Who wrote the story Dr. Aibolit. Who became the prototype of Dr. Aibolit from Chukovsky's famous fairy tale. What animals lived with Dr. Aibolit

dedicated to children's stories. Good memory test, isn't it? You will learn the answer to the question from this article.

History of occurrence

The fairy tale "Doctor Aibolit" was created by Korney Chukovsky based on the work of Hugh Lofting "The Story of Doctor Dolittle". The question of rewriting in Soviet Russia was always resolved very harshly, it was considered a bourgeois relic. Despite this, Chukovsky wrote a free retelling of a foreign fairy tale in the language in which he usually narrated it to his youngest daughter, Murochka. In Lofting's story, Dr. Doolittle lived in a small town where all the inhabitants knew him by sight and considered him very smart. What was the name of Dr. Aibolit's sister? We don't know yet. But Doctor Dolittle's sister was named Sarah, she looked after the household and helped her brother look after the numerous animals that lived in his house. The doctor's house was inhabited by furry tenants and not only: a hedgehog in the basement, white mice in the piano, a squirrel in the closet, and so on. What did Chukovsky take from this tale?

Dr. Aibolit

Korney Ivanovich endowed this hero with all the qualities of a Russian intellectual most dear to his heart. For him, Dr. Aibolit is the personification of the forces of good. It is interesting that the description of the famous doctor and writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, which Chukovsky will publish many years later in the collection of biographies "Contemporaries", strongly echoes the image of Aibolit. Both doctors at Korney Ivanovich are delicate, selfless unmercenaries with a strong inner core. Sick and exhausted Chekhov travels to Sakhalin to help outcast and disenfranchised people suffering from the "soulless police system", and Dr. Aibolit rushes to the ends of the world to help sick animals. It is unlikely that Chukovsky himself thought about the similarity of these two doctors, but it is all the more clear what the author meant when he described a kind and disinterested person. Doctor Aibolit's sister, in contrast to her positive brother, is a very malicious person.

Good and Evil

The tale of Korney Ivanovich begins with the words "Once upon a time there was a doctor. He was kind." If you carefully read the writer's diaries, it will immediately become clear that it was with these words that he began to tell this tale to his four-year-old daughter Murochka. In Chukovsky's memoirs, the girl reacted to the appearance of each new character in history with the same question: "Is he kind?" Therefore, in the work, all the accents are placed very clearly. What was the name of Dr. Aibolit's sister? Barbara. And she was mean. Why? She simply did not like the animals that the doctor kept at home.

Character names

It is interesting that Korney Ivanovich came up with new names for animals for Murochka. So, the doctor's dog was called Abba, which in the girl's children's language meant "dog". Aibolit's owl was called Bumba. This name also appeared in a fairy tale not by chance. So the writer's four-year-old daughter called Chukovsky's secretary, Ryzhkina Maria Nikitichna. The woman published her literary works under the pseudonym Pambe. What was the name of Dr. Aibolit's sister? Barbara, as we have already found out. And is it not because she treated animals barbarically?

Barmaley

The history of this character is interesting. Once Chukovsky and the artist Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky were walking around St. Petersburg and thought about the origin of the name "Barmaleeva Street". Who was Barmaley? Dobuzhinsky decided that this man was a famous pirate "in a cocked hat, with such mustaches." The artist drew a fictional character and invited the writer to make a fairy tale about him. Chukovsky never liked Barmaley, in his diary Korney Ivanovich claimed that he wrote this image specifically for Dobuzhinsky, in the style of his pictures. For him, a bow-legged, mediocre, rude robber is the antipode of the merciful doctor Aibolit. And this coordinate system permeates the entire Aibolit-Barmalei cycle

barbarian

What was the name of Dr. Aibolit's sister? The writer gave her the name Barbara, and this heroine behaved really in a barbaric way - she beat and offended defenseless animals that lived with the doctor. Without a doubt, this character was given a place next to Barmaley. Evil Barbara was punished for her harmfulness. Sailor Robinson took her to where she had no one to torment. The doctor's retribution was exceptionally humane - no harm was done to Varvara. Just isolated from others.

Conclusion

In the cycle of fairy tales, in which the main character is Dr. Aibolit, Chukovsky included three stories. The first is the fairy tale "Barmaley", published in 1924, which the author called "verbal operetta", created in order to teach children to feel the poetic rhythm. Chukovsky also called this work an adventurous novel for the smallest. The second poetic tale is a completely original work by Korney Ivanovich, published in 1929 under the title "Aibolit". And only in 1936 did Lofting's retelling - "Doctor Aibolit" - come out in prose. All three stories are included in the golden fund of children's literature. In these tales, more than one generation of kids comprehended the difference between good and evil, between the merciful Aibolit and his eternal antipode - Barmaley.

On Messinia Street in Vilnius, you can see a very touching sculptural composition: an elderly man in a hat with a cane smiles affectionately at a girl holding a kitten in her arms. Few tourists know that these are not just abstract characters, but a monument to an outstanding doctor. If you come closer, next to the figures you can see the inscription: "To the citizen of the city of Vilnius, Dr. Tsemakh Shabad, the prototype of the good doctor Aibolit."

Doctor with a capital letter

Here, in the old Jewish quarter, lived a famous doctor who was known and loved by everyone in the city. Timofey Osipovich, as his Russian colleagues and acquaintances called him, was born in the capital of Lithuania in 1865. Having received a higher medical education in Moscow, he worked in the Astrakhan region, where cholera was raging at that time, and then in Europe. During the First World War, Tsemakh served in the Russian army as a military doctor, and after 1917 he returned to his homeland.

It was in Vilnius, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, that Korney Chukovsky met Timofey Osipovich. They say that the great Soviet poet-storyteller stopped at the doctor’s house more than once when he came to Lithuania. There is no documentary evidence for this, but the fact that they were well acquainted is undeniable. For example, in 1968, during an interview with the Pionerskaya Pravda newspaper, Korney Chukovsky said bluntly: the prototype of Dr. Aibolit is the Lithuanian physician Tsemakh Shabad.

It is known that Chukovsky created "Doctor Aibolit" based on Lofting's work "Doctor Doolittle and his animals", but it is also known that he began to make notes about Aibolit a couple of years before the release of the book about Dr. Doolittle.

Chukovsky spoke of his Lithuanian acquaintance as an unusually kind person, drawing attention to the fact that Timofey Osipovich could not refuse to help anyone.

Everyone loved him

There are many memories and legends about the amazing kindness of Dr. Shabad. For example, one day several boys brought him a cat with a fishing hook stuck in its mouth, and he, having abandoned everything, fiddled with it for a long time. The doctor pulled out the hook, the cat recovered, the children were happy.

The Lithuanian doctor has advocated for the rights of the poor all his life. He was active in public activities, organizing free meals for the poor, was the author of the idea to distribute dairy products for young mothers, initiated the opening of orphanages, published hygiene instructions and, of course, advocated the availability of medicine for low-income citizens.

Shabad demonstrated this by his own example: if a person who did not have money for treatment applied to him, the doctor did not refuse him, but treated him for free. There is a case about one girl who came to him complaining of very poor health. The doctor diagnosed her with severe malnutrition and told her to come to him every morning for milk. This young "patient" and several other urban poor, the doctor regularly supplied milk absolutely free.

It is interesting that, not being a veterinarian, the "human doctor" Shabad readily took up the treatment of animals that the townspeople brought to him (well, he simply could not refuse!), And he managed to save many.
Vilnius residents noticed an amazing fact: Tsemakh Shabad had practically no enemies. Being engaged in public and social work, he was unusually kind and non-confrontational, and this simply disarmed even the most severe people.

When, at the age of seventy, Tsemakh Shabad died of sepsis, which he received during an operation, almost the entire city took to the streets to say goodbye to him. Thousands of people followed the coffin, seeing off the legendary doctor on his last journey.

Dr. Aibolit or the luminary of medicine?

Currently, Dr. Tsemakh Shabad is better known to local residents as the prototype of Aibolit, but his huge contribution to medicine, alas, has remained in the shadows. But in vain. After all, the honored doctor published several scientific works - and not only in Russian, but also in other languages. It is known that he communicated with great foreign scientists - for example, with Albert Einstein. And with his active concern for the Lithuanian poor, and especially for the socially unprotected Jewish population, he gave impetus to the development of social medicine throughout the country.

After the death of the doctor, a bust of him was erected on the territory of the Mykolas Marcinkevičius Hospital, where he worked. The hospital was bombed during the Great Patriotic War, after which the monument began to be kept in the Vilnius Jewish Museum.

A bronze monument to Tsemakh Shabad as the prototype of the fairy tale hero Chukovsky appeared in the Lithuanian capital in 2007. Rumor has it that Maya Plisetskaya herself, who allegedly was a distant relative of the Vilnius doctor, initiated it, and Lithuanian Jews raised money for the monument.

The author of the composition was a local sculptor Romualdas Kvintas, known for his work both at home and in Europe. According to him, he created the sculpture of the doctor based on the photo of Tsemakh, which remained after his death, and the girl depicted near the doctor is the same patient whom the good doctor “treated” for malnutrition, or rather, fed. According to urban legend, when the young lady recovered, she gave the doctor a cat in gratitude.

