Chukovsky. Biography
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky(birth name - Nikolai Emmanuilovich Korneychukov). Children's poet, writer, memoirist, critic, linguist, translator and literary critic.
Russian writer, literary critic, specialist in philological sciences. Real name and surname Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneychukov. Works for children in verse and prose ("Moidodyr", "Cockroach", "Aibolit", etc.) are constructed in the form of a comic, action-packed "game" with an edifying purpose. Books: "The Mastery of Nekrasov" (1952, Lenin Prize, 1962), about A.P. Chekhov, W. Whitman, the Art of Translation, the Russian language, about child psychology and speech ("From Two to Five", 1928). Criticism, translations, literary memoirs. Diaries.
Chukovsky born March 19 (31 n.s.) in St. Petersburg. When he was three years old, his parents divorced, and he stayed with his mother. They lived in the south, in poverty. He studied at the Odessa gymnasium, from the fifth grade of which he was expelled when, by special decree, educational institutions were “liberated” from children of “low” origin.
From his youth he led a working life, read a lot, and independently studied English and French. In 1901 he began publishing in the newspaper Odessa News, for which he was sent to London in 1903 as a correspondent. He lived in England for a whole year, studied English literature, and wrote about it in the Russian press. After returning, he settled in St. Petersburg, took up literary criticism, and collaborated with the magazine “Scales”.
In 1905, Chukovsky organized the weekly satirical magazine Signal (financed by Bolshoi Theater singer L. Sobinov), which published cartoons and poems with anti-government content. The magazine was subjected to repression for “defaming the existing order”; the publisher was sentenced to six months in prison.
After the revolution of 1905 - 1907, Chukovsky's critical essays appeared in various publications; later they were collected in the books “From Chekhov to the Present Day” (1908), “Critical Stories” (1911), “Faces and Masks” (1914), etc.
In 1912, Chukovsky settled in the Finnish town of Kuokkola, where he became friends with I. Repin, Korolenko, Andreev, A. Tolstoy, V. Mayakovsky and others.
Later he would write memoirs and fiction books about these people. The versatility of Chukovsky’s interests was expressed in his literary activities: he published translations from W. Whitman, studied literature for children, children’s literary creativity, and worked on the legacy of N. Nekrasov, his favorite poet. He published the book “Nekrasov as an Artist” (1922), a collection of articles “Nekrasov” (1926), and the book “The Mastery of Nekrasov” (1952).
In 1916, at the invitation of Gorky, Chukovsky began to head the children's department of the Parus publishing house and began writing for children: poetic fairy tales "Crocodile" (1916), "Moidodyr" (1923), "Tsokotukha Fly" (1924), "Barmaley" (1925 ), "Aibolit" (1929), etc.
Chukovsky owns a whole series of books on the craft of translation: “Principles of Literary Translation” (1919), “The Art of Translation” (1930, 1936), “High Art” (1941, 1968). In 1967 the book "About Chekhov" was published.
In the last years of his life, he published essays about Zoshchenko, Zhitkov, Akhmatova, Pasternak and many others.
At the age of 87, K. Chukovsky died on October 28, 1968. He was buried in Peredelkino near Moscow, where he lived for many years.
Russian Soviet poet, publicist, literary critic, translator and literary critic, children's writer, journalist
Korney Chukovsky
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky(real name - Nikolay Korneychukov, March 19, 1882, St. Petersburg, - October 28, 1969, Moscow) - Russian and Soviet poet, publicist, literary critic, translator and literary critic, children's writer, journalist. Father of writers Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky and Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya. As of 2015, he was the most published author of children's literature in Russia: 132 books and brochures were published during the year with a circulation of 2.4105 million copies.
Nikolai Korneychukov, who later took the literary pseudonym Korney Chukovsky, was born in St. Petersburg on March 19 (31), 1882 to a peasant woman, Ekaterina Osipovna Korneichukova; his father was the hereditary honorary citizen Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson (1851-?), in whose family Korney Chukovsky’s mother lived as a servant. Their marriage was not formally registered, since this required the baptism of the father, but they lived together for at least three years. Before Nicholas, the eldest daughter Maria (Marusya) was born. Soon after the birth of his son, Levenson left his illegitimate family, married “a woman of his circle” and moved to Baku, where he opened the “First Printing Partnership”; Chukovsky's mother was forced to move to Odessa.
