"IN THE WAGON"
certificate
The bearer of this is Tyuleleev, Anatoly Petrovich.
Position... artist.
Commanded in the mountains. Ostarkov.
Purpose of the trip: Lectures at the Ostarkovskiy Department of Nar. Image.
What is this? - asked the Red Army soldier, and another Red Army soldier hit the floor of the car with his rifle and said: - Yes!
Lectures, - answered the young man ...
Why lectures? - asked the Red Army man.
To listen.
The check, perplexed, was silent incredulously...
And here is the same certificate, - the young man spoke quickly, - this girl, and that comrade over there, and this one. All the same. And everyone in Ostarkov - to lecture. Suspicious, huh? Come on, arrest us! Ha ha ha!
Y-gee-gee, - it is not known why the Chinese sitting opposite picked up. - Y-gee-gee.
Doubt? continued the restless young man. - and you have full foundation. Pardon, six people, and all in one city to lecture! Is it not for the sake of speculation or counter-revolution they go, huh? But the papers are in order, and you can't do anything with us. Yes!
What is your attitude towards military service? - Gloomy interrupted the Red Army soldier.
Do me a favor. Please. Released as a professor.
Sick, you mean?
Exactly. I have a hernia. Would you like to make sure, to examine me? ..
Y-gee-gee, - the Chinese laughed.
Let's go, Grikha, - said the Red Army soldier. - In order.
And maybe I have fake papers and a fake hernia! Comrades!
But the comrades have already departed.
Don’t step on my face,” a voice politely asked them from the ground, and from above, from the bench, someone’s foot was politely stroking Grikha’s head.
The train crawled.
Anatoly Petrovich, - the girl said to the young man. - You will destroy us. Is it possible so?
What will I lose? - the young man was indignant, - what, my precious? What if the papers are in order? Here, for example, dear sir, - the young man turned to the Chinese, the Chinese began to chirp, here, for example, are we going to give lectures? - nonsense. We are going to rest in the village. In the Rest House of workers de science and art. Sent from St. Petersburg, papers, signatures, seals, and by the way, are we science and art? - Trash! Well, suppose I'm really an artist, I'm going to sketch peasant types and products. Fine. But this girl - get acquainted, please - a Jewess in dental matters. Or her neighbor - the clerk of a scientific institution ... Workers in the field folk science and art. Ho-ho.
Anatoly Petrovich, the girl pleaded. - You will destroy us. We will be arrested.
And by what right, my dear? What if the papers are in order? No, excuse me, - and the young man again settled on the Chinese, - here you are, handsome, you are also going on a business trip, aren't you? And the business trip is fake, because you, my sweetness, are a real hotbed of infection. - Look, do me a favor, - louse! - the young man climbed into the Chinese by the collar and victoriously pulled out the louse:
Typhus, with a guarantee.
The people shied away from the Chinese.
Y-gee-gee, - he shouted joyfully.
Lord, the old woman wailed. - And that this car is crawling, that a walking flea.
Just think, - said the man who stepped on his face. - You think. They told her, illness, I will accept. If, they say, the belly itches, then, no doubt, the oil will become cheaper. So she put bedbugs on her belly, and scratches, and scratches ...
With its large format, color, and embossing (gold on a green field), this book brings to mind the series “Literary Monuments”. This is indeed a monument to a writer who lived an absurdly short life and strangely - especially after death - influenced Soviet literature. And monuments, as you know, are erected for a long time.
Any meticulous reader who decides to look at the imprint will be surprised to find that the book, which was put into typesetting in the summer of 2002, was signed for publication only in the spring of 2003. And this is in times computer technology and the book market, Moloch, demanding new sacrifices every day. But much more surprising is what the imprint did not reflect: contrary to the indication on the title, the book was published only in the summer of 2004 (a clarification important for bibliophiles and bibliographers).
However, what about two years, if we recall the fate of the writer himself. A brisk boy from the intelligentsia Jewish family(father is a pharmacist, and later a pharmacist who traded, among other things, in optics, his mother is a musician), gifted, easily assimilating science, and in a sense elevated by the era, in a sense confused by the era.
A certificate giving the right to receive a gold medal (in fact, allowing you to buy this medal with your own money and then lock it in a box with family heirlooms), - what was the cost of such a certificate in 1918, when Lunts graduated from the gymnasium, and where to get money not for a medal - for living, if the pharmacy, which was owned by the venerable Natan Yakovlevich Lunts, was requisitioned, but former owner I had to become an ordinary pharmacist again.
