Magic Land series The first of these books,
The Wizard of the Emerald City (), is a loose translation of the first Oz book, with chapters added, altered, or omitted, and some names changed (for example, Dorothy becomes "Ellie", Oz is renamed "Magic Land", and Toto can talk when in Magic Land), and several characters given personal names instead of generic ones. Baum's name is mentioned in the first of Volkov's books, but the publisher paid no royalties to the Baum estate. First published in 1939 in the
Soviet Union, the book became quite popular; and in the 1960s Volkov also wrote his own sequels to the story. He liberally borrowed from some of the originals, such as using the "Powder of Life" idea from
The Marvelous Land of Oz, but mostly created a divergent universe. From 1963 to 1970, four more books in the series were published, with the sixth and final story published posthumously in 1982. Other authors such as Yuri Kuznetsov, Sergei Sukhinov, and Leonid Vladimirsky (Volkov's original illustrator) have recently written additional sequels in Russian, creating in effect an alternative series of
Oz books. The context and situations found in the Volkov version are notably different from the original Baum version in their political tones. The situations, while still maintaining a childlike clarity of good versus evil, often involve the characters encountering very mature political and ethical decisions. The heroes are repeatedly called upon to defend Magic Land against invasions or topple feudalistic or aristocratic governments to free the populace. Both themes are often found in Soviet sci-fi and adventure literature (see the
Strugatsky brothers' novels
Hard to be a God and
Inhabited Island). Volkov had faith in the omnipotence of the man-made technique, so the wizardry of his heroes was usually won with the help of various technical inventions (a cannon designed by Charly Black, a mechanical drill, and Tilly-Willy; a super-robot). Volkov's
Magic Land series was translated into many languages and was popular with children all over the
Eastern bloc. Volkov's version of Oz seems to be better known than Baum's in some countries, for example in
China, in Germany (especially former
East Germany), and also in
Arab countries such as
Syria. In Germany, two authors have written their own set of sequels to Volkov's books. The books in the series have been translated into English by Peter L. Blystone, and were published by Red Branch Press in three volumes (two books per volume) in 1991, 1993, and 2007. A revised edition of the first two-book volume was published in 2010. ==Bibliography==