they love them, it means that toys teach them something that cannot be learned otherwise.
I would like the toys to serve both adults and little ones, so that the whole family, the whole class, together with the teacher can play with them. I would like my books to be the same. And this one too. She should help parents get closer to their children so that they can laugh and argue with her. I am pleased when some boy willingly listens to my stories. I rejoice even more when this story makes him want to talk, express his opinion, ask adults questions, demand that they answer.
My book is being published in the Soviet Union. I'm very pleased with this, because Soviet guys are excellent readers. I met many Soviet children in libraries, in schools, in the Palaces of Pioneers, in Houses of Culture - everywhere I visited. And now I’ll tell you where I’ve been: Moscow, Leningrad, Riga, Alma-Ata, Simferopol, Artek, Yalta, Sevastopol, Krasnodar, Nalchik. In Artek I met guys from the Far North and Far East. They were all great book eaters. How great it is to know that a book, no matter how thick or thin it is, is printed not to lie somewhere in the dust on a display case or in a closet, but to be swallowed, eaten with excellent appetite, digested hundreds of thousands of guys.
Therefore, I thank all those who prepared this book, and those who, so to speak, will eat it. I hope you will like it.
Bon appetit!
Gianni Rodari
Journey of the Blue Arrow
Chapter I. SIGNORA FIVE MINUTES BARONESS
The fairy was an old lady, very well-bred and noble, almost a baroness.
They call me,” she sometimes muttered to herself, “simply Fairy, and I don’t protest: after all, you need to have leniency towards the ignorant. But I'm almost a baroness; decent people know this.
Yes, Signora Baroness,” the maid agreed.
I'm not a 100% Baroness, but I'm not so far short of her. And the difference is almost invisible. Is not it?
Unnoticed, Signora Baroness. And decent people don’t notice her...
It was just the first morning of the new year. All night long the Fairy and her maid traveled across the rooftops, delivering gifts. Their dresses were covered with snow and icicles.
“Light the stove,” said the Fairy, “you need to dry your clothes.” And put the broom in its place: now whole year You don’t have to think about flying from roof to roof, especially with such a north wind.
The maid put the broom back, grumbling:
Nice little thing - flying on a broom! This is in our time when airplanes were invented! I already caught a cold because of this.
“Prepare me a glass of flower infusion,” the Fairy ordered, putting on her glasses and sitting down in the old leather chair that stood in front of the desk.
“Right now, Baroness,” said the maid.
The fairy looked at her approvingly.
“She’s a little lazy,” thought the Fairy, “but she knows the rules of good manners and knows how to behave with the lady of my circle. I will promise her to increase wages. In fact, of course, I won’t give her an increase, and there’s not enough money anyway.”
It must be said that the Fairy, for all her nobility, was rather stingy. Twice a year she promised the old maid an increase in wages, but limited herself to promises alone. The maid had long been tired of listening only to words; she wanted to hear the clink of coins. Once she even had the courage to tell the Baroness about this. But the Fairy was very indignant:
Coins and coins! - she said, sighing, “Ignorant people only think about money.” And how bad it is that you not only think, but also talk about it! Apparently, teaching you good manners is like feeding a donkey sugar.
The fairy sighed and buried herself in her books.
So, let's bring the balance. Things are not good this year, there is not enough money. Of course, everyone wants to receive from the Fairy good gifts, and when it comes to paying for them, everyone starts haggling. Everyone tries to borrow money, promising to pay it back later, as if the Fairy were some kind of sausage maker. However, today there is nothing particularly to complain about: all the toys that were in the store have sold out, and now we will need to bring new ones from the warehouse.
She closed the book and began to print out the letters she found in her mailbox.
I knew it! - she spoke. - I risk getting pneumonia delivering my goods, and no gratitude! This one didn't want a wooden saber - give him a pistol! Does he know that the gun costs a thousand lire more? Another, imagine, wanted to get an airplane! His father is the doorman of the courier secretary of a lottery employee, and he only had three hundred lire to buy a gift. What could I give him for such pennies?
It just so happened that my favorite book (namely a book) by Gianni Rodari was not at all famous fairy tales about Cipollino and Gelsomino. It was “The Grammar of Fantasy (An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories)” - according to the author, the only book he wrote for adults, but which many children read “by mistake.”
