As I have mentioned before, I'm studying Russian for my job. I'm at a level where I can read children's stories and books in Russian with a little help from my dictionary. The language level in children's books is easier than in books for adults. Children's books also have pictures, which help to make the text easier to understand.
I just started reading Volshyebnik Izmurdnovo Goroda, or The Wizard of the Emerald City. When I ordered it, I thought that it would be a direct translation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The illustration of the book's cover on Amazon had a picture of a girl holding a little dog, a scarecrow, a tin woodsman, and a lion. It turns out that VIG is a Soviet imitation of the Wizard of Oz story. VIG was not written by L. Frank Baum; the author is Alexander Volkov. It was first published in 1939.
The first clue that I got that VIG would be different was that the girl on the cover was blonde and her dog was black. My vision of Dorothy is Judy Garland with her dark hair and Toto should be brown instead of black. The girl in VIG is Ellie and not Dorothy. Ellie lives with her parents, and not her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, in an isolated village in Kansas. Her uncle Robert and his sons Bob and Dick are the only people who live nearby. Ellie has a dog named Totoshka, which is a diminutive form of Toto. Instead of a tornado in Kansas, there is a hurricane. The hurricane is not caused by nature, but by an evil wizard named Gingema who wants to destroy the world.
After the hurricane Ellie ends up in a different land and meets a couple of midgets and a good fairy named Villina. Villina explains to Ellie that there are 4 main cities in her land, which is called Magic Land instead of Oz: a yellow city, a pink one, a blue one, and a purple one. There is also an Emerald City, where the wizard Gudrin lives. Gudrin is the person who can help Ellie get back home to Kansas. Nobody has ever seen Gudrin. Villina gives Ellie silver shoes (not ruby slippers) and tells her to follow the yellow brick road, which will take her to Gudrin.
Another thing that is different about VIG is that Totoshka can talk when he's in Magic Land. Ellie is surpised when she first hears Totoshka speak, but Villina explains that animals can talk in Magic Land. Villina tells Ellie to watch Totoshka carefully because people in Magic Land have never seen dogs before and would be frightened by him. Totoshka offers to go ahead of Ellie and scout out the land.
I'm now at the point where Ellie and Totoshka come to a crossroads by a field and are about to meet the scarecrow. I bet that the scarecrow in VIG won't dance like Ray Bolger in the movie and sing, "If I Only Had a Brain." I'm sure that there will be more differences from the original Oz story as Ellie and Totoshka continue their journey along the Yellow Brick Road on their way to the Emerald City and the great wizard Gudrin.
It's obvious that Alexander Volkov either saw The Wizard of Oz or read the book because there are so many similarities to the original, at least in the little bit that I've read so far. I read the title page looking for any references to L. Frank Baum, but didn't find any. I find it amazing that someone in the Soviet Union was allowed to plagiarize a classic story, make some minor changes, and then call it his own. Volkov wrote several more stories about Magic Land. His Magic Land stories were actually more well-known in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other Communist countries than Baum's originals. Here is Volkov's Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Melentyevich_Volkov
Showing posts with label russian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label russian. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Russian Textbook World
I've been studying Russian for my job. I recently finished the textbooks for the Defense Language Institute basic course and am now using a friend's old intermediate-level textbooks. All of the books that I've been using were published back in the days of the Soviet Union. It's funny to see old city names like Leningrad and Stalingrad in these books. My Russian textbooks also paint an interesting picture of life in the former USSR.
It seems like all of the Russian language textbook authors got together to create what I call "Russian Textbook World" or RTW. RTW is supposed to represent life in the Soviet Union. Lessons are written from the viewpoint of a Soviet university student. The student lives with his parents, older sister, and younger brother in Moscow. The father is either a pilot, engineer in a factory, doctor, or school director. Mom is a nurse or a teacher. I guess all those statistics about most of the USSR's doctors being women were wrong because RTW women are never doctors. The older sister works in a store or a kindergarten. The younger brother is still in elementary or high school and doesn't have a job yet. The university student, usually male, is studying engineering, chemistry, physics, or medicine. He befriends an American student who's also studying at the university. Our RTW college student likes to show his American friend the sights of Moscow and explain its history. The KGB never hears about our Soviet student socializing with a foreigner and then arresting him, which is what would have happened in the real USSR. That's because there is no KGB in RTW. Grandma and Grandpa are retired and live in a village in another part of Russia.
