Isaac Babel is a Soviet writer known for his cycles of short, succinct and quotable stories about Russia during the Civil War and the life of Jewish Odessa. His books were both in favor and in disgrace, they were included in the school curriculum and removed from it. Nevertheless, both the bandit Benya Krik and the Red Army soldiers of Babel today remain a realistic mirror of the country during the times of great changes.
Childhood and youth
At birth, Babel received a name slightly different from the well-known one: Isaac Manyevich Bobel. The future writer was born in Odessa on July 12, 1894. By the time Isaac was born, the family of Emmanuel and Feiga Babel already had two children: Aaron and Anna. Shortly after the appearance of their youngest son, Babeli left for Nikolaev. There, the future writer lived until the age of 11.
Some time after the move, the elder children of the Babels died, and in 1899 the only surviving sister of Isaac, Mera (Maria), was born. In 1903, the boy tried to enter the Nikolaev Commercial School. . To do this, I had to pass 3 exams: in the Russian language, in arithmetic, and even, despite the nationality, in the Law of God. It was not possible to enter: Isaac passed all the tests perfectly well, but they could not accept him, citing the lack of vacancies.
Later, Emmanuil Babel filed another petition for enrolling his son to study, and in 1904 Isaac was nevertheless accepted into the school. The boy's father was a successful businessman, and the capital earned over the years of work in Nikolaev allowed the family to return to Odessa in 1905. At the insistence of his father, who saw his son as a successor, Babel tried to enter the Odessa Commercial School of the Emperor.
The story came out similar to entering the school in Nikolaev. Isaac overcame the "percentage rate" for the Jews, but was not enrolled. It was possible to start studying only from the 2nd time, a year later, which the young man devoted to home education.
Moreover, the program of classes at home was even richer than at the school. Until the age of 16, Isaac, in addition to general education subjects, studied Hebrew, Torah and the Talmud, traditional for a young man from a decent Jewish family. Babel also studied with the outstanding music teacher Peter Stolyarsky, from whom he studied violin. According to Isaac himself, he rested at school.
Studying was easy for a gifted young man, especially when it came to languages: by the end of college, Babel, in addition to Russian and Yiddish, spoke German, English, Hebrew and French.
In 1912, Babel graduated from college, but he could not count on entering the university in Odessa - he lacked a certificate of graduation from the gymnasium. I had to part with my family, and the parents sent the young man to study at the Kyiv Commercial Institute. During the First World War, Isaac had to go even further because of the evacuation - to Saratov. By 1916 he graduated from the institute, becoming a candidate of economic sciences.
Books
The first work "Old Shloime" Isaac Babel published in the years of study, in 1913. The short story succinctly describes the tragedy of an old half-mad Jew who commits suicide, unable to bear the decision of his son to be baptized. In the future, the Jewish theme will become the main motive of Babel's work, although he rarely directly touched on the issues of Judaism.
In 1916, Isaac, realizing that he wanted to continue writing, left for Petrograd, where he entered the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute, and immediately to the 4th year of the Faculty of Law. However, he never completed this education.
Babel himself wrote that he was in the city illegally. Indeed, Jews at that time were prohibited from living in large cities outside the Pale of Settlement. However, researchers later found a document from the Petrograd police, according to which Isaac Babel had the right to stay in the capital while studying at the university.
During this period, the novice writer met with. He, interested in Isaac's talent, took his stories "Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna" and "Mother, Rimma and Alla" for publication in the Chronicle magazine. It was possible to attract attention to young talent - that's just not what we would like. The content of the stories was regarded as dubious, and Babel himself was threatened with a trial for pornography. The 1917 revolution saved the writer.
In 1918, Babel, having managed to fight in the First World War and deserted from there, returned to Petrograd and got a job in the foreign department of the Cheka as an interpreter. During this period, his biographies were published in the New Life, and in 1920 Isaac managed to become a participant in the Civil War. Mikhail Koltsov vouched for the young writer, and Babel went to the 1st Cavalry Army as a military correspondent.
There Isaac served under the command of . Even a photo has been preserved where the great military leader and the future great writer are in the same frame. In order to fight with weapons in their hands, they had to go to tricks: the secretary of the Odessa regional committee, Sergei Ingulov, straightened out documents to Babel in the name of Kirill Vasilyevich Lyutov, a Russian by nationality.
