Babel Isaac Emmanuilovich (1894-1940), writer.

Graduated from the Odessa Commercial School, where he mastered several European languages(Babel wrote his first stories in French).

In 1911-1916. studied at the economic department of a commercial institute in Kyiv and at the same time entered the fourth year of the law faculty of the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute. In Petrograd future writer met M. Gorky. “I owe everything to this meeting,” he later wrote. In the journal Chronicle (1916), Gorky published two Babel stories, which were favorably received by critics.

Babel's publicistic articles and reporter's notes, which appeared in the press in 1918, testify to his rejection of the cruelty and violence generated by the revolution. In the spring of 1920, with a journalistic certificate in the name of Kirill Vasilyevich Lyutov, he went to the First Cavalry Army of S. M. Budyonny, and with it passed through Ukraine and Galicia.

After suffering from typhus in November 1920, Babel returned to Odessa and then lived in Moscow. His short stories were regularly published in magazines and newspapers, which subsequently amounted to two famous cycle- "Cavalry" (1926) and " Odessa stories"(1931).

Cavalry, which paradoxically combined romantic pathos and crude naturalism, "low" themes and sophistication of style, is one of the most fearless and truthful works about the revolution and the Civil War. Characteristic for the prose of this time, the author's "fascination" with the epoch-making events taking place before his eyes is combined with a sober and harsh assessment of them. Cavalry, which was soon translated into many languages, brought the author wide fame - in the mid-20s. 20th century Babel became one of the most read Soviet writers both in the USSR and abroad.

Critic V. B. Shklovsky noted in 1924: “It is unlikely that anyone now writes better in our country.” A notable phenomenon in the literature of the 20s. “Odessa Tales” also appeared - sketches of Odessa life marked by lyricism and subtle irony.

The 1920s and 1930s were a period of constant traveling in Babel's life. He traveled a lot around the country, often went to Europe, where his family emigrated. Incapable of conformism in his work, the writer increasingly "fit" into Soviet reality.

On May 15, 1939, Babel was arrested. Subjected to a series of interrogations, he "confessed" to having cooked Act of terrorism, was a spy for French and Austrian intelligence.
Shot on January 27, 1940 in Moscow.

Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel(real name Bobel) (July 1 (13), 1894 - January 27, 1940) - Russian writer.

Babel Isaak Immanuilovich (1894–1940), Russian writer.

Born on July 1 (13), 1894 in Odessa on Moldavanka, in the family of a Jewish merchant. In his Autobiography (1924), Babel wrote: “At the insistence of his father, he studied the Hebrew language, the Bible, and 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 items. 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 formed the basis early prose Babel 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 teacher French Vadona. The element of French speech sharpened the sensation literary language and style. Already in his first stories, Babel strove for stylistic elegance and the highest degree artistic expressiveness. “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. For his early creativity Characteristic is the story Into the Hole (1915), in which the hero buys from the owner of the apartment for five rubles 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 (Stariy 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 Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna and Mama, Rimma and Alla were published (1916, No. 11). The stories aroused the interest of the reading public and the judiciary. Babel was going to be prosecuted for pornography. February Revolution saved him from trial, which had already been scheduled for March 1917.

Babel served in the Extraordinary Commission (Cheka), as a correspondent for the newspaper "Red Cavalryman" was in the First Cavalry Army, participated in food expeditions, worked in the People's Commissariat for Education, in the Odessa Provincial Committee, fought on the Romanian, northern, Polish fronts, was a reporter for Tiflis and Petrograd newspapers.

TO artistic creativity returned in 1923: the magazine Lef (1924, No. 4) published the stories Salt, Letter, Death of Dolgushov, King, etc. Literary critic A. Voronsky wrote about them: “Babel is not in front of the reader, but somewhere aside a big one has already passed from him artistic path study and therefore captivates the reader not only with the “gut” and the unusualness of life material, but also ... with culture, intelligence and mature firmness of talent ... ".

With time fiction the writer took shape in cycles that gave the names to the collections Cavalry (1926), Jewish stories (1927) and Odessa stories (1931). The basis for the collection of stories Cavalry were diary entries. The first Cavalry, shown by Babel, differed from beautiful legend, which was composed by the official propaganda about the Budennovites. Unjustified cruelty, the animal instincts of people overshadowed the weak sprouts of humanity, which Babel at first saw in the revolution and in the "cleansing" civil war. The Red commanders did not forgive him for "slandering". The persecution of the writer began, at the origins of which stood S.M. Budyonny. Gorky, defending Babel, wrote that he showed the fighters of the First Cavalry "better, more truthful than Gogol of the Cossacks." Budyonny also called the Cavalry "super-arrogant Babel slander." Contrary to the opinion of Budyonny, Babel's work was already considered one of the most significant phenomena in contemporary 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 in 1927 literary critic A. Lezhnev.

