Time and space in I. Babel's story "How it was done in Odessa".
The artistic space and time in Babel's story are really marked - this is pre-revolutionary Odessa. But they are also categories of a special fantasy world, full of bright things and bright events, in which amazing people live. The story intertwines the present and the past. In the "present" tense at the Jewish cemetery, a conversation takes place between the narrator and Arye-Leib, who retrospectively talks about "how it was done in Odessa." The reader will learn that the exaltation and "terrible end" of the King has already happened and most of the heroes of Moldavanka are dead. The time of action is the past, and the narrator, being in the present tense, listens to stories about past legendary events from the life of dead heroes.
The Odessa world in this story is presented in the light of a romantic transformation of rough reality. Heroes - bandits, raiders, thieves. But they are the knights of Moldavanka. Their King is the Odessa Robin Hood. The system of their life values is clear and simple - family, welfare, procreation. And the greatest value is human life. When a drunken Savka Butsis accidentally kills Iosif Muginshtein during a raid, Benya sincerely cries "for the dear dead, as for his own brother" and arranges a magnificent funeral for him, and for his mother, Aunt Pesya, knocks out good maintenance from the rich Tartakovsky and shames him for his greed . And Savka Bucis rested in the same cemetery, next to the grave of Joseph, who he killed. And they served such a memorial service for him, which the inhabitants of Odessa never dreamed of. So Benya Krik restored justice. No one has the right to shoot a living person. The heroes of the story are bandits, but not murderers. In their actions, a kind of protest against the rich Tartakovsky, gentlemen bailiffs, fat grocers and their arrogant wives. The author raises his characters above the everyday life and grayness of bourgeois life, challenging the dull and stuffy world of everyday life. Babel's Odessa Tales reflects the ideal image of the world. This world is like one family, a single organism, in the words of Aryeh-Leib, "as if one mother gave birth to us." That is why the lisping Moiseyka calls the bandit Benyu Krik the king. Neither Froim Grach, nor Kolka Pakovsky, nor Khaim Drong climbed “to the top of the rope ladder, but ... hung down below, on shaky steps,” although they had both strength, and rigidity, and rage to rule. And only Benya Krik was called the King. Because his actions were guided by a sense of justice, a humane attitude towards a person, because his world is a family where everyone helps each other, experiences joy and sorrow together. All of Odessa went to the cemetery behind the coffin of Joseph Muginshtein: policemen in cotton gloves, attorneys at law, doctors of medicine, midwives, paramedics, chicken traders from the Old Bazaar, and honorary milkmaids from Bugaevka. The whole world buried poor Joseph, who had not seen anything in his life, "except for a couple of trifles." And "neither the cantor, nor the choir, nor the funeral brotherhood asked for money for the funeral." And people, "quietly moving away from Savka's grave, rushed to run, as if from a fire." Tartakovsky on the same day decided to close the case, because he is also part of the world, in which there is no place for a person with the soul of a murderer, in the words of Arie Leib. This is how Odessa appears in the story.
But the history of the Odessa world has sunk into the past. No more King. The old world with its system of social, family and moral values has been destroyed. "Odessa Stories" is called "retrospective utopia" by genre. Babel shows the collapse of the world of the utopia he created, where the rough, base reality is transformed into a “created legend” of a celebration of a triumphant life, a bright, noisy flesh full of Rabelaisian joys, where all real difficulties are overcome by laughter, which allows you to look at bad reality through the prism of romantic irony. No wonder one of the leading musical leitmotifs is the aria of the protagonist of Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, a comic artist experiencing the tragedy of love.
Thus, Babel's "Odessa Tales" presents:
- the real world: Odessa in the first years of Soviet power, where the narrator and his interlocutors are;
- non-existent world: the idealized world of pre-revolutionary Odessa, left in the past, with its moral values and legendary heroes, for whom the highest value is life itself with its carnal joys, strong ties between people living as a single family.
