Uncle Styopa

Uncle Styopa (Russian: Дядя Стёпа, IPA: [ˈdʲædʲə ˈstʲɵpɐ]), also known as Dyadya Stepa,^[1] Uncle Steeple^[2] and Tom the Tower,^[3] is a series of poems written by Russian children's poet Sergey Mikhalkov. They were written in trochaic tetrameter. The poems featured a brave and noble militsioner (a policeman) who was unusual due to his extreme height. The name of the protagonist of the series was Stepan Stepanov (Russian: Степан Степанов), or Styopa, which is a diminutive of the Russian given name Stepan. He performed various acts of good will, such as rescuing people, preventing train crashes, helping firefighters, stopping a school bully or working as a police officer for the Soviet Militsiya. Styopa is a wise, brave, generous, noble, fun-loving character.^[4] He fights against injustice and serves as an inspiration to the pioneers.

It was largely due to this set of poems, among others written during the 1930s in the Soviet Union, that Mikhalkov achieved fame and garnered admiration from the Soviet population. His popularity was phenomenal.^[5] Uncle Styopa's face was almost instantly associated with the face of the author. Sergey Mikhalkov himself looked like a tall athlete, and the first illustrators of the poem pictured Uncle Styopa with Mikhalkov's face.^[5] More than 250 million copies of the poems have been sold.^[5]