Lorem ipsum dolor / Lorem ipsum dolor
I n the year of 1805, at the very start of the glorious 19 th century, Napole- on led his greatest battles, the world was departed by the glorious Schiller, and in Denmark, in a small town called Odense, Hans Christian Andersen, a man who left his mark on children around the world, was born. Probably the most respected Dane of all time, he was a strange, reclusive boy, taking his first steps in a small house that was not his own, where some relative had allowed his parents to stay tempo- rarily. He was two by the time his family managed to move to their new home, al- so in Odense, a city that in the centuries following his death has been toured by thousands of people who grew up with Andersen’s fairy tales. His father was a poor carpenter and cobbler, who de- serves plenty of credit for the path his son would later take. Namely, although he worked to survive, he thought of him- self as an artist, which is why he designed and made toys that little Hans played with, far from other children. Although many of his peers grew up in the neigh- bourhood, the future writer was never in the mood for socialising. He imagined alone with the stories he heard from his father; he dreamt of a garden filled with wondrous beings, and today the kind of garden that Andersen would certainly have liked to have seen exists and is green, behind the house that has been converted into a memo- rial to him. Standing there still is the old oak tree, now 212 years old, which was planted the same year Hans was born. He would grow up alongside that tree until the age of 14, when, with no mon- ey in his pocket, he would set off to find his fortune in Copenhagen. He was a tall man for the time – at 185 centimetres, he was as much as 25cm taller than average. Skinny, un- gainly and peculiar, he had charm that finally opened the door to rich families to him, among which were those who helped him mould himself as a writer. He was accepted into the most prom- inent houses of that time, though his hosts were known to say that his arriv- al often appeared like “a camel entering the house”! He was very shy, but didn’t mind his long nose and short limbs. On the contrary, he liked looking in the mir- ror. Best testifying to how he saw himself is the fairy tale The Ugly Duckling and the comment he once gave - To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg.
Mala sirena postala je odavno sinonim za bajke, ali i za celu Dansku The Little Mermaid has long been synonymous with fairy tales, but also Denmark as a whole
Ona je zauvek ostala da bdi na ulazu u luku, da pozdravi one koji stižu u Kopenhagen, grad koji se na svakom ćošku seća svog Anderse- na. Od muzeja bajki kod gradskog tornja, pa sve do prelepog, šarenog Nihavna, gde je na broju 20 dugo ži- veo i gde je napisao svoje prve bajke. Sirena bdi nad danskom prestoni- com, u kojoj posle mnogih putova- nja Andersen i počiva u aleji slav- nih i zaslužnih Danaca. Taj prelepi Kopenhagen bio je, ipak, pretesan za maštara poput An- dersena, pa je mnoge godine svog života posvetio putovanjima. Najra- dije je boravio u Italiji i Nemačkoj, ali je obišao dobar deo sveta, čak je bio gost Čarlsa Dikensa u Engle- skoj. Na putovanjima je pisao, pr- vo romane, a potom priče i zgode iz kojih su nastajale najlepše bajke. Švedska kritika mu je u to vreme za- merila da je previše cmizdrav, ali on je samo bio romantičan i poetičan. Na papiru je živeo ono što nije imao u životu, a njegove su bajke speci- fične i po tome što ne plaše krhke
dečje duše baucima i natprirodnim bićima. Najlepše su možda baš one u kojima fantastike gotovo i da ne- ma, kao u Princezi na zrnu graška , Devojčici sa šibicama ili Carevom novom odelu . Andersen ima običaj i da oživljava obične stvari, a kod njega se čak i olovni vojnik tuži na svoju samoću. Tuga je sveprisutna, ironija se provlači kroz priče, ali ni- ko ne ostaje ravnodušan na bajke, koje nisu samo za decu. Teško da danas, dva veka kasni- je, ima onih koji za njih nisu čuli ili pročitali bar neku. Osim već pome- nutih, tu su Palčica , Svinjar , Kresi- vo , Snežna kraljica … Bajke uz koje su odrastale ge- neracije, koje su prevedene na 40 jezika, igrane u pozorištima, ekra- nizovane na velikim platnima, u cr- taćima... Andersenov život na kraju je ipak ličio na neku njegovu lepu bajku. Umro je u 70. godini, 4. av- gusta 1875. bogat i zadovoljan ži- votom o kojem je mogao samo da mašta kao dečak u siromašnom gra- diću Odenseu.
56 |
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator