Chukovsky Korney Ivanovich - biography, life story: Good Grandfather Korney
Writer, translator, storyteller and publicist. In his family he raised two more writers - Nikolai and Lydia Chukovsky. For many years he remains the most published children's writer in Russia. For example, in 2015, 132 of his books and brochures were published total circulation almost two and a half million copies.
Childhood and youth
Korney Chukovsky was born in 1882. He was born in St. Petersburg. Korney Chukovsky's real name at birth is Nikolai Korneychukov. Then he decided to take creative pseudonym, under which almost all of his works were written.
His father was a hereditary honorary citizen whose name was Emmanuel Levenson. The mother of the future writer Ekaterina Korneychukova was a peasant woman, and ended up in the Levensons’ house as a servant. The marriage of the parents of the hero of our article was not officially formalized, since before that it would have been necessary to baptize the father, who was Jewish by religion. However, they still lived together for about three years.
It is noteworthy that Korney Chukovsky was not their only child. Before him, the couple had a daughter, Maria. Soon after the birth of his son, Levenson left his common-law wife, marrying a woman from his circle. Almost immediately after this he moved to Baku. Chukovsky’s mother and children were forced to leave for Odessa.
It was in this city that Korney Chukovsky spent his childhood; for a short time he went to Nikolaev with his mother and sister. From the age of five Nikolai went to kindergarten, which was held by Madame Bekhteeva. As the writer himself later recalled, they mostly drew pictures and marched there.
For some time Kolya studied at the Odessa gymnasium, where his classmate was the future traveler and writer Boris Zhitkov. A sincere friendship even began between them. However, the hero of our article failed to graduate from high school; he was expelled from the fifth grade, as he himself claimed, due to his low origin. What actually happened is unknown; no documents relating to that period have survived. Chukovsky described the events of that time in his autobiographical story entitled “The Silver Coat of Arms.”
Neither Nikolai nor his sister Maria had a patronymic name in the birth certificate, since they were illegitimate. Therefore, in various pre-revolutionary documents one can find the variants Vasilievich, Emmanuilovich, Stepanovich, Manuilovich and even Emelyanovich.
When Korneychukov started writing, he took literary pseudonym, to which the fictitious patronymic Ivanovich was eventually added. After the revolution, the name Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky became his official name.
Personal life
In 1903, Chukovsky married Maria Goldfeld, who was two years older than him. They had four children. In 1904, Nikolai was born. He translated poetry and prose and married translator Maria Nikolaevna. The couple had a daughter, Natalya, in 1925. She became a microbiologist, Honored Scientist of Russia, Doctor of Medical Sciences. In 1933, Nikolai was born, who worked as a communications engineer, and in 1943, Dmitry was born, in the future the husband of 18-time USSR tennis champion Anna Dmitrieva. In total, the children of Korney Chukovsky gave him five grandchildren.
In 1907, the hero of our article had a daughter, Lydia, a famous Soviet dissident and writer. Her most significant work are considered “Notes about Anna Akhmatova,” which record their conversations with the poetess that Chukovskaya conducted over many years. Lydia was married twice. The first time was for the literary historian and literary critic Caesar Volpe, and then for the popularizer of science and mathematician Matvey Bronstein.
Thanks to Lydia, Korney Ivanovich has a granddaughter, a chemist and literary critic, winner of the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize. She died in 1996.
In 1910, the writer had a son, Boris, who died in 1941 shortly after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. He was killed while returning from reconnaissance, not far from the Borodino field. He is survived by his son Boris, a cinematographer.
In 1920, Chukovsky gave birth to his second daughter, Maria, who became the heroine of most of his children's stories and poems. Her father himself often called her Murochka. At the age of 9 she fell ill with tuberculosis. Two years later, the girl died; until her death, the writer fought for his daughter’s life. In 1930, she was taken to Crimea, for some time she remained in the famous children's bone-tuberculosis sanatorium, and then lived with Chukovsky in a rented apartment. In November 1931 she died. For a long time her grave was considered lost. According to recent research, it has been established that, most likely, she was buried at the Alupka cemetery. The burial itself was even discovered.
Among the writer’s close relatives, one should also remember his nephew, mathematician Vladimir Rokhlin, who studied algebraic geometry and measure theory.
In journalism
Up to October revolution Korney Chukovsky, whose biography is given in this article, was primarily engaged in journalism. In 1901, he began writing notes and publications in Odessa News. He was brought into literature by his friend Vladimir Zhabotinsky, who was his guarantor at the wedding.