The typical Soviet family in RTW doesn't have a car. Nobody uses the metro, despite the fact that Moscow has an excellent subway system. Everyone goes to work or school on the bus, the tram, or on foot. If every man is a pilot, engineer, doctor, or school director, I wonder who drives the buses and trams in RTW. Either cycling in Moscow is for the elite, or our family doesn't own any bicycles because nobody in RTW rides a bicycle to work or school.
Don't believe what the Western press says about food shortages or long lines in the grocery stores in the USSR. There are none in RTW. Our typical Moscow family eats very well and never has to wait in line for food. Every day they eat: oatmeal, pancakes, sandwiches, ham, sausage, other meat, eggs, and even some fish. There don't seem to be many fruits and veggies in the RTW diet except for carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, cucumbers, and onions. RTW families drink milk, tea, wine, and water. Dad never goes out and gets drunk pounding shots of vodka with his buddies. In Russian vodka is vodka and water is voda, which is probably why every man that I've met from the former USSR drinks vodka like it's water. RTW really is an alternate universe!
Our RTW family lives in an apartment in a multi-story building. The apartment is large enough for the family and has a living room, hallway, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, study room, and bedrooms. All of the modern conveniences are in the apartment: electricity, gas, telephone, hot water, and even a shower. There are good views from the windows. Every family in RTW has a television and radio, though not all have VCRs. Every RTW family has a friend who just moved to a brand new apartment (also in a multi-story building) who will be having a housewarming party soon. The friend with the new apartment recently bought furniture.
There are various forms of entertainment in RTW. When not going to the theater, a movie, a concert, or a football/soccer game at the local stadium (where Spartak Moscow only plays Dynamo Moscow), the typical RTW family watches TV, listens to radio programs, or goes for a walk in the park. Students often go to the local club with their friends. Sometimes a friend will come to visit. The post office is evidently the place to be in RTW. Whole lessons in Russian language textbooks are all about going to the post office. At the post office in RTW, you don't just mail a letter or package or buy stamps. You can also send telegrams, pick up packages, and make long distance phone calls. Telegrams appear to be the main medium of communication in RTW. Going to the doctor is another pastime. People in RTW get enough coughs, colds, sore throats, fevers, and headaches to keep their doctors very busy.
When people go on vacation in RTW, they take the train to the Black Sea, the Caucausus, the Crimea, or the Baltic. There are evidently no other vacation destinations in RTW. Even though those places must be very crowded with everyone in the USSR spending their summer vacations there, hordes of tourists are never mentioned. These places are always calm and peaceful. Sometimes the kids will visit Grandma and Grandpa in their village for the summer and spend their days hiking in the woods gathering mushrooms and berries.
Nothing bad ever happens in RTW. In my Defense Language Institute books, there were sections in each lesson with newspaper article excerpts. Most of them were about some sort of disaster: car crashes, plane crashes, train crashes and derailments, fires, floods, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions. The interesting thing is that all of these disasters happened outside the USSR. When there were articles about the USSR, they were usually about Aeroflot's new flights to East Berlin, Sofia, and Prague, a new modern hotel for businessmen in Leningrad (with electricity!), special cruises on Russia's rivers, or how a local tractor factory increased its production.
Would I like to live in RTW? No. I like the real world better. Anyway, if I got on a bus or train in RTW, I'd probably end up having to drive it.
