Preschool education and teaching of foreign languages and literature in primary

2.2. Analysis of images in the works of Wilhelm Gulf

Creating the eastern space, Gauf relied on the fairy tales of the Thousand and One Nights - we can draw numerous parallels between them. Among the motifs borrowed by the German romanticist, we can single out the following: the motif of a real/false ruler, the motif of dressing up, the motif of magic (supernatural powers, magical objects and transformations), the motif of kidnapping/robbery, the motif of (not) recognition. As one of the examples, we can bring the very first tale of Gauf from the "Caravan" - "Caliph the Stork", where the motive of a real, true ruler is found. The action of this work is tied to the conflict of two power groups. On one side of this conflict is the caliph himself, who turned into a stork, his vizier and the enchanted daughter of the Indian king, and on the other, an evil sorcerer who used his powers to get rid of the caliph. The attitude of Gauf himself to his characters is obvious here: he portrays the caliph and his entourage, the vizier and the daughter of the Indian king as kind and sympathetic people. The same positive qualities of the “ideal ruler” are endowed with Harun ar-Rashid in the Thousand and One Nights. For example, in order to find out the needs of the poorest population of the city, he disguised himself as a merchant and secretly wandered the streets of the city together with his vizier Jafar Barmakid (“Caliph for an hour or the story of Abu-l-Hasan-Kutikula”) [Here and further German textcit . by: Die Erzählungen aus den Tausendundein Nächten in sechs Bänden, übersetzt von Enno Littman. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1966; translation of cit. by : Tales, stories and novels from the "Thousand and One Nights"¹⁴ Moreover, the action of Gauf's tale takes place in Baghdad - it was Harun al-Rashid who was the ruler of Baghdad. In the next chapter, we will take a closer look at Gauf's depiction of the East as a civilized society, and the Eastern ruler as the most wise, generous and revered of people.

Janak Arnandoff also described the similarities between "The Caliph the Stork" and the tale "The Parrot King" by Arnandoff Janak. Wilhelm Hauffs Märchen und Novellen. München, 1915. S. 10. . In it, an envious and unfaithful vizier turns his ruler, the king of India, into a parrot. At the end, the king defeats his enemy and regains his throne. The difference between this tale and the text of Gauf is only that the German writer depicts the vizier as faithful to his caliph, because of which he himself turns into a stork. The place of the vizier here is occupied by an evil wizard. India (the setting of the fairy tale "The Parrot King") is also present in Gauf in the character of the daughter of the Indian king, but the main action is transferred to Baghdad. However, despite these interesting observations, the researcher does not analyze the connection of other Gauf's tales with "A Thousand and One Nights" A detailed comparative analysis of the tales from Gauf's almanacs with the tales from "A Thousand and One Nights" was made by us in a separate chapter in the previous term paper "The image of the East in the works of V. Gauf". However, despite the fact that we can see Gauf's obvious appeal to the tales of the Thousand and One Nights (which are directly named in the second almanac), his characters are located far from the eastern lands (“Morgenland”) in all three almanacs. From tale to tale there is a constant oscillation between eastern and western territories. As we have already noted, in his almanacs the German writer gradually distances himself from the eastern space, preferring the European one. Recall that the action of "Caravan" takes place in the East, "Sheikh of Alexandria" - both in the East and in the West, and the action of the third almanac "Tavern in the Spessart" has only one oriental story. However, we assume that even Gauf's eastern space is being Europeanized, and this happens more and more clearly with each almanac. So, in "Caravan" the reader is initially presented with those eastern cities that often appeared in the fairy tales of the "Thousand and One Nights": Baghdad, Mecca, Balsora. However, already in "The Tale of the Severed Hand" and "The Tale of Little Torment" the situation changes. The merchant Tsalevkos is from Constantinople, and little Muk is from Nicaea (Asia Minor), which evokes associations with Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire and brings the East closer to the West. In the second almanac, Gauf transfers the action to Alexandria, i.e. from the "pure" East, to Mesopotamia, to Egypt. Gauf's choice of this city can be justified by his connection with Napoleon (which is displayed in the "History of Almansor"). Thus, the German writer transfers the action of his works to the city of the "Greek" East, to the cultivated Hellenistic East, closer to the European. Gauf will return to a purely oriental model later only in The Adventures of Said. In addition to Gauf's shift from a purely Eastern paradigm to a more Europeanized one, the fluctuation between East and West in the almanacs of the German Romantic also occurs at the expense of meetings between representatives of these two cultures. For example, in Caravan, a small group of merchants travels through the Arabian Desert, returning home from Mecca. I would also like to note that, on the one hand, romantics usually perceived all nomadic people (for example, gypsies) as a symbol of a “poetic” way of life. On the other hand, probably for Gauf, the caravan and the long walking route were significant, because the members of the caravan could potentially visit both the East and the West, and therefore serve as a kind of mediator figures between the two lands. Thus,
