Korney Chukovsky children's works. Jewish roots of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

Read fairy tales by Korney Chukovsky online- this means plunging into a huge Magic world, created for children by an unusually talented author who has a keen sense of children’s nature. It is surprising that Korney Chukovsky wrote only about 25 fairy tales - but there is hardly any adult in the entire vast post-Soviet space who is not familiar from childhood with the good-natured and brave doctor from the fairy tale “Aibolit” or with the dirty Fedora from the story “Fedorino Grief”.

Characters invented Korney Chukovsky– charismatic, bright, original and memorable. They teach kids kindness, resourcefulness and justice. A brave kid - a midget from the fairy tale “The Adventures of Bibigon”, a strict but fair Moidodyr, so different, but all interesting in their own way, animals and insects from the stories “Cockroach”, “Crocodile” and “Tsokotukha Fly” - that’s just small part beautiful images, created for children by the genius of Korney Chukovsky, which will be interesting to read online on our website. Even negative characters The author is not without charm. Reading about their misdeeds is not scary at all! And, what is even more important for children, not a single insidious villain goes unpunished in the end.

At what age can children read fairy tales by Korney Chukovsky?

Even the smallest children listen to these fairy tales with genuine pleasure, because everything in them is clear and understandable. To create your own good stories The author uses only simple vocabulary and does not try to create complex images for children. Due to the rhythmic nature of fairy tales, it is recommended even for pregnant women to read them, because even then the child learns to perceive the world through sound vibrations.

In addition to the love of literature, creative life Korney Chukovsky there was another great hobby for which this most talented person devoted a lot of time. We are talking about studying the child’s psyche and the process of children mastering speech. The author not only described his observations in the book “From Two to Five,” but also fruitfully used the results of his scientific work in writing fairy tales. That is why the poetic form of his works is very popular with children and is easily perceived by them.

Chukovsky's fairy tales will help in the development of children's memory, because as soon as you read a work to your child several times, he will begin to quote entire passages on his own. Read Chukovsky's tales online– a real pleasure, because it’s so nice to see the interested little eyes of toddlers completely immersed in the fairy-tale vicissitudes.

You can read Chukovsky's fairy tales from the very beginning. early childhood. Poems by Chukovsky fairy tale motifs- excellent children's works, famous a huge amount bright and memorable characters, kind and charismatic, instructive and at the same time loved by children.

All children, without exception, love to read Chukovsky’s poems, and what can I say, adults also remember with pleasure the favorite heroes of Korney Chukovsky’s fairy tales. And even if you don’t read them to your baby, meeting the author in kindergarten at matinees or at school during lessons - it will definitely take place. In this section, Chukovsky’s fairy tales can be read directly on the website, or you can download any of the works in .doc or .pdf formats.

About Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg. At birth he was given a different name: Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneychukov. The boy was illegitimate, for which life more than once put him in predicaments. His father left the family when Nikolai was still very young, and he and his mother moved to Odessa. However, failures awaited him there too: the future writer was expelled from the gymnasium, since he came “from the bottom.” Life in Odessa was not sweet for the whole family; children were often malnourished. Nikolai still showed strength of character and passed the exams, preparing for them on his own.

Chukovsky published his very first article in Odessa News, and already in 1903, two years after the first publication, the young writer went to London. There he lived for several years, working as a correspondent and studying English literature. After returning to his homeland, Chukovsky publishes his own magazine, writes a book of memoirs, and by 1907 becomes famous in literary circles, although not yet as a writer, but as a critic. Korney Chukovsky spent a lot of energy writing works about other authors, some of them are quite famous, namely, about Nekrasov, Blok, Akhmatova and Mayakovsky, about Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Sleptsov. These publications contributed to the literary fund, but did not bring fame to the author.

Poems by Chukovsky. The beginning of a career as a children's poet

Nevertheless, Korney Ivanovich remained in memory as a children’s writer; it was Chukovsky’s children’s poems that brought his name into history long years. The author began writing fairy tales quite late. Korney Chukovsky's first fairy tale, The Crocodile, was written in 1916. Moidodyr and Cockroach were published only in 1923.