Memories of this time formed the basis of perhaps the most popular work of Babel in the USSR - a collection of short stories "Konarmiya". The publication of Cavalry began in 1920, first in the form of Cavalry Diary, notes that Babel kept during his service. And immediately after the publication of the book in print, it became the object of serious discussions.
The reason for the ambiguous perception of the work of Isaac Emmanuilovich was that his prose bore little resemblance to typical Red Army agitation during the Civil War. A vivid example of this is the stories “Salt” and “Letter”, which honestly describe how unshakable, it would seem, moral and ethical principles are eroded during the war: soldiers brutally kill a woman, a father cuts his son, a son executes his father.
Babel's frankness and his unwillingness to embellish the truth, no matter how bloody it was, were appreciated by colleagues in the writing workshop. Enormous success awaited the Cavalry in the West as well. But the government and the military did not like Cavalry categorically: Semyon Budyonny found the stories outrageous. The writer was saved from disgrace by friendship with Maxim Gorky, who zealously defended the work of Isaac before the powers that be.
In the mid-1920s, Babel began working on his second great work, the Odessa Stories cycle, which presented the reader with a literary version of the bandit - Benya Krik. In order to reliably describe what he intended, the writer decided to completely immerse himself in the atmosphere of stories.
To do this, Babel rented a room in Moldovanka from an old Jewish man who helped the bandits as a gunner. Official bodies became the second source of information: Isaac Emmanuilovich was allowed to familiarize himself with the materials of the criminal investigation department.
Subsequently, the brightness of the images of "Odessa Tales" became the reason for repeated adaptations of the story of the Scream-Jap: from a silent film in 1926 to a musical filmed in 1989.
In 1928, Babel released the play "Sunset", staged by 2 theaters, and in 1935 published the play "Maria". The novel "Velikaya Krinitsa" and the story "Jew" could not be completed - the arrest and execution of the author prevented.
Personal life
The personal life of Isaac Babel was turbulent: he was de facto married three times and had three children. In addition, rumors stubbornly connected the writer with Evgenia Khayutina, the wife of the people's commissar.
He first married in 1919 to a young artist, Evgenia Gronfain. The girl's father collaborated with Emmanuil Babel, but considered his daughter's marriage a misalliance and categorically did not approve. Nevertheless, Isaac and Eugenia were married in the synagogue, according to all the rules of Judaism.
The marriage ended up being unsuccessful: Tired of her husband's constant betrayals, Evgenia immigrated to France in 1925, from where she never returned. After the departure of his wife, Isaac got along with Tatyana Kashirina, an artist of the theater named after, in 1926 the couple had the first-born Isaac, named after his father Emmanuel.
Soon the relationship went wrong, and Babel left for France, where he again met with Evgenia. In 1929, Gronfine gave birth to her husband's daughter Natalie. Kashrina got married, and her husband Vsevolod Ivanov officially adopted Emmanuel, giving him the name Michael. In the future, the couple did not allow the boy to communicate with his biological father - Mikhail learned that Babel was his dad only at the age of 20.
Having failed to finally establish relations with Evgenia, Babel, returning to Russia, met the young Antonina Pirozhkova. The marriage with her was also actual: according to the traditions of the revolutionary time, Isaac and Antonina did not begin to register relations. In 1937, the couple had a daughter, Lydia.
Arrest and death
The path of major figures of the USSR from triumph to disgrace in the late 1930s was often short. In mid-1938, Babel was appointed a member of the editorial board of the State Fiction Publishing House, and on May 15, 1939, he was arrested. The accusation was standard for those years - anti-Soviet and terrorist activities. Handwritten materials seized during the arrest are considered irretrievably lost.
During the interrogations, Babel was obviously tortured: in the photographs transmitted later from the NKVD, traces of beatings are visible on the face of Isaak Emmanuilovich. The writer was forced to incriminate himself and admit his connection with the Trotskyists. Although earlier, back in the days, he was interested in what to do upon arrest - and the head of the NKVD explained to him that in no case should one admit guilt.
On January 26, 1940, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced the writer to capital punishment. The sentence was carried out the next day. January 27, 1940 Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel was shot. The cause of death of the writer was a bullet wound. Babel does not have a separate grave: his ashes, along with the ashes of hundreds of other executed people, are buried in the Common Grave No. 1 of the Donskoy Cemetery.
