Tanya Grotter
Encyclopedia
Tanya Grotter is the female protagonist of a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
series by Dmitri Yemets
Dmitri Yemets
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Yemets is a Russian author of children's and young adult fantasy literature.He is most famous for his Tanya Grotter series and spin-offs, which he calls "a parody" or, alternatively, as "a sort of Russian answer" to Harry Potter. He has been repeatedly threatened, by J.K...
. Tanya (short for Tatiana) Grotter is an orphan with intentional resemblances to J. K. Rowling
J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...
's Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
. The series is not available in English translation, the first book having been judged a breach of copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
.
Content
The central character and plot elements of the first novel, Tanya Grotter and the Magical Double Bass, closely resemble those of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring Harry Potter, a young wizard...
, but are transposed into a Russian setting. Tanya Grotter has an unusual birthmark on her nose, magical powers, an upbringing by "Lopukhoid" (equivalent to Muggle
Muggle
Muggle, a term from the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling, refers to a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born into the magical world...
) relatives after her parents were killed by an evil sorceress Chuma-del-Tort (the official translation of Voldemort name in Russian was 'Volan-de-Mort'), and goes to study at the Tibidokhs (Тибидохс) School for Behaviorally-Challenged Young Witches and Wizards. Tanya's foster-family, the Durnevs, live in an urban apartment block, and Tanya is forced to sleep not in a cupboard but in the apartment's loggia
Loggia
Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
.
Yemets described the books as "a cultural reply" to the Potter series, and they feature allusion to Russian culture and folklore such as Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga or Baba Roga is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle, kidnaps small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs...
, rusalki
Rusalka
In Slavic mythology, a rusalka was a female ghost, water nymph, succubus, or mermaid-like demon that dwelled in a waterway....
, witches on Bald Mountain
Night on Bald Mountain
Night on Bald Mountain is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky that exists in, at least, two versions—a seldom performed 1867 version or a later and very popular "fantasy for orchestra" arranged by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, A Night on the Bare Mountain , based on the vocal score of the "Dream Vision...
and the works of Pushkin (for instance, Tibidox is on the island of Buyan
Buyan
In Slavic mythology, Buyan is described as a mysterious island in the ocean with an ability to appear and disappear. Three brothers – Northern, Western, and Eastern Winds – live there...
mentioned in Pushkin's The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan is an 1831 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin, written after the Russian fairy tale edited by Vladimir Dahl...
).
After the first book, the plots diverge from those of the Harry Potter series. For instance, in Tanya Grotter and the Golden Leech, Tanya finds herself pitted against "Hurry Pooper" (a thinly disguised Harry Potter) in the World Dragonball Championship. While trying to reach the ball, they crash, creating a new timeline in which Chuma-del-Tort has won, good and evil being reversed, and all the characters are speaking a Russian equivalent of Orwellian
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
Newspeak
Newspeak
Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state. Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix in which the basic principles of the language are explained...
. To restore normality, Tanya must defeat the Golden Leech
Leech
Leeches are segmented worms that belong to the phylum Annelida and comprise the subclass Hirudinea. Like other oligochaetes such as earthworms, leeches share a clitellum and are hermaphrodites. Nevertheless, they differ from other oligochaetes in significant ways...
. Mark Hooker, an independent academic at Indiana University's Russian and East European Institute, has interpreted the Golden Leech as capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, and the whole plot as an allegory of Yemets's real-world legal conflict over the copyright.
Legal history
While the series is legally published in Russia, it is not available in translation due to litigationLawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
on behalf of JK Rowling and Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
. Having failed to obtain a cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
order in Russia, Rowling and Time Warner targeted publication in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, where first translations of international editions are commonly published. In 2003, courts there prevented the distribution of a Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
translation of the first in the series, Tanya Grotter and the Magical Double Bass, after Rowling and Time Warner's lawyers issued a cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
order, arguing that the Grotter books violated copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
law, specifically infringing Rowling's right to control derivative work
Derivative work
In United States copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work .-Definition:...
s. Yemets and his Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
-based publishers, Eksmo
Eksmo
Eksmo is one of the largest publishing houses in Russia. Eksmo and its rival AST together publish approximately 30% of all Russian books.Established in 1991 as a small book-selling company, they gradually developed into a major player on the Russian market, discovering and developing detective...
, argued unsuccessfully that the book constituted a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
, permitted under copyright.
