Raisa Adamovna Kudasheva. New Year and Christmas hits: the story of the song “A Christmas tree was born in the forest

Raisa Adamovna Kudasheva (1878-1964) - Russian and Soviet poetess, writer. The author of the words of the song "A Christmas tree was born in the forest."
Little is known about the life of Raisa Kudasheva. Graduated women's gymnasium M. B. Pussel. She served as a governess to Prince Kudashev, later she married him. According to the reviews of relatives, she had a pedagogical gift. Worked as a teacher and Soviet time several decades as a librarian.
She has been writing poetry since childhood. The first essay appeared in print in 1896 (the poem "Brook" in the magazine "Baby"). Since then, Kudasheva's poems and children's tales began to appear on the pages of many children's magazines, such as "Baby", "Firefly", "Snowdrop", "Sunshine" under the pseudonyms "A. E", "A. Er", "R. TO.". “I didn’t want to be famous, but I couldn’t help but write,” she later said. In 1899, Kudasheva's story "Leri" was published in the journal "Russian Thought", which remained her the only work for adults. The story tells about adolescence and youth of a girl from noble family, her first Great love to a brilliant officer.
Raisa Kudasheva is the author of the poem "Yolka", part of this poem was set to music. So the song "A Christmas tree was born in the forest" appeared.
In December 1903 in New Year's issue The magazine "Malyutka" published the poem "Yolka", signed with the pseudonym "A. E." The poem, set to music by Leonid Beckman two years later, gained national fame, but the name of its true author for a long time remained unknown. Raisa Adamovna did not know that "Yolochka" had become a song. Only in 1921, quite by accident, when she was riding a train, she heard a girl sing her "Yolochka". The poem was again republished just before the start of the war in 1941 in the collection "Yolka" (M.-L.: Detizdat, 1941). The compiler of the collection, Esfir Emden, specifically sought out the author of the poem and indicated Kudasheva's name in the text.
There is a legend that the authorship of Kudasheva was revealed when she joined the Writers' Union of the USSR. According to one version, one day an elderly woman knocked on Maxim Gorky's office and said that she would like to join his organization. When Gorky asked what she wrote, the woman replied: "Only children's thin books." To this, Gorky replied that only serious authors who wrote novels and short stories were accepted into his organization. “No, it’s not like that,” the woman answered and went to the exit, and then turned around and asked: “Maybe you have heard at least one of my poems?” and read the famous lines to Gorky: “A Christmas tree was born in the forest, it grew in the forest, it was slender and green in winter and summer.” Hearing these lines, Gorky immediately accepted Kudasheva into the Writers' Union. According to another version, this story happened to Alexander Fadeev. Fadeev asked: “So you wrote this?” And he began to remember where it was printed and how he read these verses for the first time and cried, as all children cry when they reach the last lines of the poem. He summoned his employees to him and ordered that the author be immediately registered with the Writers' Union and rendered all possible assistance to her.
In total, Raisa Kudasheva published about 200 songs and stories, fairy tales and poetry books: “Sled Scooters”, “Stepka-Rash”, “Trouble Cockerel”, “Grandmother-Fun and Doggy Boom” ... Since 1948, after a long break, they began to print again collections of her works: "A Christmas tree was born in the forest ...", "Christmas tree", "Forest people", "Cockerel" and others.
Fame and recognition came to the writer only at the end of the 1950s, when she was already in her seventies.

The New Year and Christmas are coming. These days, the lines of the famous song “A Christmas tree was born in the forest” involuntarily come to mind. Everyone remembers this favorite children's song, but few people know anything about the author of the words.
The author is the writer Raisa Kudasheva, a person aristocratic background who lived a long time interesting life. Here is what Wikipedia says about her.

Raisa Adamovna Kudasheva (August 3 (15), 1878, Moscow - November 4, 1964, Moscow) - Russian and Soviet poetess, writer. The author of the song "A Christmas tree was born in the forest."
Born Gidroyts (rarely used variant of a surname in Russian). A descendant of the Lithuanian sovereign Grand Duke family, founded by one of the five sons of the Grand Duke Romundas (Roman) - Gedrus (~ + 1282) from the dynasty of Julian Dovshprung (~ 840 AD), who reigned in pagan Lithuania even before the house of Gediminas with the name t .n. dynasty of the Centaur according to the family coat of arms with the image of the heraldic Hippocentaur in the upper field and the Red Rose in the lower field, representatives of some branches of which moved to modern Belarus, Russia and Ukraine as early as the 14th - 16th centuries. In Russian spelling, a variant of the surname GEDROYTS was more often used (- Giedraitis, which can be translated from Lithuanian as “bright, clear.” According to another version of the translation, the surname could mean “singing horseman.” Subsequently, it was Polonized as Giedroyc).

