Bazhov evening at the International Library

On January 26, on the eve of the writer’s double anniversary (the 145th anniversary of his birth and the 85th anniversary of the publication of the book “Malachite Box”), fans and popularizers of Pavel Petrovich Bazhov’s work gathered in the Literary Living Room of the International Library.

He turned 60 when friends published the book “The Malachite Box” for the anniversary. Pavel Petrovich pressed her to his heart with tears in his eyes. And then world fame came to him, which he did not even expect. The tales were so good that the “Malachite Box” was sent to an international exhibition in New York. The book was specially bound at the famous Sverdlovsk lapidary factory. On the silver lining is a malachite snake with diamond sparks and emerald eyes. “The Malachite Casket” was translated into 80 languages of the world, and the film “Stone Flower”, shot in 1946, won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. What is the mystery of this success? Bazhov built a special fairy—tale world in it, which existed in fragments in folklore; the jewels in it are not a symbol of evil, as is often the case in folklore, but a symbol of the hidden treasures of the people’s soul, a unique gift of nature, the beauty of which can only be revealed by a real master. And the Urals in Bazhov’s tales grew to its full height and appeared before the reader in all its formidable beauty — the backbone of Russia, its treasury, its forge, its strength. And the Russian man turned out not to be an eternal sufferer, as in the literature of the XIX century, but a powerful and talented master. So it turned out to be a very useful, very uplifting book.

Olga Ivanovna Kalinina, Director of the Interethnic Library, Elena Stanislavovna Gubina, Deputy Head of the Department of Ethno-confessional Relations and Organization of Work on the prevention of Extremism of the Department of Internal Policy of the Sverdlovsk Region, and Sergey Vladimirovich Polyganov, Chairman of the Board of the Bazhov Charitable Foundation, spoke about this and not only at the evening.

The evening turned out to be very eventful: fragments of the cartoons “Golden Hair” and “Silver Hoof”, the feature film “Stone Flower” were shown. And Bazhov’s fairy tales were read in different languages. The tale “Mountain Master” was presented in Russian by Irina Mikhailovna Urusova, a methodologist at the International Library, Zhanat Korokobenova, a representative of the Sverdlovsk regional public organization Eurasia – Kazakhstan, in Kazakh, Ullkan Tutashbayeva, a member of the Sverdlovsk Regional Public Organization Kyrgyzstan – Ural, in Kyrgyz, and in Bashkir – the president of the public organization “Sverdlovsk regional Bashkir Center” Faima Fakhritdinovna Yusupova and a member of the executive committee of this organization Flura Rasilevna Mustafina. It was very touching to hear how Bazhov’s unique Uralic language sounds in different languages! And students from the People’s Republic of China took part in the evening, they presented the book “Silver Hoof” published last year in China.

It’s hard to imagine, but even after 85 years, Bazhov’s books do not lose their popularity and even relevance, they are published and republished, they are read and re-read. This means that they have the main thing that interested and will always interest the Uralians and residents of our entire multilingual country. “Our multicolored Urals in the perception of a man of our era gave us P.P. Bazhov,” wrote Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak.

Nina Parfenova