Carabas-barabas

Karabas-Barabas is an elderly man, severe and terrible in appearance, greedy and vicious in character. He has a huge mouth and wears a very long beard that reaches the ground. When walking, Karabas-Barabas may accidentally step on his own beard and, to prevent this, puts the end of the beard in the pocket of his clothes. By occupation - the owner of the puppet theater. Also known under such a nickname as "Signor Karabas-Barabas, the closest friend of the King of Tarabar." The author in the description of the character mentions the title "Doctor of Puppet Sciences" without specifying who and what awarded this title.

The story of Carlo Collodi's “ The Adventures of Pinocchio ”, which became the prototype of the tale of Pinocchio, features a harsh and terrible-looking, but very kind owner of a puppet theater named Manjafoko ( Italian: Mangiafuoco , literally Fire Eater ), but his role in the plot is less significant . In the Disney cartoon Pinocchio , his name was replaced by Stromboli, and his character took on clearly negative features.

For the character’s name, Alexey Tolstoy most likely defeated Carrabba (the name of Italian restaurant popular in the USA) and the Italian word barbuto (“bearded”) in his own way.

There is also a version that the name “Barabas” is “Barabas”; in the play of Christopher Marlowe, “The ”, such a name bears the rich, greedy and cruel protagonist ^[1] .

Immediately after the publication of the tale in 1936, many realized that under the puppet theater there was an allusion to the State Theater named after Vs. Meyerhold (GosTiM), and under the cruel and tyrannical director and owner of Karabas-Barabas - Vsevolod Meyerhold himself ^[2] .

A talented director and creator of biomechanics , Meyerhold had a reputation as a tough and even tyrannical leader who sought obedience and accuracy from puppets from actors. Often, the actors fled from his theater, unable to withstand the pressures and working atmosphere - like dolls, who eventually fled from the Karabas-Barabas theater and opened their own theater, where the dolls will be their own masters ^[3] .

Of course, Vsevolod Meyerhold did not come to rehearsals with a seven-tailed whip and did not wear a beard to the ground, like Karabas-Barabas. However, after the revolution, Meyerhold acquired a Mauser in a holster, which, sitting down at a table at rehearsals, he laid in front of him. Then he began to wear a long scarf, the ends of which hung down to the ground. In order not to accidentally step on these ends, Meyerhold put them in his jacket pocket - like Karabas-Barabas, his beard ^[3] .

All these moments were beaten by Tolstoy in a fairy tale and transparent to knowledgeable readers. In addition, such readers knew that one of Meyerhold's pseudonyms was “Dr. Dapertutto” (hence the name of the modern theater in Penza ). Therefore, the Italian "doctor of puppet sciences" became a completely obvious allusion ^[3] .

On the screen, Karabas-Barabas was seen three years after the first publication of the tale. In the black and white film " Golden Key " (1939), his role was played by Alexander Schagin .

In the two-part film musical The Adventures of Pinocchio (1975), the role of Karabas-Barabas was played by Vladimir Etush .

In Andrei Nuikin 's fairy tale “Dedication to Knights,” Karabas-Barabas is more likely a positive character. He is an old sick director of a puppet theater, which burns out on a self-financing basis, with troubled actors - Malvina , plaguing all the whims, Pinocchio , a liar and a petty bully, an unbearable poodle Artemon , who only knows what to chase the ball.

He is a character in the tale of Leonid Vladimirsky " Pinocchio in the Emerald City ."

He is a character in the song by Yuri Varum and Pavel Zhagun "Karabas-Barabas" performed by Alexander Kalyanov . Here he, too, is more likely a positive character, whom mischievous dolls harass ^[4] .