However, what young Levushka - and he was born in 1901, according to our concepts, is infinitely young - to any insignia. After all, he entered the university at the Faculty of History and Philology not for the sake of academic degrees (later he was left at the department), but for the sake of knowledge and out of deep love for Romanesque culture. Because of the same inexhaustible thirst for knowledge, he visits Volfila and the literary studio at the publishing house "World Literature", where he gets acquainted with the future "serapions".
Two major events in his short life almost coincided. February 1, 1921 is considered the day of the formation of the Serapion Brothers group, one of the founders of which was Lunts, at the very beginning of the same year he leaves his family and settles in the DISK, where both old and new writers live, where they try to drown out hunger with stormy disputes , where they write page after page, forgetting about the cold and discomfort.
As for Luntz, the fury of the prophets and the knowledge of the scribes lived in a weak, sickly body, life turned out to be clearly beyond his strength. V. F. Khodasevich, in an essay dedicated to the House of Arts, says:
“After passing through the kitchen and descending two stories down the cast-iron spiral staircase, one could find oneself in yet another corridor, where a blackened electric light bulb burned day and night. The right wall of the corridor was blank, and the left had four doors. Behind each door is a narrow room with one window, located at the level of a cramped, gloomy well-shaped courtyard. The rooms were in perpetual darkness. The red-hot potbelly stoves were unable to fight the semi-basement dampness, and steam hung in the warm but stale air. All this was reminiscent of those winter quarters that are arranged for monkeys in zoological gardens. The corridor was called "monkey". The first room was occupied by Lev Lunts - probably, it was partly what ruined his health. His neighbor was Green, the writer of adventurous stories, a gloomy tubercular man who led an endless and hopeless litigation with the bosses of the "Disk", who did not know almost anyone and, they say, was engaged in training cockroaches. The last room was occupied by the poet Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky, at that time a modest student of Gumilyov, now a diligent translator of all kinds of jambuls.
Between Grin and Rozhdestvensky was Vladimir Pyast, a little poet, but clever and educated person, one of those romantic losers that Blok loved. Piast was Blok's faithful and noble friend for many years. Seizures were the main misfortune of his life. mental illness, from time to time forcing him to be placed in a hospital. Somewhere on Vasilyevsky Island lived his wife with two children. He gave all his rations and all his meager earnings to his family, while he himself led a completely beggarly existence.
A bleak picture: everything mentioned by the memoirist is doomed in its own way - translations of the Soviet era are the same mortal occupation, although it does not kill immediately, it promises at least poetic anemia to a diligent translator. Lunts, on the other hand, preferred to translate other authors, and in a different way. So, he translated Alfieri's drama for the Habima Theater, alas, not staged, so he was going - he was just going - together with E. Polonskaya, "Serapion's sister", to translate Balzac's Mischievous Tales.
His plans did not come true. He flatly refused to go abroad with his family (Lunts' parents, as natives of Lithuania, could freely leave Soviet Russia, Lunts needed to take Lithuanian citizenship for this), he still had to go to Germany for treatment, from where he did not return. The oft-repeated claims that Luntz emigrated are unfounded. To be convinced of this, it is enough to read his letters to relatives and friends. He looked forward to the opportunity to return to his homeland and died without waiting. He was twenty-three years old.
Here, in fact, the plot of this review begins. And it starts with a paradox. If editors in the twenties of the twentieth century had been a little more reckless, Lunts would have been careful not to quote A. Zhdanov in his report, interpreting the decision of the Central Committee on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad. What are the words about freedom from any parties: “We have gathered in the days of revolutionary, in the days of powerful political tension. “Whoever is not with us is against us! - they told us from right and left, - with whom are you, the Serapion brothers, with the communists or against the communists, for the revolution or against the revolution?
“With whom are we, Serapion brothers? The hermit Serapion and I”…”
Well, what if not these words about the rejection of utilitarianism and propaganda in literature were publicized, but what was written at the same time by the obsessed Lunts, but blacked out by a prudent editor: “Social and political criticism tortured Russian literature for too long and painfully. It's time to say that "Demons" better than novels Chernyshevsky". Such statements are not suitable for official quotations, they are capable of blowing up any text. In the same way, a person like Luntz can destroy any community, even a community of like-minded people. The maximalist Luntz also disturbed the peace of the “Serapions”, and the article “Why are we Serapion brothers”, published together with Serapion’s autobiographies in No. 3 of the journal “Literary Notes” for 1922, is one of a string of examples of annoying “unkindness” of Luntz.
