The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann 1776–1822 - a German writer, the most prominent representative of Romanticism, as well as a composer and conductor, artist, lawyer. Hoffmann was born in the Prussian city of Königsberg, into the family of a royal lawyer.... From an early age, he showed a tendency towards music and drawing, and at 14 he became an organist's apprentice. However, his parents had different views on Ernst's future, and at 16, continuing the family tradition, he enrolled in university to study law, which he successfully completed. But while working in the court, Hoffmann continued to be a composer in music and literature; at times he held the position of conductor, theater director, decorative artist, and one of his singspiels was staged in the theater. Alas, all attempts to earn a living solely from art led to failure. Hoffmann had to lead a double life: he served as a civil servant, dedicating all his free time to creativity. During his 46 years, the great Romantic wrote numerous novellas and three novels, as well as two operas, a ballet, sonatas for piano, etc. - in honor of his beloved Mozart, he even changed one of his names from Wilhelm to Amadeus. A striking feature of Hoffmann's poetics is that he does not separate phantasmagoria from everyday life; his images, according to the critic V. Solovyov, are not like ghosts from another, alien world, but rather another side of the same reality. Hoffmann wrote many extraordinary scary fairy tales: The Golden Pot, The Sandman, Little Zaches, called Cinnober, but The Nutcracker and the Mouse King occupies a special place even after 200 years. It was first published in a Berlin collection of fairy tales for children in 1816, just before Christmas, and later became part of the anthology The Serapion Brethren. The tale of the animated dolls was written under the impression of the author's conversations with the children of his friend and colleague Julian Gitsig; Fritz and Marie - that was the children's real names. And to the godfather Drosselmeyer, an unattractive but skillful master of mechanisms, Hoffmann is believed to have bestowed his own features. In Russia, Hoffmann's works began to be read only after his death. In 1835, the first translation of the fairy tale under the title The Doll Mr. Nutcracker was published.