Literary critics about Arkady Averchenko. Writer Averchenko Arkady Timofeevich: biography, features of creativity and interesting facts. Revolution and civil war

And the leading author of the most popular humorous magazine in Russia, Satyricon. Since 1910, collections of funny Averchenkov stories have been published one after another, some of them, in less than a decade, manage to go through up to twenty editions. The theater opens its doors wide to his sketches and humorous plays. The liberal press listens to his speeches; the right-wing press is afraid of his sharp feuilletons written on the topic of the day. Such rapid recognition cannot be explained only by Averchenko’s literary talent. No, in Russian reality itself, 1907-1917. there were all the prerequisites for his witty, often good-natured, and sometimes “well-fed” laughter to evoke an enthusiastic reception among the broad reading public of that time.

First Russian Revolution

The first Russian revolution saw a hitherto unprecedented demand for accusatory and satirical literature. It was in 1905-1907. Dozens of magazines and weekly leaflets appear, including the Kharkov “Hammer” and “Sword”, where the leading (and sometimes the only) author is Averchenko. Both short-lived magazines were for him the only practical school of “writing.” In 1907, Averchenko, full of vague plans and hopes, sets off to “conquer” St. Petersburg.

Magazine "Satyricon"

In the capital, he had to start collaborating in minor publications, including in the inferior magazine of M. G. Kornfeld, which was losing subscribers, “Dragonfly,” which, it seems, was no longer read anywhere except in pubs.

In 1908, a group of young employees of Dragonfly decided to publish a fundamentally new magazine of humor and satire, which would unite remarkable artistic forces. The artists Re-Mi (N. Remizov), A. Radakov, A. Junger, L. Bakst, I. Bilibin, M. Dobuzhinsky, A. Benoit, D. Mitrokhin, Nathan Altman. Masters appeared on the pages of the magazine humorous story- Teffi and O. Dymov; poets - Sasha Cherny, S. Gorodetsky, later - O. Mandelstam and young V. Mayakovsky. Among the leading writers of that time, A. Kuprin, L. Andreev, and A. Tolstoy, A. Green, who were gaining fame, were published in Satyricon. But the highlight of each issue were the works of Averchenko, who organized a cheerful carnival of masks on the pages of Satyricon. Under the pseudonym Medusa Gorgon, Falsta, Thomas Opiskin, he published editorials and topical feuilletons. The wolf (the same Averchenko) gave a humorous “trifle.” Ave (aka) wrote about theaters, opening days, musical evenings and wittily hosted the “Mailbox”. And he only signed stories with his last name.

Master of humorous storytelling

A short story bursting with humor is the genre where Averchenko reached the heights of true verbal art. Of course, he was not a deep political satirist or a “protector of the people.” His numerous magazine feuilletons are, as a rule, one-day feuilletons. But among the stories, rare sparks flash satirical works: “The Case History of Ivanov”, “Viktor Polikarpovich”, “Robinsons”, etc., where the fear of the average person, bribery of officials and the epidemic of espionage and political investigation are evilly ridiculed.

The life of the city is the main “hero” of Averchenko. And not just any city, but a giant city. In St. Petersburg-Petrograd, the very rhythm, the running of existence, is accelerated a hundredfold: “It seems as if the day before yesterday I met a familiar gentleman on Nevsky. And during this time, he either already managed to travel around Europe and married a widow from Irkutsk, or he shot himself for six months, or he has been in prison for the tenth month” (“Black and White”). Here, every little thing, every novelty of everyday life becomes for Averchenko a source of inexhaustible creativity and humor. With the ease of a magician, the young writer extracts witty plots; he is ready, it seems, to create stories “out of nothing” and with his rich invention reminds the employee of “Dragonfly” and “Alarm Clock” Antosha Chekhonte.

Laughing at the vulgarity, Averchenko acted in alliance with other “satiriconists” - with Sasha Cherny, Radakov, Re-Mi, Teffi. According to the staff, their “Satyricon” “tirelessly tried to purify and develop the taste of the average Russian reader, accustomed to semi-literate drinking sheets.” Here the merit of “Satyricon” and Averchenko is truly great. On the pages of the magazine, mediocrity and its cheap cliches are scathingly ridiculed (the stories “The Incurables”, “The Poet”), and a show trial of stupidity is held.

Averchenko and the “new” art

Averchenko does not act as a champion of talented, but vital, realistic art. He enthusiastically responds to the Moscow Art Theater tour in St. Petersburg: “The Art Theater was the only place, where I hid my laughter in my pocket and sat in my place, shocked, compressed by that powerful stream of indestructible talent that poured into my poor, humorous soul and spun it like a sliver.” But he ridicules, based on common sense, romanticism divorced from life (“The Mermaid”), and his laughter reaches ringing strength and causticity when he turns to “archi-fashionable,” decadent trends in contemporary literature or painting. And here again we have to return to the general line of the Satyricon. Artists, poets, and storytellers constantly target the ugly, anti-aesthetic, and sick in art as targets for satire. It is not surprising that the themes of other caricatures and parodies repeat or anticipate the plot of Averchenkov’s stories. They saw and cheerfully exposed the “innovators” who boasted of their “incomprehensibility” as ordinary charlatans. Averchenko's democracy and clarity of taste were close to the mass reader.