Did Suteev have his own prototype of Aibolit?

Speaking of Dr. Shabad, one cannot fail to mention another physician, whom Korney Chukovsky probably also remembered when creating his character. This is the chief doctor of the Crimean children's tuberculosis sanatorium Petr Izergin. In this sanatorium, the youngest daughter of Korney Chukovsky, Murochka, was treated (as you know, he devoted many of his poems to her), in whom doctors discovered bone tuberculosis in 1929. For two years, Doctor of Medical Sciences Izergin quite successfully treated the girl in a sanatorium with his author's method. Alas, he did not manage to completely defeat the fatal disease - the doctor only delayed the death of the girl for some time.

Pyotr Izergin looks very much like Dr. Aibolit in the famous illustrations of the Soviet artist Vladimir Suteev. Perhaps, knowing the story of Mura's treatment by a famous Crimean doctor, Suteev decided that Aibolit should look like that. In any case, his image was chosen for illustrations quite deservedly. Although Korney Chukovsky never mentioned Izergin's connection with his hero, the Crimean acquaintances of the doctor recalled that he worked selflessly and very often went on foot to his patients from one locality to another, like Dr. Aibolit in a fairy tale, overcoming mountains.

A veterinarian, a well-known business, is a noble profession. In medical assistance to a dumb being,
which cannot even explain that it hurts, there is something similar to the treatment
small child. True, sometimes veterinarian patients can easily crush or swallow their attending physician. The noble and dangerous work of veterinarians is an excellent basis for literary works. The main book healers of animals are the Russian Aibolit and the English Doolittle. In fact, these two characters are the closest relatives.

Animal doctor Doolittle, the personification of kindness and responsiveness, was born in a place not very suitable for these feelings - in the trenches of the First World War. It was there that in 1916, Lieutenant of the Irish Guards Hugh John Lofting, in order to cheer up his son Colin and daughter Elizabeth Mary, who remained in England, began in letters
to compose a fairy tale for them, illustrating it with his own hand. The war went on for a long time, the fairy tale turned out to be long. In 1920, already in the USA, where the Loftings moved, these letters caught the eye of a familiar publisher, who was delighted with both fairy tales and pictures. In the same year, The History of Doctor Dolittle was printed.

It was quickly followed by "The Travels of Dr. Dolittle", "Mail ...", "Circus ...", "Zoo ...", "Opera ..." and "Park ..." all by the same doctor. In 1928, Lofting got tired of his character and, wanting to get rid of him, sent him to the moon. But readers were eager for sequels, and five years later, "The Return of Doctor Dolittle" happened - his "Diary" was printed. Three more stories about the veterinarian were published after the death of Hugh Lofting in 1947.

* Hugh John Lofting
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When the adventures of M.D. John Doolittle took place, the opening lines of the first book say vaguely: "A long time ago, when your grandparents were still young." Judging by the surroundings, the carriages and sailing ships in the yard were from the 1840s. But the place where he lived is indicated quite accurately - central England, a small invented town of Puddleby. He was not an animal doctor, but an ordinary, human one, but he loved animals so much that he drove the entire clientele away from his house, stuffed with a diverse fauna. Parrot Polynesia, or simply Polly, taught him animal language, and four-legged and winged patients rushed to Doolittle from all over the area. The fame of the wonderful doctor quickly spread throughout the world and African monkeys, who were mowed down by the epidemic, called for help. Doolittle with several helper animals hurried to the rescue, but in Africa he was captured by the king of black savages. A daring escape, healing the afflicted, and a chic gift from the rescued in the form of an unprecedented two-headed antelope. Way back, captured again, terrible sea pirates, the release of a little boy and return home.

And this is an incomplete list of adventures of just the first story. And then Dr. Dolittle travels all over England with animals, earns money in a circus and a menagerie, organizes the best bird mail in the world, ends up on an island with dinosaurs, puts on an opera written by a piglet, and goes
into space ... As already mentioned, the profession of a veterinarian is dangerous, but very interesting.

John Doolittle reached Soviet readers surprisingly quickly. In 1920, a book about him was published in the USA, two years later - in England, and already in 1924 in the USSR they published "The Adventures of Doctor Dolittle" translated by Lyubov Khavkina with pictures by the author. Lyubov Borisovna conscientiously translated all the doctor's adventures. She did not Russify the names of the characters, but simply transcribed them. For example, a two-headed herbivore was called pushmibul in her version. The footnote explained that this strange word "means Pushmen - Dergteby." The seven thousandth edition of this edition sold out, remaining almost unnoticed by historians of children's literature. The era of Aibolit was coming.

