Author of the story Brothers Grimm. It's scary, it's creepy

Last December marked 200 years since the publication of the first volume of the famous fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. At the same time, a huge amount of materials appeared in the (mainly German-language) press that were dedicated to the glorious brothers and their collection of fairy tales. After looking through them, I decided to write my own compilation text based on what I read, but I was suddenly involved in the Israeli election campaign. However, the desire remains...

Let's start with the fact that the great brothers came to fairy tales, in general, by accident. They did not consider fairy tales their main book at all. It happens. It happens that great writers do not know that they will be glorified. It happens that authors do not know that the works that they considered secondary will remain from them for centuries. So, for example, Petrarch would be very surprised if he learned that he would enter the treasury of world literature precisely with his sonnets, which he wrote in his spare time, treating them with disdain as “trifles”, “trinkets” written not for the public, but for himself, so that “somehow, not for the sake of glory, to ease the sorrowful heart.” He then saw the main work of his life not as light Italian poems, but as works in noble Latin. But he went down in history with sonnets, and not with the monumental epic poem “Africa”, where the exploits of Scipio are glorified...

This happens especially often with great storytellers. The great French poet and critic, member of the French Academy Charles Perrault - was a very prolific author, author of famous scientific works, practiced law, was a confidant of the financier Jean Colbert, general controller of the Surintendent of royal buildings, etc. As a writer, he became famous among his contemporaries for his programmatic texts - the poem “The Age of Louis the Great” and the dialogues “Parallels between the ancient and the modern in matters of art and science.” In the salons they quoted his “Walls of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque.” What about fairy tales? Perrault was a little ashamed of them. He did not even dare to publish fairy tales under his own name, fearing that they would undermine his established reputation. Trying to protect his illustrious name from accusations of working with a “low” genre, Charles Perrault put the name of his 19-year-old son on the cover.

It should be noted here that the recording of folklore by German romantics was not entirely academic in nature. The processing of the text by the publishers of The Magic Horn in some cases meant its complete rewriting. Setting themselves the sole goal of rehabilitating a hitherto despised folk song, publishers freely handle the materials they have collected. They considered it necessary to comb the village beauty's hair and dress her in a new dress before introducing her into decent society. Any current teacher of folklore would give Arnima and Brentano a “failure” for such a free handling of the material, But... fortunately for German poetry, strict teachers did not stand over the Heidelberg romantics, and they decided what would be considered folklore in a close family circle (poet Achim von Arnim married the sister of his close friend Bettina Brentano. Bettina von Arnim became his faithful colleague in the matter of collecting folklore).

In the collection “The Boy's Magic Horn” by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, folk texts that have no authorship, and therefore remade in their own way, coexist and are in a complex artistic interaction with the author’s texts of the compilers. In many ways, the collection represents an artistic hoax. For example, the story of the mermaid, which later became widely known, was a figment of Brentano's imagination.

It is important to note this because the Brothers Grimm, yielding to the urgent recommendations of the romantic writers of the Heidelbergers, took the path of making fairy tales more literary. More precisely, Wilhelm took on this work, and Jacob chose not to participate in it. But more on that later.

It all started when Achim von Arnim visited his friends in the city of Kassel in 1812. And I read one of their manuscripts, “pacing the room.” At the same time, von Arnim became so deeply involved in reading that - as the apocrypha says - " didn’t notice how a tame canary, which seemed to feel great in his thick curls, was balancing on his head, easily flapping its wings".

This scene has come to us in the description of the Brothers Grimm. Jacob and Wilhelm were the same friends of Achim von Arnim, whose manuscript I read with such enthusiasm that I did not notice the canary on my head. The Brothers Grimm, very prolific writers, treated Achim's opinion with great respect.
But they were very surprised that von Arnim preferred a collection of fairy tales to all the other manuscripts read that evening.

