Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin: biography, list of books and interesting facts. Interesting facts from the life and biography of Veniamin Kaverin feature films

Biography (Tatyana Khalina)

His father Alexander Zilber was the bandmaster of the Omsk Infantry Regiment. In 1896 he came from Vyborg to Pskov with his wife Anna Zilber-Dessan and three children - Mira, Elena and Lev. In Pskov, David, Alexander and Benjamin were also born in the Zilber family. The family was large, complex, "unfriendly", as Benjamin later noted, wonderful in its own way and noticeable in a small provincial town. Alexander Zilber was a man with outstanding musical abilities, he spent a lot of time in the barracks, rehearsing army marches with soldier bands. On Sundays, a brass band under his direction played for the public in the Summer Garden on the open stage. The father did not delve into the lives of the children, and the financial situation of the family was not easy. Most of the worries lay on the shoulders of the mother, who had a much greater influence on the fate of her talented children. Anna Grigorievna was a highly educated woman, she graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in the piano class and passed on all her intelligence, energy and breadth of interests to her children. Anna Grigorievna gave music lessons, organized concerts for the people of Pskov, at her invitation famous musicians, singers and dramatic artists, including Fyodor Chaliapin and Vera Komissarzhevskaya, came to Pskov.

In the Zilber family, all children were musically gifted. The frequent lack of family cosiness and harmony was compensated by devotion to one's favorite work, diligence, reading and participation in the public life of the city. In the evenings after the concerts, when 12-15 people sat down at the table, the family discussed the next event in the cultural life of the city, often argued and lived with these impressions for a long time. The younger Veniamin listened to the disputes of his older brothers and their comrades - the future scientists August Letavet, Yuri Tynyanov, Miron Garkavi, to a large extent felt their influence and charm of enthusiastic and creative personalities. “Stuck on Velikaya, running home only to eat. It was a wonderful, lazy life, more in the water than on land ... ”- Benjamin wrote later. In the summer, the Zilbers sometimes rented a dacha in Chernyakovitsy - a large, old, crumbling house, which was nicknamed "Noah's Ark". Recalling himself in early childhood, Benjamin wrote: “Everything amazed me - the change of day and night, and walking on my feet, while it was much more convenient to crawl on all fours, and closing my eyes, magically cutting off the visible world from me. The frequency of eating struck me - three or even four times a day? And so all your life? With a feeling of deep surprise, I got used to my existence - it’s not for nothing that in children’s photographs I always have my eyes wide open and my eyebrows raised.

The autobiographical trilogy “Illuminated Windows” gives an idea of ​​what different everyday events the life of a little Pskov was full of, how he asserted himself in the family and eagerly absorbed impressions from the world around him, in which a revolution was brewing, democrats and monarchists were at enmity, snitches were hunting for underground workers, but “shops opened every morning, officials went to their “offices”, mother went to the “Special Music Store” on Ploskaya, nanny went to the market, father went to the music team.” In 1912, Kaverin entered the Pskov gymnasium, where he studied for 6 years. He later recalled: “I was not given arithmetic. I entered the first class twice: I failed because of arithmetic. For the third time, he passed the exams in the preparatory class well. Was glad. We lived then on Sergievskaya street. I went out in uniform to the balcony: to show the city that I am a high school student. The years of study at the gymnasium left a bright mark in the life of Benjamin, in all the events of his student life he was an active and direct participant, in 1917 he became a member of a democratic society (abbreviated DOW).

He wrote later that “the house, the gymnasium, the city at different times of the year, the gardens - Botanical and Cathedral, walks to the German cemetery, the ice rink, himself between four and fifteen years” he remembered “photographically accurately”, but the seventeenth year “is sinking in an avalanche of surging events. And not only political ones - “For the first time in my life I spoke at meetings, defended the civil rights of the fifth grade, wrote poetry, wandered endlessly around the city and surrounding villages, rode boats along the Great, fell in love sincerely and for a long time.”

The writer considered the winter of 1918, when German troops occupied Pskov, to be the boundary separating childhood and youth: “The Germans, as it were, slammed the door behind my childhood.”

The most important place in Benjamin's life, from the moment he learned to read, was occupied by books. Reading amazed the boy with the opportunity to go to another world and another life. About the role that reading played in the life of Pskov youth in the early 20th century, Veniamin Aleksandrovich recalled in the essay “Interlocutor. Notes on Reading”: “In a provincial town crammed full of realists, seminarians, students of the Teachers’ Institute, they were constantly arguing about Gorky, Leonid Andreev, Kuprin. We also argued - like a child, but with a sense of significance that raised us in our own eyes. A close friend of Leo's brother, and then the husband of Elena's sister, Yuri Tynyanov, a wonderful literary critic and writer in the future, became a teacher, a great comrade, a friend for young Kaverin for life. In Pskov in the autumn of 1918, Veniamin read his poems to him, in imitation of Blok, and the first tragedy in verse. Tynyanov, criticizing what he had read, nevertheless noted that there was “something” in this teenager, “although at the age of thirteen everyone writes such poems.” Tynyanov noted a good style, "strong" dialogue, a desire for plot construction, and later, on his advice, the young writer turned to prose.

In 1919, Veniamin Zilber left Pskov with his brother Leo to study in Moscow. He took with him a poor wardrobe, a notebook with poems, two tragedies and the manuscript of the first story. In Moscow, Viniamin graduated from high school and entered Moscow University, but on the advice of Tynyanov, in 1920 he transferred to Petrograd University, at the same time enrolling in the Institute of Oriental Languages ​​at the Faculty of Arabic Studies. During his studies, he became interested in German romantics, went to lectures and seminars in a huge old raincoat, tried to write poetry, made acquaintances with young poets. In 1920, Veniamin Zilber submitted his first story "The Eleventh Axiom" to the competition announced by the House of Writers and soon won one of six prizes for it. This story was not published, but made an impression on Gorky, who praised the novice author and began to follow his work. At about the same time, Viktor Shklovsky brought Veniamin to the community of young writers "Serapion Brothers", introducing him not by name, but by the name of that very story - "The Eleventh Axiom", about which the "Serapions" had heard a lot. “Under the name of the Serapion Brothers,” wrote Yevgeny Schwartz, who often attended their meetings, although he was not a member of the “brotherhood,” writers and people a little like each other united. But the general feeling of talent and novelty explained them, justified their association. The Serapions included such famous writers as Vsevolod Ivanov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Konstantin Fedin and the poet Nikolai Tikhonov. But Kaverin was closest in spirit to Lev Lunts, who died at the age of twenty-three. Together they represented the so-called Western direction and encouraged Russian writers to learn from foreign literature.

To learn is not to repeat it. It means to breathe into our literature the energy of action, discovering new wonders and secrets in it,” Luntz wrote. Dynamic plot, entertaining, combined with mastery of form and polished style, they put at the forefront. “I have always been and remain a story writer,” Veniamin Aleksandrovich later admitted. Critics constantly scolded him for his predilection for the plot and entertainingness, and in the turbulent 1920s, Veniamin himself criticized recognized authorities with youthful fervor: “I considered Turgenev my main literary enemy” and, not without sarcasm, declared: “Of Russian writers, I love Hoffmann the most and Stevenson. All "Serapions" had characteristic nicknames; Benjamin had such a nickname as "Brother Alchemist". “Art must be built on the formulas of the exact sciences,” was written on the envelope in which Veniamin sent his first story to the competition.

The pseudonym "Kaverin" was taken by the writer in honor of the hussar, a friend of the young Pushkin (brought by him under his own name in "Eugene Onegin").

Frost dust silver
His beaver collar.
He rushed to Talon: he is sure
What is Kaverin waiting for him there.
Entered: and a cork in the ceiling,
The comet's guilt splashed current,
And truffles, the luxury of youth,
And Strasbourg's imperishable pie
Between Limburg cheese alive
And golden pineapple.

In 1922, Veniamin Kaverin married the sister of his friend Yuri Tynyanov, Lydia, who later became a famous children's writer. In this happy and long marriage, Benjamin and Lydia had two children - Nikolai, who became a doctor of medical sciences, professor and academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, and daughter Natalya, who also became a professor and doctor of medical sciences.

In 1923, Kaverin published his first book, Masters and Apprentices. Adventurers and madmen, secret agents and card cheats, medieval monks and alchemists, masters and burgomasters - the bizarre fantasy world of Kaverin's early "desperately original" stories was inhabited by very bright personalities. “People play cards, and cards are played by people. Who will figure it out?" Gorky called Kaverin "the most original writer" and advised to take care of his talent: "This is a flower of original beauty, form, I am inclined to think that for the first time on the basis of Russian literature such a strange and intricate plant blooms." It is impossible not to note the obvious scientific successes of the novice author. After graduating from the university, Kaverin was left in graduate school. As a philologist, he was attracted by the little-studied pages of Russian literature of the early 19th century: the works of V.F. Odoevsky, A.F. Veltman, O.I. The story of Osip Senkovsky, journalist, editor of the Library for Reading. This book was simultaneously presented as a dissertation, which Kaverin brilliantly defended, despite its obvious fiction, at the Institute of Art History. Kaverin believed in his talent as a writer and in the fact that fate handed him a “long-distance ticket”, as Yevgeny Zamyatin prophetically said about him, and therefore decided for himself only one thing: to write and write - every day. “Every morning,” said Evgeny Schwartz, “whether in the country, in the city, Kaverin sat down at the table and worked for the allotted time. And so all my life. And then gradually, gradually, "literature" began to obey him, became plastic. Several years passed, and we clearly saw that the best in Kaverin's being: good nature, respect for human work, boyish naivety with a boyish love for adventure and exploits - begins to penetrate the pages of his books.

In the early 1930s, Kaverin became interested in writing plays that were staged by famous directors and were successful. Vsevolod Meyerhold repeatedly offered him cooperation, but Kaverin himself believed that he was at odds with the playwright's craft and focused entirely on prose works. He published his new works one after another - so the novels and stories “The End of the Khaza”, “Nine-tenths of Fate”, “The Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island”, “Draft of a Man”, “Artist Unknown” and collections of short stories were published. In 1930, the 28-year-old author published a three-volume collected works. Officials from literature declared Kaverin a writer-"fellow traveler" and viciously smashed his books, accusing the author of formalism and a thirst for bourgeois restoration. Meanwhile, times were approaching when it became dangerous to ignore such “criticism”, and Kaverin wrote the “traditional” “Fulfillment of desires”. This novel was very popular, but the author was dissatisfied with his offspring, called it an “inventory of edification”, periodically revised it and, in the end, reduced it by almost two-thirds: “My success was a reward for abandoning the originality that I cherished so much , then, in the twenties. The novel "Fulfillment of Desires" was released in 1936, but the novel "Two Captains" really saved Kaverin, otherwise the writer could share the fate of his older brother, academician Lev Zilber, who was arrested three times and sent to camps.

According to rumors, Stalin himself liked the novel "Two Captains" - and after the war the writer was awarded the Stalin Prize. The novel "Two Captains" became the most famous work of Kaverin. After publication, it was so popular that many schoolchildren in geography lessons seriously argued that it was not Lieutenant Vilkitsky who discovered the Northern Land, but Captain Tatarinov - they believed in the heroes of the novel so much, perceived them as real people and wrote touching letters to Veniamin Alexandrovich, in which asked about the fate of Katya Tatarinova and Sanya Grigoriev. In the homeland of Kaverin in the city of Pskov, not far from the Regional Children's Library, now bearing the name of the author of "Two Captains", a monument was even erected to Captain Tatarinov and Sanya Grigoriev, whose boyish oath was: "Fight and seek, find and not give up."

During the Great Patriotic War, Veniamin Kaverin was a special front-line correspondent for Izvestia, in 1941 on the Leningrad front, in 1942-1943 - on the Northern Fleet. His impressions of the war were reflected in wartime stories, and in post-war works - "Seven Pairs of Unclean" and "The Science of Parting", as well as in the second volume of "Two Captains". The writer's son Nikolai Kaverin spoke about his father's war years: “I remember his story about how in the summer of 1941 on the Karelian Isthmus he was sent to a regiment that successfully repelled the Finnish offensive. On the road, their car met scattered groups of fighters, then the road became completely empty, and then they were fired upon, and the driver barely managed to turn the car around. It turned out that the retreating fighters they met were this very regiment, the success of which had to be described. Before Izvestia's special correspondent could get to him, the Finns defeated him. I remember a story about the behavior of sailors from different countries under the bombing in Arkhangelsk. The British behaved very well, and among the Americans, the American Chinese were especially calm - even indifferent - to meet the danger. From the stories about life in Murmansk, I remember an episode in the club of sailors, when one of the naval pilots was called, he finished the game of chess and left, saying that he was being called to fly to the "Bul-Bul". When he left, Kaverin asked what it meant, and they explained to him that "Bul-Bul" - that's how the pilots call some place on the coast, where the Germans have a very strong air defense, and our planes are constantly shot down there. And they're boo-boo. In the behavior of the pilot, who finished the game and left, there was no sign of any excitement or anxiety.

In 1944, the second volume of the novel "Two Captains" was published, and in 1946 the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a decree on the magazines "Zvezda" and "Leningrad". Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova, whom Politburo member Zhdanov called in his report "a bastard" and a "harlot", immediately found themselves in isolation. Many "friends", having met Zoshchenko on the street, went over to the other side, but Zoshchenko and Kaverin had an old friendship and their relationship did not change after the decision of the Central Committee. Kaverin, who then lived in Leningrad, did his best to support a friend who was in trouble, whom he considered one of the best contemporary writers. They visited each other at a party, walked together along the Leningrad streets. Kaverin helped Zoshchenko financially.

In 1947, Veniamin Kaverin left Leningrad, moved to Moscow and lived in the village of writers Peredelkino. From 1948 to 1956, the writer worked on the Open Book trilogy, which told about the formation and development of microbiology in the country and the goals of science. The book gained popularity among readers, but colleagues in the "workshop" and critics took the novel with hostility. Here is what the writer’s son said about this: “I don’t know if Kaverin’s independent behavior played a role in his literary fate. In any case, when the first part of the novel The Open Book was published in a magazine version in 1948, an unusually powerful, even at that time, critical rout followed. In fourteen articles and reviews in different, not only literary newspapers and magazines, the novel was denounced as a work deeply alien to socialist realism. The tone of the articles varied from furiously accusatory to dismissive, and not only the author was scolded, but also the heroes of the novel. I remember that in one of the reviews Andrei Lvov was called "silly" (probably for too thoughtful reasoning). Kaverin held firm, he stopped reading devastating articles after the first three or four. Still, the rout did not go unnoticed. The second part of the novel is paler than the first. When the novel was published, the first scene - the gymnasium duel that caused particular fury among critics - had to be removed, now Tanya Vlasenkova was not hit by a random dueling bullet, but simply knocked down by a racing sleigh. Subsequently, Kaverin restored everything.

