All cycles of stories by Averchenko. Averchenko A. T. Brief biography. Averchenko Arkady Timofeevich. Averchenko and the new government

After the revolution, many wonderful poets and prose writers left Russia. One of them was Arkady Averchenko. The biography of this writer is quite sad, like the life of many Russian emigrants who were forced to live out their lives far from their homeland.

Childhood

The satirist reflected his early years in the work “Autobiography” created in a unique style. Since childhood, Arkady Averchenko, whose biography, like his life, ended quite early, due to a severe congenital disease, had poor eyesight. He was born in Sevastopol in 1881. The father of the future writer was a merchant mediocre. But Averchenko failed to get a decent education. The same illness was to blame. In a sense, the son of a Sevastopol merchant can be called a nugget. After all, he was able to fill the gaps in education thanks to his natural abilities, perseverance and desire for knowledge.

Boyhood

However, Averchenko did not have much time for training in his youth. His biography says that this man’s life developed in such a way that already at the age of fifteen the teenager had to earn his own bread. At first he entered the Sevastopol transport office as a scribe. Then there was service at one of the mines in Donbass. Arkady Averchenko reflected his first work experience in his early work. The biography of this man is known to everyone who is familiar with the works of the satirist. The stories “Autobiography” and “About Steamship Horns” are written in a light humorous style. Averchenko’s works, although they do not have great literary value, are created with subtle satire, which the author always knew how to direct not only towards others, but also towards himself.

Donbass mine

The future writer ended up at the Bryansk mine at the age of sixteen. Here he worked for four years. And of course life experience and communication with employees in the miner’s office could not help but serve as material for writing the following stories. In his works “Lightning” and “In the Evening,” the young writer Averchenko reflected his life at the mine. The biography of this person, as already mentioned, is quite short. But at the same time it is very rich. In just twenty years, he changed several cities, both Russian and foreign.

Kharkiv

Averchenko leaves Donbass. He goes to Kharkov, where he begins his creative journey. His first story appeared in one of the local newspapers at the beginning of the century. The piece was called “How I Insured My Life.” But this story is not yours literary debut Averchenko believed. short biography writer, written by himself, suggests that during the Kharkov period he completely abandoned his service and devoted a lot of time to literary creativity. And it was during these years that the story “The Righteous” was written.

Working in a magazine

For about a year, the hero of our story worked in Kharkov satirical magazines. According to the memoirs of friends and relatives, Arkady Averchenko was an extremely unlucky person. It is no coincidence that the (short) biography of this writer is presented in the book “Great Losers” by Alexander Vek.

Averchenko regularly published his short works in the magazines “Bayonet” and “Sword,” which were popular among readers. But for some reason, a year later, the young writer was fired with the words: “You are no good for hell, even though you are a good person.” And he left Kharkov without paying off the monetary debts that he strangely acquired over a very short term.

Petersburg

In the capital, Arkady Averchenko at first worked mainly in third-rate publications. But here he finally received recognition. In St. Petersburg, luck smiled on him. The staff of the Dragonfly magazine, which at that time was losing its subscribers, decided one day to organize a new periodical. Among the organizers was Arkady Averchenko.

This magazine was called "Satyricon". And Averchenko himself became the editor-in-chief. The biography and work of the writer is closely connected with the magazine. It was here that the most famous stories appeared. "Satyricon" became extremely popular, primarily thanks to the works of Averchenko. While working in this magazine, the writer was able to find his own style. However, the stories that were published in Satyricon had a political orientation. Averchenko has been put on trial more than once. However, this had the most favorable effect on the popularity of his literary creations.

In 1911, Averchenko travels to European cities. He organizes the trip together with his colleagues. Traveling around Europe inspires him to write a satirical essay. The writer combined his work for the magazine with reviewing high-profile theatrical productions. But their critical articles he used to sign under various pseudonyms.

October Revolution

After the coup d'etat everything changed. "Satyricon" was closed by the Bolsheviks. The magazine staff did not like the new government. Which, however, was mutual. Suddenly he turned from a prominent literary figure into a fugitive and political criminal. His biography after the revolutionary events was quite eventful. He published stories, published books. However, the intense creative upsurge that was characteristic of the St. Petersburg period no longer existed in his life.

In order to get into hometown, the writer had to make his way for a long time through Ukrainian cities occupied by German troops. In Sevastopol, he worked briefly in a local magazine. When the Bolsheviks entered the city, he miraculously managed to get on the last ship leaving for Constantinople.

Emigration

The first years abroad for Averchenko were fruitful. There were quite a few Russians in Constantinople at that time. And in Paris, where Averchenko went a few months after emigrating, he found like-minded people. In France, no one restricted his freedom. The publication of anti-Bolshevik literature was then in fashion. And Averchenko wrote several satirical pamphlets dedicated to the new Soviet government. These works were collected in one publication. And even Lenin himself drew attention to them, calling the book “talented” and its author “an embittered White Guard.”

Czech

In 1922, Averchenko moved to Bulgaria, then to Belgrade. After that he lived for several months in Prague. In the Czech Republic it instantly gained popularity. However, away from his homeland, his life became increasingly difficult. In the last late period he wrote several works dedicated to nostalgia for Russia. One of them is the story “The Tragedy of the Russian Writer.”

In 1925, the writer’s health deteriorated sharply. He underwent surgery, which resulted in a heart complication. In the same year, Arkady Averchenko passed away. The Russian satirist writer is buried in a Prague cemetery. His last work was the novel “The Patron’s Joke.” This work was written two years before the author's death, but published in 1925.

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

Since 1912, he began to be called the king of Russian laughter. During the years of his greatest 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. The writer performed with the Nest of Migratory Birds theater 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.”

Soviet literature

Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko

Biography

AVERCHENKO, ARKADY TIMOFEEVICH (1881−1925), Russian writer, journalist, publisher. Born March 15 (27), 1881 in Sevastopol. The father is an unsuccessful small trader; due to his complete ruin, Averchenko had to finish his studies “at home, with the help of his older sisters” (from his autobiography). In 1896, at the age of fifteen, he entered the Donetsk mine as a clerk; three years later he moved to Kharkov to work in the same joint-stock company. The first story, The Ability to Live, was published in the Kharkov magazine “Dandelion” in 1902. A serious application of the writer was the story The Righteous One, published in St. Petersburg in the “Magazine for Everyone” in 1904. During the period of revolutionary events of 1905−1907, Averchenko discovers journalistic talent and entrepreneurial spirit, widely publishing essays, feuilletons and humoresques in short-lived periodicals and releasing several issues of his own satirical magazines “Bayonet” and “Sword”, quickly banned by censorship.

