Where are the roots of Chukovsky. Honorary titles and awards

This essay is not about the work of several generations of the Chukovsky family - one of the most amazing in Russian culture, since the topic is immense: one would have to write about children's and adult prose and poetry, memoirs, literary criticism, epistolary heritage, criticism, literary translations ... Some of the listed genres to some extent were used in the essay, but nothing more. The main task was an attempt to analyze the topic "The role of the Jewish factor in the Chukovsky family."

Fate and human psychology are sometimes difficult to explain. An example of this is the life of the outstanding Russian writer Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (Nikolai Vasilievich Korneichukov). He was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg, died in 1969 in Kuntsevo near Moscow, having lived a long, but far from cloudless life, although he was both a famous children's writer and a major literary critic; his services to Russian culture, after all, were evaluated at home (Dr. philological sciences, laureate of the Lenin Prize) and abroad (honorary doctor of Oxford University). Takova outer side his life.

But it was also internal, hidden. The son of a Ukrainian peasant woman Ekaterina Osipovna Korneichukova and ... (?). In the documents, Chukovsky each time indicated different patronymics (Stepanovich, Anuilovich, Vasilyevich, N.E. Korneychukov). According to the metric, he was Nikolai Korneichukov, i.e. illegitimate. However, he had a sister, Maria Korneichukova, who was born in 1879. The researchers managed to establish that in those documents of Mary, where there is a patronymic, she is named Manuilovna, or Emmanuilovna. It is assumed that the father of Korney Chukovsky is the Hereditary Honorary Citizen of Odessa Emmanuil Solomonovich Leve (i) nson, born in 1851, the son of the owner of printing houses located in several cities. The father did his best to prevent unequal marriage» his son with a simple peasant woman and got his way.

The Jewish origin of Father Chukovsky is almost beyond doubt. Here is what M. Beiser wrote in 1985 in the samizdat Leningrad Jewish Almanac. The author (who lived in Israel in 1998) spoke with Klara Izrailevna Lozovskaya (who emigrated to the United States), who worked as Chukovsky's secretary. She spoke about Emmanuil Levinson, the son of the owner of printing houses in St. Petersburg, Odessa and Baku. His marriage to the mother of Marusya and Kolya was not formally registered, since for this the father of the children had to be baptized, which was impossible. The connection broke up ... Nina Berberova also testifies to the Jewish origin of Korney Chukovsky's father in the book "Iron Woman". The writer himself did not speak on this topic. “He, as he was, was created by his abandonment,” Lidia Chukovskaya wrote about her father. There is only one reliable source - his "Diary", to which he trusted the most intimate.

Here is what Korney Ivanovich himself writes in the “Diary”: “I, as an illegitimate child, not even having a nationality (who am I? Jew? Russian? Ukrainian?) - was the most incomplete, difficult person on the ground ... It seemed to me ... that I was the only one - illegal, that everyone was whispering behind my back, and that when I showed someone (janitor, porter) my documents, everyone internally began to spit on me ... When children talked about their fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, I only blushed, hesitated, lied, confused ... It was especially painful for me at the age of 16-17, when young people are being simple name call by name. I remember how clownishly I asked even at the first meeting - already with a mustache - “just call me Kolya”, “and I'm Kolya”, etc. It seemed like a joke, but it was a pain. And from here the habit of interfering with pain, buffoonery and lies was started - never showing yourself to people - from here, everything else went from here.

“... I never had such a luxury as a father, or at least a grandfather,” Chukovsky wrote bitterly. They, of course, existed (just like the grandmother), but they all unanimously abandoned the boy and his sister. Kolya knew his father. After the death of her father, Lydia Chukovskaya wrote about this in the book “Memories of Childhood”. The family then lived in the Finnish town of Kuokkala and once, already famous writer Korney Chukovsky unexpectedly brought the grandfather of his children to the house. It was promised that he would stay for several days, but his son unexpectedly and quickly kicked him out. The man was never spoken of again in the house. Little Lida remembered how one day, her mother suddenly called the children and said sternly: “Remember, children, you can’t ask dad about his dad, your grandfather. Never ask anything." Korney Ivanovich was forever offended for his mother, but she loved the father of her children all her life - a portrait of a bearded man always hung in their house.

Chukovsky does not cover his national origin. And only in the "Diary" does he reveal his soul. It is all the more offensive that they were published with many cuts (the editor of the Diary is his granddaughter Elena Tsezarevna Chukovskaya).

Only a few passages can indirectly judge his attitude to Jewish question. And here there is an inexplicable paradox: a person who has had a hard time with his "bastardism", the culprit of which was his father - a Jew, reveals a clear attraction to the Jews. Back in 1912, he wrote in his diary: “I was at Rozanov’s. The impression is nasty ... He complained that the Jews were eating his children in the gymnasium. The bill does not make it possible to find out the topic of the conversation, although presumably we are talking about Rozanov's anti-Semitism (Rozanov did not hide his views on this issue). And here is what he writes about his secretaries K. Lozovskaya and V. Glotser: praising them for their sensitivity, selflessness, and innocence, he explains these qualities of theirs by the fact that "both of them - Jews - people most predisposed to disinterestedness." After reading the autobiography of Yu.N. Tynyanov, Chukovsky wrote: “Nowhere in the book does it say that Yuri Nikolayevich was a Jew. Meanwhile, the subtlest intelligence that reigns in his "Vazir Mukhtar" is most often characteristic of the Jewish mind.

Half a century after writing about Rozanov, in 1962, Chukovsky writes: “... there was Sergey Obraztsov and said that the newspaper Literature and Life was being closed due to a lack of subscribers (there is no demand for the Black Hundreds), and instead of it there is“ Literary Russia". The head of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR, Leonid Sobolev, selects employees for the "LR", and, of course, strives to retain as many employees of the "LZh" as possible in order to again pursue the anti-Semite and, in general, the Black Hundred line. But for the appearance of renewal, they decided to invite Obraztsov and Shklovsky. Obraztsov came to the Board when Shchipachev and Sobolev were there, and said: “I am ready to enter new edition if not a single Markov remains there, and if an anti-Semitic odor appears there, I will beat anyone who is involved in this in the face. Obraztsov authorized me to go to Shchipachev and say that he is not part of the editorial office of LR ... ".

