Uspensky banned: How Soviet officials found sedition in stories about Cheburashka and crocodile Gena

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

On December 22, the famous children's writer, screenwriter of cartoons about Cheburashka and the crocodile Gena, Prostokvashino and Uncle Fedor celebrates his 80th birthday Edward Uspensky … Today his name is known all over the world, Cheburashka became the national hero of Japan, and Prostokvashino became a trademark, but during the Soviet era, the author had to face a lot of difficulties: his books were not published, and the censorship found seditious ideas in them that discredited the image of the Soviet people …

Having received an engineering degree at the Moscow Aviation Institute and having worked for 3.5 years at a rocket plant, Eduard Uspensky devoted himself entirely to literary work. He was the author of poems, children's books, radio shows, scripts for cartoons, a miniature theater, entertainers and pop artists. The writer began with humorous stories, but since they were often "cut" by censorship, he went into children's literature.

But that was not the case - and here Ouspensky repeatedly faced censorship - according to him, children's writers in the USSR were treated even more zealously than adults. He often heard complaints against him because he writes about those problems that Soviet children do not need to know about. For the fact that in "Gena Crocodile and His Friends" the writer brought out the image of an official, on whom the adoption of any decisions depended, he was accused of making fun of Soviet officials. When he portrayed a journalist who exaggerated everything, he again heard reproaches in his address: "".

In one of the episodes, the crocodile Gena was looking for friends by an ad - and in this they also saw sedition: it is in bourgeois society that they get to know each other by an ad, and Soviet people find friends in the collective! And due to the fact that Gena and Cheburashka collected more scrap metal than the pioneers, Uspensky was accused of distrust of the pioneer organization.

Literally every phrase raised questions. When Uncle Fyodor, the cat and the dog came out, they also found sedition in Sharik's phrase from Prostokvashino: "" And in "Plastic Grandpa", where the characters on the aircraft landed on the roof of the Ministry of Defense, they demanded to remove all references to the General Staff altogether.

Complaints against the children's writer sounded not only from officials, but even from parents. In the story of how Cheburashka and Gena the crocodile delivered gifts in the New Year, there was an episode when they were offered a drink in one of the apartments, to which Gena replied: "". In response, letters from indignant parents rained down: "" However, both then and now the writer stood his ground: you need to talk with children on all topics, not keeping silent about social problems, but in a form accessible to children.

Nagging touched not only topics, but even individual words. Later, the writer recalled: “.

We had to defend not only ideas and themes, but even copyrights to our own heroes! The writer had a long conflict with the Soyuzmultfilm studio over the fact that Ouspensky claimed his copyright. At the beginning of perestroika, he quarreled with the Krasny Oktyabr factory because it produced Cheburashka sweets and did not transfer royalties for the "brand" he had invented. The writer made sure that the production of sweets with this name was stopped, and accusations fell on him again: ""

Because of all these difficulties, Ouspensky had to write on the table for a long time and just wait for better times. And as a result, his works were still deservedly appreciated. Today, his characters are one of the most popular not only in our country, but also abroad: the Japanese have bought the rights to produce goods using images from cartoons about Cheburashka for a period of 10 years. This hero has become incredibly popular with them, and souvenirs with his image are flying around like hot cakes. And the rights to use the Prostokvashino symbols were bought from the author by a company engaged in the production of dairy products.

Few readers know that all of Ouspensky's characters had real prototypes: the crocodile Gena had the composer Yan Frenkel, the cat Matroskin had the homely and sensible editor of the Wick film magazine Anatoly Taraskin (the cat was also Taraskin at first). The writer told about Cheburashka and Shapoklyak: "".

Kota Matroskin was voiced by Oleg Tabakov, and getting into the character was so accurate that the actor was often associated with this character: 15 famous actors who look surprisingly like cartoon characters.