His publishing experience came in handy in 1908 in St. Petersburg, when he proposed to the editors of the withered humorous magazine “Dragonfly” (where Chekhov’s first story was published back in 1880) to reorganize the publication. Having become the editorial secretary, Averchenko carried out his plan: on April 1, 1908, “Dragonfly” was replaced by the new weekly “Satyricon”. As A. I. Kuprin noted in the article Averchenko and Satyricon (1925), the magazine “immediately found itself: its channel, its tone, its brand. Readers, the sensitive middle, discovered it unusually quickly.” It was precisely the focus on the middle-class reader, awakened by the revolution and keenly interested in politics and literature, that ensured Satyricon's enormous success. In addition to inveterate humorists such as Pyotr Potemkin, Sasha Cherny, Osip Dymov, Arkady Bukhov, Averchenko managed to attract L. Andreev, S. Marshak, A. Kuprin, A. N. Tolstoy, S. Gorodetsky and many others to collaborate in the magazine poets and prose writers. Averchenko himself was a permanent contributor to Satyricon and the inspirer of all the magazine’s undertakings; The development of a writer of the first magnitude was the satirical career of N. A. Lokhvitskaya (Teffi). In addition to the magazine, the Satyricon Library was published: about a hundred book titles were published in 1908-1913 total circulation over two million, including Averchenko’s first collection of stories, Cheerful Oysters (1910), which went through twenty-four editions in seven years. In 1913, the editorial board of Satyricon split, and New Satyricon (1913−1918) became Averchenkov’s magazine. A rare issue of the previous and new editions was without a story or humoresque by Averchenko; He was also published in other “thin” magazines of mass circulation, such as “Magazine for Everyone” and “Blue Magazine”. The stories were selected, further edited and published in collections: Stories (humorous). Book 1 (1910) - things published earlier, even before Satyricon, were “dumped” here; Stories (humorous). Book 2. Bunnies on the Wall (1911), Circles on the Water (1912), Stories for Convalescents (1913), About Essentially Good People (1914), Weeds (1914 - under the pseudonym Foma Opiskin), Miracles in a Sieve (1915), Gilded Pills (1916), Blue and Gold (1917). A complex type of story by Averchenko was developed, necessary and characteristic property which is exaggeration, depiction of an anecdotal situation, bringing it to the point of complete absurdity, which serves as a kind of catharsis, partly rhetorical. His exaggerated anecdotes do not have even a shadow of credibility; the more successfully they are used to mystify and remove reality, necessary for the “intelligent” public (the word “intelligent” was introduced into wide use with the considerable assistance of “Satyricon”), which during the “ Silver Age"tried to at least slightly weaken the stranglehold of populist ideology: sometimes even home-grown social democracy was used to counteract it, and traces of it are clear in the Satyricons." The Satyriconists, led by Averchenko, extremely valued their acquired reputation as an “independent magazine that trades in laughter,” and tried not to indulge base tastes, avoiding obscenity, stupid buffoonery and direct political engagement (in all these senses, Teffi was an exemplary author). The political position of the magazine was an emphasized and somewhat mocking disloyalty: a very advantageous position in the then conditions of the almost complete absence of censorship, which prohibited only direct calls for the overthrow of the government, but allowed as much as possible to ridicule any of its manifestations, including censorship itself. February revolution Averchenko, of course, welcomed 1917 with his “New Satyricon”; however, the unbridled “democratic” pandemonium that followed made him increasingly wary, and the October Bolshevik coup was perceived by Averchenko, along with the overwhelming majority of the Russian intelligentsia, as a monstrous misunderstanding. At the same time, his cheerful absurdity acquired a new pathos; it began to correspond to the madness of the newly established reality and look like “black humor.” Subsequently, such “grotesqueness” is found in M. Bulgakov, M. Zoshchenko, V. Kataev, I. Ilf, which indicates not their apprenticeship with Averchenko, but the uniform transformation of humor into new era. The era treated humor harshly: in August 1918, “New Satyricon” was banned, and Averchenko fled to the White Guard South, where he published anti-Bolshevik pamphlets and feuilletons in the newspapers “Priazovsky Krai”, “South of Russia” and other anti-Bolshevik pamphlets and feuilletons, and in October 1920 he left for Istanbul with one of the last Wrangel transports. At the same time, new types of stories by Avrchenko were developed, which later compiled the books A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution (1921) and Funny in the Terrible (1923): an anti-Soviet political joke and stylized as essays, but at the same time exaggerated in Avrchenko’s usual manner, sketches and impressions of the life of the revolutionary capital and civil war. Experience of emigrant life, absurdly and pathetically copying life and customs lost Russia, reflected in the book Notes of the Innocent. I'm in Europe (1923), where, with the help of inverse hyperbole (litotes), grotesque images of the Lilliputian world, not devoid of surreal life-likeness, appear. In the works of the last years of Averchenko's life, the children's theme manifests itself with renewed vigor - from the collection About the Little Ones - for the Big Ones (1916) to the books of stories Children (1922) and Rest on the Nettle (1924). Having tried to write a story (Pokhodtsev and two others, 1917) and a “humorous novel” (Mecenata’s Joke, 1925), Averchenko creates quasi-memoir cycles of semi-anecdotal episodes connected by more or less caricatured figures of the main characters, i.e., again, collections of stories and humoresques with a touch of personal memories. In Istanbul, Averchenko, as always, combined creative activity from the organizational side: having created the variety theater “Nest of Migratory Birds”, he made several tours around Europe. In 1922 he settled in Prague, where he managed to write and publish several books of stories and the play Game with Death, which had the character of a comedy show. Averchenko died in Prague on March 12, 1925.

