Russian poet Yevgeny Rein: biography, personal life, family and creativity

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

Evgeny Rein is a popular Russian poet and prose writer, and also a well-known screenwriter. This is one of the most significant literary figures of the middle of the 20th century, a close friend of Joseph Brodsky. Belonged to the circle of friends of Anna Akhmatova in the last years of her life, which greatly influenced the creative career of the poet.

Poet biography

Evgeny Rein was born in Leningrad. He was born in 1935 to a Jewish family. Father Boris Grigorievich was an architect, and mother Maria Isaakovna Ziskand was a German teacher, she herself comes from Yekaterinoslav.

When the hero of our article was 9 years old, his father died. Boris Grigoryevich died during the Great Patriotic War in the battle near Narva. A year before, Eugene returned with his mother to Moscow from evacuation. They experienced these few years with their father's relatives. Soon after, they moved to Leningrad, when the blockade was lifted from the city.

An important stage in the biography of Evgeny Rein was studying at the technologicalInstitute named after the Lensoviet in Leningrad. The poet himself admits that the choice of the educational institution turned out to be largely a pure coincidence. Rein went to this university at the insistence of his mother, who wanted to ensure the future of her son, she did not believe that he would be able to earn a normal salary in the humanitarian industry.

At first, Rhine was even expelled from the institute due to a political scandal. The wall newspaper "Culture" was published at the university, which often raised acute problems that caused dissatisfaction with the leadership. Despite the fact that Rain was a diligent student, he was nevertheless expelled from the fifth year, right before the defense of his diploma. Returning a year later, he managed to enter the fifth year of another technological institute - the refrigeration industry, and receive a diploma.

The next step in his career was the Higher Script Courses. Such classes played an important role in the life of a famous figure. As a result, he became a screenwriter for more than twenty documentaries. The most famous of them is called "Chukokkala" and is dedicated to the handwritten almanac, which was compiled by Korney Chukovsky from 1914 to 1969. It contains a large number of autographs and short sketches of famous contemporaries of his time.

At the very beginning of his career, Yevgeny Borisovich worked in geological parties in the Far East, as well as at several Leningrad plants.

Rein himself admits that the trip to Kamchatka, which was a real test for him, was in many ways decisive for him. This journey made a great impression on him, he metmany unique people, he gained invaluable life experience.

Early career

The poetry of Soviet constructivism had a great influence on the formation of the individual style of Evgeny Borisovich Rein. First of all, these were the works of Eduard Bagritsky and Ilya Selvinsky, in some way - Vladimir Lugovoy.

In the 1960s, Yevgeny Rein was among the so-called Akhmatov orphans. It was there that he became close to Brodsky.

Akhmatov's orphans

"Akhmatova's orphans" are four poets who were part of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova's inner circle in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition to Evgeny Rein, these were Dmitry Bobyshev, Joseph Brodsky, Anatoly Naiman.

Akhmatova highly appreciated the creativity of each of them. As Brodsky admitted, she was for them not only a literary, but also a spiritual and moral authority.

Nyman claims that Akhmatova taught them not a poetic craft - it was something more. In fact, the classes were optional, she created an amazing atmosphere in which she managed to create.

Brodsky, in an interview with Solomon Volkov, draws a parallel between their amazing four and the four from the golden age. Brodsky believed that each of them at the same time fulfilled its role, corresponding to one or another poet of the Russian golden age. For example, Rhine, according to Brodsky, corresponded to Pushkin, Bobyshev - to Delvig, Naiman - to Vyazemsky, and Brodsky himself compared himself withBaratynsky.

The very term "Akhmatova's orphans" appeared thanks to a poem by Dmitry Bobyshev called "All four", which was dedicated to the memory of Akhmatova. Here is an excerpt from it.

And nailed on the cemetery cross

the soul has seen the light: in a series of losses

Osya, Tolya, Zhenya, Dima come in

Akhmatov's orphans in a row.