Wilhelm later wrote: “It was he, Arnim, who spent several weeks with us in Kassel, who encouraged us to publish the book! He believed that we should not delay this for long, since in the pursuit of completeness the matter might drag on too long. " After all, everything is written so cleanly and so beautifully“, he said with good-natured irony.”

So, on October 18, 1812 - “exactly a year before the Battle of Leipzig” (note by Jacob Grimm), at a time when all of Europe was waiting for news from Russia, where Napoleon was stuck, Wilhelm Grimm wrote the preface to their first edition: “ We consider it a blessing when it happens that a storm or other disaster sent by heaven knocks the entire crop to the ground, and somewhere near a low hedge or bush bordering the road, an untouched place will remain and individual spikelets will remain standing there as they stood. The gracious sun will shine again, and they will grow, lonely and unnoticed, no one’s hasty sickle will reap them to fill rich barns, but at the end of summer, when they fill up and ripen, poor, honest hands will find them and, carefully tying them, spikelet to spikelet , esteemed higher than whole sheaves, they will take them home, where they will serve as food for the whole winter, and perhaps they will provide the only seed for future sowing. We experience the same feelings when we look at the wealth of German poetry of bygone times and see that from so much nothing living has survived, even the memory of it has faded away, and only folk songs and these naive home fairy tales remain. Places by the stove, by the kitchen fireplace, attic stairs, holidays not yet forgotten, meadows and forests with their silence, but, above all, serene fantasy - these are the hedges that preserved them and passed them on from one era to another».

The Brothers Grimm connected the need for collecting with the historical awareness of the transience of things, the rapid change in life itself. The works of the Brothers Grimm are imbued with the pathos of what can be expressed by the phrase “yet.” They, who grew up in the era of revolutionary changes and the Napoleonic wars, experienced first-hand how stable life plans can turn into dust, how quickly time changes, and that is why they justified the relevance of their scientific intentions with the desire to quickly save what history might leave behind. without attention.

“Not yet” is the motivating motive in an era when, after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Europe was changing with amazing speed. “For the time being” it is possible to record the changing old forms of language, dialectisms, and names being archaized. “For now” - you can write down oral creativity. "For the time being" the brothers can retain traces of the old German law, which survived despite the success of Roman laws. "For now" the Grimms may be trying to save old German poetry from oblivion. “At some point it will be too late,” notes Jacob Grimm in his “Appeal to All Friends of German Poetry and History” (1811). “For now” it is possible to study at least the remnants of the past, but soon they too will be lost forever.
The pathos associated with “yet” means that any essential moment of the past is worthy of recording. It needs to be recorded, if only to be able to understand and reconstruct historical relationships.

More from the preface: “ This naive proximity to us of the biggest and the smallest is fraught with an indescribable charm, and we would rather hear the conversation of the stars with a poor child abandoned in the forest than the most exquisite music. Everything beautiful in them looks golden, strewn with pearls, even the people here are golden, and misfortune is a dark force, a terrible cannibal giant, who, however, is defeated, since there is a good fairy nearby who knows how best to avert misfortune».

The preface to the collection ended with these words: “ We pass this book into benevolent hands, thinking at the same time about the great and good power contained in them, and we want it not to fall into the hands of those who do not want to give even these crumbs of poetry to the poor and weak».

Arnim contacted Reimer's publishing house in Berlin. At the end of September, the brothers sent the manuscript to the publisher. And so, shortly before the Christmas holidays of 1812, Jacob was holding the newly published book of “Children's and Household Tales.”

The first edition of the first volume was about nine hundred copies. The book did not immediately meet with success and universal approval. Immediately after the release of the first edition, this collection of fairy tales was subjected to deafeningly harsh criticism. August Wilhelm Schlegel wrote a scathing review. " If someone cleans out a closet filled with all sorts of nonsense, and at the same time expresses his respect to all junk in the name of “ancient legends,” then this is too much for reasonable people».

The second volume of fairy tales, published in 1815, was not sold out. About a third of the circulation remained unclaimed and was destroyed.

