When a work slips off its author’s hands : the adventures of Pinocchio from the novel by Carlo Collodi to the contemporary culture

The article presents the symbolic interpretation of the character of Pinocchio through the last one hundred and thirty years. The first part of the article presents the possible meaning of the character from the angle of a biography of Carlo Collodi, the Italian author of "The Adventures of Pinocchio". The second part concerns on interpretations of the novel and the character of Pinocchio, suggested by Italian literary scholars and readers. The last part presents the modern version of the story of Pinocchio in novels, films, comics and other elements of contemporary culture. The article shows that the literary character acquires a completely different meaning when it becomes the phenomenon of culture.