The tale "The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino" is probably familiar to everyone. Moreover, everyone knows that the plot of this story, written by Alexei Tolstoy, was based on the story of Carlo Collodi "Pinocchio, or the Adventures of a Wooden Doll" and the writer never hid this. What secrets can there be? But it turns out that the story of the wooden boy and his friends keeps a lot of secrets, including some quite creepy ones.
In the preface to his fairy tale, Alexei Tolstoy wrote that as a child he read a book by Carlo Collodi and she made an indelible impression on him. He repeatedly told his friends the story of Pinocchio, since the book itself was lost. Of course, each time the narrator moved away from the original plot, and as a result, a new fairy tale was born, which everyone knows as "The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Pinocchio."
It turns out that Tolstoy was cheating and everything was completely different. To begin with, the first edition of Pinocchio in Russian appeared when the writer was already 23 years old. Tolstoy did not know Italian either in childhood or at a more mature age, so he could not read the book in the original.
The creator of Pinocchio, like many in those years, knew French, and the book was translated into this language several times. But Tolstoy himself repeatedly recalled that there were no children's books in the house where he grew up, so this option completely disappears.
So, Tolstoy read the tale of Pinocchio, being quite an adult. But what touched the young nobleman so much in this story that he decided to write his own version of the adventures of the wooden boy? The answer to this question can be found by looking into the childhood of the writer.
Illustration by Roberto Innocenti.
The fact is that Alexei was the unloved son of his father, Count Nikolai Tolstoy. Moreover, there is unconfirmed information that he was not his own. Most likely, that is why, until the age of 16, the boy bore the name Bostrom and was brought up in his uncle's house. In addition, the writer's biographers claim that Nikolai Tolstoy did not want to give Alexei his last name and title for a long time.
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It is not surprising that the touching story of a rootless wooden boy who was striving with all his might to become a man found a lively response in the soul of the unfortunate young man. And he rewrote the tale not because he forgot the details, but for a completely different reason.
Ghost with blue hair
In the fairy tale about Pinocchio, written by an Italian author, Malvina was not. But there was another character with blue hair - a fairy. But initially, this minor heroine was not even a fairy, but … a ghost. Collodi had two versions of the story of the wooden boy, and the first, from the point of view of a modern person, is not at all childish.
In the first edition of the tale, Pinocchio had to die at the end of the tale. According to the author's plan, he ran away through the forest from the robbers and his strength almost left him. But ahead, in the thicket, a small white house appeared, seeing which the hero thought that he could find salvation there.
Illustration by Roberto Innocenti.
The boy pounds on the locked doors for a long time, but no one opens him. Looking out the window, Pinocchio sees a strange girl:
Following this, the robbers arrived at the house and dealt with Pinocchio. Now such an ending of a children's fairy tale seems more than strange, but in the middle of the 19th century, when the book was being written, such an ending was quite common and did not shock anyone.
Illustration by Roberto Innocenti.
It is possible that everything ended on the death of Pinocchio, but the readers liked his adventures so much that Collodi was forced in the next version of the tale to turn the dead girl with blue hair into a good fairy who revived him. The author did not change the appearance of the character, since it fully corresponded to the image of the mystical creature.
What does the name Malvina mean?
There are many interpretations of the name Malvin. The most common variant is that it means "tender". But in fact, the opposite is true. In classical literature, this female name appears for the first time in the work of the Scottish romantic poet James MacPherson "Poem of Ossian".
Ossian is a legendary British bard who lived around the 3rd century AD. Macpherson's poems were written in the name of this person. According to legends, the hero had a son, whose wife was named Malvina. When the son died tragically, the daughter-in-law remained in his ancestral home, becoming a daughter and helper to the elderly and infirm Ossian.
Bard Ossian with his daughter-in-law Malvina.
In Russia "Poems of Ossian" were incredibly popular in the first half of the 19th century. This work had a significant impact on the work of Zhukovsky, Batyushkov and even Pushkin. In the poems and verses of these authors, the name Malvin occurs repeatedly.