At the 2nd Congress of Writers in 1954, Kaverin made a bold speech, calling for freedom of creativity, for a fair assessment of the legacy of Yuri Tynyanov and Mikhail Bulgakov. In 1956, Kaverin became one of the organizers of the almanac "Literary Moscow". His son said: “Kaverin was a member of the editorial board and was very actively involved in the affairs of the almanac. The first volume of the almanac was published in January 1956, on the eve of the 20th Party Congress. He was not only a success with readers, but was favorably received by critics and "bosses". The second volume came out at the end of 1956. The second part of the novel "The Open Book" was printed in it. The situation had changed greatly by that time. In the Hungarian democratic movement, which was crushed by Soviet tanks in November 1956, writers, the Petofi Club, played an important role. Therefore, now the liberal-minded literary community was under suspicion. And in general, the atmosphere in literature and public life became more severe after the “Hungarian events”. The second almanac "Literary Moscow" was met with hostility. Yashin's story "Leverage" caused a particularly great fury. Yashin, who at that time could hardly have read Orwell, nevertheless described the phenomenon that Orwell called "doublethink". This could not have gone unnoticed, so the almanac, most likely, would have been smashed without the “Hungarian events”. The case was not limited to critical attacks in the press. Party bureaus and committees met, writers-members of the party were obliged to "admit mistakes" at the discussion of the almanac in the Writers' Union. Kaverin was not a member of the party, and did not want to admit mistakes. At the discussion, he vigorously defended the almanac. He was worried, his voice broke. Surkov, who was then a prominent literary and party official, who concluded the discussion, said (as always with a sour voice): “It seems that we are discussing serious questions here if one of the founders of Soviet literature was so worried that he even let the rooster go.” Emmanuil Kazakevich, the editor-in-chief of the almanac, very expressively reproduced this speech by Surkov. My sister and I then for a long time called our father nothing more than "the founder."

In the 1960s, Kaverin placed in the New World, headed by Alexander Tvardovsky, the novels Seven Pairs of the Unclean and Oblique Rain, written in 1962, as well as articles in which he sought to resurrect the memory of the Serapion Brothers and rehabilitate Mikhail Zoshchenko . In the 1970s, Kaverin spoke out in defense of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and other disgraced writers. Kaverin himself did not give up, creating his truthful prose - in 1965 he wrote a book of articles and memoirs “Hello, brother. It is very difficult to write ... ", in 1967 - the novel "Double Portrait", in 1972 - the novel "In Front of the Mirror", in 1976 - the autobiographical narrative "Illuminated Windows", in 1978 - a collection of articles and memoirs "Evening Day ", in 1981 - the fairy tale "Verlioka", in 1982 - the novel "The Science of Parting", in 1985 - the book of memoirs "Desk" and many other works.

For the first time, Kaverin's works began to be filmed in 1926. The film studio Lenfilm filmed the film "An Alien Jacket", a film in two episodes "Two Captains" and a television film in nine episodes "Open Book". Kaverin himself considered the television version of the story "School Play" to be the most successful. In total, three films were made based on the novel "Two Captains". And on October 19, 2001, the premiere of the musical Nord-Ost, based on this novel, took place in Moscow. On April 11, 2002, at the North Pole, the authors of the musical Georgy Vasiliev and Alexei Ivashchenko hoisted the Nord-Ost flag with the immortal motto of the polar explorers "Fight and seek, find and not give up."

Kaverin was neither a dissident nor a fighter, and, nevertheless, he had the courage to repeatedly condemn the arbitrariness of power and the cynicism of the dominant ideology. Kaverin wrote an open letter in which he announced the severance of relations with his old comrade Konstantin Fedin, when he did not allow Solzhenitsyn's novel Cancer Ward to the Russian reader. Kaverin settled scores with enemies in the book of memoirs "Epilogue", which he wrote on the table in the 1970s.

The "Epilogue" described the history of Soviet literature and the biographies of its creators without any rouge and embellishment, presenting Kaverin's stern and courageous look at who is who. It told about the degradation of Tikhonov, the betrayal of Fedin, the resistance of Schwartz, the martyrdom of Zoshchenko, the courage of Pasternak, a harsh sentence was passed on Alexei Tolstoy and Valentin Kataev, there was pain for Leonid Dobychin, tenderness for Mandelstam and disgust for Konstantin Simonov. About Simonov, Kaverin wrote: “He outlined to me the brilliant theory of successively taking five Stalin Prizes. And took six ... ". "Epilogue" turned out to be scorching and bitter. The history of this book is not without interest in itself. - recalled Nikolai Kaverin. - In 1975, Kaverin finished it, but three years later he returned to it again, the work was finally completed in 1979. The previous part of the memoirs, Illuminated Windows, which dealt with the pre-revolutionary period, had been published a few years earlier, but the publication of the Epilogue, which tells about the Soviet period, was out of the question. The book, in particular, deals with an attempt by the NKVD to recruit Kaverin as a literary informer in the autumn of 1941 (they had nothing more to do at the moment when the blockade of Leningrad was closed, and Guderian was advancing on Moscow). We are talking about the preparation of the deportation of Jews during the period of the "doctors' case" and the related attempt to concoct a letter from "prominent Jews" with a request to shoot the "killer doctors", about the persecution of Solzhenitsyn, about the defeat of Tvardovsky's "New World". And all this is described by a participant in the events, and even a Kaverin pen! "Epilogue" and now - a sharp and interesting reading, and then the book was perceived as a clear attempt on Soviet power. Kaverin did not want to publish the book abroad. He was going to continue to write and publish, and did not at all aspire to prison or emigration. It was decided to postpone the manuscript until better times, and for safety's sake, send it abroad, let it lie there and wait in the wings. At that time, the authorities were just about to expel Vladimir Voinovich abroad, and Kaverin agreed with him that if Voinovich really leaves, then the manuscript will be forwarded to him. Simply giving it to Voinovich to take the manuscript with him seemed too risky, and besides, the work on the memoirs was not quite finished yet. Then, when Voinovich had already left, and the book was completed, I asked Lyusha (Elena Tsezarevna Chukovskaya) to help with sending the manuscript. I knew that she had considerable experience in this kind of business. But, apparently, just at that time she could not do this herself, since the "all-seeing eye" was carefully watching her in connection with her participation in Solzhenitsyn's affairs. Therefore, she asked Boris Birger, an artist known throughout the world, but not recognized by the Soviet authorities, to help send the manuscript. I did not tell Kaverin himself about all these details, he only knew that I intended to ensure that the manuscript was forwarded to Voinovich. It was because of this that there was a moment when the case took an unexpected turn and almost broke. Birger requested that the manuscript be taken to an acquaintance, an Austrian diplomat, who doubted whether the author really wanted his memoirs to be sent to the free West. And both of them, Birger and the diplomat, came to Kaverin's dacha in Peredelkino to get the author's personal approval. I was not at the dacha at that moment, and no one could explain to Kaverin what relation Birger, and even more so the unknown Austrian, had to the Epilogue. Nevertheless, everything went well. Kaverin understood everything, confirmed his approval of the intended transfer, and the "Epilogue" went to Voinovich, where he lay until "better times." "Better times" eventually came, the book did not have to be published abroad. The Epilogue was published in 1989 by the Moskovsky Rabochiy publishing house. Kaverin managed to see the signal copy ... ".

Someone very rightly noted: “Kaverin is one of those people whom literature has made happy: he always wrote enthusiastically, always read others with pleasure.” Perhaps it was this concentrated immersion in books, archives, manuscripts that allowed him in the most cruel years to “protect his heart from evil” and remain true to his friends and himself. And therefore, in his own writings, in which good is always - clearly and clearly - separated from evil, we find "the world is somewhat bookish, but pure and noble" (E.L. Schwartz).

Reflecting on his successes and failures, Veniamin Alexandrovich wrote: “My only consolation is that I still had my own way ...” Pavel Antokolsky spoke about the same: “Each artist is strong because he is not like the others. Kaverin has the pride of "a face with a non-general expression."

Autobiography (Collection "Soviet Writers", Autobiographies in 2 volumes., State. publishing house Literature, M., 1959)

I was born in 1902 in the city of Pskov, in the family of a musician. In 1912 he entered the Pskov gymnasium. My older brother's friend Yu. N. Tynyanov, later a well-known writer, was my first literary teacher, who inspired me with an ardent love for Russian literature.

At the age of sixteen, I arrived in Moscow, where in 1919 I graduated from high school. In those years I wrote poetry, but, having met with a severe assessment of my experiments by well-known writers, I decided to leave literary studies and devote myself to scientific work. In 1920 I transferred from Moscow University to Petrograd University, at the same time entering the Institute of Oriental Languages. However, the competition for young writers gave me the idea to try my hand at literature again. Here's how it happened.

Preparing for an exam in logic, I first read a summary of Lobachevsky's non-Euclidean geometry and was struck by the courage of the mind that imagined that parallel lines converge in space, and based on this strange idea built a new doctrine, as accurate as the doctrine of Euclid.

Professor L. examined me for forty minutes. Tired but cheerful, I was returning home and on Basseynaya Street I saw a poster that guessed my most hidden thoughts. The House of Writers invited everyone to take part in the competition of novice writers. Five prizes were awarded - the first five, the second - four and three thirds of three thousand rubles each.

From the House of Writers to Grechesky Prospekt, where I lived, it was not far - ten minutes walk. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that these ten minutes have defined the main features of my life. When I got home, I decided to leave forever the poems that I had been writing every day for several years, switch to prose and take part in the competition.

Finally - this was the most important - I had time to think about my first story: "The Eleventh Axiom." As you know, Lobachevsky did not agree with Euclid's eleventh axiom. Thus, the idea that formed the basis of my first story was directly related to the exam in logic - I was then a first-year student at Petrograd University.

Lobachevsky brought parallel lines in space. What prevents me from bringing together - not only in space, but also in time - two parallel plots? It is only necessary that, regardless of the place and time of action, there should be an internal logical connection between the characters.

Arriving home, I took a ruler and drew a sheet of paper lengthwise into two equal columns. On the left, I began to write the story of a monk who loses his faith, cuts icons and flees from the monastery. On the right - the story of a student who loses his own and other people's money at cards. The first story takes place in the Middle Ages. The action of the second - on the eve of the revolution. At the end of the third page - it was a very short story - two "parallel" stories converged. The student and the monk met on the banks of the Neva. They had nothing to talk about, and, trying to describe the depth of the fall of his heroes, the author turned to the description of the gloomy picture of autumn Petrograd.

I wrote this story within three days and under the significant motto: "Art must be built on the formulas of the exact sciences" - I sent it to the competition.

The answer did not come soon. But even before receiving an answer, I managed to accidentally find out that my story was awarded by the jury. I lived with Yuri Nikolayevich Tynyanov, at that time a young scholar and historian of literature. Studying - no longer logic, but Russian history - I heard through the half-open door someone's soft, unfamiliar voice, which told - I heard right - the content of my story.

It is still written in a very childish way, - this voice said, - but, in my opinion, it deserves a prize. At least for a strange imagination!

Of course, I immediately guessed that Tynyanov's guest was one of the jury members. But I did not ask Yuri Nikolayevich. He liked to make fun of my poems, and I did not dare to tell him that when I saw the poster for the House of Writers, I suddenly switched to prose.

Three or four months passed, and the prize was awarded - however, not the first, not the second, and not even the third "a". But for a nineteen-year-old student, the third "b" award was an amazing event. First story - and a bonus! I wrote it in three days! What happens if I work on the next story for three weeks?

Looking ahead, I must say that nothing happened. Following on from The Eleventh Axiom, I wrote nine stories that had no success.

In the accounting department of the House of Writers, they handed me three thousand rubles. This was in 1920, and while the jury was debating the stories submitted, the money had dropped in value. Returning home, I bought six toffee - five hundred rubles apiece. It was my first literary fee. I remember with what joy I brought these toffees to Yuri Nikolayevich Tynyanov and treated my teacher and best friend.

So I started writing. It has not yet been a career choice. And in those years, and much later, I continued to think about scientific activity. But it was a touch on the world of literary passions, excitements, ambitious dreams...

The idea that this is the world of labor was first suggested to me by Gorky. I remember the spring day of 1921 when Gorky first invited the Serapion Brothers to his place. He lived on Kronverksky, Alexander Park opened from the windows of the apartment. We went in and, since there were many of us, we sat down awkwardly for a long time - the more daring closer to the owner, the more timid - on the ottoman, from which it was then difficult to get up, because it turned out to be unusually soft and leaned to the very floor. This ottoman will stay in my memory forever. Having sank down on it, I suddenly saw my far-reaching legs in coarse soldier's boots. It was impossible to hide them. Get up - there's nothing to think about! Worried, I thought about the boots for a long time and calmed down only when I was convinced that Vsevolod Ivanov, who was sitting next to Alexei Maksimovich, had the same and even a little worse.

Feeling of complete uncertainty - how to behave? - immediately fettered me, as soon as I saw Gorky. I was struck by the bookshelves that did not stand against the walls and formed, as it were, two rows of cozy, small rooms. A movable pillow was attached to the back of the bed, which was in Alexei Maksimovich's office, the purpose of which I did not immediately understand: sitting on the bed, it was convenient to lean on the pillow with my head. I remember not only these little things - dozens of others. Among the things that had no right to seem ordinary, a man of enormous stature, slightly hunched, but still with a heroic swing of his shoulders, stood and walked, bowing, hiding a soft and sly smile under his mustache.

In Carroll's famous book Alice in Wonderland, the heroine experiences strange transformations on almost every page: she becomes small, then large. Something similar began to happen to me when I found myself at Gorky's. It seemed to me that I could and even should intervene in the conversation that had begun between Gorky and my senior comrades, intervene and impress everyone with the depth of my considerations. Then I cringed - and then it turned out that some boy with a finger was sitting on an uncomfortable low couch.

Alexey Maksimovich spoke with great approval about Ivanov's last story, "The Brazier of the Archangel Gabriel" - perhaps it was at this time that my transformations began. Ivanov's story was very far from what interested me in literature, and I took Gorky's high appraisal as a merciless condemnation of all my dreams and hopes. Then Aleksey Maksimovich began to read this story aloud, and all the while he was reading, I thought painfully about what to say when the reading was over. I had objections that went very far. In my opinion, in the "Brazier of the Archangel Gabriel" there was no "defamiliarization of everyday life" - and meanwhile, in literature, everyday life must certainly turn into its "sharp side", that is, those features that border on fantasy. On this basis, I denied, for example, Turgenev, from whom a few years later I began to study with the energy of youth that hates compromises.

