Rurik Ivnev: biography, photo

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

Rurik Ivnev is a Russian prose writer, poet and translator, whose work is of genuine interest to the modern readership.

Kovalev Mikhail Alexandrovich (real name of the writer) was born on February 11, 1891 in a noble family living in Tiflis. Father - the captain of the Russian army, worked in the military district court as an assistant prosecutor. Mom - a woman of rare beauty and strong character, was engaged in the education of Mikhail and the eldest son Nikolai. In 1894, after the death of her husband, in order to find a stable income, with two boys in her arms, she was forced to move to the city of Kars, where she got a job as a headmistress in a women's gymnasium.

Rurik Ivnev: biography

The sons, at the request of their mother, and also in order to continue the family tradition, entered the cadet corps in Tiflis, where Mikhail studied for 8 years. During the period of study, which became an important stage in the spiritual development of the future writer, the young man got acquainted with the work of Lermontov, Pushkin, A. K. Tolstoy. Of contemporary poets, I. Annensky, Balmont, Bryusov and Blok became close to him. It was at this time that Mikhail tries himself inwriting poetic lines and reads the first verses in a circle of friends.

After graduating from an educational institution, being influenced by the revolutionary achievements of 1905, he decided to leave his military career and moved to St. Petersburg, where he entered the law faculty of the Imperial University. He completed his education in the capital, after which in 1915-1917. got a job at the State Control Office.

On a creative path

Michael's first publication is the poem "Our Days", published in 1909 in the Student Collection. Three years later, two more poems were presented to the reader's court, but already in the Bolshevik newspaper Zvezda. In 1913, the first collection of poems "Self-immolation (Revelations)" was published, and off we go … The works of the young author, including prose, began to be actively published by various publications.

The young author, who took the pseudonym Rurik Ivnev, began to perform a lot at poetry evenings, the doors of literary salons and living rooms easily opened before him, meetings with famous poets and writers took place, among whom were S. Yesenin and A. Blok. Ivnev Rurik and Yesenin, who became real sincere friends, were largely united by their love for the poetic style and literary creativity in general.

Characteristic of early creativity

In his early work, Mikhail can be described as a kind of sad and helpless St. Petersburg boy, unhappy as a woman, with a deep sense of guilt,desperately looking for a way out. The style of writing of this period was characterized by passionate self-flagellation, nervous fatigue, reaching a mannered hysteria, a feeling of unbearably burning shame, reaching its extreme limit and taking on the character of foolishness, hysterics.

Ivnev's political activities

The poet Rurik Ivnev, whose biography is of sincere interest to the modern reader, enthusiastically greeted the February and October revolutions, the events of which he captured in the poems "The People" (1918), "Petrograd" (1918). A huge influence on the poet's future worldview was made by a meeting with A. V. Lunacharsky, a Russian revolutionary, writer and publicist who took an active part in the revolution of 1905-1907. Impressed by his brilliant performances, the delighted and excited Rurik Ivnev became Anatoly Vasilyevich's voluntary assistant, and then the official secretary. Since that time, the young writer plunged headlong into political activity, directing it to strengthen the position of Soviet power.

In 1918, Rurik Ivnev moved to the capital, began working as a correspondent for the Izvestiya VTSIK newspaper, in 1919 he traveled around the country as part of an agitation train and agitated the people for Soviet power.

In the ranks of the Imagists

In 1919, Rurik Ivnev joined the Imagists, who argued that the purpose of creativity is to create an image, and the main expressive means for its transmission is a metaphor. After a short time, publicly, through the newspaper Izvestia, he announcedhis withdrawal from the ranks of the organization due to complete disagreement with its actions. Then he changed his point of view again by publishing an open letter to Mariengof and Yesenin about joining them in the collection The Imagists (1921). A new collection of poems "The Sun in the Coffin", compiled by Sergei Yesenin, was published by the publishing house of the Order of the Imagists in 1921. In 1925, Rurik Ivnev, whose biography is quite complex and instructive, visited Germany, worked at the Knizhnoe delo publishing house in Vladivostok, and 2 years later visited Japan.

Last years of life

A lot of attention Rurik Ivnev, whose biography is a vivid example of human determination, paid translations, worked on memoirs and autobiographical novels "At the foot of Mtatsminda" and "La Boheme", which he managed to complete before his departure to another world.

After the end of the bloody war, he continued to write poetry and turned to the historical past of his country in the works "Sergey Yesenin", "The Tragedy of Tsar Boris", "Emelyan Pugachev". All this time he traveled a lot around the country. The impressions received found a response in the poetic works "Baku Morning", "Dagestan", "Farewell to Kamchatka". The writer was especially warm in Georgia, where he lived since 1936. His mother's ashes rest on this earth.

The work of Rurik Ivnev of the 40-70s is characterized by the transparency and clarity of verse, traditional in its basis and close to the origins of poetry of the 19th century. The author feels a deep kinship with nature, to which he dedicatesmany works.

Since 1950, Rurik Ivnev lived in Moscow. The last poem was written by him a few hours before leaving. The famous Soviet poet died on February 19, 1981.