History in Babel's story appears in the guise of the past, present and future. The past is shown in the guise of an idealized bygone Odessa, presented in the form of a full-blooded life of its inhabitants, the present is shown in the symbolic image of the “great cemetery”, where most of the Rabelaisian heroes of Odessa-mother are buried. The author's assessment of the category "future" is expressed the least verbally. However, for Babel, judging by the intonation with which he describes his heroes (his bandits evoke sympathy and sympathy), the longed-for communist “future”, built on the death of people and the total destruction of the old, is a dystopia. I believe that this idea is suggested by the final lines of the story. “You know everything. But what's the use if you still have glasses on your nose, and autumn in your soul? .. ”These words sound, after all, at the beginning of the story. The blind will not see that something important is leaving people's lives, that the old is crumbling to the ground, that there is no foundation on which to build a bright future, especially with autumn in the soul. In my opinion, this is how these words of the old Arye-Leib can be interpreted. Babel does not openly speak about these fears, but his silence is much more eloquent.
The aristocrats of Moldavanka, they were pulled into crimson vests, their shoulders were covered by red jackets, and on their fleshy legs the skin of the color of heavenly azure burst. Straightening up to their full height and sticking out their bellies, the bandits clapped to the beat of the music, shouted "bitterly" and threw flowers to the bride, and she, forty-year-old Dvoira, sister of Beni Krik, sister of the King, disfigured by illness, with an overgrown goiter and eyes popping out of their sockets, sat on a mountain of pillows next to a frail boy, bought with Eichbaum's money and numb with longing.
The ceremony of donation was coming to an end, the shames were hoarse and the double bass did not get along with the violin. Over the courtyard suddenly stretched a slight smell of burning.
“Benya,” said papa Krik, an old binduzh worker who was known as a rude man among the binduzhniks, “Benya, do you know that mine gives up?” It seems to Mina that we have soot on fire ...
“Daddy,” the King replied to his drunken father, “please drink and eat, don’t worry about these stupid things ...
And papa Creek followed his son's advice. He ate and drank. But the cloud of smoke became more and more poisonous. Somewhere the edges of the sky have already turned pink. And already he shot into the sky a narrow, like a sword, tongue of flame. The guests got up and began sniffing the air, and the women squealed at them. The raiders then exchanged glances with each other. And only Benya, who did not notice anything, was inconsolable.
“The holiday is being violated for Mina,” he shouted, full of despair, “darlings, I ask you to eat and drink ...
But at this time the same young man who came at the beginning of the evening appeared in the yard.
“King,” he said, “I have a few words to say to you…
- Well, speak, - the King answered, - you always have a couple of words in reserve ...
“King,” the unknown young man said and giggled, “this is downright ridiculous, the site is burning like a candle ...
The shopkeepers were dumbfounded. The raiders chuckled. Sixty-year-old Manka, the ancestor of the suburban bandits, putting two fingers into her mouth, whistled so piercingly that her neighbors swayed.
“Manya, you are not at work,” Benya remarked to her, “cold-blooded, Manya ...
The young man who brought this startling news was still laughing.
“They left the site for about forty people,” he said, moving his jaws, “and went to the round-up; so they walked back about fifteen paces, as it was already on fire ... Run to look if you want ...
But Benya forbade the guests to go look at the fire. He went with two companions. The plot regularly burned from four sides. The policemen, shaking their backs, ran up the smoky stairs and threw chests out of the windows. Under the guise, the arrested fled. The firemen were zealous, but there was no water in the nearest faucet. The bailiff—that same broom that sweeps clean—was standing on the opposite sidewalk, biting the mustache that was in his mouth. The new broom stood motionless. Benya, passing by the bailiff, saluted him in a military manner.
“Good health, your honor,” he said sympathetically. What do you say to this misfortune? It's a nightmare...
He stared at the burning building, shook his head and smacked his lips.
- Ah ah ah…
And when Benya returned home, the lanterns in the yard had already gone out and dawn was breaking in the sky. The guests dispersed, and the musicians dozed off with their heads resting on the handles of their double basses. Only Dvoira was not going to sleep. With both hands, she pushed her timid husband to the door of their marriage chamber and looked at him carnivorously, like a cat that, holding a mouse in its mouth, gently tastes it with its teeth.
HOW IT WAS DONE IN ODESSA
“Reb Arye-Leib,” I said to the old man, “let's talk about Ben Krik. Let's talk about its lightning-fast beginning and terrible end. Three shadows clutter the paths of my imagination. Here is Froim Grach. The steel of his deeds—wouldn't it bear comparison with the strength of the King? Here is Kolka Pakovsky. The rage of this man contained everything that is needed in order to dominate. And did Chaim Drong fail to discern the brilliance of the new star? But why did one Benya Krik ascend to the top of the rope ladder, while all the others hung down, on shaky steps?