There are very few translation options for Malvin's name - most philologists are sure that it is based on two ancient Germanic words that are rooted in modern English: "male" (man) "win" (victory). This name suits very well the domineering girl who locks the mischievous boys in the closet.
House in the woods
Collodi, who obviously enjoyed killing characters, also dealt with the fairy who saved Pinocchio. In the tale, she dies of chagrin that the wooden boy has left her. True, after a while they meet again, but the fairy with blue hair is no longer a girl, but a completely adult woman.
Illustration by Greg Hildebrandt.
The Italian storyteller deals with more than just boys and fairies. In his book, even a cricket dies, which Pinocchio himself kills with a hammer. But we will not consider Collodi's work from the point of view of psychology and will return to our heroine.
Malvina's lifestyle deserves the utmost attention. The girl from Tolstoy's fairy tale lives in the forest and is subject to insects, mice and toads. In addition, she is carrying a black poodle, which can be found in the most famous work about evil spirits - "Faust" by Goethe. It was in the form of a black poodle that the Lord of Darkness Mephistopheles appeared to Faust.
Given all this, it can be concluded that the girl with blue hair is directly related to evil spirits. A kind of European Baba Yaga in her youth or a priestess of some not very pleasant pagan cult. It can be argued with a high degree of probability that Malvina Tolstoy is a fairy, simply veiled.
How Malvina and the Golden Key are related
Although Malvina is associated with the occult and magic, it is unlikely that Tolstoy, inventing this girl, relied on the image of some fairy, constantly dying and resurrecting. The secret of the girl with blue hair is directly related to that golden key and the closet that he unlocks.
Alexey Tolstoy began work on the fairy tale "The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Buratino" in exile, yearning for Russia and eager to return to his homeland. In the world he created, the key opens the door, behind which there is a wonderful fair world, in which the puppet theater belongs not to the world-eater Karabas-Barabas, but to the puppets themselves who work in it.
We can say that through the magic door behind the hearth painted on the canvas, the heroes of the fairy tale get from the capitalist society of exploiters to Soviet Russia, that is, to the place that Tolstoy so idealized while in a foreign land. But why did the writer choose such a strange way of moving from the old world to a brighter future?
Carlo Collodi's hearth in the closet of old Geppetto is painted simply on the wall, while Tolstoy's is on canvas. It turns out that the door was, as it were, draped with a cloth depicting fire. This is a very important moment in history, to which we will have to return later.
In 1909, Tolstoy collaborated with the children's magazine "Path", which published the Russian translation of "Alice in Wonderland", whose author was Polixena Solovyova, sister of the famous philosopher Vladimir Solovyov and daughter of the historian Sergei Solovyov. There is such an interesting passage in this translation:
Does anyone have doubts that Tolstoy read "Alice", which was published in the same magazine as his children's stories? There is no doubt that he not only read, but also used when working on his fairy tale. An attentive reader may recall that a cloud in the form of a cat's head was floating above Malvina's house, at which the poodle Artemon was roaring. Isn't it the image of the Cheshire Cat, borrowed from Carroll?
In the issue of the "Path" magazine, where the Cheshire cat appears for the first time in the history of the girl Alice, Alexey Tolstoy publishes his story about a dog called "Polkan". Thus, the first meeting of a wonderful cat and a dog took place outside the pages of the tale of Buratino.
Alice and Malvina
The two girls from the fairy tale by Lewis Carroll and Alexei Tolstoy are undoubtedly similar. Alice is upset by the chaos in Wonderland, and she is constantly trying to restore order there. Malvina is also a supporter of order, cleanliness and discipline, which he is trying to instill in his new acquaintance, Buratino. At the same time, Alice participates in a tea party with the mad Hatter and the March Hare, and Malvina herself arranges tea gatherings for Buratino.
Incredibly, in order for the tale of Buratino to be born, the author's imagination had to miraculously intertwine different images and storylines, mystical heroes and his own childhood experiences. We have considered only Malvina, and in fact there are no less colorful characters in this story, worthy of attention, for example, Karabas-Barabas and Duremar. What secrets are hidden by these heroes, clearly not just born by the writer's fantasy?