Political satire

With the beginning of the great crisis that engulfed old Russia - defeat on the German front, impending devastation and the specter of famine - the cheerful, sparkling laughter of Arkady Averchenko fell silent. He perceived the ever-deteriorating life in Petrograd, the rising cost of life, as a personal drama (“Confused and dark story" “Turkey with a chestnut”, “Life”), “When there is no life with its familiar comfort, with its traditions - it’s boring to live, it’s cold to live” - these words end the autobiographical story of 1917 “Life”. Averchenko, who welcomed the fall of the Romanov dynasty (feuilleton “My Conversation with Nikolai Romanov”), opposes the Bolsheviks (“The Diplomat from Smolny”, etc.). However, the new government does not want to put up with the legal opposition: by the summer of 1918, all non-Bolshevik newspapers and magazines, including the New Satyricon, were closed. Averchenko himself was threatened with arrest and delivery to the Petrograd Cheka, to the famous building on Gorokhovaya. He flees from Petrograd to Moscow, and from there, along with Teffi, Kyiv leaves. An “odyssey” of wanderings begins with a stop in Wrangel’s Crimea. In the political feuilleton “Friendly Letter to Lenin,” Averchenko summarizes his wanderings, starting with the memorable year 1918:

“You then ordered Uritsky to close my journal forever and take me to Gorokhovaya.

Forgive me, my dear, that two days before this supposed delivery to Gorokhovaya I left Petrograd without even saying goodbye to you, I got busy...

I'm not angry with you, although you drove me all over the country, like gray hare: from Kyiv to Kharkov, from Kharkov to Rostov, then Ekaterinodar. Novorossiysk, Sevastopol, Melitopol, Sevastopol again. I am writing this letter to you from Constantinople, where I arrived on personal business.”

In pamphlets and stories written in Crimea, Averchenko appeals to the white army with a call to bring closer the “hour of liquidation and reckoning” with the Bolsheviks.

In Sevastopol, Averchenko, together with Anatoly Kamensky, organizes the cabaret theater “House of the Artist”, where his plays and sketches “Kapitosha”, “Game with Death” are staged and where he himself performs as an actor and reader. Averchenko was one of the last to leave Sevastopol, in the stream of refugees. He stayed in Constantinople for a year and a half, performing in the small theater he created, “Nest of Migratory Birds.” Averchenko's last refuge is Prague.

"A dozen knives in the back of the revolution"

In 1921, a five-franc book of Averchenko’s stories, “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution,” was published in Paris. The title accurately reflected the meaning and content of the twelve stories, to which the author prefaced: “Perhaps, having read the title of this book, some compassionate reader, without understanding the matter, will immediately cackle like a chicken:
- Ahah! What a heartless, stiff-necked young man is this Arkady Averchenko!! He took it and stuck a knife in the back of the revolution, and not just one, but twelve!

The act, needless to say, is cruel, but let’s look into it lovingly and thoughtfully.

First of all, let’s ask ourselves, putting our hand on our heart:
- Do we have a revolution now?..

Is the rot, stupidity, rubbish, soot and darkness that is happening now really a revolution?

Never before had Averchenko’s writing temperament acquired such fierce strength and expressiveness. Stories "Great Cinema Focus". “Poem about a Hungry Man”, “Grass Trampled by a Boot”, “Ferris Wheel”, “Characters from the Life of the Worker Pantelei Grymzin”, “New Russian Fairy Tale”, “Kings at Home”, etc. - short, with rapid , a spring-like plot and the brightness of the accusatory characteristics. Where have the petty topics, good-natured humor, and well-fed laughter gone! The book ended with the question: “Why are they doing this to Russia?..” (“Fragments of a Shattered Piece”).

The book caused a rebuke in the Soviet press. Having analyzed a number of Averchenkov’s stories. N. Meshcheryakov, for example, concluded: “This is what abomination, what “gallows humor” the cheerful jokester Arkady Averchenko has now reached.” At the same time, another article appeared on the pages of Pravda, which thoroughly proved that there was something useful in Averchenko’s satire for the Soviet reader. This article, as you know, was written by V.I. Lenin. Characterizing the stories of “the White Guard Arkady Averchenko, embittered almost to the point of insanity,” Lenin noted: “It is interesting to observe how hatred that reached a boil gave rise to both remarkably strong and remarkably weak points in this highly talented book.”

"Laughter through tears"

Yes, in “A Dozen Knives...” “another Averchenko” appeared before us. Now, behind the crest of great upheavals, in new works that were written in wanderings - in Constantinople or Prague - that “laughter through tears” that was so characteristic of Russian literature from Gogol to Chekhov, bitter satire has pushed aside good-natured humor (collection “The Funny in the Terrible”). The departure abroad itself is painted in mournful tones, as the writer described with a bitter smile in the preface to the book “Notes of a Simple-minded” (1923):

No matter how many shortcomings Arkady Timofeevich has, - Korney Chukovsky wrote to the author of these lines on November 4, 1964, when after a long break the collection was finally published humorous stories Averchenko, “he is a thousand heads taller than all the current laughers.”

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Averchenko Arkady Timofeevich (1881-1925), writer and humorist.
Born on March 27, 1881 in Sevastopol.