Antonina Pirozhkova was not informed about the execution of the writer, notifying that Isaac Babel was serving a term without the right to correspond. Until 1954, the woman believed that her husband was alive, and wrote letters asking for relief from his punishment. In 1954, Babel was posthumously rehabilitated, and in 1956 the writer's work ceased to be forbidden and again became a classic of Soviet literature.
In 2011, in Odessa, at the intersection of Zhukovsky and Rishelievskaya streets, a monument was erected to Isaac Babel by Georgy Frangulyan.
Quotes
“Gedali,” I say, “today is Friday, and it’s already evening. Where can I get a Jewish shortcake, a Jewish glass of tea, and a little bit of this retired god in a glass of tea? ..
“No,” Gedali answers me, putting a lock on his box, “no. There is a tavern nearby, and good people traded in it, but they don’t eat there anymore, they cry there ...
“Gentlemen,” Mr. Trottiburn told us, “mark my words, children must be made with their own hands ...”.
“Good things are done by a good person. Revolution is a good thing for good people. But good people don't kill. So the revolution is made by evil people.”
“... your father is a bindu worker Mendel Creek. What is this dad thinking? He thinks about drinking a good glass of vodka, punching someone in the face, about his horses - and nothing else. You want to live, and he makes you die twenty times a day. What would you do if you were Beni Krik? You wouldn't do anything. And he did. Therefore, he is the King, and you keep a fig in your pocket.
Bibliography
- 1913 - "Old Shloymo"
- 1925 - "Lyubka Kozak"
- 1926 - "Wandering Stars"
- 1926 - Cavalry
- 1928 - "Sunset"
- 1931 - "Odessa stories"
- 1935 - "Maria"
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was born into a Jewish family on July 13, 1894 in Odessa. He studied at school and university, then served in the Russian army. Later he became known as a writer, first publishing short stories, and later publishing his collections of stories Cavalry and Odessa Stories.
Despite initial praise for realism and unvarnished data, over time, Babel was heavily censored by the Soviet authorities. And in 1940 he was executed by the NKVD.
Early life and education
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was born on July 13, 1894 in the city near the Black Sea - Odessa. His parents, Manush Itskovich and Feiga Bobel (the original pronunciation of his surname), were Jewish and raised him and his sister in abundance.
Shortly after the birth of Isaac Babel, his family moved to Nikolaev, a port city located 111 kilometers from Odessa. There, his father worked for a foreign manufacturer of agricultural equipment. Babel, when he grew up, entered the commercial school named after S. Yu. Witte. His family returned to Odessa in 1905 and Babel continued his studies with private teachers until he entered the Odessa Commercial School named after Nicholas I. He graduated from college in 1911 and entered the Kiev Commercial Institute, which in 1915 during the First World war was relocated to Saratov. Babel graduated from the institute in 1916, after which he devoted some time to studying law at the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute.
Published works and military service
Babel met his future friend, writer Maxim Gorky, in 1916. Their friendship became the main stimulus of his life. Gorky published Babel's short stories in the Chronicle magazine, where he worked as an editor. Thanks to this, Babel began to collaborate with other magazines, as well as the New Life newspaper. At the same time, Babel joined the cavalry of the Russian army in 1917, having served on the Romanian front and in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). He stayed in the army for several years, during which he wrote his notes about his service in it for the New Life newspaper.
In 1919, Isaac Babel married Evgenia Gronfein, the daughter of a wealthy supplier of agricultural equipment, whom he had previously met in Kyiv. After serving in the army, he wrote for newspapers and also devoted more time to writing short stories. In 1925, he published The Story of My Dovecote, which included stories based on stories from his childhood. In 1926, after the publication of the book Cavalry, he received recognition as a writer. A collection of stories based on his participation in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 shocked readers with its brutality, as well as impressed with humor, even in the face of brutality, and accessible style of writing.
Recognition and seclusion in the 1930s
In 1931, Babel published "Odessa Stories" - a series of short stories that took place in the Odessa ghetto. Once again, he is praised for his realism, ease of writing, and skillful portrayal of heroes from the fringes of society. In "Odessa Stories" the heroes were a Jewish gang and their leader Benya Krik. In 1935, Babel wrote the play "Maria" and four stories, among which were "The Court" and "The Kiss".
