There are probably few people who have never heard of the Moomins. For many they have become a warm memory from childhood.. This book recently turned 80 years old, and it's a good opportunity to revisit something that seems so familiar.. Because behind the peace of Moominvalley and the warmth of family scenes there is a deeper world than meets the eye.

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The book about the Moomins was born after the Second World War - when Europe came to its senses after the disaster and the fear of its repetition was stronger than ever. It was in this atmosphere of post-war anxiety and search for support that two new fairy-tale worlds appeared in 1945, which later became symbols of post-war culture: “Pippi Longstocking” by Astrid Lindgren and “The Moomins” by Tove Jansson. Lindgren worked in Stockholm as a letter censor for Swedish intelligence, reading daily German correspondence that revealed to her the truth about war crimes.. Jansson at the same time created caricatures of Stalin and Hitler for Garm magazine, building the world of the future Moominvalley as a space of resistance to dictatorship.

Astrid Lindgren (left) and Tove Jansson (right), 1958.

But both authors abandoned dark plots, offering the world new characters who made it possible to rethink the tragedy of war and the experience of totalitarian power.. At first glance, this is children's literature, but in fact it is a cultural manifesto, combining the aesthetics of modernism and anti-war ethics.

The popular opinion is that Moomintroll is a “good white hippopotamus”. But this is a very simplified definition. In fact, this character was born out of anxiety and inner restlessness. While studying in Stockholm, Jansson argued with her uncle about Kant's philosophy. When she couldn't convince him, he came up with a creature called Moomintroll, who lives behind the stove and " The original image was more of a " “I didn’t write for children. I wrote for my salvation,” noted the writer.

Tove Jansson openly criticized children's literature for its “sweet instructiveness”. Her Moomins are not “well-mannered children,” but characters who exist in a space of risk and freedom. In her notes, she emphasized that she sought to create a world where there is real danger: “The world of children is a world where anything can happen and where the terrible coexists with the magical.”. In her essay “That Cunning Children's Writer” (1961), Jansson argued that the author writes primarily for himself, and the “child” in him is the inner artist who is looking for a way out of anxiety.

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Tove Jansson's most quoted Moomin work, The Comet Arrives (1946), is often interpreted in an " But this is a very simplified reading of the book.. For the author, the disaster was not a specific bomb, but rather an internal state - a feeling of the fragility of the world and the constant danger with which a person lives after the war. Jansson returned to this text three times, trying to “cleanse” the war trauma from it.. In the first edition of 1946, the world is shown as aggressive and threatening. In the 1968 version, the writer deliberately removes the external signs of war, replacing words that are associated with the army or direct threat with more abstract and philosophical concepts. This is no longer an escape from the enemy, but a confrontation with the uncertainty of a world where danger does not have a clear face.

Evolution of the title: " Three editions of the book, in which Jansson gradually cleared the text of war trauma.

In the new edition of the book, the emphasis shifts from disaster as punishment to the fragility of nature. This coincided perfectly with the start of the global environmental movement. Jansson was the first to feel that the greatest fear of modern man is not the bomb, but the quiet disappearance of the world, like the drying up of the sea in the book.

When the writer released a “cleaned” and revised version of “Comet” in 1968, the world was already captivated by “Moomin-mania.”. But Jansson herself was disappointed: she saw that readers were buying a “sweet shell”, ignoring the existential melancholy of her works. “I became a brand, but I wanted to be an artist,” she admitted.

Another common simplification is the interpretation of Jansson’s illustrations as “children’s drawings.”. In fact, her visual language is “graphics of stoicism”. It does not decorate the world, but structures it. The rejection of color in the first editions was not an economy, but an aesthetic position of the artist who did not want to manipulate emotions through brightness.

The first image of a Moomintroll-like creature by Tove Jansson.

Tove Jansson's illustrations were not " Restrained graphics and plenty of free space created a sense of silence and pause—they worked not as an adornment to the text, but as part of the story. This was a conscious artistic choice by the author: a counterpoint to the loud, aggressive language of wartime and a way to talk about the world without emotional pressure and direct moralizing.

The Pope and the Sea (1966), Tove Jansson.

And this is no coincidence - Tove Jansson studied in several leading art centers in Europe: Stockholm, Helsinki and Paris. This school gave her the opportunity to freely operate with the categories of world art - from classicism to surrealism - and develop her own graphic language - restrained in form, combining an expressionist touch with modernist structure.

Tove Jansson at work in her studio in Helsinki.

No less important was her polyglotism. Jansson read fluently in Swedish, Finnish, French and English, which gave her access to a wide literary canon. Researcher Boel Westin notes that the world of the Moomins contains allusions to Lewis Carroll, Joseph Conrad and Rainer Maria Rilke. It was the combination of artistic education and eloquence that formed Jansson's unique cultural code, which gave her the opportunity to write works that go far beyond the scope of children's literature.