Almost immediately after his marriage, Chukovsky went to London as a correspondent, tempted by the high fee. He learned the language on his own using a self-instruction manual and went to England with his young wife. At the same time, Chukovsky was published in Southern Review, as well as in several Kyiv publications. However, fees from Russia did not arrive regularly, living in London was difficult, and my pregnant wife had to be sent back to Odessa.
The hero of our article himself returned to his homeland in 1904, soon plunging into the events of the first Russian revolution. He twice came to the battleship Potemkin, which was in the grip of an uprising, and took letters from the sailors to their loved ones.
At the same time, he takes part in the publication of a satirical magazine together with such celebrities as Fyodor Sologub, Alexander Kuprin, Teffi. After four issues were published, the publication was closed for disrespect for the autocracy. Soon the lawyers managed to achieve an acquittal, but Chukovsky still spent more than a week under arrest.
Meeting Repin
An important stage in the biography of Korney Chukovsky is his acquaintance with the artist Ilya Repin and publicist Vladimir Korolenko. In 1906, the hero of our article becomes close to them in the Finnish town of Kuokkala.
It was Chukovsky who managed to convince Repin to take his literary works seriously and publish a book of memoirs called “Distant Close.” In total, Chukovsky spent about ten years in Kuokkala. The famous handwritten humorous almanac “Chukokkala” appeared there; the name was suggested by Repin. Chukovsky led him to the very last days own life.
During that period of his creative biography the hero of our article is engaged in translations. He publishes adaptations of Whitman's poems, which increases his popularity among writers. In addition, he turns into a fairly influential critic who criticizes contemporary fiction writers and supports the work of futurists. In Kuokkala, Chukovsky meets Mayakovsky.
In 1916 he was part of the delegation State Duma goes to England. Shortly after this trip, Paterson's book about the Jewish Legion, which fought as part of the British army, was published. The preface to this edition is written by the hero of our article; he also edits the book.
After the October Revolution, Chukovsky continued to study literary criticism, releasing two of his most famous books in this industry - “Akhmatova and Mayakovsky” and “The Book about Alexander Blok”. However, in the conditions of Soviet reality, engaging in criticism turns out to be a thankless task. He left the criticism, which he later regretted more than once.
Literary criticism
As modern researchers note, Chukovsky had real talent to literary criticism. This can be judged by his essays on Balmont, Chekhov, Gorky, Blok, Bryusov, Merezhkovsky and many others, which were published before the Bolsheviks came to power. In 1908, the collection “From Chekhov to the Present Day” was even published, which went through three reprints.
In 1917, Chukovsky began a fundamental work about his favorite poet Nikolai Nekrasov. He manages to release the first full meeting of his poems, work on which he completed only in 1926. In 1952, he published the monograph “Nekrasov’s Mastery,” which is significant for understanding the entire work of this poet. For it, Chukovsky was awarded the Lenin Prize.
It was after 1917 that it was possible to publish a large number of Nekrasov's poems, which were previously banned due to tsarist censorship. Chukovsky's merit lies in the fact that he put into circulation approximately a quarter of the texts written by Nekrasov. In the 1920s, it was he who discovered prose texts famous poet. This " Thin Man" and "The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trosnikov."
It is noteworthy that Chukovsky studied not only Nekrasov, but many writers of the XIX century. Among them were Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Sleptsov.
Works for children
The passion for fairy tales and poems for children, which made Chukovsky so popular, came to him relatively late. By that time he was already famous and accomplished literary critic, the books of Korney Chukovsky were known and loved by many.
Only in 1916, the hero of our article wrote his first fairy tale, “Crocodile,” and published a collection called “Fir Trees.” In 1923 they published famous fairy tales“Cockroach” and “Moidodyr”, and a year later “Barmaley.
"Moidodyr" by Korney Chukovsky was written two years before publication. Already in 1927, a cartoon was made based on this plot, later cartoons published in 1939 and 1954.
In "Moidodyr" by Korney Chukovsky, the narration is told from the perspective of little boy, from which all his things suddenly begin to run away. The situation is explained by a washbasin named Moidodyr, who explains to the child that all things run away from him only because he is dirty. By order of the powerful Moidodyr, soap and brushes are thrown at the boy and forcibly washed.
The boy breaks free and runs out into the street, being chased by a washcloth, which is eaten by a walking Crocodile. Afterwards, the Crocodile threatens to eat the child himself if he does not start taking care of himself. The poetic tale ends with a hymn to purity.