Misunderstood by contemporaries

Something similar happened with many other books by the Brothers Grimm. Their linguistic works, as well as their studies in the history of literature, their study of legends, fairy tales and myths, their works on the history of law, customs and mores, as well as their political activities, rarely received such an assessment as they considered justified.

Jacob and Wilhelm were constantly in conflict with their superiors. They constantly faced the fact that their contemporaries did not recognize their merits.

Completely ignoring their merits, the Elector of Hesse-Kassel in 1829 refused to appoint them to work in his library, which they had hoped for for many years. The director of the Elector's library was then appointed instead by the Marburg professor Johann Ludwig Völkel, whom the Grimm brothers could not take seriously, since he actually considered the shards found in the houses of Kassel to be creations of antiquity, which greatly pleased the Elector. Voelkel was also famous for once mistaking worm-eaten walls for Germanic runes. The Brothers Grimm were treated unceremoniously. According to rumors, they knew the ironic words spoken by the Elector on the occasion of their departure to Göttingen: “ The Lords Grimm are leaving! Big loss! They haven't done anything for me this whole time!»

Apparently, contemporaries were simply not ready for “ respectful attitude towards the insignificant“This is exactly what the art historian Sulpice Boasseret said disdainfully in 1815 in his letter to Goethe.

And indeed: why was it necessary to deal with obscure examples of medieval poetry discovered in some piles of old rubbish? Why was it necessary to pedantically delve into not very relevant aspects of German grammar? Why meticulously study the missed opportunities of historical linguistics? Considering that in those days, every ruler of the dwarf German state could have with him a professor or librarian who boldly gave answers to all the questions of the universe, offered his universal philosophical concentrate, and revealed the last secrets of existence.

Besides, why should enlightened people be interested in stories about ancient heroes and knights, about witches and wizards? Maybe “Children's and Family Tales” sent children down the wrong path and were not suitable for educational purposes? However, the Brothers Grimm believed in what they were doing. They were always ready to take on the risk of failure - and this was the case with each of their new projects.

Almighty God of Details

Most of their stories about themselves in the Learned Lexicon of 1831 are devoted not to heroic research work, not to important discoveries and great scientific achievements, but to childhood and youth. It talks about the peach tree that grew behind their parents' house, about the garden in which they played, about how they learned to read and write, about childhood illnesses, about military parades, about carriage rides with relatives, and also about their school days held in Kessel. Scientists inserted into their autobiographies precisely the kind of material that many of their contemporaries must have considered irrelevant and unimportant. Moreover, with a strong provocative propensity, they declared that children's mindfulness and childhood in general were an essential element of their research program. In their opinion, the person who looks at the world with the “pure gaze” of a child also shows interest in trifles and secondary issues that elude the attention of an adult. The brothers believed that it is this openness towards the small and insignificant that leads to real discoveries and makes a scientist a scientist.

« Nature Explorer, - Jacob Grimm emphasized in his work “On female names associated with flowers”, - observes with equal attention, and with great success, both great and small, since in the smallest there is contained the evidence of the greatest.” Why, for example, he asks, “in history and poetry should not what seems insignificant be collected and studied?“In his opinion, the key to peace lies in the details, and not in something big, sensational or attracting everyone's attention.

Therefore, in his biographical sketch, Wilhelm dreams of research devoted to something “special”, and as an example he cites Pierre Lyon's anatomical treatise on field caterpillars from 1762, which occupies more than 600 pages and represents a monumental study of the tiny insect.

The “respectful attitude towards the insignificant”, so characteristic of the Enlightenment, formed the basis of the attitude of the Brothers Grimm towards themselves - and at the same time served as their protection against criticism from all those who did not want to treat their work with due respect. “It is very easy ... sometimes to discard as not worthy of attention that which has most clearly manifested itself in life, and instead the researcher continues to indulge in the study of those things that may captivate, but in fact do not saturate or nourish.” With these words, Wilhelm Grimm ends the section in his biography devoted to children's perception of the world.

