The walls of the halls were blizzards, the windows and doors were violent winds. More than a hundred halls stretched here one after the other as a blizzard swept them. All of them were illuminated by the northern lights, and the largest one stretched for many, many miles. How cold, how deserted it was in those white, brightly shining halls! Fun never came here. Bear balls have never been held here with dances to the music of the storm, at which polar bears could distinguish themselves by grace and the ability to walk on their hind legs; games of cards with quarrels and fights were never drawn up, little white chanterelle gossips did not converge for a conversation over a cup of coffee.
Cold, deserted, grandiose! The northern lights flashed and burned so regularly that it was possible to calculate exactly at what minute the light would increase and at what time it would fade. In the middle of the largest deserted snow hall was a frozen lake. The ice cracked on it into a thousand pieces, so identical and regular that it seemed like some kind of trick. In the middle of the lake sat the Snow Queen when she was at home, saying that she was sitting on the mirror of the mind; in her opinion, it was the only and best mirror in the world. Kai turned completely blue, almost turned black from the cold, but did not notice this - the kisses of the Snow Queen made him insensitive to the cold, and his very heart was like a piece of ice. Kai fiddled with flat, pointed ice floes, laying them in all sorts of frets. After all, there is such a game - folding figures from wooden planks - which is called the Chinese puzzle. So Kai also folded various intricate figures, only from ice floes, and this was called an icy mind game. In his eyes, these figures were a marvel of art, and folding them was an occupation of paramount importance. This was due to the fact that a fragment of a magic mirror sat in his eye.
He also put together such figures from which whole words were obtained, but he could not put together what he especially wanted - the word "eternity". The Snow Queen said to him: "If you add this word, you will be your own master, and I will give you all the world and a pair of new skates." But he couldn't put it down.
“Now I will fly to warmer climes,” said the Snow Queen. — I'll look into the black cauldrons.
So she called the craters of the fire-breathing mountains - Etna and Vesuvius.
- I'll whiten them a little. It's good for lemons and grapes.
She flew away, and Kai was left alone in the boundless deserted hall, looking at the ice floes and thinking, thinking, so that his head was cracking. He sat there, so pale, motionless, as if lifeless. You might think he was completely cold.
— Kai, my dear Kai! Finally I found you!
But he sat still the same motionless and cold. And then Gerda wept; her hot tears fell on his chest, penetrated into his heart, melted the ice crust, melted the shard. Kai looked at Gerda and suddenly burst into tears and cried so hard that the shard flowed out of his eye along with his tears. Then he recognized Gerda and was delighted:— Gerda! Dear Gerda! Where have you been for so long? Where was I myself? And he looked around. How cold it is here, deserted!
And he clung tightly to Gerda. And she laughed and cried with joy. And it was so wonderful that even the ice floes began to dance, and when they got tired, they lay down and made up the very word that the Snow Queen asked Kai to compose. Having folded it, he could become his own master, and even receive from her a gift of the whole world and a pair of new skates.
Gerda kissed Kai on both cheeks, and they again blushed like roses; kissed his eyes, and they shone; kissed his hands and feet, and he again became cheerful and healthy
The Snow Queen could return at any time—his vacation card lay there, written in glittering ice letters. Kai and Gerda left the ice halls hand in hand. They walked and talked about their grandmother, about the roses that bloomed in their garden, and before them the violent winds subsided, the sun peeped through. And when they reached the bush with red berries, the reindeer was already waiting for them.Kai and Gerda went first to the Finn, warmed up with her and found out the way home, and then to the Lapland. She sewed them a new dress, repaired her sleigh and went to see them off.
The deer also accompanied the young travelers up to the very border of Lapland, where the first greenery was already breaking through. Here Kai and Gerda said goodbye to him and the Laplander.
Gerda immediately recognized both the horse - it had once been harnessed to a golden carriage - and the girl. It was a little robber.
She also recognized Gerda. That was joy!
- Look, you tramp! she said to Kai. “I would like to know if you are worthy of being followed to the ends of the earth?”
But Gerda patted her on the cheek and asked about the prince and princess.
“They have gone to foreign lands,” answered the young robber.
- And the raven? Gerda asked.
- The forest raven is dead; the tame crow was left a widow, walks with black hair on its leg and complains about fate. But all this is nothing, but you better tell me what happened to you and how you found him.
Gerda and Kai told her about everything.
Well, that's the end of the story! - said the young robber, shook hands with them and promised to visit them if she ever came to them in the city.