However, my parents bought it just for me, noticing their son’s craving for writing fairy tales. At that time, purchasing good books was not so easy. IN Soviet times they were snapped up like hot cakes. True, for those who were unlucky, libraries were always available...
That is why, as a seven-year-old boy, I read the non-childish text “The Grammar of Fantasy” with such persistence. And for this he received a reward in the form of funny examples with which Rodari illustrated his methodology for inventing fairy tales. There was a modern version of Cinderella (where the prince meets at a disco), and funny games into words, like the one when based on two different words- like “dog” and “wardrobe” - you can imagine many of the most incredible stories(dog in the closet, dog with the closet, dog's closet). As Rodari himself said about his book: “The underlying idea is that imagination is not a privilege outstanding people that everyone is endowed with it.”
Where did this tireless dreamer with an open mind come from? good face, looking at me from the cover?
Sympathy for to the common people, which runs through every fairy tale of Gianni Rodari, was not aesthetic sentimentality for him. He knew firsthand about the needs of the poor.
The future writer was born on October 23, 1920 in the town of Omegna in northern Italy. His father Giuseppe ran a small bakery.
D. Rodari:
Here in front of you is a white baker.
White hair, eyebrows, eyelashes.
In the morning he gets up earlier than the birds...
However, when Gianni was 9 years old, his family lost this only breadwinner - Giuseppe climbed into a huge puddle to save a kitten, caught a cold and died of pneumonia. In order to somehow survive, the mother gets a job as a maid in a rich house.
D. Rodari:
Not a day goes by
Without further nitpicking:
Sauce without salt
Pretzel without a hole...
The glass burst
And two banks were broken...
It's hard
Poor maid!
Well, my son had to go to theological seminary - the only place, where the poor were not only educated, but clothed and fed. Whoever Gianni dreamed of becoming! He passionately loved to draw, tried to learn to play an inferior violin, wanted to make toys “with invention” that would not become outdated... Our hero did not succeed in any of these endeavors. But later he will reward his master Grusha with his talent as a violinist, and will begin to make toys... from words.
Rodari had his first “practice” of inventing stories when he worked as a primary school teacher.
D. Rodari:
“I was most likely a useless teacher, pedagogical activity unprepared... But, I dare say, he was not a boring teacher. I told in class - both because I loved children and because I myself was not averse to having fun - stories that had nothing to do with reality and common sense.”
However, Gianni did not suspect then that he would become a storyteller...
War soon broke out. Rodari was lucky; he was very sick since childhood, so he avoided being drafted into the army. But when the fascist regime of Mussolini killed two of his friends and imprisoned his brother Cesare in a concentration camp, Gianni, like many other honest Italians, joined the Resistance movement, and in 1944 he joined the Communist Party. Let's not forget that in those days communists were not associated with elderly retrogrades, they were brave fighters for social justice and equality.
D. Rodari “The Adventures of Cipollino”:
“—You poor father! You were put in jail like a criminal, along with thieves and bandits!
“What are you saying, son, but the prison is full of honest people!”
After the war, Rodari received a party assignment - he began working as a journalist in the Italian communist newspaper L’Unita (Unity). Knowing about his past experience working with children, the editor invited Gianni to run a special “Children’s Corner” section in the newspaper.
D. Rodari:
“When I picked up the pen, I imagined that the eyes of my students were fixed on me, that they were expecting a fairy tale or a funny story from me. That’s how I started writing for kids.”
Rodari liked the new activity. His funny poems and short tales were popular, and soon he was appointed editor of an entire children's magazine, “Pioniere” (“Pioneer”). It was on its pages that in 1951 the first voluminous fairy tale “Il Romanzo di Cipollino” (“The Novel about Cipollino”) was first published, later renamed “Le avventure di Cipollino” (“The Adventures of Cipollino”).
The fairy tale fully revealed the author's main talent - the ability to put serious ideas into an exciting form. It came out so naturally that no doubt arose - the author does not translate revolutionary ideas into children's language, but composes from the heart, happily swimming in a sea of fantasy. But the idea will not go anywhere, because a fairy tale is also the personality of the author.
D. Rodari:
“In reality, you can enter from the main entrance, or you can climb into it - and this is much more fun for children - through the window.
...There's a lot here intended for adults. However, when I write for children, I always see with one eye the dad bending over his son reading.”
