PINOCCHIO FROM ITALY TO RUSSIA, OR THE LITERARY JOURNEY OF AN ICONIC PUPPET

Abstract

As is well known, in 1935 the famous Soviet writer Aleksey Nikolaevich
Tolstoy (1883–1945) wrote the fairy tale Zolotoj klyuchik, ili Priklyucheniya
Buratino (The Little Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino) inspired
by Collodi’s Pinocchio (1883), that he read and loved some years earlier. Considering the substantial relationships between the two works, the present paper aims at analysing them from two main points of view: a) the different connotations attributed to animal and human characters; b) the authentic nature of the “implied reader” (W. Iser) in the two texts, regardless of the moralistic or ideological contexts in which they were respectively conceived.Are they really to be considered as “fairy tales for children”? To what kind of child are they addressed?

Keywords: Pinocchio, The Little Golden Key, Burattino, Collodi, A. Tolstoy, animals vs. human characters, “implied reader”, fairy tale, children