Interesting facts of Russian literature. All the most interesting things about literature, books, newspapers, magazines and writers are the most interesting facts. What is the pornographic scene in "Woe from Wit"

Interesting facts about books prove that this belonging never leaves a person’s memory. Thanks to them, we develop, gain new knowledge, and spend leisure time. Interesting facts about the book for many modern people may not be interesting, but we live while books live.

1. There are 129864880 books in total on Earth.

2. The first place among all the books of the world space is given to the Bible.

3. A child of 4-6 years old is best accustomed to reading a book.

4. A large number of readers lose interest in the book at page 18.

5. Book spines are eaten by "bookworms".

6. The Dharani Scroll is the most ancient printed book. Interesting facts of history confirm this.

7. The first book, similar to those in the modern world, was created in the 1st century BC. But the very first books in the world are the Mesopotamian tablets, created (according to scientists) more than 5,000 years ago.

8. Many scrolls-books were long and reached 45 meters in length.

9. Clay books were produced in Assyria.

10. The geographical atlas, preserved in the London Museum, is the heaviest book in the world.

11. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius paid the largest fee for a book. It was received by the poet Oppian.

12. A book with the longest title was published in London.

13. In Shakespeare's books, the word "love" was used 2259 times.

14. The most read book is the Bible.

15. The German Dictionary is considered the largest dictionary.

16. Napoleon was the most popular book hero.

17. In ancient times, books were chained to shelves because they were considered expensive.

18. A stainless steel commemorative book was created in Brazil.

19. In ancient times, books on the shelves were placed with their roots inside.

20. A person who steals books is called a bibliocleptomaniac.

21.68% of all books in the world are purchased by women.

22. Most of the books are bought by people over 45 years old.

23. People read 7 hours a week.

24. There is a book in Wellington that weighs 50 kilograms. It is considered the heaviest in the world.

25. The very first book with a fixed date is the Psalter.

27. While reading books, our eyes look in different directions.

28. The only stone book in the world was discovered in Abkhazia.

29. More than 2000 years ago, the first newspaper appeared in everyday life, which replaced the book.

30.10000 books have been written about Napoleon in all the time.

31. The most expensive book in the world is the Codex Leicester, which was written by an Italian artist.

32. The UK documents, which are also called parliamentary, are considered the largest publication.

34. In the 17th-19th century, human skin was used instead of book binding.

35. When the Goths ravaged Athens, they killed hundreds of people, but took care of the books.

37. In the books of Shakespeare, despite the fact that they are too gloomy, the word "love" occurs 10 times more often than "hate".

38. Paolo Coelho's books are banned in Iran.

39. The smallest books can be easily scooped up with a spoon.

40. The best books were written in prison.

42. The Holy Book of Muslims is the Koran.

43.Since 1996, World Book and Copyright Day has been celebrated.

44. The best-selling book of all time in the United States of America is 50 Shades of Grey.

46. ​​The Lord of the Rings trilogy was printed with 2 fingers.

47. In Turkey, Great Britain and America, the book "Winnie the Pooh" was banned from the very beginning.

48. The first book typed on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer.

49. Books about Harry Potter were banned in America due to propaganda actions in relation to the occult.

50. Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in just 6 weeks.

51. Robinson Crusoe is considered the first English novel.

52. The first handwritten Bible was written in 12 years.

53. Stephen King said that books give a person a lesson.

54. The largest book in printed form is the “Collection of Maritime Rules”, which is available in the museum in Amsterdam.

55. Many people have heard of bookcrossing. This is a book exchange.

56. The book "Alice in Wonderland" has been translated into 125 languages ​​of the world.

57. The first autobiographical books were like chronicles.

58. Libraries with books appeared only in the Middle Ages.

59.140 million copies of The Little Prince have been sold in all time.

60. In the Middle Ages, books were produced only in monastic scriptoriums, in which 20-30 people worked.

61. For the first time printing appeared in China.

62. In the USA, a book was created using nanotechnology. It was written with ion beams using an electron microscope.

63. Approximately 800,000 book titles are published per year.

64. In Rus', books originated from Russian birch bark letters.

65. Books in Rus' began to be published in 1057.

66. Ivan Fedorov began book printing in Rus'.

68.6 minutes of reading a book relieves stress - this has been proven by scientists from the University of Sussex.

69. A person reading a book identifies with the character.

70. A book develops empathy.

71. Average graduates of American colleges have time to read only 5 books after graduation.

72. The most long-suffering book is called the Bible.

73. The Bible was released in 2056 languages ​​of the world.

74. Audiobooks are very popular these days.

75. The book with the most amazing title was released in the UK.

76. The first books were created from wax and wood.

77. The first books appeared about 2000 years ago.

78. The Voynich manuscript is considered the most mysterious book written in a non-existent language.

79. Approximately 2 billion books have been created during the printing industry.

80. Books are fragile and short-lived items.

81. In second place in popularity is the Guinness Book of Records.

82. The oldest book writers are Elizabeth and Sarah Delaney.

83. There are approximately 773,700 words in the Bible.

84. Justin Bieber also wrote a book.

85. For the first time the book "Hamlet" was translated into Russian by Alexander Sumarokov.

86. The book "Robinson Crusoe" has a continuation.

87. The first book printed in England was devoted to the game of chess.

88. There is a book-night light in the world.

90. The book-biography of Churchill consists of 22 thick volumes.

91. A person reads a book aloud much more slowly than to himself.

92. To be able to read the smallest book in the world, you need an electron microscope.

93. The collection of the most boring books in the world belongs to Rio Coselli.

94.The first audiobooks began to be produced under the guidance of a foundation to support blind people.

95. Steven Bloomberg is the man who stole the largest number of books.

96. The largest number of pages in the book "Chinese Encyclopedia".

97. The very first comic book is considered the book "Superman".

99. First, a person always looks at the cover of a book for 30 seconds, and then moves on.

100. Reading books at night can make you sleepy, which helps you sleep better.

Interesting facts about literature.

Which book was published under different titles in different countries based on exchange rates?

In 2000, Frederic Begbeder's novel "99 francs" was published, recommended for sale in France at exactly that price. This same principle led publications in other countries to come out under a different name, corresponding to the exchange rate: "39.90 marks" in Germany, "9.99 pounds" in the UK, "999 yen" in Japan, etc. In 2002, the book was republished in connection with the introduction of the euro and was called "14.99 euros". After some time, the peak of the book's popularity passed, and it was discounted to the title and the corresponding cost of "6 euros".

What circumstances led mathematician Alexander Volkov to become a writer?

The fairy tale "The Wise Man of Oz" by the American writer Frank Baum was not published in Russian until 1991. In the late 30s, Alexander Volkov, who was a mathematician by education and taught this science at one of the Moscow institutes, began to study English and decided to translate this book for practice in order to retell it to his children. Those liked it very much, they began to demand continuation, and Volkov, in addition to translating, began to invent something from himself. This was the beginning of his literary path, which resulted in The Wizard of the Emerald City and many other fairy tales about the Magic Land.