On the eighteenth (thirtieth) March 1881 in the city of Sevastopol, located in Russian Empire, the future outstanding Russian writer, theater critic and satirist, Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko, was born. The comedian's father, Timofey Petrovich Averchenko, was a poor, unlucky merchant, and his mother, Susanna Pavlovna Safronova, was the daughter of a retired soldier originally from the Poltava region.

Although Arkady Timofeevich, due to very poor eyesight, did not receive any education in childhood, this shortcoming of the future writer was fully compensated by his natural intelligence and ingenuity.

Work young Arkady started at the age of fifteen. After working for a year as a junior scribe in the transport office of the city of Sevastopol, the future satirist leaves to work at the Bryansk mine as a clerk.

After working in the Donbass for about four years, Arkady moved to Kharkov, where on October 31, 1903, his first story, “How I Had to Insure My Life,” was published.

From 1906 to 1907, Averchenko edited two satirical magazines - “Sword” and “Bayonet”. Literary creativity Arkady does not go unnoticed by the mine’s board and the comedian is fired with the words: “You are a good person, but you’re no good for hell.”

After his dismissal, Arkady Timofeevich leaves for St. Petersburg, where he becomes an employee of various minor publications.

In 1908, a new humorous magazine, Satyricon, was created, with Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko appointed editor.

During his work at Satyricon, the writer became very famous and his stories were used to stage numerous plays in The Bat and The Crooked Mirror.

After the October Revolution, a lot changed and in 1918 the Bolsheviks who came to power closed the Satyricon. On November 15, 1920, Averchenko emigrated to Constantinople.

In a foreign land, “a White Guard embittered to the point of insanity,” as Lenin called him then, published a collection of pamphlets “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution” and a collection “Notes of the Innocent.”

In 1925, the writer, after an operation, loses his eye, after which he begins to get seriously ill, and on March 12, 1925, Arkady Timofeevich Averin dies.

Pre-revolutionary life

Born on March 15 (27), 1880 in Sevastopol in the family of a poor merchant Timofey Petrovich Averchenko and Susanna Pavlovna Sofronova, the daughter of a retired soldier from the Poltava region.

A. T. Averchenko did not receive any primary education, since due to poor eyesight he could not study for long. But the lack of education was compensated over time by natural intelligence.

Averchenko started working early, at the age of 15. From 1896 to 1897 he served as a junior scribe in the transport office of Sevastopol. He did not stay there long, just over a year, and subsequently described this period of his life in the ironic “Autobiography”, as well as the story in “On Steamship Horns”

In 1897, Averchenko left to work as a clerk in the Donbass, at the Bryansk mine. He worked at the mine for four years, subsequently writing several stories about life there (“In the Evening,” “Lightning,” etc.).

In the early 1900s, he moved with the management of the mines to Kharkov, where on October 31, 1903, his first story, “how I had to insure my life,” appeared in the newspaper “Southern Region.” Averchenko himself considers his literary debut the story “The Righteous”

In 1906-1907, he, “completely abandoning his service,” edited the satirical magazines “Bayonet” and “Sword,” and in 1907, these publications became the first permanent platform for Averchenko, who led almost all sections under numerous pseudonyms. But he is fired from the board with the words: “You are a good person, but you’re no good for hell.” After this, in January 1908, A. T. Averchenko left for St. Petersburg.

So, in 1908, Averchenko became the secretary of the satirical magazine “Dragonfly” (later renamed “Satyricon”), and in the same year - its editor.

Averchenko has been successfully working for many years in the magazine’s team with famous people - Teffi, Sasha Cherny, Osip Dymov, N.V. Remizov (Re-mi), and others. It was there that his most brilliant humorous stories appeared. During Averchenko's work at Satyricon, this magazine became extremely popular; plays based on his stories were staged in many theaters across the country (Liteiny Theatre, Crooked Mirror, The Bat). For Averchenko, work in this publication became a central milestone in creative biography. The search for our own themes, style, and genre, which began in Kharkov, continues. Averchenko was prosecuted for the sharp political nature of some of his materials, but this did not diminish his popularity.

In 1911-1912, Averchenko traveled twice around Europe with his satirical friends (artists A. A. Radakov and Remizov). These travels provided Averchenko with rich material for creativity: in 1912, his popular book “The Satyricon Expedition to Western Europe».

A. T. Averchenko also wrote numerous theater reviews under the pseudonyms Ave, Wolf, Foma Opiskin, Medusa the Gorgon, Falstaff and others.

After the October Revolution, everything changed dramatically. In July 1918, the Bolsheviks closed the New Satyricon along with other opposition publications. Averchenko and the entire staff of the magazine took a negative position towards Soviet power. In order to return to his native Sevastopol (to Crimea, occupied by the whites), Averchenko had to go through numerous troubles, in particular, making his way through German-occupied Ukraine.

From July 1919, Averchenko worked for the newspaper “Yug” (later “South of Russia”), campaigning for help for the Volunteer Army.

On November 15, 1920, Sevastopol was captured by the Reds. A few days before, Averchenko left for Constantinople on one of the last ships.

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 1921, in Paris, he published a collection of pamphlets, “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution,” which Lenin called “a highly talented book ... by a White Guard embittered to the point of insanity.” His heroes - nobles, merchants, officials, military men, workers - remember with nostalgia past life 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 V.I. Lenin found the book “highly talented.”

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.

In 1923, the Berlin publishing house Sever published his collection of emigrant stories, Notes of the Innocent.

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.”

In the Czech Republic, Averchenko immediately gained popularity; his creative evenings enjoyed great success, and many stories were translated into Czech.

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 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.”

Averchenko was buried at the Olshansky 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.

Creation

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 “Funny 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. Moreover, his anecdotes do not have even a shadow of credibility, thereby serving to further distance 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 any way possible.

Gradually, tragic notes associated with the First World War are returning in Averchenko’s work. With the beginning of the war, political themes appeared, patriotically oriented works by Averchenko were 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 collapse 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, where Averchenko lamented the terrible death of Russia. His heroes are nobles, merchants, officials, workers, military men - all of them remember their past lives with incredible nostalgia.

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, the writer’s last work, the humorous novel “The Patron’s Joke,” was published.