During the 1930s, Babel's activities and writings came under scrutiny from critics and censors, who were looking for even the slightest mention of his disloyalty to the Soviet government. Periodically, Babel visited France, where his wife lived with her daughter Natalie. He wrote less and less and spent three years in seclusion. His friend and closest supporter, Maxim Gorky, died in 1936.
Arrest and death
Like many of his peers, in the late 1930s Babel was persecuted during the "Great Purge" initiated by J. Stalin. In May 1939, at the age of 45, he was arrested by the NKVD and accused of membership in anti-Soviet political organizations and terrorist groups, as well as of spying for France and Austria. His relationship with Yevgenia Gladun-Khayutina, the wife of the head of the NKVD, was a concomitant factor for the arrest. And although Babel tried to challenge his sentence and denied the testimony he gave under torture, he was executed on January 27, 1940.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Babel's good name was restored, and the ban was lifted from his books. Little by little, his works began to be published in the Soviet Union and even in other countries. At the moment he is one of the best novelists in the world.
Babel's biography
Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel (real name Bobel) (July 1 (13), 1894 - January 27, 1940) - Russian writer.
Born in Odessa in the family of a Jewish merchant. The beginning of the century was a time of social unrest and a mass exodus of Jews from the Russian Empire. Babel himself survived the 1905 pogrom (he was hidden by a Christian family), and his grandfather Shoyl was one of the 300 murdered Jews.
In order to enter the preparatory class of the Odessa commercial school of Nicholas I, Babel had to exceed the quota for Jewish students (10% in the Pale of Settlement, 5% outside it and 3% for both capitals), but despite the positive marks that gave the right to study , the place was given to another young man, whose parents gave a bribe to the leadership of the school. For a year of education at home, Babel completed a two-class program. In addition to traditional disciplines, he studied the Talmud and studied music. After another unsuccessful attempt to enter the Odessa University (again due to quotas), he ended up at the Kiev Institute of Finance and Entrepreneurship. There he met his future wife Evgenia Gronfein.
Fluent in Yiddish, Russian and French, Babel wrote his first works in French, but they have not reached us. Babel published the first stories in Russian in the Chronicle magazine. Then, on the advice of M. Gorky, he "went into the people" and changed several professions.
In 1920 he was a soldier and political worker of the Cavalry Army. In 1924 he published a number of stories, which later formed the Cavalry and Odessa Stories cycles. Babel was able to masterfully convey in Russian the style of literature created in Yiddish (this is especially noticeable in Odessa Tales, where in places the direct speech of his characters is an interlinear translation from Yiddish).
Soviet criticism of those years, paying tribute to the talent and significance of Babel's work, pointed to "antipathy to the cause of the working class" and reproached him for "naturalism and apology for the elemental principle and the romanticization of banditry."
In "Odessa Tales" Babel portrays in a romantic way the life of Jewish criminals of the early 20th century, finding exotic features and strong characters in everyday life of thieves, raiders, as well as artisans and petty merchants.
In 1928 Babel published the play "Sunset" (staged at the 2nd Moscow Art Theater), in 1935 - the play "Maria". Babel's Peru also owns several scripts. A master of short stories, Babel strives for conciseness and accuracy, combining in the images of his characters, plot collisions and descriptions a huge temperament with outward dispassion. The flowery, metaphor-laden language of his early stories is later replaced by a strict and restrained narrative manner.
In May 1939, Babel was arrested on charges of "anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activity" and shot on January 27, 1940. In 1954 he was posthumously rehabilitated.
Babel's work had a huge impact on the writers of the so-called "South Russian school" (Ilf, Petrov, Olesha, Kataev, Paustovsky, Svetlov, Bagritsky) and received wide recognition in the Soviet Union, his books were translated into many foreign languages.
BABEL'S MIGHTY FUN
Fazil Iskander
At the age of thirty, already a member of the Writers' Union, I read Babel for the first time. He was just released after rehabilitation. Of course, I knew that there was such a writer from Odessa, but I did not read a single line.