Classics of children's literature
The poems of Korney Chukovsky, written during this period, become classics of children's literature. In 1924, he wrote “The Clapping Fly” and “The Miracle Tree.” In 1926, “Fedorino’s Mountain” by Korney Chukovsky appeared. This work is similar in concept to "Moidodyr". In this tale by Korney Chukovsky main character- Fedor's grandmother. All the dishes and kitchen utensils run away from her because she didn’t take care of them, didn’t wash them on time and didn’t clean her house. There are many famous film adaptations of the works of Korney Chukovsky. A cartoon of the same name was made based on this fairy tale in 1974 by Natalia Chervinskaya.
In 1929, the writer wrote a fairy tale in verse about Doctor Aibolit. Korney Chukovsky chose as the main character of his work a doctor who goes to Africa to treat sick animals on the Limpopo River. In addition to the cartoons by Natalia Chervinskaya in 1973 and David Cherkassky in 1984, this fairy tale by Korney Chukovsky was made into a film by Vladimir Nemolyaev based on a script by Evgeny Schwartz in 1938. And in 1966, the comedy arthouse adventure film musical film Rolan Bykov "Aibolit-66".
Renunciation of one's own works
Children's books by Korney Chukovsky of this period were published large editions, but were not always considered to meet the tasks of Soviet pedagogy, for which they were constantly criticized. Among editors and literary critics, the term “Chukovism” even arose - this is how most of Korney Chukovsky’s poems were designated. The writer agrees with the criticism. On the pages of Literaturnaya Gazeta, he renounces all his children's works, declaring that he intends to start new stage of his creativity, writing a collection of poems "Merry Collective Farm", but never finished it.
By coincidence, his youngest daughter fell ill with tuberculosis almost simultaneously with his renunciation of his works in Literaturnaya Gazeta. The poet himself considered her fatal illness to be retribution.
Memoirs and war tales
In the 30s, a new hobby appeared in Chukovsky’s life. He studies the child psyche, especially how babies acquire speech. As a literary critic and poet, this is of extreme interest to Korney Ivanovich. His observations of children and their verbal creativity are collected in the book “From Two to Five.” Korney Chukovsky, this psychological and journalistic study, published in 1933, begins with a chapter on children's language, conducting numerous examples incredible word combinations that kids use. He calls them “stupid nonsense.” At the same time, he talks about the amazing talent of children to perceive a huge number of new elements and words.
Literary scholars have come to the conclusion that his research in the field of children's word formation has become a serious contribution to the development of Russian linguistics.
In the 1930s Soviet writer and the poet Korney Chukovsky writes memoirs, which he does not stop working on until the end of his life. They are published posthumously under the title "Diaries 1901-1969".
When the Great Patriotic War began, the writer was evacuated to Tashkent. In 1942, he wrote a fairy tale in verse, “Let’s Defeat Barmaley!” In essence, this is a military chronicle of the confrontation between the small country of Aibolitia and the animal kingdom of Ferocity, which is filled with scenes of violence, ruthlessness towards the enemy, and calls for revenge. At that moment, just such a work was in demand by readers and the country's leadership. But when in 1943 there was a turning point in the war, outright persecution began against the fairy tale itself and its author. It was even banned in 1944 and was not republished for more than 50 years. Nowadays, most critics admit that “Let’s defeat Barmaley!” - one of Chukovsky’s main creative failures.
In the 1960s, the hero of our article plans to publish a retelling of the Bible for children. The work was complicated by the anti-religious position of the Soviet authorities that existed at that time. For example, censors demanded that the words "Jews" and "God" not be mentioned in this work. As a result, the wizard Yahweh was invented. In 1968, the book was finally published by the publishing house "Children's Literature" under the title " Tower of Babel and other ancient legends."
But the book never went on sale. IN last moment the entire circulation was confiscated and destroyed. As one of its authors, Valentin Berestov, later claimed, the reason was the outbreak that began in China. cultural revolution. The Red Guards criticized Chukovsky for polluting children's heads with “religious nonsense.”
Last years
Chukovsky spent his last years at his dacha in Peredelkino. He was everyone's favorite, receiving all sorts of literary prizes. At the same time, he managed to maintain contacts with dissidents - Pavel Litvinov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In addition, one of his daughters became a prominent human rights activist and dissident.
He constantly invited local children to his dacha, read poetry for them, talked about all sorts of things, invited celebrities, among whom were poets, writers, pilots and famous artists. Those who attended these meetings in Peredelkino still remember them with kindness and warmth, even though many years have passed since then.