Later that year, as the Dutch translation Tanja Grotter en de magische contrabas was still legal in Belgium, the Flemish
Flemish Region
The Flemish Region is one of the three official regions of the Kingdom of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region. Colloquially, it is usually simply referred to as Flanders, of which it is the institutional iteration within the context of the Belgian political system...
publishers Roularta Books decided to print 1,000 copies (and no more) in order to let people decide whether it was plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
, hoping that under those circumstances Rowling and her publishers would not sue. Rowling did not sue, but as there was a lot of interest in the book (Dutch people could buy the book by postal order from another Flemish publisher, Boekhandel VanIn) it was soon sold out.
Subsequent history
In 2003, after the first five books, the total circulation of Tanya Grotter books reached a million. As of 2006 the figure, including spinoffs, was approaching 3 million. In a 2006 interview, Yemets said that he had moved on to "urban absurd comic genre fantasy" with the Buslaev series, but that there was still reader demand, and sufficient material, for an 11th Tanya book. He described the Tanya Grotter series as a purely Russian phenomenon, dependent on the language and culture, and commented that he would not place much faith in Tanya living a full life if she were brought to the playing field of Europe or America.In 2006, Yemets' books featured in the 10 best children's books 2006 in a reader's poll at the Pushkin Central Children's Library, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. In July 2006, his Tanya Grotter and the Pearl Ring was the highest-selling children's book in Russia (his Methodius Buslaev: Vengeance of the Valkyries was #10, while JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth and penultimate novel in the Harry Potter series by British author J. K. Rowling...
and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, and was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada...
ranked #2 and #6.
Titles
From the Tanya Grotter official site:- Tanya Grotter and the Magical Double Bass (Таня Гроттер и магический контрабас)
- Tanya Grotter and the Disappearing Floor (Таня Гроттер и исчезающий этаж)
- Tanya Grotter and the Golden Leech (Таня Гроттер и Золотая Пиявка)
- Tanya Grotter and the Throne of Drevnir (Таня Гроттер и трон Древнира)
- Tanya Grotter and the Pikestaff of the Magi (Таня Гроттер и посох волхвов)
- Tanya Grotter and the Hammer of PerunPerunIn Slavic mythology, Perun is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning. His other attributes were the fire, mountains, the oak, iris, eagle, firmament , horses and carts, weapons and war...
(Таня Гроттер и молот Перуна) - Tanya Grotter and the Pince-nez of NoahNoahNoah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
(Таня Гроттер и пенсне Ноя) - Tanya Grotter and the Boots of the Centaur (Таня Гроттер и ботинки кентавра)
- Tanya Grotter and the Well of PoseidonPoseidonPoseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
(Таня Гроттер и колодец Посейдона) - Tanya Grotter and the Curl of AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
(Таня Гроттер и локон Афродиты) - Tanya Grotter and the Pearl Ring (Таня Гроттер и перстень с жемчужиной)
- Tanya Grotter and the Curse of the Necromage (Таня Гроттер и проклятье некромага)
- Tanya Grotter and the Garrulous Sphinx (Таня Гроттер и болтливый сфинкс)
Tanya Grotter and
Spinoff titles:
- Tanya Grotter and the Complete Tibidox! Phrases, Quotations and Aphorisms (Таня Гроттер и полный Тибидохс! Фразочки, цитатки и афоризмы)
- Worlds of Tanya Grotter (Миры Тани Гроттер) - a compilation of fan-written graphic novels
There are several other spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
s from the Tanya Grotter series. The Methodius Buslaev
Methodius Buslaev
Methodius Buslaev — character from Dmitri Yemets's "Methodius Buslaev" book series.Methodius Buslaev is a boy with exclusive forces. The main question is which forces are these — Light or Dark, and what side he'd join: Light or Darkness?.. Right at the beginning of a series it is clearly stated...
(Мефодий Буслаев) series, featuring a young male magician, and the Hooligan fantasy (Хулиганское фэнтези) series:
- Methodius Buslaev: Magician of Midnight (Мефодий Буслаев: Маг полуночи)
- Methodius Buslaev: Roll of Desire (Мефодий Буслаев: Свиток желаний)
- Methodius Buslaev: Third Rider of the Gloom (Мефодий Буслаев: Третий всадник мрака)
- Methodius Buslaev: Ticket to the Bald Mountain (Мефодий Буслаев: Билет на лысую гору)
- Methodius Buslaev: Vengeance of the ValkyrieValkyrieIn Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
s (Мефодий Буслаев: Месть валькирий) - Methodius Buslaev: Depressnyak's Secret Magic (Мефодий Буслаев: Тайная магия Депресcняка)
- Methodius Buslaev: Tartarus'sTartarusIn classic mythology, below Uranus , Gaia , and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld. In the Gorgias, Plato In classic mythology, below Uranus (sky), Gaia (earth), and Pontus...