With this article, again, there is no complete clarity, but in in general terms you can understand what's what. The publication of ironic, scandalous autobiographies could have been excellent advertising for the “serapions”, if not for Luntsev's article. It was perceived as a general declaration (who really read the lines there that the “serapions” do not have charters and chairmen), understood as a direct challenge (the public did not bother to figure out where it was directed). It could not have been otherwise - the article came at the right moment, the "serapions" posed an increasing threat to other associations and groups. Talent, aggressiveness, love of freedom made it possible to be in the first roles. To the “serapions”, which were gradually tamed powers of the world of this (both L. Trotsky and A. Voronsky), they were jealous - and who would? - Lefovtsy. Say, we are the only revolutionaries in art (and further attacks, perceived as an indirect denunciation).
This is not the place to describe the vicissitudes of the struggle with the “serapions” and the “serapions” with opponents, an instructive and tough struggle. The collection under review also contains collective letters written by the “serapions” in the course of polemics (not so much literary as political, since any statement and action was regarded in a political context), and private correspondence, where much that was forbidden to speak publicly was stated directly.
The reader generally has a rare opportunity to look at the history of the “Serapion brothers” (and short life Luntsa is firmly connected with the history of the brotherhood) both from the outside, and from the inside, and point-blank, and through the perspective of time, which, in addition to correspondence and documents of the era, make it possible to make fragments from the memoirs of K. Fedin and V. Kaverin, telling both about a deceased friend, and about themselves, as they were in the early twenties and as they will never be again. The obituaries and memorials about Luntz, collected for the first time, and written in such different people, as N. Berberova, S. Neldihen, Yu. Tynyanov, A. M. Gorky.
Well, the reader has a huge collection of valuable sources, on the basis of which one can judge not only the formation of aesthetic and literary canons, but also the emergence of that mentality, which should be called the “mentality of Soviet writer first call." This must be no less important, because the problem is not exhausted in famous works E. Dobrenko - due to the fact that the type of writer that appeared during the draft of shock workers in literature differs from the type of writer that arose after the Great Patriotic War, etc.
Nevertheless, let's not forget about such an important thing as the fact that we still have before us not a collection of materials on the history of a particular issue, but a collection of works by a gifted writer, whose work is presented with possible completeness. And the collection is one of a kind.
Evaluating what Luntz wrote, in Once again one wonders how contemporaries can be deceived. Luntz's dramaturgy - and he was perceived primarily as a playwright - is very imperfect. The desire to revive the romantic theater in the deserted and escheated spaces of Petrograd in 1919-1920 is, again, a romantic desire. Sharp collisions underlying the plays; it is the inevitable conflict of the poet and the rulers and the inevitable conflict of the poet with himself when, forced by circumstances, he surrendered and lost his independence. Another thing is the play that gave the name to the collection. Lunts was guided here by the theater of S. Radlov, the aesthetics of mass theatrical productions, characteristic of the first revolutionary years. And this experience is much more successful.
Despite home education (greenhouse, we would say, whenever everything, including greenhouses, would not whistle through the wind of the era), despite the academic nature of his studies, Lunts turned out to be very susceptible to modern trends. He heard new language, caught unexpected intonations. His stories and feuilletons, in which the writer himself soon became disillusioned, anticipated both the “bent” word of Zoshchenko and the “thieves” lexicon of the early Kaverin (it’s funny that the Kaverin story “The End of the Khaza” is poorer in jargon than the short Luntsev story “ Faithful wife”). A dozen surviving prose experiments of Luntz contain a kind of avenue for the future Soviet prose twenties and thirties. And what a pity that the works of this author come with a delay of eighty years, instead of having long been read and assimilated by both the public and literary historians.
The book of Luntz and the book about Luntz were tried to be published shortly after his sudden death(those who knew him did not expect that this eternally ill young man, wandering from hospital to clinic and from hospital to sanatorium, would still die, there was so much vitality in him even in moments of desperate joy). Issues of publication were discussed in correspondence, but the books never saw the light of day. The question of publication arose again in the sixties, when a commission on the literary heritage of Lunts was even created, which prepared a collection for publication, which was rejected after long publishing ordeals.