Not many people know that Chukovsky was an excellent child psychologist, he knew how to feel and understand children, he described all his observations and knowledge in detail and cheerfully in a special book, “From Two to Five,” which was first published in 1933. In 1930, having experienced several personal tragedies, the writer began to devote most of his time to writing memoirs and translating works of foreign authors.

In the 1960s, Chukovsky became obsessed with the idea of ​​presenting the Bible in childish way. Other writers were also involved in the work, but the first edition of the book was completely destroyed by the authorities. Already in the 21st century, this book was published, and you can find it under the title “ Tower of Babel and other biblical legends." The writer spent the last days of his life at his dacha in Peredelkino. There he met with children, read them his own poems and fairy tales, invited famous people.

“They often say about children’s writers: he was a child himself. This can be said about Chukovsky with much greater justification than about any other author” (L. Panteleev “The Gray-haired Child”).

The passion for children's literature, which made Chukovsky famous, began relatively late, when he was already a famous critic: he wrote his first fairy tale “Crocodile” in 1916.

Then his other fairy tales appeared, making his name extremely popular. He himself wrote about it this way: “All my other works are overshadowed to such an extent by my children’s fairy tales that in the minds of many readers, except for “Moidodyrs” and “Fly-Tsokotukha”, I wrote nothing at all.” In fact, Chukovsky was a journalist, publicist, translator, and literary critic. However, let's take a brief look at his biography.

From the biography of K.I. Chukovsky (1882-1969)

I.E. Repin. Portrait of the poet Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (1910)
Chukovsky's real name is Nikolay Vasilievich Korneychukov. He was born in St. Petersburg on March 19 (31), 1882. His mother was peasant woman Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova, and his father was Emmanuil Solomonovich Levenson, in whose family Korney Chukovsky’s mother lived as a servant. He had elder sister Maria, but soon after the birth of Nikolai, the father left his illegitimate family and married “a woman of his circle”, moving to Baku. Chukovsky’s mother and children moved to Odessa.
The boy studied at the Odessa gymnasium (his classmate was future writer Boris Zhitkov), but he was expelled from the fifth grade due to his low origin.
Since 1901, Chukovsky began publishing in Odessa News, and in 1903, as a correspondent for this newspaper, he went to London, having learned English on his own.
Returning to Odessa in 1904, he was captured by the 1905 revolution.
In 1906, Korney Ivanovich came to the Finnish town of Kuokkala (now Repino near St. Petersburg), where he met and became friends with the artist Ilya Repin, the writer Korolenko and Mayakovsky. Chukovsky lived here for about 10 years. From the combination of the words Chukovsky and Kuokkala, "Chukokkala" (invented by Repin) is formed - the name of the handwritten humorous almanac that Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky led to last days own life.

K.I. Chukovsky
In 1907, Chukovsky published translations of Walt Whitman and from that time began writing critical literary articles. His most famous books about the work of his contemporaries are “The Book about Alexander Blok” (“Alexander Blok as a Man and a Poet”) and “Akhmatova and Mayakovsky.”
In 1908, his critical essays about the writers Chekhov, Balmont, Blok, Sergeev-Tsensky, Kuprin, Gorky, Artsybashev, Merezhkovsky, Bryusov and others were published, included in the collection “From Chekhov to the Present Day.”
In 1917, Chukovsky began writing a literary work about Nekrasov, his favorite poet, finishing it in 1926. He worked on the biography and works of others writers of the 19th century V. (Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Sleptsov).
But the circumstances of the Soviet era were ungrateful for critical activity, and Chukovsky stopped her.
In the 1930s, Chukovsky studied the theory of literary translation and actual translations into Russian (M. Twain, O. Wilde, R. Kipling, etc., including in the form of “retellings” for children).
In the 1960s, K. Chukovsky conceived a retelling of the Bible for children, but this work was not published due to his anti-religious position Soviet power. The book was published in 1990.
At the dacha in Peredelkino, where Chukovsky constantly lived last years, he constantly communicated with the surrounding children, read poetry, invited famous people to meetings: famous pilots, artists, writers, poets.
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky died on October 28, 1969. He was buried in Peredelkino. His museum operates in Peredelkino.