Then she went on her way, and Kai and Gerda went on theirs.
artist B. Chupov
They walked, and spring flowers bloomed on their way, the grass turned green. Then the bells rang out, and they recognized the bell towers of their hometown. They climbed the familiar stairs and entered the room, where everything was the same as before: the clock said “tick-tock”, the hands moved along the dial. But, passing through the low door, they noticed that they had become quite adults. Blooming rose bushes peered through the open window from the roof; right there were their highchairs. Kai and Gerda each sat on their own, took each other's hands, and the cold desert splendor of the halls of the Snow Queen was forgotten like a heavy dream.So they sat side by side, both already adults, but children in heart and soul, and it was summer outside, a warm, fertile summer.
Scenario for children's entertainment
"In the halls of the Snow Queen."
(during the walk)
Tasks: arouse interest in the winter theme, improve the process of development of motor abilities, develop the emotional sphere of the child, contribute to the formation of the child's moral position: perceive beauty, preserve the beauty of nature, do good yourself.
Preparatory work:
Designing a playground in the style of a castle;
Experiments on freezing ice figurines;
Reading the fairy tale by G.H. Andersen “The Snow Queen;
Equipment: equipped playground for winter games, attributes for children: Santa Claus caps for boys, snowflake crowns for girls; musical accompaniment: tape recorder, fragments of The Nutcracker by N.P. Rimsky-Korsakov, constriction to hit the target, small balls, multi-colored ice forms (juice of carrots, beets, raspberries or cranberries, dill; infusion of saffron or bay leaf, St. John's wort)
Heroes: adult teachers in the role of the Storyteller, the Snow Queen, Santa Claus.
Introduction to the image.
The storyteller meets the children at the entrance to the kingdom.
- In order to enter the domain of the Snow Queen, you need to turn into her faithful servants.
Girls wear crowns of snowflakes, and boys wear caps.
And now let's follow me along the magical path to the sound of a winter melody and get into a fairy tale.
A melody from the opera "The Nutcracker" sounds, the children follow the Storyteller one after another to the castle where the Snow Queen sleeps. Arranged in a semicircle.
Psycho-gymnastics. ( children perform movements according to what they hear).
White.
See how everything is white and white around -
And the white snow and the white house (squat and bounce)
And the white bear lies here, (imitate a dream)
The white mistress sleeps here. (image of queen
Breathe on the mitten soon
You will see white frost in it. (breathing on the mitten)
Cold white all around
And the north suddenly became closer to us. (circling)
Blue.
- Look at the sky - height (rise on toes to the sky)
Blueness is easy for the eyes,
And next to the white - blue (waving their hands alternately)
Cold color was with you.
Blue.
The field and the seas are frozen, (squat, spreading their arms to the sides)
River covered with blue ice
And blue is a strict color, friends (they blow steam like frost)
It blows cold for a reason.
He furrowed his brows and is angry, (hands on his belt, torso turns to the sides)
He looks at the sky at night.
And if the stars sparkle, (hands to the sides, put your feet on the jump
shoulder width - asterisk)
It will be cold here.
Violet.
The color purple is beautiful, (hands forward - scissors)
Radiance of the North tide.
Winter plays with colors - (pat their hands on their shoulders)
Flowers "cold" is full.
What cool colors do you remember from the Snow Queen in the castle? If you pronounce it correctly, wake up the mistress of the palace.
The children name the colors and the Snow Queen wakes up.
Emotion game.
S.K. “Who dared to disturb me? Who walks in my frosty realm?
Who laughs in my magical meadow? What kind of little gnomes came here?
Storyteller - These are your faithful servants, His Majesty. We were passing by and decided to greet you. Friends, it is necessary to express words of admiration.
Think quickly, what do you see beautiful here? Speak coldly.
(For example:What a beautiful air you have - cold and clean!
What a beautiful crown you have, my queen is cold!..)
S.K.“What nice, cold words. All right, I'll show you my domain, just don't make noise and step gently so as not to disturb the peace in my kingdom.
Children follow the Snow Queen one after another. The waltz of snowflakes sounds.
S.K.- Here I have a casket with snowflakes, with which I sprinkle the earth, forests and fields. ( dchildren imitate snowflakes)
- Here ice floes for rivers, lakes and ponds are closed in a chest. (dchildrentappingshoulder to shoulder)
- This box stores the wind for snowstorms and blizzards. (dchildren run as if the wind drives them - in gusts)
Behind this castle are hidden stars for the winter sky. ( dchildren take the snow in their mittens and clap their hands to make the snow crumble)
This chest is my favorite. Frost sits in it - a cold nose. It is he who carries my winter supplies from the chests. Now he must return New Year people have already run out. Shouldn't we hurry it up?
Storyteller. - Thank you for your hospitality. We will go to meet him.
S.K. - Good. I'm tired of the noise, I need peace and cold. Farewell.
(The Snow Queen leaves, and the storyteller and children call Santa Claus. He skis around the corner of the building and waves his mitten.)
