He firmly believed that the purpose of the storyteller was, above all, “to cultivate humanity in the child at whatever price – this marvellous ability to worry about other people’s misfortunes, to rejoice at other people’s joys, and to experience another person’s destiny as one’s own.”Īt the same time, Chukovsky began studying child psychology and children’s speech. (An excerpt from Wash-‘em-Clean, translated by E. Chukovsky was also one of the first people to start writing for very young children. His poems “The Crocodile”, “Moydodyr” (roughly translated as “Wash-‘em-Clean”), and “The Monster Cockroach” quickly became popular and are still read to Russian children. “One should write for children as well as one does for adults, only better,” he used to say.
However, Chukovsky found fame as an author of poems and tales for children rather than a translator. He was the one who introduced Russian readers to Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and Rudyard Kipling, and he would later be awarded the honorary title of Doctor of Letters from Oxford University (the gown is still displayed in the museum dedicated to him in Peredelkino). National storytellerĬhukovsky was an active translator from English into Russian. When Chukovsky returned to Russia during the 1905 revolution, he was swept up by the events and started publishing the satirical magazine Signal, for which he was later arrested but acquitted thanks to his lawyer’s efforts. By the writer’s own admission, he was a bad journalist: Instead of attending parliamentary sittings, he would spend whole days in the Reading Room of the British Museum, devouring the classics of English literature. Two years later he was sent to London as the paper’s correspondent. In 1901 Chukovsky started writing articles for the Odesskiye Novosti newspaper. The young Korney studied by himself, read a lot, and taught himself English and French. However, he was forced to leave after only five years, expelled for his “lowly origin” (his mother was a maidservant in his father’s house). Petersburg and later went to school in Odessa. However, Chukovsky was forced to overcome a number of obstacles in his life so he could continue writing his much-loved fiction. His books are imbued with a belief that good will triumph over evil, and wherever he went crowds of adoring children followed. Perhaps the secret of his enduring popularity is that he never moralized, was exceedingly jovial, and truly loved children.
The renowned children’s author still tops the bestsellers lists, despite passing away in 1969. His poems and tales are read and reread so often they’re practically imprinted on the collective memory of the nation. There are very few people in Russia whose youth was not influenced by the works of Korney Chukovsky.
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