* Dr. Dolittle. Jersey Island stamp, 2010
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According to the memoirs of Korney Chukovsky, he came up with a doctor (although then his name sounded like Oibolit) in 1916 on a train from Helsingfors (Helsinki) to Petrograd, entertaining and reassuring his sick son. But it was far from oral road history to a book fairy tale - like from Finland to Africa. Only in 1924 did Korney Ivanovich begin to translate Lofting's story, simultaneously retelling it to his little daughter Mura. The translation, or rather the retelling of Chukovsky, was first published in 1925 and was very different from the original. It was not in vain that the writer, right during his work, followed the children's reaction to what was written - the text was clearly adapted for the smallest readers. All unnecessary details disappeared from it, it turned out to be much
more concise than Khavkina's translation. Doctor Doolittle became Aibolit, his place of residence lost all national features, the helper animals received names that sounded familiar to Russian ears, and the writer simply and clearly called the two-headed antelope Tyanitolkay. True, this translation was very different from the fairy tale "Doctor Aibolit", which is still published today. In Africa, Aibolit and his friends were captured by the Negro king Chernomaz, and on the way back he returned home without any incidents. Of Loftting's twenty chapters, Chukovsky left only
fourteen. He dedicated his retelling to "dear Dr. Konukhes - the healer of my dudes."

* Korney Chukovsky with his daughter Mura

In the same 1925, Aibolit appeared in a poetic fairy tale, though not yet in his own, but as a character in "Barmaley": a doctor flying over Africa in an airplane tried to save Tanya and Vanya from the clutches of robbers, but he himself landed in a fire, from where politely asked the crocodile to swallow Barmaley. Then, succumbing to the groans of the bandit, he petitioned for his release. It is interesting that in both books of 1925, Aibolit is depicted by illustrators as a typical bourgeois: in a tailcoat, top hat and with a thick belly. Soon Korney Ivanovich undertook to compose poetic tales about the doctor. "Aibolit" was published in 1929 in three issues of the Leningrad magazine "Hedgehog". Chukovsky simplified the lofting plot even more
and rhymed what was left of it. Dr. Aibolit almost lost his individual features, retaining only two, but very important for children - kindness and courage. Due to the blurring of the image, the illustrators drew it in their own way. But their doctor invariably resembled the doctors that little readers might meet in the nearest hospital. The readers really liked the methods of treatment that Aibolit applied to his tailed patients: chocolates, eggnog, patting on the tummies, and from purely medical procedures - only an endless measurement of temperature. It was impossible not to fall in love with such a doctor, and Soviet literature received a new positive hero. In the same year, Aibolit appeared in another fairy tale by Chukovsky - Toptygin and the Fox. He's at the request
stupid bear was sewn on by a peacock's tail.

In 1935, a fairy tale in verse about Aibolit was published as a separate edition. True, it was called "Limpopo". Subsequently, Korney Ivanovich renamed
a poem in "Aibolit", and the name "Doctor Aibolit" remained behind the prose story-tale.
She came out in 1936. Chukovsky himself appeared on the cover as the author, although the title page honestly read "According to Gyu Lofting." Compared with the publication of eleven years ago, the story has undergone significant changes. This time, Korney Ivanovich retold the entire first book about Doolittle, breaking it into two parts. The second was called "Penta and the Sea Robbers" and included the adventures of the doctor, omitted by the narrator in 1925.

* This is how children first saw Aibolit (artist Dobuzhinsky, 1925)
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The first part of Journey to the Land of the Apes became noticeably Russified. For example, the doctor's sister, who was called Sarah in both Lofting and in the previous retelling, suddenly became Barbara. At the same time, Chukovsky, apparently in order to shade the virtue of Aibolit, made her an evil tormentor of animals. Evil must be punished, and in the final part of the first part, Tianitolkai throws Varvara into the sea. In the original, Sarah, who was not mischievous, but simply diligent, married peacefully.

Disappeared from Africa and all the black savages. The representatives of the indigenous population oppressed by the colonialists and their king Chernomaz were replaced by Barmaley and his pirates. It's funny that the American publishers of Lofting's fairy tale went down the same path in the 1960s and 1970s. They noticeably smoothed out some of the episodes associated with the blackness of individual characters.