A witty accountant who had been poring over the papers of Donbass mining offices since 1897, Averchenko decided one day to try his hand at writing. The first stories (1903-1904) were a "local" success, so in 1905 he decided to apply his skills to the world of the press. A test of his strength in Kharkov publications showed that he was better at this than endless arithmetic calculations. Service in the office was abandoned; on the eve of 1908, Averchenko set off to conquer the capital (“I want fame, like a vodka drunk!”).

He became the editor of the new magazine "Satyricon", which united the best satirists and humorists. Stories, feuilletons, reviews, miniatures, signed either own name, or a pseudonym like Foma Opiskin or Aue, appeared in almost every issue. Averchenko's style was compared with the style of the young A.P. Chekhov, and even more often - M. Twain and O. Henry.

“Mother-in-law and Octobrist, telephone and The State Duma, a tram and a toothache, a gramophone and increased security, holiday visits and the death penalty” - everything could become a target for laughter for Averchenko. His humor was called “health-improving”, “red-cheeked”, based on common sense. The left-wing press talked about Averchenko’s “well-fed laughter.” Since 1910 large editions collections of the writer's stories were published. Some were reprinted up to 20 times (for example, “Jolly Oysters”).

Since 1912, he began to be called the king of Russian laughter. During his years highest success Averchenko began publishing his own magazine, “New Satyricon” (1913-1918). His stories were read, loved, quoted by ordinary people, Duma deputies, and “at the very top” - in the royal family.

Averchenko accepted February 1917 with the proclamation of freedoms and the abolition of censorship with delight. The writer compared the October Revolution to a plague epidemic. He left St. Petersburg in the fall of 1918 under threat of arrest. During the Civil War, the king of Russian laughter was on the side of the White movement. He collaborated in the newspapers "Yug" and "South of Russia". The evil pamphlets, which later formed the satirical collection “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution,” even evoked a special response from V.I. Lenin, who recognized the author’s great talent.

At the end of October 1920, during the flight of P. Wrangel’s troops, Averchenko left Crimea - one of the last, in the hold of a ship, on coal bags. With the Gnezdo Theater migratory birds"The writer performed in Constantinople (1920-1922), Sofia, Belgrade (1922).

In 1922-1924. his own tours were successfully held in Romania, Germany, Poland, and the Baltic countries. However, the writer chose Prague as his permanent place of residence from July 1922 (in this city he died on March 12, 1925). Averchenko learned Czech and achieved new wave popularity - such that he was known in literally every Czech home. Even the first collected works of the writer were published in Czech. The newspapers wrote: “Soft Russian laughter sounded in Prague and captivated and amused not only Russians, but also Czechs, made gloomy, preoccupied faces lighten, forget everything sad in the current sad life, step aside from everyday life.”

Biography

Pre-revolutionary life

In exile

In Constantinople, Averchenko felt more or less comfortable, since at that time there were a huge number of Russian refugees there, just like him.

In the same year, Averchenko released the collection “A Dozen Portraits in Boudoir Format.”

Averchenko did not stay in any of these cities for a long time, but moved on June 17, 1922 to Prague for permanent residence. I rented a room at the Zlata Husa hotel on Wenceslas Square.

Life away from the homeland, from native language was very difficult for Averchenko; Many of his works were devoted to this, in particular, the story “The Tragedy of the Russian Writer.”

Averchenko was buried at the Olsany Cemetery in Prague.

Last job The writer became the novel “The Joke of the Maecenas,” written in Sopot in 1923, and published in, after his death.

Creation

Averchenko

Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko is a prose writer, playwright, journalist and critic.

The writer’s first story, “The ability to live,” was published in 1902 in the Kharkov magazine “Dandelion.” During the period of the revolutionary events of 1905-1907, discovering his journalistic talent, Averchenko published essays, feuilletons and humoresques in periodicals, and also published several issues of his own satirical magazines “Bayonet” and “Sword”, quickly banned by censorship.

In 1910, his collections “Stories (humorous)”, “Bunnies on the Wall” and “Jolly Oysters” were published; the latter had more than 20 reprints. These books made his name famous among large quantity Russian readers.

After Averchenko published the article “Mark Twain” in the magazine “Sun of Russia” for 1910 (No. 12), critics such as V. Polonsky and M. Kuzmin started talking about the connection between Averchenko’s humor and the tradition of Mark Twain, others (A. Izmailov) compared him with the early Chekhov.

Averchenko touched on various topics in his work, but his main “hero” is the life and life of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg: writers, judges, policemen, maids, not brilliant, but always with charming ladies. Averchenko mocks the stupidity of some townsfolk, causing the reader to hate the “average” person, the crowd.

In 1912, the writer’s books were published in St. Petersburg: “Circles on the Water” and “Stories for Convalescents,” after which Averchenko was given the title “King of Laughter.” The stories were dramatized and staged in St. Petersburg theaters.

At this stage, a certain complex type of story has developed in the writer’s work. Averchenko exaggerates, describes anecdotal situations, bringing them to the point of complete absurdity. Despite the fact that his anecdotes do not have even a shadow of verisimilitude, they thereby serve to further remove reality, which was so necessary for the intelligent public of that time. The story “Knight of Industry” tells the story of a certain Tsatskin, who is ready to make a living in absolutely any way.