In addition to the intentional "Europeanization" of the eastern space, Gauf also appeals to other methods. For example, we can pay attention to the constant geographical movement of fairy tale characters between East and West. Thus, among the merchants from the caravan there is Tsaleukos, who (as we learn from the "Tale of the Severed Hand") was born in Constantinople in the family of a dragoman, who along the way traded aromatic oils and silks, and then went to Paris to train as a doctor. Returning to Constantinople and finding that his father had died, the hero went to trade in Italy and France. As we can see, already in the "Tale of the Severed Hand" alone, there is a constant geographical movement between East and West. It manifests itself even more clearly in the character of the mysterious Selim Baruch, joining a group of merchants and revealing the secret of his origin in the course of the story. He was born into a Christian family in Alexandria; his father belonged to an old French family, so Selim was brought up in France from the age of ten. The hero also lived for some time in Florence, and then returned to Alexandria. In total, he crossed the border between East and West four times.
In the second almanac, such internationality also occurs. For example, when the young men came to listen to the stories of the Sheikh's slaves, they discovered that “da waren Sklaven aller Art und aller Nationen” “They were of different ages and different nationalities” S. 303. . So, among those who told the sheikh stories about their homeland were not only eastern residents, but also two Germans and one Norwegian. Such a diverse and multiethnic society of storytellers is created by the intercontinental slave trade at the time. At the same time, their stories also weave East and West together. For example, in the “History of Almansor” (“Die Geschichte Almansors”), an Egyptian boy who was kidnapped and brought to France, where the boy had to speak only French, adhere to French etiquette, and so on. Almansor was able to immerse himself again in oriental culture only after meeting a learned old man who understood many oriental languages ​​- Arabic, Persian, Coptic, even Chinese. There is an interesting observation in Schwabe’s research that the prototype for this old man was the popular Parisian professor (and orientalist) Sylvester de Sacy, who recreated the East in his home space - he called his apartment “Kleinarabien” (little Arabia), where there were many Persian carpets, pillows , artificially grown palm trees, etc. In 1795, Sylvester de Sacy also began to teach Arabic at the newly founded Special School of Living Oriental Languages ​​(Ёcole speciale des langues orientales vivantes). There is an interesting observation in Schwabe’s research that the prototype for this old man was the popular Parisian professor (and orientalist) Sylvester de Sacy, who recreated the East in his home space - he called his apartment “Kleinarabien” (little Arabia), where there were many Persian carpets, pillows , artificially grown palm trees, etc. In 1795, Sylvester de Sacy also began to teach Arabic at the newly founded Special School of Living Oriental Languages ​​(Ёcole speciale des langues orientales vivantes). There is an interesting observation in Schwabe’s research that the prototype for this old man was the popular Parisian professor (and orientalist) Sylvester de Sacy, who recreated the East in his home space - he called his apartment “Kleinarabien” (little Arabia), where there were many Persian carpets, pillows , artificially grown palm trees, etc. In 1795, Sylvester de Sacy also began to teach Arabic at the newly founded Special School of Living Oriental Languages ​​(Ёcole speciale des langues orientales vivantes).
Several times a week, Almansor has conversations with the elderly scientist. Gauf describes him thus: “Um den Kopf hatte er einen feinen türkischen Shawl als Turban gewunden, er hatte einen grauen Bart umgeknüpft, der ihm bis zum Gürtel reichte…Dazu trug er einen Talar, den er aus einem brokatnen Schlafrock hatte machen lassen, weite türkische Beinkleider, gelbe Pantoffeln, und so friedlich er sonst war, an diesen Tagen hatte er einen türkischen Säbel umgeschnallt, und im Gürtel stak ein Dolch, mit falschen Steinen besetzt“ in a mantle, remade from a brocade morning dressing gown, into wide trousers and yellow shoes These days he put on a Turkish saber, and a scimitar decorated with fake stones was stuck in a sash. He smoked a pipe two cubits long, and servants waited on him, also dressed in Persian dress, and many of their faces and hands were smeared with black paint” p. 181. . In the company of this man, the hero of Gauf regains part of his lost identity: he wears Egyptian clothes, speaks his native language and can taste exotic and oriental sweets. Nevertheless, it seems to us that such frequent cross-cultural movements do not give the German reader the opportunity to completely escape reality and their own identity, step back and feel like they are in an oriental space.