Foreign publications - the correspondence of the “Serapions”, published in two issues of the “New Journal” for 1966 by G. Kern, collections prepared by M. Weinstein (Jerusalem, 1981) and V. Shrik (Munich, 1983), - played important role both in collecting and in assimilation of the Luntsev heritage, but at the present moment, unfortunately, they are outdated (for example, the comments do not stand up to any serious criticism). And many issues are not addressed by the publishers at all. It would seem, where, if not in Israel, to study the “Jewish theme” in the work of the “Serapions”, a productive and multifaceted topic, but to this day it is still waiting for its researcher. Luntz's collection, published in St. Petersburg in 1994, was, in fact, a reprint of the Jerusalem collection (the collection was recently republished again).
All this is clearly not enough. minula whole era, a great many facts were discovered hidden in public and private archives, the years and circumstances of the life and death of certain persons, heroes and characters were clarified Russian history. So the collection prepared by the competent commission and deposited in the TsGALI is now out of date.
The compiler had to start the work again and alone. The circumstances listed here, of course, were reflected in the book finally published. It was already reflected in the fact that foreign publications, which, as mentioned above, were not always performed at the proper level, had to be taken as initial ones.
I had to start with such basics that may seem like ridiculous trifles. Let's say the name of the collection. “Monkeys are coming!”, the title of Luntsev’s play of 1920, is a warning, a cry heard at the most inopportune moment, which means that one must be on the alert, prepare to repel an attack, because not some abstract enemy is attacking the city, but wild monkeys , funny in their antics, but infinitely cruel to the conquered. In the title of the St. Petersburg book of 1994, these words lost quotes and Exclamation point which is definitely a mistake. And how many more errors and inaccuracies have been corrected ...
A lot of things have been done for the first time. And a pointer to all known this moment artistic and literary-critical works of Luntz, and brief chronicle his life and work, which can and must continue to be supplemented. And what about an eleven-page bibliography or a twelve-page annotated name index in two columns? small print. And in the tradition of publishing literary monuments - separate block comments, which took more than 10 author's sheets; in addition, all the documents presented in the appendices are commented, lengthy comments are given to each letter. And the comments on the pamphlet "Walking Through the Torments" can only be called exemplary.
E. Lemming chose the only correct approach: Luntz's work is presented with the utmost completeness (both plays, and screenplays, and stories, and articles), presented in a biographical context (a special section is devoted to Luntz's statements, notes, etc., which clarify his fate, and the fate of his works, in particular plays) and in the context of the era (letters, collective speeches, obituaries). The foreword by Valery Shubinsky, where Lunts is included in a number of famous writers who tragically ended their days - such as T. Chatterton, R. Radiguet, V. G. Wackenroder - and is decisively excluded from this series, because he does not fit into it, gives a probable model it literary destiny. Afterword by E. Lemming offers a different reading of the same fate, in addition, the author notes that outside the volume there are materials and observations that have not yet been introduced into scientific circulation. Well, the title of the book again sounds like a warning in an era when many scientific and cultural skills have been lost.
Of course, Luntz's works will still be republished. This imposing collection is the first in a row scientific publications, and the circulation of 600 copies is not at all large with the interest that readers and Slavists show in literature Soviet period. However, the priorities are set.
Marina Krasnova
Magazine " New world", 2005, No. 3
writer, playwright
prose, play, journalism
Lev Natanovich Lunts(April 19 (May 2), St. Petersburg - May 10, Hamburg) - Russian prose writer, playwright and publicist from the Serapion Brothers group.
Biography
Born into a Russian-Jewish family. Father - Natan Yakovlevich Lunts (1871-1934) - a pharmacist, a dealer in optical instruments. Mother - Anna Efimovna, concert pianist.
He began to write at the age of eighteen. After graduating in 1918 with a gold medal from the Petrograd 1st Men's Gymnasium, Lunts entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Petrograd University, from which he graduated in 1922. Was left at the pulpit Western European literatures For scientific work, knew Spanish, Italian, English, French, Old French, Hebrew.
In 1923, the first signs of heart disease appeared, which forced Luntz to lie in bed all winter. Having achieved a scientific trip to Spain, he left for treatment in Germany, where his parents, who had emigrated earlier, lived. A year later, he died of a brain disease.
Obituaries for Lev Lunts were written by Nina Berberova, Yuri Tynyanov, Maxim Gorky, Konstantin Fedin, Mikhail Slonimsky.