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky died of viral hepatitis in 1969 in the same place, in Peredelkino, where he lived most own life. He was 87 years old. He was buried in the local cemetery.
Chukovsky Korney Ivanovich (1882-1969) - Russian writer, poet, translator, literary critic. Real name and surname - Nikolai Vasilievich Korneychukov
Born March 19 (31), 1882 in St. Petersburg. He long years suffered from being “illegitimate.” The father was Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson, and Korney’s mother served as a servant in his house. Their father left them, and their mother, a Poltava peasant woman Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova, moved to Odessa. There he was sent to a gymnasium, but in the fifth grade he was expelled due to his low origin.
I was self-educated and learned English. Since 1901, Chukovsky began writing articles in Odessa News. In 1903 he was sent as a correspondent to London, where he became thoroughly acquainted with English literature. Returning to Russia during the revolution of 1905, Chukovsky was captured by revolutionary events, visited the battleship Potemkin, collaborated in the journal V.Ya. Bryusov “Scales”, began publishing the satirical magazine “Signal” in St. Petersburg. After the fourth issue, he was arrested for lese majeste. Fortunately for Korney Ivanovich, he was defended by the famous lawyer Gruzenberg, who achieved an acquittal.
In 1906, Korney Ivanovich arrived in the Finnish town of Kuokkala. Here he lived for about 10 years, making close acquaintance with the artist Repin and the writer Korolenko. He also maintained contacts with N.N. Evreinov, L.N. Andreev, A.I. Kuprin, V.V. Mayakovsky. All of them subsequently became characters in his memoirs and essays, and the home handwritten almanac of Chukokkala, in which dozens of celebrities left their creative autographs - from Repin to A.I. Solzhenitsyn, - over time turned into an invaluable cultural monument. From the combination of the words Chukovsky and Kuokkala, “Chukokkala” (invented by Repin) is formed - the name of the handwritten humorous almanac that Korney Ivanovich kept until the last days of his life.
In 1907, Chukovsky published translations of Walt Whitman. The book became popular, which increased Chukovsky's fame in the literary community. Chukovsky became an influential critic, trashing tabloid literature. Chukovsky’s incisive articles were published in periodicals, and then he compiled the books “From Chekhov to the Present Day” (1908), “Critical Stories” (1911), “Faces and Masks” (1914), “Futurists” (1922) and others. Chukovsky - the first researcher of “mass culture” in Russia.
Chukovsky's creative interests constantly expanded, his work acquired an increasingly universal, encyclopedic character over time.
Having started on the advice of V.G. Korolenko to the study of the legacy of N.A. Nekrasov, Chukovsky made many textual discoveries and managed to change the poet’s aesthetic reputation for the better. Through his efforts, the first Soviet collection of Nekrasov’s poems was published. The result of it research work was the book “The Mastery of Nekrasov” published in 1952, which received the Lenin Prize 10 years later. Along the way, Chukovsky studied the poetry of T.G. Shevchenko, literature of the 1860s, biography and creativity of A.P. Chekhov.
Having headed the children's department of the Parus publishing house at the invitation of M. Gorky, Chukovsky himself began to write poetry (then prose) for children. Around this time, Korney Ivanovich began to become interested in children's literature. In 1916, Chukovsky compiled the collection “Yolka” and wrote his first fairy tale “Crocodile” (1916).
Chukovsky’s work in the field of children’s literature naturally led him to study children's language, of which he became the first researcher. This became his real passion - the psyche of children and how they master speech. His famous fairy tales “Moidodyr” and “Cockroach” (1923), “Tsokotukha Fly” (1924), “Barmaley” (1925), “Telephone” (1926) were published - unsurpassed masterpieces of literature “for little ones”, published until so far. He recorded his observations of children and their verbal creativity in the book “Little Children” (1928), later called “From Two to Five” (1933). “All my other works are overshadowed to such an extent by my children’s fairy tales that in the minds of many readers, except for “Moidodyrs” and “Mukh-Tsokotukh”, I wrote nothing at all,” he admitted.
Chukovsky's children's poems were subjected to severe persecution during the Stalin era. The initiator of the persecution was N.K. Krupskaya. Inappropriate criticism also came from Agnia Barto. Among editors, even such a term arose - “Chukovism”.