After last section The Commonwealth between Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1794, representatives of some branches of the family for participation in the Napoleonic Wars, and the so-called. Polish uprisings of 1831.1848, 1861-63 were deprived of their family princely title as well as princely and noble dignity Russian Empire with confiscation of lands, property and simultaneous exile to the north of the Empire to Arkhangelsk, as well as to Siberia: Chita and Irkutsk. At the end of the exile, they were not allowed to return to their former places of residence, all the families of the former rebels were under open police supervision. Obviously, Raisa Adamovna's father was from such a family. His parents settled in Moscow. And, in all likelihood, he or his father restored hereditary nobility, but already without a princely title, for which considerable funds were required at that time. He was an official of the Moscow Post Office in the civil service.

Little is known about life. She graduated from the women's gymnasium M. B. Pussel. She served as a governess to Prince Kudashev, later she married him. According to the reviews of relatives, she had an undoubted pedagogical gift. She worked as a teacher, and in Soviet times - as a librarian.

Literary activity

She has been writing poetry since childhood. The first essay appeared in print in 1896 (the poem "Brook" in the magazine "Baby"). Since then, Kudasheva's poems and children's tales began to appear on the pages of many children's magazines, such as "Baby", "Firefly", "Snowdrop", "Sunshine" under the pseudonyms "A. E", "A. Er", "R. TO.". “I didn’t want to be famous, but I couldn’t help but write,” she later said. In 1899, Kudasheva's story "Leri" was published in the journal "Russian Thought", which remained her only work for adults. The story tells about the adolescence and youth of a girl from a noble family, her first great love for a brilliant officer.

Song about the Christmas tree

In December 1903, in the New Year's issue of the Malyutka magazine, the poem "Yolochka" was published, signed with the pseudonym "A. E "The poem, set two years later to the music of L. Beckman, gained national fame, but the name of its true author remained unknown for a long time. Raisa Adamovna did not know that "Yolochka" had become a song. Only in 1921, quite by accident, when she was riding a train, she heard a girl sing her "Yolochka". The poem was again republished just before the start of the war in 1941 in the collection Yolka (M.-L.: Detizdat, 1941). The compiler of the collection, E. Emden, specifically sought out the author of the poem and indicated the name of Kudasheva in the text.

There is a legend that the authorship of Kudasheva was revealed when she joined the Writers' Union of the USSR. According to one version, one day an elderly woman knocked on Maxim Gorky's office and said that she would like to join his organization. When Gorky asked what she wrote, the woman replied: "Only children's thin books." To this, Gorky replied that only serious authors who wrote novels and short stories were accepted into his organization. “No, it’s not like that,” the woman answered and went to the exit, and then turned around and asked: “Maybe you have heard at least one of my poems?” and read the famous lines to Gorky: “A Christmas tree was born in the forest, it grew in the forest, it was slender and green in winter and summer.” Hearing these lines, Gorky immediately accepted Kudasheva into the Writers' Union. According to another version, this story happened to Alexander Fadeev. Fadeev asked: "So you wrote this?" And he began to remember where it was printed and how he read these verses for the first time and wept, as all children cry when they reach the last lines of the poem: He summoned his employees to him and ordered that the author be immediately registered with the Writers' Union and provided to her all sorts of help.

Another version of this story is told in a letter from the widow of the poet Nikolai Aduev to the writer Viktor Konetsky:
During the war, writers relied on all sorts of rations. Aduev hated the monthly walking behind them. Once, in the corridor of the Writers' Union, he saw an unfamiliar old woman enter the cherished door, and heard next conversation: "Which list are you on?" - "..." - "Are you a prose writer or a poet?" - “I, in fact, wrote one poem ...” - “???” - “A Christmas tree was born in the forest ...” The impenetrable secretary of the Union jumped out into the corridor and shouted: “Do you know who this is ??? You don't understand this! You are too young!" And the old woman received everything at the highest level! So, hope for good memory generations!