In addition to hesitation between East and West, the German writer appeals to a strategy that Polaschegg Andrea in Polaschegg's book The Other Orientalism .Der andere Orientalismus: Regeln deutsch-morgenländischer Imagination im 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005. called "multilevel diegesia". The researcher shows four dietetic levels, analyzing "The Tale of Little Flour" from the first almanac of fairy tales. Thus, Polashegg notes the presence of an external narrator, who is not part of any diegesis (extra-, external-diegetic level), which tells about the traveling caravan itself (intra-, intra-diegetic level). Caravan merchants take turns telling stories about their past (metadiegetic level). The story of little Muk was told to his comrades by the youngest of the merchants, Muley. However, the narrative construction is complicated by the fact that his father told the merchant about Muk's adventures, and the reader is presented with this story from his words (metametadiegetic level).
Gauf repeatedly returns to this strategy in the second almanac, creating an eastern space at the intradiegetic level. Slaves of the Sheikh of Alexandria most often tell stories not about themselves. Many of them are also Orientals, so they tell stories from the point of view of an Oriental, unfamiliar to the German reader. The only exceptions to this pattern are two slaves (a German and a Norwegian), who belong to the narrator with a Western point of view. Schwabe adds that the outside narrator either remains neutral or adopts a perspective from the East Schwabe Claudia Mareike Katrin.Romanticism, orientalsim, and national identity: German literary fairy tales, 1795-1848. Florida, 2012 : “So erzählte der Sklave aus Frankistan” “Such was the story of the Frankish slave.” S. 138. . Developing the idea of ​​the researcher, we assume that for the most part the Gauf strategy works for a more positive image of the East than the West. It is possible that Hauff was thus criticizing the social or political situation in Germany at the time. In particular, the second almanac contains many hints that Western society is a society of barbaric customs, savagery and ignorance. Most of these allusions also apply to the French people - in The Sheikh of Alexandria, Gauf, with the help of the dervish Mustafa, reminds us of the Egyptian campaign of Napoleon and the French Revolution: “Es war damals die Zeit, wo die Franken wie hungrige Wölfe herberkamen in unser Land und Krieg mit uns führten. . . sei es, weil sie lüstern waren nach seinen [des Scheiks] Schätzen. . . ich weiI es nicht genau. . . denn die Franken sind ein rohes, hartherziges Volk, wenn es darauf ankommt, Geld zu erpressen. Sie nahmen also seinen jungen Sohn, Kairam geheiЯen, als Geisel in ihr Lager. . . . Sie [der Scheik und sein Gefolge] schifften sich ein und waren lange Zeit auf dem Meere, und kamen endlich in das Land jener Giaurs, jener Ungläubigen, die in Alessandria gewesen waren. Aber dort soll es gerade schrecklich zugegangen sein. Sie hatten ihren Sultan umgebracht, und die Pascha, und die Reichen und Armen schlugen einander die Köpfe ab, und es war keine Ordnung im Lande“ “In those days, the Franks, like hungry wolves, attacked our land and started war with us. They conquered Alexandria and from here they raided farther and farther inland and fought with the Mamelukes ... The Franks are a rude and hard-hearted people, they go to any lengths when it comes to money.
