Hereditary depression, war trauma, loss of a son: What lies behind the kindest children's books

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

When you read the best works of children's literature, it seems that such kind and light books could only be written by people living in a special country of happiness and kindness. Alas, the lives of most children's writers and poets are stories of suffering, tragedy and misunderstanding.

Alexander Milne: Pinned down by the war and Winnie the Pooh

The writer Milne had a difficult relationship with his wife. As a volunteer for the First World War, he left at her insistence. And he returned a completely different person. What he saw in the war caused him serious psychological trauma. At the time, no one knew about the post-traumatic disorder that war veterans often suffer, and Milne found himself alone with depression.

A children's book about a boy who was friends with a teddy bear, Milne wrote after a series of quite successful works for adults to distract from difficult memories - what could be less related to the war than the world of the child and his toys?

But, having become a successful children's writer, Milne gave up on himself as an adult writer, without even wanting to. From now on, no one wanted to see anything from him except new stories about Winnie the Pooh. This overwhelmed the writer even more.

The third misfortune of his life was a falling out with his wife. She went to another man, leaving her son Milna. Then, to Alexander's delight, she returned, but the episode itself severely wounded him.

It is hard to imagine how, against the background of all these problems and worries, Milne continued to write amazingly kind, funny stories, from which he breathes peace and a cloudless childhood.

Astrid Lindgren: loneliness, poverty and separation from her son

In Astrid's books, there is always an adult near the child who will accept him, despite any mistakes, parents always love children, and there is a way out of any situation. Sometimes the scale of her optimism seems naive, as if she never knew a real, full of problems and worries, life.

At eighteen, Lindgren, a young resident of a small town, became pregnant with her married boss. It was the twenties of the twentieth century. Girls tried on trousers, ties and hats (like Astrid), became pilots, racers or at least journalists (like Astrid), made lovers (like Astrid), but the illegitimate child was still a huge scandal and put an end to their reputation and career.

The boss offered Astrid to marry - he was ready to divorce his current wife. There was another option: abortion. But Astrid, on reflection, decided that she wanted a child, but not his father. A choice with not the easiest consequences.

Astrid gave birth to a child in Denmark and left him there with a kind woman on the condition that she could return for her son. After that, she left for Stockholm, where no one knew her, and tried to somehow turn around and arrange so that she could live normally with her son - that is, finally, take him for herself. She wrote to her brother that she was suffering from loneliness and poverty. She also constantly missed her baby.

Two years after the birth of her son, Astrid was finally able to find a good job for herself - as the secretary of the director of the Royal Automobile Club. Unlike the first boss, the new one turned out to be a very decent person, he did not fool the girl's head with stories about sensuality and emancipation and did not covet, although he treated with obvious sympathy.

After two years of working together, the director decided to admit that he liked Astrid from the very beginning and he would very much like to see her as his wife. In response, Astrid confessed that she had an illegitimate child. Mr. Lindgren did not even think: “I love you, which means that I also love everything that is part of your life. Lars will be our son, take him to Stockholm. Astrid became Mrs. Lindgren, and her husband adopted the baby. Nevertheless, Astrid always recalled with bitterness the separation from her son.

Tove Jansson: hereditary depression

Jansson's books are filled with kindness and dreaminess. The world of the Moomins is small and cozy, even in spite of natural disasters and falling comets. Reading about the house where the Moomin trolls live, you understand how happy Tuve's childhood was. And it is true. Tove grew up - like Astrid, by the way - in a very loving and close-knit family.

Alas, this did not save the writer and artist (Tove was also engaged in painting) from the severe depression that covered her from time to time. The whole thing, it seems, was in heredity - her father suffered from recurring depressive states. It is said that people who have experienced clinical depression can hardly read or reread Jansson's books - such a familiar state oozes through the fairy-tale patterns of the plot. And it is concentrated in the image of a character named Morra - a creature that becomes larger in winter, suppresses everything warm and extinguishes the fire, sitting on it.

Father Jansson's depression, by the way, was not only organic. She, like Milne's, was provoked by the experience of the war in 1918. Oddly enough, he felt real relief in … stormy weather. He was immediately attracted to adventure, and he invited the family to get on a boat and go on a risky journey. And the Jansson sailed from island to island.

Agnia Barto: loss of a son and obsessive dreams of death

Many noticed that after the war Barto's poems lost their lightheartedness. Agniya Lvovna has also changed a lot. One of the reasons was the loss of his son in the prime of his youth. He asked for a bike ride before dinner. On the street he was hit by a truck. The young man did not suffer much from the collision as such, but landed with his temple on the curb and died. He was eighteen years old. It was the last year of the war in the courtyard, the front moved far to the west, and people finally felt that peace would be again.

In addition, Agniya Lvovna suffered from recurring dreams in which she was run over at the speed of a train. In reality, she nearly died while jumping off a train at the front. She was almost pulled under the wheels. The shock was so great that the memory of the nearness of death haunted her all her life.

Nikolay Nosov: three wars and famine

Nikolai Nosov was born in Kiev at the very beginning of the twentieth century. As a result, the First World War and the Civil War fell on his childhood and youth. The family suffered from malnutrition. Firewood was also a problem and it was very cold at home in winter. In addition, one day all the children fell ill with typhus. Kolya was sick the longest, and his parents were already preparing for the funeral. When it became clear that the boy had survived, his mother could not hold back tears of relief. She no longer hoped.

Perhaps it is precisely because of the author's experience of hunger that the short people from the Flower City love so much to enjoy simple food, like semolina.

One of the cycles of Nosov's stories, about the adventures of two dreamer boys, seems to be an example of a carefree childhood in the Soviet version. It is even strange to imagine that these stories were written during the Great Patriotic War, for children and about children, who were largely disadvantaged by this war. Reread the stories with a fresh eye, and you will hardly find men there. Minor counselors, elderly caretakers or directors … That's right. The children for whom Nosov wrote did not see the grown men around them. And so with many details of his stories.

Nosov himself could not go to the front and filmed educational and technical films for our army in order to somehow invest in victory.

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