Fairy tales by K.I. Chukovsky

"Aibolit" (1929)

1929 is the year of publication of this fairy tale in verse; it was written earlier. The plot of this fairy tale, beloved by all children, is extremely simple: Doctor Aibolit goes to Africa, to the Limpopo River, to treat sick animals. On his way, he is helped by wolves, a whale and eagles. Aibolit works selflessly for 10 days and successfully cures all patients. His main medicines are chocolate and eggnog.
Doctor Aibolit is the embodiment of kindness and compassion for others.

Good Doctor Aibolit!
He is sitting under a tree.
Come to him for treatment
And the cow and the she-wolf,
And the bug and the worm,
And a bear!

Finding himself in difficult circumstances, Aibolit first of all thinks not about himself, but about those to whom he rushes to help:

But here in front of them is the sea -
It rages and makes noise in the open space.
And there is a high wave in the sea.
Now she will swallow Aibolit.
"Oh, if I drown,
If I go down,
What will happen to them, to the sick,
With my forest animals?

But then a whale swims out:
“Sit on me, Aibolit,
And, like a big ship,
I’ll take you ahead!”

The tale is written like this in simple language, the way children usually speak, which is why it is so easy to remember, children easily learn it by heart after reading it several times. The emotionality of the fairy tale, its accessibility for children and the obvious, but not intrusive educational meaning make this fairy tale (and other fairy tales of the writer) a favorite children's reading.
Since 1938, films began to be made based on the fairy tale “Aibolit”. In 1966, the musical Feature Film"Aibolit-66" directed by Rolan Bykov. In 1973 N. Chervinskaya filmed puppet cartoon“Aibolit and Barmaley” based on Chukovsky’s fairy tale. In 1984-1985 director D. Cherkassky shot a cartoon in seven episodes about Doctor Aibolit based on Chukovsky’s works “Aibolit”, “Barmaley”, “Cockroach”, “Tsokotukha Fly”, “Stolen Sun” and “Telephone”.

"Cockroach" (1921)

Although the fairy tale is for children, adults also have something to think about after reading it. Children learn that in one animal kingdom, the calm and joyful life of animals and insects was suddenly destroyed by an evil cockroach.

The bears were driving
By bike.
And behind them is a cat
Backwards.
And behind him are mosquitoes
On a hot air balloon.
And behind them are crayfish
On a lame dog.
Wolves on a mare.
Lions in a car.
Bunnies
On a tram.
Toad on a broom... They ride and laugh,
They are chewing gingerbread.
Suddenly from the gateway
Scary giant
Red-haired and mustachioed
Cockroach!
Cockroach, Cockroach, Cockroach!

The idyll is broken:

He growls and screams
And he moves his mustache:
"Wait, don't rush,
I'll swallow you up in no time!
I’ll swallow it, I’ll swallow it, I won’t have mercy.”
The animals trembled
They fainted.
Wolves from fright
They ate each other.
Poor crocodile
Swallowed the toad.
And the elephant, trembling all over,
So she sat on the hedgehog.
So the Cockroach became the winner,
And the ruler of forests and fields.
The animals submitted to the mustachioed one.
(God damn him!)

So they trembled until the Cockroach was eaten by a sparrow. It turns out that fear has big eyes, and it is so easy to intimidate the stupid inhabitants.

“I took and pecked a cockroach. So the giant is gone!”

Illustration by V. Konashevich

Then there was the concern -
Dive into the swamp for the moon
And nail it to heaven!

Adults in this fairy tale will easily see the theme of power and terror. Literary critics They have long pointed to the prototypes of the fairy tale “The Cockroach” - Stalin and his henchmen. Perhaps this is true.

“Moidodyr” (1923) and “Fedorino’s grief” (1926)

Both of these tales have in common common topic- a call for cleanliness and neatness. The writer himself spoke about the fairy tale “Moidodyr” in a letter to A. B. Khalatov: “Am I alienated from trends in my children’s books. Not at all! For example, the “Moidodyr” trend is a passionate call for little ones to be clean and to wash themselves. I think that in a country where until recently they said about anyone brushing their teeth, “Gee, gee, you see, he’s a Jew!” this trend is worth all the others. I know hundreds of cases where “Moidodyr” played the role of People’s Commissar of Health for little ones.”

The tale is narrated from the boy's point of view. Things suddenly start running away from him. The talking washbasin Moidodyr appears and reports that the things ran away because he was dirty.

