Dmitry Lvovich Bykov (writer): biography, personal life, creativity

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

In the Russian literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there were many brilliant writers and poets. However, many of them received well-deserved recognition only after death. Fortunately, this is not always the case. Sometimes in this country they still manage to appreciate great people during their lifetime. Among these lucky ones is the famous contemporary writer, poet, biographer and teacher Dmitry Lvovich Bykov. Let's learn about his life and literary activities.

Biography of Dmitry Bykov: early years

The future writer was born on 1967-20-12 in a classical intelligent family: doctor-father - Lev Iosifovich Zilbertrud and teacher-mother - Natalia Iosifovna Bykova.

Unfortunately, when Dmitry Bykov was still a child, this marriage broke up, and in the future, his mother took on all the hardships of raising the boy. By the way, it is for this reason that the writer bears her maiden name.

The efforts of Natalia Iosifovna were not in vain - her son not only studied "excellently" at school and received a gold medal at the end of it, but also fell in love with the subject that she taught her students with all his heartstudents, Russian literature.

Journalist and presenter

After graduating from school in 1984, Dmitry Lvovich Bykov already knew that he was eager to connect his future with literature. However, he did not enter the philological, but the journalism faculty of Moscow State University.

Unfortunately, in 1987, his studies had to be interrupted for several years, as the young man was drafted into the army and ended up serving in the navy.

Having paid his debt to his homeland, the young man returned to his native university and in 1991 received the long-awaited red diploma. By the way, in the same year, another significant event took place in his life - Bykov was admitted to the Writers' Union of the USSR, which soon collapsed.

Even as a student, Dmitry Bykov managed to establish himself as a good journalist. Therefore, even without a diploma, the guy was already published in the famous Soviet periodical "Interlocutor".

After receiving his diploma, the happy graduate began to write for other well-known Moscow publications - "Capital", "Seven Days" and others.

With the advent of the new millennium, the biography of Dmitry Bykov was filled with numerous and interesting events. First of all, they were associated with professional activities. So, the writer began to be invited to work in many well-known publications of the country, and on a permanent basis. In many of them, the author wrote his own columns - in "Spark", "Russian Life", "He alth", "Company", "Profile", "Labor", "Novaya Gazeta" and many others.

Also, for three years Bykov was the chief editor of the first Russian politicalglossy magazine - Moulin Rouge ("Moulin Rouge").

Unlike some of his fellow writers, Dmitry Bykov was distinguished not only by his ability to write excellently, but also by his ability to be an interesting and attentive conversationalist, who also mastered the art of impromptu. These qualities helped the writer find work on radio and television, and even today he is extremely in demand in these areas.

Among the first interesting projects of this kind in the biography of Dmitry Bykov are evening programs on the Yunost radio station, which the writer hosted in 2005-2006. True, at that time Bykov was not the only one, but one of the hosts, but later, on the wave of City-FM, he got the opportunity to host his own City Show with Dmitry Bykov program.

And from 2012 to 2013, the writer, together with Andrei Norkin, worked on the evening radio show "News in Classics" on Kommersant FM.

As a TV presenter Bykov tried himself for the first time back in the early nineties. However, his first major achievement was his own program on ATV "Good Bykov".

Also, the writer was one of the hosts of the talk shows "Vremechko" (ATV) and "Born in the USSR" ("Nostalgia"), "Oil Painting" ("Channel Five").

Since 2011, Dmitry Bykov has been running his own program on the Nostalgia TV channel called The Flask of Time.

From the autumn of 2015, the writer begins a series of programs on literature “100 lectures with Dmitry Bykov”. This project is still finished and continues to air today on the Dozhd TV channel.

Pedagogicalactivities

Despite being busy with many television and radio projects, Bykov also finds time to educate the younger generation. Considering that although this work is not very grateful, it is more interesting and useful compared to journalism.

Dmitry Bykov began his teaching career back in the nineties by teaching Russian and Soviet literature at the 1214th Moscow school.

In the future, the writer also began to teach these subjects in the private school "Golden Section", as well as in the state boarding school "Intellectual".

In addition to schoolchildren, Dmitry Bykov also educates students by lecturing at the Moscow State Pedagogical University. Among other things, he also heads the Department of World Literature and Culture at MGIMO.

Bykov's most famous novels

Although there are dozens of books by Dmitry Bykov, he deserved the most literary awards for his novels.

For the first time, the writer took up such a difficult genre in 2001. It was then that Dmitry Bykov made his debut with the novel Justification: a linear plot with digressions. Being an ardent opponent of the canonization of Stalin's personality, the writer in this philosophical and fantastic work tried to offer his own justifying version of the repressions of the 30s and 40s, which excite the blood to this day not only with their cruelty, but also with their senselessness.