In the 1930s and later Chukovsky did a lot of translations and began writing memoirs, which he worked on until the end of his life. Chukovsky discovered W. Whitman, R. Kipling, and O. Wilde for the Russian reader. He also translated M. Twain, G. Chesterton, O. Henry, A.K. Doyle, W. Shakespeare, wrote retellings of the works of D. Defoe, R.E. for children. Raspe, J. Greenwood.
In 1957, Chukovsky was awarded academic degree the doctors philological sciences, in 1962 - honorary title Doctor of Literature from Oxford University. As a linguist, Chukovsky wrote a witty and temperamental book about the Russian language, “Alive as Life” (1962), resolutely speaking out against bureaucratic cliches, the so-called “bureaucracy.” As a translator, Chukovsky dealt with the theory of translation, creating one of the most authoritative books in this field - “ High art"(1968).
In the 1960s, K. Chukovsky also started retelling the Bible for children. He attracted writers and literary figures to this project, and carefully edited their work. The project itself was very difficult due to the anti-religious position Soviet power. The book entitled “The Tower of Babel and Other Ancient Legends” was published by the publishing house “Children's Literature” in 1968. However, the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities. The first book publication available to the reader took place in 1990.
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky died on October 28, 1969 from viral hepatitis. At his dacha in Peredelkino, where he lived most of his life, his museum now operates.
The biography of Chukovsky Korney Ivanovich is replete interesting events. Nikolai Korneychukov March 19 (31 according to the new style) 1882 in St. Petersburg. His mother, a peasant woman Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova, met the future father of her children (Nikolai also had a sister, Marusya), when she got a job in the house of her future cohabitant to work as a servant. Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson, the father of Nikolai and Marusya, bore the title of hereditary honorary citizen and the peasant woman could not make a worthy match for him.
They lived together for at least three years, gave birth to two children, who, as illegitimate children, did not have a middle name, so in documents before the 1917 revolution, the children had different middle names. Nikolai has Vasilyevich, his sister Maria has Emmanuilovna. Subsequently, their father married a woman from his circle and moved to live in Baku, and Ekaterina Osipovna moved to Odessa.
Nikolai spent his entire childhood in Ukraine - in the Odessa and Nikolaev regions.
When Nikolai was five years old, he was sent to Madame Bekhteeva’s kindergarten, about which he later wrote that the children there marched to music and drew pictures. In kindergarten, he met Vladimir Jabotinsky, the future hero of Israel. IN primary school Nikolai became friends with Boris Zhitkov, a future children's writer and traveler. At school, however, Chukovsky studied only until the 5th grade. He was then expelled from educational institution due to “low origin”.
The beginning of creative activity
At first, Chukovsky worked as a journalist, and since 1901 he wrote articles for Odessa News. Having learned English on his own, Nikolai got a job as a correspondent in London - he wrote for Odessa News.
He lived in London for two years with his wife, Maria Borisovna Goldfeld, then returned to Odessa.
And yet, Chukovsky’s biography as a writer began much later, when he moved from Odessa to the Finnish town of Kuokkala, where he met the artist Ilya Repin, who convinced Chukovsky to take up literature seriously.
While still in London, Chukovsky became seriously interested in English literature - he read Thackeray, Dickens, and Bronte in the original. Subsequently, W. Whitman's literary translations helped Chukovsky gain a name for himself and achieve recognition in the literary community.
After the revolution, the pseudonym Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky became the real name of the writer. Korney Ivanovich writes a book of memoirs “Distant Close” and begins to publish his own almanac “Chukokkala” - a kind of mixture of the name of the place Kuokkala and the surname Chukovsky. Chukovsky published this almanac until the end of his life.
Children's literature
But the most important thing in creative destiny What makes a writer is not translations or literary criticism, but children's literature. Chukovsky began writing for children quite late, already when he was a famous literary scholar and critic. In 1916, he published the first collection for young readers called “Yelka”.
Later - in 1923 - “Moidodyr” and “Cockroach” appeared from his pen, with summary which all children in the post-Soviet space are probably familiar with. Chukovsky's work is also studied in modern school- in 2nd grade, and now it’s even difficult to imagine that at one time Aibolit, Mukha-Tsokotukha and Moidodyr were subjected to severe criticism and mercilessly ridiculed. Critics considered the works tasteless and devoid of correct Soviet ideology. But now they won’t write about this either in the preface to the writer’s books or in a brief biography of Chukovsky for children, these accusations brought by critics against the children’s author now seem so absurd.
Chukovsky translated the works of R. Kipling and M. Twain into Russian for children, and retold “The Bible for Children.”
