The Traveling Frog: Tales

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin 1855–1888 - a Russian writer, poet, and art critic. He was born in the estate of Pleasant Valley in the Yekaterinoslav province, now part of modern Ukraine, in the family of an officer who participated in the... Crimean War. A significant influence on V.M. Garshin's life and worldview was a family drama he experienced at the age of five. His mother fell in love with P.V. Zavadsky, who was responsible for the upbringing of the older children in the Garshin family. Zavadsky was the organizer of a secret political society, and when he was exiled to Petrozavodsk, Garshin's mother left the family and moved to St. Petersburg to be able to visit the exile. After finishing gymnasium in 1874, V.M. Garshin enrolled in the Mining Institute, but the Russo-Turkish War that began in 1877 interrupted his studies - V.M. Garshin enlisted as a free volunteer in the active army. His personal impressions of the war formed the basis of the story Four Days of 1877, which was published in the magazine Native Notes - this is how V.M. Garshin's name became known throughout Russia. In 1878, he resigned, and literature became his main occupation. V.M. Garshin's stories were often called prose poems by critics. The writer was distinguished by a special talent for creating vivid and figurative metaphors, transforming everyday situations into philosophical tales. An example of this is the story of the creation of The Tale of the Frog and the Rose in 1884. One day, V.M. Garshin was visiting his friend, the poet Y. Polonsky, where the famous composer of that time, A. Rubinstein, was playing. Opposite the musician sat an unpleasant-looking official who regarded A. Rubinstein with dissatisfaction. Under the influence of this contrast between the creator and the unpleasant person, the writer conceived the image of the confrontation between the disgusting frog and the beautiful rose. Equally metaphorical is the story The Red Flower from 1883, whose hero, a mentally ill man, struggles against the evil of the world, embodied for him in a bright scarlet poppy. And although he could not actually destroy all the evil on the planet, his act is truly heroic. The tale The Traveling Frog from 1887 is the writer's last work. At the heart of this instructive story is a fable by the famous French fabulist La Fontaine.