Winter games - relay races.
D.M. - Didn't the Snow Queen freeze you, dear Storyteller? Isn't it cold for my kids in the winter castle? We need to warm up a little, play and compete.
1. Hit the target with a snowball. (dchildren with small balls try to hit vertical targets of various shapes)
2. “Snowdrifts worry one, two, three. Freeze winter animals in the forest ... "
3. The game "Catch up, catch up"
Artistic design from ice cubes.
- I gave you a lot of gifts this year. And I want you to leave me a souvenir too. I have a secret bag, and in it are magic figurines. If you fold a picture on the snow of them, you will solve the mystery.
Children lay out patterns from multi-colored frozen ice.
Music sounds.
Well done.
Finished the job well, and now
Disperse and turn against the sun, ( turn their backs to the sun)
Ice sparkles with amber and garnet, silver,
Nature has brought these valuable colors to us.
Carrot ice is like amber, and beetroot ice is like a pomegranate,
Strawberry ice is an amethyst, and saffron is like a yellow leaf,
Emerald - green ice, St. John's wort - connoisseur of fashion
He repainted my dress in lilac color.
We were able to please Santa Claus. I will remember you for a whole year until next. And you do not forget me, do not get sick, temper!
And now it's time for you to return home. Goodbye, Storyteller.
(dthe children say goodbye to Santa Claus, and the Storyteller takes them out of the castle and removes their head attributes.Returning from a walk, independent activities are organized in creative centers: design, visual and theatrical)
The final stage of the project is the reflection on the results and the internal impression of the work done. This time the teacher suggested an interview with the family on the main questions: What did you learn? What did you like the most? What was not done for the project and can be done in the next one?
This form of work can also be carried out with a teacher - a psychologist from small subgroups.
"The Snow Queen" is a touching kind fairy tale-parable. The girl Gerda is looking for her named brother Kai. The boy was carried away by the Snow Queen. After hard ordeals, Gerda finds her brother in the Queen's palace. With tears, Gerda manages to melt the ice of Kai's heart, he becomes the same again. As adults, Kai and Gerda return home - this is the plot.
This whole "fabulous" story has a serious religious background. In The Snow Queen, a protestant duel with a gnostic myth unfolds.
Occultism flourished in Europe in the first half of the 19th century. Theosophical circles appeared everywhere, and interest in spiritualism and alchemy was fueled. One after another, various esoteric treatises, both genuine and fake, splashed into the press. In a word, everything that in the Middle Ages was intellectual fun ruling class, became the property of bourgeois mass culture with an inevitable touch of "tabloid". Interest in the religious brotherhoods of the Templars and Rosicrucians, Cathars and other heretical orders, allegedly existing to this day, has revived in society. secret knowledge which the Christian church has “hidden” for centuries. Occultism at that time did not yet have a social (for example, racist) vector and was an artistic phenomenon. Everyday Gnosticism has become a kind of aesthetic posture, an intellectual protest, like nihilism and atheism.
The Gnostic myth, with slight deviations and variations, stated the following: the creator of the existing world "Demiurge" is mistaken, thinking that he is the only God and there is no other besides him. He himself is deprived of knowledge about his higher parents: the Inexpressible Beginning - the Father, the Silence - the mother, about the higher worlds-eons - Mind and Truth, Logos and Life (twelve eons in total). The Demiurge is the fruit of the fear of his mother Sophia (or Wisdom), who once left the Pleroma (the world of Higher Intelligences, Fullness). This explains the squalor of the earthly world - its creator himself is imperfect, he is the fruit of fear, passions and sadness. The Devil, or the Archon, created by the Demiurge, appears to the Gnostics as an enlightener - the very product of the Demiurge, and the “knowledge” that the Demiurge is not “alpha and omega” is available to him.
All these heresies of Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Carpocrates and other Gnostic schools were successfully defeated at the dawn of Christianity. European centers of relapse in the form of sects of Cathars, Bogomils and others were also eliminated. But in the 19th humanistic century, the Church could no longer use the old punitive methods. As in the early days of Christianity, one had to engage in controversy.
The beginning of the fairy tale about the Snow Queen is the prehistory about the main Troll, or the Devil, who created a mirror, “in which everything good and beautiful diminished utterly, yet the worthless and ugly, on the contrary, appeared even brighter, it seemed even worse. A kind, pious human thought was reflected in the mirror with an unimaginable grimace. But this is how, according to the trolls, you can see the whole world and people in their true light. Wishing to laugh at the Creator and his angels, the trolls decided to get with their Mirror to the sky, but the blasphemy failed, the Mirror broke into billions of fragments. Each fragment retained the property of a mirror - to distort, disfigure. The person who got a fragment in the eye began to “see everything upside down or notice only the bad sides in every thing. For some people, the fragments hit right in the heart, and this was the worst: the heart turned into a piece of ice.