In total, Raisa Kudasheva published about 200 songs and stories, fairy tales and poetry books: “Sled-scooter”, “Styopka-razrepka”, “Trouble cockerel”, “Grandmother-Zabavushka and dog Boom” ... Since 1948, after a long break, they again began to be printed collections of her works: “A Christmas tree was born in the forest ...”, “Christmas tree”, “Forest people”, “Cockerel”, etc.

Fame and recognition came to the writer only at the end of the 1950s, when she was already in her seventies. At that time, two interviews with the writer were published: one in Ogonyok, the other in Evening Moscow. In "Spark" - the only surviving photograph of Raisa Adamovna at a very advanced age.

Prepared by Vadim Grachev

PUBLICATIONS

The history of this "ritual New Year's anthem of the entire USSR" from the very beginning was full of secrets and accidents. First, its authors never knew each other. Secondly, both of them were amateurs, that is, they treated poetry and music-making exclusively as a hobby, and they did not count on national fame in this field.

Little of. The governess and librarian Raisa Kudasheva, sending her poems to the editor, signed them exclusively with pseudonyms or generally incomprehensible initials. So, under the poem “Yolka”, published in 1903 in the magazine “Baby”, there were only letters “A. E."

Then take this magazine and fall into the hands of a candidate natural sciences Leonid Beckman. And the candidate: a) has a piano at home; b) daughter Olya is growing up. So he composes songs for his daughter in his free time from biology and agronomy.
Truth, musical notation Beckman, as befits an amateur, did not master. So for that he had a wife - Elena Beckman-Shcherbina - a pianist and professor at the Moscow Conservatory. In general, complete harmony: the daughter stimulates the father, the father composes, and the mother records.

Leonid Karlovich Beckman with his wife Elena Alexandrovna and daughters Olga and Vera.

When the creations accumulated, the talented family published in 1905 a whole collection of Verochkin's Songs (why not Olechkin's, we don't know about that). The collection withstood as many as four editions, and "Yolochka" to the verses of the unknown "A.E." gradually became an invariable attribute of family New Year celebrations.

Strange, but Raisa Kudasheva claimed that until 1921 she knew nothing about the existence of a song based on her poems. She first heard it on the train, performed by a girl entertaining her grandmothers. After a while, Kudasheva fell into need, so she had to forget about modesty, and she went straight to the Writers' Union.
According to legend, an old woman entered the office of the secretary of the Writers' Union, said that she was a poetess and could she be given some allowance on this occasion. Fadeev looked with a sigh at the next “petitioner” and, in order to get rid of it, said: “Well, then read something ...”. But already at the first lines of "Christmas Tree" the venerable writer jumped up and excitedly exclaimed: "So you wrote it! And how I sobbed as a child when I reached the lines “They cut down our Christmas tree to the very root!”. After that, Fadeev ordered to allocate a personal award to Kudasheva and accept her into the Writers' Union.

Raisa Adamovna Kudasheva (1878-1964).

In 1941, a collection of New Year's songs and poems "Yolka" was released, which the poetess first released under her real name. By this time, Kudasheva was already 63 years old ...

From now on, the song becomes practically the "headliner" of all Soviet new year holidays. And in its text, if you wish, you can even see the features of the national attitude. Judge for yourself in what other New Year's song we can meet death (remember how Fadeev sobbed) followed by resurrection and transformation: "Now she has come to us dressed up for the holiday ...". Well, a real Orthodox catharsis!

For all my long history The text of the song has undergone some transformations.
First, in the original, printed in 1903, it is considerably longer. Here is his original:

Hairy branches bend
Down to the children's heads;
Rich beads shine
Overflow of lights;
Ball after ball hides
And star after star
Threads of light are rolling,
Like golden rain...
play, have fun
Children gathered here
And you, El-beauty,
They sing their song.
Everything is ringing, growing
Voices of children's choir,
And, sparkling, swaying
Christmas trees are a magnificent decoration.

A Christmas tree was born in the forest, it grew in the forest,
In winter and summer, slender, green was!
The blizzard sang songs to her: sleep, Yolka ... bye-bye!
Frost wrapped in snow: look, do not freeze!
The cowardly gray bunny jumped under the Christmas tree,
Sometimes the wolf himself, the angry wolf trotted!..

More cheerful and friendly
Drink up kids!
Tilt the Christmas tree soon
Your branches.

