Why childish retellings of fairy tales by Bozena Nemtsova caused a scandal: "Three nuts for Cinderella" and others

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is surprising that Slavic children know Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers well and badly - Bozena Nemtsova, the legendary Czech collector of fairy tales. The Czechs themselves consider her to be the founder of Czech literature. But, in addition, Nemtsova is worth more fame already because, unlike Perrault and Grimm, she did not remake folk tales into edifying stories with morality. She generally processed them so minimally that plots or individual phrases caused a scandal - after all, it happened in the prim nineteenth century.

Twelve months and their unknown author

The most famous in Russia of the West Slavic fairy tales recorded by Nemtsova is "Twelve Months". Of course, the children know her in the adaptation of Marshak, who made a play out of her, removing all non-childish moments. But childhood is leaving, and adults should have an idea of what this fairy tale looked like while it was folklore, not literature. However, for this Nemtsov would have to publish more actively - but the Frenchman Perrault and the Germans Grimm are still in favor, and not the main Slavic collector of fairy tales. We can say thank you that at least one fairy tale and at least in the retelling of Marshak is known in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus.

Another famous fairy tale from which the popular film was made is Three Nuts for Cinderella. But the film "Seven Ravens", also according to Nemtsova's notes, is known in our country much less, although many Czechs grew up on it.

The real name of Bozena Nemtsova, however, is Barbora Panklova. She took the name "Bozena" precisely from a protest before the neglect of everything Slavic in Austria-Hungary in her time. She received a new surname by her husband - Josef Nemets. At the age of seventeen, her parents literally pushed Barbora to marry a thirty-two-year-old German, a tax inspector - a profitable party! This marriage was unhappy, and even troublesome - the German, on duty, constantly moved from city to city.

Barbora did not immediately develop an interest in her native folklore. Married life constantly weighed her down, and she was looking for an outlet for herself. At about twenty-three, she began writing poetry, but realized that poetry was not her element. I switched to essays, especially since I suddenly became interested in my native Slavic history and culture. Her first two essays are turning points both in the history of collecting Slavic folklore and in the history of Czech literature (Nemtsova finally came to prose). "Pictures of Domazhlitsky Neighborhoods" and "Folk Tales and Legends" in seven parts immediately attracted the attention of Slavophiles.

Bozena wrote these sketches for the first time in Czech, not German. German, in fact, was Bozena's mother tongue not only because she lived in Autro-Hungary. Her stepfather from six months Bozena was the German Johann Pankl, whose last name she bore before marriage. And for the first six months she was Novotnaya, by the name of her mother. Naturally, inside the family they did not communicate in Czech - Johann, most likely, did not know it. Who was Bozena's biological father? It is not known, and it does not matter. He did not have the slightest influence on her.

Only at the age of twenty-three, having met the now legendary Czech poets Vaclav Bolemir Nebieski and Karel Jaromir Erben, Bozena became imbued with the idea of opposing the assimilation of Czechs and Slovaks by the Germans. She began to write in Czech - and by that time Czech was a very conventionally written language. When they wanted to record something big, smart, difficult, academic, they wrote in German.

How women become writers

For a very long time, Bozena avoided literature - her experience with poetry made her think that it was not created for literature at all. Publicism is different. There is enough flat style and attention to facts. But both poets convinced Bozena to at least try. Czech literature has not yet required geniuses. Czech literature needed a beginning, it needed a breeding ground for geniuses, they said. And Bozena tried it.

Need pushed her into literature, to tell the truth. The Germans already had four children in their arms when Joseph suffered from suspicions of having connections with the revolutionaries. With each new transfer, his salary was lowered, and in the end he was simply fired with a "wolf ticket." Without money, it was not just hard: the son of Ginek died from the inability to pay doctors, buy medicines. He - as was often the case then - developed tuberculosis. It was possible to stop the disease by noticing it in time, taking the child to a warmer climate, supporting with medicines, but all this cost money, of course.

The death of a child turned the relationship in the German family from cool to icy. Joseph even thought about divorce, but still did not dare to ruin the children's lives - after all, according to the ideas of that time, they would have to stay not with their mother, but with their father, and they would have suffered cruelly from separation from their beloved mother.

By that time, Europe already knew commercially successful writers. However, mostly French women. Madame de Stael, Georges Sand, Daniel Stern. In Britain, Mary Shelley was successfully published with her Frankenstein monster, Charlotte Bronte had already abandoned the male pseudonym and published books as a woman. Bozena could go or work for a penny as a visiting teacher, or take the risk and sit at her desk for many days, not knowing whether these days, lost for trying to earn money in the usual way, will pay off.

Become the mother of Czech literature

If you are interested in getting acquainted with the classics of Slavic prose, then you should go through this list. The first three stories of Bozena were called "Barushka", "Karla" and "Sisters". Then she wrote the realistic story "Granny" - and finally learned what popularity is. The Slavophile Czech, who would not have read this story (and therefore would not have bought it), was not there, probably in a year.

Bozhena herself liked her next story better - "Mountain Village". But it was “Grandmother” that was translated into twenty languages, “Grandmother” was included in the school curriculum, and until now, “Grandmother” is also republished most actively. It was for this story that Bozena was named the mother of Czech literature. Surprisingly, she was ready to become no more than a breeding ground for a real genius of native literature to grow up one day … But she turned out to be this genius.

The main character of the story was, of course, Bozena's real grandmother, mother's mother - Magdalena Novotna. As a girl, the writer was sent to her village more than once to improve her health. A separate very significant character is the girl Viktorka, who lost her mind after being raped and, pregnant, went to live in the forest. She was lured out of the house by the soldiers. Then such stories were not uncommon.

Later Nemtsova published not only her stories and stories, but also new collected folklore material - Slovak fairy tales. She not only collected them, but also translated them into German in order to introduce them into the common cultural space of Austria-Hungary.

Alas, fees, despite the popularity, Nemtsova received the most meager. The family was interrupted from bread to water. She more than once, inspired by the praise of the Slavophils, turned to them for help - but received pitiful pitfalls. It was all the stranger to see what kind of funeral was given to the forty-two-year-old writer. There was a lot of money for the funeral. If this money had been found earlier, Nemtsova would not have burned out from consumption - but who needed her alive? Dead writers are much more interesting. The dead are loved.

The most popular fairy old women from different countries and their weird habits are also worth to be remembered along with the tales of where they come from.