In what work was the Kasparo-Karpov system mentioned long before Kasparov and Karpov became known to the world?

In the story of the Strugatsky brothers "Noon, XXII century" the Kasparo-Karpov system is mentioned - a method that was used to make a "copy" of the brain and build its mathematical model. The story was published in 1962 - Anatoly Karpov was then only 11 years old, and Garry Kasparov had not yet been born.

Where does the word miniature come from?

The word "miniature" comes from the Latin name for red paint "minium" and in the original refers to ancient or medieval paintings in the genre of illuminated manuscript. Due to the small size of these paintings and the presence of the prefix "mini" in the word, an etymological metamorphosis later occurred, as a result of which any small drawings, especially portrait miniatures, began to be called miniatures. From painting, the term also penetrated into literature, where it refers to works of a small format.

Who came up with the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo?

Alexandre Dumas, when writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks." Among them, the most famous is Auguste Maquet, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made a significant contribution to The Three Musketeers.

What is the name of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades"?

The main character of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" is not Herman. His name is generally unknown, and Hermann (namely with two n) is the surname of the hero, a German by origin, which is quite common in Germany. But in the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky removed one n, turning the surname Hermann into the name Herman.

How was a French novel translated into Russian, in which there is not a single letter e?

In 1969, French writer Georges Perec's novel La disparition was published. One of the key features of the novel was that it did not contain a single letter e - the most common letter in French. By the same principle - without the letter e - the book was translated into English, German and Italian. In 2005, the novel was published in Russian, translated by Valery Kislov under the title "Disappearance". In this variant, you cannot meet the letter o, since it is it that is the most frequent in the Russian language.

What literary hero began to use many methods of forensic science before the police?

Arthur Conan Doyle in the stories about Sherlock Holmes described many methods of forensic science that were still unknown to the police. Among them, collecting cigarette butts and cigarette ashes, identifying typewriters, looking through a magnifying glass for traces at the scene. Subsequently, the police began to widely use these and other methods of Holmes.

How did Dostoevsky's real walks around St. Petersburg reflect in the novel "Crime and Punishment"?

Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the places in his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, he compiled a description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides things stolen from the pawnbroker's apartment from personal experience - when one day, walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard in order to relieve himself.

Where and when did Baron Munchausen live?

Baron Munchausen was a very real historical person. In his youth, he left the German town of Bodenwerder for Russia to serve as a page. Then he began his career in the army and rose to the rank of captain, after which he went back to Germany. There he became famous for telling extraordinary stories about service in Russia: for example, entering St. Petersburg on a wolf harnessed to a sleigh, a horse cut in half in Ochakovo, fur coats that went berserk, or a cherry tree that grew on a deer's head. These stories, as well as completely new ones attributed to the baron by other authors, led to the emergence of Munchausen as a literary character.

Where and when was a concept book sold with only blank pages?

When asked what 5 books you would take with you to a desert island, Bernard Shaw replied that he would take 5 books with blank pages. This concept was embodied in 1974 by the American publishing house Harmony Books, releasing a book called "The Book of Nothing", which consisted exclusively of 192 blank pages. She found her buyer, and subsequently the publishing house reprinted this book more than once.

What literary character Dumas was invented only to increase the fee?

When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers in the format of a serial in one of the newspapers, the contract with the publisher stipulated line-by-line payment for the manuscript. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions exclusively in monosyllables, in most cases “yes” or “no”. The continuation of the book called "Twenty Years Later" was already paid by the piece, and Grimaud became a little more talkative.

Which Kipling characters changed gender in Russian translation?

In the original The Jungle Book, Bagheera is a male character. Russian translators changed Bagheera's gender, most likely because the word "panther" is feminine. The same transformation took place with another character of Kipling: the cat became in the Russian translation "The cat that walks by itself."

Which writer got the stone that lay on Gogol's first grave?

Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery lay a stone, nicknamed Golgotha ​​because of its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, when reburial in another place, they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave. And the same stone was subsequently placed on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase is noteworthy, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."

What famous English-language literary dystopia contains many words of Russian origin?

In the dystopian A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess put into the mouths of teenage characters a jargon he made up called Nadsat. Most of the words nadsata were of Russian origin - for example, droog (friend), litso (face), viddy (see). The word Nadsat itself is formed from the ending of Russian numerals from 11 to 19, its meaning is the same as that of the word teenager (“teen-ager”). The translators of the novel into Russian faced the difficulty of how to adequately convey this slang. In one version of the translation, such words were replaced by English words written in Cyrillic (men, face, etc.). In another version, the jargon words were left in their original form in Latin letters.

Which writer, at the end of his life, acknowledged the harm done to nature by his own work?

Peter Benchley, the author of the novel Jaws, which was later adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg, became an ardent defender of sharks and the marine ecosystem in general in the last years of his life. He wrote several works in which he criticized the negative attitude towards sharks, inflated in the mass consciousness, including thanks to Jaws.

What words from Pushkin's poem "Monument" were cut out by censors in 1949?

In 1949, the 150th anniversary of Pushkin was celebrated. Konstantin Simonov made a report on his life and work on the radio. In one Kazakh town, a large number of Kalmyks, deported here from their historical homeland, gathered at the loudspeaker. Somewhere in the middle of the report, they lost all interest in him and left the square. The thing was that when reading Pushkin's "Monument" Simonov stopped reading right at the moment when he should have said: "And a friend of the steppes is a Kalmyk." This meant that the Kalmyks are still in disgrace and censorship excludes all mention of them even in such harmless cases.

James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - the boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14 and remained forever young in his mother's memory.

Who is awarded the Ig Nobel Prize and for what?

At the beginning of October of each year, when the Nobel Prize winners are named, a parody Ig Nobel Prize is presented in parallel for achievements that cannot be reproduced or there is no point in doing so. In 2009, among the laureates were veterinarians who proved that a cow with any nickname gives more milk than an unnamed one. The literature award went to the Irish police for issuing fifty traffic tickets to a certain Prawo Jazdy, which in Polish means "driving license". And in 2002, the prize in the field of economics was awarded to Gazprom for the application of the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers in the field of business.

What did the old woman from the fairy tale about the Golden Fish of the Brothers Grimm want to be?

Pushkin's Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish was based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife. Pushkin's old woman finds herself with nothing after she wanted to become the mistress of the sea, and her German "colleague" at this stage became the Pope. And only after the desire to become the Lord God was left with nothing.

How did Jung Richard Parker repeat the sad fate of his literary namesake?

In Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 story "The Tale of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym" there is an episode when a ship is caught in a storm and four sailors are rescued on a raft. Having no food, they decide to eat one of them by lot - and this victim was Richard Parker. In 1884, a real yacht sank, and four people on one boat also survived. They probably didn't read that story, but they ended up eating a cabin boy named Richard Parker.

Why is Isaev not the real name of Stirlitz?

The real name of Stirlitz is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, but Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. Isaev is the first operational pseudonym for a scout, introduced by Yulian Semyonov in the first novel “Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, and Stirlitz is already the second pseudonym. This is not reflected in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".