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Tove Jansson insisted that her illustrations should be graphic and dark. She fought with publishers for the right to use the thick ink and shadows that characterized her political cartoons in Garm magazine. For her, “sweetness” was synonymous with lies, especially after what she saw during the war. In the first edition of Little Trolls and the Great Flood (1945), drawings dominate. Researcher Boel Westin argues that the structure of the book resembles a graphic report: Jansson first “saw” the scene - a flood or a dark forest - fixed it with modernist shading, and only then added a verbal description.

In addition to book illustrations, Jansson also began drawing comics about the Moomins.. But the real international breakthrough came later - in 1954 she signed a contract with the British newspaper The Evening News, which at that time was the largest evening newspaper in the world. Since then, Moomin comics have been published every day and made the author a world celebrity..

It was these 1950s comics, not books, that first came to Japan and shaped the vision of characters there.. Japanese readers appreciated not the plot, but the “black line” and the rhythm of the graphics. This became the basis for a new aesthetics of perception of the Moomin world.

Jansson's comics are often placed next to the work of Charles Schulz, the author of " Both artists made heroes not of supermen or cunning people, but of melancholy observers. The always-losing Charlie Brown and the world-embarrassed Moomintroll represent the " In US academic circles, there are even studies about “Snoopy’s Zen”: his ability to lie on the roof and contemplate the sky is identical to Snufkin’s ability to sit on the bridge and do nothing. This is a protest against the cult of success and productivity. In particular, Robert L. Short, in The Gospel of the Peanuts (1965) and The Parables of the Peanuts (1968), analyzes the characters' philosophy as a form of everyday stoicism and existential ethics.

Astrid Lindgren was particularly struck by Jansson's illustrations. She considered her a visual genius and even invited her to illustrate the Swedish edition of The Hobbit by J.. Tolkien (1962). Lindgren understood that Jansson’s graphics were capable of conveying “ancient horror” and loneliness, which was beyond the capabilities of ordinary illustrators.

This is exactly how the world of Moominvalley was gradually formed.. It is built as a model of isolation: the space here is often more important than the characters themselves. This is directly related to the personal experience of Tove Jansson, who lived for a long time on the island of Klovharun. For her, this was not a romantic escape, but a conscious practice of solitude - and this atmosphere is felt in her works.

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But the world of Moominvalley lives not only with space, but also with those who inhabit it. The heroes of the book are not “children’s heroes”, but philosophical archetypes, each with their own concept. Moomintroll personifies existential anxiety and the search for oneself, Snufkin - freedom from property and radical individualism, Morra - loneliness and alienation, Muskrat - pessimism and the powerlessness of theory before nature, and Too-Tikki - the stoic acceptance of chaos as the natural state of things.

They coexist side by side without trying to change each other, and it is this autonomy that creates a model of social respect. Consequently, Jansson’s characters are not fairy-tale “cute creatures”, but philosophical figures who make it possible to comprehend fear, freedom and loneliness in the post-war world. In general, the idea of \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bthe inviolability of the inner world runs through all of Jansson’s works.. Its characters are not subject to re-education: they don’t even try to change Morra, but simply accept it as a fact. It is a stoic manifesto against totalitarian ideologies that sought to unify the individual..

The success of the Moomin books led to numerous animated series. But the animated adaptations didn't always live up to Jansson's vision.. The first Japanese series Moomin (1969) irritated her: she did not like the fact that Moomintroll was fighting, and money and cars were appearing in the valley. She demanded the return of silence and philosophical contemplation, because in her vision “Japaneseism” was associated with the search for Zen, not commercial culture.

She also categorically rejected Walt Disney's offers to buy the rights to the characters.. Jansson was afraid that " For her, the Moomins were not “darlings,” but eccentrics and outsiders, teetering on the edge of melancholy.

Modern interpretations of the Moomin story try to maintain this depth. The video game Snufkin: The Melody of Moominvalley was the first successful attempt to transfer Jansson's graphic minimalism into the digital space. Hyper Games consulted with Moomin Characters to create a world that looks like an ink and watercolor "

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Having touched the world of the Moomins, we adopt their view of life: autumn will come anyway, because without it there will be no spring. It's a simple yet profound truth that Tove Jansson has turned into a cultural manifesto.. In her world there is no need for moralizing or “sweet” lessons - there is an acceptance of chaos, respect for inner freedom and the value of small things. This is why Moominvalley remains relevant today: it reminds us that even in times of crisis, peace can be found in coffee, a clean shirt or a walk in the woods.

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