Uzbekistan samarkand state institute of foreign languages

Reasons for H. C. Anderson’s works becoming popular

Hans Christian Andersen achieved worldwide fame for writing innovative and influential fairy tales. Many of his stories, including "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Princess and the Pea," remain classics of the genre. In 1845, English translations of Andersen's folktales and stories began to gain the attention of foreign audiences. Andersen forged a friendship with acclaimed British novelist Charles Dickens, whom he visited in England in 1847 and again a decade later. His stories became English-language classics and had a strong influence on subsequent British children's authors, including A.A. Milne and Beatrix Potter. Over time, Scandinavian audiences discovered Andersen's stories, as did audiences in the United States, Asia and across the globe. In 2006, an amusement park based on his work opened in Shanghai. His stories have been adapted for stage and screen, including a popular animated version of The Little Mermaid.[6]
H.C.Andersen’s fairy tales and stories won universal recognition in the literary circles as well as among the public at large in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Though novels, poems and letters of the Danish writer were published in Russia, it was the tales that attracted the attention of the readers and translators. They were appreciated for expressing the ideas of humanism in perfect literary form. H.C.Andersen’s tales were translated many times, ran into a huge number of editions. They were often discussed in the press. This occurred against the backdrop of an unprecedented interest in myths and fairy tales on the one hand and in Nordic literature on the other. The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century were key periods for the future perception of H.C.Andersen in Russia. It was during this period that the Danish writer underwent the process of cultural adaptation and became a part of Russian cultural space. It was then that the interest in the artistic and psychological dimensions of his art emerged. Multiple examples of this can be found in many of the literary and epistolary writings of the time, in the art critique
and pedagogical literature. The creative achievements of translations of the period should also not be underestimated.[7]
In 1894, a significant event took place: almost simultaneously, collections of Andersen's works appeared in new high-quality translations in two St. Petersburg publishing houses. This is Illustrated Tales: The Complete Collection in Six volumes” translated by B.D. Porozovskaya (F. Pavlenkov publishing house) and the four-volume "Collected Works" translated by A. and P. Ganzen. The four-volume collection of the Hansen spouses was published during 1894-1895, in addition to fairy tales in itAndersen's other works are also presented, in particular his novels, travel essays, poems and autobiography "The Tale of My life." Such a high popularity of the work of the Danish writer on turn of the century, repeatedly noted by researchers (see, for example: [Braude, Shilegodsky, 1959; Surpin, 1958]), arose on background of interest in the fantastic in literature, on the one hand, and passion for Scandinavian cultures on the other hand.

We see this side of Andersen most clearly in his fairy tales, which he began to write at the age of 29, with great excitement. A volume containing his first four tales (The Tinder Box, The Princess and the Pea, Little Claus and Big Claus, and Little Ida's Flowers) was published in May, 1835, succeeded by a volume of three more tales the following December. Andersen's earliest stories are more clearly inspired by Danish folk tales than his later works -- yet none are direct, unadorned retellings of Danish folk stories. Rather, these are original fictions that use Danish folklore as their starting point and then head off in bold new directions, borrowing further inspiration from The Thousand and One Nights, the salon tales of seventeenth century France, the German tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, and the fantasies of E.T.A. Hoffman, among other works.

It's impossible today to fully understand the sensation these little stories caused, for nothing quite like them had ever been seen in Danish literature. The tales were revolutionary for several reasons. Across Europe, the field of children's fiction

was still in its very early days and was still dominated by dull, pious stories intended to teach and inculcate moral values. Andersen's magical tales were rich as chocolate cake after a diet of wholesome gruel, and the narrative voice spoke familiarly, warmly, conspiratorially to children, rather than preaching to them from on high. Despite the Christian imagery recurrent in the tales (typical of nineteenth century fiction), these are remarkably earthy, anarchic, occasionally even amoral stories -- comical, cynical, fatalistic by turns, rather than morally instructive. And unlike the folk tales collected by the Grimms, set in distant lands once upon a time, Andersen set his tales in Copenhagen and other familiar, contemporary settings, mixed fantastical descriptions with common ordinary ones, and invested everyday household objects (toys, dishes, etc.) with personalities and magic.[6]

Even the language of the stories was fresh and radical, as Jackie Wullschlager points out in Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller:

"The raw and unpolished Danish of these first stories was so radical as to be considered vulgar at a time when literary convention demanded rigorous, high-flown sentiment of the sort practiced by the playwright Heiberg. Andersen, by contrast, was deliberately direct and informal."

Andersen carefully crafted the narration of his tales to evoke the power of oral storytelling, yet the narrative voice is a distinctive one, not the impersonal voice of most folk tales. He perfected his stories by reading them aloud within his social circle, and many a dinner party ended with children and adults alike clamoring for a story. As Andersen's fairy tales became known and loved, he found himself much in demand as a dinner guest, and he also began to receive requests to read his work in public. Though he hadn't been destined for an acting career, his youthful theatrical training served him well. George Griffen, an American diplomat, wrote of Andersen's performance:

18
"He is a remarkably fine reader, and has often been compared in this respect to Dickens -- Dickens was in truth a superb reader, but I am inclined to think that Andersen's manner is far more impressive and eloquent. Both of these men have always read to crowded houses. Dickens voice was perhaps better suited for the stage than the reading desk. It was stronger and louder than Andersen's, but nothing like as mellow and musical. I heard Dickens read the death-bed scene of Little Nell in New York, and I was moved to tears, but I knew that the author himself was reading the story; but when I heard Andersen read the story of the Little Girl with the Matches, I did not think of the author at all, but wept like a child, unconscious of everything around me."

George Griffen was not the only adult reduced to tears by Andersen's tales -- which were startling, fresh, and urgent in ways that we can only imagine, now that Andersen's stories have acquired the patina of age and familiarity. Nineteenth century readers were particularly affected by the way the tales gave voice to the powerless -- the young, the poor, the very old -- and imbued them with special strength, wisdom, and connection to the natural world (in opposition to the artifice of reason or the follies of society). Gerda, for instance, goes up against her rival (the rich, dazzling, coldly intellectual Snow Queen) armed only with her youth and compassion; in The Emperor's New Clothes, a child displays more wisdom than the King. We find this theme in traditional folk tales (the good-hearted peasant girl or boy whose kindness wins them riches or a crown), but Andersen gave such figures new life by placing them in contemporary settings, layering elements of sharp social critique into their stories.[7]

3.