It is precisely this awareness of the transience and dissimilarity of historical eras, the perception of the past as something fleeting, and the modern as something changing with exceptional speed, that belongs to the fundamental experience - it determines the pathos associated with the “yet”, which requires fixing the details of the past, at least for in order to be able to understand and reconstruct historical relationships. Perhaps, with the help of something insignificant, a person is able to understand that the world was once completely different and perceived differently. Perhaps a person is able to understand that other values ​​​​existed before, other relationships prevailed, and that the order of things has changed significantly since then. After all, history is transformation. Continuous, never-ending transformation.

Transformation of fairy tales

At first, unlike Bren Tano, who freely handled fairy tale plots and remade them depending on the artistic task, the Brothers Grimm did not change anything, much less distort it. Of course, while writing down what they heard, they thought about this or that phrase. Of course, there were also contradictions in views. Jacob was more inclined towards scientific accuracy. As a publisher, he, referring to his methods and principles, wrote: “ Reworking and refining these things will always be unpleasant for me because they are done in the interests of a falsely understood necessity for our time, and for the study of poetry they will always be an annoying hindrance" It was not easy for him to give in to Wilhelm, a supporter of artistic and poetic treatment. But since the brothers unconditionally recognized the need to preserve everything historical, then in the process of presenting the final version of the fairy tales, matters did not reach significant discrepancies. Both approached fairy tales with care, striving to write them down almost without changes, without cutting them down anywhere, only with literary processing, so that they would play again in all their poetic splendor.

« We tried to preserve fairy tales in all their pristine purity,- wrote the Brothers Grimm. — Not a single episode in them is invented, embellished or changed, since we sought to avoid attempts to enrich the already rich fairy-tale plots through any analogies or reminiscences.” But, on the other hand, they emphasized: “It goes without saying that the style and construction of individual parts for the most part belong to us».

The collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm initially did not have a clear purpose, since it was conceived as a publication capable of satisfying the needs of all categories of readers - the general reader, people of science, and people of art.

The second edition prepared by Wilhelm (1819) differed significantly from the first. Subsequently, Wilhelm continued literary editing of the collection, following the path of “fairytale stylization”, giving it greater expressiveness and uniformity of form. Wilhelm Grimm published new editions of this publication until his death on December 16, 1859. Before each new edition, changes were made to the texts of fairy tales.
No matter how consistently later versions deviated from the original, the scientific value of Grimm’s collection was just as consistently reduced. And if the first critics (the same Brentano) accused the brothers of the coarseness of the raw material, then today’s folklorists accuse them of excessive literary processing and careless attitude towards the source material of the folk tale.

Wilhelm Grimm forever changed the texts of fairy tales. Many readers would be amazed if they read in the first edition such fairy tales as “Rapunzel”, “The Tale of the Frog King, or Iron Henry”, “Hansel and Gretel”, “Cinderella”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Sleeping beauty" or "Snow White". Over the years, their content has changed significantly.

Then they were changed by the authors of retellings, adaptations, literary adaptations, free translations, Disney and Hollywood films, etc. Starting with Wilhelm Grimm, texts have been “cleaned” for a couple of centuries, softening and cutting out all unpleasant or dubious passages.

Very often, in order to justify this, the idea is given that, despite the fact that the first edition was published under the title “Children's and Family Tales,” the book was not written for children. The brothers conceived the book as an academic anthology. It was a publication for scientists, written by serious adults for serious adults. However, as the popularity of the books grew, a wave of harsh criticism fell on the brothers. Parents thought fairy tales were too dark. According to moralists, they were not good enough. And according to the church, they were not Christian enough. So we had to change the content of the fairy tales.

The evil mothers in the fairy tales of Snow White and Hansel and Gretel turned into evil stepmothers. What was the original plot of Snow White? In the story told by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, Snow White's envious mother (not stepmother!) sends a huntsman to bring back the girl's lung and liver, which the mother intended to pickle, cook and eat. This is a tale of rivalry between mother and daughter - the female version of the Oedipal passions. Also included in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale is the punishment of a cruel mother. In the story, she appears at Snow White's wedding wearing red-hot iron shoes and dances in them until she falls dead.

