The Pushkin Myth in modern literature for children (based on the works of K. Strelnikova, M. Bershadskaya, Ai eN (Irina Krestyeva))

Marinina Yuliya Anatol'evna PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Russian and Foreign Philology; Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University named after Kozma Minin 603095, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanova str., 1 umarinina@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Malyutina Oksana Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0009-0004-2133-0807 PhD in Law Associate Professor; Department of Civil Law and Procedure; Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation 603095, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanova str., 1, room 406 maljutinaoa@mail.ru

The Pushkin myth is undoubtedly the most significant literary myth in Russian culture, which does not lose its relevance over time, on the contrary, it is becoming more widespread: "The state idea–the Pushkin brand, born at the end of the XIX century, has been transformed many times since then, leaving, however, some common features: Pushkin is a humanitarianst, Pushkin is a genius, Pushkin is integrity ("our everything"), Pushkin is an expression of the spirit (national or international), etc." ^{[1, p. 154]}.

Understanding the mechanisms of formation and representation of the Pushkin myth in modern culture has become the subject of reflection for many researchers in domestic and foreign literary studies ^{[2, 3, 4, 5, 6]}: Russian Russian Pushkin as one of the creators of the "Russian Idea" ^{[3, p.10]}, Pushkin is "the demiurge of the entire literary-centric Russian culture"^{[4, p.174]} and others. A. Smith talks about the role of F.M. Dostoevsky's "Pushkin's Speech" in the formation of the Pushkin myth ^[7], V.V. Markovich explores the "transformation of the Pushkin myth" in the poetry of the Leningrad underground ^{[8, p. 4]}. Today, the Pushkin myth is actively functioning in the Internet space in creolized texts, memes, motivators and demotivators, jokes, pie rhymes, etc. ^{[9, p. 360]}.

T.G. Shemetova defines the specifics of the Pushkin myth among other socio-cultural myths: "The Pushkin myth occupies a special place among other domestic myths, if only because of all other "literary" and even other personalized myths, it is the only fundamentally "national" (nationwide) one that has grown into consciousness at the level of a stereotypical scheme" ^{[10, p. 122]}. Indeed, his existence as a "nationwide" is confirmed, among other things, by the spread of the myth of Pushkin in literature for preschool and primary school children, which, by its nature, is bi-directional and simultaneously addressed to both the child and the adult reader.

In the "History of the tenth. Pushkin and Company" (2015) from the cycle "Big Little Girl" by Maria Bershadskaya, Sonya, a friend of the main character of the stories, Zhenya, "chains" herself to the window frame with a bicycle lock: "... I decided to play Prisoner.

"What prisoner?" I was surprised.

– In this one. Who sits outside the window in a damp dungeon" ^{[11, pp. 6-7]}.

Maria Bershadskaya starts from the well-known and commonly used expression "And who is to blame? Pushkin?" (there may be another verb in place of the verb 'guilty'). As L.I. Saraskina notes, "And who will turn off the light? Pushkin?"– in this expression, as well as in its numerous analogues, the connection with the real biography and personality of the first poet of Russia is almost completely lost: no one uttering such a phrase needs to know anything about Pushkin's poetry or about himself" ^{[12, p.130]}. In Bershadskaya's text, this is presented as follows: "Who hasn't finished the porridge again? Pushkin?!”, “And who's going to clean up their shoes? Pushkin, or what?!“…

... And suddenly it turned out that Pushkin was really to blame for Sonya turning into a prisoner and crying under the window" ^{[11, p. 7]}. In the situation of "crying under the window" <Our italics. – Y.M.> there is also a reference to Pushkin's texts: "The Prisoner", "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Heroes", "The Tale of Tsar Saltan..." etc.

The poet's appearance in the lives of the children – the heroes of the story – is explained very simply: any "cultured person", according to Sonya's grandmother, should know who A.S. Pushkin is, because children "go through him at school" ^{[11, p.30]}.