Creation
I have been writing since the age of eighteen. led literary activity five years. During this time, he wrote the stories “In the Desert”, “Motherland”, “Outgoing No. 37”, “The Tale of the Eunuch”, “Walking Through the Torments”, “Across the Border”, feuilletons “In the Car”, “Faithful Wife”, “ Patriot”, plays “Outlaw”, “Bertrand de Born”, “The Monkeys Are Coming”, “City of Truth”, the screenplay “The Rise of Things” and several theoretical articles. Valentin Kataev in his book “My Diamond Crown” also mentions “a hilariously funny story by a young, early deceased Soviet writer from Petrograd, Lev Lunts, who wrote about how a certain bourgeois family is fleeing from Soviet power abroad, hiding their diamonds in a clothes brush. This, obviously, was about the story "Across the Border", the plot of which noticeably echoes the plot of "12 Chairs".
The prose and dramaturgy of Lev Lunts was published during his lifetime in the USSR and in Europe. His plays were also shown in theaters both at home and abroad.
Subsequently, however, the works of Lunts were not published in the USSR even in the most comparatively liberal times, despite the fact that such a publication was dreamed of by the former Serapion Brothers, who had turned into literary generals.
The reason for the rejection of Luntz Soviet culture is found in his article "Why are we Serapion brothers", which, by coincidence, came to be perceived as a manifesto of the Serapions. It was this article that was quoted in A. A. Zhdanov, proving the anti-Soviet nature of M. M. Zoshchenko and the Serapion Brothers in general. The main idea of the article could be used as an example of apoliticality and anti-Sovietism:
With whom are we, the Serapion Brothers? We are with the hermit Serapion.
The authorities were irritated by the tragedy “Out of Law”. Thus, Meisel points out that "however vague and detached the social contours and characteristics in Outlaw, the social sound of the tragedy remains profoundly reactionary."
Reviews
Not a single gathering could do without him [Lunts], he, of course, was the soul of the Serapions.
The young faun was remembered as an overproduction of energy.
He was a man of great temperament and instant reactions.<…>It was an active mind, intolerant of lethargy and rest.
In the 1930s, Luntz's work was forgotten and deleted from the history of Russian Soviet literature. The 11-volume Literary Encyclopedia in 1932 placed an article about Luntz, where he was called "a militant bourgeois individualist" and " typical spokesman ideas of the liberal bourgeois intelligentsia of the pre-October formation.
Monographs dedicated to Luntz were published in Serbia and Poland.
Compositions
- Outlaw. The play // "Conversation", Berlin, No. 1, 1921
- The monkeys are coming! Play // "Merry Almanac", 1923
- In the Desert // Serapion Brothers, Berlin, 1922
- Outgoing No. 37 // "Russia", 1922, No. 1
- Why are we the Serapion Brothers // Literary Notes, 1922, No. 3
- Abnormal phenomenon // "Petersburg", 1922, No. 3
- Seducer. In the car // "Amanita", 1922, No. 10
- Bertrand de Born. The play // "City", 1923, No. 1
- Motherland // European Almanac, 1923
- To the West // "Conversation", No. 2, 1923
- Patriot. The play // "Red Raven", 1923, No. 33
- City of Truth. The play // "Conversation", No. 5, 1924
- Rise of things. Screenplay // « New magazine", No. 79, 1965
- Traveling in a hospital bed // "New Journal", No. 90, 1968
Editions
- Outlaw. - St. Petersburg: Composer, 1994. - ISBN 5-7379-0001-0
- The monkeys are coming. - St. Petersburg: INAPRESS, 2003. - ISBN 5-87135-145-X
The most complete edition of the works of Lev Lunts. Excellent edition, quality paper, binding and print quality. Introductory article by Valery Shubinsky, detailed comment and an afterword by Evgeny Lemming. The publication includes stories, plays, screenplays, articles and reviews, autobiography, correspondence, as well as articles and obituaries dedicated to Lunts, written by his contemporaries and friends - Berberova, Slonimsky, Tynyanov, Kaverin, Fedin and others.
- literary heritage. - M.: scientific world; 2007. - ISBN 978-5-91522-005-7
This edition, though somewhat more complete than The Monkeys Are Coming, was criticized in the press.
Write a review on the article "Lunts, Lev Natanovich"
Links
- in the library of Maxim Moshkov
Notes
An excerpt characterizing Lunts, Lev Natanovich
When asked about the stocks who were sitting in the pit, the count angrily shouted at the caretaker:“Well, shall I give you two battalions of an escort, which is not there?” Let them go and that's it!
- Your Excellency, there are political ones: Meshkov, Vereshchagin.
- Vereshchagin! Hasn't he been hanged yet? shouted Rostopchin. - Bring him to me.
By nine o'clock in the morning, when the troops had already moved through Moscow, no one else came to ask the count's orders. All those who could ride rode by themselves; those who remained decided for themselves what they had to do.
