..smart cats wash their faces, but they don't call anyone to their world. B. Chichibabin An ordinary domestic cat is one of the most mysterious terrestrial creatures. Let us recall the numerous Russian proverbs, sayings, riddles: Why is the cat smooth? - Ate and on its side; The cat knows whose meat it ate; The cat is proud and will not leave the oven; The cat sleeps, but sees mice; The cat has claws in mittens; Plays like a cat with a mouse; Is lascivious like a cat; Is tenacious like a cat; A white cat climbs in the window (light). And the lullabies and rhymes familiar to us from childhood: "The Cat, the gray cat", "The Cat's House"; and Pushkin's cat is a scientist who walks around the chain in a circle! The oldest literary genre in which cats have long "settled" is a fable, starting with Aesop ("The Cat and the Mice") and Phaedra ("The Rooster and the carrier cats). In Russia, fables have gained popularity since the second half of the XVIII century. Fable cats represented such human vices as cunning, greed, and guile: "Ferocious is that tormenting cat!" (A. Sumarokov. "Cat and Mouse"), "under the guise of meekness, he is our enemy" (I. Dmitriev. "Rooster, Cat and Mouse"), "Cats and everything are smart, but only hypocritical" (A. Izmailov. "Black Cat"), "What is painful to the mind, you don't need to know" (V. Zhukovsky. "The Cat and the Mirror"), "I always prefer well-known enemies to Friends who are masters of scratching" (V. Pushkin. "The Cat and the Pug"), "Thin songs to the Nightingale In the Cat's claws" and "And Vaska listens and eats" (I. Krylov. "The Cat and the Nightingale" and "The Cat and the Cook"). Perhaps the first appearance of a non-allegorical cat is found in the "Caricature" (1791) by I. Dmitriev: "Everything is quiet! Only a skinny cat meows on the roof." Pushkin let cats in friendly messages: "Purring, a proud old cat sleeps in a cell "("Message to Galich"), in satirical and humorous poems and poems "Hussar", "Shadow of Fonvizin", "House in ... Read more