Magic Land

Ellie with Totoshka, Strasheela, Cowardly Lion, and Iron Woodsman

Magic Land, or Goodwinia, is the alternative version of the Land of Oz created by Russian author Alexander Volkov in his six books, and developed further by Volkov's followers and imitators. Magic Land shows a broad range of similarities with (and divergences from) L. Frank Baum's original vision of Oz. Oddly enough, the orginal book Wizard of the Emerald City from 1939 was published 24 years before its sequel Urfin Jus and his Wooden Soldiers in 1963. In both of the series, there can be found an Emerald City, a Powder of Life, and a little girl heroine from Kansas. The same core grouping of characters and elements exists in both, usually under different names:

Characters

• Dorothy Gale = Ellie Smith
• Toto = Totoshka
• Wizard of Oz = James Goodwin
• Scarecrow = Strasheela, or Strashila
• Tin Woodman = the Iron Woodman, Iron Woodcutter, or Iron Lumberjack
• Cowardly Lion = the Cowardly Lion, later the Courageous Lion
• Wicked Witch of the East = Gingema
• Wicked Witch of the West = Bastinda
• Glinda = Stella
• Good Witch of the North = Villina
• Soldier with the Green Whiskers = Din Gior
• Guardian of the Gates = Faramant the Guardian of the Gates
• Queen of the Field Mice = Ramina, Queen of the Field Mice
• Cap'n Bill = Charlie Black
• Nomes = Ore-Diggers
• Quox = Oyho

Locations

• Nome Kingdom = Underground Land
• Munchkin Country = Blue Land
• Winkie Country = Violet Land

Items

• Forbidden Fountain = Sacred Spring
• Water of Oblivion = Soporific Water

Comparisons with Oz

The recurring villain Urfin Jus most similar to the Nome King, Ugu, the Shoemaker and Jinjur. As Baum introduced subsidiary girl heroines such as Betsy Bobbin and Trot, Ellie has a younger sister named Annie.

Curiously, Volkov located his Magic Land within Kansas or nearby (an exotic location, perhaps, for his audience of Russian children), and definitely on the American continent — it is reached twice by land, and once through an underground cave system, though it is isolated from the rest of the land by physical and magical barriers.

Erika Haber in particular has written scholarly articles and books about the series in comparing it to Baum’s work as she published Oz Behind the Iron Curtain: Aleksandr Volkov and his Magic Land Series in 2017. Previously in 2014, she wrote a 14 page article called “Is Magic Land Oz? AM Volkov and the Question of Originality” for the Russian-English journal Children’s Reading (Volume 6, #2).

 Books

After Volkov, many different authors continued the series such as Yuri Kuznetzov and Sergei Sukhinov in  Russian while Nikolai Bachnow wrote books in German. It is unknown how these books fit into a canon, but Kuznetzov's starts after Secret of the Deserted Castle as Sukhinov based his two series only on the first book. Illustrator Leonid Vladimirsky wrote a crossover book called Buratino in the Emerald City, in that Buratino is the Russian version of Pinocchio.

Volkov

1. The Wizard of the Emerald City (1939)
2. Urfin Jus and his Wooden Soldiers (1963)
3. The Seven Underground Kings (1964)
4. The Fiery God of the Marrans (1968)
5. The Yellow Fog (1970)
6. The Secret of the Deserted Castle (1975; published posthumously in 1982)

Kuznetzov

1. The Emerald Rain (1992)
2. The Abalone Pearl (1992)'
3. The Apparitions from Elming (1992)'
4. Prisoners of the Coral Reef (1992)'
5. The Witch Arachna (2003)

Vladimirsky

Buratino in the Emerald City (1996)

Bachnow

1. In the Clutches of the Sea Monster (1996)
2. The Serpent with the Amber Eyes (1997)
3. The Treasure of the Emerald Bees (1998)
4. The Curse of the Dragon King (1999)
5. The False Fairy (2000)
6. The Invisible Prince (2001)
7. The Curse of the Copper Forest (2002)
8. The Stolen Animal Kingdom (2003)

Sukhinov

Prequel

Goodwin the Great and Terrible (2001)

Emerald City Series

1. Gingema's Daughter (1997)
2. The Fairy of the Emerald City (1997)
3. The Sorceress Villina's Secret (1997)
4. The Sorcerer's Sword (1998)
5. The Eternally Youthful Stella (1998)
6. Parcelius the Alchemist (1999)
7. Battle in the Underground Kingdom/Land (2000)
8. King Midgety (2002)
9. The Sorcerer from Atlantis (2002)
10. The Knights of Light and Darkness (2004)

Tales of the Emerald City (all published in 2000)

1. Corina the Lazy Enchantress
2. Corina and the Ogre
3. The Sorceress Villina's Ward
4. The Little Dragon
5. The Crystal Island
6. Corina and the Magic Rhino
7. Three in the Enchanted Forest
8. The Black Fog
9. Master of the Winged Monkeys

Other

Lazar Steinmetz The Encyclopedia of Magic Land (2010)

English Translations

Peter Blystone has been translating and self-publishing most of the books to English since 1991. The books he has made available are all of Volkov's in three volumes with two books each entitled Tales of the Magic Land 1, 2, and 3 along with the ten books of Sukhinov's Emerald City series as individual novels. All of these books can be found for sale on Lulu.com. (Volkov and Sukhinov)

Adaptations

Due to numorous comparisons to Baum's Oz, adaptations are branded with the "Wizard of Oz" title and tend to mix in the original elements. For example, Adventures in the Emerald City focuses solely on Baum's books and features a character named Dolly who is a comination of Ellie and Dorothy.

Films

• The Wizard of Oz (1973 film)
• The Wizard of Oz (1994 film)
• Adventures in the Emerald City (1999-2000)
• Urfin Jus and his Wooden Soldiers (film) (2017)

Video Games

Various computer games have been created based on the series with some being adaptations of the books or educational games using the characters. All of the games are made by the Russian company Akella and have not been released in the US.

Adventure:

• Urfin Jus and his Wooden Soldiers (2007)
• Fiery God Marranos (2008)

Educational:

• English with Ellie 2007
• Geography Ellie (2007)
• Riddles Goodwin (2008)
• The ABCs of Ellie (2008)
•  Mathematics Ellie (2008)
• The letters and numbers with Ellie (2009)