In early 1963, on the pages of Izvestia, a controversy arose between the anti-Semitic critic V. Yermilov and the writer I. Ehrenburg about the book of memoirs “People, Years, Life”. On February 17, Chukovsky wrote: “Paustovsky was there yesterday: “Did you read Izvestia - about Yermishka?” It turns out that there is a whole strip of letters where Yermilov is greeted by a dark mass of readers who hate Ehrenburg because he is a Jew, an intellectual, a Westerner ... ". Resting in 1964 in Barvikha, he writes: “I have the impression that some drunken person burped in my face. No, it's too soft. A certain Sergei Sergeevich Tsitovich appeared from Minsk and declared, with a wink, that Pervukhin and Voroshilov had Jewish wives, that Marshak (as a Jew) had no sense of homeland, that Engels had left a will in which he supposedly wrote that socialism would perish if he Jews will join real name Averchenko - Lifshitz, that Marshak was a Zionist in his youth, that A.F. Koni is actually Kohn, etc.” The quotation could be continued, however, the above notes are enough to understand Chukovsky's worldview: his position is not only the position of an advanced Russian intellectual - anti-Semitism is perceived by him painfully, as a personal insult.

One more confirmation Jewish origin I found Korney Chukovsky's father in S. Novikov's essay Rokhlin. Describing the life of his elder friend, the outstanding Soviet mathematician Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin, the author writes: “Two years before his death, he told me the following. His maternal grandfather was a wealthy Odessa Jew Levinson. The maid - the girl Korneichuk - gave birth to a male baby from him, to whom, with the help of the police (for money), a purely Russian Orthodox passport was made ... From myself, I note that Korney received an education, probably with Levinson's money ... Rokhlin's mother - the legitimate daughter of Levinson - received a medical education in France. She was the head of the sanitary inspectorate in Baku, where she was killed in 1923... Her father was shot in the late 1930s. Then Rokhlin, being a 16-year-old boy in Moscow, experienced great difficulties with entering the university. He tried to turn to Korney for help, but he did not accept him. Apparently, at that time, Korney was madly afraid of Stalin (Rokhlin is right, but he connects this with the "Cockroach", not suspecting that the Great Terror entered the Chukovsky family at that time - V.O.) ... After Stalin's death , - as Rokhlin told me, - Korney was looking for contact with him, already renowned professor. But Rokhlin refused out of pride. One physicist, Misha Marinov... was in good contact with Lydia Chukovskaya, daughter of Korney. She told him about this relationship with Rokhlin, as Misha told me when I told this story in society shortly after the death of Vladimir Abramovich. Rokhlin's son Vladimir Vladimirovich became an outstanding applied mathematician and now lives in America.

These are the facts confirming that Korney Ivanovich was half Jewish. But that wasn't what worried him. He could not forgive his father for what he did: he deceived the woman who loved him all his life and doomed his two children to fatherlessness. After the family drama that he experienced in childhood, it could well have happened that he would have become a anti-Semite: if only because of his love for his mother, if only in revenge for his crippled childhood. This did not happen: the opposite happened - he was drawn to the Jews.

It is difficult and, at first glance, impossible to understand and explain the logic of what happened. The article offers one of the options for what happened. It is known that Kolya Korneichukov studied at the same gymnasium with Vladimir (Zeev) Zhabotinsky, a future brilliant journalist and one of the most prominent representatives Zionist movement. The relationship between them was friendly: they were even expelled from the gymnasium together - for writing a sharp pamphlet on the director. There is little information about the further relationship of these people (for obvious reasons). But the fact that Chukovsky chose Zhabotinsky as a guarantor when registering his marriage speaks volumes - guarantors are not random people. In the "Diary" the name of Zhabotinsky appears only in 1964:

"Vlad. Jabotinsky (later a Zionist) said of me in 1902:

Chukovsky Roots

vaunted talent

2 times longer

Telephone pole.

Only such a joke could Korney Ivanovich entrust to paper at that time. From correspondence with a resident of Jerusalem, Rachel Pavlovna Margolina (1965), it turns out that all this time he kept the manuscripts of V. Zhabotinsky as a treasure. Think about the meaning this fact and you will understand that it was a feat and that the personality of Zhabotinsky was sacred to him. To show that just such a person could bring Kolya out of a state of mental depression, let me quote an excerpt from his letter to R.P. Margolina: “... He introduced me to literature... From the whole personality of Vladimir Evgenievich there was some kind of spiritual radiation. There was something in him from Pushkin's Mozart and, perhaps, from Pushkin himself ... Everything in him delighted me: his voice, and his laughter, and his thick black hair hanging in a forelock over high forehead, and his wide fluffy eyebrows, and African lips, and a chin protruding forward ... Now it will seem strange, but our main conversations then were about aesthetics. V.E. wrote a lot of poetry then - and I, who lived in an unintelligent environment, saw for the first time that people can talk excitedly about rhythm, about assonances, about rhymes ... He seemed to me radiant, cheerful, I was proud of his friendship and was sure that before him wide literary road. But then a pogrom broke out in Chisinau. Volodya Zhabotinsky has completely changed. He began to study native language, broke with his former environment, soon ceased to participate in the general press. Before I looked at him from the bottom up: he was the most educated, the most talented of my acquaintances, but now I became attached to him even more ... ”.

Chukovsky admits what a huge influence Zhabotinsky's personality had on the formation of his worldview. Undoubtedly, V.E. managed to distract Korney Ivanovich from "self-criticism" in relation to illegitimacy and convince him of his talent. "He introduced me to literature...". The publicistic debut of the nineteen-year-old Chukovsky took place in the Odessa News newspaper, where he was brought by Zhabotinsky, who developed in him a love for the language and discerned the talent of a critic. The young journalist's first article was "On the Ever-Young Question", dedicated to the controversy about the tasks of art between symbolists and supporters of utilitarian art. The author tried to find a third way that would reconcile beauty and usefulness. It is unlikely that this article could get on the pages of a popular newspaper - it was too different from everything that was printed there about art, if it were not for the assistance of the "golden pen" (as Vladimir Zhabotinsky was called in Odessa). He greatly appreciated philosophical ideas and style of early Chukovsky. It can rightly be called godfather"A young journalist that Korney Ivanovich perfectly understood and remembered all his life. No wonder he compared him with Pushkin. And, perhaps, by association, he recalled the immortal lines dedicated to the lyceum teacher Kunitsyn, paraphrasing them:

(Vladimir) a tribute to the heart and mind!

