Travels through space and time in the book by L. Lagin "Old Man Hottabych"

Abstract

The tale of L. Lagin "The Old Man Hottabych" begins with the arrival of a fairy-tale genie into Soviet reality, who comes to the Soviet Union from the past, after centuries of imprisonment in a vessel. The wanderings of the heroes (India, Crimea, Italy, a trip on an icebreaker across the Arctic Ocean) allow, on the one hand, through the perception of Hottabych, to create the effect of “alienating” Soviet reality, which seems natural to young heroes, while Hottabych, on the contrary, is strange and contradictory to "normal" order of the world. On the other hand, comparing Soviet reality with the images of the modern capitalist world, which the heroes encounter when they get to India and Italy, should demonstrate the advantages of the Soviet system. At the same time, Hottabych himself gradually learns new rules of life and, ultimately, "sovietizes". This Soviet fairy tale incorporates elements of such classic forms of European literature of the 18th – 19th centuries as the "novel of travels" and "the novel of education".

Keywords: Lazar Lagin, "Old Man Hottabych", children's literature, travel, time and space, Soviet reality, "Pioneer" magazine, 1930s