| Two hundred years ago Vladimir Dal was born “He was, first of all, a man of what is called a jack of all trades. Whatever Dahl undertook, he managed to master everything,” this is how the great surgeon Nikolai Pirogov recalled his senior friend at the University of Dorpat. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal was a gifted physician who consciously chose this path (he went to Dorpat at the age of twenty-five - having previously graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps and served in the navy), a decisive officer, an excellent official (in the 1840s he was the “right hand” of the Minister of Internal Affairs Lev Perovsky), author of textbooks on zoology and botany, a very popular writer who received numerous compliments from Belinsky and praise from Gogol. Not only was the scope of Dalev’s hobbies wide (from turning to spiritualism), but also the scope of his creative contacts. Dahl was eagerly published by warring publications, he was considered “one of our own” (or “almost one of our own”) both in Belinsky’s camp (“The Petersburg Janitor” appeared on the pages of “Physiology of Petersburg,” a program almanac of the “natural school”), and in the circle of Bulgarin, and in the motley community of Moscow writers. Dahl knew how to find a common language with high-ranking officials (his generally successful career is a guarantee of this) and common people (otherwise we would not have had either a great dictionary, or “Proverbs of the Russian People”, or numerous stories and essays, in large part going back to the “stories "experienced interlocutors of the writer).
At the same time, Dahl’s life cannot be called conflict-free. His very first book - “Russian fairy tales from oral folk traditions translated into civil literacy, adapted to the everyday life of the people and decorated with walking sayings by the Cossack Vladimir Lugansky” (1832; a long-term pseudonym chosen from his place of birth - Little Russian Lugan) - was withdrawn from sale by the will of the III department. In the tales available “to merchants, soldiers and servants,” one found “mockery of the government, complaints about the sad plight of the soldier, etc.” Censorship troubles also happened later, and in 1848 (in Europe there was a revolution, in Russia there was a hysteria of stupid “vigilance”), after the publication of the story “Vorozheyka”, which was convicted of “a hint at the supposedly usual inaction of the authorities,” the authorities began to “ act” - the minister scolded his zealous employee (“... you want to write something other than papers for your service!”) and presented him with a choice: “to write is not to serve, to serve is not to write.” No less painful was Dahl’s conflict with the progressive public, when in 1856-1857 (the euphoria of beneficent publicity and greedy projectism) he was the author of numerous books for the people! - opposed the “gross” literacy training of peasants, which in the absence of “mental and moral education
“He was, first of all, a man of what is called a jack of all trades. Whatever Dahl undertook, he managed to master everything,” this is how the great surgeon Nikolai Pirogov recalled his senior friend at the University of Dorpat. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal was a gifted physician who consciously chose this path (he went to Dorpat at the age of twenty-five - having previously graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps and served in the navy), a decisive officer, an excellent official (in the 1840s he was the “right hand” of the Minister of Internal Affairs Lev Perovsky), author of textbooks on zoology and botany, a very popular writer who received numerous compliments from Belinsky and praise from Gogol. Not only was the scope of Dalev’s hobbies wide (from turning to spiritualism), but also the scope of his creative contacts. Dahl was eagerly published by warring publications, he was considered “one of our own” (or “almost one of our own”) both in Belinsky’s camp (“The Petersburg Janitor” appeared on the pages of “Physiology of Petersburg,” a program almanac of the “natural school”), and in the circle of Bulgarin, and in the motley community of Moscow writers. Dahl knew how to find a common language with high-ranking officials (his generally successful career is a guarantee of this) and common people (otherwise we would not have had either a great dictionary, or “Proverbs of the Russian People”, or numerous stories and essays, in large part going back to the “stories "experienced interlocutors of the writer).
At the same time, Dahl’s life cannot be called conflict-free. His very first book - “Russian fairy tales from oral folk traditions translated into civil literacy, adapted to the everyday life of the people and decorated with walking sayings by the Cossack Vladimir Lugansky” (1832; a long-term pseudonym chosen from his place of birth - Little Russian Lugan) - was withdrawn from sale by the will of the III department. In the tales available “for merchants, for soldiers and servants,” one found “mockery of the government, complaints about the sad plight of the soldier, etc.” Censorship troubles also happened later, and in 1848 (in Europe there was a revolution, in Russia there was a hysteria of stupid “vigilance”), after the publication of the story “Vorozheyka”, which was convicted of “a hint at the supposedly usual inaction of the authorities,” the authorities began to “ act” - the minister scolded his zealous employee (“... you want to write something other than papers for your service!”) and presented him with a choice: “to write is not to serve, to serve is not to write.” No less painful was Dahl’s conflict with the progressive public, when in 1856-1857 (the euphoria of beneficent publicity and greedy projectism) he was the author of numerous books for the people! -- opposed the “gross” literacy training of peasants, which in the absence of “mental and moral education Andrey NEMZER |
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