Recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Faculty Research Achievement Award in
the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at Syracuse
University
In 1939, Aleksandr Volkov (1891-1977) published Wizard of the Emerald
City, a revised version of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Only a line on the copyright page explained the book as a "reworking" of
the American story. Readers credited Volkov as author rather than
translator. Volkov, an unknown and inexperienced author before World War
II, tried to break into the politically charged field of Soviet
children's literature with an American fairy tale. During the height of
Stalin's purges, Volkov adapted and published this fairy tale in the
Soviet Union despite enormous, sometimes deadly, obstacles.
Marketed as Volkov's original work, Wizard of the Emerald City spawned a
series that was translated into more than a dozen languages and became a
staple of Soviet popular culture, not unlike Baum's fourteen-volume Oz
series in the United States. Volkov's books inspired a television
series, plays, films, musicals, animated cartoons, and a museum. Today,
children's authors and fans continue to add volumes to the Magic Land
series. Several generations of Soviet Russian and Eastern European
children grew up with Volkov's writings, yet know little about the
author and even less about his American source, L. Frank Baum. Most
Americans have never heard of Volkov and know nothing of his impact in
the Soviet Union, and those who do know of him regard his efforts as
plagiarism.
Erika Haber demonstrates how the works of both Baum and Volkov evolved
from being popular children's literature and became compelling and
enduring cultural icons in both the US and USSR/Russia, despite being
dismissed and ignored by critics, scholars, and librarians for many
years.