As I remember now, I sat down with his book on the porch of our Sukhum house, opened it and was blinded by its stylistic brilliance. After that, for several more months, I not only read and reread his stories myself, but also tried to present them to all my acquaintances, most often in my own performance. This frightened some, some of my friends, as soon as I took up a book, tried to sneak away, but I put them in their place, and then they were grateful to me or were forced to pretend that they were grateful, because I tried my best.
I felt that it was beautiful literature, but I did not understand why and how prose becomes high-class poetry. At that time I wrote only poetry and I took the advice of some of my literary friends to try their hand at prose as a secret insult. Of course, I understood intellectually that all good literature is poetic. In any case, it should be. But Babel's poetry was also evident in the more direct sense of the word. In which? Constriction - immediately a bull by the horns. The self-sufficiency of the phrase, the unprecedented diversity of the human condition per unit of literary space. Babel's phrases can be quoted endlessly, like the lines of a poet. Now I think that the spring of his inspirational rhythms is tightened too tight, he immediately takes on too high a tone, which makes it difficult for the effect of increasing tension, but then I did not notice this. In a word, I was captivated by its full-blooded Black Sea fun in an almost invariable combination with biblical sadness.
Cavalry shocked me with the original authenticity of revolutionary pathos, combined with the incredible accuracy and paradoxical thinking of every Red Army soldier. But this thinking, as in The Quiet Don, is transmitted only through a gesture, a word, an action. By the way, these things are close to each other and some general epic melody of a swift narrative.
Reading Cavalry, you understand that the element of revolution is not imposed on anyone. It matured within the people as a dream of retribution and renewal of all Russian life. But that furious determination with which the heroes of Cavalry go to their death, but also, without hesitation, are ready to chop from the shoulder of everyone who is an enemy or at the moment seems to be such, suddenly reveals through the author's irony and bitterness the possibility of future tragic mistakes.
Is the beautiful, sweeping Don Quixote of the revolution, after its victory, capable of transforming into a wise creator, and will it not seem to him, so trusting and ingenuous, in new conditions, in the struggle with new difficulties, the familiar order: “Chop!”?
And this anxiety, like a distant musical theme, no, no, yes, and it will stir up in Cavalry.
One smart critic once expressed doubts about Babel's Odessa stories in a conversation with me: is it possible to sing of bandits?
The question is, of course, not an easy one. Nevertheless, the literary victory of these stories is obvious. It's all about the conditions of the game that the artist sets before us. In the beam of light with which Babel illuminated the pre-revolutionary life of Odessa, we have no choice: either Benya Krik - or a policeman, or the rich man Tartakovsky - or Benya Krik. Here, it seems to me, the same principle is used as in folk songs glorifying robbers: the idealization of the instrument of retribution for the injustice of life.
There is so much humor in these stories, so many subtle and accurate observations that the profession of the protagonist recedes into the background, we are picked up by a powerful stream of liberation of a person from ugly complexes of fear, musty habits, wretched and deceitful integrity.
I think that Babel understood art as a celebration of life, and the wise sadness that occasionally opens up at this celebration not only does not spoil it, but also gives it spiritual authenticity. Sadness is a constant companion of the knowledge of life. He who honestly knows sorrow is worthy of honest joy. And this joy is brought to people by the creative gift of our wonderful writer Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel.
And thank God that fans of this wonderful gift can now get acquainted with the living testimonies of contemporaries who knew the writer closely during his lifetime.
BABEL, ISAAK EMMANUILOVICH(1894–1940), Russian Soviet writer. Born on July 1 (13), 1894 in Odessa on Moldavanka, in the family of a Jewish merchant. IN Autobiographies(1924) Babel wrote: “At the insistence of his father, he studied the Hebrew language, the Bible, the Talmud until the age of sixteen. It was difficult to live at home, because from morning till night they were forced to study many sciences. I rested at school. The program of the Odessa Commercial School, where the future writer studied, was very intense. Chemistry, political economy, jurisprudence, accounting, commodity science, three foreign languages and other subjects were studied. Speaking of "rest", Babel had in mind the feeling of freedom: according to his recollections, during breaks or after classes, students went to the port, to Greek coffee houses or to Moldavanka "to drink cheap Bessarabian wine in the cellars." All these impressions later formed the basis of Babel's early prose and his Odessa stories.