In addition, the text of the story about a big little girl includes facts from the life of A.S. Pushkin (dates of birth, marriage, the growth of the poet and N.N. Goncharova), various ways of quoting Pushkin's texts ("Sad time!..", "Winter Morning" ("Frost and sun...")) and graphic images showing the poet in different situations: in a bathing suit, at a cupboard with blueberry jam, with a bird's nest on his head, etc. (a book with illustrations by Sasha Ivoilova was published by KompasGid publishing house).

Illustrations can also be called a kind of "quotes": they resemble the painting by Pyotr Konchalovsky "Pushkin in Mikhailovsky" (1930-1932). Perhaps it is this portrait that forms the basis of illustrations in connection with the history of the painting itself: the original version represented the demythologization of the image of the great poet shown in bed with bare feet, on the one hand, and the creation of a new myth – about the simplicity and closeness of genius to each person. However, this version of the image did not correspond to the official idea of Pushkin, and his legs had to be "covered" with a blanket ^{[13, p.30]}.

Sonya comes up with and tells his Wife and Mishka stories about how Pushkin washed the window, wrote poetry ("mixing" words and "fluffing" rhymes), did not like to comb his hair and did not wash curtains, etc. These anecdotal stories about Pushkin and his entourage are always told on occasion and correlate with the activities of the children. It is Sonya who is the creator of these stories, because "My great-grandfather was a Pushkin scholar, he studied Pushkin all his life. And maybe I'll discover something that no one knew about at all. Even my great-grandfather" ^{[11, p. 13]}. Obviously, there are autobiographical motives in the appeal to the personality and creativity of A.S. Pushkin: "My mother, studying at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Tartu, listened to lectures by Y. M. Lotman. A.S. Pushkin was idolized in the family, my mother read a lot to her daughter" ^[14].

At the end of the book, Sonya writes poetry herself: "When Pushkin grew up big, he only liked noodle soup. Refused cutlets. I couldn't stand the vinaigrette..." ^{[11, p.45]}. After reading her poem, Sonya remembers the bicycle lock code and is released. The code – 199 – indicates the birthday of the girl herself, on September 19: "What does Pushkin have to do with it?!

– What's that got to do with it?! Sonya was indignant and, spreading her arms, collapsed on the sofa. – I've read about Pushkin. And I wrote a verse. Don't you understand?! So, I am also a poet..." ^{[11, p.46]}. There is an identification of the heroine of the story, Sonya, and the hero of her stories, A.S. Pushkin. Thus, in the story of Maria Bershadskaya, A.S. Pushkin is a character close to children, very "his own" and understandable to them, his life or some obscure, unfamiliar things are easily imagined, interpreted through understandable categories ("Before there was no Internet. And if you wrote something, how do you know if everyone likes it or not? That's what KID GLOVES were invented for. Instead of likes. Pushkin read his poems, and everyone threw gloves at him. And then he collected them and counted them. He had both one hundred and two hundred likes" ^{[11, p. 12]}).

The main character of the collection of short stories "The Magnificent Wreath of Wreaths" (2017) by Kristina Strelnikova invented the "time machine". He gets acquainted with Pushkin, Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Prishvin, Paustovsky and other writers. A.S. Pushkin in stories about Vena Venchikov is also very close to the boy: they talk, discuss poems, and then Venya shares in literature lessons memories of meetings with Alexander Sergeevich (about how Pushkin writes poetry with goose feathers and as the horses of Pushkin and Lermontov argue, which of them the poets dedicated more poems to).

The work of A.S. Pushkin as a precedent text is included in the works of K. Strelnikova: they use different types of citations: verbatim and non-verbal, allusions and reminiscences ("Pushkin dreams, writes down in a notebook everything he sees: frost and the sun, a wonderful day, the moon like a pale spot" ^{[15, p.8]}; "A friend of my harsh days, my decrepit horse." And again: "I remember a wonderful moment, you appeared to me like a fleeting vision, like a horse of pure beauty" ^{[15, p.11]}). Also included in the stories of Kristina Strelnikova are facts from the poet's life: the duel, his visits to Mikhailovskoye, his role in the formation of the Russian literary language, and others, i.e. the image of A.S. Pushkin is embedded in the conventional historical and cultural context of the XIX century (he writes with goose feathers and ink, wears a cape and a top hat) and generally corresponds to the ideas about the life of the writer, it is not transferred to the present. However, here, as in the text of Maria Bershadskaya, comic situations are created (Pushkin "sat on his favorite oak tree, dangled his legs and talked with mermaids" ^{[15, p.32]} or the dispute between Pushkin's horse and Lermontov's horse), a humorous effect is achieved through the transformation of quotations from the writer's works and word creation, and the source should be understandable to the main audience – children. For example, these are references to the introduction to the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila": "... And Pushkin began to read healing incantatory poems to him. Especially about Lukomorye and the Black Sea region. That is, on the contrary" ^{[15, p.32]}.