Nuts shine in them
Gilded…
Who is not happy here
Spruce green?

Chu! snow in the forest often creaks under the runner,
The hairy horse is in a hurry, running.
A horse is carrying a firewood, a peasant is on a firewood.
He cut down our Christmas tree to the very root ...
Now you are here, dressed up, you came to us for a holiday,
And brought a lot of joy to the kids.

More cheerful and friendly
Drink up kids!
Tilt the Christmas tree soon
Your branches.

Choose for yourself
What will you like…
Ah thank you
El-beauty!

The second edit was already ideological. After all, at first the “peasant” cut the Christmas tree, but it seemed to the censorship that the “Soviet collective farmer” might be offended. As a result, the “old man” without any “class signs” was chosen for the role of the “executioner” of the Christmas tree. As you might guess, Kudasheva had to agree with this edit.

Of the folk-yard adaptations of this hit, the most famous is the children's chorus - “A Christmas tree was born in the forest, and who gave birth to it? Four drunken hedgehogs and Gena the crocodile "- such are the first steps in sexual education.

And finally. One has only to distract from the habitually warm feelings associated with the "Yolochka", as it becomes noticeable that the text of the song itself does not shine with special poetic merits and hundreds and hundreds have been written like it.

Of course, the melody is very nice, but I read somewhere that it was also written in the footsteps of some old German song. But one way or another, Raisa Adamovna Kudasheva with light hand Fadeeva pulled out her "lucky ticket".

Truly inscrutable are sometimes the ways to popularity!

In the same way, I once knew the sequel ... and now here is another revelation for me. Everyone knows the New Year's song "A Christmas tree was born in the forest ..." And who wrote it?

Like who? - People!

It just so happened that we always attribute our favorite songs to the people. But Yolochka has authors, although no one remembers them. It's time to find out who it is, especially since New Year not far off and soon we will remember about this song.

So, back in 1878, the girl Raya was born in Moscow. Raya grew up, studied and sometimes wrote poetry, also for children. At the age of 18, she decided to send her poems to the editors of the Malyutka magazine for children.

Her poems were printed, and they offered to send more. Raya continues to write poetry and publishes it from time to time. On New Year's Eve 1903, the Malyutka magazine decided to devote an entire issue to New Year's poems. It was in this issue of the magazine that the poem “Yolochka” appeared, signed modestly with the pseudonym A.E. And then there was the first World War, then the Great October Socialist Revolution, Raya worked as a teacher, then as a librarian, she had already forgotten about her children's poems. One day on the train, Raya heard a little girl sing a few lines of her verse, she asked what kind of song it was. And I found out that her poem about the Christmas tree became a song.

Raisa Adamovna Kudasheva (nee Princess Gedroits) - was born in the family of Adam (an official of the Moscow Post Office, who rose to the rank of court adviser) and Sofya Gedroits (nee Kholmogorova). Then the Gedroits spouses had three more girls.
It was a typical old Moscow family - hospitable, cheerful, with servants in white aprons and home performances on holidays.

In the senior classes of the gymnasium, Raisa began to write poetry for children. Yes, so well that it was willingly printed in children's magazines. Raisa was waiting for a cloudless future as the mistress of an intelligent Moscow house and an amateur poetess, but a misfortune happened - her father died. How eldest daughter Raya took care of her mother and younger sisters - she went to work as a governess in a rich house. Now she could no longer sign poems with her own name. In the highest circles, writing was considered reprehensible.

In 1902, Raisa got a job with Prince Alexei Ivanovich Kudashev. He was a widow and could not recover after the loss of his beloved wife, so the care of the heir almost entirely fell on the shoulders of the governess. Raisa, in a maternal way, became attached to the pupil, who lost his mother and hardly saw his father, and he, in turn, also adored Raechka.

In 1905, Kudashev's Yolka caught the eye of an agronomist and passionate music lover Leonid Karlovich Beckman (1872–1939). He was a Baltic German, a hereditary nobleman, who had outstanding musical abilities.

about the memoirs of Elena Beckman-Shcherbina, it was like this:

"October 17, 1905, my eldest daughter Verochka was two years old, and in the morning I gave her a living doll - sister Olya, who was born at half past one in the night, that is, also on October 17th. Verochka was delighted. While I was still lying in bed, Leonid somehow sat down at the piano, put Verik on his knees and composed a song for her based on a poem from children's magazine“Baby” - “A Christmas tree was born in the forest, it grew in the forest ...” Verochka, who had excellent hearing, quickly learned it, and I, in order not to forget the song, wrote it down. Subsequently, we both began to compose other songs for children. This is how the collection "Verochka's Songs" arose, which survived in short term four editions, then - "Olenka-singer".