Collections of stories

« Humorous stories»
"Jolly Oysters"
“General history, processed by Satyricon”
“Twelve portraits (in the “Boudoir” format)”
"Children"
"A dozen knives in the back of the revolution"
"Notes of the Innocent"
"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

Politicians: State Duma, Octobrists;
Female types: A narrow-minded woman, but always desirable (“Mosaic”, “Pitiful Creature”);
People of art (“The Golden Age”, “The Poet”, “Incurables”);
Life of the city (“Human Day”)

Arkady Averchenko was born on March 27, 1881 in Sevastopol in the family of a poor merchant Timofey Petrovich Averchenko and Susanna Pavlovna Sofronova, the daughter of a retired soldier from the Poltava region.

Averchenko did not receive any primary education, since due to poor eyesight he could not study for long, but the lack of education was compensated over time by his natural intelligence.

Arkady Averchenko began working at the age of 15. From 1896 to 1897, he served as a junior scribe in the transport office of Sevastopol. He did not stay there long, just over a year, and subsequently described this period of his life in the ironic “Autobiography”, as well as the story in “On Steamship Horns”

In 1896, Averchenko went to work as a clerk in the Donbass at the Bryansk mine. He worked at the mine for four years, subsequently writing several stories about life there - “In the Evening”, “Lightning” and other works.

In 1903, the Kharkov newspaper “Yuzhny Krai” published Averchenko’s first story, “How I Had to Insure My Life,” in which his literary style. In 1906, Averchenko became the editor of the satirical magazine "Bayonet", almost entirely represented by his materials. After the closure of this magazine, he headed the next one - “Sword”, which was also closed soon.

In 1907, he moved to St. Petersburg and collaborated with the satirical magazine “Dragonfly”, later transformed into “Satyricon”. Then he became the permanent editor of this popular publication.

In 1910, three books by Averchenko were published, making him famous throughout reading Russia: “Funny Oysters”, “Stories (humorous)”, book 1, “Bunnies on the Wall”, book II. “...their author is destined to become a Russian Twain...”, V. Polonsky insightfully noted.

The books “Circles on the Water” and “Stories for Convalescents”, published in 1912, confirmed the author’s title of “king of laughter.”

Averchenko greeted the February Revolution with enthusiasm, but did not accept the October Revolution. In the fall of 1918, Averchenko left for the south, collaborated with the newspapers Priazovsky Krai and Yug, read his stories, and headed the literary department at the Artist's House. At the same time, he wrote the plays “A Cure for Stupidity” and “The Game with Death”, and in April 1920 he organized his own theater “Nest of Migratory Birds”. Six months later he emigrated abroad through Constantinople, from June 1922 he lived in Prague, briefly traveling to Germany, Poland, Romania and the Baltic states. His book “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution”, a collection of short stories: “Children”, “The Funny in the Scary” and the humorous novel “The Patron’s Joke” are published.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AVERCHENKO.

Fifteen minutes before my birth, I did not know that I would appear in this world. I make this in itself a trivial instruction only because I want to get ahead of everyone else by a quarter of an hour. wonderful people, whose life with tedious monotony was described without fail from the moment of birth. Here you go.

When the midwife presented me to my father, he examined what I was like with the air of a connoisseur and exclaimed:

I'll bet you a gold coin it's a boy!

“Old fox! - I thought, grinning internally, - you’re playing for sure.”

From this conversation our acquaintance began, and then our friendship.

Out of modesty, I will be careful not to point out the fact that on my birthday the bells were rung and there was general popular rejoicing.

Evil tongues connected this rejoicing with some great holiday that coincided with the day of my birth, but I still don’t understand what another holiday has to do with it?

Taking a closer look at my surroundings, I decided that my first duty was to grow up. I performed this with such care that when I was eight years old, I once saw my father taking me by the hand. Of course, even before this, my father had repeatedly taken me by the indicated limb, but previous attempts were nothing more than real symptoms of fatherly affection. In the present case, he, moreover, pulled a hat onto his and my heads - and we went out into the street.

Where are the devils taking us? - I asked with the directness that has always distinguished me.

You need to study.

Very necessary! I do not want to study.

Why?

To get rid of it, I said the first thing that came to mind:

I am sick.

What is hurting you?

I went through all my organs from memory and chose the most important one:

Hm... Let's go to the doctor.

When we arrived at the doctor's, I bumped into him, his patient, and knocked over a small table.

Boy, do you really not see anything?

“Nothing,” I answered, hiding the tail of the phrase, which I finished in my mind: “... good in learning.”

So I never studied science.

The legend that I was a sick, frail boy who could not study grew and strengthened, and most of all I cared about it myself.

My father, being a merchant by profession, did not pay any attention to me, since he was up to his neck busy with troubles and plans: how to go bankrupt as quickly as possible? This was his life's dream, and we must give him full justice - good old man achieved his aspirations in the most impeccable manner. He did this with the complicity of a whole galaxy of thieves who robbed his store, customers who borrowed exclusively and systematically, and fires that incinerated those of his father’s goods that were not stolen by thieves and customers.

Thieves, fires and buyers for a long time stood as a wall between me and the school, and I would have remained illiterate if the older sisters had not come up with a funny idea that promised them a lot of new sensations: to take up my education. Obviously, I was a tasty morsel, because because of the very dubious pleasure of illuminating my lazy brain with the light of knowledge, the sisters not only argued, but once even got into hand-to-hand combat, and the result of the fight - a dislocated finger - did not in the least cool the teaching ardor of the elder sister Lyuba.

Thus - against the background of family caring, love, fires, thieves and buyers - my growth took place, and a conscious attitude towards the environment developed.

When I was fifteen years old, my father, who sadly said goodbye to thieves, buyers and fires, once said to me:

We need to serve you.

“I don’t know how,” I objected, as usual, choosing a position that could guarantee me complete and serene peace.

Nonsense! - the father objected. - Seryozha Zeltser is not older than you, but he is already serving!

This Seryozha was the biggest nightmare of my youth. A clean, neat little German, our housemate, Seryozha, from the very early age was set as an example for me as an example of restraint, hard work and accuracy.

“Look at Seryozha,” the mother said sadly. - The boy serves, deserves the love of his superiors, knows how to talk, behaves freely in society, plays the guitar, sings... And you?