He created (me), he raised (my) flame,

They set the cornerstone

They lit a clean lamp...

Zhabotinsky spoke seven languages. Under his influence, Chukovsky began to study English. Since the part devoted to pronunciation was missing in the old tutorial bought from a second-hand book dealer, Chukovsky’s spoken English was very peculiar: for example, the word “writer” sounded like “writer” to him. Since he was the only one in the editorial office of Odessa News who read the English and American newspapers that came by mail, two years later, on the recommendation of the same Zhabotinsky, Chukovsky was sent as a correspondent to England. In London, embarrassment awaited him: it turned out that he did not perceive English words aurally. He spent most of his time in the Library british museum. By the way, here, in London, friends saw each other in last time in 1916, ten years after that memorable trip. The role of Zhabotinsky in the development of K.I. Chukovsky as a personality and artist has not been sufficiently studied, however, the currently available materials allow us to talk about the enormous influence that the future outstanding Zionist had on the development of Jewish self-identification in Chukovsky.

All of it future life confirms this thesis. In 1903 he married a Jewish girl, Goldfeld from Odessa. An extract from the metric book of the Exaltation of the Cross Church says: “1903, May 24, Mary was baptized. Based on the decree of Hers. Spirit. Consist. On May 16, 1903, for? 5825, St. Baptized Odessa bourgeois Maria Aronova-Berova Goldfeld, of Jewish law, born on June 6, 1880 in St. Baptism was named after Mary ... ". The wedding took place two days later.

“1903 May 26th. Groom: Nikolai Vasiliev Korneichukov, not assigned to any society, Orthodox. religion, first marriage, 21 years old. Bride: Odessa bourgeois Maria Borisova Goldfeld, Orthodox, first marriage, 23 years old. This is followed by the names of the guarantors from the side of the bride and groom (2 people each). Among the guarantors from the side of the groom is the Nikopol tradesman Vladimir Evgeniev Zhabotinsky.

Maria Borisovna Goldfeld was born in the family of an accountant in a private firm. There were eight children in the family, whom their parents sought to educate. Mary studied at private gymnasium, and one of her older brothers Alexander - in a real school (for some time in the same class with L. Trotsky). All children were born in Odessa, all have a native language - Jewish. The marriage of the Chukovskys was the first, only and happy. “Never show yourself to people” - such a life position has been preserved by Korney Ivanovich since childhood. Therefore, even in the Diary, he writes about his wife chastely, sparingly: “All Odessa journalists came to the wedding.” And only sometimes the true feeling breaks through. Having visited Odessa in 1936, 33 years after the wedding, he stood near the house where his bride once lived: he remembered a lot. A note appears: "We used to rage here with love." And another piercing entry made after the death of a beloved woman: “I look at this adored face in the coffin ... which I kissed so much - and I feel as if I was being taken to the scaffold ... I go every day to the grave and remember the deceased:. .. here she is in a velvet blouse, and I even remember the smell of this blouse (and in love with him), here are our dates outside the station, at the Kulikovo field ..., here she is on Lanzheron, we go home with her at dawn, here is her father behind a French newspaper ... ". How much love, tenderness and youthful passion in the words of this is far from young man who lost his wife and faithful girlfriend after the war! They shared both joy and sorrow. Of the four children (Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria), two older children survived. Youngest daughter Masha died in childhood from tuberculosis. Both sons were at the front during the war. The youngest - Boris - died in the first months of the war; Nicholas was lucky - he returned. Both Nicholas and Lydia were famous writers. Moreover, if the father and eldest son wrote, guided by "internal censorship" - K. Chukovsky remembered for the rest of his life the witches' sabbath against "Chukovsky" in the 30s, headed by N.K. Krupskaya, there were no restrictions for his daughter. “I am a happy father,” he said with humor to his friends: if the right comes to power, I have Kolya, if the left, Lida.

Soon, however, humor receded far into the background.

During Great terror when the husband of Lydia Chukovskaya, the outstanding physicist Matvey Bronstein, was shot in the “general stream”, after crazy nights in the queues of relatives near the terrible prison “Crosses”, where common grief brought her closer to the great Akhmatova for life (the prison forever took away her only son ), after all the horrors suffered, Chukovskaya was not afraid of anyone and nothing.

Lidia Korneevna, like her father, lived a long and hard life(1907-1996). main role her father, husband and Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak, a friend of her father, played in her life. Here is what she wrote to her father - twenty years old, from Saratov exile, where she ended up for an anti-Soviet leaflet written at the institute: “You really don’t know that I still, like a child, like a three-year-old, love you ...? I will never believe this, because you are you. After the exile, Marshak took Chukovskaya to work in the Leningrad branch of Detgiz, which he headed. Looking ahead, we point out that during the war he turned out to be her kind guardian angel. Here is what Korney Ivanovich wrote to Samuil Yakovlevich in December 1941: “... I thank you and Sofya Mikhailovna (wife of S.Ya. - V.O.) for their friendly attitude towards Lida. Without your help, Lida would not have reached Tashkent - I will never forget this.” (Marshak helped L.K., who had major operation, get out of the hungry and cold Chistopol).

1937, which turned out to be a turning point in the life and worldview of a young woman, found her in Marshakov's Detgiz: the arrest and execution of her husband, the dispersal of the editorial office and the arrests of its members (Chukovsky was "lucky" - she became "only" unemployed) shaped her for life dissident character. I must say that no one has ever been particularly fond of the new government in the Chukovsky family. Here is what Korney Ivanovich wrote in the “Diary” in 1919 after the evening in memory of Leonid Andreev: “The former cultural environment no longer exists - it has died and it takes a century to create it. They don't understand anything complex. I love Andreev through irony, but this is no longer available. Irony is understood only by subtle people, not commissars.” On my own, I can add that Chukovsky was a great optimist: a century is coming soon, and culture is purposefully driven into a corner.