Other biography options
- It is interesting that Chukovsky founded an entire literary dynasty. His son Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky and daughter Lidiya Korneevna Chukovskaya also became famous writers. Nikolai wrote briefly literary memoirs about poets and writers Silver Age, who were included in his father’s house, and Lydia became a dissident writer.
- The writer’s second son, Boris Korneevich, died at the front at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
- It is known that Chukovsky was friendly with
Literature was his bread and air, his only normal environment, his human and political asylum. He blossomed at the slightest mention of his favorite author and, on the contrary, felt the deepest despondency in the company of people who read exclusively newspapers and talked exclusively about fashion or waters... He tolerated loneliness more easily than proximity to ignoramuses and mediocrities. Tomorrow, March 31, we celebrate the 130th anniversary of the birth of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky.
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (real name Nikolai Ivanovich Korneychukov) was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg. He lived a long, but far from cloudless life, although he was both a famous children's writer and a major literary critic; his services to Russian culture, in the end, were appreciated both at home (Doctor of Philology, Lenin Prize laureate) and abroad (honorary doctor of Oxford University).
Chukovsky’s mother, Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova, a Ukrainian peasant woman from the Poltava province, worked as a servant in the house of Chukovsky’s father, St. Petersburg student Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson, the son of the owner of printing houses located in several cities. The marriage of Chukovsky’s parents was not formally registered, since the Jew Levenson would have to be baptized first, and he did not intend to do this.
What would have happened to him if not for his literary abilities? The chances of an illegitimate person making his way into the people before the revolution were very small. To top off all the troubles, Nikolai had an awkward appearance: too tall and thin, with an exorbitant big hands, legs and nose... Modern doctors suggest that Chukovsky had Marfan syndrome - a special hormonal imbalance leading to gigantism of the body and giftedness of the mind.
The writer himself on his topic Jewish origin rarely spoke out. There is only one reliable source - his “Diary”, to which he trusted the most intimate: ““I, as an illegitimate, without even a nationality (who am I? Jew? Russian? Ukrainian?) was the most incomplete, difficult person on earth... It seemed to me that I am the only one - illegal, that everyone is whispering behind my back and that when I show someone (the janitor, the doorman) my documents, everyone internally begins to spit on me... When the children talked about their fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, I only blushed, hesitated, lied, confused..."
After that family drama, which Korney Ivanovich experienced in childhood, it could well have happened that he would have become a Judeophobe: at least out of love for his mother, at least in revenge for his crippled childhood. This did not happen: the opposite happened - he was drawn to the Jews. After reading, for example, the biography of Yuri Tynyanov, Korney Ivanovich wrote in his diary: “The book does not say anywhere that Yuri Nikolaevich was a Jew. Meanwhile, the subtle intelligence that reigns in his “Wazir Mukhtar” is most often characteristic of the Jewish mind.”
Kolya Korneychukov studied in the same gymnasium with Vladimir (Zeev) Zhabotinsky, a future brilliant journalist and one of the most prominent representatives Zionist movement. The relationship between them was friendly: they were even expelled from the gymnasium together - for writing a sharp pamphlet on the director.
Little information has been preserved (for obvious reasons) about the relationship between these people when both left Odessa. In Chukovsky’s “Diary” the name of Zhabotinsky appears only in 1964: “Vlad. Jabotinsky (later a Zionist) said about me in 1902:
Chukovsky Korney
Talent vaunted
2 times longer
Telephone pole.
Chukovsky recognizes the enormous influence that Jabotinsky’s personality had on the formation of his worldview. Undoubtedly, Vladimir Evgenievich managed to distract Korney Ivanovich from his “self-criticism” regarding illegitimacy and convince him of his own talent. The journalistic debut of nineteen-year-old Chukovsky took place in the newspaper “Odessa News”, where Zhabotinsky brought him, who developed in him a love of language and recognized the talent of a critic.
In 1903, Korney Ivanovich married a twenty-three-year-old Odessa woman, the daughter of an accountant of a private company, Maria Borisovna Goldfeld, the sister of Zhabotinsky’s wife. Her father, an accountant, dreamed of marrying his daughter to a respectable Jew with capital, and not at all to a semi-impoverished infidel-bastard, who was also two years younger than her. The girl had to run away from home.