Irons behind boots,
Boots for pies,
Pies behind the irons,
The poker behind the sash...

By order of Moidodyr, brushes and soap attack the boy and begin to wash him forcibly. The boy breaks free and runs out into the street, but a washcloth flies after him. A Crocodile walking down the street swallows a washcloth, after which he threatens the boy that he will swallow him too if he does not wash himself. The boy runs to wash his face, and his things are returned to him. The tale ends with a hymn to purity:

Long live scented soap,
And a fluffy towel,
And tooth powder
And a thick comb!
Let's wash, splash,
Swim, dive, tumble
In the tub, in the trough, in the tub,
In the river, in the stream, in the ocean, -
And in the bath, and in the bathhouse,
Anytime and anywhere -
Eternal glory to the water!

The monument to Moidodyr opened in Moscow in Sokolniki Park on July 2, 2012 on Pesochnaya Alley, next to the children's playground. The author of the monument is St. Petersburg sculptor Marcel Corober

And this monument to Moidodyr was installed in children's park Novopolotsk (Belarus)

Two cartoons were made based on the fairy tale - in 1939 and 1954.

In the fairy tale “Fedorino's Grief,” all the dishes, kitchen utensils, cutlery and other household necessities ran away from Grandma Fedora. The reason is the sloppiness and laziness of the housewife. The dishes are tired of being unwashed.
When Fedora realized the horror of her existence without the dishes, she repented of what she had done and decided to catch up with the dishes and negotiate with her to return them.

And behind them along the fence
Fedora's grandmother gallops:
"Oh oh oh! Oh oh oh!
Come home!”

The dish itself already feels that she has very little strength for the further journey, and when she sees that the repentant Fedora is following on her heels, she promises to reform and take up cleanliness, she agrees to return to the mistress:

And the rolling pin said:
“I feel sorry for Fedor.”
And the cup said:
“Oh, she’s a poor thing!”
And the saucers said:
“We should go back!”
And the irons said:
“We are not Fedora’s enemies!”

I kissed you for a long, long time
And she caressed them,
She watered and washed.
She rinsed them.

Other tales by Chukovsky:

"Confusion" (1914)
"Crocodile" (1916)
"The Cluttering Fly" (1924)
"Telephone" (1924)
"Barmaley" (1925)
"Stolen Sun" (1927)
"Toptygin and Lisa" (1934)
"The Adventures of Bibigon" (1945)

Fairy tales by K.I. Chukovsky was illustrated by many artists: V. Suteev, V. Konashevich, Yu. Vasnetsov, M. Miturich and others.

Why children love K.I. Chukovsky

K.I. Chukovsky always emphasized that a fairy tale should not only entertain the little reader, but also teach him. He wrote in 1956 about the purpose of fairy tales: “It is to cultivate humanity in a child at any cost - this marvelous ability of a person to worry about other people’s misfortunes, to rejoice at the joys of another, to experience someone else’s fate as if it were his own. Storytellers are trying to ensure that a child from an early age learns to mentally participate in the lives of imaginary people and animals and in this way breaks out of the narrow framework of egocentric interests and feelings. And since, when listening, it is common for a child to take the side of the kind, courageous, unjustly offended, whether it be Ivan Tsarevich, or a runaway bunny, or a fearless mosquito, or just a “piece of wood in a ripple,” - our whole task is to to awaken, educate, strengthen in a receptive child's soul this precious ability to empathize, sympathize and rejoice, without which a person is not a person. Only this ability, instilled from early childhood and brought in the process of development to the highest level, created and will continue to create the Bestuzhevs, Pirogovs, Nekrasovs, Chekhovs, Gorkys...”
Chukovsky's views are practically brought to life in his fairy tales. In the article “Working on a Fairy Tale,” he indicated that his task was to adapt to the little children as much as possible, to instill in them our “adult ideas about hygiene” (“Moidodyr”), about respect for things (“Fedorino’s Mountain”) , and all this at a high literary level, accessible to children.

The writer introduced a lot of educational material into his fairy tales. In fairy tales, he touches on themes of morality and rules of conduct. Fairytale images help little man learn mercy, educate it moral qualities, develop Creative skills, imagination, love for artistic expression. They teach them to sympathize in trouble, to help in misfortune and to rejoice in the happiness of others. And all this is done by Chukovsky unobtrusively, easily, and accessible to children’s perception.