In the original story of “Cinderella” by the Brothers Grimm (unlike Charles Perrault’s version), Cinderella receives clothes for the ball not from the good fairy, but from a tree that grew from a hazel branch watered with tears on her mother’s grave. The story with the shoes doesn’t look childish at all in Grimm’s recording. When the prince comes to try on the shoe, the oldest of the stepmother’s daughters (and they are evil, treacherous like the stepmother herself) cuts off her finger in order to get into the shoe. The prince takes her with him, but two white doves on a walnut tree sing that her shoe is covered in blood. The prince turns his horse back. The same thing is repeated with the other sister, only she cuts off not the toe, but the heel. Only Cinderella's shoe fits. The prince recognizes the girl and declares him his bride. When the prince and Cinderella drive past the cemetery, the doves fly from the tree and sit on Cinderella’s shoulders - one on the left, the other on the right, and remain sitting there.

« And when the time came to celebrate the wedding, the treacherous sisters also appeared - they wanted to flatter her and share her happiness with her. And when the wedding procession went to the church, the eldest was on the right hand of the bride, and the youngest on the left; and the doves pecked out one eye of each of them. And then, when they were returning back from church, the eldest walked on the left hand, and the youngest on the right; and the pigeons pecked out another eye for each of them. So they were punished for their malice and deceit for the rest of their lives with blindness.».

We had to remove any hints of sex from the texts, as, for example, in the fairy tale “Rapunzel”. In the original version, the evil witch imprisoned Rapunzel in a tower. One day a prince secretly made his way to her. Then he left, managing not to wake the witch. But Rapunzel still spilled the beans. How? She, as if nothing had happened, asked the witch why the dress was too small for her. For some reason it became tight in the waistband. The witch immediately guessed that Rapunzel was pregnant. In later editions, the Brothers Grimm removed these details from the text, as well as other references to premarital sex.
The third of the Grimm brothers, Emil, worked on the artwork of the books and added Christian symbols to the illustrations. So the Bible soon appeared on Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s bedside table.

And as Fairy Tales became more conservative, so did their popularity. Finally, parents stopped being embarrassed when reading them to their children, and fairy tales took on a new life. Now, 200 years later, we still know about the adventures of Rapunzel, Cinderella and Snow White, although some of the details of these adventures have disappeared from the books.

And one can only think - what would have happened if Jacob and Wilhelm had not changed the texts of their fairy tales? Would their names be known to this day?

One evening a young drummer walked alone across a field. He approaches the lake and sees three pieces of white linen lying on the shore. “What a thin linen,” he said and put one piece in his pocket. He came home, forgot to think about his find and went to bed. But as soon as he fell asleep, it seemed to him as if someone was calling him by name. He began to listen and heard a quiet voice that said to him: “Drummer, wake up, drummer!” And the night was dark, he could not see anyone, but it seemed to him as if some figure was rushing in front of his bed, first rising up, then falling down.

What do you need? - he asked.

Once upon a time there lived a poor shepherd boy. His father and mother died, then his superiors sent him to the house of a rich man, so that he would feed and raise him. But the rich man and his wife had an evil heart, and with all their wealth they were very stingy and unkind to people and were always angry if anyone took advantage of even a piece of their bread. And no matter how hard the poor boy tried to work, they fed him little, but beat him a lot.

Once upon a time there lived an old miller at the mill; He had neither a wife nor children, and he had three servants. They stayed with him for several years, so he said to them one day:

I have already become old, I should now sit on the stove, and you go wander around the world; and whoever brings me home the best horse, I will give the mill to him, and he will feed me until I die.