Nikolai Korneychukov spent his childhood in Odessa and Nikolaev. In Odessa, the family settled in an outbuilding, in the Makri house on Novorybnaya Street (now Panteleimonovskaya), No. 6. In 1887, the Korneychukovs changed their apartment, moving to the address: Barshman's house, Kanatny Lane, No. 3. Five-year-old Nikolai was sent to Madame Bekhteeva's kindergarten , about his stay in which he left the following memories: “We marched to music and drew pictures. The oldest among us was a curly-haired boy with black lips, whose name was Volodya Zhabotinsky. That’s when I met the future national hero of Israel - in 1888 or 1889!!!”. For some time, the future writer studied at the second Odessa gymnasium (later it became the fifth). His classmate at that time was Boris Zhitkov (in the future also a writer and traveler), with whom young Nikolai Korneychukov began a friendly relationship. Chukovsky never managed to graduate from high school: he was expelled from the fifth grade, according to his own statements, due to his low origin. He described these events in his autobiographical story “The Silver Coat of Arms.”
According to the metric, Nikolai and his sister Maria, as illegitimates, did not have a middle name; in other documents of the pre-revolutionary period, his patronymic was indicated in different ways - Vasilievich (in the marriage and baptism certificate of his son Nikolai, subsequently fixed in most later biographies as part of the “real name”; given by godfather), Stepanovich, Emmanuilovich, Manuilovich, Emelyanovich, sister Marusya bore the middle name Emmanuilovna or Manuilovna. From the beginning of his literary activity, Korneychukov used the pseudonym Korney Chukovsky, which was later joined by a fictitious patronymic - Ivanovich. After the revolution, the combination “Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky” became his real name, patronymic and surname.
According to the memoirs of K. Chukovsky, he “never had such luxury as a father or even a grandfather,” which in his youth and youth served as a constant source of shame and mental suffering for him.
His children - Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria (Murochka), who died in childhood, to whom many of their father's children's poems are dedicated - bore (at least after the revolution) the surname Chukovsky and the patronymic Korneevich / Korneevna.
Since 1901, Chukovsky began writing articles in Odessa News. Chukovsky was introduced to literature by his close gymnasium friend, journalist V. E. Zhabotinsky. Jabotinsky was also the groom's guarantor at the wedding of Chukovsky and Maria Borisovna Goldfeld.
Then, in 1903, Chukovsky, as the only newspaper correspondent who knew English (which he learned independently from Ohlendorf’s “Self-Teacher of the English Language”), and tempted by a high salary for those times - the publisher promised 100 rubles monthly - went to London as a correspondent for Odessa News. where he went with his young wife. In addition to Odessa News, Chukovsky’s English articles were published in Southern Review and some Kyiv newspapers. But fees from Russia arrived irregularly, and then stopped altogether. The pregnant wife had to be sent back to Odessa. Chukovsky earned money by copying catalogs at the British Museum. But in London, Chukovsky became thoroughly acquainted with English literature - he read Dickens and Thackeray in the original.
Returning to Odessa at the end of 1904, Chukovsky settled with his family on Bazarnaya Street No. 2 and plunged into the events of the 1905 revolution. Chukovsky was captured by the revolution. He visited the mutinous battleship Potemkin twice, among other things, accepting letters to loved ones from the mutinous sailors.
In St. Petersburg he began publishing the satirical magazine Signal. Among the magazine's authors were such famous writers as Kuprin, Fyodor Sologub and Teffi. After the fourth issue, he was arrested for lese majeste. He was defended by the famous lawyer Gruzenberg, who achieved an acquittal. Chukovsky was under arrest for 9 days.
In 1906, Korney Ivanovich arrived in the Finnish town of Kuokkala (now Repino, Kurortny district of St. Petersburg), where he made close acquaintance with the artist Ilya Repin and the writer Korolenko. It was Chukovsky who convinced Repin to take his writing seriously and prepare a book of memoirs, “Distant Close.” Chukovsky lived in Kuokkala for about 10 years. From the combination of the words Chukovsky and Kuokkala, “Chukokkala” (invented by Repin) is formed - the name of the handwritten humorous almanac that Korney Ivanovich kept until the last days of his life.
In 1907, Chukovsky published translations of Walt Whitman. The book became popular, which increased Chukovsky's fame in the literary community. Chukovsky became an influential critic, mockingly speaking about works of mass literature that were popular at that time: the books of Lydia Charskaya and Anastasia Verbitskaya, “Pinkertonism” and others, and wittily defended the futurists - both in articles and in public lectures - from the attacks of traditional criticism (he met in Kuokkale continued to be friends with Mayakovsky), although the futurists themselves were not always grateful to him for this; developed his own recognizable style (reconstruction of the psychological appearance of the writer based on numerous quotes from him).
Osip Mandelstam, Korney Chukovsky, Benedikt Livshits and Yuri Annenkov, farewell to the front. Random photo of Karl Bulla. 1914
In 1916, Chukovsky and a delegation from the State Duma visited England again. In 1917, Patterson’s book “With the Jewish Detachment at Gallipoli” (about the Jewish Legion in the British Army) was published, edited and with a foreword by Chukovsky.