To debunk the Gnostic myth, Andersen creates his own fairy tale version of the appearance of the ideas of Gnosticism. The imperfection of the world is explained by the "optical" intrigues of the Devil. Kai is struck by two human optics - mental (eyes) and spiritual (heart). From a believing boy who sang along to Gerda a psalm about roses: “Roses are blooming, beauty, beauty! Soon we will see the baby Christ”, he turns into a gnostic – he leaves the world of feelings and Faith in the icy realm of Knowledge. This explains its ultimate rationality. He is no longer interested in roses (Andersen's "rose" is a symbol of Christ), Gerda, grandmother, people in general - everything causes contempt and ridicule. After all, everything is absurd in comparison with the "world revolution", that is, Gnosis. According to Andersen, the Gnostic's knowledge is just the diabolical ability to see the world as ugly.
The "correct" gnostic perception of the world makes the adept cold and callous. Kai is disgusted by the living emotional human life. He is tempted by snowflakes - strict regular shapes.
The Snow Queen is an ironic image of Sophia (Wisdom). Andersen emphasizes its non-Christian essence. In the beautiful eyes of the Queen "neither warmth nor meekness." Kai, who has hitched his sledge to the Queen's sleigh, is trying to read the Lord's Prayer in fear, but only the multiplication table comes to mind, which, of course, does not help.
Gnostic Kai, seeing the Snow Queen, is amazed at her "intelligent and charming face." (The Snow Queen is immaterial and therefore beautiful. Gerda, consisting of living flesh, is ugly for Kai, like all people.)
“He was not at all afraid of her (the Snow Queen) and told her that he knew all four operations of arithmetic, and even with fractions, he knew how many square miles and inhabitants in each country, and she only smiled in response. And then it seemed to him that he really knew little, and he fixed his eyes on the endless air space. Kai, as a declaration of love, lays out all his Knowledge - for Andersen it is ridiculous, like all other knowledge itself (it is always, to one degree or another, a “multiplication table”). Andersen is generally disgusted by any "correctness" of the world of the Cold Mind, Ice Knowledge. After all, even the northern lights in the Queen's palace have their own clear predictable algorithm.
The world of the Snow Queen, where Kai ends up, is the world of Ice. In fact, the place where Kai is located is Hell. In Dante, the ninth circle of Hell is an icy lake where traitors are. Lucifer himself froze into the middle of the lake. Kai is a traitor to the Christian faith - an apostate.
This is how Andersen describes the Snow Queen's chamber: “In the middle of the largest deserted snow hall was a frozen lake. The ice cracked on it into a thousand pieces, even and marvelously regular. In the middle of the lake stood the throne of the Snow Queen; on it she sat when she was at home, saying that she was sitting on the mirror of the mind.
According to Andersen, Kai ends up in Hell, and the Snow Queen, the Gnostic Wisdom, Sophia, appears as Death. Knowledge (ice, cold) in Kai's heart are signs of a corpse. Kai's immortality is a deep freeze, cryo-immortality, that is, a fake for eternal life.
Kai is busy with an "icy mind game", a typical alchemical task. From the first matter of Hell - ice - he adds the word "Eternity". Here is what the Queen says to Kai: “If you put down this word, you will be your own master, and I will give you the whole world and a pair of new skates.” In fact, she promises Kai freedom, but the second gift - "skates", a means of transportation in the world of ice, says that Kai cannot get out of here; his freedom is limited by the boundaries of the icy hell - the diabolical forces of Kai were deceived in advance.
It is no coincidence that the shattered Lake - the "Mirror of Reason" in the palace of the Snow Queen - has something in common with the Crooked Mirror of the Troll, which has broken into fragments. "Ice" and "glass" of Mind are equivalent substances. In essence, this is one and the same mirror, and it exists only in a broken version. The “Mirror of Mind” (the space of Gnosis) cannot be whole due to its initially “false” essence. Broken into fragments, it successfully reflects the negative nuances of being (and what else can a fragment reflect) - but it will never present a complete objective truthful picture of the universe. Not only is the Mirror of Mind a devilish charm, it is not even able to maintain its integrity. The Mirror of Mind is doomed to be broken, and the only way out is to lay out the word "Eternity" from its fragments, as if laying out the phrase: "a whole table" from the fragments of a table.
The representative of the Christian paradigm is Gerda. She personifies the world of human feelings, children's sincere faith. Monarchs (princess and prince), animals and birds (ravens, doves, reindeer) bow before the Christian meekness of Gerda. The tale also plays out the biblical motif of the repentant thief. Andersen has this Little Robber helping Gerda to get to Lapland.