One way or another, as I sat on the couch and listened to Archangel Gabriel's Brazier, I was feverishly preparing for objections. Alexei Maksimovich read the story. His face became soft, tenderness appeared in his eyes, his movements showed that softness of the soul, which is well known to those who saw Gorky in a moment of admiration.

He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and spoke of the story. Admiration did not prevent him from pointing out the shortcomings - moreover, the remarks were deeply professional and sometimes related to a single word.

"What is the work of a writer?" he asked, and for the first time I heard very strange things. It turns out that the work of a writer is precisely work, that is, daily, maybe hourly writing - on paper or in the mind. These are mountains of drafts, dozens of rejected options. This is patience, because talent dooms the writer to a special life, and in this life the main thing is patience. This struggle with oneself is painful, because all the forces of the soul are directed precisely towards becoming oneself. This is the life of Zola, who tied himself to a chair, Goncharov, who wrote The Cliff for about twenty years, Jack London, who died of fatigue, whatever the doctors called it. This life is hard and selfless, full of trials and disappointments. “Do not believe those,” Gorky said, “who say that this is easy bread.”

I listened in amazement. Everything seems easy in youth - especially when you get an award for a story written in a few days. But in the words of Alexei Maksimovich I felt the whole depth of his work, the whole sanctity of his attitude to literature. And how I wanted to give this painful work all the strength of my mind and heart!

We were about to leave when Gorky spoke of our material affairs. Needless to say, how helpful it was! The writers who gathered that day at Kronverksky had not a penny. We were dressed in such a way that lonely passers-by, meeting us in the evenings, hurriedly crossed to the other side of the street - this happened, for example, with Tikhonov. Fedin, who wore a hat, looked like a dandy. Many walked in overcoats. Gorky outlined our material prospects, and among the lofty literary concepts, for the first time, the word "fee" sounded, as if emphasizing the entire professionalism of the conversation.

It was time to say goodbye, and although we parted for a short time - a new meeting was arranged - Gorky said a few affectionate, encouraging words to each of us at parting.

I stood aside, tired of the excitement and probably upset that I had not been able to prove to Alexei Maksimovich that I write better than anyone and generally smarter than everyone in the world. And suddenly I heard him praising one of the young writers for my story "The Eleventh Axiom". For my story - it was incomprehensible!

You are a mischievous person, - he said with pleasure. - And your fantasy is mischievous, intricate. But good! Fine.

Alexei Maksimovich, this is not my story. This is Kaverina.

Smiling good-naturedly, Alexei Maksimovich turned to me. This was the moment when I had to tell him about my hopes and doubts, to ask about what only he could answer. But I hurriedly leaned forward, very close to Alexei Maksimovich, and said unnaturally loudly:

Yes, this story is mine!

Until now, with a sense of shame, I remember the awkward pause that came at that moment. Alexei Maksimovich became clouded. He wanted to say something else, but changed his mind and suddenly, turning away from me, spoke to someone else. Smiling wildly, I walked away and again sat down on the couch, which was completely pointless, because everyone had already said goodbye to Alexei Maksimovich and was getting dressed in the hall.

I woke up - in the literal sense of the word - when I heard Gorky's voice addressed to me. Did he understand what was going on in my soul, or just wanted to show that he did not attach any importance to my shyness? Don't know. But he spoke to me so affectionately, with such attention - how I live, where I study - that I instantly came to life and found enough strength in myself to calmly answer his questions.

We went to Kronverksky - seven young people infinitely distant from each other in biographies and characters, inclinations and tastes. But, like the seven brothers of Pushkin's fairy tale, we loved one princess - Russian literature - and for the sake of this love we set off on a long, difficult journey.

We walked along the Kronverksky, then along the Troitsky bridge. There was that wet, sea, arctic weather, by which Leningraders accurately determine the approach of spring. Polynyas were already blackening on the Neva, “gulls swooped low in hell with muddy water ...

The history of my acquaintance with Gorky is not limited to this meeting. Over the years of work, I have always met with attention and sympathy from his side. He expressed his good opinion of me - both in personal letters and in print. I owe him a lot. He met a nineteen-year-old youth who had barely picked up a pen, as an older friend, and since then I have always felt that I can boldly rely on his mighty hand.

Having noticed me from the first story, he began to teach me - and did this with all the generosity of a great man. He asked about me in letters to my senior comrades - Fedin, Gruzdev. Following the appearance of each of my books, I received a letter from him containing strict but kind criticism and advice, not only literary, but also everyday.

In 1923 I graduated from the Institute of Oriental Languages, and a year later I graduated from the Leningrad University and was left at the university in graduate school. For six years I was engaged in scientific work and in 1929 I defended my dissertation entitled "Baron Brambeus". Story; Osip Senkovsky, editor of the "Library for Reading" (Publishing house of writers in Leningrad, 1929). However, in the late 1920s, I was already a professional writer who finally decided to devote himself to fiction.

Comparing now my books, written in the early 1920s, I clearly see that, despite all the efforts to make them unlike each other, they are similar, and the similarity lies in the lack of life experience, which I tried in vain to compensate for the stylistic "game and sharp plot twists. These were fantastic stories in which alchemists, conjurers, medieval monks acted - and the author, who from time to time gathered his heroes to consult with them about the further development of events. The first, still very timid way out of this circle of narrowly literary ideas was the story "The End of Khaza", in which I tried to portray the bandits and raiders of the NEP years, the "thieves' world" of Leningrad. While collecting material for The End of Khaza, I read criminal chronicles, went to court hearings, and sometimes spent evenings in brothels, of which there were still many at that time. I prepared for work exactly as my older comrades did, who repeatedly and justly reproached me for not knowing life, for trying to hide from it behind the walls of a student room littered with books on the history of literature. And yet, almost everything that I managed to learn about the raiders and bandits remained in my notebook, and the story was written with the help of "ready-made schemes" and youthful imagination. Only one side of it slightly revealed the originality of the "thieves' world" - the very language of the raiders, the thieves' "slang", which interested me as a linguist.

The story was a success - however, scandalous. One of the reviews was titled: "How Gosizdat printed a guide to hooliganism."

In the winter of 1928, I met at Yuri Nikolayevich Tynyanov's with a writer, lively and sharp, who was in the prime of his talent and deeply convinced that he knew all the secrets of the literary business. They talked about the genre of the novel, and the writer noticed that this genre was beyond the power of even Chekhov, so there is nothing surprising in the fact that it fails in modern literature. I had objections, and with irony, in which he was always unusually strong, he expressed doubts about my abilities for this complex matter. Furious, I said that tomorrow I would sit down to write a novel, and it would be a book about him. The very next day I began to write the novel Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island. Apparently, only youth is capable of such decisions, and only in youth can one walk with such frankness with a notebook on the heels of his future character. He laughed at me. He poured jokes, shone with witticisms, sometimes unusually well-aimed and remembered for a lifetime - I blushed, but wrote down. He was probably quite convinced that nothing would come of the novel, otherwise, perhaps, he would have been more careful in this unusual duel.

I remembered this story because it was my first "sketching from nature" and working on it for the first time made me see the vague outlines of realistic prose in the distance. A living, “visible to the naked eye” hero could not exist in an airless literary world.

In the summer of 1930, I went to the Salsk steppes to see the famous Gigant grain farm. There was nothing special about this trip, especially since many people went to the Gigant at that time - the workers of the state farm even complained that the delegations were hindering work. But for me, essentially a roommate, immersed in books, although still quite a young man, this trip turned out to be a double discovery - the discovery of new people in new, as yet unprecedented circumstances, and the discovery of my own opportunity to write about these people. However, it was not immediately possible to be convinced of this last possibility. Like an inexperienced, novice writer, I rushed to write down absolutely everything I saw, having no idea what I would write - an essay, a novel, a play? When I returned, I wrote a book of travel stories, Prologue, with great care (which I did not even consider myself capable of).

The attack on the inert world of village life that has developed over the centuries, the struggle for the consciousness of the peasant, who stopped in amazement at what the people of the "Giant" have done - this is the theme of this small but very dear book to me.

Each of us can probably present his own account of criticism - who is longer and who is shorter. I was sharply criticized even before the Prologue. But I would like to start the account with this book. It was difficult for me to translate, which is described above. I doubted my own abilities, I was afraid that I did not have - or almost did not have - that writer's vision, without which there was no hope for success in a new, unusual genre for me. Due to inertia, which still dominates some critical minds, I was met with hostility. The book was scolded without the slightest leniency. One of the reviewers accused me, to my amazement, of Continianism. Why not in Kantianism, which equally had nothing to do with my travel stories, this remained a mystery to me...

It is difficult to convey the strange feeling with which the first chapters of the novel "Fulfillment of Desires" were written. It was as if for the first time in my life I picked up a pen - so awkwardly, clumsily, I added line to line, phrase to phrase. It seemed to me that I had completely forgotten how to write - a sad guess after thirteen years of almost daily work! Everything has to start again. But how to start? Is it worth it?

I continued to work, overcoming the timidity, even the horror that seized me when, after long hours of work, I managed to write only a few sentences. And gradually it became clear to me that a decisive turn towards a real depiction of life should have entailed a completely different stylistic manner. Until now, I have written in a stylistically complex way, not only not striving for simplicity and distinctness of the language, but, it must be confessed, embarrassed by this simplicity, if it involuntarily showed through. Now I began to write in the most ordinary colloquial language, in the only possible manner, which was dictated by the transition to a new image of reality for me.

But it was not only that. The former stylistic manner, as it were, allowed me to bypass those impressions and reflections, that knowledge of life that I really possessed, but which seemed to me too simple and simply boring for fiction. Now I guessed that in vain I considered myself a person devoid of experience and life observations.

I knew the Leningrad University of the 1920s, where the old and the new clashed with extraordinary sharpness and force. For me, the Timiryazev rebellion of some professors and the medieval inertia of others were clear. I understood the life of the archives, frozen, but keeping thousands of secrets, and reading manuscripts was an exciting and gambling affair for me.

There was experience, but in order to use it, one had to make (of course, for oneself) a discovery in literature. Everything came in handy for Fulfillment of Wishes, even a seminar on ancient Russian writing, even a huge torn cloak, in which (a tribute to the passion for German romantics) I once went to this seminar. With a key in hand, very cheerful, I wandered around my household and opened various secret boxes and chests that kept half-forgotten material, from which I still saw no use.

Subsequently, re-reading Tolstoy's diaries, I realized that ruthless introspection was for Tolstoy nothing more than a school of self-knowledge - a psychological and technological school that determined much in his brilliant works. Each of us strives to express ourselves in our books, and in the work on Wish Fulfillment, I was able for the first time to consciously use my own, as yet very small, school of self-knowledge.

The novel was written for a long time, more than three years. The key that opened my own youth to me, unfortunately, could not help me in another, very important side of the matter. Until now, my heroes have acted either outside of time, or simultaneously with the author, who wrote them down "on a living trail." Now I had to evaluate the recent past with the eyes of a historical novelist. It is historical, although the action of the novel takes place at the end of the 20s, and it was written in the mid-30s. The enormous distance that the country has covered in this short period of time has turned modern material into historical material, requiring a different, much more complex method of study.

Not relying on my memory, I leafed through newspapers and magazines, asked my university comrades, in a word, built (still with a very timid hand) the historical background, the scenery of the era. The matter was somewhat facilitated by the fact that I was, after all, a literary historian who studied under very strict and demanding teachers, so that I felt at ease in libraries. But the study of people, as we know, is not the task of the history of literature.

Not to mention how much trouble I had to work on the plot of Wish Fulfillment. I have always been and remain a story writer and have never understood why this powerful weapon is neglected by many writers and critics who believe that plot and second-rate are close, if not identical concepts. Critics pursued me all my life for my predilection for a sharp plot, and if it were not for Gorky, who inspired me, even when I was a young man, that I should cherish this inclination of mine, I probably would, in the end, write plotless, boring works. The enormous significance of the composition, on which Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky worked with such persistence, is underestimated in our prose.

I will not talk about how the plot of "Wish Fulfillment" helped me paint a picture of the development of two young people with different characters and biographies, but with the same "long-distance tickets" to the future of the Soviet country...

In 1936, in a sanatorium near Leningrad, where I was resting, there was talk of Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered. The venerable professor - an intelligent and educated man, but somewhat old-fashioned - spoke coldly about the novel. His interlocutor, a young scholar, objected to him ardently, and I was amazed at the excitement with which he defended his favorite book: he turned pale, he could not restrain himself from harsh expressions.

This dispute deeply interested me - and not only because at that time I conceived a novel dedicated to the history of a Soviet young man. The success of Ostrovsky's book amazed professional writers. The theme of amazement at the possibilities that a person discovers in himself, new to our literature, was expressed in it sincerely and truly. It was not difficult to guess that the ardent defender of Ostrovsky read his biography in his book.

We ended up at the same table. He was gloomy, tired, and we did not talk right away. But day by day our relationship became closer. He was a man in whom ardor was combined with straightforwardness, and perseverance - with amazing definiteness of purpose. He knew how to succeed in any business, even if it was a game of carom, which we were then fond of. A clear mind and a capacity for deep feeling were visible in his every judgment.

Over the course of six evenings, he told me the story of his life - extraordinary, because it was full of extraordinary events, and at the same time similar to the lives of hundreds of other Soviet people. I listened, then I began to write down, and those forty or fifty pages that I then wrote down formed the basis of the novel "Two Captains".

Returning home, I set to work with zeal and completed it in three months with unusual ease and speed. The manuscript was sent to one of the Moscow journals and returned with a polite but definite refusal.

The failure was painful, acute. I put the manuscript aside and set to work on a long-planned book about the great Russian geometer Lobachevsky.

I did not write a novel about Lobachevsky, although I spent more than half a year reading printed and handwritten materials. It seemed to me that without a clear understanding of what the life of a scientist was devoted to, it would be impossible to write about him, and in mathematics I have never been strong. And after much deliberation, I returned to the first, failed draft of The Two Captains.

Whether the time needed to evaluate what was written with different eyes has passed, or whether the study of Lobachevsky helped, I don’t know. But, after re-reading the manuscript, I immediately realized that it lacked the main thing - the protagonist's view of his own life, the ideal that he followed, the picture of Soviet society, to which he owed his development. Between me and my hero there was a huge difference in age, education, origin. I looked for complex solutions where everything was simple for him. “Do you know what I would have become if not for the revolution? A robber,” I recalled these words with which my interlocutor ended his story. Seeing the world through the eyes of a young man shocked by the idea of ​​justice - this task presented itself to me in all its significance. And I decided - for the first time in my life - to write a novel in the first person.