Reb Arye-Leib was silent, sitting on the cemetery wall. Before us lay the green tranquility of the graves. A person who wants an answer must be patient. A person who has knowledge deserves importance. Therefore, Arye-Leib was silent, sitting on the cemetery wall. Finally he said:
- Why he? Why not, you want to know? So - forget for a while that you have glasses on your nose, and autumn is in your soul. Stop arguing at your desk and stuttering in public. Imagine for a moment that you are brawling in the squares and stuttering on paper. You are a tiger, you are a lion, you are a cat. You can spend the night with a Russian woman, and the Russian woman will be satisfied with you. You are twenty five years old. If rings were attached to heaven and earth, you would grab those rings and pull heaven to earth. And your dad is a binduzhnik Mendel Krik. What is this dad thinking? He thinks about drinking a good glass of vodka, punching someone in the face, about his horses, and nothing else. You want to live, and he makes you die twenty times a day. What would you do if you were Beni Krik? You wouldn't do anything. And he did. Therefore, he is the King, and you keep a fig in your pocket.
He - Benchik - went to Froim Grach, who then already looked at the world with only one eye and was what he is. He told Froim:
- Take me. I want to wash up on your shore. Whichever shore I hit will win.
The rook asked him:
Who are you, where do you come from and what do you breathe?
“Try me, Froim,” Benya answered, “and we’ll stop smearing white porridge on a clean table.”
“Let’s stop smearing the porridge,” Rook answered, “I’ll try you.”
And the raiders gathered a council to think about Ben Creek. I was not on this council. But they say they have a council. The late Levka Byk was then the eldest.
- What is he doing under his hat, this Benchik? asked the dead Bull.
And the one-eyed Rook said his opinion:
Benya doesn't talk much, but he speaks well. He doesn't say much, but I want him to say something more.
- If so, - exclaimed the late Levka, - then we will try it on Tartakovsky.
“Let’s try it on Tartakovsky,” the council decided, and everyone who still had a conscience blushed when they heard this decision. Why did they blush? You will know this if you go where I take you.
We called Tartakovsky "one and a half kikes" or "nine raids." “One and a half Jews” was called him because not a single Jew could contain in himself as much impudence and money as Tartakovsky had. He was taller than the tallest policeman in Odessa, and weighed more than the fattest Jewish woman. And Tartakovsky was called “nine raids” because Levka Byk’s firm and company made not eight or ten raids on his office, but nine. The share of Beni, who was not yet the King, had the honor to make the tenth raid on the "one and a half Jew". When Froim told him about it, he said "yes" and left, slamming the door. Why did he slam the door? You will know this if you go where I take you.
Tartakovsky has the soul of a killer, but he is ours. He left us. He is our blood. He is our flesh, as if one mother gave birth to us. Half of Odessa serves in his shops. And he suffered through his own Moldavian. Twice they kidnapped him for ransom, and once, during a pogrom, he was buried with choristers. The Sloboda thugs then beat the Jews on Bolshaya Arnautskaya. Tartakovsky ran away from them and met a funeral procession with choristers on Sofiyskaya. He asked:
- Who are they burying with the choristers?
Passers-by replied that they were burying Tartakovsky. The procession reached the Sloboda cemetery. Then ours took out a machine gun from the coffin and began to pour on the suburban thugs. But the "one and a half Jew" did not foresee this. "One and a half Jew" was scared to death. And what owner would not be afraid in his place?
All the people of our circle - brokers, shopkeepers, employees in banks and shipping offices - taught children music. Our fathers, not seeing themselves move, came up with a lottery. They arranged it on the bones of little people. Odessa was seized by this madness more than other cities. And it's true - for decades our city has been supplying geeks to the concert stages of the world. Misha Elman, Zimbalist, Gabrilovich came from Odessa, Yasha Kheyfets started with us.