Babel began writing at the age of fifteen. For two years he wrote in French - under the influence of G. Flaubert, G. Maupassant and his French teacher Vadon. The element of French speech sharpened the sense of the literary language and style. Already in his first stories, Babel strove for stylistic elegance and the highest degree of artistic expression. “I take a trifle - an anecdote, a bazaar story, and make it a thing that I myself can’t tear myself away from ... They will laugh at him not at all because he is cheerful, but because you always want to laugh with human luck,” - he later explained his creative aspirations.
The main property of his prose was revealed early: the combination of heterogeneous layers - both the language and the way of life depicted. His early work is characterized by the story In a slit(1915), in which the hero buys for five rubles from the owner of the apartment the right to spy on the life of prostitutes renting the next room.
After graduating from the Kiev Commercial Institute, in 1915 Babel came to St. Petersburg, although he did not have the right to reside outside the Pale of Settlement. After his first stories ( Old Shloyme, 1913, etc.), published in Odessa and Kiev, went unnoticed, the young writer became convinced that only the capital could bring him fame. However, the editors of St. Petersburg literary magazines advised Babel to quit writing and engage in trade. This went on for more than a year - until he came to Gorky in the Chronicle magazine, where the stories were published Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna And Mom, Rimma and Alla(1916, No. 11). The stories aroused the interest of the reading public and the judiciary. Babel was going to be prosecuted for pornography. The February Revolution saved him from trial, which had already been scheduled for March 1917.
Babel served in the Extraordinary Commission, as a correspondent for the newspaper "Red Cavalryman" was in the First Cavalry Army, participated in food expeditions, worked in the People's Commissariat of Education, in the Odessa Provincial Committee, fought on the Romanian, northern, Polish fronts, was a reporter for Tiflis and Petrograd newspapers.
He returned to artistic creativity in 1923: stories were published in the journal Lef (1924, No. 4). Salt, Letter, Dolgushov's death, King and others. Literary critic A. Voronsky wrote about them: “Babel, not before the eyes of the reader, but somewhere away from him, has already passed a long artistic path of study and therefore captivates the reader not only with his “gut” and unusual life material, but also. .. culture, intelligence and mature firmness of talent ... ".
Over time, the writer's artistic prose took shape in cycles that gave names to collections Cavalry (1926), Jewish stories(1927) and Odessa stories (1931).
Basis for a collection of stories Cavalry were diary entries. The first Cavalry, shown by Babel, differed from the beautiful legend that official propaganda composed about the Budyonnovites. He was not forgiven for the slander. Gorky, defending Babel, wrote that he showed the fighters of the First Cavalry "better, more truthful than Gogol of the Cossacks." Budyonny called Cavalry"Super-arrogant Babel slander." Nevertheless, Babel's work was already seen as a significant phenomenon in modern literature. “Babel was not like any of his contemporaries. But a short time has passed - contemporaries begin to gradually resemble Babel. His influence on literature is becoming more and more obvious,” wrote literary critic A. Lezhnev in 1927.
Attempts to discern passion and romance in the revolution turned out to be spiritual anguish for the writer. “Why do I have an unending longing? Because (...) I am at a big, ongoing memorial service,” he wrote in his diary. A fantastic, exaggerated world became a kind of salvation for Babel Odessa stories. The action of the stories in this cycle is King, How it was done in Odessa, Father, Lyubka Cossack– takes place in an almost mythological city. Babel Odessa is inhabited by characters in which, according to the writer, there is "arousal, lightness and charming - sometimes sad, sometimes touching - a sense of life" ( Odessa). The real Odessa criminals Mishka Yaponchik, Sonya Zolotaya Ruchka and others, in the writer's imagination, turned into artistically authentic images of Beni Krik, Lyubka Kazak, Froim Grach. Babel portrayed the "King" of the Odessa underworld Benya Krik as a protector of the weak, a kind of Robin Hood. Stylistics Odessa stories is distinguished by conciseness, conciseness of the language and at the same time vivid imagery, metaphor. Babel's demands on himself were extraordinary. Only one story Lyubka Cossack had about thirty major editors, each of which the writer worked for several months. Paustovsky in his memoirs cites the words of Babel: “We take it with style, with style. I'm ready to write a story about washing clothes, and maybe it will sound like the prose of Julius Caesar.
