“Ah yes Pushkin, ah yes the son of a pet, or what?” – Culture – Kommersant

Puffin Books has been accused of censoring books by British children’s writer Roald Dahl. Readers have noticed hundreds of changes in the texts, often completely changing the original meaning. So, emotionally colored words, expressions, descriptions began to disappear and new lines appeared with explanations of what was written. Kommersant asked writers and publishers whether it is necessary to rewrite books to modern standards and what this practice can lead to.

Sergey Lukyanenko, fantasy writer:

“This is disrespect for the author and the uniqueness of each book, a violation of reason and logic. Even when the author himself does it. And after his death and against his will – complete absurdity. Even the Bolsheviks in the early years of the USSR decided not to subject the classics of literature to ideological editing and reductions after Maxim Gorky managed to defend the science fiction writer HG Wells.

For children, you can make adapted versions of “Gulliver” or “Robinson Crusoe”, removing adult themes. But be sure to point out this and not prohibit the full version of the books. And in the West, the worst imitation of the “correct party line” is taking place. There was discrimination against the “blacks”, and now the “whites” are beginning to be discriminated against. Opponents of this approach in any field are ostracized.

There was a time in the USSR when a reprint of an encyclopedia page was sent to libraries to replace the page about Beria with the Bermuda Triangle. And in digital form, it’s quite simple: changes to Kindle e-books were made even to the downloaded version on the user’s device. With paper, this is not possible. But they can be burned, as Ray Bradbury warned.

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Alexandra Shipetina, director of editorial office No. 1 of the Eksmo publishing house:

– Once upon a time, the works of the Brothers Grimm were rewritten because of great cruelty. If the author is alive, only he can decide to revise, supplement or change the work, depending on what society has become, what requirements have appeared in it. It is only his right. If there is no public domain, that is, 70 years have not passed since the death of the author, then this cannot be done without the consent of the heirs. There were cases when the author stated that he did not want any of his work to be published at all, because it no longer corresponded to the time, that is, he did not want to rewrite or publish it. Here, apparently, the heirs decided to allow this to be done. Nobody would rewrite anything just like that – I think that this is a request of time and society.

We had cases when, presenting the works of Russian authors for America, we had to rework them, adjusting to the readers of this country. For example, introduce heroes of a different race. In order to understand the main idea and problems of the work, we had to adapt the text for readers, because not every text is understandable to them. In some cases, rewriting the text is justified, this is done so that the work is read by modern readers, so that the text is perceived. And in some cases it is a tribute to political and social trends. There are such trends in the West now that it is already impossible to do without it.

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Denis Dragunsky, writer:

– Rewriting to modern standards is possible only in one case – when it is done by a living author. For example, Alexander Fadeev, after he was instructed to rewrite the “Young Guard” and introduce the leading role of the party there, entered the leading underground regional committee there, etc. In such a situation, please. And if this is done against the will of the author, then this is a complete disgrace. Let’s draw a mustache to Gioconda.

This tendency to adapt to modernity will at some point run into some kind of wall and exhaust itself, become ridiculous and unproductive. Most often, something good lies at the basis – one must be tolerant, tolerant, one must not insult and scold, but all this must not be brought to the point of absurdity. How to explain, for example, such a text: “Ah yes Pushkin, ah yes son of a bitch!”? Ah yes Pushkin, ah yes the son of a pet, or what?

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Elena Kolyadina, writer, laureate of the Russian Booker Prize in 2010:

– Rewriting and supplementing the book is completely absurd. How can creativity be rewritten? If a writer is dead, how do you get into his head and understand why he wrote the way he did? I wouldn’t want my books to be rewritten. If you don’t like it, don’t publish it.

There has always been book editing, for example, fairy tales, which were very scary for children and in which there was a lot of cruelty. Such texts were smoothed out. They did the same with paintings – they painted over something, and leaflets were attached to the statues.

I think that the book should either not be published, or published in the form that the author saw it, but marked, for example, with an 18+ icon or something like that. Once upon a time, separate books were published with an explanation “for scientific work”, for example, the hidden proverbs of Dal or Pushkin’s “Tsar Nikita”. They were given out in libraries only to scientific workers.

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Dmitry Puchkov (Goblin), blogger, writer, translator:

— Whatever good goals the publisher sets for himself, this is definitely a kind of censorship, which is completely incomprehensible to me. Much earlier, the Americans ruled the “Adventures of Hechelberry Finn”, in which the blacks were not even called such a word, but strictly “black -haired”. It’s probably not good for kids right now. But if we, adults, pay money for reading unique author’s texts, then it is not clear why someone decides to correct the text, to varnish for the sake of incomprehensible whose interests. Let me figure out what is possible and what is not.

But what about creative freedom then? And what, in books about prison they won’t swear and in response to a blow to the face say: “No, Joe, you’re wrong”? And the artist will have to correct the color of his painting, for example, red, again due to the fact that someone may not like it? They fought, fought against the Soviet regime – and now the Western countries are pulling over all its bad features for themselves.

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Elena Izmailova, editor-in-chief of Clever publishing house:

– With the change of generations, the perception of texts changes. Different versions of their writing, different editing, different translations – this phenomenon is no less years old than writing itself. It is unlikely that anyone, except for scholars-philologists, now reads Pushkin or Lermontov exactly as they wrote. And even more so, comments on texts are not news, when incomprehensible words and realities are explained. Texts change and adapt to the reader – this is a natural process.

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Yuri Polyakov, writer:

This is stupid and we shouldn’t be doing this. In terms of tolerance, how would you rewrite The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn or Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Or shall we swing straight at Othello? Each book is written in a certain era, and the prepared reader wants to understand the relationships, lifestyle and thoughts of those people. Remakes are also possible, and today they are fashionable, but this is a different genre.

However, one cannot count on common sense where the Bible is already being rewritten and Christ was crucified by some unknown people. Let them try to rewrite it however they want, but the sooner they reach a logical dead end, the better for us.

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Olga Borodina, General Director of the Vlados Publishing Center:

– Why fix the classics? Therefore, they are of particular value because they were first written and published several tens or hundreds of years ago. For more than thirty years we have been publishing educational literature, which we can make adjustments, but only taking into account new achievements in science and methodology, new methods and approaches in education, and critical comments from teachers. However, we never descend to the level of the publisher from the anecdote who suggested that Bernard Shaw publish his collected works in the form of comics with brief quotations. Say, in America it is customary and sales are growing. Shaw smiled and remained silent. The pause dragged on, and the publisher exclaimed: “I’ll bet a dollar to see what you’re thinking now, Mr. Shaw!” “It’s not worth that kind of money,” the playwright replied. “Nevertheless, I still insist!” “I’m thinking of you,” Shaw replied. In my opinion, comics are a wonderful genre, but let’s reserve the right to choose the genre of your work with the author.

Group “Direct speech”