When the boy was four or five years old, his mother took this tiny, frail creature to Mr. Zagursky. Zagursky kept a factory of child prodigies, a factory of Jewish dwarfs in lace collars and patent leather shoes. He looked for them in the Moldavian slums, in the stinking courtyards of the Old Bazaar. Zagursky gave the first direction, then the children went to Professor Auer in St. Petersburg. A mighty harmony lived in the souls of these scumbags with swollen blue heads. They became famous virtuosos. And so - my father decided to keep up with them. Although I had come out of the age of geeks - I was in my fourteenth year, but in terms of growth and frailty I could be sold for an eight-year-old. That was all hope.
I was taken to Zagursky. Out of respect for his grandfather, he agreed to take a ruble per lesson - a cheap fee. My grandfather Levi Yitzchok was the laughingstock of the city and its decoration. He walked the streets in a top hat and props and resolved doubts in the darkest cases. He was asked what a tapestry is, why the Jacobins betrayed Robespierre, how artificial silk is prepared, what a caesarean section is. My grandfather could answer these questions. Out of respect for his learning and his madness, Zagursky charged us a ruble a lesson. Yes, and he was busy with me, afraid of his grandfather, because there was nothing to mess with. Sounds crept from my violin like iron filings. These sounds cut me to the heart, but my father did not lag behind. At home, there was only talk about Misha Elman, who was exempted from military service by the tsar himself. Zimbalist, according to my father, introduced himself to the English king and played at Buckingham Palace; Gabrilovich's parents bought two houses in St. Petersburg. Geeks brought wealth to their parents. My father would have put up with poverty, but he needed fame.
It can’t be,” whispered the people who dined at his expense, “it can’t be that the grandson of such a grandfather ...
I had something else on my mind. Playing violin exercises, I put books by Turgenev or Dumas on the music stand, and, chirping, I devoured page after page. During the day I told stories to the neighbor boys, at night I transferred them to paper. Writing was a hereditary occupation in our family. Leivi-Yitzchok, who was moving towards old age, wrote a story all his life called "The Man Without a Head." I went into it.
Loaded with a case and sheet music, I dragged myself three times a week to Witte Street, formerly Dvoryanskaya Street, to Zagursky. There, along the walls, waiting in line, were Jewish women, hysterically inflamed. They pressed violins to their weak knees, larger than those who were to play at Buckingham Palace.
The door to the shrine opened. Big-headed, freckled children with thin necks like flower stalks and an epileptic blush on their cheeks were staggering out of Zagursky's office. The door slammed shut, swallowing the next dwarf. Behind the wall, tearing himself up, he sang, conducted by a teacher with a bow, in red curls, with thin legs. The manager of a monstrous lottery - he inhabited Moldavanka and the black dead ends of the Old Market with the ghosts of picchikato and cantilena. This chant was later brought to a diabolical brilliance by old Professor Auer.
There was nothing for me to do in this sect. A dwarf like them, I discerned another suggestion in the voice of my ancestors.
It was hard for me to take the first step. One day I left the house, loaded with a case, a violin, sheet music and twelve rubles of money - the payment for a month of study. I walked along Nezhinskaya Street, I should have turned onto Dvoryanskaya to get to Zagursky, instead I went up Tiraspolskaya and found myself in the port. The three hours allotted to me flew by in Praktichnaya Harbor. Thus began the liberation. Zagursky's receptionist did not see me again. More important things occupied all my thoughts. With my classmate Nemanov, we got into the habit of boarding the Kensington steamer to an old sailor named Mr. Trottiburn. Nemanov was a year younger than me, from the age of eight he was engaged in the most intricate trade in the world. He was a genius in business affairs and fulfilled everything he promised. Now he is a millionaire in New York, director of General Motors Co., a company as powerful as Ford. Nemanov dragged me with him because I obeyed him silently. He bought smuggled pipes from Mr. Trottyburn. These pipes were sharpened in Lincoln by the old sailor's brother.
Gentlemen, Mr. Trottiburn told us, mark my word, children must be made with one's own hands ... Smoking a factory pipe is the same as putting a clyster in your mouth ... Do you know who Benvenuto Cellini was? .. He was a master. My brother in Lincoln could tell you about him. My brother does not interfere with anyone's life. He is only convinced that children should be made with their own hands, and not with strangers ... We cannot but agree with him, gentlemen ...
