Zhigulin Anatoly Vladimirovich: biography

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

Zhigulin Anatoly Vladimirovich - Russian writer, prose writer and poet, author of the famous autobiographical work "Black Stones" and several collections of poetry.

A man with a difficult fate, who in the Stalinist period of rule knew the whole horror of forced labor camps, which became the basis of the subject of his literary work in the future.

Zhigulin Anatoly Vladimirovich: childhood years

Anatoly was born in Voronezh on the first day of 1930. Father Vladimir Fedorovich - a native of a peasant family, worked as an employee at the post office. For a long period he suffered from consumption (in a dangerous open form), so his mother was engaged in raising Tolik and his younger brother and sister. Evgenia Mitrofanovna, an educated woman who loved poetry, was the great-granddaughter of V. F. Raevsky, the famous Decembrist poet who participated in the Patriotic War of 1812

Anatoly, who often heard poems and songs from his mother, began to slowly engage in literarycreativity. First, the young man expounded school essays in rhymed lines, then the subject matter of his works changed dramatically and was devoted to a half-starved childhood, a destroyed hometown and a war raging nearby. The first publication of the talented author's poems took place in the spring of 1949 in a local newspaper.

In the fight to expose the regime

In 1947, Anatoly Zhigulin, together with his classmates, organized the Communist Youth Party - an illegal organization that fought to restore the state with Leninist principles and expose the Stalin regime (exclusively by peaceful means). This item on the removal of the head of the country and his entourage from their positions was stipulated in the program of the youth organization under the heading "Secret". Despite careful secrecy, in the fall of 1949 the conspiracy was uncovered, and most of its participants, who by that time had become students, were arrested and punished with various terms of imprisonment.

Years in the camps

Zhigulin Anatoly Vladimirovich - at that time a first-year student of the Forestry Institute - miraculously escaped execution. By the decision of the "Special Meeting", a 19-year-old boy was sentenced to 10 years in strict regime camps.

During the years of condemnation, the young man had to experience a lot: he worked at the uranium mines of Kolyma and logging sites in Taishet (Irkutsk region), participated in the construction of the Taishet-Bratsk railway.

The story of the undergroundorganization, which operated a little less than a year, about the "guilt" of young Tolik before the state, the punishment he suffered and the long path of finding the truth was reflected in the famous autobiographical work "Black Stones", which was released in 1988. This work, written in a calmly sincere, without hysterical strain and sentimentality, caused a huge public outcry.

Anatoly Vladimirovich Zhigulin, whose biography repeats the fate of many people of the Stalinist regime, was amnestied in 1954, and 2 years later he was completely rehabilitated. In 1959, the first thin book of poems, Lights of My City, was published.

Literary activity

After returning to Voronezh, the writer received a higher education, graduating in 1960 from the Forestry Engineering Institute. Then he got a job in the Voronezh editorial office of Rise, which he later changed to the capital's Friendship of Peoples and Literaturnaya Gazeta. In 1961, the collection "Bonfire-man" was published from the author's pen, and 1963 was marked by the publication of the first Moscow book of poems "Rails". In the same year, having decided to devote himself entirely to writing, Zhigulin became a student of the Higher Literary Courses in the capital.

In 1964, a book of poems "Memory" was published in 3,000 copies, enthusiastically received by the press. Then, with a difference of a year, the collections "Selected Lyrics" and "Polar Flowers" were published.

Zhigulin AnatolyVladimirovich: poems

At the end of the 60s, a stable concept was formed about the Voronezh poet as a major writer who is able to vividly and accurately express difficult topics. The name of Anatoly Zhigulin was mentioned along with Bella Akhmadulina, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrei Voznesensky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and other literary stars of the second half of the 20th century.

His work, establishing faith in the ultimate triumph of true spiritual and moral values, was constantly in demand, regardless of political fluctuations. Collections of works authored by Zhigulin Anatoly Vladimirovich, poems for children ("Fox", "Chipmunk", including) were published regularly: "Life, unexpected joy", "Burnt notebook", "Transparent days", "Kalina red - viburnum black”, “In Eternal Hope”, “Solovki Gull”.

In the early 1990s, Zhigulin Anatoly Vladimirovich created a cycle of 12 poems "The Troubled Time of Russia", through the rhymed lines of which he spoke about the "Kolyma convoy", conveyed to the reader all the burden of responsibility for the integrity of the Fatherland to his great-grandfathers, stood up for the protection of the historical truth.

Characteristic of creativity

The lyrics of Anatoly Zhigulin, a man who went through the horrors of camp life and managed to keep kindness in his heart, was born from his personal spiritual and life experience.

In the piercing lines dedicated to the years of imprisonment in the camp, as well as the majestic nature of North-Eastern Siberia and Central Russia, one always feelsa positive general attitude, a constant desire and the ability to steadfastly overcome the trials that fell on the human lot, which Anatoly Vladimirovich Zhigulin also underwent.

Poems about the Motherland ("Oh, the Motherland! In a soft splendor", "I thought about the Motherland again"), like all the poetry of the Voronezh author, are characterized by simplicity and clarity of perception, bring them closer to nature and convincingly convey the moral and humanistic the position of a lot of survivors. Having been released, Anatoly Zhigulin remained broken to some extent, more than once he ended up in a psychiatric hospital, which was reflected in his sincerely sincere poetry. The poems of Anatoly Vladimirovich Zhigulin easily fit into music, therefore they have become the basis of many works by professional composers.

Muse of his life

For almost 40 years, Anatoly dedicated poetry to the only woman in his life - Irina Zhigulina-Neustroeva. “I lost my hairpin in the grass …”, “The Mistress”, “Prolong, God, the days of my Irina …”, “Love” entered the golden fund of lyrical poetry, became an example of a reverent and noble attitude towards a woman. Acquaintance with Irina, a young critic, a philologist by education, took place in 1961, and in 1963 the couple got married. A year later, the Zhigulins rejoiced at the appearance of their first-born Vladimir, named after his grandfather. It was a happy family, Irina completely subordinated herself to the interests of her husband, dissolved in him. Anatoly reciprocated, lived only for her.

The heavy 90s, illness, depression, lack of money, completeindifference of higher ranks to the fate of the writer. The talented author died on August 6, 2000. Anatoly died in Irina's arms: the poet's heart, exhausted by adversity and illness, stopped. Irina survived her husband by 13 years, hard to bear in 2009 another terrible loss - the death of her son. Having fallen ill with pneumonia of the lungs, she could not resist the illness and left. She left to meet those whom she sincerely cherished, whom she loved more than life.

The memory of the Soviet poet Anatoly Zhigulin is alive to this day. In 2002, a memorial plaque was opened on the house where he lived before leaving for the capital (Studencheskaya St., 32). A book of prose and poetry, The Far Bell, was published posthumously, including letters from readers and other materials.