The ill-fated leaflet, written by a nineteen-year-old girl, haunted Lidia Korneevna for many decades. The note of KGB Chairman Yu. Andropov to the Central Committee of the CPSU dated November 14, 1973 says: “Chukovskaya’s anti-Soviet convictions developed back in the period 1926-1927, when she took an active part in the activities of the anarchist organization Black Cross as a publisher and distributor of the Black Alarm magazine ... This "case" surfaced in the KGB in 1948, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1966, 1967. Indeed, the fear of the KGB has big eyes: she has never been associated with any anarchist magazine, and her anti-Soviet sentiments were born by the Soviet authorities. The date and address of birth are known: 1937, Leningrad, in line at the Kresty prison.

Where did they throw your body? To the hatch?

Where were they shot? In the basement?

Did you hear the sound

Shot? No, hardly.

A shot in the back of the head is merciful:

Shatter the memory.

Do you remember that dawn?

No. Was in a hurry to fall.

In February 1938, having found out in Moscow the wording of the sentence to her husband - "10 years without the right to correspond", she decided to flee from her beloved city. Lidia Korneevna “still returned to Leningrad, but she didn’t go to her apartment, to Kirochnaya either. She lived with friends for two days, and with Lyusha (daughter from her first marriage to the literary critic Ts. Volpe), ... I saw Korney Ivanovich in a public garden. She said goodbye, took money from Korney Ivanovich and left. So the authorities forged dissidents. And what was the significance for the widow, for the whole family, of the fact of the rehabilitation of Matvey Bronstein after Stalin's death? After all, they never believed the accusation that he was an enemy of the people. Before the arrest, Bronstein and Chukovskaya did not have time to register their marriage. “In order to get the right to protect the works of Bronstein,” she writes, “I had to formalize our marriage even when Matvey Petrovich was not alive. Marriage to the dead. Make it to court."

During the rehabilitation period, when the archives of the NKVD were opened, the researchers found the "case" of Bronstein. “Bronshtein Matvey Petrovich, 02. 12. 1906, born, born. Vinnitsa, Jew, non-partisan, with higher education, researcher at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, convicted on February 18, 1938 by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR "for active participation in a counter-revolutionary fascist terrorist organization" under Art. 58-8 and 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to the highest measure of criminal punishment - execution, with confiscation of all property personally belonging to him. The court sat on February 18 from 8.40 to 9.00. During these 20 minutes, the fate of one of the pillars of Soviet physics was decided. Letters in his defense were written by future academicians Tamm, Fok, Mandelstam, Ioffe, S. Vavilov, Landau, writers Chukovsky and Marshak - they did not know that Bronstein was no longer alive: their efforts were in vain. The last reminder of the dead husband was a sheet from the archival folder with an entry in 1958: “compensate for L.K. Chukovskaya the cost of binoculars seized during a search on August 1, 1937.

I went to the Neva to remember the nights

Crying by the river.

Look into your tomb's eyes,

Measure the depth of longing.

Neva! Say in the end

Where are you doing the dead?

Characteristically mutual influence these two outstanding personalities - physics and lyrics. "Solar substance" - this is the name of one of the scientific - popular books Bronstein. Here is what the outstanding physicist, laureate of Nobel Prize Lev Landau: "It is interesting to read it to any reader - from a schoolboy to a professional physicist." about the birth of this amazing book and the appearance of a new children's writer is evidenced by his dedication dated April 21, 1936: "Dear Lidochka, without whom I could never have written this book." In the remaining year and a half of his life, he created two more such masterpieces. So she, a professional writer, managed to inspire an outstanding physicist to create books, the genre of which was still unknown to him. His influence on her was amazing: during her lifetime she was proud of him and enjoyed the community of thoughts and feelings. After his death, she became embittered: “I want the machine to be explored screw by screw, which turned a person full of life, flourishing with activity, into a cold corpse. For her to be sentenced. In a loud voice. It is not necessary to cross out the account by putting a soothing stamp “paid” on it, but to unravel the tangle of causes and effects, seriously, carefully, loop by loop, to disassemble it ... ".

Here is an excerpt from her letter dated 12.10. 1938, in which she describes her impressions of Professor Mamlock: “Yes, fascism is a terrible thing, a vile thing that must be fought. The film shows the persecution of a Jewish professor... The torture used during interrogations, the queues of mothers and wives at the Gestapo window and the answers they receive: “Nothing is known about your son”, “no information”; laws printed in the newspapers, about which the fascist thugs frankly say that these are laws only for world public opinion ... ". In fact, this is a rough draft of her future works. Chukovskaya makes it clear that fascism and Soviet "communism" are twins, that anti-Semitism is a monstrous evil on a global scale.

Both Korney Ivanovich and Lidia Korneevna Chukovsky proved by their life deeds that being a Jew is the proud right of decent people. This should be emphasized especially, since Korney Ivanovich also saw the opposite example - his Jewish father, whom he despised for his dishonesty. Fate brought him to outstanding person- Jew Zhabotinsky. It was this man who became an example for him for life. Jewish ideals led to his marriage to a Jewish woman and were instilled in his children. Such is the Jewish "saga" of the Chukovskys.

In conclusion, I would like to touch on one more issue. Both Chukovskys, both father and daughter, felt the truth very subtly and real talent. Chukovsky’s phrase is known on a typewritten book of poems by the disgraced poet Alexander Galich: “You, Galich, are a god and you don’t understand it yourself.” Particularly curious are their relations with the Soviet Nobel laureates: past and future. Both father and daughter wrote letters to the Soviet leadership in defense of the future laureate Joseph Brodsky, arrested for "parasitism". It is not worth writing much about the relationship between L. Chukovskaya and Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, the Nobel Peace Prize winner - they were ideological comrades-in-arms in the human rights movement. Heroic deed made by L. Chukovskaya, who spoke in 1966. With open letter Nobel Prize winner M Sholokhov in response to his speech at the party congress, in which he demanded death penalty writers Sinyavsky and Daniel. She wrote: “Literature is not under the jurisdiction of the Criminal Court. Ideas should be opposed to ideas, not camps and prisons... Your shameful speech will not be forgotten by history. And literature itself will avenge itself... It will sentence you to the highest measure of punishment that exists for an artist - to creative sterility...».

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

(1882 – 1969),

writer, poet, translator.