From the very first pages it was decided not to invent anything or almost anything; Nothing. And indeed, even such extraordinary details as the dumbness of little Sanya were not invented by me. His mother and father, sister and comrades are written exactly as they first appeared to me in the story of my casual acquaintance. About some of the heroes of the future book I learned very little from him; for example, Korablev was depicted in this story with only two or three features: a sharp, attentive look, which invariably forced schoolchildren to tell the truth, a mustache, a cane, and the ability to sit up over a book until late at night. The rest had to be completed by the imagination of the author, who sought to depict the figure of a Soviet teacher.

In essence, the story I heard was very simple. It was the story of a boy who had a difficult childhood and who was brought up by Soviet society - people who became his family and supported the dream that from an early age lit up in his direct and fair heart.

Almost all the circumstances of the life of this boy, then a young man and an adult are preserved in The Two Captains. But his childhood passed on the middle Volga, school years in Tashkent - places that I know relatively poorly. So I moved the scene to my hometown, called it Anskom. It is not for nothing that my countrymen easily guess the true name of the city in which Sanya Grigoriev was born and raised! My school years (the last classes) passed in Moscow, and it was easier for me to portray the Moscow school of the early 1920s than the Tashkent school, which I had never seen in real life.

When the first chapters were written, which tell about Sanya Grigoriev's childhood in Ensk, it became clear to me that something extraordinary was about to happen in this small town - an accident, an event, a meeting. That extraordinary thing that will illuminate and warm the life of my hero, and perhaps - then it was still vague - will lead him along. The novel was written in the late 1930s, which brought the Soviet country huge, breathtaking victories in the Arctic, and I realized that the “extraordinary” I was looking for was the light of the Arctic stars that accidentally fell into a small, abandoned city.

And, returning to the first page, I told the story of the drowned postman and gave a letter from the navigator Klimov, which opened the second line of the novel. It would seem that what is in common between the tragic story of a nine-year-old boy who was left an orphan, and the story of a captain who tried to go through the Great Northern Sea Route in one navigation? But there was something in common. So a dream appeared in the novel, and for the first time the thought of two captains flashed.

I must note that Senior Lieutenant S. Ya. Klebanov, who died a hero's death in 1943, rendered me enormous, invaluable help in studying flying. He was a talented pilot and a wonderful clean person. I was proud of his friendship. While working on the second volume, I stumbled (among the materials of the Commission for the Study of the Patriotic War) on the reviews of fellow soldiers of S. Ya. Klebanov and made sure that my high opinion of him was shared by his comrades in military affairs.

It is difficult or even impossible to fully answer the question of how this or that figure of the hero of a literary work is created, especially if the story is told in the first person. In addition to observations, memories, impressions, my book includes historical materials that were needed for my second main character, Captain Tatarinov.

You should not, of course, look for this name in encyclopedic dictionaries! It should not be proved, as one boy did in a geography lesson, that Tatarinov, and not Vilkitsky, discovered Severnaya Zemlya. For my "senior captain" I used the story of two brave conquerors of the Far North. From one I took a courageous and clear character, purity of thought, clarity of purpose - everything that exposes a person of great soul. It was Sedov. The other has the actual history of his journey. It was Brusilov. The drift of my "St. Mary" exactly repeats the drift of Brusilov's "St. Anna." The diary of the navigator Klimov, given in my novel, is completely based on the diary of the navigator “St. Anna" Albanov - one of the two surviving members of this tragic expedition. However, only historical materials seemed insufficient to me. I knew that the artist and writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Pinegin, a friend of Sedov, lived in Leningrad, one of those who, after his death, brought the schooner “St. Foka" to the mainland. We met, and Pinegin not only told me a lot of new things about Sedov, not only drew his face with extraordinary clarity, but explained the tragedy of his life - the life of a great explorer and traveler, who was not recognized and slandered by the reactionary sections of the society of Tsarist Russia. By the way, during one of our meetings, Pinegin treated me to canned food, which he picked up at Cape Flora in 1914, and, to my amazement, they turned out to be excellent. I mention this trifle for the reason that it is typical for Pinegin and for the range of interests in which I found myself visiting this “polar” house.

Subsequently, when the first volume was already completed, Sedov's widow told me a lot of interesting things.

In the summer of 1941, I worked hard on the second volume, in which I wanted to make extensive use of the story of the famous pilot Levanevsky. The plan was already finally thought over, the materials were studied, the first chapters were written. The well-known polar explorer Wiese approved the content of the future "Arctic" chapters and told me a lot of interesting things about the work of the search parties. But the war began, and I had to leave the thought of ending the novel for a long time. I wrote front-line correspondence, military essays, stories. However, it must be that the hope of returning to the Two Captains has not completely abandoned me, otherwise I would not have turned to the editor of Izvestia with a request to send me to the Northern Fleet. It was there, among the pilots and submariners of the Northern Fleet, that I understood in what direction I needed to work on the second volume of the novel. It became clear to me that the appearance of the heroes of my book would be vague, unclear if I did not tell about how they endured the hard trials of the war and won.

From books, from stories, from personal impressions, I knew what life in peacetime was like for those who, sparing no effort, selflessly worked to turn the Far North into a cheerful, hospitable land - discovered its innumerable riches beyond the Arctic Circle, built cities, wharves, mines, factories. Now, during the war, I saw how all this mighty energy was thrown into the defense of their native places, how the first conquerors of the North became indomitable defenders of their conquests. It may be objected to me that the same thing has happened in every corner of our country. Of course yes! But the harsh environment of the Far North gave this turn a special character.

The unforgettable impressions of those years entered my novel only to a small extent, and when I leaf through my old notebooks, I want to start writing a long-planned book dedicated to the history of the Soviet sailor.

At one literary evening in the dormitory of Moscow State University - it was shortly after the war - it was said that we have absolutely no books on the growth of creative consciousness in science. “Meanwhile,” said one ardent girl, very angry with Soviet literature, “science has penetrated into the very depths of our life, and determines the country’s forward movement towards communism.”

The girl was absolutely right. But she hardly had a clear idea of ​​all the amount of work that needs to be invested in a work dedicated to people of science.

In fact, during all thirty years of work, I approached such a work from different angles. My first story, "The Eleventh Axiom", was submitted to the competition of young writers under the motto: "Art must be built on the formulas of the exact sciences." I tried to tell the life of Lobachevsky. Wish Fulfillment depicts the search and hopes of two young scientists. It always seemed to me that the very principles of scientific creativity are instructive and important for the writer - it is not for nothing that their study has always been reflected in literature with such fruitfulness.

But how to approach the matter? What scientific material to focus on? Should it have an educational character, or will it enter the general historical background?

These and many other questions resolved themselves when I settled on microbiologists whom I had known for a long time and whose work I followed with admiration. Russian microbiology has always been led forward by people of strong character, courageous optimists, ready for self-sacrifice and clearly aware of the place that this young science is to occupy among other natural sciences. These are Mechnikov, Zabolotny, Gamaleya. These high traditions have been preserved in our time.

While working on The Two Captains, I surrounded myself with books on aviation and the history of the Arctic. Now microbiological works have taken their place, and this, unfortunately, turned out to be much more difficult. First of all, it was necessary to learn to read these works differently from the way scientists read them themselves.

To restore the train of thought of a scientist, to read behind the dry short lines of a scientific article what this person lived, to understand the history and meaning of the struggle against enemies (and sometimes friends), which is almost always present in scientific work - this is the task, without which there is nothing to solve. take on such a topic. It was necessary to be able to understand exactly what the scientist throws out of brackets - the psychology of his work.

So, the study of scientific material was the first difficulty.

The second - and even greater - was that at the heart of the conceived novel (I began it shortly after The Two Captains) was the story of a woman, told by herself.

The hero of The Two Captains was nevertheless close to me, despite all the difference in age and education. In the "Open Book" the story is told on behalf of a girl, then a girl, then on behalf of a fully formed person - the voice of the narrator, her attitude towards loved ones, towards herself, towards her work change from part to part. At the same time, stylistic features are changing, emphasizing - one after another - the stages of a developing creative consciousness. Add to this the need for professional coloring - after all, the heroine of the novel comes in a difficult way into a complex, rapidly developing field of science ... In a word, I would not have taken up this business if I had a clear idea of ​​what unexpected mysteries this side of work is fraught with.

And in previous books, a lot of work cost me what can only approximately be called a historical background. The Open Book trilogy takes place over thirty-five years. There is nothing to say about how important it was to give this "movement in time" with characteristic features - and not only characteristic, but closely related to the development of Soviet science. Memory easily deceives, and every, even an insignificant fact of the past requires careful verification. You can't go wrong, even in small things. Try to admit an inaccuracy, and twenty readers will immediately point out it with offensive condescension. In the second part of the trilogy, I sent my characters to the Agricultural Exhibition in a double-decker bus. "Mistake!" - caught the readers. A double-decker trolleybus went to the exhibition in 1940. In "Two Captains" I used a very illegible facsimile of a letter from Lieutenant Brusilov to his mother, and one meticulous schoolboy not only got to the source, but proved to me that two words of Brusilov's letter were read incorrectly.

But not only because The Open Book was written so slowly and with such difficulty that I had to read books on microbiology or carefully study the "historical background". For almost ten years, I had to fight for this book, mainly with some critics, who sometimes reproached me for dealing too much with the topic of love, as if in the Soviet country they stopped falling in love, yearning, reading poetry, thinking about true or imaginary love; sometimes they urged me to part with my “inferior” heroes and take up others who were decisively positive in all respects. It was very difficult to step over the persistent desire to direct the novel along a different path, which did not interest me at all and, in fact, was far from the task that confronted me. This does not apply to serious critical analyzes of my novel, which helped me - of course, to the best of my ability and ability - to depict the growth of the character of Soviet man in connection with the growth of his scientific consciousness.

The plot of my trilogy is the story of a discovery that had a profound impact on the development of medical science, starting a new era in this science. But, while working on the Open Book, I realized that the story of Tanya Vlasenkova had long gone beyond this plot. That is why it begins to seem to me that I have found some new step in my work. Leo Tolstoy said that his heroes do not act as he orders them, but as they cannot but act. I think that this law is one of the most important laws of realistic prose.

Biography

Born April 19, 1902 in Pskov in the family of a military musician. He studied at the Pskov gymnasium, finished school in Moscow. In 1920 he moved to Petrograd; studied at the same time at the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Petrograd University and at the Institute of Oriental Languages ​​(graduated in 1923-1924). From his youth, Kaverin was friends with the writer Yu. N. Tynyanov, whose sister he was married to; it was Tynyanov who advised him, after unsuccessful poetic experiments, to turn to prose. Already his first story "The Eleventh Axiom" (1920) attracted the attention of M. Gorky. In 1921, Kaverin joined the Serapion Brothers group, which united young writers. In their almanac appeared the story "Chronicle of the city of Leipzig for 18 ... year", written by Kaverin in the spirit of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Veniamin Aleksandrovich combined intense writing work with science; in 1929 he defended his Ph.D. thesis in philology. During the Great Patriotic War, Kaverin was a front-line correspondent in the Northern Fleet. Many episodes of military life later formed the basis of his stories. After the victory, the writer lived in Moscow. In literature, he took an independent position, his statements in defense of freedom of creativity, about the need for respect for writing, caused discontent among the authorities. In his books, he raised the eternal questions of the struggle between good and evil, love and hate, scientific honesty and opportunism. His works are distinguished by exciting plots, bright characters act in them, destinies and circumstances are intricately intertwined. Glory to Kaverin was brought by the novels Fulfillment of Desires (1934-1936), Two Captains (1938-1944), Open Book (1949-1956). For "Two Captains" he received the Stalin Prize (1942); The book went through dozens of editions and two adaptations. The musical "Nord-Ost" (2002) was staged on the plot of the novel. Kaverin also owns the novels "Double Portrait" (1964), "School Performance" (1968), "Verlioka" (1982), "Mystery" (1984); the novels Before the Mirror (1972) are about a Russian émigré artist, A Two-Hour Walk (1978) are about the problem of morality in science, and Above the Hidden Line (1989) are about the military period. Until the end of his life, he wrote his memoirs "Desk". He died on May 2, 1989 in Moscow.

Biography (G. N. Moonblit.)

Kaverin Veniamin Aleksandrovich [b. 6 (19) 4.1902, Pskov], Russian Soviet writer. He graduated from the Institute of Oriental Languages ​​(1923) and the Faculty of History and Philology of Leningrad State University (1924). The first story was published in 1922. In the early 20s. was a member of the Serapion Brothers group. K.'s works, diverse in genre and style of writing, are dedicated to people who personify the creative principle among the Soviet intelligentsia. Especially often the writer chooses scientists and writers as heroes, the whole meaning of whose existence is concentrated in their favorite work and in defending their principled positions. Telling about their lives and struggles. K. invariably shows a penchant for complex and intense plot constructions: the novels Fulfillment of Desires (books 1-2, 1934-36), Two Captains (books 1-2, 1938-44; State Prize of the USSR, 1946; the novel survived for 25 years 42 ed.), "Open Book" (1949-56). In 1962, K. publishes the novels "Seven Pairs of the Unclean" and "Slanting Rain", imbued with the desire to show how it manifests itself in owls. people are aware of their rights, duties towards the Motherland and a sense of mutual trust. In the 60s. K. publishes a book of articles and memoirs "Hello, brother, writing is very difficult" (1965), a new edition of the book about O. I. Senkovsky "Baron Brambeus" (1966), the story "Double Portrait" (1966) and "School Play" (1968). The novel "Before the Mirror" (1971) and literary memoirs "In the Old House" (1971) were published. K.'s books have been translated into many foreign languages ​​and the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR. Awarded 3 orders and medals.

Cit.: Works, vol. 1-3, L., 1930; Sobr. soch., v. 1-6, M., 1963-66; Autobiography, in the book: Soviet writers. Autobiographies, vol. 1, M., 1959.

Lit .: Smirnova V., Two captains change course, "Znamya", 1945, No. 8; Maslin N., Veniamin Kaverin, "New World", 1948, No. 4: Kostelyanets B., Living Unity, "Star", 1954, No. 11; Gore G., Writer and Science, "Russian Literature", 1962, No. 3; Gay N., On Imaginary and True Values, "Literaturnaya Gazeta", 1971, 18 Aug.; Russian Soviet prose writers. Bio-bibliographic index, v. 2, L., 1964.

