Andrey Shmelev Biography

Childhood and the first creative experiments 2. Acquaintance with censorship 3. In recent years in Russia 4. From France about Russia: the “sun of the dead” 5. Shmelev was called the “Orthodox writer” - he wrote a lot about the spirituality of the Russian man. But his works were admired by the laureates of Thomas Mann and Knut Gamsun. My father had to pay debts, Sergey Shmelev. The mother of the future writer, Evlampy Gavrilovna, was educated at the Moscow Institute of noble girls and knew Russian literature very well.

The couple had six children. In the house of the Shmelevs, it was noisy: workers of artel often came to the office of the family, for the holidays for them they set tables in the yard. The writer recalled in Autobiography: “Here, in the yard, I saw the people. I was used to him here and was not afraid of a swearing, nor wild screams, nor shaggy heads, nor a dozen hands.

The father found the educator among his artisans - the elderly Mikhail Gorkin looked after future writers. Deeply believer, he told Shmelev a lot about God, the highest justice and mercy. The whole family was also religious: in the evenings they read the Gospel together, and on Sundays - went to church. The father had a warm relationship with his son. Sergei Shmelev prepared a successor out of him: he took with him to the contracts, explained the work, allowed him to sit in his office and listen to conversations with the artisans.

When the future writer was seven years old, his father dropped the horse and soon he died. I try to think that daddy will not quite die, only until some period ... there will be, somewhere, wait for us ... And now the dad is escorted on a long journey, they will read the waste. And we all go there when the deadline comes ... ”Ivan Shmelev“ Summer of the Lord ”after the death of her husband Shmelev took all the concerns for the children.

To maintain the wealth of the family, she handed over the top floor of the house to the guests. Evlampy Shmelev was irritable and strict in upbringing: even for the smallest outliness of the future writer, he was poured, and "the broom turned into small pieces." Mother gave her son a good primary education: he was enrolled in the first Moscow gymnasium - one of the most prestigious educational institutions of the city.

The competition was 40 people per place. But Ivan Shmelev did not like there, he recalled: “I was suppressed by cold and land. This is the most difficult time of my life - the first years in the gymnasium. It's hard to speak. Cold, dry people. A lot of tears at night and day, a lot of fear. ” In the class, Shmelev immediately became lagging behind. Unlike other teachers in the classroom, he gave students creative freedom: they could choose the topic and the genre of written works.

Tsvetaev was the first to notice the literary talent of Shmelev: for the lyrical sketch “Summer Rain in the Forest”, the future writer received five with three advantages. The student tried to write science fiction: his story about the journey of teachers in a balloon to the moon was transferred from hand to hand. In the spring of the year, the future writer met Olga Okterloni.

They met in the Shmelev’s house: on the holidays, the girl visited relatives who rented rooms on the top floor of the mansion. Okterloni belonged to the impoverished noble family, finished training at the Charitable Institution-the St. Petersburg Patriotic Institute. Soon she moved to Moscow. Shmelev in love every day went to visit her, missing classes. To prevent him from expelled, he went to the trick: he sent explanatory notes to the gymnasium on behalf of his mother.

Soon the deception opened, but the punishment was avoided, Fedor Tsvetaeva stood up for the student. In the year, Ivan Shmelev wrote the story “At the Mill” about the fisherman, whose wife forcibly led the Barin. The writer recalled: “The story was terrible, with everyday drama, from“ I ”. I made myself a witness to the denouement, so brightly, it seemed, I did that I believed my own invention.

” Shmelev sent the text to the Russian Review magazine, he was accepted, but they were not in a hurry with the publication. The story was the first published work of Ivan Shmelev. In his student years, he became interested in scientific theories: he read the work of naturalist Charles Darwin, sociologist Herbert Spencer, as well as anthropologist Charles Leturno, who described the social evolution of man.

Shmelev recalled: "I had an insatiable thirst for" know "... This knowledge took me away from the most important knowledge - from the source of knowledge, from the church." In the year, Shmelev married Olga Okterloni. In me, he goes through a timid thought: “What is the talent ... by this, writing? After the trip, Shmelev wrote a cycle of essays “On the Rocks of Valaam”.

