I love "The Wizard of the Emerald City" very much, I love the whole series tenderly, for me it is a real magical land from childhood. And every time I feel almost personal offense when I hear about plagiarism: Volkov, they say, stole the idea from Baum. But let's not forget that the attitude to copyright was different back then, and it is unlikely that Volkov consciously violated the law. And, by the way, the first edition was published with the note "based on the fairy tale by Frank Baum." Then Volkov rewrote the fairy tale several times, moving further and further away from the original, if not in the plot, then in the mood and message. And initially he took on translating it in order to practice his English, but it turned out so well that it was a shame to work for the drawer. And so, based on an interesting plot, but a rather simple original text, a bright, emerald fairy tale was born with sun-drenched valleys, shady forests, filled with the ringing of bells, the rustling of oak groves, the aroma of meadows, the shimmer of precious stones... This country did not exist before Volkov, and it simply had to be invented so that children would have such a place of power, to which they could be transported in their fantasies while reading, or dream about it before going to bed.
The next five books in the VIG series are already completely independent works, where only distant echoes of Baum's tales are heard. In the sequels, Volkov does not beat around the bush, but composes new fascinating plots, carefully draws characters, creates a unique atmosphere in each book, and he writes in a beautiful language, so that all this taken together leaves no room for doubt in his talent and professionalism.
And if we are talking about borrowings, then perhaps not everyone thought about it, but even Pushkin – Pushkin himself! – did not write the tale of the dead princess from scratch. Buratino, The Scarlet Flower, Aibolit, and even, it would seem, our own Dunno – these are pure literary borrowings. So what? All this is a thing of the past, and would it really have been better if the copyright had been observed, but these tales had not appeared? I don’t think so. Let linguists and lawyers sort these issues out among themselves, and we, the readers, can simply enjoy magnificent works of art.
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