The count ordered the horses to be brought in to go to Sokolniki, and, frowning, yellow and silent, he sat with his hands folded in his office.
In a calm, not stormy time, it seems to every administrator that it is only through his efforts that the entire population under his control is moving, and in this consciousness of his necessity, each administrator feels main award for your work and efforts. It is clear that as long as the historical sea is calm, it should seem to the ruler-administrator, with his fragile boat resting against the ship of the people with his pole and moving himself, that the ship against which he rests is moving with his efforts. But as soon as a storm rises, the sea is agitated and the ship itself moves, then delusion is impossible. The ship moves on its own huge, independent course, the pole does not reach the moving ship, and the ruler suddenly passes from the position of a ruler, a source of strength, into an insignificant, useless and weak person.
Rostopchin felt this, and this irritated him. The police chief, who was stopped by the crowd, together with the adjutant, who had come to report that the horses were ready, entered the count. Both were pale, and the police chief, reporting on the execution of his order, reported that a huge crowd of people stood in the yard of the count, who wanted to see him.
Rostopchin, without answering a word, got up and with quick steps went to his luxurious bright living room, went to the balcony door, took hold of the handle, left it and went to the window, from which the whole crowd was visible. A tall fellow stood in the front rows and with a stern face, waving his hand, said something. The bloody blacksmith stood beside him with a gloomy look. Through the closed windows a murmur of voices could be heard.
Is the crew ready? - said Rostopchin, moving away from the window.
“Ready, Your Excellency,” said the adjutant.
Rostopchin again went to the balcony door.
- What do they want? he asked the police chief.
- Your Excellency, they say that they were going to go to the French on your orders, they were shouting something about treason. But a wild crowd, Your Excellency. I forcibly left. Your Excellency, I dare to suggest...
“If you please go, I know what to do without you,” Rostopchin shouted angrily. He stood at the balcony door, looking out at the crowd. “This is what they did to Russia! That's what they did to me!" thought Rostopchin, feeling uncontrollable anger rising in his soul against someone to whom one could attribute the cause of everything that had happened. As is often the case with hot people, anger already possessed him, but he was still looking for an object for him. “La voila la populace, la lie du peuple,” he thought, looking at the crowd, “la plebe qu” ils ont soulevee par leur sottise. whom they raised by their stupidity! They need a sacrifice."] It occurred to him, looking at the tall fellow waving his hand. And for that very reason it occurred to him that he himself needed this sacrifice, this object for his anger.
Is the crew ready? he asked again.
“Ready, Your Excellency. What do you want about Vereshchagin? He is waiting at the porch, answered the adjutant.
- A! cried Rostopchin, as if struck by some unexpected memory.
And, quickly opening the door, he stepped out with resolute steps onto the balcony. The conversation suddenly ceased, hats and caps were removed, and all eyes went up to the count who came out.
- Hello guys! said the count quickly and loudly. - Thank you for coming. I'll come out to you now, but first of all we need to deal with the villain. We need to punish the villain who killed Moscow. Wait for me! - And the count just as quickly returned to the chambers, slamming the door hard.
A murmur of approval ran through the crowd. “He, then, will control the useh of the villains! And you say a Frenchman ... he will untie the whole distance for you! people said, as if reproaching each other for their lack of faith.
A few minutes later an officer hurried out of the front door, ordered something, and the dragoons stretched out. The crowd moved greedily from the balcony to the porch. Coming out on the porch with angry quick steps, Rostopchin hastily looked around him, as if looking for someone.
- Where is he? - said the count, and at the same moment as he said this, he saw from around the corner of the house coming out between two dragoons young man with a long thin neck, with a half-shaven and overgrown head. This young man was dressed in what used to be a dapper, blue-clothed, shabby fox sheepskin coat and in dirty, first-hand prisoner's trousers, stuffed into uncleaned, worn-out thin boots. Shackles hung heavily on thin, weak legs, making it difficult for the young man's hesitant gait.
- A! - said Rostopchin, hastily turning his eyes away from the young man in the fox coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch. - Put it here! The young man, rattling his shackles, stepped heavily onto the indicated step, holding the pressing collar of the sheepskin coat with his finger, turned his long neck twice and, sighing, folded his thin, non-working hands in front of his stomach with a submissive gesture.
There was silence for a few seconds as the young man settled himself on the step. Only in the back rows of people squeezing to one place, groaning, groans, jolts and the clatter of rearranged legs were heard.