* Cover of the first edition of the fairy tale "Doctor Aibolit" (artist E. Safonova)

In the 1938 edition, Chukovsky included retellings of two more episodes of Doctor Dolittle's adventures - "Fire and Water" and "The Adventure of the White Mouse". Approximately in this form, "Doctor Aibolit" is printed to this day, although the writer made minor changes to the text of the story until the end of his life. Chukovsky wrote the last tale about Dr. Aibolit in the harsh year of 1942. “We will overcome Barmaley” was published by Pionerskaya Pravda. Unlike all the other fairy tales of Chukovsky, this one did not turn out very well.
kind and utterly militarized. Peaceful Aibolitia, inhabited by birds and herbivores, is attacked by a horde of predators and other animals that seemed terrible to Chukovsky, under the leadership of Barmaley. Aibolit, riding a camel, directs the defense:

"And put at the gate
Long-range anti-aircraft guns.
To impudent saboteur
They did not land on us!
You frog-machine gunner,
Bury behind a bush
To the enemy part
Attack unexpectedly."

The forces are not equal, but the valiant Vanya Vasilchikov flies to the aid of the little animals from a distant country, and a radical turning point occurs in the war:

“But Vanyusha takes out a revolver from his belt
And with a revolver flies on her like a hurricane:
And he planted Karakul
Four bullets between the eyes

The defeated Barmaley was sentenced to capital punishment, carried out immediately:

And so much fetid poison gushed
From the black heart of the dead reptile,
That even hyenas are filthy
And they staggered like drunks.
fell into the grass, fell ill
And all of them were beaten to one.
And good animals were saved from infection,
They were saved by miraculous gas masks.”

And there was a general prosperity.


* Drawing by V. Basov for the fairy tale "We will defeat Barmaley. 1943)
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In 1943, "Let's overcome Barmaley" was printed by three publishing houses at once. At the end of the year, it was included in an anthology of Soviet poetry. And then the storm broke. Stalin personally crossed out the galleys of the collection "Military Tale". Soon there were devastating articles in the newspapers. On March 1, 1944, Pravda published an article by the director of the Institute of Philosophy, P. Yudin, with the eloquent title “Vulgar and harmful concoction of K.
Chukovsky": "K. Chukovsky transferred social phenomena to the world of animals, endowing animals with the political ideas of “freedom” and “slavery”, dividing them into blood drinkers, parasites and peaceful workers. It is clear that nothing but vulgarity and nonsense, Chukovsky could not get out of this venture, and this nonsense turned out
politically harmful." The tale “Let's overcome Barmaley” can hardly be attributed to the number of creative successes of Korney Ivanovich, but it hardly deserved accusations of “deliberately trivializing the great tasks of raising children in the spirit of socialist patriotism”. After such a high rating of fairy tales in verse, Chukovsky no longer wrote.

"Let's overcome Barmaley" was next published only in the collected works in 2004. True, two fragments from this tale - "Joy" and "Aibolit
and a sparrow "(in the magazine version -" Visiting Aibolit ") - Chukovsky published as independent works.

Cinematography added new touches to the biography of Aibolit. In the 1938 film "Doctor Aibolit", the roles of animals were played by real trained animals. With this approach, it was difficult to play scenes of an all-African healing, and screenwriter Evgeny Schwartz built a plot around the events of the second and third parts of the story about the doctor. Almost the entire film Aibolit is not engaged in medical,
and law enforcement - fighting pirates and their leader Benalis, who is actively assisted by the malicious Barbara. The climax is the scene of a naval battle with the use of watermelons, apples and other ammunition.

The military theme continues in the cartoon "Barmaley" (1941). Tanechka and Vanechka go to Africa not for the sake of pranks, but, armed with a rifle with a bayonet, to repel the villain walking around
topless, but in a top hat. Aibolit, with the help of aviation, supports the liberation of Africa from the Barmaley oppression. In Rolan Bykov's wonderful movie "Aibolit-66", the doctor, with difficulty, but still, re-educates the robber and his gang.

In the film "How we were looking for Tishka" (1970), Aibolit made a career in a penitentiary
system - works in a zoo. Finally, in the animated series "Doctor Aibolit" (1984), director David Cherkassky wove a bunch of other Chukovsky's tales into the main plot. "Cockroach", "Stolen Sun", "Tsokotuha Fly" turned the doctor's story into a fascinating thriller.

The filmmakers of Dolittle's adventures went even further. In the 1967 film, the veterinarian came up with a pretty girlfriend and the purpose of life - to find the mysterious pink sea snail, and for some reason the Negro prince Bumpo from Lofting's book was christened as William Shakespeare X. In 1998, American political correctness made Dolittle himself black. Only the name of the protagonist and his ability to talk with animals remained from the fairy tale. The action is transferred to modern America, and the plot is practically invented from scratch. But Doolittle, played by comedian Eddie Murphy, turned out to be so charming that the film collected a good box office, forcing the producers to shoot four sequels. True, starting from the third film, the doctor himself no longer appears on the screen - the problems of animals are resolved by his daughter Maya, who inherited her father's talent for languages. By 2009, the topic of conversations with animals was completely exhausted.