Discouraged by these reproaches, I immediately went up to the guitar hanging on the wall, pulled the string, began to squeal some unknown song in a shrill voice, tried to “stay more freely,” shuffling my feet on the walls, but all this was weak, everything was second-rate. Seryozha remained out of reach!

Seryozha is serving, but you are not serving yet... - my father reproached me.

Seryozha, maybe, eats frogs at home,” I objected, after thinking. - So will you order me?

I'll order it if necessary! - the father barked, banging his fist on the table. - Damn it! I'll make silk out of you!

As a man of taste, my father preferred silk of all materials, and any other material seemed unsuitable for me.

I remember the first day of my service, which I was supposed to start in some sleepy transport office for the transportation of luggage.

I got there almost at eight o’clock in the morning and found only one man in a vest without a jacket, very friendly and modest.

“This is probably the main agent,” I thought.

Hello! - I said, shaking his hand tightly. - How's it going?

Wow. Sit down, let's chat!

We smoked cigarettes in a friendly manner, and I started a diplomatic conversation about my future career, telling the whole story about myself.

What, you idiot, haven’t even wiped off the dust yet?!

The one I suspected was the chief agent jumped up with a cry of fright and grabbed a dusty rag. The bossy voice of the newcomer young man convinced me that I was dealing with the main agent himself.

“Hello,” I said. - How do you live? Can you? (Sociability and secularism according to Seryozha Zeltser.)

“Nothing,” said the young master. -Are you our new employee? Wow! I am glad!

We got into a friendly conversation and didn’t even notice how a middle-aged man entered the office, grabbed the young gentleman by the shoulder and sharply shouted at the top of his lungs:

Is this how you, the devilish parasite, are preparing a register? I'll kick you out if you're lazy!

The gentleman, who I took to be the chief agent, turned pale, lowered his head sadly and wandered to his desk. And the chief agent sank into a chair, leaned back and began to ask me important questions about my talents and abilities.

“I’m a fool,” I thought to myself. - How could I not have figured out earlier what kind of birds my previous interlocutors were? This boss is such a boss! It’s immediately obvious!”

At this time, a commotion was heard in the hallway.

Look who's there? - the chief agent asked me.

I looked out into the hallway and reassuringly said:

Some ugly old man is taking off his coat.

The ugly old man came in and shouted:

It's ten o'clock and none of you are doing a damn thing!! Will this ever end?!

The previous important boss jumped up in his chair like a ball, and the young gentleman, whom he had previously called a “idler,” warned me in my ear:

The chief agent dragged himself along.

That's how I started my service.

I served for a year, all the time most shamefully trailing behind Seryozha Zeltser. This young man received 25 rubles a month, when I received 15, and when I reached 25 rubles, they gave him 40. I hated him like some disgusting spider washed with fragrant soap...

At the age of sixteen, I parted with my sleepy transport office and left Sevastopol (I forgot to say - this is my homeland) to some coal mines. This place was the least suitable for me, and that’s why I probably ended up there on the advice of my father, who was experienced in everyday troubles...

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 cobblers, and I drank no worse than others. The population was so small that one person had a whole lot of positions and occupations. The cook Kuzma was at the same time both a contractor and a trustee of the mine school, the paramedic was a midwife, and when I first came to the most famous hairdresser in those parts, his wife asked me to wait a little, since her husband had gone to replace someone’s broken glass. miners last night.

These miners (coal miners) also seemed to me to be a strange people: being mostly escapees from hard labor, they did not have passports and the absence of this indispensable accessory of a Russian citizen was filled with a sad look and despair in their souls - with a whole sea of vodka.

Their whole life was such that they were born for vodka, worked and ruined their health with backbreaking work - for the sake of vodka, and went to the next world with the closest participation and help of the same vodka.

One day before Christmas I was driving from the mine to the nearest village and saw a row of black bodies lying motionless along the entire length of my path; there were two or three every 20 steps.

What it is? - I was amazed...

And the miners,” the driver smiled sympathetically. - They bought gorilka near the village. For God's holiday.

Tai was not informed. They wet the misty. Axis how!

So we drove past entire deposits of dead drunk people who apparently had such a weak will that they did not even have time to run home, surrendering to the scorching thirst that gripped their throats wherever this thirst overtook them. And they lay in the snow, with black, meaningless faces, and if I didn’t know the way to the village, I would have found it along these giant black stones, scattered by a giant boy with a finger all the way.

These people, however, were for the most part strong and seasoned, and the most monstrous experiments on their bodies cost them relatively little. They broke each other's heads, completely destroyed their noses and ears, and one daredevil once even took on a tempting bet (no doubt - a bottle of vodka) to eat a dynamite cartridge. Having done this, for two or three days, despite severe vomiting, he enjoyed the most careful and caring attention from his comrades, who were all afraid that he would explode.

After this strange quarantine passed, he was severely beaten.

Office employees differed from workers in that they fought less and drank more. All these were people, for the most part rejected by the rest of the world for mediocrity and inability to live, and thus, on our small island, surrounded by immeasurable steppes, the most monstrous company of stupid, dirty and untalented alcoholics, scum and scraps of the fastidious white world gathered.

Brought here by the giant broom of God's will, they all gave up on the outside world and began to live as God dictated.

They drank, played cards, cursed with cruel, desperate words, and in their drunkenness sang something insistently viscous and danced with gloomy concentration, breaking the floors with their heels and spewing from weakened lips whole streams of blasphemy against humanity.

This was the fun side of mining life. Its dark sides consisted of hard labor, walking through the deepest mud from the office to the colony and back, as well as serving in the guardhouse under a whole series of outlandish protocols drawn up by a drunken policeman.

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...

For whole days I wandered around the city, pushing my hat on one side and independently whistling the most rollicking tunes that I overheard in the summer chants - a place that at first delighted me to the depths of my soul.

I worked in the office disgustingly and I still wonder why they kept me there for six years, lazy, looking at work with disgust and on every occasion engaging not only with the accountant, but also with the director in long, bitter disputes and polemics.

Probably because I was a cheerful person, joyfully looking at the wide world of God, willingly putting aside work for laughter, jokes and a series of intricate anecdotes, which refreshed those around me, bogged down in work, boring accounts and squabbles.

My literary activity began in 1904, and it seemed to me to be a complete triumph. Firstly, I wrote a story... Secondly, I took it to the "Southern Region". And thirdly (I am still of the opinion that this is the most important thing in the story), thirdly, it was published!