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 kind of salvation for Babel was the fantastic, exaggerated world of the Odessa stories. The action of the stories in this cycle - The King, How It Was Done in Odessa, Father, Lyubka Kazak - takes place in an almost mythological city. Babel's Odessa is populated by characters who, according to the writer, have "ardor, lightness and a charming - sometimes sad, sometimes touching - feeling 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. The style of the Odessa stories is distinguished by brevity, conciseness of the language and at the same time vivid imagery and metaphor. Babel's demands on himself were extraordinary. Lyubka Kazak's story alone had about thirty major revisions, 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 am ready to write a story about washing clothes, and maybe it will sound like the prose of Julius Caesar.

IN literary heritage 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' Theater) 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 novel of the same name 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. Trying to protect himself, Babel wrote an article Lies, betrayal and smerdyakovism (1937), 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 the heroes of the Odessa stories was embodied in the short story Froim Grach (1933, published in 1963 in the USA): the title character tries to conclude a "pact of honor" with the Soviet authorities and dies at the hands of the Chekists.

IN last years life, the writer turned to the topic of creativity, which he interpreted as the best that a person is capable of. One of his latest stories- a parable about magic power art by Di Grasso (1937).

On May 15, 1939, Babel was arrested at his dacha in Peredelkino on charges of "anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activity" and espionage (case No. 419). During his arrest, several manuscripts were confiscated from him, which turned out to be forever lost (15 folders, 11 notebooks, 7 notebooks with notes). The fate of his written novel about the Cheka remains unknown.

During interrogations, Babel was subjected to severe torture. He was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and shot the next day, January 27, 1940. The execution list was personally signed by Joseph Stalin. Among possible causes Stalin's dislike for Babel is called the fact that he was a close friend of Y. Okhotnikov, I. Yakir, B. Kalmykov, D. Schmidt, E. Yezhova and other "enemies of the people."

In 1954 he was posthumously rehabilitated. With the active assistance of Konstantin Paustovsky, who loved Babel very much and left about him good memories, after 1956 Babel was returned to Soviet literature. In 1957, the collection "Selected" was published with a preface by Ilya Ehrenburg, who called Isaac Babel one of prominent writers XX century, a brilliant stylist and master of the short story.

Currently, in Odessa, citizens are raising funds for the monument to Isaac Babel. Already obtained permission from the city council; The monument will stand at the intersection of Zhukovsky and Richelieu streets, opposite the house where he once lived. Grand opening planned in early July 2011, the year of the writer's birthday.

Bibliography

In total, Babel wrote about 80 stories, combined into collections, two plays and five screenplays.

• A series of articles "Diary" (1918) about work in the Cheka and Narkompros
• A series of essays "On the field of honor" (1920) based on front-line notes of French officers
• Collection "Cavalry" (1926)
• Jewish Stories (1927)
• "Odessa stories" (1931)
• The play "Sunset" (1927)
• The play "Maria" (1935)
• The unfinished novel Velyka Krinitsa, of which only the first chapter, Gapa Guzhva, was published. New world", No. 10, 1931)
• fragment of the story "Jew" (published in 1968)

Babel Isaak Immanuilovich was 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 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 one more failed attempt to enter Odessa University (again because of quotas), he ended up at the Kiev Institute of Finance and Entrepreneurship. There he met his future wife Evgeny 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. Master short story, Babel strives for conciseness and accuracy, combining in the images of his characters, plot collisions and descriptions a huge temperament with outward dispassion. His flowery, metaphorical language early stories in the future is 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 any good literature poetic. In any case, it should be. But Babel's poetry was evident in more literally this word. In which? Constriction - immediately a bull by the horns. Self-sufficiency of the phrase, unprecedented diversity human condition per unit of literary area. 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 thinking is, as in " 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 the entire Russian life. But that furious determination with which the heroes of Cavalry go to death, but also, without hesitation, are ready to chop from the shoulder of everyone who is an enemy or in this moment seems such, suddenly reveals through the author's irony and bitterness the possibilities 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, how distant musical theme, no, no, yes, and it will stir up in the 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 literary victory 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 as in folk songs, glorifying the 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.

Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was born on July 1, 1894 in Odessa on Moldavanka, in the family of a Jewish merchant. He graduated from the Odessa Commercial School, and then continued his education at the Kiev Institute of Finance. According to some information, in school and student years Babel took part in Zionist circles. At the age of fifteen, Babel began to write. At first he wrote in French - under the influence of G. Flaubert, G. Maupassant and his French teacher Vadon.

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. Therefore, in 1915, Babel came to Petrograd "without the right to reside." However, the editors of St. Petersburg literary magazines advise Babel to quit writing and engage in trade. This continues for more than a year - until, with the assistance of Gorky, two of his stories were published in the Chronicle magazine: "Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna" and "Mother, Rimma and Alla", for which Babel was prosecuted for 1001 articles (pornography). The February Revolution saved him from trial, which had already been scheduled for March 1917.
The Journal of Journals for 1916-17 published several short essays by the writer under the pseudonym Bab-El.
In the autumn of 1917, Babel, having served in the army for several months as a private, deserts and makes his way to Petrograd, where he enters the service in the Cheka, and then in the People's Commissariat for Education. The experience of working in these institutions was reflected in Babel's series of articles "Diary", published in the spring of 1918 in the newspaper " New life". Here Babel ironically describes the first fruits Bolshevik coup: arbitrariness, general savagery and devastation.
After the closing of the "New Life" Soviet authorities Babel begins work on a story from the life of revolutionary Petrograd: “About two Chinese in brothel". The story "Walking" is the only excerpt from this story that has survived.
Returning to Odessa, Babel published in the local magazine Lava (June 1920) a series of essays On the Field of Honor, the content of which was borrowed from the front records of French officers. In the spring of 1920, on the recommendation of M. Koltsov, the writer under the name of Kirill Vasilievich Lyutov was sent to the 1st Cavalry Army as a war correspondent for Yug-ROST. The diary that Babel keeps during the Polish campaign captures his true impressions: this is the “chronicle of everyday atrocities”, which is dully mentioned in the allegorical short story “The Way to Brody”. In Cavalry (1926) the real material of the diary undergoes a strong artistic transformation: the “chronicle of everyday atrocities” turns into a kind of heroic epic.
The Red commanders did not forgive him for such "slander". The persecution of the writer begins, at the origins of which stood S.M. Budyonny. Gorky, defending Babel, wrote that he showed the fighters of the First Cavalry "better, more truthful than Gogol of the Cossacks." Budyonny also called the Cavalry "super-arrogant Babel slander." Contrary to Budyonny's opinion, Babel's work is already regarded as one of the most significant phenomena in modern literature. “Babel was not like any of his contemporaries. But a short time has passed - contemporaries are beginning to gradually resemble Babel. His influence on literature is becoming more and more obvious,” wrote literary critic A. Lezhnev in 1927.
Simultaneously with Cavalry, Babel publishes Odessa Tales, written back in 1921-23, but published as a separate publication only in 1931. The main character of these stories, the Jewish raider Benya Krik (whose prototype was the legendary Mishka Yaponchik), the embodiment of Babel’s dreams of a Jew who can stand up for himself. Here, Babel's comic talent and his linguistic flair are manifested with the greatest force (the colorful Odessa jargon is played out in the stories). To a large extent, the cycle of autobiographical stories of Babel "The Story of My Dovecote" (1926) is also devoted to the Jewish theme. This is the key to the main theme of his work, the opposition of weakness and strength, which more than once gave contemporaries a reason to accuse Babel of a cult " strong man».
On the strong connection of Babel with the Jewish cultural heritage testify to the stories inspired by Jewish folklore about the adventures of Herschel from Ostropol (“Shabos-Nahmu”, 1918), his work on the publication of Shalom Aleichem in 1937, as well as participation in the last legal almanac in Hebrew, sanctioned by the Soviet authorities, “Breshit” (Berlin, 1926, editor A. I. Kariv), where six stories of Babel are published in an authorized translation, and the name of the writer is given in the Hebrew form - Yitzhak.
In 1928 Babel published the play Sunset. This, according to S. Eisenstein, “perhaps the best post-October play in terms of dramaturgy”, was unsuccessfully staged by the Moscow Art Theater and found a genuine stage embodiment only in the 1960s outside the USSR: in the Israeli Habima Theater and the Budapest Theater Thalia ".
In the 1930s, Babel published few works. In the stories "Karl-Yankel", "Oil", "The End of the Almshouse" there appear those compromise solutions that the writer avoided in his best works. Only the first chapter of Gapa Guzhva (New World, No. 10, 1931) of the novel about collectivization that he had conceived, Velyka Krinitsa, saw the light of day. Babel's second play, "Maria" (1935), is not very successful. However, as evidenced by such posthumously published works as a fragment of the story "Jew" (" New magazine”, 1968), the story “Reference (My first fee)” and others, Babel did not lose his mastery in the 1930s, although the atmosphere of repression made him appear less and less in print.
As early as 1926, Babel began working for films (with Yiddish titles for the film "Jewish Happiness", the script "Wandering Stars" based on the novel by Shalom Aleichem, the film story "Benya Krik"). In 1936, together with Eisenstein, he wrote the screenplay for Bezhin Meadow. However, the film based on this script was destroyed. Soviet censorship. In 1937, Babel published his last stories, The Kiss, Di Grasso, and Sulak.
Babel was arrested on May 15, 1939 and, accused of "anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activity", was shot in Lefortovo prison on January 27, 1940.
In the publications published in the USSR after Babel's "posthumous rehabilitation", his works were subjected to severe censorship cuts. In the United States, the writer's daughter, Natalia Babel, did a great job of collecting hard-to-reach and previously unpublished works of her father and publishing them with detailed commentaries.

Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel
Born: June 30, 1894
Died: January 27, 1940

Biography

In Autobiography (1924) Babel wrote: “At the insistence of his father, he studied the Jewish language, the Bible, and 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 meant 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.

Write Babel started at fifteen. For two years he wrote in French - under the influence of G. Flaubert, G. Maupassant and my French teacher Vadona. 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 expressiveness. “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 Kyiv 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 (Stariy 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 magazine "Chronicle" where the stories were published Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna and mother, Rimma and Alla(1916, No. 11). The stories aroused the interest of the reading public and the judiciary. Babel were 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 newspaper correspondent "Red Cavalry" was in the First Cavalry Army, participated in food expeditions, worked in the People's Commissariat for 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: in the magazine "Lef"(1924, No. 4) the stories Salt, Letter, Death of Dolgushov, Korol and others were published. Literary critic A.Voronsky wrote about them: « Babel not before the eyes of the reader, but somewhere away from him, he has already passed a long artistic path of study and therefore captivates the reader not only with his "gut" and the unusualness of life material, but also ... with 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 equestrian shown 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 the Gogol of the Cossacks". Budyonny called the Cavalry "super-arrogant Babel slander". However, creativity Babel already regarded 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 evident.", - wrote in 1927 a literary critic A. Lezhnev.

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'm at a big, non-stop memorial service", he wrote in his diary. Became a kind of salvation for Babel fantastic, exaggerated world of Odessa stories. The action of the stories of this cycle is the 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 are "Enthusiasm, 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. "King" Odessa underworld Benya Krik Babel portrayed as a defender of the weak, a kind of Robin Hood. The style of the Odessa stories is distinguished by brevity, conciseness of the language and at the same time vivid imagery and metaphor. Babel's demands on himself were extraordinary. Only one story by Lyubka Kazak had about thirty serious editings, on each of which the writer worked for several months. Paustovsky in his memoirs quotes the words of Babel: “Style, take, style, sir. I'm ready to write a story about washing clothes, and maybe it will sound like prose Julius Caesar» .

In literary heritage 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 Theatre), 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 Lie, betrayal and smerdyakovism, glorifying show trials over "enemies of the people". Shortly afterwards he confessed in a private letter: “Life is very bad: both mentally and physically - there is nothing to show to good people”. The tragedy of the heroes of Odessa stories embodied in the short story Froim Rook(1933, published in 1963 in the USA): the title character tries to conclude "pact of honor" with power, 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 activities", shot January 27, 1940.

Awards

Works

Babel Isaac Emmanuilovich, whose biography is presented in the article, is a prose writer, translator, playwright, essayist. His real name is Bobel, he is also known under the pseudonyms Bab-El and K. Lyutov. This man was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1940. In 1954, Isaac Babel was posthumously rehabilitated.

His biography begins on June 30 (July 12), 1894. It was then that Isaac Emmanuilovich was born in Odessa. His father was Emmanuil Isaakovich Bobel.

