Mikhail Zoshchenko: life, creativity. Stories for children

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Zoshchenko Mikhail Mikhailovich, the famous Russian writer and playwright, was born in 1894, July 29 (according to some sources, in 1895), in St. Petersburg. His father was an itinerant artist, and his mother was an actress. First, we will talk about how the life of such a writer as Mikhail Zoshchenko turned out. The biography below describes the main events of his life path. Having talked about them, we will move on to describing the work of Mikhail Mikhailovich.

Education at the gymnasium and at the St. Petersburg Institute

In 1903, parents sent their son to study at St. Petersburg Gymnasium No. 8. Mikhail Zoshchenko, whose biography can be recreated on the basis of his own memoirs and works, talking about these years, noted that studied rather poorly, especially in Russian. For the essay on the exam, he received a unit. However, MichaelMihailović notes that already at that time he wanted to be a writer. So far, Mikhail Zoshchenko created stories and poems only for himself.

Life is sometimes paradoxical. The future famous writer, who began to compose at the age of nine, is the most backward student in the class in the Russian language! His lack of progress seemed strange to him. Zoshchenko Mikhail Mikhailovich notes that at that time he even wanted to commit suicide. However, fate kept him.

After graduating in 1913, the future writer continued to receive education at the St. Petersburg Institute, at the Faculty of Law. A year later, due to non-payment of tuition, he was expelled from there. Zoshchenko had to go to work. He began to work on the Caucasian railway as a controller.

Wartime

The usual course of life was interrupted by the First World War. Michael decided to enlist in the military. First, he became a rank-and-file cadet and went to the Pavlovsk military school, then, after graduating from a four-month accelerated course, he went to the front.

Zoshchenko noted that he did not have a patriotic mood, he simply could not sit in one place for a long time. In the service, however, Mikhail Mikhailovich distinguished himself. He was a participant in many battles, was poisoned with gases, was wounded. Having begun to participate in battles with the rank of ensign, Zoshchenko was already a captain and was expelled to the reserve (the reason was the consequences of gas poisoning). In addition, he was awarded 4 orders of military merit.

Return to Petrograd

Mikhail Mikhailovich, returning to Petrograd, met V. V. Kerbits-Kerbitskaya, his future wife. After the February Revolution, Zoshchenko was appointed head of the telegraph and post offices, as well as the commandant of the Main Post Office. Then there was a business trip to Arkhangelsk, work as an adjutant of the squad, as well as the election of Mikhail Mikhailovich to the secretaries of the regimental court.

Service in the Red Army

However, peaceful life is interrupted again - now by the revolution and the ensuing Civil War. Mikhail Mikhailovich goes to the front. As a volunteer, he enters the Red Army (in January 1919). He serves as a regimental adjutant in the regiment of the rural poor. Zoshchenko takes part in the battles near Yamburg and Narva against Bulak-Balakhovich. After a heart attack, Mikhail Mikhailovich had to demobilize and return to Petrograd.

Zoshchenko in the period from 1918 to 1921 changed many occupations. Subsequently, he wrote that he tried himself in about 10-12 professions. He worked as a policeman, and a carpenter, and a shoemaker, and an agent of the criminal investigation department.

Life in times of peace

The writer in January 1920 experiences the death of his mother. His marriage to Kerbits-Kerbitskaya belongs to the same year. Together with her, he moves to the street. B. Zelenina. In the Zoshchenko family in May 1922, a son, Valery, was born. Mikhail Mikhailovich in 1930 was sent along with a team of writers to the B altic Shipyard.

Years of the Great Patriotic War

Mikhail Zoshchenko at the beginning of the war writes a statement in which he asks to be enrolled in the Red Army. However, he gets rejected -he is declared unfit for military service. Zoshchenko has to conduct anti-fascist activities not on the battlefield. He creates anti-war feuilletons and publishes them in newspapers, sends them to the Radio Committee. In 1941, in October, he was evacuated to Alma-Ata, and a month later he became an employee of Mosfilm, working in the script department of the studio.