(Real name Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneichukov)

K.I. Chukovsky was born in St. Petersburg on March 31 (March 19), 1882. He was 3 years old when he left to live only with his mother. He spent his childhood in Odessa and Nikolaev. He was expelled from the Odessa gymnasium due to his "low" origin, since his mother worked as a laundress. The family lived very hard on the mother's small salary, but the young man did not give up, he read a lot, studied on his own and passed the exams, receiving a matriculation certificate.

FROM early years K. Chukovsky began to be interested in poetry: he wrote poems and even poems. And in 1901 his first article appeared in the newspaper "Odessa News".

In 1903, Korney Ivanovich went to St. Petersburg to become a writer. Soon he became a correspondent for the Odessa News newspaper, where he sent his materials from St. Petersburg. Due to his abilities, he was sent to London. There he studied English well. And in 1916, Chukovsky became a war correspondent for the Rech newspaper in Great Britain. In 1917 he returned to his homeland.

Once, in 1916, A.M. Gorky asked Chukovsky to write a poem for children. Chukovsky at first was very worried that he would not be able to write, because he had never done this before. But chance helped him. Returning by train to St. Petersburg with his sick son, Chukovsky told him a fairy tale about a crocodile to the sound of wheels. The son was very attentive. Several days have passed. Korney Ivanovich had already forgotten about that episode, and the son remembered everything that his father told then by heart. Thus was born the fairy tale "Crocodile", published in 1917. Since then, Chukovsky has become a favorite children's writer.

And K. Chukovsky dedicated the wonderful fairy tale “The Miracle Tree”, written in 1924, to his little daughter Mure, who died early from tuberculosis.

In addition to works for children, Chukovsky writes books about children - about their linguistic creativity. In 1928, the book "Little Children" was published, which was then called "From Two to Five".

For ten years, from 1906 to 1916, Chukovsky lived in the Finnish village of Kuokkala, which the writer's friends jokingly called Chukokkala. There he became friends with many famous artists and writers.

In the post-war years, Chukovsky often met with children in a country house in Peredelkino. There he gathered up to one and a half thousand children around him and arranged holidays for them "Hello, summer!" and "Goodbye summer!". Now in this house there is a museum dedicated to the life and work of the children's writer Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky.

Writer's Awards

In 1957, Chukovsky was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philology

Also in 1962, he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Oxford.

Alexandrova Anastasia

Municipal educational institution

"Average comprehensive school No. 8, Volkhov, Leningrad Region"

Topic: Life and work of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

Performed:

Alexandrova Anastasia

student 2 "A" class

Volkhov

Leningrad region2010

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky is a pseudonym, and his real name is Nikolai Vasilievich Korneychukov. He was born in Petersburg in 1882 in poor family. He spent his childhood in Odessa and Nikolaev. In the Odessa gymnasium, he met and became friends with Boris Zhitkov, in the future also a famous children's writer. Chukovsky often went to Zhitkov's house, where he used the rich library collected by Boris's parents.

But the future poet was expelled from the gymnasium due to his "low" origin, since Chukovsky's mother was a laundress, and his father was gone. The mother's earnings were so meager that they were barely enough to somehow make ends meet. I had to take a gymnasium course and learn English on my own. Then the young man passed the exams and received a certificate of maturity.

He early began to write poetry and poems, and in 1901 the first article appeared in the Odessa News newspaper, signed by the pseudonym Korney Chukovsky. In this newspaper he published many articles on the most different topics-about exhibitions of paintings, about philosophy, art, wrote reviews of new books, feuilletons. Then Chukovsky began to write a diary, which he then kept all his life.

In 1903, Korney Ivanovich went to St. Petersburg with the firm intention of becoming a writer. There he met many writers and found a job - he became a correspondent for the Odessa News newspaper. In the same year he was sent to London, where he improved his English and met famous writers, including Arthur Conan Doyle and HG Wells.

In 1904 Chukovsky returned to Russia and became literary critic. He published his articles in St. Petersburg magazines and newspapers.

In 1916, Chukovsky became a war correspondent for the Rech newspaper. Returning to Petrograd in 1917, Chukovsky received an offer from M. Gorky to become the head of the children's department of the Parus publishing house. Then he began to pay attention to the speech and turns of small children and write them down. He kept such records for the rest of his life. From them the famous book "From two to five" was born. The book has been reprinted 21 times and replenished with each new edition.

In fact, Korney Ivanovich was a critic, a literary critic, and he became a storyteller quite by accident. Crocodile came first. fell ill little son Korney Ivanovich. His father took him home on a night train, and in order to at least slightly alleviate the boy's suffering, under the clatter of wheels, he began to tell a fairy tale:

"Once upon a time there was a crocodile,

He walked the streets

Smoking cigarettes,

spoke Turkish,

Crocodile, Crocodile, Crocodile...

The boy listened very carefully. The next morning, when he woke up, he asked his father to tell the story of yesterday again. It turned out that the boy memorized it all by heart.

And the second case. Korney Ivanovich heard how his little daughter did not want to wash. He took the girl in his arms and, quite unexpectedly for himself, said to her:

"I must, I must wash

Mornings and evenings.

And unclean chimney sweeps

Shame and disgrace! Shame and disgrace!"

This is how Moidodyr appeared. His poems are easy to read and remember. "Themselves climb from the tongue" as the kids say. Since then, new poems began to appear: “Fly-sokotuha”, “Barmaley”, “Fedorino grief”, “Telephone”, “Aibolit”. And he dedicated the wonderful fairy tale "Wonder Tree" to his little daughter Mure.

In addition to his own fairy tales for children, he retold for them the best works world literature: novels by D. Dafoe about Robinson Crusoe, Mark Twain about the adventures of Tom Sawyer. He translated them from of English language into Russian, and did it superbly.

Not far from Moscow, in the village of Peredelkino, he built Vacation home where he settled with his family. There he lived for many years. He was known not only by all the children of the village, but also by the small residents of Moscow, and the entire Soviet country, and beyond its borders.

Korney Ivanovich was tall, Long hands with big brushes large features face, big curious nose, brush mustache,

a naughty lock of hair hanging over her forehead, laughing bright eyes and a surprisingly light gait.