Ice and Flame (Мефодий Буслаев: Лед и пламя Тартара) - Methodius Buslaev: The First Eydos (Мефодий Буслаев: Первый Эйдос)
- Methodius Buslaev: Wings of Light for the Dark Guard (Мефодий Буслаев: Светлые крылья для тёмного стража)
- Methodius Buslaev: Stairway to EdenEdenEden may refer to:* Garden of Eden, a place described in the biblical book of Genesis-Film and television:* Eden , a character from the Aladdin television series...
(Мефодий Буслаев: Лестница в Эдем) - Methodius Buslaev: The map of ChaosChaos (cosmogony)Chaos refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth....
(Мефодий Буслаев: Карта Хаоса) - Methodius Buslaev: Dryad'sDryadDryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology. In Greek drys signifies 'oak,' from an Indo-European root *derew- 'tree' or 'wood'. Thus Dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general...
necklace (Мефодий Буслаев: Ожерелье дриады) - Methodius Buslaev: Glass guard (Мефодий Буслаев: Стеклянный страж)
- Hooligan fantasy: Great Something (Хулиганское фэнтези: Великое нечто)
Computer gaming company Akella will release a game based on the first Tanya Grotter book on March 26, 2008.
second computer has been released base on the second book
An English version of Tanya Grotter's first four books in translation of Jane H. Buckingham is available on site of author http://emets.olmer.ru/
Similarities
The Dutch court found the following similarities between Harry Potter and Tanya Grotter:| Harry Potter | Tanya Grotter |
|---|---|
| Harry's parents are killed by an evil wizard, Voldemort (in Russian translation, Volan-de-Mort) | Tanya's parents are killed by an evil witch, Chuma-del-Tort |
| He thinks they were killed in a car crash | She thinks they were killed in an avalanche |
| He has a mysterious scar on the forehead | She has a mysterious birthmark on the nose |
| He is left on the doorstep of his aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley | She is left on the doorstep of her second cousins, Ninel and Germain Durnev |
| They treat him poorly, spoiling their own son Dudley Dursley | They treat her poorly, spoiling their own daughter Penelope ("Pipa") |
| When he is 11, having no previous knowledge of his powers, he is invited to Hogwarts, a school for wizards and witches | When she is 10, having no previous knowledge of her powers, she is invited to Tibidox, a school for wizards and witches |
| The remote Hogwarts can only be reached by train from a secret platform | The remote Tibidox can only be reached by flying or teleportation |
| He makes two special friends | She makes two special friends |
| He becomes an outstanding player of Quidditch Quidditch Quidditch is a fictional sport developed by British author J. K. Rowling for the Harry Potter series of novels. It is described as an extremely rough, but very popular, semi-contact sport, played by wizards and witches around the world... , flying on a broom Broom A broom is a cleaning tool consisting of stiff fibers attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan.... |
She becomes an outstanding player of Dragonball, flying on a double bass Double bass The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2... |
| Voldemort seeks the Philosopher's Stone Philosopher's stone The philosopher's stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal... , hidden at Hogwarts Hogwarts Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry or simply Hogwarts is the primary setting for the first six books of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, with each book lasting the equivalent of one school year. It is a fictional boarding school of magic for witches and wizards between the ages of... |
Chuma-Del-Tort seeks an amulet, hidden under Tanya's birthmark |
| The story's climax is at the school's depths. | The story's climax is in the school basement |
| Harry and friends fight Voldemort's henchman | Tanya and friends fight Chuma-del-Tort |
| They win, but the Philosopher's Stone is purposefully destroyed. | They win, but the amulet is lost |
| Harry's first school year ends | Tanya's first school semester ends |
External links
- Russian Wikipedia (TG character)
- Harry Potter and the International Order of Copyright, Should Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass be banned?, Tim Wu, Slate.com, June 27, 2003
- Harry Potter clones, Shohdy Naguib,, Al-Ahram Weekly, 14–20 November 2002