After the revolution, Chukovsky continued to engage in criticism, publishing his two most famous books about the work of his contemporaries - “The Book about Alexander Blok” (“Alexander Blok as a Man and Poet”) and “Akhmatova and Mayakovsky.” The circumstances of the Soviet era turned out to be ungrateful for critical activity, and Chukovsky had to “bury” this talent of his, which he later regretted.
V.V. Mayakovsky with Boris and K.I. Chukovsky
In 1908, his critical essays about the writers Chekhov, Balmont, Blok, Sergeev-Tsensky, Kuprin, Gorky, Artsybashev, Merezhkovsky, Bryusov and others were published, forming the collection “ From Chekhov to the present day”, which went through three editions over the course of a year.
Since 1917, Chukovsky began many years of work on Nekrasov, his favorite poet. Through his efforts, the first Soviet collection of Nekrasov’s poems was published. Chukovsky completed work on it only in 1926, having revised a lot of manuscripts and provided the texts with scientific comments. The monograph “Nekrasov’s Mastery,” published in 1952, was reprinted many times, and in 1962 Chukovsky was awarded the Lenin Prize for it. After 1917, it was possible to publish a significant part of Nekrasov’s poems, which were either previously prohibited by tsarist censorship or were “vetoed” by copyright holders. About a quarter of Nekrasov’s currently known poetic lines were put into circulation by Korney Chukovsky. In addition, in the 1920s, he discovered and published manuscripts of Nekrasov’s prose works (“The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trosnikov”, “The Thin Man” and others).
In addition to Nekrasov, Chukovsky was engaged in the biography and work of a number of other writers of the 19th century (Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Sleptsov), which is the subject of, in particular, his book “People and Books of the Sixties,” and participated in the preparation of the text and editing of many publications. Chukovsky considered Chekhov to be the writer closest to himself in spirit.
The passion for children's literature, which made Chukovsky famous, began relatively late, when he was already a famous critic. In 1916, Chukovsky compiled the collection “Yolka” and wrote his first fairy tale “Crocodile”. His famous fairy tales “Moidodyr” and “Cockroach” were published in 1923, and “Barmaley” in 1924.
Despite the fact that fairy tales were printed in large quantities and went through many editions, they did not fully meet the tasks of Soviet pedagogy. In February 1928, Pravda published an article by Deputy People’s Commissar of Education of the RSFSR N.K. Krupskaya “About Chukovsky’s Crocodile”:
Such chatter is disrespectful to the child. First, he is lured with carrots - cheerful, innocent rhymes and comical images, and along the way they are given some kind of dregs to swallow, which will not pass without a trace for him. I think we don’t need to give “Krokodil” to our guys...
Soon, the term “Chukovism” arose among party critics and editors. Having accepted the criticism, in December 1929 Chukovsky published a letter in Literaturnaya Gazeta in which he “renounced” old fairy tales and declared his intentions to change the direction of his work by writing a collection of poems “Merry Collective Farm”, but he did not keep his promise. The collection will never come out from his pen, and the next fairy tale will be written only 13 years later.
Despite the criticism of “Chukovism,” it was during this period that sculptural compositions based on Chukovsky’s fairy tales were installed in a number of cities of the Soviet Union. The most famous fountain is “Barmaley” (“Children’s round dance”, “Children and a crocodile”) by the prominent Soviet sculptor R. R. Iodko, installed in 1930 according to a standard design in Stalingrad and other cities of Russia and Ukraine. The composition is an illustration to Chukovsky’s fairy tale of the same name. The Stalingrad fountain will become famous as one of the few structures that survived the Battle of Stalingrad.
By the early 1930s, another hobby had appeared in Chukovsky’s life - studying the psyche of children and how they master speech. He recorded his observations of children and their verbal creativity in the book “From Two to Five” (1933).
All my other works are overshadowed to such an extent by my children's fairy tales that in the minds of many readers, except for “Moidodyrs” and “Tsokotukha Fly”, I wrote nothing at all.
Chukovsky K. I. “About myself” // Collected works: In 15 volumes. T. 1. - 2nd ed., electronic, revised.. - M.: FTM Agency, Ltd., 2013. - P. 11 -12. - 598 p.
In the 1930s, Chukovsky worked a lot on the theory of literary translation (the book “The Art of Translation,” published in 1936, was republished before the start of the war, in 1941, under the title “High Art”) and translations into Russian themselves (M. Twain, O Wilde, R. Kipling and others, including in the form of “retellings” for children).