Gradually, tragic notes associated with the First World War are returning to Averchenko’s work. With the outbreak of war there appear political topics, patriotically oriented works by Averchenko are published: “The Plan of General Moltke”, “The Four Sides of Wilhelm”, “The Case of the Charlatan Kranken” and others. Averchenko's essays and feuilletons are full of bitterness and convey the state of devastation in which Russia was on the eve of the revolution. In some stories of this period, the writer shows rampant speculation and moral uncleanliness.

During the war and pre-revolutionary years, Averchenko’s books were actively published and republished: “Weeds” (1914), “About essentially good people” (1914), “Odessa stories” (1915), “About the little ones - for the big ones” (1916 ), “Blue and Gold” (1917) and others. A special place among them is occupied by “children’s” stories (collection “About the Little Ones for the Big Ones”, “Naughty People and Rogues” and others).

By 1917, Averchenko stopped writing humorous works. Now its main themes are the denunciation of modern power and politicians. From 1917 to 1921, in Averchenko’s work, the world is divided into two parts: the world before the revolution and the world after the revolution. The writer gradually contrasts these two worlds. Averchenko perceives the revolution as a deception of the working man, who must at some point come to his senses and return everything to its place in this country. And again, Averchenko takes the situation to the point of absurdity: books disappear from people’s lives; in the story “A Lesson in a Soviet School,” children learn from a book what food was like. The writer also portrays the main Russian politicians Trotsky and Lenin in the images of a dissolute husband and a grumpy wife (“Kings at Home”). Averchenko’s second world of Russia is the world of refugees, the world of those who are “hooked” on emigration. This world is fragmented and appears, first of all, in the image of Constantinople. Here we can note the stories “The Constantinople Menagerie” and “About Coffins, Cockroaches and Women Empty Inside,” in which three people are trying to survive in Constantinople, they share with each other their experience of how each of them earns their bread.

In 1921, a book of pamphlets, “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution,” was published in Paris, in which Averchenko lamented the terrible death of Russia. His heroes are nobles, merchants, officials, workers, military men - they all remember with incredible nostalgia past life.

The experience of the writer’s emigrant life was reflected in his book “Notes of the Innocent” in 1921. “Notes of a Simple-minded” is a collection of stories about the lives of a wide variety of characters and types of people, their joys and sufferings, adventures and cruel struggles. Around the same time, the collection of short stories “The Boiling Cauldron” and the drama “On the Sea” were published.

In 1922, the collection “Children” was published. Averchenko describes the perception of post-revolutionary events through the eyes of a child, features of child psychology and unique imagination.

In 1925 it comes out last piece writer - a humorous novel "The Patron's Joke".

Collections of stories

A. T. Averchenko

• "Humorous Stories"
• "Jolly Oysters"
• “General history, processed by Satyricon”
• “Twelve portraits (in the “Boudoir” format)”
• "Children"
• "Boiling Cauldron"
• "Circles on the water"
• "Little Leniniana"
• « Devilry»
• “About essentially good people!”
• "Pantheon of Advice to Young People"
• "Stories for Convalescent People"
• "Stories about Children"
• "Tales of the Old School"
• "Funny in the scary"
• "Weeds"
• "Black and white"
• "Miracles in a sieve"
• “Expedition to Western Europe of satirical writers: Yuzhakin, Sanders, Mifasov and Krysakov”
• "Humorous Stories"

Satirical types

1. Politicians: State Duma, Octobrists;
2. Female types: A woman is narrow-minded, but always desirable (“”, “);
3. People of art ("", "", "");
4. Life of the city ("")

Notes

Literature

• Kazak V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the 20th century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917. - M.: RIK "Culture", 1996. - 492 p. - 5000 copies.
• - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8 Levitsky D. A. Life and creative path
• Arkady Averchenko. - M.: Russian way, 1999. - 552 p., ill. - ISBN 5-85887-047-3 Spiridonova L. A.
• Magazine "Satyricon" and satiric poets. - M., 1968. Milenko V. D.
• Magazine "Satyricon" and satiric poets. - M., 1968. Sevastopol Arkady Averchenko. - Sevastopol, 2007 Arkady Averchenko. Series “Life wonderful people
• " - M.: Young Guard, 2010. - 327 p.: ill. - (Life of remarkable people: ser. biogr.; issue 1226) - ISBN 978-5-235-03316-0 Kolotilo M. N.
• Tolstoy's House: People and Fates / Under scientific. ed. d. ist. n. V. G. Smirnov-Volkhovsky. - St. Petersburg: Art of Russia, 2010. - 296 p.: ill. ISBN 978-5-98361-119-1 Khlebina A. E., Milenko V. D. Arkady Averchenko: meeting after 90 years // Averchenko Arkady. Russian hard times

through the eyes of the king of laughter. - M.: Posev, 2011. - 428 p., ill. - ISBN 978-5-85824-204-8 (http://www.mdk-arbat.ru/bookcard?book_id=704540).