For some reason I did not receive a fee for it, and this is all the more unfair since as soon as it was published, subscriptions and retail sales of the newspaper immediately doubled...

The same envious, evil tongues that tried to connect my birthday with some other holiday also connected the fact of the rise in retail with the beginning of the Russian-Japanese War.

Well, yes, you and I, reader, know where the truth is...

Having written four stories in two years, I decided that I had worked enough for the benefit of my native literature, and decided to take a thorough rest, but 1905 rolled up and, picking me up, spun me around like a piece of wood.

I began to edit the magazine “Bayonet”, which was a great success in Kharkov, and completely abandoned the service... I wrote feverishly, drew cartoons, edited and proofread, and in the ninth issue I got to the point where Governor General Peshkov fined me 500 rubles, dreaming that I would immediately pay it out of my pocket money...

I refused for many reasons, the main ones being: lack of money and unwillingness to indulge the whims of a frivolous administrator.

Seeing my steadfastness (the fine was not replaced by imprisonment), Peshkov lowered the price to 100 rubles.

I refused.

We bargained like brokers, and I visited him almost ten times. He never managed to squeeze money out of me!

Then he, offended, said:

One of us must leave Kharkov!

Your Excellency! - I objected. - Let's make an offer to Kharkov residents: who will they choose?

Since I was loved in the city and even vague rumors reached me about the desire of citizens to perpetuate my image by erecting a monument, Mr. Peshkov did not want to risk his popularity.

And I left, having managed to publish three issues of the Sword magazine before leaving, which was so popular that copies of it can even be found in the Public Library.

I arrived in Petrograd just for New Year.

There was illumination again, the streets were decorated with flags, banners and lanterns. But I won't say anything. I'll keep quiet!

And so they sometimes reproach me for thinking about my merits more than is required by ordinary modesty. And I, I can give my word of honor, having seen all this illumination and joy, pretended that I did not notice at all the innocent cunning and sentimental, simple-minded attempts of the municipality to brighten up my first visit to a large unfamiliar city... Modestly, incognito, I got into a cab and went incognito to the place of his new life.

And so I started it.

My first steps were connected with the magazine “Satyricon” that we founded, and to this day I love, like my own child, this wonderful, cheerful magazine (8 rubles a year, 4 rubles for six months).

His success was half my success, and I can proudly say now that a rare cultured person does not know our “Satyricon” (for a year 8 rubles, for six months 4 rubles).

At this point I am already approaching the last, immediate era of my life, and I will not say, but everyone will understand why I am silent at this point.

Out of sensitive, tender, painfully tender modesty, I fall silent.

I will not list the names of those people who have recently become interested in me and wanted to get to know me. But if the reader thinks about the true reasons for the arrival of the Slavic deputation, the Spanish infanta and President Fallier, then perhaps my modest personality, who stubbornly kept in the shadows, will receive a completely different light...

NIKITA BOGOSLOVSKY TALKS ABOUT ARKADY AVERCHENKO.

We know negligibly little about the life and creative path of Averchenko, the most talented, witty, bright and popular humorist writer of the pre-revolutionary decade. Perhaps the greatest amount of information about him can be gleaned from the article by critic O. Mikhailov, which precedes the collection of humorous stories by Averchenko (publishing house " Fiction", 1964).

In this article of mine, I am by no means going to subject numerous works of the writer to literary critical analysis... I simply want, on the basis of the opportunity given to me, to introduce a number of little or even completely unknown information and sources and briefly tell the reader about the stages of the writer’s biography, only slightly touching on his creative activity.

« Biographical information There is scant information about Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko. It is only known that he was born in 1881 in Sevastopol, into a poor merchant family” (O. Mikhailov). Averchenko himself in the humorous “Encyclopedic Dictionary” reports: “Rod. in 1882." Unfortunately, the exact date of birth cannot be established, since in his personal archive, taken from abroad by the late I.S. Zilbershtein and stored in TsGALI, there is not a single identity card indicating the year and month of birth. The writer died on March 12, 1925 in Prague and was buried in the Olshansky cemetery there, where a modest monument was erected to him with the wrong date of birth carved into marble - “1884”.

Timofey Petrovich Averchenko, the writer's father, and his mother Susanna Pavlovna had nine children - six girls and three boys, two of whom died in infancy. The writer’s sisters, with the exception of one, outlived their brother for a long time.

Arkady Timofeevich’s father was, according to O. Mikhailov’s definition, “an eccentric dreamer and a useless businessman,” to which conclusion the critic apparently came on the basis of Averchenko’s story “Father,” as well as information from his “Autobiography.”

There are various information about the writer’s initial education. In his Autobiography, he says that if it were not for his sisters, he would have remained illiterate. But, obviously, he still studied at the gymnasium for some time. According to the testimony of the writer N. N. Breshko-Breshkovsky, who knew Averchenko closely, “the lack of education - two classes at the gymnasium - was made up for by natural intelligence.” And indeed, he did not receive a complete secondary education, since due to poor eyesight he could not study for a long time, and besides, soon, as a result of an accident, he severely damaged his eye, which could not be completely cured.

And so, having left his studies, Averchenko, as a 15-year-old boy, entered service in a private transport office. He repeatedly recalls this period of his life in his stories. However, Averchenko, having worked in the office for just over a year, in 1897 left for the Donbass, to the Bryansk mine, where he became a clerk on the recommendation of engineer I. Terentyev, the husband of one of his sisters. After serving for three years at the mine and subsequently writing several stories about his life there (“In the Evening”, “Lightning” and others), he and the mine office moved to Kharkov, where, as O. Mikhailov writes, “in the newspaper “Yuzhny Krai” On October 31, 1903, his first story appeared.”

L.D. Leonidov, a famous entrepreneur who once worked at the Moscow Art Theater, and later the owner of theatrical enterprises in France and the USA, was one of the few artists who knew Averchenko in his youth: “Arkasha Averchenko was a tall, thin, like a pole, young man . He outshone my friends at parties with his wit and successful funny ad libs...”