The children's song soon became popular. However, during the First World War, Christmas was not celebrated, and then Soviet authority canceled it as a religious holiday. The Christmas tree was banned, as was Santa Claus with the slogan: "Only the one who is a friend of the priests is ready to celebrate the Christmas tree." The Herringbone returned only with the return of the New Year celebration - that is, after 1935. But the song, like many other Christmas symbols, was reclassified as New Year's.

Meanwhile, the song lived a triumphant and festive life. It was sung at all children's matinees, performed on the country's main Christmas tree in the Hall of Columns, postcards were drawn on its plot. It was the main New Year's song of the country. And the creator of her text, who was not identified by anyone, gave out in the district library Soviet books and classics, and in the evenings she returned to the communal apartment to her books, her beloved cat and memories. Once, on the radio, she heard a cheerful announcer's voice: "A song about a Christmas tree, words and music by the composer Beckman." She called her nephew's wife, Anna Kholmogorova (Mikhail's mother). She was outraged. Not only does the author of the words of the national song live on a beggarly salary, but no one knows about him! Maybe someone else gets paid for it!

Yes, how is it? Raisa Adamovna was frightened. - Honey, you don't need to. I'm too old for such feats. Yes, and my origin ... God forbid anyone finds out:

But we will try, - the relative did not let up.

It was here that the draft of the poem, saved by Raisa Adamovna in the distant 18th year, came in handy. And in the archive, by a miracle, the fee statements of the long-forgotten magazine "Malyutka" were found by everyone. The court took place. The delicate question of belonging to the exploiting classes was avoided. The process was won, and Kudasheva was officially recognized as the author of the song and had to receive money from each of her performances.

Once, the chairman of the Union of Writers, Alexander Fadeev, was informed that some old woman had come, asking to receive her, saying that she was writing poetry. Fadeev ordered to let her in. Entering the office, the visitor sat down, put the knapsack she held in her hands on her knees, and said:
- It's hard to live, Alexander Alexandrovich, help somehow.
Fadeev, not knowing what to do, said:
- Do you really write poetry?
- Wrote, printed once.
- Well, all right, - he said, to end this meeting, - read me something from your poems.

She looked at him gratefully and began to read in a weak voice:

The Forest Raised a Christmas Tree.
She grew up in the forest.
Slim in winter and summer
The green one was...

So did you write it? exclaimed the astonished Fadeev. By his order, the visitor was immediately registered with the Writers' Union and provided her with all kinds of assistance.

Raisa Adamovna Kudasheva (that was the name of the old woman) lived long life(1878–1964). Born Princess Gidroits (Lithuanian princely family), in her youth she served as a governess to Prince Kudashev, later she married him. She worked as a teacher, and in Soviet times - as a librarian. In her youth, she published mainly in children's magazines.

Kudasheva treated fame with amazing indifference and long years hid under various initials and pseudonyms. She explained it this way: “I didn’t want to be famous, but I couldn’t help but write.” In 1899, Kudasheva's story "Leri" was published in the journal "Russian Thought", which remained her only work for adults. The story tells about the adolescence and youth of a girl from a noble family, her first great love for a brilliant officer. In total, Raisa Kudasheva published about 200 songs and stories, fairy tales and poetry books.

The glory of the children's writer came only in the early 1950s, when the Soviet writers' elite became aware that she was the author of the words of the famous song. She was accepted into the Union of Writers of the USSR, put on the allowance of a writer in the highest rank and began to print works after a long break. In the New Year's issue of the Ogonyok magazine in 1958, a small note about Kudasheva was published: “Raisa Adamovna is now retired. With snow-white hair, with a friendly smile, in glasses through which live eyes look, she looks like a kind grandmother from a fairy tale.

And the wave of popularity began. Correspondents asked for interviews, publishers offered cooperation. In one of the letters, Raisa Adamovna sadly admitted: “I started the business beyond my strength. Too late this story came to me. If only it were a little earlier."