According to his theory, outlined in "Justification", all those millions of unmotivated arrests were carried out to select the most deserving andnoble citizens who do not let themselves be intimidated and are ready to defend their ideals in the face of painful death. Those who passed such an inhuman selection were "shot" according to their documents, but in fact they received a new life in order to carry out a special mission.

After such a successful start, two years later Bykov published another fantastic novel - "Spelling". And this time the writer chooses the very beginning of the Soviet era in 1918 as the time of action

The next work of the writer, "Evacuator" (2005), was not less, but even more successful with readers. It was dedicated to the love of a Moscow girl and an alien who seeks to save her from death.

The next novel of the writer - "ZhD" - caused a lot of controversy, because in addition to the plot traditional for the author, the main place in the book was given to reflections on the theme of love for the Motherland.

screenwriter, who was included in an unknown list and is trying to find out who wrote it there and why) and the author's most recent work of fiction - "June" (a book about the time before the start of the Great Patriotic War).

Collected poems by Bykov

As sad practice shows, not every poet turns out to be a good prose writer and vice versa. However, Dmitry Bykov is a happy exception to this rule. After all, in addition to the excitingunusual novels, he writes excellent poems.

The first author's collection of poetry "Declaration of Independence" was published shortly after Bykov graduated from Moscow State University - in 1992

Two years later, he released a more voluminous book of his poems - "Message to the youth." And in 1996 - the collection "Military coup".

In the future, almost every few years, the author published books with his poetic works and does not leave this tradition to this day.

The most famous of them are The Conscript (2003), Chain Letters (2005), Late Time (2007), New Chain Letters (2010), New and Newest Chain Letters (2012), "Bliss" and others.

Other books by the writer

In addition to fantastic philosophical novels and memorable poems, there are many works on literary criticism and similar projects in the work of Dmitry Bykov.

In this area, biographical books about Pasternak, Gorky, Bulat Okudzhava and the most recent one about Mayakovsky brought the author the greatest fame.

Also, Bykov has a lot of short stories, which at first were published in various periodicals. But later they were published in separate collections: “How Putin Became President of the United States”, “ZhD Stories”, “Farewell, Cuckoo”, “Chernysh Syndrome” and others.

In addition to short fiction, several collections of journalism by Dmitry Bykov were published: "Chronicles of the coming war", "From scratch", "Thinking of the world", "Farewell, cuckoo", etc.

In addition to all of the above, several plays came out from the pen of this author. All of them were published by onebook - "Bear".

Citizen Poet

The participation in the unusual project "Citizen Poet" brought the writer especially dangerous fame.

The essence of it is that for short videos Bykov composed poems that touched on many topical issues, stylizing them as the poetry of Russian and British classics. The well-known Russian theater and film actor, Mikhail Olegovich Efremov, was entrusted with reading these works. To do this, the artist dressed up as a classic, whose poem was parodied by Bykov.

At first (in 2011) Citizen Poet was a project of the Russian TV channel Dozhd. In the future, due to numerous problems with censorship and bans, new videos began to be posted on the Internet for free access. There they were viewed by millions of viewers from all over Russia and abroad.

This huge popularity, which was acquired by each new release, contributed to the creation of a whole interactive performance based on them with Efremov, Bykov and producer Andrei Vasiliev in the lead roles.

In the future, this trio gave live concerts not only in large cities of the Russian Federation, but also in Ukrainian cities - Kyiv and Odessa.

Vasiliev and Bykov acted as the hosts of the concert, telling the background of writing different videos and showing various videos about it. And Mikhail Efremov, dressed in different classics, read Bykov's poems.

The culmination of each such concert was an improvisation verse composed by Bykov to the order of the audienceright during the performance.

In March 2012, Citizen Poet was closed, but instead, in May of the same year, a similar project appeared - Good Sir. However, it was not only Dmitry Bykov who wrote poetry for him, but also Andrei Orlov, better known as Orlusha.

As for the Citizen Poet, even after its closure, unnumbered new videos with Efremov periodically appeared on the Web.

Civil position

In addition to creativity, the writer Bykov is widely known in his homeland due to his active participation in the socio-political activities of the country.

He was not only one of the organizers of the League of Voters, but also the creator of the social movement "Vote against everyone". Bykov's main goal of participating in these organizations was to achieve fair elections for the state.

Because of this position, the writer has gained a rather controversial reputation. At the same time, in many of his interviews, Dmitry Bykov emphasizes that he appreciates and loves his country and its extraordinary culture. However, he soberly realizes that it is impossible to live in such a way that has developed in the state today. At the same time, the author does not believe that the new revolution is really a way out of the current situation. Because, according to the writer, it will not bring anything good, except for numerous victims and unnecessary pretentious polemics.