Christian simplicity, children's perception of Gerda's existence defeats the icy wisdom of the Snow Queen. Kai, having gained Knowledge, laughs at the absurdity of the surrounding world. Gerda willingly cries for any reason (tears, sorrow are the companions of a Christian). These children's "flammable" tears of Gerda are able to melt the Ice of Reason. The sensual world wins Reason.
“Yes, the joy was such that even the ice floes began to dance, and when they got tired, they lay down and made up the very word that Kai asked to put together.” It is Christ, with whom Gerda came to Hell, that the world of Gnosis obeys, with Christ even the icy fragments of “knowledge” can become real Eternity. In search of Kai, Gerda finds herself in the magical garden of a sorceress. So that Gerda does not remember her brother, the old woman hides all the roses underground (the image of Christ). Gerda gradually forgets about Kai, but when she sees a painted rose on the old woman's hat, Gerda suddenly realizes that there are no living roses in the garden. She cries, and a rose bush appears from the ground, the haze passes. A garden without roses (without Christ) can only imitate Paradise. It is a place of sleep where there is no true fullness and joy.
Gerda and Kai return home. “Passing through the low door, they noticed that during this time they managed to become adults. Blooming rose bushes peered through the open window from the roof; right there were their highchairs. Kai and Gerda each sat down on their own and took each other's hands. The cold, desert splendor of the Snow Queen's halls was forgotten by them, like a heavy dream. Grandmother sat in the sun and loudly read the Gospel: “Unless you are like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” So they sat side by side, both already adults, but children in heart and soul, and in the yard it was a warm, fertile summer!
According to Andersen, true wisdom is in the childish, and therefore, enthusiastic, trusting perception of the world - God's beautiful creation. Everything else is from the evil one. Live like children, and do not tempt yourself with "Knowledge", it multiplies sorrow and leads to icy Hell - such is Andersen's message to supporters of the Gnostic myth.
During spring break I watched the Voronezh cartoon "The Snow Queen". The plot is cool, they really revised the personalities of Gerda, the troll (in the cartoon his name is Orm), Kai, the flower sorceress, the prince with the princess, the little robber and her mother, and the Snow Queen herself. In the hottest (for the Snow Queen - icy) moment, Gerda, with the help of her father's mirror (what does the mirror have to do with it?), learns the terrible secret of the Snow Queen ...
What do you think when I say "Snow Queen"? Do you think you describe her as beautiful, slender, tall, with silver hair, blue (sometimes lilac) eyes, white eyelashes, pale (sometimes blue) skin, but with a cold heart and a gloomy look (don't you think that this description sounds like to the description of the White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia?). Early versions of her image were as follows: she dresses in polar bear fur, a high crown, and a white dress.
Then they began to decorate her with dark cornflower blue hair (rarely black) with blue tips of a metallic sheen. The hair is decorated with diamonds and diamonds, the teeth of the crown have become like icicles. The queen herself has become slimmer, more beautiful (even more seductive), and her gaze is arrogant.
She is often depicted with a retinue of polar bears and reindeer, as well as flying in a sleigh pulled by white horses with Kai.
Hans Christian Andersen "settled" the Snow Queen on the island of Svalbard. The story "What happened in the halls of the Snow Queen and what happened next" (the last part of the tale) begins with a description of her palace:
“The walls of the palaces of the Snow Queen were swept by a blizzard, the windows and doors were done
violent winds. Hundreds of huge, aurora-lit halls stretched one after another; the largest stretched for many, many miles. How cold how it was deserted in these white, brightly sparkling halls! fun neverlooked over here! If only a rare bear party would be held herewith dances to the music of the storm, in which they could distinguish themselves with grace and skillwalking on their hind legs polar bears, or made up a party of cards withquarrels and fights, or, finally, agreed to have a conversation over a cup of coffee, little whitechanterelle gossips - no, it never happened!
Cold, deserted, dead! Northern lights flashed and burned socorrectly, that it was possible to calculate with accuracy at what minute the lightwill intensify and in which way it will weaken. In the middle of the biggest desert snowy hallthere was a frozen lake. The ice cracked on it into thousands of pieces, even andsurprisingly correct. In the middle of the lake stood the throne of the Snow Queen; she is on itsat when she was at home, saying that she was sitting on the mirror of the mind; by her in my opinion, it was the only and best mirror in the world.”