Like Andersen, Rodari easily found his sources of inspiration in the world around him - at least at the same vegetable market...
Monologue by D. Rodari from the film “The Adventures of Cipollino” (1973):
"I have special performance about lemon. It is usually valued for its vitamins, but I feel a different kind of power in it. Here are the tomatoes. I am convinced that they contain more than just seeds. They contain many different secrets. We must learn to understand them. There are secrets in apples, parsley, and onions. Yes, yes, and in onions too. Everyone knows that onions bring tears, but there is also room for cheerful laughter.
Many years ago I collected stories I heard from fruits at the market. I wrote them down and it turned out to be a book. When I re-read it, I saw that it was not only a story about tomatoes and lemons, parsley and peas. This turned out to be a story about people. I am sure that in all the objects that surround us, there are true stories hidden.”
Despite the fact that the nicknames of the fairy tale heroes are entirely vegetable, the Russian translators decided to leave the Italian transcription for the Cipollino family (from cipolla - onion). They also retained the name Carrot, reinterpreted in the English language - a parody of the notorious British detectives.
The story of the struggle of the oppressed people against rich dependents came out from Rodari as bright, cheerful and dynamic. There is a place for friendship and betrayal, courage and cowardice, and victory is not so easy for the heroes. The vegetable appearance of the characters and the fairy-tale form gave the author freedom for metaphors, parodies and puns. Here is the caustic and cheerful boy Cipollino, here is the red and smug Signor Tomato, here is the rushing opportunist - lawyer Pea, here is Baron Orange, whose belly is carried on a cart.
“After making sure that there was no trace of the fugitives, Prince Lemon ordered to comb all the surrounding areas. The lemons armed themselves with rakes and diligently combed fields and meadows, forests and groves to find our friends.”
“At the last meeting, the tribunal decided that not only the land, but also the air in the village is the property of the Countesses of Cherries, and therefore everyone who breathes must pay money to rent the air. ... Godfather Pumpkin, who, as you know, sighed very often, paid, of course, the most.”
However, literary fame came to Rodari in a roundabout way - through... the Soviet Union.
It turned out that the homeland initially overlooked one of its best storytellers. But Rodari's books had resounding success in Soviet Union. There were many objective reasons for this: both the fact that the writer was a communist, and the fact that he was actively “promoted” by the patriarch of Soviet children’s literature, Samuil Marshak. It was Marshak who first began to translate Rodari’s poems.
In 1952, the Italian writer visited the USSR for the first time. And in 1953 (just 2 years after the publication of the original), a Russian translation of “Cipollino” was published (authored by Zlata Potapova, but edited by the same Marshak). The fairy tale became so popular that in 1956 Cipollino became a member of the “Merry Men Club” in the magazine “ Funny pictures"(along with other favorites Soviet children characters like Dunno, Pinocchio, Samodelkin, etc.).
5 years after this, the first (and still the most brilliant) film adaptation of “Cipollino” was released. Of course, I’m talking about the cartoon of the same name by Boris Dezhkin (director of such masterpieces as the film “An Extraordinary Match” and “Puck! Puck!”). It was his images of the heroes of Rodari’s fairy tale that became canonical and the most replicated. Take, for example, the countesses of Cherries, whom Dezhkin turned into a witty likeness of Siamese twins - they always walk together, fused, as is often the case with real cherries, by cuttings. The image is so established that even in book editions of the fairy tale, illustrators began to depict them fused together. Although in the original the countesses are different - both in age and height.
Naturally, the cartoon has plenty of other discrepancies with the book. It is clear that due to the limited timing, the plot was considerably shortened. Many adventures were excluded from the cartoon - primarily those where “non-plant” characters took part - like the Mole, the Bear, the Postman Spider, and animals from the zoo. The only dogs left are the dog Mastino and the detective's bloodhound Carrot. However, many fruit characters are also absent from the cartoon - for example, lawyer Pea, Baron Orange, Duke Mandarin and others. And the negative servant-Parsley is replaced by a positive servant-Cactus.
If in the book Cipollone steps on Prince Lemon’s foot, then in the film Cipollino himself does it, and the father simply takes the son’s blame upon himself. The fate of the main villains also differs. In the m/f, Lemon dies by accidentally shooting himself from a cannon, and Tomato simply runs away. In the original, it is Lemon who escapes, and Tomato, having completed his time in prison, gets a job as a gardener. The passage about taxes was also slightly changed and shortened, but this made it even more sarcastic: “After the air tax was introduced, you began to breathe less!”
