Alisa Selezneva fell in love with diving: How the real destinies of children who became characters in books developed

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

When you find out that the boy or girl from the book you read in childhood is real, you wonder - what happened to them next? How they grew up and how they then looked back at the characters that the authors of the books endowed not only with their names, but also with habits. Christopher Robin and Alice in Wonderland, Timur Garayev and his girlfriend Zhenya, space wanderer Alisa Selezneva - they are all real people. But some boys and girls, those on paper, remained forever children, while the latter grew up and went their own way.

Guest from the future

The writer Kir Bulychev (real name - Igor Mozheiko) named his daughter Alice in honor of the very girl who visited the Looking Glass. As if I was sure that my daughter was created for adventure. It is not surprising that, starting to write a book about the adventures of a girl from the distant communist future, he gave her the name, character and appearance of Alice Mozheiko. Even the age coincided at first: Bulychev wrote the first book about Alice in 1965, when his daughter was five years old, and his heroine was also a preschooler.

Alisa Selezneva, if you read carefully, has a father Igor and a mother Cyrus. Of course, these are the names of the writer himself and his wife. Actually, Bulychev took his pseudonym in honor of his wife. By the way, she is an architect by education, like Selezneva's mother, but she made her career as a science fiction writer and artist. But Alisa Mozheiko herself became the architect. As for adventures in the life of a real Alice, she loves diving.

Wonderland Girl

As you know, the prototype of the very Alice, after whom the daughter of Cyrus Bulychev was named, was Alice Liddell, the daughter of Lewis Carroll's acquaintances. In addition to her, almost all of their common acquaintances with Carroll, including Alice's sisters and girlfriends, got into the fairy tale. But the name and appearance was retained only by the girl, who became the main character. The rest turned into birds, mice and turtles.

The real Alice was brought up rather harshly, in the spirit of the Victorian times. For example, only cold baths were allowed. This did not prevent the girl from growing brisk, curious and funny.

As a girl, Liddell was engaged in painting, took lessons from the famous Pre-Raphaelite John Ruskin, but she never became an artist, although Ruskin considered her very capable. She was also one of the models of the famous photo artist Julia Margaret Cameron. But in the end she just got married.

According to rumors, one of the sons of Queen Victoria, Prince Leopold, named his first daughter Alice in honor of Liddell, which, by the way, was really familiar with. Alice, in turn, named one of her sons Leopold. He died in France during the First World War, like his brother Alan. The third son, Caryl, survived.

Alice herself revolved around the world and became the first president of the Women's Institute at the village of Emery-Don. She lived a long life and once admitted that expectations for her as “that very” Alice bore her a little. She sold her personal copy of Carroll's book to cover the costs of the house after her husband's death.

Timur and Zhenya

Many believe that the prototype of Timur Garayev was the son of Arkady Gaidar, and Garayev's girlfriend Zhenya was written off from Gaidar's stepdaughter, also, of course, Zhenya. Like the character in the book, the real Timur was very fond of the sea, he himself constantly wore a vest, and the real Zhenya (who was about seven years old) was a sociable girl and loved adventure. Somehow, as an adventure, her stepfather suggested that she … go for a walk with a bucket, and take her friend with a bucket with her. Zhenya and her friend did just that, and their stepfather bought them ice cream, just enough to make the buckets full. The girls then recalled this turn of events for a long time.

When Timur Gaidar grew up, he studied at the Leningrad Higher Naval School, served on submarines in the Pacific and Baltic fleets. But in the end he chose the career of an international journalist. Traveled to different countries: Cuba, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan.

The writer adopted Zhenya, marrying her mother, and never spoke of her otherwise than a daughter. But in the official biographies, the girl was not mentioned for a long time, so when one of her friends at school boasted that he knew Gaidar's daughter, the teacher told him not to cheat. She really was friends with Timur, although she rarely saw each other in childhood - they grew up with different mothers. But over the years their friendship grew stronger, Timur called Zhenya his sister. Zhenya married a scientist and, although officially she was always a housewife, she did a lot of secretarial work for her husband, becoming literally his right hand.

Leaving for the front, Gaidar presented Zhenya with a book of fairy tales, in which he wrote humorous verses with his own hand: “Dad is going to war For the Soviet country … Zhenya will read a book And dream about Dad. He is on the far side Beats the fascists in the war!"

Christopher Robin

The book about Winnie the Pooh began with a request from a young son Alana Milna: "Write a book for me!" The request inspired the writer to write stories, the heroes of which will be his son and his toys. The book became popular very quickly, and Christopher Robin woke up a star.

At first, Christopher enjoyed fame. He willingly performed, corresponded with fans, he liked how much more often his parents began to spend time with him - albeit for the sake of a beautiful picture of a happy family. But when his classmates at boarding school began to tease him, Christopher hated all the tales about Winnie the Pooh.

As for the relationship with his book "double", Milne Jr. never introduced himself by his full name, decisively deleting "Robin" for himself - to be the most ordinary Christopher, and not a friend of Winnie the Pooh. He recalled that the first thirty years of his life, the name Christopher Robin caused him suffering.

During World War II, Christopher Milne left his studies at Cambridge and volunteered for the front. Winnie the Pooh pursued him there too. Co-workers constantly asked Christopher about childhood, books and father.

After the war, Christopher married his cousin Leslie. They kept a bookstore together. Milne Sr. was afraid that his son would have sick children. Indeed, Leslie's daughter, Claire, was born with severe cerebral palsy, but it is difficult to say if this is somehow related to the fact that her parents were closely related.

After the wave, Alan Milne donated the toys that became the heroes of the books to the collection of the New York Public Library at their request. The son did not communicate with him any more and avoided until the funeral. Christopher's relationship with his mother was also cold. At first, Milne Jr. planned to abandon his father's inheritance, but it took a lot of money to help Claire, so Christopher had to step over pride. He himself died at the age of 75 in a dream.

And one more the girl who became famous thanks to her mother-artist, thanks to her, she met her love.