Nemanov sold Trottyburn pipes to bank directors, foreign consuls, wealthy Greeks. He made a hundred out of them.
The pipes of the Lincoln master breathed poetry. Each of them contained a thought, a drop of eternity. There was a yellow eye in their mouthpiece, and the cases were lined with satin. I tried to imagine how Matthew Trottyburn lived in old England, the last pipe maker who resisted the course of things.
We cannot but agree, gentlemen, that children should be made by one's own hands...
Heavy waves near the dam moved me more and more away from our house, which smelled of onions and Jewish fate. From Praktichnaya Harbor, I moved beyond the breakwater. There, on a patch of sandbank, the boys from Primorskaya Street lived. From morning till night they did not pull on their pants, dived under the scows, stole coconuts for lunch and waited for the time when oak trees with watermelons would come from Kherson and Kamenka and these watermelons could be split on the port berths.
It became my dream to be able to swim. I was ashamed to admit to these bronze boys that, having been born in Odessa, I had not seen the sea until the age of ten, and at fourteen I could not swim.
How late I had to learn the right things! As a child, nailed to the Gemara, I led the life of a sage; when I grew up, I began to climb trees.
The ability to swim proved unattainable. The hydrophobia of all the ancestors of the Spanish rabbis and the Frankfurt money changers - pulled me to the bottom. The water didn't hold me. Striped, filled with salt water, I returned to the shore - to the violin and notes. I was tied to the instruments of my crime and carried them with me. The struggle of the rabbis with the sea continued until the water god of those places took pity on me - the proofreader of Odessa News Efim Nikitich Smolich. In the athletic chest of this man lived pity for Jewish boys. He led the crowds of rickety morons. Nikitich collected them in bedbugs on Moldavanka, led them to the sea, buried them in the sand, did gymnastics with them, dived with them, taught them songs and, roasting in the direct rays of the sun, told stories about fishermen and animals. Nikitich explained to adults that he was a natural philosopher. Jewish children from the stories of Nikitich died with laughter, they squealed and caressed like puppies. The sun sprinkled them with creeping freckles, freckles the color of a lizard.
The old man watched my single combat with the waves silently from the side. Seeing that there was no hope and that I could not learn to swim, he included me among the guests of his heart. It was all here with us - its cheerful heart, it did not drift anywhere, was not greedy and did not worry ... With its copper shoulders, with the head of an aged gladiator, with bronze, slightly crooked legs - he lay among us behind the breakwater, like the ruler of these watermelon , kerosene waters. I fell in love with this man the way a boy with hysteria and headaches can love an athlete. I did not leave him and tried to serve.
He told me:
You do not fuss ... You strengthen your nerves. Swimming will come by itself ... How is it - the water does not hold you ... Why should it not hold you?
Seeing how I was stretching, Nikitich made an exception for me one of all his students, invited me to visit him in a clean spacious attic in mats, showed his dogs, a hedgehog, a turtle and pigeons. In exchange for these riches, I brought him a tragedy I had written the day before.
I knew that you were pissing, - Nikitich said, - you have such a look ... You are not looking anywhere anymore ...
He read my writings, shrugged his shoulders, ran his hand through the steep gray curls, walked around the attic.
You have to think, - he said at a stretch, falling silent after every word, that there is a spark of God in you ...
We went outside. The old man stopped, thumped the sidewalk hard with his stick, and stared at me.
What do you lack?.. Youth is not a problem, it will pass with age... You lack a sense of nature.
He showed me with a stick at a tree with a reddish trunk and a low crown.
What is this tree?
I did not know.
What grows on this bush?
I didn't know that either. We walked with him to the little garden of Aleksandrovsky Prospekt. The old man poked with a stick at all the trees, he grabbed my shoulder when a bird flew by, and forced me to listen to individual voices.
What bird is singing?
I couldn't answer. The names of trees and birds, their division into genera, where the birds fly, from which side the sun rises, when the dew is stronger - all this was unknown to me.
And you dare to write?.. A person who does not live in nature, as a stone or an animal lives in it, will not write two worthwhile lines in his whole life ... Your landscapes are like a description of scenery. Damn it, what have your parents been thinking about for fourteen years? ..
What were they thinking?.. About the protested bills, about Misha Elman's mansions... I didn't tell Nikitich about it, I didn't say anything.