The director was especially successful with the dynamics of the cartoon. Each character has not only his own character, but also a gait: Cipollino walks with a cheerful bounce, detective Carrot blindly and swiftly rushes along the trail, Lemonchiki moves synchronously, as befits martinets. The striking plasticity of the characters is followed, almost literally, by the music of composer Karen Khachaturian (in 1974 a ballet would be created on its basis).
Well, let’s not forget about the wonderful actors whose voices enhanced the characters’ characters: Erast Garin (Kum Pumpkin), Grigory Shpigel (Signor Tomato), Georgy Vitsin (Cactus), etc.
Rodari recalled the joy and surprise he experienced during his next visit to the USSR, when his daughter Paola noticed the heroes of her father’s fairy tale in the form of toys in the window of “Children’s World”. It is not surprising that the writer said that “every trip to the USSR wound up my creative mechanism like a clock, for at least ten years”.
In 1959, Rodari published his second fairy-tale novel, “Gelsomino in the Land of Liars.” And in 1964 - the third, “Journey of the Blue Arrow” - touching story about how under New Year toys from the shop of the fairy Befana (the Italian analogue of our Santa Claus) decide to go on a dangerous journey themselves to bring themselves as gifts to poor children. And here the writer remains true to his principles - to bring the truth to children even in fairy tales.
D. Rodari “Journey of the Blue Arrow”:
“This one didn’t want a wooden saber - give him a pistol! Does he know that the gun costs a thousand lire more? Another, imagine, wanted to get an airplane! His father is the doorman of the courier secretary of a lottery employee, and he only had three hundred lire to buy a gift. What could I give him for such a pittance?
Gradually, the writer is noticed in his homeland. Rodari is called the best Italian writer of 1967, and in 1970 he was awarded the so-called “small Nobel” - the H. C. Andersen medal.
D. Rodari, from the thank you speech at the award ceremony:
“You can talk seriously with people, even if it’s with kittens. You can talk about important and significant things by telling fairy tales...
I think that fairy tales - old and modern - help develop the mind. Fairy tales contain thousands of hypotheses. Fairy tales can give us clues to enter into reality in new ways. They open the world to the child and teach him how to transform it...”
In the 1970s, Gianni Rodari's fairy tales got a new director. It was Tamara Lisitsian. As the wife of the son of an Italian communist, she had the opportunity to travel to Italy and was personally acquainted with the writer. It is not for nothing that Rodari himself appears with the already grown-up Paola in her - this time fictional - film adaptation of “The Adventures of Cipollino” (1973).
The film included many details from the book that were excluded from the animated version, but the setting itself was considerably modernized. Lemons drive around in cars, armed with machine guns. They are going to build a military base on the site of Pumpkin's house. And Ruler Limon (performed by Vladimir Basov) makes an unambiguous fascist gesture, and in the text of his speech to the people does not forget to mention that he "comes from simple lemons".
The movie was great cast and some successful scenes. I still remember how the lemon soldiers prepare the “dirty people” for the meeting of the ruler, spraying the crowd with perfume, and Papa Cipollino (Alexei Smirnov) smacks his lips and says with understanding: “I feel it, triple.” But, despite this, the film adaptation always seemed to me to be largely artificial (for example, Senor Tomato played frankly poorly) and too politicized.
Lisitsian’s film based on another Rodari fairy tale was much more successful... But that’s a topic for another article.
(1921-1980) Italian children's writer
Several generations of readers grew up on The Adventures of Cipollino and The Blue Arrow. Therefore, Gianni Rodari can rightfully be placed next to such authors as Astrit Lindgren, Samuil Marshak or Korney Chukovsky.
He was born into a poor working-class family in Northern Italy. However, thanks to his insatiable thirst for knowledge, he was sent to the seminary after graduating from school. True, Rodari did not become a priest, but he received a fairly comprehensive education, which allowed him to become a teacher.
Just before the outbreak of World War II, he got a job teaching Italian to the children of German Jews who fled to Italy from persecution. At that time, Gianni Rodari did not know that this work was organized on the initiative of the Italian Communist Party.