He called the monks to the workers and talked about their strength of the spirit, but did not hide the fact that he did not see the point of renunciation of the world.

Shmelev brought the manuscript to the Russian Review magazine, where the author was published. But there the writer was asked to make edits: the editors did not agree with criticism of asceticism. The writer refused and in the year published a cycle for his money. However, the book did not reach a wide audience-the whole circulation was detained by order of the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev.Shmelev was called to the censorship committee, where, after two meetings with Prince Nikolai Shakhovsky, he agreed to reduce the work by 27 pages.

Excerpts about the drunkenness and hypocrisy of the monks were removed from the essays. The edited version was published, but the book was not in demand, and the publication had to sell the Bukinist. After that, Shmelev did not write anything for a long time. In January, Shmelev and Okterloni had a son Sergey. The family lived modestly, there was not enough money. He walked to the students: he saved on cabs, even if he had to go to another part of the city.

In the year, Shmelev graduated from the university, and he was sent to serve military service. In the year, Shmelev became an official on special assignments of the Vladimir Treasury Chamber. He returned to literature and began to write children's stories: “To the Sun”, “Servants of Pravda”, “Mary” and others. In Vladimir, Shmelev talked a lot with ordinary people who were faced with injustice.

In the impression of the writer what he saw, he began to write works about the “little man”: “Wahmister”-about the military who switched to the side of the revolutionaries because of his son, and “Citizen Zhlekin”-about the Sapozhnik, whose life is established after the revolution. Critics praised the works, and Shmelev decided to focus on writing. In the year, he quit the service and moved back to Moscow.

In recent years in Russia, stories brought Ivan Shmelev fame, and he entered the writer's environment. In the year, Shmelev entered there. Three years later, Ivan Shmelev also entered the “Knowledge” partnership organized by Gorky, which owned his own printing house. In the year, Shmelev published the story "Man from the restaurant." The story of an elderly waiter, whose life collapses because of a quarrel with a tenant, liked the critics and liberal and conservative print.

The text was immediately translated into Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, German and French. In December, the writer published the essay “About Fashionable Products”, where he criticized the Bolsheviks for “they have no love for the people or their homeland”. All the next year, Shmelev wrote the story “Uncepposed Chalice” about a pious serf, which became an artist. She was a separate book in the year abroad.

Hands were numb. Not a single book at hand, only the gospel. Somehow unexpectedly wrote. It was difficult time. " In the year, the Red Army occupied Crimea. The son of the writer - Sergey Shmelev, who fought on the side of the "white" General Denikin, was shot with other military personnel. There was no work, and the writer often had to starve. They stopped giving us bread.

No, it will not come. Well, I seem to have said everything. Yes, if it is not possible to leave, they will not allow, die, like Umir [Ayut], in a drying, in a lull, not before our eyes ”Ivan Shmelev, a letter to the translator Viknthi Veresaev from September 21 from France about Russia:“ The Sun of the Dead ”thanks to the troubles of friends in Moscow on November 13, Shmeleva were able to get permission to leave the country.

Vera Bunina recorded in her diary on July 27: “On the evening walk of Yves. He blames himself, blames his mother, who did not insist that he would run alone, without them. But the whole thing, of course, that they had all three did not have a physiological aversion to life with the Bolsheviks. ” Shmelev’s financial situation improved slightly when the writer was appointed a monthly scholarship from funds of assistance to Russian writers in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

In Grasse, Shmelev wrote the epic “The Sun of the Dead” about what he himself witnessed: about war, repression and hunger. Crimea for the author is an ominous world, the beginning of the exile. The events of the book unfolded from August 20 to March in Alushta, Shmelev relied on real facts. The work was translated into several languages. After the release of the epic, Shmelev became a famous author in Europe.

His works were published by the emigrant publications “Renaissance” and “Russia and Slavic”.