Literature was his bread and air, his only normal environment, his human and political refuge. He blossomed at the slightest mention of his favorite author and, on the contrary, felt the deepest despondency in the company of people who read exclusively newspapers and talked exclusively about fashion or waters... He tolerated loneliness more easily than proximity to ignoramuses and mediocrities. Tomorrow, March 31, we celebrate the 130th anniversary of the birth of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky.

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (real name Nikolai Ivanovich Korneychukov) was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg. He lived a long, but far from cloudless life, although he was both a famous children's writer and a major literary critic; his services to Russian culture, in the end, were appreciated both at home (Doctor of Philology, Lenin Prize laureate) and abroad (honorary doctor of Oxford University).

Chukovsky’s mother, Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova, a Ukrainian peasant woman from the Poltava province, worked as a servant in the house of Chukovsky’s father, St. Petersburg student Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson, the son of the owner of printing houses located in several cities. The marriage of Chukovsky’s parents was not formally registered, since the Jew Levenson would have to be baptized first, and he did not intend to do this.

What would have happened to him if not for his literary abilities? The chances of an illegitimate person making his way into the people before the revolution were very small. To top off all the troubles, Nikolai had an awkward appearance: too tall and thin, with an exorbitant big hands, legs and nose... Modern doctors suggest that Chukovsky had Marfan syndrome - a special hormonal disbalance, leading to gigantism of the body and giftedness of the mind.

The writer himself on his topic Jewish origin rarely spoke out. There is only one reliable source - his “Diary”, to which he trusted the most intimate: ““I, as an illegitimate, without even a nationality (who am I? Jew? Russian? Ukrainian?) was the most incomplete, difficult person on earth... It seemed to me that I am the only one - illegal, that everyone is whispering behind my back and that when I show someone (the janitor, the doorman) my documents, everyone internally begins to spit on me... When the children talked about their fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, I only blushed, hesitated, lied, confused..."

After that family drama, which Korney Ivanovich experienced in childhood, it could well have happened that he would have become a Judeophobe: at least out of love for his mother, at least in revenge for his crippled childhood. This did not happen: the opposite happened - he was drawn to the Jews. After reading, for example, the biography of Yuri Tynyanov, Korney Ivanovich wrote in his diary: “The book does not say anywhere that Yuri Nikolaevich was a Jew. Meanwhile, the subtle intelligence that reigns in his “Wazir Mukhtar” is most often characteristic of the Jewish mind.”

Kolya Korneychukov studied in the same gymnasium with Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky, a future brilliant journalist and one of the most prominent representatives of the Zionist movement. The relationship between them was friendly: they were even expelled from the gymnasium together - for writing a sharp pamphlet on the director.

Little information has been preserved (for obvious reasons) about the relationship between these people when both left Odessa. In Chukovsky’s “Diary” the name of Zhabotinsky appears only in 1964: “Vlad. Jabotinsky (later a Zionist) said about me in 1902:

Chukovsky Korney
Talent vaunted
2 times longer
Telephone pole.

Chukovsky recognizes the enormous influence that Jabotinsky’s personality had on the formation of his worldview. Undoubtedly, Vladimir Evgenievich managed to distract Korney Ivanovich from his “self-criticism” regarding illegitimacy and convince him of his own talent. The journalistic debut of nineteen-year-old Chukovsky took place in the newspaper “Odessa News”, where Zhabotinsky brought him, who developed in him a love of language and recognized the talent of a critic.

In 1903, Korney Ivanovich married a twenty-three-year-old Odessa woman, the daughter of an accountant of a private company, Maria Borisovna Goldfeld, the sister of Zhabotinsky’s wife. Her father, an accountant, dreamed of marrying his daughter to a respectable Jew with capital, and not at all to a semi-impoverished infidel-bastard, who was also two years younger than her. The girl had to run away from home.

