{"id":76798,"date":"2014-09-15T19:45:54","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T23:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=76798"},"modified":"2014-09-16T10:24:35","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T14:24:35","slug":"natty-bumppo-soviet-folk-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/15\/natty-bumppo-soviet-folk-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Natty Bumppo, Soviet Folk Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"1989_CPA_6128-6132_Strip\"<\/a>

The Soviet Union\u2019s 1989 series of James Fenimore Cooper stamps. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

I was perplexed to learn that the Soviet Union, in its waning days, produced a series of five vivid postage stamps devoted to James Fenimore Cooper\u2019s Leatherstocking Tales<\/em>. It seemed as if some lazy Soviet bureaucrat must\u2019ve made a mistake. Why, after all, would the USSR want to commemorate some of the foundational texts of American lit, especially when Natty Bumppo stands as a paragon of rugged individualism? In other words, how had one of our folk heroes found an audience in a place where he should\u2019ve been reviled?<\/p>\n

Sandra Nickel, an author of young-adult novels, got the answer from her daughter\u2019s Russian godmother<\/a>, whose youth was apparently filled with totally authorized American classics:<\/p>\n

\n

Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin <\/em>by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Last of the Mohicans <\/em>by James Fenimore Cooper, The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas <\/em>by Thomas Mayne Reid. Almost every Russian child had read these by the age of twelve\u2014and read them more than once.<\/p>\n

I am sure the Soviet state approved these books because of their propaganda value. Put together, these three volumes could portray Americans as slave-owning destroyers of Native Americans, who are bigoted against Mexicans. Racists, across the board, in other words.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Instead of finding the disgusting evidence of prejudice and imperialism, though, young Russian readers tended to see the novels as ripping good yarns, so much so that their characters were inducted into public life:<\/p>\n

\n

\"$_57\"<\/a>What spoke to them were the emotions, the suspense, the adventure, the heroes, and the friendship \u2026 In fact, Cooper\u2019s second name, Fenimore, by which he is more readily recognized in Russia, has become a byword for exciting adventures. Loved by even the young Lenin and Stalin, The Last of the Mohicans<\/em> penetrated Russian society \u2026 As [the] poet Tamara Logacheva says, \u201cThe heroic image of a courageous and honest Indian\u2014Uncas\u2014noble and devoted to his vanishing traditions, became an example for imitation by many generations of young people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There you have it. You can imagine Gorbachev, his state verging on dissolution, adhering one of the Leatherstocking<\/em> stamps to a letter\u2014perhaps to Reagan or H. W. Bush\u2014and smiling warmly at the visage of Natty Bumppo, his troubled mind allayed, for the moment, by dusty schoolboy memories of The Deerslayer<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was perplexed to learn that the Soviet Union, in its waning days, produced a series of five vivid postage stamps devoted to James Fenimore Cooper\u2019s Leatherstocking Tales. It seemed as if some lazy Soviet bureaucrat must\u2019ve made a mistake. Why, after all, would the USSR want to commemorate some of the foundational texts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2384],"tags":[9158,15314,15315,534,11038,7746],"class_list":["post-76798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look","tag-birthdays","tag-james-fenimore-cooper","tag-sandra-nickel","tag-soviet-union","tag-stamps","tag-ussr"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNatty Bumppo, Soviet Folk Hero<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The story behind the Soviet Union\u2019s 1989 series of James Fenimore Cooper stamps.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/15\/natty-bumppo-soviet-folk-hero\/\" 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