Our generation is accustomed to looking at this woman as a cruel, human-hating mistress of ice and snow. However, readers of Andersen's fairy tales rarely remember a character similar to the Snow Queen - the Maiden of Ice, who lives in the mountains, herds wild goats, and passionately dreamed of completely capturing Rudy (in infancy, Rudy captured his spirit, then, under the guise of Annette, her soul, and then before Babette's eyes, her body ). This is the symbol of deceit. The image of a tough misanthrope and a murderer, whose tool is cold and cold, has firmly taken root in our minds; The Snow Queen can really kill birds with her icy breath, and with a kiss she can freeze an evil heart, or a spoiled one, in the case of Kai.
But this is slander.
In films about the Snow Queen, you can often see that she is the mistress of an evil mirror, which then broke and fragments of various sizes scattered all over the world. But this is not true: the creator of the mirror is an evil troll. In the cartoon "The Snow Queen" 2012-2013. the mirror, on the contrary, is not malicious, but has the function of an "elixir of truth." His troll Orm did not create, he was made by the father of Kai and Gerda - the master of mirror affairs Vegart (or simply - the master Vegart). Lapland says: "If you put it at the right angle, then you will see what they want to hide from your eyes."
In the 7th tale of the Snow Queen G.Kh. Andersen (The tale "The Snow Queen" is divided into 7 tales), the reader learns that the Snow Queen gave Kai a task: to assemble the word "Eternity" from ice using the Chinese puzzle method. Also says:
“Now I will fly to warmer climes,” said the Snow Queen. “I will look into black cauldrons.
"Black Cauldrons" she called Vesuvius and Etna.
You are shocked - it turns out that the Snow Queen can not only send blizzards and blizzards, but also decorate window panes with frosty patterns! She travels to warmer climes like the Mediterranean and can look into volcanoes. This is obvious - she cools their ardor! And also, for completing the task, she promises Kai a reward: “to be your own master” (i.e., lets him go free) and a pair of skates to boot. And when Gerda came, and in her absence, Kai was disenchanted, and together they put together the word “Eternity”, “Kai was not afraid of meeting the Snow Queen”, and she fulfilled her word - gave him freedom and a pair of skates. In the films, this moment and gift were often missed, as if the Snow Queen, like the Maiden of Ice, says about Kai: “Mine! Will not give it back! My!".
We return to the Snow Queen from the same cartoon. Surely, each of you asked yourself the question: “Why does the Snow Queen hate creatively talented people, especially the father of Kai and Gerda - Vegart, the mirror master?” Here is what the Laplander Gerda told (and this story was very useful to her) ...
Once upon a time in Lapland there was a girl Irma, the daughter of a sorcerer. Well, it's clear who she went with her superpowers into. Her kindness, love for nature and animals made her the most powerful witch in the area. But many people perceived it from the side that they inspired their children, pushing hatred towards the sorcerer's daughter. But she didn't deserve it! - you say. Irma, feeling that her abilities in words became a curse for those around her, took offense at everyone with all her childish touchiness, and cursed them, not realizing that the curse was directed against her. “... And the cold of the cave lake captured her mind ...”, - the Laplander finishes the story.
... And so Gerda looked at the “right angle” of the mirror, and we see that the Snow Queen is none other than Irma with a blue and embittered face, whitened hair, and a “frozen” mind and heart. In the arms of Gerda, Irma returns to her former appearance and performs her first good deed in many years of existence under the name of the Snow Queen - she unfreezes the heart of the half-dead Kai.
After much thought, I came to the conclusion that I made a new perfect discovery regarding the human soul: the Snow Queen is not a monster at all. The Snow Queen in the story of Irma (the same cartoon in question) is a woman who wants people to see her for who she really is (and this is little Irma). It makes her angry when creatively gifted people who can see the world a little wider than other people (scientifically proven that an artist can see 3 colors more than an ordinary person - about 150 colors), people portray her as an evil and cruel bitch waiting for any petty defenselessness against the cold to freeze a person to death. Kai, by the way, is also no exception ... Remember his portrait of the queen (although according to the fairy tale, Kai, when fragments of an evil mirror fell into his eye and heart, became interested in snowflake patterns). That's why she abducted people who, with the exception of Kai, turned into ice statues during the transfer. I also discovered a character trait that is constantly forgotten - the Snow Queen true to her word. She fulfilled her promise when Kai (with the help of Gerda) put together the word "Eternity".
It's really greatest discoveries, which should be considered by researchers of Andersen's creativity and folklore as needed. In our timethe domain of the mistress of ice and snow is shrinking and shrinking. I ask you, people: do not offend the Snow Queen! Who knows our cartoon, do not offend Irma!