Rostopchin, waiting for him to stop at specified place Frowning, he rubbed his face with his hand.
- Guys! - said Rostopchin metallically ringing voice, - this man, Vereshchagin, is the same scoundrel from whom Moscow died.
The young man in the fox coat stood in a submissive pose, with his hands clasped together in front of his stomach and slightly bent over. Emaciated, with a hopeless expression, disfigured by a shaved head, his young face was lowered down. At the first words of the count, he slowly raised his head and looked down at the count, as if he wanted to say something to him or at least meet his gaze. But Rostopchin did not look at him. On the long, thin neck of the young man, like a rope, a vein behind the ear tensed and turned blue, and suddenly his face turned red.
IN workbook Elizaveta Polonskaya for 1924 has an entry about the Serapion brothers: “These are my friends, the best of them is Lunts. He died very young. He was the best of the Jewish boys who came to Russian literature. He had irony and laughter and a sharp mind. But the irony that he had infected everyone. He sparkled all over. He knew 8 languages. He loved the word, felt its freshness and taste. We were going to translate Balzac with him ... During the war years, he kept us cheerful.
Polonskaya met Lunts in 1919 at the Studio world literature". Between them there was a 12-year difference - in their younger years this is an awful lot, however, they undoubtedly sympathized with each other. The 7th chapter of Luntz’s article “New Poets” was devoted to Polonskaya’s poems, in which Polonskaya’s poetry was highly rated: “Her voice is the voice of a prophet, imperious and bitter ... Only a strong poet can dictate laws with such passion and denounce lies,” he noted, that "well-intentioned criticism is indignant at these 'blasphemous' verses, seeing in them the biblical pathos of a complete and adamant prophet."
When Lunts was going to Germany for treatment, Polonskaya wrote to Ilya Ehrenburg in Berlin, asking him to take part in the fate of her young friend. On June 3, 1923, Ehrenburg, who was resting in the Harz mountains, answered her: “Lunts will surely immediately get to Khodasevich and K and they will set him up. You tell him to find me without fail. In addition to you and the “great Russian literature”, I have a common love with him - old Spain. In July 1923, Luntz met with Ehrenburg in Berlin and then they exchanged letters. And Polonskaya wrote to Lunts only in the autumn, and his answer is given here. On November 25, 1923, E. G. sent her Serapion Stanzas to Lunts, then, on December 29, 1923, a new letter. On February 1, 1924, like all the Serapions, she took part in a large collective message to Lunts. Lunts did not wait for Polonskaya's next letter, written on May 20, 1924 - on May 8 he died. In memory of Lev Lunts, Elizaveta Grigoryevna dedicated the poem “The Shop of Splendors” in the book “Stubborn Calendar”.
He letters a thin connection,
Like a life connection, cherished.
They buried him in a hurry
According to the fashion of the Jews ...
Dear Elizabeth Grigorievna!
I firmly remember (why, what are these soul-tormenting memories for?!), how in the summer, at a farewell party, a certain poetess switched to “you” with me, to the greatest envy of other writers. Now you have forgotten about you. I submit, although there is a storm in my soul.
Dear Elizabeth Grigorievna! I knew that you were a terrible lazy person, and therefore I did not get angry with you. But you good friend and I send you my poor sick kiss. You can divide it between your respected mother, highly respected son and by no means respected erudite brother.
Yes, what is he like? I love him dearly. Tell him that I have written a wonderful play and I am going to write another one. That will be absolutely wonderful. Let him write to me too. I am, of course, mad at Outlaw. Pigs! Although the play is on in Vienna, puts it Martin.
You, Eliza<авета>Grieg<орьевна>, doctor, and therefore, of course, I will not write to you about my illness. I advise you, however, to prepare me a certificate of my illness already now.
What is your immortal aunt?. Here's someone I miss, I miss so much ...
You write about Anton Schwartz. Where is Zhenya? And how do they live in general? I would write to them, but the address! .. Please.
If you see Marshak, then please: kiss and tell me that I read, on his advice, Brentano's fairy tales and went crazy with delight. There has never been anything like it and there never will be. What poems, what heroes and roosters!..
Your cousin is ascetic here in the best theater, but I have not been anywhere - I have been in bed for 5 months.
And, in general, I love, I remember.
Kiss Leva.
P.S. Is it true that the mythical husband of Marietta came true? - Doubtful.