Biography

KAVERIN, VENIAMIN ALEKSANDROVICH (1902-1989), present. surname Zilber, Russian Soviet writer. Born April 6 (19), 1902 in Pskov in the family of a military musician, bandmaster of the regiment. In 1912-1918 he studied at the Pskov gymnasium. In 1919 he came to Moscow, graduated from high school and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He worked in the library of the Moscow military district, in the art department of the Moscow Council. He attended the Pushkin seminar of V.I. Ivanov, met with A. Bely, visited literary evenings with the participation of V.Ya. Bryusov, S.A. Yesenin, V.V. Mayakovsky. In 1920, on the advice of Yu.N. Tynyanov (Kaverin's sister's husband), he moved to Petrograd, where he continued his education at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University, while studying at the Arabic Department of the Institute of Living Oriental Languages. He was fond of composing poetry, but after the harsh reviews of O.E. Mandelstam and V.B. Shklovsky, he left versification experiments. Turning to prose, in 1920 he submitted the story The Eleventh Axiom to a competition announced by the House of Writers and was awarded one of the prizes. The story aroused the interested attention of M. Gorky, who continued to follow Kaverin's work in the future, giving feedback on many of his works.

An important role in the formation of the writer was played by his participation in the literary group "Serapion Brothers", which arose in 1921. Here, L.N. Lunts, a writer of a universal warehouse, who gravitated towards action-packed constructions and put forward the slogan "To the West!" Kaverin at that time also proclaimed: "Of Russian writers, I love Hoffmann and Stevenson the most." The first published work of Kaverin - The Chronicle of the City of Leipzig, sustained in an ironically fantastic "Hoffmann" color - was published as part of the almanac "Serapion Brothers" in 1922. In the same year, Kaverin married L.N. Tynyanova (1902-1984), later a children's writer.

The first book of the writer - Masters and Apprentices, which consisted of six short stories - was published in 1923 and was republished two years later under the title Stories. Stories and short stories by Kaverin were also published in periodicals. Kaverin's early short stories are marked by the boldness of creative imagination, the kaleidoscopic abundance of diverse characters, the grotesqueness of their transformations, and the paradoxical play with the plot. The most significant works of that time: the Fifth Wanderer, the Purple Palimpsest, the Joiners, the Barrel, the Big Game, the Government Inspector, were selected by the author in 1980 for the first volume of the Collected Works.

“To become a very original writer, Kaverin needs to move his Nuremberg at least to St. Petersburg, color his word a little and remember that this word is Russian,” E.I. Zamyatin wrote in 1923. And Kaverin himself felt an inner need for greater motivation of characters and situations, for a clear and precise language of narration. The transition to a new creative manner is palpable in the story The End of the Khaza, where the author, according to Gorky, "boldly stepped aside from himself." Such decisive steps "aside" from the already acquired system of techniques were characteristic of Kaverin's creative path.

Until the end of the 1920s, Kaverin combined literary work with scientific work: after graduating from the university he was left in graduate school, in 1929 he published the book Baron Brambeus: The Story of Osip Senkovsky, a journalist, editor of the Library for Reading (2nd ed. 1966), which was at the same time as a dissertation, which brought the author the title of researcher of the first category. Kaverin's philological experience found application in his first novel, The Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island (1928), which depicts the spiritual atmosphere of the 1920s. The protagonist of the novel, Viktor Nekrylov, is clearly projected onto the real figure of V.B. Shklovsky, other characters also have certain prototypes.

Kaverin turned to the study of the eternal contradictions of life on modern material in the story Draft of a Man (1929), in the novel The Artist is Unknown (1931), where the drama of the Russian avant-garde is revealed, and some features of V.V. Khlebnikov and N.A. Zabolotsky. In the novel Fulfillment of Desires (1936), the problem of talent and fame comes to the fore.

The most famous work of Kaverin - the novel Two Captains (1936-1944) - is marked by a dynamic plot, a maximalist-clear opposition of characters, genuine romantic pathos that has nothing to do with Soviet ideological rhetoric. The well-known formula "Fight and seek, find and not give up" goes back to A. Tennyson's verse, which became the motto of the English explorer of Antarctica R. Scott.

At the 2nd Congress of Writers in 1954, Kaverin made a bold speech, calling for freedom of creativity, for a fair assessment of the legacy of Yu.N. Tynyanov and M.A. Bulgakov. In 1956 - one of the organizers of the anthology "Literary Moscow". In the 1960s, he placed in the Novy Mir, headed by A.T. Tvardovsky, the story Seven Pairs of the Unclean and Oblique Rain (both 1962), articles in which he sought to resurrect the memory of the Serapion Brothers, to rehabilitate M.M. Zoshchenko. In the 1970s, Kaverin spoke in defense of A.I. Solzhenitsyn and other disgraced writers.

The plots of the novels Open Book (1946–1954, finalized in 1980) and Double Portrait (1963–1964) are connected with the dramatic fate of biological science in Soviet times. Since the 1970s, Kaverin turned to the history of culture - both in fiction (the novel Before the Mirror, 1972) and in memoirs Illuminated Windows (1970–1976), In an Old House (1971), Evening Day (1977–1978) , Desk (1985), Epilogue (1989).

In 1979 he completed work on the children's book The Night Watchman, or Seven Entertaining Stories Told in the City of Nemukhin in a Thousand Unknown Years, and then wrote Verlioka's fabulous philosophical story (1981). The novels The Science of Parting (1982) and Above the Hidden Line (1988) are based on a rethinking of military experience. In the 1980s, a number of stories were written dedicated to modern youth: Riddle and Solution (1983), Flying Handwriting (1984), a story about a young writer Silhouette on Glass (1987).

Biography (Alexey Kopeikin, http://bibliogid.ru)

“It seems that I was a capable boy,” recalled V.A. Kaverin in his autobiographical trilogy about childhood and youth “Illuminated Windows”. Abilities, or rather, talents, marked the entire large family of the regimental musician Alexander Zilber, of whose six children Veniamin was the youngest. My father played many musical instruments and rose, although not without difficulty, to the rank of bandmaster of the musical team of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He insisted that all the children in the family be taught music, and a considerable merit in this matter belonged to the mother - a famous pianist, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, a well-educated woman who read a lot. Her efforts were not in vain: the brother of the future writer Alexander, having matured, became a composer, and sister Elena became a musicologist.

In Venya, the abundance of music that constantly sounded in the house for a long time discouraged all interest in her - despite all his abilities, he was reluctant to study. Just as reluctantly as I learned to read, I could not understand for a long time why we need these boring objects called books, in which "living, sounding words break up into soundless signs."

However, having mastered the science of reading, he became an avid book-swallower: fairy tales by Perrault and Andersen, stories about Sherlock Holmes, penny stories about the robber Leuchtweis, “Princess Javakha” by the “incomparable” Charskaya, “Silver Skates”, works of Russian classics, novels by Emar and Cooper, Hugo and Dickens. Robert Louis Stevenson was especially loved with his immortal “Treasure Island”: “it was he, and no one else, who revealed to me the mysterious power of word coupling, giving rise to the miracle of art,” Kaverin wrote.

Since childhood, he was greatly influenced by his elder brother Leo, later a world-famous microbiologist and immunologist, academician, one of the creators of the viral theory of cancer. Leo’s comrade at the gymnasium was the famous Yuri Tynyanov, who also became Veniamin’s friend, teacher and even relative for many years: he married Kaverin’s sister Elena Aleksandrovna, and Veniamin Aleksandrovich, in turn, offered his hand and heart to Tynyanov’s sister Lidia Nikolaevna, with whom he lived all his life.

After graduating from the Pskov gymnasium and secondary school in Moscow, Kaverin, on the advice of Tynyanov, moved to Petrograd, where he continued his education at the Faculty of History and Philology of Petrograd University and at the same time entered the Institute of Living Oriental Languages ​​in the Arabic department.

As a student, he was madly fond of German romantics (he went to lectures and seminars in a huge old raincoat), tried to write poetry, made acquaintances with young poets, but after the ironic and ruthless reviews of Y. Tynyanov, O. Mandelstam and V. Shklovsky, he considered it to be the best go to prose.

In 1920, Kaverin submitted his first story, The Eleventh Axiom, to the competition announced by the House of Writers and soon won one of six prizes for it. The story was not published, but made an impression on Gorky, who praised the novice author, and then followed his work for a long time. Around the same time, Viktor Shklovsky brought Kaverin to the community of young writers "Serapion Brothers", introducing him not by name, but by the name of that very story - "The Eleventh Axiom", which the "Serapions" probably had heard of.

“Under the name of the Serapion Brothers,” wrote Yevgeny Schwartz, who often attended their meetings, although he was not a member of the “brotherhood,” writers and people a little like each other united. But the general feeling of talent and novelty explained them, justified their association. Suffice it to say that the Serapions included such well-known writers as Vsevolod Ivanov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Konstantin Fedin, and the poet Nikolai Tikhonov. But Kaverin, perhaps, was closest in spirit to Lev Lunts, who died at the age of twenty-three. Together they represented the so-called Western direction and encouraged Russian writers to learn from foreign literature. To learn is not to repeat it. It means to breathe the energy of action into our literature, discovering new wonders and secrets in it” (L. Lunts). A dynamic plot, entertaining, combined with mastery of form and refinement of style, they put at the forefront. “I have always been and remain a story writer,” Kaverin admitted. For predilection for the plot, for entertainment, critics constantly pursued him. And in the turbulent, seething 1920s, Kaverin himself, with youthful fervor, threw recognized authorities off the ship of modernity ("I considered Turgenev my main literary enemy") and stated not without sarcasm: "Of Russian writers, I love Hoffmann and Stevenson most of all."

All "Serapions" had characteristic nicknames, Kaverin - "Brother Alchemist". Because, probably, he tried to believe literature by science. “Art must be built on the formulas of the exact sciences,” was inscribed on the envelope in which he sent his first story to the competition. And also because he wanted to merge reality and fantasy into one in some new, unprecedented synthesis.

Yes, this blackly tanned boy, looking either like a Bedouin or an owlet, “in a gymnasium uniform, with a belt with a badge” even then, according to Pavel Antokolsky, “had in himself a whole world of adventures, fairy tales and discoveries in the universe who was about to be born!”

In 1923 he published his first book, Masters and Apprentices. Adventurers and madmen, secret agents and card cheats, medieval monks and alchemists, masters and burgomasters - in a word, bright personalities inhabited the bizarre fantasy world of Kaverin's early "desperately original" stories. “People play cards, and cards are played by people. Who will figure it out?" Russian "hoffmaniana" - that's what it was. A.M. Gorky called Kaverin “the most original writer” and advised to take care of his talent: “This is a flower of original beauty, form, I am inclined to think that for the first time such a strange and intricate plant blooms on the basis of Russian literature.”

At first, Kaverin did not disregard science. As a philologist, he was attracted by the little-studied pages of Russian literature of the early 19th century: the works of V.F. Odoevsky, A.F. Veltman, O.I. The story of Osip Senkovsky, journalist, editor of "Library for Reading", a book, simultaneously presented as a dissertation, which Kaverin brilliantly defended, despite its obvious fiction, at the Institute of Art History.

Professional interest in the literature of the Pushkin era, friendship with Yuri Tynyanov, but most importantly - the excitement of a witty debater and polemist, always ready to cross spears with his literary opponents, undoubtedly influenced the choice of a pseudonym by the novice writer; he took the surname Kaverin in honor of Pyotr Pavlovich Kaverin - a hussar, a bully duelist and a reckless reveler, although an educated person, in whose tricks young Pushkin often took part.

But science is science, and Kaverin believed in his writing talent and that fate handed him a “long-distance ticket,” as Yevgeny Zamyatin prophetically said about him, and therefore decided for himself only one thing: to write and write - every day! Even his friends laughed at this. But it was not the process that was important, but the result: “Every morning,” said Evgeny Schwartz, “whether in the country, in the city, Kaverin sat down at the table and worked for the allotted time. And so all my life. And then gradually, gradually, "literature" began to obey him, became plastic. Several years passed, and we clearly saw that the best in Kaverin's being: good nature, respect for human work, boyish naivety with a boyish love for adventure and exploits - begins to penetrate the pages of his books.

There was a period when he tried to compose plays (in the early 30s, some even had success - they were staged by first-class directors, Vs. Meyerhold himself offered cooperation), but, by Kaverin's own admission, he was at odds with the playwright's craft. He understood that he needed to concentrate entirely on prose, and published his new works one after another: novels and stories “The End of the Khaza”, “Nine-tenths of Fate”, “Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island”, “Draft of a Man”, “ Artist unknown”, collections of short stories. In 1930, the 28-year-old author published a three-volume collected works.

Officials from literature declared Kaverin a writer-"fellow traveler" and viciously smashed his books, accusing the author of formalism and a thirst for bourgeois restoration.

Meanwhile, the time was approaching when it became dangerous to ignore such "criticism". Kaverin was forced to "reforge" and wrote the "traditional" "Wish Fulfillment". This novel of his, as well as several subsequent ones (“Two Captains”, “The Open Book”), was very popular, but the author was dissatisfied with his offspring: he called it “an inventory of edification”, periodically revised it and, in the end, reduced it to almost two-thirds: “my success was a reward for the rejection of originality, which I cherished so much then, in the twenties ... Tormenting over every phrase, I turned to the black bread of Russian classical traditional prose. It was a turning point, accompanied by a merciless "self-restraint." And the transition from "prose, imbued with the desire to see the world with one's own eyes, ... to" given literature ".

It is not known how Kaverin's fate would have developed if he had not written the novel "Two Captains"; it is quite possible that the writer would have shared the fate of his older brother, academician Lev Zilber, who was arrested three times and sent to camps. The novel literally saved Kaverin - according to rumors, Stalin himself liked him - it was not without reason that after the war, which the writer spent in the Northern Fleet as a war correspondent for TASS and Izvestia, he was awarded the Stalin Prize. "Two Captains" is undoubtedly Kaverin's most famous book. At one time, it was so popular that many schoolchildren in geography lessons seriously argued that it was not Lieutenant Vilkitsky who discovered the Northern Land, but Captain Tatarinov - they believed in the heroes of the novel so much, perceived them as real people and wrote touching letters to Veniamin Alexandrovich, in who were asked about the fate of Katya Tatarinova and Sanya Grigoriev. In the homeland of Kaverin in the city of Pskov, not far from the Regional Children's Library, now bearing the name of the author of "Two Captains", a monument was even erected to Captain Tatarinov and Sanya Grigoriev, whose boyish oath was: "Fight and seek, find and not give up."

The years of the “thaw” brought many new cases for Kaverin: he participated in the anthology “Literary Moscow”, fussed about the publication of scientific works by Yu. Tynyanov, works by L. Lunts and M. Bulgakov - Mikhail Afanasyevich’s novel “The Master and Margarita” manuscripts and "completely fell ill with them."

He also did not forget about his own work: journalism, memoirs and memoirs took a lot of effort. In prose, Kaverin partly returned to his former self, publishing a cycle of strange romantic tales that compiled the collection Night Watchman, or Seven Entertaining Stories Told in the City of Nemukhin in the 1900 unknown year. A few years later, the fabulously philosophical story "Verlioka" appeared.