Soviet censorship cut out 956 words from Andersen's famous fairy tale. "The Table" invites you to reflect on the meaning of banknotes: the logic of the censor is not always obvious
Four years ago, on the eve of the next anniversary of the birth of the great Danish storyteller, the NTV channel aired a story called “The Priests Rewrote The Snow Queen”, which deals with a new edition of the famous fairy tale by G.-H. Andersen, released on the initiative of the Kuban priests. With surprise and obvious irony, the TV news host tells that in the new edition "the main character sings psalms instead of an empty game of dice and defeats the evil queen not by the power of his love, but with the help of angels."
The clergyman's explanation that this is exactly what Andersen's fairy tale looked like in the original is presented by the journalist as a very dubious version. And at the end of the plot, a reprinted fairy tale by A.S. Pushkin "About the priest and his worker Balda", where the "priest, oatmeal forehead" is replaced by the merchant "Kuzma Ostolop, nicknamed Aspen Forehead".
having blotted out God's fairy tale, the censors decided not to embarrass children's imagination with Satan
To clear up all the misunderstandings today (and even in 2013), it was enough just to open Wikipedia. Not thinking of standing up for unauthorized censors, of whom, indeed, there were quite a few, I will only note that the “merchant Kuzma Ostolop” really arose from censorship considerations, but not today in the Kuban, but in 1840, when this Pushkin’s fairy tale was first published. And the controversial edit belongs to the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who was the publisher of the book.
A. Barinov. Troll apprentices with a mirror
As for The Snow Queen, here NTV journalists acted as defenders of just the censored version of the tale. It so happened that this version is familiar to most of us, even to those whose childhood was already in the free 1990s: new books were reprinted from Soviet publications, where Andersen's fairy tales, as it turned out, were published with significant cuts. Basically, these banknotes concerned references to God, the Christian faith of heroes, Christian images and symbols. But there were other abbreviations, the meaning of which cannot be explained right off the bat ...
The Stol compared two versions of the fairy tale "The Snow Queen" - full and censored - trying to clarify what meanings "fall out" in the Soviet version and how some innocent details could alert the censor.
Mirror and its fragments
Andersen's fairy tale begins with a parable about a magic mirror made by an evil troll. In a translation close to the Danish original, it is said about him like this: “... once upon a time there was a troll, angry and deceiving; it was the devil himself. The Soviet version sounds a little different: "... once upon a time there was a troll, an evil, wicked, real devil." At first glance, a minor change - ";" changes to “,” and “it was itself” to “existing” - in fact, it changes the whole meaning. The stable combination "real devil" in Russian means someone very evil and in this context looks like an epithet - a definition used in a figurative sense, containing a comparison: evil, like the devil. Meanwhile, Andersen focuses on the fact that it was the same biblical devil.
in the Soviet version, the boy did not even try to resist the dark forces that carried him away
The Soviet censor, having carefully blotted out God from the whole fairy tale, decided not to embarrass the children's imagination with Satan either. This is probably why another phrase a little lower will completely disappear, where the troll is once again directly called the devil: "The devil was terribly amused by all this."
And the devil was amused by the fact that his mirror distorted everything beautiful and good. The devil troll's disciples ran around the world with him, playing with the distorted reflections of people. Finally, they wanted to get to heaven, "to laugh at the angels and the Creator himself." In the Soviet version, the second part of the sentence is missing, which makes it not entirely clear why the troll's students needed to climb to the sky.
boy and girl
Getting rid of the direct mention of God and the devil, the censors continued to secularize the text. Next in line were the psalms mentioned in the NTV story (only there is no “empty game of dice” in any of the versions of the tale, here, obviously, the journalist’s imagination has already worked). According to Andersen, Kai and Gerda once, playing together, sang a Christmas psalm, two lines from it are given in the tale:
At the same time, the children looked at the spring sun, and it seemed to them that the infant Christ himself was looking at them from there. All this in the Soviet translation, of course, is missing.
I. Lynch. Illustration for the fairy tale "The Snow Queen"
In the same chapter, when the Snow Queen kidnaps Kai, he, according to the original, "wanted to read the Lord's Prayer, but he had one multiplication table in his mind." In the Soviet version, the boy did not even try to resist the dark forces that carried him away.
Flower garden of a woman who knew how to conjure
The next note, the largest in size in the entire tale, seems rather mysterious, because the excluded text does not contain direct Christian allusions. After going in search of Kai, Gerda spends some time at the sorceress's house. There, she engages in a conversation with the flowers, asking if they know if her friend is still alive? And each flower in response tells her a little story, which has nothing to do with the subject of her search. Obviously, for the author, each of these stories - and there are only six of them - was important for some reason, since the flower garden was even included in the title of the chapter.