The author Bykov considers the inertia of Russians, which is firmly entrenched in their mentality, to be the culprit of many troubles in his country. According to Dmitry Lvovich, it is easier for many of his compatriots to followcrowd, turning off their brains, rather than thinking with their own heads and taking responsibility for the results of their decisions.

Writer Awards

Dmitry Bykov was awarded many literary prizes for his literary and journalistic activities. There are more than a dozen of them, and this is not the limit.

Twice the writer was awarded the "Bronze Snail" for the science fiction novels "Evacuator" and "Decommissioned".

In Bykov's piggy bank there are four International Literary Prizes named after A. and B. Strugatsky for "Spelling", "Evacuator", "ZhD" and "X".

Twice he received the famous literary award "Big Book" for his biographical work "Boris Pasternak" and the novel "Ostromov, or the Sorcerer's Apprentice".

Also, Bykov was once nominated for this award for ZhD. However, having reached the finals, he did not receive it.

For "Boris Pasternak" and "Ostromov…" Bykov was also awarded the "National Bestseller" in 2006 and 2011

In addition to all the above awards, the writer is the owner of two "Portals". And his first novel, Justification, was included in the 50 most striking debuts of the beginning of the third millennium according to Literary Russia.

What does a writer do today

Although the bibliography of Dmitry Bykov is already quite impressive (as well as the list of his awards and achievements), the author does not allow himself to be lazy and continues to set new goals for himself and achieve them.

Since 2015, he has been hosting the Odin radio program on Ekho Moskvy. Also, from time to time, Bykov starred invarious TV programs, prints articles in the press.

In September 2015, the Dozhd TV channel launched the program One Hundred Lectures with Dmitry Bykov. In his series of lectures, Dmitry talks about Russian literature from 1900 to 1999, in each of the programs dwelling in detail on one work published in the corresponding year. As part of the presented cycle, Bykov also gives general lectures that are not tied to a specific year, and also dwells separately on some works for children and youth. As of the end of March 2017, more than seventy lectures have been published in the series.

Of the most recent works of the author in the field of literature are the novels “Quarter. Passage (2014) and June (2017), collections of his poems Clear. New Poems and Chain Letters (2015) and If Not: New Poems (2017).

Among other new books by Dmitry Bykov - “The Thirteenth Apostle. Mayakovsky. A buff tragedy in six acts (2016) and an entertaining children's book on zoology "I am a wombat".

In 2017, the writer also published a separate edition of radio conversations about the literature of the radio station "Echo of Moscow" - "One: 100 Nights with a Reader".

Personal life of Dmitry Bykov

Fortunately, in his life the author managed to find his beloved woman and win her heart. Irina Lukyanova, whom he met while working at Interlocutor, became Bykov's beautiful, and most importantly, smart wife.

The writer's wife turned out to be a match for him: a writer, a poetess, an athlete (the first category in artisticgymnastics), an excellent needlewoman and just an interesting and charming woman. She gave birth to two children to Dmitry Bykov: son Andrey and daughter Zhenya.

At the same time, having become a married lady, Lukyanova did not stop writing books, especially since her husband actively helped her in this. Together they published two works: "Animals and animals" and "In the world of tummies".

Fun Facts

• In the family of Dmitry Bykov, he was the first to become a professional and successful writer of prose and poetry. Prior to this, there were doctors on the paternal side of the family (Bykov's father and uncle specialized in otorhinolaryngology).
• The writer's maternal grandfather was awarded the Order of the Red Star during the Great Patriotic War.
• Today, Dmitry Lvovich has the academic title of "Professor".
• At the dawn of his literary career, Bykov published two collections of prose ("66 days. Jungle Orchid" and "Harley and Marlboro. Wild Orchid-2") under the pseudonym Matthew Bull.
• The writer Dmitry Bykov's favorite genre is science fiction. Moreover, the best authors of this kind, in his opinion, are Andrey Lazarchuk, Sergey Lukyanenko, Maria Galina, Vyacheslav Rybakov and the creator of a series of humorous books about the mythical hero Zhikhar - Mikhail Uspensky. By the way, Dmitry believes that science fiction should be studied at school.



• Bykov considers Fazil Iskander and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya to be the most worthy of attention and respect among contemporary writers.
• Among othersmodern Russian writers whose work interests the writer are Pelevin, Prilepin, the children of Viktor Dragunsky: Denis and Xenia, Alexander Kuzmenkov, Mikhail Shcherbakov, Oleg Chukhontsev, Marina Kudimova, Valery Popov, Igor Karaulov, Marina Boroditskaya and others like them.