They boarded a ship and sailed for a long time, until finally they arrived into the land... of Alexandria... The Franks overthrew their sultan and pasha, and the rich and the poor cut off each other's heads, and there was no order in the country» C. 107-108. . On the example of this passage, we see how the Western man is portrayed by Gauf as mean and merciless. After the story of The Young Englishman, the young men decided that they would rather be here than in Grünwiesel in “the society of the pastor, the burgomaster and their stupid wives”: “Ї In Frankistan möchte ich nicht tot sein. Die Franken sind ein rohes, wildes, barbarisches Volk, und für einen gebildeten Türken oder Perser müsste es schrecklich sein, dort zu leben "- In this you are right, said the young merchant. “I wouldn't want to die in Frankistan. The Franks are rude, wild barbarians, and it would be very painful for an educated Turk or Persian to live among them” C. 107. . Only in the "Story of the Severed Hand" can one find an exception - there Tsalevkos made friends with a Frenchman, and he helped him get a room and a medical education. Eastern society, obviously, is presented in the work of Gauf as more civilized. An emphatically wise, generous and revered figure in this context is the Sheikh. „``Tadelt ihn doch nicht, ihn, der weiser ist als ganz Дgypten!`” sprach der Alte mit Nachdruck “- Do not condemn the one who is wiser than everyone in Egypt! - said the dervish Mustafa in relation to the Sheikh of Alexandria. C. 110.. Gauf seems to be also builds a complex and emotional relationship between the ruler and his servants - they adopted the mood of their master, for example: “Und alle Anwesenden teilten seine Freude; denn sie liebten den Scheik, und jedem unter ihnen war es, als wäre ihm heute ein Sohn geschenkt worden“ “And all those present rejoiced with him, for they loved the sheikh, and it seemed to everyone that on that day fate himself had given him a son” . In his study, Schwabe notes that one of the first human rights that an eastern ruler grants to his slaves is freedom of speech. Gauf wrote his fairy tales during a period of severe literary censorship - this may serve as an argument in favor of our assumption that Gauf exposes the political and other social shortcomings of German society, or even European society as a whole. Schwabe writes that in The Story of Almansor Hauff uses the hero's loss of cultural identity to challenge the reader to think critically about the colonial aspirations of European powers in the early 19th century “Moreover, in The Story of Almansor Hauff takes the narrative perspective from the East to direct the reader`s focus on Europe`s political situation.cit . by : Schwabe Claudia Mareike Katrin.Romanticism, orientalsim, and national identity: German literary fairy tales, <sup>15</sup> Thus, Hauff uses the East in his tales to criticize the political power structures in Germany. According to Schwabe, Gauf actually ridicules the monarchs during the Restoration in the fairy tale "Dwarf Nose". The Duke, to whom Dwarf Nose entered, liked best to eat well: when Jacob entered his service, he ate five times a day instead of three and became fatter. It seems comical to us the situation of the prince coming to visit the duke. The duke severely ordered his cook not to serve the same dish to the table twice. However, the prince wanted to taste the "queen's pie" ("Pastetenkönig"), which Dwarf Nose did not know how to cook. At the end of the story, the duke and the prince, after many battles on this "culinary" ground, finally reconciled and concluded the "Pie World". In this ironic plot, Schwabe sees the rivalry between Royal Prussia and the Austrian Empire.
Despite the fact that the “Dwarf Nose” at first glance shows the life of an ordinary German resident (shoemakers, merchants, etc.), there are also traces of the East in it. Already at the beginning, the reader is told that fairies and magicians met not only in the time of Harun al-Rashid, the lord of Baghdad, but also "in our days." The eastern space in this tale is the palace of the old sorceress - in it we can find a large number of oriental objects. The floors in it were covered with carpets, embroidered pillows lay on the sofas, and the witch's servants - squirrels - went around in wide trousers and green velvet caps. In addition, sometimes the narrator pauses to explain misunderstood words: for example, when mentioning “Paternoster” (“Our Father”), the narrator explains in brackets - “Es is dies das Gebet der Franken…und dauert nicht halb so lange, als das Gebet der Gldubigen” “This is the name of the prayer of the Franks… And it does not even last half as long as the prayer of the faithful.” P.