What kind of insect is actually a dragonfly from Krylov's fable?

In Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant" there are lines: "The jumping dragonfly sang red summer." However, it is known that the dragonfly does not make sounds. The fact is that at that time the word "dragonfly" served as a generalized name for several species of insects. And the hero of the fable is actually a grasshopper.

What cruel scenes were removed from the folk tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm?

Most of the fairy tales known to us under the authorship of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and other storytellers originated among the people in the Middle Ages, and their original plots are sometimes distinguished by the cruelty and naturalness of everyday scenes. For example, in the fairy tale about the Sleeping Beauty, the foreign king does not kiss her, but rapes her. The wolf eats not only Grandma, but half the village into the bargain, and Little Red Riding Hood then lures him into a pit of boiling tar. In the fairy tale about Cinderella, the sisters still manage to try on a slipper, for which one of them cuts off her finger, the other - her heel, but then they are exposed by their singing pigeons.

What topic in Soviet science fiction was so hackneyed that stories on it were not accepted by magazines for publication?

The theme of the Tunguska meteorite was very popular with Soviet science fiction writers, especially beginners. In the 1980s, the literary journal "Ural Pathfinder" even had to write in a separate paragraph in the requirements for publications: "Works that reveal the secret of the Tunguska meteorite are not considered."

Why do we have a tradition of signing book spines from bottom to top, while Europeans do the opposite?

In Western Europe and America, book spines are signed from top to bottom. This tradition goes back to the days when there were few books: if the book is on the table (or in a small pile), the reader should be able to read the title comfortably. And in Eastern Europe and Russia, the tradition has taken root to sign spines from the bottom up, because it is more convenient to read when the books are on the shelf.

Where did the expression "and a no brainer" come from?

The source of the expression “And a no-brainer” is a poem by Mayakovsky (“It is clear even to a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread first in the Strugatsky story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited teenagers who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I). The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, two-year students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year, the expression "no brainer" was very relevant.

What book was imprisoned in the Bastille?

The prisoners of the Bastille were not only people. Once the famous French Encyclopedia, compiled by Diderot and d'Alembert, was imprisoned. The book was accused of harming religion and public morality.

How did Lenin's phrase about the cook and the state really sound?

“Any cook is capable of running the state,” Lenin never said that. This phrase was attributed to him, taking from Mayakovsky's poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". In fact, he wrote this: “We are not utopians. We know that any unskilled worker and any cook are not able to immediately enter into government ... We demand that the training of the state administration be carried out by conscious workers and soldiers and that it be started immediately.

Which science fiction writer wrote reviews of non-existent books?

Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a collection of short stories "Absolute Void". All stories are united by the fact that they are reviews of non-existent books written by fictitious authors.

How did Leo Tolstoy feel about his novels?

Leo Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent a letter to Fet: “How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.” An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: "People love me for those trifles - War and Peace, etc., which seem to them very important."

What is the meaning of the word peace in War and Peace?

In the title of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, the word world is used as an antonym to war (pre-revolutionary "mir"), and not in the sense of "the world around" (pre-revolutionary "mir"). All lifetime editions of the novel came out under the title "War and Peace", and Tolstoy himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". However, due to misprints in different publications at different times, where the word was written as “mir”, disputes about the true meaning of the novel’s title still do not subside.

Which writer encouraged readers to punctuate themselves?

American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with very peculiar language and lack of any punctuation. In response to reader outrage, in the second edition of the book, he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking.

Why did the poets not like Mayakovsky for writing poems with a ladder?

When Mayakovsky introduced his famous poetic "ladder", fellow poets accused him of cheating - after all, then the poets were paid for the number of lines, and Mayakovsky received 2-3 times more for poems of a similar length.

What pessimist died of laughter?

The Cuban poet Julián del Casal, whose poetry was deeply pessimistic, died of laughter. He was having dinner with friends, one of whom told a joke. The poet began an attack of uncontrollable laughter, which caused aortic dissection, bleeding and sudden death.

What was the name of the city where Anna Karenina threw herself under a train?

In the novel by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this village became a city and was renamed Zheleznodorozhny.

Where was the radio play mistaken for a real Martian invasion?

On October 30, 1938, a radio show based on HG Wells' novel The War of the Worlds was broadcast in New Jersey as a parody of a radio report from the scene. Of the six million people who listened to the broadcast, one million believed in the reality of what was happening. There was a mass panic, tens of thousands of people abandoned their homes (especially after the call of alleged President Roosevelt to remain calm), the roads were clogged with refugees. Telephone lines were paralyzed: thousands of people reported supposedly seeing Martian ships. Subsequently, it took the authorities six weeks to convince the population that the attack had not taken place.

What is the real name of Korney Chukovsky?

Korney Chukovsky's real name was Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneichukov.

Who preserved Kafka's works for the whole world?

Franz Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after his death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but, on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.

How long did Robinson Crusoe spend in Russia?

The novel about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe has a continuation in which the hero is shipwrecked off the coast of Southeast Asia and is forced to travel to Europe through all of Russia. In particular, he waits out the winter in Tobolsk for 8 months.

When did the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” appear?

Pushkin wrote the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” of the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” for its second edition, released 8 years after the first publication.

What book did the writer ask to sell for exactly the price of a bottle of vodka?

When the poem "Moscow - Petushki" was published as a separate book, at the request of the author Venedikt Erofeev, the price of 3 rubles 62 kopecks was set for it. That is how much a bottle of vodka cost at the time of writing the poem.

The first official publication of the poem "Moscow - Petushki" by Venedikt Erofeev in the USSR took place in the journal "Sobriety and Culture".

Who came up with the name Svetlana?

The name Svetlana is not originally Slavic. It was invented and first used by the poet Vostokov in the romance "Svetlana and Mstislav", and gained wide popularity after the publication of Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana" in 1813.

Who predicted the death of the Titanic in a literary work?

14 years before the sinking of the Titanic, Morgan Robertson published the story that became her prediction. In the story, the Titan, much like the Titanic in size, also collided with an iceberg on an April night, and most of the passengers died.

Why was Winnie the Pooh so named?

Winnie the Pooh got the first part of his name from one of the real toys of Christopher Robin, son of the writer Milne. The toy was named after a London Zoo bear named Winnipeg, who got there from Canada. The second part - Pooh - was borrowed on behalf of the swan acquaintances of the Milne family.

Where did the expression "this thing smells like kerosene" come from?

Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.

Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?

In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.

Which writer wrote a story about a religious feat based on a story about a campaign for vodka?

In Leskov's story, an Old Believer passes from one bank of the river to the other along the chains of an unfinished bridge during a stormy ice drift in order to return an icon confiscated from the Old Believers from the monastery. According to the author, the plot is based on real events, only a bricklayer appears there, and he went not for an icon, but for cheaper vodka.

Who valued books more than people?

In 267, the Goths ravaged Athens and killed many of the inhabitants, but did not burn the books.

How did Bernard Shaw react to the Nobel Prize?

In 1925, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."

What pornographic scene is in Woe from Wit?

