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In 1939, Aleksandr Volkov (1891-1977) published Wizard of the
Emerald City, a revised version of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz. Only a line on the copyright page explained the book
as a "reworking" of the American story. Readers credited Volkov as
author rather than translator. Volkov, an unknown and inexperienced
author before World War II, tried to break into the politically
charged field of Soviet children's literature with an American
fairy tale. During the height of Stalin's purges, Volkov adapted
and published this fairy tale in the Soviet Union despite enormous,
sometimes deadly, obstacles. Marketed as Volkov's original work,
Wizard of the Emerald City spawned a series that was translated
into more than a dozen languages and became a staple of Soviet
popular culture, not unlike Baum's fourteen-volume Oz series in the
United States. Volkov's books inspired a television series, plays,
films, musicals, animated cartoons, and a museum. Today, children's
authors and fans continue to add volumes to the Magic Land series.
Several generations of Soviet Russian and Eastern European children
grew up with Volkov's writings, yet know little about the author
and even less about his American source, L. Frank Baum. Most
Americans have never heard of Volkov and know nothing of his impact
in the Soviet Union, and those who do know of him regard his
efforts as plagiarism. Erika Haber demonstrates how the works of
both Baum and Volkov evolved from being popular children's
literature and became compelling and enduring cultural icons in
both the US and USSR/Russia, despite being dismissed and ignored by
critics, scholars, and librarians for many years.
Global Children's Literature in the College Classroom explores the
importance of children's literature as a pedagogical resource in
any college course. It can be used to introduce a complex topic,
give students a glimpse into a specific culture, or expand the way
students think about education and teaching. Global children's
literature is particularly useful in language classrooms, education
programs, and classes that discuss globalism and colonialism. This
book includes fifteen essays (representing fifteen countries and
eight languages) divided into four sections. The first section of
essays, "Across the University," looks at children's literature in
non-traditional settings including British literature and
multicultural studies, which considers what children's literature
specifically brings to these courses. The second section, "Borders
and Crossings," examines how children's literature defines or
defies political and cultural separations. The third section,
"Childhood Studies and Education," considers the importance of
global children's literature in education classrooms as a way of
promoting diversity and inclusion. The fourth section, "Non-English
Texts and Texts in Translation," focuses on the use of children's
literature to teach language and folklore traditions in France,
Russia, and Italy. The essay that closes this section discusses
using children's literature to teach translation skills at the
University of Taipei.
Erika Haber's analysis of the interplay between literature and
culture in the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s breaks new
ground not only in our understanding of this relationship, but also
in our appreciation of the literary genre popularized at that time
by the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez magical realism. The
Soviets perceived Garcia Marquez as a Socialist, and they
sanctioned his magical realism when other writing styles were
outlawed as a natural extension of socialist realism. Haber
discusses the use of magical realism in Soviet literature, focusing
especially on two non-Slavic writers: Fasil Iskander, of Abkhazia,
and Chingiz Aitmatov, of Kyrgyzstan. She explores how these writers
used literary tools of subversion and successfully employed magical
realism in rebellion against the prescription of national
conformity in art. In critical readings of Iskander and Aitmatov,
Haber demonstrates how these writers juxtaposed their native myth
with Soviet myth, thus undermining the primary message of socialist
realism by suggesting a plurality of worlds and truths."
Recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Faculty Research Achievement
Award in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
at Syracuse University. In 1939, Aleksandr Volkov (1891-1977)
published Wizard of the Emerald City, a revised version of L. Frank
Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Only a line on the copyright
page explained the book as a ""reworking"" of the American story.
Readers credited Volkov as author rather than translator. Volkov,
an unknown and inexperienced author before World War II, tried to
break into the politically charged field of Soviet children's
literature with an American fairy tale. During the height of
Stalin's purges, Volkov adapted and published this fairy tale in
the Soviet Union despite enormous, sometimes deadly, obstacles.
Marketed as Volkov's original work, Wizard of the Emerald City
spawned a series that was translated into more than a dozen
languages and became a staple of Soviet popular culture, not unlike
Baum's fourteen-volume Oz series in the United States. Volkov's
books inspired a television series, plays, films, musicals,
animated cartoons, and a museum. Today, children's authors and fans
continue to add volumes to the Magic Land series. Several
generations of Soviet Russian and Eastern European children grew up
with Volkov's writings, yet know little about the author and even
less about his American source, L. Frank Baum. Most Americans have
never heard of Volkov and know nothing of his impact in the Soviet
Union, and those who do know of him regard his efforts as
plagiarism. Erika Haber demonstrates how the works of both Baum and
Volkov evolved from being popular children's literature and became
compelling and enduring cultural icons in both the US and
USSR/Russia, despite being dismissed and ignored by critics,
scholars, and librarians for many years.
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