The marriage was unique and happy. Of the four children born in their family (Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria) long life Only the two eldest survived - Nikolai and Lydia, who themselves later became writers. Youngest daughter Masha died in childhood from tuberculosis. Son Boris died in 1941 at the front; another son, Nikolai, also fought and took part in the defense of Leningrad. Lydia Chukovskaya (born in 1907) lived a long and difficult life, was subjected to repression, survived the execution of her husband, the outstanding physicist Matvey Bronstein.

After the revolution, Chukovsky wisely abandoned journalism, as too dangerous an occupation, and focused on children's fairy tales in poetry and prose. Once Chukovsky wrote to Marshak: “You and I could have died, but, fortunately, we have powerful friends in the world, whose name is children!”

By the way, during the war, Korney Ivanovich and Samuil Yakovlevich seriously quarreled, did not communicate for almost 15 years and began to compete in literally everything: who has more government awards, who is easier for children to remember by heart, who looks younger, about whose eccentricities there are more jokes.

The question of the sources of the image of Doctor Aibolit is very interesting and is still discussed by literary scholars. For a long time it was believed that the prototype of Doctor Aibolit is Doctor Dolittle, the hero of the book of the same name by the American children's writer Hugh Lofting. But here is a letter from the writer himself, dedicated to what helped him create such a charming image:

“I wrote this fairy tale a long, long time ago. And I decided to write it even before October revolution, because I met Dr. Aibolit, who lived in Vilna. His name was Doctor Tsemakh Shabad. It was the most a kind person like I've only known in my life. He treated poor children for free. Sometimes a thin girl would come to him, and he would say to her:

Do you want me to write you a prescription? No, milk will help you, come to me every morning and you will get two glasses of milk.

And in the mornings, I noticed, a whole line lined up to see him. The children not only came to him themselves, but also brought sick animals. So I thought how wonderful it would be to write a fairy tale about such a good doctor.”

Probably the most difficult years for the writer were the 30s. Besides criticism own creativity, he had to endure difficult personal losses. His daughter Maria (Murochka) died of illness, and his son-in-law, physicist Matvey Bronstein, was shot in 1938. Chukovsky spent several years knocking around the authorities to find out about his fate. Work saved me from depression. He worked on translations of Kipling, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Shakespeare, and Conan Doyle. For younger children school age Chukovsky retold ancient greek myth about Perseus, translated English folk songs (“Robin-Bobin Barabek”, “Jenny”, “Kotausi and Mausi”, etc.). In Chukovsky’s retelling, Soviet children became acquainted with “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by E. Raspe, “Robinson Crusoe” by D. Defoe, and “The Little Rag” by the little-known J. Greenwood. Children in Chukovsky's life truly became a source of strength and inspiration.

In the 1960s, Korney Ivanovich started retelling the Bible for children. He recruited several up-and-coming children's writers for this project and carefully edited their work. The project, due to the anti-religious position of the authorities, progressed with great difficulty. Thus, the editors set a condition that the word “Jews” should not be mentioned in the book. The book, entitled “The Tower of Babel and Other Ancient Legends,” was published by the publishing house “Children’s Literature” in 1968, but the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities and did not go on sale. The first reprint, available to the general reader, took place in 1990.

In the last years of his life, Chukovsky was a popular favorite, a laureate of many awards and a holder of various orders. At the same time, he maintained contacts with Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky and other dissidents; his daughter Lydia was a prominent human rights activist. At the dacha in Peredelkino, where the writer constantly lived in recent years, he organized meetings with local children, talked with them, read poetry, invited famous people to meetings, famous pilots, artists, writers, poets. Former Peredelkino children still remember those gatherings at Chukovsky’s dacha.

One day, a teenager visiting Peredelkino asked:
- Korney Ivanovich, they say you are terribly rich. This is true?
“You see,” Chukovsky answered seriously, “there are two kinds of rich people.” Some people think about money and make it - these become wealthy. But a real rich man doesn’t think about money at all.

Don't miss the most interesting things!

Chukovsky’s paradoxical advice to aspiring writers is also very interesting: “My friends, work selflessly. They pay better for it."

Shortly before his death, Chukovsky read someone’s memoirs about Marshak, who had died several years earlier, and drew attention to the following thing: it turns out that Samuil Yakovlevich defined his psychological age as five years. Korney Ivanovich became sad: “And I myself am no younger than six. It's a pity. After all, what younger child, the more talented he is..."