In the 19th century, actresses refused to play Sophia in Woe from Wit with the words: “I am a decent woman and do not play in pornographic scenes!”. They considered such a scene a night conversation with Molchalin, who was not yet the husband of the heroine.

Interesting facts about age in literature:
. Juliet was 14 and Romeo was 16.
. Juliet's mother, Senora Capulet, was 26 years old at the time of the events described in the play.

Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin's Snowstorm was no longer young: "She was in her 20s."
. "Balzac age" is 30 years.

From the notes of 16-year-old Pushkin: “An old man of about 30 entered the room” (it was Karamzin).
. Ivan Susanin at the time of the feat was 32 years old (he had a 16-year-old daughter for marriageable age).

Anna Karenina at the time of her death was 28 years old, Vronsky was 23 years old, the old husband of Anna Karenina was 48 years old (at the beginning of the events described in the novel, everyone is 2 years less).

The old man, Cardinal Richelieu, was 42 years old at the time of the siege of the fortress of La Rochelle described in The Three Musketeers.
. But the old woman Nilovna (play "Mother" by Maxim Gorky) - 40.

Tynyanov: "Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those present. He was thirty-four years old - the age of fading"

What circumstances led mathematician Alexander Volkov to become a writer?
The fairy tale "The Wise Man of Oz" by the American writer Frank Baum was not published in Russian until 1991. In the late 30s, Alexander Volkov, who was a mathematician by education and taught this science at one of the Moscow institutes, began to study English and decided to translate this book for practice in order to retell it to his children. Those liked it very much, they began to demand continuation, and Volkov, in addition to translating, began to invent something from himself. This was the beginning of his literary path, which resulted in The Wizard of the Emerald City and many other fairy tales about the Magic Land.

In what work was the Kasparo-Karpov system mentioned long before Kasparov and Karpov became known to the world?
In the story of the Strugatsky brothers "Noon, XXII century" the Kasparo-Karpov system is mentioned - a method that was used to make a "copy" of the brain and build its mathematical model. The story was published in 1962 - Anatoly Karpov was then only 11 years old, and Garry Kasparov had not yet been born.

Where does the word miniature come from?
The word "miniature" comes from the Latin name for red paint "minium" and in the original refers to ancient or medieval paintings in the genre of illuminated manuscript. Due to the small size of these paintings and the presence of the prefix "mini" in the word, an etymological metamorphosis later occurred, as a result of which any small drawings, especially portrait miniatures, began to be called miniatures. From painting, the term also penetrated into literature, where it refers to works of a small format.

Who came up with the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo?
Alexandre Dumas, when writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks". Among them, the most famous is Auguste Maquet, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made a significant contribution to The Three Musketeers.

What is the name of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades"?
The main character of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" is not Herman. His name is generally unknown, and Hermann (precisely with two n) is the surname of the hero, a German by origin, which is quite common in Germany. But in the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky removed one n, turning the surname Hermann into the name Herman.

How was a French novel translated into Russian, in which there is not a single letter e?
In 1969, French writer Georges Perec's novel La disparition was published. One of the key features of the novel was that it did not contain a single letter e - the most used letter in French. By the same principle - without the letter e - the book was translated into English, German and Italian. In 2005, the novel was published in Russian, translated by Valery Kislov under the title "Disappearance". In this variant, you cannot meet the letter o, since it is it that is the most frequent in the Russian language.

What literary hero began to use many methods of forensic science before the police?
Arthur Conan Doyle in the stories about Sherlock Holmes described many methods of forensic science that were still unknown to the police. Among them, collecting cigarette butts and cigarette ashes, identifying typewriters, looking through a magnifying glass for traces at the scene. Subsequently, the police began to widely use these and other methods of Holmes.


Which book was published under different titles in different countries based on exchange rates?
In 2000, Frederic Begbeder's novel "99 francs" was published, recommended for sale in France at exactly that price. This same principle led publications in other countries to come out under a different name, corresponding to the exchange rate: "39.90 marks" in Germany, "9.99 pounds" in the UK, "999 yen" in Japan, etc. In 2002, the book was republished in connection with the introduction of the euro and was called "14.99 euros". After some time, the peak of the book's popularity passed, and it was discounted to the title and the corresponding cost of "6 euros".

How did Dostoevsky's real walks around St. Petersburg reflect in the novel "Crime and Punishment"?
Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the places in his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, he compiled a description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides things stolen from the pawnbroker's apartment from personal experience - when one day, walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard in order to relieve himself.

Where and when did Baron Munchausen live?
Baron Munchausen was a very real historical person. In his youth, he left the German town of Bodenwerder for Russia to serve as a page. Then he began his career in the army and rose to the rank of captain, after which he went back to Germany. There he became famous for telling extraordinary stories about service in Russia: for example, entering St. Petersburg on a wolf harnessed to a sleigh, a horse cut in half in Ochakovo, fur coats that went berserk, or a cherry tree that grew on a deer's head. These stories, as well as completely new ones attributed to the baron by other authors, led to the emergence of Munchausen as a literary character.

Where and when was a concept book sold with only blank pages?
When asked what 5 books you would take with you to a desert island, Bernard Shaw replied that he would take 5 books with blank pages. This concept was embodied in 1974 by the American publishing house Harmony Books, releasing a book called "The Book of Nothing", which consisted exclusively of 192 blank pages. She found her buyer, and subsequently the publishing house reprinted this book more than once.

What literary character Dumas was invented only to increase the fee?
When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers in the format of a serial in one of the newspapers, the contract with the publisher stipulated line-by-line payment for the manuscript. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions exclusively in monosyllables, in most cases “yes” or “no”. The continuation of the book called "Twenty Years Later" was already paid by the piece, and Grimaud became a little more talkative.

Which Kipling characters changed gender in Russian translation?
In the original The Jungle Book, Bagheera is a male character. Russian translators changed the gender of Bagheera, most likely because the word "panther" is feminine. The same transformation took place with another character of Kipling: the cat became in the Russian translation "The cat that walks by itself."

Which writer got the stone that lay on Gogol's first grave?
Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery lay a stone, nicknamed Golgotha ​​because of its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, when reburial in another place, they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave. And the same stone was subsequently placed on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase is noteworthy, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."

What famous English-language literary dystopia contains many words of Russian origin?
In the dystopian A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess put into the mouths of teenage characters a jargon he made up called Nadsat. Most of the words nadsata were of Russian origin - for example, droog (friend), litso (face), viddy (see). The word Nadsat itself is formed from the ending of Russian numerals from 11 to 19, its meaning is the same as that of the word teenager (“teen-ager”). The translators of the novel into Russian faced the difficulty of how to adequately convey this slang. In one version of the translation, such words were replaced by English words written in Cyrillic (men, face, etc.). In another version, the jargon words were left in their original form in Latin letters.

Which writer, at the end of his life, acknowledged the harm done to nature by his own work?
Peter Benchley, the author of the novel Jaws, which was later adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg, became an ardent defender of sharks and the marine ecosystem in general in the last years of his life. He wrote several works in which he criticized the negative attitude towards sharks, inflated in the mass consciousness, including thanks to Jaws.