According to Schwabe, in his fairy tales, Hauff actualized the concept of “comfort” (“Gemütlichkeit”) already mentioned by us in the chapter on Arnim so that the German reader could overcome the feeling of cultural alienation when reading. This feeling is created by introducing oriental attributes into the fabric of the narrative. “Gemütlichkeit” in Gauf’s tales appears already at the beginning of the Caravan almanac, when it is described how a group of merchants is resting in a large blue silk tent, sitting behind a curtain at the entrance on pillows woven with gold, with food and drinks. Gauf devoted a whole paragraph to how, after Turkish sherbet, the merchants smoked pipes for a long time: silently blew out bluish clouds of smoke and watched them twist, diverge, and finally disappear. P. 14. . After each story, the narration returns to the group of merchants. After the first story told by Selim, we are shown that the merchants took care of the stranger as if he were their most welcome guest. Der eine gab ihm Polster, der andere Decken, ein dritter gab ihm Sklaven, kurz, er wurde so gut bedient, als ob er zu Hause wäre worse than at home." There. . [One of them said that Selim helped them pass the day pleasantly - it is likely that this statement could already serve to emphasize the charm and influence of fairy tales (this idea, as we have shown earlier, is expressed directly in the second almanac)] [1,54]. So, Gauf emphasizes the exceptional hospitality of the eastern inhabitants. The fun and entertainment of merchants (for example, dances or songs) Schwabe again refers to the properties inherent in the Biedermeier era. The feeling of comfort gradually passes from the frame story to the first "The Story of the Caliph Stork". Already in the first paragraph we find: “Der Kalif Chasid zu Bagdad saI einmal an einem schönen Nachmittag behaglich auf seinem Sofa; er hatte ein wenig geschlafen, denn es war ein heiäer Tag, und sah nun nach seinem Schläfchen recht heiter aus. Er rauchte aus seiner langen Pfeife von Rosenholz, trank hie und da ein wenig Kaffee, den ihm ein Sklave einschenkte und strich sich allemal vergnügt den Bart, wenn es ihm geschmeckt hatte“ smoked a long rosewood pipe, took a sip of coffee from time to time, which the slave poured for him, and each time, savoring the drink, stroked his beard with a satisfied look. P. 15. .”[1,,59]
Schwabe believes that the feeling of comfort corresponded to the Biedermeier time, when such qualities as diligence, honesty, loyalty, purity, discipline, and so on were promoted. Thus, with the help of this feeling, firstly, a cultural bridge was created between the German reader and the Eastern space, and secondly, the Biedermeier need for comfort was satisfied. Gauf reduced the level of violence in his tales to almost zero (unlike, again, from the Thousand and One Nights tales), so that, in our opinion, the German population could calm down in the post-war period. It is also worth noting that this reassurance was also necessary for the German romance itself - the neutrality that Württemberg tried to maintain was violated by the sudden appearance of Napoleon, which led to the forced conclusion of an alliance with France. And even though that, paradoxically, Napoleon himself is depicted in The History of Almansor as an ideal ruler, we think that the traumatized inhabitants of Germany needed to feel comfortable and escape reality into a magical world. It is precisely this desire that can explain the very choice by the German romantic of the fairy tale genre, which allows him to leave reality for a while (albeit not for a long time). In addition, Gauf himself artificially convinces the reader that a fairy tale is the best salvation, creating around this genre the halo he needs. Thus, we assume that Gauf's tales became a kind of reaction to political events (not to mention the numerous political references in these tales). A similar trend of "politicization" of the genre of fairy tales is also observed among other German romantics. The Brothers Grimm had it tied, as we mentioned, with the development of German identity - for example, in such fairy tales as "Snow White" or "Little Red Riding Hood", the main characters are described almost as exemplary "Aryans", in the spirit of nationalist ideals (white as snow, ruddy as blood, etc.). Obviously, because of this, anti-Semitic ideas were often interspersed in the works of German romantics (The Jew in the Blackthorn by the Brothers Grimm or The Jew Süss by Gauf).
In the previous chapter, we showed that for Arnim, oriental women were an allegory of oriental space. In this part of our work, we focus on the almanacs of Gauf's tales and try to identify how Eastern women are represented in them. We assume that for Gauf, in depicting women of the East, it was important for the reader to raise the topic of female emancipation: the German romantic draws attention to the position of women in society.
First, we will dwell in more detail on the image of women in the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. Women in "A Thousand and One Nights" are portrayed in completely different ways, so it would be difficult to identify a single image of an Eastern woman in this work. On the one hand, the reason for this diversity may be the different time of action in the short stories, but on the other hand, all these different images of Eastern women are determined by a single environment. Fattah Fattah Abdoul. W. Hauff and `1001' Nacht. Leipzig, 1970. S. 78. identifies two types of women in fairy tales. First, he writes about women who belong to the middle class of society (for example, to the class of merchants from different lands), and, secondly, about women who are the storytellers of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, and those who were the fruit of fantasy in them.