At home - at dinner - I did not touch the food. It didn't go down the throat.
“The feeling of nature,” I thought. - My God, why didn't this occur to me ... Where can I get a person who would explain to me the bird voices and the names of the trees? .. What do I know about them? I could recognize the lilac, and then when it blooms. Lilacs and acacia, Deribasovskaya and Grecheskaya streets are lined with acacias ... "
At dinner, my father told a new story about Jascha Heifetz. Before reaching Robin, he met Mendelssohn, Yasha's uncle. The boy, it turns out, receives eight hundred rubles for going out. Calculate - how much it comes out with fifteen concerts a month.
I counted - it turned out twelve thousand a month. While doing the multiplication and keeping four in mind, I looked out the window. On the cement courtyard, in a softly blown lionfish, with red rings protruding from under a soft hat, leaning on a cane, Mr. Zagursky, my music teacher, walked. It's not like he missed it too soon. More than three months have passed since my violin sank on the sand at the breakwater...
Zagursky approached the front door. I rushed to the back door - it had been boarded up the day before from thieves. Then I locked myself in the restroom. Half an hour later, the whole family gathered at my door. The women were crying. Bobka rubbed her fat shoulder against the door and rolled into sobs. The father was silent. He spoke so quietly and separately, as he had never spoken in his life.
I am an officer, - said my father, - I have an estate. I go hunting. Guys pay me rent. I sent my son to the cadet corps. I have nothing to take care of my son...
He fell silent. The women sniffled. Then a terrible blow fell on the door of the lavatory, the father beat against it with his whole body, he swooped in with a running start.
I am an officer, - he yelled, - I go hunting ... I will kill him ... The end ...
The hook jumped off the door, there was also a latch, it was held on by one nail. The women rolled on the floor, they grabbed their father by the legs; frantic, he broke free. An old woman arrived at the noise - the father's mother.
My child, she said to him in Hebrew, our grief is great. It has no edges. Only blood was missing in our house. I don't want to see blood in our house...
The father groaned. I heard his steps receding. The latch hung on the last nail.
In my fortress I sat until night. When everyone settled down, Aunt Bobka took me to my grandmother. Our road was long. Moonlight froze on unknown bushes, on trees without a name... The invisible bird whistled and died away, perhaps fell asleep... What kind of bird is this? What is her name? Is there dew in the evenings?.. Where is the constellation Ursa Major located? Which side does the sun rise from?
We walked along Postal Street. Bobka held my hand tightly so that I wouldn't run away. She was right. I thought about running away.
I. E. Babel liked to repeat the saying: “Power is thirsty, and only sadness quenches the heart.” This fascination with power, which led the writer to an early death, manifested itself in his works as an all-encompassing interest in the liberated, free, primordial forces of life. The Odessa Tales became the apotheosis of the liberated forces of life. I. E. Babel always romanticized Odessa. He saw it not like other cities, inhabited by people who "foreshadowed the future": in Odessa there was joy, "ardor, lightness and charming - sometimes sad, sometimes touching - a sense of life." Life could be both good and bad, but in any case "extraordinarily interesting." It was this attitude to life that the writer wanted to instill in a person who had survived the revolution and entered a world full of new and unforeseen difficulties. Therefore, Odessa in "Odessa Tales" is an image of a world where a person is thrown open to meet life.
In Babel Odessa, this world is turned upside down. The outskirts of the city have been turned into a stage, into a theater where dramas and passions are played out. Everything is taken out into the street: weddings, and family quarrels, and deaths, and funerals. Everyone participates in the action, laughing, fighting, eating, cooking, changing places. If this is a wedding, then the tables are placed "in the whole street of the yard", and there are so many of them that they "stick their tail out of the gate on the hospital street" ("King"). If this is a funeral, then such a funeral, which “Odessa has not yet seen, but the world will not see” (“How It Was Done in Odessa”).
In this world, the "sovereign emperor" is placed below the street "king" Benny Krik, and official life, its norms, its dry escheat laws are ridiculed, lowered, destroyed by laughter. This world is inhabited, in essence, by fantastic figures.