What words from Pushkin's poem "Monument" were cut out by censors in 1949?
In 1949, the 150th anniversary of Pushkin was celebrated. Konstantin Simonov made a report on his life and work on the radio. In one Kazakh town, a large number of Kalmyks, deported here from their historical homeland, gathered at the loudspeaker. Somewhere in the middle of the report, they lost all interest in him and left the square. The thing was that when reading Pushkin's "Monument" Simonov stopped reading right at the moment when he should have said: "And a friend of the steppes is a Kalmyk." This meant that the Kalmyks are still in disgrace and censorship excludes all mention of them even in such harmless cases.

Why did the author of Peter Pan endow him with the property of never growing up?
James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - a boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14 and remained forever young in his mother's memory.

Who is awarded the Ig Nobel Prize and for what?
At the beginning of October of each year, when the Nobel Prize winners are named, a parody Ig Nobel Prize is presented in parallel for achievements that cannot be reproduced or there is no point in doing so. In 2009, among the laureates were veterinarians who proved that a cow with any nickname gives more milk than an unnamed one. The literature award went to the Irish police for issuing fifty traffic tickets to a certain Prawo Jazdy, which in Polish means "driving license". And in 2002, the prize in the field of economics was awarded to Gazprom for the application of the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers in the field of business.

What did the old woman from the fairy tale about the Golden Fish of the Brothers Grimm want to be?
Pushkin's Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish was based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife. Pushkin's old woman finds herself with nothing after she wanted to become the mistress of the sea, and her German "colleague" at this stage became the Pope. And only after the desire to become the Lord God was left with nothing.

How did Jung Richard Parker repeat the sad fate of his literary namesake?
In Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 story "The Tale of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym" there is an episode when a ship is caught in a storm and four sailors are rescued on a raft. Having no food, they decide to eat one of them by lot - and this victim was Richard Parker. In 1884, a real yacht sank, and four people on one boat also survived. They probably didn't read that story, but they ended up eating a cabin boy named Richard Parker.

Why is Isaev not the real name of Stirlitz?
The real name of Stirlitz is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, but Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. Isaev is the first operational pseudonym of a scout, introduced by Yulian Semyonov in the first novel "Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", and Stirlitz is already the second pseudonym. This is not reflected in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".

What kind of insect is actually a dragonfly from Krylov's fable?
In Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant" there are lines: "The jumping dragonfly sang red summer." However, it is known that the dragonfly does not make sounds. The fact is that at that time the word "dragonfly" served as a generalized name for several species of insects. And the hero of the fable is actually a grasshopper.

What cruel scenes were removed from the folk tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm?
Most of the fairy tales known to us under the authorship of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and other storytellers originated among the people in the Middle Ages, and their original plots are sometimes distinguished by the cruelty and naturalness of everyday scenes. For example, in the fairy tale about the Sleeping Beauty, the foreign king does not kiss her, but rapes her. The wolf eats not only the grandmother, but also half the village in addition, and before eating Little Red Riding Hood, he first raped her. Our folklore could not bear such a thing, and this detail has disappeared. Little Red Riding Hood then lures him into a pit of boiling tar. In the fairy tale about Cinderella, the sisters still manage to try on a slipper, for which one of them cuts off her finger, the other - her heel, but then they are exposed by their singing pigeons.

What topic in Soviet science fiction was so hackneyed that stories on it were not accepted by magazines for publication?
The theme of the Tunguska meteorite was very popular with Soviet science fiction writers, especially beginners. In the 1980s, the literary journal "Ural Pathfinder" even had to write in a separate paragraph in the requirements for publications: "Works that reveal the secret of the Tunguska meteorite are not considered."

Why do we have a tradition of signing book spines from bottom to top, while Europeans do the opposite?
In Western Europe and America, book spines are signed from top to bottom. This tradition goes back to the days when there were few books: if the book is on the table (or in a small pile), the reader should be able to read the title comfortably. And in Eastern Europe and Russia, the tradition has taken root to sign spines from the bottom up, because it is more convenient to read when the books are on the shelf.

Where did the expression "and a no brainer" come from?
The source of the expression “And it’s clear to a hedgehog” is Mayakovsky’s poem (“It’s clear even to a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread first in the Strugatsky story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited teenagers who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I). The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, two-year students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year, the expression "no brainer" was very relevant.

What book was imprisoned in the Bastille?
The prisoners of the Bastille were not only people. Once the famous French Encyclopedia, compiled by Diderot and d'Alembert, was imprisoned. The book was accused of harming religion and public morality.

How did Lenin's phrase about the cook and the state really sound?
“Any cook is capable of running the state,” Lenin never said such a thing. This phrase was attributed to him, taking from Mayakovsky's poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". In fact, he wrote this: “We are not utopians. We know that any unskilled worker and any cook are not able to immediately enter into government ... We demand that the training of the state administration be carried out by conscious workers and soldiers and that it be started immediately.

Which science fiction writer wrote reviews of non-existent books?
Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a collection of short stories "Absolute Void". All stories are united by the fact that they are reviews of non-existent books written by fictitious authors.

How did Leo Tolstoy feel about his novels?
Leo Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent a letter to Fet: "How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose rubbish like "War" again." An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: "People love me for those trifles - War and Peace, etc., which seem to them very important."

What is the meaning of the word peace in War and Peace?
In the title of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, the word world is used as an antonym to war (pre-revolutionary "mir"), and not in the sense of "the world around" (pre-revolutionary "mir"). All lifetime editions of the novel came out under the title "War and Peace", and Tolstoy himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". However, due to misprints in different publications at different times, where the word was written as “mir”, disputes about the true meaning of the novel’s title still do not subside.

Which writer encouraged readers to punctuate themselves?
American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with very peculiar language and lack of any punctuation. In response to reader outrage, in the second edition of the book, he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking.

Why did the poets not like Mayakovsky for writing poems with a ladder?
When Mayakovsky introduced his famous poetic "ladder", fellow poets accused him of cheating - after all, poets were then paid for the number of lines, and Mayakovsky received 2-3 times more for poems of a similar length.

What pessimist died of laughter?
The Cuban poet Julián del Casal, whose poetry was deeply pessimistic, died of laughter. He was having dinner with friends, one of whom told a joke. The poet began an attack of uncontrollable laughter, which caused aortic dissection, bleeding and sudden death.

What was the name of the city where Anna Karenina threw herself under a train?
In the novel by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this village became a city and was renamed Zheleznodorozhny.

Where was the radio play mistaken for a real Martian invasion?
On October 30, 1938, a radio show based on HG Wells' novel The War of the Worlds was broadcast in New Jersey as a parody of a radio report from the scene. Of the six million people who listened to the broadcast, one million believed in the reality of what was happening. There was a mass panic, tens of thousands of people abandoned their homes (especially after the call of alleged President Roosevelt to remain calm), the roads were clogged with refugees. Telephone lines were paralyzed: thousands of people reported supposedly seeing Martian ships. Subsequently, it took the authorities six weeks to convince the population that the attack had not taken place.

