Martynchik Svetlana Yurievna: biography, creativity

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

Max Fry is the protagonist of the popular book series. For a long time, nothing was known about the author of the books, but in the early 2000s, the writer himself revealed himself. Or rather, a writer. The article tells about her biography and literary career.

Svetlana Martynchik, or Max Fry

The mystery of the invisible virtual author of three popular series of stories "Echo Labyrinths", "Echo Dreams" and "Echo Chronicles", who had no gender and was hiding under the pseudonym of Max Fry, was revealed not so long ago - in the 2000s. They even turned out to be 2 people - Svetlana Yuryevna Martynchik, a writer, and Igor Stepin, an artist and part-time husband, who in the early stages participated in writing some works.

The pseudonym Max appeared when the idea arose that the main character of the book and the author should have the same name. The surname Fry is translated as “freed from”, “without” (in this case, the combination “Without Max” is obtained), which very eloquently shows the author’s idea. An interesting idea turned out to be very popular, because it gathered around itself a large audience of connoisseurs of the work of this duet.

Already afterrevealing her real name, Svetlana said that such a “hoax” was not some kind of commercial move, but a purely personal, internal desire. And, perhaps, it turned out to be right that in such a pseudonym there is much more truth than in real names and surnames, which still hide their essence behind masks.

Youth years

The future artist, writer and head of Internet projects, Ukrainian by origin, was born in Odessa (then the USSR) on February 22, 1965 and lived a significant part of her childhood in Germany. It so happened that along with her father, a military musician who was sent there to serve, she had to move.

Memories of Berlin, where she lived until the age of 9, remained the warmest. Thanks to kind and progressive people, the beautiful forest that surrounded their house, Martynchik Svetlana perceived this city as ideal. Therefore, it was so difficult to readjust and get used to other realities when she returned to Odessa. The native city of the 70-80s was remembered as a place of cultural and social stagnation, hopelessness, where it was almost impossible to work fruitfully and develop creatively.

Svetlana's desire for art manifested itself in her childhood. And they were very diverse. Interest in literature was manifested in the fact that the girl was a lover to entertain relatives and guests with scary tales of her own composition. She took plots from many books that she brought from the library and read from cover to cover. Therefore, the logical decisionget a job in the library after graduation. As a child, Svetlana begins to get involved in photography. Having received her first camera, which was a gift to her father as a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, she discovered the possibility of visual transmission of the world. It became a harbinger of self-expression in the visual arts.

Svetlana Martynchik did not receive a higher education. Being a student of the philological faculty of Odessa State University, she left him in her third year. At this time, the girl begins to look for herself as an artist. And this search became possible after meeting in 1986 with his future neighbor, friend and later husband Igor Stepin.

The beginning of the creative path

Svetlana Martynchik and Igor Stepin became a wonderful creative duet. They started with the unusual - the creation of a plasticine world, "Homan's Planet". Such a hobby came from Igor's childhood and captivated the couple so much that they managed to create not only the toy people themselves, buildings, but also their culture, describe the history, myths and even the calendar of these characters. Many years of work has borne fruit. It was presented first at an exhibition in Moscow under the name "People of Ho", then in Germany and the USA as a project "The World of Homan" and, finally, was described in "Nests of Chimeras" by Max Fry himself.

All this time the couple is actively saving up for their own apartment, participating in many exhibitions, selling their work abroad. In 2004 they moved to Vilnius, where they live now. Fate is not stupid,in vain will not bring people together,”the words of Max Frey, which perfectly describe this productive creative and family union.

Max Frei and literary activity

Before this character, Max Frei, appeared, Svetlana Martynchik did not think about a career as a writer. Together with her husband, creating fictional worlds, they also came up with a story for them, and in the evenings they told them to each other. Thus, in 1995, a story was created about the adventures of Sir Max in the United Kingdom with a capital called Echo. Svetlana began to describe the adventures of the hero, and her works gathered the best features of parody, detective and fantasy.

Already next year, the publishing house "Azbuka" began to issue one after another story by the author Max Fry from the cycle "Labyrinths of Echo": "Simple Magic News", "Delusions", "Volunteers of Eternity", "The Chatty Dead Man" and others. This hero is also the main character in works called "Nests of Chimeras", "My Ragnarok", which take place in the world of Homan.

Later were the Dream Echo and Echo Chronicles series. All these works became more and more popular among readers, and the very figure of the mysterious Max Fry only warmed up interest and attracted attention. However, revealing the real authorship was not far off with the appearance in 2002 of the "Encyclopedia of Myths" and "The True Story of Max Frei, Author and Character" in it.

The reason for this exposure was the conflict between Svetlana Martynchik and the director of Azbuka, who wantedmake the name of the character the name of the trademark and release mass works of other authors under it. Disagreement with this led to the fact that the following stories of Svetlana began to be published by the Amfora publishing house.

Other works and their features

Martynchik Svetlana after moving to the publishing house "Amphora" produced more than 20 books in the literary world, including "Coffee Book", "Tea Book", "Russian Foreign Tales". Together with previous works, they are capable of being independent stories from which the reader can begin their acquaintance. The combination of different directions and genres - fantastic, heroic stories, postmodern game, humorous and mystical stories - all this also combines the masculinity of the character's actions with the ease and softness of presentation.

Svetlana is also the author of other works such as The Perfect Romance (1999), The Book of Solitude, Tales and Stories (2004). Whatever they were - individual or co-authored, a woman never attributed them only to herself. This also applies to Max Fry - she considers him the result of a common work with Igor Stepin, who not only took part in illustrating books, but was also listed with Svetlana as a copywriter.

Literary merit

Martynchik Svetlana is a diversified personality. After all, she managed to become a publicist, prose writer, curator of book series in a publishing house, radio presenter, artist and photographer. Perduring this time she received several awards, for example, the World of Fantasy magazine award for The Echo Chronicles (2005), in the nomination for the best male image she received the Silver Arrow in 2008

She says about herself that she loves nature (both plants and animals), traveling around the world's cities and good shoes.

Svetlana Martynchik herself, her biography and her work have become a unique symbiosis that has created a fictional, but intriguing and unique story that captures an increasing number of readers.