In Peredelkino he had a very important job. He built a children's library near his house. Children's writers and publishing houses sent books to this library at the request of Korney Ivanovich. The library is very comfortable and bright. There is a reading room where you can sit at the tables and read, there is a room for kids where you can play on the carpet and draw with a pencil and paints at small folding tables. Every summer the writer spent for his children and grandchildren, as well as for all the surrounding children, who numbered up to one and a half thousand, happy holidays"Hello summer!" and "Goodbye summer!".

In 1969, the writer died. Chukovsky's house in Peredelkino has long been a museum.

Bibliography:

1. I know the world: Russian literature. - M: Publishing house ACT LLC: LLC
Astrel Publishing House, 2004.

2. Chukovsky K.I.

The Miracle Tree and Other Tales. - M.: Children's literature, 1975.

3. Who is who in the world?: Encyclopedia.

Nikolai Korneichukov was born on March 19 (31), 1882 in St. Petersburg. The frequently occurring date of his birth, April 1, appeared due to an error in the transition to a new style (13 days were added, and not 12, as it should be for the 19th century).

Writer long years suffered from the fact that he was "illegitimate": his father was Emmanuil Solomonovich Levenson, in whose family Korney Chukovsky's mother lived as a servant - Poltava peasant woman Ekaterina Osipovna Korneichukova from a family of enslaved Ukrainian Cossacks.

Chukovsky's parents lived together in St. Petersburg for three years, they had an older daughter, Maria (Marusya). Shortly after the birth of their second child, Nicholas, the father left his illegitimate family and married "a woman of his circle", and the mother moved to Odessa. There the boy was sent to the gymnasium, but in the fifth grade he was expelled due to low birth. He described these events in the autobiographical story "The Silver Emblem", where he sincerely showed the injustice and social inequality of the society of the sunset era. Russian Empire which he had to deal with as a child.

According to the metric, Nicholas and his sister Maria, as illegitimate, did not have a patronymic; in other documents of the pre-revolutionary period, his patronymic was indicated differently - "Vasilyevich" (in the marriage certificate and baptismal certificate of the son of Nikolai, later fixed in most later biographies as part of the "real name"; given by the godfather), "Stepanovich", "Emmanuilovich", "Manuilovich", "Emelyanovich", sister Marusya bore the patronymic "Emmanuilovna" or "Manuilovna". First literary activity Korneichukov used the pseudonym "Korney Chukovsky", which was later joined by a fictitious patronymic - "Ivanovich". After the revolution, the combination "Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky" became his real name, patronymic and surname.

His children - Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria (Murochka), who died in childhood, to whom many of her father's children's poems are dedicated - bore (at least after the revolution) the surname Chukovsky and the patronymic Korneevich / Korneevna.

Journalistic activity before the revolution

Since 1901, Chukovsky began to write articles in the Odessa News. Chukovsky was introduced to literature by his close friend at the gymnasium, the journalist V. E. Zhabotinsky. Zhabotinsky was also the guarantor of the groom at the wedding of Chukovsky and Maria Borisovna Goldfeld.

Then in 1903 Chukovsky was sent as a correspondent to London, where he thoroughly familiarized himself with English literature.

Returning to Russia during the 1905 revolution, Chukovsky was captured revolutionary events, visited the battleship Potemkin, began publishing the satirical magazine Signal in St. Petersburg. Among the authors of the journal were such famous writers like Kuprin, Fedor Sologub and Teffi. After the fourth issue, he was arrested for lèse majesté. He was defended by the famous lawyer Gruzenberg, who achieved an acquittal.

In 1906, Korney Ivanovich arrived in the Finnish town of Kuokkala (now Repino, the Kurortny district of St. Petersburg), where he made a close acquaintance with the artist Ilya Repin and the writer Korolenko. It was Chukovsky who persuaded Repin to take his writing seriously and prepare a book of memoirs, Far Close. Chukovsky lived in Kuokkala for about 10 years. From the combination of the words Chukovsky and Kuokkala, “Chukokkala” was formed (invented by Repin) - the name of a handwritten humorous almanac that Korney Ivanovich kept until the last days of his life.

In 1907, Chukovsky published Walt Whitman's translations. The book became popular, which increased Chukovsky's fame in the literary environment. Chukovsky became an influential critic, smashed tabloid literature (articles about Lydia Charskaya, Anastasia Verbitskaya, "Nata Pinkerton", etc.), wittily defended the futurists - both in articles and in public lectures - from the attacks of traditional criticism (he met Mayakovsky in Kuokkala and later became friends with him), although the Futurists themselves are far from always grateful to him for this; developed his own recognizable manner (reconstruction of the psychological appearance of the writer on the basis of numerous quotations from him).

In 1916 Chukovsky with a delegation State Duma revisited England. In 1917, Patterson's book With the Jewish Detachment at Gallipoli (about the Jewish Legion in the British Army) was published, edited and with a foreword by Chukovsky.

After the revolution, Chukovsky continued to engage in criticism, publishing two of his most famous books on the work of his contemporaries - The Book of Alexander Blok (Alexander Blok as a Man and a Poet) and Akhmatova and Mayakovsky. The circumstances of the Soviet era turned out to be ungrateful for critical activity, and Chukovsky had to “bury this talent in the ground”, which he later regretted.

literary criticism

Since 1917, Chukovsky sat down for many years of work on Nekrasov, his favorite poet. Through his efforts, the first Soviet collection of Nekrasov's poems was published. Chukovsky completed work on it only in 1926, reworking a lot of manuscripts and providing texts with scientific comments. The monograph Nekrasov's Mastery, published in 1952, was reprinted many times, and in 1962 Chukovsky was awarded the Lenin Prize for it. After 1917, it was possible to publish a significant part of Nekrasov's poems, which had previously either been banned by the tsarist censorship, or which had been "vetoed" by the copyright holders. Approximately a quarter of Nekrasov's currently known poetic lines were put into circulation precisely by Korney Chukovsky. In addition, in the 1920s, he discovered and published manuscripts of Nekrasov's prose works (The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trosnikov, The Thin Man, and others). On this occasion, there was even a legend in literary circles: the literary critic and another researcher and biographer of Nekrasov, V.E. how many more lines of Nekrasov did you write today?

In addition to Nekrasov, Chukovsky was engaged in the biography and work of a number of other writers of the 19th century (Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Sleptsov), to which his book “People and Books of the Sixties” is dedicated, in particular, participated in the preparation of the text and editing of many publications. Chukovsky considered Chekhov the writer closest to himself in spirit.