They were also called "magic choir", "Havvakum people", "magic dome". However, none of them was their self-name.

After a large number of years, Joseph Brodsky called the Rhine "tragic elegiac".

Poems

In 1971, Rein moved from Leningrad to Moscow. In 1979 he became a member of the Metropol almanac. His works were practically not published in official publications, so they began to be distributed in samizdat. Periodically, they could be seen in the "Syntax" magazine.

Yevgeny Rein published his first book of poems in 1984. At that time, he was already 49 years old. It was called "Names of Bridges", and came out with a large number of censorship interventions. But he translated many works of poets from different peoples of his country, as well as English, Arabic and Indian authors. He was admitted to the Writers' Union of the USSR in 1987.

Now he lives in Moscow. Despite a very respectable age, Rein is currently 82 years old, he is still working. Currently teaching at the Gorky Literary Institute,speaks at the Department of Literary Creativity. He also runs a poetry workshop there, which is very popular with aspiring young poets.

It is known that in 2004 he took part in the World Poetry Readings, which were held in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

Publications

Evgeny Rein's poems were practically not published in the Soviet Union. But during this period he was constantly published in magazines published in the West. These are "Edge", "Continent", "Syntax".

When he participated in the Metropol anthology, which was not subject to censorship, he was in charge of the poetry section. For this, he was subjected to severe political persecution, deprived of the opportunity to work. He was able for a long time to deal only with documentary films. He returned to literary activity only in 1982. At the same time, he was allowed to work only with translations.

Only with the beginning of perestroika, his collections began to be published constantly, collections of poems, as well as memoirs.

Yevgeny Rein's books came out with the following titles: "The Darkness of Mirrors", "Let everyone in the world know this terrible incident with Petya", "Irreparable Day", "Tenderness", "Prediction", "Boot", "For me bored without Dovlatov", "Balcony", "Arch over the water", "Notes of a marathon runner", "Elevated crossing", "After our era", "My best addressee", "Memory ofjourney", "Labyrinth".

Features of creativity

Deserved recognition for the work of the poet Yevgeny Rein came after the book "Names of Bridges". Researchers of his work note that he had a great gift and intellect, and besides this, he managed to preserve in himself an eternal saving childhood. Moreover, it was an extremely unfavorable and orphan childhood, which instantly landed in a national tragedy. He constantly talks about this in his poems, combining in them woeful maturity and primordial freshness. For example, this can be observed in one of the best poems by Evgeny Rein - "Forty-first". We emphasize that with the titles of his works, he often gives a kind of polemical reference to cinema.

My dad was an architect, was my uncle a loser…

Dad was killed near Pskov, Uncle returned without a leg.

We were standing on the platform…

In the forty-first… in Leningrad…

Through these verses it can be seen that Rain was pathologically lonely. At the same time, apparently for this reason, he usually places his lyrical hero in the very thick of the crowd. He is constantly in the circle of people, in squares, markets, in lanes.

Describing the work of Yevgeny Borisovich Rein, it should be noted that he is one of the few modern poets who boldly introduces everyday life and everyday life into his works, not at all afraid of it. He can meet both the absurdity of a city communal apartment, and the beauty of a remote periphery, andrudeness mixed with kindness.

Poems

Thinking in 1974 to write a book of poems, he immediately decided that it should be a fundamentally new form. He constantly worked on it, was engaged in the prose of the poetic form, while trying to preserve the energy potential inherent in the lyrics. Rein experimented with a style of blank verse that demanded unprecedented virtuosity from him, and also came up with the so-called sliding line.

In the poem of the hero of our article "Nanny Tanya", literary critics draw a clear parallel between the lyrical heroine of this work and the nanny of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Arina Rodionovna. At least, a real woman played a similar role in the fate of the Rain. Having gone through dispossession and Nazi captivity, she managed to initiate the poet into the main secrets of human existence.