Childhood, period of study

In the years early childhood the future writer lived in Nikolaev, near Odessa. At the age of 9, he entered the local Commercial School. Count Witte. A year later, he transferred to the Odessa Commercial School named after Nicholas I. Babel graduated from it in 1911. By this time, he was learning to play the violin. Babel was taught by P.S. Stolyarsky, famous musician. Also, the future writer was fond of works French authors. At the urging of his religious father at the same time, Babel took up the study of the Hebrew language in earnest. He read Jewish holy books. Isaak Emmanuilovich received the title of honorary citizen after successfully completing his studies at the Odessa Commercial School. Then he applied for admission to the economic department of the Kyiv Commercial Institute. Babel was admitted to the institute and lived in Kyiv for several years. He graduated with honors in 1916, receiving the title of candidate.

The first printed work, life in Saratov

The Kiev magazine "Lights" published Babel's first work - the story "Old Shloyme". After the Russian-German war broke out, Isaak Emmanuilovich was enrolled in the militia, but did not take part in hostilities.

In 1915, Babel was enrolled in the fourth year of the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute ( Faculty of Law). However, he didn't finish it. educational institution. In 1915, Babel was in Saratov for some time. Here he created a story called "Childhood. At Grandma", after which he returned to Petrograd.

First meeting with M. Gorky

The meeting with Maxim Gorky took place in the autumn of 1916 in the editorial office of the Chronicle magazine. In November 1916, two stories by Babel were published in this magazine - "Mother, Rimma and Alla" and "Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna". In the same year, in the "Journal of Journals", a Petrograd publication, a series of essays appeared, united under the title "My Leaflets".

In the "Autobiography" created in 1928, Isaac Emmanuilovich, speaking of the first meeting with Gorky, noted that he owed everything to her and still pronounces the name of this writer with gratitude and love.

Babel's life "in people"

I.E. Babel, whose biography is marked by friendship with M. Gorky, wrote that he taught him very important things, and then, when it turned out that several of his youthful experiences were accidental luck, that he writes badly, Maxim Gorky sent him "to the people." Babel noted in "Autobiography" that he "went into the people" for 7 years (1917-24). At that time he was a soldier, was on the Romanian front. Babel also worked in the foreign department of the Cheka as a translator. In 1918, his texts were published in the New Life newspaper. In the same year, in the summer, Isaac Babel took part in food expeditions organized by the People's Commissariat for Food.

In the period from the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1920, Isaac Babel lived in Odessa. The short biography of the writer is supplemented with new important events. The writer served in the State Publishing House of Ukraine, where he was in charge of the editorial and publishing department. In the spring of 1920, under the name of Lyutov Kirill Vasilievich, correspondent of Yugrost, Isaak Emmanuilovich went to where he stayed for several months. The writer kept diaries, and also published his essays and articles in the newspaper "Red Cavalryman". After suffering typhus, at the end of 1920, Isaak Emmanuilovich returned to Odessa.

New publications, life in Moscow

In 1922-1923. Babel began to actively publish his stories in the newspapers of Odessa ("Sailor", "Izvestia" and "Silhouettes"), as well as in the magazine "Lava". Among these works, the following stories should be noted: "King", included in the cycle "Odessa Stories", and "Grishuk" (cycle "Cavalry"). Almost all of 1922 Babel lived in Batumi. His biography is also marked by a visit to other Georgian cities.

In 1923, the writer established contacts with Moscow writers. He began to publish in Krasnaya Nov, in Lef, in Searchlight, and also in Pravda (Odessa Stories and short stories from Cavalry). While still in Odessa, Isaak Emmanuilovich met Vladimir Mayakovsky. Then, after Babel finally moved to Moscow, he made acquaintance with many writers who were here - with A. Voronsky, S. Yesenin, D. Furmanov. Note that at first Isaac Emmanuilovich lived in Sergiev Posad (near Moscow).

Popularity, creativity of the second half of the 1920s

In the mid-1920s, he became one of the most popular writers in USSR. Only in 1925 separate edition Three collections of his short stories have been published. The first set of short stories created by Babel from Cavalry came out the following year. In the future, he replenished. Isaac Babel planned to write 50 short stories, but 37 were published, the last of them is called "Argamak".

In 1925, Isaak Emmanuilovich began to work on the creation of the script "Benya Krik", and also completed the play "Sunset". In the second half of the 1920s, Isaac Babel wrote (at least published) almost all of his the best works. The next 15 years of Babel's life added only very little to this main legacy of his. In 1932-33, Isaak Emmanuilovich worked on the play "Maria". He created a number of new "cavalry" short stories, as well as stories, mostly autobiographical ("Guy de Maupassant", "Awakening", etc.). At this time, the writer also completed the screenplay "Wandering Stars" based on the prose of Sholom Aleichem.