The researcher also rightly notes that most often women in this work are depicted not individually, but as a generalized social type: “Ihre Gestaltung bezieht sich nicht auf eine Person, sondern auf die Geselschaftsproblematik der Frau” social problem of women in society as a whole. A woman can be bought by one man, kidnapped by another, but in the end she has a desire (which can be traced throughout the work) to be treated not as a commodity, but as a person. This is the goal pursued by Scheherazade in many of his tales - to change Shahriyar's opinion about women. Particularly indicative in this context is the tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", where, using the example of the slave Marjana, it becomes clear that a woman can solve the problems of heroes (she marked all the houses with crosses so that Ali Baba's house was no different from the others, killed all the robbers with boiling oil and stabbed Hassan with a dagger). However, it is worth mentioning that the initially bad attitude of the king towards women is based on the infidelity of the first wife of his brother Shahzeman, as well as his own. In addition, the brothers meet a woman wearing a necklace of 570 rings - according to the number of betrayals to her husband while he sleeps. As a result, the brothers decided to execute their wives and all their slaves, as they decided that all women were dissolute. The chain of executions is broken when the turn comes to Scheherazade, the daughter of the vizier Shahriyar. that the king's initially bad attitude towards women is based on the infidelity of his brother Shahzeman's first wife, as well as his own. In addition, the brothers meet a woman wearing a necklace of 570 rings - according to the number of betrayals to her husband while he sleeps. As a result, the brothers decided to execute their wives and all their slaves, as they decided that all women were dissolute. The chain of executions is broken when the turn comes to Scheherazade, the daughter of the vizier Shahriyar. that the king's initially bad attitude towards women is based on the infidelity of his brother Shahzeman's first wife, as well as his own. In addition, the brothers meet a woman wearing a necklace of 570 rings - according to the number of betrayals to her husband while he sleeps. As a result, the brothers decided to execute their wives and all their slaves, as they decided that all women were dissolute. The chain of executions is broken when the turn comes to Scheherazade, the daughter of the vizier Shahriyar.
In the tales of "A Thousand and One Nights" in the depiction of a woman in love with a man and, conversely, in the depiction of robbers and slave owners with a woman, all class differences in fairy tales are leveled: a king can marry a slave, a king's daughter can be bought as a slave or can fall in love with a beggar man. Obviously, here we are dealing with human feelings, and not social position. A married woman can also seek her love (for example, some slaves of Harun al-Rashid). As Fattah notes, in this case the woman does not feel like a slave with another man, she belongs to herself. On the other hand, Harun al-Rashid is shown as a wise ruler who grants freedom to his slave if he is confident in the feelings of two lovers. In addition, in fairy tales, a woman can be portrayed on an equal footing with a man and even surpass him. For example, most often, a man cannot resist female beauty, and a woman sometimes has a great mind (as, for example, the slave Tawaddud, who, thanks to her wisdom, approaches the royal environment and makes him recognize her social significance, or Scheherazade herself). We can find the same trend in other, later works (for example, as in the fairy tale by Achim von Arnim “Melyuk Maria Blainville”, which we have already considered). It is noteworthy that the most significant thing about a woman in the tales of the Thousand and One Nights is her ability to become a mother, take care of her child and show him the right path in life. That is why, after a thousand and one nights, when Scheherazade came to the king with three sons, whom she gave birth to during this time, she asks for mercy. However, Shahriyar replied that he pardoned her before these children appeared, for he saw that she was chaste, pure, noble, and God-fearing. We can observe the same tendency among the German Romantics. A woman in the East, due to her wisdom and ability to raise children well, is respected in society, especially within her family.