What is the real name of Korney Chukovsky?
Korney Chukovsky's real name was Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneichukov.

Who preserved Kafka's works for the whole world?
Franz Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after his death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but, on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.

How long did Robinson Crusoe spend in Russia?
The novel about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe has a continuation in which the hero is shipwrecked off the coast of Southeast Asia and is forced to travel to Europe through all of Russia. In particular, he waits out the winter in Tobolsk for 8 months. She also teaches English to local children. Eats crackers, drinks kvass. Poor…

When did the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” appear?
Pushkin wrote the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” of the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” for its second edition, released 8 years after the first publication.

What book did the writer ask to sell for exactly the price of a bottle of vodka?
When the poem "Moscow - Petushki" was published as a separate book, at the request of the author Venedikt Erofeev, the price of 3 rubles 62 kopecks was set for it. That is how much a bottle of vodka cost at the time of writing the poem.

How did Andrey Bitov learn about a new word in his work?
According to Andrei Bitov, he first learned about Zen Buddhism at the age of thirty, having read the dissertation of an English literary critic called "Zen Buddhism in the Early Works of Andrei Bitov."

Who came up with the name Svetlana?
The name Svetlana is not originally Slavic. It was invented and first used by the poet Vostokov in the romance "Svetlana and Mstislav", and gained wide popularity after the publication of Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana" in 1813.

Who predicted the death of the Titanic in a literary work?
14 years before the sinking of the Titanic, Morgan Robertson published the story that became her prediction. In the story, the Titan, much like the Titanic in size, also collided with an iceberg on an April night, and most of the passengers died.

Why was Winnie the Pooh so named?
Winnie the Pooh got the first part of his name from one of the real toys of Christopher Robin, son of the writer Milne. The toy was named after a London Zoo bear named Winnipeg, who got there from Canada. The second part - Pooh - was borrowed on behalf of the swan of the acquaintances of the Milne family.

Where did the expression "this thing smells like kerosene" come from?
Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.

Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?
In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.

Which writer wrote a story about a religious feat based on a story about a campaign for vodka?
In Leskov's story, an Old Believer passes from one bank of the river to the other along the chains of an unfinished bridge during a stormy ice drift in order to return an icon confiscated from the Old Believers from the monastery. According to the author, the plot is based on real events, only a bricklayer appears there, and he went not for an icon, but for cheaper vodka.

Who valued books more than people?
In 267, the Goths ravaged Athens and killed many of the inhabitants, but did not burn the books.

How did Bernard Shaw react to the Nobel Prize?
In 1925, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."

Who used the "Albanian language" at the beginning of the 20th century?
In 1916, the futurist Zdanevich wrote a play without observing the normative rules of spelling and using the "Albanian language". The language of the padonks that appeared in the 2000s, whose spelling is built according to similar principles, is sometimes called the “Albanian language”, but the coincidence with the experience of Zdanevich is accidental.

What pornographic scene is in Woe from Wit?
In the 19th century, actresses refused to play Sophia in Woe from Wit with the words: “I am a decent woman and do not play in pornographic scenes!”. They considered such a scene a night conversation with Molchalin, who was not yet the husband of the heroine.

How were books kept in libraries?
Historical fact: in Europe until the 18th century, all library books were chained to shelves. To not be taken away.

Why did Daria Dontsova get a deuce in essay?
Daria Dontsova, a well-known detective, is the daughter of the famous Soviet writer Arkady Vasiliev. She was acquainted with V. Kataev, the author of the book "The Lonely Sail Turns White". When it was necessary to write an essay on this work, Dasha turned to him for help - and as a result she received a deuce with the words: "Kataev did not think about this at all when he wrote the book."

1. About age in literature:

Juliet was 14 and Romeo was 16.
Juliet's mother, Senora Capulet, was 26 years old at the time of the events described in the play.

Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin's Snowstorm was no longer young: "She was in her 20s."
"Balzac age" is 30 years.

From the notes of 16-year-old Pushkin: “An old man of about 30 entered the room” (it was Karamzin).
Ivan Susanin at the time of the feat was 32 years old (he had a 16-year-old daughter for marriageable age).

Anna Karenina at the time of her death was 28 years old, Vronsky was 23 years old, the old husband of Anna Karenina was 48 years old (at the beginning of the events described in the novel, everyone is 2 years less).

The old man, Cardinal Richelieu, was 42 years old at the time of the siege of the fortress of La Rochelle described in The Three Musketeers.
But the old woman Nilovna (play "Mother" by Maxim Gorky) - 40.

Tynyanov: "Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those present. He was thirty-four years old - the age of fading"

2. What circumstances led to the fact that the mathematician Alexander Volkov became a writer?

The fairy tale "The Wise Man of Oz" by the American writer Frank Baum was not published in Russian until 1991. In the late 30s, Alexander Volkov, who was a mathematician by education and taught this science at one of the Moscow institutes, began to study English and decided to translate this book for practice in order to retell it to his children. Those liked it very much, they began to demand continuation, and Volkov, in addition to translating, began to invent something from himself. This was the beginning of his literary path, which resulted in The Wizard of the Emerald City and many other fairy tales about the Magic Land.

3. In which work was the Kasparo-Karpov system mentioned long before Kasparov and Karpov became known to the world?

In the story of the Strugatsky brothers "Noon, XXII century" the Kasparo-Karpov system is mentioned - a method that was used to make a "copy" of the brain and build its mathematical model. The story was published in 1962 - Anatoly Karpov was then only 11 years old, and Garry Kasparov had not yet been born.

4. Where does the word "miniature" come from?

The word "miniature" comes from the Latin name for red paint "minium" and in the original refers to ancient or medieval paintings in the genre of illuminated manuscript. Due to the small size of these paintings and the presence of the prefix "mini" in the word, an etymological metamorphosis later occurred, as a result of which any small drawings, especially portrait miniatures, began to be called miniatures. From painting, the term also penetrated into literature, where it refers to works of a small format.

5. Who came up with the plot of the novel "The Count of Monte Cristo"?

Alexandre Dumas, when writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks". Among them, the most famous is Auguste Maquet, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made a significant contribution to The Three Musketeers.

5. What is the name of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades"?

The main character of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" is not Herman. His name is generally unknown, and Hermann (precisely with two n) is the surname of the hero, a German by origin, which is quite common in Germany. But in the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky removed one n, turning the surname Hermann into the name Herman.

6. How was a French novel translated into Russian, in which there is not a single letter e?

In 1969, French writer Georges Perec's novel La disparition was published. One of the key features of the novel was that it did not contain a single letter e - the most used letter in French. By the same principle - without the letter e - the book was translated into English, German and Italian. In 2005, the novel was published in Russian, translated by Valery Kislov under the title "Disappearance". In this variant, you cannot meet the letter o, since it is it that is the most frequent in the Russian language.

7. What literary hero began to use many methods of forensic science before the police?

Arthur Conan Doyle in the stories about Sherlock Holmes described many methods of forensic science that were still unknown to the police. Among them, collecting cigarette butts and cigarette ashes, identifying typewriters, looking through a magnifying glass for traces at the scene. Subsequently, the police began to widely use these and other methods of Holmes.