Communication with children's audiences led to him starting to compose short stories and fairy tales, since he did not have any textbooks at his disposal. In addition, thanks to communication with the Germans, he mastered their language in a few months.
During the war, Gianni Rodari participated in the activities of the Italian Resistance, and in 1944 he joined the Communist Party. From that time on, he became an employee of the Unita newspaper, which published most of his early works. At first these were essays on topical topics, as well as short poems. But a year later the writer began working only for a children's audience. And in 1951, Rodari released his first collection - “The Book of Merry Poems”.
In those years, the library became the writer’s main place of work. small town Varese. Simultaneously with his literary studies, Rodari began teaching at an elementary school where the children of workers studied. And again the lack of necessary literature forced him to take up the pen.
In 1951, Gianni Rodari published his first story, “The Adventures of Cipollino.” The writer took the fairy tale as a basis famous writer C. Collodi about the adventures of Pinocchio and made it into a funny fairy tale imbued with communist ideology. It tells in an entertaining way about the inequality of the poor and the rich, about the revolution in the Lemon Kingdom.
Folklore images and motifs (such as the talking mole, which came from Andersen’s fairy tale) are well intertwined with reality known to the author Italian life, which he showed using the example of the Cipollino family. Gianni Rodari borrowed many of his heroes from Italian folklore - for example, the lawyer Goroshka and the master Grape.
The fairy tale “The Adventures of Cipollino” brought him literary fame. It was published in the USSR and soon translated into different languages. Based on it, a play was created, a cartoon was shot, and then a full-length film.
From that time on, Gianni Rodari devoted himself entirely to literature and soon published his second book, “The Adventures of the Blue Arrow” (1954), followed by the fairy tale “Gelsomino in the Land of Liars” (1959).
However, in the future the writer refuses a major literary form and after the last story “Cake in the Sky” (1966) he published only collections of stories and fairy tales for children.
IN last years life Gianni Rodari wrote an entertaining book “What Mistakes Can Be,” in which he practically laid the foundation for a new direction in pedagogy. In the form of a game, he told the children the basic rules of spelling. In Russia, this tradition was continued by G. Oster, extending the problems of “Mischievous Pedagogy” to almost all subjects and areas of a child’s life.
Rodari's books began to be translated into Russian in the late fifties. Particularly successful were the translations of S. Ya. Marshak, who managed to find not only a semantic, but also a rhythmic equivalent for each poem of the Italian writer. Let us at least recall the bright, perky poem by Rodari, translated by S. Marshak, “What do crafts smell like?” (1952).
The sources of fairy tales for the writer were both stories from world folklore and literary works, for example, the collection “Pleasant Nights” by A. Straparolla. At the same time, Gianni Rodari enriched Italian literature with new genres. Among them, in particular, were limericks, which he composed based on the experience of the English poet E. Lear.
But the main place in the work of Gianni Rodari is occupied by poetic retellings of Italian fairy tales. Thus, he based his story “The Adventures of the Blue Arrow” on the cycle folk stories O good fairy Befane, which is the Italian equivalent of Santa Claus. She flies on a broom and delivers gifts to children. True, by the will of the author, it is placed in a specific everyday environment; social accents are also strengthened in the fairy tale. So, at Rodari, poor children do not receive gifts, but the passengers of the Blue Arrow toy train try to help them. This is the novelty of the plot of the story.
At the same time with literary work Gianni Rodari developed a methodology for composing children's fairy tales. He summarized his experience in the book “The Grammar of Fantasy,” which was published in 1973. The writer worked a lot on mastering the specifics of folklore. On the initiative of Rodari, the works of the prominent folklore researcher V. Propp were translated into Italian.
Gianni Rodari was awarded the International Hans Christian Andersen Prize and last days life led the children's department in the newspaper "Unita".
Biography
Gianni Rodari (Italian: Gianni Rodari, 1920-1980) is a famous Italian children's writer and journalist.