Averchenko, having been dismissed from service in 1907 with the words of the director: “You are a good person, but you’re no good for hell,” - having experienced several financially difficult months and not finding sufficiently wide opportunities in Kharkov for his literary activity, for which he began to feel strong attraction, on the advice of friends he moved in January 1908 to St. Petersburg.

It must be said that by this time Averchenko already had some literary experience - in last years life in Kharkov, he edited the satirical magazine “Bayonet” (1906-1907) and published several issues of the magazine “Sword”. Five years after his appearance in the capital, Averchenko on the pages of “Satyricon” (No. 28, 1913) talks about his arrival in St. Petersburg like this : “For several days in a row I wandered around St. Petersburg, looking closely at the signs of the editorial offices - my daring did not go further than this. What does human fate sometimes depend on: the editorial offices of “The Jester” and “Oskolki” were located on distant unfamiliar streets, and “Dragonfly” and “ Gray wolf"in the center... If "Jester" and "Shards" were right there, in the center, maybe I would lay my humble head in one of these magazines. I’ll go with “Dragonfly” first, I decided. - Alphabetically. This is what the ordinary humble alphabet does to a person: I stayed in the Dragonfly.

In 1965, M.G. Kornfeld, recalling his acquaintance with his future collaborator, said: “Averchenko brought me several hilarious and excellent in form stories, which I gladly accepted. At that time, I was finishing the reorganization of Dragonfly and the formation of a new editorial staff. Averchenko became her permanent employee at the same time as Teffi, Sasha Cherny, Osip Dymov, O. L. d'Or and others..."

Since the Dragonfly magazine had fallen into complete decline, changes were necessary, and the appearance of the talented and energetic Averchenko was very opportune. And now on April 1, 1908, “Dragonfly”, founded by the father of the current editor, the owner of a soap factory, Herman Kornfeld, was published under a new name: “Satyricon”. The title was drawn by M. Dobuzhinsky, the drawing on the first page was by L. Bakst. And Arkady Timofeevich, already then the secretary of the editorial office of Dragonfly, continued his activities in the same post at Satyricon, of which he became editor in 1913. And soon after this, an incident occurred between a group of magazine employees and the publisher. serious conflict(mainly on material grounds), and Averchenko, with the most talented writers and artists, left the editorial office and founded his own magazine “New Satyricon”. In its first issue, published on June 6, 1913, in connection with this conflict, an offended letter from Kornfeld was published with hints at the possibility of reconciliation and then a very poisonous and ironic response from the editors. For some time, both magazines were published in parallel, but after about a year the old Satyricon, deprived of the best authors and artists, was forced to close, having lost a huge number of subscribers. And the “New Satyricon” successfully existed until August 1918, after which most of its employees went into emigration (Averchenko, Teffi, Sasha Cherny, S. Gorny, A. Bukhov, Remi, A. Yakovlev and others).

During his prosperous, successful life in St. Petersburg, Averchenko became extremely popular. “Satyricon” and collections of stories that were published in large editions were immediately snapped up. His plays (mostly staged stories) were successfully staged in many theaters across the country. And even His Imperial Majesty Nicholas II, being an admirer of Averchenkov’s talent, once deigned to invite him to Tsarskoe Selo to read his works in the circle of his august family. But, as M. Kornfeld says: “We all thought that the speech of the editor of Satyricon in Tsarskoe Selo would hardly be appropriate and desirable.” The visit never took place; Averchenko cited illness.

Over the course of ten years metropolitan life Averchenko traveled a lot around the country with performances, and went on trips abroad, as a rule, together with his friends and colleagues in the magazine, artists A.A. Radakov and N.V. Remizov (Remy). After his first overseas voyage in the summer of 1911, he published a supplement to the Satyricon for 1912 - the book “The Satyricon Expedition to Western Europe,” which was a resounding success. And in the same year, in addition to hard work at the magazine, he went on a long tour of Russia, participating in evenings of humor writers in many cities.

How did he look in appearance, this young and clumsy provincial in the recent past, who managed in a short time to become famous writer, which constantly amuses all reading Russia? The artist N.V. Remizov, already in exile, describes Averchenko’s first appearance in the editorial office as follows: “A large man with a slightly puffy face, but with a pleasant, open expression, entered the room: eyes looked through the pince-nez, which had the peculiarity of smiling without participation facial muscles. The impression was from the first glance at him - inviting, despite the slight touch of provincial “chic”, like the black, too wide ribbon of pince-nez and a white starched vest, details that were already “taboo” in St. Petersburg.”

The success of the magazine, large circulations of books, speeches, theatrical performances brought and material well-being. Averchenko moves into a cozy apartment and furnishes it beautifully. N.N. Breshko-Breshkovsky recalls how “in the mornings, Averchenko did gymnastics to the sounds of the gramophone, working with weights that weighed pounds.” Although he had no musical education, at one time he was seriously interested in opera, then operetta, and in the numerous miniature theaters where his plays were performed, he was his own man. His ironic and cheerful theater reviews often appeared in Satyricon under one of his many pseudonyms - Ae, Wolf, Thomas Opiskin, Medusa the Gorgon, Falstaff and others. The writer, as a rule, spent his evenings in the Vienna restaurant with his satirical friends, writers, actors, and musicians. One of Averchenko’s many everyday hobbies was chess. L. O. Utesov told me that he was an extraordinary player, he composed and printed problems.

The war of 1914 had almost no effect on Averchenko’s life and work - due to being “one-eyed,” he was not drafted into the army and continued to edit his magazine, often speaking at charity events in favor of the wounded and those affected by the war. After the October Revolution, both Averchenko himself and the editors of Satyricon took a sharply negative position towards Soviet power, after which the magazine was closed by government decree in August 1918.

And then everything collapsed. The magazine is no longer there. The books are not coming out. A substantial bank account has been requisitioned. They intend to “compact” the apartment. In the long term - a hungry and cold winter. Friends and comrades are leaving Petrograd - in all directions. And here is a proposal from Moscow from the artist Koshevsky - to organize a cabaret theater somewhere in the south of Russia. But Averchenko and Radakov, who arrived in Moscow, find Koshevsky seriously ill. The whole plan was ruined. And then Averchenko, together with Teffi, who also happened to be in Moscow, goes to Kyiv (they were invited to literary evenings by two different entrepreneurs).

