Otfried Preussler’s Fairy Tales and Their Russian Illustrators

Abstract

The article is devoted to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the German writer O. Preussler (1923—2013), whose works have gained popularity among children in many countries and have been repeatedly translated into different languages, including the language of fine arts. The most important facts of the jubilee’s biography are listed, the peculiarities of his approach to the genre of fairy tales, to folklore images and plots are characterized, and the master’s statements about children’s literature and his own work are given. The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the most significant and successful illustrations by Russian artists for the writer’s works. The main task is to compare them on the basis of book studies, art history and source research methods. This task, which has not yet been set in Russian book science, seems to be topical, since O. Preussler’s works are still popular among domestic readers and are constantly republished, but the visual range of these publications often leaves much to be desired.Graphic interpretations of a particularly favorite fairy tale trilogy in Russia — “The Little Water Sprite”, “The Little Witch”, “The Little Ghost” — are considered. The author of the article concludes that the images of the Little Witch and the Little Ghost (whose appearance is not described in the text) are difficult for artists, so their convincing pictorial interpretations are rare. I.I. Kabakov, N.G. Golts, B.A. Diodorov, D.A. Trubin, and E.A. Silina are among the best illustrators of the tales that make up the trilogy. Among the pictorial interpretations of other works by O. Preussler the drawings by L.A. Tokmakov and S.A. Krestovsky for the story “Krabat and the Sorcere’s Mill”, G.K. Spirin for “The Tale of the Unicorn”, V.N. Zuikov and V.S. Lubarov for the book “The Hörbe and His Friend Zwottel” stand out. It is shown how these art works reflect the peculiarities of the author’s intonation and reveal the hidden meaning of O. Preussler’s works. In them, as well as in the writer’s texts, there is no boring edification, but there is a game of liberated imagination, life-affirming humor, sincere empathy with the heroes. Following the author, the illustrators reinterpret traditional folklore motifs, discovering new qualities in them.