By that time, Lofting's books had already been repeatedly translated into Russian and published in our country. Most translations carefully followed the first editions of the Dolittle tales, not paying attention to later distortions of the original source for the sake of tolerance. Versions of the translations mainly differed in the spelling of proper names. For example, the protagonist's last name was sometimes written with a single "t",
and sometimes with two. The most extravagant was Leonid Yakhnin, who did not translate the tale, but “retelled” it. He mixed several stories under one cover at once, for some reason diluted the text many times with verses that were not in the original, and changed most of the names beyond recognition. So,
tyanitolkai are somewhat erotically called by Yakhnin "here and there".
Despite all these translations, Hollywood turned out to be stronger than Russian book publishers, and if one of our young fellow citizens has any associations with the name Dolittle, then most likely this is the image of a funny black doctor.

But Aibolit will live forever in our country - in children's books, films, cartoons and the names of veterinary clinics.

Do children know who wrote "Aibolit" - the most popular fairy tale among lovers of literature of primary preschool age? How was the image of the doctor created, who was the prototype, and is it even worth reading this fairy tale to children? This is discussed in more detail below.

Who wrote "Aibolit"?

This fairy tale was written by the famous children's writer and poet in 1929, it was first presented to the readers and immediately won the hearts of thousands of readers. She was loved not only by kids, whose caring parents read bedtime stories to them, but also by adults who liked the plot of the work.

The author of "Aibolit" did not just tell the story of a selfless medical worker who strictly observes the Hippocratic Oath, but rhymed it into living verses that easily fall into memory and literally from the second reading are remembered by children.

Chukovsky considers Dr. Doolittle, the hero of an English fairy tale, who heals animals and understands their language, to be the prototype of Aibolit. Korney Ivanovich translated a fairy tale for Russian-speaking children and at some point thought that it would be nice to write his own fairy tale about the same wonderful person.

"Aibolit" is a story about how a generalist is engaged in medical activities, curing animals from various diseases, and sometimes his methods are quite peculiar: chocolate, sweet eggnog, which suggests that he is not just a skilled healer of bodies, but also unfortunate souls. He accepts the sick, sitting under a tree, which suggests his altruism and complete dedication to the cause, while he does not divide animals into classes, castes or by occupation - for everyone there is a moment of attention and a method of treatment.

At some point, a messenger arrives on a horse with an urgent letter in which the inhabitants (animals) of Africa, having learned about his abilities, imploringly ask for help. Naturally, the compassionate Aibolit hurries to the rescue, and various animals and birds help him in this. Together, they defeat a terrible epidemic within ten days, not leaving even for a moment. As a result, the fame of the amazing abilities of the doctor spreads throughout the world.

Characteristics of the main character

“Good doctor Aibolit...” - this is exactly what the first line of the fairy tale sounds in verse, and it is she who defines the essence of this fabulous little man: his kindness and love for animals knows no bounds, because sometimes the doctor finds himself in critical situations, on the verge of life and death , and still makes a choice in favor of the sufferer, and not himself. His professional qualities do not for a second make one doubt the huge store of knowledge that Aibolit possesses. Chukovsky gave him such qualities as breadth of soul and fearlessness, gullibility, but at the same time softness of soul.

At the same time, the plot clearly shows that even such a wonderful and courageous person has moments of despair and loss of strength, which makes him even more human, closer to the common people, unlike European and American stories, in which the main characters were often endowed with "divine » qualities.

What does this work teach?

The fairy tale "Aibolit" is designed to open in the hearts the knowledge that it does not matter what kind, genus and family you belong to: in moments of grief, difficulties and suffering, living beings should help each other not only for payment or gratitude, but simply at the behest heart and kindness of soul. By acquiring such wisdom, a person rises to a higher stage of evolution - selfless love for animals and the whole world.

The one who wrote "Aibolit" made the work easy to understand even for the smallest listeners, knowing that the seeds of goodness planted in early childhood will surely germinate and bear great fruit, forming the moral and high moral spirit of a person.

Author about "Aibolit"

Korney Ivanovich selected rhymes for this fairy tale for quite a long time, sorting through hundreds of phrases and plot phrases, trying to put maximum meaning into a small number of words, knowing that an unnecessarily long "epopee" would tire a child who was not interested in scrupulous descriptions of nature, objects and appearance, because he himself can think it out, thanks to the amazing imagination, which is highly developed in every baby.

At the same time, Chukovsky wanted the rhymes of the fairy tale not to be banal and primitive, because he was an admirer of the great poetry of Pushkin, Derzhavin and Nekrasov: he simply could not lower his creation to the level of tabloid rhymes. Therefore, the tale in verse was rewritten again and again: something was added, the other was categorically cut out, sometimes in large parts. The author wanted to focus the reader's attention on the character of the doctor, on his heroic attitude towards his profession, no! - rather, the path of life, when his honor and conscience did not allow him to leave the sufferer in trouble.