Persecution

Zoshchenko was summoned to Moscow in 1943. Here he is offered to take the post of editor of "Crocodile". However, Mikhail Mikhailovich refuses this proposal. Nevertheless, he is a member of the editorial board of "Crocodile". Outwardly, everything looks good. However, after some time, clouds begin to gather over Mikhail Mikhailovich's head: he is taken out of the editorial board, evicted from the hotel, deprived of food rations. The persecution continues. Tikhonov N. S. at the plenum of the SSP even attacks Zoshchenko's story "Before Sunrise". The writer is practically not published, but nevertheless, in 1946, he was introduced to the editorial board of Zvezda.

August 14, 1946 - the apotheosis of all his ups and downs. It was then that the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a decree on the journals Leningrad and Zvezda. After that, Zoshchenko is expelled from the Writers' Union, and also deprived of a food card. This time the reason for the attacks was already quite insignificant - Zoshchenko's children's story called "The Adventures of a Monkey". All magazines, publishing houses and theaters, following the decision, terminate the contracts they had previously concluded, demanding the returnissued advances. The Zoshchenko family is in poverty. She is forced to exist on the proceeds from the sale of personal belongings. The writer tries to earn money in the artel of shoemakers. The ration card is eventually returned to him. In addition, Mikhail Zoshchenko publishes stories and feuilletons (of course, not all of them). However, at this time, one has to earn a living mainly by translation work.

Mikhail Zoshchenko manages to recover in the Writers' Union only after Stalin's death. A significant event takes place on June 23, 1953 - the writer is again accepted into the Union. However, this is not the end. Mikhail Mikhailovich did not manage to stay a member for long this time.

On May 5, 1954, a fateful event occurred. Anna Akhmatova and him were invited that day to the Writer's House, where a meeting with a group of English students was to take place. The writer publicly stated his disagreement with the accusations leveled against him. A new stage of bullying begins after this. All these vicissitudes affected his undermined he alth. The article "The Facts Reveal the Truth" published on September 7, 1953 was the last straw. After that, the name of the writer ceased to be mentioned at all. This oblivion lasted for about two months. However, already in November, Mikhail Mikhailovich was offered cooperation by two magazines - Leningradsky Almanac and Krokodil. A whole group of writers comes to his defense: Chukovsky, Kaverin, Vs. Ivanov, N. Tikhonov. In 1957, in December, he publishes Selected Stories and Novels 1923-1956However, the mental and physical state of the writer is deteriorating. A sharp decline in his strength occurs by the spring of 1958. Zoshchenko loses interest in life.

Zoshchenko's death

Mikhail Zoshchenko died on July 22, 1958. Even his body was disgraced after death: no permission was given to bury him in Leningrad. The ashes of the writer rest in Sestroretsk.

Mikhail Zoshchenko, whose life story was devoted to the first part of our article, left a great creative legacy. His path as a writer was not easy. We offer you a closer look at how his creative destiny developed. In addition, you will find out what stories Mikhail Zoshchenko created for children and what are their features.

Creative path

Zoshchenko actively began to write after he was demobilized in 1919. His first experiments were literary critical articles. In the "Petersburg Almanac" in 1921, his first story appears.

Serapion brothers

In a group called "Serapion Brothers" Zoshchenko was led in 1921 by the desire to become a professional writer. Critics were wary of this group, but noted that Zoshchenko was the "most powerful" figure among them. Mikhail Mikhailovich, along with Slonimsky, was part of the central faction, which held the conviction that one should learn from the Russian tradition - Lermontov, Gogol, Pushkin. Zoshchenko was afraid of the "noble restoration" in literature, considered A. Blok "a knight of a sad image" andpinned his hopes on literature with heroic pathos. In May 1922 Alkonost published the first serapion almanac, in which Mikhail Mikhailovich's story was published. And "Stories of Nazar Ilyich, Mr. Sinebryukhov" is a book that became his first independent publication.