At times, however, the writer was overcome by a feeling of annoyance. He did not feel a second breath in himself and ironically complained in a letter to E.A. Blaginina, who had recently read one of his old stories and commented on it with great approval: “You know, when Swift was dying, he asked that they not read him Gulliver, but "The Tale of the Barrel", and died with the words: "As I wrote! My God, how I wrote!” That's what I should be doing." Veniamin Alexandrovich was wrong. At the age of seventy, which is rare, he wrote his best book: Before the Mirror, a deep and subtle love story.

It happens even more rarely that a venerable writer reads diligently and with pleasure: from his favorite classics to the manuscripts of young authors, which they sent to Kaverin, knowing that they can count on at least interested attention and friendly advice.

Someone very rightly noted: “Kaverin is one of those people whom literature has made happy: he always wrote enthusiastically, always read others with pleasure.” Perhaps it was this concentrated immersion in books, archives, manuscripts that allowed him in the most cruel years to “protect his heart from evil” and remain true to his friends and himself. And therefore, in his own writings, in which good is always - clearly and clearly - separated from evil, we find "the world is somewhat bookish, but pure and noble" (E.L. Schwartz).

Reflecting on his successes and failures, Veniamin Alexandrovich wrote: “My only consolation is that I still had my own way ...” Pavel Antokolsky spoke about the same: “Each artist is strong because he is not like the others. Kaverin has the pride of "a face with a non-general expression."

He did not stop writing until the last days, even when there was no longer complete confidence that all plans could be realized. One of the last works of Kaverin was a book about his best friend Y. Tynyanov "New Vision", written in collaboration with the critic and literary critic Vl. Novikov.

In the year of the writer's death, his two most recent books, The Happiness of Talent and Epilogue, were published.

110 years since the birth of Veniamin Kaverin

Today marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin. A person of my generation associates the work of this writer, first of all, with the book "Two Captains". We grew up on the heroism of this book, we dreamed, we wanted to imitate. Kaverin was born on April 19, 1902 in Pskov, in the family of the bandmaster of the infantry regiment Abel Zilber and the mistress of music stores Hana Desson. The surname Kaverin was taken by him in honor of Comrade Pushkin, the hussar described in Eugene Onegin. In 1923, Kaverin graduated from the Arabic department of the Institute of Oriental Languages, and in 1924 from the State University in Leningrad. In 1929 he defended his Ph.D. thesis “Baron Brambeus. The story of Osip Senkovsky.

At the age of 16 he came to Moscow and graduated from high school here in 1919. In 1920, he transferred from Moscow University to Petrograd University, simultaneously enrolling in the Institute of Oriental Languages, and successfully graduated from both universities. He was left at the university in graduate school, where for six years he was engaged in scientific work and in 1929 he defended his dissertation. In 1921, together with M. Zoshchenko, N. Tikhonov, Vs. Ivanov, he was the organizer of the literary group "Serapion Brothers", it was in the almanac of this group that he began to be published. For several years, Kaverin wrote stories and novels, and by the end of the 1920s he finally decided to devote himself to literary work.

In 1934 - 1936, the first novel, "Fulfillment of Desires", was created, in which the writer's literary style was manifested. The novel was a success. But the most popular work of Kaverin was the novel "Two Captains", the first volume of which was completed in 1938.

The Patriotic War stopped work on the second volume. During the war, Kaverin wrote front-line correspondence, military essays, stories. At his request, he was sent to the Northern Fleet. It was there, communicating daily with pilots and submariners, that I understood in what direction the work on the second volume of The Two Captains would go. In 1944, the second volume of the novel was published.

In 1949 - 1956, Kaverin worked on the trilogy "Open Book", about the formation and development of microbiology in the country, about the goals of science, about the character of a scientist. He took this topic for a reason - his brother was a microbiologist. In 1962, the stories "Seven Unclean Pairs" about the first days of the war and "Slanting Rain" were published. In the 1970s, Kaverin created the book of memoirs "In the Old House", as well as the trilogy "Illuminated Windows", in the 1980s - "Drawing", "Verlioka", "Evening Day". Veniamin Kaverin died on May 2, 1989.

Biography

The real name of the writer is Zilber. Born on April 6 (19), 1902 in the family of Abel Abramovich Zilber, bandmaster of the 96th Omsk Infantry Regiment, and his wife, nee Khana Girshevna (Anna Grigorievna) Desson, owner of music stores.

In 1912-1918. studied at the Pskov gymnasium. In 1919 he came to Moscow, graduated from high school and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He worked in the library of the Moscow military district, in the art department of the Moscow Council. He attended the Pushkin seminar of V. I. Ivanov, met with A. Bely, visited literary evenings with the participation of V. Ya. Bryusov, S. A. Yesenin, V. V. Mayakovsky. In 1920, on the advice of Yu. N. Tynyanov (Kaverin's sister's husband), he moved to Petrograd, where he continued his education at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University, while studying at the Arabic Department of the Institute of Living Oriental Languages. He was fond of composing poetry, but after the harsh reviews of O. E. Mandelstam and V. B. Shklovsky, he abandoned these attempts. Turning to prose, in 1920 he submitted the story "The Eleventh Axiom" to the competition announced by the House of Writers and was awarded one of the prizes. The story aroused the interested attention of M. Gorky, who continued to follow Kaverin's work in the future, giving feedback on many of his works.

An important role in the formation of the writer was played by his participation in the literary group "Serapion Brothers", which arose in 1921. Here L. N. Lunts, a writer of a universal warehouse, who gravitated towards action-packed constructions and put forward the slogan "To the West! " Kaverin at that time also proclaimed: "Of Russian writers, I love Hoffmann and Stevenson the most." The first published work of Kaverin - "The Chronicle of the City of Leipzig", sustained in an ironically fantastic "Hoffmann" color - was published as part of the almanac "Serapion Brothers" in 1922. In the same year, Kaverin married L. N. Tynyanova (1902- 1984), later a children's writer.

Until the end of the 1920s, Kaverin combined literary work with scientific work: after graduating from the university, he was left in graduate school, in 1929 he published the book "Baron Brambeus: The History of Osip Senkovsky", which was also a dissertation that brought the author the title of researcher of the first category.

In 1923 Kaverin's first collection of stories "Masters and Apprentices" was published, in 1925 - the novel "The End of Khaza", and in 1931 - the novel "Artist Unknown".

There was a period when he tried to compose plays (in the early 30s, some even had success - they were staged by first-class directors, V. Meyerhold himself offered cooperation), but, by Kaverin's own admission, he was at odds with the playwright's craft. From the beginning of the 1930s, Kaverin radically changed the field of literary creativity and began to write novels. The first of these was "Wish Fulfillment" - he, like several subsequent ones ("Two Captains", "Open Book"), was very popular. The intricate plot construction and the emphasized contrast with which the writer draws portraits of his heroes are the distinguishing features of these books.

During the war, Kaverin worked as a correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper. In 1944, the last part of the most famous of the writer's works, the novel "Two Captains" was published; in the same year, this novel was awarded the Stalin Prize.

In his later years, Kaverin lived mainly in the writers' village of Peredelkino near Moscow, making himself known not only with his works, but also with speeches in defense of cultural freedoms and persecuted artists. At the 2nd Congress of Writers in 1954, Kaverin made a bold speech, calling for freedom of creativity, for a fair assessment of the legacy of Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. A. Bulgakov. In 1956 he became one of the organizers of the almanac "Literary Moscow". In the 1960s, he placed in the Novy Mir, headed by A. T. Tvardovsky, the novels Seven Pairs of the Unclean and Oblique Rain (both 1962), articles in which he sought to resurrect the memory of the Serapion Brothers, to rehabilitate M. M. . Zoshchenko. In the 1970s, Kaverin spoke in defense of A. I. Solzhenitsyn and other disgraced writers.

He did not stop writing until the last days, even when there was no longer complete confidence that all plans could be realized. One of the last works of Kaverin was a book about his best friend Y. Tynyanov "New Vision", written in collaboration with the critic and literary critic Vl. Novikov.

Benjamin Kaverin was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery. In June 1995, the opening of the monument "Two Captains" took place, which is located near the building of the Pskov Regional Children's Library. In April 1997, a memorial plaque was opened near the building of the main post office in Pskov on the site of the house where Kaverin was born.

Interesting facts from life The creative pseudonym was taken in honor of Pyotr Pavlovich Kaverin - a hussar, a bully duelist and a reckless reveler, in whose antics young Pushkin often took part.

Writer's Awards

* Stalin Prize of the second degree (1946) - for the novel "Two Captains"
* The order of Lenin
* Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor
* Order of the Red Star
* Order of Friendship of Peoples

Bibliography

1920. Eleventh axiom
1922. Purple palimpsest
1922. Joiners
1922. Chronicle of the city of Leipzig for 18 ... year
1923. Mannequin Futerfas
1923. The fifth wanderer
1924. Barrel
1925. Big Game
1925. Nine tenths of fate.
1925. The end of the haza
1926. Auditor
1927. Diamond suit
1927. Blue sun
1927. Friend of the Mikado
1927. This morning
1928. Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island
1929. Baron Brambeus: The story of Osip Senkovsky, journalist, editor of the Library for Reading
1929. Draft of a man
1930. Prologue
1931. Artist unknown
1933. The Taming of Mr. Robinson
1936. Fulfillment of desires
1942. House on the hill
1944. Two captains
1954. Morning of days
1956. Open book
1959. Unknown friend
1960. Piece of glass
1962. Oblique rain
1962. Seven pairs of unclean
1965. “Hello brother. Writing is very difficult...
1966. Double portrait
1967. Snow Maiden
1968. School play
1970. In front of the mirror
1971. In the old house
1976. About Mita and Masha, about a cheerful chimney sweep and a master of golden hands
1976. Illuminated windows
1978. Evening day
1978. Two-hour walk
1980. Drawing
1981. Verlioka
1982. The science of parting
1982. The Night Watchman, or Seven Entertaining Stories Told in the City of Nemukhin in 1900 Unknown Year
1983. Riddle and Solution
1984. Flying handwriting
1985. Desk
1987. Silhouette on glass
1988. Writer
1988. Above the hidden line
1988. New Vision
1989. Happiness of talent
1989. Epilogue

Screen adaptations of works, theatrical performances

1955 - "Two Captains" (dir. V. Vengerov)
1972 - "School Performance" (dir. N. Zubareva)
1973 - "Open Book" (dir. V. Fetin)
1976 - "Two Captains" (dir. E. Karelov)
1979 - "Open Book" (dir. V. Titov)
1978 - "Turn" (dir. V. Abdrashitov)
1981 - Nemukhin's Musicians (dir. M. Muat)
2001 - musical "Nord-Ost" (based on the novel "Two Captains", authors A. Ivashchenko and G. Vasiliev)

Biography (en.wikipedia.org)

Born on April 6 (19), 1902 in the family of Abel Abramovich Zilber, bandmaster of the 96th Omsk Infantry Regiment, and his wife, nee Khana Girshevna (Anna Grigorievna) Desson, owner of music stores. Kaverin's older sister, Leya Abelevna Zilber (married Elena Alexandrovna Tynyanova, 1892-1944), married Yu. N. Tynyanov, whose classmate was Kaverin's older brother Lev Zilber, later a major Soviet virologist. In addition, three more older children grew up in the family - Miriam (married Mira Alexandrovna Rummel, 1890 - after 1988, wife of the first director of the A. S. Pushkin People's House Isaac Mikhailovich Rummel), David, later a military doctor, and Alexander ( 1899-1970), composer who took the pseudonym Ruchiov. Kaverin's wife is the children's writer L. N. Tynyanov (1902-1984), the younger sister of Yu. N. Tynyanov. Son - Nikolai Veniaminovich Kaverin (born 1933, Leningrad), Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of Physiology of Viruses of the D.I. Ivanovsky Institute of Virology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Daughter is a pharmacologist.

On August 14, 1912, according to the results of admission tests, Veniamin was enrolled in the preparatory class of the Pskov provincial gymnasium. In Illuminated Windows, he wrote: “You can’t say that I was lazy - I studied for threes, fours. In addition to mathematics, almost all subjects were easy for me. Nevertheless, according to the protocol of the pedagogical council of May 11, 1916, out of forty students of the third "b" class, only four gymnasium students received an award of the second degree, including Veniamin Zilber. He studied at the Pskov provincial gymnasium Veniamin Zilber for 6 years.

Then, he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Living Oriental Languages ​​in the Department of Arabic Studies (1923) and the Faculty of History and Philology of the Leningrad State University (1924). He was close to the Young Formalists. In 1929 he defended his dissertation “Baron Brambeus. The story of Osip Senkovsky.

The pseudonym "Kaverin" is taken in honor of the hussar, a friend of the young Pushkin (brought by him under his own surname in "Eugene Onegin").

It's already dark: he sits in the sled.
"Drop, drop!" - there was a cry;
Frost dust silver
His beaver collar.
He rushed to Talon: he is sure
What is Kaverin waiting for him there.
Entered: and a cork in the ceiling,
The comet's guilt splashed current,
Before him roast-beef bloodied,
And truffles, the luxury of youth,
French cuisine best color,
And Strasbourg's imperishable pie
Between Limburg cheese alive
And golden pineapple.

The first story "Chronicle of the city of Leipzig for 18 ... year" was published in 1922. In the early 1920s he was a member of the literary group "Serapion Brothers". The early stories are written in fantastical plots. An appeal to real life was reflected in the novel Nine-tenths of Fate (1926) and others. In 1927, he took part in the collective novel Big Fires, published in the Ogonyok magazine.

The novel "Fulfillment of Desires" (2 books, 1935-1936) and the novel-trilogy "The Open Book" (1953-1956) are devoted to the depiction of creative work, the scientific searches of the Soviet intelligentsia. The adventure novel "Two Captains" (2 books, 1940-1945, Stalin Prize, 1946), which shows the spiritual quest of the Soviet youth of the military generation fanned by the romance of travel, gained the greatest fame. The novels "Open Book" and "Two Captains" were repeatedly filmed.

In 1958, he was perhaps the only major writer of the older generation who refused to participate in the persecution of Boris Pasternak in connection with the publication of his novel Doctor Zhivago in the West and the award of the Nobel Prize to him.

Signed an appeal in defense of Y. Daniel and A. Sinyavsky. Prepared for the Fourth Congress of the Writers' Union of the USSR (1967) the speech "Urgent Questions of Literature", which he was forbidden to read. In 1968, in an Open Letter, he announced a break with K. Fedin, when he did not allow Solzhenitsyn to reach the reader of Cancer Ward.