Therefore, the tale underwent several changes, was cut in half, and only then was it presented to the readers.

Continuation of the tale - there is!

The one who wrote "Aibolit" did not stop there, because the popularity of the story was fair: the children wrote letters to Chukovsky, bombarding him with questions about what happened next, how the doctor lived, whether he had relatives and about other things that are interesting specifically for children. Therefore, Korney Ivanovich decided to write a fairy tale in prose about the same doctor, but with a more detailed description of what is happening: if a fairy tale in verse was close to children under six years old, then the second version of the story was closer to children from six to 13 years old, since the plots in it more - as many as four, and each has a separate morality that Chukovsky wanted to convey to young readers.

This story was first published in 1936, altered several times by the author, improved, and in 1954 was finally approved in the finished version. The fairy tale appealed to fans of Korney Ivanovich's work, but many recognized that he was better at fairy tales in verse.

It is worth mentioning that the character of Aibolit appears in two more fairy tales in verse by the same author: “Barmaley” (1925) and “We will overcome Barmaley” (1942). Judging by the dates, “Barmaley” was written earlier than “Aibolit”, which means that the author first created a fleeting image, which he then fully revealed in a separate work.

The story of the emergence of Dr. Aibolit resembles the story of a puppet man named Pinocchio, who originates from a wooden doll named Pinocchio from an Italian fairy tale, or the story of the wizard of the Emerald City, which arose as a result of a retelling of a fairy tale by Frank Baum. Both Pinocchio and Goodwin with the company "outplayed" their predecessors in terms of artistic expression. The same thing happened with Dr. Aibolit.

The first image of an animal doctor was invented by the Englishman Hugh Lofting in The History of Doctor Doolittle (the first book with this hero was published in 1922). Doctor Dolittle (Dolittle) literally means "Doctor Relieve (pain)" or "Doctor Reduce (pain)". Doolittle is very fond of animals, which live in many in his house. Because of this, he loses all his former patients and livelihood. But then his pet parrot teaches him the language of animals, and he becomes the best veterinarian in the world. One day, the doctor receives a message that monkeys are seriously ill in Africa, and sets off on a journey to help them. On the way, he has to survive a shipwreck, he is captured by the black king, but in the end everything ends well.

Korney Chukovsky borrowed from Hugh Lofting the very figurative idea of ​​an animal doctor and some plot moves; in addition, individual characters moved from Dr. Doolittle's sofa and closet to Dr. Aibolit's sofa and closet. But as a result, the artistic shift turned out to be so strong that it is impossible to even talk about retelling. Chukovsky's prose story about Dr. Aibolit is a completely new work, although it was written based on the fairy tales of Hugh Lofting. And this story is valuable not only for the exciting adventures described in it. It also contains an absolutely integral concept of the world order, which a child of five to eight years old is able to comprehend.

There are many different animals in the fairy tale. This is how Dr. Aibolit's house is “arranged”: “Hares lived in his room. There was a squirrel in the closet. There was a crow in the buffet. A prickly hedgehog lived on the sofa. White mice lived in the chest. This list is not exhaustive, because "of all his animals, Dr. Aibolit loved most of all the duck Kiku, the dog Avva, the little pig Oink-Oink, the parrot Karudo and the owl Bumba." But this is not all, because new ones are added to the permanent inhabitants of the house all the time (and become active acting characters).

In other words, Dr. Aibolit's house is full of different animals, and they all coexist there in peace and harmony. I would say, in an implausible peace and harmony. Nobody eats anybody, nobody fights anybody. Even the crocodile “was quiet. I didn’t touch anyone, I lay under my bed and thought about my brothers and sisters, who lived far, far away in hot Africa.”

The inhabitants of the house are united by love and gratitude to Dr. Aibolit, who is said to be very kind. Actually, the tale begins like this: “Once upon a time there was a doctor. He was kind." "Kind" is the main and most important characteristic of the protagonist of this story. (By the way, the main distinguishing feature of Dr. Doolittle is that he “knew a whole bunch of all sorts of useful things” and was “very smart.”) All decisions and actions of Dr. Aibolit stem precisely from his kindness. In Korney Chukovsky, kindness manifests itself in activity and is therefore very convincing: a good doctor lives for the sake of others, serves animals and poor people - i.e. for those who have nothing. And his healing abilities border on omnipotence - there is not a single character that he would undertake to heal and did not cure. Almost all the animals acting in the story, in one way or another, owe the doctor their lives, their return to life. And of course, he understands animal language. But if Hugh Lofting in his story explains in detail how Dr. Doolittle mastered him, then the author only briefly reports about Aibolit: “I learned a long time ago.” Therefore, his ability to speak with animals in their language is perceived almost as primordial, as evidence of special abilities: he understands - that's all. And the animals living in the house obey the doctor and help him do good deeds.