The marriage was unique and happy. Of the four children born in their family (Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria) long life Only the two eldest survived - Nikolai and Lydia, who themselves later became writers. The youngest daughter Masha died in childhood from tuberculosis. Son Boris died in 1941 at the front; another son, Nikolai, also fought and took part in the defense of Leningrad. Lydia Chukovskaya (born in 1907) lived a long and difficult life, was subjected to repression, survived the execution of her husband, the outstanding physicist Matvey Bronstein.
After the revolution, Chukovsky wisely abandoned journalism, as too dangerous an occupation, and focused on children's fairy tales in poetry and prose. Once Chukovsky wrote to Marshak: “You and I could have died, but, fortunately, we have powerful friends in the world, whose name is children!”
By the way, during the war, Korney Ivanovich and Samuil Yakovlevich seriously quarreled, did not communicate for almost 15 years and began to compete in literally everything: who has more government awards, who is easier for children to remember by heart, who looks younger, about whose eccentricities there are more jokes.
The question of the sources of the image of Doctor Aibolit is very interesting and is still discussed by literary scholars. For a long time it was believed that the prototype of Doctor Aibolit was Doctor Dolittle, the hero of the book of the same name by the American children's writer Hugh Lofting. But here is a letter from the writer himself, dedicated to what helped him create such a charming image:
“I wrote this fairy tale a long, long time ago. And I decided to write it even before the October Revolution, because I met Doctor Aibolit, who lived in Vilna. His name was Doctor Tsemakh Shabad. It was the most a kind person like I've only known in my life. He treated poor children for free. Sometimes a thin girl would come to him, and he would say to her:
Do you want me to write you a prescription? No, milk will help you, come to me every morning and you will get two glasses of milk.
And in the mornings, I noticed, a whole line lined up to see him. The children not only came to him themselves, but also brought sick animals. So I thought how wonderful it would be to write a fairy tale about such a good doctor.”
Probably the most difficult years for the writer were the 30s. Besides criticism own creativity, he had to endure difficult personal losses. His daughter Maria (Murochka) died of illness, and his son-in-law, physicist Matvey Bronstein, was shot in 1938. Chukovsky spent several years knocking around the authorities to find out about his fate. Work saved me from depression. He worked on translations of Kipling, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Shakespeare, and Conan Doyle. For younger children school age Chukovsky retold ancient greek myth about Perseus, translated English folk songs (“Robin-Bobin Barabek”, “Jenny”, “Kotausi and Mausi”, etc.). In Chukovsky’s retelling, Soviet children became acquainted with “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by E. Raspe, “Robinson Crusoe” by D. Defoe, and “The Little Rag” by the little-known J. Greenwood. Children in Chukovsky's life truly became a source of strength and inspiration.
In the 1960s, Korney Ivanovich started retelling the Bible for children. He recruited several up-and-coming children's writers for this project and carefully edited their work. The project, due to the anti-religious position of the authorities, progressed with great difficulty. Thus, the editors set a condition that the word “Jews” should not be mentioned in the book. The book, entitled “The Tower of Babel and Other Ancient Legends,” was published by the publishing house “Children’s Literature” in 1968, but the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities and did not go on sale. The first reprint, available to the general reader, took place in 1990.
IN last years life Chukovsky is a popular favorite, a laureate of many awards and a holder of various orders. At the same time, he maintained contacts with Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky and other dissidents; his daughter Lydia was a prominent human rights activist. At the dacha in Peredelkino, where the writer constantly lived in recent years, he organized meetings with local children, talked with them, read poetry, invited them to meetings famous people, famous pilots, artists, writers, poets. Former Peredelkino children still remember those gatherings at Chukovsky’s dacha.
One day, a teenager visiting Peredelkino asked:
- Korney Ivanovich, they say you are terribly rich. This is true?
“You see,” Chukovsky answered seriously, “there are two kinds of rich people.” Some people think about money and make it - these become wealthy. But a real rich man doesn’t think about money at all.
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Chukovsky’s paradoxical advice to aspiring writers is also very interesting: “My friends, work selflessly. They pay better for it."
Shortly before his death, Chukovsky read someone’s memoirs about Marshak, who had died several years earlier, and drew attention to the following thing: it turns out that Samuil Yakovlevich defined his psychological age as five years. Korney Ivanovich became sad: “And I myself am no younger than six. It's a pity. After all, what younger child, the more talented he is..."