The third worker was a filler at the mill, and they all considered him a fool and did not assign the mill to him; Yes, he himself didn’t want that at all. And all three of them left, and, approaching the village, they said to Hans the Fool:

In ancient times, when the Lord God was still walking the earth, it happened that one evening he was tired, night overtook him, and he had nowhere to spend the night. And there were two houses along the road, one opposite the other; There was one big and beautiful, and the other was small and unsightly in appearance. The big house belonged to the rich man, and the small one to the poor man. The Lord thought: “I won’t bother the rich man, I’ll spend the night with him.” The rich man heard them knocking on his door, opened the window and asked the stranger what he needed.

A long time ago there lived a king in the world, and he was famous throughout the entire earth for his wisdom. Everything was known to him, as if someone was sending him news about the most secret things through the air. But he had a strange custom: every noon, when everything was cleared from the table and there was no one else left, a reliable servant would bring him another dish. But it was covered, and even the servant did not know what was on this dish; and not a single person knew about it, for the king opened the dish and began to eat only when he was completely alone.

This went on for a long time, but one day curiosity overcame the servant, he could not control himself and took the dish to his room. He closed the doors properly, lifted the lid from the dish, and saw a white snake lying there. He looked at her and could not resist trying her; he cut off a piece and put it in his mouth.

Once a woman with her daughter and stepdaughter went out into the field to cut grass, and the Lord God appeared to them in the form of a beggar and asked:

How can I get closer to the village?

“If you want to know the way,” the mother answered, “look for it yourself.”

And if you are worried that you won’t be able to find your way, then take a guide.

A poor widow lived alone in her hut, and in front of the hut she had a garden; There were two rose trees growing in that garden, and white roses were blooming on one, and scarlet ones on the other; and she had two children, similar to these pink trees, one was called Snow White, and the other was Scarlet Flower. They were so modest and kind, so hard-working and obedient, that there were no such people in the world; only Snow White was even quieter and more gentle than Scarlet Flower. Alotsvetik jumped and ran more and more through the meadows and fields, picking flowers and catching butterflies; and Snow White - she mostly sat at home near her mother, helped her with the housework, and when there was no work, read something out loud to her. Both sisters loved each other so much that if they went somewhere, they always held hands, and if Snow White used to say: “We will always be together,” then Scarlet Flower would answer her: “Yes, while we are alive, we will never let’s part” - and the mother added: “Whatever one of you has, let him share it with the other.”

Once upon a time there lived a beautiful queen. One day she was sewing by the window, accidentally pricked her finger with a needle and a drop of blood fell on the snow lying on the windowsill.

The scarlet color of blood on the snow-white cover seemed so beautiful to her that the queen sighed and said:

Oh, how I would like to have a child with a face as white as snow, with lips as scarlet as blood and curls as black as pitch.

Many years have passed since the Brothers Grimm's "Children's and Household Fairy Tales" were first published. The publication was the most modest both in appearance and in volume: the book contained only 83 fairy tales instead of the 200 currently published. The preface introduced to the collection by the Brothers Grimm was signed on October 18, ever-memorable 1812. The book was appreciated in this era of German self-awareness, in this era of the awakening of ardent nationalist aspirations and the magnificent flowering of romance. Even during the life of the Grimm brothers, their collection, constantly supplemented by them, had already gone through 5 or 6 editions and was translated into almost all European languages.

This collection of fairy tales was almost the first, youthful work of the Grimm brothers, their first attempt on the path of scientific collection and scientific processing of monuments of ancient German literature and nationality. Following this path, the Grimm brothers later achieved great fame as luminaries of European science and, having devoted their entire lives to their enormous, truly immortal works, indirectly had a very strong influence on Russian science and on the study of the Russian language, antiquity and nationality. Their name also enjoys loud, well-deserved fame in Russia, and is pronounced by our scientists with deep respect... In view of this, we recognize that here it would not be superfluous to include a short, concise biographical sketch of the life and work of the famous brothers Grimm, whom the Germans rightly call “the fathers of and the founders of German philology."