Rodari was born on October 23, 1920 in the small town of Omegna (northern Italy). His father, a baker by profession, died when Gianni was only ten years old. Rodari and his two brothers, Cesare and Mario, grew up in native village mother, Varesotto. Sick and weak since childhood, the boy was fond of music (he took violin lessons) and books (he read Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Lenin and Trotsky). After three years Studying at the seminary, Rodari received a teacher's diploma and at the age of 17 began teaching in primary school local rural schools. In 1939, he attended the Faculty of Philology of the University of Milan for some time. During World War II, Rodari was released from service due to poor health. He briefly joined the fascist party. After the death of two close friends and the imprisonment of his brother in a concentration camp, Cesare became involved in the Resistance Movement and in 1944 joined the Italian Communist Party. In 1948, Rodari became a journalist for the communist newspaper L'Unita and began writing books for children. In 1950, the party appointed him editor of the newly created weekly magazine for children, Il Pioniere, in Rome. In 1951 Rodari published his first collection of poems, “The Book of Merry Poems,” and his own. famous work“The Adventures of Cipollino” (Russian translation was published in 1953). In 1952, he went to the USSR for the first time, where he then visited several times. In 1953, he married Maria Teresa Ferretti, who four years later gave birth to his daughter, Paola. In 1957, Rodari passed the exam to become a professional journalist. In 1966-1969. Rodari did not publish books and only worked on projects with children. In 1970, the writer received the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Medal, which helped him gain worldwide fame. He also wrote poems that reached Russian readers in translations by Samuil Marshak. Rodari died on the operating table on April 14, 1980 in Rome. Some works: Collection “Book of Funny Poems” (Il libro delle filastrocche, 1950) “Instruction for a Pioneer” (Il manuale del Pionere, 1951) “The Adventures of Cipollino” (Il Romanzo di Cipollino, 1951; released in 1957 under the title Le avventure di Cipollino ) Collection of poems “The Train of Poems” (Il treno delle filastrocche, 1952) “Gelsomino in the Land of Liars” (Gelsomino nel paese dei bugiardi, 1959) Collection “Poems in Heaven and on Earth” (Filastrocche in cielo e in terra, 1960) Collection “Tales on the Telephone” (Favole al telefono, 1960) “Jeep on TV” (Gip nel televisore, 1962) “Planet Christmas trees"(Il pianeta degli alberi di Natale, 1962) "The Journey of the Blue Arrow" (La freccia azzurra, 1964) "What Mistakes Can Be" (Il libro degli errori, Torino, Einaudi, 1964) Collection "Cake in the Sky" (La Torta in cielo, 1966) “How Giovannino, nicknamed the Loafer, traveled” (I viaggi di Giovannino Perdigiorno, 1973) “The Grammar of Fantasy” (La Grammatica della fantasia, 1973) “Once upon a time there was twice Baron Lamberto” (C "era due volte il barone Lamberto) , 1978) “Vagabonds” (Piccoli vagabondi, 1981) Selected stories “Guidoberto and the Etruscans” “Ten Kilos of the Moon” “House of Ice Cream” “How Giovannino Touched the King’s Nose” “Elevator to the Stars” “Magicians in the Stadium” “Miss Universe” with dark green eyes" "The robot who wanted to sleep" "Sakala, pakala" "Runaway nose" "Sirenide" "The man who bought Stockholm" "The man who wanted to steal the Colosseum"
Giovanni Francesco Rodari, (October 23, 1920 - April 14, 1980) is an Italian writer who was born in the town of Omegna in the family of a baker.
Poverty did not allow Gianni to enter regular school, because of this, he studied at the theological seminary. There was a huge magnificent library where he loved to spend time.
Gianni graduated from the seminary when he was 17, after which he began working as a school teacher in primary school. At the same time, he, as a free listener, goes to the Catholic University of Milan.
When the war began, Rodari did not bother to go to the front due to poor health, at a time when many of his friends died. This influenced the fact that Gianni Rodari joined the Italian Communist Party and the Resistance Movement.
In 1948, the writer worked as a journalist for the communist newspaper L'Unita and began writing children's books. And in 1950, Gianni Rodari was appointed by the party as editor of the newly created children's magazine. p>
In 1952, the writer visited the USSR for the first time, and some time later he married Maria Teresa Ferretti. Gianni Rodari gained worldwide fame thanks to S. Marshak, who was able to translate “The Adventures of Cipollino” into Russian.
In 1957, Gianni passed the exam and received the title of professional journalist. Then (1966-1969) the writer stopped publishing his books and began working on children's projects.
In 1970 the writer was awarded literary prize G.H. Andersen. The writer Gianni Rodari died in 1980 on the operating table.