8. What book was published under different names in different countries based on exchange rates?

In 2000, Frederic Begbeder's novel "99 francs" was published, recommended for sale in France at exactly that price. This same principle led publications in other countries to come out under a different name, corresponding to the exchange rate: "39.90 marks" in Germany, "9.99 pounds" in the UK, "999 yen" in Japan, etc. In 2002, the book was republished in connection with the introduction of the euro and was called "14.99 euros". After some time, the peak of the book's popularity passed, and it was discounted to the title and the corresponding cost of "6 euros".

9. How did Dostoevsky's real walks around St. Petersburg reflect in the novel "Crime and Punishment"?

Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the places in his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, he compiled a description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides things stolen from the pawnbroker's apartment from personal experience - when one day, walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard in order to relieve himself.

10. Where and when did Baron Munchausen live?

Baron Munchausen was a very real historical person. In his youth, he left the German town of Bodenwerder for Russia to serve as a page. Then he began his career in the army and rose to the rank of captain, after which he went back to Germany. There he became famous for telling extraordinary stories about service in Russia: for example, entering St. Petersburg on a wolf harnessed to a sleigh, a horse cut in half in Ochakovo, fur coats that went berserk, or a cherry tree that grew on a deer's head. These stories, as well as completely new ones attributed to the baron by other authors, led to the emergence of Munchausen as a literary character.

11.Where and when was the concept book, consisting only of blank pages, sold?

When asked what 5 books you would take with you to a desert island, Bernard Shaw replied that he would take 5 books with blank pages. This concept was embodied in 1974 by the American publishing house Harmony Books, releasing a book called "The Book of Nothing", which consisted exclusively of 192 blank pages. She found her buyer, and subsequently the publishing house reprinted this book more than once.

12. What literary character Dumas was invented only to increase the fee?

When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers in the format of a serial in one of the newspapers, the contract with the publisher stipulated line-by-line payment for the manuscript. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions exclusively in monosyllables, in most cases “yes” or “no”. The continuation of the book called "Twenty Years Later" was already paid by the piece, and Grimaud became a little more talkative.

13. What Kipling characters changed their gender in Russian translation?

In the original The Jungle Book, Bagheera is a male character. Russian translators changed the gender of Bagheera, most likely because the word "panther" is feminine. The same transformation took place with another character of Kipling: the cat became in the Russian translation "The cat that walks by itself."

14. Which writer got the stone that lay on Gogol's first grave?

Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery lay a stone, nicknamed Golgotha ​​because of its similarity with Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, when reburial in another place, they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave. And the same stone was subsequently placed on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase is noteworthy, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime: "Teacher, cover me with your overcoat."

15. What famous English-language literary dystopia contains many words of Russian origin?

In the dystopian A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess put into the mouths of teenage characters a jargon he made up called Nadsat. Most of the words nadsata were of Russian origin - for example, droog (friend), litso (face), viddy (see). The word Nadsat itself is formed from the ending of Russian numerals from 11 to 19, its meaning is the same as that of the word teenager (“teen-ager”). The translators of the novel into Russian faced the difficulty of how to adequately convey this slang. In one version of the translation, such words were replaced by English words written in Cyrillic (men, face, etc.). In another version, the jargon words were left in their original form in Latin letters.

16. Which writer, at the end of his life, recognized the harm caused to nature by his own work?

Peter Benchley, the author of the novel Jaws, which was later adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg, became an ardent defender of sharks and the marine ecosystem in general in the last years of his life. He wrote several works in which he criticized the negative attitude towards sharks, inflated in the mass consciousness, including thanks to Jaws.

17. What words from Pushkin's poem "Monument" were cut out by censorship in 1949?

In 1949, the 150th anniversary of Pushkin was celebrated. Konstantin Simonov made a report on his life and work on the radio. In one Kazakh town, a large number of Kalmyks, deported here from their historical homeland, gathered at the loudspeaker. Somewhere in the middle of the report, they lost all interest in him and left the square. The thing was that when reading Pushkin's "Monument" Simonov stopped reading right at the moment when he should have said: "And a friend of the steppes is a Kalmyk." This meant that the Kalmyks are still in disgrace and censorship excludes all mention of them even in such harmless cases.

James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - a boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14 and remained forever young in his mother's memory.

19. Who is awarded the Ig Nobel Prize and for what?

At the beginning of October of each year, when the Nobel Prize winners are named, a parody Ig Nobel Prize is presented in parallel for achievements that cannot be reproduced or there is no point in doing so. In 2009, among the laureates were veterinarians who proved that a cow with any nickname gives more milk than an unnamed one. The literature award went to the Irish police for issuing fifty traffic tickets to a certain Prawo Jazdy, which in Polish means "driving license". And in 2002, the prize in the field of economics was awarded to Gazprom for the application of the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers in the field of business.

20. What did the old woman from the fairy tale about the Goldfish of the Brothers Grimm want to become?

Pushkin's Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish was based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, The Fisherman and His Wife. Pushkin's old woman finds herself with nothing after she wanted to become the mistress of the sea, and her German "colleague" at this stage became the Pope. And only after the desire to become the Lord God was left with nothing.

21. How did Jung Richard Parker repeat the sad fate of his literary namesake?

In Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 story "The Tale of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym" there is an episode when a ship is caught in a storm and four sailors are rescued on a raft. Having no food, they decide to eat one of them by lot - and this victim was Richard Parker. In 1884, a real yacht sank, and four people on one boat also survived. They probably didn't read that story, but they ended up eating a cabin boy named Richard Parker.

22. Why is Isaev not the real name of Stirlitz?

The real name of Stirlitz is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, but Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. Isaev is the first operational pseudonym of a scout, introduced by Yulian Semyonov in the first novel "Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", and Stirlitz is already the second pseudonym. This is not reflected in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".

23. What kind of insect is actually a dragonfly from Krylov's fable?

In Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant" there are lines: "The jumping dragonfly sang red summer." However, it is known that the dragonfly does not make sounds. The fact is that at that time the word "dragonfly" served as a generalized name for several species of insects. And the hero of the fable is actually a grasshopper.

24. What cruel scenes were removed from the folk tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm?

Most of the fairy tales known to us under the authorship of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and other storytellers originated among the people in the Middle Ages, and their original plots are sometimes distinguished by the cruelty and naturalness of everyday scenes. For example, in the fairy tale about the Sleeping Beauty, the foreign king does not kiss her, but rapes her. The wolf eats not only the grandmother, but also half the village in addition, and before eating Little Red Riding Hood, he first raped her. Our folklore could not bear such a thing, and this detail has disappeared. Little Red Riding Hood then lures him into a pit of boiling tar. In the fairy tale about Cinderella, the sisters still manage to try on a slipper, for which one of them cuts off her finger, the other - her heel, but then they are exposed by their singing pigeons.

25. What topic in Soviet science fiction was so hackneyed that stories on it were not accepted by magazines for publication?