Father - Natan Yakovlevich Lunts (1871-1934) - a pharmacist, a dealer in optical instruments. Mother - Anna Efimovna, concert pianist. He began to write at the age of eighteen. In 1918-1922 he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of Petrograd University. He was left at the Department of Western European Literature for scientific work, knew Spanish, Italian, English, French, Old French, Hebrew.
Entered into literary group"Serapion brothers".
In 1923, the first signs of heart disease appeared, which forced Luntz to lie in bed all winter. Having achieved a scientific trip to Spain, he left for treatment in Germany, where his parents, who had emigrated earlier, lived. A year later, he died of a brain disease.
Obituaries for Lev Lunts were written by Nina Berberova, Yuri Tynyanov, Maxim Gorky, Konstantin Fedin, Mikhail Slonimsky.
Addresses in Petrograd
Creation
I have been writing since the age of eighteen. He has been writing for five years. During this time, he wrote the stories “In the Desert”, “Motherland”, “Outgoing No. 37”, “The Tale of the Eunuch”, “Walking Through the Torments”, “Across the Border”, feuilletons “In the Car”, “Faithful Wife”, “ Patriot”, plays “Outlaw”, “Bertrand de Born”, “The Monkeys Are Coming”, “City of Truth”, the screenplay “The Rise of Things” and several theoretical articles. Valentin Kataev in the book “My Diamond Crown” also mentions “a hilariously funny story by a young, early-dead Soviet writer from Petrograd, Lev Lunts, who wrote about how a certain bourgeois family flees from Soviet power abroad, hiding their diamonds in a clothes brush.”
The prose and dramaturgy of Lev Lunts was published during his lifetime in the USSR and in Europe. His plays were also shown in theaters both at home and abroad.
Later, however, Luntz's works were not published in the USSR even in the most comparatively liberal times, despite the fact that such a publication was dreamed of by the former Serapion Brothers, who had turned into literary generals.
The reason for the rejection of Lunts by Soviet culture is found in his article “Why are we Serapion brothers”, which, by coincidence, began to be perceived as a manifesto of the Serapions. It was this article that A. A. Zhdanov quoted in 1946, proving the anti-Soviet nature of M. M. Zoshchenko and the Serapion Brothers in general. The main idea of the article could be used as an example of apoliticality and anti-Sovietism:
The authorities were irritated by the tragedy “Out of Law”. Thus, Meisel points out that "however vague and detached the social contours and characteristics in Outlaw, the social sound of the tragedy remains profoundly reactionary."
Reviews
In the 1930s, Luntz's work was forgotten and deleted from the history of Russian Soviet literature. 11 volume Literary Encyclopedia in 1932 she published an article about Luntz, where he was called "a militant bourgeois individualist" and "a typical exponent of the ideas of the liberal bourgeois intelligentsia of the pre-October formation."
Monographs dedicated to Luntz were published in Serbia and Poland.
Compositions
- Outlaw. The play // "Conversation", Berlin, No. 1, 1921
- The monkeys are coming! Play // "Merry Almanac", 1923
- In the Desert // Serapion Brothers, Berlin, 1922
- Outgoing No. 37 // "Russia", 1922, No. 1
- Why are we the Serapion Brothers // Literary Notes, 1922, No. 3
- Abnormal phenomenon // "Petersburg", 1922, No. 3
- Seducer. In the car // "Amanita", 1922, No. 10
- Bertrand de Born. The play // "City", 1923, No. 1
- Motherland // European Almanac, 1923
- To the West // "Conversation", No. 2, 1923
- Patriot. The play // "Red Raven", 1923, No. 33
- City of Truth. The play // "Conversation", No. 5, 1924
- Rise of things. Screenplay // "New Journal", No. 79, 1965
- Traveling in a hospital bed // "New Journal", No. 90, 1968
Editions
- L. Lunts. The monkeys are coming. St. Petersburg; Inapress; 2003.
The most complete edition of the works of Lev Lunts. Excellent edition, quality paper, binding and print quality. Introductory article by Valery Shubinsky, detailed commentary and afterword by Evgeny Lemming. The publication includes stories, plays, screenplays, articles and reviews, autobiography, correspondence, as well as articles and obituaries dedicated to Lunts, written by his contemporaries and friends - Berberova, Slonimsky, Tynyanov, Kaverin, Fedin and others.
- L. Lunts. literary heritage. M; Scientific world; 2007. - ISBN 978-5-91522-005-7
This edition, although somewhat more complete than The Monkeys Are Coming, was criticized in the press. See Felix Ikshin's review in UFO 2008, No. 91.