"Cavalry"

In the mid-1920s, his entry into literature was sensational. The short stories "Cavalry" created by Babel were distinguished by their unusual directness and sharpness of depicting the atrocities and bloody events of the period, even for that time. civil war. At the same time, his works are characterized by a rare elegance of words, refinement of style. Babel, whose biography indicates that he was familiar with the Civil War firsthand, conveys its bloody events with particular harshness. Three cultural layers were involved in them, which were unlikely to intersect in national history. It's about about the Jews, the Russian intelligentsia and the people. The effect of this collision shapes the moral and art world Babel's prose, full of hope and suffering, insights and tragic mistakes. Cavalry immediately provoked a very sharp controversy, in which various points of view clashed. In particular, the commander of the First Cavalry S.M. Budyonny took this work as a slander on the Reds. But A. Voronsky and M. Gorky believed that the depth of the image of human destinies in the collisions of the Civil War, the truth, and not propaganda, is the main task of the writer.

"Odessa stories"

Babel in his "Odessa Stories" depicted a romanticized Odessa Moldavanka. Benya Krik, the "noble" bandit, became her soul. The book presents the life of Odessa merchants and raiders, dreamers and wise men in a very colorful, lyrical and ironic-pathetic way. It is depicted as if a passing era. "Odessa Stories" (the play "Sunset" became a variant of the plots of the second book) is one of the most significant events domestic literature mid-20s of the last century. They had a great influence on the work of a number of writers, among them - I. Ilf and E. Petrov.

Travels in the USSR and foreign trips

Since 1925, Isaac Emmanuilovich travels a lot around the USSR (south of Russia, Kyiv, Leningrad). He collects materials on the recent events of the Civil War, serves as the secretary of the village council in the village of Molodenovo, located on the Moscow River. In the summer of 1927, Babel went abroad for the first time. His biography was noted first and then - to Berlin. Trips abroad from that time became almost annual until 1936. In 1935, Isaac Emmanuilovich presented a report in defense of culture at the Paris Congress of Writers.

Meetings with Gorky

Many times Babel met with Maxim Gorky, who closely followed his work and supported him in every possible way. After Gorky's son died, Alexei Maksimovich invited Isaac Emmanuilovich to his place in Gorki. Here he lived from May to June 1934. In the same year, in August, Babel delivered a speech during the I All-Union Congress Soviet writers.

Babel: biography and work of the second half of the 1930s.

In the second half of the 1930s, the work of Isaak Emmanuilovich was mainly connected with literary processing works of other writers. In particular, Babel worked on the following screenplays: based on the work "How the Steel Was Tempered" by N. Ostrovsky, based on the poem "The Thought about Opanas" by Vs. Bagritsky, as well as on the script of the film about Maxim Gorky. He also created an adaptation of Turgenev's work for cinema. We are talking about the script for a film called "Bezhin Meadow" for S.M. Eisenstein. This film, it must be said, was banned and destroyed as "ideologically vicious." However, this did not break a writer like Isaac Babel. His biography and work testify that he did not pursue fame.

In 1937, Isaac Emmanuilovich announced in the press that he had finished work on the play about G. Kotovsky, and two years later - on the script "Old Square". During the life of the writer, however, none of these works was published. In the autumn of 1936 he came out latest collection his stories. Last performance Babel in print is new year wishes, which were published on December 31, 1938 in the Literary Gazette.

Arrest, execution and rehabilitation

Babel's biography by dates continues with the fact that on May 15, 1939, a search was carried out at the Moscow apartment of Isaac Emmanuilovich, as well as at his dacha located in Peredelkino (where he was at that time). During the search, 24 folders with his manuscripts were confiscated. Subsequently, they were not found in the FSK archives. On June 29-30, after a series of continuous interrogations, Babel testified. Subsequently, in several statements, he retracted them. In a speech delivered at the trial, Isaac Emmanuilovich asked to be given the opportunity to complete his latest works. However, he was not destined to do so. Isaak Emmanuilovich was sentenced to death. On January 27, 1940, Babel was executed. His brief biography ends with the fact that the body of the writer was cremated on the same day in the Donskoy Monastery.

After 14 years, in 1954, Isaac Emmanuilovich was fully rehabilitated, since no corpus delicti was found in his actions. After that, disputes around his fate and work resumed. They don't stop to this day. Babel, whose biography and work we have reviewed, is a writer whose works are certainly worth getting acquainted with.