In the literary heritage of Babel there are about eighty stories, two plays - Sunset(1927, first staged in 1927 by director V. Fedorov on the stage of the Baku Workers' Theatre) and Maria(1935, first staged in 1994 by director M. Levitin on the stage of the Moscow Hermitage Theater), five screenplays, including wandering stars(1926, based on the novel of the same name by Sholom Aleichem), journalism.
“It is very difficult to write on topics that interest me, very difficult, if you want to be honest,” he wrote from Paris in 1928. In 1937, Babel wrote an article Lies, betrayal and smerdyakovism, glorifying the show trials of "enemies of the people". Shortly thereafter, he admitted in a private letter: "Life is very bad: both mentally and physically - there is nothing to show to good people." The Tragedy of Heroes Odessa stories embodied in a novel Froim Grach(1933, published in 1963 in the USA): the title character tries to conclude a "pact of honor" with the authorities, but dies.
In the last years of his life, the writer turned to the topic of creativity, which he interpreted as the best that a person is capable of. One of his last stories was written about this - a parable about the magical power of art. Di Grasso (1937).
Babel was arrested on May 15, 1939 and, charged with "anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activity", was shot on January 27, 1940.
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was born July 1 (13), 1894 in Odessa on Moldavanka. The son of a Jewish merchant. Shortly after the birth of Isaac Babel, his family moved to Nikolaev, a port city located 111 kilometers from Odessa. There, his father worked for a foreign manufacturer of agricultural equipment.
Babel, when he grew up, entered the commercial school named after S.Yu. Witte. His family returned to Odessa in 1905, and Babel continued his studies with private teachers until he entered the Odessa Commercial School named after Nicholas I, from which he graduated in 1911. In 1916 Graduated from the Kyiv Commercial Institute.
He wrote his first stories (not preserved) in French. In 1916. with the assistance of M. Gorky, he published two stories in the Chronicle magazine. In 1917 interrupted his studies in literature, changed many professions: he was a reporter, head of the editorial and publishing department of the State Publishing House of Ukraine, an employee of the People's Commissariat for Education, a translator in the Petrograd Cheka; served as a soldier of the 1st Cavalry Army.
In 1919 Isaac Babel married Evgenia Gronfein, the daughter of a wealthy farm equipment supplier whom he had previously met in Kyiv. After serving in the army, he wrote for newspapers and also devoted more time to writing short stories. In 1925 he published the book "The Story of My Dovecote", which included works written based on stories from his childhood.
Babel became famous for the publication of several stories in the LEF magazine ( 1924 ). Babel is a recognized master of short stories, an outstanding stylist. Striving for conciseness, density of writing, he considered the prose of G. de Maupassant and G. Flaubert to be a model. In Babel's stories, brilliance is combined with the external impassivity of the narration; their speech structure is based on the interpenetration of stylistic and linguistic layers: literary speech is adjacent to colloquial, Russian folk tale - to the Jewish small-town dialect, Ukrainian and Polish languages.
Most of Babel's stories were included in the Cavalry cycles (a separate edition - 1926 ) and "Odessa Stories" (separate edition - 1931 ). In Cavalry, the lack of a single plot is made up for by a system of leitmotifs, the core of which is the opposing themes of cruelty and mercy. The cycle caused a sharp controversy: Babel was accused of slander (S.M. Budyonny), of predilection for naturalistic details, of a subjective depiction of the Civil War. "Odessa Stories" recreate the atmosphere of Moldavanka - the center of the thieves' world in Odessa; the cycle is dominated by the carnival beginning, original Odessa humor. Based on urban folklore, Babel painted colorful images of thieves and raiders - charming rogues and "noble robbers". Babel also created 2 plays: "Sunset" ( 1928 ) and "Mary" ( 1935 , allowed to be staged in 1988); 5 scenarios (including "Wandering Stars", 1926 ; based on the novel of the same name by Sholom Aleichem).
During the 1930s I. Babel's activities and works came under the scrutiny of critics and censors, who were looking for even the slightest mention of his disloyalty to the Soviet government. Periodically, Babel visited France, where his wife lived with her daughter Natalie. He wrote less and less and spent three years in seclusion.
In 1939 Isaac Babel was arrested by the NKVD and accused of membership in anti-Soviet political organizations and terrorist groups, as well as spying for France and Austria.
January 27, 1940 Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was shot. Rehabilitated - in 1954.