It seems like all of the Russian language textbook authors got together to create what I call "Russian Textbook World" or RTW. RTW is supposed to represent life in the Soviet Union. Lessons are written from the viewpoint of a Soviet university student. The student lives with his parents, older sister, and younger brother in Moscow. The father is either a pilot, engineer in a factory, doctor, or school director. Mom is a nurse or a teacher. I guess all those statistics about most of the USSR's doctors being women were wrong because RTW women are never doctors. The older sister works in a store or a kindergarten. The younger brother is still in elementary or high school and doesn't have a job yet. The university student, usually male, is studying engineering, chemistry, physics, or medicine. He befriends an American student who's also studying at the university. Our RTW college student likes to show his American friend the sights of Moscow and explain its history. The KGB never hears about our Soviet student socializing with a foreigner and then arresting him, which is what would have happened in the real USSR. That's because there is no KGB in RTW. Grandma and Grandpa are retired and live in a village in another part of Russia.
The typical Soviet family in RTW doesn't have a car. Nobody uses the metro, despite the fact that Moscow has an excellent subway system. Everyone goes to work or school on the bus, the tram, or on foot. If every man is a pilot, engineer, doctor, or school director, I wonder who drives the buses and trams in RTW. Either cycling in Moscow is for the elite, or our family doesn't own any bicycles because nobody in RTW rides a bicycle to work or school.
Don't believe what the Western press says about food shortages or long lines in the grocery stores in the USSR. There are none in RTW. Our typical Moscow family eats very well and never has to wait in line for food. Every day they eat: oatmeal, pancakes, sandwiches, ham, sausage, other meat, eggs, and even some fish. There don't seem to be many fruits and veggies in the RTW diet except for carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, cucumbers, and onions. RTW families drink milk, tea, wine, and water. Dad never goes out and gets drunk pounding shots of vodka with his buddies. In Russian vodka is vodka and water is voda, which is probably why every man that I've met from the former USSR drinks vodka like it's water. RTW really is an alternate universe!
Our RTW family lives in an apartment in a multi-story building. The apartment is large enough for the family and has a living room, hallway, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, study room, and bedrooms. All of the modern conveniences are in the apartment: electricity, gas, telephone, hot water, and even a shower. There are good views from the windows. Every family in RTW has a television and radio, though not all have VCRs. Every RTW family has a friend who just moved to a brand new apartment (also in a multi-story building) who will be having a housewarming party soon. The friend with the new apartment recently bought furniture.
There are various forms of entertainment in RTW. When not going to the theater, a movie, a concert, or a football/soccer game at the local stadium (where Spartak Moscow only plays Dynamo Moscow), the typical RTW family watches TV, listens to radio programs, or goes for a walk in the park. Students often go to the local club with their friends. Sometimes a friend will come to visit. The post office is evidently the place to be in RTW. Whole lessons in Russian language textbooks are all about going to the post office. At the post office in RTW, you don't just mail a letter or package or buy stamps. You can also send telegrams, pick up packages, and make long distance phone calls. Telegrams appear to be the main medium of communication in RTW. Going to the doctor is another pastime. People in RTW get enough coughs, colds, sore throats, fevers, and headaches to keep their doctors very busy.
When people go on vacation in RTW, they take the train to the Black Sea, the Caucausus, the Crimea, or the Baltic. There are evidently no other vacation destinations in RTW. Even though those places must be very crowded with everyone in the USSR spending their summer vacations there, hordes of tourists are never mentioned. These places are always calm and peaceful. Sometimes the kids will visit Grandma and Grandpa in their village for the summer and spend their days hiking in the woods gathering mushrooms and berries.
Nothing bad ever happens in RTW. In my Defense Language Institute books, there were sections in each lesson with newspaper article excerpts. Most of them were about some sort of disaster: car crashes, plane crashes, train crashes and derailments, fires, floods, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions. The interesting thing is that all of these disasters happened outside the USSR. When there were articles about the USSR, they were usually about Aeroflot's new flights to East Berlin, Sofia, and Prague, a new modern hotel for businessmen in Leningrad (with electricity!), special cruises on Russia's rivers, or how a local tractor factory increased its production.
Would I like to live in RTW? No. I like the real world better. Anyway, if I got on a bus or train in RTW, I'd probably end up having to drive it.
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