Article

Name: «Books are written with ink, aren’t they?» (Interpreting a story for children by Daniil Harms)

Authors: A. N. Gubaydullina

National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: «How an old lady was buying some ink» written by Daniil Harms can be attributed to the children's books addressed not only to children, but also to adults. The story was written in 1928 and published as a separate book for children in 1929 though immediately prohibited for distribution in libraries, probably because it was the evidence of that age. The story has autobiographical and meta-textual levels and features the detailed system of symbols that allows one to discover the death of old age man taking place at the new, post-revolutionary, reality in this work. A tragic perception of the age by Harms echoes with the tone of his contemporaries who wrote for children: Nikolay Zabolotsky and Osip Mandelshtam.

Keywords: daniil kharms, samuil marshak, nikolay zabolotskiy, literature for children, crone, ink

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