Children's poems

Passion for children's literature, glorified Chukovsky, began relatively late, when he was already a famous critic. In 1916, Chukovsky compiled the Yolka collection and wrote his first fairy tale, Crocodile.

In 1923 he came out famous fairy tales"Moydodyr" and "Cockroach".

In the life of Chukovsky there was another hobby - the study of the psyche of children and how they master speech. He recorded his observations of children, for their verbal creativity in Two to Five (1933).

Chukovsky in the 1930s

Among party critics and editors, the term "Chukovshchina" arose. In December 1929, Chukovsky published a letter in Literaturnaya Gazeta with a renunciation of fairy tales and a promise to create a collection of "Merry Kolkhoz". Chukovsky was very upset by the renunciation and in the end did not do what he promised. The 1930s were marked by two personal tragedies of Chukovsky: in 1931 she died after serious illness his daughter Murochka, and in 1938 the husband of his daughter Lydia, physicist Matvey Bronstein, was shot (the writer learned about the death of his son-in-law only after two years of trouble in the authorities).

Other works

In the 1930s, Chukovsky did a lot of theory literary translation(“The Art of Translation” of 1936 was reprinted before the start of the war, in 1941, under the title “ high art”) and actually translations into Russian (M. Twain, O. Wilde, R. Kipling and others, including in the form of “retellings” for children).

He begins to write memoirs, on which he worked until the end of his life (“Contemporaries” in the ZhZL series). Posthumously published "Diaries 1901-1969".

Chukovsky and the Bible for children

In the 1960s, K. Chukovsky started a retelling of the Bible for children. He attracted writers and writers to this project and carefully edited their work. The project itself was very difficult due to the anti-religious position Soviet power. In particular, they demanded from Chukovsky that the words "God" and "Jews" should not be mentioned in the book; By the efforts of writers for God, the pseudonym "The Wizard of Yahweh" was invented. The book titled tower of babel and other ancient legends" was published by the publishing house "Children's Literature" in 1968. However, the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities. The first book edition available to the reader took place in 1990 at the publishing house "Karelia" with illustrations by Gustave Dore. In 2001, the Rosman and Dragonfly publishing houses began to publish the book under the title The Tower of Babel and Other Biblical Traditions.

Last years

AT last years Chukovsky is a national favorite, laureate of a series state awards and holder of orders, at the same time he maintained contacts with dissidents (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, the Litvinovs, his daughter Lydia was also a prominent human rights activist). At the dacha in Peredelkino, where he constantly lived in recent years, he arranged meetings with the surrounding children, talked with them, read poetry, invited them to meetings famous people, famous pilots, artists, writers, poets. Peredelkino children, who have long since become adults, still remember those children's gatherings at Chukovsky's dacha.

In 1966, he signed a letter from 25 cultural and scientific figures Secretary General The Central Committee of the CPSU L. I. Brezhnev against the rehabilitation of Stalin.

Korney Ivanovich died on October 28, 1969 from viral hepatitis. At the dacha in Peredelkino, where the writer lived most life, now operates his museum.

From the memoirs of Yu. G. Oksman:

He was buried at the cemetery in Peredelkino.

A family

• Wife (since May 26, 1903) - Maria Borisovna Chukovskaya (nee Maria Aron-Berovna Goldfeld, 1880-1955). Daughter of accountant Aron-Ber Ruvimovich Goldfeld and housewife Tuba (Tauba) Oizerovna Goldfeld.
  • Son - poet, writer and translator Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky (1904-1965). His wife is the translator Marina Nikolaevna Chukovskaya (1905-1993).
  • Daughter - writer and dissident Lidia Korneevna Chukovskaya (1907-1996). Her first husband was a literary critic and literary historian Tsezar Samoylovich Volpe (1904-1941), the second - a physicist and popularizer of science Matvey Petrovich Bronstein (1906-1938).
  • Son - Boris Korneevich Chukovsky (1910-1941), died in the Great Patriotic war.
  • Daughter - Maria Korneevna Chukovskaya (1920-1931), the heroine of children's poems and stories of her father.
    • Granddaughter - Natalya Nikolaevna Kostyukova (Chukovskaya), Tata, (born 1925), microbiologist, professor, doctor of medical sciences, Honored Scientist of Russia.
    • Granddaughter - literary critic, chemist Elena Tsezarevna Chukovskaya (born 1931).
    • Grandson - Nikolai Nikolaevich Chukovsky, Gulya, (born 1933), communications engineer.
    • Grandson - cameraman Evgeny Borisovich Chukovsky (1937-1997).
    • Grandson - Dmitry Chukovsky (born 1943), husband of the famous tennis player Anna Dmitrieva.
      • Great-granddaughter - Maria Ivanovna Shustitskaya, (born 1950), anesthesiologist-resuscitator.
      • Great-grandson - Boris Ivanovich Kostyukov, (1956-2007), historian-archivist.
      • Great-grandson - Yuri Ivanovich Kostyukov, (born 1956), doctor.
      • Great-granddaughter - Marina Dmitrievna Chukovskaya (born 1966),
      • Great-grandson - Dmitry Chukovsky (born 1968), chief producer Directorate of sports channels "NTV-Plus".
      • Great-grandson - Andrei Evgenievich Chukovsky, (born 1960), chemist.
      • Great-grandson - Nikolai Evgenievich Chukovsky, (born 1962).
• Nephew - mathematician Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin (1919-1984).

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

• August 1905 - 1906: Akademichesky Lane, 5;
• 1906 - autumn 1917: tenement house- Kolomenskaya street, 11;
• autumn 1917 - 1919: I. E. Kuznetsov's apartment building - Zagorodny Prospekt, 27;
• 1919-1938: tenement house - Manezhny lane, 6.
• 1912: in the name of K.I., a dacha was purchased (not preserved) in the village of Kuokkala (village of Repino) obliquely from the “Penates” of I.E. Repin, where the Chukovskys lived in the winter. Here is how contemporaries describe the location of this dacha:

Awards

Chukovsky was awarded the Order of Lenin (1957), three orders of the Red Banner of Labor, as well as medals. In 1962, he was awarded the Lenin Prize in the USSR, and in the UK he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Literature Honoris causa from Oxford University.