Edmund Dulac. Illustration for the fairy tale "The Snow Queen"
In the Soviet edition, only one of the six mini-stories remains - told by a dandelion. At the center of this story is a meeting between a grandmother and her granddaughter: “An old grandmother came out to sit in the yard. Her granddaughter, a poor maid, came from among the guests and kissed the old woman. A girl's kiss is more precious than gold - it comes straight from the heart." Hearing these words, Gerda immediately remembered her grandmother and mentally promised her to return soon with Kai. So one of the stories is relatively smoothly integrated into the main plot, and the Soviet reader is not even aware of the existence of five more. And these stories are:
- The fiery lily depicts the scene of the sacrifice of an Indian widow, who, according to ancient custom, is burned alive on a funeral pyre along with the body of her deceased husband.
- Bindweed talks about a pretty girl in a knight's castle, who, leaning over the railing of the balcony, looks out in excitement for her lover.
- The snowdrop speaks in an inexplicably sad voice about two sisters and their little brother: the sisters are swinging on a swing board, and the little brother is blowing soap bubbles nearby.
- Hyacinths tell about three beautiful sisters who, in the waves of a certain sweet aroma, disappeared into the forest, and then three coffins floated out of the thicket, in which the beauties lay. "The evening bell tolls for the dead!" - ends the story.
- Narcissus sang about a half-dressed dancer in a closet under the roof, she dresses in all white and clean, dancing.
She read the evening prayer, and the winds subsided, as if asleep.
Why these stories "drop out" of the Soviet edition, one can only guess. There are distant religious allusions in only two - about a bell ringing for the dead, and about an Indian widow. Perhaps they were considered too adult, inaccessible to the understanding of the kids - and Gerda does not understand them, but are they there for something? Something to think about anyway: children's classic turned out to be not so simple.
Prince and Princess
In the next chapter, an inexplicable bill comes across again. Here the raven tells Gerda about the princess who wanted to get married and arranged a casting for the position of her future husband, the prince. From the very doors of the palace stretched a queue of suitors-candidates. Further in the original text, a detail is reported: “The suitors wanted to eat and drink, but even a glass of water was not taken out of the palace. True, those who were smarter stocked up on sandwiches, but the thrifty no longer shared with their neighbors, thinking to themselves: “Let them starve, grow thin - the princess will not take them!” ”What could confuse the censors here is incomprehensible.
Anastasia Arkhipova. Illustration for the fairy tale "The Snow Queen"
Little Robber
In the chapter about the robbers who robbed Gerda, for some reason they decided to hide a small episode from the relationship between the bearded old robber woman and her naughty daughter. Deciding to let her captive go when her mother falls asleep, the little robber jumps out of bed, hugs her mother, pulls her beard and says: “Hello, my little goat!” For this, the mother gave her daughter clicks on the nose, so that the girl's nose turned red and blue. “But all this was done with love,” the author notes. This episode is not in the Soviet edition.
Lapland and Finnish
Further, almost all the interventions of the censor are logical, in any case, understandable. Once in the garden of the Snow Queen, Gerda encounters the "vanguards" of her troops: the girl is attacked by living snowflakes that have turned into monsters. Unlike Kai, who once found himself in a similar situation, Gerda manages to read the prayer "Our Father" - and immediately angels in helmets with shields and spears in their hands come to her aid. The legion of angels defeats the snow monsters, and the girl can now boldly move forward. There is no prayer and no angels in the Soviet fairy tale: Gerda simply boldly goes forward, but it is not clear where the monsters go. However, the “normal” communist logic: a person overcomes dangers on his own, and God has nothing to do with it; Gagarin flew into space - he did not see God, etc.
In the halls of the Snow Queen
In the last chapter, again, according to Andersen, the Lord helps Gerda: "She read the evening prayer, and the winds subsided, as if they had fallen asleep." The Soviet Gerda herself acts as the mistress of the winds: “And before her the winds subsided ...”
Finding Kai cold and indifferent, Gerda began to cry. Her tears melted his frozen heart, he looked at the girl, and she sang that same Christmas psalm:
Roses are blooming... Beauty, beauty!
We will soon see the Christ child.
Vladislav Yerko. Illustration for the fairy tale "The Snow Queen"
And then Kai burst into tears. In the Soviet version, he did not need a psalm for this.
They returned back on a deer, which had previously delivered the girl to the palace of the Snow Queen. In the original, the deer returned for the children not alone, but with a doe. “He brought with him a young deer mother, her udder was full of milk; she made Kai and Gerda drunk with them and kissed them right on the lips. This detail, for unknown reasons, disappears in the Soviet edition.
The fairy tale ends with the children returning home, who discovered that they had grown up during this time. They sit and listen as the grandmother reads the Gospel: “Unless you are like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven!” And only then did they understand the meaning of the old psalm:
Roses are blooming... Beauty, beauty!
We will soon see the Christ child.
Needless to say, all this is cut out in the publications familiar to us from childhood and the film.