Kaverin is one of the significant Russian writers. Kaverin's novels are distinguished by their richness of action, sometimes by detective fascination and skillful construction.
- Wolfgang Kazak

Addresses in Leningrad

1930-1946 - the house of the Court Stable Department - Griboedov Canal Embankment, 9.

Artworks

Novels

* "Masters and Apprentices", collection (1923)
* "Nine-tenths of fate", novel (1925)
* "The End of Haza", a novel (1925)
* "Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island" novel (1928).
* "Artist unknown", novel (1931) - one of the last formal experiments in early Soviet literature
* "Fulfillment of desires" novel (books 1-2, 1934-1936; new edition 1973).
* "Two Captains" novel (books 1-2, 1938-1944)
* "Open Book" novel (1949-1956).
* "Unknown friend" story, (1957-1959)
* "A piece of glass" story, (1960)
* "Seven pairs of unclean" story (1962)
* "Slanting rain" story (1962)
* "Double Portrait", a novel (1963-1964) - tells about a scientist fired from his job, who, on a denunciation, ends up in a camp
* "O. I. Senkovsky (Baron Brambeus)" (1929-1964), (1964 - new edition)
* "In front of the mirror", a novel (1972) - reveals the fate of one Russian artist, especially dwelling on the period of emigration, carefully including genuine documents in the artistic narrative
* The Science of Breakup, novel (1983)

stories

* "The Fifth Wanderer", a fantastic story. (October-December 1921)
* "The Great Game", fantasy story, (1923)
* "Barrel", fantastic story, (1923)
* "Prologue", travel stories (1930): "Steppe",
* "Dirt",
* "Fight-Fear",
* "Lentils",
* "Ostrich Foma",
* "Tabor",
* "Dry",
* "Road",
* "Nigrol",
* "Last night",
* "Return"

Dramatic works

* "The Taming of Mr. Robinson" (comedy in six scenes), (1933)
* "Morning of Days" (play) (original title "Anxious Youth"), (1954)

Fairy tales

* "The Night Watchman, or Seven Entertaining Stories Told in the City of Nemukhin in 1900 Unknown Year":
* "Town of Nemukhin",
* "Son of a glazier",
* "Nemukhin's musicians",
* "Easy steps", (1962),
* "Sylvant",
* "Many good people and one envious person", (1960),
* "Hourglass", (1943),
* "Flying Boy"
* "Snow Maiden"
* "About Mita and Masha, about the Cheerful chimney sweep and the Master of golden hands"
* "Verlioka" (June 2, 1981)

Memoirs, essay

* "Greetings, brother. Writing is very difficult... Portraits, letters about literature, memoirs (1965)
* "Companion". Articles (1973)
* "Illuminated windows", (1970-1973-1975)
* "Evening day". Letters, memories, portraits (1980)
* "Desk". Memories, letters, essays (1984)
* "Epilogue", (July 20, 1979), afterword, (1981), preface (03/15/1988), second afterword, applications (03/25/1988)
* "Happiness of Talent" (1989)

Articles

* "Alexander Fadeev", (1957)
* "Zabolotsky", (1958)
* "Mayakovsky", (1958)
* "Arkady Gaidar", (1962)
* "Yuri Tynyanov", (1964)
* "Vsevolod Ivanov", (1965)
* "Bulgakov", (1965)
* "Unlimited Contract" (speech at the Second All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers), (1954)
* "Bitter and Young", (1954-1960)
* "Magic wand", (1960)
* "Undiscovered roads", (1964)
* "Reading Hemingway", (1964)
* "Dickens and the Theatre", (1963)
* "Eugene Schwartz", (1965)

Awards and prizes

* Order of Lenin (1962)
* two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor
* Order of the Red Star
* Order of Friendship of Peoples
* Stalin Prize of the second degree (1946) - for the novel "Two Captains"

Editions

* (for books that have been reprinted many times, only the first editions are indicated)
* Masters and apprentices. Stories. M.-Pb. Circle. 1923.
* Stories. M. Krug. 1925.
* End of haza. Tales. L. The life of art. 1926.
* Nine tenths of fate. Novel. M.-L. Gosizdat. 1926.
* Night of 26 October. Story. L. Surf. 1926. 63 p.
* The siege of the palace. A story for youth. M.-L. Gosizdat. 1926.
* Prologue. Travel stories. M.-L. 1931.
* Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island. L. Publishing House of Writers in Leningrad 1931. 214 p.
* Artist unknown. L. 1931.
* Draft of a person. Stories. L. 1931.
* Fulfillment of desires. Novel. L. Goslitizdat. 1937.
* A tale about Mitka and Masha about a cheerful chimney sweep and a master of golden hands. M.-L. Children's publishing house. 1939.
* Two captains. Novel. L. Goslitizdat. 1941.
* House on the hill. Stories. M.-L. Detgiz. 1941.
* Our defenders. Stories. L.-M. Art. 1941. 28 p.
* Firework. M. Voenmorizdat. 1941. 8 p.
* Three. Story. M. Voenmorizdat. 1941. 8 p.
* Leningrad. August 1941. Front stories. Molotov. 1942.
* House on the hill. A play in 4 acts. M.-L. Art. 1942. 72 p.
* Eagle flight and other stories. M.-L. Detgiz. 1942. 48 p.
* Stories. M. Voenmorizdat. 1942. 48 p.
* We have become different. Stories. M. Soviet writer. 1943.
* School of courage. Stories. Voronezh. 1950.
* Open book. Novel. M. Young Guard. 1953.
* Unknown friend. Tale. M. Soviet writer. 1960.
* Three fairy tales. M. Detgiz. 1960.
* From various books. M. Young Guard. 1961. 240 p.
* Outline of work. M. Soviet Russia. 1964.
* Double portrait. Novel. M. Young Guard. 1967. 224 p.
* In front of the mirror. A novel in letters. M. Soviet writer. 1972.
* Petrograd student. Novel. M. Soviet writer. 1976.
* Illuminated windows. M. Sovremennik 1976. 380 p.
* Evening day. Letters. Meetings. Portraits. M. Soviet writer. 1980. 505 p.
* Desk. Memories and reflections. M. Soviet writer. 272 p.
* The Night Watchman, or Seven Entertaining Stories told in the city of Nemukhin in 1900 unknown year. Stories. M. Children's literature. 1982.
* Verlioka. Fairy story. M. Contemporary. 1983. 215 p.
* Flying handwriting. M. Fiction. 1986. 415 p.
* Fairy tales. Baku. Ganjlik. 1986.
* Two-hour walk. Novel and stories. M. Contemporary. 1989.
* Epilogue. Memoirs. M. Moscow worker. 1989. 544 p.
* Collected works in 2 volumes. M. AST-Press. 1994. 560 s, 592 s.
* Collected Works in eight volumes. M. Fiction. 1980-1983.
* Collected works in six volumes. M. GIKHL. 1963-1966.
(Content:
* v.1: Stories and novels of 1921-1927: "The Fifth Wanderer", a fantastic story, "The Great Game", a fantastic story, "Barrel", a fantastic story, "The End of the Khaza", "Nine-tenths", " Friend of the Mikado", "The Blue Sun", Brawler or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island";
* v.2: Stories and novels of 1930-1931: "Steppe", "Mud", "Fight-Fear", "Lentil", "Ostrich-Foma", "Tabor", "Dry", "Road ", "Nigrol", "Last Night", "Return", "Unknown Artist", "The Taming of Mr. Robinson" (comedy), "Wish Fulfillment" (novel);
* v.3: "Two captains" (novel);
* v.4: "Open Book" (trilogy, parts "Youth", "Search");
* v.5: "Open Book" (trilogy, part "Hope"), "Morning of Days" (play), "Unknown Friend (story), Tales: "Hourglass", "Many Good People and One Envious", " Light steps";
* v.6: Tales: "A piece of glass", "Seven pairs of unclean", "Slanting rain"; "Double portrait" (novel), "O.I. Senkovsky (Baron Brambeus). Life and work", Articles on literature and art: "Alexander Fadeev", "Zabolotsky", "Mayakovsky", "Arkady Gaidar", "Yuri Tynyanov", "Vsevolod Ivanov", "Bulgakov", "Indefinite Treaty", "Bitter and Young", "Magic Wand", "Undiscovered Roads", "Reading Hemingway", "Dickens and the Theatre", "Eugene Schwartz")

Screen adaptations and productions

1955 - "Two Captains" (dir. Vladimir Vengerov).
1973 - "Open Book" (dir. Vladimir Fetin).
1976 - "Two Captains" (dir. Evgeny Karelov).
1977-1979 - "Open Book" (dir. Viktor Titov).
1978 - Turn - (dir. Vadim Abdrashitov)
1981 - Nemukhin's Musicians (dir. Maria (Marieta) Muat).
1989 - Light Steps (dir. Elena Mashkara)
2001 - musical "Nord-Ost" (based on the novel "Two Captains", authors Alexei Ivashchenko and Georgy Vasiliev)

Memory

* In honor of V. A. Kaverin, the asteroid Veniakaverin (2458 Veniakaverin) is named.

* The Two Captains Square (Polyarny, Murmansk Region) is named after the novel of the same name by V.A. Kaverin. In 1943-44, in the Northern Fleet, in Polyarny V.A. Kaverin served as a military correspondent for Izvestia. Here the second part of the novel was written. The action of another novel by V.A. Kaverina - "The Science of Parting" (1983) takes place in the front-line Polar, its main character is the military commander Nezlobin.

Notes

1. Know our - famous Jews - Central Jewish Resource. Site of Russian-speaking Jews around the world. Jewish news. Jewish surnames
2. Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin (Zilber) / Veniamin Kaverin
3. Kaverin V
4. Kaverin Veniamin Aleksandrovich

Years of life: from 04/19/1902 to 05/02/1989

Russian Soviet writer.

The real name of the writer is Zilber. Born on April 6 (19), 1902 in the family of Abel Abramovich Zilber, bandmaster of the 96th Omsk Infantry Regiment, and his wife, nee Khana Girshevna (Anna Grigorievna) Desson, owner of music stores.

In 1912-1918. studied at the Pskov gymnasium. In 1919 he came to Moscow, graduated from high school and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He worked in the library of the Moscow military district, in the art department of the Moscow Council. He attended the Pushkin seminar of V. I. Ivanov, met with A. Bely, visited literary evenings with the participation of V. Ya. Bryusov, S. A. Yesenin, V. V. Mayakovsky. In 1920, on the advice of Yu. N. Tynyanov (Kaverin's sister's husband), he moved to Petrograd, where he continued his education at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University, while studying at the Arabic Department of the Institute of Living Oriental Languages. He was fond of composing poetry, but after the harsh reviews of O. E. Mandelstam and V. B. Shklovsky, he abandoned these attempts. Turning to prose, in 1920 he submitted the story "The Eleventh Axiom" to the competition announced by the House of Writers and was awarded one of the prizes. The story aroused the interested attention of M. Gorky, who continued to follow Kaverin's work in the future, giving feedback on many of his works.

An important role in the formation of the writer was played by his participation in the literary group "Serapion Brothers", which arose in 1921. Here L. N. Lunts, a writer of a universal warehouse, who gravitated towards action-packed constructions and put forward the slogan "To the West! " Kaverin at that time also proclaimed: "Of Russian writers, I love Hoffmann and Stevenson the most." The first published work of Kaverin - "The Chronicle of the City of Leipzig", sustained in an ironically fantastic "Hoffmann" color - was published as part of the almanac "Serapion Brothers" in 1922. In the same year, Kaverin married L. N. Tynyanova (1902- 1984), later a children's writer.

Until the end of the 1920s, Kaverin combined literary work with scientific work: after graduating from the university, he was left in graduate school, in 1929 he published the book "Baron Brambeus: The History of Osip Senkovsky", which was also a dissertation that brought the author the title of researcher of the first category.

In 1923 Kaverin's first collection of stories "Masters and Apprentices" was published, in 1925 - the novel "The End of Khaza", and in 1931 - the novel "Artist Unknown".

There was a period when he tried to compose plays (in the early 30s, some even had success - they were staged by first-class directors, V. Meyerhold himself offered cooperation), but, by Kaverin's own admission, he was at odds with the playwright's craft. From the beginning of the 1930s, Kaverin radically changed the field of literary creativity and began to write novels. The first of these was "Wish Fulfillment" - he, like several subsequent ones ("Two Captains", "Open Book"), was very popular. The intricate plot construction and the emphasized contrast with which the writer draws portraits of his heroes are the distinguishing features of these books.

During the war, Kaverin worked as a correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper. In 1944, the last part of the most famous of the writer's works, the novel "Two Captains" was published; in the same year, this novel was awarded the Stalin Prize.

In his later years, Kaverin lived mainly in the writers' village of Peredelkino near Moscow, making himself known not only with his works, but also with speeches in defense of cultural freedoms and persecuted artists. At the 2nd Congress of Writers in 1954, Kaverin made a bold speech, calling for freedom of creativity, for a fair assessment of the legacy of Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. A. Bulgakov. In 1956 he became one of the organizers of the almanac "Literary Moscow". In the 1960s, in the novels "Seven Pairs of the Unclean" and "Slanting Rain" (both 1962), headed by A. T. Tvardovsky, he published articles in which he sought to resurrect the memory of the "Serapion Brothers", to rehabilitate M. M. Zoshchenko. In the 1970s, Kaverin spoke in defense of A. I. Solzhenitsyn and other disgraced writers.

He did not stop writing until the last days, even when there was no longer complete confidence that all plans could be realized. One of the last works of Kaverin was a book about his best friend Y. Tynyanov "New Vision", written in collaboration with the critic and literary critic Vl. Novikov.

Benjamin Kaverin was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery. In June 1995, the opening of the monument "Two Captains" took place, which is located near the building of the Pskov Regional Children's Library. In April 1997, a memorial plaque was opened near the building of the main post office in Pskov on the site of the house where Kaverin was born.

The creative pseudonym was taken in honor of Pyotr Pavlovich Kaverin - a hussar, a bully duelist and a reckless reveler, in whose antics young Pushkin often took part.

Writer's Awards

Second Class (1946) - for novel
The order of Lenin
Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor
Order of the Red Star
Order of Friendship of Peoples

Bibliography

1920. Eleventh axiom
1922.
1922. Joiners
1922. Chronicle of the city of Leipzig for 18 ... year
1923. Mannequin Futerfas
1923. The fifth wanderer
1924. Barrel
1925. Big Game
1925. Nine tenths of fate.
1925. The end of the haza
1926. Auditor
1927. Diamond suit
1927. Blue sun
1927. Friend of the Mikado
1927. This morning
1928.
1929. Baron Brambeus: The story of Osip Senkovsky, journalist, editor of the Library for Reading
1929. Draft of a man
1930. Prologue
1931. Artist unknown
1933. The Taming of Mr. Robinson
1936.
1942. House on the hill
1944.
1954. Morning of days
1956. Open book
1959. Unknown friend
1960. Piece of glass
1962. Oblique rain
1962. Seven pairs of unclean
1965. “Hello brother. Writing is very difficult...
1966. Double portrait
1967. Snow Maiden
1968. School play

Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin(real name - Zilber; 1902-1989) - Russian Soviet writer, playwright and screenwriter. Member of the literary group "Serapion Brothers".