Teffi’s “Memoirs” very vividly and funnyly describes the numerous scrapes that the writers had to get into during their long trip through German-occupied Ukraine. In Kyiv, however, Averchenko did not stay long and through Kharkov and Rostov, where he lived for several months, performing at humorous evenings, as a refugee he went to his homeland, to Sevastopol, then occupied by whites. This was at the end of March or beginning of April 1919. But what he did in Sevastopol from April to June of this year, when French troops surrendered the city to the Red Army, information could not be obtained anywhere. And, starting from June 1919 and until the end of 1920, Arkady Timofeevich, as well as famous writers I. Surguchev, E. Chirikov and I. Shmelev actively worked in the newspaper “Yug” (later “South of Russia”), intensively campaigning for help to the Volunteer Army. Averchenko also, together with the writer Anatoly Kamensky (who later returned to the USSR), opened the cabaret theater “House of the Artist,” where at the beginning of 1920 his multi-act play “The Game with Death,” written in the summer of last year, was staged. Judging by the review published in the Yug newspaper (January 4, 1920), the play was a good success. And in the spring of the same year, Averchenko already takes part in performances of the new theater - “Nest of Migratory Birds” and continues to organize his evenings in Sevastopol, Balaklava and Evpatoria.

By the end of October, Wrangel's troops found themselves in a desperate situation in Crimea. On November 2, the Reds occupied Sevastopol. And a few days before that, Averchenko went to Constantinople in the ship’s hold on coal bags. He spoke about this journey with bitter humor in the book “Notes of the Innocent. I am in Europe" (Berlin, North Publishing House, 1923). Friends in Constantinople (now Istanbul) rented him a small room in Pera (city district) in advance, and he lived there for a year and a half, resurrecting his Nest Theater. There were a lot of Russian refugees in the city at that time, Russian miniature theaters and restaurants were operating.

But life in a country alien to its morals, traditions and language became extremely difficult for Averchenko. He and his troupe left Turkey, and on April 13, 1922, arrived on the Slavic land - in Sofia, where he expected to stay for a long time, but since the then Stambolisky government treated white emigrants very harshly, and introduced numerous restrictions for them, the troupe, together with its leader , having given only two performances, hastily departed for Yugoslavia, and on May 27, the first performance, which was a huge success, took place in Belgrade. Then another one, according to a different program - and Averchenko and the theater left for Prague, giving a concert in Zagreb on the way. And two days later, on June 17, Averchenko arrives in Prague, where he finally settles for permanent residence.

Prague, which greeted the writer hospitably and cordially, pleased him too. He quickly gained many friends and admirers. Many of his stories have been translated into Czech. The first evening took place on July 3, which was a great success and received rave reviews in many newspapers. Then, from July to September, he toured the country - he visited Brno, Pilsen, Moravian Ostrava, Bratislava, Uzhgorod, Mukachevo and, returning to Prague only in the first half of September, began working intensively for the Prager Press newspaper, appearing there weekly his feuilletons and new stories. In October, successful tours took place in the Baltic states, Poland and Berlin.

Trouble awaited Averchenko in connection with his upcoming trip to Romania - at first, a visa was not given for a long time. When he finally appeared before the Chisinau public on October 6, they gave the writer an ovation, after which an unexpected complication occurred in Bucharest. The fact is that the Romanian newspapers of that time suddenly remembered that during the World War Averchenko in his “New Satyricon” published several caustic and offensive feuilletons about Romanian army, and demanded that the government ban him from speaking and leaving the country. But later the matter was settled after a petition through diplomatic channels from members of the Czech government, admirers of the writer’s talent.

And then wandering again: Belgrade, Berlin again. An invitation was received from the USA, a vacation on the Riga seaside was planned. But all plans went wrong - on the eve of leaving for Riga, his left eye, damaged back in Kharkov times, became seriously ill. An operation was performed and an artificial eye had to be inserted. It would seem that everything turned out well, but the writer began to feel a general malaise, at first not attaching any importance to it. But things got worse - a stay at the Podobrady resort did not help, attacks of suffocation began, and on January 28, 1925, almost unconscious, he was admitted to the clinic at the Prague City Hospital. Diagnosis: almost complete weakening of the heart muscle, expansion of the aorta and renal sclerosis.

Despite a noticeable improvement in early February, after a secondary hemorrhage in the stomach, at 9 a.m. on March 12, 1925, at the age of 44, the wonderful Russian humorist writer Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko died in a hospitable but foreign country. His body was placed in a metal coffin and enclosed in a special case in case anyone in the future - relatives or cultural organizations - could transport the ashes of the deceased to their homeland. Averchenko had no direct heirs; he was a bachelor.

From the very beginning of his St. Petersburg activities, many reviews appeared in the press about Averchenko’s works. In the West, after the death of the writer, many books dedicated to him were published. But for some reason, none of them ever evaluates or even almost mentions two major works: the story “Pokhodtsev and Two Others” and the humorous novel “Maecenas’s Joke.”

Averchenko repeatedly used his favorite literary device- V literary characters depicted the appearance and characters of his friends and colleagues in the Satyricon, most often the artists A. Radakov and N. Remizov, depicting them (under pseudonyms) in the “Expedition to Western Europe” (in this book the artists drew cartoons of each other). In the characters of “Podkhodtsev”, in fact, not a story, but a series of funny and sometimes lyrical short stories with three “through” characters - Podkhodtsev, Klinkov and Gromov - one can also see similarities with the characters and appearance satirical friends.

Last work Averchenko “The Joke of the Maecenas” was written in 1923 in Tsoppot (now Sopot) and published in Prague in 1925 after the death of the writer. The novel is both cheerful and sad, permeated with nostalgia for the carefree bohemian life of St. Petersburg, dear to the author’s heart. And again, in the characters of the novel there are signs of the author himself and his friends.

Arkady Averchenko was buried in Prague at the Olshansky cemetery.

In 2006, a film was made about Arkady Averchenko TV Broadcast"The Man Who Laughed"

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Collections of stories:

"Humorous Stories"
"Jolly Oysters"
"General history, processed by "Satyricon""
"Twelve portraits (in the "Boudoir" format)"
"Children"
"A dozen knives in the back of the revolution"
"Notes of the Innocent"
"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"