Gauf portrays Eastern women in a similar way; in his works, the motives of female emancipation are clearly traced. We can connect this equality between the sexes with the social upheaval of that time, with the tendency towards the development of a bourgeois order, and also, probably, with the humanism of Hauff himself. However, even in the new society, the German romantic finds negative traits. For example, in the 1826 short story The Beggar from the Pont des Arts, the reader is shown how the wealthy Baron Franz Faldner treats his wife inhumanly. Botnikova expresses the opinion that Faldner is “not just a character, it is a social type of the era, seen and reproduced with analytical observation” German Romanticism: Dialogue of Art Forms M.: Aspect Press, 2005. P. 58. . This can be built into a number of Gauf's oriental tales: he shows the eastern order, but says that "we", in Europe, are no better, and in the same way there are cruel men and noble women who are not worthy of such an attitude. The landowner is opposed by his wife Josef, who has high morality and spirituality. This novella best shows how the increase in the number of educated women "shattered" the habits of dominating one's spouse. Here we can also mention the short story "The Singer", in which a woman is treated as a commodity, and which may partly remind the reader of Scheherazade. Botnikova suggests that it was Gauf who stood at the origins of the theme of equality and inhumanity of the existing moral attitudes and legal norms in Germany, which later developed even more strongly in the famous novel by Theodore Fontane "Effrey Briest" (1895). No wonder Josef exclaims in the short story: “My God, what troubles these laws often bring!”¹⁶ . German Romanticism: Dialogue of Artistic Forms M.: Aspect Press, 2005. S. 60 the end of this story and Josef's happiness. Gauf transfers the eastern situation to European soil and shows its universality, thereby proving that the order must be changed in Germany as well.
We also find motifs for the equality or superiority of women in the first two almanacs of Gauf's tales. For example, in The Tale of the Imaginary Prince, it was the sultana, with the help of the old Circassian woman Milakhzala, who cunningly exposed Labakan, the tailor, who pretended to be the son of the Sultan Omar; in Caliph the Stork, an Indian princess helps the caliph and his vizier regain their human form.
Note that in "Caliph the Stork" Princess Luza turns out to be turned into an owl by an evil sorcerer. It seems to us that this bird can personify wisdom and erudition in a fairy tale. Moreover, she, like oriental women in other works, appears to the reader as young and beautiful. The situation seems comical when the vizier and the caliph argue about her beauty: “Wer sagt mir denn, dass sie jung und schön ist? Das bedeutet, eine Katze im Sack zu kaufen!” “That’s just it,” the Caliph sighed, lowering his wings sadly, “how did you get the idea that she was young and beautiful? It's called a blind deal! However, the German romantic hints at the beauty of the princess already at the level of the plot, before her transformation - it is not for nothing that the evil wizard Kashnur wants his son to marry her:¹⁷ “One day he came to my father to woo me for his son Mizra.”¹⁸ There. . These assumptions are justified when Luza becomes human again: “Eine schöne Dame, herrlich geschmückt, stand vor ihnen” “But what was their amazement when they looked back. A beautiful lady, magnificently dressed, stood in front of them. 
In Saving Fatma, Gauf apparently also advocates for the emancipation of women, showing the reader the situation of the theft by robbers and the Thiouli harem. It is interesting that Fatma herself is portrayed (in accordance with the stereotypes about odalisques) with white skin: “Sechs waren schon abgelesen und sämtlich für gesund erkldrt, da las Thiuli den Namen Fatme vor, und eine kleine weiЯe Hand schlüpfte aus der Mauer. Zitternd vor Freude, nahm Mustapha diese Hand und erkldrte sie mit wichtiger Miene für krank. Thiuli war sehr besorgt und befahl, schnell eine Arznei für sie zu bereiten Six slaves had already been called out and all were declared healthy, when Thiuli called the seventh Fatma and a small white hand slipped into the hole, Mustafa grabbed her, trembling with joy, and declared with preoccupied look that this slave is seriously ill . Remarkably, that Mustafa does not see the faces of the girls - they only stick their hand into the holes. This may be due to the multi-layered "veil" symbol with which an Eastern woman hides her face. We can find a similar motif in the works we have already analyzed. For example, the mysteriousness of Meluk, her embodiment of the mysterious East, has already been noted, even though Achim von Arnim does not mention that the heroine wore a veil. The theme of mystery is especially actualized when Melyuk goes to the nunnery. The heroine uses the motive of disguise directly when she gets into the crowd of French revolutionaries - she covers her head with Matilda's scarf. Like the veil, the wall between Mustafa and the girls personifies protection from unwanted attention, creates a distance. However, it is worth noting that Gauf allegedly reverses this motif, after all, only the despotic Tiuli has a desire to distance the girls from his harem. We can find a similar use of the motive of concealment in other "oriental" works, for example, in Montesquieu's "Persian Letters". It is noteworthy that in the short story "Saving Fatma" the oriental woman also tries to help the protagonist. It was the girl saved by Mustafa who suggested to him a way to save her sister and lover: she pointed out to him a fountain of ten pipes and said that through the water supply one could get into the castle and free the girls.