The most famous work is the adventure novel "Two Captains". Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the second degree.

Biography

Born on April 6 (19), 1902 in the family of Abel Abramovich Zilber, bandmaster of the 96th Omsk Infantry Regiment, and his wife, nee Khana Girshevna (Anna Grigorievna) Desson, owner of music stores.

Kaverin's older sister, Leya Abelevna Zilber (married Elena Alexandrovna Tynyanova, 1892-1944), married Yu. N. Tynyanov, whose classmate was Kaverin's older brother Lev Zilber, later a major Soviet virologist.

In addition, three more older children grew up in the family - Miriam (married Mira Alexandrovna Rummel, 1890 - after 1988, wife of the first director of the A. S. Pushkin People's House Isaac Mikhailovich Rummel), David, later a military doctor, and Alexander ( 1899-1970), composer who took the pseudonym Ruchiov. Also, for some time, Veniamin's gymnasium friend Anatoly Rosenblum, a future active member of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party and one of the founders of Soviet psychotechnics, lived in the Zilberov's house for some time, which was repeatedly mentioned in Kaverin's memoirs "Illuminated Windows" and "Epilogue"; see for example:

Tolya R., a seventh-grader, ... lived with us, because in the city of Ostrov (where he was from) there was no men's gymnasium. Mom agreed to take him to a boarding school in the hope that he, like an exemplary boy, would have a beneficial effect on me and Sasha. An exemplary boy began to disappear before midnight - he participated in one of the underground circles.

On August 14, 1912, according to the results of admission tests, Veniamin was enrolled in the preparatory class of the Pskov provincial gymnasium. In Illuminated Windows, he wrote: “You can’t say that I was lazy - I studied for threes, fours. In addition to mathematics, almost all subjects were easy for me. Nevertheless, according to the protocol of the pedagogical council of May 11, 1916, out of forty students of the third "b" class, only four gymnasium students received an award of the second degree, including Veniamin Zilber. He studied at the Pskov provincial gymnasium Veniamin Zilber for 6 years.

Then he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Living Oriental Languages ​​in the Department of Arabic Studies (1923) and the Faculty of History and Philology of the Leningrad State University (1924). He was close to the Young Formalists. In 1929 he defended his dissertation “Baron Brambeus. The story of Osip Senkovsky.

The pseudonym "Kaverin" was taken by him in honor of the hussar P.P. Kaverin, a friend of the young Pushkin, bred by him under his own name in the first chapter of "Eugene Onegin".

Kaverin's first story - "Chronicle of the city of Leipzig for 18 ... year" - was published in 1922.

In the early 1920s, he was a member of the Serapion Brothers literary group. The early stories were written with fantastical plots.

An appeal to real life was reflected in the novel Nine-tenths of Fate (1926) and others. In 1927, he took part in the collective novel Big Fires, published in the Ogonyok magazine.

The novel "Fulfillment of Desires" (2 books, 1935-1936) and the novel-trilogy "The Open Book" (1953-1956) are devoted to the depiction of creative work, the scientific searches of the Soviet intelligentsia.

The adventure novel "Two Captains" (2 books, 1940-1945), which shows the spiritual quests of the Soviet youth of the military generation fanned by the romance of travel, gained the greatest fame. The novels "Open Book" and "Two Captains" were repeatedly filmed.

In 1935-1949, the Kaverins lived in the former house of the Court Stable Department (Griboyedov Canal Embankment, 9).

During the Great Patriotic War, Veniamin Kaverin worked in the Northern Fleet. Collecting material for the second book "Two Captains", he visited the main formations of the fleet, observed and studied the combat work of personnel. During visits to ships and units, he talked with sailors and officers on issues of Soviet literature, and provided assistance to employees of military newspapers. The trip resulted in the publication of a number of articles and essays in local and national newspapers. For this, Kaverin was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1945.

Veniamin Kaverin has come a long way in life, witnessed many turning points in historical events, which he described in his works. His characters became new heroes. His main novel has become a reference book for several generations of young people, teaching them honesty, perseverance, loyalty, and the ability to make friends. The writer himself adhered to these ideals throughout his life.

In the name of the writer V.A. Kaverin astronomers named an asteroid Veniakaverin(2458 Veniakaverin).

How it all began?

The writer was born in provincial Pskov in a large family of a military musician and pianist with a conservatory education. Of six children, Benjamin was the youngest. All very talented, all have achieved success in art and science. From early childhood, the future writer read a lot - classics, adventures. Stevenson was his favorite writer.

The influence of other people in the work of the writer

A huge role in the development of the future writer was played by his older brother a lion, who later became a virologist, the founder of an entire scientific school, and Lev's classmate, Yuri Tynyanov, later also a well-known novelist and master of words. Friends later became related: Kaverin married Tynyanov's sister, and Yuri became the husband of Benjamin's sister.

In gymnasium times, the only serious problem for the future master of the word was mathematics.

Kaverin in his youth tries his hand at poetry. In those days, versification was widespread among young people with a humanitarian mindset.

Getting a new last name

His real name was Zilber, he came up with a fictitious name named P.P. Kaverin, one of the friends of A.S. Pushkin, described by the poet in the 1st chapter of "Eugene Onegin".

student time

In 1919 V.A. Kaverin moves to Moscow to get a certificate and enter the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University.

He manages to combine study and work. He leads an active social life, takes part in the work of the Pushkin seminar under the guidance of Vsevolod Ivanov, attends literary meetings with famous poets. On the recommendation of a friend, in 1920 he moved to Petrograd and continued his studies at two faculties at once.

Passion for poetry after his poems were criticized by O.E. Mandelstam and V.B. Shklovsky, quickly cooled down. But the story "The Eleventh Axiom" in 1920 won the competition and interested M. Gorky.

"Serapion brothers": the beginning of writing

Of great importance for the education of V.A. Kaverin as a master of the word had his involvement in the group of writers "Serapion Brothers", which arose in 1921. The leaders borrowed the name of the circle from the work of the German romantic Hoffmann. It hinted at the Christian ascetic Serapion and was supposed to denote the high quality of literature and its apathy. In the early years of Soviet power, such a position was unacceptable. Soon, young people realized their naivety, and ideological differences began among them: the group was divided into a western wing and an eastern one. The former preferred adventure genres, while the latter paid attention to the depiction of everyday and folklore stories.

At first, this did not interfere with creative cooperation, but gradually they completely diverged in their views, which was facilitated by serious attacks from critics.

However, Kaverin published his first short story, composed in the style of Hoffmann, in the collection of this circle.

During the 1920s, the writer was engaged in literary activity and science at the same time: he graduated from graduate school and completed the book " Baron Brambeus: The Story of Osip Senkovsky”, credited to him for his dissertation.

The best works

In the 30s, Kaverin began to write major prose works. First came the novel Wish Fulfillment, dedicated to the creative research of scientists. The trilogy "Open Book", written after the war, is devoted to the same topic. The novels were highly rated: the plot was built quite intricately, the characters are emphatically contrasting. And this has become a hallmark of the author's style.

To most book lovers, the master of the word is known as the creator of the popular novel " Two captains". Romantic adventures and spirituality of the military generation of youth conquered book lovers of all ages.

Memory of the heroes of the book "Two Captains"

From the windows of the Pskov children's library you can see a monument to the main characters of his book "Two Captains" - captain Tatarinov and Sanka Grigoriev.

In Polyarny, Murmansk region, there is the Two Captains Square, named after the title of a favorite book. In the Northern Fleet during the war years, V.A. Kaverin served as a war correspondent, for which he received the Order of the Red Star. It was here that the continuation of the epic was created, for which he was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1946. Probably, this is what allowed him not to be subjected to repression like his older brother.

Last years

By nature, Veniamin Alexandrovich was very peaceful, he tried never to enter into any literary and social conflicts. He was not a dissident. In Soviet times, his literary fate developed quite well. All his books were published during his lifetime, with the exception of the last book of memoirs. There was, of course, criticism that was associated with ideology, but no one was immune from it. Kaverin acted according to his conscience, he did not join the party and did not always want to obey its instructions.

So it was in 1955, when writers were allowed to publish the collection " Literary Moscow”, which was banned just a year later.

In 1958, when Kaverin, true to his principles, was the only writer of the older generation who did not poison Boris Pasternak.

So it was in 1962, when Kaverin, in the introduction to " The life of Monsieur de Molière” mentioned another novel by M.A. Bulgakov.

So it was when he refused to sign a letter directed against the killer doctors, and when he signed an appeal in defense of Yu. M. Daniel and A. D. Sinyavsky.

Best novels by V.A. Kaverin was filmed more than once. Entire generations of young people learned from his heroes courage, decency, perseverance, the ability to love and be friends.

Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin was born on April 6 (19), 1902 in Pskov; died May 2, 1989 in Moscow. Real surname - Zilber; the creative pseudonym was taken in honor of Pyotr Pavlovich Kaverin - a hussar, a bully duelist and a reckless reveler, in whose tricks young Pushkin often took part.

Born into the family of a bandmaster of the 96th Omsk Infantry Regiment, of whose six children Veniamin was the youngest. Since childhood, he was greatly influenced by his elder brother Leo, later a world-famous microbiologist and immunologist, academician, one of the creators of the viral theory of cancer. In 1912, Kaverin entered the Pskov gymnasium, where he studied for 6 years. In 1919 he moved to Moscow, where he graduated from high school and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of the University. He was fond of composing poetry, but after the harsh reviews of O. E. Mandelstam and V. B. Shklovsky, he left versification experiments. At the same time he served in the student canteen, then worked in the library of the Moscow Military District and in the art department of the Moscow Council.

In 1920, on the advice of Yuri Tynyanov (husband of Kaverin's sister), whom he considered his literary teacher, he moved to Petrograd, where he continued his education at the philosophical faculty of the university, while studying at the Arabic department of the Institute of Living Oriental Languages. As a philologist, he was attracted by the little-studied pages of Russian literature of the early 19th century: the works of V. F. Odoevsky, A. F. Veltman, O. I. Senkovsky. In 1923 he graduated from the Institute of Oriental Languages, in 1924 - from the university, remaining in it in graduate school. At the same time, Kaverin taught at the Institute of Art History. In 1929, Kaverin defended his Ph.D. thesis in Russian philology under the title “Baron Brambeus. The story of Osip Senkovsky”, which brought the author the title of researcher of the first category.

An important role in the creative formation of the writer was played by his participation in the literary group "Serapion Brothers", which included Vs. Ivanov, M. Zoshchenko, K. Fedin and others. In 1922 the first story was published; in the same year, Kaverin married L. N. Tynyanova (1902-1984), later a children's writer. In 1923 Kaverin's first collection of stories "Masters and Apprentices" was published, in 1925 - the story "The End of Khaza", and in 1931 - the novel "The Artist is Unknown".

There was a period when he tried to compose plays (in the early 30s, some even had success - they were staged by first-class directors, Vs. Meyerhold himself offered cooperation), but, by Kaverin's own admission, he was at odds with the playwright's craft. From the beginning of the 1930s, Kaverin radically changed the field of literary creativity and began writing novels, in which he set the task of not only conveying his knowledge of life, but also developing his own literary style. The first of these was "Wish Fulfillment" - he, like several subsequent ones ("Two Captains", "Open Book"), was very popular. The intricate plot construction and the emphasized contrast with which the writer draws portraits of his heroes are the distinguishing abilities of these books.

During the war, Kaverin worked as a correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper. In 1944, the last part of the most famous of the writer's works, the novel "Two Captains" was published; in the same year, this novel was awarded the Stalin Prize. It is not known how Kaverin's fate would have developed if he had not written this novel; it is quite possible that the writer would have shared the fate of his older brother, academician Lev Zilber, who was arrested three times and sent to camps.

Of Kaverin's later works, it is necessary to note the novel "In Front of the Mirror" (1971), the story "Verlioka" (1982), as well as the autobiographical books "In the Old House" (1971) and "Illuminated Windows" (1976).

In his later years, Kaverin lived mainly in the writers' village of Peredelkino near Moscow, making himself known not only with his works, but also with speeches in defense of cultural freedoms and persecuted artists. He sought the literary rehabilitation of Tynyanov and Bulgakov, signed an appeal in defense of Sinyavsky and Daniel, and supported Solzhenitsyn. Kaverin became a member of the board of the Writers' Union only in 1986, just three years before his death.

He did not stop writing until the last days, even when there was no longer complete confidence that all plans could be realized. One of the last works of Kaverin was a book about his best friend Y. Tynyanov "New Vision", written in collaboration with the critic and literary critic Vl. Novikov.

Benjamin Kaverin was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery. In June 1995, the opening of the monument "Two Captains" took place, which is located near the building of the Pskov Regional Children's Library. In April 1997, a memorial plaque was opened near the building of the main post office in Pskov on the site of the house where Kaverin was born.

The works of Kaverin began to be filmed already in 1926. On Lenfilm alone, the movie "Alien Jacket", the movie in two episodes "Two Captains" and the TV movie in nine episodes "Open Book" were shot. He considered the television version of the story "School Play" to be the most successful. Three films were made based on the famous "Two Captains". And on October 19, 2001, the premiere of the musical Nord-Ost, based on this novel, took place in Moscow. On April 11, 2002, at the North Pole, the authors of the musical Georgy Vasiliev and Alexei Ivashchenko hoisted the Nord-Ost flag with the immortal motto of the polar explorers "Fight and seek, find and not give up."

Fantastic elements are present in many of Kaverin's works. His early prose - the stories "Chronicle of the city of Leipzig for 18.. year" (1922), "Dummy Futerfas" (1923), "The Fifth Wanderer" (1923), as well as the stories "Engineer Schwartz", "Joiners" and "Shields" , included in the collection "Masters and Apprentices" (1923) - reveals the influence of German romanticism and expressionism; in later stories - "The Big Game" (1925), "The Government Inspector" (1926), "The Blue Sun" (1927), "The Mikado's Friend" (1927), "This Morning" (1927) and others included in the collection "Sparrow Night" (1927) - satirical grotesque plays a significant role. The writer returned to science fiction in the 1960s-80s, creating several works of children's fiction: the story "Verlioka" (1981), fairy tales "Easy Steps" (1963), "The Snow Maiden" (1967), "The Flying Boy" (1969 ), "The Glazier's Son" (1979), "Drawing" (1980).