By origin, the Brothers Grimm belonged to the middle class of society. Their father was first a lawyer in Hanau, and then entered the legal service of the Prince of Hanau. The Brothers Grimm were born in Hanau: Jacob - January 4, 1785, Wilhelm - February 24, 1786. From their earliest youth they were bound by the closest bonds of friendship, which did not stop until their death. Moreover, both of them, even by their very nature, seemed to complement each other: Jacob, as the eldest, was physically stronger than his brother Wilhelm, who was constantly very sick from a young age and only became stronger in health in old age. Their father died in 1796 and left his family in a very cramped situation, so that only thanks to the generosity of their maternal aunt, the Grimm brothers were able to complete their studies, for which they had already shown brilliant abilities very early on. They first studied at the Kassel Lyceum, then entered the University of Marburg, with the firm intention of studying legal sciences for practical work following the example of their father. They actually listened to lectures at the Faculty of Law and studied law, but their natural inclinations began to tell and pulled them in a completely different direction. Even at the university, they began to devote all their leisure time to the study of domestic German and foreign literature, and when in 1803 the famous romantic Tieck published his “Songs of the Minnesingers,” to which he prefaced with a passionate, heartfelt preface, the Grimm brothers immediately felt a strong attraction to the study of German antiquity and nationalities and decided to familiarize themselves with ancient German handwritten literature based on the originals. Having embarked on this path soon after leaving university, the Grimm brothers never left it until the end of their lives.

In 1805, when Jacob Grimm had to go to Paris for a while for scientific purposes, the brothers, accustomed to living and working together, felt the burden of this separation to such an extent that they decided never to separate again for any purpose - to live together and share everything in half with each other.

Between 1805 and 1809, Jacob Grimm was in the service: for some time he was the librarian of Jerome Bonaparte in Wilhelmsgeg, and then even a state auditor. After the end of the war with France, Jacob Grimm received an order from the Elector of Kassel to go to Paris and return to the Kassel Library those manuscripts that were taken from it by the French. In 1815, he was sent along with a representative of the Electorate of Kassel to the Congress of Vienna, and a profitable diplomatic career even opened up for him. But Jacob Grimm felt complete disgust for her, and in general, in his official activities he saw only an obstacle to the pursuit of science, to which he was devoted with all his soul. That is why in 1816 he left the service, rejected the professorship offered to him in Bonn, refused large salaries and preferred over everything a modest position as a librarian in Kassel, where his brother had already been secretary of the library since 1814. Both brothers maintained this humble position until 1820, during which time they diligently devoted themselves to their scientific research, and this period of their lives was most fruitful in relation to their scientific activity. In 1825, Wilhelm Grimm married; but the brothers still did not separate and continued to live and work together.

In 1829, the director of the Kassel Library died; his place, of course, by all rights and justice should have gone to Jacob Grimm; but a stranger who had not declared himself to be of any merit was preferred over him, and both brothers Grimm, offended by this blatant injustice, found themselves forced to resign. It goes without saying that the Brothers Grimm, who at that time had already become very famous for their works, did not remain idle. Jacob Grimm was invited to Göttingen in 1830 as a professor of German literature and senior librarian at the university there. Wilhelm entered the same place as a junior librarian and in 1831 was elevated to extraordinary, and in 1835 to ordinary professor. Both learned brothers had a good life here, especially because here they met a friendly circle that included the first luminaries of modern German science. But their stay in Gottingen was short-lived. The new King of Hanover, who ascended the throne in 1837, planned with one stroke of the pen to destroy the constitution given to Hanover by his predecessor, which, of course, aroused general displeasure against himself throughout the country; but only seven Göttingen professors had enough civic courage to publicly protest against such an unauthorized violation of the fundamental state law. Among these seven daredevils were the Brothers Grimm. King Ernst August responded to this protest by immediately dismissing all seven professors from their positions and expelling from Hanoverian borders those of them who were not Hanoverian natives. Within three days, the Brothers Grimm had to leave Hanover and temporarily settled in Kassel. But public opinion in Germany stood up for the famous scientists: a general subscription was opened to provide for the Brothers Grimm from want, and two large German booksellers and publishers (Reimer and Hirtzel) approached them with a proposal to jointly compile a German dictionary on the broadest scientific basis. The Brothers Grimm accepted this offer with the greatest readiness and, after the necessary, rather lengthy preparations, set to work. But they did not have to stay in Kassel for long: their friends took care of them and found them an enlightened patron in the person of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, and when he ascended the throne in 1840, he immediately summoned the learned brothers to Berlin. They were elected members of the Berlin Academy of Sciences and, as academicians, received the right to lecture at the University of Berlin. Soon, both Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm began lecturing at the university and from then on lived in Berlin continuously until their death. Wilhelm died December 16, 1859; Jacob followed him on September 20, 1863, in the 79th year of his arduous and fruitful life.