He begins to write memoirs, which he worked on until the end of his life (“Contemporaries” in the “ZhZL” series). “Diaries 1901-1969” were published posthumously.
During the war he was evacuated to Tashkent. The youngest son Boris died at the front.
As the NKGB reported to the Central Committee, during the war years Chukovsky spoke out: “... With all my soul I wish the death of Hitler and the collapse of his delusional ideas. With the fall of Nazi despotism, the world of democracy will come face to face with Soviet despotism. Will wait".
On March 1, 1944, the Pravda newspaper published an article by P. Yudin “The vulgar and harmful concoction of K. Chukovsky,” in which an analysis of Chukovsky’s book “Let’s Defeat Barmaley!” published in 1943 in Tashkent was arranged. (Aibolitia is at war with Ferocity and its king Barmaley), and this book was recognized in the article as harmful:
K. Chukovsky's fairy tale is a harmful concoction that can distort modern reality in children's perceptions.
“A War Tale” by K. Chukovsky characterizes the author as a person who either does not understand the duty of a writer in the Patriotic War, or who deliberately trivializes the great tasks of raising children in the spirit of socialist patriotism.
In the 1960s, K. Chukovsky conceived a retelling of the Bible for children. He attracted writers and literary figures to this project and carefully edited their work. The project itself was very difficult due to the anti-religious position of the Soviet government. In particular, Chukovsky was demanded that the words “God” and “Jews” not be mentioned in the book; Through the efforts of writers, the pseudonym “Magician Yahweh” was invented for God. The book entitled “The Tower of Babel and Other Ancient Legends” was published by the publishing house “Children's Literature” in 1968. However, the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities. The circumstances of the ban on the publication were later described by Valentin Berestov, one of the authors of the book: “It was in the midst of the great cultural revolution in China. The Red Guards, noticing the publication, loudly demanded that the head of the old revisionist Chukovsky, who was clogging the minds of Soviet children with religious nonsense, be smashed. The West responded with the headline “New discovery of the Red Guards,” and our authorities reacted in the usual way.” The book was published in 1990.
In recent years, Chukovsky was a popular favorite, a laureate of a number of state awards and a holder of orders, but at the same time maintained contacts with dissidents (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Litvinovs, his daughter Lydia was also a prominent human rights activist). At his dacha in Peredelkino, where he lived permanently in recent years, he organized meetings with local children, talked with them, read poetry, and invited famous people, famous pilots, artists, writers, and poets to meetings. Peredelkino children, who have long since become adults, still remember these childhood gatherings at Chukovsky’s dacha.
In 1966, he signed a letter from 25 cultural and scientific figures to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L.I. Brezhnev against the rehabilitation of Stalin.
Korney Ivanovich died on October 28, 1969 from viral hepatitis. At the dacha in Peredelkino, where the writer lived most of his life, his museum now operates.
From the memoirs of Yu. G. Oksman:
Lidia Korneevna Chukovskaya submitted in advance to the Board of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union a list of those whom her father asked not to invite to the funeral. This is probably why Arkady Vasiliev and other Black Hundreds are not visible from literature. Very few Muscovites came to say goodbye: there was not a single line in the newspapers about the upcoming funeral service. There are few people, but, as at the funeral of Ehrenburg, Paustovsky, the police - darkness. In addition to uniforms, there are many “boys” in civilian clothes, with gloomy, contemptuous faces. The boys began by cordoning off the chairs in the hall, not allowing anyone to linger or sit down. A seriously ill Shostakovich came. In the lobby he was not allowed to take off his coat. It was forbidden to sit in a chair in the hall. There was a scandal.
Civil funeral service. The stuttering S. Mikhalkov utters pompous words that do not fit in with his indifferent, even devil-may-care intonation: “From the Union of Writers of the USSR...”, “From the Union of Writers of the RSFSR...”, “From the publishing house “Children’s Literature”...”, “ From the Ministry of Education and the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences...” All this is pronounced with the stupid significance with which, probably, the doormen of the last century, during the departure of guests, called for the carriage of Count such-and-such and Prince such-and-such. Who are we burying, finally? The official bonzu or the cheerful and mocking clever Korney? A. Barto rattled off her “lesson.” Cassil performed a complex verbal pirouette to make his listeners understand how personally close he was to the deceased. And only L. Panteleev, breaking the blockade of officialdom, clumsily and sadly said a few words about the civilian face of Chukovsky. Relatives of Korney Ivanovich asked L. Kabo to speak, but when in a crowded room she sat down at the table to sketch out the text of her speech, KGB General Ilyin (in the world - secretary for organizational issues of the Moscow Writers' Organization) approached her and correctly but firmly told her, that she won’t be allowed to perform.
He was buried in the cemetery in Peredelkino.