• on Wikimedia Commons
• Averchenko, Arkady Timofeevich in the library of Maxim Moshkov

"Suicide" - one-act comic opera by Hristo Tsanov (2007)

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Satirists of Russia

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2010. On March 27 (March 15, old style), 1881, Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko was born - a Russian humorist writer, playwright, theater critic, editor of the famous satirical magazine "Satyricon" (since 1914 - "New Satyricon"). During his lifetime, he was compared to overseas humorists Mark Twain and O'Henry, and the common reading public bestowed upon Arkady Timofeevich the title of "king of laughter." And today his works, along with the humorous stories of Teffy and other authors of the early 20th century, are very popular among the

wide range

Arkady Averchenko was born in Sevastopol, into a poor and large merchant family. Arkady had six sisters and three brothers who died in infancy. The father, Timofey Petrovich Averchenko, was the owner of a small store, but he soon went bankrupt, and the family barely made ends meet.

Arkady Averchenko himself can safely be called a real literary “nugget” - future writer did not receive any systematic education. According to the humorous “Autobiography”, written by Averchenko himself for one of his books, he had no desire to study, and therefore pretended to be sick and weak. Therefore, he did not attend the gymnasium, and his older sisters studied with him at home. In fact, due to an eye injury suffered in childhood, Arkady was forced to study at home. Subsequently, having already left his family, he managed to complete only two classes at the city real school.

At the age of 15, his father appointed the young man as a junior clerk in a transport office, where Averchenko served for just over a year. Then, on the advice of friends, he got a job as an employee in the office of coal mines in the Donbass. Harsh life in the mines was not suitable for young man: the main entertainment for both miners and office employees was continuous drunkenness and drunken fights.

Later, shuddering internally, the writer recalled:

“It was the dirtiest and most remote mine in the world. The only difference between autumn and other seasons was that in autumn the mud was above the knees, and at other times - below. And all the inhabitants of this place drank like shoemakers, and I drank no worse than others... ...When the management of the mines was transferred to Kharkov, they took me there too, and I came to life in soul and became stronger in body.”

The literary debut of Arkady Averchenko took place in Kharkov. On October 31, 1903, the local newspaper “Southern Region” published his first story, “How I Had to Get Life Insurance.” For a barely literate 22-year-old employee, this was a big event.

Averchenko himself considered his literary debut the story “The Righteous Man,” published in 1904.

In 1906-1907, Arkady Timofeevich, having completely abandoned his service in the office, devoted himself entirely to literary creativity. He edits the satirical magazines “Bayonet” and “Sword” in Kharkov, where he often acts as the sole author of the entire issue: he draws caricatures and caricatures, and publishes his materials in different sections under numerous pseudonyms.

According to Averchenko’s “Autobiography,” either because of satirical witticisms, or because of a caricature placed in the magazine, in 1907 the writer had a conflict with local authorities. Governor General Peshkov fined the editorial office 500 rubles. Since Averchenko did not have that kind of money (he had already been fired from service by that time), the comedian had no choice but to leave Kharkov and seek his fortune in the capital.

"Satyricon"

In 1907, Averchenko worked as secretary of the editorial board of the satirical magazine “Dragonfly”. On April 1, 1908, “Dragonfly” was transformed into a new weekly magazine, “Satyricon,” which then had a noticeable influence on the public consciousness of Russia for a whole decade. The first editor-in-chief of the magazine was the artist Alexey Aleksandrovich Radakov (1877-1942), and from the ninth issue this post passed to the humorist writer and regular contributor to the magazine Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko.

The editorial office of Satyricon was located on Nevsky Prospekt, in house No. 9. The new humor magazine was a funny and caustic publication, sarcastic and angry. Witty text in it was often interspersed with caustic caricatures, funny anecdotes were replaced by political cartoons. “Satyricon” differed from many other humorous publications of those years in its social content: here, without going beyond the bounds of decency, representatives of the authorities, obscurantists, and Black Hundreds were uncompromisingly ridiculed and scourged.

The magazine published such “stars” of domestic journalism as O. Dymov, V. Azov, satirists Teffi, V. Knyazev, Sasha Cherny and A. Bukhov, famous writers L. Andreev, A. Tolstoy, V. Mayakovsky. Famous Russian artists B. Kustodiev, I. Bilibin, A. Benois presented illustrations. For comparatively short term- from 1908 to 1918 - this satirical magazine (and its later version “New Satyricon”) created a whole trend in Russian literature and an unforgettable era in its history.

“Satyricon” attracted readers because its authors, unlike other satirical publications, practically abandoned denunciations of specific high-ranking officials. They also did not have the “generally obligatory love for the junior janitor.” After all, stupidity remains stupidity everywhere, vulgarity remains vulgarity, and therefore the desire to show a person such situations when he himself is funny comes to the fore. Objective satire is replaced by “lyrical satire,” self-irony, which allows one to reveal character “from the inside.” This was especially evident in the works of Teffi and Averchenko, where the object of satirical or humorous depiction is an ordinary man in the street, a person from the crowd.

During the heyday of the magazine, in 1911, its publisher M.G. Kornfeld published “General History, processed by Satyricon” in the magazine library. The authors of this brilliant parody-satirical work were A. Averchenko, Teffi, O. Dymov, and O.L. D'Or.

