On the bookshelf of UNESCO cities, we will meet many different authors from different parts of the Earth with their multifaceted works that have excited more than one generation of readers. Polina Nikolaeva, press secretary of the program, a young poet and writer from Ulyanovsk, will tell us about them.
Last time we talked about the work "Faust" by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Today we continue our rubric with an equally interesting work by Walter Scott "Ivanhoe".
Dear reader, today we will continue to look for a book on the bookshelf of UNESCO cities that will receive the honorary title of your favorite literary work. While we will look for it together, at the same time we will try to understand why the modern creative and literary cities of UNESCO value the creations of their great ancestors so much.
A few words about the author: who is Walter Scott?
Without a doubt, in order to fully reveal the meaning and value of the work, you need to know something about the personality of the author, about how his individual creative method and style was formed. When we talk about the work of Walter Scott, we must understand that this is a direct reflection of the transition from romanticism to realism. Nina Pavlovna Mikhalskaya and Gennady Viktorovich, a married couple of Soviet literary scholars, considered the creative method and style of Scott's novels to be quite complex. Walter Scott, on the one hand, relied on the achievements of the writers of the 18th century and considered the writer Henry Fielding as his teacher, and on the other hand, he lived in a completely different era, in which the way of building a novel and revealing the characters of its characters reached a new level.
As we have already noticed, the work of Walter Scott is a transition from romanticism to realism. Scott does not completely dismiss romanticism as a literary method, he quite successfully combines its features with the trends dictated by emerging realism. Thus, the romantic is in the circle of the real.
In world literature, Walter Scott is known as the creator of the historical novel. With his characteristic depth, Scott depicted the life of various eras, from the Middle Ages to the time when he himself lived, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Scott sees the "secret of life" of his contemporary society in its transitional nature.
The era of Walter Scott can be considered a turning point: feudal relations in society are leaving, giving way to bourgeois ones. And already in the work of Walter Scott we see Scotland as a bourgeois-landowner. Such large-scale changes in all spheres of human life inevitably push to the desire to understand the patterns of its development. The British writer does this in his own way, combining the study of history and philosophical understanding of current events.
How was Walter Scott evaluated by colleagues in pen and craft?
Scott's contemporaries not only read his novels, but also recognized the importance of the historicism of his work for the development of realism and, accordingly, the realistic novel of the 19th century.
He was highly appreciated by all the major writers and critics of the 19th century. Including our compatriots: Pushkin compared Scott with Shakespeare; Belinsky called him "Columbus in the realm of art", as well as "Shakespeare and Homer" of the historical novel. Balzac considered Scott his teacher.
Interesting fact
To create early works, such as romantic ballads, Walter Scott was inspired not only by the folk art and folklore of Scotland, but also by the dramas of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, whom we have already met.

Let's talk about one of the central works of Walter Scott - the historical novel "Ivanhoe"
The action of the novel "Ivanhoe" is connected with the history of the establishment of feudal relations in medieval England. The events take place at the end of the 12th century, during the period of struggle between the Anglo-Saxons, who had lived in England for several centuries, and their conquerors, the Normans, who took possession of England at the end of the 11th century. In the same period, there was a struggle for the centralization of royal power, the struggle of King Richard against the feudal lords.
The gallery of actors is extremely diverse. Here you will also meet representatives of the old Anglo-Saxon nobility, such as Cedric and Athelstan; and Norman feudal lords and knights such as Fron de Boeuf, de Malvoisin, de Barcy; peasant slaves and churchmen; as well as King Richard the Lionheart, leading the fight against the feudal lords, led by his brother, Prince John. On the relationship of these heroes, Walter Scott paints an amazingly realistic picture of the cruelty of feudal customs and orders.
We also advise you to pay attention to the folk scenes in the novel. You will notice a clear manifestation of the connection between Scott's work and folklore traditions. First of all, this is felt in the image of Robin Hood, created on the basis of folk legends. In keeping with folk ballads and songs, Scott described Robin Hood as a true folk hero, a fighter against injustice. In the traditions of English folk art, scenes of archery, a duel with clubs in the forest are written. In the spirit of folk poetry, images of the brave shooters of Robin Hood are also given, in particular, the cheerful joker and joker, the reckless monk Tuk, who fights on the side of the peasants.
Interesting fact
Scott did not work on the novel for so long and released it anonymously: he was afraid that he would not be successful, and in order not to discredit his name in any way, he did not sign the novel. But the novel was a wild success. The original title of the novel was Waverley, or Sixty Years Ago. Waverley - from the English verb waver, "to vacillate". This name reflected the personality of the protagonist: he hesitates, moves from one camp to another. The result is a very interesting literary model that has never existed before.
