The Origin of an Anecdote: Mukha-Tsokotukha Judged by the Soviet Leaders
The article discuss the anecdotic story "The State Leaders criticize the poem Mukha-mukha, tsokotukha". The author supposes that this anecdote about Chukovsky's tale and the reaction to it of different Soviet and Russian leaders from Lenin to Putin is probably based on stories about literary misfortune of this tale that was considered ideologically wrong by the Soviet censors. These stories were projected into one of anecdote's models based on cumulative effect (the first version). This interrelation between historical reality and the narrative mechanics of anecdote is further demonstrated by another version of this story where Chukovsky is replaced by Mikhalkov (the second version). This replacement has a definite semantic motivation. Firstly, it follows the logic of folklore where the actions of one character can be easily transferred on another, and secondly, it is based on the Mikhalkov's reputation as a writer. Thanks to that reputation the second version of the anecdote has a different message that the first one.