Alexandrova Anastasia
Municipal educational institution
"Average comprehensive school No. 8 Volkhov, Leningrad region"
Topic: Life and work of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky
Performed:
Alexandrova Anastasia
student 2 "A" class
Volkhov
Leningrad region2010
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky is a pseudonym, and his real name is Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneychukov. He was born in St. Petersburg in 1882 in poor family. He spent his childhood in Odessa and Nikolaev. At the Odessa gymnasium, he met and became friends with Boris Zhitkov, in the future also a famous children's writer. Chukovsky often went to Zhitkov’s house, where he used the rich library collected by Boris’s parents.
But the future poet was expelled from the gymnasium due to his “low” origin, since Chukovsky’s mother was a laundress, and his father was no longer there. The mother's earnings were so meager that they were barely enough to somehow make ends meet. I had to take a gymnasium course and learn English on my own. Then the young man passed the exams and received a certificate of maturity.
He began writing poetry and poems early, and in 1901 the first article appeared in the Odessa News newspaper, signed under the pseudonym Korney Chukovsky. In this newspaper he published many articles on the most different topics-about painting exhibitions, about philosophy, art, wrote reviews of new books, feuilletons. At the same time, Chukovsky began writing a diary, which he then kept throughout his life.
In 1903, Korney Ivanovich went to St. Petersburg with the firm intention of becoming a writer. There he met many writers and found a job - he became a correspondent for the Odessa News newspaper. In the same year he was sent to London, where he improved his English and met famous writers, including Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells.
In 1904, Chukovsky returned to Russia and became a literary critic. He published his articles in St. Petersburg magazines and newspapers.
In 1916, Chukovsky became a war correspondent for the newspaper Rech. Returning to Petrograd in 1917, Chukovsky received an offer from M. Gorky to become the head of the children's department of the Parus publishing house. Then he began to pay attention to the speech and phrases of small children and write them down. He kept such records until the end of his life. Of them was born famous book"From two to five." The book was reprinted 21 times and was replenished with each new edition.
Actually, Korney Ivanovich was a critic, literary critic, and he became a storyteller completely by accident. “Crocodile” appeared first. Got sick little son Korney Ivanovich. His father was taking him home on the night train, and in order to at least slightly ease the boy’s suffering, he began to tell a fairy tale to the sound of the wheels clattering:
“Once upon a time there was a crocodile,
He walked the streets
I smoked cigarettes
He spoke in Turkish -
Crocodile, Crocodile, Crocodilovich...
The boy listened very carefully. The next morning, when he woke up, he asked his dad to tell yesterday’s tale again. It turned out that the boy remembered it all by heart.
And the second case. Korney Ivanovich heard how his little daughter did not want to wash herself. He took the girl in his arms and, quite unexpectedly for himself, said to her:
“We must, we must wash ourselves.
In the mornings and evenings.
And the unclean chimney sweeps
Shame and disgrace! Shame and disgrace!"
This is how “Moidodyr” appeared. His poems are easy to read and remember. “They roll off the tongue,” as the kids say. Since then, new poems began to appear: “Tsokotukha Fly”, “Barmaley”, “Fedorino’s Mountain”, “Telephone”, “Aibolit”. And he dedicated the wonderful fairy tale “The Miracle Tree” to his little daughter Mura.
Except own fairy tales for children he retold for them best works world literature: novels by D. Defoe about Robinson Crusoe, Mark Twain about the adventures of Tom Sawyer. He translated them from in English into Russian, and did it superbly.
Not far from Moscow, in the village of Peredelkino, he built Vacation home, where he settled with his family. He lived there for many years. He was known not only by all the children of the village, but also by the little residents of Moscow and throughout Soviet country, and beyond its borders.
Korney Ivanovich was tall, Long hands with large hands, large facial features, a large curious nose, a brush of mustaches,
an unruly lock of hair hanging over his forehead, laughing light eyes and a surprisingly light gait.
In Peredelkino he had a very important work. He built a children's library near his house. Children's writers and publishing houses sent books to this library at the request of Korney Ivanovich. The library is very cozy and bright. There is a reading room where you can sit at tables and read, there is a room for kids where you can play on the carpet and draw with a pencil and paints at small folding tables. The writer spent every summer for his children and grandchildren, as well as for all the surrounding children, who numbered up to one and a half thousand, happy holidays"Hello summer!" and “Goodbye summer!”
In 1969, the writer passed away. Chukovsky's house in Peredelkino has long become a museum.
Bibliography:
1. I explore the world: Russian literature.- M: ACT Publishing House LLC: LLC
Astrel Publishing House, 2004.
2. Chukovsky K.I.
The Miracle Tree and Other Tales. - M.: Children's literature, 1975.
3.Who is who in the world?: encyclopedia.