Currently, we can say that the very "Word "Pushkin" has become the conceptual core of culture: it is found in anecdotes, sayings, sayings. All this is the result of the development of the Pushkin myth by modern society, represented in the space of Russian literature" ^{[16, p.11]}. It is on the functioning and meaning of the word that the text of the story is based.Ushkin and Pixels" (2022) by AI eN (Irina Borisovna Krestyeva). The main character is "the smallest student in the class" Pashka Ushkin ^{[17, p.95]}. The story contains references to the texts of A.S. Pushkin and his biography, they are introduced into the narrative through the image of literature lessons (in the chapter "Ushkin, Pushkin and the learning process", the guys retell the "Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", they recall the duel). There is also a comparison of the situations in which the heroes of the story find themselves (Pasha and Lusha got lost in the Prioksky Reserve) and the heroes of A.S. Pushkin. Lusha says: "Now I understand the problem of Pushkin's heroes in the story "Blizzard"!" ^{[17, p.110]}. The sound of the initial and surname pushes Pasha to think that he and Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin are similar, and Pashka also decides to become a writer and composes a fairy tale about the "golden fish" (the son of a goldfish).

The finale of the story and Pavlik's essay show that the main thing is to be yourself, not to try to be like someone else, even if it is Pushkin himself: "Actually, I will first be a great artist, and then the president. And between the president and the artist, I probably will be, I don't know who else. By anyone. But I will not become a science fiction writer for anything, and I will not think of composing any comics or musicals" ^{[17, pp. 187-188]}. Aya eN tells the story of a hero who is both like everyone else and not like that ("Pavlik had plump lips, curly hair, palms wet with excitement and a strange, different view of the world from everyone else. It so happened that in his previous life Pavlik was a little sea turtle, and in the next he was going to become a great land hypnotist. Now his life was intermediate, ordinary, but it was there. It was! And it was so great!

Pashka silently put the ball with patches on the desk and went out into the spring" ^{[17, p. 189]}).

The reference to the name of the great Russian poet in this text suggests to the reader that every person is unique, everyone is special.

M.N. Virolainen, exploring the formation of the Pushkin myth, notes that the idea of it enters the consciousness of the Russian person from childhood: "The idea that Pushkin is the "first" is firmly entrenched in our minds in a school—like way. He is both the "first poet" (i.e., the "best", "main" poet), and the "creator of the Russian literary language", and the "first realist"..." ^{[18, p. 335]}. In connection with this statement, the study of the Pushkin myth in children's literature is considered important and timely: an appeal to the poet's work and life not only in the aspect of studying his works in literature lessons, but also in a wide cultural field ensures the existence of a national myth in which Alexander Sergeevich is both a great Russian poet, a genius, and at the same time At the same time, a person living the simplest life, close to everyone.

Today, "in the context of Russian literature of the XX-XXI centuries, the image of Pushkin generates a new mythological space in which new, original ones are added to established mythologems: various writers build plots that help express today's understanding of life in general, fate and Pushkin's poetry in particular" ^{[19, p.206]}. The Pushkin myth in modern culture continues to be created using new forms: the Internet space, literary memes and social advertising, seasonal restaurant menus, etc. However, the basis is the perception of the Pushkin myth as part of national cultural memory, an element of the "myth of Great Russian Literature" as a whole ^{[20, p.50]} - remains unshakeable regardless of the new forms of embodiment.