The popularity of Teffi and Averchenko in those years is difficult to find analogues. Suffice it to say that Nicholas II himself read these authors with pleasure and bound their books in leather and satin. And it’s no coincidence that the beginning “ General history“They assigned to “process” Teffi. Knowing whose favorite writer she was, there was no need to fear censorship objections. Thus, speaking against the Duma, the government, officials, bureaucrats of all stripes, Satyricon, with the highest favor, unexpectedly fell into the role of legal opposition; its authors managed to do much more in politics with their poetic and prose creativity than any politician.

In May 1913, the magazine split over financial issues. As a result, Averchenko and all the best literary forces left the editorial office and founded the magazine “New Satyricon”. The former "Satyricon" under the leadership of Kornfeld continued to appear for some time, but, having lost best authors, closed in April 1914. “New Satyricon” continued to exist successfully (18 issues were published) until the summer of 1918, when it was banned by the Bolsheviks for its counter-revolutionary orientation.

"King of Laughter"

In addition to the editorial and literary work in “Satyricon”, in 1910-12, A. Averchenko declares himself as a wonderful writer.

In 1910, three books by Averchenko were published, making him famous throughout reading Russia: “Cheerful Oysters,” the first book, “Stories (humorous),” “Bunnies on the Wall,” book II.

The books “Circles on Water” and “Stories for Convalescents”, published in 1912, finally established their author’s title as “King of Laughter.”

In the next five years best comedian Russia added to his fame by participating in theatrical productions, editing the magazine “Satyricon”, beloved by readers of all ages, creating small humorous masterpieces. But suddenly, literally the whole country was taken over by politics.

Revolution and civil war

A. Averchenko, like the majority of the Russian liberal intelligentsia, enthusiastically accepted the February Revolution of 1917. But after October, the role of the legal opposition, strengthened by the magazine “New Satyricon,” no longer met the requirements new government. The sharp topical publications of Averchenko and Teffi did not amuse, but once again irritated the Bolshevik leaders, who, back in March 1918, took care of the closure of all bourgeois newspapers and publications.

In August 1918, the “New Satyricon”, edited by A. Averchenko, was closed. Thus, the authorities declared the political unreliability of the comedian and the entire editorial board. It was not difficult for the editor to imagine what could have followed such a statement. Averchenko, together with Teffy and several acquaintances of the actresses, flees Petrograd to the south under the pretext of concerts in the provinces. Moscow, Kyiv, Kharkov, Rostov-on-Don, Ekaterinodar, Novorossiysk, Melitopol... At the beginning of April 1919, he arrived in his native Sevastopol.

In Crimea, the writer worked practically without rest. In the morning I “charged myself” by working out to music with heavy weights. During the day, if possible, he would run to Remeslennaya Street, where his mother and two married sisters lived. The rest of the time it belonged to the editorial office and the theater, and not just one, but several. He wrote and performed as a reader, artist and entertainer, responding to pressing problems with his characteristic acuity.

Together with A. Kamensky, Averchenko was in charge of the literary part of the cabaret theater "House of the Artist", created in Sevastopol in September 1919. One of the first productions was new play A. Averchenko “Cure for Stupidity”, in which the author also acted as an actor. On November 2 of the same year, Arkady Timofeevich, together with famous writer Teffi (Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya) gave big concert in the theater of the Sevastopol City Assembly.

Another theater of Sevastopol - "Renaissance" - marked the beginning of 1920 with the premiere of A. Averchenko's play "The Game with Death". In mid-January 1920, he organized an evening of humor with the participation of Arkady Timofeevich. And at the Science and Life theater the writer gave solo concerts or together with the popular actress M. Maradudina.

In April 1920, another theater with the romantic name “Nest of Migratory Birds” opened on Ekaterininskaya Street (now Lenin Street), 8. The humorist writer was always welcomed there with joy. A little time will pass, and Arkady Averchenko himself will lead a troupe with the same name: “Nest of Migratory Birds,” but already in Constantinople. This theater, together with Alexander Vertinsky’s cabaret “Black Rose”, will become the most famous among the emigrants. And then, in 1920, Averchenko successfully toured with the theater throughout the Crimea, giving concerts in Balaklava, Evpatoria and Simferopol.

The writer's contemporaries left interesting information about his theater evenings in Sevastopol: “Averchenko himself usually opened the evening, and because of him, in fact, people went to the theater in the evenings.”

The writer masterfully knew how to move from gentle humor to deadly satire. Let us remember his conversation with an 8-year-old girl in the story “Grass Trampled by a Boot.” It is no coincidence that Averchenko was called either the “red sun” - for his gentleness, or the “drummer of literature” - for the accuracy of his characteristics.

Before leaving Sevastopol abroad, A. Averchenko managed to publish a collection of stories and feuilletons “Evil Spirits”. One of the copies of the book was transferred to the USA, where the collection was republished in 1921. By the way, not only this, but also three subsequent books by Arkady Timofeevich were anthologies of his stories, anecdotes and feuilletons (and there were at least 190 of them), published in the Sevastopol newspapers “Yug” and “South of Russia”. The book “The Boiling Cauldron” about the events of the Civil War in Crimea was exclusively Sevastopol, although it appeared in 1922.

Emigration

On November 10, 1920, together with the Russian Army of General Wrangel, Averchenko left Crimea on one of the last transports.