Characteristic of early creativity

The school of A. P. Chekhov was palpable in the early works of Zoshchenko. These are, for example, such stories as "The Female Fish", "War", "Love", etc. However, he soon rejected it. Zoshchenko considered the long form of Chekhov's stories to be inappropriate for the needs of the modern reader. He wanted to reproduce in the language "the syntax of the street … the people." Zoshchenko considered himself a person who temporarily replaced the proletarian writer.

A large group of writers in 1927 created a collective declaration. It covered a new literary and aesthetic position. M. Zoshchenko was among those who signed it. At that time he was published in periodicals (mainly in the satirical magazines Smekhach, Begemot, Eccentric, Buzoter, Amanita, Inspector General, etc.). However, not everything went smoothly. Because of the story "An Unpleasant Story" by M. Zoshchenko, allegedly "politically harmful", in June 1927 an issue of the magazine "Begemot" was confiscated. The elimination of such publications is being gradually carried out. In Leningrad, in 1930, the Inspector General, the last satirical magazine, was also closed. However, Mikhail Mikhailovich does not despair and decides to continuework.

Two sides of fame

He has been collaborating with the Crocodile magazine since 1932. At this time, Mikhail Zoshchenko was collecting material for his story called "Youth Restored", and also studying literature on medicine, psychoanalysis and physiology. His works are already well known even in the West. However, this fame had a downside. In Germany, in 1933, Zoshchenko's books were subjected to a public auto-da-fé in accordance with Hitler's black list.

New works

In the USSR at the same time, Mikhail Zoshchenko's comedy "Cultural Heritage" was being printed and staged. The Blue Book, one of his most famous books, begins publication in 1934. In addition to novels, short stories and plays, Zoshchenko also writes feuilletons and historical stories ("Taras Shevchenko", "Kerensky", "Retribution", "The Black Prince", etc.). In addition, he creates stories for children ("Smart Animals", "Granny's Gift", "Christmas Tree", etc.).

Zoshchenko's children's stories

Mikhail Zoshchenko wrote many stories for children. They were published in magazines between 1937 and 1945. Of these, some were separate works, while others were combined into cycles. The cycle "Lelya and Minka" is the most famous.

In 1939 - 1940s. Mikhail Zoshchenko created this series of works. It included the following stories: "Golden Words", "Greattravelers", "Nakhodka", "Thirty years later", "No need to lie", "Galoshes and ice cream", "Granny's gift", "Christmas tree". It is no coincidence that they were combined into one cycle by Mikhail Zoshchenko. Brief contents of these works allow the conclusion is that they have something in common, namely the images of the main characters. This is little Minka and Lelya, his sister.

The narration is being told on behalf of the narrator. His image is no less interesting than the heroes of Mikhail Zoshchenko's stories. This is an adult who recalls instructive and comic episodes from his childhood. Note that there is a similarity between the author and the narrator (even the name is the same, and there is also an indication of the writing profession). Nevertheless, it does not reach a complete coincidence. The narrator's speech differs significantly from the author's. This form of storytelling is called literary skaz. It was especially relevant in the literature of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. At this time, the whole culture was distinguished by a craving for stylistic and linguistic experiments.

In these stories, as noted by S. Ya. Marshak, the author not only does not hide morality. He talks about it with all frankness in the text, and sometimes in the title of the works ("Do not lie"). However, the stories from this do not become didactic. They are saved by humor, always unexpected, as well as the special seriousness inherent in Zoshchenko. The unexpected humor of Mikhail Mikhailovich is based on a witty parody.

Today, many works written by Mikhail Zoshchenko are very popular. His books are inschool, they are loved by adults and children. His path in literature was not easy, as, indeed, was the fate of many other writers and poets of the Soviet era. The twentieth century is a difficult period in history, however, even during the war years, many works were created that have already become classics of Russian literature. The biography of such a great writer as Mikhail Zoshchenko, summarized by us, we hope, aroused your interest in his work.