What is this if not a children's analogue of paradise? And the image of the doctor's evil sister named Barbara, from whom impulses hostile to the doctor's world constantly emanate, is easily correlated with the image of a snake. For example, Varvara demands that the doctor drive the animals out of the house (“from paradise”). But the doctor does not agree to this. And this pleases the child: the “good world” is strong and stable. Moreover, he is constantly striving to expand his boundaries, turning more and more new animals into the "faith" of Dr. Aibolit: rhinos, tigers and lions (which at first refuse to participate in good deeds, but after their cubs get sick and the doctor heals them, they gratefully join to everyone else).

However, the children's "paradise", as it should be in mythology, is opposed by another place - the source of suffering and fears, "hell". And the absolutely good "creator" in Chukovsky's fairy tale is opposed by the absolute villain, the "destroyer" - Barmaley. (This image of Korney Chukovsky came up with himself, without any prompting from Lofting.) Barmaley hates the doctor. Barmaley seems to have no obvious, “rational” motives to persecute Aibolit. The only explanation for his hatred is that Barmaley is evil. And the evil one cannot bear the good, he wants to destroy it.

The conflict between good and evil in Chukovsky's story is presented in the most acute and uncompromising form. No halftones, no "psychological difficulties" or moral torment. Evil is evil, and it must be punished - this is how it is perceived by both the author and the child. And if in the story “Doctor Aibolit” this punishment is indirect (Barmaley loses his ship for pirate raids), then in the sequel, in the story “Penta and the Sea Robbers”, the author cracks down on evil characters in the most ruthless way: the pirates find themselves in the sea, and their sharks swallow. And the ship with Aibolit and his animals, safe and sound, sails further to their homeland.

And, I must say, the reader (small) meets the end of the robbers with a "sense of deep satisfaction." After all, they were the embodiment of absolute evil! The wise author spared us even a hint of the possible existence of Barmaley's "inner world" and a description of some of his villainous thoughts.

Actually, the good doctor also does not think about anything. Everything we know about him follows from his actions or words. From this point of view, Chukovsky's story is "anti-psychological". But the author did not intend to immerse us in the inner world of the characters. His task was to create just such a polar picture of the world, to present personified good and evil in relief. And the definition of good and evil in the fairy tale is extremely clear: good means to heal, give life, and evil means to torment and kill. Who among us can object to this? Is there anything that conflicts with this formula?

Good and evil in a fairy tale fight not for life, but for death, so the story about Dr. Aibolit turned out to be tense, exciting and sometimes scary. Thanks to all these qualities, as well as the clear opposition of good and evil, the story is very suitable for children aged five to eight years.

Around the age of five, children begin to master rational logic (the period of explaining that “the wind blows because the trees sway” is over). And rationality initially develops as thinking by the so-called "dual oppositions", or clear opposites. And now the child does not just learn from the words of an adult, “what is good and what is bad”, but also wants to motivate, justify, explain actions and deeds, i.e. wants to know why it's good or bad. At this age a child? he is also a tough moralist, not prone to looking for psychological difficulties. He will discover the existence of complexity, duality and even reciprocity of some meanings later, at the age of 9-10.

As for the “terrible” characteristic, this is exactly what a child after five years of age also really needs. By this age, his emotional world is already quite mature. And a five-six-year-old differs from younger preschoolers in that he learns to manage his emotions. Including the emotion of fear. The child's request for scary things, including scary tales, is associated with the need for emotional "training" and an attempt to determine their tolerance threshold. But he will have to put these experiments at full power on himself in adolescence.

Viktor Chizhikov's illustrations, however strange it may sound, are in some contradiction with the tension and "scaryness" of the tale. The images in the illustrations are funny, funny. Dr. Aibolit is so round, rustic. Most of the characters have their mouths stretched into a smile. And even the most dramatic moments - the attack of pirates, the clash of pirates with sharks - are depicted cheerfully, with humor. There is not a drop of humor in the story itself. There is nothing fun about the battle between good and evil. It’s not even clear at what point in the story you can smile. So Chizhikov's drawings, as it were, reduce the degree of drama and thus give the reader a break. Well, and to think that maybe everything is not so scary.

Marina Aromshtam

You can read about the experiment with covers of different editions of "Doctor Aibolit" in the article