Marking the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory. The Presidential Library’s portal illustrates Korney Chukovsky’s military tale

On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory, one can recall a unique publication, an electronic copy of which is available on the Presidential Library’s portal. This is ... a "military tale" "Overcome Barmaley!" by Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky, whose 138th birthday is March 31st. The poet, translator, one of the most famous Soviet writers, whose tales have grown more than one generation, "put an end" to the struggle of Dr. Aibolit and the evil robber Barmaley during the most difficult period of the Great Patriotic War for the Soviet Union - in 1942.

Before finishing work on a new fairy tale, Chukovsky read separate chapters to the children and invited them to come up with names for them. The writer did not play with children - he really used their advice, preparing the work for publication. Chukovsky brought his tale to the court of adults, including colleagues in the literary workshop - Anna Akhmatova, Alexei Tolstoy, as well as Chukovsky, who were evacuated in Tashkent at that time. In a letter to his son Nikolai Korney Ivanovich wrote that Akhmatova, Tolstoy and other "understanding people... said that this would be my best fairy tale".    

First, excerpts from the tale were published in the Pravda Vostoka newspaper; then it was fully printed in Pionerskaya Pravda. In 1943, the fairy tale came out in separate books in Yerevan, Tashkent and Penza (these publications are presented on the Presidential Library’s portal). Soon a flurry of criticism fell upon it. As a result, the fairy tale was removed from the collection of Chukovsky, which was being prepared for publication, and Stalin personally deleted from the anthology of Soviet poetry. March 1, 1944 the Pravda newspaper published a devastating article "The vulgar and harmful work by K. Chukovsky" where "Overcome Barmaley!" was recognized not just nonsense, but "politically harmful" nonsense.

Korney Chukovsky’s military tale in the Soviet Union was not reprinted. Only in the 1990s “Overcome Barmaley!” was released again.

So what did the critics criticize in the “fun victory tale” about the struggle of the brave inhabitants of the country of Aibolitiya with the fierce barmaley army? The whole fairy tale is a military chronicle of the struggle not for life but for death, where machine guns are fired, grenades explode, guns rumble.

It all started with the fact that Aibolit cured a sparrow who was bitten by an “evil-evil bad snake” and refused to treat a hippopotamus, because that “bloodthirsty villain / He strangled four swans”. Also, the gorilla who swallowed the wasp, “... let it suffer, / Until it wears out from gluttony”, a wolf and a shark fell out of favor with a good doctor who never refused to help a doctor. The patience of animals came to an end: “And the shark of the Karakul / Roth opened wide: / “You treat my children, / And don’t dare sparrows! ... And the gorilla grinned / And, growling, it said: / “We are ferocious beasts, / We are bloody villains. / We spare no one, / Who is kinder and weaker. / We are teeth, we are claws, / We are a hoof and a fang / These defenseless creatures / tear, bite!”

And a war broke out with hares, squirrels, cranes, deer and other pretty and brave inhabitants of the country of Aibolitiya against bloodthirsty jackals, jaguars and rhinos, led by the merciless and treacherous Barmaley…

"A noble, stronger and braver, / Valiant Vanya Vasilchikov comes to help Aibolit…

But Vanya entrusted the fate of Barmaley to the good animals: “Will we Spare Barmaley, / Bloodthirsty villain?”. But the animals were not so kind: the defeated Barmaley was sentenced: “You are a traitor and a murderer, / Marauder and flayer! / You listen, bloodsucker. / Nationwide sentence: / Hated pirate / Shoot from a machine gun / Immediately!” / And immediately on a quiet autumn morning, / At eight o’clock on Sunday, / The sentence was carried out”.

The fairy tale ends with universal rejoicing, dancing with a feast for the whole world - with gingerbread and sweets.

Later, Chukovsky was often criticized for the childish rigidity of the work. According to the writer, he wanted to convince even young children that “in this Holy War, the battle is for the high values of world culture, humanism, democracy, and social freedom”.

We need to recall last tale about Aibolit and Barmaley and the mood with which Chukovsky wrote it. He did not compose fairy tales for about eight years, explaining this by the fact that “he did not want to re-sing himself”, but, being evacuated to Tashkent, he decided. The work went hard. "Night. I don’t sleep at all. I am writing a new fairy tale. Started it on February 1st. At first it wasn’t written at all... But on the night of March 1 and 2, he wrote dozens of lines directly - like a somnambulist. I wrote poetry sooner than I usually write prose; the pen barely kept up with his thoughts. And now it’s stalled. It is written to the words: You, the machine-gunner monkey ... And what further to write, I don’t know”, - Chukovsky complained in his diary at the very beginning of March 1942. This is not surprising: he was worried about his sons Nikolai and Boris and their family, with whom the war had separated him.

April 1 of the same year Chukovsky writes in his diary: “This is my birthday. Exactly LX years... My birthday gifts are like that. Boba went missing. The last letter from him was dated October 4 last year from near Vyazma. Kolya is in Leningrad. With a damaged leg, on the most dangerous front. Kolya has become homeless: his apartment was bombed. “Obviously, my whole summer house burned out in Peredelkino - with the whole library, which I had been collecting all my life”.

And “here with such cards in his hands” Chukovsky wrote “a cheerful victory tale”...

After 10 years, in 1953, Korney Chukovsky admits: “I reread “Overcome Barmaley!” and I really didn’t like the fairy tale"...

The merits and demerits of the tale can be argued. But be that as it may, it is also a literary monument of the Great Patriotic War, like many other works created in those heroic years.

An electronic copy of the unique edition of 1943 is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.