I'll tell you everything. That you were right that you made me

taught everything for this life:

patience and Russian debauchery, which is clearly the highest score for a Jew.

Many noted the innovation of Rein's poems. In them, he succeeded in penetrating autobiographical narrative in poetic form.

In the 1990s, Rhine's poetry entered history with its decorative theatre. It was all the same way of life, but already historical. The relationship of the Rhine with space and time is amazing. The key to his personal chronotype is the deep nostalgia of vision. Even the events that took place quite recently, he observes from the greatest possible distance, trying to give a global scale evenseemingly small trifle. Rain yearns greatly for every next moment, watching everything that happens here and now.

If you talk about the dominant genre in his work, then this is an elegy. And not rural, as was the case in the time of Zhukovsky, but an urban elegy of the 20th century. No wonder Brodsky called him an "elegiac urbanist".

Yevgeny Rein's love poems remain the same. You can always trace recognizable urban details in them, which give his lyrical works realism and sincerity.

Reina Films

Among the most famous films in which Rein participated, we need to recall several of his outstanding works. This is a documentary production by Vladimir Dvinsky "A Tram-Memories", filmed according to the script of the hero of our article.

It touched upon the touching lyrical and musical history of the most ordinary tram. Recently, in more and more cities, he goes into the streets into oblivion, remaining the bright hero of a bygone era. This picture is a kind of farewell to the 20th century. The film contains poems by Yevgeny Rein himself, as well as by the most notable poets of the past century - Anna Akhmatova, Lev Losev, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Osip Mandelstam, Vladislav Khodasevich, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Khazin.

The film was released in 2005. Director Vladimir Dvinsky reads the off-screen text in it, and Rafael Kleiner and Tatyana Shchigoleva read the verses.

Rain also played a big role in creating the dramaBoris Blank "Career of Arturo Ui. New version". This is a film adaptation of the play "The Career of Arturo Ui, which might not have been" by German playwright Bertolt Brecht. The real adornment of this tape are the songs on the verses of Yevgeny Rein, which sound in this picture.

Private life

The hero of our article was married three times. His first wife was Galina Mikhailovna Narinskaya. Novels and strong feelings accompanied him throughout his biography. They met and fell in love right after graduation. At the same time, they formalized relations in the registry office.

They had a daughter, Anna, who now works as a journalist in the authoritative federal publication Kommersant. Her parents' marriage fell apart after ten years.

The second time, Rein married a translator of American and English literature, whose name was Natalya Veniaminovna Ruvinskaya. Together they stayed for nine years. It is known about the children of Evgeny Rein. Natalya Ruvinskaya had a son, Boris, from him. After school, he graduated from the book trade institute, and now works in the business of this direction. Currently, he cooperates with a large Western publishing house, whose office is located in Moscow.

The poet's last love

At the moment Evgeny Rein's wife's name is Nadezhda. They have been together for 30 years. Nadezhda Viktorovna works as an art critic, the poet himself and her colleagues emphasize that she is a talented and highly educated specialist.

Nadezhda Rein worked for a long time in museums, for seven years she served as secretary of the Museum of Fine Arts,located on Volkhonka. She currently works for the Moscow government as a consultant for the protection of historical monuments. She knows Rein's poems brilliantly and helps him a lot in his work.

For example, one of the last books of the writer called "My best addressee" was so luxuriously and wonderfully published thanks to Nadezhda. She actually collected and facsimile published it. The book contains a large number of cartoons, drawings, graphic jokes by Joseph Brodsky, which are originally placed. In addition, she managed to find a patron who provided significant assistance in the publication of this work.

In addition, Nadezhda Rein wrote the preface to this book. In a short text, she told how this book was created. Back in 1996, when Brodsky died, she immediately began to collect his archive. There were also included poems by the Rhine, which in one way or another were associated with Brodsky. It turned out that many of the drawings that Brodsky left on the margins of letters or notes correspond perfectly to her husband's poems. So it was decided to create the book "My best addressee".