As for the significance of the scientific activity of the Grimm brothers, it, of course, is not subject to our assessment in this short biographical note. We can limit ourselves here to only listing their most important works, which brought them great fame as European scientists, and point out the differences that existed in the activities of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and to some extent characterized their personal attitude to science.

Even those who do not like fairy tales are familiar with the plots of Cinderella, Rapunzel and Thumb. All these and hundreds more fairy tales were recorded and revised by two linguist brothers. They are known to the whole world under the names Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Family Affair

The sons of lawyer Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, were born a year apart. Jacob was born in early January 1785. The second son in the Grimm family, Wilhelm, appeared a year later, on February 24, 1786.

The young men were orphaned early. Already in 1796, they came under the care of their aunt, who did her best to support their desire to study and new knowledge.

The university for lawyers where they entered did not captivate their inquisitive minds. The Brothers Grimm became interested in linguistics, compiling a German dictionary, and from 1807 they began to write down tales they heard during their travels in Hesse and Westphalia. There was so much “fairytale” material that the Brothers Grimm decided to publish the stories they had recorded and revised.

Fairy tales not only made the brothers famous, but also gave one of the linguists family happiness. Thus, Dorothea Wild, from whose words the stories about Hansel and Gretel, Lady Snowstorm and the story about the magic table were written down, later became Wilhelm’s wife.

The tales turned out to be interesting to a wide range of readers. During the brothers’ lifetime alone, their collections of fairy tales were translated into more than a hundred languages. The success kept Jacob and Wilhelm interested in their work, and they enthusiastically looked for new storytellers.

How many fairy tales did the Brothers Grimm collect?

The initial publication of the collected material by the Brothers Grimm included 49 fairy tales. In the second edition, which consisted of two volumes, there were already 170 of them. Another Grimm brother, Ludwig, participated in the printing of the second part. However, he was not a collector of fairy tales, but skillfully illustrated what Jacob and Wilhelm revised.

After the first two editions of collections of fairy tales, 5 more editions followed. In the final, 7th edition, the Brothers Grimm chose 210 fairy tales and legends. Today they are called “Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.”

The abundance of illustrations and closeness to the original source made fairy tales a subject for discussion and even debate. Some critics accused linguists of being too “childish” in the details of the published fairy tales.

To satisfy young readers' interest in their work, the Brothers Grimm published 50 edited fairy tales for children in 1825. By the middle of the 19th century, this collection of fairy tales was reprinted 10 times.

Recognition of posterity and modern criticism

The legacy of the Grimm linguists was not forgotten even years later. They are read to children by parents all over the world, and performances are staged based on them for young spectators. The popularity of fairy tales has grown so much over the past century and a half that in 2005, UNESCO included the work of the Brothers Grimm in the Memory of the World list.

Screenwriters are playing with the plots of Grimm's fairy tales for new cartoons, films and even TV series.

However, like any grandiose work, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm are still subject to criticism and various interpretations. Thus, some religions call only a few fairy tales from the brothers’ heritage “useful for children’s souls,” and the Nazis at one time used their stories to promote their inhumane ideas.

Video on the topic