List of works

Fairy tales

• Dog Kingdom (1912)
• Crocodile (1916)
• Cockroach (1921)
• Moidodyr (1923)
• Wonder Tree (1924)
• Fly-Tsokotuha (1924)
• Barmaley (1925)
• Confusion (1926)
• Fedorino grief (1926)
• Telephone (1926)
• Stolen Sun (1927)
• Aibolit (1929)
• English folk songs
• Toptygin and Fox (1934)
• Let's defeat Barmaley! (1942)
• The Adventures of Bibigon (1945-1946)
• Toptygin and Luna
• Chick
• What did Mura do when she was read the fairy tale "Wonder Tree"
• The adventures of the white mouse

Poems for children

• Glutton
• Elephant reads
• Zakaliaka
• Piglet
• hedgehogs laugh
• Sandwich
• Fedotka
• Turtle
• pigs
• Garden
• Song of poor boots
• Camel
• tadpoles
• Bebek
• Joy
• Great-great-great-grandchildren
• Fly in the bath
• Chicken

Tale

• Sunny
• Silver coat of arms

Translation works

• Principles of Literary Translation (1919, 1920)
• The Art of Translation (1930, 1936)
• High Art (1941, 1964, 1966)

preschool education

• two to five

Memories

• Chukokkala
• Contemporaries
• Memories of Repin
• Yuri Tynyanov
• Boris Zhitkov
• Irakli Andronikov

Articles

• The story of my "Aibolit"
• How "Fly-Tsokotuha" was written
• Confessions of an old storyteller
• Chukokkala page
• About Sherlock Holmes
• Verbitskaya (she later - Nate Pinkerton)
• Lydia Charskaya

Editions of essays

• Chukovsky K. I. Collected works in six volumes. - M.: Fiction, 1965-1969.
• Chukovsky K. I. Works in two volumes. - M .: Pravda - Ogonyok, 1990. / compilation and general edition of E. Ts. Chukovskaya
• Chukovsky K.I. Collected works in 5 volumes. - M.: Terra - Book Club, 2008.
• Chukovsky K. I. Chukokkala. Handwritten almanac Korney Chukovsky / Foreword. I. Andronikov; Comment. K. Chukovsky; Comp., prepared. text, note. E. Chukovskaya. - 2nd ed. correct - M.: Russian way, 2006. - 584 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-85887-280-1.

Screen versions of works

• 1927 "Cockroach"
• 1938 "Doctor Aibolit" (dir. Vladimir Nemolyaev)
• 1939 Moidodyr (dir. Ivan Ivanov-Vano)
• 1939 Limpopo (dir. Leonid Amalrik, Vladimir Polkovnikov)
• 1941 "Barmaley" (dir. Leonid Amalrik, Vladimir Polkovnikov)
• 1944 "Phone_(cartoon)" (dir. Mikhail Tsekhanovsky)
• 1954 Moidodyr (dir. Ivan Ivanov-Vano)
• 1960 "Fly-clatter"
• 1963 "Cockroach"
• 1966 "Aibolit-66" (dir. Rolan Bykov)
• 1973 "Aibolit and Barmaley" (dir. Natalia Chervinskaya)
• 1974 "Fedorino grief"
• 1982 "Confusion"
• 1984 "Vanya and the crocodile"
• 1985 "Doctor Aibolit" (dir. David Cherkassky)

Selected Quotes

About K.I. Chukovsky

• Chukovskaya L.K. Childhood memories: My father is Korney Chukovsky. - M.: Time, 2012. - 256 p., ill. - 3000 copies, ISBN 978-5-9691-0723-6

You can read Chukovsky's fairy tales from the very early childhood. Poems by Chukovsky fabulous motifs- excellent children's works, famous for a huge number of bright and memorable characters, kind and charismatic, instructive and at the same time loved by children.

Without exception, all children love to read Chukovsky's poems, and what can I say, adults also remember with pleasure the beloved heroes of Korney Chukovsky's fairy tales. And even if you do not read them to your baby, meeting with the author in kindergarten at matinees or at school in the classroom - it will definitely take place. In this section, Chukovsky's fairy tales can be read immediately on the site, or you can download any of the works in .doc or .pdf formats.

About Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg. At birth, he was given a different name: Nikolai Vasilievich Korneichukov. The boy was illegitimate, for which life put him in difficult situations more than once. His father left the family when Nikolai was still very young, and he and his mother moved to Odessa. However, failures awaited him there too: the future writer was expelled from the gymnasium, since he came “from the bottom”. Life in Odessa was not sweet for the whole family, the children were often malnourished. Nikolai nevertheless showed strength of character and passed the exams, preparing for them on his own.

Chukovsky published his very first article in Odessa News, and already in 1903, two years after the first publication, the young writer went to London. There he lived for several years, working as a correspondent and studying English literature. After returning to his homeland, Chukovsky publishes his own journal, writes a book of memoirs, and by 1907 becomes famous in literary circles, though not yet as a writer, but as a critic. Korney Chukovsky spent a lot of effort on writing works about other authors, some of them are quite famous, namely, about Nekrasov, Blok, Akhmatova and Mayakovsky, about Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Sleptsov. These publications contributed to the literary fund, but did not bring fame to the author.

Poems of Chukovsky. The beginning of the career of a children's poet

Nevertheless, Korney Ivanovich remained in my memory as children's writer, it was Chukovsky's children's poems that made his name in history for many years. The author began to write fairy tales quite late. The first fairy tale by Korney Chukovsky is a Crocodile, was written in 1916. Moidodyr and the Cockroach came out only in 1923.

Not many people know that Chukovsky was an excellent child psychologist, he knew how to feel and understand children, he described all his observations and knowledge in detail and cheerfully in a special book “From Two to Five”, which was first published in 1933. In 1930, having experienced several personal tragedies, the writer began to devote most of his time to writing memoirs and translating works by foreign authors.

In the 1960s, Chukovsky got excited about the idea of ​​presenting the Bible in a childish way. Other writers were involved in the work, but the first edition of the book was completely destroyed by the authorities. Already in the 21st century, this book was published, and you can find it under the title "The Tower of Babel and other biblical traditions." Last days The writer spent his life at a dacha in Peredelkino. There he met with children, read them his own poems and fairy tales, invited famous people.