The theme of the Tunguska meteorite was very popular with Soviet science fiction writers, especially beginners. In the 1980s, the literary journal "Ural Pathfinder" even had to write in a separate paragraph in the requirements for publications: "Works that reveal the secret of the Tunguska meteorite are not considered."

26. Why do we have a tradition of signing book spines from bottom to top, while Europeans have the opposite?

In Western Europe and America, book spines are signed from top to bottom. This tradition goes back to the days when there were few books: if the book is on the table (or in a small pile), the reader should be able to read the title comfortably. And in Eastern Europe and Russia, the tradition has taken root to sign spines from the bottom up, because it is more convenient to read when the books are on the shelf.

27. Where did the expression “and a no brainer” come from?

The source of the expression “And it’s clear to a hedgehog” is Mayakovsky’s poem (“It’s clear even to a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread first in the Strugatsky story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited teenagers who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I). The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, two-year students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year, the expression "no brainer" was very relevant.

28. What book was imprisoned in the Bastille?

The prisoners of the Bastille were not only people. Once the famous French Encyclopedia, compiled by Diderot and d'Alembert, was imprisoned. The book was accused of harming religion and public morality.

29. How did Lenin's phrase about the cook and the state really sound?

“Any cook is capable of running the state,” Lenin never said such a thing. This phrase was attributed to him, taking from Mayakovsky's poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". In fact, he wrote this: “We are not utopians. We know that any unskilled worker and any cook are not able to immediately enter into government ... We demand that the training of the state administration be carried out by conscious workers and soldiers and that it be started immediately.

30. Which of the science fiction writers wrote reviews of non-existent books?

Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a collection of short stories "Absolute Void". All stories are united by the fact that they are reviews of non-existent books written by fictitious authors.

31. How did Leo Tolstoy feel about his novels?

Leo Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent a letter to Fet: "How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose rubbish like "War" again." An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: "People love me for those trifles - War and Peace, etc., which seem to them very important."
What is the meaning of the word peace in War and Peace?
In the title of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, the word world is used as an antonym to war (pre-revolutionary "mir"), and not in the sense of "the world around" (pre-revolutionary "mir"). All lifetime editions of the novel came out under the title "War and Peace", and Tolstoy himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". However, due to misprints in different publications at different times, where the word was written as “mir”, disputes about the true meaning of the novel’s title still do not subside.

32. What writer suggested that readers put punctuation marks on their own?

American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with very peculiar language and lack of any punctuation. In response to reader outrage, in the second edition of the book, he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking.

33. Why did poets not like Mayakovsky for writing poems with a ladder?

When Mayakovsky introduced his famous poetic "ladder", fellow poets accused him of cheating - after all, poets were then paid for the number of lines, and Mayakovsky received 2-3 times more for poems of a similar length.

34. Which pessimist died of laughter?

The Cuban poet Julián del Casal, whose poetry was deeply pessimistic, died of laughter. He was having dinner with friends, one of whom told a joke. The poet began an attack of uncontrollable laughter, which caused aortic dissection, bleeding and sudden death.

35. What was the name of the city where Anna Karenina threw herself under the train?

In the novel by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this village became a city and was renamed Zheleznodorozhny.

36.Where was the radio play mistaken for a real Martian invasion?

On October 30, 1938, a radio show based on HG Wells' novel The War of the Worlds was broadcast in New Jersey as a parody of a radio report from the scene. Of the six million people who listened to the broadcast, one million believed in the reality of what was happening. There was a mass panic, tens of thousands of people abandoned their homes (especially after the call of alleged President Roosevelt to remain calm), the roads were clogged with refugees. Telephone lines were paralyzed: thousands of people reported supposedly seeing Martian ships. Subsequently, it took the authorities six weeks to convince the population that the attack had not taken place.

37. Who preserved Kafka's works for the whole world?

Franz Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after his death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but, on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.

38. How long did Robinson Crusoe spend in Russia?

The novel about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe has a continuation in which the hero is shipwrecked off the coast of Southeast Asia and is forced to travel to Europe through all of Russia. In particular, he waits out the winter in Tobolsk for 8 months. She also teaches English to local children. Eats crackers, drinks kvass. Poor…

39. When did the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” appear?

Pushkin wrote the prologue “At the seaside, a green oak ...” of the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” for its second edition, released 8 years after the first publication.

40. What book did the writer ask to sell exactly at the price of a bottle of vodka?

When the poem "Moscow - Petushki" was published as a separate book, at the request of the author Venedikt Erofeev, the price of 3 rubles 62 kopecks was set for it. That is how much a bottle of vodka cost at the time of writing the poem.

41. How did Andrey Bitov learn about a new word in his work?

According to Andrei Bitov, he first learned about Zen Buddhism at the age of thirty, having read the dissertation of an English literary critic called "Zen Buddhism in the Early Works of Andrei Bitov."

The first official publication of the poem by Venedikt Erofeev "Moscow - Petushki" in the USSR took place in the journal "Sobriety and Culture".

43. Who came up with the name Svetlana?

The name Svetlana is not originally Slavic. It was invented and first used by the poet Vostokov in the romance "Svetlana and Mstislav", and gained wide popularity after the publication of Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana" in 1813.

44. Who predicted the death of the Titanic in a literary work?

14 years before the sinking of the Titanic, Morgan Robertson published the story that became her prediction. In the story, the Titan, much like the Titanic in size, also collided with an iceberg on an April night, and most of the passengers died.

45/Why was Winnie the Pooh so named?

Winnie the Pooh got the first part of his name from one of the real toys of Christopher Robin, son of the writer Milne. The toy was named after a London Zoo bear named Winnipeg, who got there from Canada. The second part - Pooh - was borrowed on behalf of the swan of the acquaintances of the Milne family.

46/Where did the expression "this thing smells of kerosene" come from?

Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.

47/Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?

In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.

48 / Which writer wrote a story about a religious feat based on a story about a campaign for vodka?

In Leskov's story, an Old Believer passes from one bank of the river to the other along the chains of an unfinished bridge during a stormy ice drift in order to return an icon confiscated from the Old Believers from the monastery. According to the author, the plot is based on real events, only a bricklayer appears there, and he went not for an icon, but for cheaper vodka.

49. Who valued books more than people?

In 267, the Goths ravaged Athens and killed many of the inhabitants, but did not burn the books.

50. How did Bernard Shaw react to the Nobel Prize?

In 1925, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."

51. Who used the "Albanian language" at the beginning of the 20th century?

In 1916, the futurist Zdanevich wrote a play without observing the normative rules of spelling and using the "Albanian language". The language of the padonks that appeared in the 2000s, whose spelling is built according to similar principles, is sometimes called the “Albanian language”, but the coincidence with the experience of Zdanevich is accidental.

52. What is the pornographic scene in Woe from Wit?

In the 19th century, actresses refused to play Sophia in Woe from Wit with the words: “I am a decent woman and do not play in pornographic scenes!”. They considered such a scene a night conversation with Molchalin, who was not yet the husband of the heroine.

53. How were books protected in libraries before?

Historical fact: in Europe until the 18th century, all library books were chained to shelves. To not be taken away.