By the time the novel was written, Scotland had been part of the United Kingdom for a century. As the basis of the historical plot, Walter Scott chose the history of the unification of Scotland and England, two neighboring countries that were in endless strife, conflicts and wars. However, if the plot of the novel were built only on this conflict, the work would hardly have been such a success and would have little to arouse the keen interest of readers. From this conflict, he only derives one of the principles of his historical novels: a historical novel describes a certain conflict between two parties, two religions, two countries, and this conflict is always a transitional era in which the future is decided. Walter Scott goes further and introduces a dramatic element with the help of a non-historical hero who, by and large, is not involved in the conflict underlying the work.
Anachronisms in the novel
Walter Scott emphasized that the task of his historical novels is not to study history from them, as from a textbook. The point is to be able to feel the spirit of that time. There are definitely anachronisms in the novel, and although Walter Scott himself knew Scottish history quite well, he did not seek to correct them.
Before examining how many such anachronisms Scott has, let's recall the very meaning of the term. Anachronism is nothing more than a violation of chronological accuracy by erroneously attributing events or phenomena from one era to another.
So, the very first anachronism is associated with the personality of King Richard the Lionheart and the time at which the description and actions in the novel immediately begin. The action in the novel begins at a time when Richard the Lionheart returns from captivity. We know that the king fought in Palestine, in the Holy Land and was a participant in the Third Crusade, which dates back to 1189-1192. After Richard was twice captured and returned to England no earlier than 1194. Therefore, the events of the novel did not take place earlier than after the return of the king.
Another striking anachronism is the Bromhol cross. Of course, only a person with a subtle knowledge of world history can understand this. You, too, can arm yourself with this fact and show off your erudition in a conversation with your friends. At the beginning of the novel, the father of the protagonist Ivanhoe, Sir Cedric, utters the following phrase: "I swear by the Bromhol cross!". As we remember, the beginning of the novel dates back to 1194, but when did the relic itself appear in England? No matter how the trace of the relic is lost among historians, the most reliable information is that the Bromhole cross was brought to England in 1223, and therefore the mention of it by Sir Cedric almost 30 years before that is only an artistic detail.

The theory of Jorge Luis Borges about the four main literary plots and Walter Scott's novel "Ivanhoe": what is the connection here?
Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges put forward the theory that all world literature tells only four stories and four plots. All these plots will really seem quite familiar to you and partly even hackneyed. The first one is about the fortress, which is stormed and defended by the heroes (Homer's Iliad can serve as an example of such a plot). The second is about the return of the hero home after long wanderings (here, Homer's Odyssey or the parable of the prodigal son, which is familiar to everyone in different interpretations, can be an example). The third and fourth are about the search, about death, and about the subsequent resurrection of God, respectively.
If we fully consider the structure of the novel "Ivanhoe", then we can see that at least three of these plots play an important role in the overall structure.
Like the heroes of Homer's Iliad, the Saxon army, led by the Norman king Richard, storms the castle of Front de Boeuf, which eventually catches fire in order to rescue the beautiful Rowena, beloved of the protagonist Ivanhoe, kidnapped by the Norman knight. However, unlike the plot of the Odyssey, where at least the old swineherd servant recognizes the protagonist, Ivanhoe returns home unrecognized by anyone at all. But the fourth plot, the sacred story of the resurrection, is deliberately parodied by Walter Scott. The death of a lazy drunkard, a descendant of the Saxon kings Athelstan, turns out to be imaginary.
The Lessons of Compromise by Walter Scott
According to Walter Scott, any conflict must end with a compromise, since he himself was a man of conservative, moderate views, and believed that every sharp conflict inevitably ends in reconciliation and synthesis.
This is essentially what happens in his historical novel Ivanhoe. At the outset, he perceptively notes that back then, in the twelfth century, languages—Norman French and Anglo-Saxon—coexisted in England, but they begin to mix. And he draws attention to one interesting feature - a purely linguistic observation. He says: look, the English word swine, like the German Schwein, “pig”, is Germanic words, this is Germanic vocabulary. And "pork" in English is pork, a completely different root. This word came from the Norman language, from Old French. And in the modern language, already in the language of the 19th century, they successfully coexist - both the Germanic word, and next to it the word of Latin origin, which came through the French language. So are manners: there are Anglo-Saxon, more rude, there are Norman, more refined. They merge into one.
He imagined that conflict eventually leads to unity. Thus a single English language arises from two sources, and thus a single English nation arises from two sources and a single state. And therefore, in the center of everything, Walter Scott has heroes of compromise, heroes who are able to compromise even in an acute conflict situation. Like King Richard, who pardons and favors his opponents - the Anglo-Saxons. Like Ivanhoe himself, who is ready to serve the Norman king, and remain faithful to his father and his roots, who in the end demonstrates both knightly prowess and son love, and deserves his bride. Well, maybe we think that the wrong bride, the worst of the two, but nevertheless he gets the bride he wanted to have, and his father forgives him.
So we met with another author and another wonderful work from the shelf of UNESCO cities of literature. Share your opinion about the work of Walter Scott and ask your questions in the comments, and the management of the Ulyanovsk – UNESCO City of Literature program will be happy to answer them.