From November 1920 to March 1922 he lived in Istanbul (Constantinople). During these years, Constantinople became the concentration of the bulk of Russian refugees, who still hoped for a change in the political situation and a quick return to their homeland. Here, among the Russian-speaking public, Averchenko felt quite comfortable. He organized the theater troupe “Nest of Migratory Birds”, acted as its director and entrepreneur, participated in concerts himself, and continued his literary work.

In 1921, a collection of Averchenko’s pamphlets “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution” was published in Paris. Its heroes, representatives of various social strata - nobles, merchants, officials, military men, workers - recall their past lives with nostalgia. It was followed by the collection “A Dozen Portraits in Boudoir Format.” In the same year, Lenin’s article “The Talented Book” was published, in which Averchenko was called “an embittered White Guard to the point of insanity,” but the Bolshevik leader found the book “highly talented.”

By 1922, Russian refugees began to rapidly leave the Turkish capital: many went to Europe to start their lives there again. For Averchenko, who, unlike most emigrants, did not even have a high school course in French or German languages, adaptation to the realities of refugee life was especially painful.

He decides not to leave the Slavic countries - he goes first to Sofia, then to Belgrade, and in June 1922 he settles in Prague. The Czech government was loyal to Russian emigrants, so the majority of Russians concentrated here in the 1920s literary societies, publishing houses, periodicals, literary life continued.

In the Czech Republic, Averchenko was very popular: he was passed with resounding success creative evenings, books were published, and many stories were translated into Czech.

“Two Worlds” in the works of Averchenko

From 1917 to 1925, in Averchenko’s work, the world is clearly divided into two parts: the world before the revolution and the world after the revolution. The writer strictly contrasts these two worlds. Averchenko perceives the revolution as a deception of the working man, who must at some point come to his senses and return everything to its place in this country. Averchenko the satirist brings the situation to the point of absurdity: books and the most necessary things disappear from people’s lives. In the story “A Lesson in a Soviet School,” children learn from a book what food was like. The writer also portrays the main Russian politicians Trotsky and Lenin in the images of a dissolute husband and a grumpy wife (“Kings at Home”). Averchenko’s second world of Russia is the world of refugees, the world of those who are “hooked” on emigration. This world is fragmented and appears, first of all, in the image of Constantinople. Here we can note the stories “The Constantinople Menagerie” and “About Coffins, Cockroaches and Women Empty Inside,” in which three people are trying to survive in Constantinople, they share with each other their experience of how each of them earns their bread.

While working for the famous newspaper “Prager Presse”, Arkady Timofeevich wrote many sparkling and witty stories, in which nostalgia and great longing for old Russia, which had sunk forever into the past, were felt. In 1922, the collection “Children” was published in Prague. Averchenko describes the perception of post-revolutionary events through the eyes of a child, features of child psychology and unique imagination. In 1923, the Berlin publishing house Sever published his collection of emigrant stories, Notes of the Innocent. These are stories about the lives of a wide variety of characters and types of people, their joys and sufferings, adventures and cruel struggles. Around the same time, the collection of short stories “The Boiling Cauldron” and the drama “On the Sea” were published.

In 1925, after an operation to remove an eye, Arkady Averchenko became seriously ill. On January 28, in an almost unconscious state, he was admitted to the clinic at the Prague City Hospital with a diagnosis of “weakening of the heart muscle, dilatation of the aorta and renal sclerosis.”

On the morning of March 12, 1925, Arkady Averchenko died. He was buried at the Olsany Cemetery in Prague. The writer’s last work was the novel “The Maecenas’s Joke,” written in Sopot in 1923 and published in 1925, after his death.

Based on materials: V. Sukhorukov

Creativity of A. T. Averchenko

Traditions of Russian satire in the prose of Arkady Averchenko

The purpose of the lesson: to present the work of A. T. Averchenko (1881-1925) from the point of view of continuing the traditions of Russian literature.

Methodical techniques: reviewing, discussion of essays; teacher's story; text analysis, student report.

During the classes

I. Reading and discussion of 2-3 essays on the works of Bunin and Kuprin

II. Teacher's word

Picture of literary situation can never be complete without her humorous and satirical pages. At the beginning of the century, the aged and boring “Dragonfly”, in which the young Chekhov once published, was transformed in 1908 by a group of young employees of this magazine into a new magazine - “Satyricon”. Over time (since 1913) it modernized its name, becoming the “New Satyricon”, but continued to unite the remarkable artistic forces. Artists Re-Mi (N. Remizov), L. Bakst, I. Bilibin, M. Dobuzhinsky, A. Benois, N. Altman, talented and witty writers - Sasha Cherny, S. Gorodetsky, Teffi (Lokhvitskaya) collaborated in this magazine , A. Averchenko. A. Kuprin, L. Andreev, A. Tolstoy, A. Green published in Satyricon. The “highlight” of each issue was the works of Arkady Averchenko. Under funny pseudonyms (Medusa Gorgon, Falstaff, Foma Opiskin) he published editorials and topical feuilletons, wrote about the theater, musical evenings, art exhibitions, And he only signed stories with his last name.

Averchenko is a master of humorous storytelling. The best of them, rather, belong to the satirical genre.

III. Conversation based on Averchenko's stories

Issues for discussion:

— What traditions of Russian literature does Averchenko continue?

— What associations arise when reading his stories?