Such, for example, is Benya Krik, the son of the old binduzhnik Mendel Krik. In reality, he belonged to that Jewish population, which bowed three deaths before the city and district overseer, was limited in rights and choice of occupation. But Benya Krik is Odessa's Robin Hood, a noble knight, although this chivalry is more than peculiarly mixed with philistine ideas and actions. He and his henchmen brandish their weapons, but are in no hurry to use them. They have "friendly Brownings" in their hands.
The robbery, which is described in the story "How it was done in Odessa", is presented not at all as a criminal offense, but as a game, a kind of theater for oneself, where everyone played roles: some were robbers, others were victims, but at the same time they did not cease to be kind acquaintances. Odessa in the stories of I. Babel is a city with its own language, bright and original. It is free, full of deep meaning, expressive. The aphorisms of Babel’s heroes have become proverbs and sayings, they have gained an independent life, and more than one generation repeats: “it’s not evening yet”, “cold-blooded, Me, you are not at work”, “you have autumn in your soul”.
Rereading I. Babel again and again, one cannot but grieve about his fate, not sympathize with his inner torments, but admire his creative gift.
it is easy not to grieve about his fate, not to sympathize with his inner torments, not to admire his creative gift. His prose has not faded with time, his characters have not faded, and the style of his works is still enigmatic.
Having provoked a furious reaction from the leader of the First Cavalry Army, Semyon Budyonny, the stories about Odessa did not arouse sharp criticism from literary and political functionaries. Moreover, they attracted the attention of the artistic workshop: for example, Leonid Utyosov, who was extremely popular in those years, took several of Babel's stories for performance from the stage. And Viktor Shklovsky wrote a short essay about Babel, where the thesis was expressed that “he is a foreigner even in Odessa” (that is, he looks at his hometown as if from the outside). In 1928, a small collection of scientific articles about Babel (which was always perceived as travel writer A fellow traveler was a person who shared the views of the Bolsheviks, but was not a member of the party. Boris Pasternak, Boris Pilnyak, Leonid Leonov, Konstantin Paustovsky, Isaac Babel were considered writers-"fellow travelers". Initially, the Soviet government treated "fellow travelers" favorably, later this word in the official language acquired a negative connotation. ) edited by Boris Kazansky Boris Vasilyevich Kazansky (1889-1962) - philologist, writer. He taught at the Department of Classical Philology at Leningrad University, worked at the State Institute of Art History. He was one of the members of OPOYAZ, under the influence of friendship with Tynyanov, wrote a work on cinema "The Nature of Cinema". He also wrote a lot about the theater - about the studio of Sergei Radlov, the method of Nikolai Evreinov. Together with Tynyanov, he was the initiator of the publication of a series of books "Masters of Modern Literature". He studied Pushkin. and Yuri Tynyanov (the authors of the articles are well-known philologists Nikolay Stepanov Nikolai Leonidovich Stepanov (1902-1972) - literary critic. He worked at the Gorky Institute of World Literature, taught at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. He was a specialist in literature of the 18th and 19th centuries and Soviet poetry. Under the editorship of Stepanov, collected works of Ivan Krylov were published (on Krylov's fables, Stepanov defended his dissertation), Velimir Khlebnikov, Nikolai Gogol. Stepanov wrote several books about Gogol ("Gogol. Creative Way", "The Art of Gogol the Playwright") and a biography of the writer in the ZhZL series. , Grigory Gukovsky Grigory Alexandrovich Gukovsky (1902-1950) - literary critic. He headed the Department of Russian Literature at the Leningrad University. In the Pushkin House, he headed a group for the study of Russian literature of the 18th century. Author of the first systematic course on this topic. He was evacuated from besieged Leningrad to Saratov. After the war, he was arrested as part of a campaign to "fight against cosmopolitanism", died in custody of a heart attack. And Pavel Novitsky Pavel Ivanovich Novitsky (1888-1971) - art critic, theater critic, literary critic. He was expelled from St. Petersburg University for revolutionary activities. From 1913 he lived in Simferopol, where he was the leader of the Crimean Mensheviks. From 1922 he worked in Moscow: he was a member of the editorial board of the journal "Modern Architecture", the rector of Vkhutemas, and then Vkhutein. After the war he worked at the Theater. Vakhtangov, taught at GITIS, the Literary Institute and the Higher Theater School. Schukin. ).