1. The story “Viktor Polikarpovich.”

The beginning of the story “Viktor Polikarpovich” is a reminiscence of Gogol’s “The Inspector General”: “An audit came to one city... Chief Auditor“He was a stern, straightforward, fair man with a loud, commanding voice and decisive actions that awed everyone around him.”

(Reference: reminiscence- designation of features in work of art, evoking memories of another work through the use of characteristic images, speech patterns, and rhythmic-syntactic moves. Reminiscence reminds creative manner, motives and themes of any author and is designed for the associative perception of the reader). The plot of the story is reminiscent of the plot of Gogol’s play: “the inhabitants of the city complained about the policeman Dymba, who illegally and incorrectly collected from them three hundred rubles of “port dues for marine improvements.” This fee was, of course, an ordinary bribe. Gogol’s city is located in such a wilderness from which “even if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state.” From Averchenko: “The nearest sea is six hundred miles across two provinces.” The modern auditor is a real one, he gradually “brings to clean water"officials - of higher and higher rank - on whose orders this “port tax” was collected. We already see his integrity and integrity, his determination to find the truth and punish the culprit. Finally it turns out that the official from St. Petersburg who “developed” the maritime tax project is Viktor Polikarpovich himself. The auditor’s ardor immediately fades, and the “switchman” - one policeman Dymba - is punished, and even then “for smoking while on duty.”

2. The story "Robinsons".

The story “Robinsons” depicts the former spy Akatsiev, following on the heels of the intellectual Narymsky and counting what rules, instructions and laws he violated. The situation was borrowed by Averchenko from Saltykov-Shchedrin: the heroes find themselves on a desert island. The conventionality of the situation emphasizes its absurdity. Akatsiev saves the drowning Narymsky only because he counted about one hundred and ten thousand violations, for which “upon returning to Russia” Narymsky will have to pay fines “or sit for about one and a half years.”

3. The story “The Poet”.

The style of many of Averchenko's stories is reminiscent of Chekhov's style - laconic, witty, apt. Like Chekhov, Averchenko ridicules stupidity, vulgarity, and mediocrity. Averchenko is Chekhov-like inventive in terms of plots, sometimes he builds them almost “out of nothing.” For example, in the story “The Poet”, cheap cliches passed off as creativity are ridiculed. An annoying and impudent visitor pursues the editor, offering his verses. It becomes some kind of obsession. The graphomaniac slips his “creation” (“I wish I could comb her black locks / Every morning...”) into a book, into his coat pocket, and sends it by letter. The editor discovers "poems" in his shoes, in his cigar box, in his pillow, and even at dinner - inside cold chicken. Unable to bear it, he writes a letter to the publisher asking for release from editorial duties, and on the back of the page he usually finds the same lines.

4. The story “Mermaid.

Another story, “The Mermaid,” has a similar theme. The story is also about a poet. The author ridicules romanticism, divorced from life, and parodies modernist delights. The poet Pelikanov, who dreamed of meeting a real mermaid, expresses himself in cliches: “silvered lunar river”, “silent prayer”, “ sad eyes... like stars” The artist Krantz comes up with a story on the fly, somewhat reminiscent both in style and plot of Kuprin’s “Olesya”: “One summer I was hunting... Actually, what kind of hunting? So, he wandered around with a gun. I love loneliness. And so, wandering in this way, I came across one warm summer evening on an abandoned fishing house on the river bank...” Sublime vocabulary of the romantic beginning (“beautiful silence, desolation and loneliness”, “tenderness”, “stuffy stormy night”, unchanged “Schiller, Pushkin and Dostoevsky” - the hero reads them) contrasts with the lowered, rude words of the beautiful “mermaid”, which she picked up from the fishermen.

Her “sad eyes” and “coral lips” seduce the hero for a short time. At first he is scared off by the smell of fish (“I would never kiss a perch or crucian carp”), then by his manners: “she ate the minnows whole, with the head and entrails,” she combed her hair with a piece of “a fish ridge with bones, in the form of comb teeth, and on in these teeth, in some places the fish meat had not yet been eaten.” Finally, with relief, the hero pushes his “beautiful captive” back into the water. This story instantly cures the poet Pelikanov of the romantic nonsense: “I guess I’ll go home. It’s a bit damp these days.”

5. Results of the discussion.

He continued the traditions of Russian satire, Russian literature - Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Kuprin - Averchenko is relevant not only for his time, but also for ours: the objects of satire have not disappeared, they have only been slightly transformed.

III. We listen to the report (or abstract) of a previously prepared student on political satire Averchenko (“A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution”).

IV. Questions about the work of A. T. Averchenko (questions can be used as individual tasks by cards)

— What name did the satirical magazine “Dragonfly” begin to bear in 1913?

— Under what pseudonyms did Arkady Averchenko write?

— How do you see the development of Gogolian traditions in A. T. Averchenko’s story “Viktor Polikarpovich”?

— What Chekhovian traditions does A. T. Averchenko continue?

— What is the subject of A. T. Averchenko’s satire? Give examples.

- Which satirical devices uses A. T. Averchenko in his stories?

— What are the political beliefs of A. T. Averchenko? How were they reflected in his work?

— What do you see as the relevance of A. T. Averchenko’s work?